Blog Party #19 - A Digression From Diet

Today seems like it’s going to be one of those days: it will either make or break the diet. If I can stay strong and stay off the Super Noodles at lunchtime and leave the unopened Green and Blacks chocolate in the bread bin alone, I might just be able to survive until 5 O’Clock without junk food. After then, we have another fishy experiment on the books: Sea Bream cooked in what can only loosely be referred to as Provencal Style. This roughly translates to fish with tomatoes and some other stuff.
In the meantime though, feast your eyes on these tiny beauties, made before we banished cakes and cookies (only temporarily mind, they’re in a box in the basement and can be let out without a moments notice) to the ‘bad’ corner.
An event that I have enjoyed but never taken part in is held by Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness. Every month or so she holds a Blog Party which is themed in various ways. The one interjoining link between all of her parties though is the word ‘Bitesize’. It’s a word I enjoy. Bitesize means you can eat more than jumbo size because they’re much, much smaller. Bitesize also means that things that aren’t attractive normal size, are rendered ‘cute’ by the diminutiveness.
I draw the line at Bitesize Fish and Chip portions (seen at trendy cocktail parties in the late 90s). As Brilynn at Jumbo Empanadas might say ‘Go Big or Go Home.’
I remember the first party I went to as a very small child, maybe 3 or 4, held by my Aunt. I have no recollection of who was there or what the celebration was. All that sticks in my mind is being offered, on a silver platter, some tiny little biscuits with what I thought was segmented blackberries (those segments, I found out some two decades later are charmingly referred to as ‘drooplets’) on some cream. Actually, this was my first taste of caviar with sour cream. I can’t remember if I enjoyed the expensive hors d’ouevre or not but it certainly didn’t put me off caviar although I wouldn’t get to try the black stuff again for 25 years!
But, enough reminiscing. The theme for this months Blog Party is - quite fittingly what with it being Winter and all - Comfort Food. And I got to thinking about comfort food and what makes me cosy. Parties aren’t generally conducive to that Comfort feeling. After all, you’re supposed to have fun, sing too loudly and probably get too drunk. Food isn’t high on the agenda. If you’re English you will remember (or still attend) events where cocktail sausages, sausage rolls, cheese and pineapple on sticks, twiglets and prawn vol au vents are served. The snooty 80s and minimalist 90s did nothing to eradicate this. If you’re over a certain age, you will still be disappointed if you’re not served miniscule prawns in a ketchup and mayo sauce stuffed in a dry puff pastry case.
The first food that came to mind when I thought of comfort was Deep Fried Risotto Balls. I have never made them but I love risotto. It envelopes you in a fluffy blanket of creamy goodness. Frying them only makes this blanket of Italian joy even more covetous.
As you can see, I had a last minute change of heart. When you want comfort – instant comfort – you want chocolate. You don’t want to make Risotto. You want instant gratification. If it has booze involved then even better. Mini Malted Chocolate and Banana Cupcakes with a Baileys Shot decorated with a Malteser garnish seems perfect.
The recipe for the cupcakes was adapted from a Nigella Lawson recipe, taken from Feast. The original recipe makes a full size cake, iced with a delicious malty topping and decorated with maltesers. I have made this cook before and I can vouch for its malted goodness. I halved this recipe and added some mashed banana to the cake batter lest it should be a little too dry. I baked them for about 10 minutes, left them to cool and then decorated them with a sticky, smeary blob of Fluff and a solitary Malteser. They are one mouthful of comfort.
The shot is even easier. Pour the Baileys into a shot glass. Decorate with Maltesers and drink (and eat). Feel instantly better.

P.S. Have a wonderful Valentines Day (and if you're like us and don't celebrate Valentines Day, just have a great day!).

