The Greasy Spoon | Food & Culture

Too Many Christmas Trees?

 

Steed contemplates the joy of a 1960’s Christmas, “Too Many Christmas Trees”, The Avengers, 1965

 

Fed up with Christmas?  Had enough?  Can’t wait to return to the Blacking Factory?  Does the Counting House call?  Funnily enough, I’m rather fond of this time of year, the ‘in-between’ bit, I mean. The raw, midwinter weather of Boxing Day, with its sporting traditions: hunting, shooting, betting, and the racing on Channel Four. And then the run-up to the New Year; when the Christmas tree’s still up (just!), social media shuts down and your email feed collapses into a meaningless trickle. And you’re left alone. With a fabulous wife and a shoe-munching whippet; a bottle of Veuve yellow label and an old black and white movie. 

London becomes a ghost town: London for Londoners; the deserted streets remind me of old black and white episodes from The Avengers. How I used to love that series!  My all-time favourite episode has to be Too Many Christmas Trees, in which Steed and Mrs Peel spend Christmas at the Gothick country house of a nutcase obsessed with Dickens and Mrs Peel dresses up as a cheeky Oliver Twist. 

Driven by the great god Mammon which everybody, these days, seems to worship without question, the modern focus is on the run-up to Christmas: decorations appear in the London shops while the leaves still cling to the branches of the great planes trees in Berkeley Square.

Historically, of course, the twelve days of Christmas start on Christmas Day and ends on January 5th, the Epiphany (January 6th), or even quite possibly, on January 7th, which as the erudite readership of the Spoon knows, is the date of the Russian Orthodox Christmas. I’ve never worked out in my head which is the right day (I’m counting aloud on my fingers as I type) so please feel free to put me right, those of you prepared to confess to a pedantic streak.

Food at this time of year is also a good thing. After all that turkey, all that goose, the soggy Christmas pudding, the migraine-inducing mulled wine and the sulphurous brussel sprout, Something Light is the order of the day.

I’ve cooked my usual cider and honey glazed Christmas Ham (tweaking a recipe issued by the wonder that is Sarah Raven), and once I’ve finished this post, will start making a traditional Germanic Herring Salad. Mrs Aitch has also discovered Forman’s Smoked Salmon pate on the shelves of our local Waitrose in Nine Elms; outstandingly delicious. I cannot stress how addictive this stuff is. 

 

Tamasin Day-Lewis wrote a fascinating article in the Telegraph about H. Forman & Son, the only surviving East End smokery. The tradition of smoking salmon was brought to London by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in the late 19th century. Scottish smoked salmon only took off later, following developments in fish farming.

But, sorry Scotland, if you want the Real McCoy, Forman’s smokery is the place to go. Known for its “London Cure”, Forman’s uses dry salt rather than chemical brine and stretches the fish to improve the texture with a drip-dry effect.

And so to their Smoked Salmon Pate: it’s amazingly creamy in texture and has a lovely, savoury taste. I see that they make it with Mascarpone cheese, which, I think adds to the creamy taste. Their superior concoction also includes unsalted butter, natural yoghurt, dill and shallots.

Tamasin Day-Lewis gives a recipe to create something similar for yourself, but to be honest, I am such a fan of Forman’s smoked salmon pate, it might be a good plan to hurry along to your local supermarket (both Waitrose and Sainsbury’s stock it) and bag a tub or two for yourself. While stocks last.

 

 

Make Your Own Gentleman’s Relish

 

F. E. Smith by Sir Leslie Ward “Spy”, for Vanity Fair, 1906

 

It’s probably never occurred to you that you can make your very own Gentlemans’ Relish (aka Patum Peperium), but indeed you can- or at least something that tastes pretty similar. Gentleman’s Relish was invented in 1828 by John Osborn. Not that you need reminding, but it’s a savoury anchovy paste with a strong, salty, slightly fishy taste. Bags of umami. Elsenham Foods still make the original version, which contains a secret ingredient, apparently known to only one employee. 

The Daily Telegraph gave a recipe last week: 400g butter, 200g anchovies, a heaped teaspoon of cayenne and thyme leaves are whizzed up in your magimix, and then spooned out into little kilner jars. Brilliant idea if you’re looking for a charming, inexpensive Christmas present. 

And here’s a recipe from Hawksmoor Restaurant: Whizz up: 125g tinned anchovies, 250g unsalted butter, pinch of cayenne, pinch ground nutmeg, pinch black pepper, pinch ground cinammon, 25ml fresh lemon juice, 25ml Worcestershire Sauce, 25ml water (optional). 

Excellent spread on hot toast, mixed into scrambled eggs or topping off a steak. It will keep for a few days in your ‘fridge and freezes well. If you roll it up, sausage-like, before freezing, you’ll be able to slice off a round to have with your steak.

 

Dinner with Rasputin

 

 

Researching the life of the remarkable Joseph Vecchi, (restauranteur and bon vivant), I came across an intriguing post featured on the Romanov history website, The Alexander Palace Time Machine.

Joseph Vecchi managed several distinguished restaurants including Claridges; the Kaiserhof, Berlin; the Astoria, St Petersburg and the legendary Hungaria in Lower Regent Street. His autobiography, My Tavern is My Drum (published 1948) includes a fascinating eye-witness account of an all-girl (“the beauty and power of feminine Russia”) dinner party held in honour of Rasputin:

"The Princess X's party in honour of Rasputin was scheduled to begin at ten in the evening, and a party of about twelve ladies accompanied by their young and beautiful daughters were assembled to do him honour. No other male guests were to be present, and I had been asked to ensure that Rasputin's arrival and departure had as little publicity as possible. 

 

 

Selianka d’esturgeon was Rasputin’s favourite dish. Selianka or Solyanka is a thick, sour Russian soup, which can be made from meat, fish or mushrooms. Before the dinnner party Vecchi managed to get the recipe off the court chef, which was made in the following way:

First all the ingredients are assembled together. One needs two lb of sturgeon, four tablespoonfuls of olive oil, two lb of fresh cabbage shredded finely "en julienne", three peeled and sliced cooking apples, one finely chopped onion, four tablespoonfuls of flour, pickled mushrooms, salted cucumbers, chopped parsley, black pepper and breadcrumbs. Next the dish is prepared in the following way.

The chopped onions are fried in one spoonful of olive oil and added to the cabbage, the whole being put in a pan to stew with a tablespoonful of water only, as the cabbage, if slowly and properly cooked, makes its own moisture. The sturgeon in next cut into square pieces and floured all over, then fried in oil. When the cabbage is almost cooked, the sliced apple is added and the stewing continued, the dish being stirred all the time with a rapid, light movement. Next, a spoonful each of oil and flour, and a little water are mixed together until the resultant paste is free from lumps. This is added to the cabbage when the vegetable and onions and apples are quite ready, and stirred until the four has thickened the whole.

The cabbage is next placed in a layer on a china dish and the squares of cooked fish placed on top of it. Black pepper and parsley is sprinkled over, and the whole covered with another layer of cabbage. Garnish with salted cucumber and pickled mushrooms, then pour over the gravy from the fish and finally spread breadcrumbs over the top. The whole dish is then placed in the oven to be slightly browned.

Vecchi doesn’t say if Rasputin enjoyed the dish; I assume that he did, as the guests at this little gathering also sampled the delights of caviar, Bortsch Petite Russienne Pirogki, Sterlet Parovaia, L’ Agneau Caucasienne à la Broche and Soufflé Grand Marnier. Rasputin’s table manners left something to be desired:

Throughout the evening the behaviour of Rasputin was intolerable...I can find no words to mitigate of excuse his disgusting behaviour. When he ate it was like a beast using his long talon-like fingers in lieu of knife and fork, grabbling amongst the food on his plate and stuffing himself in a very vulgar way with no regard of the feelings of the cultured ladies who sat at table with him.

 

Extracts taken from My Tavern is My Drum, the autobiography of Joseph Vecchi, published by Odhams Press, London, 1948.

 

Raymond Blanc's Braised Cod with Boulangère Potatoes

 

 

 

Over the years I've managed to amass a large collection of cookery books without even really thinking about it. It's easy to forget once popular books languishing at the back of the shelf. I had forgotten about Raymond Blanc's Cooking For Friends, first published back in 1991.

It's a terrific book and comes with my recommendation. I remember buying it new- today, looking at the photographs of a svelte Monsieur Blanc in his all-white kitchen with its Villeroy & Boch Luxembourg pattern tureens and the emphasis on the French Cuisine Bourgeoise, it seems slightly dated. 

Thinking about it, there are two types of cookery book. There's the complicated, cheffy, 'secrets of the so-and-so restaurant' type of book. And then at the other end of the spectrum there's the dumbed-down, pretty pictures, coffee-table, celeb chef, supermarket blockbuster thing. There's often a problem with both of these. The recipes don't work!

How many times have you tried a recipe exactly as written, only to find that there's not enough sauce, or the fish is overcooked, or there's too much sauce, or the blasted thing is burnt to a cinder. And quite often the measurements are just wrong, as if the books been rushed to the printer, and nobody seems to have actually tried the recipes out first.

Cooking For Friends falls somewhere in the middle. Okay, it ain't perfect- I tried the Poulet à la Creme et au Riz, and it definitely needed a bit of tweaking, but the Cabillaud à la Boulangère, which I am about to share with you, was fantastic, even if I poured in too much stock and the sauce was a bit watery. But that was my fault, not the fault of the book.

The recipes are relatively simple, (ingredients can easily be sourced from any supermarket) but aimed at people who enjoy cooking and have a bit of knowledge to go with it. Enthusiastic, intelligent amateur cooks. 

Here's how I made Raymond Blanc's Cabillaud à la Boulangère. Braised Cod with Boulangère Potatoes. 

First you make the Boulangère Potatoes. You get one of those shallow rectangular or oval enamel dishes (with a lid) and grease it with a knob of butter. Into the dish goes a layer of sliced onions, over that goes a layer of sliced skinned potatoes which you've previously rinsed in cold water (I used Maris Piper), and then another layer of onions, topped off with a final layer of potatoes. Each layer is seasoned generously with sea salt and black pepper, and sprigs of thyme and a few bayleaves added to the dish. Chicken stock is poured up to half the height of the dish.

Put the dish on the hob and bring the stock up to simmering point. Obviously you need to make sure at this stage that your dish won't crack with the direct heat. The dish is then placed inside a pre-heated oven (230°C) and cooked without a lid for about half an hour.

While this is going on, cook the cod. Heat oil and butter in a large non-stick frying pan and pan-fry the cod very briefly. Raymond Blanc says 'both sides for five minutes', although I found the fish cooked much quicker than that. The important thing is to not to over-cook the fish, otherwise it will start to flake and go rubbery.

The browned cod is then placed on top of the onion and potatoes, the lid put back on top of the dish, and the whole thing is finished off in the hot oven for about eight minutes. 

To serve, arrange the sliced potatoes and onion to one side of the plate, place the braised cod on top, squeeze over a bit of lemon, and check the seasoning. The sauce is spooned over the dish. Garnish with finely chopped parsley.

This is delicious. Its' simple to make and looks great on the plate. If your sauce is too thin and watery, you could always strain it into a small saucepan and reduce it on a high heat. This would thicken it up. I haven't tried doing this yet, but it might be a small improvement.

 

 

Under the Volcano: Food for The Mexican Day of the Dead

 

 

© Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com

 

The Mexican Day of the Dead (Dia de Muertos) takes place from October 31st to November 2nd. Mexican families gather to honour the departed souls of their loved ones. To us, this may seem macabre, but, in reality, the festival is the exact opposite: it's a joyful occasion with much feasting, dancing and merry-making. Private altars are set up laden with colourful sugar skulls, fruit, marigolds, paper cut-outs and presents. It's an extraordinary, spectacular- and fascinating- carnival. 

 

If you're interested in finding out more, there was a marvellous exhibition at the British Museum, The Skeleton at The Feast, and the accompanying book is still available. Malcom Lowry's neglected minor masterpiece, "Under the Volcano" is worth adding to your reading list. There was also an 'iffy' film starring Albert Finney, Jacqueline Bisset and Anthony Andrews. 

 

 

 

I've had a thing about Mexican food now for several years. My first authentic taste was at a drive-in gas station in San Deigo. You paid your money, and a tanned hairy arm shot out of a hole in the wall with your food. I seem to remember empadanitas. Utterly, utterly delicious.

So for this year's Day of the Dead, I've dug out two authentic- and simple- Mexican recipes that could be cooked at home. I'm aware that getting hold of Mexican ingredients, in England at least, can be next to nigh impossible, unless you buy from an online Mexican food supplier. But then that's all part of the fun, isn't it? Both recipes are taken from Marilyn Tausend's excellent Mexican. 

 

Shrimp in Chipotle Sauce

Take 20 raw shrimps (in England, prawns) and marinade them in 8 cloves of minced garlic, 1/4 cup of lime juice, sea salt and pepper. Toss, until well-coated and let them stand for five minutes.

Heat olive oil in a frying pan and add a finely chopped onion. Fry for a few minutes until golden. Add two tins of chopped tomatoes to the pan and let them bubble away. Transfer the lot to your Magimix and whizz. Add two tins of chiles chipotles en adabo, 1/2 cup of Coca-Cola and a pinch or two of dried oregano. Whizz. That's your sauce.

Remove the prawns from the marinade and pat dry. Fry them in olive oil (in batches so that they fry rather than steam) and cook until opaque. You'll find that this happens very quickly. Only takes a minute or so. Try not to over-cook them. Return the sauce to the pan and cook to taste- until the sauce thickens. Add the cooked prawns and toss through. Again, you just want to warm through the prawns, you don't want to over-cook them. That's it. Serve with rice.

