Wednesday 29 August 2007

No such thing as a free lunch

I had lunch bought for me today, because I have been on a training course. My colleagues and I were taken to The Eagle pub just off City Road*, having been given the chance to choose our lunch earlier in the morning so that it was all ready when we arrived.

I chose a chorizo and stilton salad, mainly because I was intrigued by the combination! I just couldn't imagine how they would go together because both have quite a strong flavour. I normally expect stilton to be served with green vegetables or with pastry because of the excellent way it melts and adds a certain tangy, cheesy saltiness.

I have to say, though, it was a good combination. It was served with mixed leaves and new potatoes, which both balanced the saltiness. The chorizo was a little on the chewy side but was very nice - not too garlicky. All in all I was only slightly jealous of my colleague's fish finger sandwich!!

But I have had to sit through a fairly boring and inappropriate training course to get this lunch, so ...!

*Apparently this pub appears in the nursery rhyme 'Pop Goes The Weasel', interestingly enough.

Tuesday 28 August 2007

Lidl pigs

I went to Lidl the other day! I know - I was fairly surprised myself! I wanted to get something to eat in the evening - just a small snack and some alcohol. I quite fancied some serrano ham and Spanish red wine, as usual. But I had a bit of trouble on the tube and couldn't find time to get to Tesco or M&S.

So ... I found myself at Tottenham Hale station with a bit of time to spare and there's a branch of Lidl just a couple of minutes' walk away. I just knew they'd have a good selection of cured meats and Spanish wine in there - I was absolutely confident of finding it. As I walked in, I realised the reason for my confidence: the only other branch of Lidl I've been to is the one in Tarifa, in Spain, and therefore I subconsciously think of it as a Spanish supermarket! One branch of Lidl is amazingly like another and, as I walked through the doors, I couldn't shake off the feeling that I'd somehow been transported to southern Spain. I wasn't at all surprised to find endless aisles of cheap maize snacks and chocolatey breakfast goods. I walked unflapped past the humungous bottles of cheapie shampoo and the massive sacks of onions. I nearly said 'excuse me' in Spanish, even!

Surely enough, their range of cured meats was pretty good. I had several kinds of ham to choose from and was momentarily tempted by some good-looking chorizo too. I bought some serrano ham and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality. I also had a bottle of Rioja, for just under a fiver, which was fairly decent. I'm not quite a Lidl convert, but it more than did in an emergency!

Wednesday 22 August 2007

Sausage blast

Last night I wanted to make a dinner that was quick and simple to create, undemanding, easy to eat and went with red wine.

I ended up making a sausage and spinach salad. It's dead easy and it's really not going to win any awards for style or anything, but it was quite delicious and fulfilled the brief!

Basically, I just threw loads of spinach, a little bit of rocket and some cherry tomatoes onto the plates. I then added some boiled new potatoes and green beans, along with chunks of grilled sausages. It's a good opportunity to choose a particularly lovely kind of sausage because it forms the dominant taste of the whole dish. I chose some pork and tomato chutney ones, but I think more or less any kind would go well.

As a dressing for this I always used to mix a tiny bit of balsamic vinegar with olive oil, but I'm slightly off balsamic just lately. So I went for the good ole honey, mustard and lemon mixture - now I've perfected it I may as well make the most of it! In retrospect I'd take out the lemon because it detracted a little bit from the flavour of the sausages.

Apart from a liberal sprinkling of black pepper, there's nothing more to this dish. It went down particularly well with a nice glass of Spanish shiraz (well, what wouldn't?!).

Thursday 16 August 2007

The best kind of window shopping

I was slightly disappointed with my lunch today so I spent ten minutes or so indulging in one of my favourite hobbies - perusing menus.

I just like to look: I can almost imagine the tastes, textures and fragrances as I read through and choose what I'd have! It's by far the most enjoyable form of window shopping, in my opinion.

Which reminds me: I get really cross when restaurants place a menu outside for perusal but plonk it right next to a table or, even worse, stick it to the window just in front of a table. It means some poor sap has people staring blankly inches away from him all evening while he eats. I really enjoy wandering around and having a good read through each menu before deciding what to eat, but I feel such a pest having to loom over someone's meal to do it!

Wednesday 15 August 2007

Ou sont les kitties?

The Bountiful Cow - heavy on cows, light on cats.

We arrived shockingly early because the weather was really bad yesterday and it wasn't the evening for traipsing around town looking for somewhere to drink. The pub was fairly empty when we arrived, so we went straight to our table and had a nice bottle of red wine (Spanish, 100% grenache grapes, but I forgot to make a note of the name).

The Toptable reward menu was pretty good and not as limited as some restaurants' special offer menus. I chose the smoked salmon to start and I was pleased by how much of it there was! For the main course we both chose the onglet which was served with bread and very nice chips. It was a good quality steak and was cooked almost perfectly. All in all this was no-frills food but was nicely prepared and served.

The only problem was the kitty-lack. It said on the website that the pub had a couple of cats (as pets - not on the menu ...) and we were somewhat looking forward to that. But we didn't see them.

