Is this Gin Heaven?

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that here at SHCQC we quite like a relaxing G & T and particularly love trying anything new so when I discovered there was such a thing as the London Gin Club, I went ahead and booked a table. I do recommend booking. Just imagine walking into a bar and seeing this beautiful sight, only to be told there’s no room for you. Not least because the fragrant smell of gin hits you as soon as you walk in (in a good way I promise!)

I don’t know quite how to describe what’s happened to The Star at Night on Great Chapel Street in Soho. No longer a tiny pub in a Soho backstreet, it is new my spiritual home and I will be back. Again, and again, and again.

Quite a small pub on a corner has become the home of Gin. Some wonderful ladies are offering some wonderful things: Over 130 gins from all around the world. Admit it, you’re already sold? Well, keep reading and you’ll be there like a shot.

If you just fancy a gin and tonic. Go for it. Pick your choice of gin from the extensive menu. Pick your tonic, as you’d expect premium tonics such as the delicious fever-tree range and the fabulous Fentimans are available, and enjoy. Your garnish will be matched to the gin you choose. Yes it makes a difference, if you don’t believe me, experiment, but I defy you not to think that a Bombay Sapphire tastes completely different with lime as opposed to lemon.

If you fancy being a bit more adventurous there’s a range of cocktails available or, you could try one of the gin tasting menus. I know, how heavenly does that sound? We chose a tasting menu as there was no way on earth we could have picked one or two (or even three, or four) of the vast selection of spirits available.

You can guess how thrilled we were when this little board arrived:

Each jar contained 25 ml of juniper-delights. Together with four huge copa glasses filled with ice (the LGC is very proud of its ice by the way) and 2 bottles of fever-tree we were good to go. We tried the following gins:

• D1 London gin (London, 40%)
• Shortcross (Northern Ireland, 46%)
• Four Pillars (Australia, 41.8 %)
• Edinburgh Cannonball (Scotland, 57%)

Following the advice of our lovely server we tried each gin neat first of all. This wasn’t without some hesitation on my part: The last, and only, time I drank neat gin was out of a chipped mug whilst at University. It is not something I have ever repeated for what, I hope, are fairly obvious reasons. But, we like to do as we’re told here at SHCHQ so neat it was. The only one which produced a true burn was the Edinburgh Cannonball. Mind you, that’s not particularly surprising given its strength. Having tried the gin neat, we added tonic and tried again without the garnish. The effect that the tonic had on the gin was actually quite interesting, particularly with the Shortcross, the first Northern Irish produced craft gin.

Finally we added the recommended garnish: D1 with lime; Shortcross with lemon; Four Pillars with orange, and Edinburgh Cannonball with blackberry and mint. These really finished the drinks off splendidly although, hindsight being the wonderful thing that it is, we should have tried the Cannonball with just the blackberry first. I think I may have liked it even more this way. Mr SHC certainly enjoyed eating the gin-soaked blackberry when we got to the end of the drink!

Each gin was really good, and a very long way from that stuff in the big green bottle! As we have slightly different preferences in our gin, so we both had different favourites. Mr SHC likes a very dry gin, and his personal recommendation would be the D1. I like a more floral, aromatic gin and loved the Edinburgh Cannonball. It’s very juniper with Szechuan pepper and is just amazing. Don’t let the strength put you off. If you can find it, try it.

We’d never tried an Australian gin before. Mr SHC described the same as “surprisingly subtle” although I suspect this was in part a dig at Aussie rellies! He was right though, it is subtle, but it’s good, and has rightly been included in a list of Top 10s by The Independent.

The venue is a super-chilled place for gin lovers to enjoy their favourite tipple. It’s quirky. It’s vintage. It’s inviting. It’s amazing.

We didn’t eat as we had reservations elsewhere but food is available at very reasonable prices. One couple did order food – the slow-braised beef, in what looked like a perfectly formed pie as it swept past us, smelt fantastic. I suspect it tasted as good.

In case you’re wondering, yes they do have our very own gin from the Hills: Silent Pool. Or at least they do if they’ve found another bottle since I finished the last one :).

Any fellow gin lovers would be mad not to try this place out. Become a member first and enjoy special rates on the tasting menus. World Gin Day is upon us folks, where better to celebrate?

Perfect BBQ Pork

So it seems as if Summer has now arrived in earnest. I keep being told that we’re being promised a season for barbecuing which sounds perfect to me. If you’re tired of cremated burgers and sausages that are still pink in the middle why not be a bit more adventurous with your grilling this summer and go all out with some super easy but truly amazing techniques that are going to wow your friends to such an extent that they won’t notice that the weatherman lied and it’s actually pouring with rain. You’ll cook food that is so awesome that you won’t even mind standing in the rain to cook it although the best bit of this slow-cooked roast pork is that you don’t have to be anywhere near your grill for most of the time it’s cooking!

