MissChief entertains...

Summertime is here! (In spirit...)

2007-05-07T19:45:00.000+01:00

May Bank holiday and the smell of freshly lit barbecues hangs in the air. A million expectant sausages line up pink and chubby for the official start of the barbecue season.

Charcoal...check. Pile of decadent meaty delights...check. Eager friends without gardens...check. More booze than you can shake a drumstick at...check, check, check.

All is looking good for Mister Chief and myself to entertain with the help of our spanking new kit. Nearly all that is, until we spark up the barbecue and bang on cue, the rain begins to fall.

Still, we are British and we're certainly not going to let a little drizzle get between us and our programme of bank holiday fun and games.

So having eaten too many crisps and dips whilst Mister Chief does his thing (under the cover of my natty floral umbrella), I dutifully prepare the salad-y antidote to the meat feast. The tomato, parsley and caper salad turned out rather well. Sweet and sharp, a delicious accompaniment to the homemade burgers... The guests turned up a little late having waited for a break in the downpour to dash down the road. The bowls of crisps now somewhat depleted from my "testing" of the dips.

As we wait for the barbecue to reach the perfect cooking temperature, we start on the chilled Muscatel, but by the time the food is charred to perfection, the wine has taken the edge of our appetites somewhat. Undeterred, we make our way through the mounds of garlicky beef-burgers, spicy sausages (well done HG Walter of Barons Court) and we (even the boys) manage a smattering of the salads.

The leftovers have to be hidden away to allow space for to lounge and digest, and a game is mooted to prevent post-prandial lethargy.

About 15 rounds of pub quiz ensue, accompanied by about 15 bottles of wine. By the end of the evening the assembled party has been well fed, well challenged and well pickled. We all agree that we are no worse off for the inclement weather.

Mister Chief and I have a small nightcap and head to bed with the comforting prospect of a whole Monday morning in bed with the Sunday papers.

MissChief provides sustenance to a greedy sportsman

2006-11-15T23:11:00.000Z

This evening a slightly seized up and beery footballer arrived at the door in need of a something hearty to soak up some lager and provide some much needed energy. Luckily for this handsome footballer I had a pot of something warming on the hob ready and waiting.

Ingredients:
Leftover chicken from roast - some
Oil - a splash
Coriander seeds -a few
Onion - 1
Garlic - 1 clove
Hot chicken stock - about 1.5 litres
Potato - 1 medium sized
Thyme - a sprinkle
Lemon zest - of 1 lemon
Turmeric - a teaspoon
Cream,milk, salt, pepper, chilli - as your taste dictates

Start by stripping the chicken and put to one side. Put a large pan onto a medium/high heat and heat the oil. Crush the coriander seeds in a mortar and pestle and toss into the pan, stirring for a couple of minutes. Add the onion, allow to soften and then the garlic. Turn the heat down to medium and add the chicken stock. Peel and chop the potato and add to the hot stock. Once the potato is cooked, briefly process the mixture but still keep some texture. Now time to put the chunks of chicken into the soup. Add the thyme, lemon zest and the turmeric (which lends a rich yellow colour). The cream, milk, salt, pepper and chilli can be introduced a couple of minutes before you serve so you have time to decide how much of each, if any, you would like. Serve with fresh bread or hot, buttered toast.

Despite soups not being "proper man food" this textured soup with fat chunks of chicken seems to have pleased the sportsman, and there hasn't even been call for pudding.

MissChief entertains her beautiful beau at St John

2006-11-15T20:30:00.000Z

For a lunchtime trip to St John(known for "nose to tail eating"), we couldn't have wanted for better weather than we had; the brooding white sky and nip in the air made the buzzing bar and dining room of St John seem like the most welcome sanctuary for a pair of ravenous, cold carnivores. I arrived before my birthday-boy/lunch-buddy and felt a little uncomfortable waiting on my own as other tables assessed. Probably to work out why a)I wasn't dressed in standard issue City attire or b) why I was not dressed appropriately for tucking into entrails (...cream jacket). Still, I passed the
time pleasantly, scoffing the home-made bread and studying the lunch and wine menus to make sure I was about to make the right choices.

Birthday boy bustled in from the cold eager to tuck into a glass of wine, so we ordered a bottle of Cotes de Roussillon. I understand that the restaurant does a lot of wine sourcing around the Languedoc-Roussillon region so it made some sense, plus James (that's the one with the birthday) used to spend a lot of time near Perpignan on family holidays and it was wasn't ruinous (£18). The Roussillon wine turned out to be a very smooth and berry-ish both in appearance and taste. Our appetites didn't allow much time to swill our wine and contemplate its flavours so we trotted on to the first course, which luckily arrived promptly (as did all of our food and drinks). I kicked off the meal with the famous roast bone marrow with parsley salad, which was both mouthfillingly rich thanks to the bone marrow and mercifully refreshing thanks to the parsley salad. James nodded approval as he wolfed down his terrine with cornichons. I definitely had more fun poking the marrow out of the bones with my special tool.

In retrospect I think I would probably have liked a little longer to prepare for the enormous plate of chitterlings with radishes (chitterlings=small intestine of the pig) but again the richness was offset well by the radishes and some kind of lambs lettuce and I was surprised by how smoky and roughly textured the chitterlings were; not slippery as I had suspected. The generosity of the portion overwhelmed me in the end, but the half I ate was spot on. Meanwhile James set about savouring the most wonderfully flavoured roast Middlewhite pork, the crackling did not crackle but the caramel and deep pork flavours sang in the mouth. The mashed swede was stunning and it's an astonishing feat to turn a dense vegetable into such a light melting amber mash. I suspect we would not wish to ask how much butter was used...

Though the pudding menu looked fun and varied (Madeleines by the 1/2 dozen or apple sorbet with Polish vodka) we opted for a very fine pair of double espressos which created an illusion of digestion for a moment or two. For the two of us, the lunch bill was a fairly meaty £88 including a bottle of wine and service but worth it for a unique and ultimately entertaining winter's lunch.