Ever since I met Bompas and Parr back in January, I’ve been a truly devoted fan. I mean, who can fail to like people who make jelly for a living? And when they offered to whip me up some jellies for an upcoming bloggers dinner party (a ‘pork belly summit’ – a celebration of well, pork belly), I liked them even more. I nearly bit Sam’s arm off graciously accepted, a jelly exchange took place and after some brief unmoulding instructions via telephone – ta da! They were resplendent on the plate, wobbling and sliding around like nobody’s business.

The jellies were based on the shape of cogs and flavoured with Prosecco and fruit. My favourite was this rather glam version with gold leaf in the centre.

As three of the other bloggers were cooking a pork belly dish for the summit, I decided to make something different – another little homage to B & P in fact, something they served up at their Monnow Valley Drive Thru event – the magnificently named ‘Luther Burger’ (below). It is exactly what you think it is by the way – a Krispy Kreme with bacon in the middle. Now before you recoil in horror, think about it – sweet stuff works with bacon – take maple syrup for example. Don’t get me wrong, I found the idea slightly daunting to begin with but I was pleasantly surprised to find it does actually work (although as Sam himself admits – it is a seriously guilty pleasure).

If you think the Luther Burger is wacky, let me tell you that previous B & P events have included a ‘scratch ‘n’ sniff cinema‘, ‘flavour tripping‘ and these past two weekends, ‘alcoholic architecture’ – a walk in, breathable cocktail of (Hendrick’s) gin and (Fever Tree) tonic.

I arrived for my intoxicating mist fix at 8pm to find the charming Sam (Bompas) working the door (top photo), while simultaneously being interviewed, filmed and politely informing curious passers-by that the event was all sold out.

I was becoming increasingly over-excited at the prospect of entering as people started to emerge – slightly sticky and giggling – from the previous session. Before my time arrived however, Sam asked me if I would mind doing him a little favour by ‘doing the door’ while he nipped off somewhere for ten minutes. A few brief instructions, a clipboard thrust into my hands and he was gone. Adapting quickly to my role I placed a hand firmly on the shoulder of a punter slipping past, unaware of the queue. When she turned around I was pleased to see the smiling face of Ms Marmite Lover – chef and patron of the Underground Restaurant and now my partner in boozy crime.

When Sam returned to relieve me of the clipboard I realised that door duty had the added bonus of leaving us firmly at the front of the queue, first to be handed boiler suits and ushered in to the sounds of Spandau Ballet or something similar.

We ducked through to find ourselves in the changing rooms where we donned our oh so flattering boiler suits before twitpiccing ourselves for the amusement of others and moving through to the bar for preliminary refreshments (double gin and tonics).

I even managed to get a sneaky shot into the boys changing rooms (above) – all perfectly clean fun thank you very much – the suits go on over your clothes – although Sam did report that he had to stop a few people from actually stripping off lest all be revealed when the suit starts to get damp in the mist.

Here we paused to arse about taking photos for a bit before following the sign downstairs…

A spooky red lightbulb hung above the entrance door…

And we’re in…and it’s misty and, and…it tastes like gin and tonic! At first, all we do is laugh and tweet and take pictures and laugh some more. I’m amazed I actually have enough signal to receive a phone call halfway through the session, ‘I’m in a breathable cocktail!’ ‘A what?!’

The foggy room was actually very small, there were perhaps just twenty of us in there, all suited and giggling and er, sniffing because breathable gin and tonic makes your nose run…

To create the mist, B & P used the same technnology as the brilliant ‘Blind Light’ installation by Anthony Gormley at the Hayward Gallery back in 2007. Anthony’s mist however, was much denser – you literally couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. I mentioned this to Sam and he explained that, aside from the tehnicalities of vapourising alcohol, health and safety blah blah blah, the Blind Light installation cost a mere 40p per litre to vapourise – gin and tonic costs more in the region of £40.

