Dusty in here

It's cold and dusty in here. I haven't looked in all summer, and now autumn is almost half over already. I've been busy, its true. But then I'm always busy. Writing, travelling, shopping, cooking, cleaning, drinking, sleeping; all the ings. Just not blogging.

I like to think I can blog for fun as a prelude to writing for money, just like Richard Herring does with Warming Up but it just doesn't work that way for me. I've only got so many words in me in any given day it seems.

But for the moment at least, I'm back. I do an awful lot of stuff that I never blog about, mainly because I've got other plans for it, or I hope to use the experiences for other outlets and I don't want to piss it away. So it's finding stuff that's appropriate for Kitchen Person that's the problem.

Earlier this year I blogged quite regularly about my training schedule for the Galvin Tower Race that took place in Hyde Park back in June. In the end, I didn't participate. I was nowhere near fit enough and a minor health scare the week before was enough to deter me. Since then I've let my training slip completely and I'm nearly, although not quite, back to square one. I don't know what I'm going to do about that at the moment, but I'll have to do something I suppose.

Going forward (I'd never write something as redundant as "going forward" if I was being paid, but as this is my blog I'm going to be lazy and start a sentance with the phrase. "Thinking outside box" coming to this blog soon) I've got a handful of new recipes to post (which I record mainly for my own use; this blog has become a very useful way of capturing dishes that I create on the hoof and would otherwise probably never cook again), and I'm back on the road next week after two weeks of jury service which has kept me in Brighton. So maybe I'll post something or other about London, Ludlow and Abergavenny in autumn. The world holds its breath I'm sure.

Recipe: Return of the mash

In the 90's flavoured mash was all the rage. From Simon Hopkinson's “saff mash” flavoured with saffron to the ubiquitous olive oil mash, you couldn't get away from the stuff. These days, its not quite so common, probably because most chefs would rather spend their time figuring out how to palm off their kitchen scraps as a £100 “degustation menu” than make a decent plate of food. Or if they're not above serving good grub, then the St John school of new puritanism demands that mash tastes of potato and nothing else.

So lets turn back the clock and remember a time when making a pot of mash meant open season on every herb, spice and condiment under the sun. This is a fairly restrained version, but utterly delicious none the less. An optional addition of a handful of finely chopped chives would add a little colour and subtle onion flavour that will work well with the dish.

The ratio of water and salt to potato was given to me by Tim Payne, ex-Marco Pierre White head chef and it works a treat. By measuring out the water and salt instead of simply guessing, you can ensure the potatoes don't take too long to come to the boil and therefore won't overcook, and that they'll be perfectly seasoned too.

Parmesan and mustard mash

1kg floury potatoes, peeled and diced
1 litre cold water
10g salt
50g grated Parmesan
150ml double cream
1 dessert spoon Dijon mustard

Bring the potatoes to the boil in the water and salt and simmer until cooked through. Drain and return to the heat for a few minutes to dry out the potatoes. Pass through a potato ricer or mash until smooth. Combine the cheese, cream and mustard and heat gently until the cheese has completely melted then stir into the mashed potato. Serve with sausages, grilled meat of fish.

Recipe: Gratin of spring greens, mushrooms and squash

Bechamel isn't exactly a cutting edge sauce. You're unlikely to find it on the menu at el Bulli, but it should be an invaluable part of every home cook's repertoire. Your lasagne would look pretty sick without for a start. Here, it unifies three dispirate vegetables into a coherent dish that you can use to accompany any roast or grilled meat, or even fish. Serve it with homemade bread for a delicious vegetarean lunch.

The best way to get maximum flavour into your bechamel is to infuse the warmed milk with parsley, thyme, bay and peppercorns for an hour or so, then strain before stirring into a roux base. In the recipe, I've used a short cut by simply adding the herbs and peppercorns to the sauce while it simmers as the flour cooks out. Not quite as good, but it works fine if you're in a bit of a hurry. The teaspoon of mustard powder gives the sauce just that extra little kick of flavour.

