Changing Food… One Meal At A Time!
Jan Fullwood Food Consultant
(aka JamJarJan)
NOTES FROM A CHAOTIC KITCHEN
Welcome to day to day life in a chaotic well used kitchen…..
A constantly evolving kitchen: always busy, full of cooking and creating (dinner, treats, mess) for work and for play, for family and friends.
Let me introduce myself and my family:
- A Food and Recipe Consultant who is ‘never knowingly under-catered’, I’ll whip up a five-minute muffin mix at a moment’s notice. I’m constantly creating, evaluating and eating, always cooking and learning something new.
- Long-suffering Hub who just wants a clutter-free kitchen (and longs for a bit of peace and quiet). Happiest in the garden.
- Eldest cheffie son and his patisserie chef girlfriend who cook catering quantities of delicious food at every opportunity for us to sample (hard job, but someone’s got to do it)
- Protein & carb obsessed younger son set for uni (cooking not his forte - self survival skills urgently required)
We all eat to live. Let me help you live to eat.
What's in Jan's Pan?
FOOD FOR FROSTY FEBRUARY
Read on for a riot of chocolate, chandeliers, coffee and Chinese dragons, plus snowdrops, stews and soup to thaw your frosty feet.
You made it through January - congratulations! Dry January, veganuary, broken resolutions, gym memberships (already abandoned) can be pushed to one side, February here we come.
As February springs straight into action with my birthday and then swiftly onto Valentines day, I'm always happy to welcome it along (we all need a little love in our life). Mainly, as anyone who knows me, this is an excuse to celebrate all month if possible, with all my fellow Aquarians (all other star signs welcome to join the celebrations).
Talking of star signs, apparently I'm a Chinese water rabbit, and it looks to be a good year for us bunnies. That first weekend in the Capital saw Chinese new year celebrations welcoming the year of the Snake, with parades of Chinese dragons doing incredible acrobatic displays in Trafalgar Square and Chinatown.
It brought back memories of the time we took the boys to Chinatown when they were very young and introduced them to the new year celebrations with a meal at the infamous Wong Kei restaurant renowned as the rudest restaurant in Soho, but nevertheless a great one to start your appreciation of Chinese food. The service was as expected, with menu numbers scribbled on place mats, and dishes delivered abruptly and without ceremony. The food was exemplary as always, but every five minutes the door opened, and an imperial Chinese dragon threw in some lucky lettuce leaves with the associated banging and clattering, much to the consternation of two small boys intent on eating their noodles (the longer the luckier of course). Certainly a childhood memory the boys are unlikely to forget.
No Chinese food for us this year, but another unforgettable dining experience of a very different style. Our promised trip to the Georgian rooms at Harrods for a combined Christmas and Birthday treat for myself and Hub, courtesy of Cheffy Son. No less memorable, but certainly a very different dining experience. There are definite perks to having a chef de partie and a pastry chef in the family, especially when they are keen to show off their skills.
I also promised an update on the Great Taste Awards Coordinator workshop I was lucky enough to attend - a full day of chocolate and coffee tasting led by passionate experts. We were all buzzing afterwards, quite literally.........
WORKSHOPS - Bean there done that
The Guild of Fine Food has officially opened its Great Taste Awards judging for 2025, where small producers hope to gain the coveted Great Taste Stars endorsement for their lovingly crafted products.
My career has always involved sensory analysis in some format or other, but I have never quite experienced tasting like this. In my role as Coordinator, we may taste up to 30 products in one 4 hour sitting, discussing and assessing with fellow judges. I've always tasted like-for-like products blind and in solitude in the past, so in theory the Guild's method shouldn't work. But the process is so rigorous and thorough that only the most worthy products are given the prestigious 3 stars. My job is to capture that feedback to provide constructive criticism back to the producer, and having worked on all sides of the fence, that's no mean feat.
Luckily, the Guild of Fine Food sees the value of investing in sensory education for their tasters before the season starts, enlisting enthusiastic experts to talk about the language of taste. This time beans were the common denominator with a workshop on both coffee and chocolate.
Coffee connoisseur, Marcello Geraci kicked off the session at the Southwark Street offices, and his Sicilian passion for his subject was contagious.
I love good coffee, but more than one a day is enough for me, and that's usually a milky cappuccino, so I don't think that the life of a coffee taster is for me. So many variables affect the taste, such as growing, selecting, sourcing, roasting and grinding of coffee, down to how it's served. Bitterness in coffee can be due to the level of roast, and we learnt that coffee chains often use a blend with a high roast to standardise their coffees. All the more reason to support smaller independent coffee shops.
