Get stuffed

I have two very good friends who I sometimes refer to as the Dream Team in an ironic fashion. I never thought they would feature in these pages because a) they’re annoying and b) they can’t cook.  One of them hasn’t even read any of my oeuvre yet, if you can believe it – that’s the kind of hands off friendship that I appreciate…

Off the top of my head, their culinary heights include Tesco Finest spaghetti carbonara covered in chilli death sauce, Super noodles covered in chilli death sauce, fire rum (which caused the demise of a cheese grater), blue milk, protein shakes and dismissing the present of a 'Quick Easy Suppers' style cookbook on the basis that some of the recipes took (gasp) a whole 30 minutes. So it was with some trepidation that I accepted an offer to go over to their flat and eat turkey donated by a bank in honour of the recently passed Christmas weekend. My fear was not allayed by the increasingly bewildered texts I received throughout the day from the one who had been designated as in charge of the cooking (we’ll call him the house husband) due to having the day off work. I transcribe a few below:

“We are planning to have it ready by about 7 or 8 but given we have never cooked a turkey before I have no idea when that will actually be”

“Can you show us how to cook the turkey?”

“If you put max heat does it cook faster?”

“Where does the beer/orange go?”

“What’s basting?”

Meanwhile, the other one (think Richard O'Brien), in response to a simple query about whether any accompanying dishes had been prepared or even thought about, replied with “No trimmings. No sides. Just Turkey”.

Needless to say, I was mega excited.

Imagine my surprise when I turned up to find a scene of touching and festive domestic bliss. Two young(ish) men slaving over a hot stove in perfect harmony. The turkey appeared to have survived its ordeal and was resting on the side whilst I was poured a drink and we laughed and joked and ate great food and had a lovely evening, like some kind of heartwarming Christmas film.

Aha, I thought, maybe they’ve grown up.

At that point I hadn't noticed the stuffing had been made in the shape of penises.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, ho ho ho and a bottle of rum to everyone who reads this blog x

Another kind of penis.

Gauthier Soho - review

My mother once cooked minestrone for Alexis Gauthier. If you are an avid follower, or even a casual visitor (please be an avid follower), of this blog, you will realise that this is potentially quite an awful state of affairs. My mother, the non-cook (I thought she’d invented cheese stew the other day. Turns out it was meant to be carbonara), serving soup to the Michelin starred French chef, previously of Roussillon (which is excellent), and now chef at his own venture, Gauthier Soho. Hilarious.

Anyway, slightly in honour of the end of the London Restaurant Festival, but primarily because my friend had a last minute cancellation, off I popped to Romilly Street on a Monday evening. The restaurant is a narrow townhouse on two or three floors and lovely in a kind of French beige way. It seemed very cosy to be sipping g&ts in what was essentially someone’s sitting room. Choosing from a set menu, we opted for foie gras and open lobster ravioli for starters, following on with magret and sweetbreads. Yes, I double ducked it. A bottle of Pinot Noir also seemed like a sensible idea.

The foie gras had been seared and had that slightly crunchy outside that helps you forget that you are literally eating an exploded fat liver. I can’t remember anything standout in the smears of puree on the plate, but that’s often the way. The bread was exceptional. The lobster ravioli (raviolo? It was only one and it wasn’t even shut properly) was pronounced ‘mushroomy’ which I imagine is a good thing but possibly quite a surprise. Main courses were not the most inventive of dishes, but I don’t mean that in a bad way because the French are fantastic at the classics and these were both perfect.

Pudding was a Louis XV – ‘tastes a bit like a Kit Kat’ - and some cheese. The cheeses were good but mean spirited. Seriously, a 2 millimetre slice did not cost you or anyone else on the planet seven pounds. Even if you painted it gold and studded it with diamonds it should still only have been a fiver. Probably.

A lovely evening, and exceptional value at £30 for three courses. Definitely worth a (return) visit.

Viennese whirls

This was it. My first trip abroad since July. My first trip abroad without my family since March. My first trip abroad with this particular friend EVER. As you can see, it was a momentous occasion.

