Thanks to the rise of San Sebastian, home to Arzak, Mugaritz, Berastagui and Akelare, modern Basque cookery has stepped into the gastronomic limelight in recent years. London isn't exactly over-supplied with Basque restaurants and as yet I haven't had the good fortune to make my pilgrimage to the north western corner of Spain, so I must confess I know very little about the region or its cuisine.
Reading up on the subject, one of the most interesting elements of the Basque food scene is the Txoko. A Txoko is a gastronomic society, of which there are many all over the region. They range from groups of around a dozen members, right up to those which count hundreds on the roll. Almost exclusively male, members of a Txoko meet together, shop together and then cook for each other in a show of masculine solidarity in a world where the matriach has traditional control over the family stove. It's a fantastic concept, one which keeps traditional Basque cooking alive and revered, where food forms the foundation for social networks predating Twitter by over 140 years.
It's not surprising the seafood plays such an important part in Basque cooking. The original settlers in the region began fishing the local coastline over 8000 years ago, and fish comprised 50% of their diet. Many Basque classics are fish based, bacalao al pil pil (salt cod cooked in olive oil and peppers) for example, or txipirones en su tinta (baby squid cooked in ink).
Hake (Lebatza in Basque), is one of the most important fish in Basque cooking thanks to previously abundant stocks in the Bay of Biscay. The famous dish of Basque Hake is a simple meal of hake steaks with clams in a white wine sauce. Hake a la Cosquera is a more lavish affair featuring asparagus, peas and the rather unusual inclusion of a hard boiled egg. The traditional 'rustic' method has all ingredients cooking in a pot together, but for a more refined dish with al dente asparagus and perfectly cooked peas, I'd recommend cooking the ingredients separately and plating them up at the last minute.
Ok, so it's clear you want to see me suffer by choosing the most unappetising dishes for me to cook. Well this time I'm going to be a bit more careful. Chapter H is a short one but it's also one with a few offaly booby traps waiting to explode in my face. I'm steering well clear of HEART, HEADCHEESE, and even HOTCHPOTCH due to the pigs ears lurking in the recipe.
Now I've spent a good part of my life living in France and I'm also married to a demi-froglette, however I've never (knowingly) eaten HORSE. It's not that I'm against the idea, in fact I'd love to try a bit of cheval. The problem is you just can't get horse meat in the UK. For some reason we Brits find the whole idea of eating horse a bit taboo yet we're often heard to hungrily proclaim that we could eat one. It's ok for Fergus Henderson to stick squirrel in his cookbook but braised nag would be a step too far.
HIPPOCRAS sounds like something you'd hear on that old quiz show Call My Bluff. Is it a dish of hippopotamus, marinated for 24 hours then spit roasted over an extremely large fire? Is it an alcoholic beverage named after the father of medicine, Hippocrates? Or is it an anagram of Prophasic, meaning the first stage of mitosis, during which the chromosomes condense and become visible, the nuclear membrane breaks down, and the spindle apparatus forms at opposite poles of the cell? Mmm, I'll let you decide.
Anyone cooked a HARE recently? Anyone? Anyone at all? No you don't count, Koffman. I last had a mighty fine starter of HARE with spätzle at Chez Bruce a few years ago so I definitely think it has potential. Roast HARE en saugrenée uses the blood and liver as a sauce thickener, not that I want to influence you in any way.
I think HAKE is a hugely underrated fish. The Spanish love it, and the French, well they call it Colin which probably gives you an idea of what they think of it. I once bought a whole HAKE from Billingsate for £12 and it fed 8 people so it really is good value too. The recipe for HAKE steaks à la Koskera seems to differ from HAKE cosquera but I'll happily cook either if chosen.
If Channel 4 were to air a programme on the top 100 infamous foods, you can be pretty sure that gruel would feature in the top ten, somewhere near durian and blowfish. It would be a programme worth watching, if only to see Jimmy Carr dicing with death by chomping down on a mouthful of fugu.
Of course gruel really owes its infamy to one piece of fictional writing through which we have come to associate the dish with abject poverty and hardship. It’s amazing how a single event can ruin a reputation forever, something that Gerald Ratner, Richard Nixon and Jacqui Smith’s husband know only too well. Dickens may not have had the malevolent intentions of a News of The World journalist, but the line “please, sir, can I have some more?” has made gruel about as popular at society dinner parties as John Leslie.
But before we all turn our noses up at the thought of eating gruel, perhaps we should find out a bit more about what it actually is. According to the Larousse Gastronomique, it turns out that gruel has played a hugely important role in food history. It has kept people alive. Marching Roman legions, French provincial farmers, and Victorian orphans all relied on gruel to survive in the harshest conditions. Not only that, it was their staple food, something they would eat every single day. In times of hunger, a truffle foam or spherified olive is unlikely to get you very far.
