Food & Drink...

Quite a nice chilled weekend just gone. Played our penultimate game of the cricket season on Saturday and I seem to have hit my peak right at the end of the proceedings, hopefully I can carry the form into next year but alas saving relegation was never possible.

Sunday was the highlight of the weekend as we went over to the Wokingham food & drink festival. They had plenty going on there for people of all ages, activities for the kids, various stall selling homemade and/or local produce and a bar serving up local ales which reminds me I must pop over to Bingham's Brewery to pick up some of the wonderful beer they had on show.

The main reason we went was to catch the cookery demo by Tony and Sally Cole from LSQ2. A great job they did too cooking up my two favourite dishes off the menu. I'm going to be trying out my own variation of the Pork Belly and Scotch Quails Eggs myself this evening so I'll get the recipe for these up sometime this week.

It would have been so easy just to lay around all day yesterday as I had the inevitable aches from cricket and with just 8 weeks to go until our new arrival Carley wasn't exactly full of beans either but we did manage to muster the energy for a walk down to Waitrose to pick up a spot of lunch and also for a meander around in search of the evenings meal.

We went for confit duck in the end as it's such a comfort food especially when served up with celeriac mash, peas and a red wine jus. Of course I cheated with the confit and just bought the canned variety which is perfectly fine although not as good as doing the whole process yourself. I blogged about how to do this a while back so a quick search will find you the method, it really is the best way to eat duck.



A can containing two portions of confit duck at Waitrose comes in at a hefty £9.99 but if you bear in mind the amount of duck fat you get to keep for those perfect roast potatoes or crunchy chips then personally I think it's money well spend.





Another reason we're glad we went to the food & drink festival was because of the amazing gadget we came across. It's called the "Wean Machine" and it's a rather brilliant little invention for feeding small sprogs when you are on the go.




There is a lot more information about the product on their website but here's the demo video with the inventor who was at the festival on Sunday.

Getting excited about baby products must mean we're close :-)


As for my own cookery demos I'm delighted to have been asked to participate as a cook and presenter at the food4familes Reading town meal on the 1st October being held in Forbury Gardens.

There will be three other former Reading, Steady, Cook participants taking part along with myself which is just brilliant and there will be other demos from the irrepressible Paul Clerehugh as well as some from the students at Reading College so as you can tell it's going to be a feast of all things local.

It's not all about the cookery demos either because there will be plenty of other things going on for people of all ages and if you fancy getting involved yourself then pop along to their website and you can find all the contact info you need right there as well as info on the event itself.

So until I'm back with a wonderful Pork Belly recipe for y'all that's it, you're all up to date...............Toodlepip xx

Gingalangalgoolie.....

Had inspiration to cook up some fish yesterday with some Thai Green Curry sauce alas when I looked in the larder it was bare.....I'd run out of the pre-made paste I normally buy from my favourite Asian supermarket.

Luckily we have a rather well stocked spice cupboard so I got to work on making my own and I have to say that even though I was missing some Lemongrass (which any cook would normally consider integral to this paste) I was very pleased with the result....dare I say it was even better than the shop bought Thai import.

By far the most interesting ingredient for me was the dried Galangal that I'd bought a while back from Waitrose. I'd never really taken the time to analyse it before and I really liked it's citrus aroma which somehow seems to also have a savoury aspect to it.

It comes from the same family as Ginger so I can now see where that smell and taste comes from. There is even a Polish Vodka flavoured with the stuff which I simply have to get my hands on and not just because I think it'll be good for shots but because I think it'll make for a fantastically boozy fruit flan or trifle. Incidentally did you know that the Italians refer to trifle as "English soup"?

So anyway I took three slices of the dried Galangal and put them into my mortar along with one clove of garlic, one shallot, a couple of dried Kaffir lime leaves, a tablespoon of coriander seeds, a dozen or so fennel seeds, a splash of lemon juice, a second splash of vegetable oil, a third of fish sauce and finally a pinch of salt and a grind of pepper. Grind all these up until you have a nice paste then you are ready to use it.

Once the paste is made it'll last for quite a while so you can increase the number of ingredients accordingly but this was more than enough for two.

The sauce when done can be served with virtually anything you like, it'll work equally as well with fish as it would with chicken or beef and it really couldn't be easier.

