Gary Andrews

There’s nothing like a good hearty soup to warm the insides on a cold winter night and this fits the bill perfectly. It’s easy to put together, and needs minimal preparation. Make sure you include the garam masala though (or cumin or another similar spice). It gives a lovely depth in flavour and a smokey aftertaste that lingers after each mouthful. Serves 4

Ingredients

1 medium onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

2 stems celery, chopped

Garam masala

1 can chopped tomatoes

1 can butterbeans

400ml vegetable stock

Parsley

Salt and pepper (to season)

Heat a small amount of sunflower oil in a large saucepan or deep bottomed frying pan, along with the garam masala. Throw in the onions, celery and garlic and fry for 4 mins or until slightly soft and coated in the spice. Add the butterbeans with their liquid, the vegetable stock and the chopped tomatoes.

Stir and turn down the heat to low. Add the parsley and season with salt and pepper to your taste. Leave simmering for 20-30 mins. Remove from heat and blend the mixture, in batches if necessary. Return to the heat, warm through and serve with some crusty bread.

written by Gary \\ tags: butterbeans, soup, soup recipe, tomato and butterbean soup

This time of year is meant to be a time when bloggers look back at the past 12 months and look ahead to the rest of the year, or at least share their resolutions. The former I’ll do at some point, but the latter I don’t really bother with, apart from a vague commitment to cook more in 2011, and this one is a good start to the year.

It’s adapted from a lamb casserole recipe I found online. Is it a casserole or a stew? Frankly, who cares. It’s perfect for this time of year when all you want to do is hibernate. Better still, wait for a crisp, sunny day, set this cooking, go for a walk then warm up with a delicious and healthy-ish meal ready and waiting.

It’s a one-pot dish, so takes up very little washing up, and is supremely easy to put together. This serves two – if you’re cooking for four, you won’t need to increase the stock or tomatoes by much.

You’ll need:

250g-300g lamb neck fillet, diced
1 medium onion, diced
1 medium carrot, chopped
1 small leek
1 clove garlic, finely chopped or crushed
1 small butternut squash, cubed with seeds removed
400ml lamb or vegetable stock
a handful of frozen peas
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tbsp mint, chopped
flour
salt
pepper
Vegetable oil

Method

Pre-heat the oven to Gas Mark 6 / 180 C. Put your squash on an ovenproof tray, cover with olive oil and quickly roast for 10 mins to soften them up.

Roll your lamb fillets in flour so they’re lightly dusted. Heat the oil in a casserole or ovenproof pan or dish and brown off the meat on both sides. Take out of the pan and put to one side.

Put the onion, carrot, leak and squash into the casserole and slowly cook for about 7-10 mins or until the onion is lightly golden. Add the cinnamon and cook for another minute.

Put the lamb back into the pot and add the chopped tomatoes and stock. Stir the ingredients together, bring to the boil and season to taste with the salt and pepper.

Cover the pot and put into the oven. Cook for around 1 hour and 20 minutes, when you’ll want to add the peas and stir the mint into the pot. Return to the oven and cook for a further ten minutes. Remove and give it a couple of minutes to cool down before serving.

And that’s the recipe. Very simple – the only hassle is peeling and cubing the squash. Other than that, it only takes about 10 minutes to prepare and is comfort food in a dish. There’s no pictures of this, sadly, as it smelt far too good and I was hungry.

Interspersed with social media and journalism thoughts, I’ll probably be posting a few more recipes this year, if you’re ok with that. I may also be looking for guinea pigs to test out future recipes on – don’t all shout at once…

written by Gary \\ tags: butternut squash, lamb and squash stew, lamb casserole, lamb stew, recipes, winter recipes

There’s a list, somewhere, most likely in my head, of topics to write about on here. But the only thing I’ve repeatedly wanted to blog about was the amazing trout kedgeree I cooked the other week. So social media and blog analysis be damned, let’s get down to breakfast.

