April 2002 - Back in England
BBQ Scallops recipe
BBQ Bread recipe
Christmas 2001 - Antarctica
October 2001 - East Riding
Roast Malard recipe
August and September 2001 were spent in Berkeley, Ca., cooking at Chez Panisse and helping with preparations for the restaurant's thirtieth anniversary. Alice Waters held a fundraiser lunch for 600 at UC Berkeley - a wonderful outdoor spectacle involving many of the restaurant's former staff. Lambs were grilled, fresh shell beans were simmered and huge cauldrons of fish soup were prepared for the (very) lucky guests.
Over $100,000 was raised by the end of the day for the Chez Panisse foundation which funds local projects to educate young people in the areas of sustainable agriculture and food. I was particularly luck to be able to work at Chez Panisse for a third time and to play a small part in this event. At the same time, I recorded a documentary for the Radio Four Food Programme about the restaurant and it's community involvement, which was aired last New Year.
From California, I flew to Chile and then onto the Antarctic for three months where I had been contracted, again, to cook for Adventure Network in their Patriot Hills camp. Some of my Antarctic diaries will be aired on Radio Four towards Christmas, so I will say a little more of them nearer the time.
Needless to say, having spent six years working in and around the Antarctic, I have become more than acclimatised to a particular way of life, and count myself more than fortunate to have been able to work with some fabulous people there, particularly with the British Antarctic Survey.
Recent kitchen happenings at Holly Dene
I forget, as is my whim, how long it is that I have coveted my friend's BBQ. Not that it is particularly fancy. Just that it exists has been enough to make me slaver in its presence, and yet, had I looked, one was well within my grasp. The aforementioned object of my desire was a Weber - the American BBQ par excellence. And yet, that is not what I have constructed by a long shot. Let me explain.
An old cooker had been languishing in a family shed, cobwebbed and no longer ringing with the clatter of pans, the hiss of steam. Just dust. But within this old utensil were two oven shelves, which inspired a recent spate of grilling and the recipes that follow.
Of course, two oven shelves were not the only things I needed for the end product. A few fire bricks and a baking tray later, I was smelling sweetly of cherry wood smoke and contemplating the contents of my fridge - all within the afternoon.
I enjoy grilling - my preferred term - over a mix of wood embers and charcoal for the flavour of the former and the longevity of the latter's heat. A small wood fire is made and allowed to burn down and the charcoal then burnt on top until there is just the faintest orange glow beneath a thickish layer of fine grey ash. A baking cooling rack takes over from the oven trays when the food is fiddly or small.
I have been enjoying the results tonight, and for the past few days, so here are some recipes for you to try out at home. Remember, if you are grilling in windy conditions, to protect yourself from flying ash, and for some kind of windproof break around the grill - a few bricks, baking trays or a lid of sorts, to keep some of the heat in.
BBQ scallop brochettes with saffron masala and bbq bread - serves four
You can embellish this dish as much or as little as you like, and use any firm flesh that will stand up to the rigours of grilling and skewering. Because I rarely buy meat, or fish, I like to make an occasion of it, and a grilling session is the perfect excuse. Rabbit, pork fillet, lamb fillet, guinea fowl or chicken work well with this sort of recipe, but make sure that your coals are sufficiently cool to allow a relaxed light cooking rather than a charred panic. Horrendous, you may think, but not as fiddly as it looks at first.
First, procure some fat king scallops and have your fishmonger trim them for you, taking off the orange coral if you prefer not to eat it. You will need maybe six per person if you are hungry, four if you are eating a light meal at lunch for example.
You will need to have to hand some naan, pitta or some of the BBQ bread dough given in the recipe below. I like to serve the brochettes with some cous cous flavoured with blood orange, black olives and lots of flat parsley. Whether you go for this option, or rice, have something calm and starchy to soak up the hot juices and prepare it in advance.
Marinade the scallops in a little olive oil, cracked black pepper and some flat parsley. Prepare your fire and set it to burn whilst you make the sauce.
Gently sweat one small onion and half a yellow or red pepper chopped fine in two tablespoons ghee or clarified
butter. When the onion is soft, but not coloured at all, add the following:
Simmer the ingredients for 5 mins, check seasoning, and use a third of it to coat the scallops. Set aside. To the remaining sauce, add two tablespoons full fat yoghurt and a tablespoon fresh coriander leaf and stalk chopped finely.
So, now you should have: your kebabs marinating, your pitas/naans, your starchy rice or cous cous, some green salad, some extra yoghurt and some lemon halves for serving. You are ready to grill.
