Mulled Wine

Mrs Ribeye has one of her oldest Russian friends, Katariya, staying with us over the Christmas period, and we are having a lot of fun introducing her to some of our traditional English customs.

I think she thought she might get to spend the afternoon Underneath the Arches after having eaten a lunch of eel pie and mash, while Doin' the Lambeth Walk and dressing like a pearly queen. Er, actually no. Yesterday was spent wandering around Greenwich market (fab), eating a traditional London lunch of sushi (double fab), and then seeing the new Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at Tate Britain (triple fab). In keeping with me Lahndan roots though, we did eat mince pies at 9am and spent most of the day wandering into pubs to drink mulled wine at every single given opportunity.

Apart from calling it 'muled' wine (as in wine that comes from a mule), Katariya was enchanted by our favouritest winter beverage - or maybe enchanted is too strong a word; pissed maybe better. Pissed enough to organise herself a coach trip for today around Oxford, Warwick, Stratford-upon-Avon and the Cotswolds. IN ONE DAY! Tourists are funny. I myself never succumb to touristy behaviour, of course. I'm looking forward to visiting my Russian in-laws for new year in a few weeks time, and have bought myself a new faux fur ear-flap hat, massive snow boots and padded ski gloves for the trip to -35c Syktyvkar. I am SOOOO going to fit in with the locals! Actually, not really - Mrs Ribeye tells me that her mum wears trainers and a light anorak in winter, which means that I'll be sticking out like a moronic frostbitten thumb. Fun!

Anyway, I'm not sure whether they 'mull' drinks over in Russia, but I'm going to be bringing with me a few essentials to turn the (admittedly delicious as it is) Russian Kabernet into a true winter warmer. Mulled wine is the easiest thing to make, with just a few ingredients. I serve mine in a coffee mug and place any leftovers in a jug in the fridge, ready to be hastily microwaved for emergency doses.

I buy the cheapest red plonk and this drink comes in at a super-reasonable £1 per 200ml dose. Get mulling!

Serves 3-4

INGREDIENTS:

1 bottle of red wine
1 whole clementine
1 clove (the spice - not garlic!)
1 cinammon stick
4-5 tablespoons of demerara or caster sugar (to taste)

Stud the clementine with the clove and place into a pan with the rest of the ingredients. Over a low heat, keep stirring the mixture until the sugar has dissolved and the kitchen is filled with lovely Christmassy aromas. Make sure you do  not boil, otherwise the alcohol will dissipate. Serve hot with mince pies, four times a day throughout December...

Merguez with White Bean Puree

I'm definitely slipping. The 'no meat on weekdays' oath which Mrs Ribeye and I took months and months ago has been replaced by 'not much week on weekdays'. This week (if I'm honest) it has been replaced by 'no meat-free weekdays.

Why? Because it is -2C today and my primeval self is telling me to go out and kill and eat a dinosaur. Being a veggie or a fish-eater (I'm NOT using the word 'pescatarian' - it's too wanky) during the week is fine during those balmy summer months, but in December in a drafty flat in London? No bloody way.

Today's dish combines my two favourite sins: Gluttony and Sloth. Checking the miserable weather from window and not fancying braving the 200 yards from my house to the local Waitrose, I decided that dinner was going to be Things-I-Find-Around-The-House. Of course then, merguez from the fridge and beans from a jar it had to be.

I bought these essential store-cupboard (well, freezer, in the case of the sausages) ingredients while on our last trip to our frog-eating garlicky neighbours in September, knowing that at some stage in the coming months I would be sitting in my 'lounge wear' and not wanting to tear myself away from the TV (Iron Chef America is my latest addiction - 'Alllllez Cuisine!').

Merguez (or 'mergs' as my father Mr Ribeye Sr likes to call them), are north African lamb sausages spiced with earthy aromas like cumin, caraway, coriander and chilli and stained a deep dark red by paprika maybe. Anyway, they are sublime. You can find them all over France, but not much over here - maybe in an exotic food purveyor, but certainly not in average supermarkets. Shame really, because they are versatile and easy to cook and more interesting to serve for a special dinner than English bangers and mash.

But mash is exactly what I will be serving these sausages with. White bean puree to be exact. The puree recipe is straight from my mother's repertoire - she's been buying French beans in jars for years, and reckons they're better than our English counterparts. I agree. They are softer and more yielding and a bit easier to break down into a lovely rich nubbly mash. Perfect bland stodge to go with the spicy mergs.

So, dinner in 15 minutes, no shopping - because I did that three months ago - and a plate full of high calorie deliciousness to eat on a cold day. Now that's no sin.

