On Monday we had a Man vs Food meal - I had a lot of leftover roast beef from the weekend, and a hot beef sandwich with the trimmings seemed like a good idea - it meant we got to use up the gravy too, and was something done quickly when time was not on my side.
A good pig-out is fun on occasion. I had bought some oven chips (sinful) that had been in the freezer for a while and needed using, so they went on the menu. A few batons of carrot and cucumber and some spring onions were a tiny gesture to health, the BBQ beans probably less so. The meal needed another element to fill it out, so I decided to make onion rings from scratch.
A few weeks back I did a cookery school piece for Lancashire Life, Norman Musa at Ning in Manchester showing a bunch of us how to make Malaysian street food. One of the dishes was a fritter made with beansprouts, prawn and Chinese chives. Norman's batter mix was incredibly simple (and for the austerity cook nice and cheap): five tbsps of plain flour, one of self-raising, a tsp of salt and another of turmeric, beaten with water to a thick cream consistency. It worked then, and a variation on it (less turmeric, some of the salt replaced with celery salt) made excellent onion rings, fried in about 1cm of oil in a small frying pan.
Frying stuff is not of course terribly healthy, but it got another vegetable into us, and just as importantly it made the meal fun - crunchy is good.
Talking about Man vs Food, SC posed a very interesting question the other day. Why do we in Britain have loads of fast food chains, but none of the mom-and-pop joints you see on Adam Richman's programme? Places where you can get a great burger without the plastic palace experience of MacDonalds? Where they do filler-upper cooking that pleases. When I travelled on business in the USA in the 90s those were the places that were great, restaurants owned by and run for families. Cheap-end chains were awful, high-end restaurants worse - why do the Americans love that whole 'The Maitre d' will insult you now' thing? But little burger and rib diners where you could eat well for not very much, and in a good friendly atmosphere too, were priceless.
Thursday 28 March 2013
Sunday 24 March 2013
Garlic Bread to Die for - and from
The pizzas midweek were so good that I actually had a request (for which read order) from my angelic wife for more of the same on Saturday, for our regular weekend zonk by the fire meal. There was a rider to the command too, which was that a garlic bread should be included. So the quantities in the dough recipe were upped by 33 per cent to accommodate a massive GB.
For once I learned from a past mistake or three, and instead of putting the garlic on the raw dough to cook with it, I very gently fried about a dozen cloves (no exaggeration) sliced finely in some olive oil until the smell permeated the kitchen (dining room, next floor and some of the street outside). When the nicely risen dough was nearly done garlic and oil were tipped on and returned for a few minutes in the oven. A hefty pinch of Maldon salt was strewn on the finished article. The bread measured about 20 inches by six, and I got one slice two-by-two, it was that good. Hugely garlicky.
This by my very rough calculation cost about 40p. It was not a million miles from restaurant fare, and pleased both Sternest Critic and the capo di tutti capi.
Both recent batches of pizza have undoubtedly been better than previous versions because when kneading the machine-mixed and risen dough I have incorporated a tearing action along with the full-body knuckle massage move. You live and learn, if the garlic hit doesn't kill you.
For once I learned from a past mistake or three, and instead of putting the garlic on the raw dough to cook with it, I very gently fried about a dozen cloves (no exaggeration) sliced finely in some olive oil until the smell permeated the kitchen (dining room, next floor and some of the street outside). When the nicely risen dough was nearly done garlic and oil were tipped on and returned for a few minutes in the oven. A hefty pinch of Maldon salt was strewn on the finished article. The bread measured about 20 inches by six, and I got one slice two-by-two, it was that good. Hugely garlicky.
This by my very rough calculation cost about 40p. It was not a million miles from restaurant fare, and pleased both Sternest Critic and the capo di tutti capi.
Both recent batches of pizza have undoubtedly been better than previous versions because when kneading the machine-mixed and risen dough I have incorporated a tearing action along with the full-body knuckle massage move. You live and learn, if the garlic hit doesn't kill you.
Saturday 23 March 2013
One Flame Spanish Dish
Though food in France and Indonesia have special places in my heart, of all the countries where I have travelled Spain is probably in culinary terms my favourite. A meal that consisted of a whole leg of lamb to myself, with a tiny salad and a few chips, served in a sign-less restaurant near Badalona; about half a pound of jamon de serrano on a warmed plate in Vitoria-Gasteiz; percebes eaten very messily in a restaurant looking down on pre-Guggenheim Bilbao; suckling pig in Barcelona; innumerable tapas.
One dish that I came across several times in different regions of Spain, and that I have made for myself since, is perfect one flame cooking. I don't know what it should be called, memory failing me for that detail. Let's say spicy Spanish beans.
