Pork chops have been somewhat cast aside as an old fashioned ingredient. The nose to tail movement spearheaded by the likes of Fergus Henderson did great things to parts that would usually have headed straight to the abattoir refuse bin. Tails are now the new scratchings don't you know, and every half-confident cook can relate to lovingly shaving a pig's jowl with a newly bought Bic. But the humble pork chop is Plain Jane in comparison, lacking the pure macho gore factor, the sort of thing served at those outwardly loved yet ill frequented London institutions. But out of the blue I really fancied one. Not one of those flaccid vac packed supermarket jobbies, a proper one from a proper butcher. The sort of chop that has you questioning whether your appetite has betrayed your true eating ability.
To make Jane less plain, anchovies are often the answer. Loads of them, mashed up with a whole head of garlic and a whole lot of fat. A delicate thing this is not. Italians use this sauce to good effect with simple raw or lightly cooked vegetables, but it also melts joyously into slices of lean pork.
Keeping things seasonal I opted for an old friend; the alert form of a red and white radicchio. Blackened slightly in the chop pan, the slight bitterness offsets the fatty others on the plate. Parsley is so often the bridesmaid, lost in a sauce or a retro garnish, and here fills a more substantial role.
Ingredients:
2 large pork chops
For the bagna cauda:
1/2 bottle of dry white wine
1 head of garlic, peeled
10 anchovies
5 sprigs of thyme
150g butter
75ml olive oil
For the lentils:
1 mug of firm green lentils
1 garlic clove
1 small shallot
1 bay leaf
For the radicchio:
1 small head of radicchio, cut into quarter wedges
To finish:
1 tsp capers
1 lemon
1 bunch of parsley
Start by cooking the lentils. Pour the lentils into a saucepan and cover with water by 1cm. Halve the shallot and crush the garlic clove and add to the pan along with the bay leaf. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for 25-30 minutes, adding a splash more water if necessary. Drain the cooked lentils, and dress with a glug of olive oil and a generous pinch of seasoning.
For the bagna cauda, pour the wine into a saucepan and add the garlic and picked thyme leaves. Bring to a simmer and reduce gently until only a few tablespoons of liquid remain. Add the anchovies at this point and mash together well. Whisk in the butter, until everything is emulsified together. Remove from the heat and pour in the olive oil, whisking continuously. Taste and season if necessary, then set aside in a warm place.
Bring a large, heavy saucepan to a high heat. Slash through the fat of each chop every centimetre or so. Rub all over with olive oil and season well. When the pan is hot, hold the chops fat-side down for a minute, until it starts to blister and crisp. Turn the chops and continue to fry for 3-4 minutes on each side, depending on the thickness and how you like it cooked. Transfer to a plate and allow to rest for 6-8 minutes, then cut into thick slices.
Add the wedges of radicchio to the still hot chop pan. Cook for a couple of minutes on all sides, until beginning to char. Transfer to a board and separate the leaves. Season with salt and pepper, and squeeze over a little lemon juice.
Trim and discard any tough stalks from the parsley. Dress with some of the remaining lemon juice.
To plate up, scatter some of the lentils onto each plate. Arrange slices of the pork on top, along with some of the dressed parsley and the cooked radicchio. Finish with a generous amount of the bagna cauda and a few capers.
I don’t often find myself in Chelsea. Especially at 8.30am on a Monday morning, having spent an hour lodged in horrid commuter-carriage across the capital, watching beards turn to briefcases turn to fur, stretched skin and vacant expressions. Sleep is normally far preferable on days off, but on that day I was on a very special vegetable hunt. The fresh porcini season comes and goes with the blink of an eye, and in East London largely stays invisible. Although the standard of greengrocer in Hackney is largely very good, wild mushrooms are still an elusive find. And so the ridiculous ingredient journey commenced. Mum thought I was bonkers when I told her, but I was sure happy walking back to Sloane Square clutching a paper bag of pungent, charming porcini.
The joy of such travels meant that my return journey spanned the pick of London’s other food retailers, and by the time I had reached the safer ground of Dalston Kingsland station, I had gathered some wonderful, thick short ribs and a clobbering wedge of parmesan. The only thing remaining was time, and plenty of it. There’s nothing speedy about cooking short ribs, and the reason for the early start was to allow as much gently stewing as possible. Think big chunks of tender, moist meat falling off the bone at the merest thought of a shake. Frankly, an optimistic prospect for lunch.
