Category Archives: food+drink

food+drink

Pig Cheeks in Cider

We discovered on Friday that our local Waitrose were selling Pig Cheeks. Yes, that’s meat and it is from the head of a pig, just like it says. Now I’ve vaguely taken in that they were fashionable amongst chefs and never having tried them I decide we should. Noreen took a little, but not a lot, of persuading. And then I realised they were ridiculously cheap — like £2.99 a kilo! Even cheap sausages cost more than this! So we bought a complete vacuum pack, which weighed just under 400gm and turned out to contain 7 cheeks. We have just eaten them, thus …

Pig Cheeks Casseroled in Cider

You will need:
2 or 3 Pig Cheeks per person
500ml bottle of dry Cider (more if you’re cooking more than about 8 cheeks)
1 large or 2 medium Onions, roughly chopped
As much Garlic as you like, roughly chopped
A few ripe Tomatoes, quartered (optional)
A few Mushrooms (optional)
Worcester Sauce
Plain Flour seasoned with salt, pepper and herbs
Salt, Black Pepper and Dried Herbs
Olive Oil

And this is what you do:

  1. Take a suitably sized casserole, cast iron is best as you can put it on the hob otherwise you’ll need a frying pan as well.
  2. Pre-heat the oven to about 180°C.
  3. Fry the onion and garlic in a little olive oil in the casserole (or frying pan).
  4. When the onion is beginning to go translucent, toss the pig cheeks in the seasoned flour and add to the casserole. Sear the meat on both sides.
  5. Add the tomatoes and mushrooms followed by about half the cider, pinch of salt, plenty of pepper, a big pinch or two of dried herbs and a good big dash of Worcester Sauce. Bring it all to boiling point.
  6. If using a frying pan, transfer the meat etc. to the casserole at this stage.
  7. Add the rest of the cider and (if on the hob) bring it to the simmer.
  8. Put the casserole in the oven and cook for about 90 minutes.
  9. Do not throw away any remaining seasoned flour, because …
  10. Just before the end of the cooking time decant into a small saucepan some of the liquid from the casserole (it will probably be quite thin) to make a gravy/sauce. Thicken this sauce with some of the remaining seasoned flour (a tablespoon or so will be enough) and cook gently for 5 minutes or so to cook the flour.

By now word will have got round the house because it smells so good.

I served mine with roughly mashed potato and parsnip, steamed sprout tops, apple sauce, gravy and a bottle of robust red wine (although obviously cider would be good too). The meat is just so tender it really does melt in the mouth.

And, no, I didn’t photograph it — you all know what casserole looks like!

food+drink

Almond Biscotti

I first posted this recipe at Christmas a couple of years ago, but I’m going to repeat it here as it’s a quick way to make someone a last minute Christmas present. Or to just treat yourself!

Biscotti (Italian for biscuit) are those nice little almond morsels one sometimes gets with coffee or with a dessert, especially in continental cafés. They’re dead easy and quick to make and much nicer than the commercial ones. I’ve just made two batches in 90 minutes and wrapped several presents in between times.

Almond Biscotti (makes 25-30)

Ingredients
2 large eggs
175g sugar
50g butter (preferably melted)
200g blanched or flaked almonds (preferably toasted)
250g plain white flour
30g ground almonds
1 teasp baking powder
pinch of salt
2 teasp vanilla essence
2 teasp almond essence

Method

  1. Blend together the eggs and sugar.
  2. Add all the other ingredients except the almonds and blend to make a sticky dough.
  3. Now add the almonds and mix them in.
  4. If you can be bothered let the dough rest in the fridge for an hour; I don’t bother.
  5. Cover a couple of baking sheets with baking parchment.
  6. Spread the mixture onto the baking sheets making a long shape about 6-8cm wide and 1cm thick. Don’t worry if it is uneven, no-one will even realise and they’re supposed to look “rustic”.
  7. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 175°C for 25 minutes. (If you have a fan assisted oven, use the fan.)
  8. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet for 10-15 minutes.
  9. Carefully remove the baking parchment and cut with a sharp knife into approx. 1cm slices. Angle the cuts to get the authentic look.
  10. Now return the slices to the baking sheet, with one cut side down, and re-bake at 175°C for 10-15 minutes.
  11. Cool and store in an airtight box.
  12. Serve with coffee or ice-cream desserts; or use as presents.

