Eating in miniature and the wonders of choux

 

Today was spent mostly reeling from the shock of getting up at 6.45 again, and making miniature food, aka canapés. Canapés are probably best described as a fat girls’ nightmare. They are whole meal-in-one-mouthfuls and tend to pack an epic punch calorie wise. More often than not canapés are served ‘with drinks’ which in most cases invariably means champagne, usually at an after work event, or as a prelude to a wedding breakfast. In both scenarios, everyone concerned (minus the hosts) will have spent the previous 3 hours bored to tears, will be starving hungry as soon as they hit the venue, and after a few glasses of bubbly will have lost the will to refuse anything edible. A lot of chefs really hate doing canapés because they are fiddly and can be a pain in the arse, but I actually really enjoy both the preparation and the serving of them. For work that is. In my opinion nothing says ‘I don’t want to say how much effort I’ve put into this dinner party, but if you don’t complement me on how much effort I’ve made for this dinner party you’re off the Christmas card list and will never, ever be invited back’ like spending hours making and serving perfect little canapés. Whilst they are usually delicious, I wouldn’t say that in the comfort of your own home, at your own dinner party they are really worth the effort. I think your money is better spent on some delicious olives and some decent crisps and nuts. This way you also have more time to mix an amazing G & T and waft around amusing your guests with witty anecdotes – which is surely the point of having people over in the first place. Having said all that I did do some lovely miniature jacket potatoes on Christmas day, but then I did spend most of it in the kitchen...

Anyway, for a canapé party I am working on this week at work, one of the canapés we are serving is mini crab and chive éclairs, and today one of my jobs was to make the mini choux pastry éclairs, all 100 of them. To digress slightly, if you want to win someone over because you came in late and fell into bed drunk/would like to get them into bed, I guarantee that if you fill a box with homemade chocolate éclairs covered in chocolate and filled with chocolate crème patisserie, and tie it up with a pretty ribbon, no further apology will be required/you’ll be getting some serious action. Alternatively you might want to do it simply because you love someone very much......the brownie points are – of course - just a bonus. I actually LOVE making choux pastry. It has to be the easiest pastry to make, and never fails to impress (do you know anybody who doesn’t like fresh chocolate éclairs?) In fact, if you make any pastry from scratch people tend to be impressed. On a recent visit my best friend's boyfriend exclaimed in shock, ‘Look in the cupboard Jodie, they have actual flour and everything’. When we serve the éclairs as canapés, we cut them along the length and fill them with a mix of white crab meat, crème fraiche, salt and pepper and finely chopped chives, which is all very nice but savoury éclairs aren’t really my thing. So for that reason I’ve given you the recipe for the chocolaty ones below. Enjoy.

The best chocolate éclairs in the world (thank you Michel Roux)

For the eclairs:

125ml milk

125ml water

100g diced butter

Pinch salt and sugar

150g plain flour

4 eggs

For the chocolate crème patisserie:

6 egg yolks

125g caster sugar

40g plain flour

500ml full fat milk

1 vanilla pod

For the chocolate ganache: (to cover)

100g caster sugar

100ml water

50g dark chocolate, broken into pieces

25g butter

To make the éclairs:

Put the water, milk, salt, sugar and butter into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Have your sieved flour ready, and once the liquid has reached boiling point, take it off the heat, add the flour and beat it until it is all combined (don’t worry if it looks lumpy at first, it will come together I promise). Put back onto the heat and continue to beat vigorously for a few minutes, until the paste forms a ball and doesn’t stick to the side of the pan. Take off the heat and keep beating until it has cooled slightly. (If you have a kitchenaid mixer with a beater attachment, use that from this point) Now, add the eggs one at a time, beating to combine before adding the next egg. By the time all the eggs have been incorporated you should have a smooth shiny blonde paste that is a dropping consistency (basically, you scoop some onto a spoon, lift it above the bowl, turn it upside down, and it should drop back into the bowl slowly but easily). Once finished, stick in a piping bag (or the corner of a disposable sandwich bag) and pipe the éclairs onto a baking sheet (make sure you leave space for them to grow). Bake in an oven for about 20 minutes at 180/gas 6 until golden on the outside, and then leave them in the oven with the door ajar to dry out. Eclairs are sneaky little things and tend to look like they’re cooked before they are, and if you don’t let them dry out they collapse, which is not what you want.