In a pan over a medium/high add a little oil and then the curry paste. Cook this out for a bit so that all the spices, onion and garlic heat up to release their flavours and at the same time allow the texture to soften. Give it a couple of minutes the pour in the contents of a small can of coconut cream. Combine the whole lot as it bubbles away and that's pretty much it. The long you leave the sauce cooking the thicker it'll get and it'll also change colour becoming darker, the darker it gets the more nutty the flavour will become.

Potato forms.......

Occasionally it's more than agreeable to just take the cooking out of your own hands and put your trust in some good old fashioned pre-prepared frozen comfort food.

I don't mind admitting that sometimes myself, and I'm guessing even the most hardy of home cooks will at some point just say....."I can't be bothered this evening".

Peas and potatoes are my main vices. I do love spending the time shelling fresh peas from their pods, they taste so much sweeter and firmer this way but frozen peas are perfectly acceptable too.

I'd never use that horrid frozen mixed veg though because I find it completely vile. I actually got some served up to me once at a restaurant and I was truly disgusted and I've never set food in the place since. It was La Fontana in Twyford by the way. I have no problem naming and shaming them because of this. Fancy living in a village surrounded by fields and serving up cheap, sweaty and nasty frozen veg, it's just not cricket I tell thee.

Potatoes are where I think frozen food does well. I often contemplate and change the order in which I rank my top 4 frozen potato forms. Current order is thus -

1. Potato croquettes
2. Hash browns
3. Potato waffles
4. Chips

The order changes each time I try a new variety.



Tesco's and Aunt Bessie's come out tops on the croquette front. I quite like Waitrose ones too but they tend to split when you cook them and I prefer them to keep their shape.




Hash Browns too can be hit and miss with own brand versions so I just stick to McCains as they get nice and crispy but still have a loose chunky inside. For absolute nirvana though you simply cannot get better than a piping hot McDonald's Hash Brown.





Potato waffles can only be from Birds Eye. Grilled until crispy and topped with a couple of free range, organic fried eggs they make a perfect breakfast.



Frozen chips can be a bit disappointing, especially the cheap ones. Personally I'll either got for an Aunt Bessie's homesytle or perhaps some McCains crinkle cut chips because they seem to crisp up more but still remain fluffy inside. Both of those though still come out quite dry. For ultimate frozen chip heaven though you have to go for McCains simply gorgeous chips. They really are the ultimate, cut from real spuds and cooked in beef dripping........worth the extra cost? absobloominlutely.

Are there any other frozen potato forms I should be checking out?

Toodlepip xx

The article...

For those who have asked and are unable to purchase a copy of the Reading Post here is the article I wrote for them -

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The Perfect Toast
By Ben Zagorski

Toast is home and toast is comfort according to Elizabeth David. In her book English Bread and Yeast Cookery she even tells her readers that when the Duke of Wellington landed at Dover in 1814 after a six year absence from England “the first order he gave at the Ship Inn was for an unlimited supply of buttered toast”.

It’s just one of those things most of us love to eat. We smear it with butter, top it with cheese, daub it with sticky jam, dip it in runny egg yolks even tar it with the “some do some don’t” yeast extract that those deplorable Danes have recently outlawed.

Most often, like many others it seems, I’ll have toast made with sliced white bread and spread with plain butter but in having it this way for me the toast must be cold and the butter must be thick.

Another personal favourite is to have fairly thick cut hot toast with a plentiful plastering of peanut butter and I have no preference on the type of bread used nor to the spread being either crunchy or smooth for it’s the desiccant stickiness I seek.

On occasion I’ll treat myself to a trip down memory lane and have a toasted cheese sandwich.

Nothing fancy just two slices of wholemeal or granary bread toasted and buttered with slices of mature Cheddar sandwiched between or “Cheez wiz tost” as my late Polish grandfather used to call it.

This family favourite was always served up with a mug of piping hot tea. Protocol was to take a bite of the sandwich then quickly take a sip of the tea and have them both in the mouth at the same time. The general consensus within our brood is that this works perfectly and is in no way a tiny bit strange……….

The list for fillings and toppings really could go on forever but aside from that what about the toast itself? Is there a way to ensure you have the perfect slice of crunchy toast?

The answer is “apparently so” because a bunch bread baking boffins down at Vogel’s bakery in the Wiltshire village of Salisbury claim to have uncovered the secret to the ideal slice.

They reveal that after years of testing and quality control the results show that from being just a plain slice of bread, going through the median (Cm) before ultimately becoming charcoal there are inevitably various stages the toast must go through. Taking into account the elasticity (V) of the bread versus toasting time (t) an individual’s preference can be defined and plotted along their “Vogel Curve”.

