My palate is definitely changing as I speed through the third decade of my thirties. It's clear that my taste buds are not as sensitive (and discerning?) as once they were (and I believe they are not as numerous, which somehow seems weird). Yet at the same time they appear less able to bear spicy heat.
That's not to say that I have abandoned hot foods. I hope that day never comes, as I've always loved foods with bite. Not, however, in the macho show of strength that some feel necessary - years ago I watched with awe then amusement as a very dear friend and another acquaintance ordered Phal with extra chillies. Or is that Fal? Or Phall? Or Phaal? Transliteration is a bugger. They ordered Phal. With extra chillies. After two bites their faces were purple, foreheads beaded with sweat, and within minutes you could actually see lips blistering.
In my business travel days I ate some very hot foods - soft-shelled crabs in Ipoh was one memorable feast; a Shabu Shabu in Taipei another (the stock was bright pink with chillies). That chilli heat is for me life-enhancing, a jump-start for the entire body. Which is why I never want to give it up.
The spices in your cupboard are a wonderful austerity tool. The curry about which I posted the other day proved delicious, thanks largely to the spices in it: cardamom and cumin to perfume; fenugreek and coriander seeds as a solid foundation and cassia something subtle in the background; and of course lots of pepper and some chilli for the warmth that lifts a dish and the spirits. If the lot cost 10p I would be astounded. Yet they transformed what could be extremely bland ingredients (the bulk was white fish, rice, coconut milk, onions) into something so good plates were scraped clean.
Austerity cook hat (toque - I don't think so) on: the supermarkets have shelves full of packet mixes that on a good day are 50p, generally more than £1. Schwarz keep playing tunes with pots of this, packs of that, thimbles of the other, again around the £1 mark or worse. It's a small investment to buy from the ethnic shelves half a dozen packs of whole seeds (so they will have more of their aromatic oils remaining than ground stuff) that will last a year or more, cost perhaps £6, and do 50 meals plus - you do the financial comparison. Yes you have to grind them one way or another, and it may take a few goes to get the feel of things (I still sometimes overdo pepper) but it is well worthwhile. And can be adjusted to individual dishes, and your own palate as it changes.
Showing posts with label spices. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spices. Show all posts
Friday, 31 January 2014
Wednesday, 29 January 2014
No Bones About It
I am an angler, at least a sea angler, and while not claiming huge technical expertise, not a bad one either. Currently I'm 50,000 words into a book on the topic, a future orphan as I've not even started looking for a publisher. I go sea fishing (almost always from boats) for innumerable reasons - buy the book if it ever gets finished, as it is more about such things than the dull minutiae of rigs and tactics - but the biggest is that we eat some of what we catch, and it's delicious.
One of the many skills I could do with honing is the art of filleting. Clumsily done it leaves too much flesh on the bones, good for stock but a bit of a waste; or leaves bones in the flesh, missing the whole point of the exercise. Supermarket fishmongers are not great at it either. Add to that the scandal about re-dating fish on those counters a year or two back and I am wary about buying their offerings. Thus I have a fondness for frozen fish: don't turn your noses up, if from a reputable source with the right green credentials it's a winner, retaining flavour and very rarely containing any bones at all. Remember Robert in the Onedin Line? Probably not. He choked on a fish bone, put off a generation of British telly watchers.
I regularly make fish chowder, like most of my cooking not so much a recipe as a few basic ideas to follow; and fish curry is another favourite. The latter is this evening's main course, the principal ingredient being the dubiously-named 'white fish fillets', actually quite nice pollock when you look further. Half a pack will provide the protein, with some onions, garlic, and for colour a bit of bell pepper. The veg are fried gently until very soft, then a freshly ground spice mix with cassia, dried chilli, pepper, cardamom, fenugreek, coriander and cumin seeds added and cooked for a minute before the still frozen fish fillets and a tin of coconut milk are put in the pan. When the fish is cooked through it's ready.
