I must admit that it does change relatively frequently, but right now, Vacherin du Haut-Doubs is certainly my favourite cheese. If you've not tried this amazing soft, cow's milk cheese before, you really must. And I mean relatively soon.
That's not because I'm some kind of food tyrant. It's because Vacherin du Haut-Doubs is a seasonal cheese and is generally only available in shops in the colder months of the year. A good rule to go by is that it will generally become available when the clocks go back and then disappear all too quickly when they go forward again. Ok, I admit, maybe more sunlight is just about a fair trade-off, but after you've tried it, you'll understand why I'm reluctant to admit it.
The cheese is best when the middle has a slightly melted texture
I suppose you could, very simplistically, compare Vacherin du Haut-Doubs with Brie and Camembert but I'm almost certain that one of the French producers would be positively enraged by such a crude juxtaposition. It's definitely stronger in flavour than Brie whilst at the same time also being creamier and richer too. It has quite a strong aroma too, mixed in with the faint smell of the spruce that the cheese makers wrap around it mainly to keep it in the right shape.
The spruce band that wraps around the cheese
As things stand legally now, in the mass of protections that many food products on the European continent enjoy, this cheese must be made in the mountainous French region of the Franche-Comté. In 1973, Switzerland nabbed the right to call their cheese Vacherin Mont d'Or and so the way to detect which is the French cheese is now that it will be called Vacherin du Haut-Doubs or Le Mont d'Or. In 1983, the Swiss rules changed to allow the use of pasteurised cheese whilst the French will be made with unpasteurised and I think, is all the better for it.
The cheeses are bathed in salt water and put to mature for what is normally 4-6 weeks. This both acts as an antiseptic and as a way to help the flavour mature. You can find this cheese in most specialist cheese shops at this time of year and possibly in larger branches of the more up-market supermarkets. However, I would encourage you to seek it out from a specialist because they will have much better knowledge about how to keep the cheese and mature it properly so you get the best example you can.
You could bake your Vacherin du Haut-Doubs and dip crusty bread into it but I prefer to eat it as I find it (after having let it sit out of the fridge for a while of course). Serve with a lovely glass of Côtes du Jura to keep it regional. You'll be pleased you did.
Ever since I moved to London, I've always been lucky enough to live just a stone's throw away from that narrow little culinary gold mine that is Bermondsey Street. Full of ultra-hip, loft-living, open plan apartments above. Packed with great restaurants, bars and pubs below.
Zucca is a cool, crisp, modern Italian restaurant with smooth, chic, minimalist interior design to match. Full length windows showcase the brilliant white tables, soft lighting and open gallery kitchen which means diners are just steps away from the very engine room that slickly turns out well-balanced and thoughtful dishes. All seemed nicely presented but without any sense of pretension. Seeing the kitchen operate in such a calm, methodical and ultimately successful way, is for me, something to marvel at and enjoy. Especially when it's producing dishes like we ordered. Simplicity in gastronomic form; flavour in abundance.
We began with mozzarella with roast fennel and carpaccio of sea bass (both £4-75). However, we were first offered a plate a wonderful Italian breads and grissini (the focaccia in particular was delicious) with a great dipping olive oil. The mozzarella was, as one would expect, wonderfully rich and creamy with a slightly sour tang. The fennel was perfectly roasted; slightly sweet and nicely strong in aniseed flavour. The carpaccio which was plentiful and topped with salt, pepper, olive oil, lemon juice and finely diced chillies was also flavoursome; the amount of chilli nicely handled. And with both at such a reasonable price, they were very hard to fault.
Main courses were veal chop with lemon and spinach (£16) and swordfish with courgette and pumpkin (£14-95). The huge veal chop was clearly of very high quality and was perfectly cooked (the outside being lightly charred yet still pink inside). Served very simply on a bed of wilted spinach with lemon, it was a lesson in cooking with restraint. The same can be said for the sword fish which was meaty and worked brilliantly with the vegetables that had a delicious sweet and sour element.
