THE CURLEW: FOOD STAR

The kerfuffles over M*chel*n becomes ever more insignificant as the years roll by. Let’s face it, if you work in or own a restaurant it’s nice to get recognition for your travails during the year but as a guide on to where to eat out: not so much.

Having said that where once the stars would guide you towards food that was overwrought and tasted nothing of itself (Canon of Lamb anyone?) now it does at least cover a few more styles than the essentially poncified. Amen to that.

The Curlew in Bodiam, East Sussex is the very antithesis of that ornate style: by that I mean the sort of place where simultaneous cloche-lifting has been raised to fine art and where it takes a few seconds to focus in on the small assemblage in the middle of a very large plate and realise it was your main course.

Certainly there is a good level of technique and refinement to the food at The Curlew but the whole experience still came over as relaxed and unaffected and very enjoyable.

The kitchen is obviously a big follower of ace businessman and all-round good guy Tom Aikens as everything is served on boards. I know of few foods which are improved by being served on planks of wood and in some cases it’s a downright hindrance to eating one’s grub.

Take my first starter of Herring. Big meaty fillets of lightly soused Herring were served in a min-kilner jar with some grated horseradish, a little cream of that root and some Rye bread. Beautiful to taste, but a bugger to try and eat.

A second starter of Yorkshire Black Pudding was a clever assembly of Watercress, little balls of crisp sweet apple and interspersed with cubes of rich Foie Gras. The turnover had lovely, buttery, flaky pastry but I found the Black Pudding slightly claggy and its rich taste didn’t come through like it should have. Still, an enjoyable dish.

The signature Chop and Chips turned out to be more than the sum of its parts. Jacob’s Ladder (short rib) had been cooked sous-vide for, oh, ages and ages. I’m not a fan of this method of cooking. Sure, it’s convenient for the kitchen and the results are very consistent: even colouring; moistness. But like all meat that has been cooked this way you end up something that is not terribly interesting. Beef needs to be cooked so that it has a wider range of tastes and textures. Chips cooked in Beef Dripping were verging on the fat but just rescued from that chip graveyard.

Surprisingly, the most impressive element was the zippy, mayo-free coleslaw, something that Barbecoa tried to do but failed quite miserably. It may sound like I didn’t enjoy the dish but despite the small individual weaknesses as a whole it was well balanced and just worked.

The kitchen has a pretty sure hand with puds as well – a Chestnut honey tart was light and soft and refined although serving the equally delicious Green Walnut ice cream on a board just seemed weird. At least my Mince Pie ice cream (which actually did taste of mince pies) was served in a bowl.

The service from a handful of young women was relaxed and friendly yet utterly professional: when I mentioned a mini-Bakewell pudding I had seen wafting passed me earlier in the meal they rustled one up to go with my (excellent) coffee. The owners even arranged for a taxi to take come and pick me up from the nearest station – recommended as The Curlew is in the middle of nowhere – and to deposit me less steadily back on the London bound train.

Oh, and The Curlew has just got recognition from the Fat Tyre Man - but I doubt it will change them. Amen (again) to that.

HOME COOKING: ONION BHAJI & CORIANDER, CHILLI DIPPING SAUCE

Sorry if I have been a little quiet recently, but let me shout out a huge thanks to Hermano Primero for his stalwart efforts to keep everyone entertained.

I have been swamped with work in the last few weeks.  I am working on the proposal for a new book, talking TV with lots of different people and, not least concentrating on my regular gig of providing a weekly recipe for www.askmen.com.

I promise to pay more attention to the blog over the next few weeks and can also tell you that there will be lots of posts, in April, as I head out on a ten state US road trip through Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas and Missouri.

In the meantime, I hope sharing one of my favourite and most well received recipes will keep you occupied

Speak soon

ONION BHAJJI WITH CORIANDER CHILLI DIPPING SAUCE

INGREDIENTS (SERVES 4)

FOR THE BHAJJI

2 Large White Onion

2 Cups of Gram flour (also called Chickpea or Gabanzo Flour, which is available at any good market)

1 Tsp Chilli Powder

¼ Tsp Turmeric

¼ Tsp Salt

¼ Tsp Sugar

¾ Cup Water

Vegetable Oil For Deep Frying.

