Wednesday 19 December 2012

A game of squash

I don’t like to think about this much, but I have a feeling I might be a fair-weather friend. If it’s easy to see someone (i.e. I live with them or am related to them), then I make a pretty good fist of being supportive and interested. If I’m swamped at work, exhausted, you live far away or Daniel Craig gets married and I’m depressed (again), then it won’t happen. I’m quite solitary. I have a diary from a few years ago when I lived by myself in which almost every entry is ‘cold today, reading X book, so happy’. For obvious reasons I generally try to disguise this, and when I’m in a sociable mood or it’s a sociable time of year (bah humbug) then it’s all to play for.

Last Saturday, I invited two girlfriends to my flat for supper before a Christmas party. These two girls were at the forefront of a fantastic group of people who saved my 4th year at university, when I came back from my year abroad in Paris and almost all of my friends had left (on the plus side, I was vaguely chic for the first time in my life). Shamefully, I hadn’t seen them in months.

I decided to do a risotto, mainly because all I’ve been reading for the last two weeks are Italian cookbooks and news articles about when Carluccio stabbed himself.

Butternut squash seemed appropriately seasonal and I really never cook with it, so off I trotted to our local supermarket, where, as usual, they were understocked and overpriced. I won’t name names but it’s obviously not Waitrose. Having to abandon my dreams of fresh sage, I bought dried and also some pine nuts and lardons. After all, if in doubt, add bacon.

Back home, I smashed up the dried sage in oil to try to make it more interesting, added some garlic and lemon juice, sloshed it over the quartered squash and roasted it for an hour. I then scraped out the insides and pureed them because they were weirdly stringy. I’m not sure I really like squash, given the faff that is required and the fact it doesn’t taste of much.

How was I to know that one of the girls would turn up and announce that butternut squash risotto was her speciality? The pressure was on (sort of, mainly I just laughed in a nonchalant manner and surreptitiously topped up the Pinot Grigio so she wouldn’t be in a position to do an accurate taste test).

To cut a long story short, presents were exchanged, risotto was eaten and enjoyed, bonding was done, a napkin was set on fire, and we didn’t make it to the party.

Butternut squash risotto
(I think it would have tasted pretty much the same without the squash…)

Serves 4

You will need:
· 1 onion, finely chopped
· 1 butternut squash (or not, seriously, I don’t think it matters and would save you an hour)
· 200g lardons or diced pancetta
· 75g pine nuts
· 400g Arborio rice
· 2 glasses of white wine
· 1 litre of chicken stock
· Sage, oil, lemon and garlic mixture
· Lots of parmesan
· Lots of butter

Method:
· Quarter the squash and roast with the sage mixture for an hour at 200c.
· Scrape out the insides of the squash and puree. Set aside.
· Fry the onion in butter and oil, add the rice and stir, making sure each grain is glossy and coated.
· Add the wine and let it reduce.
· Start adding the hot stock in the approved risotto fashion.
· Ladle, stir, ladle stir, make scintillating small talk, ladle, stir etc. It should be all done in 15-20minutes.
· Meanwhile, you can quickly toast the pine nuts in a dry pan, and then fry the lardons in the same one.
· Add the squash puree (or not, whatever) to the risotto and stir though.
· Take off the heat, leave for a second and then whack in a lot of butter and parmesan and beat together madly. Season.
· Divide onto plates and scatter the lardons and pine nuts on top.

Serve with a watercress salad and a sharp dressing.

Tuesday 11 December 2012

La Bella Figura

Exciting times for the fans (officially 0) – this blog has been short listed for a food writing competition run by Waitrose and the Good Food Guide, in which the eventual winner gets to write for the Good Food Guide 2014! I know, we all thought this was just me writing my diary in public and occasionally going for dinner in nice places.

The final takes place in February and involves ‘food based challenges’. Assuming they mean inventive cooking and culinary knowledge rather than ‘how many mini eggs can you fit in your mouth in one go?’ (officially 29), between now and then you can expect lots of recipes as I practice the art of perfection.

Right now though, we’re on our way to Locanda Otteomezzo via a book signing. Last week, courtesy of an invitation from a Pimlico Publishing Powerhouse, we arrived at Waterstones on Kensington High Street and came face to face with Antonio Carluccio and Genaro Contaldo, aka Two Greedy Italians. This was one of my favourite cookery programmes of 2012 (yes, there’s a list and no, Rachel-Khoo-who-stole-my-life is not on it), mainly for the episode about ‘white food’, in which they sat next to an oven in a mountain village all day baking things with butter, cream and cheese.

Carluccio signed my book, which was almost too thrilling, talked about caviar and then told a joke about the mafia and baby Jesus that was so hyperbolically Italian it all became too much. It would work well at this point if I could say that we were all so enthused by the torrid Southern European amore we immediately headed straight for the nearest trattoria, but we didn’t, we went to the pub for a couple of hours and then tried to get into Côte. Sadly thwarted, we followed a memory around the corner to Locanda Otteomezzo, where they appeared to be whipping themselves into a truffle frenzy in a very nicely lit (by which I mean dark avec candles) basement.

Everything was truffled. The bread, the plates, one entire tasting menu. Truffles everywhere. Having drunk Guinness earlier (different story), I was approximately as hungry as one would be after eating a loaf of bread, so I went for the carpaccio with parmesan, rocket and truffle oil. Everyone else had the special of truffled pasta. Now, truffle pasta is one of the best and simplest things in the world (much like one of my sisters) but if you’re going to serve plain pasta with fungus and charge £25 or more for it you really do have to get it right. Everything needs to be fresh, hot and happy. This wasn’t quite there and the whole dish looked sad, tepid and brown. People left bits on their plates, which shouldn’t happen with this kind of food. On a happier note, my carpaccio was delicious and accidentally truffled parmesan is an unexpectedly good thing to eat. (I also note that the reviews online are great, so maybe we ordered the wrong thing. I’m writing this because I don’t want to be abused on Twitter by chefs).

I see from reading my SIGNED BOOK that Carluccio has a recipe for taglierini al tartufo. So next time, I’ll be inviting everyone to mine for a hopefully more satisfying experience.

Locanda Otteomezzo
2-4 Thackeray Street
W8 5ET

Shortcuts #1

If you are having more than 10 people for supper, rub salt all over one of these (approx 3kg shoulder of pork), put it in a 160c oven at 9am, and take it out at 8pm. Et voilà.

Friday 23 November 2012

Cold Comfort Farm

Comfort food is an odd phrase. If you get great news at work and decide to celebrate with champagne at your favourite restaurant where you always have the XYZ - that XYZ is comfort food. Equally, feeling ill and heading home early for a bowl of soup; that’s comfort food. Seeing family for lunch and having the same roast chicken you’ve had every other Sunday since 1991 is comfort food (as long as you like roast chicken, and your family). However, the worst, worst manifestation of comfort food, and the one most people will have thought of immediately, is the stereotype of a girl crying into the Haagen Daaz in her pyjamas and sloshing Pinot Grigio all over the sofa.

Only about a third of women continue to eat healthily during times of emotional stress. Apart from the odd occasion when you only eat mashed potato for 24 hours, I think this is much more likely to mean that women don’t really eat when they’re sad. As if they’re so tired or upset or just clinically fed up that they temporarily don’t care about themselves.

We all know about the Heartbreak Diet, where a friend who is going through a break up will suddenly appear looking leggy, which is envy inducing until you ask her how she is and she can’t say answer without welling up.

Here’s the bitch: for men, the urge for comfort food is apparently (I did some googling research) triggered by positive emotions, whereas for women it’s by negative ones. This means that for every man celebrating his good news in his favourite local Italian, there’s a woman in the flat next door hoofing down chocolate and deleting old photos on facebook. If life was a film, they would meet inadvertently when she runs to the shops at 11pm to pick up another bottle just as he’s leaving the restaurant, and they would then be In Love. But it isn’t a film, so she will develop a short term alcohol problem, and he will probably grab a cab home.

The Wikipedia article on comfort food (as always, to be read with a pinch of salt please) only gives examples of comfort foods from the USA, Canada and Indonesia, which seems a little reductive, if eclectic. The page did, however, alert me to the fact that Kraft (they of the plastic cheese slices) make something called a ‘microwavable dinner cup’ in the flavour ‘Extreme Cheese Explosion’ which I am genuinely desperate to try.

