Homeslice, Covent Garden

When I was 19, I was taken to Pulcinella's on Old Compton Street. It was a regular lunch spot for our department of engineers, and I was their new personal assistant. Upstairs they had vast tables; these were the days where you could go for lunch as 8 of you on a Friday afternoon without a reservation in Soho - remember that?! My pizza arrived, unusually larger than I had imagined. Instead of my requested 12 inch, the 15" had turned up. What was I to do? A lone girl, the table of men looked upon me expectantly. I hoovered up the lot, and was thus nicknamed 'gannet'. I didn't tell them that the pizza was remarkably easy to finish, no - I hammed up the glory of my triumph. For the best really, since I bumbled my way through that job role, with absolutely no idea what was going on. I was great at booking flights and hotels for the trips and conferences they attended abroad, and I was pretty good at getting meetings in diaries, but actually being able to take minutes and understand what was going on at those meetings? I fell asleep a lot. I lasted 8 months.

Anyway, almost 10 years later, and here we are at Homeslice. They started off in a van, and opened up their bricks and mortar place in Covent Garden's Neals Yard just under two years ago, with help from investor Mark, none other than Terry Wogan's son. On a Monday night by 7pm the place was full; we were able to put our names down and wander off for 25 minutes before we were called back again. A huge pizza oven dominates the back of the room, lit with harsh fluorescent lighting - very Naples. For the rest of the restaurant, the room is atmospherically lit with candlelight (so, you know, dark), and tables are squeezed closely together. There is some great tiling.

There is no messing with the menu. It's chalked up on a blackboard for all to see, and some pizzas are offered by the slice for £4 per slice, while others are £20 for a 20 inch pizza. Fine, I thought. 20 inches between 2? Absolutely fine. I remembered Pulcinella's.

It was not fine. I died from carbicide. I am not 19 anymore, god DAMN it. Sure, sure, they will give you a pizza box to take leftovers home. I watched an incredibly annoying couple on the table next to us package up at least 60% of their pizza to take home but on account of their annoyingness I refused to do so lest I become anything like them. Also, I have no self control.

But what of the pizza? It's good. The bases are thin, the crust (or cornicione) is pillowy and chewy. A little saltier than what I'm used to. The toppings are inventive; they have the classic margherita (which would be incredibly poor value at £20 for 20 inches) but they also do others like goat shoulder with kale, yoghurt and sumac, or chorizo, corn and coriander - which would have been my choice, had I not been a bit weirded out by the thought of coriander on a pizza.

Instead, we went for half and half of bone marrow with brussels sprouts and pickled onion, and Calabrian peppers with chervil and Lincolnshire Poacher (a type of cheese). Would it have killed them to take the stem off the peppers? That was a bit troublesome. But otherwise, the spicy pickled peppers worked beautifully with the rich cheese. The brussels sprouts were shaved very thinly, like a carpet of vegetable. This was the least favoured side as the bone marrow wasn't hugely flavoursome. The brussels sprouts kept flaking off into my wine glass too - lumpy wine. That is my fault though. The main issue I had was that both sides were a bit similar - again, our fault - next time, something like mushroom and ricotta would complement it well.

A word on the wine. Red, white or fizzy? They plonk a giant bottle of it on your table, which you help yourself to, and then at the end of the meal they measure how much you've drank and charge you appropriately (£4 for a glass of red). This is GENIUS - no hanging around having to finish your wine, thus freeing up tables, and no indecision on whether another bottle is a good idea (it usually is). Loved it. I assume everyone is adult enough not to go poking their fingers / bits of stuff into the bottles. Right?

Homeslice
13 Neal's Yard
London WC2H 9DP

Artusi, Peckham

Well aren't we a lucky bunch of South Easters? Artusi is Peckham's latest opening; it was raved about by Jay Rayner as well as Time Out, which might so some way into explaining why their phone line was constantly engaged on the day I tried to book a table. My perseverance paid off though. The room is small but well lit, encouraged by floor-to-ceiling glass windows. On a Summer's evening, the sunshine streamed through, bathing everyone and everything in a soft golden glow. We relaxed into our Friday evening negronis, crusty bread slathered with butter to help us make our menu choices.

