GREEN MAN AND FRENCH HORN

We don't eat out very often, mostly due to straightened financial circumstances and family responsibilities. However, my friend Amanda has been known to entice me out from time to time and, to celebrate my last day on a fundraising contract (I HATE fundraising), we went to Green Man and French Horn, a restaurant that we both remembered had fabulous reviews when it opened.  Its sister restaurants Braun, Terroirs and Soif  are nearby and also heavily influenced my local ToastED in Lordship Lane, East Dulwich.  All good stuff.

We started with a bottle of sparkling Vouvray which was slightly off dry and very lovely  and the perfect thing to drink as we caught up on the last couple of months and decided what we wanted to eat. This took rather  a long time as we were tempted with so many great things but in the end we decided to go for five of the small plates, one of which we shared - we are both very territorial about food.

Details were good - great bread and butter happily replenished without asking. Still or sparkling free 'tap' water. Service throughout was great. But the food...that was divine. Crispily fried fresh anchovies with aioli disappeared within minutes - beautifully fishy and rustled on their paper. Asparagus with fromage blanc, bitter leaves and walnuts was the kind of salad that only the French seem to carry off with the combination of bitter, creaminess, nuttiness and the glorious flavour of asparagus all highlighted by beautiful olive oil and salt. Snails with parsley root and hedgehog mushrooms were declared to be the most tender ever encountered (I didn't indulge, not a huge snail fan). Leek, crab, egg and horseradish was an absolute triumph. A brown crab sauce with horseradish provided a base for gently poached leeks, all topped off with grated egg and white crab meat - simple, beautifully seasoned and a very generous plateful. We shared the chopped raw beef with radish and hedgehog mushrooms - true beefy flavour accentuated by the vegetables and dressing. We shared a 500ml carafe of some rather gorgeous very light red wine but the name escapes me - the waiter recommended it so I am sure he will recommend it to you.

The bill came to £118 for five dishes, a bottle of sparkling wine, a carafe of red, water and limitless bread. For the standard of cooking and the excellence of ingredients I call that great value.

A lovely Italian Restaurant in Liverpool

I love Italian food. I am not a huge fan of pasta but the way Italians deal with meat, fish and seafood makes me smile - a gorgeous bit of protein, a sauce or dressing with vibrant flavours, and that's it. If you want potatoes or vegetables then order them separately. Great. So, when we ventured up to Liverpool, and fancied some fish, we googled 'fish restaurant' and one of the top results was San Carlo. So off we went. It is a splendid restaurant, with a gorgeous cocktail bar greeting you on arrival. We were a bit early for dinner so sat at the bar for cocktails and there we had nibbles of huge olives, socca and arancini to keep us occupied. We ordered sardines and seafood salad for starters - beautifully fresh, well cooked and plentiful....mains were five kinds of grilled fish and seafood and veal scallopine with a wild mushroom sauce. The side of sauté potatoes were crisp and delicious. We were so impressed by the generosity of the servings and the quality of the ingredients and the service was warm and helpful. Our desired digestif wasn't available so we were recommended Amaro Montenegro - warm with violets it made Fernet Branca seem very harsh. This restaurant may not suit those looking for an ultra modern experience but for good honest but refined Italian food it was fabulous. £120 for two courses each, three cocktails, a bottle of wine and two digestifs. Thoroughly recommended.

www.sancarlo.co.uk

FISH PIE

Another comforting classic for this chilly weather.  There are endless variations - some people use prawns and scallops as well as fish, some include chopped up boiled eggs or capers but mine is very straightforward. Just smoked haddock and cod in a parsley sauce topped with mashed potato and a sprinkling of parmesan.

This is something I make quite often so I will just give an idea of quantities as we go along.

I generally make this pie in advance as I find that it is best to let the sauce/fish mixture cool a bit. If you put the potatoes on top of the sauce whilst it is hot the potato seems to melt into the sauce and it all becomes a bit of a gooey mess. If the potato goes on the sauce when it has cooled the layers stay more distinct.

First of all the fish. I allow a medium sized fillet of fish per person and generally a third smoked fish to unsmoked. Put the fish in a wide shallow pan with around 500ml milk. Bring up to the boil and simmer for five minutes until just cooked. Remove the fish, break up into big chunks and put in the bottom of a buttered baking dish. Season with salt and white pepper.

Make the white sauce with the milk that the fish has been poached in.  I use around 50g butter and the same of flour for a four person pie.  Melt the butter, stir in the flour and cook that through then gradually add the milk, bring to the boil and whisk until smooth and thickened. You may need a bit more milk if the sauce is very thick as it needs to be the texture of thick custard. Stir in the juice of half a lemon and a big handful of chopped parsley. Pour over the fish.

Peel some potatoes, allowing a large potato per person. Cut into chunks and boil for 20 minutes until tender. Strain, mash the potatoes, add a splash of milk, a knob of butter and a generous shake of white pepper and beat until smooth.

As the fish and sauce mixture is quite unstable it is best to take spoonful's of the potato and dot over the top, then gently join the dots of potato up with a fork.  Leave a hole in the potato in the centre. Sprinkle the top of the pie with a little cayenne pepper and finely grated parmesan.

Cook at 180 degrees for 45 minutes until bubbling. This pie takes a long time to cook through so use the hole in the mash topping to check that it is hot all the way through.

I think peas are an ideal accompaniment to this dish and perhaps some broccoli.

