Wild Mushroom and Sausage Fettuccine

This is a favourite simple supper of mine.  You could leave out the sausages and/or throw in some crème fraiche and parsley if you like – it’s really a fairly flexible feast.  But I generally have a real thing for pasta, especially in the colder, wetter months.  When working late and I cannot be bothered to do a big cook, this is perfect.

This feeds two, but could easily be halved.

Ingredients:

200g mushrooms (see below)
2 sausages
2 cloves of garlic
50g butter
150-200g fettuccini (depending on how hungry you are)

I’ve used some speciality mushrooms here, just because Sainsbury’s had them in when I was shopping.  You can use anything really, but I recommend portabello if there’s nothing particularly exotic about.

It’s probably a good idea to get your pasta water on from the word go.  The dish doesn’t take long to make, and you want everything to be ready at once.

Start by prepping the mushrooms – you want them sliced / separated into ribbons.  How you do this will really turn on what mushrooms you’ve bought.

Next up, get a big frying pan on the heat and glug in a bit of olive oil.  Squeeze the sausage meet out of the sausages, discarding the skins, and fry the sausage meet in little chunks, breaking it up as it cooks.

You want to end up with slightly browned, crispy and fully cooked little chunks.

When done, remove from the pan using a slotted spoon and set aside, leaving as much of the rendered fat behind as possible.

You probably want to get the pasta in the pot now, so that’s ready when your mushrooms are.

Add half the butter to the pan and get your mushrooms cooking, so that they soften and begin to brown.  You may need to add a bit more oil, as mushrooms can really soak the fat up, but don’t overdo it.

When the mushrooms are soft, peel and crack the garlic cloves and add to the pan.  Don’t do this sooner or else the garlic will burn (as it cooks quicker than the mushrooms) and leave a nasty, bitter taste.  Add the rest of the butter with the garlic and reintroduce the sausages.

Cook for 5 minutes, but don’t let the mushrooms get too crispy.  Drain the pasta and throw it into the pan with the mushrooms and sausage mix.  Using tongs, mix the two together so that they are fully combined, then serve up, covered in grated parmesan.

Hispania

Preconceptions are funny things.  I have to admit having three of them, about Hispania, that were held before last week’s visit:

1. I had never noticed it being there, despite it being open now for over two years and passing by it relatively (although not very) regularly.
2. Even if I had noticed it, I’m not sure I would have gone.  Another fancy Spanish restaurant in the middle of the City full of dreadful bankers and serving overpriced food? Hmmm. 
3. Also, some of the reviews have not been great (Time Out: 2 stars…)

Anyway, turns out preconceptions are a crock of shite, because Hispania is really rather good.
There was a group of us searching for a meal.  One chap suggested tapas at Hispania, despite him being strictly averse to sharing food, but he’d had a colleague go there who enjoyed himself.  Everyone agreed.

Have you ever tried ordering tapas amongst a large group of people?  Well don’t.  Even when you tell people to choose two dishes there is so much chit chat and wasted time and then you end up with a dozen bowls of patatas bravas and a platter of cured meats.  Best do what we did: Order the lot.  Literally, we ordered one of everything on their tapas list plus a platter of mixed meats and another of mixed cheeses.

Quick (photo-less, sorry) word about the wine.  Matthew, our resident wine expert and who has sold Hispania wine before, chose two bottles of red – one lighter and one heavier.  The heavier wine was Lucero del Alba, a Tempranillo (£30).  Dark, tannic and chewy, with t scent of burnt toast.  It was a food wine – and a rich, red meat kind of food wine at that.  Very good though – just my sort of thing.  The lighter wine was the Lágrimas de Garnacha (£26).  This was stunning – just amazing.  It was, again, quite punchy and spicy but with an immediate sweet note as well.  There was toffee as well, together with a hint of horseradish and also – and stay with me here – the flavour of burnt fat you get around a steak that’s been barbequed over charcoal.  Fantastic.

Now onto the food.

First out were the cold dishes.  Cured meat selection.  Top to bottom: Jamón Ibérico, lomo (loin), salchichón and chorizo.  Great stuff, top quality.  There’s not much more to say, I suppose, but I do love Spanish meats.

