I’m going to be away for Easter in Australia visiting the future in-laws, so am going to miss out on the traditional treats that I’d be indulging in with the family down in Cornwall.

Food wise, the main thing I’m going to miss is the Hot Cross Buns. I love them. Toasted, slathered in melting butter and a good dollop of course bitter sweet orange marmalade. Anyway, I told myself that I wasn’t going to miss out, so decided to make my own for the first time. This recipe is lifted pretty much lock, stock and barrel from here on the BBC Food website, and the results went down a storm.

Ingredients

625g strong white flour, plus extra for dusting

1 tsp salt

2 tsp ground mixed spice

45g unsalted butter, cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing

85g sugar

1 lemon, zest only

1½ tsp fast-action yeast

1 free-range egg

275ml tepid milk

125g mixed dried fruit

For the topping

2 tbsp plain flour

vegetable oil, for greasing

1 tbsp golden syrup, gently heated, for glazing

Method

For the buns, sieve the flour, salt and ground mixed spice into a large mixing bowl, then rub in the butter using your fingertips creating a breadcrumb like mixture. Make a well in the centre of the mixture, then add the sugar and lemon zest and yeast.

Now beat the egg, add to the flour with the tepid milk and mix together to a form a soft, pliable dough and then turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Carefully work the mixed dried fruit into the dough until well combined. Knead lightly for at least 5 minutes.

Grease a large mixing bowl with butter. Shape the dough into a ball and place it into the prepared bowl, then cover with a cling film and set aside in a warm place for one hour to prove. Turn out the proved dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knock back the dough. Shape it into a ball again and return it to the bowl, cover again and set aside for a further 30 minutes to rise.

After half an hour, turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and divide it into 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, then flatten slightly into a bun shape using the palms of your hands. Cover the buns with the tea towel and set aside to rest for 5-10 minutes.

Grease a baking tray with butter and transfer the buns to the tray. Wrap the tray with the buns on it loosely in greaseproof paper, then place inside a large polythene bag. Tie the end of the bag so that no air can get in and set aside in a warm place for a further 40 minutes to rise.

While this is going on, Preheat the oven to 240 C, then prepare the cross topping by mixing the plain flour to a smooth paste with 2 tablespoons of cold water. When the buns have risen, remove the bag and the greaseproof paper. Spoon the flour mixture into a small plastic bag, nip off the tip of one of the corners to create a piping bag, and pipe a cross across each bun.

Now, transfer the buns to the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until pale golden-brown. As soon as you remove the buns from the oven, brush them with the hot golden syrup, then set aside to cool on a wire rack.

The buns will be very sticky to start with, but the golden syrup will sink in over time. Eat as suggested, toasted with butter and orange marmalade, or however you like them.

So to much hype and fanfare, Marmite has launched a new limited edition product, Marmite XO. Billed as the only choice for true Marmite connoisseurs, XO (Extra Old) purports to have a deeper, richer, more complex flavour, like a fine wine.

Now off the bat, I should probably admit that I’m a Marmite fan. I love the stuff. Always have done, probably always will. But I’ve got to admit that there’s something about Marmite’s recent behaviour thats beginning to piss me off a bit. I was quite into the Guinness variant that came out a couple of years ago, and then the champagne one that came out around Valentine’s Day. Neither tasted as good as the original, but they felt a bit special. No song and dance, just a nice little treat for Marmite fans.

But now with the whole XO marketing campaign, premium price tag, ’spoof’ website and Facebook blah blah blah, it all feels a bit of a cynical money making operation. It stinks of Unilever’s clumsy brand police and ad agencies trying to be ever so clever.

And it doesn’t stop here, there was a ‘pop up shop’ on Regents Street at Christmas selling all sorts of branded rubbish like cook books, toys, T shirts, and then there’s the current brand campaign. The whole we’re so ‘crazy’ that we’ve made a Marmite cereal bar!! Have we gone to far?! Did I mention that we’re kkeerrraazzee??!! Replete with the now ubiquitous ’social media’ elements, again the whole thing feels so try hard, and to be frank, predictable.

Anyway, rant over. I tried the XO earlier and it’s nice. Beefier and maybe a little fuller flavoured than the original, but not really any better. And definitely really not worth all the bother, or the £3.99 price tag. In my mind its time these big companies and conglomerates stopped screwing with the brands that people love and just kept it simple. More noise doesn’t make better products.

Verdict: All mouth and no trousers.

It’s been around for a while, but I first read about Jim Lahey’s ‘no knead bread‘ in a Saveur magazine when I was in New York last year. I’d already got the bread baking bug, and the idea of a loaf that required no kneading seemed a bit odd, even a bit sacrilegious. I did a bit of research on line, and found out that everyone raves about the loaf, and it basically put Lahey’s Sullivan Street Bakery on the map.

Anyway, it definitely got me interested. How could a loaf requiring so little work be so good? Life just isn’t like that. So I gave it a go. The loaf is cooked in a cast iron pot, a bit like an Australian damper, so you’ll need a Le Creuset or something similar for it to work.

Ingredients

3 cups (430g) flour
1½ cups (345g or 12oz) water
¼ teaspoon (1g) yeast
1¼ teaspoon (8g) salt
Olive oil
Rye flour (for dusting)

Method

Mix all of the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix together for a minute or so to form a ’shaggy’ dough. Transfer the dough to a larger bowl oiled with some olive oil. NB. the dough will expand to around 4 times the size, so make sure your bowl is big enough. Cover with clingfilm and let the dough develop for 12-18 hours at room temperature.

After this time the dough will be aerated. Remove it from the bowl and fold on itself once or twice. The dough is stickier than with regular bread, a bit like when making a sourdough, so be prepared to get a bit messy. Using dough scrapers is a good idea. Let the dough rest 15 minutes in the bowl or on the work surface, then try and shape into a ball. Generously coat a tea towel with rye flour, place the dough on the left hand side, scatter the dough with more flour, and then fold the towel over the top to cover it. Let rise for around 2 hours at room temperature, until more than doubled in size.

Preheat your oven to 230°C. Place a cast iron pot in it at least 30 minutes prior to baking to preheat. Once the dough has more than doubled in volume, remove the pot from the oven and put the dough in it. Shake from side to side so it fills the base. Cover with the lid and bake for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and bake for another 20 minutes or so uncovered, until the loaf is nicely browned. Take the loaf out and place on a wire rack to cool. I know this is going to sound a bit sad, but the loaf’s crust crackles as it cools, which is pretty exciting.

When you cut into the loaf, you won’t be disappointed. The crust is crisp, crunchy and satisfying, and the dough inside a cross between really good French bread and a Ciabatta. Honestly, its great. And for so little work. There is such a thing as a free lunch.

Two final notes. I cooked mine in an oval 27 cm pot, but think it would have worked better in the round 24 cm version. Secondly, I tried this recipe again at the weekend substituting the strong white flour with a ‘Farine Bise‘ that I bought in Paris, but it was much less successful. The crust was less impressive, and the dough much heavier. I guess it rises better with the plain white.

UPDATE: Tried the loaf again at the weekend in a smaller pot, with great results. Check out photos on my Flickr page here.

The final course of our valentines meal was a lemon posset with heart shaped shortbread biscuits (forgive the cheese).

The Posset is pretty much as old school as it gets with roots in 12th century England where it was drunk for it’s medicinal properties. I’m not sure this recipe could ever be described as good for you, cream and sugar tend to be frowned upon these days, but it is delicious, and very easy to make.

Ingredients

For the Posset

300ml double cream

75g caster sugar

1 lemon zested and juiced

For the shortbread

45g icing sugar

90g plain flour

30g cornflour

15g ground almonds

125g butter

Lemon zest

Golden caster sugar

Method

First up, put the cream and sugar in a pan and bring to the boil. Simmer for 3 minutes, making sure it doesn’t boil over, and then take off the heat. Allow to cool to room temperature, add the lemon juice and then whisk. Divide the mixture by pouring into two glasses and then put in the fridge to set.

Now make the shortbread biscuits. Sift the flour, cornflour and icing sugar into a food processor and then add the ground almonds. Cut the butter into cubes, add to the processor bowl, and then pulse until the butter has been blitzed, leaving you with a breadcrumb like mixture.

Tip the mixture out onto lightly floured surface, and bring it all together to form a smooth dough. Wrap in clingfilm, put in the fridge and set your oven to 180 degrees C.

When the oven is up to temperature, remove the dough, and using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll it out to around half a centimetre thick. Using a pastry cutter, cut out the dough and place on grease proof paper on a flat baking tray. Grate a little lemon zest and sprinkle each biscuit with a little golden caster sugar before popping in the oven for around 10 minutes.

The biscuits are ready when they are a pale yellow in colour and golden brown around the edges. Remove from the baking tray and cool on a rack. The biscuits will be soft and brittle, so be careful.

Remove the posset from the fridge to warm it up a little, and then serve with a couple of the cooled shortbread biscuits.A class act.

So, catching up, the second course of our valentine’s dinner was baked cod and baby leeks straight from the pages of Jamie at home, which if you don’t have it is a brilliant book (IMHO). The cod is marinaded in a lemon and herb mix before cooking. We had ours served with garlic mash.

Ingredients

10 baby leeks, trimmed

2 x 200g fillets of cod (with skin and sustainable if possible)

4 rashers of smoked streaky bacon

Juice of 1/2 a small lemon

Olive oil

1 large clove garlic finely chopped

2 sprigs rosemary

2 sprigs thyme

2 bay leaves

Salt & pepper

For the mash

400g potatoes

1 large clove garlic

Butter, milk salt & pepper to taste

Method

First, make the marinade for the fish. Bash up the thyme, rosemary and bay in a pestle and mortar with a good pinch of sea salt. Add a couple of glugs of olive oil, a few grinds of black pepper and the lemon juice. Chop a large clove of garlic finely, then add to the herby mixture and stir. Pour the marinade over the cod fillets in a bowl, rubbing it in and making sure it’s well coated.

Bring a pan of mildly salted water to the boil and then parboil the leeks for 3 minutes, pull out and then pat dry. Add them to the bowl the fish is marinading in, and toss.

Now put on your oven to 200 degrees C with a baking dish inside. At the same time, add your spuds to the same pan you cooked the leeks in with a clove of garlic and simmer gently. After 15 minutes, your oven should be up to temperature. Remove the dish, and remove the two cod fillets from the marinade and place them skin side down in the pre-heated dish, you should hear a nice sizzle. Then pour in the leeks and the remaining marinade. Finally place the rashers of bacon on top of the fillets before placing the dish back in the oven; it’s going to cook for 15 minutes.

