Cracking it: roast beef for 6 people

I've written here before about my problems with mass catering. The fiddliness of getting everything ready, while also smiling, taking coats, handing out drinks and exuding calm and hostessly bonhomie. I can't really do it. I freak out, go red, drop things, sit down and eat my lunch with audacious haste so that I can start freaking out about coffee and pudding and keep saying "Is it okay? Really? Is it? Sorry the veggies are a bit burnt! You don't have to eat it if you don't want!!!" rather than leaning back and saying something divine like "Henry, did you know that you and Sally share the same views on Renaissance art?" as if I'm some Princess in Anna Karenina.

Anyway, yesterday we gave a lunch for six and it went just fine. Admittedly, there were two of us doing it, which always helps but, amazingly, nothing was burnt, undercooked or gross and we all managed to talk at the table about something other than the niceness or not of the food.

So the menu went like this:

Chilli and Parmesan popcorn to snack on while stragglers turned up
Roast rib of beef with Henry's macaroni cheese and roasted vegetables
Steamed treacle pudding (which I bought from the farmer's market but it wasn't very nice, so I'll skip over this).

Chilli and parmesan popcorn is just brilliant stuff; pop the corn as you normally would in a large pan with a thin layer of vegetable oil on the bottom. Tranfer it to a large bowl and toss in a few shakes of mild chilli powder (or paprika) and sprinkle over a handful of parmesan. Delicious.

In the morning, we made Henry's macaroni cheese, which I've described before in my Dimbleby's dinners post. I really can't recommend that you try this out for a dinner or a lunch party highly enough. Everyone loves it.

I cooked 500g of macaroni until al dente (about 4 minutes) and then rinsed it immediately a few times in cold water to stop it from cooking any more. We couldn't find any morels, so we rehydrated a handful (when dry) of chanterelles and porcini mushrooms in a small bowl with just enough water to revive them. Henry says that you want to steep them quite tightly so you can use the mushroom water to give added wow to the mac cheese sauce.

With the now-cool pasta in a large pan, pour over two slim tubs of single or pouring cream (I think this was about 350-400ml). Squeeze the mushrooms dry of liquid in your hands and add these, then strain the mushroom liquid through a tea strainer or normal sieve (to get rid of grit) and throw that in. Grate in a handful of Gruyere cheese.

Season with salt and pepper and give it a stir. Then generously butter a large-ish gratin dish and pour the pasta in. Grate over enough Gruyere cheese to completely cover the pasta (it melts right down in the oven so don't be shy about really walloping the cheese on). This is then ready to go in the oven for about 25-30 mins, while the meat is resting.

The rib of beef Giles bought from a butcher in Kew and it was a bit of a beast, I think 2.3kg. Before it went in the oven, Giles rubbed dripping all over the meat and a good sprinkling of salt and pepper.

We cooked it according to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's meat cooking times in the River Cottage Meat book - I think it was half an hour's sizzle at 200C and then 1.5 hours at 180C and then half an hour's rest, kept warm under tin foil and a tea towel.

While the meat was resting, we put the mac cheese in the oven at 180C. In the roasting tin that the beef had been roasting, we put in 3 young leeks and five carrots, chopped up and par-boiled (for about 4-5 minutes), swirled them around and slid them in the same 180C oven. Both the roasted veggies and mac cheese cooked for about 24-30 mins.

And that was that! For some reason, it was really easy. Nothing burnt. Nothing was gross. Except the bought steamed pudding, but the less said about that the better.

Perhaps finally after so many bad dinner parties and lunches this is my reward: a good, stressless lunch?

Perhaps I am, actually, learning something.

Tempura batter

I had a rather traumatic trip to the dentist this morning and I'm feeling very sorry for myself. My dentist is very handsome, you see, and so some time before Christmas I let him and his bedside manner talk me into fixing my wonky teeth, at vast expense, with a sort of clear brace called Invisalign.

I had forgotten all about it until the dentist's receptionist called me last week to make an appointment to come in for a fitting. Not only did my dentist SAND OFF some bits of my tooth (I tried to stay calm during this but I confess I broke out into a light sweat) to 'make room' for the movement of my other teeth, he also stuck on, using fcking glue, (in my mouth: glue in my mouth) some tooth-coloured 'buttons' so help the braces, two clear, hateful gum-shield-type things that snap on over your teeth, top and bottom, grip onto my teeth.

