Yvan Seth's Hole in the Internet

Borough, Ndjua, Pasta & Bread

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:11:00 GMT

A 2.5 day weekend this. I took the latter half of Friday off work as I had something I needed to do in London. London business done, 14:30 on a Friday, what to do next? We happened to be across the road from Borough Market… how convenient. First stop: Monmouth Coffee for some espresso.

Monmouth Coffee, Stoney Street

One of the most important things about a market, in my mind, it being able to get more personal with the produce. There's the produce itself of course, such as the olive oil below. I can't buy EVOO in the supermarket - they don't let me taste it! There are also the people selling their wares. Most of them really love whatever it is they're selling, they'll tell you all about it and what they like to do with it. All the pots of oil in the shot below are plain olive oil, all tasty in their own way, but which shall I buy today?!

A difficulty of olive oil

We grab a litre of tasty oil and 250ml of rich balsamic. Next we return to the young man selling a variety of saucission. After some deliberation and discussion we move on with a donkey salami (Eeyore?), as well as one each of peppered and smoked pork (Piglet?) salamis.

A difficulty of olive oil

Our primary discovery of the day was nduja. (It's easiest to think of that 'd' as being "silent".) I've seen this in various markets, including the intermittent continental one that visits Hitchin. I've never tasted it before. I tried a sample and was sold. It is highly spiced, lightly smoked, pork from various less-used parts of the pig. The swarthy man behind the counter explained that this was a staple foodstuff from Calabria. That it was great in a simple pasta, or even just spread on bread as-is. I bought a good chunk of the stuff along with a tasty smoked ricotta from the same region.

Nduja

We wandered the market some more, bought a couple of other personal delicacies, then moved on (not very far mind you) to The Rake. This tiny pub is a most excellent stop for the open minded beer lover. There's real ale as well as excellent American and continental beers on draft. Behind the bar they keep a well and diversely stocked beer fridge. I had some milk stout from the US and also the beer shown below. It was exactly what I was after, I asked for something smoky and got this smoked-hop German beer. It tasted like sausage, and this was a good thing.

Mmm... sausage beer

Later on we went to a nearby French restaurant, one we've often seen and contemplated, yet never tried. La Cave, as it is called, was surprisingly decent. I'd write more, but it'll probably just have to be another entry I'll never have the time for. We went home, left our tasty market goods on the dining room table, and slept.

The next day, after our regular Saturday activities: butcher, coffee, groceries, pub and lunch, (irregular haircut,) and more pub. I started to get my act together in the kitchen. It was to be a simple affair however, best suited to our highlight ingredients. First, I knocked together a bread dough using flour I'd picked up at Clyston Mill (part of the National Trust's Killerton Estate in Devon.) This proved, was shaped, tinned (as below), risen and baked during the evening.

Dough

Dinner was to be pasta, and to properly accompany our ingredients I was to make fresh egg pasta. An egg to every 115g of plain flour is the recipe I use.

Input

This is combined, hands the only utensils required. Then kneaded on a bench, using the heel of a hand, until smooth. Eggs vary in size, and in this case the dough was cupped and dampened a couple of times to get the right feel. (Something you just have to know I guess, I can only describe it with a collection of words meaningless unless you hold the subject in your own hands.)

Output

Pasta dough likes to rest I believe, on a bench covered with a cloth for 30 minutes in this case. Then, cut into 4 portions and flattened and cut using the usual sort of bench-top pasta roller and cutter. The cut pasta is hung on a clothes rack to keep it separate while the water boils, but could probably be just as fine in a loose pile from what I've seen.

