Category Archives: food+drink

food+drink

Culinary Adventures #94: Rustic Pineapple Danish

Well this wasn’t really an adventure, ‘cos it’s something I’ve known for ages and so dead simple. I don’t usually bother, but we just happened to have a ripe pineapple and a sheet of pastry!

Served

Preparation: 15 minutes
Cooking: 30 minutes

You will need …

  • 1 sheet of quality puff pastry
  • a whole pineapple (or maybe a half will do!)
  • 1 tbsp jam (apricot or any red flavour)
  • glacé cherries
  • an egg

What I did …

  1. Trim the pineapple and cut it into 10-15mm rounds, remove the core (I used an apple corer).
  2. Cut the pastry sheet into 6 equal sized “squares” and lay them on baking parchment on a baking sheet.
  3. Brush each pastry square with some jam (I actually used the end of a jar of “red” fruit compote).
  4. Put a pineapple round on each piece of pastry; fold over the corners and edges.
  5. Put a glacé cherry in the centre of each; and brush with beaten egg.
  6. Cover loosely with a piece of foil and bake in the oven at 220°C/fan 200°C for about 30 minutes until golden; removing the foil after about 15-20 minutes to finish browning.
  7. Devour warm or cold, with optional double cream.
Freshly Baked
Straight from the oven
food+drink

Culinary Adventures #93: Beanie-Med Chicken

I made this one up from scratch at the weekend by putting a few different Mediterranean-ish ideas together. And it worked – very well. Here it is with a few minor adjustments.

You will need …

  • 1 Chicken (I had a 1½kg corn-fed whole bird)
  • 1 tin Borlotti Beans (drained), or an equivalent quantity of pre-cooked beans
  • 2 tbsp Tomato Paste
  • Zest & juice of a Lemon
  • Cloves of garlic (as many as you like), finely chopped
  • 10 Olives (stoned and halved)
  • 4 tbsp Olive Oil
  • 1 glass White Wine
  • Freshly ground black pepper

This is what you do …

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan.
  2. Spatchcock the chicken: with sharp, heavy scissors cut down each side of the spine and remove it; open out the bird, lay it inside down and press on it to flatten it. (Do not discard the spine – see below.)
  3. Mix together everything except the chicken, the wine, and half the oil. Season well with black pepper.
  4. Spread this mix evenly over the base of a roasting dish just large enough to take the flattened bird (a tight fit is good), and add the wine.
  5. Lay the chicken, skin side up, on the bean mix. Drizzle over the reserved oil, more black pepper, and optionally some more lemon juice.
  6. Cover with foil and roast in the oven for 1-1½ hours (depending on the size of the bird) until the juices run clear. If it looks to be getting too dry add another half glass of wine. Remove the foil for the last 20 minutes or so to colour up the bird.
  7. Serve chicken and beans with jacket or roast potatoes and veg of your choice.

Notes

  1. Spatchcocked chicken tends to cook a little faster than a whole bird, so watch the timing.
  2. This should work equally well with chicken portions, thighs, breast fillets, or spatchcocked poussins.
  3. If you feel one tin of beans is a bit thin (it was an OK amount as a side dish for two of us, with a bit left over), double up the bean mix and use some of it to spread on top of the chicken, in place of the optional lemon juice.
  4. Tuck the chicken spine in the side of the roaster, or use it to make chicken stock.
  5. Don’t have Borlotti Beans? Cannellini Beans or Butter Beans would be fine; in fact I debated whether to use Butter Beans.
  6. For the veg you really want something which isn’t going to fight the chicken & beans for flavour; so maybe not sprouts or kale. We had steamed cauliflower and baby rainbow carrots. Fennel should also work well; or a mix of Mediterranean roast veg; or a simple salad.
  7. Serve with a light, fragrant white wine.
  8. Any leftovers will make a salad, risotto or soup, depending on how much was left!
food+drink

Culinary Adventures #92: Savoury Bread Pudding

Just to demonstrate the versatility of many of my recipes, a few days before Christmas I thought I’d do a savoury version of my Bread Pudding. We had lots of spare “yesterday’s” bread, and this is one of those recipes which will use all the savoury odds and ends in the fridge, as well as all that spare bread. It really is very forgiving.

