Former auction specialist turned antiques dealer, amateur cook and second-hand book obsessive, Luke Honey has been writing The Greasy Spoon blog since 2007: a personal, unashamedly nostalgic and sometimes irreverent take on the link between food and culture. He lives in London with his wife and book-munching whippet. Current enthusiasms include the food of the American South and London Dry Gin.
Like vodka, soup's out of fashion. Which is a shame; as it's so easy to make. I suppose soup's in danger of consignment to the culinary dustbin of history, along with dining rooms, decanters, dinner services and aspic. These days, with everybody slobbering around on the sofa watching catchup television, unless you drink soup from a squalid mug it ain't going to cut the mustard in 2018.
I'm currently working on a brand new post for The Greasy Spoon, but I'm waiting for a second-hand book I've ordered to arrive (essential for research), and with All Hallow's and Bonfire Night upon us, I felt that it was time for another post. Before you think The Greasy Spoon's in danger of becoming yet another derelict blog: Abandon all hope ye who enter.
So here's a very early blog post from the archives; from the first days of The Spoon. Autumn 2007.
It's that time of year again. Here in the gloomy streets of London, the nights are drawing in, and a sniff of woodsmoke is in the air. Before we know it, Bonfire Night and Hallowe'en will be upon us. And what better than a warming onion soup laced with cider?
Here's how you make it. First, you need to understand that onions need a great deal of cooking before they become palatable. I don't care what your cookery books say; you will have to trust me on this. You need to slice some onions. Throw a few knobs of unsalted butter into a pan. Now cook the onions. It's probably better if you've sliced them thinly.
Add some thyme. I'm lucky enough to have a vigorous plant thriving on my kitchen windowsill. Let the onions cook well until they are soft, but not burnt or brown. So you will want to use a low heat. Now stir in some flour and let that cook.
Pour in a good slug (I love that word) of cider. I used a dryish West Country Organic Cider that I found in a local shop. At this stage, it's important to let the cider bubble- to boil off the alcohol. Okay, we all love a good dram of whisky at the right moment, but I find that alcohol needs to be boiled off in cooking- otherwise you are left with a nasty bitter taste.
Now add some stock (chicken or vegetable is all right, home-made or reduced-salt Marigold Bouillon powder would be better). Cook the soup on a low heat. Like mad. Mine took over an hour before the onions were cooked properly.
When that's done, lower the heat and add a dollop of single cream, (double cream is likely to curdle). If you are using single cream and you don't lower the heat, you run the risk of the soup curdling. Season with salt flakes, and ground chunky black pepper to taste. That's it. And if it's cooked properly, it's surprisingly subtle and smooth.
“Phasianus versicolour” by William Home Lizars, circa 1840
The world is divided between those who know how to pluck pheasants and those who don’t. That said, I rarely pluck pheasants or game now. Last year we were given a brace of snipe: I spent a long Saturday afternoon plucking and dressing and then hoovering up the subsequent mess, and despite considerable effort, the finished result was, frankly, disappointing. Why go to all the fuss when you can buy an adequately hanged, trussed and plucked bird from a decent butcher for a few pounds?
And then what to do with it? The classic English pheasant casserolecan be good, more often than not it isn’t. For once, the fusspots have a point. It’s Gothic.
I like to remove all the redundant boney bits and pieces fifteen minutes or so before serving. The liquid can then be strained into a separate saucepan, thickened up with a dollop of redcurrant jelly (or a tablespoon of butter and flour roux), reduced at a high heat, flavoured with crushed juniper berries and then reunited with the pheasant and garnished (‘orrible word!) with finely chopped parsley, parsnip chips or croutons.
I remember a rather stylish lunch party in Oxfordshire where our hosts served pheasant casserole in large blue and white antique Staffordshire tureens, washed down with silver tankards of frothy Black Velvet- a fabulous combination.
Another solution is to joint the pheasant into three pieces, and braise it in wine and water at a low heat; in effect creating its own stock. I found this recipe in Pierre Koffman’s Memories of Gascony, currently one of my favourite cookery books. It is a wonderful book. Simple French country cooking at its best, limited ingredients needed; high on technique. His Gratin d’Haricots Verts is to die for: French green beans served with a garlic and onion infused creamy sauce and Bayonne ham.
The pheasant is cut into three pieces (by separating the wings from the rest of the body), rolled in seasoned flour and fried in duck fat until golden brown. Pour off the surplus fat from the pan, and deglaze with 300ml of white wine. Reduce by half and add 100ml boiling water and a bouquet garni. The heat is then turned down to low, and the casserole simmered on a low heat for about 45 minutes, or until the pheasant is tender.
Once done, the pheasant is removed, the stock reduced to 100ml and 200ml of double cream added to the sauce. Add 100g freshly shelled walnuts, remove the bouquet garni and check the seasoning. Pour the thickened sauce over the bird.
In practice, I found it easiest to slice off the breasts and serve them on the plate, with the spooned creamy sauce. You could also make this with chestnuts, and I think that would work well. An idea for Christmas, perhaps?
I used to enjoy Hallowe’en. Back in the 70’s, the British Hallowe’en was a charming, subtle affair: a ghost story read aloud at nursery school, a spooky cartoon on the BBC perhaps; bobbing for apples (remember that?). In the fading twilight, my now-departed grandmother taught me how to carve little turnip lanterns at the kitchen table. And that was that. No Trick or Treat. I doubt very much if the parents were even aware that it was happening- they had far more important things to worry about: strikes, the collapse of the British Economy, the three day week, inflation, the threat of redundancy: boring grown-up problems like losing your job, going out of business and the threat of nuclear war.
But today, the American Pumpkin Festival is out of control. There are many, many, civilised, indeed lovely, things about America and Americans: their incredible museums, their massive bookshops, the beautifully stocked newsagents, the brown paper bags you get in supermarkets, the films of Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese and Whit Stillman; Kermit and the Muppets, Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Machine, Charles Schulz and Peanuts; Monopoly, Tom and Jerry refrigerators, the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, Julianne Moore, the Dry Martini Cocktail, Coca-Cola, shrimp gumbo and chile-con-carne (always served with plain crackers); Frasier and Niles Crane, Orson Welles, Vogue Magazine, the Philadelphia Cricket Club, the Chrysler Building, San Francisco, Manhattan and Georgetown, Washington DC; Bunny Mellon, Patricia Highsmith and Tom Ripley, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, the paintings of Mark Rothko; Edgar Allan Poe, Richard Scarry and Vincent Price.
Ellen Drew, 1941
But over here we’ve imported all the worst things from America: political correctness and dumbed down celebrity culture, reality television, prancing majorettes and hearty cheerleaders, liposculpture and trout pouts, Country Clubs, checked golfing ‘pants’ and electric buggies; fat people, money belts, Segway portability vehicles, ugly SUVs, Chrysler cars; the musty smell of pumpkin and the sickly taste of cinnamon; food to ‘go’, rather than to ‘takeaway’, multiple television channels of infinite boredom (advertising breaks every fifteen minutes), Easter Parades, white stretch limos, lieutenant pronounced ‘loootenant’, upward inflections at the end of every sentence, Baby Showers and High School Proms; Facebook, Hummers, the Franklin Mint, EuroDisney and Kentucky Fried Chicken; hockey ‘moms’, the bland ’Have a Nice Day!’, ‘Missing You Already!’, the dreadful ‘Save the Date’, scary clown mania; Donald Trump.
The latest madness is Black Friday. Come the day, British Twitter is now full of ‘Black Friday this’ and 'Black Friday that'. But Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving. And may I remind the increasingly hysterical British media that, as yet, we don’t have Thanksgiving here? Thanksgiving is a specifically American (and Canadian) celebration, which, commemorates, I gather, the landing of a container’s worth of persecuted English Non-Conformists on Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts in the early 17th century. It’s a bit like asking the Americans to celebrate the execution of Guido Fawkes. And why should they do that?
So it’s with great regret that I am going to have to add the American Hallowe’en to the index. Come the 31st, the mean streets of SW8 are full of threatening, marauding gangs of masked, acned youths and their pushy, earnest parents demanding sweeties- sorry Honey, ‘candy’. Which is one of the reasons we barricade the front door, turn off the lights and pretend that we’ve gone to Positano for the week.
I try very hard not to rant, I really do; I know it’s horribly unattractive (especially as I reach the zenith of Late Youth); but these days I spend about a quarter of my time shouting at the computer and television screen. Over the last ten years, the world has gone barmy.
Betty Grable: How to Marry a Pumpkin?
Historically, of course, this is all nonsense, and Hallowe’en is a worthy example of a Scottish, Irish or Northern English tradition exported to the American states, jiggled about a bit and then sold back to us. In the same way that Seattle re-imagined the Italian Coffee House, Chicago the Neapolitan pizza and San Francisco Chinese Chow Mein.
And in that tradition here’s my version of an American style Black Bean Soup, very suitable for the chill days of late October, with Mexican hints suitable for the Day of the Dead festival on November 2nd. The sort of dish they might serve up at Jo Allen’s in Exeter Street:
You can either use tinned black beans or dried beans which you need to soak overnight in cold water. In a pan, cook some chopped smoked bacon in butter for a few minutes. Next, stir in a chopped onion, chopped carrot, and two crushed cloves of garlic. It might also be a good plan to throw in a finely chopped green chilli. One of those fiendishly hot small ones. I'll leave that up to you.
Next, you need to add cumin. If you've got time, you can dry-roast some cumin seeds in a hot frying pan, and then when they're popping, take them out and crush them in a pestle and mortar. Otherwise you could use powdered cumin. Add the cumin to the pan, and stir in. Cook for a few moments. Tip in the black beans, some chicken stock, and a liberal dash of my favourite Tabasco Sauce. I like the green, slightly milder stuff.
Simmer on a very low heat with the lid on for about an hour and a half. You want the soup to be thick and velvety. The black beans should thicken everything up. Serve with sour cream, and chopped chives. A spicy Mexican Salsa might be a good plan too.
Don’t think I’ve had a Brown Windsor Soup for a very, very long time. Trying to remember and my mind’s drawing a blank. It has a reputation. I’m thinking back to the late 1940’s or 50’s: deserted hotel restaurants; threadbare, rancid carpets, elderly waiters in ill-fitting, egg-stained tailcoats, chipped porcelain, grapefruit halves topped with a tinned glacé cherry, a wine glass of ‘chilled’ tomato juice masquerading as a first course; a slice of tinned gammon with a pineapple ‘garnish’. I’m crooking my little finger as I type.
If you’re interested in food history, there’s quite a bit of academic stuff on the history and origins of the Brown Windsor Soup: you can read all about it here. But despite its dubious past, the Brown Windsor Soup might be a good thing to serve to your friends on a damp Autumn day, especially now that the days are drawing in. Made well, it’s a surprisingly rich and smooth soup- if you buy beef and fresh, well-grown vegetables. There’s an excellent version in Mark Hix’s British Food:
Braising Steak is cut into small pieces and fried in a saucepan, along with chopped vegetables, such as onions, carrots and leeks, until browned. Flour and butter are added to the hot pan and stirred into the mix to form a roux, and cooked for a few minutes. In goes, tomato puree, crushed garlic, a few thyme sprigs, a bay leaf and beef stock and the soup is stirred and simmered for two hours until the meat is tender.
The soup is then whizzed up in a hand blender until smooth and passed through a sieve into a clean pan, reduced a bit (to thicken it up and concentrate the flavour), seasoned with a few pinches of sea-salt flakes and black pepper and finished off with a spoonful or two of dry sherry. That’s it.
I’m suddenly interested in cheap food. Not that I’ve succumbed to the oily and addictive horrors of Chicken Valley in the South Lambeth Road. No. What I’ve woken up to is how well you can eat on a modest budget, and by “modest”, I really mean modest. And by “well” I really mean well. Forget the dreaded pasta bake, we’re thinking serious food.
The late- and great- Jocasta Innes led the field with The Pauper’s Cookbook, first published back in 1971. I’m the proud owner of a well-thumbed penguin. It’s a classic, although perhaps now slightly limited by the constraints of the period it was written in. The Cordon Bleu Cookery Course meets the WI.
I’ve got two other books on the subject: Great Value Gourmet, Meals and Menus for £1 by Paul Gayler and David Chater’s Impoverished Gastronome. The first was published in 1996, so taking inflation into account, we can forgive the optimistic title. The second book is a collection of cheffy recipes from various trendy restaurants, which is fun; but I’m not convinced that the recipes are that cheap. One of the problems is that you’ll need a well-stocked larder to cook them. That chicken thigh from Lidl might be great value it’s true, but the overall cost of the spices, bayleaves, lemon grass, jar of honey, tub of yoghurt, whipping cream, Thai paste, chilli and ginger required to cook the recipe is going to leave a whopping hole in your modest supermarket budget if you haven’t got these ingredients in the first place.
No, I’m thinking seriously cheap food. And to do this properly, you need to broaden your horizons. Take tarka dhal for example. In England most people come across this as a side-dish to eat with their curry. If you go to one of the better chains (Masala Zone or Dishoom immediately spring to mind) this will be served to you in a small bowl.
