White Fish, Black Rice, Red Octopus

Roast Cod, arroz negre and soy braised octopus with garlic and smoked paprika emulsion:

This may seem like a complex recipe, but it is split into several components, all of which can be prepared ahead of time, which is of course necessary in a professional kitchen, but is also useful if you want to have your mis en place ready for a dinner party or such, so that you just need ten or fifteen minutes if stove time to put everything together. Even if you don't attempt the whole thing, certain techniques, like the braising of the octopus can be used for barbecues, or the xo sauce is an infinitely superior sauce for cooked prawns than the standard pink industrial mayo abomination (apologies to purists). The ingredients may sound exotic, but the cod, octopus and squid ink can all be purchased from Simmonite's on Division Street, and Sheffield is well served with oriental marts, so all the ingredients for this dish can be gathered in an afternoon in Central Sheffield.

Step 1: for the octopus:
One whole cleaned octopus (approx 1kg)
Light soy sauce

This will yield more than you need, but surplus portions can be frozen for later use, and it's worth doing the whole thing. In a pan just large enough to hold it, cover the octopus with cold water, and place on a low heat and bring to a simmer. Add a couple of tablespoons of soy, enough to give the liquid a savoury taste, and maintain at a very low simmer for two hours. After this time the outer flesh will have turned a pinkish hue and break up slightly, but don't be alarmed. Remove the octopus and refresh in cold water. Once drained, cut the tentacles into forkable sized chunks and discard the head. Retain the cooking liquid.

Step 2 : For the cod and dashi:
One side of cod, approx 500g skin on
Kombu seaweed, dried shiitake mushrooms, dashino-moto (dried bonito seasoning), miso paste

Whilst the octopus is simmering, remove the skin from the cod and cut into four portions. If you ask nicely, an able fishmonger will do this for you, but make sure you take the skin home. Place the skin and any fish scraps from trimming the cod on a greased tray, and bake at a low heat (150 degrees or so) for approximately twenty to thirty minutes, until dry and crispy and slightly browned. Meanwhile, generously coat the fish with equal quantities of white sugar and sea salt in a high sided container, cover, and refrigerate for forty minutes, after which time, rinse in cold water, dry, and reserve covered and refrigerated.

Once the octopus has been removed from the cooking liquid, add the baked cod scraps, a couple of dried shiitake mushrooms, and two sachets of dashino-moto. Tear off a sheet of the Kombu seaweed, and add this along with a tablespoon of miso paste to the octopus cooking liquid, and simmer again for twenty minutes. If this all sounds like a massive faff, taste the cooking liquid, and realise that it is completely worth it. At the end of the cooking time, strain the liquid through a fine sieve and reserve.

Step 3 : for the XO emulsion:
Two whole heads of garlic
XO sauce
Smoked paprika
Olive oil

Wrap the garlic bulbs in foil, and roast in a medium oven for approximately 45 minutes. The important thing is that the garlic should become mild and lightly tan in colour without being burnt. When cool enough to handle, simply squeeze the bulbs out into a bowl, so as to get the maximum amount of paste. Beat with a whisk until smooth, then add a tablespoon of XO sauce, a dash of oil and a splash of water. Beat until homogenous, then season with smoked paprika and sea salt. You're aiming for a mayonnaise consistency, so if dry add a splash of water and a little oil. Keep tasting, does it need salt? More XO? We use a professional hickory smoke extract to add more flavour, but it's really about getting something that holds together and tastes delicious. Even if it splits, this isn't disastrous to the finished dish. Don't be disheartened, think taste.

Step 4: for the rice:
500g paella or risotto rice* see note
Large glass white wine
One white onion, chopped as finely as possible 
Four cloves garlic, minced to a paste
Four sachets squid ink
Reserved octopus dashi stock

Sweat the chopped onion in a generous amount of oil over a medium heat until it smells delicious and is going brown in places. Add the dry rice and garlic and keep stirring, until the rice grains turn opaque white and start to smell toasty, a little like popcorn. Throw in the wine and squeeze in the squid ink, and cook until almost dry. Add a decent amount of the octopus dashi and check for seasoning. Because the liquid is highly flavoured, you will probably only need a tiny amount of salt, if any. Keep adding liquid until the rice is tender, finishing with water if necessary. 

*We use 'Bomba' paella rice from Valencia for this because it is able to absorb more liquid than other types of rice without breaking down, and is more forgiving when reheated. With a little care, it shouldn't be a problem using more easily available short grain rice.

