Mordon Blue cheese and celery terrine

We’ve discovered some fabulous local produce over the last few years and the closer to the restaurant’s doorstep somehow the better. One such find is from Carol Peacock’s cheese making business in Mordon just of the A1 a little to the south of us. Trading under the Parlour Made name, Carole produces three lovely cheeses: a Farmhouse White which is a bit like a Cheshire cheese, a wonderful camembert-style cheese and, our favourite, a cheese called Mordon Blue. We’ve been using the latter in salads over the summer but the following recipe is for an interesting take on a terrine. You could, of course, use any type of good blue cheese but I’d recommend trying to get hold of Carol’s Parlour Made. This is a local cheese maker who certainly knows what she’s doing.

Serves at least six as a starter

250g of Mordon Blue cheese or other good quality blue cheese

100g unsalted butter

Three sticks of celery

50ml double cream

A handful of chopped parsley

Sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper

First, slice the celery sticks as thinly as possible. Spread out the slices on a plate and sprinkle well with salt to draw out the moisture. Leave for about 30 minutes before tipping the celery into a sieve, rinsing under the tap to remove the salt and then tipping out onto a clean towel to dry.

Place the butter in a food processor and process until fluffed-up somewhat. If you don’t have a food processor you can place the butter in a mixing bowl and beat it with a wooden spoon until, again, fluffed-up. Add the celery and a little salt and pepper; tasting to adjust, remembering that the cheese will be quite salty. Then mix in the chopped parsley.

Line a small terrine mould with clingfilm (or, if you didn’t have a terrine mould, a small bowl would do) and spread the butter and celery mixture around the cover the base.

Process the cheese in the food processor, adding the cream as you do. But watch the consistency; you want it creamy but not too slushy. Spread the cheese and cream mixture on top of the butter, cover with clingfilm. Place a suitably-sized weight on top such as another mould filled with water and place in the refrigerator for an hour or so to set.

This is lovely served in slices, as we do in the restaurant, with hot toast and a few sliced radishes.

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

It’s like a war out there. Who would you trust? After all, it’s down to you. You’re the one who’s going to determine whether you survive and ultimately succeed. It’s apparent, just by the fact that you’re reading this article, that you’ve got what it takes; that you’re intelligent enough. So, who do you believe? Who’s lying to you?

Well, unfortunately, nearly everybody. Or, if not actually lying, misleading you with a type of slight of hand that makes you do something that, if you really thought about it, you might not.

You think I’m being alarmist? Well, do you really trust politicians to tell you the truth? The non-being-economic kind of truth? Surely not. Just consider their motives. Did they stand for parliament for purely altruistic reasons; just to represent the well-being of you and all your friends? Or was there just a teensy weensy bit of motive to get and stay in a position of power and influence? Obviously they’re bound to fashion whatever they communicate so that it conveys the impression that having them there is in your interest and that you should vote for them when it’s time for them to get back in. They’ll work their argument hard in such a way that you’ll be persuaded. Is that the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Or, dare I suggest, a little selective?

Take the young chap trying to woo the young lady. Will he really love her in the morning and, anyway, doesn’t love last forever? Or is he spinning her a little bit of a yarn in his desperation to consummate his said wooing?

And then there’s commerce. Do you really think that anybody trying to sell you something is going to provide you with all the facts in a very clear manner? Would the cigarette companies have drawn attention to the life-shortening effects of their products if they hadn’t been forced by legislation? But even if laws are introduced in order to force the truth out, there’s a continuous game where we, the consumers, are caught piggy-in-the-middle between the legislators and the corporates egged on by their shareholders, trying to confuse us with their sales arguments. I mean, have you tried to compare mobile phone tariff structures recently? They’re designed to make your decision difficult so that you actually end up choosing their product for non-financial reasons such as the phone’s pretty colour.

There’s always some pressure to hold back the whole truth in the expectation that its release will make you stop, think and refrain from buying.

