All you need is love

Of all the cliches, adages and tautologies on Masterchef, the word that turns my stomach again and again is 'passion'. Everything is about 'passion', it seems - passion for cooking, passion for food, passion for ingredients, passion for experimentation etc etc. It's terribly perfunctory. It has become a punctuation mark, a sentence filler for when the judges can't think of anything more insightful to say about a contestant. As Tony Naylor writes on the Guardian Word of Mouth blog, Masterchef has stripped the word of any meaning through 'flagrant overuse'.It is also, more often than not, a euphemism. The cooking equivalent to the schoolmaster's "Ramsden tries hard" (i.e. Ramsden is thick as mud soup but I've got to wrestle some positive out of this car crash of a term).

For me it is not only overused, misused and abused, but it is a notion that is revered far beyond the measure it should be. This passion for food - what does it really mean? Passion is an ephemeral emotion, an intense, uncontrollable reflex. Passion doesn't sustain. It is the lusty throe of ecstasy, the impulsive stab of desire. Passion glints fleetingly in the glossy covers of food porn, or explodes magnificently in the climax of a meal. Passion does not last, and food cooked with passion and passion alone will most likely be inconsistent. There will be flashes of brilliance, sure, but in those moments when the spark is gone, what is left to support the cook?

For without love, there is nothing. Love and everything that comes with it - care, attention, nurture, devotion, and - yes - passion. Take Monday night. I had been working all day (a rarity), and returned late and hungry. Sunday's chicken had been made into stock, while any leftover meat had been stripped from the carcass and awaited my greedy advances. Against my better judgement (and due to a fairly empty fridge) I landed on making a risotto. I have never been convinced that chicken risotto works. I just don't feel that chicken's texture works well amidst the starchy grains, despite it being a leftovers staple. I'd rather prod it into a sandwich with a generous spoonful of mayonnaise, or, even better, toss it through crisp salad leaves with croutons and a piquant dressing.

But fate seemed to have decreed otherwise - the rice winked at me from the front of the cupboard, the stock was there, waiting, on the hob, the chicken already diced. There was even a bag of peas in the freezer to add bite and freshness. But because I was not convinced by the risotto's validity, I cooked it half-heartedly, one eye on the pot, one eye on the television. The result was a perfectly edible risotto, but one that did not come even close to inspiring any kind of passion in me whatsoever. The cooking had lacked care, and it tasted like it.

Two night's later I return in similar circumstances. This time there are two of us, and this time I have thought carefully about what I want to eat. I cook with all due care, attention, and love. The soup, while simplicity defined, is soothing and delicious. It is also quick and cheap.

Chilli beef noodle soup

Serves 2

4 spring onions, finely sliced
1 clove garlic, peeled and finely sliced
1 thumb of ginger, peeled and chopped into matchsticks
2 birds eye chillies, sliced
A handful of coriander, roughly chopped
300ml chicken stock
1 tablespoon fish sauce
Half a Chinese cabbage, sliced
100g oyster mushrooms, roughly chopped
1 rump steak
A handful of rice noodles
1 red chilli, halved, deseeded and sliced
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a saucepan and add the spring onions, garlic, ginger and chillies. Stir constantly for 30 seconds, then add the coriander (reserving a little for the end), chicken stock and fish sauce. Bring to the boil, then add the mushrooms and cabbage. Turn the heat right down and simmer while you prepare the rest of the soup.

Boil the kettle and pour the water over the rice noodles in a bowl. Leave to soak for five minutes.

Meanwhile, season the steak with salt and pepper and rub with olive oil. Get a frying pan very hot (so that holding your hand 6 inches above it is unbearable for more than a second or two) and fry the steak for two minutes on each side. Remove to a plate to rest.

Drain the noodles and divide between serving bowls. Spoon over the soup making sure you get plenty of cabbage and mushrooms. Slice the steak thickly and arrange over the bowls. Garnish with slices of red chilli and a handful of coriander.

Is style ever more important than substance?