And yes it does need rice, or naan, or my homemade flatbreads, to bulk it out and soak up the juices.
Half a pack of the fish costs £1.50, the veg maybe 60p, spices bought in big packs from the ethic shelves at Sainsbury's a few more pennies, and the coconut milk from our local Chinese store 89p. So with the rice it is going to be way under £3.50 to feed three of us. I buy rice in 5kg bags, again ethnic shelf jobbies, on a price per kg basis so much cheaper than 1kg versions.
Bargains like that make me feel better about splashing out on stuff like the obligatory roast for a winter Sunday, but even in a relatively affluent household the prices of lamb and beef are getting to be eye-watering. It's almost enough to turn us vegetarian. But not quite.
One of the many skills I could do with honing is the art of filleting. Clumsily done it leaves too much flesh on the bones, good for stock but a bit of a waste; or leaves bones in the flesh, missing the whole point of the exercise. Supermarket fishmongers are not great at it either. Add to that the scandal about re-dating fish on those counters a year or two back and I am wary about buying their offerings. Thus I have a fondness for frozen fish: don't turn your noses up, if from a reputable source with the right green credentials it's a winner, retaining flavour and very rarely containing any bones at all. Remember Robert in the Onedin Line? Probably not. He choked on a fish bone, put off a generation of British telly watchers.
I regularly make fish chowder, like most of my cooking not so much a recipe as a few basic ideas to follow; and fish curry is another favourite. The latter is this evening's main course, the principal ingredient being the dubiously-named 'white fish fillets', actually quite nice pollock when you look further. Half a pack will provide the protein, with some onions, garlic, and for colour a bit of bell pepper. The veg are fried gently until very soft, then a freshly ground spice mix with cassia, dried chilli, pepper, cardamom, fenugreek, coriander and cumin seeds added and cooked for a minute before the still frozen fish fillets and a tin of coconut milk are put in the pan. When the fish is cooked through it's ready.
And yes it does need rice, or naan, or my homemade flatbreads, to bulk it out and soak up the juices.
Half a pack of the fish costs £1.50, the veg maybe 60p, spices bought in big packs from the ethic shelves at Sainsbury's a few more pennies, and the coconut milk from our local Chinese store 89p. So with the rice it is going to be way under £3.50 to feed three of us. I buy rice in 5kg bags, again ethnic shelf jobbies, on a price per kg basis so much cheaper than 1kg versions.
Bargains like that make me feel better about splashing out on stuff like the obligatory roast for a winter Sunday, but even in a relatively affluent household the prices of lamb and beef are getting to be eye-watering. It's almost enough to turn us vegetarian. But not quite.
Monday, 4 November 2013
Due to Overwhelming Demand
A flood of comment, singular, asking for the recipe for the brisket mentioned in the previous post. As with so much of what I cook it's more method than measurements.
First have one bloody big piece of brisket, ours was just shy of 6lb, ready at room temperature. If I had been confident of my butcher locating flat-rib I'd have used that in place of brisket. Prepare a dry rub with a nice finely ground blend of spices, my own preference the other night being a tsp of peppercorns, a tbsp of coriander seeds, two tbsp of cumin seeds, two whole star anise (anises?), a tsp of sea salt, three cloves and a tsp of piment de Jamaique as we say in Preston, or allspice if you prefer, and a tbsp of palm sugar. Rub this all over the beef as erotically as possible in the circumstances.
In a chicken brick or similar closed pot big enough (derr) to take the joint put some slices of carrot and onion in the bottom to keep the meet raised slightly, plus a few cloves of garlic. Pour in so as not to wash the meat clean of dry rub (derr again) enough boiling water to touch the bottom of the brisket, put the lid on and put into the oven preheated to about 180C, then immediately turn the temperature down to 120C and leave for about eight hours - it could actually have stood another two at least.
