Cooking off -recipe

 

I love recipes. I enjoy following expert advice. Stick to the rules and you can't go wrong. Easy.
Anyway, tonight I'm going off piste for a change...
What do we have? Lamb Chops, various veg and red wine.
So, lets marinate the chops. A pour-and-store-bag is ideal for this. Chuck in Rosemary leaves (keep the stalks), chopped garlic, splash of balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, Worcester sauce and (because I found it in the back of the cupboard) Maggi liquid seasoning. No need for salt & pepper. Close the bag, shake and leave at room temperature for as long as you've got. I left it 1/2 an hour.
Meanwhile, lets do a sauce. Chop onion, garlic, carrot, leek, celery (any or all you have). Quite finely if you can be bothered. Melt olive oil and butter, half & half, and cook the mirepoix  (as the chefs call it) with a sprig of thyme, until soft. Chuck in a large glass of red wine and slowly simmer to reduce by about a third.
Oven on, gas mark 7. (Electric Oven? Google it.)
Get a medium sized cast-iron saucepan. Add a slug of olive oil and set over a fairly high heat. Get the chops out of the bag and scrape all the bits that stick to them back into the bag.(I dried the chops on some kitchen roll. You don't have to). Cook the chops rapidly on both sides for a couple on minutes until brown and a bit sticky. Give the fatty skin a quick burst of heat to start browning and then put the pan in the oven for about 12 mins (for a pink middle.) Then transfer to a serving dish, cover with 2 layers of foil and a tea towel and keep warm. (I use the grill (turned off) above the oven.) That'll keep for ages and become juicer and more tender.
Right, now get some spuds and chop into bite-sized pieces. Using the same sauce pan, put in some oil, paprika and chilli flakes. Toss the spuds in this and put  in the oven. Maybe turn it down to about mark 5. They'll take about 40 mins (but keep an eye on them.)
Now, I happen to have some French beans. So, top & tail and cook in water or stock, or stock cube in water. I'm using a veg stock cube in a cup of hot water. When they're cooked, drain their stock into the sauce and keep the beans warm.
Put the heat under the sauce until bubbling, then sieve into another saucepan, squidging all the liquid through. Reduce the sauce until it's thick & glossy.
That's it. Plate up & serve.
I've never shared a recipe before, so let me know if you try it.
Ah, some red wine left. Cheers

A safe pair of hands?

 

I heard an interview  on the radio this morning. Announcing a new version of an album, to be released in November. And that reminded me of my small part in the making of the original recording...
It 1978 and I was working for a tiny Soho recording studio called Anemone Sound. I was assistant engineer, working with Derek Hanlon. Anyone who knows Derek as filmmaker might be surprised to know he was also a talented sound engineer. Well, he was. Very talented. But, sadly on that Friday in 1978, he'd gone home early.
I was about to leave myself when the phone rang. Would I stay on for a bit as a record company wanted to do an edit on a new album. I wasn't too happy as I was looking forward to a beer or two, but I said OK.
As I remember, they didn't show up for ages and I was on the verge of giving up and going to the pub when they finally arrived.
I can't remember anything about the people who arrived. I think there were two of them but I'm not sure. They handed me a reel of quarter-inch tape and told me they wanted to extend the first track, side one.
I put the tape on and had a listen. It was certainly different. Starting with speech, then a big string section motif, before the rhythm section cut in. Pretty impressive.
Basically, they wanted to repeat about 2 minutes of an instrumental section in the middle of the song.
Now, back in 1978, the only safe way of doing this was to copy the whole song onto another recorder and then copy the section you wanted to repeat. Then cut the repeat into the copy of the song. That way you didn't touch the master recording. Useful if the edit didn't work or someone changed their mind. But then, the version you ended up with was a 'generation down' and would, even with Dolby noise reduction, have a bit more hiss.
So, it was decided that I had to copy just the repeat section and then splice that into the master recording. This is risky. I had to get the levels exactly the same, hope the band hadn't speeded up or slowed down and I was attacking their precious master with a razorblade.
So that's what I did. And it sounded pretty good, to be honest. There was a slight increase in hiss, but not so you'd notice unless you listen for it.
Which I do. Every time I hear Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds!