Haddock with Chorizo, Roasted Veg and Polenta

Thank you Salad Club. If it wasn't for your Portuguese Eating Eurovision post I would have kept on walking past the Continental Deli in Brixton.

So on a Tuesday evening I popped in and spent quarter of an hour in a state of bliss. I tried cheeses, discussed polenta, sniffed chorizos, squeeze aubergines and nibbled on olives. Bella Cardoso is a star. I walked away with some spicy, semi cured chorizo, some fennel, baby tomatoes, an enormous maroon pepper a bag of polenta, some haddock from the fishmonger next door and plenty of advice to help me!

I kept things simple on the cooking front. I sliced the chorizo into chunks and fried it to crisp the outside and release the paprikay oils. I then fried the seasoned haddock skin side down in the chorizo "juice" and then flipped it over to finish. It was all done in a matter of minutes.

Prior to this I had roasted the red pepper, fennel and tomatoes with a glug of olive oil, ample seasoning and some lemon juice on a high heat with the aim of slightly scorching the veggies to give them a chance of punching their weight against the chorizo. Some steamed spinach made for a savoury burst of greenery.

And for the polenta I didn't know what I was doing, so simply followed the instructions on the pack, by boiling for 3 minutes. It was fine, but bland, as you'd expect.

The result was a dish I'm very pleased with. I adore chorizo and fish so this was a dish that was always going to make me smile.

As I sat down with a plate of Portuguese cheese from the Continental Deli and a glass of wine, I had a look on Twitter and was amazed at what I saw. Tom Aitkens, no less, had seen me a series of tweets about how to make perfect polenta...

"if you use 3-4 x the amount of stock to the polenta you should not go wring for example 100g polenta 400g white chicken stock

bring the stock to a simmer with a pinch of chopped rosemary, little smoked paprika, salt an pepper, pour in polenta and whisk

it will come together quickly then change for a spoon, add a little butter, 1 tbsp creme fraiche, little lemon juice and Parmesan"

Thank you, Tom Aitkens, very much indeed for your help, (even if it did come too late to put into practice this time). I'm now planning to cook your polenta recipe this week. It's episodes like this that make me realise just how powerful Twitter can be.

An Evening With Thomasina Miers

Photo from Thomasina's profile on the Guardian.

Ever since we first visited Wahaca we’ve been hooked on Thomasina’s addictive restaurant. Part of this is down to what must be one of the best marketing ideas for ages – Wahaca Chilli Seeds. Essentially Oli, Ed and I planted these seeds in a couple of containers in our office back in March not really expecting much to happen. But to our delight the seeds grew and the seedlings became fruiting chilli plants. We taught ourselves to become chilli experts with our speciality being the chilli pollination dance which you’ve got to watch below!



I sent a hopeful email to Wahaca asking if they could identify what type of chillies we had grown. And to my surprise I got a response from none other than Thomasina telling us that we had grown jalapeños. Elated, our collective chilli fetish lead us to creating our own chilli inspired recipes. Ed’s chilli oil is a closely guarded secret. As is Oli’s sweet chilli sauce.



But if you want to know how to make my crab apple and chilli jelly you can read about it here.



In response to our rabid enthusiasm for chillies, Thomasina very kindly invited the Publicis Chilli Growing Collective over for a tequila and a bite to eat over at her place. Delighted by the offer we filled our bags full of the chillies we’ve harvested, a bottle of Hornitos tequila and a jar of chilli and crab apple jelly! As the Scouts say, “Be Prepared”.

The excitement started as soon as we arrived. Whilst I was looking at the pin board by the foyer, I did a massive double take and realised that the email I wrote to Thomasina asking her what chillies we were growing was the pride of place in Wahaca’s latest newsletter, along with a photo of our best chilli plant! What a feeling!

Then when Thomasina glamorously emerged from the buzzing restaurant we all had to pinch ourselves. Star struck and a bit bowled over we had a fabulous time talking about Mexican and Spanish food whilst drinking an exciting range of tequilas and feasting on an array of goodies that Thomasina picked from her own menu! I swear it all tasted twice as good…

We all became very animated when discussing how to make chorizo. Thomasina is now making her own chorizo for the restaurant – it is currently in soft launch phase and tasted amazing in a refried bean concoction. You can taste the passion in all her food and in her writing. This was of particular interest to Oli who has bought a piglet as a wedding present for his best friend. At the stag do they are planning to butcher the pig and are in need of suggestions for turning "Babe" into a range of pork goodies...

Oli and I left literally and figuratively full of beans because as we were leaving we got chatting to Tom Parker Bowles about what makes a good tequila – all inspired by Oli’s now almost empty bottle of Hornitos! With a bit of luck we might land up on telly talking about tequila and chillies – two things that are very dear to all our hearts.

Thomi – if you want any help with your blog and the Slow Food Movement, you know where to come. And next time we come for dinner, can we bring Ed? Thanks so much for everything. You’ve inspired all of us.

