Sunday, January 29, 2012

The Great Fresh Herb Rip-Off


I've banged on about this before and probably will again but I just wanted to have another moan about the extortionate price of fresh herbs in supermarkets. Witness this 25g bag of flat leaf parsley that was on sale at Waitrose yesterday for 89p. That's £35.60 a kilo, more than the cost of fillet steak.

I can buy a bunch roughly 10 times that size from my local greengrocer for just over £1 and so, I'm sure, can you. It's really time supermarkets stopped ripping us off.

That said I did find quite a useful product in the frozen cabinets as part of Waitrose's Cooks Ingredients series which was a pack of Thai mix - a mixture of lemongrass, coriander, ginger, chilli and garlic - which would be quite handy to keep in the freezer. It won't pack quite the punch of fresh ingredients but is probably more economical than buying them individually, certainly for a single dish. Normally £1.49 a pack at the moment they're on offer at 2 for £2.50. You can also buy frozen coriander that way.

Do these pesky packets of fresh herbs annoy you too or is it just me?

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Winter Vegetable Torte

I love my springform pans I use them for so many things, I think I have every size they make. They're great for layering vegetables that are "glued together" with various cheese, as in this torte.
This recipe was born from small containers of roasted vegetables I had tucked away in my fridge, and one large sweet potato, and I must say it turned out mighty good, a different variation than my zucchini, eggplant version.
You can't get a better side dish because everything is all contained in one flavorful wedge!

I started with very thinly sliced sweet potato, then each layer a different veg, sprinkling grated cheese in between and ending with the sweet potato on top.
I used a 6 inch springform pan that was deep and allowed me to have many layers, just remember to press down in between, place the pan on a baking sheet so you won't have drips in your oven when cooking and cover the top with foil. Roast at 425 for 20 minutes, then take the foil off and roast another 15 minutes until the top is golden. Let it rest for 30 minutes before you slice it into wedges.
Use your imagination and the vegetables of your choice, here's a list of what I used for my winter vegetable torte.
 No doubt I will be making this again!
Buon Appetito

Saturday, January 21, 2012

A weekend to buy whisky

With Burns Night coming up this week and many celebrating it this weekend, now's a good time to stock up on your favourite whisky brand. Almost all the supermarkets have got special offers. Here's my pick of the bunch (meaning the best deals, not necessarily the best whiskies - see comments!)

Asda
1 litre bottles of Famous Grouse for £16 instead of £18.97 - standard bottles for £13.47 (£16.50-17 elsewhere)
Glenmorangie 10 y.o. for £21.97 (£33-£34 elsewhere)
Isle of Jura 10 y.o. for £19 (£28-29 elsewhere)

Morrisons
Grants £12.99 instead of £14.99

Sainsbury's
Halves of Famous Grouse for £7.29 instead of £8.29
Whyte & Mackay £12 instead of £15.79
Talisker at £25 instead of £31.99
Glenlivet French Oak reserve at £25 instead of £34.79

Tesco
Aberlour 10 y.o. for £21 (£25-27 elsewhere)

Waitrose
Ardbeg £34.50 instead of £40.50
Knockando £24.75 instead of £30.75

Booths also seem to have some good whisky offers with £10 off a number of leading malts including Ancnoc 12.y.o. and Old Pulteney 12 y.o., though they unhelpfully don't say what the discounted price is on their site. Apart from Isle of Jura 12 y.o. which is down to £20.95 from £30.95.

And Lidl has a decent own brand whisky called Hunter's Glen (yes, naff I know but it's fine) for £11.99.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Playing with Portobello's

Large portobellos are so meaty and satisfying, it's the perfect vehicle for pasta topped stuffing. 
Tiny star pasta called stelline, tossed with garlic, red, yellow and orange peppers, fresh herbs and  cheese of your choice. For a nice light lunch or dinner, it's delicious served with a salad, or you can have it as a side dish to accompany your favorite protein, either way you'll love it, and it looks pretty too!
The topping could be made in advance then arranged on the mushrooms at the last minute.

  In a small  pan drizzled with olive oil add minced garlic, finely diced red, yellow and orange diced peppers. Stir in fresh herbs like basil and parsley and your favorite shredded cheese, I used romano and asiago. Toss in your precooked tiny pasta.
The mushrooms I slightly precooked in a 425 degree oven until they started to wilt a little.
Top each mushroom with the pasta mixture, then place under the broiler for up to 5 minutes or until the topping is golden or mushrooms are warmed through. 
Portobellos also make a fantastic meatless lasagna, stack three high and fill each cap with a layer of marinara then top with a mixture made up of of ricotta, grated romano, mozzarella, asiago, basil and parsley.
 Prepare mushrooms as above.
Spoon more marinara over the top and bake for around 15 minutes in a 400 degree oven or just until warmed through.

