I was going to have tacos. Of course, a lack of good corn tortillas in this country was a bit of a limiting factor but I was determined to try making my own at home and I pictured myself wrapping them around tender pork, lots of delicious salsa and definitely some chopped fresh coriander. Oh, just the thought of them has me thinking of making them again this weekend. However, the process didn’t go entirely smoothly at first. I made the amateur mistake of confusing masa harina and masa arepa. Both are corn meals made of precooked corn but only masa harina is made of corn that’s undergone nixtamalization (it’s cooked in an alkaline solution) and is the correct one for making corn tortillas. Just to confuse things, the side of the package of masa arepa that I purchased first (PAN brand) states that it can be used for tortillas too. I bought my masa harina from the Cool Chile Co. (Maseca is also a famous brand). On our first go at making corn tortillas, we pressed them using a heavy pot…quite painfully and tediously. The next day, I went straight out and bought a proper cast iron tortilla press (again from the Cool Chile Co.). Oh, how it makes life easier! Fresh corn tortillas are pressed so quickly and without any effort whatsoever! I can’t believe I’d been buying corn tortillas (sometimes taking up precious space in my suitcase when I was travelling back from the other side of the Atlantic) when they’re so easy to make at home! Corn Tortillas Take 2 cups of masa harina and mix with a little less than 1.5 cups of warm water. Mix together to a dough – it shouldn’t crumble (too dry – add water) or stick to your hands (too wet – add masa harina). I read somewhere online that it should have the texture of play dough and that’s truly how it felt. Let sit for about 10 minutes. In the meantime, heat a cast iron or nonstick pan over medium-high heat. Take a plastic freezer bag and cut two circles of plastic out of it – they should be big enough to line each side of your tortilla press. Take a small golf ball sized nugget of masa dough and roll it into a ball. Place in between the plastic circles and flatten in the tortilla press (I like mine quite thin – it’ll be about the size of the palm of your hand, I think). Peel off the tortilla and slap into the hot pan. Cook for about 30 seconds on the first side, flip and cook for a minute on the other side, flip again and cook for another 30 seconds. On the final side, the tortilla should start puffing up – pressing down on the tortilla can encourage it. Take out of the pan and cover with a clean dish towel. Repeat with all the masa. You can eat tortillas with any meal, of course, but it’s most fun to make tacos at home. I slow cooked a lot of pork shoulder the first time I made tortillas, shredded the results and used that as a very simple filling for tacos. Slow Cooked Pork for Tacos 1.5 kg pork shoulder, cut into chunks juice from a large orange 2 bay leaves 1 chopped onion 2 minced garlic cloves 1 tsp ground cumin 1 tsp dried oregano 2 tsp salt Mix all the ingredients together in a slow cooker and set on high for 4 hours (mine only is set to high – it’s a rice cooker – though I reckon perhaps low on a regular slow cooker for 8 hours is also ok). Take out the meat and shred with two forks or your hands. A lot of liquid would have come out of the meat – I used some of it to moisten the shredded pork. Serve with corn tortillas. The pork is a bit plain on its own. Better is topping your tacos with some pico de gallo. Or if you’re pressed for time/ingredients, just chopped onions pickled lightly in lime juice. Pico de Gallo 1/2 a small onion, chopped 1-2 medium sized tomatoes, seeded and chopped a very small handful of fresh coriander, chopped finely juice of half a lime salt Mix all the ingredients together and then chill until ready to serve (give it an hour, I

