Method:
Fry the whole spices (cinnamon, cardamon, star anise, peppercorns, cloves) in oil for 5 mins
Add the onions, ginger and garlic and fry until soft
Add the chicken and fry for a few mins until slightly browned
Add the powdered spices (coriander, cumin, turmeric, paprika, mustard powder, ginger & garlic powders, chilli powder, garam masala) and fry for a few minutes, also add salt.
Add the cider vinegar for a minute or so, then add enough hot water or chicken stock to cover
Cover and simmer for 20 mins then add the potatoes and coconut, and simmer for another 30-45 mins.
When chicken and potatoes are cooked, add the tomatoes and red pepper.
After 10 minutes add the fresh coriander and serve.
1 whole chicken jointed, or equivalent chicken pieces
1 tblsp plain flour
1 chorizo sausage
1 large onion
1 medium carrot
1 stick of celery
1 small parsnip
1 yellow pepper
5 cloves of garlic
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1 stick of cinnamon
3 bay leaves
5-8 whole pepper corns
1 tsp herb do Provence
1/2 tblsps tomato purée
1 glass white wine
1 cup chicken stock
Method:
Dust the chicken in flour and fry in olive oil in the casserole dish until golden brown.
Remove the chicken and set aside.
Fry the chopped onion, carrot, celery and garlic until soft.
Add the chorizo.
Add the ground coriander and paprika and fry for a couple of mins.
Add the white wine and bring to a simmer.
Add the chopped yellow pepper and parsnip, along with the cinnamon, peppercorns and herbs du Provence.
Add the tomato purée and chicken stock.
Add the chicken back to the pan.
Cook in a low/medium oven for 90 mins to 2 hours.
Serve with mash potato.
Method:
Fry the chopped onions and whole garlic cloves in olive oil
Add all the powdered spices and fry for a couple of minutes.
Add the tomatoes, canellini beans, bay leaves, dried limes, peppercorns and cinnamon.
Add the chicken stock and bring to a simmer.
Arrange the chicken and potatoes in the pot and sprinkle with the Herb Du Provence.
Pot roast in the oven on 170c or 150c fan for 2 hours, then remove the lid for 20 mins.
Garnish with chopped parsley and serve.
A thrifty pulloa thrown together from leftover chicken and beetroot curry (see below), with added rainbow chard and radish. Used an extra shallot, 1/2 tsp each of garam masala and tumeric, couple of dessert spoons of yoghurt and a bit more chicken stock. Also some fresh coriander and mint and a squeeze of lime at the end.
Not really poss to write a proper recipe because of the thrift leftover nature of the dish..
The basic rule is always to have about 2:1 liquid to rice though.
Served with chilli poppadums.
Method:
Fry the whole spices (cardamon, cinnamon and fenugreek) for a couple of minutes in hot oil until they release their aromas.
Add the onion, ginger and garlic and fry until soft (low-medium heat).
Add the rest of the spices and chillies and fry for about a minute (being careful they don’t stick).
Add the chicken and fry in the spices for a few minutes.
Add the chicken stock and the beetroot and tamarind, and simmer partially covered on low for minimum 45 mins until sauce has reached desired consistency .
Garnish with fresh coriander and serve.
Mushroom risotto and risotto with chorizo, paprika picante, peas, courgettes and sage
It’s true what they say. It really is all in the stock.
Well, I’m not sure whether they do say that, or indeed who “they” are meant to be be, but I recently made two risottos that turned out to be the finest I’ve ever cooked by a long way (indeed, it was some of the most flavoursome food I’ve ever cooked, of any variety), and I’m pretty convinced it was largely down to the quality and depth of the stock.
Obviously, every time I roast a chicken, I endeavour to make stock the next day. But the last time, I think I was going to away for a few days following, so I froze the carcass instead.
Then, there were a couple of barbecues where I grilled a generous quantity of chicken wings over charcoal, and I elected to save and freeze the bones from these also.
I also had a few uncooked chicken wings in the freezer.
So the other week, after a visit to the Farmer’s Market the previous Sunday, and picking up a collection of delicious mushrooms, I decided to make the stock and a nice risotto.
First thing was to make the stock, using the above mentioned chicken lefovers, 2 onions, 2 carrots, 2 sticks of celery, a few bay leaves and a handful of peppercorns.
