Political Leftovers

Unpalatable though it is to find myself in agreement with Britain's richest MP, but Richard Benyon was in essence correct about the wastage element of our food culture. His estimate of £50 per month per family of food thrown away is within the bounds of reason.

As I understand his statement he was not advising people to live on leftovers, but to make the most of what they have. That this should have caused an uproar says much about the ridiculous nature of our party system - if your opponents say one thing the opposite must be true, even if it is simple common sense.

The use-by-date and sell-by-date thing is another aspect of this. On Sunday I was shopping and spotted a piece of Parmesan near its SBD at a third of the original price. Parmesan, which if stored properly will last months and months. It was not what I had gone for (chicken for a paella), but in the basket it went. This is not to advocate buying dodgy food, but to point out that sometimes bureaucratic neatness is out of kilter n the kitchen.

We just cleared one of our store-cupboards out, so I am as guilty as the next cook, a pack of Quinoa that seemed like a good idea at the time never even opened, and the dregs of several bags of flour joining it. Some candied peel found at the very back was three years out of date, and though I reckon being candied it was still ok three years is a bit too much leeway to ask, so our chickens are getting it in small doses and seem quite keen.

Chickens are a wonderful way of reducing food wastage, as I have posted before. A rather manky carrot is in their box waiting to be cut into tiny bits, a treat for them that will add to the beta-carotein content of tomorrow's eggs. As our earning power inevitably gravitates ever closer to that enjoyed in the BRICS nations with which we compete I guess more of us will keep these excellent birds. Even Mr Benyon may - though given he is worth £110 million pounds, apparently, it would not be out of necessity.

Fresh is Best But...

We eat lots of fresh veg - types and in terms of weight. Our allotment and several beds in what could laughingly be called our kitchen garden provide us with fresh stuff in season, and I buy much more from shops and markets. But it is convenient to have frozen too. I have been surprised how good frozen broccoli is, if treated well. And pleased by how cheap it is - Sainsbury's always seem to have an offer of buy two bags of Birdseye Frozen veg for a knockdown price.

Last night doing a celebratory Chinese feast I made a pretty and very tasty dish, idea courtesy of an old M&S cookbook: broccoli stir-fried with a chopped red chili, spread in a ring on a heated plate around mushrooms and prawns with soy sauce which were done in the wok after the florets had vacated it. The look of the thing was great, it was a bit fiery and very satisfying, and it accounted for two of our seven or more a day. And it was another one flame dish, though as we had another four to accompany it the meal was not in the same category.

Had the meal not been a celebration I'd have omitted the prawns, and the look of the thing may have been even better - minimalist with green and browny-grey. The Chinese don't eat with their eyes as much as the Japanese do (some of their food definitely better to look at than eat), but the feel of a meal is not hurt by a splash of colour and a dash of contrast.

Flan in the Pan

The idea mentioned the other day as so successful - pizza dough with edges rolled over to form a lip, part cooked before being filled and finished - worked beautifully again today, this time with onion, mushroom and cheese as the filling. More tart than pizza. Or perhaps it's flan in the pan.

Again with the Richard Bacon thing. This was done to provide us with an interesting way of adding to the veg this evening, so more than a little healthy. And it cost by my estimate under £1. What would we have got for £1 at MacDonald's Richard (apart from spotty skin and a desperate feeling that all our clothes needed washing at once)?

Why Bacon on the Radio?

Richard Bacon the witless radio presenter, rather than the delectable meat.

There is an austerity cooking point to this, bear with me.

Driving up the M6 yesterday afternoon I ended up listening to Radio 5-Live, my usual choice Radio 3 playing stuff I found dull. I used to love the afternoon programme when Simon Mayo presented it: well researched, intelligent, varied, and though it inevitably included 'celebrity' interviews plugging book/film/show/dog biscuit it always found something of interest in them. Richard Bacon is the polar opposite: glib, in love with pointless television shows and himself, endlessly fatuous.

I braved his show for a while though as he had on a chef promoting a competition for children who cook. Rather than discuss what is a potentially vital subject, Bacon spent the majority of the interview a) pushing James Martin for the name of the TV chef/cook he least admires, something he was never going to reveal; and b) saying what is the point of children learning to cook when they can go to McDonald's etc, a lazy way to try to provoke a response rather than facilitating intelligent conversation; c) dredging up stereotypes of British cooking out of date 25 years ago.

Sadly I was not surprised by his idiocy, having attempted to listen before. Learning to cook saves you money; is a constant pleasure; is a subject you can never master but where you can constantly improve; and allows creative expression. Instead of which the brilliant Richard Bacon wasted the interview trying to look fey and a teeny bit edgy. He is neither.

Bacon's programme is a vacuum to be filled soon, we can but hope, by someone with a mind worth calling such. I just wish that one of his guests had the courage to halt the interview, state: "You are an idiot," and walk out. Then another, then another, and even the BBC would get the message.

Bad Workmen Good Cooks

Something cooked yesterday made me think about how hard it is to cook with bad equipment, and easy with good. I breaded some turkey breast steaks and baked them in a hot oven in a sturdy non-stick roasting dish that has lasted years and will probably outlive me. They worked really well. Try that on a thin version and you'd burn them and/or the coating would stick and be lost.

