Of pork belly and chorizo

A surprisingly delish dinner arose from a spot of kitchen freestyling and fridge clearing last night. It was a sort of a sweet and sour pork casserole with capers, lemon and chorizo. It was really delicious with unctuously soft pork, savoury chorizo, sweet carrots and onions, and a tangy jamminess provided by vinegar and lemon. Once the zingy high notes of chilli and parsley are accounted for you’ve got a winner. I highly recommend giving it a go. It went something like this (should feed three):

• 500g Pork belly
• 100g Chorizo, roughly diced
• 2 Red Onions the size of tennis balls
• 3 Medium Carrots
• 3 Large Ripe Tomatoes
• 4 Cloves Garlic
• 2 Scotch Bonnet Chillis
• 1 tblsp Capers
• Fresh Rosemary
• 3 Fresh Bay Leaves
• Cider Vinegar
• Half a Juicy Lemon
• Flat Leaf Parsley

Start by cutting the Carrots into bite sized chunks, the pork (trimmed of any rind) into slightly bigger than bite-sized chunks (it will shrink dramatically), the onions into chunky wedges and the garlic cloves in half, removing any signs of green sproutings.

In a Le Creuset style lidded pan cook the veg in a little oil over a moderate to low heat for about twenty minutes, adding the bay leaves and plenty of chopped rosemary about halfway through. Remove from the pan and reserve.

Preheat the oven to Gas 2 (150c).

Set the gas hob to high and proceed to sear the pork pieces on two sides (only disturbing them to turn them) until golden brown with the fat starting to render and crisp. Do this in batches so as not to crowd the pan. Towards the end of the searing introduce the diced chorizo to the pan.

Set the gas to moderate and return the veg to the pan along with any juices.

Slice the chillis seeds and all (they only add a fruity piquancy and will only render the dish too spicy for only the most pathetic of palates) and add them to the pan along with a hearty seasoning of salt and pepper.

Deglaze the pan with a good slug of cider vinegar and add just enough water so as to have liquid going about halfway up the pork and veg. You want to braise the meat rather than stew it.

Put a cartouche of dampened greaseproof paper on the surface of the casserole and put the lid on the dish. Transfer to the oven for 1.5 hours.

Remove from the oven and stir in the capers, the juice of the lemon along with its shell torn in two and the tomatoes cut into eighths. Replace the cartouche and the lid and return to the oven for another hour.

Garnish with some chopped flat leaf parsley and serve with the ballast of your choice. We had crushed new potatoes which were really good, but I suspect proper Jamaican rice and peas would be even better.

Don’t worry about the fattiness of the pork belly. After the long slow cooking all the fat has melted and lubricated the meat and generally given a lip-smacking savour to the whole dish. I used these pork belly strips that Asda sell for £2 for a 500g pack. They resemble really thick (an inch at least) rashers of uncured streaky bacon, and cut up easily into nice big cubes.

I think the general cooking method and timings, alongside the matching of piquancy with the uber-savoury pork is a template that could be extensively and successfully riffed upon. I’m already planning full-on Jamaican Jerk and Mexican versions. Yum!

Of cabbages and mash

Come muse and sing of mash and of dark green cabbage. Tell of their their divine union, tossed together by man’s blind hand, stirred by fate and burnished gold by the terrible heat of the Pan. Sing dear muse of this sweet ambrosia: sing dear muse of bubble-and-squeak!

Cheap, quick, versatile and unutterably delicious; how can anyone not love bubble-and-squeak? Even if you had never tasted it, you would know that nothing so beguilingly named could be anything less than divine. My first encounter with The Squeak was in The Wind in the Willows where Mr Toad (to this day my template for manhood) was brought a steaming plateful by the jailor’s charitable daughter, keen to see him snap out of the black depression he had fallen into.

Mr Toad, the rascal, loved a bit of bubble and squeak.

"It was bubble-and-squeak, between two plates, and its fragrance filled the narrow cell. The penetrating smell of cabbage reached the nose of Toad as he lay prostrate in his misery on the floor, and gave him the idea, for a moment, that perhaps life was not such a blank and desperate thing as he had imagined".

What was this mysterious preparation? Whatever it was I knew it was for me, and, after a week of pestering, I found myself tucking into a piping hot plateful of buttery goodness. A love affair had begun.

