MOVING THIS BLOG!

Dear readers,

When I started this blog in February, I didn’t know how much time or energy I would have to devote to it. That is the reason that I chose to host it here on wordpress.com instead of installing a standalone copy of WordPress and developing my own website around it.

For a while it seems that my doubts were well founded, there was a gap of about 4 months with no blog posts at all, but I hadn’t forgotten about it, I just didn’t have the time to devote to it. In the past month I have made the time to make updates here, and I’m glad that I have, I’m enjoying it.

Since I have made the decision to write more here, and I would like to do a lot of other interesting things with ‘John on Food’, I have decided that the time has come to move it out of wordpress.com and into a custom designed home of it’s own.

For the past week or so, I have been posting everything that I write here also on a standalone WordPress installation, and I have also copied over all of the old posts and comments that I have here. Not just that, but every single post has had some typos removed, some nicer formatting and a picture added.

It’s far from finished (it’s ‘Beta’), but it’s time to move over there, so from today on I will be posting exclusively on the new John on Food.

You can find it at http://www.johnonfood.com

Please update your bookmarks, and also if anyone out there has any links to this blog then I would really appreciate it if you could update those as well.

If anyone has any feedback on the new site, either good or bad (especially things that don’t work), then I’d love to hear it.

Thanks all, see you over there.

John

Food diaries

No, I’m neither turning into Nigel Slater, or writing a review of his book.

This is the first post in what is a bit of a new direction for this site, my very own ‘food diaries’. It’s not set in stone, I’m not going to be here at the end of each evening meticulously cataloging what I have eaten throughout the day. It’s much more loose than that, it’s just my way to inject a bit more of me into this site rather than just offering instructions and recipe ideas.

Without further ado then, let’s get started with…

Saturday 2nd August 2008

One of the more unique things about living in Brighton is ‘Pride’. Not being proud about the city that you live in, but the UK’s biggest gay event. I’m heterosexual, but that doesn’t stop me from going along to see the Pride parade and then heading up to Preston Park for the rest of the event.

From the moment that I woke up on Saturday morning it was obvious that it wasn’t going to be a glorious sunny day for this years event. I had a few things to do in the morning, and so was up and out early, wandering around the city in the cold grey drizzle. After a couple of hours of getting damp and chilly it was time to head back home for breakfast.

The biggest problem with breakfast was always going to be the fact that both the fridge and cupboards were pretty devoid of interesting content. Without going on a big loop out of the way, there wasn’t much chance of passing by any interesting shops, so I settled on popping into whatever local shops I might pass, and hunting down any ingredients that I could find to construct the kind of warming hearty breakfast that you need before you face a long chilly day spent outdoors.

What I actually ended up with was a completely random collection of items, some of which made their way into breakfast and some that didn’t. Those that did came together to form something probably horrifically unhealthy, but tasty and warming and just right before heading back out into the damp air to spend a day being amazed by semi clad people bouncing around a park on spring propelled fawns legs.

It’s painfully simple, toasted muffins filled with bacon, eggs and tomatoes. You will notice that there are no quantities in this recipe, as you just need to put in as much of each item as you like.

Bacon and Egg Muffin

Ingredients

• English muffins
• Lightly salted butter
• Eggs
• Smoked bacon
• Tomatoes

1. Cook the bacon however you prefer to do it, I’d recommend either grilling it or baking it in a hot oven, as frying will leave it a bit greasy and you will end up with a soggy muffin.
2. While the bacon is cooking, slice the tomatoes reasonably thinly, and heat up a little oil in a frying pan to fry the eggs.
3. Split and toast the muffins until they turn golden brown, and spread them with salted butter
4. Fry one egg per muffin, until the white has set well but the yolk is still liquid
5. Remove the bacon from the grill/oven and drain on a piece of kitchen paper
6. Layer the bacon, tomatoes and egg onto the bottom half of each toasted muffin
7. Season with just a touch of sea salt, and some freshly ground black pepper, and pop the top on the muffin

We ate lunch out, in the nearest pub to the park that wasn’t completely swamped and looked like it might be able to deliver some food within any kind of semi-reasonable amount of time. From a pretty traditional pubby menu, I chose a ‘home made’ burger with chunky chips and a mixed leaf salad, and whilst nothing to write home about it, it wasn’t too bad at all.

