A Saturday Feast

This past weekend I did a Saturday lunch for some friends, and it was in my mind at least, a great meal that was easy to put together. It's not overly time consuming, and meant that I didn't need to spend all my time in the kitchen while guests were over. It also made the flat smell awesome, so I thought you might like it. I'm not suggesting everyone cook this every weekend, but I think it's a great one to have in your back pocket if you need a solid meal with minimum fuss.

One thing that I specifically like about this pairing is that both of them are done in short stages, over two nights. Starting a meal two nights before you eat it might seem really strange, but it saves you so much hassle on the actual day so that you can have a drink and relax instead of slaving over the stove. And each stage takes no more than 30 minutes, so it's not like you have to spend your whole evening prepping.

Overnight Pulled Pork

I've posted a recipe for pulled pork before, which was based on a shorter cooking time. This recipe that I found online is specifically suited for an average 12-hour cooking time, so basically overnight. At first I was a bit iffy about leaving my oven on overnight, but after having done it a couple of times now I've never had any issues whatsoever. The biggest issue was the flat smelling like lovely pork in the morning, but as you can probably guess, I got over that one pretty quickly.

You'll want a 2-3 kg pork shoulder joint for this, avoid leg or loin roasts as they don't have enough fat to stop it drying out. If you can get the shoulder skinless, that will make your life easier. Otherwise simply remove the skin by carefully cutting between the skin and fat layer with your sharpest knife (giving it a good sharpen beforehand will make this a doddle). I like to roast the skin by itself in a roasting pan and then cut into little squares to nibble on during the meal.

Dry Rub Ingredients

1tbsp ground cumin
1tbsp garlic powder
1tbsp onion salt
1tbsp chili powder
1tbsp cayenne pepper
1tbsp salt
1tbsp ground black pepper
1tbsp paprika
1/2 cup brown sugar

Mix all of the spices together well and store in an airtight container. This should give you enough spice rub for two roasts.

Brine Solution

1 litre water
1/4 cup salt
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp dry rub mix

Add the salt to the cold water and stir very well until it's completely dissolved. Then add the brown sugar, dry rub and bay leaves, stirring to combine. I find doing this in a saucepan makes the next step easy.

Rinse the pork shoulder well, then place inside a big ziploc bag. Pour the Brine Solution into the bag, making sure that the pork is completely submerged. I find the best place to store this is in the fridge door, so shift some bottles to make room for it. That will keep the pork standing upright and ensure it stays submerged. Leave to brine for a minimum of 8hrs, I simply leave it in there until the next evening. Do this while you're boiling the potatoes for the potato salad (see the recipe below).

Preheat your oven 105 degrees Celsius. You read that right. This is a real 'low and slow' recipe, but don't worry, do exactly as it says. The first time I tried this recipe I upped the temperature just a little bit thinking it was insane, and ended up scorching the meat. So keep it low.

Remove the pork from the brine solution, pat dry with paper towels to get rid of all excess moisture. Plonk the meat in a big roasting tin and sprinkle dry rub over the entire joint, patting it with your hands so that it sticks. Once the whole thing is coated, I like to add an extra layer of brown sugar on the top to give it a lovely caramel crust. Make sure the fat layer on the pork is facing up, and shove it in the oven.

Come back 12 hours later and marvel at the wonders that have taken place. Your pork should look like a molten ball of awesome, and smell divine. If the bottom of the pan is dried out, add a bit of water and scrape the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon - that stuff is phenomenal when drizzled over the pork. Remove the pork from the oven and cover with tinfoil. Let it rest for two hours - it will still be nice and hot when you serve it, resting it just helps moisten the meat. Shred with two forks and add barbecue sauce as you wish - either toss the meat into buns with coleslaw, or just have by itself.

One thing that I have learned: this pork will automatically have people asking for seconds. So save yourself some stress and shred the entire joint at the same time. It may seem like a ton of meat, but trust me, it will get eaten. And it's much easier to shred when it's nice and hot than once it's cooled down.

Incredibly Moreish Potato Salad

Potato Salad is a tricky thing to get right. There are many different types, most of which can quite simply be boiled down to a combination of potatoes and mayonnaise. The stuff you get from most supermarkets tends to be potatoes swimming in a sea of goop, no matter how classy the establishment purports to be. I've tried a couple of different recipes, but have never really been satisfied. Many "gourmet" recipes, like Jamie's for example, suggest things like fromage frais, olive oil and lemon, and if I'm brutally honest I'm slightly puzzled as to the kind of people that would like that sort of thing. It came off as rather bland and limp, with very little to make it stand out.

Perhaps it's because I have quite a lot of American influences in my palate, but when it comes to potato salad I want the stuff you get at barbecues. I have an instinctive association between good potato salad and grilling, where the salad is a crunchy, snappy retort to the charred meaty advances of a raging barbecue. Especially in England, where barbecuing seems to be a synonym for meat immolation, a solid creamy potato salad is a lifesaver.

So when I was coming up with the menu for saturday lunch this past weekend, I wanted a great potato salad to accompany my 12-hour slow roasted pulled pork. I looked in all my cookbooks, but alas, all of their suggestions struck me as too frilly and fancy. I needed something more unassuming, rustic and for lack of a better word, authentic. I trawled through various BBQ websites and stumbled upon one that looked epic, but seemed to do exactly what I wanted. It also contained some hilariously unassuming ingredients, which I'm a sucker for. I figured that my pork was going to be good enough to hold up no matter how it turned out, so I chucked the recipe into Evernote (a cook's best friend), and headed to the supermarket. Let me tell you right now, I hit the jackpot.

