A Taste of Tottenham

New Year's Feast

2011-01-03T18:27:00.001Z

A new year's eve feast is a tradition with J and me...with me enjoying a fabulous cook-out while still not having figured out how to turn J's oven on. One year I'll get it right. This year's meal was eastern mediterranean, and many of the dishes came from Silvena Rowe's lovely Purple Citrus and Sweet Perfume - definately one of my cookbooks of the year. The book's focus is on Syria and Turkey, and there's one recipe for a nasturtium flower sauce that I can't wait to try once the allotment is in full bloom.

The rest of the meal had a certain Claudia Rodin feel, as I can never resist an excuse to make her tarator sauce.

First up, we have some little not-so-flat breads, made to a recipe from a recent Sainsbury's Magazine. I've never used a bread mix before, being a baking snob, but what with it being a lazy time of year, I followed instructions and bought a packet of Wright's ciabatta bread mix, adding some fresh thyme to the mixture. Then I packed it up in a lock and lock food box...but by the time my train arrived in Bucks, the proved dough was oozing gently through one of the locks that it had broken in a bid to escape. Quite a riser...and it was quickly knocked back and torn into little pillow shapes. These merrily rose again, and once I'd slapped on some olive oil and za'atar and bunged them in the oven, they emerged, smelling like perfumed cushions. Tasted damn good too. I think I'll be using that bread mix again.

The green salad is watercress, avacado, tomatoes, red onion and parsley with a dressing of pomagranate mollases, lemon juice, sumac and olive oil.

Next up are kebabs from the Gaziantep region of Turkey - ground pistachios combine with minced lamb and a dreamy spice mix that includes cardomon, cumin, paprika, cloves, coriander, cinnamon and nutmeg. These were a huge hit, with Izzie the lab scoffing a couple too. Defying authenticity, I added halloumi to the menu because we both love this hot rubbery cheesy hit.

Giant beans were sneaked onto the menu in honour of our Skiathos holiday. The outrageous purple is beetroot moutabel - a garish but delicious combination of roast beet, tahini, yoghurt and olive oil. The carrot and pink grapefruit salad is my version of the Moroccan carrot and orange classic. And finally we have a cooling salad of cucumber, pistachio, mint, dill, yoghurt and pomagranite seeds. Yum.

As usual, I loved devising it, cooking it and scoffing it. Very few things beat cooking for your best mate then gobbling up the food with beer and good conversation.

Happy 2011 to everyone!

Lunch at Launceston Place

2010-09-16T21:42:00.002+01:00

Yesterday @titianred treated me to lunch - and it was the opportunity for us to both sample the delights of Launceston Place. The restaurant first came to my attention when the lovely Steve Groves, sous chef there, won Celebrity Masterchef last year. His food was amazing, and after he won, he chose to stay as he said he was learning so much. And food bloggers have written delighted posts about the place. We spent a very happy morning goggling in the jewellery gallery at the V&A and, appetites aroused, staggered across to leafy Launceston Place, standing quietly in a leafy corner of South Ken. Comfortably seated next to the window, we perused both lunch menus but stuck to budget with the three course £20 lunch. Astonishing value, as it turned out. Before our starters arrived, we were presented with an amuse bouche of yoghurt sorbet and lightly pickled diced cucumber. This boded well, as the icey silkiness disappeared.

Then the bread - a lovely sourdough - and butter arrived. We suspected that the butter-on-a-pebble is a Launceston Place tease to see which customers can perfect butter balancing. Our butter slid from side to side but did stay put.

Was it yoghurt sorbet or ice cream? Not sure, but it was lovely. And soon gone. The starters arrived as soon as we were finished. Henri had gone with a beef, beet and wild garlic rissotto. With a bone that looked just like my father's napkin ring.

Henri was uttering quiet squeaks of joy. I sneaked a mouthful and it was fabulous, with melting marrow and an intense blast of flavour. Henri took a bite of my starter and said, 'That's lovely, but I'm glad I'm having mine,' which is exactly how I felt.

I'd chosen the duck egg on toast with Somerset truffle and boy, was it good. The egg was besides, rather than on, toast, and it was surrounded with shaved truffle and wonderous truffle goo. Not so much a up front whack on the taste buds but more a shimmer round the palate then insinuating itself into the memory and inducing a desire for more. Heavenly. Contender for best plate of food I've had this year.

Henri's main was saltmarsh lamb, herb consomme and pomme purees. I think we'd both expected this to turn up as lamb carved off the bone - but no, it was a lamb turret, crowned with herbal crust. Henri loved it - meltingly tender meat perfectly complemented by the crusty top and herb consomme.

Meanwhile, I was tucking into Cornish mackeral, cured cucumber and pickled onions. Someone spent a very long time pin-boning the fish which was cooked with a fine crisp skin and worked beautifully with the cucumber. The acidity of the onions worked well but I did miss a fruity punch to finish off the dish. But a lovely plate of food. With the main plates whipped away, we were offered a tiny jar of a most luscious lemon possett. We wolfed this down so quickly that there was no time to take a photo.

For pud, we both went with the dark chocolate and raspberry mousse - a wonderful concoction with shiny raspberry lightness over sugared berries and a dense and serious chocolate base. We were given big spoons but unanimously demanded smaller ones so that we could make the sensation last.

Reeling with the pleasure of it, we were left giggling when we were presented with plate of two jars - baby madeleines warm from the oven and egg white-lightened cream. Ohmygod. Delicious and almost too much for two full tums. Almost - we did our best to demolish this last delight.

I love this place. The food was gorgeous, the service was superb, and I think it's the first time ever that the bill has arrived exactly when you want it. It's the kind of place that you rave about in the office the next day - which I did.

Thank you Henri for a marvellous lunch, and to Launceston Place for living up to all expectations.

Crab two ways and an allotment harvest

2010-09-14T21:22:00.000+01:00

Last week I was so taken with Jason Atherton's Maze Cookbook that I bought it, having glimpsed a couple of fantastic crab recipes. As I have the lovely @titianred staying (which involves much boozy putting the world to rights and listening to Leonard Cohen), I had the perfect opportunity to put crab to pan. The first recipe was for crab chowder, involving the underrated brown crab meat. The lovely guys at Seafood and Eat it sell the most wonderful crabmeat and once again provided the protein.

First there's a serious stock to put together: leek, shallot, carrot and garlic are sweated in rapeseed oil (Jason specifies onion and olive oil but hey, I go with what I have). Then when the veg are wilted and golden, it's in with the spice mixture - star anice, lemongrass, parsley and basil stalks, coriander seed and peppercorns.

And I popped in a couple of sprigs of Thai basil from the garden.

Then I added a good squirt of tomato puree and a glass of white wine. The scent was beginning to get really very good.

Next in is a good jug of homemade chicken stock and the mixture bubbles gently for 20 minutes. Strain the stock through a seive, pressing the veggies and spices down to extract all the flavour and then the soup goes back on the heat for the addition of the brown crab meat and double cream, and a final adjustment of salt.

Oh boy. This is an amazingly good recipe. I added a spoonful of white crab meat at the bottom of the bowl before laddeling in the soup. Crab heaven and a noble end for a fine crustacean. We slurped it down.

The second crab dish was a crab toastie - good, but not quite reaching the heights of the chowder. Mix white crab meat with mayo, cream cheese, a dash of soy sauce and a sprinkle of cayenne. Jason's recipe tells you to bake in an oven at gas mark 3 for 10 minutes, but I wasn't quite convinced, so I toasted the bread on one side then pile the crab mixture on the white side and grilled it till bubbling. A good dish but not as good as the soup. But a pretty good supper.

Meanwhile, down on the allotment, life has sprung back into the veg now that we've had some rain. The runner beans - Painted Lady - are going great guns.

I'm so proud of my squash - they're ripening nicely in shades of orange and yellow and green. And we even have a volunteer squash that's sprouted out of the second compost bay.

And after a couple of months of sulking in the heat, the courgette plants have sprung into action, providing the most delicious fruit. I've never loved courgettes until this year.

There are toms and garlic - and a couple of ears of corn from my lovely lottie neighbour Mark. An autumn of mellow fruitfulness.

Mexican porky goodness

2010-08-16T20:03:00.001+01:00

The Mexican theme continues...Neil and I have begun a quest to lunch at every Mexican place within striking distance. A couple of weeks ago we ate at Taqueria - and a fabulous lunch it was. Annoyingly, they wouldn't let me take photos. I was mildly cross at the start of the meal and even crosser by the end, because the food was so good. I kicked off with Callos al mojo de ajo - garlicky scallops with chipotle and avacado mash - which was seriously good. But Neil had hit the jackpot with his choice of Cochinita pibil - slow-cooked pork with achiote and citrus juice and pickled pink onions. One bite and I was having one of those 'ohmygodwhatisTHAT??' moments when your palate lands on something new and heavenly and tantalising. After scanning the menu again, I guessed it was the achiote seeds that were the key ingrediant. Luckily the people who run Taqueria also run the Cool Chile Company, and the restuarant sells ingrediants. So I headed back to work with a tin of the special seeds.

Rick Bayless has become my authority on serious Mexican nosh, and he didn't let me down with a recipe for pibil that called for quite a lot of work for a fine reward. There's one version of his recipe here, although it's a bit different from the one I used from his book Mexican Kitchen. First, take your spices. That's the achiote seeds, brick red and just as hard, black pepper, allspice and oregano, and whizz them to a powder. Smash some garlic with salt and add...then add some cider vinegar to create a paste.

Then add orange and lime juice to the paste, and insert your pork shoulder joint to marinate for at least four hours.

Then it's into the oven at around gas mark 3 for several hours - it's the tenderness that's part of the dish. Then you can get on with the pink pickled onions.

Simply steep sliced red onion in boiling water for a minute, then add a spice mix of black pepper, cumin and oregano to the drained onions and add garlic and cider vinegar. Stow in the fridge while the scent of achiote fills the house. Three hours later and the pork is ready.

The joint will now be falling apart, which is fine, because you're after that north American pulled meat thing. Gently shred the pork and reserve the achiote liquid from the bottom of the pan.

Then you can compose your meal. I put some of the pork into a warmed tortilla, poured over some of the basting juice and topped with the day-glo onion. Sides were refried beans with sour cream, grated Manchego and tomatilla salso, together with some un-Mexican but delicious runner beans from my allotment. A feast! This pork is so good.

So thank you Rick and thank you Tanqueria - and I hope you'll let me take photos next time.

Viva Mexico

2010-07-02T19:14:00.000+01:00

Now that I'm working over in west London, one of my favourite lunch haunts is Wahaca, the Mexican canteena founded by the lovely Tommi Miers, winner of Masterchef a couple of years back. I knew nothing about real Mexican food (except that I love what Wahaca serve up), so I snapped up Tommi's book when it came out, and I'm now suffering from a severe refried beans addiction. Can't stop making them, can't stop eating them.

Refried beans are actually well cooked beans. Speckled pinto beans are an option, but I adore black turtle beans. I tip the dried beans into a big bowl and cover them with just-boiled water for a couple of hours. Then they go into a saucepan with a halved onion, a couple of bay leaves, four cloves of garlic, a handful of thyme and, if you can get it, some epazote, a Mexican herb that loves beans. After a couple of hours, the beans are soft and starting to shed their skins. At this point, I turn off the heat and add a tablespoonful of salt.

Another way to go is to buy the excellent Cool Chile Company's Black Bean kit, which I tracked down at their Borough market stall, or you can order it online. Cool Chile have epazote and chile de arbol in their kit, and also include the brick-coloured smoked paprika, which has become an essential ingrediant for my refrieds.

Once your beans are soft, it's time to fry some chopped onion and garlic in lard (yes, lard - first time I've bought it in ages), then add the beans and the paprika. Tommi recommends using a stick blender but I go with the more primative potato masher to get the beans into a delicious mashed mush.

Now you're ready to assemble the beans for eating - often in warmed corn tortillas but in this dressed-down version, with crumbled Lancashire cheese, chipoltle salsa, chopped coriander and sour cream.

It looks murky. It tastes delicious. Your refried beans will last for five days in the fridge - perfect for a working week of quick and tasty suppers.

At the front of June, when it was cold and utterly unsummery, I cooked up Tommi's unMexican but delicious chile with meat. Except I used stewing steak from Muck and Magic rather than the larger cut that Tommi recommends. The spice and herb mix is the key here: cumin, allspice, cinnamon, bay and oregano combine with my idiosyncratic addition of a deseeded ancho chile, together with cider vinegar, ketchup and brown sugar to make a stunning sauce for the meat. It went into the oven for a long, slow cook, then I left it for overnight so that the meat was incredibly tender.

Wonderful. Now, where are tonight's refried beans?

Summer lunch at the Sportsman

2010-05-25T12:42:00.001+01:00

Sometimes familiarity breeds content: a late spring lunch at the Sportsman at Seasalter with Sarah and Ian on a hot windless day was pure pleasure. Thanks to the new high-speed train, we'd arrived early, so we got a drink and sauntered out into the garden to soak up the sun and exchange news. The lovely waiting staff showed us where our table was, but asked if we'd like to relocate to the conservatory? Yes please.

The flowers on the table sum up one of the many things I love about the Sportman - these aren't hot house specimens, they're wild and local and look beautiful: celandine, yarrow, grasses and one of the many umbelifera whose name I don't know.

The Sportsman's bread and butter (both made on the premisis, along with the salt) is a vital start to any meal. This time we got the usual fantastic foccacia and a moreish soda bread. Ian kicked off with the pickled herring and cabbage salad, chosen because it reminded him of childhood days in Denmark. This revelation led to the inevitable Swedish chef impersonations.

Ian loved it, and he kindly gave me a forkful: I thought it was marvellous. The fish was sweetly cured, accompanied by a very finely shredded cabbage, again lightly cured. I'm having this next time.

Sarah was getting started on her slip sole with smoked salt: a divine little fish, she said.

I couldn't resist the chilled asparagas soup. It came with a tiny little tart filled with cream cheese and shredded sorrel. The flavour of the soup was sooo asparagasy - pure green heaven. Word cam from the kitchen that it wasn't a veggie stock, but the liquid base was milk. Hmmm - one to try and recreate at home.

Sarah had gone her usual route of two starters rather than starter then main. She said her mushroom tart was the most unusual she'd ever had. The mushroom base was toped with a cheesey custard, with swoosh of spinach puree at the side. She loved it and said the pastry was to die for - buttery and melt in the mouth.

Ian and I had both chosen the roast chicken with truffle cream sauce. It came with a further helping of asparagas and a roastie. This was as good as I remembered - moist tender chicken topped with crisp skin. Ian called it a 'juicy happy chicken'. For a moment we lapsed into the silence that good food gives.

Ian and I plumped for the same dessert: warm chocolate mousse with salted caramel and milk sorbet. The sorbet sank gently through the silky soft mousse, and a diving motion with the spoon reunited the two elements. I think this is the best pud I've had at the Sportsman - or at least up there with the creme brulee. Sarah, meanwhile, was polishing off her cheese cream ice cream, strawberry puree, meringue and shortbread crumbs with squeaks of delight.

This was a lovely, lovely meal - local seasonal food cooked with care and imagination, and served with thoughtful attention. Which is why we keep going back, and have yet to be disappointed.

Slightly stuffed and full of good cheer, we had a salty stagger through Whitstable, soaking up the sun and ending a fine Kent adventure.

Essex Food Show

2010-05-17T13:13:00.002+01:00

Thanks to Big Spud and Essex Gourmet, I was alerted to the pleasures of the Essex Food Show on Saturday. A quick hop down to Liverpool Street to meet Ian and we were on our way to the charming White Notley, the nearest station to the show. I'm always apprehensive about food shows I don't know: are they going to be full of manky faux local food that actually comes out of multi-national factories - or are they the genuine article? Thankfully, apart from the trouser press guy and some dubious mass produced bottled goods, the Essex Show was a really great showcase for local food.

Meat was the first purchase of the day - some fine beef from Spaynes Hall Farm Meats based in Halstead. The beef is Red Poll, and all the other meats are rare breed. Also very tempting were the delicious Berkshire/Duroc sausages from Boxes Farm - spicey and juicy. I bagged half a dozen.

At this point, the show got distinctly avian. Polly's Parrots is a one-man band and his troupe of rescued parrots - here's the rather shy macaw. The display was wonderful. Further along was this fine ex-batt hen, looking very calm and enjoying all the attention.

And as Ian munched his pasty, this fowl group came to take a closer look.

Away from the livestock, apples were getting mashed for cider.

The cider was good but not made with cider apples, so lacked a certain subtley. But very quaffable, none the less.

