ekekekfakangzoooboing

A new Beginning

2010-04-14T20:04:00.001+01:00

Ok, so I'm kinda moving on on things. I will still continue to post here, but all my food related snizzle will be done on www.yespleasefood.com. Feel free to have a look, until then keep it real

Slow cooked shin of beef stew

2010-04-07T11:22:00.001+01:00

1 kilo of shin of beef

Flour

1 Teaspoon of Chinese 5 spice

Salt

Pepper

250 grammes of Button mushrooms

2 medium Carrots

1 red onion Onion

1 stick of Celery

Olive oil

Half a bottle of Red wine

Half a liter of Beef stock

Fish sauce

Bay Leaf

Thyme

Cube the beef into sizes slightly bigger than the mushrooms and toss in seasoned flour along with Chinese 5 spice. Brown them off in a heavy based dish on a high heat, don’t add them all at once as the heat will drop and the meat will boil rather than caramelise. When it’s got some nice crispy edges, remove the meat and set aside. Deglaze the pan with some white wine, scraping off all the lovely caramelised meaty bits and decant. Add some olive oil, along with the finely chopped onion and celery. Cover and let them cook down till gooey. Add the button mushrooms whole and sliced carrots, then add back in the meat, the deglazed juices, and the bay leaf and thyme. Give it all a good stir and add in the half bottle of red wine, keeping a glug for you of course, along with the beef stock and a good dash of fish sauce. You may revile at the thought of the latter in your traditional stew, but both McGee and Blumenthal say, and I’d agree with them, that the fish sauce and the aniseed in the 5 spice help to accentuate the umami flavour and thus make your beef stew taste more, um, beefy.

Cover and reduce the heat to a glimmer and allow to cook for 2 hours. Then remove the lid and allow to cook for another half an hour to help the sauce reduce.

Serve with a wholegrain mustard mash and forget about the weather.

Freedom Onion Soup

2010-01-25T14:29:00.003Z

So we lost, our world cup dreams are over. Perhaps now, after many months and some really embarrassing protests, we can get over it. Leave the past behind us, remove ‘cheese eating surrender monkey’ from our daily lexicon of terms for the French. But let’s face it, on a world stage; we’re not very good at kicky ball. The terms ‘fighting Irish’ and ‘luck of the Irish’ are certainly ones that apply to our national football team. We seem to win by jammy goals where Robbie Keane bundles over several defenders to toe poke it into the net along with some dubious refereeing decisions and so when it is done to us at a crucial stage by possibly the smuggest man in football, Understandingly it hurts us so much more. Unfairly and kind of elliptically we were played at our own game.

But now what comes over the brow but a sport and a tournament where, not only are we one of the best in the world, but where we don’t rely on our Darby O‘Gill twinkly eyed ohbegarrah to push us over the line. This is a sport where we can really stick it to the French, and they’re not bad at it, I mean look at the size of them.

Sebastian Chabal’s training regime is dictated by two things; his fear of sneaky anthropologists, yearning to confiscate his skull to prove that the Pilkington man actually exists. And eating mastodon omelettes followed by a quick sabre toothed tiger on toast.

To quote an oft used sporting term, at the end of the day let’s abandon this amateur xenophobia and remember the French for something that they are truly great at, Food. And one of their easiest, and best, meals of ~~Freedom~~ French Onion soup.

Ingredients:

4 large white onions.

3 small shallots

1 clove of garlic

2 bay leaves

A bunch of thyme

A shot of brandy

A Litre of good beef stock (This is where the difference will be made, If you have time, roast up some beef and veal bones and do it the old fashioned way like here, alternatively the jellied stuff is quite good although a tad salty so go easy on the seasoning at the end. Don’t use stock cubes, at all)

A few slices of Vienna loaf

Gruyere cheese.

Method:

First get a big heavy bottom pan on a medium heat with a couple of lugs of olive oil in it. Roughly chop the onions, and finely chop the garlic and shallots and add all them all along with the de-stalked thyme and bay leaves to the pan and cover. Stir occasionally and keep an eye on the heat, what you want is the onions to take a rich brown colour but not caramelise or burn so by keeping the lid on you’ll keep the moisture in and they’ll stew up nicely.

When the colour is achieved and the onions have a melty quality to them, add in the shot (or two) of brandy. Let the alcohol cook off in it for a minute or two, remove the bay leaves and add the stock. Give the stock a good stir and get it up to heat, but not to the boil. Season to taste and ladle into large bowls.

