Hawksmoor

Hawksmoor is flipping brilliant. 

 

If you haven’t heard that before, hear it now: Hawksmoor is flipping brilliant.

 

I don’t believe you can’t have heard that before, though.  Seriously, this has become one of London's hottest restaurants.  So much so that they've open four branches and a bar, floated on the money markets and opened a kith-and-kin mini-variation, Foxlow, aimed at providing the same quality for a wider audience.  You always, always have to book in advance – forget walk-ups, even on quiet nights these days.  And they can do all that not because I say that they're flipping brilliant, but because everyone says that they're flipping brilliant.

 

So when it came to picking a birthday dinner venue for GrubsterGirl, I could think of little better than a big, indulgent, slap-up meal at our favourite place in town: Hawksmoor Seven Dials. 

 

Opening proceedings were the starters.  For me, it was brown shrimp on toast.  Beautifully sautéed in melted butter and herbs, set on a light sourdough slice, these rocked my world.  I have had potted shrimp cold more times that I can recall, and loved them each time.  But I have never before had brown shrimp on toast warm.  This immeasurably improves them, bringing the flavour out completely and bringing the taste of the sea to life. 

 

GrubsterGirl tucked into her lobster cocktail, a big silver goblet of chopped lobster tail and Thousand Island dressing.  The key here is to get the dressing right.  Too often it's so rich that it completely masks the lobster (or shrimp, as is more common).  Here no such mistake was made.  Here it only enhanced the dish.

For mains we tucked into glorious, trick fillet steaks.  We've shared the chateaubriand on previous visits but sadly that was not to be this time – the smallest on offer came in at 950g, a cut of steak we once shared with GrubsterMummy and GrubsterDaddy and still couldn’t finish between the four of us.

 

Hawksmoor grills its steaks over charcoal and the proof is in the eating, as it were.  It's a true revelation – go to anywhere else that pan sears them and you'll instantly see the difference.  Good as they are, the charcoal roasting really adds a depth of smoky flavour that, I'm sorry, you simply cannot get from a skillet, no matter how hot you get it. 

Hawksmoor also get a lot more right beside the steaks.  I've already told you about the starts and how good they were.  But there's also the side dishes.  We had triple cooked chips (thank you, by the way, Heston for giving us these – you're a genius), although you can opt instead for fatter chips cooked in beef dripping.  Actually.  On the side we added a delectable stilton hollandaise – not to pour over the beef but to use as a dipping sauce for the chips.  If you're not into that (and you should be) then the homemade ketchup's pretty damn good too.

 

We also had bone marrow – a bargain at the price, and a beautiful addition to the steak – I recommend smearing it on like you might smear mustard or horseradish.  We also had beautiful creamed spinach. 

 

 

For pudding... Well, we were pretty done by this stage.  Proper stuffed.

 

But still we managed to cram in a couple of scoops of ice cream or sorbet – in my case blackberry, in GG's case salted caramel and popcorn.  Also, by way of celebratory treat, with coffee the staff were kind enough to give us some of their salted caramel rolos (literally to die for) with coffee.

 

 

Oh, and  I nearly forgot – cocktails.  Bloody marvellous.  I often think that a huge cocktail list in a restaurant is a bad sign – it usually suggests a desire to charge a fortune for the drinks without giving much thought to them or the food.  Hawkmoor bucks that trend entirely - here the drinks are works of art in themselves and clearly as important to the folks that run the show as the food is.  Sadly, the signature Hawksmoor Fizz has vanished from the menus, but can often be made to order by the super friendly staff.  They also mix what I am certain is the best old fashioned in London – don’t just take my word for it (and have it with rye, not bourbon – trust me on that at least). 

 

 

Price wise, it's spenny – almost painfully so.  But every mouthful, ever sip, was totally worth every single last penny.  If I'm going to splurge – and I am, I love food, why else would I write this blog – then I want it to be good.  And Hawksmoor is.  Bloody good.

 

 - GrubsterBoy -

Mushroom & Chorizo Risotto

Ever since I was a kid, on a cold, blustery night, I have always found a bowl of risotto a hearty, comforting meal.  There's something about its thick, rich flavours and textures that can always make me feel at home, safe and warm in doors. 

