Patty & Bun (Restaurant)

I helped out with the music, CCTV and data network at the new Patty & Bun. Not a big or notable project in a technical sense, but this is the first restaurant I’ve been involved with. It’s always great to watch a project evolve on site and I particularly enjoyed seeing Joe put this together with his characteristic passion and sporadic mania.

I went to a preview night a few days before opening. The burgers are better than ever - the primary-coloured Ari Gold in its shiny brioche is big, meaty, flavoursome. And then I went again the next week and had a another, just as good. Clearly I’ll be here often. 



Sing-In Christmas

Kash and Sara’s sing-in christmas is one of my favourite nights of the year.

The gathering gives Kash an opportunity to use his rather handsome axe to chop wood for a fire which is created purely for aesthetic, because with all the tipsy choristers we hardly need the heat and the room is soon hotter than the sun.

They made their beautiful home (see their Homey Blog) even more cosy and Christmassy, from the tree in the bay window to the smell of mulled wine wafting through the hall. There were delicious snacks such as mackerel pâté and the quite breathtaking ‘Yule Dump’, which is like a Yule log but less formal.

Once our larynxes were sufficiently lubricated, we sang. Do they know it’s Christmas? The neighbours certainly do. We showcased our varied repertoire: the girl/boy alternate line ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ was a model of choral timing and the ‘Jews and Muslims’ choir providing the backing for ‘War is Over’ was quite special too. Guitarist and front-man Luke even surprised everyone with an up-tempo rendition of ‘Last Christmas’ played on his Lukelele (I will NEVER tire of that portmanteau).

We ended with a big number: E17’s ‘Stay’. Which we did twice. Then we jumped around to Mariah and got busy with the whiskey and it all got rather silly until around 2am when Kash fell over.


Peep Show Dinner

Series 8 of Peep Show started on Sunday night and to celebrate I made a themed dinner. I’m not even embarrassed. Essentially some friends and I watched numerous old episodes, drank wine, ate lasagne and had a bloody good time. Definitely a good idea. 

On the menu…

Crisps - “3 different flavours, all mixed up. Mmmm; exciting.”

Crunchy Nut Cornflakes - “…are just Frosties for wankers”

Red wine - “obviously it’s not really delicious like hot chocolate or coke.”

Toast (well, bruschetta) - “Brown for first course, white for pudding.”

Bone (representing Mummy. Symbolism.) - “In the moment, it really did feel like I needed to eat it.”

Melon - “Don’t touch that melon. That’s bad melon.”

Dairy Milk - “You’ve been waiting to do rationing on me since we met.”

Lasagne - “I need another lasagne. Chicken lasagne? I’ve  seen it on menus but only at those pretend pubs at the airport.”

ANYWAY here’s my recipe for the braised meat ragu used in the lasagne. Obviously makes great tagliatelle bolognese too.

Ingredients

Ragu:

  • 500-600g good quality chuck steak, small cubes
  • 200g chicken livers
  • Smoked lardons or pancetta
  • 1 Onion, diced
  • Few sticks of celery, diced 
  • 1 big carrot, diced
  • 500g chopped tomatoes
  • 500ml beef stock
  • Glass of red wine
  • Thyme, bay, garlic, seasoning.

Lasagne Sheets.

Bechamel:

  • 50g butter
  • 50g flour
  • 600ml(ish) milk
  • Grated Parmesan (don’t be shy)

Method

Heat a little oil in a heavy casserole. Add lardons/pancetta/bacon, let it render a little. Add diced carrot, cook for few mins. Then add celery and onion and cook gently until onion is translucent. Don’t brown or burn onion. Add chuck and up the heat to brown the meat. Then add chicken livers, plenty of thyme, a couple of crushed garlic cloves and cook for a few minutes.

Then add the wine and let it cook off for a minute or so whilst you scrape all the good stuff from the bottom. Add the chopped tomatoes, maybe some tomato purée, and the beef stock. Give it a good mix and generous season. If like me you have some bone marrow in the freezer, now is the time to slip it in. Finally add a bay leaf and pop it in the oven, lid on, at 145 degree (fan) for about 2.5 hours.

Check on it hourly. What you want is for the meat to fall apart. When it’s ready it should have reduced to ‘quite saucy’ and you should be able break it up with a wooden spoon. Which is your next task.

Now for the bechamel. Melt butter, add flour, mix, cook for 2 mins. Then slowly add milk whilst whisking continuously. Cook on low heat, add good handful(s) of Parmesan and seasoning to taste.

Next you need to layer it all up in baking dish. Mine is 3 lasagne sheets wide and I managed two layers with this quantity. It goes ragu, bechamel, pasta, repeat. Cover the final pasta layer in bechamel, sprinkle on some Parmesan and grate a little nutmeg if you have. Bake at 180 for about 45mins or until it’s brown and bubbly and no longer resistible. Let it rest for 15 mins. Perhaps serve with broccoli coated in a little red chilli and lemon zest.