However, it was either Rousseau or Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall who said, “food that weighs heavy on the stomach, often weighs rather heavy on the soul too”, and the last thing you need when you’re feeling miserable is to feel stuffed as well. One of my favourite comfort foods ever is something I call, excitingly, ‘Egg Smash!’, which is where you soft boil 2 eggs, peel them and then just smush them up in a mug with salt, pepper and parmesan. Eat that, watch some crap TV, get an early night.

What I’m trying to say is that for me, comfort food doesn’t automatically mean macaroni cheese. In fact I have to be in a pretty convivial mood to want to relax and eat pasta and drink wine and chat. Recently, my godmother took me for lunch at Hush, which is not only owned by Roger Moore’s son, but is also where they have a truffled macaroni cheese with bacon (what an elegant segway into the food part).

I’m not normally a fan of f**king with the formula, but an easy way of making macaroni cheese as special as you deserve at home (assuming you don’t want to buy a truffle…) is to try the recipe below which is based on Lorraine Pascale’s ‘Glam Mac and Cheese’. I have adapted it a bit because she did include a few weird things, and none of my sisters like parsley. Full disclaimer: she used to be a model so probably doesn’t eat it very often. Also, serve it with salad or your arteries will turn into cheese.

Pimped Macaroni Cheese
Serves 4

You will need:
340g macaroni
80g pancetta
100g breadcrumbs
-handful of chopped thyme

For the cheese sauce:
40g butter
40g plain flour
1 tsp mustard powder
200ml milk
285ml double cream
200g dolcelatte
115g parmesan

-Preheat the oven to 200c
-Cook the macaroni until just underdone (it will cook more in the oven) and drain
-Fry the pancetta and thyme and add to the pasta
-For the sauce, start by making the roux. Melt the butter and mix in the flour. Add the milk and cream little by little, stirring constantly. Turn up the heat and boil it for a few minutes to thicken.
-Add most of the dolcelatte and parmesan to the mixture and stir well. Season.
-Pour the sauce over the pasta and combine.
-Spoon the mixture into a casserole dish.
-Sprinkle the remaining cheese and breadcrumbs over the top and bake for 20-30 minutes.

So, in conclusion, it may be the end of November. It may be that the weather forecast for the next three months is going to say cold, windy, dark and rainy. It may be that the moon is in the 7th phase of Zoroaster and the Mayans got it right. But it will probably all be ok in the end.

And I will leave you with the thought that the best thing in the whole world is a glass of wine with a friend*

*JUST ONE. DO NOT GET DRUNK IT WILL NOT HELP.

Friday 9 November 2012

Land of the free, home of the brave

Both my flatmate and I had said no to big, official election parties on the basis we are too old to stay up all night so far from home on a Tuesday. Reasoning that there was nothing to stop us staying up all night when actually at home on a Tuesday (see posts passim), we put plans into action for an homage to the great USA through the mediums of food and drink, and had a lovely evening of casual armchair punditry.

The menu was as follows:

Jalapeño popcorn
-Representing the importance of Obama’s Hispanic vote AND the fact he has so much support amongst celebrities (popcorn…cinemas…let me know if it gets too tenuous, I’m making this up).

Super sized burgers (recipe below)
-After which Obamacare would be handy for the bypass and liposuction.

Southern Comfort, lemon and lime IN A CAN
-Something about rednecks. Unsure.

Big, oakey Californian chardonnay
-Why not

Coffee cake
-Because The Austrian ran out of inspiration in the Co-op having realised his hilarious bet on Romney was the equivalent of ‘standing in the street burning £20 notes’.

Burgers
Makes 3 super sized hamburgers

You will need:
-4 good quality plain beef burger patties (we got ours from Wholefoods)
-1 leek, finely chopped
-Cayenne pepper and mixed spice
-Worcester sauce
-Knob of butter, melted
-6 rashers of smoked back bacon
-6 slices of plastic cheese (you cannot get this in Wholefoods)
-Token lettuce
-3 white burger buns with sesame seeds

Method:
-Mash the leek, spices, sauce and butter into the meat, and reform into 3 giant burgers. Season well.
-Grill the bacon
-Toast the buns
-Assemble in the following order: Bottom bun, plastic cheese, burger, lettuce, bacon, plastic cheese, top bun.

We served these with caramelised red onions and avocadoes.

Thursday 8 November 2012

The best night of my life?

It’s not often that I am reluctant to write about something, but the evening I went to Colbert and then saw Skyfall is proving difficult. There is just….too much to say. Too many emotions. Too little time. A café that could have been in Paris followed by a Bond film is just so much my perfect evening that I can’t even think about it clearly. When you add in the fact I went with my long-standing restaurant companion who is emigrating to the Middle East in under a month it becomes just about unbearable.

For all of that, I remain convinced you want to hear what I thought. Much like the megalomaniac Dr. No treating James and Honey to his life history whilst they try to eat their supper before getting to the ‘might end in death, might actually escape quite easily’ part of the evening.

So. Colbert. A very exciting event, because not only is it French French French, but it is a Corbin/King (Wolseley, Delaunay, Zédel) French French French, which means it looks like a film set from Piaf.

Due to our pressing appointment with Mr Bond at 9pm, we had booked for 6.30, and when we arrived it was already buzzing. It has been billed as an all-day neighbourhood café and appears to be doing the job. A booking for dinner at the early time of 6.30pm had clearly rung alarm bells of ‘elderly Chelsea dowager’ in the heads of the absolutely lovely team, and my friend and I hilariously found ourselves sitting between two incredibly glamorously coiffed and lacquered women of a certain age, and their silver haired dining partners.

To one side, the diamond-laden lady ordered 3 martinis ‘extra strong’ and complained that the veal sauce was too mustardy; a nuance I imagine it’s difficult to detect after half a litre of Grey Goose. Her husband patiently sipped water and made wry asides. On our other side, the couple drank champagne and wore velvet. It was incredible. Both parties kept up a running commentary on our food choices, wine choices, life choices and film choices throughout. Like your grandparents, but more fun. I highly recommend always eating at this time of the evening.

My friend and I had made a resolution that we would only eat as Bond would eat, which is not that difficult because he spends almost all of the books eating a lot. To give Fleming his due, possibly the only way you could ever describe him or Bond as modern men are in the sustainability of their eating habits.

The books don’t have that Mad Men thing of constant boozing and long lunches. Yes, Bond drinks a lot but his food tastes are conservative and, for the most part, frugal. At work he eats in the canteen. At home, he has a lot of eggs and coffee. When out with M, it’s lamb cutlets, grilled sole and English vegetables in season, and when on assignment it’s whatever is local (he bemoans extortionate French roadside cafés, loves the bouillabaisse in Marseilles, hates the breakfasts in Istanbul and has the best meal of his life in the States - stone crabs and drawn butter). The main exception to the above is that he has caviar with Vesper, but I like to think that’s because she’s his one true love and a bit of a bitch so he was trying to impress her.

To labour the point even further, I think Bond would have liked Colbert. The atmosphere is overwhelmingly lovely and, to be totally honest, the food plays second fiddle to that; but it is simple and good, and has a lot of omelettes.

We shared 12 oysters to start, which were sparklingly fresh but a bit gritty, and then I had steak tartare which tasted like steak tartare (no criticism intended), and my friend had the Croque Raclette. The croque was particularly delicious, which backs up the ‘all day neighbourhood café’ vibe.

We finished it all up with some madeleines and Muscadet, paid a bill which could have been cheaper if we hadn’t ‘gone Bond’ and had vodka as we sat down, and tottered off to the cinema for the best 2.5 hours of this year.

This place is special. Go for a coffee and a croissant first thing, grab an omelette for lunch, drop in for a kir on your way home.

www.colbertchelsea.com

I will leave you with the thought that the scene in ‘A View to a Kill’ where Roger Moore bakes a quiche led to him becoming spokesperson for the British Quiche Council.

Wednesday 7 November 2012

Michael Nadra - review (sort of)

There is one group of friends who I spend most of my time with but who get very little air time on this blog. They are called the ‘Chiswick Lot’ (not in a gang way) because when we grew up most of their parents lived in Chiswick. As it happens, one of them still lives with his parents in Chiswick, but almost everyone else has long since spread their wings…to different parts of Chiswick.

