I’ve started smoking again

And what a joy it is, though it has been trickier than before. Having only used Sabina (very hardwood coniferous, something to do with Juniper) up to this point I have had no problems with keeping the sawdust alight as it has such high oil content. But I have kind of given up on trying to find sabina dust as the wood yards keeps telling me they never have a pure supply, that it is always cut with pine or other unsuitable woods. Annoying, when they had sold me stuff before, but there you go.

So I had to find a supply of hardwood chipping/sawdust unmixed with any resinous woods. A carpinter friend of mine (not Jesus) made a deal with me. If he supplied me with the right stuff I would supply him with my finished product. Wicked. I go round to his workshop and there are 6 big black bin bags bulging bonza bonus beech. Nice.

I take the bags home and excitedly drag the smoker out of the bushes and set it up. I get some 400g salmon trout fillets and salt them for 45 mins by rubbing rock salt into them. Then I wash them and dry them. I pour the beech shavings into my paella smoke pan and light it. Goddam it if it don’t just flare up and burn. Entirely hopeless. I soak the salmon fillets an hour, fry them and eat them.

I tell the carpinter. The carpinter tells me he got some oak sawdust so I go over and pick it up. I try again, this time without any fillets or anything, just to see what will happen with the sawdust. I torch it and it smoulders. Excellent. Then it goes out. Crap.

Both the beech and the oak have low oil content so cannot keep themselves alight without help. I know now that if I am gonna have any luck then I am going to have to get some sort of heat under the chippings and this will have to be in a separate chamber to the item to be smoked or it will cook said item. Annoying cos before I just lit the sabina, stuck it in the bottom of the smoker and that was that

I got a 25 litre paint tin, cut a hole in the top and shoved a pipe in the hole feeding it then into the smoker several feet away. The tin fitted exactly over the paella pan. I put a gas ring under the pan and lit it. A minute or two later the the dust began to smoulder. Dig it. I put in a piece of Edam cheese. Smoked Edam c’est bon.

It worked well except it melted the pipe. Next move - chimney flue pipe. I found it easily enough but they only had stuff that was twice the diametre. What the fuck. It’ll be fine. This time I bought 7 pieces of Edam (the first was excellent). I fuelled up and lit it and then, as is my wont on experiements, left the house to do something else. I came back a while later to find a yellow red gooey mess where the cheese had once been. The dust had caught fire the same as the shaving because of the increased air flow.

By this point I was getting irritated but managed to remain cool and not break my tow by kicking the oil drum smoker. I crimped the end of the flue and tried again. This time with one piece of cheese and by remaining close by to see what happened. I smoked it for 2 hours and it worked tip top. Now I just gotta figure out how to slow it down even more so I can smoke overnight leaving it unmanned

Paella?

Shit, I don’t know. Maybe that’s why the Spanish call paellas just “rice” sometimes cos it is so impossible to define what it is. One thing Paella does not mean though is “for her” (para ella). Anyone that tells you it does should be mistrusted. Paella refers to the pan it is cooked in, and the variations are INFINITE, no two cooks ever doing it the same way.

They say the first paellas were of snails and rabbit and cooked on olive tree cuttings. I have yet to do this but one day I will and it will make me happy. It will be a good day.

Paellas are supreme if done right. Unfortunately it is difficult to find good ones. I went to a food show here in Ibiza when I first arrived and thought “aha, now I can ask a chef if they use saffron in paellas here” Until that point I had been unable to detect either saffron or quality in any of the ones I had tried. You know what the fucker replied? He said “No. People don’t like saffron.” What a bastard. No, people have now gotten used to food colouring and artifical flavourings thanks to you, you fat lazy bastard. Jesus.

Not all paellas take saffron by any means but none should have this enhancer so many use. It is sort of like the stuff in the sachets in those really high quality chinese noodle packets. Like all good flavour enhancers you actually think it tastes good. It is only after you realise that everything you eat tastes the same that their novelty wears off. The lowest common demoninator shouldn’t ever really be embraced in a kitchen and particularly when in it involves ones national dish.

Anyway, all that is rather by the by. For lunch today I made a discovery. Nothing major but sure was a nice change for using up leftover stew. I had made a jolly nice chicken, chorizo and roast pepper stew a couple of days before. Everyone had eaten their fill a few times and it was now time to use up the last of it. I put it into a paella pan with some extra water and a couple of handfuls of la bomba rice (about 3 times the liquid to rice volume). I cooked it fast until the liquid evaporated and man oh man, did I have me a nice lunch. 12 minutes start to finish + 4 for resting. The socarrat was amazing. Socarrat? Socarrat? What the hell is socarrat? Well, socarrat is the defining factor of a perfect paella. Of which more another time.

