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What ho, pip pip and wotcher, you chaps! I say, I’d wager you thought you’d seen the back of us Brits after that revolutionary war. Well, we’re back, what! Once upon a time, the Empire spanned most of the world. Rule Britannia covered 13 million square miles, and over a fifth of the world’s population sang God the Save the King or Queen, and we were extremely oofy from the proceeds.  Over the years, the ungrateful colonists kicked us out, but not after good old England had culturally appropriated the best bits of their cultures and made them our own! That’s why you get swedes and raisins in curry, and bloody good it is too, I say! Shame we taught you all our sports, though. Now, I know there are rules to this thing that say we can’t have some continents, but we didn’t colonise the best bits of old mother Earth by listening to any rules from a bloody Yank! So I decided to do a menu with a course inspired by each continent, each one with a different cocktail. And when I say inspired, what I mean is that I took some jingoistic ideas formed from a grand tour and knowing some colonial wallahs, and made dinner for some chaps I know that had about as much authenticity as a nine bob note. And to add to the confusion, because this was quite an involved process, what I am not going to do is a traditional mise en place, followed by techniques etc. I’m just going to show you what I did, and gradually show how the meal was built up, culminating in each course going out. This has the added bonus that you can try and guess what I’m doing as we go along! As usual, I invited some pals for a binge, and frantically scrabbled around for some ideas after I had committed to cooking for them. Like the history of the British empire, this is going to be long and storied, so I have split it into several sections. If you can't be bothered reading all the bumf, you can just go straight to the menu summary here. Scientastic fucked around with this message at 01:37 on May 30, 2016 |
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May 30, 2016 01:31
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First things first, on Sunday I bought a coconut and whacked it open with the back of a knife. Then I took a sharp knife to the bally thing and peeled off all the hairy bits.  I whacked that bald old coot into the freezer and went to bed. The next day being a Monday, I was hanged if I was going to be doing anything difficult, but dash it all, I had to make something! So I got together some ingredients.  About 200g of ginger root 170g sugar Juice of 2 lemons ¼ tsp dry active yeast 2L boiling water At this stage, I chopped up the ginger, and in a very large bottle, combined the sugar, ginger and water. Now, because the butler refuses to touch exotic spices, I had to chop up the ginger, which meant it wasn’t very fine. When you do it, make sure the ginger is very finely chopped, not in big chunks, as it makes getting them into the bottle rather tricky. I added the lemon juice, and allowed to cool for about 2 hours. The yeast was added, the bottle corked and put in a warmish place for exactly 48 hours. That was quite enough work for one day, so I retired to bed. On Tuesday night, I got together some more ingredients.  420g plain flour 1 tsbp dry active yeast 300ml warm water 120g butter, melted 1 tsp salt 50g sugar 1 egg I put the water, sugar and yeast in my big blender bowl and let it proof for 10 minutes. While it was doing this, it was time for more ingredients.  4 cloves of garlic ½ onion 200g ketchup 70g brown sugar 120g molasses Chillies 4 tbsp malt vinegar 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce I gently fried the onions and garlic, reduced the heat and added all the other ingredients and left to simmer for a while While simmering, I went back to my water, sugar and yeast, added my flour, melted butter and salt, and mixed for about ten minutes with a dough hook for about ten minutes until it formed a dough, covering it was a damp cloth and leaving alone for 45 minutes. In this time, my sauce had thickened up, so I let it cool a bit and poured it into a handy squirty bottle I had lying around, and put it in the fridge.  Once I’d had a largeish brandy and soda, it was time to check on my dough.  The native culture had risen against us! A familiar feeling, and one that can only be solved by swiftly knocking all the air out of the doughy masses. I kneaded for about 2 minutes on a floured surface, and used the old divide and conquer on the rebellious comestible, splitting it into three 35cm lengths.  Now, it was time to use the old manual dexterity, and plait the lengths together.  This exciting looking thing was brushed with a beaten egg (thinned with a little water) and baked for 30 minutes at 190C.  