It is Sunday morning. Early autumn and bright. You are sitting in a little cafe in Soho, a stack of papers beside you. You wallow in the false agony of which section to begin with, knowing full well that you are going to read the whole lot before you heave yourself away (and also knowing full well that you are going to read all the extraneous matter first, before finally making it to the actual news). Your eggs benedict arrives, and as if some higher being wished to emphasise the majesty of its creation, the sunlight falls onto the table at the very moment the plate is nudged in front of you. It's quite a thing to behold - a delicate poached egg, its mattress a golden toasted muffin, the bedsheets the crispest bacon you have ever seen. And hugging this aesthetic wonder is the most glistening, unctuous hollandaise sauce man has ever conceived. Trembling with lusty hunger, you cut into the egg, your entire mouth awash with saliva at the very anticipation of that joyous moment when the yolk, emancipated from its albumen chamber, trickles out to dress the bacon.

Except it doesn't. The yolk inside is overcooked and dry. Further investigation reveals bacon that is not so much crisp as burnt. The muffin, that bread so redolent of comfort and warmth, is cold and hard. To cap it all, the hollandaise is so lemony that with a little sugar you could stick a biscotti in it and call it a posset. How had a breakfast that promised so much, that looked so perfect and absolute, turned into a repeat of Christmas 1990 (when that box that you thought was a Superman costume sent from your aunt in the States was actually a box of cosmetics intended for your cousin in Nebraska)? How dare a chef promise so much to the eye and deliver so little to the palate?

Everybody judges a book by its cover. We look at people and decide subconsciously whether we like them or not, whether we fancy them or not. It's a reflex. This isn't to say it's always accurate. In fact, I love being proved wrong - when my initial opinion of a person, book, film, turns out to be miles off-radar. It's nice to be surprised. Food is no different. To drift into the realms of cliche, we eat with our eyes before eating with our mouths, and if our eyes are unmoved, our palate is less likely to be. But is it that simple? Certain 'ugly' dishes are cantilevered into the lofty realms of bewitching perfection through their very ruggedness. The pork pie, the cassoulet, bread and butter pudding - they are the Alan Rickmans of the food world, the dishes so full of surprises that every time you pile into them it's just like the first time.

Then we have the Victoria Beckhams. The plate itself is a study in aesthetic precision; the sauce so artfully skidded in with the back of a spoon (recreating the oft sought-after 'trod-in dog turd' effect), the roasted sea urchin whimsically dressed to look like an otter's ballsack, and pretty but utterly redundant microleaves scattered with an air of fancy (when we know full well that the little blighters were placed on with tweezers). Visually it is mighty impressive. But beneath the polished exterior is a dish that is completely lacking in personality, in good taste, and in intrigue. What's more, your brief foray into this one-dimensional plate has already destroyed its only raison d'etre. No wonder certain 'celebrities' have plastic surgery. If your only significant characteristic is your looks, what on earth are you going to do when you look like a weathered old muffin?

So is it possible that certain things can get away with vacuity when stunning to behold? My opinions on art certainly allow for this. I don't care if a painting represents the most intense of political struggles amongst the indigenous population of Siberia during the early 15th century - if it looks like a child has vomited on the canvas then it's not for me. Equally if I find a painting visually attractive, but discover that it represents the anguish of an early autumn mushroom, then fine. Paintings are for looking at.

Food, on the other hand, is not. Food is for eating. Yet, on Tuesday night I was forced to reconsider my standpoint on the subject. I was catering for a drinks party and, amongst other things, served blinis with smoked salmon, sour cream and wasabi caviar. Wasabi caviar, as caviar goes, is not expensive. They're hardly going to adulterate the expensive stuff with horseradish. A 100g jar was £8.45. The same sized jar of Beluga caviar £950 (yeah, I know). It looked stunning perched atop the blini, a bright, luminescent green on the crisp whiteness of the sour cream. The merest tip of a teaspoon was all that was needed for its visual effect to work, and after fashioning a tester I duly popped it in my mouth. Not a hint of wasabi. Odd. I tested another, this time with considerably more of the roes. Still nothing - not even the salty marine tang that are part of why you eat the stuff. I checked the label. Was this just plain old caviar that had the misfortune of being harvested in the waters of Chernobyl? Seemingly not.

