Haggis

It was Burn's Night last weekend (25th January). Haggis is compulsory eating on this day of celebrating Scottishness, and this year I decided to make my own, as authentically as possible. That, of course, means hitting the offal in a big way. I thought I might be thwarted at the first hurdle, getting hold of a sheep's pluck. The pluck is the heart, liver and lungs of a sheep, and it turns out to be readily available at the casquería (offal) stalls at my local market. This surprised me, but asadura is a fairly common peasant dish round these parts. What I couldn't get was a sheep's stomach to stuff the filling into, so I had to make do with sausage casing.

Now, if you're in the US, you would have a seriously hard time getting a complete pluck, because your government deems lungs to be unfit for human consumption. I think you could make a reasonable version without the lungs, but don't tell any purists I said that.

Here's my haggis recipe, and here's the video of me making haggis.

So the drill for a formal Burn's Supper involves at least one bagpiper playing 'Scotland the Brave' (you might think there's some bravery involved in making/eating haggis), and the host or Master of Ceremonies reciting Robbie Burns' 'Address to a Haggis'. The haggis is, of course, accompanied by neeps and tatties, and a wee dram or ten.

It's really not difficult to make haggis, although it can take 5-6 hours. And remember, for a chef, every night is burns night.

Why I'll Never Post a Quinoa Recipe

Quinoa is a tiny grain that many nutritional crackpots like to describe as a 'superfood'. Although it only grows in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, in recent years it has found its way into Western countries. I've tried it several times, and I have to say I'm not impressed. I mean, it's okay, but the way some people talk about it you would expect the most thrilling food experience of your life.

Here's why I don't use it:

• It only grows in South America, and therefore has to travel halfway around the world to get to me
• Its price has trebled over the last 20 years, putting it out of reach of the people for whom it used to be a staple
• The marketers insist it is pronounce 'keen-wah', but I can never bring myself to say it like that. The name is Spanish, and Spanish is pretty much a phonetic language. So it should be pronounced 'kwin-oh-ah'
• It seems to have little or no flavour - you might as well eat cous-cous

Free-From. Fad?

I feel sorry for people with food intolerances, I really do. It must be horrible not to be able to eat a slice of toast, or a really good pie made by me, because it contains gluten. Or to be killed by a peanut.

Last month, the lovely and always-right European Community introduced a new regulation concerning  the provision of allergen information to consumers of unpackaged food products. Meaning any food offered in a café or restaurant, or sold loose in something like a bakery or deli. It is a huge burden on the industry (hands up those who are not surprised), involving staff training, information displayed on websites, menus and menu boards. Guess who's going to pay for this? Yes, you, the consumer. But you can't argue about it - consumers have a right to know whether what they order might kill them, right?

The legislation covers 14 allergens - the usual suspects (gluten, lactose, etc) - plus linseed (lupin), which I've only ever come across as an oil used by painters.

All well and good (ish) - if you know you have an allergy to something, you should be able to find out reasonably easily whether what you're about to buy is safe for you.

But here's a thing. Sales of things like gluten-free bread are rising rapidly. Non-coeliacs are buying this stuff because they believe it might be better for them. Other 'free-from' products are also seeing growth in sales.

And here's another thing. I defriended someone on Facebook a few months ago. She had posted about how she'd just carried out allergy testing on all seven of her kids. How? Simples. The kid holds out his/her left hand and you place the thing you wish to test in it. He/she sticks his/her right arm out horizontally. The tester presses down on the right arm. If there is no resistance and the arm can be pushed down easily, it means the kid is allergic to whatever is in the left hand.

I queried this. Does it work with liquids? 'Sure - just put it in a small glass'. Hmm. Glass is pretty inert, how can the body tell what's inside it? 'It just can'.

So this woman is telling her kids they don't need to eat Brussels sprouts or whatever else they don't like because they have an allergy. And for the rest of their lives, they'll probably believe it, on the basis of an idiot test.

And the poor food vendors will have to deal with this forever.

And the winner is...

The UK's Masterchef Professional has finished, and we have a new Masterchef - Jamie Scott. I must admit I wanted Sven to win, but in the end Jamie was outstanding. They all were, in fact. And new judge Marcus Wareing didn't do badly either.

Lost In translation. Or just lost?

I did a small amount of shopping recently at an international store here in Madrid - they sell foodstuffs from India, China, the Phillipines, South America, and a bit of Brit stuff. I was rewarded for my efforts by a free can of this:

I still haven't plucked up the courage to actually open the can and try it. Quite possibly I never will.

You really do have to wonder what inspires people to name things the way they do. Take this shop on Calle Atocha in Madrid.

'Yuck' has no meaning in Spanish, and there's nothing special about it at all. It's just an 'alimentación' - it sells mostly food in cans that you only buy if you are desperate (so maybe the name isn't totally inappropriate after all).

I think my all time favourite silly name for a product is this one: Pocari Sweat.