Same with pans, moreso maybe. Try making an omelette in either a warped pan, or one with a thin bottom (the two faults usually go together), and tears will follow.

I pull back in horror in supermarkets when passing their 'bargain' cookware. If you can waft a pan like a table tennis bat it is too light. And they are not bargains, as the thin base will be ruined in weeks, the food cooked therein often burned and buggered, and you'll have to replace them. Message to those starting out in life, buy the best you can afford and save money in the long run. Or as I did originally, 'borrow' a few good pieces from parents.

One Flame Navarin and Alice B Toklas

My culinary reading currently is The Cookbook of Alice B. Toklas. It is usual to follow her name with a put-down something like 'the lover of Gertrude Stein', but as her memoirs-cum-cookbook is far more interesting than stream of consciousness rubbish by the latter, let's not.

I read cookbooks for ideas, and historic cookbooks for a real feel for period. Parson Woodforde was on a daily basis far more concerned with tracklements than treaties. Food history is demotic. Alice B's work gives a nice insight into the world of arty (and rich) Americans in Paris in the first half of the 20th century, and the section dealing with their struggles in the countryside of Eastern France in WWII is fascinating.

As with other works though, including some contemporary hits, you do wonder if some of the dishes were ever cooked. Chicken browned briefly in butter then roasted in a medium oven for 35 minutes invites food poisoning. And her Navarin recipe is far too complicated. This is country cooking. It did inspire me to make a Navarin of lamb, however, which is another one flame dish worth noting.

The vital ingredient in Navarin of lamb (apart from the lamb) is turnips, young, small, sweet and something we don't make enough of in this country. On the allotment we grow several varieties, my favourite the purple topped Milan ones, but Snowball is elegant too. Elegant turnips. They are wonderful raw in salads (a salade de racines the best hotel fodder I ever tasted in France), glazed as a vegetable in their own right, or as Creme a la Vierge (still can't do accents here), a delicate soup.

So to the Navarin.

Five small turnips were peeled, quartered and browned in olive oil then removed. I had bought three leg chops for the meat cut into big chunks and likewise browned along with an onion diced small. Flour stirred in followed by boiling chicken stock (I cheated with a cube, ok) and a small glass of brandy (no wine open) made a thin-cream-consistency  sauce. Seasoned with salt, plenty of pepper and a pinch of nutmeg this was left to simmer for 45 minutes with a few bay leaves and twigs of thyme from the garden, then four carrots sliced thinly, a few smallish new potatoes in walnut-sized chunks, and the browned turnips added to cook for 20 more. At the end a big handful of frozen peas was dropped in, left to heat through and then the thing was ready, with a bit of corrective seasoning.

Classic one pot cookery that is forgiving of time until the veg go in. The meat could have cooked for twice the time, but not the potatoes which must retain a bit of bite.

I Bake, but not on Tarty TV

Our ridiculous culture of copycats and characterless celebrities has spawned a phenomenon - the rise (he-he) of baking - about which I am ambivalent. It's great that people are being drawn into cooking of any sort; but it is annoying that in the way of these things some media outlets act as if a) baking is new to the world; b) only the photogenic (count me out then) should be doing this; and c) we suddenly need 50 programmes on the topic.

A rainy Sunday and I felt the need to do something physical and creative, so I made some pizza dough and ended up with an onion and cheese tart of sorts - rolled over edges, base cooked on its own for 10 minutes, then filled with onions sliced thinly and previously cooked until very soft in olive oil, plus some grated cheddar. The filled version needed another 15 minutes to finish.

It was meant to be a slice each for lunch with a small salad, and some left for my wife's pack-up tomorrow. We ate it all.

As far as austerity goes it was about 25p of bread flour, 5p of yeast, at the very most 35p of onions (I used red to brighten it up), and £0.75 for the cheese. Even allowing for under-estimates and the cost of heating the oven to maximum something that proved (he-he again) to be fresh, warm, and really tasty cost well under £2.

Actually the surplus dough made a small garlic bread and some breadsticks, so even more of a bargain.

I posted about the madness of us spending £13 billion on the Olympics in the foolish belief that it would change the health of the nation (or at least that was one of the reasons given). Teaching people to cook would have been a far better use of the dosh. Am I turning into Ed Balls, spending in my imagination the same notional money over and over again, as I had posted before about using some (a very small part) of those wasted funds to provide allotments for a million people?

Improve Your Pizza

The blessed Hugh of crackling fireplace in every room including the loo fame is actually one of my favourite food writers - certainly of contemporary exponents of the art he is in my opinion the best, not least for his ethical stance which it is clear is not a marketing-man's afterthought.

I frequently refer to HFW's books for tips and enjoyment. Browsing through The River Cottage Fish Book looking to glean a few ideas for my smoker project I noticed two ways to improve my homemade pizzas: a 50/50 mix of plain and bread flour (I've used all bread flour previously), and pre-heating the pan in the oven. The results were definitely far less soggy in the centre, and the edges were beautifully crisp (but then I do make them very thin).

