Limes... Pickled

Here is something which is pretty easy to prepare and to finish. There's still time for the initial processes plus a few weeks maturing to have a tasty item for home use or as a lovely gift when Christmas comes around. I made Roopa's Lime Pickle recently after trying other recipes. It really does seem to be the best I've tried so far.

Well, I've dragged you in and now comes the teaser. Once again, success relies on possession of a certain cookbook by a certain reliable cookery writer... Which means that you are going to have to stump up some cash or pull your already-purchased prized possession from its shelf. The clues to the recipe are here. If you are truly desperate, other searches will reveal alternative free instructions. I cannot guarantee that the results will be the same! After thanks to Diana Henry for having a good friend like Roopa, let me explain why you should make this one.

Seasonality is important to me. I am slightly obstinate about using fruits and vegetables at their best when they are grown and picked nearby... Our garden is my favourite supplier!

There are some concessions I will make and this is certainly one of them. Limes don't grow here (much!) so I'm already feeling less guilty. If I can then forget which season it might be in another part of our wide world, I can get on with using these bright, tangy green fruits with a clear conscience.

I enjoyed the very British necessity to compensate for lack of sun in the prep of this pickle. A microwave does that job. Then it's a session of salting rather like that for preserved lemons. The resultant mildly mashed mess looks satisfyingly authentic and, as I said, the taste is right up there with any I've tried. There are plenty of excuses to use this. Please don't just consign it to the poppadum and pickle zone.

Time to let you decide how you will make your own. If the lack of recipe offends you, I promise to make a peace offering and bring you back into the fold with my next post. Full instructions guaranteed... No teasing!

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Eyes Front!

We have been given the rather double-edged sword of peripheral vision. In certain situations a positive contribution to personal safety... In others, a window upon an uninvited and unwanted world. The latter explains my discomfort at a recent visit to a motorway services toilet facility.

Already at my business, I sensed and dismissed the arrival of someone to my left. In like fashion, the person on my right had moments before ignored my presence as I had appeared. These were busy, crowded urinals and we were all involved in the ritual of taking no notice of anyone or anything whatsoever except the state of grouting between tiles at direct eye level and pondering how soon someone might refill those plastic containers with cards offering details of erectile dysfunction remedy.

Good grief! Ruddy peripheral vision. There, try as I might to escape it, was the inescapable. Waving around next to me was a wang the size of a Sperm Whale's fluke. Colossal... Gigantic... Flapping. There was no need to seek help from a comparison site. I had to admit the unassailable fact that I was witnessing the unleashing of an organ which, according to one's bent (please, I thought, don't straighten up before I'm out of here), offered the prospect of eye-watering discomfort or painful delight. All this on display through eyes which were in no way directed at what they were seeing.

Look. Straight. Ahead. I knew that any hint of a sideways glance (Sideways... NOT downwards!) would be met by my pissing partner's eyes and his one raised eyebrow, arrogantly seeking confirmation that I'd never before been in a club which admitted such hugely impressive members. 

I foolishly considered trying to cheerfully explain my own very temporary inadequacy with stories of a recent dip in freezing British seaside waters. But I calculated that the distance of every part of the M1 from our coastline would immediately undermine my feeble excuse. There was nothing for it but to admit defeat. I half expected that my neighbour would finish his work, thump out a triumphal rhythm on his chest and turn his back to reveal a swathe of silver hair.

Beginning to shake like a drip, I started to shake off my drips. A quick pull up of my zip and I would make my escape. Even if I had caught my shrinking apology for masculinity in the fastener, I believe I would have stifled any hint of a strangled shriek and marched out manfully with never a backward glance. A slide and a snick of metallic teeth passed without problem. I could tell that the person I was desperately trying to ignore had finished as well. 

His tidying up ritual was of a different nature. No short, but careful, zip closure... He was fumbling slightly. No doubt the amount of prime fillet to be dealt was offering resistance. But he was done. And he was done with fastening his button fly. So how the hell could his bragging behemoth still be wafting around!

Ah, peripheral vision... Both a curse and a blessed relief. Of course, that belt of his was the first thing that had appeared in undefined view and the last thing to be identified as harmless and of no real threat to my silly 'manliness'. Yes, blessed relief... Still a very striking belt.

Oh, shit. All I have to cope with now is the fact that he's staring at me staring straight at his crotch... Shit.

