Supermarket scavenging

It's remarkable what you can sniff out at the meat counter in the supermarket if you time your run. In Sainsbury's yesterday I managed to purloin 3 sirloin steaks for £4.50 (down from £20/kg to £.650!), a kilo of sausages for £2 and a lamb neck fillet for £1.80. The trick, I believe, is to rock up a couple of hours before closing, when they are really just trying to fob off any meat that will be past its sell-by in the next couple of hours.

I had never tackled lamb neck before, but was aware that, like squid or octopus, it's a case of either fiendishly hot, quick cooking, or long and slow. Anywhere in between and you will end up with something akin to a handbag in texture. In spite of giving the meat a good rest, I was still a wee bit alarmed by how rare it was, as in my book, lamb is best served medium to medium well done, having the tendency to be chewy if served too pink. Yet the neck was incredibly soft and tender and, sat lazily on a bed of pearl barley, with the zip of vinegary roast beetroot to lift this rich and frugal supper, was a very successful foray into the latest and trendiest 'cheap cut'.

Lamb neck fillet with pearl barley and roast beetroot

Serves 1

1 large beetroot
A few thyme leaves
Cyder vinegar
Olive oil
Tin foil

1 tablespoon chopped shallot
A good handful of chopped parsley
80g pearl barley
50ml red wine
500ml hot chicken stock

A 300g lamb neck fillet
A little red wine and stock

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Quarter the beetroot or cut into chunks. Place on a large sheet of tin foil, drizzle with vinegar, olive oil and thyme leaves and season with salt and pepper. Wrap up in the foil and roast for 45 minutes. Allow to cool - this only needs to be served a little warm.

Meanwhile, soften the shallot in a little oil with salt and pepper. Stir in the parsley and pearl barley and add the red wine. Simmer for a minute or two, then add the stock. Simmer gently uncovered for an hour, stirring occasionally.

Season the neck fillet with salt and pepper and rub with olive oil. Get a heavy-based frying or griddle pan smoking hot and add the lamb. Fry for 4 minutes on each side, remove to a warm plate to rest for a good 10 minutes.

Add some wine and stock to the frying pan and scrape up all the lovely caramelised juices. Slice the lamb thickly and serve with the pearl barley and beetroot, drizzled with the remaining cooking juices.

Fish and Chips

Are there two happier words in the gastronomic world, honestly? I'm not suggesting this would be my final meal, not by a long shot. Roast chicken remains firmly at the top of that list, followed by, I suppose, roast lamb in some form or other, or a beautiful, quivering tarte a l'oignons, with buttery pastry that crumbles in the mouth. Or perhaps a steaming bowl of pasta, the noodles hugged generously by a rich ragu, a snowdrift of Parmesan on top might be a worthy last mouthful.

It's just that there is something completely and wonderfully naughty about fish and chips. Maybe it's our culture of instant gratification, but I think the lines run deeper. As a young boy we'd go every Saturday to Drakes in Ripon (though the slightly further Southgate Fisheries was always superior), and I remember the drive home being utterly interminable, the waft of vinegary, crisp batter and slightly soggy newspaper making my tongue do a little jig all of its own, as if warming up for the heavenly onslaught that edged ever closer. Later, when in my teens, I'd spend August driving a tractor for Dad during harvest, often late into the night. When this was the case he'd pitch up at some point in the evening clutching that paper parcel of joy and a can of Tetley's. Reward for hard work. Fish and chips remains, in my eyes, the last bastion of completely acceptable British fast food.

It must be the association of hard work with fish and chips that led me to making some yesterday. I'd been in the library most of the weekend and needed some relief. There's actually a chippy nearby in Clifton that I haven't ventured into yet, but I felt doing it myself would be lighter, cheaper and, well, better. Incidentally, does anyone know the chippy I mean? It's round the corner from the Quadrant on Princess Victoria Street....let me know if it's any good. (I have since been. It's bloody awful).

Trout and chips with crushed peas and parsley

Serves 1

2 medium spuds
2 medium trout fillets
1 egg
2 heaped tablespoons plain flour
A good handful of peas
1 tablespoon freshly chopped parsley
Lemon
Salt, pepper, paprika and oil

Cut the potatoes into wedges and bring to the boil in a pan of salted water. Simmer until cooked (15 minutes or so), drain. Heat a couple of tablespoons oil in a frying pan and add the wedges, frying on each side until golden. Remove from the pan and keep warm in the oven.

Put a small pan of water on the boil for the peas. Season the flour with salt, pepper and a tiny bit of paprika. Beat the egg. Dip the fish into the egg, shake off a little, then toss in the flour, again shaking off the excess. In the same pan that you fried the spuds in, add the fish, skin side down. Fry for 3 minutes on each side. Meanwhile, boil the peas for 3 minutes. Drain, add the parsley and season with salt and pepper. Gently crush with a potato masher.