I know kedgeree is meant to be haddock, but I didn’t have any in the house. And I think trout works equally as well, especially with the smoky flavours. This kedgeree also has a bit of a kick to it, but the emphasis is on the flavour rather than the heat. It’s a nice lazy pick-me-up weekend breakfast or brunch (and I’m useless at measuring amounts, sorry). Serves 2.

Ingredients

2 average-size smoked trout fillets, boned.

1 large egg, hard boiled

1 bay leaf

1 glove garlic, finely chopped

1 small dash of grated ginger

Butter

1 chilli, seeded and finely chopped

1 small onion, diced (spring onions would work equally as well here).

Handful of mustard seeds

Teaspoon of Turmeric

Coriander, chopped

Lemon juice

A cup and a half of rice, preferably basmati

Method

Boil the egg for a good 5-7 minutes until it’s nice and hardboiled, then put under running cold water for a minute. Set aside.

Put the trout and bay leaf in a shallow pan, cover with water and simmer for about 5 minutes, or until the fish is cooked through. Remove the fish from the water, take off any skin, flake the trout into chunks and set aside. Put the rice into the water (add a dash of salt if you like) and boil for about 10 minutes, or until tender. Drain, and set to one side.

Melt the butter in a pan and gently fry the onion, garlic, chilli, ginger and mustard seeds until soft. Remove the shell from the egg and cut into eighths.

Add the trout and rice to the pan, along with the turmeric and a quick splash of lemon juice, and heat through. Add the egg and coriander. Serve immediately.

Delicious stuff and a great pick-me-up for the rest of the day. It’s a bit of a treat, but a relatively inexpensive one and makes a tasty lunch as well.

I could get into these traditional breakfast dishes. Anybody got a good devilled kidneys recipe?

written by Gary \\ tags: fish recipes, kedgeree, traditional breakfasts, trout kedgeree

England be darned. After four straight days of non-stop football, combined with an uneasy feeling that despite my prediction of a win Algeria would provide difficult opponents, it was time to indulge a different passion: food. Months ago I’d been offered a VIP ticket to the Taste of London food festival and nothing – not even England v Algeria – was going to stop my inner foodie running riot.

I suspect I may be one of the few people on Twitter lavishing praise on what I experienced that Friday evening.

And, yes, because I like blogging about food – and have been cooking a lot recently as well (prawn massala curry and a delicious moussaka have been particular highlights) – all I really want to do is make a few notes on tonight’s food.

Sadly, because I’m an idiot, I forgot my camera. So no pictures.

Easily the best thing sampled was Mennula’s handmade egg maccheroni with braised shoulder of Scottish lamb, pecorino and summer truffle. I can still taste it now and, despite being stuffed, could happily wolf down another plate.

Perhaps it’s because Italy is still a recent memory in my mind, but this was sensational. The pasta was as good as I’ve had anywhere and the lamb was so tender it melted into the maccheroni and onto my tongue, while the truffle just rounded everything off. What’s more, this was a simple dish with bold flavours that I could imagine tucking into at a decent trattoria. Delicious.

Following close behind was The Modern Pantry’s garlic snails with chorizo mash. Frankly, it would have taken some extremely hard work for me to dislike this dish. The snails were perfectly cooked and the garlic sauce slowly seeped into the meaty mash. A complete winner, and one I might try to do myself at some point.

If you’re talking desserts, then the torta al cioccolato con crema di mascarpone from Theo Randall was the kind of gooey chocolate heaven that makes sharing seem like a chore. We were practically snatching the pot from each other to lick out every last drop. And I’m not generally a dessert man.

Predictably Gaucho’s Argentinian black angus sirlon with humitas chimichurri was exactly what you’d expect from a Gaucho’s steak. Tender, grilled to perfection and bursting with meaty goodness. The chimchurri was a nice addition, with a crisp, fresh corn taste that nicely offset the heavier meat. Definitely one of the best steaks I’ve had over the last year.

The Cinnamon Club’s spice crushed bream with masala mash and tomato lemon sauce was the first dish we tried and set the evening up nicely. The flavours were light and playful, while the mash tingled in the mouth and complemented the fish perfectly. It was a delicious concoction, albeit one that would get outshone as the evening went on.

