News

Bread videos

Got a new iPhone4 and the video camera seems much better on it than my old 3GS, so I thought I’d start shooting a few bread videos and posting them on here. It may become something significant, it may not, but here’s the first three.

First up one of my students on Saturday invented her very own kneading method. I like it.

 

Second this is me mixing the dough for the borodinsky bread’s on sale tomorrow at Stirchley Market. This is a 6kg batch and includes rye sourdough starter, water, salt, malt extract, molasses, caraway seed, plus rye flour.

 

Finally this is me shaping that dough into tins. It only has the one rise or proof, directly in the tins – 3 hours after this and it’s in the oven. Always have wet hands when shaping rye!

Bay Leaf Restaurant start new food and drink courses

Just a quick note of news just in from the restaurant I reviewed a couple of weeks ago – Bay Leaf. They have just advertised a few courses that they’ll be starting to run regularly at their place in the custard factory. They’ll be doing a cocktail making class, a wine and cheese tasting evening, and a Bangla cooking masterclass with owner Aftab Rahman, which looks great. Check out more details on their website: click here

Is Birmingham the Gastro-Capital of the UK?

No is the short answer. BBC Olive Magazine however, would beg to differ. In November’s edition of the mag, they pitted Birmingham against 6 other destinations (London, Edinburgh, Ramsbottom, Ludlow, Melton Mowbray, and Abergavenny) to find out ‘who’s the foodiest of them all?’. Birmingham came out top with 36 points out of 50 after adding up categories such as restaurant heroes (Balti’s, Glynn Purnell etc), local food (Loaf, Frost and Snow, other social enterprises etc), retail (Rossiters, Capeling, farmers markets etc), claims to fame (Cadbury’s), and the festival factor (Onion Fair, BBC-ahem-good food show, Birmingham Food Fest). Quite how they came up with the short-list I don’t know but I’m sure there are quite a few aggrieved town’s and cities out there (Liverpool, Bristol, Padstow, Cartmel, Oxford, Bray etc). Although I welcome the publicity for my adopted city, and agree with most of the things the article praises, I just can’t agree that Birmingham can possibly be crowned the culinary capital of the UK right now. If the award was for most improved, I think Birmingham would rightly be in the running, it’s seen a huge change in food culture in the eleven years that I’ve been in the city. But really, our food culture is only beginning, it’s a babbling baby in comparison to some of the other destinations mentioned. I actually supplied quite a lot of the information that ended up in the article (see this post), but I never thought in a million years we actually stood a chance of winning.

It’s undoubted that the higher end fine dining scene is now fairly well established in the city, thanks to many many years of hard work on the part of characters like Andreas Antona, Richard Turner, Glynn Purnell, and the ever improving output from the College of Food (UCB). There’s signs of life at the grassroots level too from people like us, Sense City, all the various markets, and other food growing initiatives, co-operatives, home-businesses, and social enterprises that are springing up. There’s also a huge existing swathe of decent cheap food shops and markets in parts of the city, particularly those parts populated by Asian, African, and Afro-Caribbean communities, and we do pretty well at the budget-level in terms of restaurants – you can eat out well for very little cash in chinatown, the balti triangle, and again in parts of the city populated by Asian, African, and Afro-Caribbean communities, and in some places in the city centre too.

The gaping hole in Birmingham’s food culture for me is that there is just not enough in the middle, between budget and high end for both restaurants and retail, to really engage the masses in caring about and eating good food. Really if you want to go somewhere and eat simple, well cooked food, properly seasoned, nicely presented and served with a smile, for around £20 a head, where is there to go?  And to get a decent range of quality ingredients if you’re not a particularly high earner, where is there? You either trawl to several shops across several suburbs and take up half a day doing so, or resort understandably, to a supermarket. If only every town centre in Brum could have a ‘Grocer @ Edgbaston‘ – the only shop I can think of that can really say ‘here’ to the above question.  So what do we need to do? Well, where to start…

I really believe that the city needs thriving town centre’s that genuinely offer an alternative to supermarket shopping, and where you can get most of what you require within a short walking distance from each other. They clearly work, just go to Soho Rd, Alum Rock Rd, or Stratford Rd and see what a thriving town centre based around food shops looks like. We need high streets in South Birmingham particularly where you can go and get a decent loaf of bread, basics like milk, eggs and proper store-cupboard ingredients, good quality fresh fruit and veg, free range or organic meat, some nice cheese, a decent bottle of wine or some nice beers, and at the end of all that to eat somewhere that cooks good food from fresh ingredients to a decent standard.

