Coq au johndiener.co.uk

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So I promised some Autumnal recipes throughout October and so far I have been a bit of a Coq… its taken me a nearly two months to realise being a new Dad is actually quite time-consuming and so if I want to blog I need to PLAN THINGS… oops…

The recipe that follows is so simple its unreal, My old man used to cook it but it wa never the same twice which is the best thing about it, you can change almost anything in the recipe and it’ll always come out tasting great… unless you go metal and put 2 litres of ice cream, a jar of pickled walnuts and 16 chilies in it but you get my drift…  

…with this in mind just use my recipe as a guide, each time you cook it, try adding something, taking something away and see what happens, and please e-mail me the results!

Ingredients…

  • A load of Free Range Chicken thighs and Drumsticks (about 900g)
  • An onion, Finley diced (it can be white or black both taste good in this dish)
  • Plenty of Veg - think Autumn; a Leak of two, a Carrot, a Courgette, you don’t need me to tell you whats out there, Chopped in to similar sized small pieces.
  • 1 Chicken Stock cube or a pint of fresh Chicken Stock.
  • A fistful of fresh Tarragon chopped finely (or about half if using dried).
  • A little Thyme.
  • A clove of Garlic – chopped.
  • A lump of Butter.
  • A small handful or level tablespoon of Plain Flour.
  • Salt and Pepper, and a kettle of boiled water on standby.

How to do it:

  1. Pre-heat the oven to about 180 degrees.
  2. Get a large, thick bottomed (oven proof) pot on the heat, melt some butter in it and stick the chicken in it. Brown the meat for a few mins making sure you get load of colour. When its browned off take it out and set to one side.
  3. Chuck all the veg in and fry it for a few mins until its softened.
  4. Once the veg has softened, chuck the stock cube, garlic, herbs and a load of salt and pepper in and give the whole thing a stir (if you are using fresh stock leave it out for now).
  5. Leave to cook for another minute or so 
  6. Add the four and stir it in well, then lob the Chicken back in and all the juices it has left behind top the whole thing up with water (or fresh Chicken stock if you are using it) so everything is just covered.
  7. Bang the whole thing in the oven for half an hour – DONE!

The meat will be falling of the bone, the sauce should have come down a nice consistency (if it hasn’t chuck it  back in for a few more mins), its warning, cheap, tasty and I love it. FEEDBACK PLEASE!

 

The Wells Kitchen.

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I wasn’t sure what to expect going in to The Wells Kitchen to be honest. Happily for the new owners it didn’t have much to contend with as far as the buildings previous incarnations were concerned which as anyone living on Tunbridge Wells will tell you were: mediocre bar, horrible, chavy bar, disgusting shit hole…

…the new owners have as I suspected raised the bar (and restaurant, sorry couldn’t resist)!

The place is split in to a pub and dining area which is a great idea. The Bar is nice and big with amazing local beer on tap from The Royal Tunbridge Wells Brewing Company, my favourite being Beau Porter. 

The Dining Room is more intimate with low, soft lighting and lots of candles which could be cheesy but it works. The food was everything I had hoped for, local, very well prepared and bloody tasty! I had some of the most perfectly cooked prawns I have ever had that night in my favourite dish of the night which was from the specials board so keep your eye on those boards WHEN you go!

Service was attentive without being in your face, which is all anyone can ask for, and the staff knew the dishes inside out which was great.

As a package then The Wells Kitchen is a triumph and exactly what T Wells needs, they now have a further bar open upstairs which is available for functions etc so would strongly suggest checking it out if you have an event to plan and want somewhere different yet thoughtful. Actually  just find any excuse to get down there, I will be going back there, probably too much… it’s cracking!

 

Simple, tasty, nutricious food…sounds complicated to Me?!

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My little Brother flew the nest a couple of weeks ago, my ma did 99.99% of everything for him before this happened so naturally I was a little concerned for his well-being…

… moving out for the first time is hard, especially for us guys. You end up with no clean pants within two days,blowing all your money on the important things like Lager and Fags, oh and the condoms you aren’t  ever going to use (the afore mentioned smeggy pants will see to that)…

…this presents a problem, like most living things we need to eat to stay alive and Camel Lights and cheap Lager just doesn’t cut the mustard as far as nutrition goes, believe me I’ve tried!