I enjoyed Awana’s Malaysian slow-cooked beef curry with coconut milk a lot, and there was a nice delicateness to the dish (plus it was easily the largest portion of the evening). But given other offerings on show, it trailed down into ‘quite nice’ on the list of dishes tried. A good quality curry, for sure, and no doubt a decent meal but it didn’t have the same spark as, say The Cinnamon Club’s dish. Not that it was in any way bad. I’d have happily polished it off in the restaurant with no complaints.

Bringing up the end of savoury dishes was the pan-roasted scallop with sardine pie and cauliflower puree from The Grill at The Dorchester. It wasn’t that this dish was bad, but I probably expected a little more given the restaurant’s reputation. There was nothing wrong with the perfectly done scallop nor the pie. Both were nice. But they didn’t quite sit together as a dish and I’ve had many more interesting meals involving scallops than this one.

Finally, the biggest disappointment was Asia de Cuba’s Mexican doughnuts with butterscotch sauce and mojito sorbet. Perhaps the cold rain didn’t help the rather nice sorbet aspect, but the whole dish was a bit nothing. The butterscotch barely made an appearance while the doughnuts were… doughnuts. Nice street food, I suppose, the kind of thing you’d buy on a whim from a trader on the South Bank. Given everything else we’d eaten, it just didn’t do anything for me, which is why we made a bee-line for Theo Randall’s for a second dessert.

Sadly, stomachs and funds running low meant there was no chance to try L’Anima’s rabbit Siciliana, a delicious sounding Stargezer monkfish green pea aubergine and corn curry from Busaba Eathai, and Colony’s half shell grilled scallops with chilli, garlic and yuzu butter.

I’m now heading to bed a happy man and, in what’s possibly an omen, my Sky Plus box decided not to work meaning I can’t watch England’s draw with Algeria. Clearly the food gods have decided there’s no point in spoiling my night.

written by Gary \\ tags: Taste of London food festival

What, all five of you who read this might be entitled to ask, have I been getting up to while not blogging. The answer largely involves eating. More of that to possibly follow, but one of those nights of eating involved something I’ve never tried before: cooking a three course meal. For six people. On my own. The terror!

Actually, the evening went rather well and, as it’s Christmas, I thought I’d share what I cooked on here. There should have been photos, but I’ve left my USB cable at home. Anyway, I was so busy getting the main ready, I forgot to take pictures of it.

Starter: Spicy parsnip soup

The perfect dish for a cold winter’s evening. The garam masala gives it a nice warm flavour without overpowering the vegetable, and can be served to this who don’t like their food too spicy.

You will need:

1 decent size onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed or chopped

A small knob or pinch or ginger

1 tablespoon garam masala

5-6 parsnips, peeled and roughly chopped

Olive oil

Butter

1 litre stock – chicken or vegetable is fine

1/2 litre of milk

Put a decent glug of olive oil and a knob of butter into a large saucepan and let the butter melt. Throw in the onion, garlic, ginger and garam masala and lightly fry until lightly brown and covered in the buttery, spicy mixture. Then add the parsnip (be careful not to cut the chunks too big) and make sure this is also covered in the mixture (about a couple of minutes).

Pour in the milk and the stock and a dash of salt and pepper (if you want to be fancy you can add coriander at this point) to season. Bring to the boil, then cover and let it simmer for around half an hour. Check if the parsnips are cooked through by sliding a knife in them.

Liquidise your mixture and return to the heat, and season to your taste. If you want to make it extra special, cut a few slices of crusty bread, top with Mexicana cheese and grill for a couple of minutes, then put in bread and cheese into the soup once you’ve served it up.

Main course: Slow cooked beef in Guinness with mustard and gruyere mash

A brilliantly easy dish to prepare that makes about 10 minutes to put together and can be left while you go off for a walk. Or, in my case, down the pub to watch football before coming back to make the mash. Yes, it’s that easy you can do it after a couple of pints. You’ll probably need to get the silverside from your local butcher. It won’t be cheap but it WILL taste amazing.

