Recipix - Rhubarb crumble

Let them eat....Thai Beef Salad

This is nice. 

And it serves four. 

25 minutes preparation. 10 minutes cooking

 

 

Marinade

400g steak (I use entraña)                                            

3 cloves of garlic                                                              

1 bunch of coriander stalks                                   

A goodly amount of ground black pepper                 

a bit of oil                                                                       

 

 

Salad

1 soft leafed lettuce, washed                                   

200 g cherry tomatoes                                              

1 cucumber                                                                       

4 Spring onions                                                               

The leaves from the coriander bunch                                                                                                             

 

Dressing

2 tbsps fish sauce

2 tbsps lime juice

1 tbsp soy sauce                                                              

2 tsps chopped red chilli

2 tsps brown sugar

 

Chop or blend the garlic, black pepper and coriander stalks with the oil. Rub this into the steak. As always rub it in good (ladies) Set aside for 20 minutes minimum, then grill it rare and then let it cool                                            

 

Wash lettuce and rip into nice sized bits. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half. Peel and chop the cucumber. Chop the white and some of the green of the spring onions. Toss  all together with the coriander leaves (reserving a few tomatoes and coriander leaves to make it look fancy at the end).

 

To assemble

Mix up dressing and dress salad, slice steak and lay prettily on salad and finish with reserved coriander leaves and cherry tomatoes

 

Ibiza bizarre

I have just met the fixer of a potential client for the summer. The client has a new girlfriend so he is going to be throwing parties for her. Then this winter he is going on holiday. To space. But not the club. Outer space. The man is going into space on holiday. Can you dig it?

Oh yeah, and here's a picture of me. Not that I'm vain.

Making Bacon

I dont need to bring home the bacon cos I is MAKING bacon. At home. Yeah.

I have found Iberico pork. You know, the meat that comes from those porkers raised around the town of Jabugo. The ones that roam around freely on a diet of nothing but acorns. The hairy pigs. The stumpy pigs. The beauuuuuuutiful pigs. These are not the serrano ham pigs. These are the PATA NEGRA pigs. 

The meat I have found are the surplus bits. The bits that dont get turned into those incredible Iberico hams, chorizos, and general cured cuts called embutidos (embotits in Catalan which has got to make you smile). So the surplus bits are - belly, ribs, chops and chaps. Has a certain ring, dont it?

This is a relief and a big step forward. I have yet to find organic meat either here in Ibiza or on the mainland. There just isnt the availability that there is in England. Even good quality freerange is relatively unavailable here. 

If you want chickens you can get either battery of the worst sort or massive corral chickens whose weight in bones far outweighs its flesh. You wouldn't want to pick a fight with one of these chickens. And there is nothing in between. No corn fed, no freerange, no organic. There are 2 sorts - shit chickens or dont fuck with me chickens.

The Iberico pork that I have found is good looking stuff. Darker, more marbled flesh. More fat. A lot more fat. Funny thing is, is that it sits in the supermarket alongside the poor quality pork AND IS CHEAPER. Who the hell thought that up? Anyway, I bought a piece of belly and rubbed it with salt, sugar and spices for a week, then hung it for a week, then smoked it for two days. 

The smoking was great. The arch no-no in smoking is using resinous wood chippings. It taints the flavour with a bitter aftertaste. So I smoked it with resinous wood chippings. This was because I wanted to smoke using Sabina. Sabina is juniper and was once all over the island. (Someone figured there was money in them, so now there are hardly any left). It is used in many buildings here and is so very very strong. It also has the most beautiful aroma. I wanted to use this wood.

I had used it once before to smoke some salmon trout and had had to cut away much of the surface cos of its bitterness. But what lay beneath though was heavenly. So to smoke the bacon I decided to wrap it up in a muslin and let that take the bitterness. And lo, it worked. The boy is a goddam wizard. The bacon is goddam beautiful. In every sense. 

let them eat....roquefort ad endive salad

This is one of those celestial mixes along with melon and ham, strawberries and cream, tomato, basil and mozzarell, lamb and rosemary etc. One of those mixes that just cannot be improved upon. There is something so special about the creaminess of the cheese contrasting with the harshness of its blue veins that is then coupled with the bitter yet smooth, soft endive leaf that has a snap as you bite through it. I can't explain it. It just works.

I made the roquefort dressing with yoghurt in a effort to lighten it to please the one who pays me. It is wicked. It really works and loses nothing providing you don't skimp on the cheese. I used Turkish yoghurt (often incorrectly referred to as  Greek yoghurt) which I guess helps with the texture and fullness. The salad has endive, peeled pear, walnuts, lemon, tiny bit of garlic, olive oil, walnut oil. 

I could have cheerfully killed two of the staff who moaned, groaned and bored me to tears with "Is that all there is?" A shockingly scant lunch of the above salad followed by penne, fresh tomato sauce with knuckleduster meatballs, provided FOC to them. I think one of them cant/wont eat pork

I must say I do like to hear of people's various food fussinesses. Nothing could interest me more than to hear about what people dont like. I dont like this..... I dont like that.....Fascinating. 

Fucking canapes

Jesus H Christ canapes for 150 is a lot of work. 5 Cold, 5 Hot, 2 Desserts over a 4 hour period. 3 staff plus yours truly for 2 full days and then all at it for the set up, service and get out. 100 man hours. 

Spanish tortillas with cured duck

Crab leek and ginger tarts

Rolled bresaola with ricott and rocket

Tuna sushi (not my idea)

Foie Gras (not my idea) with onion and cinnamon jam on crostini

Quails leg lollipops

Queens scallops with ginger, chilli and garlic

Falafel with yoghurt and harissa

Bunyols de bacalao with lemongrass, coriander and coconut milf

Grilled entraña with red wine sauce, yorkshire pudding and horseradish

Chocolate and Cointreau Mousse

Valdespino trifle (unfuckingbelievable)

For  all the above foul language and woeisme, the gig went Phenom, everybody loved the food and I enjoyed the whole experience.

Let them eat....black beans and muddy dorade

I cooked the above dish. The beans were delicious and the dorade was horrid. I have had enough of farmed dorade. I might give it one more chance but if it dont be nice next time thats it. It is a goddam shame. Surely the only future for fish for our table is in farming if this free for all supermarket sweep of the oceans doesnt stop tomorrow. Which it wont. 

The Beans

200g black beans

Bay leaf

Rosemary

1 onion

Garlic 

Chili

Olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Water (and stock if available)

A nice piece of smoked back bacon. 100g? Optional

Boil them beans with enough water to cover by a couple of fingers. Put in nice swirl of olive oil, bay and rosemay. Bring it to the boil. As it comes to the boil think of Travis Bickle and scrape (wash) all the scum off the top (streets)

 

As the beans are boiling keep adding more liquid so it always has between one and two fingers. This would be the time to add the stock if you are using. Meanwhile sweat some onions, garlic and crumbled chilli in mucho olive oil until nice and brown and soft. Do this for as long as you can. The more you cook this the sweeter it will become. Add it to the beans and keep cooking. The beans can take anything form 1 - 4 hours to cook if not presoaked. Make sure they are soft. Nobody likes a crunchy bean. A really cool thing to do throughout this recipe is add more and more olive oil. It makes it UNCTUOUS and God loves unctous.

Get at them beans boys, get at them beans.