FOOD & DRINK: SPLEEN CUISINE

A monthly series in which the country's most influential cooks share their inspirations. Here, Michael Bateman meets Fergus Henderson whose skills with assorted offal are earning his restaurant St John a formidable reputation

MASTERS OF MODERN COOKERY

8: FERGUS HENDERSON

Fergus Henderson was born in 1963 into a family of architects. He went to King Alfred's School in London, spent one year at Chelsea School of Art and then did seven years of architecture training, but his first job was cooking for a club. He joined the Globe, Charles Campbell's club in Notting Hill. He met and mar- ried Margot Clayton, a celebrated New Zealand chef and one of the most successful women in the business; together they launched the French House Dining Room in Dean Street, Soho. In 1994, he opened St John near Smithfield meat market, to universal acclaim

"GIBLETS," goes Iceland's latest press release, "will no longer be sold with our chickens." The company says it is reflecting a national distaste for those bits and pieces - chicken livers, kidneys, hearts, necks. Not even distaste, more like incomprehension. What is the point of them? customers ask, before chucking them out (lucky the cat who gets a taste of them).

In other cultures, these little morsels are more than pussy's perks. Chicken livers are prized across the world, for smooth, bittersweet French country pates or Jewish chopped liver, a world-class ethnic dish. The hearts and the chopped kidney and neck are simmered with onions and carrots for giblet stews or chicken stock, or to provide a little tasty liquor to blend with roast chicken juices for a sauce.

But you have to know what to do with these things. And since the last government virtually dispensed with cookery from the school syllabus, there has been a rapid decline in food skills among young people.

Anyway, the limits of our cooking aspirations are now defined by the supermarkets. Steak, chicken, lamb or pork must be gift-wrapped in see-through containers, ready to grill or fry or microwave. Anything out of the ordinary is just too difficult to tackle.

So what can we make of the cooking of Fergus Henderson, for whom tripe is a thing of wonder, not an expression of contempt, who delights in the parts of animals most abattoirs pack for the pet-food trade, and in whose restaurant offal is always on the menu?

He is the owner and cook of the ground-breaking restaurant St John, near London's Smithfield meat market. Having turned against the tide of Modern British Cooking (with its bits and bobs from Thailand and Tuscany tossed into the melting-pot), he has built up a sturdy menu of items from British butchers which are seldom seen on the supermarket shelf: offal of all sorts, and not just livers, hearts, kidneys, but tongue, spleen, bones, tripe, tails, ears (see box overleaf).

We may have lost the vegetarians by this point, but Fergus Henderson enjoys ecstatic reviews among food critics and restaurant guides. The Independent's Ben Rogers regards him (along with Phil Vickery of the Castle, Taunton and Richard Corrigan of Lindsay House, Soho) as one of the three best chefs in the country who are reworking British food traditions.

Fergus Henderson trained as an architect, not a chef. So his restaurant (no surprise) is an architectural space. He has created an environment in which there is no distraction from the food - he has no truck with interior design, no fancy decor, mirrors, lights, drapes, blinds, carpets, paintings, flowers. Nothing to distract the eye, nor even the ear, for there is no background music.

The restaurant, built around a series of house-high smokestacks from a city smokery, is a seven-sided, high-roofed box, the ceiling supported by a couple of steel pillars and RSJs, all painted creamy white. The only embellishment is a row of 150 wooden coat-hooks above head height. The plain wooden floor is battleship grey. There are two air-conditioning units high on the ceiling. That's it. No restaurant in the country is as unadorned as this.

But the space is packed with drama. The small kitchen is a focal point, open to the dining space, with waiters in floppy whites (like Smithfield's market porters) as the point of connection with the customers. The diners themselves are part of this theatre-in-the-round. The menu consists of no more than 20 items, although these change meal by meal, responding to the season, markets and the whims of Fergus.

On the day I had lunch he was offering mussels, razor clams, smoked eel, goat's cheese, rabbit terrine, pigeon with lentils, roasted monkfish, Welsh rarebit. The only piece of offal was chargrilled tongue. No one in this country, surely, has considered cooking tongue in this way: it was sweet, savoury and tender.

Razor clams were my choice for first course. You don't often find them on English menus, although you will in Spain. These were eight inches long, grilled in their shells with a garlic and parsley butter. They have the texture of squid, but are packed with the intense flavour associated with shell-fish. To finish, there was an unassuming summer pudding of home-made white bread wrapped around a tart filling of redcurrants and raspberries.

Fergus is an original talent, all the more so as he is entirely self- taught. He doesn't look like a chef, more like an inventor who's strayed out of an episode of Tin-Tin, with his round glasses, chopped blond hair, and an alarmingly puppet-like way of jerk-ing his arms to make a point. Dis- concertingly, he also leaves his sentences unfinished. You must assume his meaning from the context: for example, when he says, as he does, "I'm going to do a..." you are supposed to understand that he's doing "a ... book".

And so he is: Nose to Tail Cooking, to be published next spring. It's actually hard to get him to explain his cooking, or even his influences. His memory of anything he ate or cooked during the first 20 years of his life is a blank (no clearer than Bill Clinton's memories of his sexual encounters).

