Progress!

For those that know me and have been following Full English’s somewhat stuttering birth the good news is that we are finally making real progress.

The basement issues that have plagued us since day one are fully fixed – everything is dried out and as clean as a whistle.

We had a full week of shop fitting and it is finally starting to resemble a restaurant in there!  We’ve even got rid of the lurid green front which was a real pivotal moment for me.

So, when are we opening?  Still not entirely sure…  They are talking about retanking and the basement while we still have some issues with the electrics – I doubt it will be this side of Christmas but you never know…

Wine tasting…

Had two wine tastings at the flat this month – one with Jonathan from Yapp Brothers and the other with Peter from Novum.

Both companies offer exciting wines from smaller producers with Yapp focusing on wines from the Rhone and Loire areas of France with Novum leaning more toward New World – even including some Indian producers!

Our list will be short and focused but with some exciting and original producers and varietals at good honest prices.

My favourites from the tastings?  The Wall Flower Reisling was excellent as was the Rockburn Pinot.  The Chateau Roubaud that Jonathan brought along was aslo a block rocking Syrah Granache blend.

The Web Spinner

All this hiatus has given me time to work on another project, The Web Spinner, a browser based online html and CSS builder.

It’s a basically a web application, or cloud based wysiwyg application for making editing and building complex websites a breeze.

A bit of a depature but its a very exiciting project that takes me back to my previous life – check it out if you’re interested in that kind of thing.

Recipe try outs – pea shoots, pork and more plums

 

Bacon & egg with peashoots on toast

 

Finished this with a lovely warm honey, mustard and raspberry vinegar dressing.

 

Belly of pork with butterbeans

 

Stuffed the pork with a light layer of sage, date and lemon and roasted on top of the ribs.  Made a glorious marmitey meat juice sauce. The marrow and ginger jam was too sweet with the stuffing but will be nice with fish maybe as it was v. lemony.

 

Plum pies with homemade vanilla icecream

 

Free-styled an almond sweet pastry but it backfired on me – never frick about with patisserie! Was way too short and crumbly, couldn’t roll the bugger so had to press it into the mold. The plum filling rocked though – as did the faithful old ice cream recipe.

Hot plums on cinnamon toast

The day-to-day plums that most of us get from the super markets these days tend to be a bit hard and uninspiring eaten straight from the bowl.

 

My plums on toast

 

I’ve devised a great way to sweeten them up without cooking out all the goodness and making it into a delicious light(ish) breakfast.

Simply halve you plums, de-stone, pan fry in a little butter and add fruit based booze and sugar to taste towards the end to make a reduced syrup sauce.

Toast both sides of a good bit of bread (sourdough or something thereof) and then spread with a mixture of equal parts butter and sugar with a good pinch of cinnamon and ginger. Place the plums nicely on the toast, dust with icing sugar and serve.

Home cured mackerel on toast

 

3 bits with parsley, one with chilli sauce

 

Got this recipe from Olive magazine so I thought I’d give it a bash seeing as it fits in with the bacon curing, butter churning, bread baking ethos we are following at Full English.  I bought spankingly fresh mackerel from Steve Hats on Essex Road and processed the fish as soon as I got home.  

Fillet, de-bone and lay on a layer of equal parts salt and sugar (with lots of black pepper).  Refrigerate with weights on top, after 24hrs drain and repeat (I added more of the cure but the recipe didn’t mention this). After 48hrs remove, rinse pat dry and slice thinly – serve on buttered toast with some garnish or other – the chilli sauce was really good – mustard or wasabi would also work but lemon juice is essential.

The taste?  It reminded me of smoked salmon without the smoke.  Not overtly fishy (a good thing – that suggests the fish is old…) but a lovely texture and depth of mackerel flavour.

Sourdough bread

Having mastered the art of the New York Times no kneed bread the next logical step was to try a sourdough.

This would of course involve some kneeding and a more measured approach to proofing and the likes but the thing that got me really excited was the idea of growing a sourdough starter without using any instant processed yeast.

The idea of a sourdough starter is to encourage the growth and development of natural yeast spores found in the flour you use and in the environment surrounding you. This really is getting back in touch with a purely natural way of cooking.  Making bread is one of the most exciting and rewarding acts of cooking – bread is ace – homemade bread made with natural yeast from the air we breathe is freekin’ awesome!

So I set to work following one of the many guides found online (thanks S John Ross!).  Take your flour (I used unbleached wholemeal), add water and make a thick battery gloop.  Let sit at room temp with tea towel over the top to deter critters…

The first couple of days nothing much happened. By about the 4th day I had magic bubbles – a sign that something is happening with the yeast and bacteria. But woow – it totally stank of baby sick – never smealt anything quite like it.  So I kept feeding it each day and eventually it settled down and took on that lovely faintly sour beery hue.

