A Brilliant Mint Sauce

So you’ve bought this amazing, incredibly expensive free range, organic piece of lamb. You’ve slow roasted it for hours until it’s just so ridiculously soft and moist that it’s practically falling from the bone. The accompanying roast potatoes are crispy, the vegetables perfect. Your guests are sitting at the table waiting. The expectation is high, but you’re feeling pretty smug. You bring out the lamb joint on a platter, to ‘ooohs’ ‘ahhhhs’ and gasps of appreciation. The beautiful meat enveloped in an invisible wafting cloud of sweet, mouth watering, lambness, silently cloaking your guests in it’s warmth. You carve and serve, savouring this moment. You are amazing. You are ‘The Daddy’…

Cough.
Retch.
SPLATTER.

That’s the sound of your guests, in unison, involuntarily projectile vomiting your beautiful Sunday lamb roast out onto your face, the walls, the table and each other in utter disgust. You look around the table, confused. They’re angry, there’s swearing and pointing, people are getting up and leaving. Your best friend gestures at you angrily as if shaking a handful of coffee beans. You don’t think he wants coffee.

And then slowly, it dawns on you. The awful cheap arse ready-made supermarket mint sauce accompanying your lamb. What a complete and utter fool you’ve been. It all could have been so different if you’d made it yourself.

*Curtain Closes*

Cheer up. I'm going to tell you how to ensure that this sorry, entirely realistic scene never happens to you.

But first, a bit of back-story.
In March this year, I ate at The Sportsman in Seasalter, Kent. Accompanying my lamb cutlet was the best mint sauce I’ve ever tasted. So amazing was it that both ‘E’ and myself sat there, awestruck for a full 5 minutes. Tasting, analyzing and debating just why the hell it tasted so good.

We’ve subsequently served lamb at our ‘Basement’ supper club a few times, and tried to recreate The Sportsman’s mint sauce each time. We think we’ve almost cracked it.
This simple recipe comes in two parts. A base mint sauce, and then a basic stock syrup made using Demerara sugar to sweeten it.

Mint Sauce

Makes 150ml (Easily enough for 6-8 people)

You’ll Need: -

(Base mint sauce)
150ml malt vinegar
Bunch of fresh mint
2 heaped tablespoons Demerara sugar

(Stock syrup)
Equal quantities of Demerara sugar and water, 200ml of each should do it.

(To Finish)
More fresh mint, finely chopped.

For the base mint sauce, there’s no need to pick or chop the mint, put it in a saucepan and pour over the vinegar. Add the sugar and bring to the boil, cook for a few minutes until the sugar has dissolved. Leave to cool. The mint sprig can be left in. This can be kept in a sealed jar, in the fridge pretty much indefinitely.

Make the stock syrup by bringing the sugar and water to the boil for around 2 minutes, until the sugar has dissolved and it becomes syrupy. You can use this straight away or keep in the fridge for up to 2-3 weeks.

To serve, strain a small pot or jug full of the base mint sauce into a small serving jug. Add a good handful of finely chopped mint and stir well. Add a generous amount of stock syrup, stir and taste. Too sharp? Add more and keep on adding small amounts until it’s exactly how you want it. The Demerara stock syrup adds a caramel note that really makes this mint sauce taste superb.

Finally, serve with your lamb and receive the adulation you so richly deserve.

Ewe’s Curd Cheesecake Mousse, Butterscotch Apple Sauce, Cobnut Crumb & Spiced Shortbread

This is a dessert we’ve served up at our Bristol based ‘Montpelier Basement’ supper club a few times recently, including our London debut at The Coach & Horses. It seemed to go down incredibly well, so I thought I’d write the recipe up on the blog .

In actual fact it's three recipes combined, stolen from three different chefs; Gordon Ramsay, Tom Kitchin and Jason Atherton. Between them they hold a multitude of Michelin stars but it took our culinary genius to slap the three elements all together in one bowl. So a massive 'in your face' Michelin starred chefs!

Ok first up, the ewe’s curd cheesecake mousse. This is an awesome recipe from Tom Kitchin. He uses Crowdie, which is a Scottish cream cheese. We used Homewood ewe’s curd instead, which is produced locally in Somerset by Tim & Angela Homewood, and is absolutely fantastic.

Cheesecake Mousse
Serves 4

450g Ewe’s Curd
125g Sugar
1 ½ Tbs Flour
1 Tbs Vanilla Extract
Zest of 1 Lemon
1 Egg
1 Egg Yolk

Preheat the oven to 150C. Mix the cheese, sugar, flour, vanilla and lemon zest in a blender until smooth. In a separate jug, mix the egg and egg yolk together, then pour into the blender with the cheese mixture and blend until smooth.

Pour into a 23cm baking dish and cover with foil. Bake for 35-40 minutes until set. (We cooked a much bigger volume, so it took quite a bit longer to set). Allow to cool and then transfer the mixture to a blender, and blitz until smooth. Leave to set in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

The butterscotch apple sauce is a Gordon Ramsay recipe, in fact, a component part of another dessert. It’s incredibly sweet but tastes amazing partnered with the slightly sour cheesecake mousse.

Butterscotch Apple Sauce
Serves 4

1 Large Granny Smith Apple, peeled cored and chopped.
1 Vanilla Pod
100g Caster Sugar, plus 2 Tbsp
100g Unsalted Butter
100ml Double Cream
Put the chopped apple in a small pan and sprinkle over 2 Tbs of water. Slit the vanilla pod and scrape out the seeds, adding them to the pan with 2 Tbs of caster sugar. Stir into the apple and heat until sizzling. Then cover and cook for 5-7 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft and pulpy. Cool then crush to a chunky puree with a fork.

