Chain pain

Just round the corner from 170 Gloucester Place, where I live, within a matter of about 200 metres, there is an ASK, a Subway, a Pizza Hut, a Pizza Express, a McDonalds, a KFC, a Gourmet Burger Kitchen, a Strada, a Nando's and a Zizzi. Just down the road from Zizzi there is a Giraffe, a Ping Pong and The Real Greek. Where the bloody hell are all these chain restaurants coming from? In the age of economies, standardisation, and franchising, we accept there to be some chain restaurants, but the number springing up these days is a damn disgrace. Oh yes, and another thing that has led to the pitiable state of affairs - feminism. If women had just stayed at home rather than getting into the workplace, the death of good old home cooking could have been averted and these sad excuses of restaurants would not have sprung up like mushrooms. Says Prince Rose. Not me. I am all up for feminism and all that bollocks. (Rose on the BBC).

There's something about most chain restaurants that makes me cringe. It's probably to do with how industrial they make the food feel. And how modular the establishments themselves are. I can't help but think of the kitchen in these places as assembly lines; food should NOT be prepared using flowcharts and  standard operating procedures. We are not talking of building furniture here. And what I find really disturbing is that this chain phenomenon has, from the junk food brands, crept into the kind of restaurants that serve three course meals. Not great meals, but meals nonetheless. There is an upside. More people can enjoy the 'dining out' experience without having to sell their children, but the food, ah, its just 'okay' at the best of times. Not talking about the junk food chains here - the 'food' there isn't really food.

Chains aren't all bad. My local butcher, Ginger Pig, is a chain establishment. They rear their animals in the Yorkshire Moor and operate a few shops in the Greater London area. They specialise in rare breeds of pigs, make some awesome sausages - they have a chili and ginger sausage, a real man's sausage. Will put hair on your eyeballs - and make some great pies and pasties too. And every time I go there I am greeted by the same man, who will have a bit of banter, put in his two bits with regard to how I should cook what I am buying, suggest something new that they might have, and just be generally enthusiastic about the food he sells. Oh yes, and they run butchery classes too.

My local fishmonger, FishWorks, also a chain. They source fish from small independent fishermen, and women, around the Devon and Cornwall region. Sourcing fish does not get more sustainable than this. Of course you can buy monkfish tails, halibut and sea bass from them, but they also have gurnard, bream, great sardines, sorry, pilchards, and other more reasonable and sensible fish. They normally have a damn good selection of flat fish. And ray wings. Talking about ray wings - the shop doubles as a seafood restaurant. And a damn good one. The roasted ray wing, with caper and butter sauce is great. Most of the food is very simple, and the quality of the fish is allowed to shine. A good selection of oysters too. Have enjoyed some great dinners there with some great people. Also runs a cookery school.

So, lets have some more chain establishment that are designed around connecting people with good food, rather than around getting people fed quickly, cheaply and, well, badly.

Moules marinière a la crème? . . . ah non!

The French are a proud bunch. So proud, they are intolerant of lesser beings bastardising all that they hold so dear - and rightfully so. Some of the best food and drink has come out of France, not to mention some of the most exquisite cooking techniques. So a spin on a classic French recipe would never be as good as the real thing. Or would it?

Shell fish on the local fishmonger's slab - FishWorks

I am a great fan of mussels. They are easy to cook, great to eat and pretty affordable. With farmed mussels available on the fishmonger's slab, they are also pretty sustainable. More accurately, these are 'cultured' mussels. Artificial mussel bed are created by suspending chains, netting or ropes under buoys in pristine lagoons and the mussels naturally attach themselves to these and fatten up on plankton. Cultured mussels, because they are suspended in water rather than being attached to rocks, are also less gritty. The last time I bought mussels, I found tucked away among them a couple of limpets. No points for guessing where they ended up. All in all, there is a good case to go cultured. In the past I have used New Zealand green-lipped mussels, which are much larger. But they come half-shelled and frozen - where's the fun in that. 