We need a council who genuinely strive to create thriving town centres too. All too often, the council is willing to usher in major projects (supermarkets) every few years and call them regeneration, when day-to-day, year-to-year small local shops are not being supported enough. We need business rate breaks for start-ups, shop improvement grants, an easier planning system, strategic plans for town centres, town centre managers, council officers researching grants and possible investors in small retail etc etc. I’m sure Birmingham is not the worst when it comes to this, but it certainly has a lot to improve on, and the council seems little concerned with anything outside of the city centre. Even in the city centre they’re threatening to close down and break up the wholesale markets which will be the biggest tragedy to ever hit this city’s food culture in my opinion.

We need more risk takers too, there are way too many naysayers around and not enough people willing to put their money where their mouth is. From taking a punt on your local shop, to taking a punt and creating your local shop. If you want a market in your neighbourhood, set one up, it really isn’t that difficult. If you want a proper food festival, get organising one. If you want to set up a microbrewery, get a group together and start writing a business plan. If you need a greengrocer, talk to others about setting up a co-operative. If you want a community garden, talk to your neighbours and get your spade out. You get the idea, be the change you want to see and all that.

There are many places to place the blame for the lacking food culture in Birmingham, but we mustn’t sit around waiting for other people to make things happen. There is a long way to go, and much to do, get on it.

Bay Leaf Restaurant, Custard Factory – Review

I’ve had the pleasure of teaching bread skills and working on a couple of occasions with the enterprising owner of a new Bangladeshi restaurant that’s opened up in the Custard Factory, Aftab Rahman. I remember talking to Aftab about Bay Leaf over a year ago, back when I was bitching about naan bread and visiting his other restaurant, Mint in Yardley. It’s taken me way too long to visit though, but we finally got round to it last Saturday. Aftab has certainly chosen a challenge, the previous occupier of their site in the Custard Factory was the ill-fated fine dining car crash that was Matthews. I never went myself (it wasn’t open long enough), but I remember reading the reviews with pity.

Like Mint, Bay Leaf is certainly pushing their Bangladeshi roots in their publicity, and Aftab is certainly genuinely proud of that heritage, which is refreshing to see in the age of the ubiquitous ‘Indian’ and ‘Curry House’. The menu seems to display several dishes that I’ve not seen on a menu before but there are notable concessions to what Aftab calls ‘vintage’ curries – korma’s, balti’s, dhansak’s etc… A bit of arm-twisting has gone on to allow these onto the menu, which is a shame I think. We stick to the signature dishes and plump for a lamb haleem, and the freestyle chicken which as the questionable title suggests is a daily changing version of chicken cooked on the bone – cooked with spinach and channa today, accompanied by rice and chapatti (I still avoid naan’s these days). The lamb was genuinely fall-apart tender and the accompanying sauce had a spicy sweetness followed by a pleasant and not overpowering bitter astringency from the Bangladeshi limes. The chicken was good too, plenty of it, still moist and nicely accompanied by the mild sauce and iron-y spinach. Chapatti’s were excellent, far better than mine and better than I’ve had anywhere – light, fluffy, and smoking hot. Flavour-wise there was little to fault our main dishes although presentation on the plate could certainly be stepped up with a little more thought. We shared a gulab jamun for dessert, which was flamed with brandy at the table which is a nice twist for a traditional dessert, although executed a little clumsily with a camping stove set up next to the table. Presumably a heated spoon and a match could do the trick a bit more elegantly.

