Back to Basics: the wonders of a cast iron pan

I own several pans that you could kill a man with. But it's my grandmother's cast iron pan that intruders should fear the most. Heavier than catholic guilt and as black as the night, it's an angry, fierce beast of a pan. The pan itself has been in our family for over 40 years (no wonder it's so pissed off). My grandmother first bought it at the local market in Mokrin, a small farming town in northern Serbia where my mum grew up. She gave the pan to my mum before she died, and my mum gave it to me when I discovered it in an old cupboard at our house a couple of years ago. It has seen a lot of action in a lot of countries, and it is my trusted general when there is serious work to be done in the kitchen. There are few things more primal than searing a steak on a screaming hot cast iron pan, and many would argue (myself included), that that's the only way to do it if you don't have a charcoal grill available.

Steaks are the mainstay of cast iron pans, and probably the reason most people own one. If you like cooking steaks at home, and by extension are not one of those poor, strange outcasts that likes steaks well done, then you'll probably want to know how to cook one to taste like they do in restaurants. And there are a couple of simple tricks (butter, we meet again), but honestly nothing will make a bigger difference than using a proper cast iron pan. Thankfully, cast iron pans are also the home of great bacon, cornbread, and delicious eggs.

Do it.

There aren't many things that don't taste better in the hot embrace of tempered iron, although in my experience fish can be a total nightmare if you're not careful so stick to your most reliable non-stick one for that. On the subject of non-stick pans, that actually leads me to another fantastic quality of cast iron. It's damn near indestructible. You can basically do every single thing that's bad for non-stick pans and a cast iron pan will laugh at you and spit on your shoes. There's pretty much nothing, short of nuclear detonation, that will irreparably damage cast iron, and even then it'd only need to be re-seasoned.

The other great thing is because they're basically a single forged piece of metal, cast iron pans are relatively cheap and  they last for decades. I remember my grandmother making the most mindblowing potato wedges in lard in this cast-iron pan, and 20 years later it is still in fantastic condition. Cast iron pans that come with a non-stick coating are more expensive, but save yourself the money and put the effort in to season it yourself - trust me, it's worth it.

Unseasoned on the left, old and dirty on the right

Scrubbed clean, and ready to be seasoned

Seasoning is the heart and soul of cast iron pans, and it's actually why I love them. Basically, seasoning involves 'burning in' a coat, or patina, of oil, fat and salty goodness so that it creates a non-stick base inside the pan. Over time, the more you cook in it, the better the seasoning will get. I love the idea that a well seasoned cast iron pan has history, it has a character and personality woven from the tastes and smells of hundreds of great meals. Other pans come and go, but cast iron will stick by your side and never let you down if you treat it right. It takes years to truly season a pan to perfection, so if you are ever lucky enough to get a still-seasoned cast iron pan from a relative, hit them with it and do a runner.

Seasoning for the first time

When you first buy a cast-iron pan, it won't have any seasoning on it (make sure to avoid "non-stick" cast-iron pans because that misses the point entirely). Or, if you get a second hand one or a hand-me-down like I did, it will probably be a bit rusty and the seasoning will be pretty knackered. So what you have to do is scrape/rub all the rust and dirt off of it, and wash it thoroughly with soapy warm water. Keep in mind that this is the ONLY time soapy water will ever touch the pan, because once you season it you must never clean it with any detergent or soap, as it will both ruin the taste and destroy the seasoning. Once you've got a nice clean, smooth cast iron pan, you're ready to start seasoning it.

This is what it should start to look like as you use it

Turn your oven to 200 C / 400 F. Take a small bit of lard or bacon fat, and with a paper kitchen towel rub the grease all over every nook and cranny of the pan, inside and out. Make sure the entire surface has a nice thin layer of oil. Then place the pan face down in the oven on the middle shelf, and put a baking tray below it to catch any oil that drips off. Leave the pan in the oven for an hour or so, and make sure the room is well ventilated as there may well be a bit of smoke. (NOTE: do not use vegetable or corn oil for this step, or you will end up with a sticky glaze on the pan and you'll just have to start again).

