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We want you to get involved. Comment, share, tweet. Let us know what you think about the places we go, or the things we do. What we have cooked Roast Shoulder of Lamb with Salsa Verde Caribbean Jerk Chicken Meatloaf Burgers The Good Egg’s Baked Eggs with Butternut Squash, Wild Garlic and Dukkah Steven's Beef, Pork & Chorizo Chili The Stir Fry That's Not A Stir Fry Where have we reviewed The Good Egg Barbecoa Patty & Bun Bones, Paris Hawksmoor Seven Dials Meat Mission Meat Liquor Ben's Canteen Honest BurgersPitt Cue CoKofmann's Kinghtsbridge What have we reviewed Keogh's Crisps How to get in touch
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To make up for being away, here's a cracking lamb recipe, just in time to take advantage of the salt marsh lamb that's coming into season, and a fresh and herby salsa verde.
A few months ago we had an excellent dinner with our friends Jon and Emily, and Jon knocked up an awesome lamb dish which Steve has been thinking about recreating ever since. Lamb doesn't feature too highly on our radar, Steve's rural Irish, farm-to-fork eating upbringing put him off the little wooly bundles of meat for a number of years, but even his old pet sheep would be in favour of this tender and delicious slow cooked feast.
The sides you can see above are roasted veggies, minted garden peas, rocket salad with a mustard and balsamic dressing and luscious mint gravy. But the star of the show is the lamb... So let's get down to it.
Roast Shoulder of Lamb
1.5/2 kg bone in shoulder of lamb
2 sprigs of rosemary
4 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp whole capers
1/2 small can of anchovies
1/2 tspn ground coriander
2 lemons
2 red onions
Salt and pepper to season
Awwwww yiss. Chopping boards.
First things first, take your lamb out of the fridge to let it come up to room temperature. I know, it doesn't do much in terms of the internal temperature of the meat, and I know that it doesn't really help with the cooking, but just do it. Now, whack your oven up to it's highest possible setting and let it get toasty hot.
Time to use some of your knife skills. You can do this in a food processor, but man that's a lot of washing up. Mince the garlic, remove the leaves from the rosemary sprigs and finely chop, repeat for the capers (the chopping, they'll only need to be removed from the jar). Mix all these with the oil and the coriander in a bowl. Now, the not-so-secret ingredient, the anchovies. These vile little creatures provide seasoning and flavour to the dish, but mostly melt away into nothing by the time it comes for you to eat. Some people, me included don't like the little buggers, but trust me, they are worth it in this, and you'll just notice the lamb is better, not the presence of tiny fishes. Chop them up like you did the rosemary and capers, i.e. super fine. Try not to gag. Add in the zest and the juice of one of your lemons and mix well, season with pepper (you almost certainly won't need salt).
Lamb scored and rubbed. And yes, I know I went a little deep with some of the scores. I forgot how sharp my knife was...
Score the fat/top side of your lamb shoulder and rub with the anchovy and rosemary paste you just made. Get it right into the scores, so the flavour will penetrate the meat. Don't be shy, slap it all on.
Now, juice the second lemon into your roasting tin or casserole dish, and add in the now juiced lemon husks and the two red onions, which you have chopped into rough quarters. These will make a little trivet for the meat and provide liquid and flavour for the long cook ahead. Here's a visual...
In case you didn't know what lemons and onions look like in a casserole dish.
Stick your lamb on top of the fruit and veggies and put on a lid (or if using a roasting tray cover tightly with foil). Into the oven, which should now be screaming hot. Turn the heat down to about 170 and, well, forget about it for a few hours. Check it, and give it a baste at the two hour mark, and then every 30 mins until it's been in for four hours, then check if it's tender by pulling it gently with a fork. If it starts to fall apart, it's done. Remove the lamb and put it in a dish or on a chopping board covered in foil to rest.
Take out the lemons, remove some of the fat (or not) and whisk in a tablespoon of flour, making sure to get all the sticky bits from the bottom and sides of the pan. When it all comes together and has started to cook down and turn a deeper brown, slosh in a pint of chicken stock and mix thoroughly, and stir till thick. Add in about a tablespoon of very finely chopped fresh mint. And you have gravy. Really awesome gravy.
Salsa Verde
Salsa before shot.
25gr basil
25gr flat leaf parsley
8 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp whole capers
1 tbsp whole grain mustard
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1/2 small can of anchovies
2 cloves garlic
Squeeze of lemon juice
Partly to use up the remaining 1/2 can of anchovies and partly because it's awesome, here's a little salsa verde to have instead of mint sauce with the lamb (don't worry, there is still mint in the gravy and in the peas you sticklers).
Chop the herbs as finely as you can, then do the same to the capers and anchovies. Mix with the minced garlic and add the rest bit by bit, tasting as you go. Balance oil with the vinegar, mustard and lemon juice until you get a nice thick sauce. You can leave it as is, or you can do as I do, and blend in a little bullet mixer thing, I think it gets a better consistency for the finished sauce, its smoother, but by going to the hassle of doing the first step by hand you don't risk adding too much oil or vinegar.
Salsa after shot.
Et voila, that's it.
Coming up next, pulled pork and homemade pickles. Om nom.
So, what better way to end the week than with a sneaky little look at the king of condiments, the ace of sauces, and the very nectar of the gods? Yes, HOT SAUCE.
We love hot sauce. Steve more than Sophie it must be admitted but, still, we both agree that there is little food in the world that isn’t improved by the judicious application of chili heat. Even ice cream. There a millions of varieties of hot sauce available, you might be lucky enough to get the chili garlic of Siracha in your local shop, or maybe you have some of the smokey naga Ribman sauces in your fridge? Or you might be left with a bottle of something with a comedy label left over from your aunt’s trip to Mexico. All are awesome, but we wanted to see if we could make our own. So we did.
For 500ml you will need:
20 scotch bonnet chilis
20 red Serrano chilis
6/7 carrots, chopped
1 red onion, chopped
4/5 cloves of garlic, minced
About 150ml of vinegar
On nom HOT!
Prepare your chilies. With a batch this size, kitchen scissors are your friend. Snip off the top and then again in half. Leave the seeds in; we’re making hot sauce people! You want to wear gloves, or wash your hands really thoroughly after this as the chili heat will literally be dripping off your fingers. Some people claim rubbing some oil on your fingers first helps, but we go with a vigorous scrub and being cautious when touching delicate parts for a few hours.
Look at all those lovely seeds...
Now take about half the chili mix, put in a small oven-proof dish and roast at about 180 for 20 minutes, until they start to take on a little colour. Actually, the easiest way to tell if they are ready is to roast until you get a little chili kick in the back of your throat when you open the oven door, HARDCORE.
While they are roasting, fry off the onions, garlic and carrots until the onions are translucent and the carrot is soft. Low heat with the lid on for about 10/15 minutes, stirring occasionally is the best way to achieve this. Whack this in your trusty blender and add the chilies. Pulse for a few seconds until they have chopped slightly and then start drizzling in vinegar, slowly. The 150ml is a guide, some chilies are more juicy depending on their ripeness, you may not need all the vinegar. We use a blend of red wine vinegar and sherry vinegar, but you should experiment to get the flavour you like. Blend until you are happy with the consistency, and return to a saucepan to simmer for about 20 minutes over a medium low heat.