In another saucepan, gently heat the 100g of sugar with a splash of water until melted. Stir occasionally. When clear, raise the heat, stir in the butter and cook to a light caramel. Do not stir at this point or it will become fudge.
Remove from the heat, and cool for 5 minutes before mixing in the cream. Cool to room temperature, before stirring in the apple puree. Refrigerate.

The third component is a Jason Atherton recipe for Spiced Shortbread. We’ve found it works really well, is incredibly simple to make and the spices give it a bit more of an interesting flavour.

Spiced Shortbread

225g Unsalted Butter, cubed and softened. Plus extra to grease tin.
250g Plain Flour
80g Rice Flour
¼ Tsp Salt
½ Tsp Ground Star Anise
¼ Tsp Ground Cinnamon
100g Golden Caster Sugar

Cinnamon Sugar Topping
1 Tsp Ground Cinnamon
1 Tbsp Golden Caster Sugar

Preheat the oven to 150C. Grease a 23cm square baking tin with butter and line it with buttered greaseproof paper, allowing plenty of overhang on opposite sides to act as handles.

Sift the flours, salt, star anise and cinnamon together into a large bowl; set aside. Using a mixer, beat the butter until soft and fluffy. Tip in the sugar and beat for 2 minutes on high speed until creamy. (You can do all this by hand, but it’s hard work!) Add the creamed mixture to the flour and knead together by hand until uniform in texture.
Press evenly into the prepared tin and bake for 1 hour until golden. Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes.

For the topping, mix together the cinnamon and the 1 tbsp of sugar in a small bowl.
Carefully lift the shortbread out of the tin (it's extremely fragile at this stage), using the overhanging paper as handles and place on a board. Cut it in half, and then into 1.5cm fingers. Sprinkle with the cinnamon-sugar mix (We also added a bit of leftover ground star anise to this). Place on a baking sheet, spaced apart and bake for another 10 mins to dry out. Transfer to a wire rack to cool and store in an airtight container.

Cobnut Crumbs

We sprinkled the final dish with cobnut crumbs. Basically roasted cobnuts which if you don’t know are like hazelnuts and smell absolutely incredible. Discard the outer husks, use a nutcracker to remove the shell and bake the nuts in a 150C oven for up to an hour, until hard and browned. Cool and then blitz to a crumb texture.


All that’s left to serve is a bit of assembly.

If you’re dexterous and suave, shape the cheesecake mousse into a quenelle and place delicately on the plate. Or if you’re me, dollop some on like a bricklayer shovelling cement. Next to this, add a generous portion of the butterscotch apple sauce. In an extremely cheffy asymmetric style, smugly place your spiced shortbread across the other two components. If you have a moustache, as this stage, you must twiddle it, if not, arch one eyebrow. Slice some apple and fan it out in a pleasingly pretentious fashion. Finally, sprinkle some cobnut crumb over everything.

Bon appétit. Your work here is done.

Phở - Veggie Vietnamese goodness

I absolutely love food, every aspect of it. I love reading about it, I love cooking, and I love eating in restaurants. Hushed and rarefied temples to fine dining? Hell yeah! Slutty takeaway grub, pawed at while I’m stumbling along the pavement on the way home bladdered? Tres Je’taime. I love that too…. I love it. I love it all.

And that’s the problem readers…I have too much love to give, far, far…. far too much. Often when I’m left feeling particularly bloated and corpulent after yet another week of loving excess, my thoughts turn to simpler, healthier pleasures.

It’s at these times I change into asymmetric natural robes of my own design that are soft, feather light and flow around my body like silk. I then spend hours in silent contemplation. Afterwards I like to exercise on a bamboo mat in the living room in my own freeform version of Tai Chi (involving lots of forward and backward rolls, slow motion ‘voguing’ with some particularly emotional mime action, all conducted to a custom soundtrack of wind chimes and monkey mating noises)*

As you can probably imagine, getting myself all Zen is extremely tiring and leaves a fella feeling particularly ravenous and sharp-set. What then could be more healthy and filling than a bowl of gorgeous Vietnamese noodle soup, pho?

I adore pho, particularly with slices of beef in it, but as ‘E’ is a pescetarian and…

A) It’s felt like too much like hard work to make a meaty version AND a non-meaty version

B) A non-meat version has to be healthier right? And the whole point is I’m trying to eat healthy here.

I set about throwing together a veggie pho.

I found a recipe online, and bastardised it a bit. The results were bloody good. Admittedly it’s probably not religiously authentic. I wouldn’t really know. I haven’t been to Vietnam. My only experience of eating pho is in the Vietnamese restaurants that line Kingsland Rd in London and in the eponymously named ‘Pho’, the small and rather excellent London and Brighton chain. You just can’t get decent pho at all in Bristol.

But the main thing is that it’s healthy and filling and tastes like it’s actually doing you some real good, cleansing your innards and leaving you both content and virtuous. (Which, lets face it, is a combination of feelings that is generally alien to most of us).

Veggie Pho

Serves 4

The recipe comes in two parts, which sounds more of a pain in the arse than it actually is. First you make the vegetarian broth, and then the second part is just a bit of slicing and assembly, basically slinging it all in a bowl. Start to finish; you can easily have the whole thing on the table in 30 mins. Oh and if you have an Asian grocery shop or supermarket near you, get all the ingredients there – it’ll cost sod all.

