oldfields real food club

A few potholes show up on the entrepreneurial road

2010-09-10T03:48:00.000-07:00

It was 14 years ago that I opened my first restaurant in the small Durham
Dales town of Barnard Castle. After seven years I sold it to concentrate on
the developing restaurant I'd opened in Durham and a further restaurant in
Jesmond. It was a good move as it enabled me to grow the business and, at
last, pay myself a living wage.

But also, it removed my dependence on chefs who, by the extreme nature of
the job, often tend to be young and single and therefore have an aversion
to growing up in, what I'd learnt to be, a beautiful if rather quiet rural
idyll. Night clubs and potential girlfriends were rather thin on the ground
in Barney and after a while, despite my best efforts to promote the benefits
of the clean dales air and the gentle pace of life, the greener grass of the
pavements of the metropolis always beckoned seductively. I lived my life
like an ugly chap with a gorgeous girlfriend: always fearing that someone
more attractive would woo her away.

It was a problem not experienced in a larger restaurant in the big city. Far
from me continuously advertising for chefs or tapping up the employees of
other establishments, I found experienced professionals knocking on the
doors of our restaurants in Durham and Jesmond as they saw us as their own
path of green grass on the way to greater things.

Life continued to be ever-more exciting because business was good. And then
one day, while standing on the top of a cliff in drizzle-soaked Cornwall, I
received a call from a gentleman offering to buy our Jesmond restaurant from
us and, after a few weeks of negotiation, we shook on a deal. Thus we
started to plan our move into the city centre of Newcastle and found
fabulous premises down the bottom of Dean Street.

But this entrepreneurial road is a rocky one with unexpected bends and pot
holes and it's with regret that we closed our Newcastle restaurant the other
day. Despite having a loyal and enthusiastic customer base, along with those
visitors that Newcastle attracts, and some wonderful staff, I made the
difficult business decision to close because we weren't finding the business
there in the way that continues to be found in the Durham restaurant.

Of course, I've spent much time analysing the situation, asking myself what
we could do better but I'm sure that my impeccable timing had a lot to do
with things; opening the doors to trade just as the banks were announcing
that they might have to do the opposite.

Maybe there's also an irony here in that the recession could be persuading
more people to do what I've long argued in the press; that is cooking
their own meals at home. But somehow I doubt it. As a percentage of the
population, fewer people actually prepare their own meals in comparison with
times gone by and the situation doesn't appear to be changing.

However, despite it seeming to be a way of cutting off my nose to spite my
face, I'll continue trying to persuade more people to cook at home because
it's the only way we can actually understand what we're eating and thus
balance one of the most important and enjoyable things in our lives.

And there's the added benefit that understanding and enjoying how to cook
means that it's much easier to control the budget in these challenging
times. Maybe that might leave a little over to finance the occasional visit
to support the beleaguered restaurant industry. Eating out is a luxury
rather than a necessity and is bound to be one of those things to be
considered for the chop when you're looking at ways to reduce the budget.
But spare a thought for those young professionals who, along with teachers
and health professionals and others, need to progress their careers. Budget
carefully and leave a little aside for the occasional restaurant visit.
We've got to look after our budding Jamie Olivers.

A similar article appeared in the Journal.

Venison Wellington

2010-06-03T06:01:00.002-07:00

At Oldfields, we’re lucky enough to get venison from Raby Estates down in Teesdale. Traditionally kept on country estates for both food and sport, deer are now generally kept as part of the view and contribute much as a tourist attraction. However, they need managing and their numbers controlled by occasional culling. As a result, I picked up a couple of roe deer last week and our head chef, Anthony Taylor, decided to use the loins for a twist on Beef Wellington. And the results were a triumph. Just as tender as the normal beef fillet that’s traditionally used but with much more flavour.

You should always be able to get venison from good butchers as well as estate farm shops and some farmers’ markets. However, you could always make the dish with the equivalent weight of beef fillet.

Serves two

One pack of frozen puff pastry – defrosted
300g venison loin in one piece
100g button mushrooms
One clove of garlic - peeled
½ a medium onion – peeled and roughly-chopped
The leaves of a sprig of thyme picked from the stalk
Two egg yokes - beaten
A knob of butter
Oil for cooking
Salt and freshly-ground black pepper

Place the mushrooms, garlic, thyme and mushrooms in a blender or food processor and blend to a course paste. Spoon into a dry pan and, stirring occasionally, place over a low heat; gently cooking until all the resulting liquid has reduced and evaporated and you’re left with a thick, black paté. Season with salt and pepper then allow to cool before placing in the fridge to chill.

Heat a frying pan, add a tablespoon of oil and then the venison, followed by the butter. Cook the meat for no more than 90 seconds on either side and the finished dish will be medium rare. Remove from the pan and place in the fridge to chill.

To cook, pre-heat the oven to 200°C, gas mark 6. Roll the pastry into a large square and spread with the cold mushroom paté, leaving a 3cm gap around the edge. Place the venison in the middle and wrap the meat up in the pastry; trimming as necessary. Brush all over with the egg yokes, place on a baking tray and cook in the oven for 15 minutes before removing and allowing to rest for five minutes.

To serve, cut into two portions through the diagonal and serve with spring vegetables.

Ethical meat

2010-06-03T06:01:00.000-07:00

It’s only a suggestion; but I reckon, if you’re a vegetarian, look away now. Because not only is this diatribe about meat, it’s also about the killing of animals. It’s not a subject most people like talking about and, as a result, is seldom given thought by the vast majority of us. Because . . . well, we don’t like to, do we? But maybe we should.

Now, if you watch the telly a bit, and most of us do, you’ll have seen much talk in recent times about how animals that are bred and reared to be eaten, are treated during their growing time on this planet. Chefs Hugh, Jamie and Gordon have all done their bit by daring to enlighten the meat-consuming public of their responsibilities. And, despite having concurrent motives involving the successful amassing of wealth, they really should be applauded for their efforts because the intensive rearing of animals for food is something most of us have known little about.

It’s something I feel very strongly about. It’s why we, at Oldfields as a restaurant company, try to source as much of our meat as we can from non-intensive producers. It’s why I, as an individual, decided to rear some of my own pigs and sheep in a non-intensive way so that I could begin to understand the issues and problems and costs associated with the whole thing. It also enabled me to understand some of the foreign language that I thought farmers talked. It’s why now, I’m bilingual.

But that’s the breeding and rearing bit. Because then comes the part that few talk or know about. And, due to government legislation driving our local practitioners out of the market, most abattoirs are large, factory affairs where the public glean even less knowledge than they would from the small slaughterhouse around the back of the local butchers. Gone are the days that the chap selling you the Sunday joint could tell you about it’s entire history from birth to counter display.

But if it’s important that our animals are reared responsibly, surely it’s just as important that they’re despatched just as thoughtfully? I think it’s important that it’s done right. The professionals in the bigger places might think I’m soft; that I don’t understand the bigger picture and the pressures on business, but I’m not so sure.

I know it may, nay does, ultimately cost more. I know that in these challenging times we need things to be as cheap as possible. But it’s that word “cheap” that sits so uncomfortably with me when considering the lives of other creatures; creatures over which we sit as arbiters of life and, inevitably, death.

There are many reasons as to why this process should be as thoughtful as possible; not least that the calmer and quicker an animal meets its demise, the better the resultant meat.

But surely the bigger issue is that we, the superior animal at the top of the food chain (at least until the aliens arrive), are able to decide how those other animals spend their time alive and have their lives ended at our behest. Because, don’t forget, we decide that they are going to exist in the first place. So it’s entirely down to us as to how they live, and ultimately die.

So that brings me to a conversation I had with a lovely lady called Sue at Simpson’s the butchers in Cockfield, County Durham. Sue has recently been involved with the reopening of the traditional yet very caring and professional abattoir behind this very traditional butcher’s shop. So passionate and caring is she about the whole operation that she said, without any forethought or planning that, if she were to need a major operation, she’d rather have it done at the back of Joe Simpson’s butcher’s shop than in a hospital!

And if you’re going to eat meat, and if you care about how it’s been treated before it’s reached your plate, could you ask for a better endorsement that that?

Salmon with tomato and wild garlic

2010-06-03T05:59:00.001-07:00

It’s spring and there’s wild garlic, also known as ransoms, growing in woodland, along river banks and where the bluebells grow. Different from the bulb garlic we’re all used to, it’s the leaves that you use. They’re long and deep green and, when crushed in your hand, smell of fresh garlic. It’s easy enough to find, identify (by the smell if nothing else) and pick. However, it’s worth moving that little bit away from the path before gathering; particularly if there are plenty of dog walkers about. And if you can’t pick it yourself, you’ll sometimes find it at farm shops and farmers’ markets.

Serves two

Four salmon fillets, skin on and scaled
Four ripe tomatoes
One bunch of wild garlic
50ml rapeseed or olive oil plus a little more for frying
Sea salt
Freshly-ground black pepper
One bunch of watercress
Two inner sticks of celery with leaves still on
A little fresh parsley

Before starting, check the salmon fillets for pin bones by running your hand across the flesh and removing any small bones with tweezers or pointy pliers.

Then, with the point of a sharp knife, remove the eyes from the tomatoes and then cut them into rough lumps. Place in a bowl, season with a little salt and pepper and put to one side.

Place half the wild garlic and the 50ml of oil in a blender or food processor and whizz until you’ve a pungent green dressing.

Heat a frying pan, add a little oil and place the salmon fillets in, skin side down. Season with salt and pepper and don’t touch them for at least five, possibly seven, minutes, until the skin is nice and crisp. Gently turn them over and cook for another three to four minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and keep warm.

Wash the watercress and parsley and shake dry. Tear up the remainder of the wild garlic, roughly chop the celery including their leaves and toss them together with the tomatoes and a small amount of the green dressing.

Spoon the tomato and watercress salad onto a couple of plates, place the salmon alongside and dribble the rest of the dressing over and around.

Let's bring a little balance

2010-06-03T05:58:00.001-07:00

It’s good to be certain. Believing that you’re absolutely right about something a little contentious can give you that feeling of superiority; or a confidence in yourself that you might not otherwise have. Even if you’re wrong.

A good example is that Scottish police chief constable you may have read about who, in the 1930s, not only believed in the Loch Ness monster but was actively trying to provide it with police protection. "That there is some strange creature in Loch Ness seems now beyond doubt, but that the police have any power to protect it is very doubtful," he said.

But as time’s moved on and we’ve become more savvy and sceptical, I think most reasonable people accept that, despite wishing these things existed, there isn’t much chance of Nessie ever popping her head up and posing for the cameras. Because, like fairies at the bottom of the garden, she doesn’t actually exist. No, she doesn’t.

Or take St George and his dragon. Aside from the fact that the man himself makes a doubtful English patron saint, hailing from Turkey and never having visited our green and pleasant land; dragons are a touch contentious too. Admit it, when did you last see a genuine, fire-breathing dragon? Therefore, unless Turkish George was just too good at his job and wiped them all out, it seems they’re a bit of a myth too.

It was while reading about the quaint Scottish copper that, at the same time on the radio (yes, I can multitask), I heard a lady telling me about various superfoods. And she was very certain about everything and was probably convinced that because she lives on blueberries and doesn’t eat fat, she’ll live to be 150.

She was very enthusiastic and brimmed with confidence. There’s no doubt that she believed she knew something we didn’t and was desperate to share it. Just like those that used to tell us that a surfeit of carrots would mean that we’d never need a torch again. Or that wolfing down spinach would make us as strong as Popeye.