It caused great hilarity when its Korean manufacturers launched it into the Middle East market. To my knowledge, nobody has ever found out what a Pocari is, nor, indeed, how you would collect its sweat.

But speaking of hilarity, what on earth possessed these manufacturers to adopt it as a brand name?

Contaminated Chicken - Britain's Latest Food Scare

It seems Britain's highly-industrialised food production industry just can't get it right. In the last few years we've been scandalised (technical term meaning whipped up into a frenzy of indignation by the tabloid press) by salmonella in eggs, mad cow disease, and horsemeat being passed off as beef. Last week, a report by the Food Standards Agency was issued detailing high levels of contamination of supermarket chicken by the campylobacter virus. Apparently, chicken sold by the major supermarket chains has contamination rates ranging from 64% (Tesco) to 78% (Asda).

This is clearly a very serious issue, given that in the UK campylobacter causes about 280,000 cases of sickness each year and about 100 deaths. But the expected sh*tstorm doesn't seem to have happened yet.

So should we stop eating chicken? No. The problem isn't the chicken itself - the virus is killed by cooking. The real problem is cross-contamination that happens when you handle the bird. The virus can spread to your chopping board, your hands, your cook's knife, your kitchen sink if you (inadvisedly) wash the chicken. And from there it can enter your body via the bread you cut with your contaminated knife on your contaminated chopping board. You might get some jam or some mayonnaise on your contaminated fingers, which you sneakily lick off. You might dry the area around your contaminated sink with a dishcloth, and from there you'll contaminate anything that comes into contact with the cloth - cutlery, crockery, etc.

So you see, it really is a mess. Solutions proposed by the supermarkets include: cook-in-the-bag chicken, where you never actually touch the raw flesh; better hygiene in abbatoirs and processing plants, including more frequent changes of overalls and boots; leakproof packaging so that contaminated blood and juice doesn't drip all over everything in your fridge.

It's all a bit scary, isn't it. But what people (and restaurants) need to do is what they should have been doing all along - thoroughly wash anything that comes into contact with raw chicken. If you must dry these things, do not use a cloth - use disposable paper towels. Just proper, basic, kitchen hygiene.

Although why the poultry producers and processors can't just shoot any virus they see before it gets to you is beyond me.

Here endeth the lecture.

Restaurant Review - Hawksmoor, Seven Dials, London

We visited London in September to celebrate our son's second graduation. Part of the plan was lunch at a fancy restaurant. We decided on Hawksmoor, which I'd heard of from its excellent newspaper reviews. The Guardian's Jay Rayner, in particular, is a big fan. There are five or six Hakwsmoor restaurants scattered around London, but to describe it as a chain would give the wrong impression entirely.

We fetched up at the one in Seven Dials, near Covent Garden (11 Langley Street, London WC2H 9JG). If you didn't know it was there, you'd probably miss it. The street frontage is not much more than a pair of dark-coloured doors and with a sign above them. Once inside, you're in a lobby area with a reception desk and a cloakroom. The real action is down the stairs.

The site is part of what used to be the Watney-Combe brewery, and the restaurant and bar are located in a large brick-vaulted cellar with genuine parquet flooring. The chairs are upholstered in dark green leather, and the tables are made of dark wood. It's all very old-school, and the tables are not dressed up with heavy tablecloths and fancy napkins. Everything is warm and welcoming, because this place is really all about the food. Actually, it's all about the steaks, which are constructed from top-quality well-aged beef and come in sizes that include 'bring a friend' and go up to 'as big as your head'.

I apologise for the lack of photos, but I was toting a recently-acquired camera and couldn't get to grips with how to make it take good photos in low light - at least not before the food had gone stone cold.

To start with, I had something I'd want to try for a long time - bone marrow. It's the centre part of a marrowbone sawn lengthways down the middle. The waitress said it was dinosaur bone, but you can't fool me - I know it came from an elephant. It's grilled until the marrow is just on the point of melting, and served with some toasted sourdough bread and a slathering of salsa verde (which I found to be a little bit gritty with salt). Bone marrow is pretty much all buttery fat, and I loved it.

Next up, the main course. A little (250g) rib-eye steak, which came all alone in the middle of the plate. Between us we'd also ordered the triple-cooked chips, beef dripping roasted potatoes and an assortment of home-made sauces - ketchup, stilton hollandaise, bone marrow gravy and a few others. My wife may have ordered a vegetable. Everything was admirable, but that steak was the best I've ever had.

And finally, a decent sticky toffee pudding followed by coffee and salted caramel rolos. The Rolos were amazing. So amazing that when I got back home I had to make them myself - here's my salted caramel rolos recipe.

We didn't drink much - bottle of craft beer to begin with, a glass or two of Tokay with the dessert.

Expect to pay a lot of money for food of this quality. We had the Cheap Person's Lunchtime Express Menu (£24 for two courses), but it still topped out at about £50 per head.

And do you know what? It was worth every penny.