The ideal is to cook this in a flattish and flame-proof terracotta dish, and to serve it in the same. But as my flame-proof terracotta dishes never actually are, and last just months, a good deep frying pan serves. Chop a large onion into small pieces and fry it gently in olive oil until it starts to colour, then add plenty of thickish slices of chorizo (and again, anyone pronouncing that chor-itso should be ashamed) cut from a stick rather than wafer-thin jobbies from a packet, and allow them to char a little here and there. Add a drained tin of beans - butter, flageolet, borlotti or haricot, it doesn't really matter, a tin of chopped tomatoes, and cook until heated through, the tomato starting to bubble and reduce a little. Add a good teaspoon of smoked paprika, four cloves of garlic crushed brutally beneath the flat of a broad-bladed knife, and cook for five minutes longer. Check for seasoning and sweetness - if it isn't sweet to the tongue add a few splodges of ketchup or failing that a bit of white sugar. There should be paprika heat in it too, and it would not be wrong to add a chopped chili seeds and all when you have started to char the chorizo, if you have a nice chilli to hand and like a bit of fire in your belly.
This is pleasant enough as it is, but to make a full meal of the thing add halved hard-boiled eggs yolk-side up, and/or a drained jar of white asparagus spears. Yes, a jar, they were always preserved when I had this in restaurants and hotels in Spain.
Served with the (cliche alert but it is right) best crusty bread you can lay your hands on it is a filler-upper and a treat. And it accounts for several of your five to seven a day depending on your conviction and purse.
One dish that I came across several times in different regions of Spain, and that I have made for myself since, is perfect one flame cooking. I don't know what it should be called, memory failing me for that detail. Let's say spicy Spanish beans.
The ideal is to cook this in a flattish and flame-proof terracotta dish, and to serve it in the same. But as my flame-proof terracotta dishes never actually are, and last just months, a good deep frying pan serves. Chop a large onion into small pieces and fry it gently in olive oil until it starts to colour, then add plenty of thickish slices of chorizo (and again, anyone pronouncing that chor-itso should be ashamed) cut from a stick rather than wafer-thin jobbies from a packet, and allow them to char a little here and there. Add a drained tin of beans - butter, flageolet, borlotti or haricot, it doesn't really matter, a tin of chopped tomatoes, and cook until heated through, the tomato starting to bubble and reduce a little. Add a good teaspoon of smoked paprika, four cloves of garlic crushed brutally beneath the flat of a broad-bladed knife, and cook for five minutes longer. Check for seasoning and sweetness - if it isn't sweet to the tongue add a few splodges of ketchup or failing that a bit of white sugar. There should be paprika heat in it too, and it would not be wrong to add a chopped chili seeds and all when you have started to char the chorizo, if you have a nice chilli to hand and like a bit of fire in your belly.
This is pleasant enough as it is, but to make a full meal of the thing add halved hard-boiled eggs yolk-side up, and/or a drained jar of white asparagus spears. Yes, a jar, they were always preserved when I had this in restaurants and hotels in Spain.
Served with the (cliche alert but it is right) best crusty bread you can lay your hands on it is a filler-upper and a treat. And it accounts for several of your five to seven a day depending on your conviction and purse.
Thursday 21 March 2013
The Pie
Last night I cooked the pie. Not a pie, the pie. It was one of those sadly all too rare occasions when something sublime results from ordinary labours in the kitchen.
Some twenty years or more ago I made the soup, a fish soup whose stock enriched with anchovies was deep and rich and seasoned to perfection, whose fish-flesh was done to creamy rightness and no more, whose vegetables retained toothsome crispness without any hint of the raw.
Neither of those dishes was innovative, or had fancy flourishes. But they were utterly delicious. In fact, they were probably my ideals because they were ordinary things done exactly right. That is perhaps why I am so often disappointed by restaurants it being cheffy to tamper, add the unique, the unusual, the previously unthought of touch. Unthought of because so often they don't go. Last year in and around Parma was happily different, the food in three separate places proud to be based on hundreds of years of tradition, skill, and judgement, the ingredients used wisely. So for example I ate cappelini in brodo that will forevermore be the version of that simple delight for me.
The pie by the way was made with steak bought from Robinson's butcher's shop in Chipping, the cubed meat browned before joining onion, carrot and turnip already fried until beginning to colour, then lots of whole medium-sized mushroom added. I am increasingly convinced that where possible mushrooms should be kept whole, they keep their flavour better that way. The cooking liquor was just water to which I added a tsp of Bovril and a glug of rum, then thickened with cornflour ("How horribly unfashionable darling, nobody uses flour let alone cornflour these days", to which my response, as a master of repartee, is "Naff off, it works.").
This filling was stewed in the morning at 150 centigrade for two and a half hours, then when cool put in the fridge until used at night, heated until warm and covered with a cheaty Sainsbury's puff pastry lid. The pie, in its Le Creuset metal dish, was cooked at 220 centigrade for 20 minutes (not the 190 for 10 minutes suggested on the pack) and emerged with top crisp and interior hot. Hot and delicious. It was the pie.
Years ago I saw a French film where a man who had trained and practiced for years to do the perfect Japanese tea ceremony achieved his goal, and immediately died, his life complete. Silly sod. I prefer to think of how sometime in the future I can repeat the experience.