Veggie broth

You’ll need:

2 litres water
2 scant level tsp Marigold Veg bouillon (Unless you have 2 litres of decent veg stock knocking around – if so, definitely use that).
3 Tablespoons soy sauce
8 medium garlic cloves, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 small onion, diced
One-thumb size piece of ginger, unpeeled.
Two 3-inch cinnamon sticks
2 star anise
2 large bay leaves

Add water, veg bouillon or stock, soy sauce, garlic, and onion to a large stockpot and bring to a boil over medium heat.

Meanwhile, char the ginger on all sides over an open gas flame or in a small frying pan and add to the stock. (This is a completely new technique to me, not entirely sure what the point is, but suspect it adds a subtle ginger smokiness. The finished broth didn’t taste burnt at all, so just go with it).

Add the cinnamon, star anise, and bay leaves to the broth. Reduce the heat to low. Simmer, partially covered, for 20-25 minutes.

Strain the broth through a fine sieve. Adjust seasonings if necessary. Return to pot and keep hot until ready to use in Pho.

Vegetarian Pho

You’ll Need: -

2 Litres Vietnamese style broth (recipe above)
200g Rice noodles (I like the thicker ribbon type)
2 handfuls bean sprouts
4 Bok Choi – Leaves left whole, stems finely sliced.
1 handful of Basil leaves
1 handful Coriander, coarsely chopped
3 Spring Onions, finely sliced.
3 Tablespoons chopped, roasted, unsalted peanuts.
1 lime, cut into wedges
3 fresh red chilli peppers, sliced into rounds
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Whilst you’re making the Veggie broth in the recipe above, you can cook the noodles. Use the timings on the packet (normally soaked in boiling hot, but off the heat, water for 10 mins or so) drain and divide the noodles among four warmed bowls.

Assemble the soup by placing the bean sprouts, cabbage, greens, basil, coriander, spring onion, and peanuts on top of the noodles.

Ladle the hot broth onto the noodle mixture.


Eat it straightaway, whilst boiling hot. If you like a bit of heat, sling in the chillies. Definitely add a squeeze or two of lime and maybe a dash of soy or fish sauce if you think it needs it, scoff it down and feel that virtuous healthy feeling expand within you.

The great thing about a recipe like this is, it’s so adaptable, you can throw any fresh greens in really – spinach, chard, Savoy cabbage, finely sliced carrot whatever you have knocking around, it doesn’t have to be authentic, as long as it tastes good. Oh, and if you don't care about it being veggie, the following additions would all work well; cooked prawns, cooked shredded chicken or finely sliced roast beef.

*My own design asymmetric natural flowing robes, freeform Tai Chi program and wind chime/monkey shagging soundtrack are all available to purchase. Drop me an email at the usual address for a pricelist.

Pontack - An Elderberry sauce

Pontack is a venerable old English sauce that has been knocking around for at least 300 years. A slightly sharp but sweet reduction made from elderberries and spices. It’s the perfect accompaniment to rich gamey meat

It appears to have been first served in London’s Lombard Street in the 17th century. Named after its originator, Monsieur Pontack, proprietor of the eponymous Pontack’s Head Tavern, which according to André Simon was ‘London’s first fashionable eating house’. Jonathan Swift (author of Gulliver’s Travels) "found the wine dear at seven shillings a flagon". Proving perhaps that some things in London remain eternal.

We came across Pontack whilst researching what to serve with pigeon breasts at last weekend’s ‘Montpelier Basement’ (Our Bristol supper club). Elderberries are everywhere around our area right now, and it seemed like the perfect choice.

Famously Pontack is supposed to keep incredibly well, up to seven years in fact, maturing and mellowing with age. This fact is what actually put us off following any of the published recipes…we wanted to use it the next day and we weren’t entirely sure how it would taste after such a comparatively short time.

So, after much umming and ahhhing we ended up making a semi-bastardised recipe of our own, a sort of Pontack’esque elderberry reduction. Success! It was absolutely bloody gorgeous.

Montpelier Basement Pontack

Makes (after being reduced by half to serve) …350ml

You’ll need: -
450ml Water
650g of de-stalked and washed Elderberries
180ml Red Wine Vinegar
200g Golden Caster Sugar
5 Shallots – finely chopped
4 Cloves
4 Allspice berries
¾ Whole Nutmeg – grated
2 tsp cracked black peppercorns
Pinch of salt


First strip and wash your elderberries from the stalks (The stalks are actually slightly toxic, small bits are fine, but don’t leave any large bits in). Dan’s first rule of cooking is ‘don’t poison yourself’…. perhaps you should mutter this gently to yourself as you carry on making the rest of the sauce. By the way, the easiest way to strip the berries is to use a fork. Easy.

Next, put the sugar and red wine vinegar in a pan, and heat gently until the sugar dissolves. Turn up the heat slightly, and boil until it slightly thickens and becomes ‘syrupy’.

Add the water, elderberries, shallots and all the spices. Stir and simmer for 5 mins and strain through a fine sieve.

If using straight away, reduce by half.


If not, pour into a prepared sterilised jar, it should keep for a good while (maybe even seven years…. but seeing as we’ve messed with the recipe, don’t hold us to that!). But, and this is the main thing…. It’s absolutely cracking to use right away, just reduce it a bit before serving… to get it nice, thick and glossy. You’ll only need about a tablespoon per person, so this amount makes about enough for 30 odd portions. Its a perfect accompaniment to game birds and also supposedly very good with liver or kidneys.

