In brief

Browsing some Coren back files I found a review of 'The Drapers Arms' which, delightfully, is in my area. More delightfully, it was compared - but not contrasted - to St. John. Some of the dishes sound almost identical to ones at St. John when we visited in July and I had an immediate yen to do it all again: same people, similar food, different place. And quite a lot cheaper, too.

Incidentally, one of my favourite lines was: 'travel only broadens the mind if the mind starts off narrow'. Which will get added to: 'Travel narrows the mind and broadens the waist'.

This link is to the article in the Giles Coren backfiles at the Times Online:
http://tinyurl.com/lpy2xe

Drapers Arms, 44 Barnsbury St

Pork epiphany

I have had quite a weekend of it. First there was the roast belly pork the gent cooked: 3 hours at 140 degrees, atop a pile of onion and Granny Smith apples. The crackling was sheared off in one piece and put under the grill to, well, crackle, and everything served with (perfect) mashed potato and cabbage. The resulting meat was completely succulent and the fat, layered between the meat, plentiful and juicy but not at all gristly or difficult.

I didn’t anticipate that the joy would continue into the next day. For a train journey down to Sussex I was given a baking-parchment wrapped sandwich of cold pork, lettuce and mustard on Ottolenghi bread. And a separate packet whose contents were given away as it unravelled, the paper becoming increasingly transparent with grease, until the cold crackling slid out.

It has to be the best sandwich I have ever eaten. And, possibly, the largest.

My father cooked on Sunday night. I was given the options of a vegetable curry or ‘beans etc.’, there being a glut of runner beans in the garden. I chose beans etc. of course, and the 'etc.' this time was a little joint of gammon, roasted under a tin foil blanket.

This time the fat presented itself in a wide halo around two thirds of the meat. As it had been covered to cook, the crust was jammy and sticky, instead of crunchy, and I wasn’t sure I would like it. As a child, pork fat was my anathema - for the hideous oyster-texture as much as the gristly bits. So I cut a wobbly flabby bit of fat with its sticky edge, dipped it in the juices swimming in the plate, and ate it. More tasty than the meat itself, salty, melting. Converted. Hidden in the kitchen, pretending to carve seconds, I rather gorged on the fat, cutting it away in chunks and eating it with my fingers. And to think I used to feed this ambrosia to our chickens as ‘leftovers’!

Duck or grouse!

I used to waitress in a sweet restaurant in Sussex (sadly no longer the same since the owners retired) in which a brass hanging warned customers to protect their heads from the low beamed ceilings: 'Duck or grouse'.

I love duck. I could eat duck at any moment and the recent post about Confit du Canard shows a new height in ducky obsession. I’m game for game: pheasant, venison, game pie, pigeon pie. But I had never had the opportunity to try grouse.

So when the waiter in the dimly lit, beautifully staffed Locanda Locatelli read out the specials and Grouse was mentioned I knew it was my lucky day. It was just a week after the 'Glorious twelfth' - the start of Grouse season in August - so it was already very much at the forefront of our minds and anticipating stomachs. The Scottish press had suggested it was a 'promising' year for Grouse, too. The gent’s eyes gleamed a little and I could see we were after the same dish.

The first course was like foreplay: a soft-as-clotted-cream goats cheese for me, perfectly dressed, perfectly perfect. The gent indulged in something else altogether. And the wine! The sommelier was charming and knowledgeable, but the gent gently surpassed him and chose an amazing wine which the sommelier approved of heartily. The plonk-chat was lost on me, but I was wild for the performance with a candle and decanting, and the cork being reverently presented in a dish. Top stuff!

It also complimented the grouse madly: I could barely decide which to raise to my mouth, next. The bird was much more gamey than I anticipated. And much pinker, too. The fat lady doesn't sing until the 10th December, so there is plenty of time to reprise the treat yet - and after that, there will still be pheasant. Eating seasonally has never been less of a chore.

Roast belly pork

With the ongoing theme of ‘aren’t I a lucky Roy?’ the gent took to feeding me last week. The salads were beautiful and well dressed, the pasta with sausagey tomato sauce was deliciously filling... and then there was roast belly pork.

A Borough Market excursion to meet a sister and neph started with the very best coffee I have had in a long time (Monmouth, of course), and a gent-foraged, sublime, enormous bacon and egg bap; and ended with the wild purchase of pork belly and wine to match.