Gruel is a liquid made by boiling a cereal flour in milk, water or vegetable broth. It can be made with millet, barley, wheat, oats, or rice and chances are you’ve probably eaten a bowlful yourself at some point. Put into the hands of the admen, in the 70’s and 80’s gruel became ‘central heating for kids’, which is a far more aspirational strapline than ‘the food of orphans.’ See that wet polenta underneath that meaty ragu? That's gruel, that is. Gruel can also be pimped up with all kinds of ingredients. The Roman soldiers would add onions, cheese and salted fish to theirs. Me? Well being predominantly Asian, I’ll take my gruel the Chinese way. A lovely comforting bowl of congee with chicken and coriander dumplings.
Congee is really just an overcooked, soupy risotto and it's surprising how little rice you need to make it. Well it surprised me anyway as I ended up with enough congee to feed the Chinese imperial army. Simply boil some jasmine rice in a master stock flavoured with star anise, ginger and cassia bark, and allow the grains to break down into a kind of porridge. Add whatever you like to make it a more substantial meal, some shredded chicken perhaps or some char sui pork. Alternatively do what I did and pulse up some chicken breast with coriander, ginger and garlic and form them into little dumplings. It really is the most simple, filling dish and you don't even have to be an orphan to enjoy it.
Get on with it. I know it's been a while since my last post. That terribly inconvenient thing known as work has got in the way of cooking things from the Larousse. Somehow I'm not sure that my clients would go for mini faggots or eel crostini at their canape parties so it's been pretty traditional cooking for me for the past month.
Anyway, I've selected three cracking dishes that should well and truly hit the G spot. The GROUSE season is now underway up in Scotland and the wee birdies are free-falling from the skies faster than Mary Poppins with a broken umbrella. Apparently if you stand outside Glasgow Central with a large net, you're sure to catch a few.
I can't say I've ever seen GRUEL on a restaurant menu or in the ready meal aisle in Sainsburys. Surely some crazy entrepreneur could give it the same gourmet makeover that burgers, hummus, stews and muesli have all received. I can just see it now in posh London delis with fancy 'earthy' packaging, a contemporary font, and a quirky name like 'Mr Dickens. Organic Elderflower & Spelt Gruel With A Twist' (advertising slogan: It's moreish!) Well get ready for it, Dragons, because that crazy entrepreneur just might be me.
As you probably know from my Bigos post, I love a bit of foreign stew. GOULASH is the classic Hungarian version first cooked by the Magyars over 800 years ago. Perfect for when the leaves are beginning to fall from the trees and look, there falls one now!
Faggots. I can't really see the dish making it big with the yoof of today. Yet surprisingly, the last time I had faggots I was a spotty teenager myself. Back in the days when I was wearing Farahs and a gay guy from Watford was singing a love duet with The Queen of Soul, the dinner ladies of our West Midlands school were serving up faggots way before local food became fashionable. I don't really remember that much about them. All I know is that they were edible and in school dinner terms that's the equivalent of three Michelin stars.
To be honest, there's not a lot to be proud of coming from the Midlands. Our football teams are crap, our accent puts people to sleep, and our biggest contribution to gastronomy is spaghetti junction which isn't that easy to eat. Actually I'm probably being a little unfair. After all, Birmingham has given the world the balti and more importantly, the humble faggot has its origins in the Black Country where butchers still make them to their own secret recipes. A bit like Colonel Sanders I suppose, but with lots more offal.
According to the Larousse Gastronomique, faggots are made with variety meats which is a fantastic euphemism if ever I heard one. In fact the variety meat in question consists of pig's heart, liver and belly, all minced and mixed with herbs and spices for flavoring then wrapped in caul fat before cooking. It used to be a great way of making a hearty meal out of off-cuts during rationing but in today's world of premium meat, ready meals and massive food wastage the ingredients to make this great British dish are ironically much harder to come by.
You'd think you'd be able to pop down to your local butcher and buy the necessary bits but modern demand for prime cuts means there's no reason for them to stock things like caul or heart. When I asked for pig's fry in one top organic butcher, he looked at me blankly, as if I was asking for a three-headed badger.
In the end, after weeks of aborted attempts to make the faggots, I finally found what I was looking for. There, at the meat counter of a Chinese supermarket on Gerrard Street, were piles of piggy entrails. Hearts, livers, lungs, tails, ears, stomachs. You name it, it was there, and what's more, it was bloody cheap. I bought enough gear for four people and it cost £2.80.The only thing that they didn't have was caul.
