quails egg scotch eggs

Had a dinner party recently, the main attraction of which was the starter, which was quails egg scotch eggs served with a salad of chestnuts and pancetta with rocket. Went down very well. Making the scotch eggs was very easy, if a bit fiddly. They take about two minutes to boil, but are very tricky to peel, because the shells are so thin they turn to a sort of powder, or sand. Quite nice to soft boil them as well, and have them runny. Anyway, just coat them in sausage meat and roll in breadcrumbs. I added sesame seeds to breadcrumb mix. One problem was the coating of sausagemeat opened and exposed the egg during deep frying. This may have been because I didn't coat the eggs in flour before applying meat, or it may be because of no beaten egg being added during the coating process. Will try applying these steps next time, but it didn't really matter, they were still lovely. Main course was individual chicken and tarragon pies with roasted veg. Ramekin dishes are big enough for these, just cut up some chicken and fry them with shallots, add stock, tarragon vinegar, creme fraiche and cornflour to thicken, put into pots and seal with puff pastry, then into the oven for about half an hour. Imagine you can do all the usual variations (mushrooms, bacon etc). The thing is they are very easy but look ultra-impressive. Dessert was wine jelly and cream and/or trifle. The wine jelly was my one serious failure, it just collapsed when out of the mould and looked like a plate of raw liver. Still tasted good. The trifle was madeira cake, raspberries, little bit of sherry, custard and cream and chocolate flake on tope. Simple but perfect, though I probably put in too much cake.

River Cottage Canteen, Bath

One of the restaurants set up by Hugh Fearnley Wittingstall, as offshoots of his River Cottage enterprise (the other one is in Axminster). The idea is a cheap and cheerful environment in which to serve quailty food, locally sourced, at low prices. The Bath one is part of the Komedia theatre in Westgate Street. We went there close to Christmas and it was nearly empty because of the snow. The manager said Bath was a ghost town. But we weren't very impressed by this restaurant. The tables are plywood, a bit like decorating tables, the chairs are fold away stools. One wouldn't mind if the food was in stark contrast, but my wife's ham baguette with mustard dressing was a sad looking thing on stale bread, the salad looked limp, everything a bit bleak. My pheasant, leek and bacon stew was luke warm, the mash too stodgy, the white sauce of the stew a bit gloopy, the pheasant disconcertingly pink (had thought it a dark meat). My daughter's cream tea came with a scone like a brick, no butter (the saltiness of which is an essential ingredient of a cream tea), and vey runny jam. And it cost a fiver. The whole lot cam to thirty quid. My half pint of cider was also luke warm, served in a very plain glass. It looked like a phial of piss. The hot chocolate was very good, however. But it was all rather drab. Wouldn't go there again in a hurry.

Borough Market

A covered market in South London near London Bridge Tube, one of the best food places in the capital, begins to approach the levels of delight of a typical spanish or italian market. Too much to go into here but to give some brief impressions, we made the mistake of viswiting the market having already eaten (in the members' room of the nearby Tate Modern, which was fine - a little box of Moroccan Chicken and potatoes, lots of flavoursome leaves but the thin slices of chicken were flavourless) - so were too full to actually eat anything. Spanish deli selling big haunches of parma ham, being thinly sliced before your eyes. Vacuum packs of sweet chorizo, of spanish black pudding and balls of the same. Huge dishes of thai curry and others being cooked, a contraption that toasted huge semicircles of cheese, the molten layer then scraped off to top potatoes or other things. Turkish delight of every flavour. Lots of parma ham, proscuito and salamis. German sausages. Lancashire black puddings. Melton mowbray pies (looked a bit palid and dry), whitby squid, vast drums of paremsan, every cheese you can think of. Lots of barnsley chops. Bakeries, butchers fishmongers. Go and explore, and go hungry.

marmaris

The Marmaris is a restuarant close to the Victoria Art Gallery in Bath, almost overlooking the Avon and the Poultney Bridge. From its window you can look across the river (you can't actually see the river, it's too low down behind the wall)to the wooded hills above the city. You could almost be looking out across the Golden Horn. Great food here, of the kebab variety, I had a mixed one, which had selection of lamb, chicken, lamb chop, and doner meat with rice and coleslaw. My partner had a shishka, which is basically lamb pieces cooked on a skewer (removed). The meat is nicely cooked. You get a free bowl of olives, chilis and crudites, pitta bread and chili sauce, and afterwards you get a free dish of fruit salad. The service is friendly and quick. Never have to wait long. There is a takeway section adjoining. Unpretentious (well, some little domed work with arabesques and what not) but atmospheric.

