I felt like good fish and chips for the whole day. That place in Broadway came to mind straight away, recommended by lots of people, plus young Matt is moving there in less than a month and good for him!
I approve of this place. I do. Lovely service, friendly, polite. Loooooooovely chips, fried on oil, greasy and flavoursome, just what I wanted. Lovely haddock, as pictured, nicely presented, fresh and for less than a tenner. Definitely going back.
As I’m eating it and writing, I can’t stop thinking about my Mom’s apple pies. It can’t be just apples, Mom’s pastry is just so much better than mine. I must give her a call tomorrow and find out the details. For my pastry today I used 250 g of flour, 125 g of butter, 2 egg yolks and 50 ml of cold water. According to GF, it is supposed to be a universal recipe, for sweet and savoury dishes. Bollocks. It needs sugar. And I’m going to add it next time. My apples, Bramleys, I flavoured with brown sugar and lots of cinnamon, threw a couple of strawberries for the colour, not – I must say- amazing addition. I pre- baked the base a little to avoid the soggy bottom, that worked nicely. A little bit of egg white spread on top before baking made it lovely and golden. It is nice, but it’s not sensational. To be improved.
We’re enjoying a heat wave for the last few days, lovely. I spent a few delightful hours this afternoon sipping Sangria and frying me very front and reading.
Dinner must have been eaten in the garden. Just simple chilli garlic marinated shrimps( soy sauce, sesame oil, chilli garlic paste and brown sugar in random quantities) with loadsa coriander, served on pea rice. Yum.
Made this evening as an experiment, to see if I can change my mind about not liking cooked salmon. For years I’ve been of the opinion that salmon is best as sashimi or sushi, no need to spoil it by cooking. But the fillet Ocado brought me was not fresh enough to wrap in nori, so I griddled it, well seasoned plus a splash of sesame oil. My teriyaki sauce worked nicely with the usual recipe. The extras on the plate involved rice, cooked with a dash of turmeric, some French beans and a simple cucumber and apple salsa, for the crunch.
I quite liked it, Florian said the teriyaki was lovely, but the smell of fried fish bothered him. Yet he ate it all. I will share my leftovers with Stefan the cat, whose owner Becky is mentally disturbed( not Stefan’s fault). 🙂
Just heard it’s been the warmest day of the year so far. It’s been lovely, very warm and a slight breeze and we simply could not have lunch inside, when Ewuta came. Initially I wanted to make the scallops for her with mashed minted peas and parma ham, but Ocado delivered small scallops last night, so I made a nice mushroom risotto to sit the scallops on. Nice it was, made with the remaining Gavi and good mushrom stock, finished with parmesan. Scallops, though small, were fresh and delicious, fried on butter. The whole dish had a nice splash of truffle oil and fresh thyme as well as a few slices of parma. Went down a treat with some Catena chardonnay.
From the recently discovered foodnetwork.uk. Not that I actually followed the recipe, that called for Frangelico, for instance. I didn’t have any and didn’t fancy spending 18 quid for a bottle, but I had some excellent Polish Soplica Orzechowa vodka,excellent for cocktails, , which I mixed with espresso( tiramisu without coffee is not a tiramisu, so I used some). Also, the biscuits were slightly different, it made the dessert look like a cake rather than a layered dessert, but I’m pleased with the result.
The cream, dietetic, as I do nearly always, prawda, whipped cream with sugar and cinnamon; mascarpone, just slightly beaten into submission and then mixed into the cream. Bottom layer- biscuits saked in coffee and hazelnut vodka, the cream, scattered with chopped hazelnuts. Second layer was soaked in a lemon syrup, just juice of half a lemon, some water and sugar boiled for about 2 minutes and cooled. Then the cream again, hazelnuts and cocoa. Chilled in the fridge for the afternoon, 4-5 hours. Pleasant.
