What We Ate for Lunch : Hainan Chicken of sorts

I was going to take this into work yesterday, but as it was my final day, I felt I had to have for one final time Singapore Fried Rice from the take away opposite. It was disappointing to say the least. A bit like working for that company for 18 months. Can you sense the bitterness in me.
Anyhows I have had a yearning for Hainan chicken for a while now, no idea why, but this urge was brewing so I thought I would quench it.
So a small poussin was poached for half an hour in some simmering stock that I had left over from my daily noodle soups.
Once cooked the chicken is plunged directly into some iced water. This keeps the skin a little flabby and jelly like, as my Singaporean friend says it has to be. Whose to argue.
The stock therefore seasoned with a little salt and mirin vinegar makes a perfect soup, and  with the rice (cooked in some of the stock) makes a great quick and easy lunch.
It's a shame I never had this yesterday for lunch as it would have been more memorable than my Singaporean fried rice I ate.
My last day was a day of two halves. I was so glad to leave, but very sad to be leaving some good people behind. It was all a bit emotional.
But my new life starts now, all i have to do now is find another job. Easy huh?

What We Ate Last Night : Lamb Fillets

I have been lucky enough to be sent a wonderful box of lamb and vegetables from Silver Fern Farms this week to try out.

The Kiwi based Silver Fern are a new supplier to a certain supermarket, who shall remain nameless of around 95% fat free New Zealand lamb. Fat free you say.

They are pre packaging portions of Loin fillets, rump, racks and leg roasts in individual portions that can be easily chilled in the fridge and used as and when.

To be honest I’ve never been a fan of New Zealand lamb, as I’m sure the best quality lamb is never shipped over here, plus this being fat free I was pretty skeptical. But I agreed as I was intrigued and wanted to give it a fair shot.

So in the week a wonderful box of 2 packs of loin fillets, a bunch of spring vegetables, fruit yoghurts, butter and ice coffees arrived on our doorstep. Awesome package all nestled on a bed of hay. Looked like a really country hamper.

Cannot comment on the yoghurts as they went pretty quickly for someone else’s lunch the following day. But I’ve been well informed they were very good. Same really with the iced coffee, but I’ve never been a fan of, unless it is in Hanoi with lots of condensed milk in it.

I never really buy the fillet, as I’m a rump man myself. I love the fatty parts, as it’s where the flavour is.

In each pack were two fillets, and I was became very curious and wondered if they would cook the same as a fillet of beef. Guess what. They did.

After 10 minutes lingering on a plate of olive oil and black pepper, then seasoned with salt at the last moment, they were put onto a hot griddle pan and cooked away for a few minutes on each side until they were done rare. Just how I like them.

Maybe they could be cooked to medium rare, but any more and you may as well bin them, just like beef.

As I am fast becoming addicted to bulgur, I thought I would use that instead of the medley of vegetables we were sent. Well it was kind of mild and I so want Spring to come as soon as possible.

So I soaked the bulgur in a bowl of boiled water for 10 minutes or so, and then dressed it as I normally do my couscous.

Mixing in plenty of olive oil, chopped tomatoes, parsley, mint, cumin powder, paprika, crumbled feta cheese, some small cucumbers, salt and pepper.

I think this was the quickest meal I’ve had this week and there was enough to last for lunch the next day. Brilliant.

To be honest there is a reason I go for the fattier parts of meat. Fat equals flavour. But this surprisingly had a subtle lambyness about it that with the nutty bulgur worked very well, as nothing over powered each other. A good combo.

The lamb was very soft and melted in my mouth, pretty surprised. It actually tasted better the next day, and we had a few slices left over that went into a noodle soup the day after and again tasted a little stronger.

We have the 2^nd pack in the freezer and I’m wondering what else I could do with it, apart from griddle it. Maybe a lamb Wellington could be in order. Defiantly have to pull my finger out for that. But I’ll let you know.

I’m not sure if I would buy these packets, but as I do the above but with bavette steak in the summer for lunches this could be a very good alternative.

What We Ate Last Night : Chicken Wings a la Moro

Recently I received an email asking me if I would like to have the complete set of the (3) re-released Moro Books. Didn’t take a genius to know how my response was going to be. Man was I a happy sooty indeed.

I have had a copy of the original Moro cookbook for too many years now. I seem to go in cycles with my cooking. Sometimes it’s French, then Italian, then Indian, then Asian and in between my cookbooks get an outing as well. It’s kinda funny, but the Moro cookbook was due a dusting off pretty soon. But I’m never one to turn down a good offer.

I normally buy 2 or 3 chickens at a time and joint them, bag and freeze them. My freezer is packed with little bags of different joints of chicken.