The menu is short, scribbled on a blackboard - five starters, two pastas, three mains. Terse descriptions are made of each dish - 'Onglet with potatoes and artichokes', for example - no fripperies or romance of language, which to me conveys Italian cooking so well. The art of sourcing good, flavoursome ingredients and cooking them with sympathy and care is what my experience of this cuisine is all about. Turns out we didn't have many hard decisions to make; the three of us were hungry enough to order basically the lot, save a couple of starters. Of these, the potato and octopus salad was shot through with herbal freshness, the olive oil grassy and aromatic. Tender octopus met soft, creamy potato. 

Lamb sweetbreads held much more excitement for me. It was accompanied by a sweet and sour peperonata; a tangle of red and yellow softly stewed peppers complementing the cloud-like fluffiness of the crisply fried sweetbreads. For £5, it was incredible value - a hearty portion, but the flavours were also well accomplished. 

I wasn't enormously keen on 'fish broth with toasted sourdough', but then it wasn't something I would normally choose - my friend fancied it. I prefer my fish soups with a bit more substance and texture, though this is not really a complaint, given the menu description. The toasted sourdough was rubbed with a not-inconsiderable amount of garlic, which pleased me.

Pastas were completely incredible. Home-made pappardelle with pancetta and peas came topped with a pile of grated Parmesan, which melted into the soft folds of the noodles. 

Ricotta ravioli with chard and pine nuts were made of thin, delicate pasta, the creaminess of the ricotta saucing each mouthful. By this point, we knew we were onto a good one. 

New season lamb with asparagus was exactly that. A perfectly cooked, thick slice of lamb was dressed in a light sauce. I felt like some sort of carbohydrate would have made this dish more complete, though our bread basket was happily replenished. 

No such issues with the onglet, potatoes and artichokes. The potatoes had been fried until they were crisp on one side, for that all important textural contrast. The artichokes too had been given the same treatment; coupled with the seared ruby-red onglet, this was one of my favourite dishes of the night. Simple but incredibly pleasing. 

I'm not entirely sure where I was going with the angle of this picture, but by the time we tucked into the skate wing with bagna cauda we'd had some wine, and apparently I tried to get arty. That went badly. But the skate itself was a thick slab, bronzed and crisp, tender meat pulling away from the cartilage bones. The bagna cauda, a sauce made from garlic and anchovies, was certainly punchy; steamed spring greens were essential in levelling the flavours out. It had a tendency to tow the line between well seasoned and salt overload, rectified by a little less sauce. 

Having had pretty much three courses by now, we could only share a dessert between the three of us. Peach sorbet with salted honey ice cream was the stuff of refreshing dreams. When we got the bill, we were surprised with the £48 / head we paid - we'd eaten a lot, drank really quite a lot and it seemed wonderfully low. I woke up in a panic the next morning that we'd under paid. I wish restaurants would just put the optional service charge on - my maths often suffers from wine - but having ferreted the receipt out of my handbag, we hadn't embarrassed ourselves on this occasion. It was just really great value. With an often changing menu and the happy compromise of bookings being taken for dinner, some tables reserved for walk-ins, I know I'll be back soon.

Artusi
161 Bellenden Road
Peckham, London
SE15 4DH

Tel: 0203 392 8200

Bell's Diner & Bar Rooms

A wonderful resource to our visit to Bath and Bristol was Dan's blog, (not so) Essex Eating, and Fiona Beckett's list of favourite restaurants. Of the plethora of places to choose from, Bell's Diner and Bar Rooms appealed to us the most. Having not really been to Bristol much I was a bit dubious when we drove down a grubby little back street it was located on, but all the trepidation was erased when we stepped inside. The bar area was small and a little crowded, so we were taken straight to our table, nestled within one of several rooms, which happened to be next to the record player. We were invited to pick the records as each finished, which was a nice touch, though I'm glad that responsibility didn't fall to me (where's the Rhianna record? Hmm?). 

The menu consists of small plates, with specials on the board. With a slight leaning towards Moorish influences with a hint of classic Spain, we started off with sweet, tangy pickles and salt cod croquettes with aioli, before we tackled the impossible task of trying to choose from a list of things we wanted all of. Tripe and chorizo stew, at a mere £3.50 came in a small terracotta dish, velvety strips of tripe in a spiced tomato sauce, a few chickpeas bobbing around for good measure. So far, so good. 