This part was rather taxing, as I like to know what my bread looks like quite sharpish, but in this case I had to leave it to go stale without cutting into it. Anyhow, I put some grapes in the freezer and pottered off to my bed, excited for the next day’s cooking. Back from the coalface after a hard Wednesday, I got some meat and spices out.  2L hot water 150g salt 200g brown sugar 2 cinnamon sticks 3 star anise 2 tsp fennel seeds 8 cloves 5 bay leaves 1 tbsp peppercorns 1L ice cold water I toasted the fennel seeds for a little bit to make them fragrant, brought the water to the boil and added all the ingredients, making sure that the sugar and salt had dissolved. One everything was dissolved, I put in the cold water and cooled everything down to room temperature, transferred the brine to a large plastic container and submerged my brisket. Now that was in the fridge, it was time to get some vegetables and spices for some sort of exotic oriental arrangement.  Vegetable oil A knob of butter 1 small onion 1 small carrot 1 piece of celery 1 small sweet potato 1 granny smith apple 3 cloves of garlic 1 thumb sized piece of ginger 3 birdseye chillies 1 tomato 1 handful of lentils 1 tsp ground coriander 5 cardamom pods ½ tsp ground cumin ½ tsp ground ginger ½ tsp ground mustard ¼ tsp ground cloves ¼ tsp ground fenugreek ½ tsp ground turmeric ½ tsp ground cayenne 1 tsp ground black pepper 500ml chicken stock First of all, I peeled and chopped where necessary, then roasted the vegetables for 30 minutes at 180C.  While the vegetables were roasting, I toasted all the spices in a dry pan, and fried the chillies, garlic and ginger in a little oil. Then I added the stock and lentils and simmered for 5 minutes. Then I added the vegetables and spices, and simmered for another 15 minutes. Then the whole melange was blended and pushed through a sieve, and put in the fridge for later. By this stage, it had been 48 hours since the ginger had begun fermenting, and could be bottled.  After a small snifter of this beer, it was time to go to bed. Thursday came, work went, and it was time to go to the kitchen once more, this time with some more flour.  500g wholemeal bread flour 300ml warm water 7g fast action dry yeast 1 tsp salt 1 tbsp olive oil 1 tbsp honey By this stage, I was fed up with waiting around, so, like the 600 at Balaclava, I decided to throw caution to the wind and speed things up, whacking all the ingredients into a blender and kneading with the dough hook for 5m  Once if formed a dough, I scooped it into an oiled loaf tin and set aside for 1 hour. While the dough was rising like an enraged Sikh confronted with the British army’s shaving regulations, I made a concoction for some reason.  1 bottle of American ale 250ml cider vinegar 1 tsp Amarillo flakes (a gift from pater) 4 cloves of garlic 50g brown sugar I minced the garlic, combined all the ingredients and simmered for about 10 minutes until the sugar had dissolved, allowed to cool, threw into an airtight container and put it in the fridge. With some more time to kill, I also made a spice mix.  30g paprika 15g salt 30g brown sugar 15g cumin 15g cayenne 15g garlic salt 15g ground black pepper I whisked the ingredients together to make sure I didn’t get any lumps, and put it in an airtight bag. The bread still wasn’t risen, so I decided to marinade some prawns.  Some prawns Garlic Chillies Fish sauce Toasted sesame oil Soy sauce Vegemite Ginger Vegetable oil I put all the non-prawn ingredients in varying proportions (I didn’t keep track, to be honest) into a blender, blended, poured over the prawns and put the whole lot into the fridge. I had another look at my timer for the bread dough, and I still had a while, so I got some hibiscus flowers, some citrus fruits and sugar out.  60g dried hibiscus flowers 250ml water 225g sugar Zest of 1 lemon Zest of 1 lime Zest of 1 orange Suddenly, my timer surprised me, like an angry Boer, and I realised it was time to have a look at the bread.  Into the oven it went, to bake at 200C for 30 minutes. Anyway, back to the hibiscus I went, throwing the flowers into the boiling water. I immediately removed from the heat, and allowed to infuse for 10 minutes.  I then poured the laughably misnomered “tea” through a sieve into a large bowl, pressing the solids against the sieve to get all the liquid out. Then, the strained liquid was poured back into the pan, with the sugar and brought to the boil. I reduced the liquid for about 20 minutes over a medium heat and took off the heat. Zests all went in, and the whole lot infused for a further 10 minutes. The sauce was then strained and transferred into another handy squeezy bottle. While the simmering was taking place, I did a couple of other things. Firstly, I got together some ingredients and took a picture.  