Kenwood vs KitchenAid, a year on

After the conundrum of last year I thought I'd update you as to how my relationship with my Kenwood is going. 

Actually, that's not entirely true.  It's just that I used it for the first time yesterday.  Up until now I'd been patting myself on the back at my great purchase as it gathered a year's worth of dust in the cellar.

Then, with my competitive juices flowing as I had to submit my entry for my company's cake competition (it was a butterfly cake with hideous icing) I cranked out the Kenwood.  And it's bloody marvellous.

I know the KitchenSexAids look good, but my Chef Premier did me proud. I whisked, creamed and beat to my heart's delight.  I was even able to knock-out a celebratory smoothie to round off the day. 

I was very nearly led by the KitchenAid zealots, but don't be.  It's a bit of expensive, pretty, metal.  If you can find a Kenwood on a good deal, go for it, it will do the same job at a fraction of the price.

Deliver us from Deliverance

Deliverance is a London based takeaway company.  They have their own kitchens out of which they make a scarily wide variety of food. Blithely ignoring the centuries of refinement that has culminated in some of the world's leading cuisines, they churn out Chinese, Thai, Indian, Italian and Sushi. 

In order to really cover all the bases they also offer World Classics which inter alia includes England (WTF?), Mexico, the Caribbean and France.

I find it difficult to express how many shades of awful my experiences of Deliverance have been.  Helpfully though, their website assists me, particularly their rather proud strap-line:

Deliverance is a team of people who work like mad to make sure that the most delicious possible food is delivered to your door.

Let's give that a good fisking.  Is Deliverance really a team of people?  I wonder.  A team implies a group working together, it implies humanity, intellect and initiative. 

They work like mad do they?  Having eaten their food I'd suggest that they cook like madmen.  Perhaps cooking bitter, nasty, foul tasting pad thai does require frenzied, uncontrolled activity.  But serving it to a paying customer? That speaks to me more of straight-jackets and temazepam than furious industry. 

Delicious food.  Ah, now there's the rub.  See reference to the aforementioned pad thai.  I have not reached my inconsiderable size by throwing away food I don't like.  I can power on.  Until faced with food from Deliverance.  I genuinely believe it is a travesty, but it ended up in the bin. 

And delivered to your door?  Really, ask my colleagues.  It took almost two hours for their food to arrive.  I stress their food.  Someonelse's food turned up first, confusion reigned, it was removed and eventually what they ordered turned up.

But why do I care?  Shurely I don't rely on takeaway?  Surely I'm dining out regularly at the finest of three stars, or the latest new opening, or that place down the dark alley that serves up fresh civet droppings?  Much of that is true.  But I also quite often spend late nights in the office and I need my food.

And for some bizarre reason, virtually nowhere delivers food in the centre of London.  Go into the 'burbs and you'll come across some great takeaways.  But in the centre of town, located within spitting distance of J Sheekey's, Hix Soho, Polpo and other delectables, you can't get food delivered.

I could resort to going out of the office and getting another pizza from Rossopomodoro.  I could wander up Old Compton Street to Maoz for a falafel.  But I don't want to wander.  I want to get home sharpish by doing my work, having a bite to eat and scooting.

Which brings us back to the ghastly Deliverance.  They get away with it by having no competition.  At one time Room Service was providing takeaway from a selection of decent restaurants.  I notice that one of their restaurants at the moment is Planet Hollywood. 'nuff said. So Deliverance has got no real competition and has become exceptionally lazy as a result.

It's enough to make me rethink Deliverance's strap line above.  Perhaps rather than a string of bollocks, it is in fact a call to arms.  Maybe there is a genuine business model in there somewhere, you know, people who give a shit about food delivering it to people who care what they eat. 

We could tear around making sure that what is served is, ooh, edible and then drop it round to the people who actually ordered it.  All those up for the revolution, follow me I'm off to the kitchen.

What should Howard Schultz do in London?

The news that Howard Schultz, Starbucks' Chairman is due to present the firm's financial results in London this week is interesting.  As the Telegraph points out it is because Starbucks is keen to demonstrate that the firm is a global brand.  London has been chosen for the honour because the UK is the second biggest market after the US.

I'm guessing that in the results presentation he'll be keen to push his message that they are not the evil empire - it's the week for it - and they serve really good coffee to coffee lovers.

I feel that as a Londoner and coffee lover I might be able to suggest to Howie some things he should do whilst he's in town, to take his mind off the drudgery of meeting investors:

1. Meet Gwilym Davies and James Hoffman - these two men, often in concert, are at the forefront of London's exciting coffee scene.  Not only are they making black gold sexy, they are also putting the science into coffee because they're passionate about it.  They're evangelical.  They want every cup of coffee to be the best, because they want everyone to enjoy coffee as much as they do. 
   
