Ragu alla Ricardo

When I first got into cooking, I recall one of my Meteorology lecturers, the wonderfully avuncular Ross Reynolds giving me a photocopy of a recipe for a ragu - i.e. spag bol sauce, let's face it. This recipe called for all sorts of ingredients which as a fresh-faced 21 year old was going to be a challenge. I recall fucking it up completely but the seed was sown for what is about 15 years of tinkering with recipes. I've finally settled on "my version" that's been guided by various Telly Chefs and friends. It's not authentic, unique, real, seasonal, locally-sourced, passionate or other words thrown around about food, but my version. Maybe you can give it a try and see what you think. I have a horrible feeling I may have written about this before, but what the hell.

1) Chop up 1 1/2 onions, 2 sticks of celery and 2 carrots into very small bits. Fry these in olive oil with two star anise (thank you Heston) for about 45 minutes very slowly.

2) In a separate pan (fry pan usually good for this), fry off 500g of minced beef (the better quality, the better, I'd guess) and let it sit there to get a nice crust before turning over (thank you, Giorgio). Drop this into the cooking vegetables and do exactly the same with 500g of pork mince. As with all these things, a bit of fat in the meat never goes amiss. Pour pork mince into the veg and deglaze pan with red wine.

3) Turn the veg/meat mixture up to high and empty in a generously large wine glass of red wine (something gutsy) and burn all the alcohol off until it doesn't smell "tart" any more.

4) Add 3 cans of chopped tomatoes, I usually pick Cirio which I can get in my local Sainsbury's as they're supposed to be good quality (and seem to be coming down in price - as well as suddenly getting advertised on mainstream telly) as well as a good 2-3 second squirt of tomato ketchup.

5) Let it blubber away for about 3-4 hours with the lid off on a lowish heat. Stir occasionally to make it feel wanted. As it starts to lose liquid, top it up with milk. Serves maybe 6-8 people with British "too much ragu" sized portions or probably 60-80 italian understated ragu portions. Here it is blobbing away early in its 4-hour marathon:



I actually only settled on this recipe about 2 months ago and have cooked it twice now and it seems pretty nice. I used to add pancetta as well and that might reappear in time. Who knows. The star anise came in a year ago and the "topping up with milk" was the most recent addition. The ketchup was there from the start, heathen that I am.

I love you, Anchor and Hope

It seems as though the way of attracting attention to you new venture is to make it a pop-up. Do it for 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months and leave the audience wanting more. Ephemerality rules. Blogs and restaurant reviews tend to focus on the new and cutting edge. Got there first, done that, when's the next opening.

I sometimes wonder whether it would be nice for someone in their newspaper column to spend a year revisiting the stayers, the survivors that have been here for yonks and whose reputation has passed down through word of mouth: off the top of my head Blueprint Cafe (although now lacking its guiding light), St. John and here - the Anchor and Hope.

Anyhow, about since 6 months since my last visit I was back there for the Sunday lunch. £30, no choice, the pub opened out and all tables full. And you can book. I thought my last meal at Manchurian Legends could be up there with the best this year - so could this one. 2012. Two meals, two big hits.

Arriving early we got a great table in the corner and as there were five of us, everything came served on an enormous plate for us to dig into. We kicked off with a few nibbles on bread - oxtail and tongue and beetroot and horseradish that set the palate up. First up was a large plate of watercress, tangy stichelton blue chees, pecans and pear. I am in my infancy of blue cheese love, but this all works. I've seen it on the menu before - and can see why it's still there, everything playing off each other.

The main should really have come with a fanfare. A huge, triumphant plate of porchetta sat atop fennel and roasted potatoes with a magnificent gravy swimming beneath it all. The stuffing of the porchetta was deeply, deeply savoury and the only thing I could have criticised was the cracking that failed on one quarter of my slab of pork. The pork itself retained plenty of moisture. The unanimous decision was one of "Good Lord". Take a look at it in all its grainy iPhone photo glory:



Dessert doesn't usually interest me but it was good to see tarte tatin coming out - caramelised to within an inch of its life with a deep brown colour, sweetness with the slight sour hit of the mascarpone that came with it.



We were all full. And happy. Maybe it's best that the Anchor and Hope doesn't get re-reviewed for those unaware of it because quite frankly a) it doesn't need to be as it's always full and, selfishly, b) I want to be able to get a table. A glorious 9.