The end result is, or should be, easy to pull apart, the crust beautifully blackened by the spices rather than the heat.
Drain the excess juices off every two or three hours, but leave enough in to maintain the steaming-roast effect. After resting the meat for at least 25 minutes serve pulled into shreds with BBQ sauce or if you have time a reduction (how trendy) of the juices tweaked to your taste.
To be eaten in wraps or flat-breads with sauce, fried onions, dill pickles, red cabbage, friends and beer. Although as Malcolm Bradbury so astutely pointed out eating people is wrong.
First have one bloody big piece of brisket, ours was just shy of 6lb, ready at room temperature. If I had been confident of my butcher locating flat-rib I'd have used that in place of brisket. Prepare a dry rub with a nice finely ground blend of spices, my own preference the other night being a tsp of peppercorns, a tbsp of coriander seeds, two tbsp of cumin seeds, two whole star anise (anises?), a tsp of sea salt, three cloves and a tsp of piment de Jamaique as we say in Preston, or allspice if you prefer, and a tbsp of palm sugar. Rub this all over the beef as erotically as possible in the circumstances.
In a chicken brick or similar closed pot big enough (derr) to take the joint put some slices of carrot and onion in the bottom to keep the meet raised slightly, plus a few cloves of garlic. Pour in so as not to wash the meat clean of dry rub (derr again) enough boiling water to touch the bottom of the brisket, put the lid on and put into the oven preheated to about 180C, then immediately turn the temperature down to 120C and leave for about eight hours - it could actually have stood another two at least.
The end result is, or should be, easy to pull apart, the crust beautifully blackened by the spices rather than the heat.
Drain the excess juices off every two or three hours, but leave enough in to maintain the steaming-roast effect. After resting the meat for at least 25 minutes serve pulled into shreds with BBQ sauce or if you have time a reduction (how trendy) of the juices tweaked to your taste.
To be eaten in wraps or flat-breads with sauce, fried onions, dill pickles, red cabbage, friends and beer. Although as Malcolm Bradbury so astutely pointed out eating people is wrong.
Sunday, 25 November 2012
Pulled Pork - Thing du Jour
Every now and then you notice one food or another suddenly coming up time and again in conversation, the colour supplements, and on TV. The one currently making it big is pulled pork. The magnificent (or hated, depending on your viewpoint) Man v Food was where I first came across the dish. On a new Channel 4 programme tonight about spices - after an awkward start surprisingly interesting - the chef made it with chilli. Because my son and I love BBQ food I looked up some recipes two days ago with a view to making some soon. And by accident I made some today. Cooking by accident?
In fact it was pulled ham from the ham shank cooked yesterday in my Lancashire pea soup, simmered slowly with the peas for about three and a half hours until it was falling off the bone. Normally from my researches this is made with shoulder of pork rubbed with herbs and spices then roasted slowly, covered with foil to keep the juices in.
When Sternest Critic returned via Dad's taxi from his sleepover party he was hungry, so an instant filler-upper was a sandwich made with chunks of the leftover meat pulled into shreds with two forks then covered with cheating BBQ sauce. It went down very well. We have enough meat still for a dish of this, (so the £2.60 shank bought on Blackburn market really was a bargain), which I'll do tomorrow, spiced up to ring the changes.
In fact it was pulled ham from the ham shank cooked yesterday in my Lancashire pea soup, simmered slowly with the peas for about three and a half hours until it was falling off the bone. Normally from my researches this is made with shoulder of pork rubbed with herbs and spices then roasted slowly, covered with foil to keep the juices in.
When Sternest Critic returned via Dad's taxi from his sleepover party he was hungry, so an instant filler-upper was a sandwich made with chunks of the leftover meat pulled into shreds with two forks then covered with cheating BBQ sauce. It went down very well. We have enough meat still for a dish of this, (so the £2.60 shank bought on Blackburn market really was a bargain), which I'll do tomorrow, spiced up to ring the changes.
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