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Coeur blimey!

The monthly freezer lottery has always been cause for intrigue and mystery. Yesterday, however, it made the leap from such a level to one of utter bewilderment and, ultimately, elation. For this indiscernible lump of meat that I had pilfered from home God knows when had been the subject of head scratching for quite some time. There were varying theories. (Please don't think me foolish or ignorant, though I may be both - something frozen is much harder to decipher than something fresh, that's why the yardies keep bodies in freezers). One theory was that it was a lamb's neck. Not wildly idiotic. Sure, it was a little stouter than a lamb's neck, but we were ball-parking. Perhaps it is shin of beef, we ventured. Again, possible, though unlikely. It looked somewhat offally, and yet it wasn't a kidney, and it certainly wasn't liver.

"Well it's something edible," I said to my sister as I pulled it out of the freezer on Sunday evening, "and whatever it is, we can eat it tomorrow night."

It was with a mixture of trepidation and excitement that I opened the fridge door yesterday morning to see what was in store for supper. We had friends coming, see, and while somewhat tickled by the prospect of serving a giant bollock to people who had probably eaten far worse at Notting Hill Carnival that day, I wasn't particularly enamoured by the idea of chowing down on that particular gland myself, much less so working out how to cook the bloody thing. But it wasn't a bollock. It was a heart. A sinewy, fatty, wobbly heart. A once beating heart. My own heart was suddenly beating rather faster than before. I was exhilarated.

But what to do with it? I consulted my latest cooking hero, Henry Harris, for inspiration. Henry is the chef at Racine in South Kensington, a restaurant at which I have eaten only once, but whose steak tartare will remain forever seared on my memory as the finest I have ever devoured (beating the first one I ever ate at La Coupole in Paris - a dish I had ordered erroneously as an ignorant 14-year-old, in the belief that I was going to be fed a cooked steak. I didn't regret my mistake). Henry's advice was, inevitably, sound, unpretentious, and made me salivate just reading it. He suggested: "stuff it with breadcrumbs, anchovy, garlic, rosemary, lemon zest and chilli". It was the word 'stuff' that got me. Anything that is stuffed is delicious, n'est ce pas?

So I set to work after a lunch of leftover mac and cheese, dividing the ventricles (that's right, ventricles) and working out how I was going to slip this behemoth of a ticker past some potentially fussy guests. On the one hand, I decided, it would be pretty outlandish to serve unsuspecting visitors some 'beef' before savagely revealing, like Titus Andronicus, that they had in fact just wolfed down an ox's heart (or, in T.A.'s case, their own children). But I didn't much fancy the other option. To go in all guns blazing and telling the bastards what was on the menu in advance would only make them prejudiced, and much, much less likely to enjoy their dinner. So I told them it was beef, and that they had to guess which cut it was. The freezer game began anew.

"Shin?"

"Nope."

"Neck?"

"Nope."

"Bollock."

"Bingo!"

"Really?"

"Nope.....it's actually heart."

Natalie's face fell; her fork, now half way to her mouth, fell with it. Then something wonderful happened. For only the briefest of reflections led our collective to reason thus: it tasted good before we knew it was heart, why should this recent enlightenment change anything? I suppose you could use this reasoning for something rather less savoury, such as eating a dog, but I think in this case my logic stands. As Brits we are irrationally squeamish about food. Bollocks and brains I can kind of understand, but besides that I don't really think much should be avoided. I guess that's all I've got to say on the subject. Anyhoo, here's what I did. Ta Henry.

Braised Ox Heart with Polenta and Salsa Verde

Serves 6

1 Ox Heart, about 1.5kg
50g breadcrumbs
A handful of parsley
2 sprigs of rosemary
Zest of a lemon
1 red chilli
6 anchovy fillets
12 rashers of streaky bacon

1 large onion
4 cloves of garlic
Half a bottle of red wine
500ml beef stock

For the salsa verde
A big handful of flatleaf parsley
1 sprig rosemary
A small handful of tarragon
A shallot
2 plump cloves garlic
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
4 anchovy fillets
1 tablespoon capers
5 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of a lemon

For the polenta
200g polenta
1.5 litres water
100g grated Parmesan
50g butter

Salt and pepper and all that jazz.

Preheat the oven to 170C.

Finely chop the herbs (first removing the stalk from the rosemary), the chilli (first removing the seeds) and the anchovies, and mix with the lemon zest and breadcrumbs, seasoning with salt and pepper. Gingerly open up the heart between and press in the stuffing. Wrap securely with the bacon.

