Book Review - The Fat Duck

Hope everyone had a jolly festive season and received all the love, food and presents that they desired. In my presents this year I received a copy of Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck tome, which I have had on my wish list for a while now.

Now you might wonder why a vegan home cook would have any interest in the writings of a celebrity meat eating chef with a successful business where each diner has to pay half a week's minimum wage just for a meal before wine, a phenomenon that has informed restaurant food in the UK and the rest of the world for the last 10 years but has almost no application in everday cookery, where the food is poncified to an extreme state and where reservations are taken two months in advance and are most probably fully booked by half past nine on the first Monday of the next month.

Really it is precisely for all the reasons I've listed above that I needed the book. A committed vegan is never going to be able to dine at the restaurant, even the few token veggie dishes are laden with eggs and cheese and even if I could somehow persuade Heston to make an exception for me and create an animal free tasting menu I could never afford it, so the only way I can get a taste of his cooking (and of his brigade of 40 or so staff) is virtually. I can read the book and analyse the recipes and note anything that might add to the vegan cooking canon by virtue of its originality or concept. The experience might be vicarious but it's still valid, it can enhance my food skills and knowledge just as having a meal in the restaurant might do.

There is another reason. Heston isn't mad but he is driven and compulsive in his approach to cooking and that in itself is something that fascinates me; that I can admire because it so far removed from my own rather pared down approach. It is so over the top that it's half way down the other side and that makes for the sort of novelty that can hold my interest. I am captivated by his determination.

This is not to say that everything about the Fat Duck, the book and Heston's public person meets with my entire approval. The restaurant is, as noted above, heavy on the animal products and somewhat exclusive. Some of the television programmes have been annoyingly poor, with scientific and culinary errors that have had me (and the Mr.) shouting at the screen nearly as loudly as we do for Delia.

Anyway, to the book. This is the reduced version of the original Big Fat Duck cookbook that retailed for around £125 last year. I'm not sure what's missing, if anything.

This edition contains an autobiographical section, a recipe section containing many of his more renowned dishes (which presumably are being pensioned off) and a scientific section which I have yet to read. There are also rather a lot of pictures of the man, a good many high quality illustrations which sadly add very little to the experience and some excellent photos of food which is the bit that I need, the visual element of the meal I'm trying to grasp through the literature. Sadly there is no scratch and sniff nor audio chips embedded so that the full sensory experience can be shared.

The Worst Bread I've ever made

These really are the heaviest, hardest, most concrete like bricks of bread I've ever made, and I include in that summary all the crumbly pasty doughs of my early youth, before I learned about flour and baker's percentages.

What went wrong? Nothing really. The flour was a white bread flour, from Lidl admittedly but I've used it before with good results. The dough mixed up fine in the Santos, I didn't forget the salt and the yeast, which had received the blame, was almost certainly alive when I added it to the mix, I've proved this by starting another batch with some of its brethren. All fine.

But the water and the kitchen were a bit cold, I wasn't really paying attention, doing a couple of other things at the same time (which it pains me to admit are nearly as unsuccessful) and I've lost my cooking mojo. Just recently, I couldn't care less.

It's pervading my entire life and although I can coast, keep my fingers crossed and be forgiving of my failures really it's not a healthy state of mind. It shows up in everything I do or rather don't do, no painting, no gardening, no blogging. Something has to change so I don't promise anything but I'm going to try harder off screen and hope it boils over into the webbysphere. Fingers crossed.

Balls

I wanted an aebleskiver pan but despite the fact these originate in Denmark I could only find suppliers in the States. It made me cross to think that something that should be almost local to me here in the UK or France would have to be shipped such a long way.



So, with perfect logic, I decided to buy the Japanese equivalent, a Takoyaki Pan, reasoning that an authentic Japanese pan might have to be ferried half way around the world but at least I'd have the real thing. I ordered it from the Japan Centre in London and with postage it cost me about £35.

It was made in China.



The street food Takoyaki is made with octopus, or sometimes shrimp along with a selection of usual Japanese flavourings, ginger, spring onion, dashi in the batter. This is obviously not vegan and I've yet to perfect a substitute filling because this is only my second attempt with the pan.

For these, I made a simple batter of self raising flour, nutritional yeast and soy milk, flavoured with grated ginger, chopped shallot (no spring onions) and a little finely shredded cabbage. The texture is good and the flavour has potential although once dressed with the traditional Japanese toppings of mayonnaise and brown sauce it's hard to imagine any flavour really shining through them.



Japanese brown sauce isn't quite Worcestershire, nor Daddies, nor Plum sauce but occupies some special area in between them all. I don't have any and used some of our own "brown sauce" based on green tomatoes and heavily spiced. It's a good substitute but use vegan Worcestershire varieties if you have nothing else.

I skipped the mayo, these babies are already mighty greasy.



Fried food, you've just got to love it.

The noble potato - part 3

Back in the UK for the winter I've been rummaging through the cupboards, trying to "tidy up" and get rid of junk and clutter we never use.