The next step requires a fine sieve. We got a Kitchen Craft one from Amazon for about a tenner (here). Pass the blended sauce through the sieve, mushing the gloop left behind to squeeze out all the flavours. Bottle and leave sit for about 3/5 days before using; the flavour develops and deepens in the sauce. We’d try to get through it in about a month if you can - we’ve not experimented with what happens after that, but up till then it’s been fine for us. As with all things you cook with, if you don’t feel comfortable with it when you go to use it throw it out.
You'll have a good bit of pulp left after this, which is probably best dumped.
Now, competition time. As a special present for you, to celebrate our relaunch, we’re going to give away a large bottle of The Ribman’s Holy Fuck sauce. We’ve talked about this before, we use it in the Stir Fry that’s not a Stir Fry, and have put it on everything from toasted cheese sandwiches to plain boiled pasta. It’s pretty spicy, a blend of scotch bonnets, naga chilies and his own seasoning.
Your spicy bounty!
Just tweet us (@coolbeforeeat) with the hashtag #coolandholy, or follow us on facebook (here) and we’ll pick a winner by Friday next week. We’ll post the sauce to you, but I think we should keep this UK and Ireland only as it needs to be kept in the fridge and so we’re not sure how it would do on a longer ship.
If you don't win, do stop by The Ribman's website where you'll find his online shop.
You might have noticed from the photos on the burger recipe that we’ve moved, leaving Brixton behind for North London, a garden and a slightly easier trip up to Sophie’s parents. Brixton was great; we miss the village (particularly Honest Burgers & Franco Manco), The Trinity Arms, The White Horse and Hootenanny but most of all we miss Negril with its amazing jerk chicken. We don’t always have the time to have dinner across the other side of town, but we can try and recreate that juicy, spicy, tender and most of all tasty chicken at home!
For us, a good Jerk chicken meal has a number of different components: chicken, gravy, rice and peas, and plantain. We’re going to go through all these separate parts so you can cook up your own feast at home.
First things first, let’s tackle the chicken.
Jerk Chicken
To serve 4, you’ll need –
Chicken, two to three pieces per person
1 & 1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tbsp fresh thyme
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cracked black pepper
2 tbsp dark soy
Juice 1 lime
4 spring onions
3 scotch bonnet chilies
A thumb sized piece of ginger
4 cloves of garlic
Welcome back chopping board shot!
Scotch bonnets are important, the heat and flavour you get from them is really important to the jerk and cannot really be replicated. Luckily Tesco’s stock them, as do lots of corner shops so they shouldn’t be too hard to pick up. Wear gloves or wash hands really well after touching them though as the heat sticks to your fingers for hours and touching your eye, or anywhere else will result in a nasty stinging pain. Trust me, I’m speaking from experience. Finely chop these, seeds and all along with the spring onions.
Ginger and garlic are not traditionally part of jerk recipes, but we’ve found they add a little sweetness and another layer of flavour. Mince the garlic and grate your ginger, but if you don’t like either of these, then leave them out. Combine with all the other ingredients and mix until you get an even paste.
Resist the urge to eat the paste.
Jerk can be made with pretty much any chicken part but we prefer to use thighs and drumsticks because of the increased surface area for the jerk. We find these are also so much juicier. You can use breasts if you want but try to leave the skin on as it crisps up nicely in the oven and the taste is fantastic.
Pop your chicken pieces into a zip top bag along with your jerk paste and mix well, making sure all the chicken is covered. Leave in the fridge for about 2 hours or longer if you have time. Overnight would be cracking.
Zip top bags, is there anything they can't do...
When the chicken has had a chance to take on all that flavour, lay on a wire rack on a baking tray and put in a preheated oven. We do 20 minutes at 180 and 20 at 200. This is because we want the chicken to cook through and stay moist, but we also want to get nice crispy skin without burning. By cooking at 180 we get some of the fat out of the meat allowing the higher temperature to not burn/smoke the pieces too much which would alter the flavour. At least, Steven has convinced himself this helps. If you are not neurotic, stick it on at 200 for 30 minutes, and check if it is done using a thermometer or by seeing if the juices are clear.
Before...
Leave to cool a little (these pieces are for eating with fingers) and then serve. But what to serve it with?
Jerk Gravy
This is pre-reduction.
This sauce is the perfect accompaniment for the jerk chicken, bringing back in some of the juice lost in the cooking process. You will need:
500 ml chicken stock
1 generous pinch of chilli flakes
Few sprigs of fresh Thyme
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp all spice
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tbsp brown sugar
1 clove of garlic
Simply enough, combine everything in a pan and leave to gently simmer and reduce which will bring all those lovely flavours together. We’re aiming to reduce the sauce by about half of its original volume. At this point, you want to strain the sauce through a sieve to remove the cloves and any other bits. We like the sauce quite thin, but if you are after something a bit thicker then you can add some cornflower or Xanthan gum to bulk it up. You don’t want to add either directly to the sauce as it will make it go lumpy. Instead, first mix a little with some water and then add while the sauce is off the heat. Gently bring back to the boil whilst constantly stirring.
Here's what you are looking for, this is un-thickened it's simply reduced down.
Rice and Peas
Time for the carbs. Rice and peas make excellent comfort food, and taste amazing. Slightly sticky and really aromatic, this simple side dish will knock your socks off. They also help cool down your mouth if the jerk is too spicy for you!
1 can coconut milk
1 can Dunn’s River Peas and Beans (or kidney beans are fine)
2 spring onions
1 scotch bonnet chili
4-5 springs of thyme
300 gr Rice
All in the pot.
Put the coconut milk and about a litre of water into a saucepan. Don’t worry if the milk is a little lumpy, this is totally normal and will disappear as you stir and heat. Next, bruise the spring onions and chop into three adding to the milk/water mix. Drop in the thyme and the scotch bonnet, leaving the chili whole so you can pull it back out after everything is cooked.
For the peas we use cans of Dunn’s River Peas and Beans which we found in the Caribbean section of our local supermarket. You can use gungo peas, or if you can’t find these, just standard red kidney beans will be fine too. Dump them into the pan with the rice and stir well to mix everything. Cook for 20/30 minutes on a low heat until the rice becomes a soft and a little sticky. Pick out the thyme stalks, the chili and any large bits of spring onion and you are ready to go!
The smell in your kitchen at this point will be driving you mad.
Plantain
These banana looking lovelies are so under-rated, and make an excellent snack on their own too!
The last component of our Caribbean feast is plantain. It is really easy to prepare and hardly needs a recipe. Our main tip here is to make sure the plantain is nice and ripe; if it’s too hard it won’t taste very nice. Take a bunch of 3 or 4, peel, half and then cut into inch long pieces. Fry off in a pan over medium heat until they start to brown (you may have to do this in batches) and then put in the oven for about 10 minutes to cook through.
Finally, plate up! We like to serve with a little of our hot sauce on the side, so people can bump up the heat a bit more if they want to. The smell of the chicken as it comes out of the oven is awesome, once you try this, you will want to have it again and again and again.