In our late teens, Chiswick High Road was the aortic valve of our collective consciousness, and we never really left it behind. Well, you can’t really leave your aorta behind; can you? (pats self on back for the great analogy). One of them recently moved to New York, and wrote to us saying that the things she missed most were, in this order, ‘West Kebab, The George IV, The Katmandu Inn and Tesco’. I know. I know. The Roebuck is a much nicer pub.

I cannot overemphasise how important these people are to me. However, the reason they almost never appear here is that the things we do are still resolutely ‘teenage’. Manfully ignoring the inexorable creep of time, the unrelenting ‘grown-upness’ of work, mortgages and weddings, the undeniable collapsing of the collagen in our faces (seriously, I look like The Scream in the mornings now) and the gentle but insistent tick of biological clocks, we have always managed to bumble along pretending to be 19 years old. They were the ones who were with me during the events previously detailed in ‘A Tale of Woe/French Onion Soup’. Enough said.

Generally, apart from the odd slip up as per the above, I like to keep this blog quite sophisticated. Not only does it befit the underlying vein of Bond but I am also genuinely très sophisticated myself and I want everyone to know it. I appreciate this has gone off message somewhat with recent posts, but the intentions are pure.

So, imagine my surprise when the Chiswick Lot suggested Sunday lunch at Michael Nadra, which is officially nice and can be reviewed. Full disclosure: the one who actually instigated this dramatic shift from ‘see you in the George at 2pm for Jäger’ is a small Dutch woman who has only been hanging around with us for about 8 years, so she’s not fully down with how the group works yet.

Anyway, off we all trotted to the road behind Café Nero where this quite lovely little restaurant gave us one of the best lunches I have had in a long time.

The wine list is extensive and truly excellent. The acid test for a good wine list- apart from drinking them all, for which I did not have time, is to photograph parts of it and send them to my Dad. He is like Rain Man for grapes. Anyway, the reply came back: ‘Corrigan’s or Nadra’. And given that the former is a Mayfair Michelin joint and the latter is just off Chiswick High Road behind Nero, I think that’s a pretty good endorsement.

Without exception, everything everyone had was delicious, and I would have eaten any of it (no jokes please). It’s not often you can say that across a table of 8 people, especially when one of them has ordered a salad. Coincidentally, my flatmate and her boyfriend, The Austrian, went to the other branch in Primrose Hill the following weekend so I have double confirmation that everything is very good. And given the two locations, you have no excuse not to go.

I had soft shell crab tempura with daikon and ginger, which I had expected to be broken up into small bits of legs, all hot and crisply fried. In fact, the crab was tempura-ed whole, which was incredible to look at and hilarious to eat (I suppose I could have used a fork). Next, one of those ‘pork: three ways’ type of events in which each ‘way’ was actually delicious and served a purpose. Quite often those things are a small cube of dry pork belly and then some superfluous bits and bobs, so this was exceptional. Also the best sauce (? demi-glace) I’ve tasted in a while: almost plate-lickingly good.

With two courses for £19.50, or three for £24, this is incredible value and the most enjoyable lunch I have had all year.

http://www.restaurant-michaelnadra.co.uk/

Afterwards, you’ll be pleased to hear that we did go to the pub and the boys switched the contents of all the girls’ handbags around whilst we were away from the table.

Thursday 18 October 2012

Salmon: a eulogy

Any Tuesday evening that ends at 2am with two women listening to Edward M Kennedy’s eulogy from his brother Robert’s funeral in 1968 has either gone terribly well or terribly badly depending, quite literally, on your politics.

Sticking with terribly well, although that is not how I felt the following morning, the evening started in the normal fashion with supper.

My flatmates and I had decided to cook this recipe, from the justifiably super-mega-famous blog ‘Dinner: A Love Story’:
http://www.dinneralovestory.com/salmon-for-people-who-are-sick-of-salmon/

We weren’t at all sick of salmon (although you’d think we probably were given that my last post also concerned the softly coral fleshed……..sorry, too Nigella?), but we thought it looked good. I offered to get the food, flatmate (female) got the wine, and we were all set.

(Incidentally, on my way out of Waitrose, I was nearly mown down by a motorcycle driven by a man I dated, briefly, earlier this year. The most unbelievable part of this story is that this is the second time that has happened to me as I left a supermarket (Cambridge, 2007, Sainsbury’s), although at least that first time only involved a pushbike. Given the unbelievably short odds that a person might have been on dates with TWO murderous bipedallers, I was almost tempted to pay the Stupid Tax and buy a lottery ticket.)

Calming my shaken nerves, we got down to cooking which took all of about 15 minutes (or one vodka tonic, in an alternative time keeping method I quite enjoy). It could not have been more simple. We left out the peppers and mushrooms and replaced them with truck loads of chopped up runner beans. We also used a lot less coconut milk, because one of our tins was 2 years out of date, and a lot more jasmine rice, because flatmate (male) didn’t believe 75g was enough per person. We threw lots of fresh coriander, basil and lime juice over the top of everything and it was delicious.

A thoroughly enjoyable evening all round. Well, for me and flatmate (female) at least. I’m not sure flatmate (male) was that enthused to be forced to be my sous-chef, watch Great British Bake Off and then be banished from the kitchen by the force of terrible chat as we summarily sorted out the Global Financial Crisis, pondered how to manage maternity leave and then rounded off the night with some classic American rhetoric.

Thursday 27 September 2012

Filo evil, hear no evil- adventures in pastry.

Apologies for the terrible pun.

This week, I have mostly been experimenting with filo pastry. By which I mean I made salmon en croute with it on Tuesday, and then used the leftovers on Wednesday because I was hungover and couldn’t be arsed to go to the shops.

I like filo pastry a lot, but almost never eat it. It just doesn’t occur to me to do it at home. I think it’s the finicky layering of each sheet with butter and building up the leaves and all that hooha. Leave it to Masterchef the Professionals, that would be my motto.

However, amongst the people having supper on Tuesday were going to be the two women whose advice I would call on if I ever needed some inspiration on what to cook for a dinner party. So I obviously couldn’t ask them, and it had to be good because they are both fantastic cooks. I hit upon salmon en croute because I was, as is so often the case, daydreaming about beef wellington, and its piscine cousin just meandered into my head in the below vaguely Greek incarnation.

The whole shebang could not have been simpler – I urge you to try it. Everyone really enjoyed it (or they said they did, which is the same thing) and it looked mega impressive straight from the oven, although less so after I tried to cut it up and it turned into something that resembled spawning time at an intensive fish farm. I think that was the ricotta…

Σολομός σε φύλλο κρούστας
(told you it was vaguely Greek)
Serves 6

You will need:
800g salmon fillet
1 tub ricotta
1 small block of feta
Big bag of spinach
Juice of 1 lemon
6 sheets of filo pastry
Knob of melted butter.

Method:

Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper or foil. Ideally be prepared enough to have either of these two items in your kitchen, so one of your guests doesn’t have to bring them.

Melt the butter.

Unwrap the filo pastry and put one layer in the bottom of the tray. Lightly brush with melted butter. I don’t have a pastry brush, so used the back of a spoon. It would have been better with a brush.

Pop another layer of filo on top. Butter, brush.

Pop another layer of filo on top of that.

This is less tedious to do than it is to write, primarily because the filo is extraordinarily thin and delicate and therefore (in the direct opposite of the same in relation to human beings) fun to play with.

Cut the salmon in half lengthways so it’s in two roughly 400g chunks. Or, buy it in two roughly 400g chunks.

Wilt the spinach in a pan. Add the ricotta, lemon juice, feta and season well. Stir it around so it’s a sort of greeny mush.

Put one of the salmon fillets on the pastry. Cover with the spinach mixture. Pop the other salmon fillet on top and cover again.

Do three layers of filo over the top as per the earlier method, and scrunch the sides of them into the sides of the three layers on the bottom.

Bake at 200 degrees for about 25 minutes or until the filo is golden and crunchy.

Serve with watercress salad, new potatoes, and apparently 7 bottles of wine.