Sure, carrots are a good source of vitamin A and without it our eyesight would suffer. However, eating more of it has never been shown to improve sight. It seems (or is this another myth?) that a story was circulated to fool the Germans during the second world war saying that our gunners were being fed carrots so that they could shoot down more enemy aircraft. When in fact it was the newfangled radar that improved their sight.

And spinach may contain lots of strength-making iron but, due to other chemicals in the leaves, our bodies aren’t terribly good at absorbing it.

Then there are cholesterol-packed eggs that we were told would, sure as eggs is eggs, give you a heart attack if you ate more than one a year – until we were told otherwise and it’s now fine to eat an egg a day. Poor old prawns seemed to suffer from a similar myth.

So I can’t help but be sceptical when I hear that some new fruit smoothie made from yaks milk and gooseberry leaves will be more likely to keep me alive than the varied diet I currently enjoy. The enjoyment of food itself is such an important part of my life that it rather spoils it to examine each bit and question whether it’ll change the length of my life rather than its quality.

Let’s stop trying to eat what’s good for us and just learn to eat a bit of it all. Food itself isn’t mythical but the effects in can have on our lives can be magic – especially when cooked and consumed in the company of family and friends. However, there’s always the exception that proves the rule. So don’t go trying to tell me that half a dozen oysters won’t have an effect. Because if I believe they do, they do.

Rhubarb trifle

2010-06-03T05:57:00.001-07:00

Used as a fruit but actually a vegetable, it means I nearly always go to the wrong part of the wholesale market to try and get rhubarb. You may have a rhubarb plant and not be convinced that it’s the season yet. Well, after the recent cold winter, you may be right. But we’ve a tradition in this country of forcing rhubarb; that is, covering it to make it come early. And it’s the resulting pale and interesting stems that can give us one of the first fruity tastes of summer – even though it’s still not a fruit.

Unless you have a palate for things very tart, it’ll always need at least a little sweetening. Used here in our trifle, that’s done with the sugar and lemonade. The recipe calls for a homemade custard but, if you were short of time, there’s no reason why you couldn’t use a tin of readymade custard with a little vanilla essence added.

400g rhubarb
140g castor sugar
One vanilla pod
150ml lemonade
550ml double cream
275ml milk
Three leafs of gelatine
Eight egg yolks
One pack of sponge fingers
One trifle bowl

Chop the rhubarb into 1 inch pieces, put into a non-aluminium pan with the lemonade and 100g of the castor sugar and cook gently until the rhubarb has broken down.

Meanwhile, soak the gelatine leaves in cold water and, when soft, remove from the water and squeeze out the excess before mixing it into the cooked rhubarb until dissolved.

Cover the base of the trifle bowl with the sponge fingers, breaking them if necessary, and then spoon the rhubarb mixture over the top. Refrigerate for an hour or two until set.

Meanwhile, make the custard by putting half the cream and all the milk into a pan and gently bring to the boil. While it’s heating, place a pan containing an inch or so of water on to heat to come to a simmer. Split the vanilla pod lengthways and scrape out the seeds. Place them into a bowl along with the egg yolks and 30g of the remaining sugar. Whisk them together a little and, when the cream and milk comes to the boil, pour over the egg yolk mix, whisking all the time. Place the bowl on top of the pan of simmering water and stir continuously until the custard starts to thicken and coat the back of the spoon. Remove the bowl from the pan, allow the custard to cool and then spoon over the rhubarb jelly before returning it to the fridge to set.

To serve, whisk the remainder of the cream and sugar until it forms soft peaks and spoon this over the custard. Then maybe sprinkle over some grated chocolate or almonds or both or anything you can think of.

Ham shank and peas pudding

2010-06-03T05:54:00.001-07:00

My love of the North East started with a girl but quickly embraced peas pudding. However, some years ago, if you’d seen it on a restaurant menu you’d have done a pretty quick body swerve.

Now though, we serve it in Oldfields at lunch as a starter and it flies out of the kitchen. And while it takes a little time on the cooker, there’s little effort involved. It’s well worth the wait.

Serves four as a light lunch, starter or supper

One ham shank
250g yellow split peas
One onion – peeled and chopped
One sprig of thyme
Two bay leaves
One carrot – peeled
Two sticks of celery – roughly chopped
Salt and freshly-ground black pepper
A little chopped parsley or a few chopped chives to finish

Place the ham shank in a large pan along with the carrot, celery, bay leaves and thyme. Cover with cold water, bring to the boil and simmer gently for around a couple of hours or until the meat is falling from the bone.

When cooked, remove the meat and bone from the liquid and allow to cool on a plate. Strain the liquid through a sieve into a clean pan and add the chopped onion and split peas. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 60 to 90 minutes or until the peas are completely broken down. Pour the lot into a food processor or similar and blend until smooth; adjusting the seasoning with salt and pepper as necessary. Allow to cool.

Remove and discard the fat from the now cool ham shank and tear the meat from the bone into coarse pieces.

To serve, place a dollop of peas pudding on a plate with a handful of ham alongside. Give a couple of twists of pepper, sprinkle chopped parsley or chives over the top and serve with buttered crusty bread.

Local please - but only if it's quality

2010-06-03T05:53:00.000-07:00

I love where I live. I live in Teesdale, not far from Barnard Castle and I’m lucky that I’m just a few minutes from the A1 and a main rail station, yet I’m also in the depths of some of the best countryside in the UK. And I’m surrounded by it.

Then Teesdale’s in the North East. Not necessarily the most fashionably-regarded region in the country but that’s because most people, southerners mainly, just don’t realise what they’re missing. I made the decision to live here some 30 years ago which while it may not come as a shock to you, it certainly does to me seeming like only ten years. That means I’m older than I think. Or act.

But anyway, while I frequently wax lyrical to all those friends I left behind in the South, it doesn’t mean that the place is perfect.

I love the people but sometimes wish I could see more aspiration. I love the countryside but it is scarred by some pretty dreadful architecture; and some dodgy tractor driving. There’re some great pubs but, with my latent southern proclivities, I do like my beer slightly warmer than is common around here.

So while I couldn’t think of a better place in the UK to live, it’s not perfect. Especially the temperature of the beer.

So I have an issue when it comes to the “buy local” campaigns that I, and the Newcastle Journal along with other influential bodies, promote to such effect. Oh yes, I’m a great fan of buying local, but only if it’s good enough.

I’m old enough, just, to recall the Buy British campaign back in the sixties. I think it was an initiative of Barbara Castle and it resulted in great use of the union jack. I remember images of carrier bags being swung by mini-skirted beauties with the flag on one side and the Buy British slogan on the other; the bags not the girls that is.

But I don’t remember it actually being a great success in its prime objective which was to get us to buy stuff made here. Why? Because you could get better stuff from elsewhere, that’s why.

And just because you have an enormous frozen food factory on your doorstep doesn’t mean that everything to come out of it is worthwhile, despite it benefitting the local economy by employing local people.

So I’ve trained myself to think “quality” if possible. And if I can buy it produced in our region, then great. But just to buy it because it’s local alone could be to encourage mediocrity and that doesn’t feel right to me.

However, when it comes to food, just knowing it comes from a local farm or someone’s kitchen down the road has a way of making it taste better anyway. Let’s just make sure that we encourage our producers to offer us the best they’ve got. They can send the rest of the stuff down south.

It really is all worth it

2010-04-24T00:21:00.000-07:00

As a species, we seem to be inexorably drawn to finding a nice, neat way of explaining our environment; our universe; as to why we're here at all. Almost as much as our recent increase in national debt (but obviously not quite that much) has been spent on a giant electro-magnet in Switzerland known as CERN which, when the egg-heads get it to work properly, will tell us what the universe is made of. Once and for all. In a simple, easily understandable way. Maybe.

These type of experiments (and long may they continue) suggest that it's as if we desperately need to sum up our lives and existence with a simple answer and, all too often, a single phrase. Life's full of them: a stitch in time saves nine (whatever that means), one swallow doesn't make a summer and, closer to home for me, too many cooks spoil the broth. Really? Sometimes we could do with a lot more cooks and too few cooks might mean the broth doesn't get made.

Talking to a few of our chefs recently, I did a little survey by asking each one: how important is good eating to you? Their response was swift. Of course good eating's important. They spend many hard-working hours in hot kitchens ensuring that our customers leave happy. But that's not what I meant.

Over the years I've worked with many chefs who never eat what they cook professionally. The food they cooked at home, if they cooked at all, was nothing like that in their restaurants. In fact, at one stage, I came to believe that a British chef's staple diet consisted of bacon sandwiches interspersed with the occasional kebab.

That's why I was asking them about the importance of eating because it occurs to me that there's little point in looking at the recipes I write, or of flicking through cook books, if the objective is to actually appreciate food. The enjoyment of eating and the appreciation of good food doesn't necessarily need to be accompanied by an ability to cook. It might help but there are many gourmets who can't cook - and that includes many restaurant critics. One doesn't need to be able to act well to appreciate good theatre. But one really does have to understand eating to cook well.

Understanding that eating is an enjoyment in itself is what's necessary. And opening the mind to what's on offer, pushing prejudices aside and appreciating what others like. Then, if you really want to cook well, you'll know what you're looking for.

I admit that I've argued for years that there's an almost criminal lack of education in our schools when it comes to cooking and I still believe that to be true. But that has to be accompanied by an understanding of how to enjoy eating the result for it really to be useful.

It's not about understanding how to cook but how to enjoy eating. Then recipes can help one understand how to cook in order to attain the level of eating one aspires to. It's about identifying the objective then sorting out the method of achieving it. Then one can become a good cook.

Wow! This is nearly as complicated as finding a universe-unifying theory. But I don't need a subterranean laboratory to identify it. It can be summed up in a simple phrase, one much loved by dictators and despots alike throughout history. When it comes to becoming a good cook it's essential that one appreciates eating. And therefore you need only five words: the end justifies the means.

Rhubarb trifle

2010-04-16T15:04:00.001-07:00

Clothes maketh a man

2010-04-16T15:03:00.001-07:00

Because I’m a man, I can only shop for clothes in two sorts of ways. There’s the best way where I walk with deliberation into the shop, ignore all the offers of help from the assistants, stride up to the requisite rail or shelf, find my size, go straight to the till, pay and leave; all within two minutes of arriving. Or there’s the other way, where I prevaricate for ages, ask the opinion of the shop assistant, the cleaner, my wife and the people coming out of the changing rooms. Then go to another three shops, considering what others might think, before deciding on what I want to buy. And it was probably in the first shop, and I’m definitely not going to wear it more than once, if that, because I got it wrong, it doesn’t fit and I hate it.

I know I should never go shopping in any way other than the first.. But, sadly, I do. At least I don’t spend a large proportion of my life feeling clothes on rails, picking them up, putting them back, picking them up again, holding them against me, holding them up to the light and then putting them down again. And then picking them up again and . . . you know who you are darling. But maybe I should; if only to avoid half a wardrobe of hardly-worn horrible clothes.

I’m better when I go into a bar. I always know what I want long before I get there. And if they don’t have it, I always have a reliable substitute ready. This is different from how others I know do it; those of a different gender to me represented by my wife who, when we get to the bar, always looks surprised when I ask her what she wants. Not because she doesn’t expect me to buy her a drink; far from it. Rather, it appears that she forgets that bars serve drinks. It’s a common ailment.

