The Belly Rules The Mind

Miracle Fruit

2010-01-25T20:38:00.004Z

Miracle Fruit is something that I've been wanting to try for a while. As I alluded to recently, a friend had managed to get hold of some from somewhere and ever eager to try out anything new, I was literally giddy with excitement about the prospect of scrambling my tastebuds. For those that don't know, Miracle Fruit (Synsepalum dulcificum) is a small berry which essentialluy turns sour and bitter things sweet.

After I'd made a brief mention on my blog of Miracle Fruit, I was approached by mberry.us, who offered me some of their tablets to try out. Confident they would withstand the Pepsi Challenge against the berry, I was more than happy to give them a go and give them my verdict.

Fast forward about a month and an issue with the post, they arrived in tact (and may I say, some rather swish packaging) and I promised I would give them my 'Kent Brockman'.

In a nutshell, I could honestly, hand on heart, tell no difference between the fruit and tablets. They were absolutely brilliant.

Mme Phantom and I spent Saturday night raiding the cupboard for various sauces, liquids, fruits and food to sample once the tablet had dissolved.
Vinegar tasted like sherry, Guinness (bought specially for the evening) had pseudo-chocolate overtones; lemons tasted oh so sweet and delicious (like lemon sherbert or fresh lemonade), sweetened Japanese vinegar tastes like caramel; pommegranate just tasted sweet, with no bitterness and limes... Oh my goodness... THE LIMES. It wasn't not all eye-opening though. Lager tastes rank (although it always tastes rank in my opinion) and raw sugar felt like sand in your mouth.
The way it works, is that you dissolve a tablet in your mouth and then you're good to go. Hardly a difficult preparation procedure, really. I think they'll be wonderful for dinner parties as an 'after meal sensation'. I'm currently trying to establish how to incorporate them into a meal - mainly, with a bizarre food combination which will only work with Miracle Fruit.
mberry offer a range of Miracle Fruit products from the fresh berries themselves to the dried tablets I tried. I had a scoot around other Miracle Fruit vendors and their prices were cheaper (the next nearest I found for 20 berries was £19.99). I'm unsure as to whether shipping to the UK would preclude the fresh berries themselves, however in all honesty, why bother when you can just use the tablets. Simply brilliant. You can follow mberry on twitter at mymberry They also have a Facebook group under the name 'mberry' (but you have to request to join, not become a fan - sort it out guys!)

Anyway, apologies for the poor shot again. I have a new camera on my new MEGA-SUPER DELUXE Nokia N900 that is being kicked around a sorting office at the moment by underpaid Vodafone staff. When that arrives, then we're in business. Sorry, IF it arrives... but that's another story

BBC Good Food Show 2009

2009-11-29T21:04:00.016Z

It's the weekend of the BBC Good Food Show in Birmingham and earlier last week, they contacted me offering two free tickets! Did I turn them down? Did I bobbins, since those that know me best would no doubt testify, free is my favourite price.

Friday morning, we put on our walking shoes, some comfortable clothing tootled off down the M42 and made merry with the beautiful people of the food world - along with half of the planet, it transpired - to the NEC in Birmingham. We arrived shortly after 9am and got our tickets from the press registration area. In we went. I was literally giddy with excitement.

Goodness me, was it just heaven for food-lovers! Stall after stall of different types of food, beverages, cookware and in one corner, drunken people going 'fa fa fa' about various wines, spirits and beers. It was, in all honesty, fabulous. I don't think I can really pick a favourite stall - and indeed, with such lovely food at every corner, would it be fair? Well, oh, go on then. I really enjoyed the Port of Lancaster Smokehouse stall. They were really friendly and I chatted with the chap on there for a while about their products. We bought some kippers, rabbit and smoked garlic from there and I'll be mentioning them again soon, I'm sure. During my adventures with the stallholders, I was more interested in hearing from the smaller enterprises, as opposed to the larger companies and how the methods they use to make their products have largely remained unchanged over time. Everyone was really friendly and helpful and it made for a very rewarding experience.

At about 11am it suddenly became very busy indeed. So much so, that I started to get :-(. I hate how rude people get when there's a big crowd. People start shoving and pushing, tutting and so forth. It was, for a brief hour, a hell-hole. We decided to take refuge in a deserted cafe and relax.

I think I'm going to do some pieces on some of the people I'd mingled with at the show between now and Christmas. Some will be a shameless plug about the company; some will be general chit-chat about products based on what we bought and have eaten since. Stay tuned.

In terms of what we got from there to eat and take home, we got lots. Oh my, did we spend.

Sat here on a Sunday evening, with my brain just about engaging sufficiently with my fingers enough to type, we bought - off the top of my head:

Rabbit
Smoked Garlic
Smoked Kippers
Cereal
Crab
Some Speciality Tea
Rice Oil
"The Best Cheesecake in the World" (and it was!)
A Nutmeg Grater
Some Fancy-Schmancy Garlic Crater

I'm sure there was something else... Oh well, you get the general idea, anyway. We saw John Torode, who amazingly, looked to be bereft of vertical stature. I have no idea why I assumed he was an averagely-sized chap, but he was really quite petite. Bless 'im. We also saw Andi Peters, who was presenting the Masterchef Live thingymajig. There was no sign of Ed the Duck accompanying him and reports of his demise at the hands of the Masterchef contestants (as an accompaniment to their orange sauce), remained unsubstantiated.

In the end, after sampling various sausages, oils, bread, cheese, fruit, sauces, sweets, nuts and fish, both I and Mme Phantom waddled around the show looking, unsuccessfully I might add, for a stall selling Rennie. Ill thought out? I should cocoa.

We left about 3pm, thoroughly stuffed, tired and laden with some much goodies we could barely carry them all back to the car. It was a triumph.

Here are some of the pictures for your digestion:

It's the back of the Phantom Chef! Cripes.

Starting to get busy

Cakes! Look, cakes! *drool*

It's a Smokehouse. More on these people soon!

I've been on an absolute cooking frenzy since we came back. I've got a busy week blogging, that's for sure. So far, this week, I will be doing an update on:

Creamy Smoked Garlic Rabbit. Parsnip Mash and Savoy Cabbage
Wood-Pigeon with a Red Wine Sauce, Roasted Chestnuts, Roasted New Potatoes and Creamed Cabbage - I had this for dinner this evening. It. Was. Brilliant
Miracle Fruit - Not something I've cooked per se, but something I'm going to yakk about endlessly

Woodpigeon, Roasted Chestnut Mash, Spiced Jus with Caramelised Onion and Parsnip Crisps

2009-11-21T21:11:00.008Z

Well, hello there.

Today, I went to the local market and bought my fruit and veg for the next week or so and then took a trip to my butchers and picked up a load of meat. My butcher is in Stourbridge and sells top quality meat at very reasonable prices.. A winning combination, obviously.

Anyhoo, the weather was thoroughly miserable today. The rain was more like some kind of eerie mist straight out of a Stephen King book. The pavements were covered in trodden-in leaves and were, in places, a danger to life and limb. A real autumnal Saturday.

While in Stourbridge I went to my usual array of shops, which range from the geeky to the ridiculous - I'm thinking principally Gamestation and Home Bargains. The result? No games, but I did buy a chopping board, which I sorely needed - Hurrah,

Anyway, I was pottering through Stourbridge and lo and behold there was a Farmers Market on. Laden with my meat that I'd bought, I had a quick nose and noticed a game stall - and not of the geeky variety, either. This stall had all manner of game for sale and I picked up some woodpigeon. 8 breasts for £5. Sweet.

So I set to work this afternoon making the dinner. I'd bought, rather fortuitously some chestnuts when getting my fruit and veg this morning and thought I could make some roasted chestnut mash, to go with my freshly bought pigeon.

Now, with game, the obvious sauce to make is red wine based. I think I may have mentioned this before on here, but I'm tea-total, so not having red wine in the house is hardly unusual - although I sometimes have it in for cooking purposes. This however, was not one of those times. My mind harked back to when I had pigeon at the Fat Duck. It was served in 'pickling jus' - so I thought I would make some of that.

For the spiced jus, I used:

About 200ml of water
Some cardamon pods (about 6)
A pinch of cinnemon
A pinch of paprika
About 6 cloves
A pinch of sugar
A couple of drops of lemon juice
A teaspoon of sugar
A dried chilli
A capful of vinegar

I mixed it all together and left it to infuse for about 2 hours. Then I sieved the bits out and left it until I was ready to start cooking. Here it is in the pan, infusing.

The only issue with what I was going to make was the sheer amount of last-minute processes that I was going to be required to complete. The very fact the pigeon cooks almost instantly presented all kinds of problems, so I apologise for the following amount of information in advance. Try and keep up - it was worth it in the end!

To make the mash, I roasted about 10 chestnuts in the oven on Gas Mark 8 for 20 minutes. I skinned them and whacked them in the food processor until they were chopped finely. I left them to one side to cool, until the rest of the mash was done, so they could be incorporated.

When I was ready. I then salted the potatoes and cooked them on the hob and added black pepper, milk and pepper when they were done, just before I added the chestnuts and they were ready to serve. As this was doing, I caramelised the onion in muscovado sugar and put them in the oven on a reduced heat (Gas Mark 1) to keep warm.

I finely chopped some mushrooms and grated some parsnip very thinly and fried them off in the pan. I set them aside in the oven while I completed the rest of the dish

I then heated up the jus and added half a teaspoon of arrowroot to thicken it up and while it was thickening I finally heated up the griddle pan and added the pigeon breasts. They needed 3 minutes either side and they were very pink, which was absolutely perfect. I assembled the food on the plate and oh boy, did it taste good.

It was probably the best thing I have ever created. It just all came together and the seasonality of the whole dish really made it for me. The sweet, yet lightly spiced jus on the delicate, yet distinctive pigeon flavour was a real winner. The mash was superb. There really are no words. It was nutty, creamy and it really was a taste of autumn on a plate.

Frustratingly, I really need to source a camera. It's genuinely doing my head in. The pictures in no way do the meal - or indeed the presentation, justice. I think I can source one for my next update, so until then, you'll have to suffer the turgid colour and resolution of my iPhone (and excuse the kitchen roll in the background. Sorry.

Eat well!

Moroccan Lamb, Couscous, Kebabs and Coconut Foam

2009-11-14T17:57:00.005Z

Hey!

The weather is dreadful. The wind is howling and mother nature is currently attempting to drown all living creatures with the rain. Yikes! What better time to shut myself away in the kitchen and pretend I'm in a different country. To that end, I decided that I would get the lamb chops which I'd put in the freezer a couple of weeks ago out, allowed them to defrost and then attempted to make my version of a popular dish, Moroccan Lamb. Now, I love lamb. I'm not talking about those fluffy little things skipping gaily around a field. I'm talking lamb in the sense of 'on my plate, in my mouth' lamb. You know what I mean?

I really didn't know what the final dish was going to look like. I wanted to use culinary foam; ideally coconut. I wanted the sweetness of the foam to be balanced by some spices. Anyway, I opened up my cupboards, donned my thinking cap and got cracking. To set the scene more clearly, here is me, in my thinking cap:

Firstly, I created the coconut foam mixture. For this, I simply followed my own recipe, which can be found here.

I then blended some spices in my pestle and mortar to coat the lamb chops in, which included

Turmeric
Cinnamon
Cloves
Salt
Pepper
Paprika
Ginger
Tiny-eeny-weeny bit of sugar.

I seasoned the lamb and coated the chops in the spices. I left them on the side for about an hour and half. That done, I made up the kebabs, with:

Onion
Yellow Pepper
Mushroom
Red Pepper
Tomato
Green Pepper

I hope you're keeping up with this! I then prepared the couscous. For this, I used

Lemon juice
Black Pepper
Thinly sliced garlic clove
A handful of sultanas
Onion, caramelised in muscovado sugar and a drip of balsamic vinegar

I cooked the kebabs in the oven with a sprinkling of olive oil on Gas Mark 8 for about 20 minutes. Then while this was doing I made up the couscous and left it to absorb the water I'd boiled. With the frying pan beginning to crackle with the oil I'd just put on, I started to cook the chops.

When the chops were cooked, I plated up. I got the foam out of the fridge and added the foam as a finishing touch.

It sounds a lot more processes and more hectic than it actually was.

The first thing you'll notice about this, is that I haven't got a new camera! However, the colourful nature of the dish was really quite pleasing on the eye. But of course, was it pleasing on the tastebuds? Well, this blog post doesn't come with a confessional corner warning, so you can be assured that I found the whole meal worked very well. If I was being overly critical - and we're talking nit-picking really - I would do it again with 1 less kebab and slightly fewer cloves. However, as something I made up out of my head on a wet Saturday afternoon, I was really rather chuffed with it.

Eat well - and if you go out, remember your brolly!

Citrus Soufflé

2009-10-24T17:18:00.000+01:00

Having recovered from the male version of H1N1 that had over-taken my body for the last couple of weeks, I decided to have a bash at making a soufflé this afternoon. Saturday is my 'faffing about in the kitchen' day. Saturday mornings are usually spent at the local Market buying all manner of fresh fruit and veg for the week at insultingly low prices. If my arms don't ache from carrying the goods back to the car, the trip has been an unqualified failure. So anyway, back from the market and with the house-work done, I decided to set to making a treat.

A little known fact about soufflé is that a Serbian scientist proved in 1987 that they are the best dessert of all time and if you didn't agree you're a Communist and a deviant. So there.

Eagle-eyed readers may recall a soufflé that my grandmother made last year. It was a total triumph and because soufflé is the greatest dessert ever made, I thought I'd have a bash at it. I followed the same recipe as I blogged about before, but added a tablespoon of Grand Marnier into the mix to give the flavour a bit more depth. Hurrah. Interestingly, this recipe doesn't use a bain marie, which most souffle recipes require. Also, this time, it only needed the 10 minutes at Gas Mark 7, not the extra 5 at Gas Mark 4.

Anyway, as you can see, it certainly beat a slice of cake in an afternoon.

It tasted just superb. It was light, tangy and sweet. The Grand Marnier was a nice addition and proved an additional layer of flavour, which blended nicely into the citrus of the orange and lemon. They're difficult to get right - in fact, in terms of getting it right. Every. Single. Time. it's probably one of the most challenging things I've come across. This recipe that I use does however have a 100% hit rate.

Happy eating!

P.s Don't forget the clocks go back tonight. I'm refusing to bow to this and I'm going to live an hour in the future. I'll send all you suckers a postcard :-)

Cauliflower and Cumin Soup

2009-10-24T16:45:00.003+01:00

It's going to be a double-post day! I'm kicking off with something which should rightfully be on my sister-blog. But since I've recently revived The Belly Rules The Mind, I thought I would post this here instead.

I'd like to claim credit for this soup, which was eaten on a cold, dank, miserable Sunday evening last week, but I can't. This soup was entirely the invention of Mlle Phantom using the following ingredients

Half a cauliflower
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1.5 pints of vegetable stock
1 onion
1oz butter
1 bay leaf
Dash of double cream
Salt and Pepper to taste

Mlle Phantom sweated the onions, half the cumin and bay leaf in the butter for five minutes. Just before they are about to turn brown, she added in the cauliflower and coated them in the onion and butter mix.

Following that, she poured in the stock and the rest of the cumin and simmered for about 20 minutes. she then added in the cream and stirred. She removed the bay leaf and then poured it into a blender and whizzed it until smooth.

It's at this point that she added the seasoning. Back on the pan to heat up again and it was ready to serve with some fresh bread, still warm from the breadmaker. Delicious.

The soup was just the ticket to combat that 'I've got to go to work tomorrow; the rain is coming down and it's dark by 6.30' feeling that you get at this time of the year. The heat from the cumin resting neatly along the flavour of the cauliflower. The texture was just right. A good blitz in the blender ensured that it lost the grainy feeling. I think if you sieved it, and served up a slice of crispy, salty bacon with it in some form, it would work as a seriously good flavour combination and amuse bouche.

A final thought really, I really need a new camera. The iPhone is many things, but it's pretty shocking. Donations greatfully received. It really doesn't do the soup justice as it looks so washed out. Rest assured, it tasted a gajillion (yes, that's a number) times better than it looked.

Home-made Bread

2009-10-14T10:00:00.006+01:00

I'm sat here on my virtual deathbed. 50% of the population call it 'man flu'; 50% call it DEATH DISEASE. I'll let you, gentle reader be the judge of what I'm infected with. To assist in your deliberations though, this is me. Right now...