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A Rejuvenating Supper

I know that it appears Paul and I are going the way of the Galloping Gourmet: spending our 30s in a hedonistic haze of roux based sauces, rich puddings, dripping butter and a lot of cheese.
Of course, being British and with a love of French food, I would like this to be the case but we do have such a thing as cholesterol to think about, not to mention expanding waistlines and hereditary illnesses.
So, with that in mind, I have decided that we will be eating (relatively) healthy food for a while. I know, you’ve read this before but this time we are serious. I find myself look at the piles of frozen meat in the freezer, waiting for inspiration that doesn’t seem to come. I finally figured that we’re fooded out. We have eaten too much rich food and we need to strip out eating habits back to basics.
Last night I started our healthy eating regime with some baked Sea Bass and steamed Bok Choi. Paul made some of his famous Chow (Lo) Mein for substance. I had never tried Sea Bass until last night and I was pleasantly surprised by its soft, creamy texture and sweet flavour, enhanced by the ginger, garlic, coriander and lemongrass that I had stuffed into its belly.
This beautiful Sea Bass, a Warholesque fish, was simple to prepare. Taking advice, once again, from Nigel Slaters Kitchen Diaries, I made a sweet/sour/salty/spicy broth for it to poach in, encasing the fish in tinfoil and baking in the oven for 20 minutes. I let it stand, still in the foil, for another 10 minutes, whilst I prepared the Bok Choi, and Paul made his noodles, by which time the fish had reabsorbed much of its cooking juices and was delightfully moist and flaky.
The Sea Bass is not a cheap choice of fish to cook for more than four people, averaging at about £3.80 each (and, whilst Paul and I shared this one, I think we both would have been happier with one each), but it is a special fish, and the perfect choice for people who are non-committal about fish. And, if you serve it in its little tinfoil duvet, it will garner lots of oohs and ahhs from your guests.

BAKED SEA BASS WITH LEMONGRASS, CORIANDER AND LIME serves 2 skimpily
Ingredients:
1 Whole Sea Bass, gutted and descaled
Juice of 1 Lime
1 Stick of Lemongrass
1 Red Chilli, (deseeded if preferred), cut into thin shards
½” Nub of Ginger, peeled and cut into slithers
2 Spring Onions, finely chopped
Pinch Sugar
1 Teaspoon Nam Pla (fish sauce)
2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
200ml Chicken or Fish Stock
Big Bunch Coriander
1 Clove Garlic, finely chopped
METHOD:
Preheat oven to 170c.
On a clear work surface (I say clear because in our kitchen, I dream of clear work surfaces) lay a piece of tinfoil, large enough to wrap the fish up securely.
Lay your prepared fish onto the centre of the foil. Cut three deep slashes on each side, to enable the flavourings to seep into the delicate meat.
Fill the belly with half of the stick of lemongrass, bashing it quite hard first to release it’s lemony oils, half of the spring onion, chilli, ginger, garlic and some of the coriander just torn off the bunch (no need to chop).
In a small bowl, mix together all of the remaining ingredients, except for the coriander, and pour over the fish, rubbing this beautiful, oily mixture into the slashes of the fish.
Fold the tinfoil, longwise first, so that it meets in the middle and crimp the two sides together tightly. Seal the two shorter ends but leave them facing upwards (to avoid any leakages). The parcel should look roughly the same shape as the fish.
Place carefully on a large baking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes (depending on the size of fish). Once cooked, remove from the oven but do not undo the foil at this stage. The fish is better if allowed to stand for 5-10 minutes. It will stay warm within the foil and the standing time will improve the texture of the flesh no end.
Serve with some steamed Bok Choi and Noodles or Rice.
A dish that is low fat AND tastes good. If only I could cook like this everyday!

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SUGAR HIGH FRIDAY #28 Sweet Seduction

(Or how I learned to mistrust the cookbooks and go by my own intuition. To elaborate, every cookbook I have read (at least those published in the latter part of the 20th century and in the current millennium) have advocated the use of leaf gelatine. After having no more than two crashing failures with this product, I decided to use the more traditional powdered gelatine. And, as you will read in the forthcoming article, it works!)

I am not really a romantic person by nature, I don’t wear jewellery (I would much rather have 20 cookbooks than a pair of diamond rings), I don’t think much to red roses and perfume makes me sneeze. I will admit that I enjoy the odd chocolate truffle but I don’t wait until February 14th to indulge myself in those.

I don’t want to insinuate that Paul and I have a perfect relationship, but we make sure to enjoy every meal that we have together, whether the food is good or bad, so we don’t need to take one specific day in the year to celebrate our relationship. To that end, we don’t bother buying each other over-priced Valentines gifts that will probably get relegated to the bottom drawer in our spare room, eventually collecting decades of dust and long-distant memories:
“What year did you buy me this pink fluffy rabbit clutching the red heart saying ‘I Wuv U’?”
“I have no idea, 2034? And when did you buy me this screwdriver dotted with flashing pink hearts?”
etc.

