Union Jacks

Jamie Oliver, love him or loathe him, his influence on contemporary British cooking is irrefutable. I do have three JO recipe books in my collection and I do enjoy watching his cookery shows, partly for the giggle but mostly for the food. One of the most successful series he's done has to be 'Jamie's Great Britain' with an impressive number of recipes you'll find something for any occasion that's bound to impress.

One of Jamie's latest restaurant ventures 'Union Jacks' ties in with the series' patriotism not just by name as some of the recipes featured appear on the menu. Union Jacks is all about celebrating the best of British produce in a whole new way and has been established by Jamie in partnership with renowned American pizza chef, Chris Bianco.
The website has a nice vintagey feel and I used the online booking system which worked a treat. If you can be arsed to watch the two or three videos on the homepage, you're in for a treat as well! The central location of the London branch is really convenient, a short walk from tottenham court road and holborn stations and a short skip and a jump from covent garden and shaftesbury avenue. A minor drawback from a personal perspective is that it is situated in one of those super shiny new office developments where they leave room for retail/restaurants on the ground floor. I'm not going to rant about it now, but these kinds of locations irritate me - however they have managed to inject some personality into the place so all is well. They also have a very funky looking function room downstairs for anyone who's hatching party plans.
Met with a friend for an earlyish dinner meant that we were in time for happy hour which is always a pleasant treat and the cocktails served with those old skool stripey straws didn't disappoint. I was surprised the place wasn't busier! Happy hour - on a Friday!! The service was friendly and attentive throughout our visit which is always excellent, especially getting recommendations from the staff, all of which were great.
To start we had the smoked trout pate and baby yorkies that I have previously blogged about adapting so I was keen to try it as intended and the waitress spoke very highly of it. We also had the garlicky mushrooms which were the most garlicky things I've eaten in a long time, they certainly lingered. Both starters were absolutely delicious - the trout pate was nice creamy and smokey in flavour and the yorkies were searing hot, straight out of the oven which was great. The combo worked really well because of the contrast, will definitely be giving this a go at home, following the recipe next time.

On to the main event - I had the Empire Chicken, a recipe I've been intending to attempt from the book for a while but haven't quite mustered up the courage energy. It was delicious. The chicken is served on the bone and is amazingly tender with really zingy flavours coming from the spicy rub. Served with a jug of gravy and bombay potatoes - it was quite delicious. I like that the gravy was served separately, it does mean you can regulate the coverage of sauce to your liking.

Despite being absolutely stuffed we couldn't resist the lure of the home made ice creams and chose a scoop each of earl grey and biscuit flavour along with sticky toffee pudding flavour. It was gorgeous. All throughout the meal they were playing amazing 90's tunes as well, some real classics which just added to the atmosphere. So much so that my friend asked if they had a copy of the playlist available, I'm sure that they'll be selling compilations before too long. Jamie's next venture perhaps. Next time, I'll try  out the flatbreads, which are apparently the speciality here. Check it out while it's quiet! No doubt many branches will be cropping up over the city in no  time and there are already plans for a branch in Covent Garden.


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Adaptation Station

Like a lot of people out there, I own quite a lot of recipe books. I like to flick through them and get ideas. I like to just look at the pictures of all the nom, many books are well designed for this exact purpose. One of the most recent additions to my collection has been ‘Jamie’s Great Britain’ the book that accompanies yet another successful TV show for The Naked Chef on channel 4.
More often than not, on flicking through the books I not only pick out the recipes I want to cook over the next week or so but I also use them as inspiration for my own twist on it. This, for me, is what cooking is all about and I’m pretty sure it’s how a lot of people go it. For me, adapting recipes in this way is as much about what ingredients I already have as well as personal preferences. More than that though, it's also a good way to gain confidence with unfamiliar ingredients which will enhance your cooking in the long run especially for those occasions when you do improvise.
I’ve had my eye on a particular recipe from ‘Jaimie’s Great Britain’ (JGB) for a while now and that is the baby Yorkshire puddings with Smoked Trout pâté. Although I missed the episode on tv where this was made, I saw the snippet on the trailer where he ate it and nearly cried with happiness. When any chef ends a recipe with the words “To. Die. For.” you know it’s going to be good!
So how did I adapt it? Admittedly, not significantly! This was for a midweek supper for me and T rather than a starter as is suggested in JGB (it would be a fantabulous starter) but although the change is not that big, I did want to see how this could work as a main meal. Firstly I only had cold smoked haddock, rather than hot smoked trout as stated in the recipe. I can’t say for sure that I’ve had hot smoked trout so I couldn’t really tell you the difference in flavour, but cold smoking leaves your fish or meat raw whereas hot smoking would cook it.
So firstly, we heated the oven so it was really hot for the Yorkshire puds. Make sure your oven is quite clean if you want to do this, or that your kitchen has a window. The oven gets very smokey otherwise, add to that hot, smoking oil and it’s really unpleasant. One task for my weekend? Clean the oven!

To cook the fish fillets (there were two), we melted a little butter in pan and added some milk and heated it through. Then we added a bay leaf and a touch of salt and pepper, added both fillets and simmered very gently for about 5 mins or so. Meanwhile, we prepared the pate mixture and yorkie batter and put some water on to boil for some peas to accompany it. My only issue is that the horseradish pate mix ended up being slightly too acidic. I think this is because I used really hot horseradish which is basically pure, grated horseradish in a jar as well as the juice of half a lemon as stated in the recipe. I didn’t need to add that much lemon with such an acidic horseradish but I wanted it to be a strong flavour, it turned out too strong, and a bit runny! It was still delicious though so a little tinkering here and there and it’ll be great. I was somewhat impatient! When the fish was cooked we removed the skin and flaked it into the horseradish pate mixture and set to one side while the yorkies cooked. Once the water was boiling peas were added and the pate mixture was returned to a very gentle heat to warm it through. This is one of those dishes where it all comes together at the last minute. As soon as the yorkies were ready, they were on the plate along with the peas, stick the pate in a big bowl and dig in. For me having the pate warm and not cold just made it a more warming dish. It was lovely to get the smokey fish, lemon and horseradish flavours just zinging away. We had about four mini yorkies each which was plenty and it’s great to spoon the mixture into them and shove it in your gob, you’ve got to love any chance to eat with your hands. If you’ve got a bigger crowd to feed, I would probably serve up some buttery boiled new potatoes and a spinach salad.
The great thing about this is that there are all sort of versions you could try out and it’s great to see the yorkie being used in such a way. I mean, we all know that yorkies and sausages go together like.. well what better combination? But it’s nice to see the humble yorkie coming into its own with more unusual combinations. T and I were talking about different versions you could do, prawns are up there that would be delicious. Watch this space!