After an hour or so, come back and turn on your strongest burner to full heat (ideally gas). Get the best, most reliable oven glove you have, and very carefully remove the pan from the oven and put it onto the gas burner. For the love of your uncharred flesh, understand that at this point the pan will be hotter than hades, so be extra careful. Leave the pan on the burner for 10 minutes or so, and then turn off the heat. Leave the pan to cool (this will take a lot longer than you think). When it's warm to the touch, put a couple of teaspoons of oil into the pan and rub the insides with a paper kitchen towel. Do this every now and then after you've used it. You've now got a seasoned cast-iron pan! This is the start of a beautiful relationship.

Your new best friend

When you're first starting out with a newly seasoned cast iron pan, it's best to stick to fatty things so you can build up a good patina. Burgers are godlike, bacon too, and steak is a no-brainer. Add a little bit of oil, then toss in the food watch the magic happen. It's also good to remember that cast iron takes a little bit longer to reach the right temperature, but it retains heat much longer than thinner non-stick pans.

The wonderful thing about this pan is that once you start to use it, it works for so many great things. It's your go-to for steak, it makes bacon taste better, it handles eggs no problem (watch the heat), hell you can even make pizza with it.

For now, let me leave you with a quick guide to making an awesome steak:

• Turn your oven to it's maximum setting (220+ C), chuck the pan into the oven face up.
• Leave it in there for a good 15-20 minutes while you prep the steak.
• Rub the steak with salt, pepper, and oil (avoid olive oil due to its low smoke point. Groundnut ideally, vegetable/corn oil will do).
• Very carefully take the pan out of the oven and put on your hottest burner at max heat, leave it for a few minutes.
• NEVER pour oil directly into the cast iron pan, unless you fancy having some fun with your fire extinguisher.
• When the pan is screaming hot and smoking, toss the steak in and DO NOT touch it for at least a minute.
• Once you turn over the steak the first time, chuck in a small knob of butter and baste the steak with the juices.

• At this point, instructions differ wildly depending on the cut, the thickness and how you like your steak. For a thinner, leaner cut for example, you can just sear it in the pan and you're done. For a thicker, fattier cut like a solid ribeye, you would sear it in the pan to get a nice crust, then chuck it in the oven for a minute or two on each side to finish it off nicely. It really depends on what cut of meat you've got and how you like it.

• Once you're done cooking, scrape out any bits that have stuck to the pan, wash it out with hot water (remember, no soap!) and dry thoroughly. Pop a few drops of oil into the pan, rub the inside and store it away.

I wish I could tell you there was a shortcut to cooking steak perfectly every single time, but there isn't. I've been practising for years and I still get it wrong if I'm using an unfamiliar cut or size. Using the touch test (quick tip: your cheek is rare, your chin is medium, your forehead is well done) and getting a sense of timing through practice, you'll get it right more often than not. And with a proper cast iron pan on your side, it will taste sublime.

Hamburgers, or why I hate Iceland

Just to clarify the title, I hate the shop. And the country.

Hamburgers are a joy. They are a portal to your childhood. A good burger is a marvel of juicy, innocent happiness. They are reminders of a time when your mum used to make hamburger patties and then put them inbetween two slices of bread, like some kind of culinary tie-fighter. Of a time when you first went to McDonald's and went absolutely batshit on the near-fatal dose of bright colours and high-fructose corn syrup. Or when you first discovered that cheese could actually have the consistency of play-doh (and sometimes the same taste).

Fast-food burgers can be pretty depressing.
The ciggie packet is there for scale.

So it is a continual source of agony that this country, for the longest time, absolutely sucked at making burgers. I remember when I was little, going to my nanny's house one time and being served a 'burger'. Imagine my utter bloody contempt (hey, I started young) when she handed me a plate with a completely flat, blackened land-mine looking thing that had just come out of an Iceland packet. Without knowing why I was being punished, I bit into the suspicious so-called meat product and genuinely wondered what the hell they had done to that poor cow to make it taste so goddamn tragic.

