Adam and the Ants

I didn't buy a lot of LPs when I was young, mostly because I didn't have a lot of disposable income, my school took up most of my time making getting a part-time job unworkable, and there was a very short period of time between having enough money to buy an LP every couple of weeks, and being able to get into pubs, at which point having enough money to spend on beer and cigarettes overtook music.

One LP I did buy was Adam Ant's first LP: Dirk Wears White Sox, released in 1979. He was in intriguing chap was Mr Ant. While recording the album, he had a huge fallout with his band, and they all deserted him, leaving him with only the name Adam and the Ants. On the LP's credits you could see that he did almost everything himself; wrote, sang, played by Adam Ant. I think he even did all the artwork.

After that LP he got a new band and dressed up in a punk/new wave/American Indian style. His band had two drummers and that gave them a distinctive sound: the Burundi beat. They were labelled part of the New Romantic movement, but I never really bought into that. 

I got to go and see them live. It was (I looked it up) at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool on November 9, 1980. I was seventeen. 

I remember little about the gig, but I do recall how it made me feel. There were a lot of us there - maybe 1,000 or so - and we all looked the same, underfed, lanky, with tight T-shirts, mohair sweaters, leather jackets, drainpipe black jeans, Doc Martens ... To the outsider we all looked the same, but we could identify each and every group and faction with ease. Your clothes identified you; what badges or T-shirts you wore identified you, and pigeonholed you, told us who to stay away from, who you could push around.

We poured out on to the streets, dripping with sweat. Police prowled round the area, watching for signs of trouble. This is one of the greatest feelings in the world - a whole mass of us, together, young and filled with rage and excitement. It is a rush, a high from a drug you never want to come down from. We could do anything, go anywhere, be anyone. This was our music, and it brought us all together, excluding all others. Twenty was already old back then, and if you were old, we hated you on sight. We must have been a frightening mob, hundreds of teenagers roaming the streets, but if truth be told, we were all just as frightened. But it is a good fear, a fear that keeps you sharp, keeps your mind working, your legs moving, your eyes and ears constantly on the lookout for trouble.

At any club back then, this was one of the songs guaranteed to get everyone on the floor, bouncing and smashing into each other. 

We are all older now. The anger has all gone, and we have mellowed into normal human beings, responsible members of society, no threat to anyone. We watch teenagers warily, knowing that any sudden moves, the wrong word, the wrong look, can enrage them and they will turn on us. Yet we yearn to be part of them again, to feel life coursing through our bodies, but we know it is useless. The damage has been already been done. We are old, and subject to the same pitiless stare of youth as we turned on those like us, so many years ago.

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Pork, Slow-cooked in Lard: the Carnitas Story

Tonight, I made something I had wanted to do for a long time: carnitas. Carnitas, in case you don't know, is a wonderfully tasty Mexican pork dish. It is not without a lot of work though, not least of which was finding a recipe that I was happy with. The traditional dish requires pork shoulder slow cooked in lard. I have nothing against lard but many people do it seems. So I had to skim through a lot of recipes that substituted the lard for something else - chicken stock, oil, even milk. But I very quickly decided that I would go for maximum flavour and so lard was in. Then there is quite some variation in preparation of the meat. You take a hefty chunk of pork shoulder, cut into big pieces and then ... Well, there are another heap of options. I went for a basic one of lime zest, salt, pepper and oregano which I rubbed into the pork and left overnight. Goodnight, sweet pork! In sleep we all lie naked and alone.

The next day, I heated up my lard - about 3 lbs all told.

In went the pork cubes, plus orange slices, handful of chopped cilantro, and a few bay leaves. 

Bring the whole thing up to a slow boil then back it down to a simmer and do something else for two hours.

You could do what I did and spend the time making a salsa fresca, or pico de gallo. I just love this and making it is so simple and satisfying. Mine uses five fresh ingredients, mixed together: three tomatoes, half a bunch of cilantro, one sweet onion, two large jalapenos and two finely chopped green onions. A sprinkle of salt and the juice of a small lime and you are done.

Anyone else notice that the plural of tomato is tomatoes, but the plural of jalapeno is jalapenos?

After two hours or so, the pork should be nice and tender. Take out a chunk and see if it falls apart easily when poked by a fork. The rest of the chunk is now useless, so you must eat it right away.

Decant some of the fat to a skillet, then crisp up the carnitas so they are brown on the outside and soft and juicy inside. You have to be a bit careful here otherwise you will over crisp the meat and the whole point of cooking it in lard for two hours will have gone.

Next step ... eat. Repeat and fade.

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Chilpotle and Tortas

Today I made a dish I saw on TV over the weekend, and the result was fantastic, far beyond what I had hoped. It was for a Mexican Milanese style sandwich, or torta. This is one of the rare times I have followed a recipe to the letter and been very pleased. 

The first step is the chilpotle mayonnaise. Depending on where you live, the hardest part is finding chipotles in adobo sauce, but once you crack that you are home free. You will want to take about this much mayo ... 

Then add one whole chilpotle with a little of the sauce, and mash it all up with the juice of half a lime, and some salt and pepper. It will end up a lovely pink colour and have that smoky taste of the chilpotle. The cool thing about mashing it up with a spoon instead of blending it is that in the finished sandwich you are going to get little nuggets of chilpotle scattered around.

Next, you prepare your chicken cutlets. I used one skinless chicken breast and it was more than enough for three cutlets. You want to take a piece of the raw chicken and hammer it flat until it is very thin and about this size.

After that, you follow a simple three-bowl dredge of seasoned flour, egg, and seasoned breadcrumbs. I also seasoned my cutlets, then shallow fried them in oil. Because they are so thin, they take no time to cook. At the same time, I am toasting the buns in another pan. These I have halved and scooped out the bread from the middle, smeared with a little mayo (regular) and pressed down onto the hot pan. Each half then gets coated with the chilpotle mayo and awaits layering.

First comes a generous helping of romaine lettuce ...

Then the chicken cutlet ...

And top it off with thinly sliced shallots, tomatoes, avocado slices. I also added a squeeze of lime and some cilantro just because I had it around. Put the lid on, and it should look something like this.

One satisfied customer.

A couple of things ... you are going to want to have a relatively soft roll with this, otherwise it will be to hard to eat. And do not try to skip the chilpotle mayo. If you can't find chilpotle, then wait until you can. It really makes the whole dish. Finally, pound the chicken as flat as you can. You don't want to be chewing through a gnarly piece of meat.

The original recipe can be found here. I am definitely going to make this again, and also will make a point to check out this chef's other recipes.

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These are the chilpotle peppers which cost between $ 1.79 and $ 5.79 depending on where you buy them.

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Chilpotle peppers make me think of Dick Dale.