Of course, in India dhal is a staple food and often served as a course by itself with rice or bread. We’ve started to have it as a supper dish on a regular basis (served with steamed basmati rice) and I’m really beginning to appreciate it’s silky, buttery, subtle, savoury, comforting taste. Personally, I prefer it to be quite thin in consistency- almost like a soup- and I’m glad to hear that’s how the Indians like it too.
Get into dhal and you will find there’s a whole sub-culture out there; one region likes it this way, another region prefers it with this or that spice- there’s room for experimentation. This recipe comes from the excellent Anjum Anand, and I’ve now made it on numerous occasions with great success. All the ingredients can be found in the Indian section of a standard British supermarket:
Take 100 g of chana dhal lentils and mix them in a bowl with 50 g of dried red lentils. Cover with water and wash them through several times, until the water becomes reasonably clear. There’s no need to soak either lentil beforehand. Put the washed lentils into a large pan and cover with 1 litre of cold water. Bring the pan to the boil and skim off the white foamy scum that will start to collect on the surface of the water.
While this is going on, chop up the flavourings. Peel four cloves of garlic and chop and smash them up with a large pinch of sea salt to form a juicy paste. I use the back of a knife. Grate a large knob of peeled ginger and again, chop and smash it up with a knife to form a smooth paste. Add a teaspoon of turmeric, then the salt, garlic and ginger to the pan and simmer on a low heat, with the pan covered for forty minutes.
Now it’s time to make the tarka, which involves frying spices in oil. Heat a combination of oil and butter in a small frying pan. Add three dried red chillies and a teaspoon or so of cumin seeds to the pan and cook them until they are slightly browned. Be careful not to burn the cumin. Add a small onion, finely chopped and cook until well browned.
Next, add two chopped tomatoes, a decent pinch of garam masala and another pinch of sea salt andcook until the masala releases the oils. Anjum says ten minutes but I find this can happen sooner.
After the lentils have cooked for half and hour pour the finished spicy tarka into the pan with the lentils. Take off the lid and raise the heat and cook on a highish heat for another ten minutes or so. I like to add more water at this stage, so that it’s a bit like a soup. Check the seasoning and serve in a bowl with crisply fried onions and some chopped coriander.
I find that red onions for some reason are much easier to shallow fry than white or yellow onions and don’t seem to burn to the same extent. I’ve also tried adding more tomatoes- nice flavour, but shame about the colour, as I think for this classic dish you want more of a yellow colour which you’ll get (surprisingly) from the red lentils, once they’re cooked, as well of course, as from the turmeric.
There you are. A delicious, filling classic. Incredibly good for you too. And Mein Gott, it’s cheap. This recipe is enough for two people- and with small second helpings to spare. You can buy a 500 g packet of chana dhal lentil on the net for £1.05. A 500 g packet of red lentils from the same source costs £1.25. That works out as 21 p for the chana dhal and 12½ p for the red lentils. For two people.
Obviously you’ve also got to factor in the other ingredients, and if I’ve got time later on this afternoon, I might get my maths into action and work out the exact cost. I’ll report back with an update. But I think you will all agree, this recipe is amazing value for money. And it tastes fantastic, which is half the battle won.
Photograph: Sam Fraser-Smith, under Creative Commons Licence.
I've just been experimenting with that British all-time classic, Toad in the Hole. Jamie Oliver's recipe from Jamie's Great Britain is quite good, but didn't work as well as I had hoped. His batter was excellent- light and puffy, but I wasn't convinced by the gloopy apple and onion sauce or the dried up rosemary. He's keen on de-construction is our Jamie: the sausages are served separately from the Yorkshire pudding. I didn't really see the point of this: isn't the Toad supposed to be in the Hole? Or is it the Hole in the Toad?
So I've developed my own recipe, tweaking it a bit here and there, simplifying (and I hope refining) it until we get to what I think, might just be a near-perfect Toad in the Hole. The rosemary infused milk gives the dish that extra dimension. Here's how you make it:
Pour 250ml semi-skimmed milk into a jug. Take two fresh rosemary sprigs and pull off the leaves, crumbling and rolling them in your fingers to release the oils. Add the rosemary leaves to the milk and let it infuse for about half an hour.
Strain the milk (discarding the rosemary leaves) and whisk in three eggs, 100g plain flour, a pinch of salt and white pepper to form a light, slightly runny, rosemary scented batter. Set aside.
Take a selection of Cumberland Sausages, place into a roasting pan and toss in olive oil. Cook in a hot oven (240° C) for about ten minutes. When the time's up, take out the pan and pour off most of the fat. Then pour in the batter, so that it surrounds the sausages. Back into the oven goes the pan. Watch it like a hawk (but don't open the door!). After a few minutes the batter will start rising and turning brown. You'll have your own idea when it's ready. The trick is to cook the batter properly, so that it's brown and crispy on top, yet soft in the centre. You dont' want to overdo the sausages either. Sprinkle the remaining rosemary leaves on top.
I serve this with a rich onion and cider gravy, which you can serve from a separate jug. It's very easy to make. Slice up two white onions very thinly indeed, and fry them in butter on a medium heat until they turn brown and caramelise. Sprinkle a bit of white sugar onto the onions to help.
I always think that onions need a great deal of cooking, so don't be scared to take your time over this. In goes a tiny splash of Balsamic Vinegar, a decent slug of Cider and 250ml beef stock.Bubble away like mad.
Whisk in a teaspoon of white flour mixed with water and cook on for a bit. This will help to thicken up the gravy.
Finish it off with a shake of Worcestershire Sauce to taste and then whisk in a final knob of butter to create a shiny glaze.
This will create a rich, very dark brown gravy with a piquant taste. You can of course, alter ingredients to taste, leaving out the balsamic vinegar if you find it too strong. I would also be tempted to add a dash of Soy Sauce for that extra umami kick. Those onions should be well cooked, very, very thin, and the sauce should not be too thick or gloopy. I also quite like the idea of straining off the onion slices- for that extra refinement; just leaving a glossy, dark, rich onion-flavoured gravy. Bisto? What on earth's that?
Here's a Greasy Spoon classic for that most British celebration, "Bonfire Night": The Bullshot Cocktail.
It's supposed to be served cold, on ice; but I see no reason why it shouldn't be served hot (in a similar fashion to mulled wine or cider) and I have a sneaky suspicion that you might find it even better this way.
Empty a tin of beef consommé soup into a large pan. Pour in a large slug of vodka and add a dash of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce, a squeeze of lemon juice, a pinch of celery salt, and finish it off by seasoning it with salt and pepper.
Warm up the bullshot on a medium heat, making sure that you don't boil it. If you've got guests, I would suggest serving it in small coffee cans or cups. If you're going to the Park, I would urge you to fill up your hip-flask and pass it around.
We're just back from a few days in Florence. I've got a thing about the place. Thinking about it, I've got a thing about Italy, but Florence just has that special 'something'. I adore Venice. I'm excited by Rome. I'm turned on by the Amalfi Coast. But Florence? I'm not sure exactly why this is. The stern fortifications of the Palazzo Vecchio? Quite probably. The scented delights of the Santa Maria Novella apothecary? Quite possibly. The simplicity of the convent of San Marco and the wonder that is The Annunciation? Without doubt. The dreamy, water-colour view from the Boboli Gardens, Rus in Urbe? Most definitely. The food? Now that's an interesting conundrum.
The dusty Boboli Gardens
I first visited Florence back in the late 90's with my then girlfriend. We were both strapped for cash (a struggling junior auction specialist and a chain-smoking lapsed journalist between us); this was in the early days of the internet, before the addiction of ipads and iphones. We trawled the touristy area near the Piazza della Repubblicca, ending up in a generic 'trattoria', the memory subsequently banished to the dustbin of culinary history.
Quattrocento Virginal Beauty, Santa Maria Novella
I suppose the same could be said of any major European city. God help those poor visitors to London who end up in that steak house on Oxford Street, or Parisian optimists searching in vain for the ghosts of Jean-Paul Sartre, Gertrude Stein and Simone de Beauvoir and finding instead, a chain café in the Boulevard du Montpernasse- or even worse- the bacterial breeding grounds of a restaurant on the Place du Tertre.
Florence from the Bardini Gardens
But on this trip to Florence- thanks to internet recommendations- we ate extremely well. In a way, the food of Tuscany (at least in the chill of autumn and winter) reminds me of the best of England. It's hearty, rib-sticking stuff; comfort food at its best: wild boar, funghi, trippa alla Fiorentina, rustic tomato soups thickened with bread, slow cooked meat stews, prosciutto, white beans.
First up was the Trattoria La Casalinga. This is an old-fashioned family-run restaurant in Oltarano, that rather appealing 'arty' area on the wrong side of the Arno. Nothing much to talk about from the outside- and the inside either, but the staff were charming, considering we hadn't booked, and managed to find us a small table in the corner for an hour or so. Incidentally, the place was full of American and British tourists; but then in Florence every restaurant is packed full of Fodor brandishing tourists: the city is a monument to well-heeled American tourism.
The convent of San Marco
The food at La Casalinga is outstanding. Divine. Actually tastes of something. This is rustic simplicity. And the value for money! A carafe of the local chianti came to four Euros- I repeat, four Euros. A plate of thinly sliced proscuitto, served with bruschetta, chicken liver andsome sort of fish, plus tomatoes of a wonderful flavour, came to seven Euros.
My main course was nectar. I asked for their house speciality, the peposa beef stew (beef stew with black pepper) but instead, ended up with a stew cooked with onions: bubbled on a low heat for hours, enriched with white onions, melting into a rich sauce; slightly Gothic but hitting the mark. Mrs Aitch's tagliatelle came with a seasonal funghi sauce. The whole shooting match came to 36 Euros. Including service.
Autumn funghi at the Mercato Centrale
Next up was the Mercato Centrale food market. This is a Victorian ironwork structure not unlike the now demoished Les Halles market in Paris or our own Covent Garden. Instead of pulling it down (Parisians please take note) the Florentines, very sensibly, have re-invented it as- gasp of amazement- a food market. And this time, there's not a tourist in sight. The range of fruit, vegetables, meat and dry goods is astonishing. It's a reminder that the food in Britain is languishing- still- behind the rest of Europe. I see this time and time again- in France, Belgium, Italy and Germany.
In Britain, it's possible to eat very well indeed- but only at shops, restaurants and bars aimed at an affluent, yuppy clientele. In mainland Europe, good food is part of the every-day culture. Where a French or Italian lorry driver can pull over at some roadside watering hole and eat simple and decent food. Or where some impecunious little old granny can buy a loaf of incredible, hand-made bread. In Britain, it's a Little Chef or a packet of Sun-Blest.
Rus in Urbe. The water-colour light of Florence.
On our last night we tried to get into Il Santo Bevitore, again in the Oltarano area. This has had rave reviews with the likes of The Daily Telegraph, no less, describing it as 'surprisingly gourmet for what at first looks like a Bohemian Drinking Den'. I tried to book, but they seemed to have left the telephone off the hook. Deliberately.
We arrived early (it opens at 7.30) and joined the queue. Immediate conversation. Charming Americans with the same problem. Eventually a harrassed waitress came out and separated us into two lines. Those who had reservations and those who didn't. Moral of the story: When in Florence, book.
So we ended up at the excellent Enoteca Pitti Gola e Cantina, a small wine bar offering individual glasses of artisan Tuscan wines. You eat out in the street directly opposite the magnificent Pitti Palace, formerly the residence of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, as Baedeker puts it. Simple ingredients again: grilled funghi in a fondue sauce, fresh pasta, wild boar, anchovies- that sort of thing. The helpful waiter recommends a glass of this or that wine with each course. I like this approach. Eminently sensible. I wish more restaurants could do this.
Four cheers for Florence! We've rubbed that boar's nose. We'll be back.
The John F Kennedy Archives recently released a recipe for JFK's favourite fish chowder. It's a rather touching story. In 1961 a disabled girl called Lynn Jennings wrote to the President asking 'what he liked to eat'. The president's special assistant wrote back, thanking Lynn for her 'nice letter' and enclosing the typed out recipe (below) and a photograph of the president. Kennedy, apparently, was terribly greedy and liked to wolf down this chowder in enormous quantities.
NEW ENGLAND FISH CHOWDER
2 pounds haddock
2 ounces salt pork, diced
2 onions, sliced
4 large potatoes, diced
1 cup chopped celery
1 bay leaf, crumbled
1 quart milk
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Simmer haddock in 2 cups water for 15 minutes. Drain. Reserve broth. Remove bones from fish. Saute diced pork until crisp, remove and set aside. Saute onions in pork fat until golden brown. Add fish, potatoes, celery, bay leaf, salt and pepper. Pour in fish broth plus enough boiling water to make 3 cups of liquid. Simmer for 30 minutes. Add milk and butter and simmer for 5 minutes. Serve chowder sprinked with pork dice. Serves 6.
I like the way Jackie's reading a pristine copy of "Portrait of a President" in the famous LIFE photograph below. Nothing like a subtle plug, is there?
Go on. Admit it. You use stock cubes. Of course you do. We all do. I make proper stock from time to time (and freeze it) but when I'm in a hurry (and that's quite often these days) I resort to ready-made, shop-bought stock cubes. The trick is, I think, to track down the better quality brands and to use less of it then the directions tell you to on the packet. Otherwise, everything tastes too salty.
