The Dark(er) Side

What with the longer nights and Halloween just gone and the world plunging into ever deeper financial crisis, I thought I’d share with you a few items that really tap into the mood of the moment. I’m sitting here on my uncomfortable sofa in my living room in cold windy Guernsey, tapping away to Jazz FM (Diesel is bowling so I get to spend my evening TV free. I almost feel like a student again. Except I’m not wearing my coat indoors), full of beans, enjoying a large glass of Merlot. I’ll try and get it all out my system so the next post is a bit more cheery.

Dinner

It was totally filthy and wrong, in a ‘South American slasher film, directed by Heinz, guest starring a bit of classic British sauce and a fiery Mexican with a lot of bottle’ kind of a way. Brown toast, spread with a generous layer of garlic and herb Philadelphia, sprinkled with a very liberal application of jalapeno peppers, piping baked beans, HP sauce, fresh black pepper, chipotle Tabasco and celery salt. Don’t ask me where I got my inspiration from, like I said, it must be time of the year or a full moon or something. It was delicious. Go on, I dare you.

‘Adopt a Pig’

Maybe it’s me, but does the word ‘adoption’ really marry very well with anything that you may at some point in the future want to kill and eat? Reading ‘Food and Travel’ (November 2011 edition) the other day I came across an advert for ‘Yorkshire Meats’ (www.yorkshiremeats.co.uk) who have taken the whole responsible eating idea and taken it, in my view, a step too far. I am passionate about eating quality meat from animals that have been treated with respect and not factory farmed and all the rest of it, so much so that I’m happy to eat far less meat than ever and pay more for it (it should definitely cost more than £6 to produce a chicken).

This however does not mean that I want to name the animal I’m going to eat, receive regular e-mails on its progress, a photo of it as an adorable piglet and at six month intervals until the day I decide it looks fat enough to go off to get murdered. I mean Christ, if eating meat isn’t barbaric enough; surely it’s worse if you want to eat one that you have ‘adopted’. I believe everyone should see an animal get slaughtered - even just once. If you can’t come face to face with the reality then you shouldn’t eat meat. And it is horrific, awful, and I have great respect for people who do the dirty work and the animals themselves, but everyone needs distance. If I adopted a pig, named it Dave, had it’s ‘first day at big school’ photos stuck to the fridge and received regular e-mails informing me about how he’s getting on with the other pigs, when the time came I’d probably rather invest in a plot of land and a cosy shed for Dave to live out his days until nature took its course. Adopt a pig? You make me sick.

Man vs Food

(http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Man_V_Food)

For anyone who has not watched this before, the show essentially revolves around a chubby New York chef eating his way around The States focussing on all known food related extremes. The hottest, the biggest, the spiciest, the fattest...you get the picture. This TV show demonstrates perfectly everything that is wrong with our relationship with food in the West. And yet I just can’t get enough of it. It is disgusting, ridiculous, repetitive, but it is also far and away my favourite food show on TV at the moment. There have been so many TV shows on in recent years that focus on angry chefs, high end food, and ‘the toughest, most intense, biggest competition ever, part 10’ blah, blah, blah, that I’ve almost had enough. In any case it hasn’t been the same since we lost the late great Floyd (I met him once, I’ll tell you about it another day).

I can only compare it to spending all day walking round the National Gallery with a guide who has a PHD in art history and a one-time captive audience, and then at 5pm, running out into Trafalgar Square, taking all your clothes off and jumping into an enormous bath of jelly with Grayson Perry and Tracey Emin who get you drunk on Champagne and tickle you with enormous feathers. You know it’s wrong, but you’re doing it because it feels nice. I know this TV show is awful, but it feels really nice. My brain may be melting out my ears, but at least I’ll go with a smile on my face.