It is of utmost importance that pre-cooked rice be chilled and stored as quickly as possible for reasons of hygiene. If you intend to reheat your rice spread it as thinly as possible on a tray to cool, and refrigerate as soon as possible. It is best to do this a maximum of two days in advance.

Step 5: The Finished Dish:
Place your cod portions on an oiled and lined tray, and bake in a pe-heated oven (200 degrees) for twenty minutes. You now have ample time to put everything together. Bring the rice back up to serving temperature in a pan over low heat, checking for seasoning, and adding a little cheese if you so desire. We add smoked curd cheese to add an extra element of flavour and also to hold the rice together, adding a little water as it goes. Just before serving, melt some butter in a pan with a little lemon juice and salt, and gently fry the reserved octopus. It is already cooked, but crisp ing up the outside in butter really helps, and adding a few capers really brings something to the party. When everything is hot and delicious, add a tablespoon or so of the paprika XO emulsion, and coat the octopus. 

By this point the fish is probably cooked. It will tense up, appear opaque and be just on the point of flaking when it's about ready. Put a dollop of rice on each plate, top with the cod and then garnish with the octopus.

As promised, I am spurring myself on to bang out the recipe particulars. I realised I didn't give a single sentence description, so I'll try not to sound sanctimonious.

Rather than 'pub food', a phrase I despise that comes loaded with potential disappointment, we serve food that just happens to be in a pub, and aim to provide something that other places don't, from a decent sandwich to properly executed dishes using ingredients nobody else in Sheffield has access to and most people haven't even heard of.

So, recipe time:

This may seem like a complex recipe, but it is split into several components, all of which can be prepared ahead of time, which is of course necessary in a professional kitchen, but is also useful if you want to have your mis en place ready for a dinner party or such, so that you just need ten or fifteen minutes if stove time to put everything together. Even if you don't attempt the whole thing, certain techniques, like the braising of the octopus can be used for barbecues, or the xo sauce is an infinitely superior sauce for cooked prawns than the standard pink industrial mayo abomination (apologies to purists). The ingredients may sound exotic, but the cod, octopus and squid ink can all be purchased from Simmonite's on Division Street, and Sheffield is well served with oriental marts, so all the ingredients for this dish can be gathered in an afternoon in Central Sheffield.

Step 1: for the octopus:
One whole cleaned octopus (approx 1kg)
Light soy sauce

This will yield more than you need, but surplus portions can be frozen for later use, and it's worth doing the whole thing. In a pan just large enough to hold it, cover the octopus with cold water, and place on a low heat and bring to a simmer. Add a couple of tablespoons of soy, enough to give the liquid a savoury taste, and maintain at a very low simmer for two hours. After this time the outer flesh will have turned a pinkish hue and break up slightly, but don't be alarmed. Remove the octopus and refresh in cold water. Once drained, cut the tentacles into forkable sized chunks and discard the head. Retain the cooking liquid.

Step 2 : For the cod and dashi:
One side of cod, approx 500g skin on
Kombu seaweed, dried shiitake mushrooms, dashino-moto (dried bonito seasoning), miso paste

Whilst the octopus is simmering, remove the skin from the cod and cut into four portions. If you ask nicely, an able fishmonger will do this for you, but make sure you take the skin home. Place the skin and any fish scraps from trimming the cod on a greased tray, and bake at a low heat (150 degrees or so) for approximately twenty to thirty minutes, until dry and crispy and slightly browned. Meanwhile, generously coat the fish with equal quantities of white sugar and sea salt in a high sided container, cover, and refrigerate for forty minutes, after which time, rinse in cold water, dry, and reserve covered and refrigerated.

Once the octopus has been removed from the cooking liquid, add the baked cod scraps, a couple of dried shiitake mushrooms, and two sachets of dashino-moto. Tear off a sheet of the Kombu seaweed, and add this along with a tablespoon of miso paste to the octopus cooking liquid, and simmer again for twenty minutes. If this all sounds like a massive faff, taste the cooking liquid, and realise that it is completely worth it. At the end of the cooking time, strain the liquid through a fine sieve and reserve.

