Month: August 2009

Apple and blackberry crumble

There were home-grown apples and blackberries in want of a home, and a crumble seemed like a good enough idea. The topping was a mixture of wholewheat flour and oats and less sugar and fat than recipes usually call for. Into a shallow dish went the peeled and diced...

Light at Caramel

I went for a light supper at Caramel in Wilton Road. The street tables were already occupied, but the air conditioning inside is good, even with the big sliding French windows open. Two of us shared the mixed starter plate. It contained taramasalata. humous, tsatsiki, falafel, squid rings, the...

Chardonnay with chicken

Another South Eastern Australian Hardys wine, this, from 2008. It’s from their special ‘Varietal Range’ which presumably means none in the range is blended. It was a decent 13.5%, and had that wonderful buttery smoothness to the middle of the body that I so often enjoy. The fruits were...

Game Relish

Like the Hereford mustard before it, my Fortnum’s game relish saw its first outing with sausages. Specifically these were venison sausages, so it seemed like a logical pairing. With the sausages and relish I had steamed spinach, broad beans, and mashed sweet potatoes. The relish is more like a...

Windfall

A neighbour’s apples drop every year into the driveway and are squashed by cars. Those which survive are invariably bruised, pecked at by birds, or eaten away by wasps. It seems such a waste. This year I gathered up a few. I had to cut away the bad stuff...

Hereford Mustard

This was the first of my Fortnum’s condiments to be opened, and was first enjoyed with Porkinson sausages. The Hereford harks back to the traditional mustards of years gone by: it is a mixture of mustard and horseradish. Both play a strong and equaly part in the flavour here,...

Leftover soup

I had a few green beans looking somewhat shrivelled, a rather sad piece of onion left after a barbecue, plus some plum totatoes a few of which were decidedly soft. The solution was a soup. I boiled the chopped beans in a pint of vegetable stock from a cube,...

Turkey Eggs

These were a surprise find at Harker’s farm shop. Turkey eggs, 10 pence each: I took the last five they had. They were large, free range, and considerably cheaper than the large hens’ eggs you find in most supermarkets. To test the flavour, we boiled them: five minutes a...

Swordfish at Fish Works

It doesn’t make for a very good photo, but the swordfish was delicious. Four of us were at Fish Works in Swallow Street. I used the bread as a starter while the others tucked in to various dishes, then I had the swordfish Milanese. Yes, it was actually cooked...

Greengage and plum pie

Greengages are a variety of plum, apparently considered the finest of the dessert plums. In anycase, there was a bowl of stewed greengages and plums in need of a home. A double-crust pie seemed the ideal solution. The pasty is an unsweetened shortcrust pastry, made with half wholewheat and...