I have to take the braces out to eat, which involves sticking both hands most of the way into my mouth and unpicking them off my molars and then yanking them off the front. Then after I've eaten I have to brush my teeth and put the stupid things back on, which means pushing and pushing and pushing them on my teeth until suddenly they snap on, quite loudly and surprise me.

They are absolutely horrible and squeeze my teeth together, giving me a headache and they make me drool and I can't speak properly. And I've got to wear them for a year. So as you can imagine, I'm feeling a bit down and distracted.

But since Giles tweeted this blog I've got 67 followers! And the Lord knows that you all need entertaining so I thought I'd pick myself up from the living room floor, where I was groaning and drooling and clutching at my mouth slurring sloppily "Why? Why did I let him take advantage of me?"

And if you want to put on a show in your kitchen, you could do worse than deep-frying a lot of stuff in tempura batter. Tempura is different from a normal batter, usually made with egg, flour and milk, in that it uses water rather than milk and you make it very cold. The coldness of it means - I read this somewhere - that it doesn't absorb as much oil while it's cooking and so stays light and fluffy rather than soggy.

So, for a good four or five ladlefuls of batter you will need:

3oz plain flour and 1tbsp cornflour, sifted together

1 egg

about 150ml chilled sparkling water (if you want it extra bubbly, just plain old chilled tap water if not)

To keep the batter nice and cold, fill one bowl with about ten cubes of ice and then fit another mixing bowl over the top, to make a sort of ice bath. Crack the egg into the top mixing bowl and beat. Then pour in about 100ml of the sparkling water and then add the two flours. Mix it round to combine but not until smooth - lumpy is good.

Use the batter immediately. Pat dry whatever you're deep-frying on some kitchen paper, dabble in the batter and then fry for about 1-2 mins or until it's golden, then remove to a wad of kitchen paper.

My deep-friend bananas didn't puff up into massive clouds of batter, as I was expecting, but I'm still very pleased with them. Next time I'll be doing courgettes and in the meantime, I'll mostly be drooling.

Sick, dying

Oh my god I am so ill. I was planning today to talk about tempura batters and banana fritters but all I can do is sit at my desk with my forehead gently resting on the table top going "Mmlerrruugh." I can touch type (I knew it would come in handy one day) though so my forehead being on the desk doesn't interfere with my writing.

Giles suggested going for a walk! A WALK?!?!?! I'm dying. I would utter a profanity but I'm too exhausted.

Anyway, I can, in lieu of anything more interesting to say, tell you that I had a great dinner last night at Aqua on Regent Street. I was really surprised, as it's one of those restaurants that plays loud music and there's a lot of red lights and black lacquer and orchids. Do you know what I mean? It was a Japanese joint and usually raw fish served anywhere that has red lighting and loud music and cocktails will probably give you trichonosis.

But the food was really excellent and it was packed out and I recommend that you get your reservations in now before maybe one or two people give it an okay review and you can't get in the door for love nor money. Although don't go if the idea of red lights and lacquer makes you queasy.

The same goes for a French place called Terroirs in Covent Garden - they do a cassoulet there that will make you fall to your knees and thank god for the haricot bean: book now or forever have your nose pressed against the glass.

*Cough cough*. Goodbye then. Farewell. I am going to put on Mozart's Requiem and walk slowly to the bedroom.

Brioche

There are so many reasons NOT to make a brioche.

1 It takes an entire morning

2 You can buy them from the shop

There's only one reason TO make a brioche and that is, to make a brioche.

I initially wanted to make one because of a thing I ate at Dean Street Townhouse a few weeks ago. We kept going to DSTH, which is Nick 'Soho House' Jones' new place on, err, Dean Street, because Giles kept getting drunk, or overexcited and got home and couldn't remember enough to write a review. So I ate mostly the whole menu, including a really fabulous mushrooms on toast starter. And the toast was a slice of brioche. Scandalous!

There's also a bit in Bridget Jones' Diary (book not film) where Bridget Jones' mother says to a tax man who is patronising her about money: "Listen, can YOU make a brioche?" and that's always made me want to try it.

