Cooking for the thesps

Had a long but fantastic week last week – playing Bob Cratchit in a very successful am dram production of Christmas Carol with St Paul’s Players in Bristol.  I also offered to do the food for the cast and crew for between the two Saturday shows and was blown away by the response –  homemade sausage rolls, pastillas, rabbit pie, veggie and meat tartlets and cheese and onion plats – and the lot was demolished in the space of half an hour, along with four quiches donated to the effort by another member!

One thing i was really chuffed with was the gluten-free shortcrust tartlets i made.  Gluten-free flour is, according to everyone i’ve spoken to, a major pain to work with – and for the first hour i concurred.  I used my standard recipe, adding just a touch of olive oil to mix, and chilled the pastry overnight.  Getting it out of the fridge the following day i started to work it normally, but it just crumbled… might be my fridge was too cold, but it was turning to chalk – much like the flour itself looked though to be honest!

Anyway, perseverance and working it in small chunks, and letting it up to room temperature really came together.  The recipes (requested by a member of the group) are…

Pastry (makes about 20 tartlets) – very slightly adapted from Richard Bertinet’s shortcrust recipe
250ml gluten-free flour
125ml butter
5g salt
35ml water
1 medium egg
5-10ml olive oil

Combine the dry ingredients and then rub in the butter.  Add the water, egg and olive oil and mix well, working it until combined, but not too much.  Once combined, chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

To roll, divide the dough into at least quarters, and leave out of the fridge until at room temperature.  Roll each section slowly and patiently, adding only enough flour to keep it from sticking – too much and your dough will be too heavy.  Roll it to about 4mm thick and use a 8cm pastry cutter to cut into circles.

Veggie filling
1 onion
20g butter
1 parsnip
1 carrot
30ml cider vinegar
water to cover
all spice
50g sugar
Fry the onion until translucent, then add the root veg until it gets a little colour.  Add the vinegar and all spice, then enough water to cover it and cook until the veg is tender, then uncover, add the sugar and reduce it until the water is absorbed or evaporated.

Meat filling
6 good quality gluten-free sausages, de-skinned
2-3 rashers of streaky bacon, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 onion, finely chopped
2 apples, finely chopped – golden delicious works well
splash of balsamic vinegar
splash of cider vinegar
teaspoon each of thyme and sage
seasoning to taste – and it will take a fair bit

Fry the onion and garlic until tender, then add the apples and cider vinegar – also a splash of water to stop it sticking.  Once the apples have soften, mash slightly and leave to cool.

Combine the other ingredients well and add the apples when cool.  Get your hands in the mixing bowl and squidge together thoroughly, making sure the sausages are completely broken down.

Each pastry circle should take about a tablespoon of either filling. There’s no need to bake the cases blind first, as they’re small enough to cook quickly anyway.  Bake for twenty minutes, then brush the top with whisked egg, and bake for another 10 or until golden.

Ah… breakfast…

Sadly didn’t think about taking a photo of this before I ate it, but will share the recipe anyway and stick a photo up next time i do it! So for now, here’s some nice mushrooms which are a key flavour in this dish…

Did this kind of by accident, but it’s a great breakfast recipe – bacon, mushrooms, hint of garlic and pancakes!

Recipe (makes two pancakes – depends how greedy you are how many that serves…)

100g plain white flour

1 medium egg

about 150ml milk (i tend to add it by eye to get the batter consistency right…)

pinch of salt, pepper and optional all spice

 

3-4 rashers of decent streaky bacon (you want plenty of flavour, none of your watery stuff…), chopped into lardons

40g butter

5-6 chestnut mushrooms chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

Pinch of parsley

Good sprinkling of black pepper

splash of white wine

dusting of plain flour

splash of milk

 

Method

Dead easy.  Combine the batter ingredients and whisk until smooth.  Leave to one side for a couple of mins while you prep the filling.

Fry the bacon for a couple of minutes until starting to crisp, then add the butter, mushrooms and garlic, and fry until the mushrooms brown. Add the wine and cook off, then add the black pepper, parsley, then little bit of of flour, cooking it into the pan – you want it to combine with the fat, as if making a béchamel, so keep it moving, then add the milk, combine and then turn off the heat – you want some sauce, no lumps and no burnt bits.

In the midst of the above, i’d have a pre-heated frying pan, or tava (the indian flat pan, ideal for pancakes, used for dosas and chapattis), and start doing the pancakes – just a dash of oil, then enough of the pancakes mix to cover the whole surface of the pan.  Cook on one-side until the visible surface is set, then flip it over and cook for another couple of mins – check it’s done by flipping it again.

Serve each one with some of the filling, then rolled. Great start to a Saturday, all in about 15 minutes!

