Special report - Tim, Phil and Roman do Bulgaria!

I'm going to take a break from the normal format here to talk about an amazing trip I just had.

I went to Bulgaria for one of my best mates' stag weekend along with seven other friends.  It was an awesome, messy experience for all.  But disaster struck on the last day, when the thick fog at Sofia airport made it impossible for the plane that was supposed to take us home to even land in the first place.  We could have been put on another flight in a couple of days' time, but we were pretty sure the fog was still going to be there.  So we had to make alternative arrangements.

Most of the group took a bus to Thessaloniki with a view to taking the cheapest flight they could from there.  I, however, am a poor unemployed law graduate waiting for the chance to get paid for unleashing my inner Alan Shore, so I opted for the cheaper option of a bus all the way from Sofia to London, along with two others.  We were told this would leave the following morning at 9am and that the journey would take 40 hours (it actually ended up taking 50).

The bus company were kind enough to hook us up with a local hostel, which was nice because I thought at some points that they just wanted to rape us and harvest our organs.  However, true to their word, these very nice people dropped us off at the bus station the following morning.

After a couple of hours' travel we got to the Serbian border.  Roman and I got searched by the border police, which was a bit scary because the first things they found in our suitcases were my wig from the Anchorman-themed night out and Roman's target paper from the shooting range complete with a load of bullet holes.  All was well in the end and we were let through.  There was, however, some delay caused by a guy who seemed to be trying to take his girlfriend with him against her will in order to pimp her.  She kept flying into fits of rage on the bus, which was entertaining in a scary way!  I was fine, however, because I had eaten the biggest burger known to man at a Serbian services station.

Next on the list of countries was Croatia.  I swear to God that applicants to the Croatian police force have to be 7 feet tall and come from Middle Earth.  They were nice guys though and they were impressed with Roman's shooting.  Next came Slovenia, and after that we went through Austria, Germany and France with no border checks until Calais.

On the way we met some very cool guys from Macedonia who now live in Essex, of all places, so we exchanged numbers and agreed to meet up if we're ever near their area.  We watched some cool films on the bus and had a good laugh despite the loooooong journey back.  I have to sincerely thank the guys who travelled with me for making what could have been a very depressing journey into a cool adventure in its own right!

Now I'm going to have a shower.  Bye.

Cattle Decapitation

I seriously need to invest in a new camera.  Oh well, not long until Christmas I suppose.

Say what you like about British food, you can't knock our top quality beef, and everyone loves a good steak dinner.  Yes, I know you've heard this a thousand times before, but make sure you get a good quality steak from an independent butcher that's been hung for 21-28 days (the steak I mean, not the butcher, though that would be N3CR0 and Br00T@L).  This recipe will serve four people.

Ingredients:

• 4 awesome sirloin steaks
• 4 medium-large old potatoes
• 2 white onions
• 225g butter (yes you read that correctly) plus a few knobs for basting
• 3 egg yolks
• 3 eggs
• Some plain flour (doesn't need to be precise but you need a fair amount)
• 1 shallot
• 1 tsp English mustard
• 4 tbsps red wine vinegar
• 4-8 garlic cloves (depending on the size), smashed
• A handful of tarragon sprigs
• 2 tbsps olive oil
• Some vegetable oil
• Salt and loads of freshly ground black pepper

Method:

1. Stick the oven on at 210 degrees.
2. Make the chips - clean your potatoes and cut them into eight wedges, leaving the skin on.  Put them in a saucepan full of cold, lightly salted water and bring them to the boil for a few minutes.  Drain the water, season them, sprinkle them with a little bit of flour, then shake them about in the saucepan.  Put them skin side down in roasting trays and drizzle them with vegetable oil, then roast them for 35 minutes until they're golden and crispy.
3. Make the sauce - finely dice the shallots.  Remove the leaves from the tarragon sprigs and chop the stalks finely.  Heat 3 tbsps of the vinegar in a pan, add the shallots and parsley stalks and reduce by a third.  Beat the egg yolks in a bain marie and strain the vinegar reduction into them (that means "use a sieve so the herbs and shallot pieces don't go into the sauce" - you're just using them for flavour here), mixing it in.  Let it cool a little.  Melt the ridiculous amount of butter in a frying pan.  Put the bain marie over some simmering water (not too hot - you don't want scrambled eggs) and whisk the egg yolks vigorously until they've gone lighter and thicker, then *slowly* trickle the butter into the egg yolk mix as you're still whisking until you've got a nice thick sauce.  Remove from the heat, stir in the mustard and tarragon leaves and season to taste.
4. Make the onion rings - heat some oil in a wok or deep fat fryer on a medium-high heat.  Peel the onions and slice them into rings.  Beat the eggs, add a drop of cold water and stir in some flour a little at a time until you have a nice thick batter, then season the mixture.  Put some more flour in a separate bowl.  Dip the onion rings in the flour and then the batter, making sure they're nicely covered, and deep fry them for a few minutes until they're golden brown - you may need to do this in batches.  Remove them to a plate and let the fat drain onto some kitchen paper.
5. Cook your steaks - you want a couple of frying pans for this on a high heat - don't use more than two steaks per pan.  When it's very hot, add a little olive oil, season your steaks on one side with salt and plenty of pepper and put them in the pan, seasoned-side down.  They should sizzle vigorously on contact - if they don't, take them out immediately and wait for the oil to get hotter.  Season the other side of the steak just before turning - this method helps to keep the steak from drying out.  Cooking times vary according to the thickness of your steak - I did two minutes per side for mine for medium rare, so if you want it rare I'd do it for a minute-a minute and a half and if you want it well done I'd do it for three-four minutes per side - you can also prod it with your finger as well-done steaks will be quite firm to the touch.  You only want to turn the steaks once each.  About thirty seconds after you've flipped your steak, add some butter to the pan and the garlic cloves, and baste the steaks with the pan juices.
6. Serve the dish - Take your steak out when it's done to your liking and wrap it in foil (repeat for the others obviously) so that it can rest for a couple of minutes - this relaxes the meat and makes it more tender to eat.  Add a drop of red wine vinegar to the pans you cooked the steaks in to de-glaze them and get all those lovely meaty juices.  Put your onion rings and chips on the plate, then carve the steak, put it on the plate, drizzle the pan juices over it and pour on a generous helping of your Bearnaise sauce.

Enjoy with a glass of red wine or good beer, and keep a crusty bread roll on hand to mop up the sauce!

Roast pork chop with spicy runner beans, tomatoes and creamy mustard sauce

Normally when I roast things I add lots of mashed/roasted potatoes, but I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with that way of cooking.


I'm not on the Atkins diet or anything, but I do eat too many carbs so I thought this might be a nice way to spice up (no pun intended) my usual method with roast pork chops.  And it works - hooray!  I used some nice fresh runner beans from my local farm shop (I know, I'm middle class) but you could probably use tinned borlotti beans instead.  Plus you could always ask your Grandma, as people over 60 love growing runner beans.  Rare breed pork is the best, if you can get it.  The paprika and tomatoes make the runner beans more exciting and the tartness of the tomatoes goes very well with the rich pork.

Ingredients:

• 1 x good quality pork chop
• 2 x garlic cloves
• 3 x fresh sage leaves
• 1 x bay leaf
• Splash of Worcestershire sauce
• Handful of runner bean pods
• 1 dessert spoon double cream
• About 1 tbsp hot paprika (I'll let you be the judge)
• Half a 400g tin of Italian chopped tomatoes
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp English mustard (wahey!)
• 1-2 tbsps olive oil (I didn't really measure this, as you can tell)

Method:

1. Get your pork chop out of the fridge at least half an hour before you start cooking so that it can adjust to room temperature.  Pre-heat the oven on full blast, which should be about 250 degrees.
2. Put a whole garlic clove, unpeeled, in the centre of a little roasting dish.  Place the bay and sage leaves on top.
3. Using a very sharp knife, carefully make incisions with about a centimetre and a half in between along the skin of the pork, but try not to penetrate into the flesh.  Rub a bit of salt into the skin, particularly in the incisions, and season the flesh with salt and plenty of pepper on both sides.
4. Put the chop on top of the garlic and sage leaves.  Drizzle with a little olive oil (not too much or the skin won't go crispy - don't worry, there's plenty of fat inside the pork chop itself) and splash a little Worcestershire sauce on top, then put it in the oven.  After 15 minutes, turn the heat down to 180 degrees and continue roasting for 20 minutes until the pork is cooked through.
5. While the pork's cooking, heat some olive oil in a saucepan on a medium heat.  Top and tail the runner bean pods and cut them up into small pieces (cut them diagonally if you want to be cheffy).  Chuck them in the pan and saute them for a few minutes.  Add some grated garlic and paprika to taste - paprika can vary in terms of heat so if you like add it in little bits to see how much you like - then spoon in half a tin of chopped tomatoes.  Season it with salt and black pepper and stir it frequently so that it doesn't stick.  Add a little more oil to the pan if necessary.
6. Using a ladle or similar large spoon, put the beans in the centre of the plate and sit the pork chop on top.  Put the roasting tin on the hob and heat it up quite high, then add a little hot water from the kettle to dislodge the sediment.  Scrape the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon or spatula and make sure you squash the garlic clove, then stir in the mustard and cream.  Strain the gravy into a jug and spoon it over your pork chop.