Dry the fish on kitchen paper and serve with the chips and peas, and a good squeeze of lemon.

Stuffed fillet of pork

I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to let this thing slip again, but unfortunately I have been under the academic kosh these past couple of weeks so any gastronomic scribing has had to be put on hold. My new year's resolution was actually to keep a food diary - scribblings of recipes and recipe ideas, and magazine cut outs of foody stuff. What is it with starting things and not carrying them through? I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Lent is not a time for abstinence, but instead for making everyone feel thoroughly rotten about their failure to stick to their lenten fasts. That said, I'm doing OK. My theory (and it was one shared by the chaplain at school) is that, because lent is actually 47 days long, once a week you can let it slip. So since lent began I have allowed myself two beers, which is not bad going....My parents cut out the booze altogether except for Sundays, Dad going so far as to fast during daylight hours. Nutjob. I'd be interested to hear people's reasons for lenten deprivation - I would gingerly suggest that most of them do not do it on religious grounds, but health. It certainly seems that the vast majority abstain from chocolate, or crisps, or cigarettes. It's a good moment to do it - less indefinite (and thus absolutely no chance of sustaining) than a new years resolution. Let me know how you're getting on.

And what of the new, dairy free life? It's really not all that bad. Well, I say that, I probably dream about cheese or butter in one form or other about 5 days a week, but, rather like when you give up smoking, it is in the context of horror when you dream you've relapsed. Last night I made the first dairy free mash potato, using rapeseed oil instead of butter and milk, and it was really good. When pushed through a ricer, the mash is incredibly smooth, and the oil gives it an interesting texture. Definitely thumbs up. Similarly soya yoghurt - with honey and granola, it is an excellent breakfast. The only thorn being that my blood test results arrived, telling me to avoid sesame seeds and nuts. If anyone has a good homemade granola recipe that I could tinker with, fire it my way - jteramsden@hotmail.com - thanks.

This recipe errs towards restaurant-y, but in a pretty homely way. It doesn't feel too heavy, and is remarkably easy.

Stuffed loin of pork with swede and parsnip bubble and squeak cakes

Serves 4

For the bubble and squeak
A small swede
2 parsnips
1 small savoy cabbage
For the pork
1 shallot or small onion
2 flat field mushrooms
1 tablespoon freshly chopped parsley
1 apple
A little cider vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 fillet of pork, trimmed of any excess fat
6 slices of prosciutto
100ml cider
100ml hot stock
Salt, pepper and oil

N.B. If you're allowed, I'd recommend adding butter to the bubble and squeak.

Kick off by peeling the swede and parsnips, chopping into chunks and bringing to the boil in salted water. Meanwhile, finely slice the cabbage and steam or boil until tender, drain and blanche in cold water. Once the root veg are cooked, drain and mash thoroughly, or ideally whizz up in a magimix until smooth, adding butter if using, and lots of salt and pepper. Mix with the cabbage and allow to cool (they hold their shape better this way).

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Peel and finely chop the shallot and soften in a little oil. Finely chop the mushrooms and add to the pan. Increase the heat and stir for a minute or two until the mushrooms start to soften. Grate the apple into the stuffing, add a dash of vinegar and the mustard. Stir through, season, and take off the heat.

Lay the prosciutto slices out alongside each other, overlapping at the edges. Lay the thicker half of the pork fillet over the ham and pile the stuffing on top. Fold the other half of the pork over the top of the stuffing, and wrap up tightly with the prosciutto. Tie up, if necessary, though the natural oils in the prosciutto should act as a glue. Heat an oven proof-frying pan over a lively flame with a little oil, and quickly brown the pork on all sides, before popping in the oven for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, shape the bubble and squeak into cakes. After 20 minutes are up, remove the pork to a warm resting plate, and put the pan back over a medium flame. Add the cider and stock and simmer for 10 minutes or so, scraping any caramelised meat juices off the pan. Meanwhile, heat a little oil in a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat, and fry the bubble and squeak cakes for 4 minutes on each side.

Slice the pork and serve with the bubble and squeak and a drizzle of gravy.

Heaven nose I'm mooserable now....

I went to the doctor yesterday. Bad news I'm afraid. Apparently I might be lactose intolerant.

For as long as I can remember I have carried a handkerchief as a result of my nose running endlessly. Last year I'd had enough, and went to the doctor to try and work out what was wrong with me. My septum was so deviated from various bashes that my right nostril was pretty much closed up, on top of which I had several polyps, little mucus producing gribblers, taking up residence in my nose - sexy, yes? In June I had the septum straightened and the polyps removed. This made little or no difference.