So that was my starter sorted all, I needed to do was add more flour and water to develop a sponge, about 3 hours later you add more flour to get a bread consistency and then kneed for about 10 minutes (strangely cathartic actually).

Sourdough - the first rise

You then let it rise once more, knock it back and create a loaf.

Second rise as a loaf - nice slits...

Get it while it's hot

Oddly, the recipe I was following told you to cook the bread at 200 from cold (ie don’t preheat the oven).  This had the effect of rising the dough even further before the real heat kicked in and creating a lovely soft bread with an excellent crumb with little crust – perfect for sandwiches!

Charlotte made me get up early the next morning to construct a PBJ – a bit sacrilegious with such fine bread (aidsims) but she did say it was the best bread I’d made so far.

Next up – same recipe but using the dutch oven method so you get a more french style crust and some wholemeal individual rolls – yumosa!

Welsh Rarebit

Apparently the name Welsh Rarebit is a dig at the Welsh.

You’d think there’d be plenty of other options for riling our celtic cousins without resorting to a poke at this classic comfort food that has become so popular over the last couple of years. But apparently it relates to the fact that whilst rabbit was the cheap food standby for the English, the Welsh standby was cheese – hence Welsh Rarebit…

With a classic recipe there are of course 59 different ways of doing it – beer or no beer – roux or no roux etc etc. Last night I tried the no-beer roux route. Lovely with some old school soft lettuce and pepper salad with a honey and raspberry vinegar dressing.

Welsh rarebit

Lunch at The Duke of Cambridge – Islington

Due to my extended period of downtime given that, unbelievably, we are still having to pump out the basement on a daily basis, I took the opportunity to try a local establishment for lunch with me old mate Al.

The last time we did this was about 6 months ago when we ended up having a legendary meal of roast quail and sauerkraut at the Anchor and Hope in Waterloo.

Like that time (snails and ox heart) Al chose to stick with an offal’esque selection at The Duke with cuttle fish and white bean on toast followed by Ox tail and braised pearl barley – and very nice it was too.  The Duke are slavish to their organic paradigm – the only pub in the UK (the world?) to have certification from the Soil Society  – so their dishes are seasonal, sustainable and, for once all the better for it.

Our approach at Full English is not to be a flag waving, organic pioneer, rather an establishment that obsesses over the flavour and welfare of the animals we butcher and serve. There’s no doubt in my mind that a happy pig is a tasty pig – an given that I happen to quite like pigs anyway, I don’t want to be responsible for making that pig spend its days inside on a hard concrete floor.

I’m pretty sure that the porker in my bacon and egg sandwich was a happy one – I certainly was when I’d washed it down with a couple of pints of Eco Warrior!

My bacon & egg sandwich with sautéd pots

Al's oxtail and braised pearl barley

Felix had the milk special!

Some mid-summer bbq action!

Went to the Barge Inn near Pewsey, Wiltshire at the weekend to celebrate Tony Crackburn’s 40th!

Took advantage of the scorching weather to crack out the barbie and roast up some ribs and other delights.

Grilling the Aubergines for babaganush

The babaganush was stuffed inside some turkish peppers. A bit bland in the end – none of that rich smokeyness that you’d expect.

Radishes at Marlborough market

Ginger pig ribs and chipolatas

The ribs ruled – sticky and sweet from their bourbon and horseradish marinade.

Tony Crackburn's wicked kebobs

Tony’s kebob’s in full effect – nice use of whole mini peppers Tony!

Berry Compotes and Soda Farls

 

Wiping the plate clean

 

Five-a-day?  Me neither…

Not at the moment anyway.  Bread for breakfast, bread for lunch (sandwich styleé), then something bordering on vegetables for tea if I’m lucky.

However, given my obsession with soda farls I’ve become equally addicted to the berry compote.

They are so easy to make and have a fraction of the sugar of a jam but taste just as great.  Plus, they aren’t boiled to buggery so they don’t loose loads of their nutrient content.

Strangely, given our leaning towards all things English, my fav. is the blueberry compote – kinda American in it’s outlook.  No matter, the blueberry creates a wonderful light syrup and combined with real vanilla is a real treat.

