T-4-1

It is amazing how many people can't make a decent cup of tea. I encountered a non-tea drinker during the summer and I asked her why she doesn't drink tea, expecting the usual response of "I don't drink caffeine", but surprisingly her response was "It doesn't taste very nice, a bit like hot water with milk". This angered me as I'm a devoted tea drinker, my response/defense was that I'm devoted to the ritual, tradition, caffeine, taste, oh taste! When I tasted the cup of tea in front of me it did taste like warm water with a dash of milk. To paint a better picture, we were sitting in a reputable cafe in Dartmouth which serves good tea and coffee, not the best but good. From then on I continued to drink tea with this reminder that it tastes a bit shitty, apart from when I make it, and I've been told I make a good cup of tea.

This recipe, or method was formed due to the lack of water quality in London, showing progression can come from deprivation. I noticed that everyone was drinking tea with a weird scummy crust floating on the top. By chance I discovered that if you put the milk in the cup first the scum doesn't appear (although it's probably lurking underneath the surface).

1 Large cup or Mug or Bowl (Not a fucking tea pot)
1 tea bag (or 2 if you're a builder)
1 Large dash of milk (1/10th the capacity of your drinking vessel)
1 Table spoon (Not a fucking teaspoon)
Boiling water

1. Fill your cup/mug/bowl with water and pour it into your kettle so you have the exact amount of water and don't waste electricity. Begin to boil.

2. Put the milk and tea bag(s) in the cup ready for when the water is at boiling point.

3. As soon as the water is boiling and the kettle has turned itself off, pour the boiling (and I mean boiling) water into the cup.

4. Using the table spoon stir the tea and get the bag moving around, then start to press the bag against the side of the cup/mug/bowl (this really gets the flavor out)

5. Leave to brew for 5-10 minutes giving the tea bag a press every now and then

6. Remove the tea bag and drink your fully flavorsome, slightly sweet, perfectly warm tea.


Let me explain before the uproar begins

Using a larger mug/cup/bowl will allow the tea to brew for longer as the volume of water takes longer to cool down. It also means you get two cups in one, so you don't have to get up and make another.

The milk in first gives a completely different flavor, especially when the boiling water hits it, but also the tea then brews into the milk not just the water (like a chai tea). Using a little bit more milk than normal will counteract the bitter tannins, so the tea still tastes good after a long brewing session.

Using a table spoon means you are less likely to break the tea bag and the larger surface area of the spoon presses out more flavor.


My method goes against traditional tea making, where you are creating a perfumed, delicate,  refreshing drink. I think this method went out the window when the british started putting milk in their tea. Instead with mine, you have a much more powerful, rich, intense drink, that will warm your heart and either make you sink further into your arm chair or give you a massive wake up slap.

I fucking love tea.

Snail

After purging the snails for a couple of days it was time to cook.

Boiled live for a few minutes removed the slime and the vibrant green stuff. Then I cooled them under cold running water and cracked the shell to remove the flesh. Lots of garlic, butter, parsley and a splash of white wine in a frying pan creates all the flavor needed. Scoff.

As you can see from the expression on my face, chomping on a snail is can be a pleasant experience. I've eaten French style garlic snails in restaurants before and enjoyed them, however I felt the powerful flavor of the garlic was masking the true taste of the snail, because they actually taste disgusting. To be honest I was dreading the sacrifice, after keeping the snails for a few days they became my pets and when you view the cooking process of something it can become a little less appetising. But the actual result once the meat was in my mouth was a tender, juicy, tasty bit of food. Worth a try.

L'Escargot-go

I've caught my snails and I'm purging them a tub with some greens and herbs from my balcony garden. I'm not sure what herbs snails eat so I put in some parsley, sage and mint. The purpose of this is to firstly flush out any toxins the snails may have (from eating slug pellets) and secondly, I'm hoping to flavor the snails internally with the herbs. It's been a couple of days now so I think my snail farm is ready for it's first harvest.

I'm thinking boil, frying pan, butter, garlic and parsley. I've also got my eye on a couple of woodlouse as a side dish. Not too sure about this, I suspect they'll taste like prawns.

Why Not Eat Insects?

Along with Jamie Oliver's new book I bough this; Why Not Eat Insects?

The book was written 125 years ago by a Victorian Entomologist, who posed this question as a theory for solving malnutrition in poverty stricken communities.

The question seems more relevant today as global warming is more apparent, meat farming being less feasible, fish stocks depleting and a third of farmed food in a vulnerable state due to the decline of the honey bee.