And so it is with the manufacturers of processed food. Only this week there was the surprising (not) news that certain products sold as “light” in fact contained more calories and fat than the “normal” variety. I’ve long argued that products such as a “virtually fat free” fruit yoghurt are not the greatest catalyst to a sylph-like you for a number of reasons but not least, that without fat to act as a flavour carrier, they’re particularly unsatisfying and the desire for fulfilment remains once you’ve eaten them.

In all honesty, I don’t think we should complain about that because that’s life. We live in a commercial world so get used to it and, dare I say, wise up to it.

But beware because things can be very blatant. It’s now it’s been confirmed that some so-called “light” crisps are more fattening than full-fat, that some “healthy” biscuits are at least as calorie-filled as normal ones and good-for-your-gut mini drinks may not be that good for your body in “light” form. And the list goes on.

Ooh, those nasty companies trying to hoodwink us. Who’d have believed it? And what can we do about it?

Short of revolution I believe the only way to know what you’re eating is not to buy processed foods or at least to limit them to those times when they’re really essential or your craving outweighs your self control. At all other times it’s simple: cook your own food from scratch. You have got the time. And if you think you haven’t, you’ve never learnt how to make food in the time available. If you had been taught correctly you could knock up many meals in a few minutes. Shopping and cooking can take no more time than going to the takeaway. But if we’re not taught we can’t do it. So we rely on processed foods produced by those nasty companies that don’t tell us the whole truth. And believe me, that is the whole truth.

Venison-stuffed chicken

When chicken’s good it can actually be some of the best meat to eat. But usually the stuff we’re offered in the shops is the intensively-raised variety that lacks its full potential. So we’ve come up with a dish that is lifted by the use of another meat stuffing and uses the tasty and less expensive legs of a chicken.

We’ve used venison mince here but it doesn’t have to be. Any good pork sausage meat will do. Also, if you were using pork you might be able to omit the pork fat. It’s used here because venison is such a lean meat. The easiest way to check what you need is to mix up a bit of the stuffing first, maybe without the fat, and make a small “burger”. Fry it off and taste it to see what you think. This also enables you to get the seasoning right.

serves four

Four whole chicken legs - skin on

200g venison mince or sausage meat

50g pork fat

One head garlic

A sprig each of rosemary and thyme – picked off the stems

One tin of chopped tomatoes or 1kg of fresh tomatoes - chopped

Salt and freshly-ground black pepper

Rapeseed oil or similar

A pinch of sugar

One bay leaf

String for tying the legs.

First take half the garlic, peel the cloves and crush finely. Finely-chop half the thyme and rosemary, dice up the pork fat and add both to the minced meat. Mix and season with salt and pepper.

If you have a half-decent butcher you could ask for the bones to be removed from the chicken legs but it’s not that difficult and just involves a little patience. First lay the chicken flat on the chopping board, skin side down. Pinch the thigh bone between the fore finger and thumb and simply cut around it with a thin sharp knife. Work down past the knee joint, making sure not to break the skin, and pull the bone free. You’ll now have a boned chicken leg but don’t throw the bones away.

Divide the stuffing into four and fill each leg, folding the meat and skin around the stuffing so that it forms a tidy parcel. Secure by tying with the string like wrapping a present.

       

Heat the oven to 180°C, gas mark 4. Meanwhile, heat a steep-sided pot or oven-proof pan,  add a good slug of oil and brown the chicken legs on all sides while adding the removed bones and browning those too. Place the pan in the oven for 5 minutes or so whilst roughly chopping the rest of the garlic, thyme, rosemary and, if using, fresh tomatoes. Remove the pan from the oven and lower the temperature to 160°C, gas mark 3. Add all the remaining ingredients to the pan with the chicken and bones and return to the oven to cook a further 30 minutes.

Lift the chicken legs from the pan and keep warm. Push the sauce through a sieve and return to the pan to reduce until thickened. Taste and adjust the seasoning; adding a little sugar if necessary, particularly if using fresh tomatoes.

Cut the string from the chicken legs, slice in two and serve with some greens and good bread to mop-up the delicious sauce.

An electrifying project

I’ve done a lot of project management in my time: from the design and installation of small-scale eco power generation plants, via the design and build of a number of restaurants to the construction of an extension on our kitchen at home. Therefore the upgrade of our electricity supply at the restaurant should be an absolute doddle. Shouldn’t it?

