Chorizo

We bought some lovely chorizo in Borough Market a couple of weeks ago, and it was calling out to me from the fridge. I was feeling pretty uninspired as to what to do with it though. There were just the two of us, and most of the recipes I usually do are much bigger, like Delia's Chicken Basque, or we didn’t have the right ingredients. After a bit of a trawl around the internet I decided to do something involving the chorizo, chicken, tomatoes and butterbeans. I haven’t put an ingredients list as I kind of made it up as I went along, and so I don’t have any weights or anything.

Firstly the beans were cooked according to the instructions. This meant soaking them overnight first, so this is not a recipe you can do in a hurry, unless you have tins of beans. It would work with cannelli beans too, but I do think the texture of the larger beans worked particularly well.

I finely chopped an onion and started that off in a shallow casserole pan (a Le Creuset one R gave me for my birthday). Meanwhile I cut two small chorizo into rounds, about pound coin sized, and then added them to the pan. Next went in two chicken breasts, cut into pieces, and two cloves of garlic. Once the chicken was a little browned I added a tin (although now a tetrapak) of chopped tomatoes, some tomato puree, a bit of extra paprika and some water. The nearly cooked butterbeans were added and then the whole thing was brought to the boil and simmered with the lid on for about an hour. Keep an eye on it, as I found I needed to add a bit more water.

The flavours had really melded together well, and the chicken was soft and almost falling apart. Served with purple sprouting broccoli as a contrast this made a great comfort meal. I think it would have been good with some chopped flat leaf parsley in it too.

A good way to ease myself back into cooking after two weeks in a hotel, but don't spill the sauce on your new white T-shirt as that stuff does not come out!

American Breakfast

Americans understand breakfast. Our hotel doesn’t do any food, so we have had to go out every day. Even at 7.30am, in a town without too much commerce, places have been pretty full. I have tried to be restrained with breakfast, so most mornings it is poached eggs on ‘English’ muffins, and a cup of fruit. Also a glass of orange juice is a must have, as it just tastes so different drinking it in Florida!

I also had a bagel with cream cheese one day, and I treated myself to pancakes and maple syrup with crispy bacon one day! I didn’t have any lunch that day.

Also, as an aside, I have become addicted to the Food Network while I have been here. I discovered Rachel Ray’s 30 minute meals last time I was here, and have just bought the book, but now I have been watching Ace of Cakes, Ultimate Recipe Showdown and Iron Chef America. Masterchef is going to look tame when I get home (and I have two weeks worth of episodes recorded!).

Mexican

If I am in the States (or anywhere else for that matter) then I like to eat the things that are done better here than can be found in London, or without a serious search anyway.

One of those things is Mexican, so we had to hunt some out, particularly as I get bad burrito cravings. The recommendations were pretty much unanimous, so we headed to the Two Senoritas. Margaritas were necessary to start with, with Coronas after that, as is compulsory with Mexican food. Chips and a perfectly spicy salsa were delivered to our table as we made our decisions. The others hadn’t eaten much Mexican before, so I suggested a platter to share to start with, before we went our own ways for main.

The tacquitos were particularly good from the starters, as were the jalepenos stuffed with sour cream, breaded and deep fried. Most of the other things involved a LOT of cheese, which started to get a bit overwhelming.
I followed with a burrito, with spicy taco meat. I had to check what this was before I ordered it, as I am a bit nervous when something is simply described as meat! However, it was simply ground beef with some added seasoning. I couldn’t get anywhere near finishing it, particularly as it came with rice and refried beans, but it was fun trying. I then had to roll back to the hotel! I have had to run twice as far as normal while I have been here, to try and not pile on the pounds.

American Steakhouse

I am working in Sarasota, Florida, for a couple of weeks, where it is sunny and 25 C – it’s a tough life! Although we do have to do some work we should get the weekend on the beach, weather permitting. But one of the best things about being here is eating out. Our hotel doesn’t do breakfast, so we have to eat out for every meal. I’ll cover breakfast another time, but first the steakhouse.

One of the things I really love about the States is the steaks. As much as it pains me to say it, this is one area where they truly do things much better than us. We had spotted this rather smart looking steakhouse in the centre of town, and decided we needed to try it on out first proper night.

Having been given really lovely warm bread, we ignored the appetizers, as we knew we weren’t going to be able to manage everything anyway. My colleague and I then shared a New York Strip, medium rare, with béarnaise sauce. It came with crispy onions and we shared creamed spinach and an enormous baked potato with sour cream.

