See you then!

Traditionally, Russian food could be opulent, rich and decadent.  Huge quantities of butter, cream and meat would be piled before guests in a show of enormous generosity.  Folk would boast on their capacity for the consumption of Pelmeni, traditional Siberian dumplings, some claiming they could eat upwards of 100 in one sitting.  Not even I could manage that, and believe me, I love Pelmeni.  Thetraditional Russian cookery book was Elena Ivanovna Molokhovets’s A Gift To Young Housewives.  This much loved tome fell out of favour with the Communist Elite due to its “bourgeois and decadent” tone and sneering attitude towards the lower classes.  Still, this didn’t stop folks reading the book behind closed doors, filled with nostalgia for richer times.

Kasha, however, crosses all boundries.  Although the word actually refers to a whole family of grains, Kasha is commonly used to describe Buckwheat groats.  These firm, nutty, grains are like Russian comfort food.  Indeed, a famous Russian saying more or less translates as “Cabbage soup and kasha is all we need”.  I love these little guys, and the following recipe is one I make whenever I feel down.  It’s adapted from a recipe in the excellent book Please To The Table, which you really ought to add to your collection.

Unrefined, yet utterly beautiful.

So, what do you need?

• 200g Kasha (Buckwheat Groats)
• 1 ripe green Avocado
• 4 – 6 Chicken thighs, boned
• A handful of fresh dill
• Good quality extra virgin olive oil
• A clove or two of Garlic
• A lemon
• Salt and Pepper

This one’s easy peaski.   Preheat the oven to about 180.  Rub the chicken with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper.  Roast for about 20 – 25 mins, until the chicken is well done yet still juicy.  I like the crispness that leaving the skin on gives, but that’s up to you.  Alternatively, you can use roasted salmon.  The crispy skin on the fish is delicious in this dish.

Meanwhile, put the Kasha into a saucepan along with the garlic cloves.  Cover with 400 ml water and bring to the boil.  Turn down the heat, cover and simmer for about 6-10 mins, until all the water is absorbed.  Check a couple of grains to ensure they’re cooked through – they should be soft to eat with a little bite retained.  Remove the garlic.  You can now puree it and add it back or bin it.

Let everything cool for a few mins.  Peel and dice the avocado, and chop the chicken or salmon into cubes.  Finely chop the dill.  Add all this to the Kasha.  Pour in a good few glugs of olive oil and the juice and zest from the lemon, and stir well.  Taste, adjust seasoning if needs be and enjoy.

I love this dish – it’s simple in preparation and taste, yet manages to be filled with enough goodness and flavour to bring a smile.  It goes very well with a cold and crisp white wine, or alternatively with a nice glass of Perry.

Perry is, simply put, the pear version of Cider.  It’s a wonderful, sweet and refreshing drink that is now starting to be found in UK shops once more.  Until recently only a few very specialist local producers made this, so it’s great to see it more widely available.

Now, Curry is a broad term that encompasses a huge number of cookery styles and cultures.  In the UK the term tends to be used to describe Indian food in general, as it is understood by the great majority of the population.  That is, the Anglo-Indian take-away menu.  Dishes such as Rogan Josh, Vindaloo, Korma and the like that bear little resemblance to authentic Indian cookery, but can be delicious when prepared well.  And this is an important point – although not authentic, Anglo-Indian cookery has forged it’s own path into the hearts and stomachs of a nation because it often tastes fantastic.  And now we have a new generation of hugely talented chefs, such as Atul Kochhar, re-introducing authentic elements and blending them with the best of the techniques developed in Britain to produce outstanding and original cuisine.  Even the oldest Anglo-Indian restaurant in the UK, Veeraswamy, has adjusted its menu to reflect traditional regional Indian food as Britons start to discover a truer taste of India.

As you may have seen from the About page, I pretty much taught myself to cook by learning how to prepare Indian food.  It’s a great way to start as, once you have a few basics down, it’s actually fairly simple to obtain excellent and satisfying results that will easily beat the average takeaway into a cocked-tandoor.  The recipe below leans more towards traditional Punjabi food than the traditional takeaway, which is often made from a base “gravy”, adjusted slightly when reheated to change it into a variety of different dishes.  When done well, that can be great, and I’ll show you how to do it another day.

For now, this is a very easy dish to make, and provides fantastic results for very little effort.  It’s one of the best curry recipes I’ve come up with, so I hope you enjoy it.  Don’t baulk at the long-ish list of spices –  They last a while and are vital for making a good curry. 

Spot the blasphemy!

So, what do you need?