Stock ingredients, assembled and ready for a good gentle simmer.
I brought this up to the gentlest of simmers, and then vacated the kitchen for about 7 hours. (I went out to a rehearsal actually, and forgot I had some stock on. This turned out to be a fortuitous mistake).
When I returned, I remembered I had left the stock on, so strained it and was left with this delicious and concentrated golden chickeny nectar:
The stock ready for use.
I then assembled the main ingredients for the risotto, namely mushrooms, parmesan cheese, onion and garlic.
Parmesan cheese, onion, garlic and mushrooms
Now, I didn’t bother to look up the various types of mushrooms, I’m vaguely aware of what some of them are, but if anyone would like to identify them for me on the comments, that would be appreciated.
I roughly chopped up most of the mushrooms, but reserved the darker slender bunch for garnish at the end.
Chopped mushrooms
The next step, before the cooking of the risotto proper was to saute the mushrooms in a little butter and olive oil (in a separate pan), and set them aside. The key here is to saute them just enough that they are cooked, but not so they start losing their water and juice content.
Sauteing the mushrooms
Now for the fun bit. First of all, put the stock in a pot and bring to a very gentle simmer on the stove. Don’t let it boil, as not only will this impair the flavour, but you want to reserve as much as possible, while keeping it hot and ready to ladle into the rice. When you’ve done this soften some butter and oil in a pan and gently saute the onions and garlic until soft, but be careful not to let them brown to much or burn. Then add the rice and saute for a couple of minutes. This process cracks the surface of the rice grains, and enables them to absorb the flavoursome stock later in the cooking process.
Sauteing the rice
When the rice has been sauteing for a couple of minutes, add a glass of white wine, in this case it was a crisp Pinot Grigio:
Add a glass of white wine.
When the wine has been absorbed by the rice it’s time to start adding the stock, one ladle at a time. The important thing here is to keep the rice moving constantly, so the stock is absorbed evenly, without the rice sticking to the bottom.
Adding the stock
I tend to stir in a rough “figure of eight” type pattern, as you can see from the action shot below. I find this keeps everything moving in a satisfactory manner.
Stirring
When the rice acquires a nice plump appearance, it’s almost done and time to add the mushrooms. If you taste a grain, it should be al dente but not quite done.
Rice almost done
Add the previously sauteed mushrooms at this stage and stir through.
Add the mushrooms
This is now the time to saute the mushrooms reserved for the garnish. I used the pan just vacated by the previously sauteed mushrooms….
While these are sauteing away happily, add the grated parmesan cheese to the risotto and stir through:
Add the cheese...
Only after adding the cheese did I test and adjust for salt, seeing as the cheese adds so much salt from itself.
By this time the garnish mushrooms should be nicely browned, so take them off the heat.
Garnish mushrooms
All that’s left now is to serve up with a glass of the aforementioned crisp Pinot Grigio.
The risotto was everything you would expect: rich, creamy, unctuous, satisfying, comforting (I’m trying not to sound too much like Nigella or Nigel here)….
Risotto served...
A couple of days later, I still had half of the chicken stock left. It had been in the fridge, so now had taken on a jellified form. I had to exercise a considerable amount of willpower to stop myself from just eating it with a spoon.
Jellified chicken stock
When I had mastered my desire, I decided a suitable course to take to use the stock would be another risotto, but of a completely different nature to the previous one. I settled on chorizo with smoked paprika picante, with fresh peas, courgettes and a fried sage garnish.
You could argue I suppose that a risotto with chorizo and especially paprika in it is more of a Spanish than Italian dish, but I’m afraid I’m no great respecter of tradition where food is concerned. If I can use what’s in my fridge and make it tasty, I’ll make any ingredient from anywhere into any dish of any description.
First thing I did was to place the chorizo sausages in a separate pan for an initial browning, to make them easier to slice up:
Chorizo
Cooked them until they were this brown:
Browned chorizo
The sausages were then chopped and fried in a pan with onion and garlic, and to this I added a teaspoon of the delicious smoked paprika picante.
Fry the sliced chorizo with chopped onion and garlic, and add the smoked paprika picante..