Since then, I have widely held the view that frozen burgers are a sin. Hey, call me old fashioned, they can sod right off. The problem is, the prevalence of frozen burgers in this country (and the lack of anything more than a fast-food interest in the things) has meant that by and large people didn't give a shit about making burgers good. Deep fry it, incinerate it, microwave it, do whatever the hell you want and then put it in a bun and drown the poor thing in ketchup. Hell, you can still go to an English barbecue (another name for food immolation) and watch people utterly destroy a perfectly good piece of meat. That's how bad the situation got for the english burger.

Deep frying can make a lot of things better, even pickles.

Now, before I get into the situation at home, let me be honest. The best burgers you can get are in the US. There's no point disputing it, because frankly, it makes you look silly. They do burgers over there like we do binge drinking - there's no contest. I have had burgers all over the world, and noone does it with the same talent and raw awesomeness as the yanks (well, mexicans if we're being really pedantic). From Thomas Keller's mini-burgers at Per Se in New York to the trashy throng of In-n-Out on the west coast, hamburgers enjoy greatness across the whole spectrum of establishments. They get the blend of meat right, they get the doneness right, and my god they get the bread right. The bread is so, so important and yet so often neglected. The patties crumble exactly as they should, just like Heston Blumenthal discovered in his In Search for Perfection recipe (which you can easily make at home with your liquid nitrogen and DIY kiln in the garden), because of the density and grind of the different cuts of meat. They are more than the sum of their parts because they all work in harmony.

I will come back for you, Ultimate Bacon....

The best burger I have had to date, was at a small diner called Jack's Prime near Foster City, just outside of San Francisco. I was there with work colleagues, and everyone was just hungover enough to get that animalistic craving for something's flesh, so this was a good place to be. Before I could have any questions about the place's credibility, when we walked in there in the corner was James Hetfield, sat alone in a booth, telling people to fuck off with his eyes. We had to wait for a table, and the smell coming off the grill was enough to make a grown man cry.

The menu was pretty upfront about what you were there to do. And being a traditionalist, there was really no option other than to go straight for the jugular so I ordered a Big Jack and a Black & White milkshake. My knowledgeable colleague said that a trip to Jack's Prime wasn't complete without a side order of Deep Fried Pickles, so we gladly obliged.

When the food finally arrived, it may as well have had a halo around it. I swear to god, there was an audible sigh of joy around the table as plates landed like a fleet of motherships, come to rescue you from the cruel plight of english hamburgers. Behold, my children.....

Your salvation has arrived. Don't forget to tip your waitress.

At this stage, words are almost pointless in trying to convey the sheer perfection of this beast. As Jodie Foster once pointed out, they should have sent a poet. Your eyes will do most of the work here, so I will only add that the single greatest thing about the whole meal was the bun - a lightly toasted Brioche bun with a slightly crispy exterior and gloriously fluffy, chewy interior. You're probably looking at the picture on the right and thinking "Jesus", and you know what, that's exactly what I was thinking too. If Jesus turned up on Earth, this is what he'd look like.

I should probably add that it nearly killed me, and it basically put me into a food coma for the next six hours. But it was worth it.

Returning home, I make peace with the fact that basically you are never going to get a burger that good here in London. However you can get pretty damn close. When the whole Gourmet Burger Kitchen fad kicked off several years ago, it seemed like people were finally determined to take a crack at delivering a proper burger. It was most definitely a fad, and the meteoric rise in the number of spin-off joints was staggering: Ultimate Burger Kitchen, Gourmet Express Burger, Organic Guilt Burger Company, you name it. And just as quickly as they sprung up, so surely did they shrivel up and die when people discovered that basically, most of them were overpriced shit. Charging £9 for a charred, burnt pattie in a faux ciabatta does not a good burger make, you morons. GBK is still around, but its burgers are a whimpering pale shade of their former size, and now the patented skewer holding it all together is effectively pointless.

