The Viking Stews: Beef and Chorizo Stew with Chunky Root Veg & Dumplings

The twenty-first of July – nearly four months ago – was the last time I updated this here blog.  “What have you been doing, Viking?” I hear some of you ask.  “Have you been discovering new continents?  Have you, perhaps, been working on things what no man should wot of?  Perchance you’ve been working hard in the kitchen, developing a superb new range of ready meals for a leading supermarket brand and then filming a ridiculously elaborate Christmas commercial complete with snow, jingling bells and mulled wine?”

Sadly, no is the answer to all of those questions my friends.  And, being as it’s now November I doubt that Waitrose will have time to sign me up and get an advert filmed in time for Christmas.  Besides, they seem to have gone with successful and recognisable and talented people in their advertising campaign, so I suppose a lack of Vikings is eminently understandable.  Well played, Heston and Delia, well played.

So yes, I’ve been away, and in the time I’ve been gone I’ve done a long bike ride for Charity (during which we raised well over three thousand pounds), I’ve bought a house, the house has been delayed, I got a slot on the marathon for next year and I have, generally, been working like a mad thing.  And now I’m back, from out of space, you just logged in to find me here with this sad look upon my face.  I hope, with the remainder of this entry, to entice you back in to the world of Food and Vikings and Food Vikings.

We’re in the time of year now where the nights are drawing in.  We’re getting up to go to work in the dark and we’re coming home in the dark.  Train companies are coming up with ever more elaborate excuses as to why the trains are being delayed.  Jingling Bells accompany every trip to the supermarket despite the fact that most of us can still see the whizz bang flashes of fireworks on the back of our eyelids.  The trees, at least, are still sporting a fabulous array of golden colours – but it won’t be long before they dump their leafy cargo on to the pavement reminding us all of how quickly decay comes to all.  No wonder most people seem to suffer from SAD.  It’s too far away from summer and it’s too far away from Christmas.  This, dear friends, is limbo season.

Yeah, that's not quite what I meant...

There’s only one way to fix your case of the blues.  What you need is gravy.  And heat.  And big lumps of meat.  And buttery mash.  It needs to be cooked long and slow, so that when you come home from work your house smells like a big, velvety cuddle from Nigella Herself.  So, I present  to you:

The Viking Stews: Beef and Chorizo Stew with Chunky Root Veg & Dumplings

At this time of year, as Stevie Wonder might have once said, there ain’t nothin’ better than a stew.  Hie thyself to  supermarket quick-smart, and fetch yourself the following groceries:

For the Stew:

- Diced stewing beef (preferably from the shin, the butcher will be able to do this for you)

- Chorizo (I cheated and bought ready chopped Chorizo from Waitrose)

- Beef Stock

- Tomato Puree

- Plain Flour

- One large onion

- 2 or 3 large parsnips

- 2 or 3 large carrots

- A large leek

- Smoked parika

- Cayenne pepper

- Bay leaves

- Salt

- Pepper

- Potatoes (for mash)

- Milk

- Butter

For the Dumplings:

- 1 packet Atora Suet

- Self raising flour

- The ability to follow instructions

Got all that?  Good.  Let’s get cookin’. 

Method:

• First, toss your hunks of cow in a little plain flour

• Then, brown in a hot pan.  Do this in batches so as not to overload the pan and to ensure an even, brown colour

• Set the beef aside
• Now, fry off the onions and chorizo
• Once the chorizo starts releasing its juice, add the rest of the veg.  The veg should be chopped in to nice, big, hearty chunks

• Cook for around 10 minutes on a medium heat, or until browned and all the veg has a good colouring from the heat and chorizo

• Add the beef back to the pan

• Pour in the stock so the meat and vegetables are just covered
• Bring this to the boil, and then reduce to a simmer
• Add a couple of tablespoons of tomato puree, a great big slug of Worcester sauce, about a teaspoon of smoked paprika, a dash of cayenne pepper, and stir
• Add a few bay leaves

• Add a pinch of salt and pepper
• There’s no more to do!