I am, however, a sucker for a themed food event, and whilst I refused to pull out my heart shaped tins for this particular one, I did throw myself into making a dessert suitable for the occasion. That occasion - held this month by the lovely Jasmine at Cardamom Addict - is Sugar High Friday, Sweet Seduction.

The premise is straightforward enough: prepare a dessert that you have/would like to be/are hoping to seduce someone with.
I instantly knew what I was going to make. And then I changed my mind. I was going to make an intricate orange cream and filo construction, thinking about how the crisp, splintery pastry, juicy citrus segments and whipped cream would be conducive to a romantic liaison. In the end, however, I went for something much simpler: Goats Yogurt and Honey Panna Cotta. Panna Cotta is Italian for cooked cream and anyone who has made the similarly simple Medieval dessert, Posset, will know that boiling cream with sugar causes it to set with the firmness of a long distance runners thighs. However, with a little help from gelatine, and a few other choice ingredients, a Panna Cotta should resemble the trembling bosom of Nell Gwynne instead.
Regardless of whether any conjugation would follow the Panna Cotta consumption, I am very proud of this recipe for two reasons:
a) It is my own concoction with only a little nudge from Nigel Slaters Kitchen Diaries and
b) It is the first time I have used Gelatine with success!
The original recipe, Yoghurt and Rosewater Panna Cotta sounded delicious but I have a small issue with Rosewater, finding it a bit ‘bath time at the nursing home’. I had thought about using Buttermilk instead of Yoghurt, flavouring it heavily with vanilla but then inspiration struck in the unlikely spot of the dairy aisle of Tescos: Organic Goats Yoghurt with Wild Honey!
As it turns out, goats yoghurt is the only yoghurt I can eat without aggravating my stomach problems and I adore the almost ice-creamy, tangy flavour that it has, much less harsh than the regular stuff.
The yoghurt was flavoured, almost imperceptibly with wild honey, and I thought it would be delicious if I replaced the rosewater element with some more honey. I also replaced the plain icing sugar with vanilla caster sugar because I find that Vanilla ties so many sweet dishes together, in the same way that onion ties together a savoury dish.
The final dish, when turned out carefully onto a small plate, drizzled with more honey and served with some fresh fruit (figs seemed particularly suitable in this instance, for obvious reasons) is delicate and light. I would recommend this as a dessert where some poached fish is the main, maybe even some oysters as an amuse bouche...

HONEY AND GOATS YOGHURT PANNA COTTA - Serves 4 (but keeps in the fridge for a couple of days if there's just the two of you - and that is the whole point)
Ingredients:
280ml Double Cream
100ml Milk
1 Sachet Powdered Gelatine (use leaf if you can work out how on earth it works)
2 Tbsp Vanilla Caster Sugar
1 1/2 Teaspoon Honey or to taste
150ml Goats Yoghurt or regular Plain Yoghurt of your choice
METHOD:
In a small saucepan, heat together the milk and cream, letting it simmer for 5-6 minutes.
Meanwhile, if you are using leaf gelatine, prepare it as per the packet. When you add it to the final mixture, make sure to squeeze out any excess water.
Remove the milk/cream mixture from the heat. If you are using powdered gelatine, stir into the milk/cream mixture and stir briskly until dissolved.
Stir in the Vanilla Sugar (or use a drop or two of Vanilla Extract), mixing until dissolved.
Fold in the yoghurt and then honey to taste.
Strain into a jug and pour into small, smooth moulds. I used tiny pudding moulds, Nigel Slater suggests shallow coffee cups.
Leave to cool, then cover with clingfilm and refrigerate until set, a couple of hours.
To turn out, gently work round the edge with a palate knife and plunge into hot water upto the brim for 3-4 seconds. You will hear a slight noise that indicates that it has started to come away from the mould. Turn out onto a plate and serve with figs or any other fresh fruit. Drizzle with more honey.
Serve with only one spoon...

