Cook the Books - The Little White Horse

The latest selection for the Cook the Books online bookclub is Elizabeth Goudge's classic children's story The Little White Horse. This was a suggestion that I made, and I am so pleased Rachel took it up! This has been one of my favourite books since I was a little girl - I am pretty certain that it was read to me many times before I was able to read to myself (I had aunts as well as my mother to read to me).

For me it is a comforting story, from the days before there were worries, when good would triumph and it was perfectly natural for a bossy 13-year old to confront evil-doers with God on her side. And of course the descriptions of the food were so captivating. From the brown eggs eaten with Old Parson and the fresh fish the Black Men grill after they have finished being wicked for the day, it is all wholesome and quite charming.

I think the fact that The Little White Horse was first published in 1946 is significant - all over England there were children who had been evacuated from cities and billeted in country villages with strangers, there was stringent food rationing and many fathers who were soldiers who had died abroad with their regiment. It's a feature of the childrens books of the era that I loved (I am thinking of the Narnia books and Enid Blyton in particular, as well as Elizabeth Goudge's books) that there are these very independent children, not a lot of interference from adults and lavish descriptions of delicious meals.

It took a lot of thought for me to decide what to make for my Cook the Books entry. I wanted it to be significant. I thought about making a veal and ham pie, like the one Marmaduke Scarlet is making the first time Maria meets him. But my pastry is just not good enough - not at all "more like sea-foam than dough". And I thought about pink-iced fairy cakes and candied cherries (it is cherry season here) or decorated sugar biscuits, like the dainties Marmaduke makes to ensure Maria is never for a moment hungry.

In the end I decided that it had to be a warm, comforting homely dish - something that had the emotional resonance of the book for me. So I settled on a dish that Maria doesn't actually get to eat in the book. When she comes home late after being caught out in the storm, she discovers that Sir Benjamin and Miss Heliotrope haven't been at all worried, but have tucked into a supper of pork chops and onions, baked apples and custard and haven't left any for her. A dish of pork chops and onions seemed to have the right amount of comfort in it, and I added apples to it for the nostalgia of the many dishes of sausages with apple gravy my mother and I have eaten over the years. And my flat Le Creuset dutch oven seemed just the sort of thing Marmaduke Scarlet would have tucked into the ashes of a hot fire to bake.

Pork chops with sage, apple and onion

Brown a sliced onion in a little butter in an oven proof dish. Dust 4 pork chops in seasoned flour, and brown well in the pan with the onions. Pour over chicken stock to come half way up the chops, tuck a couple of fresh sage leaves in and around, and arrange 2 Granny Smith apples (peeled, cored and cut into eighths) on top of the meat. Cover and bake at 170C for 50 minutes to an hour. Serve with green vegetables.

Sunday Lunch - The Crown

Last Sunday we had lunch with my sister in law. This is a pretty major achievement - despite the fact that she is our only family member who lives within cooee (and even on the same tube line, and she has a car), we don't see nearly enough of her (she has a very impressive social schedule). Unfortunately the day she was able to come and see us coincided with a day where I really could not be bothered cooking. At all. So I booked a table at The Crown in Amersham, knowing that Shiona appreciates a country drive and a roast lunch.

The last time we went to The Crown, they had elderflower-spiked prosecco on the menu as an aperitif - which I didn't try because I am not a fan of elderflower. Other friends who have been have said good things about the rhubarb fizz, so I was delighted to see that the fizz of the day was spiked with morello cherry. As well as being a lovely colour, there was a very delicate but true sour cherry flavour with the tiniest hint of almond. Just perfect on a lovely warm day.

As a starter Paul chose devilled kidneys. I wasn't really surprised - although he isn't the biggest kidney fan, we've been watching Great British Menu on BBC Iplayer and one of the contestants did a devilled crab dish which captured his imagination. Devilled kidneys are a really old-fashioned dish, usually quite heavily seasoned with mustard, cayenne pepper and worcestershire sauce. These were nicely flavoured and well-cooked, but didn't have the amount of spice you'd look for.

I had potted shrimps, which were warmed, sweet and lovely. They could have had a touch more mace to them, but I really appreciated not having to hack through mounds of over-chilled butter to get to them. It reminded me that I have some peeled brown shrimp in the freezer waiting for me to make my own potted shrimp.

