kate and sidney

What with the weather finally turning autumnal, my thoughts have turned to stew. I will shortly be making THAT beef and anchovy stew, however I am currently enjoying a frugal streak and am trying to continue it.

In the frugal larder recently there has been carrot smudge for lunch (made regularly from the Moro cookbook, as in my June 2009 blog). At 90p per kg, carrots are easily the cheapest thing for supermarket-bound urban folks right now. And at the farmer's market we found sweetcorn cobs 4-for-a-pound - and I just can't get enough cauliflower and cabbage. All British, all wonderful.

So maximum deliciousness and minimum expense really leads me to steak and kidney. You can probably use delicious cuts of steak, but I rather think the point is to use the scraggy, sinewey ends which turn out so well after a gentle 4 hours of transformation. Offal may be getting more expensive the more that it is used in restaurants and in weekend-magazine recipes, however it is still wonderfully (if relatively) cheap: around 60 pence for two lamb kidneys at Waitrose this morning.

There are many delicious recipes and one day I will get through them all; however when I want to really enjoy a steak and kidney then my mother's recipe comes out. Only knowing how few people will read this will entice me to part with this treasured piece of my family cooking history. Brace yourself: 4 ingredients. 10 minutes to assemble; 4 hours to cook.

The butcher at the Ginger Pig goaded me into taking more meat than I needed: it really did look paltry, but I didn't explain it was only for two people. And supposed to be FRUGAL! So I took 12 oz of chuck steak (they were out of skirt) and 8 oz kidneys (5 oz lamb's kidney and 3 oz of pig's kidney - due to shortage in the shop rather than from preference). At home I carefully cubed the kidney to exclude sinew and tube, and tossed it in seasoned flour with the diced beef.

This went into a plastic pudding bowl and a china pie-blackbird nestled in the middle, in lieu of the upturned egg cup my mother always uses: this keeps the pastry from sinking soggily into the stew in the centre. I poured in cold water to almost cover the meat, then sat on top a layer of closed cap mushrooms, de-stalked and the right way up to look like floating pebbles: these also help the pastry stay above the stew.

The suet pastry is a marvel in its own right: so speedy to make! 4oz flour, 2 oz suet, seasoning and cold water to bind. This was plopped on top of the mushrooms and spread about to the edges so it covered the stew like a dimpled lid, sealing in the steam. I fitted on the plastic pudding basin lid, lashed around a helping of cling film and then foil (standing the bowl in the centre of a large square, pulling the corners up to meet over the top: to keep the water out), and boiled away for 4 hours, topping up the water to make sure it didn't dry out.

One thing that foxed me was the lack of trivet: I have no idea if anyone else even uses these, and if my teaspoons are ok as an alternative? It's how I usually do it, but I really must check up on this. It completely ruined the coating on my spoons, so if you also don't have a trivet, please use something you don't love.


A word on the plastic pudding basin: I used this as I haven't yet inherited a china pudding basin. Naturally I will never be a stern matriarch-type until I possess such a thing, but I do have two muslin cloths in amongst my aprons, for the day when I tie up a pudding with paper, cloth and string, like a proper ruler of the hearth and home. Until then, the plastic one is actually jolly fine.

After 4 steamy hours, what was the result? My best, most favourite taste-memory. Soft soft meats, a thin, inimitable gravy and a doughy, almost gluey pastry. Sprouts and boiled potato are the supreme companions but we spotted a delicious cabbage for this time. The gent was appreciative, as he always is, but was a little bemused at my delight. For me the pleasure lies not only in the lovely meal, but also in the alchemy: four basic ingredients transformed whilst I read the paper. What's not to love?

23.10.11

My kingdom for a nutmeg

My mother told me something so fascinating, so revolutionary, that I have been reeling ever since. Put it this way: do you know where mace comes from?

Years ago I accidentally bought blade mace instead of powdered (for a beef + anchovy stew I rave about every 6 months; next rave due shortly). The blade mace was brown and rigid and shard-like and I had no idea how to render it into a powder. I inevitably tried the pestle 'n' mortar with poor results. But even then, with a curious lack of inquisitiveness, I didn't think to look up what mace actually was.

I guessed it was probably a spice like nutmeg, on account of its smell, which was pretty good going for my untuned senses.

Then quite by chance, a few weeks ago, my mother offered me the bronzed ovoid you see in this picture. It is the outside shell of a nutmeg, with a partial, vine-like lace-work of mace attached. When you shake the nut you can feel the nutmeg inside rattle, and it looks as if the mace will be easy to just snap off... I just had to take some photos first, it is absolutely beautiful.