A bottle of bourbon with a snifter already sampled 1 bunch of mint 120ml water 100g sugar I mixed the sugar and water in a large pan, and gently heated to dissolve. Once dissolved, it was set aside to cool, and I moved onto another drink.  Tomato juice Limes Hot sauce Worcestershire sauce Celery salt Black pepper I mixed all these ingredients together in roughly the same proportions as I would for a bloody Mary, but with much more lime juice, and put it in the fridge. After mixing the juice, the bread was ready, and I knocked it onto a wire rack.  Once dissolved and cooled, the syrup and mint leaves were crammed into the bottle of bourbon and put in the fridge. There was some talk about whether this was the right technique, but hang it, I had limited time and was getting tired!  And with that final act of complete inauthenticity, it was time to go to bed, because it was night-time. Finally Friday arrived! As any red-blooded Englishman will tell you, when you finish work on a Friday, it is essential to build a small fire. I started with some cardboard from some terrible piece of tat that my son had decided we needed for the house and some twigs.  Gradually, I built up the twigs and some larger pieces of wood.  Eventually, I threw on a couple of coals.  And they gradually became a proper fire which I left to do its thing.  While the fire was burning, I assembled some more ingredients.  500ml full fat milk 300ml double cream 5 large egg yolks 140g sugar 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp nutmeg 2 tbsp ground almonds 1 vanilla pod I put the milk, cream, vanilla and spices into a large pan, and brought to a scald  While that was getting hot, I put the sugar and eggs in my blender and beat them up like the men in our closest colony drunkenly beat their wives.  Once the milk was scalding, and the eggs were beaten, I gradually dribbled the hot milk into the eggs, beating all the while. I cleaned the pan, strained the liquid back in and heated on low for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly. Not occasionally looking at and thinking about stirring, but literally whisking for 10 minutes solid. It was a fun time. Once thick enough to coat the back of spoon, the whole thing needed to cool down, first to room temperature, then into the fridge for about an hour. At this point, I needed to do a couple of things, one of which was an experiment to see if a technique I had in mind would work in the way I thought it could. So I got out some woodchips, and put them in to a large pan to soak.  I went with a mixture of mesquite and pecan. The coals were now perfectly ready for what I had in mind.  I took the prawns (remember them) out of their marinade and skewered them on some pre-soaked skewers.  The prawns went onto the barbecue (and I think you can probably guess which continent this was for), for a couple of minutes a side  Once they were done, I put them to one side to cool.  The I tried to set up my experimental smoker with a chicken thigh.  So, the idea here was to test out smoking meat in a small barbecue. I figured the bowl of water underneath, soaked woodchips all around, lid on, I would get enough smoke and heat to cook the chicken. It didn’t work, I had raw chicken after an hour, as the fire had completely gone out, so I had to rethink. Like early incursions in South America, it looked initially promising, but it ended up with raw meat and disappointment. Anyway, while I was waiting for this terribleness to be revealed, I got some more meat together.  Some fine English garlic, grown by an artisan farmer from the beautiful English countryside Rosemary, from my garden in scenic Surrey, the suburban city garden of England Olive oil, imported by typically entrepreneurial London merchants 2 racks of British lamb, massaged by the buxom shepherdesses of England’s grassy meadows Fresh parsley, from a pot that lives on my balcony, overlooking the wonderfully manicured lawn of my garden I put the oil, rosemary and garlic in a blender, and smeared it liberally all over the lamb and put it in the fridge overnight Once everything was in the fridge, I began making some biscuits.  300g plain flour 1 tsp baking soda 1 tsp salt 60g unsalted butter 100ml cold water I sieved the flour and baking soda into a large bowl, added the salt and rubbed in the butter until the ingredients looked like breadcrumbs. Then I slowly mixed in the water until it all formed a malleable ball of dough, and rolled it out on a floured surface to 1cm thick. Then I cut it into 5cm rounds, pricked with a fork and placed on greased baking trays.  These were then baked for 15 minutes at 190C and cooled on a wire rack.  Once cooled, I put them into an airtight container overnight. Remember the wholemeal bread? Well, it was at this point that I got the bread and three sharp knives, and set to work.  Using the breadknife, I sliced off the end of the bread to check out the crumb.  