From Fishes Fries

I fucking love fish and chips. It's one of the few traditionally British dishes that I can really get behind, and I find myself craving it a helluva lot. Unfortunately, despite living on an island, and thus surrounded by fish-filled oceans on all sides, the price of fish is fucking extortionate. But when the cravings get too much, you just need to bite the bullet, pay the price, and savour every last bite.

This week I found myself firmly in the grip of a severe craving for the flakiest fish, the thickest chips, and the crustiest batter I could get my teeth into, so here's the result; From Fishes Fries.

Here's what you'll need. This amount of ingredients serves 2 or 3 people, depending on your appetite.
I've gone for a half-kilo cod fillet, but you can use the fish of your choice, though haddock or cod would be your best bet for authentic British-style fish n' chips.

 

To mix up the crispiest, crustiest batter you'll need: 150g plain flour, 2 heaped teaspoons of baking powder, and about 120 ml of beer. I went for one of my favourites, the smokey, full-bodied Hoegaarden, but you can put whatever you want into the mix.

Mix it all in a bowl, thrashing it up to the consistency of a light whipped cream. You want it light enough to be able to permeate every contour of the fishy flakes, but a thick enough coating for it to sound like the world ending when you bite into it.

Keep the batter (and your beer!) cold while you do the rest of the prep work. Wash, peel and chop your potatoes into massive chunky fries, the give them a good soak for about 5 minutes.

Fire up your frying weapon of choice. The deep fat fryer I have is a temperamental piece of shit that sometimes just decides it's had enough, switches itself off, and refuses to turn back on again. Which is great fun, when you're left frantically trying to finish cooking your meal on other heat sources.

Anyway, crank it up to about 170 degrees and throw all your un-fried fries in there, and let simmer for a few minutes.

While that's going on, salt and pepper your fish fillets, before very lightly coating them in flour to soak up a little of the fish's natural oiliness.

What a fucking shit picture. Does not properly convey the fact the fish was like 1.5 inches thick.

With that done, you can remove your chips from their first scalding oil torture session. That's right, these fuckers are getting double-dipped!

What, you think I'm only gonna fry these once? No I will not, no fucking way!

Pop them on a tray, and leave 'em in the oven to dry out a little while you do your fish. Remove the beer batter from the fridge, and dunk your fillet right in there, making sure every last piece is thickly coated. Let it drip off a little before tossing it into either your fryer or a pan.

Give it about 5 minutes to crisp up and cook through, then remove it, place it on a greaseproof paper-covered tray, and stick it in the oven while you finish up your chips. Just another few minutes in the bubbling oil will ensure they're just the right mix between delicious and a cardiac event.

Remove them from the oil, toss 'em onto some kitchen roll for de-greasing, then sprinkle with rock salt.

Take your fish outta the oven, and serve the whole lot with a wedge of lemon and lashings of tartare sauce. Bon fucking appetit!

Incase the references weren't explicit enough, here's a serving of something with as much bite and crunch as the food, Nashville/Portland's finest; From Ashes Rise

Pig Destroyer pizza

I've been obsessed with making my own pizzas recently, since there ain't much else to do when you're unemployed except stretch out things that used to take you five minutes so you can kill a couple of hours. Experimenting with dough bases until you get it just right has taken up a vast amount of my time recently, and I'm always open to suggestions, so get at me with your dough tips!

I've also been trying to hunt down the best pulled pork I can get my teeth into for a few months, and the closest I came was enduring the laborious wait at London's Pitt Cue Co only to be struck by crippling stomach pain literally as soon as I got a seat. The very sight of the steaming, sauce-drenched mountain of pork on my tray as it arrived almost killed me, knowing I'd be pretty much unable to handle more than a mouthful. I've never been so remorseful over something as simple as lunch in my whole life, since I knew I'd pretty much never get another chance to eat there.

Anyway, so far pretty much all of the pizzas I've made have been veggie-only affairs, but with my desire for pork perfection re-ignited, I wanted to combine pulled pork and pizza, because... well, why the fuck not? So here it is: the Pig Destroyer pizza.

As well as all the stuff in that photo you'll also need a pressure cooker to cook your pork shoulder. Before that, hack up your shoulder (no, not your own) into manageable chunks.