As with any recipe, you really can make this your own if you like it a different way. I made several adjustments for an English shopper, but this version turned out absolutely brilliantly. Personally I can't stand boiled eggs, and bacon seemed like total overkill but these are just two examples of things you can add in if such is your fancy.

The key thing for this recipe is that you start preparing it two nights before you want to eat it, just like the pork. That may sound like a lot of work, but it really isn't. Each step is very quick, and the results are 100% worth it. Do the pork and the potatoes together and you will have a fantastic meal.

Ingredients for the Salad

• 1kg new potatoes (I prefer Charlotte for their firm, waxy texture)
• 6 spring onions
• 3 stalks of celery
• 2 radishes 
• 5 gherkins (buy ones in sweet vinegar)
• 1/3 cup of mayonnaise
• 1/3 cup of creme fraiche
• 1/2 tsp celery salt
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp freshly cracked black pepper
• bunch of flat leaf parsley
• paprika (optional, for colour)

Ingredients for the Vinaigrette

• 1/4 cup of sweet vinegar gherkin juice (I know, trust me)
• 1 tbsp of your favourite mustard

Two nights before you want to eat the potato salad, put all of your potatoes into a pan and cover them with an inch of water. You can either go skin on or off in the salad, but when you are boiling the potatoes make sure you leave the skins on so that they don't absorb too much water. Bring the water to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15ish minutes or until the potatoes are still a little firm. Poke one with a fork - if the fork goes in and out easily, they're done. Don't freak out if you cook them a little bit too long, it won't hurt the salad.

Drain them thoroughly, then slice into 1/2 inch chunks while still hot. If you want to remove the skins do so now, but be warned it can be a real pain. Personally, I prefer leaving the skins on - partly for flavour, partly because I cannot be arsed peeling every single hot potato by hand.

Chuck the sliced potatoes into a bowl, and while they are still hot, season them with salt, pepper and the Vinaigrette. The vinaigrette should be fairly watery, but don't worry about it - the hot potatoes will soak up all the lovely vinegar flavour quite happily, and you really can't go wrong with seasoning at this stage. Cover the bowl tightly in clingfilm and store the potatoes in the fridge overnight. This particular step may seem like overkill, but it will make a huge difference in the quality of your potatoes. I was personally skeptical at first, but when I tried the potatoes the next day, they were good enough to eat on their own. After leaving the potatoes to soak up the vinaigrette/seasoning overnight, make the rest of the potato salad.

Thinly slice the spring onions, celery and radishes. Dice the gherkins into small chunks, and throw all into the bowl with the potatoes. Add the mayonnaise, creme fraiche, celery salt and salt/pepper. Mix the whole lot together with a spatula and taste. Resist the temptation to eat the whole thing right then and there. We came alarmingly close to doing this. Cover the salad again and put it back in the fridge. Tomorrow it will be ready.

Right before you serve, garnish with freshly chopped parsley and a sprinkle of paprika for colour. If you like hardboiled eggs in your salad, add them here. Keep the potato salad cold, and go to town. I can testify that this is a perfect companion to a pork roast, though it would kick ass alongside chicken as well. Bring this along to a barbecue (make sure you keep it cold throughout) and you really can't go wrong.

Finger Food

This past weekend, I discovered two things: that there is such a thing as a free lunch, and that you should never take your eye off the mandoline when slicing cucumbers at recklessly high speed. Both of these resulted in a titular state of affairs, but with staggeringly different enjoyment levels.

Not a musical instrument, unless
you consider 'aaaarggjgh' music

While I won't indulge the gorehounds among you with every minute detail of my little accident, I will just say that it has thoroughly driven home the sheer number of things that you use your thumbs for. Typing this post alone was a bit of a pain in the ass (metaphorically speaking) and everyday tasks like getting your bloody wallet out of your back pocket are suddenly an exercise in delicate maneuvers, as if someone had mischievously snuck a mousetrap into your jeans for a laugh. Still, frantic panic-bandaging and a hilarious number of first-aid supplies later, and all is on the mend I am happy to report.

Instead, I thought you might like to hear about my little trip to Harvey Nichols Fifth Floor Restaurant, for the Sharpham Park afternoon tea promotion. As part of British Food Fortnight, head chef Jonas Karlsson has adeptly put together a lovely collection of mini-sandwiches and sweet treats, with a little bit of a twist. Instead of using normal flour, he's using Sharpham Park's spelt flour, which has a denser and nuttier texture and is apparently easier to digest. I was very kindly invited along to sample this little excursion, and given that I can't remember the last time I actually had afternoon tea, I leapt at the opportunity.

In a funny way, afternoon tea has always felt somewhat old-fashioned to me. An occasion marked with lashings of cream and grandmother's pearls, draped in the embrace of freshly-brewed tea and cucumber sandwiches. Like a quick glimpse back to the turn of the century when social gatherings were largely more civilized and slightly less drunken. It also seems like a much more feminine encounter, where girlfriends swap gossip or mothers collectively plot their next campaign for their children's hearts and minds. It's not quite the territory of burly men discussing the transfer market, let's be honest. Nonetheless, on the back of my experience on Saturday, I think it could enjoy a healthy new lease of life. Whether you're there with friends, family or a loved one, there's actually a lot to like about spending a bit of time on a rainy afternoon munching on delectable treats. Not only do you get a brief, fleeting injection of civility into everyday life (where I mostly shout at tourists on the tube), but you also get to feel a bit like a giant eating tiny little sandwiches.

