SMOKEY BARBECUE SAUCE

Barbecue sauce goes well with lots of meals. We eat it with this pulled pork recipe, but it's equally as lovely with chicken, prawns or anything straight off the barbecue. It will also keep for a couple of weeks in your fridge, so the recipe below makes enough for more than 1 meal.

Don't let the list of ingredients put you off. This is a one pot sauce and not at all complicated. If you don't have mushroom ketchup, add extra Worcestershire sauce. And if you don't have any tomato passata, you can use ketchup, but if you do this, you need to halve the amount of sugar you use.

2 tbsp butter
1 large onion
5 cloves garlic
1 tbsp fennel seeds
200ml rice vinegar
150ml red wine vinegar
600ml tomato passata
2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
3 tbsp mushroom ketchup
70g brown sugar
1 tbsp honey
2 bay leaves
Sprig of thyme
1 tbsp english mustard
1 heaped tsp paprika
Salt
Lots of pepper

Heat the butter in a medium sized saucepan, over a medium to low heat. Chop the onion and garlic and add to the pan. They don't need to be chopped with any care, as the whole lot will be blended at the end.

Cook the onion and garlic gently until they become translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the fennel seed and fry for 2 more minutes, stirring as you go. Now add the vinegars, tomato passata, Worcestershire sauce, mushroom ketchup, sugar, honey, herbs, mustard, paprika, salt and lots of pepper, and bring up to a simmer.

Stir regularly and leave simmering for around 30 minutes, or until the liquid has reduced by half and starts to coat the back of a spoon. Remove from the heat and leave to cool for 5-10 minutes.

Remove the bay leaves, and blend the sauce. Serve cold with whatever you like, and enjoy!

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PULLED PORK WITH PICKLED VEGETABLES

Before I start telling you about this wonderful recipe, you need to know that it takes 24 hours to cook the pork. I don't want you to read this, and think what a good recipe it would be to cook for your supper tonight. You need to be a little bit organised, but believe me, it is worth it, and once the meat is in the oven, there is very little to do for about 22 hours.

The other thing this recipe requires is a phone call to the butcher. You need a pork shoulder with the bone in, so call ahead and ask them to keep one aside for you, as they normally remove the bones from pork shoulders. Last time I cooked this I got a shoulder of Gloucester Old Spot from a lovely butcher in Tetbury called Jesse Smith (www.jessesmithbutchers.co.uk). This time, I am having my free range pork shoulder delivered by our local London butcher, Wyndham House (www.wyndham-house.com), who deliver for free in the area for orders over £10.

Pork shoulder is a very good value cut of meat, and comes in at around £6/kg, with a 6kg joint serving 18 people, with leftovers!

1 pork shoulder, 4-6kg
1 tbsp fennel seeds
1 tbsp paprika
1 tsp chilli flakes
1 tbsp salt
Pepper
2 tbsp olive oil

If you want to eat this for Sunday lunch, you need to start thinking about it on Saturday morning, at around 11am. Remove the meat from the fridge, to allow it 2 hours to come up to room temperature.

Half an hour before the meat goes in the oven, preheat the oven to 220C (200C if you have a fan oven). Score the skin of the meat with a sharp knife, but be careful not to cut straight through the skin into the meat. Mix the fennel seeds, paprika, chilli, salt and pepper, stir in the oil, and rub all over the meat and into the cuts you've made in the skin. Put the joint into a large roasting tray, skin side up, and pop in the oven. You don't need to cover the meat with any foil.

Leave to cook for 30 minutes at 220C (200C fan oven), then turn the oven down to 100C (80-90C fan oven). It now needs to cook for 23 hours. You will need to take it out a couple of times and spoon the fat that it produces back over the meat - you can do this once before you go to bed, and once when you wake up.

I have read several recipes that ask for the meat to be turned upside down (with the skin on the bottom) but I don't do this, and I do not think it's necessary. Leave the meat to cook skin side up.

