...and that wasn't particularly good, either.

( Huffety Puffety )

If the Bill is going to carry on with this horrible sub-CSI combination of poor direction and ridiculous cutaways with their new film-look, way-too-shaky-camerawork, and occasional crappy music inserts, I for one won't be watching it any more. Total bloody rubbish. And the last remaining programme I watch on ITV. Are they trying to close themselves down?

Ireland got beat. Boo. They put up a good effort, though.

Question: how can Lasith Malinga's action be legit? His arm comes round entirely sideways. The slowmos of two dismissals look extremelyl dodgy. I assume that it is because his arm is mostly straight...but stil...it looks horrible.

Today's meal was really, really simple.

 I trimmed a couple of pork chops, and cooked them through in a little butter with some thinly sliced half-moons of onion, fresh shitake mushrooms, and a very little chopped fresh sage. When the onions are golden and translucent, the pork is also cooked through (you keep flipping the meat throughout the cooking process, and it gets delicately browned). Just as it is done, season the whole lot with salt and freshly cracked pepper. Finished with a little drizzle of white truffle oil, and allow it to rest in the pan off the heat for a couple of minutes; then, trim off the rib and chine.

I served as a sandwich (open, so you could see the lovely pile of mushroomy-oniony-yumminess on top the pork and the bottom slice of bread, but with the top slice available for ease of nomming).
 
Cor but it was yummy, and one pan!

And we gorged on strawberries from less than 7 miles away for pud.

Tags: mushroom, onion, pork, sandwich, shitake

...but

communicator (and iainjcoleman ) has made an interesting post (and comment). I thought I would follow up here.

I completely agree with Iain's comment.

 

The NHS, in particular, suffers from the worst of both worlds: top down targets of the centralized bureaucracy, but localized piecemeal commissioning which increases prices and puts responsibility in the hands of people who can't get the support they need to do their job properly.

He also touches on the serious value-for-money issue.

These two graphs

http://pics.livejournal.com/mraltariel/pic/0000qwz5/

of UK public spending in the major "public good" departments illustrate just how governments of all complexions managed the public finances from the war until the late 90s, at which point spending splurged *way* beyond the means of the productive end of the economy and now we're all suffering from the debt problem. This is not a feature of some abstract "global crisis", but about as clear a representation of total economic mismanagement in the last decade as you could expect to see. Even the turmoil of the 1970s isn't as obvious as this!

If we had been more careful over the past 10 years, we'd be able to *continue* to improve our public services over the next 10. Perhaps we'd even have done something about the widening poverty gap, or taken up Frank Field's excellent welfare reform proposals (blocked by Brown).

As it is, we will now find it hard to pay the costs of vastly increased unemployment (just as in the recessions of the 70s, 80s and 90s), not to mention the interest on that unprecedented debt. Gordon Brown suggests that we need to "grow" our way out of the current problems, and he is, of course, correct. Unfortunately, "grow" means, "increase GDP while controlling inflation", not "increase public spending and the national debt", and I see no signs of that (despite the nonsense growth projections in the last budget).

The postwar consensus is indeed broken, in a conflagration of public and private debt, and we've got a very hard twenty years ahead of us. Coming up with practical, affordable ways in which we can protect the vulnerable, help the productive sector of the economy to grow and pay down the national debt is the challenge for the next political generation. And all of this would be the UK's problem *even without* a global downturn as its backdrop.

It seems likely that David Cameron will form the next Westminster government. His reforming attitude inside the party (whittling away at the unreformed and unrepentant, who are still fighting the battles of 30 years ago), and increasingly progressive agenda give me some hope that I'll live to see the other side of this crisis; particularly if we can forge some cross-party consensus on this (perhaps with the support of some Orange Book LDs, who are not politically a million miles from the current Tory agenda).

Anyway, that's enough of that. I don't expect anyone to agree with me, and I promise I won't mention politics again.

Thinking about what to have for dinner. I've stuck a bottle of Berry Bros Extraordinary White in the fridge (cost effective everyday crisp deliciousness), and I've broken out my summer shirts, so something light is in order.

Main event is pork. I'm going to cook it off in the waterbath for about 2 hours, then finish as medaillons in the pan (so intentionally seasoning and browning the cut sides).

The trimmings, I'll make into a jus with celery, sage, rosemary, thyme and bay leaf.

