Hossenfeffer

Score! Found some guancale so naturally I made carbonara. Hands down one of my favourite pasta dishes.

The recipe is pretty simple (for which, read there’s nowhere to hide).

Serves 4 people.

Cooking time: about half an hour.

Ingredients:

• some guancale. I like it sliced thin so you get slivers of flavour, but some like it cubed. How much? I used about 100g.

• 500g of pasta. Spaghetti works well here, but bucatini is better.

• Egg. I like to do 1 egg yolk per person plus one whole egg per two people. So, for four, four yolks and two whole eggs.

• Black pepper. Freshly ground. More than you think.

Now some people will tell you that’s all you need (and all you’re allowed for an ‘authentic’ carbonara) but I also salt the pasta water and use some of it in the final saucing.

1. Boil a lot of salted water. Add the pasta. Cook it.

2. Meanwhile, in a heavy based pan, fry the sliced guancale (or pancetta, or if all else fails some unsmoked streaky bacon). You need something like a cast iron or enamelled Le Creuset because we need heat retention later.

3. Also meanwhile separate the eggs, loosely whisk and then start grinding black pepper and grating cheese. Grind slightly more black pepper than seems sensible and add it to the eggs. For the cheese I like to use a 50/50 mix of parmesan and pecorino. I don’t know amounts but if your pasta takes about 8 minutes then grate, stir pasta, grate, stir guancale, grate, repeat, until there’s about one minute left on your timer.

4. With one minute to go scoop up a cup of the pasta water. Then make sure your eggy cheesy peppery mixture is nicely combined.

5. When the pasta is done, turn of the heat on the guancale. Drain the pasta and then add to the guancale, tossing it until all the pasta is coated in the oil.

6. Add half the reserved pasta water to your cheeggy mixture and stir well to temper the it. Then pour into the pan with the guancale and pasta. Stir it! You want the egg to gently cook in the heat of the pan, but not scramble! So stir it, keep it moving until it’s barely saucy. Then add the rest of the reserved pasta water again and stir again until it hits a creamy but not wet consistency.

7. Serve with some more freshly ground black pepper.

No photos because you want to eat this while it’s still hot! Maybe next time.

... I mean, the boat's at the bottom of the sea, bit late to be worrying about health and safety now!

I have a bunch of go-to online sources for recipes that I use, from NYT cooking (subscription required but worth it) to Serious Eats (Kenji FTW!) to BBC Good Food.

But my all time favourite online writer is Felicity Cloake who does an utterly brilliant series in The Guardian.

The premise is simple: for any given dish, she takes a bunch of recipes from various chefs and food writers, tries them all, and discusses what works and what doesn't, then publishes her best version of all of the above.

Whether it's pierogi, nettle soup, cheese empanadas, or pasta ai funghi her articles are great because you can see why she's made the decisions she has for her final recipe. You can pick and chose from the various recipes she tried.

Strongly, strongly recommended.

An investigation has been launched after ram-raiders stole a Slush Puppie machine.

The raid happened at about 01:40 BST on Saturday at Moores Fish & Chip Shop in Newton Leys, Milton Keynes.

Thames Valley Police said significant damage was caused to the shop after a vehicle, believed to be a dark Vauxhall Astra, repeatedly drove into it.

A number of men entered the shop and stole the cold drinks machine.

Chicken and asparagus risotto

Serves 2

Ingredients

• asparagus, one bunch - for this, where the asparagus is chopped, I like quite thin stalks, if I'm serving it whole as a side I prefer thicker stalks
• chicken breast, 250g cooked, and chopped - this is a weeknight meal, if I was taking time I'd poach and shred some chicken breast fresh for it
• risotto rice, 250g - I like Carnaroli most, but only had Arborio in the cupboard so that's what I used here
• shallots - I had some huge Echalion shallots and just used a couple, finely sliced
• garlic, 2 cloves, finely slived or minced
• butter, an ungodly amount, in 1 cm cubes - some for frying and some to finish. Maybe 100g
• 1 cup of dry white wine
• stock, 1L - I used half chicken and half veggie
• flat leaf parsley, 1 fistful, chopped
• Parmigiano Reggiano, 50g, finely grated
• salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. take a bunch of asparagus and snap off the woody stems (don't bin them!). Cut the asparagus into roughly 1.5cm to 2cm pieces on a slight bias.
2. bring some stock to a bare simmer and toss in the woody asparagus stems. I used about 1L stock total.

3. bring half the butter to a low simmer in a heavy bottomed pan (an enamelled dutch oven is perfect here, a Le Creuset or other similar). Gently cook the chopped asparagus in the butter, until fragrant and softening, maybe 3-4 minutes.
4. remove the asparagus and reserve.
5. add the chopped shallots to the pan and let soften, about 5 minutes.
6. add the garlic to the pan and let soften, about 2 minutes.
7. turn the heat up under the pan to medium, add the rice, and stir in the rice. Fry until you can smell a slightly toasty note from the rice, stirring often.

