Christmas dinner

Merry Christmas wherever you may be, and in whichever time zone you might be.

This year is the first year we have had Christmas dinner in London, and my plan of hibernating until the New Year is coming along nicely. I think I went a little bit overboard with provisioning, I am a bad impulse shopper with food. Marie flies out tomorrow to head back to NZ for a week, and yesterday I could barely close the door of my fridge. "Oh my god, supermarkets are going to be closed for a whole day, I'd better purchase three kinds of cream so every eventuality is covered!" That kind of thing.
My only problem right now is working out how to consume all the delicious food in my house before I head back to work on January 4th, which means my life is pretty sweet.

People over here favour turkey for Christmas dinner, but I can't really see the point of turkey.
If you want to push the boat out on a celebration meal, why not goose? Turkey tends to be around 10 quid a kilo, where goose is around 12 quid so the differential is small. Yes a turkey will yield more food than a goose of equal weight, as quite a lot of the goose will render off as fat, but geese are easier to cook - just stick in the oven and it will baste itself.
If you don't want the strong flavour of goose, why not get a premium chicken? We went for a poulet de bresse, a chicken so snobby it comes with an AOC classification.


To start, 'crayfish' on avocado toast while the chicken was roasting. The dressing was a ketchup base, with horseradish, lime juice, tabasco, and worcestershire sauce. Super easy, super tasty. Next time I might fancy it up by trimming the toast and cutting into triangles.
The crayfish was good. I don't know exactly what kind of animal it came from, it definitely tasted like lobster but was the size of shrimp. Anyway, much easier to deal with than full size crayfish, and not so much mess to clean up afterward.

Onto the chicken. The clip on the cavity in the photo below is apparently proof that this is from the AOC approved area, in the same way that only sparkling wine from around Reims can be sold as champagne.

More importantly, what does this bad boy taste like? I favour leg over breast, and the amazing thing about this leg meat was the multiple and distinct granularities and tastes of the different muscles. I stole some of Marie's breast meat, and that was the most tender chicken I have ever had. She described it as buttery, which is the best description I can think of. The roasting technique was my standard lemon + thyme stuffed inside, with thyme rubbed into the outside, so any differences were definitely due to the chicken rather than my cooking.
Sides included potatoes roasted in duck fat (why have I never cooked with duck fat before?) and brussel sprouts par boiled then fried with bacon. Bacon really does make everything better, including brussel sprouts.



There was a cheese course in there somewhere, and Marie made a pav as well. Mmm delicious.

Banana and Ginger Bread: 7/10

My team at work decided to have a week of baking, and mark each other's creations a la Come Dine with Me. My team is four guys and one girl, so this was not expected.

I haven't baked for years, and the only thing I could think of is Marie's banana bread which she calls idiot proof. Hypothesis, meet test.

I even carefully measured out ingredients using a scale, because apparently you need to do that with baking. The recipe is something like this, I halved the quantities below to do one loaf:
Mix half a pound of butter and half a pound of sugar. I was frightened by the volume of butter and sugar here, I had no idea banana bread had such a calorific starting point.
Beat in two eggs.
Sieve the following in: 3 cups flour, 3 tsp baking powder. At this point I added two tablespoons of ground ginger, my first departure from Marie's recipe.
Dissolve 2 tsp of baking soda in a little milk, and add.
Add 5-6 near rotting bananas. At this point I added a dash of vanilla extract, my second departure from Marie's recipe.
Line tin(s) with baking paper, and pour in.
Bake in a moderate oven (I used 180 fan) until an inserted knife comes out clean. This took about an hour or so for me.

The cake tasted good, and the ginger gave it a nice little kick on the end of the palate. My colleagues seemed to approve. So why only 7/10?
I think baking really does demand accuracy of ingredient measures and sticking to the recipe (at least for a novice baker). Two skills which don't really feature highly in my cooking, I have more of a "what would happen if I added this ingredient?" approach. Which sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't.
Even though I tried to measure ingredients, I suspect my measuring was off by up to 20%. Electronic scales would be easier to read. And, I couldn't help adding bits and pieces (ginger) I had read on the interweb somewhere.

Maybe if there was some way to bake bread that incorporated meat. Pancakes with bacon and banana and maple syrup work, so maybe banana bread could be adulterated with bacon.

Things which make me cry with laughter

Exhibit 1:
Charlie Brooker. Namely,
This Charlie Brooker column on Man vs Food. Now I love Man vs Food, and I am planning a pilgrimage to some of his temples, but I think I love Charlie Brooker more. I wish I could be this witty.

