Here at Dad central, we focus many meals around bread. Sandwiches are a fabulously versatile concept. They can be expressions of utmost simplicity or exotic creations that stand up to serious scrutiny.

This recipe sits somewhere in the middle; but provides a delicious and rich tasting meat and two veg standard of sandwich making [...]]]>

chicken mini

Here at Dad central, we focus many meals around bread. Sandwiches are a fabulously versatile concept. They can be expressions of utmost simplicity or exotic creations that stand up to serious scrutiny.

This recipe sits somewhere in the middle; but provides a delicious and rich tasting meat and two veg standard of sandwich making while also delivering some of the informality of sandwich snacking. Some sandwiches need a knife and fork – this may be one of them.

Spread some good blossom honey plus plenty of dark (sweet) soy sauce over the surface of either a whole organic chicken, or a couple of jointed pieces, having slashed the skin to allow the baste to seep into the flesh. Roast, basting from time to time, until glossy, crisp and cooked through.

When nearly cooked, scrub and slice several carrots into thinnish strips lengthways and put in the roasting dish around the chicken, coating them with the accumulated juices. Roast for another 20 mins or so, until the carrots are soft.

Meanwhile toast slices of substantial bread, such as sourdough or wholemeal. Butter if you like, or sprinkle over some olive oil, or leave bare. Pile on top some salad leaves – rocket is very good and not too hot for young tastebuds. Roughly carve off some chicken meat and well cooked skin and pile on top. Season to taste with salt and pepper, a spoon over carrot strips and juices; serve immediately.

Parmesan

celery

Simple vegetable dishes with some strong flavour added – in this case Parmesan cheese make interesting teas or light suppers that children can enjoy, while taking the benefits of fresh veg. This dish is very simple and is delicious – two important criteria for most dads when staring at the fridge ans wondering what [...]]]>

carrots

Parmesan

celery

Simple vegetable dishes with some strong flavour added – in this case Parmesan cheese make interesting teas or light suppers that children can enjoy, while taking the benefits of fresh veg. This dish is very simple and is delicious – two important criteria for most dads when staring at the fridge ans wondering what to do.

Adjust the quantities according to the appetites and numbers of hungry mouths due to be filled. Dice equal amounts of carrots and celery and stew until soft in vegetable (marigold stock powder is good) or chicken stock just to cover.

Drain and keep warm in a shallow ovenproof dish, retaining the stock. Melt a little butter in a pan, and add a little flour. Stir and whisk together until united.

Pour over the reserved stock and whisk until you have a glossy little sauce. Then stir in a tblpsn of freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Pour over the vegetables, top with more Parmesan and flash under a hot grill rapidly to brown.

Serve immediately. Or you can prepare it in advance, and bake for 20 minutes.

The fresh veg, rich stock and piquant Parmesan all help to introduce even unwilling palates to the grown up world of proper food flavours. The light browning at the end should add an attractive final colour as well.

Extraordinary Ones

Dad’s voyage around London took in a visit to Pizza East, part of the Shoreditch House, which is itself a part of the Soho House international clubs empire. The occasion was an intriguing charity launch. Extraordinary Ones is a new campaign that encourages restaurateurs and diners to collaborate by giving 20p – [...]]]>

Extraordinary Ones

Dad’s voyage around London took in a visit to Pizza East, part of the Shoreditch House, which is itself a part of the Soho House international clubs empire. The occasion was an intriguing charity launch. Extraordinary Ones is a new campaign that encourages restaurateurs and diners to collaborate by giving 20p – yup, that little – per meal to the charity. The USP of this project is while you eat, you feed another.

That is calculated to be what it costs to feed a child – an average figure – among the many millions which go hungry every day. Every day three million meals are served in London. If all London’s cafes, restaurants, clubs, fastfood joints, chippies and pubs were to participate, and all their happy diners were willing participants, that would raise £600,000. Every day.

The sums are are mind boggling. That’s £3,500,000 per week. At 20p a pop, that buys and distributes 17,500,000 meals for the global hungry. Every week. From London alone. Dad supports this campaign, and you can too. If you are in the business, sign up your enterprise; if you are someone who enjoys dining out, ask your favourite joints to sign up. Encourage friends, neighbours and colleagues to do so as well.

Extraordinary Ones provides all the tools necessary for catering establishments to participate. They say it is easy to do.

The Hunger Project is the partner charity coordinating the use of funds raised by Extraordinary Ones.

