Naples chefs take sides in the 'ultra pizza' wars

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:18:20 GMT

Naples gave birth to the margherita, but now passions run high over the addition of stilton, port or even liquorice

Enzo Coccia has an evangelical air as he discusses his spring pizza – piled with asparagus, buffalo mozzarella, sheep's cheese, lard and beans. "They may say I am a heretic, but I just want to experiment," says the controversial exponent of the Italian trend for what are being dubbed gourmet, or "ultra-pizzas".

The fashion for ultra-pizzas has spread throughout Italy. But as Coccia is constantly being reminded, this is Naples, the home of the tomato and mozzarella margherita. Since opening in 2010, Coccia's restaurant, La Notizia, has whipped up an almighty row, provoking an army of growling traditionalists to voice their contempt for Coccia's daring combination of salt cod with mozzarella, his use of figs and pesto and his €25 truffle oil pizza. His innovative – some would say sacrilegious – approach has divided a city.

"There is no such thing as gourmet pizza, we are not OK with this," said Sergio Miccu, head of the Neapolitan Association of Pizza Makers, which has secured EU certification for the margherita and another Neapolitan standard, the tomato, garlic and oregano marinara.

"Pizza was born as a food for the poor and any complicated pizza loses its identity," he added. To prove his point, Miccu listed off the elements that make up the perfect – and now Brussels-patented – margherita: a 33cm diameter, 2-3cm high crust, San Marzano tomatoes, cow's milk mozzarella from the region of Campania and olive oil, all cooked in a wood oven after the dough has risen for nine hours.

But a growing number of pizzaioli, or pizza makers, up and down Italy, are pushing beyond that, taking their lead from a Rome restaurant, La Gatta Mangiona, which has tried out duck and asparagus and steamed chestnut and mushroom pizzas.

In a country that normally prizes simple ingredients and traditional recipes, pizzaioli are now attempting stilton and port pizzas as well as shrimp, saffron and liquorice pizzas.

For Coccia, the economic downturn means more chefs are colonising the poor man's food. "As the crisis makes people want to spend less on eating well, two-starred chefs I know are rushing to install wood-fired pizza ovens, while I am being considered a chef instead of just a pizzaiolo," he said.

What makes Coccia different is that he has dared to open for business in the town where pizza was first popularised and where in 1889 a pizzaiolo named his new mozzarella, tomato and basil pizza – mimicking the white, red and green of the Italian flag – after Margherita of Savoy.

Naples' staple got a further boost from the 1954 Italian comedy The Gold of Naples, where Sofia Loren plays a pizzaiola in the working-class district of Materdei. Five decades on, Starita, the local restaurant which kitted her out for the role, is still pulling in the crowds.

"I am dead against these gourmet pizzas – a pizza restaurant must be quick and cheap and turn out at least 400 pizzas a night," said Antonio Starita, 70, whose grandfather opened the restaurant in 1901.

"I have seen cream being used, and it doesn't get worse than that," he added, while pounding dough beneath the obligatory photos of the pope and former Napoli footballer Diego Maradona.

At Di Matteo on Via Dei Tribunali in the heart of Naples, where 600 pizzas are served a day and a margherita costs €3, the owner, Salvatore di Matteo, dismissed the ultra-pizza trend as "just like a cold, by which I mean it should pass".

"For me," he added, "gourmet means talking about what you eat."

A third of Di Matteo's business is folded and fried pizzas – typically stuffed with ricotta, provola cheese and cicoli, a local type of pancetta. For Neapolitans, he said, it is even more of a tradition than the margherita. "Fried pizza was bigger than oven-baked pizza in Naples until the 1950s. It needs good oil and a pizzaiolo who can tell the oil's temperature just by looking at it – it's such a hard technique that it hasn't caught on outside Naples," he said.

For food expert Davide Paolini, the new gourmet pizzas "can be great, but it's no longer pizza". He did, however, praise the work of the new wave of pizza chefs in perfecting the dough base. "Gourmet pizzaioli are doing serious research on flours and methods of raising the dough, particularly Enzo Coccia," he said.

While his ingredients may be raising eyebrows in Naples, Coccia's light, perfectly baked pizza bases – thanks to his fanatical attention to detail – are winning plaudits from his peers. After a long night's baking, he still has the energy to describe the perfect mix of humidity, volume and temperature for raising dough, before he sketches out the perfect proportions for a pizza oven on a napkin. "This hasn't changed much since the Greeks, but we are always looking to improve on things," he said.

At a second restaurant on the same street his menu is strictly traditional. As for the ingredients at his gourmet venture, some may be unorthodox but all are rigorously local.

"I did a fried pizza with mussels and pancetta based on my grandmother's skewers of mussels and pancetta, dipped in egg and breadcrumbs then fried," he said. "If I am innovating, it is only because I know the traditions."

Nigel Slater's midweek dinner: mackerel, bulgur and tomato

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:08:01 GMT

Light and healthy, it's in keeping with the season

The recipe

Heat 400ml of vegetable stock in a saucepan, then pour it over 150g of bulgur wheat and set aside for 15 minutes or so, until most of the liquid has been absorbed by the grain.

Halve 8 medium-sized tomatoes and cook them under an overhead grill until soft and the skins have started to blacken. Remove the skins, pour in a tablespoon of red-wine vinegar and season with black pepper. Crush the tomatoes with a fork to give a thick, roughly textured sauce, and keep warm.

Brush 4 mackerel fillets with a little oil, season with salt and pepper then cook under an overhead grill for a few minutes till the fish is opaque and a flake will pull away from the skin. I like to turn the fillets skin-side up for a minute or so, to crisp them lightly. Divide the couscous between two plates, add the mackerel fillets, then spoon over the grilled tomato sauce.

The trick

Ask the fishmonger to fillet the mackerel for you. That is what he is there for. The tomato sauce will keep for a couple of days, covered with a film of olive oil, in the fridge. If you have no stock with which to moisten the bulgur wheat, use water and a little olive oil, and be generous with the seasoning.

The twist

Include a few basil leaves or a little dried oregano in with the vinegar for the tomato sauce. A little garlic also. You can roast the tomatoes and mackerel if you prefer, but it will take about twice the time. Fresh sardines are good instead of the mackerel. Split them in half, move the backbone and grill as usual.

Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/nigelslater for all his recipes in one place

Wines of the week: David Williams

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:05:22 GMT

Three good reasons to put southern European bottles in your wine rack

Marks & Spencer Tapada de Villar Vinho Verde, Portugal 2011 (£6.99, M&S) For many people, Vinho Verde, like Soave and German wine, will forever be associated with the Abigail's Party era when wine first hit the British mainstream. This wine is no mere 1970s throwback, however. It's a delightfully floral and lemon-fresh white blend; subtle, dainty even, but not at all dilute despite its 11% alcohol. Try it with the Portuguese speciality of fishcakes made from bacalão.

La Garnacha, Salvaje del Moncayo, Spain 2010 (£9.99, or £7.99 if you buy two bottles, Majestic) Despite being the main variety in famous wines such as Châteauneuf-du-Pape, grenache – or garnacha as it is known in Spain – has never had the cachet of more famous red grapes. Things have been changing recently, though, thanks to glorious reds such as this one, which has a truly delectable freshness beneath its exuberant raspberry and blackberry fruit.

Vie di Romans Flors di Uis, Friuli Isonzo DOC, Italy 2009 (£25, Laithwaites) Owing to its location on the borders of Austria and Slovenia, Friuli has always been a cultural melting pot, with a collection of wine-making influences that puts it at one remove from the rest of Italy. In the hands of top producers such as Vie di Romans, the results, particularly when it comes to whites, can be thrilling: in this case a heady, intense mix of honeysuckle, herbs and almonds with a mineral kick.

Nigel Slater's mint recipes

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:05:04 GMT

When it comes to mint, don't be shy. Use it boldly to invigorate everything from liver to frozen yogurt

Despite the general advice that mint is a herb to be used with discretion, I like to go in the opposite direction, using it boldly, as in when whole leaves are tucked into a hot, chilli-scorched roast-pork sandwich, or chopped and tossed with fried breadcrumbs and lemon zest to scatter over scallops or chicken livers.

You can soften mint's punch by mixing it with another suitable herb. Classic garden mint works best with coriander and basil. The presence of another strong herb stops the mint dominating the dish and the blend can be intoxicating. Mint is so much part of our culture – from mint sauce with lamb to sweets and chocolate – that is comes as a breath of fresh air to marry it with the flavours of the Mediterranean or the Middle East, when it suddenly becomes exotic.

For mint recipes it's always worth looking east. It goes well with aubergines, especially when they are chargrilled; with meatballs and grills; and chopped and folded into grain salads, such as tabbouleh. Of all the suitable partners for this clean-tasting herb, lemon is perhaps the most neglected. I use lemon and mint in dressings for carrot salads, sometimes with a little cream involved. Lemon and mint also make a sparkling dressing, mixed with olive oil, for courgettes.