The Fifth Floor restaurant is a modern, sleek affair, with warm and welcoming browns and beiges (you can tell I've been decorating recently). It's a nice big open dining room, which gives the whole place a relaxed, chatty vibe. The service was absolutely impeccable, getting that rare balance in London between being charming and friendly, while also leaving you alone long enough to actually enjoy your meal and company (take note, Shoreditch establishments: asking if everything's ok every four minutes is not good service). One immediate thing that I appreciated was that even though the clientele is clearly on the wealthier side, there was no snottiness on the part of the staff towards me taking photographs of the food. This is something that american waiters do brilliantly, and it's nice to see behaviour like this prevail in a place where some might turn up their nose at my plight. This was further reinforced by the Japanese group sat behind us who produced a real-time photo catalogue of every single element of their entire meal. And no, I'm not stereotyping here people.

The Coronation chicken was switched to Roast Beef on the day

After choosing our teas (Earl Grey for her, Darjeeling for me) with all the panache of a blind man in a stripclub, they brought out the sandwich platter. Each little sandwich was lovingly crafted, as if they had been built by pixies on miniature scaffolds. The Smoked Salmon bagel, for example, is deceptive in the photo because it was actually about the size of a large walnut. It was here however, that my first surprise lurked. As with most food, I tend to save the best bit for last. This always used to be my downfall as a child, where I would save my crispy bacon for last and then my dad would nick it under the auspices of not wanting it to go to waste. So I decided to leave the Roast Beef focaccia for last, and start with the Egg Mayonnaise. Imagine my surprise, then, to discover that the Egg Mayonnaise sandwich was actually the standout. The egg itself was perfectly seasoned with the chives and cress giving it a hearty, herby backbone, and the bridge roll was crispy and soft. I was thankful that it was the biggest of the bunch, because it was undoubtedly the best.

The Bocconcini was also lovely, two bites of perfectly balanced tomato, mozzarella and toasted sourdough. The sourdough also had a nuttier flavour, thanks to the spelt, and enough substance to comfortably hold it's toppings without fail. I am a huge fan of smoked salmon bagels, so it's miniature cousin was eagerly anticipated. While the density of the spelt bagel was more than I'm used to from my soho bagel man's sesame seed versions, it worked well thanks to the thickness of the salmon and the restrained layer of cream cheese. So it was with relish that I arrived at the final sandwich, a Dedham Vale roast beef with horseradish cream on focaccia. Unfortunately, despite looking all the world like a winner, the foccaccia was excessively dry and immediately sucked all of the moisture out of the beef and the cream, leaving me to swallow a rather crumbly, monotonous lump. The beef is undoubtedly of high quality, so a lighter and less aggressive bread base would have been superb.

It probably seems at this stage like I have microscopically pored over four mouthfuls of food, but that would be rather unfair. While the sandwiches themselves were smaller, they were expertly crafted and surprisingly filling. I certainly wasn't looking around fervently for a BLT, as you occasionally get in joints where the food has been downsized in favour of quality ingredients. Which is a good thing, because the real winners of the afternoon tea came on the next platter.

Your eye should naturally be drawn to the thing that looks like a confectioner's Troll Doll. Mine certainly was. So once again, I decided to leave this little beauty for last. Instead, I turned my attention to the scones, and proceeded to cover them in a near-fatal amount of cream and jam. Interestingly, the scones are really where the difference between spelt and normal flour is most apparent. These scones were slightly denser, darker and more hearty. The nuttiness also had a slightly bitter aftertaste, which mixed nicely with the sweetness of the cream and jam. Washing this down with a glug of tea hit my inner nostalgic lobe (this is its medical name) like a lightning bolt, and was a definite highlight.

The awesome little cake in the background that looks like a miniature Mr. Whippy was the amazing Hazelnut Sponge Cake. The tower of cloud-like icing contained within it a small oasis of unctuous hazelnut essence, bringing both halves of the cake together like a nutty hadron-collider. This was swiftly followed by the Sour Cherry tart, which was nice but somewhat pedestrian - nothing especially memorable about it, although I was impressed that they'd managed such a soft and sticky texture with such a stronger flour. Anyone that has discussed cake with me before will know that I am a big afficionado of the battenberg, particularly as the pastry chef at our work canteen makes an absolutely monstrous battenberg slice that you could build forts out of. So my curiosity was piqued by the tiny little windowpane, wrapped in ruby red marzipan. It almost seemed like a treat straight out of Alice in Wonderland, a fiery remnant of the Mad Hatter's tea party. Interestingly, it was much more restrained than I expected and not overly sweet which is a welcome measure when dealing with marzipan. Its wilder and more raucous relative was definitely the Passion Fruit Pavlova with popping rocks. Cracking the exterior of this little blob revealed a sunburst yellow gooey centre, which transformed into a reassuringly fizzy mouth-party once the poprocks got to work. Childish, fun, and hugely refreshing.

And so it was that I finally came to the green-haired monstrosity that was left remaining on the platter, like a surly bouncer with a silly wig. I'm not entirely sure what a palet au chocolat actually is, but in simple terms it was a rich chocolate mousse encased in a hard milk chocolate shell, all draped in a colourful green candyfloss swirl. Now the candyfloss itself was amazing, practically sublimating the second I tasted it, and the chocolate was lovely, mild and not overly acidic. The one rather funny thing about this particular treat was the fact that as I continued to dig into it, the candy floss mixed in with the chocolate and I was eventually looking at a rather hairy chocolate mess. Something akin to a Chia Pet homicide, if you will. It tasted amazing, but it might be somewhat alarming to those of you with a more fragile disposition.