Manchurian Legends

New Year - the event itself and the couple of days that follow it is an enormous waste of time, energy and faux excitement at the turn of the New Year. The days that follow it are usually grey and uninteresting, so I headed out to Soho where I headed to meet Soho's finest floater Mr Wilson for a pint and a suggestion of Manchurian Legends - which had seemingly split the Rayners, Corens, Normans and Gills down the middle.

It's fair to say that I wouldn't be surprised if my first meal out of the year turned out to be one of the "Top 5" that everybody loves to compile come the year's end.

We ordered based on recommended dishes from the aforementioned viewers and wasn't disappointed at all. Highlight of the entire meal was the pork, slow-braised in a oriental broth with glass noodles probably maxed out on savouriness. Yes the pork was fatty, but the slowness of the braise had rendered it wonderfully soft. And for once I take a photo that does it some vague justice:



The other killer dish was the sweet and sour pork. The instant thought of sweet and sour pork is fatty, chewy pork covered in greasy batter in a lurid overly-vinegary mass-catering sweet and sour sauce. This was bloody well nowhere near it. Thin slices of what seemed to be pork loin had been delicately battered and served in a thin, balanced vinegary sauce. Addicting, as they say in America.

There was also some lamb skewers coated in chilli flakes that had really strong lamby flavour - a little bit chewy maybe, but by no means a failure. The pork dumplings were the only let-down. Maybe it's the way in Dongbei that their dumplings have thick skin but the filling lack flavour - better off heading to Jen Cafe for something similar done much better.

But it's for the first two dishes that I'll be coming back - as well as the several other interesting options on the menu. Anyone fancy sharing a hot-pot?

Germany

A long pre-Christmas jaunt to Germany to sample the delights of beer, sausages, sausages, beer, meat in gravy with dumplings, sausages, beer and dumplings. I've done a few towns in Germany now, and this year started with a work trip to Munich, a stag do in Berlin, and then back down to Munich again.

Munich is undoubtedly one of my favourite cities. I would rather have a beer in a beer garden in the height of summer than anywhere else in the world. I wouldn't say it's a go-to location for a culinary journey or necessarily for a city break somewhere that is particularly avant-garde or edgy, but from a tourist standpoint it's clean, well-kept and also surrounded by some spectacular scenery and old towns. It also has my favourite sausage (sorry, Big Apple Hot Dogs, you're a close 2nd). As you walk into the Viktualienmarkt, head to the little green kiosk on the left, opposite all the butchers and have their bratwurst. A meaty, savoury assault on the senses smeared in the local mild mustard which seems to be a sort of cross (in both in strength and flavour) between American yellow and English yellow mustard:



Berlin for the stag do gave me a chance to try their - ultimately - sinful favourite snack, Currywurst. I've used a capital letter there as I'm sure it's probably held in enough reverence to be capitalised. I headed to Curry 36 in Kreuzberg. And wasn't impressed. Two thick frankfurters were pulled from a pool of frying grease and smeared in an overly-sweet vaguely curried ketchup, along with fries covered in a curried powder and mayonnaise. Maybe I was hung over from a 6am and 3am finish the previous two nights, but nope - this one's not for me. Suitably blurry photo:



Another highlight in Berlin was part of the stag was a chance to try Ottenthal's famed schnitzel. I was half-gone by then but it was thin, crispily coated and lovely for soaking up the beer and gluhwein we'd be motoring through all day:



One other notable nod that doesn't come with a photo as the one I'd taken was shite, was the impressive "durum" - essentially a chicken kebab in a wrap for about €3 at Mustafas Gemüse Kebab. Given the amount of turkish immigration in Germany, it was always worth a try. Type in "Best kebab in Berlin" and this place comes up plenty of times. It probably shows that the queue I joined on a sleety Monday afternoon at 2.45pm was 25-long. It wasn't even lunch time. The kebab itself had 3 different sauces and about 10 different component parts. A cheeky delight and different flavour in each mouthful. It warranted the wait.

Next time around - it'll be Germany in the summer...gratuitous beer garden photos to follow some time later in the year.

A nod to the lads of the Staff Meal Truck, Boston

A trip to Boston and environs earlier in the year threw up some lobster, clams, a great pizza and, from memory, quite an average burger. The one thing that stuck in the mind was a sandwich from what I think is the most inventive food truck I've stumbled upon. I'd actually wound up in a car park looking for the legendary Boston Speed Dog truck, but they weren't there so I was left to choose from the 4 or 5 that were there.