The simple salad of crisp, pale lettuce, beanshoots, thinly sliced peppers, mangetout and shredded roast chicken with a dressing containing nam plan and soy that I'd made the day before became worth making again once I added a mixture of chopped mint, coriander and sesame oil. A clear broth made from the chicken bones with mushrooms, dark soy, a little miso paste and beanshoots took on a vitality once a handful of mint leaves was stirred in. Mint freshens, invigorates, excites. It stimulates the appetite.

And that is the point. There is no herb that brings with it such freshness and spark. Of course this will vary according to which mint you use. The variety is virtually endless with all manner of variants, from those with hairy leaves or a slightly smoky note to the sweet mints more suited to dessert.

Try a pesto made not with the usual basil but with mint. Out of step, I know, but I do like put a bunch of mint in with the new potatoes from time to time. It tastes of childhood, though probably only if your mother was the sort of person to put mint in her potatoes.

The wretched, pointless mint sprig still turns up on dessert plates, normally with a shower of icing sugar, usually in the company of an inappropriate raspberry. But there is a place for mint at the end of a meal, often in partnership with chocolate (in a mousse or cake, a tart or as a sauce for a pile of little choux buns). And a favourite way to finish dinner when oranges are at their best is to slice them, steep them in a light sugar syrup with fresh mint, then chill them very thoroughly.

Of all the uses for it as summer comes, by far my favourite has been in a frozen yogurt freckled with dark chocolate chips. Although I have an ice-cream machine, I wanted a recipe that anyone with a freezer could do. Rather than churning the mint syrup and dairy produce (I used yogurt, but it could have been custard), I simply beat the ice particles from the outer edges of the freezing sorbet into the liquid middle with a small whisk. Do this two or three times and you will have a much more light and airy ice than if you freeze it into a block. The yogurt and mint made the most refreshing dessert of the year.

Chicken livers with pea purée and mint gremolata

Serves 4
For the pea purée:
peas 200g, podded weight
butter about 20g

For the livers:
mint 10g
lemon 1
a little butter or oil
chicken livers 200g
breadcrumbs 60g
smoked bacon 4 rashers

Cook the peas in boiling, lightly salted water for 4 or 5 minutes until tender. Drain. Mash the peas with the butter, using a food processor until you have a smooth, thick purée. Season carefully.

Chop the mint leaves finely and grate the lemon. Melt the butter or oil in a nonstick frying pan over a moderate heat then add the breadcrumbs, letting them colour lightly. Stir in the chopped mint leaves and lemon zest, season with salt and set aside.

Wipe the pan with kitchen paper, melt a little more butter then add the seasoned chicken livers and bacon. I like to keep a lid handy, as the livers have a habit of spitting and popping. Turn the livers over as they start to colour, but try to avoid cooking them for more than 4 or 5 minutes. They are best when their insides are rose pink.

To serve, divide the pea purée between four plates, add the chicken livers and the bacon, then scatter over the mint and lemon breadcrumbs.

Mint frozen yogurt

A mint and chocolate sorbet, without the need for an ice-cream maker. Serves 8-10.

caster sugar 250g
mint sprigs 15g
water 250ml
yogurt 650g
dark chocolate 60g

Blitz the sugar with 10g of the mint sprigs, leaves and stalk, in a food processor. You should end up with moist, green sugar. Put the sugar and water into a saucepan and bring to the boil. As soon as the sugar has dissolved, remove from the heat and cool the mixture – either by putting the pan in a sink of cold water, or by pouring the syrup into a bowl set in a larger basin of ice cubes.

Blitz the remaining mint briefly with the yogurt, then stir into the cooled syrup and mix gently. Transfer the mixture to a plastic freezer box. Keep in the freezer for a couple of hours or until ice crystals start to form on the edges, then stir or whisk them into the liquid centre and return to the freezer. Repeat a couple of times until almost frozen, then roughly chop the chocolate into small pieces and gently fold it in. Return the mixture to the freezer and leave until frozen. Scoop into bowls and serve.

Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/nigelslater for all his recipes in one place

One Chef that never goes out of fashion

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:05:03 GMT

He had a private plane, his own spa and a yacht called Gay Jacqueline. Opening a kitchen window into the extraordinary world of Kenneth Wood

Of all the gadgets I associate with the kitchen of my childhood, it is the Kenwood Chef, sturdy and reliable, that I think of with the greatest affection. My mother owned one, and my stepmother, and for many years I thought that only when I owned one myself would I be fully adult. Only then, of course, I went and blew it. When I finally had enough spare cash, I turned into the worst kind of fashion victim and ordered a KitchenAid Artisan, a machine that might look delightfully cool and retro, but isn't half as efficient or easy to use. Plus – and this is something Nigella neglects to demonstrate on the telly – it weighs about eight tonnes. Stagger with it from cupboard to work surface and you've earned yourself the right to a cup of a tea and an iced bun before you've even started.

Thanks to the fact that I berate myself for this decision almost daily, I'd be lying if I told you my trip to see an exhibition about the history of Kenwood (it's at the wonderful Lightbox in Woking, the town where the mixer was first made) was an entirely happy one. As I toured the glass cabinets, my covetousness rose like the mercury on a hot Athens morning. Imagine Chaucer's Pardoner crossed with Victoria Beckham after a bad row with David, and you're about halfway there. If I hadn't been with a friend, I might have logged on to eBay bang in the middle of the gallery.

It wasn't only the latest machines, either. In the 70s, Kenwood manufactured the Superchef model in orange and brown plastic. Standing in front of a film of this beauty (it is so rare the curator could not turn up a model to put on display), I felt weak-kneed with desire. An orange Kenwood chef. Oh, man. It would look so good against my green tiles.

Kenneth Maynard Wood – his grandfather made Maynard's wine gums – founded his electrical company in 1936; the Kenwood Chef, a snazzy version of the A200 food mixer he developed in the late 40s, went on the market in 1950. It had a unique "planetary action", it cost £19 and it made him very rich indeed. Wood had a private plane called Kenwood, a yacht called Gay Jacqueline, and he spent 10 days a year at his very own hydro, Forest Mere, in Hampshire (Kenwood executives were also sent there twice a year; I picture them lying in bubbling water, dreaming of mincer attachments). At the Lightbox, you can see the gold Kenwood Chef charm he had made for his wife to hang around her neck. His delivery vans, meanwhile, had mixers attached to their roofs – jaunty sentinels that would call out to housewives even as they struggled home with their tartan trolleys.

I know Woking may not sound like a dream day out. You probably think my kitchen-nerd persona is getting beyond a joke. But this little exhibition is remarkable for the way it tells such a big story in so very few words. It's about the journey to the cheap food we now take so disastrously for granted (in the 50s, a third of a household's annual income was spent on food; a good mixer must have seemed like the ultimate investment). There's the way women's roles have changed (in 1961, men were exhorted to buy their wives a mixer for Christmas with the slogan: "The Chef does everything but cook – that's what wives are for!"). And it tells of the shift in tastes (Bircher's Cocktail for the Anaemic, a Kenwood recipe from the 40s which you will definitely not be making any time soon, is made of shin beef, crème de cacao and evaporated milk).

For me, though, what it mostly induced was guilt. Ken Wood succeeded for all sorts of reasons: his mixers had shire-horse motors and his salesmen were adept at pressing accessories (juicer, grinder, potato peeler) on new customers. But perhaps his product spoke, too, to a more sensible customer than me who knew they only needed one truly excellent machine.

Back at home, I wandered disconsolately around my kitchen, contemplating all the gadgets I hardly ever use. The pasta machine. The meat thermometer. The, er, egg slicer. I could go on, given that almost every tool in the kitchen can be substituted with something simpler: knife for mezzaluna, rolling pin for garlic press, tea towel for salad spinner. Finally, I gazed sadly on the one item I would use every single week – if only I could shift it without recourse to chalk on my palms, and a Health and Safety Executive guide to heavy lifting. OFM

rachel.cooke@observer.co.uk

Queen's diamond jubilee recipes: salad

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:05:01 GMT

Home-made salad cream makes Simon Hopkinson's British seasonal salad something entirely wonderful

Simon Hopkinson's high tea salad

A British "high tea salad" should be something to be celebrated, but rarely is. I associate it, also, with that sinking feeling of early Sunday evenings (Songs of Praise on the TV, etc), knowing that it was back to school the following morning. Made well, and with care, such a salad – and made in the summer, preferably – can be an absolute joy.

The lettuce must be as fresh as can be, and have a good heart of pale green leaves with a touch of yellow. A chosen cucumber should have that intense smell of summer green that lifts one's heart. Tomatoes, naturally, need to taste sweet, and good, but must be peeled here, I think. Spring onions, however you buy them, need a brief trim and a soak in iced water after cutting. Ditto the radishes.