The next evening, I mixed up a bit of leftover ricotta with some chives, pesto and garlic and wrapped it up into two little filo parcels. I did not do the faffy butter thing. It didn’t matter too much. After 15 minutes in the oven during which time I contemplated the wisdom of Tuesday night dinner parties, it was delicious.

Friday 21 September 2012

Tales of woe/French Onion Soup

The last two months have passed in a whirl of weddings (not mine), holidays, watery sunlight, minor heartbreak, and lots of wine. I have been on some kind of self-imposed summer of madness, characterised by terrible decisions and huge amounts of fun. But now it’s the end of September, and I know it’s time to get serious because my housemate has developed an obsession with gardening (she sent me an email with a link to a website of seeds).

Having monumentally failed in our pre-summer plan of setting up a herb garden on the balcony, instead decorating it with the gritty, urban realism of a bath mat and a giant pot full of cigarette butts (update: now cleaned up), we are turning our attention to late planting vegetables. Turns out all you can plant in autumn is basically onions and garlic. Which will be great for French Onion Soup and minimising the risk of a vampire attack, respectively.

French Onion Soup is something I had never made before, despite liking it so much that I have the occasions when it’s Soup of the Day at Eat marked with a reminder in my Outlook calendar. In fact, for various reasons I still haven’t actually made it, but more of that later.

The weather has turned sufficiently cold for it to be acceptable to have people over for supper and serve them soup, so a date was set, and the night before that date I sat down with my beautiful Swiss knives and a glass of brandy and set to work on the onions. NB. This is an incredibly antisocial thing to do in any kind of shared accommodation, as not everyone can cope with 700g of chopped onions. Well, that’s why I told everyone I was crying, anyway.

My recipe was a mixture of Simon Hopkinson’s, Nigel Slater’s and Felicity Cloake’s ‘How to Make the Perfect…’ series in the Guardian. There are all sorts of variations in terms of what booze to use, what type of onion, blah blah blah, but the key point is the onions must stew for as long as possible, preferably over an hour, on a very low heat.

Duly stewed, I added the stock, brought it to boil and left it overnight, my plan being to casually reheat it (adding the bits and bobs that make it special -brandy, wine, different stock, gruyere croutons) that evening in front of my grateful guests, when it would be served with a big green salad and a cheeseboard in a vaguely alcoholic parody of the Good Life.

I think, with the benefit of hindsight, my main mistake was sending a text to all guests that said ‘Bring booze. No mixers’. I had assumed that clearly meant that I needed people to bring drinks, and that I didn’t have any mixers. Apparently not, given that everyone turned up with bottles of spirits and no mixers. I am actually sort of impressed that people think so much of me.

To cut a long story short, we drank it anyway. At some point the cheese came out, and was demolished. The pot of half finished soup stared at me balefully from the hob as I insisted on listening to INXS’s ‘New Sensation’ 15 times. The last thing I remember is realising that it may have only been 9:50pm but I was in urgent need of a party nap. This was invented by my friend, the Legal Robot, who has a habit of spontaneously falling asleep in the middle of parties, and waking up totally refreshed and rebooted 20 minutes later. Just once, for 10 minutes, I was going to follow his lead.

I don’t think you need me to elucidate on how I woke up 9 hours later, with two of my sisters in my bed (one of whom hadn’t even arrived by ‘naptime’) with whiskers and ‘I am a mouse’ written on my face.

I am pretty sure I will get over the incredible embarrassment of this event, and probably sooner than I should, but do you know what the worst part is?

Crazed with neat spirits and hunger, my guests took it upon themselves to heat up the soup. The half finished soup. And so, with the hostess asleep in the next room, they all ate bowls of lukewarm hot onion water. The End.

If it’s any consolation, it’s all going to be very serious from now on.

Thursday 2 August 2012

Brasserie Zédel - review

This time last week I went to Brasserie Zédel, and had such a great time that I was determined to write a long, elegiac (rambling) piece (love letter) on France, the French, the intrinsic nostalgia of French food, the cult of the Brasserie and the egalitarianism of prix fixe menus. Pourquoi pas? Then I smashed through the Times paywall on Sunday morning to get my weekly hit of AA Gill’s writing, and guess what? He’d done it. Right there. The whole thing, and obviously better than I ever could. He had concluded, as I was going to (I promise), by saying that the food good, but the atmosphere is exceptional. I had the best evening I’ve had in a long time with great friends in the American bar and then the hyperbolically French, gold and marble restaurant. So did Gill (although he probably spent less time in the bar). I’d love to say, in the manner of an Olympian hero, that I have now challenged myself to write something better and more interesting, but I haven’t.

So that’s that.

What I can tell you is that this place is incredible, even if you’re not obsessed with French things. I know that because the people I went with are, if anything, anti-French. Or that’s how it appears from their attempts at speaking the language.

The bar is dark, low, elegant and timeless. I mean that in both the sense that it could be any year from 1950 to the present and it also could be any time of day or night from 5pm onwards. You could get seriously drunk in there. That night, due to my surroundings and also the martinis, I felt a lot like James Bond. Always my favourite type of evening.

The dining room is vast, double height, and sparkles with gold rails and soft lights. The menu is fantastic, with the aforementioned formules à prix fixe (set menus) meaning you could do it very cheaply. Starters on the main menu are mostly between 3-6 pounds, with main courses around the 12 pounds mark. This is sensible pricing for sensible food. There is nothing that is going to blow you away with creativity, but there will be something that all of you remember from a family holiday, interailing expedition, roadside café, trip to Paris, French exchange, a film or even just Encore Tricolore 3.

I had snails which were slightly muddy (but then they’re always really just the vehicle through which pots of melted garlic butter can be delivered to your table without judgement, aren’t they?) and then onglet (hanger steak) in a thick, glossy wine sauce with great chips. We had lots of good red wine. Nothing ground breaking, but I have eaten the exact same meal in France at least 5 times and I mean that in the best, best possible way.

For the record, the most successful starter by far was the oysters (fines de claire - £1.95 a piece) which were exceptionally fresh, and the stand out main course was the confit de canard. We emerged into the Soho night, tipsy, happy and emotional (not me) and were quickly swallowed by a basement margarita bar on Brewer Street. Bien sur.

It came out at £40 a head, excluding martinis.
www.brasseriezedel.com

Tuesday 3 July 2012

Tramshed - review

Today, on Tuesday 3rd July, I was forced to take my winter coat out of hibernation. However, a few weeks ago it was so sunny that my friend and I drank a bottle of Pinot Grigio in the sunshine after work and went to Shoreditch for supper.

The East End is not my haunt. I’m not edgy enough. I’m always overdressed. Past the shiny buildings of Commercial Street, beyond the higgle piggle of Brick Lane and through the laboured regeneration of Spitalfields Market, I feel an aura of menace. It’s competitive cool jarring rudely with corporate money and real hardship. I suppose that’s the appeal. I just find it vaguely exhausting.

I have tried. I did Galvin La Chapelle and thought ‘wouldn’t this be nice if it was in the West End’, I went on the Jack the Ripper tour and thought ‘I can really see why he chose this alleyway as his stomping ground’, You name it, I’ve done it. Birthday drinks in achingly hip Hoxton bars, wine tasting in Shoreditch, numerous authentic curry trips, clubs in nameless archways…I have even eaten raclette at 11pm in a deserted and strip lit Spitalfields Market. And most of the time I have just thought ‘how the f**k am I going to get home from here?’.

So there you have it. Confession over, I’m not cool enough for the East. However, if ever there was a reason to gird my loins and head back over, it was for Tramshed. Tramshed is the latest Mark Hix restaurant, which is following the current vogue for minimalistic menus (my favourite so far: ‘Bubbledogs’, serving hot dogs and champagne - opening this month) and only serves chicken or steak. My friend and I were convinced the chicken would be the joke order. Who would order chicken over steak? However, as the night of our reservation (hooray) due nearer, we read increasingly hyperbolic reviews of the chicken at Tramshed, and decided to go for one steak and one chicken on the evening itself.

The restaurant is on Rivington Street in a tram electricity generation shed (or something). It is massive and noisy and looks like a canteen. In the middle is a ginormous, raised Damien Hirst sculpture of a bull with a chicken on its back in formaldehyde. Each to their own. I don’t think I’m cool enough for Damien Hirst either. That aside, the atmosphere is buzzy, informal, and the perfect place for taking 5 friends and getting seriously pissed at the long trestle tables down the centre of the room.

