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Friday, 27 May 2011
Monday, 23 May 2011
Mato with Strawberries and Honey
In Barcelona a lot of restaurants have a "menu del dia" at lunchtimes. For between 9 and 15 euros (usually about 10 or 11) you get 3 courses and a drink. Wow.
Now normally I stay away from that sort of deal, because I think that you just cannot produce food of any quality for that sort or price. Plus I always imagined that they just served up whatever stinky old dish the chef could drop-kick over the pass onto your table. (This is precisely what happened to us at Big Fish last Friday. Shame on you Big Fish, with your smelly, fishy rice)
But lately, I have been getting in to the whole economy thing (I know, ewww) and have found that a lot of these menus are actually pretty good. You might start with a slow cooked tomato ragu pasta or clams and artichokes sauteed in white wine, then a main of Catalan butifarra sausage with potatoes and aioli, or chargrilled veal rib with potatoes and aioli, or basically anything with potatoes and aioli. Dessert, or postres as it's called here will probably have two things to choose from; Crema Catalana, which is pretty much a creme brulee, and Mel i Mato. No, this is not Pete Waterman's attempt at chart success in Albania, mel is honey and mato is basically Catalan ricotta cheese. It's a fresh, healthy and a not-too-sweet kind of dessert, perfect for lunch times. And best of all you don't feel guilty after eating it, which allows you to have a mini magnum later in the day.
Oh, and it's really quick and easy.
As it's strawberry season here, this is the version we have been making at home. We also still have two big buckets or elderflower-scented honey from the bees we kept on the roof of The Easton.
Recipe
Serves 2
160 grams of mato or ricotta cheese (preferably the curdy artisan type)
as little as 10 strawberries or as many as you can eat
5 fingers of biscotti biscuits (or some buttery shortbread if you want to get decadent)
2 tablespoons of honey
Wrap the biscuits up in a clean tea towel and smash them into small chunks. Set aside.
Divide the cheese into two portions and gently place on the centre of each plate.
Wash the strawberries, slice in half, and pile up on top of the cheese.
Drizzle the honey all over the strawberries and finally, crumble the crushed biscuits over the top.
You can get as fancy with this as you want, from scenting the ricotta with vanilla or white chocolate, to topping with crunchy honeycomb or baby wild strawberries.
Also try to find a really interesting flavoured honey as well. As different flowers come into bloom throughout the year, the flavours of the honey also change. Hunt down some local apiaries and compare the spring honey with the high summer flow.
Wednesday, 11 May 2011
One thing that you will never ever ever hear in any household in the world.......
"Mum! Can we have cracked wheat risotto tonight? Puleeeeease?" Or "Ohhh mum, you never make that great cracked wheat risotto anymore."
And do you know why you'll never ever hear that in any household ever? Because cracked wheat risotto sucks. In fact pretty much anything with cracked wheat in it sucks. And how do I know this? Because today I made a cracked wheat risotto.
Why? Why would I do such a stupid thing? Really, I don't know, for some reason I thought it would be a good idea. But actually, all it did was make me feel really un- masculine. In fact I've never felt more feminine in my life. It culminated in a moment at dinner when I found myself saying "man those dudes need to harden up, hey anyone want some more cracked wheat courgette risotto?"
The thing about cracked wheat is not that there is anything wrong with it, it's just that it doesn't excel at anything, I mean you can always replace it with something that does a better job; cous cous, rice, wallpaper glue. It's like most of us really, we're ok at most stuff, but not necessarily the best at anything. So from now on always remember that when your child comes running into the kitchen and says "mum can we have cracked wheat risotto tonight?" Be brave enough to say, "first of all put some God damn pants on Petey, you're 16 now," and then once the anger passes "don't you think rice would be much nicer?" There, that feels good, doesn't it.
So now that I've got my rant out of the way, "Muuuum, can we have cracked wheat salad for dinner tonight?"
