Roastporkwithcrackling

Chef goes for walk on beach again with camera !

2012-02-23T23:02:00.000Z

Took a break today at work after lunch service and went for a walk on the beach at Bamburgh.

It was nice to take a break which offered fresh air and wonderful scenery unlike most kitchen breaks which would normally consist of sitting in the back seat of a car while 3 Chefs filled it with roll up smoke ! ha ha !

Took these pictures and thought I would share them with you.

These tank barrages are just on the beach at Bamburgh and 2 of them are painted like dice. I have not seen any pictures of them before unlike the Castle itself which must be one of the most photographed buildings in Britain.

loved the Colours.

Just found my new kitchen location to sell Spicy Fish Tacos to the public during the Summer !

Not sure where the stag painting came from.

Scallops.

2012-02-20T19:04:00.000Z

I have said it before working as a Cook sometimes means you get to play with some wonderful ingredients. Working at the Dunstanburgh Castle Hotel means at the moment I have direct contact with suppliers when I place my orders. We use Taylors of North Sheilds for most of our seafood where I have built a bit of a rapport with the sales girl Joanne. Most phone calls involve 2 minutes of putting my order in and then 10 minutes of an update from her on her social life. To say it resembles a Jilly Cooper novel would be an understatement. In fact I think Joanne should become a Mills and Boon novelist ! Anyway she keeps me entertained with her stories and as a Chef sometimes it does not seem like you have a social life so its nice to share hers !
The other day in the brief two minutes she talks about seafood she mentioned she had big scallops on offer. 12 scallops with no roe on them for £10. A bargain I thought so I promptly brought some. Not for the Hotels guests but for me..! ha ha ! I paid for them so don't worry boss !
Today on my day off I thought about having them for my Tea but how to serve them was a bit of a problem. There are some foods like Scallops that don't really need anything to accompany them. Cooking them with a bit of oil and butter till golden and then take them out of the pan and while they rest put a good squeeze of lemon juice in your pan and rather more butter than the Doctor would like and make a warm lemon butter sauce and drizzle over the scallops...simple but fantastic !
Anyway bacon usually goes well Scallops so I went down that line and in the end came up with Scallops with Serrano ham and a few mixed leaves.
First place your scallops in a bowl drizzle some olive oil on them and gently massage and then season with salt. Not black pepper yet as it will just burn because you need to get your pan smoking.
When the pan is smoking place your scallops one at a time into the pan. This is to try and prevent the Scallops cooling the pan and you don't want this as all you will end up with is boiled Scallops.

When I had coloured the Scallops I took them out of the pan and wrapped them in the Serrano Ham and then placed them back into the pan to colour the ham. When the Ham was nicely coloured too I took that out of the pan and let them rest while I made the warm dressing. All I did was deglaze the pan with a splash of White Wine and let it reduce to a nice tablespoon of syrup.
I arranged my leaves in my serving bowl, placed the Scallops in the centre and then drizzled the pan juice over the scallops. I served it with a thick slice of rustic bread.
Taylors Seafood have a shop in Jesmond which is on the outskirts of Newcastle but if you want all the sights and smells of a fish market pot down to their other shop in North Sheilds where they have a amazing array of seafood. And watch out for Joannes first novel she will make Jackie Collins look like a nun ! ha ha !

Scallops wrapped in Serrano ham with a few extras thrown in like sliced Chorizo.

MY LOTTERY HOME !

2012-02-20T18:07:00.001Z

One day it shall be mine, O yes one day it shall be mine...!

OK I am a man of simple needs in life. I do not think I am being too greedy in wanting a nice Ferrari Dino parked in my drive in a copper colour scheme to match my expensive copper pans that bring a glorious warming colour to my kitchen. Neither do I think its too much to ask for Uma Thurman to serve me my breakfast of a lovely Supreme of Swallows Smoked Haddock with a lovely vibrant egg yolk running over it in the morning while wearing her Super Girl outfit.

Arguably the best tool to cook with !

Arguably the best tool to pull a bird with ! ha ha !

Now you may have the classy cooking pans and the classy car but you need classy digs as well and the other week while wandering the beaches of Northumberland I came across the most beautiful house I have ever seen.OK its not much of a design sensation and Norman Foster might not be impressed but I thought this house that lay on the beach at Beadnell was truly idyllic.

Not only did it have a fantastic view of the sea and the rugged and wild Northumberland coastline but it had a little fishing harbour where I could go and buy fresh fish from the boats as they landed their catch.

The Fish and chip van I mean boat !

Nice walk on the beach.

OK its unlikely I am ever going to be in the position to buy a house like this and I can only guess at the price if it ever came on the market and even if it did this part of Northumberland is full of holiday cottages so the bidding on this kind of property would probably be of Wall Street proportions which would defiantly put me out. But sometimes it nice to dream. O how the other half live ! Now back to Uma Thurman in her Super girl outfit serving me breakfast ! now that's a lot more likely...zzzzzzzzzzzz ! ha ha !

The Misses ! ha ha !

Writing a Menu.

2012-01-31T22:33:00.002Z

One of the fun things about working as a Chef is getting to contribute to a Menu. Well you would like to think so anyway. In reality it can be tough coming up with a balance of tasty treats, that the staff in the kitchen are capable of making, that the people who pay the kitchens bills don't have a heart attack when the suppliers bills arrive and something that can be produced quickly during service so as to prevent the customers after 7 minutes from not screaming at waiting on staff " We have been here ages where is our food ! "
The process of coming up with menu ideas in theory is quite simple.
The first step is to Rip off any good recipes that you have learned from various Chefs and Cooks on your travels. Most Chefs have a little black book which they carry with them and write down anything that tastes good that they have learned. I have about 6. although one of them is Red ! It contains the cake mixes that I learned from Sue the Head Cook at the Moorhouse farm. Red is quite a fiery colour so it probably was the right colour for me and Sue ! ha ha ! xx (sorry Ally !)

The second step is to trawl through my list of favourite recipes from my favourite cookery books. It might not be a complete dish that I borrow but it might be a nice sauce which I think will go well with another ingredient or a way a dish is presented. Also as discussed before their are hundreds of food and restaurant web sites to view and gain inspiration.

I don't stop their though. Last week you would find me hiding in bins outside various top North-east kitchens garbage areas where most Chefs smoke and discuss waitress and top cooking ideas !!! ( Probably learned more about waitresses there though ! Ha ha ! )

I had even planned a Tom Cruise Mission Impossible style break in coming in through the ceiling at Terry Leybourne's and Dave Kennedy's secret test kitchens in the hope of stealing their secret files. (Two great North-East Chefs for those of you south of the Wall ! )

Unfortunately I could not find a rope strong enough though for that mission but I did think about me mate Alan holding the back of me pants while I leaned downwards but the danger element put me off. He just needed to grab the back of me underpants by mistake and I could have ended up with the wedgie to end all wedgies !

When you come up with the menu sourcing the ingredients in this modern day and age means you can probably get anything you want from anywhere in the world but at The Dunstanburgh Castle hotel where I am working they have a very beautiful philosophy towards their suppliers. The Carbon foot print of the food is incredibly important. No long journeys from abroad are really aloud. As is the well fair of the animals the meat is sourced from. We were interviewing suppliers the other day and one in particular kept saying " Well we go to the Paris Market 3 times a week and the variety is so much better and you can get anything you want including Foie Gras...blah blah blah..!" and I was thinking shut it down mate your not going to get your business here talking about your booze cruise to France with a Goose under your arm !
Do not get me wrong most French markets and big Frenchie Supermarkets for that matter are a food lovers paradise and perhaps reflects the difference between the Johnny Englander's and the average French persons attitude to feeding themselves and their family.
So you have your menu, you have a list of ingredients and you have decided to source ethically. You now have to work out if the dish is going to show you a worth while profit.
You could source cheaper food products for your menu which will enable your GP to be a lot better and a lot of your customers will not be bothered about where the produce come from. They are more interested in the cost and size of their meal or how much booze they can consume while eating it.
I worked somewhere where the Fillet steak was from Brazil and was about £12 for the whole strip from the local Cash and Carry. The owner probably got about 6 portions out of the strip. It was on the menu for about £19.95 per steak. Throw in a few cooked frozen Chips, bit of tomato, a few mushrooms and a onion ring or two and you can imagine the GP was quite good. To be fair to the owner it was never promoted as Local Beef and I never seem to recollect any one asking where it came from or even complain about the taste of the meat and If they did the waiting staff would just fill their wine glass up a bit more to take their mind of the taste !

Ding ding round 1 !

Caring on where the produce you use comes from is a great thing, making sure your promoting your local area and helping sustain local business means you can say I am doing my bit but it can hit your profit margins.
We came up with a suitable good menu for the hotel (in my opinion) using what was seasonally available in February and keeping an eye on the Hotel's sourcing policies.
Now to start a service prep list and then a recipe list .........time for a un-ethically sourced beer first though ha ha !

Random pictures of Beaches and Boats..again !

2012-01-12T18:53:00.000Z

Just really enjoyed today walking along the beach and small harbour at Beadnell. Taking photographs as I skipped merrily along enjoying the strange warmth on a normally freezing winters day !
I thought I would share them with you.

Coming Soon....Checking in on a new culinary adventure !

2012-01-12T18:16:00.000Z

A new challenge for the New Year !

Roasted Sweet potato and Butternut Squash Curry with Pea and Mushroom Rice.

2012-01-11T18:38:00.001Z

I love Sweet Potato and Butternut Squash. I cannot think of two more warming, comforting and delicious vegetables. Their qualities when both turned into soups are truly wondrous ! Butternut Squash as a soup almost needs nothing adding to it. Roast then cover in vegetable stock. Allow the stock and squash to infuse together for about 10 minutes and then blitz to a puree. If you tasted it blind you would swear that someone had added some cream to it because of its velvety texture on the tongue. If you must add anything ...well maybe a little drizzle of chilli oil and a few Parmesan shavings and their you have it winter warmth in a bowl.
Sweet Potato is another Winter warmer. A little bit of Thai Curry paste sweated of in a little oil is a good base to add the flesh of the Sweet potato. Cover with Vegetable stock and simmer for 20 minutes. Blitz then let it sit overnight or for 24 hours for the flavours to fully infuse then slowly eat savouring every warming moment. Dip some heartily ripped rustic bread and snog tenderly (tongues allowed ..ha ha !) until your bowl is empty.
OK I have gone off on one their and really this is a recipe for another curry. This is a more basic curry and does not evolve sweating onions until golden brown this is really just a 20 minute job once the Butternut squash and Sweet potato are roasted and was designed for my tea !

This recipe is for 1 with a bit left over !

First roast 1 sweet potato, The top half of a Butternut squash and 3 Shallots. Half an onion is fine its just I have shallots to use up.

Next place the Roasted shallots into a pan with a little bit of Olive oil. Add 2 TBSP of Curry powder, half a teaspoon of chilli powder, some garlic powder and a TBSP of tomato puree. Sweat for 3 minutes.

Next add 1 400g tin of tomatoes and the flesh of the sweet potato. Add 200 mls of hot water with a knorr vegetable jelly pot dissolved into it and then stir.

When well mixed put a lid on the pan and let it simmer for 20 minutes.

The Mushroom and Pea rice is simple. Saute some mushrooms in a pan, then add the peas to warm through. I then just heated a bag of microwave basmati rice according to the instructions on the packet. Yes I know I am supposed to be a "PROFESSIONAL' and I know I should be telling you about how to make beautiful fragrant braised rice using cardamon pods (thank you Lynn !) and a beautiful vegetable stock but this is a good quick short cut and saves on washing too ! And did I mention I am still on VACATION !! Rome was not built in a day but it might have been if they had taken a few short cuts !

Add the rice to the mushrooms and peas and gently toss. Ready.

The sauce should be ready after 20 minutes. Just taste it. You should get a nice curry taste, then the smooth sweet potato should slowly come through and then a little pinch on your tongue of heat from the chilli powder. It might need a bit of seasoning if so...season it.
I then placed everything into my blender and turned it into a smooth sauce. If you want a more rustic sauce then don't blend. I did as I knew I would only need half the mix and I was going to use the left over sauce to accompany my chips which in turn was going to accompany my kebab or pizza or jumbo battered sausage after a few beers with mate Bruce on Saturday night !! ha ha !

The sauce was done. I added half of it to another pan. The Butternut squash I had roasted with the Sweet Potato and shallots was diced and then added to the pan of sauce to warm through. I finished it with some fresh roughly chopped coriander and then ladled it on to the mushroom and pea rice.

Now this tasted great and you would think I would have been happy just eating this fair Vegetarian treat. Well I would have been but you see there was this bit of turkey defrosting in the fridge and I tried to fight my meat eating demons but I am just too weak..! So I coloured it in a pan, finished it off in the oven and served on top of the curry and you know what I felt totally guilty while eating every succulent mouth full ! ha ha !

Christmas Foodie Swap Shop !

2012-01-08T20:38:00.000Z

I went for a few beers on Friday with a good mate of mine Alan. He is a salt of the earth kind of guy. Kind and generous are two good words I can use to describe him. He works at a Carvery restaurant in Bedlington called the Ridge farm. He has been their quite a few years now and on a Sunday they can easily do 400-500 covers which I think is pretty impressive. I am not sure if I could work in a carvery. The thought of standing their being polite to customers while you slice their meat is something left to the few gifted chefs out there who have patience. Anyway he likes it and is happy as a Chef can be serving 400 people that is !
On Friday however he said to me " I have brought you a present."
I was deeply touched and even a little excited when he handed me a paper bag containing french words like 'Le Jambon' and 'Foie Gras' . I thought he's popped over to Calais stopped at the local deli and brought me a couple of little French Treats !
So to say I was a little disappointed when I opened the bag does make me sound a little ungrateful but that's how I felt.
" Yes these are some un-wanted Xmas gifts I thought I would give to you !"
1 miniature bottle of Whisky, one bottle of miniature Brandy and some Marks and Spencer Turkey glaze !
lucky me !

I don't really drink spirits but I can certainly use the whisky when I make some wonderful Scottish Cranachan and the Brandy can go maybe in a Stroganoff but Turkey glaze ? Any suggestions would be great fully appreciated.
I didn't have anything to give him so I brought him a packet of Beef flavour Monster Munch crisps. He seemed happy. I wish I was ! ha ha !

Pork Chop !

2012-01-08T20:13:00.000Z

I sometimes think that the recipes I put on my blog are well a little simple and perhaps not daring and different enough. The truth is that I love so called simple things cooked well. When at home if its a simple stew for tea its has to be a great stew for tea where I am using the best quality ingredients I can afford.
These Pork chops were something I purchased from a good butchers near me. As pork chops go they were about £2.50 each. It might sound expensive but the quality and flavour of these meaty porkie feasts was well worth it. More often than not whenever Ive brought any kind of chops on special offer from the supermarkets I have been taken in by their wonderful offers like 3 packs for £10 rather than thinking at these prices these chops are not really going to be very tender or flavoursome ! They are usually quite tough too and you spend most of the night picking the strands from in-between the gaps in your teeth !
Being a professional cook gets to mean that using different ingredients everyday is a daily treat so sometimes at home (when not eating sandwiches ! ha ha!) its nice to have something simple.
Tonight it was these Pork Chops with Cauliflower and Broccoli cheese bake with a few sauteed new potatoes thrown in for good measure.

I griddled the chops first then placed them on a tray, covered them with foil and cooked in the oven for about 12 minutes.

Its simple but how warming and moreish is a portion of cauliflower and broccoli cheese bake on a cold winters day ?

I really fancied Cauliflower and Broccoli cheese bake and I thought it might make a nice accompaniment to the chop. I usually would have bacon with cauliflower cheese so why wouldn't these go together !
First steam your Cauliflower and broccoli. Do not over cook. I hate mushy broccoli !
Now make your cheese sauce.
Melt 50 grams of butter in a pan. Add 50 grams of flour and combine to a paste. Cook the paste for about 5 minutes to help take the flour taste out of your forthcoming sauce. Warm 600mls of milk in the microwave. Turn the heat up on the pan then pour in the warmed milk. Whisk constantly until the sauce is formed. When the mix starts to bubble then generally it will not thickened anymore. If its too thick just add some more milk until you have reached the desired consistency. Turn down the heat and cook for about 5 minutes. Add 1 TBSP of English mustard and then starting adding your cheese. Unfortunately you tend to need a lot of grated cheese into the sauce for the flavour of the cheese to come through. Try using the strongest mature cheddar you can find. Season then cook for a further 5 minutes.
Pour a layer of the sauce on the bottom of your deep roasting tin then scatter the Broccoli and Cauliflower into the tray and then add the rest of the sauce to the dish. Sprinkle some cheese on top of mix and the place in a hot oven for about 15 minutes on 200 degrees C. It should be golden and should be joyously bubbling away ! mmmmmmmh !

Not much left ! but enough for tomorrow night !

James the Butchers cheesecake !

2012-01-05T21:36:00.003Z

Well it's not really James the Butchers cheesecake it's actually laid back Aussie Chef Bill Granger's quick and easy cheesecake recipe !
I only called it that because today I made a couple of Cheesecakes for James and his family as he asked me if I could make him some due to the fact and I quote " cuz wor lass is nee good at maccum them !"
Now that's enough of the VIZ comic speak but James is a good chap and I met him while working at the Treehouse so I was glad to do it for him.
Bill Granger the chef (who's recipe this is) has some lovely simple pudding recipes in his books and I would strongly recommend his recipe for Self saucing Banana Butterscotch Pudding its very comforting and warming and would go down a treat in this weather. Maybe I should blog that soon as I do not do many puddings on the blog !

Bill Granger's Basic Cheesecake.
To fit 1 8inch tin.