So yesterday I went to a complementary medicine clinic where I had my toe prodded to see what I was allergic to. As feared, I was told to avoid dairy completely for 4 weeks and see what happens. That means no milk, no butter, no cheese, no fun. Breakfast is a complete nightmare - no cereal, obviously. No butter on toast - I am quite fond of Tahini as a good alternative but there is only so much peanut butter (Tahini's 1st cousin) and jam a man can eat. No yoghurt and muesli, no tea with milk in it. Lunch is more manageable. Indeed as I write there is a carrot and coriander soup bubbling away next door. But no swirl of cream on top of that for the Larder Lout.

It's the cheese that I'm really, really going to miss. Cheese on toast for lunch, generous snowdrifts of Parmesan on a bowl of pasta, a chunk of maturest cheddar and a nip of peaty whisky on a cold night, oozy bits of brie flopping lazily on hunks of french bread whilst sitting in the August sun with a cold glass of rose. Were this parchment I was writing on and not a blog, it would be stained with my teardrops.

So I'm in a bit of quandary guys, and urgently needing cooking suggestions. It's not that I relied on dairy products before particularly, it's just that now I'm not allowed them, they're all I can think about. The only upside is the benefit to my health. No dairy for a month, coupled with being off beer and cider for lent should do wonders...

So people, throw some thoughts my way - you, friends, family with the same problem, fave recipes, when you stop having cheese nightmares, that kind of thing...would be good to know.

Ciao for now.

Falling unlike Domino's...

No wonder nobody has any money at the moment, if Domino's latest figures are anything to go by. Somehow, impossibly, their profits are 10% up on last year. This makes no sense. The smallest, 'personal' pizza, costs a whopping £5.99. And I am not using this word with even a noodle of irony, because that is a whopping price for what you are getting. I'm not sure it's even worth my highlighting the health implications of eating a Domino's pizza - it's clearly not a salad. My beef is with the horde of people seen on the news almost daily complaining about lack of money. Now, I'm not for a second suggesting that they are lying, or that they all eat daily at Domino's, but someone must be. And it is a fantastic waste of money, it really is. Six quid can go a hell of a long way, food-wise, yet people are seduced into believing that a take-away pizza, or a trip to a dreaded All-You-Can-Hold-Down Chinese buffet is somehow a bargain. It is not. End of story.

For what I reckon cost me a pound, I had one of the best, impulsive pasta dishes I have had in a long time the other night. Incredibly simple, quicker than ordering a pizza and with little more washing up, it was a prime example of how even at moments lacking inspiration, time, or energy, it can be so easy to throw together a delicious supper.

Tagliatelle with leeks, mushrooms and creme fraiche


Serves 1

100g Tagliatelle
1 medium leek, trimmed, washed, and cut diagonally in thick slices
1 large field mushroom, sliced
1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley
1 tablespoon reduced fat creme fraiche
A squeeze of lemon juice
Salt, pepper and olive oil
Parmesan cheese

Bring some salted water to the boil and thrown in your pasta.

Heat a little oil in a large saute or sauce pan. Add the leeks, mushrooms and parsley, season and stir over a medium-high heat for 5 minutes. Reduce the heat and add the creme fraiche and lemon juice. Simmer for a minute or two. Drain the pasta when cooked, and toss into the sauce. Season with more pepper (it likes pepper, does this) and serve with some freshly grated Parmesan. Don't wait for the doorbell to ring, don't hand over any money.

Roast squash and goat's cheese risotto

Risotto is still a somewhat misunderstood entity for many Brits. When I say many Brits, I mean at least my grandmother, and I imagine many others besides. For Grannie, risotto translates as 'ricey graveyard for leftovers' - any kind of rice (but preferably not risotto rice) slung in the oven with vegetables and perhaps some leftover chicken. Is she unique, or are there others who take this view? Either way, it's not really what risotto is all about.

For starters, it needs to be a particular kind of rice. A medium-grained, starchy rice, the main ones used in Italy being Vialone Nano, Carnaroli and Arborio (the one least used in Italy, most used in the UK). The idea is that the rice releases starch in the cooking, making it stickier and creamier than, say, basmati, and at the same time absorbs the stock and other flavours used in the dish.

And this is the fun part. Once you have got beyond the standard technique used to make a white risotto, it is a fantastic canvas on which to paint. This does not mean putting half of the larder into it, but instead using one or two carefully chosen ingredients to add body, flavour, and texture. This version is a little more time consuming than others, in that there are three separate processes, but I promise it is worth the effort, and if you keep on top the washing up you shouldn't have a filthy kitchen by the end of cooking.

Roast sqaush and goat's cheese risotto

Serves 4

1 small squash - I used Sweet Mama from the veg box, butternut would be grand
1 red onion, peeled and sliced thickly
6 cloves garlic
A few sprigs of thyme
1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped
300g risotto rice
1 glass white wine
2 litres of hot vegetable or chicken stock
50g goat's cheese

Preheat the oven to 220C.

