Listen Again (until Tuesday 1st November)

I’ve got a restaurant. Maybe it will help things sink in if that is repeated.

I have my very own restaurant. And what a restaurant it is.

The Hole in the Wall in the delightful village of Little Wilbraham, just outside Cambridge, is about as picture perfect as an old pub can be and I love it.

12 months ago my business partner and I had reached an impasse. Our grand plans to open a place of our own had hit a snag or two and we consoled ourselves with a pub lunch at a beautiful rural free house. As we sat outside, the sunshine and ale soothing our ills, we idled as to why we were having such a hard time finding a home for our cooking and how wonderful it would be if ‘we could just find a place like this’.

A year, and many more impasses later, we have found it. We’ve got a kitchen and a dining room of our very own – a home for the dishes that up until now had only been sketches and drawings and synapses firing through our brains. We’ve got a pub and open fires and wooden beams and a snug (a snug!) and all the things that make you smile when you picture an old English ale house.

Right now there is a minor refurbishment going on, a few licks of paint here and some elbow grease there, before we get into the kitchen and start doing what I’ve been desperate to do since I was 15 years old. But the doors will be open. Soon. The bar – which will be home to hearty and wholesome plates of deliciousness – is opening on July 12th. The restaurant – where I’ll be letting the imagination run wild (blue cheese ice cream might even make it onto the menu!) – will be ready just two days later.

It would be wonderful to have as many blog readers dining with us as possible over the next few weeks and as a thank you to all of you and the support you have shown since I started penning these missives five years ago, if you mention the blog when booking there will be a little treat waiting for you when you take your seat. Maybe something a little cold and fizz – you’ve earned it.

So it is with great pride I now declare booking open. You’ll probably want a telephone number won’t you? 01223 812282. I can’t wait to meet you all. Big hugs and enormous thanks.

Oh, and the name of the pub we sat outside on that frustrating summer afternoon 12 long months ago? Where we mused how wonderful it would be to have a place ‘just like this’? It was called The Hole in the Wall in the quaint Cambridgeshire village of Little Wilbraham. It’s funny how things work out.

Full details will be released on June 30th but in the mean time for mailing list and priority bookings please send an email to bookings@alexrushmer.com

For many of us barbecue is a simple affair: an excuse to drink cold beer, grill meat, enjoy the outdoors and spend a few hours getting to know one’s inner Neanderthal. For others, though it is an obsession and vocation bordering on the religious.

To a Texan or Carolinian the word ‘barbecue’ has some very specific connotations and even rules and regulations. The competition rulebook for the annual World’s Championship Bar-B-Que contest runs to 24 pages, my favourite of which simply reads, in bold:

‘No garnish is allowed.’

This is an organisation that has its priorities in line. No salads for these poker-toting professionals, just vast slow-cooked hunks of animal protein. And that is the key point – where we are more likely to follow in the footsteps of our Australian brethren and use the hot coals for a quick sizzle and sear approach, those from the Deep South are very much of the slow and low school.

Proper barbecue takes years of experience and hours of planning, practice, nurturing and cooking, not to mention a smattering of scientific understanding. It’s no coincidence that world-renowned scientist Nathan Myhrvold – he of the encyclopaedic ‘Modernist Cuisine’ – won the annual contest in the 1990s.

{my jerry-rigged barbecue ‘pit’}

The equipment required is also specialist. Huge barrel shaped behemoths fitted with clamp lids, temperature probes, basting mechanisms and thermo-regulatory systems. Charcoal that burns for sustained periods at relatively low temperatures and specific woods – hickory, applewood and mesquite being the most famous – that emit the all-important smoke to flavour the meat in the desired fashion. It’s a complicated process.

And so, armed with a tiny tabletop barbecue, a few branches hacked from a cherry tree and a digital temperature probe I decided to try it for myself over Easter weekend.

The weather was great, the GF was away for the week and the fridge was chock full of beers to be shared with a like minded friend. What better way to idle away the day than slowly cooking a shoulder of pork to tender, sweet and smoky perfection over smouldering wood?

Having now done just that, my conclusion is that there is no better way to idle away a day than slowly cooking a shoulder of pork to tender, sweet and smoky perfection over smouldering wood. It is idyllic and I suggest you try it as soon as you possibly can.

It requires a little patience, some pro-active watching and nurturing of the flames and plenty of time but the results make it all worthwhile. Sit back, while away the afternoon and allow the prospect of a barbecued pork sandwich to pull you through the hours of cooking.