The menu really is as simple as chicken or steak. There are sides, but the starters are salads (served as a mix of 3 plates for the whole table at £8 each) so I wouldn’t bother with them. My friend chose the wine as she was about to go on a wine tasting course and wanted to flex her vinicultural muscles. It was good and red and reasonably priced. The starter salads were crisp and sharp, although the gigantic Yorkshire pudding with horseradish sauce was obviously finished first.

We had ordered a small chicken and a small steak and, excited by the prospect of the superlative chicken, dug into that first. Well…. it was just chicken. I can see if you’re eating battery chickens (which you shouldn’t be) then perhaps this would be very different, but it was just a roast chicken. Good, but a chicken. I am not terribly excited by chickens. What was exciting was the steak, which I thought was faultless, as were the crispy, beef dripping, fries. The table of cheery men next to us, who drank flaming cocktails throughout dinner, had eschewed the chicken altogether and gone for a giant slab of steak with chips and salad. They had clearly been here before.

We got out for £40 a head which I think is great value given you can drop that at most high street chains on a weekend evening. The crowd was cool (natch), the service was great, some of the food really excellent and we had a fab evening.

The ‘how the f**k do we get home from here?’ moment only happened as we tottered through the rain into the smudgy, shadowy glow of the nearest bar, took one look at the menu (presented as the pull out lyric sheet in an old cassette case) and legged it to the nearest taxi.

Tramshed http://www.chickenandsteak.co.uk/

Friday 22 June 2012

Melanzane alla Parmigiana

Today we have a bake. A vegetable bake. Not my normal scene, if I’m honest. I have nothing against vegetarians but my idea of a successful vegetarian dish is one which you can finish without having shouted ‘WHERE’S THE MEAT?’ at any point.

I am pleased to report that this is one of those dishes. It’s soothing, warming, comforting and good for you (depending on your stance on cheese, which personally I think is fine). It’s quick, easy, much more than the sum of its parts and everyone ate all of it. Well, apart from sister number 4 who said it tasted ‘so rank she was literally going to vomit’. I would ignore that though, she is a teenager.

Serves 4. You will need:
· 2x 400g tins chopped tomatoes
· 2 aubergines
· 150g mozzarella
· 75g parmesan
· 1 onion
· 2 cloves of garlic
· White wine
· Tomato puree
· Handful of fresh basil

Method:
· Slice the aubergines uniformly and briefly dry fry them, or grill them on a griddle pan if you have one (turns out I do not). Set aside.
· In a pot, sweat down the onions. When they’re done, add the garlic, the tomatoes, the tomato puree and a splosh of wine. Leave it to thicken, reduce, do whatever it has to do, whack in some herbs if you fancy. Oregano maybe.
Taste it. Tomato sauces can sometimes be bitter or metallic. If this has happened, sprinkle some sugar in. I promise it works.
· Grate the parmesan. (75g is a rough estimate it was basically about half of a normal size wedge but do however much you want).
· Tear up the mozzarella ball and the basil
· Assemble in a heatproof dish. Layer the aubergine slices up, alternating with the tomato sauce, some parmesan, a bit of basil, some mozzarella. Play it by ear. See how you feel. No rules.
· If you want a rule: aubergine, mozzarella, tomato sauce, parmesan, basil, aubergine, mozzarella, tomato sauce, parmesan, basil …. Approximately 4 times. Season each layer.
· Bake in an oven at 180c for 20ish minutes and serve with crusty bread and a green salad.

I’m sorry the picture is blurry. It was taken through a haze of tears due to my sister’s cutting remarks about my culinary ability. Not.

Tuesday 5 June 2012

Scotch quails' eggs

Having spent last Saturday at the Soho Food Feast seeing Angela Hartnett, Fergus Henderson and Ben from the Saltyard Group cook in front of me and eating nibbles from Wright Bros Soho, St John, 10 Greek Street, MeatLiquor, Brindisa, Quo Vadis and Kopapa (to name drop just a few), this Saturday I decided to get my apron on for the first time in ages and try to make scotch eggs.

Obvs we're not talking about those refrigerated supermarket picnic ones (my sister thought the filling between the egg and the breadcrumbs was....more bread) but the monster ones containing a whole egg which have exploded all over pub menus in the last few years. Special favourites near me can be found at the Harwood Arms (venison version), The Ship and The Sands End. During one lunch at the Harwood we had one to start, and then another one instead of pudding.  The key is a crispy shell and a runny yolk.

Having been reliably informed that panko (Japanese breadcrumbs, the stuff on the outside of chicken katsu) would give me the crispiest crust, and that I should try using quails' eggs for a more manageable bite size snack, I took the opportunity to go and hang out in Waitrose. Whilst it was a still a second to none shopping experience, they had no panko and no fresh quails eggs. Panic buying for the jubilee long weekend no doubt. So I settled on some hard boiled quails eggs, some normal eggs, and cornflakes. 

Following the recipe below, I managed to produce 12 quails eggs scotch eggs that got eaten pretty quickly and looked fairly professional. I give them 8/10. However, when I made one with a normal egg it became pretty apparent why nobody bothers with a quails egg version. The yolk was runny, the proportions were better and it was a definite 10/10. If I do say so myself. I don't have a picture of that one though so you'll just have to take my word for it.


Quails Egg Scotch Eggs
makes 12

12 quails eggs
350g sausagemeat 
2 tbps tarragon
Pinch mace, sage, nutmeg, whatever you want
1 egg yolk
Half a packet of cornflakes, blitzed to a powder
Seasoned flour
Egg wash (1 egg and a splash of milk)
500ml sunflower oil.

  • Boil the eggs for 3 minutes and plunge into iced water. Peel the eggs.
  • Mix the sausagemeat with the spices and the egg yolk
  • Roll some of the mixture into a ball and sort of push an egg into the middle of it, shaping around the outside to make sure the meat is covering the egg on all sides.
  • Dip the egg meat ball in seasoned flour, then egg wash then cornflakes so it is completely coated.
  • Heat the oil in a heavy based pan. Use some of the meat to check the temperature, which should be around 160degrees for those with thermometers, or until it takes about 10 seconds for the meat to cook and bounce to the top.
  • Drop the scotch eggs in carefully and fry for 10ish minutes.
  • There is no real way of telling when they're done. You're looking for a crispy brown shell. 
  • If you soft boil the eggs, you will end up with a runny yolk and it will stay runny throughout.

Serve with dijon mustard



Thursday 31 May 2012

Ceviche - review

Well, the big news here is the SUN, which heralded the normal panic purchase of 15 different exfoliation and tanning kits. It is understood that all of these will inevitably leave me looking more stupid than if I just left it well alone and spent my time doing something constructive, like finally getting round to the vodka homebrew idea, but ahead I went with it anyway.  I spent a whole evening buffing and polishing and bronzing and glycolic face peeling and when I woke up in the morning I did feel pretty good.  Now that my body was, temporarily, a temple, I thought I’d better keep up the good work with something that wasn’t pasta.  

So I spoke to my friend who writes a seriously good restaurant blog: http://gluttons-for-punishment.blogspot.co.uk/ . She is always useful for dinner and chat, and we had both heard great things about Ceviche, so we booked and made our way into Soho on a super sunny Tuesday evening to find some pre-drinks.  We settled on Pix, the little tapas bar on Bateman Street, and somewhere I now want to go to for actual food, as it looked great. Several glasses of pricy (£7.95!) but delicious white rioja later, we judged that we were probably about ready for some food to soak it up.  Ceviche is on Frith Street, on the uncool bit near Pret, Nandos and Starbucks. It’s a lovely bright room with a bar onto the road, and it felt like being on holiday. Disclaimer: that might just have been the sunshine. The bar serves pisco, which is not only an incredible name for a drink but a popular Peruvian spirit, and we ordered a Pisco Sour and a Pisco Soho to start with.  The Sour was nice and easy to drink but quite egg-whitey in the manner of a protein shake. The Soho was spicy. I’ve had a chilli martini or two before but this was something else. We decided to move on (or back) to wine, and went for the house white, an Argentinean Chenin, which was great.