I've just discovered these brilliant mushroom flavoured stock cubes. Made in Italy and exported to the UK, they're currently available in Waitrose and various up-market delis. Perfect for an after-work autumnal mushroom risotto or a Saturday late afternoon beef stew. Makes a change from the ubiquitous chicken, doesn't it?
I've just made a kilner jar of Piccalilli. It's going to be good, but I think there's room for improvement. A quick recap (using my standard recipe): I chopped up garden vegetables, sprinkled them with sea salt and let them stand for 24 hours. I drained off the water and rinsed them in cold water. Next, I combined a bottle of cider vinegar (500ml) with 250g of white sugar, a dollop of Colman's English Mustard, various spices (including turmeric) and heated it though. I added the rinsed vegetables and cooked the whole thing gently for about ten minutes. Finally, a cornflour paste was added to thicken it up.
It's going to need tweaking. So if you're a Piccalilli junkie, and interested in getting it just so, here are my kitchen notes fresh from this Friday morning's experimentation. The beauty of Piccalilli is that, apart from the mustard and the cauliflower, there are countless variations, and it's impossible to say that one recipe is more correct than another.
Piccalilli: What is it?
A typically British chutney, often made at the end of summer and in early autumn. Essentially, left-over vegetables bound in a mustard yellow sauce. The dish probably originated in 18th century British India.
Colour
Traditionally, yellow. A radio-active yellow. And I think, in the interests of nostalgia, it needs to be like this. Otherwise there's a danger it's just going to look like yet another chutney. The stuff I made this morning's having an identity crisis- it's turned brown. I think that's because I used cider vinegar (rather than the lighter coloured white wine vinegar) and my turmeric wasn't fresh enough.
Vegetables
They need to be crunchy; to have bite. I used cauliflower (broken up into small florets), yellow and green peppers, cucumber, baby carrots, baby courgettes, shallots, baby yellow tomatoes and green beans. The vegetables were cut up into small, bite-size pieces, placed in a bowl, sprinkled with sea-salt, and left overnight. This is a "Dry Brine". After 24 hours, you'll find that masses of water will have drained away from the vegetables, leaving them extra-crunchy and crisp. The salt was washed off before cooking. The earthy smell that came off the fresh marinading vegetables was heavenly. This technique would also be great for Vegetables à la Grecque.
Ideally, I do think that the vegetables used in Piccalilli need to reflect the British nature of the dish. Mr Oliver includes mango and dried oregano in his. The Waitrose version includes American butternut squash. Really not sure about either of these and I'm not convinced by Jamie's addition of grated apple. After much thought, my ultimate piccalilli vegetable list might include: cauliflower, marrow (oh, the whiff of the allotment), red and green chillies, silver skin or pearl onions, cucumber, green beans, shallots, fennel, baby carrots, baby courgettes and baby yellow tomatoes. I would cut them up into relatively small pieces, too.
Spices
Mustard. Hints of Curry. The dish originated in India, after all. I used a large dollop of Colman's English Mustard, turmeric, ground ginger, ground mustard seeds, ground cumin, smashed up coriander seeds, chili flakes, nutmeg, black pepper and cayenne pepper. I think I can probably improve on this.
The Sauce
It needs to be thick. The Waitrose version looks too runny. Cornflour, you're needed! As well as being a fantastic thickening agent, there's also that shiny, glossy surface thing going on, think Chinese sweet and sour sauce. But it needs to be cooked through properly, otherwise you get that stodgy, uncooked floury taste. My original version adds the cornflour at the end. Much better if it's cooked right at the start.
Sweet and Sour
My current version is too sweet. I need to cut down on the sugar. Getting that balance between the sweet and the sour is difficult. I'm really not keen on sickly over-sweet chutneys. If anything, an authentic piccallili needs to be on the sharp side.
So after much deliberation (trumpet fanfare) here's the newly improved, ultimate and official Greasy Spoon Piccalilli Recipe. Please do let me know if you think we can improve upon it:
Ingredients
1 cauliflower, broken up into small florets
1 small marrow, diced into small chunks
2 green chillies, finely sliced
2 red chillies, finely sliced
Handful of green beans, chopped into small pieces
Handful of silver skin or pearl onions
A few shallots, chopped up into cubes
2 bulbs of fennel, cut into small chunks
Handful of baby carrots, peeled and cut into small dice
1 small cucumber, peeled and cut into small dice
Handful of baby yellow tomatoes, sliced in half
A finger or so of peeled ginger, grated
2 tablespoons mustard seeds
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 tablespoons fresh turmeric
2 tablespoons Colman's English Mustard Powder
Pinch of grated nutmeg
Sprinkling of chilli flakes
Pinch of cayenne pepper
3 cloves garlic
Cornflour
500ml white wine vinegar (ie small bottle)
200g white sugar
3 bay leaves
Place the vegetables into a large bowl, and sprinkle generously with sea salt. Leave overnight. In the morning, drain off the vegetables in a colander and rinse with cold water.
Heat up a large saucepan, and add a little oil. Mustard oil, if you can get it, would be ideal. Fry the mustard seeds, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, fresh turmeric, a sprinkling of chilli flakes, grated ginger and pinch of grated nutmeg for a minute or so. Lower the heat and add the Colman's Mustard Powder, crushed garlic, three tablespoons or so of cornflour and a splash of the white wine vinegar. Stir until it forms a paste. Let the flour and garlic cook for a bit.
Gradually mix in the remaining vinegar, stirring all the time so that the ingredients are combined. Then add the white sugar, bay leaves and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Check the seasoning, grating in some chunky black pepper if you think it needs it. Cook on for a few minutes, stirring well to make sure the sugar dissolves.
Add the drained vegetables to the pan and stir well. Cook for about ten minutes on a lowish to medium heat. The vegetables need to be slightly cooked through (especially the green beans), but ideally, at the same time you want them to be crunchy and firm.
Decant into sterilised jars. The piccalilli will need to mature in a dark cupboard for about a month, and then should keep for at least six months, meaning that it's most certainly going to be ready in time for Christmas.
You can play around with the amounts of flour, sugar and vinegar to use. You want a smooth, slightly thick, tangy, mustardy sauce and a nice balance between sweet and sour. I don't think you'll need to add any salt, as the vegetables, although drained, have been sitting in sea salt all night long.
A Happy New Year. As a self-confessed contrarian, I've suddenly decided that I rather like January. As much as I adore Christmas, it does go on a bit, doesn't it? An old friend of mine used to display a banner in his drawing room with "Christmas Must Go!" emblazoned across it. I'm beginning to understand what he felt like. Over the years I've also slowly come to the conclusion that what I really enjoy at Christmas is not the ubiquitous Turkey (dry this year, one of those things), but, instead, a succulent self-cooked, honey and mustard glazed ham (recipe from Sarah Raven), served up with home-made potted mushrooms, and chutney.
This year my mother gave me a pot of her very own "Spiced Apple Chutney", and I have to say, hand on heart, this is probably the best chutney I have tasted in a very long while. Perhaps ever. She discovered the recipe in a book on Indian food, but was a bit vague about what exactly the title was- so my apologies to the author for not being able to tell you the exact source. The chutney's almost a vegetarian curry in its own right; I think that might be part of its very considerable appeal. It's also fairly easy on the vinegar, which helps.
Peel, core and slice up 900g of cooking apples. Put them into a bowl and sprinkle them with sea salt flakes. Set aside. Grate half a head of garlic and half a knob of fresh ginger. Slice up the remaining halves thinly.
Heat up a large pan and add a dash of oil. Fry the ginger and the garlic until slightly golden. Add 2 tablespoons of mustard seed, one teaspoon of fenugreek seed, 15 peppercorns, two teaspoons of powdered cumin, one teaspoon of chilli powder, one teaspoon of tumeric, and 3-4 chopped green chillis (removing the seeds with your knife. Fry gently for a few minutes.
Add the sliced apples, 150ml of cider vinegar, and 110g granulated sugar. Stir and cook slowly for about thirty minutes or so. Cool and decant into sterlised screw-top jars. The chutney needs to mature for a few months before eating.
I really do hope you are tempted to make this. It's a classic chutney and utterly delicious.
For some weird reason, I always think that the British classic, Toad in the Hole, is perfect for a Saturday Lunch. Not Sunday or Monday, or even Thursday for that matter. Saturday. I can't exactly explain why, there's probably a regressive, childhood thing going on there. Toad in the Hole is easy to make. It's filling. It's cheap. It's also delicious. This is Comfort Food at its best.
If you happen to be American, you are probably now wondering how on earth us Brits can eat one of those slimey, knobbly creatures? Sort of less appealing then a French grenouille, I hear you cry. But as much as I am curious to sample one of those tantalising little critters, the 'toad' is, in all probability, English slang for sausage. It's a bit like Welsh Rabbit (which ain't a rabbit), or Scotch Woodcock (which ain't a woodcock, either).
Back to the Toad: Heat your oven to 220C (425F). Get hold of some decent, fat, organic sausages and chuck them into a roasting tin with a few knobs of lard. You could have fun experimenting with different types of sausage. The better your sausage, the better your Toad in the Hole will taste. Cook the sausages in the oven for about ten minutes. My latest sausage discovery has been Sainsbury's Taste the Difference British Pork & Caramelised Red Onion Sausages. These are utterly delicious! Sweet, juicy, slightly spicy, lots of lovely caramelised flavours going on in there.
Meanwhile, mix up the batter. Sieve 4oz (110g) of self raising flour into a bowl, and add a pinch of salt and some pepper. Make a hole or a "well" in the centre of the flour, and pour in 5 fluid oz (150ml) of semi-skimmed milk into the hole. Crack in an egg, too. Mix the flour, milk, and egg up very gradually with a wooden spoon. Beat well, and then add the same amount of milk, again. Pour the finished batter over the sausages, and cook them in the oven for a further 45 minutes or so, until the Toad is risen and browned.
The Onion Gravy is a cinch. You slice up some onions, and brown them in a frying pan. If you add a few pinches of sugar and salt, this will help them to caramelise. You want them to get brown and a bit burnt. This is a good thing. Add a tablespoon of flour, and let it cook in the oniony fat. Once the onions and flour are brown enough, you can deglaze the pan with some stock, water, and perhaps, a slug or two of white wine. Instead of gravy browning (what's that?), I use a few drops of Soy Sauce, which will give the gravy an even richer colour and taste. A teaspoon of redcurrent jelly is not a bad plan, either. Onion Gravy should be thin.
I like Bonfire Night, who doesn't? I would dearly love to take part in the revels being held in Lewes tonight, but this time round, I'm stuck in London. And there's a titillating whiff of paganism about the whole proceedings, isn't there?
Bonfire Night, for me, means piping hot thermos flasks; which means soup. I think a Bloody Mary style Tomato Soup- in other words, a soup laced with vodka, would work brilliantly.
It would be possible to make it in various ways; you could, perhaps, roast tomatoes with garlic, celery and onions in a hot oven (keeping the skins intact), and then whizz up the cooked vegetables in a Magimix to form a soft pulp.
The pulp would be cooked briefly in butter and olive oil, vegetable or chicken stock added (and perhaps some extra tomato juice and tomato purée for colour), and the soup simmered for ten minutes or so, before adding Tabasco and Lea & Perrins and adjusting the seasoning (celery salt, black pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice?).
The soup would be strained through a sieve and then laced with vodka and, perhaps, a dash of dry sherry. I would keep it hot- and avoid bringing it to the boil; a bit like the way you might make a mulled wine or cider.
Every year I try and come up with something "devilled" for Hallowe'en. It seems appropriate somehow. A few years ago I wrote about Devilled Quail's Eggs- they were truly, deliciously sinful and I urge you to make some as soon as you can. Devilled Eggs are popular in the Southern States, but I've given them a more refined twist with the use of quail's eggs. Easier to stuff into your mouth, too. They can, of course, be eaten at any time of the year, and I think they would work brilliantly if you were planning to have a Christmas party.
Here's my post from 2010:
I'm writing this as the gloom descends on a Hallowe'en afternoon. I've always been fascinated by Hallowe'en: as a child in England, it was barely celebrated, apart from a few cartoons on the BBC and a spooky tale or so read out aloud at nursery school. I've been reading up on Hallowe'en and according to the Oxford Dictionary of Folklore, it's quite possible that all that pagan stuff about Celtic fire festivals and the like is a fantasy, invented by Sir James Frazer in the "Golden Bough", and that Hallowe'en's origins are, indeed, Christian and Scottish, where it was known as "Nutcrack Night". During the 19th century, Hallowe'en was associated with fortune telling and love divination: young girls would learn who their future husbands would be.
My grandmother taught me how to carve lanterns, but from turnips- rather than pumpkins. Recently, under American influence, Hallowee'en has become much more popular in England. We've just barricaded our front door and battened down the shutters in preparation for the annual onslaught: London street urchins hammering on the door and rattling the letterbox: "'ere, mister! we know you're there!"