Celery Ice Cream

If one day, you hooked me up to some brain monitoring equipment. You could be forgiven at first for thinking the equipment was broken. Surveying the absence of any activity on the screen, you’d unplug and re-check every connection again and again, mystified as to what could possibly be wrong. You may eventually, patience stretched to snapping point; exasperated; punch the equipment violently. Meanwhile, I’d look on with a docile expression, serene, with not an actual thought in my head to register a blip, for herein lies the problem. Suddenly, without warning, the screen explodes into a frenzy of activity, you’d glance around at me excitedly to see my countenance, fraught and positively terrified as neurons and synapses frantically engage. I may even howl in distress as a crescendo of activity is reached. And then, as suddenly as it began, a silence that seems to draw out…forever….

I speak.
You’re stunned.

“Celery Ice-Cream”

Every now and again, dull mediocrity is punctuated by genius. That genius is celery ice cream and hot Stilton fritters.
*Needle skids across record*
Ok, not Stilton fritters. I tried making them, I thought they’d partner the ice cream perfectly, they didn’t. At all... So lets just forget I even mentioned that idea.

But celery ice cream standing alone, strong and proud, worked. It was beautiful, creamy, vegetal, and slightly peppery. And, the only recipe I could find for it online was an incredibly cheffy type one, for which you’d need a centrifuge, a team of bespectacled scientists and a chemistry set. Staring at these instructions uncomprehending, I gradually went boss eyed and gave up. Deciding instead to make up my own recipe.

Celery Ice Cream
(Makes about 1 litre)

You’ll Need: -

1 Bunch Celery, washed, trimmed and cut roughly into chunks
250ml Whole Milk
500ml Double Cream
3 Egg Yolks
100g Sugar

In a saucepan, add the celery to the milk and double cream. Bring to the boil. Turn off the heat, and allow to infuse for 1 hour.

Strain into a bowl, discarding the celery but giving it a good squeeze to get all the flavour out.

In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar.
Add the celery milk and mix. Return to the pan and over a low heat; stir constantly until it coats the back of a wooden spoon. Don’t allow it to boil, or you’ll end up with scrambled celery eggs.

Remove from the heat, and cool (I use the sink full of cold water and some ice cubes). Continue stirring until its cooled right down.

Put the cool custard into the fridge, with Clingfilm directly covering the surface to stop a skin forming. Leave to rest overnight (I left it for a good day and a half before churning).

Churn in an ice cream maker, until firm, smooth and creamy. Transfer to a plastic tub and freeze until needed. Voila – Celery Ice Cream.

Now, to my mind, the only question is, what goes well with it? Believe me, Stilton fritters definitely don’t. I’ve canvassed opinion amongst friends and colleagues, and suggestions have included a Bloody Mary sorbet, chocolate, more celery in the form of a granita, and a Stilton ice cream.

What do you think?

An amazing Potato Soup

Right now, the weather is so bloody nice, it makes a post about soup seem almost perverted somehow. But last week I made the best soup, well...ever basically. It absolutely blew me away and I just have to write about it. In any case, this being Britain, it'll probably be snowing next week. When it does, you'll all be thanking me for this.

It's a potato soup based on a recipe from the legendary Simon Hopkinson, who pinched it from the once legendary Walnut Tree restaurant, so it's actually legendary multiplied by two. Therefore, logically, an über legendary recipe. Tres legend as we say in Essex.
BTW - I've heard whispers that Mr Hopkinson has a new six part cookery series airing on the BBC this summer. Titled 'The Good Cook' I reckon It's going to be a must watch.

This recipe is interesting in that despite it's apparent simplicity and it's unusual 'boil it to death' cooking technique the resulting soup is fantastic. Honestly, it's frigging awesome. It's also extremely adaptable. We used the recipe as a base for a wild garlic version to serve at our 'Montpelier Basement' supper club recently and it worked really well.



Potato Soup with Porcini

Serves 4-6

You'll Need:-

5 Medium Potatoes (I used Maris Piper).
2 Cloves Garlic
60g Butter
Salt and Pepper
200g Porcini finely diced (The recipe calls for fresh mushrooms, but I used dried, and used the resulting mushroom 'soaking liquid' to loosen up the soup and add more flavour).
250ml Single Cream
2 Tbsp finely chopped parsley
Freshly Grated Parmesan Cheese
1 White Truffle, shaved (Optional...thank God for that!)

Peel and roughly chop the potatoes.
Boil them in salted water with the garlic. Cook until the potatoes disintegrate.
Pass the potatoes, cooking water and garlic through a mouli (If you don't have one, I guess you could push through a sieve with a wooden spoon, but it'd be hard work - definitely DON'T blitz or liquidise spuds - they turn to wallpaper paste).
Return to the heat. Add half the butter, salt and freshly ground black pepper. Beat the mixture with a whisk, if it's too thick (It almost certainly will be) loosen with some water, or if you used dried porcini, the mushroom 'stock' from re-hydrating them.

Saute the Porcini (dried or fresh) in the remaining butter and put to one side.

Add the cream and parsley to the soup.
Check the seasoning and consistency carefully, it should be velvety and impossibly creamy.
Serve in warm bowls, with the porcini piled on top and liberally smothered with grated parmesan and a nice drizzle of good olive oil.



Alternatively, omit the porcini (if you wish...or leave it in!) and stir through a good hand full of chopped wild garlic with the parsley and cream, at the end for a... errr...wild garlic version.

Faggots braised in Bristol Beer Factory Bitter

Where it comes to meat, I’m an unrepentant consumer. I’m at my absolute happiest with a severed hoof hanging limply out of my mouth, whilst I clutch a blood spattered cleaver and drag an industrial polythene bag containing at least 2 Kilos of unidentifiable, bloody animal parts along with my other hand.

I go too far with the imagery perhaps, (just a little) but what I'm driving at, and I feel this can only be expressed in the following, almost primal sentence - ‘I likes me meat’, and I'm in no way squeamish about it in a raw state. Ever.

