Rump

The cow outline in the branding and naming this place 'Rump' is 1 part tacky and 4 parts fun-  I love how explicit it is about the fact that you'll be chowing down on a bovine backside.  It's definitely not for the squeamish, but neither is a steak cooked very much to the blue end of rare.

Lots of places err on the side of overcooking steak, so that rare becomes medium rare and so on.  This was not a problem at Rump, and my steak was mostly underdone for an order of rare.  Happily the quality of the steak was such that I still enjoyed the blue parts of my steak. The Diver's steak was  a more uniform thickness than mine, so ended up perfectly rare throughout; I had a touch of food envy over this.

One drawback of ordering rare steaks is the fact that the steak doesn't stay warm for long if served on cold plates, as it was at Rump.  We went on a sweltering summer evening which meant that this wasn't a problem, but it definitely would be on a colder day when I'd want my steak to be warm.  

The flexibility of the menu is perfect, allowing you to select a steak by cut and weight, but without including so many options that you get a reading-induced headache from trying to decide what to have. 

The steaks were served with salt and ground pepper dishes on the side. I'm a big fan of a light dusting of both on steak and this means that everyone can achieve their perfect seasoning.  The steaks did come with a green chopped harb sprinkled over them which I am 90% sure was basil (the steak itself was dazzling my tastebuds so I was quite distracted) and although not a combination I'd have thought up myself, worked very well.  It also tied in nicely with one of the side dishes we ordered, tomato onion and basil salad.

Other non-food observations about Rump? The wine and cocktail lists looked good though I'd hate to say more having not actually sampled them.  There was an information leaflet on our table about wine tasting nights held there which I liked- it shows enthusiasm on the part of the management and a keeness to share this with others (and yes, a good way to promote yourself and get diners to part with more cash, but from a buisness point of view I applaud this.)  The set-up inside was rustic industrialism: the tables in the bar area were made of irregular planks of wood that were cross sections through a tree trunk, complete with bark, and the chairs were luxury bar stools in cream.  The walls were successfully made to feel like they had been geometrically chiselled out of a rockface somewhere, rather than being part of a building on Putney High Street.

I liked Rump.  The steak itself was nudging 9/10 but it's getting 8/10 for not quite cooking my steak to my specification and the cold plates.

Dream Team Combinations

Just a very quick post about two amazing food combinations I've stumbled across in the last 24hrs:

1. Goats Cheese + Mango Cutney. 

Cheddar cheese and mango chutney is a well-acknowledged good pairing (which I can say with extra certainty after a mindnight snack of these guys with The Fiesta on sunday) so I decided to branch out.  I took mild goats cheese- creamy. slightly sour, slightly salty, chilled from the fridge, and put it on granary toast with the warmly spiced Geeta's Mango Chutney.  I recommend it.

2. Mushy Peas + Chili Flakes

Last night The Panorama hosted a home-made fish and chip party- which will be a post in itself- but equally as impressive as the fish and chips were the mushy peas.  The Panorama had been concerned that the mushy peas weren't spicy enough, so he added some dried chili flakes.  This worked very well, both alone, with the sweetness of the peas and the heat of the pepper, but also with the battered fish as the chili cut through some of the mouth-coating richness from the oil without overwhelming the delicate flavour of the fish.

The Teaboy was as enthusiastic as me about the chili peas, and we fought over eating the last scraps from the saucepan!

String Bean Thoren

The Fiesta has cooked this many times, sometimes to accompany her famous curries (example shown), more often to appease the demands of hungry housemates who quite frankly think it is awesome.

Aromatic, subtly spicy, and fresh, the Thoren is a great example of Keralan cuisine.  I am reliably informed of this by The Fiesta herself, who is allegedly half-indian.

Green beans, cooked to a perfect bite, are always a favourite of mine, and combining this with crunchy mustard seeds and soft coconut works wonders.  The recipe is below; my only suggestion would be to use stock instead of water, omitting the salt.