We emerged after 40 minutes feeling sticky, slightly giddy and smelling faintly of booze. It’s definitely the strangest evening out I’ve enjoyed since some late night shenanigans at Bestival in 2007, which started with me crawling through the back of a sofa and ended with a fortune teller. I wouldn’t be hugely surprised if I heard that Bompas and Parr were behind it.

Keep an eye on the Bompas and Parr website for details of future events.

Hawksmoor restaurant is a firm favourite among us bloggers. For me, they do the best steaks in London, hands down. Then, they managed to come up with what I consider the best burger too. Now, they are introducing a different guest breed each month in addition to their established Longhorns, so customers have the opportunity to compare them and, as Hawksmoor put it ’savour the difference’.

So, all in the name of research, they asked if a group of us would like to come over and sample numerous different breeds and cuts of steak. Are you kidding? You would have to be certifiably mad (or vegetarian, no link intended), to turn that one down. That evening then, we worked our way through 17 – yes 17 different steaks. It was basically what I imagine being in heaven must be like.

Hawksmoor are also famous for making excellent drinks and on arrival we took refreshment in the form of this glorious tropical punch – perfect for the sunny weather. I cast aside any memories of lethal, tongue stripping student concoctions as the tangy mix of lemons, passion fruits, pineapples and subtle coconut blended perfectly.

Before the meat fest got underway, we jumped at the chance to get a sneak preview of the kitchen which is actually surprisingly small, with most of the space taken up by this massive charcoal grill. This is where the magic happens. Let the charring commence.

Our charming hosts for the evening, Will Beckett and Huw Gott were on hand to tell us everything we could possibly want to know about steak and I learned a lot – such as the difference between wet and dry ageing of beef. Wet is basically vacuum packed in plastic while dry aged beef is ‘hung’ and, although it may be loosely covered with muslin, it is not sealed in any way. Dry ageing is preferable as it gives a more deep, beefy flavour and soft texture but it also means that the beef shrinks, making it an unpopular method with the profit hungry. Hawksmoor of course, use only dry aged beef.

Now tantalisingly close to steak o’clock, we were provided with handy tasting sheets, which turned out to be absolutely essential as things started to get a little confusing after steak 9 or 10.

And then it started to arrive…and just kept on coming. We sampled 5 sirloins, 10 rib eyes, 1 rump chop and a flatiron. Almost all the steaks were cooked medium rare and, although I usually eat my steak rare, I think this was absolutely right for the tasting. The variation in colour between the steaks was extensive as was the difference in textures and flavours. Among my flavour tasting notes I have scribbled down words such as, ‘almost livery, deep, buttery, rich’ and for texture, ‘toothsome, tender, looser, soft, silky and smoky.’

We eventually tried to narrow it down to a top three – here are mine. At number three, the Ginger Pig Longhorn sirloin cut, which had an almost gamey flavour and was nearly up there with my number two, the Wild Beef South Devon sirloin – very deep and beefy in flavour with a hugely satisfying bite. I have written underneath, ‘SO BEEFY!’ – I was clearly excited. The number one for me and I think many of us though was the Ginger Pig Longhorn rib eye. This had a really silky texture, was rich and moist and had lots of lovely fat running through it which our corner of the table agreed was actually cheesy – Stilton-like in flavour. Amazing.

Along with all that meat we also devoured numerous bowls of salad, triple cooked chips and the most incredibly buttery béarnaise. Ooof.

After that truly epic meal, I must admit even my stomach of steel was beginning to feel a little fatigued. Thankfully I had remembered to wear a loose fitting top to go some way towards concealing the bloating. Despite our gorging however, my friend and I even managed to round off the meal with a Bompas and Parr designed pyramid jelly (even if we did spend more time wibbling it around than eating it) – now that is dedication. A massive thanks to Hawksmoor for such a fantastic evening – I honestly think I stumbled out on some sort of red meat high and it was totally worth the four days (porky visit to Szechuan restaurant aside) of vegetarianism afterwards.

As you can probably imagine, I have lots more pictures of steak – view them here.

