week 29 - The Barbecue Bible - Steven Raichlen

Apart from briefly developing a dangerous online shopping habit - natural wine, posh hand cream and boxes of British cheeses being delivered to the door seemed pretty essential purchases when you can only leave the house once a day - our one big purchase over the summer was a new gas barbecue grill. 

Bought after our summer holiday was cancelled (as it turns out at a greater expense than our return flights...) after the Ewing pointed out that if we were going to be at home for the foreseeable future, we might as well give ourselves an incentive to enjoy being here. She also pointed out my ambivalent attitude towards cleaning the previous two crappy charcoal barbecues (although I did manage to painstakingly smoke some ribs and brisket while using one) and gas might be an easier option.

While the principled chef in me put up a half-hearted objection, I remember having a gas grill at home growing up, and the ease with which my dad would get home from work, stick it on, down a cold 33 lager, and then cook a butterflied leg of lamb or some fresh mackerel for dinner on most days during the summer. Living in England I have fond memories of him clutching a golf umbrella on several occasions, as the heavens opened just after the food hit the grill.

While some recipes demand low and slow smoking, most barbecue recipes can easily be adapted to gas, without a discernible difference in taste and much less mess and fuss (spoken by someone who has just spent the weekend camping, charring lumps of beef on a fire while on a camping trip). This adaptability extends to many of the recipes in Steven Raichlen's Barbecue Bible - a tome I'm petty sure I acquired when I didn't even have a garden, much less a barbecue; and which, despite it's brash looking cover, contains a plethora of ideas for things you can stick on the coals from all around the world.

I wanted something that would allow me to use my new flat skewers (bought in another mini-online frenzy along with various metal scouring brushes and special cleaning sprays. Which I can report I have actually used...) I also knew I had some local minced lamb in the freezer, from yet another over-excited visit to the farmer's market, and some pistachios in the cupboard from when the Ewing had randomly bought me a bag home as a present. And so Gaziantep kebabs, a kofte style kebab with pistachio nuts - which the Gaziantep area in Turkey, after which they are named, is famous for - made the perfect choice.

Alongside the lamb kebabs I made some quick flatbread dough and placed the thinly rolled discs of the dough directly on the barbecue grate. As they puffed up, they were brushed liberally on both sides with the Ewing's wild garlic butter - made from greens the Ewing had foraged at the dog end of spring, chopped and mixed with softened salted butter, rolled into a log and then frozen. And then covered with a clean tea towel so they remained soft until needed. The perfect base for the perfect kebab.

Lamb and pistachio kebabs

Adapted from the Barbecue Bible by Steven Raichlen

500g minced lamb

100g shelled pistachio nuts, coarsely chopped 

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper or chilli powder

½ teaspoon ground cumin

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, or more to taste

4 flat, wide, long metal skewers

Flatbreads or pitta, yogurt and salad to serve

Combine the lamb, pistachios, onion, garlic, salt, chilli pepper, cumin, and black pepper in a large bowl. Mix with your hands until thoroughly blended.

I never usually bother, but if you want to test the mixture for seasoning, cook a small amount in a nonstick pan until cooked through, then taste, adding more salt and/or black pepper to the remaining mixture as necessary. 

Cover and refrigerate the meat mixture for an hour or two.

Divide the meat mixture into four equal portions. Lightly wet your hands with cold water and mould each portion of the meat mixture around a skewer to form a flattish sausage about 20 cms inches long and 2 cms wide. 

Place each finished kebab on a baking sheet.

Switch on your gas grill and preheat to high (you can also grill over charcoal)

When ready to cook, arrange the kebabs on the grill and turn with tongs until nicely browned and cooked through, 6 to 8 minutes in all. 

The fat in the meat and pistachios mean the kebabs may flare up, so it's handy to have a spray bottle of wather handy to douse any flames as needed

Using a flatbread to protect your hand, slide each kebab off its skewer onto a serving plate. Serve at with flat breads or pitta, yoghurt, tomatoes, red onion, flat leaf parsley and pomegranate seeds

Week 2 - River Cottage - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

After finding some elusive new season scrag end of lamb (the old-fashioned cuts have the most romantic names) on the butcher’s counter in Waitrose I knew I had to make Ivan’s neck of lamb with lemon and thyme. A recipe that was originally published in the first River Cottage book, this was later adapted by Hugh F-W to include barley and kale, which is the version I have gone with here. Partly because I absolutely adore pearl barley with lamb and partly as the Ewing had just discovered a clump of kale that has escaped the interest of the rabbits on the allotment.