Fortunately, it looked good, and I could proceed without an embarrassing trip to buy bread. So I sliced it up, again with the breadknife.  After slicing, I realised that I needed to get out the custard mix I made earlier, that was cooling, because the next stage in the process was going to take long enough that it was going to make me late to bed. So I got it out of the fridge and began to churn it in the ice cream maker for 45 minutes (the chamber of which had been in the freezer for a few days).  Also, at this point the biscuits had cooled enough to have a taste.  They tasted high in energy and low in flavour, which made sense for what they were, which I will come back to later. Anyway, back to the wholemeal bread. After putting it in the toaster, I used the larger, less sharp of my knives to cut the crusts off each toasted slice.  Then, using the very sharpest, best knife I own, I sliced very carefully between each slice, to make very thin slices.  About halfway through this process, my knife was becoming a little sticky, so I cleaned it off and realised that a slightly damp knife made the whole thing a lot easier. So next time, I will start with a knife that is mildly moist… The thin half slices of toast were put under the grill, and browned until the corners curled up.  They turned out a bit patchy in colour, but they were definitely what I wanted, which is, as you have probably guessed, was Melba toast.  The toasts went into an airtight container, and the ice cream was transferred into ramekins, covered with cling film and put into the freezer overnight, at which point the week of prep was over, and it was time to get to bed for the day of cooking ahead. Scientastic fucked around with this message at 22:27 on May 30, 2016 |
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May 30, 2016 01:32
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Saturday began early with a kick in the head from my small children, and I set out into the garden to set up the fire. Since the smoking debacle, I had decided on a different method for smoking, using my larger barbecue, in which I now started a conflagration.  While the fire grew, I took out my brined brisket and patted it dry.  My plan was to put my brisket (for that is what I was smoking) in a large roasting tray with the soaked woodchips, covered in foil, and the whole assembly put on the hot coals. The other side of the barbecue was to be built up as a normal barbecue to keep the heat going so that it could maintain a supply of hot coals for a few hours. To that end, I put the spice mix I made earlier all over the meat as a dry rub.  Then the woodchips went in.  Then the foil was tented over the top, and the whole thing was transferred into the barbecue.  Next thing to do was to make some mint sauce, which is fairly simple.  150ml white wine vinegar 50g sugar Large bunch of mint As you can see, the whole lot was put in the blender and whizzed up, to be used later. Next, I made a simple curry sauce.  Tomatoes Chillies These were roasted in a little oil at 180 for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, I made some curried fish.  5 cloves of garlic 3 cardamom pods 1 tsp cumin ¼ cinnamon ¼ tsp ground cloves ¼ tsp fenugreek ½ tsp turmeric ¼ tsp cayenne I toasted the spices in a dry pan, and add to two tablespoons of olive oil, with the garlic to make a paste, then tossed 1kg of cubed white fish (I used coley, but I should have used tilapia if I were being completely authentic) in the paste, and deep fried for around 5 minutes to brown, but not fully cook. At this point, the tomatoes were ready to be taken out of the oven.  Almost straight away I got this out of the oven, I had to mop the brisket. Remember the American ale thing? That was a “mop” to be brushed over the brisket every hour.  Next on my list was to parboil some potatoes. Exciting times!  The beef dripping is there because I was later to roast these in the dripping, the best fat for roasting potatoes. Make sure you use floury potatoes. These potatoes were peeled and then cut into much larger chunks than you would normally have roast potatoes, for reasons that will become apparent.  The potatoes were parboiled for 10 minutes, during which time I took the tomatoes and chillies and blended them up with the chunks of coconut I froze at the beginning, over sixty pictures ago!  Finally, while I remembered, I threw a load of vegetables into a roasting tray and set aside for later.  By the time I had done this, the potatoes were boiled. I drained the potatoes, then holding the lid on the pan (with oven gloves) I shook it extremely vigorously to break up the edges of the potatoes.  Now, you see why I cut them so big, as a lot of the mass of the potato gets broken off in this process. Next, I browned the lamb in an extremely hot pan, about 1 minute a side, including the edges.  