In an attempt to appear modern and funky, the burger was served in ciabatta rather than just a bun, and the salad was decidedly Mediterranean. The chunky chips were great, the salad was nicely dressed, and the caramelised onion relish and slightly spicy salsa that came above and below the burger were all tasty, I didn’t eat the ciabatta. It’s just a shame that the burger itself didn’t live up to the rest of the plate, not just under seasoned but positively bland, it tasted more of onion than anything else, and still trying to work out why why when I could clearly see that it was made of beef.

We got home in the early evening and I really didn’t feel like a meal of any kind. Instead, I spent most of my evening grazing on bits of cheese, cold meat and pickles, with a bit of crusty bread. Why bother to cook when you have things like brie, stilton, some goats cheese and a nice pickled onion?

Pickled onions

Now, in my naivety, I thought that pickled onions were a purely English thing, to be eaten with fish and chips, or with a ploughmans lunch. I was wrong though it seems, the Swiss eat them as well served with raclette, in Hong Kong they are served as an appetizer in Cantonese restaurants, and the Americans (allegedly) make horrible soggy ones.

I’m going to skip over all of that for a minute though, and stick to what I know, the traditional English pickled onion.

Pickling is an old way of preserving food, dating from before we had refrigeration, and you had to do something with the crop. In the Western world it’s all but superfluous for practical reasons, but we are still using this antiquated method just because it tastes so good. Simple dishes like crusty bread and cheese get a big wake up kick with the addition of a pickled onion or two.

A good pickled onion should be intense, both in flavour and crunch, if it doesn’t give you some stong resistance to being bitten, followed by a satisfying crunching sound, then you may as well just throw it away as far as I’m concerned.

You can buy special ‘pickling vinegars’ which will give you the generic pickled onion taste, but there is no reason why you can’t use any kind of vinegar that you like. White wine vinegar has been historically used, as has spirit vinegar, but I think that the best and deepest flavour comes from plain old malt vinegar. You can also pickle the onions just on their own, or add spices to the vinegar to give them a bit of a kick.

In theory there is no reason why you can’t use any type of onion that you like, but there are a couple of reasons why every commercial jar of pickled onions that you buy uses small varieties, like Pearl onions or Cipolla. The most obvious reason is that they fit into the jars, and the second reason is that the bigger the onion the longer you have to pickle them for before you can eat them and get that lovely vinegary taste all the way through. My personal favourite is to use shallots, they give a fantastic flavour when pickled, they are just a bit of a pain to peel.

There is no real recipe for pickling onions because really there are no hard and fast rules, some people will give you incredibly complex directions calling for various different types of spicing, or which need you to soak the onions in fresh brine two or three times. I’m not going to argue that none of that is good or that it doesn’t give good results, but here is the simplest basic technique that works well, and you can experiment and modify it as you like.

• First make some brine by dissolving salt in boiling water, you should use about 100g of salt for every litre of water, when you have done this leave the water to cool down, because if you put the onions in when it is still hot they will go soft. You will need enough brine to cover however many onions you are planning to use.
• Peel your onions, and then put them into the brine and leave them for at least 24 hours. You need to make sure that all of the onions are covered, which can be a bit tricky as they like to float up to the top, the easiest answer is to put a plate or saucepan lid with something heavy on top of it, on top of the onions.
• Take the onions out of the brine solution and drain them thoroughly.
• Pack the onions into jars, and cover them with your vinegar of choice. If you are planning to use any spices in the vinegar, then the best thing is to boil them in the vinegar beforehand, but make sure that the vinegar is completely cool again before you pour it over the onions or they will go soft.
• Seal the jars and leave them in a cool place to mature

You can eat the onions after about a week, but obviously the longer you leave them the more the flavour develops. I’d recommend leaving them for at least 6 weeks before using them.

Moist Chicken breasts (poached)

Breasts, nice moist breasts.

When it comes to humans, the moistness of the breast isn’t really a huge factor in deciding its quality, but with chicken it’s all a bit different.

I’ve read a few different articles and blog posts over the past few days about chicken breasts, with people saying how much drier they can be than other bits of the bird.

If you have a problem with dry breasts then there are some excellent creams available, just ask your local pharmacist. With regard to your bits of chicken though, it’s all about the way that you cook it.

Grilling or frying chicken breasts can leave them dry, but here is one cooking method that will leave you with beautiful succulent meat every time. We are going to poach it.