Step 3 : for the XO emulsion:
Two whole heads of garlic
XO sauce
Smoked paprika
Olive oil

Wrap the garlic bulbs in foil, and roast in a medium oven for approximately 45 minutes. The important thing is that the garlic should become mild and lightly tan in colour without being burnt. When cool enough to handle, simply squeeze the bulbs out into a bowl, so as to get the maximum amount of paste. Beat with a whisk until smooth, then add a tablespoon of XO sauce, a dash of oil and a splash of water. Beat until homogenous, then season with smoked paprika and sea salt. You're aiming for a mayonnaise consistency, so if dry add a splash of water and a little oil. Keep tasting, does it need salt? More XO? We use a professional hickory smoke extract to add more flavour, but it's really about getting something that holds together and tastes delicious. Even if it splits, this isn't disastrous to the finished dish. Don't be disheartened, think taste.

Step 4: for the rice:
500g paella or risotto rice* see note
Large glass white wine
One white onion, chopped as finely as possible 
Four cloves garlic, minced to a paste
Four sachets squid ink
Reserved octopus dashi stock

Sweat the chopped onion in a generous amount of oil over a medium heat until it smells delicious and is going brown in places. Add the dry rice and garlic and keep stirring, until the rice grains turn opaque white and start to smell toasty, a little like popcorn. Throw in the wine and squeeze in the squid ink, and cook until almost dry. Add a decent amount of the octopus dashi and check for seasoning. Because the liquid is highly flavoured, you will probably only need a tiny amount of salt, if any. Keep adding liquid until the rice is tender, finishing with water if necessary. 

*We use 'Bomba' paella rice from Valencia for this because it is able to absorb more liquid than other types of rice without breaking down, and is more forgiving when reheated. With a little care, it shouldn't be a problem using more easily available short grain rice.

It is of utmost importance that pre-cooked rice be chilled and stored as quickly as possible for reasons of hygiene. If you intend to reheat your rice spread it as thinly as possible on a tray to cool, and refrigerate as soon as possible. It is best to do this a maximum of two days in advance.

Step 5: The Finished Dish:
Place your cod portions on an oiled and lined tray, and bake in a pe-heated oven (200 degrees) for twenty minutes. You now have ample time to put everything together. Bring the rice back up to serving temperature in a pan over low heat, checking for seasoning, and adding a little cheese if you so desire. We add smoked curd cheese to add an extra element of flavour and also to hold the rice together, adding a little water as it goes. Just before serving, melt some butter in a pan with a little lemon juice and salt, and gently fry the reserved octopus. It is already cooked, but crisp ing up the outside in butter really helps, and adding a few capers really brings something to the party. When everything is hot and delicious, add a tablespoon or so of the paprika XO emulsion, and coat the octopus. 

By this point the fish is probably cooked. It will tense up, appear opaque and be just on the point of flaking when it's about ready. Put a dollop of rice on each plate, top with the cod and then garnish with the octopus.

Adventures in Wonderland

This post has been a long time coming, but I feel I've needed to let a certain amount of time pass in order for me to digest what my experience has meant to me, and how it has changed me and the way I cook. Over a year ago, I convinced my parents to join me for lunch in a Leeds restaurant, at a place I thought might be a big deal. I'd heard that Michelin had been sniffing around the place, and that the food was either the most astonishing case of all mouth and no trousers, or that the chef patron was a potential culinary genius. All we had to do was make the short train ride, pay a reasonable sum of money, and find out. 

As it happened, in the interim between making our booking and turning up for lunch, The Man Behind The Curtain gained it's Michelin star, whilst simultaneously Michael O'Hare became something of a televisual star chef on the back of his appearance on the BBC's Great British Menu. Suffice it to say that by this point expectations were riding fairly high. I'd convinced my folks on the back of Marina O'Louglin's Guardian piece, but now the viewing public and the rubber man were in on the act as well, so, despite not knowing what to expect, we knew that we expected something special, whatever that night be.

What followed was one of the most memorable lunches of my life. By way of an introduction we were served a devastatingly dry and crisp cava, which I think was the Augusto Torelli Mata Kripta, but more astonishing was the langoustine tartare, mussel consommé and parsley oil. We tasted it,then looked at each other with a wordless glance that said 'yes'. You already know what the food is like, you've seen the pictures.

I'm incredibly grateful that I hadn't seen the pictures, that I don't know what was coming. If you come up with such stunning a dish as presa and secretos of Iberian pork, boquerone anchovies, smoked egg yolk and so on, it rightly becomes famous. I'm just glad it was a surprise, because what a surprise!