So I thought I would make one. Yes, it is time-consuming but it's not hard at all, as long as you follow the recipe I've posted below. It'll take up a whole morning but in the end there's a BRIOCHE that YOU MADE sitting in your kitchen!!

It is possibly not the best recipe in the world - it's just off the BBC website, but it worked well for me and it made a fabulous mushrooms-on-toast lunch:

So if you wake up one Saturday or Sunday morning thinking "I want to make a brioche" then I say go for it. Not hard: very tasty.

For the Yeast Batter
2 tsp dried yeast or 15g/½oz fresh yeast
3 tbsp milk, hand-hot
1 tsp sugar
25g/1oz strong white flour

Other Ingredients
200g/8oz strong white flour
large pinch of salt
1 tbsp caster sugar
50g/2oz butter
2 eggs, beaten


1. Stir yeast into the milk. If using dried yeast leave it to stand for 5 minutes.
2. Mix in the flour and sugar and leave in a warm place until frothy - about 20 minutes.
3. Sift together the flour, salt and sugar.
4. Rub in the butter.
5. Beat the eggs into the frothy yeast batter.
6. Stir in the flour mixture and work to a soft dough. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and no longer sticky.
7. Cover the dough and leave to rise until doubled in size - about 1-1½ hours.
8. Knock back the risen dough.
9. Grease twelve brioche tins 7cm/3in in diameter or twelve deep bun tins.
10. Divide the dough into twelve equal pieces. With each piece cut off a quarter and form the largest part into a ball and place in tin. Firmly press a hole in the centre of the ball and place remaining small piece of dough as a knob in this. Glaze with beaten egg.
11. Cover and leave to prove until light and puffy - about 30-40 minutes.
12. Bake in a very hot oven 230C/450F/Gas 8 until golden brown - about 18-20 minutes.

Some notes: Above is the recipe as it appeared on the BBC website. I made my brioche in a small loaf tin, 7in x 3in in order to slice and toast it. If you have a fan-assisted oven, make sure you set it to a slightly lower temp than 230C or you'll burn the shit out of it - I've got a fan oven and cooked mine at about 210C.

Complicated cookery

You know, I get the feeling that we might be seeing a return to complicated cooking. In the last couple of years it's all been a handful of this and throw in that and stick it in a pot and stir it round and cutlery is just so fcking bourgeoise, just eat it with your hands! Straight from the oven!!

But I've now received (or pinched out of Giles' post) two really fiddly cookbooks. The first was Cuisinier Gascon, which I mentioned in my Quinoa Risotto post and the second, which arrived this morning, is called Fusion: A Culinary Journey, by Peter Gordon.

Gordon is from New Zealand is one of London's most accomplished 'fusion' cooks, which basially means there's quite a lot of coriander and lime in his recipes and the occasional deep fried lotus root.

No, I'm being facetious - the man is a very serious cook and I am beside myself with excitement at this cookbook. Everything - EVERYTHING - in it looks divine.

Gordon owns The Providores on Marylebone High Street, which I've been to and the Tapa Room, which I haven't. It's all, as I said, stunning stuff but also incredibly complicated, with a lot of different ingredients from far-flung places (can I get cassava in Waitrose?) and dishes with a lot of 'construction' to them - everything is piled up or rolled up and round each other.

I can't go into detail because the book came with a very strict print embargo notice until 4th March. BUT the publicists for the book have said that, being a blog, I can give you a preview from 1st March.

I mean, not that anyone would notice if I copied the whole thing out here, word for word, but I don't want to get Giles into (more) trouble. So I'll just leave you, until 1st March, with the premonition that perhaps we are going to see a gradual end to bish-bash-bosh cooking and a swing round to something a bit more dainty. Just a thought.

Mastering muffins

I made muffins once before, about five years ago and they came out like fairy cakes. So, with typical perseverence, I never made them again. But then I bought the Ottolenghi cookbook, which has a whole section on muffins and, such is my faith in Ottolenghi I thought I'd give it another go.

Although I had a disaster along the way...

.. The muffins came out brilliantly, with that proper semi-bready, light texture. They really taste like muffins, rather than just cake - I think it's because there's not too much sugar in them, so they have a grown-up taste rather than being a sweetie explosion.