On to more important things. Bread. Now, I love bread. Nothing beats a nice crusty chunk of bread with some soup, or big, fat sandwiches for work. Also, nothing beats the smell of a bakery, which is a fact upon which I think we can all agree. I've been meaning to do an update on homemade bread for absolutely ages. Ever since I was given a breadmaker for my 28th birthday, in fact. So today, with the absence of work and a fresh loaf baked last night, I thought now was as good-a-time as any.

In the dark ages, y'know when women didn't have the vote, an honest job was working t'mines, Noel Edmunds was a popular TV celebrity and I didn't have my wonder-machine, I was never into the pre-sliced, bog-standard loaves that you could buy in bright polythene and tried, where possible, to get them from the bakery in a supermarket or, indeed, a bakery. I never quite realised however, to what extent actually owning a breadmaker would change my life. I make about 3 loaves a week, which sees to all sandwiches and toast and it tastes THE BEST.

Admittedly, being an impatient male, the 3hrs 24min it takes to make is agony - particularly in view of the smells emanating from the kitchen in the last hour - but it's so worth it in the end.

It took a while to get what I would consider to be, the perfect loaf. I'd used various recipes, with differing proportions of the ingredients, to varying degrees of success. I then tried various yeasts. There's the bread yeast which you just add in straight from the packet and then there's the yeast that you have to activate first in a sugar solution. This is my preferred version.

Anyway, onto the recipe. I have my breakmaker set to the following:

Dark crust
500g
3hrs 24min

I use the following ingredients for a basic white loaf:

600g of strong white flour
1 Tbsp yeast
1 Tbsp granulated sugar
1 Tsp salt
A knob of butter
13fl oz of warm water (split up to activate the yeast)

Add the ingredients together and press 'go'. You'll note that I use 600g of flour on a 500g setting. That's experience kicking in. That provides a more-dense loaf, which makes the bread easier to slice and use in sandwiches. Too airy and while light, it makes handling slices too difficult.

The great thing is of course, is once you have the basics down, the versatility of the bread is only limited by your imagination. Herbs (my personal favourite is dried rosemary), spices, oats, sultanas etc. It's just delicious.

I'm back! - Oh and How to Make Tarte Tatin.

2009-10-09T18:35:00.005+01:00

Yes, hello, it's me and I'm back.

In fact I'll let you in on a little secret; I've never been away. I have been here all the time, but not doing anything of any merit. My return was planned for a few weeks ago - and I'd got the perfect occasion to come back for. My aunt's birthday meal. This year I'd perfected Salmon Poached in Liqourice Gel. It was something I'd robbed from the Fat Duck and it was picture (and tastebud) perfect. Annoyingly the batteries on the camera died just as I was about to serve up and this miracle food that I'd prepared and the whole shebang went undocumented. I think it deserves a sad face :-(

Anyway, yes, I'm back and for those of you that have periodically checked on my welfare... thank you. But I'm raring to go with a few ideas for the site which I'll be working on. To kick off basically where I left off, I made tarte tatin tonight. Why? Well aside from it being absolutely brilliantly wonderful, I'd got a spare cooking apple in the fridge and I didn't know what to do with it. I'm not a total masochist so I confess to not using home-made puff pastry. I really do hope I don't get a wise-guy comment about how shop bought is nowhere near as good as home-made. Well, while that's probably very true, I think there are some things in life best left to someone else to do. Cleaning public toilets is one thing. Making puff-pastry is another. So nerrr.

Anyway, for this I used:

1 x Bramley apple
2 Tablespoons of muscovado sugar
1 Tablespoon of Golden Syrup
A knob of butter
A sheet of puff pastry
Cinnamon
A squeeze of lemon juice
1 Teaspoon of Granulated Sugar

Firstly, in a pan I melted down the sugar, syrup and butter. I added the cinnamon to taste and poured it into flan moulds. I placed these in the fridge to cool for about an hour.

I then preheated the oven to Gas Mark 6. I peeled, cored and chopped the apple and took the moulds out of the fridge. I placed the apple on top of the hardened syrup and added the lemon juice. I then covered the apple with puff pastry. I sprinkled sugar on the puff pastry and pricked holes in it.

I then placed into the top of the oven for about 20-25 minutes (I wasn't looking at the time but I'm guessing that's how long it was) until the pastry is golden brown. Remove from the oven, turn upside-down and remove the case.

Serve with vanilla ice cream or double cream (that's what I had).

It was pretty darn tasty, all told. My moulds have removable bases, which meant a lot of the syrup leaked out, which was super annoying - so it was a little sparse on the syrup-side of things. However, it was top notch and a perfect light pudding.

In other news, like a buffoon, I've just joined the magical world of Twitter, so you can find out what I'm having for lunch or even whether one of my staff at work has made my coffee too milky.

It's a bit sparse, because I'm a luddite when it comes to the latest trend, and I've only just signed up so please 'follow me' or whatever people do on there. You can find me at http://twitter.com/thephantomchef, rather predictably. I promise to not become one of those tiresome 'i'm having a sarnie lol' types that you get on Facebook.

On Temporary Hiatus

2008-10-19T22:32:00.002+01:00

Thanks to all who read this blog on a regular basis. I really appreciate it. You'll note that I haven't updated this quite as frequently as I used to. I'm placing this blog on temporary hiatus at the moment, while I sort some stuff out at home. I shall return.

Returned from Holiday + Birthday Lunch

2008-09-11T19:12:00.007+01:00

Greetings!

I haven't posted for a while, due to being on holiday. I went to Vendée in France. I had a lovely time and I'm now back to work which alas isn't as exciting, but there you go!

The day before we left, which was Sunday 1st September, I cooked a birthday lunch for my Aunt. I referred to it in my previous blog post, where James of the always informative Cotswold Food Year, gave me a helpful insight into creating the perfect Quinelle. Unfortunately, I still couldn't master it in time, so I made pearls, using a regular ice-cream scoop. James: It wasn't your instructions at fault, it was my incompetance!

For the meal, I cooked:

Mustard Ice Cream with Red Cabbage Gazpacho

Fennel Ristotto and Scallop

Venison with a Balsamic Shallot Crumble, Beetroot and Pepper Jelly, Truffle Toast and Spiced Wine Reduction

Lemon Bavarois with Lemongrass and Coconut Ice Cream, Lemon Biscuits, with a Champagne Sauce.

Cheese and Biscuits

I started, pretty much on Friday night. I cooked all Saturday, making the neccessary prep for the main cooking on Sunday. I recall cooking 2 loaves of bread, the beetroot and pepper jelly, the bavarois, ice cream x2 and the gazpacho. Sunday I finished it it all off and served it up. Here are some pics.

Here's the truffle toast. I baked a brown loaf, gently toasted it with a blowtourch, added chopped truffles, radishes and parsley. Lovely.

Here are three (of eight) balsamic crumbles. These went down extremely well. In fact, they were cited as being a stand out part of the meal. The sweetness of the balsamic shallots and the crumble topping worked in conjunction with the earthy beetroot jelly. YUM.

Here's one of the mains (click for a better view). You can see the venison nesting on top of the long stem broccoli, with the trffule toast offset on the opposite side of the plate by the (very powerful) beetroot and pepper jelly, which I'd cubed and placed three of on each plate.

Here's the Bavarois, with the biscuit and ice-cream. Very tangy, this dessert pleased everyone. Unfortunately, you can't really see any sauce on it, but it was there (I think!)

They're ready to serve! GO! GO! GO!

A final shot mid-prep. Note the energy drink in the centre of the frame. I needed it!

I have to say, I was very pleased with how it all turned out. I'd put immense effort into it (I think it was my most labour-intensive meal I've ever done), but the end result really worked. There wasn't one dish I wasn't 100% happy with (though I had planned to do sherbet, but could I find citric acid? Could I bobbins). My aunt was chuffed and everyone had a good time.

Eat well! (I did!)

Practice Experiment: Red Cabbage Gazpacho with Mustard Ice Cream

2008-08-25T13:57:00.012+01:00

Greetings.

Is it really a week since I last posted? Blimey, time flies when you've done nothing of any merit. Since I last wrote, I took a delivery of American candy and stuff, which I ordered from here. I ordered 12 cans of Wild Cherry Pepsi, 12 cans of Dr Pepper (Cherry and Vanilla flavour), 2 packets of Jolly Ranchers, 9 packets of Nerds, 2 packets of Fruity Pebbles cereal and 1 packet of Shake 'n Bake (the relevance will become apparent soon). The whole lot arrived the next working day in a huge box and cost me a lung and my left leg. All I'll say is, it wasn't cheap!

Anyway, the reason for this, was, well, I haven't got a reason. I just wanted some sweets and stuff which you couldn't get over here and thought it would be a nice treat. Which it is. The reason I bought Shake n' Bake, which by any conventional reasoning is simply just flavoured breadcrumbs is a story in itself.

When my grandmother used to go to the States to visit my father, she for whatever reason, latched onto Shake 'n' Bake and proclaimed it as the second coming. She used to bring it back and for quite a while, on chops and chicken, we would be eating this American 'delicacy'. Tomorrow is her birthday and as a present to her, I ordered from the importers site, a packet of Shake 'n' Bake. Now, before you bombard me with hate mail, I have got her a 'proper' present, this is merely a joke - but the look on her face is going to be a classic when she opens it up. The whole family know what's coming and have been winding her up about it something chronic - so I can't wait until tomorrow!

In the birthday theme, next week it's my aunt's birthday and she's asked me to go 'all out' and cook her a lunch as her present. I've been thinking about this for quite some time, what precisely I'm going to cook. I think I've finally got most of it nailed with the following:

Mustard Ice Cream with Red Cabbage Gazpacho

I need a dish here (small soufflé, perhaps?)

Venison with a Balsamic Shallot Crumble, Beetroot and Pepper Jelly, Truffle Toast and Spiced Wine Reduction

Cinnamon and Ginger / Vanilla Sherbet Dip

Lemon Bavarois with Lemongrass and Coconut Ice Cream with a Champagne Sauce.

Cheese and Biscuits

To ensure that it isn't going to be a complete horlicks, I decided to make the one dish that I was unsure of recreating in a practice run this morning. Mustard and Red Cabbage Gazpacho. It's a dish I had last month at The Fat Duck and man, was it good. At the time, I said the following:

Mustard ice-cream? Well if you can suspend your disbelief that oysters, passion fruit jelly and lavender can work, then why not this? This was in my top three dishes of the meal. It's something I'm going to have a bash at too. The grain mustard and the cream melted in the mouth. Your first mouthful was very strange, but then the taste became sweet and mustardy (I'm sure that's not a word, but hey) as you would expect. It sat on what I think I identified as very finely (like 1mm) chopped cabbage, perhaps even Sauerkraut and red cabbage gazpacho poured around it. I resisted the temptation to send my soup back for being cold and ploughed through it. High praise from the Phantom Chef on this one - Heston will be pleased no doubt!

I approached this dish with trepidation as it seems so easy and yet the potential for EPIC FAIL due to the ingredients is MASSIVELY HIGH. I set about prepping it last night.

Ok, here is the version I had at The Fat Duck. perfectly presented, the quinelle sat in the Gazpacho and was perfectly formed. The quinelle didn't bleed into the gazpacho either. However, I was less worried about presentation at this point and more about the flavour.

Here, you can see a top down version of my first go. The noticable visual differences being firstly, the bleed of the ice-cream into the gazpacho making it look, well, ropey (!) and secondly, the lightness of my version in comparison. In mine, I used a teaspoon of double cream which gave it a more silky texture. I'm unsure as to whether I'll retain this ingredient in the final version.

To make the Gazpacho I used:

350g Red Cabbage (very thinly sliced)
1tbsp Red Wine Vinegar
125ml of Apple Juice
Some Cayenne Pepper
1 Clove of Garlic (chopped)
Slice of White Bread
1 tsp Double Cream

Place all the ingredients bar the bread and cream into a sealable container for 24 hours in the fridge. Remove from the fridge when required and place into a blender with the bread. Push through a sieve and add the cream. It's then ready to serve.

To make the Ice Cream I used:

250ml Double Cream
50g Caster Sugar
75ml of water
2 Egg Yolks
1 tbsp of Coarse Grain Mustard

Bring the cream to near boiling point and remove from the heat. In a different pan, dissolve the sugar into the water and reduce 2/3 to form a syrup. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mustard and pour in the syrup, then pour into the cream. Easy! Place into an ice cream maker and then into the freezer to finish.

How did it work?

Well, I needed to use less garlic, in the Gazpacho, half a clove would have sufficed and that's about my only criticism. It tasted exactly how I remember it, so I'm very, very pleased. The mustard ice cream was the right balance of sweet and savoury, so I'm not going to change this, one iota. I just have to work on my quinelle shaping and presentation for Sunday now I've got the flavours right. A big ask, I know.

To stop the bleeding, I think I'm going to retain some red cabbage, chop it up and make a little heap at the bottom of the dish. I'll place the quinelle gently on top and then drizzle slowly the Gazpacho around it. Hopefully, that should work a bit better. Job done!

I need a couple of courses in between - I really want to try Parsnip Cereal - but looking on here and taking out the guff, it appears cornflakes are made using a spinning, heated silo - Unfortunately, mine's on the blink at the moment :( so, it looks unlikely that I can do them. I'll figure something out anyway.

Eat well!

South Beach Chicken in 15 minutes

2008-08-18T20:58:00.007+01:00

Hello!

Browsing the interweb, looking at various food-related sites, I came across the 'South Beach Diet'. From my cursory look, the name 'South Beach' denotes some fad diet by Arthur S Agatston, who I'm quite sure, would berate me if he ever read that (here's a tip, instead of spending £££ - eat less, exercise more (yes, I know I'm a fine one to talk!)).

Anyway, I looked at various recipes around this and decided to make South Beach Chicken, simply because it looked rather nice, with some flavoured cous-cous (which wasn't part of the diet I hasten to add). Not exactly haute cuisine, but nevertheless it made a change from my usual daily cookery. What makes this 'South Beach' is a mystery to me. If you know the precise reason, answers on a postcard to the usual address, please.

I marinated some chicken breasts in ginger, garlic, lemon juice, lime juice and the zest for 1.5 hours, turning them over halfway through. I then covered them with a liberal sprinkling of chili flakes, salt and pepper and placed them on a griddle pan and cooked them on a medium heat until they were done. I used minimal oil (I only use olive oil anyway) to ensure the juice wasn't diluted.

I then made the cous-cous. I've blogged about cous-cous before and it's fatal properties, so in this instance, I chopped up some coriander, added some more lime juice and zest and added some Nandos periperi sauce which complimented the flavours really well. Yep, it's simple but you know what? It tasted great. Very flavoursome, very moist and that's all that counts. Right readers? The picture below does in fact look rather dry, but I assure you - it wasn't in the slightest.

I had a friend over to stay this weekend and I made Mushroom Soup among other things which you can read over at Phantom Soups. I love mushroom soup and this one worked really, really well.

Next week it's my Aunt's birthday. Instead of a present, she's asked me to go all out and cook her a meal. I haven't decided on the final menu yet, but it's definitely going to contain Venison with a savoury crumble plus something else which I haven't decided on (probably a beetroot and pepper jelly) and a lemon bavarois with a champagne sauce. So far, I'm at 5 courses, so I need another one. Lets hope I don't have to ressurect the Confessional Corner :(

I'm Bored of Mince

2008-08-10T21:00:00.008+01:00

Greetings!

I've hit a brick wall. Not literally, thankfully, particularly as I've just renewed my car insurance. That'd be terrible! But in my everyday cooking. I have probably about two dozen recipes that I rotate regularly. I'm not sure, but I think that's the norm with most people. These staple 'favourites' that require little or no imagination and you can get in from work and whip up quickly. I save any kind of inventive cookery for the weekend usually, when I've plenty of time to faff around, cock things up, restart or fluke my way through.

When I go shopping, for no other reason than thinking 'it'd be useful to have this in', I always buy minced beef. And you know what? I'm absolutely sick of it. Spaghetti Bolognese, Burgers, Meatballs, Cannelloni, Cottage Pie are my regulars - It's a chore and I'm thoroughly, utterly bored with it. I've resolved not to buy mince for a while now, but I decided to make a minced beef and onion pie yesterday in order to make room in the fridge.

