Tandoori chicken

My favourite chicken dish has got to be Tandoori chicken. It’s a great starter, a side dish and a meal in itself, if like me you like to order the whole bird and work at it till the bones are polished clean. I have a problem with not being served the neck piece when ordering the whole bird. A big problem. With some gnawing there is some great meat to be had from the neck. My piece of choice is the leg though. I find breast meat bland.

Tandoori chicken was reserved for when I went out, until I got this recipe from my granduncle – a super cook. He’s one of those people who just have a knack for food. He normally cooks his chicken in a baking tray, in the oven, to save time and effort. But that would not do. Tandoori chicken has to be char-grilled. So I put together a make shift barbecue. The one I used to use got left outside while I was away for a year and rusted and rotted away over the monsoon. Good excuse to get a new one made.

To make the marinade you need:

• hung curd 
• onion paste
• garlic paste
• ginger paste
• garam masala, be careful with this one.
• finely chopped green chili
• some red chili powder
• and some honey. The garam masala and the chili will give you a back of the throat, harsh, spiciness. The honey rounds that off for you.
• Salt 

The trick to getting this marinade right is to taste, taste and taste. Taste some before you put the honey in and you'll see what I am talking about. 

I also put in a little bit of red food colouring. Tandoori chicken has to be red (ish). A good quality Kashmiri chili powder will give you the colour you need. But I had none and resorted to cheating. 

Mix all the above ingredients together and marinade the chicken for a few hours. Cut slits on the chicken to aide the process.

Make the marinade and cut slits on the chicken legs

Marinade the chicken

The effort spent getting a coal fire going really pays off

Don't let the black bits put you off. They are welcome.

Serve with onion, tomato and coriander salad.

 

Of cuts

Having become very accustomed to, and fascinated by, butchery in Britain, I sometimes feel that there is something really wasteful about the way meat, especially lamb, is butchered in India. There is absolutely no distinction made between the various cuts. Lamb is broadly divided into the shoulder, the leg and the ribs. You can get paya (trotters) or the neck in particular, if that's what you are after, but mostly the meat is chopped up indiscriminately, into either medium, large or small pieces. With bone or boneless.

But then, this only bothers me because the sort of food I have in mind, stuff like loin steaks, braised shanks, Frenched chops (cooked rare of course) mean nothing to most Indians. I have come to the realisation that the kind of food I like would never make me millions in India. I got my butcher to cut me some double chops once - it was a very small lamb and single rib chops weren't thick enough - for some grilled minted chops I was making for one of my father's parties. When I cooked them it very quickly became apparent that no one there shared my love for meat cooked rare. Most Indians don't understand cooking meat to taste. The meat is either raw or cremated. And they like it cremated.

The way meat is butchered in India is a result of the kind of cooking. Curries are stewed for a fair bit, or cooked in a pressure cooker, so even the toughest meat goes tender. All the spices over shadow the meat's taste and make it, with its fat content, a carrier of flavour rather than something of flavour itself. Sometimes to get the meat really tender, very young animals are slaughtered - I have eaten curries with bones that looked like they came from a rodent (maybe they did) - and on other occasions the animals are over 2 years old - meat that would be considered mutton in Britain and isn't really used that much.

If I have been informed correctly, lamb is cheaper than goat (chevon) in India and some butchers will regularly peddle lamb to goat expecting customers. Again, as long as customers are getting meat they don't seem to care. Butchers will sometimes leave the tail hairs on the carcass to show customers that they are indeed selling goat. My butcher gave me a funny look when I first categorically asked for lamb. But then with the amount of business I give him, he will happily do as I say.

And hanging meat to mature? Unheard of. The quicker the animal goes from slaughter to pot, the better it is considered. This makes perfect sense given the lack of refrigeration at most butchers'. But why does all this concern me? Well, because what I can cook is limited by what the butcher can give me.

Solution? Butcher your own animals.

This only arrived in the post the other day. Even if I do not rear my own lamb anytime soon, I am keen to start working on carcasses or quarters bought from the butcher. It's just another way to get a little bit more involved with your food.

Steak with roasted sweet potatoes

I like steak. There was a time when I ate steak 3-4 times a week. Not anymore though. It's more of a weekend ritual now. Steak with potatoes and veg. When I want to be a proper fat bastard, I'll top the steak with a fried egg! It's the perfect meal to sort your life out after a couple of days of abusing your body. It's quick to cook, versatile and bloody deliciously - literally. And besides I am off to India for a bit next week and need to get my fix of cow while I can.

When I am feeling rich, I'll go for the sirloin, but mostly it's rump. Good enough I think. I'll normally cook it quite simply, with some pepper and a few herbs. But if you want to take  some time on it you can leave it to marinade, in balsamic, garlic, juniper berries, red wine, rosemary, oregano, mixed pepper corns, in anything you fancy with beef.



Sunday supper

The rump steak was rubbed with olive oil, crushed black pepper, fresh rosemary and a little bit of oregano and set aside. No salt.

