Noodle Inn, Sheffield (revisited)

I've eaten at two of the restaurants in Sheffield's Noodle Inn mini-empire before (see here and here), enjoying the meal on both occasions but finding it tricky to work out what they're actually best at, the almost novel sized menus proving a challenge.

A repeat visit to the original Noodle Inn on London Road enlightened me further in one regard: their roast meats are very good indeed, especially the belly pork.

Three roast meats and noodles in soup brought a competent broth, bouncy noodles, plenty of greens and a ridiculous quantity of meat for the £7.50 price tag. The belly pork was a dream, the thin layer of crackling fracturing on the bite to give way to melting fat and tender flesh. Spot on, and it didn't even lose the crunch after sitting in the soup for ages. Many a gastropub charging twice the price for the stuff could learn a thing or two from these lot.

The duck and char sui pork were also good, but it's the belly pork that's sticking in the memory, and that I'll definitely be back for.

Service was brisk and to the point, but that's fine by me. You come here to get fed not for someone to be all nice to you. £7.50 for a huge bowl of noodles, or £11 with a beer and service.

8/10

156 London Road
Sheffield
S2 4LT

http://www.noodleinn.co.uk/

Edit: The website has disappeared. Surely they haven't closed down in the last fortnight or so since I was there? http://www.noodleinncentro.co.uk and http://noodleinnhotpot.co.uk/ are still online...

Two easy Asian ways with pork

As is often the case the best things I've cooked recently have been a happy accident; one a meal involving creative use of leftovers and another a last minute change of heart.

What was left of a slow roasted leg of pork was going to be sliced thinly and flash fried with garlic and ginger, but the joint wasn't as fatty as I'd anticipated and so the remaining meat was overdone. Moisture was needed. 

The cooked pork was suffused with a fairly strong whack of fennel, so I thought the anise notes would work well with a sticky soy marinade. Something sort of Thai in style, which of course led me to thoughts of Thai Aroy Dee and the little chewy nuggets of caramel pork that make up one of the accompaniments on their shrimp paste fried rice.

Turns it out it couldn't be simpler to make your own caramel pork. This has that addictive blend of sugar, salt and meat that's impossible not to enjoy. Mixed up with a big pile of vegetable fried rice and a generous squirt of Sriracha it was about ten times better than the original roast pork dinner. 

Here's what I used and how to do it:

Caramel pork

Enough for 2 or 3 people, served with veggie fried rice and hot sauce

300g cooked pork, cut into small chunks (mine were a bit big, no more than 1cm cubed is the way to go)

1 fat clove garlic

2 tablespoons dark soy sauce

1 dessertspoon palm sugar

2 dessertspoons white sugar

2-3 spring onions

Crush the garlic then put it in a bowl with the pork pieces and the soy sauce, then mix everything up well. Finely chop the green ends of the spring onions and set aside.

Heat some neutral oil in a wok until it's hot then throw in the pork, soy and garlic mix. Stir-fry for a minute or so then turn the heat down to medium and add the sugar. 

Keep stir-frying until the sugar dissolves to form a syrup (if it's too dry add a splash of water), then keep frying and stirring until your syrup starts to reduce and coats the pork. It's done when the sauce clings to the pork, almost like a sticky glaze. 

Turn out into a serving bowl and garnish with the spring onion tops. Serve immediately.

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The last minute change of heart was meatball-related. The plan was Italian style, like this, but I just wasn't feeling it. I wanted something soupy and spicy, a lighter feeling way of using more or less the same ingredients.

The result: fragrant pork balls with noodles in broth. At least eighty percent the same meal (especially since I didn't have any actual noodles in the house so had to use linguine, but the Italians just copied off the Chinese so it's all the same really right?) but somehow completely different.

The meatball pan stickings lent a lovely deep brown colour to the stock, which in turn kept the noodles (linguine) all lovely and slippery and full of bite. The balls themselves were gently spiced and didn't dry out as they'd finished cooking in the broth. 

Fragrant pork balls with noodles in broth

Serves two

200-250g pork mince

small thumb of ginger

1 large clove garlic

1 heaped teaspoon sugar 

zest of half a lime (or a lemon if that's all you've got)

a good splash of fish sauce

a good squeeze of Sriracha (or other chilli sauce)

a tablespoon of finely chopped herbs (I used mint and basil, but coriander and Thai basil would probably have been better in place of regular basil)

Two blocks/strips of noodles (your choice, or use pasta if you're really desperate) 

400ml light chicken stock

more herbs and/or spring onions to garnish

Mix all of the meatball ingredients together in a bowl (that's everything except for the noodles, stock and extra herbs in case you were wondering), then put the mix in the fridge for at least half an hour to firm up.