 

Blueberry Compote with Soda Farls

Make sure you add a little sugar to the farl recipe here

 

For the compote:

1 punet of blueberries (serves 2 generously)

2 tea spoons of sugar

1 vanilla pod

 

Wash the blueberries and add to a small pan.  Add enough water so that the berries are barely coated (think steaming spinach – about that amount) – DON’T ADD TOO MUCH – you can always add but its a lot of faff to take out the berries and reduce the syrup later.

Sprinkle over the sugar, split the vanilla pod to scrape out the seeds – add those and chuck in the pod itself for good measure – stir lightly to combine.  

Get the mixture up to boiling and simmer gently for about 5 mins.  The blueberries should be starting to break up but not completely turned to mush.

CAREFULLY taste the syrup – don’t forget it has sugar in there and will be volcanic – if its too loose take out the berries and boil hard to the right consistency  – it should be like loose jam but not too runny. 

Take out the vanilla pod and allow to cool.

Best served slightly warm with the farl and lashings of salted butter.

Yumosa!

Ducks Eggs on toast – animated!

Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored…..

Get yourself a big fat Welsh duck egg (thanks mum), a Canon 350D and snap away…

 

Cracking - click the image if it doesn't animate

 

But seriously though, I hope we can get a regular supply of these.  They taste great, really rich, and I love that orange gloss the yolk covers the plate with.  Yum

 

 

Glossy

Roast Pork with new Garlic

Roast pork and garlic one

 

Watching MPW during the week and the awesome pork belly he knocked up got us dreaming of the same for Sunday lunch.  

We left it too late to go to a butchers for our meat but fortunately, Waitrose had some nice looking rare bread free range joints – no belly so we had to make do with some shoulder.

After all the nonsense with the basement of the restaurant (still pumping it out, still filling back up again) I felt like we deserved a treat so we didn’t feel too guilty about the crackling and olive oil roast potatoes that filled our plates.

Interestingly, MPW cooked his belly at 160 for about 2 hours and the crackling looked great.  I normally start it at 220 for 20 mins and reduce to 180 for the rest of the time but I thought I try it his way.  It kinda worked but I had to whack it up towards the end to crisp it up and get the pots nice and crispy too.

 

Roast pork and garlic two

 

The sun was starting to set as the pork was resting so I grabbed the camera and snapped a few shots in the gorgeous evening light. 

The first garlic of the year was also from Waitrose – its not dried in the same way as garlic normally is so its a treat when roasted and eaten whole with the rest of the meal.  Looks great on a wooden board next to the hunk of meat.

 

Roast pork - the final dish

Apple Velvets – our take on the black velvet

Nothing is new. Or so said some old poet or other. Having said that, I think our take on the black velvet classic champagne cocktail is a nice little twist.

Take the best champagne method West Country cider (instead of “real” champagne) and give it a Guinness float – it looks great (a little cloudy maybe) and is a wicked hangover cure.

Problem is, you need Guinness with a widget (a method they use of recreating draft Guinness) – it works v well but the fizz disappears quite quickly meaning it all needs drinking there and then.  I played around with serving extra Guinness on the side but I think the best bet is to serve it in a tankard or make it a drink for two  – a bit like a Chateaubriand.

Turns out nothing IS new – [wiki →]

Run through two – the menus

Two sittings tomorrow, brunch and lunch/brunch.  That disctinction wont really be made when we open but it makes it easier for today.

The menus (combined here):

 

Smoothies 3.5 / add a twist of goodtimes* 5.5

Peanut butter, banana & Full English ice cream

3 berry, ginger & live vanilla yoghurt

 

Soft drinks

Chegworth Valley Juices & Elderflower cordial

 

‘Liveners’ 5.5

Cider Royale – Dorset cider ‘champagne’ with a splash of creme de mure

Black velvet – Prosecco with a ‘stout’ top

 

Brunch/Lunch

Full English – dry cure bacon, F.Godfrey chipolatas, 2 eggs, toast, vine toms & Heinz beans  8

Ulster Fry – griddled soda farl, guest bacon, a cumberland, 2 eggs, vine toms & Heinz beans  8.5

Bacon and eggs with toast 5

Broad bean, bacon & egg salad 6

Griddle bread with blueberry vanilla compote & thick organic yoghurt  5.5

Steve Hat’s smoked mackerel with scrambled eggs on toast  7.5

Charred asparagus with Dorset cheddar & poached eggs béchemel on toast  7.5

Chicken & leek pie with minted peas pureé & mash  11

Macaroni cheese 7 / add bacon 8.50

Cinnamon toast with butter fired Cox’s orange pippin & Lyle’s syrup  4

 

Junior plates

Half English – sausage, bacon, egg, toast, vine toms & beans   4.5

Cheese & apple sandwich  2

Toasty triangles with organic Heinz beans or mashed banana 1

“I’ve got the key…”

“I’ve got the deep shit…”

So, I’m the proud owner of a mid-sized cafe/restaurant/diner in Highbury.  We picked up the keys yesterday after a farcical day of builders left stranded with no work to do and too many trips to Travis Perkins than is good for any man.