I wrap the bottom removable base of my tin in cling film so the base of the cheesecakes comes away from the base of the tin easily.

300 grams Biscuits. Choose whatever ones you want. Hob Knobs, chocolate chip cookies, Ginger snaps or use plain old Digestives which is what most people do.
175 grams melted butter.
250 grams of Mascarpone.
250 grams of Cream Cheese.
250 mls of Whipped double cream. (soft Peaks)
125 grams Caster Sugar.

Place butter into microwave and melt.
Place biscuits into Food processor to break up. If you don't have a processor place biscuits in a food bag and use a rolling pin to break the biscuits up into a powder.
Place biscuit powder into a mixing bowl and incorporate the melted butter mixing well.
Spread out the mix into your cake tin evenly pushing into the corners. Then place in fridge to set for about an hour.
Next beat the Mascarspone and the cream cheese together with the caster sugar. ( You can do this in the Processor.)
Whip the double cream until it has soft peaks and then carefully fold it into Mascarpone/cream cheese mix.

Now add your flavouring.
James wanted a straight forward Vanilla Cheesecake so I just put a 2 tablespoons of Vanilla extract into the mix and then poured that into my cake tin making sure I pushed it well into the corners and then smoothed the top of the cake with a hot pallet knife.

I also did him another Cheesecake which had a mix of a Milk and White chocolate filling.
Melt 200 grams of 70% cocoa Milk chocolate. You can either do this in the microwave at 20 second intervals stirring on each occasion or put a pan of hot water on the stove and then place your chocolate in a bowl and sit it over the simmering hot water to melt. Do not let the bowl touch the surface of the water as this can make the chocolate split and this is a no no !
Instead of melting the white chocolate I had purchased a bag of small white chocolate pellets and just folded them into the mix mainly just for a different texture in the cake rather than laziness ! ha ha !

That is one of the great rewards about making a cheesecake or cooking for someone else the pleasure it can give ! Just call me saint Kev ! ha ha !

You can never be too heavy on the chocolate ! ha ha !

Weekly sandwich No.1. Smoked Mackerel and streaky bacon.

2012-01-05T20:44:00.000Z

I had been eating too many sandwiches last year. They are great but as previously mentioned the inch of butter and brick sized piece of cheese that would accompany the bread was a fat breeder !
So If you have read this blog lately I have been trying to eat a bit more sensibly and incorporate vegetables into my diet and not counting Pickled Onion and Tomato sauce flavoured crisps as part of my 5 a day !
However you cannot take anything away from a good sandwich. It fills you, it satisfies you and it even handily fits into your pocket ! ha ha !
Its a shame but I have long disposed of my Hong Kong Phooey school lunch box with the little plastic beaker inside. To be fair it was used more as a weapon after the teacher confiscated my pea shooter when I was at school rather than a carrier of all things lunch related !
I am though intending on having a treat on the sandwich front once a week and decided to try something other than the normal Cheese Savoury or Egg,tomato and salad cream.
Tonight for my dinner I made a Smoked Mackerel and streaky bacon number on a sun dried tomato bread with a spreading of low fat Horseradish creme fraiche.
Now I love smoked fish but the smell it leaves in the whole of the house is not good and to leave the windows or the backdoor open would attract every cat in the neighbourhood to Chez Kev's and I cannot be doing with that. So my advice is to either have it before you go on holiday giving time for the odour to disperse or go around someone else's house tell them your cookers broken and ask to use their cooker ! ha ha !

Smoked Mackerel and streaky Bacon Sandwich.

Most supermarkets now have a good bakery on site. They have a huge variety of buns, sticks, bloomers and torpedoes to choose from. I picked this Tomato and herb bread from Asda Blyth's large bakery section and at £1.10 for a fair size loaf it was good value and saved me spending time making it myself !

1 Pre-cooked Smoked Mackerel fillet cooked under the grill.
2 slices of streaky bacon.
A handful of Rocket leaves.
3 slices of vine tomatoes.
2 slices of cucumber.
1 tablespoon of low fat creme fraiche with half a tablespoon of Horseradish cream mixed through it.

Now I am not going to insult your intelligence by telling you how to make a sandwich but here's a few pictures for the less kitchen savvy out their who think sandwiches come in plastic sleeves from garages and supermarkets (Nephew) !!! ha ha ! Enjoy.

Crab Pots, Crab Cakes and a lovely Soup.

2012-01-04T18:08:00.000Z

When I lived in a village outside of Peterborough on the edge of the eerie Fens I just loved coming back home to the North-east whenever I could. I love the mix of wild wind-swept beaches, the rawness of the Cheivot Hills and as for the Historical Landscape I am surprised I have not bumped into Indiana Jones on some Treasure quest at some point.

I used to pack my cameras into the car, set off early in the morning driving out of Ashington and heading onto the Coastal Route the A1068 through the Fishing village of Amble, then on through Warkworth with its magnificent Castle then onto Alnmouth and eventually taking in a walk along Bamburgh beach with the towering Castle as company.

I would then drive up to the Holy Island crossing and along the causeway and stop in one of lay-bys in the middle to admire another lovely magnificent view. After taking in the religious sights of the Island I then turned West taking in Chillingham and its 'HIPPIE' looking Cattle and ending up at Ingram Valley near Powburn with its rolling hills and meandering river that are truly breathtaking.

I would get a map out though if your going to follow this route as I know my way around and the directions I have given you are not exactly...well exact or probably not the formula they use to perform Missile strikes from the USS Nimitz in the Gulf !! ha ha !

Its a great drive no matter what the weather but I particularly liked it on a cold winter day with a bright blue sky hovering above. Now I am having a bit of time off so I decided to visit a few of the places on my favourite route and yesterday I went to Boulmer.

Boulmer is proably more famous for its RAF base and its Sea and rescue helicopters then the lovely beach and its fishing boats. It does have a bit of a past and was known as the Smuggling capital of Northumberland in the 18th century. Today the village is one of the only true fishing villages on the North-east coast but only a handful of Fishing boats and cobles lie tied in the safe haven of the bay.
A few years (12 or So !!!) back I tried to buy some of the fisherman's catch as they returned to shore only to be told that all their catch was collected by a fish dealer and taken to North Shields or Eyemouth market.

Its mainly Crabs and Lobster they catch and it would have been great to buy some yesterday that had fallen of the back of the Fish Dealers lorry but their was no-one around apart from some bloke taking pictures in a gale !

OK disappointed by the lack of crustaceans on offer I still had some in the freezer from a few months back and as you know I am working my way through various unlabelled food products in my freezer so I managed to find the crab in between a tray of kebab meat and something that I can only describe as a soup lollipop ! ha ha. It was promptly defrosted and I used it today.

For lunch I made this brilliant previously mentioned Maria Elia soup of Lemongrass, Cauliflower and crab.
Its a great combination of simple flavours and here's the recipe.

Maria Elia's recipe of Cauliflower and Lemongrass soup with crab from her book Full of Flavour.

25g unsalted butter
2 shallots finely chopped.
4 sticks of lemon grass. Remove the tough outer layer and wrap them together with an elastic band. Yes that's right an elastic band.
25g ginger finely grated.
700g of cauliflower.
700ml of milk.
200ml double cream.
60g picked white crab meat. I didn't use the white meat I used mainly the brown meat.

Saute the shallots in melted butter over a low heat until soft. Add finely chopped Lemongrass and ginger to pan.Then add the tougher lemongrass stalks wrapped in the elastic band.
Break the Cauliflower into florets and finely slice.Add to pan.
Add the milk next and bring to the boil stirring constantly. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes until tender. Add the cream and reheat. Remove tied lemongrass stalks.
Blend the soup to a fine puree.
Season then pour into a soup bowl and then sprinkle the crab meat over the soup.
Its delicious !
Me being me made a few slight alterations when I made this soup by going a slightly healthy route. I replaced the butter with a splash of Olive Oil and used semi-skimmed milk instead of the full fat version and did not add the cream. It tasted great too this way and made a great lower fat version. O and I sprinkled some sliced Spring Onion around the soup which really goes well with Crab. But apart from that......

OK I could have sliced my Spring Onions with a bit more culinary finesse ! but I am on VACATION !!

OK time for a few more random Winter, Windswept images of my visit to Boulmer !

The Crabs and lobsters must be huge if they have to use these tractors to bring the pots in !!! ha ha !

Cannot be much fun as a fisherman going out in all kinds of weather.

After what can only be described as nearly wasting 48 minutes of my life watching Jack Black in Gullivers Travels on Sky Anytime, ( I say only because the beautiful Emily Blunt was in it ....ha ha ! )
My mind turned to dinner. I had plenty of crab left so Crab cakes were defiantly a good choice.

I have a accumulated a few Crab cake recipes over the years but this one is from college where I am afraid good ingredients were hard to come by but it is pretty good.
Mary Wilkins's was one of my tutors at college and she was a great source of inspiration in developing my career and pushing me out of the Moorhouse farm shop kitchen in search of more kitchen skills. She worked in London for various good Chefs and her love of good food and her passion of cooking was very infectious. Mary and her husband are partners and run a Bar/restaurant in North Shields called The New Exchange. Pop in if your in the area.

I like to use the potato from a jacket potato if possible for fishcakes. Its not really practical in a busy professional kitchen due to volume but at home its no problem.
This recipe is not exact. I have said it before the one consistent thing I have learned from good cooks is tasting. Learn to balance your flavours with your own pallet.
I have tried to give you some measures as a guide so here goes.

Makes 4
1 large Jacket potato. Allow to cool and then scape the potato from the jacket and place into a mixing bowl.
Add Crab meat. White meat is better as it not as wet obviously as the brown stuff. The Amount depends on how much potato you have and how much crab flavour you want. Try 60% meat to potato ratio. That should be fine.
Add one tablespoon of finely chopped chives.
Add two Tablespoons of Mayonnaise.
Mix with a folk.
Season.

Taste it, can you taste the meat or is the potato the dominate taste. Try and balance it how you personally prefer it. Can you get a hint of the mayo and chives in the background ? if not add some more. Its simple really. Its amazing how many Chefs don't taste their food. Believe me.

In the Mix

When happy with the flavour shape into balls if you want to breadcrumb them.

If you want to do them the way they should be done according to most cooking books at this point shape them into patties and chill in the fridge overnight to firm up and then saute then in a frying pan until Golden Brown on both sides. They are great that way.
However I used mostly dark meat and was worried that they might have fallen apart in the saute pan so I decided to double breadcrumb them ...gently !
If your not sure how to breadcrumb check out the post on Spicy chicken thighs previously in the blog.
Follow the instructions but after you have bread crumbed them once dip them back into the egg mix again and then back into the breadcrumbs.
When bread crumbed shape them into patties. Do not do them too thick as they will be a bit burnt on the outside before they are cooked in the middle.
I cooked them in the deep fat fryer on 170 degrees C for about 6 minutes but you can cook then in the oven at 180 degrees as well.

Little Golden nuggets !

Serve with a nice salsa, lemon or coriander mayo or a Sweet chilli dipping sauce its up to you. I had it with yes you guest it my favourite Tomato Relish. well it needed using up.
Now I think I will go back and give Gulliver's travels a second chance again.....while thinking of defrosting the a fore mentioned kebab meat and turning it into a culinary treat..!!!...do you think Emily Blunt likes a good kebab.?..probably not....her loss... ha ha !

8 months and 4 days off me "Tree...house "

2012-01-02T19:32:00.000Z

The trades men's entrance !

After 8 months and 4 days I finished my last shift at the Treehouse restaurant at Alnwick Castle's gardens last week. The home of The Duke of Northumberland and his lass plus Mr Potter has been my workplace for many a month now. Its one of the longest Agency jobs I have had but apart from the month of December that I can only describe as "Dark" it has been an absolutely brilliant place to work. Its one of the hardest assignments I have had but its certainly been one of the most enjoyable.
Kelvin Gallagher the head Chef has certainly inspired me to develop my cooking skills further when I thought I was destined to at 42 retire and become a dinner lady !! ha ha !
It has been a privilege for me to work under his guidance. I have been very lucky for him to impart some of his culinary skills and knowledge my way and I will leave a much better chef then when I arrived. Kelvin not only has a wide knowledge of ingredients and flavour combinations but he knows why things work and in my case sometimes why they have not ! ha ha !
So thank you Kelvin I am most grateful.
Mark the senior Sous Chef is also someone who has taught me a lot to. I have never met a more laid back chef. He lives in Ashington as well as me and hopefully we will drink our selfs silly soon ! ha ha !
Richard "White lighting", French Fred, and trainee Wayne who are 3 top lads I have been lucky to meet. Billy the winner of this blogs very first "Cowbe" award (and certainly not his last) was someone who I worked with When I went on this cooking adventure 8 years ago at the Anglers Arms near Rothbury in Northumberland. He certainly is a character my memories of him are numerous but my favourite was him sitting on the washing machine in the out house smoking a tab while the potato rubbler would turn potatoes into marbles ! Although sometimes Billy and I sang from different pages on the hymn sheet what happens in the kitchen stays in the kitchen and I am still found of the bloke.
To Gemma, David and Linz who run front of house thank you !
To all the beautiful waitress at the Treehouse who made me so welcome when I arrived in April thank you as well ! But I don't thank you when I used to say to them "if I was 10 years younger I would be chatting you girls up !" to which they would reply "Try 20 years younger Kev !" Ha ha maybe I am not a mini Brad Pitt anymore ! Ha Ha !
To Dave and Lee the two Kitchen porters thanks for being top mates and emptying my bin..Well Lee did ! ha ha love you both.
I wish everyone at the Treehouse all the best for 2012 and once again thank you its been a blast !

Hanging up my treehouse apron !

And me... well I am going to have 3 weeks off now and recharge my culinary batteries after what has been a great but hard 2011 in time to start something new at the end of the month !

Pork Belly day 2 recipe !

2012-01-02T16:01:00.001Z

Their is something most satisfying as a cook when you bite into a piece of slow cooked meat and it just melts in your mouth. Today's recipe started yesterday where I place about a kilo of Belly pork with the crackling skin removed into a seal able plastic bag. I then added anything that remotely resembled a Chinese ingredient in order to produce a marinade for a slow roast pork dish.
So in my cupboards and fridge I found the following items for a marinade,

1 clove,
100 grams of plum sauce,
2 tablespoons of wheat free soy sauce,
1 tablespoon of fish sauce,
1 tbsp of honey,
2 tbsp of olive oil,
and a Tbsp of mustard seeds ???
I sealed the bag and then gave it a good shake to combine the flavours and cover the meat.

seal the bag and place in fridge overnight.

When you are ready to cook the Pork place a small trivet of veg in the bottom of your pan making sure its not to high so you cannot get the lid on. Place the Pork on top of the trivet and pour all the juices from the bag into the pan. Put the lid on. I have a pretty heavy pan with a good solid lid if you have one great. If not place some Kitchen foil over the meat in a deep roasting tray. Cook in the oven at 150 degrees C for one hour. The purpose of cooking this dish in a tight sealing pan is for it cook and almost steam itself in a combination of the marinade and the Pork juices. Yum Yum !

After an hour turn the meat over so the juices run back through the meat and then cook for a further hour.
When the meat is cooked allow it to rest for 20 minutes or so.
Meanwhile sieve the pan juices into another pan and bring to the boil. Then add some Sticky Yellow pepper sauce and half a chicken stock cube to lift the flavour of the sauce and give it body. Let it infuse for 10 minutes or until of a consistency you like. If you like a thick syrup take it down further but be careful because with the Soy and Fish sauces in the juices it could become too salty.

The sauce is getting itself ready, the meat is nicely rested now for a bit of veg. Basically I steamed some garden peas fresh out of the garden of Mr Said Al Shawami care of the Pyramid Garden Centre number 23 Luxor View, Egypt ! Ha ha !
Well the sauce was going to kill any sweet flavour the peas might have had (which they didn't) and they had those yellow reduced stickers on at the supermarket so 50p was a bargain. To the steamer I then added some chopped Spring Onions then some Beansprouts and then some shredded Chinese leaf.

This is only going to take a few minutes you really are only just heating these ingredients up and lightly cooking them.
Slice the nicely rested Pork Belly. At this point I usually taste the meat just to waken my taste buds as to the treat they are about to receive. And as I keep saying OOO MAMMA it just melted in the mouth just like when I tasted Butterscotch Angel delight for the first time as a kid !

When sliced just rip it up in your hands but save 2 slices for presentation. Place the steamed Vegetables into a dry pan or just drain the bottom of the steamer pan to save washing. Add some of the sauce to the veg then add the meat and mix together then finish it with some fresh Coriander if you have some but I used fresh Basil as the Coriander in the supermarket was as we say up North "MINGING" !
Then transfer to a bowl. A lovely little supper. I promise to start the diet tomorrow ! ha ha !

Pork Belly day 1 recipe !

2011-12-31T19:15:00.000Z

In an attempt in the New Year to reacquaint myself with some healthy living habits which have been left hidden for most of this year I am doing what all sensible dieters do in the days before you start a weight loss campaign and that's eat as much naughty things as you can and drink as if it was your last ! ha ha.
So yesterday I started defrosting anything in the freezer that might tempt me while I am on my resolution challenge in 2012 and eat it.
The first devils temptation was a lovely bit of Pork Belly. Although its not as fatty as you might think its still pretty bad so I thought it best to defrost it and devour it with great haste. The trouble is I have enough belly for two days so today's martyr like eating sacrifice is going to be tomorrows as well ! ha ha !

Slow Roast Pork Belly with Snowdonia Mature Cheese and Brussels Sprout bubble and squeak.

