Visions of the baby from The Flintstones, of Superman against the other bad-guys from Krypton and Batman & Robin fighting off the villains (and all the other cartoon super-heroes over the years.)
This isn’t that BAM, BAM. This one comes via Lee Tiernan of Black Axe Mangal. Ex-St. JOHN and other fine reference places of food, he likes things loud and in your face. Both musically and taste-wise. In all honesty, I find him a little too rock ‘n roll for my tastes nowadays (I know, who’d ever have thought, eh). Twenty, twenty-five years ago, his place would have been my idea of something close to heaven on Earth; now, not so much, if truth be told. I’m more than a little Mutt & Jeff, so places where I can’t even hear Val shouting in my ear, let alone the server telling me the latest dishes, are out.
But the food still slaps.
His passion for bold, tastes and flavours shines through the recipe book.
Once you’ve made this blood cake you can simply cut it into slices, fry it and eat it with a fried egg and a blob of brown sauce. Job done. At BAM we serve it with fried rice… well, we used to. The limitations of our tiny service kitchen made it such a pain in the ass, so we only run it when we are feeling particularly confident and upbeat. I will do more fried rice dishes when we get a bigger restaurant – it’s one of the most satisfying things to eat, and I love how versatile fried rice can be. It’s also a supreme way of using up small quantities of miscellaneous bits and pieces such as a nub of bacon, smoked pig’s cheek, oxtail or octopus, for example. The possibilities and combination are endless. What you add to this rice is entirely up to you. I’ve suggested wild garlic, but that can easily be replaced with some black cabbage, pak choi or broccoli. It’s also important to know that this dish will combat even the most potent of hangovers.
RECIPE: Making a blood cake follows the same principles as making custard. Blood thickens (coagulates) when heated. So it’s important to keep the blood moving while you cook it.
SERVES 6
ESSENTIAL EQUIPMENT
450 g (1lb) loaf pan, wok or large well-seasoned or non-stick frying pan (skillet]
FOR THE BLOOD CAKE
1 large onion, diced
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon ‘Mission’ Spice (see below)
500 ml (17 fl oz/generous 2 cups) fresh strained pig’s blood
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
200 g/7 oz back fat, Smoked Pig’s Cheek or a combination of both, diced
100 g/3/2 oz pearl barley, cooked and cooled
FOR THE SPICED ONIONS
1 large onion, diced
25 g (1 oz/2 tablespoons) butter
1 tablespoon Mission Spice
FOR THE RICE
vegetable oil, for frying
2 red or green chillies, sliced
700 g (11b 8½/ oz/4 cups) cooked white rice
handful of wild garlic
50 ml (1¾ A oz/4 cup) fresh pig’s blood (optional)
soy sauce
6 duck eggs
Pickled Red Onions, optional
Mission Spice, optional
PREPARATION:
Line the loaf pan with a double layer of cling film (plastic wrap) with enough excess to fold over when the pan is full. Preheat your oven to 110°C/225°F/Gas Mark ¼. In a saucepan large enough to accommodate all the ingredients for the blood cake, cook the onions in a little oil over a medium heat until translucent. Add the Mission Spice and cook for a minute further. Set the heat to low-medium and pour in the pig’s blood. Move the blood around, constantly scraping the bottom of the pan with a spatula, until the blood starts to thicken. Continue to cook and stir the blood. It will thicken and noticeably increase in volume. Season with the salt and pepper at this point. At this stage the blood should be ready to receive the back fat – to test that it’s at the right point though, drop a cube or two of back fat onto the surface of the blood. If it sinks to the bottom you need to thicken the blood further. If the fat sits comfortably on top of the blood, remove the pan from the heat and mix in the rest of the fat along with the barley.
Transfer the blood to the loaf pan. Wrap the cling film over the blood mix. Place the loaf pan in a deep roasting pan and pour boiling water into the roasting pan around the loaf pan to about three-quarters of the way up. Cover the pans with baking (parchment) paper and aluminium foil, carefully transfer to the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes, until the blood cake is firm. When the blood cake is cooked, remove from the oven and bain marie and allow to cool. Chill in the refrigerator for a few hours before cutting into it.
Next, make the spiced onions. They provide a sweetness for the rice, but make sure you have them pre-cooked before you start the stir fry so it’s simple to throw together at the last minute. In a small frying pan (skillet), cook the onions in the butter over a medium heat. When the onions are translucent, after about 10 minutes, remove from the heat and stir in the spice.
Cut 4 slices of blood cake, then cut each slice into 6 pieces.
Get all your ingredients lined up ready to throw in and cook.
Get a wok or large, well-seasoned or non-stick frying pan (skillet) going over a high heat. If you have an extractor fan, I would turn it on now, or open a window.
Lightly oil the pan and fry the blood cake pieces. Allow the blood to fry for a couple of minutes, add the chilli and cook briefly, then chuck in the rice and spiced onions. Let the rice and onions sit and get a little heat for a minute before stirring. The blood cake will break up a bit, but don’t worry. When the rice is piping hot, fold in the wild garlic and stir in the fresh pig’s blood, if using. Finish with a dash of soy sauce.
Fry the duck eggs. While the eggs are frying, mound the rice on a platter. When the eggs are done, place onto the rice with a few Pickled Onions on the side. I would definitely reach for the Mission Spice at this moment too. Sprinkle some over if you have any to hand. Ice cold cider is an excellent drinks pairing.
Mission Spice
This recipe has been slightly adapted from Danny Bowien’s original recipe in The Mission Chinese Cookbook, mainly because I had to tweak a few things due to the availability of certain ingredients in the UK. Notably, the only red Szechuan peppercorns I could get my hands on absolutely suck. They lack any of the fragrance and numbing qualities that Szechuan pepper should possess, which Harold McGee describes as a sensation akin to touching the terminals of a 9-volt battery with your tongue. They marry well with chilli and together produce what is known as ma la, which literally translates to numbing and spicy. The US government banned the importation of Szechuan peppercorns between 1968-2005 because they are capable of carrying Citrus Canker. The ban was lifted in 2005, as long as they were heated to kill any bacteria. However, this treatment killed any favour, and distributors haven’t stopped pasteurising them.
The green Szechuan peppercorns I have managed to find have a superior numbing property and fragrance. It’s that numbing and spicy combination that I love, and judging by the rate at which our Buttermilk Fried Chicken Wings (page 123) are consumed, so do many of our customers.
ESSENTIAL EQUIPMENT
spice grinder or mini food processor
MAKES 200 G (7 0Z/1 CUP)
2 tablespoons cumin seeds
2 tablespoons fennel seeds
2-4 star anise
2 tablespoons cardamom pods
2 teaspoons cloves
4 tablespoons whole green Szechuan peppercorns
3 tablespoons caster (superfine) sugar
4 tablespoons chicken stock powder (bouillon)
2 tablespoons cayenne powder
PREPARATION:
Toast all the spices apart from the pepper- corns in a dry frying pan (skillet) over a low-medium heat for 2-3 minutes, until they’ve coloured slightly and started to pop and become fragrant. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Toast the peppercorns in a frying pan until fragrant, then tip into a spice grinder and blitz to a rough powder. Sieve to remove the husks. Mix all the ingredients together and blitz to as fine a powder as you can. Store in an airtight container. This mix will lose much of its potency after a week or so. Aside from the recipes here that call for it, this works well on any kind of eggs or mushrooms on toast, and as a rub for chicken, pork, or beef. I also sprinkle it over ready salted crisps.
And this is Bowen’s version which he also uses for one of his chicken dishes)