Hooray! Rob’s finally up the ladder!

Problem is, when we finally got in the basement was flooded with 10k gallons of water – the hunt was soon on for a sub pump and wellies to get to the bottom of it.

My approach to this whole project is to remain calm, focused and determined – I’m now in control of my own destiny – so I didn’t panic and instead concentrated on the job in hand.  The water was soon pumped out and any remaining residue was scooped out with a dustpan and buckets.

Off I trotted to Wickes (anything for a change of scene) and on my return I was presented with said dry basement as full as it was that morning.  Pumping the water into the drain outside the restaurant simply refilled the clearly broken drainage system which in turn refilled the basement.  Bugger.

Bugger – the water’s back…

So the council promise they will come out and fix it but in the meantime I’m left with an all mighty cleaning job and the nasty smell of standing water permeating the whole building.

Ah well, at least my bottle of Neagles Rock from Yapp Bros. turned up – calm,  focused, determined, pissed…

In at the deep end…

Menu run through No1 today – up at 6.30 and 2 sittings at 11 and 1pm (although we only did 15 covers).

Today was all about breakfasts – there will be a much more varied menu when we open  -don’t think I explained that very well.  

Think it basically went well although I’m yet to have feedback.  Some food was late and the Bloody Marys were rubbish but I think everything was hot, looked nice and tasted good.

Thanks to all for attending and Ash (http://www.a-mphotography.com) for the excellent pics of the food and proceedings.

 

We turned the our bedroom into Full English for one day.  Michaela had the eggy bread with bacon  – sorry it was sooo late – she’s eating for two bless her.  Charlotte ruled it as front of house.

 

 

We had a smoked and a green bacon on today – smoked was most popular by about 3:1

 

 

Deb’s Bloody Mary looks nice but apparently it lacked flavour and kick – I don’t like BMs so I’ve got no reference point.  Thankfully little Ben is on hand with his refined buds…

 

 

 

Mmm – really nice, firm smoked salmon with scrambled and muffins.  Won’t be cheap but the quality of the salmon is excellent.

 

 

 

The Full English – forgot the vine toms which would have added to the overall effect.  Forgot to butter the toast too…

 

 

The Ulster Fry – quickly becoming a favourite – I L.O.V.E farls. But poached eggs are def the hardest of the breakfast staple. You have to watch them like hawks and different eggs from the same batch react completely differently  – some go into lovely tight shapes, the others spread through the poaching water and look awful. 

Ulster Fry – The Irish Full English

Of course, I’m writing that from an Englishman’s POV. No mater, the Ulster fry is everything you love about the Full English fry up with the addition of a great invention – the instant breakfast bread – AKA the farl [wiki→] .

My recipe uses organic plain flour with a lower protein level than bread flour (just look out for the nutrition info on the back – you want something at about 9g per 100 as opposed to bread flour at up to 14g).

The Farl encompasses simplicity perfectly – flour, baking powder, yoghurt, whole milk – mix, form and bake!  No waiting for rising or proving as the baking powder does all the work.

You need a good heavy griddle pan to get the lovely toasty lines but a flat cast iron pan will be just as good.

I went with poached eggs as I’m maxed out on cholesterol   this week already – fried would be more extravagant.  The sausage is Frank Godfrey, so too is the bacon – both really, really good.  The beans are of course Heinz – never will an inferior bean grace the plates of my restaurant whilst my name is over the door!

 

 

Ulster Fry

You should really know how to do your sausage and bacon by now – slow and steady wins the race – make sure the heat is low/medium and take your time.  Please respect our porcine friends and find the best sausage and bacon you can – they really do taste better the better time they’ve had in the field.

Poached eggs – with the shell on drop the eggs gently into a shallow, wide pan of simmering water and count to 40.  Remove and set aside.  When you’re ready to go (about 3 mins before the end) crack the eggs very slowly into the water.  The pre-cook should have formed the eggs slightly holding them together better (Copyright Elizabeth David).  Bubble away until the eggs are to your liking – I pick them out of the water with a slotted spoon and check the white with my finger – I don’t like runny white be insist on runny yellow!

