Se faire plaisir

On this day in the past I've followed Fergus Henderson's suggestion and had devilled kidneys for breakfast - a spectacular treat for me, especially here in France, where lamb's kidneys are not cheap. Dredged in flour, flash fried, supercharged with mustard, cayenne and Lee & Perrin's, a splash of chicken stock to give a little sauce. Blob of butter and a bit of a bubble, and onto hot toast! Yum diddley-yum yum! It's actually a fantastic way to discover the not-straightforward joys of kidneys - I didn't like them either...

This year I'll be breakfasting alone, so I've decided to push the boat out: in my shopping bag I have two whole pig's brains. You can actually buy this stuff in France. It'd be rude not to.

I've only cooked brains two or three times before, and eaten them maybe twice more. They're a bit strange. The first time I encountered them I was defeated. On a youthful holiday in Brittany I ordered the lamb – “No, it’s ‘ead” said the man, aware that I’d not understood cervelle d’agneau. Gulp. “No, no. It’s quite alright. I’ll give it a go...” The sauce was delicious. The brain was, well, a bit strange. And it looked a lot like a brain. I managed half of it.

I’ve grown up a bit since then – not in the sense where I’d no longer eat something potentially unpleasant out of sheer embarrassment. I’m stuck with that. But fewer things are potentially unpleasant. Well, fewer nice things...

I’ve painstakingly split rabbit heads in order to try the stuff back home. You don’t get much*, but it’s pretty good. I’ve merrily cracked open a guinea fowl’s skull at the end of a Christmas feast, and scooped out the surprisingly copious and tasty contents. This is a particularly fond memory. If you have the choice, leave the head on and roast strapped under the wing – it’s worth it!

Today I have some good bread, some bitter winter leaves, lardons and an apple. The brain needs gently rinsing under a trickling cold tap to remove the membrane and any blood clots, then poaching in a vinegary court bouillon for five or six minutes.  It’s removed, left to cool, then coated lightly in seasoned flour before being sizzled in butter until golden and slightly crunchy on the outside. I’ll have a glass or two of something delightful**, as recommended by the nice caviste man, and happy birthday me!

*Rabbits not being the thinkers sheep are.

** Touraine 2009 Le Rocher Des Violets Cabernet Franc.

Namaste नमस्ते

This week I have mainly been watching Manjula’s Kitchen. I have become a sad fan... I love her!

Manjula is a North Indian vegetarian living in America who welcomes you into her kitchen on one of the more interesting corners of the internet. I was looking for a recipe for the brilliant pea-and-potato samosas that I used to scoff in Leeds on my way to university. They were sold (I’m sure they still are) in every second newsagent’s and the dusty, spicy grocer’s shops in Hyde Park, the shopkeeper’s wife or mum having knocked up a dozen that morning. There is a much less significant Pakistani community in Liverpool and I never found anything to compete when I came home – less still in the south of France... I have had regular pangs ever since, but I am easily distracted, and it took cooking for a big bunch of Frenchies to prang me from my indolence.

I needed a cheap starter to counteract a slightly overgenerous main course for November’s  food and wine tasting soirée in our local cave. I cook what I fancy and Thomas Le Caviste uses his astonishing, and frankly intimidating, knowledge to select some interesting and complementary pinard. I cook, he pours, and we sit with our lucky guests around a big table and sup and chew and chat la merde. Vive La France! What I want generally entails good old-fashioned British Fayre, which seems to be an interesting change for the French, so samosas fit the bill nicely! The spotted/potted wonders that are Google and Youtube came up trumps and now Manjula is in my life!!

Manjula single-handedly provided me with one starter: Samosas with Tamarind* and Coriander Chutneys; good old Fergus Henderson with another: Red Winter Salad with crèmefraiche**, chervil and a caper or three; and Malika, a girl I worked with, with the third: Harira Soup.

The samosas are a bit fiddly, but fun to make. Chop up a boiled spud and fry it with some cumin and coriander-scented onions, a few frozen peas and a tickle of fresh ginger and green chilli. Bung in a handful of coriander leaves, season with salt, garam masala and lemon juice and the filling is done. The pastry is a very simple one of flour, salt, oil and water (plus an optional spoonful of semolina for improved texture), rolled into saucer-sized circles which will each make 2 little ice cream cones to be stuffed with spicy spud. Crimp the edges with a fork, apparently a more Pakistani touch, and they get deep fried quite slowly till golden and crispy and scented and nice! Try not to eat them when still mouth-searingly hot, as the flavour is much enhanced when they are just warm. A dunk of the sweet, citrusy tamarind, and a dribble of coriander chutney and your tootle is tinkled! You could be late for an 18^th Century French Literature seminar***...

I’m afraid that after the samosas, I realised that I had to get my finger out if the guests were to be fed, and so photography had to be abandoned. The red salad is rather a delicious one made with raw shredded beetroot and red cabbage mixed with thinly sliced red onion and dressed with some nice olive oil and a splash of my rather posh vinegar (yum!). A gesture of capers and chervil, with a splodge of crème fraiche, and a very pretty salad is ready to be messed up.

My Moroccan soup, harira, was based on some unwanted lamb stock from work that I bolstered with a beef rib and some lentils and chick peas. It had a spot of chilli, cumin seeds and fresh herbs and some lovely yellow turnips added at the end so that they retained a bit of bite. The beef rib (not the kind you find on a generous foodie-type’s Sunday table, but the cheapest beef cut, like a pork rib – only off a cow) somehow makes the whole thing splendidly sweet, which combined well with the earthy pulses and spices and the freshness from the herbs and the stingiest squeeze of a lemon.