Exhibit 2:
Marie. More specifically, Marie trying to order her phone around. She got a phone with voice recognition software. Only problem, the software can't handle NZ accents at all. You are meant to be able to say "Text Simon" and dictate a text message to be sent to Simon.
It can't understand her, and thinks she is asking it to purchase tickets to Simon or somesuch. Well I laughed, anyway.

And because I spend most of my time thinking about food, check out my cottage pie. Not that you can see anything apart from potato, but this is still a work in progress.
I started by sweating leek and onion, added chili, beef mince, mushrooms, garlic and carrot in that order, and then dropped in a bit of tomato and some stock**. Mash on top is king edwards adulterated with much butter and parmesan.
I think the tomato lightened the liquids a bit too much, and this pie needs a bit of weight in the gravy. Maybe next time I might try slowly simmered beef shin, which would give it a bit of grunt.




**One giant step in quality assurance would be properly labelling my stocks when I freeze them - this might lead to more consistent cooking. I have a sneaking suspicion that some of the blocks at the back might be pheasant rather than chicken.

Man Cooking: Brawn

Warning: the following text contains graphic images and representations of gastronomic carnage, and may not be suitable for vegetarians or fussy eaters.



Last weekend Brendan and I attempted to make brawn. For those of you unfamiliar with a nose to tail type diet, Brawn is similar to terrine and consists of meat suspended in jelly.
And, the part which nearly broke me, the meat is from a pig’s head.







We broadly followed the Fergus Henderson recipe. To summarise:
Simmer the pig’s head with vegetables, a couple of trotters (a great source of gelatin for the jelly), root vegetables and whatever seasoning or herbs you can find for over two hours. We ended up simmering for about four hours in some chicken stock I had made the day before, and some recipes advocate even longer in the pot. We didn’t faff around with brining beforehand. Firstly, I don’t have that much patience, and secondly, I didn’t have three kilos of salt.






Remove head and trotters from pot. Discard any other solids.
Once head and trotters are cool enough to handle, remove all meat and meat like substances (to paraphrase Fergus Henderson - the snout is neither fat nor meat nor cartilage, and yet is tasty) from the head and trotters.





After four hours simmering we could separate the meat with forks. Set meat and meat like substances aside. Bear in mind that for optimal taste sensations there needs to be a small amount of fat included here – this dish will never appear on any calorie controlled menus….
Reduce liquid down, and then cool.

To construct the brawn:
1) Line a dish with cling film, leaving plenty hanging over the sides
2) Add a layer of meat and meat like substances
3) Add a small amount of liquid to cover meat completely
Repeat (2) and (3) until dish is full
Whack brawn on counter top a couple of times, to displace any air bubbles.
Wrap overhanging cling film over top of brawn







Set a weight on top, and refrigerate until firm. I left mine for a week, but the gelatin in the liquid should only need overnight to solidify.

Serve as small slices, on brown toast, with large amounts of salt and pepper. The refrigeration dulls the seasoning, so it needs quite a bit to perk up.

How does it taste?
Really good, unless you spend too long thinking about where exactly it came from.
The meat had a good strong flavour, even though it had been simmered for a while.
After a week in a fridge the jelly was in no mood to crumble, and was very firm.

So what are the down sides, and why did this dish nearly break me?

It started when I was shaving the head prior to cooking - did I mention you have to shave your ingredients, and clean out the ear wax before you cook this bad boy? Before you ask, no I didn’t use Marie’s razor, I used mine. Anyway, I was shaving the eye lashes off when my shaving motion partially opened the pig’s eye. As though it was looking at me, silently reproaching me for my intrusion in the name of gluttony. And yes, I know it couldn’t see me, and yes I know we used to raise pigs when I was little, and yes I know I should harden up, but I still felt a small flutter in my stomach.

It got worse when we removed the meat and meat like substances from the pig head. When I was putting the head into the pot I could fly away to my happy place, and the head meat was still firmly attached to the skull. After four hours simmering the head meat separated from the skull, such that all I had to do was hold up the head meat and the skull fell away. A little gross, especially as the sole part of the head which refused to disconnect from the skull was behind the eyeball which had caused me discomfort earlier.

On a minor point, my kitchen was unprepared for brawn production.