Farl – for 1 person 

100 grms plain organic flour

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

50mls whole milk

30mls yoghurt – good quality, live organic is best

Sift flour and baking soda, combine yog and milk and stir in.  The mixture should be loose but with flour on your hands you should be able to transfer to board and shape roughly with your hands into triangle shape (if making for more than 1 you would form a circle and cut out triangles).

Get your griddle pan up to temperature (low/medium heat), rub with butter and sprinkle with flour. Leave for a few minutes to toast and then drop in your dough.  You only want to turn once so leave it 5 mins (don’t let it burn!) and then flip.

Plate up and don’t let the beans touch the egg! 

Sausage time in Amsterdam

Trawling Flickr for inspiration for our large format prints. Stumbled across this great shot of sausage  – somewhat apt that it’s from a Dutch poster!  

Haven’t got a clue what he’s banging on about but you can see the pic in all its glory here  and our man Breeblebox has a great food set too. 

Bacon flow chart

Love this – I will now consult chart every morning to ease my bacon guilt. 

 

Smoked Haddock Bubble & Squeak & Gin & Tonics

More fine tuning today – G & Ts are one of those British institutions like the Full English breakfast that really only benefit from using the best ingredients in the most simple way.  One Full English may look posher than the next but its the provenance of the ingredients that will determine the outcome.  If you muck about with it then you in for a world of pain (home made beans! – don’t make me laugh – hash browns! – keep ’em State side I say).

So for a great G & T use the best tonic (Fever Tree is excellent – a million miles from supermarket or even Schweppes), the best gin (there’s lots of best gins but I use Juniper Green organic which has the advantage of being distilled in Clapham) and good chunks of gnarly lemon. I added a couple of black berries last night which turned the drink a pleasant pink shade – not that trad though…

 

Had this last night with smoked haddock bubble and squeak with crispy streaky bacon.  Smoked haddock was from Steve Hats, the bacon from the Canonbury  butchers at the top of Highbury Park.  Poached the eggs ‘Elizabeth David’ style – worked brilliantly.  Must remember to let the bubble chill properly  next time.

 

English cinnamon toast with pan fried apples

Also known as “Cinnamon toast with buttered fired Cox’s orange pippins” – this is one of those dishes I had planned and put on the menu before I had even tried it – it just sounded right.

The key is in getting the butter/cinnamon/sugar ratio right (although, you can’t really have too much butter!) – I cream 30g butter with 1tbsp or sugar and just under 1tbsp of cinnamon. Creaming really helps to start the sugar dissolve meaning that at the grilling stage it stands a chance of melting into the syrupy mix before the toast burns.

This is a sweet dish – its meant to be – but adding a splash of lemon juice to the apples helps cut through some of that.  You could probably flambé them with brandy too if the mood took you – á la Keith Floyd  – did he make it by the way, or did he end up flambéed?  [→Hmm Google doesn’t seem to know…]

 

 

Cinnamon toast with buttered fired Cox’s orange pippins

2 thick slices of good white bread 

40g good butter

1 Cox’s orange pippin apple

1 1/2 tbsp unrefined brown sugar

1 tbsp cinnamon (see above)

Squeeze of lemon

 

Heat the grill to medium high, toast bread well in toaster (or on both sides if under grill). Cream together 1 tbsp of the sugar, 30g of the butter and the cinnamon in a bowl with a handheld whisk. Cut apple into 8 equal sized slices (a corer is almost a necessity), heat 10g of butter in a heavy frying pan and add the apple.  Fry on medium/low until they take on some colour and then add 1/2 tbsp of  sugar and squeeze of lemon.  Keep frying until the sugar has melt and the apples feel cooked when poked with sharp knive (don’t over cook to a sludge though!).

Whilst the apples are cooking, spread creamed butter mixture over the slices of toast and place under grill – watch it doesn’t burn – and grill until the sugar has pretty much melted into the toast along with the butter and cinnamon.  Plate up the toast, place apples on in a pleasing fashion and pour over the pan juices.  You can dust with a little icing sugar if you choose.

Yumosa! 

 

 

Damn fine chicken and leek pie recipe

Hi there – you’ve probably ended up here via Google – this is by far the most popular post on our fledgling blog.  Try this chicken and leek recipe out, its great – and let me know how you get on in the comments!  If you’re in London or visiting soon check out our Restaurant in Highbury – Full English will be serving fine English food in our small, local premises – yumosa!  James

This week is all about getting ready for Sunday’s first test run of a short brunch/lunch menu.

A trip to Ikea for essentials, more plates, glasses, jugs, tea lights etc were procured along with a rare visit to Tes*o seeing as its next door and time was ticking.