When the meat has 1 hour to go (ie. it has been cooking for 22 1/2 hours), start prepping the pickled veg.

2 red onions
1 fennel bulb
4 limes
2 tsp rice vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp fennel seeds

Slice the red onions and fennel into very thin strips (the 2mm blade on the magimix is ideal). Drop the onion and fennel into a pan of boiling water for 10 seconds, remove and drain well. Add the juice of the limes, the vinegar, salt and fennel seeds and mix thoroughly so all the onion and fennel is coated. Cover and leave in the fridge for an hour or two, or until the meat is ready. Drain the vegetables before serving.

Once the meat has cooked for 23 1/2 or 24 hours, remove from the oven. The skin should have turned into crackling but if it is still soft, then put it under a medium grill for 5-10 minutes, but watch it like a hawk as it can burn in seconds!!

Take the crackling off the meat and hide it somewhere safe (otherwise, in my house, it all gets eaten before the food's ready)! Wrap the pork shoulder in 3 layers of tin foil, as tightly as possible, and leave to rest for between 30 and 60 minutes.

The meat can be carved with a spoon and fork, as it will just fall apart.

Serve in a bun with a pile of pickled veg, some homemade spicy, sticky BBQ sauce (recipe to follow) and some crackling.

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THE PELHAM ARMS, LEWES

Having driven through Lewes (in Sussex) a couple of times I knew I wanted to spend a weekend away from London there, so when our anniversary came around it seemed like the ideal time to do it. We booked to stay at The Pelham House Hotel - a lovely old house in the middle of Lewes that looks out over the South Downs (although it was so foggy we couldn't see much beyond the end of the hotel garden!)

I had originally wanted to eat at the hotel restaurant as the menu looked very appetising and at £20 for 2 courses seemed reasonable. However we were told that the hotel restaurant was fully booked, so were recommended the The Pelham Arms pub, which is a 10 minute stroll up the high street. I'm so glad that we ended up eating at the Pelham Arms.

We arrived, welcomed in to a cosy pub, with a dining area to one side. The table reserved for us was in the corner of the dining area, and once we'd seen the pub and the restaurant area, we decided that we'd prefer to eat in the pub area, so our table was changed straight away.

Nestled next to the fire with a pint of Badger's excellent 'Pickled Partridge' ale, we were ready for some food. The kitchen at The Pelham Arms uses local Sussex suppliers for food where possible, and is committed to using ingredients that have been ethically and responsibly produced - as all kitchens should, but often don't! Starters cost £6-7, and include various pates and terrines, soups and croquettes. I chose the locally smoked salmon pate with confit beetroot, tempura mussels and chive crème fraiche. The boy had pheasant, pigeon and apricot terrine with spiced chutney and brioche toast. Both starters were seriously delicious, and packed a proper punch of flavour. 

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SALTED CARAMEL PEANUT BROWNIES- by Andy Bates

If you read my blog, you'll know I was sent Andy Bates new cook book to review, and try some recipes from. I literally have hardly been able to put the book down, and have already cooked several recipes from it. The chorizo sausage rolls are incredible, and the belly of pork with creamed beans is pretty good too, but so far, my favorite recipe is this one. I do like a good brownie, and these are almost better than my boozy prune brownies - http://alittlelusciousness.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/chocolate-rum-brownies.html !!

I doubled the mixture stated in the book, as I knew they wouldn't last long, but this is the recipe with Andy's quantities. I was also lucky enough to have been given a jar of real, proper French dulce de leche just before I made these, but if you can't find dulce de leche, a tin of condensed milk will become dulce de leche (caramel) if you cover it with water and boil for 3 hours. Make sure you allow to cool before opening!

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FOOD FOR/AFTER A TUMMY BUG - BROTH AND COCO WATER

There's a horrible tummy bug going round, as there normally is at this time of year, and my boyfriend was struck down with said bug at about 1am on Monday. A visit to the doctors on Monday morning was pretty unhelpful - the doctor said "It's ok, the human body can survive without food for a month" - seeing as I think it's up to a month, and then you die, not very helpful info, doc! 