It came out really well. Both Mrs Phantom and myself loved the pie which was a simple mix of mince, onions, mushrooms, garlic and some seasoning in gravy, topped with a puff pastry top. Served up with mash and beans, it went down a treat.

But you know what? It's still boring. I want you *points* to inspire me with your mince recipes. Anything a little different, would be greatly appreciated.

GO!

EDIT:

Those of you kind enough to contribute to my blog and who read it regularly will note that I'm rather fond of making soup. As demonstrated here, here, here, here and here. To this end, I am separating out my soups to a separate blog, which is snappily entitled 'Phantom Soups' - Check it out!

I've created this, because The Belly Rules The Mind is now a year old and although I took a sabbatical for a few months and only regularly started updating in January of this year, I can see certain directions for my postings. I want to keep The Belly Rules The Mind as my main outlet for my cooking, musings, ramblings and such, but because soup is an absolute favourite of mine, it is worth having a dedicated repository.

The Fat Duck

2008-07-30T13:37:00.009+01:00

Greetings!

Yes, it was my birthday yesterday and I turned 28. For my birthday, Mrs Phantom took me to The Fat Duck in Bray *big grin*

It's difficult to explain how good it was. It was a combination of great food and a form of theatre. I'd got high expectations before I went, which usually means it's going to be a colossal disappointment when it arrives as it's never going to live up to expectations. I'm pleased to report that not only did it live up to expectations, it exceeded them too. We had the tasting menu, which from my very non-scientific survey of what others in the place were eating, it appeared to be all they served! The tasting menu costs £125 per head, with the À la carte menu costing £95 per head for 3 courses. Without wine (I was driving and Mrs Phantom isn't a big wine fan) and with coffee and water the whole shebang cost £340, or to put it another way, £100 per hour. Yes, we were eating for over three hours and each of our 16 courses came to the table looking, well, fabulous.

As someone who loves cooking, going to a place like the Fat Duck was a rather humbling experience. The skill, presentation and the service was immaculate. But more than that, as someone who enjoys the subject, going to a place like that makes you realise that a good home cook is one thing, but this is on an entirely different level. It even highlights the difference between one Michelin star and three - it makes everything seem, well, a little mundane or moribund. It does sound like an awful lot of money, and it was, but in terms of value, it was pretty good taking everything into consideration.

The tasting menu was as follows:

NITRO-GREEN TEA AND LIME MOUSSE (2001)

OYSTER, PASSION FRUIT JELLY, LAVENDER

POMMERY GRAIN MUSTARD ICE CREAM, RED CABBAGE GAZPACHO

JELLY OF QUAIL, LANGOUSTINE CREAM, PARFAIT OF FOIE GRAS
OAK MOSS AND TRUFFLE TOAST
(Homage to Alain Chapel)

SNAIL PORRIDGE
Joselito ham

ROAST FOIE GRAS "BENZALDEHYDE"
Almond fluid gel, cherry, chamomile

"SOUND OF THE SEA"

SALMON POACHED IN LIQUORICE GEL
Artichokes, vanilla mayonnaise and “Manni” olive oil

BALLOTINE OF ANJOU PIGEON
Black pudding “made to order”, pickling brine and spiced juices

HOT AND ICED TEA (2005)

MRS MARSHALL’S MARGARET CORNET

PINE SHERBET FOUNTAIN (PRE-HIT)

MANGO AND DOUGLAS FIR PUREE
Bavarois of lychee and mango, blackcurrant sorbet,
blackcurrant and green peppercorn jelly

PARSNIP CEREAL

NITRO-SCRAMBLED EGG AND BACON ICE CREAM (2006)
Pain perdu, tea jelly

PETITS FOURS
Mandarin aerated chocolate, Violet tartlet, Carrot and orange lolly

Sooooooo, here's my experience in 5 billion words.

NITRO-GREEN TEA AND LIME MOUSSE (2001)

We started with this palette cleanser. It was 'cooked' at the table in liquid nitrogen and consisted of egg white, sugar, vodka, green tea and lime juice. It was then powdered with green tea. You ate it instantly and it was like a very tangy meringue. Mrs Phantom took a little too long to eat hers (they said eat it quickly, not instantly) and it started to disintegrate and cause her all kinds of issues. I saw her error and by the time mine was on the plate, it was in my mouth

OYSTER, PASSION FRUIT JELLY, LAVENDER

This came in an oyster shell on a bed of salt. The passion fruit and the salt of the oyster, just worked. It was just fantastic. The brittle shards were heavily flavoured with lavender and while the dish was quite salty, the balance of flavours was a masterpiece.

POMMERY GRAIN MUSTARD ICE CREAM, RED CABBAGE GAZPACHO

JELLY OF QUAIL, LANGOUSTINE CREAM, PARFAIT OF FOIE GRAS
OAK MOSS AND TRUFFLE TOAST
(Homage to Alain Chapel)

Another of my favourites, this is where the theatre comes in. They came over with a table - then they come over with a box of oak moss which they place in the centre of the table. They provide you with strips of flavour which you place on your tongue and it dissolves (there's some breath fresheners which are identical in appearance). As the flavour from the strips takes effect, they pour liquid nitrogen over the moss and the whole table in engulfed in dry ice. Then the smell of the moss hits you and you really could shut your eyes and think you're in a woodland in the alps. They then place down your jelly of quail, langoustine cream, parfait of foie gras and your truffle toast. They implore with you to take in the smell and sample each of the layers of the jelly and cream. It's difficult to articulate quite how good this was without swearing, but holy parsnips! It was FABULOUS! The aroma of the moss and the taste of that toast adorned with tiny, weany radish slices *swoon* As I'm writing this, I'm grinning again at how good this was. I have absolutely no idea who Alain Chapel was or is, but clearly he is GOD amongst men.

SNAIL PORRIDGE
Joselito ham

One of Blumenthal's most famous creations, this is the one dish that most people go 'urgh' at when you mention where you're going or what you're having. I have to say, it wasn't my favourite, but that's not to say it wasn't nice. It was just, I dunno - odd. It tasted a little like a beef Oxo cube, bizarrely. I don't know why - nor did I understand why the oats were green. The shaved fennel on top was a nice touch though. Mrs Phantom however, took a slightly different view. She loved it and is her top dish.

ROAST FOIE GRAS "BENZALDEHYDE"
Almond fluid gel, cherry, chamomile

This. Was. Amazing. The Foie Gras was tender, the almond 'gel' was however more of an emulsion, the cherry was PACKED with flavour and the small golden cubes were Ameretto flavoured, and blimey, did they taste good. It was very, very sickly as a dish and I thanked the lord it wasn't any bigger.

"SOUND OF THE SEA"

This meal came out and there's only one word to describe it - Epic. It resembled a beach and consisted of razor clams, baby eels, oysters, five types of seaweed, brine foam and tapioca. Again, the theatre of it was enhanced by a shell that came out, with an ipod shuffle inside it. You wore the earphones while you ate and on the ipod was a track consisting of seagulls and waves lapping against the rocks. It really enhanced the experience and made for a really enjoyable course. You read people say that this course was a 'sensory explosion' and view it with suspicion. It's easy to scoff at such statements and the pantomime around it, but I have to say, until you actually experience it, you can't comprehend what it is like.

SALMON POACHED IN LIQUORICE GEL Artichokes, vanilla mayonnaise and “Manni” olive oil

When this dish arrived, it hit me how much preparation goes into each dish. Scattered over the plate was little grapefruit segments. Some poor sod had to do this, for every dish. The salmon was moist (bordering on underdone) and the artichoke was cooked sublimely. The vanilla mayonnaise was an odd one though. It was lovely, don't get me wrong, but it was very, very sickly and sweet. The balsamic reduction on the plate cut through the grapefruit perfectly, though the liquorice gel wasn't as strong as I was expecting. An enjoyable course.

BALLOTINE OF ANJOU PIGEON Black pudding “made to order”, pickling brine and spiced juices

Another stand-out dish. The final 'main course'. Have you ever heard of black pudding which had the texture of an emulsion and contained no bits? Nope, didn't think so, and neither did I. Having said that, this was brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. The pigeon was cooked 'blue' (even though it's red) so wouldn't suit many people. However, it was tender and just melted in the mouth. I could eat this every day. I have no idea what the spiced juices were, but I mopped them up with my pigeon so my plate was clean. The plate had baby turnips (probably about 1cm cubed) and a shallot which was caramelised with a crisp which (forgive me here) had the texture of a Quaver!. What a masterpiece. Amazing.

HOT AND ICED TEA

Hot at the top, freezing cold at the bottom. Tasted like lemon tea. Down the hatch in one. The cold was definitely heavier (to divide the two) and I suspect this was gelatin or arrowroot to thicken it up. Was lovely and is something I'm going to try at home.

MRS MARSHALL’S MARGARET CORNET

For this, we got a little leaflet which we got to take away before they served it. The waiter watched us with the eye of a hawk so that as soon as we had read it, they came over with the food. It explained who Mrs Marshall was and the purpose of this course. She was a Victorian, who was a frozen dessert pioneer. The recipe the Fat Duck uses authentically recreates her recipe and method, resulting in apple ice ream with a ginger granita. The smooth flavour of the apple complimented the ginger granita and to be honest, it left me wanting more!

PINE SHERBET FOUNTAIN (PRE-HIT)

This wasn't my favourite part. Pine sherbet, delivered on a vanilla pod. I felt the sherbet was lacking flavour, though in all honesty, it was being used as a palette cleanser and so I was too fussed. Having said that, the container which it arrived in was very cute and took me back to my youth!

MANGO AND DOUGLAS FIR PUREE
Bavarois of lychee and mango, blackcurrant sorbet,
blackcurrant and green peppercorn jelly

Back to one of the greats. I've been meaning to make a bavarois for some time and this has inspired me. This was perfection. The blackcurrant sorbet was packed with so much flavour I'm surprised it didn't burst. The peppercorn jelly was a mixture of beetroot and blackcurrant (Mrs Phantom asked as she loved it) and the bavarois just melted away into a smooth, tasty mixture. I genuinely have nothing but praise for this dish. One of the best dishes I've ever eaten.

PARSNIP CEREAL

Ho Ho Ho. This was brilliant. I'm tempted to call it 'witty' - but I think that's a little too pretentious! A small box arrived, like a Kellogg's variety pack, alongside a small jug of milk. Inside the box contained what looked like small cornflakes. Instead, they were shavings of parsnip and the milk was flavoured with parsnip! I was astounded at how good this was and Mrs Phantom and I laughed all the way through. I'm going to experiment with this dish and see what I can do - However, the lightly toasted parsnips were perfect and the milk had a slight taste of banana about it - Nevertheless, it was very well conceived and executed!

NITRO-SCRAMBLED EGG AND BACON ICE CREAM (2006)
Pain perdu, tea jelly

Like the snail porridge, this is another of Heston's most famous creations. The way I explain it to people is that it might sound odd but you've got to remember that you don't get to the level that Blumenthal has by serving up awful food and you have, to a certain extent, place your trust in him to provide you with excellent food. This dish was very, very good.

A table came over to us, with a copper cooking stove. An egg was cracked into the pan, which had been drilled and drained of the white and the yolk. The mixture of bacon and eggs was pre-prepared and inserted into the egg with a syringe. The yolk was then sealed and placed in a box ready to be brought over to our table.

The mixture was placed in the pan and liquid nitrogen was poured in, making instant ice cream. Amazing. It was placed on a sumptuous pain perdu, which was also covered in tomato jelly (although to me, it looked like tomato confit - who am I to argue?) and a shard of what I assume was cornsyrup, flavoured with bacon. Alongide this was a cup with a fashioned broken rim, to resemble a cracked egg shell and inside was lemon tea jelly. Words cannot describe how good this was. Perfectly rounding off a meal which quite honestly was mind-blowing.

PETITS FOURS
Mandarin aerated chocolate, Violet tartlet, Carrot and orange lolly

Finally, the petits fours arrived with some coffees. I note that on the careers section of the Fat Duck website, they're looking for a Chocolatier, so I guess this section is being revamped. They were good, but the carrot and orange lolly was a bit non-descript. The outstanding iteam was a treacle toffee in edible (what gave the appearance of) a plastic wrapper.

And that's the lot. If you've got down this far. Congratulations! You've won a prize. That prize is hearing me sound off at how awesome my birthday was. Coupled with this I also recieved:

A breadmaker
An ice cream maker
A very high quality carving knife
Some dvds
Blank CDs
Some cash
Chocolates and bits and bobs

All in all a fabulous haul and I promise to update a bit more often in the coming months!

El Bulli 2009?

How to make Soufflé

2008-07-13T14:44:00.007+01:00

A Soufflé is one of the most difficult things to get right. It's flummoxed me no end since I've been cooking and I've tried different recipes, different methods and amazingly, I've always had consistent results. I.e. rubbish.

I've never managed to get them to rise properly. They've always been fine in terms of taste, but lacking the visual impact that a well-risen Soufflé should have. It's even more annoying when you consider that I absolutely adore them and can't cook them. The light, fluffy texture which literally melts on the tongue is simply wonderful to finish off a hearty meal. If I go out and they're on the menu - it's no contest as to what I have for pudding.

Today being Sunday, meant that it's Sunday lunch (obviously), with the family. We were somewhat reduced in numbers today, due to some holidays. My grandmother was cooking and much to my delight, when I arrived she had a grin on her face. "I'm attempting Soufflé" she said. Of course, I immediately grinned back and snatched the recipe to see what she was working to. At first glance, I must confess dear reader, I was apprehensive as to whether they'd work. No ban marie, gas mark 7, ten minutes, contains milk? Colour me confused!

Anyway, my grandmother set to, remarking how she hadn't followed a recipe for ages because she knows all of her dishes off by heart! After reading. re-reading and some discussion and encouraging words, the mixture was made and they were plonked in the oven. The end result was nothing short of perfection. You genuinely couldn't fault it. Flavoured well, well risen, fluffy. If you've got a Soufflé checklist, believe me - this recipe ticked all the boxes, made some more boxes up and ticked those too - it really was that good.

I snatched a quick photo with my phone - apologies for the poor quality of the picture, but this needed to be preserved for posterity. Had I have known what was on the menu, I'd have been there with a better camera.

Orange and Lemon Soufflé Recipe (serves 4)

110g Caster Sugar
3 Eggs
140ml Milk
55g Butter
1tsp Vanilla Essence
2tbsp Acacia Honey
1 Jaffa Orange
2 Lemons

(Gas Mark7)

Grease the ramekins and sprinkle with sugar, lightly coating them. Pour the milk into a saucepan and heat over a medium flame until warm. Add in the honey, vanilla essence and the zest of the orange and lemon together with half of the sugar. Heat until the mixture starts to simmer, remove from the heat and leave to cool.

Seperate the eggs into seperate bowls. Add in the remaining sugar into the egg whites and beat until you have stuff peaks. With the egg yolks, add in the butter and whisk until it becomes stiff, pale and fluffy.

Add the egg yolk mixture into the milk and mix until combined. Fold this into the egg whites gently until this combines too. Spoon into ramekins and place them on a baking tray for 10 minutes until risen by half.

Now, my grandmother's Soufflés didn't rise until after the 10 minutes was up and she reduced the heat to gas mark 4 for a further 5 minutes - then BANG! They started to rise. I'd therefore suggest you do that.

That's all there is to it - It's tricky. It's a lot of processes to get right, but the end result was superb. Not only did I have a fantastic pudding to eat which was made for me - but I got a Soufflé recipe and a blog post out of it too! I'm one very happy chappy!

Eat well!

Strawberry Jelly with Fruits and Herbs, Black Pepper Ice Cream and Strawberry / Balsamic Coulis

2008-07-06T22:22:00.006+01:00

Click photo for a better view!

5 hungry people, one quick shot with a camera. Not the greatest update in the world, but man was it tasty! Recipe can be found here

Tesco, Chicken and Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall

2008-07-01T20:04:00.004+01:00

Hello!

UK-based bloggers will recall a recent spat between Tesco and Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall which hit the news last week. I've been toying with the idea of blogging on this subject since I saw it on the news, but tonight I thought I'd throw caution to the wind and potentially feel the wrath of many in the blogging community and put my view across.