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Weekend Herb Blogging - Disaster in Gelatine

I don't know why I do it. I have never once succeeded in using sheet gelatine yet I still gave it one more go on the basis that the recipe I was using (by Tamasin Day-Lewis) was sound. This makes the following failure all that much more predictable.
Ricotta and Cucumber Ring was this most recent failure. It was one of those recipes that I had mentally tagged: the picture lures you, never mind the methodology. Weekend Herb Blogging (held this month by the originator, Kalyn at Kalyns Kitchen!) seemed like a perfect excuse to make it: I had a droopy cucumber in the fridge and some herbs looking sad.
In theory it sounds easy: chopped cucumber, some tarragon vinegar, herbs, spring onions, ricotta and whipped cream, all held together with gelatin. I know, it sounds terribly 1950s but it looked (at least in the cookbook) summery and sophisticated, pale and cool.
I followed the recipe to the letter, aerating the ricotta using a sieve, draining the cucumber so that it isn't completely waterlogged. Somewhere, somehow though, instead of a pale green ring of cucumber creaminess, I ended up with this:

I went to turn out the mould the next morning and just a cursory jiggle of the tin told me that there was not a hope in hell that this was going to turn out into any shape other than a big heap. So, trying to make triumph out of adversity, I scooped all the mixture into a bowl, sprinkled some spring onions on the top and turned it into a ricotta and cucumber dip. I served it with chicory leaves and various savoury biscuits (although I found it best with Ritz Biscuits). Even with 2 or 3 more additions of salt, the flavour just was not happening. It was bland and boring. I felt a bit cheated; I had wasted two containers of ricotta which I could have used to make pancakes with instead...Paul said he enjoyed it. I'm not sure if a firmer texture would have made it preferable to eat, a complete revision of some of the base ingredients could be in order I think. For those who are enamoured by this recipe, despite my none too flattering description, here is the recipe:
RICOTTA AND CUCUMBER RING Serves 8-10
Ingredients:
500g Ricotta, drained
300ml (or, as they come here, 284ml) Double Cream
1 Cucumber, peeled, deseeded and chopped into tiny dice
3 Tablespoon Tarragon Vinegar (I made my own by steeping some fresh Tarragon Leaves in some Cider Vinegar)
15g Gelatine, made according to instructions on packet (not that they seem to mean anything)
Handful of mixed herbs: Parsley and Chives are best, 3 Chopped Spring Onions
Seasoning
METHOD
Cover the diced cucumber with a teaspoon of sea salt and the Tarragon Vinegar. Pour into a colander and leave to drain, covered, for an hour.
Drain the cucumber and ensure it is quite dry.
Prepare the gelatine as per the instructions. Leave to one side.
Whip the double cream until it is thick but not stiff. Mix in the gelatine.
Sieve the ricotta into the cream/gelatine, combining well.
Stir in the cucumber and herbs. Taste for seasoning.
Pour into a well oiled mould (a straight edged ring mould is ideal but anything without intricate curves and ridges).
Leave to cool overnight.
When set, turn out onto a plate.

