Ludwig van offers up a culinary ode to joy

Salsify

After a difficult year, a pre-Christmas trip to Vienna for some culture and shopping seemed like the perfect way to bring 2017 to a climax.

Food would, of course, feature and, in a perfect example of serendipity, just a few weeks before we flew out, a friend pointed out that Rick Stein’s recent series of food-oriented weekend breaks included the Austrian capital.

Thus, with the aid of iPlayer, we began the trip with culinary expectations that went beyond the iconic Wiener schnitzel and the apple strudel to include such delights as Viennese goulash and tafelspitz – the latter being but one among the many versions of boiled beef in Germanic cuisine.

In the event, our first meal – lunch on a grey, drizzly afternoon, in a café on the legendary Naschmarkt – saw The Other Half try the goulash, while I opted for sliced liver that came in a big, rich gravy and was utterly scrummy.

Goulash followed again during the trip, giving evidence (were it needed) that like so many other dishes, there are as many variations on the way it can be made as there are people who make it. Varying amounts of paprika and little or lots of onion are just two of the possible variables.

Trout

But just as we’d settled into such hearty, down-to-earth eating, The Other Half spotted an interesting-looking establishment not far from our hotel.

Ludwig van, we were to learn, only opened its doors in January this year, but it’s already essential to book.

Presumably, our looking genuinely upset at there being no tables available, our instantly asking if we could make a reservation for the following evening (and trying this in German) produced sympathy – and with amazing good fortune, a table in the bar area.

It’s a snug space in an old, old building, with dark wood everywhere and a feeling of being an inn.

Host Oliver Jauk found us a corner and guided us through the menu.

Such was the briefness of what was listed – with so much that tempted – that we both decided to go down the route of the tasting menu.

After gorgeous bread, with the best butter I’ve ever tasted and wafer thin slices of a sausage from a 10-year-old “calf” that were packed with flavor but still tender, our taste buds were further tickled by a tiny dish of kimchee-style vegetables, accompanied by a local wine infused with herbs.

Oatmeal

The first of our ‘proper’ courses was salsify, with butternut, parsley and hazelnut. Lovely tastes – the parsley, for instance, was a perfect illustration of being so much more than a garnish, while fresh tomato shot through a light-as-silk sauce.

The bar was set high.

Next up was trout with cauliflower, grapefruit and chervil.

Standards maintained.

Then a dish of oatmeal ‘risotto’, with chanterelle mushrooms, that called up the autumn forest as though by sourcery rather than saucery.

Pike-perch (zander) from Lake Neusiedl followed, perched atop red cabbage, followed by a noisette of calf, with a rich gravy and spinach leaves that burst with flavour.

Elvis van

To finish, we were served ‘Elvis van’ – a dessert that combined banana, a peanut mousse and bacon wafers and somehow worked.

This was simply fabulous food: rich, yet light, with great textures and astounding flavour. Head chef Walter Leidenfrost and sous chef Julia Pimingstorfer are reinventing traditional Austrian cuisine in a thrilling way.

Ludwig van’s ethos means that drinks are sourced from smaller producers who might well be less-known producers and as locally as possible. We enjoyed a variety of white wines – all of which were exemplary, but which displayed an astonishing variety of tastes.

At the end, with most other diners having finished and left, Oliver offered us a choice of schnapps from unlabelled bottles.

We both chose one flavoured with pine: it was a smooth delight – and continued that underlying sense of the forest.

Ludwig van is far from cheap – but it was worth every cent. This place is going to win awards and I wouldn’t hesitate to dine there again – though I’d certainly book well in advance!

Find out more at www.ludwigvan.wien. For information and booking, contact info@ludwigvan.wien.

A rather chili picture of what we face

A ridiculous and unseasonally warm chili

If ever you wanted an illustration of how wrong some things are, it’s the chili pepper in the picture.

That rather unassuming picture of that rather unassuming fruit was taken last week – after the pepper in question had been picked from a plant in a pot in my garden.

Let’s just reiterate: that’s not a greenhouse, but a garden. It may be south facing, but it’s in England. And it’s the winter. There’s another one left on the plant too.

Nothing has stopped growing, because the weather is nowhere near as cold as it should be in this part of the world at this time of year.

