A glorious error. Text for a Ladies Beauty Trimmer ends up in the press release for James Martin’s Electric Knife. http://pic.twitter.com/cXJKyQhK

My new revelation is actually a suggestion from the personal trainer, Clair, who has a studio in my building at work.  She runs yoga classes for us every Wednesday morning (we started only about a month ago but all the stuff people say about yoga being amazing and relaxing and stress reducing and all that stuff is true.  It’s worth getting up early for.)  My foot started cramping up when we were doing a crazy balancing pose – apparently the result of not enough potassium.  Half a banana every day should help, and Clair’s preferred method of administration is to slice it up and mix into 1/3 a pot of Rachel’s Organic Greek-Style Coconut yogurt.  Yogurt usually doesn’t fill me up enough for breakfast, but Clair ran six marathons in the space of a year, and ran a 52-mile race last month, so who am I to argue?

What. A. Revelation.

It’s kind of like eating dessert for breakfast, and you don’t wind up chewing your mousepad out of starvation by 11am.  And you can keep it in the fridge at work because no one ever steals healthy food.  Win all around.

A couple of weekends ago Neil, Jonny and I ventured over to the posh side of Victoria Park for a Saturday hangover lunch at the Britannia pub, a “traditional” (tarted up) pub with a big garden backing onto the park, beloved of the Hackney yummy-mummy set.  It is a very friendly pub, and not as snooty as its  contemporaries in Primrose Hill, but you will be nursing your hangover amongst hordes of young’uns in the garden.  To its credit, the Britannia offers the most generous Bloody Mary I’ve ever experienced.  For seven quid, you get a whole pint of vodka-spiked elixir, with flecks of fresh horseradish and freshly cracked black pepper, and a crunchy celery stalk.  It does kind of feel like you are drinking a shrub and will get you some comical looks from the surrounding tables (unless they’ve got one of their own), but it will sort out the cobwebs very effectively.

The Britannia does an outdoor barbecue in the summer, and the substantial rack of ribs inspired me to pick up some of my own.  That very afternoon, we discovered that the excellent rare-breed butcher The Ginger Pig has a branch on Lauriston Road, so I went back later that week to pick up a couple of racks of beef ribs at a bargainous £3.50 each, and had one of their amazing fist-sized sausage rolls from the deli downstairs.

Most of the recipes I’ve found tend to be for short ribs, which are fattier and therefore less prone to drying out than back ribs, which is what I had.  The general consensus for beef ribs is “low and slow” – a long cook at a very low temp – so I figured the best plan of action would be a rub/braising combo.  The recipe I decided on was an amalgamation of the rub from the “Rub-A-Dub” venison recipe in Levi Roots’ Caribbean Food Made Easy book and using the method and braising liquid from Alton Brown’s baby back ribs recipe (as an aside, I tried the latter recipe on lamb ribs and it was divinity squared. Amazing).  You need to give the meat a minimum of 2 hours in the rub, but in this case I did it the day before left it to marinate overnight in the fridge.  I also shredded the cabbage for the coleslaw (also an adaptation of a Levi Roots recipe) the day before and stored it in plastic bags, ready to assemble for dinner the next day.

Rub Ingredients:

• 2 tsp ground allspice
• 2 tsp dried thyme
• 2 scant tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp vegetable or sunflower oil

Braising liquid ingredients:

• 2 cloves garlic, smashed
• 1 cup white wine
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp cider, white wine or white vinegar

Ribs:

• 2 x slabs of beef back ribs, about 6 ribs each

Combine all the dry ingredients for the rub in a jar and give it a good shake.  Take two tablespoons of the mix and combine with 2 tbs of vegetable oil.  Save the remaining dry rub for another recipe.

Lay the slabs of ribs each on their own sheet of aluminium foil, about 2.5 times the size of the ribs, with the dull side up – you are going to fold the foil up into a pocket containing the ribs, so leave enough room to cover them completely.

Slather the rub/oil mixture all over the ribs, paying special attention to the meatier side.  Fold up the foil around the ribs to make a pocket, making the sides very tight, but leaving the end of the pocket a bit loose – you’ll need to get back in there before putting the ribs in to cook.  Refrigerate for a minimum of two hours, overnight for best results.

On cooking day, preheat the oven to 120 C / 250 F.

Put all the braising liquid ingredients in a small pot and heat up on the stove to melt down the honey and release the flavor of the garlic.  You could also do this in the microwave, on high for one minute, but we don’t have a microwave, so stove it is.

Get the foil-wrapped ribs out of the fridge, put them on the baking pan or rack that you plan to cook them on. Open the end of each foil packet.  Distribute the braising liquid evenly between the two packets, reseal, and give the pan a tilt to make sure the liquid isn’t just pooled in the front of the packet.

At this point you may realize, as I did, that there is a difference between heavy-duty foil and the cheap value crap from Tesco.  One of my packets got a little hole in it and the braising liquid seeped out all over the bottom of the grill pan, so there was a lot of swearing as I rescued the liquid from the pan and made a new foil packet.