The eggs are important: buy the best you can find. Cover in cold water and bring to the boil. Cook for one minute exactly, switch off the heat and leave, covered, for 4 minutes. Cool under cold running water for 5 minutes. The yolks should then be only just firm within. Perfect. Be patient with the watercress, pick it carefully and wash and drain well. I wouldn't dream of leaving out the beetroot, but perhaps it is not your cup of tea. Well, I'm sure it is de rigueur at the palace, on a quiet Sunday evening as the hymns fade away…

However, what truly makes this salad special is a home-made salad cream. Something entirely wonderful and well worth the effort.

Serves 5-6

For the salad cream
eggs 2
caster sugar 1 dssp
tarragon vinegar 5 tbsp
salt a pinch of
whipping cream 250ml

round lettuces 4, trimmed of all floppy outer greenery and separated into leaves
cucumber 1 small, peeled and thickly sliced
ripe tomatoes 6 small, peeled and quartered
spring onions 6, trimmed and sliced into short lengths
radishes 1 bunch, trimmed, washed and quartered
boiled eggs (see above) 4, peeled and quartered or sliced
watercress 1-2 bunches, depending on size, washed and picked into small sprigs
beetroot 3-4 medium-sized, cooked, peeled and cut into thick matchsticks

To make the salad cream, first beat together the eggs, caster sugar, vinegar and salt in the top of a double boiler, or in a stainless steel or china bowl suspended over barely simmering water until thick, mousse-like, and the whisk leaves thick trails through the mixture. (Use an electric hand whisk for the speediest results.) Remove from the heat and continue beating until lukewarm. Leave to cool, then loosely whip the cream and carefully fold it into the sauce. Note: if you feel the salad cream is a touch too thick to pour, thin with a little milk.

Now, delicately wash the lettuce in very cold water, spin or shake dry and lay out on to a handsome large platter. Attractively arrange the cucumber, tomatoes, spring onions, radishes and eggs over the leaves, then strew with the watercress. Finally, scatter over the beetroot, spoon over the dressing and serve at once – and before the beetroot bleeds over everything!

Simon Hopkinson's The Good Cook is out now, published by BBC books, £25

Queen's diamond jubilee recipes: meat

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:05:00 GMT

Angela Hartnett's barbecue chicken and Ashley Palmer-Watts' lamb chops will ensure your jubilee party is fit for the Queen

Angela Hartnett's barbecue chicken with watercress mayonnaise

I think the royal family are generally a good thing. The Queen gave me my MBE and I've met Prince Charles a couple of times at events and through working with Slow Food I was lucky enough to tour the gardens at Highgrove. Although I actually met him when I was younger and in the Brownies. We were on a trip to Canterbury Cathedral and he happened to be there, and being a good sport he did a little walkabout. And we've been fortunate enough to have a couple of the royals come to the restaurant, although I can't say who.

When you were younger you used to have pretty bad chicken dishes at parties, like the chicken drumsticks people always seemed to eat in the 70s. This is a more modern, updated take on party food, and still very British.

We're having a street party near where I live in east London. My sister's on the organising committee with the local vicar. I'm just helping out with the food, so I'll do as I'm told.

Serves 8
spatchcock chicken 4

For the marinade
thyme 2 tbsp, chopped
rosemary 2 tbsp, chopped
garlic 4 cloves, crushed
honey 4 tbsp
white wine vinegar 75ml
olive oil 50ml
tomato ketchup 2 tbsp
Dijon mustard 1 tsp
lime 1, rind and juice
sea salt and pepper to taste

For the mayonnaise
readymade mayonnaise 500g
watercress 1 bunch, finely chopped

Mix all the marinade ingredients in a bowl and season to taste. Cut the spatchcocks in half, season well and rub the marinade over the skin. On a barbecue, start to cook and crisp the chicken skin-side down, turn over and move further away from the direct heat until cooked – around 40 minutes.

Remove from the heat and rest. To finish, mix the watercress with the mayo and check seasoning. Serve with crisp green herb salad and watercress mayo.

Angela Hartnett is chef patron of Murano, London W1; muranolondon.com

Ashley Palmer-Watts' lamb chops, cooked over charcoal with broad beans and mint

This recipe is spring on a plate. British produce is incredible in the springtime, and each ingredient in this dish really makes the most of that by being cooked over charcoal. I use the barbecue at home as much as I do my frying pans – and here the delicious spring lamb and the cucumber are chargrilled.

I encourage people to use cucumber. Cooking with cucumber is something not many people would think of doing, but it's a very old thing. When we go through old recipe books for inspiration at the restaurant, it always crops up. The flavour of it hot – particularly barbecued – is something else, and the texture is firm but moist. You won't look back once you've tried it. With the cucumber juice and the chardonnay vinegar it creates a kind of cucumber ketchup that's very similar to one we have at Dinner. It's beautiful, and very elegant – perfect for a jubilee party.

The royal family are very connected to Dinner, actually, because when we're standing in the kitchen we can see the Royal Horse Guards go by each day. I have to pinch myself sometimes.

Serves 4

For the sauce
lamb stock 1 litre
lamb fat (reserved from making the stock) 1 tbsp
sprig of rosemary 1
sprig of mint 1

For the chops
spring lamb chops 8
clove of garlic 1
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

For the garnish
cucumber 1 large
olive oil
shallot 3 tbsp, finely chopped
chardonnay vinegar 2½ tbsp
broad beans 250g, podded, blanched and peeled
dill 2 tbsp, chopped
flat leaf parsley 2 tbsp, chopped

To make the sauce, place the lamb stock into a saucepan and reduce to 100ml. Remove from the heat and whisk in the lamb fat and rosemary sprig. Set aside.

My preferred method of cooking the lamb chops would be over charcoal on a barbecue, but roasted in a pan over a high heat would also be great.

Cut the garlic clove in half and rub each of the chops with the garlic, then season with sea salt and coarsely ground black pepper – lightly press the seasoning on to the flesh so it sticks and drizzle over a little olive oil. Grill the lamb chops on a barbecue each side for 2–3 minutes until medium rare, and then wrap in foil to rest while cooking the garnish.

Juice a third of the cucumber and reserve the juice. Peel the remaining cucumber and cut in half, then cut the four sides off the cucumber to leave you with just the rectangular heart. Cut the cucumber sides into 5mm pieces and set aside.

Season the cucumber hearts and drizzle with olive oil, place on the barbecue and cook for 2 minutes per side until lightly coloured and soft. Set aside and keep warm.

Pour a thin layer of olive oil into a hot pan and add the cut cucumber pieces. Leave to colour, then gently turn to colour further. Reduce the heat and add the shallot and cook for 2 minutes. Deglaze the pan with the chardonnay vinegar and reduce until almost all gone.

Add 4 tbsp of the cucumber juice and peeled broad beans and heat gently to ensure the mixture remains moist, season with salt and pepper. Stir in the chopped herbs and serve.

Heat the sauce, add the remaining 2 tbsp of cucumber juice and add the sprig of mint.

Cut the cucumber hearts in half diagonally, place on the centre of large plate, spoon the broad bean and cucumber mix around and place the two chops on top of the garnish. Remove the mint from the sauce and pour a little of the sauce over the lamb chops.

Ashley Palmer-Watts is head chef at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, London SW1; dinnerbyheston.com

Restaurant review: Mari Vanna, London | Jay Rayner

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:04:22 GMT

Mari Vanna, a wildly over-the-top take on Russian cooking, is a delicious carb-fest not to be taken lightly

116 Knightsbridge, London SW1 (020 7225 3122). Meal for two, including vodka and service £150

Spare a thought for the poor soul tasked with dusting the tchotchkes that cram the shelves of Mari Vanna in Knightsbridge. It's a Forth Road Bridge painting job, that. The place is crammed with knick-knacks and crockery, with white-painted farmhouse dressers and chandeliers. There are vintage photographs of the Russian family you never knew you had and partitions of artfully distressed wood in the loos, as if you're going for a slash in the outhouse of a tumbledown dacha you never knew you owned. It is over the top, shameless and curiously effective. Mari Vanna, the branch of a small chain with outposts in Moscow, St Petersburg and New York, bellows "I'm charming" at you until you surrender. Which, assuming you can swallow the prices, is what you do.

By the time I went it had been running for more than seven weeks, but still claimed to be on a soft opening, possibly the longest in London restaurant history. And if these are the soft opening prices, God help us if they crank it up. Humble starters are near a tenner or more, mains double that. On the menu it said: "We appreciate your understanding and patience as we work towards perfecting our menu, service and atmosphere," which feels like getting an apology in first. Not that there's much to apologise for. Mari Vanna, named after a fictional hostess, is what it is: a kitsch and loving take on the culinary traditions of Russia.

These, it should be said, are an acquired taste. It is, depending on your point of view, either the very essence of homely, cupboard-love cooking, or a combination of death-by-carbs and leftovers. The cult of the Russian salad has always baffled me. How cold cooked vegetables, here with the addition of cubes of sausage, all bound in mayo has managed to attain the status of classic is beyond me. Russian salad is what happens when it's late, the fridge is almost empty and you are very, very drunk. Here, it's done about as well as it can be done, the ingredients still having bite rather than disintegrating unto slurry.