One of the best points about Bay Leaf is the well-stocked bar and the manager Abbs who is very attentive and a trained sommelier too. We finished with a night-cap in the bar, a nice part of the space that Aftab would like to become a bit like a Bangalore coffee house during the day attracting some of the office and conference crowd from the custard factory. Bay Leaf is definitely in a bit of a funny spot with no other evening eateries around, and although it started to fill up as Saturday evening progressed, I feel that they’re going to have to capitalise on that daytime market if they’re going to make it a long term success. I’d certainly like to check it out during the day and sample the coffee and see what they do in terms of light lunches. There’s lots of things pointing in the right direction, but they certainly have their work cut out in that location. Bay Leaf has had very contrasting reviews from Birmingham’s two main press reviewers, Paul Fulford and Richard McComb (check out their contrasting reviews on Matthews too). I have an inkling that Richard McComb is wrong on this one.

If you’re into your your live jazz they hold a jazz night once a month which is very popular (they sold out the night before we were there), the next one is the 4th of November, and you can find out loads of other stuff on their excellent website (even ordering takeaway online!): www.bayleaf-restaurant.co.uk

Bay Leaf Restaurant, Custard Factory – Review

I’ve had the pleasure of teaching bread skills and working on a couple of occasions with the enterprising owner of a new Bangladeshi restaurant that’s opened up in the Custard Factory, Aftab Rahman. I remember talking to Aftab about Bay Leaf over a year ago, back when I was bitching about naan bread and visiting his other restaurant, Mint in Yardley. It’s taken me way too long to visit though, but we finally got round to it last Saturday. Aftab has certainly chosen a challenge, the previous occupier of their site in the Custard Factory was the ill-fated fine dining car crash that was Matthews. I never went myself (it wasn’t open long enough), but I remember reading the reviews with pity.

Like Mint, Bay Leaf is certainly pushing their Bangladeshi roots in their publicity, and Aftab is certainly genuinely proud of that heritage, which is refreshing to see in the age of the ubiquitous ‘Indian’ and ‘Curry House’. The menu seems to display several dishes that I’ve not seen on a menu before but there are notable concessions to what Aftab calls ‘vintage’ curries – korma’s, balti’s, dhansak’s etc… A bit of arm-twisting has gone on to allow these onto the menu, which is a shame I think. We stick to the signature dishes and plump for a lamb haleem, and the freestyle chicken which as the questionable title suggests is a daily changing version of chicken cooked on the bone – cooked with spinach and channa today, accompanied by rice and chapatti (I still avoid naan’s these days). The lamb was genuinely fall-apart tender and the accompanying sauce had a spicy sweetness followed by a pleasant and not overpowering bitter astringency from the Bangladeshi limes. The chicken was good too, plenty of it, still moist and nicely accompanied by the mild sauce and iron-y spinach. Chapatti’s were excellent, far better than mine and better than I’ve had anywhere – light, fluffy, and smoking hot. Flavour-wise there was little to fault our main dishes although presentation on the plate could certainly be stepped up with a little more thought. We shared a gulab jamun for dessert, which was flamed with brandy at the table which is a nice twist for a traditional dessert, although executed a little clumsily with a camping stove set up next to the table. Presumably a heated spoon and a match could do the trick a bit more elegantly.

One of the best points about Bay Leaf is the well-stocked bar and the manager Abbs who is very attentive and a trained sommelier too. We finished with a night-cap in the bar, a nice part of the space that Aftab would like to become a bit like a Bangalore coffee house during the day attracting some of the office and conference crowd from the custard factory. Bay Leaf is definitely in a bit of a funny spot with no other evening eateries around, and although it started to fill up as Saturday evening progressed, I feel that they’re going to have to capitalise on that daytime market if they’re going to make it a long term success. I’d certainly like to check it out during the day and sample the coffee and see what they do in terms of light lunches. There’s lots of things pointing in the right direction, but they certainly have their work cut out in that location. Bay Leaf has had very contrasting reviews from Birmingham’s two main press reviewers, Paul Fulford and Richard McComb (check out their contrasting reviews on Matthews too). I have an inkling that Richard McComb is wrong on this one.