If you don't fancy cooking this at home, then we do recommend you pop to Negril, the site is a bit crap, but it has the address and the menu online, so what more do you want!
Like most people we, at Cool Before Eating, like burgers. We are in the camp that says 100% pure beef, minced well and formed into quarter inch thick patties are the burger standard, but we also like to mix things up a little and think that flavour in burgers isn’t just for the toppings. We’ve got a couple of ideas which we use every now and again, but they build on our standard burger base which Steve calls his meatloaf burger because it takes some cues from him Mom’s recipe for meatloaf, a favourite childhood meal.
So, what will you need? This makes 6 medium sized burgers
500 g of minced beef
30 g of breadcrumbs (we use panko, but any will do, just make sure they are really fine)
1 whole egg
1 tsp of chinese five-spice
1 tsp of smoked paprika
And that’s it. Combine the ingredients in a large bowl, and mix until everything is incorporated and smooth. The five-spice and the paprika add a fresh and smoky flavour to the beef and the breadcrumbs help to retain juices from cooking. The egg binds the mix together allowing you to form smooth balls of mixture which you then press into flat discs.
Before....
After....
Press a thumb into the disc as shown in the photos to keep them flattish so they will cook more evenly and then grill on a barbeque over direct heat for 1 to 2 minutes on each side to form a crust. Next, shift the burger to the indirect side of the BBQ to cook through. You’ll want to cook to at least medium which, if you have a temperature probe, will be 135-150F. Medium well would be 150-165F and well 165F+.
Take a medium-sized handful of meat, roll between palms to form a ball and then press flat and stick your thumb in a little to create an indentation.
Serve on a bun with cheese, lettuce, pickle and whatever sauce you like (we’ll have a hot sauce and a barbeque sauce recipe up soon) and eat heartily. Sorry for having no after pics, but these things don't tend to last too long once they come off the grill.
Other Ideas:
Pickle burgers - add in some finely diced sharp pickles when mixing, and try to press the pieces into the formed burger to prevent them from catching on the heat. The crunch and juice add a great additional texture and flavour.
Juicy Lucys - Steve thought he invented this only to be proved wrong by Man v Food and Daniel Young in the past week. Traditionally you take two burgers, about half the size of the finished item, and press flatter. Then, sandwich your cheese between two patties and press the edges to seal like a tortellini. Be careful not to overstuff though! When grilled, the cheese melts into gooey unctuous awesomeness, so that seal is important to keep the flavour in. Our preferred cheese is that crappy Austrian smoked stuff in the brown plastic roll you find in supermarkets fridges up and down the country. You can see professionals cooking up these awesome burgers at Daniel’s Young And Foodish Canada Day Burger Monday on July 1st (details here)
A final note on beef - Bog standard minced beef from a supermarket is fine, but try not to get the extra lean stuff. It’s ok for knocking-up a bolognaise where the meat is cooked in sauce but when making burgers you want some fat to keep it juicy. If you’re feeling adventurous, and want properly awesome burgers, we recommend buying a little hand-cranked meat grinder to make your own mince.
We ordered some bavette and chuck for a recent batch (two parts chuck to one part bavette) and they were fantastic. The chuck is nice and fatty, with the bavette bringing a rich beefy offal flavour. To turn this into mince, you want to pass the meat through a coarse grind, then mix it together and pass through a second time. The results are more than worth the effort, we promise. Plus, if you grind your own meat, and keep your surfaces and grinder sterile you can, in theory and entirely at your own risk, have the pleasure of a medium rare or rare burger.
Finally, for extra decadence, take some split bone marrow shafts and scoop out the middle. Cube roughly, but small, maybe 5mm by 5mm and mix through the burger. The marrow bastes the meat from the inside out, and give even more beef flavour to your burger.
Worth the effort, but may require additional assistance, in this case from Steve's dad...
Yup, cool before eating has had a bad month. Between house hunting, moving house, work trips to Kyrgyzstan (see below) and family weddings in Ibiza, we've just not have much time. We're sorry. Truly.
Normal service will resume shortly and we'll be talking about Disco Bistro's burgers, Michel Roux Jr's Menu Exceptionelle and cooking up a storm in the new kitchen and giving you a guide to barbecuing so that you can get the most of the the British Summer. We think you are going to like our burger recipe.
The Good Egg’s Baked Eggs with Butternut Squash, Wild Garlic and Dukkah
We love The Good Egg, so much so that we asked Joel to do the first in our series of guest recipes. These eggs are the perfect thing to cook over the Easter Weekend, and much tastier than their standard sickly chocolate cousins.
The Good Egg’s Baked Eggs with Butternut Squash, Wild Garlic and Dukkah
I was lucky enough to be given a bag of wild garlic this week by my friend Rachel (@TheBreamTeam) which she found on a foraging trip to a park in Tower Hamlets! It works brilliantly with the yoghurt and squash in this baked egg dish. If you can’t get hold of any then spinach or baby spinach sauteed with a little bit of garlic will work really well too. Dukkah is a north african spice and nut mix which you can find in some supermarkets and specialist food shops. If you fancy making your own there are hundreds of recipes online and you can play around with which nuts and spices you use to suit your own taste.
Serves 2
Ingredients
200g Roasted Butternut Squash (see Method 1 below)
A large bunch of wild garlic leaves
250g Natural yoghurt (low fat is fine)
Two large free range eggs
50g feta cheese
2-3 tsp Dukkah
cumin seeds
salt & pepper
olive oil
knob of butter (optional)
Sourdough bread and fresh leaves to serve.
Method
1. First of all take a whole butternut squash, scrape out the seeds and chop up into rough wedges of 1-2 inches, leaving the skin on. Chuck them all into a bowl with some salt, pepper, a small handful of cumin seeds, a drizzle of olive oil and toss until everything is nicely coated. Lay them out skin side down on a tray lined with baking parchment and roast at 200°C for around 20 minutes or until the pieces have nice brown edges and feel soft when you squeeze them. This can be done in advance and the spare wedges are great in salads and make an amazing roasted squash soup.
2. Pre-heat your oven to 180°C and melt a knob of butter or a small amount of oil in a frying pan over a medium heat. Throw in the wild garlic or spinach and saute for a minute until limp then take off the heat.
3. Weigh out your roasted squash and arrange the pieces in an oven dish which comfortably fits them all in. Drape the wilted garlic leaves over the squash.
4. Season the yoghurt with salt and pepper and spoon it over the squash and garlic.
5. Make a well on each side of the dish and crack the eggs into the mixture
6. Crumble the feta and sprinkle the dukkah over the whole dish and bake in the oven for around 20 minutes so that the egg whites are set but the yolks are still nice and runny
7. Serve immediately with a fresh green salad dressed with olive oil and lemon and some toasted crusty bread for dipping.
If you fancy something a bit spicy try serving with some grilled chorizo or merguez sausages on the side.
The Good Egg are on facebook, @TheGoodEgg_ and hello.thegoodeggco.com, where they will let you know where they are in the real world that week.