Once you’ve done all this, and the stew is blipping away on the stove, you have a couple of options.  You can either chuck it in the oven on a super low heat for a few hours or you can just leave it where it is.  I vote for leaving it where it is.  Just imagine if you’d got all comfy on your favourite chair, only to have a giant bully come along and shift you on to a large bean bag for no reason.  You’d feel cheated, wouldn’t you?  I mean, the bean bag is OK and everything, but it’s not your chair.  Well, that’s how your stew would feel.  So, leave it there on the stove on a nice low flame so the occasional bubble pops on the surface, and leave it for as long as you can – but I’d say a minimum of an hour and a half.  Ideally about 3 hours – or until the veg is soft, the meat falls apart at the touch and the gravy is good and thick.

In the meantime, get your suet out of the cupboard and follow the instructions.  It’s disarmingly easy to make dumplings – all you need is self raising flour, cold water and suet.  My top tip is to make sure your hands are damp when handling the dough, that way it doesn’t stick to your hands when you’re shaping your dumplings.  Make sure your dumplings are nice and big – about the size of a golf ball – because no-one likes a small dumpling.  Set them aside, ideally in the fridge, and add to the stew pot about 15-20 minutes before you’re ready to serve.

These little clouds of joy will fluff right up and will be a great little gravy mop.  Honestly, sometimes I make stew just as an excuse to have dumplings, the gorgeous little beasts.

In the meantime, make yourself a buttery mash (we’ve covered that before) and when all of this has come together, serve!  Take great, beefy ladles of stew and top with fluffy dumplings.  Set this down next to a mountain of mashed potato.  Serve with a dark, syrupy real ale, or a glass of peppery red wine. 

OK, so this won’t make you healthy – but this is a Sunday evening treat for the winter.  And boy, does it warm the cockles as you eat it, it’s like stew has this way of communing with your inner caveman.  “Meat!” it screams, “Meat and gravy!  Man make fire!  Man eat meat!”

And then, you can have a well-deserved nap.

See you anon, folks, with more cooking adventures. 

Til then,

Viking

The Viking Goes Italian – Lasagna al Horno

I’m going to admit something to you all today.  Many of you will know, if you stop by regularly, that I’m a bit of a geek.  If you don’t, well, you do now – and it may be worth mentioning that the way my geekery manifests itself most plainly is in the reading of comics.  Yes.  I like Batman and X-Men and Hellboy and Maus, but I really like cartoon strips in the paper.  I’m not talking about George and Lynn or Striker here, either. I’m talking about funny comic strips – three or four panels, quick joke, and move on to the next one.  I used to, as a child, wait patiently for Dad to finish reading the paper so I could get to the cartoons until the Times started doing the Funday Times, at which point I believed I had achieved Nirvana.  Or I would have done, had I known of the word or the concept.  I devoured Hagar the Horrible (what self respecting Viking wouldn’t?) and feasted on Fred, but there was one strip that stood head and shoulders above all of the others – Calvin and Hobbes.

I’m telling you all this so you can understand my next point.  There was one strip, one character, which just left me cold.  His smug musings and terrible jokes turned me immediately off, as did the art style and the fact that he was an incorrigible git.  Worse than anything else, though, was his disrespect for my most favourite of Italian dishes.  A dish rich with meaty ragu, thick white sauce, perfect al dente pasta and a hint of nutmeg to be enjoyed slowly with a glass of wine and the garlickiest of breads.  A dish to be pored over, enjoyed, and savoured, not walloped down the gullet with all the grace and finesse of a clown being thrown through a plate glass window.

Pictured – a git showing us how not to eat Lasagna

Yes, I’m talking about Garfield, and yes, my hatred of this orange feline is pretty much solely based on the fact that he can’t eat Lasagna (its favourite food, the one thing I have in common with it) with a knife and fork and a glass of Merlot like a civilised human being.  Er.  Cat.  Erm.  Cartoon.  You know what I mean.  It’s offensive to the people of Italy, their food, their culture, and cartoon comedy as a whole.

