Lets Get Ready to Crumble!!

'And what exactly am I supposed to do with these?' says the flat mate to his mother. When in amongst the moving-in gift that was a parental care pack that consisted of enough food to re-nourish a small village, a bag of apples is discovered. In the days that followed and once all the biscuits and cheese had been taken, we'd say to each other the odd time, 'we should make like, a pie with them or something.' But that was said in the same hypothetical context as when you turn to your mate at the end of a long night and say something along the lines of, 'You and me dude, driving across South America in a Reliant Robin. I'm tellin' ya man, this summer for sure.' In other words, nice idea but the when the effort involved was considered, not likely to happen.

A week later and the damn things were still there. We knew that is was now or never. There was talk of pie and tart tatin, but both of these involved pastry and the act of proper baking occurring would totally mess with our homestead's chi. As would anything as energetic as walking the whole two minutes to the store for the pre-made frozen variety. [Note: I will never feel or be made to feel guilty about buying store-bought puff or filo pastry. If you disagree then I can only hope that one day you look up beyond your domestic fortress to the world outside.] Not to mention looking completely out of place in the fridge. The vibrant and healthy green clashing unpleasantly against the family pack of bacon and the amber hue of the communal rum bottle.  

'What about an apple crumble?' I said, half-hearted. Pause as this suggestion was considered. 'Do it.' was the answer. Now I'm not sure what you folks outside the British Isles know of crumble [currently this blog has been viewed from USA, Canada, Japan, Australia and Libya. International-five!] But it's kind of a big deal over here. Crumble is one of those desserts that nearly every mother, regardless of overall culinary ability, is able to produce. It's one of those dishes that everyone has experienced numerous times throughout growing up, be it at family gatherings or just Sunday dinner. Heston talks about dishes that evoke memory and in turn emotion. How a simple plate of food can transport you into a time and place within the mental back-catalogue of experiences, most brilliantly shown in that scene from Ratatouille. For me this is one of those dishes, one that resonates to something deeper. A mark from a certain time with certain people, punctuated by having a big dish of this in the middle of the table. 15 - 20 years later, me and my flat mate scooped piles of the stuff onto our plates and I took my first bite. Although the recipe was all my own it didn't matter because it was still an apple crumble. I ate, I smiled, I remembered.

I kinda misjudged the quantity here, as you can see. So unless you want to construct your own great barrier reefer (what we Christened the tinfoil divide that was devised by my flat mate, props!) and feed more then two people, you'll probably need to double the amounts here.

Crumble Topping

Plain Flour: 100g

Castor Sugar: 100g

Butter, cold: 100g

Ground Cinnamon: 1tsp

Apple Base

Granny Smith or Golden Delicious Apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1/8 wedges: 6

Castor Sugar: 100g approx

Whole Cloves: 3

Star Anise: 1

Ground Cinnamon: 1tbsp

1. Make the crumble mix by putting all ingredients into a food processor and blitz until resembles breadcrumbs, about 30 seconds or so. Place in fridge until needed.
2. For the apple base start by putting the putting the sugar and about 50ml of water into a pan large enough to hold all the apples. Melt on a high heat and allow to turn to a caramel, should take about 5 - 10 minutes. During this try to move the pan as little as possible, only at the end when the edges start to discolour should you really start moving it around. This allows it to colour evenly.
3. Throw in the apples and spices, leave for a moment before stirring. This is to allow the juices in the apples to come out, which then dissolves the caramel so you don't spend your time scraping lumps of solid sugar around the pan.
4. Add around 200mls of water and cook on a medium heat for about 15 minutes, or until tender when poked with a knife. Ideally the water should be evaporated by the time the apples have cooked.
5. [Here's where a controversy took place. I'd originally intended to keep the apples whole, but then my flatmate came over and asked if this was when I was going to start, 'mashing them up'. 'Well I was going to keep them whole.' 'Really. . . .in a crumble?' he said with that look of a 10 year old that's just been told that Christmas is cancelled and instead will be spent cleaning the verrucas on Aunt Nora's feet. 'Okay I'll blitz 1/4.' 'Nah, dude, do 'em all.' 'What about half and half?' 'Eh. . . .' 'Okay fine, 1/4 whole, 3/4 pureed.' 'Yea, alright.' he relented. But in retrospect, why did I even bother to negotiate? If I'd said tough shit, what was he going to do? Slam the door to his room and pull a strop the next time it was his turn to get milk?] So anyway, remove 1/2 - 3/4 of the apples, place into a food processor and blitz to a puree, sweeten if necessary.
6. Spread the puree on a suitable try or dish, place the remaining wedges on top, followed by the crumble mix.
7. Bake at 190 C for about 10 - 15 minutes, or until the top has gone a golden brown.
8. Remove from oven and let stand for a few minutes. Spoon out and serve with either whipped cream or ice cream. Or however you remember having it when life just seemed that little bit simpler.