Baby Gem salad (pictured half eaten) was the best kind of salad; that is, dressed with anchovies and covered with cheese. Creamy, salty and dotted with breadcrumbs, it was an intense Caesar. Its recreation at home is imminent. 

Mussels and clams in a cream broth with wild garlic and pancetta, perched atop a slice of smoky grilled sourdough suffered from a little grittiness in the shellfish but was otherwise reminiscent of moules mariniere. 

Ox heart with beetroot and horseradish lacked a little of the punch of the nose-clearing heat it is so well known for, but the ox heart was tender and flavoursome, the beets earthy and firm. The dressing was tart and counteracted the sweetness of the beetroot, which I sometimes find overly cloying, but not so here. For £6.50 it was a decent value portion size.

Chicken oyster skewers came bathed in the same spiced clarified butter that the charcoal salt and pepper grilled prawns were doused in. The latter were gloriously messy - we covered ourselves in prawn juice as we ripped their heads off and shelled them with our hands, slurping the sauce as we went along. The chicken oysters were a more demure affair, the harissa yoghurt cooling the fire of the smoky chipotle flavouring. Generously replenished bread was essential for mopping up the plates.

Too stuffed for dessert, we asked for the bill and called it a day. The service was slick and friendly, attentive but never overbearing. I loved the small print on the menus (especially as an occasional just-can't-kick-that-one-cigarette smoker) - now that's service. At around £45 a head each with booze and service, it's not your every day caff, but we did eat amply and the food, bar a couple of glitches, was excellent. 

Bell's Diner and Bar Rooms

1 - 3 York Road
Montpelier 
Bristol BS6 5QB

0117 924 0357

Posh Breakfasting: Aqua Shard

We were nearing Christmas time. The fourth month of Posh Breakfasting needed to be somewhere special, to mark the festivities of the season. An administrative error meant that Claridges was fully booked before we got a chance to put our names down. Panic ensued. Aqua Shard came to the rescue. 

It's certainly a different vibe to the old world charm of Claridges, but you can't go up 31 floors of The Shard at sunrise and not be blown away by it. I mean, LOOK. 

We kicked off with breakfast cocktails because that is a totally fine thing to do on a Wednesday morning at 8am. Between us, we ordered the lobster eggs benedict, the salmon kedgeree and the tattie scones with kippers and black pudding, so we were obviously in a strong stomached sort of mood. The lobster eggs benedict was a beautiful thing, with plenty of sweet lobster meat hidden under a perfectly poached egg. This is no light breakfast, and I was glad I was sharing. 

The salmon of the kedgeree was confit'd so that it was soft and buttery. A fried egg balanced precariously on top of lightly curry-scented rice, and I liked the added touch of the salmon eggs too. 

Tattie scones with black pudding was a belt-buster of a dish - poached eggs came atop a slice of toast, and the smoked Manx kippers were actually within the scones itself, rather than served with it. If I'm honest it was my least favourite; the black pudding a bit too abundant, the tattie scones a touch greasy. I've never been a great lover of black pudding, though. 

Not your cheapest breakfast, at £33 a head but we did order the most expensive things, as well as a cocktail each and coffee. Service was calm and patient, perfect for that hour. I sat down at my desk at 9:30am incredibly well sated. Maybe a little tipsy. 

Aqua Shard

Level 31, The Shard
31 St Thomas Street
London SE1 9RY

Janetira Thai, Brewer Street

Janetira Thai has been around for over a year now but I never really took much notice of them until I saw some interesting dishes on their Instagram feed. A new menu was being launched, and not the bog-standard Thai food you often get. There was noodle soups and starters I'd not seen elsewhere, so I took advantage of their 30% off introductory offer and went down there for lunch. 

The room is functional. Sleek wooden tables, wooden benches, a row facing the street; nothing to write home about. The menu is split into one dish meals and 'multicourse', the former consisting of noodle soups, stir-fried noodles and rice dishes, more suited to lunchtimes one-plate meals, the latter to evenings or sharing with friends. The pink fishball noodle soup was, as promised, very pink. Bouncy fish balls were within, along with wide rice noodles, a few green shoots and a sheet of deep fried wonton skin, slowly becoming floppy in the soup. The crisp / soft texture contrast was very pleasing, and the broth light but tangy, a hint of fried garlic about it. Upon pressing our waitress as to what made it so pink, we were told red fermented beancurd was the culprit. 