Some twenty years or more ago I made the soup, a fish soup whose stock enriched with anchovies was deep and rich and seasoned to perfection, whose fish-flesh was done to creamy rightness and no more, whose vegetables retained toothsome crispness without any hint of the raw.
Neither of those dishes was innovative, or had fancy flourishes. But they were utterly delicious. In fact, they were probably my ideals because they were ordinary things done exactly right. That is perhaps why I am so often disappointed by restaurants it being cheffy to tamper, add the unique, the unusual, the previously unthought of touch. Unthought of because so often they don't go. Last year in and around Parma was happily different, the food in three separate places proud to be based on hundreds of years of tradition, skill, and judgement, the ingredients used wisely. So for example I ate cappelini in brodo that will forevermore be the version of that simple delight for me.
The pie by the way was made with steak bought from Robinson's butcher's shop in Chipping, the cubed meat browned before joining onion, carrot and turnip already fried until beginning to colour, then lots of whole medium-sized mushroom added. I am increasingly convinced that where possible mushrooms should be kept whole, they keep their flavour better that way. The cooking liquor was just water to which I added a tsp of Bovril and a glug of rum, then thickened with cornflour ("How horribly unfashionable darling, nobody uses flour let alone cornflour these days", to which my response, as a master of repartee, is "Naff off, it works.").
This filling was stewed in the morning at 150 centigrade for two and a half hours, then when cool put in the fridge until used at night, heated until warm and covered with a cheaty Sainsbury's puff pastry lid. The pie, in its Le Creuset metal dish, was cooked at 220 centigrade for 20 minutes (not the 190 for 10 minutes suggested on the pack) and emerged with top crisp and interior hot. Hot and delicious. It was the pie.
Years ago I saw a French film where a man who had trained and practiced for years to do the perfect Japanese tea ceremony achieved his goal, and immediately died, his life complete. Silly sod. I prefer to think of how sometime in the future I can repeat the experience.
Tuesday 19 March 2013
Free Pizza!
Ok, so not actually free. But bloody cheap, and a whole lot better than the nasty cheapo versions (and some of the dearer ones too) that the supermarkets have to offer.
I think I've posted about this before. Or written as we used to have it. The pizza base is made in my bread-maker, the recipe an adaptation of the one that its book gives - and a simple adaptation too, two tablespoons of olive oil replacing the one of melted butter in the original. This makes the dough nicely elastic, and the finished product is crisper I think.
And this is an austerity thing, with last night's three pizzas toppings included costing by my guestimate much less than £4. All were topped with tomato, a tin thereof plus a teaspoon of sugar and some salt reduced to what my accurately wife called a jam. One fishy: anchovies and little prawns, plus very thinly-sliced onion and strips of red pepper; one meaty: half a spicy chorizo sausage (I know it's Spanish but frankly don't care - and please do not pronounce it cho-ritzo or we cannot be friends), plus a liberal dusting of Parmesan and more of the same veg; and one with chicken (leftover from the weekend) and sweetcorn, plus Parmesan again. Oh, and lots of see-through-thin slices of garlic on the first two.
I don't give a tinker's that they are not 'authentic'. They were made with what we had to hand, and seemed suitable. Which probably makes them definitively peasant-fare.
The secret, which is far from secret, is to have the oven at its highest temperature, and not open it for at least 10 minutes while the pizzas (on flat metal pans) cook to crispness. When the edge is brown, they're done. And another well-known secret is that you don't need rubbery mozzarella. Good stuff is fine if you can get it, grated over the tomato or topping if you prefer, but tomato paste and a tasty topping makes for almost rustic simplicity.
I love the relaxed intimacy of eating pizza, or at least good pizza. Use a knife and fork and you look ridiculous, though we needed to with the salad afterwards. Pizza is finger-food, with finger-licking to follow.
I think I've posted about this before. Or written as we used to have it. The pizza base is made in my bread-maker, the recipe an adaptation of the one that its book gives - and a simple adaptation too, two tablespoons of olive oil replacing the one of melted butter in the original. This makes the dough nicely elastic, and the finished product is crisper I think.
And this is an austerity thing, with last night's three pizzas toppings included costing by my guestimate much less than £4. All were topped with tomato, a tin thereof plus a teaspoon of sugar and some salt reduced to what my accurately wife called a jam. One fishy: anchovies and little prawns, plus very thinly-sliced onion and strips of red pepper; one meaty: half a spicy chorizo sausage (I know it's Spanish but frankly don't care - and please do not pronounce it cho-ritzo or we cannot be friends), plus a liberal dusting of Parmesan and more of the same veg; and one with chicken (leftover from the weekend) and sweetcorn, plus Parmesan again. Oh, and lots of see-through-thin slices of garlic on the first two.
I don't give a tinker's that they are not 'authentic'. They were made with what we had to hand, and seemed suitable. Which probably makes them definitively peasant-fare.
The secret, which is far from secret, is to have the oven at its highest temperature, and not open it for at least 10 minutes while the pizzas (on flat metal pans) cook to crispness. When the edge is brown, they're done. And another well-known secret is that you don't need rubbery mozzarella. Good stuff is fine if you can get it, grated over the tomato or topping if you prefer, but tomato paste and a tasty topping makes for almost rustic simplicity.
