T-4-1

It is amazing how many people can't make a decent cup of tea. I encountered a non-tea drinker during the summer and I asked her why she doesn't drink tea, expecting the usual response of "I don't drink caffeine", but surprisingly her response was "It doesn't taste very nice, a bit like hot water with milk". This angered me as I'm a devoted tea drinker, my response/defense was that I'm devoted to the ritual, tradition, caffeine, taste, oh taste! When I tasted the cup of tea in front of me it did taste like warm water with a dash of milk. To paint a better picture, we were sitting in a reputable cafe in Dartmouth which serves good tea and coffee, not the best but good. From then on I continued to drink tea with this reminder that it tastes a bit shitty, apart from when I make it, and I've been told I make a good cup of tea.

This recipe, or method was formed due to the lack of water quality in London, showing progression can come from deprivation. I noticed that everyone was drinking tea with a weird scummy crust floating on the top. By chance I discovered that if you put the milk in the cup first the scum doesn't appear (although it's probably lurking underneath the surface).

1 Large cup or Mug or Bowl (Not a fucking tea pot)
1 tea bag (or 2 if you're a builder)
1 Large dash of milk (1/10th the capacity of your drinking vessel)
1 Table spoon (Not a fucking teaspoon)
Boiling water

1. Fill your cup/mug/bowl with water and pour it into your kettle so you have the exact amount of water and don't waste electricity. Begin to boil.

2. Put the milk and tea bag(s) in the cup ready for when the water is at boiling point.

3. As soon as the water is boiling and the kettle has turned itself off, pour the boiling (and I mean boiling) water into the cup.

4. Using the table spoon stir the tea and get the bag moving around, then start to press the bag against the side of the cup/mug/bowl (this really gets the flavor out)

5. Leave to brew for 5-10 minutes giving the tea bag a press every now and then

6. Remove the tea bag and drink your fully flavorsome, slightly sweet, perfectly warm tea.


Let me explain before the uproar begins

Using a larger mug/cup/bowl will allow the tea to brew for longer as the volume of water takes longer to cool down. It also means you get two cups in one, so you don't have to get up and make another.

The milk in first gives a completely different flavor, especially when the boiling water hits it, but also the tea then brews into the milk not just the water (like a chai tea). Using a little bit more milk than normal will counteract the bitter tannins, so the tea still tastes good after a long brewing session.

Using a table spoon means you are less likely to break the tea bag and the larger surface area of the spoon presses out more flavor.


My method goes against traditional tea making, where you are creating a perfumed, delicate,  refreshing drink. I think this method went out the window when the british started putting milk in their tea. Instead with mine, you have a much more powerful, rich, intense drink, that will warm your heart and either make you sink further into your arm chair or give you a massive wake up slap.

I fucking love tea.

Snail

After purging the snails for a couple of days it was time to cook.

Boiled live for a few minutes removed the slime and the vibrant green stuff. Then I cooled them under cold running water and cracked the shell to remove the flesh. Lots of garlic, butter, parsley and a splash of white wine in a frying pan creates all the flavor needed. Scoff.

As you can see from the expression on my face, chomping on a snail is can be a pleasant experience. I've eaten French style garlic snails in restaurants before and enjoyed them, however I felt the powerful flavor of the garlic was masking the true taste of the snail, because they actually taste disgusting. To be honest I was dreading the sacrifice, after keeping the snails for a few days they became my pets and when you view the cooking process of something it can become a little less appetising. But the actual result once the meat was in my mouth was a tender, juicy, tasty bit of food. Worth a try.

L'Escargot-go

I've caught my snails and I'm purging them a tub with some greens and herbs from my balcony garden. I'm not sure what herbs snails eat so I put in some parsley, sage and mint. The purpose of this is to firstly flush out any toxins the snails may have (from eating slug pellets) and secondly, I'm hoping to flavor the snails internally with the herbs. It's been a couple of days now so I think my snail farm is ready for it's first harvest.

I'm thinking boil, frying pan, butter, garlic and parsley. I've also got my eye on a couple of woodlouse as a side dish. Not too sure about this, I suspect they'll taste like prawns.

Why Not Eat Insects?

Along with Jamie Oliver's new book I bough this; Why Not Eat Insects?