Food wise, we tried one or two from each section of the menu, ending up with:

Don Ceviche
Seabass ceviche with chilli and red onions. Delicious, classic, the best way to eat raw fish that isn’t sushi.

Pulpo al Oliva
Octopus with an olive sauce. Really unusual and one of my favourites. The sauce was unusual and the octopus was squeaky fresh.

Causa Mar
A sort of seafood and avocado mayonnaise salad. Ice cold, soft, refreshing.

Corazon
Cow heart! This excited me just for the novelty value, but it was also delicious. Like liver but more dense and gamey. 

Lomo Saltado
Beef strips, tomatoes, chilli, wok fried. One from the ‘main courses’ section and double the price of everything else, although not that much bigger. Great quality beef and that intense smoky flavour you associate with South American meat.

This place is really, really good, and with the amount of attention it’s getting it will soon be really, really full. It’s not expensive (you could easily do £25 a head), the atmosphere is great and you’re right in the heart of Soho for that ill advised last drink.

A word of warning. I have not had a hangover that bad in a long time, so do go easy on the pisco as raw fish doesn’t seem to work as a sponge in the same way as pasta. http://cevicheuk.com/

Saturday 12 May 2012

Guess who's back


I never intended to be one of those people who finally gets their blog up and running and then leaves it for months and months. To my one actual follower (Sister number 2), I apologise. To all the rest of you freeloaders, if you follow me then you are allowed to complain. Otherwise no. Like voting.

In my defence, in the last 6 weeks:

·         I moved house
·         I was drunk
·         Le laptop (my incredibly volatile French computer) has taken to shutting itself down in the middle of things. The technological equivalent of a massive shrug.

So there, enough. I am fully installed in a nice new pad with some nice new people (*shout out as promised*) and this is what I have been up to, food wise, since we last spoke. This is a mega post. You have been warned.

Rhodes W1
A sunny day off work and a deal on the tasting menu made Rhodes W1 an obvious choice for a Friday lunch with my lovely friend A, who has accompanied me to Vienna on these pages and on thousands of other adventures off the record.  There was nothing to lose: if the place was great, we’d have a great lunch, and if it was bad….well, its a Gary Rhodes restaurant, his hair is inherently hilarious and the jokes would write themselves. Luckily (or unluckily) for you, they didn’t have to and I am writing this.  The restaurant is off to the side of the reception of the Cumberland Hotel, Marble Arch. The lobby was filled with confused tourists, possibly because it looked like an art gallery, and the restaurant was deathly quiet with that kind of carpet that totally absorbs noise and is really quite ominous. Ian Fleming describes it perfectly in Dr No, in the chapter called ‘Mink Lined Prison’, incidentally.  The room itself was expensively beige with lots of sparkly bits which personally I like (cf. most of my earrings), but thousands wouldn’t. 


We started with an amuse bouche of what was essentially broccoli and stilton soup in a test tube, and absolutely delicious bread with smoked butter. The menu looked to be fish and veg heavy, so we ordered a nice Chablis from the very nice French sommelier and got on with it. The courses appeared as follows: 

asparagus and duck egg with truffles

monkfish and seafood paella with aioli

a deconstructed strawberry cheesecake thing  

Everything was beautifully presented and faultless in terms of flavour and execution. And I suppose that really should be the main thing. But it seems a bit….old fashioned now, and it was still £60 a head even with the voucher. We were sitting in an empty dining room full of long table cloths, whispering to each other (this got louder and more of the ‘stage’ variety as the Chablis went down), and for that reason alone I can’t imagine that Rhodes W1 will have any more success than it has had for the past few years. It’s just not really where I think food is going. 

They did have an excellent way of presenting the bill though:


Brasa
Another lunchtime and a South American asador grill close to home was on the cards.  I have recently joined a members club (there is no non-asshole way to say that, and believe me I’ve tried) and this restaurant is underneath it. Underneath that is a pub, so really it’s like a gigantic building of awesomeness. I decided to check it out with my ‘personal demon’ (his words), Richard O’Brien.  Literally, just imagine Richard O’Brien in your head. Especially when he’s wearing leopard print and jumping on the spot whilst being sarcastic to the poor team who’ve only managed to win 5 seconds in the Crystal Maze by the end of the show.

After a swift sharpener in the form of a couple of vodka/gin and tonics, for starters Richard had a baby spinach, egg and bacon salad and a flirtatious exchange with the waitress which ended with him ordering a bottle of prosecco. I had smoked ham hock with wild garlic and the moral high ground.  The starters were good, but nothing to write home about (hence why this is just getting published on the internet), and I think they probably detract from the main event, which is some seriously great meat action.  Richard went for the rib eye with peppercorn sauce, and I had the sirloin with garlic butter.  The smoky flavour of the all-singing, all-dancing special grill was really prominent and made it a noticeably different way to eat steak, not just a gimmick. We concluded that the rib eye was the more tender cut but the sirloin had more flavour, and that they were both great.

I can’t remember what happened next. I think it cost £100 and Richard had an emotional revelation about the romantic comedy genre and then I was beaten at chess.

The Boat Race
Strictly speaking, this is not really a food related event, but off we all trotted to Putney to watch the light blues race to victory for the first time in years. No matter that it took a man in the water and a broken oar to make it happen, it happened. GDBO. The huge group of us (me, Richard O’Brien again and the Lawyer) actually saw much less than anyone on TV, because we’d made an executive decision to move indoors and prop up the bar at the crucial point. The afternoon continued in a similarly sensible manner as the other half of the Dream Team and one of my blonde ex-flatmates arrived to a chorus of 4 jagerbombs. At some point we went back to Fulham and sat on the roof terrace at Broadway House for an hour or so filming each other saying stupid things. The Lawyer was drinking calvados, which is pretty punchy for 4 in the afternoon.

Soon it became clear that food would be needed imminently. Luckily, Bodean’s was right across the road and fitted the bill nicely. I have lived in Fulham for the vast majority of my adult life and have never really noticed it before. I think this is because a) I’ve never had an insatiable urge to eat 24 smoked baby back ribs at 5pm before and b) it’s next door to a building that is constantly being used for money laundering purposes refurbished and covered in scaffolding.  In we went, and were quickly expelled back into the rainy dusk as they were full. Half an hour and another round later, we tried again.  Success. Shots and ribs were duly ordered. I had a half slab of baby back ribs, which are from the top of the pig’s ribcage (unlike spare ribs which are the sides or belly) and a girl beer. The ribs were absolutely delicious but, as a side point, why the hell does every rib/crab/meat/southern American shack have to put coleslaw all over everything? Who ever looked at a carrot and thought ‘this will be delicious if I dip it in sweet mayonnaise’? Anyway, meanwhile, the Lawyer attacked a Jacob’s Ladder. Do not google this, it’s also a horror film with some pretty disturbing promo shots.  In the context of ribs it’s a ginormous slab of beef ribs, or ‘short ribs’ for my American readers (none).  Not to be outdone (ever) the Dream Team each ordered, and I quote ‘1/2 a chicken, pulled pork, smoked grilled sausages, coleslaw, fries and onion rings’. Each. And then they proceeded  to race each other to see who could finish first. On this occasion, Richard O’Brien emerged victorious.  I realise I haven’t talked very much about the food, but rest assured if you have a rib craving in Fulham, this is where you need to be. As a word of warning, I would say it’s probably not the place for a hot date, given the mess and the noise and the chilli fries and the shots and the salt throwing.

Easter Lunch
Garlic roast lamb, new potatoes with mint and lemon, broad beans with pancetta and some other bits and pieces made by my mother. RIP the bunnies.


...and finally...
Sister number 4’s first dinner party.
I was more than a little flattered when Sister number 4 (less annoying now) decided to use my champagne and scallop risotto from New Year as the starter for her first ever dinner party.  She followed the recipe and it turned out amazingly, so there is now actual proof that at least one of the things I’ve posted on here is a bona fide, tried and tested plate of food.  Which is something of a relief.  I was lucky enough to be invited / forced to stand in the kitchen and do the mantecare (the bit where you bash the butter into the risotto at the end to make it gloopy) whilst she made sparkling conversation with her guests. I was very (mildly) interested in her choice of main course, because I always think you have to keep it quite protein based after a risotto starter. Well, she’d got it bang on and with a pleasingly 70s twist – meat fondue. ‘Who is this little blood relation with the post modern, ironic sense of humour in her cooking?’, I wondered idly whilst drinking the rest of the champagne and regaling the assembled company (a cat; remember I was still relegated to the kitchen at this point) with my bons mots.  And with a quick shake of the head to disperse Proustian reminiscences of the last time I had meat fondue, which was in Paris 5 years ago with my oldest friend who is  getting MARRIED this summer, I concentrated on what Sister number 4 was actually doing.