The food stalls were scattered throughout the collection of barns at Cressing, and it was lovely to see the guys from Love Farm there with their excellent rapeseed oil. At the back of one of the barns, I made my first big find of the day.

Three types of cheese from Crete, imported by a brand new Essex company. The creamy sheep's myzithra was fantastically good, and I was easily persuaded to get a pot. I don't much like goat's cheese, but Ian was impressed. I do hope we get to see more of these cheeses.

I sqeaked with excitement when I saw this stall and a row of d'Arcy Spice apple juice. My favourite apple (discovered last year at Lathcoat's) and an Essex original.

My second big discovery was this red wine jelly, made in Sardinia and exported by Tre Stella. It was utterly delicious. No problem making a buy here.

By now, our bags were heaving and the weather was beginning to take on a gloomy hue. So we rang for a taxi and were lucky to get an asparagas-loving driver who swiftly conveyed us to the nearest farm shop were I bought the one desired item we didn't find at the fair. Back home, I cooked up a quick and very late brunch of egg, smoked bacon and asparagas...

...followed by a slice of chocolate cheesecake; recipe from Jason Atherton's Gourmet Food for a Fiver. Jolly good it was too.

Thanks Ian for fine company and putting up (again) with a foodie on the rampage.

Real Food Festival 2010

2010-05-10T15:07:00.001+01:00

I don't know if it was my election up-all-night malaise, or no Big Bro, or something in the air, but this year's Real Food Festival seemed to lack the buzz of last year's. Maybe it's just that working an all-nighter makes me tireder than it used to. Anyway, I felt like snucking into the Laverstock piglets' pen and cuddling up to them. Petal the buffalo was also fast asleep.

The first bit of food to tempt me was this fine Nordic cheese - I bought a hunk of the tasty prast which had a lovely depth of flavour. I don't seem to have taken many photos this year either, but other cheese that I loved was a yummy Cornish Blue and a very impressive Old Winchester, from Lyburn cheeses in the New Forest.

I loved the design on these oil gift sets from Nudo oils and I thought the mandarin flavoured oil was lovely - not overly sweet but a real blast of citrus oil as a top taste note. I came away clutching a tiny tin.

Up to this point, I'd been wandering around without a catalogue, feeling slightly grumpy at having to fork out a fiver for one. But I needed a map, so wandered back, passing this glorious display of baklava.

There were quite a few bigger brands at the fair, but one I didn't mind buying from was Denhay's, as I've been buying their bacon for an age. And it was good to see Tracklements - I can remember buying their mustard 30 years ago when they were Urchfont Tracklements.

Weirdly, my find of the show was a rapeseed oil.

John and Tom are two brothers who have just started making oil at Love Farm in Suffolk. It's a beautiful oil, and the nuttiest rapeseed oil I've tasted. Their website doesn't seem to be up yet, but I told them to get on to Twitter and they have! Follow them at @love_farm. Good luck boys!

After three hours, I staggered off home, and unpacked my goodies, including three super puds from Burtree Puddings, a favourite from last year, and a jar of my beloved date and tamarind chutney from Anila. A great haul, and I'm only sorry that my post-election malaise meant I didn't last for longer.

Superb seafood safari

2010-04-21T10:21:00.000+01:00

The sky is clear, spring is in the air: what better than a trip up to Suffolk for a seafood safari, run by Polly of Food Safari. We all met up at the qauyside shop of Pinney's of Orford, to be greeted by Polly and a very tempting array of Suffolk goodies.

Orford is a beautiful town but for the first couple of hours, we viewed it from on board Peter's small fishing boat. The coast here is a complicated mixture of river, creeks and islands; both the Ore and the Alde flow past the town, so it's still a working port though not the sea port of the 12th century. We were heading down the Ore estuary, towards Havergate island.

Peter gave a running commentary about the landscape, then halted the boat to sort out the gill net.

A thoroughly sustainable method of fishing, this net catches fish of the right size by trapping them by the gills. Peter and his sidekick, the silent Gazza, manoeuvred the net into position across the flow of the river.

Then it was time to haul up the lobster pots: the first time they'd seen the surface since last autumn. Peter wasn't very hopeful about seeing any lobsters - it's been a chilly spring for them and they've been slow to wake up from their winter slumbers. But we were lucky...

Peter whisked this lobster upside down to show us that it was a female - it's all a matter of feathery undergarments. But this lady was too small to be a keeper, so she was returned to the deep. Unluckier was this big crab, who was destined for the plate.

We returned to the gill net and hauled in a few herrings, sparklingly fresh. Then it was back to the quayside, and we stopped to admire a load of line-caught cod, landed by an Irish boat. They were being packed off for sale at Ipswich. Our minivan arrived and we headed off to meet Bill Pinney, who's carrying on his family's tradition of rearing oysters and running the smokehouse.

Bill had been dredging for oysters and showed us the different kinds and sizes. His family also runs two fishing boats, and he has strong veiws about our fish stocks: there is plenty of cod out there, he says, and the big problem now is the quota that small fishing vessels are allowed. It seems we're looking after the big fishing enterprises but not the small sustainable ones. So it is okay to eat line-caught cod...especially if you can trace who caught it. Next, we had a look round the wonderfully scented smoke house.

The fish is smoked over whole oak logs, and hanging up here is salmon, trout, eel and mackeral. Yum. By now, I was ravenous. I was ready to eat oak logs if neccessary...but the minibus turned up and it was back to Orford again, to Bill's Butlery Orford Oysterage in the town square.

We were soon facing a fantastic platter of smoked goodies. The smoked prawns and eel were my favourites, and the mustard sauce was a perfect accompaniment. After the main course, there was a chance to try your hand at carving salmon and opening oysters: the two lads who'd come with their restuarant owning parents were clear winners here. Then the puds arrived: a superb sticky toffee sponge for me, and an equally good lemon sponge for others.

The lovely Tony and Susan, who'd ferried me from the station in the morning, very kindly offered to take me back, so there was a chance to pop back to Pinney's shop and stock up on smoked salmon, a lovely fish pate and some of that mustard sauce. All in all, a wonderful day with great company, and a real insight into the production of one of our finest British foods.

Many thanks to Polly, and to Tony and Susan.

In praise of Abel and Cole

2010-04-16T16:54:00.000+01:00

I arrived home the other night and as cast a glance behind the hedge to check on my Abel and Cole veggie box, which gets delivered during the day. This week, for the first time ever, there was nothing. No veggie box. No eggs. No woolly box with my cream in it. No loo rolls. Nothing. But the delivery had clearly been made - I found the invoice on my doormat. Some local toerag must have made off with my week's supply of green goodness. I rang Abel and Cole just to check when the delivery had been made...and explained to the lovely Lex what had happened. 'We'll refund your account,' he said. I protested: you musn't do that - it's not your fault that my box got nicked - we argued back and forth but Lex was insistant. So I have my money back. I call that absolutely amazing customer service. Thank you Lex and Abel and Cole!

Review: New Urban Farmer

2010-04-07T14:45:00.000+01:00

Celia Brooks Brown already has a favoured place on my cookery book shelves thanks to her excellent World Vegetarian Classics. Now her Times online column has sprouted into the handsome New Urban Farmer, which follows the gardening and eating year on her north London allotment. It's the latest in the burgeoning genre of veg-growing/cookery books, and while some may not like this hybrid, I think Brooks Brown has come up with one of the best.

The books starts conventionally - and sensibly - with the early spring and the excitement of the first sowings of the year. Brooks Brown's enthusiasm for the rhythms of allotment life is beautifully captured, both in her writing and the fine photographs by Jill Mead. Each seasonal section is full of advice on growing and harvesting, and for those who don't have the joy of an allotment, there are great tips about what can be grown in containers. A useful chart of what to sow and harvest follows each chapter.

Recipes can be the downfall of the gardening/cookery hybrid but not here: Brooks Brown is too good a cook. I'll be making pea and feta egg cups and the rhubarb and lentil curry as soon as I can, and the soy glazed runner beans with cashews may pursuade me to fall back in love with this over-abundant legume.

As a reasonably experienced veg grower I didn't find much that was startlingly new - until I read about the Mauritian idea of cooking courgette leaves. Brooks Brown tried it and loved it.

The one thing I missed was information about vegetable varieties - cucumber Burpless Tasty Green and Swiss chard Bright Lights get a name check, but that's about it. Nevertheless, this is a book I'll return to throughout the year, and it would make a fine gift for a hungry allotmenteer.

New Urban Farmer by Celia Brooks Brown

Quadrille £14.99

Dorset delight 3

2010-03-24T12:09:00.000Z

Last Monday we had a wonderful walk from Lulworth Cove, past Durdle Door then inland via one of Dorset's many caravan sites. Ever since arriving in the county, we'd been amazed at how nice people were, and we decided that these so-called caravan sites were actually re-education camps for people who weren't nice.

After our hike, we returned to the bay to soak in the sun and get our faces round the excellent Purbeck ice creams. This being a holiday, I had a serious chocolate with a scoop of clotted cream on top. J went for the Honeycombe Hash. Very very good.

Our roast on Sunday evening was a lovely chicken from Washingpool Farm - it did a fine job of furnishing us with two suppers, a lunchtime noodle salad and stock for a rissotto at the end of the week. Lamb wasn't on the menu, but we did admire this cutey in a field on the way into Lyme. The kerbside was awash with the first wild garlic leaves.

By midweek, we were running low on bread and on a visit to Weymouth we were thrilled to stumble on Aidan Chapman's Phoenix Bakery.

The yeasty smells in the shop were fantastic, and we picked up a warm loaf of sunflower seeds and spelt. Perfect for J who's not eating wheat at the moment. It really was a fantastic loaf, and stayed moist until it was all gobbled up. Aidan runs a bakery school - now that's a seriously good reason to return to Dorset.

The other brilliant bakers that I already knew about is Leakers, in Bridport, where Aidan used to work. We did visit it was were on our way home - my cider and cheese loaf got nibbled all the way back to Tottenham, and the apple cake was a natural with clotted cream.
All in all, we had a brilliant time. Food, weather and people all great, and I've fallen in love with Dorset. I hope I can return soon.

Dorset delight 2

2010-03-23T13:52:00.000Z

Whenever J and I go on holiday abroad, we always expect a cat to turn up. They know when they see a soft touch. But we hadn't expected to attract one in Dorset. Until Butt Head arrived in a record ten minutes. He came in each evening to lie by the fire.

Our first shop of the hols was at nearby Washingpool Farm Shop, which stocked a fabulous range of local produce, plus some brilliant seasonal treats like blood oranges. I nabbed some rhubarb to roast with the juice of an orange and sugar. We also bought some excellent sheep's cheese from the Wootton Dairy in next-door Somerset. Then we settled down to lunch at the excellent cafe - smoked mackeral salad for J and a cheese and spinach souffle for me. Tasty and just the thing after a long drive.

Our first whole day was gloriously sunny, and we ended up walking from Seatown, over Golden Cap, down to the beach for Charmouth and then inland to Lyme Regis. The views from the top of Golden Cap were amazing.

And here's the view the other way, looking over to Lyme and Charmouth.

We had a good nose round Lyme, and soon saw signs for a new cheeseshop. After clambering down to the Town Mill, we found it.

The Town Mill Cheesemonger has a fantastic array of cheeses, and specialises in West Country products.

We were on a bit of a sheeps' cheese binge, so we scooped up some Beenleigh Blue and a wonderful cheese from Northumberland whose name I've mislaid. It's a lovely shop and it's now on our list of 'must visits' at Lyme.

Lyme has lots of signs up warning you against fraternising with gulls, but I love the vandals. They just don't care, and why should they.

Dorset delight 1

2010-03-22T13:45:00.001Z

A week in Dorset is surely one of the best treats a girl could wish for - J and I had a superb week of walking and eating in one of the most beautiful parts of the country. Lulworth Cove, past Durdle Door and then inland was our Monday walk: this is the view from one of the roller coaster uphill stretches.

We hoped that one of the highlights of the week would be our visit to The Wild Garlic at Beaminster. Last year I watched Mat win Masterchef and loved his take on seafood and the wild larder, so I'd booked a table as soon as I'd secured our holiday cottage.

After three days of hearty walking, we arrived in the town sqaure to find The Wild Garlic beaming a warm welcome. Once inside, we settled down at our beautiful oak table and guzzled on the bread which arrived with hemp oil and wasabi peas.

Choosing what to eat wasn't too difficult although I was torn for a moment between the sardines and the smoked eel salad - but the wild garlic mayo with the sardines clinched it. J went with a butternut squash salad with mixed cheeses.

It looked beautiful, served with primrose flowers and different cresses. J got a dreamy look on her face and declared it wonderful.

My sardines came with sprigs of samphire. The combination of the fish, salty greens and mayonaisse was superb. The mayo was so good I could easily have eaten a whole bucket of it. So far, so very good: this was on track to be one of the best meals I've had in the past 18 months.

Next to turn up was an unexpected amuse bouche of lightly cured brill, capers and pea shoots - absolutely lovely, and set us up for the baked brill which we'd both ordered for our mains.

'Brill city,' said our waiter, placing an enourmous platter in front of each of us. The brill was cooked perfectly - a moist and melting flesh contrasted with an insanely tasty crispy skin and the drizzle of caper and lemon butter sauce. I never thought that brill skin would be one of my favourite things to eat, but it is now. J and I went quite silent as we munched our way through the fish. A superb dish. Did we have room for a dessert? You betcha.

J went for the chocolate tart with blood orange sorbet, and about halfway through, declared that it was one of the best puddings she's ever had. I'd gone for the citrus burnt cream - yes, it's a creme brulee but I liked the insistance on the vernacular.

It was wonderful, with the hint of citrus just holding at bay the unctiousness of the cream. By this point, we were well and truly bowled over by the meal. Not just by the individual courses but by the way the meal developed so that it was impossible to say which course we'd prefered. All in all, bloody fantastic food.

It has been a great evening - the only slight criticism we could make was that the waiting staff haven't yet quite developed those super sensitive antennae that tell them when a glass of wine is missing. But they were a very friendly and welcoming bunch. And it was lovely to see the restuarant full on a weekday evening. Mat wandered out as we were leaving and J grabbed a handshake and told him how much we'd enjoyed it.

Next time I'm watching Masterchef and groaning at the voice-overs, I'll remember to be grateful that it produced such a fine winner.

So if you're in Dorset - or even if you're not - The Wild Garlic is a wonderful place to eat with the seasons.

Lunch fail

2010-02-22T16:59:00.002Z

It's not often that I have a meal so stupidly cooked that I need to write about it, but last week's lunch at Davy's Wine Bar in west London was a monument to bad eating.
Neither C nor I wanted much to eat, and C warned me that the food wasn't great. I chose halloumi and couscous thinking that there wasn't much that could go wrong...a big mistake. Halloumi, that wonderful cheese from Cyprus, is meant to be cooked (unless you can get hold of the really fresh stuff). For me, the whole point of Halloumi is that wonderful salty, squeaky, hot and crisp sensation that you get when the cheese comes straight from the grill or the pan. Something like this...

Davy's doesn't do hot halloumi. There were some very pale griddle marks on one side of the cheese and none on the other. The result was a tepid hunk of pale tastelessness. The poor cheese sat on a bed of couscous to which no seasoning or lubrication had been added. So a plate that could have been quite tasty was utterly unattractive and really quite nasty to eat. What a complete bloody waste of ingrediants.

A taste of Hereford

2010-02-07T17:41:00.003Z

Off and out first thing yesterday to Hereford, where I lived for 18 months after uni. It's still one of my favourite places.

I haven't been to Hereford for sometime, and it was only when I was outside the cathedral that I realised that Dad was alive last time I was here, and I sent him a postcard. Yesterday was farmers' market day and the centre of town was buzzing. Sad to see though that Chad's, the department store, has fallen to the recession. It was a lovely, old fashioned shop. Now, of course, part of it is a pound store.

Lots of other shops have gone too, but the farmers' market seemed to be doing good business. In Hereford, it's only right to buy orchard fruit, and I bought some lucsious conference pears.

Next to the fruit lady were these cheery souls from the Pencombe Village Bakery. They haven't been open long, and they're based near Bromyard. Just been nosing at the website and discovered that they do a bread making course. Hmmm. One for the future.

The bread looked lovely, so I bagged a sourdough. I hope they have great success - and are at the market next time I'm back.

One fixture of this farmers' market is the lady who helps owls - normally featuring one of the birds in person.

This little chap was with her, keeping a beady eye on shoppers.

I was really disappointed on my last visit not to see the Handmade Scotch Egg company, perveyors of one of my favourite snacks. So I was delighted to see them in residence yesterday. They make heaven knows how many different varieties, most meaty but some veggie.