You know you are a regular when the fishmonger knows exactly
what you are cooking and throws in the condiments for good measure

Many people would be pretty surprised if they saw what we Indians do with our shellfish. The idea of a lobster or clam curry, with strong flavours and intense heat, might even sound like a complete waste of precious ingredients to some. And though a massive fan of coastal Indian cooking, I can empathise with this view. I like to think of shellfish as ready parcels of goodness that are at their best when not fiddled around with too much. Moules marinière is almost as simple as it gets. However, I thought we had already established that we were not doing things like the French.



I first cooked this recipe with a French Canadian - he, as is often the case, learnt it from his grandmother. I have changed the recipe a bit because I wasn't a 100% convinced with ability to translate the names of ingredients from French to English. However, the main addition is that of double cream. This leaves you with a nice creamy dunking liquid for your bread - preferably a lightly buttered baguette.

You need:

(Serves 4)

• 3 kilos of mussels, barnacles and beards removed, rinsed. Tap the open ones on the kitchen counter. If they do not close, bin them, they as dead as Michael Jackson. To be entirely honest with you, if the dead ones don't look like they have been gone for long, I just pot them.
• 2 large banana shallots, finely chopped
• 200ml of double cream, roughly
• as much garlic as you like
• 3 tablespoons chopped parsley
• 1 bay leaf
• knob of butter
• a couple of glasses of white wine (if you wouldn't bother drinking it, then don't bother cooking with it)
• salt to taste. Be careful with the salt. Mussels are naturally salty and if you have used salted butter then you might just want a pinch.
• wedge of lemon for garnish. It more than just a garnish. A squeeze will cut through the richness of the cream beautifully.

Keep all your ingredients at hand as once. once you get going this recipe is pretty bang bang.

1. melt the butter in a large sauce pan, add the shallots followed by the garlic
2. before the garlic burns, add the mussels followed by the glass of wine and the bay leaf. Cover. Hob on high.
3. shake the pan every 30-45 seconds
4. as the mussels start to open add the cream and season
5. once the mussels open fully, turn off the hob and add the parsley. From the time you put in the mussels it should only take you about 3-4 minutes
6. enjoy with the remainder of that bottle of wine



There is this rule about not eating the ones that haven't opened. Trust you me, pry them open and get involved. Every once in a while you might get one that is a little extra fishy, but that's what that remaining bottle of wine is for.

The namesake

The British love affair with Indian food has been going on longer than I thought. I thought the British found their curry buds - these have been scientifically proven to exist in all individuals who enjoy curry - during my parent's generation, but I was wrong. It was a generation before that. And curry is not just being enjoyed by masses of semi paraplegic drunken lads on tour. The Evening Standard, which is the jewel in the crown of the free press, found that 7 out of London's top 40 chefs (whatever that means) prefer to get an Indian takeaway on their days off. Heston Blumenthal, by his own admission, has been visiting an 'Indian' restaurant called Malik's, in Berkshire, most Mondays for over a decade. However, I do not share Mr. Blumenthal's, or any blooming Brit's, obsession with the 'Indian' food on offer in Britain. As far as I am concerned every single time I have gone to an 'Indian' restaurant in the UK, the food has never been Indian.

If you speak basic Hindi, have a vague idea of how a Bengali would speak Hindi and know that there is a massive Bengali speaking Bangladeshi population in the UK, then every time you see 'Aaloo Mutter' spelt 'Aaloo Moter' or 'Chicken Kadai' spelt 'Chicken Korai' you will know that you are in fact in a Bangladeshi restaurant. And this is almost always the case. In the case of the few that are not Bangladeshi it is pretty easy to spot that they are Pakistani. Because the Pakistanis will not even bother trying to be subtle about the identity theft. I went past a restaurant sign that read - "Lahore Grill, Indian Restaurant". This angered me, but let me assure you that I am not a food racist.

One of the beauties of food is that everyone can make it their own. You can keep what you like, get rid of what you don't, put in a whole lot of stuff that does not belong and still probably manage to pass it off as a version of the real thing. And you don't have to be native to a country to cook the country's food well. My local greasy spoon, which does the best all day breakfast in the vicinity is Italian. So Italian in fact that I have once felt the urge to order spaghetti meatballs for breakfast. A sushiya I went to for a very long time, and very often, was run by a bunch of Chinese and, just to drive the point home, my moules are better than any Frenchman's. Then why this venom when it comes to fellows of the subcontinent trying to cash in on the curry craze?