Use all the spring greens, including the outer leaves. Just wash them very well and cut out the tough central stalks. The fleshy leaves add body and texture to the gratin.

Gratin of spring greens, mushrooms and squash

serves four as a side dish, two as a main course

ingredients

350g spring greens, washed, central stalks removed and sliced into 1 inch strips
1 small butternut squash, peeled and diced
1 tablespoon butter
2 dessertspoons olive oil
3 sprigs of thyme
300g button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
salt and pepper
150g Parmesan cheese

for the sauce

55g butter
40g plain flour
1 teapsoon English mustard powder
568ml full cream milk
150ml double cream
5 parsley stalks
2 springs of thyme
5 black peppercorns

Blanch the spring greens in plenty of boiling salted water until just wilted (about one minute) then drain, refresh under cold water and set aside. Saute the squash one tablespoon of butter and a dessert spoon of oil until lightly coloured then add the thyme sprigs and transfer to a hot oven until cooked through which should take about 15 minutes. in the meantime, saute the mushrooms in the remaining butter and oil until they give off all their liquid and take on some colour.

For the sauce, melt the butter in a pan then stir in the flout until it forms a smooth roux mixture. Add the cold milk a little at a time, stirring to avoid any lumps. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a low simmer and add the cream, herbs and peppercorns. Cook gently for 20 minutes to cook out the flour. Add more milk if the sauce is too thick.

In a greased baking dish, combine the all the vegetables and season well with the salt and pepper. Strain over the sauce and mix through well. Grate over the Parmesam cheese and bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until brown and bubbling.

Recipe: Mushroom and butternut squash risotto

This is yet another recipe created with "found food" (i.e. stuff leftover from other dishes)from the fridge. To my surprise, the kids loved it so its become a regular standby for the weekly menu planning session, especially if I'm runing out of inspiration.

You've no doubt read a million and one risotto recipes (my personal fav is risotto of radicchio, Taleggio and red wine from Anthony Demetre's wonderful book Today's Special) so I won't bore you by going on about technique, except to say that a chef once told me to cook the rice grains in the butter until the take on a tiny bit of colour and very lightly toast. It not only improves the flavour of the finished dish, but gets the cooking process off to a flying start so the grains will absorb the cooking liquid more quickly and easily. It's a nice little tip that I don't recall seeing written down before so I'm passing it on here now.

Mushroon and butternut squash risotto

serves 4

ingredients

2 tablespoons of butter
2 dessert spoon of olive oil
1 small butternut squash, peeled and chopped into small cubes
3 sprigs of thyme
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
300g of mixed mushrooms such as ceps, girolle and chestnut
500g arborio rice
150ml white wine
2.5 litres of simmering vegetable stock
125g grated parmesan cheese plus 50g to grate over the finished dish
handful of chives, very finely sliced
salt and pepper

Cook the butternut squash in a tablespoon of butter and dessertspoon of the oil in an oven proof saute pan until covered. Acatter over the thyme sprigs and transfer to a hot oven (180 degrees C) until tender, about 15 minutes.

Sweat the onion in a tablespoon of the butter and a dessertspoon of the oil until soft and translucent. Add the mushrooms and cook for a minute or two then add the garlic. Cook until the mushrooms have given up all of their liquid then add the rice. Cook until lightly toasted then pour in the wine and cook until completely absorbed/evaporated. Add the simmering stock a ladle at a time, stiring the risotto all the time. When the rice is just cooked through, stir in the squash, cheese and chives and season well with the salt and pepper. Serve immeadiately in warm bowls, and grate over the remaining cheese.

Recipe: Smoked haddock fishcakes, parsley sauce

A simple dish, but one that requires your full attention over serveral stages and different cooking techniques including poaching, boiling, shallowing frying and sauce making so make sure you allow enough time to get it all done. The fishcakes and sauce are ideal for freezing so double the recipe and you'll be more than repaid for your efforts.