After 10 minutes, the potatoes should be cooked, remove from the heat, drain, mash and add butter, milk, salt and pepper to taste. Beat with a spoon until nice and smooth.

The fish should now be ready. Remove from the oven and serve with the leeks and some of the marinade and cooking juices, and a good dollop of mash. Quite a tough dish to make look really attractive, but very tasty. Thanks Mr Oliver.

It was Valentines Day at the weekend, and as Hand To Mouth got engaged at New Years, I thought I’d better make a bit of an effort. Not being a fan of going to restaurants on VDay (always disappointing) I whipped up a three course feast fit for the future Mrs HTM. The menu:

Salt & Pepper Squid

Baked Cod & Leeks

Lemon Posset with Lemon & Almond Shortbread

I’m going to do a post per course as I don’t have the time to do them all at once, so first up our starter, Salt & Pepper Squid. If you can’t get hold of Szechuan peppercorns, just use 3/4 of a tablespoon of black peppercorns instead.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon Szechuan peppercorns, ground

1 teaspoon chilli flakes

1 tablespoon sea salt flakes

4 tablespoons plain flour

4 tablespoon corn flour

2 squid cleaned

1 large red chilli

2 spring onions

Rapeseed oil for deep-frying

Salad leaves and lemon wedges to serve

Method

First up, prep the squid. If you’re a bit squeamish you might want to get your fish monger to do it for you, but it’s not hard. Rip off the head and set aside, then pull off the fin that’s towards the end of the body or ‘hood’. When you remove it, you’ll see some clear film come away with it. Try and get the rest of this off the hood. Now turn the hood inside out. You do this by poking the pointy end in on itself. As you do this the squid’s ‘backbone’ should pop out of the top. It looks like a clear bit of plastic, grab it and pull it out, and then clean out the inside of the hood with running water.

Next slice down each the side of the hood, cutting it in half. You should end up with two roughly triangular pieces per squid. Lightly score the surface of each piece on the diagonal creating a diamond pattern, then cut bite sized strips of the squid. Now grab the head and cut it just below where the tentacles join together. Discard the rest of the head, and remove the ‘beak’. This is the hard part in the center.

Set the squid aside, and get the coating ready. Grind the Szechuan peppercorns with a pestle and mortar, and then add the chilli flakes and salt and grind again. You’ll end up with a fine-ish red powder. Put the flour and cornflour in a bowl, add the pepper mix and stir together.

Ad this point, put a wok or pan on the heat with enough oil in it for deep frying. Use something low on flavour like rapeseed or groundnut. Whilst this is heating up, coat the pieces of squid in the chilli flour, and shake off the excess. Then chop the spring onion into centimeter batons, cut up and de-seed the chilli, and coat these too.

Now test the oil is hot enough by dropping in one piece of squid. If it curls up and turns a golden brown after 30 seconds or so it’s ready. Fry the squid, spring onion and chilli in batches, being careful not to over cook them (the squid will go rubbery if overcooked) and drain on a few sheets of kitchen towel.

As soon as everything is cooked and drained, eat immediately served on a bed of peppery salad leaves (rocket and watercress is good) with a wedge of lemon.

Love at first bite.

Photo by Cafe Darclee

It’s Shrove Tuesday aka Pancake day. Traditionally a time to get rid of sugar, fat and eggs before fasting for Lent, it’s now a bit of a treat in the culinary calendar.

Pancakes are ridiculously easy and quick to prepare, and once you’ve got them made, you can stick pretty much anything you fancy in them.

This recipe employs the five 1s formula.

Ingredients

1 egg, preferably free-range or organic

1 cup of self-raising flour

1 cup of milk

1 pinch of salt

1 nob of butter (melted, around 20g)

Method

Whisk together the egg, flour and milk in a bowl, melt the butter in a pan and then beat into the mix removing any lumps.

Some people say its good to set aside the batter for half an hour or so before you attempt making any pancakes, I’m not sure if makes that much difference, but it doesn’t do any harm, so why not give it a go.

Heat up your frying pan and using a piece of kitchen towel with a nob of butter on it lightly coat the pan. When it’s good and hot, ladle in enough batter to thinly coat the pan’s base. Pick up the pan and tip from side to side to ensure it’s coated evenly. Once one side is just turning golden brown, either toss it or flip it over with a fish slice to cook the other side.

At this point you can add some fillings. We had our savoury pancakes this year with Emmental cheese and smoked ham. Place thin slices of Emmental on half of the pancake’s base, top with the sliced ham and then fold in half. Serve with a mixed salad with a Dijon mustard dressing.

For the sweet ones we had the classic lemon and sugar, still a favourite, and also tried a more American style filling of banana, crunchy peanut butter and maple syrup, which I’ve got to say was super tasty.

Roll on next year.

The video write up says it all:

“John Nese is the proprietor of Galcos Soda Pop Stop in LA. His father ran it as a grocery store, and when the time came for John to take charge, he decided to convert it into the ultimate soda-lovers destination. About 500 pops line the shelves, sourced lovingly by John from around the world. John has made it his mission to keep small soda-makers afloat and help them find their consumers. Galcos also acts as a distributor for restaurants and bars along the West Coast, spreading the gospel of soda made with cane sugar (no high-fructose corn syrup if John can avoid it)”.

In an age of faceless corporations and consumerism, its a joy to see a guy who’s so committed to his particular niche, his suppliers, and his customers. I hope the Galcos Soda Pop Stop weathers all the financial storms and fashions that come it’s way, and gets passed down to the next generation of soda obsessives. And apologies for the bad Star Wars pun in the title.

I seem to be on bit of a Italian tip at the moment, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

This recipe is kind of inspired by that bit in Goodfellas where the coked up Henry Hill is running all over town convinced he’s being trailed by a helicopter, whilst also preparing a homecoming feast for his sick brother. He’s there making the meatballs (or polpette), a vat of tomato sauce, aubergines and so on, and despite his paranoid state, all the food looks really tasty. I think Henry’s polpette were made with beef;  these are a mix of veal and pork mince, but whaddaya gonna do?

Ingredients (Serves 4)

For the meatballs

400g veal mince

400g pork mince

2 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano

1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage

A good grating of nutmeg

Salt and freshly milled black pepper to taste

Plain flour for ‘dredging’

1 large egg

For the sauce

1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped

3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 large stick of celery, finely chopped

1 carrot, peeled and finely chopped

1 red chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped

1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary

50g tomato puree

3 tins chopped tomatoes

200ml white wine

Salt and freshly milled black pepper to taste

Method

To make the meatballs, put all the dry ingredients in a bowl, grate in the nutmeg, add the salt and pepper, and mix with a spoon before cracking the egg in. Now get your hands in there and combine all the ingredients really well. You’re now ready to make the balls. In terms of size, you’re looking for something between a radish and a squash ball, and it really helps if you have wet hands to stop the mixture sticking. Take a dollop of the mixture, compact it in your hands, and then roll into a ball. Simple.

Depending on size, you should end up with between 20 and 30 balls. Once all the mixture has been used, scatter some plain flour on a plate, and then roll the balls through it. Roll the balls from hand to hand to shake off the excess flour before setting aside. Now pop a thick bottomed pan or casserole dish on the heat and add a few glugs of olive oil. You’re now going to brown the balls in the hot oil; you’ll probably have to do this in batches. As soon as they are coloured all over, remove and set aside.

Using the same pan and oil, you’re now going to make the tomato sauce. Add the onion, celery, carrot and garlic and sweat off until tender. Add the chilli, rosemary and seasoning. Fry for another minute before adding the tomato puree. After another minute or so, add the white wine and de-glaze the pan. Next add the 3 tins of chopped tomatoes and bring up to simmering point. Pop on a lid and cook for a good 30-40 minutes.

Now take off the lid, and pop in the balls and simmer for another 20 minutes with the lid off. This is going to make sure the balls are cooked through, and also reduces the sauce a bit. Now get your pasta on, spaghetti or linguini is perfect. Cook until al dente, drain, divide across 4 plates, and then spoon over the meatball and tomato sauce.

Eat whilst piping hot with a good sprinkling of Parmesan and a glass of Chianti, and then go get your f**kin’ shoeshine box.

It’s no understatement to say that that I’m a BIG fan of pizza.There’s something genius in it’s simplicity. Bread. Good. Tomato sauce. Good. Cheese. Good. Some kind of meaty topping. Goooooood. And when I’m talking about the kind of pizza that I love, I’m talking about the traditional Italian kind, not the whole farmyard on a base that you get delivered at 3am after a session on the wife beater.

I’ve been lucky enough to work around Soho, central London, for most of my career, and that also happens to be the location of what must be one of the best pizza joints in the UK. Situated in a little side road between Berwick and Wardour Streets, Malletti has been knocking out  amazing pizza to a small army of adoring and loyal fans for at least as long as I’ve working in the area. The queue that snakes out of the door most lunchtimes is testament to this.

The first time I tried what Malletti has to offer was when I was working on a pitch. My then boss, who was to be frank an arse, proved that he could get something right by heading out and bringing back a load of Malletti’s pizza for his hard working troops. I can remember sinking my teeth into my first slice of spicy salami (which is still my favourite) and being blown away. The thin almost pastry like base, deep tomato flavour from the sauce, and just the right amount of mozzarella, piquant salami and chilli. It’s making me hungry just thinking about it.

It’s only a small shop, but is dominated by the glass counter on the right that displays the wide range of tasty stuff on offer. As well as traditional pizza, they do focaccias, panni style sandwiches, really great pasta specials each day (the wild boar ragu is insane)  and some sweet stuff too. There’s a small bar on the left where you can stand up and eat, but it’s a bit tight in there so most people take away. The only trouble you’re really going to have at Malletti’s is working out what to have, although you will get an earful if you’re on your mobile when you try and order. They don’t like that, and fair play to them. There’s a sign on the way in to warn you.

Malletti is a great example of somewhere that’s perennially popular because it’s always been good at what it does, and not because it’s tried to move with the times. It’s staffed by the same people who have always been behind the counter, and you get the impression that it’s a family business.

Malletti doesn’t have a website, in fact there’s surprisingly little written about it on-line full stop, but if you’re interested in getting a slice of the good life (sorry) you can find them at 26 Noel Street, London, W1F 8GT.

This is a really fast and easy mid week dinner. The dried porcini and their soaking liquid really beefs up the mushroomy flavour of the finished sauce, without them the dish can taste a bit insipid.