Dream Terrine

One of the great things about terrines has got to be their seeming impossibility to the non initiated. This is useful cos when lay folk start to think that you are not only a good cook but some sort of magician then it can only really work in your favour. People start to fear you. Then they start to do your will. Think of the advantages.

Another really groovy thing about making terrines is it is awful satisfying. There is something good, something right, about being able to hold in your hands the fruit of your labours. Making soups is great. Grilling steak is great. But this goes further. Perhaps it is the feeling of having made something artesian that it gives you. Bread is the same. So are pork pies.

You can put all sorts of things in terrines just so long as there is enough fat in the general mix to hold it all together. Forget Fear is the Key - Fat is the key.

When I first arrived in Ibiza I went to Clodenis in San Rafael. I didn’t know anything about Ibiza and was completely blown away by this restaurant. The restaurant was the owners home, inside in the winter and in the garden in the summer. Outdoors and under the stars, it was truly magical. The food was superb – roast duck, suckling pig, the trademark lentil salad, everything everything. But above all was a rabbit terrine that I will remember till my dying day.
The terrine was multi-layered and had not been pressed hard so was more crumbly than expected. It was wrapped in smoked bacon and served with its jelly. And what jelly. Oh my god. So clear, so clean, so concentrated. The rabbit gave the impression it had been confited so flaky AND moist was it. I find rabbit difficult to discern if it is mixed with other things but this was clearly rabbit even when spread on toast along with way too much butter and some sharp cornichons.

Tis a goddam shame that Denis, the owner and consummate restaurateur, died. I still have yet to have a meal as good on Ibiza.

Rabbit Terrine

1 rabbit, boned – get your butcher to do this or DIY if you enjoy the knife work
250g minced pork belly
250g diced pork shoulder
250g poultry liver (plus the liver, heart, kidneys from rabbit) blitzed to a puree
250g rindless smoked steaky bacon

4 cloves of crushed garlic
zest from ½ orange zest
6 juniper berries
1/8 nutmeg grated fine
4 cloves
2 tsp of fresh thyme leaves
1 glass of wine
1 nice glug of brandy or port or both
salt
pepper

Cut the rabbit into strips. This will be layered throughout the terrine. Chop up any bits that wont come under the strip definition. Set aside the strips and add the bits to a big mixing bowl that will hold all the ingredients. Add the porks and blitzed livers.

Whizz the juniper, nutmeg and cloves together and add to the big bowl along with the garlic, zest, thyme, alcohol, salt and pepper. The most important thing here is the salt. You could leave out all the rest and still end up with a reasonably good terrine. Under season it and you might as well take it out the oven and throw it straight in the bin. Fry a bit in a pan and try it. The cooking will dampen down the spice and salt effect so make sure they have good presence in your palate. If under seasoned add more, if over, don’t worry about it.

Now comes the getting together - 

Get some baking parchment and fold it in two. Place a couple of bits of bacon between the sheets (thank you Homer) and roll out with a rolling pin. The bacon will flatten out to about half its length and width again. Perhaps more.

Place a bay leaf in the middle of the chosen receptacle i.e. terrine (this could be a bread tin, terracotta dish – anything that will hold the ingredients and is able to be baked) and then start laying out the bacon strips from one side fo the dish to the other. Repeat this until the terrine is lined. Add the mix, layering the rabbit strips throughout and then pull bacon over the top until you have what looks like a bacon parcel. If this is a bit messy then don’t worry as the finished terrine will be turned out upside down anyway showing off the bayleaf.

Wrap it in baking parchment, cover it with tin foil and put it in a pan with hot water. Do not overfill the pan, halfway up will do. Bake it in the oven at 180ºC + fan (210ºC without) for 2 hours. Remove and test with a skewer. If juices run clear then it is ready. Chuck out liquid (or do something with it if you like) and place terrine, still wrapped, in the fridge with something on top to weigh it down. Let it cool overnight.

Next day, remove, unwrap, slice, marvel.

One Man’s Meat

I had a really good ‘living here is wicked’ moment the other day. I was shopping for a dinner I was having in order to get two people who make wine here on the island to meet each other. I wanted lamb shoulder cos I was too tired to do anything but stick something in the oven and let time and low heat do the work.