Then I put the ribs in the oven and forgot about them for 2.5 hours.

While the ribs are cooking, you can assemble the coleslaw (recipe below), or you can leave it all to the last minute, it doesn’t really matter.  I feel better making it ahead of time because I kid myself into believing that the flavors with “blend” if they sit around for a bit.

Coleslaw ingredients:

• 1/2 white cabbage, finely shredded
• 1/4 red cabbage, finely shredded
• 2 carrots, grated
• 2 spring onions (scallions), white and green parts, finely chopped
• 1 small can of sweet corn
• 2 tbsp mayonnaise
• salt and pepper to taste
• juice of one lime

Put all the vegetables into a mixing bowl, and toss them so they are evenly combined.  Salt and pepper them.  Add the mayonnaise and lime juice, and mix well.  You could also add a handful of chopped coriander (cilantro), but I forgot.  Put in fridge until ready to serve.

Final step for the ribs:

Take them out of the oven, and remove them from the foil, taking care not to spil any of the liquid left inside.  Rest the ribs on a plate while you prepare the sauce.  Pour all of the juices into a small saucepan.  You may want to skim any fat off the top – there was quite a lot from mine.  Reduce the liquid to a gravylike consistency and then serve on the side with the ribs.

The ribs were very tender, not quite falling off the bone, and tasted extremely beefy, almost like game.  Neil said, “You can make this again.”  I definitely will, but next time I might try dark rum instead of white wine in the braising mixture.

I would make this, but I don’t have the proper knives.

Salad Ingredients:

• 1 cup millet
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 small aubergine, cubed
• 1/2 block halloumi cheese, cut into 1cm thick slices
• 2 spring onions, sliced
• juice of 1/2 a lemon
• pinch of sumac
• salt and pepper to taste

Pesto ingredients:

• a handful or coriander (cilantro) leaves
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• zest and juice of 1/2 a lemon
• salt and pepper to taste

Boil 2 cups of water and 1/2 tsp salt.  Add the millet and boil for 1 minute.  Turn the heat right down to the lowest setting, cover, and simmer for 20 mins.

Meanwhile, brown the slices of halloumi in a dry or very lightly oiled frying pan (heavy pans like cast iron work best).  Get them as golden brown as possible.  Set aside to cool before cutting into 1cm cubes.

Brown the cubed aubergine in a bit of oil and set aside.

Make the pesto by blending all of the pesto ingredients in a small food processor, or you could do it by hand with a mortar and pestle.

When the millet is finished cooking, leave it to cool until lukewarm.  I was in a hurry so didn’t let it cool for very long.  I have a feeling the grains would have been slightly fluffier if I had.

Combine the halloumi cubes, aubergine and pesto.  Garnish with the spring onions, sumac, and the rest of the lemon juice.

I fully intend to have homegrown tomatoes this year, and I am not going to let a mere technicality like not having our own backyard and a pair of herbivore cats scupper this.

Cat-proof plants.

Last year we tried to grow some salad leaves and radishes on the kitchen windowsill, which went swimmingly until Angus got big enough to jump onto the counter and dig them all up.  This year I invested in a bit of fish pond netting to use as cat-proofing, which I’ve cut into houseplant-sized protective squares.  £6.99 gives you enough netting to cover about four bathtubs’ worth of plants, which may seem excessive, but I really want those tomatoes.  It keeps the cat out, but as I discovered this morning, offers absolutely no protection against tipping the whole planter over.  Luckily, I’d made some makeshift cloches out of empty spring water bottles and they contained most of the plants.

Makeshift cloche (on the right) doubles as mini-greenhouse and cat protection.

Cat sabotage efforts aside, the plants are coming along well.  Last weekend I planted chicory, fennel, spinach, assorted salad leaves, and the hallowed cherry tomatoes.  After just one week, they are already pushing through the soil, with the spinach in particular off to a roaring start:

Spinach to the left. Fennel to the right, off to a slower start with just one tiny sprout.

For these I’ve made a couple of individual mini-greenhouses out of water bottles.  I cut the bottles about 3/4 of the way down, punched holes in the bottom for drainage, and inserted my seedlings which had been started off in compostable paper pots.  The idea with the paper pots is that you can plant them straight into the ground or a larger pot without risking root damage.  Then I reassembled with the top 3/4 of the bottle.  I needed to cut some slits in the side of the top portion so I could wedge it back on.

Finally, the chillies I started a few weeks ago are also rocking along.  I got one of those grow-your-own kits in a cute tin bucket as a birthday present from Kaf and Jess.  Those too have already been dug up by Angus, but a bit of clingfilm over the top is doing a marvellous double shift as a cat deterrent and greenhouse.  I’ve removed the plastic for a closeup.

Tenacious chili plants bounce back from cat sabotage.

And finally, a poignant pic to prevent me from turning these two into cat hats if they dig up my plants again:

Every wedding buffet needs a cheese and pineapple porcupine.

