an offally good weekend

Last weekend was a special one. The Chef had both days off (which almost never happens), so our tiny, yet well-equipped and lovable kitchen hosted a double whammy of culinary operations in which I attempted to learn how to cook. 

After a morning of looking at art we couldn’t afford at The Affordable Art Fair (I know, ironic, right?), we stumbled into Selfridges Food Hall on Saturday afternoon in search of something less dear and far easier to swallow. The Chef made a beeline for the butchers counter - I knew exactly what he was looking for. And when our eyes simultaneously set on the wet, plump, milky-pink chunks of veal throat sweetbreads, my stomach fluttered. This was a guarantee that tonight’s meal would be no less than delicious, even if I was involved in the cooking process. We then moved along to the poultry section and picked up some beautifully shiny brown chicken livers as well for Sunday. 

One may argue that seeing as this is my second cooking lesson, attempting to master a sweetbreads dish seems a little (if not a lot) too farfetched; surely it’s way too technically advanced for an amateur. And technically, that is true. But what is the point of having a one-on-one with a professional chef if you can’t skip a few steps? So, it was pan-fried veal sweetbreads with sautéed mushrooms and caramelised chicory for dinner. Mmmm... even writing about it makes me hungry. 

The most challenging part was removing the membrane so needless to say I left this up to the pro. (I guess this is cheating a little bit but it’s also good to know that the butchers can perform the task for you anyway.) 

To celebrate the start of our offal weekend adventures we opened a bottle of the 2009 J.M. Boillot Montagny 1er Cru - an intense, oaky chardonnay with an intriguing and unusually fresh finish. A robust, yet bright white wine with a good amount of acidity that went surprisingly well with the sweetbreads. Ahhh, the sweetbreads (I can’t help but make that noise in my head every time I mention them) … Every bite was like heaven. No, more like arriving at heaven’s doors to discover that it’s the biggest Prada store in the world. The thin brown, salty and crispy shell on the outside broke in my mouth to reveal the succulent, delicate texture and the creamy richness, followed by a dull, mild offal after taste that lingered just a moment on the palette before it was all over too soon. While the sweetness of the caramelised chicory contrasted with the overwhelmingly rich sweetbreads, the mushrooms, which gave off a wonderfully meaty, woody, sweet aroma, added an earthy dimension that pulled everything together perfectly. 

Now, didn’t I say it was going to be a spectacular weekend? 

Ingredients:

100g chestnut mushrooms - finely diced

100g oyster mushrooms - cut into strips 

2 shallots - finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic - finely chopped

a handful of parsley - finely chopped

50g butter

squeeze of lemon juice

2 chicory

1 tablespoon caster sugar

1 tablespoon creme fraiche

200g veal sweetbreads 

olive oil

1. Put a third of the butter in a frying pan; add the chopped shallots and garlic; cook for five minutes until soft but not coloured. Add the mushrooms, season with salt and pepper, and cook on a high heat for five minutes until cooked. Add the crème fraîche, stir in then finish with the chopped parsley and a squeeze of lemon juice. Put to one side and keep warm.

2. Melt a third of the butter in a pan and heat up. Add the chicory, season and cook for two minutes before adding the sugar. Cook for a further three minutes until golden and caramelised. Put to one side and keep warm.

3. Add a little olive oil in a frying pan. Season the sweetbreads and add to the pan. Cook for five minutes on a medium to high heat until they start to go crispy and golden brown. Add the remaining butter, flip the sweetbreads and cook for a further five minutes, all the while constantly basting the sweetbreads with butter. To test whether the sweetbreads are cooked, take a metal skewer and gently slide into the sweetbread. If it slides in easily, it’s cooked; if it doesn’t, leave on the stove for a further two minutes. 


4. To serve, spoon some of the mushrooms on to the plate, place the chicory beside it and then top with sweetbreads.

Our weekend finished with chicken livers on toast with caramelised onions, bacon and poached egg. This time we chose the beautifully delicate 2000 Chateau Haut-Bages Monpelou, Pauillac – a true ‘old-school French’ style wine normally paired with more sophisticated French cuisine or red meat dishes. An almost equal blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, with a tiny bit of Cabernet Franc which contributed to the lovely floral aroma, meant that it had very typical characteristics of a Bordeaux. It was one of my favourites in a long time and I should have been gutted that we didn’t wait to drink it with food with a bit more finesse. Surprisingly its medium-full body and silky tannins were just strong enough to conquer the earthy, meaty livers with that salty bacon and the richness of the egg. I didn’t regret it one bit. 

It was the perfect Sunday plate: simple, hearty and packed full of protein, complete with all the flavours you crave when nursing a hangover. (For the record, I was perfectly fine but thoroughly enjoyed it anyway.) More importantly, it was tasty, uncomplicated and quick. Start cooking at 7.30pm, and if you can chop as fast as The Chef does, you’ll be done in time to catch the X-Factor results. And if not, well, I’d choose livers over Louis Walsh any day. 