At least, I wasn’t. Until I made Faggots last week.

I was making the aforementioned meaty balls (steady) for our ‘Montpelier Basement’ supper club, and when I say ‘I’, it was very literally just me, a one-man show. ‘E’ had recoiled in horror long before at the sheer meaty carnage and was hiding somewhere in the house

It wasn’t just one or two that I had to make, I could have handled that, but I had to make 30 cricket ball sized globes, which meant digging my hands into 2 kilos of minced, pink, sticky, gelatinous seriously Offaly smelling pigs liver and then stirring through various spices, more pig; in the shape of a kilo of minced pork belly; breadcrumbs and herbs.

It was good stuff, Gloucester Old Spot, but strangely it didn't make me feel any better as I looked down into this quivering cauldron of mangled pig parts. I'm ashamed to say I almost broke. I really didn't fancy putting my mitts in there. But then quite suddenly, I got a grip and with a small sigh and a ‘lets get on with this’ shrug of resignation, of the type you’ll often see from new parents changing a particularly loathsome shitty nappy, I relented and slowly sank my hands in, seemingly up to the elbow

Warm and sticky.

I’d be hard pressed to describe anything about the process pleasant, but I got stuck in and it wasn’t long before the breadcrumbs and spices had mixed through nicely with the meat and it all looked a hell of a lot more palatable. By the time I’d rolled out a couple of trays of neat looking porky spheres, I was feeling quite pleased with myself.

Next came wrapping them in Caul fat. I’d read about its use often, but never actually got my hands on some. It’s basically the membrane that surrounds a pig’s internal organs and looks almost web like in appearance. It’s awesome stuff with amazing stretching qualities. I little goes a long way, and it wasn't long before my meaty globes (hahaha) were encased in the most incredibly organic looking wrappers.

We’d decided to braise them in a combination of chicken stock and gorgeous Bristol Beer Factory No.7 Bitter. Not to blow our own trumpet (much) they were a thumping success.
Everyone almost with exception absolutely loved them. I tried one, and it was surprisingly light, quite spicy and intensely meaty. We served each with some local Sharpham Park pearled spelt (cooked in the same way as a risotto, with chopped sage stirred through at the end), and buttered Savoy Cabbage.

If I’m honest, it’s probably one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever cooked. To make something so excellent out of such seemingly unappetising ingredients really strikes a chord for my inner peasant.

Here’s the recipe.

Gloucester Old Spot Faggots braised in Bristol Beer Factory No.7

Serves 6

You’ll Need: -

20g butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed.
sea salt and black pepper
1/3 Tsp ground mace
1/3 Tsp allspice
Pinch of cayenne pepper
1 Tsp chopped sage
1 Tsp chopped thyme
1 heaped Tbsp of finely chopped parsley
400g pork liver, trimmed and minced
250g minced pork belly (Gloucester Old Spot if available).
125g fresh white breadcrumbs
150g caul fat – soaked in water

For the Gravy: -

15g butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 Tbsp plain flour
½ Tsp tomato puree
250ml Bristol Beer Factory No-7 Bitter
500ml chicken stock
Dash of Worcestershire Sauce

To make the faggots, melt the butter in a small pan and add the onion, garlic and a pinch of salt and pepper. Sweat for 6-8 minutes until soft but not coloured. Tip into a large mixing bowl and leave to cool.

Tip in ALL of the rest of the ingredients, (except the caul fat) and season well. Think happy thoughts and get your hands in there, mixing well.
Divide the mixture into 6 portions, and roll into neat balls. Place on a tray, cover with Clingfilm and chill for at least 30mins to firm up.

Preheat the oven to 200C.Wrap each faggot in the caul fat, overlapping the edges, which should stick.Place in a lightly oiled roasting tray, spacing apart. Press to flatten very slightly, season and bake for 30-35 mins until browned.

Whilst this is happening, make the gravy.

Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the onion. Season and sweat. Stir frequently for 5-6 mins, until beginning to soften. Stir in the flour and the tomato purée to make a paste. Stir for a minute or 2, and then pour in the Bitter, stirring the whole time.

Boil and reduce by two thirds. Pour in the chicken stock, and bring back to a simmer for 10-15mins, until slightly thickened. Season to taste, and add a few dashes of Worcestershire Sauce.

Pour the gravy over the faggots to coat them all and bake for another 10-15mins. Baste them halfway through and serve when the faggots are nicely glazed.

(Recipe adapted from the rather excellent Great British Pub Food)

P.S.

Exciting news, and validation in particular of how cool I am, and by association, how cool you lot are for reading my blog. We’re all frigging tres cool basically, and here’s the reason why.
In the latest issue of Esquire, glossy magazine for the discerning gentleman, I was listed as one of the ‘5 Food Bloggers the restaurants fear’.Which I don’t believe for a second, but it stroked my needy and fragile ego rather nicely, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Red Onion & Red Wine Soup

Regular visitors to my blog may have heard me mention ‘The Eagle Cookbook’ once or twice in the past two years.
Despite amassing a collection of cookbooks large enough that I can almost legitimately refer to the living room as ‘The upstairs library’, this eponymous recipe book remains one of my absolute favourites.

In fact, despite seemingly cooking through it from cover to cover, I still managed to idly flick through the other day and stumble across yet another excellent rustic recipe that had somehow escaped my attention.

This ones an absolute cracker as well, managing to use up a whole bottle of red wine and a rather spectacular heap of twelve red onions (Since starting ‘The Basement’ we often seem to have the odd spare bottle of red lurking, which makes me think I’m beginning to show my age here…not so long ago, it would have been sloshing down my gullet in the blink of an eye - if you're reading this, aghast at the very prospect of leftover wine, I salute you).