To make faggots you really need a mincer. Unfortunately I don't have one so I chopped everything by hand. In the end this created a lovely coarse texture, like that of a really meaty sausage or andouillette. To the minced variety meat I added sweated onions, sage, ground allspice and breadcrumbs.
Usually the meatballs are wrapped in caul to hold them together while cooking but I just couldn't find any. As a very effective alternative, I wrapped each ball tightly in cling film then poached them for ten minutes in hot water to set the shape.
After removing each faggot from its cling film, I fried them to add some colour, then braised them in a red wine and onion gravy and served them with mushy peas, the reduced gravy, and a malt vinegar and black pepper glaze which added a fantastic sweet and sour dimension to the dish.
I have to admit, the initial preparation of the faggots made me a little queasy but the finished dish was an absolute revelation. We may not have returned to rationing but when purse strings are tight you can't beat a plate of faggots for a wholesome, nourishing dinner. I'm sure not even St Jamie would be able to persuade the nation's children to swap their turkey twizzlers for a lovely faggot but that doesn't mean you can't give them a go. I certainly won't be waiting another 20 years before my next one.
For the faggots
250g pig heart (about 1 heart) 250g pig liver 250g minced pork belly 350g diced onions, sweated and cooled 1tbsp chopped sage 1 tsp ground allspice 100g breadcrumbs salt and pepper For the onion gravy
6 onions, halved and roasted 75ml red wine 500ml beef stock For the mushy peas
250g split green peas, soaked overnight 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda 500ml chicken stock For the malt vinegar and black pepper glaze(courtesy of Glynn Purnell)
200ml malt vinegar 200ml sugar 1 tsp cracked black pepper
First make the onion gravy. Roast the onions until they caramelise a deep brown and soften. Reduce the red wine by three quarters and add the beef stock. Add the onions and simmer for 30 mins.
Mince or finely chop the variety meats and combine with the herbs, spice, breadcrumbs and seasoning. Fry off a little mix to check you have added enough salt and pepper. Form into balls and chill in the fridge for 1 hour.
Tightly wrap each faggot in clingfilm and tie. Drop the faggots into a large pot of simmering water and poach for 10 minutes to set the shape. Remove from the water, unwrap and then fry the faggots to add colour. Place the fried faggots in a casserole dish, cover with onion gravy, and cook in the oven for 40 minutes.
While the faggots are cooking, make the mushy peas. Rinse the peas several times in cold water. Add chicken stock, and simmer until soft. With a whisk, lightly break up the peas in the pan. Season well and reserve.
Finally, make the glaze. Boil all the ingredients until the mixture thickens and becomes syrupy. Reserve.
Remove faggots from the oven and strain the braising gravy. Reduce until you reach a coating consistency.
To serve, place 3 spoonfuls of mushy peas on the plate and faggot on top of each. Brush some glaze on to the plate around the faggots then spoon the onion gravy over. Serve with mashed potato.
I think I probably used a lot of F words while preparing that eel. Never again, unless I happen to be marooned alone in the Sargasso Sea, in a state of mild delirium, will I tackle those slippery monsters again.
As a Midlander, I feel that it is only right that I tackle some faggots. I remember we used to have them at school and they were pretty tasty, and having seen Glyn Purnell give them the Michelin treatment on Great British Menu, I do think they are well worth a place on the shortlist.
I once ate Feijoada in a Brazilian rainforest. It was about 35 degrees C and incredibly humid. We'd just trekked into the forest and en route we stopped off at a little restaurant for lunch. In the sweltering heat we were given this meat and bean stew, not exactly light and refreshing, but tasty nonetheless. It would be nice to try and recreate the experience here in South East London. I'm sure the weather will comply.
So far, no dessert has been selected for this project so maybe this time Flaugnarde will make it through. Why have I chosen it? Well I just like the name. Apparently it's a bit like a clafoutis.
I was secretly relieved that I wouldn’t have to cook pig’s ears. My desk research into interesting recipes, cooking techniques and the true point of my search – a positive eating experience, had proved pretty fruitless. More importantly though, I hadn’t been looking forward to placing a plate of chewy skin and cartilage in front of my wife. I pictured myself beating a hasty retreat into the kitchen with the words, “bon appetit!”, my conjugal rights disappearing into swine-tainted thin air around me.
Eel in comparison would be easy. I’d just go to the fishmonger, pick up a few slices, cook them up in a nice herby sauce, no hassle, no fuss. Sorted for E as it were. Then it all started to go wrong.
“Never buy eel unless it’s alive”, said the guy at the fishmonger. “If anyone tries to sell you dead eel, unless it’s jellied, steer clear”.