Buon Appetito! 

Sunday, January 15, 2012

How to make the best marmalade you’ve ever tasted


I’m not a great one for ‘the perfect this’ or ‘the perfect that’ in recipes but if you’re a marmalade aficionado I promise you this is as good as it gets. Intensely fruity, thick and sharply flavoured.

OK, I’m biased. It was my mum’s recipe so it carries a bit of emotional baggage. I can remember the kitchen filling up with a warm, comforting marmaladey fug and sitting alongside her as a child slicing the oranges. She wasn’t a wonderful cook but this was her pièce de resistance. I still have the original written neatly in blue ink on a piece of Basildon Bond notepaper.

I’d got out of the habit of making it but she died just after Christmas so I wanted to make it in memory of those companionable times. Besides seville oranges are in season so now’s the moment.

First a few practicalities to keep down the cost because you can of course buy marmalade much, much more cheaply than it will cost you to make it. But it won’t taste anything like as good.

* Assuming you don’t have a preserving pan you need a large saucepan. A large stainless steel pasta pan is perfect. The bottom of a pressure cooker will do.

* You need jars. You can buy them from sites like Jam Jar Shop but that does add to the cost so beg or borrow some from neighbours. Not pickle or chutney jars in which the smell of the previous contents tends to linger. The jars need to be as clean as possible. Old recipes suggest sterilising them by putting them in a hot oven but I find a recent run through the dishwasher will do the trick.

* You need a muslin square or something to act as a muslin bag (I used a J Cloth). See why below. Oh, and some fine string

* You need waxed paper discs if you’re to keep the marmalade any length of time. And labels. Again from a specialist like Lakeland or the Jam Jar Shop.

* You need a couple of saucers in the fridge to test the set

* and finally, and most importantly, you need seville oranges, unwaxed lemons and sugar in the following quantities. The original recipe states preserving sugar but this is now so hard to get and twice as expensive as granulated so I would (and did) use that. No problem.

1.35 kg (3lb) Seville oranges, preferably organic
1 large or 2 small lemons, preferably unwaxed
1.7-1.8kg (3 3/4-4lb) granulated sugar

This makes about 7-8 400g jars but your jars will probably be all shapes and sizes and the quantity always turns out different depending how long you boil the marmalade so make sure you have slightly more than you need.

Wash and scrub the oranges and lemons with a vegetable brush and put them whole into a large pan with 1.3 litres (2 1/4 pints) of cold water.


Cover the pan with a lid or a large sheet of foil and bring slowly to the boil. Simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, turning them occasionally until they are soft enough for you to pierce the skins with the end of a teaspoon. (You can probably remove the lemons after an hour and the oranges progressively after that). The kitchen will smell heavenly.


Remove the fruit and measure the remaining liquid. If there is less than 1.1 litres (just under 2 pints) add enough fresh water to bring it up to that level and return to the pan.

Cut the fruit into quarters, scoop out the pulp and separate out the pips. Cut the skins into small thick slices and add along with the pulp to the pan of water.



Tie up the pips in a piece of muslin (there’s a useful video here) and hang it over the handle of the pan and into the cut up fruit. This might seem a bit of a faff but the extra pulp and pectin helps the marmalade to set.

Put the sugar in a warming drawer or very low oven to warm up. Bring the fruit up to boiling point then remove the bag of pips and squeeze and scrape the outside of the bag to release any remaining pulp. Add the warm sugar to the fruit and leave over a low heat, stirring occasionally until dissolved.


Bring back to the boil and boil the marmalade for 25-30 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent it sticking. Skim off the thick yellowish foam that forms round the edges from time to time.

Test a little on a chilled saucer after 25 minutes to see if it’s set. It should crinkle when you push it with your finger. If it doesn’t continue boiling it until it does. As the marmalade reaches setting point it will darken and grow thicker.



Once the marmalade has reached setting point, remove from the heat, skim off any remaining scum and allow to cool for about half an hour.

Warm your jars if they’re not already sitting in the dishwasher and ladle or pour the marmalade into them (I find a small jug is easiest for this). Cover with a disc of waxed paper, if using, and seal with screw top lids or clear covers. Wipe any splashes off the side of the jars while they’re still warm.