Francisco Goya, Witches' Sabbath, 1789
Hallowe'en food should be spicy (especially with the Mexican Day of the Dead just around the corner) and I gather that in the American Deep South, devilled eggs are traditionally served. But I'm not keen on the idea of serving up stuffed chicken's eggs as a canapé. They're too large, and I think would be a bit clumsy, and even slightly Gothic. So I've adapted the idea, but using tiny quail's eggs, instead. This works much better and they were utterly delicious. We scoffed a plate of them this morning.
Place your quails eggs in a pan of cold water, and bring to the boil. Turn off the heat, put back the lid, and let them stand in the hot water for four minutes. Plunge the cooked eggs into a pan of cold water. To shell them, gently roll the eggs on a hard surface, so that the shells crack. You will find that the quail's eggs have a tougher membrane than chicken's eggs, and once you've carefully removed it, you'll find the shell easier to remove. But it's delicate work.
Slice the cooked eggs in half, and spoon out the cooked yolk and place in a mixing bowl. Add a light mayonnaise, a few dashes of Tabasco, a dollop of Dijon mustard, cayenne pepper and celery salt for seasoning. Whisk up the ingredients together until smooth. Using a piping bag, pipe the devilled mixture back into the quails egg halves.
Arrange on a plate, and sprinkle with finely chopped chives.
I've just come in from a dripping and sodden garden. A necessary job which involved tipping a split bag of farmyard manure all over the newly created border. Not especially pleasant. We've got a new unwelcome visitor: a largish town fox seems to have latched onto us at night. It's already been inside the house; but was scared off by our brave, feisty little Burmese, Oskie, at about three o' clock in the morning. You should have heard the noise. Cat shrieks and Fox barks. Like Banshees. Terrifying. And I have to tell you, this critter is the size of an Alsatian. Last night, it ripped open several bags of manure in the garden- I woke up to a a scene of carnage. Hence the urgency. And it's cold. And wet. And extremely gloomy. One way of coping with the sudden autumn chill is with my sudden obsession with chowder. Hot creamy, chunky, savoury, buttery chowder.
What exactly is chowder? You'll know that it's an American soup (or possible stew) popular on the Eastern Seaboard. Personally, I think it should be creamy. And thick. Possibly milky. It might well have some form of pork or salty bacon. It's probably got diced carrots; it may well have diced potatoes. It often includes smoked fish. I usually think of chowders as being creamy white in colour, and this is often the case. But then there's also the Manhattan Clam Chowder which uses tomatoes instead of milk or cream, and is red.
I had a sweetcorn chowder at Brunswick House Café the other day- and I'm now interested in the idea of using puréed sweetcorn as a thickening agent. I think this would work well. The Brunswick House chowder was also laced with Lea & Perrins- far too much of the stuff in my opinion. It was almost insane. Several large tablespoons, I reckon. Luckily, I love L & P, and so cope, up to a point- but I suspect others would have had a nasty surprise. It was all slighty strange.
Brunswick House Café, Vauxhall
This is how I would make a chowder. I think with this particular dish, there's going to be room for experimentation and ideas. The first step would be to chop up some smoked bacon or pork and fry in butter. Next, I'd add some chopped onions and chopped celery and fry in the buttery bacon fat until soft. Then I'd pour in some fish stock and drop in a bayleaf.
You could experiment using various ingredients as a thickening agent. Crushed saltine crackers would be authentic. Creamed sweetcorn might be another idea. Or grated potato perhaps? You would stir the thickening agent (whatever it is) into the stock. (An alternative method would be to cook the thickening agent in the butter before adding the stock). I'd include some diced potato and diced carrots, and a good dollop of single cream and/or milk.
The chowder would be simmered gently until you ended up with a nice whitish, creamy chowder of thick consistancy. Poached smoked haddock (broken up into largish flakes) might be added, or another type of fish which you happen to like. Smoked Oysters could be just the ticket. I like the combination of smoked fish with salty bacon, savoury onions, celery and bayleaf. It's a classic amalgamation of flavours.
Finally, the chowder would be finished off with finely chopped flat leaf parsley or chervil, (which with its subtle tarragon flavour might work even better); seasoned with white pepper and a knob of butter whisked in at the final moment. What do you think?
Our new cooker (A Smeg A4-8, if you're interested) is arriving today. Any time between ten and two (I had to pay extra to ensure delivery). And so that Grand Day when I can actually start cooking again is drawing closer. I'm having fun reading food porn, just before hitting the pillow, fantasising about all the new goodies we're going to be sampling in a few weeks time.
And now that autumn is here, I'm also thinking about pheasants. People don't eat enough of them, in my opinion. It's very much a country food, I think, and townies, for some bizarre reason, can't cope. But for me, pheasant is very much the taste of Autumn, with its dark meat and gamey flavours. Coming across the shot is very much part of the charm, too. But pheasant does need to be cooked properly. Part of the problem, I think, is the tendency for the meat to dry out and become stringy. But more about this in a minute.
Although the season starts on October 1st, in practice, very few pheasants are shot before the end of October- and the size and quality of the birds can be poor in this month. Early November is probably a good time to buy your pheasant. The season ends on February 1st. A hen is going to be better for roasting than a cock. What you're after, ideally, is a young-ish hen bird. Bought in early November. Already plucked. You can of course, pluck the bird yourself, or at least try to, but I find, to be honest, that it's not really worth the bother (unless you happen to shoot) when you can buy one professionally plucked from a decent butcher.
One of the most intriguing recipes for pheasant comes from Nathalie Hambro, the author of the Glenfiddich award winning Particular Delights, republished recently by Grub Street. I really like Nathalie Hambro's innovative take on food. She's not frightened of experimenting with different flavours and combinations; usally it works, sometimes, I think her recipes are a trifle weird- but that's all part of the fun and it's refreshingly original, especially if what you're seeking is a taste sensation.
Her recipe for Pheasant with Juniper Pear Butter is going to be one of the first things I'm planning to make when we finally get the new kitchen up and running. She's had the brilliant idea to use a chicken brick to cook the pheasant in. This is a stroke of genius. You' will remember the Chicken Brick. I think they were either re-invented or re-introduced by Terence Conran. Desparately trendy back in the early 70's, they've now almost become a bit of a joke- the sort of thing Islingtonites with scrubbed pine tables, William Morris wallpaper and hippy children dressed in Clothkits would want for Christmas.
But chicken bricks are a good thing: the moisture (or steam) coming off the meat is trapped within the brick, and circulates in the hot air, which, in effect, steams the meat as it roasts, thus keeping in the moisture. Perfect for lean game.
I've had a quick look online, and it's amazing how affordable pheasant is. Lidgate (the rather grand butchers in Holland Park I'm fond of) are selling their birds for £6.75. Allen's of Mayfair are selling theirs for £7.00. The Wild Meat Company are asking a very reasonable £4.95. And I expect that you could probably find even cheaper birds at local butchers out in the sticks.
Soak the chicken brick in cold water for about ten minutes. The clay in the brick will absorb the water.
Take your plucked pheasant, and wash it thoroughly. Peel a pear, and push it into the cavity of the pheasant. This will also help the pheasant to remain moist. Season the pheasant with salt and pepper. Crush somejuniper berries, and rub them all over the pheasant. Sauté the prepared bird in a pan with some butter and oil, for about six minutes, so that it is lightly browned all over. The oil will help to stop the butter from burning.
Line the bottom of the chicken brick with tin foil, and put in the pheasant with its juices. Replace the top of the chicken brick, and bake in a preheated oven at 240℃ for an hour.
Now for the juniper butter: Finely chop up some shallots, and garlic. Melt some butter in a pan, and add the garlic, shallots, and the crushed juniper berries you've got left over from the pheasant. Simmer gently for about twenty minutes.
Take off the heat, and add the juice of two lemons. Season with sea salt and white pepper, and sprinkle with freshly chopped chives. Serve slices of the cooked pheasant with a small helping of the pear (in effect a stuffing), and the juniper butter sauce.
I think this might work well if you were to serve it with pearl barley. Maybe pearl barley cooked with a bit of stock, lemon juice and thyme? The piney, gin-ish, juniper flavours go beautifully with the sweet fruitiness of the pear, and the autumnal, woody gamey flavours of the pheasant. Oh god, I'm salivating as I write.
Following my recent post on the American food writer, Richard Olney, I'm having fun getting back into his books. I've got The French Menu Cookbook and Simple French Food- but have yet to read his autobiography, Reflexions; Ten Vineyard Lunches or Provence, The Beautiful Cookbook. He's a sophisticated cook, and there would be much to learn if you took the plunge and decided to go through The French Menu Cookbook bit by bit.
Here's Richard Olney's recipe for "Fennel à la Grecque", taken from The French Menu Cookbook. It will serve from four to six people. He's got it down as a "Simple Autumn recipe", although in England it might be just as suitable for the Summer. In these harsher Northern climes, Autumn usually makes me think of squashes, mushrooms, pheasant, game, chutneys. Bonfire smoke, fog, red poppies.
In a saucepan you assemble: 750g fennel (outer stalks removed, halved or quartered from top to bottom), 5 tablespoons of olive oil, the juice of two lemons, one onion (finely sliced into rings), 2 cloves of garlic (lightly crushed), 8 to 10 coriander seeds, a pinch of fennel seeds, a bouquet garni, and salt.
Pour over boiling water to cover, and simmer, covered until the fennel is tender. Arrange the fennel in a deep serving dish, pour over the contents of the saucepan, and leave to cool. Serve cold, and sprinkle with finely chopped flat leafed parsley.
The brilliant thing about this very easy recipe is that you can you use the formula to cook other vegetables in a similar manner. Olney suggests using as an alternative: artichoke hearts, baby onions, celery hearts split in two, or cauliflower florets.
We are still without a kitchen. I'm not blaming the builders, who have been superb and worked like navvies, but our renovations have turned out to be a more ambitious enterprise than we had originally envisaged. The entire floor base has had to be broken up with a pneumatic drill, revealing a sort of packed down clay surface; pipes relayed, walls rebuilt, chimneybreasts knocked back, French windows inserted, everything re-wired. Gutted. They're nailing down re-claimed 1920's floorboards as I write.
It's been chaos, acidic builder's dust choking everywhere and everything (my dried-up hands breaking out into an unpleasant rash), books piled up high at crazy angles, cardboard boxes stacked here and there- an open invitation to trip, both of us trying hard not get grumpy. But it's been difficult.
And that constant drilling noise, from early morning to dusk. But the worst thing of all: No cooker. Yup, nothing to eat except micro-waved food, and sardines straight from the tin. Neanderthal. God, I'm utterly sick of micro-waved food. Initially, it wasn't too bad, and we could sort of cope with "Taste the Difference" packet chicken in black bean sauce. But after several months of this (has it been longer?) and all those supermarkety, ready-to-go, microwavey instant things have blurred into one awful, bland, salt-rich, monosodium glutamate lovin' nightmare.
Talking of which, I'm beginning to dream about food. Properly cooked food. Fresh food. I had a lovely fantasy sequence the other night which involved, amongst other things, the making of a New England Chowder. Fresh crab, little diced carrots, potatoes, onions, chopped flat-leaf parsley. Creamy. Rich. Thick. Intense, deep fishy, sea-side flavours. And I've started to have an obssession with chicken broth. Can't stop thinking about it.
A very kind friend learnt of this, and lent me us a nifty little camping stove, powered by a Calor Gas canister. I managed to make an excellent chicken soup or broth from it, which I served up to Mrs Aitch who was running a temperature. Cooked on the floor, in the ruins of our former kitchen. Next to a Cement Mixer. It was one of most delicious things I've ever tasted for a long, long time: take away decent, properly cooked food for a few months, and Mein Gott, you will start to really appreciate the crucial role food plays in the quality of life. It's terribly important.
Anyway, this is how I made my very simple, but completely beguiling chicken broth. I managed to find a large pan (about the only thing not in storage), rinsed off the dust with the garden tap outside, and into this I placed a very ordinary, ersatz, non-organic supermarket chicken. A whole one. Price: Five Pounds. By the way, for those of you who are sniffy about supermarket chicken, please take into account that in this particular case the poor beast did not die in vain, in the way that it might have done if it had been served up, say, by the Good Colonel Sanders.
I topped up the pan with water, so that it covered the chicken. Into the pan went: a few leeks (roughly chopped), a parsnip or two for extra sweetness (again, roughly chopped), a few peppercorns, a few onions (roughly chopped), a stick of celery (snapped in two) a few parsley stalks, a sprig of thyme, and a few baby carrots (chopped up into chunks).
The pan was brought to a slow simmer on a lowish to medium heat, and I scraped off the scum from the top as it did so. I kept on scraping off the scum as it bubbled up to the surface. The stew was then simmered slowly at a low heat, until the chicken started to break up, and a rich stock was formed. From memory, this took about an hour and a half. About twenty minutes beforehand, I had sliced up some further baby carrots into rounds and added them to the broth- for decoration. Taste, and add sea salt if you feel it needs it.
To serve, I ladled out the clearish chicken broth into a soup bowl, leaving all the bits and pieces behind in the pan. With a fork, I rescued some of the white chicken meat I found floating around in the pan, and tore it up into bite-sized pieces or strips. These were placed in the middle of the bowl, and the cooked baby carrot slices scattered around them. The broth was finished off with finely chopped flat leafed parsley.