Upon reflection - yes, what used to be time spent day dreaming is increasing being spend reflecting on the state of things - my issue with 'Indian' food in the UK is that it is not Indian at all. Sure, it is a version of the real thing, but a version so unlike that it might as well be a cuisine in its own right. This is not a cuisine I find myself mad about. I have never walked out of a restaurant thinking I'd like to come back for some more. At the heart of the problem is the fact that no matter what you order you get the same slop with a few tweaks. This one time at an 'Indian' restaurant my Rogan Josh and a friends Balti were the exact same thing, the only difference being his came in a balti and mine had some fresh coriander as garnish (I don't think you would find coriander on a Rogan Josh in India). And that's what makes me angry. People deceiving the good public of this country as to what Indian food is.

But it's not all bad news. I think how 'Indian' food as evolved in this country is a testament to how people connect with food, even if foreign - not to mention a testament to great marketing. The Balti and the Tikka Masala aren't India, they are British, and I think they are pretty good, as British dishes of course. And viewed as British food, the sickeningly sweet Korma or the unnecessarily spicy Vindaloo start to make some sense. It's all in the name. So from this moment forth, speaketh of this as Indo-British food. Indian food is in a different league altogether.

Frying pan paella

As I sat in front of my computer in the office yesterday afternoon a sudden rice craving set in. I haven't been eating as much rice as I used to. Potatoes, bread and pasta have become staple carbs. Then on the tube home I had an epiphany - Paella. The last paella I made was on the 30th of April 2006. Yes, I remember the date - because it was my birthday and I had some friend's over for dinner. But that paella was a half day affair. I had gone to town with the ingredients. Squid, king prawns, green-lipped mussels, octopus, the works. All cooked in a paella pan carried to the UK all the way from Spain. It was quite the event. I wasn't about to put in all that effort at 7 pm, after a long day's work, so a frying pan version had to be thought up. One that could be put together from stuff I could buy on the way home.

I used:

• 300 grams long-grain rice, about one mug full
• One finely sliced onion
• 2 cloves of garlic chopped
• about 100 grams of chorizo
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• paprika to taste
• 300 grams of chicken breast. Since everyone seems to be making austerity cuts I decided to make a non-seafood version.
• 1 litre of chicken stock. I used 2 jellied Knorr stock pots. Let's just say that mine was a pretty boldly seasoned. 1.5 stock pots would have been just fine.
• half a cup of peas and some flat leaf parsley I had lying in the fridge to garnish.

1. in some olive oil fry the onions without browning, after about 3-4 minutes, add the chorizo. Once the chorizo starts releasing juices add in the chicken
2. as the chicken seals, add the garlic and turmeric followed by the washed rice.
3. stir the rice to coat it in all the juices and then add hot chicken stock
4. bring to a boil and then simmer for 15 minutes, stirring regularly
5. add the peas right in the end and give it one last stir. Bob's your uncle.

I recommend that you let the paella stand for a bit to allow the last bit of water to get soaked up in the rice. Watching the paella cook is like watching something come to life. As the rice starts to emerge from the stock and all those flavours get really concentrated it starts looking a lot more appetising. I have to make a proper one, will masses of seafood, soon.

  

The star of this one was the chorizo. The chorizo is a giving sausage. I have been using it quite often lately. It makes a great addition in any tomato based pasta sauce. The fat and spices it releases gives a real boost of flavour. I used some to make the base for meat balls last month and the sausage did extremely well. Not to mention, that it is so easily consumed sitting in the sun with some cheese, rocket and bread. Next year eh? 

   

Insalata di mare

We men pride ourselves of eating manly things. If you have ever refrained from ordering a salad in the company of judging eyes, then this one is for you.

I was at the local fishmonger's the past weekend and chanced upon a tray of Italian seafood salad. I didn't so much chance upon it as decided to give it some attention - it's always been there, next to the tray of fish-cakes. Think of all the delicious, alien-looking sea critters marinaded together and you'll begin to get the picture. More a summer dish, but the sunny autumn Saturday felt pretty right and I got myself a little box-full to go. The rocket leaves are my addition (and that bottle of wine is empty).