Remove the mix from the fridge and form into little meatballs, aim to make around twelve in total. Heat a little oil in a deep pan (deep enough to hold the stock) over a moderate heat, then add the meatballs. Leave them to colour a bit before turning. While the meatballs are cooking prepare your noodles (or pasta) as per the packet instructions.

Cook the balls for a few minutes on each side then pour in the stock, it should immediately turn a darker colour from the gooeyness at the bottom of the pot. Cook for a few minutes more to finish cooking the balls and heat the stock to a simmer then throw in the noodles. 

Stir to heat through the noodles then serve immediately with extra herbs as a garnish and any other condiments you fancy. Note: it's much easier to eat this with chopsticks and a spoon rather than a fork and a spoon!

Cochinita Pibil

Last week I finally got round to cooking some proper Mexican food, something I'd planning for ages. Cochinita pibil was a great place to start, because it's ridiculously easy to make and really rather delicious.

It's a dish of pork, slow roasted in a citrus and achiote marinade until the meat falls apart under the slightest pressure of a fork. The acidity of the marinade slices through the fatty meat like a dream, and the achiote lends gentle, earthy warmth.

In case you were wondering achiote is the Mexican word for annatto which gives the marinade its red colour. You can buy achiote paste, made from annatto seeds with garlic, cumin, allspice and oregano, online from the excellent Cool Chile Co. I also bought corn tortillas, chipotle chillies and Mexican hot chocolate from them, all of which are top quality stuff.

By rights this should be made with a whole suckling pig or at the least a bone in pork shoulder. I went for the quicker and cheaper trial version using a pack of pork shoulder steaks.

You can serve the finished product with rice, beans and salad, or use it, like we did, as a taco meat. I made chipotle salsa (just tomatoes, onion and chipotles), and with bowls of coriander, sour cream, guacamole and lime wedges the self assembly line was ready to go. If I did this again I'd probably ditch the sour cream and guac (unless it was home made) and opt for a crumbly, lactic cheese like Feta or maybe Wensleydale instead. You'll also need cold beer, I drank Meantime London pale ale with this which went down a treat.

There are loads of cochinita pibil recipes online, but it's so simple you don't really need to follow one properly. Here's what I did.

What you'll need

800g pork shoulder steaks
2 large oranges
1 lime
50g achiote paste
1/2 teaspoon salt

What to do

Set the oven to 150 degrees centigrade. Put the pork in a casserole with a tight fitting lid (if you haven't got a lid then covering it with foil will do). Juice the oranges and lime then pour the juice over the pork and add the achiote paste and salt. Give everything a good stir then put the lid on or cover with foil. Bake in the oven for three hours (check it after two and a half).

The pork is done when you can easily shred the meat with a fork. To serve shred the meat and pour over the juices from the pot. When you've done you should end up with a big bowlful of loveliness like the one above.

Southern Eleven, Manchester

It's a funny part of town, Spinningfields. The place definitely has more character and interest than most newly built developments, in both its architecture and drinking and dining options, but there's still something lacking that I can't quite put my finger on.

I ate at one of those dining options last week, Southern Eleven, an on-with-recent-trends American BBQ restaurant. We shared chicken wings and deep fried pickles to start, the first time I've tried these fabled spears of joy. They were as fantastic as I'd hoped, the crunchy batter and sudden hit of vinegar is more than a little addictive.

The wings were just ok, the hickory sauce wasn't overly sweet but the skin was a bit wan and flabby.

All four of us ended up ordering the same main, a southern tasting platter of pork belly ribs, pulled pork and beef brisket with fries. Good things first: the slabs of pork belly were ace, with loads of sweet juicy flesh under a quivering, charred at the edges fat layer. The pulled pork was similarly flavoured and also enjoyable.

I'm not sure what was wrong with the brisket though, it just didn't taste like brisket to me. Eighteen hours in the smoker had somehow rendered it tender but virtually tasteless.

Fries weren't as much fun as the advertised parmesan truffle coating suggested they might be, being slightly underfried run of the mill catering pack jobs with not much in the way of anything truffley in evidence. They weren't short of parmesan though, so still got scarfed in short order.

A side order of BBQ beans were pleasant, but not so pleasant they didn't get forgotten about and left to go cold. Cold beer was the sensible booze option, Brooklyn lager is the best one on the list.

Service was good throughout the meal, and prices are reasonable. We paid about 23 quid each including two beers apiece. The food was great in parts, but like the surrounding area, slightly lacking in others. Worth a visit to satisfy that meat craving.

7/10

Unit 26

3 Hardman Street

Spinningfields

Manchester

M3 3EB

http://www.southern11.co.uk/

Béres Pork Shop, Sheffield

Beers, Bears, Beresh? I'm not quite sure how you pronounce Béres. The latter perhaps, I know it's Hungarian and that sounds to my linguistically challenged brain to be the most Mitteleuropa way of saying it. Beers might be the more Sheffield way though.