All in all a tremendously enjoyable afternoon. I'd highly recommend it to anyone that's a fan of afternoon tea, or even if you're just looking for a different place to catch up with an old friend. Whether you're just retreating from the horrors of weekend tourist shoppers, or just spending some time with your parents, this is a perfect place to enjoy an afternoon at a much more leisurely pace.

Cooking the Purist's Carbonara

A real Carbonara should not contain cream.

That's a slightly harsh take on it, but it's widely considered the purist's take. It should be a marriage of three simple products: eggs, cheese and pig. Somehow, somewhere, cream crept in to the picture like an insidious pair of training wheels. I assume this happened because getting the consistency of the eggs just right can be hard, and requires fairly precise timing and control. Some might even get squeamish at the idea of slightly undercooked eggs in their meal (even though this is actually not as much of a health risk as they might think). Some believe that the cream is simply a regional thing, where subtle shifts in the landscape and palate nudged experimentation along different paths. I'm all for making something your own, although that still doesn't excuse the abomination that the Americans have turned it in to (I'm looking at you, peas). Whatever the reason, there is only one kind of Carbonara for me, and that's the one I'm going to write about.

The actual origins of the name Carbonara are typically mysterious, though theories abound. The most commonly held theories are unsurprisingly discovered on Wikipedia:

Like most recipes, the origins of the dish are obscure, and there are several hypotheses about it. As the name is derived from carbonaro (the Italian word for charcoal burner), some believe that the dish was first made as a hearty meal for Italian charcoal workers. The etymology gave rise to the term "coal miner's spaghetti", which is used to refer to spaghetti alla carbonara in parts of the United States. It has even been suggested that it was created by, or as a tribute to, the Carbonari ("charcoalmen"), a secret society prominent in the unification of Italy.^[13]

It's a rich, sumptious and surprisingly filling dish, so I can totally understand the association with coal miners. Regardless of its origins though, it's similar to most other classic Italian dishes in that there is no one exact way to prepare it. You can find hundreds of recipes for bolognese (hint: the best ones use milk and white instead of red wine), and arguments rage across Italy and the rest of the world as to how to make the perfect version of any of their dishes. Even my beloved Silver Spoon, that weighty tome of simple, authentic Italian cuisine, cannot claim to hold the definite article in many cases. For me, I grew up with my mum's version of carbonara which was farfalle in a cream sauce with bacon. I know, I know. But it was her version, and she did it well, just like many of our mums. In fact I still like her version today, I just don't think of it as carbonara. Why? Because I've had the purist's version, and quite frankly they bear almost no resemblance at all.

The best Carbonara I have had to date, was at a traditional roman restaurant called Perilli, in the Testaccio district of Rome. I actually first went there this summer, while visiting dear friends of mine who now live in Rome and who have appropriately scoped out some of the best eateries in town. I had heard from them that this place does the best carbonara on earth, and while I had cooked the purist's carbonara myself before, their version was indeed superior on every front. The sauce was a luscious golden yellow, the pasta a perfect al dente the way you can only really get in Italy, and the cheese perfectly balanced and blended. It was immediately obvious to me that this dish was the culmination of decades of practice and refinement. You could practically taste the thousands of hours that have gone into mastering this one single dish. And as a cook, one of the things I love the most about this particular recipe is that your work is never done. It can always be better. There are always little things to tweak, to improve. Even now, when I made this recipe most recently, I rabbitted on to my girlfriend about how to try and get it even closer to Perilli's masterclass. Thankfully, while it will take many more moons to master the fine details, I took one giant leap forward when I discovered the secret ingredient: Guanciale.

Literally translated as "pillow", guanciale is basically smoked pig's cheek. It is almost entirely fat, with a small line of meat running through it, like the pig equivalent of a credit card. It's made by rinsing the pig cheek in red wine, seasoning it with salt, pepper and spices, and then leaving it to marinade and cure for 40 days. After that it's basically good to go, and pretty much never spoils. It has a much stronger, meatier taste than pancetta, and a depth and smokiness that comes from the delectable fat. I was lucky enough to find some when I was in Italy this summer, so I brought it back.

I should mention at this stage that guanciale is not easy to find, even in Italy. I've certainly never seen it in London, but never fear - decent pancetta makes a fine substitute. It doesn't quite have the richness or unique texture of guanciale, but it's a massive improvement over standard bacon (especially in the UK). So go with what you can find.

Purist's Carbonara

This is an incredibly simple dish, but it requires a bit of practice to get it exactly right. I've combined a couple of different recipes that I've found online into one that works for me, but even I will occasionally screw it up a bit. Keep at it, and for god's sake don't give up if you mess it up the first time. Eventually you'll be able to enjoy a hearty, simple meal that you can whip up in a flash with just a few basic ingredients.

Ingredients

500g pasta (linguine, spaghetti and rigatoni are my favourites for this)
150g guanciale or pancetta
3 cloves of garlic, finely diced
1/2 cup of parmesan cheese (avoid grated cheese like the plague, buy a chunk. You will use it, trust me)
1/2 cup of pecorino romano
2 eggs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

As you can see from the picture, this is a pretty simple dish to prepare. The trick is all in the timing, so plan accordingly and get everything prepared first. Get everything sliced, diced and prepped and have it ready to hand. I find this dramatically reduces any stress while cooking, and for this dish in particular you just do not have time to be prepping anything while you're cooking. Getting everything laid out and ready also lets you feel a bit like a professional chef, with your very own mise-en-place. Believe me, it will make your life easier.