Far better is a layered salad of salted herring, beetroot and potatoes. We order a bowl of pickles, which are big chunks of vinegar-cured crunchy things, and a couple of their pirogi, the classic bronze-burnished filled pastries. The minced beef and pork is the sort of thing that will see you through a snowed-in month. The more delicate sea-bass version will merely get you through a weekend.

For the main courses we stick to the classics. We have a dish of pelmeni. The silky little meat-stuffed dumplings come with a cooling bowl of soured cream and are completely compelling. We have golubtzi, the cabbage leaves stuffed with a big, butch mix of pork, veal and rice. At Mari Vanna everything is stuffed, including the diners. There may be friendly young Russian waiters who look like they work out a lot, but really you're being fed by a grandmother who doesn't understand the words "enough already". At Mari Vanna it doesn't matter what month it is. Winter is coming. Winter is always coming. So eat.

And drink, of course. There are many vodkas, sold by the 5cl shot at outrageous prices. So we slug Russian Standard vodka and chilli vodka and feel gravity take hold.

It says much for the food that it is the fabulous pastries, made of cream, sponge, cream, pastry and cream which bring lightness to the meal. The Napoleon is layers of puff pastry with heavily whipped cream, crusted with toasted almonds. The honey cake is a dozen thin layers of dark sponge with more cream and a slick of honeycomb. At which point your pancreas nails an "I quit" note to your small intestine, and curls up to die. Mari Vanna is completely bonkers, but in a sweet way. It really is charming. Now please do excuse me. I need to go for a lie down.

Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/jayrayner for all his reviews in one place

What the royals eat at home

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:04:11 GMT

The Queen likes cereal kept in Tupperware and her guests to be piped in to dinner. Rachel Cooke lifts the lid on the royals' appetites and their love of all things eggy

In 2006, a story appeared in the newspapers, courtesy of Jeremy Paxman, who had been staying at Sandringham while researching his latest book, On Royalty. The gist of it was that the Prince of Wales was so fussy about his soft-boiled eggs that his staff would prepare up to seven for him every morning in the hope that at least one would be done to perfection.

When I first heard this, I clapped my hands together in glee. It seemed so perfect, so of a piece with what one already believed of Charles (unable even to put his own toothpaste on his toothbrush). Soon after, though, there came – boo! – a rebuttal. No, said a spokesman for Clarence House. Paxman's anecdote was "totally untrue". The Prince of Wales would eat his egg irrespective of whether or not its yolk was sufficiently runny. As denials go, this one was swift, and absolute. But it was also, to my mind, a failure. For one thing, it implicitly suggested that Charles thought himself quite the hero for ploughing manfully through a hard, dry egg. For another, more egg stories soon followed in its wake. Two years later, Mervyn Wycherley, Charles's private chef during his first marriage, revealed that the prince's security detail would inform the kitchen as soon as HRH was on his way home for tea. "His eggs had to be boiled for exactly four minutes," said Wycherley. "It was never anything other than a four-minute egg. His detectives radioed his ETA ahead. I always kept three pans boiling – just to be safe."

What is it with the royal family and eggs? If we are to believe Charles Oliver, a servant who worked at Buckingham Palace under Victoria, George VI and Queen Elizabeth II, and whose "lost" diaries were eventually used, in 2003, as the basis for a rather odd book called Dinner at Buckingham Palace, the royals have a "passion" for them. Like the rest of us, they like them scrambled, fried, boiled and poached, but they also enjoy them en cocotte à la crème (baked with cream, a treat they like to accompany with minced chicken); plat chasseur (garnished with chicken livers and a sauce of white wine, consommé and herbs); and farcis à la Chimay (stuffed with mushrooms and coated with Mornay sauce). Every day begins with an egg, and they're eaten for tea, too – with crumpets, if you're Prince Charles. The Queen favours brown eggs, believing that they taste better. Her great-great grandmother, Queen Victoria, ate her boiled egg, served in a golden egg cup, with a golden spoon.

Leaving aside the indelicate fact that constipation must surely be endemic in the royal palaces, this passion for eggs – such an everyday foodstuff and yet one that can be gussied up to a quite epic degree should cook be in possession of a sufficiently old-fashioned recipe book and large quantities of gelatin – pretty much sums up the royal family's attitude to food. The modern royals, by which I mean Victoria onwards, have often managed to combine an unbounded extravagance with a certain ersatz asceticism.

Queen Victoria, who was convinced that "things taste better in smaller houses", favoured plain food, a fact that set her against the fashion of the day, when French cuisine was all the rage (she had a French chef herself, in the form of Charles Elmé Francatelli, until he hit a maid and was dismissed). At home, she favoured pies and invalid soups – pearl barley or potato – washed down with her favourite drink, a mixture of claret and whisky.

On the other hand, when she visited Hatfield House, the home of the Marquess of Salisbury, in 1846, her host felt obliged to spend some £75,000 (at today's prices) on food and drink for a three-day visit (£800 on turtle soup alone). She believed, too, in keeping an "imperial" table: one commensurate with her great nation's place in the world. Dinners were elaborate, and, at lunch, curry and rice were always available, served by two Indian servants in elaborate uniforms of blue and gold.

Admittedly, these things do sometimes skip a generation. While he waited to become king, her son, Edward, the Prince of Wales, developed more lavish tastes. Abstemious he most certainly was not. A cooked breakfast would be accompanied by roast chicken and lobster salad to tide him over until lunch, which would itself consist of eight courses. This was followed by high tea, and then a dinner of 12 courses: two kinds of soup, whole salmons and turbots, vast saddles of mutton and sirloins of beef, not to mention several game birds, some devilled herrings and plenty of cheese. Finally, before bedtime, he would squeeze in a light supper of cakes and savouries. Edward, the playboy king, was so greedy that, at the theatre or opera, he would insist on an hour-long interval in order that he might take his supper in the royal box. Six heaving hampers of food – plovers' eggs, cold trout, Parisian pastries – would duly be delivered by the palace.

George V was more modest: before he came to the throne, he lived in the relatively low-key York Cottage, on the Sandringham estate. It was decorated with new furniture, not old, as if he and his bride, the future Queen Mary, were just an ordinary middle-class couple, and he passed his time mostly in killing animals and tending his stamp collection. So when the First World War broke out, four years into his reign, it was perhaps unsurprising that Mary insisted on rationing in the palace – by some accounts even before the public was subjected to it. No one, according to her edict, was to eat more than two courses for breakfast, and the royal chefs were encouraged to create mock cutlets from minced meat. For his part, George prohibited the drinking of wine as long as the war lasted, and was happy to eat thin soup for elevenses, and mashed potato with everything.

Such deft PR continued with George VI, who also observed rationing during the Second World War. But George was married to Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother – a woman more royal than the royals. Last year, a collection of recipes by former staff and guests at the Queen Mother's Scottish house, the Castle of Mey, was published, with a foreword by her ever-devoted grandson, Prince Charles – and just reading it is enough to make the arteries harden.

Elizabeth loved After Eight ice cream (to make quantities for six people you will need two boxes of After Eights and no fewer than six egg yolks), the Soufflé Rothschild created by Carême (its essential ingredient is Goldwasser, a strong liqueur containing flakes of gold leaf) and – what did I tell you about eggs? – Oeufs Drumkilbo, a sort of prawn-cocktail-meets-eggs-mayonnaise dish which she liked to serve on picnics. (Drumbilko is the next estate to Glamis Castle, the Queen Mother's childhood hood; this dish was also served at the wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson in 1986).

And so it continues, the strange coupling of decadence and moderation. The royals remind me of the friend who points out, when the bill comes, that they did not have pudding – shortly before announcing they are off to their new second home for the weekend. We know that the Queen favours Tupperware, the better to keep her breakfast cereal fresh. We know she likes Irish stew, rissoles (pheasant, preferably), and a good cup of tea. But we know, too, that every morning she writes her heart's desires in her menu book for the staff, that diners at Balmoral are piped into dinner, that footmen abound in all her homes.

The Duke of Edinburgh is said to be obsessed with barbecuing in quiet corners of his wife's estates, but is it really him who loads up the Land Rover with charcoal? And when we're told that he takes his electric frying pan everywhere, who is it, I wonder, who packs it for him? As for Prince Charles's instructions to his cook not to waste the lovage that grows tall in the Highgrove kitchen garden – it must be used for soup! – this sounds admirable only until you remember that Charles' household is 159 strong, and that his personal spending rose last year by some 50%.

How much do royal tastes influence the rest of us? Not much is the truth. Victoria and Albert might have introduced us to the Christmas tree, but we can't blame them for the turkey; they usually had beef (though on one occasion, or so I read, they enjoyed a swan). There is coronation chicken, invented by Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume for the banquet to mark the Queen's coronation in 1953 (I don't know whether the Queen likes coronation chicken herself but, made right, with poached chicken rather than leftovers, and a light dressing rather than a slick of mayonnaise and curry powder, it is delicious).