Notes

  1. You can use a food processor for all the mixing, it’s much quicker. But unless you have a large professional machine don’t double up the mixture.
  2. If using a food processor go gently when mixing in the almonds as you don’t want them smashed up — which happens to flaked almonds all too easily.
  3. I use flaked almonds because they are kinder to the teeth especially if you’re giving them to anyone elderly.
  4. Do not be tempted to over cook or you will get a hard result.
  5. The biscotti will be a bit soft after the first bake so you will need to cut them carefully with a very sharp knife.
  6. How long you make the second bake depends on how crunchy you like the end result. I find 10 minutes is enough: crunchy when cold but not too tough on the teeth.
  7. There are a number of variants on this: some add a small amount of instant coffee, or citrus rind. Or you can leave out the ground almonds (if so add just a small amount more flour), the vanilla essence or almond essence.
  8. For a really rich result you can part dip the biscotti in melted dark chocolate. Personally I think they are scrummy and rich enough without.
  9. The end slices, which may not be good as presents, could be used for that Christmas Day trifle.

Photo by me of the second batch I made this afternoon.

food+drink, personal

Eating Children is Good

Our friend Katy is having trouble with her children’s willingness to eat meals — or rather, their lack of willingness. And having seen said children in action I can quite understand why Katy is losing it with them; I’m only surprised she’s stuck it as long as she has. She has my sympathy — for what little that’s worth. Beyond that, not being a parent myself, I feel I should have neither an opinion nor a voice. So here’s (mostly) my experience of childhood.

I don’t remember any fights over food when I was a child. I ate whatever was put in front of me and I was expected to eat adult-style meals. There were, as far as I know, no threats like “Eat it or you go hungry”. I maybe knew I wouldn’t be given any alternative, so I’d better eat what was there; but if so it was an internal rather than an external decision. At least that is my memory.

Looking back my mother had a bad enough time coping with my father without me making things worse. I was going to say that my parents were semi-vegetarian, but that would be wrong. My father was a wannabe vegetarian; he would eat some meat (sausages and bacon always disappeared) and some fish. He would never eat offal or shellfish on the grounds that they’re all scavengers and thus unhealthy. But my mother was more wedded to meat; and it was noticeable that when my father died the vegetarian cookery books went out the house within days! So she would often feed herself and me on meat at lunchtimes, when father was at work, and then provide (semi-)vegetarian regularly in the evenings. (We kept chickens for many years so there were always eggs to be had.) And she always provided good, wholesome, balanced meals. I always enjoyed anything with cheese sauce, and her nut roast was also always good (especially as it usually appeared with a rasher of bacon!). Now how many kids would admit to liking nut roast?

I so much ate everything that my parents were surprised when, in my late teens (I guess) I did start to admit to things I didn’t like.

So I ate whatever was put in front of me. And with a few exceptions I stll eat pretty much everything. The exceptions? I can’t eat grapefruit (because of my medication; shame as I love pink grapefruit) and honeydew-type melon gives me a sore throat as does pomegranate. I dislike (but can eat if I have to) egg custard, absinthe, Pernod, jellied eels, unadulterated egg white (eg. on fried egg), raw milk and milk puddings, sweetcorn, sweet potatoes, baked apples, rum flavouring and the combination of meat with sweet. I won’t eat veal on principle. There are also few things — tripe, oysters, eyes, anything still alive — which I cannot even think of trying. With a lot of these it is a question of texture as much as flavour; with the eggy things and baked apples it is probably down to having had them too much as a kid. I actually like many of the things people generally dislike: liver, kidney, black pudding, haggis, squid, fennel, broccoli, spinach.

So does it matter how you train your children to eat? Insist they eat what’s in front of them or cater to their whims? In the short term I suspect the secret is to manage not to let the meal table become a battleground, however you achieve it. In the long term it probably doesn’t make a lot of difference what you do. Children’s palates have to mature; their tastes do change as they get older, so the trick is probably to get them to at least try everything and then probably repeat the trial every couple of years or so. Many people have to acquire the taste for things like anchovies, olives and beer; and some never will. All adults have a few things they can’t eat for whatever reason and a clutch of things they really dislike. Some have bigger no-go areas than others. But ultimately few are really very picky eaters who will tolerate only four different meals the way many kids seem to.

