Advice To Chefs Re "Locally Sourced"

Produce bought from your local Aldi is not, strictly speaking, "locally sourced"!

British Pie Week

Hoorah!

It is British Pie Week!

Here is my recipe for Apple Pie (from my book Accountants Can Cook).

INGREDIENTS
This should serve between 4-6 people.
• 8oz of flour.
• 4oz of butter.
• Approximately 2 tablespoons of water.
• 6 large cooking apples (preferably Bramleys), peeled and sliced.
• 4oz of castor sugar.
• 6 cloves.
• 2 tablespoons of cinnamon.
• The juice of 1 freshly squeezed lemon.
• 1 tablespoon of nutmeg
• 1 beaten egg.

PREPARATION
• As soon as you have peeled and sliced the apples, pour the lemon juice over them ensuring all apples have been in contact with it. This will prevent them going brown.
• Mix the flour and butter together with the water to make a firm dough. Should the mixture need a little more water then add another tablespoon (until the correct consistency is achieved).
• Wrap the dough-ball in cling film and put it into the fridge for 1 hour.
• Cut off one quarter of the dough, and set to one side.
• Roll the larger portion of dough into a circle approximately a ¼ of an inch thick.
• Line an appropriately sized deep pie dish.
• Fill the pie with the apple slices, interspersing with the cloves.
• Sprinkle 3oz of the sugar over the apples.
• Sprinkle the cinnamon over the apples.
• Roll the remainder of the dough into a circle, approximately ¼ of an inch thick.
• Place this on top of the pie.
• Seal the edges and trim the excess.
• Make an incision in the middle, like a cross (this lets the steam out).
• Brush with beaten egg.
• Sprinkle with nutmeg and the remaining sugar.

COOKING
Place in an oven preheated to 180 degrees for approximately 45 minutes. Bake until golden brown.

TIPS
Scrumptious hot or cold. Serve with double cream, ice cream, custard or just on its own.

Grow Your Own Burgers

It seems that researchers in the Netherlands are getting closer to being able to grow meat from stem cells, and fashion the product into something that might resemble a hamburger.

The cost of such a burger, formed from the technology as it now stands, would be around £220K.

However, it is hoped that the technique can be developed to mass produce beef, pork, chicken and lamb in the future.

The objective being, to have a core herd of animals that would be used to provide the stem cells necessary to grow the meat.

The downside of this is that the remaining animals (currently reared for meat production) would die out as they would no longer be deemed necessary for our food supply, and that relying on a core herd would expose the food chain to greater risk of disruption from disease or natural disaster.

The Demise of The Olympic Breakfast

Little Chef, home of the "Olympic Breakfast", is to shut around 70 of its restaurants and lose around 600 staff.

The attempt to revamp the brand three years ago, using Heston Blumenthal, has not been enough to save the brand in its current form.

Around 90 restaurants are expected to continue to operate, with the roll out of the "drive through" concept continuing.

Welcome To The New Dynasty!

A riot broke out at New Dynasty, a Chinese restaurant in downtown Montreal, between 3.30 and 4am on New Year's Day.

Chairs were broken across people's backs as diners screamed and threw punches. Bowls of noodles and rice went flying through the air and glass doors were smashed as the waiters ran for cover.

At one point, a young woman in a slinky black dress picked a chair up over her head and tossed it at another party-goer before tipping over a table full of plates.

Happy New Year!

Deep Fried Butter Balls

From the nation that gave you deep fried Mars bars, comes deep fried butter balls.

The is is available at the Fiddler's Elbow in Edinburgh, and consists of frozen balls of butter deep fried in Irn Bru batter.

An alternative variation on that theme is the Braveheart Butter Bomb, in whisky batter.

The Dangers of Oysters

Be warned, according to the Food Standards Agency (FSA), 75% of British-grown oysters it tested contained the winter vomiting bug norovirus.

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Voici Le Demi Poulet!

In June this year I wrote about the demise of that bastion of the Cafe Rouge menu, the Demi Poulet.

I am very glad to report that, following many complaints from customers across the country about its absence from the menu, the good people of Cafe Rouge have reinstated it.

Tres bien!

Shout Out To Aggi and The Team at Nasza

A special shout out and thanks to Aggi and the team at Nasza (22 St James Street, Brighton) for looking after us (Eva, myself and two good friends) so well last night.

The food was great!

My compliments to the chef who produced some excellent pork, dumplings and pirogi.

Additionally, Aggi and her staff went the extra mile to look after us even though we arrived late in the evening.

Nasza is well worth a visit!