Pea Puree

Having been enthralled by Masterchef for the last few weeks, had no choice in the end other than to make a scallop and pea puree starter for dinner (there seems to be one in every episode). So went out to the Fishworks and bought eight Brixham scallops in their shells, for £1.20 each, and a packet of frozen peas. It was a great success. The pea puree is very simple - just simmer the peas in some chicken stock for a few minutes, then whizz in blender with some mint leaves. Fry the scallops in very hot pan with sunbflower oil and butter - probably a couple of minutes each side, at least until they had a brown pattern on them. I dusted these ones with salt and cumin before frying. The dollop the pea puree on a plate and arrange scallops on top. The peas have a real zing to them against the seaside flavour of the scallops, make the flavours dance around in your mouth, as they would say on Masterchef.

The Pump Room

A Bath institution, next door to the Roman Baths. Had only been here once before so decided to go again for a mother's day treat. Unfortunately, it being mothering sunday, the menu was a 'special' one, and consisted mainly of roast dinners. For the two course deal I had a main of roast pork followed by a pear and ginger crumble. The pork was very nice, on a bed of mashed something or other, and the roasted vegetables were excellent, but the meat was only lukewarm! And the crackling was tooth-enamel-tough. A bit disappointing. And the crumble didn't crumble at all, in fact it was like a Mr Kipling individual fruit pie, on a slightly grander scale, the crumbly top having solidified into a tough crust. The waiter was a witty chap, a French fellow with a shaved head, who kept us amused. 'I could come back in two hours', he said, after we hesitated over our choices. Then there was the pianist. They always have live classical music at this place, but it is the classical equivalent of nightclub deafening, and this slinky geezer at the keyboard with his byronic hair and his bow tie and tails could only trill and glissando like a poor man's Richard Clayderman, but we did enjoy his finale of a medley of tunes including the Muppet Show and West Side Story. Or my 9 year old daughter did, anyway. It was nice when he shut up and let us talk. The surroundings are the best thing about the pump room, and then you can watch, through the window, street performers on very high monocycles hold flaming torches between their arse cheeks. In fact the food is quite a distraction.

The Settle

I think this is the name of the very pleasant tea shop in Cheap Street, Frome, the famous street that has a watercourse running down the middle of it, which is occasionally the subject of grumbling letters to the local paper from people who claim it is a danger to health and safety, having blundered into it and soaked themselves up to their sock-suspenders, not realising that it is a local wonder that people come from miles around to see and enjoy. My own children used to race leaves and rose petals along its course when they were littler. The Settle restaurant, next door to one of the world's best bakeries (The Old Bakehouse), overlooks the leet in the way that a Turkish coffee house might overlook the Bosphorus, and offers some very pleasant meals. My wife had the famous Thai dumpling things, I've forgotten now, exactly what she had, but they were Thai something or other, a starter. I had the somerset sausages and mash, the sausages being very hearty and robust and meaty and flavoursome little things. It was spring at last, so no need for the large log fire, though it was a nice touch. The staff are quite friendly. The cakes always look very good here. The breakfasts are good, too. You should go there.

Stourhead

The search for the perfect cream tea continues with a visit to Stourhead, the wonderful Italianate house and gardens built and laid out by the Hoare family, 18th Century Bankers, who at least had some good taste, unlike today's moneymen. I was travelling on a number 15 Bus the other month down the Strand when I saw the present day Hoares headquarters, so they still seem to be going strong. The gardens at Stourhead are a treasure, like walking around in a painting by Claude Lorrain. The restaurant at the top by the car park is always slightly disappointing. Lukewarm food, dry cakes, measly portions, offhand staff. But we keep going back there. Today I had a roast beef dinner with a couple of newspaper thin slices of roast beef in a tomatoey sauce (which didn't feel right) and a yorkshire pudding that felt as though it had been pumped up with a bicycle pump. My wife has a vegetable crumble, which she said was too acid, and consisted mainly of some chopped onion and a can of chopped tomatoes (probably Asda Smart Price). My daughter had a cream tea. This one failed on the scone. These had been baked and had collapsed in the baking so that the top had toppled over and it looked like a squashed butterfly. It was impossible to know how to slice it, and when we did, the thing crumbled to pieces anyway, and was also rather dry. And there was not quite enough cream to cover the two scones and their many fragments.

