Playing Catch-Up (and a Chicken Challenge)

Boy! It's been frantic since our last post. On Thursday we drove up to Cambridge to watch my sister graduate. Plenty of speaking in Latin and some odd ritual finger pulling. As a classicist I do adore the language but I can't abide those who converse in it. It is just plain pompous. My mother, who met us there, very kindly furnished us with some of her earliest potatoes and quite a major haul of gooseberries (more to come on those later). We also managed to visit a local pick-your-own with our friend Yvonne and as a result have plenty of Strawberries to add to those from our own plants. We took a drive into the country and discovered Chilford Hall Vineyard home to some truly mediocre wines and a very reasonably priced cookery book. I picked up my copy of East Anglian Food & Wine by Brigitte Tilleray for just 50p. Coming from Suffolk originally I am rather excited to give some of the recipes a go to find out just what I SHOULD have been eating when I lived there myself. The fried then pickled whitebait look to give me an excuse to go freezer diving later this week.

Another event worth noting was the Mortlake Summer Fair, situated in the shadow of the soon-to-be-disused Budweiser plant. I managed to score us a coconut early on though in all honesty it pales into insignificance compared to our haul from the bottle tombola. A spend of £5 hooked us a strong 4 bottles of wine and one large Budvar. Tombolas are my downfall. Have been since I was a child begging my parents for just one last pound to pull those 5 tickets from the bucket. It is spoils such as these that make the chances worthwhile. Delightful. I'm sure the wines shall be featured as and when we reach them. We followed the fair with a trip to the Kingston Beer Festival with our friend Ricky who was very excited to learn a little something about tasting beer. We arrived late and got in free due to the low number of beers they had left.

Annie also found the time to whip up some falafel while I was out this weekend. All the trimmings too! From her own houmous (with tinned chickpeas) to those delicious almost crunchy carrots covered in a delicious garlic and parsley oil. They were pretty monstrous size-wise as I'm sure you can see. It was all quite garlicky, so it was lucky we only had to associate with one another that evening. I would definitely advise you against a pre-socialising falafel.

In our veg box this week we received a kohlrabi. Annie has just whipped up a wee starter of shaven kohlrabi and goats' cheddar with sprinklings of thyme and sliced anchovy. Inspired by a recipe by Mr. Fearnley-Whittingstall in this weekend's G2 (which can be found here). I can't say it was the best showcase for the flavours of the kohlrabi, but texturally the vegetable was indispensable. It brought a freshness and crunch to the dry, salty cheese. The anchovy and thyme gave wonderful little bursts of earthy saltiness and herbal zing. I drank this with a Waitrose vintage french cider and, though the cider was middling, it was a fine pairing.

This we followed with the classic cheap and cheerful Jacob's Creek Sparkling Rose while we prepared a little something else. A fine tipple when you want something sparkling on a budget. I indulged in a corn-fed chicken from Waitrose today, a big spend and I am determined to make the most of it. I intend to get a good 4 meal out of the bird at least. Tonight we started with one of the huge breasts, fried until the skin was crisp and brown, covered in a remarkably simple Marsala wine and mushroom sauce. Fry the mushrooms with a little sage and a splash water in the same pan as you cooked the chicken in. Once they begin to take on a little colour toss in a healthy glug of Marsala and half that amount of double cream, allow that to cook down a little and serve it on top of the sliced chicken breast. Accompanied by some simply steamed vegetables, (we chose reduced baby turnips and veg box chard) dressed in a little oil of your choice, it makes a quick and delicious evening meal. The rich sauce doesn't drown the chicken provided it has been allowed to cook down enough and the sweet vegetables add another welcome aspect. The baby turnips received a mixed welcome. I enjoyed the sweet pulpiness and I also ate their peppery little stems. In all I was reminded of a sweeter, warmer radish. Annie was highly dubious. Their flavour is relatively intense and lasting, maybe some more experimentation is needed.


Very excited about the White Horse on Parson's Green's USA craft beer festival this weekend. A full report shall certainly be forthcoming. Hope to meet up with some of the chaps from ratebeer.com for some amazing ale and informed beer-talk.
I have also just read this funny little article on Wikipedia which I discovered via Steve William's great blog. Fun and informative, Obadiah unwittingly provides us with almost all we know about the origins of the Porter style.