RITA’S FRIED CHICKEN

Straight on the to-make list

Serves 4/Makes 8 pieces
8 chicken thighs
1 lemon
1 bay leaf
100g cornmeal
100g rice flour
500g plain flour
300ml buttermilk
100g sea salt
1tsp cayenne pepper
1tsp ground mace
1tsp smoked paprika
Vegetable oil

Debone chicken thighs with sharp knife. Soak for 6-8 hours in a 10 per cent salt solution (100g of salt per 900ml water), to which has been added juice of one lemon and a bay leaf.

Take chicken thighs (at room temperature), dredge in 300g of flour seasoned generously with salt.

Submerge in buttermilk, remove and let excess drip away.

Make final dredge of 100g cornmeal, 100g rice flour and 200g white flour, with the addition of 2tsp of salt, one of cayenne pepper, ground mace and smoked paprika.

Add thigh to final dredge.
Submerge thigh in vegetable oil heated to a temp of 180C.

After about 7 minutes, lift chicken from oil, probe to ascertain core temperature. If temperature is in excess of 80C, shake free of excess oil, pat dry with a paper towel, allow a couple of minutes for chicken to cool below mouth-stripping temperature, and consume.

The Bull Highgate

As I sometimes like to do on a schoolnight, I cycled to The Bull earlier this evening to meet a friend. It’s only a short ride but has a climb that makes me feel I’ve offset the forthcoming booze (I haven’t). I must’ve done it 5 or 6 times in the last few months and each time have been rewarded by great beer and plenty of wings; 16 crispy, saucy, succulent buffalo wings.

And if it’s #wingswednesday, 16 wings are £5.

FIVE POUNDS.

“They’re a fiver. And really rather good. We’re going to be here nearly every Wednesday, aren’t we?”

This was a worrying but accurate epiphany.

When they’re good they’re great, the meaty chicken still crisp under the hot sauce, although they can be a little inconsistent and tonight our first order had too little sauce (but an amazing crunch); the second order were nigh-on perfect (above). Over the weeks I’d say they’ve generally got better and better. Kash thinks MEATliquor’s are still the best, but I’m not sure.

At £5 you might be concerned the wings are sourced from dodgy farms that store chickens in dungeons, but you needn’t be. Dan from The Bull says “The price on Wednesday is a loss leader….all of our meat is free range and traceable back to farm of origin.” They also brew a lot of their own beer and the selection of bottles and draught is immense.

Full and half-cut, I freewheel down North Hill, then enjoy a gentle pedal through East Finchley back to my place, my lips tingling with hot sauce, my wallet still full.
The Bull, Highgate
@Bull_Highgate

Patty & Bun at The Endurance

It’s been 2 months since P&B erased themselves from the Doodle Bar, but Joe seems the sort of man who is, somewhat literally, unable to stand still. We met up a month ago for Big Odes and Black Palaces with Nick & Louis, and Joe talked a lot about secret upcoming plans that he couldn’t possibly talk about. One of these plans has now come to fruition in the form of his latest pop-up at The Endurance pub in Soho


I went down there for the 12th June opening night with quite a few #teamburger friends. Nick placed order no.1 and soon the burgers were flowing in a steady stream towards our table. They all arrived cocooned in the trademark P&B ‘bite me’ boxes, which once opened revealed the sexy brioche domes.

The menu has changed a little, and I think maybe the meat too, but the basics haven’t; fabulous bun, smoky mayo and big patty sat on (contentious unshredded) lettuce and tomato. I bit into my Smokey Robinson (which adds caramelised onions to the standard cheese and smoky mayo from the Ari Gold), treating my hands to a good coating in juice and my eyes to a sexy view of its perfectly pink insides.


This is a big, messy burger requiring at least 4 napkins and saturating a standard-size beard. It’s very good, but the onions whilst tasty, somewhat mask the meat flavour. I loved the standard pickled onions in the Ari so I’ll stick with that next time.


Details aside, the tweaks have been good and out of the 4 P&Bs I’ve had, this was the best.

I also tried BBQ wings (bit dry, not as great as MEATLiquor / The Bull), a Foghorn Leghorn chicken sandwich (wet with gravy, tasty grilled chicken and bacon, but I’d prefer a breadcrumbed one) and fries (still very good but I think not quite as great as they were at Doodle Bar).

Anyway it was a great night and we all had too many drinks for a Tuesday (standard). Joe is a great FoH, the burgers are TASTY, the kitchen have the cooking nailed, the pub itself is fun and the excellent jukebox makes up for the average booze selection.

Patty & Bun is at The Endurance, Berwick St. Tues-Thurs for the next few weeks. Wonder what’s next…

www.pattyandbun.co.uk

BITE ME

BITE THRU

Bun win

Burgerac investigates

BBQ Chicken Wings

The man Joe