More info:
www.extraordinaryones.com
ukteam@extraordinaryones.co.uk
www.thp.org

Pizza East is a very cool pizza bar on two floors, open to the public unlike most of the Soho House group, which is a membership organisation. The design is starkly industrial, in a good way, furnished in concrete and varnished board, with the wood fired pizza ovens glowing in a friendly way at the back of the open kitchen.
www.pizzaeast.com

Avocados are a favourite of Dad’s family, not just for the creamy texture and velvety taste, but for the number of different ways of using them – even quite a lot of them – when they are plentiful and cheap. There is not much you can do with an under ripe avo, so [...]]]>

avocado

Avocados are a favourite of Dad’s family, not just for the creamy texture and velvety taste, but for the number of different ways of using them – even quite a lot of them – when they are plentiful and cheap. There is not much you can do with an under ripe avo, so be sure not to tackle them when they are completely unyielding to a little pressure fro the thumb. Over ripe avos, ie soft, but not unappetisingly brown, can be used to make dips, in particularly the great guacamole – the Mexican avocado salad. Once ripe, avos can be kept a couple of days in the fridge.

We called out around the office a couple of years ago and and the following ideas emerged very rapidly. Everyone was convinced that their treatment of this ambrosial fruit was the only valid one:

- Sliced thinly onto lightly buttered toast.

- With a sharp vinaigrette.

- With a few drops of extra virgin olive oil and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.

- With crispy bacon on a toasted sandwich.

- Guacamole – crushed avocados with minced onion, optional Tabasco, minced fresh boiled or roasted, or tinned, pimientos, lots of fresh squeezed lemon juice, optional pinch powdered cumin. Serve with hot buttered toast or warm pitta bread; or use to stuff miniature tomatoes.

- Avocado soup – whizz up in blender with a well-flavoured chicken or vegetable stock; add plain low fat yoghourt and salt and pepper to taste.

- Avocados stuffed with crab (the best crabmeat in the world is available from the fresh food co’s sister company, the fresh fish co): scoop out the flesh of the avo; sprinkle the flesh and the insides of the skin with lemon juice; season with salt and pepper;mix crabmeat with mayonnaise flavoured with tomato paste or ketchup (Sauce Marie-Rose); gently combine with avo flesh; pile back into avo skins; dust with paprika (Larousse).

- Sweet avocado ice-cream: whizz up with cream, lemon juice and sugar and freeze….

- By themselves with Worcester sauce or balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper with a few drops of oil.

- Avocado sliced in sushi instead of fish.

Got your your own ideas? Share!

moose bar

But the moose – well  the moose is a big bad mutha, the king of the [...]]]> As I recall, “Newfy” jokes were made by sophisticated urban Canadians about the (allegedly) dimwitted inhabitants of Newfoundland. They filled the ecological niche occupied by the Irish in British humour in the days before racial humour was outlawed.

moose bar

But the moose – well  the moose is a big bad mutha, the king of the deer and not only large and scary but also quite dim. Or at least dim-looking. They are the hit-and-run drivers, the white van man of the animal kingdom, knocking over innocent SUVs as they lumber across roads and tracks in what passes for their gallop.

Moose Bar, in Duke Street London W1, is quite different. You needn’t  be a moose, or dim, or large, to get in. In fact, the skinnier you are, and the more beautiful you look, the more welcome you will be at this  new basement bar beside Selfridges. The banquetttes (is that where bonking comes from?) are backed with cow hide, the bar and dj booth are clad with firewood, some of the walls are lined out with rough sawn timber planks and the gents’ urinals are fully plumbed galvanised buckets. Rather noisier than the more traditional sanitaryware of other west end clubs, but above the din of the music and the raucous conversation of the denizens, who cares.

This is a great decor, with a brilliant thumping soundsystem and lots of smart and well turned out youngsters. Not really Dad’s kind of place any more, but good to know that bars and nightclubs are becoming no less absurd than they ever were.  A Corona cost me £4 with the slice, but others were enjoying preposterous serving ceremonies with indoor fireworks, beautiful champagne bottles and vast tubs of ice.

http://www.vpmg.net/moose/

Dad likes a barby - nothing unusual about that. A good size piece of kit makes the whole event much easier to manage than squeezing all the food onto something too small.  Here is mine – not posh or hi-spec, just a large pit and a lot of cooking space. The main advantage is that you [...]]]>

BBQ

Dad likes a barby - nothing unusual about that. A good size piece of kit makes the whole event much easier to manage than squeezing all the food onto something too small.  Here is mine – not posh or hi-spec, just a large pit and a lot of cooking space. The main advantage is that you can move the coals around with ease, maintaining one end cooking hot while you keep done food warm at the other end.