Dioralyte was the only thing he could recommend, but the ingredients list of Sodium Chloride, Potassium Chloride, Glucose and Disodium Hydrogen Citrate didn't sound too appealing. So after an afternoon's sleep, I knew he would need something to replace all the salts and sugars he'd lost over the last 18 hours.

In order to get the potassium (brilliant for getting the body over dehydration) and sugars back into him that he needed to rehydrate, I picked up a (pint) can of coconut water. This went down a treat, drunk in small sips.

Next thing needed was the salts he'd lost. I read a bit on the internet about cures for tummy problems, and fennel tea, and ginger were often mentioned. Chicken soup has always been used to encourage a speedier recovery from these kind of things, so I decided to make a clear broth, incorporating all the stomach healing ingredients I'd read about. Here's what I made:

CHICKEN BROTH WITH FENNEL, LEMON AND GINGER

Serves 3

1 litre of chicken stock (I had some of my own stock frozen so used this)
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 thumb sized piece of fresh ginger
1 clove of garlic
Juice & peel of 1 lemon (try to peel this off in wide strips, like how you'd peel an apple)
1 tsp soy sauce
1 nest of egg noodle per person
1 spring onion

Put the chicken stock, fennel seeds, grated ginger, a small bit of grated garlic (I used a third of a clove) and lemon peel into a saucepan and bring up to a slow simmer. Add the soy sauce. Taste and adjust quantities of any of the ingredients, but you want a nice broth, not a strong overpowering flavour of anything.

Whilst the broth is simmering, boil a kettle and pour the boiling water over the noodle nests and cook as per packet instructions (mine were to boil the noodles for 3 minutes).

Remove the cooked noodles and drain the water. Place a small amount of noodles in each bowl. Once the broth has simmered for around 10 minutes, squeeze in a small amount of the lemon juice, remove from the heat, and sieve onto the bowls of noodles. Add a small amount of finely chopped spring onion and serve.

You can omit the noodles, depending on how well the patient feels! Mine needed a bit of energy so I served it with noodles, and it went down very well. He's now very much on the road to recovery!

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ANDY BATES - WIN HIS NEW COOKBOOK!

I have recently been sent a couple of copies of Andy Bates’ (AKA The Pie Man) new cook book – Modern Twists on Classic Dishes. One is for me, to cook up some of the super tasty recipes, and tell you all about them, and I have another copy to send to one of you!

Andy Bates has been busy recently – he is of Pie Man fame, known for the pastries, pies and scotch eggs he makes and sells at Whitecross Street Market in London but has also written a fantastic cook book and is starring in a series documenting the street food scene across America - Andy Bates American Street Feasts. This is a great show, and Andy is a wonderfully charismatic presenter. You can see he has a real, genuine interest in what he presents. The shows are split between him visiting popular street food vendors and cooking up recipes inspired by what he has seen and tasted. The shows aired every weekday on the Food Network channel and you can watch them on catch up at http://www.foodnetwork.co.uk/tv-shows/andy-bates-american-street-feasts.html. As well as previous episodes, there is an interactive street food map on the website where you can look for places to eat, or tell others about street food vendors you have discovered in the UK

Recipes from some of the shows feature in Andy's cook book, including Salted peanut chocolate brownies (blog testing this recipe to follow soon), Braised Pork Belly and Walforf Salad Pretzel, Chicken and Mussels in Cider with Baby Gem lettuce, Black Pudding Scotch Egg, Honey Cheesecake and much, much more. The book is a lovely mixture of inspiring recipes, and short stories about Andy’s love of particular foods, and history of where the recipes came from. Modern Twists on Classic dishes is available from WH Smith, Waterstones, Amazon and independent book stores throughout the UK.

All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning your free copy from me, is leave a comment below, telling me about your favorite place for Street Food in the UK.

Competition closes this Friday!

Good luck!