 

This is a recipe that a friend suggested years ago when we were all at university.  A bunch of us had rented a wee cottage up in the Highlands, in a beautiful little town called Portknockie and had spent the time wrapped up warm against the bitter December / January frosts.  I've played around with it a bit since then, but the basic premise – marrying the spicy, Moorish flavours of chorizo with the earthy goodness of mushrooms endures.

 

Ingredients:

 

½ to ¾ of a chorizo (get the real thing, the whole sausage, not sliced spicy salami)

250g chestnut mushrooms (button chestnuts work best)
25g dried mushrooms

1 white onion (I've used shallots only because they needed eating up – normally I'd use an onion)

2 garlic cloves
300g risotto rice
187ml white wine (that's a weird number but it’s conveniently – and by no means coincidentally – exactly one of those little, single serving bottles)
500ml chicken stock (or a bit more if you have it to hand)
50g salted butter
100g parmesan (plus a bit more to sprinkle on top, if that's your thing)

 

1. First, put your dried mushrooms into a jug and pour over plenty of boiling water – at least 300mls – to rehydrate them.  They need at least 10-15 minutes, so do this at the outset.

 

2. Now, chop the onions finely and the garlic very finely.  Slice the mushrooms.  Chop the chorizo into matchsticks, about a half centimetre across – you could also cube it, but I prefer matchsticks. 

 

3. Stick the chorizo in the largest frying pan you have.  It doesn’t need to have a lid.  You really, really don’t need to add any oil – I know this sounds unnatural, but very quickly the fat in the chorizo will melt out, and that's all the oil you're gonna need for this dish.

 

Once the chorizo is browned off, and lots of fat has been rendered out, remove it from the pan with a slotted spoon and put to one side. Resist the temptation to eat it as much as you possibly can. Leave behind all of the fat.

 

4. Soften, but don’t brown, the onions.  When they're almost there, add the garlic too.  The paprika from the sausage will give the whole pan a wonderful orangey hue.

 

 

5. Whilst the onions are softening, it's time to deal with your now somewhat less dry mushrooms.  Now, you want to preserve the liquor they've been in as far as humanly possible because it tastes phenomenal and we're going to use it to cook the risotto.  However, the problem you have is that dried mushrooms are covered in grit, so you want to separate that from the water (and, indeed, the 'shrooms).

 

So, first, strain the mushrooms using muslin or (in a pinch) a coffee filter paper.  I've even known people to put it through a cafetiere, but I'd be worried that (a) the mesh isn’t fine enough and (b) the mushrooms will end up tasting like coffee.  When the liquid has drained give the cloth a really good squeeze to get as much flavour out as possible. 

 

 

Next, stick the mushrooms in a sieve and give them a quick blast with water from the kettle.  You can lose this water – it's there simply to wash off any residual grit.  Put the mushrooms into the rinsed muslin / a new filter and give them another squeeze, this time preserving the water.

 

Once that's done, you should have some rehydrated dried mushrooms and a jug full of mushroom liquor.  Chop the mushrooms up medium finely.

 

 

6. Once the onions and garlic are soft, add the sliced fresh mushrooms and dried mushrooms to the pan and soften, but again try to avoid browning anything.

 

 

7. Reintroduce the chorizo to the pan, and introduce it to new friends mushrooms, garlic and onion (I actually forgot to do it at this stage, but it was far from critical).  Add the risotto rice and stir everything in, so that the rice is covered with fat.  Turn the heat all the way up for a minute or two.

 

 

8. Leaving the heat up at its highest, add the wine – all in one go.  Without stirring or even touching the rice, let the liquid cook off. 

 

9.  Now, the long, boring part.  Turn the heat down to about one-third.  Ladle by ladle (or slightly more if you like) add all of the mushroom liquor, stirring the whole mix up with each addition and cooking off each time.  At its most liquid, you should get tiny, simmering bubbles.  Once the mushroom liquor is used up, start adding the stock.  Taste it from time to time – it should take all the stock, and you may even need more / some boiling water from the kettle – but there's no harm keeping an eye on it all.  You want it just al dente. 

 

 

10. When the risotto is cooked and at your preferred level of bite, turn the heat off completely and add the butter and parmesan.  Season well with pepper, but remember that the saltiness of the stock and the parmesan will have added a lot of salt, so taste before seasoning.  Mix it all up so that the cheese and butter are fully melted and combined. 

