A Kitchen Diary of sorts with rather a lot of chit chat and some exceptionally useful recipes. Photos and artwork by Anna Vaught (me), Giles Turnbull and the generous people at Flickr who make their work available through creative commons. They are thanked individually throughout the blog.

Monday 7 November 2011

An approximation of Southern barbecue

I know it's hardly barbecue season (I'd say barbeque but we're down South right now), but I think my beloved looks a little forlorn so I'm doing an approximation of a Southern (as in Southern United States as in Georgia, in his case) barbecue.You know: to cheer him up?

To a Southerner, barbecue is not what we Britishers know it as. Proper Southern barbecue usually refers to pulled pork - perhaps a shoulder basted with a vinegar or tomato-based sauce and cooked long and slowly. Traditionally, it would have been cooked overnight, under the watchful eye of the pit masters. For a description of such things, may I refer you to my (still) favourite book on Southern food, Damon Lee Fowler's Classical Southern Cooking (New York, 1995)?

So, you cook your meat of choice and you pull it, which is to say that you tear it into shreds with two forks and then serve it in or with bread and whatever else you like. In my case, a request was made for coleslaw - more on which in a minute.

BUT WAIT! What good is this to you? Do you remember my rattling on about slow cookers? Well here's what I put in to cook at 9 am. NB: I have a large slow cooker, but this recipe could also be done in a low oven, maybe even overnight. I find my slow cooker does quite well as a pit!

Take a pork shoulder of around one and half ks.(Yes I know that's a lot, but I'm after copious leftovers) and put it in your slow cooker. Then, in a bowl, mix together six tablespoons of cider vinegar, six of tomato ketchup (full fat!), five of soft brown sugar, a palmful of seal salt, five chopped garlic gloves, a couple of teaspoons of paprika, either ordinary or smoked and a couple of sage leaves, finely chopped. Now add lots of ground black pepper. Mix well and add a cupful of water and then rub the lot into the meat. Stick on the lid and, on medium, cook for around six hours. You just take it out (it's a large piece of meat so use a meat thermometer or check the inside of the meat carefully - but I'm confident that all will be well) and it should be so tender that you can pull it apart with forks. You could also have cooked this on slow for about four hours or high for around eight. It may need more time and won't come to any harm if, anyway, you do need to leave it for more. All should have worked pretty well, but I do miss the dense smoky taste of proper barbecue.....

Incidentally, most Southern cooks would, I think, have trimmed the pork well, taking the fat and skin from the top. I don't: I leave it on, making sure it's well scored first and then, when I'm pulling the meat, I first cut off the top layer and blitz it in a hot oven or under a grill so that there is crackling for those who want. Eyebrows were raised when this practice was suggested to a good lady of Virginia, but I'm standing by it.

Serve the barbecue hot, stuffed into bread rolls of your choice if I were you, but it's also pretty darn good cold. Oh: a final thought: if you are going to be cooking it in a traditional oven, I'd advise adding the tomato ketchup later as otherwise it might burn and taste acrid.

And the coleslaw? All you want is finely sliced cabbage of your choice - as much as you think you'll eat - and finely sliced onion. Today, I just don't have time to whip up the mayonnaise, so I'm cheating with some Helman's, plus a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. I think that's how coleslaw should be: no carrots and not sweetened.

Saturday 29 October 2011

Slow cookers continued i'faith

Here's another from the slow cooker just for you. Remember that my slow cooker is a large one and I'm generally cooking for five or so.


If you have a ham hock or a large piece of gammon, try this...