Coca-Cola may seem like an odd ingredient, but apparently, since the 1940's, the Mexicans have been using it to replace piloncillo- after all, it's really just a caramelised syrup when you think about it. Mexican ingredients are available online from the award winning: http://www.mexgrocer.co.uk

 

Watercress Salad with Orange, Apple and Avocado

The original recipe used Jicama, rather than apple. Jicama is the Mexican Turnip, although, just to confuse you, it's not related to the turnip family. It looks a bit like a potato. It has a crunch. The chances of finding Jicama in Britain are remote. It just ain't going to happen- so I've substituted apple.

First, you make the vinaigrette. In a small bowl whisk together lime juice, a thinly sliced green chili, sea-salt and white pepper. Pour in 1/2 cup of olive oil, whisking as you go.

Secondly, the salad. This is just slices of orange, fresh watercress and crisp, peeled apple, cut into thin strips. Dress the salad with the vinaigrette, and carefully fold in sliced hass avocados. Adjust the seasoning with sea-salt, if you feel it needs it, and serve.

 

The Fish Store

 

 

The most extraordinary thing. It's baking hot, here in England. Almost like that famous summer of 1976. Day after day of Mediterranean heat. We've just come back from a marvellous holiday staying in a fabulous house in St Mawes, on the south Cornwall coast, with sub-tropical gardens and views stretching out to a blue, blue glittering sea.

 

I've been coming to St Mawes, on-and-off now for many years. It's the most pretty coastal village- all Treasure Island, thatched smuggler's cottages with lattice windows, harbour inns with creaking signs swaying in the wind. It's like going back to the 1950's. The harbour is full of period varnished sailing yachts (including the 1939 yacht Pinuccia, rumoured to have been the former Olympic yacht of Il Duce).

There was nobody there. No transistors blaring on the beach, no plastic gin palaces, no floating discotheques (instead, a sprinkling of nice old cars, MG's, Mercedes Pagoda Tops and the like, in the harbour car park). Peace reigns. And its very much like the South of France. I kid you not. I really mean it. Palm trees, the scent of trailing rosemary, low stone walls flanking twisting coastal roads, stepped terraces punctuated by tall Scots Pines, steps down to private shingle beaches. If you've seen the 1958 version of Bonjour Tristesse, the one with David Niven lounging around on terraces in silk dressing gowns, you'll get the drift.

 

On the Monday night, we had dinner at The Tresanton, about a minutes walk from where we were staying, lovingly re-furbished by Olga Polizzi in 1997. And a very good job she has done too. In the 70's The Tresanton was a rather swish- and utterly expensive- hotel. There was a collection of Impressionist paintings. By the 90's it had fallen into that inevitable decline; I remember a rather strange lunch there out on that extraordinary terrace. Now, of course, things are utterly different.

I love it. This is like something out of Agatha Christie: Evil Under the Sun, or Peril at End House. White Star ocean liner railings, staff in brass-buttoned white mess jackets, and with its tiled floor mosaics of Neptune and Trident, and roughly-plastered walls in white, has more than a whiff of the Amalfi Coast about it or, indeed, Clough Williams-Ellis's Italianate fantasy at Portmerion. 

 

Anyway, all this happened to co-incide with the kind arrival of an advance copy of Lindsey Bareham's The Fish Store, published by my friends at Grub Street. This is a new paperback edition. The book first came out in 2006.

I'm a fan of Lindsey Bareham's rather understated and intelligent approach to food writing, The Prawn Cocktail Years, which she co-authored with Simon Hopkinson, being one of those treasured books I would probably try to rescue if, God Forbid, the house burnt down.

The Fish Store is a slightly misleading title for those of you who judge books by their covers. It's actually the name of her Cornish holiday bolt-hole, a former pilchard packing shed in Mousehole, Cornwall (she married into the family of Augustus John) and is a semi-autobiographical and reflective tribute to Cornish holidays, family life and all the food- and associations- that go with it. This is very much my sort of book. It's a literary fest- with a few illustrations here and there (some in black and white); very much the antithesis of those colourful celebrity picture books, heavily promoted and flogged in your local supermarket, all style over content.

Her "Roast Haddock with Barlotti Beans and Tomatoes" went down especially well. It's a very simple dish of unsmoked haddock, balsamic vinegar, cherry tomatoes on the vine, sea salt and lemon juice, served on the beans, which had been simmered very gently with chicken stock and the juices from the pan. Probably one of the best things we've had in a long while; the secret of course, being in that we'd bought some very fresh haddock a few hours before. My nine year old niece, Sammie, formally announced to the table that this was one of the best things she had ever eaten.

And then there was the mackerel. James Brown, a friendly local skipper, took us out to sea, about two miles off the coast for a spot of wreck fishing; we hit a shoal and started reeling in tiny, turquoise zig-zaggy mackerel (flashing in the hot sun) and some larger pinkish whiting.

 

 

James gutted the fish on the way back to harbour. About two hours later we filited the mackerel, and my brother in law (no mean cook) fried it in the pan with rosemary, olive oil, lemon juice and flaky Cornish sea salt. I can honestly, say that I think this was one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten. Uber fresh mackerel, eaten on a baking hot, sunny terrace. With the sound of the sea. Happy Memories.

The Fish Store is published by Grub Street, and costs £14.99.

 

 

 

Haddock Monte Carlo

 

 

 

I'm suddenly rather keen on this dish. Mrs Aitch made it for me last night, and it was truly delicous. Who makes Haddock Monte Carlo anymore?  I can't think of anyone I know off-hand. But it's one of those classic English dishes which relies on the quality of the ingredients (in this case non-dyed smoked haddock, with the bones removed) and simple flavour combinations. It is, of course, pretty easy to make as well, which helps.

Place two smoked haddock fillets in a pan of milk and water, with a peppercorn and a bayleaf. I think it's important to buy un-dyed haddock, which has a more sophisticated flavour than that bright radio-active yellow version. Poach gently for about fifteen minutes.

Remove the fish, and scrape off the skin.

Place the cooked fish in a buttered oven-proof oval dish and set aside. Pour off the hot milky fish water into a small pan and start reducing furiously, at a high heat. When it has reduced by about half, remove from the heat and stir in a generous helping of single cream.

Slice up some tomatoes and scatter them over the haddock, and check the seasoning, adding sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, if you think it needs it. Pour the creamy sauce all over the fish and tomatoes, and bake the dish in the oven for a further fifteen minutes or so.

Serve with a poached egg on top, and finely chopped flat-leaf parsley. That's it. I like my poached eggs to be runny (who doesn't?) and there's that delicious moment when the yellow egg yolk dribbles into the creamy, savoury, tomato-infused sauce. This really is English cooking at its very best.

 

The Art of Chowder

 

 

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?

 

The Grand Central Oyster Bar, New York

 

 

Photograph from The Kitchen Files

Still on the subject of classic American restaurants, here's a photograph of The Grand Central Oyster Bar, New York. Back in the late 90's I used to spend quite a bit of my time in America (various auctions in New York and Philadelphia) and the Grand Central Oyster Bar, alongside P. J. Clarke's on Third Avenue was one of my favourite destinations.

The Grand Central Oyster Bar really is the most extraordinary place. It's massive: a cavernous warren of vaults, decorated with a mosiac of glittering Byzantine tiles in the Beaux-Arts manner. Imagine such a thing underneath Paddington Station! 

It was founded in 1913, and originally served "Continental" (i.e. French) food, although it became famous for its oyster stew. From memory, there are various murky fish tanks dotted around the restaurant. I like the way you can point a long finger at your lobster of choice, and then a few minutes later the critter is paraded though the restaurant, held high by a waiter on a silver plated serving dish.

 

 

Old Original Bookbinder's Restaurant, Philadelphia

 

 

 

Here's a terrific technicolor photograph of the Old Bookbinder's Restaurant, Philadelphia, taken from Vincent and Mary Price's "A Treasury of Great Recipes", published in 1965. The "Treasury" was really just an excuse for Vincent to eat at various horribly swanky restaurants around the world, no doubt at the publisher's expense. It's a fun book, and includes recipes for the restaurants' signature dishes and original menus in facsimile.

This is very much my sort of thing: fawning waiters in dinner jackets, bouillon ladelled from a silver tureen, the copper canopy over the roaring fire, oysters, chafing dishes over little spirit lamps, an avuncular maitre d'. Bet you anything he was always called by his first name. He's got to be a "Charles". Note the model yacht in the top left hand corner, sitting next to the exposed brickwork. Can't you just see the clientele offsetting their lunch bills against their tax returns? It's like something from The Seven Year Itch.

 

 

 

The Perfect Prawn Cocktail

 

 

 

 

 

"A gin and tonic says a lot about you as a person. It is more than just a drink, it is an attitude of mind. It goes with a prawn cocktail, a grilled Dover sole, Melba toast and Black Forest gâteau." Nico Ladenis, My Gastronomy, 1987

It's weird not having a kitchen; or at least, one we can use. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we're having our kitchen completely re-built. It's now at the "shell" stage; interesting scraps of Victorian wallpaper have emerged. There's builder's dust everywhere, and we're living a hand-to-mouth existence upstairs. 

But this made me think. How difficult is it to come up with original and interesting recipes that don't actually need any cooking? Obviously, you could go down the salad route- which would would be fine, up to a point Lord Copper. But it could get pretty darn boring after a few days. Ceviche could be more interesting. The famous Mexican dish in which raw fish gets "cooked" in citrus juices and chili. No stove involved. This could be an interesting idea for a book? "Gourmet Food without a Cooker". Has anyone written one yet?

Another suggestion on this theme is the ubiquitous Prawn Cocktail. I have no shame in holding up my hand and championing this dish. It's a classic. Everybody secretly loves it. According to Australian Gourmet Traveller: "in 1959, a dish consisting of shrimp with a dollop of cocktail sauce, served in a sundae glass, was popularised by Las Vegas’s Hotel Nevada (now the Golden Gate Hotel and Casino), which coined the term “original shrimp cocktail”. It was served for fifty cents, and this price has increased only twice in the intervening years".

Here's how I  make it: The first step is to create a Marie-Rose Sauce. A spoonful of tomato ketchup, a few drops of Tabasco, a drop or two of Lea & Perrins, and a squeeze of lemon juice are added to a mayonnaise base. You can alter the flavourings to suit your taste. Salt and white pepper might be a good idea too. I like it to have a slight kick. Cooked prawns are then placed in a small glass or tumbler (quite possibily on a bed of designer lettuce) and the Marie Rose sauce poured on top. I'm rather anti garnishes at the moment. Simplicity is a good thing, so I would probably serve it as it is. If the ingredients are good, the dish will shine.

Now for a bizarre twist on the classic Marie Rose Sauce. While trawling the internet, I found a recipe for something called "Sauce Liberal" from none other than our old mucker, The Duchess of Windsor (aka Mrs Wallis Simpson). You make the Marie Rose sauce in the usual way- but finish it off by mixing in "liberal" slugs of neat gin. I gather that this went down rather well at the Windsors' sybaritic villa off the Bois de Bologne.

 

The Windsor villa in the Bois de Bologne: the spiritual home of "Sauce Liberal"

This worried me. Okay, I didn't exactly have a sleepless night over it, but I reckoned that the bitter taste of the warm gin would ruin an otherwise excellent sauce. So, as an experiment, I boiled up some gin in a pan, until all the alcoholic vapours had burnt off, then added the reduced spirit to the sauce. It worked! The juniper flavours came through, and it gave the sauce a subtle twist.

 

The Greasy Spoon Kitchen, as taken this afternoon. The plastic bin horror in the front corner will have to go.

Lazy Spinach and Prawn Biryani

 

 

I'm going to deviate from the path with this one. Normally on The Greasy Spoon, I try to cover classic food and get to the bottom of authentic recipes. Hand up, I admit that the recipe I'm about to give you ain't a proper biryani- it's undoubtably a bastardised version, but so juicy, quick and delicious, I couldn't resist posting it. It's based on a recipe from allrecipes.co.uk, but I've unashamedly changed it in various ways.

What is a biryani?  I'm afraid many people in Britain just assume it's "Indian"- whatever that means. The story of the biryani, however, is far more complex. It originated in Persia, the name coming from the Persian word beryā(n) (بریان) which means "fried" or "roasted" and was brought to South East Asia by spice traders. It's a popular dish in India (many different versions), Pakistan, Burma, Thailand, Sri Lanka, The Middle East (including Iran and Iraq), Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

It's a combination of rice, spices, vegetables, fish eggs and meat. For an authentic biryani, the rice and curried sauce should be cooked separately, and then combined together at the end in layers, forming a contrast between the lightly spiced rice, and the intense flavours of the sauce, meat or vegetables. It's similar in a way to our very own kedgeree- which, of course, has its roots in the British Raj.

My "after-work" version is more of an Anglicised pilaf, I suppose. You could of course tweak it to become a proper biryani- by steaming basmati rice (with the lid on) and cooking this separately, creating some sort of a spicy sauce, and then combining it all together before serving. Fried crunchy, sliced onions would be an authentic and delicious garnish.

 

His Highness The Maharaja Bhupinder Singh, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, GBE

 

Heat up a saucepan and add a dash of cooking oil. Add a thinly sliced onion, a sliced red chilli, and a knob of fresh ginger, (peeled and chopped). Cook on a medium heat for a few minutes until soft.

Now it' time for the spices. You're going to use cumin, coriander, turmeric and nutmeg. I would suggest that you buy the cumin and coriander as seeds, and then grind them up in a pestle and mortar until they become a fine powder. A tablespoon or so should be fine. I'm afraid that the turmeric came from the jar (about a teaspoon). The nutmeg was grated directly into the saucepan: I've got a little nutmeg grater which my mother-in-law (Gawd bless 'er) gave me for Christmas. Cook on a lowish heat for a few more minutes, so that the spices are cooked properly. The aim is to cook the spices, but not to burn them.