I pushed the blinis, smoked salmon and sour cream to the side, and went at it with the teaspoon. This time I could just about taste the wasabi, but it was ever so faint, and certainly didn't have the nose-clearing bite of horseradish - a bite that goes so well with smoked fish. Now I was in a quandary. The stuff tasted of nothing, and the (flying fish) eggs were so small that you hardly got that delightful pop when you bit down on them. But it looked fantastic. Following the rule of 'only add it if it contributes to the flavour or texture' I should have dropped it altogether. But I didn't, I kept it in. And the guests were wide-eyed and exhilarated. And I didn't feel like a charlatan.

Should I have? I would suggest that when it comes to canapes, the visual effect is particularly important. It's not like sitting down to a main dish, when you have to eat mouthful after mouthful of the same thing. I have a hazy memory of a chef (whose name escapes me right now) once saying that anyone can make the first mouthful taste good - a great cook will make the last one taste good too. But with canapes your first mouthful is also your last mouthful, and as such the two senses of sight and taste are on a par. This isn't to say that an abhorrent tasting canape is kosher if it looks good, but in this context I believe a whimsical, if cosmetic, flourish is entirely acceptable, if its effect is at once mouth-watering, eye-catching, and amusing.

It seems I'm starting to rewrite my own rulebook. Next week, is pineapple and ham pizza always wrong?


Smoked salmon, sour cream and wasabi caviar blinis


It's very easy to make your own blinis or pikelets - they're essentially pancakes but instead of using a ladle use a teaspoon. I, however, do not have a recipe to hand, so will give you the version I did.

Makes 36

36 miniature blinis (easily found in shops)
150g smoked salmon
50g sour cream
Wasabi caviar (otherwise use the black lumpfish which is cheap but adequate)
Lemon juice
Pepper

Cook the blinis in the oven, remove and leave to cool.

When ready to serve (not too long before as they tend to go soggy) pop a little strip of salmon on each blini, curling it both to fit on top and to give it some height. On top of that add the merest quarter tea spoon of sour cream, followed by an even more restrained dab of caviar. Squeeze over a drop of lemon juice, a twist of pepper, and serve.

Like falling in love again

There's nothing like a bit of abstinence. When Jesus spent forty days (and forty nights, mind) in the wilderness, I bet the first thing he did on completion was pile into the biggest goat stew since his Dad knows when. With extra goat. And loads of water. Which he promptly turned into wine. In fact, I imagine he was so deeply enamoured by the feast that lay before him, and so terribly geoffed* from all the water-wine he'd been guzzling, that he swayed bleary-eyed, elbows on the table and cutlery swinging like pendula, and slurred:

"This meat shall inherit the earth".

The rest was lost in translation.

And I know how he felt. The simple joys of cookery have never seemed so profound to me as they have over the past week. My lunch in the Hawksmoor aside (which was transcendental in a more cathartic, singular way), every morsel that has passed my quivering lips has been adored and appreciated in a way that it wasn't before. A month ago a toasted muffin for breakfast would have been eaten as passively as any breakfast is usually eaten; a baked potato for supper par for the course. Now these things are special, magical, decadent. And hot.

So I guess the raw vegan diet had a purpose. It made me realise just how much better food tastes when it is cooked - more flavour, more vitatlity, more love. Say what you will about the health benefits (I'm just not willing to get into a debate on this - not now anyway), but raw food just don't taste as good. For that reason I'm glad I did the diet - it has made me appreciate real food all the more.

*Geoffed, abbr. exceedingly drunk. Geoff Hooned.

Grilled lamb rump with smashed chickpeas


This is a great quick supper. The marinating time aside (and if you can only do it for 15 minutes, so be it), this can be from cooker to plate in under ten minutes.

