Good Food Blog
Simon Rimmer: My Life on a Plate
Posted at 12:02PM, 21 June 2011 by Good Food writers -Roxanne Fisher and Lily Barclay talk to celebrity chef, Simon Rimmer about the secret to fantastic curry, why he dreams of lizard flesh and the appeal of swimming in a bowl of prawn cocktail.
The first things I remember cooking are rock buns at school. It was that simple kind of butter, flour, sugar, currants, rubbed together, rolled into some amorphous lump and then cooked; I used to make them all the time for my family, much to their annoyance at the end I think.
My secret ingredient is rose water because it's really nice to add to any dessert. It just gives a little back flavour, a little bit of perfume. You don't want to use too much otherwise it starts to taste like your nan's hanky, but just a little bit.
My other guilty food pleasure is, if I've been out drinking, a donna kebab. It's wrong isn't it?
My guilty food pleasure is biscuits. I actually can't have one biscuit without eating an entire packet. My other guilty food pleasure is, if I've been out drinking, a doner kebab. It is genuinely a doner kebab. It's wrong isn't it?
My favourite biscuit is a chocolate Hobnob.
One of the best food tips is vinegar. Vinegar can bring dishes to life like nobody's business. The next time you make a curry, if you add just a small spoonful of malt vinegar at the end it will make the curry turn into something fantastic; just that little bit of acidity, it brings your taste buds to life.
The worst kitchen job is the aftermath of a burst bin bag as you try and take it out of the bin and then having to clean up bin juice.
If I wasn't a chef, in my dreams, I would be a professional footballer. I always wanted to be a footballer and play for Liverpool.
I have dreamt about food. I've been developing a vegetarian Scotch egg, so we've been playing around with loads of different, outside bits to go around the egg and I had this really weird dream that I'd got it to perfection, but the only thing that would make it hold together was 25% lizard flesh. I had this dilemma, because obviously Greens is a veggie restaurant. I was thinking' 'oh my God that would make it actually perfect, but can I sneak in a little bit of lizard flesh into this Scotch egg?' I genuinely woke up thinking 'what am I going to do?'
The weirdest thing I've eaten is smoked whale. I said I was never going to eat whale but I was filming in Norway and we were down in Bergen market and they had smoked whale and the guy at the stall said 'have a little try of it'. When I went to put it to my mouth, I was thinking to myself 'what if this is the most amazing taste I've ever eaten, will it change my opinion?' But it was absolutely disgusting. It was like eating an eraser.
My nan had a notoriously famous apple pie. She used to make it with puff pastry and it was slightly caramelised and it was just beautiful. Still now I can taste it and it makes me want to salivate just the thought of it.
If I could swim in a bowl of something it would probably be prawn cocktail. I think it would be a quite interesting one to swim in, not necessarily pleasant though.
I would like to continue doing what I'm doing because it's exciting. Every year is different. This year, I've cooked everywhere from Wigan to Antigua and I've worked with people from breweries to army chefs. I love that diversity.
Simon Rimmer is the resident chef on BBC 2's Something For The Weekend. He owns vegetarian restaurant, Greens in Manchester and Earle in Hale.
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