According to my fish-wielding friend, eels go off very quickly. It sounded plausible although I had no idea why eel more than any other fish has such a short shelf life. Who was I to argue with a man in a white apron, holding a knife, covered in scales and blood?
“ Can you get me one?” I asked, as if I was requesting some illicit substance.
“Sure, I’ll get one in for you tomorrow.” And with that, the order was made. I returned home, eager to verify his story.
The Larousse Gastronomique p445. “Eels are sold alive. They are killed and skinned at the last moment as the flesh deteriorates rapidly, and the raw blood is poisonous if it enters a cut – for example on one’s finger”. Jesus, I didn’t think I was actually putting myself in mortal danger by cooking this dish. I mean if I wanted an extreme food experience I would go for blowfish or maybe a gob full of orange and some leather straps. But rancid flesh and toxic blood. No, no, no!
Further research only served to freak me out even more. I chanced upon a youtube video of eels being skinned alive in Korea. Not nice. I found a few more showing how to skin and fillet them, with Japanese workers in Tsujiki market doing it at lightning speed.
Somehow I sensed it wouldn’t be quite so easy for a novice. Then the call came in. The eel had arrived.
“ Do you want to know the price?”
“Yes, please”
“£18.90”
“What?"
“Yeah, it’s £24.90 a kilo and yours is about 800g”
This is getting worse. I’m going to have to pay through the nose for the privilege of dodging an unwanted transfusion of poisonous blood. I could buy lobster for cheaper but instead I’m getting something that apparently “tastes of mud”.
“I’ll be in later”, I reply despondently and put down the phone, worried about my ever-increasing overdraft.
I decide to pick up the eel at midday but when the clock strikes twelve it occurs to me that it might put me off my lunch so I postpone until one. At 1pm I decide that arranging the bic biro’s in my office is a more pressing task. It should take a couple of hours at least. At 3pm I try and find another reason not to go but nothing comes to mind, and anyway, the fishmonger will be closing soon and will be wondering if I’ve done a runner after hearing the price. I get in the car, like I’m the dead man walking, and head to my rendezvous with the eel.
It’s not moving much. In fact I’m not really sure if it is alive after all. It’s curled up, in the solitary confinement of a large polystyrene box, an eel out of water. Suddenly, with a slight flick, it moves in the box and any doubts I have about its vitality are put to rest. I feel a bit sick, like I did before we did rat dissection in biology class, and quite frankly, like a total wuss.
“Can you, er, dispatch it for me?” I ask, somewhat feebly.
“ What you want me to kill it?” He shrugs, grabs the eel and heads to his bench laughing to himself. Quickly he grabs his knife and hacks off its head, the white board beneath flooding crimson. In his left hand the body of the eel continues to writhe. I wasn’t expecting a bloodbath, just a few whacks on the head.
“ It can keep moving for hours”, he says.
As the other customers look on in vague horror, he bags up the eel, head and all, and hands me the quivering bag. On leaving the shop, I pass a bin and half consider dumping the remains but I remember I have a dish to make so head home to the kitchen instead. In the car, every so often I catch the bag in the corner of my eye, its plastic making a crinkling noise in the footwell of the passenger seat.
Let me make this clear. Those Japanese eel filleters can’t be for real. With the full length on the eel’s body on my worktop I try and make a first incision but it’s slipping all over the place. The only thing to do is section it and try and fillet more manageable pieces. With a smaller section I try again but as the knife enters the body the other end stiffens skywards, as if it's being manipulated by a mischievous school boy hiding in another room with a remote control. On and on it continues. Sections of eel with lives of their own, dancing a slippery jig on the counter.
20 minutes later I have the fillets off. I feel a hollow sense of achievement and figure its time for a photo, fillets and head together in a morbid pose. The shutter clicks and I check the image, but it's slightly blurred. A second one comes out the same. Then I put down the camera and stare at the chopping board. The head, decapitated about an hour ago, is moving. Agitated, mouth opening and closing, it reminds me of Lorraine from The Apprentice. This really is the last straw, the stuff of nightmares. Next it will start winking at me and calling me a murderer.
I’ve often heard people talk about food ‘made with love’ and until today I’ve always thought it was just a load of old marketing bollocks, a lovely turn of phrase to help sell a mass-produced range of organic pies or cakes. It’s only after eating something that I made ‘with reluctance’ that I really understand the difference. I was so over this dish that I cooked up the eel, hastily made up the herb sauce and whacked it onto a plate with scant regard for presentation. I’d like to say it was worth the effort and the expense. I’d like to say the eel died for the sake of a truly glorious dish, one that would give a Scottish lobster a run for its money. I’d like to, but I can’t.
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