week 44 - River Cottage Everyday - Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall

I remember borrowing a copy of River Cottage Everyday from the library over a decade ago, when when it first came out, and excitedly poring over the lunch ideas, such as the mackerel with puy lentils, leftover lamb with lemon and mint, or the green bean and chicken salad with almonds. And then picking up a Boots meal deal (chicken and stuffing on malted bread, Innocent juice - one without kiwi - and a packet of salt and vinegar squares) on the way to work. 

Being stuck at home a lot this year, and rapidly running out of inspiration for easy dinners and wfh lunches, I decided to order a second-hand copy (again, ignoring my own advice to use the books I already have, now piling up in heaps on the floor, as they won't fit on the shelves) 

Predictably, I haven't made any of the recipes that I have bookmarked but I have made the one recipe that takes the longest; the overnight bacon chops (to be fair, it is hands off for 23 and a half hours of the prep time). I actually used a couple of king ribs for this, and you can even cure a piece of belly in the same way. It won't have the pink colour of commercial bacon (due to lack of nitrites) and you can't get rashers without a meat slicer, but you can cut into chunks and use in all the things you'd normally put bacon in (pretty much everything).

Unusually, this #cookbookchallenge actually started with the sides first; in this case because I found a solitary turk's turban squash growing in the front garden on return from our holiday - between all the green tomatoes and the unfertilised tomatillo plant. After spotting it growing from from the rapidly withering vine that trailed across the lawn, I was determined to give it a fitting send off.

As it wasn't a prize-winning size, and I wasn't quite sure how the flesh would taste, I also bought a medium crown prince squash (for a quid in Morrison's as part of their Halloween display. A bargain when I had bough one for nearly four times as much from Waitrose earlier in the year for my Thai pork rib and pumpkin curry).

The result was Hugh's 'mushy squash'. So called as he recommends it as a autumnal replacement for the traditional peas, to accompany fried fish among many other things. The mix of squash worked very well, making a sweet and nutty mash flavoured with a little nutmeg and sage and plenty of butter. It was especially good against the saltiness of the cured pork rib.

Mushy Squash

Adapted from River Cottage Everyday

1 tablespoon rapeseed or olive oil

About 600g butternut or Crown Prince squash, peeled, deseeded and cut into small cubes

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

3–4 sage leaves, finely chopped

50g unsalted butter

Heat the oil in a pan, add the squash and fry gently for a few minutes. Add the garlic and sage, season with salt and pepper and cook until the garlic just begins to colour. Immediately add 2–3 tablespoons of water to stop the garlic browning any more. 

Cover the pan with a lid and let the squash finish cooking; it should be tender within about 10/15 minutes; add a little more water if the pan becomes dry.

Blend the squash along with the the butter, until you have a thick puree. Add a dash of milk or water if needed. Season to taste.

Overnight-cured bacon chops

Adapted from River Cottage Everyday

4 large free-range pork chops or 2 king ribs

2 tbsp sunflower or groundnut oil

50g fine sea salt

25g caster sugar or soft brown sugar

3 bay leaves, finely shredded

12 juniper berries, crushed

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

 

Combine all the ingredients for the cure and put them into a plastic container or ceramic dish (a metal one is liable to react with the cure). Add the pork chops and rub the cure lightly all over the meat with your fingers.

 Cover the container and leave in a cool place (a cool larder or fridge) overnight or for at least 12 hours, or 24 hours for extra-large or thick-cut pork chops, but no longer....

Turn the chops once or twice, if you remember. Then rinse them well and pat dry.

Your pork is now cured, your chops are now bacon. 

Use immediately or keep in a sealed container in the fridge for five to six days, and the flavour will improve. They also freeze well.

To cook the chops, heat the oil in a large frying pan over a high heat and brown them on both sides then place on a baking sheet in an oven, preheated at 180c, for 8 to 10 minutes, or until cooked through. Rest for five minutes before serving with squash squash, or mash and greens.

week 36 - Simon Hopkinson Cooks

Once upon a time lamb shanks, like pork belly, oxtail and oysters - the latter famously ending up in Victorian pies to bulk them out (although considering they also drank beer as the water was so polluted, I'd probably stick to meat and veg) - were unloved wobbly bits now one wanted and priced accordingly. Now, thanks to gastropubs and TV chefs (and slightly mediocre food bloggers) these gnarly cuts are no longer the bargain they once were. 