Like a magic trick, the dishes became more impossible and more delicious every time I remembered them, with each re-telling everything became more exquisite and surprising. Each time I though about what I'd eaten, I became more obsessed, more determined to find out how the trick had been done. I had to know what happened backstage. As the immaculately wonderful Penn and Teller tell us, you never do the same trick twice, you don't let the audience see your preparation, and you NEVER do the cups and balls with clear plastic glasses. I wanted to see the kitchen's balls with clear glasses.

I emailed the restaurant, and, after finally getting the email adress right, tried again, and was surprised to receive a prompt response. I assumed there'd be plenty of chefs would be willing to apply to skivvy in the kitchen for free just to see how it all came together. Once agin, I'd got in just in time. Could I commit to doing a week? Yes I could, and with the help of some friends with a spare room in Kirkstall, I promptly booked a week off work, and booked myself and my BMX on a train to Leeds, simultaneously rigid with excitement and crapping my pants that I'd just blagged my way into the country's most talked about restaurant kitchen.

I'm not sure I was ever really myself for all the time that I was there. I'd be shredding potatoes on a mandolin, or skinning a side of cod, or scooping the fleshy innards from sea urchins with a golden teaspoon, then I'd catch myself, look up and think 'shit, this is actually happening' . The first night after staff lunch, the lights were dimmed and I was putting hake cheeks and marinated cod into a water bath for service, for actual customers. Paying customers in a Michelin starred restaurant that had a couple of months previously blown my mind. 

It was, if anything, the sheer ordinariness of it all that was the most jarring and uncanny, but of course, that is when the penny started to drop. Cooking at this level is only attainable by the meticulous coordination of processes executed with rigorous and exacting control. What was eaten that night had been rehearsed ad infinitum by previous services, and that nights service was a rehearsal for those that would follow. It's something that I find particularly irksome about the term 'experimental cuisine', as though experiment is something that happens when all the shackles are off, and you throw out the rule book and just see what happens. If experimental science worked like that planes would fall out of the sky and medicines wouldn't work. In order to innovate competently, you need a deep understanding of what happens when you do things the usual way, and you must understand how and why such things behave.

This ties into the lasting effect of my time there, and it was something I didn't expect. Working in that environment caused me to break down certain barriers and experiment and mix things I did know, and had researched and looked into. I consider myself very tied to classical and old school French cooking, the stuff you teach yourself by reading Escoffier, Jane Grigson, Julia Child, Claudia Roden and Jonathan Meades at university (ok, maybe that's just me). At the same time, I'd become obsessed by the cooking I saw all around me growing up in Sheffield, successive waves of immigration from Italy and India, and most importantly, China. 

There's a line of reasoning that goes that the most authentic cultural expression of a people's cuisine exists where they are outsiders. You only get steak and kidney pudding in Buenos Aires be use that's where the ex-pats need it.  In Sheffield, down home Chinese places turn out Chengdu classics, because it's in vogue for Chinese restaurants at the moment, but also because it's what the massive student population want, food is a form of remembering. What has this got to so with my time as a stagiere in Leeds you ask? Let me explain:

I had no idea that I would come away from The Man Behind The Curtain feeling that the regional Chinese cookery of my home town and my classical French background would be forever inseparable, but there you go. It gave me the confidence to think that all the influences that go into what I cook could coalesce, and hopefully make something personal to me, and more importantly, make me a much better cook, by using what I understand, with rigour, but also creative freedom. The best holiday I ever took.

Hoi Sin and Fermented Chilli Lamb On Toast

Now that it is pretty much a given that every menu has pork belly on it, it's time to give lamb breast it's moment of glory. This recipe really needs a slow cooker. If you don't have one,then go out and get yourself one. They can be had for for cheap, and have so many uses that they belong in every home. I'll explain some of the other stuff you can do later. Because the initial cooking of the lamb takes a long time, it's best to do a large batch, then freeze it in portion size bags. The joy of this is that you're never more than ten minutes away from the ultimate post pub snack.

Buy as much lamb breast as you can pack into your slow cooker, and cover with a neutral oil. Set the thermostat to the lowest setting, and leave to confit for at least twenty four hours. It might seem counterintuitive to cook a fatty piece of meat in yet more fat, but the slow cooking renders the fat from the meat, leaving you with a delicious by product that you can store in the fridge, covered with a layer of salt. 

