Strange hand position due to a large gooseberry stain on my shirt

Voting for me and Melanie (The Tarragons of Virtue) is good because:

1. Warm fuzzy feeling, etc, etc
2. Mel could win some knives
3. I could win some gin.

Mel likes knives, I like gin. Anyways, please click over to the website and do some votiness. Due to the voting system that Annie Mole is using you can vote once a day, so if you do feel like stuffing a ballot box please feel free to click over every 24 hours. I might even share the gin with you.

Recipe:

• 1kg boned pork loin, butterflied
• 1/2 a medium onion, finely chopped
• 2tbsp chopped sage
• 2tbsp fresh thyme
• 30g crumbled bread
• 30g pine nuts
• 10 dried apricots, chopped

Firstly I gently fried off the onion with some of the sage and thyme, until it was very soft and translucent. I then combined it with the bread (the inside of a fresh french stick made into breadcrumbs as best as I could) apricots and pine nuts. This mixed together into a fairly dry stuffing which I added a little seasoning to.

On the day we got our piece of pork from The Ginger Pig and the butcher boned and butterflied the loin for us. However, he also recommended that we didn’t stuff it as I had done in my experiments (simply dumping the mixture onto the butterflied pork before rolling it up, as seen in the piccy above) and cut a small pocket in the meat which we filled with our stuffing. This meant that nothing fell out during the cooking and everything looked prettier on serving. I then rolled it up and tied it with string (I used cocktail sticks to hold it together in my experiments but the nice butcher also threw a small ball of string into our bag, along with the ribs that he had removed when preparing our joint – I had them roasted for my dinner…they were very nice).

To aid the creation of crackling (the most important bit of most porky dishes in my opinion) the butcher scored the skin while preparing it. I then thoroughly dried the top, rubbed it down with salt and olive oil before sprinkling some more big sea salt crystals on top along with the remains of they thyme and sage, and a few good grinds of pepper. It went into the oven at 250°C for about 30 minutes before cooking for a further 30 at 160°C and finishing at 200°C for 20 minutes (unintended but fortunate as it really helped the crackling). It came out pretty much perfect, although maybe slightly under done. I cut a slice for the judges and finished it off in a pan to ensure that it was cooked all the way though, leaving the rest to rest, during which it did finish cooking – the perils of cooking to a time limit with only a vague plan.

The crackling was great, really crispy and flavoursome, but the pork was maybe a little dry – some fruity gravy to go along with our peas and creamed leeks would have made it perfect.

We didn’t win, that honour going to Rachel and Danny – Pilluelo and the Catalan Queen, but there was some rather good food knocking around for us to dig into afterwards. Plans are already afoot for next year…

Ta muchly to Annie Mole and The Cookery School for looking after us (especially the lovely Marcella, who put up with me being frantic in a kitchen for a second year running, and the guy who cleaned up the wall that I covered in stewed gooseberries when I dropped a bowl) and to all the lovely people who loaded us down with goodies when we left.

There’s also a post over on my booze blog about our dessert…

The next Karaoke Circus is at Latitude and the one after that is at the Edinburgh festival at midnight on August 17th. I arrive at 2:30pm on August 18th. The fates hate me.

A year has passed and I’ve managed to yet again inveigle myself into the realms of the food bloggers of London – for the second year running I’m in the finals for NomNomNom.

NomNomNom is, quite simply, a cooking competition for bloggery types. You turn up at The Cookery School on the chosen day, dump your gear, run off to the nearby market and purveyors of tasty foods, and then return to cook a three course meal for four people – one portion is served to the judges, the other three shared around the hungry competitors. We’re encouraged to go for as local food as possible, respecting seasonality and organic growing, all of which is helped by the nearby location of Marylebone Farmer’s Market and The Ginger Pig. We also have the restriction of having at least one dish prepared without any cooking, for added interest.

Last year I teamed up with Kang, of London Eater, and cooked some rather tasty things (accompanied by raw veggies), but this year me and Mel Seasons of om nom London (and also my companion behind the bar at the Blaggers’ Banquet, as immortalised in photographic form in the local paper) have appeared on the scene as the mighty Tarragons of Virtue, and we will brush all before us into a tidy heap before placing them hygienically in a bin. They didn’t ask for a team name on the application form this time, but we have one anyway.

Photo (c) Carmen Valino

Our menu is decided (well, as decided as the deliberately vague descriptions we’ve given will allow. Experimentation will be done) and contains pigs, raw things and whisky, so all the food groups are covered. The big day is on the 11th of July, when we and 9 other teams will compete for the coveted title of NomNomNom Champions 2010. Hopefully this year I won’t serve a Michelin starred chef raw carrots but will cook tasty things, both of which did happen last year, although only half of them by design.

