Chef in London

Press, 12 May 1984, Page 14

Chef in London

Food & Fable

by

David Burton

Just around the corner from the Ritz and opposite Christies in the distinctly

sniffy central London district of St James, is a little pub called the Golden Lion. It is a rather quaint old Victorian pub with lead light windows and wood panelling, but is undistinguished from a thousand others like it in London, except that I used to work there as its chef. This was my introduction to the cooking of solid, unpretentious British grub: steak pie, steak and kidney pudding, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, toad-in-the-hole, Lancashire hot-pot, macaroni cheese, brown Windsor soup, plain boiled greens, trifle, caramel custard, cabinet pudding, and spotted dick. That was what the customers demanded. That was what they got, and woe betide anybody who tried to serve them anything foreign. This lesson was driven home very early in the piece when in a fit of enthusiasm one morning I made fresh pasta, bought in proscuitto and parmesan at great expense, and offered Cannelloni alia laziale as the chefs special. In all, I think about three Eortions were sold, the rest aving to be dumped unceremoniously into the pig bin at the end of the day, with the tight-fisted old Scrooge of a manageress throwing up her hands in horror at the shocking waste and my ridiculous extravagance. The next day, just to teach her and my unappreciative customers a lesson, I cooked up as chefs special something that looked as though it might have been fished back out of the pig bin: bubble and squeak. I considered then, and still consider this to be a thoroughly revolting dish, exemplifying the very worst in English cooking. Nevertheless, I cooked it up in the manner prescribed by Mrs Beeton, frying the day before’s left-over beef and cabbage in dripping with onions, adding, after careful consideration, some mashed spud to the flaccid muck to enhance its swilllike appearance still further. About 20 minutes after the dining room had opened for lunch the buzzer for the dumb-waiter sounded, and up came the empty tray together with an order for a fresh batch.

If that wasn’t enough, I had to knock up two further batches ■ before the end of lunchtime, making sure each was just a little flabbier and greasier than the last. The manageress kept asking me what was so funny. The kitchen was on the top storey of the building. It could only be reached by a narrow, creaky old spiral wooden staircase, so you always had plenty of warning when somebody like the manageress was coming up to visit. Almost always, that is. One morning I was whistling away, rolling out the pastry for steak pie, when I felt a chilling presence behind me. I whipped around, and there he was, a wizened little man in a tweed hunting jacket and tweed hat, with a long twitchy nose. “ ’Ullo, I’m the rat catcher,” he announced with a broad grin, exposing, I kid you not, two long, crooked, yellowish rodent-like front teeth. A real master of his craft he was too. He took me on a tour of the shelves of our roomy Victorian pantry, showing me all the motorway on-ramps and offramps of of mouse-town, and placing tempting little piles of bait-covered poison beside each. I had a full kitchen staff complement of one, a Cockney kitchenhand who would arrive at the top of the stairs each morning, all fourteen stone of her puffing and panting, patting her teased hair-do and fluttering her false eye-lashes. As she scrubbed the pots and peeled the spuds she would regale me non-stop with stories about ’her ’usband’s vasectomy (he was a little Indian chap, about half her size) and ’ow ’e played in a band called Needle and Fred (at first I thought she meant Thread, but no, it was a pun, see?) and you know you ought to come along to one of our AngloIndian club dos, there’s always plenty of single girls ’n all. Likewise, the Scottish barmaid was forever interrogating me about my sex life, asking me why I dinna hae a lassie, and what was wrong with me, was I a pouf? She spoke with such a broad Glasgow accent that I could orffy understand about

one word in three, except after the manageress had been harrying her over the intercom, telling her to get on with making the sandwiches for the bar, that it was about to open and the vacuuming still had to be done. Then she would stab the bread-knife down into the bench, muttering “The buttch! (stab) “The bloody, focking buttch!” (stab, stab). It was also part of my job to provide snacks for the bar, among them Scotch Eggs. Judging by the number of lunch bars and coffee shops around town that offer them, they are still very popular here, but do not seem to be the sort of thing that people make at home. God knows why, for they are dead simple. Scotch Eggs 5 eggs 350-400 g sausagemeat, preferably pork salt and pepper pinch of mace ¥2 tsp t lemon rind, grated dry breadcrumbs oil for deep frying Hard boil four of the eggs, allowing about 10 minutes. Beat the remaining egg with a dash of water and dip the eggs in this, then wrap them in the sausagemeat seasoned with salt, pepper, mace and lemon-rind. This wrapping process is the only tricky part, since you must be certain to seal up the seams well, or else they will burst during ingDip them in the remaining beaten egg, then roll them well in breadcrumbs. (The best sort to use are the dry, ready-browned ones.) Heat a small pot of oil with a sieve in it and deep fry them one by one, removing with the sieve as they are done and draining on absorbant paper. Slice in half lengthwise when cooled. Makes four Scotch Eggs. 3*