Salad of cracked wheat, goat's cheese, broad bean, roast tomato and artichokes
300g cracked wheat, soaked for 2 hours or more in cold water
6 vine tomatoes, halved
3 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
200g broad beans podded
4 spring onions, finely sliced
4 confit artichokes in oil
Small bunch of mint and a handful of flat parsley, both chopped
Juice of 2 lemons and zest of 1
200g soft, crumbly goat's cheese
100g toasted whole almonds
olive oil
Preheat oven to 140c
Line a roasting tray with baking paper. Place halved tomatoes cut side up and place a slice of garlic or 2 on each one. Sprinkle all of them lightly with a little sugar, then follow up with twist of salt and pepper. Drizzle with olive oil and a trickle of balsamic vinegar. Roast in oven for 2 to 3 hours or until semi dried.
Drain wheat and place into a pan of boiling salted water. Cook for about 20 minutes, until the wheat is soft but still slightly al dente. Drain really well and set aside. You don't want any water hanging around making it soggy. Once drained, give it a good glug of olive oil and toss so it doesn't stick together.
While the wheat is cooking, cook the broad beans in another pan of boiling water for 5 minutes. Refresh under cold water, then pop them out of their skins.
Place the wheat into a bowl, add broad beans, spring onions, herbs and almonds. Break up the artichokes and crumble the goat's cheese and drop them both in. Sprinkle over the zest and toss gently together. Squeeze in the lemon juice, add another good slug of olive oil and season to taste. Finally fold in the tomatoes and check for seasoning.
Transfer to a large plate and allow some time for the flavours to develop.
For cracked wheat, this salad is actually pretty good. We served it with a BBQ coil of italian luganica sausages, but it can be served with any meat or fish. It's also great with roast chicken and garlic yoghurt.
And do you know why you'll never ever hear that in any household ever? Because cracked wheat risotto sucks. In fact pretty much anything with cracked wheat in it sucks. And how do I know this? Because today I made a cracked wheat risotto.
Why? Why would I do such a stupid thing? Really, I don't know, for some reason I thought it would be a good idea. But actually, all it did was make me feel really un- masculine. In fact I've never felt more feminine in my life. It culminated in a moment at dinner when I found myself saying "man those dudes need to harden up, hey anyone want some more cracked wheat courgette risotto?"
The thing about cracked wheat is not that there is anything wrong with it, it's just that it doesn't excel at anything, I mean you can always replace it with something that does a better job; cous cous, rice, wallpaper glue. It's like most of us really, we're ok at most stuff, but not necessarily the best at anything. So from now on always remember that when your child comes running into the kitchen and says "mum can we have cracked wheat risotto tonight?" Be brave enough to say, "first of all put some God damn pants on Petey, you're 16 now," and then once the anger passes "don't you think rice would be much nicer?" There, that feels good, doesn't it.
So now that I've got my rant out of the way, "Muuuum, can we have cracked wheat salad for dinner tonight?"
Salad of cracked wheat, goat's cheese, broad bean, roast tomato and artichokes
serves 4
300g cracked wheat, soaked for 2 hours or more in cold water
6 vine tomatoes, halved
3 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
200g broad beans podded
4 spring onions, finely sliced
4 confit artichokes in oil
Small bunch of mint and a handful of flat parsley, both chopped
Juice of 2 lemons and zest of 1
200g soft, crumbly goat's cheese
100g toasted whole almonds
olive oil
Preheat oven to 140c
Line a roasting tray with baking paper. Place halved tomatoes cut side up and place a slice of garlic or 2 on each one. Sprinkle all of them lightly with a little sugar, then follow up with twist of salt and pepper. Drizzle with olive oil and a trickle of balsamic vinegar. Roast in oven for 2 to 3 hours or until semi dried.
Drain wheat and place into a pan of boiling salted water. Cook for about 20 minutes, until the wheat is soft but still slightly al dente. Drain really well and set aside. You don't want any water hanging around making it soggy. Once drained, give it a good glug of olive oil and toss so it doesn't stick together.
While the wheat is cooking, cook the broad beans in another pan of boiling water for 5 minutes. Refresh under cold water, then pop them out of their skins.
Place the wheat into a bowl, add broad beans, spring onions, herbs and almonds. Break up the artichokes and crumble the goat's cheese and drop them both in. Sprinkle over the zest and toss gently together. Squeeze in the lemon juice, add another good slug of olive oil and season to taste. Finally fold in the tomatoes and check for seasoning.
Transfer to a large plate and allow some time for the flavours to develop.