Other posts have sung the praises of homemade pizza but the message bears repeating. Setting aside the fun of making them... no, I won't, that really should be a big part of cooking. Putting together your toppings, watching and smelling your creations progress, all adds to the joy of snacks (yes I know Terry Pratchett got there first). And for the austerity cook they're a boon, and I'll dare say far healthier than shop-bought options. Last night we had plenty of onion, a whole red pepper, a drained tin of chopped toms and half a pack of mushrooms incorporated in the toppings, along with a head of garlic. The protein was largely oily fish too, viz a tin of boneless sardines and another of anchovies.

Back-of-the-envelope calculation has the cost of three pizzas and one big garlic bread yesterday at under £5. You could buy very nasty supermarket cheapies for less, but shame on you for doing so unless absolutely forced by circs, or you could buy half-decent ones for twice that (four times if you go for delivered-to-your-door-and-god-have-mercy-on-your-soul). But you'd miss out on all the fun.

Cheesy Austerity

Yesterday I visited Claremont Farm in Bebington on the Wirral, a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Having finished my interview I had a good look round the farm shop, needing to buy bread in particular. I purchased a couple of loaves, the first already finished and it was excellent. But the cheese I got was better, and though expensive it was great value, which when you think about it is not a paradox.

I spent £10 or so on two big chunks, one was Doddington from Northumberland, bought after tasting a tiny piece. It was still with me half way up the M6 on the way home. The other was the wonderful Montgomery Cheddar, one of this country's great cheeses. My son raised his eyebrows when I did my wine-tasting bit that evening: first flavour herbaceous, a bit grassy, then you get cream which morphs into acidy strength, and the whole gels at the end. Sounds pretentious, maybe is a bit, but it's true.

OK, £10 on two pieces of cheese is not what IDS will be spending from his £53 a week budget, but it is still for those of us with reasonable if limited funds a bargain, maximising taste for your pound. It satisfies the austerity thing as we need eat just a little to have huge pleasure, so it will last longer. What a pity it's hard to find such fantastic produce.

To Booth's shame their stock of decent cheeses (at Fulwood anyway) has diminished, with Mrs Kirkham's Lancashire no longer available. File under bloody stupid. Yet you can buy horrors like cheddar with mango there. File under bloody criminal.

Suffolk Smoked Sprats

During our Norfolk break we spent half a day over the border in Southwold. The idea had been to fish off the pier, but as the wind was blowing directly from Siberia and we had not taken our sumo suits (far more descriptive than flotation suits) we walked down to the river instead and bought cockles and some smoked sprats. For some reason the latter have never, unless I missed it, enjoyed foodie fame. Pity, they deserve it, though if they came into vogue doubtless the extremely reasonable price would rocket. Like rocket.

The fish can be cooked if you must, but the perfect way to eat them is as they come, with fingers, stripping the oily flesh from bones and if you must from the skin too, only brown bread and butter to accompany the feast. Another entry to our family game of messy menus for pompous prigs. I am sure this has featured in a previous post, so just a recap: imagine you are feeding someone whose dignity exceeds their charm. What do you put on the menu to bring them down a peg or two? Crab from the shell; spaghetti; prawns that need to be peeled; corn-on-the-cob with loads of dripping butter. Add your own ideas at liberty.

We bought about 15 for just over £2, so they're an austerity treat too. And 50 times better value than the sandwiches later in The Lord Nelson, Adnams you should be ashamed: £6.95 for a butty and a handful of chips, and the bread was close to stale. If it hadn't been for the Jocastas, Gileses, Indias and Quentins five-deep at the bar I'd have complained. And I'll take a wild guess that none of those chinless second-homers had a smoked sprat that weekend, especially when there is a lovely little place they know here that sells the most divine olives daaahhling.

Cowboy Hotpot - Historic One Flame Ingenuity

Just back from spending a few days with my father in Norfolk. As tradition demands we were met after our horrible A17 journey with plates of cowboy hotpot. This is a dish of family legend, though it only dates back one generation.

My mother was an infants' school teacher who would rope my father in to help with school trips various. On one brief camping expedition he was volunteered to do the cooking, and faced with limited resources (big pot and big camping stove) came up with the ideal meal for kids, or at least kids 30 or 40 years ago. Ideal in both its name and consistency. He had as ingredients potatoes, onions, corned beef, carrots, and baked beans, plus some stock cubes. The veg were diced very small - say 5mm wide, the corned beef likewise, and the lot simmered briefly in not a great deal of stock before the beans were added to warm through.

Kids are picky, especially away from home, but my father overcame all such thoughts by dubbing it when asked 'Cowboy Hotpot'. The reflected glamour and adventure of the food, surely cooked over open fires in the Badlands by John Wayne and James Stewart, saw it eaten - with spoons - to the last morsel. And the moist, almost sloppy consistency is great for kids too, they tend to hate dry foodstuffs.

Since then it has more often than not been made with fresh beef rather than corned. What would Randolph Scott have said?

What name for the plateful would have the same effect today? Sadly the horrific 'Celebrity Stew' springs to mind.