Although you won’t get a dessert menu at Zucca (the waiter reels off a list of what’s currently on offer), it certainly doesn’t mean you’ll have to go without your sugar fix. We had a moist, almond packed, blood orange cake (£4-95) which was drizzled in the most delicious blood orange syrup and a glass of Vin Santo dessert wine with cantucci (£10). You’ll also find an impressively comprehensive and thoughtfully compiled wine list which has led to the owner/chef Sam Harris being able to call his enterprise the Decanter Magazine Restaurant of the Year. Yes, you can break the bank on what they offer, but you certainly don’t have to. And with prices for food so reasonable, you might feel able to drink a better wine with it. Our wine was a smoky and mineral Fiano di Avellino, a complex white from Campania, which was described accurately by the sommelier.
A fantastic experience which was (at the risk of repeating myself) brilliant value. Even if it weren’t only five minutes walk away, I would certainly be returning for another visit.
250-400g Mozzarella di bufala Campana (depending on appetite)
2-3 bulbs of fennel (depending on size)
Olive oil (extra-virgin for dressing but standard will do for roasting)
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Just a quick little something that you can put together in not too long and instantly feel like you've been transported back to the heady days of last summer when the daylight was plentiful, the weather was lovely (sometimes) and everything felt a little bit easier than it does right now, here, in the depths of the ever so dark winter.
I absolutely love Mozzarella and in particular that which comes from the milk di bufala (buffalo, for the non-Italian speakers). The combination of rich creaminess and lactic tanginess combine to create what must surely be one of the greatest cheeses that Man has ever managed to create.
The word mozzarella is applied to what are, in reality, very different types of cheese. Ranging from the bland pre-grated type that you can get for sprinkling on pizzas, to the small milky balls of cows' milk cheese stored in whey, most commonly found in supermarkets. Well, aside from similarities in production, Mozzarella di bufala Campana is a whole different product all together. Well, in my eyes at least.
The Campana part refers to the DOP (controlled denomination) on the product meaning that one can only call and market your product as Mozzarella di bufala Campana if it is made in the Campania region of Italy. With family roots in this very area of Italy (near Napoli to be more precise) I have long been aware of its capacity for amazing food production; this glorious cheese is no exception.
The cheese is made entirely of buffalo milk which is richer than cows' milk and so imparts a more buttery flavour. The mozzarella I bought came in a plait, but it can also be found shaped into balls, cylinders and little bites known as bocconcini. The skin on the outside should be a brilliant white, with the inside always slightly less so. In texture, it's slightly springy but also should have a very "melt in the mouth" quality. Taste wise, the best will be milky as well as having the crucial slightly sour, lactic tang that elevates it to a whole new level of complexity. The cheese is actually created by heating to separate the curd and whey before the curd is then stretched using a process that the Italians call pasta filata. This involves kneading the curds almost like a baker with bread dough until the there is a smooth consistency.
Nothing needs to be done to the mozzarella except to tear it open so that it forms a bed on which to place your fennel. The quality of the mozzarella, of course, dictates the quality of your meal, so really do shop around and try and find a really high-quality one. Try specialist cheese shops or Italian delicatessens. I got mine this time from Lina Stores in Soho.
Remove your mozzarella from the fridge a while before cooking. The best way to enjoy it is roughly at room temperature. Now prepare your fennel bulbs simply by chopping off the stalks at the top and the base at the bottom. Also remove any hard outer layers. Now chop the fennel into the size of pieces you desire. In the picture, I cut quite small pieces but it's easiest to just quarter them . Cover them in olive oil, salt, pepper and a sprinkling of fennel seeds. You could also try adding some finely chopped chilli if you wanted but I didn't want the heat to over power my mozzarella which is really the star of the show.
Place them in a baking tray and into a preheated oven at 200c/400f/ gas mark 6 for about 30 minutes. Cover them with foil for this time before removing it and leaving for another 10-15 minutes. If you're pieces are smaller you should reduce the cooking time accordingly. Try to keep an eye on your fennel because although the roasting really does a lot to sweeten the aniseed flavour, a minute too long and they can over cook and taste burnt and unpleasant.