Peel and slice the onion and squish the garlic (leave the peel on). In a large saucepan heat some olive oil and soften the onion with the garlic, until lightly caramelised (seasoning first, of course). Add the heart to the pan before sloshing over the wine and stock. Bring to the boil, pop a lid on top and slip into the oven. Cook for 4-5 hours.

Meanwhile crack on with the salsa verde, finely chopping the herbs, shallot, anchovies and capers, and crushing the garlic. Mix together with the mustard, lemon juice and olive oil. Season with pepper (no salt, due to the saltiness of the anchovies and the capers), cover and refrigerate until needed.

45 minutes before you're ready to serve, bring the water to the boil with 2 teaspoons salt. In a steady stream, pour in the polenta, whisking continuously. Stir for 10 minutes, then cook for a further 30, stirring regularly and topping up with water as and when needed. Remove the heart from yon oven and rest.

Stir the butter and Parmesan into the polenta and taste for seasoning. Serve with slices of heart, a dollop of salsa verde, and a watercress salad. I'd show you the snaps, but I've only gone and lost the friggin laptop lead.

So would you try this recipe? Honestly? I'm curious to know. I know that I wouldn't have necessarily searched out a heart for my tea, but I'm thrilled I did. A lesson, I hope, that I - that we - should all be more adventurous in the kitchen.

Why does no one write letters anymore?

Nearly a week has passed since yet another idyllic few days in France, and I am yet to write a letter of thanks to my hosts for a sojourn that was, even by my own prodigiously gluttonous standards, hard to beat. The days passed like one long meal, punctuated by the odd (sometimes very) game of tennis, or a brief lollop in the swimming pool. Breakfasts were spent fighting over the myrtilles sauvages (is there a better jam?) and discussing what to eat for lunch. Lunch, in turn, consisted of wondrously smooth mousse de canard slathered on crusty loaves, beetroot and goats' cheese salad, and the juiciest peaches. Then around 4, as the last of the salad was being mopped up and the cheese rinds gnawed at, talk would turn to supper. And on it went, in this perfect cycle of insatiability.

You will, then, understand my horror of taking so long to write after such a delightful week. I finally made it to a stationers by Old Street, in search of writing paper. I get a bit overexcited in stationers. All the pens, the paper, the funky notebooks and glossy diaries - it's the sort of procrastinatory nonsense I'm such a sucker for, as if buying pens and notebooks makes you feel like you've actually done something constructive. With blinkers firmly on, I wandered up to the counter:

"I say, old boy," I whispered conspiratorially (I often do this, when buying something as banal as writing paper - adds a bit of intrigue). "I say," I continued, "could you point me in the direction of the letter-writing paper".

"I'm sorry sir," replied the shopkeeper amiably, "but we don't sell that shit anymore."

"I beg your parsnips!" I ejaculated. "What is the meaning of this?!"

"Well," started the man, his wizened old face a strange amalgam of shame, amusement, and confusion, "no one writes letters anymore".

"But you sell envelopes," quoth I, aghast.

The man smiled.

"Seriously, are you joking?" I chuckled nervously. The oxymoron was beyond me at this particular moment of peturbation. You see, I'd been lamenting the slow death of the art of letter writing for some time now. So much so that a friend and I had resolved to write a letter once a week. I wrote two in a day and then, well, I went to France. Though I did write to my grandfather from there. So I guess that counts. Though it was a thank you letter. Quite a late one. Pattern emerging, I fear.

He was not joking, it turns out.

"Surely you could stock just some paper old bean, couldn't you? It's not like it goes off."

He mumbled something about quota-filling, then something that sounded like an swear word. I made a swift exit and stomped back to my flat to send an email to someone about the experience.

And that, my friend, is just the problem. If e'er there were a stupid title for a blog post, it sits atop this one. No one writes letters anymore because of email. This was highlighted for me during a previous trip to France, when a 95-year-old madame enquired of my friend as to his profession. His French shaky, his acting skills less so, he mimed typing (he is, you see, a writer).

"Ah, tu es pianiste alors!" she exclaimed, enthused to have a musician in the house. Ah, the technological follies of old age.

I was struck by Ed's reflex of miming writing as something that one does on a keyboard, not with pen and paper, and realised I do the same thing. It's a little bewildering.

I'm not saying this must change. God knows the internet, email, and all that comes with it (bloggers, facebookers, stalkers, twitterers, pornographers) have made our lives easier. But they've also taken the soul out of correspondence. Do you remember the elation of receiving a hand-written letter? There are few things more special, few things that can, in such an understated manner, say 'I care'. A revival is in order.

A plan is forming in my mind. A hand-written cookery book. How this might work, I'm not yet sure. In the meantime, do you think you have the discipline to write a letter a week, in which you have also written a recipe? If you email me your address, I'll send you a recipe. Could be the start of a whole new kind of food chain. Who knows?

