Flat Iron: no boobs

It’s enchanting, I’m sure, to hear your toddler utter new words and grasp associations. Less enchanting, perhaps, when said small person points at their pregnant mother and says ‘big boobs’, then at their dad and says ‘small boobs’. Ouch.

We pondered this and many other adorable things kids get up to with our Negronis at the workbench bar in the very-new, very-cool Flat Iron on Beak Street, with our friend G and the ready-to-pop Mrs/Dr G. She is so nearly there that I was quietly saying prayers last week that it wouldn’t happen at the table. Fortunately, she is a brilliant doctor so would no doubt deal with the whole thing whilst we all stood around with hot water and towels whimpering/passing out. It’s definitely true that these later stages of pregnancy are miraculous; her hair had a salon-fresh look and positively bounced, her eyes twinkled even in the near darkness*. These shiny outward signs of course belied a great deal of discomfort, not to mention a violent hankering after a glass of wine. Flat Iron is a no reservations kind of place, but half the fun is in the waiting, in their very lively bar in the basement. I hope it will be the only waiting the Gs have to do this month…

Vegetarians, take heed: Flat Iron does meat. Steak. Really well. (Not like that – though they made a concession for Mrs/Dr G.) The Flat Iron is the American name for the Butler’s steak, cut with the grain from the shoulder of the animal.  It can be tough if treated in the wrong hands. Turns out these are the right hands; after an amuse-bouche of popcorn cooked in beef dripping, the steaks came sliced on the diagonal on their own little boards, and beautifully seasoned; the BSG didn’t reach for the salt or pepper throughout. Each of us was equipped with a little meat cleaver instead of a knife (they might need to electronically tag these covetable things as they may go the way of the Quaglino’s ashtrays…) These were purely aesthetic but rather useful for trowelling on the amazing peppercorn sauce (you could choose between this, Béarnaise, horseradish and Fred’s Sauce, a tomato/Tabasco delight.)

If you’re going to master and serve only one thing, then each accompaniment has to be perfectly done. No complaints there. When I say that the chips carried the initial aroma of a McDonald’s bagful I mean it as the highest possible compliment. They were savoury and crisp. The creamed spinach was so good we ordered another dish of it, and a baked aubergine dish barely touched the sides. A little French glass of lamb’s lettuce with sharp, nutty vinaigrette offered a few mouthfuls to cut through the richness of it all.

In our enthusiasm, we felt it only right to cram in a pudding. And golly I am glad of it. The BSG tucked into a freshly baked doughnut** filled with rhubarb cream; if a test of enjoyment is measured by residue on the face then I’d venture that it passed. The rest of us plumped for the salted caramel mousse, expertly squirted into our glasses by our lovely waitress who then advised that we sprinkled it with salt (explaining its presence on the table). DELICIOUS, fun and light, and the perfect end to an immensely exciting evening (though thank goodness no baby arrived).

We left Flat Iron feeling thrilled and inspired. Needless to say, the BSG is on the hunt for an old soda canister to recreate the extraordinary pudding theatre at home (stand back - he rather fancies a savoury cheese soufflé version, coupled with blowtorch to brown the top) and I am pondering dream doughnut fillings; peanut butter and raspberry jam, anyone?

 

* Excuse the dingy photos, it really was dark in there.

**They serve doughnuts in the bar downstairs where you can gorge on them before you have your supper… Why the heck not? If my 7-year old self ran a restaurant, I’d have definitely made this rule.

A bread and butter pudding for the snow

Bread and butter: so simple, yet the stuff of childish dreams. As delicious-sounding in literature as any cake - especially when drawn from a wicker luncheon basket and laid out on a cloth with jam, or cold chicken and roast beef. Milly Molly Mandy and Billy Blunt gobbled all theirs up on their fishing excursion and it’s little wonder – all someone has to do is say those three words together and I am thinking of teatime (and forever of Grandpa, lord of the tea table with his packet of plain chocolate digestives – neatly secured each day with an elastic band).

Clearly, bread and butter pudding has less to do with butter than it does with bread (not to mention the eggs, sugar and milk) but the very fact that those two happily-wed words are in the recipe makes it a winner in my eyes. Last September on the eve of a friend’s wedding I was lucky enough to be party to his pre-wedding family dinner and thereby to the most fantasmical (that’s fantastic with an extra O) pudding. Although the portion control didn’t exist and my bowlful could have felled an adolescent elephant I nobly ate my way through, amongst the dairy every which way, a warm wedge of white chocolate and whisky bread & butter pudding. INCREDIBLE.