There will probably be posts about experimentation to follow (especially as I have a nice empty day on Saturday) and hopefully glory in triumph, or at least free drinks in defeat. In the meantime, here’s what I done did last time:

• The day of reckoning
• Yorkshire Pud
• Roast Beefs
• Granita

I am turning my back on the holy one and am not buying one. I say that now, but my weakness for shiny things is famed and the constant “SHINY SHINY” tweets from my various acquaintances almost turned me to the buy side. Thom not having received his yet, despite an early preorder, was a final nail into the coffin of my resistance, as being able to purchase one in person before the one that he ordered a month ago arrived would be schadenfreude enough to run my sorrow powered anger engine for months. Needing to buy food and having the Waitrose at Westfield being my most accessible supermarket on the way home (and also purveyor of fine meats and boozes) was also not helping. It looked like all signs were pointing to shiny acquisition. However, I managed to do my shopping with only a quick glance in the direction of the Apple store (all good acolytes can point in the direction of the nearest Temple at any time) and on my return home I saw this in an email which has happily reinforced my resistance coffin with shiny adamantium:

To quote Token from South Park – I’m out.

I sent this to picture to my parents as a notification of the situation.
They didn’t seem particularly concerned

I’ve been hiding my actual ‘new look’ from the general public in an attempt to elicit more amusing looks of shock when I remove my ever present hat (even more important now that I have sunburn and cold to contend with…well, I did before but I was denying it), but for you special people who read this on occasion there is a sekrit image online showing my new beauty.

I ironed another shirt this morning. From it here it can only be a downhill roll to cardigans and keeping my bedroom tidy…

Ingredients:

Pork Belly (I used a bit that was about 1/2 a kilo)
Salt
Lard
Peppercorns
3 cloves garlic
Bay leaves

Lentils
Bacon lardons
Cream

How:

Heat your oven to about 140degC while you prepare the pork. Score and heavily salt the skin of your pork belly, making sure to rub it in the salt to all the slits you have made. Leave to one side while the oven heats up. Stick enough lard to cover your pork belly (about 3 blocks in my case, although I should probably have used 4) in a casserole dish and place in the oven to melt. When melted add the peppercorns, bay leaves and the garlic, lightly smashed. When you get bored of waiting/allowing the pork to salt, stick the pork belly into the lard, hopefully completely submerging it, and return to the oven for some time.

Mine puckered up a bit during cooking, raising it out of the fat

I cooked mine for 3 hours, but 4 might have been even better. Once the cooking time is over remove the pork from the fat and place into a container deep enough to allow it to be completely covered in fat. Strain the lard into a jug and then pour over the pork, again hopefully completely submerging it. Cover and when cool place in the fridge. Leave for some time (I divided mine into two pieces and the first one lasted a week before I had to eat it, the other is still in there).

When you want to cook it, take the container out of the fridge, allow to return to room temperature and then remove the pork. Scrape any remaining lard off (although leaving a bit isn’t a problem) and keep it somewhere cool for next time you want to do this. Place the pork on a trivet and put it in a hot oven until it is at an appropriate eating temperature and hopefully has crisped up on top (mine didn’t) – hopefully about 45 minutes. While that is happening cook some lentils in water until tender and then add them to some dry fried bacon lardons and add a dash of cream.

Slice the pork belly and serve on top of a pile of lentils. Eat. Make “Nom” noises.

I think I needed the oven to be hotter when reheating as it didn’t crisp up on top. It might even need a quick fry skin side down before or after the second cooking. Either way, it was really rather good – the pork was meltingly tender, although another hour in the initial cooking might have made it even more so, and lightly flavoured with a hint of bay, pepper and garlic. The remaining piece that I have in the fridge talks to me on a daily basis, begging me to eat it. I will be strong for a while yet.

There are many things in this world that make me happy, but one has quite recently entered my sphere of awareness – Karaoke Circus. Run by Martin White and Danielle Ward it’s a night of Karaoke accompanied by a live band, alternating between singers who have volunteered from the audience and comedians who have been invited along. That’s half of the name, anyway. The other half comes from one of the band members and one of the two judges (more about them in a moment) – Foz Foster and Baron Gilvan. They open the night and happen to be clowns…

The show runs to a fairly simple format, whether comedian or random is on the stage – person hits the stage, they are given a lyric sheet with words typed on in a font that is probably too small, they sing while the band (Foz on guitar, guitarlike things, saw and blown items; Danielle Ward on bass; David Reed (of the Penny Dreadfuls) on drums; and assorted others depending on who gets there) plays, they leave the stage and are then judged by Dan and The Baron. The Baron is Baron Gilvan, mentioned earlier, and Dan is normally Dan Maier, although Dan Tetsell has stood in for him at a couple of recent gigs (this month due to Mr Maier allegedly being thrown in to Eyjafjallajökull as an appeasement, an event that seemed less likely when he appeared on stage to accompany Robin Ince later in the evening). At the end there is a not bad prize for the best singer(s) of the evening, who then go(es) on to sing a final song of the evening. The bracketed plurals/singulars are due to the obligatory duet about halfway through – one man, one woman, one song that could throw them together in a fit of passion but probably won’t. This month’s was Stan, with Eminem and Dido parts up for grabs…

Simple. However, as Mr Howells stated in his post on a similar topic last year – Karaoke Circus is the best thing ever.

I’m not entirely sure why it’s the case, but I’ve been twice, both times when slightly down for one reason or another, and both times I have left full of joy and pleased that the world exists. I identified part of the reason while sitting under Shepherd’s Bush Green on Monday – the sight of Martin White (as seen in the photo above), flinging out his arms and going ‘Yay!’ with joy when The Baron (a notoriously difficult to please judge) says that he likes a song is enough to keep me happy for several weeks at a time.

Anyways, you should all go to see it. Every time. Unfortunately there is a small problem with that – it sells out. Every time. Normally within hours of tickets going on sale. Next time (June 30th – they generally run every other month) they’ll be at the 100 Club with a full orchestra and despite the extra capacity they’d sold out within a day. I bought a ticket as soon as I got home after last time and suspect I’ll be trying to buy one every time I get the chance.

Sign up to their Facebook page and await further instructions – with a bit of regular email checking around the beginning of every other month (apart from the July/August stretch due to the Edinburgh Festival being in the way) you too can be the proud holder of a WeGotTickets virtual ticket to see Karaoke Circus. It’s worth the obsessive clicking of the Check Mail button. 10 hours a day. For a month.

• The Guardian – Olaf Priol’s scoop on Labour’s new election slogan – “Step outside posh boy”
• Google – included for completeness, as Google doing April Fool’s is a tradition now, Google Animal Translate
• Alinea at Home – Carol Blymire taking Falafel Shots, Hot Dog Airs and Pho on Pins on the road in her touring haut cuisine wagon.
• Charlie Stross – making an unexpected move into romantic fiction after some focus grouping.
• xkcd – there’s a command line interface up today, although I have cheated and looked at the code to find things. Type unix commands. Type silly things. Occasionally stuff will happen.

I tried to find something amusing from the Daily Mail website’s front page to post as an HILARIOUS joke so that I could say “and this isn’t an April fool!!1! Marvel at my edginess” but it was all too depressing.

Update: and there are more:

• Thinkgeek have their regular selection:
  • Canned Unicorn
  • E-Ink Tattos (e-ink matrix not included)
  • Monolith Action Figure (with 0 points of articulation!)
  • My First Bacon
  • Tell me your secrets Bear
  • Screaming chef’s knife
  • The Dharma initiative alarm clock
  • Tribbles and Bits breakfast cereal (fluffy even in milk!)
  • iCade – the arcade cabinet enclosure for your iPad
• Waterloo and City line to be pedestrianised
• YouTube have brought in TextP video conversion, saving power…
• Doctorow and Stross to write authorised sequel to Atlas Shrugged
• Fileplanet have the Duke Nukem Forever demo to download

So, my Arduino kit turned up, I finished soldering my LoL Shield and I’ve now been playing with it for a few days. It seems I like electronics.

I’ve mainly been tinkering with the shield (getting the LEDs to do multiple brightnesses, moving dots around by using some buttons, display ‘images’ [at 9x14 pixels they all look like random dots] and do some basic scrolling of things) but have also had a play with the components in my kit. The guy who put together my starter pack has been writing a book on how to code for Arduino and it’s available as an in progress ebook under a CC license from his website – Earthshine Design. I did just submit what I think is a bug report (the circuit I made to control a 8×8 pixel display from his diagram didn’t work and I thought I could see the problem. My circuit didn’t work either though…I might have broken one of my shift registers) but it’s a rather good starter guide, and it’s definitely helping me out with learning how to do stuff, even if I haven’t got enough ideas on what to make.

So, if anyone has any ideas on what I can do with a couple of shift registers, a piezo speaker, some push switches, a temperature sensor, light sensor, whirly pot, transistor and a box of LEDs and resistors, then let me know.

Next up – scroll an image that is larger than the screen…