It's a pretty and delicate looking dish, which also happens to be cheap to make; and if you're clever and bother to skim off the scum as it cooks, you should get a reasonably clear broth or consommé. This will amaze and impress your friends and neighbours.
There's a recipe for Piccalilli in the Waitrose Autumn booklet which caught my eye. They've called it "Piccalilli With A Punch". I like the idea, but they haven't got it quite right. Waitrose suggest you use butternut squash (not that authentic in my opinion), and their photograph shows very large (too large) chunks of vegetables sitting on a watery sauce (which, I think, should be much thicker). Still.
Piccalilli is one of those slightly weird British "delicacies"- if that's the right description; I'm not sure that it is. Bright yellow in colour, and potently acidic; utterly out of fashion too, evoking the world of Austerity Britain: all the glamour of Dad's allotment, prize marrow competitions, Brown Windsor soup, late dusty Summers and musty pigeon lofts.
I spent a few minutes researching its history on the internet. Apparently, the first known Piccalilli recipe was created by a Mrs Raffald in 1772, when it was also known as "English Chow Chow". That sounded about right. It had to be connected in some way with Eighteenth Century India didn't it? I'm assuming that the rather odd sounding name is just a play on the word, pickle.
Anyway, here's The Greasy Spoon's recipe for making your very own piccalilli. You can, of course, use any late summer vegetables you happen to have lying around, but I do think that piccalilli should include cauliflower in some shape or form; butternut squash just strikes me as too American for what is a very British pickle. Carrot and courgettes would be good, too.
First prepare the vegetables: I like them to be chopped up into reasonably small, bite-size chunks. Break up a small cauliflower into small florets, peel a cucumber, de-seed it, and chop it into small cubes. Finely chop up two onions. Chop up a few peeled carrots into small to medium size dice. Dice up a courgette into similar size chunks.
Place the vegetables in a bowl, sprinkle them with salt, and leave to stand overnight. The salt will draw out lots of water and help to keep the vegetables crisp. Pour off the water, rinse the vegetables with cold water, and pat them dry.
When you're ready to make the piccalilli, get hold of a large preserving pan and pour in about 500ml of cider vinegar. Add 250g of sugar and the following spices: a dollop of Colman's English mustard, turmeric, ground ginger, ground cumin, black mustard seeds, chili flakes, nutmeg, and a pinch of cayenne pepper.
Warm it through until the sugar dissolves, add the vegetables and then bring the mixture to the boil. Season with chunky black pepper, reduce the heat and simmer away for about ten minutes. It's unlikely that you'll need to add any more salt, as you've already used it at the beginning of the recipe. The turmeric and mustard will turn the mixture a bright yellow colour.
Finally, thicken up the piccalilli with some cornflour: in a separate bowl add some of the cooking liquid to a tablespoon or so of cornflower and whisk it up until it forms a paste. Reduce the heat and slowly mix this paste into the piccalilli. Simmer for a further five minutes (until the cornflour is cooked properly) and then decant into sterilised jars.
It will need to mature in a dark cupboard for about a month before use. Excellent with cold beef and oily fish such as mackerel and herring, and perfect for Christmas if you start thinking about making it now.
The new Greasy Spoon forum/page on Facebook seems to be going well, with readers beginning to post up their own stuff on it: ideas, comments and food photographs. You can join in the fun at: The Greasy Spoon on Facebook.
I've posted up a link on the Facebook page to a delicious and gutsy sounding recipe by Helen Graves: "Ham Hock and White Bean Soup with a Green Sauce". I'm going to try it out on The Girl tomorrow evening.
Ham Hock, also known as Pork Knuckle, is the joint or shank where the Pig's leg meets the foot. Ham comes from the back part of the pig. As you might expect, there's quite a bit of tendon, fat, and skin going on down there, and the hock needs to be stewed for a long period of time to cope with it all. Despite that, if properly cooked, a flavoursome pork knuckle is a noble old thing indeed, and a worthy champion of German, East European and American Southern Cooking. It also makes a fabulous terrine.
Have a look at the two charts I've posted up. I like the slightly retro graphics; the sort of thing you see posted up in old-fashioned butcher shops. The top chart shows British cuts, the chart at the bottom, American cuts. If you look closely, you will see that they are slightly different.
Remember Beef Stroganoff? Many moons ago, my mother had a fledgling enterprise selling pre-cooked dinner party food to local housewives who couldn't be bothered to cook. Dishes were rustled up ahead of time, frozen, and then delivered to her clients in our rusting Lancia. I suspect there was quite a bit of fibbing going on, and the naughty dinner party hostesses would pretend that they had cooked it themselves. It was all very Stepford. From memory, Beef Stroganoff was one of the best-sellers on her menu. Strips of filet beef, cooked briefly, and bound in a mustardy sauce.
What exactly is Beef Stroganoff? That's a very good question. In the authoritative The Prawn Cocktail Years, Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham reckon that the origins of the dish are suspect, and about as Russian as I am Chinese. My own guess was that it might have had something to do with that fascinating post-Revolutionary period in America, when Hollywood was awash with dubious Russian counts and every exile worth their salt was cousin to the Tsar. Wikipedia, however, is a mine of information on the subject, pin-pointing the birth of the dish to Elena Molokhovet's classic Russian cookbook of 1861: "Beef à la Stroganov with mustard, a simple concoction of fried beef cubes in a mustard and sour cream sauce". Stroganoff also appears in the 1938 edition of Larousse Gastronomique, but with the addition of onions and the option of tomato paste.
Here's my recipe for a classic Beef Stroganoff. I'm of the opinion that you need to cook the beef very quickly; the steak needs to be tender, rather than chewey. It's not really a stew. This should make enough for about four people.
You take 600g or so of filet steak, and cut it into slivers. The meat is seasoned and fried very quickly in a hot frying pan, until it's browned, but still relatively rare. Don't crowd the pan, otherwise the beef will stew, rather than fry; for the best results it could be a good idea to fry the meat a few pieces at a time. Take out the browned meat, and set aside on a plate.
Add a knob of butter to the pan, and cook some finely sliced onions until golden. Take them out of the pan and set them aside. Add a further knob of butter to the pan and add 350g of sliced button or baby mushrooms. Once cooked through, remove and add to the onions.
Turn down the heat, and carefully spoon 400ml of soured cream into the pan. Mix in a generous dollop of French mustard, and a small spoonful of tomato paste for colouring. Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham add paprika at the mushroom stage (cooking the spice in the hot butter for a minute or so), and there's nothing wrong with that. But The Greasy Spoon version is, perhaps, the more authentic and I don't think the dish should be too spicy. Is it possible to make a virtue of the bland?
Warm the sauce through, and combine the cooked mushrooms and onions back into the pan. Simmer the Stroganoff very gently for around ten minutes. I really do prefer the beef to be rare- but I understand that this is very much a matter of personal taste.
To finish off the dish, check the seasoning, and stir in generous amounts of freshly chopped dill and a squeeze of lemon juice. You serve it with plain rice.
From left to right: Maria, Alexandra, Alexei, Tatiana, Nicholas II, Olga, Anastasia, 1911
With Hallowe'en today, and Guy Fawkes Night and the Mexican Day of the Dead just around the corner; this time of year calls for a certain type of food: it needs to be warming, probably spicy too (with a nod to Mexico and all things "devilled"); I also like the idea of small, easily made tapas-style dishes and canapés. Perfect to serve up to any friends who drop by for Bonfire Night drinks.
About three years ago, I covered Devilled Kidneys on The Greasy Spoon. I cannot stress how surprisingly delicious these are- utterly wicked. I had the bright idea this morning of serving them as canapés; although bear in mind that you'll need to cut up the kidneys into small, bite-sized pieces and cook them extremely briefly.
First you heat up a bit of oil in a hot pan. Cut your lamb's kidney's into quarters, first trimming away the whitish core, and any white stringy bits. Chop the quarters up into smallish dice. Drop the chopped kidneys into the pan, and sauté them very briefly. Add a dash of dry sherry, bubble it away, and then add a further dash of cider vinegar.
Stir in a spoonful of redcurrant jelly, and allow it to melt. Add a generous slug of Worcestershire sauce, a dollop of yellow English mustard (Colman's is ideal), and ground black pepper.
Season with a decent pinch of sea salt, and mix in a spoonful of so of double cream. Bubble away quickly until glossy.
To serve: take a slice of bread and cut into bite-size crutons or squares (I like them to be reasonably small). Fry in a shallow pan with groundnut oil until golden brown. Spoon the devilled kidneys onto each cruton. Arrange on a plate, season with cayenne pepper and sprinkle over chopped parsley or chives.
Go on, be a devil- you'll love 'em.
Incidentally, the rather haunting photograph at the top of the page is taken from Ossian Clark's "Haunted Air- a collection of anonymous Hallowe'en Photographs from America, c.1875 - 1955", published by Jonathan Cape in 2010. Ossian Clark has collected hundreds of vintage snaps found in flea-markets, car boot sales, junk shops and the like. I haven't bought this book yet, but I'm intrigued. What I've seen so far seems strangely moving (the lives of ordinary suburban and working class American families- now forgotten but captured in time), surreal, weird, and genuinely frightening.
There's a knack to getting this old classic right, as the acid in the potatoes tends to make the cream curdle. To avoid this, you need to blanche the potatoes in milk, and make sure that the oven doesn't get too hot. You can also add a tiny bit of flour to the mix, and if you use waxy potatoes, the starch content will help to stop further curdling.
Incidentally, the Dauphiné area in the French Alps is known for its rich dairy pastures- and that's why the dish is called Dauphinoise. Nothing to do with the French Monarchy or the Revolution.
Pre-heat the oven to 160C. Line a baking tin with greaseproof paper, and butter the paper. Slice a raw garlic clove in two, and rub it over the paper.
Peel and slice your potatoes. For this dish, I infinitely prefer the waxy varieties, and if possible, I would avoid floury varieties at all cost. Slice them very thinly. I use a Magimix for this.
Boil some milk in a saucepan, whisking to stop it burning. "Blanche" the sliced potatoes in the milk for five minutes; this will help to remove the acid from the potatoes. In another pan, pour 150ml of full-fat milk and a 142ml carton of double cream and add a sprig of thyme. Blend two teaspoons of flour with a splash of milk, and mix thoroughly, so that there are no lumps. Mix this into the creamy milk. Bring to a near boil, and put to one side.
Layer the baking tin with the potato slices- so that they look a bit like fish scales. Season with sea-salt, black pepper and nutmeg. Arrange another layer on top, but with the shapes facing in the other direction. Season. Five or six layers should be about right. Pour over the milky cream mixture (first removing the thyme sprig) and then grate fresh parmesan all over the top.
Bake for about an hour, or until the potatoes are properly cooked, and the top is golden. Take out of the oven, leave to stand for a few minutes, and then cut into squares.
Mrs Aitch is going to hate this one. She's not normally fussy; not fussy at all, but she really hates bananas. In the same way that I loathe mashed potato. If you are ever lucky enough to invite us to dinner, the worst scenario would be shepherd's pie as a main course, and banoffee pie as a pudding.
To us Brits, American food can sometimes seem a bit Gothic. I would include Chicken Maryland in this category. Or, if not Gothic, certainly slightly weird. A bit white trashy, perhaps? Duelling banjos, denim dungarees and mobile homes raised on bricks. Scrap metal yards and ravenous doebermanns. Maybe I'm being horribly unfair? Any observations are certainly not meant to be critical. After all, we're the nation which tucks into haggis, jellied eel and stargazey pie.
In America, Chicken Maryland is served with "gravy"- what we call in Blighty a "white sauce", or in The Great Republic, "Béchamel Sauce". I suspect that the addition of banana fritters may be a British interpretation, and if so, I apologise. If any Southerners out there in cyberspace think that the following receipe is inaccurate, please email me, and I will gladly post up a correction.
Okay. That's that one out of the way. Here's The Greasy Spoon's take on Chicken Maryland. I've based this version on the recipe in Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham's excellent book, "The Prawn Cocktail Years". I can't recommend it enough:
Take some chicken thighs (an excellent and affordable cut, by the way), rip off the skin and dip them into seasoned flour, and then again into a bowl of beaten egg. Shake off the egg, and dip them into the seasoned flour for a second time. In a deep frying pan heat up 100g of unsalted butter and 75ml of sunflower oil, until frothy. Put in the floured chicken piece, and fry gently. The secret here is not to crowd the pan. If you do so, your chicken will start to stew, rather than fry, because of the fall in temperature. So, fry the chicken a few pieces at a time. On a lowish heat. It should take about half and hour. Make sure you turn the chicken pieces about half way through the cooking time.
In the meantime, mix together 100g sweetcorn (tinned is absolutely fine, to be frank, I can't detect any difference), two small egg yolks, and salt and pepper. Beat two egg whites until frothy, and gently fold them into the mixture. Add a tablespoon of baking powder, and about 50-75g of breadcrumbs, until it forms a thickish batter. Place to one side.
