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 A
lot of raspberries |
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September 2007 |
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Bake off? |
.....pork chop, with a sage and apple crust which he then put in the
oven to bake off. BAKE WHAT? These words were uttered by Rachel, a
lovely nurse in the childrens A&E department. She apologised profusely
and left the room, eyes averted. Maybe I over reacted? But really, 'chef
speak' is entering the language, even in Aberdeenshire. At least he
didn't 'literally bake it off', a double chefism. Ainsley H precedes
every other action with that meaningless emphasis 'literally', a kind of
filler when he can't think of anything else to say. I'm sure I've heard
fry off, but not sure about grill off. Well, I can think of something
off. Whilst I'm ranting, I caught a bit of a program along the lines
of 'Britains best dish'. What a sturgid and ridiculous programme. The
contestants fritter around in a retro eighties chrometastic studio
kitchen, whilst the celebrity guest chefs, tasters sit in a line looking
down at three screens at floor level. If you sat up, you could just see
the bloody cooks you prats. You might then be forced to interact with
them like a human being, and not a chefdroid. To magnify the tension,
there is cheesey synth muzak, a cross between the krypton factor and
Countdown. If you are going to make a crap cookery programme, then go
all the way and go in the Iron Chef paradigm, at least it's amusing.
PS- Rachel didn't actually leave the room, but I probably did over
react.. |
 A
very lovely shot |
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Having finally run out saffron from Emma's 30th
feast, (20g I think for about 4 years!!!) I needed more. A little
research led me down the path of Kashmir, whose saffron seems to be of
the highest quality, and perhaps altitude. Baby Saffron, with their alarming 40's
Caucasian cherub logo, offered a direct deal. Something like saffron is
clearly going to get a lot of dodgy dealing on tinternet. Anyway, $64
for 10grams, no postal charge, and it arrived in TWO days from India.
Unreal. It came in a superbly sewn cloth encased box (recylced from
their own boxes). So far I've used it in some plain rice, which I served
with skate and a parsley cream sauce. Tonight I poached a Finnan haddie
in some milk infused with a tiny bashed garlic bulb and a pinch of
saffron. A handful of chopped parsley in the milk to cook briefly and
then mixed with mashed tatties. Yum. Oh yes, a soft boiled egg on the
side. In fact, I mixed the haddock flesh up with the mash, a kind of
potato kedgeree I suppose. Spices? No, keep it simple. |
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After a barren month on the gastronomic front, fine
dinner to celebrate fifteen years of Shona and I meeting. My God.
Well, it had to be the 1kg rump, and a fine rump it
was too. I finally got the bbq going, some sustainable UK charcoal I
bought in Yorkshire, fine stuff. And what a perfect cook, the juices
glazed on the outside perfectly. The chips were almost nirvana, though I
should have gone for the beef fat, not veg oil. To wash it down a 1998
Leoville Poyferre, very fine indeed.
For dessert a pear tarte Tatin, with Shona's
parents pears and Morris' honey instead of sugar. Maybe the best puff
pastry I've ever made.
I also made some oatcakes with George's suet, about
1lb of oats to 2oz suet, 1/2pt hot water, quite crumbly but very tasty. |
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The wonderful National Trust Pud book (see
bibliography page), has a surprising number of references for 'bread'.
We seem to have a bit of a stale bread crust mountain at moment,
hence the search. The one that took my eye was 'Plymouth pudding',
mainly because I thought it would be a rather fine partner to saffron
custard. Basically, it's a baked bread fruit pudding. 8oz of stale bread
to soak with 1/2pt of milk. The bread was very dry, so I put in almost a
whole pint. The recipe calls for brandy, but some single malt had to do.
After a good soak, the bread needed mulching to break up the bits. Then
2 egg whites, saving the yolk for custard. 4oz brown sugar (Billingtons
here), 6oz of mixed fruit, 3oz of grated beef suet, the grated peel of
half a lemon. Put in a cake tin, a sprinkling of sugar and baked with a
foil cover 1.5hr, then 30mins on high to get a nice crust. Yum.
The saffron custard is the dogs whatsits, but double
cream was very good too. |
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