• 6 chicken thighs, skin removed - you can use them whole with the bones in or, as I did, bone them and chop into three pieces each.
• 250g Spinach
• A punnet of Mushrooms, chopped
• 6 Tomatoes, quartered
• 3 large onions, sliced
• 1 head of garlic, crushed
• A few green chillis
• 1 inch knob Ginger, grated
• 1 tbsp Cumin
• 1 tbsp ground Coriander
• 1 tsp Turmeric
• 3 – 4 Black Cardamom Pods, lightly bashed
• 2 – 3 Bay leaves
• A few cloves
• 1 tsp Cumin Seeds
• 1 tsp Fenugreek Powder
• 1 Cinnamon Stick
• 1 tsp each salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat a little oil in a large pan and gently brown the onions.  In a separate pan, gently fry the mushrooms until nicely cooked. 

Once the onions are nice and golden, add the chicken and brown it for a few minutes.  Add all your spices plus the garlic and ginger and stir well for a couple of minutes making sure everything is nice and coated.  It should all smell delicious by know. 

These guys are your friends

Add the tomatoes, the mushrooms and a pint of water.  Take two of your chillis and slit them down one side with a knife.  Drop them in and stir well.  Bring to the boil, cover the pan, turn down the heat and simmer for about an hour.  Check the pot every so often and stir.

Take the lid of the pot and turn the heat up again.  Let the pot simmer well so the sauce reduces and thickens.  Taste for seasoning and heat.  If you feel it needs more, add some chopped chilli and stir in well.  Taste again after a couple of minutes to check.  Remember – it’s much easier to add heat than to take it away, so be careful!

Once the sauce has thickened nicely, wash the spinach in a colander, and add it to the curry.  Cover and simmer for a couple of minutes, then stir well.  Remove the bayleaves, cinnamon stick and cardamom pods and file them in the bin.  Goodbye old friends – your work is done.

Serve on hot rice and garnish with freshly chopped coriander, with a glass or two of cold beer. 

This will serve 2-3 people depending on the size of the chicken thighs, and tastes even better reheated the next day.  You can adjust the flavour for the second batch by reducing the sauce even more and adding a little natural yoghurt and a sprinkling of Garam Masala.

One jar.

I thank you.  And I also thank The Amateur Gourmet, one of my favourite food sites, for a huge guffaw at his video in which he and his partner taste Marmite for the first time.  Words cannot describe the faces pulled.

http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2009/03/we_try_marmite.html

Marmite is one of those strange things that polarises opinion.  For me, I like it – but not too often.  I’m sure my body recognises it as a valuable source of certain nutrients as I crave it every so often, and then have absolutely no impetus to eat it for ages afterwards.  Just like grass or yellow snow.

But Bovril, on the other hand…. Thick toast, spread well with melting butter and then not too much meaty Bovril mixed in.  Mmmmmmmmmmmm.  Reduced cow all in my mouth.

And much as it pains me to say it, there’s an element of truth here.  You see, Britain once led the world in culinary invention, producing dishes so rich and magnificent they put Ozymandias to shame.  Opulence and experimentation ruled the day, at least for the ruling classes. 

But no more.  These days we’re more than happy to gorge ourselves on factory-bred chickens, pre-sliced white bread, and ready meals made from cow’s eyelashes and the broken dreams of kittens.  Our fruit and veg are edible versions of the Stepford Wives, and there’s barely a specialist greengrocer, butcher or baker on any high street.  We eat plateful after plateful of dire, substandard faire that lacks flavour and provenance because it’s easy.  We should be ashamed.

Really, we should.  Breeds once common and raised for flavour are now classed as “rare” and in danger of dying out.  Varieties of fruit and veg have been lost to history, all because they were a bit knobbly.  Britain used to be one huge garden, constantly absorbing the produce and flavours of those who invaded these islands and making them our own.  Now, we’ve surrendered to culinary mediocrity, banishing any thoughts of local, seasonal, produce in favour of a land where everything is always available, except flavour.

Britain has some great produce, and we have some great classic recipes.  We just seem content to hide it all away behind the supermarkets.  And the trouble is, if we don’t use it, we’ll lose it for good.

So, rant over.  This is a great British classic – fantastic comfort food made using a so-called forgotten cut of beef.  The end result is unctuous, warming and packed with more flavour than a thousand sets of fries and happy burgers.  It’s a fire and forget yumfest that always hits the target.

Makes a moo-cow proud

What do you need?