I'd like to first of all provide my non-UK readers with a bit of background. Hugh Fernley- Whittingstall is this chap:

He's a celebrity chef, food writer and back-to-basics food campaigner. This year he spent £80,000 of his own money (!) buying enough stock in supermarket giant Tesco to enable him to attend their annual general meeting and attempt to force through a change in the way they rear chickens. Tesco are the biggest supermarket in the UK and have been in the public spotlight due to their £1.99 chickens - naturally raising concerns regarding the conditions the chickens are kept in, enabling such a low price.

Predictably, Tesco responded to his challenge with the argument that if conditions were improved to the extent that Hugh Fernley- Whittingstall demanded, this would drive up the price of a standard chicken by £1 per unit. The ensuing debate then obviously centered around to what extent people could (or should) afford £1 extra on their shopping bill.

Looking around the blogging community, it's easy to see which side of the fence food bloggers fall. But I'm not entirely convinced by the argument.

I'm fascinated by what people have in their trollies when I go to a supermarket (and yes, I shop at Tesco). It's quite clear that people buy to their convenience. Furthermore it's also quite clear that cooking meals is to most, an alien concept. Simply look around any supermarket and there's more ready meals, more pre-prepared stuff on the shelves than anything. You know why? Because it sells. Lots.

A while back, the UK blogging community was in, for want of a better word, uproar, about Delia Smith's latest wheeze - assembling ready prepared goods into a plate of food. I supported this, much to the chagrin of my peers. People who aren't foodies, regular people with regular jobs who see cooking as a chore don't need to be lectured by people for whom cooking is a joy - They either lack the resources (or at least think they do) or the capacity (again, at least they think they do). What Delia managed to do was increase the confidence of people to cook a dish, assemble the ingredients and present it as a plate of food. This is something I think should be applauded. You shouldn't scoff at someone who doesn't know how to make Yorkshire Pudding. You should give them the skills and confidence to make them do it themselves. You shouldn't criticise people for trying their hand at something, even if you can do better yourself. You're a food blogger, of course you can. But you're not a regular person who makes meals to survive not enjoy.

What's this got to do with the Tesco chicken saga?

It's the same principle. Look, people who buy £1.99 chickens aren't making a conscious decision to buy battery chickens in terrible conditions. They're buying it because either they can't afford the luxury of free-range chickens from a farm in Buckingham Palace or that they aren't really that fussed about how their food arrives at the dinner plate because they don't love cooking.

We criticise people for not cooking from fresh, then we criticise them for cooking from fresh with the wrong chickens. And then we wonder why people are turned off by the principle of home cooking?!

Furthermore, where does it stop? Why single Tesco and their produce out? What about 54p Asda Chicken Curry in a tin? How about Lamb from Morrisons? Aldi steak? Sainsbury's Basics Pork Pie?

"Hey guys, cook everything from fresh, but you can't use this, don't use that and so forth"... Oh, your shopping bill is 20% more expensive? Tough.

Look, I'm not suggesting what Fernley-Whittingstall tried wasn't in principle correct, but the target market of £1.99 chickens and the (to its logical conclusion) end result frankly isn't living in the real world.

I recognise that it's probably not going to be the most popular post on this blog, buy hey - it's all too easy to live in an idylic foodie world, but sadly it's simply not the case. Budgets are tight for everyone (except it seems for Fernley-Whittingstall!) and if we are trying to get people to cook fresh meals in place of ready prepared microwave cuisine, surely lecturing them on the evils of their shopping trolley isn't going to get us very far.

Eat well! (providing it didn't cost £1.99, obviously)

Phaal

2008-06-20T19:16:00.007+01:00

I've finally met my match. Tonight Mrs Phantom and I decided to order a curry. We're blessed living near Birmingham, in that there are plenty of curry houses. However, finding a good one is significantly more difficult. Luckily I know of two amazing ones. One is 'The Balti' in Kingswinford. I pimped them on Channel 4's Big British Food Map a while back. Sadly, I now live outside of the free delivery catchment area. However, in its place is 'Kamran's', in Lye. They're frankly superb.

Now, I love curry. I'm not one of those people that will only eat a certain variant, I'll eat any curry put in front of me. Sometimes I'll have a mild curry like a Korma or a Passanda, other times I'll have something which will blow your brains out.

Phaal is a type of curry which you normally have to ask for, as it's rarely on the menu. It's so potent, that apparently the surface of the sun is 100% phaal. More hot (by about twice as much) than a vindaloo, this tomato-based curry is not for the faint-hearted and I love it.

We order curry from this local place fairly regularly and it's always the same guy who takes the order and delivers. When I started ordering phaal, he'd come to the door with a smirk. "Enjoy your phaal" he'd say, clearly thinking "he has no idea how hot this is". After about the third time of saying this, it finally dawned on him that no matter how hot he made the curry, I could eat it.

I got chatting to the delivery guy one day about it. I explained that the phaal was completely edible (and this is where idiocy took a hold) and I asked if there was anything further up the scale I could try. Looking visibly shaken, he promised to sort me out a phaal with 'hot sauce' the next time. The first time they did this, they served the sauce separately. It tasted like soya-based dynamite. Literally one touch with you lips and your mouth was tingling like you'd got couties from the girl in the playground. Putting it in seperately was a good thing. I could moderate the amount in my curry. Tonight they mixed it into the phaal.

Ladies and gentlemen, once in a while we are privileged to witness an event so extraordinary that it becomes entwined in our shared heritage. Tonight is one of those nights.

I'd like to announce I was beaten by a curry.

Jeez-louise it was hot. I mean, seriously hot. I finished about 80% of it (as you can see from the picture at the end), but I kid thee not, it was the hottest thing I've ever eaten by a country mile. My mouth just burned all the way through it. 4 pints of lime cordial couldn't dampen the heat. It was simply unbelievable.

There's a lesson here kids. Don't showboat in front of a delivery person, unless you're a complete idiot. It's all fun and games until somebody loses a stomach :(

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaal

BBQ

2008-06-11T20:25:00.002+01:00

It's BBQ weather isn't it?

Mrs Phantom and I are hosting the quarterly get together of some friends later this month. Naturally, since it's going to be a summer get together, I'm hoping that the weather is going to hold out for some lovely BBQ action in the back garden.

To this end, I've ordered some meat from Donald Russell for our BBQ. He's a butcher in Scotland who is absolutely, hallucinogenically brilliant. Their meat is like no other. Tender, juicy and full of flavour. The service they provide is very good too. Everything is shock frozen and it is delivered by courier on a date you specify. It's obviously more expensive than the supermarket (or even a local butchers) but in this instance, you really do get what you pay for. Mrs Phantom and I ordered a steak selection box advertised in the Sunday Times around Christmas and it was delicious, so we thought we'd splash some cash in getting some decent grub in for our guests.

Anyway, the BBQ is scheduled for the weekend of the 28th June - and today the meat arrived.

That's the presentation box. Nice eh?

It's at this point you start getting giddy with excitement!

That's the contents laid out.

In the box was:

8 Beef Mini-Steaks, in packs of 4 (min. pack weight 200g)
4 Lamb Mini-Steaks, in pack of 4 (min. pack weight 140g)
4 Pork Mini-Steaks, in pack of 4 (min. pack weight 200g)
12 Premium Pork Sausages, in packs of 6 (average pack weight 420g)
12 Mini Gourmet Steak Burgers, in pack of 12 (min. burger weight 45g)
12 Mini Pork Burgers, in pack of 12 ( min. burger weight 45g)

YUM!

Total for all this? £47 inc delivery. I didn't think this was too bad considering the quality of the goods. The blurb on the DR website says about it:

Eight portions of gourmet meat for your barbecue
Our new BBQ selection boxes have everything you need for a barbecue to remember. They're packed with our finest naturally reared meats, hand cut into petite portions. That makes them the perfect size to fit easily on your barbecue grill and your guests can help themselves without feeling overfull.

This barbecue selection box contains eight servings of our finest gourmet barbecue fare, including succulent, juicy mini-steaks in beef, lamb and pork, as well as our new mini gourmet steak burgers, made from pure, prime beef, and our deliciously meaty Premium Pork Sausages, made from prime Freedom Food pork.

This box is just right for a bigger barbecue party - surprise your guests with these mini morsels hot off the grill - we guarantee they'll love the taste.

Now all I have to do is hope it doesn't rain... :(

Sunday Lunch at Chez Phantom Part 1

2008-06-08T17:00:00.012+01:00

Greetings.

Today is SCORCHIO. I cooked Sunday Lunch this afternoon for the family. Mrs Phantom was out supporting her mother who was running the Race For Life in aid of Breast Cancer. So I didn't have my right-hand (or left-hand in the case of Mrs Phantom) sous chef to assist me in the Kitchen.

It went down a storm with the family and the weather being as it is, it was most fortuitous that I should have prepared a reasonably light three-course lunch. I served up:

Tempura King Prawn on Homemade Pasta with a Lemon and Chive Vinaigrette
Pork Loin Chops in a Cider Sauce with Red Cabbage and Roast Potatoes
Strawberry Jelly with Fruits and Herbs.

I didn't however get chance to photograph the meal, due to the pressures of being a (wo)man down. However, what I'm going to do, for the benefit of Mrs Phantom is, over the course of the week, make it all again, course by course.

In reverse order, I'm going to do the pudding and use a picture I cribbed from El Bulli as an illustration. I'm not going to recreate this, later on this week, because it's too much effort, so you'll have to make do with that picture and use your imagination in this instance, I'm afraid. Sorry!

Strawberry Jelly with Fruits and Herbs and Black Pepper Ice Cream

Ok, here is the picture I used as my inspiration.

Amazing eh?

I made a few changes. I didn't use the nitro-air, which I assume are the white balls for the simple reason is I don't have any liquid nitrogen in the house this week (funnily enough). I also didn't make the strawberry corn syrup snaps (which I assume are the shard-like bits).

My version is as follows:

I used about 3 tins of strawberries - drained off the juice and chucked them away. I took some sprigs of thyme and when making up the gelatin mixture, I cooked them in the syrup. I set this on a baking tray covered in tine foil for about 5 hours in the fridge. I used tinned Strawberries for convenience. You could have made the stock from scratch.

When completed, I then placed some greasproof paper over the jelly and turned it upside down and took off the foil to reveal 1cm of square jelly. I then used a pizza slicer to cut it into rectangles.

To replace the nitro-air, I made black pepper ice cream. TRUST ME, IT'S BRILLIANT. For this, I used:

600ml Carton double cream
4oz Granulated sugar
3 Large egg yolks
1 Vanilla Pod
1 Tablespooon of Black Pepper

To make the ice cream:

Heat the cream and vanilla over a low heat until it almost boils Take off the heat and set aside for 30 minutes so the vanilla can infuse.
Put the egg yolks into a bowl with the rest of the sugar and beat with an electric whisk for about 2 minutes until the mixture has thickened and is pale in colour
Using a measuring jug, scoop out about 4fl oz of the cream mixture and beat into the egg yolks to slacken them. Reheat the cream until it just comes to the boil, take off the heat and stir in the egg yolk mixture.
Return the pan to a low heat and cook, stirring all the time with a wooden spoon, for 8-10 minutes, until the custard is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon. Watch that it doesn't boil - as soon as you see any bubbles about to burst to the surface, it should be thick enough, so take the pan off the heat so the mixture doesn't curdle.
Whack it into an ice-cream maker for an hour, then into the freezer overnight. Remove 15 minutes before serving.

As a coulis (which you can see at the top of the picture), I made a Strawberry and Balsamic reduction. It was really very easy. Mix some fresh strawberries with a little water and sugar in a pan and heat (as if you're making apple sauce). Add in the Balsamic to taste. Again, it's surprising how much you require. Reduce by half and cool in the fridge.

Place fruit on the top along with some herbs. For this, I used

A Chive
A Sprig of Thyme
A Sprig of Mint
A Lavender Flower

The finished article was LOVELY and looked pretty much identical to what was in that picture. I was really, really pleased with it and it tasted devine. The rich, creamy vanilla complimented the black pepper perfectly, which in turn complimented the herbs, fruit and jelly. In retrospect I would have added more sauce on the plate, because I think the flavours were very, very subtle and were overshadowed by the flavours of the ice cream and jelly.

During the course of the week, I'll be recreating the other courses and blogging about them, so stay tuned. In the meanwhile enjoy the sun and don't do what Mrs Phantom did, come inside looking like a raw piece of steak because she didn't use suncream! What a wally.

Eat Well!

The Duck Fat / The Fat Duck

2008-05-31T19:55:00.014+01:00

Good evening!

Last week I made the find of the century. I met my father and grandparents for coffee on Tuesday morning and afterwards we (collectively) descended on the local Asda to pick up some bits and bobs. I hate our local Asda. Not in the way I hate getting up in the morning on Monday, or hate watching 'Friends' - I'm talking stomach-churning, bile-inducing hate. I don't know why. but the local Asda to me feels like the last refuge of the socially inept, the emotionally bankrupt and - dare I say it - the sexually deviant. It is, in every sense of the word, an asylum for life's losers. I really do hate it with every bone in my body.

While pottering round the store, trying to avoid eye-contact with anyone and swerving to avoid people that looked like 'personal hygiene' was an alien concept, I chanced upon their 'reduced to clear' bucket. Usually I wouldn't touch this section with a bargepole, principally because it usually includes a pre-cooked chicken four days past the sell by date and a battered box of Shreddies. However, I was close enough to notice two words. These words were ' Duck Fat' - My interest perked even further when I saw the sell by date was 2011. It wasn't just the odd tin though. There were LOADS of them and guess how much? Go on, guess. I bet you can't.

WRONG.

They were 6p per tin. 6p! Can you believe it?!

Obviously at this point I'm piling up my basket like there's a forthcoming Apocalypse looming and I need supplies for the Anderson shelter, when I notice there's goose fat in there too. 6p also! The scenes were quite literally 'amazing'. I loaded up my basket with seven tins. Seven tins of goose and duck fat for 42p! My father sagely observed I looked like I was about to 'grease up' and swim the channel.

Anyway, this evening I decided to give roast potatoes a crack. My word! They came out famously. I cooked them with a chopped tomato and a few garlic cloves for just over an hour on Gas Mark 6. Crispy, fluffy, golden brown. A clear winner. Usually I cook roast potatoes in olive oil and they work fine, but with the duck fat, they really were on a different scale. All for 6p! Who says cooking from fresh is expensive?!

In other duck fat related news...

Both Mrs Phantom and I discussed earlier this year what to do for my birthday (which is next month fact-fans). We discussed possibly going to the Fat Duck in Bray, but nothing really came of it. In fact it all went a bit silent. Until I got a call at work on Wednesday from a rather overly-excited Mrs Phantom, who, sneaky devil that she is, has secured us reservations to eat there actually ON MY BIRTHDAY and she's paying!

Man, she is all kinds of wonderful for that one! Obviously I'll be having the tasting menu (and I know Mrs Phantom will be doing likewise). If you wish to see in pictures the experience of eating there and the tasting menu in particular, visit here and here (this one has a bit about the interactive dishes). I appreciate that Blumenthal is not to the taste of everyone, as is evident by the comments on Jason Purcell's website, but it's to my taste and since I'm going that's all that matters, surely?

You can only book two months in advance, (unlike El Bulli, which is completely booked for 2008!) and lines open at 10am to book. By 10.15 they're all gone and you can only get booked for that day in two months time (Mrs Phantom had to book for the 29th July on the 29th May). Apparently she had been trying to get reservations since the 26th, but kept failing. How fortuitous that she should get them on my Birthday?!

I'm so pathetically excited. When I was told the news, I was literally AGOG (now there's a much-underused word!). It genuinely is the bestestestest thing ever.

While blogging I was listening to 'Let it Out' by Starrfadu. They were on the Kleenex advert. They have no label and release albums electronically via iTunes. I bought their album and it's a little disappointing. This song however, is brilliant.

EDIT: STOP PRESS! I've been accepted into the Daring Bakers. No, it's not a cookery stunt team (sadly), but a blogging community group who engage in stupifyingly amazing tasks every month. Why? Well, because that's a cool thing to do - Last month, the always fabulous Helen completed the 'Opera Cake' with stunning results. If I ever do anything cake-based that looks half as good as that, I'll die a happy man.