www.thisiswhyyourefat.com

Now no longer working it would appear. I did find a few classics on this blog though:

http://www.bite.ca/bitedaily/2010/08/best-of-this-is-why-youre-fat/

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

Hedone

http://www.hedonerestaurant.com/

I only add this here because it is a bit frightening (tenuous link I know) how excited I am about an upcoming hot (birthday inspired) lunch date I have with Romaine Butler at new(ish) restaurant ‘Hedone’ in Chiswick. To say I am excited about this is something of an understatement. I heard about it in AA Gill’s review in the Sunday Times this week (I may have mentioned I’m a massive fan once or twice) and he gave it five stars for both food and atmosphere. That was all the encouragement I needed. Amazingly I got a table no problem, but watch this space people. I’ve been frantically doing all the research I can on this place and I think we’ll be hearing a lot more about it as it becomes more established. What makes this place so exciting for me is that it is owned and run by a blogger with a passion for sourcing perfect produce. Rumour has it he spent a whole year before opening day researching and deciding which suppliers he was going to use. One review I read called this place a ‘food nerd’s paradise’. Unfortunately the website is pretty shite, so I’ve taken what I can from other bloggers and reviews. I think it’ll be an expensive one so I’ll make sure I quaff enough wine to make the bill ‘hilarious’ rather than ‘terrifying’, and if I’m brave enough I’ll try and take a few photos to post here as well. If excitement was fake tan, right now in an orange room you would only be able to see my teeth and eyes.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/restaurants/review-23973822-hedone-w4---review.do

Feed

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0445965/

I’ll leave this with you. It’s a food based horror film, and it is Absolutely Disgusting. If you do watch it, do not, I repeat, DO NOT watch it clutching a bag of popcorn. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Alice in The Lazy Cow

http://www.thelazycowwarwick.co.uk/

Every so often, you have a perfect meal. This was not one of them, but before you think I’m about to go on a ranting whinge about bad food and worse service etc. etc. etc. I am not. The meal I am about to tell you about was not perfect, but it was wonderful in many ways...painful in others, and very weird. What made it perfect was the food (more of that later) and the company. I was with my wonderful, wonderful friend Jodie. Just look at her pretty smiling face.

And here, smashing a 4 inch tall burger in a one-er. A brave move, but unbelievably she managed it.

What made it painful was the fact that I was hanging from the night before. It is enough to say that the last thing I did before I dragged myself upstairs into my childhood bed was eat cold leftover curry out of the foil carton with my hands.

What made it weird was the fact that from the moment we crossed the threshold it felt like we had fallen deep into the rabbit hole. I really liked this place. I liked it a lot, and I will definitely be going back. The decor is lots of wood and glass and carpeted walls and leather and pretty, young, cool and trendy helpful staff in long black aprons. The menu is reassuringly small, with an emphasis on beef and various cuts and tenderising techniques and origins (I imagine this was the idea behind the name).

It all started with the drinks. We were both feeling a bit delicate, so we started with the standard double drink order (obviously). I ordered a sparkling water which arrived no problem, and then a Bloody Mary, which took quite some time to arrive, and when it did, well, it wasn’t a Bloody Mary. When the server brought it to the table and placed it in front of me, she asked whether I would like some Worcester sauce and Tabasco. Was I missing something here? Obviously I want Worcester sauce and Tabasco. Otherwise I would have ordered a vodka and tomato juice, which is what you have just put in front of me, which isn’t a Bloody Mary. So, um, yes, I would definitely like some Worcester sauce and Tabasco. This is what arrived:

My first question was, ‘am I on acid?’ My second question was, ‘Since when have Tabasco bottles of that size been available and why didn’t I know about it?’ Worcester sauce in a miniature gravy jug? What was going on here? I appreciate the novelty, don’t get me wrong, but if I’m going to pay you £6 to make me a drink, is it too much to expect that you actually make it? Also, what is with the proportions in this restaurant? Just look at the size of the knives!