She’d arranged béarnaise sauce, horseradish sauce and a selection of mustards (English, Dijon, grainy…) on the table in cute little pots, and put together a big green salad with a classic French dressing. You might think that peppercorn or garlic butter would be nice sauces too, and they are, but keeping them warm as you cook individual tiny chunks of meat is a nightmare, so I would recommend sticking to the formula of cold sauces. Meanwhile, in a heavy based saucepan on the hob, 1.5 litres of vegetable oil gently reached what I call ‘shimmering point’, which is the temperature where the surface shimmers and if you drop a piece of bread in, it turns into a crouton in about 10 seconds. When I get a thermometer I’ll take the actual temperature and let you know.  Armed with fondue forks, Sister number 4 and her little friends crowded round a big plate of chopped fillet of beef, speared the meat onto their forks and dipped them into the oil. I’m afraid it really does need to be fillet, but you don’t actually need that much because people spend so long spearing and cooking that they eat less. The beauty of this is that it’s fun, communal, and a little bit dangerous, which is pretty much the definition of any great dinner party. I would respectfully suggest that it was probably more successful with 17 year olds who don’t drink that much than it would have been with my friends. I imagine we would have just spent the whole night in A&E, which is not the definitely not the definition of a great dinner party.

Friday 9 March 2012

Moules Marinière

Today, you find me, at 8am on a grey weekday morning, almost overwhelmed with excitement. In a matter of hours, I will be heading to PARIS. Paris, my favourite place in the whole world. I almost never mention this, but I lived there for a year. This will be my first trip back since I locked the door of my unheated attic apartment for the last time, tiptoed down the 5 flights of stairs to avoid waking the sociopath neighbour, jumped in a car full of my most treasured possessions and hot footed it back to the UK almost five years ago.  I am expecting overwhelming surges of nostalgia as well as standing on street corners (not like that) scowling at tourists and muttering ‘well it wasn’t like this in my day’.

In honour of my imminent triumphal return to the City of Light, and because it was International Women’s Day (not really, although I did recently read Germaine Greer’s The Whole Woman and I have a lot of thoughts on this subject *glares at the patriarchy*), yesterday I invited my friend over for moules marinière.

By happy coincidence, this particular friend lived with me in Paris and some/most of my nice memories from that year involve her. I would particularly like to mention NYE 2006, where we accidentally celebrated the new year 15 minutes early wearing men’s clothes, and she developed an actual allergy to rum that lasts to this day. It was a good night.  

Anyway, over she came and we ate moules and drank kirs and sat up for hours singing along to Leonard Cohen songs and hugging each other a lot.  Maybe this is why men hate women.

Moules Marinière
Serves 2

If you are put off by the thought of preparing mussels at home, don’t be. Almost nothing could be simpler, they don’t smell and they take literally 3 minutes to cook.

You will need:
Knob of butter
1 small onion
1 clove of garlic
1kg of mussels
Glass of white wine
Splash of double cream
Handful of chopped parsley

-Rinse the mussels thoroughly in cold water. (I put them in a colander under the tap and shake it a lot).
-The mussel shells should all be tightly closed. Any open ones should be tapped firmly. If they close, it’s probably fine. If they stay open, they’re dead and will quite possibly kill you too in revenge. Joking. But do discard them.
-If there are any fronds/stringy bits/seaweed attached to the mussel shells, pull them off.
-In a large saucepan, melt the butter, add the chopped onion and garlic and heat through.
-Throw the mussels in, throw the white wine on top, put the lid on the saucepan.
-Do nothing for 3 minutes.
-Shake the saucepan.
-Take the lid off, add a generous splash of double cream, stir through.
-Serve with the chopped parsley on top and possibly some chips or bread.
(you might need a spoon to eat the sauce with)

et voilà!

Monday 5 March 2012

It's (not that) grim up North

Two very good friends of mine recently got engaged, and to mark the occasion, albeit it almost 2 months later, a few of us decided to go up and celebrate with them. Unfortunately, they live in Hull.

So the Dream Team (previously mentioned in these pages, and the name seems to have stuck), a banker and I got on a train.  The journey was much as you would imagine. Actually, maybe you can’t imagine it. If you have children, you might be able to. One of the Dream Team had a tantrum half way through because he was tired. The other one had inexplicably bought a desktop computer along. The banker won Trivial Pursuit. Eating crème eggs produced a massive sugar high. We saw real working power stations for the first time.

Although it had seemed like the never ending story, in due course the train arrived in Hull. Our friends were waiting and we made our way back to theirs for a cup of tea and a catch up.  Despite most of us being something akin to legends whilst at university (between us we can claim alcohol related kidney problems, gastritis, gout, countless near death experiences and at least one unexpected 2.2), gone are the days when we could start drinking at 3pm and push on through until the next day. We needed something fun and safe to do whilst we waiting for international official drinking time – 6pm – and settled on the world’s first submarium, The Deep.

It. Was. Awesome. We saw feeding time in the lagoon, mini sharks, cute deadly frogs, a blue lobster, the ugliest eel in the world, rays, swordfish, jellyfish, other fish…ooh and there’s a glass lift! Even an incident where hand sanitizer gel was used to imitate bodily fluids and wiped on my arm couldn’t dent the mood.

Cute deadly frog

Our hosts (who you can tell are real grown ups because not only are they engaged but they have things like airbeds, spare duvets, clean towels and chilled tonic water) then decided on a local restaurant for dinner using the dubious skills of Trip Advisor, and after a quick pit stop for a g&t and a clean shirt (boys)/more eyeliner (girls) we headed out.

The restaurant, Brimble's Bistro, was lovely. The owner Dean was quite possibly the friendliest man in the world and the great ‘British brasserie’ food and atmosphere made it a wonderful evening.

I have just seen on the website that their dinner service is 6-9.30pm, in which case it gets an even bigger thumbs up as we definitely outstayed our welcome.  If you are ever in Hull, go there immediately.

3 hours later, we headed back and got stuck into the parlour games and amaretto, which you really don’t need to hear about. Suffice to say that the next day, whilst 4 of us sat around and ate huge amounts of truly excellent home cooked roast chicken and apple crumble, one member of the party was forced to retire to bed for a time out. Older, but not wiser.

Saturday 25 February 2012

Mele e Pere - review

A Thursday evening brought a long overdue catch up with an old friend. We both work in Mayfair, so Soho was an obvious choice for the evening. After considering Pitt Cue Co., the incredibly hyped and surely excellent new barbecue shack, but not sure if we could stand a queue when hungry and sober due to their no reservations policy (please say the West End will get over this fad soon?), we settled on the very new Mele e Pere on
Brewer Street
and booked (hooray) accordingly.  The balmy spring weather briefly disconcerted us and we exchanged a few afternoon emails wondering if we should try to find somewhere with an outside area for pre-dinner drinks. Coming to our senses and realising that a) it wasn’t that warm and b) nowhere in Soho has a decent al fresco seating area (USP for the next West End opening?) we decided on the new(ish) Campari bar at Polpo. Everybody knows about Polpo, and my friend and I are agreed that Russell Norman (Polpo, Polpetto, Spuntino…) is probably the most amazing man ever, apart from Michael Fassbender. He (Russell not Michael) is also fantastically funny on Twitter, just for the record. So it was no surprise that Polpo was full even at 6pm when I arrived. Heading through the door to the loos, now also marked with the words ‘Campari bar’, I was pleasantly surprised by the little underground space, with only 4 tables and not much more standing room. Very atmospheric. A couple of negronis later and the place had really warmed up. Great cocktails for the price of any drink in a chain bar – not too shabby. Conscious that our reservation awaited, we left the happy hordes and made our way into the dark, and not warm, Soho night. Via a brief stop in a pub for a swift glass of Pinot Grigio, we arrived on
Brewer Street
. The corner glowed brightly with the neon lights of Mele e Pere which looked absolutely nothing like a restaurant. The ground floor was basically an empty room with an incredible display of apples and pears (Mele e Pere in Italian) in Murano Glass. Have a look!


