Long-term Planning - Where Can I Hire a Truffle Hound?

In contrast to the appalling shower currently in government (and by the same token, Corbyn's cretins in opposition) the Dear Leader and I have been doing a bit of thinking beyond the next news bulletin, or even the next election. As noted previously here, we have planted what amounts to an orchard; have set out a good-sized kitchen garden; and invested in some relatively exotic trees (lemon, lime, mulberry, cherry, apricot...) to be kept in pots for winter storage under glass. Partly done for fun, partly for flavour - truly fresh lemons, for example, are streets ahead of shop bought ones - partly to give us an insurance policy in hard times - either our own, the country's, or the climate's.


Some of that forward thinking began a long time ago, and has paid off: we planted a quince maybe fifteen years back, and last year enjoyed our best crop ever; even earlier in our time in sunny Fulwood we put in a walnut tree, finally producing enough last year to make nocino. Thanks to a very generous gift by Dr Paul Thomas, whose company leads the UK in its field, we have just planted three tiny hazels - not for the nuts, though they will be welcome, but for the possibility that six years hence we will have out own truffles. Not the chocolate version, but the enormously expensive fungi. I met Dr Thomas on Saturday, to interview him for Lancashire Life Magazine. His company inoculates a range of trees with the seeds/spores, and works with estate owners, restaurants etc to see them through to production, something that takes at least six years.


Fingers crossed we make it to summer/autumn of 2025 unscathed, by no means a given of course. Similar digit crossing that the delicate and apparently temperamental truffles take in our soil (specially limed and lightened in their particular patch). I'm really looking forward to being able to cook with our own home-grown truffles; but I am really, really, really looking forward to casually dropping into some future dinner party conversation 'Oh, the truffles? Yes, we picked them earlier today. Did you like them? This year's crop has been exceptionally good.'

Battered but Unbeatable

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.

Malaysian Cooking

As part of my day job last Saturday I attended the Ning cookery school in Manchester's trendy Northern Quarter. For full details if anyone is interested check out Lancashire Life's April edition, and maybe their website in the fullness of time, but a couple of things were of particular interest to the austerity cook so I'll include them in this blog.

Firstly was how to use lemon grass. I had always thought that trimming and then bashing the moist core with the flat of a knife was the way, removing the fibrous bits after they had given up their flavour: not so as Norman Musa demonstrated. We trimmed the pieces are I had previously done, then cut them in short lengths and zapped them with water in a food processor. Wonderful smell, maximum flavour and fragrance, most bang for your ringgit.

The other was the power of toasted spice. I sometimes do this, in a hot dry pan with one whole spice. Norman had us measure decent quantities of several: cumin, pepper, cinnamon bark, cardamom and star anise (broken into small bits), then got us toasting them gently for a couple of minutes before grinding them finely. The mixture of spices again filled the room, and there was certainly more flavour imparted to the food because of this technique.

I'm off to my local Chinese supermarket tonight to buy some supplies. Fresh and relatively simple street food (this was for beginners) it was nonetheless delicious, and even in the Far East in my previous career I never smelled anything so mouth-watering.

On Markets and Kicking Myself

Doing a piece for Lancashire Life (with a side one for Bass Guitar Magazine - the life of a freelancer) I was in Blackburn today. We lived in nearby Rishton for a few years, the only place I ever regret living. Blackburn has come up in the world since then, its local authority showing the oomph sadly lacking in my home city of Preston. Maybe Rishton has changed, I hope so.

One very clear sign of progress is the market, now beneath a huge mall, and open six days a week. It was always good for food, and now looks better. Markets can be a boon to bargain hunters, or just those seeking variety not found in many supermarkets. I picked up a huge ham hock for £2.60, which will be used on Saturday in a traditional Lancashire favourite - pea soup made with a packet of dried peas (if I can find them tomorrow). It's a one-pot dish, the lengthily soaked peas added to a big pot in which finely chopped onion has been sweated, hock buried among them, then just water added, the lot simmered gently on the stove-top for a couple of hours or more. With buttered bread to dip in the finished article and the meat broken up and returned to the pan it is a rib-sticking meal well worth the inevitable percussive repercussions later.

That butcher's stall also had bacon ribs, which are just as good in the same role, though the ribs cooked in the soup tend to be eaten separately. Something about them didn't grab me, though.

In my Norfolk childhood I remember my father (cooking runs in the family, my WWI-veteran grandfather did quite a bit too) asking a local butcher for bacon ribs, to be met with a blank stare. They thought he was after bacon scraps and bones for stock, so gave him a pile of them for free, which I don't think went to waste.

As I walked around the market I kicked myself for not shopping at such places more often. I was expecting a box of Aberdeen Angus beef today (now in fridge and freezer), otherwise I'd have bought some of the beef flatrib I saw, another bargain. Next time for sure - steamed slowly in the oven for several hours then finished with a BBQ glaze at a higher temperature. Another cut that fits the rule - long cooking means cheap and delicious.

Pate on the Hoof

Yesterday thinking it was stewing beef I defrosted what turned out to be liver, part of a box of meat that I had delivered by the excellent Henry Rowntree (pictured with one of his prize bulls), whose Aberdeen Angus farm I visited some time ago for Meat Trades Journal and Lancashire Life. We buy a 10kg box from him every few months: his meat is great, and at £120 delivered it is far cheaper than we would pay for similar quality (were it available) in the supermarket. Booth's and maybe Waitrose are the only ones I'd expect to have meat approaching his in quality.

My error, and as my son won't eat liver as is I had to use it to make pate, which he does like. Guess it must be the texture of liver that puts him off. So with a 99p pack of Sainsbury's basic bacon lardons (plenty of the fat needed for the dish), an onion, four small cloves of garlic and a glass of  leftover red wine, plus celery salt, sage and thyme from the garden, and lots of pepper, I set about it. No egg because I zapped the meats fine enough for them not to be too crumbly, and because I forgot to use one.

Using what was doubtless calf's liver made me wonder how it would turn out, pig's being the norm, but reasoning that chicken liver is softer still but makes great pate (I wish I could find how to do the accents) I went ahead.

The result is a very winey-herby-garlicky pate that will be a starter tonight (as ever with pates will have grown in flavour overnight) when we have a friend over taking potluck, and tomorrow when some more are here for what will be a sort of mezze. Or meze.

Making pate always brings home the savings that can be had by doing the cooking yourself instead of buying ready-made. I reckon the amount now garlicking out our fridge would have set us back about £7, maybe more. With a food processor it is ridiculously easy, zap, mix, season, put in a shallow ovenproof dish and cover with foil, put that in a roasting dish with boiling water 1/3 the way up, and cook for about 90 minutes in  an oven at 150C, removing the foil lid 15 minutes from the end to let the top brown. You can tell it's done by the smell, the fact that it comes away from the sides of the dish, and being doubly careful by pricking it with a knife - the juices should be clear, and the knife clean when removed.