For cracked wheat, this salad is actually pretty good. We served it with a BBQ coil of italian luganica sausages, but it can be served with any meat or fish. It's also great with roast chicken and garlic yoghurt.
Monday, 9 May 2011
Garlic prawns with lardo, roast tomatoes, and feta
I had a bunch of prawns left over from Friday night because I made prawn saganaki (not a japanese dish by the way) and didn't use them all. I was going to post that recipe but somehow I made what should have been a simple dish, super complicated by introducing a whole load of new steps. As I'm not too good at writing things down, it probably would have ended in disaster for anyone who tried to follow my "throw in a bit of this, cook it till it looks ready" instructions. Plus all the photos turned out badly, and there's nothing worse than a food blog with crappy photos; "hey check out this disgusting looking thing I made! You want the recipe?" I may be a bit shallow, but to me that's a bit like looking at "Readers' Wives".
So anyway, I had about 15 prawns left and Poppy was hungry mid afternoon on Saturday. I started to make gambas al ajillo, which is really simple, but as I am a man of pork (unfortunately not the John Holmes kind) I decided to add some lardo. lardo is salty cured pork fat and the stuff that I get from the Santa Caterina market is the creamy Iberico belly kind. If you get it sliced thin enough, use it to blanket hot, garlic-rubbed toast and it melts down like butter.
Then as I began to pull stuff out of the fridge, I found a few other ingredients to add, and so the dish ended up looking a little more like this. Poppy and I both agreed that as a dining experience, it was quite like smoking crack*.
Recipe
12-16 shelled green prawns
5 cloves of garlic, peeled and thickly sliced
a slice of lardo or a couple of thin slices of pancetta, finely chopped
a handful of slow roasted tomatoes, chopped (you can substitute with the sun-dried variety)
a sprig of rosemary
a handful of chopped flat leaf parsley
80g feta cheese
Preheat the oven to 240c or as high as that little baby will go.
Pour 50ml of olive oil into a heavy bottomed saucepan over a medium heat. Put the lardo and rosemary in the pan and simmer slowly until the lardo starts to melt away.
Throw in the garlic, and cook nice and easy. You don't want the garlic to brown, you want it to go translucent and soft, this is important. Now add the tomato and warm it all through. You can remove the rosemary at this stage if you want, it's only there to add a subtle perfume. I did not.
Toss in the prawns and immediately turn to coat in the oil. Crumble the feta all over the top and put straight into the smoking hot oven. Cook for 5 to 8 minutes, or until the feta is golden brown and melting into the oil. Be careful not to cook the prawns for too long or they will go tough and rubbery.
Sprinkle the flat leaf parsley and squeeze some lemon juice over the top and serve immediately. Make sure you have fresh crusty bread to mop up all the sticky stuff at the bottom on the pan.
Poppy had to really struggle with herself to share some with our daughter. I on the other hand was very generous.
This is Poppy mopping up the tangy garlic oil. By the end of it, she was actually displaying some common behaviours of a crack fiend. She now rocks dookie braids.
* Poppy and I have never smoked crack, but we imagine that it is the drug equivalent of this dish.
So anyway, I had about 15 prawns left and Poppy was hungry mid afternoon on Saturday. I started to make gambas al ajillo, which is really simple, but as I am a man of pork (unfortunately not the John Holmes kind) I decided to add some lardo. lardo is salty cured pork fat and the stuff that I get from the Santa Caterina market is the creamy Iberico belly kind. If you get it sliced thin enough, use it to blanket hot, garlic-rubbed toast and it melts down like butter.
Then as I began to pull stuff out of the fridge, I found a few other ingredients to add, and so the dish ended up looking a little more like this. Poppy and I both agreed that as a dining experience, it was quite like smoking crack*.
Recipe
12-16 shelled green prawns
5 cloves of garlic, peeled and thickly sliced
a slice of lardo or a couple of thin slices of pancetta, finely chopped
a handful of slow roasted tomatoes, chopped (you can substitute with the sun-dried variety)
a sprig of rosemary
a handful of chopped flat leaf parsley
80g feta cheese
Preheat the oven to 240c or as high as that little baby will go.
Pour 50ml of olive oil into a heavy bottomed saucepan over a medium heat. Put the lardo and rosemary in the pan and simmer slowly until the lardo starts to melt away.