Set the oven to about 220 degrees and place the Pork in the oven for about 30 minutes until the skin begins to blister. Turn the oven down to 160 degrees C and cook for a further 2 hours. (this is for about a 1kg weighted piece of belly).
Go and watch the telly for a bit but maybe I should have gone for a run to help compensate for the on coming gluttonous feed.
After about an hour boil some potatoes for mash. When mashed add cream, butter and the cheese. You can use any cheese you want but I have still got to work my way through the Snowdonia range which includes the Whisky flavoured one which is going to see the New Year in nicely. Let it cool. I then boiled the Sprouts and let them cool and then quartered them and added them to the mash.
The pork was ready but the crackling needed finishing off so I cut it away from the meat of the Pork and placed it back in the oven at 220 degrees to finish it off.

I don't think their are calories in Porkie scratchings !!!!!!

A pot of gravy would go down well with this so 2 table spoons of flour were mixed with two Oxo cubes into a pan. I added a little water to make a smooth paste and then cooked it on the stove to remove the flour taste for 5 minutes. I then added about 1 litres of boiling water and stirred it to a thick consistence. I love thick gravy ! JUS ARE FOR WORK ONLY !
I then added 1 Knox Beef jelly pot and 2 tablespoons of apple sauce for a bit of sweetness and finished it off with a sprinkle of dried sage. I then let it infuse for about 30 minutes.

The Bubble and squeak was next and to a hot pan I added the mash mix and spread it evenly and then let the crunchy brown bits form and then mixed it up and then repeated this process a few times. You do not want too many crunchy bits but its up to you.

A Potato explosion of flavour !

I did have some frozen French beans with it so they were quite healthy....until I tossed them in butter ! ha ha.

Fantastic and full of calories !

Culinary Artist No1 "Billy"

2011-12-28T18:19:00.002Z

To be fair it did taste pretty good !

Billy a top chef turned this into a classic Mushroom and Tarragon soup yesterday. It was quite funny when the days front of house manager asked him what was in the soup of the day to which I could not resist butting in with " Chips ! " as I walked by ! Ha ha !
Well done Billy you win this weeks "Cowbe !" award.
A new award where top Chefs cowboy their way to culinary excellence !

Ready Steady Christmas cook !

2011-12-26T20:49:00.001Z

I never really thought about having a Christmas dinner this year. As I have moaned about before December is not an easy month as a Chef but I think I have done the whinging " O look at me I am so tired cooking for people...O woe is poor me !" to death now and its time to lighten up ! Ha Ha !
So today for some twisted reason I fancied a Xmas dinner. Lucky for me I had obtained a beautiful piece of Turkey crown from James the butcher boy delivery driver for Butterworths on Saturday.
So to make it more interesting I thought I would try and make a full Xmas dinner in 1 hour ! Don't worry the Turkey would not explode in an Tom Cruise Mission Impossible kind of way if I didn't make it ! ha ha !

Cue Mission Impossible theme tune !

The turkey went into the oven on 200 degrees C, next I put the kettle on so I would have hot water in my pan straight away for blanching my Maris piper roast potatoes. Potatoes peeled and into pan, then on to stove done. Next prep the Brussels sprouts and put them into steamer pan.

Now prep the carrots and parsnips for roasting. Get oil smoking in roasting tray and get Carrots and Parsnips into top oven. OK Sprouts ready take them off the steamer and allow to cool. 8 minutes later the potatoes are cooked enough so need to drain them in colander. When drained shake in colander to fluff up the edges which is going to give you crunchy potatoes and then place them into your tray with hot oil spitting at you while you do so and shove them into the oven.
OK now get your cauldron out and start you gravy. Sometimes its best not to ask what goes into my witches gravy potion so Ill keep that to my self !

OK stuffing needs doing. Simply put 400 grams of sausage meat into a bowl. Sweat off an onion with a little garlic and add to sausage meat. Next add 200 grams of chestnut puree. Add 2 tablespoons of dried sage. Mix well with hands. Now place onto greased cooking foil and roll into a sausage. Into the oven that baby goes too !
OK how about some Chipolatas with smoked streaky bacon wrapped around them. I love the Porkinson Chipolatas. ( And not just because he was a top fashion photographer !) so I used them.

Under the grill they went !

OK check the meat !

Even the onions being used as a trivet were starting to look fantastic !

OK the Turkey was looking good but only at 38 degrees C it meant it was not looking likely it was going to be ready by the end of the 1 hour time limit !
Anyway it was time for an energy drink as I had been working so hard !

OK one sports drink consumed ???!!

Check Roasties.

looking good !

OK everything was cooking well a little too well and everything but the Turkey was going to be ready on the hour. Time to slow down. However my Pigs in blankets were blooming ready !

Right this was not going to happen and it was starting to feel like a busy kitchen service. So I was going to have to rely on my microwave to reheat some things for when I plated up and it was time for another sports drink !!!?

The clock whizzed past 5 and at 5.35 the turkey was a cooked to perfection. The trouble with white meat is that it can give you a nasty dose of food poisoning so most people overcook the meat which means its dry and hard work to eat.

Perfect !

Ive said it before and I will say it again. "OOO baby ! "

Time to try and let the turkey rest and reheat everything ! the roast potatoes, Carrots, parsnips and Stuffing was put back into the oven.
The Brussels sprouts were then sauteed in olive oil in a pan to which I added some diced apple, double cream and Snowdonia Cheese companies Black Bomber mature cheddar cheese !

Diced apple adds sweetness to sprouts !

Sprouts, great cheese, cream and apple its all kicking off on the flavour front !

I put the Pigs in blankets in the microwave and reheated them and then it was all ready to go !

Well it did taste pretty good even if I say so myself. However to try and rush a Christmas dinner is missing the point. It should take a long time to cook. Its a sharing meal and its perhaps the only time during the year that we come close to the long French lunch or the late night Spanish sharing Tapas menu. The Italians weekly proud family get together of celebrating good food and wine is pretty much un-heard of in Britain.
Xmas dinner is our day. An early morning glass of Bucks Fizz while the turkey goes into the oven is accompanied by a glass of beer or wine when your guests arrive at noon. A glass of sherry before you plate up lunch with the sounds of "Now that's what I call Christmas number 23" playing in the background along with people laughing and the sounds of someone biting the bullet on "Death Lord 5" while the kids play the latest £80 game on the X-Box.
Its just a pity that most of us cannot cook in this country and are far happier going for a takeaway or buying anything pre packed to speed up what should be a joyous day. Food plays with our emotions. It comforts us when we are need of comforting and keeps our body working when we are tired. So lets start setting Sunday aside again for the good old Family meal get together. God Save the Queen an all ! (thats Geordie for as well just in case you were wondering.).

My favourite pictures of the year.

2011-12-25T21:25:00.001Z

OK glamour sells but Rachel Allen has some great everyday recipes that work. Unlike some Celebrity chefs cook books ! Ok I just want to say I did not take this lovely picture of Rachel Allen it was on the web ! I think it is from a Dublin photographer called Peter Bowen, I love the look he and his team have created.

Pretty waitress at Town Wall, Pink Lane in Newcastle. Believe it or not she is a photographer by day !

Andrew clueless in kitchen terms but a top lad.

Head Chef Colin took the job at Town Wall after I set most of it up. He is putting his own mark on the place now get down their now and eat his great food !

Lovely.

John, did not want to be a chef and made my life a misery with his poached eggs tantrums but has some ability !

Emily is a good cook but better at taking photographs at the moment. Run with it Emily. Check out her Face book page its awesome !

me..well it is my blog ! ha ha !

My favourite pic of the year. Captain Jack a great lad (mums not too bad either..o yes sorry Jack ! ha ha) and Mark a great bloke to me at a marquee wedding I did for him in May. A great experience turning out 4 courses for 140 people from a domestic kitchen in someones Lottery wining house ! Typical pretty waitresses grazing on whatever they can find in the background to help them through a 15 hour day !

Pretty waitresses. look after them on the food front and they will do anything for you !

mmmmm.....Roast pork with crackling !

Venison Chorizo.

Venison Chorizo quiche.

Bonjour Fred.

Sweet Check !

Deep fried foot with chips !

Finger licking good !

Lamb rump.....expensive but discovery of the year !

This is Houston we are landing on the the surface of the Shepard pie moon !

loved the light as a photographer !

Roasted garlic ! stick it in the microwave to soften it if you want instead of roasting it ! Cowboy chef territory !

In search of fish !

King prawns.....mmmmmm !

Sometimes as a photographer you have to go over your contact sheets again and again to find a good image ! Missed this when I did this post but another favourite picture of mine.

Strawberries ! in season what else do you need for a summer pud ?

The badge !

Following other bloggers sometimes shakes your recipe mind ! Coke a cola ham with a rum glaze was a favourite which I put on the menu at my time at the Dunstanburgh Castle hotel, Embleton, Northumberland.

OK its Halloween another sitting to go ! I took this picture of Mark and Billy from the Treehouse with a sore back sitting on top of a stock pan for a break during another 14 hour day.

Garlic croutons.

Awesome Autumn soup !

Go Kev its your Birthday !

Love the light on this pic.

A mountain of Parmesan cheese.

Sometimes its not all about 14 hour days and being knackered. Their are some good agency jobs like this Nursery job for 3 weeks in Newcastle. The classes were named after animals and they liked the food so much they gave me a lovely card on my last day. Thank you Dolphins...Butterflies...Caterpillars......Ladybirds..!

Tuna !

Spice mix !

Smoked Paprika !

While re-attaching myself with a love of photography I got cold and wet !

Kelvin..top Chef....taught me so much this year and hope I can move up another level next year.

Never have and never will meet a more selfish work individual as Dave. Takes no orders from THE MAN. Does not help me but I love the bloody bloke ! Cannot wait to see you on the Body building Active Channel ! x

love light !

Soup !

New camera test.

Chicken and Chorizo hotpot.

OK a 18 year old, 6 ft 5 nephew is for life and not just for Xmas !
" Do not drink too much and while sober do not park your mums car in a bush while she is on holiday ! " Are helpful tips that I suggested to him this year but did he listen ?.....no chance !

Just call me Gromit for the next few days !

2011-12-25T12:48:00.000Z

Their is a Santa Claus and a consignment of Snowdonia Cheese dropped off his sledge and fell down my chimmy last night ! HAPPY XMAS TO ALL THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN KIND ENOUGH TO CHECK OUT MY BLOG THIS YEAR. I AM MOST GRATEFUL !

Thanks Ma and Pa !

Drink it cook with it..drink it Cook with it ? its a tough choice. How about both ! thanks Sister !

As Crocodile Dundee once said " Now that's a knife ! "

Well it just wouldn't be Christmas now would it ! Ha ha !

Xmas Facebook/twitter post !

2011-12-25T00:43:00.000Z

14 hours at work on Xmas Eve, (and no it was not double time !) at home having a beer thinking why was I not with friends or family tonight instead of feeding 100 or so for lunch and 70 odd this evening. Spent most of the day chasing the headless chicken around the kitchen while trying to prep for 3 up coming services.
Watching the head chef hand beer and vodka and wine from his suppliers out to his staff while I portioned up cheesecake and not a drop coming my way even after 8 months of impromptu double shifts and not having the normal agency chef attitude to work of "Its not my job or I cannot do that or where do you go for a tab !" did not improve my miserable mood !
Well I suppose I am an Agency Chef so I should not complain. Ha ha !
My Xmas treat a cappuccino from the lovely Linds ! thanks you are a legend ! x

lovely girl Linz !

...... there are some that make the job worth while today......thank you Mark, Richard, Dave "top of the league" Captain Insane O Wayne ! Gemma, Kate 1, Kate 2, Donna, Laura, Reiko, and Jordan ! x

Favourite Cookery books of the year.

2011-12-19T22:58:00.000Z

I just thought I might pass on to you my favourite food reads this year just in case I had accidentally inspired anyone to expand their culinary repertoire this year and are looking for a bit of a late stocking filler ! ha ha !

Number 5..... The Family Meal. Home cooking with Ferran Adria.
Yes the guy who used to run the best restaurant in the world (Although my mate Billy at his Chippy in Ashington might argue !! ha ha ! ) released a fantastic book of basic recipes this year.
I think in essence its a very good book to teach you some basic cooking skills and a bit more. I have never seen a cookery book with so many photographs showing you step by step images giving you clear instruction while trying to put a meal for friends or family together. I guess it just takes a bit of getting used to someone of Ferran's culinary standing making Thai beef curry !
£13.50 Amazon.

Number 4....River Cottage VEG Everyday.Hugh-Fearnley Whitingstall.
I have always been a fan of Hugh's food programmes since Cook on the wild side. His Meat book is some tomb and just as good is this years offering of a tribute to the vegetable !
I am not what you might call a Veggie but do love veg and salads and in this book Hugh conjurers up some lovely non meat treats. The Brussels sprouts,apple and cheddar cheese is a beautiful side dish to accompany your Turkey and then Curried bubble and squeak could be a great way of rounding off your Boxing day cold meat fry up.
£14.00 Amazon.

Number 3....Ideas in Food. Aki Kamozawa and H.Alexander Talbot.
No pictures just a great read if you like to know how recipes work. Its an American book so some of the terminology is a bit well American..ha ha ! I am still ploughing through this book and I am looking forward to having a go at recipes like Ginger salt roasted beets and trying my hand at making Mozzarella cheese. For the more advanced foodie but a nice little book.
£11.07 Amazon.

Number 2......The Modern Pantry.Anna Hansen
I have written a review on this amazing book by Anna in a previous post.I love the combinations and different range of ingredients she uses in her cooking. Roast Cod with beetroot and Macadamia crumbs was fantastic. Its just a great book end of conversation.
£14.07 Amazon.

And number 1.......Full of Flavour.Maria Elia.
This is similar to the Anna Hansen book but with slightly more less complicated recipes. It basically teaches you how to put flavour into your cooking and turns you into an above average cook where you are taught to use your pallet and as Maria says "Go off on a culinary adventure !"
Cauliflower and lemongrass soup with Crab was amazing as was something as simple as Runner bean, Anchovy and Tomato spaghetti. I really love Maria's style of cooking and cannot wait to try another delicious recipe from this most wonderful book. I hope it becomes the most battered, splattered and stained book in my collection which is the ultimate complement you can pay to a cookery book which shows that you have used it regularly. Enjoy.
£12.18 Amazon.

Kentucky Kevs's spicy chicken thighs !

2011-12-19T18:58:00.001Z

I was in the Supermarket the other week and was stopped in my tracks as I walked past the butcher counter. The girl at the counter was a little offended when I screamed " Blooming heck they are the biggest jumbo thighs Ive ever seen pet ! " She was just about to send me and my nose to the local Accident and emergency department when I quickly pointed at the biggest Chicken thighs I have ever seen on her display counter.
I started to laugh as pictures of mutant Chickens running around the Northumberland Wilderness eating "Everything in its path !" raced around my over imaginative child like mind.
Anyway £2.87 brought me 5 of these monsters. I took them home and placed them in the freezer where they remained until today where they were defrosted and today's tea time challenge was set in motion.
In Ashington we have a KFC which I love. Their is something just right about deep frying a chicken. (Obviously the chicken has been humanly killed and lived a full and free range life first.) Its like chalk and cheese (??) so I thought I would have a go at making some kind of super Kev magical spice and herb mix that one day will lead me to opening my own chain of fast food joints across the Wansbeck Valley ! ha ha !
After much digging in all my kitchen cupboards I came up with this bag of tricks.

OK not much of a selection I know and certainly not the exotic combination of herbs and spices that are reportedly used in the KFC brand but when combined together it did make for a tasty treat.

The Mix.
100g of bread crumbs. I use Japanese Panko crumbs because quite simply they are the crunchiest and most Professional kitchens use them. You can buy them on line or your local Oriental supermarket will have them.
2 TBSP dried Thyme.
2 TBSP Smoked Paprika.
2 TBSP Turmeric.
1 TSP chilli powder.
1 TBSP Sea salt.
1 TBSP Chicken gravy powder. I know it sounds silly but I thought it might give it a bit more of a chicken flavour bite to it.

I mixed the lot together.

Then you need to coat the chicken with the mix so first dip the chicken into plain flour,

Then mix one egg and a cup of milk together, put the flour covered chicken into the egg/milk mix.

Make sure the egg mix soaks the chicken. The flour makes the egg/milk stick to chicken and the egg/milk mix makes the bread crumbs stick to the chicken. got it ?? ha ha !

Completely coat the Chicken Thighs.

Now I thought that if you remove the Chicken skin then bread crumb the thighs and placed them into a oven of about 180 degrees C to cook for about 20 minutes this would be a very low fat version of this dish. The only problem is sometimes it can go a bit dry in the oven so I went the full Skin on deep fat fryer on mortuary slab version ! ha ha ! Well I started it in the fryer and then finished it off in the oven. So it was a little healthier ???
I set the fryer to 170 degrees C then cooked the Thighs for about 5 minutes until golden.

Then they went into the oven for about 12 minutes. I have a kitchen thermometer so probed the thighs and made sure they were over 73 degrees C. They were at 74 which was perfect.

A few thin French fried chips would have been nice but I had some of the wonderful Tomato Relish I made a few weeks back which took this lovely little supper into another wonderfully scrummie dimension. Give it a try you do not need to use Jumbo Chicken thighs if you do not want to. Just cut some Chicken Breasts into thick strips and although I think the thigh meat has more flavour the breast meat will be just as nice too.

Anna Hansen's tomato relish.

Crunch-tastic ! ha ha !

A Winters Tale.

2011-12-17T12:44:00.000Z

Nightmare on Kitchen Service Street.