As I recall, through the heady haze of anticipation, the gent cooked the pork thus: the top was rubbed liberally with salt, the whole thing roasted on a highish heat so the fat crisped. Then the crackling was sliced off the pork. The pork returned to the oven for a bit longer on a lesser temperature, and the crackling put under the grill to do its stuff.

A succulent pig, a delicious evening... aren't I a lucky Roy?!

cornish delight

The Greenhouse, St. Keverne, Cornwall
www.tgor.co.uk

So small it was almost like a front room turned restaurant, and run by just two rather dedicated people, I loved The Greenhouse from first bite of chewy new bread to the last spoon of pud. The alpha and omega of dining.

The menu was full of seafood and local produce. I know 'seasonal' and 'local' food is the big fat middle-class cliche of our time, but here it was sincere and so easily the best bet - given the plethora of farms in the area, and the sea pretty much acting as doorstep.

One of the multi-tasking two runs bread-making classes, my local hosts reliably informed me. I jested (not) that I would judge the place by their bread - and frankly, it exceeded expectation. I don't know how to describe it without the words 'fresh + chewy + crusty + holey' so I will leave it at that. For the rest, I'm going to give you a medley of what I remember from round the table: I didn't eat four meals.

There were battered sprats 'like giant whitebait' with an aioli, pigeon breasts with crispy fried black pudding, mussels, and a generous scoop of ducks pate on toast. We shared with each other liberally, tasting everything.

The next course was a shore of seafood. Crab with mayonnaise and chips rendered the gent unusually silent, except for the click of shell against plate and a murmur of 'claws are the best bit'. Fish (fried brill?) decorated with more mussels, and a Goan fish curry - at the top end of spicy - pleased Mr and Mrs Host; I had a most delicate, soft baked megrim sole with crab sauce, and just a few buttered potatoes alongside. My lack of notebook shows: I can't recall the names of anything properly, how vexing. I hope the gent can at least recall what we drank, as it was terrific, and two bottles made their way to our table.

The only criticism suggested at our table, was that the starters were perhaps too large: four sprats, for instance, would have been a more perfect size for the appetite whetting morsel a first course should be. Six were more of a meal. Nonetheless, after this barrage of delights, we bravely pushed forward to a pudding course, crossing spoons to share this time. I believe a banana vacherin (?) was polished off with delight on the other side of the table: I was too busy with my face in a treacle tart with Roskilly's clotted cream to take much notice. Dark with treacle, not just golden syrup, this was as amazing as it sounds.

It was a beautiful evening. Locals obviously loved it - as did a certain television celebrity - and I hope it continues to be successful. I couldn't help but notice that this week there is a wild rabbit and mushroom terrine on the menu...

confit de canard

Confit de canard: five syllables of seduction. In Paris the gent and I had this at Brasserie Balzar, where it came gorgeously crisped, accompanied by a wonderful gravy and sautee potatoes. We enjoyed a wonderful, chewy, strawberry Beaujolais (2006) and the amazing moustache on our waiter. The next restaurant served the confit without gravy, and with fried potatoes. Unforgettable times.

Here is the perennially wonderful Nigel on the subject:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2003/feb/09/foodanddrink.shopping6

To find the optimal way of cooking this the smartest thing to do, of course, iwould be to look at recipes and writing from the best cookery writers. However, I am curious about how much of a difference the differing methods make. I am keen to make this myself so I can play with the curing stage, and the time spent poaching in fat. I would, secondarily, be interested to see if the the length of time it is stored in the hard-fat block changes the end product.

In my grand plan I will make three versions varying the curing stage and treat them the same for the rest of the cooking stages. Then from this, I will take the best curing method and start again: cure it the best way and cook it for three different lengths of time to find the optimal result.

Now all I need is an empty weekend, a kitchen to myself, and a working oven.

Hobnobbing

I didn't realise how much I utilise the oven until over-summering in this flat without one.

I have several times planned an oven-cooked meal and had the raw ingredients in my shopping basket, before recalling that I have only a hob to cook with. One shameful supermarket chicken pie - now languishing in the freezer - made it all the way home and out of the cardboard before I remembered. I actually considered how else I could make it edible - slicing it up to fry? Steam?

The last thing to catch me out was planning this Italian aubergine dish, which Bert had raved about:
http://www.lifestylefood.com.au/recipes/1993/eggplant-parmigiana-melanzana-alla-parmigiana

I have been meaning to make this for some time from an Anna del Conte recipe but am separated from my cook books. And, as I later recalled, aubergine in hand, oven. So until I am back in my own flat, this dish will have to go on the backburner.

Is it wrong to laugh at your own jokes?