This is (roughly) what I did, but you can vary the “flavouring” ingredients depending on what you fancy or what you have to hand.

I used…

  • 500g white bread (without the crusts)
  • 3 large banana shallots, finely chopped
  • 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  • 1 bulb fennel, finely chopped
  • end of a packet of ham, chopped
  • 6 mushrooms, finely chapped
  • 200g cheese, grated (reserve 50g)
  • end of a piece of parmesan, finely grated (reserved)
  • 400g tin of kidney beans (mine were in a horrid chilli sauce which was washed off)
  • 1tbsp dried mixed herbs (be generous)
  • 1tbsp freshly ground black pepper
  • 600ml milk (reserve 50ml)
  • 2 large eggs, beaten
  • 1tbsp double cream (again, be generous) (optional)
  • 130g butter, melted; plus some for greasing
  • 2tsp baking powder

I did …

  1. Combine the milk, eggs, cream, herbs and pepper and mix well.
  2. Tear the bread into pieces and put in a mixing bowl; pour over the milk mixture; and leave for 30 minutes.
  3. Meanwhile sauté the onion, garlic and fennel until softened.
  4. Butter and line a shallow 20cm square tin.
  5. Heat the oven to 190°/170°.
  6. When the 30 minutes is up, melt the butter.
  7. Dissolve the baking powder in the reserved milk (it will start frothing, so don’t leave it standing).
  8. Now mix all the ingredients (except the reserved cheese & parmesan) into the bread, being sure to mix thoroughly; pour the mix into the tin and smooth it over.
  9. Cover loosely with foil (it will rise a bit), sit it on a baking sheet, and bake for about 60 minutes until a skewer comes out hot.
  10. Sprinkle over the reserved cheese and parmesan; and return to the oven for about 15 minutes to melt the cheese.
  11. Serve with homemade tomato sauce and a glass of red wine.

Notes …

  1. This quantity will feed six as a main course with accompanying veg or salad. Or cool it and cut into small pieces as party finger food.
  2. If you eat this hot, straight from the oven, it will be very soft; but leave it to cool and it will be very firm. We tried it both hot from the oven and cold the next day. For me it was better hot; when cold it was very solid and the flavours didn’t come though so much.
  3. Obviously the bread, milk, eggs and butter are essential. Pretty much everything else, except probably the cheese, can be substituted: any onions; cooked meat or not as you choose; celery instead of fennel, or leave it out; spinach, chard, or diced bell pepper instead of mushrooms; fresh herbs instead of dried; any beans or not as you wish. You could add tomatoes, olives, chilli – the world is your oyster!
  4. The uncooked mixture will be soft and gloopy; it should not be of either a dough consistency or a very wet slurry.
food+drink, history, links, medical, people, science

Monthly Links

And so to the final 2022 edition of my monthly links to items you may have missed.

Science, Technology, Natural World

There are quite a few scientific discoveries this month, so let’s start at the bottom and work up …

Scientists have discovered what they think is the world’s longest animal off Western Australia: a 45-metre-long deep-sea siphonophore.

Also found in the deep off Madagascar, scientists have named two new species of rare six-gill sawsharks.

Female sexual anatomy is generally poorly studied in all species, and snakes are no exception. So it’s only now that scientists have discovered that female snakes have a clitoris, or two. Two articles: one from Science News, the other from The Scientist.

So what do you find in a museum cupboard? In this case the thought lost pelt and skeleton of the last Thylacine (aka. Tasmanian Tiger).

Still in Australia, a group of female cowgirls, sorry graziers, have discovered the first intact fossilised skull, and most of the body, of a 100m-year-old plesiosaur.