I ordered beef Carpaccio to start (truffle oil, parmesan, watercress, black pepper and beef fillet how I would do it – seared on the outside, cut about 5 millimetres thick and flattened by the back of the knife) and sticky beef with noodles, coriander, cashews, spring onions and chilli. A bit beef heavy I grant you, but as I was in a pub called ‘The Lazy Cow’ and Diesel informs me that in years to come we will all be eating insects, and ‘meat’ as we know it will become a thing of the past, I thought - fuck it. My sticky beef was tremendous. Hot and spicy, sweet, crunchy vegetables, noodles, it was just ruddy bloody awesome. Perfect for a hangover, but...it arrived in an American style take out box, on a plate. That was something else about ‘The Lazy Cow’, and about a lot of places in London at the moment – gimmicks. Just serve me noodles in a bowl, I don’t want to tip out my noodles onto the plate and have to struggle to find somewhere on the table for the takeout box, four drinks, candles, postcards, enormous bottle of Tabasco and gravy jug full of Worcester sauce. Jodie had salt and pepper squid (I can’t fault how it was cooked but I would have appreciated some chilli sauce instead of the mayonnaise), and a burger, chips and an enormous gherkin. The burger looked A May Zing, and the chips (I had to try one, OK two. OK three) were the third best chips I’ve ever eaten (behind the chips at ‘The Bull and Last’ in Hampstead and the chips at Heston Blumenthal’s ‘Dinner’).

 

So the food was without a doubt - good. A few other features included a very good looking wine cellar, free sweets, a large dining room, and the final oddity, our bill brought to us in an old book (what’s wrong with a silver tray?) Still, on the whole it’s just me being picky. It was the best lunch I’ve had for a long time. Alice and the white rabbit would definitely approve.

Food, Ritual, Emotion.

Some things in life are sacred. Today is Sunday, and we have enjoyed a cooked breakfast, and will later eat a full roast dinner (Beef rump, mmm). Sunday for me, is a two meal day. It has been for as long as I can remember. You get up later than usual, eat an enormous breakfast at about 10.30, and then start to feel hungry again at about six. It used to be that I’d spend my afternoons doing homework and enjoy having a roast dinner cooked for me by my mum, but then I started making better gravy than her, and then I left home, and now I think if I suggested to Diesel that he make a roast dinner, I’d get laughed out the house and into a carvery. Whilst on paper eating the same meals week in week out (obviously there are variations) sounds pretty boring, but actually it’s incredibly comforting. Also, you can’t eat muesli on a Sunday (what would be the point of Sunday?) So, this in mind I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on cooking Roast beef and English breakfast.

English breakfast

Try and avoid as much as possible frying things. This may go against received wisdom (it’s not called a fry-up for nothing), but an English breakfast including fried eggs, fried bread, fried bacon, fried sausage etc. is a sure-fire way to give yourself crippling indigestion. Also, having a plate full of food coated in fat is just not very appetising. My favourite eggs on an English breakfast plate are scrambled, but that’s probably because my favourite eggs in the world are scrambled. Other than scrambled eggs, poached eggs work very well (dried properly, obviously. There are few things more disheartening at 10.30 on a Sunday morning than being served poached eggs on wet toast). It goes without saying that your eggs should be fresh, free range, produced by hens that sleep on Egyptian cotton sheets and get read a story before bedtime. 

Bacon should be dry cure, smoked. Buying cheap bacon (and sausages) is a false economy, because the extra weight will be made up with water and preservatives. That’s why cheap bacon is slimy, emits a disturbing amount of white matter when cooked and ends up 1/3 of its original size. Decent bacon will not feel wet to the touch, and when cooked remains roughly the same size as it did when it was raw. I love my George Forman grill for sausages and bacon, but a standard grill with a tray beneath to collect the fat is just as good. As far as fried bread is concerned, I just don’t know how anyone can eat it – brown toast/toasted soda bread/toasted breakfast muffins with a liberal application of quality butter all the way. Heinz baked beans (obviously), cooked for a long time over a low heat so they get a bit smashed up and sticky (cowboy beans my mum calls them). Fried mushrooms are my one major exception, my favourites being button mushrooms fried whole in butter, salt and pepper and a splash of Worcester sauce. 