But what is better than being served up your very own personal hunk of meat on the bone? With soft and tender meat that  should shed apart like shoulder, but also with something to gnaw on too. They also remind me of Grandad, as when we take him out for lunch and he sees a lamb shank on the menu, he always orders it, as 'it feels like a treat'.

And so when I saw Welsh leg shanks on offer I thought of lovely Grandad (who I haven't been able to see this year because of the small matter of a global pandemic and all that) and decided to buy a couple as a treat to raise our spirits from what sometimes feels like the unrelenting doom of 2020.

The recipe I chose to celebrate the shanks was from Simon Hopkinson Cooks; a cheering kind of cookbook that features a dozen carefully curated menus, each starting with aperitifs and nibbles and ending with puddings and digestifs. As all good meals should.

Sadly, there was just the Ewing and I to partake of this feast, so I skipped the starters and jumped straight in at the deep end with his recipe for gloriously sticky, slow-cooked shanks, braised with white beans and smoked bacon, followed by a baked vanilla custard (for four, but poured into two ramekins). I have faint memories that I also said I wasn't drinking, but the bottle of rioja in the pictures suggested something changed my mind....

Lamb shanks with white beans 

(adapted from Simon Hopkinson)

4 lamb shanks (I used two and had the leftover beans and bacon for supper the next day)

500g white beans (I used haricot, as I couldn't find cannellini)

300g bacon, in a piece, cut into chunks (I ended up using a small joint of smoked gammon)

2 bay leaves

2 carrots, peeled and chopped into small chunks

400g cherry tomatoes

4 cloves garlic

2 onions, peeled and diced

3 sprigs thyme

1 tbsp olive oil

350mls chicken, vegetable or lamb stock

Put the beans in a roomy pan and cover with water (no salt) to at least 4cm above the beans. Bring up to a boil, boil for ten minutes, switch off the heat and leave in the water for 1 hour.

Whiz the tomatoes in a liquidiser together with the garlic, thyme leaves and process until smooth. Now put this mixture to one side.

Using a large, preferably cast-iron pot heat the olive oil over a moderate flame. Tip in the bacon and allow to fry quietly for about 5 minutes lift out the bacon and reserve on a large plate.

Season the shanks and slowly fry in the bacon fat until all surfaces are nicely browned. Lift out and place alongside the bacon. 

Add the onions and carrots to the pot and sweat for about 10 minutes, or until lightly coloured. Add the tomato mixture, bring up to a bubble and allow to cook for a further 10 minutes. Stir in the bay leaves and stock before adding the bacon and lamb shanks and push under the liquid to cover them. Bring up to a simmer.

Preheat the oven to 150°C. Drain the beans, rinse well and return them to the pot with the lamb.

Stir together well, thoroughly distributing the beans among the meat and place pot into the oven. Cook for a further 2 -3hours, uncovered, until both beans and lamb are tender and the liquid surrounding them has somewhat reduced, having by now formed a burnished look to the surface of the stew. Remove from the oven, and serve with green veg, to contract the red wine.

I love custard so much that a family member bought me a pot of creme anglais instead of flowers when she came to visit once. I ate it cold with a spoon. That said, I'm not as fond of custard tarts or creme brulee and I only decided to make these vanilla custard pots as I lacked the motivation to make pancakes or pastry, I half a carton of cream hanging around in the fridge.

I have to say that not only were they deceptively simple, but they were also bloody delicious. In fact so good, we actually ate them as an afternoon snack before our dinner. Well, working at home has to have some perks. Hopkinson uses single cream and makes his custards in small ramekins but, being greedy, I think you could add a little milk too, bunging in an extra yolk to thicken, and make a larger portion that is slightly less rich but no less wobbly.

Baked vanilla custard pots

300ml single cream

tiny pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla paste

3 egg yolks

50g cater sugar

freshly grated nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 170C.

Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl together with the sugar, vanilla paste and salt until thick, pale and creamy. Add the cream mixture to the egg yolks, and whisk until well blended. 

Pour the mixture into a small pan and cook over a low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, for five minutes or until the mixture has thickened slightly.

Carefully pour into four small ramekins (about 100-120ml each) - or two larger ones, if you're greedy like me, and grate a little nutmeg over each pot. 

Place the ramekins in a deep roasting dish and pour tap-hot water around them so it comes up three quarters of the way up the sides of the ramekins.