Growing up my mum’s lamb stew with barley, carrots, swede and suet dumplings was the one dinner the whole family always agreed on. There is something of Proust’s madeleines when I think back to days of getting home from school and eating a big bowlful while sitting around the fire watching Neighbours. Before fighting with my sister over who would get the last dumpling (me, of course).

I love lamb neck and lemons, and thyme, and barley and kale, I did worry slightly that it wouldn’t quite live up to my Mum’s lamb stew. But, worry not; while it was a simpler affair (the original recipe has just five ingredients) it was still a big, sticky hug in a bowl. The lemons brought a pleasing astringency to the fatty lamb, cooked long and slow until the meat divested itself from the bone. Proper, old-fashioned cooking that gets the maximum flavour from the fewest ingredients.

Lamb neck with lemon, barley and kale

serves 4

1kg scrag end or neck of lamb on the bone, cut into slices (I couldn’t find enough neck on the butcher’s counter, so I also added some lamb neck fillet, cut into big chunks)

1 tbsp of vegetable oil

Juice of 1½ lemons

4–8 sprigs of thyme

Water or lamb stock to cover

A big handful (200g-ish) of pearl barley or pearled spelt

A handful of, kale, shredded savoy cabbage or spring greens, roughly chopped, tough stems removed, per person

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Season the lamb with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a large, heavy-based flameproof casserole, add the lamb and allow it to brown (you may have to do this in batches), turning until it is lightly browned all over. Tip out any excess oil, add the browned lamb, lemon juice, thyme and some salt and pepper, then enough water or stock to barely cover the ingredients.

Bring to a gentle simmer, cover and put in an oven preheated to 140°C. Cook for an hour and a half, then add the pearl barley or spelt, check the liquid, adding more if needed (the pearl barley / spelt will swell up as it cooks) and cook for a further hour or until it is nearly tender and the lamb is falling from the bone.

Remove the casserole from the oven. If you want to serve it straight away put the pan on the hob, skimming any extra fat from the top if there seems like a lot, and bring to a simmer. Add the greens and simmer for a couple of minutes, until they are just cooked through. You could also steam the greens separately, or any other veg of your choice, and serve alongside the stew.

If you want to make in advance, as I did, to allow the flavours to improve, then cool the stew once it is cooked and chill in the fridge overnight. The next day reheat thoroughly (removing any fat on top beforehand, if you wish) and cook the veg as above.

Sunday service: Blacklock

While it might be our national dish, the roast dinner is notoriously tricky to get right.  For a start, everyone knows that Mum’s make the roast, and each family has its own particular foibles and quirks. When I was growing up Sunday dinner (served at 6 o’clock) always came with cauliflower cheese and roast parsnips, and yorkies (my Dad made the best), were only ever served with beef. The Ewing’s Mum served both mash and roasties with the meat - a double carb concept I still struggle to get my head around.

Which all conspired to make going to Soho’s Blacklock on a Sunday, despite their reputation for the best roasts in town, a gamble. Not only that, during the rest of the week they specialise in chops and, despite my solidly English credentials, I think I might actually prefer gnawing a chop to a Sunday dinner. Yeah, I know.

Anyway, as it was mid-September and we were eagerly anticipating a change in the weather – before, of course, we knew a freak heatwave was bringing the hottest temperatures of the year - the Ewing managed to grab the very last table. This was a victory I feared would be pyrrhic when we saw the weather forecast and began to question the wisdom of sitting in a dark basement eating platters of red meat and potatoes swamped in rich gravy.

I may as well spoil the surprise by saying now, even if the only remaining table was in Hades and I had to cross the River Styx to get to that first bloody mary, I would make the same choice again every time. As it was, we were shown to one of the best tables in the house - positioned below the skylights in the pavement - although anywhere seemed like a good table when we saw the hordes of people that had already been turned away by five past twelve.

The heat did result in one concession, swapping a bloody mary for a gin and juice as I was craving something more refreshing - which also, I convinced myself, came under the vague guise of healthiness (yes, somebody went off piste, this was not what we agreed before hand - TE). The Ewing’s BM was exemplary, but an abundance of the most pleasingly shaped ice cubes in the glass left her wanting a bit more of the beefy (a preface of things to come) beverage.