Now remind me why didn’t we have children?

food+drink, personal

Reasons to be Grateful 4

Experiment, week 4. This week’s five things which have made me happy or for which I’m grateful:

  1. Frost & Sun. We had our first really frosty night of the winter this week. Lovely Alpine morning. So refreshing.
  2. Good Sausages. Well what can one say. One of those real comfort foods whether with chips, mashed potato or in tomato sauce with pasta.
  3. Friendly Checkout Ladies. There’s one particular lady who does the checkouts at our local Waitrose who is always happy and chatty, interested in what she’s doing and her customers, as well as very efficient. If she’s on duty we will almost always queue a bit extra to be served by her. Much nicer than the average run-of-the-mill checkout operative who basically could give a flying wombat.
  4. Curry. Yet another comfort food. I’ll eat almost any curry, but for me lamb is best. And I’ll eat it as hot as you care to make it; Vindaloo is a regular round here.
  5. Jerusalem Artichokes. They’re a slightly strange vegetable which almost no-one knows. We always grew them when I was a kid and I’ve loved them ever since. So now we buy them whenever we see them. Fortunately Waitrose usually stock them. They’re a root vegetable so in season really from late October to March, although like sprouts and parsnips better for a touch of frost. They look like small, knobbly potatoes which are very soft inside when cooked. Cook them like potatoes (don’t even consider peeling them): just scrub them and cut out any damage; leave them whole unless they are unusually large. Boiled or steamed is fine. I can’t think mashed or chipped would work. Roast is definitely best as they caramelise slightly. There are a number of varieties around: some redder, some browner; some more, some less knobbly. And they’re very easy things to grow; they’re tall (up to 6 feet or so) and with a sunflower-like flower.

Oh dear it’s been another foodie week. How am I supposed to lose weight with all this good food around?

beliefs, books, food+drink, memes, music, personal, quotes

Ten Things – December

The final episode of my monthly series of “Ten Things” for 2011. Each month during the year I’ve listed one thing from each of ten categories which have remained the same each month. So today completes the ten lists of twelve things about me.

  1. Something I Like: Fresh Snow
  2. Something I Won’t Do: Go Horse Racing
  3. Something I Want To Do: Write a Book
  4. A Blog I Like: Postsecret
  5. A Book I Like: Charles Nicholls, The Reckoning
  6. Some Music I Like: JS Bach, Weihnachtsoratorium
  7. A Food I Like: Treacle Tart
  8. A Food or Drink I Dislike: Butternut Squash
  9. A Word I Like: Antepenultimate
  10. A Quote I Like: If we don’t change our direction we’re liable to end up where we’re going. [Chinese Proverb]
food+drink, natural history, personal, pleasures

Reasons to be Grateful 3

OK the experiment is into week three: this week’s five things which have made me happy or for which I’m grateful:

    Harry the Cat

  1. Cats. Harry the Cat has been especially friendly this week, which is nice. He’s resting next to me on my desk as I write this, just as in the photo. He’s not so welcome though is when he throws up on the bed at 6am!
  2. Lamb & Kidney Pie. This has become one of Noreen’s specialities. Make it like Steak and Kidney only with lamb neck fillet instead of beef: cheaper and tastier.
  3. Parrots. Or rather Ring-Neck Parakeets, which seem to be spreading rapidly around London. We regularly have them in the garden — fun and colourful. And yesterday driving out of central London at dusk we saw several groups, one of 100 birds, flying off to Wormwood Scrubs where there is a nightly roost of 2500 birds.
  4. Vegetables in Cheese Sauce. A much loved favourite of my childhood when it was usually either runner beans or butter beans, we recently resurrected this as a quick, simple and cheap meal. Cook the veg (anything of your choice, root veg works well as do beans, cauliflower, fennel, potato, Jerusalem artichokes etc.) and serve with a good thick cheese sauce. Real comfort food.
  5. Wild Boar Sausages. Eaten yesterday with red cabbage at the Queen’s Head & Artichoke in Albany Street.

A foodie week, then. And off shortly to eat a pork version of Osso Buco (known here as Osso Piggo). Mmmmm …

amusements, arts, food+drink, links, medical, natural history, science

Links of the Week

Here’s your usual selection of things which interested/amused me and which you may have missed. And do we have a bumper selection this week!

First something useful? There’s a view that “use by” dates on food are a myth which needs busting. So it’s American but I don’t see much being different in the UK. But I do worry whether people have enough common sense to safely abolish “use by” dates.

And now to the very unuseful. Why does the search for the Higgs Boson matter? Actually to most people it doesn’t matter; whether physicists find it or not it won’t change the lives of 99.9999% of the population. That doesn’t necessarily mean we shouldn’t look for it, but in the overall scheme of broken banks and countries it actually doesn’t matter.