Ingredients (serves 2)

2 large shallots, peeled and finely sliced

1 large clove of garlic

20g dried porcini mushrooms soaked in 150ml boiling water

250g chestnut mushrooms

100ml white wine

70ml half fat crème fraîche

Chopped parsley

Grated parmesan

Salt and pepper

Linguine

Method

First up, soak the dried Porcini in boiling water and let them rehydrate. Next clean the chestnut mushrooms, chop off the ends of their stalks, cut them in half and then slice. Now fry the shallots and garlic in a little olive oil and butter until soft before adding the mushrooms. Season with a pinch of salt and some fresh ground black pepper.

As the mushrooms cook they’ll give up some liquid, when this has all but evaporated deglaze the pan with a couple of glugs of white wine.  Next add the revived Porcini. Take them out with a slotted spoon gently, and then add the soaking water. The soaking water should be brown and have loads mushroom flavour, but don’t add the last bit as the mushrooms often leave behind some grit, which you don’t want in the finished dish.

Gently reduce the slightly watery mushroom mixture, and at the same time put your pasta on. When it’s reduced by about a third, add the  crème fraîche, stir in and turn the heat right down. When the pasta is ready, drain, dress with a little olive oil and then divide into two bowls. Spoon over the mushroom mixture, sprinkle with a good quantity of grated Parmesan, and some chopped flat leaf parsley.

Eat as soon as it’s served with a glass of crisp white wine.

It’s called Selleck Waterfall Sandwich and does exactly what it says on the tin. It features pictures of actor Tom Selleck and sandwiches badly photoshopped onto waterfall scenes. My favourite is the little animation of Magnum blowing away a ham bagel with a shotgun.

This is what the internet was invented for

Not surprisingly, I’m still a way off nailing a good imitation, but this bread is pretty tasty, even if I do say so myself, and has a great crust.  The recipe uses an 80 to 20 mix of grey flour and rye flour to add a bit more flavour and texture. If you can’t get grey flour, strong white would do just fine.

Ingredients

400g grey flour

100g rye flour

5g yeast

7g salt

300ml water

1 x teaspoon honey

1 x tablespoon olive oil

Method

First up measure of 300ml of tepid water and mix in the yeast and honey. This should activate it before you add it to the dry ingredients. Next weigh out the flours and mix together with the salt in a big bowl. Now add the water and yeast mixture , the olive oil and mix together. As you mix, the mixture should come together to to form a dough. You’ll have to get your hands in there to combine everything.

Once you’ve done this, turn the mixture out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead for at least 10 minutes. Everyone has their own technique, but this video should get you started. Why do you need to knead? The short answer is that it develops gluten, which makes the mixture ’stronger’ so that it can trap the carbon dioxide that the yeast creates and makes the bread rise. If you don’t knead enough, or your yeast is inactive, you’ll end up with a very dense, heavy loaf.

After kneading for 10 minutes, form the dough into a round ball. See my previous focaccia recipe for the technique for doing this. Once prepared, either place the dough in a proving basket in a lightly floured tea towel, or in a bowl inside a plastic bag  and allow it to rise. This will take about an hour during which time the dough should have doubled in size. When you’ve got to this stage, turn out the dough, ‘knock it back’ (again see the focaccia recipe), form into a round again and repeat the rising process.

When the dough is twice the size again, turn it out and knock it back again. This time roll the dough into a cigar shape, and then flatten it. This should leave you with a strip a little over a foot long. Now fold this strip over end on end, so it becomes a third of the length and flatten down. Tuck the longer sides under with the edge of your palms to create a cylinder tapered at either end. Transfer this onto a floured board or peel, cover with a tea towel and leave to ‘prove’.

Now turn on your oven as hot as it will go, and place a baking tray at the bottom. Just like with the focaccia, you’re going to fill this with boiling water when you bake the loaf. When the oven is up to temperature, the loaf should have swelled to double it’s size again. Slash the surface of it (which will help the bread rise), and then slide it into the oven after putting the water in the baking tray. Don’t hang about.

Bake at full temperature for 10 minutes, at which point the bread will have risen as much as it’s is going to as the crust will have ’set’ and should be golden brown. Turn the oven down to around 170 / 180 and bake for a further 20 – 25 minutes, depending on how hot your oven is.

After the full 35 minutes, remove the bread and place on a baking tray. Resist the temptation to cut into it now. The bread is still cooking, and if you cut it open you’ll release heat and steam, and the bread won’t finish cooking properly. And that’s it. When it’s cooled, slice and eat with whatever you fancy.

The 25th of January means that it’s Burns Night chez Hand To Mouth. Despite my name I’m not Scottish, and neither of us are huge poetry fans, but we both love a bit of haggis so we celebrate Scotland’s favourite son with a bit of haggis and a drop or two of whiskey.

People get a bit squeamish about haggis as it’s made with sheep offal (lungs, liver and heart) and (traditionally) cooked in a sheep’s stomach. These days most haggises are sold in artificial casings, and there’s really nothing to worry about as all the contents are mashed up and mixed with onion, oatmeal, beef fat, spices and salt.

When it’s liberated from the casing the haggis it warm, sticky, hearty and really tasty. We have ours with neeps (mashed swede – still no idea why it’s called neeps), greens, and and intense onion and whiskey gravy.

Tradition dictates that you welcome the haggis to your table with one of Burn’s most famous poems ‘Address To A Haggis’. It’s pretty tricky to read, but it’s a bit of fun.

Ingredients

Serves 2

1 small haggis

1 medium swede

1/2 a large onion

300 ml chicken stock

1/2 teaspoon marmite

1 heaped teaspoon plain flour

25 ml whiskey

150g spring greens

Butter

Olive oil

Sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Method

First up, release the haggis from it’s plastic casing then wrap up in tin foil. Put a pan of water on the heat, and when it’s up to boiling point, pop in the armour clad haggis and cover with a lid. You’re going to simmer it for around 45 minutes.

Next prepare the gravy. Chop and slice half an onion, and then brown in a pan with a little olive oil and butter. When the onions are nice and soft, add marmite. Next add the flour and stir in to the onions, forming a paste. Cook this off for a minute or so before adding the whiskey. Burn off the alcohol, and then add the stock, season with a good few grinds of black pepper, and simmer until the liquid has reduced by about a third.

When the haggis is about 25 minutes from being ready, peel and chop your swede and add to boiling water. Cook the swede for around 20 minutes, then drain and mash with some butter, salt and pepper. Whilst you’re doing this boil up the spring greens for about 3-4 minutes until tender, and then drain and also season with butter, salt and pepper.

Next remove the haggis from the water, take off the foil and then slice the casing open with a sharp knife. A word of warning, the contents of the haggis expand during cooking, so they can spill out pretty fast when you make you’re incision. Scrape out the good stuff, discard the skin and serve with the neeps, greens and a generous helping of the onion gravy.

Eat with a little dram of your favourite whiskey, and toast Robbie Burns.

To take some of the strain off last year’s Christmas shopping, my brother and I both decided that we’d buy each other an evening butchery class at the Ginger Pig in Marylebone as our Christmas presents. I’d been looking forward to it since we made the booking in November, and Last Friday was the day of reckoning. They do four different classes at the shop, pork, lamb, sausage making, and our class of choice, beef.

On arriving at the shop we were cheerily welcomed by Borut and Perry who were to be our guides on planet beef for the evening. After they’d kitted us all out in butchers whites, our hosts started off by explaining about the type of cattle that they rear on their farm in North Yorkshire (Longhorns), the difference between free range and organic, and how they actually go about preparing the beef for consumption once it’s slaughtered.

It was good to learn a bit more about the ageing process, and the rather underhand tactics that supermarkets employ when talking about their aged beef. The Ginger Pig, and most other quality butchers, dry age their beef. This means hanging the carcasses in cool ventilated rooms so that blood and moisture can leave the meat, thereby intensifying the flavour (the meat can be hung for up to 100 days, but the guys at the shop reckoned around the 35-40 day mark was perfect).

The only problem with ageing is that it leads to some wastage, as the extremities of the meat tend to go off and have to be removed and discarded. But what the supermarkets do is vacuum pack the meat before they ‘age’ it. Vac packing the meat means that none of the moisture can escape from the meat, so the flavour doesn’t develop, but importantly for them there is no wastage. So supermarkets can legitimately claim that their beef is aged and offer it at a cheaper price, but they are supplying a greatly inferior product. I guess t wasn’t a great surprise to find out yet another way in which consumers are being screwed by the big chains, but it never fails to amaze me the lengths that they will go to make money.

We then moved over to the chopping blocks to get a bit more hands on with the Longhorns. We were talked through all the different cuts and joints that the animals are broken down into, mainly focusing on the middle section of the carcass where the rump, sirloin, fillet, porterhouse, T-bone, wing rib and fore rib are all found. It was all a bit baffling at first, but it wasn’t long before we started to be able to identify our wellington from our cote de boeuf and our skirt from our strip.

It’s not really a course for the squeamish, as an important part of the action is getting up close and personal with the carcass and handling the meat. Not only feeling the different textures, density and marbling, but also cutting it up. We each had a go at sawing and jointing up a different section of the middle, aside from one of the group who was a vegetarian who came along with her partner – all rather odd.

The final practical part of the course was to prepare our own cote de boeuf joint to take home. This involved removing a section of the back bone (the joint had already been chined for us ), taking off the cap (the layer of tougher meat that sits over the rib eye meat), trimming it, French trimming the ends of the rib bones for presentation, before tying the cap back on with the most bloody complicated butchers knot known to man. Despite having all been total novices a few hours earlier, there were no real disasters, and to our untrained eyes our joints all looked pretty professional.

After all that graft, it was time for a few glasses of red wine and dinner. Whilst we’d been ‘working away’, Borut had been in the kitchen preparing an awesome roast fore rib for us. He showed us how to carve the joint properly, separating out the ribs, cap and the rib eye section of the joint. I’ve got to say, it was cooked to perfection. The rib eye was pink and moist, the cap a bit tougher but richer in flavour, and the meat around the ribs sticky and sweet. They served it with amazing dauphinoise potatoes, roast potatoes cooked in beef fat, and some green stuff. The meal was rounded off with a few more glasses of wine and a bread and butter pudding made with brioche.

I think we were all a bit high on meat when we left the shop at around 11.30, but we all agreed that it had been a really good fun and interesting evening. I came away with a fair bit more knowledge than I had before, and the confidence to know what I want to buy from now on. My local butcher is going to hate me.

The course costs £125 per person, and you can find out more about them here, and see some more photos from the evening here.

The long and short of it is that Starbucks is going to pick a few select outlets and un-brand them in order to create coffee shops with a more old fashioned and local feel. If this test is successful, they will then roll it out to other sites. Some people have described this move as a demonstration of a business being mindful of what their consumers want, but in my mind is proves what a cynical and aggressive brand Starbucks has become, and to be frank it pisses me off.