Hawksmoor
157 Commercial Street
London E1 6BJ
Tel: 020 7247 7392
info@thehawksmoor.com
www.thehawksmoor.com

[Edit: to save any more of you e-mailing me - I've called it 'pan' rather than 'pain' because google told me so. I don't know why either.]

Firstly I would like to express my irritation with the man who persuaded me to buy these tomatoes which he promised would be sweet and delicious, even in UK spring time. Curiosity got the better of me and I caved. Of course, they didn’t taste of much. I called him a name which I shall not repeat here – not to his face of course, I made sure to complain behind his back like a good British customer.

You may have noticed that I haven’t posted about a sandwich I’ve found in the city for a while. That’s because March was a cursed month as far as the sammich was concerned (my partner in sandwich crime Jonathan had similar problems). I successfully tracked down many promising candidates but the execution was always foiled at the last minute. For this reason then, I bring you one of my favourite ever sangers, from my own little kitchen – a stand in for March (and probably most of April by the time you get this).

The pan bagnat is a Provençal sandwich, originating from Nice. It traditionally contains a salade niçoise but you can stuff it with practically anything and my slightly crazy version is filled with practically everything that happened to be lurking in my fridge that day. So, you get yourself a nice round loaf, scoop out the middle and then give the inside a good brushing with some garlicky oil.

Then you just need to start layering it up. I had some of those little peppers stuffed with cheese so they went in followed by some cucumber for crunch and then salty anchovies and basil leaves.

I sprinkled a few capers on top of the fishy layer before adding marinated artichokes.

Those fruits masquerading as tomatoes went on next followed by some spring onion shreds and gem lettuce (with hindsight putting the lettuce on top is a silly idea, as it prevents juices from meeting with bread). Then you weigh the whole thing down well in the fridge for a few hours so that the bread soaks up all the lovely juices within (at least on the bottom anyway…).

The bagnat is perfect picnic fare as you just cut it into big, fat wedges and chow down. This is by no means the best I’ve ever made – previous successes have included grilled vegetables, mozzarella, olives and sometimes cured meats. Still, not bad for a fridge job eh? A king among sandwiches and a true flavour explosion.

When I made this BBQ lamb recipe for my birthday meal last weekend, I deliberately didn’t take a photo of it so I had an excuse to make it again today. I could just feel the love for the recipe even before I tasted the final result. I used the date and aubergine stuffing recipe here but I did away with the pine nuts, adding pistachios instead which worked a treat.

I cannot take the credit for the brilliant idea of laying the lamb out all resplendent on the big bread (top photo), which is perfect for a bit of messy sharing with your mates. The kudos for that must go to Sally Butcher, who runs this shop and wrote this book from which I made this ice cream for the same birthday meal. Sally didn’t have the same gargantuan flat bread in stock that we bought last week (I don’t know the name) so instead we used naan, warmed through on the BBQ while the meat was resting.

I dolloped some garlicky, minty yoghurt on top for a bit of contrast and it lifted everything nicely, while also providing a sauce for the inevitable sandwich making. I cannot eat anything with bread without making some kind of sammich. Ever. You tear off a hunk of the naan, stuff it with the lamb and a few salad leaves plus yoghurt sauce and you’ve got yourself a piece of smoky BBQ heaven. The lamb was charred without, tender and blushing within and the stuffing sweet with Iranian dates (so deep they are almost chocolately) and scented ever so faintly with cinnamon.

I didn’t have any problems cooking the saddle on the BBQ by the way – a saddle being the bit that Barnsley chops are cut from – the saddle has then been boned to allow for stuffing. I have a kettle style BBQ and after some research I discovered that the way to cook something slowly is to light the coals in the middle of the BBQ, in a kind of volcano shape, then when the flames have all gone and you are left with coals which have a light grey ash coating, you move them into the sides. This gets the indirect heat circulating nicely around the kettle when you put the lid on. Not too much peeking either, as that obviously lets the heat out. I would say the saddle was about 5 inches long and took 50 minutes (ish) to cook.