Welsh Cakes

The feast of St David is also the first day of Spring, 1st March, so decided to make some Welsh cakes. Last had these in a really nice cafe in Barmouth, North Wales, but had never made them before. They are very simple. Take about 8oz plain flour, half tspn baking powder, half tspn mixed spice, 4oz caster sugar, 1oz butter, 1oz lard, and rub together till breadcrumby, then mix in an egg and 4oz currants and mix until like pastry, adding tiny bit of milk if necessary. Roll out until about 1cm thick or tin bit less, cut into 6cm discs and fry in frying pan greased with lard, about 3 mins each side, or until golden brown. Sprinkle with sugar and serve. Nice with butter. Basically they are drop or griddle scones.I think the lard is essential. Haven't hard lard for years, it has a rich meaty flavour which is quite a shock if you're used to sunflower oil. Will definitely have these every St David's Day from now on.

Garrick's Head, Bath

Third visit this week, a bit disappointing after the joys of the first two. First, the range of draught ciders and perrys was reduced to a couple of bottled varieties, for no obvious reason. Secondly, the menu was a bit dull. Only four choices for mains, two of which were veggie and one other was liver and bacon. I chose the remaining one, beer-battered hake and triple-cooked chips. This turned out to be a fairly straightforward fish and chips. My friend had the liver and bacon, which was exactly that, not in a sauce of any sort. He had a starter of parsnip soup, which seemd ok, and I had a piece of pork belly, which was very good.The friendly waitress told us about how she got very drunk the night before her driving test, but passed anyway, whereas when she took her maths GCSE she failed, despite having revised and gone to bed early the night before. The obvious conclusion, she should have got drunk before her GCSE. The place was empty again, as it had been on the previous two lunchtime visits, except for a group of businessmen who arrived shortly before we left. Not sure if I will visit again for a while.

Tollgate Teashop

A blackboard in a layby with the single word 'SOUP' advertizes the presence of this little former toll house on the A46 a few miles north of Bath, along with another sign in the shape of a kettle. This place always seems busy, and the layby type car park is often full, especially in summer, so you sometimes have to wait for a table. Inside it is small and cottagy, a bit gloomy and chintzy, but with a light conservatory at the back with wonderful views across rolling fields towards the Severn Estuary and Wales beyond. There are tables in the garden and even a coin-operated telescope (bring binoculars). The food is pricey for a teashop, anything more complicated than a sandwich (eg jacket potato, shepherds pie, lasagne) will cost 7 or 8 pounds. We had toasted sandwiches (ham and cheese, tuna mayo) and a Welsh Rarebit (pefectly done, bubbly brown on top, gooey within, on a thick slice of brown bread)and the aforementioned SOUP, which on this day was celeriac and stilton, which I am told was nice and cheesy.Quite a friendly little place really. If you drive to the nearby village of Tolmarton, the other side of the M4, there is a nice stretch of the Cotswold Way to follow north towards Old Sodbury.

Chinese Beef Stew

While thinking of Chinese food – here’s a recipe that worked well for me and surprised me with its simplicity, basically it is a beef stew with Chinese flavourings. First, fry some chopped garlic (6 cloves) ginger and a bunch of spring onions together in a lot of olive oil, in a casserole, then remove, and then chop some braising steak into chunks, coat in seasoned flour and brown on all sides, adding more oil if necessary. Then return the spring onions etc to casserole, add some 5 spice powder and star anise, then 500ml beef stock, a few table spoons of soy sauce, a glass of wine or sherry (less if using sherry), add the beef and simmer, covered, on low heat for 1.5-2 hours. Near the end add some steamed or boiled pak choi, and serve with fried rice.