Stir in 225g of Uncle Ben's Long Grain Rice. This cheat's rice has had the starch removed, and so won't go mushy in the cooking. It's excellent for pilafs, in my opinion. If you were planning to use Basmati rice, you would need to rinse it first, and then "steam" on a low heat for about ten minutes with the lid on.

Stir in a tin of chopped tomatoes, and top up with hot fish stock. Add a pinch of sugar, and a pinch of salt. By the way, further cheating at this stage, as I added a dollop of Umami paste, the mysterious "fifth taste sensation" (a sort of cross between anchovies and tomatoes in flavour). Simmer the biryani on a low to medium heat, until the rice has cooked. If you think it needs it, top it up with boiling water now and again.

When the rice is cooked, stir in two packets of plebby prawns (these are those pre-cooked tiny, shrimp-like pink things you can buy in the supermarket). Take the birayni off the heat, and stir in a packet of spinach. You'll find that it wilts easily in the heat. Finish the dish off with a generous helpings of chopped fresh coriander.

If you want to research biraynis further, have a look at this video in which master chef Padma Lakshmi cooks a Royal Biryani for two hundred children in Hyderabad.

 

 

Rum Butter Shrimp

 

 

Oh Jiminy Cricket, this is truly delicious! You get hold of some raw, peeled shrimp (as it's a Southern dish, I'm not going to call them prawns), season them with salt and pepper, and fry them briefly in butter, until they turn pink. Personally, I like mine slightly underdone, and the moment they turn, I call it a day. Using a slotted spoon, you take the cooked shrimp out of the pan, leaving the butter behind.

Next, you add a further dollop of butter to the hot pan, let it bubble and in the meantime chop up some fresh tarragon leaves (picked off the stalk) with some spring onions (otherwise known as scallions). Cook these very briefly in the butter.

Deglaze the pan with a slosh of rum (I used Mount Gay- alas, recently re-branded into some awful corporate bottle, but the rum's still the same), flambé to burn off the alcohol, and toss the shrimp back into the pan with the sauce. Bubble for a minute or so, check the seasoning and serve.

The interesting combination of shrimp, butter, rum and tarragon is fabulous.

 

 

The Old Original Bookbinder's Restaurant Cookbook

 

 

I've just bought this book for the princely sum of £4.50. From a little bookshop in the quaint Cotswold town of Chipping Camden, of all places. It's the 1961 edition of the official "Old Original Bookbinder's Restaurant Cookbook", by Charlotte Adams.

Bookbinder's was a distinguished American restaurant, first founded as a Philadelphia oyster saloon back in 1893. It's wikipedia entry describes its 1950s' heydey as ''a hot spot where red-jacketed waiters scurried through dark-panelled rooms festooned with photographs of VIPS; redolent of cigar smoke tinged with shellfish." This sounds very much my sort of place. I gather that the restaurant fell on hard times, lost its exclusive allure, became a tourist trap, and is now quite probably defunct. A pity, because I miss this sort of joint: the type of restaurant where a fawning mess-jacketed waiter might flamb-ay something jaw-droppingly expensive at M'sieur's very own table.

 

I've picked out two recipes at random, which I haven't tried yet, but, I think, with a bit of tweaking, could be good. The first one's for the obscene sounding "Crab Balls". I would suggest that you make these very small in size, and serve them as canapés- perhaps with some sort of a dipping sauce to go with them:

In a bowl mix together: one tablespoon of chopped green pepper, one tablespoon of finely chopped onion, one tablespoon of finely chopped celery, one tablespoon of minced pimento (ie sweet red pepper), and a teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves. Season with salt, black pepper and a dash of Worcestershire Sauce. Sweat in butter over a lowish heat for about ten minutes.

Sprinkle in four tablespoons of flour (this sounds like quite a bit, even too much; so I would suggest that you go easy on this) and stir in to the vegetable mix. Cook for a further five minutes. Next pour in a cup of milk, and stir until thickened (in effect you've made an old-fashioned white sauce). Then add a pound of crabmeat. Take off the heat, mix in well and chill the mixture in the 'fridge.

When it's cold enough, you take out the crab mixture and roll it into small balls. The balls are then dipped into beaten egg, coated with breadcrumbs- or even more authentically Yankee- crushed up cream crackers, and fried in deep fat until golden brown.

The second recipe is for "Bookbinder's Shrimp Chowder":

Sweat chopped onions in butter until golden, and put to one side. Make a smooth white sauce in the usual way from butter, two tablespoons of flour and four cups of hot milk. The sauce is then placed over a bain-marie, seasoned with salt, pepper and a blade of mace. Pre-Cooked shrimps (large prawns in England) are added and the whole thing cooked gently for twenty minutes. The mace is removed, and the chowder finished off with an extra cup of hot cream and the onion flavoured butter which you've previously strained off. On second thoughts, I'm not exactly sure about this recipe. It could be a bit bland: it's certainly a heart attack in a bowl- not that I'm one of those Cromwellian types pulsating with disapproval at any symptom of a sybaritic lifestyle. I'm not even sure if it's a genuine chowder; I suspect that it isn't.

In complete contrast, I had the most divine thing at the Canton yesterday evening. It was a vegetarian marrow gratin, served piping hot in one of those dinky orange Le Creuset dishes. Half a marrow- cut in half, and scooped out. Covered in Italian Borlotti white beans, and flavoured with a stock, perhaps, and most certainly salt and black pepper. Persillade (ie garlic and parsley finely chopped and crushed together) dotted the top, and the dish was finished off with grated parmesan and butter, before being flashed under a hot grill. At least, I think that how it was made. There may have been tomatoes in there as well. C'etait formidable.

 

Scallop Mousse with Butter and Chive Sauce

 

 

 

This is an excellent recipe, and it works. It's based on a Raymond Blanc dish from his book Cooking for Friends. I first made it for The Girl when we were steppin' out; now she's Mrs Aitch, so I obviously did something right. It's for four people.

First, you need to pre-heat your oven to 330F (160C), Gas mark 3.

Take 150 g of fresh scallops and remove the orangey coral bit. Put these to one side. Purée the scallops in a food processor for two minutes (that's quite a long time, but it's needed to make sure the mixture turns very, very smooth), and then add a single egg yolk, salt and cayenne pepper. Mix, until all the ingredients are incorporated. 

Next, take the bowl of your Magimix (with the purée inside) and stick it in the deep freeze for 15 minutes: this will help to stop the mixture separating when you add cream. When the time's up, take out the bowl and put it back onto the Magimix. Set the motor to medium speed, and slowly pour in 200ml of whipping cream- in a thin stream. Taste and season again, if you think it needs it. 

The mousse is going to be cooked in oven-proof porcelain ramekin dishes, and then turned out. I used a set of 80's Villeroy & Boch ramekins that I happened to have lying around in the cupboard. They were too deep, in my 'umble opinion, as the result was too much mousse on the plate. Maybe tastes have changed?  For a decent First Course, I think less is probably more, and I would recommend either using those shallow ramekins or reasonably small moulds instead: you're not cooking the main event.

Smear the insides of your ramekins with butter, and then fill 'em up with the mousse mixture. Place the ramekins inside a roasting tin, and pour in boiling water, so that it comes up to two-thirds of the ramekin dishes. Cover the tray loosely with some tin-foil and stick it in the pre-heated oven. It's going to take 15 minutes to cook.

In the meantime, you need to make your sauce. Melt 15g unsalted butter in a small pan and sweat a chopped up shallot or two, a few finely chopped button mushrooms and the coral from the scallops. After a few minutes, add a slug of Noilly Prat or Martini Extra Dry Vermouth. Turn up the heat and boil quickly, to reduce by half. Add a few tablespoons of water and two tablespoons of whipping cream. Push the mixture through a fine sieve, pressing down hard to extract as much as the fishy mushroomy juice as possible, into a clean pan.

Next, on a very low heat, gradually whisk 1/2 oz of diced butter into the sauce, so that it forms an emulsion. Taste, season with salt and white pepper, and whisk in a few drops of lemon juice.

Take the ramekins out of the oven. You'll find that the mousses will turn out very easily, as long as you run a knife around the edges of the ramekins. Place the mousse on the centre of the plate, and spoon over the butter sauce. You can either add chopped chives to the sauce at the end of the cooking stage, or when the sauce is on the plate.

A quick note about the chives: don't make the mistake I made of adding far too many chopped chives- it will turn your sauce a muddy green colour. You want your sauce to be a butter yellow. I would recommend that you add the finely chopped chives in small amounts, or even add the chives in tiny piles to the hot butter sauce when it's already on the plate. My other mistake was to swamp the delicate mousse with the rich butter sauce, so that it came up to the very edge of the plate. I would suggest that you go easy on the sauce, and just spoon it over the mousse in a modest way.

Once you've mastered the technique of mousse-making (and the Blanc method as described above is a good one), you can start thinking of other ingredients. I'm considering the idea of a Smoked Haddock Mousse with an Anchovy and Butter sauce. Obviously, you would need to add anchovy essence in very small quantities, otherwise the whole thing would be far too salty. There might be a cleverer way of adding the flavour of the anchovy? Maybe Smoked Haddock Mousse with a Butter and Parsley Sauce might be a better idea? Time to get my thinking cap on. Any suggestions? 

Avocado Bering

 

I've had great fun re-discovering the Roux Brothers' old 1980's television series on youtube: Roux Brothers. For anyone wanting to learn the techniques of classic French cookery, this is the series for you: no background music, no trendy hand-held camera shots, or an emphasis on style over content; this is television aimed at viewers who have an attention span longer than three minutes, and just want to learn how to cook properly.

That's exactly right- it's just two middle aged chefs, both at the top of their game, Albert (he's the fat one from Le Gavroche) and Michel (he's the thin one from the Waterside Inn at Bray) standing in a badly lit (by today's standards) studio and talking directly to camera. And Mein Gott, in just a few minutes you can learn infinitely more from those two, than from any of the over-produced cheffy programmes I've seen on television recently.

 

 

 

I liked Albert's "Avocado Bering". You take an avocado pear (I think the hass variety with the knobbly skin tastes the best) and slice it in half. You brush the exposed flesh with lemon juice to stop it going black. You slice a small wedge off the bottom of the avocado, so that it stands up straight on the plate.

Next you mix up some fresh crab meat with a rose-marie sauce made from mayonnaise, tomato ketchup, Lea & Perrins, Tabasco, salt and pepper and a spoonful of cognac. You spoon the crabmeat and sauce into the cavity of the avocado, and then spoon further unadulterated rose-marie sauce over the crabmeat and sauce. More sauce on top of the crabmeat and sauce combination, if that makes sense.

Albert garnished it with half a black olive so that it ended up looking a bit like a nipple- but if you've read my previous post, you'll know all about my current feelings on garnishes, and I would recommend that you avoid this. Avocado Bering! Incredibly old-fashioned (even then; back in the 1980's), very simple, relatively unsophisticated- and strangely satisfying.

 

 

The Greasy Spoon visits...Le Petit Poisson, Herne Bay

 

 

We've just discovered a little gem of a fish restaurant, or rather our old friend, Mr Nicholas Good, did- as we were recently invited there to celebrate his birthday. It's a tiny place in Herne Bay. It's called Le Petit Poisson.

Herne Bay is a windswept, kiss-me-quick seaside resort on the North Kent coast; about an hour and a half's drive down from London. It faces North- looking out over the bit where the English Channel intersects with the Thames Estuary, before it hits the North Sea. The sea is grey, as you can imagine. And cold. And wet.

Whitstable lies just along the coast, and has recently become fashionable, the one-time haunt of the Hammer Horror star Peter Cushing, but now providing weekend entertainment for the likes of Robert Elms and the fashionistas of London's East End.

 

Herne Bay! Fashionable it ain't. There's a bingo parlour and an amusing entertainment arcade; an Edwardian pavilion and a 1930's tea-rooms and gelateria. The Front boasts a few Regency houses with bow fronts in peeling stucco; any pretensions to genteel grandeur long-gone, and now re-inventing themselves as slightly sinister bed and breakfasts: where back in the early 1950's, one can imagine Wing-Commander Neville Heath entertaining his "lady friends", or where indeed, "Brides-in-the-Bath Smith" took rented accommodation with his "lady wife".

 

In 1978, the larger part of the original 3,700 foot long pier was swept away during a terrible storm and only the landing stage section remains, now isolated at sea and winking at you spookily through the mist, like a haunted cell from an old Scooby-Doo cartoon. To the front lies "The Pier Pavilion", a brutalist job (known locally as "The Cowshed") and seemingly constructed from brushed stainless steel; reminiscent of a vast agricultural silo and opened by the Rt. Hon. Edward Heath MP in 1976.

Anyway. You will find Le Petit Poisson in a hut just to the side of the Pier Pavilion. It doesn't look that promising from the outside, to be frank. Could be some sort of pizza joint catering for the local old biddies or a rotary club favourite.

Inside, it's a bit better. There's a small room with exposed brick walls, which in turn, leads down an open wooden staircase to a second room with an open view of the orderly looking kitchens: Bristol Fashion. No bad thing, that. When you can see the chefs at work. Proves that a restaurant has nothing to hide.  

And right from the start, service was on the nail. The young chap who served us could have put many a pretentious London restaurant to shame. I've currently got a thing about professional service in the French manner- something we don't often see in this country outside the big cities, or in the top restaurants; and it's a difficult thing to get right: the art of being welcoming without becoming irritatingly over-familiar; affecting the right degree of formality without looking stuffy; acting relaxed, yet at the same time avoiding the sloppy; making sure that the knives and forks are placed just so.

And My God! The food was lovely. A simple menu: delicious nutty bread, served with decent olives. A first course of native oysters (£1 each) beautifully presented on ice, with a further choice of oysters deep-fried in tempura batter, and served with lemon mayonnaise (£1.15 each) and Oysters Rockefeller, grilled with garlic, parsley and grated parmesan (£1.25 each) and served piping hot.  

