Friday 11 February 2011

Chard Gratin.

The lovely people at Riverford delivered our latest veg box yesterday. Among the contents was a whole head of Chard, so, after thumbing through various cook books this is what I cooked.

1 Head of Chard
280ml Double Cream
3 Tbsps Wholegrain Mustard
Salt and Pepper (both freshly ground.)
Parmesan (a good fist-full, also fresh and finely grated)

Blanch the chard in heavily salted simmering water for a couple of minutes until the stems go limp. How you cut the chard is up to you but I removed the stalks and cut them into bite sized lengths and left the green leaves whole. When you feel the chard is ready drain and place into a shallow baking dish or tray (although of course with suitable sides to hold the cream later.)

Mix the cream with the mustard and season to taste. I like a little bit of fire so I put in 3 generous tablespoons of the mustard but if you don't like the nose tingling effect then just add less. The Chard happily took quite a bit of salt and tasted great for it.

Combine the mustard and cream mixture with the Chard and evenly place in your dish then scatter the Parmesan over the top. Cook at 180c until the gratin looks golden and bubbling.

I had mine with sausages although it could accompany all manner of things. The creamy mustard mixture if you have any left would probably be great with pasta, not tried it but just an idea.

Butter Chicken.

This post comes after a twitter request. New foody twitter friend @Juliannabarnaby has been looking for a decent recipe for the famed Punjabi dish Butter Chicken for a while and I hope this helps. The recipe is an adaptation of one written by Pushpesh Pant in his new book "India Cookbook" which at over 1,000 authentic recipes is well worth buying.

Ingredients & Quantities:

1 Kg of Chicken cut into pieces - (I asked for boneless legs cut into small chunks at the butcher. It might be worth using thighs as they are cheaper and arguably have more flavour.)

Vegetable Oil (or a tasteless oil like Rapeseed would do.)

Sea-Salt.

For The Marinade:

1 Tbsp Garlic Paste
1 Tbsp Ginger Paste
2 Tbsps Hot Chilli Powder
2 Tsps Ground Coriander
1 1/2 Tsps Ground Turmeric
1 1/2 Tsps Garam Masala
2 Tbsps Lime Juice
500ml Natural Plain Yoghurt (if quantity is shown in grams just use 500g.)

For The Sauce:

125g Chilled Butter
6 Medium Tomatoes (skinned and pureed, alternatively chopped fine with a mezzaluna.)
1 Tsp Chilli Powder
2 Tsps Fenugreek Leaves (or ground seeds, if you are doing this yourself be prepared to work!)
1/2 Tsp Garam Masala
3 Tbsps Single Cream.

Method:

For the marinade mix all the marinade ingredients in a bowl and season with plenty of salt (I used sea-salt but table salt would be fine.)

Put your chicken chunks into a shallow container and pour over the marinade. Mix this well making sure that the chicken pieces are well coated. Cover this (a tupperware box would be perfect but I used a bowl and cling-film) and place in the fridge for a minimum of three hours. Leaving the marinade overnight would make the taste even better but I didn't have the time.

Heat oil in a large, heavy based pan sticking to a low heat. Pour in the chicken and marinade mix (it smells wonderful) then cover and cook for about half an hour or until you are satisfied the chicken is cooked through.


For the sauce melt a small portion of your butter in a skillet then add your puree of fresh tomato and cook until most of the moisture has evaporated. Add the remainder of the butter and allow it to fully melt. Add the chilli powder and cook for a minute or so. Sprinkle in your Fenugreek leaves (or in my case ground seeds) followed by the Garam Masala. Place the chicken chunks into the sauce and as much of the marinade you think you'll need for a good coating consistency. Finish by seasoning with salt and a swirl of single cream.

Serve with a crisp beer or lager. I plumped for an IPA.

Enjoy.

Thursday 23 December 2010

Recipease.

This article is one from my other blog. It was originally posted on 20/10/2009 but I reproduce it here as it is of course food related. Tim Hayward joined us to cook and to talk about his then new magazine Fire & Knives.


I have heard a lot about Recipease, the new Jamie Oliver ‘food and kitchen shop’ in Clapham. I am a self-confessed armchair foodie, I enjoy food immensely but enjoy nothing more than watching food television, flicking through a (dare I say) glossy celebrity-chef endorsed recipe book or magazine. Jamie Oliver fits into the ‘celebrity chef’ bracket more than most and ‘Recipease’ helps to back this notion presenting Oliver as a global brand with shelf upon shelf of Oliver-face-endorsed merchandising.