Dragon Pearl, Frome

Dragon Pearl is a Chinese restaurant in Frome, located in a sort of attic at the top (well it would be) of Georgian buildings overlooking the steeply curving High Street of Frome Town Centre. We didn't know of this place's existence until a friend mentioned it. You could walk up and down the High Street all your life and not realise it was there, unless you happened to crane your neck at the right moment, and then you would see people in the sky sitting at tables enjoying high class chinese food while looking down on you as though you were a type of worm or centipede or other crawling thing. Frome is not known for its abundance of eating places, so this was very exciting. We entered by the little door in a side street and climbed several flights of stairs (there is a lift), which, after the steep climb up the High Street can be a bit much if you are as unfit as me, which I hope you are not, so could only gasp to the waitress at the top that we required a table for four. It was Valentine's Day but there was no way we could shake off our kids, so we all went for a romantic dinner for four. Beneath the sloping attic ceilings, the Dragon Pearl felt fresh and bright, very unlike the usual tacky high street Chinese place. We had a Valentine's special, which began with a complimentary glass of fizzy stuff with a heart-shaped strawberry in it, then dim sum type starters - heart shaped sesame toasts, honey-glazed ribs, spring rolls, seaweed in an edible dish, fishcake thing, all very nicely done. Then a main course of sliced beef in Cantonese sauce, with sort of caramelised onions, the sauce very sweet, but delicious, then a chicken ginger and sweet corn stir fry thing, but the main interesting thing was cucumbers stuffed with minced prawn and chicken in an oyster sauce - very delicate and unusual dish, making good use of the much underused cucumber as a main ingredient. Then some chunky tiramisu/gateau/creme caramel type deserts - suspect the creme caramel came from Somerfield (soon to close!!), but otherwise this was a really nicely done meal, with some thought and care taken, not just a lot of stir-fried stuff in a gooey sauce. They've been in Frome for about three years, so the Waitress said, seeming a little surprised that we hadn't been before. Hope they stay for many more years, because we need to try everything on the menu.

two tea shops

In the High Street of Wotton-Under-Edge is a place called the Wotton Coffee Shop, (the High Street is actually called Long Street, I Think), anyway this was the least crowded of several tea shops in the village (town?). It had quite a nice interior but the counter area looked a bit like the sort of counter area you might get in a village hall or community centre - sort of cheap and tatty-looking. The staff were podgy middle-aged blonde women, they were slightly sullen and heavy handed but were not life-threatening. The cream tea was really good - warm fruit scones, tubs of Rhodda's Clotted Cream (wish they'd bring back those lovely copper-foil lids) - but the weak point was the jam, tiny tubs of a sort of strawberry-flavoured paste - and there was no butter to go with it, though they supplied some when we (I) asked. Otherwise, quite a nice little place but not one to rush back to.
The other is the cafe in Jolly's Department store in Bath, on the lower ground floor at the back of the building, not the posher restuarant upstairs. This place was ok, the man behind the counter was quite Jolly himself, looked like a balding Andy Murray. I had a cappucino which tasted like an espresso with some froth on top, very very strong. And an egg and bacon sandwich that was let down by the ordinary bread, as most sandwiches are, but then one side of it was going hard, which even on a sunday, isn't good. Nothing special about this place, in fact, hardly worth mentioning, like a poor man's Costa Coffee, don't really know why I'm mentioning it at all.

Saxe-Coburg Soup

Have been dreading making this soup, and putting it off for a few days. It seemed like a good idea when I found it in the Readers Digest Farmhouse Cookery Book, but the thought of sprouts, ham and cream floating about in a bowl started to seem unappealing, as I began to see it through my children's eyes. However, it turned out to be a real delight - rich yet delicate, with a mustily English undertone. It comes from the Victorian era, commemorating the German side of the Royal family. Here's how I made it

Fry a chopped onion gently in 2 ounces of butter for ten minutes. Add 12 ounces of trimmed, sliced sprouts and two ounces of finely chopped ham. Season and add some gratings of nutmeg. Add about an ounce of flour, stir all around and add two pints of stock (veg or chicken, doesn't matter - apparently the traditional stock is veal), simmer for a few more minutes, blend in a liquidizer, but not for long, so it remains bitty, return to heat and add another two ounces of ham cut into matchsticks, and a dash of double cream. I almost felt it didn't need the cream, it looked pretty creamy already, and ceratinly didn't add the quarter pint of the recipe, so just add what you feel is enough. Serve with croutons.

Castle Coch

A fairytale castle outside Cardiff, poking out of the trees above a valley full of engineering sheds, Castle Coch is a sweet little folly that looks like it has been airlifted from Bavaria. The best thing about it, though, is the cafe, which you can visit without paying the castle entrance fee. The Bakestone Cafe is tucked into an oddly shaped room in a corner of the castle, and serves very Welsh themed food which is simple, solid and wholesome. The best thing to have is the Lamb Cawl, basically a lamb stew with carrots, swede, parsnip etc. Despite grabbing a handful of salt and pepper sachets we found it didn't require any seasoning, was perfectly made, and came with an inch thick slice of brown bread and a triangle of garlic cheese in green wax. Cawl should not be confused with caul - the amniotic sac or peritoneum which covers some babies' heads when they are born (and thus confers psychic powers or protection from drowning (see David Copperfield)Lamb Cawl has nothing to do with that particular anatomical feature, and instead is just a word for stew derived, probably, from a word for a vegetable root). Also good is the Welsh Rarebit. My daughter's cheese and ham toastie was also very well made, generously portioned and came with enough salad to be a meal in itself. There were solid, hefty but tasty-looking cakes, and the menu was heavy with welsh cheeses, which you could have with almost anything. Even the milkshakes were generous, full of big thick bubbles. Then afterwards you can walk up the hill through the woods and play with sticks, climb trees, swing on vines, pulverise rotten tree stumps, or just walk around. Castle Coch's cafe is a real delight, you should go there, but not for the next month (this is 3rd Jan 2010) because it is closed for refurbishment. Hope this doesn't mean any change to the character and atmosphere or food.

