Hake a la Washing Machine

When our washing machine broke down, Cowie was spinning with rage, whilst I grinned to myself and said a quiet prayer to the Gods of domestic appliances, that it might be in a cookable state. I figured that if we had to buy a replacement, my lifelong ambition to cook in a washing machine would be within my grasp.

The engineer’s report indicated that the machine was in a fully functioning state, except that the drum just wouldn’t spin, so he advised us to get a replacement. I figured that this is the dream situation. I checked the internet to see if anyone had done anything like this before and discovered some Americans had, quite brilliantly, attempted to cook scrambled eggs inside whoopee cushions, with highly questionable results. I’ll leave you to ponder what talcum powder-cum-rubbery scrambled eggs would taste like.

When we’ve cooked in lateral ways in the past, we’ve found a sure-fire technique is to improvise a sous vide bag by using a Baco bag and simply throw in a fillet of fish along with some flavours before doing up the bag with an aggressive knot. This approach was a great success when we cooked a fillet of salmon with soy, ginger, chilli and garlic in the dishwasher and the bath.

I popped into Moxon’s on my way home and had one of the most surreal experiences I’ve had in a long time. As I was perusing the selection of fish looking for some hake, one of the fishmongers inquired what I was looking for. Rather absentmindedly, I explained that I was looking for the ideal fish to cook in the washing machine. Silence descended before the boss intervened and asked his colleague to see if they had any hake behind the counter. Luckily they did and I was sent on my way with the fishmongers wondering whether they should call the asylum.

I figured that hake steaks would work well because the bones would support the structure and help them to cook evenly. Also, hake’s firm flesh lends itself to this long and slow cooking method. Rather than the Asian approach, used in the bath and dishwasher, I thought a combination of fennel and saffron would make for an exotic change.





When it came to the big night we popped the fish in a Baco bag along with some fennel seeds, salt, pepper, a dash of olive oil and a few strands of saffron and then set the washing machine on a 90’C cycle.

The machine gushed with water and then started to fill up, with the little parcel gently bobbing in the hot water bath. We sat and watched as the drum thankfully refused to spin and the fish gently cooked. It's an odd sensation having your food locked away without being able to prod or check it.



An hour or so later, the door clicked and we were left with perfectly cooked fish, that delicately flaked with a pearly gloss that held together like an MI5 officer under enemy questioning. The only down side was that because I’d put two fillets in the same bag, one of the steaks had slightly distorted into a strange shape. So if you are doing this, use separate bags.

I made a quick dressing by heating the juices that collected in the bag with a touch of cream and a squeeze of lemon and then made a salad with mint and fennel. The salad showed off the pearly white flesh and saffron hued surface whilst the fennel and mint added some crunch and freshness.





I couldn’t believe how well this crazy little project turned out. I was worried that the fish would be overcooked or uncooked. I was really concerned it would just taste of washing powder. And I wasn’t sure if the drum would kick in and start spinning at random. But none of these things happened and it not only worked perfectly, but it cooked the hake better than I have ever managed using conventional methods!

So when you hear the death rattle from your washing machine, embrace it and send it off to white goods heaven with a decent final meal.

Mussel Soup - Cooked in a Coffee Machine

I’ve had some surreal experiences whilst writing this blog – from having the most disturbing massage of all time in India, to eating ortolan to cooking in a bathtub. And I can now add my afternoon cooking mussel soup in a coffee pot in Lysekill to the list!

The team who had organised the Mussel Safari had arranged for me and my new Swedish food blogger friends to compete in a live cook off in front of the whole town of Lysekill and on local radio. It was far bigger deal than I was expecting involving a gospel choir and some very groovy dancing to get people in the mood before we took to the stage!







I was very fortuitously paired with Katja who has just been crowned Sweden’s top food blogger for her quirky cooking in a coffee pot! Given my penchant for lateral cooking methods we were a like kindred spirits as we set about cooking mussel and seafood soup in Katja’s very own coffee pot. Given that coffee pot cooking normally involves 3 or 4 hour cooking times, we had our work cut out.





Ingredients

6 lovely Lysekil mussels
One percolator style coffee maker
One Katja
Tomato puree
2 langoustines
200g of monkfish
6 mussels
100ml of cream
1 finely chopped onion
1 clove of finely minced garlic
300ml of water
3 glasses of white wine
Sliced peppers
Parsley
Dill
Salt and pepper

Method

Given the time constraints we had to move very quickly so compromised on frying off the onions properly. If we had more time we would have gently sautéed them in the glass pot on the hot plate. But we concentrated instead on getting the water hot and using that as our cooking method instead.