His father was an architect, his mother trained as one, his sister is an architect, and Fergus did seven years of architectural training. But the drama of kitchen life beckoned, and with fellow students he got into setting up ambitious meals for 200 or so. He loved the immediate approval of his efforts. A brief, brutal spell in a professional kitchen initially deterred him, but on graduating, the first job he was offered was as chef to a club. He was hooked.

Then he teamed up with Charles Campbell to run the Globe in Notting Hill Gate, introducing unlikely dishes to a club menu; spiny sea urchins are unlikely fare, are they not? He met and married the gutsy New Zealand chef, Margot Clayton, who made her name in Portobello Road's First Floor restaurant, and he joined her to open the French House Dining Room in Soho.

So this is the template for his present style - no-frills, back-to-basics, good, honest cooking. "It's British cooking," he says, "but its not jingoistic. And it's not Modern British Cooking with ingredients from all over the world. I'm keen on indigenous produce, cooked in a straightforward way."

The cookery books he turns to are not English, he admits. Those most consulted are the works of Marcella Hazan, the great Italian teacher, and the American, Paula Wolfert, author of The Cooking of South-West France.

Just a marrow-bone's throw from Smithfield market, Fergus buys some of his meat there but the more specialist items come from Chesterton Farm, near Cirencester: pigs' trotters, tails, ears, blood and so on; fish and shellfish from Cornwall; smoked eel from "Beal the Eel" in Norfolk, who also shoots rabbit and pigeon for him.

For a taste of Fergus Henderson's not-so-modern British food, then, here are six of his simple, basic recipes, some of which will appear in Nose to Tail Cooking (Macmillan); chargrilled tongue, hairy tatties, devilled kidneys, mussels, grilled mackerel, and goat's curd with marc.

CHARGRILLED OX TONGUE WITH GOLDEN BEETROOT

Serves 6 to 8

One of the many things that can be done with this versatile organ. You'll need a cast-iron griddle or a barbecue.

1 salted ox tongue

2 carrots

2 sticks celery

1 head of garlic, cut in half crosswise

2 onions

1 leek

12 peppercorns

a bundle of fresh parsley and thyme

Rinse the tongue in cold water, then place in a pot with the vegetables and herbs. Bring to the boil and immediately reduce to a gentle simmer for approximately two to three hours, checking with a sharp knife.

When tender, remove from its liquor and peel off its skin while still warm (this should be easy if it is properly cooked). Return to cool in its stock. When cooked, trim off any undesirable gristle, then slice lengthways to give sections 5mm (14 in) thick.

Get the griddle very hot or ensure your barbecue is at peak heat. Very lightly, oil each slice of tongue, season with pepper, and place on the griddle for a minute or two each side. Don't let the tongue dry out.

Serve with peeled, boiled golden beetroot and horseradish cream.

DEVILLED KIDNEYS

Serves two

The perfect birthday breakfast, especially served with a glass of Black Velvet (Champagne and Guinness).

6 lambs' kidneys, suet and membrane removed, slit in half lengthwise to retain kidney shape; nip out the white fatty gristle with a knife or scissors

3 tablespoons of plain flour

1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon of dry English mustard

salt and pepper

a big knob of butter

Worcester sauce

a healthy splash of chicken stock

2 pieces of toast (white seems to absorb juices better)

Mix the flour, pepper and salt, cayenne and mustard in a bowl.

Get a frying pan, large enough for your kidneys, very hot, and throw in the butter. As this melts, roll your kidneys in your spiced flour, then shake them in a sieve to remove any excess. Place them in the sizzling pan and cook for two minutes on each side. Add a hearty splash of Worcester sauce and the chicken stock, and let all the ingredients get to know each other. Remove the kidneys to your two waiting bits of toast. Let the sauce reduce and emulsify in the pan (do not let it disappear) and pour over the kidneys and toast. Happy birthday!

HAIRY TATTIES

Serves six

A splendid dish. "Hairy" describes the fibrous texture of the dried fish.

1.5kg/3lb salt ling (salt cod is a fine substitute), soaked in several changes of water over 12 hours

2kg/412lb peeled, floury potatoes, such as Maris Pipers or King Edwards

250g/9oz butter

250ml/8fl oz milk

2 onions

3 bay leaves

pepper and possibly salt

6 free-range eggs

Put the fish in a pan with fresh water, onions and bay leaves, bring to the boil, then simmer for 14 minutes.

Meanwhile, place your potatoes in unsalted water, bring to the boil and cook until soft enough to mash.

Drain the fish, discard the onions and bay leaves and let it cool until you can handle it. Pull the flesh from the skin and bones - be warned, this is a very sticky exercise. You should now have warm salt fish and hot drained potatoes. Heat the milk and butter, add half to the potatoes and mash, reserving the rest for when you add the fish. Add the fish flesh, keep mashing, and you should start to have a pan of hairy mashed potatoes. If they are too stiff, add a little more milk and butter. Check for seasoning: it will certainly need black pepper, but depending on the fish you may or may not need salt.

Serve in mounds with a peeled hard-boiled egg (the yolk giving slightly).