Asparagus and Liquorice Soup

2008-05-26T14:07:00.010+01:00

I feel strange. It's Bank Holiday Monday in the UK today. For those of you residing in a different country this means three things;

1 - You get the day off work for no particular reason
2 - A James Bond film will be on ITV at some point
3 - It will absolutely chuck it down all day

I got up this morning about 9.30am. Nothing particularly strange about that. I went downstairs, watched Frasier on C4+1 and had some breakfast. Again, nothing strange. I even opened the curtains and noted the miserable weather. So far, so good. I flick around the 5 billion channels we have to see what's on today (or rather will it be Moore or Connery) and *gasp* there's no James Bond on this afternoon. Even now I can't quite believe it, so I'll write it again. There's. No. James. Bond. On. TV. Today.

I thought there was a law to prevent a lack of Bond on a Bank Holiday. In fact, I thought Bank Holidays were invented just to show James Bond movies.

What with the weather being so awful and the lack of Bond, I decided to make some soup for lunch. Now, returning visitors to the World of Phantom will note that I did a Sweet Potato and Cumin soup a week ago. I seem to go through soup phases. This will be the last one for a while, I promise *crosses fingers behind back* *GRINS*

Anyway, to comfort me against the frankly near-fatal televisual based shock and the howling wind and rain, I used the following ingredients:

400g of fresh asparagus
5 sticks of liquorice root
1oz Butter
1 onion
1.5 pints of vegetable stock
salt
pepper
cream

It's a similar recipe to the previous ones, with a few alterations. Firstly, melt the butter and the onions together alongside the liquorice root, which you should snap in half. When the onions are going translucent, remove from the heat and add in the asparagus and stock put back on the heat for as long as it takes for the aspargus to soften which should be around 15 minutes tops.

When done, remove from the heat and fish out the snapped bits of liquorice root.

Add in the cream and place in a blender. You do not need to sieve this. Serve immediately and garnish with some cream. Simple.

Ok, so why would I choose asparagus and liquorice as bedfellows? Well (and I don't know how I know this, I just do) they have a similar chemical structure and so compliment each other. Very Blumenthal, yes I know. But anyway I thought it would be interesting to see if they did in fact work together. Well, because this doesn't have the confessional corner jpeg attached to it, it will come as no surprise that it did work. There were two layers of flavour, neither one was fighting the other. The strong asparagus lingered, then left leaving a sweet liquorice layer on the back of the throat. Coupled with a homemade bloomer I'd made earlier (while making the pizza dough), it was a real warmer to combat the naff weather outside.

Eat well!

While blogging this and the previous post, I was listening to 'The Good Will Out' by Embrace. The stand out track on that album is 'Come Back to What you Know' - Check it out!

Pizza (or more specifically, pizza dough)

2008-05-26T12:13:00.005+01:00

It's another double-post day.

People that know me and my cooking will tell you that if there's one thing in the kitchen I just can't get right, it's custard. I just can't do it. Or rather, I can't do it consistently.

But I have a guilty secret beyond this, which I'm going to share with you today. I'm exactly the same with pizza dough. I can do it, but sometimes it works, other times it's too much like bread. I love pizza and finding a good takeaway pizza is a task in itself. Luckily Mrs Phantom and I have stumbled upon 'AJ's' in Stourbridge which is all kinds of amazing. However good a pizza from a takeaway is, it can't hold a candle to the greatness of homemade pizza.

I've been searching for a recipe for the perfect pizza dough since before I was born, but never have I managed the light, fluffy, sweet dough that I think a perfect pizza has to have. The other night I had another bash, assimilating various bits of information into one recipe. The pizza dough I made was pretty much spot on I think. Sadly I didn't take any pictures, because at the time I wasn't thinking I was going to blog it. However, I made some more dough this morning to freeze and I thought I'd share the recipe with you.

For the dough I used (makes 2x10" pizza bases):

12 oz plain flour
200ml water
1.5 packets of yeast (about a tablespoon)
3 tablespoons of acacia honey
salt
pepper
chilli flakes

All the recipes I saw told you to warm the flour. Now, I'm not going to say that it's unnecessary to do that, but I didn't and it turned out fine. To make the dough, mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Kneed the dough for about 5 minutes and you're pretty much done. How easy is that?

Place the doughball back into the bowl and cover with a damp cloth to stop the dough from drying out. Leave for 1 hour and then return to it, covering the work surface with a dusting of flour and then rolling it out with a rolling pin.

If you want to make a stuffed crust, roll it out about 2" further and place mozzarella cheese 1" from the edge and wrap the cheese in the dough.

Place the toppings on the dough and put into the oven (gas mark 6) for approximately 15 minutes or until the crust has gone golden brown.

As I said, I made some more today to freeze, because lets face it, you go to a takeaway because you can't be bothered to cook - I accept that waiting an hour for the dough to be done is a bit of a pain - but this way, having some ready prepared in the freezer, I literally have no excuse.

Eat well!

Phantom Chef's 'Confessional Corner' Ep.1

2008-05-20T21:30:00.013+01:00

That's right. It's time to 'fess up to those disasters in the kitchen.

Regular viewers will recall that last weekend I wrote about a soup I made using Sweet Potato, Cumin and fresh Coriander. I was unsure as to how is would turn out and this got me thinking about food blogging in general.

You only have to Google 'food blog' to find some frankly amazing talent out there. You know what? It's brilliant - The whole concept is amazing. You can, at the stroke of a few keys tell the whole world about what you've done, what you believe or what's on your mind. It's akin to writing a letter to the whole world saying "Hey, look at what I did, check me out!". People who before could only tell a few people, now have a potential audience of billions and that's fantastic.

However, one thing I notice as I browse food blogs is that they only usually refer to the times when food has been fantastic. I call shenanigans! Cooking is not an exact science. I refuse to believe that people should only blog about the amazing things they've done, but should display their human side. It's human to make mistakes and to this end I'm leading from the front with a (hopefully not regular) piece entitled 'Phantom Chef's Confessional Corner', whereby I post about something that went wrong in the kitchen. I'm not talking about adding too much salt, or burning something or other. I mean WENT WRONG. I'm talking wrong in it's most severe form.

Regular readers will note that I'm not afraid of a little experimentation as demonstrated here, here and here. However this piece on tomato jelly referred to Purnell's in Birmingham and was inspired by their menu. At the time of the original post, the menu had a starter of 'Goats Cheese Jelly' and I really wanted to try and make it. I've got a bit of a habit of eating at these places and deconstructing the food so I can make (or attempt to make) it at home. On this occasion I set about making Goats Cheese Jelly, before I'd even eaten there.

That was my first mistake.

Now I'm not particularly fond of goats cheese. I can eat it, but in larger quantities I find it rather, I dunno, odd. Anyway, I bought some from the local supermarket and set about what I thought would be required to make a Goats Cheese Jelly.

Goats Cheese - Check
Setting agent - Check
Some Water - Check
Seasoning - Check

What could go wrong? Well, if I was being honest (which face it, that's the purpose), everything went wrong.

I melted the required amount of gelatin in a pan with a bit of water, added some seasoning, melted down the goats cheese into it and placed them in a jelly mould to set.

Fast forward a few hours when they're done and I take them out of the fridge. The first one splits when I remove it from the mould and is just a wobbly mess on the plate. Great. I then remove the other two from their moulds and they're perfect. Sitting there on the plate, holding their shape well. Success!

At this point, I'm still in the kitchen. Mrs Phantom is sitting in the living room watching something on TV.

Well, as you will no doubt be aware, food looking good is secondary to the taste so I dig in while in the kitchen, eager to taste the cold, savoury jelly. It's difficult to describe the taste accurately, though I think I must have said something which alerted Mrs Phantom to the fact that something wasn't right, since she came running into the kitchen to find me scouring the kitchen for the Ribena, like a heroin addict whose had his fix hidden.

Always game for a new experience (as this most certainly was), Mrs Phantom clearly thought I was exaggerating, so tucked into her jelly that I had lovingly prepared for her. Two seconds later, she's fighting me for the rest of my Ribena gagging like mad - Her reaction was worse than mine!.

Man, I can't tell you how bad it was. It was like nothing on Earth. It tasted vaguely like goats cheese and slightly sicky. As I'm typing this, I'm re-living the horrible, mind-bendingly bad taste in my mouth. Sadly I don't have any pictures, as what was left was placed in a sealed bin and incinerated, similar to what the put discarded needles in. Taking photographs was the last thing on my mind.

Chances are, if you've got this far, you're probably either smiling, or feeling rather ill yourself (or a combination of both). Trust me, I'm laughing now - but on that particular day, there was nothing funny about Goats Cheese Jelly :(

I task you, if you dare, to post a Confessional Corner of your own. What have you got to lose (apart from your dignity)? Feel free to use the accompanying jpeg by the way. You'll feel so much better about yourself - It's cleansing for the soul!

Eat well!

While writing this post, I was principally listening to 'Bohemian Like You' by the Dandy Warhols. Check it out!

Real Gravy

2008-05-17T19:57:00.010+01:00

Three posts in two days - Blimey!

Last week, I said I'd do an update on real gravy, when I posted about my Cottage Pie. Admittedly I said I was sick of the reliance upon Bisto and Oxo when making gravy, only to then do a complete U-Turn and use said ingredients in the recipe. In my defence, it's a tad difficult to make traditional gravy using the components I used for the dish - That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Gordon Ramsey, a bloke I admire for his skill and loathe as a media rent-a-gob berk in equal measures, did one of his god-awful shows where he goes into a failing restaurant and turns it around. In this particular episode, he utilised real gravy as the selling poin t. Now, up until recently I've always taken the lazy option and used an Oxo cube, some Bisto and some Flour - Using onion water as the stock. However, recently when I've been cooking a joint of meat or a chicken, I've been making traditional gravy. I must confess dear reader, Ramsey is right. Traditional gravy is absolutely terrific and so easy to make, it's just untrue.

Tonight, Mrs Phantom and I had roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. We're not going to be around tomorrow lunch, so Sunday dinner has been moved and is now Saturday night dinner - I hope you got the memo or they'll be embarrassment tomorrow.

Here you can see the thin (but heavily reduced) gravy over the Yorkshire pudding, the meat and the (ultra crispy and fluffy in the middle) roast potatoes. Just lovely.

To make the gravy, it really couldn't be more simple. When you take the meat out of the roasting tin, drain off the excess fat, leaving all the burned bits and fat on the bottom of the pan. You then de-glaze the pan with either wine (you can use a small amount of dry sherry), beef stock or ale (particularly good if you've got beef - I used it tonight) over a hob, scraping the bits from the pan. Reduce by half and that's all there is to it. The gravy will be thin, but perfectly flavoured. If you require a thicker gravy, simply leave a small amount of fat in the pan when you drain and add a heaped teaspoon of flour to the mixture to thicken it up.

It's definitely going to be a regular feature of my roast dinners. Why I never did it sooner is a complete mystery. Answers on a postcard, please.

Eat well!

When writing this, I was listening to 'Under The Pink' by Tori Amos - In particular 'Winter' - Enjoy!

Smooth Sweet Potato and Cumin Soup with Coriander

2008-05-17T14:41:00.010+01:00

It's been a while since I did a blog post about soup. However, the weather here has taken a dramatic turn for the rubbish, so I felt like making it for lunch, as a sort of comfort food against the elements outside.

At the beginning of spring we had a few nice, warm days, so I thought "Summer is officially on the way!" and therefore it was time I planted some herb seeds in a pot in the garden which I'd had lurking around the house.

The next day it of course snowed. Typical English weather! Anyway they survived thankfully. The herbs I planted were chives, coriander, basil and parsley. It's given mixed results. The basil and parsley are doing ok. The chives don't seem to be doing a great deal, the lazy gits - but the coriander? Blimey. I reckon Jack didn't buy magic beans in the fairytale. He clearly used coriander. It's a bumper crop and very, very pungent. Superb! To this end, I was going to make some carrot and coriander soup which I adore. But I thought I should use up the sweet potato I've had for a week or so, knocking around in the veg rack.

Normally, with sweet potato, I roast them with a little fresh ginger or garlic and they come up trumps. However today I decided to incorporate them in a soup. With what though? I quick rummage through the cupboards yielded not a jot of inspiration, then I thought... "ah, cumin".

I confess I do quite like cumin as a spice, but only in moderation. It's potent and too much leaves an acrid tastes in the mouth. But I haven't really used it in a soup, only in curries. It was either going to work really well or feature in my soon to be revealed 'Phantom Chef's Confessional Corner' a not-so-regular piece on kitchen disasters. People blog about excellent, interesting and frankly astonishingly inventive stuff, but no-one (or very few) appears to 'own up' to their own kitchen calamities. Something I shall remedy very soon with me leading by example. Anyway I digress...

So anyway, for the soup I used:

4 Sweet Potatos, peeled and cubed
1 Onion, chopped
1oz Butter
1.25pint Vegetable Stock
1.5tsp Cumin Seeds
Dash of Single Cream
Salt and Pepper
Chopped Coriander

To make the soup, melt the butter and the onions together alongside half of the seeds. When the onions are going translucent, remove from the heat and add in the sweet potato, stock and the remaining cumin seeds and put back on the heat for as long as it takes for the potato to soften which should be around 15 minutes tops.

Add in the cream and place in a blender. Blend it well and if too thick, add a dash of water to thin it out. Season with salt and pepper.

Now, run it through a sieve. It will result in a lovely, silky soup and a bit of residual potato which hasn't passed through which you can throw away. Place it back in a pan and heat again before serving. Finally, place chopped coriander on the top and serve immediately (ideally with some hot bread).

So, the taste then. Sweet, yet spicy. It definitely needed the coriander to stop it becoming bland. You also need more than a teaspoon of cumin to balance out the sweetness of the potato and by frying it gently at the start, it helps release the oils contained within the seeds, before you use the sweet potato.

I think if this had been a stick of rock, bought on the pier at the seaside, it would have had 'colossal success' written all the way through it. Served with hot bread, it was perfect for the drab Saturday weather we're having. Excellent.

Eat well!

Actually, while I was editing (I'm a terrible proof-reader and invariably edit my posts about a dozen times), I thought it would be a good idea to tell you at the end of each post what I was listening to while blogging.

Today I was listening to 'How to Save a Life' by The Fray. Now, I know the lead singer looks like he should be in school, studying for his 11plus, not banging out songs as part of a popular-beat combo, but there you go. Check it out!

A Tribute to Julia at 'A Slice of Cherry Pie'

2008-05-16T19:59:00.009+01:00

I've been away from the PC for a couple of days. A while ago I lost a bet at work with a colleague which I won't bore you with the details of, but the result was me going for a 6k run after work yesterday. The colleague in question is the West Midlands version of Dolph Lundgren in 'Universal Soldier' - I of course, am not anywhere near approaching that (or indeed any) level of physical fitness, so I was looking forward to it as much as Gordon Brown was looking forward to the recent local elections. Needless to say it resulted in me almost keeling over and much mirth and mockery at the office when I, what can only be described as hobbled in this morning. So, yeah - my herculean exemplar performance left a lot to be desired :-(

Anyway, so that's my excuse as to why I haven't switched on the PC. When I did this evening, I trotted around my dozen or so blogs I have bookmarked to see what wonderful things people had been doing. How amazed was I to have been given a mention on Julia's 'A Slice of Cherry Pie' and awarded 'Arte y Pico Award' by her? I'll tell you, valued viewer - A LOT!

The Arte y Pico Award is a community blog award for those blogs which you feel are well written, designed or contain interesting content. As a recipient of the award, I get to nominate others for their work. Happy times!

Many thanks Julia - I really, really appreciate it! It's things like this that make the whole blogging thing worthwhile. There's some absolutely brilliant material out there and to be singled out by someone such as Julia as being worthy of her time is just brilliant.

The terms of the award are:

You pick five blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contribute to the blogging community, no matter what language.
Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and the link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of Arte y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

To this end, I nominate the following:

Thanks once again Julia :thumbsup:

Cottage Pie

2008-05-09T19:52:00.007+01:00

Simple food is amazing. No, I haven't had a moment of epiphany, I just felt like I needed to set the tone for this post early on! I apologise if this post is teaching you to suck eggs. I'm sure you'll forgive me, but I feel the need sometimes to blog my normal food and not just stuff that involves foam, emulsions, jelly or odd combinations.

