There was a time when the role of yeast in brewing was unknown. In the days of the Vikings, each family had their own brewing stick that they used for stirring the wort. These brewing sticks were regarded as family heirlooms because it was the use of that stick that guaranteed that the beer would turn out right. Obviously, those sticks retained the family yeast culture. The German Beer Purity Law of 1516 - The Reinheitsgebot, listed the only allowable materials for brewing as malt, hops, and water. With the discovery of yeast and its function in the late 1860's by Louis Pasteur, the law had to be amended.
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Lately Amon has begun to laugh a bit. It's heart-meltingly good and when he does it, we regularly just spend ten minutes singing and dancing, doing monkey impressions and beating each other up violently all in an effort to get him to repeat that little grimace.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
I spent an absolute age the other day boucing him in his chair and getting him to gurgle whilst pointing my camera-phone in his face. Even with the flash off, before the photo is taken a little red light comes on to take a light reading, and this always surprises him out of laughter. Except once. When the bouncy chair was bouncing too fast to capture it. Damn.
Nevertheless; More photos:
And some of family holding him:
*I say "our", it's just me really, and I think Alex might have joined once. If anyone else wants to join the League, do let me know, and we'll, umm, have a cup of tea or something.
With this in mind The People's Republic ...
Although as you can see I did a lovely crimped crust before I attempted to lift it.
OK. This wasn't as fantastic as it could have been. I made a few crucial and critical errors, such as forgetting the salt (properly seasoning is probably lesson #1 in chef's school)
Could have done with veg stock or something for more body. The bacon went soggy and I managed to mess up my fine pastie look as I was attempting to transporting raw pastie to pan and then from there to plate was a nightmare. My thoughts are I could either pre-cook the bacon and the crust or make the pastie in-tray? Hmmm.
Need a better cheese than cheddar something that will keep it's shape yet taste interesting and complementary, perhaps a goats cheese veg pastie to keep my friend Matt Borg happy.
The only other criticism I have of this is that I forgot to sweeten the coffee to taste first. I take sugar, and it would be a good idea to ask how people like their coffee before baking it all up.
I will post again with the new improved pastie when it's made.
Quantities are something like:
I think I put in 150g ginger (inc. peel, so probably less).
the guy in Brewer's Droop (the best darned homebrew shop in the whole of God-belovin' Bristol) said something about yeast nutrient so I'll chuck a bit of that in in a second. Apparently this evening it should be ready to bottle up (in plastic bottles, as it's volatile and wont to explode if not drunk quickly).
Having never made beef stock before, the first thing I did was track down a recipe. All my classic cookbooks failed me. I found no mention of it in Mrs Beeton's Household Management. Edouard de Pomiane simply uses it, he has someone to make these things for him, probably in these new-fangled 'cubes'.
Getting a bit more contemporary, an excellent book mum gave me for christmas, Living and Eating by John Pawson and Annie Bell (which is a bit of a snob's bible to all you need to know) told me that there was a virtual PhD in stock-making available it could attain such artistry, and then proceeded to only give me a recipe (which I made with good results just after christmas) for chicken stock. Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall got me all excited by having a reference to it in the index of The River Cottage Cookbook, but it turned out only to refer to its existence as a recipe. Finally! Gary Rhodes came up with the goods in his New British Classics book. Here's his recipe in summary (from memory):
Roast the onions slowly for two hours or so. The Roast the beef bones at 200oC for half an hour. Ten minutes in, chuck the roughly chopped carrot and celery in with the bones. Put everything in a big pan. Bring it to the boil and keep it there for 8 hours, skimming the scum off the top every now and then.
I ballsed up the thyme and chucked in some dried stuff, that I then skimmed off twenty minutes later. I also ballsed up by not having a large enough pan to fit all that water in.
By about midnight last night it was ready, if a little too reduced, even. I strained off the lumps, and took the bones out of these. Then I pureed the remainder into a further stage opf soup, that made a grinding noise with the blender as the bits of gristle and bone whizzed round (I had to hack the some of the roasted bones in half with a butcher's cleaver - no simple task for a first-timer). Two minutes later, this final by-product was in the Council compost bin, which marks the territory of our doorstep like the piss of a randy old alcoholic fishmonger. Can't wait for summer!
By 1 am, I'd finished pouring it into various containers to cool, and sort the skimmed-off matter to get some second servings of stock, true blemished skimmings and purest beef lard (pure except for a bit of thyme and leek).
I'll let you know if it was worth the effort when I actually make something.
The chicken stock has made some really really nice stew with a recipe from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diary, which I got for christmas and am spending the year reading so that I can appreciate the food and get inspiration for seasonal cooking.