To make the chocolate crème patisserie:

Whisk egg yolks with one third of sugar until it goes a lighter colour and gets a bit of volume, then whisk the flour into this thoroughly. Put the milk, the vanilla and the rest of the sugar on to boil and stir until all the sugar is dissolved. Once boiled, pour on the egg, sugar and flour mixture stirring constantly. Then, return all of this to the pan and back onto the heat. Boil for a few minutes and stir continuously with a whisk. It will thicken up considerably but it is really important you keep cooking it out otherwise it will taste like flour. When you take it off the heat, stir in 75g of really good quality dark chocolate until it is melted. Lay cling film on the top (to stop a skin forming) and leave to cool.

To make the chocolate ganache:

Put the sugar and water into a pan and heat until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil for about five minutes, and then take the pan off the heat and leave to cool for five minutes. Add the chocolate and butter to the pan and stir well until the chocolate has melted. Stir occasionally as it cools to avoid a skin forming.

Once the éclairs have cooled, cut them along the length and fill them with the cooled crème patisserie (or make a hole in one end and pipe it into that). Once filled, smooth some of the ganache on top and put in the fridge to set. Try not to eat them all yourself, no matter how tempted you are.

Ribs parts 1 and 2

Ribs part 1

So, day two and I’m already procrastinating. Why is Facebook so much more interesting when you know you need to type something? Anyway, the house is clean, I’ve been to the gym, and dinner is semi planned and bubbling gently on the stove. Semi planned because I know we’re having ribs, but haven’t got much further than that. Recently, I have been hankering after ribs. Sticky, porky, meat-falling-off-the-bone, BBQ ribs. I blame this on my wonderful friend Georgea who lives round the corner, but has roots in New Mexico. What this girl doesn’t know about BBQ and Chilli sauce isn’t worth knowing. Have you ever tried chipotle Tabasco sauce? Go out and get some, and on your way past the fruit and veg section, grab yourself some corn on the cob. BBQ corn on the cob, smothered in butter, Chipotle Tabasco, salt and fresh black pepper is so wonderful I wish I could run into your living room clutching a plateful right now. 

I blame Georgea because recently, since the purchase of their BBQ, we have eaten some delicious ribs. To achieve that meat-falling-off-the-bone effect I wanted to use a recipe that required some long slow cooking before the BBQ sauce covered roasting bit. I found a recipe I liked the look of on the BBC food website (thank you James Martin), altered it a bit, and got started. The ribs need to simmer gently on the stove with some onion, celery, bay leaves, peppercorns and water. I also added what was left of a bottle of sauvignon blanc from last night (Christ knows how I ended up with any left, very unlike me). After an hour and a half, they get taken out, smothered in homemade BBQ sauce, and put back in the oven for another 30 minutes (full recipe below). One thing I should point out is that a full set of ribs (plenty for two people, although I’m pretty certain Diesel would have eaten them all, plus another full rack) set me back the very modest sum of £2.40. If that isn’t a bargain I don’t know what is. Going off on a slight tangent – please bear with me -, as I write this I am listening to ‘Plastic beach’ by the Gorillaz, and it is amazing. If you haven’t listened to it already, go out and get yourself a copy. Your life is too short not to listen to this album. Especially track seven ‘Superfast Jellyfish’.

Recipe: BBQ Ribs

1 tsp of black peppercorns

3 bay leaves

2 sticks of celery (roughly chopped)

1 white onion (roughly chopped)

1 carrot (I didn’t use because I didn’t have one. I’m sure it would have been good though)

Water to cover

White wine (Not essential, but delicious)

1 rack of pork ribs

For the sauce: (I didn’t actually weigh anything. BBQ sauce is a bit of a guessing game anyway, just add and taste until you’re happy)

175g Ketchup

150g Chipotle chilli ketchup

100ml dark soy sauce

175g dark muscovado sugar

4tbsp Teriyaki sauce

(Other things you could add to BBQ sauce include: Orange juice and zest, honey, Lea and Perrins, Tabasco.......you get the picture)

In a saucepan put your roughly chopped veg, bay leaves and peppercorns, ribs, wine, and cover with water. Bring to the boil, turn down to a simmer and leave for 1 ½ hours. Heat all your BBQ sauce ingredients in a small saucepan and keep to one side. When the 1 ½ hours is up, remove the ribs onto a roasting tray and cover with BBQ sauce. Roast for about 20 – 30 minutes at about 180/gas mark 6. Serve with the leftover BBQ sauce, and plenty of kitchen paper. Don’t forget to strain and keep the cooking liquor as a base for soup, or as a stock base for risotto.