For those of you who reside outside of the West Midlands and particularly those who reside in a different Country, for the past few days it has been, what can only be described as 'scorchio' - I.e. baking (and not of the cooking variety either). I have sat at my desk at work, melting and withering in the heat today. The humidity was, without exaggeration, debilitating. I needed something for tea that I didn't have to faff about with, involved mince and was substantial. Yep, I made cottage pie.

Now cottage pie is really quite straightforward. But you know what? It's a fiddle. First you have to brown the mince, make the gravy (or alleged gravy), peel the potatoes (and in my case parsnips), mash them up, assemble the lot and cook. Not exactly difficult, but I always end up with 65 pans that need washing and more mess than I think is required, for what looks like a simple dish.

Anyway, for my cottage pie filling I used:

500g lean mince
1 chopped onion
4 large(ish) mushrooms
Handful of frozen peas
Handful of frozen sweetcorn
Salt, Pepper and Thyme
A splash of oil

I browned the mince in a pan with the oil alongside the chopped onion, mushroom, salt, pepper and thyme. This was very easy (chuck it in the pan and it will do the rest). Drain the excess fat off the mince. It always surprises me how much fat comes out of apparently 'lean' mince, but there you go. It is important you do this, otherwise your filling will be swill!

I then made the gravy. Now I'm going to do a post this weekend on gravy. You know why? Because I'm sick of it. Actually, no. What I'm sick of is Bisto and the reliance we as a nation have on it. I've started to make 'proper' gravy at home. It tastes better, it's easier and frankly I have no idea why we do it any other way. But anyway, to show I'm completely without a moral compass and a total hypocrite, I used:

2 tablespoons of Bisto
1 beef Oxo cube
1 tablespoon plain flour
1 chopped onion

Boil the chopped onion in about 275ml of water. While that's doing, mix the other ingredients in a bowl with a splash of water. When the onions are boiled, simply transfer the onion water into the gravy mixture and bring to the boil. It should have thickened nicely.

Mash - Do I really need to post this? Well, probably not, but I included parsnip in my mash for extra flavour. Simply peel, core and chop the parsnips and add them to the potatoes 5 minutes later.

Mix the gravy into the pie filling. Spoon the potato and parsnip onto the top and grate some cheese on it.

Stick it in the oven for about 20 - 25 minutes (gas mark 6) and you get a lovely browning effect from the cheese.

The cottage pie was absolutely on the money. I usually add a bit of garlic to the mixture, but I thought I'd leave it out this time and I reckon it was all the better for it. The potato and parsnip mash was great. It's important that you have smooth, fluffy potatoes, which will aid the browning and crisping of the top of the pie.

Mrs Phantom has a rating system for my food. No thumbs up, to 2 thumbs up, with halfway increments in between. She gave this one thumb up, so I think I enjoyed it more than her. Oh well, you can't please everyone.

Eat Well!

Spicy Maple BBQ Chicken

2008-04-26T19:54:00.010+01:00

After last week's slightly experimental dish, I really couldn't be bothered to do much in the kitchen this evening. However we did have a whole chicken in the fridge and I was eager to use it up.

Now, it's Sunday lunch tomorrow, so both Mrs Phantom and I didn't really want a heavy meal. We'd agreed on chicken, but no roast potatoes or anything like that. So I needed to find a suitably light side to go with my chicken.

Settling on salad, I wanted to do a buttery / lemon chicken, but a quick mosey to the fruit basket torpedoed that idea, due to a lack of lemon. I decided to do a BBQ sauce to cover the chicken with. I love BBQ sauce, but finding a really good one is difficult because they are often so strange. They taste strongly of chemicals and naturally I find that really off-putting. I set about making my own following a quicky shufty on the interweb to find out the basic ingredients.

I never usually follow one recipe; mine are more of a mish-mash of snippets I get off various websites. For my sauce I settled on the following ingedients and crossed my fingers:

5 tablespoons of Maple Syrup
1 teaspoon of french mustard
1 heaped tablespoon of tomato puree
4 tablespoons of red-wine vinegar
2 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
chili flakes (substantial amount)
1 heaped teaspoon ginger

I mixed it all together in a bowl and after the chicken had cooked for 25 minutes on a medium heat, I took it out and covered it in the sauce. I put it back in the oven for another 40 minutes, taking it out twice to baste it again in the sauce. I served it with a simple salad of lettuce, cucumber, onion and pepper.

The finished article looked rather nice:-

Eat Well!

EDIT:

The first comment I got on this post asked me how it tasted. Stupidly, I didn't think to include such information, which in the cold light of day appears to be ridiculous.

Anyway, so the taste. Well, as I said before, I've struggled to find a BBQ sauce which hasn't tasted like some god-awful chemical weapons by-product - However, when Mrs Phantom tasted it she told me that she loved it and I have to concur with her opinion. The sauce had 'layers' of flavour which worked really well. First you got the bitter vinegar, then the sweet maple, followed by the smoke of the mustard and the tomato puree, with finally the heat from the garlic and the chili.

Because I basted it with the reduced sauce, the mixture became slightly sticky, which meant it stuck to the chicken well and flavoured the meat under the skin. It really did work as planned. I can't recommend this sauce enough if you like BBQ.

Tea Smoked Salmon, Balsamic Shallot Crumble, Chive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar

2008-04-26T19:07:00.009+01:00

There's two updates today. First off is something I made last week, but didn't post.

On Masterchef last series, someone did tea-smoked salmon. Now, I've never had that, but it certainly aroused my interest in such a concept. I was however bereft of inspiration as to what to serve it with.

I was thinking along the lines of some form of small pie with a shallot filling, but figured that shortcrust pastry and a delicately flavoured salmon wouldn't be the greatest combination on Earth. So I set about trying to come up with an accompaniment which had a brittle yet chewy texture. I then began to think to what extent the principles of crumble making could be applied to a savoury filling. A bit along the lines of the thought I had a few weeks ago when I made Tomato Jelly.

I had made some chive oil earlier that day as I knew I would be cooking (although I didn't know exactly what I was going to cook). I took some chives out of the garden and chopped them very, very finely. I placed them in olive oil (note: do not use Extra Virgin as the flavour is too strong) and put the mixture in a dispenser.

With a rough idea of what I was going to do, I went ahead and made a crumble topping. I finely chopped some shallots and marinated them in balsamic vinegar for about 2 hours.

For the crumble topping I used:

2 oz plain flour
1 oz butter
1 teaspoon of coarse brown sugar
1 oz chopped walnuts (fine)

I rubbed the butter into the flour, added the walnuts and sugar and mixed together. Simple eh? I then placed the shallots in a small metal cylinder and put the crumble on top, pressing it onto the mixture.

I then needed to do the fish.

For this I placed 3oz of loose tea leaves in the bottom of a grill pan on kitchen foil. I basted the salmon in some oil and placed it on the wire rack above the tea. I covered the whole lot in parchment paper and put in the oven at gas mark 6 for 15 minutes.

After 5 minutes I placed the crumble in the oven aswell. It only took 10 minutes to cook and they were done together.

I didn't muck about with the lighting or angles. I snapped the picture and ate the lot. It was very yummy indeed. The star of the plate was the crumble oddly. Usually on plates like this, the purpose of the dish is 'celebrating' the fish, but in this instance, the celebrations were well under way, only for the crumble to turn up late in a Corvette Stingray, touch up the wife of the local vicar and proceed to dance like John Travolta, swaggering off into the sunset with a woman under each arm.

If I was being overly critical, I'd perhaps have more shallot filling in next time, but the textures and the flavours really worked and brought together a really coherent dish. Also the picture makes it look more like a fillet of whale as opposed to salmon. I don't remember is being that big, although the crumble was only 2" in diameter, so I guess it could be that. Nevertheless, I advise you to go forth and try it for yourselves. You won't be disappointed.

Eat well!

Black Country Cuisine - As Seen on Channel 4 (Soon!)

2008-04-20T13:29:00.004+01:00

I was playing some videogames this morning with a couple of chums when I got an email on my phone which distracted me from the pointless task of killing my opponents (ok, I lie, being killed by pointless opponents!). It was from Andrew Webb, who is a bigwig in the world of food blogging. He runs Eating Albion, a food blog soon to be migrated and integrated into Channel 4's food website. 5 million people visit this website regularly, so it generates serious traffic and is a big player in the promotion of food, eateries and associated practices in the UK.

The background to this email was a comment I made a while back on Eating Albion's blog, offering the team a Black Country traditional meal. They've taken me up on this offer and I will be providing them with my favourite places to eat and buy food in the region, alongside a little review on why I like them! This blog will be linked to and my reviews will be placed on the site for people to consider, act upon or just ignore. Needless to say I'm massively excited about the prospect, if a little worried.

Places to buy food are numerous round here. We have a Tesco, Asda, Aldi and 3 McDonalds all within a mile of each other! I'm blessed, clearly! I jest obviously, but I've got to get my thinking cap on and find the best of the best. There's plenty of small outlets around here and in Birmingham, so I don't think it'll be hugely difficult. One place which I will be pimping is the Pie Factory in Tipton. There's many things which define being 'Black Country', but none more so than this place.

Anyway, I'll get my thinking cap on and get to work. Exciting times!

Thai Haddock Kebabs

2008-04-12T17:52:00.008+01:00

Hello!

This afternoon I have made something which I haven't made in a fair while. It's my Thai Haddock Kebabs. I mentioned them recently in my blog post about quick and easy food. I thought I'd do them today and share the recipe here.

Now, whenever anyone says 'kebab' to me, I have this awful vision of a burger-van parked up outside the local ritzy nightclub at 3am serving an unspecified meat in a pitta bread, with limp salad and liberal splashings of (again, unspecified) nuclear sauce.

This however is a perfect starter for a Asian inspired menu and is not of the above variety. It's very simple to make and tastes lovely. I've served this as a starter before and it went down well.

You will require (makes 8):

1 large fillet of Haddock (you will need to bone it, if it hasn't been done already)
2 limes
2 tspn Red Thai curry paste
4 stalks of lemongrass (quartered lengthways)

To start, remove the bones and the skin from the Haddock and place in a food processor. Grate the zest of one of the limes and place that into the processor with the Haddock, followed by the juice of the same lime.

Put the curry paste into the mixture and season it with salt and pepper. Whizz in the processor for approximately 10-15 seconds.

Quarter the lemongrass and mould the mixture around the lemongrass using it as a skewer. The mixture will be quite wet because you've broken the fish down and added lime juice. Squeeze out most of the moisture as you wrap it around the lemongrass.

When you've done this, place in a preheated oven (gas mark 6) for approximately 15 minutes, or until done.

To finish off, I removed them from the oven and used my blowtorch to give the kebab a bit of browning before serving.

Garnish the dish with the other lime and I used a sweet dipping sauce as a condiment. YUM

Eat well!

Tomato Jelly with Olive Biscotti and a Truffle and Balsamic Emulsion

2008-04-05T14:30:00.006+01:00

Greetings.

Bored today, I decided to stick my head in the cupboard and have a nose around, looking for something snacky to make to pass the time.

Mrs Phantom and I are soon going to Purnell's in Birmingham. It's run (amazingly enough) by Glynn Purnell, who was Head Chef at Jessica's, also in Birmingham which about six months ago, closed down for reasons unknown. Jessica's sat alongside Simpsons as the only Michelin starred eateries in central Birmingham. It looks quite a nice menu and I'm particularly interested in their Goat's Cheese Jelly starter. It got me thinking of jellies, which traditionally are served as a quick pudding, or as a covering on a flan. Having no goat's cheese in the house and no motivation to stagger down to Tesco, I started looking for alternatives.

Jelly isn't difficult to make as all you need is a stock and a setting agent, so my brain started thinking to what extent you could apply these principles to a savoury dish. Textually, it might be quite difficult to comprehend, as I think that when your brain registers the texture of jelly, it immediately expects a sweet flavour. However, today I thought I would try tomato jelly for the simple reason that tomato is quite sweet and the biscuits will be quite sour.

For the tomato jelly I use:

1 x Packet of Gelatine (use agar if you're vegetarian)
1 x Tin of Chopped Tomatoes
100ml of water

Sieve the tomatoes heavily, ensuring that all that is left in the sieve are pips, peel and any leftover flesh. This process should yield approximately 350ml of juice. Leave to one side.

Heat up the water in a pan to almost boiling point and add in the gelatine. Let it dissolve and pour the mixture into the tomato juice. You should now have around 450ml of mixture. Top it up to about 600ml with water and place it in your jelly moulds and then into the fridge to set.

While this is doing, you can make the biscotti. For this, you require:

2oz Plain Flour
1oz Butter
4 or 5 Black Olives (pitted and sliced)
1oz Cheddar Cheese (grated)
Salt

Place the butter into the flour and turn it into breadcrumbs. Add some salt and pepper and the cheese and then a dash of water to combine the ingredients to form a dough. When combined, add in the olives and knead the dough. You should be able to roll it out immediately. Roll it to a thickness of 2mm and cut into strips and place on a greaseproof baking sheet in the oven for approximately 5 minutes. Allow the barely cooked dough to cool and dry out (the fat will be moist), then cook again for another 5-7 minutes on a high heat, to turn the underside golden. Take out of the oven and cool them on a rack.

Finally, you can make a Truffle Emulsion.

For this you require:

1 tsp Balsamic vinegar
1tsp Sherry or White Wine Vinegar
1 Egg yolk
50ml Extra virgin olive oil
20ml Truffle oil

Simply whisk together the egg yolk and vinegars. Gradually add the oils, a little at a time, to make a thick emulsion. Add the truffle oil to taste. (be careful, it's pokey stuff!)

Assemble the components and garnish with pea shoots (I use chopped chives, due to my lack of pea shoots).

I think you'll agree it looks rather nice. It tasted lovely. The sweet tomato, offset by the biscotti and the emulsion just rounded it off. The truffle flavour was the key ingredient as the subtle flavour balanced the sweet, sharp tomato. It's certainly not something you can do if you're pressed for time, but if, like me you're bored and wanted something to do, then it's awesome. I'll be serving this as a starter I think, the next time we have people round.

Eat well!

Parsnip Soup and Foam Video + News

2008-03-24T21:59:00.005Z

Good evening.

I have spent the best part of two days editing badly and thinking 'does my voice really sound like that?'. I've made a video of my recipe for Parsnip Soup with a Curried Prawn and Coconut Foam. It's a fantastic recipe and serves as a perfect amuse-bouche.

I've joined the 'yoof' of today and uploaded it to Youtube (however it must be said that this is cooking, not happy slapping!). You can view the video here:

It's pretty rough and ready, but hopefully when Mrs Phantom and I get to grips with the general feel of what we're meant to be doing, things should improve dramatically. I had great fun making it, although Mrs Phantom was just about ready to plunge a carving knife into my head on the 64th take of the introduction which we later scrapped. I'm so, so sorry! If you haven't tried this recipe, it's seriously good and I urge you to stop whatever you're doing RIGHT NOW and go and make it.

In other news, I've been accepted as a member of the UK Food Bloggers Association. A group of like-minded souls seeking our own personal internet island. It seems to be a very nice little setup and you can't help but want to find a virtual bean bag and flop onto it, listening to the relaxing music piped in from the website next door! Looking at the people involved, I'm in some very serious company and I feel privileged to be a part of the community.

Eat Well!

Chicken and Thai Red Curry Flavoured Couscous

2008-03-21T17:42:00.005Z

Short of time this lunchtime, meant that I had to think quickly about a lunch meal for myself and Mrs Phantom. I'd cooked a roast chicken this morning, which I'd dressed with the usual (Rosemary, Garlic, an Onion and a Lemon) and it was cooling on the side. It needed an accompaniment, as just chicken on it's own would be a tad Neanderthal, I feel. A rummage through the cupboard led me to stumble upon some couscous.

Couscous is very versatile, but in the wrong hands it becomes a lethal weapon. You will literally die of boredom if you eat non-flavoured and unseasoned couscous. Popular thinking is that some chopped coriander with a squeeze of lime is the way forward. Granted, I concede that it is a real winner. But because I wasn't going shopping until tomorrow, I didn't have any fresh coriander.