Crujientes de quesos:  toffee-coated crispy, wafer thin pastry stuffed with creamed cheese.

Initially, these were poo-pooed by the group, who did not like the sound of the dish.  OK, I get why some people might not be so keen – although a seasoned ‘salt-and-sweet’ grubster like myself had no truck with such objections.  These were great – in fact, it was the biggest opponent who ate the spare sample.

Spanish cheese selection.  Manchego (top, yellow triangles), Ibores (left, sticks with orange rind), Cabra Montenebro (right, grey rind, interspersed with membrillo (quince paste)) and Mahón (bottom, triangles with orange rind).

Again, all first rate and very delicious.  The standout favourite was the Cabra, a goat’s cheese – which is funny because I’m not that into goat that often.  This was delicious, however, and the membrillo worked with it like a treat.

Now for some fishy things.  Starting with monkfish.

Monkfish is a brilliant fish, in my humble opinion, probably because it’s so meaty.  Just excellent (even though it costs a fortune) and here was no exception.  Lightly battered and fried, they fish was cooked properly.  I also absolutely bloody love piquillo peppers.  I will never forget the first time I tasted one any being physically knocked back by the intensity of their flavour.  How, I remember thinking and still wonder each time I eat one, does that much pepper-taste get in to such a small amount of vegetable.  So two of my favourite things.  What’s the catch?  Simple: they just don’t go together.  I’m not sure who paired these or why, but whilst each constituent element is wonderful, the finished article just falls a little flat.

Calamares.

Bloody love calamari and these were bloody good examples.  With a squeeze of lime (not lemon, peculiarly) and a touch of lime zest this was a simple but delicious tapa.  It’s also worth noting that the squid was evidently fresh and cooked properly – soft and light, not hard and rubbery.  “Kentucky Fried Squid” said one diner (cruel but accurate – except, I might add, with significantly higher quality) whilst another diner passionately sworn off squid wolfed down a portion.  Happy days.

Gambas al ajillo.

Or, prawns in a spicy, garlicky sauce.  Very classic.

Onwards and upwards: Now we hit the ‘hot food’ section (notwithstanding that the fish was hot – it was meant to be a sort of starter-fish-mains experience – I think?).

Croquets, which came in two forms:

1. Croquetas de jamón.

Very nice.  Large enough to get a proper portion but not so large that they are difficult to eat.  Very tasty too.

2. Croquetas ‘Hay Festival’.

I am sure there is a back story to these, other than “created specially for the famous literary festival” that the menu proclaims.  I would like to know the back story because otherwise I cannot work out how (a) they are especially (that’s the correct word, btw) suited for the Hay Festival and (b) it was ever thought that substituting jamón with leeks would be an improvement.  Unless, of course, the chef at Hispania hates the Hay Festival / bookworms in general and wanted to serve an inferior croquet.  To be fair, there’s nothing wrong with this, it’s more a case that there’s nothing right with it either.  It’s just that I can’t help feeling that, on the choice of croquet with ham and croquet with leeks, the sane person would (and should) always choose the former.

And the ubiquitous Spanish tortilla.

Now, I actually tried to talk the table out of ordering this because I’m no fan of omelettes and most forms of potato (yes it’s weird, no it doesn’t preclude me writing a food blog, and I’ve written about this in more detail elsewhere).  But I was overruled by the resident vegetarian and, given that we were having all sorts of other meat, I reckoned I should let her have her way.  It was actually pretty spectacular.  Rather than being, as is customary, a big, stodgy cakey of eggy potato, it was crisp on the outside whilst still being beautifully light and underdone inside.  This was actually a revelation.

Together with some padron peppers.  Not much to say about these.  They are nice.  They always are.  Five years ago you couldn’t find them in London for love or money, now you can’t go to a Spanish restaurant without having them virtually thrown at you.

Morcilla duo.  If you’re not familiar with morcilla, it is what is known as a ‘blood sausage’, or black pudding, in plain English.  Although, it’s not really like a black pudding.  It tends to be softer, more moist, and has lumps of fat or sometimes rice where the English version has oats.  But you get the idea.

These two were onion and rice.  Both excellent, and very moreish – although the differences (other than in texture) were not immediately obvious.

