A quick steak sarnie lunch

Whilst looking for a quick, quiet lunch away from the office with a chance to sit and read the days papers I dropped in to the Black Pig in T. Wells. Although I’ve been here for ‘payday drinks’ I’ve never eaten – but thought I’d try the bar menu.

The place was quiet – but that’s not unusual nowadays – and the restaurant area deserted so I sat in the bar. The menu was concise but nicely varied and without much deliberation I ordered the steak sandwich and a large coke.

The sandwich arrived promptly with a ‘bucket’ of fries – home made – and an excellent sliced steak on (again) home made Foccacia. The small side salad was nicely dressed and salt m(sea flakes) and pepper (coarse ground) came in little ‘thumb-pots’, together with a fruity Dijon mustard. It was excellent – quality ingredients, friendly service – peaceful and with a good sized coke it came to £9 all in.

I’ll be back next month to try the chicken and pancetta version. Give the Pig a try – it deserves more custom.

Steak sandwich at The Black Pig

 

St. JOHN TV – DOUGHNUTS, PORK PIES and MORE.

http://www.stjohnrestaurant.co.uk/st_john_tv/

A couple o f quirky snippets from Fergus Henderson’s kitchens.

 

Miso Soup on Flickr

July 5th Lunch: Miso Soup on Flickr – Photo Sharing!. Really unusual ingredients in this recipe!

 

Alinea At Home

Terrific blog from a super-foodie who is cooking her way through the Alinea Cookbook, sharing techniques and recipes as she goes. Quality writing.

Alinea At Home.

 

Chinese New Year recipe

Image by stu_spivack via Flickr

It’s January – it’s cold – and you crave deeply aromatic bowl of something soothing and spicy….it has to be a slowly braised meltingly tender pork belly. This recipe also gains brownie points as it is incredibly cheap!

(A note to supermarket shoppers – I rarely see a full pork belly on the meat shelves but generally find the in-store butcher will have one. Failing that, try your local butcher. In fact, scrub that – try your local butcher first!)

My favourite version is really very simple – most of the braising ingredients are easy to locate if they aren’t already in your cupboards.

Serve over plain noodles or steamed rice with a side serving of stir fried Chinese greens (Bok Choy) to

Ingredients
6 medium shallots, halved
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 x 1kg/2¼lb piece belly of pork, skin on
500ml/17fl oz dry white wine
1 tbsp five spice powder
water to cover
3 tbsp runny honey
Maldon sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/Gas 2.
2. Place the shallots and carrots in a deep roasting tray or a very deep large pan.
3. Add the wine, pork belly and five spice powder and then cover with cold water.
4. Place the lid on the pot or place a sheet of tin foil over the roasting tin to cover.
5. Place in the oven to slowly braise for 4-5 hours, until the bones can easily be separated from the meat. Remove from the oven and allow to stand and cool in the cooking liquid.
6. Turn up the oven to 220C/430F/Gas 7.
7. When the pork belly is cooled, drain off the cooking liquid. Remove the top layer of skin, leaving exposed a very thin layer of fat on the meat.
8. Using a sharp knife, score a diamond shape into the fat and rub in the honey.
9. Place in the oven and cook for 10-12 minutes, until the meat is cooked through, golden in colour and slightly crispy on top.
10. Sprinkle with a little Maldon salt and coarsely ground black pepper and serve hot or cold.

 

Vietnamese prawns with coriander and rice noodles

Image by Chewy Chua via Flickr

from Rachel’s Favourite Food…
Rachel Allen’s Vietnamese dish shows off the contrasting flavours of a sweet dressing with salty fish sauce and fiery chillies.

Ingredients

700g shelled tiger prawns, deveined
2 tsp finely grated Ginger
2 tsp Fish Sauce
115g Rice noodles, softened in boiling water for 5 minutes and drained
2 tbsp sunflower oil
115g sugar snap peas, halved
115g Spring onions, sliced
75g chopped roasted peanuts, skins removed
2 tbsp chopped Coriander

For the dressing

50g white Sugar, or to taste
100ml Fish Sauce
100ml rice wine vinegar
2 small red chillies, seeds removed and chopped
4 cloves Garlic, crushed

Method

Mix all the ingredients for the dressing, adding more sugar or soy sauce if you feel it needs it.