I did have however, some Thai red curry paste, which I bought the other week for my Thai Haddock kebabs (note to self: recipe for that is needed on here). I mixed in a spoonful into the couscous and it tasted wonderful. I served it with some sliced chicken breast and it made (near enough) an instant dinner. It wasn't too strong to make it over-powering and served as a filling and satisfying lunchtime dinner. Quicker than cheese on toast, tastier than a pot noodle, yet done in the same time. You can't go wrong.

Eat Well!

Masterchef 2009

2008-03-17T12:56:00.005Z

Masterchef then. It's a programme I avidly watch. It delights and infuriates in equal measures, particularly in the early rounds. I love seeing the shortlisted candidates going into a room and being flummoxed by the ingredients, serving up raw chicken or feta cheese and chocolate rice pudding with a hopeful glint in their eye that such a hideous combination would work. On the flip side, I also love seeing the truly blessed cooks do things I couldn't even begin to compete with. Basically I've decided to give it a crack!

I'm a little apprehensive, I'm not sure I wouldn't get a bout of last minute nerves, sling everything in a pan and close my eyes and hope for the best. I'd like to think I'd be a little more self-disciplined and cook something simple, well. But when the cameras roll, who knows what would happen? I can't imagine myself pimping myself on national tv and setting myself up for a huge fall, but it's worth a crack.

I've read Ben Axford's Masterchef Diaries and to be honest it has given me a helpful insight to the programme and how it is made. I'm pretty pumped about it, as I've often talked to the family about applying before, but never really got round to doing it. Whether I'll regret doing it in a few months is an open question. I'm on annual leave from work at the moment and pretty bored. They say a bored mind is an office for the devil. I only hope I haven't just bought the devil a nice leather recliner and installed air conditioning!

Eat Well!

Orange and Raspberry Syllabub with Rosewater Biscuits

2008-03-16T19:42:00.005Z

Greetings.

As keen eyed observers will note today is my grandfather's 80th and I did the Rack of Lamb with the Blueberry and Lavender sauce for the main course. I accompanied it with a puree of potato and parsnip and a baby carrot and leek and red cabbage. It went down a storm. Between 8 of us, we polished off 28 chops and the entire sauce. Bellies were full, I can tell you.

Not however, as well as my pudding, which forms the basis for the update for today. Light, fresh, clean and damn tasty, the syllabub was quite frankly the star of the show. I'm not very blessed at making desserts. I don't know why, but I'm more of a savoury cook. Each to their own, but I'm not very confident in using sweet tasting things. I struggle to balance the flavours and get a harmonious dish together. This however, proved the exception to the rule.

It is so easy to make. Amazingly so. For 8 servings I used:

450g fresh raspberries
The juice from 1.5 oranges
The zest from one orange
50g icing sugar
600ml carton double cream
50ml Grand Marnier
Crushed amaretti biscuits to sprinkle on top

Place the raspberries evenly in the required number of glasses (I used basic mixer glasses - 79p for 4 from Asda!)

Simply grate the orange and place the zest in a mixing bowl. Juice the oranges and put the Grand Marnier and icing sugar into the bowl. Place cream in and whisk until almost stiff. Just so it can hold the form and then spoon it over the raspberries.

Sprinkle the crushed Ameretti biscuits over the top and place in the fridge until ready to serve. Takes literally 10 minutes!

To accompany this, I made Rosewater biscuits. I made these a week ago and to be honest, I was a tad unimpressed. The delicate rose flavour was lost in translation somewhere. This time I added more Rosewater and it seemed a bit better. To make these I nabbed a recipe from UKTV Food. It consists of:

125g plain flour
15g cornflour
100g butter
75g icing sugar
40ml rose water

Combine the ingredients and simply add the Rosewater to bind it. Bake them for 8 minutes at Gas Mark 6. I have altered the above recipe to include the extra Rosewater as I think the original recipe really suffers from the lack of flavour. When they're done, simply allow them to cool on a wire rack and dust them with icing sugar. Serve alongside the syllabub for the perfect dessert.

The family were in good spirits today and the food went down a treat. I was conscious however that the food detracted slightly away from the purpose of the meal which was to celebrate a birthday. However, my grandfather seemed to enjoy himself immensely, which is what it's all about I guess.

In other news, I'm going to start doing beta-tests of the videocasting next week. It promises to be exciting, yet slightly scary. There's no way I'm going live with any material until I'm completely happy, but I should manage my expectations as to what I can achieve in the comfort of my own kitchen.

Eat well!

Rack of Lamb with Blueberry and Lavender

2008-03-15T16:53:00.001Z

Hello fellow bloggers.

It's been a while since I wrote, but there's been a lot going on here and I genuinely haven't had time. I'm working on a related project to this blog, to run alongside what I write and this should be ready to run in about a month, I expect. I'm venturing into the world of video-casting. Techniques, tips and recipes to be filmed in my humble abode and posted on the world wide internerd superhighway (aka Youtube) for all to see, critique or ignore. Hopefully it should be good fun but dear reader, I confess to being a tad nervous. I shall obviously keep you fully appraised.

Tomorrow is my grandfather's 80th birthday. We've got the whole family coming over and for a main, I'm doing rack of lamb with blueberry and lavender sauce. Trying to find lavender was a nightmare, but I tracked some down and I'm ready to roll.

I've got some lovely looking lamb, I must say. It's currently residing in my fridge. There's nothing like a good rack of lamb - I recently had some however from an award-winning butchers in Codsall, which is a small village outside Wolverhampton. But I was mightily disappointed. It was too fatty and although the flavour was there, the amount of fat was just untrue. It put me and Mrs Phantom right off it. Alas, not to be beaten, I sourced some quality looking meat from our local butcher and I'm confident it should be A.OK this time. Fingers crossed, eh?

Obviously if you're reading this, you don't need to know how to cook or season the lamb. I'm taking that as a given. But I am going to provide the recipe for the sauce. To make it, you will require:

2 tablespoon vegetable oil
4 medium onions, finely chopped
3 glasses dry red wine
5 teaspoons chopped fresh lavender
1 teaspoon sugar
500g fresh blueberries
4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoon unsalted butter

To make the sauce, drain some oil from the lamb and add the chopped onions. Cook until soft, continuously stirring for another 2 to 3 minutes. Add the red wine and lavender, increase the heat, and simmer until reduced by half which should take about 5 minutes. Stir in the sugar, blueberries and balsamic vinegar and simmer for another two minutes. Add the butter and swirl to incorporate it into the sauce and reduce it down again slightly. Season with salt and pepper according to taste.

That's all there is to it. Rack of lamb is always a winner and this refreshing sauce compliments the soft taste of the lamb perfectly.

Shopping in Birmingham

2008-01-30T22:57:00.000Z

Well, it's not much of an update really I suppose, but I've decided to go to Birmingham Indoor Market on Saturday to buy some fresh produce. I don't often do this, but I thought it would make a nice change from Tesco. That's a picture of the market. It's loud, crowded and smelly, but it has awesome food. Whole tuna for £4? Yes please!

Last time I went was about 3 months ago, where we bought a shedload of fish and some veg. It's all very reasonable and because of the cultural diversity of Birmingham, the suppliers often have ingredients that you wouldn't normally be able to source very easily in regular outlets.

Inside, it's laid out like a traditional market. But the volume of food on sale, makes it look like almost like those romanticised markets you often find in cookbooks. I'll keep the blog updated with what I find, it really is a sight to behold!

Mushroom and Onion Quiche

2008-01-28T19:53:00.001Z

Today I got a Text from Mrs Phantom when I was at work. I've deleted it now, but the gist was 'Can we have quiche for tea? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?'

So I came home and decided to cook a Mushroom and Onion quiche with a salad. I like quiche. It always makes me feel quite healthy when I eat it. It's not, of course, but it tastes good and it alleviates any conscience I have about healthy eating!

To start I made the pastry. It's a basic shortcrust, with a sprinkle of cayenne pepper and about 1oz of grated cheese. I made roughly 6oz of pastry (but I needed more to be honest). For the pastry I measured 2oz of butter. The rule of thumb is twice the amount of fat, in flour. So that's 4oz of plain flour. A pinch of salt and make breadcrumbs out of the fat and flour. Add the cheese and cayenne (if desired).

Put in a small amount of cold water and make pastry into a ball as you can see from the picture:

Place the pastry in the fridge for half an hour.

Next fry up the onions and mushrooms in a pan with a clove of garlic (chopped) and a little oil. Cook until the contents of the pan have softened.

To make the filling for the quiche, I used:

2 eggs + 1 egg yolk
10fl oz of milk
salt, pepper and grated cheese.

Combine the ingredients and whisk thoroughly.

I then took the pastry out of the fridge and rolled it out. I greased with butter the quiche dish and placed the pastry inside, letting the pastry overlap the sides. I blind baked the pastry case for 10 minutes (Gas Mark 6). When this was complete, I then removed and excess pastry from around the side of the dish and put the filling (mushrooms and onion first, then coating them in the egg and milk).

I placed the dish in the oven (Gas Mark 6) for 35 minutes. I think you'll agree it looked pretty tasty when it came out:

I served it with a salad of rocket, watercress, avocado, cherry tomato, mushroom and lettuce, drizzle in an orange and shallot dressing (which was bought for me at Christmas, it's fabulous!)

An Amazing Piece of History

2008-01-27T15:30:00.000Z

I've just got back from my grandparents. It's Sunday, which means 'Sunday Roast' with the family. It's an enjoyable affair with 8 attendees all in high spirits. Today, the meat was Lamb. It's rotated between Pork, Beef and Lamb for about 50 years. It's, as you can imagine, somewhat a tradition in our family. Story goes that once, my grandmother dared to cook Salmon on a Sunday, which was met with great disapproval by my late great-grandmothers!

Before lunch, I was talking with my grandfather about this blog and he mentioned a book he'd lent me some time ago, which I'd completely forgotten about. It's a 1914 first edition of 'Le Repertoire de la Cuisine'. So, as soon as I came home, I dug it out. The age of it makes me feel quite humble. Reading it, it's written in the style of LeRousse Gastronomique. A book that sits in my cookery collection and is my reference when the purpose of the evening is to cook food that will impress.

As you can see, it's seen better days.

The book layout is a basic A-Z with short recipes and descriptions for ingredients under each letter. Frankly, I find it to be too simplistic. Not for the food, but 'how to actually cook the food itself'. It assumes so much and gives so little. Still, it's a fascinating read.

Salt (and pepper and other its and bobs)

2008-01-26T23:28:00.000Z

Not a recipe this time. Mrs Phantom and I were having a discussion about seasoning. It's a topic that I find quite interesting. I know plenty of people who are of the opinion that salt is the devil. They read about excess salt intake and think that it means NO SALT.

This is, of course piffle. The body needs salt, because it can't produce it itself, but striking the right balance between nicely flavoured food and eating a salt sandwich is at the battle in alot of heads of many people. I know one person, who refuses to use salt in his cooking. Result? Mashed potatoes that are tasteless, food which lacks flavour.

What I agree with is not putting too much salt in your food. There's a Somerfield next to work, which I frequent on my lunchbreaks when I haven't taken my own food in. There's a coronation chicken sandwich in there. It's 2 slices of bread, some butter (or substitute) and the filling. On the package, is the amount of salt, calories, fat, sugar etc contained within the sandwich, against your recommended daily allowance.

This particular sandwich contains 46% of your daily salt intake alone. 46%!! Now, you're probably thinking the sandwich tastes like seawater, seasoned with a dash of salt. You'd be wrong. The sandwich tastes sweet. Like, very sweet.

Of course, that's an extreme example, but if that sandwich contains that much salt, how much crap must it contain to mask the flavour to such an extent that it actually tastes sweet? Amazing. According to scientists, you're allowed 6g of salt a day - That's a huge amount, so seasoning fresh food is not going to cause problems - buying pre-packed sandwiches and processed food constantly is however, going to cause issues in the long run.

I always season my food with salt, pepper and herbs (if required). To me, it's a vital part of the cooking process. Mrs Phantom's mother always asks me to season her food for her when we're round there for a meal. The reason is she can't tell whether something needs salt or not. This is fair enough I guess. She freely admits that her palette isn't trained enough to tell her. She always measures things, always cooks things exactly to the minute in the recipe book. I'm of the school of thought that all ovens are different, so a recipe is only a guideline to me. The measures too, are just guidelines. The best measuring instrument you have is your mouth.

Broccoli and Stilton Soup

2008-01-26T15:24:00.000Z

This is turning into a soup blog, really isn't it? My only excuse is that it's January, it's reasonably cold and I love soup. Reason enough I'm sure you'll agree!

Anyway, I'm not keen on Stilton. And by 'not keen', I mean I absolutely can't abide the rancid, acrid, vomit-inducing smell, taste and texture. Anyway, Mrs Phantom made a request that I make some for her. She is quite a fan of my soups, but I'd never had a go at this one before. For the recipe, I used the following:

1 Onion, chopped
2oz Butter
1 Broccoli, trimmed and chopped
500ml Vegetable stock
3-4oz (depending on taste 0oz if it was me!) Stilton, broken into pieces
a splash of cream
Ground black pepper and salt to taste

Gently fry the onions in the butter until soft. Add the broccoli and stir for 2 minutes.
Add the stock to the pan and boil the soup for 20 minutes.
Whizz the soup in a blender and return to the pan.
Gently heat the soup and add the crumbled Stilton, heat gently until the Stilton has melted. Add the cream to lighten. Season to taste with the black pepper and salt.

There, that's pretty easy I think. Mrs Phantom enjoyed it, but she did mention that you should be careful if using salt to season as the Stilton is already quite salty. I took that as a hint that I'd put too much in. Oh well!

Eat Well!

Parsnip Soup with Curried Prawn and Coconut Foam

2008-01-25T15:11:00.001Z

Ok, this is going to take a bit of time to prepare because of the foam, but is perfect as an amuse-bouche. It's quite sickly, so you can't really serve it as a starter, but is mouth-wateringly devine as a taster.

To start you need to make the foam. If you're a regular of this blog you'll note the Foam blog I made a while ago. To make this foam, follow the steps using coconut milk as your base which is heavily sieved.

When you're ready to make the soup, you're going to need:

About 1lb of Parsnips
1 onion
2pts of vegetable stock
2oz butter
A splash of single cream
Salt, pepper and bayleaf to season

Skin, core and chop the parsnips and roast them in some olive oil for about 20 minutes in the oven (gas mark 6), until they're softened (but not cooked).

Melt the butter in a pan and add the onion, finely chopped. When the onion is softened add the parsnips and simmer for 3 minutes. Add the stock and bring to the boil and then simmer for about 15 minutes.

When done, remove the bayleaf and add the cream to lighten the soup. Stir and place the soup in a blender. Whizz it until smooth. Then, sieve the soup heavily back into the saucepan. You will end up with silky, reasonably thin and tasty soup. You will also have a load of leftover 'mush' which didn't make it through the sieve. Chuck this away.

Now to make the curried prawns.

Take some prawns (king prawns ideally) and place then on a griddle-pan. Coat them in mild curry powder and cook them until they've turned orange (the curry powder will colour the prawns, they're not off!). Remove from the heat and wipe off any curry powder stuck to the prawns with kitchen roll.

Pour the soup into your dish. Ideally, you'll only require about 175ml of soup per serving. Place a curried prawn in the soup and place a layer of foam on the top.

The coconut foam offsets the prawn nicely, and you get a sweet undercurrent of parsnip which takes your palette to new heights. Trust me, it's amazing.

I can't take the credit for this recipe, sadly. I had it as an amuse bouche at Birmingham's only Michelin starred eatery Simpsons

If you're from round those parts, make an effort to go, because quite frankly, it's fantastic.

Crab and Salmon Raviloi with a Lemongrass Bisque

2008-01-19T15:15:00.001Z

Wow it's been a while. I haven't updated this since August. I haven't lost my love for cooking, I just haven't had time (or the motivation!).

Anyway, Mrs Phantom wanted a nice cosy night in with a bottle of wine, a dvd and a nice meal. So I've decided on a starter of the above.

There's a blog post already here about fresh pasta, so I won't repeat that, but I saw a recipe on the Ramsey website. Now, I can't stand the over-inflated ego of Gordon Ramsey. He's an idiot (or at least his persona in the media is), but you don't get to his position without being good with food. Anyway, I thought I'd give something of his a try.