And this is neither the first time, nor the only example of the climate having gone haywire.

Of course there were floods in the olden days. But they were not every year, several times a year, in several – if not many – places.

We might not have had many deaths from the ongoing stormy weather, and London has certainly not been battered, but yet again, people have been flooded out of their homes, left without power over Christmas and beyond – and still it comes.

That’s without considering the environmental impact – salt water washing away sea walls and swamping fresh water areas of great importance to animal, bird and plant life.

And government is hoping to further cut back the department in question – the department that, for instance, deals with flood defences.

The weather in this part of the world used to be essentially reliable. It no longer is. Depending on the time of year, you basically knew what would be coming.

Not any more.

Anyone who says that the climate isn’t changing is a idiot.

I’m not going to claim to know exactly what’s caused/causing it (I’m not remotely qualified to read, understand and comment on the science) but to be honest, I don’t think that what’s causing it matters.

It’s happening and anyone who doesn’t think that we should find ways to deal with it is also an idiot.

In the meantime, I’ve got chilis on a plant in London in January.

This one was sliced and used to flavour the mushroom ‘gravy’ that went with pan-fried tuna last weekend.

It’s a Rick Stein dish – and a very nice one at that.

Start by softening chopped/sliced onion or shallot, carrot and celery in a pan, then adding your chili, plus dried mushrooms. How many dried mushrooms? Try a shed load. Porcini provide a really big flavour hit.

Add some white wine and simmer to reduce, then add some vegetable stock and reduce again.

Strain everything and, depending on how much liquid you’ve got left and how many you’re feeding, you can reduce again.

At that stage, whisk in some buerre manie – that’s equal amounts of softened butter and plain flour, mixed together – until you have thickened it as much as you want.

Pour over your pan-fried tuna and consume with relish.

Stein serves it with mashed potato with garlic. I opted for crushed root veg: parsnip, swede and carrot. Tasty, comforting – and healthy.

Not that it was the only episode of smash and grab on the dried mushroom front over the holiday season.

We started this year’s Christmas dinner with a mushroom consommé that also required less a shed load and more a whole garage full.

Made from vegetable stock that was then reduced with the dried mushrooms in it, it was clarified with an egg white raft and then strained through muslin, to pack a massive flavour punch.

The rest of the dinner went okay, but realisation has dawned that a four-course meal for two is not actually massively practical, since the non-cooking diner has a lot of time to sit around waiting between courses.

It was a realisation that was increased by a rare episode of entertaining friends with a three-course meal that flowed perfectly naturally even though one ingredient (carrots in the boles de picolat, which The Other Half insisted should be included this time) was defiantly reluctant to actually be cooked through properly.

But with three people to sit around, wine in hand, and chat, it wasn’t an issue for me to give the dish extra time.

I’ll say this, though, Christmas Day’s mandarin sorbet was top notch.

The rest of the festive cooking was about as simple as can be, although having proven to myself that a set custard needn’t be such a risk – that three-course meal – I set out on New Year’s Day to prove it hadn’t been a fluke, rustling up little crème caramels.

Honestly – who found out that burning sugar could make something so utterly scrumdumptiously fabulous?

Our first course, incidentally, was steak, with sautéed leeks and little potatoes pan-cooked in duck fat.

On the subject of duck, I have, in the last couple of years, discovered Reflets de France tins of duck confit from the south west of France.

It’s not the cheapest fodder in the world, but contains exactly and only what confit should: duck legs, salt and duck fat.

Over the holiday, Ocado had run out, so they substituted me some Gressingham duck confit. This has an ingredient list of:

Duck Legs (85%), Orange Zest, Ginger Purée, Rapeseed Oil, Salt, Black Pepper.

I have to say, the taste is okay, but The Other Half was not wrong when he pointed out that they’re rather tougher than the Reflets ones. And amazingly, they’re from the chiller cabinet, which seems rather to defeat the object of preserving the meat in, err duck fat and salt.

Christmas did produce one culinary first for me, though: after watching Nigel Slater’s excellent programme on biscuits, I finally pushed past my polite reservations – and dunked a biscuit!

So peeps, that in a nutshell is notes from the festive food front.