You will need:

1.5kg Silverside of beef

150g bacon lardons

2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced

2 medium / small onions, peeled and chopped

You can add your own vegetables at this stage as well. I used a leek in this, but sprouts, kale, or any other veg that takes your fancy would work equally as well.

1 can of Guinness

Worcester Sauce

Thyme or coriander, chopped

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Tie up your beef (you can get your butcher to do this) and season the surface. Preheat the oven to Gas mark 1 (140 C I think). Get a large oveproof casserole dish, turn the heat up on the hob, throw in a dash of olive oil and brown the meat all over for a couple of minutes. Take the meat out of the dish and put to one side.

Put the lardons in the dish and cook for a couple of minutes, then add the carrots and onion (and other veg) and gently cook for a few minutes until the onion is turning soft and brown. Put the beef back in the dish and give it a good move around in there.

Add the Guinness and a dash of Worcester Sauce and bring to the boil. Cover with a lid and put it into the oven for a couple of hours minimum. Take the lid off and leave the dish in for another hour, minimum. Make sure you check and turn the meat occasionally to ensure it browns all over.

When you take the meat out, you can use the Guinness and juices to make a tasty gravy. Remember to cut the string off and to give the meat time to settle, then get carving.

But first, you’ll need to make the mash and for that you will need:

6-12 potatoes, depending on size of potatoes and hunger of guests

Lots of butter

Milk

Salt and pepper

English wholegrain mustard

Gruyere cheese (other cheese works as well. I just happened to have Gruyere to hand.

Peel and cut your potatoes. Put in a saucepan, cover with water (add a dash of salt), bring to the boil, turn down the heat, cover with a lid and let it simmer for around 20 minutes. Check if the potatoes are cooked by sliding a knife into them. If it easily goes all the way through, you’re ready to get mashing.

Before you take your potatoes off the heat, grate your Gruyere or snap bits off so you’ve got lots of small chunks. Get your mashing implement and mash your potato down. Return to the heat and add a small dash of milk and lots of butter, as you want to get your mash nice and buttery (I tend to use James Martin’s advice and put in as much butter as you think you need, then a little bit more). Thrown in the cheese and 1-2 tablespoons of mustard plus the salt and pepper to season and keep mashing until you you’ve got a lovely creamy cheesy mustardy mash. Serve at one with the beef, vegetables and anything else you want (peas, etc).

Pudding: Zuppa Inglese

Possibly one of the easiest puddings in the world to make! You can prepare this the night before and worry about the main course the next day. If you can’t find vanilla custard, you can always use normal custard and throw in a dash of vanilla flavouring. For the brandy, the only stuff I had to hand was peach brandy, which worked well. You could also use Tia Maria (or both) and the cognac isn’t essential – really the nearest to what you have to hand works pretty well.

For the layers, if you want it really chocolatey, ignore the instruction to put some of the custard to one side and melt the chocolate into all of it. The coloured layers are purely for aesthetic reasons.

You will need:

1 litre pre-made vanilla custard

1 round sponge cake

1 cup of espresso (or good quality coffee)

150g (or one and a half slabs) of Green & Black’s dark chocolate

1 teaspoon brandy or Tia Maria

1 teaspoon Cognac (optional)

Cocoa powder

Put aside around 1/4 to 1/3 of the custard. Heat the rest in a saucepan and melt in most of the chocolate. Take off the heat once everything’s melted into a dark chocolate custard. Meanwhile, in a cup, mix together the espresso, brandy or Tia Maria and cognac.

Get a reasonable size bowl and spoon half the remaining vanilla custard in. You’ll then need to cut up the sponge cake and cover the custard with a layer of sponge. Brush the sponge with the alcoholic espresso mixture to ensure it remains moist. Repeat the layering but with the chocolate mixture. You should go chocolate custard, sponge, moisten. The last layer should be the remaining vanilla custard.