How Starbucks started as a business is a million miles away from where they are now. Originally a one off shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market that sold artisan coffees and equipment, it didn’t become the phenomenon that it is today until it was sold to an entrepreneur called Howard Schultz in 1987. Famously in the 90s, Starbucks opened a new store every working weekday, and this pace was maintained well into the noughties.

As a result, for many Starbucks has become the ugly face of globalisation, and the site of protesters camped outside whenever they roll out yet another identical, anodyne store, a familiar one. This, along with the proliferation of all the other high street coffee chains all vying for our business, seems to have kick started a healthy trend for more traditional, independent coffee shops.

Unlike their chain gang counterparts, these shops place the emphasis on quality and ambiance over quantity and branding. A couple of great examples of the sort of place I’m talking about are The Scandinavian Kitchen and the recently opened Kaffiene that are down the road from where I work. These cafes are different, have a personality all of their own, and are a nice place to spend time. You don’t feel like you’re having a ‘vision’ thrust down your throat when you’re in there, and shock horror, they also serve up a decent cup of coffee. Not a hazelnut syrup or ’squirty’ cream canister in site.

Not surprisingly, disillusioned people have begun to migrate from the chains to seek refuge and good coffee in these independent shops. After all, if you’ve got half a brain and some taste buds why wouldn’t you? This has obviously been noted by the business bods and money grubbing analysts over at Starbucks, and they now want to get a slice of the ’slow coffee’ action. Their plan? To open ’stealth stores’ that imitate the increasingly popular indie coffee shops that have been set up as an antidote and alternative to their own brand.

With the buying power, financial backing and clout of a company like Starbucks, these fucks (I’m sorry, but in my opinion they are) will be able to open a raft of these imitation indies much faster than any start up business, either by turning existing stores or buying up prime real estate. They will no doubt clumsily flood the market with their interpretation, and in the process fool thousands of consumers into believeing that they’re having an experience that they’re not.

So how long before the idea of an indie coffee shop becomes as ubiquitous as your friendly neigbourhood Starbucks and the real indies are forced out of the marketplace? Who knows. And you never know, maybe consumers will smell the fat corporate rat and vote with their feet. I certainly hope so.

Rant over.

I was in Paris with the missus for a few days over the New Year period. The weather wasn’t great, but it’s still one of the greatest cities in the World (IMHO). As you might expect the food has a great deal to do with this, and I’m a huge fan of the traditional French bistro.

I love the simple, tasty food, the still tobacco stained walls, the atmosphere and the tradition of it all. Maybe it’s because we don’t have many good examples of this type of place in London, but I’d honestly prefer to sit down at a chequered tablecloth in a back street bistro to a plate of oeufs cocotte and an entrecote, than some foam drenched nonsense from an Alain Ducasse restaurant. No offense Al.

One such place, that we’ve now been to a few times, is Bistro De La Grille in St Germain des Pres. We stumbled across it a couple of years ago whilst in Paris and had an outstanding late lunch there, and it’s had a soft spot in our hearts ever since.

Outside you’re greeted by the site of the fresh shellfish man (no idea what the oficial term for these fellas is) shucking oysters and prepping his wares, before stepping foot inside where you’re greeted by the French Bistro checklist. Zinc topped bar, tick. Wood panneling, tick. Faded photographs, tick. Smartly dressed waiters bustling around, tick.

We ordered a carafe of red wine, 12 snails and garlic butter to share, then I chose the Morteau and lentil casserole as my main. The snails were delicious. If I’m honest, for me a big part of the draw is the garlic and parsley butter mopped up with a few slices of fresh baguette. None too healthy, but worth it. The casserole came in a satisfying iron pot with generous slices of the dense, smokey Morteau sausage. The lentils cooked with stock, onions, carotts and potato. It’s a hearty lunch, and was a joy to eat.

We finished the meal by sharing a tarte tatin which was sweet, sticky and tart in equal measure. Great pastry too.

Bistrot De la Grille isn’t going to win a Michelin star any time soon, but I don’t think thats what its setting out to achieve. It’s sticking to its guns and doing what its probably done since it opened, cooking and serving up traditional, good quality food, and if you’re in Paris I can’t recommend it enough.

As mentioned in the previous post, I was down in Cornwall for Christmas. My mum always puts on a great spread while we’re down there, but with seven mouths to feed she has her work cut out, and seems to spend too much time in the kitchen. That being the case, for the last few years I’ve given her the night off and cooked a meal for the family.

This year I cooked a slow cooked shoulder of lamb with Cornish style boulangère potatoes and spring greens. The lamb is cooked in a tangy herb, lemon and anchovy marinade (I have to leave out the garlic as my dad can’t stand it, but have included it in this recipe), and the classicly French boulangère are given a South West twist with the adition of Cornish cruncher cheddar cheese.

Ingredients

For the lamb:

2.5 kilo shoulder of lamb

2 lemons (juice and zest)

10 -15 tinned anchovy fillets

Bunch of rosemary

5 large cloves of garlic

Olive oil

Freshly ground black pepper

For the potatoes:

1.5 kilos of potatoes

2 onions

200g Cornish cruncher or other mature cheddar

Fresh ground black pepper

200ml vegetable stock

100ml milk

Chopped rosmary

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Butter

For the greens:

5 heads of spring greens

Butter

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Method

First of all, get your oven as hot as it will go, then prepare the marinade for the lamb. Finely chop the garlic, rosmary and anchovy fillets, zest and juice the two lemons, add a good couple of glugs of olive oil, then season with black pepper and mix well. Next, score the lamb all over on the upper side in a diamond formation about 1/2 a centimeter deep, and place in a roasting tray resting on slices of the zested and juiced lemons. Then spoon over the marinade, making sure you work it into the slashes on the shoulder.

When the oven is good an hot, slam in the lamb. You’re going to cook it fiercely for around 30 minutes to form a kind of marinated crust on the skin, and they you’re going to turn the oven down to around 180°C and cover the roasting tray tightly with tin foil and cook for a further 3 hours.

Now prepare the potatoes. Peel then slice the spuds as thinly as you can. I used a mandolin, but if you don’t have one, try to get them about a 3mm thick. When you’ve done this, plunge them into cold water and rinse to get some of the starch out, then turn  out onto a tea towel, and pat dry with another.

Next chop and slice the two onions, and fry them until they are golden brown. This will make the finished dish sweeted and richer. Now butter a large baking dish and start putting it all together. Start with a couple of layers of potatoes, then scatter over some of the onion, cheese and rosemary. Season with salt and pepper and then repeat until you are out of potatoes. Make sure you have some cheese and rosemary left over, but don’t scatter it over the top yet. Mix the stock and milk together, and pour over the top. The liquid should come around 3/4 of the way up the dish. Next cover the potatoes with a sheet of grease proof paper.

When the lamb has about an hour and a half to go, put in the potatoes and cook for an hour with the paper on, then remove from the oven. Take off the paper, scatter the remaining cheese and rosemary on top, season generously with black pepper then and put back into the oven for the last half hour until bubbling and golden brown.

Prepare the greens by slicing into fat strips and discarding the fat ends of the stalk. Boil in salted water until tender, drain, add a good nob of butter and season with salt and pepper.

Serve with the lamb and potatoes. Praaaper jaaaab.

I had the good fortune to be in Cornwall for Christmas, and then Paris for New Years. Good food was eaten accross the festive period, more on this in subsequent posts, but first of all something for the bread geeks out there.

Whilst in Paris I made a pilgrimage to Poilâne. It may not be a familiar name, but if you love good bread it should be. It’s a bakery in Saint-Germain, and makes the most insanely tasty ‘miche’ or traditional French sourdough loaves. Set up by Pierre Poilâne, a young baker from Normandy in 1932, the shop has been knocking out these beautiful large round loaves ever since to Parisians hungry for something a bit more interesting than the regular baguette.

The bread gets it’s darker colour and deeper flavour from stone milled ‘grey’ flour, also known as T80 or ‘farine bise’. The only other ingredients are sea salt, water and sourdough starter that is derived from batches of bread prepared all those years ago. The loaves are shaped by hand, and then cooked in a wood fired oven.

The bakery is still in the family, run by Pierre’s granddaughter, the rather marvelously named Apollonia Poilâne. They now have a second store in Paris, and have more recently opened one in London. As well as half a loaf, I bought some flour from the shop in an attempt to re-create a Poilâne miche at home. Thus far my sourdough attempts have been less than successful, but hopefully a bit of French inspiration will help lift them. You can find out more abut Poilâne and the locations on their website here, and I’ll update you on my baking succeses / failures as they happen

Illustration by Chobopop

Hand To Mouth is about to enter a short period of self imposed radio silence and competitive eating.

Have a great Christmas and New Year wherever you are, and see you in 2010 for more food related shenanigans.

X

It’s bloody cold in London right now, and add hangovers into the mix from all the Christmas partying, you need some seriously restorative food to get you back on an even keel. This French onion soup ticks all the boxes in terms of comforting, warming and tasty sustenance, and will have you ready for that next session of festive boozing before you can say zut alors!

Ingredients

Olive oil

Large nob of butter

1kg of onions

5 fat cloves of garlic

1 tablespoon fresh thyme, chopped

70ml French brandy

150ml French white wine

750ml chicken stock

750ml beef stock

Plenty of freshly ground black pepper

Pinch of salt

For the croutons:

French bread, sliced on the diagonal and toasted

1 clove garlic

Grated Gruyere cheese

Method

Peel and half the onions, and then slice them finely. Melt the butter and the oil in a heavy bottomed saucepan or casserole dish, and then add the onions, garlic, thyme and salt and fry them slowly on a medium heat. The idea is to sweat the onions down and cook them until they become golden, sticky and sweet. This will take a good 15  minutes.

When you’ve got to this point, add the brandy and set light to it to burn off the harsh alcohol. This will start to deepen the flavour of the soup. Next add the white wine, and de-glaze the pan, scraping off any sticky bits from the bottom and around the sides. You’re now ready to add the stock, do this and bring up to simmering point. Taste, and add salt / freshly ground black pepper as you prefer. The soup needs about another 15-20 minutes simmering to reduce a bit and let the flavour develop.

Whilst the soup is simmering, get your grill on as high as it will go. Cut your French bread on the diagonal in centimetre thick slices, and lightly toast on both sides. Once done, cut a clove of garlic in half, and rub all over one side of the toasted bread. Then grate a bunch of the Gruyere.

When the soup is ready, ladle it into what ever bowls you are going to eat it from. Cover the surface of the soup with the garlic croutons, sprinkle on a good quantity of the grated Gruyere and then pop under the grill.

The soups are ready to eat once the Gruyere is bubling, and the edges of the croutons have gone dark brown (be careful not to burn them). Serve with a final grinding of black pepper.