101 Things To Do Before Next Thursday: Number 3

101 TTDBNT: Number 3 - Drink excellent coffee

Great coffee is readily available all over the place now. Starbucks, Pret a Manger, M&S Cafe, Caffe Nero, Costa... forgive me if I stick to the obvious ones. You can walk into any one of these and more and get a fix of caffeine and improve your Italian while you scan the menu.

You should know me well enough by now to understand that my first paragraph was a little playful. Drinking at any of the above outlets is certainly an occasion. Maybe you are enjoying the company of good friends or family, using free Wi-Fi for work or leisure; perhaps even talking and sorting real business with a real business associate in a relatively relaxed situation. All these can be positive, productive experiences. Of course, the one element which will be sadly missing from this experience is any suggestion of decent quality coffee.

I am perfectly at ease with that situation. All the compensatory things I've mentioned can be enjoyed completely free... just as long as you have paid for a mediocre cup of coffee.

A quick flick over to the HasBeans folder in my photos will tell you where I get my coffee kicks. That is, it shows just two years of bean orders from the magnificent  HASBEAN.CO.UK.  Their site reflects the wealth of enthusiasm and hard work which owner, Steven Leighton, brings to the world of coffee... a world in which he has become a bit of a celebrity. For a taste of his style why not start with his latest caffeine-fuelled offering over at InMyMug. Enjoy the crazy delivery and try to keep up with the barrage of information given. Oh, and don't let that accent bamboozle you... Steven is, along with the rest of them, a sad, bewildered Sunderland A.F.C. supporter!

Steven and the rest of his crew are utterly wonderful at dealing with enquiries. Emails are sometimes answered within ten minutes of sending! My most frequent dealings are through coffee orders but my kitchen set-up reflects a lot of 'previous' for equipment and sundries. 

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As far as I'm concerned the beans are always greener on the other side of the coffee shop chains. For complete accuracy, my beans are ordered freshly roasted and I just grind them when needed... but they were definitely green before that.

My exploits with 'proper' coffee are relatively young. I have still drunk more cups of instant at home, during work breaks and at other venues than the single estate varieties available through a good supplier. I now remain faithful to all things HasBean but I am aware that other classy coffee is available. You can extract flavour without the purchase of an expensive machine but do get hold of the best beans you can. It's their quality which grabs you. Look past the delightfully confusing tasting notes and just recognise huge, honest increases in the flavours they offer. Experience it at home courtesy of good suppliers or go off the beaten track to discover a coffee shop run by knowledgeable enthusiasts. Happily, more of these continue to appear.

Take my suggestions with a pinch of salt (or some bloomin' chocolate sprinkles if you must) but a world of full-on coffee flavour does exist out there. If you remain unconvinced, it will take me about ten minutes to fire up 'Miss Silvia' and pull you a shot of mind-changing espresso delight. 

And you don't have to desert the chains... they will always be there for emergencies. 

101 Things To Do Before Next Thursday: Number 2

101 TTDBNT: Number 2 - Use ghee in your cooking

I have known about ghee for almost all of my life. It appears along with tigers and pancakes in a controversial story by Helen Bannerman which was read to me many times in my days at primary school in the late 1950s. If you aren't familiar with the dodgy tale you can find more here. There are expensive early editions for sale at my favourite second-hand bookshop in Alnwick, Northumberland. I look at my own cheaper copy now and again with confused nostalgia.

Forty years on, as my love for cooking developed and expanded, there was much fretting over the best oils and fats to use for particular recipes. In the ten years since then I have explored the potential of clarified butter or ghee as alternatives. I have made my own ghee just once. It worked well but I must admit an attachment to the particular brand which I have pictured. Seeds, olives and nuts all bring their differing flavours and heat tolerances to the mix of available oils but ghee is the stuff which cuts it best in my stir fry and curry dishes. It will cope with higher temperatures and leaves a lovely, glistening slick of fat across the surface of a sauce.

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I hope I've made it clear that ghee is to be used in the right situation and not substituted for all the other oils and fats. As long as it's used occasionally and not ignored.

Oh, I also love the Thomas Keller approach to cooking lobster using Beurre Monté. That's another treatment of butter and I'll just mention it in passing here. No need for a separate page on this. Heck, I don't cook lobster that much. 