What arrived must have been over an inch thick, with a blackened exterior and the tenderest red meat in the centre, which barely even needed the steak knife to cut it. It was perfect, but even with only half each we couldn’t manage to finish it! We barely touched the potato either. The meat had been dry aged for 28 days, and I think it is well up there with the best steak I have ever eaten. I’m going to have to go running every day so I don’t come back the size of a house!

Taste Test

We had friends for supper the other night, and I decided I wanted to go bangers and mash, as we had Ginger Pig sausages in the fridge and some celeriac that would jazz up the mash. However, we were six and there were only eight Ginger Pig sausages.

We decided to do a taste test with some upmarket supermarket sausages, and see if people could tell the difference. They were all cooked the same way, in the oven, and they certainly looked very different.

The supermarket ones were more herby, but the Ginger Pig ones were the unanimous winner (phew!). They were more meaty, had more flavour and had a better texture.

Bangers and mash, with onion gravy and softened leeks was the perfect comfort food given the weather recently.

Onion gravy (serves 8)

2 large onions
Tbsp plain flour
Water (or stock)
Grainy mustard

Peel the onions, chop in half and then slice into crescents, quite finely.
Heat some oil in a heavy-bottomed frying pan and fry the onions very gently until they are soft and quite translucent. This probably takes about ten minutes, but it is worth taking the time. Turn up the heat at the end to get a little bit of colour on the onions. Then sprinkle the flour into the pan and stir well, before adding the water. How much depends on the consistency you like, and I find it is better to do this by eye than specify an amount. I find that I don’t need stock as there is plenty of flavour. Add the mustard, and stir well. Allow to simmer gently until the sausages are ready, and then spoon over generously!

Borough Market

We had such a lovely time at Borough Market on Saturday. I made R go quite early, as by 11 it is so busy that it isn’t fun anymore. We haven’t had a trip there for ages, and it reminded me why I like it so much.

We started with coffee from the Monmouth Coffee Company, which as ever was great. I have pretty much stopped buying from the high street coffee places (my previous choice being Nero) because the quality of this is so clearly higher. I’d rather drink tea than bad coffee.

We then wandered around a bit getting our eye in, and tasting loads of things. We needed to buy the ingredients for a big family Sunday lunch (which R was cooking), so at least we had a focus. Obviously we bought a lot more as well! We had a happy time in Neal’s Yard, Ginger Pig and Brindisa, as well as many of the other stalls.

Finally we came back with Brindisa chorizo rolls with rocket and peppers for lunch, potted shrimps and calves liver for supper, and a big shoulder of lamb for lunch the next day. We also bought some yummy cheese - Stichelton, Montgomery’s Cheddar, and a choice of the man in Neal’s Yard that we promptly forgot the name of! Also the most enormous celeriac that I have ever seen, which to date has made celeriac remoulade for eight (with salmon for a starter), mash combined with potato for six, and there is still half of it left! The final thing to mention was a bag of cherries, which were macerated in kirsch to serve with chocolate torte.

A lovely way to spend the morning, and we were home before twelve so there was still plenty of the day left.

Hache - Fulham Road

We are aficionados of eating out on the Fulham Road as we so often need to eat before or after a Chelsea match. I reckon we have eaten at most of the restaurants between Stamford Bridge and South Kensington station, including those on Hollywood Road.

One of our new regular haunts is Hache. There is something about coming out of a football match that means we are invariably looking for something straightforward such as steak or a burger. If we could rely on getting into Sophie’s Steakhouse we would go there a lot of the time, but they don’t take bookings and sometimes the queue is huge. Hache definitely satisfies the burger criteria.

The time I was unusually with R for the football, rather than my brother or father. This opened up the options as he doesn’t eat out round there as often as us. Hache got the vote, particularly as it is pretty cheap and therefore we didn’t feel too guilty about eating out yet again in January.

I had a cheeseburger and R had one with prosuttio and mozzarella. Both were perfectly medium rare as requested, and the meat has a great flavour, particularly from the charred exterior. I had mine without the bun (I know, some would say sacrilege) but I can’t manage a whole burger with the bun, and I’d rather have some chips. I got salad instead, which from experience I had with the dressing on the side, as I feel they over-dress their salad. The chunky chips were hot and perfectly crispy. We have also had the onion rings in the past, which were great the time they arrived piping hot and not so good when they came lukewarm, but they didn't fit into the January diet!

All in all a good cheap and cheerful meal. Not gourmet, but that wasn’t what we were looking for anyway, and we got out of here for less than £20 a head, including a bottle of wine.