Once cooked, remove from the pan and sit on top of your cheese before drizzling some extra virgin olive oil on top. Maybe serve with some crusty Italian bread and/or some roquette.
Sorry for the terrible pun, but after seeing the pictures I took of these wonderful vegetables, it struck me that they indeed looked like a kind of alien, Giger-esque interpretation of the great pyramids of Giza. It may sound a bit much for some of you, but I am really looking forward to eating these for my dinner tonight. Yes, such joy and anticipation about a vegetable! Well, we're not children anymore are we, and surely there are plenty of greens that we can now get enthusiastic about.
The vegetable pictured, I should add, is Romanesco Broccoli. Mine are miniature versions of the usual full size ones you'll more easily find in shops. Although it's often called "broccoli", including by me, it's actually a variant of the cauliflower. I personally call it a broccoli because I think it more closely resembles it in flavour although I concede that the texture is closer to cauliflower.
However, if you're not keen on either of those two much maligned, don't recoil in horror because Romanseco is actually miles better in both texture and flavour. It's creamier and nuttier than your garden variety cauliflower and broccoli. It's also less bitter and more tender. You should be able to pick it up at some good specialist greengrocers and I know bigger Waitrose stores are currently stocking it. I was originally inspired to go out and get some when I saw Nigella Lawson tweet a picture of some, which I could see was in Selfridges' Food Hall, so I know it's available there too.
It is thoroughly delicious just prepared like you would with broccoli (although be careful not to do to it what far too many do and cook it into squidgy oblivion) but it's probably even better if you then toss it with some olive oil, sautéd garlic, salt, pepper and Parmigiano Reggiano. Wonderful!
After seeing this dish being prepared on Channel 4's new cookery and baking programme The Fabulous Baker Brothers, I just had to have a go at it myself. It was great to not have to stand over the cooker for ages after a long day, but still end with something thoroughly delicious.
The full recipe can be found here, but the method really isn't overly complicated. That's not the point of this dish- it's all about simple, gutsy flavours and letting the quality of your ingredients (especially the steak) speak for themselves.
You'll need a loaf, preferably sourdough to make the trencher base. A trencher, by the way, is the base of a loaf bread which is used as the plate. This dates back from medieval times, when it was normally stale bread which was merely for function and not flavour. The trencher would normally be given to the poor after the meal, but I suggest you eat the bread with this one; so make sure you pick a decent loaf. By the way, I would still thoroughly encourage giving to those less fortunate, it's just your donation might be better in money than your leftover baked goods.
You'll also need a hanger steak which gets it name because it is the muscle that hangs between the rib and the loin of the cow. It is actually made up of two v-shaped muscles with a thick piece of sinew running down the middle. Ask the butcher to remove this and butterfly it for you.
I got my meat from The Ginger Pig. All their meat comes from animals reared on their farms in Yorkshire. I was born and raised in Yorkshire so I'll always be partial to getting my meat from this company. Fortunately, on top of that, it is of the very highest standard, and that's coming from the son of a butcher.
Fry your well-seasoned steak for 2 minutes on each side. You really don't want to cook a cut like this any more or it will start to become tough. Definitely not one for people who like their steak well done. You want the pan really hot so that you get a really loud sizzle in the pan like on the video I took.
Add some butter right at the end of cooking and baste the steak with it and then put the steak onto your trencher. Wrap the whole thing in foil. Then chop up some mushrooms (I used portobello) and sauté in butter along with some chopped garlic. Prepare a salad of watercress, parsley and finely chopped shallot. Once the mushrooms are cooked deglaze the pan with sherry vinegar and add to the salad.
Now all you need to do is unwrap the steak which should be nicely rested and slice it. You'll notice that all the liquid that would normally end up on the plate has soaked into and flavoured the bread. Place it on the trencher and then top it with the salad and mushrooms. There you have it. Absolutely wonderful and pretty straightforward. This served two people when I did it but if you don't have big appetites, it could probably stretch to three.