I am a fastidious saver of everything and hate to waste. I have bags of chicken carcasses waiting to be used to make stock, although this summer as most of the time the weather has been to good to stay in doors for 4 hours letting a huge pot of water bubble away. After last summer I want to be out doors.

I am also a serial collector of chicken wings. After a month or two I have a good size amount to make some very nice suppers or more interesting work lunches. So with my new Moro cookbooks and a large amount of wings begging to be let out of the freezer, it only took me 39 pages to find what I was looking for.

So for this recipe you will need the following. It does say it feeds four. Yeah right, four little sparrows on a diet. So it did us two or just one of you are Nobu.

12 Chicken wings

3 Garlic cloves, crushed with a little bit of salt

1 Tsp paprika

1 Tsp cumin powder

Juice of 1 lemon

2 Tbsp Tahini paste

1 Tbsp olive oil

1. Mix the ingredients together in a bowl
2. Add the chicken wings and mix thoroughly until they are all coated
3. Cover with cling film and pop in the fridge overnight
4. Heat an oven to 220°C or Gas mark 7 or on a bar-b-q if you have one. You lucky buggers
5. Take the wings out of the fridge and allow to get to room temperature
6. Put onto a tray and pop in the oven for about 15 – 20 minutes, turning half way through
7. Once cooked season with salt and pepper and serve with a thick wedge of lemon

An unusual way to eat wings, but the nutty paste and lemon make this a winner for summer. I love Moro, I just wish I could eat at the restaurant more often. 

What We Ate Last Night : Bar-B-Q Rubbed Ribs

I love bar-b-q, not the typical English bar-b-q of burnt but raw sausages and charcoal colored burgers that are as dry as cardboard.

No, I’m talking about the good ol’ yankee bar-b-q type. The low and slow cooking that can take up to 24 hours to cook a Boston Butt, and 6 hours to cook some baby back ribs if you use the 3-2-1 method.
This is my preferred method of cooking them, although I unfortunately do not have a garden and therefore no kettle bar-b-q. Sad times indeed, especially with the weather as it is at the moment.

So I have to make my bar-b-q in the oven. Very sad times. It’s not the same as the smell of charcoal on food makes it all taste so much better.

With an oven you have better control, but the skill in keeping a bar-b-q at 110 degrees for 6 hours is an art form in itself, and I think those cooks that can do it are vastly under rated.

In England bar-b-q is not taken too seriously as I’m sure we’ve all seen this at many a crappy back garden event we’ve been to. So a lot of people are ignorant of the skill it takes to do a good bar-b-q. It's really not just add some lighter fluid, light it and burn away. Good god no.
There are one of two places in London that sell American style bar-b-q, but they are mediocre at best. Oh how I long for the real thing over here.

I’ve been cooking these ribs the same way for eons now, and they always turn out not too bad. I sometimes change the rub but generally I always use the same recipe, which can be found here.

You will need :

Baby back ribs (as much as you want to eat)

Your desired rub (enough to cover every part of the ribs)

Tin foil

Lemon juice / vinegar for the mop sauce

So the 3-2-1 method is quite straight forward. 3 hours uncovered, 2 hours covered and a final hour uncovered. During the first three hours and the last hour I always mop the ribs with the sauce, just to add a little bit of moisture back into them so they do not dry out. After the 6 hours the meat would have shrunk away from the bone and will be falling apart. The leftovers make great sandwiches.

1. Trim off any excess fat that you do not want. Take off the piece of membrane that is on the back of the ribs. This will help the rub penetrate more easily.
2. Rub your rub powder over both sides of the ribs.
3. Set your oven at Gas Mark 1 or 110°C. Yes very low.
4. Pop ribs into oven and every 30 minutes or so, just give them a mop with the sauce.
5. After 3 hours give them one final mop and then cover them with tin foil.
6. 2 hours later uncover and cook for a final hour. Mop after about 30 minutes and just before you take them out of the oven.
7. Serve with your favourite bar-b-q sauce and of course any leftovers are amazing in a roll the following day. If there is any left. 

Next up slow cooked shoulder of pork.

What We Ate Last Night : Venetian Liver

I am partial to a little bit of liver. I love the stuff. I was such a fussy eater as a kid, but for some reason I always ate my liver. I grew up eating lambs liver, potatoes and peas. Although my dad used to overcook the liver, well it was the 70’s. I now prefer it a little pinker these days.

Some of my most loved dishes are rather liverish. A quickly seared calves liver and mash is a dish made in heaven for me. Deviled chicken livers on toast or made into a creamy pate.

Oddly enough pigs liver I rarely eat, as it generally has no taste, maybe that is more to do with the pigs than the liver itself.

The Italians love their liver as well, or should I say the Venetians. I’ve seen many different versions of this dish, but the most simple is the one I cooked last night. Although I used lambs liver as it was in the fridge. Normally this is done with baby tortured cows liver, as Cartman once said.