So, quite why I was sitting in the Wetherspoons at Gatwick South Terminal drinking Strongbow at 11am on a Friday morning is unclear. My friend was eating a cheeseburger smuggled in from the McDonald’s next door.   She is amazing.

For a variety of reasons, October has been a bit rubbish for both of us. Hers for actually valid reasons, and mine because I’m in a funk. I’m not going to lay all the blame on the Autumn equinox, but it certainly didn’t help.  So it was with a huge sigh of relief that we boarded the plane, passed out, and woke up in Vienna.
Having made our way into the city, the first thing we saw was a roadsign to Budapest and the second was some graffiti that said ‘tourist are terrorist’.  Whilst this would have been much more intimidating had the grammar been correct, we did noticeably pick up the pace after that and found our hotel pretty sharpish. It turned out I had inadvertently booked a mini suite, with a redundant little seating area wedged between the bathroom and bedroom. I say redundant, it did come in handy when I woke up the next morning at 7am and needed somewhere to go and hang out so I wouldn’t disturb my friend. You could also do yoga in it, probably. I didn't try. The major plus point of this hotel was that they put cava out at breakfast and appeared to operate a no judgement policy.

Anyway, Friday evening.  A quick face wash, some more eyeliner and we were good to go for the evening.  We walked through the centre in the early evening light and found a little beer house (pub seems so unromantic) that served lard on bread and small glasses of beer from about 40 taps around the bar. We opted out of the lard and into the beer, which was lovely.  We then made our way to a ‘traditional Austrian Gasthaus serving classic Viennese dishes in a charming atmosphere’. I quote from the guidebook. All I can say is, someone took a hefty backhand of cash for that review. My goodness. Arriving in an empty room blazing with light, the waiter greeted us with all the enthusiasm of an interrogator.  (I mean nothing by that beyond this causal observation. I am casting no aspersions re. history). 2 extremely small glasses of wine later (warning: they serve wine in 0.8cl measures. That’s almost literally a shot), we decided to have a go at the menu. Apologetically, and bear in mind I am a) fluent in at least 2.5 languages and b) naturally very polite, we signalled that German wasn’t a strong point and we might need some help with ordering. The man rolled his eyes and bought out a pile of flashcards. You may remember these from when you were being taught to read in kindergarten. These had a German word and an English word on each. For example: ‘schnitzel’ and ‘pointlessly thin, greasy, breaded piece of meat’. Unfortunately, not many of the German words were even on the menu. We eventually opted to share a house special, which we thought was schnitzel and in fact turned out to be goulash. After some desultory conversation in which the waiter seemed to warm up a bit (probably excited about how much spit we’d just eaten) we escaped into the night, found a busy bar, met some new friends and drank a lot of vodka.

On Saturday, we did a lot of sightseeing and walking, which was nice and almost all entirely purposeful, given that we ended up at an Irish pub. That evening, we struck gold. Ignoring all alarm bells about going into an Austrian cellar (sorry) we crossed the threshold of the oldest wine hall (or Heuriger) in Vienna and descended in an intrepid manner. It was full of locals, smoking and drinking. Result. We ordered a bottle of red and a starter of liptauer to share. We only ordered one because the descriptions of it, when I googled traditional Austrian cooking, were alarming and it appeared to be bright orange. It was bright orange, but it was a delicious spicy cream cheese dip thing that was very nice with some dark rye bread. For our main course, both of us picked the house speciality: pork knuckle with dumplings and sauerkraut. Two huge knuckles (how big were the pigs, one wonders idly) duly arrived, together with two dumplings the size of my fist (or, actually, my friend’s fist, and she has quite big hands) and a heap of cabbage. It was incredible. In terms of ‘things that intrinsically don’t have a lot of flavour’, dumplings have got to be pretty high on the list, but they were the perfect carrier for the eye wateringly sharp sauerkraut and the fatty meat. Which was clever, because normally I don’t like eating mouthfuls of vinegar. (Un)comfortably full, it was all we could do to stagger home via a nightcap of a 10 euro glass of port and fall asleep.