I love the relaxed intimacy of eating pizza, or at least good pizza. Use a knife and fork and you look ridiculous, though we needed to with the salad afterwards. Pizza is finger-food, with finger-licking to follow.
Sunday 17 March 2013
Is Anything Simpler than Rice?
Plain boiled rice (as the takeaway menu would have it) is in one way the simplest of things. It has nothing to it but rice, water and perhaps salt. It is of course what a lot of the world's poor have to live on, and if that's all you have then the beauty of the thing which is enhanced by comparison with more complex foods will of course be reduced - survival is not sensual. But there are few things that, when done properly, taste as good. Austere, but in itself superb.
In Taipei many years ago I dined with a couple of guys from our local agent, and two Japanese executives from a company we were trying to sell to. The meal was not the fanciest banquet ever, but undoubtedly excellent. I was surprised at the end of it when the two Japanese men complimented the rice. I always thought until then rice was rice was rice. But they were right, it had a creamy texture while being light, and the clear starchy whiteness of the flavour was beautiful.
On the other hand, achieving that perfection is far from simple. Rice is something I find very hard to cook just as it should be. Which is why I was so pleased with our meal last night. Chili con carne (nothing special at all) but with plain boiled rice that for once was right. I had seconds and thirds of rice, but not of the meat and veg element. The rice came in a massive bag from the Asian section of our local supermarket, not the cheapest but not the dearest brand. It was washed thoroughly, covered plus half an inch with boiling water, and left in a covered pan on very low heat for 10 minutes, then with heat off steamed for 10 more. Simple, but it worked perfectly.
Washing the rice by the way is not what you'd do if eating to survive. During the Indian Mutiny/First Indian War of Independence, depending on your standpoint, the British in a fort under siege were fed boiled rice, while the faithful Indians serving them just had the water in which it was washed. Many of the Brits got scurvy, their servants didn't. For me, by the way, those Brits who allowed (one wonders if it was allowed at the point of a gun) their servants to be kept to rice water while they ate the good stuff deserved to suffer illness.
Thursday 14 March 2013
One Flame Chinese - Crab Omelette
Our eggs are not of the hundred year old variety (but then, paradoxically, nor are hundred year eggs), but fresh from our own hens. I make a point of using up all we have in the basket every now and then to ensure what we have is always less than a week old. they are, then, a wonderful ingredient for any cook with half a brain - and I nearly qualify.
In many of the Chinese banquets I enjoyed in my previous career omelettes were a feature, and why not - they are quickly made, nutritious, and very adaptable. One that left an impression on me was with crab, and I have since made versions of this with - sorry but it's convenient - tinned crab meat. Not too austere really as the white meat stuff with some texture left is more than £2 a tin, but given the eggs are near as dammit free I don't feel guilty.
The usual method applies - beat the eggs really well with loads of air, but instead of the breakfast or lunch omelette cooking medium of butter for the Chinese dish I use vegetable oil with a dash of toasted sesame oil. Start the omelette cooking, wait till nearly done then add the drained crab meat and a teaspoon of soy sauce, a shake of 5-spice powder, and we're done once they've heated through.
This is a light meal in itself, but better as a dish in a banquet, thin wedges cut ready to be taken by diners.
In many of the Chinese banquets I enjoyed in my previous career omelettes were a feature, and why not - they are quickly made, nutritious, and very adaptable. One that left an impression on me was with crab, and I have since made versions of this with - sorry but it's convenient - tinned crab meat. Not too austere really as the white meat stuff with some texture left is more than £2 a tin, but given the eggs are near as dammit free I don't feel guilty.
The usual method applies - beat the eggs really well with loads of air, but instead of the breakfast or lunch omelette cooking medium of butter for the Chinese dish I use vegetable oil with a dash of toasted sesame oil. Start the omelette cooking, wait till nearly done then add the drained crab meat and a teaspoon of soy sauce, a shake of 5-spice powder, and we're done once they've heated through.
This is a light meal in itself, but better as a dish in a banquet, thin wedges cut ready to be taken by diners.
Monday 11 March 2013
Kenneth Williams and Salmon
It is not that the late great Kenneth Williams - as far as I am aware - had any special instructions for cooking fish, but that his most celebrated Carry On line 'stop messing about' surely applies perfectly to good fresh examples of that ingredient.
This came home to me on Sunday when for Mother's Day (Mothers' Day?) we enjoyed the simplest of dishes: a beautiful big fat fillet of salmon, firm and glistening, baked uncovered in the oven for half-an-hour at 160 centigrade, the only additions a good sprinkling of salt, plenty of black pepper, and a glug or two of olive oil. No basting, no sauce, no cheese, no herbs, no garlic, no glaze, no jus, no extra spices, no onions, no complication or adulteration of any sort.
Served with a salad of chicory, rocket, toms and cucumber, and it being a special occasion washed down with champagne (a cheapo bottle left over from Christmas) it was nicely moist and tasted beautifully of salmon.
