Lobster avec Chips

Plugging Tesco again, whist I was there with my lady last night we saw a some frozen Canadian lobster for £5. Spare me the lecture about impoverished Cornish fishermen, cos British waters are over fished and it's time we stuck our hand in someone else's lobster pot. This lobster is whole and ready cooked, so ideal for someone who is a little on the lazy side. All you need to do is leave it for 8 hours to thaw out, and it's ready to eat.

The lobster comes boxed with instructions on how to prepare it. I decided to have it with chips, salad and a dressing made from lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, garlic, Dijon mustard, sugar, salt & pepper, tobasco, balsamic vinegar and a dash of wostershire sauce (I made it up in a George's Marvelous Medicine kind of manner).

Skeptical we both started chopping on the plated food. The result; pretty good. Prit-tay good. Not amazing, but what do you expect from a £5 frozen lobster.

have a fun NYE and if you're stuck for something to do or want a pre-NYE dinner, then try Lobster avec Chips avec Freixenet (See previous post).

New Years Booze

My girlfriend discovered this wine in Tesco, it's called Viña Albali Tempranillo and it's pretty good. It's on the website but says it is unavailable, but I bought 6 bottles last night for £2.85 each. Tempranillo is basically a Rioja, which usually consist of 60%+ Tempranillo grape. So if you are feeling the pinch of recession/Christmas and want a budgeted New Year's Eve party, then try this. 

Also at Tesco is a Freixenet Vintage Cava for when the clock strikes 12, at £6 a bottle and this seriously knocks the shit out of any Champagne. Treat your self.

Knife

I've drank a little to much wine this evening which is dangerous when writing anything so I probably shouldn't be doing this. Please excuse the grammar and all that, you get me?

We, as human beings eat every single day and some fatties (my self included), will eat many times a day. Cooking or preparing food is imminent, just like Christmas, if you don't embrace it, you will not enjoy it.

The main tool in the kitchen is the knife, I'm sure it's a man thing, psycologist would probably say it's an extension to the penis, like a guitar or a massive car. Using that analogy, if it fits in your hand and feels good then great, go for it, chop away at your meat!

But there are good knives and shit knives. Global are a classic rip-off knife, they are made of good steel, but so uncomfortable, you never see a chef using one of them. Anyway I have a large collection of knives, different brands, different shapes, different sizes. I recently purchased a new knife on the basis that it's elder brother (pictured below) being so good.

I highly recommend this brand of knife, Alolon, if you are thinking of investing then get this brand, and I really mean the word investing! Using a good knife will save you time, your fingers, make better food and cooking more pleasurable. This type of knife is a Santoku, which is an japanese veg/meat knife and the sheath protects the blade from becoming blunt in the draw or stops you slicing your hands when rummaging around. The handle is a soft rubber, which is ultra comfortable and the blade is made from an excellent high grade German steel, with a fluted blade to stop veg sticking. Unfortunately I think this knife is now discontinued. The next one on my list is this - Tojiro Senkou, which is made from folded steel like a samurai sword and I've heard it's scientifically proven to compensate for a small penis! I probably need about 10 of these.

Turkey is for twats

Ok its time to really upset some people.

I don't know where this ridiculous tradition has come from to have Turkey at Christmas. Not even the Americans traditionally have it on Christmas day, they have it for Thanks Giving. There are lots of things that twats eat at Christmas that they usually wouldn't eat, like fucking mulled wine. Why don't people drink it other times of the year? Because it's horrible and nobody actually likes it.

I'm now rolling up my sleeves and tensing my fist, getting ready to give Turkey a long awaited and well deserved smash in face. It is so rubbish, well alright, turkey breast and mince can be good for people who are on a low fat diet, but ultimately it's a stupid roasting bird for stupid people. The meat is so dry you have to cover the thing with bacon, sausage meat and goose fat to keep it moist. Or some idiots cook it upside-down and cover it in tin foil. But after doing all this the meat is still actually quite bland.

The best bit is people go all out and pay over the odds for an organic, local, free-range bird and because of the Christmas demand, they are even more expensive. Twats. Sorry, they're Fucking Twats.

Buy a Chicken. Very simple solution.

1. It cooks quicker
2. It's cheaper
3. It tastes better
4. You don't have to pre-order it (and if you do it fits in a freezer)
5. You're not following a non-tradition

I could be here all night if I really wanted.


I'm just looking forward to the duck I've ordered from Creedy Carver for about £5 each, but it's only that cheap because I did it through work.


Have a wonderful Christmas everyone and I hope you enjoy your meal, whatever you eat, seriously!