Saddle of Lamb Stuffed with Dates, Aubergines and Pistachios

Like I said, the stuffing recipe is here but I swapped the pine nuts for pistachios and used a saddle of lamb instead of a leg. I removed the string that comes on the meat, opened it out, packed the stuffing into the middle and re-trussed it with fresh string. It is worth making sure that the string is covering the ends of the saddle too, to stop the stuffing falling out during cooking. Then I browned the lamb in a skillet to render some of the fat down before putting it on the BBQ.

Before this recent tasting at Tsuru Sushi, I knew nothing about sake except that I like it. For this reason then, I tried to pay close attention to our very knowledgeable and experienced teacher, Ngaire Takano and I’ll try now to make the most of the barely legible notes I scribbled down at the time.

The evening kicked off with a minor meeting point fail, after which myself and two mates hurried down from London Bridge to the restaurant, which is tucked away behind the Tate Modern. We sunk a couple of cheeky Asahi beers and nibbled on edamame for refreshment, before getting down to to the main event – four different sakes.

The first was a Daiginjo-Shu sake, made using rice which has been ‘polished’ to 50% of its original weight – apparently a very fine sake. It tasted surprisingly soft and sugary with a light, peachy fruityness – not at all harsh like the (obviously poor quality) sake I have tasted many times before.

We were also served some food throughout the evening (although not to be strictly matched with the sake) and with the first drink arrived these light gyoza along with really good, seriously sticky teryaki chicken. I was pretty hungry what with it being dinner time and I could easily have demolished a whole pile of both.

Sake number two was also Daiginjo-Shu. This was crisper with a more intense flavour than the first sake – it also has more alcohol added to it. Apparently some sakes such as these need to be watched for 72 hours straight to ensure that the quality of the drink is maintained. During this time it is constantly tasted to make certain that the delicate balance of ingredients is just right. That’s some serious dedication. I can’t say I wouldn’t nod off. In fact, just how do they stay awake?

Us ladies weren’t allowed the ‘privilege’ of watching sake brew for 72 hours back in the day however. In fact, we weren’t even allowed near it as it was thought that our higher body temperatures would make the sake turn sour. At this point Ngaire took great pleasure in telling us that female sake makers today are actually producing a superior quality drink. Maybe it’s all that extra heat coming off us.

Our third sake was a Ginjo-Umeshu, made by preserving plums in ginjo sake (from what I remember ginjo has a little distilled alcohol added to it, to increase the aroma). This was a gorgeous brown colour from the fruit and was very sweet – almost like a dessert wine. Smooth and subtle. Between this and our last drink, we enjoyed some generous veggie and non-veggie sushi plates. A highlight for me was surprisingly the inarizushi (below) – sweet, delicious and partly responsible for my recent acceptance of tofu. We also enjoyed the rolls which my friend and I were delighted to find contained pickles. We really heart pickles.

Our fourth and final sake was a change to the advertised line-up – a Genmai aged brown rice sake, which we tried with a piece of chocolate brownie – a bit of a surprise combination to all of us but it worked well. The brownie was good, squidgy and chocolately and although the sake was a little heavy on its own, with the brownie it took on a more syrupy quality, again like a dessert wine or sherry.

Sake is a drink with an interesting history but is very labour intensive to produce and is generally shrinking in popularity due to the influx of wine and beer. There are a few sake lovers out there championing the cause however and we learned how some of these people are even starting to play around with flavours, infusing the sake with ginger, garlic or lemongrass for example. I assume this is intended for use in cooking. Glass of garlic sake anyone? No, didn’t think so.

I shall definitely be making an effort to drink more sake from now on, as I was pleasantly surprised by just how different the various types tasted. I found the evening very informative and the credit should definitely go to Ngaire Takano for this – her informal and fun style is backed up by fact that she really knows her stuff. Our tasting on this occasion was complementary, although I must add that was a complete surprise – I was there under the assumption I would be paying £18 for the evening and I won’t hesistate to recommend that you do the same.

Tsuru
4 Canvey Street
London
SE1 9AN
0207 928 2228
www.tsuru-sushi.co.uk/