All the shops were closed cos it was the afternoon. Siesta time. Jesus dies every afternoon round about 3.30. The only shops open are the appalling Eroski (what a name – love, winter sports and supermarket hell all in one word) and the ever excellent Spar. The meat counter in Notso Eroski is generally full of prepacked cuts of nearly off meat. The Spar has a proper butcher counter so I went there. When all the shops are open Jesus boasts five butchery outlets and 2 more with meat counters. That is a lot meat for a town no longer than 250 metres from start to finish.

Anyway I went up to the counter in the spar and asked for a shoulder of lamb. The ladybutcher pointed at a leg. All we got, she says. She’s lying. I know she is. I tell her to open up the meat locker and see if there are any inside. She opens and there hanging is a lovely whole lamb.” Aha,” I say. “So you do have lamb.”” Yes we do but I don’t know how to cut it up.” “Then let me assist you gentle butcherladywoman." She says yes, so round the counter I go and pick out the least blunt knife I can find. I flash my finest smile at her and she, as they always do, weakens at the knee. The lamb is still hanging in the cold room - long, dry and bloodless. I cut in to it around the scapula and then up and then down and then off. Bizarre. Lamb, along with rabbits do not have their shoulders attached to their bodies by ball and socket joints. The are simply attached. Not that unlikely in a rabbit given that all it has to do with its cuddly paws is eat lettuce and be lucky. But a lamb? Man that thing gotta stand on them legs. How do they do it?

So any way, le recipe:

If shoulder is frozen, remove it from freezer, kill someone you don’t like or who is causing you trouble by beating them repeatedly over the head, defrost it, then:

Rub shoulder of lamb with garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil and rosemary. Splash that mother with wine. Lay it in a tray on a pile of sliced potatoes with a finger’s depth of water and bake it at 100ºC without fan for 6 hours.

Little Red Courvette

It does all seem to be about vegetables these days. Each time I think I am going to write about flesh some vegetable comes along and demands my attention. This time its courgettes. Little yellow courgettes.

Over the last few years the courgettes available here have improved. They are now closer to courgettes than marrows. I have a hatred of marrows. They are entirely worthless unless a necesssity through starvation. I have an image locked in my brain from childhood of some cook in my parents’ hotel endlessly peeling and coring marrows that he could then stuff them with mince and bechamel. Mince and bechamel works, that is understood – lasagne, moussaka. But mince and watery, pulpy marrow? No thanks.

Anyway the courgettes on the island generally seem to be coming down in size rather than increasing which is a good thing. But now the vegetables at Can Riera have come into season and there are perfect courgettes. Small and firm, tasty and crisp. And yellow. Anne from Can Riera specialises in unusual strains of common vegetables and herbs – purple basil, heirloom tomatoes and yellow courgettes being a few. These courgettes can be eaten raw which is nicish but grilling them or frying them is the way to kill with excellence.

I sliced a yellow courgette thin and fried the little discs in a bit olive oil. I tossed them with mint and goats cheese and let them sit. I grilled a slice of white bread from Juanto’s bakery and rubbed that mother with garlic. I oiled the toast with Estornell olive oil and salted it with Maldon. I sliced a big phat heirloom tomato and laid a couple of the slices on the toast. I put a handful of Anne’s baby salad leaves on the toast and oiled them too. Dripped some sherry vinegar over them to sharpen them up. I put the courgette mix on top and I sat down.

Recently I have had the good fortune to go to several ibiza restaurants to review them. These experiences have made me re-evaluate the food available in restaurants here. There is truly good food out there now. Be that as it may this courgette toasty thingy was the best thing I have eaten this year. It completely blew me away. I aint cos I cooked it. Its cos of what I had available to use. Food on Ibiza is on an upward march.

The Ghost of Garcia Lorca

The day is boiling and Talamanca Bay is like a lake again. Totally flat, not a ripple. I’ve forgotten my sunglasses so am squinting to such a degree that it is giving me a headache. The sun is beginning to descend but hasn’t hit the water yet.

I walk over the rocks and down to the shack.
“Have you got a table?”
“Yes I have.”
“Good, then I’m going for a swim”

I dive in to the crystal clear water and take a moment down there to let the water that has flooded over my body, flood over my senses. It is cool and it is quiet. Up there it is often quiet but rarely cool. Unless you want air conditioning, which I don’t. I come up for air and go straight back under doing somersalts towards the sun with my eyes open whilst blowing the air out through my nose. The sunlight is dazzling underwater but has the quality of being looked at through a telescope backwards.