• 1.5 tbsp sunflower oil
• 0.5 tsp black mustard seeds
• 0.75 tsp chopped ginger
• 1 tbsp chopped green chillies
• 4 tbsp chopped onion
• 1 cup string beans, chopped into lengths of about 2cm
• 0.25 tsp turmeric powder
• 0.75 tsp salt
• 5 tbsp water
• 10 curry leaves
• 0.25 cups grated coconut

1. Fry mustard seeds in sunflower oil until crackling
2. Add ginger, chillies and onion, continue to fry for about 3 minutes
3. Add string beans, turmeric powder, and salt, fry for about 1 minute
4. Add water
5. Cover pan and cook for 3 minutes until the water has evaporated
6. Add curry leaves and coconut, heat through and serve.

MoD Rice

Today: something totally you-can't-buy-this-in-the-shops exclusive.  The lesser spotted Ministry of Defence 'MoD Cooked Rice.'  This was sourced for me by The Adventurer, who spends much of his free time yomping across remote parts of the world in green splodgy clothes, dining quite well it turns out.

He suggested I might like to try it after I complained to him the limitations of my temporary accommodation kitchen which consisted of 1 microwave and 0 other stuff.

The dull label "MoD Cooked Rice" did not deceive me as I could spy some yellow rice mixed with spice within.  The label said boil in the bag- note well people, microwaving in the bag is not be be recommended unless you want a scale model of The Hindenburg in your microwave.  Fortunately I rescued it just in time to prevent an action replay of what happened to the actual Hindenburg.  The better option turned out to be emptying the rice into a bowl, adding a couple of tbsp water, and heating.

The end result is highly impressive: if I was served this in a curry house I would not be disappointed.  The rice is the perfect consistency, none of that strange bite that pre-cooked-pre-packed rice has.  The label states Basmati Rice, maybe that's why the grains stay perfectly separate.  It also contains onion, sunflower oil, salt, ginger puree, some E numbers (which I will gloss over....) and, to add an air of mystery, "spices."

The ginger and onion work well, and some detective work- i.e. eating them- revealed the spices to be cumin seeds and turmeric.  Delicious!

I also have to hand it to the MoD: if they can make yummy food that will last 3 years or more in the pack and still get 7/10, I am sure they can engineer some shit-hot technology to defend the realm.

Prego Rolls and lemon peel in steak marinade

The Diver prepared some Prego Rolls for a recent lunch. 

I will track down and post the exact recipe, but the marinade for the steak involved garlic, red chilli, lemon juice and lemon peel.  The steak is fried then removed from the pan and kept warm while the the bits from the marinade are fried.

The roll is then composed as shown in the old-school cross section diagram below, plus a photo of the sad view that results when greed overcomes the needs of this blog.

Ciabatta Roll

Black Pepper

Rocket

Vine Tomato

Peppadew Pepper

Gravy

Fried bits of marinade

Steak

Butter

Ciabatta Roll

So, basically a steak sandwich, but what elevated it to bloggability was the genius of the marinade.  The combination of garlic and chilli is always a winner; it was the lemon that surprised me with how much it added to the taste. 

Within the roll there are two types of flavours: the warmth of the steak/garlic/chilli/tomato/pepper/gravy flavours, and the summer time freshness of the rocket, tomato, and fresh bread.  The success of mixing these two flavour groups while still being able to taste each one independently lay in the use of lemon peel. The oils in the lemon peel helped the lemon flavour to meld with the butter, which drew the lemon freshness and summer flavours into the richness of the butter and the warmer flavours.  It has to be tried to understand just how good this is.

It rates 8/10, had the ciabatta been heated it would be an easy 9/10.

I'd like to try this marinade with lime peel and juice instead of lemon; I think it would add a more oriental flavour, the best bread and salad ingredients for this one will take some thought.

Waitrose Stem Ginger Ice Cream

Mmmmmmmm No picture of this one so you're going to have to conjure up your own image!

Imagine you have a mouth full of ice cream- quite light in consistency and very basic (but oh so good) in flavour: no vanilla, no nothing, just cream.

But this light cream is the perfect base to hold chunks of zingy crystallised ginger, which adds a spicy bite and a sugary crunch. And some of the ginger is inside dark chocolate, which you have to bite off (or melt off) going through rich cocoa to find the ginger. All inside the cream.

Perfect. Not too sweet or rich or spicy or chocolately but still assertively flavoured with a great texture. In fact so good, I have just upgraded my rating from a 7 to 8/10.