At its simplest and most frugal bubble-and-squeak is nothing more than roughly equal quantities of leftover cooked cabbage and potato fried together in some good fat. This basic squeak can then be elaborated upon in myriad ways. A little onion, cooked till golden and sweet, can (and should, in my opinion) be added to the mix, as can fresh or dried herbs or some crisp lardons. Other leftover veg can be added, though I would never bother unless they were otherwise going to go to waste. Carrots, leeks, roasted parsnips and spinach have all made enjoyable, but by no means essential, appearances in my squeaks. How much or little you add to your squeak should be determined by what you want to serve it with.

For two people start by sweating a thinly sliced onion till totally soft and lightly coloured. In a mixing bowl loosely combine equal quantities of chopped cooked green cabbage (or kale, broccoli etc) from which you have squeezed all the excess water and whatever cooked potatoes you happen to have. There’s no reason you can’t cook the veg fresh, but if you do, allow them to cool slightly before mixing. If the potato isn’t mashed then break it up a little with your fingers, but don’t feel the need to mash it – lumpier spuds seem more at home in a squeak than smooth pureed ones. Season the veg generously with freshly ground salt and pepper and mix in your golden onions.

Melt a generous amount of butter, dripping or olive oil in a non-stick pan and allow it to get good and hot. The choice of fat is up to you – each will lend a slightly different character to the dish, none is without its merits. Keeping the heat fairly high, dump the veg mixture into the hot fat and press it down so it forms an even layer.

Now the heart of a truly splendid squeak is its golden crust. If you crave the crust you need to leave well alone once it goes in the pan. Don’t go prodding and teasing it like some ant-in-his-pants wok master; leave it alone, trust it, it knows what its doing. But beware! Whilst an impatient squeak chef will be punished for their haste with a limp and anemic offering, the overly laid back will soon discover the singular unpaletteability of burnt brassicas. Patience and vigilance should be the watchwords of any pupil of the squeak.

A wok master at work - Not the way to make a good squeak

After about 3 minutes tentatively lift an edge of the squeak with a spatula and take a peek at the underside. Is it crisp and golden, with patches of honeyed chestnut brown? If so, then turn it over as best you can. If not, then wait another minute or two before turning. Once turned, cook for a couple more minutes until piping hot right through. Your squeak is ready to devour!

If you’re lucky enough to have some gravy kicking about you can comfortably make a meal of just the squeak. Otherwise, you will almost certainly want an accompanying egg or two, poached or fried, the choice is yours. Tomato ketchup is, in the absence of gravy, also an essential (though roasted or tinned tomatoes are just as good). What? You demand a little meat? Then throw some crisp bacon or glossy sossies into the equation, or, better still, some left over baked or boiled ham. Now that’s good eatin’!

One last thing. If you really fancy something utterly savoury, then add some little cubes of cheese (any variety) to the original mixture. This tasty treat makes a truly memorable dinner when accompanied by some cooked tomatoes (roasted/grilled/tinned) that have had a brief flirtation with some crumbled dried chilli.

There's Nothing Quite Like a McDonalds

Courgette crumble - best served with an egg.

From: Richard
Sent: 13:23
To: Ryan
Subject: RE: B&B

Why howdy there…

Mmm! We had courgette crumble last night and it was delicious. We had it with grilled tomatoes, but wished we’d had a fried egg apiece as well. I would definitely recommend an egg based accompaniment. Also, I found that the quantities in the recipe were designed to feed whey-faced and enfeebled vegetarians. Non hemp trouser wearing folk certainly need bigger portions – I found that two thirds of the amount for four was perfect for two. I also accidentally burnt the onion (only slightly though), but found that this added a delicious extra layer to the flavour.

Hmm… I can’t decide what to have for my lunch…


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From: Ryan
Sent: 28 August 2008 13:38
To: Richard
Subject: RE: B&B

Howdy,

Why not treat yourself to a bread cake for lunch? Isn’t that what you eat in the North, but by rights it should be for dinner surely, unless you have turned into a namby-pamby southerner!?

Just went out to Tesco at lunch time and scored a Rat Pack compilation for £1 which is not bad, I expect the sound quality is shocking though.