Earlier in the year, the missus and I went to Ghent in Belgium. It’s a really cool little town about half an hour on the train from Brussells; the perfect place to visit for a long weekend.

One of the things we really loved about the trip was the discovery of a beer called Vedett. It’s a classic blonde Belgian lager, with a really crisp and clean taste, and comes in these really lovely curvy green bottles.

The way Vedett behaves as a brand is also pretty cool. From the little penguin logo, to the really quality merchandise which includes chairs, blankets and glasses, it’s obvious that it’s run by really creative people.

Whats also nice is that every bottle of Vedett features the face of someone who drinks their products. If you look at the back label, there will be a black and white photo of a happy punter. You can upload your picture on their website here, and as they put it, become instantly famous.

On the site you can also order a customised crate featuring an image of anything you want on it. When we got back we tried to order our own personal crate, but you can only do it if you live in Belgium. That is until now. One of the businesses that imports Vedett into the UK, Beer Here, have just started offering the service. It’s a bit pricey at around 40 quid for 24 bottles, and a tad cheesy, but what man wouldn’t want their own personalised crate of booze?

I was first taken to Mangal 1 6 or so years ago by my friends Lou and Liam who lived down the road in Hackney at the time, and I’ve been going back ever since. Back then it had a real impact on me because I’d never really been anywhere like it in the UK before. It’s completely unpretentious, a bit ramshackle, and when you step through the door you feel like you’re in a different country.

You immediately get hit by the heat and smell of grilling meat from the massive open barbecue style grill that is slap bang in the middle of the restaurant. And that’s what the Turkish ocakbasi restaurants are all about. Meat and fire. The menu is dominated by kebabs, mostly lamb and chicken, although you can also get quail and offal too. I suggest you go with a few friends, because you’re going to want to try everything, but I can heartily recommend the following.

For starters I’d go for the cacik which is like the Greek tzatziki, but here it’s really thick and creamy, and made all the more tasty by a good punch of garlic. They serve it up with warm ’sac bread’ which is a bit like a focaccia, but thinner and without the olive oil. You should also try the Lahmacun, or Turkish pizza. It’s topped with minced lamb, onions and peppers and will leave you wanting more.

For main, you should try the Beyti. A bit like a minced lamb kofte, but with more garlic, some extra spice, red pepper and parsley. The fat from the mince gets almost caramalised on the grill, and is packed with flavour. The Cop Sis is also very good. Small cubes of marinated lamb grilled to perfection and so tender. The Tavuk Sis is the same, but with chicken breast, and equally good. If you’re still hungry, get a portion of the Pirzola lamb chops. Again marinated and cooked to perfection, and tasty as hell (my mouth is literally watering as I write this). All the main dishes are served with a salad packed with fresh, crispy veg, dressed with lemon juice, a bit of oil and sprinkled with sumak. A great accompaniment to the smokey meats.

It may not be much to look at, but the long and short of it is that Mangal is amazing, and also incedibly good value for money. They don’t serve booze, but you can bring your own. There’s a sister restaurant, imaginatively called Mangal 2, just round the corner where artists Gilbert & George have dinner every night. Thats right, every night. Now, if that isn’t a ringing endorsement, I don’t know what is.

We all know that porridge is healthy, but as is often the case with healthy stuff, it can get a bit boring. Luckily porridge is also a good base for other flavours, so try out this slightly tropicaaaaal version. I’ve used ‘mugs’ as a measurement as I can’t really be bothered to be precise in the morning. And use coconut chips as opposed to dessicated if you can. This quantity will serve 2.

Ingredients

1 mug of jumbo organic oats

1 mug of semi skimmed milk

3/4 mug water

Handful of coconut chips

Small handful of dried cranberries

Small handful of dried blueberries

1 apple, cubed – preferably something with a bit of tang like a granny smith / cox or braeburn

Maple syrup

Method

Put the oats, water and 3/4 of the milk into a saucepan and bring gently up to simmering point. Let the mixture simmer gently for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, before adding the coconut chips. Simmer for a further 5 minutes, again stirring occasionally. Chop up the apple whilst this is going on.

After this time, the mixture will be pretty thick and sticky. Let it down by adding the remaining milk and some maple syrup to taste (maple is very sweet, so you don’t need that much), and remove from the heat.

Mix in the dried fruit, and the divide into two bowls. Scatter the apple cubes on top, and then eat.

Ingredients

Leftover roast chicken

Good quality French baguette

Mayo

Dijon mustard

Black pepper

Olive oil

1/2 clove garlic

Rocket

Method

First up, stick a griddle pan on your hob and get it nice and hot. Next mix together equal quantities of mayo and dijon mustard in a small bowl, and then grind a bunch of black pepper into the mix to taste (the quantity of ‘dijonaise’ you make depends on the number of sarnies you are making).

Now, cut a decent length of baguette, and slice it down the middle. I like to scoop out some of the dough from the inside the top slice, this helps make room for the filling. Drizzle some olive oil on the inside of the baguette slices, rub it in, and then place on the griddle, dough side down.

Once the bread has got nice golden brown lines on it from the bars of the griddle, remove and then rub with the cut garlic clove, before spreading liberally with the mayo / mustard mix. Place a generous quantity of roast chicken and a big handful of rocket on the bottom slice and then slap on the top and press down.

Cut in half, et mangé.

Luckily, my day job allows me to escape the office from time to time to get some head space and thinking time. There are a number of places I like to go for a bit of peace and quiet, and the Nordic Bakery is right up there with my favourites.

As the name suggests, it’s a Scandinavian style cafe, specialising in bread. The food and bread are good; simple Nordic fare including rye bread open sandwiches and cured fish, but the killer for me are the amazing cinnamon buns and the coffee.

I don’t think the buns are as fluffy as they used to be, but they still taste amazing. The cinnamon is almost intoxicating, the dough satisfyingly heavy and so sticky it’s almost a challenge to eat. Add to this a rocket fuel strength latte, you’ve got yourself a perfect afternoon break.

It’s also a really peaceful place, which is a bit of a rarity in Soho, so f you’re going to check it out, put the phone on silent and shhhhhh.

London is awash with KFC immitators who knock out chicken of a very dubious quality at very low prices. From the lyrics it’s clear that the ‘Junior Spesh’ consists of a piece of chicken (leg or wing), a portion of chips and a can of drink, all for £1.50. Not a bad deal.

Don’t forget, mayo is an extra 20p.

Around the World a crazy amount of food is wasted every day. In the UK alone it is estimated that households throw away a staggering 25% of the food they buy. This is not only shocking from the point of view that there are over a billion people around the world suffering from malnutrition, but this waste means that we are producing and transporting much more food than we need to, which in turn puts a strain on the planet and the environment.

An event being held in Trafalgar Square in London on the 16th December aims to draw attention to this issue . Called Feeding The 5000 the aim is to make a delicious lunch for 5000 people for free from food and ingredients that would otherwise have been wasted.

Visit the website to find out more about the event, food wastage and how you can get involved.

See, there is such a thing as a free lunch.

It’s probably not on the top of most people’s shopping list, but rabbit  is in season, it’s pretty cheap, it’s lean, and it’s really tasty. This recipe for a rustic Italian style ragù takes a bit of time and effort, but trust me, it really is worth it. One tip, if your butcher is any good he / she should sell you the rabbit with the liver and kidneys. Don’t throw these away, they’ll add richness to the dish. The ingredients below will serve 4-6 people.

Ingredients

Olive oil

1 large rabbit (around 1kg with the liver and kidneys), jointed

100g pancetta or smoked streaky bacon, chopped

1 large carrot, diced

1 large stick of celery, diced

1 onion, finely chopped

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 large red chilli, finely chopped including seeds

600ml chicken stock

200ml red wine

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 tablespoon tomato puree

1 sprig rosmary, finely chopped

Small handful of sage leaves, finely chopped

2 bay leaves

Freshly ground black pepper

Fat ribbon style pasta (pappardelle / futtucine / tagliatelle) to serve

Method

Firstly remove the offal from the jointed rabbit and set to the side. Heat olive oil in a heavy casserole dish, and then brown the rabbit joints. You’ll probably have to do this in a couple of batches. Whilst this is going on, prep all the vegetables. Once the rabbit is nicely browned, remove from the pan and set aside.

Next fry off the pancetta for a couple of minutes until it’s golden, then add all the vegetables, garlic and chilli. Sweat these off for a few minutes until tender. Then add the herbs closely followed by the tomato puree. After a couple of minutes, add the red wine to de-glaze the pot. Then add the tinned tomatoes and chicken stock and bring up to the boil. As the cesserole is coming up to temperature, chop the liver and kidneys as finely as you can (they will form a kind of puree), then add them ito the mix along with a good few grinds of black pepper, and stir.

Now return the rabbit joints to the casserole. They should fit snugly into the pot and just be covered by the cooking liquid. Put the lid on, and then simmer for at least one hour. The longer you cook the rabbit, the softer and flakier the meat will become. Ideally you would slow cook it until the meat falls off the bone (around two hours).

When the meat is cooked, remove it from the pan and set aside. Carry on simmering the cooking liquid with the lid off to reduce it a bit and intensify the flavours. When the rabbit has cooled enough to touch it, fork off the meat. Hopefully it will flake off the bone in ribbons. Once you’ve stripped the joints, add the rabbit back to the pan and stir, beaking up any large pieces of meat.

Whilst the ragù is coming back up to simmering point, cook your pasta in a pan of boiling salted water. Fat ribbon pasta works best for this dish as it has more surface area for the ragù to stick to. When the pasta is cooked, drain and add back to the pan, then spoon over enough of the ragù to coat the pasta nicely. Finally drizzle a little olive oil over the dish, and then serve.

Photo - Princess Diablo

And while we’re on the subject of harvest festivals, it’s Thanksgiving today, so Happy Thanksgiving to all my American and Canadian chums.

Like Christmas dinner over here, Turkey is at the heart of any decent Thanksgiving feast, but for as long as I live I’ll never understand the whole sweet potato marshmallow thing.

Whatever you’re eating, ‘have a nice day’.

Image - factmagazine.co.uk

Joe Goddard of Hot Chip fame has just released a solo album called ‘Harvest Festival’, and I’m liking it. I’m a big fan of the Chip, and listening to ‘Harvest Festival’ it’s clear who influences the beats and bleeps in their releases.

Each of the tracks has a fruity theme (hence the post), Apple Bobbing, Go Bananas, Sour Grapes to name but three, and range from the melancholy and melodic to the more bass bin troubling.

There’s also a nice surprise if you buy the CD or vinyl. You get a recipe for a Tomato Harvest Chutney from the suspiciously well connected Rosie Lovell of Rosie’s Deli Cafe in Brixton. Nice touch.