After much deliberation, I choose a classic, a scrumpy, a colonel (with beer mustard) and a vegetarian Worcester, made with cheese and Worcester sauce. I devoured the classic for lunch, and it's the only commercial scotch egg I've eaten that's as good as homemade. They do mail order, which is a tempting possiblity.

Next stop was halfway up Church Street: the excellent Mousetrap cheese shop. Inside, a family was selecting which cheeses to go in a wedding day cheese pillar - the cheeselover's alternative to the wedding cake. There was much munching and testing. I couldn't resist a hunk of Beenleigh Blue and a good slice of the shop's own cheese, Little Hereford.

The Little Hereford is a creamy cheese with an almost grassy finish - nice. Food shopping done, it was time to visit the cathedral. I love Hereford cathedral. It's not grand like Canterbury or beautiful like Ely or Durham or even a patron of modern art like Chichester. But it's small and interesting and full of enchanting things, like these piggies snuffling for acorns on the tomb of John Swinfield, complete with their Hereford cathedral jackets.

A couple of additions since my last visit hints that Hereford might, after all, be going down the Chichester route.

These wonderful windows, in the chantry off the lady chapel, are by Tom Denny and commemorate Herefordshire's own mystic, Thomas Traherne. There are four windows in all, glowing with colour and detail. There's more info about them here. It's worth visiting the cathedral for the windows alone, but there's another new thing that I liked very much.

This is the recently completed cover to the tomb of St Thomas of Hereford, who got excommunicated when he was bishop and went over to Rome to argue his case. He got back into the church, but died on the way home. After he was buried at the cathedral, miracles were reported, and in the 17th century his bones were used to ward of plague in the city. No record of how effective that was, but probably a good deal cheaper than Tamiflu.

On the front end of the shrine cover, angels are holding up the Mappa Mundi, the cathedral's most famous possesion.

I wandered back into town, dropping in to see jeweller Mike Gell, whose shop in East Street is another of my favourite Hereford places. Then, with a full rucksack and happy tum, I headed back to the station. I hope when I'm back that this lovely city is as thriving as it used to be.

Two soothing suppers

2010-02-04T20:14:00.001Z

I know that for some, the sprout is the work of the devil. Me, I love them. And as the evenings begin to lighten, I know they're not going to be around for a whole lot longer, so I bagged a few at the weekend. Last night I felt like some comfort food, so after a nose in the fridge, I came up with a Cheesey Sprout Squeak for supper.

First, select your brassicas: a few sprouts and some shredded spring greens was what I had to hand. For mash, I boiled some potatoes with chunks of swede. Then I pushed them through my trusty potato ricer and added a grating of nutmeg and a dollop of butter. While the roots were cooking, I grated a good handful of Keen's chedder. And put the sprouts on to boil, adding the spring greens when the sprouts were nearly done. Once they're drained, they joined the mash.

I was being really lazy with the cheese sauce - just a tub of single cream brought to the boil, taken off the heat and the cheese stirred in. Lazy but effective. A hard-boiled egg is another thing I love, and a good companion to squeak and cheese sauce.

The egg nestled into the squeak, ready for the cheesey topping. Over goes the sauce and into an oven, gas mark 5, for 20 minutes or so.

Then out of the oven for a soothing plateful.

I'd made more mash than I need on purpose: tonight's supper is a variation on Lindsey Bareham's matar aloo tikki from In Praise of the Potato, a wonderful book.

Add a couple of desert spoonfuls of plain flour to the mash and fork in to combine. In a frying pan, heat a little groundnut oil or ghee and add:

something alliumy - about half a shredded leek or a couple of chopped spring onions

110g frozen peas

2 tbs dessicated coconut

1/2 tsp chilli powder (more if you like it hot)

1/2 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp garum masala

1/2 tsp paprika

When this has cooked for around five minutes, take it off the heat and add the juice of a lemon and some chopped coriander leaves. Now you can go two ways: either add the pea mixture to the mash and mix to combine, or, more daringly, take the mash and shape it into an egg-shaped ball. Poke a hole into the ball and carefully spoon in the pea mix. I took the lazy route again, and just made my mash/pea mix into rissole shapes, then turned them in semolina to coat.

And now they're sitting downstairs, waiting to be fried very gently until they're golden brown. I'll be serving them with a caraway slaw and date and tamarind chutney. Winter wear for the stomach.

A splendid root pie

2010-01-31T10:28:00.000Z

A couple of weekends ago, I defrosted the freezer. At first, it was pure embarassment - huge chunks of ice fell from the sides and I needed copious amounts of Lakeland defrosting stuff to gently release the drawer that hasn't opened properly for months. But then it was pure joy as I put all the food back into baskets that now slid easily open and a top cabinet that seemed vast after I'd removed the iceberg inside. Attention turned to the bottom of the fridge where there's been a build-up of root veg. I loved the look of a Denis Cotter recipe for a Moroccan spiced root veg pie - this is my adaptation based on what was knocking around in the kitchen. It really is gorgeous.

Spiced root veg pie (adapted from Denis Cotter's Cafe Paridiso Cookbook)

400g root veg - I used two fat carrots, a parsnip and half a celeriac

200g peas

4 shallots

4 cloves garlic

2 tsp black mustard seeds (which I misread and ended up with 2 tbs in the pan - not a problem as I love mustard seeds)

The spice mix: 1 dried chilli, 6 cloves, 2 tsp coriander seeds, 1 star anise, all ground, plus 1/4 tsp cinnamon, several gratings of nutmeg, 1/2 tsp turmeric

150 ml tub single cream

1/2 tsp salt

zest of an orange

100g almonds, toasted and roughly chopped

1 egg yolk

filo pastry

100g melted butter

Chop your roots into small dice and boil them for a few minutes until they're just tender; add the peas and cook for another couple of minutes. Drain and put in them in a large bowl. Fry the shallots and garlic in a little groundnut oil. Add the mustard seeds, then a couple of minutes later, the other spices.

After a minute, add the cream, salt and zest and cook for another couple of minutes. Pour the spiced cream over the roots and mix in gently with a spoon.

When the mixture has cooled down, add the almonds and the egg yolk.

Now it's time to wrestle with the filo pastry. I couldn't find my usual Tottenham turkish brand, and ended up with a packet of frozed Jus-rol filo. The sheets of pastry were enormous and there wasn't a surface big enough to cope with them fully unfurled, so it was a bit of a juggling match. I used an old pie plate as a base but a flan tin or shallow cake tin would be just as good. Lay out a filo sheet on the plate and brush it with melted butter. Turn the tin by about 30 degrees and lay another sheet on top of the first. Brush with butter again. Continue adding and turning until you have an overlap of pastry that will enrobe your pie filling. Then pile the root mix onto the plate.

Then fold the overlapping pastry back over the roots, brushing with butter as each layer covers the pie. Filo is brittle so you need to work quickly, but Jus-rol isn't quite as thin as my usual brand, so the folding is less fraught.

Bake at gas mark 5 for around 30-40 mins - it's ready when the pastry is golden.

I followed Denis's advice and served the pie with couscous and a yoghurty-minty-cucumber sauce. The pie tastes superb: comfortingly rooty with warming spicey tones. The filling would make a lovely pasty filling, or a base for a veggy sheperd's pie. Or a side dish...

The pleasure of baking

2010-01-27T20:23:00.000Z

Last night the baking mood descended on me, and a recipe I've had my eye on for quite a while is Nigel Slater's chocolate and beetroot cake from Tender, his luscious ode to vegetables. I had the cooked beets (foil wrapped and roasted in the oven a couple of nights ago), I had the choccy once I'd nipped out to the corner shop, and everything else was lurking in the baking section of the cupboard or in the fridge. The full recipe is here, and it's in February's Delicious mag too.

I don't make cakes regularly so when the mood comes, I let it wash me along. The mood is part meditative and part furious concentration - the radio will be on but there will be times when I'm measuring that I'll blank out and miss if Annette has finally told Helen that it was Leon who put the bun in her oven...and then I'll have to listen to The Archers again on Sunday to find out. I need the mood to arrive because baking this kind of cake means there will be many bowls of different sizes perched all over the kitchen, filled with melted chocolate and butter and eggs and flour and beetroot and sugar - all of them needing to be washed later. When I'm in the baking mood I don't mind.

My first baking mood came when I was in my teens, and I spotted a recipe for Grantham ginger biscuits in one of my mother's cookery books. There were no pictures, and I was amazed by the perfect brown pillowy mounds that emerged from the oven, crisp and crunchy on the outside with slightly gooey innards. Baking is a bit of domestic magic. It's magic too how egg whites change from an unappetising clagginess to a whipped sensual cloud.

Out comes my favourite big metal spoon to fold everything together: this is where the meditative part of the mood comes in. With this cake, it takes a while to fold the choc/beet/butter/sugar/ mix into the flour and cocoa. And then the inner hooligan child clamours to lick the bowl.

Then there's another familiar component of the baking mood: anxiety. Will the cake mix actually fit into the baking tin? Or has the bloody author not really tested the recipe and will I be left with (a) horrid stinky bits on the bottom of the oven or (b) a bin bag with sad remnants of uncooked stickiness? (Yes, Nigella, I'm looking at you.) No worries with Nigel: it's a perfect fit.

His cooking times are perfect too. I left the cake in the tin until this morning, then took half the cake into work, where it was greeted with greedy anticipation. This is the culmination of the mood: bringing a gleam in the eye to the cake deprived. Guess the mystery ingrediant, I said. Sam got close with 'purple' but went off course with raspberry; Alex homed in on 'root vegetable' but then got side tracked with carrot. Celeriac, swede, turnip and squash all got a mention but beetroot raised many eyebrows. And soon the cake was gone.

Henri tweeted me in the morning to say she had a recipe for parsnip and walnut cake - that's for the next baking mood.

Red hot chilli

2010-01-25T17:22:00.000Z

Chilli is one of those dishes I've been cooking as long as I can remember; well, at least since student days in York, a hundred years ago. In those days, it was a fairly simple affair of meat, onions, tomatoes and chilli powder, although I do remember going through a caraway seed phase at one point. Newly inspired by my Pioneer Woman Cooks book, I made one at the weekend, although I departed from her recipe quite a bit. There's a bit of a nod to Mexico with the addition of some cocoa powder, and on a trip to the splendid Spice Shop (opposite Books for Cooks in west London) I stocked up on dried chipotle peppers, so I bunged a couple of those in as well. I was well pleased with the result: it's good and rich with a spicy kick.

My chilli

500g minced beef

1 chopped onion

half a diced red pepper

400g tin of chopped tomatoes

1/2 tsp oregano

1 tsp cumin powder

2 tsp chilli powder

1 tsp good cocoa powder

2 dried chipotle chillis

A good splash of chipotle and jalapeno chilli sauces

400g tins of black beans and red kidney beans

Fry off the onions then add the mince to brown. Add salt to taste. Stir in the tomatoes and pepper, then combine with all the spicy stuff. Simmer for an hour, then about 20 mins before serving, add the beans (which you've strained and washed of the gunky stuff in the tin).

I'm very fond of black beans and on Saturday I spotted a tin of them in the Carribean section of Tesco's - normally I soak the dried ones overnight but it was a lazy weekend.

I served up with some coleslaw and rice cooked off in some summer allotment tomato sauce from the freezer and a handful of chopped coriander. A great winter supper.

The wonders of Washington 2

2010-01-18T19:53:00.000Z

My tramp round Washington included a search for a bookshop - I had directions to a Borders but didn't find it. Then all of a sudden, I stumbled across it when I wasn't expecting it. The one cookery book I wanted to buy in the US was Ree Drummond's A Pioneer Woman Cooks. I love her website and her story of city girl meets cowboy, falls in love and learns to cook meaty treats for her man and kids on their ranch in Oklahoma. I could have bought it from Amazon, but I wanted the vicarous thrill of buying an all-American cookbook in the US. There it was, in all its glory, so I scooped it up thankfully and began a leisurely browse of the large cookery section. No James Beard, but I did get Mark Bittman's big tome - I think it was the chapter on veggies that closed the deal.

Some things about Washington that I loved:

- the coffee: almost universally good (or at least better than the UK), and DC will now forever be associated with the taste of gingerbread latte, thanks to the good offices of Starbucks on a freezing Sunday morning

- American plumbing. It looks old fashioned and wieldy but one WHOOSH! and the bath is full.

- the politeness. We're meant to be the polite types, but US courtesy seems genuinely meant. Not always the case here.

I've had a very lazy weekend, but did stir myself to whip up an American slaw, first made for President Obama's inaugeration dinner and now a firm favourite.

US Slaw

Equal quantities finely shredded white cabbage and grated carrot
Half quantity of finely diced red pepper
An equal mix of mayo (Hellmans is in the fridge) and greek yoghurt
Your favourite vinegar - I used passion fruit vinegar from Fresh and Wild
A handful of caraway seeds

Simply mix your veg and toss with caraway seeds. In a seperate bowl, mix the mayo, yoghurt and a slurp of fruit vinegar. Combine. Serve with whatever you like and stash the remains in the fridge for your lunchbox.

The wonders of Washington 1

2010-01-14T20:12:00.001Z

So there I am, sitting quietly in the office minding my own business when Alex says: Claire is running her social networking course in Washington next Monday - can you go and be her backstop? Hells teeth! I've never been to the US, my passport expired in July and I don't even have a suitcase capable of venturing outside Europe...sure I can go. Much scrabbling later (fast track passport: brilliant scheme that gives you a passport in four hours, online visa waiver, John Lewis sale half-price wheelie suitcase, pocket size guide to DC and Washington Post foodie guide) and I'm at Heathrow enduring the secondary security check that makes the flight an hour and a half late leaving...but no matter. On the plane I watch Julie and Julia (Eddie has recommended the Julia Child kitchen exhibit at the Smithsonian) and blag a veggie meal which isn't too bad. Then I'm on US soil for the first time, whizzing through immigration and out into the very cold Washington night. I stayed at the St Gregory hotel, and got a very friendly, typically American welcome.

To unwind and gather my thoughts I headed for the bar and carefully eyed the beer on offer. I've never had a good impression of American beer, almost certainly fuelled by the fact the Budweiser once tried to sue the original, and very good, Bud for copyright of the name, even though Czech Bud was being brewed when John Adams was in short pants. I ordered an Amstel but the lovely bartender asked if I'm sure I didn't want to try something American.

Yuengling beer was what she was on about - brewed in Pennsylvania. It's a golden malty beer, and after a couple of sips I was convinced. Every subsequant visit to the bar alerted the staff that a Yuengling was required.

Sunday was my one free day in Washington, so I set off early to get my bearings. After a few minutes heading south, I was at Washington circle, with a fine statue of the general who bested the English keeping watch.

Then the sightseeing proper began. I headed down to the Washington monument then across the park, past a few foraging woodpeckers, to the Vietnam wall and this statue commemorating the work of women during the Vietnam war.

Just south of the wall is the Lincoln memorial. This was what I most wanted to see in Washington and I approached, half expecting to be disappointed by the reality. But the reality far outshone any images I've seen of it. It's huge, and cleverly built so that as you climb the steps, you don't see the statue of Lincoln. Only when you reach the top do you see that extraordinary seated figure.

It is, in the proper sense of the word, awesome. Lincoln stares out to the Washington monument and beyond, to the Capitol. His hands are beautiful. I paused for a moment and read the words of the Gettysburg address, carved to the left of the statue. The US knows how to do municipal art that works.

Tramping back throught the park, I headed for the Museum of the American Indian, one of the Smithsonian's newest ventures.

The building is lovely - all curves and mellow sandiness. It's a tough history and rather disconcerting to follow, as the tribes all have their own history to tell and that's what the museum does, rather than relate the more usual single narrative. The Washington Post guide had said that this was the place to have lunch: the cafe has several different counters all serving the food of different groups of tribes. I settled on the Great Plains counter and chose a chipotle chicken taco with guacamole. The chicken was good but the fried cornbread taco was outstanding.One thing I must learn how to make.

On to the Museum of American History, where I stopped off the look at Julia Child's kitchen.

There were videos of Julia's tv show and by now, I knew her wonderfully plummy accent from the film. The kitchen was warm and welcoming and packed with a lifetime's love of cooking. Outside the museum I paused to buy one of my most useful Washington purchases: a pair of earmuffs. Clamped to my lugs, they saw off the worst of the biting chilly wind. Then on to the National Gallery and the American galleries, where I fell in love with Andrew Wyeth's Wind from the Sea. Sadly, the shop had no reproduction of it. So this will have to do:

I must have walked about eight hours on Sunday, and supper was a rather indifferent bowl of clam chowder back at the hotel.

Lovely bartender: You must try the clam chowder!

Me: Where are the clams from?