Season with salt and pepper, then toss it into the frying pan to slightly brown it. Light a fire under your pressure cooker, squeeze in a very liberal dose of barbeque sauce, add a spoonful of mustard then throw in a chopped onion, all your pork chunks, and pour in most of a bottle of beer.

As it takes about an hour for the meat to soak in all that boozey goodness, you can then go about preparing your pizza dough in the meantime. Add two mugfuls of bread flour to a large bowl, then a teaspoonful of yeast. Create a well in the centre that you then pour another mug of warm water into, mixing it in with the flour until it has a good goopy texture. I meant to use beer for the dough too, but I... kind of drank it before I got the chance. Fuck it.

Once it's all mixed together into a nice malleable doughy blob, grab it by both hands and tear it apart like it was your worst fucking enemy. Knead it for about 5 minutes into a vaguely ball-shaped hunk of goop, flour it lightly and leave it to sit for about 20 minutes.

While the dough is settling and your pork is still stewing, prepare the rest of your toppings. These can obviously be anything you want, but I went for the chunkiest, most biteable veggies I could find, zuccini, mushroom and a single chilli pepper. Throw your veg onto a frying pan to lightly brown 'em, then set them aside for now.

Shred your mozzarella into small pieces before turning your attention back to your dough. Roll it out to fit whatever dish you're placing your pizza on, and if you're using anything other than a stone base, give the surface a good splash of oil to make sure your dough doesn't stick to it and ruin the whole thing, like what happened to my first couple of efforts.

Once it's reached about an hour since you started cooking the pork, you can turn off the heat and let your pressure cooker decompress. Remove the boozey meaty perfection and get shredding!

Preheat your oven to gas mark 7 (or equivalent) and once your base and all other ingredients is good to go, you can start piling on your toppings, sauce first, then veg, mozzarella, and finally your shredded pig remains. I added some rock salt to the exposed crust just to show off.

Pop your pizza in the oven for 20 minutes, turning it around 90 degrees every 5 minutes to bake it evenly. Remove, serve, devour!

Here's a slice of something just as meaty and crunchy as the pizza:

You can pre-order Pig Destroyer's forthcoming 'Book Burner' album here
http://www.relapse.com/pigbook

Wychwood Brewery

Lately I've been kind of obsessed with Wychwood Brewery's Hobgoblin beer. I find myself craving one just about every night, and as much as that makes me sound like I have some sort of drinking problem, its just that its been a while since I discovered a beer as delicious and satisfying that's readily available in Britain.

I miss being out on the road in Europe and being able to order just about any beer in any country, confident that it would beat the hell out of the piss-poor selection of tasteless carbonated lager available in most British pubs. One day I'll get around to compiling some sort of Top Ten list of my favourite beers from the continent that no-one will care about.

Anyway, after a good few bottles of Hobgoblin, I decided to see what else Wychwood have to offer. Luckily they made that very easy for me by selling these mini-crates of their four main beers!

I've drunk enough of the Hobgoblin that I can't really recall what my first impressions were when I first tasted it, except to say that I immediately loved it's strong, robust flavour, without the slightly sour mustiness of a lot of ales. I'm glad it's the most readily available of this range.

I was really looking forward to trying the Wychcraft as I love blonde beers, especially the crispy blonde from De Koningshoeven Brewery in the Netherlands, an authentic Trappist brewery. The Wychcraft blonde has a slightly sweeter, smoother kick, it's almost banana-y. It goes down easier than what I can remember of the blondes I had on the continent (and no, that's not a double entendre). I'd definitely demolish a few of these if I can get my hands on them!

I tried the Goliath next, cracking it open and immediately digging the aroma wafting out of the bottleneck, but it was a little light in terms of taste, at least compared to the previous 2 beers of the evening, then I noticed it only packs a 4.2% punch. This beer needs an accompaniment, and it definitely works well as a thirst-slayer when you're demolishing some food on the side.

Last up was the Scarecrow, an 'organic pale ale'. If this is the organic beer, what goes into the others? Are they brewed by robots using old battery acid and genetically engineered hops? [I apologise for the terrible attempts at humour, I was slightly (very) drunk when I scrawled out the notes for this review]
It sure tastes good n' wholesome, a perfect smooth, flavourful way to end the evening.

