Macaroni Cheese

It's funny how these things happen.  There was I, extolling the virtues of Rick Stein's India, when an on-line conversation moved rapidly from curry to Macaroni Cheese via pork chops and pesto.  There and then I knew that it wouldn't be long until it found its way into our plans.  That was last week and it happened in a corner of the internet that isn't full of my usual cohort of foodies.

Imagine my surprise then, when one of my food friends started talking about having macaroni and cheese.  In a third and unrelated conversation about meal planning, an other friend decided to change their plans for stuffed rolled pork loin in favour of "mac and chee", such is the power of suggestion.  

We had planned to have our macaroni and cheese on Thursday as a family meal after a day out together.  Our plans were changed however by a belly busting lunch in town.  By the time R's tea time came around we were still full and not in the slightest bit interested in eating more food.

Any other meal may well have fallen off the meal planner for a week or two, but macaroni cheese has a strange power.  Once you have decided that you are going to cook it, it has to be cooked, as my on-line discussions seemed to prove.  Our planned meal for this evening was steak with boulangere potatoes.  We'll now be having that some time next week.

As with so many family favourites, macaroni and cheese is a very personal dish.  Some people will use any old pasta shape.  Some will have a particular cheese that must be in the sauce.  We stick to macaroni but use whatever cheese we have in the house.  Today our sauce had mature cheddar, wenslydale and jarlesberg.  Along with cheese and pasta, our macaroni cheese is always topped with sliced tomatoes, breadcrumbs and extra cheese.  Sadly there were no leftovers, but we do still have steak to look forward to, so all is not lost.

The Old Peacock, Elland Road

We moved to Leeds in September 1999 and, against everyone's advice, we ended up renting in Beeston.  Although I had been a Leeds United fan since I was ten I had never visited the city.  I'd watched Leeds play live, but only at away games, so you can imagine my joy at discovering that I could see Elland Road from the end of my street.

After we'd settled into our new home I decided to take my first look at the stadium where my beloved Leeds play their home games.  Having walked down the steps of Beggers Hill, I was welcomed by the statue of Billy Bremner.  It felt like all of my Christmases had come at once.  I hadn't booked a tour so we just wandered around the outside of the ground getting misty-eyed.  We then stumbled across The Old Peacock* on the other side of Elland Road.  It felt rude not to pop in for a pint.

What we found was a local's pub, a bit worse for wear and festooned with Leeds United memorabilia.  Every available surface, apart from those dedicated to drinking, had signed shirts, old programs and faded newspaper cuttings on them.  The beer was what we had grown used to at university; a choice of two lagers or smooth flow bitter.  It was not a pub to write home about, but it was my new local and it did have two pool tables.

Much water has flowed under many bridges since then.  The pub's decline seemed inexorably linked to that of Leeds United.  As my team fell from grace, as did The Old Peacock.  I'm sure the global financial meltdown and the ban on smoking in pubs played their part, but as the gate reciepts dwindled at Elland Road, so did the foot-fall into the pub.

 

But, like a phoenix from the flames, The Old Peacock is back.  It is now being managed by The Ossett Brewery and, unlike recent variations on a tired theme, they are trying something a little different.  Rather than selling the usual pub fare they have transformed the Peacock into an Ale House and Kitchen.  I was invited along to the VIP opening to get a taste of what was on offer and can report good things.

Out with the smooth flow bitter and in with nine real ale pumps.  The new beer offer is mostly from The Ossett Brewery, along with a couple of guest ales and standard lagers.  The beer to look out for is 1919.  Named after the year that Leeds United were formed, it has been brewed specifically for The Old Peacock and will not be sold anywhere else.  1919 sold out by ten o'clock on the opening night and to me that is recommendation enough.  Sadly we didn't get to sample the food.  We did get a couple of canapés but they weren't really representative of the food that will be on offer.

It's not just the food and drink that has changed.  The place has a new feel too, as you would expect after a £400,000 facelift.  The wall to wall memorabilia has been replaced with a "one-off design" wallpaper featuring images of Leeds United's past.  The swirly carpets and matching upholstered stools and benches have been torn out and replaced with stylish wooden furniture and solid wood and tiled floors.  The pool tables have also gone creating space for a restaurant area that seats 40 people.

We had a good time on the opening night and a free drink is always welcome.  I've now seen the menu and I'm looking forward to my next visit even more, perhaps for Sunday lunch with the family.  I especially want to try the Thick Cut Pickled Brisket.

I've been longing for a decent pub, selling real ale and good fresh food, to open somewhere in Beeston for ages and it looks like my dreams have come true with the re-launch of The Old Peacock.  I only hope that Leeds United's fortunes are still linked to the pub as that would mean that good times are around.

*The Old Peacock is actually The New Peacock, or The New Old Peacock.  The original Old Peacock stood on the opposite side of Elland Road opposite the present McDonald's drive through.  It's thought that Leeds United got their nickname "The Peacocks" from the pub.