LB: Let me check...(after much muttering) They're from our catering company.

Not the provenance I was hoping for.

After watching Claire do a fine day's teaching on Monday, she, Russ, her Penn friend, and I headed for the Tabard Inn, suggested by Katie who was a delegate on the course. Turned out to be a bloody brilliant suggestion.

The Tabard is a series of comfy old fashioned rooms, and Russ introduced me to another great beer: Bell's Winter White, a stonking wheat beer. My respect for American beers steeply increased. After half an hour, we got a table for supper, and very fine it was. I had forgotten my camera so I can't show you the lovely Asian seared salmon I scoffed, but it was damn good.

Tuesday was spent training, then it was back home on the red-eye and though I loved America, it was grand to be home to more snow and British accents. Mouse gave me a terrific welcome then settled down on the sofa to keep a careful eye on me to make sure I didn't go anywhere in the near future.

There's more to tell about the trip - but that can wait til tomorrow.

Happy new year!

2010-01-08T20:03:00.000Z

Happy new year to all readers and visitors, and may 2010 bring you every food delight that you wish for...my new year kicked off in traditional style with a lovely visit to best mate J in the depths of a snowy Buckinghamshire countryside. Our new year's eve feast began with a starter of smoked scallops and chirizo on rye-coriander toast: but we'd scoffed it before I had a chance to get the camera out. Next up, and in time to be photoed, was a fennel risotto with parmesan shavings. A good winter warmer. And to finish, fresh pineapple roasted in a spiced butterscotch sauce (a Denis Cotter recipe). I didn't have time to make a coconut ice cream to go with it, but J whipped down to the corner shop and grabbed some fine vanilla ice to complement the hot fruit.

While we were polishing that off, Daisy and Freida were lounging on the sofa in their basket, keeping snug.

My christmas began with a visit to Ely - the farmers market was open on the day before Christmas Eve so I couldn't resist a return. Hard to believe that this was the first snowfall of the big freeze.

The cathedral was all set for the festive season with a fabulous tree.

And just as I'd hoped, there at the market was the lovely Norfolk potter who has furnished me with some great dishes on my last visit. I've lost her card, and don't want to risk getting her name wrong, so full details will have to wait til I find which book her card is marking.

I'd hoped she'd be there so that I could buy J's smaller present - and I got a lovely pottery collander for myself.

J's big present to me was a beautiful tagine: it now has pride of place in my kitchen and I'm planning some yummy Morracan stuff to cook in the coming months. But at the moment I'm all of a slather because I've been asked by work to go to Washington DC for a couple of days to help out on some training. America! I've never been before, and ice permitting, I fly out tomorrow afternoon. I hope to visit the Lincoln Memorial, the cafe at the Native American museum, get to grips with American eggs and hook up with Eddie from Obama Fooderama. Meanwhile: keep warm!

Slow food and food for snow

2009-12-21T18:45:00.002Z

On a very chilly Saturday morning, I headed down to the South Bank for the Slow Food Festival: yes it was cold, but it was one of those crystal clear winter days that meant a stroll over the footbridge from Embankment was a must.

I arrived about noon, but the stalls were battling the cold and many were still setting up. I had a wander round before settling down to shopping. These cheery guys were at the Buta Kitchen stall, selling preserves and jam from Azerbaijan. Just south of Georgia, it's a region with a proud culinary heritage, and the Buta Kitchen is part of the Buta Festival that's on from now until March. I bought a jar of white cherry preserve - tiny whole cherries glistening in a sugary suspension. I hope the guys have great success.

Neal's Yard Dairy were there, and I couldn't resist getting a hunk of Stickeleon cheese - it tastes how Stilton used to.

I was pleased to see the very nice lady from Casa de l'Oli was there: last year I bought a bottle of lime infused olive oil from here. This year I loved the orange scented oil. It's a tiny family company, run from Catalonia, where the olives grow, and Suffolk.

There was a very unhappy soul behind the Shell Seekers stall - her gas hadn't turned up so she couldn't cook, and she was worried that her ice hadn't arrived either. Surely you don't need that today, I said - oh yes, she said, she had to have it to comply with health and safety regs. Oh dear. I bagged a jar of potted shrimp - cooked last night, said the unhappy soul. I was sorry not to see Oliver's perry at the festival - I hope he'll be back for the next one.

By now, I was getting very cold, so I headed up to Covent Garden, and fell into Waterstone's. Dan over at Essex Eating has been full of praise for the Eagle Cookbook, and there it was. After reading the recipe for smoked haddock with horseradish mash, I felt like eating the book. I bought it instead, and home again, put some black beans on to soak for the Eagle's Black Bean Soup. Just as well really, as I was greeted by a snow storm when I emerged from Tottenham Hale station this evening.

Here's my lemon verbena plant, just outside the kitchen door.

And here's Mouse, demanding to know what all the white cold stuff is.

So now the soup is on the simmer, and I'm set for warming supper.

Black Bean Soup (adapted from the Eagle Cookbook)

250g black beans, soaked overnight

1l veggie stock (I used Marigold)

4 small red onions

2 colves garlic

2 sticks of celery

1 tsp chilli flakes (or a whole red chilli)

2 heaped tsp cumin seeds

400g tin of chopped tomatoes

a bunch of coriander

a gloop of creme freche or sour cream

Drain the black beans from its soaking liquid, cover with fresh water, bring to the boil. Then drain the beans again and add stock. Return the beans to a gentle simmer.

While the beans are doing their thing, sweat the onions, garlic, chilli and celery. When the veg are transparent, add the cumin seeds and cook gently for a few minutes. Add the tomatoes and the coriander and cook gently for about 20 mins. Then tip the veg mixture into the beans and the stock and let it bubble gently for at least half an hour. Check the seasoning: I added salt and a pinch of sugar.

What you do now depends on how you like your soup's texture: I blitzed a quarter of the soup in the blender then added it back to the unblended liquor. Simmer gently to make sure all the beans are soft.

Serve with a dollop of creme freche or sour cream and a slice of the loaf of your choice.

A black beauty. Thank you Dan for a great recommendation.

A winter warmer

2009-12-17T18:59:00.001Z

There must be something in the air...as the snow fell on Wednesday, I felt an overwhelming urge to make macaroni cheese. And today Fiona, over at The Cheeselover, (she's author of the very delicious book The Cheese Course) has been blogging and twittering about this fantastic comfort blanket of a supper. Fiona's running a competition and this doesn't quite count as an entry, so I'll have to return to it before mid-Jan.

My recipe, which was based on my mum's (which undoubtedly came from Good Housekeeping), underwent a spring clean last year after I'd leafed through Angela Nilsen's excellent Ultimate Recipe Book.

Angela's excellent version has influenced mine in a few ways - make the bechemal sauce a bit slack so that once the macaroni goes in, the whole thing doesn't seize up; use a cheese mix of half chedder and half gruyere to ensure maximum cheesiness;and cheesy crumbs! Angela likes a tomato topping and so do I: not to everyone's taste, especially those to whom tomatoes are the devil's work.

I discovered I had no chedder, so my cheese was a third Lancashire and two thirds Gruyere. The final dish goes into an oven for around 20 mins, then under the grill to brown off the crumbs. Last night I was starving so didn't wait for the full toasting of the crumbs.

But it went down the hatch pretty damn quick. Yum. A perfect antidote to chilly nights and snowy blizzards.

Bathroom blues

2009-12-14T19:33:00.004Z

Apologies for the much-longer than anticipated break in transmission which was caused by (a) BT mucking up my land line and losing broadband for a while (b) being away from London for work and most eventfully (c) the return of Brian and his merry gang of Vassily and Min Yang for the installation of my new bathroom. I've been here in Tottenham for over nine years and the one room I've done nothing to is my bathroom. It was a monument to mank. A horrible yellowish bathroom suite, including a much-loathed corner bath as there was no room for what I like to think of as a proper bath. No shower. Peeling paintwork. A tongue and groove panelling which made tiling an impossibility. But when Brian took a look, he had a solution: knock down a wall and build a new one. After several gulps and examining the bank balance, I decided to go for it.

Here's Brian in the remains of the room - after we'd discovered that the old wall was the Victorian brick. A heavy layer of dust descended on the house and the study where the pc is was off limits for nearly a fortnight.

But it was such a relief to see the old bath languishing outside, waiting for its graveyard.

Bake for builders is my motto, and during their time here, I treated the team to a pecan and date loaf and banana blondies, which went down a storm. A reveal shot is now in order, so here's the old bathroom...
Yuk yuk...and here's my new one:

Slate tiles on the walls and floor (Brian insisted on a tiled floor), and a couple of orchids to complete the look. Brian, Vassily and Min Yang did a fantastic job - thank you. And while they were at it, I decided to get a radiator for the landing, which Mouse has claimed as her own. More cooking, reviewing and general food chat is now back on the agenda - I hope you'll stick around.

Cooking heaven with Anila

2009-10-28T18:42:00.009Z

Today was the day for my vegetarian thali cookery course with Anila - I'd met her at the Real Food festival earlier this year, and swooped on her marvellous shredded mango chutney. I've never been without a jar of since. She'd mentioned that she ran cookery courses, and I signed up over the summer. She runs her courses from her home in Walton on Thames in a big and airy kitchen overlooking her garden and behind it, her allotment. My fellow course member was John - a lovely gent who claimed he wasn't a good cook because 'I only cook what I like to eat', but soon proved he was a demon in the kitchen.
First, Anila took us through all the pulses, including one I've never cooked with: toover dal, or skinned and split pigeon peas. They're the yellow ones with the shiny appearance. With these, she was going to make the dal - often served at weddings in the state of Gujarat. Many Gujaratis, including Anila, eshew onions and garlic, and instead use asafoetida (or hing) as a key flavouring. Asafoetida pongs like hell in its raw state, but mellows to add a tang when it's cooked.

The dal went into one of Anila's many pressure cookers - this one is from India and shrieks horribly every five minutes or so, like something out of Hogwarts.

I'd spotted okra in the vegetable line-up: very exciting because shame to say, I've never eaten it before because of its slimy reputation. Ha! said Anila - it only gets slimy if it gets wet. So after a quick wash, John and I carefully dried each okra before chopping them up.

Into the pan with some oil, and Anila added fenugreek seeds, hing and the okra. Then more spices and it was done.

Next up was a cauliflower curry with peas. But first, John and I snapped the stalks off green chillis and Anila peeled ginger before whipping out her Moulinex mini chopper. She apologised for the taped-up bowl but John and I both admired this bit of kit, and then discovered that we owned the same small wet and dry grinder which we loved but thought too small. This somehow merged into talk about Masterchef: The Professionals, which we'd all followed with varying degrees of delight and horror. I think this is called a meeting of minds - or maybe a meeting of stomachs.

John said that his wife would never believe that he was cooking cauliflower, so Anila and I grabbed cameras to provide photographic evidence.

Cumin is a key spice here, and the smell was fantastic. While John and I paused for a minute, Anila used one of her curry sauces to whip up a saag paneer.

Then it was time for John and I to get busy with an aubergine and potato curry. Then Anila got us chopping for a kind of Indian slaw - sambaro, or carrot, cabbage and chilli stir fry. Talk returned to Masterchef and the guys who didn't know what 'julienne' was. John's julienned carrots were pretty darned good.

Anila stir-fried the cabbage and carrot with asatofoeda, mustard seeds and turmeric - another fantastic smell whafted through the kitchen.

John's special request for the day had been Anila's samosas. He's a devotee, having sampled them several times at farmers markets. John mashed the potatoes while I scrapped them into a bowl; then Anila added peas, carrots and sweetcorn and John got down to bashing the filling into shape.

While that was happening, Anila whipped up one of the taste sensations of the day: a cucumber and banana raita.

This is a mix of greek yoghurt, peeled and de-seeded cucumber, chopped banana, a little chopped green chilli, salt and a finishing touch of mustard seeds fried off in oil. Cooling and heavenly. Before John and I got on with the samosas, Anila started on the dessert - halva. It begins with an enormous wodge of ghee (or unsalted butter) - my eyebrows shot up at the amount. It's pudding! said Anila, and I was struck by the frugality of the savoury dishes and the luxuriousness of the pud. Semolina is added to the melted butter, and as Anila stirred, it underwent amazing changes in consistency, from stiff to runny. Then it was time to add the milk and water. Anila took it over to the window for the explosive addition...

...then it was back to the stove for another alchemical evolution as the sugar went in. The mix became soft then stiff again, and a final cinnamon/cardomom spice combination finished the dish. Back to those samosas.

Very wisely, before entrusting us to the samosa pastry, Anila wanted John and I to practise our folding on paper. John was brilliant and got it first time. I was abjectly awful, getting my angles hopelessly wrong until Anila did a bit of hand holding. John stormed away, turning out some fantastic little parcels.

Eventually, we had a plate of respectable samosas - just don't look too carefully at mine.

Anila got out the deep fat fryer and popped them in to cook. Finally, it was time to make chappatis. A glug of oil is added to wholewheat flour, then in goes hot water and it's time to knead the mix. Then the dough is measured into fist-sized balls, and it's out with the rolling pins.

John and I both found this tricky but Anila, who's been rolling chapatti since she was seven, is a roti genius. The perfect circle!

John and I both got rolled our chapattis too thinly, so they didn't quite puff up like Anilas - but as she said, practise makes perfect.

Finally, after a meditative pause, it was time to thali up. We'd cooked ten dishes in five hours, and the final thali looked superb.

One dish which Anila whipped up that I haven't mentioned is black-eyed peas in her own curry sauce - fantastic. My own favourites were the cauliflower curry, the black-eyed peas, the raita, the okra, the samosas and the halva...but it was all lovely, and a feast for the senses. I didn't have room to sample the cabbage stir fry until I got home (Anila loaded us up with doggy bags and boxes) but that's a winner too.

We certainly didn't miss onions and garlic in the food, and it's a very interesting experience to be without an ingredient that's so important in European food. A good day? You bet. A very friendly atmosphere, an uplifting learning curve with a great teacher, and a fellow foodie found in John. He's promised to sample purple sprouting broccoli if I try his favourite, steak tartare.

I returned home with some Anila pickles, chutney and curry sauces and new knowledge of Gujarati vegetarain cuisine, plus a goody bag that includes a new spice box with spices and all the recipes of the day. Thank you, Anila and John, for a memorable feast.

Apples galore

2009-10-24T15:22:00.005+01:00

Off into a grey and wet day for my jaunt to Chelmsford and Lathcoats Farm, thanks to a seasonal tweet from essexgourmet. Getting there was surprisingly easy, and as soon as I'd arrived at Chelmsford station, the right bus turned up to take me through Galleywood estate with its fabulously bird-named streets (Peregrine Drive, Firecrest Walk etc) and drop me just opposite the farm. Lathcoats grows over 40 varieties of apple (as well as other fruit and veg) and most of them were available to taste in the busy tasting shed. There were baskets and baskets of apples, with plates of chedder morsels to scoff in between fruit.

As soon as I paused by a basket, a knife wielder appeared to shear off a slice for me to taste. I had a long chat with one of the farm's owners, who told me about apple picking for his grandad and his garden apple tree onto which he's grafted seven varieties.

One of the apples I most wanted to taste was D'Arcy Spice, an 18th century Essex variety.

It was lovely - almost sparkling with yes, a rich spiced flavour. My apple advisor pointed me to Topaz. I was a bit snooty about this one, as it's modern and not British - but he was right.

The flavour was outstanding - almost sherbety - and the more I ate, the better it got.

Next up was Ashmead's Kernel, first recorded in 1700, and it's another lovely spicy apple. Next to it was Temptation, a french variety from a Delicious cross, but it tasted bland in comparison to the others.

Kidd's Orange, a New Zealand variety, is a Cox/Delicious cross, and was much better, with an almost jammy finish. I must have tasted around 20 varieties, and I was bowled over by the differences in taste. Truly a wonderful fruit. By now, I was appled out, so I bought some D'Arcy Spice apples and wandered over the yard to admire some of the farm's veg, stacked outside the farm shop.

Beautiful pumpkins and very painterly cauliflowers.

There was a scrum around a small tent on the other side of the yard, so I gently elbowed my way in.

There were a couple of tables with recipe leaflets and the food made from the recipes. This apple cake was particularly good.

On the other side of the tent, I joined the queue for Lathcoates single variety apple juice - make mine a bottle of Topaz. The farm had invited several of its farm shop suppliers to have a stall, including Cratfield Beef. After guzzling a couple of roast beef samples, I bagged a small joint of silverside.

I had a long chicken chat with the father and son team from Essex Birds - their rather wonderful slogan is 'chicken raised free as a bird'. They supply the farm shop with poultry, and are now rearing their big chickens for Christmas. I promised to return to the shop to see if the taste is as good as my beloved Wickham Manor Farm chooks.