Ribs part 2

So, Ribs cooked and eaten. And even though I probably shouldn’t say this, they were AWESOME. By the time they had finished braising the meat was practically falling of the bone (so much so in fact it was a bit of an arse trying to get them out of one pan and onto the roasting tray in one piece). However, once smothered in sauce and roasted for 25 minutes they were perfect. I served them with some BBQ beans (tin of Heinz baked beans – I fucking love Heinz baked beans, don’t judge me -, some of the leftover BBQ sauce and some of the onions and celery taken from the pot I cooked the ribs in) and some leftover new potato and onions which I fried off in some butter until they were golden and crunchy.  The real revelation however was the flavour of the liquor that the ribs cooked in. In fact, it is so good; tomorrow I’m going to use it as a base for some spring minestrone. That’s two meals sorted from one rack of ribs. Cashback!

10 Rules of the Kitchen

As long as I have been working in commercial kitchens and been thinking about writing a blog which will attempt to throw some light on an area that many people are interested in but very few have access to, I have been pondering the various ‘rules of the kitchen’. They are not really rules, just things that are common to every kitchen I have worked in, no matter how different the chefs are or the food being produced.

 
1. All KPs (Kitchen porters) look like rapists.

I know I know, controversial.  But seriously, they do. None of them look like someone you’d like to meet in a dark alley at night. This is no comment on personality at all. As far as I know, no KP I have ever actually worked with is ACTUALLY a rapist. They have all been lovely people who work their socks off and generally get a bum deal in kitchens, making more than their fair share of the tea and (usually) working hard doing what is fair to say is a pretty shitty job.

2. If you get offended by ANYTHING, get out the kitchen.

If you’re not a fan of jokes based on gender, race, sexuality, or pretty much anything and everything else, just leave. (Some) Chefs are among the most insensitive, cruel and sick people I have ever met and worked with. And I used to work in The City, among stockbrokers.

3. Your ‘little black book’ is as important as your knives.

When you first start in a kitchen, all fresh faced and keen, you get assigned to someone specific, whose job it is to keep an eye on you/get you to do all the shit jobs that they don’t really like doing. If you’re lucky, you will work with someone who, when they see you are interested will show you how to do things properly, give you the opportunity to do new things, and trust you to make things for them. This is where the note book comes in. Said chef is probably already very busy, and the last thing you want to do is piss them off. What is guaranteed to piss anyone off in the kitchen is someone who is given instructions, and does everything wrong because they haven’t listened, or constantly comes back to ask the same questions again and again, ‘sorry, how much sugar was it?’, ‘um, what did you say goes in the pan first? Was it the chicken or your patience?’ So, take notes. Not only will this mean that you can get on with what you’ve been asked to do and leave your unfortunate mentor in peace for longer than five minutes, but even more importantly it means you have a record of everything you have ever cooked and how to create it again.
 
4. Don’t, under any circumstances touch anyone else’s knives (Unless they have expressly said it is OK).

Nothing is guaranteed to piss Chefs off more. Other than dropping them in the shit during service, or telling them their wife/girlfriend/mum is a bit of a munter.

5. Get used to cleaning.

A lot of people may not realise that for 99% of chefs, half the job involves cleaning up after yourself. If you make a mess, you have to clean it up. KPs will wash up your pans, but chefs have to keep their work stations clean, drawers clean, the hobs and ovens clean, and in many cases the fridges clean also. In good kitchens there is a full clean down after every service, which involves a lot of hot water and soap, anti bacterial cleaner, many clean and dry tea towels, and a lot of elbow grease.

6. Your timer is one of your best friends.

You only need to hear ‘what’s black and lives in the oven??’ shouted at you across the kitchen during a busy service and feel your heart sink as you realise you’ve dropped everyone in the shit and given yourself double the work to make you realise that – excruciatingly - the lecturers at college were right. Always have your timer with you.

7. You may have a degree, you may have been a ‘consultant’, but in here it means nothing.

If you’ve been to university or had a high flying job before where you managed people and did important things with money, when you come into the kitchen for the first time you start at the bottom and it’s a long way to the top. Any respect you get has to be earned on the basis of your abilities and hard graft. A 2:1 to most chefs is a football score, not evidence of your academic ability.

