Genghis Eats: Archangel, Frome

Frome's newest restaurant attempts to offer top-notch dining in a friendly but upmarket setting. The atmosphere and service is right up there, and the food comes pretty damn close.


Frome is a town quietly growing a modest foodie reputation, with it's twice-weekly street markets and monthly Farmer's market, not to mention the infamous Frome Deli, run by local culinary hero and madman Benoit. However despite this, it is a town that has been lacking a really top-notch restaurant for some time (without, of course, meaning any offense to Frome's handful of modest but seriously decent eateries).

This, then, is where Archangel is pitching itself - a classy venue serving unpretentious but remarkable food in an increasingly gastronomic town. Archangel describes itself as a hotel, bar and restaurant, but entering into its cosy front room with low chairs around a fireplace, one still feels a distinctly pub-like atmosphere. The crumbling stone walls and peculiar lay-out, with lots of very small, oddly-shaped bar rooms and the dining room arranged around a long stone corridor leading through to a spacious L-shaped courtyard, also hint at Archangel's former life as a coaching inn. The lunch menu, too, strikes a balance between high-end restaurant and gastro-pub, offering some really exciting and inventive starters - tataki of rare tuna with noodles and wasabi, marinated flat-iron steak with beetroot puree and radishes - followed by some more typical, but appetising, gastro-pub main courses with an emphasis on the best quality local ingredients - local fillet steak, local beefburger, local fish and chips and so on. They also offer an extremely well-priced set menu - 2 courses £13.95, 3 courses £15.95 - which today featured sweetbreads or confit of tuna, followed by assiette of lamb or grilled Cornish gurnard, with a choice of two desserts.

Indeed, the main courses on the a la carte menu were so outshone by the starters and the set menu that not one of us ordered one. My parents both took the set menu - my father ordering meat followed by meat, my mother fish and fish - while I opted for two dishes from the starters list: puffball, ceps, black pudding and hollandaise; and the flat-iron steak (doubled up to a main course portion).

My mother's confit of tuna was tender and rich, and accompanied by a perfectly-boiled egg - just wobbly in the middle - and a pile of tender green beans which were sadly rather short on seasoning. My father's sweetbreads also met with approval, although he said that the home-made tartare sauce rather overpowered their delicate flavour. My dish of mushrooms and black pudding, however, was exceptional. The pungent earthiness of the ceps with the equally rich black pudding and fresh, buttery Hollandaise could have been overly rich and cloying, but it was cut through with just enough lemon to balance it all beautifully. The firm, fleshy mushrooms, crisp black pudding and creamy sauce were an exquisite combination, and I mopped up every drop of juice on my plate with a piece of their extremely good home-made ciabatta.

The grilled Cornish gurnard, served with chorizo and confit tomatoes, was the best piece of fish my mother had eaten in a long time. The skin was beatifully crisp, the flesh succulent and flaky, and the chorizo and tomatoes the perfect foil for the delicately meaty fish. My father, inscrutable, said only that his lamb was very nice, and then ate it all, so I can only assume that it was good, but I'm afraid I can't go into any detail about how good. My flat-iron steak, served cold and very rare, was meltingly tender, and there were some subtle but very interesting flavours of spice and orange in its marinade, as well as the sweet and earthy beetroot puree. Again, it was a little short on seasoning, but I can at least say that the maitre d' was not shy or prissy about offering us salt and pepper to season it ourselves.

Indeed the service was excellent thoughout. We arrived without a reservation and the dining room was full (which is impressive for a Wednesday lunchtime), but they didn't hesitate to make us up a table in the bar area, and from then on we had full restaurant service and were never neglected, despite not actually being in the dining room. The staff were friendly, informative, passionate and helpful, and really made us feel welcome.

In short, Archangel offers a great atmosphere, impeccable and friendly service, and some very promising and exciting food which only occassionally fails to live up to its own aspirations.

7/10

Genghis Cooks: Milk 3

So, yesterday we learned how to make yoghurt out of milk. Well, today I'm going to tell you how to turn your yoghurt into a delicious savoury dip you can eat for breakfast, lunch or tea! That's right, it's time for:

Interesting Things You Can Make Out of Milk: Labaneh

Labaneh is delicious middle-eastern dish with a similar texture to cream cheese but much cleaner, sharper taste. Delicious as a dip, a mezze, a tapa, a spread or a sandwich filling, you can have it plain or customise it with herbs, spices and flavourings in whatever way you fancy.

