and you are back in the room :)

It has been a long(ish) hot (for the UK) summer of tapas and salad but true to form, the Summer Bank Holiday turns up with a veil of rain following a weekend of frost threats. So much for global warming. I've been lax on the cooking front of late but that is mostly down to a lack of appetite when the sun shines. Now the Autumn has started to creep in ....

Following a very quick BBQ last night  on the Lotus Grill , the bear in me declared autumn was on the way and demanded I hit the kitchen again. What to cook?

A visit to the supermarket, a visit to the garden and a dip into the fridge left me with some large potatoes, eat me carrots, fresh (huge) blackberries and a guinea fowl. Oven on at 180C and in goes the guinea fowl with a dusting of herb salt for 1.5 hours. Hot salty water and quartered peeled potatoes meet as the boil begins. 10 minutes later the potatoes are quenched in cold water and left to dry for a while.

40 minutes from the end, in go the potatoes, coated in a herb oil for a good roast. Turned every 10 minutes to get a good all over colour unlike the poor saps who ventured to the coast today.

30 minutes later I warmed a tablespoon of good honey (from my sister in law's bees) with a teaspoon and a half of cinnamon powder and a tablespoon of butter and kept this warm for the rest of the cook. I basted the guinea fowl with this to create a golden, sticky skin by the end of the cook.

End of the roast, the guinea fowl was covered and rested along with the golden potatoes. The juices were added to a pan with 125ml of wine (red by preference) and a good handful of fresh blackberries. This was brought to the boil and blitzed with the Bamix before being left to reduce

Meantime, I shredded some carrots into a pan with orange juice, a knob of butter and a star anise. This was then simmered until the carrots were coated, softened but still a little crunchy.

Peas to add a variety of colour ( runner beans would have been nice but this year's crop was a little poor) and it was time to plate up and welcome in the autumn. I think it was a fitting tribute to a summer of ample sun and rain that has created blackberries of some significant size (destined for a little ice cream later ). See what you think....

These are great. A BBq you can use indoors or out doors. Pick up an carry while it is still at cooking temperature. Place it on a wooden table with no heat damage and control the heat (to some extent ). 250g of charcoal gives you enough heat to cook for about 40 minutes (depending on the air flow). BBq 4 minutes after lighting. Add charcoal when you need to. Best of all. Take the fire bowl (not the charcoal burner) and the grill and put it in the dish washer at the end of the day. If you are outside then add some wood chip to get smoke. If indoors, smokeless. Superbe.

http://www.lotusgrilluk.com/

The Doldrums

I have been stuck in the creative Doldrums with regards to food for a month or so now. Salad days are never the best for something exciting from this kitchen. As the outside temperature rises then thoughts turn to simple tapas and salads.  Needed something to lift my spirits and excite the imagination and I think this might be it:

http://www.phaidon.com/store/food-cook/elbulli-2005-2011-mod0714865485c/

Can't wait for it to arrive and, with a little luck, light the blue touch paper.

Apologies to the followers and dippers in. Things have been dull for a month. Will try harder this weekend.

Congratulations Fleet. An enjoyable weekend

Popped up the road yesterday to the first year of the Fleet Food Festival (http://www.fleetfoodfestival.co.uk/uncategorized/take-a-look-at-our-event-timetables/) . I was worried it would not deliver. All too often I have attended local food festivals, been charged £5 to get in and found nothing of any real interest. Not this time.

First plus - no entrance fee. Closely followed by some great live music to queue to. Good ales and ciders to quench the thirst then came the food.

Thousand Hills sauces (http://www.thousandhills.co.uk/shop/1000-tomato-chilli-sauce/)
The 1000 Tomato Chili sauce has a deep flavour and enough heat to make it interesting. The sweet and hot Cranberry and Chili sauce is equally delicious. Can't wait to get that on some game in the near future. I also purchesed the garlic chili sauce and can't wait to try their tip of adding it to some mashed potato.

Lunch was a stunning Gurkha chicken curry from the Topher Ltd tent (http://www.topherlimited.co.uk/news/2015/02/introducing-the-authentic-nepalese-curry-tent.aspx) A local company who specialize in event parking but who have diversified into Gurkha curries to make excellent use of the skills of the Gurkha staff they have in abundance. The addition of the dal made this a perfect accompaniment to the Longdog beers (http://www.longdogbrewery.co.uk/). I had enjoyed their Lamplight Porter earlier in the day. I changed to a Winning Co-Ale-ition followed by a Kismet.

The choice of lunch was extensive. From Burgers through to curries and paellas. These were joined by many excellent stalls at the fair from fudge through to fine wines. Some excellent demonstrations in the two demonstration tents and plenty to keep us occupied for a few hours.

