Do me a flavor and get rid of the blandness!

On Friday evening I had an amazing meal at Riverford Field Kitchen, probably my favorite restaurant and better than any Michelin Stared place I've had the pleasure of feeling uncomfortable in. The place simply wins due to the incredible food, everything else is average. The food simply wins due to the incredible flavor, everything else is average, meaning presentation etc. 

But this got me thinking about flavor and how you can make weak food taste good. When I'm at work and a soup a bit bland, we add more salt & pepper, if that doesn't work we add some bouillon, if we're still not hitting the flavor zone, we blend in more fresh herbs, raw garlic, extra virgin olive oil, a bit of sugar and lots of lemon juice. And bang, flavor! It never fails. This is a picture of me in the kitchen looking all smug about the great tasting soup.

When cooking at home I love big flavor and I feel there is no excuse for my food to be bland, my Scottish grandmother would detest my food if she was still alive, to give her credit, she gave me a great introduction to whole foods, but she didn't like any sort of richness. I suppose my food could be criticised for it's lack of subtlety, but I'm the most important critic when it comes to tasting, so everyone can go and eat elsewhere if they don't like it.

To bang some balls in your broth you need a good balance!

Saltiness - lots of good sea salt, butter, OXO cubes or real stock, soy, fish sauce, Marigold Swiss Bouillon (although it makes everything taste the same), anchovies, capers, cheese or bacon.

Acidity - lemon or lime (added at the end of cooking), vinegar, wine, tomato.

Sweetness - sugar, honey, sweated onions or other veg like carrots, leeks or celery, cream or coconut milk, butternut squash, sweet potato, peas or any sweet veg.

Heat - pepper, chili (powder or fresh), ginger, wasabi, horse radish, hot smoked paprika or various spice blends

Added flavor - more butter, a small amount of raw garlic (1/2 a clove) made into a paste, olive oil, fresh herbs (coriander, parsley, basil, tender thyme tips nothing too woody).

Experiment and enjoy.

Crumble beats the cold

Winter has arrived so shove some hot crumble in your gob. 

Q. What makes a good crumble? A. The crumble you cock!

And to make a good crumble you need to add cinnamon and oats. I also feel cold ice cream works really well with the hot pudding, I love custard but hot & hot just isn't as good as hot & cold.

I'm going to embrace winter by running full speed into the chilled easterly wind, whist stuffing my face with all things warm & stodgy and wearing a really expensive winter coat. Piss off Jack Frost I love winter.

London

This weekend was a big weekend of partying in London, but I also used my time in the city to soak up some of the amazing food that's going down and coming up and that people are down with and up for.

First thing on Saturday we went for a pretty amazing coffee at a new shop called Allpress (rubbish name) on Redchurch Street. The actual coffee shop feels a little cold in terms of atmosphere and interior design, but as soon as that coffee hits your lips the clinical lines of the furniture disappear, especially because we sat on the bench outside. They roast all the beans in the premises and make the coffee with a La Marzocco espresso machine, so it's hard to make a bad coffee with those winning factors. Although I probably could cock it up if I tried hard enough.

We next headed to Maltby Street in Bermondsey for a breakfast of more coffee at Monmouth HQ, cured meat and beer from the Kernel Brewery, which turned out to be one of the best beers I've ever had. This is a really interesting food market and if you can't stand the crowds of Borough market it's worth a visit, however I feel it won't be too long before those crowds, or shall I say cunts, spread their middle-class labia from London bridge to Tower Bridge. 

Whist on the subject we then encountered another breed of the middle-classes on fixed-gear bikes at Broadway Market, but they're alright really, no they're not. It is actually a pretty good food market, but lacked the Dickensian charm of Borough. I bought a really good Vietnamese sandwich called a Bánh mì, so so good. I'd heard about these on the Food Programme on Radio 4 a few weeks ago. After scoffing some average brownie I was still hungry and decided to get a native Oyster, but suddenly noticed they were selling clams as well, so I went for both and had a mollusc off. Surprisingly the clam was a clear winner, with more flavor, better texture (if you like to chew) and larger in volume. The clam was also less than half the price at only £1.20. To be honest I didn't know that people ate clams raw and there must be plenty more shell fish in the sea, ready to be scoffed in an uncooked form and they're beckoning me with their buttery sweetness.

The rest of the weekend mainly consisted of potato based conversation, but that's another story.

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.