Cooked chicken and leek pie with mashed potatoes and pea purée – pic above.  The pastry I’ve developed is really doing it now – very short, crispy, flaky – really happy with it.  Here’s the recipe with my notes from the evenings session;

Chicken and Leek pie – serves 2

2 oz butter

2 oz lard

6 oz plain organic flour

2 Free range chook breasts

1 leek

Basic roux (butter, flour, milk)

Mustard

Good cheddar

Start with the pastry – freeze the butter and lard together in a block for 1 hour.  Sift flour into large bowl and add a good pinch of salt or two.  Grate frozen butter/lard into bowl and combine with flour using wooden spoon.  Then run tap till as cold as poss. and fill a jug with some water.  Add to the flour in small steps, stir and mix until the dough doesn’t stick to the bowl.  Kneed together for a maximum of 30secs – the aim is to get as little heat as poss. into the pastry.  Cover in wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 mins.

Make basic roux (no measurements, just make enough…)  – fry leek in butter still soft and very slightly turning, add flour and then milk gradually to make roux.  Cook flour out for at least 10 mins. Add mustard and salt to taste and one hand full of good cheddar and walnut sized chicken pieces (2 breasts is very genorous – you can easily lighten the load with more veggies).  Cook for a couple of mins to start the cooking process of the chicken.

Get your pastry out – flour surface and rolling pin well.  Take 2/3s of pastry and roll to about 1.5mm thick. Line your well greased pie dish (I use falcon enamel ware) and press down to get good contact.  With the excess pastry, place your hands over the top of the dish and push down over the edges so the edge acts as a knife and ‘cuts’ the pastry to fit – brush pastry with egg white.

Fill the dish very generously with cheesy chicken filling.  Roll out rest of pastry to 2mm and place on top – repeat the cutting motion and crimp with finger and thumb.  Add any decoration you like and pierce top to let steam out.

Cook at 200° to 20 mins and 180° for 25 mins – place it on a tray cos it will probably ooze filling.

Serve with good mash and pea purée.

We had cider royales to match – good sparkling dry cider and some cassis – yumosa!

Brown Bread Ice Cream

Simple English Food.  That’s our aim. But its nice to pretend that its actually a bit harder than that sometimes – we all like to be martyrs to the cause.  

Take brown bread ice cream – a recipe that I wanted on the menu from day one – hours slaving over hot custards and kneading wholemeal doughs until perfectly formed, sweet baby Jesus!

Problem is, its easier than stealing catch phrases from northern comics.

The power of the internet really comes into its own with old English recipes like this.  My final version is an amalgamation of various recipes I found on t’internet with the addition of homemade honey comb.

 

Adding the condensed milk to the cream – easy as pie…

 

The basic ice cream

1 pint good quality double cream

1 400ml can of condensed milk

Half vanilla pod 

Splash of dark booze (single malt works as does good brandy)

Whisk the cream to peaks, stir in the other ingredients and churn.  You can probably just whack it in the freezer too – just stir vigorously after a few hours.

 

To get the brown bread in the mix I take stale wholemeal bread I’ve baked, blitz for a second or 2 (you want good sized crumbs – maybe 1/4 the size of a Malteser) spread in oven proof dish, add a few good knobs of butter and sprinkle liberally  with sugar and Maldon salt (much more sugar than salt of course). Bake this for about 15 mins at 180° until caramelized and crunchy, cool and stir into the ice cream before churning/freezing.

Add the honey comb to take it one step further – melt sugar and golden syrup until bubbling (don’t take it too far).  Take off the heat and add bicarb soda (about 1/2 teaspoon).  Pour into WELL greased or lined dish and allow to cool.  You should then be able to smash it up into little splinters and slithers and add at the same time as the bread crunch.  

Bacon infused cocktails

Obsessed as we are with bacon, this recipe for Bacon-Infused Old-fashioned [wiki →] really caught my eye.

It sounds hideous, but never one to let bacon lipids get in the way of a good stiff drink it feels ripe for a (Full) English twist.

Bacon Infused Somerset Brandy and Golden Syrup Old-Fashioned anyone?  I’ll get back to you on that…

St John Bread and Wine bacon sarnie

All in the name of research I paid a visit to the Spitalfield’s St John to try their legendary bacon sarnie this AM.

The day started with a 7am visit to New Spitalfields market to get a feeling for what’s on offer from a fruit and veg POV (not a lot apart from loads of imported exotics and the most MENTAL forklift drivers you have ever seen! 4°C looks interesting though).  