Place 6 mussels and some dill in the filter compartment and boil the water in the tank so it percolates through the mussels. In the glass pot add the finely chopped onion, garlic and whole langoustines. The water should pass though the dill and mussels in about 4 or 5 minutes and then mingle together into a fishy fug.



Squirt some tomato puree into the pot and then add the lumps of monkfish. Add one glass of wine to yourself and one to the pot and then stand back and watch your coffee pot do the work whilst everyone else is busy chopping, frying, reducing and generally cooking properly.

After 20 minutes strain the contents into another vessel and then return to the glass pot. Discard the onion and garlic pieces. And remove the langoustines and mussel meat from their respective shells. Add them to the glass pot along with a slug of cream, the cooked monkfish pieces and some seasoning and return to the hot plate to heat through.


Serve in a polystyrene cup to rain soaked, highly bemused onlookers and reflect on what a bizarre, but brilliant experience the whole thing has been.





The soup itself was surprisingly good. What it lacked in depth of flavour it more than made up for in terms of personality and flair. The members of the audience and judges certainly enjoyed it.



If you’ve been even remotely as inspired as I have been by this surreal episode then you must check out Katja’s awesome cooking blog. And also have a look at her balloon blog and her boyfriend’s monster drawings. They’re both truly inspirational and I’m looking forward to our next lateral cooking adventure. Thanks you Katja and Dan for a few of the photos as well.

Planked Salmon with Fennel Two Ways and Burnt Aubergine Puree

Cowie has a long and distinguished history of buying me awesome cooking gifts, not to mention having built Cassius as well. So when she gave me a collection of cedar planks for Christmas I got giddily excited.

Planking is an old fashioned culinary technique where you cook your meat or fish on a dampened plank of wood, such as cedar, over hot coals. The wet wood emits puffs of steam and smoke that gently encourage the flesh above to yield whilst providing a smoky backdrop. (For more in depth information about planking have a look at this site or buy this book.)

The easiest, and possibly best, thing to cook on a plank is a fillet of salmon. You land up with an indecently moist piece of warm smoky fish that will make you wonder why you’ve been eating boring old poached or grilled salmon for all those years.

We cooked this with a fennel salad which we cevichified from Mark Hix’s book and some burnt aubergine puree that we bastardised from Ottolonghi. And all in a Cornish field with a small BBQ.

Ingredients:

1 cedar plank
1 salmon fillet big enough for two with the skin on
Salt
Pepper
Lemon zest
2 aubergines
2 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of yoghurt
Olive oil
1 fennel bulb
Mint
Juice of 2 lemons

Method:

Soak your cedar plank in water for anywhere between 2 and 12 hours. This will stop it burning.



Slice the fennel as thinly as possible. We didn’t have a mandolin on the camp site, surprisingly, so just make sure you’ve got a very sharp knife and haven’t drunk your own body weight in gin and tonic by this stage. Season with salt and pepper and then douse in the juice of 2 lemons.





Light your BBQ. When the coals have stopped flaming throw on two aubgerines and pierce with your knife. Let them burn, Ottolenghi-style, for 20 minutes or until steam is spurting out of the aubergines and the flesh is soft. Remove and leave to cool. Then scoop out the flesh, mash, and mix in the yoghurt, more salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon. You’ll be adding some smoked garlic later…

Descale the salmon and remove any pin bones. Then rinse in cold water. Pat dry. And then season like there’s no tomorrow. Add a few curls of lemon zest.



Place the plank on the coals and when it starts to smoke lay the salmon skin side up on the wood along with 2 cloves of garlic. Add the fennel to the grill and close the lid. Inspect after 10 minutes and turn the fennel. Judge the doneness of the salmon and continue cooking for as long as you like.



Remove from the heat and mash the smoky garlic into the aubergine. Dress the fennel ceviche with some olive oil, shredded mint leaves and check the seasoning. If you’ve got the inclination, remove the salmon skin and place on the grill to crisp up.



Serve the salmon from the plank with the two types of fennel and a saucy smacker of smokey aubergine puree.



The salmon was softer than an Andrex puppy’s downy ear and subtly smoked. Whilst the fennel was sharp and crunchy on the one hand and charred and sweet on the other.

After a scorching debut I think that planking may well be my new favourite cooking technique. We’ll have to push the boat out next time with some more adventurous recipes…

Further reading:

Epicurious on maple planked salmon
Accidental hedonist on Copper River planked salmon
Man Meat Fire
Cedar Grilling Company - they know a thing or two about planking
Cedar plank recipes from Tasty Timbers
Buy planks in the UK here
How to cut your own cedar grilling planks

WANTED: Washing Machine for Lateral Cooking Experiments

Normal cooking is boring. Hobs. Yawn. Ovens. Zzzzzzz. Microwaves. Grrrr. It’s much more fun using other bits of kit to cook with such as baths, irons, dishwashers and car engines.