It’s not often that I applaud myself in the kitchen and call myself a fecking talent, but today, when I released the cakes from their rings, I did. 🙂
I had some ricotta in the fridge, had some strawberries, so I baked the bases with mostly digestive biscuits, but also amaretti and melted butter. I made some flakes of white chocolate bar, before melting the rest with some cream, 2 gelatine leaves and milk. I whipped about 150 ml of cream, added most of the ricotta tub, still whipping, added the melted chocolate and flavoured the whole thing with vanilla paste and icing sugar. Then threw some quite finely chopped strawberries and filled the rings with chilled biscuit base. They lounged in the fridge for about 4 hours and right before serving I topped them with chocolate flakes and a strawberry, plus a bit of coulis on the side. Standing ovation. 🙂
We went to Cheltenham Food & Drink Festival. All the people I wanted to see, Gennaro Contaldo and Antonio Carluccio and Phil Vickery were all there yesterday, but still, we went to see if there were any tasty treats left. There were. Only the weather was crap, which made us head home after 2 hours. There were great macaroons, as pictured. Nearly, nearly as good as the ones in Paris, only, I thought, the French ones have as much flavour in the cookie itself, as in the filling, the ones below lacked a bit in the base. Only 3 made it home though. 🙂
There was also a dude selling cheeses, freaky flavours like pina colada cheddar (WTF???), the texture of cheddar, but sweet taste that didn’t make sense. The ginger and whisky one though was awesome and came home with us.
We also sat through a wine talk about Bordeaux wines, tasted some, of which the lovely sweet Sauternes spoke to me most, so was purchased on the way home, alongside some prawns, olive bread, Roquefort and that stunning truffle brie they have in Whole Foods. Sauternes, bread, Roquefort and Brie were demolished while watching “Casino Jack”( not brilliant despite Kevin Spacey being in it), so much for Florek’s diet today.
To finish with, 3 hours later, I made super quick shrimp supper. The beauty of the seafood from Whole Foods is not just the quality of it, but as I took the shrimps out to clean them before marinating I discovered they were already deveined. This kind of service I like!!!! I quickly marinated the girls in a mixture of soy, sesame oil, green chilli and coriander, 2 minutes on each side on the griddle pan and onto a simple rocket and tomato salad. I used the photo of it to convince Zuzia Matuszkiewicz to pay us a visit one day. 🙂
I’ve put a meal on the table this evening, that consisted of 2 local ingredients. On the way back from The Forest of Dean we stopped at the Over Farm Shop, just outside of Gloucester. I only wanted some eggs, but left with a bunch of asparagus grown on that farm and some strawberries, advertised as ” travelled from less than a mile away”. Those strawberries were nibbled on even on the way home and we immediately regretted not having bought more.
Main course this evening, fishcakes, made with salmon and haddock, with chilli, shallots, sweet potatoes, healthy amount of coriander and seasoned with a drop of sesame oil. On the top of green salad I threw some of that asparagus, with just a touch of salt, olive oil and good balsamic. I think it might have been the best asparagus I’ve ever tasted. Fresh, slightly sweet and almost juicy. Yum. The fishcakes were excellent, but can’t decide which was the star of the show.
For dessert, something that came to my mind on the way home. I could just serve those lovely strawberries with cream and sugar and not bother, but instead I quickly baked a simple sponge with green tea powder. It looked right, but can’t really taste much of the green tea, should maybe infuse it first, before adding to the sponge. I then cut the rings out of it, layered with whipped cream and berries, quickly whizzed up some coulis and poured it over the top layer. Very pleasing to the eye and the palate. Have a few left, for tomorrow and I’m thinking- white chocolate.
I managed to convince myself for a long time, that I can’t make custard. I think I’m retarded. Of course I can make custard. I’ve made perfect custard this evening, haven’t measured a thing and succeeded. Still had some energy in spite of waking up at 6.30 this morning ( the bastards behind the wall get up early and think everybody else has to as well). I’ve made chicken and leeks pie and then pear crumble. Pear was not an amazing choice, bramley apples would have done better, but, as Florek said, the custard made up for it. All it took was 2 egg yolks, whipped with some sugar and – a tip!!- a touch of cornflour beaten through to help stabilise them- while an equal amount of milk and cream was warming up with a generous amount of vanilla bean paste. I LOVE vanilla bean paste as much as I love Catena chardonnay. As I love salmon sashimi. As I love coriander.
Yeah. Errrm, when the milk/ cream combo was nearly boiling, I started pouring it into the eggs slowly, while whisking, then returned it all to the pan and stirred till thickened. Utter success.
My only complaint would be the fact that I’m not able to take a good photo of a custard. 2 glasses of Dog Point might have something to do with it. 🙂