The Moules Marinière (cooked with cream) (£9.95 large with frites) looked fine, and was served in the traditional deep pan with lid. My Dover Sole with an Anchovy Butter sauce (£14.25) was simple and utterly excellent, the fish beautifully cooked and falling off the bone, the sauce exactly right with just the right amount of saltiness.

A selection of British cheeses was served on a wooden board, (for a very reasonable £5.75) and came with a thoughtful written sheet on the history and taste of each particular cheese.

The excellent Chapel Down Non Vintage Brut was £25.95 a bottle.

It was a terrific find, and well-worth the drive. I'm assuming that it survives as a destination restaurant, and I wish the managers well. It's still rare in this country to find an excellent local restaurant with a simple menu, beautifully cooked food, superbly presented at very reasonable prices. And enviable service. Lucky old Herne Bay.

 

Le Petit Poisson, Central Parade, Herne Bay, Kent, CT6 5JN (01227 361199)

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The Mexican Day of the Dead

 

 

I think I first became aware of the Mexican Day of the Dead after reading Malcolm Lowry's novel, "Under the Volcano". There was also a film with Albert Finney and the She-Who-Can-Do-No-Wrong Jacqueline Bisset, in which Finney plays a drunken British diplomat.

 

Mexicans celebrate the Day of the Dead on November 2nd. It's an extraordinary festival: families pray for the souls of the departed, and death is celebrated with dancing, sugar skulls, flowers, colourful altars and carnival.

I love authentic Mexican food, and it's only recently that the proper thing has begun to arrive in London. Up until now, we've had to put up with Tex-Mex restaurants (as beloved by students and the disenfranchised); the sort of places where they make you wear silly hats and pour Margaritas down your throat; not the same deal at all. Incidentally, I once had a fantastic chivichangas (fried burritos) at a drive-in gas station in San Diego, a few miles from the Mexican border. You paid a dollar or so through a grill, and then a few minutes later a tanned hairy hand appeared through a hole in a wall with your hot food. Fast Food in the best sense.

 

 

We're going to cook something Mexican tonight. I like Elizabeth Lambert Ortiz's book "The New Complete Book of Mexican Cooking". "Fish in Almond and Coriander Sauce" (Pescado en Salsa de Almendra Verde) is on the menu. 

First, you simmer some non-oily white fish (cod?) in stock. Normally, I would place the fish in the cold water or fish stock, and then bring to the boil. Once it's simmering, I immediately turn off the heat and put on the lid, and then leave the fish to "cook" in the hot water for about five to ten minutes. You'll find this is an excellent way to cook fish, and will give you perfect results every time.

 

Remove the fish, and set aside. Pour the hot fish stock into a jug. In a small frying pan, heat up a few tablespoons of olive oil, and fry a clove of garlic with a slice of white bread, until the bread is golden on both sides. Remove the garlic and chop up the fried bread, coarsely. In your food processor, whizz up the chopped fried bread, 50g (2oz) finely ground almonds, two jalapeno chillies (de-seeded and chopped) and half a cup of fresh chopped coriander leaves; and then thin it out with the reserved stock. Heat, check the seasoning and pour over the fish. Serve with rice.

I've got no idea what this is going to be like, but it sounds interesting, and the cooking techniques are relatively simple.

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Cream of Tarragon and Vanilla Sauce

 

 

 

 

 

You know, there really isn't such a thing as a brand new recipe. It's all been done before. The other day, I "invented"- or at least, thought I did- a delicious new piquant sauce based on the licorice flavours of tarragon, combined with the creamy, slightly sugary floral flavour of vanilla; and hey presto! I see that one of the top 50 restaurants in the world already has it on their menu.  Shucks. I think it would work brilliantly with chicken, and perhaps, even better with a meaty fish, monkfish, perhaps- even salmon?

Before I tell you how I made it, here's a brief look at the two main ingredients, tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus) and vanilla. I'm quite keen on growing herbs in our London garden (sometimes it's an uphill struggle), but I've never managed to grow tarragon properly. I gather this is a difficult one. Rather splendidly, Tarragon also goes under the alternative name of "Dragon's Wort". The serpentine shape of tarragon's roots made herbalists believe that it could cure snake bite, hence the Latin "dracunculus", meaning "Little Dragon". There are two varieties of tarragon, French and Russian. Russian tarragon is easier to grow but doesn't taste as good as French tarragon.

Vanilla comes from an orchid native to Mexico and after saffron, is the second most expensive spice in the world. The Spanish word "vainilla" means "little pod". Originally cultivated by Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican peoples, the Spanish conquistador Hernán (or Hernando) Cortés is credited with introducing both vanilla and chocolate to Europe in the 1520's. 

 

 

Here's how to make Cream of Tarragon and Vanilla Sauce, courtesy of The Greasy Spoon:

Melt some unsalted butter in a smallish pan; chop up about three of four shallots and sweat them gently in the butter. Turn up the heat and add a generous slug of a dry vermouth such as Noilly Prat (rhymes with cat). Bubble away to burn off the alcohol. Add a dash of balsamic white vinegar and let the sauce bubble for a minute or so. 

Next, pour in some decent chicken stock, add a scraped out vanilla pod and seeds, and a handful of chopped tarragon leaves. Reduce on a high heat, until the broth is reduced by about half- and starts to thicken. Strain through a seive into a new, clean and cold pan, discarding the tarragon leaves, vanilla and shallots. Alllow the sauce to cool down for a few minutes. 

Very carefully (so that it doesn't curdle) mix in a small tub of double cream. Turn your stove up to a high heat and reduce (with only the very occasional stir) until the sauce is reasonably thick. Check the seasoning and if necessary add some Maldon Sea Salt and White Pepper. For that extra vanilla kick, you could always substitute the Maldon Salt with a pinch or two of Vanilla Fleur de Sel, the delicious (and expensive) vanilla flavoured sea salt you can buy from French delis. Stir in some freshly chopped tarragon leaves. Warm through and serve. This sauce is really about four flavours: aniseed (from the tarragon and the vermouth), vanilla, salt and the sweet-sharp taste of balsamic vinegar. I think it works, and I like it.

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Soused Mackerel with Cider and Thyme

 

 

 

Recently, Lucas Hollweg wrote about a similar recipe in The Sunday Times style magazine. Soused Mackerel is a North European classic.  "Sousing" means to pickle.  I've used mackerel in this dish, but, typically, you could use any other oily fish such as herring ("maatjesharing" in Dutch or "matjes" in German and Swedish), and it might be an intriguing exercise to try the dish out with smoked haddock, instead. I think it would work. 

In my version, I've used cider; as many of you will remember, I favour the use of cider in my cooking over white wine (it also gives this particular dish an added North European slant); but you could of course, use a dry white wine instead. The following recipe will serve four hungry people:

First, you'll need eight mackerel fillets. Living in central London, I bought my mackerel from the local supermarket and filleted them myself, as the so-called "fishmonger" behind the counter told me that he "hadn't been trained to fillet, had he?".  I raise my eyes to heaven. Filleting is pretty straightforward, and would make a good subject for a future post. I managed to do a reasonable job- even without a proper filleting knife: our kitchen is currently in chaos.

Clean the mackerel fillets and arrange them in a flat dish. Sprinkle them with sea salt, and leave them for at least half an hour.

In the meantime, heat up your oven to 220C.  Into a saucepan put: two thinly sliced red onions, one thinly sliced carrot, three cloves of peeled whole garlic, several sprigs of thyme, two bay leaves, two cloves, a small handful of black peppercorns, 500ml of a decent dry cider, and 120ml of cider or white wine vinegar. This will make your brine. Add 150ml of water and bring it to the boil. Simmer for ten minutes, add three small slithers of lemon peel, and simmer away for a five further minutes.

Wipe the surplus salt away from the fish, and pour over the hot liquor. Cook in the hot oven for up to nine minutes or so- until the fish is just about cooked through. Cool in the 'fridge and leave overnight. You will find that the red onions make the liquor go a subtle tinted rose-pink colour.  

Check the seasoning, and serve cold with a generous amount of chopped parsley and hunks of warm bread to mop up the juice. If you're fussy about presentation, it might be an idea to remove the lemon peel and the cooked thyme (which will have gone a bit soggy and brown during the cooking), replacing it with a few fresh sprigs. Incidentally, I served my fish with the silvery skin of the mackerel intact; you could of course, remove this after cooking.

Ideal for a summer buffet in the garden.

Egon Ronay

 

 

 

Sad news about old Egon Ronay, who has just died at the grand old age of 94. A year or so ago, I wrote this post:

Remember Egon Ronay?  He was that rather dapper Hungarian who published a series of restaurant guides; in vogue a few years ago. One of the favourite books in my modest cookery library is Egon's "The Unforgettable Dishes of My Life', published in 1989. If you're interested in getting hold of a copy, you should be able to get track one down from either amazon.co.uk, or that marvellous antiquarian book website, abebooks.com.

The book's very much a personal thing, with recipes that have held meaning to him for various reasons over the years. That's something I like about food: the way a certain dish can bring back memories, or have some literary or historical connotation. Without, I hope, getting too hyper-intellectual, wasn't that what Proust was all about?  You know, the madeline dipped into the lemon scented tea and all that?

Anyway, here's his recipe for "Roast Red Mullet with Cumin Sauce". Hopefully you will be able to buy one from your local fishmonger- if you have any left in your neighbourhood that is.  In London, they're more or less gone, and have been replaced by the fish counters of your local supermarket. And Sainsbury's ain't nearly as good as it used to be.

Clean and gut a red mullet, keeping back the bones and the livers. Cut off the heads and the tail. Put the heads, tail, and bones into a saucepan, and add leeks, shallots, white wine, and salt. Pour in two pints of water, and bring to the boil. Skim off the scum as it floats to the top. Cover the saucepan, and simmer for about twenty minutes. Hey presto! You will have a fish stock.

Add two teaspoons of cumin seeds and reduce three quarters of a pint of the stock, until the it takes on a syrupy consistency. Add half a pint of double cream and the red mullet livers, and boil for fifteen seconds. Liquidise in your magimix or blender, and then pass it through a sieve. That's the sauce finished.

Brush the cleaned mullet with oil, and wrap it in foil, first seasoning it with a generous amount of sea salt and chunky black pepper. Place the fish on a baking tray, and cook in the oven at 220C (425F) until the fish is cooked. The flesh will flake up a bit when it's done. Arrange the cooked fish on a plate, and pour the sauce around it.

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Skate with Black Butter Sauce

 

 

"Skate with Black Butter" is a classic French working man's dish. The sort of thing (or so I imagine) they used to eat in the cafés and bistros of the old Les Halles market in Paris. Back in the old days. In the early hours of the morning. I don't cook it as often as I should, but it's incredibly easy to make, and quick off the mark, too. The "Black Butter Sauce" is another old-fashioned classic, which you can use with any white fish, and is excellent with fried eggs too- but more of that later.

Back to the skate. You will need to buy "skate wings" from the fishmonger. Skate are those rather primeval looking fish, which are members of the Ray family (family Rajidae in the superorder Batoidea) and because they have low reproductive rates, are vulnerable to over-fishing: so be aware that currently there is an ethical debate going on out there about whether indeed, you should be eating the critters at all.

 

The flesh of the skate is delicate and delicious. I'm still not entirely sure about the bones, and I'm no fuss pot, I tell you. You scrape the flesh off the bones with your fork, leaving behind a skeletal frame on the plate, which for some reason, reminds me of a pterodactyl carcass. It's all terrifyingly pre-historic.

This is how you cook it: clean the skate wings, and dust them lightly with seasoned flour. Heat up a frying pan and when its hot, add butter and grapeseed oil. The oil will help to stop the butter burning. Crank down the heat, and fry the skate for a few minutes on each side. Take out the cooked skate, and set it aside.

The so-called "black" butter sauce is easy. Heat up a decent knob of butter on a low heat until it begins to turn brown. You want it to be a caramel brown colour, not in fact, black, which would mean that it had burnt. The recipe title is misleading, I know. When it's brown, add a squeeze of lemon juice, some chopped flat-leaf parsley and some capers. The hot butter has a tendency to split when you add the acid, so it might be a good idea to turn the heat down even further when this happens. Arrange the sauce over the fish, and serve.

You can also pour the black butter sauce over a fried egg (ouefs au buerre noir), though if doing so, I would use a white balsamic vinegar, instead of lemon juice. According to David Ogivily in his autobiography, "Confessions of an Advertising Man", this was the chefs' favourite late night snack at the Majestic Hotel, Paris.

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Maryland Crab Cakes

 

 

This is one of the all-time great American recipes, comfort food at it's best; and it's relatively easy to make too. Traditionally, the Blue Crab from the Chesapeake Bay area is the one to go for, but I have to accept, reluctantly, that living this side of the pond, other varieties of crab will have to do.

Die-hards might also want to add Old Bay Seasoning, which is an American herb and spice mix. As we don't seem to be able to get it here (maybe I should try the excellent Wholefoods in Kensington High Street?), I've substituted my very own, very similar spice mixture which will have to do for the time being.

Back to the crab cakes. Take some juicy crab meat and put it into a mixing bowl. Add a cup of mayonnaise, a tablespoon of mustard powder (its got to be Colman's), a beaten egg, a teaspoon of Lea & Perrins, the juice of a lemon, and some chopped parsley. Combine everything together. 

Now for The Greasy Spoon's very own "Old Bay Seasoning" recipe. Grind up some celery salt, mustard seed, cinammon, powdered ginger, peppercorns, and a bayleaf until you have a reasonably fine powder. Add a teaspoonful to the crab mixture.