Would you trust a cat that would so gleefully kick such an adorable dog?  You would!  You heartless cad!)

With all of that in mind (and I have spent over 400 words talking about my hatred of a cartoon cat), I suppose I had better get on with it.  So, madams et monsieur’s, I present for your delectation:

The Viking Goes Italian – Lasagana al Horno

(Get it?  Because of the horns on a Viking helmet?  No?  Oh, fine.)

To make this meaty feast, you will need the following bits and bobs (to feed four hungry people):

For the Ragu:

750g Minced Beef

Chopped Tomatoes – 2 small cartons should do it

Bacon lardons

Chorizo sausage

Tomato Puree

4 large cloves of garlic

Mushrooms, chopped

One large onion, sliced or chopped

Beef stock (I used 2 knorr stock pots, but a couple of OXO cubes will do the job)

A teaspoon of Paprika

A pinch of chilli powder

A dash of Tabasco

A dash of Worcester sauce

For the White Sauce:

35g butter

35g flour

750ml milk

Salt

Pepper

Nutmeg

You’ll also need:

Fresh Lasagna sheets

Grated cheese – preferably mature cheddar

Got all that?  Then let’s get on.

Method:

Firstly, let’s make the white sauce.  You can do this the day before if you like; just make sure you put it in the fridge overnight.  It will set, but once you heat it up again it will go runny just like you need it to – just be patient!

1)      Melt the butter in a saucepan

2)      Stir in the flour bit-by-bit and cook for 1 or 2 minutes

3)      Take the pan off the heat, and gradually whisk in the milk

4)      Return to heat, and bring to the boil

5)      Simmer for around 10 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened and coats the back of a wooden spoon

6)      Season to taste with salt, pepper and grated nutmeg

Now that’s done, we can get on to the ragu.  If you’re in a rush, you can cook this and throw it straight in to a lasagna.  Or, if you have a little extra time, try to keep it at the simmer for a couple of hours so the flavours in the sauce really intensify.  Either way, this will be a gorgeous, velvety, spicy, dribbly, come-back-for-more sauce.  Promise.

1)      Over a medium heat, gently cook down the onions and garlic

2)      Set aside, and over a high heat cook off the lardons and chorizo

3)      Once the lardons are browned, add the beef mince and brown

4)      Add the onions and garlic back in, followed by paprika and chilli

5)      Stir so the meat is covered by the spices

6)      Add chopped tomatoes, mushrooms and tomato puree (about a tablespoon) and stir

7)      Add beef stock, Worcester sauce and stir

8)      Bring to the boil and then return to the simmer, and leave for as long as you can, but around 20 minutes should do it

In the meantime, whip two crushed cloves of garlic in to butter, and slather over thickly sliced wedges of French Bread.  Cover and set aside.

Now build your Lasagna.  Preheat your oven to gas mark 7 (220c), and get the biggest dish you have available.  Then, like a pasta bricklayer, fill that dish as follows: 1 layer ragu, then lasagna sheet.  Then, white sauce, ragu, lasagna, white sauce, ragu, lasagna until the dish is full.  As you layer up, use the white sauce and ragu to stick down the layers of pasta, trying to make sure they don’t curl up at the edges.  Make sure the last layer is lasagna, with enough white sauce to cover the whole of the top layer.  Cover liberally with grated cheese, ground pepper, and ground nutmeg.

This goes in to the oven for about 30 minutes, or until the top is crisp and golden.  Remove from the oven, and let it sit for five minutes so it sets together – this will make it much much easier to serve.  While the lasagna is resting heat the grill and throw your garlic slices under it for a couple of minutes, until the butter has melted lovingly in to the doughy bread beneath it.  As they turn golden, remove from the grill and get ready to plate up.

