I have become rather partial to a ‘train picnic’. Everything is more exciting when there’s a meal involved and train travel is no exception. Obviously I’m not talking about the shite they sell in the buffet car (gin in a can obviously excepted), but a carry on home made effort. Nowadays I look forward to these picnics as much as I do reaching my destination which was, in this case, Bristol.

The picture above shows what we decided to call breakfast. The Joselito ham was pretty special (if it’s good enough for Ferran Adria it’s good enough for me); the gran reserva in particular had fat packing the kind of complex flavour which makes heart disease seem like quite an appealing option if this is the way to go about acquiring it. We also ate a banon goats’ cheese that tasted stunning but totally honked (sorry coach C), all washed down with beer. What do you mean cheese and beer aren’t for breakfast? Pffft. But what about the eggs? We couldn’t have a full breakfast without eggs. Thankfully Mr. Egg Obsessive had thought about this the night before.

Could we scramble them in a Thermos flask? Only one way to find out. A vac pack bag was first filled with a silly amount of butter because that, as any good egg scrambler knows, is an essential foundation. Six eggs were beaten, seasoned highly and poured into the bag, before it was sealed using my nifty vacuum sealing machine (I think a good quality sandwich bag may suffice if you’ve not yet signed up to the Food Tosserati).

Smear the bag with butter…

Add the eggs 

Into the flask (a thermometer is useful)

The cooked eggs looking very appealing in their bag

The Thermos was filled with boiling water at 7.30am, and then topped up from the train buffet car at around 9.15. In went the eggy bag (a messy business best done away from your seat for the obvious reason of water displacement) for 20 minutes, which we thought would be long enough to cook them. It wasn’t. Another top up and a further 20 minutes however and they were good to go. In fact, the were really rather fine. I was half expecting the kind of solid yellow lump one finds lurking under the polystyrene lid of a Maccy D’s breakfast (serves you right for not ordering the sausage and egg Mcmuffin) but what came out was soft, loose and genuinely well cooked.

A pretty good result!

Having been optimistic from the get go, we’d packed chives to garnish, extra black pepper and a packet of really rather good smoked salmon, which had been sent, fittingly, as part of a ‘Best of Bristol’ food hamper*. We scarfed the lot with a slice of (pre-toasted) sourdough.

That is how to make a train journey fly by. We were full of very good things, slightly drunk and had mastered the art of guerilla scrambling. Not bad for a morning’s work.

*To win your own hamper, go here. Hurry, the competition ends today. 

Thermos Scrambled Eggs

Let’s face it, the results here are going to be highly variable. You all know what eggs look like when they’re cooked, right? If you’re going to be making scrambled eggs in a Thermos flask on a train, then I’m guessing you’re not too hung up on health and safety issues anyway.

6 eggs
Butter
Salt and pepper
Some kind of bag for sealing the egg mixture
A Thermos flask full of boiling water

Fill the flask with boiling water before you get on the train. We waited an hour and a half before we put the eggs in to cook.

Put an indecent amount of butter in the bag. Beat the eggs, season them well and tip them into the bag also. Seal the bag with whatever means you have. Obviously if you don’t have a vacuum sealer (what? Really?), then you’re going to want to keep that bag upright.

It’s worth topping up the bag with extra boiling water on the train if you can. Lower the eggs in before you do this, to avoid getting water everywhere. After twenty minutes check the eggs and give them a smoosh about with your hands (scrambled, remember). We then topped up the water a second time and cooked the eggs for a further twenty minutes. As you can see from the thermometer, the temperature was around the 70C mark.

I can highly recommend washing it down with a ‘Fursty Ferret’ (that’s a beer).

‘Frazzled’ aubergines? Okay, so I’m definitely not talking about aubergines cooked alongside the popular, bacon rasher-shaped potato snacks.

I sense your relief.

The idea of ‘burnt’ aubergines may be more familiar; popularised recently by chefs like Ottolenghi, it’s actually an age-old cooking technique. I prefer to call them frazzled. It’s just…well, it’s just a lovely word.