I still have no idea how to powder the resiney mace substance, but by hook or by crook it will be going in that beef stew!

the gent cooks too

Of course he does. The man is far more refined in his cooking than I.

Last week there was Butternut squash soup which was like a blanket of carbs and saved me from missing lunch the next day at work. Horror.

Then came a most amazing Coq au vin, the recipe an amalgam of various versions, and the taste halfway between bistro and Sunday night hearth. When he checks a recipe the starting place is the Larousse bible found in Oxfam. The bar is set high!

And when I was occupied with making pasta one evening, he returned home laden and set about marinere-ing some moules. Better than 'Aux moules' in Lille, better even than 'Les moules Zola' in Dijon: holiday in a bowl.

And for my part, I am a most appreciative eater. I can't wait for his next stint in the kitchen!

testing, testing...

I am typing - or perhaps I should say tapping - this out on a cute iphone and testing the blogger app.

If all goes to plan there will also be a photo of last nights supper. I knew even as I reached for the camera that this would be a rare case of the picture not telling a thousand words. In fact it tells you no more than three... but what a trio!

Carbonara, Spaghetti + Unctuous.

It also serves to remind me that I can actually make it quite well. It was a little heavy on nutmeg but I did it the Roy-patented-best-way; that is, with one egg + one egg yolk. Normally I forget about the yolk out of ingrained frugality (little-sister's theory is that this is a relic of our pseudo- 1950's upbringing) but being 9pm and hungry made me reckless. It was worth the angst.

The gent revived a delightful red wine from the previous night and we made merry, dissecting our evening watching a modern day 'animal vegetable, mineral'. Given this is the inaugural blog-by-app, I will push the techie boat out and give you the twitter hashtag: #museumsavm

I am not abandoning the big screen of computer just yet, but this app is a *very* handy alternative for a quick note to bloggy self.

pasta caring

I thought my cup could not overflow any more when I was given a KitchenAid mixer. All those recipes I have never cooked because I am too lazy to whip egg whites! All the times I made up a Madeleine recipe in order to circumnavigate the real recipe, as it requires 10 minutes of hand-beating! And all the times I have gnashed my teeth in frustration over fridge-cold butter that was too hard to mix... now all a thing of the past.

Well my cup overflowed just that little bit more when the gent gave me a pasta attachment for my birthday: more toy to play with, resulting in my favourite of carbs!

I once made pasta when I lived in Wimbledon, and spent a whole afternoon fighting a mean, uptight ball of dough. My hands were red raw from using a rolling pin to do all the rolling, and the resulting pasta fine to eat... if very chunky.

Yesterday I took no chances and bought the nicest '00' flour that John Lewis foodhall had to offer. The whole process took longer than I thought, given that I was using a machine, but this was down to a first-timer exploring how to do things.

I poured 440g of flour on the work surface, made a well in centre for 3 large eggs and threw over 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Using a fork initially, I scrambled the eggs, then began to draw in a little flour so that the central well slowly increased, as the egg mix turned more doughey. Eventually I gave up the fork and used my hands to pull in the last of the flour, kneading briefly before putting in the Kitchen Aid with a dough hook.

This is clearly a supremely lazy move, but I wanted to see how the hook worked. Brilliantly, is the answer. It didn't look as vigorous as hand-kneading, but the result was a nice, elastic dough: the kind I read about in recipes, but have never made!

The dough rested for 20 minutes whilst I cleared up (our kitchen is tiny) and added the pasta rolling attachment to the mixer. Dividing the dough into four, I worked on one piece at a time, dropping it through the roller on setting one. I fed it through, doubled it over then repeated until satisfied. Once all four pieces of dough had been rolled I repeated the process on settings 2 and 3 - incrementally thinner - until I seemed to have reams of pasta sheets! I dusted liberally with flour to prevent them sticking.

The cutting was the easiest part of all. Feeding each sheet of pasta through the cutter attachment was very quick, and I roughly shaped the tagliatelle into nests on a plate, or hung over a clothes drier.

How did it taste? Springy and firm. Delicious. It was too thick to be elegant, but I really liked it and it tasted good in the cream and salmon sauce that the gent put together. Next time I am going to experiment with rolling the pasta more finely, and also try making filled pasta: my absolute favourite.

pollen shirt social

There are so many positives about lilies that their only downside never occurs to me. Today I noticed the gent covered in orange and it did then come to mind that their pollen is particularly difficult to erase from garments. Especially shirts from expensive shirt-eries.