Take out the chicken pieces and keep them warm in a rack in a hot oven. Strain off the hot chicken oil, leaving just enough in the pan to fry the sweetcorn fritters. Drop tablespoons of the sweetcorn batter into the reserved hot oil, and fry for a couple of minutes on each side, until puffed and golden. Drain on kitchen paper, and keep warm in the oven with the chicken.
Take 100ml of chicken stock, and reduce it by three-quarters. Fry four small sliced bananas in unsalted butter, until golden, sprinkling them with some brown sugar as you do, so that they begin to caramelise. Grill some rashers of streaky bacon, until crisp. Pour 100ml of double cream into the reduced chicken stock, and bring it back to the boil. Reduce until slightly thickened, and squeeze in some lemon juice. Check the seasoning and stir in some freshly chopped flat parsley.
Arrange the fried chicken on a large plate with the sweetcorn and banana fritters, and crispy bacon pieces. Spoon the "gravy" over the fried chicken, and serve the rest in a sauce boat. Garnish with chopped flat parsley. That's it. Quite a lot of bother, in some ways; but strangely satisfying. A perenniel favourite.
Last Christmas or so, I wrote a post about a slightly weird recipe: "Ham Glazed in Coca-Cola". It's still one of my most popular posts, and as I'm currently getting increased hits (no doubt because of Thanksgiving), I'm going to give you the recipe again.
It doesn't sound that great, does it? However, as Coke is really just a very sugary, brown and fizzy syrup, there's no reason why it shouldn't work nicely with a lovely, juicy ham. And the recipe's an old favourite from the American Deep South, too- which is no bad thing. So, here's how you make it:
Put in a medium sized unsmoked gammon into a large pan. Add a peeled onion (for flavour), and then pour in a litre of coca-cola. Bring to the boil, put the lid back on, and turn down the heat. Let the ham braise in the liquid for 2 ½ hours.
Take the gammon out of the pan, and let it rest. Remove the skin and preheat your oven to 210˚C. In the meantime, mix up a glaze from 100g breadcrumbs, 100g brown muscovado sugar, two tablespoons of French Dijon Mustard, and a tablespoon of Colman's Mustard Powder. With a sharp knife, scour the gammon to make a criss-cross pattern. Stir in a spoonful or so of coca-cola into the sugar and mustard mixture, and then slap it onto the gammon.
Roast the gammon in the hot oven for about ten minutes, or until the glaze has cooked.
I'm writing this as the gloom descends on a Hallowe'en afternoon. I've always been fascinated by Hallowe'en: as a child in England, it was barely celebrated, apart from a few cartoons on the BBC and a spooky tale or so read out aloud at nursery school. I've been reading up on Hallowe'en and according to the Oxford Dictionary of Folklore, it's quite possible that all that pagan stuff about Celtic fire festivals and the like is a fantasy, invented by Sir James Frazer in the "Golden Bough", and that Hallowe'en's origins are, indeed, Christian and Scottish, where it was known as "Nutcrack Night". During the 19th century, Hallowe'en was associated with fortune telling and love divination: young girls would learn who their future husbands would be.
My grandmother taught me how to carve lanterns, but from turnips- rather than pumpkins. Recently, under American influence, Hallowee'en has become much more popular in England. We've just barricaded our front door and battened down the shutters in preparation for the annual onslaught: London street urchins hammering on the door and rattling the letterbox: "'ere, mister! we know you're there!"
Hallowe'en food should be spicy (especially with the Mexican Day of the Dead just around the corner) and I gather that in the American Deep South, devilled eggs are traditionally served. But I'm not keen on the idea of serving up stuffed chicken's eggs as a canapé. They're too large, and I think would be a bit clumsy, and even slightly Gothic. So I've adapted the idea, but using tiny quail's eggs, instead. This works much better and they were utterly delicious. We scoffed a plate of them this morning.
Place your quails eggs in a pan of cold water, and bring to the boil. Turn off the heat, put back the lid, and let them stand in the hot water for four minutes. Plunge the cooked eggs into a pan of cold water. To shell them, gently roll the eggs on a hard surface, so that the shells crack. You will find that the quail's eggs have a tougher membrane than chicken's eggs, and once you've carefully removed it, you'll find the shell easier to remove. But it's delicate work.
Slice the cooked eggs in half, and spoon out the cooked yolk and place in a mixing bowl. Add a light mayonnaise, a few dashes of Tabasco, a dollop of Dijon mustard, cayenne pepper and celery salt for seasoning. Whisk up the ingredients together until smooth. Using a piping bag, pipe the devilled mixture back into the quails egg halves.
Arrange on a plate, and sprinkle with finely chopped chives.
I've always found Sundays slightly depressing. I'm not sure exactly why this is. It might be a school thing; the hanging around waiting for Monday morning, the hanging around waiting for hotel bars to open. I'll explain. In the early 1980's it was still illegal to buy a drink on a Sunday, until I think, half past twelve, and on the occasions when my parents or grandparents took me out from boarding school, there was much driving around the sodden, empty Gloucestershire countryside- killing time. Surreal.
Joseph Losey captures the mood brilliantly in his 1967 film "Accident". There's a wonderful sequence in which Dirk Bogarde, playing a frustrated Oxford don on the verge of a mid-life crisis, hosts a languid Sunday lunch party, which degenerates into late afternoon, drunken stupor, revealing jealousies and half-concealed rivalries. Late August with wasps.
And there's all that Dickensy, tea and crumpets stuff on television. "The Antiques Roadshow", The BBC Tea-Time Period Drama (though I am currently loving "Downton Abbey" on ITV). It's all a bit mumsy, knowing and slightly gloomy isn't it? No, I don't like Sundays, and prefer the promise of a Friday evening or the zip of a breezy Saturday morning.
And what do people always serve you for a late Sunday afternoon lunch? Roast chicken. Without fail. And there's another thing I'm not keen on. You get invited for Sunday lunch; it's served up at about three in the afternoon. The result? Further hanging around as you become reaquainted with the gin bottle, and then a frustrating drive through a traffic-jam back to your dark and cold hovel very late in the evening. I was once invited to a lunch party in Wiltshire. Lunch wasn't served until about half past three in the afternoon; and ravenous, I went for a walk, and in desperation started eyeing up some rather juicy looking free-range chickens running around in a field.
So why not give the ubiquitous chicken and gravy a miss, and serve up a succulent, crispy roast duck with tangy orange sauce instead? A breath of fresh air.
This is the way I roast duck. As a method, it's a good one, and works.
Preheat your oven to 230C/450F/Gas mark 8. Prick a dressed duck all over and wipe the skin, so that it's dry. Rub salt and pepper over it, and sprinkle some of the salt and pepper into the cavity. Place the duck on a wire rack, and then put the rack within a baking tray. This will enable hot air to circulate underneath the duck, and most importantly will let you catch the duck fat as it drips off; and there's going to be quite a bit of fat.
Roast in the oven for twenty minutes, and then turn the temperature down to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Roast for a further forty minutes, or until you think it is ready. The skin should be crispy, and the meat succulent. As the duck roasts, you will find that the tray underneath will fill up with hot fat. It's most important that you should remove this at regular intervals, otherwise the fat will start to smoke, and you'll think that your oven's on fire.
The orange sauce is easy. I pour orange juice into a smallish pan, add a bit of chicken stock, a dash of white balsamic vinegar, about two tablespoons of honey, grated orange zest and star anise. Heat and let it bubble away for a minute or so. Next add a generous slug of Grand Marnier and reduce the sauce by about half on a high heat. To thicken up the sauce, mix up a teaspoon of arrowroot with water to form a slurry and stir it in. Whisk in a knob of butter, which will give the sauce a nice glaze. Remove the star anise before serving. The sauce should be reasonably thin.
Butternut squash turned up in our Abel and Cole vegetable box last week, and I was wondering what to do with it: this recipe worked well. It's simple- and that's often a good thing.
First you need to slice up a red onion and fry it gently in oil and butter. When the onion's soft, turn down the heat to a low setting and add somechorizo sausage, chopped up into cubes. The chorizo should take about ten to fifteen minutes to cook.
In the meantime, remove the skin from a butternut squash, and cut it in half. You will find that butternut squash is quite hard in texture, and sometimes needs a bit of effort to cut up. Chop it into small chunks and cook it gently in a separate pan with butter, first seasoning it with a few pinches of nutmeg and some decent black pepper.
Go back to the chorizo and add some crushed garlic. This will take a few minutes to cook. Make sure it doesn't burn.
Finally, remove the cooked chorizo, red onions and garlic and place them into a clean pan. Add the cooked butternut squash, and some baby tomatoes, which you've previously roasted whole in the oven. Warm the pan through, check the seasoning and finish the dish off with some chopped coriander and a squeeze of lemon.
The secret with this recipe is that the three main ingredients are cooked separately (ratatouille style) in their own juices, and then just gently folded together at the end of the cooking. Butternut squash has a delicious, slightly musty, autumnal taste and you don't want that to be overpowered by all those spicy paprika flavours going on in the chorizo.
There's a sudden nip in the air, and with October just around the corner, I think Irish Stew could be just the ticket.
Traditionally, Irish Stew consists of just lamb or mutton, onions, potatoes and water. Purists will tell you that carrots should not be added, but I was having a chat with an Irish friend about this recently, and she insisted that she includes carrots in her version. The secret with Irish Stew (as with any stew), is to cook it for a long time at a low temperature. You want the meat to break down, and the potato to disintegrate slightly- so that it thickens up the sauce.
Take a neck of lamb, and chop it up into chunks. Neck of lamb has to be one of my all-time favourite cuts. It's cheap, and cooks beautifully, becoming soft enough, after an hour or so of slowish cooking, to cut with a fork.
Brown the lamb in a pan with a knob of unsalted butter and a teaspoon of oil. The oil will help to stop the pan burning. Transfer the browned lamb to a casserole dish.
Next sauté some sliced onions in the butter, and once they've cooked add them to the casserole. Peel some carrots, and slice them into quarters, lengthways. Add them to the casserole- on top of the onions. The aim is to build up your vegetables in layers. Add another layer of onions. Finally, add some peeled potatoes, which you have chopped into quarters, lengthways. Season with sea salt and ground black pepper.
Now pour in some stock (ideally lamb stock if you have it, other meat stocks will be fine) and add a sprig of thyme. Cook the casserole in a low to medium oven, until the lamb is tender and on the point of breaking down. You want the potatoes and carrots to remain intact, but yet at the same time, to become slightly soft around the edges. On a low heat this could take up to two hours, so check the stew from time to time.
When you reckon its done, take the casserole out of the oven, and have a look at it. There's a strong chance that you will have a thin sauce, so I would suggest that you thicken it up: spoon out the meat and vegetables and reserve. Pour the sauce through a sieve into a clean pan and mix in a beurre manié (flour and butter mixed into a ball), until the sauce is smooth and velvety. Bubble away for a few minutes. The sauce will thicken.
Pour it back over the lamb and vegetables. Check the seasoning, and add more salt and pepper if it's needed. Finally, serve with generous handfuls of chopped parsley.
Simple, but utterly wholesome and surprisingly satisfying. Don't stint on the parsley: it can take it.
Last Christmas or so, I wrote a post about a slightly weird recipe: "Ham Glazed in Coca-Cola". It's still one of my most popular posts, and as I'm currently getting increased hits (no doubt because of Thanksgiving) I'm going to give you the recipe again.
It doesn't sound that great, does it? However, as Coke is really just a very sugary, brown and fizzy syrup, there's no reason why it shouldn't work nicely with a lovely, juicy ham. And the recipe's an old favourite from the American Deep South, too. So, here's how you make it:
Put in a medium sized gammon into a large pan. Add a peeled onion (for flavour), and then pour in a litre of coca-cola. Bring to the boil, put the lid back on, and turn down the heat. Let the ham braise in the liquid for 2 ½ hours.
Take the gammon out of the pan, and let it rest. Remove the skin and preheat your oven to 210˚C. In the meantime, mix up a glaze from 100g breadcrumbs, 100g brown muscovado sugar, two tablespoons of French Dijon Mustard, and a tablespoon of Colman's Mustard Powder. Stir in a spoonful or so of coca-cola to the mixture, and then slap it onto the gammon.
Roast the gammon in the hot oven for about ten minutes, or until the glaze has cooked.
Yesterday an old friend came over to our new house for dinner. I decided to make a Cajun duck gumbo. Or at least, I thought I did, as the resulting effort, although relatively appetising, tasted nothing like the genuine dish. So I did some research:
Gumbo is a stew or soup popular in Louisiana and the Southern States of America. It's probably got okra in it, and most importantly, the "holy trinity" of diced onions, green peppers and celery. It's also thickened at the beginning by a roux. Now, this is not just any old roux. There's a whole sub-culture of check-shirted, bearded roux experts out there, ready to tell you at a drop of a hat that your roux isn't dark enough, and that you should have stirred it one hundred and one times anti-clockwise, and in slow-motion.
Forget your namby-pamby Cordon Bleu type rouxs made with a bit of butter and a genteel sprinkling of flour, these Cajun rouxs are macho affairs, made by heating cups of oil to a high temperature in old tin pans, and then stirring in cups of flour, until the liquid roux turns a mahogany colour, or even in some cases almost black. If you've got time, have a look at this excellent website, the Southern Gumbo Trail- which will tell you how to make authentic "Cajun Napalm".