We enter the ‘shop’ in a huddle and we are immediately greeted by the cheery chirpings of the staff, who incidentally are lovely in every sense of the word but I am not entirely convinced that they didn’t go through some rigorous ‘pucka’ lingo training programme in order to fill employment briefs. No grey hairs in sight the staff are bouncy and ‘street’ and only just on the correct side of being, to use a food pun, cheesy. We are here to make Risotto, in our case of the wild mushroom variety.

We are told to gather around the central station and we are taken through the basic elements of what makes the dish but just before we even touch a pan we are given an Orwellian message from on high in the form of a DVD introduction from the great man himself. Jamie (it seems more than appropriate to refer to him by his first name) wishes us luck and tells us that we are in the capable hands of the ‘kitchen champions’ which is Recipease lexicon for ‘chef.’ Our kitchen champion makes it known that Jamie and herself are good mates and should you have any burning questions as regarding him as a person to please let her know.

First we are told to turn our hobs to ‘5’ an order that I find disturbingly succinct, in-fact all margins of potential error are removed and all ingredients are ready chopped, measured and arranged as if they are ready for a screening as part of a television recipe. Is it any wonder we are about to create ‘the perfect Risotto?’ In-fact the only stage in the creation that allowed a refreshing foray into dangerous inaccuracy was when our ‘kitchen champion’ splashed wine into our pans with seemingly unforeseen gay-abandon and we were then allowed to season creations to our own palettes.

After some stirring and pouring, but only when told to do so and a few variations in hob temperature anywhere between 1-5 we are told to dish and present the finished product and not unsurprisingly it tasted wonderful.

We ate with cutlery forged with the J-Me branding, cooked with utensils and drank out of coffee cups all bearing the proprietors name with a few Jamie magazines nonchalantly strewn about the table. Although I admire Jamie Oliver it is seemingly and increasingly more for his canny business sense these days than anything else. The only Jamie Oliver products I own are in the medium of printed word but then again that is the nice thing about recipe books, you can do your own measuring, add extra ingredients if you are feeling so inclined and to any amateur, young and not even necessarily enthusiastic cook the writings of Oliver are as good a place as any to start.

At £35 per person it is a nice gift for anyone who wishes to pass an hour or so with guaranteed results although if you are the adventurous sort and doesn’t like to be bound to portioned ingredients and cooking on ‘5’ I would suggest buying Oliver’s book ‘Jamie’s Kitchen’ instead where you can find an identikit version of the recipe and of course so much more besides. As a closing point I feel I should also let you know that if you are indeed going to visit the shop you can even walk away with an authentic Jamie ready-meal, plant-pot or hand-cream. Need you shop anywhere else? With a growing online shopping empire, maybe not.



(Image: http://earthfirst.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/jamie-oliver.jpg)

Wednesday 22 December 2010

Market Kitchen.

I adore Market Kitchen. There are so many cookery programmes to be found these days but Market Kitchen always shone through as a class act in a dearth of filler. That was until Market Kitchen had a revamp; as much as I still enjoy the recipes and guest chefs of the new format there is one niggling factor: Penny Smith.

Now, I'm sure Penny is a lovely lady but her presenting style is at times painfully cringe-worthy. This can be seen on the faces of the shows guests. Valentine Warner, a man whom I greatly respect seemed to be holding back from rolling his eyes at Smiths' constant annoying questioning. It may seem like a terribly snobbish thing to say, but sod it I will say it anyway, the show has been cheapened, it's all a bit ITV now isn't it? Penny Smith is a prime example of the art of opening your mouth before you think. Today Valentine Warner was to make a London inspired twist on Salmon topped buckwheat Blinis, sounds delicious. Smith muscles her way over to see Warner starting to place Flour and Buckwheat into a bowl only to ask Warner what part of the recipe he was making (needless to say he wasn't constructing a smoked salmon.) A mild yet noticeable example of Smiths inabilities as a presenter adding nothing but air-headed unintelligent comments to the mix.

Market Kitchen in days of old was brilliant, the sophistication and knowledge of Matthew Fort, the infectious enthusiasm of Tom Parker-Bowles, great distinguished guests from the world of food and drink, something I wished to be a part of and as a result went on the show as a diner. In the new shows guests have included such foodie 'greats' as Coolio or Jon Culshaw whose input was lacking to say the least, some of us were 'lucky' enough to catch a performance by dance troop Diversity also.