Put a large pot of water on to boil, be generous with the water so that you can deep boil the pasta (a little tidbit I learnt from the French Laundry cookbook my friend showed me). Add a punch of salt and dash of olive oil.

While the water's coming to a boil, cut the guanciale into small cubes ('lardons'). Don't make them too thin, you want a little bit of substance there. About the size of your fingernail should do.

Grate the pecorino and parmesan into a bowl (or shave it, if so inclined), and whisk the two eggs into a separate bowl. Mince the garlic and have it ready.

Garlic goes in.....

A little side note: if you use garlic anywhere near as much as I do, I heartily recommend my favourite kitchen gadget: The Garlic Zoom. It's basically a little car filled with razor blades, just begging to dice your garlic for you. So instead of ruining your best knife dicing, chuck the cloves inside the car, drive it around your counter like a 5yr old, and hey presto, finely diced garlic. You can even make the sound effects if you want.

As the water comes to a boil, put a frying/saute pan on medium heat, add a small glug of olive oil, and chuck in the guanciale. Pop the pasta into the water and set a timer (generally between 8-12 minutes, depending on the pasta). Keep the guanciale moving around every so often, and let the fat start to render. If the fat becomes too much and the guanciale is literally swimming (which is entirely possible), spoon off the fat into a jar for safekeeping - that stuff is gold dust. Make sure you leave a couple of tablespoons of fat in the pan.

Here's where the timing gets important, so focus. One minute before the pasta is ready (taste the pasta to check doneness), turn the heat down on the guanciale and throw the garlic in. It will brown very quickly, so keep it moving. Turn the heat down to a minimum once it's golden to keep it warm.

Now before you strain the pasta, get a half-cup of the pasta water and put it to one side. Drain the pasta, and toss into the guanciale pan. Add the pasta water, and mix it all together.

Now take a large bowl (salad bowl is the best option I find), and pour the eggs and the cheese in. Whisk them together, then dump in the contents of the guanciale pan. Mix everything together vigorously for 1 minute - the egg should form a lovely, smooth consistency, and all the pasta should be coated and glistening in lovely cheesy egg sauce.

Season with some freshly cracked black pepper and a tiny bit of salt, and serve. Eat immediately.

Praise be to pigs, those wonderful magical animals

Is there any meat more godlike than pork? Really? I mean, I love a great steak as much as the next carnivore, but when you consider the sheer joy that one pig can bring to a table, it's kind of hard for anything else to compete in my mind. It's absurd to think that something as life-changing as bacon is just one of its many gifts. You may have already surmised from the name of my blog that even its skin is a dear, dear love of mine. Sausages, pork belly, ribs, pork chops, meatballs, pork neck.....the list is endless. If we were only allowed to consume one tasty, tasty creature for the rest of our lives, I would choose pigs in a heartbeat (sorry cows, you're just too one dimensional).

Me and Grandma, way back

When I was a kid, my mum used to take me back to her home in northern Serbia, a small farming village called Mokrin. There, raising animals on your farm and then eating them was a completely natural way of life for the locals. My grandparents' farm was like shangri-la for someone that loved animals. We had pigs, chickens, cats, dogs, a goat, a cow, and all manner of fruit and vegetation. In the mornings I would forage around the chicken coops and the giant haystack hotel for newly laid eggs and deposit them in the larder. Oh my god those eggs......as big as lightbulbs and with yolks like early afternoon sunshine. I have seriously never had better eggs than the ones my grandma used to fry in lard (obviously), in her old cast iron pan.

But I digress. Every Easter, it is the tradition in the village to have a suckling pig lunch. So in some crazy twisted yugoslav ritual, they release the pig that's deemed lunch-worthy into the courtyard, and the kids have to chase it and catch it. Looking back on it, it strikes me as an absurdly messed up situation, screaming children chasing a screaming pig, in preparation for it to be slaughtered. To some it might seem like some sadistic mindjob, a mash-up of Deliverance and Lord of the Flies meets Delicatessen. Obviously at the time many of the kids didn't quite realise the grim purpose of their task. It did however seem like a natural thing to do in some ways, to give the kids a bit of fun as part of the Easter festivities, and then get them out of there before the wetwork starts. Although I did often wonder what some of the older kids who lived there, who went through the same ritual every year must have thought. Then again most of them were total psychopaths, so it was probably a typical day in the office. If you know any Serbians you'll understand.

As a kid I absolutely adored the pigs, and would spend most of my days on the farm knee-deep in shit just chilling with them, because, well they're awesome and tremendously charismatic creatures. Obviously I was not very welcome back inside the house until I'd been hosed down, but that was an acceptable price to pay. So because of that, this 'game' of chasing the pig and then watching it get killed was kind of traumatic, but ultimately healthy. Because it gave me a simple, clear perspective of where our food came from. You want those amazing sausages, that incredible crackling, those silky soft cheeks? An animal's gotta die. And you should be ok with that if you want to enjoy your meat. If anything, seeing something like that at an early age made me a lot more comfortable handling meat and other foods (which led to me skinning a rabbit bare-handed at a stag do. Long story). And because this is a family farm we're talking about, every single piece of the animal is used. Whether it's frozen, smoked, minced, pickled, you name it, not a single scrap of that beast goes to waste.