Product

That's the hard work done. The pasta is boiled for just 3 or 4 minutes in about 3 litres of water (with about 1tsp of salt added.) Then drained while preserving about 4 tbsp of the cooking water in the pot. A "good amount" (maybe 200g) of nduja is torn up and softened in the water, then tossed in the pan with the pasta and a couple of tbsp of excellent extra virgin olive oil. Finally some, maybe 100g, roughly diced smoked ricotta is tossed through the pasta. This is simply splotched into bowls with a bit of steamed broccoli tossed on top (makes me feel slightly better about eating a huge bowl of carbs glistening with oil.) No points for presentation, but (no thanks to myself) a million points for flavour. (I'll take credit for the delectable texture of the fettuccine however.)

Fresh pasta with nduja and smoked ricotta

The story doesn't quite end there however. My bread was baked that night and the next day from breakfast through to the late afternoon was ruled by nduja spread on fresh wholemeal bread, topped with smoked ricotta.

Nduja and smoked ricotta on bread

This I consider to be a most Calabrian weekend. I must add Calabria to my list of regions to visit… or at least push it up the list a few places, all parts of Italy being on the list already!

[This is my first proper batch of photos out-and-about with the 40D AFAIC. In this case with a nice new 10-22mm wide lens (not quite so wide given the 40D's crop factor.) Notably, from now on I'm going to avoid cropping and magical "I'm feeling lucky" style transforms. It saves time!]

Pigeon and Potato Salad

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 01:01:00 GMT

Sadly I've not had the time to write much in the last few months, and especially haven't written many food entries. I've started many, but they get stale before I can complete them. I'll try to keep this one short!

I have two motivations to be writing this one, first I have a "new" camera. New to me, at any rate. It is a second hand Canon 40D DSLR, a "proper" camera at last. One of the many benefits of this is that I can now take photos in lower light without a flash, and that's just with a stock lens, I can't wait to get hold of something faster. I've now entered the complicated and expensive world of the DSLR lens buyer, it is a scary place.

The second reason is the titular pigeons. We got 3 wood pigeons from our local shooting friend up at the pub last night. They were from a cull, wood pigeons are quite a pest to the local farmers – note that these are quite different to typical townie sky-rat pigeons. Anyway, 3 woodies don't make a banquet, but they make a good enough feed for the two of us. Being time-poor I've only used their breasts, as it is a cinch to tear off a pigeons bodice and carve off the tasty flesh beneath.

Pile of Pigeon

First I quickly yank away most of the feathers in the breast area, this keeps things a bit cleaner. Next I pinch up the skin near the bottom of the breast and make a small horizontal incision. It is then easy to just grab the skin and peel it off the breasts. At the neck end be careful to tease the crop away from the body, preferably without tearing it (it can be pretty messy and often stinky in there after a few days.) The breasts can be removed by sliding a knife (very sharp please, and I prefer a thin long knife for this job) down each side of the breast bone, then peeling the breast away with the help of the point of the knife. A little like filleting a fish.

Stripped Breasts

Alas, my breastless birdies now go into the compost bin (we're permitted to put meat trimmings and chicken carcases in there, that extends to pigeons I suppose.) It would be somewhat more efficient to use the rest of the carcass in a stock – I just don't have the time right now. (But I feel bad about throwing them out.)

Breastless Birdies

[DSLR geekery: The photo above is taken with a 1/10 exposure at the highest ISO setting of the 40D, which is 3200. Quite noisy, but still better than I could have gotten with my old compact using the flash (which would have been necessary.) The lighting in all the above photos was pretty dim, getting onto darkish by the final photo. The first two photos were taken on ISO 400, at 1/30 and 1/15. All were taken at f/3.5 using a cheapie 18-55mm kit lens. Still very early days for me yet! Right now I'm just happy I can take any sort of photo in low light without having to resort to the flash.]

The breasts then require a little trimming to remove some raggedy bits. I ensure as much skin membrane as possible is pulled off. And investigate, maybe trim, any areas of clotted blood – which are usually shot entry wounds. I also separate the "tenderloins" from the breasts, as it is easier to cook this way. After all this I have 300g or meat, 100g per birdie.

