Saturday, April 11, 2009
Mount Gay Rum
Having lost my blue and white umbrella, as featured on my profile and which had done good service for some years, extracted a large red umbrella from the roof, provenance unknown, which advertises in large yellow letters something called 'Mount Gay Rum'. BH not to sure about being seen out with this thing, so this morning I thought I ought to check with the all-knowing Mr G, perhaps the closest thing to the all-knowing that there has ever been. He tells me that Mount Gay Rum is indeed a big name in rum. Move onto their web site where, for the first time ever, I am invited to state my age and country of residence before entry. It seems the site includes a little bit of code which checks for one being of drinking age in the country concerned before allowing entry. Well I pass this check, and move on into a rather loud website, which appears to be very into boats. Maybe the big market for this stuff is boaty North Americans. In passing, come across http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/ which seems to be just the place for those who like the latest boaty news.
That out of the way, thoughts can drift back from the cellar to the kitchen. Tried another Sussex pie earlier in the week. 5 pounds of chuck steak, well marbled with fat, a brick maybe 8 inches by 6 inches by 5 inches, grain running across the 6 inches. At the last moment realised that I should not use mushroom ketchup as this contained malt extract which contained gluten. So settled for 9 tablespoons of Taylor's finest port and a large but segmented red onion. Wrap in foil, place in covered glass dish (which it more or less filled up). Cook for 9 hours at 120C and for the last 2 hours at 90C. Serve with mashed potato, mashed swede and cauliflower. Plus the pint or so of gravy which had emerged from the beef. Beef just right, loose but still in one peice. The sort of texture that salt beef ought to be but usually isn't (the palace of salt beef in Great Windmill Steet having been closed for many a long year). Might have been improved by the ketchup but pretty good as it was.
The next day, decided that it was time to do some pearl barley again, so knocked up some soup with some chicken bones we happened to have lying about. This did very well on its first outing. Then, for the second outing, entrusted warming up to the BH. She saw fit to scrape the fat off what was left of the beef gravy (see above) and use what was left to top up what was left of the soup. Made for a very rich brew. Chicken, pork and bacon works quite well in stews but not sure if one ought to be mixing chicken and beef in one soup.
Talking of pork stews, had occasion the day before the beef to test the colour fastness of red onions. Add butter, garlic (being the flavour of the month) and well-pummelled black pepper to saucepan and cook for a bit. Add three red onions. Rather an odd colour at this point. Add one and one half pork tenderloins, cut across the grain into slices, maybe 2cm by 2cm by 1cm. Cook for a bit. Add four and one half tomatoes, chopped small. Cook for an hour. Colour now a healthy orange. The red of the red onions has almost vanished at this point. Just the odd bit in an otherwise healthy sea of orange. Presumably the red in onions has not got the strength of the red in beet roots. Just breaks down in the face of prolonged heat. Add ten small carrots, unskinned, cut into 2cc lumps. Not skinned greatly improves the texture of the finished carrot, leaves it with an inside and an outside, rather than just being a homogenous orange softy. Cook for a further 10 minutes. Add half a pound of small button mushrooms. Serve with rice and new pointy cabbage, this last still from Portugal.
In between times, for the first time in years, having another crack at Dickens. Someone I have failed to get on with in the past, despite sundry attempts. This time with 'Little Dorrit', £2 new from Wordsworth Classics, a decent paper back, rather cheaper than one is likely to get from a secondhand shop. And perhaps because I saw a couple of episodes from the recent telly version, I am getting on with the thing. 150 pages down. A bit verbose, but plenty of warmth and a fair bit of gentle humour. The sort of humour which does not depend on bashing someone or other. Maybe, if I come to like the book, I will come to dislike the adaption as being too highly coloured, in the same way as Austen adaptions. The book is highly coloured, but that remains with the imagination. Highly coloured moving images are too intrusive - and too destructive of said imagination.
That out of the way, thoughts can drift back from the cellar to the kitchen. Tried another Sussex pie earlier in the week. 5 pounds of chuck steak, well marbled with fat, a brick maybe 8 inches by 6 inches by 5 inches, grain running across the 6 inches. At the last moment realised that I should not use mushroom ketchup as this contained malt extract which contained gluten. So settled for 9 tablespoons of Taylor's finest port and a large but segmented red onion. Wrap in foil, place in covered glass dish (which it more or less filled up). Cook for 9 hours at 120C and for the last 2 hours at 90C. Serve with mashed potato, mashed swede and cauliflower. Plus the pint or so of gravy which had emerged from the beef. Beef just right, loose but still in one peice. The sort of texture that salt beef ought to be but usually isn't (the palace of salt beef in Great Windmill Steet having been closed for many a long year). Might have been improved by the ketchup but pretty good as it was.
The next day, decided that it was time to do some pearl barley again, so knocked up some soup with some chicken bones we happened to have lying about. This did very well on its first outing. Then, for the second outing, entrusted warming up to the BH. She saw fit to scrape the fat off what was left of the beef gravy (see above) and use what was left to top up what was left of the soup. Made for a very rich brew. Chicken, pork and bacon works quite well in stews but not sure if one ought to be mixing chicken and beef in one soup.
Talking of pork stews, had occasion the day before the beef to test the colour fastness of red onions. Add butter, garlic (being the flavour of the month) and well-pummelled black pepper to saucepan and cook for a bit. Add three red onions. Rather an odd colour at this point. Add one and one half pork tenderloins, cut across the grain into slices, maybe 2cm by 2cm by 1cm. Cook for a bit. Add four and one half tomatoes, chopped small. Cook for an hour. Colour now a healthy orange. The red of the red onions has almost vanished at this point. Just the odd bit in an otherwise healthy sea of orange. Presumably the red in onions has not got the strength of the red in beet roots. Just breaks down in the face of prolonged heat. Add ten small carrots, unskinned, cut into 2cc lumps. Not skinned greatly improves the texture of the finished carrot, leaves it with an inside and an outside, rather than just being a homogenous orange softy. Cook for a further 10 minutes. Add half a pound of small button mushrooms. Serve with rice and new pointy cabbage, this last still from Portugal.
In between times, for the first time in years, having another crack at Dickens. Someone I have failed to get on with in the past, despite sundry attempts. This time with 'Little Dorrit', £2 new from Wordsworth Classics, a decent paper back, rather cheaper than one is likely to get from a secondhand shop. And perhaps because I saw a couple of episodes from the recent telly version, I am getting on with the thing. 150 pages down. A bit verbose, but plenty of warmth and a fair bit of gentle humour. The sort of humour which does not depend on bashing someone or other. Maybe, if I come to like the book, I will come to dislike the adaption as being too highly coloured, in the same way as Austen adaptions. The book is highly coloured, but that remains with the imagination. Highly coloured moving images are too intrusive - and too destructive of said imagination.
# posted by Jim @ 1:35 AM 