I quite like the fact that somebody has taken the time to analyse this favoured foodstuff in such precise scientific detail however light-hearted it may be. Toast deserves special consideration.

Could toast even have changed the course of history?

Nigel Slater said “It’s impossible not to love someone who makes you toast”.

Had Kitty Wellesley believed this too then perhaps the Iron Duke might have not gone abroad “to seek the comfort and happiness that he felt was denied him at home”.

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Toodlepip xx

Ugly but tasty....

There are many objects in this world that are not so pleasing on the eye but have a strange beauty about them, there could be people that fall into the same catagory.

Take for example the Gherkin building in London. To some people it's a blot on the landscape but to others it's a work of art and a thing of beauty. I have to say I fall into the latter.

One thing however I'm pretty sure everybody can agree on is that the humble Monkfish is truly truly ugly.......






Check out this little critter






Ugly as it may be the one redeeming quality is has it that it tastes so damn good!

The tail is the edible part and it's texture can be likened to Lobster. Not so long ago this delicious flesh was used for Scampi, it was almost considered the offal of the sea but since it's been used by chefs worldwide it can now even command a higher price that it's shellfish peer.

Monkfish has a very firm texture, almost meaty. It's not as delicate as a flaky Cod which means that when cooking you can actually afford to give it a bit longer and it won't spoil the taste too much.

When cooking Cod I'll always try to make sure the flakes are just opaque rather than completely white but with Monkfish you can give it that little bit more but as with any fish over cooking is a cardinal sin. You can substitute Monkfish for Cod in the recipe I'm about to give and if you're not into fish you could even use Chicken.

Also I say "Buerre blanc" but it is in fact a variation on it which I made up to compliment this dish....it probably exists in some French cookery book and has an elaborate name.

Baked Monkfish fillet with butternut squash purée and buerre blanc

Serves Two

Ingredients -

2 x Monkfish fillets
2 x Slices of parma ham
1 x Finely chopped shallot
1/2 x Glass of white wine
60g x Unsalted butter, cut into cubes
5g x Finely chopped dill
8 x Chopped capers
1/2 x Dried bayleaf
1/2 x Butternut squash, cubed
1 x Pinch of ground clove
200g x Green beans, trimmed
Milk
Salt
Pepper


1. Put the cubed squash into a small saucepan along with the bayleaf, ground clove and half of the chopped shallot. Cover this with milk and bring to the boil over medium heat then reduce the temperature so it's a slows to a simmer.

2. In another pan cover the green beans with water and bring to the boil then again reduce the heat and simmer until tender.

3. Meanwhile heat the oven to around 140C then take the Monkfish fillets and wrap them in the parma ham. Place these on a non stick baking tray and once the oven is at temperature cook for 10 minutes.

4. Take the cooked butternut squash from the saucepan and put into a blender. Whizz it up to form a smooth purée using a little of the heated milk to loosen up if needed. Transfer the puree to a squeezable bottle setting it aside until ready to serve.

5. Fry the remaining shallots in a pan with one cube of butter, let these go soft before pouring in the white wine. Boil the contents until it's reduced by half then remove from the heat. Add in the dill and capers then all but one of the remaining butter cubes. Whisk continuously until the butter has completely melted and emulsified into the sauce. Set aside.

6. Onto the centre of a round plate squeeze a zig zag of the purée. On top of this lay the green beans, squeeze a little more of the purée in a line across the centre of the beans then top with the Monkfish fillet.

7. To finish the buerre blanc whisk in the final butter cube to firm up the sauce then drizzle over the Monkfish. Finish the dish by squeezing increasing blobs of purée on the side of the plate.

Tooodlepip xx....

I'm toasting my toast....

Well I can honestly say that I never thought I'd ever see anything that I'd written being put into print. English really wasn't my strong point at school. I don't think I'd read a book all the day through until I found Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton and that was published in 1990 when I was already about to turn 16 and already well on my way to leaving school as soon as I possible could.

So seeing my first article printed in the food monthly section of the Reading Post this week has given me a great sense of achievement. For me it ranks higher than pretty much anything else to date.

Not sure about the dodgy picture though!

Hopefully it'll be well received and I'll get to do many more because I really loved writing it and researching it. I got quite a bit (quite a lot actually) of help with the structure of this one prior to it being published which was needed but it's a learning process and I do tend pick things up very quickly.

Please do go and grab a copy if you are local. Those further a field will just have to hang on a few more days before I can post it on here.