   I assume they share this with Howard.  If Starbucks is a global brand, Schultz must be seeking a level of homogeneity in the coffee he serves.  The same tasting coffee is not necessarily a bad thing, unless it tastes like pissenwasser.  If I knew that in every city I could get a latte as good as the one I had on Friday from The Milk Bar, I'd be very happy.
    
2. Meet me - I'd explain that I can't stand Starbucks because I can't stand the coffee.  Simple as that.  It all comes down to the product and I think it's bland and nasty.  I've sent an email to his PR and IR people to see if they've got a slot free.
    
3. Meet Silverbrowess - she'd explain that she loves Starbucks.  Really loves it.  She loves the coffee, the more syrups the better.  For her, it's all about the product.  It's perfect and her mood distinctly improves when she see the chaste mermaid.
    
4. Drink some tea - he should meet Henrietta Lovell and remember what it is to love the product you're selling and how to do the best by the people producing your raw product.

Why do I care what Starbucks does?  Because I can't help but be excited about the prospect of so much good coffee doing the rounds.  I'm a mug-half-full kind of guy, but I am also a realist and don't hold out much hope that Starbucks does actually care about the flavour and quality of the coffee it sells, despite Howard's protestations.

I do wonder whether it is possible to have a large food or drink company, that retains the elements of what made it great and is attractive to investors.  And don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against being driven by an economic imperative. There is not a single company that doesn't exist to make money.  But can an entrepreneur with a passion for food and drink can ever scale their business so that they keep others with a similar passion as happy as they keep investors?  You might as well have a go.

Howard, whilst you're here take advantage of your time.  Understand why you're loved and loathed, and then do something about it.

Cholent

Other than the religious requirement that the seventh day should be a day of rest, it makes quite of lot of pragmatic sense.  After a knackering week it's quite nice knowing that you can't do anything and should have a day of rest.  A cynical glutton might note that after a plate of cholent you're not good for much. 

Cholent, the Ashkenazi take on the mother of all stews is a bowel-thoughtful combination of beans, potatoes and meat cooked from Friday afternoon until it is eaten at Saturday lunch.

There's not a bad run-down of its history and derivations on Wikipedia, but my favorite history is Claudia Roden's in her seminal Book on Jewish Food.  Suffice to say it is a peasant dish that is open to some, but not vast interpretation.  The long cooking to abide by the laws of the Sabbath mean that robust ingredients that can stand-up to a prolonged simmer are ubiquitous.

I would like to be able to regale you with tales of my family's recipe and how it dates back to Heime Silverbrow, who like his descendants after him was a slave to his stomach, so despite fleeing the latest pogrom the Pale was throwing at him, he refined his cholent to a sublime dish.  How it had been passed down from bubbe to spoiled brat until it landed in my lap, and thence on to my table.  But it would be nothing more than a myth.

I did not grow up on a diet of cholent, I think it's fair to say its lack of refinement and the fact we didn't observe Sabbath meant it wasn't a regular on our familial table.

But things have changed and now it does get an outing, but the recipe is my own, based on others I have tasted and recipes I have read.  I had a bit of a disaster when I last made it, it was the first time in a new oven.  I've now got the recipe to a level I'm happy with.  It's a great dish, but does require a day of rest once eaten.

Serves 8

A crucial part of the recipe is what you cook it in.  I have only ever used one dish, a Le Creuset Casserole.  I know they're not cheap, but you want something with some heft if you're subjecting it to 18 hours of cooking.  In particular you need something with a lid that seals well if it is not to dry out.  The old-skool way of ensuring it didn't was sealing the lid with dough that would be baked into a seal as the dish cooked.  I've never tried it and don't intend to start.  Especially as I like to take a peek through the cooking process to check whether a top-up of water is required.

A word on the ingredients.  There is flexibility in what you include but beans of some sort and pearl barley should definitely be included, as obviously should meat and potatoes.  I'm not too militant on the beans I use, usually they're a mix of kidney, pinto, borlotti and the like.  The addition of wine is a modern affectation I quite like for flavour.  I used hot spicy paprika because it was all I had to hand.  I wonder if those of Hungarian stock might be more inclined to use a sweeter one, but the spicy kick from the hot paprika is quite invigorating I find.

UPDATE: As further proof of the flexibility of the ingredients for this wunder dish, it's worth noting that both Simon in the comments below uses beef shin as does Esther Walker's fiance and he knows a thing or two about food.  You couldn't get much further from the beef cheek I use. 

