Old Sarum Jams

On a recent visit to the English Heritage site of Old Sarum, near Salisbury we discovered that the gift shop has a rather good selection of preserves. We arrived late after doing a long walk and they kindly kept the shop open for us; they were just about to close, and so we were admitted up the ramp and across the bridge for a private viewing while the masked vendor waited patiently, though I didn't feel I could linger as long as I would have liked to otherwise. But I was very happy with these purchases - never come across the combination of fig and raspberry before, and black fig at that. Tried it just now on toast - very nice, gives a sort of depth and tang to the raspberries, their sweetness breaking through the dark sombre almost treacly tones of the black fig. The blood orange marmalade was very good as well, might be a suitable substitute for the RNLI marmalade we bought in Weston a few weeks ago, and which we thought might have no peer. Label recommends the marmalade goes well with (or should that be in?) Cheslea Buns, while the fig and raspberry goes well in a Bakewell tart.   

 SAUSAGE ODYSSEY

You might know what has happened to supermarket sausages recently - they have all become gluten free - wherever you go - Sainsbury's, Morrisons, Asda, Tesco, everything is gluten free which means they are basically horrible, the texture of rice flour in the fillings and the seaweed casings means they don't taste like proper sausages at all - I have been waiting for the public uprising, for the riots in the streets, but apparently the British public have either not noticed or are ok with blanket gluten free in the supermarket sausage departments. It looks like the proper sausage has gone from supermarket shelves for good.

The plus side of this is that I have been forced back to visiting butchers' shops to procure my sausages. They are far better, but the quality does vary. So I will be doing a survey of sausages in my local area and will embark on a quest for the perfect local sausage. You'll have noticed I've avoided using the term 'banger' in this post, such a cliche. 

So much food wise has been transformed by the pandemic, we have hardly eaten out since 2019, but the saddest thing is the closure of pubs - so I will also be surveying and documenting the closure of pubs in the area - have seen so many beloved hostelries go to the wall since the pandemic, and I should really start visiting them again. So, watch this space for future posts regarding sausages and pubs.

Deep Fried Macaroni Cheese

 

For the final day of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme we went to The Garrick's Head in Bath. Haven't been here for a long time and remember it as a nice but rather underused lunchtime pub, probably busier in the evenings when it would be an ideal pre-theatre dining pub as the Bath Theatre Royal is just round the corner. The pub is housed in the former home of Beau Nash. I had a lamb and mint pie for my main, which was wonderful, a sort of pastry castle in a moat of gravy with defensive mounds of mashed potato and cabbage, the only problem was the slight difficulty in eating as one hacked away at the pastry ramparts and lifted oddly shaped bits of wall to one's mouth it could get a bit splashy with the gravy but everything was beautifully made. Also a nice dessert of Brownie and salted caramel ice cream. But the memorable thing was the starter, a deep fried macaroni cheese - like a small breadcrumbed brick sitting in a pool of cheese sauce, with shreds of red cabbage and a salsa verde. It was utterly delightful and delicious. My two companions also enjoyed theirs, though one complained (sort of) that the crocque monsieur panini was just a ham and cheese panini, and they both thought their sorbet desserts were just too sweet. But otherwise, a really nice meal and experience.

Hokey Pokey Sundae

 

hokey pokey sundae at the Green Park Brasserie, Bath

So I'd never heard the term 'hokey pokey' before and was intrigued to see on the blackboard of the Green Park Brasserie in Bath a 'special' under desserts called Hokey Pokey Sundae. Hokey Pokey, it turns out, is the New Zealand term for that honeycomb toffee that, when covered in chocolate and sold in the form of a bar is known to British lovers of confectionery as a Crunchie. So I went for this dessert even though I knew what an ill matched pair honeycomb toffee and the human molar are, but know that as long as I can tackle the stuff with my front teeth - nibble at it as it were - I can usually manage. Which is why a Crunchie Bar is no longer a viable option for me, they are impossible to eat without resorting to molars and chewing, which usually means the end of fillings or the need for new ones. The dessert was a delight, three scoops of Marshfield Farm vanilla ice cream (MF is just north of Bath, you will pass it on the way to or from the M4), little chewy cubes of brownie, splinters and nuggets of hokey pokey, and chocolate sauce, and some ovals of cream. The Green Park Brasserie is a friendly place in the old Green Street Railway Station, without outside seating at the back under the impressive old curved station roof. They have live music (or did have before the pandemic at least), at weekends. This was our third Eat Out to Help Out session, our mains were a very good burger and a vegan linguine (artichokes, olives, sub blushed tomatoes).    

