BRAINS

Offal is a word capable of scaring even the manliest of men and many people are put off by only the thought of it. For most the mention of eating brains probably congers up memories of the monkey brain eating scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom but you really needn’t be scared.

As a chef I decided lambs brains were probably something I should try. I consider myself to be fairly open minded when it comes to food and as brains are available in every supermarket here in Spain I thought I should give them a go.

The idea that brains might actually taste good and not just be something to tick off a list first came to my attention via Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall.

After reading an article about them I decided to get some in and give them a try.

My first attempt failed miserably. I bought the brains a couple of days before my dad was coming out to visit so I could cook them up for us both to try. I was well up for tasting the wobbly looking fellas but I certainly wasn’t going to do it alone. Sadly when I came to open them up they were bad and had to be thrown in the bin, the idea was sidelined.

My second attempt was much more successful. This time it was while a really good friend was visiting, a friend who really knows how to eat and I knew he would appreciate the experience as much as me.

As we started preparing the brains we were like kids, taking silly photos and larking about but then we got down to the serious cooking.

I can’t take any credit for the recipe as with no experience I turned once again to Hugh for advice.

A really easy thing to cook, we poached them gently in water for about 20 minutes with a bay leaf, a chili and a spoon of vinegar, drained and cooled we dredged them in seasoned flour and pan fried them in half olive oil, half butter until they started to crisp up. At the last minute we threw in a hand full of capers and sage leaves.

Once we put it on the plate and served it up with slices of toasted baguette it actually looked rather appetizing.

Cutting into the brains for the first time, through the crispy outside into the smooth creamy middle I was a little bit nervous. As I spread it on a piece of toast I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. We both ate it at the same time.

As I started to chew I really was pleasantly surprised at just how good lamb’s brains are. If you imagine a creamy texture and delicate flavour like a cross between pate and foie gras, In fact if you like pate and foie gras I can guarantee you will love lamb’s brains. The capers and sage leaves from this recipe add a nice depth to the dish without detracting from the true flavour of the brains.

Whenever you thought of offal I’m sure that until now all that came to mind was liver and kidneys. From now on I implore you to delve a little deeper into the world of “nasty bits”. Don’t be scared to try new things, you might just be surprised.

THE HUMBLE PIG

What makes the pig so humble? I like to think if the pig could talk he’d actually be quite cocky. After all an animal with as much flavour from nose to tail, an animal that leaves no flap of skin to waste and an animal that brings so much pleasure to so many, probably has a lot to brag about. All playground arguments with the sheep and cows would be killed dead every time with one simple word, bacon! Back that up with sausage and the other animals would surely sulk off with feelings of inferiority.

Not to put down a good lamb chop or rib eye steak but the pig just offers so much more.

There are few things in this life as good as pork fat. A nice fatty belly, pork scratching or potatoes roasted in lard.

Let’s not forget all those yummy cured hams and dried sausages from Spain, Italy and Germany. Blood sausages with regional recipes from England, Spain and France, braised pig cheeks, ears, trotters, I could go on.

With evidence of food use dating back as far as 5000bc, pork is one of the most widely eaten meats accounting for 38% of meat production worldwide. Those statistics speak for themselves.

It takes no word from me to turn you on to the joys of the pig, and it really is a joy, as I’m sure you are all well aware of this most awesome of animals. This is just a simple shout out to show my appreciation for what should be known as “the arrogant and self assured, cocky pig”.

I for one am happy to be called a swine.

If you can get hold of a suckling pig then why not try this one out.

You can stuff your pig with whatever you want. I sautéed half a dozen red onions until they were really soft and then slung in half a bottle of red wine and let it reduce till it was nice and sticky, leaving time to drink the other half (a very important step in the recipe).

Let the onions cool a little and then add the liver of the pig, all chopped up, a couple of slices of bread all cubed up, 300-400g of good sausage meat, some chopped sage, some dried fruit (a handful of cranberries should do the trick) and lots of salt and pepper.

Season well your pig inside and out, stuff and sew up the cavity using some string and a large needle (one from the sewing kit will do fine).

Make a couple of slices in the skin to help form the crackling, pop a small ball of tin foil in the pigs mouth and your ready to go.

I know someone who achieves excellent result by cooking the pig for 24 hours in a low oven but in reality about 4 hours will be fine and it will come out tender and crisp.

Start off with a nice hot oven to get the crackling going and after about ten minutes or so turn it down to about 150ºC. Keep the ears and nose covered with tin foil for the majority of the cooking time otherwise they will burn, and you don’t want that as a nice crispy ear to chew on is excellent.

Keep basting the pig throughout to stop it drying out and use your common sense when it comes to the color of the skin. If it needs covering with some foil for a bit, do it, or if the oven needs turning up or down, do it. I’m only giving you a rough guide.

