Tasty recipes that would have Oliver Twist asking for more
• New pub grub book reflects how times have changed for the better
In my mid-teens when I used to (illegally) sneak out from boarding school to (illegally) visit a nearby pub, the food choices were limited. There were chips or peanuts, and that was it.
As I excitedly pored over British Michelin-starred chef Tom Kerridge’s new cookbook — Pub Kitchen. The Ultimate Modern British Food Bible — it swiftly became clear how much has changed. Not in every UK pub, but in many of them.
These horribly named “gastropubs” have restaurants, and in the case of a London venue I visited for a university reunion, it was mainly a restaurant. The bar was still there, but you had to book a restaurant table to sit down.
Kerridge’s own most recent opening is the Butcher’s Tap and Grill in London’s upmarket Chelsea, which I have now visited a few times. You can still have a pint there, so it is a pub/restaurant hybrid, but most people go for the lovingly crafted food — with steaks and burgers at prices that seem reasonable for London, if horribly overpriced for an SA visitor. And don’t get me started on the wine prices.
While this pub’s menu is similar to that of a steakhouse in SA, this impressive chef’s cookbook’s range of dishes reflects the move towards plusher pub restaurants and has recipes for elaborate fish and meat dishes, a range of puds and other delights.
He calls it a bible. Not quite, but it is one of the best cookbooks I have bought. And I have bought hundreds.
I first tried making his chicken curry with saffron pilaf. The curry itself was very good, but maybe there was a bit too much tomato in the sauce. The rice was divine, and I will be cooking it to serve with many other spicy dishes in the future.
Sticking with chicken (I was feeding a non-beef-eater) I then made the chicken Parmigiana, an Italian-American classic. This was restaurant quality: a breaded chicken breast nestled atop a wellbalanced tomato sauce. A dinner party dish that will have your guests demanding the recipe. And an invitation to the next dinner party.
I also made the bangers and mash with red onion gravy. This recipe worked a treat. The humble but delish dish is probably the closest this book comes to what I would think of as unfussy but filling pub food, and I was proud to serve such a well-loved dish with a cheffy Kerridge upgrade.
Initially, the herby mash seemed to be a bit liquid, but after stirring it for a few minutes, it firmed up, came right, and is now a firm favourite. The wine gravy is excellent. It is so easy to make bad gravy, but this really does the trick. Oliver Twist would certainly demand some more.
EVOLUTION
I used some of those pretentious herby sausages when I tested the recipe, but there is no reason the mash and gravy components of this platter wouldn’t provide an elegant, and proudly South African, upgrade the next time you cook boerewors. My next project.
I also intend to try the simple but appealing creamy prawn tagliatelle, the Cajun fish burgers, the Lancashire hot pots, the pork steaks with Romesco sauce, and the apple crumbles.
There is an excellent choice in this book. Like puppies, it is a book for life.
Kerridge himself is part of an evolution in pub cooking, and he writes: “British pub food has become so strong over the past decade or so, and it has been really exciting to see. I am so proud to be part of such an incredibly eclectic and continually evolving food scene. Now, wherever you are in the country, you can find fantastic local gastropubs with super tasty dishes on their menus, and, as customers, we won’t put up with anything less.”
One word of caution: while this British pub food book will be most useful for any keen SA cook, you may need to adapt some recipes a bit.
Some dishes require marsala and Madeira, and neither of these fortified wines is easy to find in my local bottle store. However, a crafty substitution of port or sherry (or whatever the Eurocrats insist we call the SA equivalents) should suffice.
I have been to his pub, bought his book and admired Kerridge on TV. Look out for him on a foodie channel. What I like about him is that he delivers. His food is tasty, and while his pub recipes may seem a bit more elaborate than those you will find in the magazines in your dentist’s waiting room, they are approachable, and they do work.
I HAVE BEEN TO HIS PUB, BOUGHT HIS BOOK AND ADMIRED KERRIDGE ON TV. LOOK OUT FOR HIM ON A FOODIE CHANNEL
They also reflect a trend away from the time when British food (and the grub served in the outposts of the empire) was stodgy, overcooked and regarded with scorn by the gastronomes of France and Italy. They also show the way the food scene is shifting away from the recent, irritating trends of pretension and fussiness.
These days I really don’t want to go to one of those award-winning restaurants, where the portions are tiny, the chef uses tweezers to adorn his or her creation with pretty herbs and flowers, and the food rests on a smear of sauce, which my chum. and fellow foodie David Bullard disparagingly refers to as “skid marks”.
The way to a chap’s heart is through his stomach, and mine is happy to gravitate towards the type of pub grub that Kerridge proselytises.
You can find edible curries, pasta dishes — and even bangers and mash — in the ready-meal section of your supermarket, and that is fine if you want to pay a bit extra and take a downgrade in quality.
What Kerridge does so well is to extend the variety of grub that the home cook can tackle, using his own skill and experience to ensure that when you choose a recipe, you won’t be required to take out a new bond, and it will turn out far tastier than the supermarket slop.
None of the recipes I tried from this book took too long to cook, and all produced restaurant-quality food for a fraction of restaurant prices. If only it had been published and I could have used it before Covid-19, when the dictatorial bullies in government closed our restaurants and banned the sale of booze and cigarettes. They were determined to see that if the pandemic finished us off, we would leave the planet in monastic misery.
In a recent downsizing exercise, I got rid of many hundreds of cookbooks that I had accumulated over several decades. I had leafed through many of them but rarely cooked more than one recipe. In any event, the internet gives access to so many good recipes, including thousands by skilled chefs such as Kerridge.
However, it is always good to have a small collection of well-thumbed recipe books, ideally splattered with sauce to indicate that they resided not only on the bookshelf, but were there by my side as I tried not to spoil the broth.
I am confident that my new fave, Pub Kitchen, will be used time and time again. Not that I can promise to never pop into a pub, bar or bistro ever again. Especially if it has Kerridge’s name above the door.