A short break then followed before we were presented with what had to be the finale – the potato course (or so it seemed).

Huevos rotos de corral – or ham, egg and chips as it is known over here.

We are well and truly into hangover food territory now.  To tell the truth, when I saw this on the menu I knew I recognised it from somewhere – and assumed I liked it. Then it came back to me – my first visit to Tapas 24 in Barcelona (the very best tapas restaurant I have ever been to) and one of my earliest Grubster posts.  And when it came back to me I remembered: this is not a dish I enjoy.  Not then, not now.  Again, it’s more of a case of what’s right than what’s wrong.  This is a grease fest – Spain’s answer to Canada’s poutine or Britain’s chips and gravy.  You can try all you like, it’s not sophisticated, it’s not clever and it doesn’t belong in an upscale tapas joint like Hispania.  You can try all you like, but just no.

And then, of course, patas bravas.

I mean…  Really, let’s cut to the chase.  If you like this sort of thing then you’ll like this version – very nicely done, with a fancy romesco sauce that’s full of flavour.  I personally find it hard to get excited, but the others seemed to enjoy it.

Greg, the man with the plan who suggested the place, had earlier confessed to me is worries regarding the cost.  I don’t wholly blame him – it looks from the outside (and within, with its epically tall ceilings, marble floors and wide, sparsely tabled spaces – it’s actually a very pleasant atmosphere) like it will be expensive.  When the bill came we were pleasantly surprised.  All that food (12 tapas plates and two platters) and drink (half a bottle of wine each in the end) came to about £36 a head.  Not bad – for the City.

Someone remarked that it somehow didn’t feel like authentic, Spanish tapas.  No kidding.  It wasn’t – it was high end tapas, done in a fancy, marble lined dining room.  There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s simply that you’re looking at a different beast.  And a very fine beast, in this case.

Coffee Club: Inverness Coffee Roasting Co.

Origin: Inverness Coffee Roasting Company
Coffee: Sumatra Mandheling, Indonesia
Price (per 250g): £8.70  (incl. delivery)

This one was one of my picks, faced with an enormous list of coffee roasters in the UK and being unsure what to plump for, I plumped for the thrill of obscurity over reviews, and picked the United Kingdom's most northerly roaster.

What turned up was dark.  Deep, dark and punchy.  Almost too much so.  David and I were OK with it.  Not the best, but not the worst either.  I slightly felt that it had too much in common with the likes of instant coffee, or the cheap stuff you get out of paper filters in American diners.  It just felt over cooked.

But the others hated it.  Jono described it thusly (and, for all the Cyber Nats out there desperate to take me to town for these comments, they are his precise words and I take no responsibility for that): "This coffee is Alex Salmond – Scottish, simplistic, aggressive and leaves a bitter aftertaste. It may, however, suit its target market... This coffee's journey from Scotland to England suggests we are not Better Together."

Emily simply described it as "soil" and refused to be drawn any further, other than to give it a measly 3 out of 10.

Score: 4/10

PS: One other small gripe: I ordered cafetiere ground, and got whole beans.  Bit of a pain, that.  Not cool.

Ginvent

Coffee Club: Drop Coffee Roasters

Origin: Drop Coffee Roasters (Sweden), purchased at Prufrock Coffee
Coffee: Bourbon from Epiphany Muhirwa, Rwanda
Price (per 250g): £10.00

Let's start with the most important thing: This coffee is beautifully packaged.  The picture hardly does it justice, really – it has a whole look-feel that is just perfect for artisan coffee.  It was purchased from a café on Leather Lane, which is in the City of London but was described by one panellist as "the most Shoreditch place round here, I love it".  These words, whilst aimed at Leather Lane, perfectly describe the way this coffee has been put together, and indeed the café it was purchased from.

The initial hit is chocolate.  Drop Coffee's tasting notes say white chocolate, but I disagree – this is a Green & Black's standard milk chocolate – bitter, but still creamy and a hint sweeter than plain chocolate. Then there's a hit of nuts, like the scent and taste of chocolate coated almonds.    And digestive biscuits in there too.  The taste has a general acidity, which loses some points in my book (but gains them elsewhere), starting with red berries before merging into grapefruit.  But there is a lingering darkness that suggests it's perhaps a more full bodied cup than it first appears.  Finally, there is a definite bitter tang and an almost husky mouth-feel that wasn't keen on.