Serves 2

2 lamb rump steaks
A small clove of garlic, crushed
A handful of parsley, finely chopped
A few rosemary leaves, finely chopped
A red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
2 anchovy fillets, finely chopped
Juice of half a lemon
Olive oil
1 tin of chickpeas
Salt and pepper

Toss the lamb in the crushed garlic, herbs, chilli, anchovy and lemon juice. Add a little olive oil, season with pepper and leave for up to 2 hours.

Scrape the marinade off of the lamb (but don't for Pete's sake chuck it away). Stick a frying pan over a strong flame and, when it looks like it's thinking about smoking, add the lamb. Fry for 2 minutes on each side, then remove to a plate to rest.

Drain the chickpeas and cover with water. Pop on a medium heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Drain into a colander. In the same saucepan, heat a little oil and gently fry the marinade for a minute, taking care not to burn the garlic. Return the chickpeas to the pan and smash with a spoon, fork or masher, stirring the marinade through thoroughly. You're not looking for a smooth paste here; rough is how we like it.

Serve with thick slices of lamb and some (preferably cooked) green vegetables.

THE END OF THE RAW VEGAN DIET

Yes, it's finally over. I shall write about it in more detail when I have longer. In the meantime, here is the video of my post-diet lunch in the Hawksmoor. Life-affirming would be an understatement.

PS Don't be alarmed by length of video - it's half that length with music at the end. That's just how I roll.

Saf, Curtain Road

The one fillip to this bizarre experiment (and it is becoming, day by day, more bizarre) was the knowledge that Saf, the respected raw vegan restaurant in the east end, was just around the corner from my flat. The consolation that I was not the only person in this city who thought the concept of such a diet was anything but ludicrous offered me solace in those darker moments when I found myself seduced even by the lusty, crass allure of the kebab shop opposite. Let me tell you, that nondescript gobbet of flesh might as well be a rib of wagyu beef when, at midnight, you realise that you have eaten nothing hot, nor proteinaceous, nor truly delicious, for 10 days.

Of course, I had received mixed reviews about Saf. Some said it was wonderful, some said it was dire. (I'm not sure why I just wrote that. Surely the term "mixed reviews" intimates that opinions differed on the subject, so quite why I had to emphasize this in such a tautological manner I don't know. It must be the lack of protein. (NB lack of protein may lead to short temper and attention span)). But somewhere that so gauchely serves nothing but raw vegan food is always going to cause some controversy, and so off I went for lunch, in the hope that this eternal nightmare of salad and fruit (I'm afraid the will to 'try new things' disappeared along with my will to live) could be tempered by a lunch that was more remarkable than what I had been eating for the previous week. I wasn't entirely disappointed.

The restaurant itself sits on Curtain Road, just off Old Street. A long, clean room with a conservatory at the end, it is a pleasant space, but on this occasion it was also a very empty space. Perhaps Wednesday lunchtime is never the most rollocking of shifts in any restaurant, yet it struck me that Saf was plugging one small demographic. Of the estimated 180,000 vegans in the UK, let's reckon there are 15,000 in London (a generous assumption; surely most of them live in the woods). Then let's assume that of that 15,000, 1500 live in the catchment area of Saf (a more realistic figure - vegans tend to migrate to Hackney). Of that 1500, the number of them that are going to shaft £30 on lunch midweek is, well - there were about 5 of us in there.

I started with the beetroot ravioli with cashew herb ricotta (pictured above). It arrived quickly, as well it should have done, being raw (though there was some suspicious sizzling coming from the kitchen). It did not arrive, however, with the asparagus, carrot and fennel salad, balsamic figs and pumpkin oil, as promised by the menu. Instead it was accompanied by a pile of celeriac remoulade. This went completely over my head, as I had forgotten what it said on the menu (did I mention short attention span?), and so I piled into it uncomplainingly, being a big fan of remoulade anyway. The first mouthful was like nothing I'd ever tasted before, and as such was rather alarming. My recollection of the menu being as it was, the lump of stodge gluing together the two slices of beetroot was a complete mystery, and like putting any mysterious matter in one's mouth, unpleasant. Yet it won me over. Whether this was down to the rich meatiness of the filling, or my fetish for beetroot in any way, shape, or form, I don't know, but the dish was a great success, and as fulfilling a thing as I had eaten for some time.