For starters, the pig head I purchased was enormous. I have what I consider to be a gargantuan stock pot, but the pig head filled it up and left no room for the trotters, which I had to decant to a second pot. And, both these pots were overflowing which meant I couldn’t simmer them properly, and had to keep close watch on them. So, already this recipe has exceeded my kitchen’s capacity. And no, I can’t justify purchasing a bigger stock pot, my current pot already looks ridiculously large in our flat.
Second, I broke my tongs and spatula trying to manhandle the head – not only was it bulky, it also weighed in at around four kilos.

Finally, the smell produced from boiling pork, while not unpleasant, is not necessarily nice a la the aroma from roasting / grilling pork or bacon. Mmm bacon.

For five quid it is an extremely cheap day’s entertainment – We started at 930, and with lunch and pub breaks we didn’t finish until 4. However, I think if I was to ever do this again I would start with only half a pig’s head. Or find a smaller pig.

Also, I think I can safely add this to the list of foods I am only allowed to play with in an empty and well aired house.
Now the list reads: mutton pies, muttonbirds, and pig heads. Fair enough, methinks.

Where have all the misbehaving rockstars gone?

Marie picked up some prints a couple of years back, at an art gallery opposite her work which was closing down. Nothing pricey, just lowish print runs of some pretty pictures including this image from a series called Operation Magic Kingdom. We promptly stuck them on the walls, and I never thought to investigate who these prints were by.



It turns out they are by James Cauty, who in previous incantations was a member of the KLF, and a member of the Orb. Damn these multitalented people. Cue my favourite KLF song:



Which brings me on to a comparison with the music stars of today.

When James Cauty was in the KLF they burnt one million pounds in cash, and enthusiastically filmed themselves doing as some kind of expensive performance art. You could argue this enthusiasm was misplaced, given that Cauty publicly regretted setting fire to a million quid about ten years after the event, but rock stars have to engage in excessive behaviours, that is the rules.
(And yes, I am aware of the contradiction in dictating rules of rockstar misbehaviour which involve breaking social norms and rules.)

Where are the comparative excesses and/or ideologically driven impulses of today’s music stars? All the modern music I come into contact with feels commercially sanitised, and rock star excesses seem to be toned down and/or eliminated.

Exhibit 1: Iggy Pop - back in the 1970s he was pioneering stage diving and rolling around on stage in broken glass, and now he shills car insurance. I mean, really?
Yes his level of pharmaceutical consumption circa 1970s was completely unsustainable long term, but Keith Richards is still alive and falling out of coconut trees so at least some of the old guard have managed to avoid descending into wholesale consumerism.

Or have I become so jaded and cynical that nothing rock stars do is shocking or new? Is my nostalgia for rockstar misbehaviour misplaced?

Today was a good day

Sometimes weather is something to be endured, where you have a good time in spite of the torrential rainstorm.
Today is not one of those days. When London pulls out late twenties + blazing sunshine, at the end of September, it is wondrous to behold. I used to think I was not too affected by the weather, but when it is sunny the entire mood of the neighbourhood changes.

Of course, there might have been other circumstances kicking in to make me feel so good today. Foremost would be M getting back from a work trip to the States this morning. Following that:

Taking the afternoon off work, with nothing in the way of commitments to impede a lazy afternoon of bothering M. With my public sector leave allocation I am definitely doing this more often.
Double espresso. x2
Bagel with stilton and homemade chutney
Reading a great book in the park
Listening to a soundtrack of church bells, a call to prayer, children playing (nice in an open area, not in a confined space), sirens - it is Hackney - and a xylophone somewhere being hit at random.

All of the above are nice, but when it is 28 degrees and blazing sun it is awesome.

I think part of the reason today is so freaking awesome is that last Monday I got soaked (meh) on the way to CIMA study (meh).
To represent this algebraically, meh x meh = meh squared.
I was sitting in class in damp denim, listening to the tutor explain Maslow's pyramid of needs and theories of marketing segmentation, and I couldn't stop thinking of the following Bill Hicks clip:

I think I would have an easier time with my CIMA if I didn't have thirty three years of prejudice colouring my absorption of information. There is no point in trying to write an exam answer telling the marker that all the theories of marketing are complete bollocks.
Rather, the path of least resistance to get the coveted pass mark is simply to regurgitate the marketing theories we have had paraded before us, like Joseph Smith's golden tablets.

Thus, out of impotent and ultimately pointless anger (Monday night) comes serenity (Thursday afternoon). Today was a good day.

Assymetrical information

Last night in a Pimlico backstreet I found some of the most egregious wine pricing I have seen for a while.