When the meat is fully cooked,you should be able to push a spoon through it, so very carefully lift from the oil and cool on a wire wrack suspended over a tray. When cool enough to handle simply pull away the meat from the bones and spread on a try, then freeze for ten minutes. This cooling will set the meat and make it easier to deal with. Place your sheet of lamb on a board and roughly chop. At this point the hard work is over. Anything you don't need immediately can be bagged up and frozen. Press the bags flat so that they will defrost in moments in warm water when your feeling frail and in need of a quick and steadying repast.

The sauce is based in the traditional flavours of Sichuanese twice cooked pork, with a couple of modifications. 

Equal quantities of Hoi Sin sauce, and fermented broad bean paste (Hong Yu Du Ban)

This will be quite thick, so let it down with soy sauce (ideally Shibanuma 18 month, available from Oisoi) and balsamic vinegar.

Into a very lightly oiled pan or wok, cook as much lamb as you desire over a high flame. Because it is still quite fatty and has a high surface area, it will crisp up and colour very quickly. Off the heat, toss in a dollop of sauce and mix until everything is combined and smelling seriously awesome. This is really too good to put onto toasted triangles of sliced white, but we don't all have an artisan spelt bâtard to hand, though decent toast will thank you for being topped with this delicious concoction. We finish the it with smoked curd cheese, capers and white anchovies, adding a few textures and tastes that complement the lamb.

If this recipe doesn't convince you to go out and get a slow cooker, there are many more possibilities. Eaten a roast chicken? Don't bin the carcasses slow cook it overnight with veg trimmings and you've got the basis of a decent soup or risotto. In fact, for the home cook, a slow cooker is the ideal stockpot, allowing you to make slow simmered brown stocks and soups. I once threw a couple of lobster shells and a tin of tomatoes in my slow cooker overnight, and drank the results for breakfast. That was a good day.

Busman's Holiday

 A perk of my job is that I get to take my days off in the week.  Of course, this is something younger chefs find difficult. The demands of the industry are such that we are forced to work weekends, bank holidays and such. While the rest of the world is enjoying a long weekend or going out for after work drinks, service industry at its most pressed. No doubt it is the shock of long hours and curtailed social life that leads so many new recruits to the realisation that this is not something they want to stick at.  On the other hand, I very much enjoy the opportunity to get out and about while the ordinary world is at work. The streets are not thronged with tourists, the queues at the bar are short or non existent, and best of all, I can always get a table in a restaurant.

I'm quite happy to eat alone. Now that so many people can be seen sharing a table, yet ignoring each other whilst staring at their electronic devices, I think the stigma of eating by oneself can be well and truly put to rest. Anyhow, this is far from being my point. What I am driving at is that at least one day a week, I try and get out of Sheffield, and ideally visit somewhere I have never been before. I recently ended up in Hull on a whim, after a points failure and subsequent delay made me despair of seeing out the rest of the journey to Beverley. Thankfully, I was able to call on the advice of a friend who directed me to Princess Avenue, where I found a coctail bar that served fish and chips. The girl behind the bar wanted me to have a fruity strawberry and vodka number, because it was a new recipe shed just learned. The guy up a ladder doing the sign writing asked me what I'd ordered, and was genuinely interested if I liked it. Just as he was finishing his work on the new restaurant, his mates turned up in their white van. A couple of them asked if I liked the food, and said they'd just been for a calzone at a place down the road, but that they'd eaten here before and really liked it. 

 Every city, every large grouping together of peoples is bound to throw up plenty of good places to eat, but for the ignorant traveller, they can be hard to find. This is probably more so the case for a visitor to Sheffield, than it is to a city of comparable size. Sheffield is more centrifugal than most cities for loads of reasons I won't go into here, but imagine being a first time visitor, fresh off the train and deposited by a skillfully wrought, but heavy handed, urban planning scheme, via the Millenium Garries, to the Peace Gardens. What are the chances that you're going to discover the joys of London Road, the boutique gastronomy of  Rafters or Peppercorn, or top notch burger and pizza at Kelham Island, not to mention decent pubs? So I thought I should do a quick rundown of places where the gastronomically sentient traveller on a tight budget should visit.

Gusto on Chapel Walk. Quite pricey, but to my mind the only actual 'restaurant' in Central Sheffield. Run by a fantastic couple (she cooks, he manages the floor),  properly Italian.

Noodle Inn Centro on Westfield Terrace. One of my favourite places to eat in the world. The food is never outstanding, it doesn't take your breath away. Once or twice, it's made mistakes. David Chan's Noodle Inn places are almost a chain, and every time they open a new place, the staff change and the food at each of his kitchens might experience a wobble. I'm more than willing to forgive these teething troubles, because when on point, as they usually are, his chefs turn out the nuts and bolts of some fantastic classical Sichuanese dishes and dim sum.