Put the trifle into the fridge and leave to cool overnight Just before serving, grate the remaining chocolate. Dust with cocoa powder and sprinkle with the grated chocolate.

So, that’s it. Three easy, non-too-time-consuming and delicious courses. You’ve got plenty of time between each t make your house look amazing. Or watch football.

And a word of warning: it’s impossible to have just one helping of the trifle.

Enjoy!

written by Gary \\ tags: beef recipe, Italian trifle, parsnip soup, recipes, silverside in Guinness, Zuppa Inglese

Or rather, just food.

S managed to get a few picture of the amazing dishes at Pearl before I gobbled them down. We didn’t get any pictures of the interior. We were too busy eating.

This was the duck breast with watermelon feta, peanuts and satay sauce. The flavour combinations were perfect and the watermelon refreshed the palate while letting the duck do its work on the tastebuds.

The duck was a nice warm up for the best course – roast monkfish with caramelised chicken wings, artichoke gnocchi, girolles  and baby artichokes. I may have already got to work on this by the time the picture was taken.

It may not look much, but boy did it pack a flavour punch. The chicken wing was a playful addition and added even more depth to the monkfish, not that any was needed. If I could only ever eat one dish in my life again, this would be a serious contender.

The lamb course was largely demolished before we thought to take a photo. And the hazlenut chocolate parfait certainly didn’t hang around long enough for the thought of a photo to even enter our minds. Both of these courses melted into the mouth and produced satisfied groans of pleasure.

I’m drooling just thinking of them now. Good job I’m not hungry, otherwise I’d be raiding the pantry instead of writing this.

written by Gary \\ tags: chocolate parfait, monkfish, Pearl restaurant

Another day, another year older. Despite my protestations, I’m actually less bothered about turning 28 than I am turning 29. At least 28 is the peak age for a top-class football. Once you reach 29, where can you go from there? 30? Whatever.

And despite other protestations that I really don’t like doing anything special, this is the third birthday in a row that’s turned pretty memorable. This year was in no small part due to the fact my lovely girlfriend whisked me off to Jun Tanaka’s Pearl for the tasting menu.

Oh. My. God. That’s all you can say, really. This may well rank as one of the best birthday experiences ever.

It came as a complete surprise. I’d just been told to turn up in Central London looking reasonably smart and that was it. I’d no idea about the sensual treats on offer.

The tasting menu wasn’t just about food. Every course came with a specially selected beer to complement the flavours.This is A Good Thing and can only be encouraged. I know a little about wines. I know a lot more about ales, and these were good ales.

Innis and Gunn I’d heard of, and had been keen to try for a while. The deep, malty toffee flavour was a perfect accompaniment to the lamb. The rest were equally delicious. The Spanish Alhambra Reserve that accompanied the monkfish stood out as a wonderfully rich-yet-balanced beer.

From start to finish the whole thing was magnificent. The pea, feta and mint foam palate cleanser to start through to the chocolate parfait, which lasted all of about 2 minutes, if that.

Inbetween came scallops, duck and watermelon, amazing monkfish, lamb so tender it melted in your mouth and a plum soup. Plus canapes.

I would attempt detailed description, but the different beers take their toll. Suffice to say, everything – from the perfectly cooked monkfish to the beer cocktails to finish – was unbelievable. I’ve eaten at decent restaurants. Nothing quite comes close to what I experienced at Pearl.

I would also provide pictures, but none of the courses hung around on our plates for detailed snaps. Especially not the chocolate parfait.

The only downside… I could easily get a taste for this kind of thing. One day, Fat Duck, I will have donated enough of my body to medical science to be able to afford your tasting menu. By that time, you may just have a table free.

[Although I seem to be making a habit of good food on my birthday. Two years ago, we wound up at The Cricket Inn at Beesands, which served up some of the most delicious, freshest seafood dishes I've ever tasted. Last year I was eating paella in Barcelona. To make up for the awfulness of turning 29 next year, perhaps I should insist on El Bulli and nothing less]

written by Gary