8. toss in your white wine and keep stirring frequently until it's been absorbed.
9. remove the woody asparagus stems from the stock and chuck.
10. a ladle or two at a time, add some stock to the risotto and keep stirring often until the stock has been almost completely absorbed. Repeat until you've used almost all the stock. Test the rice. You want no chalkiness, but still a little but of a bite to it, it shouldn't be mushy.
11. add the chopped chicken and the fried asparagus to the pot along with the last ladle or two of stock. Keep stirring until it's at about the consistency you're looking for[1].
12. add the chopped parsley and the rest of the butter. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve.

My wife declared it to be as good as the M&S microwave Chicken and Asparagus risotto ready-meal, so you can't get much better than that, can you?

[1] - the perfect risotto should 'creep' across the plate, ie when you add a ladleful to a plate it shouldn't maintain a heaped shape but should gradually relax and spread a bit. Mine, here, was a bit thick, but what can you do?

... I think it was Farmer Geddon.

Kedgeree

Serves 4

Ingredients

• two or three good-sized fillets of smoked haddock (I prefer undyed but it can be harder to find)
• 300 ml milk
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tbsp garam masala
• 8 eggs
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp mild curry powder
• 1.5 cups of basmati rice, washed and soaked
• a small bunch of flat leaf parsley, chopped
• salt
• lemon to serve

Method

1. Add the milk, bay leaves, and garam masala to a pan large enough to take the haddock fillets in a single layer, and bring it to a simmer. Once it's reached a simmer, add the haddock fillets, cover, and turn off the heat. Leave for about 10 minutes. Then, remove the fish and save for later. Strain the milk into a jug.
2. Hard boil the eggs. I like to use J. Kenji López-Alt's method for easy-to-peel eggs. I usually let them cook for 10 minutes, then straight into a cold bath before peeling them.
3. Gently fry the chopped onion and garlic for five minutes, then stir in the mild curry powder. Once ithe mixture is fragrant, stir in the rice and add a good pinch of salt.
4. For 1.5 cups of rice I like to use a little over 2 cups of liquid. I add one cup of the reserved milk, and one cup of water. Bring to a simmer, cover, and turn the heat down as low as it will go for about 10 minutes.
5. While the rice is cooking, chop the parsley and flake the fish (discarding any skin if it was present). When the 10 minutes is up, check the rice to make sure the liquid has been absorbed, then top the rice with three quarters of the parsley and the flaked fish. Put a sheet of kitchen towel over the top of the pan, then re-cover, turn the heat off, and let it rest for about 5 minutes.
6. While the rice is resting, cut each boiled egg into 4 quarters.
7. Gently stir the rice, fish, and parsley into each other, then split between bowls. Add the boiled eggs and garnish with the remaining parsley. Serve with wedges of lemon.

Crows had to drink at home.

One of my favourites. And the kids eat it too since it's basically giant chicken nuggets!

Ingredients

• One chicken breast per person
• plain flour (I like to season mine with a little salt and pepper)
• 1 egg, beaten
• breadcrumbs (I use Paxo Natural, but you could posh it up a bit with artisinal breadcrumbs)
• a frying oil (eg sunflower)
• salt and pepper
• parmesan
• lemons to serve

Method

1. Preheat an over to 75'c to keep things warm. Put in a baking tray lined with kitchen towel or greaseproof paper.

2. Pop a damp sheet of kitchen towel on your worktop, then a chopping board on top of that. Get a large piece of clingfilm (double the size of the chopping board, rest it over the board, then place a chicken breast on the clingfilm and finally lay the rest of the clingfilm over the chicken. Using a meat mallet, a rolling pin, or even another chopping board, bash your chicken breast to an even 1cm or so thick. Repeat for all chicken breasts (if you have decent quality clingfilm the same piece should hold up for multiple chicken breasts).

3. Heat the oil in a large frying pan.

4. Lay out three shallow bowls, each big enough to take a flattened breast. Put the flour in one, the egg in another, and mix the breadcrumbs and parmesan with a little salt and pepper in the third.

5. One by one, dredge the breasts in the flour and shake excess off, then dip in the egg and drip the excess off, then finally into the breadcrumb / parmesan mix and again shake off any excess.

6. Fry each coated chicken breast for 3 to four minutes on each side (check the internal temperature with an instant-read thermometer: chicken should reach a minimum of 70'C / 158'F according to the World Health Organisation - most recommend higher but the WHO is good enough for me). Transfer the cooked chicken breasts to the oven to keep warm while you do the others.

7. Serve with lemon wedges, a really simple tomato spaghetti, and a green salad.