Shiny purple fruits are placed over a naked flame, roasted or grilled until skins blacken and they collapse inward on themselves with a steamy sigh. Once cooled and split, the inside is silken, and above all gloriously smoky; a total transformation. It is this creamy flesh that blends into magical dips such as baba ghanoush, but I like to use it as a base for a sauce. It seems very decadent somehow; almost fit for a feast.

The meatballs bobbing within are made with lamb, sweet nubs of date and warming cumin and chilli. I’ve nicked a trick from the Italians too and mixed in some breadcrumbs soaked in milk – just a little – the difference in texture is astounding. They become light and – dangerously – extremely easy to eat. A swirl of yoghurt and a few jewels of pomegranate make this dish really rather pretty. Serve with cous cous or bread to absorb the luxurious sauce.

I came up with this recipe as for the Le Creuset ‘Cast Iron Challenge’, so if you think this sounds a bit tasty, please vote for my recipe on twitter (using ‘I’m voting for @FoodStories in the (@McArthurGlenUK #LeCreuset #CastIronChallenge http://goo.gl/EM7fD‘), and you could win a Le Creuset voucher worth £50!! That’s pretty awesome.

Lamb and Date Meatballs in Frazzled Aubergine Sauce

500g minced lamb
4 dates, pitted and finely chopped
1 heaped teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 heaped teaspoon hot chilli flakes, or to taste
1 teaspoon dried mint
1 thick slice white bread
Milk (about 4 tablespoons)

For the sauce

4 aubergines
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 400g regular tin chopped tomatoes
2 black cardamom
1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses
1 cinnamon stick
300ml vegetable stock

Vegetable oil, for frying

Pierce the aubergines in several places with a fork, then place directly on the gas ring of the hob, turning occasionally, until black and shrivelled all over. Alternatively, grill them to the same effect.

Remove the crusts from the slice of bread and break into rough pieces. Place in a small bowl with enough milk to mash to a paste.

In a small frying pan, toast the cumin and coriander seeds over a low heat, stirring frequently, until they start to smell fragrant. Take care not to burn them. Grind them in a spice grinder or crush them in a pestle and mortar.

In a large bowl combine the minced lamb, ground cumin and coriander, chilli flakes, chopped dates and mint. Season with salt and pepper. Mix well; really , really well. Get in there with your hands and knead the mixture almost like a bread dough. Make sure the dates are well distributed. Roll into walnut sized balls. Set aside on a plate.

Heat 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil in the Le Creuset, and fry the meatballs in batches, 4 or 5 at a time, until golden brown all over. Set each batch aside while you cook the next.

To make the sauce, scrape the flesh from inside the aubergines, leaving behind the blackened skin. Chop roughly. Fry the onion until , cardamom pods and cinnamon stick until the onions are soft and beginning to colour. Scrape up the lovely meaty residues from the pan as you do this. Add the aubergines and garlic. Turn up the heat a little and Cook for about five minutes more stirring.

Add the tomatoes, pomegranate molasses and stock. Put lid on and cook for 45 mins to an hour on low heat. Taste and season. For a thicker sauce, remove the lid towards the end of cooking time to reduce it.

Scatter with pomegranate seeds and coriander to serve.

It’s National Sandwich week, so obviously I’m all over that like ketchup on a chip butty. Or brown sauce if you’re, you know, NORMAL.

Anyway it seemed only right to honour the week with some sandwich bits and bobs so today I give you a recipe for what is a frankly outrageous piece of work – The Fool’s Gold Loaf. Made famous by Elvis ‘The King’ Presley, and taking its name from the reportedly stupendous price tag of $49.95. The story goes that Elvis would travel miles to eat this sandwich at the restaurant where it was invented, a joint called ‘The Colorado Mine Company’, in Denver. It’s said in fact that Elvis once flew his guests in from Memphis on his private jet just so they could eat it.

In true Elvis style this sandwich is a vision of excess – an entire loaf, hollowed out and filled with a jar (yes a jar) of peanut butter, followed by a jar (yes a jar) of grape jam, followed by a substantial amount (you get the idea) of crisp grilled bacon.

The combinations may sound odd, but the mixture of salty and sweet flavours isn’t that far out there; think bacon and maple syrup on waffles, or salted caramel ice cream. That said, I’ve never known a sandwich to elicit such a wide range of noises from people when eaten – a mixture of ‘mmm this is tasty’ plus ‘wow, this is wrong’ but ‘mmm this is tasty’; once you’ve had one bite, it’s  difficult to resist taking another.