My 2 minutes of exercise completed, I get out of the water pulling myself out with the steps and boat bars that someone has cemented in place years ago to aid people’s otherwise tricky exit from the water. The useful stainless steel tubes are arch infringers of Costas' 50 metre moratorium and will no doubt be removed. Along with so many excellent chiringuitos along Ibiza’s coastline. Apparently the removal of the chiringuitos is an improvement. Fuck that. Apparently it is Spain's coming of European age. So what? A sanitised Spain is a poor mans Spain. Might as well go to Portugal.

I look up at my favourite joint on the island and know its days are numbered. Men in suits want this place gone. Probably so they can build a bypass to nowhere or an apartment building to hang pretty fluorescent orange for sale signs in.

The Coca-Cola umbrellas are jammed in the places that the awning don’t cover. The table are red and so are the bench seats. The place is humming. It always is. Opens at midday and closes after dark. Always full. But of course it is fucking full. It is right on the waters edge, the food is simple but excellent, there is a feeling of escape. This is Spain. Of course it is full. Some otherwise intelligent person said to me once that the place was unsanitary. Firstly, what the fuck does that mean? How does he reckon the human race survived up to the invention Unilevers cleaning products? And secondly, who gives a fuck? THE PLACE IS EXCELLENT. ALWAYS HAS BEEN. So what if they don’t have running water. Congratufuckinglations is what these people deserve for pulling off such a groovy thing in such difficult circumstances. So what if it does have a toilet? Piss in the sea.

Over at the end there is a family cajoling their two children to eat and then wisely giving up and getting stuck in to their own food and wine. They are sharing a table with a bunch of sextagenarians Deutches who are drunk, loud and have been sitting here since they moved to the sun, the sea, cheap booze and fags 25 years ago. I don’t understand German but I know those blasts of laughter are ignited by humour in its purest form.

On the next table are a bunch of really good looking young Spaniards who have probably not been to bed in 3 days and have an awful lot of sex. The Spanish can really do that party thing. It is as if after Franco’s peaceful death each child was born with a birth rite have a ball. They do it with such panache. I lived near Space for a short horrendous season and marvelled at the difference between my native countrymen and those from my adopted home. The English looked bad at the beginning of the evening anyway but by morning were dribbling, vomiting, trouser wetting shit stains. The Spaniards on the other hand would be smart, still drinking cubatas out the back of their cars, grooving to some noise coming out their car speaker. About to have loads of sex no doubt. Fuckkers.

Next is a table of middle aged spics just enjoying lunch in the way that these people can just enjoy lunch. There is no hurry. There is no agenda. There is just lunch and the sea. The order is taken slowly. The food prepared slowly and then eaten slowly. There is wine throughout. Then coffee and tobacco. Then chupitos and more tobacco. The art of now is being practised.

I'm on the next table and behind me are a couple of really drunk blokes. I think they are Spanish but it is hard to tell they are so drunk. But they are laughing. The are having fun. There is no atmosphere of ‘shit, this could go wrong at any moment.’

A jetski passes by and then starts to do those anything but irritating, must be a right laugh, exhibition circles for our benefit. I catch the owners eye who nods his permission. I open up my brief case and quickly assemble my AK47, take aim and blow his fucking head off. I don’t really. But it’s a nice thought. So, still alive, the squirt fucks off and the waters become calm again. The shack is just over the headland so has constant wave motion, unlike the bay itself but it is still way calm. The waves are more ripples than waves.

Carlos comes over and goes through the list that has not changed in the hundred times I have been here. Seabass, dorade, squid, cuttlefish, tuna, grouper, swordfish, sardines, prawns. Oh yeah and the ever incongruous steak or lamb chops that I have seen people actually order. I order the cuttlefish. It is not the first time and it wont be the last. Hmmmm, but for how long? The cuttlefish will come golden and crisp from the plancha with its, I hesitate to call it, flesh, perfectly cooked and perfectly fresh. They get through so much stuff here, it is always fresh. Everything comes off the plancha. And it always comes perfect. That old woman in there knows her shit. There is something so completely beguiling about white fish flesh glimpsed through the scores made in the now golden skin. The skin of the dorade and lubina is crisp and tasty, almost as good as chicken.

I order a beer which comes with olives, bread and some Dulux with garlic in it. The beer goes down easily of course. And I look out to the bay again. No windsurfers today so of course no kite surfers. No wind. From round the cliffs of Botafoc suddenly emerges the enormous Denia ferry. It ploughs through the tranquil sea with a speed that is breathtaking. It is so big it seems almost impossible that it can go that fast. But it does , its bows cutting a huge wake. Within seconds it has disappeared out of view. I reckon that the boat builders brief was ‘build the biggest Sunseeker you can.” I don’t think the word ferry ever entered their heads so unlike a normal ferry it is.