By Sunday, the consistent eating and drinking had taken their toll somewhat. We were liverish and could barely force down the breakfast cava. We did however, make use of their ham and cheese selection to avail ourselves of some free sandwiches, which came in very handy when we arrived at Vienna airport, found our second wind (and a pub) and drank quite a lot of wine before our plane home.

All in all, an excellent weekend.

Massive dumpling alert: far left

We no speak americano

Last week, I had some friends over for an American movie night. We didn’t end up watching any films and the person I devised the themed menu for couldn’t actually make it, so on many levels it was a non-starter. What we did instead was get astoundingly drunk and play strip Bolivian snap. The menu was as follows, but these don’t really require recipes:

Southern chicken (chicken, flour, paprika, bake in oven)
Coleslaw (veg, mayo)
Barbecue beans (baked beans, butter beans, barbecue sauce)
Sweetcorn fritters (batter, sweetcorn, fry)
Salad (lettuce)
Salsa (tomatoes, red onions, chilli, coriander)
Blue cheese dip (blue cheese, sour cream)

And that was it. I followed these with some easy – peasy 20 minute blueberry muffins, courtesy of my new burning obsession love, Paul Hollywood from the Great British Bake Off. The only bit of these that is remotely tricky is that you have to let the batter (or is it dough) rest, ideally overnight.

Blueberry muffins
Makes about 12.

110g plain flour
110g butter
65g sugar
2 eggs
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
125g blueberries
Pinch of nutmeg

-cream the butter and the sugar together.
-add the eggs slowly
-add the flour, baking powder and nutmeg, combine
-chill overnight.
-the next day, spoon the mix (which will be very stiff) into 12 muffin cases, filling to just about half way.
-stud the tops with blueberries (See picture below. Paul says 8, but as you will see I went conservative)
-Bake for 20 minutes at 200 degrees.

One of my friends ate 4 and said they were disgusting. I'm assuming this was an hilarious joke. Which would be a first from him.

i'm not bluffin with my muffin

My culinary heritage

I have always suspected that I’d be really good at cooking if I ever bothered to try.  I feel the same about the flute.   

My Granny is a good cook.  In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, my mother is somewhat less adept in the culinary arts.  She has a repertoire of nine dishes that feature mince, and a roast chicken. Any experiments away from these often result in disaster, but what can you expect from a woman whose ideal supper is a bottle of red and a Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie? Has anyone ever tried one of these? I doubt it. She introduced me to them as soon as I was old enough for it not to be her fault as a negligent parent if I got a spongy brain or a necrotizing bug from the delightful offal and connective tissue combo.  Admittedly they are delicious (if a little challenging to get down once you realise what you’re eating) but they are so obviously, dangerously disgusting as a concept that they were promptly given the nickname ‘Bad Pies’. She bought me one when I moved into my flat, as a housewarming present. The Bad Pie sits in one of my cupboards in its tin (yes, tin. Pastry in a tin, sell by date 2018) daring me to eat it.

Anyway, Mum’s triumphs, such as they are, often involve rice. Chilli and rice, meatballs and rice, leftover chicken and rice… you get the idea. She really can cook rice. I don’t say this lightly because many people can’t. I’d always admired the perfect fluffiness and how she managers to get so much flavour into it. It was only a few months ago that I caught her adding a stock cube to a packet of Uncle Ben’s. Several dreams died that day.

So yes, home was never really a place of culinary adventure or experimentation, unless you count that time that my sister blended a carton of double cream with a chocolate bar and some vodka and declared that it tasted ‘just like baileys’.  Or the occasion when Mum made the now infamous ‘hockey puck pork’…“Oh. Oh. Mine’s a bit dry. Is anyone else’s?” Cue her children staring at her in bewilderment as they tried to extricate the twisted lumps of metal that had once been knives and forks from the rock hard chops.