And then there’s ordering food at a restaurant. “Oh I wish I’d ordered that. Mind if we swap; maybe half way through?” Yes, I do actually because I’ve just spent a good ten minutes taking the carefully-prepared menu very seriously and made my decision with respectful care. So I’m afraid you’re going to have to live with your disappointment. It’s your own fault, after all. Oh, go on then. I’ll finish off your tofu burger while you tuck into the remainder of this venison casserole that I’d been saving ‘til last because it contains the best bits. I hope you realise how lucky you are.

It’s obvious that I’m a lot better at considering a menu than I am at the consideration phase of buying clothes. And, when I’ve made my choice, I’m honourable enough to stick with my decision and not try and make my dining companion feel guilty. I know this sounds as if I’m bitter. Actually I’m not. I’m used to the idea as I’ve been married a very long time and it’s something I’ve learnt to put up with. Like backache.

It’s the others I feel sorry for. I watch them in our restaurants. He’s using the meal as a way of softening her up in the hope that food and wine may just be the way to her heart and other places. So what should he do when she looks longingly at the dish that he’s chosen so carefully and is longing to eat almost as much as he’s longing for his charms to work on her? Well if he knows what’s good for him he should swap dishes. That’s what I do and it’s why I’m still married. Now if only my wife would buy me my clothes.

Who has the answers?

2010-04-16T15:01:00.000-07:00

Isn’t Google brilliant?. It’s an amazingly life-enhancing tool and I love it. How many answers to searches does it provide each day? Zillions probably. And each search takes you to all sorts of amazing websites. But, unfortunately, that’s when the problems begin. Because the information contained therein is controlled by the owners of those sites and is therefore often wrong, or partially correct, but sometimes right. This confusion is not Google’s fault and a lot depends upon how you ask your question and then, of course, the interpretation is down to you too.

But the biggest problem is that too many people, and they tend to be the younger ones amongst us, automatically take whatever they read there to be gospel. I’m acutely aware that I’m beginning to sound like my parents, but in my day, going to the reference library took longer (and as a result often meant the quest was abandoned or guessed at) but there’s absolutely no doubt that the answer you got had a much greater chance of being correct. Sure, as time passed, there will always have been some erroneous answers, such as the world being flat and there only being six elements in the periodic table, but in general there wasn’t too much rubbish around.

But there is now. Just type the word “fat” into a search engine and it appears that there’s general agreement that more than a teaspoon a year of the stuff will kill you in two years. That’s if the sugar-filled dessert doesn’t get you first or three grains of salt make you explode from high blood pressure.

Those three substances alone have been demonised to such an extent that much information is available to tell us than none of them should pass our lips when the absolute facts are that all of them are necessary for life and all of them contribute to an increased quality of life.

To such an extent have we been persuaded that all correct information is immediately at our fingertips that we’re in danger of forgetting to question what we’re being told. And if other august sources of facts, such as radio, TV and the papers, start using unsubstantiated information, incorrect assumptions become absolute truth – with the devil fat being an obvious one.

I’m an addicted listener to BBC radio and the BBC is an institution in which I was brought up to have absolute faith. But I have to remind myself to dissect opinion from fact when they both deliberately occur in their news broadcasts. And then interpret fact from opinion when they actually wrongly present them as facts.

An obvious fact is climate change which, as it’s always been happening, nobody can deny. Compare that with the opinion that man is able to deliberately change the planet’s climate which, when you think about it, is definitely debatable. Should we really be so confidant as to think we can affect the world’s climate as we wish and cool things down? Or might we be better off preparing for inevitable change, buying a house on high ground, planting a vegetable garden, stocking up on factor 50 and investing in Tyne and Wear olives?

I recently heard a two year-old radio news reporter telling me that there was evidence that man used to be a cannibal. Sounds reasonable, particularly when you find that archaeologists have identified knife marks on bones that prove someone was after the marrow. Lovely, until she said that marrow used to be considered a delicacy. Used to be? If she wrote the story herself, perhaps she doesn’t realise that it still is a delicacy, along with brains and sweetbreads. And if she didn’t write the story herself, she’ll now obviously regard it as a matter of absolute fact, otherwise she wouldn’t have been allowed to read it out in a factual report.

We know that the internet’s a dangerous place in many respects but those with common sense recognise that its content should be treated with circumspection. But what hope is there if those sources of information that we traditionally respect and believe in, don’t necessarily understand the subject about which they’re reporting?

Believe me, bone marrow is still considered a delicacy. I read it on the internet. Just after searching to find out exactly how many answers Google does give each day. But upon doing my search – using Google – I got a multitude of conflicting answers. Not all of them can be right.

Fruit fool

2010-04-16T14:56:00.000-07:00

Late summer's the time of plums, damsons and blackberries. But if you're lucky enough to have grown any of those in your garden, you've probably had to freeze some of them and now wonder what you can do rather than just pies and crumbles. When it comes to damsons I've been known to make damson gin and give it away for Christmas presents - as well as keeping some for the obligatory skiing hip flask.

But fruit fools are a quintessentially British pudding which are easy to make and very luxurious. You can use most common fruits, even apples and pears. They may need cooking for different lengths of time but it doesn't take much experience to work out how much and it's not particularly critical. It's worth having a go because, as you have to taste as you go along due to the differing sweetness of different fruits, the results are bound to be good.

You don't have to use the dessert wine but I saw the idea in a recipe recently and it does add that little extra.

Serves four

150g to 200g of fruit such as stoned and chopped plums, blackberries or damsons.
100g caster sugar (plus some more for adjustments)
Five tablespoonfuls of dessert wine
Juice of half a lemon
250ml of double cream

Place the fruit into a pan with about half the sugar and a couple of tablespoonfuls of water. Cook gently for ten minutes or so. Taste for sweetness and add more sugar if necessary. Then allow to cool.

In a large bowl, mix the remaining sugar with the lemon juice and dessert wine. Add the cream and whisk until it's at the soft peak stage. Don't make it too hard.

Gently fold the cooked fruit mixture into the whisked cream but don't worry about it being uniformly mixed. Changes in mixture only make it more interesting.

Spoon into wine glasses or suitable dessert bowls and chill for a couple of hours before serving - perhaps with a piece of shortbread. If you wished, when folding the fruit into the cream, you could keep some of it back in order to top your fool or even put a little in the glasses beforehand.

Rabbit and black pudding casserole

2010-04-16T14:53:00.001-07:00

When I was 17, I brought a girlfriend home to be fed by my mum. After she’d cleaned her plate she proclaimed that it was delicious and asked what it was. When Mum told her it was rabbit casserole she shoved her plate away, burst into tears and said she didn’t like rabbit. And over the years, I’ve found many who might not actually cry but really won’t entertain the idea of rabbit. Which is a shame because it’s plentiful, cheap, easy to cook and very tasty.

For a casserole such as this, the rabbit makes a great stock which, when flavoured with the black pudding, makes a superb gravy.

Rabbit is actually one of the animals that is often better farmed than wild. It’s usually more tender with a slightly higher fat content due to them not doing quite so often what rabbits in the wild spend much of their time doing – if you get my meaning.

Serves four

One rabbit – wild or farmed – left whole
A handful of pearl barley
300g of good quality black pudding – cut into chunks
One onion – finely chopped
Two carrots – peeled and roughly-chopped into 1cm lumps
Half a swede – peeled and roughly-chopped into 1cm lumps
A sprig of fresh thyme
Two bay leaves
Salt and freshly-ground black pepper

In a casserole or pan large enough to take the rabbit, cover the rabbit with cold water and add the thyme and bay leaves and a little salt and pepper. Bring to the boil and then cover and reduce to a simmer or put into a pre-heated oven at 180°C, gas mark 4 for about 1½ hours or until the meat is falling off the bones.

Remove the meat and bones, pass the resultant stock through a fine strainer and return to the pan. Add the pearl barley, black pudding, onion, carrot and swede and bring back to a simmer for around 30 minutes until the vegetables are tender. Leave the lid off but watch that it doesn’t get too thick and add a little water if necessary.

Meanwhile, pick all the meat off the bones, watching out for any fine bones. When the vegetables are cooked, add the rabbit meat to the casserole, check the seasoning, reheat and serve with lots of creamy mashed potato.

Eccles cake and ginger custard

2010-04-16T14:51:00.001-07:00

I like Eccles cakes and have most of my life. My father-in-law picked up on this fact years ago and so every time I go to his house, even at his age of 88, he makes me a cup of tea and gives me an Eccles cake. And sometimes two. Lovely.

But not quite as lovely as making your own which I’d never done until recently. The following recipe is for what I think is the best dessert on our menu at the moment. And to think I thought they’d be difficult to make.

And the ginger custard is a lovely twist and, again, so easy.

Serves four

One sheet of frozen puff pastry – defrosted
500g raisins
100g sugar
150ml water
A pinch of cinnamon
One orange
One egg for egg wash
100ml double cream
100ml milk
Three egg yokes
Sugar to taste for the custard – around a tablespoonful
A thumb-sized piece of stem ginger – finely-chopped

Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC (gas mark 4)

Remove the zest from the orange and chop finely. Then squeeze the juice from the orange.

Place the water, chopped zest, orange juice, cinnamon and the 100g of sugar in a pan and bring to a simmer until the sugar’s dissolved. Remove from the heat, add the raisins and allow them to soak in the liquid for an hour to allow them plump up.

When they’re ready, roll out the puff pastry into a rectangle that’s about 5mm (¼”) thick. Drain the liquid off the raisins (it doesn’t need keeping) and spread the raisins evenly over the pastry before rolling it all together in the style of a Swiss roll.

Beat the single egg and then brush it over the pastry. Place the roll on a baking tray and place in the oven for 20 minutes or until crisp and golden. Remove and allow to cool (or you could serve it immediately hot if you’ve already made the custard).

To make the custard, put the milk and cream in a pan and bring to the boil. While it’s heating, place the eggs and sugar into a bowl and whisk until pale, adding the ginger towards the end. When the milk and cream is boiling, pour onto the egg mixture whisking all the time. Pour the custard back into the pan and put it over a very low heat, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon for five minutes or so until the custard thickens a little. Make sure that you stir everywhere, including into the corners so that the eggs don’t cook and scramble. While stirring, taste the custard and add a little more sugar if necessary but remember that the Eccles cake is already quite sweet.

To serve, either serve the Eccles cake cold or reheat in the oven if necessary, chop into serving sizes and pour the custard around.

What's in a name?

2010-04-16T14:50:00.000-07:00

I don’t think I’m a cruel man. I’ve never pulled the legs off spiders. Nor bullied anyone – intentionally. I may have given my younger sister a hard time, challenging her to games of rugby when I was nine and she was six but I know she found it character-building and secretly loved it. Despite the injuries.

But the more people I introduce to the various animals that we rear for food, the more often I’m asked how could I be so cruel. This hurts.

Because Oxford, Sandy and Blackie, the pigs we rear that are handled after the name of their breed, have a wonderful life while they’re with us. They’ve got an acre or two to run around in; some of it’s flat and full of tasty weeds, other parts are hilly and sandy and there are lots of trees to snuffle and root around. On top of this, they’ve got a lovely stone, dry stable with regularly-changed hay for them to snuggle up in, water in a Belfast sink that’s automatically replenished every 24 hours and the pleasure of my company at least once a day, bearing gifts of yummy grainy food plus exotic unwanted fruit and veg from the wholesale market.