When I make them again I'd fill the cases right to the top with mixture as it doesn't rise very much and you do kind of want that spilling-over-the-top Starbucks muffin look, without the greasy Starbucks taste.

So these are blueberry and apple muffins from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook, found on page 211. I used frozen blueberries and a gala apple, rather than a Granny Smith. I also halved the quantities and used silicon fairy cake-sized cases, rather than those huge, straight-sided muffin cases and had I not dropped one load on the floor I would have got about 30 little muffins.

Anyway, here is the recipe as it is in the book, which is for blueberry and apple muffins - you can halve the quantities if you like, you still get a vat-load of batter. There is also a crumble topping to these, which I left out because I felt it was overkill. You hear me, Yotam? Stop gilding the lily, ok?

540g plain flour
5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
340g caster sugar
140g unsalted butter, melted
380ml milk
grated zest of 1 lemon
1 Granny Smith apple (unpeeled) and cut into 1cm cube
200g blueberries, plus a few extra for the topping

1 Preheat the oven to 170C and get out your muffin cases
2 Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside. In mixing bowl, lightly whisk together the eggs, sugar and melted butter (make sure the melted butter isn't too hot). Whisk in the milk and lemon zest, then gently fold in the fruit.
3 Add the sifted dry indredients and fold together very gently. Make sure you stir the mix just enough to combine; it should remain lumpy and rough.
4 Spoon the mixture into your cases and fill up to the top (this instruction I didn't see, to my peril) and dot with one or two extra blueberries. Bake for 30-35 mins or until a skewer comes out clean.

Quinoa risotto

Yes, this is recipe number 2 on this blog using quinoa, but what can I say? It's brilliant. I was resistant to it for years, dismissing it as the preserve of hippies and weirdos with food intolerances. But, in fact, it's an impeccable rice/pasta replacement if you're craving a stodge-fest but don't want to either fall asleep after lunch or GET FAT.

This recipe was inspired by a cookbook that arrived at my house that at first, I'm ashamed to say, made me laugh out loud. It's called Cuisinier Gascon, by Pascal Aussignac, the head chef at Club Gascon Group, a very smart sort of chain of Gascon-inspired restaurants in London.

It made me laugh out loud for its unimaginable complexity. It's all beautiful and gorgeous, no doubt, but the idea that I would make a Cappucino of Black Pudding with Lobster and Asparagus or a Carpaccio of Foie Gras with Figs and Walnut made me snigger. Not that, I must hastily add, this book was intended for me - it's recipient was supposed to be Giles, but little do people know that I intercept all of Giles' post, stack up the press releases, burn the hatemail after passing names and address onto the police, put all the knickers in the bin, give Giles the fanmail to read over breakfast and appropriate all the cookbooks.

I was about to dismiss the book as too silly to be useful when I suddenly sobered up and realised how damn lucky I am that I live in a house where top chefs send in signed copies of their books, even though they're not meant for me.

So I sat down with Cuisinier Gascon and read it from cover to cover and it's brilliant; I will make one of its more complicated recipes soon as a penance, but for now, I made today for lunch a quinoa risotto, inspired by a seafood quinoa risotto I found in the book.

It serves 2 and goes something like this:

80g quinoa

300ml stock

1/2 stick of celery

2 shallots

a few snippets of lemon zest

parmesan

butter

parsley

chorizo

garlic

1 Chop up the shallots, garlic and celery and saute gently for about 8 mins in 1 tbsp groundnut oil and a generous lump of butter.

2 Add the quinoa and fry off for about 3 mins

3 pour in all the stock and leave to bubble gently for about ten minutes, giving it the occasional stir. The quinoa ought to absorb all the liquid, after about 15 minutes. You can add more if the quinoa is too al dente for you. The quinoa basically behaves like risotto rice so if you've made a risotto, it'll all be pretty familiar. The bonus is it takes much less long to cook than risotto rice.

4 When the quinoa is cooked, add another knob of butter, salt and pepper, lemon zest, a handful of parmesan and a couple of thick rounds of chorizo, chopped up, Stir to combine and then turn out onto hot plates - sprinkle over more parmesan and the parsley.

I served this with a sprig of roasted cherry tomatoes, which worked really well - to roast baby tomatoes just put in the oven for about a hour at 180 C.