Whatever it's called, of all the myriad wonders I've been discovering about Sheffield, an entire chain of shops devoted to pork sandwiches was one of the most intriguing. I'd been looking forward to a visit for ages. Mmmm pork.

It was an expertly crafted sandwich. The Middlewood branch was a well oiled machine, the staff churning them out in a steady production line: bread sliced and smeared in meat juices, then on goes thinly sliced pork, stuffing, crackling and apple sauce to taste.

I can't say I loved it though. The crackling was great, shattered into little salty shards, and the stuffing and bread were fine. The meat itself was just a bit bland though, making the whole thing slightly heavy going.

£2.25 for the standard size pork sandwich. I'd have another, but not in a great hurry. Back to the bacon methinks.

6/10

8 branches around Sheffield

http://www.beresporkshop.co.uk

Dine on the Rowe, Beverley, East Yorkshire

That most elusive of meals out: a really genuinely good roast dinner. I can't recall eating one where I didn't pick over something on the plate and think how much better I could have done it myself.

It's not that I'm that great a cook, just that pubs and restaurants always seem to cock up at least one component, be it lumpen, dry Yorkshire puddings, dessicated meat or soggy veg.

I thought that Dine on the Rowe might have been the one to confound expectations, and in some ways it was. The roast platter was a sizeable feast for four, much of which was very good. Lamb and beef were the highlights, both accurately cooked, blush pink inside and with lovely marmitey pan bottom crusty bits on the edges. So far so good alongside proper, well-made gravy, a decent Yorkshire pudding and a dish of very cheesy gratinated broccoli.

The potatoes weren't so good. The roasts looked and tasted like the 'chuck 'em in the deep fat fryer for an even crisp coating' variety, which I don't think really works. You just end up with an extra chunky chip with a mealy middle. The second bowl of potatoes appeared to be boiled and partly roasted herbed new potatoes all mushed up before they were really ready. They didn't get eaten.

The third of the meats was belly pork, which I think had also seen the inside of the fryer. It was cut into thin strips, the result being lovely crackling but dry, overcooked meat. The rest of the vegetables were fine.

I enjoyed the meal, particularly the meat, but other things were disappointing given the wait of almost an hour and the higher end price tag (£13.50 per person for the shared roast). We were looked after very well while waiting though, and service was good throughout.

It's a nice restaurant, comprising a few small rooms in what looks like a converted house in the centre of town. I'd like to return to try the regular menus as there's definitely some skill in the kitchen, but I wouldn't bother with the roast again. If you don't know Beverley I'd recommend a visit there too, it's a lovely market town with lots to see and do (and has the added bonus of being very handy for Hull!).

6/10

12-14 Butcher Row
Beverley
East Yorkshire
HU17 0AB

http://www.dineontherowe.com

Pork meatballs

I'm slacking at the moment. Almost a week since my last blog post. I've been gadding about all over the place, eating on the hoof, sometimes in restaurants, sometimes not. Cooking hasn't had much of a look in with one notable exception, a batch of delicious pork meatballs. They were porky and herby and cheesy and lovely, so I thought I'd write about them.

The ingredients are flexible depending on what you have to hand. The herbs in particular could be altered (rosemary might be nice) as could the cheese. Whatever you do don't miss out the bread though, as it really lightens the balls, making them a lot less dense than they would be otherwise.

They are best fried in a little olive oil until they have a lovely savoury brown crust and juicy innards. When they're done toss with pasta and a tomato based sauce. I did them two different ways using egg tagliatelle. The first was a very fresh, zesty sauce of fresh tomatoes, parsley and lemon. The second a deeper, sweeter affair made from roasted peppers and tinned tomatoes. Both were good.

What you'll need (serves around 6)

750g pork mince
juice of 1 lemon
zest of 2 unwaxed lemons
a handful of flat parsley, chopped
about 1 dessertspoon fresh thyme, chopped
1 slice or crust of old white bread, grated or blitzed in a food processor into crumbs
1 heaped tablespoon parmesan, freshly grated
salt and pepper

Pasta and a tomatoey sauce to serve

What to do

Mix all of the meatball ingredients together in a big bowl. Use your hands or a fork and a big spoon.

Season generously with salt and pepper. At this point I fry a little test patty to taste and check the seasoning. Adjust if necessary.

Roll out the mix into little balls about an inch across. You should get at least forty. Set them aside until you're ready to cook. They freeze well or will be fine in the fridge for a couple of days.

Fry your balls until they're lovely and crusty and brown on the outside and succulent within. Toss with cooked pasta and your sauce of choice, then serve immediately with extra parmesan.