I headed for the farm shop, which has a very good selection of fruit, veg, bread, preserves and dairy produce. Yet more apples in the specially cooled fruit and veg room. There were notices up explaining that one day this June, the heavens opened and all the orchards were pelleted with hail for an hour. Hence some of the apples are slightly stippled. I bought some bread and cheese, then headed out to meet a few of the animals.

This pygmy goat was on the lookout for stray food...

...but the kune kune pig was gently snoozing under a much-munched apple tree.

It was a great trip, and the farm was bustling with families, enjoying the apples, riding donkeys or getting a bite from the farm cafe. I'll certainly return. It's the kind of place that makes me feel very good about British food.

Apple day

2009-10-20T12:48:00.002+01:00

A tweet from Essex Gourmet has alerted me to apple day at Lathcoats Farm in Essex this Saturday. Lathcoats is a fruit farm, and their website has a magnificent list of the 40 varieties grown there, including Adam's Pearmain from Hereford and Essex native D'Arcy Spice, which I've never heard of, let alone tasted.

The oldest apples on the list are Ashmead's Kernel (1700), Ribston Pippin (1707) and Blenheim Orange (1740). Apparently all the varieties will be there to be tasted: a very juicy prospect. The only potential pitfall to my plan to get there was yet another shutdown of the Victoria Line this weekend. But hurrah! I can nip down to Liverpool Street by overland train and get to Chelmsford from there.

My apple tree finished fruiting at the end of August, so I think I'm going to have an apple cooking orgy over the weekend...

Squash alert

2009-10-15T19:50:00.008+01:00

I have a serious squash infestation. They've been sneaking in via my veggie box, and three more came in from the allotment. They are now huddling together in the corner of the kitchen, muttering to each other, so it's time to pay them some attention. This is such a beautiful and patient veg: they keep for ages for use through autumn and into winter.

For supper, one baby will get the cheese and cream treatment, which I think I first saw on an early River Cottage programme, and then the wonderful Debbie of Hidden Valley Pigs served it up for lunch during a memorable piggy weekend of pork processing and fish smoking. Scoop out the seeds from your squash, reserving the top to form a lid, then fill the cavity with cheese and cream. I've used Parmesan to pack flavour into this small squash.

The oven is at gas mark 6, and it goes in for around 45 mins. And another three squash are de-seeded, seasoned and sloshed with a little olive oil. I'll deal with the roasted flesh at the weekend.
The finished cheesy squash was really lovely, and I forgot to take a photo of it until I'd scooped it clean.

All food entering the house has to pass the Mouse test.

Damsons, cats, more soya milk and a deeply rich tomato sauce

2009-10-11T14:17:00.007+01:00

Part two of my So Good soya milk tasting took part today, when I collared my lovely next-door neighbours, Tom and Megan, to blind taste two smoothies: one cow's milk and one So Good milk. It's my standard Sunday morning mixture of banana, honey and milk whizzed together, with the addition of the flesh of a mango I bought last week at Shepherd's Bush market. Here we have Tom swigging down glass B...

...while Megan samples glass A. They liked both smoothies, although they thought glass A, the soya version, was sweeter. Now that I've used So Good, I could tell which was which just by smelling them. In the end, and before I revealed which was which, Tom preferred the soya while Megan liked the cow's milk best. I much preferred the cow's milk...but then, I don't have that sweet a tooth and a smidgen of bias is creeping in. But clearly, So Good did work well in this experiment, and Tom happily finished off the soya smoothie.

After the romanesco cheese debacle, I'd mentioned my concern about the sweetness to Emma at Wild Card PR agency - she replied: 'In answer to your question re. why it is so sweet, all soya milks tend to be sweetened to improve the taste and make more milk like (soya beans aren’t naturally sweet). Some soya milks use fruit juice to sweeten the taste – So Good uses sucrose and vanilla flavouring. So Good held extensive consumer research to investigate the taste preferences of both soya and non soya milk drinkers. They found that the new recipe was most popular with both sets of consumer groups and was more highly favoured compared to the old recipe and its biggest competitor for creaminess, smoothness, thickness and taste.' Hmmm - maybe many of today's consumers have grown up with much more processed and therefore sweetened food than when I was a lass.
Yesterday, I spent a lovely day in the Bucks countryside with J, scrumping damsons which I cooked down and pureed to go with a fantastic lunch dessert of rice pud and a new find of J's - Tesco's Finest hazelnut yoghurt. Yummylicious. One of the many joys of visiting J is spending time with Daisy, here resting with a monkey...

...and Freida, caught here on patrol, trying to find out why J and I were laughing so much at poor Daisy.

The main cooking today has been using up the final good-sized harvest of tomatoes from the allotment and the garden. Q and I are now in digging mode, getting ready to plant onions and garlic, and clearing the ground of bean and tomato plants.
Nigel Slater had a recipe for green and red tomato chutney in last Saturday's Observer, and after much rummaging in the recycling bin I dug it out. Nigel's version is here, but I didn't have quite the weight of tomatoes - about 100g short - so I added some celery. I didn't have enough raisins either, but I discoverd some sticky prunes lurking in a cupboard.

In went the green toms, onions, raisins, prunes, sugar, salt, vinegar and a chilli from the garden. It bubbled away happily for half an hour before I added the red toms.

After a total of an hour's cooking, it looked a little bit liquid and not very jammy. And I don't think I cut the big toms into small enough chunks. Still, the flavour was fantastic, so I decided to pass the mixture through a sieve and come up with a sauce. It tastes lovely: richly sour and sweet and perfect, I reckon, for adding to some porky sausages or a jacket spud on a cold winter's day. Quite an autumnal jarful.
The sky has now turned grey so Mouse has settled into her basket while I type away.

Sag aloo

2009-10-08T20:01:00.008+01:00

There was a bag of spinach in my veg box this week: normally I'm a spinach purist, cooking it down and adding a dusting of nutmeg and some butter. But I'd got some left-over egg and tomato curry, lemon rice and coconut chutney, so I had a hunt among the bookshelves for ideas. Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey came up trumps with a recipe from Bangladesh. I've adapted it a bit, partly because my spinach was definitely the grown-up kind that needed a brief cook before being added to the dish. The mustard notes are very Bengali.

Sag aloo (based on a Rick Stein recipe from Far Eastern Odyssey)

A good glug of mustard oil, or any light oil you have to hand

2 tsp black mustard seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

a knob of ginger, grated

1 green chilli, chopped

1/2 tsp turmeric

1 dried Kashmiri chilli

5 floury potatoes, cut into small chunks

1 leek, finely chopped

1 bag of spinach - or two good handfuls

1/2 tsp garam masala

If your spinach is mature, wash it then cook it briefly in only the remains of the washing water. Remove from the heat as soon as it's wilted down. Add the glug of mustard to a pan, then add the mustard seeds when it's smoking. Clamp on a lid to avoid the risk of being pelted with popping seeds. When the popping has stopped, add the cumin seeds a cook for a minute. Then add the garlic, ginger and chopped green chilli and cook for two minutes. Now add the turmeric and the Kashmiri chilli, followed by the potato chunks. Add about half a wine glass full of water - you don't want much - and a teaspoon full of salt.
Cook gently for around 15 minutes, shaking the pan every now and again to stop the potatoes sticking. Add a bit more water if you need to. Add the chopped leek, and when the pots are nicely soft, add the spinach and heat it through.

Turn off the heat, add the garam masala and gently stir it in.

This turned out very well, and provided a great lunchbox meal too.

Taste on trial: So Good soya drink

2009-10-05T21:00:00.003+01:00

Last week, I got an email from Emma at Wild Card PR agency, asking if I'd like to try some So Good soya drink, as they're about to relaunch their range. Sure, I replied, if you're happy with some honest comments. No problem, said Emma, and she sent round two 1l packs of the milk in a dinky insulated bag. Included were some recipes and a fact sheet about the product. I'd asked Emma why people bought this stuff: mainly for health reasons, she said - the drink is lactose free and has no dairy ingredients but has plenty of added vitamins and nutrients.

Mouse took care of border control. I've often seen soya milk in the chiller cabinet, and I've never been tempted to buy it. My normal milk is organic unhomogenised full milk, delivered twice a week, so I wasn't sure whether to treat So Good as a milk substitute or an entirely new food substance. In the end, I decided to try to do both. So this is the first of several reports.

One of the recipes Emma sent was for goat's cheese and courgette cannelloni, so I decided to follow the cheese route as I'd had a beautiful Romenesco in my veg box. I stopped off at the International Cheese Centre at Liverpool Street Station and bought a hunk of hard sheep's cheese so that I could create a dish for those averse to cow's milk.

The Romensco cooked in boiling water for five minutes - it's a wonderful substitute for cauliflower as it stays a bit crisper. As with cauliflower cheese, I made a bechemel sauce using some of the veg cooking water as liquid. Then it was time to add some soya milk to the sauce...and as soon as I did, I could smell sweetness. It wasn't the sweetness of cow's milk but a much deeper, almost condensed milk caramel aroma. I was worried. And a quick taste of the sauce deepened my concern: the sugaryness was almost cloying. Ploughing on, I added a teaspoon of grain mustard and the cheese. The sweetness remained. I know that ewe's cheese has a sweetness of its own, but the soya was drowning that out.

After a quick blast in the oven, the dish was ready to eat. Oh dear. That sweetness was still very strong, and remained as a lingering after-taste. The Romanesco beneath was lovely, so I ended up forking out the florets and scraping off the sauce.

Hmmmm. Back to check the side of the pack. Sugar is the third listed ingredient (2.8g sugar per 100ml), followed by maltodextrin which is a starch sugar. Maltodextrin (if I understand right) can vary in sugaryness, so maybe the So Good folks have gone for a high sugar version?

My final verdict is that this milk is not usable in a savoury dish. The sweetness is really overwhelming and hangs along around long enough to drown out any other flavour.

I'll press on this week with some sweet things, but so far, I'm not loving it.

Heirloom recipe 3: Anglesey eggs

2009-10-02T17:18:00.006+01:00

This is one of my favourite autumn and winter warmers, discovered in Jane Grigson's English Food, which I must have bought shortly after leaving university in the very late 70s. But it's not English, it's Welsh: Wyau Ynys Mon, or Anglesey eggs. Ynys Mon used to be known as mam Cymru, mother of Wales, such was the quantity of grain grown on the island. The dish is a deeply comforting mixture of leeks, potatoes, eggs and cheese sauce, so it's nice and frugal too. Leeks are now turning up in my veggie box and the nip in the air means it's time for the first Anglesey eggs of the season.

Wyau Ynys Mon - quantities here are for four people (what follows is half these quantities)

adapted from a Jane Grigson recipe

1 and a half lb potatoes

6 medium leeks

3oz butter

1 tbs plain flour

1/2 pint hot milk

4oz strong cheese - this time, I used Lincolnshire Poacher and Wrekin White

1 tsp whole grain mustard

8 shelled hard-boiled eggs

Boil the potatoes then mash them, or better still, pass them through a ricer. Chop the leeks finely, give them a quick wash then cook them very slowly with 1oz of the butter. Take off the heat when the crunch has gone.

While the veggies are cooking, make a white sauce. Let this simmer slowly for at least 10 mins, adding the mustard once the sauce has come together and thickened.

While the sauce is doing its thing, get the eggs on to boil. Mix together the leeks and the mash and add the remaining butter. I bunged in the remains of a bottle of pouring cream that was lurking in the fridge. Check the seasoning.

When the eggs are done and shelled, halve them and nestle them into the leeky potato mixture. Take the sauce off the heat and add 3oz of the cheese. Stir thoughtfully to amalgamate. Then pour the cheese sauce over the eggs and pop into an oven at gas mark 6 until golden brown - around 20 mins.

I normally serve this on its own, but a salad of leaves and toms would be great too.

My parents lived on Anglesey for many years - here's my dad on Newborough beach over Christmas in 2005, still active at 89. Dad died last year: still missed.

Buried treasure for next year

2009-10-01T10:35:00.012+01:00

'Tis the season of mists, mellow fruitfulness and seed catalogues...Marshall's arrived yesterday, Plants of Distinction is on its way and on Monday, Thompson and Morgan emailed me to say that next year's seed potatoes are now available. T&M have served me well this year, from the heavenly Highland Burgundy Red potatoes to tomato Rosada to the mini patio greenhouse, so I didn't need much encouragement to buy seed potatoes from them for next year. I don't know why they're not offering the heritage collection again, and Skerry Blue has disappeared from the list. But dear old Highland Burgundy is there, and it was first onto my order. The yield isn't big, but it's one of the tastiest and most beautiful potatoes I know.I've chosen Red Duke of York as a first early, along with Sharpe's Express, which I seem to remember reading somewhere (Alan Romain's potato book??) has a fantastic flavour. International Kidney (aka Jersey Royal, but you're not allowed to call it that unless you're actually growing it in Jersey) is my second early, to be followed by Blue Danube - another purple stunner, and the knobbly and delicious Pink Fir Apple.
The most intriguing potato on the list was a new introduction: Vitelotte. It's another coloured beauty. The pic below is from the T&M site...
T&M's blurb says: 'Vitelotte (aka Negresse and Truffe de Chine) is our own registered clone of this old French variety, date unknown but probably early 1800s from Peru or Bolivia. An earlier maturing potato and with slightly larger tubers than Congo (which was phenomenally popular as a minituber last season). Potato Vitelotte has the same rich inky purple-black skin and flesh of Congo, rich in anthocyanin, and similarly with all coloured fleshed varieties they retain their colour most prominently if steamed in minimal water and not boiled. Makes visually stunning mash, chips, crisps, jackets and roasties.'
My guess is that like other coloureds, it'll fall apart if you don't watch it carefully when boiling. Does anyone actually steam potatoes? It's an idea I've only ever seen in seed catalogues which translates as: Look, we think this is a great potato but it's a bugger to cook and if you turn your back it will suddenly look like an exploded pillow so DON'T BLAME US. Anyway, how could I resist? So Vitelotte is on the order form.

Heirloom recipe 2: kedgeree

2009-09-30T16:55:00.005+01:00

The smoked haddock came out fighting last night, ready to be turned into my mum's kedgeree: a favourite supper dish. Almost all the recipes for kedgeree I've ever read are much more curry-ish than my mum's - my guess is that her recipe came from her trusty Good Housekeeping, circa 1960 and therefore probably written in a relatively spice-free era. Certainly she never put even a pinch of curry powder in it. So it's not your normal kedgeree - but I love it.
First, poach the haddock in milk, with a knob of butter, a sliced onion, a couple of bay leaves and a handful of black peppercorns. Once the fish is done, haul it out and strain the milk.
Put the rice on to boil with the milk, and top up with water. While that's simmering, flake the fish, chop up several spring onions and hard boil a couple of eggs. Once the rice is done, gently fry the spring onions in a generous knob of butter, then combine with the rice, flaked fish, and chopped hard boiled eggs. My mum's spicing is simply a very generous pinch of cayenne and the magic ingredient: lashings of chopped parsley.

Gently heat through, then turn into a pot and bung in an oven, gas mark 4, for around half an hour. Serve with salad.

I suspect my mother didn't like cooking very much but she was a very good 'plain cook', in the best sense of that phrase. I guess cooking twice a day, every day, for a family with three children when what you really want to do is teach music is an utter bummer.

Eight legs good

2009-09-27T09:05:00.004+01:00

Moseying back to Tottenham via Essex Road yesterday, I realised I wasn't far from fabulous fishmonger Steve Hatt...at first, it was hard to make out who was queue and who was just pressing their noses to the window. I moved from the second group to the first, and spotted a tray of tiny octopi, fresh from Devon. I've eaten octopus in Cyprus and Portugal and loved it, but have nervously held back from cooking it myself. Time to give it a try. Two of these babies cost me two quid - and I bought some smoked haddock for a kedgeree later in the week.

This cartoon from 1882 gives us the very rare 11-limbed octopus, as England gobbled up bits of the globe in its imperial hunger. Meanwhile, back at home, I scoured the bookshelves for what to do with my catch. The first recipe that really caught my eye is from Tess Kiros' Piripiri Starfish, her book of Portuguese cooking. It's a slow cook in the oven - around two hours from start to finish.

I gave the octopi a good wash, then cut them into thick strips. Next, the sauce...

...some shallots and garlic gently fried off in olive oil, then a good slosh of homemade pureed tomatoes. I didn't have any piripiri pepper, so I added a shake of cayenne.

While the sauce is simmering quietly, chop up the potatoes (I thought my Burgundy Reds would go well with the colour scheme) and add the octopus. Pour over the tomato sauce, then add a glass of red wine - an inky Chilean merlot was what I had to hand.