Not exactly austere I grant you, but my wife had asked to eat at home rather than dine out as we have been disappointed in the past on such days with silly prices for special menus that are not special at all. On which it feels only right to conclude with the words of the great Mr Williams himself: "Hors d'oeuvres, ma Crepe Suzette."
This came home to me on Sunday when for Mother's Day (Mothers' Day?) we enjoyed the simplest of dishes: a beautiful big fat fillet of salmon, firm and glistening, baked uncovered in the oven for half-an-hour at 160 centigrade, the only additions a good sprinkling of salt, plenty of black pepper, and a glug or two of olive oil. No basting, no sauce, no cheese, no herbs, no garlic, no glaze, no jus, no extra spices, no onions, no complication or adulteration of any sort.
Served with a salad of chicory, rocket, toms and cucumber, and it being a special occasion washed down with champagne (a cheapo bottle left over from Christmas) it was nicely moist and tasted beautifully of salmon.
Not exactly austere I grant you, but my wife had asked to eat at home rather than dine out as we have been disappointed in the past on such days with silly prices for special menus that are not special at all. On which it feels only right to conclude with the words of the great Mr Williams himself: "Hors d'oeuvres, ma Crepe Suzette."
Friday 8 March 2013
The Anti-Health-Fascist Hero
Writing about the Jersey-based thriller writer who dined (dines perhaps, it may be that the author in question still lives) on eggs, bacon and champagne daily brought to mind another gourmand hero, Viscount Castlerosse, who in the thirties and forties of the last century wrote a celebrated gossip column for the Sunday Express.
Castlerosse and austerity were not bedfellows, but my excuse in writing about him is that his most famous regular lunch (or it was reported to be so) is the antithesis of the joyless fare and attitude becoming so prevalent today. Pleasure has to be a part of eating for me, or it is just re-fuelling and only machines run on fuel.
The lunch for which he gained notoriety was a magnificent statement about enjoying life, and about how some things are so good they need no adornment. He would eat a whole York ham, washed down with half-a-dozen bottles of good claret. Superb. I spent 20 years in a previous career travelling the globe on expenses, but would never have got away with that, which is what he in fact did - his caviar and foie gras predilections were paid for by his paper, such was the pull of the 'Londoner's Log' society guff he churned out (and it cannot have hurt that he was a friend of the proprietor).
The alcohol in that single lunch by my reckoning comes to 54 units, so almost exactly double the upper recommended weekly limit set forth (with good reason of course) by doctors now. And if we are to be limited to one rasher of bacon a day or the equivalent in other preserved meats, I hate to think what a whole York ham works out at - several months' worth surely?
It is hard not to admire the man.
Such tales usually end with something along the lines of 'and he lived to a ripe old age.' Not this: he died in his early fifties, extremely fat. But I bet he crammed more pleasure into his curtailed span than an entire conference hall of mirthless brown-rice-and-sandals advocates.
Castlerosse and austerity were not bedfellows, but my excuse in writing about him is that his most famous regular lunch (or it was reported to be so) is the antithesis of the joyless fare and attitude becoming so prevalent today. Pleasure has to be a part of eating for me, or it is just re-fuelling and only machines run on fuel.
The lunch for which he gained notoriety was a magnificent statement about enjoying life, and about how some things are so good they need no adornment. He would eat a whole York ham, washed down with half-a-dozen bottles of good claret. Superb. I spent 20 years in a previous career travelling the globe on expenses, but would never have got away with that, which is what he in fact did - his caviar and foie gras predilections were paid for by his paper, such was the pull of the 'Londoner's Log' society guff he churned out (and it cannot have hurt that he was a friend of the proprietor).
The alcohol in that single lunch by my reckoning comes to 54 units, so almost exactly double the upper recommended weekly limit set forth (with good reason of course) by doctors now. And if we are to be limited to one rasher of bacon a day or the equivalent in other preserved meats, I hate to think what a whole York ham works out at - several months' worth surely?
It is hard not to admire the man.
Such tales usually end with something along the lines of 'and he lived to a ripe old age.' Not this: he died in his early fifties, extremely fat. But I bet he crammed more pleasure into his curtailed span than an entire conference hall of mirthless brown-rice-and-sandals advocates.
Thursday 7 March 2013
Processed Meat is Coming to Get You
The story about the dangers of processed meat is leading on the radio, TV and though I don't buy a daily paper so can't be sure, doubtless in the press too. Sadly from the interview with one of the researchers on whose report the story is based quality is not the issue, but the presence in all such meats of preservative chemicals.
Apparently the safe level of consumption is deemed to be one rasher of bacon, or one sausage, per day. That is each rather than for the entire country, but it is only a matter of time.
I don't doubt the science, and will take it into account in my cooking, but am saddened that yet another of life's pleasures now has a safe daily limit. We have limited our alcohol consumption to Fridays, Saturdays and some Sundays, though not without the occasional sip midweek when circumstances dictate. I now await with dread the announcement on Today that reading more than two pages of PG Wodehouse a day is thought to be carcinogenic.