That is it for the rather epic catch up. Cheers.

Chilli Sauce Showdown:

Hello all, Phil here, welcome to our first face-off. Chilli sauces are a bit of an obsession in our household. The fridge currently holds 10 (so you can expect another show-down in the near future). I love some spice on my eggs in the morning and honestly cannot get over the pleasure I feel drinking hot, black coffee over a tingly tongue.

Basically we’ll give each of these 5 a go, on a tortilla chip this time, and hand our impressions over to you. I think we’re going to start with Cholula hot sauce, readily available in a number of super-markets as far as I can see. A perennial favourite with us and I feel it will set a good benchmark for the others.

Cholula Hot Sauce, Mexico:
Contains both Arbol and Piquin chillies. Can’t remember where we picked this particular bottle up but as I said I’d be surprised if you had any trouble finding it. A great whole tongue heat that stays well within the comfort zone. Something almost cumin-like about the flavour. Reasonably dry and tomatoey, it packs a lot of flavour in. Some tart vinegary undertones are also apparent. I really love this one all over scrambled eggs and its mild enough to slather on a burrito. Onward!

Pickapeppa Sauce, Jamaica:
They don’t let on what is in here, just ‘peppers and spices’. The label tells how the sauce is aged in oak barrels for a minimum of one year. Ooh, get them. Very fruity, a lot of HP sauce about it. Deep and rich with lots of sweet, roasted tomato flavour. Vinegary finish with a heat that starts small but grows slowly upon the next taste. A really odd flavour all round. Not dissimilar to A1 steak sauce from the US but with a bit more heat. Not sure if the fire comes from a fresh chilli here at all. It may well be added via a ‘spice’ later on.

NOH Hawaiian Hot Sauce: An ambiguous ‘chilli pepper’ ingredient on the list. Picked this bottle up a little store on Maui whilst we were visiting Annie’s family over New Year. This is the first bottle to have a plastic cap inside to reduce the flow. Intimidating. Very sweet and positively Asian influenced. (“Very Hawaiian” says Annie). Not much heat to this at all but the flavour is lovely. A mix of sweet and sour with some dry woodiness. So little heat-wise it is a bit of a disappointment, just a tickle after a while. We think this would make a really great marinade, maybe we’ll give it a go sometime soon.

Castillo Salsa Habanero, Mexico: Unsurprisingly the main ingredient here is Habanero. Pretty stark ingredient list: Habanero, salt, spices, vinegar (and a couple of weird things chemically things). IT IS KOSHER! What more could you want? This too is equipped with a regulator cap. The flavour gets you first, fresh and exciting. Loads of amazing chilli flavour, not much else but who needs it? The heat is direct, striking the tongue wherever contact is made. It lingers too, it is almost unpleasantly warm to begin with, bringing a light mist to the eyes, but the after burn is very satisfying.

Manda African Chilli Sauce, UK: Scotch Bonnet and Habanero here, promises to be a wild ride. Grabbed this bottle recently at the Real Food Festival at Earls Court. Chilli seeds are visible in the sauce itself. Big, gaping aperture and delicious fresh pepper aromas tempt a healthy portion. DO NOT DO IT. The flavours are very light and fruity but dang does the heat catch you. Slowly building it dries out the mouth all the way back to the throat. A hint of sweat. Very warm on the tongue, tingly and intense. A prickly needle-point heat. Annie was quite overwhelmed by the spice in the African sauce so much so that the flavour was almost unapparent to her poor little tongue.

Overall I’d put Cholula and the Salsa Habanera top as having had the best heat/flavour balance. I think the African sauce may have edged it with a tad less heat to it. Enjoyed the Asian flavours in the Hawaiian sauce too but as a hot sauce it really lacked any kind of heat whatsoever. That leaves us with Pickapepper, a boring sauce with many of the characteristics of many sauces on the market. Lea and Perrin's and HP pretty much sum Pickapepper up better than I could explain.

I guess it all comes down to what you want to use them for. Marinade, seasoning or something completely different, each has its own strengths, except Pickapepper, that just rips off everyone elses.