When the (late) lunch was finally ready for the plate, all that faffing about was forgotten. I find at this time of year, an amalgamation of soft, rich food is just the ticket. This isn’t clean eating, and it is damn tastier for all of the cheese and butter, for the layers of fat that have melted between the fibrous meat.
Always make more polenta. Spread the leftovers into a deep tray and set in the fridge, then slice into wedges and grill to crisp perfection. Top with more cheese and roasted beetroot or more mushrooms for a quick midweek treat.
Serves 4
Ingredients:
For the short ribs:
4 beef short ribs
2 onions, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 bay leaf
80g dried porcini mushrooms
10 sprigs of thyme
1 large glass of red wine
1-1.5 litres of good beef stock
1 large knob of butter
For the polenta:
1 mug of coarse polenta
5 mugs of water
1 handful of parmesan, grated
150g butter, cut into cubes
For the mushrooms:
4 large fresh porcini mushrooms, brushed clean and thickly sliced
2 handfuls of girolle mushrooms, brushed clean and trimmed
5 sprigs of fresh thyme
For the chard:
1 bunch of fresh chard, tough stalks removed and leaves roughly torn
To finish:
Finely grated parmesan
2 tbsp of thyme leaves
Start by getting the short ribs on. Bring a large saucepan to a medium-high heat and add a good splash of olive oil. Season the short ribs. When the pan is hot, patiently brown the meat on all sides, allowing about 15 minutes in total to really develop and good crust. Tip in the onions, carrots, garlic and bay in and stir well. Cook for a further few minutes, until starting to soften and caramelise. Pour in the red wine. Allow the liquid to sizzle and reduce by half, and use a wooden spoon to scrape up the caramelisation from the bottom of the pan. Add the thyme and porcini mushrooms, then cover with the beef stock. Bring to the boil, then turn the temperature down to a gentle simmer. Cover slightly and cook for 4-5 hours, or until the meat is extremely tender.
When the meat is cooked, allow to cool slightly in the pan, then carefully remove with some tongs to a plate or board. Strain the liquid into a smaller saucepan and set it back on a high heat. Reduce right down, until only about 300ml of thickened sauce remains. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter.
Pour the water for the polenta into a large saucepan. Sprinkle in some salt and bring to the boil. Stir the water with a wooden spoon, and whilst doing so, pour in the polenta in one slow steady stream. Continue to stir for about 5 minutes, or until the mixture has started to thicken and any lumps have been beaten out. Turn the heat down to low, partly cover with a lid and cook for 30-40 minutes, stirring often, until the grains have cooked and is of a thick pouring consistency. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter, parmesan and salt if required.
Bring a bbq or hot-smoker to a medium-low temperature. Gently re-heat the short ribs for 10-15 minutes, keeping the lid covered to maximise the smokiness.
Whilst the meat is being heated, cook the mushrooms. Heat a large frying pan to a high temperature and pour in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. When the pan is hot, add the porcini mushrooms and fry for 2-3 minutes, until golden brown and caramelised. Turn over for another couple of minutes, and add the girolles and thyme leaves. Toss the girolles every now and then the cook evenly on each side.
Pour some boiling water into a saucepan and add a little salt. Blanche the chard leaves for a couple of minutes, until just tender, then drain and squeeze out as much excess water as possible.
To serve, dollop a good amount of cheesy polenta onto each plate and top with a short rib. Scatter around the mushrooms and chard and spoon on a little sauce. Finish with more grated parmesan and thyme leaves.
Fish are as seasonal in our waters as the distinct harvesting seasons for vegetables, and the traditional shooting seasons for game. Temperature and weather conditions play a big part, and the variation in catches reflects this. Late spring and summer sees wild sea trout and salmon migrating back down their spawning rivers from sea, and it is the beginning of turbot season proper. Christmastime sees peak molluscs; juicy, heavy mussels and sweet clams. The autumn is bountiful, and almost everything is in great condition as the waters finally start to cool after months of heat. The most visual sign of this is the tide of beautiful red mullet that start appearing, scale perfect and ridged as darts. In the shops we sell two different sizes of these fine fish; the small ‘fritture’, perfect for frying whole as a wonderful evening snack with a glass of dry wine. But the larger ones are worth seeking out, for crispy-skinned fillets and the soft, part-oily flesh that yields that unique shellfish flavour.