My sepia arrives crisp and golden as always with its never changing salad. Tomato, onion, lettuce, green pepper and potato. Never varies and is never anything but excellent. You just know that the stuff comes from their cousin or brother or uncle or grandfather and you know it was pulled out the ground about fifteen minutes ago. Round the back there is an old woman peeling potatoes. Continuously. Whenever I walk past there she is, peeling potatoes. The Ibicencos boil them in their skins, the potatoes that is, not the old women, and then peel them. In doing so all the starchy waxiness stays in the potato and is not boiled out into the water. The potato is then dressed in oil and salt and left for us to enjoy. They say simple food is best and they, whoever they may be, are right.

Just as I am about to cut some sepia a huge swell crashes against the rocks. Then another and another. After a few moments the swell that has come out of nowhere dies down and the sea is placid again.

“What the fuck was that?” I said to myself.

One of the really drunk Spaniards sitting over from me says “That, my friend, was the ghost of Garcia Lorca.”

Strawberries. Past Perfect.

Strawberries are in the shops in full force, the ones from the island sweeter, redder, better than those from the Costa Plastica (an immense tract of land somewhere in the south of Spain covered in enormous greenhouses). I was in the veg shack outside Sta Gertrudis de la Fruitera yesterday and they has huge quantities of these little mothers.

There are so many places you can stick strawberries. Jams, smoothies, cakes, icecreams, sorbets. Mashed up with a yoghurt. You gotta wash ‘em though, before you start sticking them places. They absorb any kind of deterrent sprayed on them so you gots to wash them. Add a banana and some strawberries to your morning juice every day until the season is over. The juice will taste nicer, you will be happier and you will probably live for longer too.

Strawberries now are different from when I was a little girl. I remember them to be much smaller and also remember you could always pull the stalk right out. The green stalk would lead onto a tiny white coned stem that you could remove easily. Now that variety just doesn’t seem to be around. You have to cut out the stalk and any white bit of the fruit that may be there where the stalk meets the stem. Apparently the strawberry itself will taste sweeter if eaten without this white bit. Apparently. I had the most extraordinary strawberry in La Paloma a while back and it was one of the sweetest things I have put in my mouth in some time. It had a stalk that came right out and was tiny and sweet like in days of old and it took me straight back to my childhood summers in Dorset. A bit like the madeleine in Remembrance of Things Past. Except without the words.

A lot of people have started adding savoury stuff such as Balsamic vinegar (not that savoury I guess) and black pepper. I would say I hold no store by this kind of chefwankery but it wouldn’t be true cos I have it as a canape on some of my menus in the form of a granita and it is tres popular and I actually quite like it myself. Up to a point. It still grates with me – the messing around with foodstuffs that just don’t need to be messed with. Best leave it to the boffins such as Heston Blumenthal or Ferran Adria. Those who have the time and resources to do such messing. But I like to have one rule for me and one for everyone

Big Grill?

No. Big Rip Off. Actually outrageous rip off.

I was completely and utterly dumbfounded when I was cheerfully charged €54 for:
1 plate of disgusting lowest grade possible chorizo that bounced around your mouth like one of those rubber balls that boing uncontrollably all over the place.
1 plate ribs that we still raw at the edges.
1 thimble of the vinegar posing as wine
1 thimble of white wine posing as urine or vice versa
2 of the cheapest waters on the market

Fiftyfuckingfourfuckingeuros for absolute crap.

I said to the owner that really if they were going to rip everyone of so blatantly surely Jose Publico should at least have a menu board to peruse so they can decide whether they want to be fleeced or not. She looked at me as if I was mad and pointed out the 30cm x 60cm menu board standing some 15metres away on the other side of the stall. It is the red thing in the opposite corner of the last picture. If you look there is someone taking a photo of it. No doubt incredulous of the marketeers scorn and and wanting a memento. "Look kids, this is the reason you couldnt have a crepe or a coke later on. Cos these people wanted all our money"

I was thrilled to see that the owners of the 'eatery' were saving themselves on any wastage by using undefrosted frozen meat. This was skillfully cut out of its plastic bag and lumped on the grill with all the other shit that was thawing and grilling at the same time. The bitch who owned it told me that by law they were obliged to only cook frozen meat without prior defrosting.

