The East End Sarnie

Stuff You'll Need:

About 50g butter

A tablespoon of vegetable oil

Two slices of bread

Lots of your favourite cheddar

Some of the most delicious ham you can get hold of

Dijon mustard

What You Need To Do:

We British are a funny old bunch, we get through over 11 billion sandwiches a year and yet we seem to lavish almost no thought, love or care on something we seemingly adore so much.  I suffer enormous envy when I think how well other countries do the sandwich.  Picture the perfection of a medium rare burger, a Friday night kebab delight, or even an oozing quesadilla.  Yet despite it forming the basis of most of our lunches, we seem content with mealy-mouthed squares of plastic bread spread thinly with meat paste, or canned tuna or (my own personal nemesis) stinky over-boiled egg.

Well, I for one want to reclaim the sarnie as a thing of beauty.  No longer should a sandwich be something to be ashamed of.  Make these babies and I promise you will fall in love with the sandwich all over again.  Also, your family will want to kiss the ground you walk on.

I would say that pound for pound this is one of my favourite recipes in the world.  Essentially all you do is make a cheese and ham sandwich and then shallow fry it in butter but like all the great things in life, the devil is in the detail.  I absolutely insist that you use white bread of whatever kind you like but somehow brown bread just won’t do for this.  The cheese should be one that you love but I find the hit of some Snowdonia Black Bomber or really hits the spot.  Get some ham from a decent deli or butcher and watch them carve it for you.  Remember that the thing with simple recipes is that the ingredients you use need to be as good as you can get because if you skimp the only one who loses will be you.

Put the butter and oil into a nonstick pan and place on a high heat.  Smear a side of each slice of bread with the mustard then place the cheese and ham on one slice and place the second slice of bread on the ham, mustard side down.  When the butter is hot and bubbly put the sandwich in the pan and leave for a couple of minutes.  When the first side is golden turn it over.  Place on a warmed plate and serve with a green salad, some chips if you can be bothered, and a beer.

I have also made this with strawberry jam and peanut butter to bring out my inner Elvis.  It was the devil in disguise (in a good way).

The Gilbert Scott

Restaurant review: The Gilbert Scott, London NW1

You should have seen the instructions next to the toilet

My mother would hate The Gilbert Scott.  The miniature tie worn by the waitress would have had her tutting and fussing from the get-go.  One look at the house chardonnay would have caused her a mischief.  It was 13 percent proof, you see, and her one rule about wine is that any bottle that exceeds 11 percent is just showing off.  What would have had her reaching for the smelling salts though was the little printed sign in the toilet that gave instructions on how to use the taps.

Happily, I am my own man and am able to turn a blind eye to such lamentable lapses of lunching good form.  So despite the fact that my mother reads everything I write, photocopies it, then pins it to the church noticeboard (for all her friends to see how well I’m doing), I’m going to risk the eye-rolling of my life and say that I really like The Gilbert Scott.

When the restaurant opened in May it marked the end of the £800 million St Pancras regeneration project.  And what a regeneration it is.  The elegance and style that must have dripped from every chandelier when it first opened 138 years ago has been beautifully recaptured and yet this is an eating space that doesn’t feel unwelcoming or exclusive.  The space is big and flooded with natural light, the staff helpful and the Marcus Wareing designed food was so British that I had 1970’s nostalgia flashbacks for hours.

The starter, a porky, livery, sagey Haslet, was as good as any I’ve had in Lincolnshire.  A salty and firm rectangle bound by a quivering ribbon of pork fat, like a porcine birthday parcel.  I would say that I could have done with a bit more toast to go with it but then I’m a pig when I eat pig.

The sea bream was pretty well perfect; white flesh hidden beneath a crisp and slightly blackened skin.  I confess that I did experience a touch of food envy when I saw the chicken and snail pie emerge from the kitchen.  All the food at our table was accompanied with sides that no British table should be without; new potatoes, greens and carrots.  It would appear that some things never change no matter how many Michelin stars the creative has.

Mrs. Beeton’s Snow Eggs turned out not to be a euphemism but rather a splendid egg white and toffee concoction, slightly salty and mouth-tighteningly sweet. 

Most definitely not a euphemism

I have no idea whether the near billion pounds will make the trains from St. Pancras run any smoother but I’d be happy to while away a few hours of delays in The Gilbert Scott any day.  I just won’t take my mother. Come to think of it though, if I wanted to get my hands on the family silver a bit early I could so worse than set her sat nav to NW1 2AR.  She’d be dead before the starter arrived.