Carefully slide it into the oven and bake for around 25 minutes, or until just set; give them a little shake; they will wobble nicely they are done.

Remove from the oven, take the custards from the tin and allow them to cool for 20 minutes. Put into the the fridge for at least two hours to chill thoroughly. Eat on the day of making (not a difficult instruction to follow).

Jenny from the (concrete) block

I have a long running love affair with the Elephant and Castle stretching back to my late teens/early twenties, when I remember being in a friend's car, driving around the iconic roundabout late on a Friday night. The lights, the chaos, the concrete. A few years later Stealth moved in to a flat just off the Walworth Road and it quickly became one of my very favourite places. Anywhere.

The shopping centre, particularly, is an area that's often been maligned. I would say unfairly, but, as much as I adore coming out of the Bakerloo line tube station on a Friday night, and seeing the majesty of the Faraday memorial in front of me, looking to the left at the rain-streaked adverts for the bingo and the bowling pasted to the blue plastic cladding panels, I'm not sure that even I really think that's true.

Which is why I'm conflicted that the green light has finally been given to bulldoze the shopping centre to the ground. While proposals from Delancy building nearly a thousand new homes and creating a new university campus, there is an uneasiness that lack of affordable housing and the removal of many independent businesses will help hasten the social cleansing that has all ready irrecoverably changed the character of the area. With many people who have lived and worked in E&C pushed further into London's peripheries and much of the areas unique character lost.

Due to a very complicated arrangement that only could have been contrived by Stealth, on our last visit we had to be out of the flat at 9.30 on a Sunday morning. For two hours. As she had roused me early from my bed on Christmas Eve eve, I decided to extract my sweet revenge by insisting we all went for breakfast. In the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre. 

Jenny's Burgers, tucked away in a corner on the first floor, remains curiously untouched by the 21st century speeding past just outside it's door. A relic from a time past there's a pane of glass in the window held together with hazard tape, a fruit machine, peppered with cigarette burns, by the counter and the interior decorated with Day-Glo pictures of the menu that have been printed out and carefully backed on sugar paper. There was also a little sprinkling of tinsel around the mirrors on our visit, to really ramp up the festive cheer.

Jenny's offers the JJ Burger, which appears very similar to Wimpy's - another iconic piece of British life that is slowly disappearing - bender in a bun. With it's curled frankfurter sitting atop a beefburger, I can't say I wasn't tempted, especially at £3.40 including chips, but it was even harder to pass up a fry up. And with the two guys behind the counter exuding a wealth of warmth and experience to all comers, I felt we were going to be in good hands.

You couldn't have a fry up with out a good cup of splosh, creosote-coloured and so strong the spoon stands up in it. As the Ewing and Stealth are fancy, they had a giant cappuccino and a gallon of black coffee, respectively. Alas, being extra caffeinated didn't help with the quality of the conversation much (although I must be fair and note the Stealth didn't try to read the Sunday Times on her iPad once).

I had chips almost solely to annoy Stealth, because of her mistaken belief they don't belong with breakfast. Although they were cut thin enough to be verging on fries, and a little wan, they tasted pretty good, and even better with a good squirt of abrasively vinegary ketchup. The sausage was comfortingly cheap and paste-like, just as it should be. 

Toast was white sliced (the Ewing, as she always does, ignored the sanctity of the completely refined fry up and went brown), with butter already melted. I added my beans, and a few errant chips, to mine for DIY triple carbs on toast.

While I'm reluctant to think good things about the changes that are going to befall this vibrant patch of South London in the coming months, I'm hoping provisions will be made for those who chose to make this their home and the unique character is (mostly) preserved. But for now, I was more than happy to see the annual outing of the Christmas lights around the iconic elephant that stands proudly outside the centre. Let's hope it's not the last time.

Finding my vocation

It wouldn't be our biannual trip to Leeds without a trip into town before we go home. As it was our December visit - for Christmas Number One - we also decided to involve some festive shopping. Theoretically that means a few hours happily browsing, while picking up the perfect gifts for all our friends and family. In reality that means bickering our way around two shops, max, followed by a row because it's been at least two hours since breakfast.

This trip was surprisingly peaceful - apart from a disagreement about which way to go beside a giant illuminated reindeer, which I'm blaming firmly on Google Maps - although I was exceedingly happy when my Uncle John called while were we in Lush, meaning I could duck outside to escape the eye-watering aroma of patchouli and despair. Even better he told us he was also in town, and did we want to meet for lunch.