It’s arrived. The inaugural edition of ‘Fire & Knives’. I’ve been excited about this new ‘Food Quarterly’ since Tom at Nation told me about it a couple of months ago. The way it was described to me was a food magazine written by and intended for enthusiastic amateurs, and despite contributions by undoubted professionals like Matthew Fort and Ton Parker Bowles, the magazine sets out it’s editorial stall very clearly.

”Fire & Knives’ has to be about love of, enthusiasm for and fascination with food, in all its aspects. It could never be about being a connoisseur – literally ‘one who knows’ – it has to be about being an amateur – ‘one who loves’. Everybody eats. And a fundamentally elitist ‘connoisseurship’ is no longer appropriate in a country that’s finally maturing into a proper relationship with it’s food culture.”

I’ve yet to get properly stuck in, but the articles look really interesting and refreshingly unexpected. From cooking with Vincent Price to what defines English food, the magazine could only be the product of independent publishers with a real love for their subject matter. The magazine has been lovingly put together by the guys over at Present Joys, giving it an old fashioned quality feel, and making it even more of an attractive proposition. I hope it’s a huge success.

Enough of the typing, I’ve got some reading to do.

My day job takes me in to central London each day, and whilst I’m spoiled for choice for places to get lunch, I tire of giving the Prets and Eats my cash every day.  That being the case, a year or so ago my old work partner and I set ourselves on a bit of a mission to find some alternatives to the standard fayre, the results of which you can find on this map. I’ll be posting about some of the names on the list in the not too distant future, but first up I want to talk about Benito’s Hat.

No longer the preserve of stoned Californian students, the burrito has made it’s way to the UK (well London at least) and seems to be growing in popularity. I used to get my fix from an imaginatively named place called ‘El Burrito’ which promoted itself with a young Mexican kid dressed as a donkey (burrito means ‘little donkey’ in Mexican) handing out flyers, and then Benito’s Hat opened across the street. I think I went in there on the day it opened, and I’ve never darkened the donkey’s doorway since.

Based on Goodge Street, Benito’s hat has been open for a little over a year, and pretty much every lunchtime has a queue out of the door. It’s not hard to see why. The food is fresh, tasty and fast, and if you leave out the sour cream and cheese, probably not that unhealthy.

I’m a bit of a creature of habit, and always opt for a burrito with pork, black beans, hot sauce and guacamole (which costs an extra 50p – my only complaint). Once unwrapped from the foil, you know you’re in the presence of greatness. The tortillas are as soft and as warm as (I apologise for this analogy) a baby’s bum. Taking a bite you immediately get a hit of the seriously tasty stewed pork. Very similar to a ‘carnitas’ burrito you’d get in the states, the meat is intensely flavoured with lime, cinnamon, oregano and pepper black pepper. Then you taste the beans, then the heat of the chili sauce, before being soothed by the cool of the salad and guaca. The flavours are big and bold. It’s a seriously tasty and satisfying lunch.

I’ve tried other things on the menu, they’re all good, and would easily rival anything that you’d get in the Mission area of San Francisco, but I’m not sure that I’ve really done the experience justice here , so do yourself a favour if you’re in the ‘hood and eat like a Mexican this lunch time.

So, you get back from work. You’re tired, you’re hungry, but you can’t really be arsed to cook. If this sounds like you, then your prayers are about to be answered. This recipe for hot smoked mackeral and a piquant (yeah that’s right, I said piquant)  salad is fast, tasty, and with oily fish, bulgar wheat, and raw veg it’s also super healthy.

Ingredients

Serves 2-3

4 Hot smoked mackerel fillets

150g bulgar wheat

1 large clove of garlic, finely chopped

1/2 small red onion, finely chopped

1/4 of a large cucumber, diced

10-15 baby plum / cherry tomatoes, diced

Handful of flat leaf parsley and fresh mint, finely chopped

1 large red chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped

1 teaspoon Maras Biberi

The juice of half a lemon, and the same quantity of olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method

The bulgar wheat salad is the only time consuming part of this dish, so get cracking with it first. Get a pan of water on the go, and when it’s boiling add the bulgar wheat. Simmer the wheat for 7-8 minutes, then drain with a sieve. At this point the bulgar will be almost cooked. Place the now full sieve back over the pan and put a lid on top of it. This allows the bulgar to drain thoroughly and also steam a bit so it’s cooked to perfection and a bit more ‘fluffy’ by the time you put the salad together.

Chop all the veggies and the herbs and place in a shallow bowl. Then make a sharp dressing by mixing the olive oil, lemon juice and Maras Biberi. Add the now fluffy and slightly cooled bulgar wheat and combine. Then add the olive oil and lemon dressing and mix.

Next get a dry frying pan on. Once it’s nice and hot, put the mackeral fillets it skin side down. Cook for about two minutes before flipping them over for another two.

Serve immediately with a big pile of the salad, and start feeling good.

They were made on dough base that was smeared with tomato puree, then topped with a triangle of Dairylea style processed cheese, and an egg. They were then baked in a bread oven until the egg was cooked all the way through. Like the hostel, the pizzas were pretty basic, but I remember them being very tasty, and after we’d been there a couple of times, the guy let us make our own and put them in the oven.

This breakfast pizza is a more sophisticated version of the above, and uses some of the same basic ingredients as the pizza recipe featured in this earlier post.

Ingredients (per pizza)

Around 200g pizza dough

Tomato sauce

2 cherry tomatoes, thinly sliced

Teleggio cheese

prosciutto ham or cooked bacon

An egg

Salt and pepper

Method

First of all, turn your oven on to as high as it will go, and then roll out the pizza base into a roughly circular shape and create a crust by turning up the edges. This needs to be high enough to contain the raw egg once you’ve cracked it on top. I make and cook mine in the small frying pan pictured which has a 20cm diameter. This not only helps maintain the right shape and edge, but I also start the cooking process off on the hob before putting the pizza in the oven.

Leave the base for 15 minutes to prove a bit, and then spread on the tomato sauce. Add the thinly sliced tomato, and tear over the taleggio. The taleggio may smell quite strong, but it has a pretty mild flavour, and goes beautifully creamy when melted. Chop up the ham or cooked bacon and place on top, crack a raw egg on the centre of the pizza, and then season with a few grinds of pepper and a small pinch of salt.

Next, put the frying pan on the hob and turn on the gas. This gets the base going in the absence of a pizza stone. Leave on the heat for a minute or so, and then put the pizza in the oven. The pizza should be cooked in around 6 minutes or so. It’s ready when the egg white is cooked through, but the yoke is still soft.

Take out of the oven and eat immediately, either on it’s own or with a bit of rocket. Seriously tasty, and a bit different.

Then I came across ‘River Cottage Bread’; a small but sensible handbook on the subject, which has basically become my bread bible. The book contains lots of recipes for breads from standard loaves, to ciabatta, naan and beyond, which are great, but for me the most interesting part of the book is the more practical stuff.

From my limited experience, it seems to me that once you’ve got the basics of making dough down, you can freestyle to a certain extent. But the stuff that is more rigid, and vital to creating consistently good bread, are the techniques and tips, and thats why this  book has become so invaluable.

For example, the book explains that you need to try and re-create the conditions of a bakers bread oven as closely as possible in your own home. It recommends that as well as having your oven as high as possible for the initial baking process, that you should also have a tray of boiling water in the oven to generate steam, as this creates optimum conditions for the bread to rise. This is the sort of stuff that you don’t discover by trial error, and kind of need to know. As you might expect, there’s also lots of practical advice on rising, proving, how to prepare your dough properly for the oven and so on.

The other great thing about the book is that it has kept me motivated to keep baking. It’s honest with you, and manages your expectations. You’re not going to produce a Poilane loaf on your first attempt. Like most things in life, baking bread takes practice, but if you stick at it your results improve quickly. I’ve created a bit of a visual document of my progress over on my Flickr account.

If you want to get a copy, you can get one from River Cottage or Amazon here.

“As far as I’m concerned, the sausage is just about man’s noblest creation. It is a wonder (or should be), a perfect piece of design, elegant and economical…Sausages are classless, as acceptable on the table of the royal family as on that of the Royle family. Is there anyone who does not smile at the sight of a sausage? Who’s mouth does not salivate just a bit at the thought of that first bite?”

So in honour of the banger and British Sausage Week, here’s a recipe for a warming and tasty sausage casserole. It’s a bit of a French remix of a Delia recipe, and is the perfect dish for this time of year.

Ingredients

6 good quality Toulouse sausages

4 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped

150 g lardons

15 shallots, peeled

1 large carrot, peeled and chopped

250 g chestnut mushrooms

500 ml French red wine

Bay leaves x 2

1 large red chili

Sprig of rosemary and thyme, finely chopped

1 tablespoon redcurrant jelly

1 heaped teaspoon of flour, dijon mustard and butter (to make a roux)

Ground black pepper

Method

Put some olive oil in a heavy bottomed pan and brown off the sausages, being careful not to puncture their skin. Once you’ve done this, remove them from the pan, set aside, and then add the lardons. Fry them off for a minute or so before adding the garlic, shallots and chopped carrot. After a couple of minutes add the mushrooms, chili and herbs to the pan and sweat off for 5 minutes or so.

Next, add the red wine and bring up to a gentle simmer, before adding the redcurrant jelly. Return the sausages to the pan, turn the heat down and put a lid on. Simmer for around half an hour. After 30 minutes, take off the lid and simmer for another 10 or 15 minutes or so to reduce some of the cooking liquid.

While the casserole is reducing, make the roux by mixing the flour, mustard and butter together. Once you’ve got a good paste together, add it to the casserole and whisk in. The roux will thicken the sauce as well as adding a bit of flavour, and as soon as it’s dissolved, you’re ready to chow.

Eat with a big, fluffy pile of mash. That’s an order.

Back to New York, if only briefly, for a quick bit about what might be my favourite place to eat breakfast in the World. Serious claim I know, but Williamsburgh’s Egg is amazing. So amazing in fact that the New York visit prior to this one I think we had breakfast there 3 times out of the 5 days we were there. We only managed twice this time, but if I lived in the neighborhood I’d have to stop myself eating here every bloody day of the week.

Egg is a really unassuming place tucked on a little side road off Bedford Avenue in Williamsburgh. It’s light years away from the city’s brash diners (that I also love) and has a really relaxed almost ‘hippyish’ atmosphere. The owners have their own little farm on the outskirts of New York state, which supplies as much produce to the restaurant as possible. I’m not 100% sure how long it’s been open, but probably around 2 years. It’s open all day, serving breakfast / brunch until the evening when the menu becomes a bit more substantial. I’ve not eaten there in the evening, but I’ve heard it’s good.