Strawberry Salad with Halloumi

Back again! A few days ago, Phil and I bought some Halloumi cheese from a new shop in Twickenham. I'm not sure I've ever eaten it, but I have heard of it. So this evening I decided to use it, it has a surprising shelf life and said it wouldn't go off till April 2010. I looked online for some recipes that had some ingredients from the fridge, after a bit of searching I found Jamie Oliver's recipe for Strawberry Salad with Speck and Halloumi, from his book 'Jamie at Home'. I haven't been the biggest fan of fruit in salads, but I was willing to give this a chance as it came from Jamie Oliver. Generally I can't think of a single recipe of his that I didn't like.

Preparing the ingredients was very simple, however I only had 255g of strawberries and the recipe called for 300g. It seemed like a lot once sliced up, so I didn't think much of it. The Halloumi was to be cut into 8 slices, this I found a little challenging. The cheese kept sticking to the knife and would break in half, after the first break I found that its important to slide the cheese off very carefully. I placed all the slices in a row on the chopping board and put one leaf of basil on each. Making the dressing, for lack of a better name, consisted of putting the prepared strawberries in a bowl and squeezing 1/2 a lemon, seasoning with salt and pepper and a "a good splash" of balsamic vinegar and olive oil. I replaced the olive oil with walnut, as I've just run out and really need to buy some more. Then just mix them up and that’s it.

Next I fried the Halloumi basil leaf down for about a minute, initially I put a large glug of oil in the pan but once the cheese was down massive splatter erupted. I used a spoon to take some of the oil out, seems like the cheese is just too wet for that much oil. Once the pan was hot, they started to brown and looked really fun. As for turning, I think I just have a crap spatula. I had one break, again, and 3 lost their basil leaves, which I had to retrieve and place back on the white basil-less spot. Once cooked, the only thing needed was plating up. The last step in Jamie's recipe was to add the salad leaves to the strawberries, which, in my excitement, I skipped. However, I liked it without the leaves being smothered by the strawberry juice. I then pilled everything on the plate, drizzled some dressing and it was done.

Overall, I really enjoyed it, the flavours were really interesting. I loved the strawberry and balsamic, I will definitely be combining them again. I'm not too sure of Halloumi, it's a bit "squeaky". I would recommend this to everyone, it looks very fancy on the plate and had interesting and complex flavours.

Phil here, stepping in to throw down my impressions. Annie very kindly whipped this up as I was on my way home from work (which suggests it is pretty speedy). Halloumi, well, I've never had it before to my knowledge. I've known about it but it has never come up. Loved how salty it was and that contrasted excellently with the tart little strawberries from our own plants. The crust on it was super as well, adding a grand crunch to the pulpy fruit. The only downside is that it tends to sound a little bit like someone is cleaning windows in your head. If you can put up with that, you're away. I shall certainly be giving it another go.

Also worth noting is the lack of Speck which is in the original recipe. What can I say? Annie's just not that into pig (see her scotch eggs).

Nearly forgot to mention, we drank this with some of our late-season elderflower cordial. Made just yesterday the blooms picked toward the end of the season tend to offer a slightly duskier flavour. Elderflower, strawberries, mint? I think so.

A&P

Scotch Egg

Hey all, it's Annie here and today I've made Scotch egg. I haven't quite stuck to the traditional method of making them. Rather I've used quail eggs and vegetarian haggis, both of which I bought at the fishmonger in Twickenham. The recipe I used was very basic and included very few ingredients. My main change was substituting quail eggs for chicken eggs. Luckily the recipe only called for 6 eggs, two of which were used as binding for the breadcrumbs. Instead I used 12 quail eggs and no eggs for binding.

Firstly, I boiled the quail eggs using the recipe on the back of the box. It only took a few minutes. After the eggs were cool, came the dusting of flour over the peeled eggs. I'm not sure the reason for this, but I assume it helps the haggis stay on. I then took the vegetarian haggis out of its two layers of plastic. I was surprised how well it stayed together. I then took a small chunk of the nutty haggis and flattened it in my hand, which also created a curved area for the eggs to fit in. Then the eggs was placed in and I covered it with more haggis and squeezed the egg tight. Then finished off the 11 more quail eggs. The haggis balls were also covered in flour. I again read over the directions and discovered that I hadn't left any eggs aside for binding the breadcrumbs. As I was completely out of eggs, I decided to pour some milk in a bowl and use it. I was very surprised how well it worked. The milk mixed with the flours from the eggs and made a little paste, and then I rolled them in the breadcrumbs. The breadcrumbs were seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne, nutmeg and allspice. I think maybe a larger pinch of everything might have really jazzed everything a bit more. I next fried the eggs on all sides in a little oil and put them in the oven. The recipe said 10 minutes on one side and then turn them over and 6 minutes, then voilà! Homemade vegetarian quail-scotch egg.