Baby squid, octopus, mussels, shrimp and cockles attended this salad party. But you are only limited by what got away, or what you can afford. Chunks of lobster, crab meat or scallops would be novel additions. I say why leave out snails and conchs - whack them in too if you can find some. You need:

• an assortment of cooked seafood. Whoever had made this salad had probably cooked them all together. The mussels and cockles were falling apart and the squid was a little rubbery. The octopus though, was more tender than you would imagine. Nice chunky pieces too! If I were to cook this at home I probably would cook all the meats separately, to their individual cooking times.

For the basic marinade (I can't give you exact quantities, roughly in descending order.)

• extra virgin olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• chopped garlic
• salt and pepper
• lemon juice

This salad also had

• chopped olives (a few too many)
• red peppers

You could put in

• chopped shallots
• chives
• parsley
• a bit of white wine
• anything really

Once you have the marinade ready, then it's just a case of putting in the meat and cooling in the fridge for a couple of hours. I thought it went pretty well with salad leaves. I used the marinade to dress the rocket, but I could have eaten it just as it was, with some bread for dunking.

There was some great fish on the slab that day - there always is.

Waste not want not

Roast Bone Marrow and Parsley Salad

I don't think I have ever been this excited about a book. This is more than just a cook book. It is part philosophy, part lifestyle and part holy text. It would be impertinent of me to even attempt to shower praise on this one. Anyway Fergus' (yes, we are the best of friends) Roast Bone Marrow and Parsley Salad is Anthony Bourdain's 'Death Row Meal' and I can't beat that. Thought haggis was pushing the boat out? Then you have another thing coming.

If you have looked at lamb hearts or kidneys and thought "umm yum yum", then at the risk of making this sound like some cult, this book will really make you feel like you belong. If you are anything like me then the Dried Salted Pig's Liver, Radishes, and Boiled Eggs and the Warm Pig's Head will instantly trigger a fury of what can only be described as emotions, and you will find yourself lost in thought, trying to imagine what the plate of food will smell like, taste like and most definitely, look like - the fact that the book does not have many pictures makes it much more engaging.

This is honest food. Rustic and unwasteful. And though offal is becoming fashionable (I had some rabbit kidney canapés at a restaurant Autumn menu launch yesterday), and it is most definitely fashionable to be seen at St. John Restaurant, let’s be honest, how fashionable can tripe or pigs tails actually get? And therein lies the beauty of this book and the recipes - they still excite and fascinate. It's all substance.

From a cook's point of view the stubbornness of the ingredients frustrates and humbles. I have lost count of how many times I have disappointed myself with leathery lamb livers on toast. My attempt at experimenting with cow kidneys in a beef stew was a disaster - my pride had to be let lose, and the kidneys fished out and binned. This explains what I am trying to say perfectly - "Nearly anyone - after a few tries - can grill a filet mignon or a sirloin steak. A trained chimp can steam a lobster. But it takes love, and time and respect for one's ingredients to deal with a pig's ear or a kidney properly" - Anthony Bourdain, forward, Nose to Tail Eating.

But the reason why this book really moves me is the philosophy behind the use of these, what some might deem archaic, ingredients. While the use of offal has only just seen resurgence in Britain, other parts of the world, such as most of Asia and even parts of Europe, Greece for example, never went off the stuff. This may be part frugality but something tells me it may also have a little to do with just plain and simple common sense. If it's edible, then in the words of the man himself, "it is only polite" to not be wasteful if you have killed something for food. Anyone who has ever killed one of their own animals for the table would probably know pretty darn well what I am on about here. If something is going to be raised for FOOD, EAT it. All of IT.

St. John Restaurant, London

JERK!

When I am looking forward to a really good feed it's always hard to make the choice between quality and quantity. At the Notting Hill Carnival there was no such dilemma. What looked like the aftermath of a large scale avian cull, jerk chicken lined the streets around every bend. To make your way to the feeding holes, of which there were hundreds, all one had to do was look to the skies and follow the smoke. While the jerk chicken was most definitely the star of the show, there were other less known Caribbean foods on offer too - like saltfish and curried cow foot. Though I would have loved to have spent more time sampling the culinary delights, I found my self distracted by the drinking and merry-making. But as is always the case after a solid few hours of beer guzzling, a food time-out was much needed.