Parmesan Custard and Anchovy Toast Continued

Cowie and I went to Burgundy over the weekend and had a wonderful time with the whole family. Each night a team of two cooked something different. Needless to say it was all fantastically French and delicious.

Whilst researching what to cook with Tamsyn I stumbled across an old Floyd book.



Flicking through it I found none other than a recipe in the hors d'oeuvres section for cheese custard.



And then over the page for anchovy toast!



A reflection of Rowley Leigh and Floyd's shared love of rustic French food? Or copywright infringement? Probably the former!

Either way, I can't wait to eat at Le Cafe Anglais in order to shove another Parmesan custard tart in my mouth whilst nibbling some crunchy anchovy toast.

Why do celebrity chefs pose like this?

What is it about celebrity chefs that makes them pose with their arms crossed on the front cover of their books? I saw these books by James Martin and Wozzer side by side in Waitrose and wondered whether it was a trait that other chefs had too. You can see below that Jamie has also dabbled with the arms crossed technique. But not in anyway near the way that Wozzer and James Martin do.





If you have a look at Jamie's other front covers a patern emerges. The arms crossed thing is a bit of a red herring. In all of his front covers he looks relaxed. Informal. Making cooking look like a piece of piss. He doesn't need to do the whole arms crossed thing to look important or commanding.









Maybe you could say that Jamie's got his arms crossed to add a bit of gravitas to his "Cook" book. And in the Jamie at Home book it's a fairly relaxed bit of arm crossing afterall.

Gordon's front covers are interesting too. But a bit harder to decypher. It seems that he's gone from being a bit shy about his face by covering up his chin and not looking to camera to a place where he is now very happy to act as a model - almost like Tom Cruise in Cocktail. See what you think...









During the course of Gordon's rise to fame loads of girls have fallen head over heals with Gordon for his gruff, assertive masculinity. His contoured face has become iconic and he's stopped hiding it away.

Hugh's front covers are the most consistent of all. Very Hugh. You get a picture of Hugh eating or holding whatever sums up his latest book. Simple. So Wittingstall.







It all goes to show that celebrity chefs are major brands these days. The same rules of branding apply to them as they would to any of the brands I work on. The look and feel is crucial and consistency of image is really imporant too.

I hope my amateur interest in body language hasn't bored anyone too much!

Tea Smoked Duck

I pottered down to the Northcotte Road this morning to get some stuff for breakfast and landed up buying a couple of duck breasts for supper. Wondering what to do with them I remembered that Hannah smoked some duck breasts with lavender on Master Chef to great effect and did a bit of sofa research.



There are loads of recipes for smoking duck. There are 730,000 entries on Google all with different instructions! I read quite a few of them before deciding that I would base my strategy on the simplest suggestion from Wino Sapien.

So. I started by coating the slashed duck breasts in Fleur de Mer salt, smoked paprika, freshly ground pepper and ginger. I left these to develop in the fridge for half an hour or so before rinsing them off and patting dry.



In the meantime I threw a variety of tea leaves into a foil lined wok. White Monkey tea, Earl Grey Creme from Moby's Teany, a bit of Lap and my Blends for Friends concoction. A drizzle of honey and a scattering of dried shitake mushrooms finished things off. I fired up the gas and got the tea to smoking point before popping the duck breasts in a suitably sized colander and sealing with a lid.





Around 8 minutes of smoking did the trick. You've got to make sure the lid is secured tightly and any gaps are plugged otherwise you're going to be airing your house for the rest of the week!




After smoking for 8 minutes take the wok off the heat and let it rest with the lid still on. You want to get as much smoke into the duck as possible. Then remove the duck breasts and rub a bit of salt into the now golden skin before lobbing skin side down into a scorching hot griddle pan. Sear until the skin is crisp before turning over dabbing with butter and then shove it under the grill for a few minutes to cook through.



Spoon over the juice in the pan, leave to rest for a moment or two and then slice. Delicious and far better than I had hoped for!



Well done Wino Sapien. Great recipe. I added a couple of dabs of lime marmalade and apricot jam to the plate to give the plate a bit of colour and some sweetness.

Bob Blumer the Surreal Gourmet

I've just stumbled across Bob Blumer on Treehugger whilst researching how to cook salmon in the dishwasher and have been bowled over by his site and innovative ideas.

I've read about Beer Can chicken before which is cool...



But I absolutely loved his take on "Bed of Polenta"... inspired.



Here is a fragment from an interview with Bob from Gremolata

"Bob Blumer published The Surreal Gourmet: Real Food for Pretend Chefs in 1992 and hasn't looked back since. Formerly Jane Siberry's manager, Blumer combined his skills for living well with little money , his artistic talent and his playful interest in surrealism to produce one of the most influential cookbooks of the 90s. The book was a hit and he has been inspiring cooks since with three more volumes. Ever looking for interesting ways to present food, earlier this year, Blumer brought his unique outlook to Paris, where he opened a "temporary restaurant" for a week."

I'm going to have to get myself a few of his books and try his ideas out.