My sincere congratulations to the Fleet Food Festival team who made this first ever Fleet Food Festival a great success. I do hope it will return and get better each year.

Citrus, Strawberry and Sunshine

Finally we got some typical British summer today. Hot sunshine tempered with cloud now and again to give a little shade. Doors flung open at both ends of the house to give it an airing it felt like it was time to get the kitchen sorted out. Having spent the morning clearing out and cleaning the cupboards and then sharpening all my knives it felt like time to play.

First on the menu today was an attempt to make some cocktail pearls. Basically, reverse spherified lemon pearls that I can store in sweetened lemon juice and use some time soon in a liquigel G&T. I am still a novice at the spherification techniques so, although there were a few pearls, there were a number of Nik Naks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nik_Naks) inspired shapes too. The result was good though. Small tart perls that burst in the mouth to give a zing of citrus. I have stored those away in the fridge ready for the bank holiday weekend. 0.5 % sodium alganate to de-ionized water in the water bath. 1% Calcium Lactate and 0.5% Xanthan Gum in to the lemon juice with some simple syrup to sweeten it to taste.

Next it was the drunk strawberries  turn. I made up a daquiri jelly using 200g of water into which I dissolved 70 grams of sugar, 5.5g of Agar Agar and 1g of Carrageenan Iota. Once everything was dissolved (with the help of an immersion blender a.k.a. the Bammix) then I added 400g of pineapple juice and 100g of Triple Sec. I had already cut up the drunken strawberries I pickled the other week so that a good chunk was placed into the silicon moulds ready for the jelly to be poured in. This made 36 2cm cubes that are currently setting in the fridge. Do not boil the jelly liquid after the alcohol is added or you will lose the vital spirit.

I now had the rind from the 3 lemons I had used earlier and a remaining 3 lemons which I took the rind from and juiced. These were huge lemons giving about twice the juice of a normal lemon. The rind is currently sitting in the souse vide at 70 C in a bag of vodka ready to make another. batch of limoncello (I'will add simple syrup to this later to taste). The juice was matched in weight with sugar and boiled until the sugar was completely dissolved. This has two great uses. Instant lemonade when sparkling water and ice are added or just drizzle it over a lemon sponge.

The last act of the day was to pass the strawberry flavoured rum through a coffee filter paper into a waiting bottle. I'm sure I can find a good use for that soon either in a cocktail, spherified or just poured over a good vanilla icecream.

Easy Supper in the Sunshine

For the first time this year it was really warm enough to eat outside. I was not overly hungry so a nice salad beckoned. I knew we had enough salad items in but what to put with it? A quick potter up to town and some small cooking chorizos and some pre-cooked king prawns came home with a cold bottle of Chenin Blanc. Once home, I popped the chorizos into some cider (enough to cover them) and brought the cider to the boil. Meanwhile I melted some carotene butter and laid out the salad. After a short while the cider had reduced down to a sweet apple and paprika flavoured sauce. Everything now ready I popped it all on the table outside the conservatory and we enjoyed the first of many summer suppers for this year (I hope).

I know this is hardly cooking but I cannot recommend the chorizos in cider enough. A very simple but satisfying tapas I learned about in La Palma  on a recent holiday. A great little tapas bar off the main street where we had to remind them to charge us for the meal.

Too lazy to cook - almost.

Got home from work and wanted something a little spicy but didn't feel like spending hours in the kitchen. Just one of those days when I just don't feel like cooking. The solution came courtesy of something I picked up at the last Tweezledown Artisan Market (https://www.facebook.com/TweseldownArtisanMarket) wandering around the stalls I smelt a warm and spicy aroma mix and just had to investigate. What I found was a stall selling tubs of red and green Thai curry sauces and a Goan fish curry sauce along with a few other sauces. A quick taste and the three sauces mentioned were bagged and on their way home.

Tonight my cooking went as far as chopping some chicken that had been marinading in lime, ginger and chili in the fridge into 2cm chunks. Putting my favorite wok on a good heat and bringing a tub of the red Thai curry sauce to simmer. In went the chicken, some sliced onion and sliced red pepper. I reduced the heat and simmered the dish for about 20 minutes until the chicken was properly cooked through. I thinned the sauce a little with the juice of a lime and served it on a bed of coconut rice. The result was as good as anything I have had in a Thai restaurant. If you are going to use a cook in sauce then my advice is to find one that is as good as this or just order some from these guys :

http://www.madhuban.co.uk/

If you are feeling really lazy then just pop round to their restaurant at 94 Station Road, Liss, North Hampshire and save yourself the trouble of cooking.