Ingredients:

• Half a litre of yoghurt (or more - increasing quantities doesn't much affect the recipe)
  
• Salt (optional)
  

And that's it! Unbelievable! You can create this delicious rich, creamy dip using nothing but yoghurt and a little time!

First of all, stir a pinch of salt into your yoghurt (fresh, home-made yoghurt, of course), then pour it out into a sieve lined with cheesecloth (a clean teatowel) over an empty bowl to catch the whey runoff.


Now gather the ends of the cloth together and twist into a wobbly bundle. If you do it right, the teatowel shuold look a little like a picasso-esque sculpture of an elephant:


Leave that in a cool place for about 18-24 hours, or until it has reached a consistency that you are happy with. A traditional way to prepare labaneh is to let it drain for about 2 days until it is very firm, then roll it into little balls, put the labaneh balls in a jar and cover them with olive oil. Presumably, labaneh prepared this way will stay fresh for a long time (and be deliciously oily) because the oil prevents contact with air, but the recipe I'm giving you today will produce a slightly softer, more spreadable/dippable texture, so it only needs to drain for about a day.

After draining overnight or longer, the yoghurt will have reduced in volume to about a quarter and become thick, firm and cream-cheesey.


That is pretty much it - your labaneh is done. Eaten just like this it is very tasty - fresh and sharp-tasting with slight acidity but loads of richness and wonderfully creamy texture - but it's also a blank canvas waiting to be jazzed up with all kinds of good things. This is one way I like to do it:

Ingredients:

• A handful of flat parsley
• A few sprigs of mint
• Half a teaspoon of cumin seeds
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• A pinch of Cayenne pepper

Tip your labaneh into a shallow earthenware dish (or tupperware if this is not easily available).


Now squash the labaneh out until it's flattish and fills the bottom of your container (this is easiest if you run a teaspoon under the hot tap and then use the hot, wet back of the spoon to shape the labaneh - otherwise it can stick to the spoon and you get in a mess).

Heat the cumin seeds in a dry frying pan over a medium heat until they become fragrant, but take care not to let them burn. In the meantime, finely chop your parsley and mint. Combine herbs, pepper and cumin seeds with a generous couple of glugs of olive oil and stir them all up to make a thick green dressing. Pur this lot over the dish of labaneh, and finish with a pinch of flaky sea salt over the top and a little scattering of cayenne pepper - for colour and a little bit of heat.


Now toast a pitta bread, and enjoy.

Get creative with your flavourings too - maybe stir in a little finely chopped garlic and chives when the yoghurt is still liquid to create a sort of Boursin-esque effect. Or how about fresh chilli and coriander? Or give it morrocan flavours with cumin, cinnamon and raisins. Sundried tomatoes, basil and balsamic vinegar - the possibilties are endless! Well, maybe not endless - I'd probably stick with savoury, vaguely european flavours: Not sure if curried labaneh, sweet-and-sour labaneh or seaweed labaneh sound great - but the possibilities are certainly many!

This is the last of my things-to-do-with-milk series, and I hope some of you can be bothered to give this one a try - it really is delicious and dead easy to make. I'd love to hear about how you get on with this - and any other recipes - and what different flavourings/seasonings/variations you've come up with!

Love love
Genghis

Genghis Cooks: Milk 2

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to

Interesting Things You can Make out of Milk!

Today we'll be learning

How to Make Yoghurt! Yeah!!



Yoghurt! Amazing! And this is probably even easier than making the cheese (although it does take a little longer). To make half a litre of yoghurt you will need:

• Half a litre of milk
• Some yoghurt

And that's it! That's literally all you need to make delicious, fresh, creamy yoghurt in your own kitchen! Why would you ever bother buying ready-made yoghurt again?

Okay, here's how to do it:

Bring your milk to the boil, and simmer gently over a low heat for 3-5 minutes. I'm not sure how essential this stage is to the alchemy of yoghurteering, and I doubt if it will all go disastrously wrong if you boil the milk for too long (I understand commercial yoghurteers boil their milk for up to half an hour, but I have never done so myself).


In the meantime, find a clean jar, bowl or dish capable of accommodating half a litre of liquid, and put into it 2 tablespoons of plain yoghurt (it must be live/natural/bio yoghurt, so it contains the live Lactobacillus and Streptococcus cultures necessary for a successful yoghurtation). If the yoghurt is set very solid, stir it up to make it smooth.

Once your milk has boiled for a few minutes, take it off the heat and let it cool down slightly. Keep half an eye on it though, because if you let it get too cold, the magic won't work. The milk is at the correct temperature when you can just about hold your finger in it for ten seconds, but it still hurts to do so.