And still going up, scientists have now found that the Tonga volcano eruption last January was larger and more interesting than previously thought.

Finally for this section, the Guardian had a long article on the epic task of shutting down and cleaning up the Sellafield nuclear facility. [LONG READ]

Health, Medicine

Scientists are beginning to rethink their ideas about what actually causes Alzheimer’s Disease. [VERY LONG READ]

Careful scientific analysis shows that Covid vaccines can temporarily disrupt the menstrual cycle – although Covid itself doesn’t. [£££]

There’s been a huge rise in the number of girls questioning their gender identity, and the professionals don’t really understand why. [LONG READ]

Art, Literature, Language, Music

There’s now brouhaha surrounding the artist and sexual abuser Eric Gill, as Ditchling’s museum effectively chooses to totally ignore their most famous artist. (Just don’t get me started! None of this is new, his abuse has been known about for at least 50 years.)

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

The area around Stonehenge continues to throw up important archaeology. Experts have now figured out that some Neolithic stone axes were much later used as part of a goldsmith’s toolkit.

A group of researchers have discovered over 100 previously unknown designs in Peru’s ancient Nazca plain.

Archaeologists in Rutland have uncovered a barn which was converted into a Roman bathing suite (complete with steam room) for use by the house’s owners.

Yet more archaeologists, this time in Northamptonshire, have uncovered an early medieval burial with a stunning necklace. Two reports from the BBC and The Conversation.

London

The Houses of Parliament are probably hiding a medieval river wall.

Food, Drink

Are sweeteners as harmless as we thought? The jury is still out but it looks doubtful. [LONG READ]

Don’t despise the humble Brussels sprout; they contain as much vitamin C as oranges plus many other health benefits.

And while we’re on healthy food, here are six reasons why, despite popular myth, potatoes are good for you.

So microbiologists have found the ancestor of modern brewing yeast, and then discovered it living under their noses in Ireland.

Finally on food, Ali Ahmed Aslam, the inventor of chicken tikka masala, has died aged 77.

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

Yes, I am a nudist, so what?

People

And finally for this year, here are 10 reasons why Richard Feynman was more than just a physicist.

books, food+drink

Book Review: Understanding European Wines

Charlie Boston
Understanding European Wines
Charlie Boston; 2022
Ordering details on http://www.charlieboston.com/

How many clues do you have when choosing a bottle of wine in a restaurant? If you’re like most of us, not very many, which is a state of affairs Boston sets out to help you correct. As he says …

I have always had an interest in wine, especially European wine, so I decided to write this book about European Wines.

Nowadays people so often assume the best value wines come from the southern hemisphere and, whereas Australasian and South American wines are frequently very impressive, in my opinion, they do not offer better value than European wines. Furthermore, in this day and age when we should all be concerned about “carbon foot prints”, it is hard to justify importing wines from the other side of the world, particularly when the best wines are right here on our doorstep.

The aim of this book is to allow those faced with the responsibility of choosing a wine from a wine menu to make an educated choice. There is no guarantee that the wine you choose will live up to expectations, but at least you will have expectations.

There you have it in a nutshell. This is a book for the amateur enthusiast who wants something European and enjoyably drinkable, with or without a meal.

Boston started off his working life in the wine trade, so he knows what he’s talking about; and this leads to some good hints and highlights, and some equally strong opinions. He doesn’t impress easily. Many (although I’m not one of them) will no doubt disagree with him over his hatred of the over-hyped and over-fashionable Prosecco. Amongst other scything comments we are treated to:

The fact is all the finest white wine in the world is made in the Côte de Beaune and all of it is made from Chardonnay. Accordingly, anyone who likes white wine and says they do not like Chardonnay is, I’m afraid, an idiot.

Retsina is considered to be the traditional wine of Greece. It has its origins in ancient times when the pots in which the wine was matured (“amphoras”) were sealed with pine resin. Nowadays, resin from the Aleppo pine is added to the must during fermentation to produce the distinctive resinated style. It is very much an acquired taste which, in my opinion, is not worth acquiring.