Down the apples (cockney rhyming slang for stairs, keep up) was a huge basement with a nice bar and lots of seating space. It was dark, but intentionally so. An effusive greeting from an ‘espanish’ waiter later and we had a bottle of Montepulciano and some delicious homemade foccacia in front of us as we perused the menu. And what a menu *pause for emphasis*. Barely 6 starters, 6 mains, 6 pastas and a selection of nibbles and sides. Absolutely ideal. My friend, who is another intrepid food explorer, and I had had a conversation about the fact that neither of us had ever eaten tripe and, seeing it on the menu, were resolved to try it.  With slight trepidation we ordered the tripe alongside hand chopped veal and snails with pecorino to start. Yes, three starters to share. Shut up, my friend goes to the gym and I don’t care. They arrived in due course and we began with the veal. Well, it was raw. Veal tartare with fennel, toast and parmesan. Absolutely incredible. The snails were as good as anything is in a garlic butter sauce and we were suitably happy.  Now it was time to tackle the tripe, which came in thin strips slow cooked in a tomato sauce. You know what? It was great. Non scary protein. Ok, yes, it smells like a farmyard but it’s nowhere near as pungent as andouillette (the French sausage made of guts) and we ate it with pleasure. We asked our Spanish waiter what it was called in Spanish, expecting the answer ‘tripas’ perhaps, and he looked at us, looked at it, and said ‘intestinos’. So there you go. I wouldn’t recommend it for the faint hearted, or if you can’t get your head around where it comes from, but it was delicious. Genuinely delicious.

By now the place was filling up, and it was time for our main courses. 2 pastas. For me a classic carbonara, and for my friend a ca-something (annoyingly I can’t remember the spelling and google can’t help, but it was small, squiggly pasta – answers on a postcard) with meat ragu. Both were perfect, perfect, perfect pasta. Faultless.

By now full to bursting, we could only manage a scoop of blood orange sorbet (me) and a scoop of pistachio ice cream (my friend) to finish the night. As we relaxed into the evening after a great meal, we discussed topics as varied as high street clothing sizes, crocodiles, and why the man at the next table was having dinner with 9 women (film star? Pimp?).

All in all, a fantastic evening at a great new restaurant. What more can you ask for?

http://www.meleepere.co.uk/ Price: £50 a head with more food and wine than anyone could possibly need.

Tuesday 24 January 2012

Happy New Year



For a variety of reasons, including apathy, my sisters and I decided to eschew big New Year’s Eve events for the 2011 – 2012 handover.  Instead, after a particularly heavy sisterly session in the local pub, we decided to have a dinner party for 12 people at our mother’s house, with each of us cooking a course of the meal. (Just to clarify – the mothership wasn’t there. She had no input on the food). Now, inviting people to break bread (there wasn’t any bread) on arguably the most important night of the year (but then again, arguably not) is risky. The food, drinks, conversation and atmosphere all have to be especially memorable.  In a good way.  As with so many things in life, planning was crucial.

And so it was that I found myself bowling round Tescos with wet hair in a summer dress at 11am on New Year’s Eve with sister number 4, who was wearing normal clothes but being spectacularly annoying nonetheless. Sample of conversation:

Me (terse): You’re in charge of making sure we have all the ingredients for the blinis, ok? I’m keeping track of everything else, I just need your help with one thing.
Sister 4, texting boys and lounging near the celery: Ok
Me (more terse): Are you listening?
Sister 4 (with attitude): Yes, obviously. I can do more than one thing at once.
Me: Right. Well don’t forg….
Sister 4 walks off
Me (strangulated voice): Where are you going? What are you doing?
Sister 4: The blinis are over here.
Me (hissing): No they’re not you idiot. God, PAY ATTENTION. You have ONE job. That’s the fish section.
Sister 4 (holding 3 packs of blinis aloft) Yes (puts one in trolley), and they’ve obviously set it up (puts one in trolley) so that people don’t miss any ingredients for their canapés (puts one in trolley, raises eyebrow, walks off) .
Me (fraught, running with trolley): Come back! Ha, see, you’ve just walked through the dairy aisle without getting the crème fraiche. I knew you weren’t listening.
Sister 4 (with a withering look): Are you chasing me?
Me: No
Sister 4: For God’s sake.

It wasn’t my finest hour.

We spent the afternoon prepping the food, decorating the table and checking the prosecco was bubbly, whilst waiting for Sisters 2 and 3 to descend from the wilds of outside the M25.  By 7pm we were, miraculously, good to go.

The menu was as follows, and I have asked each of my sisters to write a little recipe for the course they made. Happy New Year all!



Cocktails and canapés (sister 3)

Apologies all but not got time to do this blog thing at the moment

Risotto allo Champagne (mine)
Serves 6 as a small starter (it’s very rich), 4 as a bigger deal.

300g risotto rice
3 shallots
1 bottle of cava
250ml chicken stock
6 scallops on the half shell
-2 knobs of butter
-chives and edible gold leaf (optional jazzy garnish)

-Clean the scallops and shells. Set aside.
-Chop the shallots and sweat in a knob of butter until translucent
-Add the rice and coat in the butter until glossy
-Start adding the cava in the usual risotto-esque manner, i.e. stand by it and keep stirring.
-Once the whole bottle is gone, stir a bit more to burn off the alcohol, as you just want a subtle flavour:
-Fry the scallops in a separate pan until bouncy and opaque with a nice golden colour to the outside:
-Just before serving, add the stock, stir until incorporated and beat in the remaining knob of butter:
-Serve a spoonful of risotto in the shell with a scallop on top.
-Decorate with an insouciant scattering of chives and golf leaf:

Ballotine of Chicken with potatoes Dauphinoises (over to sister 2)
(Serves 4)

Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts
1 packet pancetta (aprrox 8 large slices)
250g spinach
125g ricotta
1.5litres chicken stock
olive oil

For the dauphinois:

6 large waxy potatoes (Desiree are a good choice)
150ml single cream
150ml double cream
1 garlic clove (crushed)
250g mild cheddar (grated)

Potato Dauphinoise
You can make these with or without cheese (a debate which usually leads to some stony silences
between me and my traditionalist sister!) Because I’m right – Ed. I like to make them with cheese as I think it makes for a much more sumptuous and deliciously creamy finished product.

Preheat the oven to 180’C. Mix the single and double cream together in a large mixing bowl. Add the
crushed garlic clove, a good crunch of salt and pepper and stir together.

Peel and thinly slice the potatoes with a sharp knife or mandolin.

In a gratin dish, layer some of the potatoes in a circular pattern to cover the bottom of the dish. Pour
over some of the cream mixture until the potatoes are well covered. Sprinkle some of the cheese on.
Repeat the layering process (potatoes> cream> cheese) finishing with a top layer covered with lots
of cheese.

Cook for 1-1.5hrs or until the potatoes are soft and the cheese on the top is golden brown.

Ballotine of chicken
Place each chicken breast between two sheets of cling film and bash with a rolling pin until the
breast has flattened and is approximately 1cm thick. Set aside.

Trim the stems and wilt the spinach in a pan with a little water. Drain, transfer to a bowl and allow to
cool a little before stirring in the ricotta. Season with salt and pepper.

Lay two sheets of pancetta length ways next to each other so that they just overlap in the middle of
a sheet of cling film. Put the flattened chicken breast on top of the pancetta. Next add a line of the
spinach and ricotta mixture about a third of the way from the chicken edge. Grab the edge of the
cling-film and tightly roll the chicken into a sausage shape. Make sure the ends are securely tied.

Once all the chicken breasts have been rolled and tied, place the ballotines into a large saucepan of
boiling chicken stock for 30 minutes.

Remove from the stock and cut the ballotines out of the cling film. Be careful as they will be very
hot. Add a little olive oil to a frying pan on a relatively high heat and fry the ballotines until the
pancetta crisps up.

Cut in half, serve alongside the dauphinoise and your choice of veg… then look smug!

Galette des Rois (sister 4)

“I’M TOO BUSY”.

Told you she was annoying.

She was a good time, had by all