I'd happily be a chocolate taster though, and Spencer Hyman, co-founder of Cocoarunners, who source and supply craft chocolate, told us that 25% Brits eat chocolate every day, so I definitely qualify.
He taught us about the chocolate 'tasting wave', which involves assessing the 'snap' then allowing the chocolate to melt gently in the mouth to release the aromas and help to identify the balance, length, intensity and flavour (BLIC). We also learnt about the Bliss point - that perfect combination of fat, sugar and/or salt that producers aim for to make it almost impossible to stop eating something that tastes so good. Golden Arches, we know your game, but check out Pump Street Rye Crumb, Milk and Sea Salt 60% chocolate bar for a quality example of this.
This took me back to the time when my youngest, aged around four, put some chocolate in his mouth and when challenged, declared 'I’m not going to eat it - I just want to hold it in my mouth for safekeeping.' Clearly a chocolate addict in the making, but who knew he was such a flavour connoisseur at such an early age. These days he's far more likely to be guilty of wolfing down chocolate quickly (for fear someone else will get to it first) and for the sugar rush given by cheap chocolate, with the sweet stuff at the top of the ingredients list. Note that good craft chocolate only has 3-4 ingredients, a far cry from some mainstream chocolates.
More good news when we discovered that a small piece of chocolate after a meal can actually help digestion (I'm on it!). The taste receptors in our stomachs make way for a sweet hit, part of the phenomenon that is known as 'stimulus satiety'. No matter how full you may feel, there's always room for dessert - something we had first hand experience of at our epic birthday meal.
With the knowledge that Brits' average spend on chocolate is higher than that for music and books combined, I'll leave you to imagine how much I have in the house as a music loving bibliophile....
What's in Jan's Slow Cooker
Beef and Mushroom Stew with Horseradish Scrumplings
February means that snowdrops are just starting to peek through the ground to check if the coast is clear, and one place to see them in all their glory is Harlow's Gibberd Garden, somewhere that's been on my list to visit for some time.
This is the home of Sir Frederick Gibberd, the town planner and architect who prepared the master plan for Harlow new town in 1946. The Grade II listed garden is the perfect place to view snowdrops amongst the sculptures he collected and curated. Back in the day, new residents extoled the virtues of two dancehalls, a cinema and coffee shops. I wonder what he would would make of Harlow now, with coffee shops two a penny, and its urban sprawl almost as far out as his bolthole, and a new motorway junction passing close by.
I visited on a soggy Sunday, so a slow cooked beef stew was just the thing to throw into the pot to simmer away while I was out. The rather fine homemade soup and cakes in the Barn cafe kept us warm in the meantime, between snowdrop sightings.
I used 250g meat and made it go further with plenty of carrots, leeks and mushrooms. Quantities aren't important here, just add what you veg have. I dusted the meat with seasoned flour to help thicken the sauce then covered them with stock full of lots of rich flavour. I soaked some dried porcini, along with some concentrated mushroom and red wine stocks. Marmite and miso are also make good stock options if you have them to hand in your store cupboard. I added a big dollop of wholegrain mustard, covered the meat and veg in the stock and left it to do its magic for around 8 hours on medium.
Half an hour before we were ready to eat I added in these horseradish dumplings.
Dumplings are usually made with suet, which makes them very easy to whip up (assuming you have suet to hand), but this can easily be replaced by stirring in some grated butter instead. They're known as scrumplings in our house, as these are more like a cross between a scone and a dumpling, and frankly, just because they are scrumptuous.
Just bring the mix together with your hands to make a soft dough. Add fresh herbs if you'd like. Take small handfuls and roll into balls and drop into the stew to steam.
Horseradish Scrumplings
200g self raising flour
100g cold butter, grated
2 tbsp horseradish sauce
2-3tbsp milk
seasoning
Add to the stew and cook for the last half hour until they are set, soft and pillowy.
The perfect end to a cold, damp, wintery February day.
What makes a great meal? It's not just the food but a sum of its parts. The ambience, the company, the service - even where you are seated and how comfortable you feel. Our birthday treat at The Georgian at Harrods ticked all the boxes - glamour, fabulous food that you definitely wouldn't recreate at home and special service in the company of close family.
Our meal was spectacular, and we tried almost everything on the menu. It's such a glamorous room, with crystal chandeliers, a pianist, double bass and singer playing contemporary songs in a classic style - all very Bridgerton. We sat in one of the semi-circular booths which allowed us to enjoy our meal in comfort on the pink velvet banquettes, and kicked off with a glass of champagne. We soaked this up with the sourdough served with two perfect spheres of butters - the marmite, black treacle and walnut was far too moreish for its own good. I made the schoolgirl error of ordering another basket of the bread (far too delicious) as I hadn't anticipated just how much more was to come....