There are some things no one ever wants to do: taxes; peel off own face; explain death to a small child holding a hamster…… that kind of thing. In my world there are two more: get out of bed after a long night of drinking to celebrate my birthday; and running the risk of having to write a bad review of food cooked by a friend. So with a grimace I faced the world.
The Good Egg serves, well, eggs. Options are omelette wraps, huevos rancheros and shakshuka, served up fresh by Joel and Alex. They have just started up, and are making the rounds of the street food markets, plying their all day breakfast wares on the unsuspecting people of London.
For those of you outside of the North African/Middle Eastern home of shakshuka, you’d be forgiven for never having heard of it. It is essentially eggs poached in a spiced sauce. The Good Egg guys use tomato, onion and peppers, along with what will only be revealed as “herbs and spices” to build theirs. It’s a vibrant red and the smell grabs you as you walk past the stand.
Excellently fresh potential chicken offspring are simply dropped in the sauce with a sprinkle of sumac before the lid is stuck on to let everything cook together. A wrap is tucked into the box to hold everything together and soak up the juices, and then a spoon of preserved lemon yoghurt, some optional chorizo and a little more fresh coriander to liven everything up.
This is the kind of breakfast that you will get out of bed for. The eggs are perfectly runny, breaking the yolk releases more richness into the sauce but also solidifies parts of the yolk to add a really pleasant texture. The sauce itself is mildly spiced and nicely sweet which is great with the smoky chorizo and the tang of the lemon yoghurt. There was little talking done until after we had finished which is always a good sign when Sophie and I are eating.
For two shakshukas, with an extra egg each and chorizo we paid £12.
It’s a relief when you eat someplace you have been looking forward to, and it turns out to be as good as you hoped. And looking forward to someplace might be because of a reputation, or because of a recommendation, or because you know the people involved. Luckily, The Good Egg isn’t just a food stall being run by a friend, it’s a really good food stall being run by a friend. So good in fact, we’ve asked Joel to write us up a guest recipe which we’ll have up soon. Now, if only we could convince him and Alex to move in so they can cook us breakfast every morning.
Hits: Shakshuka. But only because we haven’t eaten the omelettes.
Misses: None really, if I wanted to be picky I’d have put a little more heat in mine, but I have been eating a lot of Judas Is Scary Hot lately, so I think I have altered my perception of what spicy is…
The Good Egg are on facebook, @TheGoodEgg_ and hello.thegoodeggco.com, where they will let you know where they are in the real world that week.
First things first; I just noticed the photos are terrible. I’ll take more the next time I cook a batch and replace them. Sorry!
Chili is one of my favorite things to cook and eat. There is something really satisfying about a big bowl of meat, beans and spices. This version is my current go-to; it’s warming and hearty with a nice kick.
I cook mine in stages over about 2 days. I think the time is really worth it as the flavor is vastly improved but I’ll let you know as we go which bits you can take out.
Day One: Preparing the Meat
Ingredients
750 g diced stewing beef or braising steak
750 g diced pork, preferably chump
100 g cooking chorizo
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ginger
3 tsp cayenne chili powder
2 tsp hot chili powder
2 tsp smoked paprika, either hot or sweet
½ bottle of beer
I buy my meat diced, rather than minced, as I find that mince is a little too broken down to give a good bite in the end. You want chili to be more stew-like rather than smooth or bolognaise-like. Get out the trusted food processor and pulse the meat in batches - about 10 times per batch, or until the chunks are smaller, and more ragged. You can skip this step and use mince but once you try it this way, you’ll almost certainly not look back. It’s totally worth the extra effort.
Transfer the meat to a bowl and rub in the chorizo. Cooking chorizo is soft and buttery allowing you to get all the flavor and fat incorporated into the other meat. If you can’t get cooking chorizo use regular chorizo but cut it into chunks and pulse it too. Now add your spices. Mix everything well so all the meat is coated. I do this before adding the liquid so I can get everything rubbed in well. You can use whatever you prefer but I like a nice hoppy ale, in this case Brooklyn Brewery’s East India Pale Ale. As with wine never cook with a beer that you wouldn’t drink yourself.
Cover the bowl and move to a fridge for at least 4 hours. Overnight would be best.
Day Two: Dawn of the Red
Marinated Meat
1 white onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, chopped
4 flat mushrooms, chopped
250 g chestnut mushrooms, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 sticks celery chopped
1 can tomatoes, chopped
1 can kidney beans, drained
1 can white beans, drained
1 red chili
1 scotch bonnet chili
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp cumin
2 tbsp hot sauce
2/3 bay leaves
It’s time to assemble the chili. Get your biggest casserole or lasagna dish and stick it someplace nearby. Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan and get the onions and garlic cooking down until they are golden brown. This should take about 20/30 minutes on a very low heat. Add the carrots and celery for the last 10 minutes of cooking to develop a little sweetness. Move all this veg mixture to the casserole.
We will fry the meat in batches making sure to avoid getting lots of the marinating liquid into the pan which would prevent browning. Don’t worry about cooking through; what we want here is to develop a bit of a crust on the surface.
When all the meat is fried and mixed with the onions, garlic, carrots and celery go ahead and fry off the mushrooms, again, making sure you are not overcrowding them in the pan. They should soak up a lot of the flavor from the pan and will add a great texture to your finished chili. With all the constituent parts cooked up I like to build my sauce in the frying pan to make sure no flavor is left behind.
Add the tomatoes, fry quickly and then pour in the beer. Work your spatula around the pan, making sure to release all the dark roasted bit into the sauce and then add this to the casserole. I like to add my beans at this stage and use white beans as well as kidney beans for a bit of variety. I also add my spices along with the red chili, deseeded and sliced finely, and the scotch bonnet and bay leaves. These last two ingredients will be taken out before serving.
Stick the lid on the casserole and whack it in the oven for about 4/5 hours at 160/180 degrees Celsius. Low and slow is the name of the game; give all those flavors time to mix and work together. You can leave it for longer or cool and keep in the fridge for a day or so before reheating. This just gets better the longer you can leave it. I personally cook up a batch on a Saturday and Sunday, then refrigerate some for dinner the next week, and freeze the rest.
Whatever you decide to do with it, just before you serve grate a little dark chocolate in - it adds sweetness and a shine to your sauce. I like the rice and crusty bread route, but it’s equally at home on a baked potato, with chips, or in a bowl on its own.
So, there it is. I know it’s a bit late for a winter warmer and I know that it’s a bit of a labor of love, but if your only experience of chili is bland mince and beans in a shiny red sauce, trust me, try this and you will never look back.
I love barbeque in all its forms, with all its faults and failings. Our major hit list for our new house is topped by the requirement to have a garden so I can realize my dreams of not only charcoal barbeque, but also building my own U.D.S. for 16 hour pulled pork and meltingly awesome slow cooked brisket. So when our friend Gregg’s birthday was arranged for Barbecoa, I was equally delighted and wary.
Barbecoa is Jamie Oliver and Adam Perry Lang’s fancy, not so new anymore, ‘barbecue steakhouse’ at 20 New Change Passage, just behind St. Paul’s in London. It’s a modern temple to smoking and grilling meat, with the glass encasing the kitchen area reminiscent of the view outside of the dome and walls of the old church. Or maybe that’s just me.