When the paprika was fried for a minute or two, I took the pan off the heat and set my stock on to simmer:
I then prepared my veg. First shelled some nice fresh peas:
Shelled fresh peas
…and chopped some organic courgettes from the Farmer’s Market:
Chopped courgettes
I then put the pan containing the sausages back on the heat and added the rice. When the rice had received it’s initial frying, I again added a nice glug of Pinot Grigio.
Add the wine
When the wine had been completely absorbed by the rice, I added the peas and courgettes, and started to stir in the stock:
Adding the stock
This time I did take a break of a few seconds while stirring in order to chop some fresh sage.
I chopped most of the leaves and reserved a few to fry for the garnish.
Fresh sage
When the rice was pretty much done, I added in the fresh sage:
Adding the fresh sage...
While the sage was warming through the risotto, I fried the remaining leaves in a little olive oil for a garnish until crisp. This only takes a few seconds:
Frying the sage...
The Risotto was now ready to serve out, garnished with the sage and, again, a glass of the afore mentioned Pinot Grigio.
It was wholly delicious, the chorizo adding an earthy meaty flavour to the already rich chicken stock with the peas and courgettes retaining a freshness and the sage a very agreeable subtle crunch.
The risotto served out....
I can say one thing for sure at the end of all this. It’s worth freezing your chicken bones… 🙂
So when the opportunity came up to visit my parents, brother, sister, brother in law and niece and nephew at a nice villa in the South of France (Languedoc) the other week I jumped at the chance.
The idea was that while not contributing to the holiday per se, I would cook for everyone, thus saving money overall on the inevitable meals out and takeaways which would have otherwise drained the financial resources.
The problem with reading for me is that, doing what I do, there are really no set hours for work and relaxation as such.
This last year and a half or so, I seem to have been touring rather a lot (Us3, Jim Mullen, Marlena Shaw, Mica Paris, Boy George – each different band presents a different dynamic as to convenient reading opportunities) and although, as you can imagine, there is sometimes a lot of sitting around, I tend not to get through too many books on the road, the main inhibiting factors being (not necessarily in this order):
Alcohol – although a couple of drinks sometimes enhance my enjoyment of a book, one too many and I can’t remember what I’ve read when sobered up.
Travel – I can’t read in a car or a minibus, and although it is possible to read on the tourbus, there’s too often distracting activity like DVD watching, animated conversation or the aforementioned alcohol in commencement at any one time.
Noise – A lot of sitting around can occur in soundchecks, but have you ever tried to read with a bass drum or tom tom being played repetitively at high volume through a large PA for the purposes of equalization?
Cabin fever – I tend to find it difficult to read for prolonged periods when confined to a small space like a hotel room.
Unsettlement – At airports waiting for the gate number to appear, one is always looking up at the screen in the waiting lounge, thus providing an unwelcome break in concentration.
Unsocial flight times – A fair amount of flights that we take are often very early in the morning, so while reading on the plane is an option, I’m more likely to want to sleep if possible.
And when at home I equate reading with not doing something constructive (not quite true I know), so I’m much more likely to get to work in the studio or at the piano.
I can get really into reading first thing in the morning (a couple of years ago I got through quite a few Iris Murdoch books just this way), but it does tend blunt my concentration for a couple of hours afterwards, as well as taking up half the day so I rarely do this anymore.
SO when the opportunity came up to go on the holiday, the first thing I did was get the books I wanted to read. Last year I did the same thing, but took the wrong book (I took Crime and Punishment – and while I enjoyed reading the book as a whole, I remember being aware that it didn’t necessarily equate to my idea of relaxing by the pool with a beer)
I took 3 books with me this time:
To Kill A Mockingbird – we read this at school I’m sure, but like a lot of things at school, I didn’t invest much attention or effort to it. Reading it again was a much more enjoyable experience.
The Life of Pi – couldn’t put this down. Very imaginative, humorous, informative, entertaining, and also lots of references to South Indian food – which is always a good thing.
The Poisonwood Bible – Am halfway through this at the moment. Thoroughly engrossing characterizations and fascinating historical perspective.
I also did a lot of cooking. The ingredients and produce available at even the most humble French supermarkets always has me fascinated and brimming with ideas (however, since most of the people I was cooking for were not nearly as wildly liberal or adventurous in taste as myself, I was unable to realize many of these ideas).
