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February 2008 |
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For my sister's visit, a few things she might
struggle to get in Romania, firstly, fish and chips from the Bay
chippie, very fine indeed with some impressively fresh langoustines to
go with our haddie suppers. Stonehaven, though lacking in representation
from Vietnam, Lebanon and Portugal, does indeed boast four very good
chippers. Next up was a plain boiled crab, though it has to be said, a
slight disappointment much like the lobster. We'll have to try again in
a few months. Then a gamey number. I had been hoping to get some
woodcock from Dugie, but no joy. Instead a venison, pheasant and plum
sauce with papardelle pasta, evoking the hare of pappardelle con lepre,
of course. I've read a few recipes (River cafe) that suggest whizzing
the sauce in a food processor. I just can't bring myself to do this, it
seems wrong, wrong, wrong. Maybe fork apart the dense fibrous hare
(venison), but pulverise?? Having stewed the venison and pheasant for a
couple of hours, I removed the veg, and put in the prunes. Shona's mum's
plums in here (dried, so a prune really), but very pleasantly tart. At
the end, a good wallop of cream, ad some chopped chestnuts as a garnish.
I put in some broccoli with the pasta which, and on the second outing,
neeps and cabbage, which though goes against the meat and carbs purity
of the authentic recipe, tasted good. Next time I might pulverise the
cooked veg separately and reintroduce into the sauce. |
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A nice bit of skirt
1lb plain flour, 8oz beef suet
300g beef skirt, chopped finely
a bit more potato, slivers
about half that of neep, slivers
about half that of onion.
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Apologies, I'm sure the gastropun has never been
committed to paper before now, hum. Well, George managed to restrain the
abattoir idiots from chucking the pluck in with the community pile, thus
rendering it untraceable. So I finally got my hands on a couple of
decent chunks of skirt. Shona spent a good part of this Sunday morning
making a specialty that usually specifies skirt, that being the
wonderful Cornish pasty. Using a combination of Jane Grigson's 'English
Food' and Prue Leith, she came up with possibly the finest pasty known
to humankind. I've no doubt a significant part of this was due to
George's other victim of abattoir atrocity, suet. George got me 4kg, and
this time it seems even more buttery and delicious than before, and I
tell you, it made (with Shona), the very finest savoury shortcrust
pastry. A little pepper and salt was the only additive to the filling.
It's odd, but you wouldn't have thought that the raw filling could evoke
anything, but even before cooking, it had the distinct aroma of Cornish
pasty. Alchemy indeed. I think this made 7 or 8, though Jane suggests
small ones are for Southern nonces (well, vicars wives), however, I like
the single handedness of them, and I can't believe even a hungry tin
miner could have kept a mammoth pasty in one piece. Anyway, they were
brushed with egg yolk and baked at 200C for 10-15min the 170C for
45mins. A pickled shallot was rather fine. |
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The next skirt outing, on the same wonderful day, was
with dinner. I had been planning to mince it for skirt burgers, I'm
certain I've written that up. Anyway, There was too little to bother
getting the Kenwood out for, so, knowing the Frogs are partial to a bit
of Onglet steak, I decided to barbecue it along with a couple of Dugie's
Hebridean lamb chops. Some fried potatoes with a bit of the chop fat,
garlic cloves, thyme and some mixed beans and boiled carrots, boiled to
dryness, and almost beyond caramelised to accompany. The skirt was
fabulous, it really suited the barbecue smokiness. The membrane I left
on one side also crisped up beautifully. Mustard, redcurrent jelly and
some bizarre Polish horseradish with cranberry were good condiments.
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Fish may have to take a down turn on the menu after
watching the extra disc in the Blue Planet box set which analyses the
worlds fish eating and fishing habits, depressing stuff indeed.
With that in mind I bought some farmed salmon and
only 4 scallops, which though fished locally come are landed by boat
which made me think they are almost certainly not dived. I'll have to
enquire further. The impact of salmon farming is not entirely without
contention, though Sainsbury's do an organic one I think.
Anyway, having removed the scallop roe I cut the
muscle into discs and immersed in lemon juice for 45minutes or so, a
simple and beautiful preparation, the scallop meat just having a wafer
thin film of denaturement. |
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