Naturally enough Boston concentrates on France, with Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal all getting their own chapters. There is then a chapter on sparkling wines; another on pudding wines; and notes about other countries in a further chapter. I found this slightly puzzling: why give Austria and Switzerland their own chapters, but not Greece, which in my limited experience has equally as many, and as good, wines? For me, Italy and Spain produce just a much good wine as France (which still produces the very top-most wines), with the added bonus that it is usually slightly cheaper.

This is a easy and often fun read, and I found I kept turning the pages and reading the next chapter. Boston’s style is light and chatty, but informative, although I did feel it to be a little lacking in detail – I wanted to know more; but that’s not the book’s aim.

Sadly my biggest gripe is the maps. Boston provides maps of most of the major wine areas. Many are excellent, whereas others are barely readable: either with tiny type (originals too much reduced in size) or very fuzzy. That’s a shame as they are otherwise quite interesting and useful. The maps, plus the glossing over of Greece, lost the book a star.

Otherwise this is well produced and and enjoyable read with some useful tips.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆

food+drink

Culinary Adventures #91: Bread Pudding

I don’t often do cake-y things – I don’t fancy myself as either a cake or pastry cook – but today was an exception. I tried making something really simple: Bread Pudding. No, not Bread and Butter Pudding, that’s something entirely different, where you cook buttered slices of bread with fruit and what is essentially a custard, and I’m not a fan.

Bread pudding also uses up an excess of bread, with dried fruit, but is effectively a cake. And it is very forgiving, which as regular readers know is something we like as we tend to make things up as we go along.

Still slightly warm but already being demolished!

This is (roughly) what I did.

Ingredients

  • 300g white bread (without the crusts)
  • 300g mixed dried fruit
  • 1tbsp mixed spice (be generous)
  • ½tbsp ground mace
  • 360ml milk
  • 2 large eggs, beaten
  • 90g soft brown sugar (or muscovado), plus a little for dusting
  • zest 1 lemon
  • 80g butter, melted
  • 50ml Amaretto or similar liqueur (again be generous)

Method

  1. Pour the liqueur over the dried fruit and leave to marinade.
  2. Tear the bread into pieces and put in a mixing bowl with the milk. Leave for 30 minutes.
  3. Meanwhile mix the sugar, spices and lemon zest. Beat the eggs.
  4. Butter and line a cake tin.
  5. Heat the oven to 180°/160° fan/gas 4.
  6. When the 30 minutes is up, melt the butter.
  7. Now mix all the ingredients into the bread, being sure to mix thoroughly. Pour the mix into the cake tin, smooth it over and dust with a little extra sugar.
  8. Bake for about 75-90 minutes until a skewer comes out hot, the pudding is firm but springy, and golden on top. (Cover with foil if the top is crisping too fast.)
  9. Leave to cool somewhat before lifting from the tin and dividing into portions. Dust with icing or caster sugar if desired.
  10. Eat hot or warm as a pudding with custard; warm or cold as cake.

Notes

  1. I used a 20cm square, shallow tin and this quantity only half filled it and came out about 3cm thick. Double the quantity if you want a thicker result, but it’ll probably need slightly longer in the oven.
  2. The 20cm tin size cuts into 9 acceptable portions.
  3. Use whatever spices you fancy or have to hand, although mixed spice is the right balance for me.
  4. The addition of 50-100g candied peel would be good.
  5. I’m going to experiment with adding some flaked almonds or walnut pieces to the mix for some variety of texture.
  6. The mix should be quite wet but not slushy; if you think it is too dry add a splash more liqueur or brandy.
books, food+drink, history

Book Review: What’s in a London Pub Name

James Potts & Sam Cullen
What’s in a London Pub Name
Capital History; 2022

Greater London has thousands of pubs – so many that probably no-one had counted them; and in any event the list would change daily. In 136 pages the authors of this slim volume describe the origins of over 650 of the more unusual or interesting pub names in Greater London – all the way from “Aces & Eights” (Tufnell Park) to the “Zetland Arms” (South Kensington). As one can imagine, at an average of about 5 pubs and a photograph per page, the descriptions are not very detailed. This is a shame, as there is undoubtedly more to be told about most of these names, and many others.