Then the dish goes in the oven at gas mark 6 with a covering of foil for an hour. A sweet fruity scent began to waft through the house. The foil comes off for a final 45 mins in the oven - this is to get the slightly crusty texture that Tess recommends.

Bread is the traditional Portuguese accompaniment - and some tomatoes from the garden. It smelled deeply rich and had that lovely rich, savoury/sweet seafood taste. The octopus was meaty and not remotely rubbery. Yum. This is a great dish, and makes me wonder why we're not scoffing this eight-legged wonder on a regular basis.

Quick fixes and brownies

2009-09-19T12:40:00.003+01:00

It's been a week of rushed suppers and adjusting to working out of a new office. The bit of west London that I'm in now is a food desert: there's a mega shopping centre with an Eat in it, and a row of restaurants, but no real food shops unless you want a 20-minute hike...which I'll start to do soon. Earlier in the week, I made a carrot hummous, based on a Maria Elia recipe. Roast carrots are added to chickpeas - and very nice it was too, and soon to be added to my '100 Things That Look Like Wallpaper Paste But Taste Jolly Good' cookery book.

There was an aubergine in the veggie box, so once again I made my beloved nazuktan of aubergine, pekmez, yoghurt, lemon juice, mint and toasted almonds.

By the end of the week, there was an array of small snacky-sized left overs to eat, including the last of my pizza dough, topped with some of my Turkish dried olives, and a few gigantic beans.

I made some brownies this morning for Brian and his band: Brian is back to repoint the outside walls of the house, re-render round the windows and repaint. The front door is now a lovely plum colour. The recipe for the brownies is from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook, which I picked up for a massively reduced price at a book stall, and frankly, it's not that reliable. The brownies took double the recommended time to cook, although they tasted fine. Brian immediately scoffed two in quick succession. I think I need to do some brownie recipe research.

Mouse is not at all impressed with the invasion of the builders - she's currently deep within the storage portion of the spare room bed. Here she is the other evening, taking the evening air.

Blackberry and apple cake

2009-09-07T07:14:00.004+01:00

I have to show off these beautiful Burgundy Red potatoes, dug from the allotment yesterday. They're like little jewels, glowing ruby red. You have to watch them carefully as they boil, as they have a tendency to get very floury if they're left too long. They taste wonderful. What you lack in quantity you get back in flavour from this heritage variety.
On to pudding - this is adapted from a recipe in October's Olive magazine. Blackberry and apple cake

4 or 5 peeled, cored and sliced apples
About 20-30 blackberries, but not to worry if you have fewer
150g soft butter
150g sugar - I used 100g castor and 50g light moscavada
2 eggs
125g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
a pinch of ground cloves

Heat the oven to gas mark 4.
Put the apples in a pan with a knob of butter and a spoonful of the sugar and cook gently until the apples soften. Don't worry if you have cooking apples and they go a bit mushy. Turn off the heat and add the blackberries. Once they've cooled a bit, bung the apples and blackberries in a sieve and reserve the juice. Put the apple and blackberries in a buttered 20cm round deep cake tin - or, like me, use a paper tin liner.
Add the remaining sugar to the soft butter and mix. Then add in the eggs, then the flour, baking powder and spice. Next, stir in the fruit juices. Put the tin into the oven and bake for around half an hour. Let the cake rest for about ten minutes, then turn out.

Because of the blackberry juice, the cake looks very dark, but it tastes delicious. Serve with custard or cream.

This week - including Shropshire and a pizza

2009-09-06T13:49:00.003+01:00

The first half of this week was consumed by getting settled into new offices in west London: arctic air conditioning and a longer journey into work. Meanwhile in the garden, my brugmansia is starting to bloom its head off.

I took Friday off and got up at 0500 so that I could catch the first Wrexham and
Shropshire train from Marylebone to Shrewsbury. It's a three hour journey and there seem to be a lot of speed reductions on the line. The rail company is very small and very friendly, and you can get a cooked breakfast if you want; all ingredients are sourced from the company's base in Wales. I haven't visited Shrewsbury for many many years, and I found that it's shrunk as my legs have got longer. My first stop was at the castle, bang next door to the railway station. Originally built in the eleventh century as a motte and bailey, it now houses the Shropshire Regimental Museum. All the staff are ex-forces, and one of the guys stopped to talk as I pondered a showcase full of artifacts from the first Afghan war. We didn't win that one either, and we wondered why we seem not to have learnt anything.

Then I walked down Pride Hill and up to the Kingsland Bridge. Next to the bridge is my old school, Shrewsbury High School for Girls. I spent two years at the junior school and one here, at the senior school - happy days. And the food was a lot better than at my next school...The school is a lot bigger now, and they've nabbed several of the adjoining buildings. And there's an indoor gym! In my day, we had monkey bars in the main hall.
Next, I skirted the old town walls and came down to the English Bridge over the Severn.

The river was running pretty high. Over the bridge is Shrewsbury Abbey - all the remains of the old monastery.

A good number of the buildings remained (although in a terrible state of repair) until Thomas Telford bulldozed most of them to make way for the A5. Much of the abbey has been rebuilt too, but it's still a lovely church and well worth a visit. Back into town, past the guildhall, to wander around, shop for a picnic lunch at a lovely deli, and nose into the town museum down by where the bus station used to be. Then home by the 1600 train. A great day.
On the food front, I felt inspired by Hugh F-W's article in the Guardian yesterday to make pizza.

The recipe is from Dan Steven's River Cottage Bread book, and you can get it from the link above. I gently fried off some mushrooms with a couple of cloves of garlic and some lemon juice, used some garden toms for a tomato sauce, and topped it with mozzarella and my dried Turkish black olives. Onto my pizza stone it went for ten minutes. Before digging in, I added some torn rocket leaves. Yum. And there's enough dough left over for a few more over the next fortnight.

This morning, I made my usual Sunday visit to the allotment. While Q dealt with the compost bins, I cleared the fallen apples, weeded and made the harvest: plums, apples, toms, Burgandy Red potatoes - then a quick visit to the Paddock for a few late blackberries. Birds and humans have had most of them, but there are a few lurking in the prickliest places. This evening, I want to make an apple and blackberry version of a recipe in Olive magazine. That's for after my Muck and Magic smoked gammon cooked in cider with potatoes, broad beans and parsley sauce. One of my favourite Sunday meals.

Heirloom pudding: apple charlotte

2009-08-31T12:38:00.007+01:00

My garden apple tree has yielded its best, and there are only a few fruit left hanging. Time to make one of my favourite-ever puddings, made by my mum from a recipe in her 1960s Good Housekeeping recipe book: apple charlotte. Unlike most charlotte recipes, it's not made with whole slices of bread but with a breadcrumb/sugar/suet mixture, and it's irresistible. The only other cookery book that has anything similar is Katie Stewart's Times Cookery Book, but Katie's is a bit more fancy and includes golden syrup. So I'll stick to the original.

I've no idea what variety of apple my tree is, but they're eaters and have a lovely sweetness.

And they have a slight rose blush in the flesh nearest the skin. For the charlotte, if I'm using eaters I pre-cook them slightly tossed in a little sugar and lemon juice. If I'm using cookers, I just slice them and use them straight away as they don't need any help beforehand to cook down to a sweet softness in the oven. Next, make your crumb mix: 3oz white breadcrumbs, 2 oz suet, 3-5 oz demerara sugar and the zest of a lemon for every pound of apples. (The original recipe is pre-metric.)

Gently spoon through the mixture to combine.

Then start making layers in a buttered pudding bowl: the quantities I use give one layer of apple, followed by a layer of crumb, then another layer of apple followed by a final layer of crumb. Dot with butter. Put in an oven at gas mark 4 for around 45 mins, or until the top is golden and crusty. The smell is fabulous.

Serve with double cream - or in my fortunate case, the last of a tub of clotted cream. It's just as good as left-overs over the next couple of days.

I'm at a loss to know why a pud this good and this frugal is so little known. I must try making it with veggie suet to see if that's as good.

School dinners: the horror, the horror

2009-08-28T18:38:00.006+01:00

Rediscovering crumble a couple of weeks back put me in mind of all the awful school food I endured in the early 70s. With the help of a scholarship and a kindly attitude towards clergy daughters, I spent a very happy six years at what was then called the School of SS Mary and Anne, Abbots Bromley. The name gives away its very high church leanings, and in my day there were around 500 of us, mainly boarders. Many things about the school were fantastic: it was generally very friendly, it was non-selective and while academic brilliance was recognised, it wasn't the be-all. The music teaching was excellent and the senior school choir, which I was lucky enough to be in, was international standard. But the food was utterly, utterly vile.

Breakfast wasn't too toxic because there's not a lot that can go wrong with cereal and toast - if you don't mind toast that resembles shoe leather. Every Saturday we got All Bran for breakfast (not sure why anglo-catholics should have a thing about young bowels) and on Sundays we got heated rolls in lieu of toast. Supper wasn't too bad either - no teachers around so it was quite relaxed but the baked beans always did taste metallic.
But lunch was my nemesis. I don't quite know what the kitchens at St Mary's did to meat (very little money? poor quality catering staff?) but it was a daily horror show. With a teacher at the head of every table and an ethic of eating everything on your plate because continents away, children like you are starving, it terrified me because I hated almost every main courses that was served up. Top of my hate list was stew: brown gunk out of which you picked through the gristly fatty chunks of nameless meat to try to find anything that didn't make you gag. Almost as vile was bone stew - probably mutton, but full of vertebrae. Every Friday we had white fish: evil little fillets of what may well have been coley. At least we got tinned peas with the fish, which I could eat. We endured four years of this until a new catering manager was employed. One of her innovations was the only meal I liked - a cheese flan, served with packet mash and my beloved tinned peas. By the time I was head of house, my nickname among the fourth formers was, of course, Cheesey Fran.

Her other innovation was a total disaster. It arrived in big bowls and smelled good - bones, yes, but some nice meat. But the Upper Sixth A-level Biology girls were piecing the bones together and the verdict flashed around the dining room: we were eating rabbit. Rabbit! This was the era of Watership Down and most of us were in love with Hazel and his quest to find a new home for his tribe.

And now we were being forced to eat our friends! All cutlery went down and rabbit stew never appeared on the menu again.
Puddings were a good deal less awful, even if crumble twice a week put me off it for 30 years. Floor Polish was the stiff and tasteless red jelly, Pink Rubber was the equally tasteless blamange. Dead Man's Leg was a steamed jam pudding and steamed pudding (again, tasting of metal) appeared at least once a week.

School tapioca really was like frogspawn with spooky globes of wobbly consistency.

My favourite pud was Ganges Mud and tinned pears. The Mud was chocolate semolina. No idea now how we all survived this vile muck. It was only in my last year that anyone went down with an eating disorder. We did once have a food strike, but I can't remember that it made any difference. In the upper sixth we got a tiny kitchen with a Baby Belling, so we gorged on Batchelor's Savoury Rice. Ah, the good old days.

St Margaret's to Hertford

2009-08-26T19:51:00.006+01:00

Another holiday day: another walk - this time from St Margaret's to Hertford to meet up with great mate Ian. It was one of those English summer days that seemed to threaten both storms and hot sun, and the platform at St Margaret's was spattered with rain. But the sun came out as soon as I hit the Lea Valley Way just a couple of minutes from the station.

It's all tow path from here to Hertford, and I aimed to complete the five mile walk in around an hour and a half. There are lots of house boats here, all gently swaying in the waters of the canal.

About a mile on is Amwell nature reserve, born out of a huge gravel pit. It doesn't look like much in the photo, but here be otters! Not to mention loads of birds and insects.

Along the banks, I spotted comfrey, horseradish and this orange/yellow mimulus - otherwise known as monkey flower.

Ware was the next town - Ian had alerted me by text not to talk to the people of Ware. He told me later that this was an ancient animosity between the people of Hertford and Ware...but it's a pretty canal side town.

There are all sorts of interesting riverside buildings, and I loved this horse weather vane.

For a few strides, I was joined by this fearless hiking duck.

Just past Ware, the A10 hurtles over the Lea. Old transport versus new, as this narrow boat came chugging by. The navigator and I exchanged snatched remarks about the good weather as he passed.

I loved this scene of cattle at the waterside, which reminded me of a picture from one of my favourite childhood story books, illustrated in Poland, and a gift from my Polish cousin Jenny.

A mile or so more and I was into Hertford, and the lovely allotments at Folly Island. I spotted some mammoth squash and courgettes.

Then I was into Ian's virtual backyard.

Come on round, said Ian, and in a couple of minutes I was greeted by Ian and the mighty Bollinger, ur-cat and superstar.

Here is the star of many radio programmes in full cry.

Ian suggested a gentle coffee and tea at the Hertford Tearooms, a lovely venue for a thoughtful intake of liquids.

Ian's latte and my Earl Grey hit the spot. Then it was on to Farrow and Farrow, Hertford's excellent deli, to stock up on salami and cheese for our picnic.

We found fennel seed scented salami, Stinking Bishop and Beenleigh Blue cheese for our lunch, then headed to Waitrose for falafel, tomatoes and spring onions.

Then off to a wide green space to munch and put the world to rights. A lovely walk and a lovely day. Thanks, Ian!

A spicy supper

2009-08-25T08:11:00.005+01:00

The wonderful tomato harvest continues - this is the haul from the allotment on Sunday. In the top container we have the San Marzanos, which have finally ripened, and Amish Paste. Both are cookers.

Setting aside a good number for salads during the week, I got to work on a tomato sauce that would be the basis for a rather mongrel curry. My normal sauce has a base of slowly cooked onions; then in with the toms, some salt and maybe some herbs from the garden. Then I strain the whole lot through a sieve to give a silky texture.

To add heat and spice, I decided to use a couple of spoonfuls of my black (or goda) masala - a wonderful discovery from Anjum's New Indian. It's a mix of dry roasted dessicated coconut, sesame seeds, coriander, cumin and caraway seeds whizzed together with pepper corns, star anise, cloves, black cardamon, chilli flakes, cinnamon and bay leaves. It smells absolutely heavenly. I made up a jar in the spring to use in a biryani, so this was a bit of an experiment...which worked. The sweetness of the masala seemed to suit the toms. I added a spoonful of yoghurt just to balance up the sourness of the curry.

Then in with a couple of hard boiled eggs - I get eggs every week with my Abel and Cole veggie box, and this week's have a particularly yellow yolk.

Accompaniments were one of my favourite rice dishes: lemon and cashew rice. First cook your rice then set it aside to drain. Add some oil to a saucepan and fry a handful of cashews until they're golden. Then add half a teaspoon of turmeric before bunging in the rice. Mix carefully with a fork then add the juice of a lemon and some curry leaves. Let it heat through. To my astonishment, Tesco are now stocking curry leaves, which are up there with kafir lime leaves for aroma. Don't eat them though - they're there to add flavour by scent alone.

In the garden, I discovered an overlooked mini cucumber which had swollen to improbable size, and a recipe from Anjum looked like a good way to deal with it. Chop up your cucumber and remove the seeds. In a pan of hot oil, add cumin seeds (you can add mustard seeds too); then add your cucumber and some fresh or frozen peas. More spices go in - turmeric, red chilli powder and coriander. Let that lot cook for around five minutes, then add a spoonful of yoghurt. Finish off with some chopped mint leaves.

And finally, some coconut and coriander chutney. This is unbelievably yummy and easy. I'd always adored it when it appeared in Southern Indian restuarants, but never made it until I found a recipe in Vicky Bhogul's A Year of Cooking Like Mummyji. In a little oil, fry some black mustard seeds until they pop - then whip them off the heat. Then mix them together with yoghurt, grated ginger and finely chopped garlic, garam masala, half a chopped green chilli, salt and lime juice. Finally, stir in some chopped coriander leaves.

I love this so much that I sneak down to the fridge and eat it by the fingerful. This version isn't very green as my coriander in the garden has bolted, and the new seedlings aren't ready for harvest yet.

Off to Hertford later today: on the train to St Margaret's then a walk into Hertford along the Lea Valley Way.

Ely and eels

2009-08-22T16:38:00.004+01:00

I'd planned to go to Hereford today, but in the end couldn't face negotiating a half-shut down Victoria Line. So I took the line of least resistance and had a day trip to Ely, island of eels. Walking up from the station through a park, you catch sight of the magnificent cathedral with its pepper-pot towers and wonderful octagon.