All in, this dish comes in at £2 per serving. On a cursory online inspection I noticed merguez in a shop for £12 per kilo. Are you kidding? Better to spend a few hundred quid going to France and bringing them back yourself. Come on! I didn't say cheaper, I said better.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

6 merguez sausages (or other high quality bangers)
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 x 500g jar of white beans, drained and rinsed to remove the gloop
Salt and pepper
Fresh parsley, for garnishing

In a 200c oven, bake the sausages on an unoiled baking sheet for 15 minutes. While the merguez are cooking, fry the garlic in the olive oil until soft, then add the drained beans. With a fork, break down the beans until you have a nubbly puree - not a smooth paste. Season to taste and pile onto a serving dish. Top with the cooked merguez and garnish with parsley.

The Giant Cornish Pasty

There is no way that this dish is remotely authentic to any traditional Cornish recipe.

Firstly, I'm pretty sure that the filling is not supposed to be cooked before being placed inside the pastry.
Secondly, I'm fairly certain that you are not supposed to use puff pastry (ready-rolled or not).
Thirdly, I'm 99% convinced that the pasty is not supposed to contain parsnips.
Fourthly, I know for a fact that the pasty is not supposed to comfortably feed eight people.

Apart from that, this dish is 100% INCREDIBLE!!!

Last night, Mrs Ribeye and I decided that because it's winter, that we can eat baked goods every single day until May. Which means that last night's dinner of bread, Cornish pasty and mince pies was absolutely justified. Except that I went to bed feeling sick and woke up feeling sick. In fact, it is now 4.30pm and I am now fully recovered enough for me to raid the fridge for leftovers. Gotta love those winter nights (it is dark as hell out there already...at bloody 4.30pm).

So why make such a massive pasty? Well, it could be because the filling-to-pastry ratio is that much higher than with individual serving sizes, or it could be because I couldn't be bothered to make fiddly little pasties. But the real reason, is that I love making big food. I suspect there might be a deep-rooted Freudian problem that needs urgently addressing...

Shin of beef is the absolute best cut for any beef stew. Don't bother with any other cut. It's cheap (£5 per kg), sinewy (which means big flavour) and ugly (which means, err cheap and err flavourful). You just need to brown it properly and cook it until the collagen in the sinews breaks down into a delicious gelatinous mush of beefy goodness.

I cook my filling first, because I like having a nice gravy with pasty, but I suppose you could use a more tender cut and do it the traditional way, by cooking the filling raw with the pastry. I wouldn't in a million years - whatever the Cornish Culture and Heritage Office have to say - because I reckon my way is way better.

The one thing that my dish and the traditional pasty have in common is the cost. This was always meant to be a cheap dish, and it really really is. £1.25 per serving.

Serves 8

INGREDIENTS:

1kg beef shin, cut into 3cm dice
2 tablespoons of sunflower oil
1 large parsnip, peeled and cut into 1cm dice
4 carrots, peeled and cut into 1cm dice
2 onions, peeled and cut into 1cm dice
2 tablespoons of plain flour
1 litre beef stock
1 tablespoon of dried thyme
2 bay leaves
Salt and black pepper (lots)
3 potatoes, peeled and cut into 2cm dice
2 packs of ready-rolled puff pastry
1 egg yolk, beaten

In a large casserole pan, seal the meat in the oil on a blisteringly high heat until well browned. Add the vegetables, and allow to soften, then add the flour, stock, herbs and seasoning. Turn the heat to low and simmer for three hours, and then add the potatoes for a further 30 minutes. Allow the mixture to cool and with a slotted spoon drain off the gravy to be served with the pasty later. On a greaseproof papered baking sheet, lay one of the pastry sheets. Spoon the pasty filling over the pastry, leaving a 2cm border around the edge. Top with the other pastry sheet, crimp the edges tightly and glaze it with the egg yolk. Decorate it with small knife slits to allow steam to escape. Bake in a 180c oven for 1 hour. Allow to slightly cool before serving, to allow the pastry to firm up. Heat the reserved gravy and serve with the pasty.

Caprese Salad

I am convinced that the live basil plant found in the 'living herbs' section, found in every supermarket in the land, is a complete racket.

The concept is simple: Buy a vaccuum pack of basil leaves for 80p, OR BUY A WHOLE PLANT FOR £1!!! No contest really. (a) The pack, once opened, is ruined - which means that you must eat the basil within an hour before the leaves get all soggy and shocked that they're now inhaling central London fumes and cooking smells after they were all used to being cosy in their hermetically-sealed plastic environment; (b) Who wants to eat a whole pack of basil in one sitting? The live plant will allow me to keep going back to the well for days (certainly)/weeks (hopefully)/months (can it be possible?)/years (dare I dream?) on end; (c) Live plants look good in my tiny kitchen - slightly like I'm living in Tuscany. All I need now is a lemon bush and an olive tree.

