Published in Brighton, UK

7 December 2004
Food & drink
19 comments
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It just me or have you turned into Dunstan?
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Andy Budd
7 Dec 2004
14:43 GMT
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7 google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=francis francis descaler&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Search Go
I am the proud owner of a wonderful FrancisFrancis!
X1 espresso maker. As a machine of function and
beauty, it is used daily. I live in a hard water area
and the machine comes with this slightly disturbing
warning:
Failure to undertake regular decalcification will
result in lime-scale build-up that may in turn
cause an appliance malfunction not covered by
the guarantee.
Hmm. OK then, I dont want to invalidate the guarantee on a 375 piece of
equipment, so how do I descale it? The manual has only this to say:
Please contact the manufacturer for information on how to use a
household decalcification appliance.
What? Surely you are the manufacturer? And what is a decalcification
appliance? A trip back to the Steamer Trading Cookshop was in order, where a
very helpful assistant explained the process:
Get yourself some descaling powder. FrancisFrancis! do their own (which I
used) but I was told you can use any descaler suitable for food so use
kettle descaler not central heating descaler. Obviously.
Set aside an hour. This takes a while.
Follow the instructions on your packet of descaler to make up 1.5 litres of
solution.
Fill your reservoir tank with descaling solution and turn on the machine.
Once up to temperature, remove the filter handle if you havent already. Flick
the espresso switch and run through about half a mug of water (equivalent to
3 espresso cups).
Leave for 15 minutes.
Run through another half a mug of water and repeat every 45 minutes until
the tank is empty. Your machine should now be descaled.
Rinse out the reservoir tank and refill with filtered water (youre using filtered
water anyway, right?).
Again, run through half-mugs of water every 45 minutes until the tank is
empty. Your machine should now be free of descaling solution and ready to
use.
On another kitchen related note, I cooked my first Jerusalem artichokes last
night. They are in season at the moment and we got a couple of pounds in our
weekly vegetable box. They look somewhat like root ginger but, once peeled
and sliced, are similar to potatoes with a sweeter smell. In fact they are cooked
exactly like potatoes (boiled, roasted, fried etc). I followed Jamie Olivers recipe
for Baked Jerusalem Artichokes with Bread Crumbs, Thyme & Lemon a sort of
gratin/dauphinoise affair, and the result was delicious with the Jerusalem
artichokes bringer a lighter texture than the equivalent dish made with spuds.
Interestingly, I learned that Jerusalem artichokes have nothing to do with
Jerusalem, the word instead comes from girasole, Italian for sunflower.
Jerusalem artichokes are a member of the sunflower family it seems. Thanks to
Wikipedia for that gem.