previously known as [cold][wet][durham], [dirty][grimy][london],[busy][shiny][toon],[frantic][crowded][south]
Put a bottle of cheap dark rum in the freezer. The next day, mix 5 parts fiery ginger beer (not ale), 2 parts dark rum, and one part fresh lime juice. Pour over ice. Slip. Shout Yaaarrrgh and stomp round in circles!
I am not Irish. Really. Not even slightly. And this is why I’m not out drinking myself to destruction tonight, on some vague claim to be decended from the people over the water. This however is a subject for another day, probably tomorrow, in all honesty.
No, tonights diatribe is reserved for American cooks mutilation of the world cuisine. I am sick to death of reading about habribo-lime pestos, lemon salsa, diary free fat free no Arabic style salt mayonnaise.
What joins these two subject? This vile collection of faux Irish food over on about.com which drives me insane with rage. The list looks about as Irish as my left foot. Irish Mint Flavored Coffee Creamer is not I feel authentic. Fudge Mint Pie probably falls into that catagory too. Making the food green, or worse still drowning it in Guinness does not make it Irish, just like adding whisky does not make it Scottish or garlic French, pasta Italian or rice Indian.
There are how ever some names on there that atleast fit. Colcannon for example, and Irish Stew, lamb shanks and Corned Beef and Cabbage Skillet Casserole. Lets have a look at these in turn.
The Irish stew contains garlic which is a travesty, but nothing compared te the included refrigerated potato wedges. Yes, you read correctly. Now hold your breath and wait to read…”16 oz. pkg. refrigerated prepared roast beef in gravy”. Yes, I kid you not. Now take a deep breath and venture into the horror that is Corned Beef and Cabbage Skillet Casserole.
Corned Beef casserole (or tattyhash as it is sometimes known) is a great meal. Boiled potatoes gone oversoft with onion and meaty goodness of cornbeef. It’ll even work ok with the tinned stuff (in fact some probably prefer it), but never ever should the instructions open with… (hold on tight now)
8 oz. egg noodles
NOODLES? IRISH? NO!
So here are the rules. America, you have some wonderful food. I’ve had wonderful hotdogs in Chicago. The best burgers I’ve ever eaten were in New York. The food tour of Greenwich Village I went on was simply brilliant. You’ve got some great cheeses and beers (yes - really - you don’t need to drink Bud!), Texas and the southern states do the best BBQ’d meat I’ve ever eaten, and I’ve eaten a lot, so can you please please please stop fucking around other countries food. No instructions that includes a whole ready meal is going to be remotely authentic.
Pies are deeply unfashional at the moment it seems, with chavs munching down (and silencing their offspring) with Gregs Dummies, and every Food Nazi from Queen Gillian McKeith downwards loathing their fat laden fillings and pastry topping, so I was quite proud of Jamie Oliver when he set about making a beef and cheese pie on telly last week.
After a truly crappy week (working hard, storms blow a wall onto my car possibly writing it off, next car insurance quote being three times what they ask for it on monday, etc etc etc) I was in the mood for pie. I had a remarkably good one in Reading this week, and decided there was nothing for it, I was going to have to have a go. It turned out to be the best pie I’ve ever eaten, and the same phrase was used by three other people, so I feel I should share it with the world. The pasty is the easiest I’ve ever made, and turned out ok even through I’m crap with pastry.
Pastry: 8oz plain flour, 2oz butter, 2oz cooking margarine (this should probably have been lard to be honest), hand full of chopped thyme, some cold water (about a cup full im guessing) and a teaspoon of salt.
Sieve the flour, dump in the thyme and salt, drop the fat on the top, and with cold hands, rub it all together until it looks a bit like breadcrumbs. The colder your hands the better. Add enough cold water to bind it all together into a lump without being sticky. Wrap in clingfilm and stick it in the fridge until needed.
The filling: 2 pounds of shin beef, one large onion, 4 rashers of fatty bacon, as many mushrooms as fit into your hands cupped together and a bottle of beer, a stock cube and a teaspoon of mustard.
First up, chop the onion into half. One half slice finely, the other into big chunks. You need an onion about the size of a grapefruit, or several small ones. Pop them into a big pan (not frying pan) with a good lug of olive oil on a low heat. They’ll take about 20 minutes which is plenty of time to do everything else (including the pasty if needed).
Chop the beef into big chunks. Too big to go into your mouth comfortably. Douse them in plain flour and black pepper, then shake off all the excess flour. I used shin beef because it’s god a great flavour and perfect texture for this sort of thing. Any other slow cooking cut would work well, using best steak is pointless and will add nothing. Shin, brisket, neck, all would be good, and very cheap too. 2 pounds in weight was £6 and a mighty chunk of meat.