There is Prince Charles's range of organic Duchy Originals, though when you see how much HRH's oat cakes, jam and herbal tea cost, what you feel mostly is the need to run in the direction of Lidl. But very little else. If anything, they're rushing towards us these days. The Duchess of Cambridge shops at Spar, Morrison's and Waitrose – she pushes her own trolley! – and at an Anglesey butcher, where she was seen spending 82p on lamb's liver to make a gravy for a pie (contrast this with the San Lorenzo-loving Princess Diana, whose cooking skills were so limited her chef had to leave her a note explaining how to operate the microwave).

I know there are those who feel that while the most prominent family in the land continues to stalk and to shoot, blood sports will never be outlawed. But since I am not anti these things, I can't say I mind terribly much. I once went stalking in Scotland for this magazine, and the experience was so bone-achingly exhausting, I began to think Charles might be tougher than he sometimes seems.

For my own part, I associate the royal family very strongly indeed with icing. To be specific, with the bright blue and red icing I used to decorate some cakes I made with my stepmother when it was the Queen's silver jubilee. (Ah, the innocence of 1977, when all the world was one giant street party!) And with a certain kind of kitschy biscuit tin. The other day, in Marks & Spencer, I found my hand hovering for longer than it should have done over a tin of Diamond Jubilee shortbread. It was very pretty; quite understated as royal souvenirs go. I resisted, that day. But I know in my bones such a tin will eventually find its way into my shopping basket. Shortbread is always delicious – whether your attitude towards it is ironic, or not.

Nigel Slater's diamond jubilee recipes

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:04:10 GMT

With the Queen's diamond jubilee, it seems fitting to have a celebratory feast. There's cold ham and cucumber salad, egg mayonnaise cumin-seed rolls, a gooseberry trifle and strawberries and cream cocktails

Smoked ham and cucumber salad

A rearrangement of the classic British ham sandwich.

Serves 4-6
smoked ham in the piece 500g
cucumber ½
cornichons 75g
cream cheese 200g
grain mustard 1 tbsp
watercress or pea shoots 4 handfuls

Bring the ham to the boil in deep water, skim off any froth, then let it simmer for half an hour till warm and soft. When cool enough to handle, remove from the water and break it into large, juicy lumps, about the right size for a fork.

Cut the cucumber, peeled if you wish, in half lengthways, then into pieces the thickness of a pound coin. Halve the cornichons lengthways and drop them into the bowl with the ham. Add spoonfuls of cream cheese, a little salt and ground pepper, the mustard and the watercress or pea shoots. Toss the salad together gently then serve.

Egg mayonnaise toasted cumin-seed rolls

Makes 6
eggs 6, hard boiled
cumin seeds 1 tbsp
mayonnaise 6 heaped tbsp
rolls 6
sprouted seeds 6 handfuls

Cook the eggs in boiling water for a few minutes till they are almost hard boiled. (You know exactly how you like your eggs.) Cool them in cold running water. Peel and then mash them lightly with a fork or roughly chop them.

Toast the cumin seeds for a couple of minutes in a frying pan, till they are fragrant. Grind them coarsely with a pestle and mortar or any heavy weight such as a rolling pin, then add them to the eggs. Stir in the mayonnaise. Season generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Split the rolls in half, then stuff them with cumin egg mayonnaise. Add the sprouted seeds and serve.

Smoked trout fish fingers

A home-made version of the traditional fish finger. Serve with soft English lettuce and creamed horseradish.

Serves 4
large potatoes 600g, peeled and boiled
butter a little
smoked trout 300g
fresh horseradish 1 tsp, grated, to taste
egg 1
fresh breadcrumbs 150-200g

To serve
lettuce, lemon and horseradish cream

Pre-heat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6.

Peel the potatoes, cut them into large pieces and boil them in deep, lightly salted water till tender. Drain and mash with the butter. Break the smoked trout into small pieces and add to the potato. Grate in about a teaspoon of fresh grated horseradish. Season generously. Mix gently, then break off 8 pieces and pat them into fish finger-type shapes. Refrigerate for about half an hour to firm the mixture.

Break the egg into a small, shallow dish, mix lightly with a fork, and roll the fish fingers in it, then put them into the breadcrumbs and roll them to cover all sides with crumbs. Place on a baking sheet in a pre-heated oven, trickle over a little oil, and bake for about 20 minutes, or fry in shallow oil till crisp. Serve with lettuce, lemon and horseradish cream.

Jubilee trifle

You will be left with a little extra sponge cake. It will keep for a few days or can be frozen for a later date.

Serves 8
For the sponge
butter 175g
caster sugar 175g
eggs 2, large
self-raising flour 175g
elderflower cordial 150ml

For the fruit
gooseberries 450g
sugar 4 tbsp
water 6 tbsp

For the custard
double cream 500ml
vanilla pod 1
eggs 2
egg yolks 2
caster sugar 2-3 tbsp, to taste

To decorate
whipping cream 750ml
small flowers, such as rosemary a few
crystallised roses

Pre-heat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4.

To make the sponge, beat the butter and sugar till pale and creamy. Fold in the eggs, lightly beaten, and then the flour. Transfer to a lined, square, 22cm cake tin, and bake for 35-40 minutes in the pre-heated oven, till a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool. Break about half of the sponge into pieces, saving the rest for later. Put the crumbled sponge into the bottom of a large serving dish, then pour on the elderflower cordial.

Top and tail the gooseberries, put them in a pan with the sugar and water,  and bring to the boil. Simmer for about 10-15 minutes until the gooseberries collapse, then spoon over the soaked sponge cake.

Make the custard. Warm the cream and the vanilla pod over a gentle heat till almost boiling. Set aside, covered with a lid, for 10 minutes for the cream to infuse with vanilla.

Put the eggs and yolks into a bowl with the sugar and whisk for a couple of minutes till pale and thoroughly mixed. Pour in the warm cream, minus the vanilla pod, and stir to mix. Transfer to the saucepan in which you boiled the cream and place over a moderate heat, stirring regularly, while the custard warms. Regular stirring is essential if the custard is not to curdle.

As soon as the custard starts to feel heavy on the spoon, take the pan off the heat and pour the custard into a cold bowl. Stir regularly as it cools. Pour the custard on top of the soaked sponge cake and berries.

Whip the cream very softly. It shouldn't be so stiff it will stand in peaks. Spoon in dollops around the edge. Decorate to your heart's content. I used rosemary flowers, gooseberry leaves and a little of the strawberry sugar left over from the cocktails in the following recipe.

Strawberry cream cocktail

Makes 8
For the strawberry sugar
caster sugar 125g
strawberry 1 large

For the drink
ice 300g
strawberries 400g
caster sugar 3 tbsp
gin 250ml
double cream 250ml
strawberries for decoration

Whiz the 125g of caster sugar with the strawberry in a blender till you have pink sugar. Tip on to a plate, then dip the rims of the glasses into the mixture.

Blitz the ice and strawberries in a blender. Add the sugar and then the gin. Pour into the sugared glasses, then whip the cream until it will just slowly slide off the spoon, then spoon into the cocktails. Add a few slices of strawberry to the top.

Queen's diamond jubilee recipes: dessert

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:04:09 GMT

Round off your Queen's diamond jubilee party with chocolate pots from Marcus Wareing and Clare Smyth's Eton mess

Marcus Wareing's chocolate pots with salted caramel centre and banana ice cream

I had the pleasure of cooking a dessert for the Queen's 80th birthday some years ago and it was a massive honour although a little intimidating.

I am hugely proud to be British and use British produce wherever we can. This country offers a diverse range of ingredients that depend on seasons but are truly fabulous especially in June when we will be celebrating the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. A dish fit for royalty or our Queen is tricky – I imagine she likes good home cooking like the rest of us. Nothing too fussy but with good flavours.

I remember the Silver Jubilee in 1977 and one of my favourite desserts at the time, being a child, was a simple banana split. This dish is slightly reminiscent of this old British classic. It is very simple to make and perfect for a dinner party or family celebration – and possibly even the Queen. I am looking forward to the jubilee weekend when I will celebrate being British!

The addition of the ice cream works really well with the richness of the chocolate, but if you don't have time to prepare your own in advance then a classic bought vanilla would also work.

Makes 8-10 100g pots

For the salted caramel insert
glucose syrup 125g
caster sugar 180g
whipping cream 170ml
unsalted butter 75g
salt 7.5g

For the chocolate mixture
whipping cream 250ml
whole milk 200ml
vanilla pods 4, pods split and seeds scraped out
egg yolks 5
caster sugar 50g
Valrhona 70% dark chocolate 450g, broken up

For the banana purée
caster sugar 260g
fresh, overripe bananas 1.6kg, chopped
crème de banane 125ml
dark rum 65ml

For the banana ice cream
full-fat milk 500ml
whipping cream 500ml
egg yolks 9
caster sugar 165g
banana purée 400g (from recipe above)

First make the salted caramel inserts. Soak the glucose and sugar with a little water and put on a high heat. Once dark caramelisation is reached, slowly incorporate the cream. Keep simmering the mixture until the ingredients are fully combined and a thick consistency is achieved. Whisk in the butter and salt, then strain through a sieve and chill. Once cold, divide the mixture into 10g lumps, then shape into balls and set in the fridge until needed. You can freeze any remaining mix to use for another occasion.