This sandwich serves one, if you’ve the appetite of Elvis. It will serve approximately 8 ‘normal’ people however. Uh-huh.

Fool’s Gold Loaf

1 x approximately 11 x 4” white loaf
450g streaky bacon
250g smooth peanut butter
250g grape, blackcurrant, blueberry or plum jam
Butter, for spreading on the loaf

Preheat the oven to 150C.

Cut the loaf in half lengthways, leaving a little more thickness to the bottom half. Remove most of the crumb from the inside of each half, leaving a thickness of a couple of centimetres (or as much as you like). Spread each half with butter, inside and out.

Place the two halves on a baking tray and bake until toasted and lightly golden all
over (approx. 15 minutes).

While the bread is toasting, grill the bacon until crisp.

Spread the bottom half of the loaf with the peanut butter, then layer on the bacon. Spread the top half with the jam and sandwich together. Cut into slices to serve.

Leftovers are, for me, almost always better than the original dish. Even as a child I always wanted everything cold; steak and kidney pie being my favourite. I remember the highlight of holidays away with a friend’s family being these pre-packed, jellied treats, an anti-dote to the PURE EVIL that we were given to drink (that’s hot Ribena for those who don’t know). Again, I preferred that cold.

This is a rip off of a Simon Hopkinson recipe for cold veal with anchovy sauce and sliced boiled eggs. The salty anchovies work just as well with cold lamb as they do when jimmied into crevices with garlic and rosemary and roasted in a hot oven. Instead of melting away however, here they retain their flavour which, for me at least, is a very good thing.

Cold Roast Lamb with Anchovy Sauce

For the sauce (makes enough sauce for 4 people) 

6 tablespoons mayonnaise
8 anchovy fillets
1 tablespoon wholegrain mustard
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
Splash of water

Plus the rest…

Sliced cold roast lamb
Lettuce leaves
Finely shredded spring onions
Capers, rinsed

Lay the lettuce leaves on a plate and sprinkle with some finely shredded spring onions. Lay the sliced lamb on top.

Put all the sauce ingredients in a small blender and whizz them up. Taste and adjust the quantities, you may want a little more white wine vinegar for example. Drizzle the sauce over the lamb and dot with capers.

Never have I felt more like a fully fledged member of the Food Tosserati as when I found myself using raw milk from the farmers’ market to make this ice cream, then shortly after seasoning my dauphinoise with penja pepper, before jostling it into the fridge next to the batch of wild garlic pesto I’d made the day before. Oh dear.

Tell you what though, raw milk does taste fantastic. ‘Raw’ meaning unpasteurised. It’s rich and creamy and supposedly has health benefits which are destroyed by pasteurisation. I don’t know the evidence for this and frankly I don’t have time to look so if anyone out there has properly delved into it, I’d be grateful to know the outcome.

What I can tell you is that it makes fabulous ice cream. It was supposed to be prune and Armagnac, but there’s only so far a corner shop in Camberwell can stretch in the booze department, so prune and cognac it was and blimey, was it ever tasty.

Prunes simmered with cognac, ready for the custard

I made this for dinner, for the boyfriend’s parents no less. When I took the first mouthful I thought ‘holy shit, this is a bit good’ but obviously kept my trap shut for fear of appearing smug or boastful. So if you want to impress parents or other such important people, and also erm, keep them regular, then make this ice cream.

Prune and Cognac Ice Cream (fills 2 plastic tubs of the kind that takeaway food arrives in)

20 prunes, pitted and chopped (just chop each into about 3 pieces)
180ml cognac
60ml water
500ml double cream
500ml whole milk
225g caster sugar
6 large egg yolks

Simmer the prunes, cognac and water in a small pan, until 3/4 of the liquid has evaporated. Set aside to cool.

Scald the milk and cream (this means heating it until almost but not boiling, basically when bubbles start to appear around the edge, you’re done). Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until they turn pale and start to thicken. Continue whisking, and add about 1/3 of the hot milk and cream mixture to the egg mix, then when it is incorporated, add the remaining mixture (again whisking all the time).