You can order spit shanks of bone marrow covered in a snow of freshly grated horseradish, or giant wood-grilled scallops with bacon and peas – as the guys on the table next to us did, to our jealous looks – but we went straight for the ‘all in’, a platter piled up with all three roast meats, gravy and all the trimmings (something we had agreed a week before our visit after studying the menu together - TE). As it’s hard to break a habit, I also chose the cauli cheese, more for nostalgia’s sake as even I wasn’t worrying that we wouldn’t have enough food to keep us going.

This was a roast any mother would have been proud of, in fact, it was almost equal to my own mothers, right down to the cubes of not-quite-crackled crackling (one thing she was never very good at), which were completely delicious nevertheless. There was even a random pork rib on top of our mountain of food, which reminded me of being allowed to gnaw at the bones in the kitchen as a treat if I helped carve the meat.

The pork looked a little pallid against the blush red meat, but was deceptively juicy and made a fine start  to the meal (I usually follow the ‘best til last’ method, while the Ewing goes in head first -  (in case I die in the process, fancy dying before you ate your favourite thing - TE)). Round two saw the lamb, both our favourite of all the meats, with a transcendental dish of cauliflower cheese, with a four cheese sauce, and a rainbow display of carrots. Finally I moved on to the roast beef, which was good but not quite as good as the lamb, which I ate with a very fine Yorkshire pudding, perfect green beans and a lick of good horseradish sauce.

While I’m probably the only person in the world who isn’t really bothered about roasties, these were very good - although with the vast amounts I had already eaten it meant I still lived up to my nick name of ‘Amy One Potato’, which, as you can see above, did make me feel rather sad. 

Stealthily (or probably when I was probably messing around with filters on Instagram), the Ewing managed her trio of spuds plus my remaining pair, meaning we only ended up leaving the gnawed rib bone. Believe me, I did try to eat that too.

One thing neither of us wanted to do without was pudding, here you get one choice, white chocolate cheesecake with seasonal fruit, which made ordering easy. Served up at the table from a large earthenware dish, this was a wonderful cheesecake that had possibly the most rustic buttery biscuit base I have encountered - you can see the errant rubbly chunks that sprinkled over the top. The accompanying berries were both sweet and tart and I particularly enjoyed that they were served in a Shippam's potted meat dish.

Clearly, we were both in love; with the food, our waiter - who had the Ewing in stitches while dishing out our desert  (oh the staff were dreamy, such good fun - TE) - and the fact they bought toothpicks, for our chops, with the the bill - which, at £80 including tip, was not too considerable at all for all the food and drink we had consumed.

Still there's always room for a little more... and it’s at this point I would like to apologise to my wife, for a whole litany of misdemeanours, but on this occasion for making her, after our gluttonous display, walk around the corner to Gelupo in an attempt to fulfil my ice cream-in-every-blog-post-during-the-summer. 

Not only that, I also made her eat our double scoop of bonet - with chocolate and caramel - and ricotta and sour cherry pretty much single-handedly, only stepping in to help her finish the last mouthful of cone. From the couple of licks I had, the ice cream remains peerless as ever. One of the only things that my mother (whose best attempts at pudding when I was growing up mostly stretched to ‘yogurt or fruit’) can’t quite yet compete with. Still, she does buy me tubs of ‘Oh My Apple Pie’ Ben and Jerry's when I visit, which is quite alright with me.

The art of compromise - bank holiday beer special

Sometimes, I think the key to happiness is mastering the art of compromise (although, at others, I'm pretty sure it's all about eating cold pizza in my dressing gown). For instance, the Ewing loves reclaimed furniture - or anything made out of an old pallet - I love pizza and both of us have a healthy interest in beer. Which made the Crate Brewery, which prominently features all three of the above, a particularly appealing choice for the Bank Holiday, while also giving us an extra day to get over the hangover.

It also happens to be in Hackney Wick and the overground rail closures, coupled with the bank holiday bus replacement service, meant we pretty much needed the extra twenty four hours to get back home again.

Situated in the White Building on the River Lea Navigation  - a canalised river running from rural Hertfordshire to the River Thames at Bow Creek - the bar is the perfect spot for a few beers in the sunshine. The waterfront location also means visits from The Record Deck, a working barge that also sells vinyl, that the Ewing was very pleased to see moored up and already spinning tunes as we arrived.

