The Aperitif Guy

In a recent article for Handpicked Harrogate magazine¹, I wrote about how home cooks put themselves under tremendous pressure to cook a turkey "with all the trimmings." It seems that over the last 20 years or so, we have come to expect our seasonal bird to come with a vast array of accompaniments, vegetable dishes and sauces. As far as I can tell, we only seem to have these massive expectations with turkey. Given that most of us will be reducing our Christmas guest-list this year, a 16lb turkey is likely to be too much, anyway, and I thought I'd have a look at alternatives. Chicken Before the advent of battery farming, chicken was considered a luxury meat. The idea that it had more flavour is not down to nostalgia: slower-growing breeds have time to develop more flavour but are, inevitably, more expensive to rear. Having said that, you can be confident they will have had space to roam and a generally better life, especially if you're buying from an independent butche...

Octopus dishes are delicious. The meat is sweet and delicate and, if properly cooked, it ranges from firm to tender, but should not be tough or rubbery. It is usually boiled to tenderise it and can then be grilled, barbecued, served simply in salad or pickled as part of a meze table. It is relatively plentiful in British waters and not uncommon in restaurants, but home cooks tend to shy away from it. The main reason seems to be squeamishness about preparing it, or nervousness about getting it wrong. Any good fishmonger (including the in-store ones in the supermarket) will clean and gut it for you if asked. I tend not to ask, as it's not a difficult task and allows you to get the 'feel' of your octopus before you cook it. Your first task is to give it a really good rinse in cold water. There's every chance the fish has released ink as it was caught, and you're going to need several changes of water to get that off. Octopus ink isn't harmful in any way, but it...

The British summer is doing its best to surprise us, with its usual mixture of rain, gales and glorious sunshine all in one day. In many parts of the UK, Coronavirus restrictions are gradually being eased, and we're getting used to socialising outdoors and at a distance. The traditional British barbecue of burgers and hotdogs with a range of unmatched salads and plenty to drink doesn't hold the same attraction in the circumstances. Do not leave your barbie to gather dust, though. There is so much you can cook on it, and our current circumstances provide just the opportunity to experiment. A barbecue - charcoal or gas - is nothing more than a fire and a wire rack. It's just a heat source. That's it. And anything you would normally cook under a grill, in the oven or even things you'd do on the hob, can be cooked on a barbecue. All the flash gadgetry of a top-of-the-range gas barbecue is designed to make the heat more controllable, but you can achieve great results on ...

This week, France celebrates its national feast. Bastille Day (usually known simply as le quatorze juillet in French) marks the storming of the hated prison in Paris, a key moment in the beginning of the Revolution. The events of 1789 did not remove the King - that would come later - and France would know more troubles yet, including new tyrants and further revolutions. However, the events of that 14th July capture the imagination and fire a people's love of their country like no other date in its history. France gets under your skin. The language has a musicality about it; it feels wonderful in the mouth. You can say things a variety of ways, but the elegantly-constructed sentence will always draw praise. Education is prized for its own sake, not just as a means to a job. Manners are greatly appreciated, and formality is valued. The pace of life is different, and that's as true in the big cities as it is in the rural areas. Friends call in on one another in the early evening,...

A table set for a St Patrick's night dinner Rain. Something Ireland has in abundance. Soft, constant rain. The Gulf Stream brings warm water up the Atlantic to the west coast of Ireland, ensuring the winters are never truly harsh, but it also ensures that the weather systems making landfall on that coast are well and truly water-laden. Cool air off the mountains condenses the water, which then falls as rain. It’s not great news for tourism, but it makes for fantastic agriculture. Ireland has always been a producer of good food. The rain makes for rich pasture for beef and dairy cattle alike. Milk, butter and cheeses are sweet and plentiful. Beef is firm and flavoursome. Small-scale farming and crofting mean that sheep farming produces high-quality lamb and mutton that is much sought-after throughout Europe. However, it is the pig that dominates the Irish domestic table. You won’t go long in Ireland before being served pork, bacon or ham. Any country that has know...

For all my grand entertaining, one of my chief pleasures is a bowl of soup. Soup is infinitely adaptable, economic to make and cheering to the spirit. As I write, I'm watching snow melting outside; the world is cold, wet and miserable, but I have a bowl of wonderfully flavoursome roasted tomato soup to look forward to. It'll warm me up like a blanket around me or a hug from a well-upholstered relative. Tinned consommé, "dollied" with savoury custard shapes Soups can be made to seem very fancy, or even decadent, if you want to put on a show. (Think how often you've seen contestants on Masterchef presenting the judges with a crystal-clear consommé to show off their skills.) They make a perfect starter for dinner parties, because they can be done hours or even days in advance and simply warmed through on the last minute and finished with a flash of chopped herb or a splodge of cream. I once found a recipe for a soup finished with foie gras and marinated c...

I was asked by my stepson to write about beer, specifically about drinking beer as an aperitif drink, with a few nibbles in the early evening. He asked me to consider what styles of beer might work best in that context, and to make a couple of specific recommendations. Gueuze Boon with pickled herring Image: GP Mather Especially for those coming new to my blog, it's worth reminding ourselves, very briefly, what aperitif culture is. Coming at the end of the working day, and marking its transition to evening, recreation and dining, the aperitif is a social drink with friends and a few light snacks. The word comes from a Latin root that means "an opening," and the drink is a way of opening up the appetite for dinner. The first thing I did was check to see what had been written before on the subject. Surprisingly little, as it turns out: even the magisterial Pete Brown ( https://www.petebrown.net/ ) hasn't used the word in his blog since 2011. If the beer intern...

This time last year, I wrote about living in France as a young man and discovering aperitif culture. ( http://blog.theaperitifguy.co.uk/2018/10/doing-it-la-francaise.html ) I wrote how it was something very different from what I was used to at home and that I have tried to make the aperitif pause before dinner a feature of my own life. In the last few years, I've travelled more regularly in Italy and other countries. I've had a couple of short breaks in Paris, but that's all. With those breaks being so short, I've spoken very little French and not taken time to find really good restaurants, the way I have in other countries. For much of that same time, it would be also fair to say that French cuisine has taken a break from leading the world. The really exciting restaurants have been over the Pyrenees, in Catalunya and Basque Spain. Restaurants in Scandinavia have been getting better and better, too, delivering exciting flavours by using traditional techniques of...