Look at those mallards, beautiful British mallards that we have. Next, I had to make a pudding.  Plait bread 25g candied peel Orange marmalade 50g room temperature butter 275ml whole milk 60ml double cream 3 large eggs 75g sugar Zest of 1 orange 1 tbsp demerara sugar It was at this point that I had the extremely stressful moment of cutting open my bread, which I had had to leave for almost a week.  It was good! The next thing to do was to really heavily butter both sides of each slice of bread, and make some marmalade sandwiches.  I made sure to keep the order of the bread as sliced up, so that when I put it into the baking tray it retained the plait structure.  I whisked the egg, milk, sugar and cream together and poured over the sandwiches. Then I scattered with the zest, candied peel and demerara sugar.  This was set aside until ready to go into the oven. Next, I made some croutons. But not with bread, as you might expect, but potatoes! Waxy potatoes this time.  With enormous amounts of wastage, because I had slightly exacting requirements, I diced the lot.  These were parboiled for 5 minutes, dried and deep fried until golden. Once the oil had been patted off using kitchen roll, I deep fried them again briefly to get them extra crispy.  It was at this point that my phone rang to tell me that the cycling friend was setting off, so I had to get on with it. That meant it was time for the last stages of prep before food was to be served. An apple salsa beckoned.  2 pink lady apples (it had to be pink lady, as they’re Australian, which is important) Juice of 1 lime 1 red onion Garlic Chillies Coriander I peeled and diced the apple and onion, mixed with the minced garlic and chillies and shredded coriander, tossing with the lime juice to stop it going brown. Then I covered the surface with cling film and put it in the fridge. Next, I made a pea puree. First, I boiled some peas for 5 minutes.  After a bit of a boil, I strained the peas and threw them into the blender with a dash of the pea water.  Again, cling film was put on the surface and the bowl put in the fridge. At this point, it had been several hours since the brisket had gone in, so it had to be removed from my makeshift smoker to stand.  While it stood, I made some mint yoghurt from some mint and yoghurt.  This was whacked into the blender and whizzed up until smoothish. Next, I got some kale greens and tomatoes.  1 onion, finely chopped Kale 2 tomatoes, diced Coriander In my biggest pan, I fried the onion until soft, chucked in the tomatoes and fried for a couple of minutes. Then, in went the greens, a little lemon juice and 100ml water, after which the pan was covered and the heat turned down, and everything was cooked for about 15 minutes and kept aside until ready to be reheated for serving. After this, it was time for some cornmeal.  250ml water 250g fine ground cornmeal I brought the water to the boil in a large pan, and slowly poured in the cornmeal while very quickly whisking the water, to avoid lumps forming. Once all the cornmeal was mixed in, I gathered the mixture into the centre of the pan and formed into a doughy patty. It was pretty horrible looking, but it had promise. After about 20 minutes of cooking, I flipped it out onto a cold plate and formed into a “cake”. Once it cooled down, I sliced it up, tossed it in olive oil and put in a roasting tray ready for heating later. The final stage before some actual plating was to prepare the fish curry.  Two onions, roughly chopped The curry sauce from earlier And the fish from earlier In a wok, I fried the onions in some leftover curry spices from marinating the fish, added the tomato sauce and reduced until thickened. Then I put in the fish, simmering for about 5 minutes. It was then set aside until I was ready to serve. People were due to arrive any minute, so I had to start plating things, beginning with the canapés! Scientastic fucked around with this message at 22:30 on May 30, 2016 |
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May 30, 2016 01:32
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My guests were minutes away, so I had to get some food and drinks ready for their arrival.  To plate the canapés, I took the melba toasts, put on a little apple salsa and a couple of prawns. I then sprinkled over a few scraps of coriander.  To have canapés without a drink would be a crime, but what to have? Well, I took out the tomato juice, some Australian beer and limes.  