First of all, you might want to soak the meat for a few hours if you think it will be salty and then just put it in the slow cooker together with four chopped carrots, four chopped medium potatoes (I'd say to be really lazy, don't peel, but really, they're better peeled), a small handful of whole black peppercorns, one onion cut into rings and those into half again and then a green of your choice - ideally a big bold brassica: you can use something tougher here because it will stand up to the slow cooker. I'd say two generous handfuls of it - shall I say collards or spring greens?- roughly shredded. Then dice (not too small) a smallish swede or half a large one, add 250g red lentils (rinsed and picked over for stones) and cover with water, stirring carefully. Depending on the saltiness of the meat, it might be best not to add salt but to do it later. Cook overnight on low in my case: I put this lot in not ten minutes ago. 


The next day or later that day (I'm allowing around nine hours here), check seasoning and carve the meat. You could serve the soup first and then slices of meat with the vegetables (which will have all but disintegrated) as a second course, or just hack bits off the meat, stirring them back into the soup and serve as is with some bread with a good cracking crust and, if I were you, some pieces of mature cheddar sunk into it. Which is what I did as a child and have done ever since. And with cheese that my dad used to get from the Mendip Dairy on the way to see my grandad in Burrington Combe in the Somerset of my childhood.. 

Slow cookers

Well now, the old black dog has come to visit for a while, but he was accompanied by the timely arrival of an enormous slow cooker. So here's a thought: if you are stuck in the doldrums (for to be becalmed sounds lovely but it actually means that temporarily you cannot go further: I digress), invest in a slow cooker. A great big one. And try these. All serve six with leftovers.All these are based on the simple principle of setting the cooker to low and leaving it on overnight.


For a simple pasta sauce, a good couple of tablespoons of decent olive oil, two cans of plum tomatoes, which you crush in your hands as you go. Then add a tin of anchovies, soaked a little perhaps, two handfuls of pitted green olives, lots of freshly ground black pepper, a tablespoon of capers, a heaped tablespoon of tomato puree, three finely minced garlic cloves, half a fresh red chilli, finely sliced (I don't decide because I am tough like that). Into that go three handfuls of frozen mixed peppers - an excellent product which you should have in your freezer - and about 500g minced beef, preferably organic. Stir and that's it. I just stand there chucking it in because that seems to befit this style of cooking. Your pasta sauce will be ready by morning - or just leave it cooking all day. Serve with a pasta of your sauce, but if it were me (which it was), that would be spaghetti or linguine.


So, if you are grumpy, frumpy, resentful about cooking for your fussy and unappreciative family -I'm not saying this is me, but I am saying that cooking meals day in day out can sure make you feel like this - make your house smell happy and comforting with the addition of this piece of kit. You know you want to. Plus, if it floats your boat, you'll feel like an earth mother (or should I say bountiful provider of either gender), when you're sharing out vast platefuls of your slowly, happily-cooked food. Boo to the old black dog, toox

Monday 10 January 2011

A simple lunch for one

An avocado salad. With balls.

Current pregnancy cravings are for anything sour and salty (this tends to be active most of the time, now I come to think of it) and I have a bit of an avocado fetish but....this will do you at any time, as long as you are not squeamish about anchovies!

Take a tin of anchovies, drain off the oil and then leave them for a few minutes to de-salt, either in water, milk or a mixture of two. While you... take a ripe avocado and hack it into pieces - I leave the size to your own aesthetics. Put them on a plate. This will be the plate you eat off; you can make it all look prettier later on. Now,  add a heaped tablespoon of any olives you like and a couple of tablespoons of some good quality plain cottage cheese. Remove the anchovies from their liquor, rinse them gently and gently tap the water off them and then roughly chop. Put them on the plate with the rest of the ingredients. Now, quickly whip up a scant tablespoon of dressing with a smidgeon of extra virgin oil (remember the avocado is quite oleaginous, so maybe you don't need so much) and a good few squeezes of lemon juice, to which you then add a few drops (taste for preference) of chilli sauce: Encona brand is always the one for me. Tip this over the salad and then mix the salad right there on your plate, forking it over gently. That's it. If you had some decent tomatoes knocking about, you could also add them, diced roughly.

Well, that was my lunch today: try it?

(photo joel washing at flickr - thank you)