And so, with Christmas packed away once more, it’s back to what passes for normal.

Food finds for hot days

Tuna griddled, with salad, samphire and aïoli

Sitting in a cupboard in the kitchen, buried under various odds and ends – including the vast fork and tongs and stuff for outdoor cooking – is a cast iron Typhoon griddle pan.

I can’t remember exactly when we bought it, but it was one of those seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time purchases from one of the housing stores on Tottenham Court Road.

It was also, as well as my memory is able to recall, either early in my cooking days – or maybe even before them.

You’re not supposed to wash it, but merely to wipe it out and, if necessary, re-season with a dab of oil.

I have rarely used it. In fact, I certainly haven’t used it since we finally got the ceramic hob installed to replace the rusting old ones.

And to be frank, I don’t think I really I’d quite ‘got it’ before then.

So it’s been filling space and gathering dust.

But on Tuesday, a stroll up Broadway Market had produced two small tuna steaks – ideal for this weather – and as I contemplated exactly what I was going to do with them, the griddle pan sprang to mind.

One of the differences, since we bought it, is that I’ve got a little more used to cooking with cast iron – the increase of Le Creuset pots and pans bears testimony to this.

So I knew rather more about what it means to get the thing hot – not rapidly, but over a decent time – and then how it will hold the heat.

So, once heated, the tuna was placed on it for a minute, rotated 90˚ for a further minute and then turned over, and the same process applied.

While the lines were nicely symmetrical, they weren’t perhaps as dark as I’d have hoped for, but the fish itself was beautifully cooked; still moist, which is the difficult bit with tuna; it’s easy to dry out.

It was served with a salad of orange segments and pickled beetroot, a garnish of samphire, and some aïoli – the sort made of just garlic and salt.

You don’t need much salt – that’s the easiest mistake to make. I took a few cloves of quite fresh garlic, minced them and then used the mortar and pestle to blend in a little salt and mix to a paste.

It seems astonishing to realise just how much we are trapped culturally in ways of cooking and eating. As an aside, I’m not sure why it should be so surprising, but it remains so.

It’s obvious that there are reasons that certain types of diet grow up in any country/culture – largely because of climate ands, from that, what grows locally.

But globalisation has had a massive impact on this in the UK, where we no longer have to think just in terms of what is available at any given time of the year.

That, however, has downsides. First, the flavour is never as good if something is flown half way around the world after being picked.

And second, there are a variety of environmental consequences – and this is without mentioning food miles.

Take just three products.

Asparagus grown in Peru for export is using so much water that it is draining wells that are used by local people.

Fine beans grown in Kenya take a staggering four litres of potable water to produce a single fine bean in Kenya, which is quite some cost. Thanks to John Walker for his excellent work on this.

And then there’s quinoa, the ‘miracle grain’ so beloved of trendy eaters. Grown in Peru and Bolivia (experiments to grow it have have, thus far, failed), Joanna Blythman reports that export has pushed up domestic prices to customers in those countries for whom it is a staple of their diet.

None of these are what ‘the global market’ is supposed to do, and all illustrate unintended consequences.

Given the general state of British food, it’s perhaps hardly surprising that:

a) people are out of touch with seasonal eating in this part of the world; and are

b) so ready to look elsewhere.

Add to this, of course, the rise to high levels of dominance of the food chain and grocery retail by a remarkably small number of big businesses, and you have a situation where it can feel difficult to take back control.

Sussex Fish

It’s easier if you have some space to grow some of your own food – even just a few herbs in a window box can make a difference.

It’s easier if you have local, independent shops that sell a variety of quality produce – and it’s helped if those are open at hours that fit in with the standard working day.

This is happening increasingly in the UK, as it does in France – particularly among younger businesses.

It does mean effort on our part – and an element of that comes in investing in the time to think about what we want to eat, and to plan.

But it is also becoming easier as more people create more young food businesses, producing more quality produce, and more markets appear to sell it.

At Borough Market the other day, I found a ‘new’ fish stall – Sussex Fish. They’ve been moved around quite a bit over the three years they’ve been at the market, which is why, on the rare occasions I’m down there, I’ve missed them.

