Week 1 - Kitchen Diaries - Nigel Slater

New year new you, or so the saying goes. Although, really I’ve reached a stage in life where I’m quite happy with the old me. Even more so when it means the highlight of the weekend is going to the butchers to pick up some premium free range Dorset pork chops (from Webster family butchers in Southbourne) and then making this recipe, from Nigel Slater’s Kitchen Diaries, glass of wine in hand. 

Nigel Slater is the author whose books most frequently line my bookshelves. And of his books, this is probably my joint favourite (stay tuned to see which tome it shares a podium with). Written, as the name suggests, like a diary, it’s perfect to curl up with for inspiration. Ideal for planning seasonal eating or, if you’re anything like me, skipping ahead to the summer when you’ve had enough of the all the cold and damp and you want to dream about ripe peaches dribbling down your chin and warm sand between your toes (or vice versa).

This recipe is quick, easy and perfect for a chilly January afternoon, enjoyed alongside the remnants of the bottle I hadn't yet drunk, before curling up on the sofa beside the Ewing to watch the football.

Pork chops with mustard sauce

adapted from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries

For 2

2 large pork chops

big glug of brandy/white wine

100ml of double/whipping cream

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tbsp wholegrain mustard

Sprinkle of Bisto Best for chicken/chicken stock cube

Turn the oven to 180°c. Heat a frying pan over a high heat and add the pork, with a little oil if the chops don't have much fat, and fry for a couple of minutes on each side until golden. Don't forget to crisp up the fat. put the chops on a tray and into the oven for 8/10 minutes to finish cooking while you make the sauce.

Over a medium heat add the brandy/wine to the pan you fried the chops in and let it reduce, scraping up any bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the cream and mustard (and a little Bisto if, like me, you wanted some extra oomph) and leave to bubble and reduce for a few minutes. Taste, season with salt and pepper, add the cooked and rested chops back to the pan to heat through and then divide between two plates.

I served this with two types of cabbage; red cabbage slow braised with a chopped green apple, cider vinegar, a spoonful of cranberry sauce and and couple of spoonfuls of brown sugar; and sweetheart cabbage, lightly steamed and crisp. 

I'm sure my Irish grandmother, were she still with us, would have admonished me for not including potatoes (and I'm sure the Ewing would agree). But while mash, or a few floury boiled spuds, would have been good, I found it quite enough with the rich meat and the rich sauce. Although the Clare Valley Riesling we drunk alongside had an acidity that was very welcome.

As if that wasn’t worth the price of admission alone, I also made Nigel’s frosted marmalade loaf cake from his Kitchen Diaries 1. Made with the remnants of a jar of homemade whiskey marmalade, 2017 vintage. This is a recipe that the Ewing has made a few times (although never for me, I note) but this time I made it for her. Or more precisely, I made it for her to take into the office for her new workmates. Apparently her boss had a slice, and she hasn’t been sacked yet, so I’m taking it that it went down well.

My only amendments this time were to use a mix of white flour (plain, with baking powder added) and wholemeal spelt flour, as I found some in a jar on the shelf as I was rooting about and thought the nuttiness, slightly crumbly spelt would work against the bitterness of the marmalade.

I also misread the '2 tbsps of orange juice' in the icing as 'juice of two oranges'... Luckily I had only added one orange by this point, but the mix was still far too liquid and I ended up adding more icing sugar after my initial application barely glazed the top of the cake. Well, the whole point, according to Nige's blurb, is to end up with the crisp crunch of the topping as a contrast to the soft sponge.

Frosted marmalade cake

For the sponge:

175g butter

175g golden, unrefined caster sugar

a large orange, finely grated

3 large eggs

75g orange marmalade

175g self-raising flour (I used 125g plain white and 50g wholemeal spelt plus 1tsp of baking powder)

For the frosting:

100g icing sugar

2 tbsps orange juice

Set the oven at 180 °C. Line a loaf tin about 25 x 11 x 7cm deep.

Put the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat, with a mixer or electric whisk, until pale and fluffy.

Whisk in the eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly between each addition.

Beat in the marmalade and the grated orange zest.

Gently fold in the flour and baking powder. Do this slowly, firmly but carefully, till there is no sign of any flour. Gently stir in the juice of half the orange.

Spoon into the lined cake tin, lightly smoothing the top. Bake for 40 minutes, checking it after 35 with a metal skewer. Leave to cool in the tin, then remove and cool on a wire rack.

Sieve the icing sugar and mix it to a smooth, slightly runny consistency with as much of the remaining orange juice as it takes. Drizzle the icing over the cake letting it run down the sides, and leave to set.