• 1kg cubes skirt steak or boned beef shin. 
• 3 large onions
• Lee and Perrins
• 4 carrots
• Two bottles of excellent beer.  (See note below)
• A pint of good beef stock
• 3 Bay leaves
• A little flour
• A knob of Stilton
• Salt and Pepper

Slice the onions and fry gently in oil until well browned and caramelised, stirring every so often.  This will take some time, so perhaps play the ukulele or read a lengthy book while you wait.  I find to do this well takes at least 15 mins.  The onions will reduce as they brown and the darkened natural sugars within will add huge amounts of flavour to the finished dish, so please don’t skimp this step.

While the onions sweat away, season the flour well with salt and pepper.  Toss the beef in the flour lightly until well coated.  Heat a little oil in a frying pan and brown the meat well – you may need to do this in batches.

Once the onions are nice and dark, add the bacon and fry a little, then add the beef.  Stir well before adding the stock, beer, Lee and Perrins, and bay leaves.

Peel your carrots and slice them into inch thick discs.  I cut them on the diagonal, cos it’s pretty.  Add them to the stew.  Bring it all to the boil, then turn the heat right down, cover and simmer for a good few hours.  The longer the better, really.  Stir once in a while to avoid sticking or burning.

Towards the end of cooking, remove the lid and turn the heat up a little.  Help the sauce to reduce a bit and crumble in the Stilton.  This adds a wonderful richness to the final dish.  Take off the heat a few mins before serving – the flavours are so much better when the sauce isn’t burning every single layer of skin from your mouth.

I served with Hash Browns cos I wanted the crunchy contrast, but Mash would be great, or even some nice crusty bread.   This’ll serve at least four hungry people.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT BEER!

Beer in this instance means Ale, Porter or Stout, not Lager.  Lager will absolutely not produce the rich thick sauce that makes this dish such a joy to eat.  You need a good quality Real Ale type thing here.  I used Hook Norton’s delicious Double Stout for this, and it produced awesome results.  You need quite a heavy beer to produce the depth of flavour, so I’d tend to stay away from the Pale Ales or Blonde Beers.  Porter works fantastically.  Guinness is great.  And if you can find a bottle conditioned ale, all the better – just be careful of the sediment.  Whatever you use, make sure you have a few bottles left to serve with the dish.

Now, I’ve never made meatballs before but have always enjoyed the consumption of juicy spherical objects.  Still flicking through the Vicar’s Wife’s Cookbook, I found her recipe for Meatballs in Tomato Sauce pretty attractive, and my tummy did a big grumble to express it’s desire to try it.  But Mrs Beynon’s version calls for quite a few bits and bobs I didn’t have, and the house was still pretty full of leftover vegetables that needed using up.  No problem - such things have never been an exact science, so a case of Pimp My Balls was in order.   The end results were certainly pretty good. 

Tasty and juicy, but not hairy.

So, what do you need?

• About a pound of good beef mince (although any type of mince could be used)
• An onion, finely chopped
• Some garlic, minced like a good’un
• 1 tbs Worcestershire sauce
• Smoked streaky bacon, finely chopped – a good six rashers or so
• Fresh herbs, chopped – I used lemon thyme, oregano and basil
• Freshly grated Parmesan and crumbled Stilton – about a handful altogether
• White breadcrumbs (although I’m sure brown would work just as well)
• An eggywegg, beaten
• Salt and pepper – not too much salt – remember the bacon and cheese will already add some.

And for the sauce:

• A tin of tomatoes, chopped
• A leek, finely chopped
• Passatta or tomato juice
• Red Wine
• Salt and Pepper
• Herbs de choice – basil works well here.

So, start with the sauce – saute the leeks and sweat them down.  Add the tomatoes and bring to the boil before adding the wine and sauce / juice.  Simmer well and let it start to reduce.

Meanwhile, gently fry the onions and garlic until softened.  Let cool a little, and mix all the meatball ingredients together carefully.  You’ll need at least a handful of breadcrumbs.  What you want is a nice firm mix that’s not too sloppy but hasn’t got too stiff.  Keep adding breadcrumbs until you reach this, and if you go too far add a little more egg, milk or ketchup to lubricate the mixture again.  Form into good sized balls – smaller than a ping-pong, but bigger than a walnut.  Gently fry these, turning every so often until they’re nicely browned.  Be careful at this stage as you don’t want your balls to stick to the hot pan, and handling them too roughly could cause spherical disintegration, which is never nice.

Once the sauce has got all nice and reduced and is looking almost thick enough to serve, gently lower the meatballs in using tongs, a spoon or a “special crane”.  Cover, and simmer gently for about twenty mins to half an hour.  Stir gently every so often, taking care not to demolish your globes of glory, and check for seasoning. 

Cook some spaghetti until done how you like it – about nine mins usually gives me good al dente noodles.  Drain well and spoon the thick sauce on top, then plop a good few meatballs at the zenith.  ‘Tis of the yum.