Me and the big man, eggs in hand

Once slaughtered, the entire pig would be taken to the local baker, who was the only guy with an oven big enough to fit an entire pig. He would then roast the pig overnight, and my uncle and I would then go and collect it the next day. Aside from the natural enjoyment of convening a handful of generations of family around a table, there is something wonderfully medieval about seeing an entire suckling pig before you - I kind of feel like a viking when I see an entire leg of pig come off, or some lucky blighter make off with one of the ears (don't knock it, they are absolutely amazing). If you've never had suckling pig, it is a special and luxurious dish, while still feeling uniquely rustic and old fashioned. The crackling is like sheets of caramel, and the meat is achingly tender and juicy. The fat on any cut of meat is always the surest sign of quality, and the fat on a naturally raised suckling pig is like the nectar of the gods. Don't even get me started on the bone marrow. If this has given you the urge to try one, then get 12 of your friends and head to the legendary St. John, near Smithfield market. They do a suckling pig feast that is meant to be spectacular.

That being said, a suckling pig is not exactly an easily sourced or cheap meal. So as a little treat, instead I'm going to tell you how to make your own pulled pork. Anyone that's had good pulled pork before is probably drooling right now, and anyone that's ever made it at home will happily report that it is actually stupidly easy to make yourself. All you need is a decent sized slow cooker or roasting tray, a healthy dollop of patience, and some excellent barbecue sauce. It really couldn't be easier, so much so that the first time I made it I wanted to smack myself for not trying it sooner.

Pulled Pork with Awesomesauce

You're better off with a roasting tray, mine was in use

So let's get cracking. You'll need the following for the pork itself:

• 2kg pork shoulder (boneless, preferably)
• 1 onion, peeled and quartered
• 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
• ~1 cup dark brown sugar
• Worcestershire Sauce
• Salt & Pepper

Preheat your oven to 170 C / 325 F / Gas Mark 3. Score the pork gently, and rub salt, pepper and some worcesteshire sauce over the entire joint. Place the quartered onion in the roasting tray or slow cooker, then place the pork shoulder on top. Pat the brown sugar on top of the joint to form a crust, then pour the apple cider vinegar over the meat.

Force yourself not to eat it just yet. It gets better.

Cover the baking tray snugly with one or two sheets of tinfoil, and pop in the oven for four hours minimum. The longer you leave the meat in, the better it will taste. I cooked it for seven hours for the superbowl and it was kind of amazing. I'd say 8 hours is the maximum if you value your sanity.

When you just can't stand waiting any more, take the pork out of the oven (keep the foil on) and let it rest for an hour. Believe me, it will not get cold. Resist the temptation to dig into it, because resting it properly is essential for all those incredible juices to redistribute inside the meat. Once it's rested, grab two forks and just go to town shredding the joint. Once you've shredded the pork, put it into a baking tray or oven dish, and mix with a liberal pour of your favourite barbecue sauce (more on this below). Put it directly under the grill for 5-10 minutes until it starts bubbling and the edges start to get crispy.

It's ok if you let yourself eat a bit at this point. God will forgive you.

Eat me.

By now you will be absolutely ravenous, so don't waste any time. Grab some fresh white rolls (the softer the better), pile in a heap of pulled pork, top with some decent coleslaw, and eat the damn thing immediately. Then make several more. Thank me later. You might want some pickles in there, but to be honest you will be having more than one, so experiment. Personally, I like to keep it simple and enjoy the pork, I just find the coleslaw is a nice soothing counterbalance to the acid from the pork and the barbecue sauce.

It's worth always having a condiment for your favourite dishes 

Now if you're lucky, you have a bottle of amazing barbecue sauce that you've somehow smuggled back from the states. In my case, it's the original recipe BBQ sauce from The Salt Lick, in Austin, Texas. It's one of the most unique sauces I've come across - slightly sweet and vinegary, with a consistency more like salad dressing, it combines with pork in a way that no other sauce I've tasted does. Obviously there are different scratches for different itches (I prefer a thicker sauce with chicken), but this sauce trumps all my others consistently.

Don't worry if you don't have a good one though, you can make your own very easily. After slow-cooking a pork joint for hours and hours, do not, under any circumstances, use some cheap supermarket barbecue sauce. I cannot stress this enough - it would be a crime to sully the beauty of your lovely pork with some half-rate sauce. If you don't own some of the good stuff, it takes no time or effort at all to make your own. Here's an awesome recipe I found for homemade bourbon barbecue sauce - it's a doddle to cook, and it tastes leagues better than anything you'll find bottled here in the UK (except perhaps Bodeans' own brand). It also keeps very well in the fridge, this recipe gives you a decent jar-full to enjoy.

(P.S. if any of you have sourced liquid smoke here in London, let me know where!)

Ingredients
Half an onion, minced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
3/4 cup bourbon whiskey
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 tablespoon salt
2 cups ketchup
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/3 cup cider vinegar
2 tablespoons Liquid Smoke flavouring (I've never found this in London, it was fine without it)
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/2 packed brown sugar
1/3 teaspoon hot chilli sauce, to taste

Directions

• In a large pan over medium heat, combine the onion, garlic and whiskey. Bring it to a simmer and leave it for at least 10 minutes, until the onion is softened and translucent. Mix in the ground black pepper, salt, ketchup, tomato paste, vinegar, liquid smoke, worcestershire sauce, brown sugar and hotsauce.

• Bring the whole thing to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes. By this point it should smell divine, taste and adjust the seasoning as needed. Run the sauce through a strainer and you are good to go.