FOR THE DIP

2 x Large Bunches of fresh corriander(stalks and leaves)

5 x Green Chillies

2 x Limes (Juice and Zest)

4 Cloves Garlic

2 Inches Fresh Ginger

5 Tbs Yoghurt (Low Fat is Fine)

¼ Tsp Salt

¼ Tsp Sugar

 METHOD

Cut the onions into half inch chunks.

Sift the flour into a mixing bowl.

Add the dry spices, salt and sugar to the flour and combine well.

Add the water gradually, stirring to make a thick batter similar to heavy cream in consistency.  If the batter is too thick add more water, if it is too thin, sift in a little more flour until you get the desired result.

Add the onion chunks to the batter, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill for one hour.

While the batter is chilling, place all the ingredients for the dip in a large blender and blitz to a smooth puree. 

Heat vegetable oil in a deep sided pan.  To check the temperature is correct for deep frying, drizzle a little of the batter into the oil.  If it sizzles and rises to the surface, it is ready for cooking.

Take one of two chunks of the batter covered onion and drop them into the oil, taking care as they will begin to spit as they cook.

Do not add too many onions to the batter at one time as this will reduce the temperature of the oil and make the end result soggy.

Cook each bhaji until it is golden brown, then remove and drain on kitchen towel.

Sprinkle with salt and serve with the delicious hot, sour coriander sauce.

POPPIES: JEELIED EELS, JELLIED EELS WOBBLING ABOUT LIKE WONKY WHEELS

Jellied Eels? Not bleedin’ likely guv. I think it was probably being force fed them by my grandparents whilst on holiday in Bournemouth that led me to think of them as the Devil’s spawn. HS loves them so go, as they say, figure.

If you really want to try them (and I strongly suggest you don’t) you can get them from Tubby Issacs seafood stall on Petticoat Lane but they also have them at Poppies Fish and Chips a brand, spanking new chippy just opposite Spitalfields Market.

I haven’t had any Fish and Chips for ages and to be honest I hadn’t missed eating them. If you’re going to pig-out on carbs then you might as well do it on carbs of decent quality and there hadn’t been any new openings of note. I also wanted somewhere close by so Poppies suited the bill.

The first shock is how bright the place is. Combine that with an interior decorated like a Piccadilly Circus souvenir shop and 50’s hits playing on the PA and it would be inadvisable to visit with a hangover or like I did, feeling slightly under the weather.

Still it didn’t seem to put off the punters: Shoreditch hipsters with stupid haircuts and skinny jeans queuing for takeaway; groups of lads lining their stomachs before a few pints; Japanese tourists admiring the Formica tables. And me, of course.

Food was a bit of a mixed bag. Despite all the shiny, modern exterior it’s still a bog-standard London chippy at heart which means the scoff churned out is ok if not quite delivering F&C nirvana.

The fryers had made a decent fist of cooking some Whitebait. The little fish had been given quite a light coating of flour before frying so you could actually taste the fish as oppose to the oil. Perhaps they could have been a tad more crisp but it was marginal and at £3.95 a painless way to start a meal.

The Fish and Chips themselves weren’t so great. A thin fillet of Haddock was soft and was enveloped by limp batter that hadn’t really bubbled up in the prescribed manner. Chips were of the pale and uninteresting variety and also could have done with a bit of crisping up.

Homemade tartare sauce was mayonnaise-heavy and needed more chopped up gherkins or something similar to give it texture. Mushy Peas – also homemade - were slightly bizarre - more like a Pea Soup (a nod to London in the 50’s perhaps?). The taste was too pea-like and the last thing mushy peas should taste like are peas. I don’t know why places in the South bother, I really don’t.

So not the best Fish and Chips you can get in the capital – although I haven’t been for a while I suspect Masters Superfish still holds that crown – but at least they had the virtue of not tasting oily and craving the carbs I did finish the lot, but felt slightly grubby afterwards: full of regret and self-loathing (as us svelte Metropolitan types are wont to do after a binge).

One for the tourists.

THE PERSEVERANCE: PEARL OF THE QUARTER

When I was resting between jobs (you'll probably remember my role as Pale in The Tinsley Players production of Lanford Wilson's Burn This) I kept a spreadsheet of restaurants which were due to open.