Well that’s what I thought until I started picking up the phone and receiving the paperwork from the two main parties.

You see we wanted to put in what’s called a three phase electricity supply in order for us to be able to run bigger ovens and avoid the panic that occasionally ensues every time the electricity trips during the busiest moment of the evening. It’s not just the fact that the diners have been plunged into darkness, nor the look through the emergency light-lit gloom on the faces of the waiting staff. But rather the language from the chefs in the kitchen who, halfway through plating up meals next to a raging gas cooker, suddenly can’t see what they’re doing and naturally complain in rather strong terms without realising that there’s no longer any music in the restaurant or protection from the loud hum of the kitchen ventilation equipment to drown out the swear words. Diners were being shocked. Something had to be done. Hence the upgrade.

So the first thing I did was phone the number on our electricity bill. Obviously those people are the ones who I buy from so I must go to them. No matter that I’d made a mistake. They gave me the number for the people who put the wires in the ground, I made another call and we were off and running. They told me that they’d be delighted to give us more electricity. All they wanted was the dosh up front with absolutely no date as to when they were going to do the work. I thought this was a little like asking you for full payment for your meal at the time of your telephone booking with no guarantee as to what time we’d be able to sit you nor, actually, as to which day.

But we needed the work doing and I assumed I was dealing with a rational organisation who’d done this sort of thing many times before and I’d be able to draw on their experience. Well that was another mistake.

After some conversation about what we actually needed and the clearing of a fairly large cheque from Oldfields, we waited a couple of weeks to see what would happen. Then we got a letter dated two weeks before it was actually delivered informing us that the work was to be done in seven days time and we’d better make sure we’d arranged for the new meter to be installed that same day. And who installs the meter? Ah yes, the people who we actually pay for the electricity. So, onto the phone to them only to be told that they need three weeks notice. “But they’re cutting us off next week!” I relied, “Could you talk to them directly to synchronise things?”. “Sorry sir”, they replied, “can’t do that. It’s data protection you know”. I know that’s rubbish and you know that’s rubbish. It’s just something to hide behind but what could I do?

Well it turned out that these nice electricity supply people had a solution. Pay them money and we could actually specify a date that the meter would be installed and, not only that, they’d do it on the day the electricity cable people were coming. Marvellous but expensive. It actually wasn’t quite as simple as that but lack of space on the page prevents me from describe the faff-on that was involved. Suffice to say, after much high blood pressure and testing of my diplomatic skills it was all set up for the Friday morning the next week.

The due day arrived and, despite a late previous night at the restaurant, I arose early to be there before 8am just in case the cable layers came first thing. They didn’t. They turned up at 10:30 just as I received a call to be told that the meter installer would be there at 11. Good, it was all coming together. I then phoned our own electricians who had to be there to complete the switch-over for us and everyone agreed that it’d take about 45 minutes to do the job and switch the juice back on. Just in time for lunch at noon so that we wouldn’t lose any trade.

So, at 11 o’clock, the meter man arrived to be greeted by quite a few of us: me, my three electricians, three cable layers, two chaps who were there to fill in the previously-dug whole in the pavement and our staff looking on with expectation. “There’s not enough room for the meter” said our meter man to a hushed audience. “You’re going to have to get a bigger box installed on the wall and give us a call to reschedule the meter fitting. I’m off”. I did a swift body swerve, stood in his way to prevent him from leaving and offered him a cup of tea. I realised that if we couldn’t complete today I’d have to continue paying for the temporary generator I was hiring and, to add insult to injury, pay the meter man’s company an aborted installation fee!

While I kept the meter man talking, one of our expensively-delayed electricians shot off to the builder’s merchant to get another meter box and, to cut a long story short, we got the whole thing up and running – but only after losing revenue by turning away numerous diners who couldn’t wait until the 1:15 actual switch-on time, and after paying through the nose to get the whole job done when I actually wanted, and after pre-paying the cable people who then specified the wrong-sized box, and after the two main parties refused to talk to each other, and after paying three electricians to stand around waiting for said parties, and after ageing five years trying to bring this all together.