As much as I can’t stand the contrived “Oo-er I’m a Brit now” posturing of long-term American expats (alá Madonna in her Guy Ritchie years), there are certain aspects of British life that I’ve unconsciously assimilated: I can make a cup of tea that the natives find acceptable, I’ve become fully accustomed to living without a clothes dryer (when I arrived here in 1995, I thought clothes horses were solely for the purpose of hanging homemade pasta to dry – true story), I can eat Marmite on toast without gagging, I’ve acquired the somewhat less endearing British habit of using profanity as punctuation (“twat” in England is about as offensive as “ass” in the US, but it’s like dropping the c-bomb when spoken in American company), and I find the royals to be boring at best and parasitic at worst.

When my cousin in New Jersey emailed to ask if I was excited about the wedding as she was, I suppressed my urge to buzzkill and duly confirmed that I was indeed looking forward to it, and didn’t specify that “it” was the extra day off.  I refrained from grumbling about the fact that the 3-day week between Easter and Wedding Weekend meant that trying to accomplish anything at work only resulted in a server-crashing barrage of out-of-office vacation replies.  And don’t get me started on the stack of “Anti-Royal-Wedding” party invites clogging up my facebook invites.  (That part I wouldn’t mind so much if 95% were from people I actually know.)

However, trying to pit the cynicism of a handful of trendy liberals against the enthusiasm of 2.4 billion people (24.5 million in the UK alone) is an excercise in futility, so at about 10.30am on April 29th Neil and I tuned in to BBC iPlayer “just to see the dress”. Besides, who can argue with a day of hanging up bunting, putting on a hat, and drinking Pimm’s?

General impressions and highlights:

• The dress was pretty awesome.  I could have done without the dippy fashion commentary and that wretched woman shrieking about how excited she was that it was McQueen.  I swear for a split second I thought her waters had broken.  Vivienne Westwood would have been a surprise.  British fashion icon, recently deceased?  Not exactly unexpected.
• Princess Beatrice’s bunch of churros, I mean, Hat.  I thought it was bad etiquette to try to upstage the bride.  Besides, that’s David and Victoria Beckham‘s job.
• Best bit: the little bridesmaid with her fingers in her ears.

After the wedding, Neil and I went to Kaf and Jess’s for a Royal Wedding Patriotic Picnic, where we listened to Elgar and ate finger sandwiches and drank Pimm’s in princely proportions.

A Tudor Ruff made from sheets of photocopier paper: Royal Genius.

Watch out Philip Treacy...

This one marries two of my current obsessions: Korean chili paste and chicken wings.  They’re extremely easy to make, and once you do the initial splurge on the ethnic ingredients, very cheap to make.  As it is, I think the spend in the Asian supermarket was only about £10-£12, and as you only need relatively small amounts – especially of stuff like shrimp paste – it lasts forever.  These are by no means authentic, but I welcome any input from those who know more than I do about Korean cooking (which is precious little).

This works equally well in both the oven and the crockpot.  Oven-roasting is slightly better if you’re planning to take these on a picnic or other situation where you will be eating as a finger food without plates.   If you’re using the crockpot, they will get falling-apart-tender and therefore messier, but you will wind up with a tasty sauce for putting over rice.  Also, don’t joint the wings if you’re going for the crockpot.  They’ll be easy enough to pull apart when they’re finished cooking.

Marinade ingredients:

• 2 generous tbsp gochujang (Korean chilli paste)
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp black Chinese vinegar
• 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 1 scant tsp of sugar or honey
• 1 scant tsp shrimp paste
• 2 cloves crushed garlic
• optional – scant tsp chilli oil with shrimp paste  (omit or scale back plain shrimp paste if using)

The rest:

• 10 fresh chicken wings (do not separate if slow-cooking)
• 1 large onion, sliced (if slow-cooking)

This is really just an excuse to show off my $1.99 Las Vegas tea tray.

Mix all the marinade ingredients together.  Pour over chicken wings.  I like to do this in a large plastic freezer bag so I can mush up the marinade into the wings, but a bowl is perfectly ok.  Refrigerate for a couple of hours or overnight.  You can actually just chuck them straight into the pot without the marinade time if you’re slow-cooking, but if you’re opting for the oven, I’d go with marinating.

If slow-cooking:

Line the pot with thickly-sliced rings of onion to prevent the wings from sticking.  It also makes a nice sauce for serving the wings over rice, if you’re that way inclined.

Lay wings on top, pouring over any marinade.  Cover and cook on high for 2 hours.  Or, if you’re like me, cook on high for 45 minutes, then switch to low and go ramble around Victoria Park for a few hours.

Optional: Give wings a quick blast under a hot grill to caramelise.  I was impatient and did not do this.

If roasting:

Preheat oven to 220 C (or 200 C if you have a fan oven).

Place wings on a rack over a foil-lined grill pan (for lazy cleanup).  Roast in the top half of the oven for about 30 mins, turning once halfway through.  Chuck wings in tupperware, grab a blanket and some beers, and haul the lot over to Victoria Park to enjoy in the rare British sunshine.