Cloudy Bay Sav, for 26 pounds, at the bottom of a very short pub wine list.

This retails for around 19 in UK supermarkets, so the pub is only taking a markup of around a third. A quick look on the interweb shows other places flogging this for between 40 and 65 - the lower bound of this range is about what I would hope to find.

The pub in question wins quite a few CAMRA awards on account of its beer selection (they stock the idiosyncratic Berliner weisse, which I have never seen before outside Berlin!), and when I looked around I couldn't see anyone drinking wine. Decisions decisions - do I exploit their wine underpricing, or stick with the delicious weissenbock on tap. Mmm weissenbock.

Will Ferrell can do no wrong (almost)

Sure, Land of the Lost was absolutely terrible, but when he starred and wrote the production above I think he deserves one free pass.

Today is a great day

I found out my bike thief’s sentence: three months custodial, suspended for twelve months. How do you like them apples? And, I didn’t even have to go to court as a witness because he pled guilty just before the trial. Booyaa!


In other not so empowering news, people more loquacious than I have investigated the latest UK budget and found that the OBR forecasts of growth are predicated on an increase in household debt. From False Economy:

Household debt is set to rise from £1,560bn in 2010 (160% of household income) to £2,126bn in 2015 (175% of income) – an increase of 36.3%. By 2015 UK households will have amassed over two trillion pounds worth of debt.

The household debt-to-income ratio (the best measure of how manageable the debt burden is) fell from 2007 until 2010. It is now forecast to start rising again. Osborne described pre-crisis household debt-to-income ratios as unsustainable – and yet the ratio is forecast to hit a new all-time high in 2015.

To put this another way, compare and contrast:
a) In February 2010 George Osborne described pre crisis household debt levels as unsustainable; and
b) In March 2011 George Osborne delivered a budget with growth forecasts built on household debt increasing to unsustainable levels.

Do the Tories think no-one will notice, or that no-one gives a shit? Either they consider the UK electorate simpletons or lazy, either of which could have led to them gaining power in the first place, so I guess they have a point.

2012 Olympics - what to buy?

For those in London or likely to be in London in 2012, I have had a look through the timetable for the Olympics and as usual there is more that I want to go to than I have the financial resources to fund. Points to bear in mind:
1) All prices listed below are for the second most expensive price band available, unless specifically mentioned otherwise
2) All prices mentioned are per ticket

I am potentially interested in going into the ballot for the following events:

Basketball: £65 for daytime mens’ preliminary sessions (lasting four hours), £75 for evening mens’ preliminary sessions. The preliminary session covers two games, so you have four chances of seeing a top team. Womens’ are £50 for daytime preliminary sessions.
Not that WNBA players aren’t a) freakishly talented, and b) hot, but I reckon the gender differential is worth £15.
Quarterfinals jump to £85 for two mens’ games, so I reckon daytime mens’ preliminaries are the way forward. But quarterfinals does mean you will see four of the top eight teams (ie no minnows), so this is a really close choice.

Gymnastics: £95 for qualifying rounds (two hours), or the third most expensive tickets for qualifying rounds are £65. One gender per session.
Finals are £295, or £185 for third most expensive tickets.
Is anyone interested in chaperoning Marie to a mens’ qualifying round?

Maybe some of either:
a) Handball: £40 for preliminary sessions (three hours). Covers two games. £50 to see one quarterfinal, or
b) Volleyball: £55 for preliminary sessions (three hours). Covers two games. £65 to see two quarterfinals.

Weightlifting: £45 for preliminary sessions (four hours). Covers one lighter mens’ and one lighter womens’ weight class.
Or, if you just want to see one monster class (ie men weighing >105 kg) that is £45 for a two hour preliminary session.
£95 for one weight class final.

Opening and closing ceremonies: the lowest priced tickets for both are £20.12 – the next cheapest tickets are £150, and the most expensive ticket is £2,012 and £1,500 for the opening and closing ceremonies respectively.
The £20 tickets will get way over subscribed, but I think it is worth entering the ballot. There is a limit of four tickets per ceremony per application.



Ruled out on cost, at this point in time

Athletics: £95 for qualifying session (around three hours), £295 for cheaper medal sessions. Medal session for 100m mens’ final is £420 for second most expensive tickets, £725 for top tickets.

Beach volleyball: £65 for preliminaries lasting four hours – two mens’ + two womens’ matches. Yes I am a lech, but the view will be better on my TV.

Boxing: £75 for early sessions – 2.5 hours, however many fights that covers. Just a touch too expensive to be considered.