First of all, it’s worth pointing out that contrary to what the World’s Championship Bar-B-Que people mandate, there are no rules. The reality is that if you slow cook a piece of pig over hot coals and smoking wood, it’s going to taste great. Seriously great. Perhaps not competition worthy but good enough to knock a blackened sausage into a cocked hat.

Begin by making a dry-rub: I went for chilli powder, cumin, oregano, paprika, cinnamon, black pepper, sugar and salt but you can freestyle on this front. It’s a good idea to knock up a quick basting sauce as well at this point: three parts apple juice, two parts cider vinegar and one part maple syrup should do nicely. Massage the dry rub into a pork shoulder (for a small barbecue, 2kg is probably about as big as you can get away with) and leave in the fridge overnight if possible.

When you’re doing a slow and low barbecue, it’s a good idea to get the coals hot nice and early. Any later than midday and you’re looking at a late supper. After an hour or so, the temperature should have peaked and started to drop which is crucial for slow-cooking. Ideally you want to try and maintain a temperature of 80-100 degrees C. I did this by judicious application of the lid, adding new charcoal and fresh sticks and standing over the coals and fanning a cushion like a maniac when it got too cold. You’ll find your own approach. It’s part of the fun.

To stop fat from dripping out of the pork and flaming up, shift the fire to one side and place a water filled foil tray directly under where the pork is going to sit. Add some damp sticks to the coals, replace the grate and crown it with the pork and pop the lid on.

Then wait. And sip beer.

Aside from a little attention every thirty minutes or so, this is lazy cooking. Turning and basting with the apple juice sauce is important but only when you remember, but do keep an eye on the temperature as it will fluctuate thanks to a number of factors.

Add new coal when you need more heat, more damp wood when you need more smoke and try to keep the lid on as much as possible although this will reduce the heat. Follow these principles and you’ll have no issues at all.

After six-eight hours, the pork will be tender and tasty and you should be tipsy and hungry. Which is a very happy state of affairs. Slice the meat, cover in ‘wet mop’ (recipe below) sauce then stuff the whole lot into soft white bread rolls with a heaping dollop of coleslaw (recipe below). Sit back, toast your patience and good work and dive in.

Wet Mop Sauce

This is a sweet-sour-smoky-hot sauce that sets the pork off an absolute treat. Again, use this as a guide and adapt to your own tastes

100g tomato ketchup

25g dark brown sugar

50ml cider vinegar

Tabasco sauce

Worcestershire Sauce

Salt and pepper

Heat everything in a saucepan, taste and adjust the seasoning until it is sweet/spicy/sour enough for you then keep warm until the pork is ready. Slice the cooked pork and spoon the sauce over the meat.

‘Slaw

Half a white cabbage, thinly sliced

Two 7-8 inch carrots, peeled and grated

3-4 tablespoons mayonnaise

1 tablespoon cider vinegar or white wine vinegar

Salt and plenty of black pepper

Mix it all together. That’s it. Subtlety and finesse don’t appear to be part of the barbecue culture, funnily enough.

Life took a turn for the busy and now it’s April. Already. There’s been a lot of cooking: a tasting menu for a shoal of pescetarians. A supper club for 40 cooked entirely on an Aga (and a barbecue once we realised the hot plate couldn’t get hot enough to sear the meat). Receipe writing for a new magazine. And plenty of menu development for Project X which is nearing completion.

Project X is currently top secret but involves a permanent home for my food after a year of searching. It would seem that finding a restaurant isn’t that easy but please do watch this space for a hugely, massively, wonderfully, brilliantly, tremendously exciting announcement in the very near future. You, dear readers, will be the first to know.

But for now, how about a recipe?

The soufflé has developed a reputation for being a nefarious and tricksy little devil, prone to collapsing in a manner that only Didier Drogba could improve upon. Myths surrounding the making of soufflés abound: don’t underwhip the whites. Don’t overwhip the whites. Don’t beat too cautiously. Don’t fold too vigorously. Don’t open the oven door. Don’t undercook. Don’t overcook. Don’t bother. Just don’t.

The reality is rather different. The making of soufflés has now become something of a minor obsession thanks largely to a chapter devoted to the topic in Raymond Blanc’s brilliant memoir A Taste of my Life – a great read for the culinary minded.

Once the basic technique has been mastered you can play around with near infinite flavour combinations, a method employed by the great Peter Kromberg who took the art of combining egg yolks and whipped egg white to a whole new level.

This recipe is a riff on the timeless ‘rhubarb and custard’ combination and is a great way to utilise the fresh sour flavour of the stem, which is cropping up in farm shops with increasing regularity now that the season is in full swing.