Crema di Limone

Blackberries seem to be ripening early this year. On a recent walk on the Stourhead estate we found several blackberry stretches of blackberry bsuhes and gathered a few in a dog bag, then got home and wondered what to do with them. Was another apple and blackberry crumble in the offing? Then I came across this recipe in a two year old edition of the Guardian's Feast magazine. For several years now I've been sorting through my backlog of TLS's and other saved papers, and came across this by chance just after we picked the blackberries, in a little section on Sicilian desserts. What luck! So I made them. Could be an answer to our eternal custard problem (my wife hates it, I love it), this is basically a milkless custard, using just eggs, cornflour, sugar and water, to achieve something very custard like. With the addition of lemon juice it becomes, as my wife pointed out, lemon curd. Just put it in a pastry case and you have a lemon curd tart. But this is crema di limone. Made me wonder though if, without the lemons and with vanilla, say, you could make a milkless custard? Or are there any other milkless versions of custard? Anyway, this is finished off just by boiling some blackberries with sugar and water to make a liquor to pour on top. We both found it very delicious.

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Dorothy Hartley's Toad in the Hole

extra fluffy olde english batter

A rather unfocussed and confused week of eating this week. After the excesses of last week's party food we opted for safety on Monday and made Gino's Bolognese, then on tuesday my wife made a jerk chicken from Jamie 30 mins which was really nice and on wednesday made the wonky summer pasta form the same book, which we'd had last week as well. Then I realised I had, in planning the week's meals, chosen two different pasta and pesto recipes - there's one in Gino that has a potato in it. So instead of that, on thursday, we had toad in the hole, but I thought I'd try out a different recipe. Dorothy Hartley's magnificent Food in England has a recipe for a batter that can be used for a variety of purposes, mainly for the making of fruit puddings, but can also be used for toad in the hole. The main difference from other batters is that it uses four egg yolks, while the whites are beaten to meringue consistency and folded in, with a slightly lower proportion of milk so you end up with quite a thick oozy batter. This is then used in the toad in the normal way (bake sausages for 10 mins or so in roasting tray with fat before adding batter then bake for another 30 mins.) The result was pleasing, and strangely it rose in the centre rather than round the edges, and the batter had a more cakey consistency, with a crisp crust and soft underneath. Sometimes this batter can rise to completely envelope the sausages so they are hidden inside what looks like a giant cake, but it didn't quite do that for us. So this was our DISH OF THE WEEK. The next day was due to eat Gino's pasta and pesto with a potato but just didn't fancy it, so made the kofta curry from Jamie 15 instead, which used up the last of the curry paste which has been sitting in the fridge for about a year (with no ill effects). This is one of the best recipes in that book - puy lentiles and beef mince mixed together and shaped into fingers fried with a curry sauce made from blended tomatoes, coriander stalks, coconut milk, curry paste, turmeric, honey and spring onions. On saturday we had baked potatoes which I love at the moment for their autumnal colours and smells, with cheese, bacon, tuna, salad etc, we bought giant potatoes from the farm shop. Not that popular with daughter though. Then on Sunday I made a beef stew that was cooked slowly while we all went to see Interstellar in the cinema for 3 hours. Wonderful stew from the 4 ways book, which improves with the adding of a tablespoon of flour. Unfortunately I ate too much of it and too late, and was kept awake the following night with acidity.

Apricot and Lavender Cake

Just to add to the last post (hey it's remembrance sunday so I can use that phrase), I forgot to mention we went to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford on Saturday, the day of the party with the cod and samphire buffet etc, and although we had not much time to look round (about fifteen minutes actually) we did have time to try the cafe in the basement where I discovered a rather delicious cake, an apricot and lavender cake, which was a nice dense puddingy cake, the lavender probably not a very prominent flavour but there were pretty scattering of purple flowerets on it, but it was very nice. My partner had a lemon drizzle cake. Mind you, perhaps it was the lavender cake the caused the tummy upset.