The sheer variety of names is astonishing, from the ubiquitous “Red Lion” to the eccentric “Queen’s Head and Artichoke”. Even so, as the authors admit, the list is far from comprehensive. They’ve set out to document those names with an interesting story and consequently have omitted many of the more obvious, like the “Queen Victoria”.

Sadly though I came away with one (or maybe it is actually two) criticisms. There are too many new names: for example the ubiquitous Wetherspoons “Moon” names (historic, not!) creep in, although thankfully the “Frog and …” names don’t get a mention. Against, or maybe because of, this the authors’ stated omission of many more common or obvious names does mean there is too little on the historic origins of pub names, which are often rooted in heraldry or other medieval/early modern symbolism or celebrity: are all the “Queen Victoria” pubs really named for our 19th-century monarch? Something more comprehensive would, for me at least, have been more satisfying.

Nevertheless, this is an interesting and well produced little paperback, but I have my doubts as to how long the spine will last with even moderate use. It is eminently suited to being dipped into – although you’ll find (as I did) you can read it from cover to cover! At £9.99 from Amazon (other suppliers available), it would make a great stocking filler for the London, or pub, aficionado.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆

food+drink

Culinary Adventure #90: Drunken Nectarines

So for a change here’s a pudding – and another eminently adaptable one. It’s based on a Diana Henry recipe from last week’s Waitrose Weekend paper: Peaches baked with Marsala & Rosemary.

Here’s the original recipe (click the image for a readable view):

Of course, as you’d expect, I immediately had to adapt it:

I used:
5 nectarines
2 good handfuls of homegrown blackberries
about 250ml liquor: roughly 50/50 Muscatel and Amaretto
½tsp almond essence
3tbsp sugar
4 sprigs rosemary

And I did:
Preheat oven to 200°C.
Nectarines halved and put in small oven-proof glass dish.
Add the liquor and almond essence.
Then blackberries, making sure to fiddle as many as possible in the gaps.
Sprinkle with sugar and tuck in the rosemary.
Cover with foil and bake for 40 minutes; baste once about half-time and remove the foil.
Nectarines decanted and allowed to cool.
Juices reduced by about 30% and added to the nectarines.

Here’s the result, straight from the oven:

We ate about half (still slightly warm) with cantuccini – dipped in the liquor. This was extremely excellent. The blackberries worked exceptionally well (I wasn’t sure they would) especially with the liquor. I’d been tempted to use 100% Amaretto, but I think this would have been over-kill. And it doesn’t need cream (or any such) as an accompaniment.

What would I do differently?
– Well I want to try it without the blackberries.
– think I’d not bother with the rosemary.
– I’d not bother covering with foil.
– I’d bake for 30 minutes rather than 40 (it was slightly over-done).
– I’d use half the amount of liquor and reduce it a bit more.

But definitely another success!

food+drink

Culinary Adventures #89

Well here’s another variant on my infinitely adaptable Stuffed Peppers recipe. Ok that linked recipe uses haggis, but I often use whatever meat is available, especially the end of the chicken or the like.

However this weekend I did an (almost) veggie version using nuts instead of meat. Essentially the method is the same: a packet of stuffing mix, some onion, garlic, mushrooms and soft tomatoes; a beaten egg, a good dash of Worcs. Sauce (leave this out if you want totally veggie), some tomato paste and a good grind(!) of black pepper.

Then instead of meat I used about 200g mixed nuts (anything except peanuts and cashews). You’ll want to whizz the nuts in the food processor – but not too much: you want some ground down but still with some chunky (grain-sized) bits for texture and crunch.