We tried one each of the starters that our very own Chef de Partie is responsible for; he went on to regale us with tales of the quantities of crabs he has to hand-pick for the delectable Devonshire carb tart, and copious quantities of quails eggs to cook and shell perfectly for the smoked haddock scotch egg. He's perfected the pate en croute, a gala pie style terrine of rabbit, taught by consultant chef Calum Franklin himself, the king of pies.
As pies are the house speciality, we shared 'the Georgian Pie' with its golden 'G', filled with tender lamb, served with ratatouille, anchovy tempura and sweetbreads. Along with side orders of whipped pomme puree, crispy French fries with rosemary salt, grilled hispi cabbage and marinated beetroot salad (my personal favourite).
Thank heavens the phenomenon that is 'stimulus satiety' kicked in when our resident Pastry Chef insisted we try every one of the desserts she creates, which includes their signature chocolate dessert.
The intricate chocolate shell is cut to reflect the art deco ceiling domes where three glorious chandeliers hang. Unlike the dessert, which is designed to be smashed to reveal a chocolate mousse with a yuzu and praline confit centre to die for, this was the last thing in mind for the chandeliers. Designed to slowly rotate, during its installation one unwound itself and, according to our inside sources, crashed to the ground in a Del Boy style moment. A rather expensive technical hitch at a cost of half a million pounds each, so I'm told that they now remain strictly static.....
But there were more desserts to try, including the services of the 'Trifle Waiter' whose sole purpose is to layer our treat at the table according to our wishes (perhaps 'Trifle Genie' is more apt?), plus sauce-laden sticky toffee pudding and the lemon tart topped with the most delicately crisp tuiles.
Then, as if we hadn't eaten nearly enough, both Hub and I were presented with 'Happy Birthday' plates featuring some of the morsels served at afternoon tea - a pistachio choux and a slice of chocolate mouse cake.
All was washed down with mint tea - no wafer thin mints here thankfully, for fear of a Mr Creosote moment (if you know you know...)
We were treated to a tour of the kitchen - much smaller than you'd expect considering the intracacy and quantity of food that is created there daily.
Overall, I'd call the food 'elevated English' - with its traditional fayre of perfect pies, and classic puddings. I was struck by how many of the photos I'd taken of the food looked brown (pastry, gravy, puddings), but the attention to detail and flavour combinations make this a cut above. It's a meal worthy of a special treat, and affordable if you don't go quite as mad as we did (the joy of staff discount and extras from the kitchen). There are deals and offers to be had too, if you look in the right places. I definitely plan to sample the Afternoon tea when I finally have room (£75 per head, pricey, but not unreasonable for London venues, and I'm told to expect an afternoon tea like no other with plenty of theatre at the table).
If you want to make someone feel a million dollars, and as sparkly as the chandeliers, then this is definitely one for your wish list (magic lamp not included.....).
What's in Jan's airfryer
Carrot, coriander and ginger soup
I'm still experimenting with my air fryer. As it's a single drawer, I agree with my brother-in-law that it's less easy to cook a whole meal in it, without switching the oven on or using the hob, but it can still earn its place in the kitchen.
It's particularly good for roasting veg quickly, to add extra flavour to curries or soups.
Here I made a carrot and coriander soup, with carrots roasted with coriander seeds and my new discovery that is air fried roast garlic. Just put a couple of unpeeled cloves into a twist of foil with some olive oil, and pop it in to soften as the veg roast. Then squeeze the soft golden flesh out onto the veg, or alternatively spread it onto toast for garlic bread.
To make my soup more flavoursome, I made a vegetable stock in a pan on the hob, simmering some soft sad carrots, leftover trimmed leek tops and a couple of bay leaves, along with peppercorns, star anise and a knob of ginger in plenty of water.
Once the carrots were roasted I strained the stock but saved the softened ginger and combined this with the carrots and squeezed garlic then whizzed it together with my hand blender.
I'd say that the carrots could be softer, but don't burn them, so cook for slightly longer on a lower temperature rather than a high roast for maximum colour, say 180C for 15mins
I'm not entirely sure that the settings on the air fryer (ie roast, bake, crisp) make a lot of difference, as it's the same cooking principle for all, just different starting temperatures.
But I can confirm that I have now tried the dehydration function and it gave me beautifully crisp apple rings in around 7 hours. Ideal to set off before bedtime, and it switches off by breakfast in time to add to my granola - perfect timing.
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