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Feast or Famine

I can count on one hand the number of times Freya and I have been out to eat in the last year. That’s why it seems odd to be posting a second restaurant review this week. It’s true though, just two days after our trip to the Barn Brasserie we found ourselves at another restaurant.
It all started innocently enough. My mother-in-law took the week off and as we had booked Friday off as well, we had all decided to go out to a meal together. What Freya and her mom didn’t know was that I had also planned on taking Freya out for our anniversary on Wednesday.
I dislike writing restaurant reviews just as much as you dislike reading them, but it was either this or you get an article about my latest food obsession – smoothies! Fun and tasty, but hardly worth posting about. I will try to make this review seem fun and tasty as well.
Our collective love of Mexican food is no secret. ((We have alluded to it on several occasions and, of course, there’s the post I wrote some time back.) I have also been pestered by a great family friend and her jerk of a husband to write about the Mexican dinner party we threw for them two weeks back. I’ll get around to it!) So going to Chimichanga in Braintree seemed like the obvious choice. At least you would think so.
Chimichanga has been around for quite a while now. I don’t remember exactly when it opened, but it was at least two years ago. And yet this was our first visit. You see, I have been severely disappointed by any culinary experience in a British restaurant that’s prefaced with the word Mexican. I have maintained optimism time and time again only to be frustrated and angered after being served nachos and “Mexican Spring Rolls” with Thai sweet chilli dipping sauce on the side!? Maybe they think this is FUSION cooking, but the juxtaposition is as ridiculous as the teeth on a musk deer. So I’ve avoided Chimichanga like the plague since its’ opening. Today I’ve had to explain away two years of regret as my dining experience was very good, for the most part.
Upon entering the dining room, Freya, her mother, and I all remarked at how nice the atmosphere was. The décor trying to evoke the feelings of “just barely north of the border” cantina one might find in Arizona without going over the top. I was disappointed to see no cacti, but there were the typical depersonalised sculptures of nameless Aztec gods (I would have preferred Xochipilli-Machuilochiti, but what can you do). The music was equally soothing and bordering on the appropriate.
Browsing the menu, I found the usual suspects. The Mexican spring roll was there as were Chimi Chips (French Fries sprinkled with chilli powder), but what jumped out immediately was the inclusion of peripherals such as pico de gallo (this was excellent) and black beans. That was my first indication that I might be in for a surprise. Seeing things like Capsicum Rellenos and the eponymous Chimichanga was very refreshing.
As we were deciding on our orders, we saw a neighbouring table being served and this only encouraged my enthusiasm. The fajitas were sizzling and the burritos looked substantial.
I ordered the beef burrito, Freya had the vegetarian Chimichanga, and her mother, the quintessential creature of habit, had the steak. We insisted she would enjoy the fajitas, but she didn’t want to get her hands messy.
Our food arrived quickly, appeared fresh, and was well presented. My burrito was as big as Coneys upper leg, but not quite as meaty. It was made with Monterey Jack cheese though which is still fairly obscure in this country. I was surprised to find some very nice and simple black beans under the burrito surrounded by a bed of well-seasoned rice. Freyas Chimichanga was nice as well, although it was not fried as long as I would have had it. It was stuffed full of a medley of fresh vegetables lightly sautéed. I prefer a Chimichanga made from chicken and tomatillos. She enjoyed it, but has said that next time she’ll go for the bean burrito. Freyas mom enjoyed her steak, served on a wooden cutting board, but complained there wasn’t any salad as accompaniment. The meat was very well seasoned, presumably with a carne asada rub.
For dessert Freya and I split a caramel and roasted banana cheesecake as there was nothing traditional on the menu. It had a nice thick base and wasn’t overly sweet. Freya said this was the best cheesecake she has ever had outside of homemade.
The key to good Mexican food is proper use of seasoning and precise preparatory methodology. Unfortunately, most places in England get this completely wrong thinking that spicy and salty are the same thing. The presentation usually suffers as well with food being brought to the table burned, sloppy, or floating in sauce. Chimichanga suffered from neither of these afflictions. And while the food was certainly more Tex than Mex, it’s at least a good start in a huge culinary vacuum. Oh, and next time Freyas mom says she’ll get the Fajitas!