 

 

Serve sprinkled more cheese if you like that kind of thing.

 

 

This makes a great dish for four hungry folk, or sits nicely in the fridge for a few days if you want to make something to eat through the week.

 

 - GrubsterBoy -

Franco Manca

Franco Manca is on the march.  Starting out in Brixton Village, this delightful little chain has exploded over the last year into a six-outlet group from Chiswick to Balham, from Westfield to Tottenham Court Road.  And, having sampled their pizzas, I have to say that I'm damn glad of it. 

 

The pizzas are incredible.  The sourdough base is just divine, with sticky, burnt blackness on the base from having been cooked directly on the hot bricks of a wood fired oven.  You would expect the base – being sourdough – to be thick and heavy and chewy and it is none of those things.  It's somehow light, whilst having substance; somehow tasty whilst not overpowering the toppings.  This is what pizza dough should be like.

 

 

 

The toppings themselves are pretty ace too.  Sure, there's a run of the mill cheese and tomato approach, but they also do a variety of others, constantly changing and adapting them so you're never bored of the (admittedly relatively limited) number of options. 

 

What's more, there are the specials.  Little GrubsterSister always goes for the vegetarian special (despite being a committed carnivore) because she says it's always so good.  GrubsterGirl and I both opted for the meat special, which was topped with fennel seed sausage and radicchio and other lovely stuff. 

 

 

They don’t muck around with the extras, either.  Whether it's homemade Sicilian lemonade...

 

 

...a boring old side salad made far, far less boring by being ace...

 

 

...or quite possibly the largest, most epic, most day-glo olives I have ever seen.

 

 

Well played, Franco Manca, well played.

 

 - GrubsterBoy -

Whiskey Sour

The best drinks are, without a doubt, simple.  Aside from the old fashioned, there is not a lot simpler (in my mind) than the humble whiskey sour.  Following on from a tradition of making mixed drinks to hide the harsh nature of badly distilled, cheap whiskey, it is a simple (albeit effective) mix. 

Just as a quick note, I used egg white*.  Highly controversial – apparently this makes it a Boston Sour, but whatever.  You don’t have to use this, and reputedly it's lazy cocktail-craft, but I think it improves the drink as it adds a silky texture.  Any anyway, everything's better with foam.

Ingredients (per head):

Juice of half a lemon
50ml bourbon (I've used Four Roses, which is just about the best easy-sippin' bourbon out there.  But this is a drink that can adapt to harsher, less refined bourbons – and actually benefits from it in some ways.  So you can even go as far as using good ol' Jim Beam if necessary.)
2 tsps caster sugar / 25ml simple syrup
Half the white of an egg

Put the sugar, juice and bourbon into a shaker and mix like hell until dissolved**.  Add the egg white and lots of ice and shake, rattle and roll.  When you're done, add more ice to a fresh glass and fill to the brim. 

As this is an American whiskey drink, it can only really be served with two garnishes: A fat slice of fresh orange and maraschino cherries (make them here!).

Booze and food matching?  Well, it'd be perfect to sip alongside a good ol' chilli con carne.

 - GrubsterBoy -

* I was about to say, omit this step if you're pregnant.  But, if you're making this drink and you're expecting, I'm guessing that the ingestion of raw egg is actually not your biggest problem...

** To make life easier for yourself, you could make a simply syrup for cocktail making that'll keep in the fridge for a few weeks: Heat equal parts sugar and water over a pan until the sugar's dissolved.  Allow it to cool.  Be proud of yourself. 

Quick Chilli Con Carne

Last weekend, over a big dinner en famille, I was (quite rightly) criticised for being a thoroughly impractical chef.  It's true, in a sense: I only tend to cook things that take flippin' ages.  My chilli con carne, for example, (one of my very, very favourite meals) takes approximately six to eight hours on a good day.  Longer if I'm being serious and cooking it overnight.  Another staple, sausage pasta sauce, takes at least a couple of hours.  All well and good – and I think that there are real, untapped flavours and textures that are lost without the joys of slow cooking – but hopeless for a quick supper on a Monday night.

 

Which is why I am bringing you quick chilli con carne.  It's based on my a slowly refined recipe I've developed over the years, but with a view to throwing it together when you get home from work.  And it is possible to do that with this recipe. 