So - when your milk is ready, add a couple of tablespoon of milk at a time to the yoghurt and stir it in to create a smooth, creamy paste. After a few spoonfuls, pour in the remaining milk in one go. Now cover your container with a lid or upturned saucer and wrap in in a few layers of fabric, to keep the heat in. I use a couple of napkins and tea towels, but you could use a shawl or a jumper, or you could even knit a specially made yoghurt cosy for just this purpose.



Place your well-wrapped pot of milk in a warm place - such as an airing cupboard - and leave it for a few hours. How long the process takes depends on the warmth of your warm place - in theory, it could take anything from 3 to 18 hours, but in my experience is has always been ready after six to eight hours. You should find after this time that it has set surprisingly solid. All that's left to do now is to pop it in the fridge to chill and then enjoy your delicious, fresh, rich, creamy yoghurt!



Top Tips

• Leaving it in the airing cupboard for longer than necessary will create a sharper taste, so the best thing to do is to unwrap it and taste a bit occasionally, until you have the level of acidity and the flavour that you like.
• Full cream milk gives the richest, creamiest, tastiest yoghurt. Skimmed milk makes a rather boring yoghurt
• However, if you want rich, creamy, low-fat yoghurt, use skimmed or semi-skimmed milk and add a couple of tablespoons of powdered milk before you start boiling it.
• Because your yoghurt doesn't have the benefit of any guar gum or modified maize starch, it may be prone to separating - a watery whey will separated from the yoghurty curds. This is absolutely fine, and it's all edible.
• In theory, you can reduce the risk of separation by letting the yoghurt ferment at a lower temperature, but for a longer time (around thirty degrees for 12 hours or so). I haven't yet tries this, but I've got a pot on the go at the moment so I'll let you know how it turns out.
• It'll keep for a week or more, but it's at its best when its at its freshest. Eat ASAP.

Well guys, that's it for yoghurt-making! Tune in again tomorrow for the concluding chapter of

Interesting Things You can Make out of Milk!!!

Love,
Genghis

Genghis Cooks: Milk 1

Hello and welcome, children, to the first installment of a three part series I have wittily entitled:

Interesting Things You Can Make Out of Milk

As mentioned, this will be the first episode in this series, and as such I have decided to call it:

Interesting Things You Can Make Out of Milk - Episode 1: Cottage Cheese/Paneer

Yes, that is correct. Today I will be showing you how to make delicious home-made cheesey things. I bet you never thought you'd be able to make cheese in your own kitchen eh? Well, you can't. But you can make delicious cheesey things which are quite like cheese, and closely related to cheese, but I'm afraid you'll probably never make anything resembling cheddar. Nevertheless, as a jolly little experiment with distinctly edible - nay, even delicious - results, this recipe is definitely worth a try. It only takes about 20 minutes as well, which is quite cool.

So, to make my curd cheese/cottage cheese/paneer recipe, you will need:

• 1 litre full cream milk
• EITHER Some yoghurt OR half a lemon

And that's it! Honestly! That's all you need to make cheese*! However you may find some or all of the following ingredients beneficial:

• Salt
• Pepper
• Herbs (chives, dill, parsley, whatever)
• Spices (caraway might be nice actually, or chilli, or cumin perhaps. I don't know - get creative!)
• Olive oil

Bring the milk to the boil in a large pan. In mean time, EITHER dissolve a couple of teaspoons of lemon juice in a little warm water OR put a couple of tablespoons of yoghurt in a dish and stir it up to make it smooth and creamy.


When the milk is boiling, put it down to a medium heat, pour in your acidulant (yoghurt or lemon juice), and stir continually until the solid white curdss have completely separated out leaving a thin, yellowish, watery whey behind.


If it doesn't seem to be curdling completely, and the whey still looks a little creamy, just add a little more yoghurt or lemon juice until the curds and whey are completely separated.

Once you've got your curds and whey, strain off the whey by lining a sieve with muslin/cheesecloth/a clean napkin and pour the lot through. In theory you can use the whey to make ricotta, or even just have it as a peculiar farty-tasting drink, but I have never bothered with either of these so I can't really recommend you keep the whey for anything.

If you used lemon juice to curdle your cheese, you need to run plenty of cold water over the curds now to take away the citrus taste (trust me - lemon cheese is not an experiment worth conducting). Even if you used yoghurt, this is a good way to cool down the curds quickly.