The one ray of light is a more recent entry into the ring, namely Byron. They do the best burger I have found in town, and nearly all of my American friends still brave enough to try a burger on this blighted isle agree. Their chips are great, the milkshakes are ok (The Diner off Carnaby Street still does the best chocolate peanut butter milkshake) and the prices reasonable. The patties are soft, juicy and charcoal grilled to a perfect medium. The buns are squidgy and not overly filling. My girlfriend and I still argue over whether the skin-on chips are better than the fries, but the best approach is to get one of each and go to town. They have branches all over the city, so there's a good chance you've probably walked past one and it was filled with happy looking people inhaling burgers. If you've not been into one before, pay it a visit. It's a damn sight better than going to Iceland.

Mexican food, where art thou?

It's no secret to any of my friends that I love Mexican food. Unfortunately, living in London meant that for decades, Mexican food was resigned to the sort of thing you only ever saw on TV, like palm trees. Without any substantial Mexican population in London, and no real taste for it from the masses, the only experience of Mexican food I had ever had in this country was the hopelessly tragic foray by Taco Bell into the British market with their single, lonely outlet in Earls Court back when I was a youngster. The silver lining on that particular disappointment was that I at least got to see mongoloids shooting condiments out of what appeared to be a delicatessen minigun. I'm told you're not actually supposed to see them do that, which made the whole thing even more sad. In fact, if it hadn't been for my american friends in high school expounding the wonders of burritos and tacos, I would have thought Mexican food was a slightly scary vision of food from the future (thanks Demolition Man).

Blissfully, that situation has now changed. With London's revitalised foodie credentials has come a swathe of Mexican food joints across the city, from good to bad, cheap to overpriced, authentic to wtf. You have the trendy, always packed Wahaca (Oaxaca for the purists), which does a mean carnitas taco as well as a seriously moreish jalapeno cornbread. My only issue with Wahaca is the nagging, ever-present feeling that I am paying steak prices for tacos that you traditionally get out of the back of a truck. The food is great, the atmosphere is fun, and the margaritas are strong - I just wish the waiting time and bill matched the authenticity of the food.

Another good, albeit pricey, dive into Mexican fare is El Camion Mexicano on Brewer Street, which has an awesome menu and a fun diner type feel. Their real USP however, is the wall of Chilli Sauces:

There are some lovely sauces up here, and there are some that will melt your face off. Ask the waiter for a good time and brace yourself. Do not, under any circumstances, do what this French girl did when we visited and claim that you can take the hottest thing they've got. You will get schooled (if the school you went to was the ninth circle of hell).

Ultimately though, in my humble and sheltered opinion I think Mexican food is best enjoyed wrapped snugly in tinfoil over a plastic basket  so that you don't get the torrent of juices all over you. There's something wondrous about the unfussiness of it all, a freshly toasted tortilla and tangy hotsauce taking you away to a happier place, away from tourists and looting. Many places in London have sprung up to offer such delights, though they vary in success: newer places like Tortilla (too ricey) miss the mark, whereas old reliables like Mexicali and El Burrito manage to keep things simple and decent quality. For my money, my favourite remains Benito's Hat, where the combo of rice, pinto beans and salsa verde just works perfectly, no matter what meat you go for. Keep an eye on the guac however, the price seems to jump on a daily basis (who knew avocadoes were so volatile?)

As you can probably guess, this endless love of Mexican cuisine inevitably led to me trying out some dishes at home. Those El Paso ads with the kid dancing with his fajitas only make me want to inflict violence, so I avoided things like that. Instead, I hunted around for something a bit more authentic, a bit more earthy. I eventually found a recipe for carnitas, which at the time was entirely alien to me, but when it comes to slow-cooked pork there's not much convincing needed. 

Originally I just printed off the recipe from a random website, but several years ago I rewrote it for a recipe book that we gave to my friends Jojo and Isabel for their wedding. So you get my version.

Carnitas is a Mexican street food, basically a spiced pulled pork that you can stuff into tortillas or tacos, and is superb for small groups. Obviously with more people you're going to want a bigger joint, but this will happily feed a group and it tastes great the next day. The recipe looks immense, but it's split over two days and not actually that time consuming at all - as it's a slow cooker you can put it on in the morning and not worry about it for most of the day.