At completely the other end of the spectrum, the Khao Soi chicken curry noodles (pictured top too) was a ballsy bowlful. Served with a dish of chopped red onion, a wedge of lime and some pickled vegetables to add in at your leisure, the curry sauce was richly flavoured. Pieces of chicken on the bone were nestled within the springy noodles, and again a good texture contrast with the crunch of the deep fried noodle shreds on top. I loved this dish. 

We returned mere days later. 

Fried chicken from the multi-course menu was crisp, gooey in places, sticky sweet but well balanced with savoury. 

Fried eggs in tamarind sauce suffered a little from the dreaded grey yolk ring, but had a crisp exterior due to being deep fried, and were smothered in the tart tamarind sauce, a few fried shallots to decorate. Perfect snacking food. 

Fermented fish guts are used to flavour this mackerel and pickled bamboo shoots curry, which certainly isn't for the faint-hearted but very authentically Thai. The stuff absolutely honks. When my friend ordered it, he was warned that is was very hot, and he ploughed on regardless. By the end of the meal his nose was running, his brow sweating, but he claimed to like it. I had a bite and sputtered as I felt my face go aflame. 

I had the five spice pork and offal noodle soup. The broth is sweet, heady with the scent of anise and cinnamon. Slices of roast pork are accompanied with offally bits; I spotted liver and perhaps intestine? Something chewy. It was a riot of textures; some soft, some not. Flappy, short rice noodle rolls bulked the dish out, while some dried tofu slices soaked up the broth well. Again, I really enjoyed this. 

With other curries and stir-fried dishes on the menu, I can see myself going back regularly. When we paid the bill, the lady serving us told us that when they first opened they made the kind of Thai food they thought people in England would like. A year later, business was doing badly; they decided to try out new dishes, dishes they made at home and for staff suppers; everyone loved them, thus a new menu was born. The story warmed me. At around £18 a head for a starters, a main and drinks, it's great value and as far as I know, a lot of the dishes are unique for Central London. 

Janetira Thai

28 Brewer Street
London W1F 0SR

Mike + Ollie at The Deptford Project

I first sampled Mike + Ollie's food at Brockley Market. A flatbread stuffed with mackerel was devoured within minutes, and the textures and flavours impressed me so much that afterwards I immediately booked into one of their dinners. Ours was hosted at The Deptford Project, a cafe in a train carriage, and we turned up on the night to find a long trestle table set out for our dinner.

A guitarist strummed away in the corner, creating a nice atmosphere though I was glad not to have been sat next to him as conversation with my friend would have been somewhat shouted. As we sipped on pear and elderflower cocktails, wooden planks were set between us and massive beetroot and quinces decorated the table. A square of bread topped with teeth-shatteringly crisp pork belly and a smear of quince whetted our appetites, while another square of bread was adorned with a smear of labneh (strained yoghurt) and a sweet, intensely earthy roasted beetroot on top.

Planks removed, they were re-presented to us a short while later. A dish I recognised from my flatbread wrap, the smoky mackerel and pickled rhubarb, again on top of a slice of bread, was a hit. Huge briny capers added a savoury edge. Pickled rhubarb is my new favourite thing.

Bone marrow with roasted garlic and a shallot, parsley and caper salad was served with bread fried in beef dripping. Michael cried 'this is the last of the bread, I promise!' but that home made stuff was so good I didn't mind. I slathered the wobbly marrow on and topped it with the refreshing salad, garlic cloves staining my breath. My jeans grew tight. That burgery lunch at Meat Liquor was catching up with me.

We had a break and a cute apple stuffed with sorbet followed. The iced essence of apple gave me a second wind, and rather than fearful of the next dish and my straining waistband, I looked forward to it. A plate of vibrant greens was garnished with ruby pink slices of pigeon and dressed with a rosehip molasses. Mike+Ollie are really keen on foraging locally, and the rosehips were picked nearby. The greens were a mix of both herbs and salad leaves, making each mouthful different and complimenting the pigeon well.

Dessert came in the form of another stuffed fruit, this time Seville marmalade ice cream into an orange. The ice cream was studded with marmalade chunks and the creaminess tasted faintly of coconut. Accompanying this, we were given a glass of sloe gin - a bit rough, we were warned, as it hadn't reached full maturity yet. Sipping it made us wince.