Lightly toast your slices of Vienna loaf and carefully place on top of the soup. Grate your gruyere cheese and cover the bread with a generous amount, there’s no need to be pretty here and it doesn’t matter if it gets in the soup.

Fire under a hot grill for a few minutes until the cheese is melted. You should end up with something like this.

Serve and listen to some Edith Piaf, whilst producing a stick of butter suggestively to the missus.

Sesame street electronica mash up

2009-11-11T10:37:00.000Z

Dont ask me how I did this but play this

and then after 15-20 seconds play this

enjoy

The Blend Show November Oddcast #003

2009-11-06T11:27:00.002Z

The Blend Oddcast #003 by Ivan Varian

Tracklisting

1. Orla Dell Graham – Shortnin bread
2. Gillian Welch, Alison Krauss & Emmylou Harris - Didn't Leave Nobody But the Baby
3. Fleetwood Mac – The Chain
4. Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros – 40 day dream
5. The Apples – Killing in the name of
6. Elektrons – Get up (GW edit)
7. LCD Soundsystem – Bye Bye Bayou
8. Fourtet – Love Cry
9. The Beatles – Tomorrow never knows (Leftside wobble edit)
10. Tim Baker – Reckless
11. Mala – Left leg out
12. Fuck Buttons – Space Mountain
13. Shackleton – Blood on my hands
14. Radiohead – Reckoner (Off World edit)

The Blend Show October Oddcast #002

2009-10-08T12:58:00.001+01:00

The Blend Oddcast #002 by Ivan Varian

Tracklisting...

Olive – You’re not alone (Kill Light remix)
Florence and the Machine – You’ve got the Love (the XX remix)
Greg Wilson – Sacrificial Soul
Hot 8 Brass Band – Sexual Healing
Pretty Lights – More important than Michael Jordan
Pollyn – Gave it up (Peter Visti Remix)
Joubert Singers – Stand on the Word (Unabombers Remix)
Hot Chip – Over and over (Maurice Fulton remix)
M – Pop music (Todd Terje Remix)
See Cape, Get Cape, Fly – D.A.N.C.E
Tensnake – In the end (I want you to cry)
22-20s – I’m such a fool
AmpLive – Video Tapez (feat Del the Funky Homosapien)
Massive Attack – Splitting the Atom

Soundtrack for my daughter

2009-10-02T09:12:00.003+01:00

I have a maggot. When she's in my company, she spends most of her time reconstructing my face with the sharp talons and biting my nose.
I made this video of her and did a bit with the soundtrack, hope you like

Roast Butternut squash and courgette Risotto

2009-09-17T11:13:00.007+01:00

Ok so,

I'm going to get on my soapbox here. Although I have no culinary training, no experience in farming, I did luckily grow up in a house where we grew a lot of our fruit and vegetables, and am concerned about the way we eat and choose our food today.

Many chefs go on about seasonality in food, how it's best to pick the food when it's in the prime of its growing season and tasting the best. This is so very true however along with this no-one highlights the carbon footprint of vegetables when consumed out of season.

Let me paint you a picture, fruit and vegetables that are grown out of season in foreign countries are usually picked when un-ripe, shipped in zero oxygen dark containers, and then given a blast of air for a day or so to ripen the produce up and sell it on the market. Now apart from, zero amount of nutritional value, think of the carbon footprint needed for this style of shipping.

The produce grown out of Ireland’s natural growing season needs to be flown from far off fields, where intensive methods of farming are killing off fragile ecosystems and harmful insecticides are used where local corrupt beau racy will turn a blind eye to massive fish kills from the polluted run off.

Unlike meat, which can be frozen with no major ill effects. This produce needs to be flown over to stack our shelves of our local supermarket. Flown, in a jet plane, that we, as consumers, are told that we cannot use as we kill the planet because of our extravagance. This method of travel that supports our local economy through tourism that our government now will place a carbon tax on and further deter people away from this ailing state.

So if you have a hankering for French beans or strawberries in January, don't. Go to your local greengrocer, they'll know everything there is to know about seasonality and what stuff they have in at the moment that is good. If you have to go to your local supermarket, check the label on where it's grown and make the moral choice.

Now that I'm off my soapbox, here's a recipe for two cracking veggies that are bang in season at the moment and are really really tasty.

Butternut Squash and Courgette Risotto

Ingredients

2 stalks of celery

One medium Onion

Half a medium sized Butternut squash.

A medium sized courgette

300g of Risotto rice

Chicken stock (about 1200 ml)

150ml of white wine.