Wait until the ash has formed on the surface of the fire, then lightly oil the grill mesh with some sunflower oil on a cloth before placing it over the coals to heat. Give it a minute or two and then lay the kebabs on, leaving a gap between each and being careful not to spill the sauce on the fire or you will get a nasty whiff of chilli in your eyes. The scallops will cook quickly - when they are a mid brown on one side, quickly turn them 120 degrees to cook another third, and then again to cook the final third - they seem to cook better in thirds than quarters for some fishy reason.
Place the kebabs on a warmed plate and quickly grill the bread on both sides to warm and toast it lightly. Serve the skewers, stuffed into a naan or pitta and spoon some of the remaining sauce over the top.
The idea for this bread comes from David Tannis who, on and off, has been one of the head chefs at Chez Panisse. Late last summer we made a similar bread to this and served it toasted with a delicious tomato salad, dripping and sweetly acid. Very simple and very brilliant at the same time. I am not sure that there is anything authentic in this recipe, but it works, and tasted good last week with good vinaigrette, greens and scallops.
Make a softish bread dough using the following ingredients:
If you have the time, mix yeast, water and half the flour overnight and rise in a cool place. About four hours before you want to grill the bread, add the salt, oil and the remaining flour. Knead for 800 turns or fifteen minutes, resting for a minute or two halfway through. The dough will be sticky, but you should resist the temptation to add too much flour or it will stiffen. Rise the dough in a warmish place to bring it back to life and when it has doubled in size, knock it back well by kneading for a couple of minutes. Divide into eight rough pieces and lay them on a couple of well-floured baking sheets.
At this stage, I find that the dough will slacken slightly, forming a risen heap an inch and a half high, and the size of a small clenched fist or thereabouts. The upper surface will be dry but that is OK. Allow the bread to rise so that it almost doubles in size, but not so that it bubbles - it should still bounce a little when prodded. Bread that is too highly risen will collapse on the grill. Your perfect timing will, of course, mean that the grill is nice and cool with a fair covering of ash just as your bread is ready to bake.
Take the bread to the grill and very carefully lift each piece onto the grill - a cooling rack is the best for this as the bread does not sink through the small holes. Grill four pieces at first, turning them as soon as they are a mid brown - but handle them carefully or they will collapse.
When your first four pieces are done, put them to the edge of the grill to finish cooking a little, and grill the second four. Turn them all a couple of times more on the grill, and then split them, drizzle with olive oil and Maldon salt and grill the interior which will steam and be slightly crumpet-like. The wetness of the dough means that the bread is holey and the perfect receptacle for juicy food - think grilled fish, tomatoes, haloumi dressed with lime and coriander - Middle Eastern flavours I guess.
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For the first time in eight days we have been able to see beyond
the confines of our little clutch of tents here in Patriot Hills. A low
pressure system bore down on us from the bottom of the Weddle Sea just as we
were packing our Christmas presents last week and remained with us for the
duration. Only today have I been reminded of life elsewhere - well, not
quite life, but hills and blue sky and such like. To talk of that as life is
odd, I know, but then other than human beings and rather too much zoology in
one of my cauliflowers the other day, I have not seen a living animal or
plant for five or six weeks.
The aforementioned storm brought heavy drifting through the camp to the extent that some of the smaller personal tents that the staff sleep in are buried almost as high as the roof. My, larger, Scott tent, has the advantage of not drifting in so severely and so apart from having to burrow in and out through a little drift by the door, I am free to come and go. The drifts quieten the rustle of the tents wonderfully and so we are all - most of us - sleeping more soundly. Christmas was a blast, but I have to confess that I am still in the possession of an uneaten Christmas cake and several dozen mince pies. Half way through the celebrations the over-ample truth dawned on me that I had turned the camp into a southern version of my grandmother's kitchen and was about to feed everyone to death. We are now enjoying a period of greater sanity and have eaten nothing but salad and fruit for two days - admittedly interspersed with the occasional chocolate from Betty's of York which are, frankly, too good to miss. My time here is passing rapidly and there is a lot to do before the end of the season - we have yet to see most of our clients in camp - they are due in the first two weeks of January when we send forty off to the South pole. After that, we are just waiting for the end of the Ski to the South Pole trip - which ought to be at the end of the month - January that is. And, after that, we are just waiting to get on to the plane and head for home ourselves, which will be nice - there is nothing better than being able to leave having done and good job - and to get back to my own bed of course. Gerard |