It certainly looks luxurious; tables are hewn from wood and stone, seating is on achingly cool leather banquettes, there is elegant low lighting and expensive looking interior design abounding all over the dining room. The room itself wraps around the previously mentioned kitchen, which looks to be divided into a smoking station, a more traditional kitchen and a big bread oven.
Coats deposited our group made our way to the assigned table and considered the food based options. Service was good; a little brusque, but the night was particularly busy. We opted to share some of the Bread, Nibbles and Pickles for starters. Olives were bright green Cerignola’s I think, nicely sharp and salty, and came served on a bed of ice. The pickled veg were pickled veg. Not much to say about them really. The bread was interestingly presented, stacked and skewered on a board which led to us almost missing out on the doorstop of dark brown rye bread on the bottom of the pile, having dismissed it as part of the presentation. What a shame that would have been – it was deliciously rich and sweet. The stand out starter though was the crispy pork scratchings served with apple and thyme sauce. They were excellently porky and salty, giving a good indication of the meat offerings to come.
I ended up picking the pulled pork; a good test of a pit man’s ability with Sophie choosing the pit beef, another pulled pork for Jodie and a couple of steaks rounding out the rest of our table’s order. In terms of sides, there were some baked beans, duck fat chips, and some wood fired mushrooms ordered.
The meat that Soph and I had was a bit of a disappointment. Now, don’t get me wrong, it was cooked well, tender and moist, and had a nice smoky flavor. But both were doused in a sweet barbecue sauce which overpowered the rest of the dish. As Gregg put it himself, it was a little hard to know with just the meat if you were eating in TGI, or Barbecoa. It was the same kind of overly sweet sticky sauce that masked the flavor of everything else. The sides did help to elevate the smokier offerings - the jalapeño muffin with the pork was great and the pit beans were excellent. It’s just a shame that the main event was a bit of a letdown all because of a sauce.
That said, the steaks looked amazing and given APL’s pedigree in selecting and cooking beef, it’s not surprising. However, I would be surprised if they manage to beat the Hawksmoor in terms of flavor.
All in all it was a fine meal, coming in at about £300 for food for five, plus two bottles of nice red wine.
Hits: The pork crackling is excellent, as are the beans: Simple food, done awesomely.
Misses: The saucing of the barbecue main courses detracts from the dish, rather than adding flavor. A real shame.
Barbecoa is at www.barbecoa.com, @Barbecoa_london and in the real world at 20 New Change Passage, EC4M 9AG.
For those of you who haven’t picked up on it yet, I am a full-blooded Irishman. I love hurling, drink my tea strong with sugar, hate the English rugby team and still have a twinge of guilt for not being in mass on Sunday’s. Having lived in London now for three years, and decided to make my home here, there are a few things I miss from home. Club Rock Shandy, homemade brown bread and apple tart, Clonakilty sausages, and Irish crisps.
The Irish crisp is a thing to behold. Golden fried slices of potato, heavily seasoned with cheese, onion, smoky bacon, salt and vinegar, they put Walkers crisps to shame. Loyalties are divided over which is the best brand, is it King, Tayto or Hunky Dory, and it’s said you can tell a lot about a man, or woman, based on the brand they choose. It’s the one area of snacking food that is still relentlessly and traditionally Irish, most other things are internationally homogenized, but our crisps are our own.
Imagine my delight then a few weeks ago, when I was asked to review a new contender, Keogh’s crisps, a brand I have never heard of before. They are currently launching in the UK, and have concocted a limited edition Sour Cream and Shamrock crisp to celebrate St Patrick’s Day.
First things first, these look great, thin slices of potato, fried golden and flecked with green shamrock seasoning. Cut with the skin on, they look, and smell amazing from the moment you open the bag.
It goes without saying that a crisp should be, crisp. These have a great snap, and have none of the greasy-ness you get with other brands of crisp. In terms of the flavor, the first thing that hits you is a big whack of sour cream, quickly giving way to a great onion and almost chive flavor. There’s a little garlic, a bit of cheese, and just enough salt to make them more-ish.
Keogh’s have an interesting story, they farm, cook and sell their own potatoes. You can see the field your potatoes grew in by typing the spud nav code on the bag into their website. I think the crisp business is a new departure for the 200 year old family run potato farm.
So, are Shamrock flavor crisps a gimmick? Probably. But they’re a worthwhile one, these crisps are really tasty. I cannot wait to try the other flavours, Roast Beef and Irish Stout, Dubliner Irish Cheese and Onion and Atlantic Sea Salt and Cider Vinegar.
Keogh’s are available in Tesco and Selfridges nationwide, and will be at the St Patrick’s Day celebrations in Trafalgar Square. Check them out at www.keoghs.ie and on twitter @keoghsfarm
We met some friends last night to grab some drinks and chat about times gone by. Doomed from the outset, we decided that the ten of us should go to Patty & Bun to see what all the burger fuss was about. We were fools, 10 of us were never going to get a table in the intimate 30 covers space with a no reservations policy, so ended up in the Pontefract Castle instead. But the thought of that burger haunted me. Called to me. Teased me. Imagine mine and Soph's joy when, on walking past on our way back to the tube, we spotted a brief lull in the queue (which had been up to 50 people long at one stage). A table for two was tantalisingly close, in spite of already having eaten dinner at the pub. And I am not ashamed to say that we took it.
The burger is a nice piece of meat. Cooked to a gloriously pink rare, it's melt-in-the-mouth tender and, quite finely ground, with a just a little bit of beefy body to it. It comes wrapped in a brioche bun, which fans will know is my favourite burger delivery vehicle and this stands up well to the juice coming not just from the meat, but also from the toppings.
And what toppings they are. Let's start with ketchup, processed cheese (the kind that melts into cheese sauce on contact with warm meat), bacon, lettuce and tomato. So far, so standard. We're not done yet though. Add in a few pickled red onions, and a nice dollop of fantastic smoked mayo and you can see why this burger can be a little messy. But it's awesome. Everything is considered and adds flavour and texture. The smokey mayo is a revelation, I've never had something like it before and wish more places put it on, well, everything.
A side of wings, smoked, breaded and covered in a sweet smokey barbecue sauce accompanied the burger. The wing meat was incredibly tender, moist and smoked right to the bone with the crispy coating really holding onto the sauce. However, the sauce was a bit too sweet for my taste. I prefer the sharpness of hot sauce with wings as I find it cuts through the meat better. They were great, but I'm not sure I would get them again.
Burger, wings, a Sam Adams and some sparkling water came to just shy of £20.
Hits: Burger. Sophie proclaimed it to be the best we've had, I need to conduct more testing...
Misses: That queue. It's a shame, but at least it's not a queue for queuing sake; they can only seat 30 at a time.