Make a bit of gravy from the juices if you haven’t burnt them and you are ready to go.

Now get your ass down to your butchers and see if he can get you one in time for next Sundays roast.

ANCHOVIES

Having made it through the summer season with barely enough time to rub corn flour into the crack of my backside (chef thing) I can only apologize for my lack of posting.

Well I’m back, or at least that’s my intention.

I haven’t even cooked a meal for my family in nearly four months let alone had time to think about anything worth telling you about. That is until now.

Anchovies are something we Brits love to hate. Most people turn their noses up merely at the thought of the little salty things known almost exclusively as a pizza topping for the brave. Take a trip to Italy or Spain however and you will find a great love of the cured finger sized fish that come in all grades of quality.

Here in the restaurant on the Catalan coast we serve what we call the Rolls Royce of anchovies from Cantabria. At nearly 40€ a kilo they retail at 2.50 per fillet and are worth every penny. A far cry from most anchovies you might find in England which tend to be small and excessively salty, the ones from Cantabria measure around 10 to 15 cm and prepared correctly have just the right amount of salt to bring out the fishy flavour. Packed firmly in rock salt still on the bone they must be carefully filleted washed in fresh water, dried of excess water and marinated in a good olive oil for at least 48 hours before being ready to eat. WOW, as someone who gets to eat them regularly still the only way I can describe them to you is wow.

The only real ingredients in curing anchovies is salt and anchovies so I decided it can’t be that hard to have a go at home.

Without any research whatsoever I bought a handful of fresh “seitons” (as they are called here) removed their heads, gutted them and packed them in rock salt.

We have a vac pack machine here so I decided that was probably a good option and sealed them in. I can imagine that traditionally they were packed in wooded crates but that’s based on guess work rather than research.

I’m going to leave them for a few months as I am too impatient to leave them any longer, and maybe around Christmas or the kings celebration on the 6^th January over here I’ll open them up wash them off and see how they are. I’ll keep you posted.

TAGINE

O.K so I bought myself a tagine the other day because it was 50% off and I figured, hey what’s the best way to test out a new tagine? Cook a tagine in it.

So, just to clarify, tagine is the name of the stew itself and the pot in which it’s cooked.

Being a chef and all, I didn’t want to follow any kind of recipe or anything as that would have been just too easy, so I decided to start by flicking through a Moroccan cook book and make a list of all the ingredients that jumped out at me as being, well, Moroccan.

I ended up with a list of about 25 basic vegetables and spices that struck me as having that North African vibe and went from there.

The problem I have with a lot of recipes is that they often call for very specific ingredients that your kitchen is invariably missing. When I feel inspired to cook at home on the spare of the moment I rarely want to have to pop out to the supermarket because I’m missing rice wine vinegar or unsalted almonds and although I try to keep the cupboards stocked, it is impossible to be prepared for every cooking whim I might have. Often you just have to make do with what you’ve got. So that’s what I did.

I went down the list checking the fridge and cupboards for what items I had. Although I would have preferred lamb, there was chicken in the fridge. A few chickpeas would have gone down really well but there were none to be found. Fresh chili would have worked well but in its absence a spoon full of Chinese chili paste served as a perfect substitute.

When I had finished my scavenger hunt I looked at all the ingredients gathered together and was pleasantly inspired by what I had.

Chicken drumsticks

Butternut squash

Courgette

Red pepper

Artichoke

Onions

Dried apricots

Prunes

Honey

Cinnamon stick

Cumin

Coriander

Chili paste

Tinned plum tomatoes

If you are some kind of expert and are reading this, I never said it was an authentic tagine so don’t judge me because I’m putting dried fruits and red peppers together or mixing honey with artichokes. If at the end my tagine tastes good with that hint of North African spice then I’ll be happy and maybe you can be inspired to follow my method of approaching a recipe.

Now you’ve got this far and I have got you round to my kind of thinking, the last thing you want to do is follow my recipe, but I’ll give it to you anyway.

The first thing I did was brown off my chicken, then I threw in some chopped up onions, some ground coriander, cumin and a couple of cinnamon sticks and I let it fry a bit on a medium heat.

Next in was a teaspoon of chili paste, dried fruits and some big chunks of butternut squash.

When it arrived at a point when it looked like it was craving liquid I blended the juice of the tinned tomatoes with a couple of the whole ones, poured it in and topped it up with a little water so most of the fruit and vegetables were covered and the level was about half way up the chicken drumsticks.

A few twists of freshly ground black pepper, a pinch of salt and a good squeeze of runny honey was then added before putting on the lid and leaving it to simmer for about half an hour.

The other vegetables I chopped and browned in a little oil in a separate pan as I didn’t want to overcook them.