1.38pm................As I travel out of Amble the rain turns to sleet and not even the usual impressive sight of Warkworth Castle towering in the distance can lift my spirits. The thought of starting work at 2.00pm does not fill me with much festive joy and the 90 or so party people wanting food this evening means that my day is going to be manic where my heart will beat faster and god knows what my blood pressure will be like.

The starting at 2.00pm is pretty crap. You wake up in the morning and all you do is sit around waiting to go to work. A carbo load food intake of Bratwurst, baked beans and bread means I am already feeling bloated but I have eaten for comfort not for sensibility today.

2.12pm
Theirs no changing room at work just the chemical shed so I arrive in my Chef pants already. I slip my comfortable chef shoes on and the cold icy Northumberland wind tenderly kisses my back as I take my bad boy Hoddie off and slip a tee-shirt on and then my Le Chef cool max jacket. The one with the air vents on the back. I do not think I will need them today. this kitchen has a pretty poor extractor fan in it which means in the summer its red hot and in the Winter for the last few weeks all I have heard is Chefs shouting Larry Grayson like " Shut that door..!".
The kitchen is very small too. The Chefs that started at 8.00am are here running around with lunch service and the other 3 chefs that started at 2.00pm are prepping carrots on top of Microwaves and Venison on the draining board of a sink. Their is no room for me to start my prep so I grab a small knife and help Mark peel 50 kilos of potatoes until lunch service ends at about 3.15pm.
Kelvin the head chef pops around the back " It was quiet until you arrived then all the customers arrived ! they must have seen you in the car-park and said here's the top Larder Chef its OK to eat now." I basque in the complement until Billy shouts " don't you mean the LARGER chef...! " the kitchen erupts in laughter. Even me on the outside anyway. The kitchen is no place to be sensitive. Kill or be killed springs to mind. Your mother is the only person that is banned from being targeted. A comment about someones dear sweet mother could cause violence. Believe me I have seen it happen. Having worked in an office type of environment before I know that some of the things that are said in the kitchen would not be tolerated in the normal working world and would probably be an instant dismissal but the kitchen jungle is different.
Trainee Wayne is running lunch service on the section I am going to be doing this evening. Its called Larder and Puds which basically means cold starters and desserts. Its unusual to work two sections in a kitchen not to mention bloody awful. Not only are you sending out starters but half way through the evening the dessert checks start to arrive and that's when the 'headless chicken arrives' and the evening turns fun !
Wayne is grinning. This alerts my suspicious.
"What have you done Wayne ? "
"Nothing Super big K "
"No Wayne what have you done ?" I head towards the section.
" Nothing really just a little accident" he replies.
" He nearly burnt the blooming kitchen down ! " Fred another chef shouts.
Wayne moves out of the way and on the wall like a bit of Neo-Nazi graffiti is a burn mark on the wall.

The blow torch is used for putting the caramel topping on to the creme Brullees and gently warming the ring around the Elderflower Cheesecakes. Wayne forgot to switch it off and while he released the ring around the cheesecake the flames licked the wall of the kitchen. Wayne did not smell the burning odour. Kelvin the head Chef on a section far away did. The one person you do not want to see your mistakes is the Head Chef. I think the Head Chef mentioned warming Wayne's ring with the blow torch but I don't think he meant his finger ! ha ha!

3.17pm
Service ends and clean down begins. All foods are stored away or ditched and a prep list for tomorrows lunch service is compiled. All benches, fridge door handles and stove tops are scrubbed. The floor is then swept, flooded with water, deck scrubbed, all the dirty water is then squidgy away and then the floor is dry mopped. This happens twice a day. My cleaning is always criticised by chef Fred.
"Its not I don't like cleaning Fred its just I am not very good at it ! " Ha Ha.
At this time of day the Chefs who are not doing a "DOUBLE" and are going home at 4.00pm are usually very cheerful. Those of us staying are not and if your doing a "DOUBLE" you start counting down the hours..."Just 7 and a half hours to go..!"
The "DOUBLE" is an 8.00am start and usually finishes anytime between 10.00pm and 11.00pm. Its a very hard shift where breaks are almost non-existent , the number of luke warm coffees you drink is too many to count and don't worry if your feet are hurting because the pain in your lower back will take your mind off that ! ha ha !

4.01pm
The 8-4 chefs head home and I can jump on my section and see what I need for the evening.
To be fair to Wayne their is not loads to do. In between trying to set fire to the kitchen he must have found time to prep for me.
I need to make some cinnamon spiced biscuits to accompany the poached pears and then the other jobs are pretty straight forward like slicing cherry tomatoes in half, prepping watercress, rocket and mixed leaves for the garnishing of the starters and then things like whipping up some vanilla cream.
That's all boxed off quite quickly so I start looking at some of the prep for tomorrows lunch. I make 2 cardamon and Northumberland honey chocolate tarts, a few cheesecake bases, peel some more potatoes for smoked Haddock and Salmon fishcakes and just start some beautiful Goats Cheese and garlic spring rolls which are served with watercress and the most fantastic pickled walnuts. They are on the night-time menu as well as the lunchtime one and I had enough for my shift until Fred looked at the ones Wayne had made this morning and for some reason they were soaking wet ! He had used too much water to seal them and were no good for tonight so the gentle amble I was doing towards service turned into a light jog ! ha ha.

5.30pm
You stop prepping for a while then look at the clock. 5.30pm and your heart jumps and a little panic attack starts. The doors open in an hour and now you should really be looking at setting up your two sections. The light jog turns up a pace. You rattle off what you need out for service in your mind like a pilot on a pre-flight check.
Wheres the bloody grated beetroot ? I curse Wayne ? their is none ? wait a minute there it is behind the tub of herb creme fraiche. Sorry Wayne.
I place everything I need for service on top of my starters bench putting everything for each dish together so I almost don't need to think when something comes on order. Dip dip dip away !
Then I do the same for desserts on another bench. The clock must be on speed as it races towards 6.30pm.

6.27pm
I think I am set for service but I check the menus and suddenly realise I need thinly sliced Pears for the Goats cheese dish and need to make some Wylam Beer batter for the Xmas pudding dish.
This close to service is common but does nothing for stress levels which are only on def com 2 at the moment.

6.31.....Ready !

6.35 and the beast is released into the kitchen.
Check on 4 goats, 3 salmon and 2 terrine !...check on 2 terrine...check on 3 salmon...check on 2 goats...the nasty chef running the check machine shouts at me. I do not get a copy of the check on my section for starters I have to remember what I have on.
It usually takes a little bit of time to warm up as your mind gets into a routine. Smoked salmon on first, chef zig zag of herb creme fraiche next, nice light layer of bright beetroot, into mixing bowl place a small handful of rocket leaves, 4 cherry tomato halves, 2 pieces of sliced cucumber, toasted pine nuts. Add a squirt of dressing, season then gently mix and then place on top of the salmon. Done. Now do it again.

Its Christmas and its a Table d hote menu which is 3 courses for a set price. Which means everyone is having starters and puds. If everyone turns up tonight that's about 270 plates of food going out from 4 chefs.

7.19pm... .and the sound of "Sweet check" comes whispering through the kitchen noise fog. I shout "Yes chef" if I am not in what we call the "S**t" but "yeah" if I am. At least I do not have to remember the sweet checks as I have a copy of them to aid my memory.If the guy who's cooking the meat for the mains is not busy yet he will usually swagger around the back where my sections are and in the most annoying voice he can manage says "O Kevin...sweety check..!" Other Chefs love other Chefs being in the "S**T" ! I do not bite and just say thank you or squash their hand when I take the check from them ! childish I know..! ha ha !
We have a table of 10 and 15 booked but up next is a table of 23 at 7.45 just when the table of tens dessert order is coming my way and a lovely Brucie bonus of a table of 8, 4 and 2.
So I start to do the table of 23's starters which we have on a pre-order. We do not have trolley jacks or a huge walk in fridge like some of the bigger kitchens to plate up these starters and store them for when they are required so I have to make them up as close to the table booking as I can.

7.45.....The 18 starters I have on the 23 table are done. The others are soup and mushrooms which are done round the front on mains. But their is no sign of the table of 23 ! Its now the previously mentioned dessert checks come in and because I have starters everywhere their is not a lot of space for the 24 desserts I have to now plate up.
"Check on 5 salmon, 4 Goats, 2 terrine..!" Where did that come from ! Mark the senior Sous Chef comes around and says "do you need a hand Cajun Kev !" Its a sign of weakness asking for help in a kitchen a lot of the time a Chef has a list of his own and when he has done that its rare anyone asks if you need a hand. They will fold their arms and watch you drown slowly in a sea of checks as they grin and are glad its not them. Their are exceptions and I was glad Mark came and helped.

8.29pm...def com 4. Busy period coming to an end for now as the restaurant is nearly full. Clearing check after check has made me use all the table of 23's starters up and more. No sign of the 23 yet. Spend 3 seconds looking at a pretty waitress.

8.31pm...Table of 23 arrive. No sorry for being late just we are ready now for you to serve us slaves. Start doing another 18 starters for them ! Def Con 5 launch the missiles !!

"Check on 2 pate...2 salmon...sweet check...sweet check...sweet check.." Richard the bringer of Dessert doom at 7.19pm is not so cocky now their is no chirpy smiling face greeting me as I go round for the 'Sweety check' ! ha ha ! To be fair to him he has enough on his plate or cooker I mean. He is trying to juggle his medium with well done steaks and make sure his Turkey breasts are cooked to perfection.

"Check on and on and on...!"

9.19pm..."Shut starters down Kev..."

9.19pm and 1 second...."YES CHEF !" relief fills your whole body. You got through starters. Just a small matter of 40ish desserts to do. You clear away as fast as you can the starter section so you can have more space to lay out your desserts.
Its at this point the most miserable person in the kitchen league table changes.
Down from number 1 to No.3 Me.
No change at No.2 Chefs on Mains.
But "up 3 big top 40 sensational places to No.1 is Lee in the swamp cleaning all the pots,pans, cutlery and crockery !"
When I first dipped my toe into this culinary water 8 years ago I washed dishes and as previously mentioned it was the most horrible job ever. The smell and the rash on my arms from an reaction to the cheap nasty washing liquid will stay with me forever. Lee is a mate of mine and hats off to him. It is a job I could not do and as much as its a pain when a chef does not turn in for work its even worse when the swamp monster is off !

9.34pm...the last main courses are sent. The Mains section clean down and come and laugh at me on sweets usually.

9.39pm...the table of 23 are ready for their desserts. In an unprecedented act of chef helpfulness Fred and Richard come round and help me send 5 cheese boards, 6 Wylam beer battered Christmas puddings, 3 Cardamon and Chocolate tart, 4 poached pears with rum and raisin ice cream, 5 Orange sticky toffee puddings with salted butterscotch sauce and ginger ice-cream.

9.46pm......23 desserts leave the kitchen.

9.47pm..... 2 desserts come back. A fairly typical occurrence on a large pre-order table. People are drunk and have forgotten what they have ordered or usually see something else that other people are having and swear blind that they ordered that instead of what they actually had ordered. They expect you just to turn out what they want with no extra charge and just throw into the bin what you have just made for them. It does not work out like that in life so why should a kitchen be any different.
While I am still doing desserts the kitchen floor gets the same treatment like it did after lunch service. Thats one perk of doing desserts you sometimes miss out on doing the floor !

10.14pm...the last dessert goes out...1 chocolate,cardamon and honey tart served with Vanilla cream and sprinkled with Praline !
I have said it before the Chef on pastry is the last one home. Tonight it is me again.

10.31pm... in the car park deicing my car !

At 43 I wonder how long I can keep doing this kind of commitment to what is a job after all.
Gordon Ramsey said its a young mans game. He might be right, however I do know that my love of food and the chance to practice the skill and craft of cooking each day keeps me coming back into these kinds of tough service kitchens. Maybe its a drug.
I do love challenging myself in this environment every day and to say I have learned so much at the Treehouse would be an understatement and I am going to miss them all when I finally leave in January after a long 8 month assignment.
The fire will still burn within me for another year at least ! Keep Wayne away from the blow torch and the fire in the treehouse will not ! ha ha !

11.02pm....Jet petrol garage, Fairmoor near Morpeth just off the black ice covered A1. Where are the Gritters ! 8 cans of Budweiser purchased.

11.19pm...Home...shower...beer.....sandwich....view half Harry Potter DVD......3 cans drunk...bed..! off tomorrow. "DOUBLE" the next !

Chef Injuries No.3...beware of the grater !

2011-12-14T17:43:00.000Z

OK its a beetroot reconstruction not blood as I could not stomach taking a picture at the actual accident scene as it was too horrific ! but you get the point. Graters are dangerous..!!! well in the wrong hands ! ha ha !

OK your in the kitchen you have just turned 25kg of potatoes with a highly dangerous turning knife, you have just chopped 16kg of carrots with a blade that was too sharp to use in a Quentin Tarantino movie and you have just danced with 30 pieces of battered haddock over a deep hot fryer over lunch service. I am sure you will agree that all those things are living in the hard and fast culinary kitchen danger zone !
So you then move onto using the grater where you think you have reached a safe point ! Not so ! while grating a piece of Truffle for a soup garnish, Senior Sous Chef Mark took his eye of the ball for a Milly second as he eyed up his girlfriend as she walked into the kitchen and bam he managed to grate his finger and obliterate his nail ! Ouch ! to be fair when she walked in I took me eye of the ball to but I was only eating a Chip butty at the time and all I got was Ketchup down my apron ! ha ha !
I was going to start another blog series called Chefs with silly bandages but I thought that might trivialise what I think is highlighting a very dangerous piece of kit. You look at the picture of Mark and you can decide. Ha Ha !

Cooking the books !

2011-12-11T18:48:00.001Z

A few books !

I have always had a love of cookery books and magazines. I love looking at beautiful pictures of food that in an instant make you hungry and has you grabbing your coat and heading off to the shops to buy the ingredients you need to satisfy your lusty foodie needs !
Creative words describing how the recipe is going to taste can make your mouth water in anticipation.
I love browsing my cookery books time and time again. Everyone has been by side helping me cook over the years in my kitchen at home from Nigella giving me her brownie recipe to Rick Stein helping me with a lovely little Grilled Herring with Mustard and Onion sauce dish from his Taste of the Sea book.
I probably have by now over 150 cookery books and am rapidly running out of room to house them. My biggest problem is going on Amazon.com late at night after a few too many shandies and before I have realised what I have done a bloke turns up in a white van delivering a bookcase full of books and informs me he doesn't need a route master to find my house anymore he just switches on the auto pilot button on his van ! ha ha !
Nowadays if you do not have a junkie like book problem like I have you just need to go onto the Internet and you can find any recipe you want. Most of the good websites have a video facility where if you are unsure about a way of cooking something you just click a button and in an instant you can hear Jamie shouting "..this is a pukka recipe for pie and chips like me Nan used to make ! good bless the old girl ! its pukka pukka pukkastic !!! " ha ha.
To be fair to Jamie Oliver his website is very good. Lots of recipes, beautifully designed and very easy to use.

some of my regular Internet haunts !

Mobile phones are now making recipes even more accessible. You can even wonder around the supermarket with your mobile, stop at the meat counter access your Nigella Lawson, Gordon Ramsey, Rachel Allen and River cottage app in search of a dish your family might like that evening and then buy all you need to make the recipe.Get home and have a video running while your making it on your phone so you cannot go wrong (???). Its quite Amazing really.
I have quite a few food apps on my iPhone. The one I use the most is called simply "Food Guide" which I think was 69p and basically covers seasonal availability of various ingredients. From vegetables and fruit to meat, fish and herbs. It tells you whats in season and whats being supplied from storage and it does give you a very good guide for your cooking year. BBC Good Food have launched one too which I have just recently downloaded and looks pretty good too !

Today I down loaded an app called Great British Chefs and its a great app for the slightly more advanced cook featuring some top chefs like Marcus Wareing, Theo Randall and Tom Aikens giving you some of their recipes and featuring videos showing them going through some basic and more advanced food preparation and cooking techniques.

Top Chefs ! Wheres my name though ? ha ha !

Sounds like a nice Christmas pud !

Decide on what course you want to cook and how hard you want to make it !

I know I work as a cook but when some fisherman drops a kilo of Scallops off and I am struggling to prep them I know I can whip this App out and have a refresher course !

Anything which encourages people to cook more has got to be a plus. You might not see many people wandering around with a cook book but you certainly see them on their phone !

" Its Xmas ! "

2011-12-05T14:57:00.001Z

Christmas "is the season to be jolly...tra la la la la ! " unless your a cook. While you are meeting up with friends in the merry month of December spare a thought for the poor and needy Cook !
Christmas spirit will be banned from the kitchen as the chefs run around prepping thousands of little green Brussel sprout monsters and screaming "Bar Humbug " as the check machine spits out another table of 12 people enjoying themselves who want to be fed ! The Radio will be lucky to survive not being placed in the stock pot as an irate Chef loses his rag as he has to listen to Shakin Stevens singing "Snow is falling all around us !"for the 96th time.
The upside is its a another menu to learn and Kelvin the head chef is always good at coming up with great dishes. I am particularly looking forward to doing the Wylam Beer battered Christmas pudding with Alnwick Rum sauce Yum Yum !

However while the Chefs will have faces that Mr Scrooge would have been proud of , Dave who is another one of the highly skilled pot technicians at the Tree house loves Xmas. Look at him happy, smiling and full of the joys of the festive forth comings. It was funny yesterday though when his girlfriend rang him and accused him of eating her part of the chocolate from their advent calendar it turned out however that their cat had climbed up the wall and eaten the chocolate out of it ! That's what Dave told her anyway ! ha ha !

More Waves and Windmills !

2011-12-05T14:33:00.001Z

Throwing everything but the kitchen sink at your dinner !