But I endeavored to make some nice grub anyhow.
Here’s what I cooked:
Sausage and cheese frittata
When I arrived on the Sunday, we discovered all the supermarkets were closed, so I had to rustle something up from what was in the villa already, and what we could acquire from a local service station shop. There was a box of 6 eggs in the villa along with some herbs, and olive oil, and not much else. The service station sold packs of luncheon meat style sausage, and some nice looking Cantal Juene cheese, which is a young cow’s milk cheese, firm in texture and fruity in flavour. I sliced and fried the sausage, drained the fat from the pan, put the sausage meat in once again and added the beaten eggs with some herbs and black pepper. My intention was to then add the grated cheese on top and brown under the grill to cook the top of the eggs and cheese. But… we then discovered that the grill would only operate with the oven door closed, and I didn’t want to commit the frying pan to this unrelenting heat, so I heated up the oven, then opened it and let the top of the frittata firm up in the residual heat. Not ideal, but did the job OK…. the result being a slightly guey cheese underside to the omelette, which was not at all unpleasant, though a bit messy to cut up…
The next day, we got to the supermarket and stocked up on supplies.
Chicken casserole cooked in white wine with green peppers, olives and bay
The meal that night was a simple but very tasty rustic chicken casserole cooked in white wine and stock, with sliced green peppers, olives, onions, garlic, bay and herbs. It was served with mash potatoes and steamed green beans:
Chicken casserole served with mash and beans
…and accompanied by bread with oil and balsemic vinegar (a constant companion to food that week):
Bread and oil with balsemic
The next morning I made another frittata, this time with sausage and sliced courgettes.
I put the courgettes on the bottom of the pan and the sausages on top, so it appeared like this in the pan:
Sausage and courgette frittata in the pan...
…and took on this lovely appearance when upended onto a plate:
Sausage and courgette frittata
Now before I go any further, I must admit that I did totally steal the idea for an upended courgette frittata from the wonderful blog “Lou Loves Food” … which is packed with amazing photos and absorbing writing, and I can highly recommend it…. so thanks Lou.. 😉
That evening I decided on making some Indian food ….. yes I’m aware that may not be the most obvious option in the South of France, but my mind was made up as soon as I saw the beautiful mutton on offer in the supermarket. Mutton is a meat less than commonly available in the UK, and it rewards slow patient cooking with the most succulent and flavoursome dishes.
I bought some chopped shoulder (on the bone) pieces to make a curry with tomato and aubergine, and some ribs to make what is known as a “Bone Pepperwater”. This is a meat variation on the standard pepperwater (rasam) which is a soup consistency dish made with tomatoes, lemon, tamarind and spices.
The only problem with all this is that I was somewhat limited in the choice of spices available in the supermarket. I managed to get fresh garlic and ginger, and eventually found a premixed curry powder (not something I normally like to use) which seemed to have a good balance of coriander, cumin, tumeric, mustard and fenugreek in it.
The aubergine in the curry was cooked separately with onions, ginger and garlic (a trick I recently picked up off my mother) and added during the last 1/2 hour, which helps to preserve not only it’s texture, but flavour as well. The curry itself simmered slowly for 5 hours.
Mutton curry with aubergine and tomatoes
The bone pepperwater was made with some fresh vegetables (carrots and courgetttes), plenty of lemon and also some paprika, which I found in the villa. The mutton ribs do add the most amazing stocky earthy flavour to this dish, it must be said.
Mutton "Bone Pepperwater"
After the curry, I thought it would be a good idea to cook fish the next day both from a time and simplicity point of view.
The fish counter at the “Intermarche” was of course vastly superior to my local supermarket.
I eventually settled for some lovely fresh perch fillets, which I roasted on a bed of cherry tomatoes with balsamic vinegar, bay and salt.
I gave the tomatoes a start of about 15-20 mins in an 180degC oven, then simply popped the perch fillets on top, cooked for a further 10 mins and it was done:
Perch fillets roasted on a bed of cherry tomatoes with balsamic vinegar and bay..