Mix it all together and stuff four large-ish peppers – I halve them down the middle as I find “boats” cook quicker. Cover with foil and give it about an hour in a hot oven. Remove the foil, sprinkle with grated cheese and return to the over for another 15 minutes.

Delicious hot (with a sauce of your choosing, if desired) or cold with HP Sauce or similar.

Four halved peppers make a hearty main course for four.

And you can easily make this vegan by leaving out (or substituting) the egg and the cheese.

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

Monthly Links

Here’s another edition of our monthly guide to items you may have missed the first time around.

Science, Technology, Natural World

We’ll start off with one of my favourite subjects: wasps. We need to take sting out of our fear and loathing of wasps and welcome their importance to ecosystems

One of these days scientists will make up their minds. Unlike a while back, they’re now saying dogs arose from two populations of wolves, study finds

In good news, three Sumatran tiger cubs have been born at London Zoo. And they’ve released the usual cute cat pictures.

Scientists at London’s Kew Gardens, with many others, have found that the world’s largest waterlily is in fact a new species, now named Victoria Boliviana. That means there are now three giant waterlily species.
One of the lead scientists, Lucy T Smith, has written a blog item about the discovery. [LONG READ]
And James Wong writes about how the giant waterlilies changed architecture.

While we’re on engineering and architecture, Transport for London engineers have designed and are testing a totally new idea for cooling the London Underground.

Sexuality

In an unsurprising discovery many specialists have pointed out that male sterilisation (aka. vasectomy) isn’t going to solve (America’s) problem with abortions. [LONG READ]

Environment

While on things sexual, researchers are suggesting that grey squirrel numbers could be reduced using oral contraceptives. However I see the law of unintended consequences coming into play if this is tried.

Art, Literature, Language, Music

A look at the way our brains cope with speaking more than one language.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

Some scientists are now reckoning that early human ancestors are one million years older than previously thought. It’ll be interesting to see if this holds up.

The mysterious Mycenaean and Minoan civilisations were a bedrock for much of Ancient Greece. [LONG READ]

An important hoard of Roman gold coins has been found near Norwich.

Here’s a review of Janina Ramirez’s new book Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages Through the Women Written Out of It.

Dr Eleanor Janega at Going Medieval provides a reading list on medieval abortion.
Meanwhile Scientific American takes a look at abortion and contraception in the Middle Ages. [£££]

Cavers have found a mineshaft in Cheshire which has been completely undisturbed for 200 years and is a useful time capsule.

Clandon Park House was gutted by fire in 2015. The National Trust which owns it has decided it will be mainly conserved as a ruin rather than restored to its former Palladian glory.

If you were a Victorian or Edwardian peer, what would you put in your vampire hunting kit? Well there was one for sale recently at Hanson’s Auctions; it sold for £13,000 (plus fees) some some five times it’s estimate!

London

On the interestingly named Pickle Herring Stairs.

Did you know that London had a naked Routemaster bus?

Apparently there are plans to un-culvert a stretch of the Gores Brook in Dagenham. A move which should be applauded, and repeated elsewhere.

It’s not quite London, but in our fourth item from IanVisits, he goes to Saffron Walden in Essex – a delightful small market town.

Food, Drink

The French authorities, like WHO, have now concluded there’s a definite link between charcuterie and colon cancer, due to the high level of nitrates and nitrites contained therein.

In better news, French scientists think they’ve cracked the puzzle of cultivating prized white truffles.

How safe is it to eat mouldy cheese?

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

The Guardian goes to meet a handful of the country’s more unusual master craftsmen.

One of my favourite places is the Dungeness and the Romney Marsh. Caroline Reed in Kent Life looks at some of the best of the area.

Shock, Horror, Humour, Wow!

And finally, here’s a list of the rarest boy’s and girl’s names in the UK – 50 of each.