For mains we had a thick slice of veal shin braised in bière blonde with a very lot of very caramelised onions and fat pieces of fatty bacon. Served with rather a baddass mashed potato and buttery spinach. It’s all about the marrow in the middle. And the melting, gelatinous meat, of course. And the rich, sweet gravy. And the very bad-for-you mash! Mmmmm, it was good... I do like this kind of winter food – very satisfying, and copious to the point of fuddlement. The guy next to me had a second helping of mash – I was very impressed: that boy was a joy to feed!

*Tamarind is another amazing recent discovery for me. I’m sure I’ll get round to raving about it here at some point. In the meantime, check out the link for this lovely, simple recipe – a top alternative to Mango Chutney. Manjula likes it with chips!

**PLEASE click this link for the whole thing! It is good.

*** For which you haven’t read the book.

a bum

There is the odd perk to my job. This does not include having hands that do dishes feel as soft as my face (with 24hrs of stubble). No, I get to eat what the boss throws away!

Honestly, this is a good thing...

Mind you, my boss doesn't throw much away. There seems to be a stinginess that, for the most part, I admire amongst the small family-run businesses that I have come across here. This is how money is made, I guess. The same determinned (or mean?) streak that has made France so famous for its tradition of wonderful paupers' cooking makes sure that nothing is wasted. Nothing that is worth selling at least. Needless to say, with these kinds of kitchen scraps, I often have my work cut out.

Now and again it's straightforward: Five chickens deboned equals ten chicken wings for my barbecue (too fiddley to be worth deboning, not enough of them to sell) plus some tasty stock for a risotto or soup the next day.

Often I have to be in the mood for a project:  Twenty chickens, chopped in half and prepared for grilling, equals, well, lots of bones and forty feet! (There might be lots of them, but they are chicken feet!) I've already made enough stock - Patte à poule façon chinoise anyone? I've got enough for a party...

patte a poule with shiitaki - not bad, but dim sum style is better!

In fact chicken's feet are delicious, if a little demanding*. We used to eat them in a great dim sum place in Liverpool. I love them. They're really chickeny. Clearly, there's not a lot of bulk to them, but they are rich and gelatinous and a sticky-lipped treat!

A pair of stuffed and rolled suckling pigs leaves a fairly considerable challenge: Bath Chaps! This is a pretty gruesome task, but I must admit I rather like that sort of thing. Sort of...

The idea is to remove the skin and flesh from the head, including the prize-asset cheeks, and roll it up around the tongue. Fergus says a spirited butcher will do this for you, but I have spirit too so the game's on...

I was quite pleased with myself! Having never seen a bath chap before in the flesh, I don't really know how accurate my efforts were but, as you can see, the process was pleasingly revolting and the uncooked product acceptably neat. After being pot roasted with some aromatics and a bit of water, much as I might a shoulder of pork, it tasted pleasingly unrevolting, and my brave dinner guests didn't feel quite so brave after all! It actually turned out to provide rather tidy, and surprisingly lean, delicate mosaic scallops of tender baby pig face. Yum!

Waste not want not. Merci Patron.

* They need to have their scaley outside skin singed off, then fried, then marinated, then braised (and then steamed, for dim sum). Then you need to get your head round the idea of sucking the skin off a still-patently claw-like claw!

Bits

Dot is starting to grow tired of me coming home with bibbly-bobbly bits. Often hairy and almost inevitably a little whiffy, she points out it's the last thing she wants to put in her mouth when feeling a little liverish*. Of course I couldn't disagree more, so now and again she has to put up with it, and grudgingly admit that it's really pretty nice...

There is a specialist abats counter in our local market where bits abound: I can treat myself with calves' feet, sweetbreads, liver, or go nuts with a full, floppy boned-out head; cows' cheeks, tail or tripe; pigs', well, everything! Good eh? Nose-to-tail stuff I used to only dream about. Some of it is a bit of a challenge, I'll admit, though some is pure luxury, such as onglet, the ribbony, king of steaks with a deep flavour that is a touch liverish** due to its position next to the liver. Why it should be sold as offal at all is a mystery to me. Other equally inoffensive-tasting morsels such as cheek or tail at least sound like they could be unpleasant; onglet is just a nice piece of steak sullied by its surroundings. Historical proximity, it seems, is enough to banish it to the ghetto with it's noisy neighbours. Not that I'm bothered, though I suspect you already know that...

I've been buying sweetbreads recently, and I'll admit I haven't quite got to grips with them yet. Braising them is easy - we do that at work with madeira and mushrooms. Roasting them is a bugger. It's difficult to tell when they're done, and they are so incredibly expensive that I struggle to justify my unsatisfactory tinkering. I know they can be excellent (all caramelised, sweet and interesting), but I think I really need someone to show me how.

Steak and kidney pudding is the plan to sneak in the bobbly bits by the back door(4/6 alliteration word-count ratio!! Yessss!***). Dot might well snipe that my simmering stew stinks of piss(4/8 - cdb). A soupcon - But... But the kidney is veal, a first for me, and it's so good that most of it ends up devilled on toast for a snazzy light dinner, Dot pulls a face but ends up saying 'Yum!' and mopping her plate. Yessss! Back in the game! The next time we have sweetbreads they're going to rock yer socks off!

* TM Fergus Henderson
** Not in the FH sense. It just tastes a bit like liver.
*** Or maybe just a sad, head-shaking 'No'.