Ho's Restaurant, Leeds

I had a monumental craving for noodles on Friday. I'm heading off on an exploratory pho mission this Friday, but just couldn't wait a whole extra week. Only a massive steaming bowl of noodles, meat and broth was going to satisfy. Ideally noodles of a substantial, carbolicious, chewy nature.

I'd noticed before that Ho's has an extensive menu in Chinese and wondered what delights it might be hiding beyond the standard stuff on the English menu, so thought I'd give it a try.

Things didn't get off to a very promising start, the conversation with the waiter going something like this:

Me: Is the Chinese menu different to the English one?
Him: Yes
Me: Has it got any noodle soup dishes on it?
Him: No
Me: Do you do any noodle soup dishes?
Him: Yes
Me: What?
Him: Duck or char siu or beef, thick or vermicelli egg noodle.
Me: (wishful thinking) Any hand pulled noodles or other noodles at all? What sort of broth? Any spicy versions?
Him: No. I can bring chilli oil.
Me: err ok, char sui and vermicelli then please.

When I say unpromising I don't mean to sound ungrateful, his English wasn't great and I think he was trying to help. Unpromising as I didn't think Ho's was shaping up to be the place of my noodle dreams.

So here's what arrived, and it certainly satisfied my craving. The noodles weren't brilliant, but were at least properly cooked so they retained bite throughout. The broth was a little one dimensional but still tasty in a generic umami sort of way. The char siu pork was the highlight, a generous serving, very tender and sweet, the marinade having permeated right through the flesh. A couple of stalks of pak choi rounded things off, providing a bit of colour and health.

Not bad, and reasonably priced at £7.50 for the noodle soup and £1 for a large pot of Chinese tea. There's a lot that warrants further investigation at Ho's though. They obviously don't specialise in soup noodles, but I'd like to know what's on the extensive Chinese menu, and I've a feeling all of the roast meats will be good. There's also a fairly extensive dim sum menu available at lunch and a bakery downstairs.

I grabbed a custard tart from the bakery on the way out, which turned out to be lovely. A light, eggy filling and exceedingly light, almost ethereal pastry. Really good. I'll definitely be back to sample the pork buns and the intriguing sounding sausage bread (as recommended by Jools, cheers for that).

6/10 for the noodles, but 8/10 for that custard tart


115 Vicar Lane
Leeds
LS1 6PJ

The York, Sheffield

I finally made it to Sheffield proper! It was rather more pleasing than Meadowhall. Sunday afternoon was glorious, sunny and unseasonably mild, so a stroll in the park was followed by a trip to the York for a roast.

It's a very popular place. A large pub that was bustling and busy throughout, despite it being that sort of inbetween time early in the evening.

Our roasts, one pork and one beef, were ok but didn't really live up to expectations. The vegetables were very good, plenty of variety including some lovely sprouting broccoli, and none were overcooked either. There were also loads of roast potatoes, cut small just how I like them (more crusty bits that way).

Sadly it was the beef and the Yorkshire pudding that let the side down. Both had the unmistakeable air of having been sat around for too long, tasting ok but being a little chewy and withered.

I still ate the lot even it was a little dull, the meat and Yorkshire were kept moist by a generous dousing with decent gravy. At £10.95 for the beef and £9.95 for the pork it's not a cheap roast and I'm sure there are better elsewhere in Sheffield.

Service was efficient and I did like the lively atmosphere though. The pub quiz was just getting going as we left too, it sounded like a good 'un so I'd definitely return for that and a couple of beers. The company was far superior to the food, so I'm hoping I might be paying more visits to Sheffield (and hopefully eating while I'm there!) in the near future. Watch this space.

6/10

243-247 Fulwood Road
Sheffield
S10 3BA


http://www.theyorksheffield.co.uk/

London and South-East round-up: the good

Home at last. I'm just back from a rather silly week long jaunt around the country for both work and play. I've stayed at a Premier Inn, a Holiday Inn, two Travelodges and one friend's house, with no more than a couple of nights in one place. I'm not half glad to be home.

It's been an interesting week food-wise though, I've experienced much of what's good about eating on the cheap in Britain; the enthusiastic adoption of foreign cuisines and the rapidly developing street food scene being the primary examples.

On the other hand I've also experienced much of what's bad; the distinctly average offering in most pubs and the proliferation of crappy chains interested only in the bottom line being cases in point.

Other than Silk Road, which got a post all to itself, here are the things that were good, and if I can be bothered I might write about those that were bad too:


Franco Manca, Westfield Stratford City

There's much to dislike about the new Westfield mega-mall adjacent to the Olympic site at Stratford, if, like me, you're really not that enthused by shopping. Or by corporate-style marketing nonsense, which seemed to be in overdrive in an area of the centre named the 'Great Eastern Market', and described as a 'modern take on a traditional market'. If that's the case then a 'modern take' on a 'traditional market' means not actually like a market at all, more like an area of a shopping centre where the units are small and everything is hideously overpriced. Great.

