Borough Market

I do have friends who aren't foodies - I truly do - but there is something so satisfying about sharing food experiences with people who are on the same wavelength.

We had a friend from Australia staying recently and I knew that she was someone to whom I could say "Let's go to Borough Market; we won't have dinner tonight, we'll just put together a platter".

We wandered around, taking full advantage of the free tasters on offer, and bought as much as we could carry. Then we came home, opened a bottle of wine and ate it all. Brilliant!

So what did we buy? Well. A loaf of lovely French walnut and honey bread. I sliced it thinly and toasted it. With some foie gras pate that we had in the pantry waiting for a worthy occasion, it was just heavenly. We had fresh purple figs, some lovely British raspberries, an absolutely gorgeous vegetarian mushroom pate, a slice of rabbit and mushroom terrine and several French cheeses. The piece de resistance was some exquisite Spanish ham. Jamón ibérico de bellota is amazing stuff - sure, a good Italian proscuitto is delicious, but it cannot hold a candle to the rich, sweet nutty ibérico. It's bloody expensive but worth it for special occasions!

We piled all these treats on a platter along with some spiced, pickled tangerines and more of the toasted walnut bread. A glorious meal with a foody friend.

Butternut Fritters

For some reason, Mr I-don't-have-a-sweet-tooth* has been reminiscing about sweet things a bit recently.

When he told me about the butternut squash fritters, redolent of cinnamon, that his grandmother used to make, I thought they sounded wonderful.

He was heading off fishing for the day, so I thought he needed a pretty substantial breakfast, and I had the necessary, so I whipped them up. The baking of the butternut is the only thing that takes any time, the rest takes about 3 minutes to throw together.

Butternut Fritters

1/2 large butternut squash
1tbs demerara sugar
1 cup self-raising flour
1 egg
1tbs vanilla extract
milk
1tsp ground cinnamon
oil for frying

Put the half butternut squash in a 180C oven for about 45 minutes or until tender but not browned. As soon as it is cool enough to handle, scrape the flesh into a bowl with a spoon. Add the sugar and mash with a fork (the granular sugar helps break it up into a puree). You'll end up with about 1 1/2 cups of butternut puree.

Stir in a cup of self-raising flour, then a beaten egg, vanilla extract and cinnamon. Gradually stir in enough milk to make a thick batter.

Heat a pan. Add a small slurp of oil. Fry the batter into pancakes - I found that about 1 1/2tbs made a good, thick pancake and fit 3 to the pan. When large bubbles form on the surface it's time to turn them with a palette knife. Keep warm in a low oven while you cook the rest.

Serve hot with maple syrup and a sprinkle more cinnamon. Makes 12 - which for us serves 2.

* Mr I-don't-have-a-sweet-tooth says it is unfair for me to begin a post in such a manner. But it is a statement of fact so I refuse to retract.

Best carrot cake in the world?

Paul maintains that his Aunty Ena made the best carrot cake in the world. He doesn't have much of a sweet tooth so that is pretty high praise!

Apparently it was moist, very spicy and had loads of walnuts. So when again I had a huge pile of carrots from a couple of successive vegetable boxes, I decided to try to make a rival to Aunty Ena's carrot cake.

I came upon this recipe for the Best Carrot Cake Ever. I used mixed peel instead of raisins (because it turned out we didn't have any and I couldn't be bothered to go to the shop). And I have come to the conclusion that I have a dud batch of baking powder. This is the third thing I have made with this box of baking powder that hasn't worked very well. It collapsed in the middle (cunningly hidden with frosting and chopped walnuts) and had a bit of a metallic aftertaste. And all of the mixed peel sank to the bottom and stuck to the tin.

Aunty Ena's reputation as a baker is safe. Mine continues to suffer.

Urchin and the hose

Haven't shown any Urchin pics for a while... this is Urchin playing with the hose. She loves the hose! She will sit at Paul's feet and scream until he goes outside and plays with the hose with her. Funny beast.

A Consolation Prize - The Clarendon

Or, an object lesson in how not to run a business.

Once upon a time - about 6 weeks ago - I received an email. This email was notifying me of an autumnal wine dinner at a local gastropub. I was excited. I phoned to book. The person who answered the phone didn't know what I was talking about, but told me that named event coordinator would call me back that day to discuss it with me and take my booking.

After a week, named event coordinator hadn't called back so I rang again. Again the person who answered the phone knew nothing about it and took a message. I am reasonably sure he did actually write it down because we had a big old laugh about my very South African name not matching my very Australian accent.

Another week passed when named event coordinator failed to return my call.

The friends that we planned to go to the dinner with were actually dining at the gastropub, so they asked about it while they were there. The waitress didn't know anything about it, but reassured them that named event coordinator would call back within the hour.

Three days before the event my friend made a last ditch attempt. The person who answered the phone on this occasion said that she thought the dinner had been cancelled due to lack of interest. OH REALLY? Lack of interest and not extreme disorganisation? Not a lack of customer service? Not the fucking uselessness of an event coordinator who can't manage to return 6 phone calls in 4 weeks?

So there we were. All dressed up (so to speak - it was still a couple of days away so there would be several changes of clothes before we were ACTUALLY all dressed up) and no place to go. And my friend suggested another local gastropub, The Clarendon.

And you know what? Bloody good suggestion.

In days gone by the Clarendon had a bit of a reputation. Apparently it was where nice young boys used to go if they wanted a guaranteed shag and weren't too picky about the hygiene of the girl. Or so I am told by men who claim they had "friends" who used to go there. Things have changed somewhat. It has had a makeover. Rumours circulate about how much money was spent on the refurb, and they are all pretty much believable. It is now very clean, very pretty and the staff uniforms are absolutely gorgeous. They have also spent some money on staff training and have people in the kitchen with a real gift.

