Herbie

don't worry this is not a meal based entirely on the anthropomorphic car.



rather the title of this post refers to the theme governing last night's meal which i cooked for my parents. the two have just planted a herb garden so i thought i would play on this.

to start: rosemary focaccia

i had always thought baking bread took much effort (see my first post where i applauded sainsburys bakery) but my parents in this instance are a little on the fussy side (Mother). however i was proved very much wrong. i liked this recipe for its spartan ingredients list, no searching for 00 flour for me. begin by putting 1 tsp of dried yeast in 125ml of warm water. leave it for ten minutes before adding 75g of the plain flour. mix this up and then leave it for 45 minutes. being impatient i have always got bored with recipes telling you to let things rest or chill and have interfered but i knew that i would have to restrain myself in this instance. instead i took the opportunity to do other errands, in this case go and find the rosemary in the garden. this is more laborious than one might suppose due to two terriers and their homemade acid rain prompting a search for the less accessible stalks... in a different bowl allow another tsp of dried yeast to bubble in 250ml of warm water for 5-10 minutes before adding it to the original mix. then throw in all the rest (400g of plain flour, 75ml of olive oil, 3tsp of sea salt flakes and a good handful of chopped rosemary) and mix to a dough. knead this for around ten minutes and then leave it in a well oiled (as in olive oil not drunk) bowl till it doubles in size, i'd say around an hour and a half. once this is done place it in another well oiled tray, punch the air out of it and leave to rise for one more hour. sprinkle with more rosemary and sea salt before baking for 15-20 minutes at 220 degrees. mamma mia.
i really love the symoblism and mythology behind herbs. rosemary is from the greek ros marinus translating as dew of the sea for it is commonly found close to the water. for this reason it is also associated with Aphrodite who was said to have it draped around her when arising from the sea.



for main: lemon sole in an aubergine, sun dried tomato and basil robe with a mixed herb salad

i guess 'robe' is a rather weird way of putting what was really a crust. but i think crust doesn't sound so appetising and chiefly it is so called because basil is known as king of the herbs. so i gave the rather humble lemon sole a makeover with a variation on the ermine cloaked attire of the greats. saute one medium onion and one aubergine both finely chopped on a medium heat until softened. then add in two chopped tomatoes and a good few squeezes of sun dried tomato paste as well as much basil. once this is all combined lay out your sole skin side down and either place the paste at one end and roll the fish up or just cover the meat with it. into the pan in which i cooked them i also placed some cherry tomatoes on the vine, these could be added to with some garlic cloves and red onions or shallots. bake at 160 degress in a fan oven for 15 minutes or until the fish is cooked. all the supermarkets do a version of a herb salad which is pretty good value if you don't have fresh herbs in your garden, i added extra basil to it (not one for subtlety) and a dressing of balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
fact time: basil occupies a central role in the tragic tale of Boccaccio's 'Decameron', later retold by Keats as Isabella and the Pot of Basil. The young heroine Isabella falls for Lorenzo, a man beneath her social status quite different to her intended husband "some high noble and his olive trees". her brothers murder Lorenzo who then returns to Isabella in her dreams telling her where he is buried. Isabella takes his head as a souvenir and keeps it in a pot of basil watering it each day with her tears. her pot is later taken by her brothers, after which she dies in despair and grief lamenting "O cruelty, To steal my Basil-pot away from me!"



for desert: lavender ice cream with a raspberry and chambord sauce or vanilla ice cream with a raspberry, lavender and chambord sauce

i am going to put my hands up and admit that i split the custard in making the first option thus accounting for the 'or' clause. thus having run out of ingredients for ice cream i had to think on my feet and improvise. i am going to try and speak this second option up and rename it the 'speedy option' rather than the failure's. for the sauce i added a punnet of raspberries to a pan with a little water over a medium heat. to this i mixed a good gloop of runny honey for sweetness and some lavender. on this last point i urge caution. i was fearful of the lavender being unnoticeable so added the flowers of something approaching ten sprigs...this was really very unnecessary and can be summed up by dad's appraisal "it tastes like i'm eating a bucky bag". if you don't enjoy eating those bags stored in peoples drawers to keep them smelling fresh i would perhaps halve the amount i used thus avoiding any relation to pot pourri et al. once the sauce had chilled i added in a few shots of chambord for a little kick. i came over all seventies and served it up in a martini glass the ice cream submerged in a lavender bath which incidentally leads me on to my last fact: lavender was used by the Romans to bath in hence its name deriving from lavare (to wash).

what can i say i went overboard with the lavender...



to compliment the meal i would play Cat Stevens's back catalogue, he truly is a sage. oh and for a nice garnish on the table i placed a sprig of marjoram on each napkin, marjoram is the herb of happiness.

a very special relationship

america gets overlooked by chefs, it's food demonised. but hey the people love it, i investigated how many beef burgers were made every year and my results were inconclusive because the number is just too huge for anyone to have a grip on it. i decided to bring the american dream to london, the deep south to south london. this was a much more cohesive night than previous. by having a theme i could organise a more all round dinner party, or rather diner party, opposed to just a meal.
first things first though, the food!