The good news you’ll be pleased to hear is, he loves food! Well he loves the eating part anyway which is halfway there. He phoned me a few times to ask what he can cook himself BUT he had some stipulations which were as follows and in no particular order:

1. It has to be simple, easy and fast to prepare.

2. It has to taste good.

3. It must only contain stuff that won’t give you cancer like MSG or any of that other disgusting shit.

4. (probably the most important) it must be CHEAP!

I was surprisingly taken back by this, the most immediate feeling I had was one of admiration for my bro for wanting to eat well and take the time to prepare decent, healthy food for himself, on a fairly meager budget.There is no way i would have been that level headed at 21!

The second thought I had was; surely we all want to eat food that falls in to all of those categories, all the time don’t we?!

SO, I asked a few people I work with, some mates etc, etc and they all kept saying the same thing – YES WE DO!…but most recipes, even the ones that are advertised as ‘Simple’ or ‘fast’  turn out to be neither, they invariably include Rose Water or Dragon Fruit or bark from the Bongo Bongo Tree… (OK I made that one up), and they probably don’t even taste that good because to try and save you time they cut corners. There is no need for this at all.

I am here to help with this if I can, over October I am going to chuck a few recipes on my blog. Most of them will be familiar, some I have learnt from my old man, others I have stolen from other people, some I think I have created but realistically have probasbly stolen them as well…

My aim for these recipes is simple; I want to show that even on the tightest of budgets you can cook tasty and reasonably priced food that is good for you in no time at all without cutting corners.

Please send me feedback by clicking on ‘Contact Us’  if you try them out, good or bad. I would love to hear from you.

Grow some!

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I’m a father! My first son was born on the 8th August and he is fantastic, stupendous, amazing and bloody tiring. I love him!

Whilst my fiance was growing said bundle of joy, I was obviously thinking about how I planned to make his life as full, safe and fulfilling as possible which inevitability got me thinking about food (my brains default train of thought I think).

Just as anyone would, I started thinking about what my parents had done for me in this regard and whilst looking through some old pics of my parents for inspiration it came to me – Grow some veg… one of the best ideas I have had in a long time (to be honest I’m lucky if one of my ideas is decent in every 10 years…).

I’ll make a start I thought, so I went to the local hardware store, bought a spade and dug up a load of turf in a corner of my garden… “Right, what now?!” is the thought that followed, I have no idea what will grow this time of year or how to grow it, luckily I knew a lady that did, and over the next few days my Mum and I planned what to grow, how it was all going to work and planted it…

…Loads of watering, slug murdering and weeding later, I now have: Carrots, Tomatoes, Lettuces, Leeks and Runner Beans!

Now what I don’t want to do now is bore you to death, harping on about the benefits of veggies that you have grown yourself, we all know they are good for you etc, etc. What struck me most was the fulfillment I got from planting and looking after these plants and the satisfaction that came from eating them. I spent more time outside in the sunshine, more time with my Mum AND it has saved me a shit load of money! Now tell me its a bad idea!

I realise not everyone has an outside space big enough for a full on Veggie garden, I lived in a flat until a few months ago BUT there are so many ways you can get in to it; an allotment, someone elses unused garden, the Landshare Scheme pioneered by Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall or even a window sill or balcony!

Please give it a go, I promise on whatever scale you do it, you will realise the benefits within days and it will improve your life in a lot of surprising ways!