Fresh, lovely fish – and the provenance is clear too. So for instance, the cod that I bought is sustainable, since it comes from the Channel.

This offered a delightful range of fresh fish, but also something as quirky as smoked bass. And why not, indeed?

Discovery of the trip, however, was Cannon & Cannon Fine Foods, with produce artisan British charcuterie, ethically and sustainably produced. Now this is seriously classy food.

Cod, Dorset coppa, lettuce, asparagus and dressing

Some Dorset coppa I bought as part of a three-for-a-tenner deal was utterly delightful, the air-dried pork loin is a joy and there’s still some air-dried venison to come. The company hopes to be launching an online shop soon.

I was served by a charming young man called Fabio, who observed that, as an Italian, he’d been skeptical at first, but was now a firm believer in this excellent British produce.

We’ve always been able to produce good meat; what’s been added in recent years are the skills to make that into fine charcuterie.

One of the specific things that I’d been on the lookout for was late-season asparagus and, sure enough, I found some.

And before leaving the flat, I’d pulled a small jar of chicken stock out of the freezer to defrost.

What I had in mind was a version of a French dish from Rick Stein’s Seafood Odyssey.

First, salt your cod fillet and leave for 20-30 minutes.

Take your stock, add a clove or two of garlic and some tarragon, and reduce.

Strain and allow to cool a little before whisking in olive oil and wine vinegar to taste.

Then pre-heat your grill to high.

Rinse your cod and pat dry. Place on a lightly oiled baking tray and lightly brush the fish with oil. Pop under the grill for approximately 10-12 minutes, until it's golden.

Top the fish with some prosciutto – or in this case, Dorset coppa – and give it another couple of minutes under the grill.

In the meantime, boil some asparagus spears and quarter some lettuces.

Serve the fish, topped with charcuterie, alongside lettuce and asparagus, drizzled with the dressing.

Simple and zingy and fresh. Perfect for these sweltering days.

A nation of fussy eaters

You don't like olives? Seriously?

If ever there was a time to read stories about British eating habits, it was when you're out in France. The contrasts could hardly be greater.

A survey of 2,000 people, Fussy Food Nation, by appliance manufacturer Hotpoint, was reported at greatest length in the Daily Mail.

It seems that the top 10 least popular foods in the UK are:

Snails

Tripe

Oysters

Squid

Anchovies

Liver

Cockles

Kidneys

Olives

Black pudding

Okay, so I can comprehend the snails – it’s what them furriners eat, anyway. And, of course, nothing at all like the cockles and winkles and whelks that are traditional British foods. But then, cockles make the top 10 too.

Offal rates ‘highly’, with tripe, liver and kidneys all making the cut, along with black pudding.

Oysters, squid and anchovies? There’s only one there that isn’t a native British dish.

Olives? Are people serious?

The rest of the list apparently includes avocado, beetroot, goat’s cheese and blue cheese, paté, prawns and mushrooms.

Now obviously the survey isn't saying that many people hate each and every one of the foods listed, but one of the things that strikes me with such a list is the number of traditional British foods that it includes.

In France, many restaurants will have very limited children's menus – in essence, usually little more than a burger and chips. Except that the burger is proper meat, properly cooked. It isn't baby food – and it isn't processed food.

On plenty of occasions, we've seen French children – and we're talking under 10, here – choosing and eating so-called 'adult' dishes: mussels and other seafood, for instance.

It's something that I first started to notice after hearing Rick Stein mention it. And he wasn't making it up.

Yes, McDonalds is popular in France – but it is not (yet, thankfully) as god almighty dominating as in the UK in terms of the culinary landscape.

There isn't a single one – or any other burger joint – in Collioure, and this is a holiday resort.

And indeed, traditional and cheap foods – the latter being a particularly relevant point in these straitened times.

Indeed, in Italy, people are turning away from the supermarket and the ready-meal, and looking back at their 'granny foods'.

They’re doing this precisely because they’re so much better value. And at least one child nutritionist hopes that this will be a silver lining to these times of austerity, in helping to reduce rising obesity.

In other words, that rising obesity does not come from traditional, Italian foods – no, not even pasta – but from processed and ‘convenience’ foods.