You’ll be able to feed 3-4 people with this amount, maybe more if they have tiny wee tummies or less if they are greedy like me.  The leeks in the sauce go well – they add a subtle sweetness that’s offset by the wine, but you could also use onions and garlic or shallots.  The cheese in the meatballs I’d never thought of before, and all props to Mrs Beynon for this idea – it works fantastically.  The cheese melts away, adding moistness and flavour to the morsels as they cook.  Blue cheese works especially well with beef, but you may want to experiment. 

I really enjoyed eating these and am pretty sure you will too, unless you’re a veggie.  Ganbare!

Who could have realised that about 2,000 years ago St Paul was actually talking about Star Wars?  I was about five when the original film came out and clearly remember going to see it with my folks.  It was every dream I’d ever had all rolled into one cinematic feast and put up there in real life!  I guess the effect it had on me was not unlike Father Dougal’s experience with the TV crew, where the bunnies of truth and fiction become so hard to distinguish. 

Star Wars was followed with religious conviction by me and my chums right through school and out again.  Even after Return Of The Jedi faded into distant memory we kept the dream alive with the Lucasarts games and the hopes that someday George would put the continuing tales involving Wedge and Admiral Thrawn up on the big screen.  Rumours abound that Luke turned to the dark side and takes the place of the Emperor, or that the Emperor had cloned himself and needed to be hunted down before he could re-establish his tyranny.

So imagine how much we laughed with joy at the wretched new prequel trilogy.  Imagine how happy we were with Lucas’ constant unnecessary tinkering with the original films.  Each change felt like a five-year-old scribbling with crayons upon the Mona Lisa, slowly killing off all the beauty within.  Ah, such bitter betrayal.  I guess we should have seen it coming when Boba Fett fell into the pit.

Still, how the ghost of nostalgia clings.  And to kill any sentiment dead, I would like to propose that Lucas uses the following as the Imperial March in any future releases.  That should just about do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Jq617ENMd0

First things first – I’m not going to reproduce the recipe exactly as it is in the book, as that would be both naughty and lazy.  What you’ll find below is a very basic writeup with few concrete amounts.  This is how I cook – Not every chicken, lemon, chili, block of cheese, etc, tastes the same, so quantities and other flavourings needed will vary from person to person.  And not every person shares the same palette of taste, so adjust with what sounds sensible to you.  Cookery is not always an exacting science and demands a little common sense and experimentation before it opens it’s naughty box of delights.  With a new recipe I may follow it to the letter the first time I make it, just to see how the author intended it, but will nearly always adjust afterwards by personal preference. 

So, what do you need?

• A Poussin per person.  (you could get by with one between two, depending on appetite)
• 1 bottle of white wine
• Boursin cheese (about half a block per person)
• Tarragon (fresh, ideally)
• Salt, Pepper
• Smoked streaky bacon (a rasher or two per person)

First, preheat your oven two about 200°c.  Take your tiny Poussin chum and, with clean hands, slip your fingers between the skin and flesh of the breast.  The idea is to make a little pocket and the further back across the breast you can go the better.  Try to be careful not to tear the skin.  Into the pocket, slip some of the Boursin, pushing it as far back as you can.  Once it’s in, you can press down on top of the skin to smooth it further than your fingers can reach.  put a teeny bit of Boursin inside the Poussin too.  Pour a good glass of wine around the chicken, maybe even splashing some inside.  Season with salt and pepper and lay some bacon across.  Maybe in a nice pretty pattern like this:

Do not eat me in this state, unless you enjoy your local hospital too much.

IMPORTANT POINT! Elisa Beynon carefully reminds us that Salmonella is not everybody’s idea of a happy party time, so don’t handle the block of cheese after you’ve footered about with raw chicken unless you’re intending to use the whole thing.  And no matter how tempting it is, don’t lick your fingers clean after stuffing the bird.  No no no no no!

Then, do the lobbings of the chicken into the oven.  Cook for 40 – 50 mins, depending on size of bird and power of oven.  If the juices run clear then it’s done – you know the drill.

Meanwhile – finely slice some leeks and peel and chop some potatoes.  Boil the pots until tender, and while they cook gently sweat down the leeks in some butter in a frying pan.  Once done, drain and mash the potato, then stir in some butter, milk (or cream as per Mrs Beynon’s recipe, but that was a step too far for me what with all the cream cheese and butter already being used) and the leeks.  Add salt and pepper to taste and keep warm.

When the chicken is done, remove it from the pan and pour out the juices from inside into the tray.  Add the rest of the Boursin to the pan, and heat on top of the oven, whisking, while it melts.  Add the chopped Tarragon and cook for a few minutes until you have a thick, creamy sauce.  You may need to add some more wine at this point – I know I did, as the oven drank all of mine.