However, after TWO days, and a few snippets of leaves later, this is what my plumptuous basil plant looks like:

A ragbag of wilting blackening pulpy leaves and bent stalks.

Having tried every single tip on the internet to breathe life back into my herbal disaster zone (you can forget the care tips on the pack: 'Water when needed'. Bahh!), and failing miserably, I realised that I have been completely conned. The supermarket are injectingt the plants with fungus to get you to keep buying them! It doesn't matter where I live, how hot/cold my flat is, how sunny/dark my kitchen is, how much/little water I give the plant, how many times I crop/leave the plant alone, if I give/don't give the plant Baby Bio; the fact remains, I buy a new plant every week with the same steadfast optimism that 'this time, I KNOW where I am going to put it/when to water it/when to crop it' etc, but the plant curls up and dies within a day or two.

And I do buy a new plant every week. Why? Because basil rocks. I put it into as many dishes as I can justify: Italian, Thai, salads, stews and soups. Today's dish is a stalwart weekday light supper which I serve with some fresh bread and butter, and is so pretty and wholesome that Mrs Ribeye hardly notices that I've made very little effort.

Caprese salad is the simpler brother of the insalata tricolore. I barely buy avocados these days because I reckon only one in three is ever any good - and that is a risk-to-benefit ratio that I'm not happy with. Better to keep spending my money on those bloody basil plants...

Mozzarella cheeses seems to be getting cheaper and cheaper these days. A 125g ball of the cheap stuff is now 43p! Which means that this dish comes in at a crazily cheap £1.25 per serving.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

2 x 125g balls of mozzarella cheese
4 plum tomatoes
Quarter of an iceberg lettuce
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
Handful of fresh basil leaves
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper

Slice the cheese and tomatoes into 1cm thick rounds and arrange in rows on a plate. Finely chop the iceberg lettuce and place in a neat row down the centre of the plate. Sprinkle oregano over the cheese and tomato and dot the basil leaves around the edge. Dress the salad with the oil and vinegar (not on the basil) and season to taste. Serve immediately.

Spicy Barbecued Lamb Breast with Garlic and Mint Yoghurt Sauce and Rice

Me old mum, Mrs Ribeye Sr, loves to tell me about the good old days when she was young and had no money. For some reason, she gets all nostalgic about being poor and hungry. Fairly weird.

One of her stories is how she used to make a dinner of lamb breast for her and me old dad that cost 'one-and-six' (whatever that means), and that she used to roll it with sage and onion stuffing for dinner before listening to Perry Como on the wireless and watching Hughie Green on the light box receiver. She then allowed herself a ha'p'orth of cough candy before sleeping in the family's Anderson shelter (probably).

Anyway, the reason for this trip down 'Inaccurate Memory Lane' is that I have suddenly found a penchant for lamb breast. It's still cheap - not one-and-six, but £5 per kilo - and absolutely delicious. In all honesty, it is a gristly and fatty old bit of meat, but as any foodie will know, this means MASSIVE flavour. I love the scrag ends of things. If there is a bit of connective tissue going, I'm your man. No fancy fillets for me - I'd rather eat the skin of any animal than the prime cuts.

My wife, Mrs Ribeye, is not quite as enthusiastic as me for the less fancy cuts of flesh. She thinks they're pretty offal (I thaaank you). When I presented her with this dish, she asked me why she couldn't actually have a lamb chop, rather than shank or breast, for once. Pish! I said. Chops are for wimps and rich people who know no better. Now cut up your gristle a bit smaller.

I am joking, of course. If you treat the lamb breast correctly, it will repay you in kind. The key is to marinate it well, cook it long and hard and then allow it to relax for a significant time. Result: The best lamb in the world. You can stick your prime rack up your rump end as far as I'm concerned.

The first thing you must do when buying your lamb breast, is to unroll it and discard the disgusting elastic net that it comes tightly shrouded in. If you don't, then the inner coils of the meat will not get any direct heat, and you'll end up with flaccid fatty nonsense, instead of crispy schwarma-like (schwarma. Mmmmmm) shards of deliciousness. Try it - you'll never go back to the rack.