Of course we wanted to meet for lunch. And where better than the very recently opened Assembly Underground, located on the previous site of the former Leeds School Board building on Calverley Street (as I was reliably informed by my Uncle). Run by Hebden Bridge's Vocation Brewery it features fifty taps of beer, a hidden cocktail bar and an open dining hall area featuring grub from Slap & Pickle, Felafel Guys, Punjabi street curry specialist Jah Jyot, Leodis Coffee, and Bread and Butter Churrasco BBQ.

Uncle John went for a classic pint of  what I *think* was Vocation's Heart and Soul on cask (I was somewhat distracted at the time, trawling through the vast beer menu myself). Whatever it was, look at it - all things bright and beautiful, glittering in the afternoon winter sun. He nearly managed a second pint, but a queue at the bar saw him fall back on plan b; a very nice looking flat white from Underground Coffee.

Somewhat overwhelmed with choice, I asked the barman for some 'murk' and was rewarded with a schooner of Vocation's Where's Dan, a delicious, opaque NEIPA that tasted, and looked, like hoppy pineapple Just Juice.  The Ewing, our designated driver, also went fruity with a half of the Vocation agave and lime radler. 

I hadn't already had a surfeit of red meat on my visit - with roast sirloin of beef for Christmas Dinner Number One, followed by a game pie at the House of Trembling Madness the day after - I decided to complete the hat trick with a big ass burger at Slap and Pickle.

I went for the light option with the Baconator and a side of Big Mick's fries. The burger - double cheese, double bacon, double beef, iceberg and burger sauce - was one of the best I've had this year. Salty, oozy, greasy, drippy, just like all the best things in life.

The loaded fries, as you can probably tell from the name, riffed on a popular burger chain's popular eponymous burger and came topped with burger crumble, cheese sauce, burger sauce, mustard, lettuce and pickles. Eat 'em while they're hot for maximum pleasure, although I do secretly love the odd cold and congealed chip that gets welded to the bottom of the dish.

My Uncle and the Ewing went for a bit of spice from Jah Jyot, Punjabi inspired Indian street food traders who have ended up in West Yorkshire via Horsham in West Sussex. Alongside curries and thalis they also offer a range of filled dosas, samosas and tikka wraps made with fenugreek chappatis.

Both chose a selection of curries including the Amritsar chicken with potato and fresh coriander and a vegan ajma (red kidney bean) curry with fenugreek seeds, which was excellent. Alongside were rice and the aforementioned chapattis, flecked green with the aromatic leaves.

Of course a trip into town wouldn't be complete without a visit to the Kirkgate market for provisions before the long schlep home -  which on this occasion included ten sirloins for a tenner and over three kilos of limes for two quid. having said that, I skipped the arseholes and tripe. My wife says that's the standard of my drunken Christmas conversation already...

Pork life (under canvas)

I’m rather fond of camping, in fact a few nights under canvas was the very first trip the Ewing and I went on together. We went about ten miles up the road, it rained pretty much constantly and our air bed had a slow puncture, but that just seemed to make it all the more exciting and romantic. Well, until we came to our final morning and the rabbit with mixamatosis turned up. My wife may laugh thinking back, but I still have nightmares.

As sure as a circle keeps going round, our most recent trip together was also camping, this time to the Pig Place, an hour up the M40, on the Oxon/Northants border, following a lovely visit a few years back. And yes, it rained, and our mattress developed a puncture. Although now, after a decade together, the drizzle and lying on the lumpy ground had lost its allure somewhat. We have upgraded to a better tent at least, so on this trip we were happy sitting in the porch, waiting for the black clouds to pass so we could light the stove and have a cuppa.

It did start out bright though, so we made the most of the new Trotters Bar, a trailer with glorious views over the Oxford Canal and Cherwell Valley. With Thatcher’s on draft or local cider available by the pint, as well as a large range of gins and other spirits. We enjoyed a cider with blackcurrant (very 90s uni days) and a strong scrumpy, while sinking into a couple of the sofas that are positioned in a great spot on the slope leading down to the water.

The whole place is pretty idyllic. Set on a smallholding – featuring the eponymous pigs, chickens and runner ducks, the best kind of duck – it’s a beautiful, but back to basics spot.  While there are no showers and the only water is from their own borehole, there is a well-stocked farm shop on site, as well as a trailer kitchen serving freshly prepared food that is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. 