It's about Toast by the way :-)

Toodlepip xx

What's that green stuff?......

I was wandering around my local supermarket last week looking for something to cook for a good buddy of mine and while buying up some scallops I saw some sea aster sitting there alongside the samphire.

Sea aster grows mainly in salt marshes or river estuaries and whereas samphire is a stalky kind of vegetable the edible parts of the sea aster plant are the leaves.






Because of where it grows it has a slightly salty flavour which compliments fish perfectly.

Having never seen it before let alone used it I was keen to give it a try and got myself a packet because I thought it'd be fantastic alternative to the sautéed spinach I was going to use.

If you cannot find sea aster yourselves then samphire will be just as good in the recipe I'm about to give but failing that you can use sautéed spinach with a good pinch of sea salt.

The scallops I used were without coral which is the orange coloured roe usually attached to the scallop, had they had coral I would have used that too in another sauce but for this dish I think they are best left off.

They were also very small so I used a good handful per portion. I'd have preferred to use much larger diver caught scallops but alas you don't really get these in supermarkets. If you can get nice big scallops I'd suggest using three per potion as a starter and five for a main or fish course, odd numbers always look better on a plate.


Scallops & Chorizo with sea aster and cauliflower purée

Serves two as a starter

Ingredients -

350g x Fresh scallops without roe
100g x Chorizo (peel off the thin clear casing and cut into cubes)
70g x Sea aster
1 x Baby cauliflower (remove any small leaves and chop into quarters)
Whole Milk
Unsalted butter
Salt
Black pepper

1. In a small saucepan put the quartered cauliflower and then add enough milk to just cover. Put this over a medium heat and bring it to the boil. Once boiling point is reached lower the heat to a very gentle simmer.

2. Take a frying/sautee pan and put it over a medium/high heat. Let the pan get hot then add in the cubed chorizo. Fry the cubes so that take on a nice colour and start to form a crunchy looking crust then remove from the to a clean bowl. ** Do not tip the chorizo out of the pan because you want to keep as much of the chorizo oil in the pan as possible.**

3. In the same pan over the same heat add a small knob of butter allowing it to melt and bubble then add in the scallops. Allow them to cook on one side for 45 seconds before turning over and cooking for another 45 seconds. This is all they need, do not be tempted to cook them any more as they will go rubbery (personally I like them cooked even less so that they are virtually raw in the middle). Notice how they take on all that lovely redness from the paprika in the chorizo oil. Remove these from the pan and add to the bowl with the chorizo and give it a mix up.

4. Again using the same pan but over a lower heat tip in the sea aster and let this wilt down while you prepare the cauliflower purée.

5. Remove the cauliflower from the milk and put into a blender along with a small knob of butter. Give the contents a whizz up adding a little of the cooking milk as you go until you have the consistency you require. Season the purée with salt and pepper to your taste and once your happy with it you can plate up. Pass the purée through a fine sieve if you want a smoother finish.

Spoon some of the cauliflower into the centre of a round plate and onto that scatter the wilted sea aster. Top this with the scallop and chorizo mixture and then drizzle round some of the remaining cooking oil from the frying pan.

Of course you should be as adventurous as you like with the presentation.

The flavours in this recipe just work so well together and it's really easy to do so give it a go. It's the perfect dish to have on a summers day and when washed down with a nice light white wine you really couldn't ask for more.

Toodlepip xx....

Oooh it aches...

Mondays come round too quickly don't they? I had to use a tad more energy than normal yesterday on the cricket field and my body is certainly letting me know it's age today.

Apologies for the lack of blogging activity lately. I'm sure it was sorely missed :-)

To be honest I've just been a bit lazy. I think it's a culmination of trying to save some pennies and a general lack of enthusiasm but I'm back in the room now and looking forward to some exciting foodie related action coming up.

I have a meeting this week to discuss food competition ideas which all going well could mean a really good format for an independently run local competition. I have my mum coming to visit soon too so I simply have to treat her to some culinary sensations and I am still getting content together for the new website which has been dragging on for while now....all because of my laziness.

I have a DJ gig coming up this Saturday for "Erotique" at Bar Mango in Reading. I've been given the garden responsibilities and I'll be joined in there by Dancin Martin and Kingpin. Inside are the host honchos Filthy Funk Funk with Bon Finix and Samantha Bond so it should make for a rather splendiferous night out.

So that's a quick update from me but expect more tomorrow.......