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WINTER WARMER - FIERY PUMPKIN SOUP

We are having a mini halloween/firework feast this year, and because we are doing it on a Friday I have been planning a menu that I can cook the night before, ready to heat through when I get home from work on the Friday. I definitely want to serve a soup, that everyone can help themselves to and bring outside to watch the firework display. I have tried a few different flavour combinations but this was the best, and it includes pumpkin, so I can use up the flesh carved out from our ghoulish pumpkins!

This soup is cooked for 4 hours, so be aware of this if you're thinking of just knocking it up for dinner after work - it's best made when you have some time to wait for it to cook - make lots and freeze the rest in batches. You can also do this in a slow cooker, but cook it for 6 hours on the slow setting.

Makes enough for about 8 people, or 4 batches for 2.

FOR THE SOUP
2 large, white onions
800g pumpkin flesh
1 celeriac
500g carrots
1 bunch of celery
1 head of garlic
3 red chillies
2 litres of chicken stock
4 bay leaves
Salt and pepper

TO ADD
1 slice of bresola per bowl of soup
Creme fraiche
Chives, parsley or mint
Red chilli

Preheat the oven to the lowest gas mark (around 130-140 degrees C), or if you are using a slow cooker, turn it on and set it to it's lowest temperature. Get a large casserole dish or saucepan with a lid ready.

Peel, and chop the onions, pumpkin, celeriac and carrots into large chunky pieces. Pop them all in your pan. Wash and chop the celery and add to the pan, with the peeled garlic cloves and chopped red chillies. Add the bay leaves and stock, and season. If you are using stock cubes, then do not add salt at this point. Wait until it is cooked, then taste and add salt if required.

Place the pan on the hob and heat until the stock starts to boil. Put the lid on the pan, and place the whole thing in the oven, or slow cooker. Leave to cook for 4 hours.

After 4 hours, remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Once cooled, spoon the mixture into the blender and blend in batches. Return all blended soup to one bowl and mix. Taste the soup and adjust seasoning if needed.

Spoon the soup into bowls, and top each bowl with some bresola, chopped into cm slices, a dollop of creme fraiche, some chopped fresh herbs of your choice and a few rings of sliced red chilli (or some chilli sauce).

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PICANTE MEXICAN GRILL - A HIDDEN GEM

I do love a good Mexican, and there are several restaurants and street food venues in Soho that I used to frequent for a lunchtime burrito, but I recently stumbled across somewhere that tops them all. This little gem seats about 12 people (they serve many more with take away which can be pre ordered to pick up on arrival), and is hidden away somewhere between Victoria and Westminster Cathedral.

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PALE ALE ONION GRAVY

It's a pretty easy one, but onion gravy lifts a simple supper to a new level. If you've got some nice sausages and some onions and potatoes, then this meal is great way to end a long day.

This recipe really is very easy, it just takes some time to allow it to be as delicious as it should! This makes enough for about 6 people (or 4 hungry people).

3 large onions
3 cloves of garlic
Butter
Olive oil
1 500ml bottle of pale ale
Worcester sauce
1 bay leaf
150ml vegetable stock
1 tsp dijon mustard

Chop (or slice in the magimix) the onions. They need to be as thin as possible, which is why I slice them in the magimix. This also reduces eye pain whilst onion chopping! If you don't have a magimix you can slice them with a knife or use a mandoline. Crush the cloves of garlic. Heat a large, deep frying pan over a very low heat. Add a knob of butter and a small drizzle of olive oil, then all the sliced onions and crushed garlic. The onions need to cook like this for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. This may seem like a ridiculously long time, but the onions need to cook really slowly, and by doing so, they will become soft, golden and sweet.

Once the onions have turned the colour of toasted white bread, add the bottle of pale ale, a splash of Worcester sauce (I couldn't find this last time so used Mushroom ketchup which was equally as yummy) and a bay leaf to the pan. Turn the heat up to medium, and bubble the ale away so that all the alcohol burns off. Once the sauce has reduced by half, add 150ml of meat or vegetable stock, a teaspoon of dijon mustard and salt and pepper. Cook for a further 5-10 minutes until the sauce has thickened.