We’ve had a lot of fun recently cooking in bizarre ways. Our experiments with cooking salmon in the bath tub and in the dishwasher have been roaring success. We now want to push the boundaries and try something that hasn’t been done before.

We want to cook pork belly in a washing machine. The flavourings and method are still in development. As it stands the pork itself will be surrounded by star anise, ginger, chilli, soy sauce and spring onion and then encased either in a cooking bag or a pillowcase like you would do with trainers.

We’ll then select a long hot washing cycle on a gentle spin and watch our pork go round and round in the drum of the machine, slowly becoming tenderised as it crashes around. Our hope is that it emerges as beautifully soft, deeply flavoured meat resembling pulled pork.

So if you work for Curry's, Miele, Bosch, Zanussi or any other white goods company please can you send me a washing machine so I can cook some amazing pork!

And if you don't then please help to spread the word to people who do. And if you've got any feedback on the cooking method, or any further ideas, please let me know. It's got the potential to be a really fun project and I need your help.

(Image is from Flickr Creative Commons from G & A Sattler)

Fish-Washer Salmon

It’s almost as if God designed the dishwasher to cook salmon in. Our Bosch dish washer even comes with a “cooking” setting. Dishwashers are ideal for cooking in. They’ve got a “nice rack” (couldn’t resist) on the top to place food on and a fool proof way of setting a constant temperature. They are also so cavernous you could cook enough fish to feed the thousands.





So, given that dishwashers are almost perfectly designed for cooking in, why don’t we do it more often? Especially when it creates such a stir at a dinner party. So if you want to see what you’ve been missing out on read on…



We marinated our salmon in a mixture of soy, ginger, chilli, coriander and shallots before wrapping them in neat parcels of strong foil which have been brushed with oil. Just make sure they are watertight by turning them over a few times.





Set the dishwasher on its highest setting (around 60’c) and let it work its magic for a full cycle. There’s clearly no need for any dishwasher powder or power balls. When it beeps peek inside and remove your silvery parcels. They should feel firm when they once felt limp.



Tear open the wrapping paper and serve with noodles and stir fried vegetables.



The flesh flaked perfectly and was remarkably well cooked. The salmon was very juicy and tasted delicious. The only downside was that the skin was soggy. But if you wanted, or had time, you could crisp it up in a pan. However, I wouldn’t suggest using skinless fillets as the skin helps to hold the salmon together.

It’s a foolproof way of injecting some fun into a dinner party and is incredibly easy. You might want to play around with the marinade and possibly cooking with a whole salmon or possibly a trout. I’m keen to try this with sumac next, and then come the summertime, with cucumber with a lovely hollandaise sauce on the side.

I’m convinced that it must be possible to cook pork belly in the washing machine. But I haven’t plucked up the courage to give it a go yet. If you’ve got any more lateral approaches to cooking with things that aren’t intended for culinary use, let me know and I’ll try it out.

(Thanks to Helen for the name. I was going to call it "Bish, Bash, Bosch Salmon", but Fish-Washer Salmon is a million times better.)

Where's My Pork Chop - Freshly Ironed Cheese Toasty

London was at its most grizzly. The sky was as grey as Poirot’s matter and the rain cascaded like Eureka’s bath tub. But for me it felt balmy and almost Mediterranean as I waited for Food Urchin on the steps of St. Paul’s. In my rucksack was a box. And in that box was an iron, a jar of home-made crabapple and chilli jelly, some of my Mum’s 2008 vintage chutney and a lovingly made Montgommery cheddar sandwich with cheese selected with expert advice from the La Fromagerie.

Given that Food Urchin and I share a passion for the bizarre cooking methods you’ll find in a book by Stefan Gates called Gastronaut, it made perfect sense to push the culinary boundaries of “Where’s my Pork Chop”. My theme picked up where the Sandwichist left off and tied in nicely with the crab apple jelly I made the previous weekend.

As I handed my package across to Food Urchin I giggled at the thought of him opening the box at work and realising that he was going to have to use his new, multi-purpose, iron as a toasty maker.

As it happened the fun all took place at home. I’ll let Food Urchin’s hilarious write up and photos do the talking…





After the fun of cooking in the bathtub, dishwasher salmon, cooking pizzas in our clay oven, beer can chicken and this experiment with ironing sandwiches, I’m massively excited about what to do next.









If you’ve got any suggestions such as cooking on a car engine let me know and we'll give it a go.

Bathtub salmon courtesy of Tiki Chris.

