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.