If you’re into your your live jazz they hold a jazz night once a month which is very popular (they sold out the night before we were there), the next one is the 4th of November, and you can find out loads of other stuff on their excellent website (even ordering takeaway online!): www.bayleaf-restaurant.co.uk

New food events coming up

There’s a couple of new food-related events coming up in South Birmingham that I thought it worth bringing to your attention. They’re both featured on other blogs so I will just link you up…

First up it’s a special bank holiday Monday farmers market and vintage fair at Rowheath Pavillion (a hidden gem) in Bournville. Check out all the details on bournvillevillage.com

Secondly, this years Birmingham Honey Show has moved venue to Martineau Gardens (even more hidden gem) in Edgbaston. Even if you only go to see the gardens it’s certainly worth the visit, but there’ll be lots of honey on offer too presumably. Details on the Martineau Gardens website.

 

Birmingham Food Fest preview video

Here’s a little preview vid of the Birmingham Food Fest that will be happening this October the 14th to the 23rd. What do you think? Will you be going to any of the events or making the most of the restaurants festival menu’s? Check out more info on the food fest here

Stirchley Market Tomorrow

It’s the wonderful Stirchley Market tomorrow, and we’re going to be down there again selling fresh bread. There’s going to be a slight change to our stall from now on though as we’re doubling the size of it, and sharing it with South Birmingham Food Co-operative. As some of you may know we are moving Loaf into a new HQ later in the year (hopefully in December). In this large premises there will be room for a cookery school, bakery, and a nice little shop. We’re hoping that the shop will not only sell products from Loaf (i.e. bread), but also general grocery items and wholefoods from South Birmingham Food Co-op as well. Therefore it makes sense to start trading as one on the market stall aswell so shoppers can get used to the idea. So from tomorrow as well as coming down for fresh bread, we’ll be stocking lentils, rice, oats, sugar and other general provisions – come down and check it out and if you want to earn extra hippy-points, bring your own tupperware to fill up (although free paper bags are available too!). The bread on sale will be:

Cotteridge Sourdough

Borodinsky Rye sourdough (with caraway, malt, molasses)

Ciabtatta

Stirchley Potato bread

White split tin

Bournville Babka (chocolate swirl bread)

What’s good in Brum?

Two days in a row this week I was asked for recommendations for food things happening in Birmingham. The first was by a journalist writing for Olive magazine, which in an upcoming feature is pitting UK cities against each other for which can lay claim to being the “foodiest” (Oh God I hate that term, especially when I use it myself). He said he’d looked at the fine dining scene and the Balti already and was looking for stuff under the radar. Here’s was my response:

Wholesale Markets (largest in the UK) and Bull Ring Fruit and Veg, Meat and Fish markets.

Social Enterprise/grassroots food businesses – Loaf social enterprise cookery school and bakery, Frost and Snow cupcake bakery providing jobs for the homeless, Change Kitchen vegetarian catering, South Birmingham Food Co-operative, Urban Harvest social enterprise fruit harvesting and processing.

Community and Farmers Markets – Moseley, New Street, University, Kings Heath, Kings Norton, Harborne, Bearwood, Sutton Coldfield, Solihull, Jewellery Quarter (24 carrots), Stirchley Community Market.

Other things worth googling (restaurants bars and cafes): Soul Food Project, Warehouse Cafe, Opus, Anderson Bar and Grill, Jyoti’s vegetarian south indian restaurant (a fave haunt of Jamie Oliver et al), Carters of Moseley, Bitters’n’Twisted pub group, The Wellington (real ale pub), Urban Coffee Company…(shops): Capeling and Co cheesemongers, Stirchley wines and spirits (real ale!), Rossiters Organic Butchers, Leverton and Halls Deli and Coffee Shop, Anderson and Hill Deli, Nima Deli, Al Barakah Lebanese Bakery, Kitchen Garden Cafe.