I generally do meat and veg. One day I’ll do fish – a memorable dish I want to try out is red mullet roasted with herbs in silver paper on the bbq. Yesterday was the most perfect day and in the evening to celebrate the latest in a long line of my birthdays, we piled up the sausages, pork steaks and nice little fillet steaks of beef, along with thickly sliced courgettes and aubergines. All (except the sausages) were marinaded in olive oil, salt and pepper, and garlic before cooking brisk and hot. Served with Big Salad, home made mayo with garlic and steamed Jersey Royals. T  the vegetarian option for my radical little sister (but enough for everybody) was red peppers cut in half lengthways, stuffed with half a tomato, slithers of red onion, mixed dried herbs, salt and pepper and olive oil.

Drinks were Pimms made using 7Up (no aspartame), more 7Up and Champagne and I rather pathetically moved on to cans of 6X, a personal favourite and weakness of mine.  A couple of friends, lots of family and enough young people. Textbook stuff.

Oh yes – nearly forgot about the haloumi - that rubbery Greek cheese that comes in little folded blocks. Just slice it about 50-70mm thick and place on the hot barby until gently browned. Tolly, my littl’un, said could he have some chicken, pointing at it, and it did look a little like breast.  He loved it and was fascinated by the texture and flavour.

My tall French friend, who I first met up a ladder in Ladbroke Grove many years ago when he was painting a ceiling, and is now a proper art dealer in Paris, once complimented me on this ratatouille I cooked for him and his family. I love this dish, which clears out a whole [...]]]>

Ratatouille

My tall French friend, who I first met up a ladder in Ladbroke Grove many years ago when he was painting a ceiling, and is now a proper art dealer in Paris, once complimented me on this ratatouille I cooked for him and his family. I love this dish, which clears out a whole fridge drawer full of Mediterranean veg in one fell – and delicious – swoop.

There are few things to get right, but once they are in place, rat is an easy dish to cook. The important things are that you do need a heavy pan to get the combination of evenly spread heat and the slight browning of the onions, and you need to add the ingredients in the right order to get the best texture at the end.

So here is how you do it. Place a heavy bottomed pan – I use a copper one – on the heat , add 4 or 5 tables spoons of olive oil and gently heat. Peel and  slice a couple of  medium red onions, or 4 or 5 small ones, and add to the pan. Stir gently and allow to start to brown. At the same time core and slice a couple of peppers, red, green or red; a mix is good. when the onion is golden brown add to the pan. Peel and chop roughly 4 or 5 cloves of garlic and toss them in too.

Season the dish at this point – pull the leaves off plenty of fresh thyme or add a couple of generous pinches of dried. Two or three pinches of finger ground sea salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper complete the seasoning for now.

Keep stirring and when the peppers are just browning add an aubergine sliced into even sized chunks to match the onion and pepper. Courgette is next, also chunked, or cut into thickish slices. Finally the tastiest fresh tomatoes you can find, chopped up, are added to the pan.

You can pout a lid on the pan for 5 or ten minutes at this stage to help everything cook evenly and to keep the liquids in the pan, keeping the whole dish nice and succulent.  Then  remove the lid, keep stirring for a few minutes and when all seems to be cooked – total cooking time is about 15-20 minutes – remove from the heat.

Ratatouille can be served hot, warm, reheated or cool. I like it on my home-made sourdough toast for lunch, but it will do very well for a light supper. Will the kids eat it? Yes – there is a wonderful richness to it, and a sweetness from allowing the onions and peppers to just catch a little. The garlic binds all the vegetables flavours togetehr beautifuly and adds depth of its own.

Plus remind the kids about the wonderful animated film about a gastronomic rat – called Ratatouille. That should reel them in.  Obviously you should drink red wine with this.

One of dad’s co-bloggers at Kennet Creative is Girl Uninterrupted. Mostly her posts are of marginal interest to Dads – lots of stuff about lovely ditzy girls and useless, heartless men – but this entry is very delightful (well they all are, really) – Aubergine Cake. If that’s not Dad, I don’t know what [...]]]>

Uninterrupted

One of dad’s co-bloggers at Kennet Creative is Girl Uninterrupted. Mostly her posts are of marginal interest to Dads – lots of stuff about lovely ditzy girls and useless, heartless men – but this entry is very delightful (well they all are, really) – Aubergine Cake. If that’s not Dad, I don’t know what is.

If anyone has a go at this recipe, please post a comment. I am not sure I will have time to make it myself. But the idea… Could be good for the woman in your life.