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San Francisco days... Looking through the mist from the San Franciscan waterfront you might catch sight of the Berkeley Hills on a good day. Just across the water from the tack of Pier 39 lies one of the most influential restaurants in the world, and it has been my pleasure to have been cooking there for the past two months. In part, my trip was the fulfillment of a wish to work with the late summer produce - previously having cooked in the winter and spring. Somewhere in planning the trip I also managed to pick up a commission to record a documentary about the restaurant - Chez Panisse and its owner, Alice Waters, from BBC Radio Four's Food Programme. The idea was to delve into the background of the restaurant and see just why it is unique - and it is - in its approach to working with farmers and suppliers, focusing on sustainable agriculture and how the restaurant seeks to affect change through educational programmes in local schools and prisons. Alice calls it her delicious revolution - she is determined that we should be aware of the process of the production of our food and that we should, by sitting down and sharing food, build stronger communities. She has some wild ideas, some great ideas and as her restaurant grew towards its thirtieth anniversary on August 28th, has gained more and more press for them. The party itself was no ordinary event - two hundred and fifty volunteers, fed by another team of chefs armed with mobile wood-fired pizza ovens, fed 600 guests each of whom paid $500 for the privilege of eating with Waters at the UC Berkeley campus. Waters' is one of the most famous Alumni of the college and the red carpet was truly rolled out for the guests, the Grand Dames D'honor, and Waters herself for whom 2001 was dedicated by the mayor of Berkeley. You can hear my documentary on BBC Radio Four's food programme on 30th December 2001 at 12.30pm. Coming up soon with be other features on 'You and Yours', a series on the Antarctic and programmes on vegetables, fruit trials and perhaps some pieces on Children's BBC radio, so listen out. Aside from cooking and recording, a fair amount of eating took place, and though I am no heavier than I was two months ago, that is a surprise to me. Typical menus at this time of year at Chez include tomatoes in variety ' a Moroccan flatbread, baked on the grill, rubbed with garlic and oil, served with a mixture of the most beautiful tomatoes and herbs. This is simple food, no disguising poor ingredients with unnecessary flourishes. Main courses were invariably char grilled - legs of lamb boned and spun in front of the fire or loins of pork with wild fennel. Shell beans appeared on the menu almost every day, and though I grew tired of shelling beans by the end of the stay, I never grew tired of eating them. Uncommon in the UK, a shell bean is essentially a mature bean - flageolet, cannelini, cramberry or borlotti, fava or lima that is mature in the pod but not dried. The beans, cooked with oil, stock or water and flavourings, are quickly cooked in half an hour or so and retain a wonderful sweet flavour that is uncommon in fully dried and rehydrated beans. I experimented in the garden at Holly Dene this year with Borlotti bean 'firetongue' and can report good results for cropping and maturing in Yorkshire. This particular bean is a fine climber, good to eat immature as well as a shell bean and is very decorative when mature in the pod, striped as they are with crimson against a pale lime shell. Although I am supposed to be writing about my time in the USA, I cannot leave you without a recipe I have been thinking about since I first made it last week - it is nothing more than a roast malard, but for me it captured the essence of autumn that I had been yearning for whilst in the states.
The first wild ducks of autumn are plump with summer growth, mild and herbal and perfect for roasting
should you be luck enough to get one and be able to confirm it is young. A duck, in my books, is
preferable to a drake for this treatment with its delicate flavours.
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Peel and slice the shallots roughly. Sweat them with an ounce or two of pancetta in a little olive oil. Do not let them colour darker than golden. The quince is there to add aroma to the duck and to the sauce, and you should add it to the pan at this stage with some thyme flowers. The quince will brown easily, which is fine, but do not let it blacken in the least. When the quince, shallots and bacon have a little colour, put the duck to them and roast for twenty minutes, then rest for ten more in a warmish place, removing the duck from the pan at this stage to allow you to finish your sauce.
Add about half a pint of jellied stock to the pan and boil down the vegetables until the sauce is syrupy and emulsified - adding a little more unsalted butter to enrichen it at this stage should you want to do that - I prefer it lighter and so probably would leave it alone, save for the addition of a little quince jelly to sweeten it - not to make it sweet, but to take away the tanin of the unsweetened quince included earlier.
I made this the other day - and served it with a late summer salad made up from the first radiccio and castel franco with some older oak leaf and flat parsley. On the side, and necessary, was a pile of waxy potatoes, fried up with a few shaggy ink caps courtesy of the village churchyard that evening along with the duck liver thrown in for good measure at the end chopped small so that the residual heat from the potatoes and mushrooms cooks it through.
Thinly carve the ducks breast, saucing as you go, and add a leg each for a pretty decent serving. Eat with the spuds and follow with the salad, dressed for preference with a shallot and Dijon mustard dressing.
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