As for the programme, I found it very entertaining and fun. The perfect companion to the new Heston Blumenthal programme which precedes it. One with very achievable recipes, the other ever-so-slightly more challenging. Both very rewarding and most importantly, very tasty. The two brothers are surely major food television personalities in the making.
A few evenings ago, I sat down to a thrillingly indulgent home prepared meal. I use the word prepared very lightly, as in reality it took no more than cutting salmon fillet and spooning salmon caviar. But I say, who cares? You don't have to go through some grand list of processes in the kitchen to eat well. Sometimes, you just let the quality of your ingredients speak for themselves.
I went to Caviar House and Prunier on Piccadilly and picked up some Balik tartar (a mixture of salmon and quark these), a Sjomga Orange salmon fillet and a jar of Balik "pearls"which is the caviar of Keta salmon.
I was inspired to take a few Balik products home after having visited the Caviar House to eat in their seafood bar. Whilst there I had a salmon tasting plate which included all the above as well as the Sjomga Tradition, Sjomga Nori and Gravaldlax amongst others. All was served with brown toast, cream cheese, unsalted butter and Balik dill mustard. Everything I tried could be fairly described as delicious.
The Sjomga Orange salmon fillet was wonderfully sweet with a strong taste of honey and orange as well as maintaining the oily richness of the salmon which is of the very highest quality. As for the tartar, that too was nicely balanced with the use of quark ensuring that it didn't become too rich.
My personal favourite though are the Balik pearls which are a brilliant bright, rich orange colour and feel beautifully delicate in the mouth. Like other caviar, they are light salted in order to preserve them but Balik and Caviar House and Prunier are far too excellent producers to allow their produce to become overly saline. Apparently, the correct technique with caviar is to let the fragile bubbles sit in the mouth before bursting them by squeezing them in between your tongue and the top of your mouth. They are a rich treat to be savoured slowly.
I also added some peat-smoked scallops from the Hebridean Smokehouse which were both intensely smoky and pleasantly sweet. Wine was Guy Charbaut Champagne. Champagne and similar sparkling wines are always a good match for this type of food. Otherwise, a smooth high-quality vodka is also good.
There's no denying that these products are a treat, probably to be enjoyed infrequently, but that is part of their appeal. They feel special and luxuriant and the perfect way to treat yourself on a special, or not so special (if you just need a bit of luxury) occasion. I'd certainly recommend it- some people go for massages or beauty therapies; why not go for this kind of indulgence instead?
Hidden below a multi-storey car park behind the department stores at the Oxford Circus end of Oxford Street is something thoroughly unexpected. Tucked under the hulking NCP car park is London’s little Manhattan outpost in the form of American burger joint, Meat Liquor.
The porthole doors open to reveal a industrial, stripped, half-finished interior. It is clear a lot of time and thought has gone into making this place seem like not much time or thought has gone into its design. As you enter you see a kind of graffiti covered gazebo with a lowered floor area and a domed roof. I almost felt I was looking at the beautiful gazebo in the Thames Foyer of The Savoy, except after a nuclear apocalypse. That is to say, crazy and brilliant.
The graffiti adorns every wall of the restaurant which has a mix of seating from a large communal round table in the centre, to bars tucked along the side and the more conventional diner-type seating with large cushioned red leather benches. All very stylish, down to the worn, paint-splattered columns that surrounded the “gazebo” to the dark red glow provided by red fluorescent strip lighting, wires exposed, twisting around the ceiling.
Something that you should know is that, because of this minimal, atmospheric lighting, it is dark and your whole perception is bathed in a kind of dull red light. It definitely helps create an authentic atmosphere along with the all-American diner soundtrack and the noise of staff crying “Meat!” or “Liquor!” when service was required from the waiting staff (known as the burgerettes). The further you walk inside and immerse yourself in the restaurant, the more you forget you are just steps away from the busy hustle-bustle of Oxford Street.