The bar at Crate is a masterclass in recycling. Old railway sleepers, cleverly cobbled together from local artists' cast-offs, make up the bar; ladders and ratchet straps make indoor seats, rusty bed springs have been fashioned into eccentric light fittings and the canal-side benches and tables are made from scaffold planks - even the spare off-cuts of wood have been used to make planters for a herb garden. Across the yard they have a brew-shed, where they make the beers. In other words, the Ewing's paradise.

To start I tried the Crate Pale ale, both in bottle and on keg; the latter was cleaner and crisper, but also less aromatic and not as interesting. A very nice beer, either way, and at 4.5 percent, perfect for a session in the sun. The Ewing also went for something steady to start with in the Sour, a fantastically vibrant beer infused with a touch of passionfruit and hibiscus while retaining the power to make you grimace slightly on sipping that a good sour should.

They specialise in wood-fired pizza - more specifically crisp, Roman style pizza, rather than softer Neapolitan style. While it’s significantly easier to eat, lacking the somewhat soupy centre of a southern Italian pie, a roman base does bring to mind a giant Carr’s water cracker. As a biscuit to eat with a lump of cheese, that’s probably a good thing - they were always my dad’s favourite when I was growing up -  but as a vehicle for melted cheese, I prefer something a little less friable.

That said, my favourite ever pizza was eaten in Rome - a Bianca pie, topped with courgette flowers, anchovy and mozzarella - cooked by a tiny guy who resembled John Paul II, and thereafter nicknamed ‘Pizza Pope’for the rest of our trip.

The toppings here are pretty outré. You can stick to cheese or meat if you like, although the prosciutto and salami were off on our visit, but they also offer walnut and sweet potato, banana and dahl (even the Ewing wasn't sure), and, our choice, Middle Eastern lamb with pine nuts, spinach and mint.

The crisp base and the ovine topping made it a close cousin to the lamachun - although canalside it will set you back twelve quid, as opposed to the three quid of Green Lanes. Commendably, certainly at that price, they hadn’t skimped on the toppings and a more robust crust meant that they held up well. It also went very well with two halves of their keg stout and the cask porter.

Billed as the UK's first dedicated tank bar, that's the fermenting vessel rather than a military vehicle, our next stop, Howling Hops, was just around the corner. Of course their too hip for signage, so look for the crowds drinking from dimpled schooners outside if the weather's nice, or the scribbled note on the side door if it isn't.

Originally, they started brewing in the basement of the Cock Tavern, on nearby Mare Street, and selling their beers in the bar above. But soon thirsty East Londoners meant demand had outstripped their capacity and a bigger site was sought. This one mixes bar and brewery, allowing you to drink the freshest beer straight from the source, while giving them the capacity to bottle some of their beers for distribution, too.

I started with their Running Beer brown ale, before moving on to the Pale XX Superior No.1 and the IPA 2 West Coast Special. All good, the brown ale and IPA particularly. The Ewing stuck with the blonde beers; an Amber Dexter amber ale and the  East End Hefeweizen, brewed in collaboration with Pressure Drop. The latter reconfirming my dislike of wheat beers while being my wife's favourite of the trip.

The food is provided by Billy Smokes, with a range of smoked, fried and fermented goods, including the Big Fuck Off Tray of Meat (an array of protein including glazed ham hock, sausages, beef and lamb belly) available. Our visit saw a more restrained selection, with a small selection of wraps and buns and a handful of sides on offer.

My sausage bun, a chunky disc of homemade smoked sausage made with the Running beer, was served on a shiny brioche bun and came topped with a smattering of citrus slaw and house bbq sauce. All the classic components done well, this made a handsome (second) lunch.

The beer can chicken roll was more divisive. The Ewing loved it (it was sublime, believe me - TE), and she is a connoisseur in chicken sandwiches, but I found it hard to see it as much more than a sarnie. Yes, it was a commendably good sarnie piled with juicy chicken, which at seven quid it should have been, but was lacking much in the way of promised BBQ flavour and made me think wistfully about crispy smoked thighs and smoky, charred wings.

One thing we did agree on was the pickles, a snappy little selection of cucumbers, carrot, peppers and green beans (a very underestimated pickling vegetable) that made me want to go home and crack open the Sarsons and make some of my own. (There’s a solid preserving pedigree in my lineage, with our family being the lucky recipients of several jars of legendary Nanny Pickle each year until my Nan recently hung up her apron).

Predictably, just as were leaving Howling Hops, the Bank Holiday heavens opened - which threatened to make the ride on the number 30, all the way from Hackney Wick to Marble Arch, feel like a very long one; especially after the last round of beers. 