GRILLED MACKEREL

This is very straightforward, but there is no finer way to eat a fresh mackerel.

2 small or one large mackerel per person

a generous pinch of coarse sea salt (preferably Maldon)

To fillet the mackerel: chop off all fins with scissors, then lay the fish on its side. With a sharp knife, cut just behind the gills until you meet the backbone. Turn your blade to face the tail and run it along the spine down to the tail. Turn the fish over and repeat the process.

Discard the guts and the head, snip under the remaining ribs and remove.

Get your grill very hot. Lay the fillets on a tray, skin side up (because this is such an oily fish there is no need to rub with extra oil).

Salt the skin. Place under the grill for approximately four to five minutes, keeping a close eye on it. The skin should crisp up and the flesh should become tender and giving.

Serve with a salad of frisee, capers and chopped-up cornichons (baby gherkins).

MUSSELS, CUCUMBER AND DILL SALAD

Serves four

2kg/412lb mussels

13 bottle of dry white wine

2 onions, peeled and finely chopped

2 sticks of celery, finely chopped

6 cloves of garlic

half a bunch of fresh thyme, tied up

salt and pepper

a splash of olive oil

Put a splash of oil in a pan with a lid large enough to accommodate the mussels; heat up and add the chopped vegetables. Let these fry for a couple of minutes, watching that they do not brown. Season heartily, as you still have the mussels and wine to add. Stir so that they all get to meet the mixture, and place the lid on the pan. Now and then give it a shake and as soon as the mussels are open they are cooked. Remove them from the heat and allow to cool.

When they've cooled, pluck the mussels from their shells, retain and strain the liquor.

For the salad:

your pickled mussels

1 cucumber, cut into 6cm (212in) lengths, then split in half, then cut into three lengthwise, aiming the knife into the centre of the cucumber, so that when brought together they will resemble a pile of kindling, rather than cucumber matchsticks

1 red onion, peeled, cut in half and sliced very thinly

a bunch of dill, picked from its stems

a small handful of extra-fine capers

a splash of mussel liquor

a splash of extra virgin olive oil

juice of 1 lemon

salt and pepper

Mix all the ingredients and serve. The orange mussels next to the pale green cucumbers is very satisfactory.

GOAT'S CURD AND MARC

Serves eight

750g/112lb goat's curd (if unavailable, a young log of goat's cheese, before it has formed a rind, will suffice)

2 large shots of Marc de Bourgogne (you can temper the marc content if you find it too heady)

2 tablespoons caster sugar

Stir the sugar into the marc until it has all melted (you do not have to apply heat for this), then mix in the goat's curd. Eat with plain, sweet biscuits.

! St John, St John St, EC1 (0171 251 0848)

OFFAL ON THE MENU

Ten cuts of offal, off-limits to most restaurant menus, which you can find at St John (although not all on the same day).

1 Chargrilled ox tongue. Tongue which is boiled until tender, stripped of any skin and gristle, then sliced into quarter-inch "steaks", brushed with oil and chargrilled.

2 Jellied tripe. White honey-comb tripe, simmered with onions, cider and a pig's trotter, and left to cool and set in its own liquid.

3 Roast marrow bones. The ban on beef bones does not extend to animals under six months. These are veal marrow bones, roasted; the delicate fat is then spooned out and spread on toast.

4 Braised lamb's heart. The tops are cut off so that the gristly ventricles can be removed, then the heart is stuffed with a rich mixture of breadcrumbs, sage, onion and wine, capped with a slice of bacon and braised in a medium oven for one and a half hours.

5 Salted, air-dried pig's liver. A whole liver, smothered in salt in a bowl, and left for three weeks (while the salt extracts the juices); then dried, tied in a cloth and hung in a cool, airy place for four to six weeks. It is then sliced thinly, fried in a hot pan with a splash of balsamic vinegar, and served simply with chopped, hard-boiled eggs and spring onions.

6 Pig's ear with split-pea soup. Split peas cooked with the pig's ear till tender, the ear removed, sliced into strips, fried, and served on top of the soup.

7 Crispy pigs' tails. The tails are braised in the oven in stock until tender, mopped dry, then coated in breadcrumbs and fried (this is a more delicate version of the French grilled pigs' trotters dish from the Marne region, known as Sainte-Menehould).

8 Pig's blood cakes. A re-working of black pudding (which is made with blood and oatmeal), these are made with blood and maize meal. Instead of going into a sausage case, the mixture, cooked with onions and marjoram, is shaped into cakes, then sliced and fried (based on an idea from Fergus's former sous-chef, Paul Hughes).

9 Fried chitterlings. The well-rinsed pig's intestines are used in France and Italy in various cured salamis and saucissons. Tossed in mustard, grilled, and served with a green vegetable such as kale.

10 Pig's spleen, rolled and fried. Spleen is not to be found in English cookery books, although it's acknowledged in France, where it is known as rate and sometimes added to a pot au feu. It's an organ which lies very close to the stomach and regulates the blood (in Elizabethan times it was thought to be the seat of anger and melancholy). It is long and flat, with a texture not unlike that of liver.