My absolute favourite thing on the menu is a dish called ‘Eggs Rothko’. I’m not sure if it’s named after Mark Rothko, but it’s a whole lot tastier than his paintings (IMHO). At the heart of the dish is a kind of remix of eggy bread. A thick slice of toasted brioche with a hole cut in the middle is popped in a frying pan, and then an egg is fried in the hole. They then top the bread with a grated, tangy mature cheddar and slide it under a grill until the cheese bubbles. I know it sounds pretty insane, but when you slice open the bread and the yoke of the egg oozes out, you know you’re in the presence of breakfast greatness.

They serve it with your choice of meat or seasonal greens. I always opt for the sausage, which is a little different to the sausages you get with a fry up in the UK. They are basically little sausage meat patties which are flavoured with chili and fennel. Spicy and seriously tasty, and they work really well with the eggy bread.

I wish I was there now.

This recipe makes one large rectangular pizza with a thin, crispy, tasty base, that is a million miles away from the flabby crud that the likes of Planet Pizza churn out. I would recommend that you make a bigger batch of the dough and freeze half of it to use at a later date. Just double the quantity of the mix (below), and once risen, wrap half in cling film and pop in the freezer.

For the tomato sauce, you can pretty much use the same sort of thing that you’d usually put on pasta. I use a simple sauce made from a tin of tomatoes, garlic, herbs and seasoning. If I can be bothered, I’ll blend it so it’s smooth like passata, but you don’t have to. A bit of tomato texture isn’t a deal breaker.

Obviously, once you’ve made your dough and tomato sauce, you can put anything on your pizza you like. This recipe is for a pizza of two halves. On one side a classic prosciutto themed number, and on the other anchovy and veggies.

Ingredients

For the base:

250g white ‘Tipo 00′ flour

3g powdered dried yeast

4g ground sea salt

1g sugar

150ml warm water

Topping:

Tomato sauce

250g Good quality mozzarella

5 slices of prosciutto ham

1 red chilli, finely chopped

8-10 anchovy fillets

Strips of red onion

Courgette, cut into ribbons with a peeler

Olive oil, rocket and basil to garnish

Method

Making the dough part of the pizza is very similar to the method used for making the earlier focaccia recipe. Mix the water, sugar and yeast together and set aside. Measure out the flour and salt into a bowl and then mix together. Add the yeast mixture to the flour and combine. The ingredients should come together and make a dough. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and then knead for around 10 minutes. Coat the dough with a little olive oil, place it in an oiled bowl, cover with a plastic bag or damp tea towel, and then put in a warm place for about an hour until the dough has doubled in size. Now’s a good time to turn on your oven as you’ll want to get it as hot as it will go (preferably 250c +).

Once the dough has risen, turn it out of the bowl and knock it back. Now you’re ready to get busy constructing your masterpiece.  This is going to sound a bit retarded, but remember that you’re going to have to transfer your pizza from wherever you’re making it into an oven. This is obviously trickier with a larger pizza, so make sure you’ve got a plan. I make my pizzas on the baking trays that came with my oven. I flour one up, make my pizza on it and then use it to slide the pizza onto the other tray that’s been heating up in the oven. More on this shortly.

Roll / stretch your dough out into whatever shape you like. The base should only be few milimeters thick; once you’ve got the right shape and size, pinch and roll the edge to form a small crust. If you’re making a pizza with two different flavours as here, you can use some of the trimmings to create a dividing ridge. Once you’re done, set the base aside to 10 or 15 minutes to prove whilst you prep your toppings.

After you’re prepped, spoon a thin layer of the tomato sauce all over your pizza base, and then place on your toppings. On one side tear over the mozzarella, basil and chilli, on the other more mozzarella, shards of red onion, anchovies and ribbons of courgette.

You’re now ready to cook your pizza. Ideally you want to slide it onto a hot surface to try and replicate the conditions of a pizza oven.  I don’t have a stone, so I cook mine on a baking tray that’s been heating up in the oven. As the oven is bloody hot, the pizza should only take around 10 minutes or so to cook.

Once the edge of base is nicely browned and the cheese is bubbling, take it out. On the mozzarella and chili side take the proscuitto, tear it into strips and drape it over the base, then sprinkle with rocket leaves and drizzle with olive oil. On the anchovy side, add basil leaves and also drizzle with oil.

Serve as soon as possible. Molto bene!

If you fancy something different try this avocado on toast. My missus introduced me to it, and now I love it too. No rocket science. It’s really quick and easy, and is also pretty healthy.

Ingredients

1/2 a ripe avocado

1 or 2 slices granary bread

Olive oil

Tobasco

Salt

Method

Pop the bread in the toaster. Take the half avocado and slice it length-ways into around half centimetre slices. As soon as the toast is out of the toaster, drizzle with olive oil and then arrange the avocado slices on it.

Use the back of a fork to mash the avocado down onto the toast, sprinkle with salt and a few drops of tobasco, then get it down your neck.

Going to Peter Luger’s pretty much as soon as I get off the plane in in NY has become a bit of a tradition. The routine goes. Land in NY. Head to Williamburgh. Dump bags at my mate Matt’s place. Head to Luger’s with him. Eat large quantities of meat. Drink a couple of beers. Sleep. Come round smiling the next day.

Peter Luger has been rated New York’s number one steakhouse for twenty four years in a row. For a town that prides itself on good food, that’s a serious accolade. They have two outlets, one in Williamburgh and one in Long Island, but it’s no chain; it’s an institution.

When I went a few years ago, former New York City mayor Rudy Guilliani walked in with some dolly bird and got a standing ovation from the whole restaurant, and that sets the scene pretty well. It’s a place for ’stand up guys’. A no nonsense temple to meat, styled a bit like a Bavarian beer hall, and staffed by old timers who have clearly been working there for years.

The menu is short, and not surprisingly, meat focused. To start with, we ordered an extra thick slice of Luger’s bacon and a tomato and onion salad, followed by the porterhouse steak, German fried potatoes and spinach.

The bacon is really satisfying. About the thickness of four standard rashers, sweet and smokey. The perfect accompaniment to the salad, especially when drizzled liberally with Luger’s own sweet, tangy and mildly spicy steak sauce.

The main event is the steak. The cut they specialise in is the porterhouse, or short loin. Served on the bone, it’s charred and crispy on the outside, and sweet and moist on the inside. The meat has great flavour, and is as tender as something very tender indeed. They serve it of a red hot plate, cut into strips, with melted butter to baste the meat with to keep it moist. It’s making my mouth water just thinking about it.

It’s not cheap, but its worth it. The portions are generous, and anything you don’t eat, you can take home in a doggy bag. If you’re planning a visit, I’d advise booking a table, and remember that they only accept cash, although there is an ATM outside.

The only downsides to Luger’s is that I only get to eat there once a year. But I guess that’s one of the other things that makes it special.

Ingredients

6 cooking chorizo

500g pork belly

4 cloves of garlic

1 large onion

1 large red chili

2 bell peppers – one red, one yellow

1 tin of tomatoes

1 tablespoon tomato puree

1 heaped teaspoon of smoked paprika

2 tins of beans, drained – you can use butter, cannellini or borlotti beans

1 heaped teaspoon each of chopped rosemary and thyme

2 bay leaves

Small glass of medium dry sherry

500ml chicken stock

400ml water

Chopped flat leaf parsley to serve

Method

Get a big thick bottomed pan or casserole dish and put it on a high heat with a bit of olive oil. Take the skins off the chorizo and then colour them in the pan. Whilst the  chorizo are browning, take the thick rind off the pork belly and cut into bite sized chunks. Once the sausages are done, take them out, set to one side, and then brown off the pork belly in the pan. Some of the lovely spicy paprika oil will have leeched from the chorizo which will add exra flavour to the pork. Once this has browned, remove from the pan and put with the chorizo.

Now fry off the onion, garlic and chili (which you have finely chopped) in the same oil. Once the onion has sweated off and has become translucent, stir in the tomato puree and smoked paprika, and cook through for a minute or so. Next, de-glaze the pan with the sherry. If you don’t have any sherry to hand, use white wine.

Now return the meat to the pan, but before you do, chop each of the chorizo sausages into about 5 pieces. Once the meat is in, add the tinned tomatoes, beans, stock, water and herbs (bay, rosemary and thyme), and then bring to the boil.

Turn the heat down, and simmer the stew with a lid on for about an hour. Whilst the stew is cooking, remove the stalk and seeds from the peppers, and chop into strips. After an hour take the lid off and add the strips of pepper. By now the stew should be a deep red / orange colour. Cook for a further half hour with the lid off to cook the peppers, reduce some of the liquid, and intensify the flavour. After thirty minutes it’s done, and you’re ready to eat.

Garnish with some flat leaf parsley, and serve with some brown rice or a good hunk of granary bread. If this stew doesn’t warm your cockles, you’re dead on the inside. FACT.

To cut a long story short, there’s a guy called Doug who makes the most amazing speciality hot dogs that come in a bewildering and surprising array of flavours. And when I say bewildering, I mean it. Pork, duck, lamb, beef, weisswurst, bratwurst, veal, rattlesnake, vegetarian…I could go on. Doug’s place is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, so if you’re an un-escorted newbie, you can pretty much forget about finding it (we were lucky enough to have a couple of willing guides). But, despite the location, the place is RAMMED every day. It’s open between 11am and 4pm, and there’s a queue pretty much from opening to closing.

Photo: MSN

When we got there at about a quarter to twelve, there were already a lot of people waiting. It took us about an hour to make it through the doors  and get a look at the wall mounted menu and specials, but when we did I nearly exploded with excitement. After much debate, my girlfriend and I decided to get 4 to share between us. We went for a duck and fois gras, a merguez and goats cheese, veal and pork weisswurst, and a classic Chicago dog (all pictured).

First up the duck. Now I was fully expecting this to be a gimmick, but I could’nt have been further from the mark. You could taste everything. The duck and fois gras in the sausage, the fois gras mousse on top, and the insane truffle and garlic mayo. Every bite was ridiculous. Too sickly to nail another, but amazing.

Next up the weisswurst. Again a taste sensation. The tangy apple and pork meat in the sausage was well seasoned and wrapped in this creamy mustard and parsley sauce. Then a nice bit of tangy, peppery horseradish cheese finished it off with style.

The traditional Chicago dog was probably the least impressive of the four, but still damn tasty. Your classic frank dog accompanied with fried onions, mustard, tomato, a slab of pickle and a kind of atomic green relish. When in Rome and all that.