I prefer shop bought breadcrumbs for this recipe; they just produce a better tasting and better looking result. Plus they don't absorb as much oil as fresh homemade crumbs would do. I've got a drum of Paxo breadcrumbs in my cupboard, but feel free to use the more fancy panko variety if you like; they do produce a beautifully crunchy result.

serves four

For the fishcakes

1 pint full cream milk
600g undyed smoked haddock
1 bay leaf
5 black peppercorns
1kg red skin potatoes, peeled and diced
1 drum of Paxo breadcrumbs
2 eggs
200g plain flour
salt and pepper
vegetable oil

for the sauce

55g butter
40g tablespoon plain flour
milk reserved from poaching the haddock
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
25g flat leaf parsley, leaves picked from the stem and finely chopped
salt and pepper

Put the haddock in a large pan and cover with the milk. Add the bay and peppercorns, cover the pan with a lid and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and let the pan sit for 4 minutes. Remove the fish from the milk (which should be strained and reserved for the sauce)then skin, bone and flake the flesh and set aside.

Put the diced potaotes in a large pan, cover in cold water, bring to the boil, add a generous pinch of salt and cook until tender. Drain, return to the heat to dry out the potatoes then mash until smooth. Fold in the fish and season with salt and pepper and allow to cool.

Form the mixture into eight equal sized balls, flatten slightly then pane them by tossing them first in the flour, then the egg and finally the breadcrumbs. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

To make the sauce, melt the butter in a pan, add the flour and stir until amalgamated and slightly coloured. Whisk in the milk bit by bit until you have a smooth sauce. Cook over a low heat for 20-30 minutes until thickened. Add the mustard, parsley and season with salt and pepper.

Heat about an inch of vegetable oil in a frying pan until hot and fry the fishcakes until golden brown on both sides. Transfer to a hot oven to cook through for five minutes.

Serve two fishcakes per person on a bed of wilted spinach with the sauce spooned around the plate.

Recipe: BLT - I did it my way

Leafing through Alfred Portale's Twelve Seasons Cookbook : A Month-by-Month Guide to the Best There is to Eat
gave me the inspiration for this dish. He's one of the few top ranking chefs that I know of that includes sandwich recipes in his books and 12 Seasons has a couple of crackers includng prociutto, pear, arugala and honey mustard, and grilled potato, Roquefort, red onion and smoked bacon (how good does that sound?). It set me thinking about how I could make that old favourite BLT into a main course.

I replaced white bread with griddled pain de campagne, spread with tomato compote (inspired by the heavenly tomato bruschetta served as a freebie at Theo Randall's excellent London restaurant) and topped with braised lettuce and a bacon chop instead of bacon rashers. I served the open sandwich with sweet potato wedges spiced with cumin, paprika and cayenne and a creme fraiche dip (actually Richard Corriagan's creme fraiche, olive oil, lemon and mint dressing from The Clatter of Forks and Spoons) which I had left over from the previous night's dinner, although I would recommend replacing the mint with basil for this dish.

Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato

serves 4

ingredients

for the tomato compote

1 red onion finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
350g cherry tomatoes
salt and pepper
teaspoon caster sugar

for the braised lettuce

25g butter
4 spring onions, sliced
2 baby gem lettuces, trimmed and cut in half lengthways
200ml chicken stock
salt and pepper

4 bacon chops
freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

4 slices pain de campagne
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

For the tomato compote, heat the oil in a pan and saute the onion until soft but not coloured. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes, salt and pepper and sugar and cook over a gentle heat until the tomatoes break down and form a sauce.

For the lettuces, heat the butter in a pan and sweat the spring onions until soft, add the lettuce and cook until slightly wilted, turning once. Pour over the stock and simmer over a gentle heat until the lettuce is tender.

Heat a griddle pan until smoking. Season the bread with salt and pepper and brush with the oil on both sides. Griddle until nicely coloured.

Season the chops with pepper and brush with oil and cook under a hot grill until the fat sizzles, turning once.

Place a slice of grilled bread on each plate, spread a quarter of the tomato compote on each and top with a lettuce quarter and finally a bacon chop.