Liver and kidney are cheap and versatile and nutritious. And they’re very tasty too.

But as with so much else on the list, it seems that texture is a problem. What texture do the respondents to the survey like? That of the turkey twizzler?

I could be wrong (it has happened), but this seems to me such an indictment of our food culture in the UK – it is like a bloody big firework display illustrating the analysis that Raymond Blanc has made, when he says that we (and the US) have lost our food heritage and that that is a major part of the problems we face.

Within the same few days as these stories emerged came another, as it was reported thatconsumer magazine Which? had tested assorted cereal bars – so often presented to the public as a ‘healthy snack’ – and found that many contain vast amounts of sugar.

Yet therein lies a big piece of the problem: snacking.

And of course, it’s an absolutely massive market.

Little wonder, then, that according to the BBC story, a spokeswoman for Kellogg’s, which makes the Nutri-Grain Elevenses bar and some of the other snacks that Which? tested, ducked the key issue by responding: ‘We’re confused as to why anyone would call a Nutri-Grain Elevenses snack a cereal bar’.”

Well, because ‘cereal’ has come to mean something healthy in the UK – as have ‘nutri’ and ‘grain’. And a ‘snack bar’ is usually readily assumed to be that sort of thing.

For god’s sake, we had an ‘official Olympic cereal bar’ only a few weeks ago – albeit produced by but by Nature Valley and not by Kellogg’s (a company founded by a man who believed cereals would help stop masturbation).

Now, we even have graze.com offering a service to deliver ‘healthy snack boxes’ to you, as if that changes the situation.

Why not just not snack? Why, if you eat proper meals, do you need to snack at all?

Ask yourself: why do cultures that do not snack have better heath stats – including, but not limited to, less obesity?

No, it’s not the sole factor, but it is a factor.

So, in the UK, we are (by and large) fussy eaters; we eat masses of junk food and snacks; we have lost touch with our natural food culture; we have (as previous posts have illustrated) lost our kitchen skills; we have a grocery retail market dominated (80%) by supermarkets – and we have a rising obesity crisis.

When you take all that into account, then quelle sur-fucking-prise.

Some Christmas prep and a French classic

And so we arrive at the middle of the week leading to Christmas itself; the shortest day: milder than of late, but gloomy under a leaden sky.

The biggest struggle now seems to be to stop fretting and realise that I really do have things under control.

The serious preparation began at the weekend. After three days of office jollification - including eating out twice and culminating in the annual Christmas disco (at which much hair was let down) - it was a case of back to Broadway Market and back to the kitchen.

I'd been gradually working out the festive food and, equally gradually, ordering what needs to be ordered.

Having found that, although they farm and sell veal, top-rated butcher The Ginger Pig could not supply me with veal bones, Matthew from Longwood had brought up a 2kg bag of chopped beef ones, including pieces of rib.

On Saturday afternoon, they went into the oven with some olive oil for an hour and a half - a glorious, warming smell filled the flat as they roasted – before spending close to four hours very gently simmering away with carrot, onion, celery, peppercorns and the usual herbs.

After the stock had cooled, around half was bottled and frozen. The rest - destined for consommé on Christmas Day - was then cooked down further, with the addition of some diced beef, before being strained.

Then it was time for the raft. Two beaten egg whites were added to some finely chopped carrot, celery, leek and parsley, and then slightly loosened with a ladle of the stock. This mix is added to the pot, whisked in, and left as everything is brought, very carefully, back to a simmer.

I find myself wondering who worked out this process - and how. The raft looks a mess, but it draws to it the fat in the consommé, leaving the liquid beautifully clear. Well, that's the idea.

After an hour, the raft was moved slightly to one side and the liquid strained carefully through a muslin-lined sieve. The result was remarkably clear - but two further clarifications await.

It's now in the freezer, so when I bring it out to thaw on Christmas Eve, any further fat will have risen to the top before freezing in a layer. That can be removed. And it's worth heating in a wide, shallow pan so that you can also just brush a sheet of kitchen paper over it at the end to pick up any remaining globules.

The aim is complete clarity, with very strong taste to really get the taste buds going, but nothing to fill up your diners. I did one last year for the first time - a mushroom one – and to be honest, it didn't seem to be anywhere near as difficult a task as some might make out. Although I didn't have much left to serve by the end, the intensity of the taste more than made up for it.