The Apocalypse Chef

Ha ha ha.  Remember when this guy had his finger on the button..?  No no, the one on the right.

For many years I have wrestled with the most thorny of questions.  What practical skills would I bring to a post-apocalyptic future? Living through the 1980s it was a question I thought long and hard about.  It was a time when "hitting the red button" meant something far more hideous than a bit more Lee Dixon on Saturday afternoon telly.  For crying out loud it was a decade when the foremost childrens' illustrator, the man who created The Snowman and Fungus The Bogeyman, wrote and illustrated a cartoon detailing the misery, despair and skin disease of a lovely husband and wife in the aftermath of a nuclear strike.

Well, the apocalypse is back only this time it's much worse because this apocalypse is going to mean the end of comfy sofas, Saturday night telly and michelin starred cookery.  Thanks to those crazy bankers, we'll all be living in caves and eating raw dog before you can say 'collateralised debt obligations'.

So, what will I bring to the dystopian future..?  Well, I’m no good with my hands so I can’t build anything.  My knowledge of flora and fauna is non-existant so I couldn't cure ailments with nettles and I have little upper body strength so would be useless as part of an axe-weilding mob.  However, thanks to my mother-in-law I now have a purpose, I’m going to cook food for everyone.  All hail the apocalypse chef.

I love odd cookbooks.  I have a stupendous barbeque cookbook from the 1970s where a plate of brown food is never without a carved tomato garnish.  I have a cookbook called ‘Gourmet Cooking’ where a dish called ‘Pacific Pie’ is topped with broken ready salted crisps (gourmet indeed).  Last week my MIL gave me a cookbook called ‘Cooking In Times Of Emergency’. It was published during WW2 and it is incredible.  There is a whole chapter called ‘Air Raid Interruptions’, which details what you should do to a cake or stew if you have to get to your Anderson shelter mid-meal.

By the time you read this we may well be in the throes of autumn fever.  You might be thinking about roasting a shoulder of something or braising the cheeks of whatnot.  However, if you're stuck for something tonight then why not serve up some delicious savoury tripe casserole, followed by some Brains au Gratin and finish the meal of with prune pudding?*.

If you want to throw a dinner party that your friends will never forget then just message me and I’ll send you the recipes.  And should we ever experience an apocalyptic event that plunges the world into a pre-industrial dystopia then come on over and I’ll pop the kettle on.

*yes these dishes are all real 

2011 Picnics: There's Still Time

As we have been experiencing a bit of autumnal great weather I thought I'd bung down my favourite picnic ever.  Actually, it's not strictly speaking my picnic, it's the picnic that the anonymous family set out on their rug in Ted Hughes's beautiful The Iron Man. 

 One day a father, a mother, a little boy and a little girl stopped their car and climbed the hill for a picnic.  They had never heard of the Iron Man and they thought the hill had been there for ever.

They spread a tablecloth on the grass.  They set down a plate of sandwiches, a big pie, a roasted chicken, a bottle of milk, a bowl of tomatoes, a bagful of boiled eggs, a dish of butter and a loaf of bread, with cheese and salt and cups.  The father got his stove going to boil some water for tea, and they all lay back on rugs munching food and waiting for the kettle to boil, under the blue sky.

For my money this has everything a good picnic should have.  It’s heavy on the meat, you need to take knives to cut the bread and chicken and you boil the water for tea in situ (let’s face it a teapot on a picnic blanket is a thing of beauty).  It’s simple but it feels loving and generous.

It was an absolute doddle to make, the only cooking required was the chicken and eggs.  I roasted a free-range, ethically farmed chicken for an hour and a half at 200C.  As always I shoved half a lemon and some whole garlic cloves up its arse, rubbed olive oil over the skin and sprinkled with salt and pepper.  Easy.  While the bird was in the oven I boiled three eggs for 8 minutes then held them under cold running water until they were cool. 

The sandwiches were a blank canvas as their flavour is unspecified.  I wanted to make them reasonably traditional so peanut butter and banana was out.  After six days of agonising I plumped for ham, mustard and tomato with ham and tomato for the kids.

The pie was a classic pork pie from my butchers and I could have baked some bread I suppose but I wasn't going to kill myself over it.