It’s difficult to imagine how they could lead a more comfortable life short of inviting them into the house to lie in front of the fire or on the foot of the bed. Not that I haven’t considered bringing them in while my wife’s away to see how they’d respond. It could be a great laugh but the damage to the furniture might not be covered on the insurance.

Compare their existence to that of the commonly-produced over-crowded, kept-on-concrete, overfed and unloved, intensively-reared pigs and you’ll see it as different as that of our benign democracy is to an underdeveloped, third world dictatorship. It’s a different world.

So what’s this about me being cruel? I must stress that when anybody accuses me of cruelty in raising animals for food, it’s usually been part of a sentence that includes the phrase: “and you’ve named them!”.

So that’s it. It’s ok to eat a nameless animal but not one that you’ve given some sort of nomenclature. Well I’ve eaten potatoes that I’ve named. Not Robert or Peter but “That Third Clump In The Second Row”. Everything’s got a name and even if I called the animals Pig1, Pig 2 and Pig 3, they’d still have names.

So where’s the rationale?

We’re a funny lot us humans. We’re quite happy to proclaim that we’re the most intelligent creatures on the planet and stand at the top of the food chain while at the same time raising animals for food in the most appalling ways. But start raising them in a way approaching sensitivity and intelligence and we suddenly become squeamish.

Maybe it’s about time we took responsibility for our actions and made sure that we only eat animals that have been reared humanely or not at all. But if we do, unless we’re all to become vegetarians, it means that ultimately, we have to accept that we’ll be eating Oxford, Sandy or Blackie or Julian.

Beetroot and Ox tongue with horseradish

2010-04-16T14:46:00.000-07:00

Like ox heart described elsewhere on this site, ox tongue is one of the animal’s most-used muscles and is also one of the least-used cuts of meat. It really is worth a try and produces an inexpensive dish.

Also, this recipe uses whole, uncooked beetroot; in my opinion, one of the most under-rated vegetables available to us.

Beetroot should always be cooked whole. Don’t be tempted to top and tail it because, once you’ve broken the skin, the red leeches out into the cooking water which not only stains everything it touches, it impairs the flavour as well.

Serves four

One ox tongue
Two raw beetroot - washed
Sea salt
Freshly-ground black pepper
A couple of teaspoons of horseradish sauce
One white onion – peeled and thinly sliced
White wine vinegar
Rapeseed (or similar) oil
80g watercress – washed and drained

Place the tongue in a large pan of cold water and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and allow to simmer for one and a half to two hours or until tender. Drain off the water and allow the tongue to cool before peeling off the outer skin and discarding.

Meanwhile, while the tongue’s simmering, place the unpeeled beetroot into a pan of cold water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 45 minutes before cooling in cold water. Drain, peel the beetroot and cut into equal-sized cubes. Place in a bowl, season with salt and pepper and a splash of white wine vinegar.

Once cool and peeled, cut the tongue into slices and season with salt and pepper. Mix the horseradish sauce with a little rapeseed to loosen it.

Place the tongue, beetroot, onion and horseradish mix in a large bowl and toss together before piling onto serving plates or into a single serving dish.

To the heart of the matter

2010-04-16T14:45:00.000-07:00

It’s all right you laughing at the disgust, loathing and fear on the faces of those chosen to do the bush tucker trials in that I’m-someone-selfimportant-camping-in-the-so-woods-please-allow-me-to-make-gratuitous-amounts-of-money-again TV programme. Yes, the foods they are asked to eat may be different. But they are actually foods. And there are others in this world who treat the idea of eating such “novel” food as an everyday occurrence.

And you, after all, eat some really weird stuff. What’s a prawn if not an insect-like creature that just happens to live in water? And I understand that many Chinese find the idea of eating fermented cow’s milk, or in other words cheese (and some which is even allowed to go mouldy first), worse than you might of eating kangaroo’s testicles.

But in reality, our lack of education, experience and imagination means that we concentrate on a handful of dishes and foods when choosing what to eat. Hands up how many of us have a steak nearly every time we go out to eat. See? Yeah, ok, so you like a steak. But surely it’s not beyond the bounds of probability that if you like eating that bit of a cow, there’s a chance that you might like to eat most of the rest of the animal; or a pig, or a snake, or maybe a squirrel?

Nobody’s suggesting that you should be forced to eat something other than your lovely steak – and I do believe that sometimes, only a steak will do. But if someone else is getting a life-enhancing experience out of, perhaps, a little fried liver, aren’t they getting a little more out of life than you?

So when, the other day, during a cookery demonstration I was banging on about eating ox heart I’m sure I actually saw one or two faces in the audience turning green. I hadn’t even got one to demonstrate with – unfortunately. I just mentioned it in passing and received horrified looks from some of those I was meant to be impressing.

But let’s think about it. Meat is muscle. And therefore a lovely steak is either a muscle from somewhere along the animal’s back or perhaps a little further towards the rear. Whatever - before you got it, that piece of meat was doing it’s job, moving a cow around a field. Without it, the cow would have been stationary, or fallen over.

And what is heart if not probably the most important muscle in the body? So it’s not actually that much different from a steak in that respect.

Now, as most of us know, a fillet steak is the most tender, especially when compared with, say, a rump. That’s because the fillet muscle’s done little work in its lifetime whereas the latter’s done a good job of moving around the heavy end of the creature. But many, if not most, steak eaters agree that there’s considerably more taste in a rump compared with a fillet. So, how good is that muscle that works the hardest of all going to taste? And why should we begin to consider that the heart is something to make us feel squeamish?

As you’d expect, the harder a muscle’s worked the more cooking it can take. But conversely, you can buy an ox heart as big as your head, cut some of it into strips and, because it’s so lean, flash or stir-fry them in seconds. And a piece of meat that big, at least enough to feed a family of four, costs less than a couple of quid. In these money-conscious times, aren’t most of us missing something?

So, if that’s gone any distance to convince you that you should give something a little bit different a try, how about giving an ox tongue recipe a go? There's one on this site.

Or is that a muscle too far?

Obese? You might not be able to count on it.

2010-04-12T02:22:00.000-07:00

You may well understand it but I find it increasingly harder to make sense of the news fired at me every day. For obvious reasons my ears prick up at the mention of anything food-related that appears in the news and I have a file I keep on my desk where I keep printouts and cuttings of such stuff. Just looking at the top couple of pages I see that a survey has found that teenage girls in the UK eat more junk food than they’ve ever done before and that obesity is still the biggest threat to mankind (or womankind) in the UK. “The pattern of consumption suggests that many girls are being influenced by fashion models”, the article says.

Well before I move on to the second cutting, my confusion already starts to ferment as the only fashion models I’ve ever known, and I know a few, are more aware of their food consumption than anybody else I’ve known. I’m not saying they understand it because their diets are usually weird consisting of water and bean shoots and supplements. But they certainly go on and on about what they eat. And they smoke as well. And they are nearly all bonkers.

The second cutting tells me that in the obesity capital of the world, America, one in five of their households ran out of money to afford food at least once during 2009. Boy, they must have been budgeting badly. Maybe the burger chains should set up a pre-paid system like our teenagers use with mobile phones.

So, here’s the paradox: Americans, who are the richest people in the world, are running out of money to buy fattening food; and our teenage girls are emulating size zero models and becoming obese. Confused? There’s more.

Our government tells us that obesity is one of the biggest threats to us apart from climate change, terrorism and the Conservatives. But how many obese people do you know? I’ve carried out a detailed scientific survey in our restaurants in the last couple of days which involved glancing around and counting anybody I considered to be obese. And you know what? There hasn’t been one yet. In fact, the only definitely obese person, according to government-provided charts, I could find is my work colleague Peter who, because he’s very fit and plays lots of sport, has a body mass index so high that official guidelines suggest he’ll be dead by the end of next week.

I don’t know if it’s the social circles within which I operate, or the type of people that our restaurants attract, but the difference I see in people these days is not obesity but height – hence the primary school child in my next cutting who was recently reported as tall, slim and obese. Since the second world war, people have definitely been getting taller. In fact I’m thinking of putting a height restriction on our job application forms because I’m sick of 18 year old staff towering over me.

I asked a friend’s eleven year old daughter how many of her fellow pupils she considered to be fat, expecting her to regale me with tales of reinforced chairs and widened doorways. But she said that everybody was like her, slim and fit, apart from one who got chased around the playground at breaks for being different. Cruel, I know, but it suggests nothing’s changed in that way since the sixties.

Obesity’s not the problem. If it exists to any extent, it’s a symptom. The real problem is bad diet and that’s down to ignorance. Eating is one of the most important things in life to everyone. But we’re taught about it with a handful of silly simplistic phrases such as “five a day”. Imagine if we taught maths like that. None of our youngsters would be able to add up without a calculator.

What? They can’t?

Fish stew with tomato and fennel

2010-04-12T02:18:00.001-07:00

Here’s a light dish to remind us that spring is arriving and, being a fish dish, is just so quick to cook.

All sorts of fish can be used but I’d avoid the oily ones for this such as mackerel. So salmon, monkfish, ling, gurnard and so on; fish that can hold together when simmered a little. Just make sure it’s all boned and skinned. Also, any shellfish is great such as mussels, cockles, prawns and crab claws. Just be careful not to overcook shellfish and if it’s already cooked, just add it at the end for 30 seconds or so to heat through.

The main flavouring is bulb fennel which, similarly to dill with its light aniseed taste, is a perfect complement to fish.

Serves two
300g mixed fish – boned and skinned and cut into bite-sized pieces
One bulb of fennel – roughly chopped
One onion – peeled and chopped
One clove of garlic – peeled and crushed
One tin of tomatoes
Extra virgin rapeseed or olive oil
Sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper
A little chopped parsley to garnish

Place a tablespoon of oil in a large saucepan and gently sweat half of the fennel along with the onion. After a few minutes, add the garlic and continue until the vegetables are soft but not coloured. Add the tomatoes along with their juice and simmer for ten minutes or so. Remove from the heat and blend in a liquidiser or food processor or with a stick blender and then, if you wish, pass through a sieve.

While the vegetables are sweating, heat another pan, add a little oil and sauté the other half of the fennel until it’s a little coloured. Remove from the pan and add to the blended tomato mixture. Bring this to the boil, reduce to a simmer and add the fish for three or four minutes until cooked, adding any cooked shellfish at the end. Taste and add salt and pepper as necessary. Pour into warmed serving bowls, scatter over a little chopped parsley and a sprinkling of oil. Great served with crusty bread. Don’t try to tell me that cooking’s not easy.

Alien diet

2010-04-12T02:11:00.000-07:00

As a child I went through a period of being obsessed by what would happen to me after death. Not in a religious way; Sunday school and RE lessons had sorted that one out – at least until I hit the argumentative stage. No, it was to do with the bit they burnt or buried; the vehicle that carried me around; in short, my body.

I’m don’t intend to upset anybody with this but I quickly realised that it was a fact of life that one day I wouldn’t have any more use for the organic bit of me. And it seemed such a waste just to throw it away when at least the calorific energy contained within it could have been recovered from the chimney of the crematorium to heat nearby homes or, and I hesitate to say this, it could have been used for food.

Now I must point out that I’m not advocating eating people and age and experience has taught me that this probably wasn’t such a good idea. But as a youngster, solutions to problems seemed simpler and, what with my granny always reminding me about the starving children in Africa, letting the worms get me appeared to be such a waste.

