Kombucha Egg

This morning two long running experiments came together fortuitiously. First there is komucha. I have tasted many that were positively vile with seaweed and other garbage. Then others that just tasted like fruity vinegar. But I imagined just a sweet tea kind of komucha would be lovely. So I just made some black tea with sugar and threw in a disk of vinegar mother to see what might happen. Three weeks later it is perfectly delightful. Tart tea vinegar. Not effervescent, maybe because I left the lid off? But then it occured to me, if this is really just vinegar why not throw in some hardboiled eggs and see what happens? I didn't salt it, but maybe should have. We shall see. If it works, maybe vegetables would pickle nicely in it too. Does anyone have experience with this?

Transcendental Chablis

Pairing wine with food isn't easy. There you go, I've said it.

Alright, it might be easy if you know a little bit about the stuff. About wine that is. To truly appreciate the grape, it's inherent qualities and characteristics and then to match it with food, well there are many, many processes to master. Or so it would seem. You see it's all about vinification, classification, appellation, degustation, from all across the nations and even then, the learned expert (who has to undergo a rigorous bout of sommelification) doesn't always get it right. Many's the time in a restaurant, have I asked a wine steward for their recommendation to accompany my meal and ended up spitting the wine out in disgust. This usually happens upon finding out the price of the wine from the list, rather than have anything to do with the quality. But in all honesty, I have on occasion sat through a tasting menu, spooned a mouthful from the plate and slurped straight from the glass and thought, "Erm, I don't get it. Where are the fireworks?"

So where do we go from here?

Well it's an interesting question and it's one that I have been asking myself a lot recently because I put my hand up to take part in a competition run by The Bureau Interprofessionnel des Vins de Bourgogne (think Men In Black but with corkscrews). The remit was to simply come up with a food pairing to go with Chablis, one of the more sophisticated, swankier incarnations of Chardonnay that exists out there in the big, bad world of wine. And for while I was stumped. Even after sampling the best part of a bottle that was sent, a Les Domaines Brocard Chablis, 2007, no less, I was still stumped. Luckily they also sent me a Chablis Premier Cru, Les Vaillons 2007, Billaud-Simon and after tasting that, the magical genie deep within my cerebral cortex began to muse, design and reminisce from the past.

You see there is a lot to be said about personal experience when it comes to thinking about pairing food and wine. And as I let the flavours of the Les Vaillons wash over me, something strange started to happen. I don't know if it was the nose, clean with an element of soft creaminess. Or the dry, crisp, mineral notes on the palate. Or the combination of apples and citrus with just a slight hint of herbaceousness but it was as though the Chablis was furrowing through history, ploughing the terroir of my mind.

Snapshots of a holiday in the south of France before the arrival of children, in the undulating peaks of Le Fenouillèdes, began to focus in and out. A tiny gite in a tiny, tiny village, set in a cauldron-like valley where swallows would race round and round as though on a cycle track before soaring majestically into the sky. Silent mornings, spent with doors open in the listless heat, lying on our bed, peering through the cracks of our toes. Bikes and baguettes, riding through cobbled streets. Trips in the car to the sea, listening to foreign radio against crashing waves. A birthday, a celebration, a visit to the supermarche and then to a poissonnerie with pointing fingers and brief, muted embarrassment and then back home. Mussels and clams steamed in wine, squid and prawns quickly fried, linguine boiled and tossed into a shabby old colander. Oil, garlic, some chicken stock and tomatoes in a pan over heat and then stir through the shellfish. The pasta gets curled into the middle of the bowl, an island for the seafood ragout before herbs, finely chopped are sprinkled around. Good old Mr Stein, he never lets you down. And then the wine is brought out, a similar crisp, acidic Chablis, very gently chilled. A kiss, then a sip and as we eat, the sun slowly sinks out of sight, leaving us quite alone, in our quiet field and everything is just perfect.

So my ideal match for Les Vaillons Chablis would be a Seafood Ragout with Fine Herbs and Linguine.

To be enjoyed alfresco, during the last remaining rays of the day.

Except this isn't the field I remember.

This isn't the field at all.....

How did I get here?

You know, I suspect I've been thinking about this wine pairing just a little bit too much.

Circus Peanut Soup

This is a West African Recipe of such elegance and beauty that the only way to properly defile it is to use the most heinous of all mass produced junk foods: bright orange vaguely marshmallow-like, artificially banana flavored, tough chewy bright orange circus peanuts. They are the very antithesis of food. I love them. You'll need a whole 3.5 ounce bag, preferably stale. I bought mine at Walgreens. This is a serving for two as a starter; add more ingredients to make a big pot. In a small saucepan, brown 3 chicken thighs with skin and bones in a tablespoon of olive oil. Remove them, add one chopped onion, and a half cup each chopped red and green bell pepper. Add a tablespoon of minced ginger, and crushed red pepper to taste, plus some toasted and ground coriander. Then grate in two roma tomatoes, without the peel. Have fun here, you can add whatever you like. Brown the vegetables and add the chicken back in. Cover with water and simmer for about 45 mintues. Remove the chicken and discard the skin and bones. Shred the chicken and return to the pot. Taste and make it hotter if you like. Throw in the whole bag of circus peanuts and let them melt. There will be a jolt of sweetness, so adjust with a touch of acid or mor heat if you like. Garnish with a sliced circus peanut. As you will see the gelatinous goo thickens the soup well. Not perhaps as nice as peanut butter, so if you use a touch of the latter I wont tell. But here's the most perverse part. IT ACTUALLY TASTES GOOD! *I bet you could make this with PEEPS too. Next will be cooking with Necco Wafers.