The book was written 125 years ago by a Victorian Entomologist, who posed this question as a theory for solving malnutrition in poverty stricken communities.

The question seems more relevant today as global warming is more apparent, meat farming being less feasible, fish stocks depleting and a third of farmed food in a vulnerable state due to the decline of the honey bee.

I've eaten most things and certainly anything foreign that's presented in front of me. But I have never really had the desire to eat insects, apart from cooking grass hoppers on a campfire when I was 13 years old. So this week I'm on the hunt for all things creepy crawly, but when looking at my balcony garden for snails (which I've been throwing into the car park all summer), there is not one in sight. But when I find one of these slimy shits, I'm planning to purge it in a box for a couple of days with some parsley (this will remove any toxins/poison from slug pellets), then boil it up, remove it from the shell and then fry it in butter, garlic and parsley. What's the point in this? I don't know, just seeing if I can stomach it.

Give me a few days and I'll get back to you.

30 Minute Madness

This week saw the start of Jamie's 30 Minute Meals. Great idea, great recipes and great food, however it's slightly unrealistic as you never see the guy washing up. I love Jamie Oliver, he got me into cooking in the late 90's when I was just a spotty teenager. It's just I feel a little cynical about the programme, as it appears he has the perfect set up in his kitchen, all the right equipment and what appears to be an unlimited budget for his ingredients. It just pisses me off.

Why is he using Chanternay carrots when he could use normal ones at a quarter of the cost. Why would I make roast beef out of a fillet that cost about £30? That just isn't realistic. Sorry to bore, as I'm sure there are more worthy critics than me talking about this subject.

I bought the book anyway and it's full of useful tips and inspiring recipes so it's worth a peek.

Expensive Vs Cheap

I'm a logical person and I figure, why spend £40 on a bottle of wine when you can get a case (12 bottles) of good wine for that amount of money. Well my girlfriend's dad dusted off this baby (pictured) at lunch today and it was an exceptional drink. Maybe it's worth splashing out every now and then on a good bottle so you can appreciate the difference between good and very good or cheap and expensive wine. I remember reading an article about the cost of a bottle of wine and on a £5 bottle after tax, the price of the glass, the shipping cost etc, that the actual liquid inside is worth about 70p but if you spend £7 then the wine inside the bottle is worth about £2, so you may be getting a much better product for your money or being ripped off even more. Who knows.

The French have been selling shit wine to the English for decades and I think they are still doing this, so I prefer a £7 New Zealand sauvignon over a £20 sancerre as I personally think the wine tastes better, with an added bonus of costing a 3rd of the price. So the most important thing is to drink what you think tastes good. I'm really into a Colombard/Chenin Blanc at the moment which cost £3.99 at the Co-op and it's perfectly good, but it's just a stroke of luck that the wine and my taste buds have become great mates, as it's unlucky that my preferred whisky cost £50 a bottle. There is no such thing as bad taste when it comes to booze, with WKD Blue being the only exception, my thoughts are drink what you like and lots of it.

Mushrooms Galore

Yesterday I took part in a mushroom picking course at Haldon forest near Exeter. I've always been a little nervous when picking mushrooms, you get the obviously edible ones that any idiot can spot, for example the Giant Puffball, which is a football sized type of mushroom and one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten. If you are ever lucky enough to find a giant puffball, try slicing it like a loaf of bread and fry it with lots of butter, so tender, meaty and full of flavor. Anyway my point is that from gaining more knowledge on mushrooms I've become more nervous about picking the obscure gems found in our woodland and fields. There are about 900 different fungi in this country and we found about 150 yesterday, which I found a little overwhelming. The expert running the course is a true expert with over 30 years experience studying fungi and he ignorantly only knew the latin names to the mushrooms we found, but I later discovered that most mushrooms only have a latin name. But this expert or mycologist does sometimes get it wrong and can only identify a mushroom when its under a microscope and when he has run a series of tests identifying the spores and other scientific things. The day was an amazing experience but I will certainly stick to the usual common edible fungi and avoid any Death Caps.