Blurriness provides accurate portrayal of my vision by the end of the four beers.

I still make no pretense that I actually know anything about beer in a technical sense, but I know what I like, and that's beer and ale with character, which is exactly what Wychwood Brewery offers!

Check out the brewery's awesome website for information about all their beers, as well as pretty good competitions and other stuff here:
http://www.wychwood.co.uk/#/home//hobgoblin/home

You can order all these beers as well as t-shirts, glasses and tankards from Wychwood's online shop:
http://www.wychwood-shop.co.uk/

Beerislava

Coming to you live from Bratislava, Slovakia, it's the completely unhyped and unmissed return of beer reviews that tell you nothing about anything! I don't know how long the internet in this hotel room will hold up, so I'm just gonna get right into it.

But first you should read this article that explains a little about Slovak beer http://travel.spectator.sme.sk/articles/1231/how_to_read_a_slovak_beer_label

I picked up the Kozel because it has a picture of a happy goat holding a big jug of beer, and it just doesn't get any better than that does it?I say this about most beers I like, but the smell when I crack it open is an awesome smokey pungeance. High hopes! The first swig is pretty average, but it's not bad, and I'll doubtless drink a couple more of these during my stay here. I'm okay with that.
This is 10 Plato things, so it's a relatively weak beer, alcohol content-wise, but it's still full of flavour, dry and wheaty. Damn good first beer, hope the others are as tasty!

Next is the weird smiling monk beer, Smadny Mnich. Soon as I pop the top the smell fills the hotel room. Whoah. The taste isn't as overpowering as the smell. In fact, there ain't a lot of taste, just fizziness. I'll give it a few more sips...Nah, it just ain't happening, too bland. Ah well.

Last beer of the evening is Kelt, which has a cool-as-fuck label, sporting a Viking helmet. Badass. Let's hope it tastes it.It has a meaty odour, though my girl reckons it smells like stem ginger cookies. Huh. Well, here's hoping it tastes like neither of those!
Phew, this is the strongest yet, despite being another only 10% Plato units (4.2% actual alcohol), a real robust flavour. Quite bitter aftertaste too, though I'm undecided as to wether that's a good thing or not yet. A couple more swallows and I decide it's a not-bad thing.

Though I probably wouldn't get any of these beers again, I enjoy trying new varieties every day while I'm on the road. If anyone has any suggestions for good Hungarian beers, I'll be there for a week starting tomorrow, so get at me!
designosaur at live dot com
Cheers!

Risotto-n Sound

This will most likely be my final entry in this blog, at least for a few months until I have a kitchen again.
It was originally supposed to be a collaborative effort between me and the girl who I first had the drunken conversation with that gave me the idea to do this almost two years ago, but a combination of illness, lack of appetite and good old-fashioned laziness meant that we never got the chance to cook together. Bummer.

A few days passed after buying everything before I actually got the chance to make this dish, so my ingredients were perhaps less than fresh (though it didn't really affect anything except the leek).

The first thing I did was chop my vegetables and garlic, boil up enough water to make my stock, and measure out enough rice (I used about 200g of this paella rice for a portion for one person).

I put about 10g of butter and a little splash of oil into my frying pan, mixed up the vegetable stock cube with boiled water, then added in half a diced onion to the pan. Lightly brown the onions for a couple of minutes before adding in your chopped garlic. Fry that all together for another minute before you chuck in your rice. When that's been in there for a couple of minutes, pour in around 400ml vegetable stock, and let that simmer and soak into your rice.

And that was all I did before following the instructions sent to me by my girl, who is far better versed in the art of cooking white meat than I am. I'm always scared I'll either over or under-cook chicken, and it'll either give me salmonella or taste burnt and rubbery. No such concerns with my beloved bleeding red flesh, I can eat that either bloody as hell or charred to death.

Anyway, her instructions were as follows:
"You'll need a biiiiiiiig pan for this.
Ok, first you hack the chicken breast into biteable chunks.
Salt and pepper it.
Preheat pan, tiny bit of oil, throw the chicken chunks in there.
I cant tell you how long they take, they should be white on the inside (pink is bad, very very bad) and light brown on the outside. Should take like 10 minutes."