If you don't mind a few carbs with this meal, have a bit of nice crusty bread on the side to mop up the sauce.

The German Cabbage Experience (Part 1)

Examples of common household objects you can use.

You may be looking at this picture and thinking "roflcopter wot is he doing with those tinz lolz".  Well, I'll tell you - I'm making sauerkraut!

German cuisine may not be world-renowned (well, to be fair, nor is British) but that's not to say they don't have some good recipes.  Sauerkraut, for those of you who haven't had it, is basically pickled cabbage, and it goes very well with roast pork and sausages.  I had a bit of sausage when I went to Germany and it was exhilarating.

Get yourself a cabbage and chop it into quarters.  Shred it finely and put it in a mixing bowl, then add some apple slices and one and a half-two tablespoons of salt and mix it all up.  Cover it with a clean tea towel, then add a plate and weigh it down with some tins of tomato/baked beans/tuna.  Leave it to ferment for about a month (seriously - the salt draws the water out and preserves it) and change the tea towel every couple of days.  At least, that's my plan based on research I carried out on t3h internetz.

What will happen to the sauerkraut?  Will it turn into the delicious German sausage adornment, or will it just become a rotting pile of green vegetables?  We'll see in about a month's time!

Ridiculously easy tandoori chicken

Full of chickeny goodness.

I'm of the opinion that the best recipes are often the simplest.  Overcomplicated cooking is like Shakespearean lesbian porn - it just doesn't work.

This recipe is a great opportunity to practice your chicken mutilation skills, though you can ask your butcher to joint the chicken for you.  By butchering your own chicken you save money and you get a carcass left over to make a nice stock with.  There are a few different methods that people use, but I'd recommend those methods that involve leaving the wings attached to the breasts as breast meat is nicer on the bone (in my opinion) and if you really want to take the wings off you can.  You can also do this with other birds.

As for the recipe itself, it's straightforward and designed to replicate the kind of food they eat in northern India, which involves breads like roti and naan rather than rice.

Ingredients:

• 1 x big free range chicken, jointed into six pieces (plus the carcass that you keep for later)
• 4 x cloves of garlic
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger
• 2 x green chillies, seeds in (\m/)
• 3 x tbsps coriander powder
• 2 x tsp ground cumin
• 2 x tsp hot chilli powder
• 2 x tsp turmeric
• 1 x tbsp Greek yoghurt
• 1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method:

1. Bake your dried spices in a hot oven for about 10 seconds as this improves their flavour.  If you've got whole seeds, you can toast them whole in a dry frying pan and then crush them up to make the powder.  Mix them together with the lemon juice, the vegetable oil, the salt, the pepper, the finely chopped chilli and the grated ginger and garlic (preferably using a pestle and mortar) until you have an orangey red paste.
2. Make a couple of cuts in each chicken piece using a sharp knife, then put it in a mixing bowl and smear the paste all over the chicken, making sure it gets into the cuts to really penetrate the flesh (we're all about penetration here at Heavy Metal Cooking).  Then do the same with the yoghurt and leave it to marinade for at least two hours or preferably overnight.
3. Turn the oven on at full whack (which is probably about 250 degrees), and when it's come up to heat put the chicken on a baking tray and put it in the oven.  After about 20 minutes, turn the heat down to 190 and let it cook through for a further half hour (that way you get moist flesh but a crispy, charred skin).
4. Serve with naan bread and enjoy!

It's a shame I missed barbecue season really as I think this recipe could have worked.  Ah well, life is full of disappointments (e.g. every Metallica album from the last 12 years).

Stay tuned as I will soon be uploading a very metal video demonstration of how to joint a chicken!

Now that the nights are drawing in quicker than Jodie Marsh finding a photo opportunity, and there's a wee nip in the air, the temptation for stodgy food increases.

But fear not, if you still want it healthy(ish). This recipe can incorporate many of your five a day, and doesn't have to be loaded with fat - it depends really on how much cheese you like!

I make burritos; the tortillas are wrapped into parcels. You can roll them instead to make enchilladas, but you don't get the nice alliterative title!

Start off by preparing the spice mix. I am a wuss when it comes to spicy food; this mix is on my limit, but hot food lovers will find it flavoursome rather than kicking. This recipe will give you enough filling for 6 burritos. I mix:

2 beef stock cubes
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp dried oregano
½ tsp cayenne pepper - this is what gives the kick, so the braver among you may want to add more

I grind them all together in a pestle and mortar, but giving them a stir with a spoon in a bowl will do.