 

I tend to eat this with rice or flat bread, depending on mood and/or whether I can be bothered to boil a pan of water.  To serve: Tobasco sauce, sour cream and an avocado salsa.  Guacamole works just as well, but you always have to wait for the avocadoes to ripen (even when they're marked 'ripe and ready to eat' – the biggest lie since "the cheque's in the post") which would totally undermine the quick, unplanned idea behind this dish / post.

 

Ingredients:

 

For the chilli –
500g beef mince
1.5 medium onions
3-4 cloves of garlic
2 tsps oregano (You can buy Mexican oregano from Cool Chile which is infinitely better.  I was out, however, and the regular stuff is fine.)
1 tsp ground cumin
2 tsps smoked paprika
0.5 tsp turmeric
2 fresh red chillies
500ml tomato pasata
1-2 tsps cocoa powder
1-2 tsps soft brown sugar or molasses
Chilli pepper sauce (See my note on chilli sauces.)
2 sweet green peppers
1 can of beans (Kidney is traditional, but I prefer black eyed beans for being a touch crunchier.)

 

For the salsa -
2 avocados, as ripe as you can find
The other half of the onion (that you didn’t use for the chilli)
2-4 cherry tomatoes
Handful of fresh coriander
Half the juice of a lime
Chilli sauce (Green, if you can find it.)

 

To serve
Sour cream / crème fraiche

 

 

1. Start by chopping the one and a half of onions and garlic small and getting them on the heat in a little oil.  You'll want to use a big, heavy bottomed saucepan – this is a great one-pot dish, by the way, which saves a bit on cooking.  Keep the heat nice and low to soften the onions without burning the garlic. 

 

2. Add the beef and brown it, making sure to crumble it as it goes in and break it down a little in the browning process.  You want it in crumbs. 

 

Right now it'll look (and smell) pretty unappetising.  My friend Ben, who is domestically challenged, recently said to me: "Isn’t chilli just Bolognese with kidney beans and chilli flakes?"  No.  Silly boy.  Sure, it's mince and onions and tomato, but it’s also a whole heap more.  Basically, it starts the same – sure – but that's just the base.  To that you're adding a spice palate and developing a wholly different dish.  Ben's question is basically like looking at the ingredients for Toad in the Hole and saying: "Isn't that just a sponge cake with sausages in it?"

 

 

Essentially, my point is this: You're developing the base into a Mexican-y flavour adventure.  So add whatever you think appropriate.  So fear not that it doesn’t look / smell like chilli yet – it's not.  But you're about to make it chilli.

 

3.  Add the oregano, cumin, turmeric and paprika.  This last item got left out of the ingredients team photo by accident and so deserves its own picture.  It's absolutely the daddy and deserves respect.  It's Spanish stuff which comes in two varieties: hot and sweet.  Use hot.     

 

 

If you want it hot hot, now's the time to add 0.5 to 1 tsps crushed dried chillies, or alternatively soak and add a whole dried chilli like a chipotle. 

 

Leave it for a bit to cook, toasting the spices nicely.  You see?  Already it's beginning to look like a chilli.

 

 

4. Add the pasata, fresh chillies, cocoa and sugar.  You can also add coffee if you like – a shot of espresso goes down well if you have a machine handy.  Another thing you can try is a cinnamon stick or two.  

 

Add chilli sauce at this stage – the quantity will all depend on how strong the sauce you're using is, so kinda add to taste.  Do it slowly, though: it's hard to correct an overly strong chilli.  I also lobbed in a couple of teaspoons of Trees Can't Dance's amazing chipotle paste, to give it a smoky touch as well.

 

 

5. Bring the whole mix to a gentle simmer.  Now's the waiting time: it needs about 20 mins minimum to simmer away.  In an ideal world, this is where the slow cooking bit would come it – you'd add stock / other liquid, and leave it in a low oven overnight.  But you don’t have time for that, so get it going to let the beef soften and the flavours infuse.

 

 

6. Whilst it's doing that, make the salsa.  Peel the avo's and chop them finely – about the same size you'd chop tomatoes for a regular salsa.  Chop the tomatoes and the onion mega finely.  Roughly chop the coriander. 

