BACKLIST
FLAVOUR OF THE FORTNIGHT
BRAISED SPLIT PEAS
A simple dish from Gary Rhodes’ book Rhodes Around Britain (BBC £17.99) which he recommends serving it with battered deep-tried cod and pork sausages.
1009 (402) carrots
2 celery sticks
2 onions
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
259 (1 oz) unsalted butter
4509 (1lb) dried split peas
About 900ml (1% pints) vegetable or chicken stock
Salt and tresth ground white pepper
Pre-heat the oven to 20000/400<F/gas 6. Cut the carrots, celery and onions into 5mm (‘A in) cubes. Sweat with garlic in the olive oil and butter tor a few mlnutes. Add the split peas and cook lor1-2 minutes, stirring. Cover with the stock and bring to the simmer. Cover and cook in the pre- heated oven tor 20-25 minutes. The peas will need stirring during cooking, and possibly more stock will need to be added. After 30 minutes the peas should be ready, just starting to break and tender to eat. Season with salt and pepper before serving.
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{Fully—equipped with g Barbour, wellies and Land ; Rover, new television ' chef Gary Rhodes heads to Scotland to find out
about good home cooking. Eddie Gibb sticks his nose f into the kitchen. It would be tempting to call Gary Rhodes the Nigel Kennedy ofthe ; kitchen. what with his cheeky grin. spiky hair and enthusiasm for football. Sadly. from the profile writer‘s point of
view. that's about as far as the I similarities go. Rhodes is far too polite f to indulge in the brattish posturing of the wayward violinist: it's hard to ' imagine this chef having temper g tantrums when the commis curdles a Isauce.
In fact Rhodes. who is head chef at
j the Greenhouserestaurant in London. is something oftraditionalist who advocates a return to simpler, ‘honest' cooking. Recruited by the BBC to join the ever growing list of television chefs. Rhodes set out on a trip round Britain in an attempt to find out what good. ordinary cooks were preparing in their kitchens. In many top kitchens the pendulum has already swung back i towards rougher. provincial cooking ; from France and Italy. this was Rhodes'
5 search for the British equivalent. And i in his travels he discovered what 5 Scottish chefs have been repeating i almost as a mantra for some time now: i the quality of produce we have on our doorsteps is ‘phenomenal‘.
‘In other parts of the country. people are not aware of their local ingredients. but Scottish cooks are.‘ says Gary.
r . _ . ' VIVA MEXICCD
Nesta cream:
10, anchor close, Cockburn Street
‘People were sticking to the basics and I found that really exciting. We‘ve been forgetting our traditions but l‘ve been trying to revive braising, stewing and pot-roasting and leaming how to get the very best flavours out of produce.‘
In two episodes of his new series Rhodes Around Britain. our chef drives his Land Rover through the lush lands of Perthshire and Aberdeenshire to meet hearty outdoor types, just off the grouse moors. Rhodes is bowled over by everything from the flavour of the region‘s raspberries to the flaky quality of its smoked haddock. But cloutie dumpling for breakfast. Gary? Surely they were pulling your leg.
Rhodes, like most television chefs these days. dazzles the viewer with the deftness with which he wields his
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Gary Rhodes: an unlikely traditionalist Sabatier. though his chat isn‘t quite up to Keith Floyd's standards. But you can't fault him for enthusiasm. And though he can't resist the odd artful arrangement of plum tomatoes on the plate. Rhodes‘s food is mostly as basic and ‘honest‘ as he claims. The bunch of roughnecks he cooked a beef stew for on a North Sea rig certainly seemed to think so. And, by way of cultural exchange, will cloutie durupling sneak onto the menu at the Greenhouse? ‘1 think it would go down well.‘ he says. R/IUl/é’S :imum/ Britain is (m 7ilt’.\‘(1(l_\'S at 8.30pm (2/1 1386?.
I NBS Bar l Princes Street, Edinburgh, 556 2414. Fed up with watching hotel guests heading off through the swing doors in search of a decent pint. the five-star Balmoral has just opened its own pub. NBs promises to be a proper boozer: television high up in one comer. sporting memorabilia on the walls and cask-conditioned ale on the bar top. There are also plans to develop
jazz, folk and blues residencies on
weekend evenings. But you don't have to pay five-star prices —- £1.75 for a pint and bar lunches are around the £4~5 mark. ‘We want to break down the barriers to a five-star hotel.‘ says food and beverage manager Michael Pownall. ‘lf we have a pub that's approachable it acts as a shop window for the rest of the hotel and people are more likely to consider it for a birthday dinner or Valentine‘s night.‘ If you do, full dinner in the Grill Room will set you back £35.
so The List 3—16 June 1994