The ravioli is seasoned meat, encased in a pasta ravioli, no problem. But what about the lemongrass bisque? Well for this I am going to try:

3 stems of lemon grass
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/2 celery stick, chopped
1/2 tsp of cumin
1/2 tbsp of coriander
1 tsp of butter
some coconut milk
some vegetable stock
2 lime leaves
1/4 tbsp of white pepper
some cream
2 leeks, peeled and chopped
2 tbsp of olive oil

To create the bisque

Simmer the leek, lemon grass and celery in the oil for 8-10 minutes.
Add the pepper, garlic, coriander and cumin.
Simmer for 3 minutes.
Add the lime leaves, coconut milk and stock.
Simmer on a low heat and stir occasionally for 1 hr 20 minutes.
Strain the bisque into another pan.
Discard the lime leaves and what remains in the strainer.
Add the cream to the bisque.
Add the butter and salt and pepper to taste.

Drizzle the bisque over the ravioli and there we go, perfect crab and salmon ravioli with a lemongrass bisque

Eat well!

Confit of Lemon

2007-08-25T18:36:00.001+01:00

Well, today has been spent in the kitchen, apart from when I had to bolt down to Sainsburys, because I realised I needed some puff pastry. How I was going to make a goats cheese and shallot tatin without it, is quite frankly a mystery. I overlooked it when writing up the shopping list.

Anyway, I've just spent the last couple of hours making a confit of lemon. It's turned out pretty good I reckon. I messed it up the first time, by getting my measurements all skewed. But it's all good baby!

Lemon confit is awesome with seafood and poultry. It's to be served like a chutney accompaniment to a dish, so you only need a bit. A jar of confit, can last weeks. Anyway, this is how I did it.

3 Lemons
8oz Sugar

Top and tail 2.5 lemons and then cut into 1/8 inch slices. Put in a pan of cold water and bring to the boil Simmer for 3 minutes.

Remove the lemons and discard the water. In the pan, place 425ml of water and add the sugar. Dissolve the sugar and then place in the water and leave to simmer gently for 45 minutes. You need to reduce the juice down to 150ml by the end. When that's done, add in the juice of the half a lemon that remains. Allow to cool, then place in a jar and you're done.

Tomorrow, the lemon confit will be served alongside seared sea scallops and lemon foam as a starter. It's shaping up to be a really nice starter!

Eat well!

Acacia Honey Ice Cream

2007-08-24T20:27:00.000+01:00

Now, it's the build-up to the weekend food-fest on Sunday. I haven't changed my menu at all and it's a bit late now, as I've been and got all the ingredients from Tesco after work. I thought I'd make a few blog entries concerning the various processes that I'll be going through in advance of the main cooking on Sunday. Today, the blog post is about the Acacia honey ice cream I will be serving for dessert.

After I've finished blogging, I'm going to pop downstairs and make it.

I just wanted to say a few words about why i chose Acacia. Acacia honey is a very light, quite liquid variety of honey. The flavour is mild and it won't over-power the flavour of the cream and vanilla. Honey and milk / cream have a certain affinity, and the recipe works really well. This is the first time I have used Acacia (we have normal honey usually in the house) so I'll let you know how it works out. Pictures will of course be provided.

Anyway, onto the feature presentation.

You'll need:

1 Pint of Double Cream.

12 egg yolks

150ml Acacia Honey

2 Pints of full-fat milk

1 & 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Boil the milk in a saucepan, then lower heat to a simmer. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and the honey. Add to simmering milk, stirring constantly and not allowing eggs to over-heat. Remove from heat after ingredients thicken, and strain. After the ingredients cool in bowl, add cream and vanilla. Freeze. Check when it begins to freeze, stir, and freeze again. Repeat this 3 or 4 times.

Ta-daaaaa

Dead easy, dead straight forward. Winner!

Eat well!

Menu Confirmed

2007-08-19T16:17:00.000+01:00

In a weeks time, as my earlier posts suggest, my grandmother turns the being 8,0. As a result, I have been tasked with the Sunday lunch which is a ritual in my family. The family consists of:

Myself
Mrs Phantom
My father
My aunt
Her 2 children
My grandmother
My grandfather

It's usually a bit loud with a spoonful of banter thrown in. Anyway, as it is to be a celebration, I thought I'd push the boat out with a large menu and some fine ingredients. I will be posting pics of the final result next week, naturally. Now, the menu is a mix of things I know, things don't know and things I've stolen. It's going to make for a very interesting (and stressful) few hours in the kitchen. Our kitchen isn't massive and our cooker is small, so it's going to have to be well timed and ruthlessly executed. Anyway, I thought long and hard about the menu and came up with the following:

Pre-starter

Home-made crisps with soft cheese and pine nuts

Starter

Warm duck salad, with rocket, spinach and watercress with a pomegranate foam

OR

Seared sea scallops with a confit of lemon, served with a chilled lemon foam

Pre-main

Butternut squash soup with a mature cheddar pasta parcel

Main

Rack of lamb with aubergine and onion caviar, goats cheese and shallot tatin, etuvee of asparagus, black olive and tomato vinaigrette

Pre-desert

Chilled cardamon rice pudding with a chilled rhubarb coulis

Desert

Caramelised pear, with acasica honey ice-cream and brandy snap

Everything will be fresh, everything is going to be cooked from scratch. Best get cracking then!

Dead Easy Spag Bol

2007-08-13T21:45:00.000+01:00

Right, tonight I cooked an awesome spaghetti bolognese with fresh pasta. It's a doddle to make and tastes absolutely awesome. I served it with grated cheese and ciabatta bread. One thing you're going to notice is that I don't usually provide measurements. You know why? Because the best measuring instrument is my mouth. I trust myself to know how much salt to put in, how many tomatoes etc etc. I start by adding a bit, and then adding a bit more if I feel the need. Obviously, proportions are important with regards to baking, but flavouring, seasoning and such like require not a pair of scales, but a taste for your food. Give it a whirl!

Pasta

Egg
Flour

To make the pasta you need a pasta maker (obviously!). They're very handy for showing off, yet very simple to use. You can buy pasta makers from pretty much anywhere. Mine is this one:
First off wipe down your work surface well. Get 1 large egg (or 2 small/medium eggs) and whisk the egg gently combining the yolk and the white. Pour onto the work surface 3oz of flour (roughly) and tip the egg mixture into it and combine the two so it becomes an elasticated dough. If it's too soggy, add more flour, if it's too dry, as a small amount of water (teaspoon max) until you get the right firmness.

Leave for 5 minutes to harden slightly and then run it through the sheet pasta maker folding each time on the thickest setting. Repeat this a good 20 times so you get a firm sheet of well rolled pasta. The do it again on the medium thickness. The pasta will become thinner and bigger each time. Then, on the thinest-but-one setting roll it through again.

You will now have a very long, thin strip of pasta. Leave to dry out for half an hour draped over something (I use the pasta maker box).

When the pasta is dry, it'll be firm, dry, but still malleable. Attach the spaghetti attachment and run it through. PERFECT SPAGHETTI!

The Ragu

1 Tin of chopped Tomatoes
Onion
Garlic
Tarragon (dried in this case)
Tomato
Tomato Puree
Salt
Pepper
Mushroom
Green Pepper
Red Pepper
Mince (or Quorn Mince)

Take a tin of chopped tomatoes (I used Tesco Value), a finely copped onion, some tomato puree, 3 cloves of garlic, a handful of mushrooms and whack them in a blender. Add a sprinkling of salt, pepper, oregano and tarragon and blend again until smooth.

Now, in a frying pan, add your mince and a chopped onion and garlic and cook until brown. Transfer the meat into the sauce, along with some green peppers, mushroom, onion, garlic and fresh tomatoes. Season again with salt, pepper and tarragon as required. Cook for about 20 minutes on the stove. It is important not to boil it, but to let it simmer gently.

When this is done, take your dried spaghetti and put it in a pan of salted boiling water. Fresh spaghetti takes 3 minutes TOPS to cook, so be careful!

Combine the two for a perfect spaghetti bolognese.

NOTE: If you're a vegetarian, Quorn mince will suffice and there is no need to cook the mince beforehand. Just put it all in a pan and cook straight away.

Now, it's not exactly ground-breaking, nor have I taught you anything you probably didn't already know. But the addition of home-made ragu and fresh pasta makes all the difference, believe me!

Eat well!

Shortbread Tart with Clotted Cream and Fig - Drizzled with Butterscotch Sauce

2007-08-12T19:32:00.000+01:00

This desert is not for people without a sweet-tooth. It's possibly the sweetest pudding in my collection, but boy oh boy does it taste good. If you're on a diet, I would suggest you DON'T try this at home! You can make the shortbread and the Sauce WELL in advance. It only takes a few minutes to assemble. So it's a real winner!

Ingredients (Serves 4)

For the shortbread

4oz Butter
2oz Caster Sugar
6oz Plain Flour

Mix the butter and the sugar together until you get a light fluffy texture and fold in the flour, until you get a dough. Roll out with flour covered rolling pin. Place in 4" tart cases (about 15mm deep) with removable base and cook in a pre-heated oven (Gas Mark 2) for about 20 minutes.

For the Butterscotch Sauce

2oz Butter
3oz of soft brown sugar (Muscavado is even better!)
2oz of Granulated Sugar
5oz Golden Syrup
4fl oz Double Cream

Melt the butter and the brown and white sugar together in a saucepan with the syrup. Heat gently until the sugar has dissolved which should take around 5-10 minutes. When the liquid is smooth, take off the heat and stir in the double cream. Continue stirring for another 5 minutes. Cool in the fridge until serving.

To prepare the figs (You will need 6)

Top and tail the figs and slice them. I would suggest slicing them into a thickness ~2mm. Leave them to one side.

Once the shortbread has cooked, it will still be quite soft. Leave them in the tin for 10-15min to allow them to cool and harden. Then, using the removable base, GENTLY remove the shortbread tart case from the tin. Cool until cold.

Clotted Cream (You will need 4 or 5 small pots)

Spoon into the cases clotted cream evenly. So it covers the base of the tart.

Then you can assemble the desert. Place the sliced figs on top. Cover with butterscotch sauce and watch as your guests fall off their chairs in delight.

If you suddenly gain 10lbs following this recipe, please don't blame me! However, for a 'one-off' it can't be beaten!

Eat well!

Stolen Salmon (c) Ellen

2007-08-12T17:04:00.000+01:00

A couple of weeks back, myself and Mrs Phantom drove up to Northallerton (Yorkshire) to see Mike and Ellen. I met Mike and Ellen on xbox live and since then we've become good friends.

They're both awesome people and Ellen cooked a FANTASTICAL meal for us on the Saturday night, which I'm sharing with you today. Below includes a PM Ellen sent me on our forum on the Monday. Ellen, if you ever read this, I hope you're not mad for divulging your recipes, but the world needs to know!

Hey Jan

Thanks again for coming all the way up here for the weekend, we really enjoyed having you here.

Mike said that you wanted my salmon recipe It's pretty basic, just melt some butter (not sure of exact quantity but a good chunk of it) and stir in a couple of tablespoons of honey and a couple of dijon mustard. Spoon over the salmon fillets. Mix together some breadcrumbs (I used Tescos pre-done ciabatta breadcrumbs) and freshly parsley and a handful of chopped pecans. Cover the top of the fillets with the mixture. Put in the oven at 200C ish for 15 mins and you're done

I bet that was as clear as mud - Good luck

I always think that if you can still taste the meal an hour later and you're licking your lips, then the meal was a success. Rest assured, this meal had me salivating until the next day!

Ellen served it with new potatoes and peas, which went down an absolute treat. I honestly can't recommend it enough!

I would say at this point, that Ellen says "it's pretty basic". Well, it may not have tons of ingredients, it may not require 500 processes to achieve the end result. But you know what? It doesn't matter. Good food is good food. The flavours here are clean, crisp and in perfect harmony. And if it tastes good, surely that's the most important thing?!

Eat well!

How To Make Culinary Foam

2007-08-11T21:54:00.002+01:00

On July 29th I turned 27. To mark this momentous occasion I was showered with gifts. HURRAH and HUZZAH!

Now, as you'll no doubt know, buying gifts for people is always a difficult task. But I let my friends and family off by asking for anything cooking related.

Abi (Mrs Phantom) bought me what is possibly the best thing I could have wished for. A compressed Nitrous Oxide dispenser and 100 NO2 chargers. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "What the fudge are they and what application do they have?" Well, valued viewer I'm about to tell you.

An NO2 dispenser looks like one of those gadgets on the right. It's mainly used for making squirty cream. However, in the world of fine dining, the fashion is to include a foam alongside the main course, flavoured with a garnish.

How it works

Ok, in this example, which is dead easy to follow, I'm going to explain how to use it to create the perfect culinary foam. When I first had it, I couldn't find a decent tutorial on the net - so I had to piece together various snippets of information. This post is intended to help those that are in a similar position to myself 2 weeks ago.

To start you require juice or stock. This can be home-made or shop bought, but needs to be sieved to ensure that there are no bits. It needs to be as smooth as Leslie Phillips. For the purposes of this example I am going to use Tesco Orange and Banana Juice.

Dissolve a packet (or sheet) gelatin into some warm water. Leave it to dissolve, which should take 3-5 minutes. While this is doing, measure out in a jug the required amount of juice taking into consideration the amount of gelatin used to ensure it can set.

When the gelatin is dissolved, tip it into the juice and stir to ensure that it is mixed evenly into the mixture and leave it to set in the fridge. This should take between 30 and 60 minutes. When it is set and is in a jellied form, take it out of the fridge and get a whisk. Whisk it to break down the firm jelly into a 'goo' (I really struggled for a word there, sorry!). Place in the dispenser and fill it up with 3 NO2 chargers. You will need to shake the mixture between charges.

It's now ready to serve. You get a perfect foam, whipped, light, fluffy and most importantly flavoursome. Serve immediately!

NOTE: If you're a vegetarian, a gelling agent such as agar can replace gelatin and will do the job perfectly well.

Foam has many applications in cookery. It was first discovered (or rather invented) by Spanish Chef Ferran Adria, who is Head Chef at El Bulli, which was voted the best restaurant in the world, ahead of the Fat Duck in Bray.

On the 26th August this year, my grandmother turns 80. I will be cooking the meal for the whole family and foam will be used on the starter. At the moment it's looking as though it's going to be applied in a starter of Duck Breast, Watercress and Rocket and a Pomegranate foam. Duck and Pomegranate go together really very well, so it looks like a proper winner. I shall of course be updating the blog with pictures of the final result in due course.

If you want to try it out yourself, be prepared for a mixture of success and failure. Trial and error are the only ways to find out what goes with what. Though if you've a good imagination, you're off to a head start!

Foam I'm itching to try:

Coconut foam using coconut milk (heavily sieved!)
Beetroot foam (based on a recipe for Borscht)
Carrot foam (based on a stock, followed by blending and sieving heavily)

Eat well!

Massive 'Hello!'

2007-08-11T20:22:00.000+01:00

Good evening. Welcome to my first post on my first blog. Thanks for reading, I really appreciate it :)

Now, before I start I have to clear up a few things.

I'm not a professional chef, nor will I ever be one. I'm only here because I've always fancied a blog, but nothing ever happens to me that's interesting. I was if you like, devoid of inspiration. However, I did think the other day that I could blog on my exploits in the kitchen.

I'm a massive fan of cooking. It's the most awesomeist-ist-ist hobby I think anyone could have. I cook every day for my girlfriend and myself and also for our respective families. On our side of the family, cooking has always been a big part of who we are. My grandmother taught me at a very early age how to cook very basic things (Rice Krispy Chocolate cakes anyone?) and it's kinda stuck from there I suppose.

To pinpoint my style, I would hesitate to label it in any particular pigeonhole. What I would say is that my cooking tends to be traditional with a twist.

I only cook from fresh. We don't have a microwave in the house and everything is cooked from scratch. Now, I would add at this point that I don't go out and source eggs from hens that have been fed on corn on farms that have been wafted by virginal brides, nor buy organic water to wash my veg with. I buy everyday items from everyday places. Our weekly shop is done at Tesco and sometimes Sainsburys.

The purpose of this blog is to provide an outlet for some of my recipes and thoughts on food, along with a rundown of various eateries I have been to. I hope you enjoy reading (it'd be a shame for you to hate it when I put this much effort into it!) and hope it provides you with some inspiration. Likewise if you've got tip you wish to share, please do so, I'm always open to new ideas!

Eat well!