So, if you’re the proud owner of a red wine/red onion mountain, this one is for you. The dish is apparently northern Italian in origin, and is a bit of a warming winter soup, so seeing as more snow is knocking around parts of the UK right now, perhaps get it in before spring begins proper.
Oh, it’s served with Parmesan Bruschetta – which are ridiculously easy to make and are an integral part of the dish, so don’t omit these, ok?

Red Onion & Red Wine Soup with Parmesan Bruschetta

Serves 6

You’ll Need: -

1 Bottle of red wine
4 Cloves
4 Bay Leaves
A few sprigs of Thyme
50g Butter
4 Tbs Olive Oil
12 Red Onions, sliced
4 Garlic cloves, chopped
2 Teaspoons tomato puree
500ml Vegetable stock
2 Tbs Balsamic Vinegar
1 Teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the Parmesan Bruschetta

6 Slices ‘country-style’ bread (I used sourdough).
2 Garlic cloves, peeled and halved
Extra virgin olive oil
Freshly grated Parmesan

Pour the wine into a large saucepan or casserole; add the cloves, bay leaves and half the thyme. Boil over a high heat until reduced by half. Strain, reserving the liquid. In the same saucepan, melt the butter with the olive oil. Add the red onions and garlic. Cook slowly over a medium heat until tender, stirring now and again. (This will take at least 30 mins).
Add the reduced wine, tomato puree, vegetable stock and the remaining thyme. Cook at a gentle simmer for half hour. Stir in the balsamic vinegar and cinnamon, simmer for another 15 mins and season.

To make the Bruschetta, toast the bread on a griddle or in a dry, heavy frying pan. Rub with garlic, and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil. Sprinkle with loads of Parmesan. Don’t be stingy.

Put a piece of Parmesan Bruschetta in each bowl, and pour over the soup. Garnish with thyme.


This soup is absolutely gorgeous, rich and sweet. In the photo I balanced the Bruschetta on top, but only so you, the reader, can see them. Otherwise, they’d be hidden under the soup. (Always thinking me). Oh and rather than the suggested 1 each, I decided 3 was a much safer bet, greedy bastardo that I am.
As is often the case with soups and stews, this tastes just that much better re-heated the next day.

Homewood Fresh Ewe’s Cheese & Blood Orange Salad with Bristol Marmalade Croutons

In our ‘Montpelier Basement’ guise, ‘E’ and I were proud to be asked to provide lunch for the attendees of Bristol’s ‘Cheese School’ on Sunday, a fascinating regular class on all things cheese, jointly hosted by Trethowan’s Dairy and Food Writer Fiona Beckett, held at the Bordeaux Quay cookery school.

The brief was something light (as the ‘pupils’ had been gorging themselves on amazing artisan cheese all morning), but it also had to feature cheese in some way. (My initial thought of cheese& pineapple on cocktail sticks interspersed with Wotsits as a buffet option was swiftly vetoed).
Despite this initial setback (I mean come on! It fitted the brief perfectly), we eventually came up with an amazing yet simple and flavoursome cauliflower cheese soup using excellent Keen’s cheddar, this was topped with small pieces of welsh rarebit made with Trethowan’s own beautiful Gorwydd Caerphilly. (‘E’ has thoughtfully provided the recipe for the soup here on her blog).

In addition, we served a salad of our own invention, using sliced little gem, tossed with Homewood Fresh Ewe’s Cheese, Blood Orange segments and Bristol Marmalade Croutons. Over this we drizzled a warm marmalade dressing.

What’s really nice about this salad is that a local couple makes both the Cheese AND the Marmalade. Tim and Angela who actually met whilst selling their produce on adjoining stalls at a farmers market. (Tim selling his cheeses, Angela selling her jams and chutneys). Talk about ‘terroir’ eh? (If that reference just sailed over your head, ‘terroir’ is a bit of a vague slightly poncey French term to describe a special sense of 'place', with regards to food or wine.) I think this qualifies.

Anyway, enough of my babbling here’s the recipe….

Homewood Fresh Ewe’s Cheese & Blood Orange Salad with Bristol Marmalade Croutons

Serves 4

You’ll Need:-

2 x Little Gem Lettuce – leaves roughly shredded
1x Blood Orange – peeled, segmented and cut into 1cm chunks
2x slices of stale white bread, crusts removed and cut into 1cm cubes for croutons
Small 150g pot Homewood Fresh Ewe’s Milk Cheese
2-3 tbsp. Bristol Marmalade (Substitue normal Marmalade + a splash of Bristol sherry if unavailable).
4 tbs Olive Oil
1 tbs Sherry Vinegar
Butter
Salt & Pepper
2 tsp Pumpkin Seeds – lightly toasted.

To Assemble:-

Arrange the shredded little gem lettuce in a large serving bowl.
Scatter the lettuce with Blood Orange chunks, toasted Pumpkin Seeds and then crumble over the Homewood Fresh Ewe’s Milk Cheese.

Make the marmalade croutons by melting a large knob of butter in a frying pan, when foaming add the bread cubes. Toss in the melted butter and fry until crisp and golden. Add a heaped tbsp of Bristol Marmalade to the pan, and coat the croutons as it melts. Remove from the heat and allow to cool briefly to firm up before sprinkling the croutons over the salad.