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Boston Baked Beans

picture courtesy of www.crabcoll.com

When I met Paul, way back in those halcyon days of 2000, I had no idea really about global heterogeneity. He lived in Florida which I thought was in California! I thought that Denver was in Texas. And I thought that there was only one Disney (apart from the one in Paris. That's Paris, France, not Paris, Texas). I used to think that there was no disparity between American and British cuisine. The only discrepency, I thought, lay in the different types of chocolate.
I used to have dreams about Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, having tasted them for one sweet, fleeting moment in 1985. My friends father worked on the nearby American airbase and he would bring them home all sorts of transatlantic treats. How I envied her, with her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Converse Sneakers and her 'sophisticated' fake American accent.
Of course, as the years passed and I became older and the Internet became de rigueur for shopping purposes, I bought myself a pair of Converse Sneakers. I could pass off a pretty mean Noo Yawk accent (it's better when drunk, trust me). I had a love of obscure American music like the Meat Puppets. I watched Jim Jarmusch movies. And I adored Edie and Andy. Still in my little bubble of naivety, I thought that they too lunched on fish and chips and roast dinners. I had no idea back then Americans didn't put butter on their sandwiches or that pudding meant a soft, custardy cream instead of a stodgy suet dessert, laced with dates, toffee, jam or all three. Paul quickly enlightened me to these differences. He had obviously paid far more attention to the Young Ones and Dr Who than I had to My Two Dads and Blossom.
One of the first foody requests I had of Paul was for him to send me some Twinkies. I believe I had first encountered them in a Judy Blume book, along with Oreos and Cheetoes. How I longed to taste that sweet, sweet taste of American food. When my Twinkies arrived in a large care package that cost Paul several hundreds of dollars to ship, they had grown a mysterious green fungus on one end and looked inedible. I tossed them in the bin.
On my first trip to the US, I quickly discovered that green fungus or not, Twinkies ARE inedible. I also discovered that Hersheys chocolate is not as good as I thought and that there is a BIG difference between candy and chocolate. This was to be a trip of many culinary epiphanies. I insisted on having breakfast, lunch and dinner at a different eatery for every meal. And this was on a 20 day holiday. I came back several pounds heavier and that was just my arteries.
Paul and I ate at virtually every famous, infamous and anonymous diner in the US, from Asheville to Orlando, with Lafayette, Chicago, and LaCrosse in between. We won stuffed toys at every claw machine we came across, Paul stuffing the slots full of quarters until he satiated his need for the claw. With our ever-increasing family of day-glo mice, lime green bears and purple dinosaurs, we visited Waffle House, Fuddruckers (and even now I can't type that without sniggering), Perkins, Applebys, Country Kitchen, Panerra Bread, Fayzees, Taco Bell, Rocky Rococos, TGI Fridays, Olive Garden, Moosehill Cantina, Big Al's Pizza, Cracker Barrel, Dennys, JJs and Arbys. We ate at many more eateries whose names I can't even remember now. This eating at a different stop for every meal was my MO during my first couple of trips but the novelty soon wore thin.
I started to cook for myself and so I became addicted, not to eateries, but to the supermarkets. Vast, imposing places that sell every ingredient I could ever dream of: frozen okra! Coconut Essence! Cinnamon Rolls! Bread and Butter Pickle Spices! Proper Mexican Chorizo! Even now I get chills just thinking about Woodmans, a farmers co-operative supermarket specialising in international ingredients close to Pauls parents house.
Despite all this cross-culturalisation, I still find the oddity in our tastes: Paul has mayonnaise and mustard on every sandwich, he has to have milk with peanut butter and pours maple syrup over French Toast (or as we Brits refer to it, Eggy Bread) instead of having ketchup with it. Paul still shakes his head with bemusement as I spoon baked beans on to my fried breakfast.He didn't shake his head, however, when I made Boston Baked Beans recently (nice segue, huh?). Although he made a comment that they weren't as thick as they were supposed to be. Other than that, they were relatively authentic.
I was so happily surprised at how the Molasses, Molasses Sugar, Onions and Pork Hock got down to business in the oven and produced such a wonderful aroma that if Yankee Candles ever made it into a scent, I'd buy their largest, most overpriced candle in a jar.
A note about the pork. I went all out this month. I have wanted to buy some true organic meat for some time because I don't entirely trust supermarket labelling (although I do trust my own palate). There is a company called The Well Hung Meat Company (stop sniggering at the back) who sell only the finest organic meat: lamb, mutton, beef, pork and chickens. The animals spend a happy life grazing outside on grass, as they should do. They are left to wander around in their herds or flocks and do what normal animals should. Most importantly, they are killed peacefully and humanely. This is important because an animal that dies peacefully leaves a legacy of gentle tasting meat. It sounds like hippy mumbo jumbo but I truly believe that we owe the meat we eat a certain dignity throughout its life and into death, so knowing where it comes from is of the utmost importance to me and grows increasingly more important to me everyday.
My purchase from WHM was two pigs trotters, a large Pork Loin, a Breast of Mutton, some beef bones for the hounds and a large Pork Hock, bought specifically for the purpose of this recipe.
It was well worth the extra money (and really, it wasn't that much extra, just £2.45 for a hock that served the two of us. Coney got to suck the marrow from the large bone that was left. Max wanted to play fetch with his), the flavour was truly porky, not insipid or bland, and it was tender from the four hours of slow cooking. No fuss cooking.
BOSTON BAKED BEANS serves 2. From Tamasins Kitchen Bible.
Ingredients:
1 Large Ham Hock
250g Cannelini Beans, dried and soaked for at least 12 hours
1/4 jar of Molasses (approximately a LARGE tablespoon)
150g Molasses Sugar
Chicken Stock to cover (about a litre)
2 Onions, peeled and studded with cloves
1 Star Anise
6 or so Black Peppercorns
2 Teaspoons Dried Mustard Powder
METHOD:
Preheat the oven to 140c.
Place the cannelini beans in a large ovenproof stockpot and cover with the chicken stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes.
Drain off some of the stock so that the beans are barely covered.
Mix together the mustard powder and both the Molasses and the Molasses Sugar with a spoonful or two of the stock, until dissolved. Add to the beans.
Throw in the studded onion, the star anise and the peppercorns. Tuck the hock in between the beans so it is partially submerged.
Cover tightly and cook in the oven for four hours.
After an hour or so the kitchen will be filled with a wonderful molasses aroma.
When ready, the beans will be soft and the meat will be falling off the bone. I seasoned mine with a little salt just to take the edge of the extreme sweetness but this is entirely optional.
Serve with mashed potatoes.
Enjoy!