Done.  Really easy.  The chicken tastes excellent as all that herby, garlicky cream cheese you’ve put under the skin has made friends with the meat and now cohabits with it.  The streaky bacon’s fat has melted, basting the chicken, and adds a nice crisp texture to the dish.  It’s very good, and pretty much foolproof.  It’s also a great dinner party dish as it takes all of five minutes to prepare.

You could always use ordinary chicken breasts for this, making a pocket in the skin for the Boursin and wrapping the bacon around rather than laying it across.  And you could even use skinless chicken by making a pocket into the actual breast meat – a cheat’s Chicken Kiev.  On that subject, I’d be quite interested to mix a little chopped tarragon and some minced garlic in with the Boursin before putting it into the chicken for a little extra flavour, or even replace the Boursin with butter.  You wouldn’t end up with as thick a sauce at the end if you did though.

The leek mash is very nice, although potato cooked any way would go well with this.  I’d tend to keep any accompaniments fairly simple as the main dish is quite rich in itself.

Of course, you’ll need to make sure you have at least another bottle of wine on hand in case you use a whole one in making the dish.  Better open it quick, just in case.  What?  Would I like a glass?  Well…. don’t mind if I do.  It’d be a shame to let it go to waste.  Something nice and dry goes really well with this, cutting straight through the richness and forcing your taste buds to dance awake.  Yum.

I hate quiche.  Even a well made one seems to be an anathema.  I even suspect it was quiche that Satan tried to tempt The Lord with during the forty days and nights.  No wonder Jesus was hungry at the end of it!

So I’m quite happy to report that Elisa Beynon’s new tome, The Vicar’s Wife’s Cookbook manages to be pretty much quiche free.  Hosannah in the highest!  A canny woman is Mrs Beynon.  She’s recognised the need for the Church to move on, in a very culinary sense, and presents a gospel of hearty feasts designed to both edify and nourish.  These are recipes that would make the most dour parishioner smile and give thanks for that which has been set before them. 

You see, The Vicar’s Wife is used to entertaining.  And through the constant stream of clergy, christians and chums that seat themselves around her table she’s also learned what people like to eat.  She’s a great evangelist for food, sharing her message with both wit and warmth.  By the end of the book you’ll not only want to try out the recipes, you’ll also have a secret hankering to be invited over for dinner.

What we have here are over 300 pages of easy to make meals designed to cater for all tastes.  There are no strange and mysterious ingredients.  There’s no advanced technique required for good results.  The recipes are pretty much ready to go and even a novice should find very little in the book a challenge to their culinary faith.  And the book is all the better for this.  You could quite happily make any of the recipes without need to travel to specialist shops or cookery schools.

Some may find the lack of pictures a strain.  Some may prefer the traditional “Starter, Mains, Desserts” style layout of other cookery books over the menu based format here.  I don’t have a problem with either.  In fact, I really like the layout, grouping meals designed to feed a small prayerful gathering apart from those that would feed the five thousand makes a lot of sense to me.  It’s also nice to see a cookbook that’s realistic and honest in the number of mouths the end result will feed; this is a book written from practical experience and is filled with the personality and advice that only feeding real, hungry, people can give.  I’m not entirely convinced by the index, which sometimes manages to categorise things in a way that makes finding a specific recipe not as easy as it should be, but really it’s not that big a problem.

I’ve not had this book long enough to test a number of recipes, so I’ll give an update when I have.  But in the meantime – I’m a convert.  You know these recipes will work.  It’s common sense, good quality home cooking from the author’s own dog-eared kitchen file, not some celebrity driven collection of theoretical marvels drawn up in a lab with a home economist.  This is real food for real people.  Praise the Lord!

Well. The answer is it will. It actually will do all those things.* And it will do so much more. For many years I’ve battled with my kitchen, fighting against its desire to be filled with ready meals and takeaways. And I have emerged victorious, not unlike a bloke from a public toilet, holding my head high and munching happily on what I have produced.

And once the cooking is done, and the dirty pans have been left to magically clean themselves, what better way to round off the evening than to slip into something more ostentatious and feed the eyes with a lovely, lovely movie. You see, the eyes are just like little mouths. You may not get them to eat spaghetti, and believe me I’ve tried, but they’ll always happily devour whatever visual extravaganza you put in front of them.

So that’s it. Films and food – my two loves. I’ve been paid for writing about one before, so clearly the time is right to not be paid for writing about both. Check back soon to see if i’ve deleted this terrible post.

*this is actually a lie.