The Rat Pack thought bread cakes was a funny name too.

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From: Richard
Sent: 15:05
To: Ryan
Subject: I'd rather Michael Winner had shat in my open mouth.

Oh God! I wish I had had a breadcake for my dinner…

Instead, I’ve been gastronomically gang-raped by Ronald McDonald and his hamburgling pals. Tempted by the promise of a free coke can shaped glass I foolishly decided to risk a trip to the Golden Arches for my lunch. Remembering how vile their standard menu was I instead opted for their seasonal “specialty”: The Oriental BBQ Beef”. Considering the fact that this oversized limited edition burger cost about as same as the average Chinese Olympic stadium builder’s yearly salary I assumed it would, at the very least, be freshly prepared and still hot. But oh no! What lurked behind the white-toothed grins of the Maccy Ds loving athletes festooned all over the packaging appeared to have been prepared at some point during the Tang Dynasty. Flat cold and sorry in a stale bun the Oriental BBQ Beef was about as enticing as an hour long feltching session with Christine and Neil Hamilton. Upon further inspection I found the pak choi garnish broke down to a kind of dark green mucous when probed with an exploratory digit, and the unnaturally thick cheese slice to have the texture of partially dried Copydex. “But come” I thought to myself, “this is all mere surface detail. Would not the delicious celeriac root be discarded untried if judged by its external livery? Come my boy: tuck in and discover its true nature”.

Would that I had taken issue with my internal voice and mutinously tossed the offending burger through the window of the car, for – before even my teeth had met in the patty’s middle – I discovered that the cover of this particular book was (amazingly) its finest feature. The Oriental BBQ Beef is so utterly and completely repulsive as to induce a kind of self-defensive delirium in the diner. Contorted with revulsion I nearly sprayed the dashboard with half-chewed “food” in my hurry to evict the foul-tasting coprolitic pat of devil-filth from my tortured palate. I could genuinely have derived more gustatory satisfaction from a cold slice of stale toast thickly spread with the fecal matter of a sick dog. The tastebuds of the poor souls that work in the McDonalds test kitchen must have completely burnt away from years and years of salt, sugar and MSG. Whatever you do, do not try this burger.

Yo, I gotto go: my bowels are rebelling against the hostile presence of the BBQ Beef…

His crimes against gastronomy finally caught up with him.

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From: Ryan
Sent: 15:11
To: Richard
Subject: RE: I'd rather Michael Winner had shat in my open mouth.

Hilarious!!!

I have made the mistake of ordering off the ‘Summer Menu’ before which I think means that the food has been left out in the summer sun for a week to “enhance” the flavour and texture before serving. I also once got the “Deli Sub” crap, which turned out to be some chicken nuggets in a baguette with too much sauce, and some wilted salad. If you do have to eat at Ronald’s place (who I believe is incidentally being rather quietly phased out as he scares kids and looks like a child molester) there are only two burgers worth having – the cheapest one used to be the 99p double cheeseburger, or a big mac. These are either simple enough to get right, or they have had plenty of practice.

A tasty burger?

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From: Richard
Sent: 16:47
To: Ryan
Subject: RE: I'd rather had shat in my open mouth.

There’s nothing even remotely funny about the Oriental BBQ Beef.

I too have tried the Deli Subs (well I tried one) and should really have learnt my lesson there and then about straying from the safety of the Cheesburger / Quarter-Pounder / Big Mac trinity. As I remember it was reminiscent of a fully masticated sauce-slathered happy meal that had been subsequently regurgitated into a sauce sodden bun before more sauce was added to the unholy sauce-soaked mess. Delish!

Michael Winner: A gourmet and a hunk

If he really likes you he might call you "Big Bollocks"

Ramsay with a knife. Ooo.

From: Ryan
Sent: 20 November 2008 15:33
To: Richard
Subject: Ramsay

Bleedin’ ramsay is doing his live cookalong thing again this weekend. Have you had the misfortune of watching it yet? I watched a bit of one episode, and I think unless you are a pretty good cook (like me, and I suppose I would even go so far as to say, you) or have practised about 100 times before it is going to be impossible to do, what with Ramsay jumping around and shouting a lot, going too fast for anyone who isn’t a professional chef and calling everyone “Big Boy” and informing them to grow some testicles.