However, it does occur to me that if, for some reason, you think that we as humans may be in danger of being eaten by someone – by whom I’m not clear but maybe some greater intelligence which I guess would have to be aliens – you stand a better chance of surviving if you can point out to them that you’re not a vegetarian. Why? Because, if you think about it, we don’t actually eat many carnivores and only the occasional omnivore.

This came about because I’d previously written about the delights of grey squirrel casserole and this prompted our head chef at Durham, Anthony Taylor, and me to talk about what other slightly unusual foods might be available to us. It’s at that point that we realised that just about all the animals that we omnivores eat are vegetarian. Or, we wondered, is it just that we only feed them vegetarian food? And the more we talked about it, the more it became a can or worms, so to speak.

Starting with the obvious, ruminants such as cows and sheep are naturally veggies. But pigs? Well it seems they’re fed a vegetarian diet even though while rooting around they must get a few bugs and the occasional worm but that could be more by mistake; a bit like swallowing a fly while out on your bike. I don’t think squirrels eat meat and rabbits eat my plants so they fit the theory.

Before the law banned it, we used to eat songbirds and the Europeans still do. We know that they eat insects on the wing – the songbirds not the Europeans that is who, particularly the French, it seems eat anything that moves. We can possibly blame the church for the demise of rook from our diet and I’m told that seagulls taste disgusting. However I’m particularly partial to pigeon and I know that in Trafalgar Square at least they eat seeds. And I also know that ducks eat sliced bread because I’ve seen it in the park.

Fish often eat fish that’s true. But so do a lot of “vegetarians” including one of my sisters so that opens up a whole new argument.

I guess that we eat mainly vegetarian-fed animals because it’s cheaper to feed them that way. If it’s farmed, it’s vegetarian. Game, fish and other wild animals may differ. After all, some people eat alligator and they don’t look very vegetarian to me.

But just in case there is something in this sentient-beings-only-eating-herbivores thing, a word of advice: it may not be relevant but if you see an alien spaceship coming into land, remember that they’ll have been away from home quite some time and will probably be hungry. So, if you are a vegetarian, if I were you, I’d make myself scarce. Otherwise the aliens might do it for you.

Pork shoulder with butter beans, tomato and sage

2010-04-12T02:08:00.001-07:00

Pork shoulder is my favourite cut of pork and benefits from slow cooking. I prefer to cook it on the bone but you can get it boned and rolled. It is worth sourcing good pork because there’s a world of difference between intensively-farmed pork and that which has been reared with care and respect. Good butchers, farm shops and farmers’ markets will also often have rare-breed pork available from such breeds as Gloucester Old Spot and Saddleback. If you try them, it’s unlikely you’d be disappointed.

Serves four to six

1kg to 1½kg pork shoulder
One tin butter beans
One tin chopped tomatoes
One onion – peeled and diced
A stick of celery - diced
Two carrots – peeled and diced
100g fresh sage leaves
Extra virgin rapeseed oil
Salt
Freshly-ground black pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C (gas mark 6)

Place the pork in a roasting dish with a little salt and pepper and a wineglass of water. Place in the oven and, after about twenty minutes, turn it down to 150°C (gas mark 2). Leave for a total cooking time of about four hours, pouring a little more water in every now and then if it runs dry. When it’s cooked, you should be able to almost scoop the meat apart with a couple of spoons.

While it’s cooking, put a little oil in a saucepan and sweat the onion, celery and carrot over a low heat until soft, making sure they don’t brown. Then add the tinned tomatoes and butter beans along with the sage leaves. Cook over a low heat for a further ten minutes or so and adjust the seasoning with little salt and pepper.

To serve, reheat the bean stew if necessary. Roughly divide the meat into portions, spoon the stew into warmed serving bowls, place the meat on top, scatter a little rapeseed oil over and around accompanied by a little black pepper.

Potty!

2010-04-12T02:07:00.000-07:00

I’ve got a lump on my head. It’s not my fault. I was coming down the stairs this morning and, because the laces on my shoes weren’t tied, I stood with one shoe on the lace of the other and found that my foot was anchored to the floor. As I was already leaning forward in a completely unbalanced state and, at the same time, as my hands were occupied carrying two cases, I of course toppled forward and one of the first bits of me to make contact with that floor was my head. Hence the lump.

If only someone had taught me to tie my shoelaces. I know I should be able to do it because I’ve seen others with their laces tied and, unless they still live with their mothers, they’re likely tying them themselves.

It’s the same with my tie. I’d love to wear one of those proper ones that go all around my neck but, because no one’s ever shown me how, I have to make do with one of those you clip on. Useful in the event of a fight, of course, and I know the fashion’s for open necks these days but it’d be nice to have the choice.

Whether you believe these things or not, luckily I was taught by my mum how to cook otherwise I’d have been as ignorant as I’ve just described and, as a result, have to live on ready food and the occasional meal out. Without a doubt my life would have been that much poorer.

In a poll last year, carried by that august body, the Potato Council, it was found that out of over 2,000 people surveyed, four-fifths of mothers said they rarely or never taught their children to cook. And I guess that goes for the fathers as well.

My daughters, both in their twenties and now flown their nests, continue to call, text and email with questions about how to cook this bit of fish or that dessert and to tell me about the various dishes they’ve cooked. And I believe, or at least hope, that they have similar memories to me of seeing pans from head-height, watching their parent gain a great deal of satisfaction from deliberating over steaming aromas, and being allowed to sample the occasional spoonful of delight. And later, as the years progressed, of being shown how to cook, and encouraged to participate in the preparation of, meals for themselves and others.

Of those in the survey, only half of the mothers questioned thought they were good cooks compared with three-quarters of grandmothers. What of the next generation? Only a quarter confident of turning out an acceptable meal? And then what for subsequent ones? And where will we get our chefs from if parents don’t interest their children?

And when people are asked why they don’t cook, the most common reason given doesn’t seem to include the most obvious: plain ignorance. Rather they think that they’re too busy which it’s all to easy to prove is usually just untrue. It seems we’re in danger of becoming like that overweight, unemployed and unenlightened family in the news not long ago that reckoned they didn’t have time to diet.

It’s obvious really. We all need to be taught the basics in life and, to many extents, we are. But we seem to be ignoring one of life’s fundamentals; one of the things that we have to experience every day – eating - and the preparation of the food we eat. Thanks to my mum I learnt to cook and, as a result, my life is of a higher quality than it would have been otherwise. And, while we’re on the subject, thank goodness she bothered to take me through the business of potty training.

Boiled bacon and pork sausage

2010-04-12T02:04:00.001-07:00

If you’re the type that really needs the names of your dishes to appear exotic, comprising superlatives with vivid descriptions, rather than something straight and honest where you depend on quality of the ingredients, then this dish may not be for you, and you may not choose it from our menu. However, if you love good food and have the confidence to let the ingredients do the talking, this is really worth it.

Because it’s so simple, it really is important to get good bacon and sausage. Go to a good butcher and pay for the best. The bacon loin needs to be in a chunk rather than sliced and there’s no need to get highly spiced or flavoured sausages - just the best quality pork sausage. But why would you want anything else?

Although it doesn’t effect the taste, some people like the sausage to have some colour rather than staying pink. And if that’s you, heat a grill or frying pan and brown the sausages for a few minutes first. Otherwise, just poach them in the liquor as in the recipe.

You’ll notice there’s no salt in the ingredients list and it’s unlikely you’ll need it as the bacon is fairly salty in the first place and this flavours the resulting liquor.

Serves two

350g bacon loin in one piece
A bay leaf
A sprig of fresh thyme
One onion – peeled and finely sliced
Three carrots – peeled and cut into chunks
¼ swede – peeled and cut into chunks
Four good quality pork sausages
Freshly-ground black pepper
A handful of fresh parsley – chopped

Place the bacon loin in a large pan, add the bay leaf and thyme and add enough cold water to cover. Bring to the boil and simmer for two hours, skimming the surface if any scum appears and topping up the water if it falls below the top of the meat. With a slotted spoon, remove the bacon and put to one side.

Add the sliced onion and chopped carrot and swede to the liquor and simmer for ten minutes before adding the sausages with a little black pepper and simmering for a further 10 to 15 minutes – depending on whether you’ve part-cooked the sausages first to brown them.

To serve, roughly slice the bacon and add to the liquor to reheat and then add the chopped parsley.

Ham shank and peas pudding

2010-04-12T02:02:00.001-07:00

Moving up from the South some decades ago, my love of the North East started with a girl but quickly embraced peas pudding. However, if you’d seen it on a restaurant menu all those years ago, you’d have done a pretty quick body swerve.

Now though, we serve it in Oldfields at lunch as a starter and it flies out of the kitchen. And while it takes a little time on the cooker, there’s little effort involved. It’s well worth the wait.

Serves four as a light lunch, starter or supper

One ham shank
250g yellow split peas
One onion – peeled and chopped
One sprig of thyme
Two bay leaves
One carrot – peeled
Two sticks of celery – roughly chopped
Salt and freshly-ground black pepper
A little chopped parsley or a few chopped chives to finish

Place the ham shank in a large pan along with the carrot, celery, bay leaves and thyme. Cover with cold water, bring to the boil and simmer gently for around a couple of hours or until the meat is falling from the bone.

When cooked, remove the meat and bone from the liquid and allow to cool on a plate. Strain the liquid through a sieve into a clean pan and add the chopped onion and split peas. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 60 to 90 minutes or until the peas are completely broken down. Pour the lot into a food processor or similar and blend until smooth; adjusting the seasoning with salt and pepper as necessary. Allow to cool.

Remove and discard the fat from the now cool ham shank and tear the meat from the bone into coarse pieces.

To serve, place a dollop of peas pudding on a plate with a handful of ham alongside. Give a couple of twists of pepper, sprinkle chopped parsley or chives over the top and serve with buttered crusty bread.

Local - but it's got to be quality

2010-04-12T02:00:00.000-07:00

I love where I live. I live in Teesdale, not far from Barnard Castle and I’m lucky that I’m just a few minutes from the A1 and a main rail station, yet I’m also in the depths of some of the best countryside in the UK. And I’m surrounded by it.

Then Teesdale’s in the North East. Not necessarily the most fashionably-regarded region in the country but that’s because most people, southerners mainly, just don’t realise what they’re missing. I made the decision to live here some 30 years ago which while it may not come as a shock to you, it certainly does to me seeming like only ten years. That means I’m older than I think. Or act.

But anyway, while I frequently wax lyrical to all those friends I left behind in the South, it doesn’t mean that the place is perfect.

I love the people but sometimes wish I could see more aspiration. I love the countryside but it is scarred by some pretty dreadful architecture; and some dodgy tractor driving. There’re some great pubs but, with my latent southern proclivities, I do like my beer slightly warmer than is common around here.

So while I couldn’t think of a better place in the UK to live, it’s not perfect. Especially the temperature of the beer.

So I have an issue when it comes to the “buy local” campaigns that I, and the Journal along with other influential bodies, are promoted to such effect. Oh yes, I’m a great fan of buying local, but only if it’s good enough.

I’m old enough, just, to recall the Buy British campaign back in the sixties. I think it was an initiative of Barbara Castle and it resulted in great use of the union jack. I remember images of carrier bags being swung by mini-skirted beauties with the flag on one side and the Buy British slogan on the other; the bags not the girls that is.