Apologies to those we turned away and to those who decided to sit and wait and accept free drinks. I really hope it was worth it.

Poorly educated

I remember an absolutely awful story from my teens where a student at a local college had crashed his motorbike and was in a serious way. People who’d seen the accident rushed to help him and, in a bid to make him comfortable, removed his helmet which, unfortunately, resulted in him dying. That’s why Formula One racing drivers are always pulled from their mangled cars with their helmets in place. Who knows what damage it may be holding together? Even if the driver’s conscious he may be unaware of his injuries.

So, what little education I’ve had has taught me that if I find a motorcyclist lying by the side of the road, whatever I do, I’ll probably leave his helmet on. Although, even with my size of mouth, if his helmet’s the full-face type, I don’t know how I’d give him mouth-to-mouth as part of CPR. But at least I’ve been taught how to attempt to bring back a pulse and to encourage breathing when neither is in existence. Let’s just hope I never have to do it with a motorcyclist.

But isn’t education a wonderful thing? Not only was I taught how to check my change in a shop and read about family values from a Janet and John book, I can potentially prolong life too. It’s a shame that the benefits of education in the basics of life aren’t appreciated by everyone.

I’ve recently been away on holiday but, even in the weight-challenged country that’s America, there was mention in their newspapers of obesity problems in the UK. When you’re reading a US paper, you get used to seeing place names that we feel at home with. After all, I live within easy distance of New York, Philadelphia and Washington. However, when I saw Gateshead being reported it made me sit up. What, they’ve a Gateshead in the USA? Unfortunately it appears not. But the Yanks now know we have one in the UK and that it’s recently been suggested that at least 30% of adults there are obese.

What was reported next had me jumping up and down – and not with happiness. The mayor of Gateshead, Joe Mitchinson (who, it was reported, has a 46in waist) believes poverty is to blame. He suggested that junk food is eaten because parents can’t afford healthier food. Does Mr Mitchinson know how much a bag of carrots costs? From the evidence, I’m guessing he knows how much he has to pay for a bag of chips.

Wondering if I was the only person to think like this, I opened a Sunday paper last weekend to see a lady making exactly the same point; using a bag of carrots as the example and pointing out that they cost a lot less than a couple of bags of crisps.

“But my children won’t eat carrots” is the cry you’ll hear. Well not if they’ve been fed junk and sweets since birth they won’t. It’s not the cost of food that makes people fat; it’s the lack of knowledge about what they’re eating. We all know that too much of anything’s not good for us but if we don’t know what’s in our food, how can we judge if we’re getting too much of one thing?

We’d know that if we cooked. But most people don’t and can’t. Why? Because they were never taught. But we quickly learn how to sit on the sofa and watch all those adverts for convenience food.

Carrots are ok. They can be fabulous as part of a varied and interesting diet. Given a little time, I could probably give you a hundred ways to cook them or incorporate them into your life. And the same goes for apples and potatoes and peas and fish and the cheaper cuts of meat. We just need to be taught about it as part of all the other really important facts of life we’re taught at school such as reading and maths and how to have sex.

I was really upset to read the report while so far away from home. We obviously have a serious problem here in our region. Obesity is a complex subject and will be affected by many factors. But education must be the most significant factor of all. To ignore that and suggest it’s down to poverty is very misguided and, potentially, plain dangerous. Even a crash helmet and a bit of mouth-to-mouth won’t save you from the resulting ill-effects.

Pinscar Crag Organic mutton with Irish stew

Ask half a dozen people “in the know” their definition of mutton and you’ll often get six different answers. To many people, mutton’s a tough fatty meat and, without doubt, it can be true. The most tender meat usually comes from the youngest animals because meat is muscle and young animals haven’t worked that hard. So it stands to reason that the older the animal, the harder it’s worked and the tougher the meat. So, if a six year-old female sheep that’s mothered over six different years is used for meat, it’s fairly certain that the meat could be tough. Whether it’s fatty or not depends on whether it was a fat animal. However, a two year-old sheep, properly fed and reared, can have a much better taste than a six month-old lamb and the meat can be just as tender. It depends, amongst other things, on the breed of sheep and the cooking.