Away (again)

Dear all,

I'm currently up north honing my other great passion (music) whilst endeavouring not to enrage the neighbours too greatly with our (aspiringly) epic post-rock. I will write when I can, but for the time being Mum is feeding our hungry bellies.

France next week - more from there.

Love,

James.

Mackerel, braised shallots with chorizo and chilli, and tomato salad

After bemoaning my fragile relationship with the kitchen, I again headed to the market in search of a delicious but deeply thrifty supper for me and my flatmate. Thrifty it was not - £17 I spent for 2 mackerel, a handful of tomatoes, ditto shallots, a bunch of basil and a loaf of bread. I hope my parents don't read this, as if they discover their unemployed son is splurging this sort of wonga then I fear sympathy may start to wear thin.

Nonetheless, for the time being (that is, until the bailiff starts bashing down the door) spending more than is strictly necessary on ingredients is worth it when they are of such good quality. Last night's supper was one of the best I have eaten in a long time - not on the strength of the cooking, but just because everything was so fresh. The tomatoes juicy and meaty, the shallots sweet and slippery, and the fish just perfect. Serve with new potatoes fried with rosemary and garlic.

Serves 2

4 banana shallots, whole and peeled, ends trimmed
25g butter
A little oil
100ml marsala or something similar. Or wine. Or not. Up to you. Marsala or sherry best though.
300ml chicken stock
50g chopped chorizo
1 chilli, seeded and finely chopped
4 mackerel fillets
2 large tomatoes
A few basil leaves
White wine vinegar
Olive oil
Salt, pepper and sugar

Melt the butter in a saute pan with a little oil over a moderate heat. Add the shallots, season and allow to gently colour on all sides, until well browned all over. Increase the flame and add the booze. Boil for a minute or so then add the stock. Bring to a boil, turn down the heat and simmer for 25 minutes until the shallots are soft and the cooking liquor has reduced to a sticky consistency.

Meanwhile, fry the chorizo in another frying pan, again in a little oil, until crispy. Remove and keep warm, though wash the pan at your peril. Make the tomato salad, slicing the tomatoes and tossing with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a little sugar and vinegar. Tear the basil leaves and stir in.

Season the fish with salt and pepper. Heat the pan in which you fried the chorizo over a medium-high flame, and add the mackerel, skin side down. Fry for 2 minutes on each side then rest for a further 2 minutes. Serve with the tomato salad and the shallots garnished with the chorizo and chopped chilli.

A seismic shift

Something odd has happened since I moved to London. Something that perhaps I should have seen coming. I'm cooking less, and it's really alarming me. At university I probably cooked 5 nights out of 7. It was something to look forward to at the end of a long day, or something to wallow in at weekends. It hardly needed any planning. A vegetable box arrived weekly, and because I pretty much knew which nights I would be out my flatmates and I could do a weekly shop.

Not so in London, it turns out. The pace of life is completely different - and I don't even have a job yet. Last week for example. On Monday evening I went to play football in Battersea which was followed by a pint. Then another pint, and then before I knew it it was midnight and I hadn't eaten a thing. The following evening was a friend's birthday, so once again, supper was a hastily gobbled (but truly delicious) Vietnamese noodle soup on my way home. On Wednesday evening I was kindly invited to a do round the corner, where Vauxhall were promoting their cars, I guess, and free cocktails were accompanied by free hotdogs, and I returned home sated but to a depressingly unsullied kitchen. Thursday I was lucky enough to get an invite to the Rankin opening night at the Truman brewery. The swathes of photographs and gallons of mojito were sadly bereft of any kind of nibble, and sustenance wasn't found until the early hours of Friday morning, when a Brick Lane bagel was all I could unearth. I might have done much worse.

By Friday panic had set in, and I jumped on the number 48 to London Bridge with the express intention of losing myself in Borough Market. Considering it might well be the most expensive market in the universe I was pretty chuffed to pick up a spatchcock poussin for £2.50, as well as a seemingly cheap beef cheek. I say seemingly cheap, because a kilo for £9.20 was certainly a good price, but the thing was so fatty that before cooking I had to trim a considerable amount of it off. With the cheek I made a curry. It was good, without being astonishing. Once honed I shall write about it.