But I don’t remember it actually being a great success in its prime objective which was to get us to buy stuff made here. Why? Because you could get better stuff from elsewhere, that’s why.

And just because you have an enormous frozen food factory on your doorstep doesn’t mean that everything to come out of it is worthwhile, despite it benefitting the local economy by employing local people.

So I’ve trained myself to think “quality” if possible. And if I can buy it produced in our region, then great. But just to buy it because it’s local alone could be to encourage mediocrity and that doesn’t feel right to me.

However, when it comes to food, just knowing it comes from a local farm or someone’s kitchen down the road has a way of making it taste better anyway. Let’s just make sure that we encourage our producers to offer us the best they’ve got. They can send the rest of the stuff down south.

Fillet of salmon with roasted beetroot

2010-03-20T07:30:00.001-07:00

Have you ever cooked beetroot? Most people only know it bottled in vinegar and to be brought out with the pickled onions, gherkins and chutneys. But beetroot is more versatile than many other root vegetables and is great roasted as in this recipe.

Before roasting, the beetroot needs boiling for anything between 30 and 90 minutes until tender. You can tell when it’s cooked by piercing with a skewer. However, before boiling, just brush off any soil and wash the skin and any top and root without damaging the skin. This preserves the colour and goodness inside. And, regarding the colour, you may wish to wear rubber gloves when skinning and cutting it up so as to avoid red hands.

Serves two

Two 175g fillets of salmon – skin on, scaled and pin boned
Eight smallish new potatoes
Two medium raw beetroot
One clove of garlic – peeled and crushed
Salt and freshly-ground black pepper
A little rapeseed or extra virgin olive oil

Place the washed beetroot in a pan in salted water, bring to the boil and simmer until tender as described earlier. At the same time, boil the potatoes for around 15 minutes until tender but not fully cooked. When cooked, allow the beetroot and potatoes to cool a little before halving the potatoes lengthwise.

To peel the beetroot, rub the skin off with a clean tea towel which lets you keep the original shape rather than using a knife which means you end up with a 50 pence piece shape. Cut two thirds of the beetroot into wedges and reserve the other third.

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C (gas 6). Pre-heat a large oven-proof frying pan, add a little oil and then the salmon, skin side down. While that’s cooking, add the potatoes, cut side down. As the salmon cooks you’ll you see its colour change, rising up the fish from the base of the pan. When it gets about a third of the way up, about five minutes, turn the salmon over by which time the skin should be crispy. Add the beetroot wedges to the pan, season everything with a little salt and pepper and place in the oven for five minutes.

While that’s roasting, puree the rest of the beetroot or push it through a sieve into a bowl. Add the garlic, a little salt and pepper and enough olive oil to make a paste when all mixed together.

To serve, pile the beetroot and potatoes onto warm plates, place the salmon on top and some beetroot puree on top of that. Maybe finish with a little oil over and around.

We all want staff like this

2010-03-20T07:29:00.001-07:00

We don’t have an HR department. Despite our company being nothing other than a collection of people, we’re too small to merit a manager specifically for personnel, let alone a team dedicated to it.

So the role of personnel manager, as that of virtually every other manager, falls to yours truly and I have to admit to falling down on the job at times and not really being as good as I, or our staff, would wish. I try to keep up with the appraisals, keep the contracts of employment up to date, monitor the training schedules and generally keep everybody motivated and happy.

But still, despite all my efforts as a manager, mentor and motivator, that well-known British malaise occasionally rears its ugly head: “I’ve got the flu and I can’t come in today. I’m sure I’ll be better tomorrow”.

Flu? As was explained to me by a hard but fair employer many years ago, you’ve only got real flu if you can’t pass the £20 note test. That is, if someone places a £20 note at the foot of your bed, tells you it’s yours for the taking if you’re prepared to sit up and reach over and pick it up and, and this is the important bit, if you can be bothered and you’re actually able to, then you haven’t got flu.

But whatever, they can’t come in today because the raging cold and fever they’re experiencing prohibits them from catching the bus. This despite their subsequent entry on Facebook explaining how their exploits down the pub last night meant that they’d had to take a day off work.

Well one of the stories must be right. However, either way, it’s a sad indictment of some of the members of our society from which we, as employers, source our teams. It’s not necessarily a sign of the times. Thus have always things been.

But there are exceptions to the rule. And more than one of them works for Oldfields.

Take Jarrod who’s a chef at our Durham Eating House. He’s only young, and in fact looks a few decades younger. But in our busy run-up to Christmas he, and without him being asked to or appropriately trained, was an absolute star when it came to leading and keeping things together in the kitchen, despite customers coming out of our ears. His efforts and initiative are alone a great testament to the young of today.

But even he could hardly believe it when his colleague, Sarah Hodgson, arrived at the restaurant an hour and a quarter early for work one recent Sunday morning. Especially when he found out that, due to her car being snowed in just outside Consett, no taxis being prepared to come out and no buses operating early enough, Sarah set out from her house at 6:15 am and walked 14 miles to work.

You may even have read about it in the national press, heard about it on regional and national radio or watched stories about it on the TV because, so astounded were the media when they heard about Sarah’s dedication, they wouldn’t leave her or Oldfields alone.

Why did she do this? For the actual answer you’d have to ask Sarah but she’s probably too modest to tell you. I can only guess that she considered her position as restaurant supervisor important enough, that she respected her colleagues highly enough, that she had pride in herself and her work enough, to plan ahead and make an effort that nobody expects of anybody these days.

It humbles me to think of what she did and no amount of management training that I’ve undergone regarding the organisation and motivation of staff would have led me to expect that a member of our team would go to such lengths.

But then I’m lucky enough to work at Oldfields with people like Sarah.

Pearl barley and beetroot risotto with cauliflower cheese

2010-03-20T07:27:00.003-07:00

This is a complete dish from our current evening menu and, even though I’ve done another recipe for barley risotto before, I make no excuse because it’s such an underused food. I also used beetroot a couple of weeks ago but I’m really into beetroot at the moment, so there.

You could cook this dish without the cauliflower cheese and serve the risotto on its own or with something else. But this really is a tasty and complete vegetarian dish.

Serves two

One small head of cauliflower – leaves removed and florets divided
50g butter
50g plain flour
200ml milk
100g mature cheddar - grated
200g pearl barley
One carrot – peeled
½ an onion – peeled
Two cloves of garlic – peeled
A little extra virgin rape seed or olive oil
Salt and freshly-ground black pepper
One whole beetroot – fresh or pre-cooked and vacuum-packed

If you’ve got an uncooked beetroot, wash it, trim the root and the leaves but don’t cut into the skin in any way. Place in a pan, cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Simmer for 30 to 90 minutes until it’s tender when you insert a pointed knife. Drain, allow to cool a little and then rub the peel off with a cloth. The cooked beetroot then needs pureeing in a food processor or pushing through a sieve.

To make the cauliflower cheese, bring a pan of salted water to the boil and blanch the cauliflower florets in it for two to three minutes. Drain and cool under running water.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan, add the flour and stir, allowing it to cook for a couple of minutes over a low heat. Add the milk bit by bit, stirring all the time to avoid lumps and then bring to a simmer for about five minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat, add the cheese and then taste before seasoning with salt and pepper.

To make the risotto, blend the carrot, onion and garlic together in a food processor or chop all very finely. Place in a largish pan, add a slug of oil, the barley and enough water to cover plus another centimetre. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes until tender – topping up the water if it appears dry but the aim is to end up with no liquid left.

To serve, place the blanched cauliflower into a heatproof dish, pour the cheese sauce over the top and place in a hot oven for five to ten minutes until beginning to bubble and colour. Stir the pureed beetroot into the risotto (standing back to observe the incredible colour) and spoon onto warmed plates serving the cauliflower cheese on top or alongside.

My vote

2010-03-20T07:26:00.001-07:00

I’ve got a friend who many must think has more money than sense. Tradesmen see him a mile off and make a beeline for his door. It’s not as if he’s stupid; in fact he’s actually very successful at what he does and has made quite a lot of money.

However, when it comes to the practicalities of life, that’s where he’s sadly lacking. I used to say that he didn’t know which end of a screwdriver to use to knock a nail in. Now it seems a local builder got wind because it appears he’s been taken for a ride by an apprentice from Rogue Traders with whom he’s signed up for more work than he needs, in a way that could be done so much better, so much quicker and so much cheaper.

I’m lucky when it comes to things like this. I may not have had the success in business that he’s had but, thanks to my engineering background, when I employ a builder, I have some idea about what’s going on and therefore I’m not at his mercy. I’m not an expert but I know my ridge tile from my rafter. Whereas my mate thinks the former is found in the bathroom and the latter designs lifeboats.

I’ve also got something else over my mate because, while watching the job being done and when standing back once it’s finished, I can gain a certain pleasure from appreciating the level of workmanship because, after all, I might have been able to have a go myself.

Musicians must be the same. While most of us like listening to a bit of music and find it a very important part of life, someone who’s been professionally trained, or at least knows a bit about the subject, will be able to get that extra bit of pleasure from understanding the technique and appreciating the skill used.

And so to food. Eating’s an even more important part of life than listening to music and yet fewer and fewer people seem to have an understanding about what they’re eating. Content to nod acceptance to our government’s missives about eating less fat and consuming our five a day, we rarely seem to question such supposed wisdom and its origins. But could you imagine our reaction if our leaders told us what sort of music we should be listening to – even if we’re not musicians?

As a restaurateur, if I’m not careful it can become irritating when a customer questions the way we cook or source something. But I have to remind myself that that customer is actually taking an interest in the subject and may know something about it – maybe more than we do. That’s a good thing.

A bad thing is people stuffing food into their mouths that’s been grabbed off the shelf, maybe being passed through some sort of domestic oven along the way, with little regard to any list of ingredients or their method of processing. And as if to exemplify such lack of thinking, I recently had a letter from someone disputing our interpretation of a traditional dish and suggesting that to get the correct recipe, we visit a particular national fast food chain of takeaways. Which is a bit rich when you realise there’s little chance of their knowing the provenance, makeup and constituent parts of food from such a place.

It’s obvious that we, as a nation of eaters, do need help. But instead of hearing simplistic messages about fruit and veg and fat that promise an easy solution to long life, perhaps if there were a political party that promised they’d make A levels in cookery mandatory for every school child – and make the law retrospective by 30 years - they’d get my vote.

Cullen skink with a poached egg

2010-03-20T07:24:00.001-07:00

This week’s recipe is technically a soup but could be a meal in itself; a fish and potato dish that gets its name from the fishing village of Cullen, in Morayshire. "Skink" is a soup made originally from a shin of beef but in this case, the main ingredient is smoked haddock. Traditionally served on Burns night, the usual recipe comprises just fish, potato, onion, milk and parsley but this recipe is a little different as we currently serve it in the restaurants with a poached egg on top.

As with most soups this dish is one of the easiest things to make – unless like me, you have a difficulty with professional-looking poached eggs but there’s a tip for this in the recipe. However, the important thing is to try and make sure that the smoked haddock is of the un-dyed sort. Somehow I can’t bring myself to trust the fluorescent yellow stuff.

Serves four

Two fillets of un-dyed smoked haddock - skinned
One large onion – peeled and diced
Three celery sticks – diced
One leek – split open, washed and chopped
Five potatoes – peeled and diced
Two litre of semi-skimmed milk
A handful or two of chopped parsley
Salt and freshly-ground black pepper
Four eggs

Run your hand over the haddock fillets and, if you feel any bones, remove them with tweezers or snipe-nosed pliers. Then cut the fish into bite-sized chunks.