Next I ordered a Pad Thai of courgette noodles with enoki mushrooms and mung shoots. Once again the menu had misled me, there being no mung shoots, replaced instead by manges tout (though this deception also escaped my notice until I looked at the menu later that day). It was pretty standard nosh for an experienced raw vegan like myself, consisting of those staple flavour-boosters of chilli, sesame, lime and coriander. It did, however, come with the added nudge of chipotle sauce, its rich smokiness adding a great deal of interest to an otherwise familiar plate. But something smelled fishy. Literally. And it was making me gag. It transpired that this rancid piscine whiff was coming from the seaweed that lined the bowl. It was like eating raw vegan food whilst someone wafted last month's sushi under my nose, and it ruined any enjoyment of an otherwise tidy and well-conceived dish.

So, as pleonastically predicted, Saf is a bit of a mixed bag. There is no doubting the inventiveness of the food, nor the skill in the not-cooking. For a vegan it is a triumph that such an impressive restaurant exists. But strip away the context and focus on the food and the food alone, and there is little that sticks with me besides the stench of seaweed clinging to my nostrils and the memory of the waiter's insistence on calling me 'mate'.

The perils of raw veganism and alcohol

I have a confession to make. I have not stuck completely to my raw ve-guns. This is what happened. I went to a friend's for dinner last night, already hungry from a day's disastrous eating - a lunch of thai coconut soup went awry when I had the mexico idea of trying to blend raw carrot and ended up with something like a cold curdled curry. The soup actually had potential. Coconut milk, ginger, chilli, lime zest and juice, coriander, grated carrot and cucumber. It tasted good - its texture was not. Later that afternoon, passing a grocer, I scooped up an apple - a bad apple, it turns out. I have always said that the definition of disappointment is biting into a furry apple. On this occasion that crunchless mouthful was less a case of disappointment and more one of abject despair.

So I was famished. But my transgression didn't come in the shape of food. No, I was tricked, heartlessly, mercilessly, wonderfully, into drinking bourbon, the sweet brown liquor slipped surreptitiously into a simple but delicious cocktail with cranberry and lime (Nic's invention, so says he). Bourbon is cooked, I was later told, and so I had technically slipped up. Technically. But I was not about to start feeling guilty - 9 days had passed and not a morsel had passed my lips that wasn't kosher. I was, however, about to start getting horrifically pissed. It transpires that drinking on an empty stomach is not a wise venture, and by the end of cocktail number one I was already feeling oiled. 5 hours later I was playing the piano in Last Days of Decadence on Shoreditch High Street. In my head I sounded like Rachmaninov. I probably sounded more like the submissions for the under 7s piano competition at Ripon Cathedral Choir School (there is some hazy recollection of chopsticks being wheeled out at one point). I certainly had a rip through my piano staple, Neil Young 'Till the Morning Comes'. Unfortunately when the morning did finally come, I found myself nursing the most almighty hangover since the fall of the Berlin Wall. If you did happen to be in Last Days last night, I apologise for ruining your evening.

While veganism might have stilted my own musicality last night, it certainly worked all right for some. Here is my ultimate vegan playlist, with Spotify to boot:

Meat Is Murder - The Smiths
Close to Me - The Cure
Get Gone - Fiona Apple
Porcelain - Moby
Monty Got A Raw Deal - R.E.M.
Lime in da Coconut - Harry Nilsson
My Sweet Lord - George Harrison
Suzanne - Leonard Cohen
Don't Get Me Wrong - The Pretenders
Nothing Compares 2 U - Sinead O'Connor

Spotify playlist: Vegan Vibe: http://open.spotify.com/user/jteramsden/playlist/35LZEwuBebIEHaxUbnT5KA

Raw vegan experiment - Week 1, done.

'Glosoli' - Sigur Ros