Finally the merguez. One of my favourite sausages of all time. This baby came served up with a kind of smokey chipotle sauce that was a cross between a mayo and a gravy , and was topped with this amazingly fluffy and light goats cheese. Again you could taste all the flavours, and the cheese cooled down the chili kick of the sausage and sauce. Phenomenal.

It’s not hard to see why people get evangelical about Hot Doug’s. It’s one of those proper institutions that specialise in one thing, and nails it time after time. It’s also fun and completely unpretentious. In the UK a place like Doug’s would probably fall out of favour as soon as it ceased to be fashionable, which is a great shame as I feel England’s restaurant scene would be a lot richer if there were more of the local neighborhood heroes of the kind I’ve written about in the past few posts.

I’ve always liked the idea of starting a local sausage restaurant, maybe there’s a gap in the market?

Photo by Buzz100Ca

If you’re going on a road trip down the pacific coast through the Big Sur, there’s one place that everyone tells you to go, and that’s Nepenthe. In his 1962 book ‘Big Sur’, Jack Kerouac, describes the restaurant thus, “From the baths we go to Nepenthe which is a beautiful cliff top restaurant with a vast outdoor patio, with excellent food, excellent waiters and management, good drinks, chess tables, chairs and tables to just sit in the sun an look at the grand cost…”

Whilst Kerouac’s description is less than effusive, it is pretty much spot on; so allow me to add a few superlatives. The location is amazing, the view of the pacific ocean fantastic, and the food bloody tasty. We both ate the trademark Ambrosia burger, which as the name suggests (in the work of Homer, Ambrosia is the food of the gods), was pretty heavenly. The meat was clearly good quality, the bun toasted and beautifully soft, but what really set it off was the sauce – a kind of tomato, chili mayonaise. Served with a huge side of fries and a light slaw, it was a great lunch. But with a view like that, you can’t go that far wrong.

Photo by Meatmeister

It’s pretty rare that a restaurant lives up to the hype, but Nepenthe does, and not much seems to have changed since Kerouac wrote his description. It’s a simple formula, but one that works, and the owners have stuck to it.

You can get the recipe for the Ambrosia burger here, but I’m not sure it would taste quite so good without that view.

As mentioned in the last post, I’ve just returned from a holiday in the States. From a food perspective, one of the things that I noticed about a lot of the stuff we tasted in California was the Mexican influence. Plenty of lime, avocado, coriander, chilli and corn. Fresh, tasty flavours.

We also ate quite a bit of of straight up Mexican food. Great Burritos in the Mission in San Francisco, Huevos Rancheros for breakfast, torta Mexicanas in LA, but the pick of the bunch was a a tiny little place called La Super-Rica in Santa Barbra.

Reputedly Julia Child’s favourite Mexican restaurant and tucked away in the Mexican area of town, La Super-Rica is basically a little shack with a tent attached to the back. Always busy, the tiny kitchen knocks out fantastic traditional Mexican street food. There are daily specials, firm favourites and apparently the best horchata you’ll taste outside of Mexico.

We tried the daily special, a vegetarian tamale, which came served in the corn husk it had been steamed in with a side of pork and beans. The corn meal was really tasty and kind of creamy, enriched with a bit of cheese and with vegetables through it. We also had a portion of the most delicious buttery guacamole, and a couple of servings of chorizo tacos. Amazing.

It was also a really charming place. No frills and not in any way poncy, it’s location also means that you have to make a real effort to get there, so people really go for the food. And there was a proper cross section of them. From the WASPy Santa Barbra set to students, Mexican locals and hipsters. I’d go back at the drop of a hat.

Super-Rica? As Omar Little would say, indeed.

Anyway, breakfast fast became our favourite meal of the day, and right here are out top four breakfasts from the trip.

Huevos Rancheros – literally ‘eggs ranch style’. Mexican style eggs (in this case scrambled with ham) served up on flour tortillas smothered in spicy tomato sauce, topped with black beans and avocado, with a side of home fries. Ay carrumba

Huevos Rancheros at The Crepevine, San Francisco

Hash & Eggs – despite the name, probably the poshest breakfast of the trip, but totally amazing. Spring onion, bacon and potato hash topped with a couple of poached eggs. The breakfast of champions.

Hash & Eggs at Rose's Cafe, San Francisco

Granola Waffles – I’m not a massive fan of majorly sweet stuff for breakfast, but these were insane. They were part of the make your own breakfast buffet at the place we stayed at in The Big Sur. When making the waffles you toss in a handful of the home made granola. Proper ying and yang business.

Granola Waffles with Banana, Nectarine and Maple at Treebones, Big Sur

Cornbread Egg Muffin – I know this looks like some kind of Scotch Egg disaster (not that there’s anything wrong with a Scotch Egg), but these took us by surprise. A slightly sweetened corn bread muffin, a touch of chili and a boiled egg in the middle. Awesometown.

Cornbread & Egg Muffin at Sweetcakes, Chicago

Ingredients

500g English strawberries

75g vanilla sugar

Juice of half a lemon

Method

Hull the strawberries (remove the leafy top and pale fruit) with the tip of a sharp knife and then wash. Dry off with a tea towel and place in a large pan. Add the vanilla sugar (vanilla sugar is easy to make – every time you scrape out a vanilla pod, put the remains in a jam jar with caster sugar – after a week or so the sugar will take on a lovely vanilla smell and taste) and lemon juice and stir.

Before you put the pan on the heat, get a saucer and place it in the fridge. I’ll explain why in a minute. Next, put the pan on a high heat and bring up to the boil while stirring. Before long the fruit will start to give up its juices, and the mixture will begin to resemble jam. You need to simmer the jam for about 10 minutes to bring it to setting point. A scum will probably develop on the surface of the mixture; skim this off every few minutes.

After 10 minutes take the pan off the heat, and dribble some of the mixture onto your cold saucer. Place the saucer back in the fridge. After a couple of minutes, take it out again and perform the ‘wrinkle’ test by running your finger through the mixture. If it wrinkles, the jam is at setting point and ready to store, if your finger slides through return to the heat for a few minutes and repeat the test.

If the jam is at setting point, put the mixture in a sterilised jar. You can sterilise jars by pouring in boiling water to the top or placing in the oven for a few minutes at 100ºC.

Leave the jam to cool and then eat or refrigerate. It should keep for 3 – 4 weeks.

I’m not sure why, but I was thinking about songs featuring food the other day. I was probably hungry. After a bit of brain wracking I came up with the following top 10.

Photo: Whipped Bakeshop

In no particular order:

1. AFX – Children Talking

Why do you hate mashed potatoes? A good slab of crazy from the Aphex Twin.

2. The JBs – Pass The Peas

Classic funk from the Godfather of soul’s backing band.

3. Harry McLintock – Big Rock Candy Mountain

My mate Matt who lives in New York introduced me to this. Also on the ‘Brother Where Art Thou’ soundtrack.

4. Mongo Santamaria – Watermelon Man

There are lots of versions of this track, but this is one of my favourites, and with a name like Mongo you can’t loose.

5. Link Wray – Beans & Fatback

First heard Link Wray’s stuff on an Andy Weatherall rockabilly mix. No idea what it’s got to do with pork fat and beans, but its a tune.

6. The Beastie Boys – Egg Man

Curtis Mayfield sampling gem from Paul’s Boutique.

7. Led Zeppelin – The Lemon Song

Citrus sauce from Led zep II.

8. ZZ Top – TV Dinners

A song about being addicted to TV dinners. An 80s oddity from the much underrated Top.

9. Booker T & The MGs – Green Onions

A funk standard from 1964. Classic.

10. Weird Al Yancovic – Eat It

The most food filled song I know, and a tribute to the late MJ. A fitting end to the list.

One of the first loaves I baked was a Focaccia. It’s surprisingly easy to make, and looks pretty impressive. Win win. Here’s how you make it.

Ingredients

500g strong white bread flour (you can also use Italian tipo ‘00′ flour) plus more for dusting

5g powdered dried yeast

7g ground salt

325ml warm water

Teaspoon of honey

Olive oil

Salt flakes and rosemary to garnish

Polenta (optional)

Method

Measure out 325ml of water in a measuring jug and stir in the honey and about a tablespoon of olive oil. When the honey has dissolved, add the yeast to the mixture and set aside while you measure out the other ingredients. This will give the yeast a chance to activate. Measure out the flour and salt in a large bowl and mix together. Then add the liquid to the flour and stir. The mixture will quickly come together, forming a dough. It’s best to get your hands in there now to form the dough into one lump.

When ready, turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and start to knead it. The dough will feel silky and and quite giving, but will become more resistant as you knead. This is a sign that the gluten is forming as you work it. If the dough sticks to the surface, dust with more flour. You need to knead it for around 10-15 minutes.

When you’ve done this flatten the dough into a disc around half an inch thick. Then pinch the edge, pull out slightly and then fold over and stick it to the centre of the disc. Do this all the way round, and then turn the dough over. You should have a rough ball. Now make this ball more even by cupping your hands around it, and bringing your hands together underneath, almost pinching the bass of the dough ball. Rotate the dough as you do this. It’s a bit of a technique, but you quickly get the hang of it.

Cover the dough ball in a light coating of olive oil and place in a bowl or proving basket, and put it somewhere warm covered with a damp tea towel or plastic bag for about an hour. Whilst the dough is rising, take a baking tray about 26 x 36 cm and oil it. I then like to sprinkle polenta on the tray, coating the inner surface as it gives the base of the Focaccia a nice finish.

After the hour, the dough should have more than doubled in size. Take it out of the bowl and ‘knock it back’. This basically means knocking the air out of it. Once you’ve done this, place it in the baking tray, and press the dough with your fingers so it covers the bottom of the tray, up to the corners. Cover again and place it in the same warm place.

The dough is now ‘proving’, which will take about another hour. Whilst it is doing this, put your oven on as high as it will go (at least 250ºC). After an hour or so, the dough will have risen again. Take off the towel and make indentations all over the surface by pressing your index finger into the dough almost all the way to the bottom. Then generously drizzle olive oil all over the surface of the dough, filling up the wells you’ve created with your finger. Then sprinkle with sea salt flakes and fresh rosemary.

The bread is ready for baking. Place it in the oven on a middle or high shelf and then close the door. Don’t disturb it at all for the next 10 minutes and this is when the bread will rise for the last time. After 10 minutes turn the oven down. Open the door and take a peek. If the crust is looking very brown turn the oven down to 180º or if golden to 200º. Bake for a futher 10 minutes, and then remove from the oven. Take the bread out of the tray, place on a cooling rack and drizzle with more olive oil.

It’s best eaten warm, so resist the tempatition of getting stuck in right away. Eat with a griddled aubergine, mozarella, tomato and basil salad. Nom nom nom.