• You can store any leftover sauce in an old jar in the fridge, it will keep for several weeks.

And there you have it: a mountain of pulled pork and a jar full of homemade barbecue sauce. You can shove it into buns or have it on it's own with veggies. The wonderful thing is that aside from shoving the pork in the oven, there's virtually no effort needed on your part. Make this for your friends as a sunday lunch and they will love you for it, and you don't need to be slaving away in the kitchen. Pork is an incredible thing, and this is one of the best possible ways to celebrate it.  

Embrace the Cake: four of my favourite temptations

There aren't many foods that are more welcoming than cake, if you think about it (and believe me, I have thought about it longer than most normal people would). Cake is like the equal opportunity posterboy of food - it welcomes everyone with open arms, regardless of colour, creed or taste. There's a cake for everyone, even vegetarians. Cakes come in all forms, shapes and sizes: fruit cakes, chocolate cakes, cheesecakes, hell even ice cream cakes. I mean, a pork pie is basically just a meat cake when you get down to it (Heston made one out of ice cream just to prove it). I have yet to meet a person that didn't like any cake....you may hold out and dislike a certain type of cake, but there are so many different ones that eventually you'll come across one that hits the spot. A good cake is like a hug from that auntie you really loved when you were a kid, you know, the one that gave you sweets on the sly and liked a bit of a drink.

Many will argue that the best cake you can get is the one made by your mum or your grandma, the one with the secret ingredients where you get to lick the bowl. And while I believe that's largely true for other dishes, when it comes to cakes I've got to give credit the real experts. Nostalgia tastes better than almost any ingredient you can buy, but sometimes you just have to tip your hat to perfection.

So with that in mind, I wanted to write about the best cakes that I have found in London, and where you can find them. Now this is hardly a definitive guide, but these are my go-to places after many, many years of eating cakes in London. If you have tried these places and found somewhere even better, then by god I want to know about it. If you haven't tried the places below, I cannot recommend them strongly enough for any fellow-cake lovers.

My Favourite Chocolate Cake

To me, chocolate cake is very much like spaghetti bolognese. Virtually anyone can make an average chocolate cake, but to make it incredible takes serious skill, talent and restraint. I've lost track of the number of average chocolate cakes out there, from the plasticy Cadbury's-esque birthday cakes you get (bit like eating a huge Mini-Roll, although there's nothing wrong with that) to the overly dry, hard chocolate cakes that go stingy on the icing. Getting it absolutely right is bloody hard, because chocolate is one of those flavours where the typical "just add more" logic can ultimately be its undoing. When you get an average chocolate cake, it's usually completely overloaded to try and mask its shortcomings in a flood of sugar and sickliness and therein lies the problem. You have to pick your moments, and hit the perfect chocolate taste in such a way that by the end of the meal the person doesn't feel sick to death. The very best chocolate cakes make you immediately consider having another piece, and to hell with all the people staring at you.

(On the side-topic of chocolate overload: on very rare occasions, and in the hands of experts, chocolate overload can be a good thing. The best example of this has to be the Chocolate Nemesis dessert at the River Cafe. The Chocolate Nemesis is basically what would happen if a chocolate cake, mousse, and fondant all had a baby together. And then bathed it in chocolate. But this particular dessert is made with some of the best chocolate money can buy, and is a bit like a visit from Jesus, but without the lectures.)


No, the perfect chocolate cake for me, is about quality and not quantity. Taking an average chocolate sponge and then drowning it in chocolate icing, chocolate bits and chocolate shavings is more of a shortcut to diabetes than a great cake. There's a balance that's essential, I think. And the single greatest embodiment of that balance for me, is the Curly Whirly cake from Konditor & Cook.

My girlfriend had been raving about K&C to me for ages, so when I finally made it to their little cafe inside the Curzon Soho, it was with great expectations. Even for a small concession, it's got a warm and welcoming vibe, cinemagoers mingling with shoppers and cakeaholics alike. They do a great variety of miniature cakes, cookies, meringues and brownies, but I was magnetically drawn straight to the Curly Whirly. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest to hear that this is their top-selling cake by a considerable margin. Delicate, fluffy, yet dense chocolate sponge layers are draped in a velvety smooth vanilla bean icing, with a token swirl of light milk chocolate on top. The quality that most immediately strikes you when you plunge your fork into its juicy chocolate heart is how light the whole thing is. The chocolate sponge is luscious and moist, yet doesn't clog up your mouth and has a gorgeously rich chocolate flavour that is immediately countered by the luscious vanilla icing. The second thing that strikes you is that it's not too sweet - you're not reaching for your water after every single bite. It gets everything right that you can ask for from a cake, and it's chocolate flavoured as well as an added bonus. I pretty much devoured the entire thing without blinking, before staring longingly at my victim's family trembling behind the protective casing of the display counter. As far as chocolate cake goes, it's my perfect 10.

A Small Answer to a Big Question

When you go to someone's place for dinner, the standard assumption is to bring some wine along, at least for the dinners that I go to (I'm missing out on the crazy dinner parties where you bring absinthe). Generally speaking, you bring a little tipple so that you don't drink your hosts dry. But one curious situation that I have come across is when you are either A) dining with a host who has great taste in wine and an ample supply of much better stuff that you can find at your local off license, or B) going to dinner with a load of people who are also all bringing wine and there's no way in hell you will drink it all. So let me suggest a little twist - take cupcakes.