Anyway, this week it is retro 70's style and he is going to demonstrate how to mix ketchup and mayonnaise together (prawn cocktail), how to cook a steak and a rather hideous looking mandarin cheesecake! I don’t think I shall be taking part!

I was going to ask you something else in this email, but sadly I have now forgotten what it was.


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From: Richard
Sent: 21 November 2008 10:25
To: Ryan
Subject: If he really likes you he might call you "Big Bollocks"

Ha ha! What a fuckin' cock he is. It seems that you find him every bit as laughable and irritating as I do. Why all the swearing Gordon? Why the bollock obsession? Why the staccato almost military recipe delivery? Oh… I see: because you’re still struggling to reconcile your prodigious testosterone pumped masculinity with the fact that you basically make a living from women’s work. One half of you still believes that the only time a man should ever enter the kitchen is to empty the rubbish bin on his way out to the chippy for a pie, whilst the other half is just aching to rustle up some delightful little petit fours.

Get back on the football pitch and grow some real bollocks you poncing, la-di-daa, “can-I-lick-the-bowl-clean” mummy’s boy. I bet you have nightmares about Jeremy Clarkson beating you up and stealing your lunch money.

And how does he get away with his patently sexist bollock schtick? It seems that someone’s value as a person is – in Ramsay’s view – directly proportional to the size of their testicles. In the case of women he bestows them with honorary testicles if they do well, as if to say that despite being a woman they’ve managed to rise to the occasion almost as well as if they had real testicles. Once again it points to his hidden shame about the feminine nature of his chosen domain. “Look!” He demands, “this is a real kitchen where real work takes place. This is no domestic womanly zone. No, this is a battleground: a culinary amphitheatre where only those with the most massively oversized balls shall prevail”. Pathetic.

And his recipes are shit. I once tried to follow one in a magazine, and, if I hadn’t been a reasonably experienced cook, I’d have been fucked. It was poorly written, vague and clearly the work of someone who is used to having an army beneath him to deal with the various preps and peelings of a busy kitchen. I think I ended up using pretty much every pan in the kitchen, my stove bristling with dangerously teetering and steaming pots. And, after all that work the results were flat and uninteresting.

I can’t imagine how anyone is meant to keep up with the nutter on the cook along. He darts and jabbers like some amphetamine fueled dervish with attention deficit disorder. Have you ever seen him being interviewed? When he’s not talking (with massive hand gestures and wildly rolling eyes) his hands and feet jig around like he’s got the DTs. What’s he running from? Who’s he trying to impress? Why does he need to constantly increase his empire? Another restaurant every week; a new show; a new book; a marathon to run; yet more children to sire: gotta be the best! GOTTA BE THE BEST!!! Christ! Can you imagine what his wife has to put up with?

Ramsey had high hopes for the efficacy of the Blessed Waters of Lourdes in curing his testicular elephantiasis

And as for his sickening courting of the vacuous celebrity world! Urgh! It makes me feel physically ill. Have you seen the F Word? It’s an egregious display of ego massage and mutual celebrity masturbation. The whole setup is so appallingly contrived what with all the exposure-craving B-listers sat chowing down at the tables whilst the camera flirts teasingly with them. “Oh when will it be my turn to be ritually insulted by Gordon” they wonder. I’m sure if they could they’d all have their hands in the air, straining, probably being supported by the other arm so as get it just that bit higher than their peers, “ooh Gordon, Gordon! I’m over here Gordon! Ooooh please Sir, can I be next?”. What kind of ego does it take to build such a Church for your own worship? The man’s got a messiah complex!

God he’s a jerk.

Done.

Janet Street Porter struggles to come to terms with the fact that she will always be one Y chromosome short of having a truly massive pair of nads.

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From: Ryan
Sent: 21 November 2008 10:33
To: Richard
Subject: RE: If he really likes you he might call you "Big Bollocks"


Ha ha! Down with all celebrity chefs – Ramsay, Smith, Oliver, Lawson… and as for AWT and his stupid stubby little fingers. Yuck!