To make the chocolate pots, bring the cream, milk and vanilla to the boil. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a separate bowl, and pour in the hot cream, to temper (stabilise) the mixture. Pour back into the pan and cook until the mix coats the back of the spoon. Pour through a fine sieve over the broken-up chocolate. Allow to sit for a couple of minutes for the cream mix to melt the chocolate, then mix till smooth.

While the mix is still warm, spoon into small pots suitable for the oven, ensuring the mix is as flat as possible. Allow 15 minutes to semi-set.

Push a caramel insert into the centre of each chocolate pot and freeze. When ready to cook, place in a preheated oven at 180C/gas mark 4 for 6 minutes.

To make the banana purée, lightly caramelise the caster sugar, add the chopped bananas and cook out until the banana starts to break down to a purée. Add the crème de banane and rum and cook further until a thick purée is formed. Purée in a blender and push through a sieve (using the back of a spatula or a ladle) to remove all lumps.

To make the banana ice cream, bring the milk and cream to the boil. Whisk egg yolks and sugar together in a separate bowl, then pour in a little of the hot milk and cream mix. Whisk back into the pan and keep over a low heat, stirring until the mix coats the back of a spoon. Add the banana purée then sieve to remove lumps, and chill.

Serve the pots with the banana ice cream or a classic bought vanilla.

Marcus Wareing runs Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley, London SW1 and the Gilbert Scott, London NW1; marcus-wareing.com, thegilbertscott.co.uk

Clare Smyth's wild strawberry and lemon balm Eton mess, with strawberry ripple ice-cream sandwich

I can't think of a more iconic summertime dessert than the Eton mess. It's so quintessentially British, evoking images of freshly cut lawns and white tablecloths at royal events. The real beauty of an Eton mess, though, is that you can make it as simple or complicated as you want; when the strawberries come into season and are sweet and fragrant, they really need very little more than some fresh cream and crisp meringues to make them sing.

However, to elevate it to three-star standard, I like to tart it up a bit by adding the wild strawberries and surprising elements like the ice-cream sandwich, which is a lovely nostalgic nod to the baked Alaskas we enjoyed as kids – who couldn't be excited by blow-torched ice cream? It also provides a different texture in the mouth. The lemon balm has a wonderful, distinctive flavour of minty lemon, and adds a punchy freshness that cuts through all the creamy elements. This version of the Eton mess was something I initially made as a pre-dessert in the restaurant, but everyone who ate it loved it so much we kept it on the menu as a proper pudding. People even phone up ahead of their meal to check it's on the menu, which is the best testament I could ask for. You can use decent quality vanilla ice cream and strawberry sorbet in place of these home-made versions.

Serves 6

strawberries 1 punnet
lemon balm 1 bunch
wild strawberries 1 punnet

For the dried meringue
egg whites 75g
caster sugar 150g

For the Italian meringue
egg whites 100g
sugar 150g
water 50ml

For the strawberry sauce
fresh strawberry purée 250ml
sugar 20g

For the vanilla cream
vanilla pod ½
crème fraîche 50ml
lightly whipped cream 50ml
icing sugar to taste

For the almond biscuit
sugar 40g
butter 50g
cream 20ml
pectin powder 1.5g
glucose syrup 20ml
nibbed almonds 50g

For the vanilla ice cream
milk 250ml
cream 250ml
vanilla pods 2 whole
egg yolks 110g
sugar 60g

For the strawberry sorbet
fresh strawberry purée 500ml
water 200ml
sugar 100ml

To make the dried meringue, whisk egg whites until they start to turn white. Add sugar gradually and continue whisking until stiff peaks form, then spread the mixture on to a baking tray and bake at 85C/gas mark very low for 4 hours or until dry and crispy. Then break up in to small pieces.

To make the Italian meringue, start whisking the egg whites. Put the sugar and water in a pan and bring it up to 113C. When the eggs start to turn white, quickly pour in the sugar syrup, whisking until it forms smooth soft peaks. Allow to cool then put in a piping bag.

To make the strawberry sauce, bring the purée to the boil, add the sugar and reduce by half until it is a thick sauce.

To make the vanilla cream, mix the vanilla seeds into the crème fraîche and then fold in the lightly whipped cream. Add icing sugar to taste.

To make the almond biscuits – I make two 3cm-thick biscuits for each sandwich, all together about 12 – place all the ingredients into a pan and bring to the boil, then remove from the heat and chill. When cold, spread the mixture thinly on a baking tray and bake at 180C/gas mark 4 for 4-5 minutes until golden brown. Cut into fingers 3cm wide by 10cm long.

To make the vanilla ice cream, put the milk, cream and vanilla pods into a pan, and heat to infuse. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until pale, then pour on the hot milk and mix together. Pour the mixture back in the pan and cook at 84C, then cool down the mixture in a bowl over ice until cold, and churn in an ice-cream machine, following the manufacturer's instructions. Or you can use decent quality vanilla ice cream.

To make the strawberry sorbet, mix all the ingredients together and churn in an ice-cream machine. Or you can use decent quality strawberry sorbet.

To assemble the strawberry ripple ice-cream sandwich, take a piping bag and pipe two lines of strawberry sauce inside it, one along each side. Then add the vanilla ice cream in the middle of the biscuit and place in the freezer to set.

Take one finger of the almond biscuit and pipe the ice cream in a spiral motion along it. You should have a ripple effect. Place the other finger on top, then place back in the freezer.

Mix together the vanilla cream and dry meringue pieces, and put in the bottom of a glass bowl. Cut up the strawberries and lemon balm. Mix together with the wild strawberries and a little sugar, if necessary, then place on top of the meringue. Scoop in some strawberry sorbet and pipe the Italian meringue on top. Take a blow torch and toast it like a Baked Alaska. Place the ice-cream sandwich at the side of the bowl and garnish with some more wild strawberries and lemon balm sprigs.

Clare Smyth is head chef at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, London SW3; gordonramsay.com/royalhospitalroad

Jay McInerney: 'I was fortunate to get a lot of mileage out of my vices'

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:04:08 GMT

He might have quit drugs but the celebrated American author hasn't given up on hedonism – breakfast is always improved with a bottle of the world's best wine

Lunch with Jay McInerney, it has to be said, is a more than usually enticing prospect. Although the author of Bright Lights, Big City is, at 57, inevitably less wild than he used to be, he still has a reputation as a committed hedonist. At his suggestion, we meet in the Spotted Pig near his home in Manhattan's West Village. There's more than a touch of Shoreditch about it – but this isn't wholly surprising, because the chef and co-owner, April Bloomfield, is a Brit who moved from the River Café to open it in 2004. It was an instant hit, and spawned what the New Yorker called the city's "gastro-pub revolution".

When I arrive, a few minutes late, McInerney is already installed in an alcove on the largely empty first floor, sipping what I assume is a cocktail. He's dressed more casually than I expected – he is known for his love of bespoke tailoring – in jeans, Converse and a plain blue shirt. He's soon regaling me with stories about the restaurant's early days, and how this room used to be "a sort of private den of iniquity for friends of the owner. You'd come up here after dinner and you'd find Bono, Helena Christensen and Mario Batali [the famous New York chef] rolling about on the floor."

I ask McInerney what he's drinking and he surprises me by telling me that it's iced tea. What's more, he isn't going to have wine with lunch. "I'm sorry, I have a massive day," he says. "I don't really drink at lunch when I'm working. I know that sounds heretical. It flies in the face of my persona and British habits."

It's true that McInerney is just about the last person you'd expect not to drink. In addition to being a pleasure-seeker, he's also a serious wine buff who, since the mid-90s, has had a parallel career writing about wine, first for House & Garden magazine and then for the Wall Street Journal. In fact the whole reason we're having lunch today is so he can tell me about his latest book, The Juice, a collection of his columns. So it's something of a disappointment to learn that he's not drinking. I was, to be frank, looking forward to the idea of getting smashed with Jay McInerney.

Can he really not be persuaded? No, he says. After lunch, he has another interview, then a meeting about a TV show, and then a dinner tasting '78 Barolos ("1978 was an incredible year in Piedmont"). He's also just returned from France, where he hung out with another celebrated bon vivant, his old pal, the editor and writer Bill Buford, and drank one of the world's most expensive wines, La Tâche, for breakfast. In other words, he needs a breather, which seems fair: it must be exhausting being Jay McInerney, having all these appointments to keep, having so much fun.