There are still questions: as George and Bill commented on Facebook, it can be served with a drop of booze, with finely chopped pancake or with very finely cut and cooked veg, floating like koi carp in the rich, clear liquid. I'll decide later.

In the meantime, there was everyday food to prepare.

Matthew had also jointed a chicken for me, which went into a large bowl with a bouquet garni, celery, carrot, peeled baby onions and peppercorns, plus a bottle and a half of hearty red wine that had been boiled to reduce by a third to intensify the flavour and get rid of the alcohol.

Because, with several possible recipes for coq au vin to work from, I'd chosen a Raymond Blanc one, and that last bit is typical of him.

Then it was all covered with cling film and popped into the fridge for 24 hours.

Saturday night was tuna. The fish is pan-fried simply and served with a light gravy made by reducing white wine with some chopped celery and dried chilli and dried mushrooms in it. At the end, you strain and then thicken with beurre manié.

It's a Rick Stein dish and works very well. He suggests serving with puréed garlicky potatoes, but I opted instead for the comforts of mashed carrot and swede.

Sunday's actual cook was easy: the chicken and veg were drained for an hour and then patted dry before being browned in a little olive oil. The veg followed, before a heaped tablespoon of plain flour, which had been toasted for around 15 minutes in the oven, was added too.

Then in went the marinade and it's stirred over a heat until thickened, when the meat was returned to the pot, before it went into the oven at 140˚C (fan) for about 50 minutes. The recipe had said half an hour, but the chicken pieces were large and I know my oven.

The result was very tasty, but there are things to learn. To start with, when I'd dropped the farm an email to ask for a jointed bird, I should have specified the number of pieces - five was nowhere enough. And second, I need to make the sauce a little thicker. But this is certainly a dish I'll be doing again.

Monday saw my Christmas visit to my parents, while The Other Half stayed in as work started on the kitchen.

The cold tap hasn't worked at all for years, while part of the casing of the hot tap has rotted away with limescale.

The hob was a mess too. We'd bought a new one around three years ago when we'd had to buy a new oven, but ended up in a total debacle with Curry's over fitting, and it had subsequently spent the intervening time in its box in the hall.

The hood should have been replaced then too - but the one we'd ordered had never even arrived, let alone been installed.

Moral of the story: just because John Lewis actually openly and truthfully says they can't arrange installation in your area, don't go elsewhere to buy a product on the basis that some other company claims that they can install it – and then does nothing but have you running around in circles.

And to add to the overall job, there was the small matter of lighting - just a single bulb.

So over Monday and Tuesday morning, the hob was replaced with a ceramic one, a new hood was fitted, the taps were replaced and a new light, with six adjustable spots of 50 watts each, took its place on the ceiling.

The room has been revolutionised! And now all I have to do is adjust to a hob that is around a third more subtle than the old one!

In a stew about gravy

Some things are best forgotten; left well hidden in the attic of memory, buried away behind the other clutter.

But memories, no matter how deeply interred, have a habit of popping up unexpectedly and coming back to haunt you.

Slouched in an armchair on a Sunday afternoon, wind rattling the plane trees outside, i was delighting to the joys of Nigel Slater's Eating for England, when a brief section suddenly threw the words 'gravy granules' out from the page and directly at me.

From the tender comforts of nostalgia for custard creams and mint cracknel - the latter of which I hadn't hear of in years, the former of which the same book has had me wanting instantly - I found myself slapped across the face by the wet fish of embarrassing memory.

I have to admit that there was a time when the kitchen cupboard housed tubs of beef, chicken and vegetable gravy granules.

That was bad enough, but then more detail flooded through: memories of serving Birds Eye frozen chicken burgers (the breadcrumbed ones, not those with something like Rice Crispies over them).

I felt mortified at the thought. But at least it serves as an illustration of what a difference a decade or so can make.

Mr Slater has a lot to answer for. But he also provided me with the roots of an interesting challenge this weekend.

The first chapterette in the aforementioned book talks of stew - of the great English stew a creation of diced meat, diced vegetables, a jug of water and a bay leaf, all of which comes together as something that is, almost at best, bland.