Throw in the garlic, and cook nice and easy. You don't want the garlic to brown, you want it to go translucent and soft, this is important. Now add the tomato and warm it all through. You can remove the rosemary at this stage if you want, it's only there to add a subtle perfume. I did not.
Toss in the prawns and immediately turn to coat in the oil. Crumble the feta all over the top and put straight into the smoking hot oven. Cook for 5 to 8 minutes, or until the feta is golden brown and melting into the oil. Be careful not to cook the prawns for too long or they will go tough and rubbery.
Sprinkle the flat leaf parsley and squeeze some lemon juice over the top and serve immediately. Make sure you have fresh crusty bread to mop up all the sticky stuff at the bottom on the pan.
Poppy had to really struggle with herself to share some with our daughter. I on the other hand was very generous.
This is Poppy mopping up the tangy garlic oil. By the end of it, she was actually displaying some common behaviours of a crack fiend. She now rocks dookie braids.
* Poppy and I have never smoked crack, but we imagine that it is the drug equivalent of this dish.
Monday, 2 May 2011
Confit Artichokes
One of the main reasons that I wanted to come to Barcelona was because of the artichokes. No shit. Forget the food, culture, architecture, beach and the super friendly abuelos who love to knead my daughter's cheeks. The best thing about Barcelona is easily the artichokes. Man they are frickin' everywhere, and cheap! So cheap in fact that you start to lose respect for them after a while. My local market charges one European euro per kilo! That's right, ONE Euro-pean euro. There aren't many things left in this world that you can buy for that sort of money, but in this fine town, artichokes are one of them.
I was not going to bother putting up this recipe for preserved artichokes as I can't imagine anyone will ever make them, but if anyone does, they will be rewarded with great tongue riches. And that reward will be the reward that continues to reward for weeks. Seriously, these babies are so good, that I guarantee that they will be the best artichokes you've ever had.
Recipe
4 kilos of baby artichokes
the zest (in strips, white pith removed) and juice of 2 lemons
1 lemon cut in half and squeezed into a bowl of enough cold water to cover chokes
10 to 20 cloves of garlic (to your preference really) peeled and trimmed
1 tbsp of fennel seeds (or 1/2 tsp of fennel pollen if you can find it)
sea salt to taste (I used about 2 tsp)
5 tbsp of good quality red wine vinegar
5 bay leaves
2 litres of sunflower oil (or really mild olive oil if you want)
Trim artichokes with the help of this wonderful instructional video, making sure you rub a cut lemon over any yellow bits to stop them from oxidising. You're going to need both the lemons for all of these. And please don't cut off the stalk as per the video, just use a peeler to remove the tough outer layer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlXkci9ZiAM
Allow the oil to cool and then squidge them all into sterilised jars like tiny fat babies. Cover with the oil and make sure you distribute the garlic cloves evenly because they are great to smear onto toast.
And here is the finished product. Impressive huh? And as you churn through these, you can use the extra oil to make a killer dressing. To do this, either just add a few more tbsp of vinegar or some more lemon juice to some reserved oil and season.
Or blitz a couple of artichokes (and some of the garlic cloves) in a food processor, add a little red wine vinegar to taste, and while the engine is running, slowly drizzle a couple of cups of the oil until you've got a creamy smooth dressing. You can go even further and make mayo using the steps above, but adding a couple of egg yolks at the start. We used to serve this at The Easton with chargrilled lamb cutlets or fish.
I was not going to bother putting up this recipe for preserved artichokes as I can't imagine anyone will ever make them, but if anyone does, they will be rewarded with great tongue riches. And that reward will be the reward that continues to reward for weeks. Seriously, these babies are so good, that I guarantee that they will be the best artichokes you've ever had.
Recipe
4 kilos of baby artichokes
the zest (in strips, white pith removed) and juice of 2 lemons
1 lemon cut in half and squeezed into a bowl of enough cold water to cover chokes
10 to 20 cloves of garlic (to your preference really) peeled and trimmed
1 tbsp of fennel seeds (or 1/2 tsp of fennel pollen if you can find it)
sea salt to taste (I used about 2 tsp)
5 tbsp of good quality red wine vinegar
5 bay leaves
2 litres of sunflower oil (or really mild olive oil if you want)
Trim artichokes with the help of this wonderful instructional video, making sure you rub a cut lemon over any yellow bits to stop them from oxidising. You're going to need both the lemons for all of these. And please don't cut off the stalk as per the video, just use a peeler to remove the tough outer layer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlXkci9ZiAM
If you paid attention to the short film, your trimmed artichoke should look like this.