Now I've got that rant out of my system I'll have to give credit where it's due. There is much to like about Westfield Stratford City from an eating perspective. All of the usual suspects are there, but a significant proportion of the extensive food offer is given over to small London based businesses. Businesses like Franco Manca who have opened their third outlet here.

Franco Manca are widely acknowledged to make some of the finest pizza in London. I've eaten at both of the other branches, in Brixton and Chiswick, and agree that they're excellent, although I didn't think Chiswick was quite up to the standard of the original in Brixton market.

When I spotted them in Westfield I was worried that they might have sold out, expanding the empire at the expense of the quality. I needn't have worried, the wood burning ovens were present and correct and the prices no higher than in Brixton.

Just tomato, mozzarella and basil, simple but absolutely delicious. They use a sourdough for the base which is then blasted in those fiercely hot ovens producing a crust that's beautifully bubbled and charred on the outside but remains soft, light and slightly chewy within. Good quality cheese and tomato in just the right proportions offset the dough nicely.

The ease with which a whole one of these can be gobbled up is amazing. Just compare and contrast with the heavy going stodgefests that so many pizzas become. An absolute bargain at £5.90, especially when you consider that the vastly inferior equivalent at Pizza Express costs £7.50.

9/10

Unit 2003
The Balcony
Westfield Stratford City
London
E20 1ES

http://www.francomanca.co.uk/




Buen Provecho, eat.st at King's Cross, London

I'm all for the street food revolution. Mobile catering has been improving at festivals and the like for a good few years now, and it finally seems that bringing the same idea (that you can serve good food from a van) to the city streets has caught on in a big way. London's new eat.st is at the forefront, with a rotating list of traders pitched up along a new pedestrian precinct round the back of King's Cross station.

Mexican stall Buen Provecho tickled my fancy last Friday, mainly because I'd heard great things about their tacos. Which as luck would have it were unavailable because the tortillas were late arriving. No matter as the lunch box meal is any two of the same taco fillings served on rice, with salsa, guacamole and tortilla chips.

A point of note to virtually every one of those burrito places that have popped up in recent years. It wouldn't kill you to include guacamole in the price. 50p extra or more for a smear of mashed avocado is a rip-off. Buen Provecho showed how it should be done by making good guacamole and including it in the price. Self service salsas and tortilla chips, and the fact the guy serving was friendly and looked like a pirate also made me smile.

Star of the show was Cochinita pibil, slow roasted pork marinated in orange juice and spices (I'm not quite sure what). The meat was reduced to lovely moist shreds that oozed juices with an intense tangy flavour. If I ever get round to going here again I'll just have this stuff. The salsas were also pretty good, one of raw finely diced veg and coriander, the other a hotter, smokier affair probably involving some sort of roasted chillies. A dollop of refried beans were also successful, lending creaminess to the rice.

The only duff note was the other meat dish, chicken and chorizo in a sauce that was a bit nondescript. It tasted ok but was dull in comparison with the outstanding pork.

A substantial meal box costs £6, service is friendly, you can help yourself to salsa and there's plenty of kerb to sit on.

8/10

King's Boulevard
London
N1C

http://eat.st/kings-cross/




Banh Mi Bay, Holborn, London

Imagine a sandwich that's rich and meaty but fresh and tangy. A sandwich that marries three types of pork with mayo and pickles. A sandwich that's spicy and fragrant. A sandwich that's crusty and crunchy but smooth and moist. This is the Banh Mi, Vietnam's notable contribution to the pantheon of great sandwiches.

I fell in love with the Banh Mi when I lived in Woolwich. Someone opened up a Vietnamese coffee shop just off the high street, so they were pretty much the only exciting foodstuff I could eat without hopping on a train (Woolwich is not London's finest foodie suburb, there are some potentially good Ghanaian places, but they always had strange blacked out windows and I never plucked up the courage to venture inside). I would muck around in the gym for half an hour or so, then reward myself with bread, and chilli, and three types of pork.

I digress, the special Banh Mi at Banh Mi Bay was pretty damn good. All the key elements were there: a light rice flour baguette, roast pork, pork roll, pork liver paté, slightly pickled carrot and mooli, mayo, cucumber, coriander, chilli. I'd have liked the paté to have been more liver-y, there are plenty of other strong flavours present to stand up to it, but apart from that I couldn't fault it.

£3.85 for the special Banh Mi, perfectly reasonable as it's an impressively proportioned sandwich. It contains three varieties of pork too, did I mention that already?

8/10

4-6 Theobalds Road
Holborn
WC1X 8PN

http://www.banhmibay.co.uk/

Town Hall Tavern, Leeds

Saturday was one of those great days when everything goes to plan. Even better than that, it was one of those days when the plan lives up to expectations.