And there you have it - basic cottage cheese. It's not quite like the one you buy in the supermarket - you'll find it's firmer, drier, milkier tasting and with smaller curds, but it's very delicious and nutritious, and you can do with it whatever you might do with ordinary cottage cheese. However, at this stage there are a couple of other things you can to do to create slightly different effects.

First of all, you'll probably want to salt it. Tip the curds out into a bowl, break them into fine chunks, and sprinkle over a teaspoon or so of salt, according to taste. Apart from making it keep better, the salt will really bring out the cheesey taste to the curds, and at this stage it will be reminiscent of ricotta or some other very fresh, mild cheeses. If you want to add any other flavourings - herbs and whatnot - do so now. I opted for plain flavour - just salted.

If you want your cheese in a firm block that you can slice, return the curds to your cheesecloth, gather the ends together and twist to squeeze out more of the whey. Once it's pretty firm and dry, carefully unwrap and tip out onto a plate or into a container.


Delicious!

The final thing you can do with your curds is to make paneer - that firm, mild, white Indian cheese that can be found in some vegetarian curries and dishes from India and Bangladesh. To make paneer, fold your cheese ball into a little parcel with the cheesecloth and place a heavy weight on top - a couple of tins of beans, or a large book - and leave to press and drain for anything from 3 hours to overnight. It shold then be firm enough to cut into cubes and be used for cooking.

And that, my friends, is how to make cheese(ish)!

Tune in again soon for the next thrilling installment in Interesting Things You Can Make Out of Milk!

Love,
Genghis

Genghis Cooks: Beetroot and Blackberries

->Thanks go to my Mum who first assembled beets and berries into a salad, this recipe is only a slight development of her initial idea.<-

Warm Beetroot and Blackberry Salad

This sweet, earthy, crunchy salad - with its bright little gems of blackberry freshness – goes beautifully with something rich and savoury. I have served it alongside grilled Halloumi dressed very plainly with black pepper and lemon juice – although it would go equally well with feta or some other crumbly, salty white cheese – and it was delicious with a firm, rustic pork liver paté. Other combinations could be a pork pie, smoked salmon, or thick-cut ham for an unusual and gratifying summer lunch.

Also, I'm sure beetroot are terribly good for you. I'm basing this on very little scientific information, but they certainly look like a superfood, don't they? And anything which has such a startling effect on your motions must be doing something good, I'm sure of it.

1 bunch fresh beetroot

A good lug of oil

A handful of fresh thyme

½ tsp cayenne pepper

½ tsp sweet smoked paprika

A handful of ripe blackberries (not too many – this is a salad, not a dessert)

A small bunch of radishes (maybe 10ish)

A handful of flat leaf parsley

Seeds (whatever you fancy: sunflower, pumpkin, linseed, sesame, poppy [optional])

Half a lemon

More oil for dressing

Wash the beetroot and cut off their tails and their topknots – you don't really need to peel a beetroot, but larger roots tend to go a bit scaly around their tops, so I usually just peel their very tough bits off, and giggle at the bright pink water going down the sink when I wash them – then chop them into appropriately-sized wedges or chunks. Little baby beetroot can go in whole, tops and tails and all. Throw the beetroot into a roasting tin and scrunch the thyme over them to scatter the leaves, then throw the rest of the thyme in too. Sprinkle the cayenne and the paprika over the roots, and then give them a good lug of oil – I use rapeseed, but I can see no reason why you shouldn't use olive oil or any other vegetable oil. Season with salt and pepper, toss them about in the oil and spice so that they're all well greased and stick them in a hot oven for 45 minutes to one hour.

This leaves you with a convenient bit of down-time in which to go out and forage for blackberries. Of course you can buy them, but brambles grow almost everywhere so why not try and find some- for free? Also, using the most ludicrously fresh ingredients possible does give a distinct sense of satisfaction.

When the beetroot are tender (the point of a knife slides in and out again easily) and are as crusty and roasty as you like (read: as crusty and roasty as you can be bothered to make them), stick the roasting tin outside for a few minutes to let them cool slightly. Chop the radishes in thick slices or random chunks (large enough that they keep their crunch, and retain a bit of presence in a robust and full-flavoured salad), and tear or coarsely chop the parsley.

To compose the salad, just throw the whole lot into a bowl – dark purple beetroot, shiny black berries, pink-and-white radishes and bright green parsley – and take a moment to enjoy all the colours, because once you toss the salad everything will turn beetroot-coloured. Add a couple of tablespoons of mixed seeds now if you wish for a little extra crunch and nutty flavour. Walnuts would be good too.