Make more than you think you can possibly get through because, and this is the best bit, once made they can be frozen. Uncooked, they will happily sit in the freezer just waiting to be popped in the oven where they will rise up like a glorious revolutionary hoard. A near instant dessert that carries with it a measure of mystique.

Start by stewing some rhubarb down with some brown sugar. Taste as you go – balancing the acidity of rhubarb can be a tricky task. Reduce to a consistency that means it needs a tough tap to encourage it to fall from a spoon when you stir it. Too runny and the soufflé mix will become sodden.

The next job is to make a crème pâtissière – a good skill in of itself due to the versatility of this particular custard. Add the seeds from a vanilla pod to 250ml milk and bring to a gentle boil over a low heat. Whisk together three egg yolks with 25g caster sugar until the mixture has doubled in volume and taken on a pale colour then whisk in 40g plain flour.

Pour the warm milk over the egg yolk mix, whisking all the time, then return the whole lot to a clean pan and cook over a gentle heat until the custard begins to thicken – you should be looking to take it to a temperature of about 75 degrees at which point the proteins in the egg yolk coagulate and the starches in the flour are activated.

Stir the stewed rhubarb into the custard and set aside in a warm place. Whisk four egg whites to medium peaks – a tiny splash of vinegar helps to stabilise the foam – and gradually add 50g caster sugar until you end up with something the consistency of soft meringue.

Stir a large spoonful of the egg white into the custard to lighten the mix and make it easier to incorporate it back into the whisked egg whites then, working quite quickly and assertively, fold the custard mix into the egg white.

Prepare some oven proof ramekins by brushing melted butter around the insides and coating with caster sugar. Spoon the soufflé mix into each one and level off the top with a spatula. Run a thumb or finger around the inside of the rim of each ramekin to release the mixture from the side and ensure it rises evenly then either pop in the freezer or cook in a preheated oven (200 degrees C) for about 10 minutes (depends on the size of your ramekins). A bit of trial and error is all it takes. Garnish with a thin slice of dehydrated rhubarb and serve with crème chantilly and more stewed rhubarb.

The original recipe is a version of the greatest of British pub snacks: a dense savoury thirst inducing soaker up of beer that tastes far better than it smells. Cardboard racks of shiny foil packets, often bearing the image of an incongruously smiling porcine specimen or comedy butcher are to be found in pubs up and down the land. Some places even make their own, The Ship Inn in Wandsworth being a notable example where they arrive with a sweet apple sauce for dipping purposes.

Despite their ubiquity here, pork scratchings of this variety are a uniquely British nibble. Elsewhere they enjoy a version that despite being deep-fried manages to be far lighter and consequently is easier to eat in large quantities without fear of losing a filling: chicharrones. These are ethereally light thanks to being made almost entirely of air and leave little more than a whisper of a memory that they were in your mouth just three seconds ago. They are brilliant.

The process of making chicharrones is a little time consuming but well worth the effort when you taste the results. Plus you can normally get hold of pork skin for free from your friendly neighbourhood butcher so a little time is the only investment you need make.  Start the process on Wednesday if you want something to go with your Friday night beer.

Once you’ve secured your pork skin (a 30cm square piece will give you more chicharrones than you could possibly eat whilst still maintaining dignity) cut away any excess fat or meat and sprinkle it with salt on both sides, refrigerate it overnight.

Bring a large pot of water to the boil, rinse the pork skin then place it into the pot. Simmer for 90 minutes then extract and spread out the skin on a tray and pop it back in the fridge overnight.

Set the oven to its lowest possible setting (50-60°C), remove the skin from the fridge and scrape off as much of the fat as you possibly can. It’s worth spending the time doing this because deep fried fat lard really isn’t as tasty as it sounds. You should end up with a sheet of skin about 3mm in thickness and almost translucent.

Pop the de-larded skin onto a tray and into the oven for at least 12 hours, turning two or three times. You’re dehydrating it, not cooking it – that comes later. By the time its ready it should be hard, very crunchy and near see-through and resemble something you could fix a church window with. You can store this almost indefinitely as long as its nice and dry (you’d be well advised to pop it back in a low oven for an hour or so before you deep fry if you keep it longer than a couple of days)

Bring a pan of cooking oil to 200° C. Break the dried out pork skin into small pieces – about 1cm squares should be fine – and cook in the hot oil a couple at a time for about 10 seconds or until they magically puff up like porky prawn crackers. They’ll increase in size by about five or six times so don’t overcrowd the pan. Drain on kitchen paper, sprinkle with salt and serve straight away with some cool beers. Or warm ale if you want to be English about it.

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