50g of parmesan

One teaspoon of fresh ground Nutmeg

One teaspoon of Chinese 5 spice

Butter

One tablespoon of chopped thyme

Prep time: 10 mins

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C

Peel the butternut squash with a potato peeler, top and tail, and then de-core. Chop into bite sized chunks and spread on a roasting tray. Drizzle with olive oil, season well and sprinkle with nutmeg and Chinese 5 spice. Put into the oven for 30 mins.

Run a potato peeler over the outside of the celery to get rid of the stringy bits, and then chop along with the onion finely.

Put a heavy based wide pan over a medium flame and add 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add the celery and onion and cover for 2 minutes, shake the pan to prevent caramelising or burning. When the celery and onion is translucent, then you’re ready to go.

Turn the heat up and add the rice. Stir constantly until the rice has taken a translucent edge and then add the wine. When that has cooked off, then slowly add the stock bit by bit. Stir to allow the rice to take on the stock, if you think it’s cooking too fast then adjust the heat down. Continue to add the stock bit by bit, stirring constantly.

Whilst the rice is on the go, take a frying pan and add a tablespoon of olive oil over a medium heat. Add the diced courgette and cook till lightly browned and soft. Season well and add the thyme.

By this stage you rice should be nearly done. Have a taste and the rice should retain just a little bite. Take it off the heat.

Take the squash out of the oven; it should be soft and browned at the edges. Add it and the courgette to the rice along with half the parmesan grated and a couple of knobs of butter. Stir, then cover and leave for 5 minutes.

Serve with the rest of the parmesan shaved and plenty of fresh ground black pepper.

Music music music

2009-09-15T10:22:00.003+01:00

Dear Blogger.com

I'm aware I've neglected you in the past and for that I am truly sorry. It's not me it's you. I've been wooed by your attractive slimmer cousin, twitter. She doesn't let me talk as much but at least she's fast, effective, and all my friends like her. Whereas you only get on with a couple of my friends. She also lets me do stuff with her with my phone that you wouldn't dream of doing.
But now I see the error of my ways and I think we're ready to move forward with our relationship. I believe our relationship is strong enough that we could try new things, perhaps some three way action.

I know you'll understand as I've done a couple of mixtapes and written you a few tunes for you.

Ivan

It's not a mix - Sep 09 by Ivan Varian

Ivan Varian-3 thrust wonder by Ivan Varian

Ivan Varian- Dark Chocolate and fennel tea-Aug 09 by Ivan Varian

rambleaholic

2009-02-16T12:40:00.005Z

Ok ok, so I've been a bit lax on posting for the blog but I've been smothering myself in all the things one cannot do when one becomes a father. Namely dressing up as Ziggy Stardust, staying up til 5am playing Guitar Hero, and imbibing enough poteen to kill everything down to a micro cellular level. Or all of the above on the same night (pictures to be added soon) as was done last Saturday.
But have been doing other things to get down with the Kids, namely exploring the world of Twitter. Which for the moment is a perfect tool for the guise of Web 2.0, the guise being stalking various people of a famous or non-famous nature. Not too sure what to make of it really other than having a little window into people's mundane lives, although Stephen Fry's entries are quite funny.
Have put the Radio show on Powerfm.org on hiatus for the next few months as my co-presenter has actually got himself a job in the evenings which has left my in a bit of creative doldrum and am toying with the idea of doing a podcast.
Did a 4 and a half hour mix the other day, how hard can it be?
The club and pub gigs also have to go on hold for the while as I was painted a glorius picture on sunday by my lovely other half of being stuck in a delivery ward with "screwed up eyes and screwed down hairdo like some cat from Japan"...

So for the moment that is all, be at ease...

Battles vs MIA

Just some music for you

2009-01-16T16:36:00.003Z

TUNE!

Carragher Fail

2009-01-13T14:28:00.000Z

I, like most people, take humour when someone or thing fails miserably at what they're determined to do. Try and deny it but it is human nature and the basis of most comedy.
One of the greatest exponents of this nature is Failblog.org with its brilliant library of everything that is comically terrible, or terribly comic. It was hence with great glee and pleasure when travelling through my local airport I spotted this at the obligatory departures bookshop.
It is particularly prophetic considering the standard at which these football autobiographies are spewed out.

The Economy

2009-01-08T15:13:00.000Z

we're all safe lads, not to worry

Genesis

2009-01-07T17:15:00.000Z

This is my first post.......think I should say something profound.

em......

Spelunking!