Patty & Bun is at www.pattyandbun.co.uk, @pattyandbunjoe and in the real world at 54 James Street, London W1U 1HE
*EDIT I have been informed there are sneaky off menu hot sauce wings. This changes everything. We'll report back as soon as we get them.
the spicy chicken stir fry (that's not a stir fry)
So, as promised, we're going to start posting some recipes on the blog. The first in this series will be Steven's take on a chicken stir fry, which isn't really a stir fry. This serves two, but is big on the vegetables. We're trying to be healthy at coolbeforeeating and are currently following weightwatchers, so this is a 10 point dinner.
Ingredients:
300 gr chicken breast
1 courgette
2 medium carrots
1 red pepper
1 orange pepper
2 red chilies
½ head of white cabbage
150 gr white button mushrooms
100 gr brown chestnut mushrooms
100 gr sugar snap peas
300 gr bean sprouts
120 gr rice
Fish sauce (1 tsp for marinade and 1 tbsp for sauce)
Soy sauce (1 tsp for marinade and 1 tbsp for sauce)
Sumac (½ teaspoon)
Chinese Five Spice (3 tsp)
Sweet Chilli Sauce (1 tbsp)
Hot Sauce (to taste)
How to:
1: Cut the chicken into strips, about 4 cm long and ½ cm thick.
Put in a bowl with 1 teaspoon each of fish and soy sauce, ½ teaspoon each of sumac and five spice. The addition of the sumac gives a bit of a citrus lift to the chicken, and compliments the five spice brilliantly.
2: Prep your vegetables. The idea here is to make everything roughly the same size, so they will cook at the same, or similar rates. I do keep them in three bowls though, one with the courgette and the cabbage, one with the peppers, carrot and chilies, and one with the mushrooms and bean sprouts.
Turn this...
...into this.
3: Prep done, time to get the chicken in. As we are being healthy I use a few sprays of flora cooking spray and a half a tablespoon of stir frying oil. I like the Sainsbury’s with ginger, it brings a nice flavor to the dish. I’m sure that some people will prefer to add ginger to their stir fry but I only like a little and never get through it if I keep it in the house.
4: Get the wok nice and hot. In goes the chicken, stirring to make sure it cooks evenly.
5: First of the veg gets added, in this case the peppers, carrots and chilies. A quick fry, then stick a lid on the wok. Not normal for a stir fry, but it allows the carrots and the peppers to cook down in the steam, making them slightly more cooked through, and adding a nice bit of sweetness to the dish.
Before the lid goes on.
6: After about three to five minutes, add the courgette and the cabbage, and stir well for another three to five minutes. Then in go the mushrooms and the sprouts, along with another tablespoon of fish sauce and soy sauce, and another two teaspoons of the five spice mix. Cook this all off, stirring well, for another three to five minutes, or until all the veg looks cooked.
Coming together nicely.
7: At this stage, I add in a tablespoon each of sweet chili sauce, and of hot sauce. My personal preference here is the Ribman’s Holy F***, buy some here. It’s really spicy, but also quite smokey, with scotch bonnet peppers and naga jolokia chilis and comes very highly recommended, we’re currently putting it in pasta sauce, in beef chili and to be honest I’d almost scrape a little on toast. What you are doing is basically turning the juice in the bottom of your wok into a quick spicy broth, so take your own lead on the heat you want to add. Give it a minute to fully integrate, then add salt and pepper to taste, and you are ready to go.
You can just see the rice poking through the broth in the middle.
8: Serve as soon as possible, you want to retain some crunch in the veg. A small portion of sticky rice is the current accompaniment of choice in our house, but you could serve on noodles, or just eat on its own.
Easy, quick, and filling, this is on hard rotation when we are cooking dinner at home. Love it.
Eating out in Paris can be heaven, or hell, a simple toasted sandwich with chips can delight and a €200 dinner can disappoint. The sheer number of choices can be bewildering, a problem made worse by the regimental approach of many chefs to their menus making it very difficult to choose between two bavette steaks or two salad Niçoise from two identical looking cafes or bistros. We’ll talk later this week about some hard and fast rules for picking someplace to go in the city of light, but finding a good plate of food is a thing to be celebrated, and last Friday, we found some amazing plates of food.
Tucked in a little side street near Voltaire metro station, on the site of a former Irish bar, you’ll find Bones. Rue Godefroy Cavaignac is unassuming, it’s far from Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the more established fine dining bistros that have been challenging the stuffiness of the French old school, but James Henry is working magic in this place. Part bar, part restaurant, part kitchen, simplicity and the raw ingredients are key here. Walk in the door and you’ll find yourself in a bare bones room, dominated by a concrete bench/wall separating it from the dining area. A bar/kitchen sits in the corner, stocking an excellent range of wine, and a couple of beer taps, pouring Vedett and a honey ale when we visited. Bar snacks range from oysters, to house made charcuterie and cover everything in between, dominating a chalkboard the height of the room.
Henry wants to use this space to break down the formality of fine food, and judging by the crowd that are coming in, it’s working. Design and lighting are industrial, and it fits perfectly, particularly in a city often overly dominated by wicker chairs and Toulouse Lautrec prints. (Not in all places, before you start queuing up in the comments.) The music is also led by the chef’s tastes, he picked the name Bones because it sounded like a rock band, and the music is based on what he and his team would be playing in the kitchen, if there was the choice to have different music in the kitchen and the rest of the space. We had a lot of PJ Harvey on our visit, and that is never a bad thing.
Chef James Henry (picture via The Paris Kitchen)
A little away from the madding crowd, you’ll find a small dining space. I’d guess Bones can sit 25 to 30 people at a time, with your dining companions close enough that you could reach out and steal food off their plates, were they not fiercely protective of the contents. Currently the menu is set, you get four courses of what the kitchen has found in the markets or from their suppliers. When we arrived we were told we’d have to wait a little, as the kitchen hadn’t finished deciding on what it was going to cook that night.
First up we get a plate of home made saucisson and parma ham, the saucisson is packed with garlic, the ham the perfect chewy pork and salt mouthful to whet your appetite. Next a small plate of sliced octopus, cooked on a barbeque. The result is smoky, juicy and a great firm texture. It’s a simple, excellent plate of food.
A duck heart is the next thing left in front of us, simply halved and served without garnish. I’m not the biggest fan of heart, they are often a little tough, and can be sharp or bitter. But this, rolled in almost curry like spices, is fantastic. This is followed by a consommé with foie gras and pickled cabbage and carrots. A small bowl of excellent soup with cubes of velvety liver and slivers of sharp vegetables is a delight, with the remains of the consommé mopped up with the last of an excellent basket of house made bread, a dark sour rye.
Sea bass follows, the first of the four courses on the menu, served as sashimi with fennel and a powdered citron meyer dressing. The fish is excellent, the firm meat of the bass working perfectly with the thinly sliced fennel. The lemon is understated, and we were arguing as to the additional contents of the dish, I am certain there was some kind of horseradish. This is talented sorcery without any pretension; it’s served simply and allowed to speak for itself.