Other places in town (other than me) are Eten, down by the cathedral, run by my first head chef, the astonishingly capable Lee Vintin, and various other places I haven't eaten in enough to judge, Lucky Fox (decent down home Americana) and Seafayre. You can do a lot worse than wander round the back of John Lewis and get some Fish and Chips, but if not, you're in the right place to go down the road and get a burrito from Street Food Chef or an edible falafel from Fanoush. 

If you're willing to travel the short distance into the burbs, then all sorts of joy waits you in the form of Urban Choola, Two Steps - for mystical reasons our best chippy, and Made by Jonty. Resident of Sharrow Vale, not content with the best kebabs (Elif) and a world class chip shop, have a competent bakery in the form of Seven Hills, independent butchers and fishmongers, people making their own pasta, and soon, an Urban Quarter burger restaurant, I'm the last person in the world to get excited about meat disks, but these people have got it right.

Like so many things about our city, you have to get out of the middle to properly appreciate it. I only hope that this is of some use to visitors, and maybe to natives also. 

Why do 'We Want Plates'?

If you are reading this, then I assume you are a hip and funky gastronaut, technically savvy, with your sticky donut finger in the eye of the storm of the culinary zeitgeist. It's the same finger you're currently using to swipe through this post on your iPhone whilst ignoring the person you're supposed to be having lunch with. It's ok. They are doing the same, and I doubt they're reading anything as lucid and edgy as this. Carry on. 

Now, as someone who likes to keep abreast of developments in the foodsphere, your knowledge of social media will have brought you into contact with the account 'We Want Plates'. Like its contemporary 'Get In The Sea', it exists to puncture the pretentious wankiness of the way in which much modern food is served. I've no doubt that there are a good few chefs actively trying to figure out the most preposterous way of serving a portion of chips, just so they can get their food featured on this account. I've considered buying a load of child size Wellington boots, so you can have that one for free. It's all good fun, to point and laugh, after all, it's just a bit of fun, and what's wrong with injecting levity into meal times?

We could stop there, but I think it is interesting to wonder how we ended up with this current state of affairs. Chefs have always done silly things with food. We cook when we are not hungry, or at least we cook to satisfy needs that go beyond the bounds of mere sustenance, and in an effort to get noticed, otherwise sensible and able cooks sometimes do ridiculous things, such as serve bread in a flat cap. Undoubtedly, what has fed this tidal wave of pretentious gimmickry is the ever growing dependence of the foodbiz to be visually appealing. 

We've been here before. When browsing cookbooks in Waterstones, how often do we stop to read the recipes? More likely than not, we flip through and check the pictures. Now celebrating it's silver anniversary, who can doubt that Bob Carlos Clarke's enigmatic monochrome photography is the primary selling point of White Heat? The colour studio shots of Marco Pierre White's immaculately composed dishes are still stunning however, but to modern eyes they seem oddly stiff and dated. Where is the microcress? Where are the edible flowers and and smears?

The truly ridiculous thing is that fashion controls the way chefs put food on plates as surely as it dictates the waistline of their designer denims, and it's a treadmill in which we are all complicit. The primacy placed on food's visual appeal, despite the decrease in popularity of 'fayn daynin' is now stronger than ever, and the major catalyst for this has been the growth of social media. A picture speaks a thousand words, but those words take time to read, and sometimes they are about boring things, like ingredients and technique.

I'm as guilty as the next person in relying on photography to give me an instant hit. Go to a chef or restaurant's website, or more likely Twitter feed, and the first thing you do is check the gallery, or swipe through the photos, because it's so much easier to take in at a glance. I'm also culpable in using food photography in my quest for self promotion, and more importantly, to push the public perception of what our kitchen is capable of. On the whole, I don't think food photography is a bad thing, but (I can hear the cliché counter clocking up), we've well and truly put the cart before the horse. It's this self perpetuating treadmill of presentation that is in danger of occluding what really matters.

I ate once in a restaurant which we might refer to as a serial offender. A young couple were out on a date at the table next to me. The bread came out in a flat cap. Whilst the young chap popped to the loo, she took a photo with her phone. When laddo returned, the process was repeated. Everyone smiled. The problem is, as long as gastronomic success is predicated on theatrical bullshit, we will continue to miss what really matters. Those boring things like craft, knowledge, ingredients and technique will continue to take a back seat as long as chefs and restaurants cater to the basic needs keeping up with fashion. It's time for a rethink. Yes, we want plates, but it's time we also started calling for substance over style, ability over trickery. Everything else can get in the sea.