Carve that lovely Lasagna in to equal, hearty portions, and place pleasingly ‘pon a pretty, perfect platter prior to pigging out.  Or, just whack it on a plate and stop alliterating.  Serve with slices of garlic bread, a poncy bit of green, and a lot of booze.  I watched How to Train Your Dragon while I was eating it.  You, too, could watch the best animated film ever while you eat your lasagna but, you know, there’s no pressure.

There’s nothing classic about this lasagna – I’m sure a proper Italian would either have a heart attack or commit an act of violence upon me if I served it to them – but it’s tasty, comforting, chunky, homemade and bloody brilliant.  I hope you enjoy your version of it as much as I do!

And look.  Not an orange-furred git in sight.  That’s a perfect day.

The Viking Reviews: Back Inn Time

I must be honest with you all before we get started in this review.  This isn’t so much a review as it is a love letter to my absolute favourite restaurant.  Tucked away behind the hustle and bustle of Essex’s county town, a short hop from Chelmsford train station, you will find an unassuming cream building with a clock on its face.  It’ll only be on closer inspection as you approach that you will notice that the clock is turning backwards.  As you get closer, you’ll notice the faint glow of red neon in one of the windows, simply advertising the wares to be had inside: “Eats!” the sign proclaims.  Brown shutters offer glimpses of gingham table cloths, whirling waiters, and slices of retro Americana.  Heading around to the rear, and the entrance, you’re assailed by the sounds of good old rock and roll and, more importantly, the sound of people having a good time.

You have found yourself at Back Inn Time, one of Chelmsford’s oldest and (in my case at least) best loved restaurants.  I’ve been coming here since I was seven – that’s twenty four years of loyalty to a place that is bordering on the fierce.  Sure, sometimes I won’t get to go there for a couple of years, but every time I return it is like coming back to an old friend: the bar staff always greet you with a smile, making you feel welcome the very second you walk through the brass handled door.

Immediately, there’s a lively buzz.  There’s nothing staid about Back Inn Time – the walls are red brick, covered in an explosion of American number plates, postcards, cola adverts and beer signs.  There’s a cute little train that chugs about the restaurant at ceiling height.  The lighting is low, and as you take a seat at the bar for a long, cold beer (served in an iced glass, no less) or one of the best cocktails in town, you know that you’re in for a treat.

So it was that I found myself at Back Inn Time last weekend.  After a long day out on the road looking for a new house myself and three companions found ourselves in Chelmsford and hungry.  We didn’t want to eat mass-produced chain food and we knew that there was only one place to go.  We were very lucky – this was a Saturday evening and I have never once been able to walk in and get a table (booking in advance is always recommended) – they had a spare slot for us and so we sat down for the feast to end all feasts.

The menu is huge, delivered to you on a Moses-esque style tablet – the commandments of eating, if you will, one side covered in ‘Good Beginnings’ and ‘Final Flings’, while the other is choc full of the House Specialities – Steakside, Southwestern, Chicken and Ribs, All American, and some things called ‘Garden Salads’ – although why you’d want one of those is anyone’s guess.

Good Beginnings, then, and my – was the beginning good.  For myself, I ordered loaded potato skins:

A hollowed out, family sized potato stuffed with, in this case, cheese and chilli beef.  The cheese was smooth, flavoursome and stringy, the chilli fiery but tempered beautifully by the creaminess of the cheese, the crispy potato skin adding a charcoal crunch to the whole affair.  The cold bite of the sour cream adds a level of acidity that really takes the edge off of the spiciness – the only problem with the dish being that perhaps a little more in the way of chilli could be added.  But that’s mainly because I am a fool for chilli, and always want that little bit more.

One of my companions went for a real classic: Love at First Bite:

Mushrooms, stuffed with Pate, breaded and then fried, served with a garlic dip.  There are no words to describe this adequately.  The light crunch of breadcrumb gives way to smooth, meaty pate, delightfully complemented by a rich, powerfully garlicky dip that makes you wish there was a vat of it nearby to dive in to.