If the sauce has not thickened as much as you'd like, scoop out a small amount of the juice from the pan in a mug, and add a spoonful of flour to the juice in the mug. Stir until there are no lumps, and pour back into the sauce.

Serve with sausages, greens and buttery mashed potato.

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COOKING WITH JAMES MARTIN

Last week I received a very exciting invitation for a cooking event with Saturday Kitchen's very own James Martin. I'm used to my interactions with James Martin being via a TV screen whilst I am still in pyjama mode, so it was a real treat to get dressed and head over to the wonderful cooking school, Food at 52, just off Old Street in East London to meet the man himself and hopefully pick up a few tricks of the trade.

The day was arranged by the lovely people at Thomas Cook, whose in-flights meals James Martin has recently designed. The day was split into two parts, with the morning spent cooking our 3 course lunch under James' watchful eye, and the afternoon being a 6 course cooking demonstration given by James, which I unfortunately had to miss.

There were 12 of us at the event, an equal split of enthusiastic food bloggers, and Thomas Cook marketing staff. We got aproned up and took our places around a long table, with James at one end, instructing and helping us. We prepped all the ingredients for the three course lunch, which was Thai Crab Risotto, followed by smoked haddock Rarebit, and a chocolate pudding for desert. It was really good fun to get involved with all the food prep and pick up some cooking tips from James (for example, I learnt that when using tomato puree in a recipe, it should always be added at the start of cooking to give it time to cook through and reduce any bitter taste). He also talked us through how to get all the meat out of a crab for his delicious risotto.

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GOD SAVE THE CLAM

River pageants, concerts and tourists will fill London's streets, rivers and parks this weekend. But you'll find me at God Save The Clam. A rooftop pop-up event in East London hosting a very British spin-off of the traditionally American Clam Bake - bringing together two of London's most in demand food pop-ups: barbecue wonders, Pitt Cue Co, and seafood masters Rock Lobsta.

A £40 ticket, purchased in advance, will get you: a couple of drinks, a starter of Pitt Cue Links, followed by Clams, cockles, mussels, devilled crayfish & crab claws, sea beets & samphire - steamed over seaweed & charcoal, Cornish Early Potatoes in Smoked Dripping, House Sausage, BBQ leeks, BBQ Corn & Grilled Sour Sough (OH MY GOSH!), and a choice of sundaes for pudding - if you have any room left!

Tickets for the £40 meal (lunch and supper sittings running from Thursday evening until Sunday evening) are running out fast, so get yours at www.godsavetheclam.co.uk. 

And if you don't want to come for a sit down meal, it's free entry to the rooftop Shack Snack Bar, open all day from Friday, where they'll be serving cocktails, beer and wine, as well as lobster corn dogs, Po Boy sandwiches and lobster popcorn.

Follow God Save The Clam on Twitter @godsavetheclam and find them on the Rooftop of The Emigre Studios, 274 Richmond Road, E8 3QW this weekend!

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PIZZA PILGRIMS

Street food is more popular now than it's ever been. Night food street market, Street Feast, which I have yet to visit, leads the way with it's Friday night feasts off Brick Lane. But not far behind is Berwick Street, Soho, whose offerings seem to increase by the week. I'm lucky enough to work close by and have long been a fan of Freebird Burritos, who get it spot on with steak, carnitas (pulled pork), chicken and veggie burritos, however, they have now got some serious competition. Not only is there fresh Vietnamese rolls, there's a falafel stand, Mediterranean salad stall, Thai and Moroccan.

But my newest favorite lunch from Berwick Street is the pizza from Pizza Pilgrims - fresh pizzas cooked in the back of a tiny van, that I'm sure must have to be towed to the site! It's so small, it's amazing it can produce pizzas, let alone ones of such quality - it definitely cannot be roadworthy! 

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