Next you need to add some breadcrumbs. Instead of crumbling up a slice of bread, I find it easier to use about seven crushed Saltine Crackers, and I have a feeling that this could be more authentic. Put the crackers into a plastic bag, and then bash them with a hammer. Add the crumbs to the mixture and then chill it for about two hours in the 'fridge.

To cook, drop each crab cake into some hot oil (say, in a wok), and fry until they are golden brown. Serve with the classic American Tomato and Horseradish Ketchup. Utterly delicious, and very appropriate, I think, for a hot Saturday afternoon in June or July.

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Omelette Arnold Bennett

 

 

 

Hands up who saw that Sophie Dahl cookery television programme the other day?  Now, I'm an avid follower of Roald (who's Harry Potter?) and his extended family; and since the age of six I've been a huge fan of anything and everything Dahl-esque: transatlantic peaches, Gypsy caravans, Patricia Neal's cheekbones, chocolate factories, Quentin Blake's illustrations, and All Things Unexpected. 

In the programme, the delicious Miss Dahl (hang on, shouldn't she be the delicious Mrs Cullum?) rustled up a few bits and bobs in a retro-looking kitchen, and let us into a few charmingly girly secrets. And that was about it. Nothing more. Safe television, bland.

She looks great (amazingly like her grandmother) and her food looks good, but crikey o' reilly, I look back on the enthusiasm of the early Keith Floyd or the ravings of a certain Mrs Cradock with genuine nostalgia, and for the days when old pros like Anton Mosimann or Albert Roux stood in some boring, brightly-lit studio somewhere, with a set of sparkling saucepans and a brand new gas stove and just showed us how it was done properly.

The girl likes cooking, I have no doubt about that, but I don't detect a genuine obsession for food there- she's the star and the food is almost incidental. And I doubt it's her fault. I can just see it. Some thrusting young television exec takes her out to lunch at Sketch, or somewhere like that, and there's lots of exciting talk: "The New Nigella"..."You'll be huge, darling" (as if she already isn't- or wasn't)..."massive book sales", and so on, and so on. And who can blame her for taking the bait?  I would. You would. My Cat would.

The trouble is that, currently, the British Broadcasting Corporation is one gigantic yawn when it comes to food. And I have a solution: may I suggest that the BBC clears all its food programmes off the schedules for a year (bit of a problem there, I admit, as this accounts for nearly all their programming, and I can see a queue at the Shepherds Bush unemployment office of hairy bikers, voluptious Belgravia housewives, fat ladies, bald masterchefs, and pock-marked prima donnas), and then after, say, a year of food abstinence, commissions one new food programme of intelligence, content, integrity and dare I say it, quirkiness?  And one programme only.

There. I've had my little rant.  And I've gone off on a tangent too, as this post was supposed to be about Omelette Arnold Bennett, which the supermodel showed us how to cook. It was an inspired choice, as Omelette Arnold Bennett is delicious, and thinking about it, I'm amazed that I haven't covered it before. It's very much a Greasy Spoon type dish. Here's how I make it (this will make two omelettes) and you'll need to make up some Béchamel and Hollandaise sauce before hand.  If I haven't written about these two sauces before, by golly, I'm just about to over the next few posts.

Poach 150g skinned haddock fillets in a mixture of milk and water. I would recommend using undyed haddock, rather than the yellow dyed stuff.

A fool proof cooking method is as follows: put the fish into cold water, bring it to the boil, put on the saucepan lid, and then turn off the heat. The fish will sit in the hot water and cook slowly, to taste. When you're happy with it, take the haddock out of the pan, drain and flake up the fish. I like my fish to be very slightly under-done. 

Whisk up six eggs, add half the flaked haddock and season to taste. Heat an omelette pan, add a knob of butter and swirl it around. Add enough egg mixture to cover the pan, and stir immediately, tipping the pan quickly, to allow the runny egg mixture to fill the gaps. Work like a navvie, without pause. Knowing how to make an omelette is an art, something you will need to practise. Mrs Aitch is extremely good at it; I am not. Once the omelette has lightly set, slide it out on to a plate.

Mix a cup of Béchamel Sauce with three tablespoons of Hollandaise Sauce. Add the remaining smoked haddock flakes and fold in a largish tablespoon of whipped double cream. Cover the omelette with this mixture, sprinkle with some freshly grated Parmesan Cheese and bake under a hot grill until glazed.

And who was Arnold Bennett?  It's amusing how celebrity and transience go together like tea and biscuits or Jekyll and Hyde. Back in the 1920's Bennett was a famous man of letters, and a director of The Savoy Hotel to boot; where the famed omelette was invented for him.  As Andy Warhol said: "in the future, everyone will be world famous for fifteen minutes".

 

Marinated Haddock with Prawns, Dill and Spring Onions

 

 

 

This recipe comes from Nathalie Hambro's "Simple Fare" (1986), one of the more interesting cook books in my collection. As well as being a fashion designer, and an all-round style guru, Nathalie Hambro is one of the most innovative and inspiring cookery writers out there, and if you are looking for fresh ideas I whole-heartedly recommend her books. Most of them, I think, are out of print but can be bought easily from amazon.co.uk, or abebooks.co.uk. I like this recipe for its Baltic, or Nordic, overtones, and it's very easily made with the simplest of ingredients. In concept, it's very similar to Gravlax.

 

 

 

Line a dish with tin foil. Spread some fresh dill over the foil, and season with sugar, Maldon salt, and black pepper. Next, place a fresh smoked haddock fillet over the dill. Normally I would use undyed haddock, but for this recipe I've found that the dyed yellow haddock works better. The Haddock needs to be as fresh as you can get it.

Cover the fish with more dill, sugar, sea salt and pepper. It's best to use more sugar than salt, and to go easy with the pepper. Sprinkle some large peeled prawns on top. Wrap the whole thing up tightly with the tin foil, and stick it into the 'fridge, with a weight on top, for at least twenty four hours- preferably longer.

When it's ready, slice the haddock into long, thin pieces. It's a bit like Japanese sushumi. Arrange in a serving dish with the prawns. 

Finally, take some spring onions, and cut them in four lengthways. Soak them in a bowl of ice-cold water- after a few minutes the green tops will start to curl up; this looks impressive. Zero effort. Take them out, drain them; and stick them in with the marinated haddock and the rest of the prawns.

Smoked Eel with Creamed Horseradish Sauce

 

 

Racking my brains for an appropriate Christmas Lunch or Boxing Day first course, I've come up with the idea of giving 'em Smoked Eel, served with a Creamed Horseradish Sauce. For some reason, this seems to me to be a suitable choice, and I think the subtle smokiness of the eel will balance all the richness and over-stuffing to follow.

If you've never had smoked eel, forget all the "cor blimey, Guv, jellied eel" nonsense. Smoked eel tastes entirely different, and with a properly made horseradish sauce, might even prove to be a sophisticated option.

It's not especially cheap, I have to admit. We've just ordered our smoked eel from the excellent Brown and Forrest, and an 8oz pack of smoked eel fillets (hot smoked over beech and apple) costs £14.00. You will need about 2oz per person.

We're going to serve it with slices of lemon and creamed horseradish sauce. I'm basing this on Simon Hopkinson's version:

First you need to make a horseradish concentrate. Peel a horseradish root and grate it finely across the base of the root. You will need 200g of the stuff.

Next, put the grated horseradish into a food processor. Add five tablespoons of water, two teaspoons of Maldon Salt, one and a half tablespoons of caster sugar, two and a half tablespoons of lemon juice, and two and a half tablespoons of white wine vinegar. Purée the ingredients until smooth. You will be able to keep the horseradish concentrate in a Kilner jar for up to two weeks.

When you want to make the creamed horseradish sauce, it's simplicity itself. Take four tablespoons of the horseradish concentrate you've made earlier, and whisk it into 200ml of double cream, adding a little bit more sugar and salt, to taste.

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Jellied Eels Revisited

 

 

I first wrote about jellied eels back in 2007, when we had a look at Tubby Isaac's famous East End eel stall. I've still got mixed feelings about jellied eels. I want to like 'em, and I'm almost at the point of becoming an aficinado, but if the truth be told, given half the chance I would sooner plump for a decent oyster on the shell, or a lovely cut of smoked eel with horseradish sauce.

Back in the good old days of muffin men and dancing chimney sweeps, eels were the staple diet of the London poor. The Thames Estuary is full of the critters, and as the Thames is now so much cleaner than it was say, forty years ago, eels are coming back in force.

 

I suspect the best way to enjoy jellied eels is to cook them yourself. A few months ago, I had a bowl of jellied eels as a first course (from memory, I think it was at Jack's Place in Battersea); and I don't remember them being especially good (not that I want to denigrate Jack's in any way; a splendid institution and long may it thrive!).

I've trawled through several very old-fashioned Mrs Beeton type cook-books on your behalf, and come up with a definitive recipe:

First, catch some eels. Chop them into 2 inch thick pieces, and plunge them into a large pan of boiling water with a generous dash of sea salt. Take them off the boil, and let them stand for five minutes.

Next, take a pan or dish, and throw in the eels. Pour in a pint of water (so that the eels are covered), and add three tablespoons of malt vinegar, a squeeze of lemon juice, some thinly sliced onions, carrots and celery, a bayleaf, a few peppercorns, sea salt, chopped parsley, and nutmeg.

Bring to the boil, reduce and simmer for twenty minutes, until the eels are tender. Remove the cooked eels and place them in a deep serving dish or bowl. Strain the 'liquor' over the eels, and when cool, bung it into the 'fridge. Eels are naturally gelatinous, so the liquid should set. If it doesn't, be prepared to add some liquid gelatine to the mix. According to one book, the chopped parsley gives "the jelly the traditional hint of green, like the sea". What a nice idea.

Serve the jellied eels with chili vinegar.

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Crispy Squid

 

 

I'm fortunate enough (or unlucky enough, depending on your point of view) to work next door to the new Westfield Shopping Centre in darkest Shepherd's Bush. For those of you who don't know about it, this is a spanking brand new Shopping Mall built on American lines, and apparently, the largest shopping complex in Europe.  I'm sure you'll get the picture: squeaky clean chain shops, giggly teenage girls hanging out in pairs, bland post-modern architecture, bored looking Security Guards talking into mobiles. Escalator Heaven.

It's a useful place to get a quick lunch, and I've been to that fast-food Chinese place on the first floor a few times. They cook an excellent, crispy squid, which they serve with black pepper, salt, and thinly sliced chili; along with a further chili dipping sauce. It's delicious and given me a quite a taste for the thing. It would make an excellent Chinese influenced canapé, and I think, would work well with a Dry Martini. It needs to be served very hot, and very crispy. The following recipe is based on Rose Prince's version in the Daily Telegraph:

Use fresh squid. Cut them open lengthways and remove the insides including the hard quill. With a pair of scissors cut away the tentacles and any hard, boney bits. Dry the squid with paper towels, and then score one side of the squid with a sharp knife to make a lattice pattern. Cut the squid into bite sized pieces.

Heat up some groundnut oil in a wok. Groundnut (or peanut) oil is excellent because it has a high smoking point. Carefully drop a tiny globule of water into the hot oil. If it sizzles, you will know that it is ready.

Dip the squid into some flour, and fry in small batches for two minutes. If you overcrowd the wok this will lower the temperature, and stop the squid from frying properly. Remove the crispy squid and let them cool down in a paper-lined sieve or colander.

When the time comes for you to eat them, reheat the oil and re-fry the squid for 3-4 minutes, or until they are a pale golden brown.

Serve them with fine salt, freshly ground black pepper, strips of red and green chili and a chili dipping sauce.

 

Kippers

 

 

For Saturday breakfast, I had a lonely boil-in-the-bag kipper. A few days ago, The Girl had been caught by the police in a sneaky scooter trap set up just outside Buckingham Palace, and was having to retake her scooter driving test.

The kippers were surprisingly good, and it occurred to me that this is another traditional food that has fallen in popularity.

Kippers are salted herring that have been split and then cold smoked. According to wikipedia (probably best read out in a fusty "Mr Kipling Makes Exceedingly Good Cakes" sort of voice): 

"The English philologist and ethnographer Walter William Skeat derives the word from the Old English kippian, to spawn. The origin of the word has various parallels, such as Icelandic kippa which means 'to pull, snatch', and the German word kippen which means 'to tilt, to incline'. Similarly, the English kipe denotes a basket to catch fish. Another theory traces the word kipper to the kip, or small beak, the male salmon deveop during the breeding season."

Etcetera, etcetera. I'm sure you all knew that back to front. My dear old Grandma used to make a sort of kipper butter or, I suppose, pâté, for spreading on toast at picnics. She simmered some boil in the bag kippers in water until they were cooked, and then mashed them up with creamed unsalted butter, a dash of Worcester Sauce and the juices from the bag. She then seasoned the kipper butter with salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice, and served them in ramekin dishes with a garnish of lemon and parsley.

Finisterre: Where Have You Gone?

 

 

I seemed to have tapped into the zeitergeist: yesterday, there was another feature in, I think, The Sunday Times colour supplement, on the perfect chip. Which made me think- what's happened to our supposed national dish, fish and chips? 

 

Photograph: gruntzooki

 

In the last few weeks, I seem to have fallen into a dangerously nostalgic, slightly reactionary mood: I was spluttering into my breakfast cuppa on Saturday morning when I read the ghastly news that Bates, the eccentric hatters of Jermyn Street, was under threat of closure. The Crown Estate has its eye on a juicy bit of property along the Haymarket end of the street, and are, apparently, keen to re-develop. I love Bates, and often drop by to touch my forlock to Binks, the stuffed cat and original cigar smoking St James's swell- I like the way he wears his topper at a jaunty angle, and the cut of his dash. Similarly, I've never felt the same since I heard the news that 'Finisterre' was to be replaced by 'FitzRoy' in the BBC Shipping Forecast. It's just not fair. 