Being a bit of a barbecue purist I’ve never succumbed to the allure of a shiny gas grill here on the Hill so the technique I’ll describe is for a charcoal grill. It needs to be lidded so you can create an oven. If you have a gas monstrosity though no doubt you can achieve the same effects by twiddling some knobs or something 😉

First up, your pork. You want a joint that will cook slowly. Shoulder is perfect for this. You can achieve fantastic crackling on the barbie, just as you can with a traditional roast: Simply do exactly what you normally do. If you’re a pour boiling water over the skin type, then do that. Personally, I prefer simply to let the meat sit in the fridge unwrapped for a day before cooking which allows the skin to air-dry. Make sure, if it’s not already been done for you, that you score the skin first, otherwise you’ll undo all of your hard crackling prepartion work.

To slow cook the pork we’re using the indirect cooking method. There’s no magic to this, it’s dead easy, you simply put your charcoal only on one side of the barbecue, like so:

Then onto the meat. You’re going to be cooking your joint for a long, long time (yes, on the barbecue, honestly) and you want as much flavour to penetrate the meat during the cooking time as possible so make a rub. The most important ingredient for crackling purposes is salt. Preferably sea salt, but seriously as long as it’s salt it will do the job. I grabbed some fancy peppercorns from the shelf and some fennel seeds and ground them together in the spice grinder (my lack of ability with the pestle and mortar having been established in the pages of this blog previously of course).

Long Pepper, Cubeb Pepper, Fennel Seeds and Maldon Salt

 

Make a bit of a paste with some olive oil and then rub it all over your joint. It’s that simple. I promise. If you don’t have strange looking peppercorns on the shelf then feel free to use normal black peppercorns. Or, why not check out Little Spice, a fab business based in Redhill. The Awesome Pepper would be, quite literally, awesome with this.

Once that’s done get those coals alight. You’ll need a to put tray of water next to the coals. This serves three purposes. Firstly, it keeps some moisture in the air will keeps your joint super moist. It also catches any fatty drips from the pork, of which of course there will be many and prevents any risk of flames. You are not being a line cook at Burger King today. You are not flame-grilling. Flames do not cook. Flames are not your friend. Thirdly, it’s your gravy base.

Once your coals are glowing, put the lid on your grill. Make sure both vents, the one underneath and the one on the lid, are wholly open. Then watch the temperature gauge. Assuming your coals are hot enough it should take no more than 10 minutes for it to get to here:

Once it does, grab your joint and put it above the tray of water, not, I repeat, NOT, above the hot coals. We’re using the indirect cooking method, so we want an indirect heat source, not a direct one. Put a joint like this directly on top of the coals and terrible things will happen. No, don’t try it just to see. Trust us at SHCQC and do this:

Now half-close the vent at the base. The way you control the temperature on a kettle grill is with the vents. Fire needs oxygen to breathe. Give it oxygen and it will burn, hence having both vents wide open at the start to get the temperature up and up and up. This is how you get fantastic crackling, but slow-cooking requires a much more gentle heat. So half-close that vent to slow down the fire and walk away for 15 minutes. Check the gauge, it should have stabilised but now you want the temperature to drop. You’re going to cook the joint for at least 4 hours, preferably 6 if you have time so you need to be in charge of your grill. You want meat that melts in your mouth at the end of the process. Close down both vents and the temperature will drop. I’d say you want it to sit at about 125 – 150 degrees. Check every 15 minutes or so to make sure you have a constant temperature. It musn’t be too hot, and it mustn’t be too cold. Just think Goldilocks’ porridge.

Then you’re work is pretty much done. Trust in the power of the grill. DO not lift the lid, even though it will be ever so tempting. If your temperature’s right, then it’s working and all will be well. I’ll let you have a sneak after 3 hours. I’ll also let you turn the joint around (insert health and safety advice here) so that the other side is facing the coal side. But then leave it again. Get thinking about your accompaniments (yes you can do roasties on the barbie, honest) start prepping them. Crack open a beer, preferably from one of our fantastic local breweries of course, or make yourself a perfect G & T (Silent Pool gin from Albury definitely recommended for this purpose). And wait until this happens…

There you go. Succulent, pull-apart, roast pork. Perfect crackling. Super tasty gravy made from the now pork flavoured water that’s in the tray you put next to the coals (stick in a pork stock cube if you think you need it; strain off the fat; bubble away to reduce and thicken; add some apple jelly or apple sauce; use cornflour if it needs some help, and check the seasoning).

What could be better on a summer’s evening than that?