Fruit not Flowers

Being a bloody beer-drinking bloke I require logic for something to make sense. So I don’t really understand flowers, apart from the fact they look pretty, sometimes smell nice and most importantly, bees make honey from the pollen & nectar (this is only with natural wild flowers as fertilised flowers can kill bees and cut flowers do bugger all). Anyway, my point being - as I’ve now become an opinionated prick, which wasn’t my point from the outset of starting this blog -  is that  fruit can serve a better function. Fruit looks nice, smells nice and has helped the little bees when it was just a piece of blossom and putting all that aside you can eat the fruit. And vegetables are even better. There is a very true speech from Wihhnail and I, where uncle Monty describes flowers as being “simply tarts; prostitutes for the bees” and he thinks “the carrot infinitely more fascinating than the geranium”. So when I die, please pile lots of fruit & veg on my grave, and then eat it.

My girlfriend bought this sprout tree for about 70p, far more interesting than a morbid lily, and I got eat it.  There is a certain 'je ne sais quoi' about a firm, young carrot!

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.

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.

World Egg Day

Oh yes. Check out this world record.

What the fuck should I make for dinner?

Well this website can help - whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com

Mushroom Picking

I'm so excited to go on a Fungal Foray this Saturday and have some expert advice on edible shrooms. I've been serious about foraging for a few years now and have been gathering wild food since I was a young boy.

I first got into foraging after reading this book - Food For Free

But soon discovered Roger Philips' book - Wild Food, which is much better. He has also released the definitive book on mushrooms - Mushrooms

His website has an amazing Mushroom App for the iPhone, definitely worth a free download if you're a nerdy forager.

Keep off the Liberty Caps Timothy Rowden!

Mid-week Roasts

Forgot to mention that If I'd covered the top of the cauliflower cheese with some bread crumbs it would have been even better, adding that crunchy texture needed to complete the dish and with some additional steamed veg on the side it could have been a complete meal. Instead it was part of a Monday roast.

Who needs a Sunday roast when you can have one on a gloomy Monday. I didn't use a whole chicken, just thighs and drumsticks (the leg meat is far tastier than the breast anyhow), this means the meal cooks so much quicker and you don't need a whole day to prep, eat and digest the meal. It went down really well with a few glasses of Bordeaux.

The Cauliflower Returns

So the cauliflower returns with a wicked bechamel sauce and loads of mature cheddar its tastes so good and I can feel that heart attack coming sooner.

My first scoffy egg, so far.

I made a good Italian inspired breakfast, possibly inspired by having a really mediocre lunch at Carluccio's last Thursday and thinking I can do better.

Using some left over pizza dough I made a ciabatta with a few bits of Mediterranean veg stuffed in the middle. I covered the dough in a good extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and baked for about 30-40 minutes. So, so good.

For my scoffy egg which took about 5 minutes to make, I toasted the bread on a griddle pan with some olive oil, poached a couple of eggs and sprinkled some slices of basil to put on the top. Eggs and basil go really well together and were the star of the dish. So next time I'll just have the eggs on toast with some basil.

In the past I've been told not to chop basil and it's better to tear it, but I think it works well finely chopped and I used old Gordon's technique. Take a look.

How To Chop Herbs | Gordon Ramsay on Channel 4

Curried Cauliflower Soup

The soup had good flavor, although I put too much spice in there. Maybe a few little drops of sesame oil and some finely chopped coriander or parsley sprinkled on top would have gone down well.

Monster Cauliflower

My girlfriend was given this cauliflower from someone at her work and I'm just making a soup out of it.

I slowly fried off some chili with a ton of garlic, then chucked in a load of spices (turmeric, garam masala etc) and cooked for a further 10 minutes on a very low heat. I chopped off a quarter of the cauliflower, broke it into small pieces and put it in the pan with a chopped up spud, then covered the veg with chicken stock and it's now bubbling away. I'm thinking, when the veg is cooked I'll smoothly blend it and put a tin of coconut milk in there to mellow out the spices and to add some sweet creaminess.

There are only a few things you can do with a cauliflower, so I'll let you know what happens to the rest of it. I feel a cauliflower cheese is on the cards!

First thoughts

As I'm writing this blog I have realised that my first discovery on this journey is that:

Food = Fun

So my philosophy on food has begun, more food equals more fun. Unless you have an eating disorder then food isn't fun. I'm already contradicting myself so it's time to shut up and eat some food.

The Journey Begins

A Scoffy Egg is a play on words using the name of the famous French chef Escoffier, and a term for cooking a quick egg to scoff. A contrast on the guy who pioneered modern cuisine and cooking one of the most basic meals.