In the year and a half that I have been a fishmonger, this is the first time that I’ve managed to take advantage of this wonderful produce. My colleagues swoon as soon as they start appearing on the ice slabs, for many they are an outright favourite. Such special fish deserve a special dish, and this time around I made sure I was prepared.
A good fish stew recipe is worth its weight in gold. It can be quickly rustled up in order to create a special and crowd-pleasing meal when suddenly faced with many mouths. It is perfect when the chills start and the nights creep in, providing a deep satisfaction, and a radiator-like effect on the body. My version takes the last of the summer tomato harvest combined with soft borlotti beans and roasted radicchio leaves. I heard recently that we are losing our taste for bitter leaves and was saddened. They are an acquired taste for sure, but tempered with clever cooking and flavour pairings they are delightful.
A small packet of bottarga accompanied me back from Rome, and I’ve been grating little bits of it here and there whenever possible. I love it simply with braised greens, lemon and olive oil a la The River Café, but it also really makes clams, shellfish and in this case, red mullet really sing. It acts as a fantastic enhancer, boosting other ingredients whist imparting its own subtle and delicious flavour.
Serves 2
Ingredients:
1 red mullet, about 400g in weight. Filleted and pin-boned.
1 medium squid, cleaned, scored and cut into strips
For the stew base:
The bones from the red mullet
3 shallots, finely sliced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 fennel bulb, finely chopped
1 tbsp sweet smoked paprika
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp dried oregano
1 star anise
1 tsp dried chilli
1 good pinch of saffron
4-6 ripe tomatoes, chopped
1 glass of dry white wine
750ml good chicken stock
400g tinned or fresh borlotti beans, drained and rinsed if using the former
For the roasted radicchio:
1 small radicchio, trimmed and quartered
To finish:
A handful of basil leaves
A good glug of extra virgin olive oil
A generous grating of bottarga
First start off by making the stew. Heat a good glug of olive oil in a large, high-sided skillet or frying pan. When a medium temperature, add the mullet bones and fry until golden on all sides. Tip in the shallot, garlic and fennel along with a good pinch of seasoning, and continue to cook for 10-15 minutes, until the vegetables have softened. Stir in the dried chilli, fennel seeds, paprika, oregano, star anise and saffron and continue to fry for a further 5 minutes, until the flavours have been released. Add the tomatoes and combine well with a wooden spoon. Cook until soft and starting to dissolve and create a sauce, another 10 minutes or so. Raise the heat and pour in the wine, allowing it to boil and reduce by half. Finally pour in the chicken stock. Bring the broth to a boil, then simmer gently for about 45 minutes, until the liquid has reduced and thickened a little. Strain into a smaller saucepan, and discard the now spent flavourings.
Bring the strained stew base back to a simmer and pour in the borlotti beans. Cook until the beans have softened and absorbed some of the flavour, about 10-15 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 200⁰C.
Arrange the radicchio quarters onto a baking tray and coat with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast in the hot oven for 10 minutes, or until the edges start to turn golden brown. Remove from the oven and slice the leaves into small, rough pieces.
Pour a generous amount of oil into a large, non-stick frying pan and bring to a high heat. When really hot, add the squid and a good pinch of seasoning. Fry quickly for 1-2 minutes on each side, until golden and crispy. Transfer to a plate lined with kitchen paper to drain. Keep warm.
Give the frying pan a quick wipe clean and replace the oil. Bring back to a medium-high heat. Season the mullet fillets well and place skin-side down in the pan. Fry for 3 minutes, and use a tablespoon to baste the flesh-sides with hot oil at the same time.
To serve, spoon a good amount of the stew and beans into shallow bowls. Scatter the radicchio and squid over the top, and pop a fillet of red mullet in the middle. Arrange basil leaves around the sides and drizzle over some good olive oil. Finish by grating over the bottarga and serve.
I was recently reading through my Twitter timeline, and a few people were writing about how uninspired they were and how they just couldn’t decide what to cook. This was something that I really related to. It’s similar to writer’s block I guess, sometimes my head ties itself in knots trying to find some creativity, whereas other times it’s almost as if the creativity finds me, and recipes effortlessly churn themselves out. Luckily the latter has been the case recently, my head has been awash with cooking ideas and I’ve got a long list of potential recipes to test and write about in the future. Spring is on the way, and it’s exciting that before long we’ll be seeing wild garlic and early asparagus coming through. The way I eat will also change, those bold, heavy winter flavours shifted for something a little lighter.