Older meat can really deliver superb flavour; particularly when cooked long and slow. Irish stew is a dish that makes use of the traditionally tougher and less popular cuts of meat, such as neck end, which while giving a great flavour, can lack a little sparkle in the visual department. However in the following recipe we use mutton from two year-old organic sheep and we finish the dish off with quickly-seared mutton cutlets or chops which provide a whole new dimension to this traditional dish.

We call it Pinscar Crag on our menu because that’s where we get the mutton from. And I promise you, it’s the best meat I’ve ever tasted – and that’s saying something. So it almost goes without saying, it pays to get the best meat you can afford.

Serves four to six

One mutton or lamb neck

A handful of pearl barley

Three carrots cut into large chunks

Two potatoes - peeled and cut into chunks

Two onions – peeled and diced

½ a swede – peeled and cut into chunks

½ Savoy cabbage - shredded

Three sticks of celery – cut into chunks

A sprig each of thyme and rosemary

A bay leaf

Ten white peppercorns

Salt and freshly-ground white pepper

Two mutton chops per portion.

First, take the neck and simply cover with cold water in a suitable pot. Add the bay leaf, thyme and rosemary sprigs and peppercorns and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for around two hours until the meat can be easily picked from the bone, making sure to skim any fat or impurities from the surface of the liquid. Once cooked, remove the meat from the pan and allow to cool on a plate. Pass the stock through a fine sieve, return to the pan, add all the other ingredients apart from the chops and cook for a further 30 to 40 minutes. Meanwhile, pick the cooked meat from the bone and reserve.  When the vegetables in the pot are tender, simply stir the picked meat back in and adjust the seasoning as necessary with salt and white pepper.

To serve, grill or fry the chops to your liking, preferably a bit pink, and place alongside the stew and eat with some crusty bread.

Let's have a demonstration

What do you do, or have you done, for a living? Is it an interesting subject? And is it interesting enough for people to ask you to hold sessions at which you demonstrate your prowess?

I’ve got a mate who’s an accountant and, while I’m sure most people who’d agree that accountancy is a necessary profession, it’s not one that stirs the blood of non-accountants. I’m sure that when accountants get together at their special accountancy convention away-day weekends, they all get very animated about net present value and corporation tax but most of us would be left cold, even after helping ourselves to the free sparkling wine and canapés.

So could you imagine, when seeking a little entertainment, going to a demonstration of cash flow forecasting? No, neither could I.

But people love to see certain jobs being demonstrated. Thousands have been mesmerised at the Sunderland Glass museum while watching experts blowing into molten glass to make round things. Many more have been to Beamish to see how things were done in the olden days. The BBC even used to show a potter making clay things on a wheel when there were unscheduled gaps in the broadcasting. And, of course, there are the myriad cookery programmes on TV which occupy the lives of so many of us.

I’ve often wondered why people love watching others cooking. I originally assumed that it was because they wanted to learn how to expand their own culinary repertoire. But when you realise that, as a percentage of the population, fewer people than ever cook in this country today, that can’t be the main reason. I’ve wondered if, like pornography, it’s a remote form of gratification based on the idea that if they can’t get it they’ll watch others doing it but I personally know many who watch cookery programmes – including my mother – so I sincerely hope it’s not that.

Is it that people subconsciously wish that they can do what is one of the most of the important things in life – prepare food to keep us alive and improve our quality of that life – even though they can’t, and won’t?

Whatever the reason, I’ve known for years that when we’ve held cookery demonstrations at our restaurants, we’ve never had a problem filling the available places. And I’ve always used the opportunity as a shameless attempt to promote our business.

And on that subject, it’s worth promoting that there’s Durham City’s annual food festival this weekend (Saturday 22nd October 20011). And guess what? There are cookery demonstrations and I’m on at 10am on Saturday. Come along to see some chefs cooking and be prepared for some shameless promoting.