• Start by seasoning your chicken breasts with salt and freshly ground pepper, then wrap each breast tightly in clingfilm – this will ensure that the meat will keep it’s shape while cooking.
• Heat a saucepan of water to a gentle boil, gently put the chicken into the water, and poach it for about 12-15 minutes.
• Remove the chicken from the water but don’t unwrap it, and leave it to rest for 10 minutes.
• Heat some butter in a frying pan, unwrap the chicken and add it to the butter. Cook the chicken slowly in the butter until the skin has a beautiful golden colour.

One of the key things it to always buy chicken breasts with the skin on them. They simply taste better (they are also cheaper)!

Serve it however you like, the meat will be nice and moist so you don’t need to cover it in a creamy sauce.

I love bread

I don’t know why I love bread the way I do, but I can’t help it. Soft warm fresh bread is like a little chunk of baked heaven.

Freshly baked bread is comforting, reassuring, it’s as if it cuddles you from the inside as you are eating it. Bread isn’t sexy, but it feels like a food that wants to make you safe and happy. Eat it warm from the oven and spread thickly with butter, and for me it’s the ultimate comfort food.

The great thing is that I’m not alone in my love of all things granary (or wholemeal, or spelt, or… ), there are plenty of highly influential foodie people who share my view, like:

“Quite apart from the enjoyment you get from the flavour of a good bread (and the danger is that if it is too good, you eat too much of it!), the action of chewing wakes up the taste-buds, excites the saliva and generally heightens your gastronomic awareness.”
Pierre Koffmann – 3 Michelin Starred Chef

“Serve good bread and butter before the meal and all will be well”
Marco Pierre White – 3 Michelin Starred Chef

There are hundreds more such quotes that I could post here, but I simply don’t have the time, I’m off to the bakery!

Melting white chocolate

White chocolate is a weird bugger of a thing, not least because it’s not really a chocolate at all.

It’s also a bit of a bugger to work with, as it has a tendency to split and to burn easily. Melting it is no exception, but there are a couple of simple rules to follow, to not end up with a lumpy mess.

White chocolate should be melted in the same way as any other type of chocolate, in a bowl over gently simmering water. Don’t even think about trying to melt it in a microwave, you might as well just throw the packet in the bin before you start.

Because white chocolate has a very low burning point (about 44°C) you need to be careful about a couple of things. First make sure that the bowl your chocolate is in does not touch the water, and secondly make sure that the water is simmering very gently and not bubbling away madly.

It’s important not to let any water get into the bowl with the chocolate, because this will cause it to turn lumpy and grainy. Make sure that your bowl is dry before you start and don’t cover it with a lid, condensation will form on the underside of the lid and drop back down into the chocolate. If some water does manage to sneak in, then you can re-emulsify the chocolate as below.

The incredibly frustrating thing is that even when you do everything right, the cocoa butter in white chocolate can decide to split and leave you with a lumpy oily mess. If this does happen, don’t panic, remove it from the heat for a minute and whisk in a small amount of butter, until the whole lot re-emulsifies.

Eating seasonally in July

This should probably be called ‘Eating seasonally in July in England’, but I thought that was a bit long. Fairly obviously though, it’s dependent on where you are, what is in season here in the lovely (very rainy right now) English summer, is going to be very different to what is in season in Peru or Japan.

Eating locally produced fresh properly grown (not in a hydroponic greenhouse in Holland) and in season produce is a joy. It’s not just the intensity of flavours in the way that things taste, but just as much the way that they smell, if you can’t smell a tomato through a plastic packet and if a surge of aroma doesn’t come up and smack you in the nose when you cut into it, then something is wrong.

So, with the all of that preamble out of the way, we can get down to a list of some of the lovely things that are in season right now. It’s not an exhaustive list, it’s just things that come to mind, and I’m sure I’ll come back and add more to it throughout the month.

Strawberries, Blackberries, Raspberries
The best known summer berries, as long as they are ripe there is no way that they can taste bad, and they smell like essence of summer days. If you can’t think of anything exciting to do with them, then don’t – just wash them and enjoy, either on their own, or with cream or thick greek yoghurt.

Loganberries
For anyone who is wondering what a loganberry is, or what the hell to do with them if you have some: It’s a hybrid cross between a raspberry and a blackberry. So, basically you can use it wherever you would normally use either of those types of berry.

Gooseberries
When I was a kid I remember eating a lot of gooseberries,I remember picking them as well, from horrible prickly bushes that want to hurt you. For some reason, gooseberries seem to have become pretty invisible lately. You don’t see many of them on supermarket shelves, but when you do spot some, grab them and make jam, or you can convert any lemon based desert recipe to use gooseberries!