After a long walk on Saturday, or feet crumping through the fresh snow making dreams of mountain adventures, we felt we deserved a treat. This pudding, crisp on top and snowy light within was perfect foil to the conditions. It’s adapted from a recipe that uses croissants (which may be amazing – but I felt somewhat superfluous. After all, we’re supposed to be on some sort of regime until February)… I went in heavier on the whisky – on a medicinal bent you understand  -  yet lighter on the sugar, as we were all chilled to our cores and because white chocolate is sweet enough, thank you.

This is dedicated to my dear, pudding-partial Grandpa. He would have loved it, crowned with plenty of cream. He might have even had a second helping too.

Whisky and White Chocolate Bread & Butter Pudding

500ml milk
500ml double cream
A few drops of vanilla essence
3 eggs
5 egg yolks
150g caster sugar
8-10 slices of white bread, crusts removed and cut in half into triangles
25g sultanas
25g butter, melted
175g white chocolate, smashed into little pieces in its wrapper
4 tablespoons whisky
55g  marmalade (didn’t have apricot jam, but the extra orange taste is a winner)
icing sugar, to dust

Method

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.

Pour the milk and cream into a pan, add the vanilla essence and bring slowly to the boil.
Crack the eggs into a mixing bowl with the egg yolks and sugar and beat together until pale and fluffy. This bit is actually quite important as your pudding will be light rather than stodgy.
Lay the bread over the base of an oblong ovenproof dish, slightly overlapping each piece. Sprinkle with the sultanas and pour over the melted butter.
When the cream mixture has reached boiling point, take it off the heat and allow it to cool slightly. Add the egg mixture and white chocolate to the cream and stir well. Leave for a few minutes to let the chocolate melt, stirring occasionally.
Add the whisky to the cream mixture and strain it all through a sieve over the bread. Let the bread soak it all up nicely, before covering the dish with foil.
Bake in the oven for 25-35 minutes, or until almost set.
Remove from the oven, coat the top with the marmalade and dust with icing sugar. Either brown the top with a cheffy blowtorch or place under a grill or into a hot oven for a few minutes before serving. Wait if you have to - it must be warm, not hot.

Simon Hopkinson: The Good Cook

There’s a third person in our marriage – no, not in that way - but I get that distinct, jealous ‘playground feeling’ about the BSG and his new best friend, Simon.

I am to blame, I introduced them – he and his Roast Chicken and Other Stories and whatnot, he with his simple flavoursome ways and his ‘no-fuss approach’. The BSG is waxing lyrical. The Good Cook by Simon Hopkinson; the best book he’s ever used? Probably.
Yawn.

Although we’re not on a January detox as such, we are attempting to conduct some kind of regime on weeknights. But let’s be realistic; this time of year calls for warmth and January gets such a bad rap, so we can’t be all alfalfa sprouts, quinoa and miso, can we? After a memorable Hopkinson dish of poached chicken, hot cucumbers and saffron sauce last year we looked once again to The Good Cook for inspiration in pared-down culinary chic – the food equivalent of a scrubbed bare wooden table: frugality and comfort all in one.

On Sunday we had pan-fried duck breast with sweet and sour onions and a week’s worth of spinach (something about having to forgo hard carbs makes the BSG incapable of portion control in other areas). It ought to have been calves’ liver according to the recipe but we couldn’t find any and duck has that same, sweet irony note. It was - I reluctantly conceded - absolutely delicious and we didn’t miss the obvious carbs. The star of the show was the warm oniony relish (like the rest of my family, I certainly relish a condiment). The key, according to my culinary love-rival? Make sure you cook them super slowly. Whatevs.

Simon H: 1, moi: 0.

On Monday was his extremely straightforward Tandoori chicken legs and wings with a BSG-special daal and raita.

Simon H: 2 (but who’s counting…?)

Supper on Tuesday was astonishingly quick – griddled chicken breasts over a crunchy salad dressed with a sweet mustard emulsion, the consistency of Salad Cream (though the BSG was quick to point out, MUCH nicer than that). SH advises sunflower oil, a lot of Dijon, a squeeze of lemon, a teaspoon of caster sugar and salt and pepper. Delicious.

A hat-trick for Hopkinson.

You can find the full sweet and sour onion recipe here on the BBC website. Pretty scrummy, I must admit. If these shenanigans carry on much longer, I may just pack up my beloved Salad Cream and push off.