• 250g beans - soak the beans the night before you use them, don't use tinned, they'll turn to mush
• 50g of pearl barley
• 750g stewing beef cubed
• 500g beef cheek cubed
• 5 large potatoes peeled and cut into large chunks
• 1 large onion, cut into large dice
• 2 carrots, peeled and cut into large dice
• 5 cloves garlic, peeled
• 3 sprigs of thyme
• 2 bay leaves (use 1 if bay is dried)
• 1 tsp of smoked hot paprika
• 200ml red wine - I used a Barbaresco most recently
• 1.5l water - or enough to cover the contents of the pot

The cooking time is exceptionally long - that is afterall the point. I reckon that for the fully authentic Shabbat experience, you need to start cooking approximately 18 hours before you plan to eat - this excludes bean soaking time, which should be the night before you start cooking.

Lightly fry the onions, carrots and garlic in vegetable oil in the pot you're cooking the dish in.

Add salt and pepper liberally.

Drain the beans and add them and the barley on top of the vegetables.

Add the meat and the rest of the ingredients next. Add more salt and pepper, I favour being heavy handed with both.

Cover the lot with a cartouche.  If you've no idea what I'm talking about, go and watch this super-dry Aussie to learn.

I then put in the oven at 100°F and leave it.

I do check on it at various points, in particular just before I go to bed and then in the morning. If it needs a bit of a top-up of water, then add it. Bear in mind that the consistency of the dish should change significantly over the course of cooking. It will start as quite a watery stew but should end up as thick, deep rust coloured (or is that Titian red?) and gelatinous. Not gluey, there should be some moisture in it, but the end product will look very different to what you started with.

I'm quite partial to drinking it with a decent single malt.  The smokiness, even of something quite smooth, not too peaty, works well.  I've even been known to cut to the chase and empty a shot over my portion.

Chicken soup

With all this freezing weather, we've been making a lot of chicken soup lately.  Since I first wrote about it in February 2006 my recipe has evolved somewhat.  I have amended my original recipe accordingly.  So what is here, is how I now cook it.

The changes are adding the chicken carcass, increasing the number of onions and cloves of garlic and tweaking the quantity of water.  I also tend not to include a leek any more.

• 1 roaster chicken with giblets & feet
• 1 chicken carcass - try cracking some of the bones, it helps release the gelatine
• 5 onions, peeled and halved
• 1 carrot, peeled and chopped into large pieces
• 1 stick of celery, destringed and chopped into large pieces
• 1 clove of garlic, peeled
• 2 fresh bay leaves (if using dried, just use 1)
• 3-3.5l water

The method for cooking is exactly the same as in the original recipe i.e. putting the lot in the pot and letting it heat up, skim the scum and enjoy at its best the day or two after being made.

Simon Hopkinson's new column

I've just spotted that Simon Hopkinson is writing Stove Notes in Intelligent Life, The Economist's lifestyle spin-off.

The column is billed as going "beyond the received wisdom to give tips on well-loved dishes".  The first such dish is risotto.

Hopkinson reminisces about some great risotto's he's had from two particular restaurants, one in Paris, the other Burano, an island in the Veneto.  Both restaurants have different ways of making risotto, in Italy, it's adding a local freshwater fish to the stock, in Paris it's the mantecare.

I was particularly interested to read about mantecare as I'd read about mantecatura in Giorgio Locatelli's Made in Italy and I assume they are the similar techniques.  Although as with so many things Italian there seems to be a bit of disagreement as to what it is.  According to Hopkinson it's "a vigorous, final beating-in of butter".  According to Locatelli mantecatura involves beating in grana (i.e. grainy cheese like Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padana) and butter, whereas Marcella Hazan advocates parsley as well as the butter and cheese. Whichever, a bit of beating the butter seems important to good risotto.

It's nice to see with this column that the trend for interesting, intelligent food writing is going from strength to strength.

Crowd saucing salt beef

What with hailing from the shtetl (a century or so ago), perhaps my love of salt beef can be attributed to genes, or Proust.  Maybe it's just that it's very tasty when done well.  Whatever, it is one of my favourite comfort foods.  The simple thought of it makes me happy. 

It is easiest, and therefore, best cooked in large hunks, it therefore rewards the greedy or generous.  It has to be cooked for a long period, so no item of clothing or furniture lacks the telling whiff of bay, pepper and meat. 

When you finally get to eat it, your taste buds have spent the last three hours limbering up as the smell of the dish permeates the house.  As the lid is lifted off the pot you're hit with an intense waft of meaty steam.  Then out comes a glistening hunk of fatty meat.  And then the real anticipation begins.  Not just of taste, but of the cut.  Has it cooked for the right amount of time?  Are you about to get a stringy mass of meat, or lithe slices? 

And what of the taste?  Umami and a hint of salt are all you need to worry about. 