On reflection, however, I am pretty sure that we don't exceed that limit of one rasher/link a day, even taking into account occasional enjoyment of Mortadella, Parma Ham, and salamis various. That researcher said it wasn't a matter of quality, but if we are to limit our consumption of such things, surely we (if we have the means) should seek out the very best, so that this now slightly guilty pleasure should maximize said pleasure? As ever a bad meal is a wasted opportunity, and within that meal wet and tasteless bacon, or foully bready sausages, wastes our ration of preserved pork.
Yet again, btw, nobody on Today mentioned enjoyment as part of our dietary benefits. I recall (as I may have done previously here, but never mind) the thriller writer whose name escapes me who retired to Jersey and every day there ate the same lunch at the same table in the same restaurant: eggs and bacon and champagne. Setting aside the monotony that doesn't appeal, the decision to enjoy to the utmost a glorious obsession is clear and for me laudable. That writer may have died of cancer eventually, (then again he may not) but for the years in which he tucked into his favourite meal he packed a vast amount of pleasure. Which would you judge preferable - his perhaps somewhat shortened but pleasing existence, or someone who lived five years more lunching on brown rice and cabbage water?
Apparently the safe level of consumption is deemed to be one rasher of bacon, or one sausage, per day. That is each rather than for the entire country, but it is only a matter of time.
I don't doubt the science, and will take it into account in my cooking, but am saddened that yet another of life's pleasures now has a safe daily limit. We have limited our alcohol consumption to Fridays, Saturdays and some Sundays, though not without the occasional sip midweek when circumstances dictate. I now await with dread the announcement on Today that reading more than two pages of PG Wodehouse a day is thought to be carcinogenic.
On reflection, however, I am pretty sure that we don't exceed that limit of one rasher/link a day, even taking into account occasional enjoyment of Mortadella, Parma Ham, and salamis various. That researcher said it wasn't a matter of quality, but if we are to limit our consumption of such things, surely we (if we have the means) should seek out the very best, so that this now slightly guilty pleasure should maximize said pleasure? As ever a bad meal is a wasted opportunity, and within that meal wet and tasteless bacon, or foully bready sausages, wastes our ration of preserved pork.
Yet again, btw, nobody on Today mentioned enjoyment as part of our dietary benefits. I recall (as I may have done previously here, but never mind) the thriller writer whose name escapes me who retired to Jersey and every day there ate the same lunch at the same table in the same restaurant: eggs and bacon and champagne. Setting aside the monotony that doesn't appeal, the decision to enjoy to the utmost a glorious obsession is clear and for me laudable. That writer may have died of cancer eventually, (then again he may not) but for the years in which he tucked into his favourite meal he packed a vast amount of pleasure. Which would you judge preferable - his perhaps somewhat shortened but pleasing existence, or someone who lived five years more lunching on brown rice and cabbage water?
Wednesday 6 March 2013
Demitarian - Honestly?
I love meat, but understand that it is hard to square eating it several times a day with our knowledge of the world and the way it is heading. Not on moral grounds about our rights to eat animals, though anyone with a mind at least considers that aspect of the thing; but for environmental reasons. Producing meat takes up a lot more of the earth's resources than its benefits justify.
But as with every moral dilemma there is complexity here. Meat raised on grain is frankly daft, we use about 4kg of food that humans could eat to make 1kg of meat. But there are many marginal places - hill farms, sparse grasslands - where not much else can be farmed. Then again, it is such a good source of the protein we need to thrive that meat makes life easy for the nutritionally aware cook (vile phrase but useful). Add to that the damage cow farts etc do to the atmosphere and stir. But don't forget to include the sensual side of the argument - for the carnivore there is nothing more toothsome than a well-hung piece of sirloin griddled rare.
A half-way point between vegetarianism and its opposite is now being touted and it seems made trendy (though philosophically eating a bit of meat makes you a carnivore still), the idea of demitarianism - eating meat occasionally, and not in massive lumps if that's not putting it too technically. I just wonder about such a position: practical yes, but honest? Nevertheless it is, though I loathe the ugliness of the word, kind of where I intend heading in dietary terms. More fish (sustainably sourced etc etc), more vegetables (with our own to the fore), more mushrooms and other fungi, more tofu if I can find the good stuff locally (the honeycomb variety not the nasty soggy slabs). And, though they may be a concern for the cholesterol in them, more eggs given we have our own hens.
The practical worry I have about this is that as many have lost the ability to cook for themselves in any meaningful way (i.e. they may feed themselves, but it is by reheating what another has cooked) and a slab of protein is so simple to serve, a lot of people will be considering themselves demitarians, but like a few vegetarians I've known who have the occasional burger, they really won't be. Which leaves the environment just as knackered as it was before the idea started to trend - moreso as we will surely soon see a flood of celebrity demitarian tomes ("Film actress Lula Schachter-Bonk tells us she has always been a demitarian, and her new book [by Lula and someone who can write and cook] gives her favourite recipes."
