Cook of the day

A week or so ago, I was cook of the day, which meant only a short walk before the lunch shift started. And, following the lead noticed at reference 1, steak and kidney was on the menu again.

Heritage

When we were first married, back in the early 1970s, we lived in a bedsit near Finsbury Park which came with  Baby Belling cooker - quite possibly the very model snapped from eBay above. We also had a butcher on the approach to Harringay West railway station.

A butcher who knew all about cooking with Baby Bellings and was able to sell us a made to measure joint of beef top rib, sold on the bone. Very good it was too.

A joint we subsequently took in various sizes, on and off the bone, with one of the last being that briefly noticed at reference 2. Bought from the fancy butcher at Cheam, Pineger's - and even there they had to look it up before they could cut it out.

Then just before the plague kicked in, I had been going to buy one from Ginger Pig, and the manager there knew all about it and was prepared to do one as a special order. Sadly, that one never came off and I doubt whether the Ginger Pig of today would play. Far too interested in the pie side of the business. See reference 3. 

While today, Google seems to have barely heard of the cut, and one of the few butchers which claims to sell it, conflates top rib with back rib, another cut we were once fond of.

Again, back in the 1970s, you could buy ready-mix steak and kidney from regular High Street butchers,  people like Dewhurst. I suppose that has vanished with the vanishing of nearly all our butchers, not that I recall buying the stuff that often. But I did used to buy ox kidney from the Manor Green Road butcher.

Phase 1

A short circuit, but one with started with some very pretty crocuses in Manor Green Road. The snap does not give much of the idea, but they and the light were just right.

A fine collection of trolleys in the Kokoro Passage. I returned the two from B&M, getting a one pound coin for my trouble. Now in the coinage bag, which I donate to the Ukraine collection point outside Waitrose from time to time. Missing yesterday, so perhaps they have given up.

And another outside Barclay's Bank.

And so onto Hook Road, where regular readers may remember that there was a block of more or less derelict rental garages which was converted into a house, a conversion which took some time. Culminating in sale in November 2024, as noticed at reference 4. Now up for letting by Bernard Marcus, the people who sold it in the first place. The new owners did not last long: perhaps they had not bargained for the amount of traffic on Hook Road.

While I had not noticed the rather handsome timber panelled front door.

Access denied to the main entrance to the mosque. A pity that no-one has got around to putting the pavement back together again. At a guess, down to the council.

While the other side of the front door we had a trolley from Sainsbury's. Not captured.

The plate was a stick on, rather than a properly embossed metal plate, and was completely illegible. From which we deduce that the trolley was probably more than ten years old - much older than the M&S trolleys I find in the town centre which mostly date from March last year.

Maybe some kind of quince? Coming into bud a bit early.

Google Images agrees with me: impressive considering what it had to work with. Maybe I will remember to take another look in a few month's time.

An impressive leak from a house in Hook Road. You would not know from this snap, but the water was bubbling up out of the meter cover big time, and the water was running a long way down the road. The owner, a nicely spoken lady in a big car, was evidence of the gentrification of the road, traffic notwithstanding. 

Repairs were noticed at reference 5 and they were still at it yesterday.

The phase closing with an Observer from Costcutter, which fitted very snugly into my Shan bag. Not a bad read at all, including a two or three biographical piece on Cummings, the advisor who thought he was far too important to stick to the rules. It seems that he did quality time in a rather rough night club, right on the Wear, below Durham Cathedral. A place I have probably walked past several times in the distant past, probably during my days with CCTA. See reference 6.

Phase 2

Moving onto lunch, operations started around 12:30 with about a kilo of top rib of beef, bought from the Waitrose meat counter. Not a roasting joint on the bone, but I was still impressed. More or less the same drill at last time, as noticed at reference 1.

Notice the band of gristle through the middle, all good for flavour and gravy.

In the pan at 13:00. No added water at this point.

Waitrose could not do ox kidney on this occasion, but they could do half kilo bags of sheep's kidneys. Which as it turned out, did just fine. This snap from around 13:40. 

On the plate, just after 14:00, the nominal start time.

Once again, baked apples to follow. All washed down with a spot of Volcaia 2022, previously noticed. A bottle the cork of which tested the integrity of the rib cage - which last, I am pleased to say, passed.

We did more than half on the first shift. I strained the gravy off the meat for storage purposes, after which it went around again the following day. With the remaining gravy taken on brown bread that very evening. I had added a little potato water to the gravy by this point.

The second shift, back at the proper time of 13:00.

The greens both look well and tasted well on the day. I was slightly puzzled by their tenderness - not like greens which have over-wintered at all. It turned out that they were not foreign, rather from Cornwall. Maybe they have had a very mild winter.

Waitrose had done us very well.

PS: I am reminded by the brawn at reference 3, that BH actually made brawn once, using half a pig's head from Manor Green Road butcher. My recollection is that it went into sandwiches on white, which served for lunch during a visit to the Tower of London. I shall check with BH, with her memory being more reliable than mine on such a matter.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/01/steak-and-kidney.html.

Reference 2: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2007/06/clearance.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/11/footnote-to-beef.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/11/trolley-741.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-first-circuit.html.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Wear.

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