Roast Duck with Blackcurrant Sauce

Last week Z and R went on a play date with some of Z's mummy friends.  There is nothing unusual about that.  They tend to meet up regularly, especially during the school holidays when playgroups aren't running.  What was a little peculiar was their choice of activity.  They avoided museums, galleries and soft play gyms and opted instead for a bit of foraging.

We got the free food bug from watching River Cottage.  Every time Hugh returned home with a trug full of berries, leaves or mushrooms, we pondered how easy it would be to do the same.  We assumed that it was easier for him because he lived in the countryside.  Living in inner-city Leeds, we felt like we would never be able to access nature's bountiful harvest to the same extent as Hugh could.  But even living in the concrete jungle there is free food to be had.

The odd thing is, once you get your eye in there is food everywhere.  Blackberries, cherries, sloes and apples hang freely in most verges and laybys.  Churchyards groan with fruit.  Public parks are littered with edible goodies.  The odd thing is, the more you forage the more you find.  Z and her friends were on a mission for cherries and cherries they found.  They also found Blackcurrant bushes heavy with fruit and tonight's menu was formed.

Z cooked all of the blackcurrants in a little water the day she picked them so that they could be used in either savoury or sweet dishes later on.  Today, while a couple of duck breasts were pan roasted, I made a sauce using some onions, reduced red wine and chicken stock, and finished it with some of the blackcurrant jam.

The meal was finished off with sautéed potatoes and spring greens, steamed and tossed in melted butter.  The combination of the fatty, rich duck and the sweet, sharp blackcurrant sauce is one that is hard to beat.  I know duck can be a bit expensive but when you can serve it with free food it becomes much easier to justify.

The rest of the jam was sweetened with honey and turned into ice lollies in the hope that this recent hot weather hangs around a bit longer.  The cherries were turned into chocolate cake and cherry brandy.  The cake didn't last long, but we'll have to wait until Christmas for the brandy.

Friday Night Take-away - Chicken Vindail

I got into cookery at university.  It was my first time away from home, fending for myself.  It was also the start of the Celebrity Chef boom of the mid 90's.  My parent's generation had had Floyd, The Galloping Gourmet and Food and Drink but we now had Oliver, Rhodes and Fearnley-Whittingstall.  Jamie and Hugh in particular got me excited about food and if it weren't for them I wouldn't be the person I am today.

It was the perfect storm.  New exciting chefs on shiny new programs at the same time as I was able to spend vast amounts of time watching the telly.  These days however I spend less time watching the box and when I do, the food programs all too often fail to make me want to cook anything.  The recent trend of cooking competitions with celebrity spin-offs do little but annoy me and certainly never get my culinary imagination fired up.

There has been one gem for me recently.  Amongst the Masterchef's and Come Dine with Me's shone Rick Stein's India.  I'm a big fan of Stein's.  I've liked, with few exceptions, everything that he has done.  I know that some people find his delivery to be condescending and vaguely annoying, like a broken toenail or Morrissey, but I like him.  More to the point I have really liked this latest series.  I make curries quite regularly but I've got into a rut, using the same spice mixes and sauces so discovering new combinations and methods has been inspiring.

I bought the cookbook which accompanies the series a couple of weeks ago.  I was going to wait until Christmas, but impatience got the better of me.  The fist thing I turned to was Saag Paneer.  I'm happy to tell you that Rick agrees with me on how this is cooked.  I then started to look for a recipe for tonight's meal.

My first choice was Chicken Vindail.  It comes from Chennai and is a quick cooked chicken curry similar to vindaloo in that the sauce is finished with vinegar.  Because the vindail was essentially chicken and sauce, I decided to cook a side dish too.  I flicked through the Vegetable chapter of the book and chose Poriyal, a dish of peas, carrots and beans finished with coconut.

The poriyal was so fresh and fast to cook that it may well become my standby side dish.  I replaced the peas that the recipe called for with some home grown broad beans just to make it even fresher.  The vindail was, without a shadow of a doubt one of the best curries I have ever cooked.  It was possibly one of the best I have ever eaten, at home or in a restaurant. 

The meal devoured, I went back to the book and started tagging recipes for future use.  Normally a good cook book will get three of four tags but Stein's Curry now has eighteen tagged recipes for future cooking, not including the two from tonight that we'll definitely cook again.  I can't remember the last time I was this inspired by a TV program or cookery book.  I feel a lot of curries* in the near future.

*curry being the adopted generic term used to cover all Indian cookery.  The closest translation for curry means gravy which neither of these dishes had.

Salmon Baked in Prosciutto

I've heard an awful lot of chatter about it now being too hot to cook.  We don't really do summer that well*.  If it's not a barbecue with cremated burgers then it's a sad salad or a limp sandwich.  Well I can't stand it any more.  It's not too hot to cook.  It may well be too hot to spend time stood over a hot pan stirring, but that isn't the only way to cook.