Jono was positive (in his usual style): "It's nice. The box is nice, the strength is nice, the biscuity aroma is nice, the depth is nice, the Belgian chocolatey aftertaste is nice. It depends what one thinks about things that are nice. It's nice to be nice."  Emily was similarly keen, noting "sweet toasted almonds, earthy undertones and an orangey twang at the end."

But this is another coffee that's travelled from afar, and paid the price (literally) for doing so.  At £40 per kilo, it's pricey and I'm just not sure good enough to warrant that price.

Score: 6/10

Coffee Club: Thuong Hang (cat poop coffee)

Coffee: Not sure, but supposedly kopi luwak
Origin: Vietnam - bought by a colleague's mum whilst on vacation
Price (per 250g): Not sure.  Expensive.

In a sense, I can hardly say how excited I was to try this coffee.  Kopi luwak is, without doubt, one of the most well know, exclusive, talked about luxury coffees in the work.  It's also amongst the world's most expensive coffees, as it has to be consumed by the Asian palm civet (known locally as a 'luwak') and then excreted (known colloquially as 'pooped out') before being gathered, roasted, ground, brewed and drunk.  Needless to say, this makes for some pretty funky coffee.  It also makes for a coffee that has Veblen good status – i.e. whose value is almost only generated by being valuable.  This shit (pardon the pun) is expensive.

The thing is, it's also a bit rank.  Sorry, but it is.

The smell of the beans is (to paraphrase Douglas Adams) almost, but not quite, entirely unlike coffee.  It smells of something else, something artificial.  Pink wafers.  You remember those?  It smells of pink wafers – something which, once I had suggested it to the panel, everyone agreed on.  Once brewed this smell fades slightly but remains, pungent and lingering, annihilating much else.  But in the background there is something else, a distinctly earthy smell, vegetal - dare I say, like manure.  And there, too, is a treacle or unrefined sugar odour and a hint of something industrial, like rubber tyres.

The first thing you notice on drinking it, however, is the texture – not the taste.  This is an oily coffee – very smooth, but like Singaporean Kopi O, where the beans are roasted in margarine and sugar.  And it's thicker than normal coffee, even though it's been brewed with a cafetiere like everything else we've tried.  And it is black.  Jet black.  And dark.  All at once.

The taste is naturally quite sweet, but still with the bitter after tones we expect from coffee.  The biscuit flavour – and the pink wafer flavour – is still very much there.  There's also toasted almonds.  Does it taste of coffee?  I can hardly remember what coffee tastes like right now.  It's coffee, Jim, but not as we know it.  And not, I'm afraid, in a good way.

Score: 2/10

Caveat: Kopi luwak is really controversial, and with good reason.  What started as a coffee made from droppings found on the jungle floor is now an enormous industry.  Part of the justification for using coffee that's been pooped out by a civet cat is that the beastie is (supposedly) very discerning about what berries it eats, eschewing all but the ripest and brightest.  In a sense, therefore, luwak droppings are supposed to represent the very best of the best beans.  However, in the modern age and to keep up with enormous demand, luwaks are now kept in battery cages and force fed cheap beans that are then harvested.  SO (a) there's a pretty bad ethical thing going on here; and (b) the selective nature of luwak coffee is lost entirely.  So in summary what I guess I'm saying is that we just don’t know if what we've been drinking is any good at all.  So I am on the hunt for some ethically sourced luwak coffee that is affordable to see if it's any different and, if so, what's behind the buzz.

Alcoholic Architecture

Back at school there was a rumour that if you snorted tequila you’d get much drunker much quicker but wouldn’t be sick and wouldn’t get a hangover.  I remember a guy called Ian trying it at a house party once with a bottle of Jose Cuervo, throwing up a lot shortly afterwards and looking decidedly ropey in the morning.  To be frank, I don’t think it was the nasally ingested liquor that did for Ian, I think it was more likely the Foster’s six pack from a local off licence and that he’d downed on an empty stomach as soon as he’d arrived and the half bottle of Lambrini he’d sunk over the next half hour with the girl he was trying to get off with.  But anyway, I digress – that was the first time I recall being (un)reliably informed that ingesting alcohol other than through your gob would have the desired, inebriating effect. 