As a starter, I had pea salad with goats cheese fritters. My sense of symmetry was offended. There were 3 little mounds of pea puree on the plate, but only 2 fritters. How is that right? How can you have a plate designed around a triangular formation of pea puree and only 2 fritters? And what is worse, they were absolutely delicious and I felt sincerely robbed. The tangle of pea shoots looked very pretty and tasted good, but it is a bit awkward to eat greens like that. I suspect I looked like a grazing bovine. The real revelation was the pickled lemon on the plate. It wasn't like a Moroccan salt-preserved lemon, it had a tang of vinegar and a hint of sweetness. If that is what Amy March's pickled limes tasted like, a literary mystery has been solved for me. It was absolutely the right thing with the hot, crisp goats cheese fritter.

My main course was ham & eggs. Lightly smoked, beautifully tender ham that tasted of Christmas, a perfectly fried duck egg, delicious home-made baked beans and a neat stack of triple-cooked chips. I really don't know what the third cook is supposed to do to the chips. They weren't fluffier within, crispier without or more flavoursome completely than a normal twice-cooked chip. But they were very good dunked into the eggyolk. The wee copper pot of baked beans was an adorable presentation, but I like my baked beans a bit zestier. These could have done with a slug of worcestershire sauce or some tabasco.
I was genuinely tempted to give dessert a miss. But then I saw homemade eccles cakes with Wensleydale cheese on the menu. Oh my. They were so good I almost cried. I've never had a hot eccles cake before, but these were amazing. Definitely a far cry from the dry, flaky things one of the coffee chains sells as an eccles cake. The rich, lardy pastry was flaky without crumbling, the currants in the filling were spicy and plump. The Wensleydale wasn't quite as crumbly as I like it, but the salty creaminess went very well with the eccles cakes. I had a glass of a Rutherglen liqueur muscat. Australia may not produce an eccles cake of such beauty, but they know how to make a pudding wine.
So. The moral of the story. If you return my phone call, I will spend money, smile at your staff, relish your food and recommend you to all my friends. If you don't, you are dead to me and I will be very tempted to reveal your name... and write to your head office.

Farewell Floyd - Jambalaya

I think you would have to be living under a rock for the last few weeks not to have realised that Keith Floyd - television cook, snappy dresser and gastronaut - had passed away from a heart attack.

As a tribute to the trailblazer, James and Julia from the UK Food Bloggers Association are running a Farewell Floyd blogging event. And as it happens, Paul and I had already decided that we needed to do something to mark the passing of someone who gave both of us so much enjoyment.

One of Paul's most treasured possessions is a signed copy of Floyd's American Pie, so it seemed natural that to honour Floyd we had to make something from that book. It also seemed appropriate that we should cook outdoors, in memory of all the scenes of the tide coming in mid-shoot, or the gas blowing out or any of the other hazards that befell Floyd with his location cooking.

And so it was that we settled on Jambalaya. It was Floyd who first introduced me to the notion of the Trinity - the mixture of onions, celery and green peppers that form the basis of a lot of Creole and Cajun cooking, including the Jambalaya, and it is a one-pot meal that really lends itself to outdoor cooking. It's also one of the dishes from Floyd's American Pie that Paul has cooked the most often. I didn't totally follow the recipe, I approached it more as a guideline for a dish.

I don't have enough bowls to do a really cheffy mis en place - and the patio table is too small, so I simplified. One bowl contained my Trinity. One bowl of diced chicken thighs, sliced spicy chorizo and whole cloves of garlic. One bowl of long grain rice, oregano, sage, cayenne pepper and a couple of bay leaves. One large measuring jug of diced tomatoes and chicken stock. And of course, several glasses of wine so I could have a little slurp while I cooked.

Paul made quite a hot charcoal fire in the Weber, and worked his magic on it to keep it stoked for the full cooking time.

I heated the saucepan and then add a good slurp of olive oil. When it was beginning to sizzle I added the Trinity and cooked that until it was translucent. Then I added the chicken and chorizo and gave that a good browning. When the lovely red oil from the chorizo was flowing nicely, I added the rice, herbs and then the liquid. Covered the pan and cooked it until most of the liquid had evaporated. Just before it was done I stirred through a handful of raw, peeled prawns. As soon as the prawns were pink and opaque, it was time to eat.

Vale, Keith.

Grape Pie

When I saw Girlichef's grape pie recipe, a lightbulb went off over my head. We've got a couple of grape vines in the garden, and this year quite a lot of bunches have ripened. They are quite small and not very sweet - not too good for eating out of hand but I knew they would be just the thing for making a grape pie!
The technique of squishing the seeds out of the skins and then combining the strained pulp back in with the skins was a new one to me. It was a bit sticky and very satisfying ina messy sort of way - and I thought that it would be just the task to set a child to, if you had one to hand.
I followed the quantities and method pretty closely. No really, I did. I used bought puff pastry instead of home made shortcrust because I had some and I was feeling lazy. I added an extra spoonful of flour because my filling was looking really wet and juicy. I added a few cloves to the pulp when it was heating, so they infused a bit of warm spice into the mixture. Instead of melting the butter for the filling separately I just added it cold, and counted on the heat of the pulp to melt it (which it did). And for the topping, I did a rubbed-in crumble topping and added some ground almonds to it, instead of the melted streusel topping with slivered almonds on top.

It was a revelation! We ate it just warm (and then cold for breakfast) and totally plain, without cream or icecream or anything and it was absolutely gorgeous. I have no idea why grape pie is not as famous as apple pie. Somehow the squeezed out skins plump up to juicy deliciousness and add just the slightest tanin bitterness to the sweet filling. And fortunately there are enough grapes on the vine for me to make another.