Ingredients: 

250g chicken livers

2 onions - finely sliced

1 clove garlic - finely sliced 

2 poached eggs 

4 rashers of streaky bacon 

50g butter

50 ml red wine vinegar 

bread

1. Add half the butter to a pan, add sliced onions and garlic; season and cook gently for five minutes. Add red wine vinegar and cook for a further 10 minutes. Keep warm. 

2. Grill the bacon until crispy and toast bread. 

3. To cook the chicken livers, add a little bit of olive oil to a hot pan. Season the chicken livers and then pan fry for two minutes. Add the remaining butter, turn over and cook for another one minute. 

4. To serve, spread the cooked onions over the toast, place a couple of strips of bacon on top, followed by the chicken livers and the poached egg.

go west

“This is the furthest I can take you luv - the rest of it’s one-way,” said the cabbie before stopping the car and letting me off at the Oxford Gardens junction in W10. 

I walked the rest of the way to Pizza East Portobello, which occupies a corner location of Portobello and Golborne roads, in what many have dubbed ‘the wrong end of Portobello.’ I don’t necessarily agree that it’s the case any longer (with so many quirky little shops and cafes cropping up at a frenzied pace it’s more like the ‘new Portobello’) but I’m not going to pretend it’s the part of Notting Hill I usually frequent. Quite frankly, it’s just a bit of a bugger to get to. 

However, once I stepped inside the buzzy New York-style dining room with attractively large French windows, encasing the half wooden, half chequered floors, filled with mismatched tables and bright blue iron cast chairs, I soon forgot where I was. 

The decor at the Soho House Group’s second Pizza East outpost is even cooler than the first. Being in the Notting Hill / Ladbroke Grove area has given the place a charming neighbourhood feel, drawing in the area’s young, arty crowd as well as its more spendy, sophisticated-but-still-cool residents. There’s also something to be said about the service and the staff, which was different to anything I have ever experienced in London. They were passionate, laid back and professional; I instantly felt at home. 

Pizza East Portobello - a casual hang-out, cleverly designed for all hours of the day - has quickly become a favourite of the locals’. The ones who’ve discovered it come back time and again, often taking ‘outside’ guests so that they can show off how great it is. 

They may well have a point. I’m not going to say that the food was incredible - it wasn’t. But because I had such a brilliant time, I’m willing to overlook it. Seeing as there’s a no booking policy, it was just a question of getting there early enough to secure ourselves a spot, which we did... just. However we were punished by being seated at a tiny table in the corner and blessed with chairs that were too high. My knees were jammed up against the underneath of the table and the back of my seat was practically resting on the head of a lady sitting on the next door table. It wasn’t comfortable and I wasn’t pleased, but then a glass of very well-priced Montepulciano d’Abruzzo arrived, along with my fellow diner’s cocktail... the discomfort soon dissolved into thin air. 

The ‘Eastern Promise’ cocktail, a mix of lime juice, gin, cucumber and basil, was simply delicious and worth an extra mention. It isn’t actually on the menu but my dinner companion (a local who’s already too familiar with the cocktail list) boasts that it tastes like ‘spring time’ - light, refreshing, sweet and sour, yet understated and casual. One is recommended, three is a must. 

The pizzas were my least favourite dishes of the night. I loved the idea of spicy sausage, mozzarella and broccoli, but as a whole it turned out to be a disappointment. While the sausage meat was soft, succulent, peppery and packed with plenty of heat (which I loved), there wasn’t much of the rest, quantity-wise or taste-wise. The occasional mouthful of plain dough and unseasoned veg was just not entirely pleasant. The butternut squash and prosciutto pizza was marginally better. The saltiness of the ham was nicely balanced out by the sweetness of the squash, but after a while the whole thing just turned a bit soggy and lost its charm. On the other hand, the fig, endive, gorgonzola and walnut salad, though lacking in acidity, was a winning combination.

The rest was rather decent. The Burrata, accompanied by a small bowl of gherkins, was deliciously rich, creamy and smooth. As you can imagine, the sound of bone marrow bruschetta with capers oozed instant sex appeal. With bone marrow being one of my absolute favourite things to eat, it’s always a hard task to try and criticize any dish that serves it up so generously. But if I’m being totally honest... the toast was too dry and the parsley and raw onions, which should have been more finely chopped, were simply taking far too much attention away from the stars of the plate. The sickeningly delicious chunks of well-cooked bone marrow that so obediently disintegrate at the touch of your tongue, is what it should have been about. Having said that, I’d happily eat it again. The winning dish had to be our dessert: the soft creamy, bitter chocolate combined with salty, sticky and sweet caramel on a crumbly shortcrust base was sublime. The only disappointment was that it had to be shared. Needless to say, I’ll be going back to have a whole slice of my own, very soon.