The big event was a night on the town to celebrate a couple of birthdays and the visit of a friend who emigrated to New Zealand a few years back, the centrepiece of which was an absolute belter of a meal at Red Chilli. You can order a rather large quantity of delicious Sichuan food when there's fourteen of you round the table. Three blog posts about Red Chilli in just a few months is probably overdoing it though, so I'll just say this: it's bloody brilliant.

Lunch earlier in the day was just as successful. After a refurbishment last year the Town Hall Tavern was re-opened as a gastropub (their description) by Timothy Taylor's. The gastropub description is fair in this case, as it's very much a proper pub with good food as opposed to a restaurant in disguise. Drinkers are definitely welcome.

The menu is a standard gastropub sort of affair, pub classics set alongside some more ambitious sounding dishes. There's also a list of pick-n-mix sharing plates all priced at a very reasonable £1.95. It was from this list that I ordered a pig's cheek scotch egg which got things off to a wonderful start.

Oooh this was good. I could eat one (read several) right now. A lovely greaseless crunchy crumb encasing dense shreds of moist, soft flesh and a perfectly cooked, runny yolked quails egg. We ordered nothing more from the snacks menu, but if the rest of it's as good as this an evening of superior Yorkshire tapas and ale is going to be in order very soon.

Ale roasted gammon, sorrel croquettes and wilted greens (£8.95) was equally accomplished. The chef here is obviously a dab hand with the deep fat fryer as the croquettes were as well cooked as the scotch egg. The same crust this time filled with a velvety, slightly oniony (or possibly leeky) potato filling. I couldn't taste the advertised sorrel though, which I suspect is like basil in that it rapidly loses its fragrance when exposed to heat.

The gammon was a thick chunk of porky goodness, not overly salty and a good match with the crunchy/smooth texture contrast and mild flavour of the croquettes. The jug contained a generous quantity of decent gravy presumably made from ham bone stock.

I wasn't quite convinced by the burger across the table, as the patty was a little overcooked. An option on the cooking level would be good as it tasted like good quality meat and would have been far better served pink. Apart from sticking to theme of using Yorkshire produce I also can't see any point in using Wensleydale here. It really isn't a very good burger cheese.

Most of what we ate at the Town Hall Tavern was excellent, and the prices are great for the standard of cooking and presentation. You'd pay a similar price for gammon slung on a plate with frozen chips and frozen peas at many other pubs. I wish they would serve everything on plates here though, the penchant for serving food on anything flat that isn't a plate just irritates me. Maybe that's just me though? But really, why would you want your burger to arrive on a massive chopping board? Why?

Minor gripes aside, I loved it here. The service was good, the food was good and it would be a great little pub to drink in too. I'll be back.

8/10

17 Westgate
Leeds
LS1 2RA

www.townhalltavernleeds.co.uk

Good things to eat (volume 8): A Christmas Special

This is going to be mostly about cheese. I've written very little about cheese, not through a lack of love for the stuff, but rather because I don't actually eat it that often. The occasional block of mature cheddar for toasting purposes, the odd hunk of stilton with a glass of red, parmesan for pasta and that's about it.

For reasons I'm not quite sure about cheese has turned into a special occasion food for me, a celebratory treat rather than an everyday fridge staple. Christmas is inevitably the big one. Time to hit the cheese.

Continuing a recent theme of untraditional Christmases this year, for the second in succession (last year was curry) I avoided a roast dinner entirely, instead feasting on a sort of über-buffet at my Sister's house. My brother-in-law and I compiled a list of pretty much everything we like to eat and drink the most, and that were suitable for grazing and snacking, and made or bought the lot.

We ate jamon iberico, gordal olives and sherry. There was paté, and wonderful sourdough bread, and cured salmon.

We ate fat wedges of pork pie (my first ever pork pie - a success!) with cornichons. Fresh, sweet scallops were enjoyed au gratin and sautéed in herb butter, as were garlicky prawns. We ate buffalo wings and drank beer, rich, dark porter and also fragrant, fruity pale ale.

And we ate cheese. Lots of lovely cheese. It's the cheese that I want to talk about, because I haven't said much about cheese, and these are some of the finest cheeses I know, and I really would recommend that you seek any of them out if you want to assemble the ultimate cheeseboard. Cheese heaven. Really.

Montgomery's Cheddar

Photo credit: Forman and Field

The King of Cheddar as far as I'm concerned. It has a hard, craggy almost crystalline texture that breaks down into creaminess in the mouth. The flavour is almost parmesan-like in it's umami depth, intensely savoury but also with bursts of fruitiness. This is perfect on its own but when blended with Comté it makes the best Cheese on toast I think I've ever tasted. I had it for lunch two days running and now there is none left.