We were fed hugely well for £25 a head. Though it wasn't the most refined meal I've had, I loved it for it's inventiveness; cooked well and lots of lovely pickled bits, crunchy nuts and flavours I'm not used to. The wooden planks were a nuisance to lift to and from the tables, but gosh they were pretty. You can find Mike+Ollie in Brockley and Deptford markets, but I strongly recommend you go for one of their dinners too.

Tickets and booking information HERE.

Ramenism

I suppose you could say that 2011 is the year I really discovered ramen. From Momofuku Noodle Bar's pork ramen in New York way back in June, the love affair was ignited. There are a baffling array of regional variations of ramen, and not many cover them as well as the excellent first issue of Lucky Peach. Unfortunately it seems to be out of stock and they're going for £190 secondhand but Wikipedia gives you a rough outline.

I wasn't alone in these feelings though. Tsuru, the popular mini chain of Japanese restaurants famous for its signature chicken katsu sandwich, started up Tsuru Ramen; a sporadic ramen Saturday, offering different ramens in two sittings in advance of opening up a ramen shop. They take this stuff seriously, with a 5 day ramen slurping research trip to Tokyo scheduled imminently. Their events have been selling out.

I managed to nab a ticket to the Tonkotsu event. Tonkotsu (not to be confused with tonkatsu) is a speciality of Kyushu and it translates to 'pork bone'. The broth is milky from simmering the pork bones over a long time. It gets its appearance from the fat and collagen and what you're left with is an intensely porky broth for the springy noodles to swim in. Topped with a slice of tender, fatty pork and half a soft boiled nitamago (soy seasoned egg), this was an excellent and hearty bowl of noodles. You can keep up to date with events by following them on Twitter and checking out their blog.

More of a permanent fixture is Shochu Lounge's Ramen Mondays. Bizarrely it isn't advertised at all, even their website doesn't say they're open on Monday lunchtimes but this tip came from the ever excellent Mr Noodles. Underneath Roka on Charlotte Street, this sleek and expensive-feeling bar is usually the den of the well-heeled, sipping on shochu cocktails before dinner upstairs but come on a Monday lunchtime and you find instead a vat of bubbling water in the middle of the bar, with a chef dunking balls of noodles into nets to get lowered into the water.

Only two options of ramen are offered; Shoyu ramen has a clear, light broth and is flavoured with soy sauce. Again topped with a soy-seasoned egg, this was a touch more cooked, resulting in a fudgy consistency. Toasted nori went well with the broth, being crisp above surface and slimy below. Slices of pork are plentiful, the noodles a pleasing consistency - I value bouncy springiness firstly and foremost.

The miso ramen is an altogether richer affair. A thicker broth seasoned heavily with the flavour of miso, this one is definitely for the winter months. The broth is borderline on the salty front and was more of a slurpable one combined with the noodles than on its' own. Sweetcorn bobbed about for some welcome sweetness and the strong flavour of sesame was prevalent. This was a gutsy bowl which worked well with the chewy noodles.



I decided it was high time I made my own. I followed the recipe for the ramen noodles from Lucky Peach issue 1 (top photo) which involved cooking baking soda in the oven and a lot of faff with the pasta machine but they weren't quite right; too mushy and not springy enough. Shop bought were better so I will omit the recipe until I get it right. But the broth of the noodles and the accompaniments were pretty damn good so it's here instead.

I based this on a tonkotsu-esque idea, but as I didn't have a huge amount of pork bones I supplemented it with oxtail for an even bigger whack of meaty flavour. To balance this out, I added some Chinese preserved radish which helped cut through the richness nicely. This kind of broth takes minimal fuss but a lot of time, so set aside at least a couple of days to make it. This recipe makes enough for about 6 bowls. It's rugged, but rich and comforting.

Oxtail & Pork Broth

1 oxtail, sectioned (into pieces...)
1 pork shank
3 large slices of ginger

Bring a pan of water to the boil and add the oxtail and pork shank. Boil for 10 minutes. Drain and rinse in a colander and clean the pot out. This is to get rid of all the horrible grey scum that will make your broth weird.

Add to a fresh pan of water, enough to cover and simmer very gently with the ginger for 10 hours with lid on in the oven at 100 degrees. It seems a lot but you can do this in a slow cooker. Drain, strain through muslin and chill overnight. Skim the fat off once it has solidified on the surface. there is a heart-stopping amount. Bring to the simmer.