It doesn’t help that a number of my sisters are naturally extremely conservative in their attitudes to food. You should have heard the response when it was posited that we had dauphinoise instead of roast potatoes at our Easter lunch this year. ‘You caaaaan’t have a roast lunch without roast potatoes, you just can’t, it’s wrong, we won’t have enough to eeeeeeeat. How can you possibly suggest this you BITCH, you just want to take over Eeeeeasterrr’. So the mothership and I gave in and served both kinds. Cue my Granny turning up and demanding to know why there were two types of potato on the table and did we all want to get fat.

Seriously, between my sisters the problems range from tomatoes (which are fine cooked in a sauce but raw makes one of them cry), to mushrooms, to fish (all – there’s a blanket ban), to anything that looks like it came from an animal, to most vegetables (the 16 year old still has to be made to count out individual peas on her plate), and so on and so forth.

Obviously I have my own weirdness too. My worst worst worst thing is milk. The thought of it is enough to make me shudder. Did you know we are the only animals who drink the baby food from ANOTHER SPECIES when we’re adults? Disclaimer: I haven't checked that fact. My Dad was (probably still is, but we’re too big to be sent to the naughty step now) one of those parents who believed in the ‘glass of milk a day for children’ thing. I used to sit, Paddington Bear hard stare fixed on my face, in front of these endless glasses of milk for what seemed like hours whilst my sisters (the freaks) necked pints of semi-skimmed disgustingness and ran off, laughing, into the sunset. Or playroom. I genuinely don’t believe I’ve drunk a glass of milk, eaten a milk based dish *rice pudding heave* or even had milk in the fridge of my own volition in my adult life. If you’re round at mine, the coffee is black. And decaffeinated, but that’s a whole other story.

Dukkah

Occasionally, when doing one of my new obsessive Sunday afternoon tidy ups, I come across scraps of paper on which I have jotted something which was going to become a life changing social commentary or possibly even a blog post. These were tucked into the back of the plastic folder which my MA certificate came in (thanks for framing that, parents):

23 March

Day uneventful, just tidying up loose ends prior to the long weekend. Went out for a lovely meal with the ex-housemates at 11 Park Walk. Decided to have spaghetti with bottarga as I always see Giles Coren writing about it and have never tried it. Delicious – more granular than I had expected (was maybe thinking of caviar due to the fact it’s roe too?) but tasted exactly of the sea. As I bent to pick up my handbag, I was nearly blinded by a halogen bulb that had been implanted into the floor. Why? God knows. I ended up putting my bag on top of it and burning the leather. That aside, amazing food and lovely to see the girls.

24 March

Woke up late, packed in 10 mins, ran (taxi) to Kings Cross, ran on to the train and my MA graduation weekend had officially begun. C and I met as planned at the station (Emotional Train Station Reunions being ‘our thing’ ever since she moved to the Continent). Particularly emotional this time; an awkward wave and a back pat. We wandered around for some time, drinking Pimms. Later on we met J and Y for dinner. Nice food. Tried something new called dukkah. Appears to be seeds.

And there you have it, a little snapshot of my life back in March. Presumably I didn’t continue this charming vignette because the next four days of entries would have been ‘Drunk. Hateful people everywhere. Unhappy’.  It wasn’t a classic weekend.

Of course, the food related purpose to all of this is dukkah (or dukka/duqqa). It’s an Egyptian side dish or dip that is a mixture of herbs, nuts and spices. Everyone is going to think I only found out about it because  someone made dukkah bread on the Great British Bake Off the other week, but I PROMISE I knew about it in March. I seem to remember the one I had being used effectively as a kind of crunchy topping for a cheese platter.

Basically, get a whole load of nuts and spices of your choice, in whatever proportion you think will be nice (choose things that go together, obviously – hazelnuts, sesame seeds, cumin, peppercorns, coriander and fennel seeds, salt…) toast all the components, crush them up, and dip bread and olive oil into the resulting crunchy mess. Looks impressive, as mentioned earlier, on the side of a cheese board (and you get the pleasure of saying ‘oh, that? it’s just dukkah darling. Have you never heard of it?’) but make sure the cheeses you’ve chosen can stand up to the strong flavours.