This was at the Medieval Festival in the old town. Good thing was they all we medieval costumes. Man what I wouldn't give to use that grill as a stocks, stick them in it and beat them round the head with their frozen crap.

Killing Thyme

I’m sitting on my terrace looking at all the things growing in the pots and flower beds. I have basil, coriander, parsley, mint, sage, rosemary and thyme. Having these things growing is not only great for the kitchen but them is awful pleasing on the eye too. Particularly when they flower and particularly the thyme.

Tiny mauve buds open into white petals with just the vaguest hint of violet. Because it is new growth the leaves are a light green and their texture has not become too dry yet. The stalk is all soft too. At this time (thyme, ha ha, how hilarious) of year I add it to sauces such as salsa verde and mix into salads. As the season goes on I find it dries out too much so aint that nice just raw. It aint bad, don’t get me wrong, its just not so nice.

Women make infusions with it and say it tastes nice. It is distinctly good for you. You could add it to (the) lemonade (you have been conscientiously making since my last entry). You can add it to just about everything you eat at the moment. It has a particular affinity with white fish, chicken, tomatoes. It goes jolly nice with goats cheese salad.

Thyme grows wild here so you if you wanted some for free you could go for a walk and dig some up. Alternatively you could just drive to a garden centre and buy some. Or get someone else to.

Beyond my pots and flower beds the field opposite has now become baked sand colour and will stay that way till September/October next year. Until now it has been a kaleidoscope of colour. It seems to change from week to week from that bright yellow citrusy stuff to the bluey purple of the borage to the blood red of the poppies. There are also white rocket flowers and my favourite of all, the pink garlic flowers - of which more another thyme.


Goats Cheese Salad

- ½ a tomato per person roasted with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Maldon salt, black pepper and thyme (do this slowly so the tomato dehydrates intensifying the flavour and sweetness)

- The nicest leaves you can get hold of (there are some superb mixes of organic leaves at the moment, many of them coming from Farmer Rene ‘s Organic Garden Can Riera)

- Toasted pinenuts

- A vinaigrette made with sherry vinegar, dijon mustard, salt, garlic and olive oil

Toss all these together and add on top

- 1 slice of goats cheese per person grilled till golden and bubblying on
1 slice of Juanitos white bread toasted and rubbed with garlic (not optional)

You great big lemon.

Citrus fruits are glorious fruits and all of them have their place in the kitchen. But king of the kitchen would have to be the lemon. So versatile, so uplifting, so……yellow. Here in Ibiza, as with almost all of the indigenous produce, the lemons are hard to beat. Big, sweet but sharp and with good thick pith and skin, I have had lemons here that are pure sherbet. The lemon season starts in December but I reckon it is around now that they really come into their own. Nobody who knows anything about lemons agrees with me on this but I reckon that they are a bit like grapes – the longer they stay on the vine/branch, the sweeter they become.


In the kitchen they are a must in so many dishes, particularly the zest. The zest gets into just about every salad I make during the summer leaving me with a fridge full of zested but unsqeezed lemons. They get stored in the fridge once they are zested cos otherwise they deteriorate quickly but the juice always gets used up pronto; into dressings, over fish, over lamb, into sauces, into sorbets and icecreams and most excellently into lemonade. Homemade lemonade. It is enough to make you weep it is so good. Below is a recipe that once tried will be tried again and again.

When you are zesting lemons make sure that you don’t dig into the pith as it gives an acrid aftertaste. The two best ways of removing the zest that I know of is by grating it (see below) or by shaving it with a potato peeler and then cutting off any pith you may have shaved of with the skin.

An aside -There is an unbelievably excellent grater that has come on the market in the last few years and is unsurpassable for fine zesting lemons (and creating snowlike grated parmesan). It is called a Microplane and was invented by a carpenter cum home chef. He was making spaghettis for his kids and couldn’t find the grater so went to his workshop and brought back a wood plane and Voilá – the best addition to Kitchen Paraphernalia in recent years was born. If you don’t got one – get one

Lemonade
Perfect this and you will never be lonely

250g sugar
500 ml lemon juice
1.75l water
(7 good sized lemons make around 500ml)


Zest the lemons (you can forego this is you have a fridge full of zested lemons)
Squeeze the lemons
Add juice, zest and sugar together and dissolve over slow heat
Sieve out zest.

At this point you have cordial and this will keep in your fridge till hell freezes over.

When needed pour ½ of it into a jug and fill with crushed ice, mint and slices of lemon and orange and then pour in around a litre of water. If you wanna really get them going fill with fizzy water.

Nice