Because this cut of meat is so cheap to buy, this whole dish comes in at a fantastic £2.50 per serving. A third of the cost of a dish made with the dearer stuff, and a sixth of the cost of a decent Middle Eastern takeaway.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

750g lamb breast
1 tablespoon of dried mint, dried oregano, ground cumin, ground coriander, dried chilli flakes
Salt and pepper
1 onion, minced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
4 tablespoons of olive oil

Unroll the lamb breast. Mix the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl and then rub it well into the lamb. Leave in the fridge for minimum 2 hours, preferably overnight. Preheat oven or barbecue to 250c. Roast the lamb breast for an hour, turning once, until it is crispy and slightly charred. Then remove from the oven and allow to rest for 15 minutes.

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Garlic and Mint Yoghurt Sauce

INGREDIENTS:

300ml natural unsweetened Greek yoghurt
1 teaspoon of dried mint
1 clove of garlic, minced
Pinches of salt and pepper

Mix ingredients together and refrigerate until needed.

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To Serve

INGREDIENTS:

Mixed salad vegetables, chopped into 2cm dice
Salt and pepper
200g cooked rice (I use basmati)
2 tablespoons of olive oil

Place a mound of salad vegetables onto a plate and season to taste. Stir the olive oil into the rice and place onto the plate next to the salad. Cut the lamb breast into 2cm dice and place in a pile over the rice. Top the lamb with the yoghurt sauce. Serve immediately.

Mother-in-Law's Spice-Rubbed Roasted Mackerel with Roasted Mediterranean Vegetables

Having a Russian mother-in-law is fun. She smiles whenever I talk to her. She doesn't understand my sarcastic jibes. She (not so) secretly thinks I beat her daughter. She cooks interesting food. What's not to love?

Last summer, Mrs Syktyvkar Sr gave me a small paper cornet of Ukranian dry spice rub, bought on a trip she and Mr Syktyvkar Sr took to Kiev, and (via Mrs Ribeye's translation) explained to me that it should be sprinkled on anything to 'make it taste better'. With a barely concealed sceptical look in my eye, I graciously accepted the package and placed it into my spice rack (actually more of a shelf) in my kitchen when I got home and then totally forgot about it. It's not that I don't believe my mother-in-law, it's just that the Russians are not particularly known for their spicy cuisine.

Last year, on a trip to Mrs Ribeye's homeland, Mrs Syktyvkar Sr fed us about eight times a day. So for the week we were there, Mrs Ribeye and I ate 56 meals and not one of them contained a single spice. Yes, there were fresh herbs - chopped dill (or 'oo-crop', as it is known) seems to find its way into every dish - but spices? No. I tried to buy some dried spices to add to some food that I was cooking for the family, but couldn't find anything beyond black pepper in any supermarket. As Mrs Ribeye says, 'we like to let the flavour of the ingredients speak for themselves.'

Oh, come on! What about a delicious cuzza once in a while?  Or a chilli con carne? Or anything Spanish or, Chinese? I like basic flavours as much as the next guy, but until I went to Russia, I had taken for granted how many tons of dry spices I get through every year. It's not to say my mother-in-law's cooking isn't fab (in fact, we're going back there in a few weeks and I can't wait), but how often can you eat meat, fish and veg flavoured with garlic and dill? A week is fine, but a lifetime?

Anyway, the fact that Mrs Syktyvkar Sr brought me a paper cornet of dry spices touched my heart. Is it maybe a tiny fractional shift towards my Russian family acquiring a taste for spicy food after having come over here and eating some of my more 'exotic' creations? I can only hope and pray.

The rub I was given contains a mysterious blend which might be ground coriander, cumin, fennel, celery seeds and a host of other delights. Make your own, by combining earthy dark spices and roasting them in a dry pan before grinding them up. Any combination will do - experiment.

I used the rub on a mackerel fillet that was left over from my New York Sushi night, and it was a REVELATION. I am not making mackerel again without liberally coating the flesh side with dry spices and then roasting it for a couple of minutes in a searingly hot oven. The oiliness of the fish works brilliantly with the warm muskiness of the spices. Oh, and it's cheap too. I served it with some roasted Mediterranean vegetables, and the whole dish came to a bargain £2.50 per serving.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

1 large mackerel, filleted but with the skin left on.
1 tablespoon of dry spice rub - any will do.
Salt and black pepper
500g mixed Mediterranean vegetables - I used courgette, onion, peppers, aubergine and garlic
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon of dried basil

Preheat oven to a very hot 250c. Rub the flesh side of the two mackerel fillets with the spice rub and some seasoning and place skin side up on a baking tray, and then set aside. In a roasting tin, toss the vegetables and garlic in the olive oil and dried basil and seasoning. Roast in the hot oven for 45 minutes, or until slightly charred on the edges. About 4-5 minutes before the vegetables are completely cooked, place the mackerel on the top shelf in the oven and cook until the skin is crispy. Do not turn the fish over - the flesh will dry out. remove from the oven and serve with the roasted vegetables.