I've eaten most things and certainly anything foreign that's presented in front of me. But I have never really had the desire to eat insects, apart from cooking grass hoppers on a campfire when I was 13 years old. So this week I'm on the hunt for all things creepy crawly, but when looking at my balcony garden for snails (which I've been throwing into the car park all summer), there is not one in sight. But when I find one of these slimy shits, I'm planning to purge it in a box for a couple of days with some parsley (this will remove any toxins/poison from slug pellets), then boil it up, remove it from the shell and then fry it in butter, garlic and parsley. What's the point in this? I don't know, just seeing if I can stomach it.

Give me a few days and I'll get back to you.

30 Minute Madness

This week saw the start of Jamie's 30 Minute Meals. Great idea, great recipes and great food, however it's slightly unrealistic as you never see the guy washing up. I love Jamie Oliver, he got me into cooking in the late 90's when I was just a spotty teenager. It's just I feel a little cynical about the programme, as it appears he has the perfect set up in his kitchen, all the right equipment and what appears to be an unlimited budget for his ingredients. It just pisses me off.

Why is he using Chanternay carrots when he could use normal ones at a quarter of the cost. Why would I make roast beef out of a fillet that cost about £30? That just isn't realistic. Sorry to bore, as I'm sure there are more worthy critics than me talking about this subject.

I bought the book anyway and it's full of useful tips and inspiring recipes so it's worth a peek.

Expensive Vs Cheap

I'm a logical person and I figure, why spend £40 on a bottle of wine when you can get a case (12 bottles) of good wine for that amount of money. Well my girlfriend's dad dusted off this baby (pictured) at lunch today and it was an exceptional drink. Maybe it's worth splashing out every now and then on a good bottle so you can appreciate the difference between good and very good or cheap and expensive wine. I remember reading an article about the cost of a bottle of wine and on a £5 bottle after tax, the price of the glass, the shipping cost etc, that the actual liquid inside is worth about 70p but if you spend £7 then the wine inside the bottle is worth about £2, so you may be getting a much better product for your money or being ripped off even more. Who knows.

The French have been selling shit wine to the English for decades and I think they are still doing this, so I prefer a £7 New Zealand sauvignon over a £20 sancerre as I personally think the wine tastes better, with an added bonus of costing a 3rd of the price. So the most important thing is to drink what you think tastes good. I'm really into a Colombard/Chenin Blanc at the moment which cost £3.99 at the Co-op and it's perfectly good, but it's just a stroke of luck that the wine and my taste buds have become great mates, as it's unlucky that my preferred whisky cost £50 a bottle. There is no such thing as bad taste when it comes to booze, with WKD Blue being the only exception, my thoughts are drink what you like and lots of it.

Mushrooms Galore

Yesterday I took part in a mushroom picking course at Haldon forest near Exeter. I've always been a little nervous when picking mushrooms, you get the obviously edible ones that any idiot can spot, for example the Giant Puffball, which is a football sized type of mushroom and one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten. If you are ever lucky enough to find a giant puffball, try slicing it like a loaf of bread and fry it with lots of butter, so tender, meaty and full of flavor. Anyway my point is that from gaining more knowledge on mushrooms I've become more nervous about picking the obscure gems found in our woodland and fields. There are about 900 different fungi in this country and we found about 150 yesterday, which I found a little overwhelming. The expert running the course is a true expert with over 30 years experience studying fungi and he ignorantly only knew the latin names to the mushrooms we found, but I later discovered that most mushrooms only have a latin name. But this expert or mycologist does sometimes get it wrong and can only identify a mushroom when its under a microscope and when he has run a series of tests identifying the spores and other scientific things. The day was an amazing experience but I will certainly stick to the usual common edible fungi and avoid any Death Caps.

Here is a selection showing some of the edible mushrooms my mother (she's a bit of a foraging enthusiast) and I picked yesterday (sorry about the latin names). Cantharellus infundibuliformis, Shaggy ink cap, Calvatia Utriformis, White Helvella and the very tasty Hedgehog Fungus which is easy to identify as it has spiny gills and looks like nothing else. Well, nothing poisonous at least. My mother took the mushrooms home, as I was hugely hungover and couldn't stomach foreign foods, so fingers crossed my inheritance comes in early!

To clarify and stop any media scare mongering, there are only a handful of deadly poisonous fungi and you have to eat the whole cap and normally raw if you want to die, also lots have an accumulative poison, like lead poisoning, so you have to eat the wrong mushroom consistently over a period of time to die. Get a good field guide or the iPhone app if you want to live.