 

 

Back in the '80's, I lived in Notting Hill, and a regular port of call was Geale's. This was a fabulous fish and chip restaurant of the old school- red and white checked tablecloths, Windsor chairs, pints of bitter served in jugs, a chalked up blackboard, lovely crispy lard-based batter, proper English chunky chips, and bottles of Heinz Tomato Ketchup and malt vinegar in those little bottles with the plastic spouts. This was the place where famously, Jeremy 'In The Street Where You Live' Brett, struggling with manic depression and God knows what other gremlins, ordered champagne for the whole restaurant. Geale's is still there- sort of- but has now changed hands, and inevitably lost its original authentic London charm in an unnecessary designer make-over.

Over the next few weeks I'm going on a mission to try and find out where I can order authentic fish and chips in the old tradition. Lots of formica, grumpy proprietors, malt vinegar, fishing nets and linoleum will be the order of the day. I like the look of the North Sea Fish Restaurant in Bloomsbury, and The Golden Hind in Marylebone Lane.

 

When there's an "R" in the Month...

 

 

 

I think I've probably just had the best oyster of all time. At the Whitstable Fish Market. In a shed. The future Mrs Aitch and I were down in Kent for the weekend, and decided to investigate Whistable; that fascinating sea-side town on the North Kent coast- where the Thames Estuary meets the bleak North Sea.

Forget all your fancy London oyster bars, and swanky fish restaurants; I've decided that there is only one way to sample oysters, and that's the way we did it late on Saturday afternoon: standing on a wet concrete floor in the Whitstable harbour fishing sheds. 

The fishmonger shucks your oyster on the spot (65p a shot), piles up some crushed ice on a small plastic tray, and throws on a roughly cut wedge of lemon. You take your tray over to a grubby formica table, where there are plastic bottles of chili and malt vinegars, and Tabasco. 

Really fresh oysters give you an immediate kick: it's the ozone rich, salty liquor- which tastes slightly metallic; and is full of zinc. It's the taste of The Sea.

Potted Crayfish in Tomato Consommé

 

 

I've had computer angst: I had written what I thought was a rather erudite and witty post about my attempt to try out my new recipe, Potted Crayfish in Tomato Consommé, on my future mother-in-law; and my computer went up the creek. Apologies.

I'm not going to re-write the article, that would be too complicated (it included a philosophical aside on the bucolic delights of crayfishing in Wiltshire, worthy of The Compleat Angler, itself); but I am going to tell you how to make my potted crayfish recipe in the comfort of your own kitchens.  The recipe worked well, although as I suspected, my spicy red pepper sauce was far too powerful for the delicate tomato jelly, and the dish would be more suitable for a summer's evening in the garden, than a miserable, cold and wet January.

First, you need to make a so-called tomato consommé. Buy some ripe, red tomatoes (the riper the better), and smash them up in the Magimix with a handful of sea salt. I used Maldon's smoked sea salt. Get hold of a sieve, and line it with muslin of coffee filter paper. Fill it up with the tomato pulp, and let the tomatoes drip into a bowl which you've placed underneath. It's probably best to leave it in the 'fridge overnight. In the morning, the bowl will be full of a lovely, crystal clear, rose-scented, intensely flavoured tomato stock.

Next, pack some ramekin dishes with crayfish.  I bought wild crayfish tails from my local supermarket. Okay, they're in a plastic packet, and produced by Joe Lyons (of Corner House fame), but they're surprisingly good: much sweeter and juicier than their prawn cousins. Cut up four gelatine leaves into small pieces, and soak them in about three tablespoons of cold fish stock and lemon juice. Next, melt them very carefully in a bain-marie, making sure they don't boil. When the liquid gelatine is hot and runny, pour it directly into the tomato stock, and whisk the mixture up very thoroughly with a whisk. If there is any fish juice left over from the crayfish packet, add this too.

Finally, pour the tomato consommé over the crayfish, to cover. Now it's time to discuss the spice factor. I tried making a spicy red pepper sauce to drizzle on top of the crayfish, and it didn't work. The flavours were just too strong. But I'm still obsessed with the idea that a touch of spice will work well with this dish- the tomato and crayfish combo is a bit Louisianan, isn't it?  I'm going to add a dash of Tabasco to the tomato consommé at the mixing stage, and see how that works. Just a drop or two. That's all.

Put the ramekins in the 'fridge, and they should set in an hour or so. Oh- and here's a useful tip- take them out of the 'fridge about an hour before you want to serve them. This will help to get rid of that slightly metallic gelatine taste. I think that's about it; though it might need some sort of garnish on top. How about roasted red peppers, with their skins removed, and chopped up into very small pieces, or even better, sliced into julienne ?

Smoked Haddock Chowder

 

 

January: cold, wet, dark, gloomy, and depressing; financially embarassing, too. No folks, it ain't my favourite month, and to combat all this, I need gutsy, unpretentious, winter food, as I'm sure you do as well.

Chowder is a classic American East Coast dish, usually a creamy soup enriched with salt pork fatback and traditionally thickened with crushed saltine crackers or corn. I've no doubt that each State or city have their own way of making it. Massachusetts will say this, Rhode Island will say that. Manhatten adds tomatoes, while in Maine, apparently, this is/was illegal. Here's my Limey take on it. I think smoked haddock (one of my all-time favourite fishes) works well. If Americans want to bombard me with abusive chowder emails- that's fine- please do; go ahead.  All I know is that it works, and I like it.

First, cook the smoked haddock. Try and buy a smoked, undyed fillet. The bright yellow fillets you see in the supermarket have been artificially dyed with all sorts of nasty chemicals. Undyed smoked haddock is a lovely, light cream colour. It's more expensive. but worth the extra cost, as the taste is far more subtle. In effect, the smoked haddock has already been cooked, so it will need very little poaching. Place it in a pan with a decent amount of water, to which you have added a bayleaf, a carrot, a small onion and one or two peppercorns. Bring it to the boil, turn off the heat and put the lid on the pan.

Next, in a large pan sauté some chopped salt pork or pancetta in unsalted butter. Add some finely chopped celery and onion or shallots. Pour in the poaching water from the haddock, and add some potatoes, which you've previously skinned and chopped up into smallish cubes. When the potatoes are almost cooked (which won't take that long), add milk and cream, and then the smoked haddock which you've broken up into large flakes.

Check the seasoning: chunky black pepper would be good, and it may or may not need sea salt, depending on how salty the haddock is. Add some fresh thyme and simmer the chowder gently for ten minutes. Serve with crackers.

All about Kedgeree...

 

 

 

Being English (and a bit Scottish too, if I go back far enough), I reckon I'm a bit of an expert on Kedgeree. I hope you won't find this arrogant, it's not supposed to be; but I'm sure that us Anglo-Saxons are the only people who make this dish, and I'm all for spreading the word. In truth, I'm an unashamed, fully signed-up, kedgeree anorak.

Last year, I wrote a post about kedgeree, and it you're interested in the history of the dish and its Anglo-Indian origins, please click on the link and have a good read. Kedgeree is made out of three key ingredients: rice, fish and eggs. Traditionally, it's served either as a breakfast dish (silver chafing dishes, shooting breakfasts and all that), or for supper.  I think it might also be good as a first course.

I'm sure that the first time I ever had kedgeree was at my uncle and aunts' place down in the Sussex countryside. This was the classic, Cromwellian, no-nonsense version; beloved of Empire and wary of excess: long grain rice, hard-boiled eggs, dyed smoked haddock, salt and pepper perhaps, with just a smidgin of curry powder. No cream, no lemon juice, no parsley; possibly re-heated or served cold as left-overs. Thrifty. Practical. Children should be seen and not heard.

Now zoom forward in time to the 1980's, and you have the cheffy, slightly effete, London interpretations of Michael Smith, Anton Mosimann, and Gary Rhodes- who had the bright idea of binding smoked eel in a creamy, Escoffier style Sauce Indienne.

Personally, I favour the Jane Grigson method (my own recipe based on her version in English Food): an onion is sliced up  and sautéed in a mixture of oil and butter. Curry paste, nutmeg, crushed coriander seeds and a pinch of saffron are stirred in and cooked for a few moments. Next, long grain or basmati rice is stirred into the spicy butter and allowed to turn translucent. Fish stock (left over from cooking the haddock) is then poured in, and allowed to cook until there's no water left. Finally you stir in flaked undyed smoked haddock, sliced softly boiled eggs, a cup or so of cooked wild rice, cream and butter, and generous amounts of chopped parsley. The dish is finished off with a squeeze of lemon juice, sea salt, black pepper and a pinch of Cayenne Pepper, and served with a Mango Chutney on the side. 

Rice

Basmati might be an appropriate choice here, with it's nod to the Imperial origins of the dish. However,  I normally recommend Uncle Ben's Long Grain Rice, as the starch has been removed, and you will end up with a cleaner result. In my idleness, I once tried to make kedgeree from a rice which I hadn't rinsed properly and the result was a nasty, starchy mush. Avoid that. I'm also keen on adding a cup or so of cooked wild rice to the finished mix; but bear in mind that wild rice will need at least half an hour (and probably a great deal longer) to cook properly- you'll know when it's cooked properly, as the grain splits and you will be able to see the whitish insides.

Onions and Peas?

Yes, in my opinion.  Believe it or not, reasonably authentic to the original Indian version. I like to sauté a sliced or chopped onion with the rice.  If I'm in the mood, I sometimes stir in some cooked peas with the smoked haddock.

Spices

I like kedgeree to have a bit of a kick. Partly because I'm a closet spice merchant, but also because I think the dish needs it. Avoid the bland. Don't forget kedgeree's Anglo-Indian origins: I reckon it needs a bit o' spice to make it authentic. I would recommend using a teaspoon or so of decent curry paste, rather than a curry powder, lots of nutmeg, crushed coriander seeds, and possibly a pinch of saffron- though I don't like the dish to turn bright yellow- too much like that radio-active 'pilau' rice you get fobbed off with down at your local Taj Mahal. A creamy, very light yellow colour, speckled with the green of the chopped parlsey, is the goal.

 

Fish

In theory, it should be undyed smoked haddock (not the cheaper yellow stuff), but in practice you can use any fish: cod, smoked eel, halibut or salmon. 1970's recipes often recommend tinned salmon- but I'm not convinced by that one, and I suspect if you're a bona fide foodie, you won't either. Smoked fish, in my opinion works well, as it tends to hold together a bit better; and of course, that oily smoked taste is no bad thing either. Place your fish fillet in some seasoned water, bring to the boil and turn off the heat, putting a lid back on the pan. Let the fish sit in the hot water- and about ten to fifteen minutes later it will be perfectly cooked. Use the fishy water as a stock, and pour it over the sautéed rice and spices.  In effect, you're making a pilaf.

 

Eggs

Free Range. Organic. I prefer them to be softly boiled. It's a very satisfying moment when you slice them open, and the hot, runny, yellow egg yolk runs out.

 

Cream?

Yes, definitely.  I always stir in a dollop of single cream, and add a knob of unsalted butter, too. It helps to keep your kedgeree moist, and that's no bad thing. Finish off the kedgeree with a squeeze of lemon juice- that works wonders, too. Another crucial question: do you make the kedgeree first, and then bind it in a creamy, curried sauce à la Gary Rhodes, or do you cook the rice in curried stock à la Jane Grigson?  An unresolved  dilemma, worthy of many sleepless nights.

 

Garnish

Lots of chopped parsley, please.  Coriander would work well, too. I like a pinch of Cayenne Pepper, though I accept that this might rot the old taste buds. Mango Chutney, however, works brilliantly with kedgeree, and brings out the lovely smoky, salty, sweet and sour flavours of this wonderful and classic dish.

Still awake?

 

 

Gravlax

 

Gravlax is the Scandinavian way of pickling Salmon.  In Norway, it's called Gravet Laks. In Iceland, Graflax, and in Denmark, Gravad Laks. This means, literally, "Grave Salmon", and refers to the Medieval practice of curing the raw fish by burying it in the sand above the level of the high tide. It's probably the perfect first course for the Christmas season. I like it's simplicity- and it's fun to make too. I've based this method of making it on a Jane Grigson recipe mentioned in Paul Levy's The Feast of Christmas.

You start off with a tail piece of salmon, weighing approximately 1 kg. Get your fishmonger to slice it in half, lengthways, and to remove the backbone, so that you end up with two slices of fish. Remove the remaining 'pin bones' with a pair of tweezers. Gravlax is usually made with the skin of the fish left on, but if you prefer, you can remove it.

Next, you need to mix up 'The Cure". Combine the following ingredients in a bowl: one heaped tablespoon of sea salt, one tablespoon of brown sugar, one teaspoon of crushed black peppercorns, and one tablespoon of cognac, schnapps or vodka.

Take some tin foil, and lie it down, flat. Spread some of the cure onto the foil. Lie one of the salmon pieces down onto the foil. Spread more of the cure onto the upper side of the salmon. Next, sprinkle lots of fresh, chopped dill on top of the salmon. Take the second piece of salmon, spread it with the cure, and place it directly on top of the first piece of salmon, so that you end up with a sort of salmon sandwich, with the dill and cure mixture filling up the middle. Does that make sense?

 

 

Fold over the tin foil, and crunch it tightly around the salmon pieces, so that it forms a package. Lie this in a shallow dish, and press some weights down on top of it.  I use some heavy iron weights from my grandmother's old-fashioned scales I've got lying around in my kitchen. Keep the salmon in a cool place for up to five days, turning the fish over once or twice. You'll find that juices from the fish will run out and mix with the cure and the dill. In effect, you're curing the salmon.

To serve the Gravlax, take it out of the tin foil, drain away the juices, and slice it thinly. I like it with dark rye bread and Dill Sauce.