The sweet potatoes were cut into chunky wedges, rubbed with garlic infused Olive oil, chopped rosemary, loads of pepper, and salt. 1 large quartered onion for company and the tray was put in the oven for about 40 minutes. Do this first, it takes the longest. I was peeling the sweet potatoes when a certain Dr. Green told me off. Tell you what, leave the skins on. They are good cooked. The french beans and carrots were boiled.

To cook the steak,  heat some oil in a heavy bottomed frying pan. When it starts smoking put the steak in. I season it at this stage. Turn the steak just once. When you have cooked quite a few like I have, you get a sense of how well its done just by sight. You can also tell by touch. You don't want to cut it to see if it's done - this will let all the juices out. Letting the steak rest is very important. Get it out of the pan and leave on the plate for 3-4 minutes.

While my steaks rested, I deglased the the pan with some red wine and cooked the mushrooms in the juices.

Chefs differ a great deal on how they cook steaks. Some say that oiling the pan is an absolute no no - the steaks should be oiled. While others don't see a problem with oil in the pan. The are all wrong! In my experience is depends on the pan. You could get away with not oiling the pan at all if it is a non-stick or a griddle. If it's a stainless steel one, like the one I used, you'll probably have to add oil to the pan in addition to oiling the steaks. Steel pans don't come up to temperature very well. And obviously, if you are using a grill, then brushing oil onto the steaks is what you do. Now you know.

St. John Restaurant, Smithfield. Vol. 2

1st October 2010, St. John Restaurant, Smithfield, London.

The main course menu gives you a lot to choose from. From grouse to pie. None of that for us though. Oh no. We were very much interested in seeing how good the less sought after meats can be when cooked by someone, or at an institution, committed to the cause.

Ox Heart with Beans

The ox heart was served thinly sliced. With beans, with the right amount of crunch. The heart strips were probably only momentarily sears on either side. They were still pink on the inside. When cooking something as lean as heart, or even liver for that matter, there is a very very fine line between getting it cooked just right and turning it into rubbery waste. I wouldn't be able to tell you what was in the marinade but I would think that thyme, red wine and maybe even some balsamic vinegar might have been involved. The green beans in this one have me quite confused. Their crunch takes away from the texture of the meat. Eat on different fork fulls I'd say, but it all still works wonderfully.

Chitterlings with Braised Turnips

Now for the pièce de résistance. The chitterlings were cooked in duck fat - golden to perfection. Super soft to cut into. A distinct layer of lean (ish) muscle lined with fat. Unlike the ox heart this was probably first slow cooked and then flash fried in fat to give it colour and a little bite. This is a real meaty piece of meat. Pungent even. Lovely if you are into that kind of stuff and I most certainly am. The softer braised turnips worked perfectly on the same fork, taking nothing away. In fact, the very slight spiciness of the turnip kept the pungency under good check. The sauce, was well seasoned and took on the flavours of both, the meat and the turnip, very well. Not quite sure what the sauce was though. A pan-sauce made by deglasing the pan the chitterlings were cooked in? Maybe based on the braising juices from the turnips? No idea, but I like. By the way, chitterlings are the intestines of a pig.


Platter of unpasteurised British cheeses

A cheese platter aided the process of contemplating what to have for dessert. All the cheeses were unpasteurised and from Neal's Yard Dairy - all British cheeses. 12 'O' clock, a goat's cheese. Smooth and creamy with a soft rind. Not too salty. Below that to the right, a sheep's cheese. Very much like Brie, I thought. My favourite, the one part hidden under the crisp bread, is a Stichelton. Stichelton is a unpasteurised blue cheese, very much like Stilton. Strong (but nothing compared to some of the other stuff I've had), pungent, salty. Not as crumbly as Stilton, creamier. Good stuff. The darkest one is a hard, mild cow cheese. Pointless and insignificant compared to the others on the board. Mostly because it was the last one I tried and anything that it had to offer failed to deliver through the strong after taste of the other cheeses. My mistake maybe.

When you have been looking forward to something so much, you need that one thing to happen, something to suddenly click, that makes you go, 'ah this is bloody brilliant'! As if all the food wasn't enough, at 11:30 pm a sous chef walked out of the walk-in fridge, in full view, with an entire pig carcass slung over his shoulder. Nose to tail indeed. He off-loaded it on the service station and fetched another one. This to me epitomises what St. John Restaurant is all about. Understated, wholesome and bold, rustic food. Home cooking with an unmatched level of precision and attention to detail. A carefully planned chaos.

I had set my eye's on the bakewell tart for dessert, again sold out.

Damson and Crème fraiche Ice cream

Bread and Butter Pudding

The ice cream had a tang, but not too much. Damsons have just come into season here in Britain so why not use them while they're there. There was definitely too much of it though. It was more sorbet than ice cream. A good palate cleanser. The bread and butter pudding was perfect - really! I often find the stuff way too sweet. But the candied orange peel and burnt sugar in this one kept the whole thing on track. The bread was a raisin loaf and the custard was warm with lashing of vanilla.