I never set out to write this blog in order to critique meals I'd eaten, or to recommend or damn places you might consider going to. My main reason for this is that there are plenty of people doing this already. If that wasn't reason enough, I might also add there are people doing that particular job very well. I haven't the inclination to go to new restaurants, to follow their PR statements, and to queue around the block for the latest burger joint, and besides, I don't live in Manchester. Sheffield is already a small enough pond with competent noise on social media telling you where to eat, and if you're into 'fine dining' then there are plenty of people with more experience than me of such establishments who are willing to ruin an expensive evening by taking a camera phone along. It just so happens I went to a good restaurant tonight by mistake.

I had planned to go to Yankees, a place that did burgers and fries on the Sundays when, as a child, my parents couldn't be bothered to cook. I'd recently returned from an American holiday where, because I'd spent a week in Vegas spending every available cent on the dinner table as opposed to the roulette, I simplistically thought a dose of meaty Americana would fill the yawning gap in my soul. I'd already heard of Smith & Baker. It occupies the same premises where an earlier version of the Richard Smith business model had attempted eastern no frills and sticky fingers Yankee trash with equal measures of failure. I've already mentioned that gastronomically, Sheffield is a small pond. Clinging to this watery analogy, Smithy is a big fish. 

I don't mean this to come across as faint praise. Few people have stood the test of time in same way, which is in all likelihood down to a mixture of business savvy and being a damn good cook. Most of Sheffield's restaurateurs fall at both hurdles. After a pretty good run, with its pitfalls and failures, it seems to me as though here is a chef who wants to open a small scale bistro style quality restaurant with a small number of diners with an emphasis on fresh gear, a constantly changing menu and solid technique. 

My favourite thing about this place is that it is so hard to say what makes it good. It is not one thing, but it is many things. I can't remember who it was, I think it was Bill Bruffort quoting Paul Bocuse when he said ' it's easy to be a chef, you just have to be perfect and fast'. It's just as easy to run a restaurant, you just have to second guess all your customers, anticipate what they want, serve them with courtesy and be in seven places at once. Easy. I have no idea if the staff at Smith &Baker are capable of this, because it was pretty quiet when I went, but I give them a good chance. Anywhere that has clearly got enough of the details right isn't  likely to fall down when it comes to service, but as I plan to go back, I'll let you know.

As it happens, despite not meaning to go there, I accidentally spent fifty quid on my dinner. I consider this to be a very good sign. I also didn't know that I'd been there for nigh in two hours. For me,the mark of a really good meal is that you forget things. You forget how long you've been there, you forget where you were supposed to be instead. You forget to stop spending money. By far the most endearing thing, certainly for me, is when people forget their table manners. It's a rare kind of joy when you can pick up you soup bowl and drink loudly with liquid running over your chin, or lick your Sunday dinner plate clean. Never trust someone who won't gnaw a pork chop from its bone or eat the fat.

What does this have to do with somewhere I had a good dinner? Well, practically nothing, except this is that sort of place that despite its pricey(ish) menu and decent cocktail list, it's not somewhere you should feel bad about licking butter off the knife, but then again, the more I'm paying, the more entitled I feel to lick the cutlery. Did I mention the cooking? It's really very accomplished. A very good  assiette of raw salmon terrine, accompanied by a very lightly cured gravadlax, with salmon roe and something that looked like caviare (but can't be been)  atop three perfectly cut slices of radish and two very thinly sliced and just al dente slices of pink beetroot. This is the sort of trick only a kitchen on its mettle can turn out.

There was only one glaring error, actually the sort of schoolboy mistake you wouldn't expect from such a menu. On a set prix fixee of three courses, the vegetarian starter and main featured Jerusalem artichoke as a main ingredient. This is cruel and wrong, because I like to order vegetarian things when I know they'll be properly cooked. Delicious as they may be, Jerusalem artichokes (which have about as much to do with Jerusalem as they are artichokes) are a worry to the digestive system at the best of times.  Despite my hatred of this pretender to the vegetable kingdom, it's pathetic pretence, this is still an excellent menu. It's the type of cooking I most admire. Simple bistro cooking with enough bells and whistles, but essentially technically sound execution and flawless service. I couldn't ask more from a restaurant.