To make the dressing, pour the Olive Oil into the same frying pan, with the Sherry Vinegar, and a heaped tbs of the Bristol Marmalade. Cook over a fairly high heat until the marmalade has melted and then drizzle the warm dressing over the finished salad. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

PS – I think I should mention that Angela’s Bristol Marmalade is so called because it has Bristol Sherry in it. And for those outside Bristol looking to buy some Homewood Fresh Ewe’s milk Cheese, it’s stocked by Able & Cole.

Two months in a Bristol kitchen (Or, why we are fat - Part 1)

I’ve lived with ‘E’ in Bristol for about two months now. We are both seriously into food, she owning a café and catering business and me writing this here food blog. As you’d expect the kitchen has seen a whirlwind of activity since we moved into our new home, which considering we are both from Essex has become a little part of the motherland in the South West.

So, what have we been cooking? – what happens when two food obsessed geeks co-habit?

Lets start the summer off with the premium Weber BBQ that I frigging won…yes WON! at the Grill Stock event held on Bristol’s harbourside in July. Tres impressive eh?
‘E’ and I wasted no time in firing it up. The first things we cooked on our new premium BBQ (Did I mention that I won it? As in – I WON IT?) were…Yoghurt marinated paneer flatbreads with charred shallots, rocket, piquillo peppers and a chilli and yoghurt sauce. Oh that's right, ‘E’ is a pescetarian so, sickeningly the first meal we cooked contained no meat. A crime against all that is holy in the BBQ world you might think, and you’d be right. Although it was bloody nice…but that’s beside the point.


BBQ event part deux was a much more elaborate affair involving a selection of side dishes, barbecued squid (which didn’t so much as BBQ with a satisfying chargrilled hiss as we expected, but whimpered and sweated a bit) the coals weren’t quite hot enough for our cephalopodic chum. Still it wasn’t bad when torn up and mixed with a lovely rocket and lemon salad.


Alongside the squid we served a chickpea, parsley and red onion salad and a baby gem, barbecued pepper and anchovy salad with a seriously garlicky dressing.


As if that wasn’t enough, we barbecued some corn on the cob (which took bloody ages by the way). In the spirit of frugality and thinking ourselves just a bit clever, we smothered it with a re-used herb and chilli infused butter lurking in the fridge (forgetting that it was also infused with anchovies). Bleurgh! Sweetcorn and anchovy – not a classic combination people, for good reason.

Sadly, just as we were getting into our BBQ stride, the British summer weather did what it does best, and started pissing it down for days on end. Obviously we like to cook seasonally, but it seems like we’ve had every season in one month. We went from summery salads to craving steaming hot stews and other wintery comfort food within the course of a week.

In times like this, there’s only one dish that satisfies these kinds of autumnal desires and it’s my old favourite Chickpea and Chorizo stew. But once again, hitting the buffers like a runaway meat train carrying an express delivery of 6 thousand tonnes of pork sausages – I slammed into ‘E’s pescatarian tendencies and derailed. But hey, lets not fight over spilt lentils man. I adapted my recipe and made a vegetarian version (sort of - ok, it has anchovies in it), which is cheaper, more healthy and tasted pretty much like the original. Win.


Adapted Chickpea and Chorizo Stew (With no Chorizo – but plus other stuff).

Serves 4-6

2 Handfuls mushrooms, thickly sliced
3 Salted anchovies - rinsed.
1 Medium Red Onion - chopped
1 Red Bell Pepper - deseeded and chopped
Olive Oil
2 Garlic Cloves - chopped
1 and a 1/2 Teaspoons dried Oregano
250g Passata
2x 400g Cans Chickpeas, drained with 75ml of the water reserved.
100ml Red Wine
500ml Vegetable Stock or water.
Hand Full of fresh flatleaf parsley chopped.
Black Pepper

Fry the anchovy, onion and bell pepper in a large saucepan over a fairly high heat until it begins to colour

Add the mushrooms and fry until brown, turn the heat down, and add the garlic and oregano and fry for a few more minutes. Add the passata, chickpeas. chickpea water, wine, stock and some pepper. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 Mins. Add the roughly chopped parsley to serve.

We chargrilled some bread to serve on the side, but it’s also good with a heap of rice in the bottom of the bowl to stretch it out. Oh, and personally I like a load of white pepper on it. But ‘E’ hates it, although she is partial to a pint of sherry on the side.

And then, there was Yoghurt….
As a food blogger I often get sent stuff to try, and perhaps mention on this very blog. And thus, this is how the good people at Total sent me enough Greek yoghurt to fill a swimming pool. Making room in the fridge for this yoghurt bonanza meant we had room for pretty much nothing else, so we frantically racked our mungus brains for recipes to use up this dairy based bounty.

The Moro cookbook proved to be a happy hunting ground for appropriate recipes and two in particular looked like they’d use up a good few gallons of the white stuff.


First of all we tried a dish that had been recommended to us both, featuring the frankly weird and rather icky marriage of poached egg and yoghurt. Taking our first tentative forkfuls of ‘poached eggs with yoghurt, sage and chilli flakes’ no one was more surprised than us when it turned out to be frigging awesome. Dare I say, the best yoghurt and egg-based dish I’ve ever eaten, no really – it was amazingly good.


We also made a ‘Leek and yoghurt soup with dried mint’ which personally I quite liked, but ‘E’ wasn’t so keen on it, although it did use up 350g of our Yoghurt mountain, which could be considered something of a result.

