April 2008 Archives

This being midweek and a time to give high-living a bit of a wide berth, I decided to cook a mushroom, cream and parsley sauce to go with pasta.

The button mushrooms were local. The parsley was local. The dried porcini came from...Serbia!

That surprised me because I didn't imagine this country had enough of a market for wild mushrooms to encourage their importation from a far-flung bit of Europe.

Which suggests that British tastes are getting more sophisticated - or new arrivals from the East are creating new markets for food.

Either way, it's encouraging.

Two more competitions in the Food + Drink section of the Birmingham Mail tomorrow - the chance to win a meal at Filini and the chance to win a meal at Pizza Express. Give it a go.

Here's a trick to create a great garnish for salads or fish, meat or poultry dishes. Heat a couple of inches of cooking oil in a very small pan until it's almost smoking then put around a tablespoon of uncooked rice into the oil, preferably in a strainer so it's easy to remove.

After 6-7 seconds it puffs up like small grains of popcorn. Drain and dry on kitchen paper. It's crunchier and less fluffy than popcorn, but absolutely delicious with a pleasing texture and a nutty flavour.

It was a method explained to me by Glynn Purnell, who serves wild rice popcorn with several of his dishes.

Careful with the oil, though. Serious burns would be a high price to pay for a garnish.

Is the slowdown in the economy being exaggerated or are people simply making merry while all around them crumbles?

I ask because restaurants are generally regarded as a bit of a barometer of how well off people feel and, if that's the case, then Birmingham's eaters-out seem to think things are OK.

Restaurants told me that January and February - the two slowest months of the year - were unusually busy. Then last Monday evening - traditionally the quietest night of the week - the expensive but excellent in Brindleyplace Cielo was packed.

Oh not...I'm going to be knitting my own open-toe sandals from muesli at this rate. I've developed a taste for brown basmati rice!

I had it with a chickpea curry (another signifier of my march towards hippy-dom) and thought it was wonderful - nutty, fragrant, chewy and altogether more satisfying than white rice.

I wonder why curry houses don't offer brown rice as an alternative in these health-conscious days. I might start picketing them until they do so.

How's this for a prize bit of idiocy?

On one of those interactive radio shows that encourage the stupid and deluded to send in their views, someone texted something like: "Cooking is a waste of time and boring. Anyway, you don't need to cook now."

Allowing for the fact that many people adopt a deliberately provocative stance on such forums, it's still a worryingly silly argument.

Cooking - unless you're a professional chef, of course - takes us away from the everyday concerns that come with work and family life.

A boned and rolled shoulder of organically reared lamb lurks in my fridge ready for Sunday dinner.

Once I loved lean joints that were roasted fast in a furious heat. These days I prefer cuts with more fat that benefit from longer cooking at lower temperatures so they emerge from the oven meltingly tender. And that's how I intend to cook the lamb shoulder. Funny how tastes change.

It's a dinner I'm really looking forward to - not only because I adore lamb, but also because our younger son Ewan has been appearing in a Stage 2 production of Teechers at the Crescent Theatre this week and his schedule means he's hardly eaten anything good and substantial since the weekend.

What better way to sit back down at the dinner table?

It's likely I'll be involved in judging the Birmingham Bites restaurant awards, held as part of the Taste of Birmingham festival at Cannon Hill Park in July.

I've got my own ideas of who should be among the winners, but all suggestions will be gratefully received. Just post your thoughts here about who YOU think should be rewarded for their excellence.

The award for the best new restaurant in particular should be a fascinating race - some cracking places have opened over the past year or so.

There'll also likely to be categories for family meals, business lunches, a lifetime contribution to the area's culinary scene and best overall restaurant. Get thinking...

Chatting to Michelin-starred chef Andy Waters the other night, I realised we've got a proper culinary dynasty here in Birmingham....or should that be dinner-sty???

This city's three most acclaimed chefs - Andy, Luke Tipping and Glynn Purnell - all largely learned their trade with Andreas Antona, owner of Simpson's. And many good judges say that Adam Bennett, currently a senior chef at Simpson's, is another star in the making.

It's superb that we've got so much home-grown talent and bodes well for the future...though badly, perhaps, for my waistline.

It seems I'm not alone in my love of wasabi peas (see yesterday's blog).

Two colleagues - one habitually greedy and the other a slender creature who seems to eat only fruit - have been helping me eat my rapidly diminishing supply. Other workmates, too, have been digging in.

The good news is that from my research on the web they seem to be healthy - the peas, not my fellow hacks. They're just oven dried peas coated with wasabi paste.

I'm now trying to persuade someone to bring in some cold bottles of San Miguel to accompany the few wasabi peas that remain. Or maybe a nice bottle of Chablis if anyone feels generous.