HB&B Blog — Claire Bullen

I love the food cravings that sneakily overtake you – the ones that crawl out of your subconscious unbidden. Most mysterious are the sudden desires for dishes that you haven’t thought about for years. All it takes is a minor change in temperament, a flicker of childhood memory or a phantom scent on the breeze, and that long-ago slice of cheesecake or baked pasta dish or pumpkin curry is conjured up once again. That’s how this recipe came to be. It’s been more than a decade since I last ate Peruvian roast chicken. As a university student in New York...

Maybe you’ve noticed. The cherry trees that seem to march along every London street, the ones that emerged in pom-poms of blossoms a month or two back, have begun to fruit. Most of the cherries are still firm and green, but a few are starting to redden and blush. I keep mental tallies of when they’re likely to ripen, so I can steal some when no one is looking. Cherry season is the reason humans were put on this Earth, probably. And while other produce tends to take a starring role in summer’s bumper crop – your tomatoes, your strawberries –...

I love whites and rosés and pét nats in the summer as much as anyone, but I’m also a strong believer in the perfection of a chilled red when the sun finally rolls around. Case in point: Le Grappin’s blissful Beaujolais-Villages Nature 2019, made from grapes sourced from Lancié, just moments from Fleurie (one of 10 areas where premium Cru Beaujolais is made). Beaujolais' stocks have risen in recent years, as tastes have shifted towards lighter-bodied, more subtle and acid-driven reds rather than the previously omnipresent, over-oaked jam bombs. If you haven’t had Beaujolais before, it’s hard not to get on with the grape it’s...

In the past, when I’ve been asked which food-and-beer pairing I’m most proud of, the first that comes to mind is one from our book, The Beer Lover’s Table – the cover recipe, in fact – for prawn and mango coconut curry, paired with a hazy, tropical double IPA. New England IPAs and their ilk can be difficult to have alongside food – they’re so potent, so rich and bold, that they overwhelm many dishes. The secret is to find food that matches their intensity, ideally with some complementary flavours; maybe it isn’t so revelatory after all that fruity, pungent curries are...

I’ll begin with a controversial statement: To me, most French fries – chips – are… not great. Sure, there are always those first few transcendent fries in the bag, the ones that are still hot and crisp – the ones that cause the circuits of your brain to light up and throw off sparks at the sudden wallop of salt and starch and fat. But soon, too soon, that initial burst of activity dies down under the soddening accumulation of sogging potato and cold oil mixing together in the mouth. The textural variation, that devilish crunch, is lost, and with...