Pour the lot into a clean, heavy based pan and cook over a low-medium heat, stirring constantly, until the custard thickens and coats the back of a spoon. You can also test if it’s ready by drawing a line down  the custard on the back of the spoon with your finger. If the line stays, it’s ready. A thermometer makes this even easier. You want to keep the custard between 70 – 80C. At 70 it starts to thicken, at 80 it starts to curdle. You’ll probably get the result you want at about 75C.

Put the mixture aside in a bowl and add the prunes and any juices. Cover by placing a layer of cling film or greaseproof paper directly on top of the custard, to stop a skin forming. Leave to cool completely, before churning in an ice cream maker, then freezing for an hour or two before serving.

You can also make this without an ice cream maker, but you’ll need to remove it from the freezer every hour or so and either beat it with an electric mixer or hand whisk, the idea being to break up as many ice crystals as you can in order to make it as smooth and creamy as possible.

Oxford, despite being a rather famous and much visited city, doesn’t really have many good restaurants. At least, it didn’t when I lived there for a good five years and I haven’t really heard any news to the contrary since. Maybe I’m out of touch.

One diamond in the rough used to be The Magdalen Arms, a pub on Iffley Road, which served food that was everything pub grub should be but rarely is; un-fussed and generous, yet skilfully cooked. I remember a resplendent crab, nothing more than plunged into boiling water and served whole, ready to be worked over, the meat dipped in quivering mayonnaise. We sat in the sunshine and cracked, delved and mined its nooks and crannies for meat, rocking around in our seats on the back of copious amounts of rosé.

Another highlight was a stuffed artichoke, leaves splayed and crammed fat with goats’ cheese, herbs and breadcrumbs, shiny with olive oil. We teased away the leaves and sucked the creamy, intense stuffing from them. This was probably about 3 years ago and the dish still enters my thoughts occasionally, hence, this recipe.

Once the leaves are sucked clean, there is of course the sweet, soft heart to be had. A lovely, leisurely starter.

Cheese and Herb Stuffed Artichokes (serves 2-4, depending on appetite)

2 large or 4 smaller globe artichokes
1 thick slice stale white bread, whizzed into breadcrumbs
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 small bunch parsley leaves, finely chopped
125g ricotta and 50g feta OR 175g goats cheese
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Zest of 1 lemon
4 tablespoons olive oil, plus one more for cooking

Snip the tips off the artichokes leaves and stems, turn them upside down and give them a good rap on the counter top to make the leaves splay out a bit. Give them a bit more encouragement to open up using your fingers, then keep them in a bowl of water with a squeeze of lemon juice. This supposedly stops them from going brown, although they always seem to do it anyway.

Prepare the stuffing by mixing everything together and adding some salt and pepper. Stuff the mixture into the gaps between the leaves then arrange the artichokes in a pan where they fit snugly, you don’t want them moving about in there. The advice is not to cook them in a pan made of reactive metal such as iron or aluminium, again because it makes them discolour although again, I find they do anyway.

Fill the pan with water so it comes about a third to halfway up the artichokes and add the other tablespoon of olive oil. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and put a lid on. Cook for 25 minutes, or until the leaves come away without too much resistance.

Allow to cool for 5 minutes or so, then serve. With napkins. Lots.

With 24 hours to eat and drink in Manchester, what would you do? Obviously I asked Twitter. The responses were many but amongst the crowd two contenders stood out as the most popular: the tradition of ‘rice and three’ curry cafes and the Almost Famous burger bar.

The curry cafe idea I was very much into and the most popular place seemed to be a joint called ‘This and That’ which is mentioned, well, pretty much everywhere as The Place to Go. The locals seemed to think differently however, which is how we ended up stumbling, extremely (really terribly) hungover, into Kabana. The idea of rice and three is that one is served rice and – guess how many curries? Yeah it’s three. Food is ordered from a very patient man who is clearly adept at dealing with hungover people. He stands over great big silver chafing dishes, waiting patiently while we dither about choosing what we want. Lamb, chicken and chickpea curries were duly heaped onto a mound of fluffy basmati and sprinkled with chopped green chillies, diced ginger and lemon juice, provided on the counter top for self service garnish.