There is no need to remove the hairy choke when they are this small as it is edible when cooked. But if you prefer the waxed look, go right ahead. Place into the acidulated water and then repeat over and over again until all the chokes are bobbing away. It's going to take a while, but if you've come this far, you obviously have nothing better to do anyway.
Drain and pat dry the artichokes and very quickly (to avoid oxidisation) place them into a heavy bottomed saucepan. Sprinkle them with the salt and fennel seeds, toss to coat. Pour in the oil to just cover and then add the remaining ingredients; bay leaves, lemon zest, garlic cloves and vinegar. Stir everything through and put on the hob over a low heat.
Cover with some baking paper and put a smaller saucepan lid over to weigh them down. You don't want anything poking above the oil. Now here's the important part. You want these to confit slowly, not to fry, so make sure the flame is low so the oil is burping bubbles rather than simmering.
Cook for anywhere up until an hour or when a knife slides easily into the flesh. The stalks are usually a good indication of when they are done. Be careful not to overcook because they'll fall apart. But they will still be awesome.
Drain and pat dry the artichokes and very quickly (to avoid oxidisation) place them into a heavy bottomed saucepan. Sprinkle them with the salt and fennel seeds, toss to coat. Pour in the oil to just cover and then add the remaining ingredients; bay leaves, lemon zest, garlic cloves and vinegar. Stir everything through and put on the hob over a low heat.
Cook for anywhere up until an hour or when a knife slides easily into the flesh. The stalks are usually a good indication of when they are done. Be careful not to overcook because they'll fall apart. But they will still be awesome.
Allow the oil to cool and then squidge them all into sterilised jars like tiny fat babies. Cover with the oil and make sure you distribute the garlic cloves evenly because they are great to smear onto toast.
And here is the finished product. Impressive huh? And as you churn through these, you can use the extra oil to make a killer dressing. To do this, either just add a few more tbsp of vinegar or some more lemon juice to some reserved oil and season.
Or blitz a couple of artichokes (and some of the garlic cloves) in a food processor, add a little red wine vinegar to taste, and while the engine is running, slowly drizzle a couple of cups of the oil until you've got a creamy smooth dressing. You can go even further and make mayo using the steps above, but adding a couple of egg yolks at the start. We used to serve this at The Easton with chargrilled lamb cutlets or fish.
Thursday, 14 April 2011
Going forth
3 months ago I sold my business of 8 years and dived into the abyss, dragging my family down with me. It was our income, our home and it was our security, and I sold it. How incredibly stupid. I have since realised that I have no real skills other than cooking and a bit of lying. My old (and he is pretty old) chef used to tell me daily "you're lucky you own this place because you wouldn't get a job in any other kitchen, anywhere!" Perhaps I should have listened to him, but seeing as so much stupid crap came out of his mouth I didn't really take any of it seriously. Actually, come to think of it, my wife used to say pretty much the same thing, only she would lean in close and grip my beard angrily with her hands and with a great and deliberate urgency she would tell me something important which I forget. I remember these encounters only because she was hurting my face so much. So again the message never made it through.
But the message goes something like this: never walk away from a good thing, nothing better has ever come along after walking away from a good thing. Ever.
But the message goes something like this: never walk away from a good thing, nothing better has ever come along after walking away from a good thing. Ever.
And I did, or should I say, we did. Because we are all in this together now, right?
Oh, and we moved to Barcelona. Yeah, you see I heard somewhere that the economy in Spain was totally booming and that there was a real demand for messy, hairy, slow chefs. And you know what? None of that is true, except maybe the hairy part.
So together we go forth, into the wild.
Oh, and we moved to Barcelona. Yeah, you see I heard somewhere that the economy in Spain was totally booming and that there was a real demand for messy, hairy, slow chefs. And you know what? None of that is true, except maybe the hairy part.
So together we go forth, into the wild.
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