I’m not a massive fan of tomatoes with breakfast, but if you must, avoid at all costs tinned tomatoes (why, WHY would anyone do this?), and a tomato cut in half and bunged under the grill as an afterthought is no one’s idea of fun. Your best bet is to roast some cherry tomatoes whole in the oven on a low heat, seasoned properly with a bit of olive oil and a splash of red wine vinegar. Weddings/birthdays/serious hangovers, some grilled quality black/white pudding takes it up a notch. For a really special treat, dip a piece of brown bread in a bit of the bacon fat and toast under the grill. Controversial I know, but never add hash browns, and serve where possible with freshly squeezed orange juice and a bottle of Lanson Black Label.

 

Roast Dinner (beef)

I know someone who when asked at a job interview ‘what would you say is your biggest weakness?’ responded with ‘um, probably roast potatoes’. This is a sentiment I 100% echo, so, when cooking roast dinner, always do more roast potatoes than you think you will need. One of my favourite après roast moments is finding a few potatoes left in the roasting dish about two hours after we’ve eaten and been sprawled on the sofa groaning unable to move. Diesel doesn’t know they’re there which means they’ve got my name written all over them. There’s still some gravy. It’s all cold but that doesn’t matter, even cold roast potatoes with cold gravy are delicious.

When making roast beef always plan to eat earlier than you really want to, because you will always eat later (by at least an hour) than you plan. Lay the table. Eating soup in front of The Simpsons on a Tuesday night is understandable, but if you’ve made the effort to cook one of our most important national dishes, you owe it to yourself to eat it at the table and bask in the complements that should be showered upon you. Drink red wine, it’s the law on a Sunday. Roast your potatoes in goose/duck fat if you can. Never in good olive oil, and season your potatoes well during roasting. Also, after the pre boil (take it as far as you dare. The longer they boil for the better really, but obviously they’re far more prone to disintegration as a result), shake the pan around in a frenzy. The more fluffy and smashed up they are, the crispier they’ll be. 

I’m not going into which vegetables you should choose or how to cook them, other than to say that for my money it’s worth keeping it simple. Steamed until just cooked and dotted with butter and salt and pepper are all the decoration roast dinner vegetables need. The beef, potatoes, Yorkshire puddings and gravy are the stars of this show. Gravy is essential. Put the roasting pan you cooked the beef in (leaving the beef to rest for at least half an hour) onto the hob, add a tablespoon or two of flour and cook out for a few minutes. Add a good glass of red wine and wait until it’s cooked out, and then add hot beef stock (good quality shop bought stuff is good enough) about a ladleful at a time. Always do more than you think you’ll need. Beef gravy is my favourite soft drink, and running out of it when eating a roast makes me want to cry. Add a decent tablespoon of horseradish sauce, season, taste, adjust, taste, adjust, taste, add another stock pot/cube if it’s not intense enough. When you’re happy, strain and keep warm.

 

Don’t cut the beef too thin – you’re not running a budget restaurant; this is Sunday dinner in your own home. Keep the slices at least 1, preferably 2 cm thick. Anyone can make batter, and anyone can heat oil in the oven in a roasting tin until it is screaming hot, ergo anyone can make decent Yorkshire puddings. Any Yorkshire pudding left over? Eat it covered in golden syrup if you have any space left. 

When you serve a roast dinner, don’t plate it up; put your plates and bowls of potatoes, vegetables and meat on the table for everyone to help themselves. It feels like more of a feast that way, and also means that you get to decide exactly how many roast potatoes you get. I hate having my roast potato quota dictated to me. Lastly, never make roast dinner just for yourself. It isn’t worth it, and frankly I can’t think of anything more depressing (who would you raise a toast with?)