Coming to Terms with Tofu

'Village Style' tofu preparations, substituting mushrooms

for pork.

 Like many a lazy little Englander, I grew up with the received notion that tofu was for health freaks. The sort of people who got up early by choice, and ate weird tasteless discs made of bran fortified with fairy dust. This sort of health masochism fares well in Britain. It is the obverse of the national tendency to debase ourselves with kebabs, abattoir effluent sausages, reconstituted frozen meat-like kiddie nuggets, Rustlers Burgers and 'hot' curries. Now that we no longer wear sack cloth and ashes, or self flagellate in public, we choose to cleanse ourselves with a new type of suffering. Witness the preposterous rise of Raw Food Veganism for instance. Anyhow, it is understandable how anyone growing up in such a climate might come to see the favoured foodstuffs of the movement with some disdain. The foodbiz, and this is not particular to veggies or healthies, is ruled by simplistic faddishness. Like tofu, the sandals and yoga crowd adopted quinoa in absentia of recipes or cultural baggage. Nowardays, pretty much everyone has pocketed pulled pork, without taking much of a second glance at the cuisines of barbecue, smoke pit, and southern states creole.

'Ma Po' tofu and rice.

Whilst bean curd is itself vegan, the problem for vegetarians is that pretty much all the best recipes are meat or fish based. In much domestic Chinese cooking for instance, very little meat is used for reasons of economy, but tofu rice and noodles are used in addition, not as a substitute. It would be all too simple to put this type of domestic oriental cuisine on a pedestal, especially as the growing problem of feeding the world's population means that we all need to start figuring out how to eat fewer animals and fast. I personally find restaurant meals, which tend to be skewed in favour of animal protein less satisfying than my home cooking. As an aside, asking China for the answers might not be the best idea. The booming middle class in a country of billions, now demands to eat like the rich, and native land, thick with industrial pollutants cannot sustain the growing population, and besides, if you think the rights of the human animal are meagre, the treatment of livestock would chill any bunny cuddler.

Notwithstanding, I live in Sheffield in the early twenty first century, and if you eat out as often as I do, the chances are you're going to eat a lot of rice and noodles. As luck would have it, Sheffield has cultural links with the capital of Sichuan, Chengdu, a city which has it's own Sheffield United. I promise I'm not making this up: the Chengdu Blades. The important thing is that Chengdu is one of the gastronomic capitals of the East, of a cuisine as reliant on fragrant pepper and fermented chilli as southernmost France is with duck fat. The more I became obsessed by this style of cooking, it became apparent that I was going to have to learn to love certain things. Duck's tongues I can take or leave, and I must learn to appreciate preserved eggs, but it soon became apparent that my childish misapprehensions about tofu couldn't have been more wrong.

One of the finest dishes of the classical repertoire is the fabulous MaPo Tofu, named for the smallpox scarred street vendor who've her name to this particular preparation, now served across the world, albeit often in bastardised forms. Although it is now typical for cooks to use pork, the base is a few grams of minced beef cooked to flavour the oil in the wok, which is then infused with a great dollop of fermented broad bean and chilli paste. This is available in all oriental marts (Hong yo du ban). Buy it. Even if you don't make this recipe, and I implore you to do so), buy it anyway. Put it in soup, beans, burgers, chillis, everything. Once the beef and paste are sizzling away, it's simply a case of adding some stock, spring onions and ground Sichuan pepper, and then letting your cubed tofu simmer and absorb the flavours. Because the bean paste is not particularly hot, chilli powder or oil, or extra pepper allows for tweaking of the flavours to suit your desire for chilli sweats. I haven't given this as an exact recipe because it's something that should come naturally and is easily made in a few minutes while your rice is boiling. Rice cooking water can be substituted for stock, though leftover gravy adds a serious boost. You can eliminate the meat altogether, though I feel this lacks something, so if you want a totally vegan version, start with a good quantity of chopped mushrooms, or better still dried shiitakes, porcini, or such, with a tablespoon of 'olive vegetable' for extra depth of flavour.

These adaptations are unashamedly inauthentic, but then authenticity in food is an ambiguous idea. What matters, with all cooking, is that we have to delve into the past if we want to learn how to do things right. Repeat what others have done before you, and then repeat yourself, again, and again, and again. Jumping aboard the bandwagon of the latest 'super food' may be all the rage, but there is more pleasure and craft to be learned from tradition, and that is how I came to terms with tofu.

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