I am reassured that I am not alone in my concern. It seems that if you are to search 'Penny Smith' on Twitter there are tens upon tens of posts bemoaning the loss of the Market Kitchen we all grew to love, some of which no longer watch due to the shake-up, which I'm sure you'll agree is a great shame. Same goes for the Good Food Channel website comment boards, one such comment from a chap going by the name 'DavidR301' states:

"to echo previous comments, it was great to see the old Market Kitchen Christmas Shows over the last few days, as I stopped watching the current mishmash masquerading as Market Kitchen weeks ago (I'm at pains to say excluded are of course the Chefs, whom I feel sorry having to put up with Penny Smith's stupid comments all the time...)"

I hope that the powers that be will listen to the Market Kitchen devotees and things will get back to a state of normality soon. Market Kitchen has proven itself capable of so much better, the show wasn't broken and didn't require a fix in the form of it's so-call 'exciting new format.' Don't get me wrong, it isn't all bad, the core of the show is still there, brilliant and noteworthy guests have included Stefan Gates and Tim Hayward both of whose opinion I respect greatly.

So for those of you who are spending Christmas watching The Big Adventure such as I am but weeping into your Port and Stilton, here is a reminder of the past to warm the cockles of our aching hearts...

Tuesday 21 December 2010

Noma.


To say I'm excited would be mammoth under-statement. On the 1st of this month I made it my mission to book a table at the eminent Noma. The restaurant in Copenhagen was named the best in the world by S. Pellegrino in their top 50 awards, but that of course is no secret; thus making the booking of a table akin to the hunt for Excalibur (hidden behind platted fog by a Dodo no doubt.)

As the old adage dictates you have to be in it to win it, so I made myself a cup of tea, settled down with laptop before me and phone grafted to my right ear. The reservations for March were to open at 10.00am Danish time, sharp. As the clock above the mantle ticked it's way to 10.00 I started to phone whilst simultaneously refreshing the restaurants website reservation page, again and again but no avail. The website crashed multiple times under the strain of the mass rush and I could only get the automated message on the phone, all quite stressful but then again I probably need to get out more.

An hour had passed and it was looking as if a table at Noma had escaped from my grasp, but, just as I was about to give up all hope and solemnly abandon the task in hand a page appeared. On the screen of my old faithful MacBook a page asking to confirm which day I wished to make a reservation, a few clicks and it was done, confirmation email received and I had achieved what I felt was the almost impossible.

So, on Wednesday 30th March I will be having lunch at Noma. I really am looking forward to it. I will be spending a week in Copenhagen but Noma is sure to be the highlight. Having lovingly caressed the recently published book 'Noma: Time and Place' (which if you've not read it is well worth the cover price) my appreciation of head-chef René Redzepi grows. The book is beautiful, as you'd come to expect from any Phaidon publication. Well worth buying for the photographs alone, showing the food off to it's best, for anybody who likes eating with their eyes as much as their mouth.

I aim to write a review when I return from my Nordic travels, but that's a few months off, so in the meantime, some visuals to whet anybodies appetite.









Sunday 19 December 2010

1 Week To Go.

Hello, good afternoon and yuletide felicitations from my new blog.

This doesn't mark the death of my other blog, perish the thought; this blog will be focusing on food (an ever growing fascination and obsession) and food alone.

I have long been interested in food and drink and have become a bit of a foodie (whatever that word actually means.) I type this whilst watching Delia Smiths Christmas Collection on what I think can be described as my favourite TV channel GoodFood (or UKTV Food as I am still inclined to call it.)

Christmas and the abundant bounty of festive cooking shows go hand in hand. It simply wouldn't be Christmas if I didn't watch Delia cutting holly leaves from marzipan, or Nigella slinking around her fairy-lit kitchen, Fanny Cradock abusing a goose with two forks or the Two Fat Ladies feeding choir boys creations in aspic doused in alcohol.

Every December I am more than happy to watch the same cookery programmes as I did the year before but for me this has become tradition. Christmas after all is dictated by tradition and some things have to stay the same to give you that warm, cosey nostalgic feeling. A cup of strong Chai tea, Rick Steins Festive Food Heroes a few chocolates and a pair of soft pyjamas, bliss.