Sociable wasps have an eye for faces. But not for caterpillars. And you just thought they were animated automatons sent by the Devil to annoy you!

And talking of the works of the Devil, pyjamas are another … The joys and benefits of sleeping naked. And no, it isn’t colder!

Think you’re good at sudoku? You’ll need a good night’s sleep before you try this! He-he!

A few weeks back we told of these strange paper sculptures left in libraries. Well the phantom has returned, for the last time.

Not got enough to do in the run-up to Christmas? Need a craft project? Make storybook paper roses (above).

And finally … Do you need an udder tug? Well who doesn’t? — Certainly no self-respecting mutt!

amusements, food+drink, medical, natural history, personal, photography, science, sexuality

Reasons to be Grateful 2

OK so here’s week two of my experiment: this week’s things which have made me happy or for which I’m grateful:
Crab Apples

  1. Autumn Colours^ — there are still some gorgeous golden leaves around as well as bright red fruit on our ornamental crab apple, especially in …
  2. Sunshine* — which makes those autumn colours all the more vibrant
  3. Vagina Cupcakes — they’re a hoot!
  4. Beaujolais Nouveau* — I’ve now tasted three different ones and they’re all excellent
  5. Sleep — it’s so restorative to sleep well and undisturbed as I did last night
^ Click the image for a bigger version, and for other photos.
* No-one said I couldn’t choose the same things as last week!
food+drink

Lamb's Liver with Fennel and Pasta

Here’s a quick, easy, cheap and wholesome meal. It’s a variation on my usual theme of chuck it all in a pan until done. So I give you …

Lamb’s Liver with Fennel and Pasta

Serves 2-4 (depending on greed)

You will need:
400-500gm Lambs Liver (roughly sliced into 1x1cm goujons about 5-7cm long)
1 Red Onion (thinly sliced)
1 bulb Fennel (thinly sliced)
Garlic (as much as you like; chopped)
4 or so Ripe Fresh Tomatoes (chopped)
Herbs, Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil, White Wine
250gm Pasta (preferably fresh; shape of your choice)

Cook the pasta.
Meanwhile prepare the other ingredients.
When the pasta is (almost) done, sauté the onion, garlic and fennel in some olive oil until the onion is going translucent.
Now add the liver and herbs. Cook for 2-3 minutes stirring occasionally.
Add the tomatoes, salt & pepper to taste, and leave to cook (if possible with a lid on), stirring occasionally, until the liver is just done (probably about 5 minutes).
If the pan looks like it is getting a bit dry add half a glass of white wine.
You might also like to add something to give it some extra zing: lemon juice (instead of wine), a small amount of chilli, large splash of Worcester Sauce — you get the idea.
When the liver is just done, throw in the pasta and toss it all together for a couple of minutes.
Serve with a glass or few of red wine.

Voilà!

Of course, if you prefer you can serve the liver and the pasta separately.
And you could substitute chicken livers for lamb’s liver.

food+drink

Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivée!

Yes, today, the third Thursday in November, is the official release date fr this year’s Beaujolais Nouveau.

Being organised I bespoke mine some months ago, especially as the prognostication was this this would be a good year. For the last few years I’ve ordered from a small wine merchant Nick Dobson Wines who have two excellent Beaujolais suppliers: Philippe Deschamps and Vincent Lacondemine.

My couple of cases (why didn’t I buy more?!) arrived this morning.

We waited until this evening to open a bottle. Well actually we opened a bottle of Beaujolais Villages Nouveau from the small vineyard of Vincent Lacondemine. And if you like your Beaujolais, Lacondemine makes some wonderful “proper” Beaujolais Villages which aren’t outlandishly expensive (I don’t buy outlandishly expensive wine).

It came straight out of the bottle, into the glass and down the gullet. And it was brilliant — it is every bit as good as last year’s stunner. A deep raspberry red in colour, with a hit of blackcurrant. Exceptionally fruity. A slight raw, acidic edge but much less than one would expect from Nouveau. And none of the so frequent yeasty taste. Like all Nouveau this is a drinking wine, not a keeping wine. It will probably be past it’s best by Christmas. (OK, so that’s why I didn’t buy more.)

If you haven’t got to this year’s Nouveau yet, it is well worth it. But you’ll likely not get any from Nick Dobson as he has (all but) sold out — as he deals with such small vineyards and buys not a lot more than he has pre ordered. Obviously I can’t say what other vintners have produced, but if they’re anything like the one bottle we’ve swallowed so far it will be good.

Definitely a Red Wine Letter Day!