 

The second enquiry was the Soil Association asking for what was going on in terms of sustainability and food in Birmingham as they’d received an application from someone at the council for support in developing this, and again they are pitting us against other cities to win the support. Here’s what I recommended (after a lengthy conversation about the lack of vision in this area coming from the council and from health bodies in the city):

Community Gardens/gardening projects: Northfield Eco Centre: http://www.northfieldecocentre.org/; Martineau Gardens: http://www.martineau-gardens.org.uk/; Sense City Edible City: http://www.sensecity.org.uk/?page_id=102; Cotteridge Park Community Orchard: http://www.cotteridgepark.org.uk/index.php?page=orchard; Loads of active allotment sites in Birmingham including the biggest in the UK (Uplands Allotments – great for growing afro-carribean and asian vegetables) and the active Court Lane Allotments: http://courtlaneallotments.com/ who recently had a garden at Gardners World Live.

Social Enterprise/ Co-operative food initiatives: Loaf, South Birmingham Food Co-op (http://bhmfoodcoop.wordpress.com/), Change Kitchen (http://changekitchen.co.uk/), Urban Harvest (http://www.urbanharvestbham.org/), Abundance Birmingham (http://abundancebirmingham.wordpress.com/); Globally Local have a catering enterprise: http://www.globallylocal.net/

Farmers/Community markets: Moseley, New Street, University, Kings Heath, Kings Norton, Harborne, Bearwood, Sutton Coldfield, Solihull, Jewellery Quarter (24 carrots), Stirchley Community Market.

Support groups: Sustainability West Midlands (http://www.sustainabilitywestmidlands.org.uk/); Localise West Midlands (http://localisewestmidlands.org.uk/); Birmingham FoE (http://www.birminghamfoe.org.uk/); Sense City – worked together with localise WM on a local food module at Aston Uni.

NHS: http://www.dietetics.bham.nhs.uk/FoodNet4LIFE/Default.aspx – FoodNet are the main team doing 5-a-day healthy eating stuff in Birmingham.

 

Is that a fair summary of food things going on in Birmingham would you say or I have missed some glaringly obvious things that deserve to be shouted about? I expect it’s fairly South Birmingham-centric, as that’s where I spend most of my time. Feel free to leave a comment below…

What’s good in Brum?

Two days in a row this week I was asked for recommendations for food things happening in Birmingham. The first was by a journalist writing for Olive magazine, which in an upcoming feature is pitting UK cities against each other for which can lay claim to being the “foodiest” (Oh God I hate that term, especially when I use it myself). He said he’d looked at the fine dining scene and the Balti already and was looking for stuff under the radar. Here’s was my response:

Wholesale Markets (largest in the UK) and Bull Ring Fruit and Veg, Meat and Fish markets.

Social Enterprise/grassroots food businesses – Loaf social enterprise cookery school and bakery, Frost and Snow cupcake bakery providing jobs for the homeless, Change Kitchen vegetarian catering, South Birmingham Food Co-operative, Urban Harvest social enterprise fruit harvesting and processing.

Community and Farmers Markets – Moseley, New Street, University, Kings Heath, Kings Norton, Harborne, Bearwood, Sutton Coldfield, Solihull, Jewellery Quarter (24 carrots), Stirchley Community Market.

Other things worth googling (restaurants bars and cafes): Soul Food Project, Warehouse Cafe, Opus, Anderson Bar and Grill, Jyoti’s vegetarian south indian restaurant (a fave haunt of Jamie Oliver et al), Carters of Moseley, Bitters’n’Twisted pub group, The Wellington (real ale pub), Urban Coffee Company…(shops): Capeling and Co cheesemongers, Stirchley wines and spirits (real ale!), Rossiters Organic Butchers, Leverton and Halls Deli and Coffee Shop, Anderson and Hill Deli, Nima Deli, Al Barakah Lebanese Bakery, Kitchen Garden Cafe.