Until then I shall tell you about the venison loin we ate last night. I cook with venison a lot, and, as often happens with such things, had got into something of a rut (no pun intended), cooking it in a similar way every time, convincing myself that such good quality meat needed no adornment. But the time had come for a change. Ollie Thring (of the excellent Thring for your Supper blog) recommended ginger and chilli and bok choi. It sounded heavenly, and light. Here's what I did:

Marinated loin of venison with pak choi and oyster sauce

Serves 4

2 roe buck loins, each about a foot long and no thicker than your wrist
1 thumb of ginger
2 cloves of garlic
1 green chilli
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
2 sprigs of rosemary
2 teaspoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
8 small pak choi
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
Salt and pepper

The slight bugger about venison is that it has a thin film on it - don't mistake this for fat, 'cause it ain't. You need to take a sharp knife and remove this as you would skin a fish. You don't need to be overly fussy, but it tends to become tough and gristly, so the more you remove the better.

Right - now grated the ginger into a bowl. Peel and crush the garlic, deseed and finely chop the chilli and add with the spices to the marinade. Strip the rosemary leaves from their sprigs and finely chop. Rosemary might seem an incongruous addition, but it was truly delicious. That said, coriander would make a fine replacement, and you might try adding a little yoghurt too. (oh for a barbeque!).

Add the rosemary, soy sauce and olive oil, season with pepper and toss in the venison. Leave to marinate for as long as you can - ideally 24 hours, but at least 2.

Get a heavy-bottomed frying pan hot over a bullish flame and add the venison. Fry for 4 minutes on each side.

Meanwhile wash the pak choi and halve them. Blanch in boiling salted water and drain. Then heat a little oil in a frying pan over a moderate heat and stir fry with a pinch of salt and twist of pepper.

Remove the venison to a warm plate and rest for 5 minutes while you finish the pak choi by adding the oyster sauce and stir-frying for another few minutes until coating the greens.

Thickly slice the venison and serve with the pak choi. You could also serve this with noodles if you're feeling particularly hungry, though I'm not convinced it really needs it.

I hope this heralds the start of some sort of routine. Cooking once a week just doesn't come close to being enough.

In Flaubert country

It isn't difficult to see why Emma Bovary envisaged for herself such a life of bucolic bliss after growing up in Normandy. The undulating countryside, idyllic villages, and dramatic coastline vibrate with a romanticism and purity that is largely unsullied by modernity. Gloss over the happenings of 1944 and their aftermath and there is little to distinguish the landscape from how it might have looked 150 years ago. Close your eyes and all you smell is the sea, all you hear is the swell of the ocean, and the (incessant) squawk of gulls. No trains chuntering past; traffic sporadic at best; sirens? You kidding? It is utterly peaceful.

But let me tell you, some bad shit went down round here. Nazi officers occupied the very house that we ate dinner in on our first night. Elsewhere in the village, the grandmother of my dear friend Danielle returned home to find it had been used as a field hospital for the German army. Out of spite the recently vanished soldiers had blocked sinks and drains and turned the taps on, leaving the house 6 inches deep in water and rising. Going down into the basement she found a lone Nazi soldier, too poorly to have left with his division and close to death. The collaboration was in full flow, and to be discovered housing one of the enemy was to, at best, be ostracized for life; at worse, well....She fed the invalid supper and ordered him to leave. He died before reaching the end of the garden.

Down on the beach, lazily gazing along the cliff tops yields further reminders of this terrible moment in history. The chalky battlements are punctuated by concrete pill boxes, sinister evidence of a time that everyone would rather forget. Further west from the sleepy village of Yport the cliffs spill down onto Le Havre, where allied bombardment of the German stronghold spared but the churches, leaving a wasteland little improved by the post-war industrialisation. Yet further on you come to Colleville-sur-Mer, also known as Omaha Beach, where thousands of American troops were killed on D-Day. In short, there must be a lot of lost souls in Normandy.

And yet there is an air of positivity. Those still around today will happily talk about their experiences, their lives strangely enriched by having lived through such an extraordinary time. Or perhaps it is just because they eat so well. Because my word did we eat well. Lunch was, in a funny way, always the highlight. Cold cuts, salads, tarts and pates. Chunks of creamy coulommiers were slapped onto roughly hewn hooves of baguette and washed down with cider. Heart-stoppingly rich pork rillettes were similarly gobbled uncomplainingly. Indeed, bread became a vehicle for pretty much everything. A starter of mushrooms on toast was a particular highlight:

Champignons a la Normande


Serves 8

25g butter
2 tablespoons oil
2 large onions, peeled and thinly sliced
225ml cider
225ml double cream
500g button mushrooms, quartered
A lemon
8 slices of pain de mie or a rustic loaf
A handful of parsley or chives
Salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a large saucepan with the oil. Add the onions, season with salt and pepper, cover and sweat over a low heat for 30-60 minutes (the longer the better), stirring every few minutes. Your onions should be rich, soft and lightly caramelised. The kitchen should smell heavenly and you should want to bury your face in the onions. You might choose to add a little crushed garlic here. I don't think it's necessary, but by all means do.