It was brilliant to cook with the brill that I have written about for the last few posts. It was a big old fish and I was determined to make it go as far as possible. This also allowed me to experiment a little. Having poached a lovely thick bit of fillet and even eaten the roes, I wanted to try something a bit different with what remained. For this I turned to my bookcase for inspiration. I really enjoy Nathan Outlaw’s cook books; his recipes always put flavour first and I’ve picked up so many little tips from cooking his dishes. I had previously noticed that he recommended curing brill, and with a fair bit of fish left I thought I’d give that a go. It worked a treat, and was much quicker than I anticipated. Not only was it an interesting new way of preparing the brill, it also made it last a few days longer; providing a few handsome snacks after some long and tiring days at work.
I digress, and after a few weeks of blabbering on I promise that that is the last time I’ll mention that brill for a while. But the idea for this recipe derived from that experimentation. Recently we’ve had some astonishingly good gurnard at work, big, triangular-shaped fish all big heads and spikes. Customers are often a little wary of this species as it looks nothing like the salmon or seabass that they are used to, but for value and taste they are up there with the best. Having cooked with gurnard around Christmastime, I wanted to try something a little different, and because of just how fresh the fish were I thought they would also be ideal to cure. Happily they turned out much like the brill; the thick, firm fillets yealding a fresh, sweet taste.
Blood oranges are just coming to the end of their season, and here they provided the perfect sidekick to the gurnard. Combined into almost like a dressing with the fennel and the rapeseed oil, the flavour remained delicate and allowed everything to remain balanced. At this point I felt like the dish needed just one more thing, another texture to round everything off. Here I gained inspiration from another direction. One of the wonderful dishes that I ate recently at Café Murano was a carpaccio, which interestingly came flecked with tiny cannellini beans. This is something that I would never have thought of, but it added another dimension that made the eating all the better. The chickpeas worked in the same way in this dish, and the cooking process was a total revelation. It’s true, anything cooked slowly in good oil with rosemary and garlic is bound to be good, but these were something else. The gentle, lengthy cooking softened the pulses whilst absorbing some of the oil and flavourings. Once allowed to cool and marinate further they really were addictive. I might have eaten another bowl just of them…
Serves 4
Ingredients:
For the fish and cure:
1 very fresh gurnard (about 1kg in size), filleted, skinned and pin-boned
250g salt
250g sugar
2 sprigs of rosemary
The tops of the fennel bulbs
2 blood oranges, zest only
For the fennel and orange:
2 fennel bulbs, sliced
1 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 garlic clove
2 blood oranges, juice only
4 sprigs of fresh oregano
4 tbsp rapeseed oil
For the chickpeas:
400g soaked, cooked chickpeas
2 garlic cloves, crushed slightly
3 rosemary sprigs
Extra virgin olive oil
To finish:
Fresh oregano leaves
Any fronds from the fennel
For the cure, put the salt, sugar, fennel stalks, orange zest and rosemary into a food processor and combine until everything is finely chopped. Pour half onto the bottom of a deep dish that is big enough to hold the gurnard fillets. Top with the fish and then cover with the remaining mixture. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for 2.5 hours. Once cured, rinse the fillets clean of the cure and pat dry.
Drain the chickpeas and rinse before pouring into a saucepan. Add the garlic cloves, rosemary and a good amount of seasoning. Pour in enough extra virgin olive oil to nearly cover, then cook on a very low heat for about an hour. Do not let the oil get too hot and start bubbling and frying, you just want a gentle, warm heat. Once cooked, remove from the heat and cool to room temperature.
For the fennel, heat a frying pan to a high temperature and add a little of the rapeseed oil. Fry the fennel, fennel seeds, dried chilli and garlic for about 5 minutes, until starting to caramelise on both sides. Add the sugar, orange juice and oregano and reduce until thick and syrupy. Stir in the rest of the rapeseed oil. Taste and season, then allow to cool.
To plate up, slice the cured gurnard into slithers a couple of millimetres thick. Arrange on the bottom of each plate, then dress with the fennel and oil. Sprinkle over a few drained chickpeas and scatter on more of the fresh oregano leaves and any fennel fronds. Finish with a slight crack of pepper.