Shiona had haddock brandade, which she said was nice but very potato-y. I suppose because smoked haddock doesn't have the slightly fibrous texture of salt cod, they had to use a lot of potato to bind it. We thought it was a little bit strange that all three of our starters were served on the same slabs of granary toast. A bit of variation would have been nice. Either the brandade or the shrimps would have looked better served in a ramekin with the toast on the side. But that is a minor quibble.

In addition to the regular Sunday lunch menu, because it was such a nice day they had a "summer barbecue kitchen" running. I ordered a Gloucestershire Old Spot pork chop, which was marinated in a slightly sweet and spicy glaze and barbecued to tender perfection. It was really fabulous. Simply served with a big pile of green salad in a mustardy dressing and some new potato salad with lots of chives and parsley in a creme fraiche dressing, it was clearly the best choice of the day!

Paul suffered a bit of menu envy, but the roast beef he had was very good too. Slightly over-cooked Yorkshire pudding, beautifully crisp but fluffy-middled potatoes, buttery crisp green cabbage, some little carrots and a pool of gravy completed the plate. He said he would have appreciated a bit of horseradish on the plate, but other than that it was a very good roast lunch.

Shiona had the roast lamb - which was cooked medium to welldone, just the way she likes it. It had the same vegetables as the roast beef (but no Yorkie) and again was a very good roast lunch.

Shiona and I decided that we still had space for dessert. Of course.

There were several tempting options, and I was quite surprised that she didn't choose the chocolate and coffee mousse (she is a serious chocoholic) and instead chose a banana cake with rum & banana icecream. It was a very, very large portion of cake, and it was seriously overcooked. It was very dry, although it had a good flavour, and I think it would have benefitted from some hot caramel sauce or custard or something to moisten it a bit. The icecream was delicious though - very smooth, very banana-y and with a good strong kick from the rum.

I decided that for a summer Sunday lunch in England, dessert really had to be strawberries and cream. The strawberries were enormous - five strawbs made a very good portion; they were the size of plums. And just simply hulled, topped with cream and a tiny sprinkle of sugar. In a perfect world the strawberries would still have been warm from the sun on the garden bed and the sugar would have been touched with vanilla beans, but we don't live in a perfect world and I was very happy with it as it was.

We took the scenic route home, then drank tea and skyped Paul's parents - who apparently have been reading my blog, so hello to Pieter and Marina!

School Holiday Treat - Le Cafe Anglais

For our latest school holiday treat Jude and I went to Le Cafe Anglais in Bayswater. It's tacked on to the side of a shopping centre, which seems a bit odd, and the woman doing the meet & greet downstairs didn't seem to be particularly interested in being charming, but once upstairs in the airy, art deco-styled dining room everything got better.

After a very restoring gin & tonic, and a few little olives, we were shown to a large oval table at one of the pale eau de nil leather banquettes.

We didn't recognise the man at the table next to us, but we probably should have - everyone else in the restaurant was greeting him like he was Someone, and Jeremy Lee (flamboyant Scottish chef at the Blueprint Cafe ) greeted him like an old friend when he arrived for lunch.

Some lovely chewy bread, really good butter, excellent fresh crunchy radishes and fizzy water helped while we perused the menu.

We'd had some fairly definite ideas (god bless the internet and restaurateurs who put their menus on it) about what to have, but we realised that neither of us actually had a big enough appetite to follow through on those ideas!

The menu opens with hors d'oeuvres, so we decided to skip a starter in favour of a few of these to share. When I saw oeufs en gelee I knew I had to try it in honour of my mother, who introduced me to Elizabeth David. In French Provincial Cooking, David writes "This is not at all so easy a dish to get right as might be supposed. It is not common to find it well done even in a good restaurant. But when perfect, the egg yolk just soft enough to run when you break into it, the jelly firm and clear and delicately flavoured, it is an exquisite dish." This was perfectly executed. The jelly was well-flavoured with a hint of tarragon, the egg yolk flowed softly and the little salad of tomatoes that it sat on accompanied it very well. But I didn't particularly like it. I hadn't really thought through the fact that to encase an egg in jelly the egg has to be cold, and I find cold runny egg yolks a bit weird. But still, I am very happy that I tried it!

The other hors d'oeuvres we tried were much more to my taste. Some fat, crisp oyster fritters showed just how good a cooked oyster can be, and the minty Thai dipping sauce they were served with was just perfect, but they didn't rate a picture of their own. The parmesan custard with anchovy toast, however, was so good that Jude and I agreed we would be hard pushed to order anything else if we saw it on a menu. It was a baked custard (but with the texture of a bechamel) with just the right amount of cheesy crust on top, served with crisp fingers of toast, sandwiched with anchovy paste and flattened in a sandwich press. Oh my god it was good. We dunked the toasts in the custard and swooned at the flavour.