‘Rice and three’: chickpeas, chicken and lamb

An extra bowl of a lamb nahari; really tasty and totally necessary…oof

We totter over to a formica topped, screwed-to-the-ground table and tuck in to what turns out to be some fantastic food; simple, yes, but with skilful, distinct spicing and a punch from those garnishes. A garlic chapatti was stupendously good; a real thwack of garlic and a slick of ghee. Hangovers are sniffled away as we shovel it down unceremoniously, surrounded by a mixture of couples with young children, plus people like us, clearly also soothing hangovers, and Indian families scooping up curries with their hands; great food with no fuss and oooh, I haven’t mentioned one of the best bits – it cost…a fiver. A fiver!

And from substance over style to…well I expect you can work out where I’m going. Almost Famous. I’m going to bypass all the trend ticking, the queuing, the forced cliches, because none of that bothers me hugely to be honest. What matters to me is what they’re serving from the kitchen and of course, the bar. Oh and the way they’ve chosen to name the things that are produced in both of them.

Their signature drink for example is something called ‘bitch juice’. We ordered a round. It was possibly the sweetest drink I’ve ever tasted, and that’s from someone who grew up on raspberry Slush Puppies, you know, the scary blue ones. ‘Bitch juice’ consists of a heavy grenadine base, then some booze, presumably, and a topping of fruit and…icing sugar. Mixing grenadine and icing sugar is just…I’d say confident, bold perhaps. Brave, maybe? My teeth are aching at the memory. The fact that it wasn’t nice is not my real problem however. What I really take issue with, is the name, as I did when I ordered my burger with ‘slut sauce’. Sorry but, since when did misogyny = cool? I wondered at the logic behind this. Hey! We’re really edgy! We’re so fucking edgy we named everything after derogatory terms for women! Will the salad come with whore dressing perhaps? How about a slag soup? I think it could really take off. There are a lot of breasts on the wall, too. I like breasts, I have some. They’re very nice to look at but really, when muddled with the lame sexism on the menu it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. As does the food.

My burger, as you can see, was overcooked and also under seasoned. The house sauce appeared to be a mixture of mayonnaise and mustard but somehow, tasted of nothing much at all. It was reminiscent of a ropey Whopper. The wings I need not describe. Take a look at that picture. You know exactly what that BBQ sauce tastes like without my even needing tell you.

As I’m queuing up to order food I notice they’ve copied out Charlie Sheen’s breakdown rant on the wall. Er, cool. All the pictures are at jaunty angles. I want to buy them a spirit level. They sport a manifesto that says ‘no bloggers’, ‘no photos’. I wonder how they police that? There is a free jukebox at least, but they’ve allowed a situation where it is actually possible to put ColdPlay on, and lo and behold, someone has. And they’re singing along.

I’ve seen people draw comparison with London’s Meat Liquor, but let me tell you, Almost Famous has absolutely nothing on it. Meat Liquor has a history, which began with Meateasy and grew organically. The food is also a million times better, which is, let us not forget, what a restaurant is actually all about! Radical!

If you have to try very hard to be edgy and cool then I’m sorry to break it to you, but you aren’t. Kabana illustrate my point for me rather nicely. A slightly scruffy little cafe, no airs or graces, quietly doing their thing. Having just said the food is of utmost importance I’ll now admit that there is a place for restaurants which make their name on atmosphere alone and there’s nothing really wrong with that, I suppose. Just don’t be so goddamn desperate.

Kabana, 52 Back Turner Street, Manchester M4 1FP.

Almost Famous, 100 High St, Manchester, M4 1HP.

We also visited a couple of good pubs worth mentioning, if you’re interested. Very different places. Port Street Beer House is a craft beer pub of the well, craft beer pub ilk and The Castle is the kind of pub that I like. It’s sort of dingy and smells a bit and everyone talks to each other. Take yer pick.

I was invited to visit Manchester and was kindly put up in the Premier Inn, which I can vouch for. It’s dead close to Picadilly Station, and the reception was manned by quite honestly the friendliest woman I have ever met. Well, the friendliest woman I’ve ever met working on a reception desk in a hotel, anyway.