There was not much need to serve this with anything else but that perennial king of juice mopper-uppers: fresh french bread:
Roasted perch and tomatoes served with bread
The next day was to be barbecue day. However, here I failed in my duty as a blogger and recorder of events since due to the distractions of reading, swimming, table tennis and drinking, I didn’t start the fire in time and so even though I made lots of food, the only picture I managed to take before it went dark was of some balsamic chilli prawns. (I have an iPhone so am unfortunately at the mercy of the light).
Just for the record though, I did also make salmon and courgette kebabs, aubergine and red pepper kebabs, 2 types of sausages and chicken in a Mexican marinade.
Prawns in a balsamic and chilli marinade
One advantage of being in the centre of wine producing country was that there was an abundance of vineyards with completely quaffable red wine on tap at an amazing price. (€1-€1.50 a litre).
Had I the time or opportunity I would have loved to avail myself of some of the delicious looking lambs hearts in the supermarket and braise them in red wine for hours until tender… This meal unfortunately would not have been very popular with the others:
Red wine on tap.....
The final day of cooking was also the least intensive since there was a lot of packing, cleaning of the villa etc to be done before vacating, I opted to cook a simple sausage pasta with a tomato and red wine sauce. Despite appearing fairly ordinary, it was most enjoyable, due to the high quality of the sausagemeat:
Sausage and tomato pasta.....
All in all an enjoyable chance to read, cook, swim and relax…… now, back to the piano I think….
Barbecued chicken breasts in a rosemary and garlic marinade, served with potato salad and steamed veg tossed in sage butter
Finally a chance to get the barbecue out. It was pretty much nice and cloudless all day, but predictably enough, when I actually pulled the contraption out of the shed a few clouds started to hover over head. However, after a few minutes of staring menacingly into the sky, I managed to persuade them to disperse (I’m not claiming credit for this, it’s merely the way I choose to remember it….)
Luckily though since I’d done all the preparation beforehand, I was able to concentrate all my attention into the tasks of cloud dispersal, and more importantly, firelighting – and I definitely needed to concentrate on the latter.
I’m no Ray Mears, in fact any prolonged period in the wild would probably see me losing a substantial amount of weight before getting a serviceable fire going, even armed with a box of matches and a pile of tinder.
Anyhow, the first thing I did this afternoon was pop down to the butchers and get a couple of chicken breasts.
I’d decided to butterfly them so as to facilitate more even cooking on the barby, and to marinade them in something non acidic, since anytime I’ve used lemon juice, wine or vinegar for a marinade, it’s tended to dry the meat out more than anything….
So I decided to use rosemary (which we have an abundance of in the garden) and garlic.
Here’s what I did:
The chicken breasts needed to be butterflied. Here they are before:
Unbutterflied chicken breasts
To butterfly them, insert a sharp knife into the thick end, and cut lengthways stopping about 1cm from the edge. Then open them like a book. I decided to also bash them with a tenderizing hammer to even them out more and assure they took on as much marinade as possible.
Here they are butterflied but not bashed yet (hammer at the ready though)…
Butterflied but before bashing
And after being given a jolly good bashing:
After being bashed
Next it was time to prepare the marinade. The plan was to use lots of fresh rosemary and juicy chunky garlic:
Rosemary and garlic
I removed the stalks from the rosemary, and skinned and bashed (with the side of the knife this time) a few cloves of garlic.
Then chopped it all up roughly:
Garlic and rosemary chopped up roughly
Next I placed all the garlic and rosemary into my pestle and mortar, ready to apply some elbow grease:
Put the rosemary into pestle and mortar and apply elbow grease
Apply some more elbow grease….
Apply more elbow grease
Then add a generous few glugs of olive oil into the marinade and apply yet more elbow grease…
Add a generous few glugs of olive oil into the marinade and apply yet more elbow grease...
When the rosemary and garlic has been well ground into the olive oil, apply the marinade generously over both sided of the chicken breasts:
Apply the marinade to the chicken breasts
I then wrapped the breasts up in clingfilm and kept refrigerated for about 4 hours (longer is better if you can):
Wrap chicken breasts in clingfilm and refrigerate
So the chicken breasts were marinading in the fridge.
I then prepared my veg for steaming (just chopped up courgette and broccoli) and made some sage butter (by mashing chopped fresh sage into softened butter) in which to toss the veg before serving, and also prepared some potato salad by just boiling up some Jersey Royals, letting them cool and then mixing them up with some mayonnaise (Hellman’s I’m afraid not home made) and some fresh chopped chives.