As an addendum, my colleagues found out about the cake for the Ewing's colleagues, and so I baked another one this weekend just for them, As its my last week before starting my new job (eeek) I'm not so worried about being sacked, just hoping there are no ill-effects so they can all come for a farewell drink on Friday.... 

Bucks Bites: Cheque it out

There’s nothing mad dogs and Englishmen love more than pub garden weather. Any hint that the sun might be coming out and we are there, balancing a pint of fizzy lager in one hand, while battling with the slightly damp parasol with the broken catch. 

From sitting in unmown fields on splintering picnic benches, to huddling on rickety pavement tables while breathing in the hot fug of traffic fumes, to concrete courtyards that are sticky underfoot and smell of stale fags, the sheer elation of being outside with a beer in hand seems to overcome all other circumstances.

While it is nice simply to be outside, swatting away wasps and getting slightly sunburnt, living in leafy Bucks means we are blessed with some very picturesque pub gardens to sit in. Having decamped from North West London as a child, this often meant family expeditions out into the gently rolling Chiltern Hills, with one of my Dad’s recent favourites being the Chequers at Fingest.

As he was staying with us recently, on a bi-annual visit from Oz, it seemed an apt place to go for dinner and celebrate the start of the great Heatwave of 2018 (can anyone still remember back to a time when they needed a coat, or shoes or trousers, or pretty much any clothes at all…).

Being a Brakspear’s pub, somewhat unsurprisingly, they serve Brakspear’s beer. Regular readers (Hello, Mummy P) may remember me talking about just this very drop when I went for a recent dinner at another charming Chiltern pub, literally but a stone’s throw from the Chequers. Which is handy, as I can just put in a link here and don’t have to bother repeating myself (not that that normally stops me)

It turns out my Dad is rather a fan of a pint of the famous double-dropped bitter as well, and we quickly made our way through three each, while the Ewing cursed being the designated drivernot, perhaps, because she particularly wanted to drink lots, but more the fact the decline in the quality of conversation and increase in beer drunk seemed to be directly proportional.

As much as my figure and Instagram feed may suggest otherwise, I don’t eat a huge amount of burgers. Yes, the word huge may be relative (literally and figuratively) but, as most of us have bitter experience, their proliferation on most pub menus does not guarantee something that you will actually enjoy eating. Especially at 15 pounds, as the cheeseburger costs here (a sum that would buy you ten of my beloved double cheeseburgers from Maccy D’s, the connoisseurs choice).

Still, we all ordered the burger anyway, although my Dad did initially attempt to order the sausages, being starved of a proper pork banger in Australia – where the grainy and perennial disappointing beef snag still rules the roost, despite the influx of Brits and Irish living – only to be told they were off the menu.

As far as burgers go, this was a champion; hefty in stature, but manageable without contorting your jaw awkwardly to eat; pink and juicy in the middle – the burger is made onsite – this was a squirter; topped with good cheddar cheese (nothing really beats plasticky American, but this was nice in a classy way) melted properly across the top; and served with lots of pickles, tomato and raw onion.

In fact, the food was so good that, with the heatwave extending into an almost unprecedented second week, the Ewing suggested we returned (sadly sans my father, who was heading back Down Under) a couple of days later, which, being the weekend, meant there was the added bonus of the pizza oven in the garden being fired-up for the weekend.

Pizza came topped with prosciutto, rocket and Parmesan, finished with a hefty glug of heady truffle oil - bringing fragrant joy or funky misery depending on which side of the tuber-scented condiment you come down on. For the record, I'm a fan, of the funk if used judiciously as this was. As was the Ewing, masterfully modelling her dinner in a surprisingly good-natured photo opportunity. A decade of my incessant photo taking has gradually worn her down.

The fierce heat of the wood oven had given the base the proper combination of chewy and crisp, with a smoky depth coming from the charred spots on the edge of the crust. And, while at fourteen quid for a disc of dough topped with a couple of slices of ham and a handful of salad, it could hardly be described as cheap, it still seemed fair value.

While the lure of the burger was strong, I plumped for the pork chop - served with a green peppercorn sauce, cabbage and mustard mash. While there is nothing particularly revelatory about the combination of meat and two veg, pork chops were my favourite meal when growing up and, on tasting this, it's fair to say not much has changed all these years later. 

Everything on the plate was perfectly judged from the punchy mustard mash, to the buttery crunch of the cabbage, to the crispy rind of the chop, best eaten alongside the briny pop of the bottled peppercorns in the rich cream sauce. Pub food at its finest.

Relaxing in the sun with beer, family and pork chops. At the risk of sounding like Homer Simpson (and surely there's nothing wrong with that), I'm not sure things can get much better.