So, here’s the family verdict on The Iron Man picnic.  It is a picnic from the recesses of the British psyche.  Every aspect of it is wonderful but what I really like about it is how uncompromising it is.  I know this sounds like a small detail but the fact that the chicken is whole, the eggs unpeeled, the bread and cheese uncut really focusses the picnic on the food.  It is fast food but slow fast food.  Food that has to be deliberated over, the ceremony of the unwrapping, the carving, the brewing all adding to the drama and theatre of the meal.  It is much more than the sum of its parts and it was delicious.

Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)

Press play while you read, it will lend a heroic and noble quality to the words

When I was a young man the world seemed a strange and alien place.  To my teenage eyes everywhere I looked were confident, clever and beautiful people.  They were not like me because they didn't always wear trousers that were just a bit too short in the leg or sport glasses so huge that even Deirdre Barlow/Rashid/Barlow would have said,"blimey that kid's glasses are ridiculous".  

It was during this time that I turned to the great poets to help make sense of such a cruel world.  Whereas others would turn to Blake and Shelly and Wilde for stimulation, I found solace in the words of Steven Tyler, William Gibbons and Edward Van Halen.  I mean, when you think about it, there is rarely a situation where 80s American rock standards don’t help out.  Try it out. 

“An I’m gonna hold on for the rest of my days, ‘cos I know what it means, to walk along the lonely street of dreams”

Thank you David Coverdale.

I found myself drinking from the Rock Goblet of Wisdom (RGW) a couple of weeks ago whilst passing a pub I used to love that no longer exists.  The song that I quaffed until the juice ran down my face was You Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til It’s Gone by Cinderella (see above).  

If I ever got on to Desert Island Discs, my local pub would be my luxury item because it is just about perfect.  It’s close to my house, it has great beers, a good wine list and wonderful food (when you go make sure you have the treacle tart).  But the Five Elms is more than this because of the people who run it, work in it and use it, it is in all senses a pub of the community.  Every year at Christmas there’s a carol sing-a-long outside with friends and strangers huddled together drinking mulled wine and eating homemade sausage rolls.  I can honestly say that some of my happiest times in recent years have been spent next to the fire in the small snug of the Five Elms or lolling around outside after a long hot summer day.

So, if you love your pub then heed the advice of the Motley Crue from their 1985 album Theatre Of Pain, Use It Or Lose It.

A Supercool Supper To Make Tonight

The tomatoes were so good I couldn't take the photo without eating some

Fancy a really quick and easy supper that you could do tonight..?  I got my sweaty hands on some really good late season tomatoes the other day and decided to make one of my favourite things in the world.

Halve the tomatoes and place cut side up in a roasting dish.  Crush some garlic and scatter over the beautiful red fruit.  Then splash some olive oil over the lot and season with salt and pepper.  If you have any thyme leaves or oregano then toss some in too.  It will all taste good believe me.

Roast the tomatoes in a hot oven (about 200C) for about 25 mins.

This makes a wonderful side dish for steaks or grilled chicken or roast lamb.  You could have it with some firm fleshed white fish or with some ribbons of tagliatelle.  Or like me you can toast some bread, spoon the tomatoes and all the lovely juices on top and grate over some parmesan.  This is definitely my kind of food, I hope you try it out.

Clang! Namedrop Fish Supper of the Week

Tom Kerridge and Matthew Fort would only agree to the photo if I promised to keep my eyes closed

OK, so I was recently hanging out with Tom Kerridge, Great British Menu winner and all-round amazing guy, and he gave me some sea bass fillets.  This was fabulous because sea bass is (a) delicious (b) in season and (c) eye-wateringly expensive.  

In my, very humble, opinion the key to sea bass is 'keep it simple'.  You don't want to over complicate things and run the risk of cocking it up after you've parted with all that cash for a few fillets.  Actually, that would make an excellent second key to sea bass; "keep it simple" and "don't cock it up".

So here's what I did with mine.  

I had some waxy potatoes, some large flat mushrooms and some peas (all in season as well I hasten to add!) so I thought I'd roast the sea bass on the spuds, fry off the mushrooms and make a simple pea salsa.  Sort of like fish, chips and mushy peas if you had the Queen or Posh Spice coming round.

Cut the spuds into thick slices, throw them on a baking tray and glug on a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper.  Put them in a hot oven for 15 mins.  After 15 mins place the sea bass on the potatoes skin side up, rub olive oil on the skin and season.  Return to the oven and cook for another 10-12 mins.

While this is going on fry the mushrooms in butter and cook the peas for a minute or two.  Blitz the cooked peas with some butter, a little cream if you have it, and some salt and pepper.  Season the mushrooms.  Put on a plate and enjoy.

I think Tom would approve.