It seemed fitting to visit the old  Spitalfields in the same morning.  Parked up at the top of Bricklane and grabbed a coffee from Coffee@ – v nice crema and micro foam on the capp – and walked through the current redevelopment of the market – looking a bit too shiny for my liking…

On a restaurant tip all of the those that open for breakfast were empty at 9am (Canteen, S and M, Leon and as we found out later St John – like, no one at all in there) except Giraffe. How? Why??! Its got to be the weirdest, most uninspiring place going – but there go, must be something going for it.

Anyway, the sarnie… Char and I ordered one each and they are huge! The bacon is Gloucester old spot, many, many rashers of it (well, maybe 3 or 4) that had been pleasingly char-grilled.  

The bread looked like a bloomer  – I assume from their own bakery, it had also been on the char-grill – and the ketchup was home made.  Never really get this  – why not give us Heinz?  Same with baked beans – Heinz all the way I say (unless you’re a Mexican or Leon type or place).

Their sauce had good fresh flavour but as very runny, more like a soup than a ketchup.

Apart from that you couldn’t really fault it for the excellence of the bacon inside.

Char couldn’t eat all of hers so the bacon we bought home is going into tonight’s  salad – yumosa!

Perfecting our bread recipe: part 1

As a relative novice to bread baking most people I discuss such things with say ‘are you really going to bake your own bread for the restaurant’.  The easy gun-ho answer is, absolutely!

Whether I’ll be that sparky come week 3 opening who knows but the discovery of the New York Times method about 18 months ago led me to believe it is possible bake high quality loaves from crusty artisan whites to complex, seedy wholemeals with little more than quality ingredients, perseverance and a bit of time to let the flour, yeast, salt and water do its magic.

However, banging a bit of flour and yeast that’s been bubbling away for 18 hours in a scorching hot pot is all well and good but a bit hit and miss for regular bread production.  I’ve decided to be a bit more scientific in my approach.  Here are the results of my first 2 trials:

 

Bread 1 – 6th May 2008, 10am 

3 cups Bacheldre wholemeal

1 1/4 cups of water (vegas cup)

1 green spoon maldon

1 green spoon yeast

Kneaded for 30 secs to bring ingredients together, very stiff dough

 

Bread 2 – 6th May 2008 7pm

3 cups Dove wholemeal

400mls water

1 green spoon maldon

1/2 green spoon yeast

No knead

Both went in at 11.50 am next day.  20 mins 240 deg with lid on. 40 mins 180 deg lid off. 

 

Cups? Green spoon??  Well I borrowed the cups route from our American cousins in the original recipe, but its not their kinda cups, its actually the Vegas mug (brought back from our recent trip) to be anally precise. I will get around to weighing a cups worth of flour and revert to weights from now on but it is v accurate. The green spoon is a large tea spoon that is perfect for measuring regular measures of dry material.

The first batch is a very dry, stiff dough.  The extra long proving time was to compensate this, however even after 26 hours, the bread hadn’t really developed.  When baked, it hardly rose and was very heavy with a nutty crust.  Interesting but not really a result.

Bread 2 was the more classically ‘shaggy’ dough which rose beautifully and given the shorter baking time at 240° had a nice thin crust, good for sandwiches and toasting for scrambled eggs etc. It was however, very spongy – almost like a pre-toasted scone – I’ve had this before with this technique and I think its basically under cooked but an hour should be plenty – too much water I think.

Will be trying another no kneed method with more yeast and a shorter prove time tomorrow and will post the results.

Bread 1

 

Bread 2

Swank v Skank – cafés that is…

Nice article on London Review of Breakfasts – Op-Egg: Solving the breakfast class divide

The gist being that the classic greasy spoon bangs out a disciplined breakfast – quick, reliable with kitchens run like a Nelson ship – but the quality is dubious, esp. in the meat department. The nouveau cafés strive to give you the name of the porker your rasher came from and hand crafted breads from God’s kitchen but haven’t got a clue how to cook it and are too lazy and posh to really care.

The driving inspiration for Full English is Simple English Food.  As someone who is interested in design and no doubt a bit of a sucker for things verging on the poncey I hope that we don’t slip into the design-over-substance black hole.

No doubt LRoB will let us know if we do!

PS – here’s a latest impression of the shop front.  Should I be scruffing it up a bit?!

 

Contact us (me)

If you’ve got any comments, questions or queries drop me a line.

I’m currently seeing suppliers of English quality produce (especially if its local to the London area) – if you fit that bill let me know.