Tom Aikens profile: part three

That Aikens has emerged as a leading chef and restaurateur in one of the most competitive markets in the world is remarkable enough. But the achievement is all the more impressive when you learn that in 1999, his London career came to an abrupt and very public halt.

At the time, he was the 26 year old head chef of Pied a Terre in Fitrovia, the youngest ever to hold two Michelin stars. But a storm of bad publicity surrounding an alleged “branding” of a junior chef with a hot palette knife brought his career crashing down around him.

“The way it was handled in the press was just shocking; it was dealt with in a nonsensical way. I found myself thinking, “what am I going to do. No one in London wants to employ me.” It completely fucked my life up.”

Aikens says he had metamorphosised into his former bosses – a succession of Michelin starred chefs that included Pierre Koffmann at the then three starred La Tante Claire in Chelsea and the mercurial Richard Neat at Pied a Terre - absorbing not only their culinary knowledge, but also their worst traits. By the time he took over as head chef of Pied a Terre from Neat in 1996, he admits that he was a nightmare to work for.

“I was a complete control freak and I wanted to do everything myself to make sure it was right. When I look back I think I must have been bloody crazy to have that amount of pressure and stress.”

Aikens found refuge as private chef for the Bamford family, owners of JCB the construction and agricultural equipment company. Working on the family’s organic farm in Staffordshire and helping them set up their range of Daylesford Organic foods had a profound effect on Aikens subsequent career, not only influencing the ingredient-driven style of food at Tom’s Kitchen, but also providing the inspiration for Aikens own range of food.

“I’d always wanted to do something like Tom’s Kitchen,” says Aikens. “People’s tastes have changed and developed and simplified and so have mine. When I go out to eat, I want something very simple, easy and down to earth.”

Opened in November 2006 in a converted pub just a few hundred yards from Restaurant Tom Aikens, Tom’s Kitchen encompasses a ground floor restaurant, 1st floor bar and private dining rooms on the 2nd floor. A basement cold room for aging whole sides of meat is visible through glass panels in the floor of the main dining room.

Chunky wooden furniture, white tiled walls decorated with black and white portraits of Aikens’s suppliers and an open kitchen make for a buzzy atmosphere. The easy going menu puts the accent on meat with familiar and comforting dishes such as beef burgers, confit duck leg and sharing plates of côte de boeuf with big chips and béarnaise sauce and seven hour braised lamb shoulder with onions and balsamic vinegar.

Open for breakfast, lunch, dinner and Saturday brunch, the restaurant serves in excess of 2,000 covers a week. Its success has spawned a retail version in the food hall of the prestigious Selfridges department store in London’s Oxford Street, serving branded ready meal versions of some of the restaurant dishes as well as pies, pates, terrines, sauces, chutneys and a range of soups and sandwiches all prepared in a commissary kitchen in Bermondsey, south London.

“Having a brand is a powerful, powerful statement. Tom’s Kitchen has an image and portrays a story, and it’s a bloody fabulous name as well,” says Aikens, immodestly.

After a period of rapid expansion, Aikens appears to be taking time to consolidate his position. There will be more Tom’s Place restaurants, maybe in 2009, but his next confirmed opening won’t be until 2010 when a second Tom’s Kitchen restaurant will open in London’s Canary Wharf. In the meantime he’s writing his second cookbook Fish, due for publication in 2008 and there’s that much longed for second Michelin star for Restaurant Tom Aikens still to bag.

It’s a safe bet that, despite his chiselled- good looks, you won’t be seeing Tom Aikens attempt to dominate the TV schedules a la Gordon Ramsay; his natural reserve combined with an avowed disinterest in the medium will see to that. But don’t be surprised if there’s a sudden, unannounced flurry of activity from the Aikens camp in the near future.

“You only have a certain shelf life as a person and as a business before someone else comes along and tries to hustle in on the glory,” says Aikens. “Its very exciting and being part of it is great but in terms of longevity of the business who knows? Restaurants are very tricky animals – one day you can be flavour of the month, the next gone.”