Dinner options included sweet and sour pork or a pork balti (plus a couple of veggie choices) served with chips, rice or a jacket spud. I had the sweet and sour with chips, which was everything I hoped it would be. Lean chunks of loin, from the farm, in a tangy sauce with mixed pepper and pineapple sitting on top of a bed of excellent chips; hot and crispy and fluffy and all tasting even better after a couple of pints of cider. If your're lucky, you might even get a visit from Sid, although there was no way I was sharing.

We may have been going back to basics, but we hadn't abandoned civilisation completely. So, of course, a bottle of organic port was an essential nightcap. it may have gone some way to insulating against the cold, but it certainly didn't help with four o'clock moonlit stumbles to the Portaloo, or my head the next morning. I did get to see the sun rising over the canal though, so not all terrible.

If dinner was good, the brekkie was superb, as good as I remembered, maybe even better. And, even better than that, if you get up early enough (everyone gets up far too early when they're camping) you get to see the farm animals being fed. The sight of the pig losing his shit over a loaf of bread was quite something to behold. I think I've finally found my spirit animal.

Happily for my wife, I enjoyed my first meal of the day in a more relaxed manner, all while admiring the glorious view across the Oxfordshire countryside.  We both chose the full english and, although I’m not such a committed ouef-avoider now days, I haven’t moved much beyond omelettes and scrambled egg, so the Ewing had my brace. They offer hen or duck eggs (both from the farm) so she had two of each, although I only seemed to get half a slice of toast and a small chunk of sausage in return…

There were also fantastic bacon and sausages (relatives of our new friends) as well as mushrooms, properly hot baked beans (something of a skill in itself) and toast buttered right to the edges. As well as the most gorgeous view through the mini orchard of apple trees and across the canal.

While I hate to shatter the carefully crafted illusion that I'm basically Robinson Crusoe reincarnated - and I could repair the mattress by lashing together a few branches, while simultaneously rubbing a couple of stray twigs to start a fire to cook a spot of lunch I had fished and foraged - I must confess we spent the afternoon at the nearby retail park buying new camp beds, followed by watching the Spurs game at a nearby pub, where I foraged for Scampi Fries and cider instead.

Saturday night at the campsite saw the annual performance by the Mikron Theatre Company - who arrived by narrow boat from Yorkshire – performing Revolting Women, a story commemorating the centenary of the suffragettes. So of course, for the first time all weekend, it hammered down. In honour of their visit there was a barbecue with wild boar hot dogs and pulled pork rolls. Unfortunately I don’t have any evidence, but the Ewing retreated to eat her dinner in the car, which probably tells you all you need to know about the mood in camp….

Thankfully a couple of beers plus a very restful night on our new camp beds meant we could greet the, slightly grey but still dry, morning with renewed vigour. Especially when it involved  a feathered guest who had come to say hello, plus hot sausage sandwiches with lashings of oxford sauce and several mugs of steaming tea. All hail the electric kettle by the bore hole.

After managing to get the tent down and cram everything back into the boot just as the heaven's opened again, we smugly decamped down the road to the Coach and Horses in Adderbury, to a lovely traditional pub which also boasts what must be the best value Sunday lunch in the whole of Oxfordshire.

Despite not having a reservation, the landlord very kindly squeezed us in at the bar thanks to a late cancellation. And when our roasts appeared I could see why. Four quid for pork loin, which of course I had to round the weekend off with, or half a roast chicken and stuffing, served with no less than five roasties (and yes, Amy One Potato ate them all) plus boiled veg that tasted reassuringly like being back at my nan’s house again. Only this time we didn’t have to hear the stories about so-and-so over the road; and I didn’t have to do the washing up.

Even better was the fact that they had a pudding menu (two fifty each) that included jam roly poly and custard. One of my very favourite things in life and the perfect antidote (along with another pint of bitter for the non-designated driver) to the persistent drizzle that had (mercifully) started the moment we stuffed the last bit of camping gear in the car.

While it maybe in turns too hot, too cold, too wet, too windy. camping is still a great chance to relax, get back to nature and, best of all, have a good giggle. In fact, the Ewing loved it so much she's already bought a new super duper sleeping bag and booked our next trip for the August Bank Holiday. I've packed the port, painkillers and a poncho (bank holiday equals guaranteed rain). What else do you need?