2011-11-30T17:46:00.001Z

I love earthy herbs !

Sage.

You come in from work you have no real idea on what you want for your dinner so you go hunting around your various food store cupboards for something to warm you, comfort you and feed you !
Tonight's culinary delight (????) was not too difficult as I had recently been shopping so had a good supply of stock to choose from. Unlike some occasional days when I only have a tin of tomatoes and some pasta floating around and a few dried herbs. Its not as bad as you think because having some dried herbs means I can add a little life to the humble tin of tomatoes. Sprinkle them into the tomatoes and put the lot into a pan and just reduce them until they are thick and developed an intense tomato flavour and then run them through your pasta its pretty good actually but not something a man of 43 should be having to do. Yes a spotty 18 year old student away from home waiting for his parents to get him a food red cross parcel delivered to him care of the ASDA or Tescos home delivery service but not me !
Now I had brought some of those mini sausages from Sainsburys yesterday for the old pigs in blankets that sit next to your Turkey on Christmas day but had not yet frozen them so unfortunately I am going to have to go to Sainsbury now and get some more !
So a little Sausage stew seemed a good idea. Warming, comforting and satisfying ! Tick..tick...and tick !

Root veg.

You know I like roasted Veg so I diced and roasted 2 each of Sweet potatoes, Parsnips, and Carrots. Noah would have been proud ! Add to the roasting tin 1 red onion and 1 garlic clove, a good splash of Olive Oil then mix the lot together and then season. Place into a hot oven for about 10-15 minutes.
Meanwhile I thought a few Maris Pipers diced and roasted like you would a roast potato would add a nice crunch for a change but creamy mash is great too. So they were placed into the oven as well.
Now I need a bit of a sauce to mix everything together so splash a tablespoon of olive oil in a heavy bottomed pan, add 1 finely diced onion, half a stick of finely diced celery and 1 clove of garlic. Saute until translucent then add a tablespoon of tomato pure and stir for a couple of minutes to cook out the starch. Now at this point a lovely wine glass of Bordeaux or Chateaux Langoa-Barton 2007 into the base of this sauce and the base of my stomach would have been great. However I only had cans of Budweiser beer in the house so that went into the base of the sauce and my beer mug instead ! ha ha !
Reduce the beer by half, then add a Knox Rich Beef stock jelly pot and stir. You should just be left with a thick syrup. Add about a litre of hot water, stir and let it infuse.
After about 15-20 minutes on a gentle heat bring it to the boil. Now I have some pretty good Veal gravy powder which I added for more flavour and also to thicken the sauce. You can buy any powder gravies from the supermarket to act as a thickening agent. Even Ahhh Bisto !
So they you have your sauce for the stew.
Grill, fry or put your mini sausages into the oven. They should not take too long to cook 6-10 minutes.
When cooked place onto some kitchen roll to soak up any oil from the sausages and then place them into your pan of sauce. I then opened a tin of butter beans, drained them then placed them into the sauce. The roasted veg came out of the oven next, I drained as much oil as could while taking them from the tray and then lobbed them into the sauce as well.
Then gently fold the mixture together. Do not be too rough or it could break the veg up and you will be left with a pan of soup ! ha ha.
To finish I sliced some thin strips of fresh sage and added that to the stew.
The mini roast potatoes were ready and I placed them in the bottom of my serving bowl then a very generous serving of the sausage stew was placed majestically on top.
It was rich, warming and left me slightly stuffed.
Unfortunately my beer had gone flat by the time I got to drink it so I had to open another one ! ha ha ! I wonder if anyone from Budweiser reads this and sends me a six pack as a thank you for mentioning their beer in this recipe ? "So that's Budweiser your smooth silky beer for all your cooking needs..! " that should do it ! Ha Ha !

Serves about 4 or one hungry bloke with a large spoon ! ha ha !

A thing of beauty number 2 the Chip !

2011-11-28T21:07:00.001Z

You cannot beat anything homemade and that goes especially for the common chip. Too often you end up eating some plastic tough rubbish from the takeaway to go with your pizza or kebab. Even the chip shop ones by the time you get them home are soft and a bit soggy as they have steamed themselves in the paper wrapping while you travel home.
So I know this is basic foodie stuff but I have a lot of friends who are not cooking wise but love a good Ham, Egg and chips of an evening but do not know how to go about cooking the common chip.
I would have given you a recipe for chips and curry sauce but as this dish (???) tends to follow a night of drinking too much falling down water and you have to use a fryer and I would therefore not be a responsible adult if I were to recommend such cooking practice after becoming intoxicated !
The potato you use makes a great deal of difference. I like a crunchy outside and a soft fluffy insides ! (bit like me really ! ha ha ) I use Maris Pipers. I love this potato and its great for Roasties to.
You can use King Edwards or the Roosters on the TV but Maris Pipers hit the spot every time.
So you have peeled your potatoes and made your chip shapes. Wash them then pat them dry.
Heat the oil in your fryer to about 150 degrees Celsius and then gently lower your basket of chips into your vegetable oil.
Cook them until you can squeeze them and they feel soft with plenty of give. Be careful as they will be hot of course and I am not insulting your intelligence by telling you to take the basket out of the oil before squeezing them !!!

Next turn your fryer up full blast 190 Oc is as far as mine goes.

Basically the low temperature has cooked the potato through without giving them too much colour and now you want some heat to crisp the outsides. Cooking your Chips at a high temperature straight away generally means the outside will burn before the centre of the chip has had time to cook.

Cook for a few minutes on high heat until golden and their you are fantastic crispy chips with a fluffy inside. Ok I am not recommending you do this everyday but every once in a while has got to be good for the sole !

Really give your arteries something to do smear some lovely creamy butter on to a soft bun, sprinkle some salt and splash some vinegar over the little beauties too ! C'est Tres Maganifique Rodney one CHIP BUTTY !

Feeling Inspired...again !

2011-11-28T19:04:00.001Z

Starting this blog was mainly a hobby and a way of sharing my love of all things foodie using words and pictures. I have always wanted to have a go at a little bit of creative writing and the design facility on blogger.com makes a great and easy way to express your creative abilities from a design point too.
As I said previously I used to work as a photographer and this was also a way of getting to take a look at modern photography and start taking some pictures again. Apart from a wedding I did for a butcher mate of mine I have never felted the urge or desire to take any kind of serious photography over the last 7 years I am not too sure why maybe I just felt I had done photography to death and got a little bored with it or maybe as stupid as it sounds I had run out of things to photograph !

Yes Dave McCarthy I did take these pictures !

When I worked as a photographer the instant taking, viewing and distributing or deleting of a picture was not available to most.
I used to have to load the film into my Canon EOS-1n or Mamiya RZ-67 camera, decide on the film I was going to use (Fuji 50 or Kodachrome 64 were favourites and Ilford FP4 was great too.) take a light reading, decide on what focal length of lens to use, adjust the aperture, adjust the shutter speed, focus it myself (although autofocus lens were coming in rapidly) and then I could take the picture provided I had not missed the "MOMENT" as they called it while I was doing this !
If I was shooting black and white I would then have to fondle in a darkroom loading the film from the camera onto a spool and then put it into a light tight developing tank. I would then have to be a chemist getting the right mix of developer and then fixer at the right temperature to develop the film. I would then have to invert the developer tank for 10 seconds every minute for up to 11 minutes until it was ready. It was then the magic of photography really began. You stared at your wet negative film holding it up towards the darkroom lamp while water dripped down your arm as you held your breath to see if first you had developed it properly and then did you have any images on the strip of film and then did you have the one winning image that was going to wow your egotistical, hard work and fussy editor !
I then would do a contact sheet,

A good old fashioned Contact sheet !
Not the best example of my photo talents. The term " Drunk in charge of a camera on a night off in Texas springs to mind ! ha ha !

From the contact sheet I would decide on which images I would want to print. Usually about 5 or 6 to give to my editor to choose from per film.
I would then spend 2-5 hours in a darkroom with a seedy red light (Not much change their then..!! ha ha.) guiding my moves as I used a huge Durst enlarger to print my works of art ! ha ha !
I would have to decide on what grade of printing paper to use 1-5 were the grades. What kind of developer to use for each image and would use my hands as masks underneath the light projecting through the enlarger lens to hold back parts of the projected negative if a certain part of the image needed to be lighter or burn in bits of the picture that needed to be darker. It then went into the tray of developer and I rocked it back and forwards and then as if by magic a image would appear hopefully ! That is a utterly magical moment for a passionate Photographer. To see your image getting clearer with every rocking moment of the developer tray was amazing and no matter how many times you do it you never lose that joyful moment.
It then went into a bath of water then into the rapid fixer that then allowed you to switch the lights on so you could have a proper look at your master pieces !

I still have a lot of that camera kit somewhere in the house and I am going hunting for it tomorrow after work but all the pictures on my blog and the ones below are taking with a £70 14 mega pixel Fuji digital compact which my parents brought me for Christmas last year.

To say I am amazed at the quality of this little baby is an understatement. The macro setting is fantastic and has been responsible for slowly rebuilding my interest in photography this year. I went out today not really thinking about taking too many pictures but did in the end. I got home took the photo card out of the camera slotted it into my mac which automatically uploaded the pictures into I-Photo, and through that program I was able to edit the bad pictures into the bin and then change the pictures I liked which I thought would look better in black and white due to the poor light today into Black and White.
I then used the boost colour button to act like different grades of old style photographic paper, then cropped and manipulate the images in minutes. Apples photo shop is great but it could not give me the smells or the magic of the old black and white darkroom and "I miss the smell of Fixer on my fingers in the morning... it smells like VICTORY...." ha ha. I hope you like these smudges from today.

Another sculpture, this time in Blyth port. I think its an octopus !

Xmas night warmth.

2011-11-28T18:40:00.001Z

While some of you will be tucking into selection boxes and groping the bottom of the Quality street tin, while watching Carry on Camping on Christmas night I have a more pleasurable taste bud titillation coming my way ! (and that word will not be easy to say after a few light ales on Christmas night ! ha ha )

To add to the lovely Tomato Relish of a previous post (which at the rate I am consuming it will not last much longer !) I purchased from Porter foods on line some amazing pickles and relishes.

I am particularly looking forward to trying the Shrimp relish on me old Jacob crackers and the Pineapple Achar on some beautiful mature cheddar cheese. I might even leave some out for Santa on a few poppadoms on Christmas Eve ! ha ha

Coming soon Nightmare on service street ! be afraid be very afraid !

2011-11-27T17:53:00.000Z

A journey into the darkness of a busy service !

A Wet walk on the beach !

2011-11-25T12:58:00.001Z

I love walking on the beach. Their is something cleansing about the bracing sea air during the season of winter. I had no intention of taking any photographs today and only had the camera in my iPhone which isn't the best to capture the wonderful light that dances between the winter showers and crosses over the beach and heads into the wild North Sea. When I reviewed the pictures I was amazed that I had taken some 60 pictures on my phone trying to capture what was going on during a brief 10 minutes of amazing light and contrasting weather. Where else but Britian I suppose. For the first time in a very long time I really enjoyed taking photographs (food pictures excluded mainly due to the fact that I know I am going to get fed once Ive taking them ! ha ha !) and I am thinking now about upgrading my little compact for a proper digital SLR. O well back to the 60 hour weeks while I save up ! ha ha !

Now thats a house with a view !

The waves were huge..honset !

Typically as you are soaking wet and heading back to the car the sun comes out !

Amazing colours.

I snapped this on the way home through the old mining village of Ellington. I have noticed how many sculptures have cropped up recently reminding a new generation of children how much the area I grew up in was reliant on the hard profession of mining for its livelihood.

Taxi for Wayne !

2011-11-22T17:56:00.001Z

Now Wayne is someone in the kitchen learning the dark arts of kitchen craft. You can imagine that their is a lot of recipe information to take in and cooking techniques and skills to finely tune you to make you a lean mean kitchen fighting machine ! ha ha !
Well we all make mistakes and I have a few more to add to the berry compote disaster of a previous post but I will save them for another day.
In the meantime I will pick on someone else ! ha ha !
While Wayne was making a chocolate espresso tart which if ever you want a really quick and simple chocolate indulgent dessert is dead easy to make,
Instead of making sweet pastry like we do at work just go to the supermarket and buy one of those pre-baked sweet tart cases then,
In a saucepan pour 330 mls of double cream, add 100gs of caster sugar and stir so the sugar does not burn on the bottom of the pan. Bring to the boil then remove from the heat.
Pour an expresso shot of coffee into the cream. If you don't have an expresso machine (????) just use a small shot of strong black coffee.
Add 450 grams of good quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa) pellets or grate chocolate bars into the still hot cream mix. Add a little at a time so it does not cool to rapidly preventing the chocolate from melting.
Add 50 grams of unsalted butter to the warm cream/coffee/chocolate mix to enrich the dish even more and to give it a lovely shine !
Pour the mix into your tart case then place it in the fridge overnight to set. We served it on the summer menu with a ginger powder, orange creme fraiche and whipped cream. Bloomin lovely.
However you could do what Wayne did and in a creative culinary tantrum drop it on the floor !

Ouch !

I know when your learning to make things in the kitchen and someone suddenly switches a light bulb on in your head and makes a recipe or a technique clearer its so satisfying you feel that you have learned something that not everyone can do. And then to drop it on the floor when you have done the hard work..well sometimes you could cry ! ha ha !
Wayne is bullet proof and did not take the easy taxi ride home and give up.
He did say " do you think I can stick it together Super Big K ? " (his nickname for me ! ) as I had been in this position myself at various times in my career and knew exactly what to do I replied in an almost fatherly way,
"No Wayne best put this prototype in the bin before the Head Chef sees it and start again !"

A great book and a lovely store cupboard recipe.

2011-11-22T15:03:00.001Z

Once in a while in an ocean of cookery books, something floats by that makes you take stock of how you cook. Either showing you a technically different cooking style or a book that introduces you to exciting new flavour combinations. The current book by Anna Hansen called The Modern pantry is certainly a journey of wonderful, new and unique food combinations that I have not seen before.
Yes some of the ingredients are very hard to find even online and I live somewhere fresh Curry leaves are not growing next to Uncle Johnny's prized allotment leeks ! In fact its probably easier to find a green house in Ashington growing cannabis plants rather than kaffir lime leaves !
Anna is a New Zealander and has a restaurant in London called the Modern Pantry. She worked with another chef called Peter Gordon who introduced what is known as fusion cooking, which is basically mixing recipes from different cultures in the hope of making wonderful new dishes.
I did an agency job in Middlesborough for a while in a Car Mechanics training centre. The chef their had his own take on Fusion cooking. On Friday it was fish and chip day but most Monday to Friday industrial canteens will try and use up anything thats left in the kitchen to avoid waste. So super Chef Ronnie used to mix his left over pasta sauce with his left over curry sauce, then cooked some dried pasta off and served it with a popadom "just like mama used to make ! " Well I could not believe it but it was the first thing we sold out off every time !
Anyway like any fashion fusion cooking became unfashionable eventually and was known as "Con-fusion cooking "
Nowadays Anna describes her food as " Modern with a twist " I am going to do some more recipes from this marvellous book over the coming weeks but picked this very easy store cupboard tomato relish to put together today mainly because this year due to the weather my mate Emily at Meldon Park did not have enough chillis for me to use for some wonderful chilli jam and I need something to go with all the cheese (and pickled eggs...I know its a problem for me !) I am going to eat at xmas.

Anna Hansen's Tomato Relish

Toast the cumin and Mustard seeds to release the oils and flavour.
I mixed these together but then could not find my pestle and mortar to grind to a powder. How much difference it will make to the relish I will not know until I make the next batch. (hopefully my flipping mortar will have turned up ! ha ha ! )

Add the oil then the chills, grated ginger, turmeric, to the pan of spices until all the flavours have infused.

Add all the remaining ingredients and simmer until thick ! About 40 minutes should do it.

Reduce to a nice thick consistence.

I had a little taste of the relish while it was hot and I think in a few days time when it has settled and all the flavours have bedded in nicely it is going to be a wonderful accompaniment to anything I can smear it on and as to the Modern Pantry cook book if you excuse the pun its something I am going to relish over the coming months. (boom boom !)

A thing of beauty !

2011-11-21T13:12:00.001Z

I never tie of making Yorkshire puddings. The excitement and anticipation that the whole process gives you as a cook is almost addictive. Hearing the batter sizzle as its coldness hits the smoking oil in your pudding tray and crouching down and watching them hopefully rise through the oven door window is as good as any TV period drama.
The size of your Yorkshire really depends on two things. You don't want your batter too thick otherwise if its heavy it will struggle to push it up just like I struggle at the gym to lift anything over 5 kg ! ha ha ! Secondly and I know this sounds obvious but the number of people I know who use self raising flour instead of Plain flour is too many to count. My sister did for one. She has a family where the average height is 6 ft plus and all have hearty appetites ! I put her straight and now she's known as Aunt Bessie ! ha ha !
The recipe I use is just a cup each of plain flour, eggs and milk. I get the oven up to 220 and the oil in my pudding tin smoking. Then pop it into the oven for about 10 minutes and then drop it down to 190 and cook until golden and a little spongy on the bottom. I am not too fond of really dry Yorkshire Puddings that almost explode in you mouth into dust. After all it is a pudding.

Tuna with Kebab Salad...I mean winter coleslaw salad.