There is nothing delicate about Caribbean cooking. It's absolute 'no-nonsense', bold stuff! The chicken is beyond cooked, it's charred (but in a good way) much like a tandoori. What I did notice however was that unlike tandoori the chicken was thrown on to the grill with the skin on, and the skin bore the brunt of the heat (and mostly vapourised). This kept the meat quite moist. Got me thinking whether a similar trick would work with punjab da kukkad. Though I absolutely love the charred taste a coal fire imparts on food, I have been disappointed many a time by chalk dry tandoori chicken and leaving the skin on could be the answer.

The jerk chicken was served up with rice and peas and salad, all topped off with some chili sauce. Now, for the eagle eyes out there who are wondering where the peas are, well, there aren't any! It should be called 'rice and beans' as far as I am concerned because there wasn't a damn pea in sight. I went for the optional dumpling out of curiosity and quickly realised that it probably wasn't the best choice. Think of the dumpling as a savoury, deep fried dough ball that could second as a throwing weapon and take out a small child; maybe a roasted cob would have been more appropriate.

But what really hit the spot after a dozen cans of Red Stripe was the curry goat (yes, not goat curry or curried goat, it's CURRY GOAT). I was meaning to get one all day long but only got around to it towards close, when the rice had run out, hence the bread. In hindsight, dumplings soaked in the curry would have gone down a treat. The curry was extremely oily and extraordinarily salty. It was perfect. Being Indian and hence predisposed to having a weak ticker, I think one of these bi-annually would do me. From the blend of the 1001 spices that probably went into it, the thyme and the turmeric really stood out. I am not too sure whether I could taste the turmeric or just knew that there was plenty of it from the colour of my fingers once I was done stuffing my face. I think the curry best represented the Caribbean, the melting pot of cultures that it is. The Indian influence I could most certainly taste. As for the rest, I am pretty sure they were in there somewhere.

Oh yes, the ketchup. I did tell him off.

                                                                            

Carnival ready

The last bank holiday weekend of the year, and it's the Notting Hill Carnival. Though I have never been before, friends who were there last year swear by it. I expect plenty of brew to keep one wetted, massive tunes and some proper Caribbean barbeque. The day was spent scouting the area before the party really gets started tomorrow. The wandering around was punctuated by sit downs at pubs and food from the streets. Had some deep fried fake prawns which were probably the most revolting things I have ever eaten, not because they tasted terrible, but because they raped what was otherwise a pretty okay platter of fried seafood (and because the thought of 'seafood' being produced in a factory makes me gag). Some talk about the lack of authentic food was sparked by the sight of non-Spaniards cooking paella and so I offered to rustle up a proper prawn curry for dinner.

This is a pretty basic coastal Indian prawn curry. Different regions along the coast will have their own additions and quirks. It's pretty simple to put together - especially when you have a sous-chef doing all the grinding and peeling. I have been making this curry for a few years now but have only once actually bothered to measure the ingredients, even if only roughly. Here's the recipe as I remember it; a more accurate one will follow sometime soon.

• Crack some mustard seeds in oil and add to that a sprig of curry leaves, slit whole chillies and sliced onions. Fry until the onions are soft. If you don't want a 'chunky' curry use onion paste instead.
• Once the onions are tender add powdered cumin, coriander, fenugreek seeds and turmeric. Add a splash of water if the masala starts sticking to the pan.
• Once roasted, add a couple of chopped tomatoes to create a curry paste.
• As the tomatoes soften, add some coconut milk and let the sauce (or as we Indians would rightly refer to it - gravy) simmer for about 10 minutes.

• 
  
  While bread in the form of roti, naan, parathas, kulchas, etc. is widely consumed in India, rice is the staple along the coast. Serve up this prawn curry with rice.

In the south of India (which is where I first ate a coconut based curry) the rice of choice is a rounder, redder, unpolished, stickier variety that looks nothing like the basmati most people here in the UK are used to with their curries. Most Indian households reserve basmati for use on special occasions (which could mean anything from festivals to friends visiting) as more economical alternatives are widely available. There also seems to be a belief that if eaten daily - and most, if not all, Indians eat rice atleast once a day - basmati can give you trouble with your digestion. Surprisingly, I haven't yet formed an opinion on this one!