Track Cycling: £95 for qualifying sessions (only 90 minutes!), and £225 for medal sessions.
Diving: £95 for qualifying (only an hour!), £125 and up for medal sessions.
If the qualifying rounds for either of these were just a bit longer I might be interested, but a price north of a quid a minute is a bit steep.

Swimming: £95 for qualifying sessions (three hours), £295 for medal sessions.

One thing to be aware of here is that if you apply for four tickets to each of two events and are successful in the ballot, you have to purchase all eight tickets you applied for. You can sell the tickets back to the organisers a few months down the track, but an application for tickets is treated as a binding contract.

Irish terminal decline, two different ways

First, a Vanity Fair piece by the brilliant Michael Lewis, plotting the nose diving Irish economy after the popping of their housing bubble. Heavy on the leprechaun references, but worth a read.
It contains the following brilliant description of the the Irish finance minister:

"[The finance minister] proceeds to make the collapse of the Irish economy as uninteresting as possible. This awkward social responsibility—normalizing a freak show—is now a meaningful part of the job of being Ireland’s finance minister. At just the moment the crazy uncle leapt from the cellar, the drunken aunt lurched through the front door and, in front of the entire family and many important guests, they carved each other to bits with hunting knives. Daddy must now reassure eyewitnesses that they didn’t see what they think they saw."

Second, the New York Times has a description of the crisis of faith facing the Catholic church in Ireland. The article does a good job describing the historical strength of the Catholic Church in Ireland, and the depravity of the sex abuse scandals rocking the Irish Church.

"In proportion to its population, Ireland easily ranks as the country with the most reported cases of sex abuse within the church. It is second only to the United States in the total number of cases, despite a population approximately one-hundredth that of the U.S. The two reports published in 2009... fill five volumes and run more than 2,500 pages."

The New York Times link is quite graphic (words only!)- don't click unless you have a strong stomach.
I was horrified by Deliver us from Evil a few years back, a documentary worth seeking out about a serial paedophile priest who was at large in California in the 1970s. In some ways the NYT article is worse - sure the corruption and cover up in the US went quite a long way up the food chain, but the Irish corruption goes right to the top of the Catholic Church, including the current Pope whilst in his previous role leading the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
I honestly don't see how an organisation which has participated in such wide deceit of the Irish population can possibly claim any moral authority or indeed legitimacy. At least they are not Scientologists...

Music which always makes me smile

Embedding is disabled, so you have to click on the completely safe for work link below, but please do:
Dice by Finley Quaye always makes me smile. I don't know why, it just does. Bonus points if you can identify the awesome backing singer without reference to the interweb - I could.
That's right, I may wreak ungodly havoc on Anthony Bourdain recipes (never triple the volume of wine in a beef bourguignon just because you want to recycle the bottle), but at least I can identify backing singers on chill out compilations. Mmm beef bourguignon. Did I mention I have a casserole dish? Nom nom nom.

That is all for today. I have many things of import floating around my head, but none of them are developed enough to share right now.

Rabbit with chocolate and tomato - 6/10

When we were back in NZ Dad served up his homegrown rabbit for dinner, and it was delicious.

I haven't cooked rabbit before, and as we returned to the UK with our trusty casserole I thought this would be worth a crack. I found a recipe for chocolate and tomato rabbit - apparently the original recipe was an Incan delicacy, with chihuahuas bred especially for eating. Probably tastier than the dog I had in Vietnam, but back to the rabbit recipe:

Brown rabbit and an onion
Cook for half an hour with a tin of tomatoes, a glass of white wine, some stock, and a stale bread roll broken into chunks. It was in the recipe, honest...
Add some garlic, 25g bitter chocolate, some almonds, a bit of parsley, and cook for another couple of hours.

Overall mark for the recipe: 6/10. Good, but no wow factor and it could be better. I couldn't really taste the chocolate, and also, after 3 hours (I cooked it a bit longer, and the rabbit was still very firm) the ingredients which weren't rabbit kind of lost their definition.
I think next time I will cook the rabbit for an hour and a half with just the liquids, remove meat from the bones, and cook the removed meat with the other ingredients for an hour. Wild rabbit really does need a long time at a low heat - at least the one I bought did - but it is quite tasty if you go to that effort. And relatively inexpensive - one rabbit was 4.50, and it easily yielded enough meat for three servings.
Maybe next time I will try rabbit pie. Mmm pie, everything is better in a pie.