Birdfood?

Seafood, eat

So, I invited friends for Sunday lunch and then had a total panic about it which involved only getting 2 hours sleep on Saturday night. I was forced to abandon the fantastic idea of a big convivial paella after realising (at 2am) that I didn’t have a pan big enough to make it in, but I had a bag of mixed seafood to use up urgently and was determined to think of something similar. Rick Stein’s Spain came up trumps (at 5am) with several soupy rice and fish recipes which I adapted until I ended up with the below (at 1pm).  It is definitely Spanish-y but is also a bit like a bouillabaisse in that it doesn’t have any rice in it and it’s the colour of rust.

Everyone seemed to enjoy it. I served it with big croutons, aioli (mayonnaise, lemon, salt, lots and lots of garlic, a bit of turmeric to make it yellow…) and a token salad.

There are no pictures because I forgot before lunch and then after lunch I was drunk.

Seafood Stew (serves 4-6)

You will need.
-Butter/oil
-2 onions
-1 carrot
-1 stick of celery
- 2 cans of chopped tomatoes
- 2tbsp of tomoto puree
-White wine
-2 anchovies
-750ml fish or chicken stock (see below for difference)
-150ml double cream
-6 coley fillets (SUSTAINABLE FISHING)
-approx 400g of mixed seafood of your choice. I went with a handy 400g bag of frozen mixed seafood from Waitrose (funny that) which was prawns, squid and mussels.
-Big handful of chopped parsley
-2 lemons
-Pinch Cayenne/smoked paprika/pimento (I know they’re different, but basically whatever you can get your hands on that gives it a bit of a kick).
-Salt and pepper

Method.
-Put the onions, carrot and celery (the mirepoix, if you’re being a dick) in a big pot with butter and oil (good things happen to burning temperatures when you use both), season and sweat them down until soft. Should be about 10 minutes.

-Add the tins of tomatoes, 2 tablespoons of tomato puree and a good slug of wine (a large glass or about a quarter of the bottle).

-Finely chop the two anchovies and drop them in. You won’t taste them as anchovies (so put them in even if you know someone who hates them; just keep quiet about it) – they’ll dissolve and leave behind a good depth of flavour for everything else.

-Wait for this to reduce to about half and then add the stock, cream, and check seasoning.

A note about stock.I had a friend coming who was not a particular fan of shellfish (I know, how great am I, cooking his favourite thing for him?) so I was conscious of not making the whole event too fishy. I therefore used chicken stock. I think it lent a nice meaty background to the finished soup, and it definitely made the bits of seafood themselves quite distinct, but you should traditionally (and for a more homogenous whole) use fish stock.

-Whichever stock you use, make sure everything reduces by about half again. Taste it now. If you’re doing it right it should taste pretty much exactly the same as Heinz Tomato Soup. I know, you’ve spent half an hour on this and you could have opened a can. To jazz it up, now put in the spice. I used a good few shakes of cayenne, until there was a definite bite, but obviously do it to your taste.

(at this point, you can leave the base to go cold overnight or during the day, and just reheat to finish off when your guests arrive. I had to do this because all of my friends were late).

-Cut the coley into small chunks and drop into the soup. They should only take a couple of minutes to cook. I was worried about the lack of flavour in coley (sorry, I know you’re not allowed to say that but it is basically the cod’s poor relation. Albeit his relation who isn’t about to become extinct) so I actually wrapped the fillets in some foil with a bit of butter and roasted them in the oven for 10 minutes. This is anal and you don’t need to do it.

-Throw the seafood in – it only needs warming through so keep an eye on it to watch out for overcooking (especially from the squid rings, which are cagey little brutes and prone to spontaneous rubberization).

-Add a squeeze of lemon and all the parsley, give it a final stir and serve with lots of wine.

(Apologies for the pun in the title)