Here's my recipe for Cajun Duck Gumbo:
Heat a heavy pan until it's smokin' hot. Pour in a cup of oil. Let it get hot, then turn down the heat to a low flame. Gradually whisk in a cup and a half of white flour, whisking it the whole time to make sure it doesn't burn. If you cook the roux on too high a heat, not only might it burn, but the oil might separate from the flour. Keep on whisking. I think it's important to have more flour than oil: you want the roux to be slightly sloppy, but you don't want an oil-slick.
You will see that as the flour cooks, the colour will start to turn brown. Keep on stirring. Your goal is to end up with a dark brown, nutty flavoured roux with the consistency of a thick chocolate sauce. Which hasn't burnt. This might take up to half and hour to achieve, but you will end up with an extremely worthy base for your gumbo. Oh and by the way, it's not called "Cajun Napalm" for nothing. Be extremely careful: if you splash a bit of the roux on your skin, it's going to hurt. As I write this, I'm suffering from some darn nasty burns on my fingers, which I wouldn't wish on anyone.
Now it's time to add the "holy trinity" of diced green peppers, onions and celery. Stir it in, and sauté for around five minutes. Add some chopped garlic. Stir. Throw in some chopped up okra. Turn the heat up, and stir the okra in until it's cooked properly, and become less "stringy" and gelatinous. The okra will thicken up the mixture almost immediately. You will see tiny "strings", looking a bit like miniscule white optic fibres. You need to cook the okra until these strings disappear.
Next, add shrimps (prawns), sliced smoked sausage and small chunks of duck. Keep on stirring as it cooks. After about another ten minutes or so, pour in some stock. I used a lovely clear duck stock which I had made by using a very low heat, and then skimming off the scum as it rose to the surface.
Simmer gently for about twenty minutes until the gumbo thickens up. Season to taste and add a generous slug of Tabasco and a teaspoon or so of Cayenne Pepper. Finish off the dish with some chopped parsley, and serve it on a bowl of steamed rice. The gumbo should be a dark brown colour, and that agonising half hour or so of roux stirring will give a complex, deep hickory flavour to the dish.
Here's a post I wrote last year about pheasant casserole. It's nostalgic, comfort food at its best, evocative of the English Countryside in autumn:
Pheasant Casserole! I can't think of anything more suitable for a cold November. I once had it at a Sunday lunch party, served with a jug of foamy Black Velvet- and this worked surprisingly well. If you don't know anyone who shoots, pheasant are amazingly cheap to buy, either from your local butcher or decent supermarket such as Waitrose.
Believe me, I've plucked a few pheasants in my time, and I have to say that I'm not sure that it's worth the hassle, when you can a) get the butcher to pluck them for you (and do a much better job) or b) buy them from the shops, ready plucked, for a few quid.
Here's my family recipe for pheasant casserole (from The ABC of Tried and Tested Recipes), which I've adapted slightly from the original version.
Take a large cock pheasant and fry it in butter and oil, until lightly browned. Add a dash of cognac, and flambé it quickly until the flames die down. Remove the pheasant and put it into a casserole.
In the same pan, fry some chopped bacon, diced celery and carrots cut into batons. Add two tablespoons of flour, and cook. After a few minutes pour in half a bottle of red wine (I suggest using a Burgundy or a Rhone) and top up with some chicken or game stock.
Bring to the boil, and simmer gently so that the alcohol burns off. Pour it over the pheasant in the casserole and add 50g button mushrooms and 175g button or baby onions.
Cook in a moderate oven for just over an hour. Pheasant has a tendency to get dry and stringy very quickly, so I've cut down the cooking time. I'm sure you'll get the drift: you want lots of sauce, and you need to make sure that you don't over cook the pheasant.
When you reckon the pheasant is ready, take the casserole out of the oven and let it cool down. Lift out the pheasant and carve it up: cut the legs and wings off and carve the breasts. Place the carved meat in a flat casserole dish with the sliced breasts in the centre, surrounded by the legs and the wings. Place the vegetables, mushrooms and onions over the pheasant.
Strain off the sauce through a sieve into a small sauce pan- this will get rid of all the nasty bits and pieces. Add two teaspoons of redcurrant jelly to the sauce and chuck in some crushed juniper berries. I'm currently crazy about juniper (which, of course, is used to flavour gin). It has a rich, pine-nut, woodlandly sort of taste and works beautifully with game. Check the seasoning. When the sauce is at the right consistency, pour it back over the pheasant.
London this morning is grey and overcast, the atmosphere heavy with an oppressive gloom. It's even slightly foggy. That's one of the odd things about this city of muffin men and dancing chimney sweeps: the way the weather changes at a drop of a hat; yesterday for example, we enjoyed the most glorious, warm, autumnal day bathed in a golden light. Now, I don't usually write about the weather (finding the subject, like cricket, slightly tiresome) and I would dispute the idea that the British are a "weather-obsessed" people. This dubious award goes to the Americans. Have you ever noticed how the Americans are obsessed with temperature? I once asked an American how he was, and was told "twenty three degrees".
Anyway. To alleviate all this gloom, I've suddenly got this thing about Irish Stew. Traditionally, Irish Stew consists of just lamb or mutton; onions, potatoes and water. Purists will tell you that carrots should not be added, but I was having a chat with an Irish friend about this recently, and she insisted that she includes carrots in her version. The secret with Irish Stew (as indeed with any stew), is to cook it for a long time at a low temperature. You want the meat to break down, so that it's hanging off the bone, and the potato to slightly disintegrate, so that it thickens the sauce.
Take some Lamb Chops, and brown them in a pan with a knob of unsalted butter. Transfer them to a casserole dish. Next, sauté some sliced onions in the butter, and when they're cooked add them to the casserole. Peel some carrots, and slice them into quarters, lengthways. Add them to the casserole- on top of the onions. The aim is to build up your vegetables in layers. Add another layer of onions. Finally, add some peeled potatoes, which you have chopped into quarters, lengthways. Season with sea saltand ground black pepper.
Now pour in some stock (ideally lamb stock if you have it), and add a sprig of thyme. Cook the casserole in a low to medium oven, until the lamb is cooked properly (ie just about to fall off the bone), and the sauce is reasonably thick. On a low heat this may take at least two hours.
Take the casserole out of the oven, and have a look at it. If you want to thicken the sauce, you could always add a roux- which is butter and flour mixed together to form a small ball. Check the seasoning, and add more salt and pepper if it's needed. Finally, serve with a generous amount of chopped parsley.
With the nights drawing in, and winter just around the corner, there's nothing more welcoming than a humble, everyday cabbage. Cabbage is one of those vegetables which everyone thinks they know how to cook, but in fact, is actually quite hard to get right.
There seems to be a general assumption amongst the cognescenti that cabbage should be cooked to a crunchy texture; well, Up to a Point, Lord Copper: quite often this just means that the cabbage is undercooked- and you'll encounter this in Gastro Pubs up and down the kingdom.
On the other hand, I have nausea-inducing memories of the cabbage as served up to us at Dotheboy's Hall: this involved boiling water, a kitchen timer set to four and a half hours, the colour yellow, and a terrifying smell reminiscent of the Slough Gasworks. In the world of cabbage, you just can't win.
There are two methods of cooking cabbage. With the "fast-cook" method you slice up your cabbage and plunge it into rapidly boiling salted water. When it's cooked (difficult one to get right, that- you want it crunchy, yet not too crunchy), take it out of the pan and drain it in ice-cold water. This will help to set the colour green. Throw it into a small pan, warm it in butter and season to taste. Make sure that all the water has drained off properly. As I'm impatient (and also greedy), I have a tendency to do this in a rush (a "bull in a china shop", as my piano tutor used to say) and end up with nasty pools of water floating around on the plate.
The second method is the "slow-cook" or braising method, as favoured by the French (and The Greasy Spoon's grandmother). Yes, the cabbage will go yellow, and it will smell of sulphur, but if it's cooked very, very slowly, this might (just about) be a good thing. Simon Hopkinson, in his excellent book Roast Chicken and Other Stories, mentions John Tovey's recipe in which the cabbage is braised very slowly in butter, white wine and juniper berries. This sounds like the sort of dish they serve in Alsace, and my instincts tell me that a Reisling or Gewürztraminer would be just the ticket.
I've also found an old-fashioned French recipe for "Cabbage Soup with Diced Bacon". Chop up a green cabbage into small pieces and rinse it in vinegar and water. You then fry some chopped garlic in butter, and add diced bacon. After a few minutes add the cabbage and pour in some chicken stock. Simmer the soup very slowly for up to an hour. Serve in earthenware tureens with croutons sprinkled on the top.
If you're going to use the "slow-cook" method, a heat diffuser might be a good plan. This is a simple device which you place directly on top of the gas hob, and spreads the heat. It will allow you to cook food at a snail's pace.
Pheasant Casserole! I can't think of anything more suitable for a cold November. I once had it at a Sunday lunch party, served with a jug of foamy Black Velvet- and this worked surprisingly well. If you don't know anyone who shoots, pheasant are amazingly cheap to buy, either from your local butcher or decent supermarket such as Waitrose. I've plucked a few pheasants in my time, and I have to say that I'm not sure that it's worth the hassle, when you can a) get the butcher to pluck them for you (and do a much better job) or b) buy them from the shops, ready plucked, for a few quid.
Here's my family recipe for pheasant casserole (from The ABC of Tried and Tested Recipes), which I've adapted slightly from the original version. Take a large cock pheasant and fry it in butter and oil, until lightly browned. Add a dash of cognac, and flambé it quickly until the flames die down. Remove the pheasant and put it into a casserole.
In the same pan, fry some chopped bacon, diced celery and carrots cut into batons. Add two tablespoons of flour, and cook. After a few minutes pour in half a bottle of red wine (I suggest using a Burgundy or a Rhone) and top up with some chicken stock.
Bring to the boil, and simmer gently so that the alcohol burns off. Pour it over the pheasant in the casserole and add 50g button mushrooms and 175g button or baby onions.
Cook in a moderate oven for just over an hour. Pheasant has a tendency to get dry and stringy very quickly, so I've cut down the cooking time. I'm sure you'll get the drift: you want lots of sauce, and you need to make sure that you don't over cook the pheasant.
When you reckon the pheasant is ready, take the casserole out of the oven and let it cool down. Lift out the pheasant and carve it up: cut the legs and wings off and carve the breasts. Place the carved meat in a flat casserole dish with the sliced breasts in the centre, surrounded by the legs and the wings. Place the vegetables, mushrooms and onions over the pheasant.
Strain off the sauce through a sieve into a small sauce pan- this will get rid of all the nasty bits and pieces. Add two teaspoons of redcurrant jelly to the sauce and chuck in some crushed juniper berries. I'm currently crazy about juniper (which, of course, is used to flavour gin). It has a rich, pine-nut, woodlandly sort of taste and works beautifully with game. Check the seasoning. When the sauce is at the right consistency, pour it back over the pheasant.
Until recently Hallowe'en wasn't particularly celebrated in the British Isles. The odd mask might have appeared in the local newsagents, and children at school might have peformed some sort of spooky play at school, but that was about it. Instead, the emphasis, at this time of year, was on Guy Fawkes Night, and that meant private bonfire parties, fireworks, bangers and "Penny for the Guy" on the Fifth of November.
For the celebrations tonight, why don't you fill up your hip flask with a hot bullshot cocktail? Normally this is drunk cold, on ice; but I see no reason why it shouldn't be served hot (in a similar fashion to mulled wine or cider) and I have a sneaky suspicion that you might find it even better this way.
Empty a tin of beef consommé soup into a large pan. Pour in a large slug of vodka and add a dash of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce, a squeeze of lemon juice, a pinch of celery salt, and finish it off by seasoning it with salt and pepper.
Warm up the bullshot on a medium heat, making sure that you don't boil it. If you've got guests, I would suggest serving it in small coffee cans or cups. If you're going to the Park, I would urge you to fill up your hip-flask and pass it around.
Here's a recipe for an autumnal chicken and mushroom dish that Bon Viveur rather grandly called Poulet Forestière, published by The Daily Telegraph in 1964. I make it often. If the cooking techniques seem slightly weird - that's the scary Fanny Cradock and 1960s cookery for you. I would probably flambé the chicken and mushrooms in the cognac to burn off the alcohol (rather then add it neat towards the end as in the original recipe) and also sauté the mushrooms separately (rather then cooking them with the chicken, and risking their disintegration).
Of course, the trouble with this sort of recipe is that it could turn out a trifle bland if you use bog-standard ingredients. To counter-act this, I would suggest that you use meaty, brown field mushrooms (rather than those flavourless button mushroom things), an organic, free-range chicken; be generous on the cognac and make sure that the dish is properly seasoned with a quality sea-salt and lots of chunky black pepper.
Cut up a decent free range chicken, and dredge the pieces in flour, seasoned with sea salt and pepper. Sauté the pieces in unsalted butter (making sure you don't crowd the pan- otherwise the chicken will boil, rather than fry), sauté some nice field mushrooms, and then simmer both the chicken pieces and the mushrooms in a casserole dish with chicken stock and white wine in a medium oven for about three quarters of an hour.