Increase the heat and add the cider. Bring it to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes until the alcohol has cooked off. Add the cream and bring to a simmer before adding the mushrooms. Cover and simmer until the mushrooms are cooked - 15-20 minutes - stirring occasionally. Add the juice of the lemon and keep warm. Toast the bread and roughly chop your herbs. Serve the mushrooms on the toast scattered with a generous handful of herbs and another squeeze of lemon juice.


A simple tarte a l'oignons made for another elegant lunch, though slightly marred by some careless shopping on my part. Ideally buy anchovy fillets (not whole anchovies, as in the picture) and arrange them in a lattice over the top of the tart.



Serves 6-8

Shortcrust pastry - I couldn't be arsed to make my own, though it's always better to
6 large onions, peeled and sliced
50g butter
2 teaspoons finely chopped thyme leaves
2 egg
100ml double cream
100g grated comte or emmental (optional)
a tin of anchovy fillets
Salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a large saucepan and add the onions. Season with salt and pepper and gently cook until you've reached the stage explained above.

Meanwhile, roll out your pastry and lay it into a tart tin, pricking it a few times with a fork. Chill in the fridge for half an hour (the tart, that is).

Preheat the oven to 170C. Line the tart tin with baking parchment and pour in some baking beans, or some old pasta. (What you're doing is holding the tart shell in place so that it holds its shape as it cooks.) Put in the oven and 'blind bake' for 25-30 minutes.

Remove from the oven and pour away the beans (saving for the next time you make a tart). Whisk the eggs and, with a pastry brush (though kitchen towel does the job) lightly brush the pastry case with egg wash (you won't need much). Return to the oven for 5 more minutes.

Meanwhile, stir the thyme into the onions and remove from the heat. Cool for a couple of minutes before stirring in the cream, the cheese, and finally the rest of your whisked egg. Mix together thoroughly and season with salt and pepper. Pour into your waiting pastry case and arrange the anchovy fillets artfully on top. Slide into the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes until set.

Cool for a good hour before serving with a green salad.

Lot of cream in these recipes, I know. That's Normandy. That's also me, sure. But mainly it's Normandy. A la Normande pretty much just means 'add cream and cider'. I didn't complain, though by the end of our daily prandial plethora of cream and butter there was little room for anything but a piece of fruit and a nap.




At dinner I tried to ease off on the cream, though that didn't mean we couldn't eat handsomely and indulgently. One ingredient that seemed to be everywhere, and that intrigued me (having never come across it before) was foie de lotte - monkfish liver. If you've ever seen a monkfish you will know how terrifying they look. If you've ever eaten monkfish you will know how delicious they taste. Their livers do little to buck this trend. They are vast. I didn't want to imagine how big the owner of the particular one that I bought must have been, its liver being, no exaggeration, 2 foot long and as thick as a beef fillet. I was tickled by the idea of farming foie de lotte like foie gras, imagining the intrepid farmer trying to force feed a fish that could devour his dog like an old twix.

The flavour of the liver was extraordinary - rich and fishy, in its incarnation below the dressing was essential as a foil to the intensity of the flesh. I'd like to track down some of this stuff in London to experiment with - it's terribly cheap - so if anyone knows where I might find some do point me in the right direction.

Salade de foie de lotte


Serves 4

A piece of monkfish liver, about 6 inches long
25g butter
A little oil
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons dijon mustard
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 slices of pain de mie
Frisee salad leaves
Salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a frying pan with a little oil and warm over a medium heat. Season the liver with pepper and a pinch of salt and add to the pan. There should be a gentle sizzle, not the sort of hiss you'd look for when cooking a steak. Leave the liver for 5 minutes while you make the dressing.

Whisk together the vinegar and mustard, then whisk in the olive oil before seasoning with salt and pepper. Carefully turn the liver and cook for a further 5 minutes on the other side, basting with the butter continually. It should be lightly caramelised and rich, without having to thick a crust.

Remove the pan from the heat and rest the monkfish while you toast the bread. Cut the toast into rounds and arrange the salad on plates. Put the toast on the salad, slice the monkfish and put a slice of liver on each piece of toast, before drizzling generously with the dressing. Serve immediately.


There are many other recipes I'd love to divulge, though I fear this post has already drifted into the realms of self-indulgence (as did the holiday). After all, it's the month of holidays, and you have better things to do than read my ramblings - like telling me about your own favourite holiday recipes. Bring them on.