I have seen the F Word occasionally – I particularly despise Janet Street Porter and her search for unusual food . Camels milk is not meant to be drunk by people!! And as for dry ostrich meat, no thanks. What I find particularly amusing is the celebrity cook-off where Ramsay invariably loses to some celebrity who has cooked something like tinned macaroni cheese compared to Ramsay's overly posh, dry, too fancy “macaroni a la fromage”.

He even lost to David Blunkett, and he had to have a dog helping him find the potato peeler.

Blunkett displaying the confidence and poise possessed only by those with the biggest of bollocks.

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From: Richard
Sent: 21 November 2008 12:53
To: Ryan
Subject: RE: If he really likes you he might call you "Big Bollocks"

P.E.N.I.S.

I would like to think that even my wife – that’s right, my wife – could beat “Chef Ramsay” in a cook-off. Jeez! I once had an ostrich steak and it was the driest, most boring piece of meat in the world. Unsurprisingly my good friends X, Y and Z (“very well done please”) think that ostrich is the steak of the Gods thanks to its bland, dry homogeneity and total lack of lubricating fat or indeed flavour. Coincidentally they also think that Ramsay is one of the greatest living Englishmen and that all the other chefs on TV are “middleclass poofs, faggots and gayboys”.

Speaking of middleclass poofs, faggots and gayboys, I don’t suppose you happened to see that “What to Eat Now” program? It was cool and the dude doing it – Valentine Warner – was the best food dude I’ve seen on the box ever. I’ve never seen anyone more orgasmically enthusiastic about their scran, and the food he cooked looked thoroughly delish and no-nonsense. I recommend checking him out if he’s on the ol’ iplayer.

Valentine Warner is continuing his campaign against the hair brush.

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From: Ryan
Sent: 21 November 2008 13:01
To: Richard
Subject: RE: If he really likes you he might call you "Big Bollocks"

I haven't caught Valentine yet, I will be sure to check him though. Anyway, if they don’t like middle class faggots, how come they like Gordon "Posh Boy Big Bollocks" Ramsay!? He is, by his own admission, not an Englishman but a whey faced scot! I don;t know what happened to his accent though, or his haggis and fried mars bar induced greasy skin and gut.

Of Cabbages and Cream

From: Ryan

Sent: 10:55
To: Richard
Subject: Not hot chilli

Good morning good sir,

How was your weekend? Good times? I cooked chilli last night and it was disappointingly not spicy, despite using 4 hot chillies and plenty of “hot” chilli powder. I am pretty sure I still have taste buds, but it just was not spicy.. any ideas why?! It had potatoes and beans in as well as the standard chilli con carne stuff.

Eggs’n’taters.

Ryan


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From: Richard
Sent: 11:48
To: Ryan
Subject: RE: Cabbages and Cream

I cooked one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten on Saturday: cabbage pasta! It was a recipe from my river café book and was basically cavolo nero, cream and garlic, but transformed through technique into one of the most delicious things ever. It did take over an hour and involve four separate pans and the Magimixthough, so I would have been disappointed if it had been anything less than stunning. If you’re interested in trying it the recipe is here (I cut the quantities down to 1 third for the sauce which I found ample for 250g of spaghetti – the pasta amount they recommend if for starter portions with a sauce to pasta ratio that would be inedibly rich as a main course). I think kale would be almost indistinguishable from cavolo nero and much more readily available, and the recipe calls for 2 to 3 chillis rather than 23.

Not as posh as the Savoy.

Perhaps 23 chillies would have been more suitable for your chilli last night. I’ve suffered at the hands of the mysterious non-hot chilli phenomenon before. It’s weird. I’ll have packed a chilli with up to 10 chillies and still it’ll end up as meek and timid as a new born bush-baby. I think a lot of it is down to the unpredictability of the heat contained within individual chillies (I’ve also had the opposite, when a pasta sauce, for example, will be insanely fiery after just 1 chilli). I also suspect that an over long cooking time can temper the heat of an initially respectable chilli, and the inclusion of fire extinguishing starchy elements (like your potatoes and beans) can also have an emasculating effect. The only answer is to prepare some Liquid Fire while the chilli is cooking by stewing at least 10 dried birds eyes in a little water and oil. Then, each diner can tailor their chilli’s power to their own palette by adding a teaspoon at a time of the Fire to their portion.