I added the other vegetables to the tagine, gave it a little stir, returned the lid and let it cook on a low heat for about another 15 minutes. 

My tagine was cooked and would have been fine on its own but I served a little plain couscous on the side and it was great, exactly what I expected. That subtle hint of sweetness coming through the spices, The texture of the dried fruits against the chicken  and the silkiness of the sauce all married together to give a real Moroccan edge to the dish. 

Would I cook this tagine again? Probably not as next time I’ll be out of dried apricots and artichokes will be out of season, but I am sure I’ll have some pistachio nuts and a load of extra lemons to use up.

HASH BROWNS

The infamous English breakfast is not something that most of us eat on a regular basis but you’d be hard pushed to find anyone (vegetarians don’t count) who doesn’t polish one off at least once or twice a year, for most of us it’s probably more like once a month, I could research some statistics but I won’t.

With this in mind my question is this:

Why have I never seen a freshly made hash brown before?

The hash brown is a completely staple ingredient of the English breakfast and one that people know and love. So how come I’ve never seen a fresh one in any restaurant, bar or café?

It is hard to understand especially when you realize just how easy they are to make. At home it might add around a minute and a half onto your preparation time and cooking in around ten minutes, certainly not adding any cooking time if there the first thing you put in the pan.

The small deep fried frozen blocks of potato served up on most breakfast menus is so far removed from the homemade version it’s embarrassing.

What’s even more embarrassing is that I had to Google them to find out exactly what makes a real hash brown.

Imagine my surprise to find out its principal ingredient is potato. Sorry did I say principal, what I meant to say was only. That’s right the only ingredient in a hash brown is potato, O.K maybe a little salt and pepper but you get the idea.

A hash brown consists of diced, riced or shredded potato formed into patties and pan fried.

I know what you are thinking, sounds like a potato rosti but you’d be wrong. It doesn’t only sound like a rosti, it also looks and tastes just like a rosti, in fact you could even call it a rosti.

O.K a hash brown has more room to maneuver than a rosti and in fact only if you make it with shredded potato does it actually resemble one. Any patties made from diced or riced potato bear no resemblance.

The grated version is probably the easiest to make, so easy that you don’t even need a recipe. All you need is to peel and grate a couple of potatoes, add some salt and pepper, squeeze a little of the liquid out and form into rough patties shapes.

 

Pop the shaped potato cakes into a hot oily pan and turn down to a medium heat.

A nice golden brown color and about ten minutes cooking time should produce you near on perfect hash browns.

Now all you need is a couple of rashers of that nice homemade porky bacon you’ve got waiting in the fridge.

THE NEXT BIG THING

It seems that these day’s food fashions come along about as often as rainy days, often turning an unwanted cheap cut of meat or fish into the latest trend menu item and usually bumping up the price along the way.

The truth is that these cuts are often prided amongst those in the know but are overlooked by the general population until brought into the public eye by some food guru or another.

The lamb shank, the pork belly and the monkfish tail are all great examples of once overlooked cuts that have now stood the test of time to become household items.

Many of these products are not just the cheaper less wanted items but are often unavailable as supply and demand dictates the way we shop and eat.

The problem is that it is hard to demand something when you are not aware of its existence and often all it takes is a nudge into the lime light and a bit of an explanation on how to use it and suddenly everyone is garnishing with rocket leaves and eaten roasted bone marrow.

For the industry this is great as fishermen no longer need to sort and throw back that ugly dog fish (that they’ve been eating for years anyway), cuts of meat that were previously thrown through the mincer can start to fetch a half decent price and us chefs have a little more variation in the products we cook with safe in the knowledge it will sell.

So what’s the next big thing going to be on the tables in London restaurants and coming soon to a supermarket near you?

An item readily available in any Spanish supermarket, ladies and gentlemen I give you the pig cheek. Yes that’s right the pig cheek is what I have my money on.

I know what you are thinking and you are proving my point. “the what”  “I didn’t know you could eat that”  “I’ve never seen those before”. That is because it is virtually impossible to buy a pig cheek in England.

When I asked a local catering butcher for cheeks I was told I may be able to get a few from time to time but they all go in the mince.

Well I could hardly put them on my menu with that kind of guaranteed availability.

I should now point out that pig cheeks are a fantastic cut of meat, and that’s exactly what they are, a cut of meat. There is no weirdness about a cheek, no nasty bits just two pieces of meat separated by a bone.

The pig cheek is suitable for slow roasting, pot roasting and braising all with fantastic results.

What we are waiting for is someone like Gordon Ramsay or Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall to publicize it a bit and we’ll be away. Pig cheeks for all. In the meantime remember supply and demand, get out there and hassle your butcher, you won’t regret it.

                                              Slow roasted pig cheeks with lentil casserole