Here is a selection showing some of the edible mushrooms my mother (she's a bit of a foraging enthusiast) and I picked yesterday (sorry about the latin names). Cantharellus infundibuliformis, Shaggy ink cap, Calvatia Utriformis, White Helvella and the very tasty Hedgehog Fungus which is easy to identify as it has spiny gills and looks like nothing else. Well, nothing poisonous at least. My mother took the mushrooms home, as I was hugely hungover and couldn't stomach foreign foods, so fingers crossed my inheritance comes in early!

To clarify and stop any media scare mongering, there are only a handful of deadly poisonous fungi and you have to eat the whole cap and normally raw if you want to die, also lots have an accumulative poison, like lead poisoning, so you have to eat the wrong mushroom consistently over a period of time to die. Get a good field guide or the iPhone app if you want to live.

World Egg Day

Oh yes. Check out this world record.

What the fuck should I make for dinner?

Well this website can help - whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com

Mushroom Picking

I'm so excited to go on a Fungal Foray this Saturday and have some expert advice on edible shrooms. I've been serious about foraging for a few years now and have been gathering wild food since I was a young boy.

I first got into foraging after reading this book - Food For Free

But soon discovered Roger Philips' book - Wild Food, which is much better. He has also released the definitive book on mushrooms - Mushrooms

His website has an amazing Mushroom App for the iPhone, definitely worth a free download if you're a nerdy forager.

Keep off the Liberty Caps Timothy Rowden!

Mid-week Roasts

Forgot to mention that If I'd covered the top of the cauliflower cheese with some bread crumbs it would have been even better, adding that crunchy texture needed to complete the dish and with some additional steamed veg on the side it could have been a complete meal. Instead it was part of a Monday roast.

Who needs a Sunday roast when you can have one on a gloomy Monday. I didn't use a whole chicken, just thighs and drumsticks (the leg meat is far tastier than the breast anyhow), this means the meal cooks so much quicker and you don't need a whole day to prep, eat and digest the meal. It went down really well with a few glasses of Bordeaux.

The Cauliflower Returns

So the cauliflower returns with a wicked bechamel sauce and loads of mature cheddar its tastes so good and I can feel that heart attack coming sooner.

My first scoffy egg, so far.

I made a good Italian inspired breakfast, possibly inspired by having a really mediocre lunch at Carluccio's last Thursday and thinking I can do better.

Using some left over pizza dough I made a ciabatta with a few bits of Mediterranean veg stuffed in the middle. I covered the dough in a good extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and baked for about 30-40 minutes. So, so good.

For my scoffy egg which took about 5 minutes to make, I toasted the bread on a griddle pan with some olive oil, poached a couple of eggs and sprinkled some slices of basil to put on the top. Eggs and basil go really well together and were the star of the dish. So next time I'll just have the eggs on toast with some basil.

In the past I've been told not to chop basil and it's better to tear it, but I think it works well finely chopped and I used old Gordon's technique. Take a look.

How To Chop Herbs | Gordon Ramsay on Channel 4

Curried Cauliflower Soup

The soup had good flavor, although I put too much spice in there. Maybe a few little drops of sesame oil and some finely chopped coriander or parsley sprinkled on top would have gone down well.

Monster Cauliflower

My girlfriend was given this cauliflower from someone at her work and I'm just making a soup out of it.

I slowly fried off some chili with a ton of garlic, then chucked in a load of spices (turmeric, garam masala etc) and cooked for a further 10 minutes on a very low heat. I chopped off a quarter of the cauliflower, broke it into small pieces and put it in the pan with a chopped up spud, then covered the veg with chicken stock and it's now bubbling away. I'm thinking, when the veg is cooked I'll smoothly blend it and put a tin of coconut milk in there to mellow out the spices and to add some sweet creaminess.

There are only a few things you can do with a cauliflower, so I'll let you know what happens to the rest of it. I feel a cauliflower cheese is on the cards!

First thoughts

As I'm writing this blog I have realised that my first discovery on this journey is that:

Food = Fun

So my philosophy on food has begun, more food equals more fun. Unless you have an eating disorder then food isn't fun. I'm already contradicting myself so it's time to shut up and eat some food.

The Journey Begins

A Scoffy Egg is a play on words using the name of the famous French chef Escoffier, and a term for cooking a quick egg to scoff. A contrast on the guy who pioneered modern cuisine and cooking one of the most basic meals.