Toss together the prawns, ginger and fish sauce in a big mixing bowl and arrange the noodles on serving plates or one large plate.

Heat a wok, add 1 tbsp of the oil and fry the prawns until they are just cooked, about 2-3 minutes. Toss in the mangetout and spring onions, and cook for another minute.

Spoon the prawn mixture over the noodles and sprinkle over the toasted peanuts, coriander and dressing. Serve either hot or cold.

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• Vietnamese Pork Spare Ribs recipe (mathewpacker.com)

 

Here’s a new thing I’m trying from Ping.fm – so far – impressed.

 

Speedy peanut noodles

Thai Peanut Noodles

Image via Wikipedia

Full credit to ‘Our Best Bites’ for this superb noodle recipe. Simple ingredients combined with a twist.

Serve the dish as-is or – as we did – marinade cooked (chilled) prawns in lime juice and chilli and stir these through the noodles once the dish has been assembled. This creates contrast between the cold spicy prawns, the warm sweet & spicy noodles and the crunchy peanut dressing.

Thai Peanut Noodles

1/2 c. chicken broth
3 Tbsp. creamy peanut butter (I have used used crunchy which was fine)
1-2 tsp. chili sauce (1 is mild with a bite, 1.5 is medium, 2 is hot)
1 1/2 Tbsp. honey
3 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 1/2 Tbsp. fresh minced ginger
2-3 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
8 oz. Udon or soba noodles
Chopped spring onions
Chopped cilantro/coriander
2 limes, cut into quarters
Chopped peanuts

Cook noodles in salted water. In the meantime, combine chicken broth, peanut butter, chili sauce, honey, soy sauce, ginger, and garlic in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Whisk until smooth and remove from heat. Toss cooked noodles with sauce and divide among 4 bowls. Sprinkle with green onions, cilantro, chopped peanuts, and garnish each serving with 2 lime quarters. Before eating, squeeze lime juice over noodles and stir to combine.

 

Soy sauce, soya sauce or Shoyu!

A debate has broken out here in the office on the merits of the various soy/soya/shoyu sauces. As someone who rarely uses it as a condiment for dressing food (other than in Asian salad dressings) I’m pretty neutral – once it’s in a sauce and cooked I can’t tell any difference. I have 3 brands in the kitchen – including Kikkoman. Here’s where the debate stemmed from.

Is Kikkoman really the prince of soy sauces? A tricky one – especially if you consider the varieties from different cultures (with ‘respek’  to Wikipedia)

Types

• 3.1 Chinese soy sauce
• 3.2 Indonesian soy sauce
• 3.3 Malaysian soy sauce
• 3.4 Japanese soy sauce
• 3.5 Korean soy sauce
• 3.6 Taiwanese soy sauce
• 3.7 Vietnamese soy sauce
• 3.8 Filipino toyo
• 3.9 Hawaiian shoyu

I’d be very interested to hear anyone’s thoughts – Kikkoman makes claim to tbe the premium brand – can this be upheld or is it marketing hype?

 

The Hare in Tunbridge Wells

Tunbridge Wells – Pubs & Bars – Pubs

This is now established as our family favourite. An expertly run pub and restaurant just outside T Wells the premises were formerly a coaching inn so the layout is spacious yet has a cosy ambiance and friendly attentive staff. The menu is quite extensive and the kitchen very well run – and portions are substantial! There’s a selection of local and guest beers (always in top condition) plus a staggering selection of whiskies. The main bar usually has a huge ice bucket with a selection of ‘fizz’ to sample by the glass – for restorative purposes only. At weekends ensure you book for lunch – which usually turns into ‘tea’ – it’s a very hard place to leave.
The website has the menu and profiles of the staff. Wonderful in winter (open fires burning lovely aromatic woods) and an outdoor terrace at the back which overlooks Langton Green itself – very ‘English’ in the best possible manner.
Check out my review of The Hare – I am baldrick – on Qype