Peel and deseed the squash, and cut into large chunks. Put 75% of these in a roasting tray with the red onion, garlic and thyme, toss in olive oil, salt and pepper, and roast for 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, boil the remaining squash in salted water and liquidize.

Heat a little butter in a large saute pan and stir in the chopped onion. Season, cover, and leave over a low heat for 5 minutes, taking care not to burn it. Remove the lid, increase the heat and add the rice. Stir for a couple of minutes before adding the wine. Once the wine has reduced add a ladle of stock. Continue stirring, adding stock each time the rice has absorbed the previous batch. After 15-17 minutes taste the rice. It should be a couple of minutes away from being cooked. Adjust the seasoning and stir in the pureed squash, goat's cheese, and most of the roasted squash, and a final ladle of stock. Turn off the heat but continue stirring for a couple more minutes.

Serve the risotto in warmed bowls, with a few chunks of roasted squash and red onion on top.

Cosmo Pan-Asian Restaurant, Bristol

There is not a sharp enough pencil to describe the horror that will greet you if you are brave enough to venture into Cosmo, the new pan-Asian, all-you-dare-to-eat buffet on the Triangle. The place is a study in how badly one can get a restaurant wrong, a lesson in crashing mediocrity, vile cynicism, and loveless cooking; an experiment in just how low people will stoop in order to save a few pennies. You are not a customer in Cosmo, you are a commodity, someone to be pillaged for money and then cast back into the street.

For one thing, you are press-ganged into paying on arrival – whether this is because they don’t trust people to pay the bill or because they are aware that, after a meal so abhorrent, few sober people will be willing to part with their money, who can say? Either way, this charmless, industrial service made one very uneasy. Having had your money practically fleeced from you at gunpoint, you are then led, not to a table in the light window – which may well have been what attracted you to this place originally – but down, down, down, past the buffets and into the nuclear bunker at the back. It is like eating in a submarine – airless, dark, claustrophobic, and unsettling. Waiters seem more like minions, all geared up with headsets, at the other end of which was presumably either the Samaritans helpline or the restaurant manager/commander barking orders at them. When at one point a waitress dropped a plate, we half-expected her to fall to the floor, gunned down by some invisible sniper.

It seems almost redundant to mention the food, as you know by now that it is going to be nothing short of apocalyptic, but it seems churlish to write a restaurant review without bringing it up (which, incidentally, I almost did on several occasions). For a place that apparently prides itself on fresh, healthy cooking, the starters were either a postscript of this notion, or somebody had accidentally dropped most of them into a deep fat fryer on their way to the buffet. The rather disconcertingly named ‘dragon’s balls’ were wan and sludgy and lacking in any discernible provenance, and the spring rolls were about as palatable as a jockstrap. The spare ribs were just about edible, and while the satay tasted OK, the chicken (and this went for every chicken dish) was alarmingly soft, not in a perfectly cooked kinda way but in a what-the-fuck-is-this kinda way. Question upon question begs itself. Has the prawn toast ever actually encountered a prawn? What really is the chef’s special? Did my dragon’s ball just move?

Out of the frying pan of the starters and into the fire of the mains. What have we here at our authentic Asian buffet? It’s sausage and chips! Can you bloody believe it? Perhaps they were the best sausage and chips in town, perhaps they would have rescued this car crash of a lunch, it doesn’t really matter – we were there for Asian food, for better or for worse, and that’s what we ate. The beef in green peppers with black bean sauce was like eating an oily shoe, only, somehow, even worse. Let’s try some of the ‘chef’s special balls’ (seriously, what is this testicular obsession? It’s like a 14-year-old wrote the menu). Nope, they’re disgusting too. Lamb stir-fried ‘Mongolian style’ (almost sounds like a threat) certainly helped to explain why Genghis Kahn was such a belligerent little bugger – if I had to eat this kind of swill on a daily basis I’d be waging some pretty serious wars myself. It was monstrous. Ditto duck pancakes, chicken madras, and Thai green curry – all just dire.

In an attempt to wrestle some sort of positive from what, until now, had been an abject disaster, we bravely had a sniff around the pudding station, which yielded nothing but further disappointment. Jelly that more bounced than wobbled, cakes that looked about as appetizing as a dog’s arse, and strawberry ice cream that we doubted had ever been near a cow or a strawberry, all put the final nail in Cosmo’s coffin. Minutes from a serious panic attack we left the bunker gratefully, vowing to never return.

Surely this is a joke? Somewhere in the Midlands there must be a fat man in a loud suit having a ruddy good laugh at our expense. Because no restaurateur could open a place like Cosmo with a straight face, genuinely believing they were offering an authentic Asian experience to their diners. Sausage and chips? Pull the other one.

If anyone else has been to the Bristol Cosmo, or any of the other ones, for that matter, let me know your thoughts.