Not So Authentic Carnitas

Ingredients

Serves 4-6

1 – 1.5kg pork shoulder
1 orange, quartered
1 teaspoon garlic, chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 cup Pepsi, plus
more Pepsi, as needed
3/4 cup groundnut oil

Fuego spice mix
1/4 cup paprika
2 teaspoons cayenne
2 tablespoons salt
2 teaspoons white pepper
2 tablespoons ground black pepper
2 tablespoons garlic granules
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons oregano 

Agua Negra marinade
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 cup pineapple juice
1 tablespoons cumin
1 teaspoons garlic, minced
1/4 cup fresh lime juice

Directions

Firstly prepare the Fuego spice mix by combining all ingredients, mixing well. This handy little spice mix can be stored in an airtight container for up to 6 months.

For the Agua Negra Marinade, combine all ingredients with a whisk and set aside. The marinade can be stored in the fridge for up to 2 days.

Cut the pork shoulder into 3 inch cubes, try not to trim too much of the fat off as this keeps the meat lovely and juicy. Dust the meat with 1-2 tablespoons of the Fuego spice mix and press to adhere well.

Squeeze the juice from the orange into a fairly large airtight tupperware container - add the peels, garlic, pepper, 1 cup of pepsi and 1 cup of the marinade and mix to combine well. Add the seasoned meat cubes, cover with more marinade if needed, and refrigerate overnight.
The next day, remove the meat from the marinade (reserve marinade) when you are ready to cook. Heat the groundnut oil in a large heavy pan over high heat until the oil is smoking; add pork and brown completely on all sides- about 10-15 minutes. If you’re like me, you’ll want a few burnt bits on them.

Out of the frying pan...

Toss the meat into your biggest pot or casserole dish, and add the rest of the marinade and top off with some Pepsi. Cover and simmer on low heat for about 4 hours or until you literally can’t wait any longer. You want to check on it occasionally to add additional Pepsi to keep meat covered and stop it drying out. Obviously the longer you cook it the better it’ll be, so give it as much time as you can – I let it cook for five hours and it was to die for!

Five hours later.....

When you’re ready to eat, remove the meat from the sauce and let rest for a few minutes. The cubes should be a lovely dark caramel colour and smell fantastic. Take a couple of cubes per tortilla (depending on how big they are) and shred them with two forks. At this point, they should literally be falling apart, so you won’t have any problems. You can just just put the meat straight into a tortilla (or your mouth), but I like to place the shredded meat into an oven proof dish with a spoonful of the sauce and shove under the grill for a few mins to get some nice crispy bits on the meat.

Heat some nice big flour tortillas in the microwave, about 15 seconds on max power per tortilla. I find that because of all the juice, it works best if you actually use two tortillas for each wrap – otherwise it just tends to get messy real fast.

Make your tortilla – I typically go for grated cheese, meat, pico de gallo and guacamole (in that order!), but you can honestly use anything you like. I’d say the Pico and the cheese are an absolute minimum.

Pico is basically a proper homemade salsa, and honestly you’ll never go back to the jarred stuff once you’ve had it. The freshness of the lime and coriander really does change it completely. I’ve put the recipe for it just below.
Eat, enjoy, get seconds!

I know the sour cream is a crime, but it was amazing. The double wrap is for all the sauce that tastes like happiness

PICO de GALLO

3 large tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 small red onion, chopped fine
1-2 small fresh chillis for heat, seeded and minced
Good bunch of fresh coriander, chopped fine
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Combine all of the ingredients in a bowl, cover and shove in the fridge for several hours to let the flavours meld. I tend to make this once I’ve put the meat on to simmer, so it’s got more than enough time. This keeps for a day or two max. 

Well, what's this then?

Like a badger emerging into the warm summer sunshine (or torrential downpour, if we're being current), I have decided to start a food blog. All credit for the horrors yet to come go to my girlfriend, who was no doubt sick of constantly hearing me talk about food, especially in the middle of eating it. Thankfully I have a churning vortex of food-related silliness constantly spinning inside my head, so hopefully there will be a variety of things for me to talk about, some of which you may even find interesting or useful. Obviously, if there's anything in particular you would like me to discuss, feel free to let me know!