You will need :

Liver, as much as you want. Dusted with seasoned flour.

Finely sliced onions

A few knobs of butter

Olive Oil

Seasoning

Finely chopped parsley

1. Sweat off the onions in the butter and olive oil until you feel no resistance when you squeeze them
2. Remove from pan
3. Dust the liver with seasoned flour. Add more of the butter to the pan, and when it is foaming add the liver
4. Cook for a minute or so on each so, depending how pink or how thick it is
5. Add the onions back to the pan
6. Add a tiny amount of water. Bring to a simmer, Cook out the flour
7. Simmer down to thicken the sauce. Add the parsley
8. Season and serve with creamy polenta or mash
9. Enjoy your offaly meal

What We Ate Last Night : Sopa de Guineo

Colombian cuisine is not very good in general. It has its low points, but it also has its high points, which are its soups. Sopa de Guineo is one of my favourite Colombian soups. I have only ever had it in Colombia, mainly because we’ve never seen Guineos in London before. Even with the amount of Colombians that live here in London, they were just never to be had.

Well until last week, when Lina was feeling a tad homesick, and she was in need of something Colombian, apart from her Arepas.

So whilst shopping in Pueblito Paisa in Seven Sisters she finds a few bunches of Guineos. I’m still amazed she only brought 3 and not all of them.

Sopa de Guineo brings back memories of cool Sunday afternoons up in the mountains on Lina’s uncles farm outside of Medellin. The crispness of the air, with the heat of the sun, somehow makes this soup a whole lot better.

You will need

3 Guineo’s

2 small potatoes, diced

1 onion, finely diced

1 clove of garlic, crushed

1 litre of chicken stock

1 tsp of cumin powder

1 bunch of coriander, chopped

Salt n pepper

1. Sweat onion and garlic.
2. Add potato and add the cumin powder. Stir
3. Peel and cut up the gunieo. Add to the pan. Do this at the alst minute, as they go brown very quickly.
4. Add the chicken stock. Bring to a boil, turn down the heat and simmer for 20 – 30 minutes.
5. Once the guineo and potatoes are cooked. Remove a few and keep to add back later.
6. Blitz the soup to how you like it. You can even pass it through a sieve if you like. Add the reserved pieces of guineo and potato.
7. Season with salt and pepper.
8. Add most of the coriander and serve. Sprinkle over some more coriander and enjoy a taste of Colombia.

I did over blitz the soup, so it was crema de guineo, which since it was a cool evening it turned out pretty good. Again with most things in life, leave it for a day and it just gets better. 

What We Ate Last Night : Haggis

Haggis has been on my list of things to try for what seems like an age. Every Burns Night (25th January) I tell myself to remember to buy one and eat it with all the pomp and ceremony you would find in Scotland.
Unfortunately I have a memory like a sieve these days, so it is easily forgotten as a good idea that will never come to pass. But there is always next year. But after some shopping on Oxford Street, we ended up in Selfridges to buy some meat at O'Shea's, and lo and behold what do we see. Haggis. The temptation is too great. So we forgot about the meat we were going to buy and run out with a small haggis to try.
The Haggis's that O'Shea's sell are not their own. They are MacSween Haggis. A company based in Edinburgh. So the real deal no. Looking at the list of ingredients on the back. It really is not a lot. Lamb offal, beef, oatmeal and onions, plus some spices and seasoning. No E numbers. Unreal. The casing is natural as well. Even better.
To cook the haggis you can either pop it in a microwave (?) for 6 minutes, or if you do not have one, as I don't, then you wrap it in foil and cook in a baking tray filled with water at gas mark 4 for about an hour or so. That is it. Pretty simple. It does however have an unusual smell to it, but I think that is just the spices. Well I hope it is.
We were going to go all out and have it with all the traditional trimmings, but as I mentioned my memory is failing me these days. So we forgot to buy the swede or turnips. We did have some potatoes in the house, so at least we had part of the meal.

After cooking it does look a tad bland. All very grey, dull. Thankfully the taste is anything but. So after cutting open the haggis the filling oozes out and we spoon it onto our plates.
Yes, the taste is anything but bland. It reminded me of black pudding but with out the blood. Nice textures due the the oatmeal and the small bits of offal. Yum yum. It does need a tad of seasoning but I love the hit of black pepper these days.
Unfortunately we never read out Burn's poem or had a piper playing Scotland the Brave for us, but it was a pretty good meal. All for around £5 for 2 or 3 servings. We did see some in Borough Market for about £10 (I think) and serving about 6 - 8. These may be nice to try as they were definitely homemade.
The Haggis is for sure not everyones cup of tea, and if we were to have it again with friends, I would have to pick them very wisely.