Chicken fingers were the order of the day for Mrs. Viking:

Very simple, breaded and fried chicken strips served with a BBQ dippin’ sauce.  Simple, but pleasurable – the chicken is moist, the bread crunchy, and the BBQ sauce just on the right side of tart. 

Finally, for the starter at least, out other companion bravely went off piste, going for the Specials board.  Tempura Prawns with a sweet chilli dip were delivered to him:

The tempura was reported to be light and crisp, the prawn having a little bite to it and the chilli dip to be more hot than sweet.  I dipped a finger in it myself, and found that yes, maybe a little hotter than it was sweet, but if anything that’s a minor niggle to a group of people who have a taste for spicier food anyway.

On to mains, then, and I was delivered half a cow, sorry, a New York Strip.  ½ a pound of prime sirloin, cooked to absolute perfection.  Honestly.  Show one of these steaks a knife and it will pretty much cut itself for you and throw itself in to your mouth.  You probably won’t even need to chew, as the meat is deliciously tender, with the juice of a perfect medium rare piece of meat bursting inside your mouth.  It even has perfect, diamond char strips that impress the heck out of the seven year old in me.  Chips are crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside and the salad crisp and refreshing (if you’re interested in that kind of thing).

Again, someone decided to be Avant-Garde in the group, and ordered from the specials board.  Chicken breast topped with field mushrooms and spinach, topped again with melted mozzarella.  This, it has to be said, seemed to be the lowest point of the evening.  The chicken was a tad on the dry side while the cheese seemed ever so slightly watery.  That said, the general flavour was (I am told) good, the mushrooms working well with the mozzarella to provide an earthy bite against the rich flavour of the chicken breast which had been seasoned very well indeed.

Despite my requests, Mrs V and our other friend both had ribs, the only difference being one of them had curly fries while one went down the traditional route and went for good old fashioned chips.  But the carbohydrate is the chorus line to the ribs’ star turn – a whole rack of ribs served up on a plate that wouldn’t look out of place in the hands of a giant, lovingly coated in a sticky, homemade hickory smoked barbecue sauce in which the ribs are cooked for hours and hours on end until the meat is rich, tender, and fit to fall straight off the bone.  Served with a whole box of tissues and a dog food bowl for the bones, this dish is an evening’s entertainment in itself.  The flavour assaults your tastebuds while the sauce carries out a surprise attack against your whole face.  The chips, almost forgotten, play their part by adding a little much-needed crunch against the endless soft meat, and the clatter of bones against porcelain as you cast one rib aside before diving in to the next one is like listening to the music of a supergroup formed of Dave Grohl on drums, Slash and Pete Townsend on guitars, Flea on bass and Freddie on vocals, only it’s a million times better than that.

In conclusion, then, Back Inn Time is a great place to eat.  It’s unpretentious, it’s fun, the food is damned tasty and, if it’s your birthday, the whole staff get around your table and sing Happy Birthday to you.  OK, you might think that’s tacky and over the top – and if you think that, then you’re probably dead inside, and you need to learn how to have a little fun every now and then.  The next time you’re in Chelmsford (or, really, anywhere in the South East), give ‘em a call and get yourself a table.  Tell them I sent you.  They won’t know who the hell you’re talking about, but it’ll make me feel important.  Anyway, you won’t regret it, and don’t forget that they do huge, delicious deserts too – unfortunately, we couldn’t handle them due to the massive amounts of meat we had consumed…  Afterwards, when you’re sitting at the bar sinking a cold Budweiser, you’ll already be planning your next visit.  And wondering how you can get a cool little train like that in your house.

Back Inn Time, Chelmsford: Four and Three-Quarter Vikings out of Five

Website: www.backinntime.co.uk


I'll be back next week with big food, big flavour, and more Vikingy things.  Until then, take care!