New York-Style XL Sushi Nigiri

Having eaten sushi a number of times at Sushi-Waka in Camden Town - assured by the owner as 'pure Japanese sushi' - and in New York at various sushi bars - I can tell you that the Big-Appley (even their fruit is big) ones like to do it bigger. Not necessarily better, but definitely bigger. Well actually, maybe better.

While my nigiri and maki purveyors in Camden prefer the more no-frills austerity 'minimalist' style of presenting the subtle delights of the raw fish, the guys over in Giant Granny Smith feel that unless they present you with a monster selection straight off the pallets at Fulton Fish Market, and then doll it up with numerous multi-coloured garnishes and accoutrements, that they are somehow short-changing you. 

I cannot say objectively whether authentic Japanese or Massive Cox's Orange Pippin-style sushi is better. The most I can say, is that if I'm in the mood for purist traditional food sold in draughty London premises by the stern looking wife of the jovial chef, I'll take a bus to Camden, and when I'm in the mood for over-the-top metropolitan pescatarian ostentatiousness served by Abercrombie & Fitch models, I'll catch a plane over the Atlantic to the Large Orchard Fruit of the Deciduous Tree. It's nice to have options.

My good friend Ophelia came over for dinner this week, and so I decided to offer her some sushi; as (a) I don't eat meat on a school night; (b) I like sushi; and (c) I like pretty food - and sushi is the veritable supermodel of the culinary universe. But which style should I go for? Proper Japanese sushi (small portions/beautifully presented), or Gargantuan Pink Lady style (enormous slabs of fish/tiny rice/presented like a fishy Carman Miranda's hat)? Well, no contest really. I went BIG.

As for the types of fish I chose. I went to Waitrose on the Edgware Road and interrogated the fish counter guy as to when his fish were caught. Not placed on ice on his counter, but actually caught. He assured me that his stock arrives daily from a boat arriving from the fishing grounds in the middle of the night. Good enough for me. I chose a plump sea bass, a shiny mackerel and a glistening salmon fillet and asked him to make sure they were entirly bone-free (I can be very assertive at times). Great fish choices, and a nice set of contrasting textures, colours and flavours.

I have advocated buying fresh fish for sushi before, but all I can say is: If you're queasy about eating raw supermarket fish, then don't. But then don't eat your tuna rare, or go to one of those sushi conveyor belt restaurants either - the right supermarket (ie a good quality one) trumps a dodgy faux-Japanese disco blaring High Street fish cafe any time. As they say; you pays your price, you takes your risk.

The nice thing about this dish, is you don't need to be an artist to make dinner look amazing. Just cut the fillets up into large chunks and place over torpedoes of rice. Then garnish the plate like its New Year's Eve. Easy. As you can see from the picture, this dish looks a bit of a crazy mess- which is the WHOLE POINT.

Cost-wise, the fish came to £4.50 for three fillets, with the rice and garnishes bringing the whole dish to £3 per serving. Really good value, and a true mid-week treat. As they used to say in New York (I'm out of Big Apple gags): Have a nice day.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

150g sushi or risotto rice
50ml rice vinegar
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1 fresh salmon fillet, skinned and pin-boned
1 mackerel fillet, pin-boned, but with the skin left on
1 sea bass fillet, pin-boned, but with the skin left on
Large handful of salad leaves
1 large carrot, peeled and cut into fine strips with a potato peeler
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
25g sesame seeds
25g nigella (black onion) seeds
1 teaspoon of prepared wasabi paste, to serve
75ml dark soy sauce, to serve
Pickled ginger, to serve

To make the sushi rice: Add the rice to a pan with twice the volume of water. Cook the rice on a moderate heat until the water has fully absorbed (15 minutes approx). While the rice is still warm, add the vinegar, salt and sugar and fold in gently to ensure you don't break up the rice grains. Set aside until needed. In the meantime. slice all fish fillets across the grain, until you have 3-4cm strips of 1cm thickness. Form the cooled rice into 3cm torpedoes with your hands, and place attractively around a large serving platter with a fish fillet on each. Dress the salad leaves and carrot strips with the oil and vinegar and place in the centre of the dish with a ramekin filled with soy sauce and wasabi nestled in the middle. Sprinkle sesame seeds on the salmon and nigella seeds on the mackerel. Serve the sushi immediately with pickled ginger on the side.