"Done? Sweet. [...] Once the paella rice is ready, squeeze half a lemon, mix with the rice. Add the chopped leek and ready fried onion."

ACTION SHOT! WHOOOOOARGH!

"Add max 100g of cream to make a nice, mushy rice concoction.
Thats all your ingredients done, all you need to do is the spice finetuning and let it all simmer til its nom nom nom (boak)."

Which I followed to the letter, adding in liberal lemon squeezes, plenty of paprika and chilli powder, but I definitely screwed up on the cream aspect, since I picked up single cream which is FAR too liquid-y to work as a topping. I'll know better for next time when we can cook this dish together.
/disgusting 'romantic' bullshit

And to tie in with the latest pun-tastic title, here's some live footage of Finnish grind creeps
Rotten Sound playing at last years Obscene Extreme, which I'll be attending this year.
If you see a guy there looking out of place because his denim is covered in doom (rather than grind) band patches, buy him a cheap beer, because that'll be me.

Orange Goblin Ale Tasting

I believe the term is 'relevant to my interests'?

Anyway, here's a 10 minute clip of Orange Goblin reviewing a bunch of beer and ale in a far more entertaining way than I ever could. Enjoy!

Schnit-system

I don't get many chances to be taught new dishes first hand, since I only know one other person who has an interest in food to the degree I do. So when the opportunity arises to have her teach me some new tricks, I jump at the chance. A few nights ago we spent about 4hrs in my kitchen making all sorts of mess as we threw together a schnitzel main course, as well as a dessert at the same time.
Total fucking chaos.

Since this time I was flying solo, and foregoing the dessert aspect, I wasn't sure if it would take more or less time. I was kinda hoping for less. Here's what ya need:

In hindsight, I now know that is FAR too many potatoes and mushrooms, so don't use as many as shown in that photo. I was cooking for two, so adapt your ingredients according to what kinda portion you want.

First off, clean and chop your potatoes, fill a put of water, and bring it to the boil. Dump your wedge-shaped taters in the water and let them boil for a while.

While they're simmering, prep your sauce ingredients. Chop a whole red onion, and slice a few mushrooms, and set those aside for now.

 

Around this time you can drain your part-boiled taters and start prepping them for roasting. I'm not sure if this type of potato has a name or anything, but basically you're gonna coat them in generous amounts of rosemary and thyme before roasting them in the oven.

Pre-heat your oven to gas mark 6, and grab a coupla small plates. Cover one in sunflower oil and the other in a herby coating of rosemary and thyme.

Start spearing your potatoes with a fork, dunking them on the plate of oil, then smearing them around the plate of herbs so they get a good thick covering. Once they look like a whole herd of pungent little chia pets, put them to death by roasting them alive [insert evil genius laugh here].

Okay, so that photo is misleadingly lame, since all the potatoes in the foreground are bald as coots, but it's only because... well to be honest doing the whole herb thing takes fucking ages and I couldn't be arsed after getting about halfway through. So I cheated and just sprinkled the whole tray with herbs after I'd dunked 'em all out onto it. Lazy fucker that I am.

Leave them to roast and move on to the fun part: THE MEAT!
Lay your pork escallopes out on a chopping board or whatever clean work surface you have, and then dump a fucktonne of plain flour over the top, smoothing it all down into even consistency with your hands. Any excuse to touch dead flesh, right? Hey, saves me from resorting to necrophilia on those lonely nights when I don't have anyone to cook with...
Anyway, flip them over and do the same to the other side too.

Once they're well coated in flour, crack an egg onto a plate, and whisk it up into a consistent consistency. My usual verbosity eludes me at this moment in time.

So yeah, that looks fucking revolting. But it's not like thats what you're gonna be eating, it's just a base coat to ensure that your breadcrumbs (lurking in the background of the above photo) stick to your pork. I would have liked to get some more interesting breadcrumbs with other things through 'em, or to even have prepared my own, but laziness struck again, and I wound up just using the leftovers from last time.
Coat each of your sections of deceased pig in egg, then roll them around in the breadcrumbs until they're completely covered, then throw them into the frying pan. Oh yeah, should've mentioned that earlier, pre-heat your pan, and throw in some sunflower oil and a little butter.