I made a michelada (that I rechristened an Ozelada, because it was made with Australian lager) by rubbing a lime wedge around the rim of four stolen pint glasses (to commemorate the criminal nature of the Australian colony) and put a salt and chilli flake rim on the glasses. Then it was 1/3 tomato juice, 2/3 beer and a wedge of lime. Continent: Australasia Canapé: Shrimps on the barbie on melba toast with pink lady salsa Cocktail: Ozelada  The rationale for this dish was to take some Australian items and make a dish out of them: Shrimps on the barbie is a bit of a cliché, but I have a couple of friends who lived in Australia for a few years, and it’s completely true that they’re eaten all the time. Melba toast was invented in Australia for Dame Nelly Melba, the opera singer. The pink lady apple was cultivated in Australia, so it all seemed to come together… Full marks for the food, it was amazing, all of them were eaten pretty quickly! The sharp apple, sweet, salty prawns and the crunchy toast worked really well together. The drink was less popular. The manguest and I enjoyed them quite a lot, but the two women were less keen… It was refreshing, but spicy. And Fosters seemed like a good choice of drink for my canapé based on stereotypes. While the last few canapés were polished off, I nipped back into the kitchen to plate the starter. First, I had to slice up the brisket.  Next, I filled four metal cups with ice and waited until frost formed. Then I poured in the julep, and shoved in a sprig of mint.  I made a salad with some avocados, tomatoes and romaine and a simple vinaigrette and assembled my ingredients.  For the starter, I put together the barbecue sauce, salad and brisket. A squeeze of sauce, a layer of sliced brisket and a bit of salad, with potato croutons scattered over the top.  Continent: North America Starter: Smoked brisket with barbecue sauce, avocado and tomato salad with potato croutons Cocktail: Mint julep  When this ICSA was started, I racked my brains for what I had enjoyed eating when I was in America. There was a lot, but the thing that leapt out from me as the major contribution of America to world cuisine was barbecue. And potatoes. So this course seemed obvious. This time, the drink went down rather better. The only complaint was that it was a bit strong, but it wasn’t really. The beef was very good, somewhat dry, but the barbecue sauce made up for it. This dryness was the only fault, the course was a great success. Once the starter was done, it was time for our Asian course. We needed to recharge the old batteries, so it seemed a good idea to tell the guests that we were about to have some Indian tea. But obviously, our tea break needed to be joined with some gin. So I made gin and tonics.  We like our gin and tonics relatively strong, so I guess it was probably close to a fifty fifty mix. I brought out our mismatched tea set to the delight of our guests.  They began to suspect that something was up when they noticed that we appeared to have high tea with green, slightly lumpy milk. I asked manguest to stir the tea, at which point a chuckle arose at the incredibly whimsy of the thing.  Continent: Asia Soup: High tea of mulligatawny soup with mint yoghurt Cocktail: Gin and tonic  Mulligatawny means pepper water, and was apparently a popular thin soup before the days of the Raj, and when the British arrived in India, we adapted it to our tastes, adding a load of vegetables that were never in it. At the time, of course, gin and tonics were widely regarded as a good way to stave of malarial fevers, because of the quinine in the tonic. I’m pretty sure this has since been disproved, but it was a nice pairing. I was mother, and poured the soup.  It went very well with the gin!  This was my favourite course, and I think everyone enjoyed it. I’m not a great fan of whimsy, but it turned the soup course which, let’s be honest, can be slightly boring into something fun, and coincidentally just the right portion size. And it went nicely with the ice cold gins. Once the soup was gone, and it did go quite fast, I began preparing the next course. First, I made a cocktail.  With the ginger beer from earlier, I made a dark and stormy: 2 parts dark rum, 3 parts ginger beer, ½ part lime juice, a dash of bitters, combined over ice and served with a lime wedge.  The fish curry was quickly heated, as was the kale and the cornmeal (which had been shoved in the oven about fifteen minutes beforehand), and plated.  