Viking

The Viking Gets Chili – Blazing Campfire Chili

Mexico and Texas.  Two places divided by a national border – on one side sits the USA, fat and happy in a giant ten gallon hat, and on the other sits Me-hi-co, full of, er, bandidos and tequila and Billy the Kid.  OK, so I learned pretty much all I know about Mexico from Young Guns and Red Dead Redemption; and all I know about Texas has been gleaned from brief glimpses of Dallas and Smokey and the Bandit.

There was one more film (that is to say, documentary) that gave great insight in to the ways of life in the old west.  Blazing Saddles was its name, and it contains one of the most famous scenes in movie history:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6dm9rN6oTs

And, using farts as inspiration, that leads me on to this week’s recipe.  Rich, meaty, spicy, chilli con carne for you to blow the top of your head off (and the curtains out) with.  Now, there is one thing that we should deal with straight away.

Beans, or no beans?

There are some people (one of them happens to be married to me) who say that a Chili just isn’t a Chili unless there are beans in it.  There are others, like myself, who insist that kidney beans are something akin to what one would find ‘twixt the buttocks of a demon who has recently sat on a cold wall, despite the warnings of its long-ganged mother.  Still, your preferences for demon-haemorrhoids aside, there really are two ways to think about this.

It’s reckoned that in San Antonio (and other places that are associated with the origins of Chili) that beans were often used to bulk out, or instead of, the meat.  In more eastern areas, the term Chili is reserved for the all-meat dish, the term Chili Beans being used for the version with beans in it.

However you like it, you know that a good Chili can be a real life-affirming bowl of proteins and carbohydrate.  And, with a bit of love, care and attention (as well as a side order of patience), this can go from being your average ‘trail food’ to something that will leave you sweating – yet reaching out for more.

The Viking Gets Chili – Blazing Campfire Chili

Run to the shops, or to your store cupboard, and get your STUFF:

- MEAT.  500g of minced beef will feed four hungry people

- A few slices of Bacon

- Kidney beans (if you really must)

- Chopped tomatoes

- Chopped mushrooms

- A large red onion

- 4 cloves of garlic, minced

- Tomato puree

- A little beef stock

- A spoonful of English mustard

- A dash of Tabasco sauce

- A whole bunch of herbs and spices: A teaspoon of cumin, coriander, fennel, black pepper and paprika

- Hot Chili powder – be careful with this!  It’s really not joking when it says hot.  Half a teaspoon will give you a zingy mouth.  One teaspoon will give you a slight, enjoyable sweat.  Two teaspoons will require lots of cold beer.  Three will lift the top of your head off, and four will see you go volcanic, and will quite possibly lead to major delays on international flight routes.  You have been warned!

- Fresh Chilli (optional) – chopped for colour and flavour (if you’re using fresh Chilli, remember to change your chili powder levels accordingly…

Got all that?  Good.  Let’s get cooking, eh?

Method:

1)      Over a low heat, fry off onions and garlic in a heavy-bottomed pan

2)      Chop bacon, and fry off in the onion and garlic until brown

3)      Add minced beef, turn up the heat, and fry until browned

4)      Throw in herbs and spices, stir until the meat and onion has a nice covering

5)      Add a carton of chopped tomatoes and stir

6)      Add Mushrooms

7)      Drizzle in a splash of Tabasco sauce and, if you’re feeling fruity, a splash of Lea and Perrin’s

8)      Add beef stock.  I used a Knorr stock pot, a brilliant little cheat

9)      Reduce to a simmer, cover pan with a lid, and walk away

That’s it.  Leave it.  All you have to do is come back every fifteen minutes or so to give the meat a stir.  Ideally, you want the sauce to reduce right down so you have a nice, thick chili.  This can be eaten after half an hour if you’re in a rush, but for perfect results you’ll be best to leave this unctuous mixture simmering for two to two and a half hours.

In the meantime, drain your kidney beans and rinse them.  Set aside in a bowlful of cold water until you need them.

Half an hour before you are ready to serve, start cooking the rice.  Long grain white rice is a must for me, especially with this dish, but brown rice will work just as well. 