Want to work at Full English – I’m looking for chefs with 1 to 3 years experience who are obsessed with quality English food and who want to work with a small North London company that really care about what they produce – get in touch with a C.V. We are also looking for a front of house team – especially if you live in the Highbury / Stoke Newington area.

Our menus

Writing a menu is fantastic when you’re not actually producing it every day.

Given that we haven’t opened our doors yet we are still in that fantasy position – no supply issues, no consistency problems, no cost issues etc – but below represents the food we are currently perfecting and displays what we hope to be offering from day one.

A note on sourcing – all eggs and meat are free-range, organic where feasible.  Click here to read more about our approach to sustainability and sourcing.

 

Breakfast/Brunch examples

The Full English – 2 rashers dry cured free range bacon*, 2 Frank Godfrey Cumberlands, 2 eggs (poached, scrambled or fried), Heinz beans, vine toms and toast

Porridge with dates and London honey

Corned beef hash on a toasted muffin with a fried duck egg 

Ginger pig green back bacon and marmalade sandwich

Smoked Haddock bubble and squeak with a poached egg

Chelsea buns, rock cakes, scones with cream and toast with Full English house butter

 

Salads

Chicken and Fig with quince and raspberry vinegar dressing

Stichleton and walnut with dandelion and a honey and mustard dressing

Purple Sprouting, Hard Cheese, bacon and poached duck egg

 

Lunch Specials

Welsh rarebit with a mug of split pea soup

Smoked mackerel paté, toast and organic crudités

Chicken & leek pie with spring greans 

Blue cheese, walnut & fig salad

Rabbit and sausage stew with root mash

 

Mains

Toad in the Hole

Shepherds Pie 

Steak and Ale pudding

Chicken and Leek pie 

3 fish pie

Macaroni cheese

Pea tartlets

Potatoes and Ham with red leicester béchamel

Duck egg, gammon and chips 

Full English – what’s that then?

Hmm – difficult post this…

Full English is (or will be when we open) a restaurant/diner in North London* serving classic, simple, brilliantly sourced English food and drinks throughout the day.

With a name like that we will of course be famous for our breakfasts and weekend brunches but we will also focus on English salads, pies and other main courses.

As new restauranteurs in a small unassuming site, the emphasis will be on quality and simplicity.  Daily lunch specials for those who work in the area, healthy options for the local mothers and their entourage, short evening menus and hot takeaway pies in our own 100% recyclable packaging and the best breakfast this side of the Wolsley.

By churning our own butter, curing our bacon and baking all our own bread and pies from scratch we hope to inject some real passion and quality into London dining outside of Zone 1.  

 

Mock up of our shop front (using The Old Dairy, Crouch Hill in this instance)

 

James Law – who’s he then?

I’m the guy behind Full English – the interior designer (with lots of help from my friend Sarah), the graphic designer, the chef (to start with anyway) and the barista.  Driven by a passion for food and a burning desire to run my own business, Full English is the culmination of a life time of eating and dreaming about how I would do it given the chance.

*I’ll update the venue when we’ve signed the lease – don’t want to jinx it

Makin’ Bacon

Part of the Full English philosophy is to experiment with in-house production of as many ingredients and products as possible.  Over the coming weeks we are going to master butter, bacon and bread as our staples but the aim is avoid buying in anything that we can possibly produce after taking into account lack of time, space and indeed knowledge.

I never want to see tired, bought in cakes and pastries when our own chelsea buns and rock cakes are so simple to produce and ten times better.  

It’s unlikely that all of our butter for cooking will be home produced, but given that it takes all of 5 minutes to make a thick, creamy, fresh and unpasteurized (when we want to) version far superior to that off the shelf, then I see no reason why all of our table butter and all butter in our mashed potatoes can’t be produced in-house.  The results are definitely worth it and it gives us the chance to play around with cream from different independent dairies.  We might not go as far as a ‘butter menu’, but it could be fun to have on the black board ‘this week’s butter made with Hinxden Farm Dairy cream’.   

Of course, butter production gives us a plentiful supply of fresh butter milk – brilliant for making our breakfast muffins and scones!

 

Putting our first bacon cure to good use with a play on Petit Sale using haricot beans instead of lentils

But when it comes to bacon, given our dedication to the breakfast genre, we are obsessive about every last detail of this porcine delicacy.  So far we have dry cured bellies from Frank Godfrey  and The Ginger Pig  with varying results and the search continues for the perfect cure so that our ‘house bacon’ will be really special.  I’m as yet undecided if we will invest in a smoker from day one so we may have to rely on our regular and one-off guest bacons to fulfill that role, but either way, ordering bacon at Full English should give you one of the finest and widest range of choices in the capital.