Finally it was time to tackle the firelighting task.
As usual, I did my accustomed faffing around with newspaper, matches and firelighters unsuccessfully for about 1 and 1/2 hours before I managed to remember the technique of lighting a successful fire (ie. starting with smaller charcoals, arranging them tactically and tending it constantly), rather than my initial effort of just leaving it to get going of its own accord while I sipped beer. (In my experience thats a romanticized image of a barbecue anyhow…..or maybe I just lack the necessary alpha male skills required… who knows? but I suspect the latter somehow..).
Anyway, finally the barbecue was ready and I unwrapped the chicken, sprinkled each side with salt and placed over the coals.
Place the chicken breasts over the coals (note the rosemary bush in the background)
I kept the chicken on the barby for about 10 mins, turning frequently. I even added a few twigs of rosemary onto the fire so as to add some woody herby smoke flavour…
Cook the chicken for about 10 mins, turning frequently (don't get to close with that iphone camera though..)
Finally, when the chicken was cooked, I squeezed a generous amount of fresh lemon juice over both sides, and served, with the potato salad and the veg which had been steamed and tossed briefly in the sage butter…
Serve out with potato salad, and veg tossed in sage butter...
So i got home yesterday (same studio, same session as day before) at the earlier time of 4.30pm. For me this is a funny time to get home. It’s to early to start relaxing for the evening, but a bit to late to start doing any work of any kind. (besides, my brain was a bit fried again from piano keyboard/computer screen staring).
The weather also added to the confusion. It appeared warm, pleasant and sunny, but was actually to chilly to go and sit outside and enjoy the sunshine, and to windy to consider a barbeque.
I could, of course have watched the World Cup, but unfortunately I’d been listening to the radio in the car and heard the tournament’s most tedious game yet (Ivory Coast v Portugal) grind to a start, so didn’t really fancy that.
So I sat at the computer for a bit and perused some food blogs.
I’d more or less decided that our dinner for the evening was going to be Italian of some kind, when I took a glance at the fantastic Tamarind and Thyme blog, and was immediately craving Asian food of the noodle soup variety.
A quick visit to the supermarket ensued and this is what I threw together:
Ingredients:
2 boneless skinless chicken thighs
10 raw king prawns (shell on but head removed)
2 portions dried egg noodles
2 pints of chicken stock
4 chestnut mushrooms
a few florets of broccoli
1 carrot
4 birdseye chillis (or to taste)
2 stalks lemon grass
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp tamarind paste
3 kaffir lime leaves
Juice of 1 fresh lime
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tblsp Thai fish sauce
3 tsps tom yum paste
2 handfuls beansprouts
2 spring onions and some fresh coriander to garnish
Method:
Slice the chicken thighs thinly and place into the pan of simmering stock.
Add the garlic, chillis, tamarind paste, tom yum paste, lemon grass (bruised), Kaffir lime leaves, sugar and fish sauce.
Leave to simmer for 10-15 mins. Meanwhile chop the mushrooms, carrots and broccoli to the desired size.
Add them to the soup. Simmer for another 5 mins.
Boil the noodles in water for 4-5 mins (or according to instructions) and drain.
Add the prawns and lime juice to the soup, and wait till the prawns turn pink.
Arrange the noodles in the soup bowls, with the beansprouts, then ladle on the hot soup.
Serve, garnished with chopped spring onion and fresh coriander.
Adventures with a slow cooker on the Boy George tourbus
I'm the one not wearing eyeliner....
Eating well on tour can be a bit of a random affair.
Mealtime arrangements can run the gastronomic gamut from elaborate catering through to a plate of curly sandwiches left too long in the dressing room.
On this particular tour, we were by and large left to fend for ourselves foodwise. While there are sometimes a variety of interesting and quality eating establishments around venues, more often than not one is left to choose between a Wetherspoons pub meal, or some fish and chips. (There’s also pretty much always the “elephants leg” kebab option, but I personally never go down that route).
Happily though, this particular band includes a number of people who are keen, skilled cooks and interested in the value of a quality meal.. (there’s nothing more depressing than being on the road with a bunch of definite non-foodies who are only too willing to settle for the kebab option).