2011-11-08T19:37:00.001Z

I am trying to cut back a little bit during the week on what has become living a typical poor chef diet for the last few months.
Sometimes when you have been working with food all day (as enjoyable as that is) you get home and all you want is a sandwich. Bacon and sausage is quick and releases an instant comfort feeling that I assume women get from Chocolate.
Even calorifically worse is the desperate triple Decker cheese, ham, pickle onion and salad cream number where crunched up McCoys Beef crisps stick out from the thick layer of butter which accompanies each topside layer of bread. Add another couple of packets of crisps and I don't need my ever tighter fitting jeans to tell me that this is not good. So this is day 2 of eating a lot more fruit and vegetables, drinking more water and herbal teas and even a bit of exercise is coming soon. I know this is not a weight loss blog so I do not want to go on about diets and entering a triathlon to get fit and other false promises that fade away by the weekend. However if I find a little recipe that I think you might like and is a little bit lower in the fat department then I would like to pass it on.
So tonight I had a bit of a craving for a Kebab. The buying of a Chicken Kebab cannot be too bad surely after all its Chicken Breast, Salad and a pitta bread. However a trip down Billy's Kebab shop would inevitably end up in The Grand Master Kebab Wizard Billy selling me chips and a 8 inch pizza and then if I had walked up to the takeaway shop for exercise then Billy would insist on me carbo loading for the walk home with a bag of takeaway chips !
So Billy's was not an option. I then thought how difficult is it to come up with an healthier version of the kebab and the answer is not very difficult at all.
I love salad and love the cabbage salad that accompanies most kebabs. The beautiful long green pickled chili that sits on top of the salad means you remember the beautiful dish the next day. Usually in the bathroom at about 6.30 am ! ha ha !
So for the salad I basically shredded a quarter of a small Red and White Cabbage. Added finely sliced Red Onion, Spring Onion, Shredded Radish and some slice pickled jalapeno for a little bit of heat. I then shredded some Endive salad leaves that that I cooked on the griddle first which gives them a different texture and were reduced in the supermarket when I was their ! ha ha !

Char grilled Endive. Nice with a drizzle of orange vinaigrette to !

Now mix the lot together. Lightly season and then I added a splash of Worcester sauce and a gulp of vinegar and combined it all together.

Starting to take shape !

It was at this point that the marketing menu writing Chef in me took over. And with the addition of a Tuna steak and a lovely fragrant Coriander and lime fat free Yogurt dressing it went from a Kebab to "Pan Seared Northumberland (??) Tuna on a bed of Winter Coleslaw with a Coriander and Lime Yogurt dressing...that's £9.50 please sir " ha ha!
Dressing was just Fat Free Yogurt with a bunch of fresh coriander blitzed into it which gives it a vibrant green colour and the juice of 2 limes added. It was very refreshing on the pallet.
I really liked this salad and you can use it to accompany few different dishes.
Right that's 2 days down now take each hour as it comes and think healthy good food thoughts ! Well for a few days more at least !

The McKev McBurger ! Be afraid fast food Corporate Chains be very afraid !

2011-11-06T13:56:00.001Z

I love a good burger. It satisfies my savoury addiction in one swift gob full of meaty magic.
Add a lump of melted cheese onto its summit and the thing of beauty takes on another dimension. A bit of salad to aid digestion and a lightly toasted soft bun and wow what a fantastic lunchtime treat.
Why is then that if I go to a fast food chain or a supermarket my dreams are shattered. The ones in the takeaway tend to be dry with some limp lettuce and a chewy bun for company. The supermarket ones tend to be a bit better but for some reason tend to be quite peppery. Very sad.
Lets face it they are not difficult to put together so here's a little recipe I have often...probably a little too often.

Chicken Burger with a Mediterranean/USA/Geordie twist.

Makes a few depending on your size of burger and your belly ! (8)

1 kg Minced Chicken (either white breast meat or Ive used thigh meat as its cheaper)
1 Red Onion finely diced.
3 cloves of squashed garlic.
2 Knorr Chicken stock cubes.
6 Sun dried tomatoes finely chopped.
Half a bunch of Fresh Basil leaves.
150g of finely grated Parmesan Cheese.
tsp salt.

1 Geordie Stottie cake quartered or a soft bun.
Mixed leaves or Baby Gem lettuce.
3 slices of Tomato.

1 portion of cheats Cesar dressing.
2 Tbsp Hellman's Mayonnaise.
4 Tbsp Heinz Salad Cream.
4 Anchovy fillets. ( I love them. If you don't leave them out.)
1.5 Tbsp finely grated parmesan cheese.
dash of Worcester Sauce.
1 Tbsp Balsamic Vinger.

Lets start !

Sweat the Onions and garlic off together until soft.

Sprinkle the Knorr cubes into the Onion and Garlic mix and mash to a paste. Let it cool then add it to the Chicken Mince.

Grate the Parmesan and add to Mince.

Add the finely chopped Sun dried Tomatoes, the Basil , salt and one egg yolk. Then mash or squash the mix together combining all the ingredients well.

If the mix is a bit wet add some nice breadcrumbs to soak up some of the moisture. Do not use the golden ones you get in the cardboard packets. Not Nice. Then place into the fridge to chill.

The Burger Press.

As a cook I like gadgets. Anything that makes my life easier is more than welcome. Over the years I have collected a few useful gadgets and a few not so useful ones as well.
One of the best is this burger press I acquired from my butcher mate Mick when I was at the Moorhouse farm coffee shop in Stannington.
Mick was Welsh not a crime I know but he used to keep telling me he was in Northumberland doing missionary work and kepted telling me I was Scottish on account of Ashington being on the north side of Hadrian's Wall ! Funny guy.
I remember once sitting outside the kitchen at the Moorhouse farm shop enjoying my lunchtime sandwich which was delightfully prepared for me by the very tall and beautiful Debbie who worked in the cafe. (ahhhh those legs).
The kitchen and the butchery were in two separate buildings which before the place was converted into a farm shop was actually a part of a Mushroom farm and the Mushrooms were grown in the kitchen and the butchery before. Working in their didn't help me grow any taller though ! ha ha !
So I was sat their eating my sandwich minding my own business and then Mick appears out of the butchery heading home on a half day.
" See you tomorrow Jimmy ! " he shouted at me as he laughed.
I sat and watched him start his car and then reverse backwards and smack the back of my Audi TT with the Peugeot 306 body kit on it (ha ha !) with full force.
Now I think I should point out that their were 2 cars in the staff car park at the time mine and his. He got out of his car and said " I think I have hit your motor ".
I just had to laugh. I sat and watched him try and wipe the huge dent out of the back of my car with his jacket sleeve and then in true bloke style listen to him tell me " A bit of WD40 will sort that out".
Well it would not and his insurance would have to.
It then transpires that he told everyone who worked at the Farm shop that " I had parked like a woman " His words not mine ladies and I have his address in Consett if you and your baseball bat want to pay him a visit. Ha Ha !
I told him that it was a better idea for him in future to do his Tobacco Roll ups before he got into his car and not while reversing !
Anyway you can imagine in true kitchen banter style I milked this for all I could. The result of all this was Mick's insurance company were light of a few quid and Mick was light of one burger press as a pay off to shut me up !

If you don't have a burger press just shape with your hands. Don't make them too thick though as the outside will be a bit crispy by the time the middle has cooked. ( Not a problem if you use this recipe for a medium or rare cooked Beef burger but not advised for Chicken.)

Now heat the Oven to 180 degrees celsius. This is to finish off the burgers. To start with though heat a griddle pan until smoking and then place your burger patties on to it to give the burgers a nice bit of colour on both sides. Then put in the oven until cooked. (10-15 minutes depending on the size of the burgers.)

While the burgers cook make your cheats Caesar dressing. Basically place all the ingredients into a blender and blitz until the ingredients are all well combined.

Anchovies a vital ingredient in my cesar dressing. I love them but if you don't then just leave them out.

I use a stottie bun quartered for my burger. I lightly toast it on the griddle first then add my lettuce and tomato as the base. Place the burger majestically on top of the salad then dollop a lot of the dressing on top of it. Fantastic.

McKev Chicken burger.

Hope you enjoy !

Happy Birthday to me !

2011-11-03T23:25:00.001Z

Some people get a nice cake on their birthday at work. Me I got A bowl of Chips with Veal Jus and a candle ! they were nice though ! thanks guys for making my 14 hour birthday shift at the Treehouse so wonderful ! ha hah ha ha ha !

Rob Howarth Culinary legend No.1

2011-11-01T15:41:00.001Z

I spent 3 months working for a Photo News agency in Norwich called Assignments. We used to cover Norwich City and Ipswich Town when they were in the football premier league and any nasty news events that kicked off on our patch.
Now I know what your thinking nothing happens in sleepy Norfolk and Suffolk they are the counties you visit for a relaxing holiday. But my working day involved going down the local court and trying to get a paparazzi type shot of some nasty piece of work who was up before the judge that day. It was quite depressing really and not the glamorous International Photographer lifestyle I thought it might be.
It was however working their that I met a great guy call Rob Howarth. He not only was a great door step photographer but he was very creative and had a brilliant eye for a great photograph. His cooking was not to shabby neither. He used to cook a mean steak with oven chips and a peppercorn sauce which he told me he made from scratch but really was from a jar from Tesco's the little tinker.
I remember once watching him sprint down the street outside our digs in Norwich before we got in our cars to go to work. I was a little shocked but reassured I think when he told me he was practicing running away. A technique which was more important than knowing your F stops from your shutter speeds as a newspaper smudger.
I wish I had stayed a bit longer working with Rob I would have learned loads more from him but our paths drifted in other direction and I went more the magazine route where he stayed in Norwich supplying images for the national newspapers.
However recently through Facebook we have caught up a little bit and I am pleased to say he has been following my Food blog and it was after he read my piece on the Crab Linguine recipe that he left me an amazing comment in the comment box at the bottom of the blog post.

bobby said...

Kev you old stud muffin just bought some Cromer crab to give this a try. I was thrown out of Marco Pierre Whites new restaurant in Lavenham by the main man himself last night so I thought I would cheer myself and the Mrs up with Kev's Crab and King Prawn Linguine
Kind Regards
Rob Howarth

17 September 2011 21:53

Photo copyright of The Family Howarth.

Now I have been working hard over the last 7-8 years to achieve culinary stardom. Rob has not, but in one evening he has achieved such a culinary high that will always out do anything I have or will achieve in my chosen profession. To be thrown out of a restaurant by Marco Pierre White is an honour in itself. Gordon Ramsey threw Joan Collins out of his restaurant once that's the sort of celebrity company Rob is now in. I cannot fill in any details on what occurred as Rob has remained tight lipped since but Rob Howarth I salute you. You are a Culinary legend.

Winter Warming soup with a Guy Fawkes Bang.

2011-10-31T21:00:00.000Z

When I first went into catering I worked as a pot washer at a pub in Northumberland. Having been used to a canny wage doing photography and then washing dirty pans and scraping squashed veg from customers plates all for £4.15 an hour was a very humbling experience. It was a split shift during in which I would go home smelling of stale vegetables and fall asleep 20 minutes before I would have to go back to work. My feet and my back would hurt as I had been used to spending more time driving a car than a kitchen broom.
I did this for 3 months up to new years eve and it was while cleaning the walk in freezer in my coat and gloves at 11.45 pm just 15 minutes before everyone started singing auld lang syne and celebrating the start of another year that I decided that catering was not for me.
I went back to taking photos and had 3 months in the new year taking press shots for the Kia motor company as they were launching a lot of new cars that year.

This is a corner I used for a lot of action shots when working as a snapper. Its on top of Beachy Head near Eastbourne. I used my cousin Nigel as my driver. He is a top bloke.

Although I enjoyed doing the work for Kia I still felt that I was still doing the same old job and was also desperate to come back home to the North-east and try again to work as a cook.
So I sold my house and moved back up North. I did not want to work in a pub but wanted a more gentler introduction to catering where I knew I would have to start at the bottom doing cleaning but also wanted to learn some basic cooking skills and kitchen etiquette in return for smelling of fairy liquid !
So I was lucky enough to find a newly opened farm shop called The Moorhouse Farm shop in Stannington just off the A1 near Morpeth.
Victoria and Ian who own the shop are part of a family of farmers who have pigs, sheep and cows on a farm out on the Hexham road from Newcastle. The pork they sell is second to none and if you get chance to stop by and buy some of their porkie treats I would do so.
They have a cafe as part of the farm shop and it was there I met Sue who was the Head cook.
To say Sue and I had a fiery relationship would have been an understatement. She used to make my life hell sometimes. I think some of it was just testing me out to see if I had the mental toughness to work in a hard profession but with my charm and wit I turned her around (Ha ha !) and she is someone who I learnt a great deal from in the end. Sue had changed careers quite late like me and had worked as a Head chef in Hotels and what stuck me most was that her food always had a lot of flavour in.
She used to taste everything except when she was dieting (not that she really needed to it was just a Monday woman thing ! Ha ha ! ) then I was given the responsibility to taste and season accordingly.
Sue taught me cake making, scones, terrines, basic cooking recipes and everything else you would expect to learn in a lovely homely farm shop cafe kitchen.
However the best thing she taught me was how to make basic soups. Just about every professional kitchen from Mr Ramsey's empire to the little greasy spoon down the road has a soup on the menu admittedly of varying degrees of quality but if you can make a good soup then you can transfer that skill to any kitchen you end up working in.
So with the cold weather coming here's a little soup recipe.

Roasted Winter Vegetable soup.

1 stick of celery thinly sliced.
2 carrots grated.
3 garlic cloves
2 Red Onions roughly chopped.
Half a Celeriac roughly chopped.
Half a Butternut Squash roughly chopped.
2 parsnips roughly chopped.
2 knorr Vegetable stock cubes.
1 tablespoon of dried Rosemary.
1 litre of water.

Place the Red onion, garlic, Celeriac, Butternut squash and Parsnips in a tray. Pour a good glug of olive oil over the vegetables and garlic. Mix the lot together making sure all the oil coats the vegetables. Then sprinkle the Rosemary over the vegetables and season well. Oiling the vegetables first means the seasoning and the Rosemary will stick to the vegetables and not drop on to the bottom of the tray.

Cook in the oven for about 25 minutes until they are soft. Not turning to mush when you squeeze them just plenty of give.

The Timer is timing ! sorry Fred ha ha !

Heat a sturdy bottomed pan Saute off the carrots and celery.

Add all the contents of your roasting tray into it.

Boil a kettle and pour about a litre of water on to 2 vegetable stock cubes in a jug to dissolve.

Pour the liquid into your pan of carrot , celery and roasted vegetables.

Simmer for 10 minutes and then pour the mix into your blender.

I love my upright blender. Its a pain to clean but it just gives me more POWER !

Blend the soup till you get a nice smooth puree. With my upright blender I do not need to pass the soup to get rid of any bits through a sieve unlike with a stick blender.

Pour back into the pan and check the consistence. If its too thick add more water until its how you want it. If its too wet.... erh start again...ha ha !

Check the flavour if it needs more stock add it but chances are it just needs seasoning.

This really is a lovely thick warming soup which would make you glow more than the Paper lad off the old Ready Break advert ! It will keep you warm while you watch your Husband or Dad set fire to his shed with a badly positioned firework hanging out of a milk bottle on November 5th !

If you want to add chili to it to give it an even more warming kick then add it to the saute stage with the celery and carrot.

I like to serve it with my new best Cheese friend Snowdonia Red Devil and croutons.

Unlike a lot of Chili cheeses that seem to be just a lame cheese with a load of chills added to it this little baby from Snowdonia Cheese Company is rich and creamy and has a lovely heat to it. I recently brought some on line for £3.25 a puck !

Lovely little bits of bread soaked in olive oil and turned into little brown golden nuggets.

Now where did I put that ultimate TNT Cruise Missile banger I was saving from last year !!

Chefs in comfortable shoes !

2011-10-30T12:22:00.000Z

Working as a Chef often means being on your feet for very long periods of times. 10 to 14 hours is not uncommon.
Sometimes when I get home at night I wish I could employ a Thai foot massage girl to bring the feeling and the sweet perfume smell back to them instead of their usual state of smelling like I have been walking in the cheese fridge barefooted for 2 days !
When it comes to chefs shoes I have found over the years that they tend to tell you quite a bit about that chef and how they approach their job.
The three main types of footwear that are wore are boots, crocs and trainers.
The chef who wears the Boot tends to be very regimented in the kitchen. Solid, reliable but not particularly passionate about his subject its a job to him and he probably dreams of being a nightclub bouncer !
The trainer wearing chef tends to be a Young lad training to be a chef. He had the money to buy a pair of chef shoes but unfortunately he used it to buy the super woofer speakers for his green Citroen Saxo so you could hear him on the way home after his shift !
The trainer wearer tends to talk a good game sometimes but tends to drift in and out of catering and will end up mixing plaster for his Uncles building business. Its a shame because if you start catering when your 17 you have the energy to put in the long hours you need to absorb the many techniques and skills you need to become a good cook. The rewards are their and by the time you are 23 you can be earning in the £20k's anywhere in the world. When you consider most students are coming out of university at that age with lots of debt and a degree which does not guarantee them a career anymore.
The Croc wearing chef tends to be a bit more passionate about food, cooking and the kitchen he works in. He wanders light footed around his kitchen sprinkling a little bit of this and a little bit of that in his cauldrons of culinary magic producing pure food alchemy to bewitch and spellbind you with its magical delicious taste !
You can guess which ones I wear ! Ha ha !
So next time you try out a new eating place don't bother with the menu just ask if you can see the shoes the chefs wearing if a pair of Air balance super pump trainers with a red slash down the side comes out I would put them on and run out the place as fast as you can ! Ha ha !
If mine come out I hope to feed you well but they will probably put you off the cheese board though ! ha ha !

Looking sharp chaps !

A KITCHEN WITH A VIEW !