Starting with the poached eggs, you can cook them anyway you’re used to but I do like the spherical ones good chefs can do. They do them by swirling the water in a pan before dropping in the eggs but it rarely works for me. So I recently came up with the idea of laying a piece of clingfilm across a saucer, spreading a little vegetable oil on it and cracking an egg into the middle (the oil stops the egg sticking to the film). Gather the clingfilm together and twist well to seal, being careful not to have any air trapped inside. Repeat with the other three eggs before dropping them into a pan of simmering water for around four minutes or until set. These can be done in advance and then dropped, still in their clingfilm wraps, into cold water to stop them cooking.

To make the soup, put the potatoes and milk into a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer for around ten minutes and then add the onion, celery and leek. Continue to simmer for another five minutes or so before adding the fish. Simmer for another couple of minutes before removing from the heat. You’ll notice that the potatoes have started to break-down slightly with their starch starting to thicken the soup. Taste and adjust the seasoning before stirring in the chopped parsley and spooning into warmed bowls.

A minute before the pre-cooked eggs are needed, drop them again into simmering water for 30 seconds to heat through before removing them, cutting the clingfilm with scissors and placing the perfect poached egg on top of your skink.

How fast can you cook?

2010-03-20T07:23:00.001-07:00

I type these articles and recipes on a computer and, over the years, have very much convinced myself that to do so saves me time and makes my job easier. I’m all for this as, like most people, I live a busy life and will grab at anything that’ll give me more time. Computers are a Godsend – until they go wrong of course. Then, the amount of time spent trying to fix them is disproportionate to the benefit received. It’s made even worse for me because I think I’m a bit of a “techie” and believe I can fix anything. It usually takes me a long time to find out that I can’t.

However, modern life is full of things that make life easier and faster, enabling us to take on more and become more effective than ever. Or at least that’s the aim. For instance, I’ve got a very clever mobile phone that sends me emails, takes videos of my drunken friends, reminds me to do things I’d otherwise forget and lets me answer calls while driving – on the hands free of course. So obviously life is more productive. Isn’t it?

It’s one of the reasons we’ve developed fast food. Apart from making many people very rich by selling us over-seasoned, impossible-to-sell-otherwise remnants of meat, fast food is there to prevent us spending unnecessary time slaving over a hot stove when we could be doing much more productive things like watching television.

Every second of the day can thus be utilised usefully rather than just wasting it which was obviously what we used to do. Didn’t we?

Despite being a total convert to all things technological, I keep getting these nagging doubts that try to persuade me otherwise. My wife was driving me back from a meal the other day. So I grabbed a notepad from the passenger door pocket and wrote a letter that I’d normally compose on a computer. Even accounting for transferring it to my laptop when I got home, I somehow think I did it more efficiently. Impossible of course.

And a few days ago I spoke to wife as I left work and we both said that we couldn’t be bothered cooking that night so I offered to make a detour and pick up a takeaway – which took me 15 minutes out of my way plus a further 15 minutes to get home plus a reheat when I got there and resulted in a £12 bill for my efforts. And we left quite a lot of it.

As a lay, stuffed, on the sofa in front of the TV, this started to bug me and the thought must have lingered over the next 24 hours because the following evening, as I opened the cupboard door to remove vegetables with which to make a soup, I decided to time how long it took me to cook the meal from scratch.

Despite not being a particularly fast cook, I made a celeriac and parsnip soup in 12 minutes including the blending time. Of course I had to leave it to simmer but I used those 30 minutes to have a shower, pour myself a drink and read the paper. But my actual used-up time was 720 seconds. And the meal cost pennies. And was delicious.

There’s no doubt that cooking sure beat the takeaway but I’m not completely clear about all there is to be learnt from the exercise. Maybe I’ll have time to think about it when I’ve rebooted this computer to try and stop it playing up.

Mince with leek dumpling and peppery swede mash

2010-03-20T07:21:00.001-07:00

Spring may be on its way but we still need warming winter dishes, whether eating at home or in restaurants. The following recipe is reminiscent of school dinners or, at least, how they should have been if prepared and served well and is a popular dish at the moment at Oldfields. And it’s interesting to note that there’s no powdered stock cube to lift, add to or mask the flavours. Just making sure you use good quality beef and sweat the vegetables properly allows the ingredients to speak for themselves.

If you’re not sure how good the minced beef might be in those plastic-wrapped polystyrene trays, try buying a little rump steak, chopping it into cubes and dropping a few at a time into a food processor until minced, being careful not to over-process.

Serves two

200g best beef mince
One carrot – peeled and roughly chopped
One onion – peeled and roughly chopped
One medium swede – peeled and roughly chopped
One sprig of fresh thyme
A little vegetable oil
One tablespoon of plain flour
One leek – split down the middle, washed and thinly sliced
100g self-raising flour
50g suet
Butter for the swede
Salt and freshly-ground black pepper
White pepper – freshly-ground if possible

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C (gas mark 4)

Place the carrot, onion and a quarter of the swede into a food processor and blend until finely chopped. Heat a little vegetable oil into a large saucepan (oven-proof if possible) and gently sweat the blended vegetables for five to ten minutes, being careful not to let them brown.

Meanwhile, in a bowl, mix the self-raising flour, suet, sliced leeks and a pinch of salt and add enough water to make a firm but pliable dough – it’ll be four or five tablespoonfuls. Using your hands, mould into dumplings.

Turn up the heat a little under the pan, add the minced beef and brown. Add the plain flour and stir to cook it off for a couple of minutes. Then add the thyme, a little salt and pepper and about half a cup of water; enough to keep it wet. Place the dumplings on top of the mixture and place in the oven for 20 minutes or so, transferring the mixture to a casserole dish if the if the pan’s not oven-proof.

While that’s cooking, boil the remaining swede in salted water for 20 minutes or until tender. Drain, add a good knob of butter, a generous amount of white pepper to taste and then mash until smooth.

How're feeling?

2010-03-20T07:20:00.001-07:00

Out of the blue I received a call from the Jeremy Vine Radio 2 programme last week. For some reason they wanted to ask how the news of the Corus steel works closing was going to effect business. I’m not clear why they picked on me but it might have been because they also rang us up when they heard about one of our staff walking 14 miles to work through the snow, realised I lived and worked in the North East and that I could talk without taking a breath.

After initial conversations with a researcher and while I was waiting for them to phone back, I wondered what I was going to say. “We’re all doomed” came to mind or “Someone’s got to do something” which always seems to be the cry of the drowning man. Maybe I could rant about the government, the opposition or all self-serving politicians in general. Then there’s always the refuge of the independantalists and I could blame it all on Europe or possibly, even, the rest of the world (I’m not paranoid but they are all out to get us).

Bolstered by caffeine and raring to go, the phone rang on cue and I was asked a question by Jeremy who then, to my surprise, just seemed to shut up and let me talk. And all my well-rehearsed stuff just disappeared. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten it. I just changed my mind. I felt I just had to “talk up” the North East. Here I was, in front of a national audience, with the opportunity to tell everyone what a great place our region is in which to live, work and visit. And maybe get a few extra restaurant bookings as a bonus.

Because in reality, steel jobs in Teesside don’t have a direct impact on the level of trade in businesses such as ours. We will have some customers who work there, or are related to someone who works there, or who work for someone who supplies them. But the thing that effects us the most, as I learnt during the foot and mouth outbreak, is that when things go wrong in one sector of the community, everybody’s made to feel down. Bad news is a good news story and spreads a bad mood like wildfire. You can’t blame the media because we’re all to blame. Hands up anybody who hasn’t had the urge, at least once in their life, to be the bearer of some major bad news they’ve just heard. We all like a bit of drama and good news just doesn’t seem to have as much as bad.

And the problem with restaurants is that no one actually absolutely has to go out for a meal. We have to get fuel for our cars. We have to buy food to eat to keep alive but eating out in restaurants is not a total necessity – more’s the pity.

But when we feel good, that’s when we book that extra little luxury in our lives. We start planning for our holidays, maybe buying a few extra clothes and, if I’m lucky, deciding to go out for meals. If only the region’s football teams were always at the top of their respective leagues, I’d be able to retire in a few years, such is the effect their results have on our mood and thus collective economic activity.

So it’s important that, despite the bad stories – and there will always be bad stories – we remember the other side: spring is coming, Newcastle United have won quite a few matches and we don’t live in the South East.

Who’s for dinner anyone?

Yoghurt cake

2010-03-20T07:17:00.001-07:00

This is one of the lightest and freshest desserts you can think of. And somehow just making and eating it reminds me that spring is just around the corner. The recipe calls for a vanilla pod. You could use a little vanilla extract or essence but don’t be tempted to use anything called vanilla flavouring; it’ll make the cake taste of chemicals.

The caramelised walnuts are a nice contrast from the fluffiness of the cake but you could use other nuts such as hazelnuts or pecans. Or you could even use mixed dried fruits with the nuts. The method’s exactly the same.

To serve four or five

Three eggs - separated
70g caster sugar
One vanilla pod
350g natural yoghurt
Zest of an orange
Juice and zest of a lemon
20g plain flour
A further two tablespoons of caster sugar
A handful of walnut halves

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C, gas mark 4

First, the nuts. Place the two tablespoons of caster sugar in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan over a medium heat. After a few minutes, the sugar will start to melt and, after a few minutes more, will start to colour. Give it a gentle stir once or twice to evenly colour and then remove from the heat. Break up the walnut halves a little and stir them into the caramel before spooning the mixture out onto greaseproof paper. Allow to cool before breaking into pieces.

To make the cake, in a bowl, and using a wooden spoon, cream the egg yokes with the castor sugar until the mix goes pale. Split the vanilla pod lengthwise and, with the point of a knife, scrape the sticky seeds out and add them to the egg and sugar mixture along with the orange and lemon juice, the lemon zest, flour and yoghurt. Mix well.

In a scrupulously clean large bowl, whisk the egg whites until forming soft peaks and, using a metal spoon, fold them into the yoghurt mix.

Spoon the mixture into a small casserole dish, loaf tin or flan dish with a solid bottom. Place that dish into a roasting tin and add enough water to come 1” up the outside of the cake’s container. Place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes or so until the top has browned a little and the cake resembles a light sponge with wet custard.

To serve, spoon a portion of the cake onto a plate and place broken pieces of caramelised nuts on top.

Taste

2010-03-20T07:11:00.001-07:00

Of course, it almost goes without saying that I’ve got impeccable taste. Well I would think that, wouldn’t I? Just as you probably think you have too. In fact it’s unlikely that I’ve ever met anyone who declares that their own taste to be appalling – even if it obviously is. And what is taste? An understanding of what looks good to wear, or possibly how one’s house is decorated? All in the best possible taste.

But taste, as far as I’m concerned, is something you experience when you stick something in your mouth. And, when it comes to that, I’ve definitely got impeccable taste. If I like it, so should you. But you don’t always, do you?

So, why is it that we like different things? You know what I mean: he likes Marmite and she hates it and so on. I remember being surprised when I first went to school to find that other children didn’t like the things I did. I guessed this was for a couple of reasons: first, we were born naturally different and second, we were brought up in different ways. And it’s that latter thought that interests me because, if it’s correct, it means we can blame the parents. And we can change ourselves.