Ten minutes before you want to dish up, remove the kidney beans from the cold water, and then add them to your chili mix.  Stir through, and leave uncovered for ten minutes. 

Serve!

Serve in a deep sided bowl, with a side of grated cheese for topping, and a big bowl full of tortilla chips.  Use these in lieu of knives and forks – this is food that is meant to get you mucky.  You should be red faces, slightly sweaty, with great smears of red around the corners of your mouth by the time you have finished eating.  Serve with a long, cold lager, in front of your favourite film, with your favourite people, and you’ll have a great old time.  That said, do yourselves a favour and try to keep the windows open, hombres.  You know what I mean, right?

As ever, I hope you have a go at this, and I’d be really interested to know what makes a great chili for you.  Perhaps you’re a die-hard enthusiast for Kidney Beans?  Maybe you enjoy eating food so hot you could be classified as a minor star?  Possibly you’re offended by the addition of bacon?  Whatever your foibles, I’d love to hear from you!

I’ll be back next week, with more food that makes happy people…

Viking

The Viking Fishes and Chips: I Just Coley’d to say I Love You

Think you Cod do better with your fish?  Then, my friend, you have come to the right place.  I can’t promise that there won’t be any more truly awful puns, but what I can promise is a whole new fish to consider when you’re cooking at home.

Thanks to one of my favourite TV Chefs, one Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the plight of fish in the waters of Europe has recently been highlighted.  I’ll just quote from their excellent website (www.fishfight.net), as they say it better than I ever could:

“Fishing for one species [in mixed fisheries] often means catching another, and if people don’t want them or fishermen are not allowed to land them, the only option is to throw them overboard. The vast majority of these discarded fish will die.

Because discards are not monitored, it is difficult to know exactly how many fish are being thrown away. The EU estimates that in the North Sea, discards are between 40% and 60% of the total catch. Many of these fish are species that have fallen out of fashion: we can help to prevent their discard just by rediscovering our taste for them.

Others are prime cod, haddock, plaice and other popular food species that are “over-quota”. The quota system is intended to protect fish stocks by setting limits on how many fish of a certain species should be caught.

Fishermen are not allowed to land any over-quota fish; if they accidentally catch them – which they can’t help but do - there is no choice but to throw them overboard before they reach the docks.” (Source)

I hope you will agree that this is crazy.  The very worst part of it, for me, is that hundreds of thousands of tonnes of perfectly good fish is thrown away not out of choice, but out of necessity, and it strikes me as being an awful waste – especially as a lot of the fish that is thrown away is so good to eat you’d probably soon forget all about the humble old Cod anyway.  So, as fish eaters, we need to diversify our eating habits when it comes to the pleasures of the deep. 

Now, I live in South East London, a part of the world not usually recognised for being a fishing port – although it must be said that Penge does sound like some kind of fish.  So, when I took myself to the fishmonger last week, I was surprised to find that it wasn’t stocking its usual array of Cod, Haddock, Salmon and Prawns.  There, perched atop the ice like a little fishy wonder, was a fillet of fish that looked me square in the eyes and said “if you don’t eat me it would be a crime, sir.”  Figuratively, I mean, I did not have a psychotic episode in the middle of Sainsbury’s.  On that day, anyway.

The fillet of fish I’m talking about came from a lovely little beast called a Coley. A fish that is very similar to Cod, you may have heard it called Pollock, Saithe or Boston Blue.  The flesh of the fish, however, is darker than Cod, and for that reason this fish has a wholly undeserved reputation for being bad eating.  The plus side is that because of this reputation, two sizeable fillets will cost you about £3.  I tell you, once you’ve cooked it you’ll never believe in Cod again. (One more pun like that and I’m shutting you down – Ed.)