Continent: Africa Fish: Kenyan fish stew with sakuma wiki and ugali Cocktail: Dark and stormy  One of my guests has recently returned from a long stay in Kenya, so I was keen to do something Kenyan (which was an enormously important part of the empire) to make her feel at home. Kenyan fish stew is a traditional dish, often served with stewed greens and tomatoes. This is known as sakuma wiki, which means “stretch the week” and is basically a way of bulking out the food between paydays. Ugali is about the most Kenyan thing ever, but apparently mine wasn’t authentic, given that it had texture and tasted of something. The cocktail came about because ginger beer is very popular in Kenya, and a cocktail invented in Bermuda (another British colony) seemed like a good way of using this ingredient. My only regret about this course was that the fish didn’t hold up it structural integrity. Other than that, it was really delicious, and again the cocktail worked nicely with it. The ugali was not very good, but apparently that’s alright, because authenticity demands that it never is. It’s just a starch to soak up sauce and flavour, and when eaten in conjunction with the other bits, it worked. As this course drew to an end, I put the lamb into the oven, on top of the vegetables from earlier, for twenty minutes and allowed to rest, and pretty soon it was time to get the potatoes out of the oven, where they had been roasting in beef dripping for 45 minutes (having being turned and basted halfway through).  As these were cooling to a manageable temperature, I made a summer cup.  To make this, you need some strawberries, cucumbers, Pimm's and lemonade in proportions that you feel are suitable. It varies from person to person, but we usually go with around a fifty fifty mix of liquids, with a largeish amount of fruit and ice. While this had a little sit, I began plating the main course with a splodge of pea puree, then three roast potatoes, lamb ribs and mint sauce around the edge. Peas!  Potatoes!  Lamb and sauce!  Continent: Europe Entrée: Lamb with roast potatoes, pea puree and mint sauce Cocktail: Summer cup  I know the rules said not to do anything from your own continent, but I ignored the rules. And, if you have a real problem with it, I suppose you can judge the fish course as the entrée… I wanted to do something that is pretty quintessentially English, and Summery and wonderful. Perhaps the mint sauce could have been a bit thicker, but this was basically a perfect dish. And Pimm's is always amazing. The pudding went in roughly at the same time as the lamb came out, and baked for 45 minutes.  To plate it, I put the ramekins of ice cream in hot water, plonked them onto the plate, swirled about a bit of hibiscus sauce and put down some layers of the marmalade sandwiches.  Clearly, this being a cocktail party, as we’d made it this far, we needed another one!  This was served with a brandy Alexander, which is equal parts brandy, crème de cacao and double cream, shaken with ice until frothy, served in a martini glass, garnished with grated dark chocolate. Continent: South America Dessert: Marmalade sandwich Guyanan bread pudding with custard block and hibiscus sauce Cocktail: Brandy alexander  The rational here was two-fold: Firstly, Guyana is the only British colony in South America, and I know a Guyanan, so I could pick his brains. Secondly, the most famous South American food in Britain is the marmalade sandwich, favourite of Paddington bear, denizen of darkest Peru. My old PhD supervisor is a Guyanan, and so it was with some hopes that I e-mailed him to ask him for some ideas, of which plait bread and hibiscus were two good sounding things, and custard block just sounded vile. Apparently, it is custard made with Bird’s custard powder, frozen solid (not with an ice cream maker). I couldn’t bring myself to do this, but the British are nothing if not cultural appropriators! This went down very well, surprisingly so with my male guest, who despises all forms of twice-cooked bread (he doesn’t even like toast). But I converted him! The marmalade worked really well, the sharpness of the hibiscus sauce cut through the slightly excessive sweetness of the pudding, and the ice cream was smooth and delicious. An excellent way to end a meal. And the chocolate cocktail is pretty obvious: chocolate is from South America, and brandy Alexanders are amazing. But it wasn’t over just yet! There is a bonus course! You may have missed the bit were I froze the grapes, but even the most unobservant will have seen the biscuits… Continent: Antarctica Bonus course: Cheeseboard with frozen grapes and sledging biscuits Drink: Port (Lockroy)  The British have had many successes in our long history, but the Antarctic exploration by Scott does not rank among our finest hours. I’m not going to go into it now, but basically everyone carked it. Anyway, one of the rations that they took with them was sledging biscuits, a high energy scone of sorts, to be eaten with pemmican, a disgusting sounding raw meat and fat concoction. I selected a few bits of cheese, and some frozen grapes, and a couple of biscuits.  To drink, it was obviously port. But we decided to rename this Port Lockroy, after the port in British territory in the Antarctic.  As for reviews, I should probably have left this one out. I love frozen grapes, but the reception at the table was mixed, at best. And the biscuits were described as “exactly as you’d expect them”, which was not great. There were a lot of biscuits leftover. 