Arrange the chicken and mushroom in a serving dish, and strain off the cooking liquor into a small pan. Thicken it up with a beurre manié (that just means a flour and butter roux), a tablespoon of cognac, and a teacup of cream. Reduce slightly until thick, check the seasoning and then pour the sauce back over the chicken and mushrooms.
Johnnie and Fanny plug their latest book (starts at 1.01), British television ad, 1970
As it's Hallowe'en, I've decided to come up with an idea suitable for this most American of festivals. Here in London, it's also suddenly cold and frosty. I think this recipe would work well. I've gone for butternut squash rather than pumpkin. It's also simple- and that's no bad thing.
Slice up a red onion and fry it gently in oil and butter. When the onion's soft, turn down the heat to a low setting and add some chorizo sausage, chopped up into cubes. The chorizo should take about ten to fifteen minutes to cook.
In the meantime, remove the skin from a butternut squash, and cut it in half. Chop the squash into small chunks and cook it gently in a separate pan with butter, first seasoning it with a few pinches of nutmeg and some decent black pepper.
Go back to the chorizo and add some crushed garlic. This will take a few minutes to cook. Make sure it doesn't burn.
Finally, remove the cooked chorizo, red onions and garlic and place them into a clean pan. Add the cooked butternut squash, and some baby tomatoes, which you've previously roasted whole in the oven. Warm the pan through, check the seasoning and finish the dish off with some chopped coriander and a squeeze of lemon.
The secret with this recipe is that the three main ingredients are cooked separately in their own juices, and then just gently folded together at the end. Butternut squash has a delicious, slightly musty, autumnal taste and you don't want that to be overpowered by the spicy paprika flavours going on in the chorizo.
London, at this time of year, gets pretty cold and wet, with a general dampness that chills you to the bone. To counter this, I've come up with a recipe for a thick mushroom soup laced with garlic and parsley. One of the things that I like about this version is that the soup is thickened with bread- and the result is spectacular.
Melt some unsalted butter in a pan, and add some chopped up mushrooms. I like to use brown field mushrooms, which I've chopped up roughly, stalks and all. Stew them gently for about five minutes. Next, add some chopped garlic. Cook it for a bit.
Get hold of some bread, which you've previously soaked in milk. Squeeze out the surplus milk, and add the bread, in small pieces, to the mushrooms and the garlic. Now you can add some chicken stock, and a pinch of nutmeg.
Bring to the boil, and then simmer for about fifteen minutes. When it has cooked through, put the soup into a Magimix or blender, and give it a whizz. Put the soup back into the pan, add some double cream, and masses of chopped parsley. All you have to do now, is heat it up again and eat it.
I'd like to shout the cause for Savouries from the rooftops of Olde London! Not really being a pudding sort of person, I'm a huge fan. Savouries are a peculiarly English sort of thing, rarely served here anymore (apart from at crusty old-fashioned London clubs), and, I doubt very much, anywhere else in the world.
What are they? They were (or are) a popular- and rather masculine- substitute for the pudding course, and usually involved some form of toast, mushroom, egg or smoked fish, and then flavoured with spicy stuff like Lea & Perrins, and Cayenne Pepper.
I've taken two recipes from Arabella Boxer's "Book of English Food". This gem of a book is all about English food from the 1920's and 1930's. For some reason, it's almost impossible to find (was the print run miniscule?), and I had to pay a crazy amount on the internet for a copy- and it took me about six months to track one down.
Anyway, if you're tempted to make a savoury; here's how you do it: First Mushrooms on Toast (or "Champignons en Croute", as they rather cheekily used to call it at The Gasworks Restaurant, Chelsea, circa 1985):
Take some slices of white bread, remove the crusts, and then cut them into small to medium sized squares. Spread both sides very thinly with butter, and then bake them for 10-15 minutes on your oven rack at 400 F (200 C), until they are golden and crisp. Frankly, it might be easier to just fry them in olive oil in a pan. Chop up some decent brown mushrooms and fry them in butter for several minutes until they are soft. Lots of water should come out- you want to drain that off.
Next, make a classic white sauce. You should remember this from other posts: a knob of butter in the pan, flour- to make a roux, then milk and a bit of stock, salt and pepper. You want the white sauce to have a creamy consistency. Mix it in with the mushrooms, and add chopped parsley, and a splash of Lea & Perrins. Pour the mushroom mixture onto the fried bread squares, and then top off the dish with a grilled mushroom. You can serve them on a plate with a watercress garnish.
The other recipe is for Scotch Woodcock. This has nothing to do with Woodcock, game, or birds of the feathered variety. You take some anchovy fillets, and soak them in milk for about ten minutes. Make some fried bread squares (as before). Next, mix up some scrambled eggs the classic way- remember, just butter and eggs on a very low heat, and definitely no milk. But stir in some cream, salt and pepper when they are almost done. Pile the creamy scrambled eggs onto the fried bread, top them with two anchovy fillets in a cross pattern, and garnish with capers and a bit of watercress.
You know, here in Britain we eat strange things: Haggis, Spotted Dick, Deep Fried Mars Bars in Batter, Stargazey Pie, Bread and Butter Pudding, and Welsh Rabbit. Before all you animal lovers out there in cyberspace bombard me with protest emails, I have to stress that Welsh Rabbit is actually a toast and cheese dish. No-one is exactly sure why it's called this. Some people call it Welsh Rarebit. If you want to make it, it's easy; and perfect as a late night supper snack or TV Dinner.
Here's how I do it: Melt some butter in a small pan. Grate in some cheese. A strong, mature Cheddar is perfect. (Incidentally, in case you didn't know, Cheddar is a town in Somerset, England; and Cheddar is probably our most famous cheese; and cheese is the one thing we probably do as well as, if not better than the French). Next add a dollop of mustard (has to be tangy Colman's, doesn't it?); a dash of Lea & Perrins, and a slug of Guinness.
Meanwhile toast some brown bread, and pour the melted cheese mixture over it. Season with salt and pepper, and then cut the bread into fingers. Finish the dish off by flashing it under the grill for a minute or so. Perfect if you're about to slob out in front of Saturday Night television.
I've had fun researching suitable food for Hallowe'en. Along the way, I discovered Colcannon, a traditional kale and potato dish which is eaten in Ireland, and Gingerbread Husbands, which were eaten by young village girls to make sure they found a husband. And then I hit upon the brilliant idea of Black Bean Soup. It's spicy, warming, velvety, er- black, and with Mexican hints suitable for the Day of the Dead festival on November 2nd, too. Here's my version:
You can either use tinned black beans (which are hard to find in the UK), or dried beans which you need to soak overnight in cold water. In a pan, cook some chopped smoked bacon in butter for a few minutes. Next, stir in a chopped onion, chopped carrot, and two crushed cloves of garlic. It might also be a good plan to throw in a finely chopped green chili. One of those fiendishly hot small ones. I'll leave that up to you.
Next, you need to add cumin. If you've got time, you can dry-roast some cumin seeds in a hot frying pan, and then when they're popping, take them out and crush them in a pestle and morter. Otherwise you could use powdered cumin. Add the cumin to the pan, and stir in. Cook for a few moments. Tip in the black beans, some chicken stock, and a liberal dash of my favourite Tabasco Sauce.
Simmer on a very low heat with the lid on for about an hour and a half. You want the soup to be thick and velvety. The black beans should thicken everything up. Serve with sour cream, and chopped chives. A spicy Mexican Salsa would be good too.
Luckily, I'm not going to be at home tonight. In recent years, the mean streets of Battersea have become full of roaming gangs of ghouls, witches, Frankensteins and mad axe murderers on Hallowe'en Night. Yup, Tick or Treating has suddenly become big over here. It was quite amusing at first, but last year I found myself under siege, and had to retreat to the back of the house, while the street urchins shouted through my letter box: " 'ere Mishter...we know you're in there", or words to that effect. Well, tonight kiddos, you ain't getting anything from me. That nice Mr Scrooge in Number 43...
Yesterday I admitted that I didn't like the taste of pumpkin. Several years ago, in a moment of madness, I tried to make pumpkin soup from the remains of a jack o' lantern. It was disgusting. I've learnt since then that many of the jack o' lantern pumpkin varieties are inedible, so I expect I'm being unfair, and probably escaped a trip down to casualty with food poisoning.
Anyway, I've had a comment from the mysterious "nlm", who has come up with a brilliant recipe for Pumpkin Chutney. This is similar to a local chutney made in India. Here's how you make it.
Chop up 2.7kg of pumpkin flesh into cubes. Put it into a bowl and sprinkle with Maldon Salt. Leave it overnight. The salt will draw out all the juices. The next morning drain off all the surplus water, rinse the pumpkin, and drain again.
Next peel three oranges, and two lemons, removing all the skin, pips, and pith. Tip them into a large pan along with the pumpkin. Add 500g of light muscovado sugar, and 600ml of cider vinegar. Bring to the boil, and then simmer for forty minutes. When it's ready, pour into sterilised jars. You can sterilise your chutney jars by "cooking" them in the oven first, but at a lowish heat so that the glass doesn't shatter.
I haven't tried this chutney yet, but I like its simplicity- and that's often the best way. The balance between the salt, sugar, and acidity sounds spot on too. I have no idea how long it would last for- but I suspect several weeks, if not a month or so. The salt should act as a preservative. And it makes a change from the dreaded Pumpkin Pie.
I was initially planning to write about pheasant (the season started on October 1st), but having a limited amount of time, I ended up buying some guineafowl breasts from my local supermarket. Guineafowl originally came from Africa, and they're strange looking critters. I've included a photograph of one below, and this is what they look like when they're on your plate, as above.
Like pheasant, guineafowl can be a trifle dry, and you need to take care not to overcook it, otherwise the flesh can get a bit stringy.
So what did I do with the guineafowl I bought? Thinking about it, I created an upmarket version of chicken n' chips. Yup, guineafowl can taste a bit like chicken- but it's got more flavour, and certainly, it's gamier in taste.
Here's my recipe for "Guineafowl in a Cognac and Chive Sauce with Parsnip Chips":
I seasoned the guineafowl breasts with sea salt and black pepper, and then fried them in oil and butter. The secret is to make sure they are well-browned, but not overcooked. You will need to cook them on a medium heat; to sear the outside, but at the same time, ensuring that the inside is not overcooked. Next, I flambéed them in cognac.
Flambe-ing (is that a word?) is always fun. You need to put a generous slug of brandy into the pan, and then tip the pan towards the flame- that is, if you've got gas. Woosh. Up to your eyebrows. In effect, you are burning off the alcohol and the fats (as well as your eyebrows) and leaving a subtle taste behind in the pan.
The breasts were removed from the pan and kept them warm. Into the pan went some stock, and when that was reduced, some single cream. Leave on the heat, let it bubble and reduce some more. You will end up with a thick creamy cognac sauce. Garnish with chopped chives.
The Parsnip Chips were easy. Take some parsnips and peel them. Next, slice them into thin strips or batons (but first taking out the woody core bit in the middle). Par-boil them in water. This just means placing them in a pan of cold water, and bringing it to the boil, so that they are only partially cooked. Take them out of the water and pat them dry. Sprinkle them with sea salt. Fry them in oil. For this, I used a wok, which worked perfectly well.
When they are only slightly golden, remove them; pat them dry again, and let them cool down. Finally, finish off by re-frying in the hot oil. That way you will end up with perfectly crispy chips. Watch them like a hawk, though, to make sure they don't burn. And I think parsnip chips are infinitely preferable to the ordinary potato version. But then, strangely, I loathe mashed potato- but that's a long story...
It's that time of year again. Here in the gloomy streets of London, the nights are drawing in, and a sniff of woodsmoke is in the air. Before we know it, Bonfire Night and Hallowe'en will be upon us. And what better than a warming onion soup laced with cider?
Here's how you make it. First, you need to understand that onions need a great deal of cooking before they become palatable. I don't care what your cookery books say; you will have to trust me on this. You need to slice some onions. Throw a few knobs of unsalted butter into a pan. Now cook the onions. It's probably better if you've sliced them thinly.
Add some thyme. I'm lucky enough to have a vigorous plant thriving on my kitchen windowsill. Let the onions cook well until they are soft, but not burnt or brown. So you will want to use a low heat. Now stir in some flour and let that cook.
Pour in a good slug (I love that word) of cider. I used a dryish West Country Organic Cider that I found in a local shop. At this stage, it's important to let the cider bubble- to boil off the alcohol. Okay, we all love a good dram of whisky at the right moment, but I find that alcohol needs to be boiled off in cooking- otherwise you are left with a nasty bitter taste.
Now add some stock (chicken or vegetable is fine, home-made or reduced-salt Marigold Bouillon powder would be ideal). Cook the soup on a low heat. Like mad. Mine took over an hour before the onions were cooked properly.
When that's done, lower the heat and add a dollop of single cream, (double cream is likely to curdle). If you are using single cream and you don't lower the heat, you run the risk of the soup curdling. Season with a decent salt, and ground chunky black pepper to taste. That's it. And if it's cooked properly, it's surprisingly subtle and smooth.
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