Once the onion is golden and melting, scrape it all out of the pan and off to one side. Chop the fatty bacon into inch long strips and put it in the pan, turn the heat up, and add a teaspoon sized blob of lard. Once it’s all sizzling and exciting drop a handfull of floury beef in, and brown on all sizes. You want some burnt bits, they give the good flavours. Brown the rest of the meat in handfull sized batches, fishing the last batch out and dumping it in with the onions.
Once all the beef is browned (and at this point pinch a bit - it’ll be melt in the mouth soft, bloody on the inside and burnt on the outside - perfect), put everything back into the pan (the onions and the beef), turn the heat down to it’s lowest setting, and add the crumbled up stock cube, mustard, pinch of salt and the bottle of beer. I used Hobgoblin beer, and I imagine any dark and malt beverage would do the same. Guiness is somewhat traditional, but I like beers not stouts with my meat. Pop a lid on it, and leave it for …. 2 hours. Yes, all 2 hours. Don’t mess about here, the long cooking it what makes this perfect.
After 2 hours, lift the lid off, turn the heat up an ddrive off some of the liquid. You’re looking of a thick gravy that coats meaty chunks which you can just about break apart with a spoon against the side of the pan. It’ll take about 5 minutes I’m guessing.
At this point you can leave everything to go cold and move on to the enxt stage an hour before you want to eat, but be warned, all house guests will pinch spoonfuls of the meaty goodness at all opertunities, so best just get on with it.
Laddle the meat into a tin and scatter another good handful of thyme over it. I used an 8 inch wide rectangular tin, because i like my pie thin, but a deeper dish would work just as well. Leave it to cool whilst you sort of the pastry. Roll it out to the size of your dish, using plenty of flour to stop it sticking. Mr Oliver also put greaseproof paper on the top whilst rolling and I have to admit, it works very well.
Lay to pasty over the top of the tin, and push all the over hang into the tin so it rumples up. These bits all be extra crunchy goodness.
Cut a few nicks into the top to let the stream out, and stick it into a hot over for 40 minutes or so. The meat is cooked, all you’re doing it baking the pastry and letting the meaty liquid goodness bubble through it.
Best served with fresh with chips, or cold the next day, my personal favorite.
Aparently you should do the following…
Eat breakfast like a king (one assumes this it talking of fresh fruit, yoghurt and such like),
lunch like a prince (a salomon sandwich),
and dinner like a pauper (rice and veg).
However, working away from home is more conductive to the following:
Eat breakfast like an artic explorer (ceral bar eatten whilst on the move followed by coffee as black and strong as Mike Tyson),
lunch like an aging debutaunt (soup and a sandwich from some small and fashional deli as close to the office as possible),
and dinner like a binge drinker (take away curry eaten late night in a hotel room).
Gillian Mckeith would scowl at me I’m sure.
The other day I had a brainwave. Pickled onions are great. Cheese is great. Pickled onions and cheese together are really great, but is it possible to pickle cheese? I’ve never heard of it, but much like smoking, I think it’s a process that can be applied to many things. Everybody has heard of smoked fish, smoked sausage and smoked cheese, but have you ever had a smoked egg? They’re amazing - whole boiled eggs, smoked in the shell (which has been cracked a bit), just fantastic in salads and I suspect would make fabulous kedgeree (though I’ve not tried it). Could pickling be in the same realm as smoking?
So, there’s only one way to find out. I’ve chopped up a block of really cheap supermarket cheese (no point completely ruining good cheese yet) and submerged it in the vinegar from a jar of pickled onions. The pickling vinegar has a good dose of dried chillies, black pepper and cloves (as was used in the original pickled onions), and I’m hoping the cheese takes up some of the flavour.
A bit of research on the net doesn’t give up much for pickled cheese. The Romans pickled cheese in vinegar and honey, but they ate mice, so I’m not getting my hopes up. Fete cheese is considered pickled by some because it is stored in brine, but I was looking for cheese pickled in vinegar. Maybe I’m a first here.
Discussions with my lass and her friend, both of whom are chemists ended up with them being convinced that the acid of the vinegar will cause the cheese to break down. I countered that eventually pickled eggs start to break down too, but not for ages. Acid after all conjugates proteins much like heat does, and cheese is mostly fat and protein chains, but who knows, we’ll just have to wait and see.
A quick look after 24 hours and the cubes of cheese (about an inch across) are taking on a light brown colour, much like pickled eggs do very quickly. The flavour - well - pretty much just cheese and pickled onion at the moment. More news as and when I dare to re-try.
I found this blog entry about milk labelling absolutly shocking. Monsanto manage to get through a court ruling meaning farmers are specifically barred from saying if their milk does/or does not, come from treated animals! Amazing, truely amazing. I’m half hoping a farmer starts selling milk which explains that it definatly does not contain fish, chicken, the colour purple or LSD.