It is a shockingly bad pun, but we were headed to Pollen Street social that night, so as I brushed and soaked the shirt, I couldn't help but chuckle at my own joke (see title of this post if you can stomach it).

Having read AA Gill's review, aghast at being explained the 'concept' of this new restaurant, I did anticipate a little pretension. And having read about everything from the 'roasted squid juice' to the 'clam and cockle emulsion', I began to feel I had already eaten there - so I promptly gave up reading reviews and didn't even look at the menu beforehand.

All of which ended in a pleasantly surprising evening. Our dining companions were the delightful Mike and Alice who were on an amazing gastro-weekend, eating at four London foodie-havens (five Michelin stars between them) before heading home. We were honoured to be invited along to the Pollen stage of the tour.

There was a zingy, lemony shellfish-based paste to spread on bread. Then I had
Escabeche of quail, chicken liver cream, nuts & seeds. Or, as I typed a few hours later 'little hams of quail, toothpick-bone sticking out, chicken liver butter on wafer-thin toast, carrot, pickled onion shells, nutty something'. It was fantastic and I barely had time to stop and taste the gent's scallop ceviche. Which was also great.

I then focused my entire attention on ox cheek with tongue and sirloin. I chose this as (a) three meats on one plate sounded an excellent plan and (b) I don't like tongue and was hoping this would convert me (still not something I'd eat quantities of...). The surprise star was the cheek, slow-cooked until the connective tissue rendered gluey, the whole thing sweet and falling into dessication. There was a pureed horseradishy thing too, which was perfect. The wine - Côte-Rôtie La Viallièret - was heady: tobaccoey, and smelling like a gentleman's library*.

Sated, I was able to look about the room. The lighting reminded me of the recent 'Frankenstein' set at the National Theatre. Then I found the (transparent) cold-room for meats, and another floor-to-ceiling wall of wine bottles in storage, all on the way to plush-grade rest rooms. It was all so beautiful I almost asked for my desert to be served there, instead.

Back upstairs my 'ham, cheese and herb' dessert arrived: watermelon granita, a 'ham' of thin-sliced melon with gelatin 'fat' attached to look like a slice of ham, intense basil sorbet (like falling face-first in a herb bed) and soft cheese. Great fun, but the only dish I didn't quite finish. We enjoyed an after-dinner Armagnac at the bar, unwinding from the sensation assault and making a mental note to come back for a post-work drink another time.

It is hard not to mention the party bags, uncovered from a little locker to which we held the key, which contained 'Breakfast on us' mini cakes and a teabag. Funny, sweet. The most charming thing about the evening was the excitement and adventure in everything, but if I go back, the reason would be the really good food, cooked perfectly.


* the gent is verbally adding descriptions, but they are his views not mine, and also I don't have a oenophile dictionary to correct the spelling. So if you are interested, then I think it's best you follow him on Twitter. And then you can argue back, too! @jamesdoeser

Lesley's courgette and Bernadette's basil

I do sometimes get tired of thinking of what to eat: the natural ennui of someone who works full time and so is tempted to choose the same, quick meal, and who also has the unlimited choice of anything in the world that the supermarket provide.

Yes, I did just say there are too many option, and I do realise how spoilt that sounds, but I actually find it liberating to have restrictions. I remember my mother coping with the autumn apple glut with such imagination: just when we were at the improbable point of being sick of raw apples, apple crumble and baked apple, out would come the apple fritters. Magic!

This encouragement into creativity is one of the (many) reasons home produce delights me, and this week I was the happy recipient of garden-gifts from two colleagues. On Tuesday Lesley presented courgettes from her allotment, with the weary sigh of someone mid-glut and trying to prevent any turning into marrows! I was dining alone that night so I took just one, sliced it on the diagonal and quickly fried it in oil with some chopped garlic. Sharing the plate - but not the glory - were baby Jersey potatoes and a quick-fried salmon fillet, dusted with paprika and salt. Heavenly.

Due to good weather, Bernadette's basil plant had produced abundantly and today she brought in bags of delicate, aromatic leaves. I thanked my lucky stars that no one else got there before me and bagged a bag. Right now it lies chopped in a bowl with some toasted, chopped pine nuts, a little parmesan and a lot of extra virgin olive oil. I have made this into a proper paste before, using pestle and mortar, however I much prefer this rough, verdant version. I can't wait to put the pasta on: hurry home, gent!

These two ingredients have really whetted my appetite and I can't wait to get to the market at the weekend for more inspiration!