Cherries
In my opinion, cherries are competing in a very close two horse race with raspberries for the crown of best summer fruit in the world. Eat them as they are, bake them in a pie, make jam, dip them in a chocolate fondue, or google for any of about a million recipes.

Aubergine
There is something strangely erotic about a nice glossy aubergine, you (well, I) just want to stroke it and caress it. Apart from all of that though, it’s a great vegetable that has a huge amount of uses, don’t be tempted just to stick it in ratatouille all of the time!
When you are picking an aubergine, always go for heaviest one, and look for a glossy and unblemished skin.

Tomatoes
Tomatoes are just tomatoes, except when they are in season and of a nice variety, when they become so much more. There are so many varieties that I wouldn’t even know where to begin with a recommendation, but those that come still on the vine are usually much more full of flavour than those that don’t. Don’t take them off of the vine stems until the moment you want to use them, or if you are roasting them then leave them on the vine and take them off after cooking.

Watercress
It’s green, peppery, tangy, quintessentially English, and apparently a ’superfood’. Not everyone eats watercress, and a lot of people don’t have a clue what to do with it. There are plenty of options though, you could simply use it in a salad as you would use something like rocket, or there is the summer classic ‘Watercress soup’.

Summertime, and the berries are yummy (pt. 2)

It is apparently still summer, although looking out of my window, you’d never believe it, but the berries are definitely still yummy.

On the way home tonight, I picked up some Glen Ample raspberries. They are smaller and sweeter than the Tulameens we ate yesterday, strangely they have little if any smell, but they are packed full of flavour and I adore them.
I’m not going to do anything with them at all, apart from just sit here and pop them one after another into my mouth, or maybe drop a few into a glass of sparkling wine.

I also picked up some “English Rose” strawberries, an organic premium variety. They are big and meaty for strawberries, very nice but with an unusual citrus flavour.
I had a couple just to try them out, and am coating the rest in a dark bitter chocolate, then melting some white chocolate with vanilla and wrapping pretty strands of that over the dark chocolate. They look ubersexy, but the taste test will have to wait till the morning.

With strawberries, the real key isn’t the variety (premium or not), or whether they are organic or not, it’s all about ripeness. Strawberries are like brie, they are always going to taste best at the moment of extreme ripeness, and just before they start to go bad. Pick the ripest and bugger the rest, in this case I’d say organic is much more of a moral decision than a taste one.

Food – the most complete artform

Surely there can’t be much doubt or discussion about it, it’s very simple. Food is the most complete artform out there!

Great food excites not just your tastebuds, but also your eyes and nose, your sense of touch through it’s textures, and even your hearing (think of the crunch when you bit into a raw carrot). I can’t think of anything else that comes close to doing that.

Every dish is like a little art installation, on display for one person for one fleeting moment of time. It’s like a private one night show, with hours of work, skill and passion poured into it, for the sole consumption of you, the audience.

No other artist can compete with the chef when it comes to evoking a sensory and emotional response to their work. Not even Tracey Emins bed tickles all of your senses, it might have a smell, but very few people are ever likely to lick it and see how it tastes!

Summertime, and the berries are yummy (pt. 1)

There are some things that can be grown anytime of the year and taste good, there are some things that can be grown hydroponically and taste good, there are some things that can be imported and taste good.

And, there are some things that can’t.

It’s the middle of the berry season here in England, and I’m loving it. I can go to a supermarket anytime of the year, and pick up something called ’strawberries’ or ‘raspberries’, but then I put one in my mouth and find that it actually tastes of absolutely nothing! Why bother, I’d much rather wait for the season and eat the real thing.

This afternoon, we had Tulameen Raspberries and Elsanta strawberries. They are so simply good that you don’t really have to do anything with them at all, a quick wash and just pop one of the juicy little flavourbombs into your mouth.

I served them in individual bowls, sitting on a pool of thick greek yoghurt and with a simple sugar caramel drawn in lines over the top. Where the caramel hits the yoghurt it sinks in and goes all nice and goeey, and where it hits the berries it creates crispy shards across them.

Not only does it taste fantastic, but if you serve it in a dark colour bowl then the contrast between the bowl, the white yoghurt and bright red fruit, and the pretty lines of translucent caramel mean that it is visually stunning as well.