2011-10-12T18:35:00.000+01:00

It Seems that for most of this year I have been working in kitchens that have had no windows supplying fresh air and natural daylight to illuminate them.
You can however hear the constant whirr and feel a little low level of suction from the kitchens extractor fan as it slowly extracts smoke from grills, chefs B O and any black clouds that form above the fryers or the chefs come to think of it !
Well my luck has changed because for the past few Sundays and Mondays I have been working at a lovely family run hotel in Embleton called the Dunstanburgh Castle Hotel.
The Hotel is on the road between the sleepy Kipper famous village of Craster and the almost cosmopolitan in comparison village of Seahouses which is not quite as famous for its smoked Kippers as Craster but are just as good in my opinion.
This kitchen has a window. OK not much passes my window and it overlooks a path to the beach and not the garden at the Playboy mansion but it is so refreshing to be able to look out and see proper daylight and not relying normally on a kitchens bright neon Fly terminator screwed to the wall for a bit of light.
Fresh air is also something missing in most kitchens but not here all you have to do is open the window and heh presto fresh air floods in ! how cool is that !
I am here for a few more weeks and intend on making the most of this little god send you never know I might even lose my pasty looking skin complexion and become a bronzed adonis ! ha ha !

Don't be fooled by the sky dish ! A kitchen with sky sports on tap would just be too silly !

Stewart canny lad !

Ashley is from Staffordshire and has just spent time with his wife working in Switzerland as A Ski Chalet Chef !

On the days I am their I am in charge. And when I get Cheek from the other two chefs I point to the badge on my shoulder and tell them to respect the badge ! Its then I usually get pelted with bread buns.

Oatmeal cakes made by hand and served with delicious Craster Kipper pate.

Not some clever bit of Chef Molecular Gastromony just my Berwick Edge cheese, chicken, pickle, tomato, beef, roast potato sandwich on Sunday. Well I was a bit hungry and not sure what I wanted so I had the lot ! Ha Ha !

Chievot Lamb Loin served with a Madiera and wild Mushroom jus !

Even in Black and White Coke a Cola boiled Gammon glazed in honey looks Fab ! We serve it with a Pease pudding fritter and Wholegrain mustard sauce ! Very warming !

Sorry but this was homemade Duck Spring Rolls but by the time I got round to photographing them we had sold out ! But its a great shot of the lovely serving dishes they have at the hotel !

Sorry again but this is Lamb and redcurrant stew on Colcannon Mash but again I was too late to photograph the dish and Owen the pot washer who was having the last portion in the building was not too pleased when he was trying to eat his staff tea and I was trying to photograph it ! Sorry Owen.

Kate a lovely girl who works front of house but has unfortunately got her hand stuck to her face and cannot drink her Tea anyone with a cure for this condition please ring the Hotel immediately !

Libby nice girl but does not like having her picture taken. Shame.

Me and my window.

Gold plated Cows !

2011-09-21T14:00:00.003+01:00

I think food prices are getting a little bit silly now !

Merry Xmas !

2011-09-21T10:42:00.002+01:00

September the 20th and I have entered into the xmas spirit ! These were 2 for a pound at the local CO-OP and I purchased them. I love xmas but this just a little too early. No wonder by the actual day itself you have had enough ! They taste nice though ! ha ha !

Bit of a mess.....Emily's Plum Eton Mess.

2011-09-20T19:41:00.000+01:00

On a previous post I mentioned some sweet flavoursome Plums that My friend Emily at the Meldon Park kitchen garden grows. They really just need eating on there own. You don't really need any clever sauce or cream to make them taste good because these little babies are good.
However I had a few left today that were starting to go a little too soft so I boiled them with a little bit of sugar and water and turned them into a Plum compote.

Thick syrupy plums !

Then I thought a nice little Eton Mess would go down well tonight after my Beef Hotpot so this quick and easy pudding was made in no time at all. The 3 main components of the pudding mess is fruit usually, whipped cream and broken or unbroken meringue depending on what you prefer. In this case both.
I also made a lovely Strawberry Coulis to add to the Mess.
The strawberry Coulis was done in the same was as the Plum compote only after the strawberries had been soften I put the lot in my blender and blitzed it to a liquid.

I thought this was a great view of the blender in action until it sprayed my camera. Idiot.

The recipe for the meringue was handed down to me from my mother. She went to the supermarket to buy them and so did I ! ha ha ! Meringue making is very satisfying. Have you whisked the egg whites enough or not enough. Have you added the right amount of sugar. Is the oven at the right temperature. It can be a right fanny on I mean a right wonderful culinary gift. But as I said previously this is meant to be a quick evening dessert. And besides that the plain fact is that unlike some ready made products you can get at the supermarket meringues are pretty good ready made.
So I whipped some double cream with a splash of Vanilla extract in it to a firm peak. Then folded the plum compote into the cream. I then broke up into little pieces one of the meringues and folded that into the mixture.
I then Dolloped ( one of my favourite culinary words ! ) the cream mix onto the meringues nest, sprinkled some more of the broken meringue pieces onto the pud and then finished it with a good drizzle of the strawberry coulis.
I don't usually have a sweet tooth but when I do their is no holding back. Hope you enjoy.

CRAB AND KING PRAWN LINGUINE

2011-09-17T20:30:00.001+01:00

As you may know I have been travelling around a little bit on my days off this week. One of my trips was down to the quayside at North Shields and a visit to Sea View Fisheries where I brought " A canny bit of fish like ! " as we say up here.
So I thought it was about time I started to use some of this beautiful produce and made myself a Crab and king prawn linguine.
So half a pot of crab meat and 4 king prawns were used to make this very quick supper. Note that I counted the prawns. I did buy more than 4 but at £16 per kilo I intend on using them sparingly. A Colombian drug lord would be proud of that price per kilo !

Colombian nose candy is probably cheaper than these babies !

I used a mixture of the White and brown meat from the crab. A taste before cooking was a mistake because all I then wanted to do was eat the lot their and then. A little squeeze of lemon juice and I would have been away.

But where are the additives ?

I cooked my linguine first in salted water. Then I sauteed some spring onion, a few small cubes of Chorizo in a little oil. Then added some cherry tomatoes, and then the linguine and then the crab meat.

Now it is very easy to over cook prawns. So I sauteed them in a separate pan to make sure that they were 100 percent pure ! ha ha !

I then added them to the other pan with all the other ingredients. And O mama what a treat. It smelt divine and with a few chives and lemon juice cutting through it I had a great quick supper. If you have the right quality of ingredients to start with you cannot go wrong. And these were quality.

I remember working with a girl at a hotel a few years ago in the kitchen. Now I am not one to hand out slimming tips but she was a big girl. Her best cleaning down trick was sweeping the floor with one hand on the broom handle and piling the rubbish neatly next to the bin not in the bin just next to it. She never got the dust pan and swept it up and put it in the bin and the only thing I could think of was that it was too heavy for her !

Anyway after watching her pack a burger, a bacon sandwich, 8 kids chicken nuggets , 4 duck spring rolls ( where she got them from I will never know as they were not even on the menu !) and one plate of chips I asked her if she would give me her opinion on a cod dish I had just made which I was thinking about putting on the menu.

She replied " erh I don't like fish ! "

Now I could have taken " erh I am going to be sick out the way Kev you big stud muffin " after what she had eaten but this response from a fellow chef stunned me. Fair enough if you have a proper allergy to something that's acceptable but how can you be a chef if you don't taste all kinds of food. You might not like something but you need to be able to cook it for the customer. I wondered if it was something to do with her up bringing where the only fish she might have had was fish fingers or Cod and chips from the chippie on a Saturday night. Although looking at her I think she was more of a jumbo battered sausage kind of girl ! Ha Ha !

As I have said it is hard to believe that we live on an island. How many times a week do you have fish ? if its once I would be amazed. I intend on having a lot more in future I hope you do too.

Chef injury Number 2. Putting your foot in the fryer to try and get the afternoon off to watch the match !

2011-09-15T19:45:00.000+01:00

Whats funny about the two injuries (look at last months posts for the previous injury picture) are they are the same Chef. And funnier still is the fact in both pictures he is in hospital and despite the pain he is aware of his marketing earning potential of his injuries because in the background he is quite clearly on a stretcher ! Class.
And if your wondering how he did it. While cleaning the extractor covers above the fryers his foot slipped and went straight into still hot (???) fryer oil. So not only did he hurt himself he had to change the oil in the fryers before he went to hospital. Harsh of the Head Chef but fair !
Name with held to protect the stupid.

In search of fish !

2011-09-15T19:31:00.000+01:00

In my head in culinary heaven there will be four clouds. And on each cloud their will be something to do with food and drink.
As you know my fruit and vegetable heavenly cloud will be stocked by The Meldon Kitchen Garden, Mitford, near Morpeth by my mate Emily.
The others are not as clear cut. I do have a butchers in mind for one cloud and more about that in the coming weeks. I would have to have a cloud where Alcohol would be available and at the moment its got to be supplied by Moet because of all the money I am earning freelancing ! Ha ha ! (just a joke Kelvin !)
The other cloud would have to be a fishmongers. I have searched high and low for a good fish supplier near Ashington but to no avail. So today I travelled to North Shields for a look around the fish quay.
In its day I can only imagine how busy it must have been. However the sands of time have eroded its economy and the livelihood it must have provided for the community.
I was surprised to see a lot of bars and restaurants where I had expected so see all things sea faring.
Yes there were some fish and chip shops but I could not get over the Italian restaurant and what I would describe as the many "Dude" bars ! I am not saying for one moment they are bad its just I was a little surprised.
Anyway their were some great fish suppliers down there including the two main suppliers to the local restaurant, pub and hotel industry. Frank Rounds and Taylor's. I didn't bother with them on this occasion as I am familiar with the standard of their fish and was looking for something new.
I will say that one of the delivery drivers for one of those two companies I just mentioned (I won't say which one) is an old boy who I have only seen twice in 7 years. Once back in 2005 and just the other day at the Treehouse. He looks a real character. During the war while Uncle Albert was getting sunk by every other ship he came across this old boy must have been trained by the Special Forces in sneakiness because I swear the number of times I have been working away in the kitchen only to look behind me and see a delivery of fish appear from seemly no where is too many to mention. No matter how quickly I amble to the deliveries door and try to see him he is no where to be seen. He could be the ghostly spirit of an old delivery driver who still haunts his old round but that would just be me being silly ! ha ha !

So after a little walk I settled upon this little mecca of a fishmongers. Talk about a kid in a sweet shop. It was great to see a fish display that had more than some crab sticks, a piece of peppercorn encrusted smoked mackerel and some tiny prawns for a fiver on it.

What a wonderful selection of fresh fish they had. The only problem was having to freeze most of it. This slightly goes against the grain as fish that is fresh is at its best.

I could not fit all this into my car but I shall return ....O yes one day it will all be mine !

Their was a blackboard with where some of the fish came from. Ok I am turning into a train spotter !

The place shook when their huge "Billy the Bass" started doing covers of Barry White numbers ! Hats of to him that fish has got talent ! ha ha !

I was not only one looking for fish !

So on number 2 cloud will go Seaview fisheries. Its not quite a stones throw away from my front door but I guess I will just have to practice throwing further.

Just call me Bombay Kev !

2011-09-14T20:46:00.000+01:00

Everyone should have their own good curry recipe that they can knock up when called upon at a moments notice. I have said it before and Ill be boring saying it again but the key to good cookery is simplicity.
Yes once you have learned the basics by all means experiment because that is one of the many wonderful things about cooking. The seemingly never ending combination of flavours and endless recipes that are on offer means you should never get bored.
Now I have a basic recipe that I would like to say I had spent months walking the dusty pathways of India in search of the ultimate curry recipe but really a chef I worked with in a golf club in my early days of cookery learning taught me and I have stuck with it pretty much since.
I did try to get an evening job once working in a Indian restaurant kitchen but all I was offered was a dish washing job and the opportunity to deliver the takeaways to their customers.
Dish washing is an art and I am not an Artist and as to delivering food to people I wondered how many lay-bys I would get past before the temptation to pull over and eat the customers food got to me !
I did get the impression while trying to persuade the various restaurant owners to give me a job that a lot of the Indian cooks do keep their recipes to themselves and are a closely guarded secret but really I think they all have pretty much the same recipes it just comes down to some cooks are better and care more than others.
So My recipe is very basic and you could not call it a balti or a Marsala its just what I call curry. A Beef curry in this case.
One of the things Chef Doug from the golf club taught me was that a good curry starts with Onions and lots of them. Slowly fry them in oil and a bit of butter for at least 30 minutes before you add anything to them. They will be a lovely golden brown colour and soft and sweet and really make a difference to the dish.

Garlic is another great component and I love to my roast garlic. The aroma it gives off while its getting a tan in the over alerts my taste buds that something good is going to end up in my tummy.
I roasted the garlic and used some in the curry and some I was going to add into my Naan bread mix.

OK the onions are golden. I add a red chili. Half a red Chili is pretty medium heat then add as many as you like depending how hot you want it. I was told the heat was in the seeds so leave them out if you want a very mild sauce.
The spices are pretty obvious really. A tablespoon of Coriander, Cumin, turmeric, and the half a tablespoon of ginger, and cinnamon powder. Also add a tablespoon of a basic supermarket curry powder if you like. Sweat all the spices off in the onion mix to release there flavours.

Onions and Spices.

In a separate pan I would saute my meat to get a nice bit of colour and caramelisation around the outside of my beef and then add them into the onion mix. Then add one and a half 400g tins of tomatoes plus a cup of water and one deep rich beef stock cube or jelly.

Add Meat and Tomatoes

Deep rich knorr beef stock jelly. A little gem but don't over use.

Ok put a lid on it and leave it to infuse all its wonderful flavours for about an hour and a half.

Now I love a good naan bread and I am waiting for a programme on the Sky channel Discovery Shed to show you how to build a tandoori oven to cook your naans in but I have not seen that programme so really all I am able to make at home is a garlic and coriander flavoured bread bun. So thats what I did.

Their are a few bread mixes available in the supermarkets which tends to have the strong flour and yeast all mixed in a handy bag for you which I would buy for ease. All you have to do is add warm water to activate the yeast process and then the roasted garlic paste and fresh coriander.

Ok if you have a bread maker pour the lot in turn it on and then walk away. If you have a mixer with a dough hook put the lot in turn it on and then walk away.

If you don't then you have to knead the bread for 10 minutes which involves stretching the dough with the palm of your hand which makes the dough smoother and softer and developes the elastically of the gluten in the flour and evenly incorporates air into the dough.

So you need to Knead like Prince partyed like it was 1999 ! Unless your watching Money never sleeps Wall Street 2 on sky anytime then 4 minutes did it for me, placed it in a bowl and left it in a cooling oven while I watched the end of the film.

You need to work this for at least 10 minutes. I didn't and the Naan bread was not as light as it could have been but it was tasty never the less.

Ok after the bread mix has rested and proved for about a hour roll it out and put it into a oven at 180 degrees celius for about 10 minutes.
Back to the cooking curry after about an hour and half check to see if the meat is tender and then add some double cream to give the curry a lighter colour and really enrich the dish even more. I would usually chop some fresh coriander and run that into the dish and sprinkle some toasted almonds on top to add a little bit of crunch.
And there you have it job done. Charm a Cobra beer out of the fridge or share the meal with Mrs Stella Artois and what more could a top bloke want ! Ha Ha !

If you don't want to buy the dry spices because you will not use them again go and buy a curry paste. Their are some good ones out there and really all they are a mix of spices that you need to make yourself a delicious curry. It will cost you more though and you will not be building yourself a good versatile little spice collection which you can use in other dishes. I would not buy a ready made sauce though as I find them expensive and lacking a lot of punch and deep flavour. Just get a paste and add some tomatoes and stock cubes and a bit of coconut milk or yoghurt it will taste better.

One final cheat is this block of curry paste called Maysan which is available from most corner shops. It taste just like the curry sauce you get when you commit the ultimate sin of ordering a special curry from a chinese takeaway. Cook some chicken and pour over the sauce which you make by putting a block of the paste into a pan of cold water which you then slowly bring to the boil while stirring like its 1999 !! ha ha.

It is lovely to dip chips into it as well though.

chinese and chip shop curry paste !

Autumn is coming !

2011-09-04T18:43:00.000+01:00

I love the summer when we get one ! You cannot beat a hot summers day in England no way.
The smells, the sunshine warming your back the general lazy feeling we get when you go of in search of a paddling pool to dip your feet into or a stream or the sea to cool you down its just wonderful.
However Autumn brings something wonderful too. The orange and yellow blanket of leaves that fall like a carpet beneath your feet. The russel of the leaves as you walk through them.
Then their is the wonderful root vegetables that are coming our way.
A tray of Swede, Parsnips, and carrots roasted in a little olive oil and sprinkled with thyme are a gorgeous accompaniment to a slab of meat and gravy.
Dishes like Shepard's and Cottage pie with their warming and satisfying flavours are a comfort blanket in themselves.
I had my first Sheppard's Pie today in a long while and it was grand. Try adding some mashed up Parsnip, Swede or Celeriac into your buttery mash potato topping and it will give you another dimension to a great British dish. Goodbye Summer if you ever actually visited us this year that is and hello to a hopefully glorious Indian Summer of a September and early October !

Beach Shack Cafe Location !

2011-09-04T13:33:00.000+01:00

Whats the chances of planning permission for a little Cafe shack serving spicy fresh fish burrito's on the beach at Bamburgh ? Zero or triple zero ? just found this pic in amongst my old portfolio and remembered I used to take photographs for a living. Ha ha !

Lamb Rump.

2011-08-28T19:42:00.001+01:00

As I said before becoming a chef has introduced me to lots of different ingredients that perhaps had I not gone on this Buddhist like culinary journey would have just passed me by.
Lamb Rump is something I knew about but never used on a menu before until recently working at the Treehouse at Alnwick gardens where they serve it with a beautiful Blackberry and Sloe Berry Gin Jus erh I mean gravy !