When I had made the 10 pm reservation, I had categorically asked if we would be rushed towards the end of the meal, and they promised we wouldn't be. Truth. We were left sitting in our corner with a couple of single malts while they closed the dining room down for the night.

The place is more canteen than restaurant

St. John has been called one of the best restaurants in the world. I haven't been around long enough to say something like that with any credibility. But, if I were to drop dead tomorrow, I would die a very happy man.



St. John Restaurant, Smithfield. Vol. 1

1st October 2010, St. John Restaurant, Smithfield, London.



The bar area

As I got to St. John Restaurant in Smithfield, absolutely drenched in the rain, the first thing I noticed was how modest the restaurant front was. No big signs, smokers braving the rain with their drinks, a hole in the wall really, recognisable by the Nose to Tail Eating pig. But as soon as you walk through the white doors that make the place look like a mental ward, the experience truly begins. Servers running around getting things done, serving a good mix of people. We entered into the bar area that smelt of bread, not booze. Tucked in a corner, in the same room, is the bakery that bakes fresh bread to be served in the restaurant, and for punters to take away. Servers were shuttling bakewell tarts from oven to table. The day's breads jotted on a black board. The decor is functional. The place was probably a barn or maybe an abattoir back in the day. Hatches in in the walls, exposed iron girders painted in white to match the white, bare brick walls, and a iron staircase that, curiously, didn't seem to lead to anywhere. Into the dining room, a couple of pints later.

The dining room is more canteen than restaurant. Lots of small tables joined together to accommodate larger parties and the white-washed walls matched by white paper table spreads. The service was extremely human. No sir, ma'am non-sense. At one point a women doing her job bumped into me, crate of crockery in hand. Not even a glance. Apologies? Most certainly not. There seemed to be an understanding that everyone was their for the food, customers and servers, and that all else, including pleasantries were secondary. Good banter. We got the sense that the servers all worked in the kitchen as well, maybe on prep - stubborn ingredient can take a lot of prep time. They wore stained chef's jackets and whizzed in and out of the kitchen, which one could sort of look into through the service station and galley. Studying the menu did not take very long - I had been looking at it for weeks and knew what I wanted. Left the wine to someone who knew better.

Between the two of us, we ordered three starters, part curiosity part gluttony. Dr. Henderson's signature Roasted Bone Marrow and Parsley Salad - but of course - a Snails with Oakleaf salad, and Pig's Spleen. All with a basket of fresh baked brown loaf. The menu is very undescriptive. For example, for the Pig Spleen, it said just that. Good opportunity to have a chat with the server to enquire. They did seem to know their stuff.  

I did have my eyes on a Langoustine and Mayonnaise starter, but a 10 pm reservation does have its drawbacks. I did however see a portion, probably the last one, go to a table while we were at the bar and it looked just like how I had imagined it. Clean and simple. Maybe next time, but I am not complaining.



Snails with Oakleaf

I do like snails, but this was the conservative wild card choice - a damn good one though. The snails were warm, and texture more than taste. The dressing for the oakleaf lettuce though, bursting with flavour. My guess? Shallots (agreed upon after a bit of consultation), balsamic, red wine vinegar and seasoning. The croutons were buttery, boldly seasoned, crunchy and generous. Among a very rich and gamy menu, this is definitely the ladies' choice. Light, yet adventurous.


Roasted Bone Marrow and Parsley Salad

This is a mischievous dish. Food lego of sorts. From the top, roasted marrow bone of cow. Cooked till the marrow gives but not long enough so that it simply runs through. The flat leaf parsley was tossed with shallots. Sour dough bread, nicely toasted for real bite. And sea salt. This plate of food is genius. Not so much in the way of the ingredients themselves but the way they come together. Scoop the marrow out of the bone and spread on the toast. Not too thin though. Lump it on. Sprinkle some sea salt on the marrow,  lob on some parsley and sink your teeth in.

After the crunch, you are hit by the richness of the fat. The marrow is very rich but the beefiness is subtler than you would think. The salt soon kicks in and just before it all gets a bit too much, the parsley rounds it all off just perfectly. I have been holding back an oxymoronic blurb, but no more. This dish is extremely complex in its simplicity. And genius in its ingenuity. A worthy signature dish.

Pig Spleen

But for me, and for the fellow connoisseur of the pluck, this was the one. The blue ribbon for the starter went to the Pig Spleen. Everything about it surpassed expectations, and they were pretty high, may be because the brevity of the menu spurs on the imagination. The spleen was rolled with bacon and what I initially though was rosemary, but was in fact sage. Though served at room temperature, the bacon fat was a lot more giving that it looks. The spleen tastes a lot like liver but richer, more irony and also a little more fibrous. The spleen was served with red onions, pickled baby gherkins and red wine vinegar, all three pretty sharp condiments in their own right, but perfect complements to the spleen's richness. This one really surprised, in taste and texture. I was never forced to eat liver as a child and because of this I have come to really love it as an ingredient. Wouldn't have said the same for spleen. Until now.

The starters were followed by a dramatic pause and some 2007 Côtes du Rhône.