For dressing, simply squeeze the lemon and give the salad a little more oil, salt and pepper, but bear in mind that the beetroot are already seasoned and may be rather oily, so you might not need much. Toss the salad briefly and gently so as not to smush the blackberries into nothingness – they should remain soft, squishy pellets of tart, fresh sweetness to contrast against the rich, earthy sweetness of the beetroot and paprika.

NB. Do not atttempt this recipe while wearing your best shirt, and do not serve it on your best table linen; beetroot juice is merciless. I recommend preparing it in the nude and eating it on the lawn, possibly still in the nude.

Genghis Kong Writes: the Bath Chap

Now, to get thiss wee food blog started I thought I might reprint here an article I wrote several years ago. My thanks to Article Magazine, Sheffield who published this initially in May 2008. Read the rest of the magazine and see this article in situ at http://www.impursuit.com/article/article1.pdf

-->The Bath Chap

Suffering from the same unfortunate
stigma as tongue, trotters, kidneys and
the like, the Bath Chap is a delicacy to
which the unadventurous masses will
usually turn up their noses in disgust and
ask you to pass the turkey twizzlers. It
is an attitude which I cannot understand:
avoid anything which is recognisable as
a part of an animal and opt, instead, for
unidentifiable, homogenised meaty matter
reformed into uniform drummers, nuggets
or whatever the shape-du-jour happens
to be. I am happier eating something
which I know to be a single part of a
single animal,that I know precisely which
piece of the animal it is and that I can see
plainly has not been too interfered with
on its journey from the farm to my plate,
rather than the lips-and-arseholes mush
scraped from the abattoir floor at the end
of the day and extruded into the shape of
a dinosaur.

But enough of my food-snobbery and
gastro-vitriol; on to the Chap itself.

This glorious, soft, rich, hammy
creation is, in simple terms, most of
a pig’s face wrapped around its own
tongue. The pig’s head is cleft in two
and the resulting halves follow a process
similar to the curing of ham – a day or
so in brine, a week to dry-cure and a
light smoking. These are then boiled for
several hours until the meat is tender and
falls easily away from the skull and the
skin can be removed from the flesh. The
meat then is rolled, pressed and chilled,
with the final product resembling a pale
cone with one side flattened; 8 inches
long and 4 inches across the widest part.
They were traditionally served with the
snout still attached, although concessions
to squeamishness mean that this is usually
no longer the case.

It is usually eaten as a lunch meat:
served cold, thickly sliced, with mustard
and pickles. Dark pink tongue surrounded
by alternate rings of pale pink meat
and quivering white fat, it is a rich dish
and demands a good portion of buttery
mashed potatoes to soak it up and proper,
hot yellow mustard to cut through the
fattiness.

A well dressed salad on the side
and a glass of not-too-cold brown beer
completes this summer luncheon.

If you prefer your fare a little less
rustic and a little more ‘gastro’, fry thick
slices until they crisp up and serve with
irony greens and a piquant salsa verde.
Pick a bottle of red with plenty of body
– this is not a subtle dish.

Alternatively, slice thinly and use as
a superior version of ham (cold) or bacon
(fried) in sandwiches, salads, breakfasts
and suchlike.

Sadly though, despite the many
glories of this much-forgotten cold-cut,
it is extremely difficult to find outside of
Bath and Somerset. Nonetheless, should
you ever find yourself day-tripping that
fair city, head to the butcher-deli counter
of the Guildhall Covered Market and try a
Chap for yourself.<--

Written some three years ago, but it all holds true and it still makes me salivate to think of a good chap and some hot English mustard. I sincerely hope everyone who readds this will do their best to try and track down a chap at some point in their lives. It will be well worth it!

Much Love
GK x

Genghis Writes: New Blog!

Greetings all, and welcome to my humble kitchen!

Yes, international explorer and travel writer extraordinaire Genghis Kong has returned from his adventures and established an online kitchen, which shall henceforth be known as Genghis Kong's Kitchen!

I have been thinking about setting up a food-themed blog for some time, and here it is! Here is where I will share my thoughts, musings, ramblings and rantings about what I and other people are eating. Expect recipes, restaurant reviews, mad babbling and more, all loosely themed around that most important (and enjoyable) of human bodily functions: eating. Oh, and I suppose I just might include drinking as well.

So welcome, and thank you for dropping by. I hope you will find something on the menu to your liking.

Love,
G x