But as with every moral dilemma there is complexity here. Meat raised on grain is frankly daft, we use about 4kg of food that humans could eat to make 1kg of meat. But there are many marginal places - hill farms, sparse grasslands - where not much else can be farmed. Then again, it is such a good source of the protein we need to thrive that meat makes life easy for the nutritionally aware cook (vile phrase but useful). Add to that the damage cow farts etc do to the atmosphere and stir. But don't forget to include the sensual side of the argument - for the carnivore there is nothing more toothsome than a well-hung piece of sirloin griddled rare.
A half-way point between vegetarianism and its opposite is now being touted and it seems made trendy (though philosophically eating a bit of meat makes you a carnivore still), the idea of demitarianism - eating meat occasionally, and not in massive lumps if that's not putting it too technically. I just wonder about such a position: practical yes, but honest? Nevertheless it is, though I loathe the ugliness of the word, kind of where I intend heading in dietary terms. More fish (sustainably sourced etc etc), more vegetables (with our own to the fore), more mushrooms and other fungi, more tofu if I can find the good stuff locally (the honeycomb variety not the nasty soggy slabs). And, though they may be a concern for the cholesterol in them, more eggs given we have our own hens.
The practical worry I have about this is that as many have lost the ability to cook for themselves in any meaningful way (i.e. they may feed themselves, but it is by reheating what another has cooked) and a slab of protein is so simple to serve, a lot of people will be considering themselves demitarians, but like a few vegetarians I've known who have the occasional burger, they really won't be. Which leaves the environment just as knackered as it was before the idea started to trend - moreso as we will surely soon see a flood of celebrity demitarian tomes ("Film actress Lula Schachter-Bonk tells us she has always been a demitarian, and her new book [by Lula and someone who can write and cook] gives her favourite recipes."
Monday 4 March 2013
The Joy of Simple Chicken Dishes
It is strange to think that a chicken in every pot (an ambition ascribed to Catherine the Great, Herbert Hoover, Francois IV and doubtless others) was once a dream. Nowadays the meat is something too easily taken for granted. The cheapo white and nasty supermarket 'bargain' stuff should not be taken at all, but a good quality butcher's bird or free-range ones from the supermarket can still be made so easily into delicious dishes. At the weekend we had two such.
The first was wings marinated (if that is the right word for something relatively dry) with a paste zapped in the blender - cumin and fennel seed, garlic, a green chilli, pepper (slightly too much, you forget how potent quite new peppercorns can be) salt and star anise - then left in the fridge for three or four hours covered with clingfilm. Rolled in a bit of oil and baked at 190C for 30 minutes, turned regularly, they were sticky and spicy and delicious, one part of an oriental (-ish) meal. I love wings, the sweetest and cheapest chicken on the shelves. The fennel gives it a hint of the KFC, though the Colonel's changeless recipe may oxymoronically have changed since the last time I dared try it in about 1995.
Second was another dish that is simplicity itself, and a reliable way to perk up an uninteresting bird. How very Sid James. The herbs are looking healthy again in the garden, though the bay has never looked less than perfect all through the winter. I took the scissors to par-cel (leaf celery), the first decent-looking rosemary of the year, a load of sage, 8 - 10 leaves of bay, and what thyme I could cut without the operation being terminal to the plant, and rolled a jointed chicken in them once they had been snipped small. With olive oil poured on and seasoned with salt, pepper and some smoked paprika, I again baked them in a roasting tray (or roasted them in a baking tray, with meat the terms are almost synonymous, doubtless to the annoyance of terminological purists) for 50 minutes or so. Nice and moist, the herbs were very much to the fore and the golden skin was fantastic.
How much KFC would I have got for £7, the price of the chicken if memory serves? Useless factoid out of nowhere, Preston my (adopted-)hometown was the site of the first KFC in Britain, opened in 1965. Still doesn't endear the food to me.
The first was wings marinated (if that is the right word for something relatively dry) with a paste zapped in the blender - cumin and fennel seed, garlic, a green chilli, pepper (slightly too much, you forget how potent quite new peppercorns can be) salt and star anise - then left in the fridge for three or four hours covered with clingfilm. Rolled in a bit of oil and baked at 190C for 30 minutes, turned regularly, they were sticky and spicy and delicious, one part of an oriental (-ish) meal. I love wings, the sweetest and cheapest chicken on the shelves. The fennel gives it a hint of the KFC, though the Colonel's changeless recipe may oxymoronically have changed since the last time I dared try it in about 1995.
Second was another dish that is simplicity itself, and a reliable way to perk up an uninteresting bird. How very Sid James. The herbs are looking healthy again in the garden, though the bay has never looked less than perfect all through the winter. I took the scissors to par-cel (leaf celery), the first decent-looking rosemary of the year, a load of sage, 8 - 10 leaves of bay, and what thyme I could cut without the operation being terminal to the plant, and rolled a jointed chicken in them once they had been snipped small. With olive oil poured on and seasoned with salt, pepper and some smoked paprika, I again baked them in a roasting tray (or roasted them in a baking tray, with meat the terms are almost synonymous, doubtless to the annoyance of terminological purists) for 50 minutes or so. Nice and moist, the herbs were very much to the fore and the golden skin was fantastic.