Update from Cassius

Cassius is going from strength to strength. The summer rain and sun has widened his cracks, but he doesn't care. We've tried to add coats of protective clay but he isn't interested. He just shrugs them off and demands to be used. If we cook in the Aga he starts sulking like a moody teenager. Our efforts in Cassius to date have been great. But we are constantly trying to improve our technique.

So in preparation for a party in Somerset, I bought a cast iron rectangular skillet to act as a DIY pizza stone. So far we've been using upturned baking trays, but in light of the fact that we have ruined 3 of Cowie's parents' pans, I thought it would be worth the small investment.

The other area we've been keen to improve on is the dough. We've been following a Jamie Oliver recipe that demands semolina flour, but have always cheated and used plain flour. The bases have been tasty but lacking the authentic bubbles that you get at places like Franco Manca. So we visited At the Chapel in Bruton who have a pizza oven and to our delight they gave us not only a bag of their semolina but also a small pot of their sourdough starter! To say that I was excited would be the understatement of the century. (More on "Simon the Sourdough Starter" another time)

The combination of using dough made with semolina and the cast iron "pizza stone" resulted in our best pizzas yet. The skillet got so hot in the embers that it had the pizza base dancing and bursting. The pizzas cooked in around 3 minutes flat and tasted of Napoli!



A simple parma ham and mushroom pizza kicked Christened the new skillet...





The "La Reine", excusing the lack of olives, put Pizza Express's version to shame.



A plain, tomato and mozzarella pizza was simply brilliant. Some torn basil and a twist of black pepper had us shouting with greedy delight.



And a fully loaded beast with mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes and chilli that we've named "Arnie".



Our Eggy Pizza was a triumph as well. The yolk oozed across the plate and acted as a fantastic dipping sauce.

Cassius is loving life. He's just getting better and better. The combination of semolina and skillet has made a huge difference to the bases. They've become much lighter and are developing the bubbles we've been hankering after. For our next trick we're going to make our bases using "Simon the Sourdough Starter" that we're lovingly nurturing... If you've got any suggestions for awesome toppings let us know.

Cowie's Pizza Oven

Being the amazing girlfriend that she is, Cowie took it upon herself to build a pizza oven from scratch over Easter whilst I was back at home with my family. Not only is this an incredibly brilliant thing to do… it is also enormously selfless as the wheat in pizza dough doesn’t really agree with Cowie’s stomach. So it was quite literally a labour of love.

I’ve been desperate to have a clay pizza oven ever since we saw one at River Cottage. I bought the book , by the amazingly well named Kiko Denzer, that they recommended and became engrossed in the incredibly passionate world of DIY clay oven sites such as “instrucatables” and “clayoven”. I love the idea of crispy based pizza. Of charred, smoky crust.And of puffy dough.Of that Neanderthal smell of primal food. I guess it has brought out the latent Ray Mears in me.

If you want full instructions please visit this brilliant, brilliant site. But here’s a quick overview of how we bodged our oven together.Or rather how Cowie went about creating the best pizza oven anyone has ever made for me!

1.Persuade parents, landlords, other-halves etc. that they simply cannot carry on living without a pizza oven. Don’t underestimate how important stakeholder buy in is.
2.Build a base for your oven. This should get to a height at which you’d like to cook at.
3.Use a concrete slab as the floor to the oven. Or fireproof bricks.
4.On top of you base, build a dome of wet sand. Make sure the dome is the right size. You want space around the outside to form the clay oven. The sand is essentially mapping out the negative space that will become the inside of the oven.
5.Coat the outside of the wet sand with wet newspaper.
6.Dig up some clay and moisten. Mix with sand and build a layer of clay that covers the newspaper. Ensure this is around 2 inches to 3 inches thick. Make it as strong as possible.
7.Leave a hole at the front that is 63% of the height of the oven itself. Apparently this is the perfect ratio to allow the oven to breathe.
8.Once the dome is formed and secure, pull out the sand.
9.Light a small fire and allow the oven to dry.
10.Add a second skin of clay to fill in the cracks that will have formed.
11.Light another fire to continue the drying out process.
12.Add a third layer of clay as a cosmetic layer. Make it as smooth and attractive as possible.
13.Light a proper fire and get baking!

So far we’ve got to number 9. We got a bit overexcited and decided to cook in it straight away. To our joy it worked! (We’re going to finish the process next weekend.)

Cowie made some dough following a Jamie Oliver recipe and we threw together a collection of toppings. Given that we didn’t have any mozzarella we’re delighted with the results. The pizzas were gorgeously smoky, crispy and authentic. Step aside Zizzis!









We now can’t wait to evolve our technique. For instance I’m keen to make sourdough bases, buy a herd of buffalo and to harvest my own wheat. Also, if anyone knows where we can get a bakers’ paddle, please can you let us know.