 

The second enquiry was the Soil Association asking for what was going on in terms of sustainability and food in Birmingham as they’d received an application from someone at the council for support in developing this, and again they are pitting us against other cities to win the support. Here’s what I recommended (after a lengthy conversation about the lack of vision in this area coming from the council and from health bodies in the city):

Community Gardens/gardening projects: Northfield Eco Centre: http://www.northfieldecocentre.org/; Martineau Gardens: http://www.martineau-gardens.org.uk/; Sense City Edible City: http://www.sensecity.org.uk/?page_id=102; Cotteridge Park Community Orchard: http://www.cotteridgepark.org.uk/index.php?page=orchard; Loads of active allotment sites in Birmingham including the biggest in the UK (Uplands Allotments – great for growing afro-carribean and asian vegetables) and the active Court Lane Allotments: http://courtlaneallotments.com/ who recently had a garden at Gardners World Live.

Social Enterprise/ Co-operative food initiatives: Loaf, South Birmingham Food Co-op (http://bhmfoodcoop.wordpress.com/), Change Kitchen (http://changekitchen.co.uk/), Urban Harvest (http://www.urbanharvestbham.org/), Abundance Birmingham (http://abundancebirmingham.wordpress.com/); Globally Local have a catering enterprise: http://www.globallylocal.net/

Farmers/Community markets: Moseley, New Street, University, Kings Heath, Kings Norton, Harborne, Bearwood, Sutton Coldfield, Solihull, Jewellery Quarter (24 carrots), Stirchley Community Market.

Support groups: Sustainability West Midlands (http://www.sustainabilitywestmidlands.org.uk/); Localise West Midlands (http://localisewestmidlands.org.uk/); Birmingham FoE (http://www.birminghamfoe.org.uk/); Sense City – worked together with localise WM on a local food module at Aston Uni.

NHS: http://www.dietetics.bham.nhs.uk/FoodNet4LIFE/Default.aspx – FoodNet are the main team doing 5-a-day healthy eating stuff in Birmingham.

 

Is that a fair summary of food things going on in Birmingham would you say or I have missed some glaringly obvious things that deserve to be shouted about? I expect it’s fairly South Birmingham-centric, as that’s where I spend most of my time. Feel free to leave a comment below…

Cajun Cook-Off Pics

The popstrami reuninon cajun cook-off BBQ was amazing on Sunday – thoroughly stuffed with a fridge full of amazing leftovers. All of it was great of course but highlights of the food were Lap’s andouille sausage, Nick’s smoked brisket, and Hannah’s apple pie (with smoked ice cream). Here’s a few pics of my prep and some of the finished dishes. Next popstrami likely to be January – to be confirmed nearer the time.

Two hush puppies and one drunken cook.

I don’t have a proper Saturday very often as I’m usually working, so today I made the most of the half-decent weather and packed the day with lots of fun things with Jane. At Moseley Farmers Market I didn’t find anything that was on my shopping list and spent lots of money on stuff that wasn’t on the list (isn’t that just the way with Farmers markets?!). Fortunately Nima delicatessen was fantastic as usual and I got most of the stuff I needed there including this fab Louisiana Hot Sauce direct from ‘nwalins, which will go great in the dressing for tomorrow’s Cajun Slaw dressing for the Cajun cook-off. After a bacon sarnie for lunch we cycled out to a brew-pub nearby that we’ve never visited before, the Coach and Horses in Weatheroak. After a couple of pints and a tough cycle home I decided to test out the two hush puppy recipes that I have for tomorrow – one from Donald Link’s Real Cajun, and one from Soul Food Project.

Although I’m not gonna type out the entire recipes, in essence the Donal Link recipe adds to the base of cornmeal, plain flour and baking powder some milk, egg, scallions (spring onions), jalapeno, onion, thyme and parsley, whereas the Soul Food recipe adds sweet corn, scallions, cheddar, and beer (Brooklyn Brown Ale in this case). There was a marked difference in the batter before it was fried as you can see below – Donald Link’s recipe was thin to the point of watery (I added a little more flour), whereas Soul Food’s was almost as thick as scone mixture (I added a little more beer). The other marked difference was the Donald Link recipe had quite a bit more baking powder.