Fun, of course, is something he's long been interested in. He had lots of it upon arriving in New York in the early 80s, when he spent his time going to gritty night clubs, snorting coke and squiring various models. These experiences formed the basis for his scabrous debut, Bright Lights, Big City, which was an immediate success when it appeared in 1984, making him both rich and famous. He was soon a member of the literary "brat pack" – its two other chief members were Bret Easton Ellis and Tama Janowitz – and continued moving in glamorously debauched circles, plundering his life in his fiction. In the late 80s and early 90s, he published a stream of novels, including what is probably his best, Brightness Falls, about the Wall Street excesses of the era.

Our starter arrives: a large slice of toast spread with a voluptuous coating of chicken liver paté. McInerney divides it in two, and we tuck in: it's immediately clear why Bloomfield's cooking is so rated. After seeking advice from my companion, I have a glass of rosé from the Minervois. He has more iced tea.

"I was fortunate to get a lot of mileage out of my vices," McInerney says. "I don't do recreational drugs any more. It was fun while it lasted but it became repetitive. But I did get a lot from it as a subject matter. The point is not to be debilitated by your pleasures. Maybe I have lucky genes or something but I've never been truly addicted to anything, except pleasure in general."

These days, one suspects, McInerney's main source of pleasure is his full-blown wine habit. Though when I suggest this, he quickly corrects me: "That and sex." (He's on to wife number four, the heiress Anne Hearst.) But the pieces in The Juice, I suggest, certainly could lead one to believe that his life is one long round of wine tastings. Doesn't he worry that all this oenophilia might detract from his reputation?

"In the UK you had this longstanding wine culture that was stuffy," McInerney says. "In the US, it was different. A culture sprang forth that wasn't based on tradition. It seemed like we were discovering it for the first time." In fact, he says, he didn't publish his first collection of wine columns, Bacchus & Me, in the UK for this very reason – because he thought it might make him look square. (He needn't have worried: where other critics talk of "floral notes", he calls Domaine de la Romanée-Conti the "Ferrari of Burgundy" and Puligny-Montrachet "a Grace Kelly of a wine".)

In any case, he points out, it's not as if he has only moved on to wine in middle age, as a substitute for the more illicit pleasures of youth. He was interested in it from the start. When Bright Lights was accepted, he tells me, he was working in a wine shop. "I had a phone call from my girlfriend telling me the news, and I immediately bought a Bordeaux I'd been keeping my eye on. It probably cost $15 but I'd never spent that much on a bottle of wine before."

Our main courses have arrived: McInerney has haddock chowder, and I have fried duck egg with ramps and an anchovy dressing. As we eat, McInerney elaborates on the appeal of wine. "It's a way of intellectualising the pleasure principle. There's not much to be said about vodka. But wine exfoliates in all directions – in terms of literature, history, agronomy, meteorology." He pauses and adds: "And it's a way of getting drunk. I don't think I'd be nearly as interested if it wasn't alcoholic."

I suspect another factor is the window it gives him on to what has always been his muse: the world of excess, of rich kids behaving badly. One of the most eye-opening pieces in The Juice is about a group of phenomenally rich wine collectors who call themselves the "angry men". They're an unappealing crew – they have a habit of summing up $1,000-bottles with comments like, "Tighter than a 14-year-old virgin".

McInerney, to his credit, finds this repugnant. But he's clearly fascinated, too, and happy to benefit from their largesse. (He estimates that, on one lavish night, he personally consumed $20,000-worth of their wine.) "Those guys aren't my friends," he says. "I would rather drink good wine in great company than great wine in bad company. But I do find them interesting."

Our main courses have been cleared and we're on to coffee. McInerney is looking at his watch – he has that other interview to get to. I ask for the bill and he makes his way out into the afternoon drizzle. Two things, above all, struck me during our lunch. The first is that, even in non-drinking mode, he's very good company. The second is that he's a rare example of someone who has got away with trading on their own mythology.

In one sense, there's something slightly disconcerting about McInerney: you feel he should have grown up by now, got all that fast living out of his system. But he hasn't and, oddly, that's part of his charm. One thing seems certain: Jay McInerney is never going to stop having fun.

The Juice: Vinous Veritas is published by Knopf, rrp £14.99

Queen's diamond jubilee recipes: seafood

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:04:07 GMT

Celebrate the Queen's diamond jubilee in style with seafood recipes from Jeremy Lee and Sat Bains

Jeremy Lee's shellfish broth and mint chutney

Despite living on an island surrounded by bountiful waters, we Brits are not the best at making the most of what the oceans can provide us. We go abroad and come back with tales of wonderful clams in Spain, or beautiful langoustines in France, but the fact is we have better here. The best, in fact. At Her Majesty's coronation in 1953, chicken was a noble bird that carried a certain synonymity with luxury, which is why it found its way into the banquet within that famous bright yellow, creamy concoction.

Nowadays the poor old chicken doesn't quite carry the same weight, but delicious shellfish does. This recipe, along with the fresh, pretty chutney that is a wee nod to how food has progressed over the decades, really makes the most of the sweetness of langoustines; the deep meatiness of the mussels and the delicate brine flavour from the clams. But it's a moveable dish, and will work with most shellfish, and most budgets. Should a crab fall into your pot, wonderful. Or a lobster? Heavens, the horizons are endless. But it will still pack a punch with just mussels, or whatever you can get. And while the preparation of the dish is a little timely, the procedure is simple – you could feed a banquet. It's a perfect dish for a special lady.

It is vital that the shellfish is very fresh and very much alive – that it's so good that it merely requires only the lightest cooking. Preferable also is the serving of the broth not long after making it – keep it out of the fridge as chill kills flavour and texture all too quickly.

Serves 4

For the mint chutney
coriander seeds 1 tsp
cumin seeds 1 tsp
chilli flakes a big pinch
fresh mint 3 big handfuls
lemon the juice of 1
plain yoghurt 300ml
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper a big pinch

langoustines at least 16 good sized
mussels 4 big handfuls, roughly 200g each
clams 4 smaller handfuls
razor clams a few
small onion 1
unsalted butter 50g
white wine 1 glass
water 150ml
double cream 200ml
lemon 1
tender young peas 2 or 3 big handfuls, shelled
broad beans 2 or 3 big handfuls, podded, blanched and peeled
asparagus a big bundle, trimmed and chopped coarsely, lightly cooked
parsley a big handful, chopped

First make the mint chutney. Pop the spices in a frying pan and roll gently over a modest flame until a rich scent is released after a minute or so. Tip these into a coffee grinder or a pestle and mortar and render into a powder. Pick the mint leaves and place them in a blender with the lemon juice and pound until smooth. Add the spices and then the yoghurt to make a pretty, green, fresh chutney. Season with salt and pepper if necessary. This can sit for an hour or two, well covered in the refrigerator, prior to scoffing.

Fill a large pan with water and bring to a furious boil. Season with as much salt as needed to make the water taste of the sea. Drop in the langoustines and cook for 45 seconds. Remove these to a tray.

Remove and discard the beards from the mussels, and wash them well under cold, running water, then drain. Wash the clams in a similar fashion.

Gently cook the onion with the butter in a clean, large pan and turn up the heat to full. Tip in the drained mussels and the white wine, season with salt and pepper. Place a lid on the pan, shake gently and let the mussels steam open, discarding any that remain firmly shut. Once opened, remove to a bowl and cover with a damp cloth. Place the clams in a pan and cook the same way, then remove to a bowl and cover. Proceed similarly with the razor clams. Reserve the cooking liquor.

Pour the cooking liquor from the mussels and clams into a small pan, checking closely for any grit, and straining if required. To this add the 150ml of water. Bring to a boil and lower the heat to a simmer.

Split the langoustines in half. Take all the clams and mussels from the shell. Boil the liquor, add the cream, add a squeeze of lemon juice, check the seasoning, then stir into the broth. Tumble in the vegetables and chopped parsley, checking the seasoning again. Spoon over the mint chutney just before serving.

Jeremy Lee is head chef of Quo Vadis, London W1; quovadissoho.co.uk

Sat Bains' fish pie

Fish pie is a British classic. It's something you gobble up after getting back from school on a weeknight, or that your nan makes you for tea. Done well, with nice fish, it's a thing of beauty. I'll be honest, though, when I put fish pie on the menu at the restaurant people were a bit surprised, because they associate it with something heavy that makes you want a little nap on the sofa afterwards.

But this version is deceptive; it transforms that heaviness into something light. When it comes out it looks like a regular fish pie, and the flavour profile is essentially the same, but when you dig in and get to the stock sauce, fragrant and rich with the fish bones and the kombu (seaweed), it's much more refined. The breadcrumbs give it a great crunch, too, and stop the mash getting too cloying.

It's a perfect jubilee dish, because it's something we all know. It's in our blood. When the Queen celebrated her Silver Jubilee in 1977 I was six, and it transformed our neighbourhood. Everyone was talking to each other regardless of where they were from and, as an Indian family living in Derby, this was wonderful. Everyone partied in the streets together. It was unifying.