The kitchen on a tourbus consists of a microwave, a kettle and a toaster, as well as a variety of basic cooking implements like a chopping board, knife etc etc. As you can imagine, it’s very much a “galley kitchen” affair, space obviously being at a premium.
Our guitarist/MD John Themis already has a history of preparing delicious miso soups on buses. He does this by using miso paste and a sachet of Japanese fish stock to make the soup with boiling water. He then makes some noodles in the microwave, and poaches some salmon gently in freshly boiled water in a seperate bowl. These are then added to the soup, together with tofu, chopped spring onions, chillis or chilli oil, sesame oil and some sesame seeds.
I sampled a bowl of this soup one afternoon, and it was outstanding, and considerably more nourishing than a service station sandwich.
About half way through the tour, we decided to buy a slow cooker in order to open up our options for cooking on the road. John managed to pick one up on offer at £30, so it wasn’t exactly a major investment.
The cooker’s maiden voyage was a wholesome Irish stew made by John.
Stopping at a limited Spar supermarket, John nevertheless managed to pick up all the ingredients necessary for this dish. I got back on the bus after a morning stroll around Eastbourne, to find Kevan the bassist and Bob the merchandise chap excitedly clamouring around the kitchen where John was a whirlwind of activity stacking the cooker with carrots, celery, onions, potatoes, chopped beef and some skillfully rolled meatballs, together with some mixed herbs and freshly ground black pepper.
Irish stew being assembled
He then made up some makeshift dumplings. Unfortunately we didn’t have any plain flour, so pure suet and water was used, and the dumplings were rolled small and compact, in anticipation of their richness.
A cooking liquor was then assembled with a beef stock cube and some HP sauce dissolved into some boiling water and added to the dish, which was then covered, and left to cook on the medium setting.
John rolling his dumplings for the Irish Stew..
After about 3 hours (after soundcheck in fact) John did a check for seasoning, added some salt, and replaced the lid. Since a slow cooker can lose a considerable amount of valuable heat, when the lid is removed, we had to place a “DO NOT OPEN” sign on the lid, to stop hungry musicians and crew lifting the lid and having a sniff.
After the gig, we exited the venue and got on the bus, where a delicious aroma was now pervading the air. (In fact, 2 of George’s die hard fans Kerstin and Sibylle who were standing outside the bus, commented that they could smell the food from there!)
The Irish stew had now been on for more than 7 hours, and it was looking and smelling amazing. A true one-pot dinner, John was able to serve it in bowls, with nothing more than a bit of French bread on the side. After a week or so of eating out, the experience of some home cooking was incredibly comforting.
John and Kevan ready to dish out the Irish stew..
The next day (Sunday) we arrived in Lincoln early in the morning following an overnight drive.
After the success of the Irish stew, I was thoroughly inspired to try and cook a chicken curry for after the show that night.
The first step was to purchase the necessary ingredients. As it was a Sunday, my only hope was to find a large supermarket (there was another small Spar shop near the theatre, but they didn’t have half the stuff I required). I managed to locate a Tesco which was a good 15-20 walk away, so I set off on my quest, and eventually arrived back at the bus with some chicken, onions, chillis, spices, microwavable steamed rice, chappatis and ready cooked poppadums.
The first problem to solve was how to fry the spices with the onions. To achieve this I chopped the onions in batches and “fried” them in a bowl with some sunflower oil in the microwave on the high setting for about 3 minutes to soften them up. Then, for each batch I added roughly 2 tsps ground coriander, 1 tsp cumin and 1/2 tsp tumeric, and “fried” them again in the microwave for 2-3 mins, again on high.
All the onions (1 bag) yielded 4 batches. With the last batch I added 2 good tsps each of ginger and garlic paste, as well as the spices (fresh ginger and garlic would have been an option, but would have required more chopping and made me late for soundcheck).
I then layered the ingredients in the slow cooker: 1 batch of onions, some chicken, some chopped red chillis and some diced potatoes. I continued layering up in this order until the cooker was full (luckily it was just about large enough to hold all the ingredients.)