Both were fried at about 180C for 2-3 minutes, and came out looking crispy and delicious. Jane and I did the taste taste and although both were great in different ways we both plumped for the Donald Link recipe to go forward for tomorrow’s cook-off. They turned out much lighter probably mainly due to the increased baking powder, although I’m gonna reduce it a little as it did come through in the flavour a bit. I’m also going to thicken up the batter a little more it was easier to get a decent shape with the thicker Soul Food batter – Link’s ended up all shapes and sizes.

Just topped off a great day with a fantastic Goodnight Lenin gig at MAC, and now listening to the Water Tower Bucket Boys (thanks Gordon) as I ready myself for tomorrow…good times!

Popstrami Reunion

20110722-043437.jpgI’m very excited about this weekend. Not only am I celebrating a friends 30th Birthday and going to see the excellent Goodnight Lenin at their EP launch party, but I’m heading over to Harborne for a reunion with the team behind the highly successful ‘Popstrami‘ pop-up NY deli that we put on back in March. Chief popstrami conspirator, bank-roller, and long-time Loaf customer Nick Loman instigated this get-together, and not content with a mere chinwag over a curry, has challenged us all to a southern BBQ cook-off that we have to document in film, photo and word!

My original plan of doing a proper pit-roast suckling pig has fallen by the wayside for now, but I am equally excited by the three side dishes that I’ve opted to prepare to go alongside pork ribs, smoked brisket, barbecue beans, apple pie etcetera. After borrowing the excellent Real Cajun by Donald Link from Nick, I’ve spent the week getting acquainted with the cuisine of the southern states, and opted for hush puppies, boudin balls, and slaw.

Boudin is a traditional rice and pork sausage, which I believe has it’s roots in spanish Morcilla black pudding sausage though I’m happy to be corrected on that. As I’ve not bothered to look for another one, I’m going to do the recipe just as it is from Real Cajun. I’ve ordered the pork liver and shoulder from Rossiters and plan to make the mix fresh on Sunday morning. As I don’t have a sausage stuffer and Rossiters is closed on a Sunday I’m going to make these into bread-crumbed-and-deep-fried boudin balls instead.

As I’ll be heating up some oil anyway, it makes sense to do hush puppies too which also require deep frying. I managed to pry a recipe out of Soul Food Project’s head chef Carl Finn during the week, so I’m planning to play off his recipe against Donald Link’s and see what comes out top. Link’s recipe is described as a batter, whereas Carl said his is more like a scone mixture. Carl’s also includes ale, which is automatically drawing me in that direction, specially with the fab selection of USA ales currently in stock at Stirchley Wines.

I haven’t found a decent slaw recipe yet so may just make something up. If i have time I’ll make a homemade BBQ sauce to dress it though.

I am salivating already. Hopefully i’ll post some pictures of experiments and the cook-off on Sunday too.

Our First Earth Oven Building Course

This weekend Loaf ran it’s first course in earth oven building. Despite the inclement weather we upped gazebo’s in a Sutton Coldfield back garden, and the group of eight students with the talented Lizzy Bean as tutor, got to work constructing the beautiful oven pictured below. On Saturday we looked at finding the appropriate mud, before laying down some sand and the oven floor on the already-constructed plinth. We then built a sand dome to act as a template, mixed the first lot of cob, and put on the first layer of the oven. On the Sunday we mixed more cob, put on the second layer, plus a third cosmetic ‘clay plaster’ layer, and finished it off with some nice decorative tiles and by cutting the doorway. We enjoyed fantastic food and beer courtesy of our wonderful hosts all weekend. If you’re interested in coming on a future earth oven building weekend then check out the full description of the course here, and  email tom@loafonline.co.uk to register your interest. If there is enough demand we will try and put a course on the second weekend in September 2011, if not it will be Spring 2012. Tom.