Conejos en Escabeche

Juan Valles Regalo de la Vida Humana

Assen muy bien los conejos y después córtenlos en pedaços y echenlos en una olla nueva or otra semejante vasija de tierra vedriada poniendo entre los pedaços del conejo hojas de laurel y una poca de salvia piccada, y después hagan el escabeche y échenselo por encima de manera que los pedacos estén bien cubiertos del escabeche, y el escabeche se haze desta manera: Tomen dos partes de buen bino blanco y una de vinagre fuerte, pero en esto se has de tener consideraçión a si el vinagre es fuerte o flaco, porque si fuere flaco será menester echar más, y si hoviere limones córtenlos y échenlos tanbién, y muelan clavos y pimienta y gengibre y un poco de nuez noscada y désele un hervor y su sabor de sal y échese sobre los conejos, pero téngase aviso que los conejos has de estar fríos quando se les echare este escabeche. Algunos echan un poco de azeite en este escabeche y para conejos súffrese, pero no para perdizes no otras aves.

Roast the rabbits very well and then cut them in pieces and place in a new pot or in a similar glazed earthenware vase, placing between the pieces of rabbit laurel leaves and a bit of chopped sage, and then make the escabeche and put it on each in a way so the pieces are well covered witht he escabeche, and make the escabeche in this way: Take two parts of good white wine and one of strong vinegar, but in this you must take consideration if the vinegar is strong or weak, because if it is weak it will be necessary to add more, and add enough lemons cut, and grind cloves, pepper and ginger and a little nutmeg and let it boil, salt to taste and put over the rabbits, but be advised that the rabbits must be cold when you add the escabeche. Some add a little oil in this escabeche and for rabbits it works but not for partridges or other birds.

This is a recipe I prepared and spoke about in NY a couple of weeks ago, but I couldn't say much gastronomically because I wanted to leave it on the shelf for a few weeks to thoroughly pickle. I was a little apprehensive. Stop and think about it, rabbit sitting at room temperature for a few weeks? I guess if you've got to go, might as well be worth it. In the end, the flavor was quite intriguing, sour but with serious bitter and aromatic notes from the lemon peel and bay. Definitely worth a try. And incidentally, this manuscript was just published in facsimile from a unique copy in Vienna. I venture to guess this may well be the first translation of this ever made into English. And as for tasting it, I might be the first person in 450 years. Or maybe all the others were poisoned.

That Egg

The eggs that willed itself into being. They are first pickled with beets to make them pink. The tops removed judiciously, the yolks excavated and devilled with a touch of mayo, green chili pepper and oregano. Then put together again. Then encased in freshly chopped pork shoulder, seasoned into sausage meat. Then, in lieu of proper caul fat, some bacon is carefully slashed intermittently and stretched into a netting that is wrapped around each. Then they are set to cook in the barbecoa, napped with a tart tomato and lime based sauce. And voila.

Sliced open, and amazingly everything stays intact. I think if I ever try this again, it should go on a stick. Definitely Fair Food. The other perversity was a small pickled quail egg wrapped in meat to cure into salami. I'm hoping the egg stays good in the month or so the little salami olives take to cure. We shall see!

He Died With A Falafel In His Hand

I am standing in a snaking queue around the back of a market stall on Whitecross Street and the wait is agonising.

Truly, truly agonising.

I turn a corner. It's another ten minutes of shuffle, shuffle, stop, shuffle, shuffle, stop.

Shuffle, shuffle...............stop.

The aroma drives me insane, my saliva glands go into overdrive and my stomach emits a low growl.

I turn another corner and I am almost there, the end is nearly in sight.

Subconsciously, I nudge up to the person in front of me, eager to to get a glimpse of the delights in store. This gets mistaken as a pass. Or worse, a case of frottaging, judging by the frown on the besuited gent.

Stepping back, ashamed and abashed, I keep my head head down and focus on my feet.

But the smell keeps dragging me on. Shuffle, shuffle. Shuffle, shuffle.

Finally, after an age, I hear the question:

"Regular or large?"

"Large," I answer.

"With everything on it?"

"Everything"

"Aubergine?"

By then it's too much and I spit back with a manic glare. "I don't care for the bloody aubergine, just give me the damn falafel, now!"

Eye's widen, glances are exchanged.

And then suddenly, everything springs into life. Tongs move back and forth, dipping in and out of trays, working swiftly, smashing crisp brown patties down, piling the other ingredients up. With a wrap and a twist and a tap tap, the package is handed over.

I snatch at it, hand some money over and scuttle off like a wizened goblin, giggling gleefully, spitefully.

Fortune Street Park. That's as far as I get and into a bush I run.

The paper gets ripped open, greedily I take bite after bite, without pausing for breath. Incisors tear into the chickpea and cumin. Molars grind the pickles. Tahini and chilli sauce dribbles down my chin.

It's gone in seconds, so I clean up with paper towel and slowly emerge out of the topiary, into the light of day and saunter back to the office. Sated but feeling oh so slightly disgusted with myself.

I love you Hoxton Beach Falafel.

But sometimes the wait is too long. Too, too long.

Baklava

Chanelling my ancestors today. If you have some leftover fresh pasta dough, as I did, made of high protein bread flour, just roll it into thin rounds. Then stretch as far as it will go. Brush with butter, sprinkle with sugar, a layer of walnuts and cinnamon. Then roll up and curl into a coil. More butter and bake. When it comes out barely moisten with rosewater and honey. I think this is far more intriguing than the syrupy gloop cut into diamonds. Still has crunch, is drier and less sweet. The pastry is balanced with the filling. Now go make some. There is probably no dessert easier or cheaper to make when you have a few spare minutes.