To be perfectly honest, I was surprised how good they were. Having shaped the vegetarian haggis earlier, I was expecting more veg burger/vegan flavor. But actually it was rather nutty and had real bite. These are really tasty and a much better option to the pre-made vegetarian "picnic eggs" sold at the super markets, which are terrible.

I really recommend using vegetarian haggis in your scotch egg recipes, thank!

A

Introductions and Investigation #1

Hello all, we're Phil and Annie. This is the first post of our foodie blog, so welcome. We're new to this and so hope you will be patient with us while we find our feet and decide exactly how we want to run this thing. We've talked about doing this for a while now and have finally got around to sorting it out. We currently reside in East Sheen on the outskirts of south-west London, but we've just signed off on a flat in Southwark, far more central and exciting - super close to Borough Market so hopefully our access to more interesting and better quality ingredients will improve.

In this blog we aim to experiment with recipes from various sources: cookbooks, websites, hearsay etc. and review them right here for you all to see. Not only this but we hope to do side-by-side showdowns of ingredients and accompaniments. We're sure other things will crop up every now and again but we'll have to wait and see. As will you.

Back in March I treated Annie to a birthday dinner at the River Cafe. It was our first time visiting (and so far our only, though we have high hopes) and we had obviously heard huge amounts about it. It was fabulous. My highlight was my 'secondi', Piccione al Forno (Anjou Pigeon wood-roasted in Poggerino Chianti Classico with chicken liver crostino and Castelluccio lentils cooked in red wine and stock with pancetta) deep, delicious and moreish, the excellent sommelier did me proud with that one too. Annie's favourite of the evening, Calamari ai Ferri, is what we shall be attempting tonight. We were pleased upon returning home to find the recipe in the River Cafe Cookbook, which ashamedly had only been used for the delicious zucchini soup until that point (safe to say it is used far more frequently nowadays).

The preparation for this dish is remarkably simple. All we would point out is don't be scared by the number of chillies recommended in the recipe! Their time spent in the oil is seems to draw away some of the heat giving a beautiful bright burn and flavour. We also, foolishly neglected to remember we ran out of EVOO yesterday evening and so substituted in extra virgin rape seed oil, this added a wonderful nuttiness though of course we suggest you do as directed.

The recommended use of a serrated knife is definitely worth heeding. I did try with the first knife that came to hand and slipped straight through the squid. The pan does indeed need to be very hot, especially if you want the charred markings. We found it best to hold the squid down with a spatula before turning it over as it tended to lift and curl slightly before we wanted it to. It is lovely that once turned they seem to jump and curl up to let you know they're cooked, though the tentacles were pretty creepy jiggling around.

Squid amazes us in that no matter how you treat it, you can't weigh it down. It is consistently so light. Here it floats around with the light tingly chillies and lemon accompanied by the herbal, pepper of the rocket so perfectly, it seems as though this combination must have been around forever. Perfect for nights when it is still light way past dinner time. Such an easy dish to prepare and it really packs a bit of wow factor. Its amazingly reasonable too, our over sized portions came out at probably £2 each total.

Though I (Phil) will usually be suggesting a beer to have with the recipe we have chosen it is wine all the way here. This is purely because I have nothing particularly suitable to hand. I would definitely liked to have sampled the delicious Schneider Hopfen-Weisse we managed to get our hands on at The Rake up at London Bridge yesterday. The hops would have stood up to the chilli kick while the lemon and breadiness should have embraced the peppery rocket and citric dressing wholeheartedly. But no... instead we have a Kentish Rose selected by Annie at the Real Food festival last month. Meopham Pinot Gris Rose 2007 is a dense and fruity 10%. The wine is quite intense and contains loads of almost sour citrus lifted a little by a peach. In all honesty I feel it doesn't have much of a bite, a little unsatisfying.

Hope this hasn't been too much of a drag for you. We definitely recommend you give the squid a go. Sure to be seeing you soon.

P & A
(Phil wrote this one.)