The link comes from Seth Godin’s post about including more information on your products (being a good thing)
Somebody I’m working with is fasting, not because of his religion, but because his flatmate is fasting and he’s showing him support. As part of his fasting, he is only eating biscuits and fruit during the day, and a sandwich at lunch.
I’ve just had a phone call from the production team of the brilliant “Kill it, cook it, eat it” asking if I could make the filming tomorrow of the Christmas edition (turkeys and geese). Annoyingly its too late, which is a real shame as I’d kill (probably without the cook and eat sections) to be there.
For those of you who missed KiCiEi (as I shall now call it), it follows the animals we eat everyday from field to plate, without being sessationalist and overly dramatic. I was amazed (really amazed) raved about it multiple times when the first series was on.
Turkeys are big birds, I’ve got no idea how they are slaughtered commercially. Possibly using the same sort of mechanism as chickens (electricity and beheading), would seem logical.
I went into Fenwick’s this lunchtime to buy a sandwich form their very excellent sandwich counter. As we found though the aisles of ladies fashion and then the chocolate counter, I realised I was facing the wrong way and had lost the sandwich counter. This was followed up by realising that actually, I hadn’t lost it, it had gone. It is boxed up with white wood, and apparently is being replaced with a Pret, you know, to complement the one just a minute up the road! Idiots.
Gone will be the huge tubs of unnamed fillings. Gone will be the fun game of guessing which ones are “special” and thus more expensive. Gone will be the scorn of the ladies serving when you mix up the fillings by name, or not have the right money because one was on special. Worse of all, gone is the coronation chicken on granary, and the salt beef with chilli onions (so good I nearly mourned them separately, and may well do yet).
When will large firms realise that consistency is trumped by monotony, and that variety of provider actually increases trade! Did the (rather odd) combination of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and The Long Tail teach them nothing? One has to assume that there is a good reason for these changes, but I get a sad feeling its probably the bottom line thanks to increases rent of the site and reduced staff overheads.
I have a quiet affection of saurkraunt. I’m not sure why. The jars of it you buy are, generally, vile, which is a real shame. The best stuff I had was un Austria, and it went perfectly with the tarragon hinted mstard and meaty sausages I and my then girlfriend ate standing in the freezing cold after too many beers, surrounded by old men in big coats, also half trollied.
Anyway, I digress, nothing new there. I quite fancy a go and this cheats reciept for Grand Central Baking’s Quickled Kraut, quickling being their term or cheats pickling, done over night and in the fridge. Still, if it’s better than those huge jars of soft soggy pulp I buy every so often and then watch rot, it’s a good thing.
I love the writing style of Allegra McEvedy. As it’s not obvious, click on the permalink to read each full article.
I lovelove love the last cartoon strip in todays BasicInstructions. I might possibly have done xtream roast chicken in the past. I brought it though. Definately.
I have many arguments with our American cousins about cocktails* but this is just silly. Wine based cocktails are bad enough but beer based cocktails, you fucking heathens.
*A martini is gin/vodka and vermouth, and nothing else. Nothing. Leave it alone. It’s the nearest thing you’ve invented to poetry. All other mixtures are just cocktails.
While it’s not a stack of freezing cold melon with hard Italian cheeses, but I’ve just had some seriously over ripe gala melon with a strong cheddar, and it was excellent. And now I’m about to put a garlic bread in the oven, because I have the munchies.
Yes, it’s all gone a bit BlackBooks as I druled over whatwereeating.com.
I think this little article about having an hour in the evening to decompress and shoot the breeze (a horrible American phrase which I’ve always liked because it sounds like sitting outside in the summer and chatting until it goes cold) is spot on. We rush our food, we rush our drinking, and all so we can watch TV and numb our minds.
First up,an apology. The spacebar on myibook isplaying up and notfiring evertime I hit it, which is extreamly annoying. Nodoubt I’llmiss a few spaces in tonight diatribe.
At the weekend I was reading an article about girls who hunt down their men based virtually entirely on thier wealth. Not unusual I admit, but nowwith the aid of sugardaddy.com (i think), theycould do it online, and even better, the men registered seemed to be aware of what they were getting into. Personally I find this a little vile, but understandable. Every 30 something-slightly-saggy-bummed-paralegal-blond-bimbette wants to swan about in Vacachi and stuff her botexed face with quails eggs I imagine.