With it, I'll double-vacpac some celery (i.e. vacpac into one bag, then vac pac that bag inside another bag) and cook in boiling water for about 6 minutes until just tender. Then I'll cook off a few peas in salted boiling water, and braise some little gem lettuce leaves in butter, lemon juice and seasoning. I'll toss the peas in with the lettuce when they're tender, and serve.

Nice and simple, summery and delicious.

ETA: Cooked it tonight. Slight amendment: I added a splash of cider vinegar to the pan in which I browned the meat once it was browned, to glaze. I was very pleased with it indeed. You could also do this with a cheaper cut of pork - say, slow cook a piece of belly, trim some of the fat, then brown as per the medaillons.

Not only is this a nice, simple home dinner, I'd be more than pleased to see it on a bistro menu in the summer, maybe with a few halved new potatoes for carbohydrate junkies. Food cost is quite low (especially if you go with the belly option), the meat and celery can both be prepped in advance and chilled, and just need browning/warming at service, and it has bags and bags of flavour.

Tags: celery, lettuce, peas, pork

Here's the meme, from random twitterers:

"Go to “Wikipedia.” Hit “random” and the first article you get is the name of your band. Then go to “Random Quotations” and the last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. Then, go to Flickr and click on “Explore the Last Seven Days” and the third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover."

And here's my album. I quite like it. My band is apparently named after some Bollywood film.

I've been down to London a couple of times this week, because BR is over from California to work on a project with IDG and some contributions from myself. Wednesday was very productive, and also included lunch at Wahaca and dinner at La Porte Des Indes. Friday was marginally less productive, although I did get a blog entry finished and contribute to some other discussion, so I don't feel completely under-contributory. It is looking like there's a lot more I can do next week - although a lot of that which I've been signed up for seems to not require any actual work, just noticing that "it works anyway".

Anyway, altariel came down with me on Friday, and we had a project-team dinner at The Capital, which was very excellent indeed, and possibly my second favourite restaurant. I can't remember everything we had, but a little pot of foie gras terrine with mango and suchlike exotic fruits was delicious, as was lamb with couscous. It was a beautifully balanced menu (although tending slightly towards too-many-sweet dishes at the end), and a real tour of France - from the North to the Med, and taking in French North Africa and Indochine on the way. We also stayed in the hotel for the night, and headed back Saturday morning, after a wonderful breakfast from the same restaurant (a breakfast which cost less than the one in Birmingham, and featured beautifully fresh-baked bread and pastries, wonderful eggs and general loveliness).

We had to head back relatively early, because BR and IDG were coming up to Cambridge so we could enjoy their company, and I could cook them dinner.

Here's the menu:

A shot of truffled leek and potato soup with bacon bits and fennel
Poached hen's egg with peppered asparagus soup and asparagus tips [first English asparagus of the year, sous vide tips!]
Smoked eel tian, pan-fried trout and smoked venison, with lobster consomme and rosemary flowers
Pan fried foie gras with roasted peas and fennel pollen [I just love this recipe]
Pancetta wrapped pork fillet sitting on mustard-cream pulled pork with merguez sausage, granny smith puree, sous-vide celery and crackling, with a calvados pork jus
[dropped the temperature on the water bath by 1.5C on the pork - awesome improvement; this is the near-final version of the pork dish I've been experimenting with]
Cheese - epoisse, raclette and something mild and soft and creamy whose name I've forgotten, with some sourdough bread
A shot of amaretto, amaretto chantilly cream and pomegranate seeds
Vanilla Panna Cotta with fresh raspberries and raspberry couli [Spanish raspberries, but I didn't feel like rhubarb again!]

The first three courses were accompanied by a Reisling, the foie gras with a half of a half bottle of Sauternes, and the main and cheese with a Chianti. The predessert needed no further alcohol, and we finished the Sauternes with the panna cotta. Although carefully matching a wine with each course is great, that's not really possible at home unless you're cooking for 6-8 people; one of the things I enjoy, though, is trying to match a wine that will work in different ways with several courses, and experiencing how it changes in flavour as it pairs with different foods. The Reisling, for instance, tasted quite dry but aromatic against the leek and potato and the asparagus, but picked up its sweeter notes against the fish.