How much KFC would I have got for £7, the price of the chicken if memory serves? Useless factoid out of nowhere, Preston my (adopted-)hometown was the site of the first KFC in Britain, opened in 1965. Still doesn't endear the food to me.
Sunday 3 March 2013
One Flame Cooking Fish Soup
Fish soup, or fish stew? The terminology is not really important, though the different words trigger different responses and attitudes. So if served as a starter or accompaniment to an oriental meal say soup, if it is supper or lunch on its own go with stew.
An acknowledgement here to Nick Fisher (now there's a name that helped determine a career) whose River Cottage handbook on fishing inspired a change to a recent version of my own one-pot oriental fish soupy-stew, namely the addition of miso paste, which worked beautifully to give a bit of depth to the broth.
In a medium/large saucepan fry a chopped onion and a carrot cut into small dice, plus a chili in the thinnest possible rings - a minute or so is enough to give them a bit of a start on cooking and a touch of the caramelised surface that adds flavour. Add about a litre of light chicken stock. I am not a huge fan of fish stock, hitting the golden moment between insipid and gluey is not easy. If I want some fishy depth I'd add a tin of anchovies to the onion and carrot at frying stage. Or you can use boiling water and a cube if that's what you have to hand, but then a tsp of miso paste is extremely useful to make the stock more interesting.
Simmer for a couple of minutes only, then lob in noodles that can cook this way - one purchase made during my recent expedition to the local Chinese supermarket - Preston has a big Chinese student population - was a big packet of flat wheat noodles for £2.25, a steal compared to Sainsbury's. How many noodles depends on your needs and space in the pot. Use your imagination.
When the noodles are just about cooked add your fish - I used tilapia but pollock would be fine too, or any other good firm white fish that is from a sustainable source - in large chucks, you want it to hold together and be recognizable.
Season with soy sauce, pepper, and a dash of sesame oil if you have some. Five spice powder helps too. Taste to see if it is interesting enough, and if not add more of those enhancers, and maybe a touch more miso if you feel it is needed. But be quick, the fish should be just done, not overdone - once it is nicely opaque you are there, but taste a bit to be sure.
This is more method than recipe. There are innumerable tunes to be played on it - the most recent version had at the noodle stage half a tin of matchstick thin bamboo shoots added and the whites of six very thin leeks cut into thin rings, and with the onion-carrot-chili mix I added an inch of ginger cut into thin slivers.
I made this as one of three dishes for our evening meal, but had we not just had brunch that day it would have done on its own.
Noodles btw are a wonderfully social ingredient to a dinner: you cannot eat them stuffily. Slurping is the order of the day; spillage and shirt-stains are unavoidable. I would not like to know someone who could eat them and remain entirely dignified.
An acknowledgement here to Nick Fisher (now there's a name that helped determine a career) whose River Cottage handbook on fishing inspired a change to a recent version of my own one-pot oriental fish soupy-stew, namely the addition of miso paste, which worked beautifully to give a bit of depth to the broth.
In a medium/large saucepan fry a chopped onion and a carrot cut into small dice, plus a chili in the thinnest possible rings - a minute or so is enough to give them a bit of a start on cooking and a touch of the caramelised surface that adds flavour. Add about a litre of light chicken stock. I am not a huge fan of fish stock, hitting the golden moment between insipid and gluey is not easy. If I want some fishy depth I'd add a tin of anchovies to the onion and carrot at frying stage. Or you can use boiling water and a cube if that's what you have to hand, but then a tsp of miso paste is extremely useful to make the stock more interesting.
Simmer for a couple of minutes only, then lob in noodles that can cook this way - one purchase made during my recent expedition to the local Chinese supermarket - Preston has a big Chinese student population - was a big packet of flat wheat noodles for £2.25, a steal compared to Sainsbury's. How many noodles depends on your needs and space in the pot. Use your imagination.
When the noodles are just about cooked add your fish - I used tilapia but pollock would be fine too, or any other good firm white fish that is from a sustainable source - in large chucks, you want it to hold together and be recognizable.
Season with soy sauce, pepper, and a dash of sesame oil if you have some. Five spice powder helps too. Taste to see if it is interesting enough, and if not add more of those enhancers, and maybe a touch more miso if you feel it is needed. But be quick, the fish should be just done, not overdone - once it is nicely opaque you are there, but taste a bit to be sure.
This is more method than recipe. There are innumerable tunes to be played on it - the most recent version had at the noodle stage half a tin of matchstick thin bamboo shoots added and the whites of six very thin leeks cut into thin rings, and with the onion-carrot-chili mix I added an inch of ginger cut into thin slivers.
I made this as one of three dishes for our evening meal, but had we not just had brunch that day it would have done on its own.
Noodles btw are a wonderfully social ingredient to a dinner: you cannot eat them stuffily. Slurping is the order of the day; spillage and shirt-stains are unavoidable. I would not like to know someone who could eat them and remain entirely dignified.
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