You make Dill Sauce in a similar way to mayonnaise. Crack an egg yolk into a bowl, and mix in a dollop of French Dijon mustard and a tablespoon of white sugar. Whisk, and start to add Grapeseed Oil, drop by drop- as you would with a mayonnaise. The emulsion will thicken. Keep going until you're happy with the consistency. I like it thick. Flavour the sauce with two tablespoons of white wine vinegar, and season with salt and pepper. Finish it off by mixing in a decent amount of fresh, chopped dill. It's best if you remove the dill stalks, and then chop the feathery bits of the dill plant finely.

Midsummer Poached Salmon

Midsummer is a fascinating time of the year. For starters, it's associated with all sorts of curious folklore, magic and mythology; and the long summer days give opportunity for parties and lazing around in the garden after work. Traditionally, the 24th June is St John's Day, or Midsummer Day; even though the true solstice is on June 21st. So last weekend, we drove up to Worcestershire to see two great, and important English gardens, Hidcote Manor, and Kiftsgate Court; both currently flowering in all their full glory.

On the way back, I persuaded The Girl to stop off in Oxfordshire and pay our Midsummer respects to The Rollright Stones. This is a lesser known megalithic
stone circle, which dates back over three and half thousand years. As I expected, there were a few pagans (with flowers in their hair) milling around the circle, and soaking up the vibes. I took a quick photograph of the "Whispering Knight"- which is a large, single stone, standing about a hundred yards away from the main formation.

Anyway, back to things culinary. If you're going to have a party at this time of year, one of the most perfect dishes you can offer your guests is a classic whole poached salmon. For this, I would strongly advise that you invest in a fish kettle. This is a great bit of kit: it's just a long, rectangular, metal pan with a lid- big enough to hold a large salmon.

To poach the salmon, you need to fill the kettle up with cold water, to which you've previously added a few peppercorns , a bayleaf, a bouquet garni, and a splash of tarragon vinegar. Place the gutted salmon into the water, and bring the kettle to a slow boil on top of your stove. Once the water is beginning to simmer, put the lid back on, and turn off the heat. Let the fish stand in the hot water. This is a great tip for cooking fish. It stops the flesh from falling apart, and ensures that the fish remains very slightly undercooked (you want that), and moist, too. You'll be able to tell when the fish is cooked: when the flesh begins to flake gently away, and the eyes of the fish turn opaque.

Take out the cooked salmon, and lie it on a plate. Let it rest for a bit. Try and keep the fish as whole as you can. Remove the skin, and the fins, but keep the head and tail. Next, you need to remove the backbone. Run a knife along the top of the fish, and then make a cut to remove the head. The goal is to take off the top fillet, remove all the bones, and then reassemble the fish. Don't worry too much if the fish breaks up a bit, as we're about to disguise this with cucumber.

Once you're happy that most, if not all of the bones, have been taken out, start cutting up a cucumber into thin slices. Overlap these on the top of the salmon, so that they look like scales. So to recap: you've got a de-boned poached salmon, with the head and tail still intact. The centre section (ie the pink flesh) is now covered with cucumber scales.

If you're in a really cheffy (albeit retro) mood, you can now glaze the salmon with aspic. If you can't be bothered (or if you think this is a bit naff) serve it as it is. In both cases, you'll need a nice, stiff mayonnaise to go with it, preferably made by yours truly. For variety, it could be fun to add some chopped dill, and a squeeze of lemon to the mayonnaise. Serve the finished salmon on a bed of watercress.

The Greasy Spoon's Lobster Thermidor

 

 

Last night The Girl suggested that we make Lobster Thermidor. An interesting choice, as I have to hold my hand up and admit to you that I have never made it before. So, I pulled a few trusted cookery books down off the shelf, and did some research.

There are all sorts of variations on the theme. Essentially, it's chopped lobster flesh bound in a creamy Hollandaise type sauce, put back into the shell, and then grilled with parmesan cheese. Some recipes use egg yolks, others don't; some recipes use chopped parsley, some use cayenne pepper, all seem to use mustard; you get the drift.

Here's what we came up with. It worked extremely well, and was easy to prepare. First we bought Australian lobster tails from Waitrose. We removed the side fins, and cut off the bones, which run across the top. The lobster flesh then came away easily, and was put to one side, while I made the cream sauce. This was straightforward. I chopped up two shallots, and cooked them in butter, until soft.

Next, I poured in a decent amount of dry white wine, with a dash of cognac, and bubbled it away to burn off the alcohol. I then added about a cup of fish stock, and a similar amount of double cream; turned the heat up, and reduced the sauce by about a half, to thicken it up. Next, I added a teaspoon of English mustard, salt and pepper, chopped chives, and a squeeze of lemon juice.

It was then a simple matter to warm the chopped lobster in the sauce (so that the lobster was slightly cooked), pour the mixture back into the cleaned lobster tails, sprinkle it with freshly grated parmesan, and grill it in the oven.

After about five minutes under the hot grill, the slightly browned lobster mixture bubbled up nicely with the melted cheese, and the lobster shell turned an attractive deep pink colour. Overall, a resounding success...

Potted Shrimps

 

 

Hand held up high, I think that potted shrimps are, perhaps, one of the best traditonal British dishes of all time. Recently, I ordered some at the downstairs bar below Bibendum in the Fulham Road. They were completely delicious, buttery, flavoured with nutmeg and served with simple brown bread. By shrimps, I mean those small brownish Morecambe Bay shrimps, rather than the large Oriental variety.

Melt some unsalted butter with mace, cayenne pepper, paprika and some grated nutmeg in a small pan. Add the peeled brown shrimps and cook them very briefly in the butter at a low heat, ideally adding any juices left over from the shrimps. Squeeze in a generous amount of lemon juice.

Season with salt and pepper and divide the mixture into ramekin dishes. Let them set in the fridge and then top them off with some unclarified butter. The butter will act as a seal. When they're ready to serve, spoon out the potted shrimps and spread them on slices of brown bread.

It's best if they're served at room temperature, so that the slightly spicy butter goes soft. Perfect for this time of year or for picnics.

Egon Ronay's Roast Red Mullet with Cumin Sauce

 

Remember Egon Ronay? He was that rather dapper Hungarian who published a series of restaurant guides, in vogue a few years back. One of the favourite books in my modest cookery library is none other than Egon's "The Unforgettable Dishes of My Life', published back in 1989. You should be able to get hold of a copy relatively easily from either amazon.co.uk, or that marvellous antiquarian book website, abebooks.com.

His book's a personal thing, with lots of unpretentious recipes that have held some meaning to him over the years. That's something I like about food: the way a certain dish can bring back memories, or have some literary or historical connotation. Without getting too pretentious; wasn't that, in many ways, what Proust was all about? You know, the madeline dipped into the lemon tea and all that?

Anyway, here's his recipe for Roast Red Mullet with Cumin Sauce. I've posted a picture of the critter above, so that you can recognise one when you go to your local fishmonger- if you have any left in your neighbourhood that is; in London, they're all more or less gone, and have been replaced by Starbucks, Gap, and various other chains of a dubious sort.

Clean and gut a red mullet, keeping back the bones and the livers. Cut off the heads and the tail. Put the heads, tail, and bones into a saucepan, and add leeks, shallots, white wine, and salt. Pour in two pints of water, and bring to the boil. Skim off the scum as it floats to the top. Cover the saucepan, and simmer for about twenty minutes.

Hey presto! You will have a fish stock. Reduce 3/4 pint of this fish stock, first adding two teaspoons of cumin seeds, until the stock takes on a syrupy consistency. Add half a pint of double cream and the Red Mullet livers, and boil for fifteen seconds. Liquidise in your magimix or blender, and then pass it through a sieve. That's the sauce finished.

Brush the cleaned mullet with oil, and wrap it in foil, first seasoning it with a generous amount of sea salt and chunky black pepper. Place the fish on a baking tray, and cook in the oven at 220C (425F) until the fish is cooked. The flesh will flake slightly when it is done. Arrange the cooked fish on a plate, and pour the sauce around it. Eat.

Mussels in Cider

 

 

Some of my earliest food memories are from childhood holidays in France. This involved long, soporific car journeys in the family Citroen (with pneumatic suspension); to Brittany and to the South of France. In these enlighted times we're now all a bit blase about good food, but back then, l'escargots, cuisses de grenouilles, and moules mariniere were a big deal for us kiddywinks brought up on fish-fingers, lemon meringue pie, and Heinz alphabet spaghetti.

The War had a lot to do with it. Rationing lasted until the 1950's, and the sense of culinary adventure (if it ever existed) was lost for good. I think this still applies. Okay, everyone over here is obsessed with celebrity chefs, and buy their glossy coffee-table books by the yard, but I doubt any of them are read- or- heaven forbid- actually used.

This made me think about that French classic, moules mariniere, or, mussels cooked in wine (or cream), with garlic and parsley. It's a great dish, no doubt about it; but I'm going to put my gastronomic reputation on the table by telling you that I think the traditional British version is better. This uses cider, instead of white wine. Cider is less acidic, and, in my opinion, creates a better balance for the sauce.

Here's how you make it. Saute some chopped shallots in a large pan, with a bayleaf, and a sprig of thyme. Add a crushed garlic clove. Next, pour in a bottle of dry cider. Try and use a decent cloudy organic cider, such as Sedlescombe Farmhouse Cider from Sussex, rather than the sweet fizzy stuff. Bring to the boil, and evaporate the alcohol.

Now it's time for the mussels. If you're buying fresh mussels, it's important that they are prepared carefully. First, throw out any mussels which are open, or even slightly open. Scrub the mussels with a brush to remove the "beards' and the "tufts" that you will see growing out of the closed shells. Next, soak the mussels in a basin of fresh water for a few hours, to remove any sand or grit. Take them out, put them into a colander, and place them under a running tap.

Once the mussels have been properly washed and cleaned, add them to the pan, cover tightly, and boil them over a high heat, shaking the pan all the time as they cook. After about five minutes, the mussels should be ready. Throw out any mussels which have not opened. Strain the liquor into another pan, and add a dollop of double cream.

Double cream is less likely to curdle than single cream. Stir it around, and cook it down for a minute or so. Season with a decent sea salt, and chunky black pepper, and then pour it back over the mussels. Garnish with lots of chopped fresh parsley.

Squid in Black Ink

 

 

Apologies for my absence over the last few days, but I have just returned from a jaunt around Venice with The Girl. As you might expect in that City of Dreams (and lover-ly Murano Glass) we had a wonderful time and even managed to squeeze in a few Dry Martinis and Bellinis at Harry's Bar.

I can also whole-heartedly recommend the Ristorante Corte Sconta (Calle del Pestrin 3886), where the thinly sliced and marinated tuna was to die for. A local dish that seemed to crop up again and again, was Seppie in Tecia Col Nero, otherwise known as Squid cooked in its own Black Ink. Here's a genuine version of the thing taken from Arrigo Cipriani's Harry's Bar Cook Book. It's all a bit gothic and when you're cooking it, the black ink goes everywhere and stains everything, so be warned.

 

 

Buy or catch your squid. Pull the head and body of the squid apart. Cut off the tentacles below the eyes. Remove the silvery ink sacs on either side of the innards and discard the rest. Pull out the bone from the body and chuck it out. Rinse the prepared squid under the tap, and peel off the pink skin. Cut the body and tentacles into pieces.

Heat some olive oil in a hot pan and add a chopped celery rib, chopped onion and a crushed garlic clove. Fry until soft. Next add some plum tomatoes, and the squid, and toss for a few minutes, turning the heat to high. Add a cup or so of dry white wine, and some chopped basil and parsley, and let it all bubble away for a few minutes.

Take the ink sacs (which you have kept back), and force the black ink into the pan, little by little, until you have a rich black sauce. Season with salt and pepper, and cook for about an hour or so, until the squid is soft. If the sauce dries out, add some fish stock. That's it. Serve with polenta, and a bottle of Prosecco on ice. Prosecco is the regional sparkling wine of the Veneto, and it's amazing value for money. I'm planning to stock up on the stuff in bulk. And as an added bonus, here's an arty photograph I took of a party of Japanese schoolgirls outside Florian's Cafe.

 

 

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Shirred Eggs with Scallops

 

 

Working as I do in the antiques and auction business, I'm often lucky enough to pick up interesting bargains. The latest acquisition to my modest cookery library is a copy of the Bestway Cookery Gift Book, circa 1938. It's a smallish, slightly stained volume, which has the added plus of having once been part of the Anton Mosimann Collection. If you see any similar books from the 1930's, I would urge you to buy them, as cook-books from this period are becoming increasingly hard to track down.

I had a look to see if there were any recipes which I could post on The Greasy Spoon. Tastes change, and I reckoned that dishes like Gooseberry Custard, and Monday Pudding, wouldn't go down that well in today's world of sun-dried tomatoes, and properly cooked squid-ink risotto.

However, I found a simple recipe for Shirred Eggs with Scallops, which I think, would make an excellent first course. I've adapted it slightly.

Take some fresh, medium-sized scallops, cut them into quarters, and flash-fry them in a pan. They will need very little cooking. Put the scallops into a ramekin dish. Next, make a white sauce in the usual way. Remember, that's butter, flour, and then milk, and a bit of nutmeg. Pour the white sauce over the scallops, and then break a fresh egg onto the top. Season with salt and pepper and add a knob of unsalted butter. Bake in a medium oven, until the eggs are set; and then decorate with some chopped parsley. Ideally, you want the egg yolks to remain soft, and slightly runny.

Prawn Cocktail

 

 

Well, I had to write about the ubiquitous Prawn Cocktail sooner or later, didn't I? In America, this is called Shrimp Cocktail, and in any event, the American version seems to consist of prawns with a spicy, red coloured dipping sauce. In Britain, we bind the prawns in a bland pink mayonnaise, which is known as a Marie Rose sauce.