Scientastic fucked around with this message at 07:10 on May 31, 2016 |
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May 30, 2016 01:33
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So there you have it! We have voyaged the world, travelling through the Empire on a culinary grand tour! The majority of this meal was very successful, and happily received by my guests. For my own part, I think I would have used a different fish, and I wouldn’t have made sledging biscuits, but other than that, I think it was a success! Oh, and I would buy a proper smoker instead of freaking out the night before everyone was coming round and having to come up with an alternate technique. So, here is the menu in short: Continent: Australasia Canapé: Shrimps on the barbie on melba toast with pink lady salsa Cocktail: Ozelada Continent: North America Starter: Smoked brisket with barbecue sauce, avocado and tomato salad with potato croutons Cocktail: Mint julep Continent: Asia Soup: High tea of mulligatawny soup with mint yoghurt Cocktail: Gin and tonic Continent: Africa Fish: Kenyan fish stew with sakuma wiki and ugali Cocktail: Dark and stormy Continent: Europe Entrée: Lamb with roast potatoes, pea puree and mint sauce Cocktail: Summer cup Continent: South America Dessert: Marmalade sandwich Guyanan bread pudding with custard block and hibiscus sauce Cocktail: Brandy alexander Continent: Antarctica Bonus course: Cheeseboard with frozen grapes and sledging biscuits Drink: Port (Lockroy)
Scientastic fucked around with this message at 13:00 on May 30, 2016 |
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May 30, 2016 01:33
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Gruel Brittania...the best food England can come up with is from the various countries that have thrown off her shackles. Seriously, this is amazing and hilarious. Holy poo poo...all seven continents...and cocktails for every one? Can this be beat? I doubt it.
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May 30, 2016 02:21
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Jesus, this is impressive. Great job with everything, but particularly nailing your theme.
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May 30, 2016 04:34
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An epic of foodery! Also, my grandmother's yorkies are named Brandy and Alexander. I only just learned the significance of their names today.
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May 30, 2016 04:38
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That is seriously impressive, I feel silly for even attempting to enter this contest now.
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May 30, 2016 12:06
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Hopper posted:That is seriously impressive, I feel silly for even attempting to enter this contest now. That's a silly thing to say: your entry was really good, but also when push comes to shove, this competition has always been more about trying new things and eating good food than anything else. The prize is a bonus, not the goal, and although I'd like to win, it's more important that my friends and I ate delicious foods.
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May 31, 2016 07:13
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I really like your cocktail selection. Pimm's Cups are pretty popular here in New Orleans, and I love that you served the julep in a silver cup, too. Authentic touch.
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May 31, 2016 21:57
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Just wow.
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Jun 1, 2016 08:13
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So floored by this
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Jun 1, 2016 18:30
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Phil Moscowitz posted:I really like your cocktail selection. I was pleasantly surprised by how well each cocktail went with each course, but unpleasantly shocked by my hangover the next day. Sunday was not a good day for me.
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Jun 1, 2016 22:05
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I am very impressed you ate ugali for some reason other than tradition or crippling poverty.
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Jun 2, 2016 14:40
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How hammered was everyone by the end of this? Awesome work!
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Jun 2, 2016 17:17
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Pretty sloshed. I had been quenching my thirst from the heat of the kitchen with cocktails, which was an error...
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Jun 2, 2016 19:49
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 05:04 |
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Scientastic posted:That's a silly thing to say: your entry was really good, but also when push comes to shove, this competition has always been more about trying new things and eating good food than anything else. The prize is a bonus, not the goal, and although I'd like to win, it's more important that my friends and I ate delicious foods. Thank you, I realize the notion was silly now, but I was just floored seeing your entry. The only reason I compete at ICSA level is because I won ICSA Battle Spam against 1 other guy a while back, which means I have to do ICSAs now even though I am not sure my abilities are up to par. But you are right, we don't do this for prizes anyway, we do it because we love cooking. And the meal I was able to make for my friends was great, so I got my entry's worth so to speak.
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Jun 3, 2016 09:11
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