I have become rather partial to a ‘train picnic’. Everything is more exciting when there’s a meal involved and train travel is no exception. Obviously I’m not talking about the shite they sell in the buffet car (gin in a can obviously excepted), but a carry on home made effort. Nowadays I look forward to these picnics as much as I do reaching my destination which was, in this case, Bristol. The picture above shows what we decided to call breakfast. The Joselito ham was pretty special (if it’s good enough for Ferran Adria it’s good enough for me); the gran reserva in particular had fat packing the kind of complex flavour which makes heart disease seem like quite an appealing option if this is the way to go about acquiring it. We also ate a banon goats’ cheese that tasted stunning but totally honked (sorry coach C), all washed down with beer. What do you mean cheese and beer aren’t for breakfast? Pffft. But what about the eggs? We couldn’t have a full breakfast without eggs. Thankfully Mr. Egg Obsessive had thought about this the night before. Could we scramble them in a Thermos flask? Only one way to find out. A vac pack bag was first filled with a silly amount of butter because that, as any good egg scrambler knows, is an essential foundation. Six eggs were beaten, seasoned highly and poured into the bag, before it was sealed using my nifty vacuum sealing machine (I think a good quality sandwich bag may suffice if you’ve not yet signed up to the Food Tosserati). Smear the bag with butter… Add the eggs  Into the flask (a thermometer is useful) The cooked eggs looking very appealing in their bag The Thermos was filled with boiling water at 7.30am, and then topped up from the train buffet car at around 9.15. In went the eggy bag (a messy business best done away from your seat for the obvious reason of water displacement) for 20 minutes, which we thought would be long enough to cook them. It wasn’t. Another top up and a further 20 minutes however and they were good to go. In fact, the were really rather fine. I was half expecting the kind of solid yellow lump one finds lurking under the polystyrene lid of a Maccy D’s breakfast (serves you right for not ordering the sausage and egg Mcmuffin) but what came out was soft, loose and genuinely well cooked. A pretty good result! Having been optimistic from the get go, we’d packed chives to garnish, extra black pepper and a packet of really rather good smoked salmon, which had been sent, fittingly, as part of a ‘Best of Bristol’ food hamper*. We scarfed the lot with a slice of (pre-toasted) sourdough. That is how to make a train journey fly by. We were full of very good things, slightly drunk and had mastered the art of guerilla scrambling. Not bad for a morning’s work. *To win your own hamper, go here. Hurry, the competition ends today.  Thermos Scrambled Eggs Let’s face it, the results here are going to be highly variable. You all know what eggs look like when they’re cooked, right? If you’re going to be making scrambled eggs in a Thermos flask on a train, then I’m guessing you’re not too hung up on health and safety issues anyway. 6 eggs Butter Salt and pepper Some kind of bag for sealing the egg mixture A Thermos flask full of boiling water Fill the flask with boiling water before you get on the train. We waited an hour and a half before we put the eggs in to cook. Put an indecent amount of butter in the bag. Beat the eggs, season them well and tip them into the bag also. Seal the bag with whatever means you have. Obviously if you don’t have a vacuum sealer (what? Really?), then you’re going to want to keep that bag upright. It’s worth topping up the bag with extra boiling water on the train if you can. Lower the eggs in before you do this, to avoid getting water everywhere. After twenty minutes check the eggs and give them a smoosh

“LIFE – you’ve got one shot,” says Éric Chavot. The fast-talking, Vespa-riding, Gascon chef says he wanted to captain a grand brasserie since spending every July admiring them in Paris as a young teenager. Finally, aged 45, with decades of craftmanship at fine dining establishments under his belt, including 10 years at The Capital Hotel where he gleaned two Michelin stars, and recently, a season as private chef at Vero Beach, enclave of Hilary and W. Galen Weston, owners of Selfridges, Chavot achieved his goal. “This is not my first rodeo,” he says.Read at Harper's »