This week I’ve got something a little special and different for you. Earlier last month I was contacted by the lovely people at ActionAid asking if I could write a recipe for their Bake A Difference campaign. This year they are specifically targeting 2700 of the world’s poorest children who will spend this Christmas hungry, sick and in danger, and it’s an absolute privilege to support the campaign and help spread the awareness of this in my blog. More information on the great work undertaken by ActionAid, and how you can sponsor a child can be found on this link. Today also marks Giving Tuesday, which hopefully puts things back into perspective after all of the gluttony and silliness of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
My brief was to design a recipe inspired by ingredients from one of the six countries that ActionAid are focussing on this Christmas; Afghanistan, The Gambia, Malawi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana and Myanmar. All of these countries traditionally produce and use amazing ingredients in their dishes, from cardamom and rose water in Afghanistan to sweet potatoes and bananas in Malawi, giving me a hard decision in picking just one! In the end I opted for the Democratic Republic of Congo. The swaying factor was the combination of cocoa, peanuts and coffee; just the sort of thing that I would order if I was out at a restaurant. Traditionally a Congolese sweet dish is something called Mikates, a sweet doughnut, but for this post I wanted to take the ingredients produced in the DRC and incorporate them into something that reflected my style of cooking.
I thought that the idea for this campaign was a brilliant one and something that really resonated with me. Although baking has really taken off in the last few years and turned into quite a fashion, the fundamental routes of it have remained the same. Baking makes people happy. It is joyful to start off with basic ingredients and a relief to pull a fantastic finished product out of the oven. But the satisfaction really starts when a cake is given to friends or family. My whole interest in cooking started with baking. I haven’t got a particularly sweet tooth, but what spurred me on was the happiness that a cake as a gift gave others. And I think that this is a universal thing, something that spans countries, cultures and ages.
Although there are a few different elements and stages to this recipe, it is fundamentally an easy cake to make. It is something to have a crack at even if the thought of baking sends a chill down your spine, and it’s a great one to get the kids involved in. Aside from the careful nature of making caramel they can get stuck into pretty much anything; from whisking the egg whites into a satisfying froth to bashing up the praline with a rolling pin.
I added the soured ice cream to take the edge off the rich cake, but really any of these elements work just as well on their own. I will certainly be sneakily tucking into a bowl of that ice cream when no-one is looking, and the salted peanut brittle is addictive stuff.
Serves 6-8
Ingredients:
For the cake:
225g good quality dark chocolate, 70-85% cocoa solids preferably
225g unsalted peanuts
100g golden caster sugar
125g light brown soft sugar
225g unsalted butter, softened
4 large eggs, separated into yolks and whites
1 tsp instant coffee mixed with 1 tsp boiling water
1 heaped tbsp cocoa powder
For the buttermilk ice cream:
80g golden caster sugar
400ml double cream
150ml whole milk
200ml buttercream
3 large egg yolks
A pinch of salt
For the praline:
120g unsalted peanuts
200g golden caster sugar
1 tsp sea salt flakes
First get the ice cream on. Combine the milk, buttercream, sugar and cream in a saucepan and slowly bring to the boil. When up to temperature, remove from the heat. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks and salt together, then pour over half of the hot cream mixture. Whisk until the yolks are emulsified, then pour the liquid back into the pan. Return to a low-medium heat and stir continuously until the temperature reaches 85⁰C. Take off the heat and allow to cool quickly, then transfer to an ice cream machine to churn as the manufacturer suggests.
Pre-heat the oven to 150⁰C.
For the cake, blitz up the chocolate and the peanuts in a food processor until they are the texture of coarse breadcrumbs. Tip into a bowl and set aside.
Cream together the sugars and butter using a whisk until well combined and very light. Incorporate the egg yolks one at a time, then beat in the chocolate, nuts, coffee and the cocoa powder.
In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Using a spatula, beat a small amount of this into the chocolate mixture before carefully folding in the rest. Spoon the batter into a lined, 20cm round baking tin and bake for about an hour, or until a skewer is clean when removed.
To make the praline, heat up the sugar in a dry saucepan on a medium-high temperature. As the sugar starts to melt, sway the pan carefully to combine, don’t be tempted to stir. When the colour of the caramel is a deep golden colour, add the peanuts to the pan and mix well with a spoon. Tip the mixture out onto a lined baking tray and allow to set. When cooled, bash into small pieces with a rolling pin.
When the cake has cooked and cooled, dust with a little extra cocoa powder and sprinkle with some of the praline. Serve with a scoop of the buttermilk ice cream.