Leave until cold before labelling otherwise the labels won’t stick.


Feel smug and happy.

You can of course cut the amount of work involved by mincing the peel but I like proper looking chunks in my marmalade. Just get someone to sit alongside you as you do it. It’s a nice thing to do with your kids, a mum, gran or sister or a friend. Actually my husband helped me with this batch while we listened to Bob Marley. Good marmalade music.

Oh, and a final tip. You can freeze seville oranges successfully if you haven’t time to make all your marmalade in one go or run out of jars. Just wash and dry them before you freeze them, use them from frozen and increase the boiling time until they’re cooked through.

Is this how you make your marmalade or do you reckon you have a better version?

Friday, January 13, 2012

Waitrose Low Alcohol Cider

If you're finding it hard to give up booze for the month you might want to snap up a bottle or two of Waitrose's low alcohol cider which is only 1% ABV.

Now I'm not saying it's the best-tasting cider ever - it's a little too thin and too sweet, for my palate at least* - but it does taste recognisably like cider in a way that apple juice doesn't and if you were drinking it with roast pork, a chicken casserole or even a nice hunk of cheddar it would rub along fine. It's actually made in Herefordshire in old oak vats so I'm guessing it probably comes from Weston's.

The price is pretty attractive too. It only costs £1.15 a 500ml bottle - online at any rate. I somehow ended up paying £1.21 for my bottle in store, maybe because it's classified as a 'Little Waitrose'. Not a huge outlay anyway.

* However my neighbour who just popped in tried it and said 'really nice'. So there you go. I should also have pointed it's 180 calories a glass so it's not exactly a low calorie option - though not much more than a large glass of shiraz.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Change of domain name for Beyond Baked Beans

Following yesterday's post the good news is that my student cookery site Beyond Baked Beans is back up and running but at a new domain name www.beyondbakedbeans.org.

If you link to the site please change your link. And if you don't, do link to it which will help students - and other first time cooks on a budget - find it more easily.

Monday, January 9, 2012

Faux Spaghetti

If you're going easy on the carbs right now but have a craving for spaghetti, I have the perfect solution for you!
 Al' dente strands of julienned zucchini tossed with roasted veggies of your choice flavored with shaved garlic, olive oil, basil, red pepper flakes and generous amounts of grated romano cheese.

You'll love the flavor and texture and even if you're not watching your carbs it can be the perfect meatless meal along with a salad.
I love my handy julienne slicer it works so fast, before you know it you'll have a pile of zucchini "pasta" right before your eyes, just work the sides and when you reach the seeds, give it a turn.
 The core of the zucchini will be left which I then dice and roast up for future use.
I roasted two different color cauliflower for mine and added some cherry tomatoes, next time I'll roast those too, I forgot, but it didn't matter, it was so yummy anyway!
Here's what you do:

First, roast off the veggies of your choice in a 425 degree oven tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper, then set aside.
Have your zucchini "pasta" all ready to go then heat up a large saute pan drizzled with olive oil, add shaved garlic and red pepper flakes, saute until garlic is light golden. Next, add zucchini and cook for only about 2 minutes tossing with some tongs just until wilted and still al' dente. Remove pan from heat, add the roasted veggies, fresh basil, lots of grated romano cheese and of course another drizzle of olive oil!

Sunday, January 8, 2012

What's happened to Beyond Baked Beans?

Some of you may have arrived at this blog looking for my student website beyondbakedbeans.com. I'm sad to say it no longer exists. (See update on my more recent post. There is a happy(ish) ending. It now has a new domain name www.beyondbakedbeans.org.)

Due to my inattention and a mix-up on who should renew the domain name it's expired. Someone else has snapped up the name and is running ads on it. It was never a moneymaker so I can't afford to buy it back. The domain registration site GoDaddy even wants to charge me commission for finding the buyer (surely they know?) and negotiating a sale. On top of a fee. I can't afford to pursue that.

It's a sad day. The site, which was founded at the same time as my first cookbook came out in 2003, has been going for over 8 years, encouraging students to cook and eat healthily. But it's not all bad news.

* There is a Beyond Baked Beans Cooking Page on Facebook which I'll be updating more frequently while I sort out what's to be done

* The books - Beyond Baked Beans, Beyond Baked Beans Green and Beyond Baked Beans Budget are still around and available for next to nothing on Amazon. Plus there's a full-colour illustrated compendium of all the best recipes called The Ultimate Student Cookbook which also contains recipes from three of our ex-students James, Sig and Guy.

