Do me a flavor and get rid of the blandness!

On Friday evening I had an amazing meal at Riverford Field Kitchen, probably my favorite restaurant and better than any Michelin Stared place I've had the pleasure of feeling uncomfortable in. The place simply wins due to the incredible food, everything else is average. The food simply wins due to the incredible flavor, everything else is average, meaning presentation etc. 

But this got me thinking about flavor and how you can make weak food taste good. When I'm at work and a soup a bit bland, we add more salt & pepper, if that doesn't work we add some bouillon, if we're still not hitting the flavor zone, we blend in more fresh herbs, raw garlic, extra virgin olive oil, a bit of sugar and lots of lemon juice. And bang, flavor! It never fails. This is a picture of me in the kitchen looking all smug about the great tasting soup.

When cooking at home I love big flavor and I feel there is no excuse for my food to be bland, my Scottish grandmother would detest my food if she was still alive, to give her credit, she gave me a great introduction to whole foods, but she didn't like any sort of richness. I suppose my food could be criticised for it's lack of subtlety, but I'm the most important critic when it comes to tasting, so everyone can go and eat elsewhere if they don't like it.

To bang some balls in your broth you need a good balance!

Saltiness - lots of good sea salt, butter, OXO cubes or real stock, soy, fish sauce, Marigold Swiss Bouillon (although it makes everything taste the same), anchovies, capers, cheese or bacon.

Acidity - lemon or lime (added at the end of cooking), vinegar, wine, tomato.

Sweetness - sugar, honey, sweated onions or other veg like carrots, leeks or celery, cream or coconut milk, butternut squash, sweet potato, peas or any sweet veg.

Heat - pepper, chili (powder or fresh), ginger, wasabi, horse radish, hot smoked paprika or various spice blends

Added flavor - more butter, a small amount of raw garlic (1/2 a clove) made into a paste, olive oil, fresh herbs (coriander, parsley, basil, tender thyme tips nothing too woody).

Experiment and enjoy.

Crumble beats the cold

Winter has arrived so shove some hot crumble in your gob. 

Q. What makes a good crumble? A. The crumble you cock!

And to make a good crumble you need to add cinnamon and oats. I also feel cold ice cream works really well with the hot pudding, I love custard but hot & hot just isn't as good as hot & cold.

I'm going to embrace winter by running full speed into the chilled easterly wind, whist stuffing my face with all things warm & stodgy and wearing a really expensive winter coat. Piss off Jack Frost I love winter.

London

This weekend was a big weekend of partying in London, but I also used my time in the city to soak up some of the amazing food that's going down and coming up and that people are down with and up for.

First thing on Saturday we went for a pretty amazing coffee at a new shop called Allpress (rubbish name) on Redchurch Street. The actual coffee shop feels a little cold in terms of atmosphere and interior design, but as soon as that coffee hits your lips the clinical lines of the furniture disappear, especially because we sat on the bench outside. They roast all the beans in the premises and make the coffee with a La Marzocco espresso machine, so it's hard to make a bad coffee with those winning factors. Although I probably could cock it up if I tried hard enough.

We next headed to Maltby Street in Bermondsey for a breakfast of more coffee at Monmouth HQ, cured meat and beer from the Kernel Brewery, which turned out to be one of the best beers I've ever had. This is a really interesting food market and if you can't stand the crowds of Borough market it's worth a visit, however I feel it won't be too long before those crowds, or shall I say cunts, spread their middle-class labia from London bridge to Tower Bridge. 

Whist on the subject we then encountered another breed of the middle-classes on fixed-gear bikes at Broadway Market, but they're alright really, no they're not. It is actually a pretty good food market, but lacked the Dickensian charm of Borough. I bought a really good Vietnamese sandwich called a Bánh mì, so so good. I'd heard about these on the Food Programme on Radio 4 a few weeks ago. After scoffing some average brownie I was still hungry and decided to get a native Oyster, but suddenly noticed they were selling clams as well, so I went for both and had a mollusc off. Surprisingly the clam was a clear winner, with more flavor, better texture (if you like to chew) and larger in volume. The clam was also less than half the price at only £1.20. To be honest I didn't know that people ate clams raw and there must be plenty more shell fish in the sea, ready to be scoffed in an uncooked form and they're beckoning me with their buttery sweetness.

The rest of the weekend mainly consisted of potato based conversation, but that's another story.