An Italian Restaurant aptly named 5 Pollen Street previously occupied the address of 5 Pollen Street. The cooking was good, but the portions were miserable and the prices were exorbitant. I remember my meal there as being one of the worst value-for-money that I had ever had in my life and I left the restaurant feeling wracked with guilt that my friends had to fork out so much money for so little. It is therefore unsurprising that the restaurant closed down last year. On a Saturday night not long after I had eaten at 5 Pollen Street, I walked past it to discover that it was bordering on empty. Clearly, the restaurant had gotten its pricing formula wrong. The address of 5 Pollen Street has since been taken over by Jason Atherton and he has taken to converting it into a charming French bistro endearingly named Little Social. It sits across the road from Pollen Street Social, Atherton’s flagship restaurant that he established after leaving Maze and the Gordon Ramsay fold. Pollen Street Social registers on the upper end of the scale. It’s fine dining through and through with a one-Michelin star to boot. A pork head and foie gras terrine starter (£11.50) packed a meaty, rustic flavour, but was also strangely a little tangy. The piece of foie gras holding centrepiece in the middle of the terrine was delicious, but meanly portioned as it was quite small. In fact, the slice wasn’t particularly generous. The tea and prune purée was a good match for the pork, and the sourdough was springy and tasty if a little burnt. As our second starter, half a dozen oysters (£15) from Cornwall were fresh and delicious. Pork head & foie gras terrine Oysters A main of roasted Cornish cod (£19.50) was moist and pleasant but a touch small compared to what you could get at other restaurants for the same price. It came with cockles that were robust and tasty but which were unfortunately gritty as they had not been cleaned properly. Rounding out the plate were some fantastic butterbeans, a beautifully cooked soft spring cabbage and a cabbage pesto that really worked with the fish. Cornish cod Roasted halibut “BLT”, portabello mushrooms with a sauce bois boudran (£22) was ‘the’ most ‘Jason Atherton’ of all the dishes on the menu and it reminded me of the ‘deconstructed’ full English breakfast dish that I had at Pollen Street Social. The size of the fish was passable but again a little small (recurring theme?). Nevertheless this was a beautifully made dish. The fish was nicely cooked, and the “BLT” consisted of some crispy bacon, gently braised lettuce and a delicious tomato confit that completed the dish nicely. The mushrooms were meaty and flavoursome, and the sauce added a lovely piquant touch to the dish. Roasted halibut “BLT” A steak bavette (£15) was impressively chunky. It was cooked to the requested medium rare but the steak remained a little chewy. Crispy French fries and a well-made peppercorn sauce accompanied the steak. Steak bavette A brown sugar tart (£7) was absolutely glorious. Its texture was creamy and smooth, and the accompanying crème fraiche sorbet was a great match against its subtle sweet flavour. A black sesame crumble was also fabulous and provided a light crunchy texture to the dessert. This was a really classy, high-end dessert. Brown sugar tart A pink peppercorn meringue (£7) was tasty with a crunchy exterior and a soft, gooey interior, albeit badly cracked. There was a hint of the peppercorn flavour coming through the meringue that gave it a nice little kick. The centre of the meringue had been filled with a lime curd and some passionfruit, both of which were good, but which were slightly too acidic for the dessert. Pink peppercorn meringue An apple and blackberry crumble with mascarpone and cinnamon ice cream (£7) sat a little flat. The flavours were fine, but the apple was too soft and mushy for my liking, and the crumble did not crumble. All in all, this dessert was a bit dull. Apple & blackberry crumble Th

This month we will be making ourselves the guests of the Law Society’s in house restaurant.  Passing over the rather unoriginal name (while I can admit some cache to naming a place, say “One Lombard”, by the time your address is numbered in the hundreds the rationale for adopting the numeral for your restaurant’s name is considerably hazier), it must be said that it looks very much up to scratch, and it’s menu is distinctly reasonably priced by the measure of such central London eateries.  Breakfasting venue: 113 Restaurant Date of breakfasting: 22 May 2013 Location: 113 Chancery Lane Nearest Tube is: Temple/Chancery Lane