It should be self evident why I decided I really needed to turn my hand to brining and cooking the dish for myself. 

Which brings me neatly on to my first experiment and my recipe below.  Let's start at the end.  I was deeply disappointed with what I made.  It was overly salty and pretty darn tough.

The best I can say is that before carving or tasting it, I had immense satisfaction lifting it out of the pot and knowing I pickled the bugger.  It's just what came next that deflated my smugness.

Before we progress, a word about the beef.  Mine was from the blade end.  It was quite fatty and I didn't trim it.  I wonder if this is the source of error.  I'd thought that by leaving it on it would make it even more moist.  I wonder if in fact it made the meat tougher by contracting rather than relaxing the meat.  Is this bollocks?  Is it possible to have too much fat when boiling meat?

I should add for the assumption-jumpers reading this that of course I removed the fat before eating it.

So, I post this recipe here as a starting point.  It is an aide memoire for me.  I'm going to make this again and want to remember what I did first time round.  More importantly, I'm posting it here because I'd like to get your thoughts on where I went wrong.

The recipe I used was largely based on Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's in the excellent Meat.  Unfortunately, many of my cookbooks are still in storage and I was unable to dig out Arthur Schwartz's Jewish Home Cooking: Yiddish Recipes Revisited, I'm certain there must be a recipe in there.  I triangulated HFW's recipe with others I found on the internet and by scouring recipes in as many books as I could get my hands on.  The tweaks are minor - I didn't use juniper berries, he recommends them and the like.

So, in this instance more than any other I'd be delighted to get your thoughts on where I went wrong and how to ensure the salt beef of my dreams.

For the salting/brining

• 3kg brisket
• 5L water
• 500g demerera sugar
• 1.5kg salt
• 1 tsp black peppercorns
• 5 cloves
• 4 bay leaves
• 30g saltpetre

You will also need a large non-metallic container to hold the beef whilst it's brining.

Cooking the beef

• 2 bay leaves
• Bunch of thyme
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 celery stick, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic

To salt the beef

Day 1: 3kg of brisket

Put all the ingredients for the brine in a pan and bring to the boil.  The salt and sugar will dissolve.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool completely.  And remember that means completely.  Unless you want to get on first name terms with your local A&E team, you don't want your beef cooked in tepid water for the thick end of a week.  So let it cool down.

Once the brine is cool (got it, cool) put the beef into your container and cover with the brine.  You may need to weigh down the meat to stop it floating in the brine.  I used a couple of small Le Creuset dishes as you can see in my Bailey-esque photos.

Day 1: The meat just after it has gone in the brine

Day 1: The meat in brine

My 3kg of meat spent 5 days in the brine. 

As per HFW's instructions I left the brining meat in a cool room.  However, I have to admit that three days in I got cold feet and, as this was due to feed a large proportion of my nearest and dearest, I did put it in the fridge.  I knew this would slow the brining process - perhaps that was why it was so tough?  But then again, would it have been even saltier if I'd let it brine at room temperature?

Throughout the brining I checked on it regularly and over the days the beef clearly changed colour and throughout it smelt very good - spicy and of cloves.

Day 5: The meat shortly before it comes out of the brine (the weird circular indent is the mark left by something that was weighing it down)

I removed it from the brine five days after putting it in.  I had expected the meat to be quite soft, instead it was much firmer than I expected.  In my notes I wrote that it was very firm.  I did get slightly concerned at this point.  I've cooked pre-brined salt beef numerous times and that had attuned my expectations, I don't remember it being quite so stiff.  Again, my unscientific mind wondered whether the copious fat had played a part, perhaps too much of it resulted in the whole brisket toughening up in the salty brine?

The meat was also browner than I had expected. I wonder if I didn't use enough saltpetre. 

Day 5: The meat out of the brine

Nonetheless I was hopeful as I rinsed it under the tap - it was very slippery so hold tight - and then soaked it in fresh cold water for 24 hours.  I think over that period I changed the water three times.  The meat shouldn't float in this water - it's no longer chilling in the Dead Sea.

Day 5: The meat in clean, fresh water

Now comes the cooking.  Put the beef in a pot with herbs and vegetables and cover with fresh water.  As I always do, I cooked it on a low heat on the hob for approximately 3 hours.  You want it to be a rolling boil and by that I mean: the water's gently bubbling rather than furiously splashing.

And that's it.  The cooking bit I've done before and never had a problem.  This was a disaster and I'd love to know the reasons.  Did I simply not cook it long enough?  Was the brine mix wrong? Was there too much fat? Was it a mistake wimping out and putting it in the fridge?

I want to crack this, so am hoping to give it another go shortly.  Any further thoughts before then are gratefully received.