The other thing about SE London, and London as a whole, is the lack of good Fish and Chip shops.  Sure, there are plaices (THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING! – Ed.) where you can get fish and chips – but any self respecting Fish Emporium should not have a kebab sitting on the side slowly dripping E. Coli over everything, and it definitely shouldn’t have a self-service window on the street to serve drunks after midnight.  It should, however, be called something like “Neptune’s Pantry”, or “A Salt and Battery”, or even “Rock and Sole Plaice; and it should have formica work tops, huge plastic cellars of salt and vinegar, and a huge jar of pickled eggs on the side that no-one ever buys.  That’s what a fish and chip shop should be like, and they should be stuffed full of people at 6pm on a Friday getting their end of week treat.  When you’re a Viking landlocked in the City, though, you have to do things for yourself.  And, as it happens, it’s cheaper too.  So, this week:

The Viking Fishes and Chips: I Just Coley’d to say I Love You

Take yourself to the shops, or raid your cupboards, and find the following STUFF:

For the Fish:

1 x Fillet of Coley per (hungry) person (1 fillet halved will feed two, though)

50 grammes corn flour

75 grammes plain flour

5 grammes baking powder

1 bottle of cold ale

(This batter mix makes enough to coat 2-3 fillets of fish)

For the Spicy Chips:

Potatoes

Unsalted cashew nuts

Sesame seeds

Ground cumin

Mild chilli powder

Let’s cook!

Method:

1)      Sift corn flour, plain flour and baking powder in to a bowl

2)      Add the cold ale (as cold as possible) bit by bit until you have a smooth, thick batter

3)      Place in the fridge until ready to use

4)      Peel and chop potatoes in to chunky chips, setting aside in cold water

The tools of the trade...

5)      For this recipe, I have used my new favourite toy, the Tefal Actifry.  I was sceptical at first, but the proof is in the eating – this machine makes hot, crunchy chips and they’re good for you too.  If you don’t have one of these, follow the recipe I have used for chunky chips before and do them in the oven – making sure to coat evenly with seeds and spices.

6)      Drain the chips and pat dry, place in to the Actifry/Oven/cooker of choice, with a couple of spoonfuls of chilli powder and ground cumin, depending on your taste.  Throw in a handful of cashew nuts.

7)      Toast some sesame seeds in a dry pan, and add these to the Actifry as well

8)      Turn on, and cook for 35-40 minutes until golden brown

You could also use a deep fryer to make the chips – if you do, don’t put the sesame seeds, nuts and spices in there.  Once the chips are cooked, toss all of the ingredients together.

     9)      Now we’re ready to cook the fish.  Preheat a heavy-bottomed pan or wok that is half full of vegetable oil to about 180c (or, drop a small cube of bread in.  If it sizzles, you’re good to go)

10)   Remove batter from fridge and stir

11)   Coat each fillet of fish in plain flour, and then dunk in the batter, making sure the fillet is fully coated

12)   Carefully place in to the oil, being careful of your fingers

13)   Cook for about 4 minutes, until the batter has crisped up nicely and turned golden-brown in colour

14)   Remove fillet, and place on a kitchen towel to drain (although it won’t need much draining as you’ll be using clean, fresh oil)

15)   Serve, with a side of tomato ketchup, a slice of buttered white bread and a heap of zingy tartare sauce

16)   Eat!

That’s sixteen steps to heaven right there, and it isn’t faffy at all.  Home-made fish and chips, the perfect way to end your week!  The Coley is an outstanding fish to eat, tender, meaty and uncommonly good.  I should know, I’ve eaten loads of it now.  One thing that I should say is that if a piece of fish flakes under the slightest pressure from a fork, then it is cooked, and the flesh will also be pearly white in colour.  No worries!  If you don’t like the look of the fillets on display at the fishmonger, ask to see if they have any more so you can get the pick of the fillets.  Also, don’t be afraid to ask  them to skin and bone the fish for you – they’re the experts after all.

And so we come to the end of another chapter of my adventures in food.  I hope you have enjoyed it, and I’m looking forward to you sharing your experiences with this dish.  In the meantime, I shall leave you to a (hopefully) sunny and fun weekend, stuffed full of fish!

Viking