 

While those are crisping up, check on your potatoes, and turn them if necessary, making sure they're nice and browned all over and the herbs are sticking to them. Well, thats what SHOULD happen anyway. Turn your oven down a few notches and pop a plate in.
Flip your schnitzel over and add a little more oil in to ensure they don't burn on one side. Cut on to make damn sure they're cooked through, then put them onto that plate you have heating in the oven.

Sauce time! After a little preliminary research online, I discovered that the sauce we had prepared last time was commonly used in a varation of schnitzel called Rahmschnitzel. The sauce is basically just fried onion, mushrooms, and cream.
Dump your diced onion in your now vacant frying pan, shortly followed by the mushrooms, and let them sit browning and shrinking for a little while before you splash in the cream. For the hell of it, I added a little bisto powder to the mix to try and thicken up the cream and give it a little extra flavour.

Remove your potatoes and schnitzel from the oven, plate it all up, and finally fucking eat the damn meal!

Here's some d-beat greatness from a country who don't really have anything to do with this dish. Fuckit, I present to you Sweden's finest; SKITSYSTEM

Massacre-pone

So last night my pa announces, out of the blue, for no reason at all:
"I bought a whole lot of couscous. Do you like couscous?"
"Uhhh, yeah, sure...?"
"Okay."
And then he got up and left the room. He's an unusual man. I'm starting to see where I get it from.

So with that incident in my mind as I wandered around the supermarket aimlessly, I decided to get some appropriately light and healthy (!) accompaniments to a nice bed of couscous. Here's what I picked up.

Okay, okay, so I put in a COUPLE of concessions to my usual dietary habits, namely the big tub of mascarpone cream cheese, because I really wanted to try it, as well as a big pack of streaky bacon, which isn't pictured. Otherwise this might have been... he... hea... heal-thy? Am I saying that right?

There's quite a bit of time involved in this meal because your veg are gonna get roasted, as opposed to my usual quick-fix methods of just grilling or frying everything. Also, the ingredients I used serve two big-ass plated portions, so divide everything in half if you're eating alone.

Anyway, crank your oven up to gas mark 6 (200C), and get chopping! The courgette is cut LENGTHWAYS, and hollowed out using a spoon, and if you have any sense at all, you'll de-seed everything, ESPECIALLY THE TOMATOES. Hack, sever and disembowel your veg so they look like this.

Once that's done, pile your courgettes, peppers and garlic into a deep grill tray, and splash with a tbsp of olive oil. Season using whatever herbs and spices take your fancy, I went for standard staples like oregano, thyme, parsley... and some Cayenne pepper. Just to give it the slightest kick.
Give that about 20 minutes in your oven, turning halfway through to make sure everything cooks evenly. Remove the tray after the 20 mins, and add your tomatoes and chopped chilli pepper, and any more seasoning you fancy. Pop it back in your oven for around another 20 minutes, then boil up your kettle!

You'll need the boiled water for your main filler ingredients, which are about 150g couscous, and 200g chickpeas.

 

When your veg has about 10 minutes left to go, mix your couscous, chickpeas, and 200ml boiling water together in a bowl until the water JUST covers the other stuff, and cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave to stand for ten minutes.

During this time, you can fry up your bacon if you want to make this dish slightly more carnivorous, which of fucking course I do. Scissor it up into smaller chunks of flesh, and fry on a high heat so it crisps up pretty quick. Once it's cooked, pop it into a bowl in the oven for a couple of minutes just to dry it out and make it uber-crispy.

Once your veg have reached their final countdown, take 'em out the oven and spoon a couple of serious dollops (technical term) of mascarpone into the roasted mix, and swirl it all together. Uncover your clingfilmed bowl of couscous, and fluff it up with a fork, adding more water if you think the texture is a little too dry (duh!). Remove your bacon from the oven too.

Cover your plates with the couscous as a base, then dump all your creamy veg mix on top of it, and sprinkle with any leftover chilli peppers you have, as well as throwing a handful of crispy bacon pieces over the whole thing. Serve to your slightly deranged father, to prove that you really DO like couscous.

Also, this, because if you don't like Thin Lizzy, then... well, fuck you, thats what.