Planet of Sound

Remember Planet Sound, the Channel 4 Teletext music pages? This was my final entry on The Void (the letters page) where I feature next to the great Tyler Durden. What ever happened to Rebecca Nahid?

Almost... Sweet Talk... Caffeine!

Hmmmmmm, I love me a cup of Joe...

I am making a pot of coffee as I write.  I love coffee.   When I say coffee, I mean coffee out of a bean and not out of a jar.   I like "proper coffee" but find instant coffee undrinkable.  Similarly I can't bear coffee flavoured things;  coffee and walnut cake must be the most over-rated cake EVER and the coffee ones in the Quality Street would be the last to go if they still made them (when I lived with my parents we'd give them all to my Aunt but she is no longer with us and I no longer do.  My wife loved the coffee ones!)

The coffee I am about to have was provided by this company:

http://www.craftedcoffee.co.uk/

Crafted Coffee is a local company that imports quality coffee and grinds and blends the beans so I don't have to and most importantly is run by a coffee lover who I just happen to have met.  I was intrigued by the business and was happy to try the product, I can indeed confirm that their Brazilian Fazenda Rodomunho is delicious.

Even from my crappy cheap coffee machine, which is made my some brand called Solway. Until recently I made all of my coffee in a Bodum cafetiere.  I'm not sure even where the Solway machine came from, I think it was given to us by one of my wife's neighbours when we first moved in together and we'd never used it.  In fact, it failed to sell at the last car-boot sale we did for £1!  But, with a clean up and some decent coffee filters it works fine.  I have produced a robust, rich cup with a good roasted flavour.  I used to have a bean grinder but frankly I am too lazy for that sort of thing and Crafted Coffee make a much better job of it than I ever could.  They also describe the coffee better, so that link again: http://www.craftedcoffee.co.uk/

Having met the proprietor,  Lorraine, I was also enthusiastic about the potential quality of her product due to a mutual dislike (and in my case that is putting it mildly) of Starbucks.  I do like to support local business when possible but at the same time financial restrictions sometimes make using larger chains a necessity.  I've had decent cups of coffee in both Cafe Nero and Costa but the first time I ever went to a Starbucks I was genuinely shocked.  There are various reasons for which one may dislike Starbucks:  Their questionable ethics on paying tax in the UK perhaps? Or their part in driving smaller local businesses out of town by having at least one branch in every town.  But I would say by far the easiest reason for disliking Starbucks is for making such bloody awful coffee.

The first time I had a Starbucks coffee was at an airport.  If I remember correctly I had just returned from Hong Kong, a flight of some 12 hours and I was knackered and jet-lagged.  The only coffee place open at the hour of silly O clock when we arrived back was a Starbucks so we went in and I ordered for myself a large Americano with milk.  A large Americano was my coffee of choice from the Cafe Nero which was near my place of work at the time and it contained enough flavour and caffeine to satisfy me and have me nicely on edge.  Starbucks provided me with a cup of warm, brown water that could have been shamed by Nescafe.  To say it was a disappointment is a massive understatement.  I'd have been more stimulated by walking past a Costa and inhaling deeply.  Fair enough; airport branch early in the morning, perhaps they just didn't have their doo-doos together, so I have tried a Starbucks since then (again, only because of a lack of options) and it was again a feeble attempt at a cup of coffee.  Perhaps they should spend less time arsing about with syrups and toppings and get back to basics!

I am about to have my third cup of Fazenda Rodomunho, it is going down very nicely indeed.  I'm not generally here to plug businesses (apart from http://www.starjammer-internet.com/) but I really do appreciate a decent coffee and Crafted Coffee provide a decent cup of coffee.  So, that link again: http://www.craftedcoffee.co.uk/.  Go on, try them.  To be frank, you can get coffee cheaper elsewhere but I'd be surprised if you can get it better.

Spanish bombs in Andalusia...

I have just made my first paella.  I have made risotto several times and I've had some fantastic goes at that (my own crab and sweetcorn risotto and my wife's roasted cherry tomato risotto are currently tied as my favorites though mine is definitely not to everyone's taste, the rice being initially fried in the oil from a can of anchovies...) but I'd never attempted paella.  To be frank, I've never had a really good paella either.

Manuel: Mr. Fawlty!
Basil: What?
Manuel (wailing): He put mince in it! He put bloody mince in it!!! [he holds Basil's drink and it spills all over Basil]
Basil (very angry): Look what you've done!!
Manuel: Sorry! Sorry! I tell him paella is fish dish.
Basil: Go away!
Manuel: What I do?
Basil: Arriba! Vamoose!