The first thing you need to know about Duck and Waffle is how to find it.  It’s one of those places that seems to take pride in lack of any external sign of its presence.  You only come here if you’re already in the know.  Those equipped with insider knowledge of which unmarked side-door of Heron Tower to approach in order to find the dedicated lift that will launch you at dizzying speed past floor upon floor of glistening offices of the building atop which Duck and Waffle roosts, can saunter confidently up to the intercom with all the satisfaction that this sort of pseudo-exclusivity grants.  If, however, you have come across the place by casually browsing the web for somewhere to breakfast, you may find yourself circling the building with a puzzled look until you finally pick out the rather minimalist steel plaque that announces its presence. Unnecessary irritations now put aside though, stepping into the glass sided box and rocketing up to the restaurant level I realise that I am finally fulfilling a dream held since the age of 8 when I first got Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator out of the library.  This is pretty much exactly what I imagined it to be like for Charlie, although [SPOILER ALERT!] thankfully we do actually stop without bursting out of the roof.   The view of the surrounds is everything that you would expect, and while it doesn’t quite rival Paramount for full 360 degree ogling potential, it is pretty spectacular – well, until the fog rolls in that is.  As the first to arrive, I am guided to the bar area that precedes the restaurant itself where, despite the 24 hour licensing, I manfully resist the temptation to begin the day with a cocktail and instead load up with my first coffee.  As the rest of the breakfasting contingent meander in, we are guided through to a spick and span eating area, with an open plan kitchen adjourning in which a veritable hubbub of activity promises the imminent delivery of an array of lip-smacking delicacies detailed on the board above.  I say imminent, because in contrast to many of the establishments of this calibre, the place is almost full and clearly has been for a good hour at least.  Casting an eye over our options, it becomes quite easy to see why.  After some deliberation, and having confirmed that the Full English option will be being sampled, I plump for the eponymous duck with his accompanying waffle – which arrives topped with a perfectly fried duck egg and a jug of intriguing mustard seed maple syrup concoction.   This latter, contrary to all sensible expectation, turns out to work very well – though I can only imagine that it must have required a lengthy process of unpleasant experimentation with ill-proportioned mixes of the same ingredients to arrive at just the right balance of syrup sweetness and hot mustard tang. Two of our connoisseurs opt for the Duck egg en cocotte (with wild mushrooms, gruyere and truffle) and both pronounce this to be exceedingly good, and I must admit a slight pang of jealousy – for all that the Duck and waffle platter was done well, I can’t help feeling that it is actually somewhat unnatural breakfast fare (mainly the duck element, which somehow just doesn’t strike the right note for a morning meal – although I can perhaps see its merit if rounding off an all-nighter out on the town). No Breakfast Wednesday can be complete without at least one Full English on the table, and Duck and Waffle do not disappoint on this front – providing two options for those of hearty appetite.  Unfortunately, we cannot elaborate on what exactly the the “foie gras ‘all day breakfast’” comprises, as the only clarification on the menu below this title is in the form of a single word.  This word is ‘nutella’.  Nobody present being willing to investigate the concept of  ‘nutella foie gras’, it remains for now a tantalising mystery.  The full E

Rummage hard enough and you'll find a glistening 5th floor foodie treasure.

The messsage engraved under the lid of the silver hamper made it official: I’d been named Online Food Writer of the Year at the Fortnum & Mason Food & Drink Awards 2013. I accepted congratulations from television presenter Claudia Winkleman, who was hosting the awards ceremony in Fortnum & Mason’s Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon, and Ewan Venters, this [...]

Exmouth Market is one of those places where when it's sunny, I'm sure it's lovely. On this particular May evening, it was hammering down with rain. Equidistant by about a mile from any tube station, it is what is known as a right pain in the arse to get to. When you walk inside Morito though, you can't help but feel immediately happier, from both the smells coming from the grill and the sunny orange tones that decorate an otherwise quite spartan room. The baby sibling of Moro next door, couples are invited to sit at the bar (my preferred spot for dining, if I'm honest) while larger groups huddle around small tables that line the wall. Space is at a premium here; music is lively but the hum of conversations is at a decent level. It is described as a tapas and mezze bar; to me it was more familiar as tapas, with a few Middle Eastern touches thrown in. We were given samples of various sherries to taste as we had uhm'd and ah'd over the selection, the padron peppers a decent accompaniment. Alas, no

It's always sad when a good restaurant dies, but when said restaurant bears the hallowed St John name, the soul-searching is that much more intense. Back in late 2012, when it was revealed that their 3rd outpost would be just off Leicester Square, the news was met with widespread approval; anywhere even half-decent to eat in that part of town is welcome, and what better people to wow the tourists with British cuisine than those who kicked the whole thing off? And when the operation stuttered, stalled and finally collapsed, it's a testament to the goodwill heaped upon the St John brand that people pointed the finger of blame at the area, the building, the clientèle, anything but the business itself. The unfortunate truth is, though, that the St John thing was never going to work in a poky Georgian townhouse in W1. The cathedral-like atmosphere and whitewashed walls of the ex-smokehouse in Smithfield was - is - a unique and precious gift and eating there is as much about the building as the food. The