 

 

7. Put the salsa ingredients into a bowl and stir vigorously.  Season well with salt and pepper, add a

few dashes of chilli sauce and some of the lime juice.  Stir again, vigorously, and taste.  Repeat the seasoning until it tastes the way you like it.  Cover and leave in the fridge until the chilli's ready.

 

 

8. Returning to the chilli, after it's had about 20 mins or so, it should have reduced right down and gone an even deeper red.  You can keep it going like this as long as you like, just be sure to top up with water / beef or vegetable stock from time-to-time, to stop it becoming too thick. 

 

 

9. Chop the green peppers into chunks – about 1cm squared.  Open the beans and rinse under the cold tap.  Throw both into the pot and give them 10 mins, really just to heat up.  If you're doing rice, you probably want it to go in the pan now. 

 

 

Once the peppers and beans have had their time, you're done and ready to serve.  Basically, it's just a trick of sticking everything in a bowl and handing out forks.  Also serve with chilli sauce on the side – different people like things at different strengths, so I always aim (with varying degrees of success) to produce a relatively mild chilli then let people spice it up with sauces of different flavours.

 

 

And to drink?  Don’t be silly, there's really only two options: Mexican beer (Corona, Pacifico or Modelo, perhaps?) with a wedge of lime in it, or a big, strong, salty margarita.

 

 - GrubsterBoy -

Caravan

I was initially rather vexed that I had to go to an out-of-hours meeting in King's Cross.  To be fair, it's not exactly far away, but it is in the opposite direction to home from my place of work, and I'm never keen to get further away from home after work has ended.  However, when GrubsterGirl noted that King's Cross was also the home of Caravan, a popular small plates joint, I was somewhat appeased. 

Sadly, there was no table available when we arrived.  Not to be deterred, GrubsterGirl and I got stuck into drinks at the bar.  The bar staff were amongst the friendliest, warmest barkeep I have ever met.  Not New York friendly, which can be grating and almost intimidating, but genuinely nice.  They even found stools for us.

 

I had a pumpkin sour – basically a whiskey sour with roast pumpkin purée introduced – which was heavenly.  GrubsterGirl treated herself to a bramble cocktail, with actual jam mixed in.  Similarly aces.

Given that we were told that we would have a forty five minute wait, we opted to open proceedings early with a curried onion, yoghurt and coriander flatbread.  When it arrived it was epic.

But soon – far, far sooner than the threatened 45 minutes – we were shown to our tables.  Now, Caravan is part of the modern trend of feeding people through a series of small dishes, rather than settling for the traditional starter-main-pudding effect.  What that meant was that GG and I were able to order away to our heart's content.  Which we did.

 

One of the great things about this place is how you can, seriously, have a half dozen meals in one sitting.  For example, our opening two dishes were seaweed an marinated tofu, a delicious Japanese style dish to practice our chopstick skills on...

...and then scallop ceviche, served with grapefruit, ginger, spicy popcorn, mint and raw beansprouts (to add a bit of crunch).  This was fiery as hell but absolutely top drawer. 

The dishes by now were flowing thick and fast.  Next out came the best meatballs I have ever had in the whole world, big, thick juicy cannonballs of lamb flavoured with North African spices and apricots and set in a beautiful red sauce. 

We had a quinoa salad as well, which was decent if a little unexciting.  Nevertheless, the addition of toasted pumpkin seeds was inspired, adding bit to an otherwise slightly mushy dish.  It was also wonderfully more-ish. 

Then there was the squid, which was to die for.  Served with romesco and a massive smear of its own ink, it was properly yummy and not even the slightest bit rubbery. 

The restaurant is housed in the old grain store.  The whole area is undergoing a massive, Docklands-esque facelift that I am sure will create a buzzing and vibrant community behind the recently revamped station.  The building has been properly revitalised, including an awesome illuminated water feature out front.

The venue itself is sports the ultra-trendy industrial chic look, with massively high ceilings.  Usually, the combination of these factors strikes fear into me, as nine times out of ten it means that the room is going to be fearsomely loud.  Fortunately, this was not such a case. 

 

Caravan adds to its surroundings with cute little touches as well – whether that's the clipboard menu or the bag of flour queue number.  Classy joint, love it.

 - GrubsterBoy -