Butcher & Grill

Sunday T-bone

I finally got a booking at the Butcher & Grill in Battersea. This place is a carnivors paradise. The venue combines a fantastic butcher & grocers – full of organic produce sourced from various British farms – with a family friendly restaurant & bar. It’s located on Parkgarte Road in Battersea, but they also have a place in Wimbledon Village.

Tillie organised the lunch with the Airlock boys & wives. Sadly (for them) two of the eight people eating were vegetarians. The Butcher & Grill is certainly not a place you’d want to visit if you had an aversion to meat. To access the restaurant you need to walk through the butcher/abattoir and the walls are adorned with images of carcasses and other unfortunate animals.

The menu is not exclusively meat, but there’s not too much on offer for herbivores. A good thing in my books.

Talking of books the place also has a reasonable collection of meat related cook books to purchase. I spotted the cleverly named Beef by John Torode, which I couldn’t resist. Frequent readers will know that when it comes to cooking steak at home I am fairly unadventurous. I’m hopoing to take a leaf out of Mr. Torode’s book and cook up something a little more interesting over the coming weeks.

As for the quality of meat at the B&G I couldn’t fault it. I opted for the 500g T-bone, which comes from the Highfields Farm in East Sussex. Their herds come from pure-bred Sussex stock, with the use of a continental cross bull solely for prime beef production. Whatever they’re doing to the cows is obviously working as they tasted lovely.

The B&G is a very child friendly venue – which helps when you have a hungry 6-month baby in the party. Freddie was mainly well behaved (read asleep) but when it came to feeding time he made himself be known. For some reason he’s developed a tendency of only drinking milk when he is lying on his back, which makes feeding him in public an interesting and somewhat amusing experience.

Table for one please

Xmas beef feast (part 3)

Nice view, shame about the company (or lack of)

Boxing day was my dads turn to play host. He and Sue have just moved into a beautiful river side apartment in Battersea with an amazing view as you can see from the picture above.

From the minute we arrived I knew something was not quite right. He was certainly not being his usual garrulous self and was spending more time in the bathroom or alone in the garden than with his children. Then shortly before we were due to sit down to eat he announced that he was not feeling too well and would not be joining us.

Being a concerned and caring son, I asked Sue if everything was OK. With a wry smile she told me that father was feeling worse for wear not due to the prevailing flu epidemic but because he’d drunk one too many glasses of something the night before and was suffering from the hangover from hell. “Oh how the tables have turned” I remarked.

As well as leaving us without his normally charming company, dad’s absence had the further impact of leaving us without a chef. Sue is hugely talented at many things, though cooking, she will tell you, is not her forte. In this respect my father is usually the one leading the culinary proceedings in their household.

Though step up to the plate she did and in magnificent style. She picked up a couple of ribs of beef from their favourite butchers, the ‘Butcher & Grill’ in Battersea and cooked them to perfection, which took about an hour and a half at 180 Celsius.

I had the task of carving the beast, which of course I relished. Two ribs of beef provided enough meat for about 10 people and without my father we were only 6 so there was plenty to go round. Even with Ben present!

It was melt in the mouth stuff. Some of the best beef I have tasted in a long while.

The host did eventually join us for a short while, though was not particularly amused when I began to poke fun at his diabolical behaviour. He will not be living this one down for a while.

Beef ribs (cooked entirely by Sue)

Steak & mushroom pie

Daddy Mair

Tillie and I had dinner with my father and his fabulous girlfriend Sue on Monday. My old man is a handy chef and he cooked us a delicious Steak & Mushroom pie that certainly deserves a mention.

I asked if he would share the recipe and he emailed it to me today. Here it is….

Dad’s individual steak and mushroom pies:

1. Buy the best stewing steak from my favourite butcher…the Butcher & Grill in Park Gate Road in Battersea
2. Brown it in best Italian extra virgin olive oil (Filippo Berio is great….got two in Sainsbury’s last week in a BOGOF) in a large Le Creuset
3. Remove the meat and to more olive oil in the hotpan, add one large sliced onion, seasoning, and cook until soft-ish
4. Add three garlic cloves, halved; a large handful of button mushrooms; a serving spoonful of plain flour; a pint of stock and a half bottle of good red wine….bring to the boil
5. Return the meat to the casserole and cook in simmer mode for 45 minutes….then remove from heat and cool until needed
6. Cut out large circles of Jusrol ready made puff pastry
7. Fill individual ramekins with the cooled meat mixture
8. Firmly squeeze the pastry circles over the top edge of the ramekins, cut a small hole in the pastry lid, then brush baste with one beaten egg
9. Oven cook at 180c for 45 minutes until the pastry is golden brown…and the meat is piping hot.

Dad says “This is one delicious dish….just like my Sue….”

It's what inside that counts