We needed a break from yoghurt. Inspired by an excellent and free fresh pasta cookery class (held in a marquee located in Cabot Circus) by the Bordeaux Quay cookery school, we returned and broke out the Italian recipe books. Deciding that fresh pizza dough was the way to go (neither of us having made pizzas at home before) we quickly assembled the necessary ingredients and in no time were throwing dough all over the place in a incompetent approximation of someone who actually knows what they’re doing. Naturally I excelled and my time spent at the La Cucina Caldesi cookery school in London wasn’t wasted (Ok – 1 hour at a Moretti beer sponsored event, but hey – I rock).


‘E’ went for the somewhat surprisingly traditional potato and rosemary topping. I went off piste with an elk salami (a present from Sweden), fennel seed, caper, basil and red onion combo.


The results were frankly impressive, even if I do say myself. Beautifully crisp bases, better than pretty much any I’ve eaten in anywhere but the best pizza restaurants (Pizza Hut – I’m NOT looking at you). In addition we had great fun making them, it was a superb way to spend an evening…oh and they’re cheap (if you’ve got some elk sausage knocking about like I have).

That’s it for part one, people. More thrills, spills (and no doubt yoghurt) coming up in part two.

Blackberries – Or how to maim yourself making jam

A somewhat melodramatic title you may be thinking?

Not if you were a fly on the wall last Sunday in the Bristol kitchen I share with 'E'. You would have observed us ducking and dodging spitting globules of bubbling, scalding hot sugary jam erupting volcanically from swirling purple depths of death. Meanwhile, if this didn't present quite enough danger, we heroically manhandled a ridiculousy oversized, steaming hot cauldron of water, attempting to sterilise the Kilner jars. Frankly I'm amazed neither of us suffered life threatening burns.

Our thoughts on jam making, after surviving this trial?
“Holy shit, how do little old ladies manage it?”

Thinking about it whilst nursing frazzled nerves and singed fingers, the whole process from start to finish was fraught with danger. It being the season, we foraged our blackberries from a winding, inner city footpath often frequented by some of the less savoury characters of Bristol society – yes you unwashed, baggy hole ridden jumpered, dreadlocked eco-warriors, I'm looking in your direction. The utter bastards had been there already and picked over the brambles, leaving us with no option but to take ever increasing risks to procure the really juicy berries. This involved variously; amateur acrobatics, rock climbing railway arches, stretching through impossibly tiny gaps in railings and pulled muscles all round. Add to this numerous scratches from brambles, stings from nettles and screams (from me) as I avoided countless whopping spiders and you might say a fun afternoon was had by all.

Yes, the risks and associated dangers are huge – but dear readers, so are the rewards. The satisfaction you get from making a huge pot of tasty jam, made almost entirely from gratis ingredients is enough to make a grown man blubber with pride. That's not to mention the blackberry and ginger puddings and 'E's' incredibly good blackberry crumble cake.

Altogether, after three hours of foraging we amassed just over a kilo of berries (our foraging careers will not make us millionaires). We set aside the majority for our jam making exercise, a handful for the steamed puddings and the rest for the cake.


First the jam. I've already mentioned the sheer health and safety nightmare involved in its making, so I won't go into too much detail except to say that we used the Ballymaloe recipe using apples to boost the pectin levels (blackberries are notoriously low in pectin and therefore difficult to make set successfully – check out my mungus jam making brain).

The jam we produced was pretty damn good for a first attempt, and just over half a kilo and one apple made enough so that we'll be eating it for months (if we managed to sterilise the jar correctly and it doesn't go mouldy).

The baked blackberry and stem ginger puddings are a Skye Gyngell recipe from the rather excellent 'A year in my kitchen' and only require three or four blackberries per person, so therefore perfect for the less successful and committed foragers out there.

The recipe is quick to make and absolutely cracking,


Baked blackberry and stem ginger pudding

Serves 4

You'll need:-

100g unsalted butter, softened. Plus extra to grease
100g caster sugar
2 eggs
100g self raising flour
finely grated zest of two lemons
4 knobs of preserved stem ginger in syrup, drained and finely chopped
Pinch of salt
4 Tbsp golden syrup
12 blackberries

Preheat the oven to 180C.
Butter four individual pudding basins and set aside.
Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Sift in the flour, and fold in gently. Add the lemon zest, stem ginger and a restrained pinch of salt. Fold in until evenly mixed.

Put 1 Tbsp of golden syrup and 3 blackberries into each pudding mould and spoon the sponge mixture on top. Cover each mould loosely with a piece of buttered foil and stand the moulds on a backing tray.
Bake for 30 mins until well risen and cooked through.
Run a knife around each pudding and turn out onto a warmed plate.


The following evening and not sick of foraged berries yet, with the remaining haul, I helped 'E' bake a frigging superb crumble cake, using her own recipe.


'E's' blackberry crumble cake

Serves 6

You'll need:-

140g self raising flour
½ Tsp ground ginger
50g caster sugar
1 egg
4 Tbsp milk
85g salted butter, melted.
250-300g blackberries

For the topping:-

25g plain flour
¼ Tsp ground ginger
25g caster sugar
25g cold butter, diced


Preheat the oven to 180C
Butter a 7” cake tin and line the base with greaseproof paper.
Sift flour, ginger and sugar together.
Into a well in the centre, pour the egg, milk and melted butter. Mix well and pour into the tin.
Smooth surface and scatter the blackberries over evenly.

Make the topping by rubbing all of the ingredients together with your fingertips to make a crumble mixture.
Scatter the topping over the blackberries and bake for 35-45 mins until the cake is firm and the surface is golden.


It tastes great warm, straight from the oven but keeps well, covered, for at least a couple of days.

So, there's still loads of blackberries out there on the bushes, just waiting for you to rip your hands to bits on the thorns or give yourself a hernia reaching for that really elusive plump specimen, so get out there and try not to hospitalise yourselves too much.