At home with Hawksmoor

Hawksmoor at Home by Huw Gott, Richard Turner and Will Beckett: Preface Publishing, 13 October 2011

October was a challenging month. Work sucked, I managed to gain half a stone seemingly without a concomitant increase in fun and I struggled to rise to the challenge of making the perfect burger at home, despite having invested in a cranky old mincer that must weigh half a tonne. To top it all, reading about how much fun everyone's was having during the soft opening of the new Hawksmoor didn't helped my rage. However, I can't complain. Whilst I may have missed out on the restaurant opening, the kind people at Random House sent me a copy of Hawksmoor at Home so I could recreate the fun myself. Rock and roll.

Having failed to create the perfect burger earlier in the month, I was eager to see if Hawksmoor's instructions could improve my chances. Most importantly, I wanted to know how I too could use bone marrow to enrich my patties. The book certainly delivered on that front, and the patties we created were the finest to ever grace our kitchen. They were incredibly juicy and had a particularly meaty flavour, even if they were made with plain old chuck rather than the off-cuts that make up Hawksmoor's creations. 

Less successful were the buns, which looked the part but ended up weighing more than the mincer. However, I hardly think it would be fair to blame Hawksmoor for this. If their book had rendered me a competent baker, it would be the first ever to do so. Some people are meant to buy their buns from St John. However, I do hold them accountable for the lack of Ogleshield at Neal's Yard, specifically because the man behind the counter told us that Hawksmoor had been in earlier and bought the lot. 

I have yet to venture beyond the burger page, but I know I will at some point. Whilst the burger wasn't perfect, Hawksmoor at Home has brought me one step closer to understanding how to achieve my culinary goals (buy the buns and revert to processed cheese). It also contains instructions for making the Hawksmoor Bloody Mary, currently my favourite in London, and sufficiently obscure that a recipe is necessary. Like many cookbooks-based-on-restaurants, it left me wanting to visit the mothership. However, a sneaky trip to the branch at Seven Dials only confirmed my views: that the Bloody Mary is marvellous but the burger could be improved by the addition of American cheese. With a beginning steeped in beef and horseradish gin, November has potential. 

Random House sent me my copy of Hawksmoor at Home.