Serves 4

For the fish sauce
pollock bones 300g, chopped
kombu (from large supermarkets) 25g
double cream 200g
pink fir apple potatoes 500g
pollock 4 x 100g pieces
lemon juice
sea salt

For the crumb
breadcrumbs 100g
parmesan 100g, grated

To make the fish sauce, place the pollock bones into a pressure cooker, cover with water and add the kombu. Put the lid on and gently bring up to a simmer. Simmer for 20 minutes, then allow the pan to cool naturally before removing the lid. (If you don't have a pressure cooker, put it in a normal pan, and bring it up to a simmer for 20 minutes.) Strain through a chinoise into a clean pan. Reduce to a sauce consistency.

Add the cream and bring to the boil. Strain again and store in an airtight container until needed.

Cook the potatoes just before serving. Peel them and place in a pan – add enough cold water to cover and a generous pinch of salt. Bring them to the boil, then turn down to a simmer and cook until tender. Keep warm.

Gently fry one side of the fish on a plancha or in a hot pan in a little oil until golden. Turn and place on a lightly oiled metal tray. Cook gently on the lowest setting under the grill until the fish is just opaque. Season with a little lemon juice and sea salt.

To make the crumb, toast the breadcrumbs until golden brown. Allow to cool and then mix with the freshly grated parmesan.

To serve, place the fish in the middle of a dish. Put the potatoes in a ricer and squeeze over the fish, making sure it is covered. Spoon over the sauce. Top with the crumb mix. Place under a hot grill and lightly toast. Serve.

Sat Bains is chef patron of Restaurant Sat Bains, Nottingham; restaurantsatbains.com

Wines for the Queen's diamond jubilee

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:04:06 GMT

Throwing a jubilee bash? Here are our top bottles for under £10

However you feel about the monarchy, you have to admit that the Diamond Jubilee's four-day weekend is a fine excuse for a party. And whether it is a genuinely patriotic celebration, an ironic throwback to the street parties of 1977, or a punky republican riposte, you're going to need some wine to help things along.

That's not as easy as it sounds: party wines are tricky to get right. If you're having friends round for dinner, then you can take the food as your cue, matching a wine to each course. However, if you're having a party of any scale, it's likely that you'll be laying on nibbles or a buffet rather than sitting down to a meal, and that spread is likely to include a diverse range of flavours, from salty crisps to smoked fish to fatty and spicy meat. You'll also have a range of tastes to cater to, from those who drink nothing but rosé to the serious wine buff with a liking for tannic Bordeaux. And since you'll be stumping up for several bottles, you'll need to do all that on a budget.

The key is to locate the middle-ground without falling into the middle-of-the-road. You're looking for wines that favour fruit and refreshment over tannin, acidity and complexity, crowd-pleasing wines with a bit of character but not too many rough edges.

For whites, my standby would be a decent sauvignon blanc, which has just the right mix of crisp acidity and generous fruit flavour. Something like Villa Maria's consistently excellent passionfruit-scented Private Bin Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough, New Zealand 2011, which is widely available at just under a tenner (£9.49 at Tesco, for example), would be ideal.

But for a slightly leaner, more citrussy, budget alternative, Aldi's Bordeaux Blanc (£4.19, Aldi) is a white-grapefruit-driven blend of sauvignon with a pinch of sémillon which, served stone-cold, doubles up nicely as aperitif.

When it comes to reds, I'd generally go for lighter wines with little or no oak and an abundance of juicy fruit. Beaujolais does this well, and Georges Duboeuf's Beaujolais Villages 2009 is a succulent berry-fruited example (£8.99, Waitrose). From the Rhône Valley, Domaine La Roche Costières de Nîmes, France 2010 (£7.50, Adnams, cellarandkitchen.adnams.co.uk) is a grenache-syrah blend that performs a similar trick with a bit more depth and sunny ripeness, while from further south, Marks & Spencer has a pair of excellent Sicilians in Popolino Rosso 2011 and Sicilia Shiraz 2011 (£4.99 and £5.99).

No party is complete without a bit of fizz, although the cheaper end of champagne (under £20) is one of the wine world's more miserable places. Fortunately, there are plenty of other French fizz options. Owned by the classy champagne house Taittinger, Bouvet-Ladubay's Saumur Brut uses the same methods as champagne with a different grape (chenin blanc) in an elegant, punchily fruity and affordable fizz (£9.99 if you buy two bottles, Majestic, majestic.co.uk). Outside France, both the Tesco Finest Bisol Prosecco di Valdobbiadene and Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Prosecco Conegliano are charmingly sherbetty, sub-£10 fun. But the truly patriotic might prefer to push the Diamond Jubilee barge out and bust the £10 budget for a top-flight English fizz such as Ridgeview Cuvée Merret Bloomsbury, West Sussex 2009 (£21.84, Waitrose), a sophisticated wine that will appeal to roundhead and cavalier alike.

Six wines fit for the Queen

Tesco Finest Central Otago Pinot Noir, New Zealand 2010 (£9.99, Tesco)
Well-made Kiwi pinot noir is one of the world's most enjoyable reds, all silky texture and succulent, juicy red berry fruit. It is generally expensive, but this abundantly fruity version is great value at this price.

Cerasuolo Vigna Corvino Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, Italy (£7.25, The Wine Society, thewinesociety.com)
The best affordable reds of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo are all about abundant juicy dark cherry fruit. This rosé is similar, though with ripe red cherries accompanied by a twist of fresh herbs.

Tons de Duorum Branco, Douro, Portugal (£7.95, Tanners, tanners-wines.co.uk)
There is a totally tropical taste to this white blend of local varieties, but that's where any similarities with a certain soft drink begin and end. Whistle-clean with subtle notes of white flowers, it's very easy to drink.

Lindauer Rosé, New Zealand NV (£7.99, Majestic)
Consistently one of the best-priced New World sparklers around, this classic – a blend of the champagne varieties chardonnay and pinot noir with a little pinotage – is a refreshing mix of strawberry and cranberry flavours.

Brown Brothers Cienna Rosso, Victoria, Australia NV (£9.49, Waitrose)
A sweet red fizz from Australia sounds a bit too out there to be a crowd pleaser. But everyone I've served this low-alcohol oddball to has been won over by its joyously explosive cherry flavours. It works with chocolate, too.

Prosecco Valdobbiadene Brut Jeio Bisol NV (£10, thechampagnecompany.com)
More than champagne – which can be acidic – prosecco is the party wine par excellence. This is a slightly more serious example, with a slightly more serious price, but it's worth it for the extra elegance and appley fruit.

How to make a jubilee cocktail

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:04:05 GMT

You don't have to live at Buck House to enjoy a celebratory glass of gin and Dubonnet. Sipsmith drinks guru Jared Brown adds some sparkle to a royal classic

Jubilees are rare and remarkable to behold. George III was the first British monarch to observe one. In 1809 he celebrated his golden jubilee. Queen Victoria celebrated her golden jubilee in 1887. More than 30 foreign kings and princes paid homage to her along with a parade of military troops. Novelist Mark Twain noted they "stretched to the limit of sight in both directions".

When George V celebrated his silver jubilee, in 1935, bartenders in the finest establishments from Piccadilly to Mayfair invented liquid tributes, as documented in William J Tarling's Café Royal Cocktail Book, while the rest of his loyal subjects celebrated with official receptions, public addresses, street parties and a thanksgiving service at St Paul's. The King reportedly said, "I am beginning to think they must really like me for myself."

Only the second to reach a diamond jubilee, Queen Elizabeth II seems likely to surpass Queen Victoria's 63 years and seven months. At that point she will become Britain's longest reigning royal and history's longest reigning female monarch. This calls for a toast.

Her Majesty, like the Queen Mother, has raised many glasses of Gin and It (the "It" is Italian vermouth) as well as gin and Dubonnet. This is a lovely drink when the vermouth or Dubonnet is fresh, as both are wine-based and spoil once opened. Yet this is not quite festive enough for the diamond jubilee.

To add a touch of the quintessentially British drink, we infused the gin with tea. While this might sound complicated, it is actually simpler than making a cuppa as it does not require a kettle. Place half a bottle of gin into a pitcher. Add a teabag or a spoonful of loose tea. We had good results with the Rare Tea Company's RAF tea, as well as Twinings' Earl Grey, Lady Grey and Darjeeling. Let the tea infuse into the gin for about 10 minutes, then remove the teabag or strain the gin off the leaves.

Topped with champagne and garnished with a nibble symbolic of British summer at its best – strawberries and cream – our twist on a traditional aperitif takes a festive air, a jubilee air, perfect for raising in toast: "The Queen! Long may she reign."

Jared Brown is master distiller at Sipsmith, London W6

OFM jubilee cocktail

strawberry 1
crème fraîche
tea-infused London dry gin 20ml
Dubonnet Rouge or Martini Rosso vermouth 40ml
champagne 150ml

Chill a champagne coupe or large cocktail glass. Slice the top off a strawberry, and cut a notch into the base so that it will perch on the edge of the glass. Top it with crème fraîche and set it on the glass. Combine the gin and Dubonnet or vermouth in an ice-filled mixing glass. Stir for 20 seconds. Strain the mixture into the chilled glass. Top with champagne.