One of the women (I nearly typed lady here but to be honest, she wasn’t) they were interviewing seemed to hold herself in very high regard, and was looking for a chap with abouta 100 to 150k of disposable income each year for her to dispose of. She seemed to be planning on spending this on clothes (she had several favorite labels, all of which I normally see wrapped about single-mums with scrapeback hair and a fake tan in shopping centres) and drinking champagne, one assumes this would be in the company of other men whilst her husband “pulls down” a quarter of a million to support his strumpet of a wife, all the while hoping he doesn’t catch some sticky disease from her all-about-town muff. Anyway, I digress. Chloe (or whatever her name was, it was certainly in that bracket) claimed to only ever drink champagne, which i findhighly unlikely, as tea or coffee in morning would seem highly preferable. I guess she’s buggered on breathalisers after she’s been to the gym and had toglug down half abottle of fizzy to quench her thirst after running on a treadmill to try and ditch the inevitable 30-something slightly-saggy-bottom.
What Is our national obsession with bloody champagne? Apparently it’s us Brits who are supporting the damned French fizzypop market on our own. Now I enjoy a glass of champagne very much ever so often, but I came to an astounding conclusion a few months ago. Champagne is basically crap. This is a difficult thing to admit given how much regard ititheldwithin our society, but I believe it to be true.
It has none ofthe depth or rich flavours of the bolder redwines. I doesn’t carry the mix of sharp zesty tones of many of the pale wines. It has none of the character nor charm of beers, nor the variety. It has two redeeming features, namely that it has bubbles, and it gets you euphorically drunk. I suspect the later is due to the former anyway.
The bubbles in champagne seem to be held in high regard if they are very tight and fine, this makes them tickly and exciting on the tongue. Ilove this feeling, and it does seem to get better the more you spend on a bottle (more on this later). The thing is, all fizzywines (andthats allchapagne is by the way - fizzy wine -more complex process I admit, with a clever method of using ice and thick bottles etc,but basically…fizzywine. All fizzywines have this bubbily effect, and it makes nearly all of them fun to drink. Sparkling chadonnays - brilliantfun. Sparking roses - tremendous in summer. I’ve even had a sparkling red, and whilst it was definatly different, it was very plesent. Chapagnemight have bubbles,but a lot of things do,and most ofthem are as good,and some have layers of flavours and smells that blow champers out of thewater. Speaking ofwater - Fuck it- Ilove soda water, mostly for it’s huge and rolling bubbles.
Next up- the way it gets youpissed. Beer seems to come in secretflavours. Some pubs sell fightingBeer, and after a few you’re pschoed like an extra in Fight Club, and it’s all going to kickoff. Some pubs sell grumpyBeer, and within your first 3pints you and your formally chipper chaps are bemoaning the lack of good telly, the increase inpetrol prices, why you can’t get decrnt chips in the fish shop any more, and thelike. It’s a bloody disaster on a night out, 2pints of Old Geezer, and you’re all deflated andheading for an early train.
Such a paradoxy doesn’texist with chapagne. A few glassesof it and everything is brilliant. The music is fun, the girls arepretty, I’m fucking funny and my best stories are flowing like the booze itself. You just have a brilliant night out, guarenteed. All the best parties I’vebeen to have had chapagne at an early stage,to get things moving.
Now here’s the kicker, the bit that Dom Perignon, Moet and bloodt fucking Cristal don’t want youto hear - all fizzy drinks dothis. Not onlythe other fizzywines, but also tequila and tonic water, slammed ironbru’n'vodkas, alcopops though a straw and I bet ever real ales put through a Sodastream would do the job. It’s not the chapgne doing it - it’s the bubbles. Effervessing in your mouth and kicking you in the arse, it’s nothing to do with some French grape wizard, it’s to do with disolved carbon dioxide. Why do you think kids love coke?
The other major annoyence with chapagne in my book is the elitism that people attach to it. Yes, spenting 20 quid instead of 5 is a good idea. No, spending 600 quid insteadof 25 is not. I don’tknow what the gansta-rap boys get so excited about Cristal for, the French seem to be very happy to export it by the bucket load,and why wouldn’t they,idiots will spunk 50 notes a glass on it, and hundreds a bottle. You have to wonder what doesn’tget exported, how good might that be?
So, if you think chapagne isthe be all and end all of drinks, you really must be a brain-dead MTV wannabe, with a mouthful of half defective tastebuds and a wallet which is either a)somebody eleses b)a trustfund c)adding to the national credit levels, you wretched cretin, how dareyou drag down our economy just becauseyou think you deserve it.
Whatever you are, I suggest you get over it,and stop making yourself look like a tit. Whilst you’re at the bar, I’ll have a pint of Crusty Badger, and some salt’n'vinegars whilst you’re at it.
Tesco’s Finest Bakery Products should actually be relabelled “Tescos Most Crunchy Crusty Products: WARNING WARNING: May cut the roof of your mouth when eatting”.
Certianly this applies to their Tescos Finest Baggettes
After all my late night rantings about food I’ve spent a little time looking up briskets. I think my problems included not cooking for long enough and not brining before hand. Also - not using big enough pieces of brisket. Take a look at this tastey Instructable