It was also, until very recently, the last – and that comes as no surprise.  However, a couple of weeks ago an email dropped into my inbox informing me that someone else was giving this concept a go.
Of course, it was the chaps behind Bompas & Parr – whose projects range from a jelly version of Heathrow Terminal 5 to a cityscape of lost London architecture made out of biscuits by way of a Parliamentary Waffle House and a glow-in-the dark Cornetto – that are spearheading this.

Their latest project is called Alcoholic Architecture.  I am not entirely sure how to describe it – other than a room full of gin. 

I’ll explain.

Alcoholic Architecture is based in the former Banana Store restaurant (and, indeed, store) near Borough Market.  Avid readers of this blog may recall it as the location of my stag party, oddly enough, which is alas no more. 

Book your tickets (hurry to get the last few) and get there on time.  For health and sobriety reasons you are limited to an hour in the room (which actually works out as a lot less) so don’t be late.

A funny monk shows you inside, and you work your way into the belly of the building, through spookily lit and gothic-ly decorated corridors.

Soon you find yourself in the bar, having first donned a plastic mac.  Trust me, this is essential – you will get very damp otherwise. 

The drinks are rather predictably unpredictable.  I opted first for a Mystery Mead, a combination of mead (surprise surprise), antica formula, sweet vermouth, honey, lemon and rhubarb bitters.  Greg went for a gin and tonic, because he’s a little Tory like that – except here it’s made with frankincense-smoked gin (although it tasted, apparently, like a G&T).

Then you make your way into ‘the room’ - or cloud as they would (quite justifiably) have it.  This is the main attraction of the night. 

And cloudy it is.

Basically, it is a room full of gin.  By which I mean literally full of gin and tonic – a G&T mist, to be precise, made from Beefeater gin, concentrated tonic and spring water.  It’s then turned magically into a thick fog and pumped, in enormous volumes, into a small room.

It’s incredibly thick.  It’s sort of what I imagine old the London smogs that people talked about were like.  The room is – actually, I have no real idea how big the room is.  There seemed to be a lot of people in there, but there was no way of judging how long it was from one end to another because you cannot see from one end to another.  The fog is so thick, in fact, that you struggle to make out the big light installations at the other end of the room – the light itself becoming obscured by the mix. 

It’s a surreal experience.  No real concept of time or space or sound.  It’s pretty cool.

It’s also pretty damn tasty.  The idea is that you ingest the cocktail through your nose, mouth, lungs and – yes – the mucus coating of your eyeballs.  Your eyeballs.  This is eyeball-ingested booze.  But honestly, as you are there breathing it in you cannot avoid the taste.  It’s pretty tempting to start sucking it down, in fact, particularly once you get near the booze vent at the far end of the room.

We also had other drinks over the course of the night. 

I drank the Blasphemy to Nature – a cocktail of Buckfast (ahhh, Buckie – takes me straight back to Edinburgh University…), yellow chartreuse, lemon and egg white.  This was lovely – somehow strangely like a herbaceous, spiced old fashioned – but not really.  Very good.  Greg had the Monk-y Business, a sort of daiquiri made with Old Monk Rum that left it tasting very sweet – almost toffee-like.

And, to finish off, a couple of shots.  Whilst Greg went for the whiskey based shots, mine was a mix of Campari and Frangelico – so bitter liqueur and hazelnuts, a superb (if innovative) combination.

 

 

As a word of warning, you do not get the advertised hour – not even close – as you don’t get into the bar, let alone the fog room, until about ten / fifteen minutes after the hour you’ve booked, and the call for last orders in about twenty minutes before the end of the booking – and you’re bundled our pretty sharpish after that, so in all it’s about 40 minutes.  Still, I’m not sure you need much longer that, to be honest.  And, crucially, it’s a great, fun and different thing to do.  Genuine innovation in an age of ubiquitous bars performing the same tricks to the same tunes.  Well done, chaps. 

 

I would definitely recommend giving this one a try.  Just remember to do as the sign says...