Trimmed Breasts

It seems that a classic destination for pigeon breasts is salad. So that's the idea I started with here. We also had some leftover potatoes from the weekend, and some egg-yolk mayonnaise that Kat made today. So, a small warm potato salad on top of a bed of peppery salad leaves (quickly picked up from the nearest supermarket) was the order of the day.

Oiled Up Breasts

The breasts themselves were marinated for a mere 10 minutes in plenty of EVOO and fresh-ground pepper, plus a small dash of truffle oil. My approach to dark breasts is hot and fast. I used a cast iron grill pan heated until the old oil residue on is smoking. The breasts go onto this, well spaced, for just one minute per side. If not keen on rare meat another 30 seconds per side will probably do, but you'll be missing out! This is my favourite sort of cooking, the type that sets off all the smoke alarms. The tenderloins don't even need a minute all up.

Hot Breasts

The breasts rest for about 10 minutes while I prepare the potato salad. That is simply a matter of warming the pre-diced boiled potato pieces in the microwave (shock, horror), then tossing them to rough them up a bit and combining with:

a couple of spring onions, finely chopped
a couple of teaspoons of capers (in vinegar), finely chopped
a couple of tablespoons of mayonnaise
generous few grinds of pepper
ground salt "to taste"

Salad leaves go in bowls, handful of potato goes in the middle, half the freshly sliced pigeon breast goes onto the potato, finally I add a sprinkling of vinaigrette. Dinner!

Pigeon and Potato Salad

You should be fine with just one pigeon per person really.

Improvements? Some crisp croutons and perhaps some crispy bacon bits feel like the right direction to go with this.

Chunky Beetroot, Celeriac, and Potato Soup

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 18:52:00 GMT

Here's a great soup for these dreary early-spring days. I make soup about once a fortnight, keeping a rolling supply in the fridge and freezer (sometimes supplemented with supermarket soup!) Typically I just pop down to the local greengrocer and work out my soup based on what they have, as is the case with this one.

Ingredients

50g Unsalted Butter
250g Dry Cured Unsmoked Back Bacon

Chop the bacon into pieces about 1cm square. Then fry in the butter until the edges are all turning brown and crispy.

390g Brown Onion, 2 onions, 440g before peeling
125g Celery, 2 sticks

Dice the celery and onion into pieces no more than 5mm to a side. Add to the frying bacon and, on a lower heat, cook through translucent until browning.

776g Celeriac, 1 large Celeriac > 1kg
925g Potato, 6 medium Wilja potatos (Deseree would be fine)
300g Beetroot, 6 small beetroots

Peel and dice all of the above into roughly 5mm-per-side cubes. Toss with the browned onion, celery, and bacon.

8g Fresh Oregano, a small handful
14g Garlic, 6 cloves
4 dried Bay Leaves, quite large
1 tbsp fresh ground Black Pepper

Finely chop the Oregano and Garlic and add to the pot, add the bay leaves and pepper.

1.3lt good Beef Stock, make your own or buy a liquid stock
2.5lt Water

Add the liquid, bring to a boil, reduce to a casual simmer, then leave simmering for at least an hour, util the potato should is breaking down. Give it a sturdy mixing with a whisk, breaking up the potato further, which will thicken the soup slightly. Now it is time to carefully add salt, "to taste."

This should give you about 4 litres of soup. Weighing in at about 160 Calories per 300g serve (8g protein, 22g carbs, 4g fat.)

Soup!

For the Love of Food

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 23:04:00 GMT

Busy, busy, busy. I'm having trouble finding the time to write things up these days. The obvious culprit is 2 hours of daily commuting. I don't regret choosing to be a commuter, not in the slightest, but loosing time is always frustrating. Part of my time is spent on the train, so maybe I should get myself some sort of teensy laptop (but with a keyboard I can negotiate) and make some use of the 70 or so usable train minutes. At the moment I use them mostly by reading news/blogs/stuff on my iPhone.