* Plans were already in hand to pass the website over to the students of Bath Spa university to give it a comprehensive makeover. I'm sure a better, more interactive site will result.

* And there are plenty of simple, low-cost recipes here on this blog for students or anyone else on a budget.

But it's a useful warning if you have a site of your own - don't ignore reminders about domain name expiries and make sure the credit card you pay with is up to date.

And if you're the person who bought the site, just think about it. The site helped many young people to learn how to cook. It would be nice if you gave it back.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Time to Lighten Up!

Gone are all the cookies, cakes and heavy foods, it's time to snap out of it!
 Now I'm craving all things green, lighter fare, and it feels good. I've made this salad three times already, it's that good! Simple ingredients, but the combination of flavors work so well together.
Roasted butternut squash, feta cheese, toasted pecans, sliced red onion and a generous sprinkling of pomegranate arils all laying on a bed of spinach tossed in white wine vinegar and olive oil. 
I love these little jewels, even though it can be a little messy when de-seeding them. I find that by cutting them in half and whacking the back with a meat mallet or heavy spoon preferably over a bowl does the trick fast and easy and all the arils just fall right out.
Kale is another green I crave and this healthy bowl of soup just makes me feel good.
 No real recipe here just leftover roasted butternut squash and chicken along with some white beans, lots of kale, carrots and leeks bathing in a chicken or vegetable based broth cooked with a parmesan rind.
 It's all good, lets hope I keep this up!
Buon Appetito!

Monday, January 2, 2012

Chaos.

I'm standing in the kitchen at Eleven Madison Park, and I should be paying attention to the cook carefully pouring liquid nitrogen into my cocktail.  She's explaining the entire process and ingredients, and i'm pretty sure there is some clever allusion to a digestif or something, but I dont hear any of it.  It's not because im disinterested, or because I have had a dozen glasses of wine. (OK, that may have had a little to do with it.)  It's because it is SO FUCKING NOISY IN THERE.  And I feel completely at home.  Whenever I have been fortunate enough to have been invited into a fine dining kitchen it has always been whispery quiet.  They usher you in, everyone sort of looks up at you and half smiles, and you more or less skulk around in the bitch corner until your time is up, and they show you to the door.  EMP however is a mosh pit;  It's fast and loud and crowded and for fucks sake I just want to jump in there right now and cook.  The composed chaos of it all sends shivers down my spine.  Fine dining is so much sexier when it's humanized like this.

I haven't written here in a long time.  And as much as I would like to blame that on being too busy with maintaining the business and fatherhood, the truth is that I haven't had anything to say.  Linecook had its run and served (and still to some extent, serves) its purpose.  I'm proud of it and thankful for everything it has brought me.  But the truth is that I look at the person that wrote it and he is not here.  I do not recognize him anymore.

In the past year my career has reached a point where things started to settle down a bit.  Hapa found its groove, I added two amazing chefs to my team, and the food started to really reach people.  It seemed like a good time to step back and take stock of where we had been, where we would be going.  A time to focus in on everything that had slipped through my fingers during that first difficult year.  Instead I wanted things to be hard again.  I craved the struggle.  The person who started this blog at one point found refuge in cooking.  It was a place to find peace.  Then somewhere along the way the stress fractures started to give way and a volatile mix of worry, self doubt, and anger...and for fucks sake it felt glorious.  There was no more potent cocktail that could make my adrenaline flow and force me to focus in.

Fiending for chaos is not a sustainable option for healthy living.  When things are good you're on edge.  When service is going smoothly you become irrational, irritated.  Instead of bearing hardship through the beauty and intensity life offers you, instead you face it alone.  You mistake your anger for quiet stoicism...dignity.  Poor choices are made...professional and personal.  Nothing will ever be good enough ever again--only youre too blind to see it.

What is a life well spent? Is it cooking and stars?  Is it accolades and endorsement deals and making a buck?  Is it a million followers or facebook friends?  What the fuck is the point if the pleasure is only coming from the difficult parts? 


notes
  • i just realized last week--almost all of the people in my life currently are people that create/make things...
  • new york.  different this last time around
  • dj shadows the less you know, the better is brilliant
  • im deeply grateful for Coi, because I cant really see it existing in any other city besides SF
  • Svet thinks we should do a podcast
  • Mostly this felt incoherent, but like Violet says, sometimes you have to write
  • Kids crying.  Gotta go.