My first introduction to paella was through the Fawlty Towers: The Anniversary episode.  As a special honour Basil is allowing Manuel to cook Paella for Basil and Sybil's anniversary.   Terry the chef is put out and interferes, putting "mince" in it. The shocking thing is that despite never having had it myself, I do vaguely remember in the 70s and early 80s the idea in the UK that paella (pronounced of course as "Pie Ella") being a dish composed mainly of rice and minced beef.  I've always assumed this was down to the British and their backward approach to food in the austere 1970s but a little research has not supported this, in fact I found this text on one site about traditional Spanish food:

Paella is perhaps the most well known Spanish dish that includes bomba, a type of short-grain rice native to Spain. It browns in the bottom of a wide paella pan to form soccarat, a crust thought to be the dish's best part. Various ingredients are included in paella depending on the regional influence. People from inland cattle-grazing areas may include ground beef and diced potatoes. Additional paella ingredients include red peppers, onions, garlic, capers, jamon serrano, tomatoes and mushrooms.

So, there, it is almost certainly down to wherever the first paella recipes were imported from.  Honestly, this reckless abandon to insult British cooking really can be tiresome.

In any-case, Manuel was wrong.  Firstly, I would say "classic" paella used not so much fish as seafood.  Secondly, other than seafood (usually mussels and king prawns) the most common ingredients are chicken and chorizo, a pork based garlic and paprika sausage.  I would go as far as to say that the rich infusion in to the dish from chorizo was vital to the flavour of paella; unless you are a veggie in which case you are not having paella but a not very creamy vegetable risotto.

My second introduction to paella was in Ibiza.  I can't remember much about it but seem to recall not being overwhelmed by the flavour in it but at the same time very pleased to be having something that didn't involve chips.  San Antonio in Ibiza is not the best place to experience Spanish culture.  Here's me on a boat, drinking beer!

My third experience of paella was in Benamadena, Costa Del Sol, southern Spain in 2002.  I remember the year because the World Cup was on.

This is me on the balcony of our hotel in Spain, I've had to crop it as I was nude so you miss the best bits.  Wouldn't bother me but some people are so delicate...  anyhoo, back to the paella.  It was awful.  It had clearly come out of a microwave, was hugely lacking in flavour and was also obviously rationed to two prawns and two mussels per serving.  I was hungrier after eating it than I was before.  The sad thing was that Benalmadena was a slightly nicer version of Torremalinos and Fueturventura, which were to each side of it, so to get such a shocking meal there rather than not having walked two miles either side to somewhere truly ghastly was such a surprise.

My third experience of paella was in a pub in Chichester.  It was almost certainly also microwaved but it was better than the one in Spain.  I think that says it all.  Since then I think I've had a few shop bought microwavable paellas which were all meh.... but better than that one in Spain.

T'other day I was watching Rick Stein make a paella and he inspired me to have a go.  It did look like an easier version of risotto, less labour involved and so long as the timing is correct and the ingredients go in the right order it didn't look too hard.  Here is most of my ingredients:

I say most; the oils on show were hugely insufficient to coat the rice so I had to use a mix of groundnut oil and olive oil. Don't try and cook with JUST olive oil kids, it burns at far too low a temperature and tastes bitter.  I also made up for my lack of mussels (ho ho) by adding a little river cobbler which I'd marinated in lemon juice and rosé wine.  I also added a generous glug of Spanish white wine to the rice, onions, chorizo and peppers when at the pan's hottest point and also gave in to pressure and used a tin of tomatoes as per roughly half the ten or so recipes I read for research.  Finally I gave up on thinking one chicken Oxo would be enough for 1.5 pints of stock (!) and used 2 Kallo organic chicken stock cubes.  I used more garlic and more smoked paprika than is generally suggested and I think the taste results support my choice there... and I ended up splitting the paella in to two pans and adding peas to mine.  My wife won't eat peas!

I'm not one to blow my own horn (oo-er) but it was by far the best paella I've ever had.  It was so full of flavour but without being overpowering.  There are definitely things I'd change if I wasn't doing it on a budget.  Instead of using sliced chorizo I'd buy a sausage, put chunks in and use more of it.  I'd use raw prawns instead of cooked, but they would still be shelled (as in NOT in their shells anymore).  And I'd perhaps use squid or shelled mussels (as in not in their shells) instead of the cobbler. Oh yes... saffron.  I don't care what my wife says, saffron DOES make a difference and I need someone to go to India on holiday so I can get a shit-load of it cheap.

While I am mentioning it... what is all this wank about seafood being served in it's shell?  Unless, like an oyster it is an aid to serving and eating the food, why?   I hate getting prawns in the shell!  It makes my fingers sticky and smelly.  Perhaps the prawn cooks better in the shell; if so chef, you cook it and then take it out so I don't have to, you lazy fucker.  You are bound to be better than me.  I can imagine that the labour involved in taking a load of mussels out of their shells would make the dish too expensive but frankly, when one gets about four prawns on a paella I think the chef should at least get one of his minions to do it.  

Think I'm being petty?  This is 2013.  We have thankfully got past being told how we should like our steaks (in my case:  Knock it's horns off, wipe it's arse, stick it on a plate; but that's just me).   We don't even get told what wine we should drink with a meal; or at least if we do we ignore the pretentious prick doing it.  So, brothers and sisters, insist on your chef taking the shell of your prawn.  You have nothing to lose but the possibility of choking to death in a restaurant.