Comté

One of the wonders of cheese is its infinite variety. Comté is a hard cheese made with unpasteurised cow's milk, just like Montgomery's Cheddar. They also share some flavour characteristics, fruitiness and depth. But in other ways they're completely different. Comté has a smooth dense texture, and tastes rich and buttery with a lingering sweetness. Wonderful alone, or as I said before, blended to make the cheese-on-toast-of-the-gods. I'm salivating obscenely just thinking about it. There is also none of this left. Boo hoo.

Tunworth

Photo credit: Tasty Treats

A sweaty-French English cheese, Tunworth is reminiscent of a good Brie or Camembert. Ours was quite a ripe specimen, and oozed a rather cabbagey stench that was slightly too much for my nose. I can't always handle the riper of French cheeses. On tasting any reservations were waylaid. It's wonderful. The stronger, funkier notes rapidly give way to a long lasting sweet, nutty, slightly tangy taste as the soft paste dissolves in your mouth. I like this one with oatcakes.

Cardo

Photo Credit: Cartmel Cheeses

This was the curveball. The only cheese I'd never eaten before. It's a washed rind goats cheese. Deceptively subtle as the strong flavour of the rind gives way to quite a mild, herbal goaty interior. Really delicious and one I'd definitely try again. I think this would be best eaten entirely on its own to appreciate it fully.

Stichelton

Last but certainly not least, Stichelton. This is quite possibly my favourite cheese of all time. It's essentially a Stilton, but Stilton has protected designation of origin status, and must be made with pasteurised milk. Stichelton is the unpasteurised gatecrasher at the party. A welcome gatecrasher though, replete with fine wine and witty repartee, not a four pack of Carling and a tendency to vomit.

I still have some of this left, so I'm going to eat some now and write down the sensation immediately. I'll apologise now, it will probably be gibberish. Here goes: Smooth, sharp and salty. Saltiness rising into intensely savoury filling the whole mouth, metallic but with milkiness in the background. Slightly acidic. Fading into creamy, sweet, mellow as it dissolves and disappears.

Er yes, told you it might be gibberish. Detailed description of taste is not my strong point, but you get the idea. It's complex and delicious and beautiful. Personally I think you should bin the crackers and chutney and just eat this on its own, maybe with a glass of red wine. But not port which I find too sweet, the sugar killing the flavour of the cheese. In short, it's amazing. Get some.

Sichuan stir-fried green beans with minced pork

Stir-fried beans with minced pork is a classic Sichuan dish. I've seen it on the menu of every Sichuan restaurant I've ever been to and I love it (5 or 6 of them, enough to know it's a running theme). A cracking version at Red Chilli the other weekend reminded me that it was about time I tried to cook it again.

On the couple of occasions I've attempted the dish before the results have been reasonable but I've never quite hit the nail on the head. It's never quite scaled the heights of deliciousness found in a good restaurant version. This time was better, I think I've nearly cracked it so I thought I'd share the recipe.

I did three things differently this time. I used pork belly and minced it by hand, I added shaoxing rice wine and I added a sachet of preserved vegetables. The pork belly was all my idea, but I can't claim credit for the wine and veggies as I perused plenty of recipes online that suggest their inclusion. The resultant method and quantities however are all my own work.

Cutting the meat by hand from a piece really sorted the texture out. You want little tiny nuggets of meat rather than actual mince which will either disintegrate into mush or form longer strands rather than nuggets. I used belly but shoulder would also work as I still trimmed quite a lot of the excess fat from the belly.

The rice wine and preserved veggies provided the depth of flavour and umami succulence (MSG may have been present in the preserved veg) that was otherwise lacking.

In it's original incarnation I think this is supposed to be a vegetable dish with pork garnish, but I upped the meat quotient a bit for no reason other than that I wanted more pork. One strip of pork belly should be plenty but you may want to use less if you are having this as a side dish. At Red Chilli this was our vegetable dish alongside other mutton, chicken and pork dishes so extra pork in the veggies wouldn't really have been necessary. Obviously a little bit of pork in the veggies was necessary, but not a lot. One has to consider arterial health on occasion.

The resultant dish should have an intensely savoury flavour balanced by some sweetness. It should also pack a punch from the chillies and make your lips tingle from the Sichuan pepper. All this, coupled with the fact it will contain lots of pork fat should combine to make it very more-ish indeed.

The more unusual ingredients are readily available in Oriental supermarkets.

You will need

These quantities will serve 2 as a main meal with rice, more as a side dish.
100g piece of pork belly
200g green beans
half a tsp sichuan peppercorns
handful of dried chillis
3 tbsps shaoxing rice wine
5 cloves garlic
an inch of ginger
3 spring onions
2 tbsps soy sauce
white pepper
vegetable oil
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 sachet of Sichuan preserved vegetable (made with mustard greens I think)

What to do

1. The first step is to prepare the meat. Cut any large quantities of excess fat from your meat, but don't get carried away as you still want it quite fatty.