He compares it, pithily, to the casserole traditions of France, Italy and Spain, with the addition of booze (in the first case, at least) and the use of various herbs and spices.

Returning to the attic of memory - but deliberately this time, and with care - I rooted around for memories of maternal stews.

She cooked a stew rarely and, when she did, it was on a Saturday for a late lunch: it would have some meat of other, together with assorted veg, pearl barley and liquid.

I remember nothing more specific - except the slices of bread that we mopped up with at the end.

As I've mentioned before, she didn't believe in onion - not in an atheistic way, of course, but I have never known her have one in the house, whether a cooking onion ordinaire, one of the red variety or even the milder shallot.

Her culinary belief system did seem to understand that onions were occasionally required, but that was achieved by rehydrating some Whitworths dried fragments in an old, enamelled tin mug and then popping it in the cooking pot.

Well a least that's how I remember things - and I'm not getting the ladder back out and going back into that attic right now to see if I can find more detail.

But all this set me to considering a stew for Sunday, instead of the pot roast I had been contemplating as a way of christening the Le Crueset oval casserole.

I wanted to cook without any specific recipe, but that didn't mean a lack of research before I stepped into the kitchen this afternoon.

Elisabeth Luard's European Peasant Food offered clues in a number of recipes for classic dishes that seemed a tad more authentic than most versions I'd seen before.

For instance, meat was usually caramelised in lard or dripping instead of the currently obligatory 'healthy' option of oil - Which? magazine actually once criticised a Rick Stein book for including dishes involving cream and butter.

And the cooking time was also often considerably longer than I'd usually seen: for instance, I'd never seen a recipe for a daube that saw it cooked for four hours at 120˚C. That was information that I stored for use.

I've also got poor - albeit gradually improving - understanding of cuts of meat. More research suggested that for such a dish, I should use blade (or chuck, as it's also) known. Sure enough, Matthew had some.

It was beautiful meat, delightfully marbled (see picture at the top). This afternoon, I cut it into pieces (large bite size) and then diced onion, celery and carrot - the holy trinity of the mirepoix - plus parsnip.

The meat was browned in dripping first, then removed and replaced with the vegetables.

Once they were softened and a little golden, a tablespoon of plain flour was added, stirred in and allowed to cook through for. Minute, before I started deglazing with Wychwood's Scarecrow organic golden pale ale.

Once it had stopped thickening, I added a couple of springs of thyme, some seasoning and then the meat, topping up the liquid to just cover.

Then it went into the pre-heated over at 115˚C, since I was using a fan oven.

After tasting on 90 minutes, it was a rather bitter - but not in the way the beer would have been if you'd been drinking it out of a glass. I sprinkled in a little demerera, drizzled on a little Maggi sauce, stirred in a decent squirt of tomato purée and turned up the temperature about five degrees. An hour later, this seemed to have sweetened matters - a little.

Later still, something hit me: all the remaining bitterness had gone, leaving something with lovely layers of developing flavour, a general sweetness at the front and a hint of sourness later.

In the past, I've wondered whether I've done something wrong when I've tried meat 'n' beer dishes: they always seemed to have that bitterness. Is that really what the Flemish intended with the traditional carbonade?

The problem, I now realise, is that most modern recipes in the UK seem to regard 'long, slow cooking' as meaning two hours at the max. Presumably, British cooks are assumed to be somehow incapable of cooking anything for any longer – are we too impatient?

For the final 45 minute's cooking, I added dumplings, made of self-raising flour, mustard powder, shredded suet, seasoning, chopped parsley and a little chilled water.

Having left this dish for over four hours, it took a mere one bite to realise that there's a substantial difference when you seriously cook for longer.

I've been curious about slow cooking for some time, but had been struggling to find recipes that seemed to involve anything that was genuinely slow – apart from a Heston Blumenthal belly pork dish that took nine hours.

What a shame I hadn't bothered studying Luard's book earlier and in more detail! With the feeling that I've enjoyed a really tasty success today, I'm going to be studying the book further and actually trying some of the specific recipes - not the least the daube. No wonder my previous efforts have never tasted as I know, in my gut, the dish should!