Exhibiting slightly alarming tendencies of the anorak variety (most men have them but usually keep them firmly under control) I would scour the trade rags and job sites for news about new restaurants and count down the days to when they finally opened. I would pitch up for a meal - barely giving the paint on the doors a chance to dry - usually to the bemusement of the staff.

Things change. Now with increased use of social media by PRs and Chefs most places are known about well before they open. Heston Blumenthal’s Dinner is a good example. It’s also made it pretty difficult to find those undiscovered gems that made all the list-keeping so worthwhile.

Or so I thought until recently when a tipoff from someone I follow on Twitter had me running to Google Maps (RIP A to Z). My contact had mentioned a pub which now had new owners. The lineage of the staff pointed to the Anchor and Hope in Waterloo. I'd got a similar tip from the same person about the rather wonderful Canton Arms in Stockwell so I knew it would be a lead worth following up.

The Perseverance is situated in a quiet road in an odd little area north of the Marylebone Road and just round the corner from the charming Marylebone Station, an area which has thankfully yet to be designated ‘a village’.

The pub has been stripped down, cleaned up and given a lick of paint to produce a casually elegant space which is dominated by a large horseshoe bar. At the moment there’s just a few tables to eat at but there are plans to open a 40 cover dining room on the first floor.

If you're a fan of bling or any sort of see-and-be-seen, er, scene then The Perseverance may not be for you. It's got a relaxed feel that I liked but the emphasis is definitely on the things that matter: food and drink. I'll eat a lot of meals in the forthcoming year but I like to think the ones I’ve had here will be up there with the best.

The menu was one of those that you look at and wish one’s capacity to eat wasn’t being slowly diminished year by year – I genuinely would have been happy eating any of the dishes on it (apart from the soup which I’m sure is terrific but which I hardly ever order in a restaurant).

Chef Justin Aubrey’s food is not of the shouty type that blasts the taste buds with over-reduced sauces and flavours that clamour for attention and which leave you feeling a little ill. No, this is deceptively simple stuff but made with good ingredients and a fine technique to give a surprisingly refined result.

For a starter the Monkfish Liver is probably as interesting and delicious a dish as you can get in London at the moment. Two decent-sized lobes of Monkfish Liver had been lightly browned in butter. They were soft with a delicate flavour of offal and of the sea. A sort of piscine Foie Gras. It had been paired with a salad of Parsley, Capes and Shallot to add a burst of piquancy.

A bowl of steamed Clams had the heady aroma of the bivalves best buddies: garlic and lemon. They were fresh and meaty and left a small puddle of shellfish broth into which I had to dunk chunks of the good homemade bread.

Saddle of Rabbit had been boned and stuffed with its own offal and some greens. The whole had been rolled and covered in bacon and sliced. It was moist and tender with that faint taste of game that rabbit has but with an offal hit. It came with a little jug of a creamy mustard sauce and a small dish of a rich Celeriac Gratin.

Another main course was an individual Wellington. Fillet of Bambi was covered with a mushroom duxelles in the classic manner and wrapped in excellent pastry. A slick of jus, some watercress and excellent red cabbage made for a fine dish to say goodbye to January to. This is seasonal food without making a song and dance about it.

Good pastry was also in evidence in the puds as well. Over a couple of visits there’s been a tart on the menu and the Lemon one particularly stood out in the memory with it’s crumbly pastry and light, zesty lemon cream. Three scoops of a Salty Butter Caramel Ice Cream had proper texture and just the right amount of bitter caramel taste. A similar number of scoops of a tart Granny Smith sorbet would be a good choice if you’d overindulged during the rest of the meal (maybe too much of the marvellous bread); a cup of their good Coffee with a Grappa would serve the same purpose.

The wine list has been intelligently put together with several natural wines available – if that floats your boat – but I was guided towards a terrific Beaujolais which seemed like it would go with anything. Like the food the prices seem pretty reasonable to me and if you don’t want to splash out on a bottle there’s plenty available by the glass or two sizes of pot.

When I’ve visited good, independent operations I’ve always bemoaned the fact that there aren’t more of them around especially in the central parts of the capital. With chains increasingly cluttering up our high streets the hope that we could have similar joints on every corner begins to look like a pipe dream. Places like The Perseverance make me think there’s still hope. Budding restaurateurs please take note or better yet pay them a visit, they’re nice people.