2. Chop the meat into very small, almost minced pieces. The easiest way to do this is to attack it with scissors for a good five minutes.

3. Put your finely chopped meat into a small mixing bowl and add a good pinch of white pepper, a tbsp of soy sauce and a tbsp of shaoxing rice wine. Give it a good stir and set aside.

4. Top and tail your green beans, then cut them into roughly equal sized pieces. Get a wok on a medium-hot heat with a generous glug of vegetable oil and a tbsp of sesame oil in it.

5. Add the green beans to the wok and fry them until the surfaces start to blister and the insides are cooked but retain a little bite. This should only take 3 or 4 minutes. When they are done remove from the wok with a slotted spoon and put them onto kitchen paper to soak up any excess oil.

6. Whilst the beans are frying finely chop, crush or grate the garlic and ginger (I grated it) and slice the spring onions. Crush the sichuan peppercorns lightly in a pestle and mortar (if you haven't got one just bash them up a bit with something heavy on your chopping board). Open the sachet of preserved vegetables and have the dried chillies, soy sauce and rice wine to hand. Make sure all of this is done before the next step, as the rest of the cooking process takes only 4-5 minutes so you need to have everything ready to throw in quickly.

7. After the beans have been removed keep the wok on the heat and add the pork. Stir-fry it for a minute or two, don't worry if it sticks or catches as the crusty bits are delicious.

8. Add the handful of dried chillies and stir-fry for another few seconds, then add the garlic, ginger and sichuan pepper, then stir-fry for another minute or so.

9. Add the sachet of preserved vegetables and the beans, then stir-fry for another minute or so.

10. Throw in a good glug of shaoxing rice wine (about 2tbsps) and a glug of soy sauce (about 1 tbsp) and fry for one more minute.

11. Garnish with the spring onions and serve immediately with steamed rice.

...and finally, apropos of nothing other than to cheer me up here are a couple of photos taken in the Dales on Sunday. Just a little reminder that we do have blue skies from time to time in dank, dark November.

Pork hock udon

I love noodle soups. I don't know why I'm writing this now because I'm craving noodle soup something rotten, but have no suitable ingredients in the house and no intention of leaving it to get some. I'm sort of torturing myself with temptation.

Anyhow I love noodle soups because they are the comfort food of the gods, because they are infinitely variable, and because they can be utterly, utterly delicious. There's rarely an occasion when a great big bowl of steaming goodness won't hit the spot. From the simple, almost ascetic pleasure of a clear broth spiked with nothing but a scattering of herbs and a few shards of ginger, to the dense, rich pungence of a good laksa.

I make noodle soups all the time, rarely bothering with a recipe and mixing and matching ingredients from across East and South-East Asia as the fancy takes me. They're always satisfying, and sometimes memorably delicious too.

This was a particularly good effort, so I thought I'd put it on the blog. The flavours are quite clear and bright, with added richness from the fatty pork and crackling. I'm sure it's not in the least bit authentic, but if it's close to the cuisine of any country I'd guess it's Japanese with a bit of Vietnam thrown in.

it's a leftovers recipe really, so you need to have the pork prepared in advance. I had it left over from a different meal. If you do it from scratch a whole hock should do about 3 people.

What you'll need per person:

handful shredded pork meat

about 1 pint pork stock

shards of crunchy crackling

fish sauce

sriracha chilli sauce

2 spring onions

1 hot chilli

1 clove garlic

small lump ginger

mint

coriander

lime/lemon

1 sheet udon noodles

some greens or other veg (I used runner beans)

To make the pork, stock and crackling

1. Simmer the hock with onion, celery and peppercorns for a couple of hours, skimming off any scum from the surface. 

2. After a couple of hours remove the pork and veg from the stock. Chuck away the veg. 

3. Pull the skin/fat off the hock, then pull off the meat and shred it. 

4. Put the remaining bones back in the stock and simmer for another hour. 

5. Dry the fat, salt it and roast in a hot oven 'til you get crackling.

To make the noodle dish

1. Finely slice the spring onions and chilli.

2. Shred or grate the ginger and garlic.

3. Chop some mint and/or coriander leaves.

4. Heat the stock in a large pan or wok.

5. Add the noodles, greens/veg and pork and heat until the noodles are just done.

6. Squirt in some fish sauce and sriracha to taste.

7. Garnish with the garlic/ginger, the spring onions/chilli, the mint/coriander, the crackling and a wedge of lemon/lime.

8. Serve immediately, stirring in all of the garnishes with your chopsticks.

For blogs providing more expert coverage of all things noodles I can wholeheartedly recommend Eat Noodles Love Noodles and Hollow Legs.