to start: soda and bacon rashers
a starter seemed an unnecessary frippery which would leave us all a little too american (64% of adults are obese or overweight). crikey its only one night we don't need to go the whole hog and physically change. so on the table i allowed people to serve themselves to coca-cola (served ice cold as the bottle prescribes) and delve into bowls of those bacon rasher crisps. i got tescos own brand being a cheapskate but basically they're frazzles. also as i was cooking for 7 just having nibbles allowed me to not be totally crushed in the kitchen, in fact stay more like this.



for main: tex-mex and more chilli con carne with paprika chips
i am aware that chilli doesn't actually hail from north america per se but its been adopted with much gusto and thats enough for me. chilli is disliked by those who have been used to the bland gloop served at school (which is so anemic so as not to be too spicy to anyone, it really should just be called carne), and those with an aversion to kidney beans. i dealt with both such issues by banishing kidney beans (possibly because i forgot) and making sure that if anything mine would be too spicy, after all it is chilli con carne. such a name gives prominence to the spice over the meat.
i started by frying four roughly chopped red onions (richer than their common cousins), a decent amount of garlic, with a chorizo sausage chopped into chunks. if you can get a paprika spiced chorizo sausage i feel this adds to the flavour but its by no means essential. once the oils started to seep out of the chorizo, i added two packs of lean minced beef. throw in three peppers and a fresh finely chopped chilli or two. now to the spices. i added a healthy dose of ground chilli, cumin and smoked paprika. i won't dictate on measurements, just adjust to personal choice, after all america is the country of free will. then add 3 tins of chopped tomatoes and allow to bubble along. i am normally on the impatient side but i really would leave the pot on a low heat for it to get that flavour. keep checking for taste and addressing spices throughout.
to serve alongside i believed chips would be more in keeping with the theme than rice. but i did veer away from fries and instead made chunky potato wedges. i cut countless potatoes into roughly equal sized wedges before rubbing olive oil, salt and paprika all over them. pop in the oven at 200 degrees for at least 30 mins but shake them up to get them crispy on both sides. from a visit to nathans when on holiday in new york i know that cheesy chips are de rigeur so sprinkled mature cheddar over ( i could not bring myself to be so authentic as to use cheese in a tube).



to finish: sal paradise's apple pie with cookies and milk ice cream
sal paradise in on the road effectively lives off of apple pie. if its good enough for him, its good enough for me. "I ate apple pie and ice cream- it was getting better as i got deeper into Iowa, the pie bigger, the ice cream richer." well in that case Stockwell is definitely in Iowa. on the subject i found this rather amusing. http://www.ukqna.com/food/1569-2-food-ukqna.html. but thats going off on a tangent. i chopped 6 cooking apples into slices and placed on a medium heat with half a cup of water and a knob of butter. to this i threw in some muscavado sugar to take a little of the sharpness of the apples away and then a fair amount of ground cinnamon. to give another nuance i would recommend putting a splash of calvados or ameretto to the mix. let the mix bubble away before placing in a deep pan and then sealing with some shortcrust pastry. for a finishing touch use any spare pastry for a design flourish. i kept it simple with U S A but next time i intend to try and interpret Jackson Pollock.in basically every film set in america featuring a kid there will undoubtably follow cookies and milk. i don't have the machinery to whip ice cream up myself so bought a couple of pots of ben and jerry's cookie dough to serve alongside. yes i am a cheat.



this may all seem rather simple and i concede it was. but it meant i could enjoy being with my friends and not simply sweat over a hot stove. i also had the time to devote to the extras.

the table: for a cheap but cool table i bought a pack of royal blue tissue paper which i layed out like a tablecloth. i then liberally sprinkled red and white confetti stars. for placemats i bought a postcard of an american icon for each sitter. then we could say that marlon brando, marilyn monroe and audrey hepburn were at the table too.

the music: i made up an american playlist so the ears weren't left out:
1) Jolene - Dolly Parton
2) All Along The Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix
3) Home - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
4) Vogue - Madonna (she's basically the Queen over there)
5) Born In The U.S.A. - Bruce Springsteen
6) Heart of Gold - Neil Young
7) Let's Go Surfing - The Drums
8) Young Americans - David Bowie
9) L'America - The Doors
10) Graceland - Paul Simon
11) Land - Patti Smith
12) Summer of '69 - Bryan Adams
13) Blowin' In The Wind - Bob Dylan
14) Don't You (Forget About Me) - Simple Minds (not an American band but the soundtrack to The Breakfast Club)
15) Jackson - Johnny Cash, June Carter
16) Blue Moon of Kentucky - Elvis Presley
17) Surfin' U.S.A. - The Beach Boys
18) Parchment Farm Blues - Johnny Winter

the dress: i wore a white dress fit for sitting on the porch in a prarie with a red rag wrapped around my plait and blue stars pencilled on my face with eyeliner. the flag personified. my co-host Harriet dressed in levis, the ultimate american clothier.



so there you have it. the american dream is yours for a night.