I found this gadget, a simple microwave safe rack for making snacks from potatoes that look like crisps without any added fat at all. They were all the rage in the Mummy set I inhabited some 20 years ago but are now relegated to the odd items in the miscellaneous sections of online cook and plastic shops. I had a look and could only find them on e-bay.

A compulsion overtook me and I thought I'd try it one more time before consigning it to oblivion.

They're o.k.

You need to slice the potato really evenly and thinly. A mandoline would be good but I couldn't be arsed with the extra need to wash it afterwards so didn't bother. Fill your gadget with one slice per slot, nothing else needed. My hand sliced crisps took about 13 minutes on high in our old microwave, usually only used for defrosting because I'm not a microwave oven fan. Start with five minutes and continue in increments until the crisps are golden brown and puffy.

And you really need the gadget. Trying to stand slices propped up like cards or on their edges just doesn't work and for some reason the increased thickness seemed to encourage the wretched things to blacken and burn instead of crisping up.

So, it's another way to use potato and has some novelty value but it doesn't beat a full fat home fried crisp. I think the gadget may be for the chop.

Late to the Party

This is my birthday cake. It looks better than last year's which is a bit of a relief!

Coconut and cherries make this just a bit more special than that plain golden exterior suggests. It might have been nice with icing but it's sweet enough already and so I decided to keep it simple. With a good cup of coffee it's phenomenal.

Ingredients

450g self raising flour (use plain with an extra tsp. of baking powder)
120g desiccated coconut
1 tsp baking powder
300g caster sugar
200g glace cherries
125ml vegetable oil
400ml (1 tin) coconut milk, full fat is best.
1 tbsp white vinegar (I used rice but anything, even cider vinegar is fine)
1/2 tsp almond essence (or maraschino flavouring or coconut essence)

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Ensure your oven is really at this temperature, too hot will ruin everything.

2. Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl and stir in the coconut and sugar.

3. Rinse the sticky syrup off the cherries and allow to dry, cut them in half if you like then toss in a couple of teaspoonfuls of flour to coat. This is supposed to stop the cherries from sinking and may have some good effect.

4. Combine all the wet ingredients in another bowl. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients all at once and mix in gently but thoroughly.

5. Pour half the batter into a greased 23cm/9in springform cake tin and sprinkle the cherries over, then add the rest the batter and level off. Bake for about 55 mins to 1 hour, until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin.

6. Turn the cake out of the tin and serve with coffee. If you serve the cake warm you could put a sweet sauce with it and call it pudding.

The noble potato - part 2

Scottish Potato Scones

If Latkes are a Jewish staple these simple potato scones might be considered a Scottish one. The ingredients for both are quite similar but for the scones the potatoes are cooked by boiling before mixing with the flour.

400g hot potato (peeled, boiled and drained)
100g flour
40g vegan margarine
1/2 tsp salt

You will need a very heavy pan with a thick base or a griddle to make these.

Melt your margarine. If you do it in your cooking pan it will grease it in the same action.

Mash the potatoes finely, put through a ricer or coarse sieve if you like to remove all lumps but it's not essential. Add the melted fat, salt and the flour to the mash and combine well. It'll be a bit hot to put your hands straight in so use a fork to get the mixture started.

Divide the well mixed dough into two portions. On a well floured work surface gently roll out one portion to a circle about 15-20cms wide (let the size of your pan guide you!) and about 5 or 6 mm thick. Cut the circle into quarters.

Heat your lightly greased griddle or heavy frying pan but don't let it become smoking hot. You need a gentle heat to cook these cakes through. Arrange your scone pieces on the griddle and cook slowly until the underside is golden, then turn and repeat for the second side. It'll be three or four minutes for each side. While you're doing that, roll out the second portion of dough ready for the pan.

Serve warm with spread, marmite or jam. Leftovers will keep for a couple of days, wrapped in the fridge, and can be reheated under the grill or refried to form part of a full British breakfast.

The noble potato - part 1

Latkes with sweet green cucumber pickle.

Part of my current difficulties with having an interest in cooking comes down to an immature (think two year old toddler) tantrum about not wanting to eat what's so abundant it's boring.

We have a lot of potatoes this year (and tomatoes and courgettes) and before I've even eaten many I'm telling myself I'm sick to death with them. Pretty stupid because you can make so many very different dishes with potatoes, all of them delicious and mostly easy too. I've given myself a talking to and will, in penance, attempt a short series of potato based posts, interspersed with anything really good that comes up, showcasing the many ways the spud can make a good meal.

Latkes are potato cakes made with grated raw potato and fried in plenty of oil. So far, so good but when you actually come to research this traditional Jewish recipe, which is made especially for Hanukkah but also at other times of the year, you find that the variations on the theme are legion with vegetables, flavourings and even cheese added.

Consequently I have little concern over offering my own recipe version, which is veganised by leaving out the egg! I have to come clean though and admit these are the first really successful potato pancakes I've ever made, previous attempts have been passably nasty but at least this has allowed me to identify the essential points to address.

Peel and grate some potatoes. Much is made of the variety but I used a mix of waxy (Pink Fir Apple) and floury (old Epicure) and didn't have any problem. Use a large grater, it's less grief in my opinion. Three medium potatoes made enough for eight cakes.