Pappy's Tiny Tea Shop

Spent New Year's Day walking the hills around Cheddar Gorge, along steep paths of frozen mud, watching goats nibbling the bark on the little trees, admiring the clear views across the Somerset Levels to the sea and the distant uplands of Exmoor. Then down the 272 steps of Jacob's Ladder to the bottom of the Gorge and a search for a cup of tea. I do love tatty tourist tat places, and the shops along the bottom of the Gorge are a good example, have had hit and miss experiences at cafes here, from the cold, bland and hostile to the slightly less cold, bland and hostile, but this time, by good fortune (few places were open and those that were open were full), we came upon Pappy's Tiny Tea Shop, which is indeed tiny, and is just about the first building you come across as you travel down the Gorge from the upper end (the second building is the public lavatories next door). But Pappy's was a delight, mainly on account of its friendly atmosphere, the blond woman who runs it (not sure if she's Pappy or not) is very friendly and welcoming, as though slightly desparate for you to be happy, and the food was good, even though I didn't have anything. My wife's bacon roll was really a baguette packed with bacon (but where was the butter!?) and my daughter's cheeseburger was perfectly cooked and generous with cheese, though the burger itself was just a fried frozen thing, and my son had a Cornish pasty, which wasn't any such thing -a flaky pastry bundle containing mashed up meat and carrots - but then what does one expect from a place like Pappy's? A lot more, I suppose, but then my hot chocolate was generous with cream and marsh mallow and lovingly compiled, and was, unusually, quite chocolatey, but it was served in a glass mug - I hate glass mugs! Never mind. It's one level up from a good layby snack shack (and there are some very good ones - there's one in the Peak District I'm thinking of, but can't quite pinpoint in my memory, and besides, it might not be there any more) Pappy's has seats for about twelve people on three tables, and has a takeaway hatch as well, and a blackboard of extensive panninis and sandwiches. It also sells hilarious things to hang on your wall, like signs that say 'how many men does it take to change a loo roll? Answer - no one knows, it's never happened'. WTF? Anyway, warm hearty atmosphere is almost equalled by the warmth and heartiness of the food.

Inroduction

This is a blog about food. It is about what I eat and the places I eat it. The food I make and the food I read about. It is also about drink, what I drink and where I drink it. It is mainly a record of any thoughts I have about food. I am not a chef or restauranteur, I don't have any training in any aspect of food, but I have a clumsy, ongoing fascination with it, and feel a need to write clumsily about it.

I'll start by describing the first thing I made this year, which was a fillet of pork tenderloin stuffed with black pudding. Oh this was such an easy thing to make, yet looked very impressive. Ridiculously impressive. This is what I did-

I got a fillet of pork tenderloin which is rather like a large natural sausage, coming from somewhere around the lower back of the pig (under the backbone, I think) - readily available in supermarkets these days, mine was in a long vacuum pack. I cut it in two then sliced each piece lengthways and opened it up like a book. Then I got some good quality black pudding and placed it in the middle of each piece, then folded the meat over, closing the book, as you might say, and trimming off bits of black pudding that stuck out. Then I wrapped both pieces in streaky bacon, put them in a roasting tin and then in a quite hot oven for about half an hour. Then when they were nice and cooked-looking, I took them out and sliced them with a very sharp knife into half-inchish slices. Then I poured some honey and lemon juice into the pan with the meat juices and stirred that around for a little while. Meanwhile, I'd boiled some spinach, and made a bed of it on each plate, placed the slices of stuffed pork on top of the spinach and then drizzled the honey-gravy over the top. Served this with some buttered tagliatelli, it was fantastic. The bacon had infused the outer layer of pork with a rich pink colour, so each slice was a lovely variety of colours with the outer crispy layer of bacon, the varying shades of pork, then the black stripe of pudding in the middle.