I bought most of the ingredients on the market, and got home at about half past twelve. Prep, at a very gentle pace, took about 5 hours, and I had about an hour to spare, which I spent with a. and we watched a bit of RotKEE, which I hadn't actually seen before (aren't I a bad fan). Folks arrived at 7:30, and most of the dishes only required a bit of pan-action and plating, so I even got to sit at the table for a while during the meal! The 4 new tiny saucepans I bought made a massive difference to the ease of putting this stuff together. They all fit round one burner, leaving others free for pan-frying bits just before plating.

Today, we finished watching RotKEE, had a hotdog and a cake for lunch, a look at some of the church art they've collected in the Fitz (Jesus...he's gone *green*; that's what happens if you leave a corpse out in the Middle East); I slept in front of the Grand Prix, made some steak fajitas for dinner and typed this. I think that brings things up to date.

Tuesday is fish-day at the market. The fishmonger was feeling a little under the weather as he'd rather overdone it over the bank-holiday weekend, and was heading home; so we only just got there in time!

As I had 4 eggs left over from the weekend, I decided to go for a piece of natural smoked haddock and make kedgeree. The recipe makes enough for four people, from £4 worth of fish, a few eggs and a few handfuls of rice, which isn't bad.

1) Put basmati rice for four into a small pan and cover with fish stock (or water if you don't have it), a teaspoon of turmeric and a teaspoon of garam masala. Cook gently until the liquid has gone and the rice is fluffy.
2) Meanwhile - boil the 4 eggs to "just" hardboiled. I'm now going to tell you how to boil an egg; sorry. However, this is Herve This' technique, based on reason rather than superstition :-)

i) Get the water up to boiling point. You don't need to cover the eggs completely - just short will do fine
ii) If the eggs are a couple of days old, pierce the fat end with a pin so that the air pocket has somewhere to go
iii) Carefully lower the eggs into the boiling water
iv) Turn the eggs over, twice, during the cooking. This will ensure that the yolks float to the center and are nicely positioned when you come to cut them
v) In this case, we want them to be just barely cooked through, so 8 minutes is perfect.
vi) Lift out with a spoon and shock in a bowl of cold water; this is more to make them cool enough to peel than anything else
vii) Tap once, and peel carefuly, making sure you take off the thin outer membrane with the skin
viii) Cut into halves, then halve again to make quarters

3) Take the skin off your fish, check for bones and slice into small pieces; season with pepper - you don't need any more salt
4) Stir the fish through the cooked rice and leave it with the lid on for about 2 minutes
5) Tip the rice and fish into a bowl, and toss through most of the eggs, retaining a few for garnish
6) Garnish with the remaining eggs, and a twist of black pepper

If you're not considering fat content you can, at step 5) whisk in a barrel of butter and/or half-a-cow worth of cream. This makes it very tasty, but somewhat unhealthy. I resisted, and it was still delicious.

As with almost all cooking, it is about getting as much flavour into each stage as possible. For instance, you might want to brown off some onions until they were golden and add those to the rice at step one (I had intended to do that, but inadvertently left my onions in my laptop bag). I'd definitely do that if I was using water instead of the fish stock. Pale chicken stock would be a reasonable replacement for the fish stock, too. You could retain some of the crispy onions and use them as garnish.

You could also make a little mayonnaise and flavour that with curry powder, and add a dollop to the top as you serve. Another way to use up egg in the dish.

The other half of this dish is balancing the curry flavour with the smoky flavour. I prefer a gently smoked piece of fish, and then not too much of it, or it can overpower the rest of the dish.

On a whim, I bought some nice fatty slices of pork shoulder (skin on, and about 2cm thick) on the market yesterday. I seasoned with salt, vac packed them up and stuck them in the water bath overnight at 58.5C.

This lunchtime, I put the oven on to 200C, and took the pork out of the waterbath. The jus I poured into a little saucepan, and added a couple of tablespoons of cider vinegar, a splash of soy sauce, a squeeze of tomato ketchup (for that North Carolina taste), some dried chilli flakes and about 2 teaspoons of sugar, and cooked that down until it became quite a thick sauce, that tastes like a cross between HP/A1 Sauce and BBQ sauce. I cut the skin off the pork and laid that carefully in strips at one end of a roasting tin, then shredded and piled the meat at the other side of the tray, and poured the BBQ sauce over it, and cooked until the crackling crackled, and the BBQ pork was glazed and glossy.

I served up with some rice. It doesn't look fancydancy, but it is a delicious egg-day treat.

Tags: bbq, pork, recipe