 

Runner Bean Soup… I know what you are thinking but please bear with me…

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So I had a shit loads of Runner Beans because I have just become a Father,which mean I have been spending the last week doing that and not picking my Runner Beans… at least he has his priorities sorted I hear you cry… 

As you can imagine I had about 200 kilos of the bloody things when I looked this afternoon, so I racked my brains as to what to do with them and thought sod it – Soup, so here’s what I did:

Ingredients:

A shit loads of Runner Beans (a large cast iron casserole full) – cut in to 1CM pieces
1 x Large garlic clove (finely chopped)
1 x Onion (diced)
3 x Celery Sticks (finely chopped)
1 x Large Potato (cut in to small pieces and par boiled)
A Handful of fresh Oregano, Basil and a little fresh Mint, Butter, Salt and Pepper to taste and a Chicken Stock Cube.

Oh and have the kettle full and boiled!

Method:

  1. Melt the butter in a large saucepan or cast iron pot, sweat off the Onions and Celery until soft.
  2. Add the chopped Runner Beans and stir heating through for a minute or so.
  3. Now chuck the Garlic, chopped Herbs, Salt and Pepper in and crush in the stock cube, give the whole thing a stir and let it cook for another minute or so.
  4. Add the par boiled potato then top the whole thing up with boiling water so everything is just covered and boil for ten minutes.
  5. Once you have boiled the soup remove it from the heat, let it cool down a bit and blitz it (this is also a good time to check the seasoning and make any last minute changes).
  6. Pass the whole thing through a sieve (it is worth it believe me, if you don’t you can get a lot of stringy bits from the beans), and serve.

I thought this soup was bloody excellent, it’s tasty and seasonal, I imagine too, if you are that way inclined (I’m not) it’s actually quite good for you, depending on how much butter you put in at the start… ENJOY!


Appeal to the decent landlord!

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This post really follows on from the one I wrote about the Chaser Inn but is more specifically about pubs in general.

There is a fair deal of noise made, and rightly so, about our country’s pubs shutting at the rate of 5,000000 per day or what ever the figure is and it got me thinking. Yes it is sad that this is happening and I know it is mostly attributed to the economy etc etc BUT I think this view could be a bit short sighted; I’ll tell you why:

I imagine there are a lot of landlords out there who don’t have the talent or knowledge to run a pub as a succesful business. This can be because they romanticise (as I have in the past)  about running a pub; the relaxed atmosphere, regular drinkers supporting their local pub… they get a pub, serve basic food and uninteresting beer and wonder why in a few months they are bankrupt…

I know what I have said sounds like I am slating people and to be honest I am. I don’t want these people to buying, renting or managing these pubs, they ae shit, PLEASE STOP IT!

We need more people like the owners of pubs like The Hare in Langton Green, The Beacon and The Compasses in Tunbridge Wells and  Whiting and Hammond taking over more pubs, using their individual flair to get them back where they deserve, so the pubs themselves survive for future!

“…bit of seasoning mate?!”

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This is the regular and more than slightly sarcastic quip I get from one of my oldest friends every time I go near the salt and pepper…

… To be honest 99% of the communication between this friend and I is stereotypical, male bravado ruled sarcasm, but it got me thinking…

…Although every time I went near the bloody salt and pepper my ‘friend’ would use it as an excuse to take the piss out of me, using it did improve the food. I’m not sure when exactly I had this epiphany but I started experimenting with salt and pepper everywhere, the most dramatic and simple example that I can think of is… salad!?

The the long and short of this is I tried it, couldn’t believe the result and now everything I cook / prepare is as well seasoned as it needs to be (I hope) and I still sometimes cannot believe how crucial this process is to the finished dish and its depth of flavor.

If you don’t already, do what I did and experiment and I promise you will not be disappointed with the results!

I have found it is amazingly difficult for people to wind you up with half a well seasoned Little Gem Lettuce stuffed down their throat!

I have absolutely no formal training as far as food is concerned…

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… I am however passionate about it, its a subject I fear my friends and family probably dread coming up in conversation as when it does I tend to become exceedingly loud bordering on the unbearable and start wildly gesticulating to such an extent that I am very likely to break anything even remotely fragile within ten feet…

This blog fortunately (for me) is going to act as a soap box from which I can share my ideas and thoughts, I will ramble endlessly about the great places, people and food that I have and am still to find and probably slag off a few of the rubbish ones along the way, because quite frankly taking the piss out of people is fun!