But nabbing a spot 'driving the bus' and gaining Prince for company - we picked up his eponymous 1979 vinyl album from the record barge moored by Crate (a compromise that meant the Ewing letting me wail along to 'I Wanna Be Your Lover' at ear-splitting levels if she could get a new record player) meant the promise of some slow jams could make even the slow crawl home enjoyable.

A Tale of two kebabs

If we had been playing the 'things that you haven't done that everyone else has' game then The Ewing's drunken confession, as we queued outside Weymouth's Surfside Diner in the early hours of the morning last September, that she had never eaten a kebab might have won her the prize.

While she might have nabbed a few congealed strands of doner meat covered in burger sauce from my mixed special I still considered her kebab maidenhood firmly intact, and where better to pop her pickled chilli than L'As du Fallafel in the Marais, centre of Paris' buzzing Jewish Quarter.

Excitingly they offered Israeli beer, although sadly Maccabee All Malt turned out to be rather like the naughties band bearing part of its name - rather flat and too sweet. I kept my jaded palate entertained before lunch arrived by eating their salty, smoky homemade harissa paste by the teaspoon.

On the face of it, falafel have an unfortunate worthiness about them. They’re made from chickpeas for a start, surely the least inspiring of peas; they contain vaguely healthy looking green bits; and, to top it all, are naturally gluten free and suitable for vegans. Superfood or just super boring?

Thankfully, here they are just super delicious; served crisp and greaseless from the fryer, the steaming morsels gently perfume the air with the sweet garlic and cumin as you break each fluffy ball open. While it’s debatable how healthy anything deep fried in oil can really be, the finished nuggets still have enough worthiness about them to make them feel like they are doing you some good. Doused in harissa and washed down with beer perhaps less so.

My exotic sounding 'cocktail of mixed meats', a combination of grilled chicken, turkey, chicken liver and lamb, was certainly a majestic mix. Particularly interesting was the chicken liver; I’m not sure I’d want a whole plate of it but the soft, offally nuggets made a nice contrast to the smoky chunks of meat. 

And while the polystyrene plate and plastic cutlery gave it the requisite air of being two in the morning outside the kebab van, hoping you’ve still got enough cash for the taxi, here the food was far better and there were no fists flying or associated gutter-side dramas...

Buoyed by a successful first sampling of mystery meat, we switched up our surroundings for our second kebab with a visit to Moroccan stalwart, Chez Omar. Also found in the Marais, this veritable institution has kept celebrities in couscous and roast lamb (lauded as the best in town by David Lebovitz) for years. And while its glory days may be long gone, still expect to see queues out the door at peak times.

Couscous often gets a bad rap, but that’s little wonder when most people’s experience is something stodgy and bland, straight out of a packet with Ainsley Harriot’s face on it. The real stuff is made from hand rolled pasta that is steamed, not soaked, three times using a couscoussier, or double chambered cooking pot. A lot of effort for something you can prepare at home by boiling the kettle, even if it does taste of sadness and dried herbs (and Ainsley has a lovely smile - TE).

I have to say, I was dubious it would all be worth the effort. But, in one of those very rare (ok, pretty much daily) occasions, I was happy to be proved wrong. Instead of the familiar close-textured gloop, this was buttery and ethereal, and the grains stayed fluffy and separate even when mixed with the juices of the accompanying chickpea and vegetable stew.

Alongside were skewers of good grilled lamb and even better merguez sausages; spicy sticks of juicy minced mutton flavoured liberally with cumin, coriander and chili pepper. They also provided their house harissa, smokier and less salty than L'As du Fallafel but with a pleasingly punchy afterburn.

The jury's still out on the Algerian wine, although you can see we didn't leave much evidence. Better was desert; a giant tray of brightly coloured sweetmeats that are left tableside with a pair of gold-plated tongs for you to PYO, a dangerous prospect with the Ewing around. 

Thankfully the sheer amount of sugar crammed into each morsel makes it hard to eat more than one, although I’m pretty sure my wife would have grabbed another luminous chunk of rosewater-perfumed wobbly loukum given half a chance. To drink try a glass of fresh mint tea, a reviving panacea after the sticky sweetness.

And, in case you were wondering, the Ewing was a fan. In fact, shawarma queue outside the Hello Boss van every Friday night for her mixed meat and cheesy chips (wishful thinking, but I had to get a terrible meat-based pun in somehow).