I made the sauce by dissolving some creamed coconut and tomato puree into some chicken stock made from a stock cube, and poured this into the slow cooker until the meat was pretty much covered. I then put the lid on, propped up the “DO NOT OPEN” sign, and went to soundcheck.
Again, after souncheck, I tested and adjusted for seasoning, adding just a little salt.
After the gig, the smell on the bus was most inviting, and anticipation was high. 5-10 mins before serving up I added a whole packet of chopped green coriander, replaced the lid and let it cook in a bit. Unfortunately I forgot to photograph the curry in the cooker before we started serving, but remembered to do so when we were halfway down:
The curry, halfway through serving
I was a initially little nervous the curry wouldn’t live up to expectations, but luckily those fears seem to have proved unfounded. With John’s help I dished up several servings in a production line fashion. We had the sachets of rice in the microwave (which only took 2 mins), and a toaster warming up the chappatis. Each serving was then garnished with fresh green coriander, chopped fresh red chillis and a poppadum.
A serving of tourbus chicken curry
There was enough for 12 servings all together, and more than enough chappatis and poppadums. So Bob the merchandise chap was suitably relieved when he arrived on the bus, as he’s always last back because of the nature of his job.
Although most of us ate on the night, George and Jon the backing vocalist requested that we save their shares for the next day, due to not wanting to eat too late at night. So in fact, they would have sampled the best of it because it would have been marinating for a good 16 hours before they had their share. Curries are always better the next day…
Below is a photo of Bob’s share with extra chillies:
Bob's share served up with red chillies in background
….and this was Bob’s reaction:
The next day we were travelling all day from Lincoln down to Swansea, so it was an ideal opportunity for John to once again knock up one of his delicious miso soups, but this time he made a large portion, big enough to feed the whole band, and just left it in the slow cooker on the low setting, so it would be warm all day for people to help themselves as and when they wished.
He assembled it using the ingredients and method previously mentioned, but with the addition of poached eggs, which made it an even more inviting and balanced meal. After some discussion of how to best poach eggs on a tourbus, Kevan’s method of breaking the egg into a cup, with one teaspoon of water, and microwaving for 1 min was decided upon, and it proved to work a treat, as you can see in the photo below.
Johns miso soup made and kept warm in the slow cooker
The final day of the tour was a drive from Swansea to Cheltenham, and was the day when Kevan had promised us his signature dish of slow cooked beef in guinness casserole. Since we were setting off in the morning, and there was predictably a paucity of food outlets near the hotel, Kev took the precaution of purchasing all his ingredients the evening before from a large supermarket located conveniently next to the theatre.
Kev’s plan for the next day was to rise early and do his preparation on the bus before we departed, rather than trying to cook on a moving vehicle. He was prevented from doing this however, by the minor setback of a bottle of sunflower oil that had fallen over and voided most of it’s contents onto the imitation wood floor of the bus kitchen, rendering the area a veritable oily ice rink. By the time we had placated the obviously not to pleased bus driver and persuaded the nice houseekeeping staff at the hotel to come out and aid in cleaning the area for us (most of which was done by John), it was time to leave.
Not to be deterred, Kevan soldiered on bravely with chopping onions and carrots, while being periodically tossed back and forth by the moving bus. He even managed to trim the beef of most of it’s fat, not the easiest job while the bus was negotiating the roundabouts and corners of downtown Swansea…
Eventually, he got the dish in the slow cooker. It consisted of beef, onions, carrots, peas, some good quality beef stock liquid, lots of black pepper, and of course guiness (2 cans sufficed I think). He thickened the sauce with plain flour mixed with a little water, which he added after a couple of hours. John also rolled some dumplings later on (this time with the correct 2:1 flour:suet correlation) and threw them in.
After the gig, the stew smelled delicious as we boarded the bus. Predictably, is tasted every bit as good as it smelled as Kevan served it out – tender beef in a rich peppery guinness sauce with sweet carrots and peas, accompanied by creamy microwaveable mashed potatoes, and provided a fitting finale to a triumphant few days of experimenting with the possibilities of real home cooking for musicians on the road….
Below is a photo of casserole in the slow cooker:
The casserole ready to be served
..and one of the dish served out:
The beef in guinness casserole served up with creamy mash
…and Bob’s enthusiastic reaction upon tasting his share…..
Gourmet Gorman 