We also rejoiced at the fact that we hadn't tried to order starters as well - the hors d'oeuvres were really very substantial.

As our main courses we both chose fish. I am a sucker for fish & chips, so I ordered the battered haddock with tartare sauce, and some chips. Jude ordered the roast skate with sorrel and Jersey Royal potatoes. When the dishes were delivered we realised that we should have ordered some salad, but the busboy's English wasn't equal to the task. We thought he said he'd get salad, but he must have said he'd get a waiter - and then when the waiter arrived we said everything was fine because we thought the salad was on its way. The upshot being that we got no salad.

It didn't really matter though, because the fish was so damn good. The perfect light, crisp, thin batter, flapping-fresh, firm white haddock, breaking up into large, moist flakes. The good, chunky tartare sauce was perfectly seasoned. The chips were thinner than I like them, but still very good. Jude's skate was also lovely - it is such a good fish!

We both ordered glasses of dessert wine to go with our puddings. Jude had a 2005 Domaine de l'Ancienne Cure Monbazillac, I had a 2002 Chateau Delmond Sauternes. Both were lovely, but quite different.

I really liked that the dessert menu featured fruit. The notion of just ordering some Cox's apples seemed so chic... and I was very tempted to get mango with some coconut sorbet, but I realised that it wouldn't be beautiful, fragrant Kensington Prides so I ordered the pannacotta with rhubarb and strawberries. I have never had rhubarb that good before. It was perfectly tender, but firm, not the slightest bit stringy or mushy. The strawberries were sweet and delicious. Both fruits were complemented by the hint of ginger in the syrup. And the pannacotta was just lovely. Not too sweet, nicely vanilla-y and with the perfect amount of wobble to it.

Jude ordered the chocolate souffle with pistachio icecream, after some time kicking around some other options. And it was a very good decision! The souffle was perfectly light and warm and luscious, with a very good dark chocolate flavour, not at all too sweet. The icecream was incredibly nutty in texture and intensely pistachio-y in colour and flavour.

I finished with a pot of fresh mint tea. Just the thing to finish a large and rich meal.

Definitely one to go back to.

Malaysian Goat Curry

Dharm, in KL, is a hell of a cook. But what you don't always notice in amongst his amazing posts is that sometimes it is his wife who should be getting the kudos!

So this is a goat varuvel, as made by Mrs Dharm. I didn't put quite as much chilli in as she did, and I used garam masala wherever curry powder was called for (and goat meat instead of lamb). And it was absolutely the best curry I have ever made.

I served it with an aubergine dish called terung udang kering (subbing a little fish sauce for the dried shrimps), some dhal, some steamed jasmine rice and some chunks of fresh pineapple tossed with toasted coconut. Delicious.

Courgette Fritter AND Tomato and Bacon Hash

So it was time for brunch. There was bacon, we had more tomatoes but there were no more eggs. Fortunately, there was leftover courgette fritter. Another go at the tomato and bacon hash, with a side dish of room-temperature leftover fritter made a very good breakfast.

Courgette fritter

This was inspired by Historically Hysterical's recent effort - but I decided that I would rather stand out by the barbecue talking to my husband than frying individual ones. So I just made one big flat oven-baked pancake. I used grated halloumi (because that was what I had) and my last egg, so it didn't hold together perfectly, but it was a wonderful side dish for barbecued lamb shoulder. I've made a thicker, more substantial courgette slice often in the past, and with salad it is a wonderful meat-free meal.

Tomato and Bacon Hash - and a blogoversary

Well well well - who would have thought that my 300th post would sneak up on me so quickly?

Since starting to blog I have cooked and eaten a lot of new things, and been inspired by the stuff that others in the blogosphere have been cooking and writing about. The intricate creations of the Daring Bakers don't really float my boat. It's the simpler dishes, where all of a sudden you can see yourself sitting in their kitchen, sharing a plate of something delicious.

Most recently, the thing that has caught me this way is Nigella's bacon and tomato hash, as described by Esi. I read the post, I had the ingredients, it went on the plate. And it tastes so much better than bacon, tomatoes, garlic and worcestershire sauce has any right to. And with an egg on top? Best breakfast ever.