I had from the Staff Meal Truck a "pressed meatloaf sandwich". Turns out that the two guys behind the truck were both fed up with working in haute cuisine restaurants and instead put their spin on "fast" food. Heck - check out three of the items on their menu for 4th November:

- Foie Gras Bakalava (Foie Gras, Pepitas and Lavender)
- Cassoulet Sub (Garlic Sausage, White Bean Stew with Duck Confit and Bacon, Bread Crumbs)
- Pig's Head Mac n' Cheese

My sandwich back in May was meatloaf, with pastrami, home-made pickled cucumbers and a barbecue mayo. It was tremendous. And in their honour, I decided to make it myself and christen the naff Russell Hobbs Panini Press I'd bought about a year prior:



The meatloaf I use was thanks to Daniel Young of Burger Monday (and the rest of the week) fame and it is superb: - the recipe calls for a surprising amount of mustard - but that is the winning note. Massively savoury.

Pastrami was embarrassingly from Sainsbury's, and the excellent pickles from Topolski at Maltby Street. I decided to use a sturdy burger bun from St John Bakery a few arches down from Topolski. The result was lovely, even if I say so myself. I hope I've at least vaguely done the Staff Meal boys proud.

Hand pulled noodles at Greenwich Market

You can spend £150 on a massive nosh-up in a Michelin-starred restaurant but it doesn't offer the unique joy of finding a hidden gem. An extremely cheap hidden gem. One of many food stalls down at Greenwich Market, this one caught my attention following the demise of a favourite hand-pulled noodle restaurant, Oodle Noodle (or is it Noodle Oodle) at the arse end of Oxford Street amongst the shit leather shops.

The actual stall itself offers chicken, pork and duck either in soup or with rice as well as dim sum that maybe I'll try next time. The soups vary from spicier offerings to more savoury broth-based ones for nonces like me.

I had the char siu soup and the noodle man quickly got to work, cutting off a section of quite wet dough, lobbing some flour around and rolling it into a tube and proceeded to work his magic. I nearly wrote "wok his magic" there but it would have been particularly twattish.



These noodles were dumped into hot water along with some pak choi, some char siu rapidly cut up and a darkish stock thrown over the top. £4.50 please. I have great pleasure in saying, in my limited noodle opinion, that the whole thing was wonderful. I am still amazed that you can get noodles from a blob of dough in about 3 minutes. They were very good - firm but definitely not mushy. The char siu portion was overly-generous, the pak choi retained a crunch and this all sat in a really intensely savoury - maybe even too savoury! - broth.



I am really struggling to think of anything better in London in terms of value of money and a satisfyingly full belly. It's just a shame they don't operate at weekends. I ate at 12.30 and by the time I'd got to the bottom of the bowl the queue was about 10 deep. Deservedly so. I'm sure if I do a saddo Nick Hornby-style "Top 5" at the end of the year that this will be in it. 9.

As an addendum, I also had some very nice chicken karaage from a nearby stall. Re-fried seemingly to order, it was crisp, hot and still really tender and moist in the middle. Two triumphs in one day.

Byron's "Uncle Sam" Cheeseburger

I see that McDonald's have released some sort of 1955 burger that has seemingly sod all relation to what would have been dished up in its original restaurants, and no doubt worse quality of ingredients. Gripe over.

Actually, not fully over. A stag do the previous night had dealt me a moderate hangover; maybe 6 on the Richter scale. Junk was needed, but well-made junk. I'd not tried the Byron burger yet and they seem to be popping up everywhere to mainly good reviews. What also attracted was their nod to the US diner in their "Uncle Sam" burger.

I liked their diner - nestled in the thoroughly shit part of London that is the theatreland-cum-bad cafe central-cum-hideous pizza slices in window type fast food outlet. The friendly host with the t-shirt with the legend "medium" was enough of a hint for how I should be having it cooked.

And so it arrived:



The first impression was that it was relatively small - but was well-filled with the 6 oz patty. Lovely bun that was soft but with enough sturdiness to hold its interior without collapsing. Tomato ketchup, pickles, what I would describe as American Burger Cheese and French's mustard. The disappointing thing? Where was the flavour of the beef. It was there, but it just seemed to lack seasoning and was almost lost in the various condiments.

Dammit - I didn't want to be disappointed! Everything else seemed fine but the main feature was a disappointment. It's by no means a disaster as it was so nicely constructed, but I'm not a structural engineer. 6.

Afterwards I went for a pile of beijing dumplings at the Chinatown staple Jen Cafe. Never fails - somewhere between 8-10 home-made steamed dumplings for £5 that were well seasoned (take note, someone else!) and cack-handedly dropped by me into vinegar probably to the amusement of the local Chinatown clientele. Look at the awkward Englishman and his chopstick cack-handedness.