Pub With No Name

A jolly gang of four of us dined in Pub With No Name (58 Southover St Brighton) last night.

As the pub's website says:

"Pub With No Name is housed in a rambling building no architect could possibly have designed. You just keep on finding nooks and crannies and interesting places, and another comfy sofa to sit on. Art and photography decorate the walls. And there are screens for sport, too. Upstairs the function room leads onto a split-level beer terrace.


The bar features cask ale, foreign beers and a shots menu, while Rich’s Kitchen provides Mexican food during the week, making way for The Pub With No Name’s famous Sunday lunch."

Lat's night's specials were a "smorgasbord" (yes I know it's the wrong country!) of Spanish Tapas dishes including; cold meats, meat balls, spicy potatoes, tortilla etc etc.

We had every dish from the menu...because we were greedy pigs!

Our conclusion?

Bloody marvellous!

My compliments to chef Rich.

The dishes all arrived within minutes of each other (no tedious wait) and tasted absolutely great.

We were well pleased, well fed and well stuffed.

I have no hesitation at all in recommending Pub With No Name for its food, atmosphere and friendly staff and service.

We shall return!

Shout Out To Chef Craig at The Sir Charles Napier

A special and well deserved shout out to Craig, who is the chef at one our very special local pubs The Sir Charles Napier at 50 Southover Street, Brighton (a place that I wrote about in June this year).

The menu that the pub now offers changes regularly, and uses locally sourced good quality ingredients. Aside from staples such as sausage and mash, burgers and home baked pizzas there are specials such as beef casserole, scampi and fish cakes.

Unlike some chefs, Craig does not throw a hissy fit if a customer turns up just before the kitchen is meant to close (9PM) and stands by his post until the meal is finished (including offering a desert).

I would also make special mention of the fact that if a customer (as we did last night) asks for a couple of sausages as a starter (sans mash) neither the staff nor Craig throws a "wobbly".

Eva and I had a great meal last night, kicking off with two excellent smoked pork sausages on a leaf salad (to share), then beef casserole with mash for myself and scampi with mash for Eva. Craig was so worried that Eva wanted mash instead of chips, that he made a special salad as well for her, in case it wasn't enough.

We were even offered a desert (apple strudel), which we shared, well past kitchen closing time.

The food is great, the portions decent and the staff and atmosphere are warm and welcoming.

Go there and try it for yourself!

El Bulli Closes

El Bulli, the world's "most revered" restaurant (which each year saw two million hopeful applicants for just 8,000 dinner reservations at the restaurant two hours drive from Barcelona) has now closed for good.

Its legacy will be the elBulli foundation, a "gastronomic think tank" dedicated to creativity and expanding knowledge of the pioneering culinary techniques created within the restaurant across the globe.

The Restaurant at Hana

Phoenix Commercial Ventures Ltd is proud to announce that Hana Electronics JVC (a 50/50 joint venture based in the DPRK) completed and moved into its new headquarters based near the T’ongil Market in Pyongyang in Q1 2011.

Having moved in and set up its production facilities, Hana has now opened a restaurant (“The Restaurant at Hana”) and related leisure facilities (swimming pool, sauna, hairdresser, bar, gym etc) in its headquarters.

The restaurant (which comprises a main dining room and several private ones) and leisure facilities are open to locals and foreigners alike. Food for the restaurant ihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifs sourced from local markets.

A video and photos of the restaurant can be viewed on the Phoenix website.

The Sir Charles Napier

My compliments to the Sir Charles Napier pub of Southover Street on their recently expanded food menu.

Alongside their homemade pizzas (genuinely homemade) and locally sourced sausages and mash (a very nice dish), they have added a variety of hamburgers and a Rogan Josh curry with rice and garlic bread.

I had the Rogan Josh last night, and it was pretty decent in both taste and portion size. Eva had the Carne Misti pizza (tomato, Mozzarella, Parma Ham, pepperoni, spiced beef, spiced pork), the topping of which was flavoursome and generous sitting atop a light base (a welcome change from the stodgy rubber like creations of other establishments).

The pub itself is very friendly and has a lot of character in the true "traditional English pub style".

It is well worth a visit.

Cafe Rouge - Ou Est Le Demi-Poulet?

On a visit to Cafe Rouge last night I was very disappointed to discover that my favourite dish (which they did very well), the demi-poulet (half a chicken), is no longer on the menu.

Come on Cafe Rouge, bring back the demi-poulet!

Note: Cote serve a most excellent half chargrilled "Breton" chicken (corn fed chicken from Languidic in the north of France). Therefore, in future, whenever I fancy French I will be dining in Cote.