Dry Daiquiri (left) and St Thomas bathed in the red light
All this is well and good but with some many places in London offering anything from truly terrible to passable and occasionally decent attempts at the humble foodstuff that is the burger, this place really has to deliver on food quality to live up to its considerable hype. I can confirm that, despite arriving with the big expectations that such feverous word-of-mouth creates, I was very impressed indeed. Yianni Papoutsis (restaurateur behind Meatwagon and most recently #Meateasy) must be providing Londoners with the best burger in town.
You may have heard murmurings about being stuck in queues for hours on end outside the restaurant and I know it to be true that you can wait a considerable amount of time when demand is at its peak (like more and more restaurants, Meat Liquor operates a no-bookings policy). Whilst I’m not sure I’m keen on the idea of all restaurants doing this, I feel that a place like Meat Liquor does fit quite nicely with this system where food prices are relatively low and turn around quite quick. When I went, we waited no more than five minutes. This was on a Saturday at around 3pm.
We opted for cocktails but the wine list is both wittily worded and sufficient. You can also enjoy lager in the form of Meantime or Old Scratch if you want to opt for authentic American. We started with a Dry Daiquiri (flor de Cana rum, fresh lime, Campari and passion fruit) and a St Thomas (Bombay Sapphire gin, fresh lime, pink grapefruit, aperol and sugar). Both priced at £7 and served in a champagne saucer. Both were delicious and balanced with the Campari countering the sweetness of the rum in the former and the aperol countering the dryness of the gin in the latter.
The menu offered seven types of beef burgers as well as two chicken. There were also appetisers to choose from including Chili Cheese Fries and Buffalo Wings with a blue cheese dip. A good amount of choice whilst not being too extensive to overwhelm and allowing the kitchen to focus on doing a limited selection really well.
We ordered the Mushroom Swiss (£7), a double patty burger with swiss cheese, mushrooms along with salad and pickles, and the Philly Cheesesteak (£8), made up of shaved steak, onions, pepper and cheese. Both were delicious. Undoubtedly epic in size and brutalist in presentation. Perhaps that’s slightly harsh; there is a certain beauty in the messy towers of meat and cheese. They would certainly make the mouth water of the most ardent lover of haute-cuisine style presentation. The beefy patties are apparently made of 100% ground beef and were wonderfully juicy. If you’ve never tried a cheesesteak, I would definitely recommend you do. The steak goes gooey with the melted cheese and the peppers add a nice suggestion of heat.
We also ordered the fries (“not chips” as the menu firmly reminds you) and the onion rings (both £3). The fries were nicely thin and well seasoned and onion rings were batter-heavy making them both fluffy and substantial. Definitely not the lightest onion rings I’ve ever had, but in this context, this style worked well.
The table comes decorated with all the traditional condiments of Heinz ketchup, Hellman’s mayonnaise and French’s mustard along with a large roll of kitchen towel; something that should further demonstrate how laid back and informal the dining experience is here.
St Lawrence (left) and Donkey Punch
Food was accompanied by two further cocktails: St Lawrence (Woodford Reserve, maple syrup, fresh lemon juice, dash of bitters and an orange twist) which was nicely sweet and rich and served playfully in a jam jar and Donkey Punch (Finlandia vodka, fresh lime juice and homemade ginger beer with an absinthe rinse).
Dessert was key lime pie (£5), “florida style.” This was wonderfully creamy and rich but the sweet, slightly sharp effect of the lime. I’m a big fan of key lime pie and I would go as far as to say this is one of the best I’ve had.
Key Lime Pie- Florida style
Service was warm, friendly and very chatty. Some people might find this too familiar but it doesn’t bother me, certainly not in the context of this restaurant. Portions are, as the pictures hopefully convey, very large and I feel great value; our bill came to £55. I left feeling very satisfied, both in terms of appetite and wallet. But I was even more satisfied knowing I’d now found my favourite burger restaurant in London. I will definitely be back to sample more of what Meat Liquor has to offer.