Pork Belly

500gr piece of pork belly
1.5 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp salt

Rub the salt and sugar all over the pork belly. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Drain the liquid out and pat dry, then roast for half an hour on full blast and then turn it down to 140 degrees C and roast for an hour. Remove, leave to cool and chill. (This last bit is only necessary if you like neat slices.) To serve, remove the skin if you have it on and slice into inch-thick pieces to serve on top of your ramen.

Nitamago (Soy-seasoned eggs)

6 eggs
1 clove of garlic
1 slice of ginger
60ml light soy sauce
60ml sake
60ml mirin
1/2 tsp sesame oil

Bring the garlic, ginger, soy sauce, sake and mirin to the boil in a small saucepan. Once it hits boiling remove and place in a container to cool. Carefully lower the room temperature eggs into a pan of boiling water and cook for 6 minutes. Remove and rinse under cold water until cooled. Very carefully peel and place in the cold soy sauce mix. Marinate overnight, turning once.

Other Bits

1 sheet of toasted nori per person
A handful of beansprouts, blanched
1 spring onion, slivered finely
A handful of rinsed preserved turnip or radish
1 tsp miso per person

So the rest is assembly really. Make sure the stock is bubbling heartily and assemble the cooked noodles in the bowl. Attach the toasted nori sheet to the side of the bowl (a smear of miso did this well) and ladle the broth into the bowl. Top with beansprouts, pickled veg, slivered spring onion and the tsp of miso so that it dissolves into the broth, and finally split an egg in half and settle on top. Serve immediately.

Christmas 2011

Christmas is over for another year, and the one we had was low key, austere almost. This year was just me and my parents for a couple of days so rather than stuffing the fridge full of various meats and then racing against time to get them poached / simmered / stewed / roasted and in our faces, we went for one centrepiece. Given we were to have one blow-out meal, it was a risk that we ordered online from a company we'd never used before but it paid off.

East London Steak Co. has a sleek, easy-to-use website and within a few clicks the Christmas beef was ordered. Customer service was great; originally I couldn't find the correct date for delivery and one tweet later I was told I would be emailed when my date became available. The meat arrived at my parents' place, neatly packaged with a Christmas card from the team and a calling card bearing the meat's provenance.

For our roasted bone marrow starter, we amalgamated two recipes; St John's famous parsley & caper salad accompanied the bone marrow shafts, but these were also smothered with caramelised shallots, an idea taken from the Hawksmoor At Home cookbook, my dad's Christmas present from me. The sweet onions worked beautifully with the sharp and herby salad, with the wibbly wobbly marrow smeared over a little bread.

What of the beef? The 1.5kg rib joint (around £30) was from a breed called Dexter and it was a beautiful deep ruby red. Well laced with fat, it was simply seared on both sides and cooked for an hour at 180 degrees then rested for 20 minutes in a warm place. The meat came out medium rare and was gorgeously beefy and well flavoured. The fat was divine. I am devastated I'm not around for the beef sandwich leftovers.

The gravy though was perhaps the best I've made so far. Again inspired from the Hawksmoor cookbook, it was sweet with onions and Madeira and enriched with some leftover bone marrow. By the end of the meal I was grabbing roasted potatoes, squashing them flat for more surface soakable area and dunking then straight into the gravy jug.

Madiera Gravy

Enough for 4

1 onion
6 fat cloves of garlic
1 carrot
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp plain flour
200ml Madeira
300ml beef stock / water
1 bone marrow shaft
Salt & pepper

Place your joint of beef on top of the onions, halved (but not peeled). Scatter the garlic cloves around and break the carrot in half and throw this in. Add a splash of water and roast your meat as you please.

When the meat is done, pour the fat out of the pan leaving about 1 tbsp. There should be some nice dark meat juices in there. Scatter the plain flour and stir well over a low heat. Add the Madeira bit by bit, stirring and amalgamating as you go. When all of it is added, add the water / stock and bring to the simmer. Add the bay leaves and simmer for a good 10 - 15 minutes. If it becomes too thick add a little water. Add the bone marrow and stir into the gravy - ours was already roasted so it slipped in easily but you can also put it in raw. Simmer for a further 10 minutes until it is as thick as you please, then taste, season with salt and pepper and serve.