AVOCADOS WITH CRAB

 



 

 

 

 

Avocado, crab and a bit of crunch - what more could you ask for? This is a really simple but very effective dish. Two halves make a good lunch and one half makes a lovely starter.  For two people for lunch you need 2 ripe avocados, 200g white and brown crabmeat, a tablespoon of cream, handful of dried breadcrumbs and a tablespoon of grated parmesan.

 

 

This is unusual because it is a warm avocado dish. Put the oven on at 180 degrees.Slice the avocados in half and remove the stone. In a small bowl combine the crabmeat, a good pinch of cayenne pepper, black pepper, pinch of salt and the cream and fold together. Spoon the mixture equally into the avocado halves, sprinkle with the breadcrumbs and grated parmesan.

 

 

Cook for 10 minutes then either put under the grill or turn your oven up to crisp off the parmesan and breadcrumbs.  Delicious. 

BACON AND ONION PUDDING

I have an unhealthy weakness for suet puddings.  The classic, of course, is steak and kidney but my favourite has to be this one - bacon and onion.  For the filling I use a pack of 'cooking' bacon from Morrisons.  These are the offcuts left over when they slice up their rashers, all the little odds and ends. The quality is the same as the ordinary bacon and while we aren't talking artisan dry cured it is definitely good enough for this pudding.  Do have a sort through them first as they can be irregular sizes - it is best to have them in fairly uniform 1cm-ish bits.

Unlike a steak and kidney pudding this one doesn't generate its own gravy so a separate one has to be made. When I was growing up it was made with half a packet of dried chicken and leek soup, a method I still use today. However, I had run out of soup so I had to make one from scratch - I use a chicken Oxo cube instead of proper stock simply because I think it works.

Pastry

200g plain flour
100g shredded suet
2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 tsp dried sage
Cold water

Filling

500g cooking bacon, in small pieces
1 medium onion finely chopped
1 tsp dried sage

Gravy

Finely chopped shallot
Chicken Oxo
1 tbsp flour
250ml water
2 tbsp cream

Grease a 1 litre pudding basin.  In a roomy bowl mix together the flour, suet, baking powder, salt and sage.  Add enough water to make a pastry that is softer than shortcrust pastry but still capable of being rolled out. Divide the dough into a third and two thirds. Dust your board and roll the larger piece out until it is big enough to line your pudding basin, then transfer to the basin and press carefully into the bottom. 

Combine the bacon, onion and sage and tip into the lined basin. Roll out the remaining pastry into a top to fit the basin, brush the edge of the pudding with water then press on the top. Trim the edges.

Take a sheet of greaseproof paper and a sheet of tin foil. Put the tin foil on top of the greaseproof paper then fold an inch pleat in both. Place this over the pudding and tie with string tightly (useful to have a friend near at this point!).  Steam the pudding for 2 and a half hours.

To make the gravy slowly fry the shallot in a knob of butter until it starts to disintegrate. Stir in the flour and then the water until it thickens. Crumble in the Oxo cube and stir until a nice thick gravy has formed - a little more water might be needed. Just before serving add the cream and bubble up.

Once the pudding has cooked turn it out onto a plate. Serve with a little bit of mashed potato, a green vegetable (kale is lovely with this) and a generous glug of the gravy. Perfect for winter nights.

AVOCADOS, PRAWNS, CRAB AND SMOKED SALMON VARIATIONS



I always have smoked salmon and raw king prawns in my freezer - they freeze well and (more importantly) thaw out well!  Throw in some avocado, tomato, coriander, shallot and a variety of starters or light lunches are at your finger tips.  Below is a nest of smoked salmon strips on top of roughly chopped avocado, tomato and coriander, dusted with paprika and dressed with a little olive oil and lemon.....

 

This one is avocado crushed with lime juice and chopped coriander, brown crab meat mixed with a little mayonnaise and white crabmeat on top, dressed with olive oil and lime juice, served with pea shoots and chopped parsley and chives.

 





 

 

And here we have tiger prawns that have been deveined so that they curl up prettily, briefly fried in a little garlic infused olive oil, seasoned and set aside to cool.  They then sit on a top of a bed of finely sliced lettuce, and chopped tomatoes and avocado. Dress the whole thing with a lemon and olive oil and a few chilli flakes.

POACHED PEARS

I am temporarily (I hope) out of work so I have absolutely no excuse not to get back to putting things that I cook on my blog.  This is a nice light pudding (I really dislike the word dessert for some reason), ideal for after a heavy lunch. It is easy to do, you can prepare it well in advance and there are lots of variations you can make. 

The most important point is to make sure that your pears are slightly under ripe otherwise they will collapse when poached. Conference pears are best but make sure they are fat enough as in this recipe the core is removed before poaching. 

Serves 4

Pears 

4 largish Conference pears or similar hard pears
150ml water
100g sugar
150ml white wine
3 cloves
I orange sliced

Chocolate sauce

100ml double cream
2 tbsp. cocoa powder
Tablespoon golden syrup
Knob of butter

Filling

150 ml cream
50g dark chocolate grated 

Nibbed pistachios

Peel the pears and carefully hollow out the core from the bottom. Scrunch up some tin foil and put in the hole so that the pear doesn't collapse while poaching. Put the water, sugar , cloves, orange slices and white wine in a saucepan big enough to hold the pears, add them and bring to a gentle simmer. Cook for 20 minutes until tender. Remove the pears and let them cool.

To make the filling whisk the cream up until thick then fold in the grated chocolate. You can add some chopped nuts if you like.

Heat the cream, thoroughly stir in the cocoa powder, syrup and butter and beat until shiny.

Once everything is cool fill the pears with the cream mixture, settle each one on a plate, pour over the chocolate sauce and sprinkle with the pistachios.