Bar area (picture via Paris By Mouth)
The next course was a scallop with endive and walnuts. Grilled and raw endive provides a sharpness and flavor, accentuated by the whole and pureed walnuts. But the star here is the scallop. Lightly sautéed, it’s fork tender and as fresh as a St Jacques has ever been found. Just breathtaking. The main event was pork, with a Basque Kintoa providing the meat for the night. Sliced thick, it was seared gently and served rare, with salsify in rounds and still left in spears, and some leaves of romaine. It’s a sign of the trust a chef has in the quality of his produce to serve pork in this way, but the result is fantastic, it’s firm but moist, with bags of flavor and with a perfect charred/salty crust. All of this was accompanied by an excellent bottle of wine from Jura, with a good list, and excellent staff to help you with your choice. I’m not great with white, so we relied on our waiter, who did not do wrong by us.
We had a selection of three cheeses and some additional bread at this stage, along with an excellent vin jaune, also from Jura. Pre dessert was a lime custard with lime granita, beautifully smooth and sharp, and perfect at cleansing the last of the meal in preparation for the dessert. And what a dessert, a pressed apple terrine with crumbled burnt butter biscuit and jasmine ice cream is the perfect end to the meal, with an excellent glass of Sancerre.
Dining area (picture via Paris By Mouth)
So what’s the verdict? It’s the best meal I have ever had. A chef at the very pinnacle of his trade carefully curated every single thing that was placed on our table. The butter is churned in house. Henry himself delivers and explains several courses. That kind of attention to detail is second to none. A stellar performance by someone who I think may be the finest proponent of more informal fine dining that there is.
Ten dishes, a fair share of wine, and some beers totaled at €168. For both of us. Not each, for both...
Hits: Everything. There was not a single misstep.
Misses: Nothing. Not even the unfashionably early booking (by Paris standards) could damage this meal. The relaxed atmosphere might not be to everyone’s taste, but those people are, in my opinion, wrong.
Must haves: Get the cheese. And the vin jaune. And trust the chef with everything else.
Rating: 10/10 (Our first)
Bones is at www.bonesparis.com, on facebook and in the real world at 43 rue Godefroy Cavaignac, Paris.
Hello, welcome to the new site! Hope you like it, take a look around, use the comments, drop us a line on twitter, give our facebook page a like. We're still going to be rating places, but we're also going to be talking about food (and drinks) more, and posting recipes and how to guides.
First though, we've gotten some questions regarding the ratings on the site. Or more like, people have gotten in touch saying "tbtbtbtbhtbbhtbtpptppt, WTF, Honest Burger is a 9.5 and Koffman is a 9. That shit cray." We'll, let us explain.
We rate places based on what they offer. Honest got a 9.5 out of 10 for a burger, Kofmann's a 9 out of 10 for fine dining (it's still too formal to be a bistro). We do not compare places to each other, as it's pretty impossible to do so.
We are thinking of getting rid of our ratings altogether though, given the new focus will be not just on reviews. What do you people think? Sound out in the comments below.
It was an exciting night for all involved. We were going to see what this posh steak place, Hawksmoor, was like and let me be honest here, we were pushing the boat out....
Hawksmoor is a word which has become synonymous with grilled meat and the various accompaniments to that since the first branch opened in Spitalfields in 2006 in a former Kebab shop. Seven Dials, the second outpost, opened in 2010 in a massive vaulted, industrial iron and brickwork room on Langley Street, a former fruit warehouse no less.
A fantastic start, the bar itself is comfortable and inviting, green leather and dark wood welcome you into the dimly lit environs, and the drink wasn't half bad either. The service was fantastic at the bar, the casual waiters blend in, making the attentiveness they provide much less intrusive than you get at the bog standard white shirt black pants establishments. This feels much more friendly and welcoming.
Brought through to our table, the menu is explained to us. Starters are pretty easy to grasp, there's a good selection of tasty shellfish and meats to whet your appetite, as are The Rest, a selection of non steak mains, like Grilled Lobster, Chicken and a vegetarian option and the Sides, creamed spinach, roast mushrooms etc. The explanation is required for the steak section, it's set out in two ways.
Firstly, you have a per 100g price for the favourite cuts, the bone-in prime rib, the t-bone, the porterhouse and the chateaubriand. The available sizes are given to you by your waiter, there may be only a 900g prime rib available for example. There is a good range of options, but they will all be larger cuts of meat, which are good to share, or a challenge if you are hungry. The other option is to take one of the other steaks, fillet, bone-in sirlion, rib-eye or d-rump, which come in single person sizes. Mind you, they are still substantial, the sirlion tops out at 600g for example.
So, let's get to it. For starters I ordered the half-grilled lobster, while Sophie had the Brixham Crab on Toast. The lobster was grilled perfectly, a golden grill crust surrounding sweet juicy lobster, flavoured with garlic and herbs. The crab, picked clean from the shell and served with toast, was capped by the amazing mayonaise, a sign of things to come in terms of the in house sauces.
For main, we opted to split an 800g chateaubriand, beef dripping and triple cooked chips, a side of buttered greens, and a generous glug of pepper sauce. The chateaubriand, cooked medium rare, was fantastic. I know critics will say that the soft fillet lacks the flavour of the more marbled harder working muscles, like the rib-eye or the sirloin, but the tenderness and the quality of this steak makes up for the lack of distributed fat.
Beef dripping fries are little skinny chips, kind of resembling a McDonalds fry, but that's where the resemblance ends. These are a darker golden yellow colour, and are permeated with beefy flavour, having been cooked in rendered beef fat. Yes, it's a tad excessive, but we use duck fat for roast potatoes, so why not! The triple cooked chips are like mini roasties, perfectly fluffy in the middle with a good crunch on the outside. Buttered greens gave the required portion of leafy veg, and came drenched in melted butter.
The pepper sauce is a standout, an achievement given the failure of many steakhouses to achieve a decent balance between creamy and spicy. It's thinner than you might be used to, but the effect is more akin to that of a gravy, getting right into the meat and around your plate, rather than the more gelatinous variants that seem to be all over steaks at the minute. All this was washed down with an excellent Pulenta Estate Malbec, for £42.50, which is decent value on the frankly massive wine list.
Taking a look at the dessert menu, we decided to have a peanut butter shortbread, served with a cracking salted caramel ice-cream and some cheese from Neal's Yard Dairy, namely the Cheshire and the Isle of Mull. To go with dessert we had two glasses of Tokjai Late Harvest. And just before the bill, a sneaky quick Tobacco Old Fashioned.
All in all the bill came to £281 including service charge. Which frankly, given the amount of food and drinks we had, isn't all that bad.
Hits - It's hard to pick one thing, over the obvious steak, but I'd probably say the cannot miss item are the triple cooked chips.
Misses - Nothing really, apart maybe from the buttered greens, but they were perfectly fine buttered greens, they were just, well, buttered greens.
Rating - 9/10
Hawksmoor Seven Dials is at www.thehawksmoor.com, @HawksmoorLondon and in the real world at 11 Langley Street, Seven Dials.
MEAT mission has just opened in Hoxton Market, occupying the old Christian Mission in Shaftesbury House, most recently a The Real Greek. The third outpost in the MEAT chain, it joins big siblings MEAT liquor and MEAT market. This site feels bigger, with multiple rooms (we might have entered through a fire escape by accident), and a much brighter feel than liquor, there is a stained glass style ceiling in the main dining room which lets in a lot of light (see the bar photo below), this is not the red dark dungeon off Oxford Street.