One to avoid…

For the first time i find myself writing a mainly negative review… having for the time ever asking to speak to a restaurant manager… the villain of the piece?  Well, we thought we’d try Obento – touting itself as “Bristol’s finest Japanese Restaurant” - on Baldwin street in Bristol.  A mistake we will not be repeating… i’m not even gonna do what i normally do and post a map, cos i don’t want to inflict it on anyone! Go to Wagamama’s instead or stay home and order from Easton Express…

Initial impression was very good – seated immediately, and our drinks order was taken with 2 mins, and appeared quickly.  Then came the waiting… Our food order wasn’t taken for half an hour, despite waving and indicating that we were ready to order (no i didn’t wave or click my fingers, but everything but!).

The couple who’d arrived 20 mins after us ordered at the same time, and their food arrived first – leaving us waiting expectantly, but increasingly grumpily as takeaway orders and other food flew out of the kitchen.  20 mins later, still no food, so I asked one of the waitresses, and she replied two minutes.  10 later, still nothing, so i pressed again, and suggested that we’d be walking if nothing came out soon, to which an excuse was made that there’d been a problem in the kitchen – fine, but why not tell us and at least bring us something to keep us going…?

However, food duly arrived about 5 minutes after that complaint.  The food itself was passable – but by no means great, either on the Bento box front, or the sushi.  Didn’t compare to the fabulous Easton Express takeaway, and the sushi was akin to what Tesco serves up in little plastic trays… but at least it was food, and we were rather hungry by this time.

So we ate, with little explanation of what stuff was when it arrived (again at irregular intervals…) and i popped to the gents after – to be greeted with a pile of sick in the corner of one cubicle (from the previous day… i won’t go into detail, but it was obvious…), and the other in a less than pleasant state too.

So… for the first time in my life I asked to speak to the manager, who turned up about 5 minutes later.  Explaining our various issues, he really didn’t look bothered – and added that we hadn’t even been asked for another drinks order… the excuses were unforgiveable in a restaurant. “We’re busy”, with a chorus of “everyone ordered lots of sushi” – well duh! it’s a bloody Japanese restaurant and you have a 50% off offer on sushi! Not exactly a surprise, surely??

Suffice to say, after threatening to walk, then offering to pay only half, I finally agreed to a 20% discount on top of comp drinks – so yes it only cost us £24 for a meal for two.  But in comparison to some of the great food available for a comparable price elsewhere in Bristol, and given the service, cleanliness and lack of care, I think I’d have to be offered money as well as a free food to step back inside Obento.  Shocking.

From our American cousins - Pulled Pork

It’s been a while! just realised it’s two months since I last posted anything! Been a few changes at Chez Newton, and been very busy with my other pre-occupation, preparing with my Am Dram group for our production of Christmas Carol later this month.

Monday was another example of what happens when you let Fox run amok and brainwash millions of people… however… I have some great friends in DC and in deference to them and as a show of support (!), this is a fantastic recipe which I've adapted from one my friends, Chris and Eeva Moore, fed me last year during my escape to DC for a week.  This should definitively not be served at a tea party…

Pulled pork is a dish from the Southern States – Jamie Oliver did a version of it on his US tour a couple of years ago, over a barbecue over about 18 hours… very slow cooked.  This one is a much quicker recipe – the meat is gently poached over about 6 hrs instead.

It’s very simple to do, with a few US-style sides.

Recipe

One good sized shoulder or leg of pork

One large onion

150 ml white wine or cider vinegar

enough water to cover the joint.

Sauce

70ml Soy Sauce

Good pinch of five spice

75g brown sugar

1 can of tomatoes (chopped)

2 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp chilli powder

2 cloves of garlic (crushed)

Method

Dead easy – take of any skin off the joint and reserve – you will use this for crackling at the end.  Don’t do anything else to the joint at this stage (i.e. tie it, season it, butterfly it or anything).

Place the joint in a pan which is big enough to take it and the liquid – and so it doesn’t touch the sides – add the onion, water and vinegar, then put on a low simmer, covered, for about 6 hrs, until very tender – in fact pretty much falling apart – you shouldn’t need to cut it at all once it’s done..

Combine all the ingredients for the sauce and stir until smooth – you can also throw in a little thyme if you’d like.  It should be sweet and hot – a barbecue sauce, basically.

Splash a little white wine vinegar on the skin you removed earlier, then slice and season with salt – roast it for half an hour until crackling.

Serve in a roll with coleslaw and the crackling on top (my friend Chris made a fantastic red cabbage version – very simple, half a red cabbage, mayo and white wine vinegar – worth the effort, believe me!), with fries on the side.