The first holy site here was the monastery founded by St Etheldreda. After an unhappy second marriage, she persuaded her husband to let her leave to go and do good deeds, but he changed his mind and tried to nab her back. She escaped and ended up here in 673. Ely seems to have been invaded by just about everyone - Romans, Normans, Vikings, Saxons...so the cathedral has seen good days and bad. Bits of it have collapsed and after the reformation, it had a bishop who delighted in knocking chunks out of it. But the Victorians started restoring it and now it's a most wonderful building inside and out.

My first stop though was at the busy farmers market. There's a great range of food and plant stalls, including one from Belleau Bridge Trout Farm and Smokery where I was thrilled to find smoked eel.

Eels were the staple food here for centuries, and the city is named for the fishy treat. There's only one professional eel catcher left now, but you can follow the city's eel trail which traces the history of the connection. Sad to say, the smoked eel swam its last in the Netherlands, but it's smoked in Lincolnshire. I sampled the smoked trout pate: delicious, so I'll have a pot of that. Further along, I bought a loaf of dark rye with caraway seeds to go with the eel, and a pot of fenland lime jelly - I love the incongruity of the name. But it has a great limey depth of flavour. As the day was hot, and I wouldn't be home for a few hours, I passed by the venison stall. The farmers' market then morphs into a great general market, selling second hand books, bric a brac, clothes and toys.

I was magnetically drawn to the pottery stall run by Felicity Hoyle, who works in Norfolk.

I find hand-thrown pottery hard to resist, and bought a pouring bowl and gratin dish.

Heading back to the cathedral, I popped into a wood turning exhibition. My favourite piece was this carving of St Mark as a lion.

Then it was into the cathedral. Although my dad was a Church of England priest, I've never been religious. But I've grown up in the Anglican choral tradition, and was lucky enough to be in a brilliant school choir that sang in cathedrals all over the country, so I have an abiding love of the culture and architecture of the church. On this visit, my highlight was the astonishing Prior's Door, built and carved in the 12th century.

The workmanship is exquisite, and all down to lintels there are tiny figures of humans and animals. The saddest thing is a plaque set in a wall commemorating a much loved 13-year-old son, kicked to death by a horse in the 18th century. There's an excellent guide to the cathedral and its history here.
Time to head for home with my goodies and contemplate a fishy supper.

The Kent Adventure

2009-08-19T19:31:00.008+01:00

Off to Victoria station bright and early to take the train down to Gillingham and meet up with great mate Sarah for another Kent Adventure. Our destination, as on many other occasions, was The Sportsman at Seasalter, just outside Whitstable. We've been eating here for nearly three years and it just keeps getting better. Last year, chef Stephen Harris was awarded his first Michelin star, but the place remains as friendly and down to earth as ever. Sarah and I often hum and har about going to another restaurant but we always end up here.

Getting there proved a problem today - the M2 was closed and it took nearly three hours to get there instead of the usual 50 mins. We rang The Sportsman to warn them...and they were lovely, putting our booking back by an hour. As driver, poor Sarah bore the brunt of the stress on the hottest day of the year. When we arrived, we took a moment to regroup with a drink in the garden.

Our visits here are always dominated by two important questions: What did we eat last time? and: Do we go starter, starter, pud or starter, main, pud, or just main, pud? Sarah went starter, starter, and pig that I am, I went starter, main. But first of all we ordered (as we always do) the home made bread and butter, freshly churned in the kitchen and flavoured with salt from the sea a few yards away. The flowers here are from the kitchen garden at the back of the restaurant. And I thoroughly approve of the water policy here: a jug of tap water is 50p but the entire 50p goes to Water Aid.

The red onion focaccia is so more-ish, with a tender crumb and salty crust. I normally scoff the lot, so I tried to be a bit more restrained this time.

Last time, my starter was the slip sole and just before it arrived, Stephen wandered over and said he had some seaweed butter he'd made and would I like that? My response: you need to ask? Bring it on! It was fantastic. This time, I went for the smoked salmon and Sarah had the starter she'd had last time: Salmagundy.

Salmagundy is a very ancient dish, originating from the salmi that wouldn't have surprised Chaucer. Salmi means a highly seasoned dish, and salamagundy evolved in the 18th century to mean a salad of bits and pieces, usually including hard boiled eggs and seasoned fish like anchovies or pickled herring. Stephen's 21st century take on this is a warm salad with a poached egg at its centre. The egg is wreathed with garden veg like courgette, green beans, lettuce and corn, with samphire adding zing. Sarah let me sample a mouthful and this is what I'll be having next time if it's on the menu.

My starter was plainer but also delicious - Irish smoked salmon on soda bread. It was lovely with none of the metallic edge that you get with inferior salmon.

Sarah's next course was the slip sole and seaweed butter of glorious memory. We went a bit silent at this point, munching with joy.

I was tucking into the same main that I'd had last time: roast pork belly with apple sauce, a pillow of mash and cabbage lurking under the pork. This was so good. And the revelation this time was the apple sauce - it was so tangy but I couldn't work out the extra ingredient. My guess was lime...but later when Phil, Stephen's brother, wandered over, he revealed that it was malic acid. This boosts the sourness of the apple - and makes the sauce taste more of apple skins. Wonderful. I could eat this by the bucket load.

For the first time ever, and probably due to the heat of the day, we didn't eat a pudding. But here is the choice we were confronted with...

Our top tip is the rhubarb sorbet and burnt cream...and be prepared for a surprise.

After a wonderful meal, we staggered up the steps outside to admire the view out to sea past the beach huts.

Then on to the Seasalter beach - packed on this hot day - with a view over to Whitstable. We'll be back at the Sportsman in the autumn.

A walk to Limehouse and some crabby business

2009-08-18T18:42:00.007+01:00

I'm on holiday at the moment, and tomorrow's Kent adventure meant that a stomach reducing walk was in order. My first thought was a walk from St Margaret's to Hertford, but Hertford friend Ian was otherwise engaged, so Plan B was the Lea Valley Walk from home to Limehouse. I've done this walk several times before, and it's a gentle seven or eight miles down to the mouth of the Thames.

Just past Ferry Bridge, this huge narrow boat came chugging past. About a mile on, I wondered if David was around - he lives on the narrow boat Essex Buoy.

But it looked shut up. David must be busy working. The walk is almost all towpath along the Lee and Stourt canal. It's an odd mixture - for most of the walk there's enough green to keep the human London softly at bay. But every so often, there's a reminder of what we get up to.

I rather liked this graffiti, while deploring the spelling. Still, patched up, it would be a good slogan for a food blog.

For quite a while, I was walking past the site of the Olympics, but it was hard to get a decent picture. Here are the lock gates at Old Ford Lock, deep into Hackney. And just around the corner...

...clear site of the evolving Olympic stadium, just visible above the canal. I can't wait. I'm a big athletics fan and I've been glued to the Berlin World Champs this week. I signed on to volunteer for 2012 as soon as we won the games.

This sums up the walk for me: cranes sprouting like improbable flowers above the vegetation. You're never more than a literal stone's throw from some wharfs or houses. As I walked, I wondered how nature would take this route back. I'm reading The World Without Us, and it seems that Earth will get along pretty well minus humans. If we don't get our climate act together, this will all be under water.

Around noon, I arrived at Three Mill Island. It's a lovely collection of buildings, including what was once the largest tidal mill on the Thames. Shortly afterwards, you get to the Limehouse Cut, a couple of miles away from Limehouse. Sadly, this is the most boring part of the walk, unrelieved by any greeness. But the curve into Limehouse Basin is great.

And all at once, you're into the flowering of modern flats and stowed narrow boats. And then over to Narrow Street and a clear view of the Thames in its full majesty.

This walk always reminds me how huge the Thames is to the east: a world class river.

I followed the Thames path round to Canary Wharf and slumped on a grassy knoll to scoff my pesto pasta. Then it was back home, mostly overland, via the Docklands Light Railway and a train from Liverpool Street.

And at home I had a pot of crabby goodness waiting. Last week, my Abel and Cole box arrived with a flyer promoting the yumminess of crab from Seafood and Eat it. Enough persuasion already - I love crab, so put in an order for brown Cornish crab. It arrived this morning and I've been mulling over the possibilities. Then I pierced the plastic pot and stuck an eager finger into the goey browness: fab. There's a Tamasin recipe I've memory marked and this was the occasion to use it. I've adapted the quantities for the amount of crab meat.

Little Crab Custards

Mix together 110g crab meat, 2 beaten eggs, 210ml double cream, 1 tsp Dijon mustard, a knife tip of cayenne, 1 tbsp Parmesan, a good pinch of salt. Pour into ramekins, or in my case, the lovely soup dishes I bought on a walking weekend on the Isle of Wight.

These will go into my Remoska for half an hour...let them cool for 15 minutes then serve with toasted sourdough bread and some watercress and orange salad. And some tomatoes...my allotment bushes have provided a fantastic harvest.

Pontack part 2 and a lovely curry

2009-08-16T12:44:00.003+01:00

First up, the second half of making the Pontack sauce...the elderberries and vinegar emerged after four hours in a very low oven. Out with the potato masher to ease the last bit of moisture from the sieved berries. The spice mixture is black pepper, mace, cloves, allspice and a knob of fresh ginger. Pam's recipe calls for shallots, but I substituted with a couple of sliced red onions.

Into the pan it all goes, for around half an hour's simmering. Then you strain again, return the clear liquid to the pot and boil hard for five minutes. Then leave to cool and bottle up the purple liquor. It tastes fruity and vinegary and not quite like anything else. I'll use it to pep up beef stews - Pam says it's also good with venison and liver.

I had planned a mushroom and stilton pie for supper, but as it actually felt like summer yesterday, I changed my mind and went for a favourite recipe adapted from a Vicky Bhogul special, from her book A Year of Cooking Like Mummyji. I love Vicky's writing and recipes. This one is based on her Green Masala Roast Chicken Breasts. The original is fab - but I fancied an egg and potato curry with allotment pots.

A mild summer egg and potato curry

2 green chillis (more if you're not into mild)

1 tsp ground turmeric

2 tbsp whole coriander seeds

2 tsp garam masala

4 cloves garlic

2 spring onions

a thumb sized knob of fresh ginger

3 tbsp yoghurt

2 tbsp oil - I use groundnut

1 tsp salt

Roughly chop your chillis, garlic and onions and bung these, plus all the other ingredients, into a food processor. Whiz. You end with a masala that looks like - yes! - wallpaper paste. But it smells fab.

Boil your potatoes - I used about six medium sized Shetland Black - they're a wonderful purple colour. You have to watch them carefully at the end of the cooking time as they are very floury and tend to break up if you're not quick to whip them off the heat. In another pan, hard boil three eggs. Then put the masala in a pan, add the halved eggs and the potatoes and heat through. Serve with freshly chopped coriander.

Pudding was part of my foraging haul - blackberry and apple crumble. I used to loathe crumble because we got it three times a week at school. And it was a very nasty crumble. But I'm slowly coming back to it after many years of avoiding it like the plague. I stewed the garden apples very gently with a bit of butter and some golden castor sugar. Once they were done, I just bunged the blackberries on top to soak up some of the heat from the apples.

My crumble mix is flour, butter, sugar and ground almonds. Into the oven at gas mark 4 for around 40 minutes. Serve with fresh cream. Yep, I really am coming round to crumble.

Preserves day

2009-08-15T10:37:00.004+01:00

Up early this morning at the start of my preserves day...I snapped up Pam Corbin's River Cottage Preserves handbook as soon as it was published last year, but failed to make one of the most intriguing recipes - Pontack sauce. It's a mixture of elder berries, vinegar and spices. So I hiked up to Tesco to get cider vinegar and sugar, as I was planning a repeat of last year's fabulous blackberry vinegar too.

There's an elder tree in the garden, so armed with a plastic bowl and secateurs, I grabbed several bunches of berries and gently squidged them off their stalks. Next door neighbour Tom is has other plans for the berries - he's going to make some wine.

The first stage of the Pontack involves a very slow cook of the berries steeped in vinegar, so into the oven they went. Meanwhile I was on to stage 2 of the day - off to the Paddock for blackberries. The Paddock is a lovely little nature reserve tucked off Ferry Bridge Lane, and last year the blackberry crop was superb. It's pretty good this year too, but the first thing I spotted was sloes.

I think sloes are normally more a September crop, but there were quite a few ripe berries which I bagged to put in the freezer. I spotted some by the allotments last Sunday, so I'll gather more tomorrow and make sloe gin during the week. On to today's main harvest...

The berries looked really good. But I'd stupidly forgotten that nettles love growing round brambles and I was wearing sandals. But stung toes and scratched fingers make it feel like you've really worked. I picked for just under an hour, visiting my favourite bushes. And I noticed that my hands smelled faintly of vanilla - not a scent I'd ever associated with blackberries before.

Back home, there was a pleasant vinegary smell coming from the oven. My bramble harvest weighed in at 1.5 kilos - brilliant! Pam's fruit vinegar recipe calls for 1k of fruit which is steeped for 5 days in 600ml cider vinegar. You just press the fruit gently so that the juices mingle with the vinegar. I'll do a later post on what happens next.

The allotment toms are ripening beautifully - they look so pretty. The tastiest are the orange ones - I'm kicking myself for not transferring the labels into the ground. The mini cucumbers are doing well too.

Out in the garden, my oriental lily - an impulse buy from B&Q - is heavenly. Smells divine and the flowers are magnificent.

Plot news

2009-08-03T19:41:00.004+01:00

The sun really came out and beamed on us yesterday, and I spent all morning on the allotment. My tomatoes are finally beginning to ripen - I think these are Golden Berry: having carefully labelled all the seedlings, I didn't transfer the labels into the ground. But these guys were soft and acid and sweet.

I was thrilled to see that the squash (Japanese varieties) have really taken off. Here's the biggest nestling behind a flower.

The courgette Tricolour is also doing well, but it's determinedly yellow in fruit.

The runner beans (Red Rum) are going great guns: at the top right of the picture, you may see a bumble bee making its approach.

Q and I made a big potato harvest - lots of Charlotte and Burgundy Red. The only problem with digging potatoes is that the ground throws up lots of biting soil bugs (thrips?) which make a beeline for me. So I'm happy but very bumpy and itchy.

Go east with Rick

2009-08-02T08:32:00.005+01:00

I've been loving Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey on BBC2, and at the end of last week I got hold of the book. Looking for something tasty that I could make without schlepping over to ThaiSmile in Hammersmith for provisions, I landed on gado gado. I've eaten this before but never made it. The key is the spicy peanut sauce, and I knew I had peanuts, palm sugar and shrimp paste in the larder, so it was out with the pans.

The sauce kicks off with an allotment onion, kashmiri and red chillis, shrimp paste. Then it's in with the sugar, coconut milk, a couple of peeled toms and the blitzed peanuts.

Time to add lime juice. The only ingredient I didn't have was kecap manis - a very sweet and sticky soy sauce. So I substituted ordinary soy and an extra bit of sugar. The sauce is lovely - nutty, salty, sweet and sour from the lime.

Rick recommends that the salad be a mixture of textures: soft and crunchy. For part of the 'soft', I used hard boiled quails eggs. I was delighted to find that Clarence Court do free range quails eggs, and I got hold of some in Waitrose. They are so pretty!

Part of the 'crunch' is my first and wonderfully mis-shapen garden mini cucumber. Home grown is so much better than shop bought with these watery veg.

Another home-grown addition is the first of my potatoes grown in bags - I love the jewel colours of these beauties.

Finally the whole dish came together, with lettuce, a peach left over from the Coronation Chicken, sprouted rocket and coriander from the herb garden. Very tasty indeed. Thanks, Rick!

Chicken, Mouse, and one amazing lady

2009-07-29T18:57:00.005+01:00

A very nice surprise yesterday: a punnet of heirloom toms in my Abel and Cole box. So pretty.

I came across a tempting recipe on the Gourmet website last week - this week I was determined to try it. The original ingredients for the cilantro almond chicken are here; I altered it slightly to reduce the quantities.

First I got a couple of Leckford Farm chicken breasts from Waitrose - and bloody good they are too. They got poached in a splash of white wine, some water, a bay leaf, celery, a carrot, an allotment onion and black peppercorns. While that was simmering sweetly, it was time to put the sauce together. First, toast a handful of slivered almonds under the grill, watching them like a hawk, or dry fry them in a saucepan (same hawk qualities needed). Put them on a plate to cool. Mix 3 tbs sour cream, 3 tbs mayo, juice of a lime, a finely chopped jalapeno pepper, a couple of cloves of garlic and a pinch of salt. Add a handful of chopped coriander and add the cool almonds.

Gently mix in the shredded chicken and there you have it. It was lovely, but next time I think I'll try it with half sour cream and yoghurt rather than mayo. The warmth of the almonds and the heat of the pepper is a great combination.