The cupcake craze swept across London a couple of years ago, and thanks to places like the Hummingbird Bakery, these little parcels of joy have slowly embedded themselves in our confectionary subsconscious. Cupcakes also come with the added bonus of the "how do you eat it" game. I say this because people have a myriad of different ways of consuming cupcakes. While most of you probably peel away the casing and then go to town, devouring icing and sponge in equal measure, the popular thing to do in New York, for example, is to tear the bottom half of the sponge off and stack it on top of the icing to create a makeshift mini victoria sponge-type contraption. Other people, nutters though they may be, eat from the top down and just vaccuum all of the icing before polishing off the naked sponge below. Frankly, I'm not one to judge - whatever way gets the cake into your face without any of it touching the ground is A-OK with me.

Legendary.

The Hummingbird was actually started by a guy that went to my old high school, the American School in London. Noticing a cupcake-shaped hole in the market, he leapt in and set up the bakery with a clear identity and a killer product. To this day, there are few places in London that deliver a more consistent, high quality cupcake than the Hummingbird. They have branches in Soho, South Ken and Notting Hill, and you will see queues out the door on a daily basis. Kids, parents, tourists and students, everyone wants a bite. They were the first people to introduce Red Velvet cupcakes to the wider London audience, and these little badboys are their hallmark so you would be insane to visit without trying one. That said, their one-offs like the Sticky Toffee Pudding cupcake (epic) are always worth a try. Their cakes are certainly not too shabby either, but their real strength is the cupcakes.

The Ultimate Cupcake

Now after all that, it would be entirely understandable if you expected me to say that the Hummingbird does the best cupcake in London. And here's the thing - they do great, affordable cupcakes, and a wonderful variety that's great for accommodating guests and dinner parties. But if you want to really go after the Everest of cupcakes, the one cupcake to rule them all, you have to head over to the darkside.

Nestled within a patchwork quilt of sex shops, bars and bookshops in deepest Soho, Cox Cookies & Cake is not your typical cupcake shop. In fact, it looks more like a cross between a peep show and a neon Dentist's surgery. It's the sort of place old tourists probably rush past hurriedly, heads lowered in fear of what lurid affairs lurk inside. What they miss of course, is that instead of actual boobies, they sell boobie cakes (brown and white, of course).

Take your best shot, punk.

If there was one quality to Cox Cookies & Cake's products, it would be that they are both a little bit racy, and expertly crafted. They are also tremendously expensive for what you get. But in the case of one particular cupcake, what you get is the single most perfect cupcake I have found in the city. A cupcake whose every element is better than you would have any right to expect. A friend of mine vehemently called it the equivalent of a foodgasm, and after having finally sampled one myself, I would have to agree. I am, of course, talking about the Red Skull Cake.

A sumptuous chocolate sponge with a raspberry compote centre, tucked underneath a mountain of cloud-like red frosting. On top of this volcanic carapace perches a dark chocolate skull, questioning the bravery in your soul. Can you handle a cupcake this badass? Let me tell you right now, you can, and you should. It could be the harbinger of your eternal doom and you would still eat it in a heartbeat. It is certainly more expensive than your average cupcake, but then the Red Skull Cake laughs at average cupcakes and kicks them into a pit full of rabid tigers. It is a true guilty pleasure, and it is unrivalled in its delights.

The Four Corners of Awesome

For the longest time, I thought the best brownies ever were the ones made by my mum. Even though she would put frosting sugar on them, and occasionally added chopped walnuts, they were still the best brownies I had had. They were certainly superior to the icky, "luxury" brownies you seem to find in various bakeries here in London, where the chocolate is so unctuous it's a bit like trying to eat wet ceiling paste. I can kind of understand why people like brownies that wet, but for me they seem to miss the ultimate point of a brownie: it should be chewy, slightly crispy on the edges, and have a bit of substance when you bite into it. It should also have at least one edge extra crispy from the baking pan, which actually led me to a thought - since everyone's favourite bit of a brownie tin is the corners, why don't we make brownies that are all corners? I think we could be on to something here people.

Yes, you want it. I know. It's ok, it was amazing.

Until the day that some wonderful plagiarist creates the four-cornered brownie, we will just have to do with the wondrous squares of chewy chocolate goodness from my lovely neighbours at The Brownie Box. Located on Old Brompton Road in Earl's Court, the Brownie Box has been an absolute godsend on those weekends when I'm craving something cakey and nearby (which is most of them). Imagine my joy then when I discovered that this newly opened little shop serves up the best brownies I have ever tasted in London. The main thing I have to stress, is that they just don't taste anything like other brownies. They are richer, chewier, and more dense, with a deceptively light taste and glorious little nuggets of milk chocolate hidden away inside like small pleasure buttons for your senses. But the texture is closer to a really moist cookie, rather than the gooey schlock that you get in other brownies. There is definitely a secret ingredient nestled away in the depths of their recipe, and I think I may have figured it out, but I will leave that for you guys to figure out on your own. Pay them a visit and treat yourself to a couple of brownies, you won't regret it.

P.S. I should also just note that the Brownie Box also does a staggeringly good Carrot Cake, which my girlfriend happily devours (when I don't eat it before she does or am distracted by other cakes). It is the size of a small ship, lathered in cream cheese frosting and drizzled with a light caramel sauce that just yells at you to eat it without hesitation. Their Red Velvet cake is also glorious.

It's probably safe to say, after all this, that I am a fan of cake. I would probably bleed cake. I have had a love/love relationship with cake for the better part of my life, and will happily continue to seek out perfection wherever it lies. If you've never quite understood the attraction, go and see some of the people above; you might just discover you've been a fan all along.