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Our Anniversary Meal - An Indepth Review

You can all wipe the beads of worry from your foreheads: I have managed to borrow a cable for my laptop so I am back in business.
Here than is the next thrilling installment of what Paul and I had for our anniversary dinner. The Boston Baked Bean post is to follow.
As I’ve noted before, I am not one for restaurant reviews. After all, one mans caviar is anothers Big Mac. I am also not in the position for reviewing food because:
a) I am overly critical at the best of times and
b) I am a supertaster so even the slightest over-salting of a dish can ruin the whole thing for me.
However, because this is an anniversary meal, and because Paul and I enjoy dissecting our daily events in minutiae, I am reviewing our meal and the restaurant just for you.
The Barn Brasserie is a converted barn (the name sort of gives that away), set deep in the rural Essex countryside. As with all converted barns, it exudes an air of the old meets the new. There is an off-to-the-side restaurant called the Fish Colony which specialises in local oysters from Mersea Island (they were on Rick Steins Food Heroes!) and Caviar. It has very high, vaulted ceilings from which hang huge wrought iron lights that resemble medieval torches. Make no mistake, if my house had 50 foot high ceilings, I would have lights like this too.
The staff are friendly and efficient . We were ushered to our seats (unfortunately right behind the cashier(Pauls comment: If you're like us and always feeling a bit out of place in these venues the staff can sense it like a dog senses fear. If you want good treatment, place your platinum card on the table before the meal begins)) and after we had ordered our food, each course arrived promptly, within five minutes of each table service.
As you saw yesterday, I ordered the Smoked Cods Roe with Toast for my starter, Paul had (on my insistence that we each have something different), Ducks Liver Parfait with Aubergine Caviar. The only complaint I could find about the starter was that I had too much roe OR too little toast. Still, it is a rare thing to complain about having too much food and not enough in this kind of restaurant.
Paul noted that his Parfait lacked punch and was ‘flabby’. Shame, because Paul adores Pate and I thought this would be a smoother and lighter. Personally, I can’t stand pate. I think it tastes (and smells) like cat food.
No sooner had our starter plates been whisked away than our mains arrived: Oyster Mushroom and Spinach Risotto Cakes for me, Bangers and Mash for Paul. Really, I have no idea why Paul would spend £10.00 on Sausage and Mash (Pauls note: because they looked good when I saw someone eating them the last time I was there!) when we have a hopper full of spuds and a freezer full of bangers, but there you go. He said the sausages were excellent and obviously ‘artisan’ made (which was later verified by the waitress) but the onion reduction was too much. I smelt the reduction as our plates were brought to the table and I silently hoped to myself that it wasn’t my food that smelt like that. Overly reduced sauces take on an almost molasses crossed with burntness aroma that I find highly unpleasant.
I ordered the Risotto Cakes because I adore Risotto but I have never eaten Risotto that hasn’t been made by myself and I also fancied the homemade potato crisps that went with it. OK, so it was a little heavily seasoned and Paul said it tasted too garlicky for his liking but at least there was two of the cakes and that was ample (particularly as I ordered chips on the side as well, it’s always best to err on the side of caution) even for someone with my appetite.
Obviously we made room for dessert though. What is the point of going out to eat at a fancy restaurant if you don’t order dessert?
The Coconut Creme Brule was heavenly. It had little deep fried banana crisps with it, that looked like overcooked potato chips but were really moreish (I was only given four). Paul ordered the ice cream (as always) and I demanded that we be given a sample of the chilli and mango sorbet. The waitress said that it was normally only served with the chocolate torte but she’d see what she could do. And, to my great surprise, she brought out a brandy snap basket filled with Banana Sorbet, Fig Ice Cream and Mango and Chilli Ice Cream! The Fig Ice Cream was as delicious as you could imagine it to be – they make all their own ice cream on site as it should be! They also had a rather outlandish sounding Liquorice Ice Cream which Paul and I had an intense discussion about: would it be jet black or greyish colour? We never did find out but I declared that I shall make some Liquorice Ice Cream myself and dye it with black food colouring. Imagine! Black Ice Cream! Forget virginal white ice cream, we all know that it’s filled with cream and eggs! It should be black, black as night and twice as mysterious!

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