This weekend, leveraging our recent discovery of a good old fashioned butcher here in Hitchin, has been somewhat full-on in the kitchen. On Saturday I picked up 2 trotters, 2kg of pork belly, some bacon, and some bones from Mr Fosket, the aforementioned butcher. His bacon is excellent, the lack of such bacon is what prompted me to start making my own, but I'm not equipped to smoke bacon myself. So now I know where I can get what I want in the smoked bacon department – cut a succulent half centimetre thick, it fries without any shrinkage or leakage. Perfect stuff. But that's just breakfast.

The bones were for stock of course, and consisted of a sawn up set of rump bones. Since his supplier had forgotten to drop off the marrow bone I'd asked for last weekend. The rump bones were enough to make a well flavoured litre of stock though, which did me for the weekend. The stock, you see, had a destiny – a warming winter minestrone!

The minestrone was a simple affair, 2 onions fried up with 25g of EVOO and 100g of my own pancetta-alike. Just lightly browned before adding, 5mm dice: 3 carrots, 2 small zucchinis, 4 sticks of celery, and a small bag of beans. Herb-wise I added a tbsp each of dried oregano, basil, and fresh-ground black pepper, plus 6 finely chopped garlic cloves. For liquids, the stock, 700g passata, a 400g tin of chopped tomato, and about 1 litre of water. For carbs, 250g of pre-boiled (for 30 minutes) and rinsed pearl barley. This lot simmers on the stove for about 45 minutes I guess (until the veggies are all cooked, but the carrot still retains a little bite. Simple stuff, about fourteen 300g serves of soup – I should be able to skip soup making next weekend since I have 6 serves of previous soup in the fridge and freezer.

The main event of the weekend, however, is bunny-brawn. Two bunnies I was given by a guy down the pub, two trotters, an onion, a large parsnip, some herbs. The trotters I clean well, trim of any hairy parts (between the toes!), halve, then split longways. These are simmered for about an hour, just covered with water, and skimming off the scum that forms until it stop forming. Then everything else is added and the water is topped up until it is about an inch above the bits. Herb-and-spice wise, 4 bay leaves, and a bouquet-garni of 8 cloves, 1 tsp juniper berries, a heaped teaspoon of black peppercorns, and the same of corriander seeds. Bring to a very gentle simmer, weight down the content of the pot by submerging a small plate on top of everything, and simmer for hours. I simmered this for about 4 hours (enough time to go out for coffee and shopping.) Fish out the bits with a slotted spoon and put aside to cool, strain the stock through some muslin, and put it back on the heat to reduce – to about a quarter of its volume probably. I reduced it until it turned into a fairly firm jelly when a tablespoon of it was put on a cooled plate in the fridge for about 5 minutes. I also added about a tablespoon of green peppercorns (in brine) to the stock as it neared the end of its reducing. Tear up the meat, skin, and fat being careful to extract all the bones. Then roughly chop the meat, add the stock, and spoon into moulds of your choice. Refrigerate, eat. A proper brawn is made with a pig's head of course – I'll give that a go someday. Apparently brawn ages well, and is often better after a week than the day after you make it. I'll let you know how it goes!

Finally, just now I've popped a sourdough loaf into the oven. That's my latest thing, I make a sourdough loaf every Sunday. A slice of bread a day for a week for each of us. This is pretty much the only way I can get good bread and have a relatively confident nutrient info for it, supermarket bread is crap, and good artisan bread comes without nutritional information. I keep a rye sour on the go, pulling it out of the fridge twice a week (Tue, and Fri, say) for a top-up and overnight revival. On Saturday evening I use it to kick off a wheat sourdough starter, and finish off the loaf on Sunday.

Oh, I also have another pork belly salting now, the one I mentioned I got from the butcher. This will be my fourth salted belly! The last one came out very much like pancetta, it was hung in a fairly breezy spot next to an open window for about a month. Which reminds me, I better salt my belly now, and then get to bed.

Sometimes I wonder why I don't just order a pizza.