Do you have any memories of crumble growing up? If not, what was the pudding that you always looked forward to your mother making? Have you tried making your own version since?

'I Like Mine With a Kiss'. . .(or if the proteins have coagulated at a lower temperature)

Eggs: that's it today pure and simple. More specifically a method of cooking them I've recently gone nucking futs for. By the way, if you've clicked onto this hoping for some kind of elaborate brunch preparation then, well, tough. Because recipe-wise all that's here is a way of cooking eggs. And not even a properly written one either. In fact looking over this it's pretty much just a sentence at the end of the fourth paragraph. Oh and a photo. You're lucky enough to get a photo. So let's talk for a minute about something called a slow poached egg. Something that some of you might be familiar with. But for those who don't, and haven't really been reading a word of this because after seeing the heading photo all they're thinking is, 'Jumping Nike-Air Moses what the fuck is that!!' Let me explain.

You see, I was never that excited about eggs until my folks took delivery of three hens (now two after an introduction from Granny's dog), because apparently that's what you do when you turn 50 and move out of the city. Since then I've discovered that they provide simply the best Goddamn eggs in the whole world. And so I've proceeded to boil, poach, scramble and fry my way through tons of those little nuggets of awesome. Their richness, the way that (when poached) they'd immediately fold up into neat quenelles. And then there's the yolk, oh man the yolk. That vibrant, rich, near-florescent shade of orange. To me, one of the great pleasures in life was poaching a couple of those bad boys, then put them on top of a bacon-covered, Ballymaloe relish-smeared piece of toast. Then watch as that golden yolk flowed out, over and onto the plate, creating a mess of pure deliciousness.

But now you've found me after experiencing a paradigm shift of sorts. You see up until recently I was convinced that eggs, poached to perfection in acidulated water was the ultimate tribute you could pay to l'oeuf. But no more, not now. I believe it was Sat Baines, several seasons ago on Great British Menu, who had it incorporated into his dish. This was the first time I saw the 'slow egg'. The judges 'oohed' and 'aahed' over it and the dish itself ended up getting to the final banquet. Since then it'd pop up here and there. Tristan Welch did it a few seasons later. The odd time on Professional Masterchef, etc. Then I saw Wylie Dufresne prepare it for a challenge on Top Chef Masters. It was the first time any show had gone into any real detail about it. Dufresne had my attention already from an appearance on Iron Chef where he used an enzyme (transglutaminase) to make noodles out of pureed fish (there is no typo in that sentence, he made noodles out of fish, watch!). Back to Top Chef Masters, Jay Rayner wound up gushing about the unctuous, custard-like consistency of what, at a glance anyway, looked like a pretty standard soft-boiled egg. My curiosity grew.

Fast-forward to a month or so ago. A package arrives containing David Chang's Momofuku. A book I'd end up reading with the same vigor and devotion as you would a great detective novel. A book I've fallen asleep to reading on more then one occasion, refusing to submit to sleep for just one more page! Then early into the book my eyes glide over the header at the top of the page: Slow Poached Egg. Up until this point I had an idea of the method, but no clue to the specifics. I knew that the egg was cooked in its shell in water at a certain temperature. But at what temperature and for how long? Here at last was a definite method and recipe. In short, 60-63 degrees for 45 minutes. I closed the book and knew that I HAD to try this.

As I said before, up until now I'd always thought that poaching was the best way to enjoy eggs. But to me anyway, there was still a problem with that. Namely the white. Because to me the white was the tasteless, tough purgatory you went through to get to the heaven that is the runny yolk. But with this method what you end up is one creamy pod of gooey unctuousness that falls apart with one push of a fork. The white now a near-translucent coating around the yolk. Almost like a loose jelly. This is because (so I'm told) the low temperature means the proteins coagulate differently then they would in a regularly poached egg.

Despite this being a method used in multi-Michelin starred restaurants around the world, don't expect everyone to like it. I was staying at my parents for a few days when I first tried it. My mum shrieked that it was still raw. My current flat mate after seeing me nurse over the pot with my digital thermometer, then describing the what's and why's of what I was doing, was curious to see what was going to come out when I cracked the shell. He wasn't impressed, as below shows. In short, are they more work then cracking them into boiling water for 2 minutes? Yep. But if you like your eggs then you kind of owe it to yourself to experience them in a way that's new, exciting and most unbelievable of all, may actually have you agreeing with Jay Rayner.

You ever eaten/witnessed/enjoyed this way of having egg? Do you have a favorite preparation that has made you friends, gained enemies or just divided opinion? Or, like my flat mate, just want to tell me how utterly mank they look? As always the floor is open. . .