I know that I’ve deliberately made myself like something that I’ve previously hated. Not just forcing myself, over a period of a year or two, like I did with whisky - after getting myself so drunk on it as a teenager that merely the smell of it could make me retch. I’m so pleased I succeeded.

No, it was rather seeing other people get a kick out of certain foods that I wouldn’t touch that got me thinking I wanted the same kick as them because I was obviously missing something. And as a result, these days I’ll eat virtually anything that you’ll eat; with the caveat that it helps if it’s cooked well and made from reasonable ingredients.

You frequently hear that it’s difficult to get children to eat their vegetables but it occurs to me that if they’re made to experience them as a natural part of life, not give them any choice or prejudices, then life’s so much easier. When I had my own children, I made the conscious decision that, once they were old enough, whenever they wanted a snack or a treat, they received fruit or vegetables. And so it was that you’d see them sitting in their pushchairs sucking on orange segments, bananas and carrots. They thoughts sweets were something only grandparents produced.

As a result they didn’t actually get into sweet things until they were quite a bit older than their contemporaries and while, once they’d experienced it, they loved chocolate as much as anyone, they loved fruit and vegetables too. After all, if they hadn’t eaten the healthy stuff, they probably feared I’d starve them.

I’m sure this conditioning effects us all and the way we’re brought up from day one determines to a large extent what we’re prepared to eat in later life. This isn’t some scientific study but I reckon the theory’s got legs.

So, next time I see you in one of our restaurants, I’ll be able to listen to what you say when you read the menu, hear what you like and dislike and know exactly how you were brought up.

But, of course, you’ve got such good taste. It’s just that mine’s better than yours.

Putting the pride back into great British food!

2010-02-05T14:42:00.000-08:00

The French. Don’t you just love ‘em? Well they love themselves and aren’t shy about it. To have some sort of official body that keeps an eye on the language says something for a start.

If we had such a quango, the opposition, no matter who they were, would be continuously up in arms – a bit like we used to be with the French.

But while, due to modern global pressures, cracks may occasionally appear in their patriotism, they do generally tend to defend their food, their produce and their style of cooking. While we, the Brits on the other hand, have spent decades trying to pretend that we’re French; and occasionally Chinese and Indian.

I’ve nothing against the food of foreigners. I love it. But one of the main reasons we know anything about it is the pride of those born into it.

Somehow I can’t imagine some housewife in a middle-class suburb in Vietnam scouring her local markets for that elusive ingredient to make a British hotpot.

The French influence in Britain stands to reason. They’re our nearest foreign neighbours, the first place we hit when we go to the Continent and their army successfully invaded us some centuries ago.
But the main cause is a guy called Escoffier who, some years ago, taught us to cook; or, at least, how to cook his way. As is the case with most fashions, we leapt on his methods like a drowning man, such that they became received opinion.

It’s not only that we embraced Escoffier’s dishes but also his revolution in kitchen operation that, along the way, helped elevate cooking to a profession with status. But the legacy is such that we eschewed much of our tradition.Along with changing the titles of our chefs on their career ladder - sous, chef de partie and so on – we threw out much of our respect for our indigenous dishes.

At Oldfields, in order to champion British food over the years, we’ve had to go to war with the French influence so that we may serve such things as chunky carrots rather than “julienned”.

And not that long ago, I even employed a head chef who, once he got his feet under the table, threatened to walk out if he ever heard the words “gravy” or “custard” used in “his” kitchen. Unsurprisingly, I allowed him to walk but his reaction to such terms wasn’t, and isn’t, unique. Which makes this British Food Fortnight, which we’re in the middle of now, as important as ever.

No matter which style of food you cook, its success is dependent on the quality of the ingredients. But none more so than traditional British cooking where the basic components are messed about with to a minimum and are allowed to speak for themselves.

It’s because of such a principle that our cooking became derided. What hope a quality dish if war-time austerity enforced the use of old, tough or poorly-prepared ingredients?

But the modern emergence of farmers’ markets and farm shops, along with the drive for recognition of local produce, means that there’s an abundance of quality ingredients for us to use in our British dishes. It’s time we took another leaf out of the French book, and promoted our pride in our British food.

Beetroot and Ox tongue with horseradish

2010-02-05T14:30:00.000-08:00

Like ox heart described elsewhere on this page, ox tongue is one of the animal’s most-used muscles and is also one of the least-used cuts of meat. It really is worth a try and produces an inexpensive dish.

Also, this recipe uses whole, uncooked beetroot; in my opinion, one of the most under-rated vegetables available to us.

Beetroot should always be cooked whole. Don’t be tempted to top and tail it because, once you’ve broken the skin, the red leeches out into the cooking water which not only stains everything it touches, it impairs the flavour as well.

Serves four

One ox tongue
Two raw beetroot - washed
Sea salt
Freshly-ground black pepper
A couple of teaspoons of horseradish sauce
One white onion – peeled and thinly sliced
White wine vinegar
Rapeseed (or similar) oil
80g watercress – washed and drained

Place the tongue in a large pan of cold water and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and allow to simmer for one and a half to two hours or until tender. Drain off the water and allow the tongue to cool before peeling off the outer skin and discarding.

Meanwhile, while the tongue’s simmering, place the unpeeled beetroot into a pan of cold water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 45 minutes before cooling in cold water. Drain, peel the beetroot and cut into equal-sized cubes. Place in a bowl, season with salt and pepper and a splash of white wine vinegar.

Once cool and peeled, cut the tongue into slices and season with salt and pepper. Mix the horseradish sauce with a little rapeseed to loosen it.

Place the tongue, beetroot, onion and horseradish mix in a large bowl and toss together before piling onto serving plates or into a single serving dish.

Wild Boar Bob

2010-02-05T14:27:00.000-08:00

This is Bob. We call him Wild Boar Bob. He’s been breeding ‘iron age’ pigs for over ten years, and supplying oldfields with his great tasting pork for a while now. The Pigs - a rare breed which is a cross between a Tamworth Pig and a Wild Boar - live up on Bob’s farm near Barnard Castle and after a good life out in the open, are taken to a small slaughterhouse in Witton le Wear. Bob Loves his pigs and we do too, mmmm...

Wild Boar Bob and oldfields.

Real food heroes.

The good, the bad and the unbelievable cuisine!

2010-01-28T06:16:00.000-08:00

It's because my life revolves around food, or at least it's because it's my hobby and my livelihood depends on it, that at times like this I'm tempted to reflect on my past year’s eating; good, bad and unbelievable.

For instance, there was the most expensive lunch I’ve ever paid for. I’m loathed to actually say how much it was and I have to admit a significant proportion of the bill may have been drink.

But the meal in Rick Stein’s Seafood Restaurant in Padstow was magnificent and I couldn’t begrudge one penny including the service charge.

The continuous rain outside might have contributed to the bottom line in that we couldn’t possibly leave before the rain stopped. Could we?

Then, staying with Cornwall, there were the two live crabs I bought, cooked and served with skinny chips and garlic mayonnaise for my wife and two friends.

I hesitate to sound immodest but I really can’t describe the meal as anything other than, again, magnificent.

This may have been something to do with the freshness of the crabs and also the fear-induced adrenalin. But my three messy dining companions were suitably impressed too.

Up to London a few months ago and there was lunch at the restaurant of celebrated chef Mark Hix at his Oyster and Chop House in Farringdon. It’s difficult to think of better British food anywhere – outside the North East that is.

There have been a number of gatherings at our house to honour the lives of various sheep and pigs who’d not died in vain and where, again without modesty, the cooking was particularly successful – particularly the Oxford Sandy and Black sausages and my own home dry-cured and smoked bacon.
At the other end of the scale I’ve eaten some appalling ready-made or takeaway foods. The type of hours that my job dictates I work mean that sometimes I just have to eat on the move.

So why then, when it’s so easy to get it right, are so many awful pies on sale, and successfully sold, in shops, service stations and takeaways?

I know there are some exceptional ones, but they’re few and far between and a minority on the pie-availability scale.

I’m a pie fan, we British have loads of great pie recipes and making a brilliant pie filling is actually one of the easier things to do. Pastry, I’ll give you, can be a challenge but it’s still not rocket science.
Yet we’re still insulted with rubbish. Maybe my New Year’s resolution ought to be to open a pie shop. And stop buying rubbish.

But back to the good stuff. You may think I shouldn’t say this but some of my favourite meals this last year have been in our own restaurants which, believe it or not, comes as a surprise to me.
I don’t usually enjoy eating in my own restaurant because I find it hard to relaxbut maybe I’m learning to do so.

However, I also think that we’ve been getting it right more than ever before and a lot of that’s down to our very young kitchen teams led by Anthony Taylor.

And unbelievable? Well, I’m not going to name the establishment but my wife and I were at a meeting in one of the region’s better- known hotels.

We broke for some afternoon tea which was served at the meeting table. Someone volunteered to be mother and poured the coffee where upon the person sitting next to me did that cartoon thing of taking a sip before involuntarily spitting it across the table.

Unfortunately that person was my wife who’d just found out that the coffee pot had in fact previously been used as a tea pot and the tea bags were still in residence.

The hotel might have got away with things had not a vegetarian then been given ham in her salad and someone else, my wife again, found broken glass in her food.

I know mistakes happen; we make them all the time. But we didn’t even get a proper apology, never mind the odd look of horror from the manager.

And why have I not named it? Well, there but for the grace of God...

But it was one experience among many great ones. Food’s getting better and better in this country and we’re lucky in the North East to have so many good restaurants.

Let’s make 2010 a year to remember for some very good reasons. Here’s to much good eating in 2010. Happy New Year.

Apple and walnut crumble with pouring cream

2010-01-18T00:47:00.000-08:00

Why don’t we do more crumbles? They’re so easy to make, take very little time and can be savoury as well as sweet. Great as winter-warmers, here we’ve used apples and walnuts but you could equally use rhubarb or pears or any other fruit you have available – fresh or frozen. And you could serve them with custard or ice cream and so on.

50g unsalted butter – cut into cubes

100g plain flour

50g demerara sugar

50g chopped walnuts

Four large cooking apples

Sugar to sweeten

Pouring cream

Peel the apples, dice them into chunks, place them in a saucepan and let them stew over a low heat until they begin to break down, stirring occasionally.

While they’re cooking, place the diced butter in a bowl along with the flour and rub through with the end of your fingers until you have a breadcrumb consistency. Then mix through the demerara sugar and chopped walnuts. You could wiz the butter and flour together in a food processor if you wished but make sure the walnuts are stirred in by hand.

Once the apples begin to break down, pour them into a heat-proof dish, sprinkle the crumble mixture on top and bake at 180°C (gas mark 4) until the top is golden brown – probably 20 to 30 minutes.

Remove from the oven, give a generous scoop of crumble to each person and serve with the cream.

Oldfields Restaurants cookbook, Passion for Real Food, is out now and available in good bookshops. For discounted copies contact us at the restaurants on Dean Street in Newcastle on 0191 212 1210 or Claypath, in Durham on 0191 370 9595 or go to www.oldfieldsrestaurants.com.

Bill Oldfield

2010-01-18T00:45:00.000-08:00

Bill has been big into local food and cooking for over twenty years and is more passionate now about sourcing regional foods than he ever has been. Interested in where the food comes from as much as what it tastes like, Bill now has his own paddock! He keeps sheep and pigs which, after a good life, come to oldfields as some of the freshest local produce we can get!

Bill and oldfields.
Real food heroes.