I had one chicken breast left, and dug out Angela Nilsen's Ultimate Recipe Book for her fabulous take on Coronation Chicken. I cooked this last summer and it was a revelation: a retro classic that fully deserves its place in the UK food hall of fame. To go with the spicy chicken sauce, I went for a cooling couscous, with spring onion, almonds and a spritz of lemon juice. One of the reasons I love Angela's recipe is her introduction - she rang the wonderful Marguerite Patten to ask for advice.
Marguerite is now in her 90s, and is as resolutely helpful and polite as she's ever been. She cooked through the second world war, showing people how to make the best of rationing, then was one of the first tv cooks when television arrived. She's published heaven knows how many recipe books and popped up on the 1940s House (Channel 4) a few years back to give handy hints on wartime tea treats. I love her We'll Meet Again - a collection of hair-raising WW2 recipes. Why is this wonderful woman not a dame? She's a national treasure.

Meanwhile, on the home front and for all Mouse fans, here's my girl in her summer quarters. Mouse has a number of sleeping stations dotted round the house. Her winter residence is a basket on the landing on top of the hot water pipes. In the summer, she prefers this fleece-lined Ikea basket in the study.

Mouse says: Enough talk already. Some of us are trying to sleep.

Udderly amazing

2009-07-24T18:21:00.003+01:00

Walking home from Tottenham Hale tube station this afternoon, I spotted these incredible alien cloud shapes - here they are above Broad Lane. Giant blobs that looked like they were the outer layer of some vast canopy...back home, I turned to my trusty Cloudspotter's Guide (a wonderful book, if you haven't got it). And here they are: mamma clouds, named after the Latin for, yep, breasts. 'At their most dramatic, they look like a field of smooth, globular udders,' says Gavin Pretor-Pinney. They form under all sorts of clouds, but they're biggest and best under Cumulonimbus, storm clouds. Given today's stair-rod rain, that sounds about right.

Nut loaf

2009-07-21T07:14:00.005+01:00

I love nut loaf. I remember in the 70s and 80s when one of the worst insults you could throw at vegetarians was to talk in sneering tones about a roast dinner that substituted a glorious hunk of meat with what? Nut loaf. How could anyone eat this stuff? was the incredulous undertone. Well, I'm a meat eater and I love a good nut loaf. It used to be pretty frugal, but nuts are pricey these days so I look on it as a delicious nutty luxury. Normally, I use the nut loaf recipe from The Greens Cookbook, but Simon Rimmer has different take on it in The Seasoned Vegetarian. I had a sudden pang of nut loaf fever yesterday at work, and a quick google brought up this recipe from Simon.
Once I'd secured my mushrooms, I headed for home, fairly sure that I had most of the other ingredients, or suitable substitutes. Yep, no carrot but an allotment yellow courgette would, I reckoned, add the necessary veggie moisture. No hazelnuts, but some rummaging in the cupboard yielded pecans, walnuts, a few whole almonds and an unopened bag of mixed nuts.
Instead of Parmesan, I used my Rye Harbour Sussex Charmer cheese. And a teaspoon full of chipotle sauce took the place of Tabasco. One thing that worried me a bit about the recipe was the quantity of breadcrumbs - a whopping 150g, moistened with milk and a beaten egg. But I put my trust in Mr Rimmer and cooked on.

You need a BIG bowl to take the final mixture, and I was a bit doubtful if it would really all fit into a 2lb loaf tin, but it does, just, with a bit of pressing and squidging. It goes into a medium oven (gas mark 4) for an hour.
It's a very beige beast and smells great. Whatever you do, don't do what I did: I took the loaf out of the tin before it had cooled down, and the poor thing collapsed in the middle. So I crammed it back into the tin and left well alone.

Which is why it looks a bit sunken and wobblesome in the middle. Mr Rimmer, I owe you an apology for doubting you. The loaf is light, a little bit chewy, nutty and lovely.

Storms and an Open lunch

2009-07-19T14:05:00.002+01:00

It's one of those British three-seasons-in-a-day. Mouse woke me at 0700 demanding breakfast, and it was already grey with the occasional flash of hot sunshine. So I headed up to the plot early, hoping to get in a couple of hours' work before the rain arrived. I took my camera only to discover, once I was there, that the battery was flat. Huh. The newly-planted broad bean seedlings are all doing well, there are tiny fruit on the squash plants, and the tomatoes are thriving and full of fruit. I tied in all the new tomato growth, weeded, watered the shed plants, and found I had the first crystal apple cucumber!

I got home just before the first heavy shower. Rang Q, who was now on the plot and soldiering on with weeding the empty onion bed, and heard that he's had swine flu - the first person I know to get it. Thankfully, he's fine now.

Back home, I did some tidying in the garden. This is the dill that I bought from Walthamstow farmers' market a couple of weeks ago - growing very well. Next to it is the squirrel-proofed Sicilian rocket mix.

Here are my Amish toms - already developing their beefsteak ribbing.

Then it was time to make lunch and settle down in front of coverage of the Open championship. I have no idea why I like watching golf but it's become a bit of an addiction. And this Open has become a real thriller. Go Tom! Go Ernie! Anyway, back to lunch. First up, a beetroot salad with an Ottolenghi-adapted dressing of maple syrup, peanut and olive oil, sherry vinegar and garlic. I've added the last of the Barkham blue, rocket, sorrel and radish sprouts.
Then I fried up some of last night's lottie potatoes in walnut oil.

Add a scotch egg pasty and there you have it. (And the pasty tastes even better today.)

Mouse is not too impressed with the golf and has settled down to some heavy duty snoozing.

The scotch egg pasty

2009-07-18T15:16:00.005+01:00

There's a brilliant idea in the August Good Food mag - scotch egg pasties. Instead of deep frying the assembled scotch egg, you wrap it in pastry and bake it. I liked the idea so much that I nipped over to Stoke Newington farmers' market first thing to get some Muck and Magic sausagemeat. I spotted these fabulous sweet peppers and had a great chat to the lady from Stour Valley lavender farm - last December I bought some wonderful marrow chutney from her. I liked it so much that I returned to get another three jars as Christmas presents. She also sells lovely lavender and lemon marmalade. Another market purchase was some sweetly swollen purple goosegogs, and some beet from Sarah Green.
A quick stop at Fresh and Wild over the road (except it's not Fresh and Wild anymore) to stock up on cheese and olives, then back home to get cooking.

There's something oddly satisfying about de-skinning sausages...into a bowl they went, together with a handful of breadcrumbs and oregano, chives, parsley and sage from the garden. A good squish and that's it. The original recipe calls for shortcrust pastry, but I'd got a pack of the puff variety in the fridge. It also recommends medium eggs - but I think small would be better. Having hardboiled your eggs, it's assembly time.

The recipe suggests lining the pastry with the sausage mix, then putting your egg on top before folding the pastry up and over (a la Eddie Wearing) and crimping, but this was tricky with my larger eggs. So I tried another method.

Encasing the egg, as for scotch eggs, was a bit more successful. There was some pastry and sausage meat left over, so I made some mis-shappen sausage rolls. Then they all go into a hot oven (gas mark 7) for about half an hour.

Here are the sausage rolls...

...and here's the oddly shaped pasty. Tasted good though! I think these would be even better made with quail's eggs, except I'm sure someone told me that the quail's eggs in supermarkets come from caged birds, which is a horrible thought and out of the question as a purchase. I'll have to do some research on the matter. I'd also love to make them with Simon Rimmer's veggie alternative to the scotch egg - he replaces the meat encasement with a falafel type shell.

Supper for a cool summer's day

2009-07-16T07:18:00.004+01:00

It's not exactly the barbeque summer we were promised, and yesterday's downpour had me yearning for a pasta supper. There was a chunk of lovely Barkham Blue cheese in the fridge, left over from my Rye Harbour trip, and broad beans from my veg box. Time to combine the beans with my favourite and easy-peasy blue cheese sauce.

This is so simple and so delicious, and the original comes from an old Fratelli Camisa cook book. Simply pour double cream into a saucepan and add your small chunks of blue cheese. I first made this with Gorgonzola, but it's grand with Shropshire Blue, Devon Blue or - most heavenly of all - Beenleigh Blue. Add a good grinding of black pepper and heat gently until the cheese has melted. Then it was time to tackle the beans.

These were whoppers, so after a few minutes in boiling water, I drained them, dunked them in cold water and nipped off the tops with a thumb-nail so that the inner green beans popped out. Into the sauce they went to heat through. Meanwhile, the pasta was reaching tenderness. Once drained, it joins the sauce and gets gently stirred in.

A final shaving of parmesan over the top, and my supper was ready, with a hunk of Turkish olive bread to mop up every last smear of the savoury sauce. Yum!

The best chicken (and the first potatoes)

2009-07-12T19:53:00.005+01:00

I spent all morning on the allotment (and forgot to take my camera). After trimming, weeding and sowing beet, spinach and rocket, it was time to dig the first potatoes. Here they are, my first buried treasure of the season.

On Friday, Big Bro and I dashed over to see Todd, soldier turned farmer and purveyor of the best chicken I've ever tasted. The chickens - Sassos - spend their lives at Wickham Manor Farm near Winchelsea. Todd is a member of the Slow Food movement, and the chickens taste full of a happy long life.

I first came across the chickens at Marylebone farmers' market, but you can also find them at Rye farmers' market and, I think, another London venue. Sadly, Todd doesn't have a website, but if you chance across him, buy that chicken!

My normal procedure is to roast a la Simon Hopkinson - season, whack on some butter then pour over the juice of a lemon and push the lemon halves into the cavity. Yesterday I added some tarragon from the garden.

Here's the chicken after I'd demolished it for yesterday's supper.

In winter months, bread sauce is essential, but in the summer, I turn to Claudia Rodin and her tarrator sauce. It's a mix of walnuts, soaked bread, garlic and olive oil - as ever with my favourite recipes, it looks like wallpaper paste, but it tastes wonderful. Rodin suggests it as an accompaniment for veg or fish, but many years ago I discovered how well it goes with roast chicken.

It keeps well in the fridge and I often scoop it up neat by the fingerful.

Looking ahead to tomorrow's lunchbox, I made my fave noodle sauce, based on an Ottolenghi recipe.

My noodle sauce

2 tbs rice wine vinegar

zest and juice of one lime and one orange

1 tbs grated ginger

1 tbs of jaggery, if you've got it, or soft brown sugar

2 tbs sesame oil

2 tbs peanut oil

1 tbs chilli jam

1/2 tsp salt

Mix well with a whisk.

Now you're ready to add to noodles (soba are my choice but egg noodles take this treatment well too).

To the noodles I added some thinly sliced radish, spring onion and red pepper, pine nuts and cucumber. Tomorrow I'll add some coriander and mint.

And some sprouted radish - I used to be very sniffy about sprouts, but in the past year I've been converted to the these yummy little plants. To the right is what Thomson and Morgan call 'salad mix', but there's not detail on the packet as to what the seeds are. No matter, they taste hot and very green. These are only four days old - a brilliant way to get cheap and easy greens.

Rye Harbour

2009-07-11T09:38:00.009+01:00

I spent a wonderful day with Big Bro yesterday, in his haunts of west Sussex. After scooping me up from Battle station, he suggested we pick up picnic provisions for a lunch at Rye Harbour reserve. Excellent idea. So it was off to Great Park Farm , an enchanting nursery and farmshop.

First we had a nosey round the plants - a lovely selection of shrubs and perennials. Big Bro and I showed admirable restraint in not buying anything.

The farmshop is everything you'd hope for: bags of produce grown on the farm supplemented by local cheeses, meat, preserves and bread, with the odd favourite (Patchwork pates) from further afield. We stocked up with local ham, Sussex charmer and Barkham blue cheese, Somerset brie, Lighthouse Bakery bread, spring onions, radishes, and Big Bro grabbed a couple of bottles of Fentiman's ginger beer. Then we made a mad dash over to Todd at Food Fore Thought to buy a couple of what I think are the best chickens in the country. More of the chicken later.

Back at BB's house at Rye Harbour we added to the picnic with some sprouted alfalfa, Kent tomatoes and cutlery. BB hoisted his unfeasibly large viewing implement and we were off through the town to the start of the reserve.
Rye Harbour reserve has to be one of BB's favourite places on earth - when I ring him, he'll often say, in a dreamy voice, 'I'm on the reserve...' The reserve is a triangle of land - the top of the triangle is Rye, and it spreads out to Winchelsea beach at one point and the mouth of the river Rother at the other. I swear there's not a plant or bug that Big Bro doesn't know.

This is wild carrot - BB showed me the very centre of the flower which is the only bit of red among the frothy white. The flowers were covered with metallic green insects. BB pointed out some other wild relatives of our modern veg - parsnip and fennel.
The path leads down along the Rother, with the odd World War 2 concrete battlement dotting the landscape. The reserve is the largest shingle habitat in Europe, with a unique ecosystem. BB has spent a happy spring and summer watching wading birds raise their young.
These Sussex cattle were grazing quietly in the sunshine. Something I'd been looking forward to was snacking on the marsh samphire - otherwise known as glasswort. Here it is growing amongst sea purslane. BB had got permission from the warden for us to sample the glasswort - it's a tiny succulent plant that's crunchy and tastes of the sea. An excellent appetiser.
Another edible plant that grows all over the reserve is sea kale. After flowering, they're covered in green bobbles. BB says greenfinches love them.

Near the mouth of the Rother, there are WW2 gun emplacements: thank god we never needed to use them.
We were now very near the point where the Rother meets the sea. Small fishing boats were returning from work, heading back to the harbour.
We finally settled down on the shingle shore for our lunch, having worked up a fine appetite. BB set up his spotting scope and scanned the horizon for huge container ships travelling from Rotterdam to British ports. He found one, bobbing up and down on the swell. The sea was very fierce on the shore and it got a bit chilly when the sun went in - it was one of those English summer days when you need t-shirt AND fleece, just in case.

We swigged our ginger beer and toasted a fine day out.

The big unfreeze

2009-07-08T18:15:00.002+01:00

I opened my freezer door yesterday and felt a familiar blast of icy air and guilt. The inside resembles a cross between a snowdrift and something the Titanic bumped into. There are ominous white bulges and sparkly hard edges; the drawers knock against frigid lumps and I have to wrench them to get to the contents. In short, it's a frozen disgrace. I wouldn't be surprised if a flock of penguins came waddling out.

I think it was the blessed Nigella who counselled against using your freezer as dustbin, and I've tried to stick to this advice. I know there's sensible stuff in there, like home-made chicken stock, cubes of grated ginger and garlic for my Asian cooking, vine and lime leaves, sausages and mince from Muck and Magic, home-made tomato sauce and pesto, an Abel and Cole venison pie, peas and broad beans.

But there's elderly stuff too: a kipper that I bought but didn't fancy eating straight away, the end of a block of puff pastry, a beetroot pesto that I made ohmygod two years ago. And lord, there are the beet gnocchi I made earlier this year.

And when I really root around, there are solid blocks which I can't even identify - is that a soup? Or a sauce? Can that be the last of the lamb keema I made heaven knows when? What is this brown stuff?

Action is required. Over the next four weeks, I plan to Eat the Freezer, and then defrost the monster. I inherited the freezer with the house, and it's pretty elderly. There's gonna be a lot of water...

H/t to National Geographic for the fab frosty animal pics

Summer things

2009-07-07T18:32:00.006+01:00

Ooops - life/work hiatus intervened for a bit there - back now after a scorching week that had Mouse roaching for maximum cool air coverage.

On the allotment, the June surge has pushed into the July harvest - this weekend's crop included the first mini cucumber, speckled french beans, the first of the Tricolour courgettes and a good crop of peas. Meanwhile, out in the garden, the story is just as good.

My first crop of blackcurrants! Sprinkled with sugar and warmed through then sieved, they made a perfect pudding with a splurge of double cream.

These Black Cherry toms are just outside the back door - the first truss has set. It's a small plant compared to some of my other toms, but so far, looks healthy.
I've sown more broad beans (the Sutton) to try and replace the ones overwhelmed by black fly on the allotment.

My brugmansia (one of the few flower-only plants in the garden - I'm such a utilitarian) is growing like a triffid. Enormous.

Another monster grower is the hyssop anise that I bought from Jekka's Herb Farm back in the spring. It's threatening to outgrow the cucumber and achoba fat baby beside it.
I sowed this Thai basil in May - it's also doing well.

And in the chilli shed I have my dedo de mocha (amputated finger) pepper - they look a bit unhappy at how hot it is, but they've calmed down a bit now it's cooler. I've got a couple of window boxes full of Plants of Distinction's Sicilian seven-seed rocket mix, plus some mesclun mix and another box of sorrel. Should keep me in salads for a while.