Oof... maybe cooking more lobster will be another TTDBNT. Let's wait and see.

101 Things To Do Before Next Thursday: Number 1

101 TTDBNT: Number 1 - Add chilli and mint to pineapple

Since this is the first in a series, I should perhaps make some sort of explanation (excuse) for its appearance. 

My idea was to give short, snappy reference to things which have made life happier for me at some stage. Most, but not all of them, will be to do with cooking. Some you will have tried and some you will dismiss immediately on the grounds of discrimination led by taste buds which reject particular flavours. I'm pretty sure that most 'bucket lists' should be taken with a pinch of salt. This one is definitely an indication of possibilities rather than a prescription. Initially, it reveals a few of my favourite things. What you make of or do with it is entirely up to you.

The title is immediately open to interpretation and subversion. I cannot guarantee that a hundred and one things will be thrust upon you... I might well exceed that number or, more likely, fall short of it. I certainly have a riot of recommendations buzzing around but I'll concentrate on beginning to publish them rather than count them.

Of course, next Thursday is beautifully flexible and will always be available. It just keeps coming round - so don't be disappointed and think that you've missed your chance at any stage. The only thing that might create a little urgency is scientists' predictions of a new Ice Age when Thursdays will be in short supply due to humankind's preoccupation with less mundane affairs. Let's not dwell on that one and instead make an effort to live in the moment... which for now gives you the chance to have a go at TTDBNT #1.

You'll find plenty of recipes for this but here is the one I used most recently at the end of a spicy paella and crusty bread meal.

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You can see the pineapple in various stages of the process. It was served on a glass dish and not on the worktop visible through it!

There is sweetness here; acidity, gentle spice heat and green mint vibrancy. The main impact is its lovely freshness. Perfect for a light end to summer meals including barbecues (you could sear the pineapple nicely over coals).

There, I'm done for now. Here's to another hundred of these... no rush.

Smoked Haddock, Mild Potato Curry and Poached Egg

James Martin has this recipe over at the Auntie Beeb food website but it first appears in 'Rick Stein's Fruits of the Sea'. For my instructions I rely on a 'Chef's Club' card from Tesco which I picked up about fifteen years ago.

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Smoked haddock asks for a little less urgency with immediate cooking than fresh, raw fish but, as usual, the main ingredient here was bought at 'Deep-Sea' Dean's fish van only this morning before I made it tonight for the umpteenth time.

Use that  recipe card picture or the online link. They give you the words to read and follow. I'll not do much else other than offer helpful photos of my own efforts to prod you in to having a go.

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Mustard seeds, onion and turmeric... potatoes next... joined by tomatoes and coriander

A fairly relaxed process here. There is plenty of opportunity to let elements of this dish rest during cooking. The eggs are the only last minute thing which need cooking and serving straight away.

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Haddock and eggs are treated very gently

Mustard seeds and turmeric give just the right amount of their own woody, smoky heat without overpowering the fish. You must decide how much coriander to add. I know that choice is in the realms of a 'Marmite' debate. The egg is a perfect foil to the rest. The white has a neutral, balancing, calming quality before the yolk is broken and lends a rich, luxurious coating of sauce. 

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This is a simple dish with all the elements of comfort food. But, as Rick Stein says, it has an underlying sophistication which adds that extra layer of enjoyment.

Menu

Good friends are on their way to us next week for food and a bit of a catch-up. As usual, I’ve been checking through my file which records previous offerings to our invited guests so that I can ring the changes (or repeat a sound favourite).

In the file was something which I wanted to quickly share with you. I don’t always formalise my menus with a document but this one was prepared for another couple of friends. It says much more about how my mind operates than it does about actual events.

Having said that, every single item which I carefully Microsoft Worded and then prepared made an appearance on the night except for the very final one. Mrs. Cheoff has the eyes of a hawk and can squeeze a scrotum harder than a worry ball. If truth be told, I’m a Scorpio and thus far too jealous and faithful to consider any dalliance outside of marriage.

Here is the document. Sorry, no prices… I’ve never felt competent or cheeky enough to operate commercially.

It’s still perfectly possible that we had more fun on the evening in question than you will have reading this.

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... it didn't happen (Your Honour)

Now you’ll have to excuse me while I concoct and finalise culinary diversions for next week’s guests.