Finely chop a small onion and add it to the potato. Don't add too much, onion is watery and sugary. The water makes the cakes gummy and the sugar will burn before the potato part is cooked. On the other hand, the flavour is much improved by the allium.

Put the potato onion mixture onto a clean tea towel, gather up the corners, go outside somewhere and comprehensively take your aggression out on it, squeezing those vegetables until they are as dry as really dry things.

Put the dried veg into a bowl and season lightly with salt and pepper. Now, I didn't weigh anything this morning so you'll just have to go with the flow. Sprinkle over enough white flour to coat each shred with a light dusting. Use your fingers to toss the flour through the mixture and allow any excess to fall to the bottom of the bowl. Using your hands take small portions of the floured potato and squeeze it into small flat cakes, not more than 1cm thick and about the size of the palm of your hand. Do several and set them to one side.

Heat a heavy frying pan with about 1cm of olive or other fresh oil in it until it is hot but not smoking. Place 4 or 5 of your little cakes into the oil, not too close to each other. They should sizzle as they hit the fat, then reduce the heat a little. You need to cook the cakes through before the outside burns so expect to take several minutes for each batch of latkes. Squash the cakes down as the first side cooks to spread them out a little and turn them once during cooking so that each side becomes golden.

Drain on kitchen towel and serve as quickly and as hot as possible.

Tradition has them served with apple sauce which I think would be lovely but I didn't have any so had sweet cucumber pickle instead which made a similar combination.

Lacking in the execution

Tofu Fingers in a Chinese Curry sauce

This was a nice enough idea, seasoned tofu fingers coated in cornflour and fried in plenty of oil is always a good start but the rice was mismanaged and the sauce inadequate so no recipe tonight. This is just to remind myself I need to try harder next time.

Still I may allow myself a glass of wine, just to help my digestion you understand.

Breakfast?

In a startling reversal of the space-time continuum I'm now working my way through 10 more days without a car or any access to things beyond the garden and the pantry stores. Not such a big deal as we discovered before but it does lead to some issues with everyday foods that are easier to buy in for one consumer. Like bread.

Yesterday I got over this problem by making chapatti which were bloody good if I say so myself, they cooked perfectly and by chance or design I got exactly the softness and puffiness I desire. Unfortunately, giving the recipe out for them is like giving out the recipe for wallpaper paste. It's just flour and water, it's what you do with them that matters and that is so difficult to explain.

Today I crumbled, (ha, get that!) and took the last loaf out of the freezer but it still wasn't thawed in time for breakfast. Enter the instant polenta.

Instant polenta has a bad press, probably mostly from people whose formative years were spent breaking their elbows stirring the 'real' stuff for an hour while dodging the explosive bombs of hot paste spluttering from the pan.

The instant stuff probably isn't as good, but it sure is convenient. Easiest to measure by volume, an espresso cupful (about 60ml although you don't usually get a full cup of espresso) is enough for two not terribly hungry people. Add four more cupfuls of cold water and heat, stirring continuously over a gentle heat for about FIVE minutes. You'll know it's done when it gets thick and starts leaving a trail behind the spoon in the pan. Add a good dollop of oil or vegan marge and you're ready to serve.

I split mine into two portions, one to eat hot and the other to chill and be fried in slices later. With the hot I served homemade beans in sauce. The garden is providing a lot of shelling beans at the moment and with some shallots, garlic and tomato sauce I made this not terribly delicious hotpot type thing which went quite well with the starchy polenta.

I will give you my tips for flavouring though because that worked quite well. A little bit of white pepper adds something that black pepper misses, probably because ready ground white pepper is slightly fermented. You can become quite a white pepper aficionado because various brands and batches may have quite different flavours and I'm well on my way to becoming one. With the white pepper, a pinch of ground allspice works nicely with the tomato although a single clove would also do the job as long as it was removed before eating.

More tomorrow I hope but I've been having a run of failures in my recipes recently, probably because food isn't top of my priorities at the moment, and there hasn't been a lot to share about it.

Flapjack

I had a whole long story to go with these, as well as my own recipe but for reasons that are best not gone into I'm too cross now to tell it properly. The recipe is a reliable one from The Complete Farmhouse Kitchen cookbook, the book of the TV series that informed many of my afternoons spent skiving from school.

Makes 15

75g marg.
2 tbs. golden syrup (about 50g)
75g dark sugar
150g rolled (porridge) oats

Grease a shallow tin, about 18cm square (or line with parchment or ideally both)

Put marg, syrup and sugar into a saucepan and heat gently until all is warmed and dissolved.

Remove from heat and mix in oats.

Spread into prepared tin and press down well.

Bake in a moderate oven 180C for 15-20 minutes. The colour should be just golden but it will burn quickly if you leave it in too long.

Remove from oven and allow to cool for five minutes, then mark into bars. Allow to cool completely before breaking into sections. Store in an airtight tin. Keeps three weeks.

This basic recipe can be gussied up with added dried fruit or coconut flakes if liked.