For tonight's menu I decided to cook a dish that I first heard about at university.  The recipe comes from back in the days when Jamie Oliver worked in a restaurant and lived in a flat.  Before he was married, while he was still naked**, young Jamie shared a recipe for salmon wrapped in prosciutto.  It was possibly one of the first "foodie" things I ever cooked and I've been cooking it ever since.

It's not a cheap meal but it is an easy one, especially if you don't want to be spending time in the hot, hot kitchen.  The secret to the simplicity of the dish is that it all gets cooked together.  Salmon wrapped in ham, green beans and cherry tomatoes are all roasted together in olive oil and lemon juice.  To bulk the meal out I've started adding some parboiled potatoes as well.

While the food is roasting for around half an hour, you're free to sit on the patio with a glass of chilled fizz and enjoy summer.  By the time the fizz is gone, the salmon is ready and you have a plate full of hot tasty summery food without a flaccid sandwich anywhere in sight.  Yes it's hot at the moment but that is no excuse not to eat good food, not in my house anyway.

*we don't do seasons very well at all. It would probably be better is we just had slightly over-cast mild days 24/7 but we'd only complain about that too.
**it wasn't him, it was the food.

Chicken Calabrese

This is neither the time or the place to talk about illness.  It's not a heath blog it's a food blog*.  however my state of poorlyness this weekend has prompted Tonight's Menu.  This weekend was the hottest of the year so far and we had plans.  We had planned to visit a friend in Wilmslow for a barbecue and a session drinking his home-brew.  Everything was put on hold and I went back to bed at around 12:30pm on Saturday.

There I stayed, feeling sorry for myself, until the following day.  On Sunday I continued my convalescence on the sofa.  This was no bad thing as I got to watch the Wimbledon Men's Singles Final and the highlights of the German Grand Prix.  I also got to watch some food programs, which was one of my favourite pastimes before R turned up and wrestled the control of the telly from my grasp.

One of the shows I caught was Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.  I was still dozy and uncomfortable so I wasn't really paying attention but one recipe grabbed my attention, Spicy chicken calabrese with olive oil mash.  It looked like such a vibrant, colourful and most importantly tasty dish that I made a mental note to cook it soon.  I didn't realise it would be this soon however.

With me out on my back, Z took over the shopping and meal planning duties for the week.  She was planning on me being out of action for a couple of days so tonight she was going to cook chicken thighs with some leftover courgette and chick pea stew for herself.  However, I'm feeling well on the road to recovery and wanted some proper food to get me back into the swing of things.

The Calabrese is a stew of chicken and peppers and has one special ingredient, 'nduja, which is a spreadable, soft salami.  I'm not sure about eating 'nduja on toast as a snack, as was recommended on the program, but its uses as an ingredient seam endless to me.  Sadly I do not have any spreadable salami, so I had to improvise.  I added smoked garlic, hot paprika, crushed fennel seeds and oregano to the stew. 

The finished dish was delicious.  I served it with soft parmesan polenta instead of the recommended mashed potato, but only because we didn't have any spuds in the house.  I limited the amount of chilli in the dish to better suit my weakened constitution, but as summer stews go this was a winner.  I'll admit that the 'nduja would probably add some depth of flavour to the dish but it was certainly not a flop with out it.

I have a feeling that dishes similar to this will be popping up on our weekly meal planner quite a lot this summer.  There are very few ingredients so with a little imagination the recipe could be used with most meats, fish, or even made as a vegetarian dish.  I will defiantly be eating polenta more often as it only took 5 minutes to cook.  I'll also be on the lookout for spreadable salami, if you see any let me know.

*just

Black Pepper Tofu

A little while ago I was lent a copy of Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi.  I was told by many people that it was their favourite cookery book, filled with superb recipes that I would love cooking.  This news filled me with joy and I was salivating at the prospect of some vegetarian Middle-Eastern food inspiration.

I'll be honest, my excitement died down pretty quickly.  I don't know what it was but none of the glorious recipes made me want to cook them.  Yes the dishes all sounded great.  If I'd been offered any of them in a restaurant I would have been more than happy.  But, as with so many other cookery books, Plenty would have been destined to loiter, unused, on our book case, if it was ours.  Because it was borrowed however, we were determined to find a recipe that we liked the sound of and wanted to cook.

One of the recipes that we'd picked out was for Black Pepper Tofu and, as we had half a block of tofu left over from making Pad Thai, we thought we would give it a go.  The recipe was simple enough.  Crispy fried tofu was added to fried onions, chillies and garlic.  Sweet and light soy sauce were added next along with some sugar and the key ingredient, ground black pepper.  A handful of spring onions was all that was needed to finish the dish.

I have never been so glad that I hadn't added more black pepper to a dish in my life.  I had reduced the quantities of the pepper and the chilli but the dish was almost unpalatable.  The first couple of mouthfuls were great but, unlike the peak and trough heat that you get from chillies, the black pepper was unrelenting.  Every mouthful needed to be washed down.  It's fair to say we won't be cooking this again, but we still have a couple more recipes from Plenty to try before it is dismissed totally.