Actually, I'm rather fond of it, and the secret is to get the sauce as smooth as you possibly can. I made it yesterday, but substituted crayfish tails for the prawns. They were rather sweet, and delicious, and it worked out well.

Here's how I made the Marie Rose sauce: First, I put a dollop of French Dijon Mustard, a squeeze of lemon juice, and some salt into the Magimix. Next, I added two egg yolks, and whizzed the ingredients together. Then I poured in some grapeseed oil very slowly- in a thin stream- until the eggs and oil combined to form an emulsion.

If you use a blender or processor to make mayonnaise, you'll find that it can get too thick, so I'll let you into a trade secret. Add a tablespoon of boiling water. This has a miraculous effect. It lightens up the mayonnaise, making it whiter in colour, and smoother and lighter on the tongue.

Next, add several tablespoons of Heinz Tomato Ketchup, a splash of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce, a few drops of Tabasco, and a further squeeze of the old lemon juice. Hey Presto! You've now got a pink Marie Rose Sauce.

Bind the prawns (or shrimps, or crayfish tails) in the sauce, and serve in a glass with some lettuce, and a wedge of lemon.

Now for a bizarre twist on the classic Marie Rose Sauce. While trawling the internet, I found a recipe for something called "Sauce Liberal" from none other than our old mucker, The Duchess of Windsor (aka Mrs Wallis Simpson). You make the Marie Rose sauce in the usual way- but finish it off by mixing in "liberal" slugs of neat gin. I gather that this went down rather well at the Windsors' sybaritic villa off the Bois de Bologne.

This worried me. Okay, I didn't exactly have a sleepless night over it, but I reckoned that the bitter taste of the warm gin would ruin an otherwise excellent sauce. So, as an experiment, I boiled up some gin in a pan, until all the alcoholic vapours had burnt off, then added the reduced spirit to the sauce. It worked! The juniper flavours came through, and it gave the sauce a subtle twist.

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Grilled Mackerel with Green Goosberry Sauce

 

 

By now, you should know how much I love fish. Catching the blighters is fun too. We used to go fishing in Scotland, and I remember the excitement of dangling your brightly coloured lure over the side of the boat, and then the sudden adrenalin rush as you realise that that there are wriggly, silvery mackerel (flashing blue in the sunlight), tugging hard at the end of your line.

Here's a very British recipe for Grilled Mackerel with an interesting Gooseberry Sauce. When was the last time you had Gooseberry Sauce? I'm all for it- and the sharp flavours of the gooseberries contrasts well with the oily fish.

Take ½ a pound of green gooseberries, top and tail them, then put them into a pan of boiling water, and simmer them until they turn yellow. Next, strain off the water, and pass them through a sieve, so that you end up with a purée. Add a tablespoon of sugar to the mixture. Melt a knob of butter in a hot pan, and then stir in some flour to form a roux in the normal way. As always, make sure the flour is slightly cooked, stirring the roux until you get a smooth buttery paste.

Then, pour in about half a pint of boiling water and stir. Take off the heat, and start adding small pieces of butter, piece by piece, until you have a smoothish sauce. Stir in the gooseberry purée, and season with chopped fennel, salt and pepper, and some grated nutmeg.

The Mackerel are easy. Take your gutted fish, and make four diagonal cuts into the fish on either side. Season with salt and pepper, and rub the inside and outside with lemon juice. Brush with oil, and grill them for about fifteen minutes. Serve with a lemon wedge, and the Green Gooseberry Sauce.

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The Duke of Windsor's Haddock Soufflé

 

 

 

My old friend, Nick "Moussaka" Good, has come up with an excellent take on a traditional soufflé. For some bizarre reason he has an obsession with the scary Fanny Cradock (to those who don't know, she was one of the first British television cooks; competent no doubt, but caked in make-up, and altogether like some psychedelic creature from Planet Nine). Anyway, I'm a fan of the Duke of Windsor- or at least his rather rakish dress sense.

Nick writes: "Last year I decided to become proficient in making soufflés. It’s all about getting the oven hot enough, the sauce right, whipping egg whites to perfect peaks, and bringing it all together at the right time in the right order. There’s nothing vulgar or "chuck it all together" about a soufflé. It takes patience, practice and the acceptance of initial failure or at least disappointment. Also they really don’t rise up quite like they do in films. If however you follow the rules you will succeed and produce something worthy of enjoyment. Carrier and Kerr recipes are fine (Brisbane Bay prawn soufflé is fantastic but a little OTT for the beginner) but there is only one soufflé teacher for the masses: Fanny Cradock.

Follow Fanny’s instructions and you’ll have perfect soufflé, diverge but a half inch (centimetre for those in the Common Market) and you’ll be doomed to a sloppy mess. Such is the way of the soufflé. Fanny suggests various basic recipes to cut your teeth on, but here is her recipe for Haddock Soufflé which is utterly delicious. Being Fanny this is not just any old Haddock Soufflé, but the recipe given to her and Johnnie by the Duke of Windsor when they dined at the Windsor’s Paris house in 1956.

You will need:

½ pint whole milk

¼ pint single cream

½ lb uncooked smoked haddock

1½ oz flour

1½ oz butter

8 egg whites

3 oz grated parmesan

1 egg

spoonful dry mustard powder

½ egg spoonful nutmeg

Generous grate of black pepper

1 level teaspoonful salt

Teacup of small croutons

 

Cook the haddock gently in a milk and cream mixture for ten minutes. Remove, cool and flake the fish. Reserve the milk mixture for soufflé. Heat your oven to 225 Degree Celsius (very hot!). Butter an eight inch diameter soufflé mould. Reheat the fishy milk mixture in a small pan over a low heat.

Whip the egg whites with a rotary hand whisk (not an electric whisk or you’ll overdo it) to firm peaks in a very clean large bowl. Dissolve the butter in a second, larger pan. Add the flour to the butter, stir to a soft, pale coloured ball in pan and add a quarter of the warm milk mixture. Wait a moment for the milk to boil, then stir thoroughly. Take it from the heat and beat well. Repeat with the second quarter of the milk and add half the cheese.

After the second beating add the remaining milk, the seasoning and rest of the cheese and, when milk boils again, beat very thoroughly. Take this sauce off the heat and beat out some of the steam for approximately one minute. With a large metal spoon (preferably silver but never wooden) loosely stir in the flaked haddock, the croutons, then the egg whites. Level this off into the soufflé mould with the large metal spoon.

Bake the soufflé for twenty minutes. Never open the oven door to have a peek whilst it’s cooking. Enjoy with a white wine dry enough to cope with the eggy saucy goodness! "

 

 

Maryland Crab Cakes

 

 

This is one of the all-time great American recipes, comfort food at it's best; and it's relatively easy to make too. Traditionally, the Blue Crab from the Chesapeake Bay area is the one to go for, but I have to accept, reluctantly, that this side of the pond, other varieties of crab will have to do. Die-hards might also want to add Old Bay Seasoning, which is a spicy American herb and spice mix. As I don't seem to be able to get it here (maybe I should try the excellent Wholefoods in Kensington High Street?), I've substituted a very similar spice mix.

Take some juicy crab meat and put it into a mixing bowl. Add a cup of mayonnaise, a tablespoon of mustard powder (I use Colman's), a beaten egg, a teaspoon of Lea & Perrins, the juice of a lemon, and some chopped parsley. Mix it all together.

Now for The Greasy Spoon's "Old Bay Seasoning" mix. Grind up some celery salt, mustard seed, cinammon, powdered ginger, peppercorns, and a bayleaf until you have a reasonably fine powder. Add a teaspoon or so of this to the crab mixture. Next you need to add some form of breadcrumbs. I find it easiest to use about seven crushed Saltine Crackers, and I suspect this is more authentic. The easiest way to crush them is to put the crackers into a plastic bag, and then bash them with a hammer.

Chill the mixture for about two hours in the 'fridge. To cook them, all you need to do is to drop them into hot oil (say, in a wok), and fry them until they are golden brown. Utterly delicious: the taste of the East Coast.

Sardines

 

 

Sardines or "Pilchards" are a small fish related to the Herring. They're oily, extremely good for you, and apparently stimulate the brain- and my god, do I need that this morning. In this country, we used to have masses of the critters down in Cornwall, but the stocks petered out in the late nineteenth century.

Have a look at the paintings by the Newlyn School artists (such as Stanhope Alexander Forbes), which often depict Cornish fishermen of that period. Nowadays, we're more used to imported sardines packed in olive oil in small tins. Back in the 1920's, gourmets thought that oil improved the sardines, so we had the interesting (and slightly bizarre) concept of vintage sardines. Oscar Wilde's son, Vyvyan Holland, who was a connoisseur of this sort of thing, even had an exclusive dining society where they met expressly to sample the different "vintages". Well, the sad news is that this was a total fantasy, but I like the idea of grown men putting on dinner jackets to eat sardines out of the tin.

Here's a simple recipe for "Grilled Sardines stuffed with Onions and Capers". I've taken it from Anton Mosimann. Generally, I'm not that keen on the "celebrity chef" culture, but I think Anton Mosimann (one of the first celeb chefs in this country) was (is!) rather good. And some of his food is simpler than you might imagine.

Chop up an onion and sweat it in olive oil for a few minutes. Take the cooked onion off the heat and mix it with some chopped parsley, three tablespoons of chopped capers, a strip of finely chopped lemon peel, salt and pepper, and a pinch of cayenne. Get hold (or catch) some fresh sardines, and make sure they are scaled and gutted (but keep the head and tails on). Stuff the sardines with the onion and capers mixture, and sprinkle some of the mixture on top of the sardines. Season the fish with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Shove them under a hot grill for about five minutes.

 

Anchovy Butter

 

 

I love anchovies. They're a small, silvery salt-water fish found in the mild waters of the Med, and the warmer reaches of the Atlantic. The Romans were crazy about them and used them extensively in their cooking.

The anchovies we're used to in Britain are cured in salt, and then packed in olive oil- which gives them a powerful, extremely salty flavour. Last summer when I was on holiday in Positano, I sampled the unsalted local variety- arranged simply on a plate with torn basil leaves and olive oil; and my god, they were good.

So today, I've come up with an oh-so-simple recipe for anchovy butter. You can use it with fish, or just simply spread it on your toast; and if warmed up gently, it would make an excellent sauce. In a mixing bowl mash up a pat of slightly soft unsalted butter (ie taken out of the 'fridge for a bit). It's important to use unsalted butter, otherwise the dish is going to be far too salty. Generally, I use unsalted butter anyway in my food, as it leaves you to decide how much salt to put in at the end of the cooking period.

With a fork, mash in your anchovies. When they've been combined, add a squeeze of lemon juice. The lemon juice acts as a balance, and will help to smooth out the salt. I think a dash of ground mace or cayenne pepper would be work well here too.

Finally, pack the anchovy butter into small ramekin dishes and keep it in the 'fridge.

Christmas Herring Salad

 

 

A German style Christmas market has come to town. I haven't been yet, but all sorts of stalls, fairground rides, and ice-rinks have gone up in Hyde Park. And for once, it's suddenly cold and frosty here in London. Every Christmas I make a German or Scandanavian style Herring Salad. I was given the recipe by my great uncle whose family originally came from Cologne. He treated the enterprise as a work of art, and "built" up the salad over three or four days; however I recently ran into a Swedish girl at a cocktail party who insisted that it needed to be made quickly- and then finished off immediately. I'm going to go with my great-uncle on this one, as the vinegars in the salad should act as a preservative.

Want to make it?

This is how I do it: You will need a large mixing bowl. Chop up some herring. You are supposed to use salted herring, but I use Scottish roll-mops- which are herring marinated in vinegar and spices. Add some diced cooked potatoes, peeled diced apples, diced gherkin, chopped celery, chopped anchovies, and ham- chopped up into small pieces. Mix it all around. Throw in a handful of capers, and some diced cooked beetroot.

 

 

The beetroot will make the salad go an interesting bright pink colour. Next, mix up a vinaigrette. That's just a small dollop of mustard mixed with sugar, and wine vinegar to form an emulsion, with oil added slowly. I suggest you use a light oil, such as sunflower oil, rather than olive oil for this one. Olive oil is too Mediterranean in style and flavour. Finish off the salad with lots of chopped dill, and chopped egg white. It's delicious.

Marinated Haddock with Prawns and Dill

 

 

 

This recipe comes from Nathalie Hambro's Simple Fare (1986), one of the more interesting cook books in my collection. As well as being a fashion designer, and all-round style guru, Nathalie Hambro is one of the most innovative and inspiring cookery writers out there, and if you are looking for fresh ideas, I whole-heartedly recommend her books. Most of them, I think, are out of print, but can be bought easily from amazon.co.uk, or abebooks.co.uk.

I like this recipe for its Baltic, or Nordic, overtones, and it's very easily made with the simplest of ingredients. Here's how you do it: Line a dish with tin foil. Spread some dill over the foil, and season with sugar, Maldon salt, and black pepper.

Next, place a fresh smoked haddock fillet over the dill. Normally I would use undyed haddock, but for this recipe I've found that the dyed yellow haddock works better. The Haddock needs to be as fresh as you can get it. Cover the fish with more dill, sugar, salt and pepper. It's best to use more sugar than salt, and to go easy with the pepper. Sprinkle some large peeled prawns on top. Wrap the whole thing up tightly with the tin foil, and stick it into the 'fridge, with a weight on top, for at least 24 hours- preferably longer.

When it's ready, slice the haddock into long, thin pieces. It's slightly like Japanese sushumi. Arrange it in a serving dish, with the prawns. Take some spring onions, and cut them in four lengthways. Soak them in a bowl of ice-cold water- after a few minutes the green tops with start to curl-up- which looks impressive, for virtually zero effort. Take them out, drain them; and stick them in with the marinated haddock and the rest of the prawns.