So I purchased 5 portions from Warren Butterworth's a local catering butchers that supply the treehouse. The cost is secret as I got a good deal on it but in this current economic climate its not the cheapest cut as its about £20-£25 per kilo top quality end nationwide all though Sainsbury's have some rump steaks at about £15 per kilo which is cheaper but would they be in same league as the rump I brought I am not so sure.
As a quick cook lamb treat it is worth every penny and usually the more you pay for your meat the better the quality as a rule.
Now I promise I will start to cook some more interesting things in time but as previously whinged I am working quite hard at the moment and Sundays is the only day I can really cook and to be honest I would rather watch the football match on the telly while snogging a can of Stella and eating some crisps then come up with some kind of culinary delight.
So when I do cook it tends to be quick and easy so it tends to be a meat and two veg plus a potato of some description.
I think you could call it a Roast Dinner. Ha ha !
So that's what I did. I don't think I should apologise for possibly the greatest British dish of all time and I am proud to say that I have advanced from my childhood habit of swamping my Sunday roast with tomato ketchup and now I eat it as God intended with either mustard,apple sauce or in this case mint sauce.
The beauty of lamb rump is it is quick to cook as I said before so I cooked my Roast potatoes, cabbage, carrots, the mother of all Yorkshire puddings and made my gravy all before cooking the Lamb.

Gently massage the meat with Olive oil. Add some sea salt and Black pepper.

Get the pan SMOKING !!!

Saute all around the meat. Including the sides.

Beautiful !

Now at this point you need to put the lamb into the oven. After 20 minutes take it out of the oven to see how its cooking.You can squeeze it like they do on the telly to see if its rare or medium or well done but just go to the supermarket and buy a cooking thermometer . I brought a really nice one from Sainsbury for £9.99 and it was a lovely bright orange colour too !!!
Rare is about 45 oc, Medium about 50+ and about 65 and above should be well done. This is a great way of getting succulent and not dry over cooked meat every time. Obviously do not apply this method to Pork or Chicken or you will be getting a visit from my pal John "the Undertaker" Kinghorn and he will be taking you to the land of pushing up daisies !
Let the meat rest for 10 minutes.
On this occasion after sealing the meat I placed it onto baking foil with a bit of thyme added and made it into a bag and then placed it onto a tray and then into the oven.
The idea being to let the lamb cook in its own steam and to collect all the juices that it will let out which are then added into the gravy.

The mother of all Yorkshire puddings.

Ok I know I am probably going against the Foodie code of eating by saying I know I have cooked this meat well done but I am not so fussy about how my red meat is cooked if I am honest. So long as its not burnt and so long as its not so raw that it can still talk to me while I am eating it that will be fine.
There are lots of things you can do with Lamb rump. It would go great with a warming Tomato and Borlotti bean stew or just marinated in a few herbs and thrown onto the barbie.
Either way hope you try it soon.

Morpeth one nice takeaway and one nice little eatery !

2011-08-21T12:59:00.000+01:00

I don't eat out very much but its something that I do intend to do more often in the future and if anybody wants to come along with me to sample some of the North-Easts food fare then please get in touch via the site. (female applicants will be pushed to the top of the list ! ha ha !)
I don't really want to turn this blog into a restaurant review Ala Giles Coren or Fay Maschler but It would be great to find some little feasting nuggets around where I live and pass them on to you.
So the other Sunday after a boozy night out in Morpeth I ended up going to a great little Indian takeaway as recommended by my mighty Chef mate Rus called the Morpeth Tandoori. Its situated in a picturesque part of Morpeth called The Chantry and the takeaway has recovered from the flooding which hit the town a few years ago.
When it comes to consuming Takeaways after a few beers I tend to stick to what I know and so 1 Garlic and coriander Naan bread, 1 Chicken Bhuna with Pilaf rice and 1 extra of sag a loo was promptly ordered. I then sat down and had to wait 20 minutes for my food. This annoyed me mainly because the usual pint of lager I would drink while waiting was not available but really when I thought about it, it really meant the chef was cooking it to order and therefore it was not left overs from earlier in the evening or worst still the kitchen had run out of prep after a busy weekend and was not being defrosted in the microwave while I waited.
OK the food arrived and for about a tenner I had enough for 2 so not bad on the value front really. I then went on stage two of the takeaway experience which is getting a little brown bag from current location to home with minimum spillage and trying to maintain its core temperature to prevent an outbreak of bacteria forming in it. I don't mind bacteria but I don't want it mutating into any kind of creature that might eat my food.
Warning no matter how happy you are after a few light refreshments do not under any circumstances start swinging your brown bag. I did once and I was left holding 2 brown handles while the bottom half of the bag sailed over a hedge into someones garden. Its one thing knocking on someones door and asking for your ball back but asking for your curry back is something else !
I live about 5 miles away from Morpeth so I headed up the high street in search of a taxi to take me and my curry home. 8 minutes later my friendly taxi driver had got us both home.
Stage 3 of the takeaway experience is the ceremony of taking everything out of your bag and arranging it neatly on your kitchen table and then removing the cardboard lids off the stylish silver tubs they came in and then putting far too much on your plate that you will never eat. Head into living room put the TV on and find some rubbish to watch while eating away your tummy treat.

Back to the food well the naan bread was moist garlicky and huge and an absolute delight. The Chicken in the Bhuna was very succulent but didn't seem to be pan fried as it had none of that nice caramelised flavour. It could have been cooked in the oven in foil as it had that taste to it but it was still very nice. The sauce had an intense flavour and the rice was so fragrant I could have used it as aftershave. The sag a loo was delicious and is a meal in itself and on the whole it was a great way of rounding off the evening.
If your in the area do pay the Morpeth Tandoori a visit and if your sober you will enjoy it even more.

I have not been to this place but another Chef mate of mine Alan went for a bite to eat here with 4 ladies and they all raved about the food. When I finally spoke to Alan about the cafe after going in the huff with him for not inviting me along to share the experience with 4 women he said the food was a great and had a few things on the menu which was a bit of a surprise for a cafe.
After looking at the menu I can see what he means and to see dishes like Rabbit, Boudin Noir and Parma Ham mixed with Chilli and sea salt squid tells me that the cook in charge must have some passion and imagination for food.
It does not have a booze licence so you can bring your own refreshments to go with your meal but they do supply the glasses for you.

Emmmmm...this looks nice I think I'll pop along there soon. Hope to see you there.

chef injuries coming soon !

2011-08-07T00:01:00.000+01:00

60 hours 5 days.

2011-08-06T23:57:00.002+01:00

Due to unforeseen circumstances 2 chefs sent out 237 covers on Tuesday lunch ! tired, sick, sense of achievement all confusing terms that make you come back the next day.

The dessert order spike ! The person on pastry is the last one home ! Tonight its me !

I changed careers 7 or 8 years ago because I was sick of living out of a bag as a photographer and wanted a more boring 9-5 existence. Do not get me wrong my life as a photographer totally enriched my life from the people I met to the places I visited but for some reason a deep subconscious seed had been planted in my head which I can only presume came from watching the first episodes of Ready Steady Cook when I was young and at 34 the seed had grown enough for me to go on a journey of learning to cook and become a good chef.

When I was thinking of changing careers Rick Stein in Cornwall was a great inspiration through watching his Taste of the Sea and Seafood Lovers guide while eating bacon sandwiches and browsing the papers on lazy sunday mornings.

The thought of meeting the fishing boats as they dropped their wonderful cargo of fish on the quayside and then taking it into the kitchen to produce great tasting food in Cornwall was something I thought I could do in Northumberland. So I plotted my escape back to Northumberland with NO real planning or sense of reality immediately. Like everyone in this world we are all searching for our Nirvana !
The reality is different and I am only talking about this because we have had a really nice lad at 30 years old start working in the kitchen I am assigned to at the moment. His attitude is spot on but his basic food knowledge is poor so he is having a very hard time at the moment and after 2 days he has already rang in sick which meant my 4.00pm finish on Friday ended up being 10.00pm and it could have been longer if Head Chef Kelvin had not let me go.
My heart went out to the lad as it reminded me on how hard it was to completely change careers. You start at the bottom so you will not be earning as much as your previous career. You run around like a headless chicken because you are having to learn a new way of working and you will find most people behind your back saying " He will not last " In that darkness you do find the odd golden nugget who spots your potential and encourages you so thanks Peter, Mary, John, Rus, Diane and Lynn and Mark S.
So change careers if you really want to. My advice especially in cooking is to go and work somewhere for two weeks and see what its like and then after that period if the fire still burns then go for it but as they say the grass is always greener...!
So after 8 years is it worth it ? Yes I am a freelance Chef and glad to be one and I am loving working in my current kitchen even though I am finding it hard but it has to be my love of food and cooking that makes me keep going back..

"Good Chef's don't burn pans ! " Lee, kitchen Pot Technician, Treehouse, Alnwick Gardens, Northumberland.

2011-07-29T18:07:00.000+01:00

Well I never said I was a good Chef ! Unfortunately as much as cuts and burns are a part of everyday kitchen life so is the ODD burnt pan. So today instead of cutting myself or burning myself I thought I would totally take my eye of the ball and burn, no sorry incinerate a pan. Now its very easy to blame someone else in situations like this so I will. Ha ha.
I was making a delightfully, silky, delicate, rich little blueberry and cardamon compote number. I placed my pan of the wonderful ingredients of Blueberries, caster sugar, Cardamon pod seeds and a squeeze of lemon juice onto the stove top and went round the back to my section to carry on with other prep. After a hour the TWO top experienced chefs working on the section where the compote was reducing informed me that my compote was ruined and the pan was a "knacker job ! "
Well you can imagine the mickey taking I have had to put up with but what got me was that not one of the highly trained noeses of the top chefs on that section could smell it burning until it had completely frazzled .
Unfortunately as the kitchen code goes that if you put it in the oven or on the stove you have to take full responsibility for it end of conversation.
Its poor Lee I feel sorry for. The highly skilled pot technician had to put his Racing post and sausage sandwich down to clean it. Sorry mate !

Scrubbed 3 times, through the dish washer 8 times and we finely got to see a bit of the bottom of the pan !
Photo courtesy of Kelvin ' the gaffer ' Gallaugher.

Cod.

2011-07-24T19:29:00.002+01:00

Is fish expensive or what ? But just look at how beautiful this piece of Cod looks. It says buy me and I will bring pleasure to your taste buds for a long time. I was not disappointed.
Nearly £8 brought me enough for 3 people so that's not so bad really. Normally I would be crying my heart out as I waste I mean pour a bottle of beer into some flour to make a batter and deep fry it to accompany some chunky Kev chips but I read on the web that Cod and Black pudding was a marriage made in heaven so I thought I would pop along to the wedding and see if I could pull one of the bridesmaids ! ha ha.
I had some smoked black pudding which I had purchased at the taste of Edinburgh food show so was going to use that. Yes I know I brought quite a bit of smoked product at the show but the passengers on the 6.30 pm train out of Edinburgh should be grateful that my mate Alan talked me out of buying the un vac packed kippers that I wanted to !
Anyway I decided on a white sauce to go with the fish so made a roux, then a bechamel and then added some fish stock , some English mustard, grated mature cheddar cheese, a dollop of creme fraiche and then let it infuse for 15 minutes before finishing it with a handful of chopped chives out of the garden and not a handful of grass which I did on one slightly drunk occasion.

My neighbour Mrs Wilkins has a husband who has an allotment. He grows Broad beans but they don't like them so as they say "their loss is my gain" and as they are now in season its time to take full advantage of them. (that's the beans and not Mr and Mrs Wilkins)

Usually I would boil them and then take the tougher outer skin off that then reveals a beautiful sweet green pod. On this occasion I didn't which was lazy really but they still tasted fab. I sauteed some mushrooms off added the diced black pudding and then added the hot beans to the pan and mixed them together. I made some mash and then plated up.

The sauce even though I say so myself was very moreish. A splash of white wine or cider would have added another tasty dimension to it. The mash made the dish a little heavy and probably would have been better with a few diced sauteed potatoes but I had this on Sunday so I was left with the same feeling I would have had after a Sunday roast.
The black pudding was not over powering the smokey flavour was very subtle and was a wonderful compliment to the cod.
The cost of fish is high which is hard to take considering we live on a Island but for something so outstanding in quality I didn't mind paying. I loved this dish and hope that the Cod supplies are going to improve over my life time and eating wonderful produce like cod does not become a distant memory.

Thursday July 21st 2011 another day at the office !

2011-07-21T20:24:00.001+01:00

Welcome to my office !

Everyday starts with a prep list that must be done for service !

The game of Russian roulette that stove top creme brulee's can be !

Passing the brulee's

Vanilla and white chocolate shots that form one component of a Chocolate platter dessert plate. A milk chocolate peanut square, chocolate Brownie and a dark chocolate tart are the other low calorie components !

Kaffier lime leaves, lemon grass and lemon juice make a lovely Lemon Posset.

10.30 am and the tea lady arrives. She used to be a super model but has let herself go a little bit in the last few years.

Lunch service starts ! 60 booked but expect 150 and you will not disappointed.

This weeks kitchen burn champion. Just oil from sealing some chicken breasts.

Richard. A chef who is a bit of a word smith.
Today's quotes from the great Philosopher.
" Co us Co us is just a vehicle for flavour Kev man "
" We ping, we bling and then we sling that's service Kev man "

Mark senior Sous Chef. Worked for Raymond Blanc.
Martin on the road to success. I hope.

2.00pm the French arrive.

Fred doing something in french.

One of the great things about working as a chef is sometimes getting the best ingredients. Wild mushrooms a pain to clean but worth it.

Ill just test one of those wild mushrooms chef just to make sure they are OK !

Swallow Fish in Sea houses own Smoked Salmon.
A dollop of horseradish and dill creme fraiche and its good to go in my stomach.

4.15 pm and after 8 hours and fifteen minutes on my feet I get to go home and lucky Martin gets to do evening service and only do a 14 hour shift. I must be teachers pet today!
" You have done nowt today Kev except take blooming photographs ! " signed the entire Kitchen Staff. Ha Ha.

ChefCam.

2011-07-15T23:12:00.000+01:00

Coming soon chef cam !

Deeside Smokehouse, Dinnet and Kinord Estate, Aboyne, Scotland.

2011-07-15T20:19:00.001+01:00

As mentioned in my previous post I had a great day at the Taste of Edinburgh food show. The show may be over but I brought a lot of produce back home to try which will keep the memories of the day circulating in my mind thanks to my taste buds.
Scotland is famous for its smoke houses and they were well represented at the show. I brought some smoked pheasant and more intriguingly some Venison Chorizo from the Deeside smokehouse which is on the Dinnet Estate in Aberdeenshire and uses traditional smoking methods using whisky soaked oak shavings. Never mind the meat Ill have a bucket of that please. Ha ha.
When I looked at the location map on their web site it painted wonderful scenic images in my head as I read the names of the nearby landmarks like Loch Kinord and Ordie. I don't imagine its on an industrial site next to the sewage works !
So today I opened the vac packed Venison and decided to make something simple with it so I choose to make a quiche. When it comes to food and more so when trying something new I think it pays to keep it simple.

Upon opening the packet that wonderful unique aroma and colour Chorizo has hit me straight away. Slicing into the meat revealed a wonderful rugged texture and then the taste O yes !
A lovely mix of spices and a little bit of heat greeted the pallet. I was in for a treat no matter what I had decided to make from this piece of magic.
Ok first up the pastry I mixed 250 grams of plain flour with 125 grams of butter. I added a pinch of salt and rubbed the lot together until it was sandy in colour and had a crumble mix like texture. I then added about a tablespoon of water and then brought the lot together in my hands as if I was the most skillful massage master in the world. If only I could do the same with a woman instead of the unarmed combat it usually resembles ! Ha ha !
When it all comes to together it should be smooth.
Wrap the pastry in cling film and let it rest in the fridge for thirty minutes.

The pastry is then rolled out and put into your tart tin. I made about six small quiches in total with this amount of pastry. Bake blind the cases with baking beads placed in them for about 10 minutes at about 180 Oc. Take the beads out and cook for a further 3 minutes. I have a friend called June who I work with at a nice staff restaurant near the quayside in Newcastle-upon-Tyne occasionally and she is a devil of a quiche maker and she never bakes her pastry blind first and it always comes out spot on. It must be witchcraft because mine never cook on the bottom when I do it that way. However I call her my Dove from Above because she is wonderful and great fun to work with so with cooking if it works for you don't change a winning formula and she has a winning formulas alright ! ha ha !
Next the filling. I use about 250 mils of double cream with two full eggs plus 2 egg yolks and a little bit of seasoning until I have enough to fill the amount of tarts required.
I tend to layer my tarts but most people will mix the filling with cheese and whatever flavouring your using the choice is yours.
So I used a small handful of cheese on the bottom of quiche then I sauteed the finely diced chorizo to release even more flavour and placed that as the middle layer and then topped it up with more cheese then poured in the egg mix. It then went back into the oven at 180 Oc for about 15 minutes until it was golden on top with a just soft pleasing wobble finish !
I let it cool for a while. I like my quiche served warm but not too hot and love it the next day when its really settled.

I boiled some new potatoes and then sauteed them until golden and crispy with a little bit of butter to serve with the quiche.
The quiche was a great way to eat the Venison Chorizo. The pastry was crispy and buttery and just melted in the mouth when it touched my tongue. The rich creamy soft filling helped complement the powerful rich flavour of the Chorizo.
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Now what to do with the smoked Pheasant ? I cannot wait.