Fish and Chips.

I am often left pondering the question where my love of cooking came from. Not the love of food that's very easy to see from the various shapes and sizes of the members clinging to my family tree !
No its more trying to discover who or where my desire and love to cook came from.
As a child growing up my food memories again were not of eating Spanish Tapas on holidays in the sun. Mind you most Brits probably stick to what they know by eating at the various English cafes on the Costa del fry up or the occasional Paella on the beach.
No my memories of someone who loved to cook in my family are hard to find.
My father's cooking of Sausages and mash on a Saturday where a gravy was a tin of Oxtail soup poured lovingly over the dish was not exactly the kitchen craft of an Escoffier.
Like most young children I would sit on a kitchen table dipping my finger in the cake mix bowl as my mother would occasionally make a wonderful Chocolate cake but she worked a lot so to see her at meal time was a treat. I suppose if I had a family King of the Kitchen hero at the time it might have been my Grandfather who used to greet me from school with a plate of baked beans, Birdseye Fish fingers and Chips. The Culinary excellence of this dish was not great but to watch him nearly burn down our house while he used a pan of boiling lard fat to cook Chips while holding a damp cloth just encase the pan ignited was always an boys own adventure. Terms like "get back" would come from his mouth if I got too close to the pan of Chip fat. Happy days.
My first personnel gastronomic creation memory was at the age of 11 when as a Saturday night supper treat I would try and chop as many various savoury items and mixing them with various sauces as I could find in the kitchen. I would start by dicing some cheese, chopped tomato, 1 slice of ham, 1 pickled onion, 1 pickled gherkin, half a pork pie and a 'canny bag of Tudor crisps' which I would have scrunched up in the packet. I would place them all in a mixing bowl and add a dollop ( not a squirt as the squeezy bottle had not been invented then) of salad cream, a dollop of brown sauce and tomato ketchup then mix the lot up. I would taste it as if I worked as the restaurant critic for the Sunday Times and at the time it was just like Ann Renton......lush. ( A girl I had a crush on at the time....ahhhhh another broken heart memory ! )
I would then sit crossed legged in front of the T.V all clean and shiny after my nightly bath wearing my Hong Kong Phooey pyjamas while watching Starskey and Hutch. Life was good.
To say my cooking was a bit blank between the years of 11 and 15 was an understatement until I started watching Ready Steady Cook. Yes I know not exactly inspirational Michelin star stuff but there was something about the programme that captivated me. A bag of supermarket ingredients that with just a little bit of imagination could be turned into a banquet never ceased to amaze me. I loved the show and I think it was partly responsible for me doing decidedly average with my O levels as instead of studying at the time I would rather watch the show and in particular Fern Brittan's legs ! ha ha !
I even made a meal at the time from the show called Roman Holiday Sausages that my Dad called Chef Kev's signature dish as I became quite good at making it although after 4 days straight of making it the novelty value weared off. Roman Holiday sausages was really just an Onion and a tin of tomatoes boiled. Grill some sausages and then dice them (again a skill I was good at !!!) add them to the sauce and serve with rice. It may not have sounded much but it was cutting edge in our house !
I do remember at the age of 15 or 16 when school days were running out for me buying a copy of "The caterer and Hotel keeping magazine" and seeing page after page of jobs all over the world and it was at this point I thought I would quite like to be a chef and so applied to do a catering training course at a college in West Bromwich ! It seemed from the college brochure a really trendy and cosmopolitan part of the Midlands and also far enough away from downtown Ashington at the time. Having been their now while working as a photographer I might have been a little disappointed had I gone but luckily Photography gripped me also at the time and the work of Magum Photos, William Allard at National Geographic and The Times sports photographer Chris Smith inspired me to take the Photographic path when leaving school so Celebrity Chef Kev would have to wait !
As a family we very rarely ate out but once a week it was Fish and Chip night. Normally a Friday at about 5.00pm I would wait to get some money off my dad. Mount my Blue Tomahawk bike and cycle across the park speeding up as I passed the bigger boys who were sat on the swings wearing their denim jackets with heavy metal bands neatly embroidered on them. Then slowed down a bit as I was knackered from speeding past the big boys through the streets of council houses and then as you turned the final corner the smell of deep fried food aroused my senses and their was a little shopping square where the magnificent "Kielder Fish Bar" sat like a fish and chip Mecca with a cue of followers filling the shop and beyond !
This was a proper Fish and Chip shop. Yes it did have Jumbo battered sausages and Fish patties but not a kebab, pizza or pot of curry sauce in sight. The owners (it was owned by the parents of a lad from my school days called Chris.) knew how to make proper great chips, lovely crunchy batter and the fish was so moist...emmmm.
I would take the prized goods from the pretty girl at the counter, strap them to my bike and ride home with one hand on the bag of newspaper wrapped goodies monitoring its temperature as I made the jump to light speed to get them home hot. I would sit in front of the telly watching its a Knock out while savouring every mouth full. When finished I would down in one a glass of Dandelion and burdock pop and then let out the largest burp I could manage to annoy my sister ! x
The Chip shop still goes strong today and Chris has obviously grown up and opened his own Chippy across the River Wansbeck in Stakeford and you know what they are as good as ever !

Fish and Chips and Mushy Peas.

Although the ritual of buying good fish and chips is a part of most peoples up bringing you cannot beat buying fish and chips at the seaside as you get an almost Heston Blumenthal moment while eating and getting the smells and sounds of the seascape to accompany your tingling taste buds.
However this blog post does have a recipe in it somewhere and eventually here it is for a good beer batter to help make your Fish and Chip supper. The Fish should be chunky like cod but I have used Coley before. The Chips should in my opinion be Maris pipers and if you trawl back through this blog you will find a recipe for making fluffy inside and crispy outside chips. The Mushy peas are just tinned to which I add some butter and a good splash of vinegar.

The Batter.
Mix 200gms of Plain flour, 2 Tbsp of vinegar, 300mls of beer (bud wiser is the choice of champion's ! ha ha) 1 tsp sea salt and 1 tsp of Baking powder.

Ok so I have not still found out where my love for cooking came from and I suppose I have rambled on again while trying to find out but sometimes you can over analyse things. I do know I enjoy the craft of cooking and bringing pleasure to friends, family and sometimes customers with food ! ha ah....enjoy !