Put to one side, then finely chop:

1 onion
garlic (add as much or as little to taste)
1 deseeded pepper - ideally should be no bigger than the kidney beans you will add

Heat a small amount of olive oil in a pan, and soften the onions and garlic.

Take one small tin of kidney beans, open, and drain - leave to one side, to allow all the fluid to dry off.

Once the onions start to soften, add the peppers, and turn up the heat slightly, as the peppers will release moisture and you end up with a gloopy mess. Fry off for about 2-3 mins.

Add a 250g portion of beef mince. I use beef. You can use any other mince meat, if you wish. Hey, you can even use soya or quorn mince (heresy! - Tim) if you are a veggie/vegan, obviously missing out the stock cubes. Brown the mince (meat only); you may need to turn the heat up again, slightly.

Once browned, add the beans, turn the heat back down to medium.

Add the spice mix, and stir well.

Add half a tin of chopped tomatoes to the filling.

Leave to simmer for 10-15 mins, if you have time. At this point you can add other veg to the filling. I like sweetcorn, and some chopped fresh tomatoes, but you may want to experiment with something else. Hell you could add some mushrooms, but as a hater of fungi, I wouldn't ruin the dish ;-)

Leave the mixture to cool before making the burritos. It has a better consistency, and it also makes wrapping the tortillas easier. The easiest thing to do is to spread the tortillas onto a clean surface and then equally divide the filling among them. As I wrote earlier, I make 6 burritos but if you're brave/skilled, you could get 4 bigguns. Make the parcel by folding the bottom over the filling, fold in the sides, then fold over the top.

Place the burritos into an oven proof dish. Spoon the remainder of the chopped tomato over the top; you can add some of the spice mix to this, or you can stir in some tabasco sauce, if you really do like a kick. Sprinkle over some grated cheese.

Bake in a pre-heated oven for about 20 mins, or until everything looks golden. Mine look darker as I used wholemeal wraps and Red Leicester cheese. The burritos can be served as a meal in itself, with a token salad (a la my creation), or with rice/chips/wedges if you are feeding more than two.

Master of Pickles

Mmmmm...pickles!

I thought I'd have a shot at pickling. Me and Tim have a (currently on indefinite hiatus, in traditional heavy metal band style) plan to sell pickles and preserves. Nothing has come of it yet, but I thought I'd try my hand at it whilst I'm in employment limbo.

This was quite a simple recipe. I didn't want to do normal pickled onions, I wanted something with a kick! So, inspired by the pickles my wonderful girlfriend has courtesy of her parents, I went about creating my own concoction.

Step 1: Brine the Veg!

I don't know why you have to do this but...you do, apparently. In a bowl, I threw in all of my ingedients and covered them in a healthy dose of salt (quite a lot of it) and left it overnight. The effect was that the water was drawn out of the veg and they created their own brine mixture. The veg I used were:

• Shallots (top & tail then blanch them for a minute, the skins'll come off much easier!)
• Cauliflower
• Red Peppers
• Olives
• Turnips
• Couple of HOT chilli peppers. I prefer Scotch Bonnet but all they had were Birds Eye.

When you've done that, go onto.....

Step 2 - The Vinegar

How much vinegar you need depends on how much you're making, so you'll have to be the judge of that. One of those big jars of pickling vinegar from the supermarket should do you fine for a good few jars of pickles.

Boil the vinegar and add to it pickling spices, which you can buy pre-mixed, or you can make your own. I boiled it for 5 minutes using the following:

• Chilli Pepper
• Chilli Flakes
• Coriander Seeds
• Cumin Seeds
• Rosemary
• Basil
• 1 Tbsp Salt
• 1 Tbsp Sugar
• Ground Black Pepper

Then put it aside to cool. Make sure you do it in a stainless steel saucepan or, if you don't have one, a non stick saucepan. DO NOT USE ALUMINIUM PANS, it'll react with the vinegar.

Step 3 - Bring it all together baby!

Once your veg has brined overnight, it's time to bring it altogether. You'll need some airtight jars, and you'll need to sterilise them. I used some of Granny's old Kilner Jars which she kindly lent me. I think they're from WWII era, judging... :D

To sterilise them you need to heat them, and their lids, in the oven at Gas Mark 1/4 (1 quarter) for around about ten minutes. Then, take them out (careful, hot!) and fill them immediately with your pickle mix. Make sure you wash and drain the pickle mix thoroughly, otherwise your pickles may end up being too salty!

Then, pour the pickling vinegar over the top. Seal them.

Keep them in a cool, dark place for two weeks to a month before eating.

I currently have no idea what they taste like. >_>

ENJOY!