The menu is a little longer than the others, but is broken down in much the same way, fries, pickles and wings hold space on the small bites page with grilled cheese sandwiches and chilli concoctions. The garbage plates are here, and have been supplemented with more sandwiches and mains. Deli meats and cheese now come between bit of bread, providing a break from the reliable burgers, which still include cool before eating favourites the dead hippie and the buffalo chicken.
The drinks offering includes some beer based cocktails, and an expanded range of craft beer on tap, with options for glasses, or sharing jugs up to 3 pints. Brooklyn, Budvar, Vedett are all on tap, and very tasty.
Food wise, I opted for Red in Bread, a massive serving of chilli stuffed into a bread bowl and topped with onions, pickles, cheese and mustard. Very tasty indeed, the chilli is beefy and rich, with the mustard providing a nice additional tang of spice. If you have had the chilli fries before, think the same type of thing, but in bread. And much much more of it. Every last morsel was savoured and devoured.
On the side, because it's a sin not to, I had the deep fried pickles, with a chunky blue cheese sauce. As heavenly as always. the crispy batter and the vinegar bite is one of my favourite combinations of flavour and texture.
My companion at lunch, Manos the Real Greek, had a beef garbage plate, a mix of pickles, beetroot, fries, onions, and a burger, all covered in gravy. There may have been some slaw and some cheese on there too. It looked fantastic, but Manos doesn't share food.
At about a tenner a head for food, it looks like there is a new kid in town for the Shoreditch/Hoxton lunch set. And the previously unchallenged Red Dog Saloon has a new burger nemesis. Welcome to the area MEAT mission.
Hits - The chilli is great, but once again, the pickles are a standout.
Misses - Not much, it's good unwholesome fun.
Rating - 8.5/10, a shade better than the original on first impressions
MEAT mission is at www.meatmission.com, @MEATmission, and in the real world at 14 Shaftesbury House, Hoxton Market
Reservations will be taken from the New Year, by the way, for those who don't like the stand in a queue policy that is oh so fashionable at the minute.
First things first, sorry for the shortage of posts. Between moving house and job in the past few months, and some time spent overseas for work, coolbeforeeating has been left idle for a while. Slightly less eating out has been done, as a result of a recently embarked upon health kick, but worry not it is only slightly less, there are still reviews of Negril, Elephant, Ariana II to come, along with a review of Hawksmoor, where we will take a look at the steaks at Seven Dials, with a review of the bar food at Spitalfields, and culminating in a look at the new Air Street branch.
Another reason for the lack of communication, my parents have been over for the past few days. We've had a great meal at The Avalon over wine, and ribs and beer at Pitt Cue Co. Last Thursday night we went out to Ben's Canteen on Saint John's Hill for a nice long dinner with plenty of chat and wine. It wasn't the first time we have been to Ben's, Sophie knows the eponymous Ben and in fact we had one of our first dates at the Canteen. It also fit the bill perfectly for bringing my parents out, close to their hotel and easy for us to get to after work.
Sophie and Eoin showed up, and we got down to the serious business of ordering. The menu is split into starters, burgers and sandwiches, mains and sides. The choice is great, from very trendy americana options like shrimp po-boys and pulled pork, to more classic British food in the shape of bangers and mash and fish and chips. The wine list has good options and value; we went for a couple of bottles of the Malbec to wash everything down.
Before the mains came out, we opted to share a scotch egg. These things are alien to me, having not seen one before the move to London, and usually associating them with dried out varieties found in the snack section in Marks and Spencers. This specimen could not be more different. The egg is surrounded by a spiced mixture of sausage meat and black pudding, crumbed with mushroom and bacon bread crumbs three times, then fried and finished in the oven. The result is amazing, the york is buttery and runny, the meat packed with flavour. When we had these before, I will confess that they were a little too rich, but the sausage blend appears to be spot on now, and the slightly smaller size helps with the full feeling. One of these on its own and you're set you up for the day, so I’d advise sharing.
For mains, we had hit all the major areas of the menu. Dad had the meatballs and mash, they had a strong pleasant hit of fennel and were moist and tender. Mam decided on the chicken with garlic mash, and was fiercely defensive of it, the bit which I managed to steal was great; creamy mash and very flavoursome chicken. Eoin had what looked like a very good chicken burger, but alas I did not try it.
Soph and I have dinner down to a fine art now, two mains are split half and half, to prevent the food envy which dogged the first excursions of coolbeforeeating. The French-dip was a kind of a cross between a steak sandwich, a cheese steak and a more traditional french dip, served on a crispy baguette. I would say it could be slightly improved with a thinner slicing of the meat, or a longer dunk in the roasting juices, but it was still good, particularly the thick goo-ey cheese holding it all together.
Our second main was the BC Burger; a burger topped with home-brined beef, Ben’s burger sauce, smoked cheddar and served on shredded lettuce and tomato. The burger tastes flame grilled, which adds an extra level of taste, and was cooked perfectly pink with a good level of juice. The bun held up well to both cutting and biting, but I think that the mince could be ground a little finer. It’s a shade coarser than the grind at Byron for example, which means there is a slight separation between the meat and the juice as you chew. I am being critical and food-blog-ey now though, the burger is easily one of the top 5 I have had in London.
On the side we had really great sweet potato fries, and excellent hand cut chips with chilli. The chilli is fantastic, I would have eaten bowl after bowl on its own. Fried pickles are of the long and deep brown variety, and had my non pickle-eating mother reaching for more. The chicken wings however were a slight disappointment, firstly, and I know this is irrational, but I don’t like whole wing wings, with the drumette and the wing together. More rationally the wings didn’t have evidence of the homemade spicy rub, instead tasting like they were just coated in sweet chilli sauce, which was a shame as they were tender and juicy, but lacked a great sauce punch. But they were a rare misstep in a great meal otherwise.
Dessert was cocktails for three, a very good Vanilla and Chilli Caprioska for Soph and two iced teas for my parents, which were served with extra bottles of sweet tea to adjust the flavour, a really nice touch. The chocolate mousse flower pot was good, rich mousse topped with chocolatey soil. The not-a-brownie-but-a-blondie was fantastic, caramel and treacle flavoured with a really good vanilla ice-cream. I think I still hear Soph muttering in her sleep about these.
Again, it would be remiss not to mention that the team at Ben’s are excellent, from the warm welcome, to the friendly banter at the tables, the guys on duty made it feel like what Ben’s is, an excellent local restaurant with great food, and an amazing atmosphere.
The bill came to just under £200, but that includes a LOT of drinks.
Hits: My ideal meal here would be Scotch Egg with chilli chips. Do not overlook them. The mains are of a fantastic quality, I cannot wait to go back to try more.
Misses: The wings have a great base being tender and juicy, but the sauce needs a bit of attention.
Rating: 9/10
Ben's Canteen is at benscanteen.com, @benscanteen and in the real world at 140 Saint John's Hill, SW11 1SL.
Apologies by the way about the lack of photos of what we ate, it was more of a chatting than an instagram night. All photos are from the Ben's Canteen website.