8. Wave goodbye to your social life.

It’s Friday and all of your friends are heading home from work to get changed and head out to your favourite local to enjoy some beers in the rest of the Friday evening sunshine. You however are about to start the second shift of the day, and won’t be done at work until at least 10.30 if you’re lucky. You could go out, but by the time you do they’re all wasted and you have to spend half an hour, plus a small fortune on tequila to get you into the same space. By the time you enter the zone, they want a pizza and to go home. And then you have to get up early to be at work again on Saturday morning.
 
9. If you have a penchant for Mulberry handbags, get over it fast.

The average apprentice wage is £200 a week. The Mulberry Alexa in Oak Ostrich is £3,750. You do the maths.
 
10. Working in a kitchen is good for the soul.

For all the negatives (and there are many), there is no doubt that working in a kitchen with a good team of people, producing delicious food is good for the soul, and often one of the most enjoyable things you can do and still get paid for. For the most part when I worked in finance I was unhappy because I never really felt like what I was doing was important. Now I get to be part of making someone’s wedding day perfect. If that isn’t important, I don’t know what is.

And so it begins

What do people DO on Saturday mornings?

By this time (7.50am, Saturday) I’m usually on my way to work, grumpy about having had to get up at seven while I leave Diesel (my boyfriend. ‘Diesel’ - It’s a long story) in bed sleeping, but nonetheless wide awake and secretly looking forward to getting started in the kitchen, and of course to the cooked breakfast that will (hopefully) be on the cards at about 10.30. I am a Chef (Cook - or at least trying very hard to be one). I’ve been doing this for just over a year, and can’t believe how much my life has changed in that time. Time was that I never saw before 12am on the weekend, and then spent the next four hours wailing about how terrible my hangover was, and trying to hit on the food that I needed to bring me back from the edge (I will talk about hangover food in depth at some point. There is much to say). Many housemates have had to endure this. If any of you are reading, I apologise. Not any more though. My boyfriend despairs. I have long since learned that no matter how bouncy and awake I am at 7am, and no matter how much effort I put in to make him feel the same way, this will never happen. So, on this wonderful (and very rare) occasion that is a free Saturday from work, it is here I am sat, on my sofa in my flat in St Peter Port Guernsey, at 7.50am, finally, FINALLY starting the blog that I have been threatening to start for just over a year.

 

So, now what? I guess I need a mission statement (or something similar, mission statement sounds a bit wanky, I’m not trying to sell you Jesus). If people are going to spend any of their precious free time reading things I have to say, I feel I should make it clear what they are letting themselves in for at the outset. Kind of like when you start a new relationship. ‘I love you Dave, but I also love my 15 cats and I’m a kleptomaniac. You don’t like cats? There’s the door. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Oh, here’s your wallet’. I don’t have 15 cats, and I’m not a kleptomaniac, but hopefully you get the point.

Essentially, I want to write about my food ideas, things I have seen in kitchens, new things I learn in kitchens, new food trends, general (hopefully interesting) observations on the industry, recipes, all furnished with some great photos (for what is the point of a food blog without great photos?). This last bit may prove a bit difficult. I have a pretty basic and serviceable digital camera which will do for now, but be assured as soon as I can I’ll be investing in something far better. Then the pictures should be off the fuckin’ chain. 

Often people, me included, think that being a chef (I am not a chef, I am a cook. It is fine distinction but I’d like to make that clear from the outset) is all about creativity. In some ways it is, but in many ways, and in fact when you start out, it is most certainly not. You spend your days learning how to get the basics right (peeling, chopping, washing, more peeling) and how to do them quickly, and then you have to learn to cook and present things according to someone else’s creative ideas. This is fine, it is how kitchens work, and it is how the top restaurants retain their stars (after all, if you didn’t get your arse kicked for something like not trimming beans to exactly the same length, standards in restaurants would never reach the heights that they do). However, I came into the industry rather late (I am 26, and have had to get used to being told what to do by people 6 years + my junior), and whilst I love the fact that I can now peel a box of potatoes quicker than you can say ‘truffled potato puree is on occasion better than oral sex’, I do miss being creative in the kitchen. At home I can do just that, but more often than not, I don’t see the point because I don’t have an audience. And what is the point of food without people to appreciate it? So, on this basis I will begin. I hope you enjoy, and if you do, please tell your friends. All of them.