Tuesday 14 August 2007

Beefmeat

I'm a big fan of Toptable and I use it for more or less all of my restaurant bookings. Even if the website doesn't have enough information on my venue of choice (and this is my major criticism - it sometimes reads more like a glossy brochure rather than an impartial booking guide), I invariably look elsewhere to find out more before returning to book via Toptable.

So I use it a fair amount and, as a consequence, I have built up rather a lot of reward points. These are given out each time one makes a booking and then goes back to the site to rate and/or review the restaurant.

In the past I have allowed my reward points to expire but this time I was determined to make good use of them. To that end, I've booked a table for two at The Bountiful Cow (apparently a 'Public house devoted to beef'!) this evening, where my points will pay for a two-course meal for two people.

I'm quite relaxed and pleasantly anticipatory about it: the fact that it's a free dinner sort of takes away the pressure of having booked the 'right' place!

I felt like chicken last night

Chicken and avocado salad with pine nuts, sesame seeds and lemon dressing

I sort of stole this recipe from The Spitz , a bar/restaurant/venue in Spitalfields Market, London. I had a particularly nice lunch there once and adapted it into something I could recreate at home.

Now, one of my main problems with chicken is that it's always overcooked. Generally I prefer meat to be cooked as little as possible, but that's quite hard to achieve with chicken if one wants to remain unpoisoned. So it usually ends up far too well done for my liking. What I normally do for this dish is to place chicken breasts on a baking tray, drizzled with olive oil, and cover them loosely with foil. Initially I oven bake them for 15 minutes (NB: ovens may vary, dear reader. Please make your own judgements as I've done!). Then I slice the chicken and, if it's still too pink inside, return it to the oven sliced under a new piece of foil for a few more minutes. This at least gives me control over the pinkness and texture, while the foil retains the moisture.

The next step is to slice an avocado - easy enough! For the salad base I usually go for something like watercress, spinach and rocket, upon which I place the avocado slices artistically!

Pine nuts are best slightly coloured, I think, so I place them in a dry frying pan and put them over a high heat for a couple of moments. They're then sprinkled over the salad along with some sesame seeds.

The dressing consists of olive oil, lemon juice, wholegrain mustard and honey. I'd love to be able to give you quantities, but I just sort of add alternate dollops until it tastes right.

The final step is to lay the sliced chicken onto the salad bed (lovingly, of course) and drizzle the dressing over everything. I add black pepper too, but then again I add black pepper to more or less everything.

Et voila!

Monday 13 August 2007

In a pickle

There's a scene in Bridget Jones's Diary in which our heroine stares disconsolately out of the window, to the strains of Gabrielle's Out of Reach, and eats Branston Pickle straight from the jar with a spoon.

Now you can't tell me you haven't considered this! Surely to goodness everybody has been tempted to give it a try. It's amazing stuff! I find myself scrimping more and more on the cheese whenever I make a cheese and pickle sandwich, or judging the merits of a ploughman's lunch by the size of the pickle dollop.

I'm just one step away from eating it straight from the jar, I tell you!

NB: I had a peek at Wikipedia when I started writing this to see what they had to say about Branston Pickle and I was reminded of the Pickle Crisis of 2004. It coincided with the start of my Christmas food shopping that year and my pickles are always the first things I buy, so it hit me pretty hard. Floods, droughts, killer winds ... all pale into insignificance in my world compared with not being able to buy pickle!

Friday 10 August 2007

Rosmarinus officinalis

Having lived, until very recently, in a house called Rosemary Cottage, I was quite sad to leave my handy, ever-enormous rosemary bush behind. It's not a herb with which I was particularly familiar several years ago but it had gradually made itself at home with my roast potatoes, parsnips and chicken.

Imagine, then, how glad I was to discover a nice, healthy crop of rosemary growing just outside the back door in my new house!

I might try and find some other ways to use it, even!

Thursday 9 August 2007

What's your favourite cheese?

It was a cheese day today! My lunch consisted of some of the leftover walnut oat digestives from the picnic, a few slices of gruyere, a slice of jarlsberg and some Canadian cheddar. Oh yes, and some Tesco Finest caramelised red onion relish.

I find gruyere a little bit hit and miss, really. It certainly does have a 'processed cheese' texture about it, similar to some of the worst Spanish cheeses. The jarlsberg, though, was very satisfying and rich. All in all, the spot of 'favourite Swiss cheese' hasn't been snatched from emmental just yet but I'm glad to have tried a couple of new contenders.

The cheddar was a bit too strong and crumbly for my liking, but was a perfect match for the biscuits and relish.

And still room for a carrot cake with butter icing, dusted with cinammon: quite possibly the best cake in the world! Me gusta la canela!

Wednesday 8 August 2007

Crisps for snobs!

I am currently* eating Jonathan Crisp parsnip, beetroot and sweet potato crisps. They are quite tasty, but they just don't go 'crispy' enough!

I think I might have to try their ginger and black pepper flavour sometime, though.

*When I say currently, I really do mean right now! Chomp, chomp.

Tuesday 7 August 2007

Towers of London

Last night I went to Rhodes 24: young Gary's restaurant on the 24th floor of Tower 42 in London.

I've always been fascinated by this building. I remember a day trip to London with my dad when I was about 10 or 11: we stood right at the foot of the tower and looked straight up to the top so that it appeared to be falling on us! I've always wanted to get inside it and yesterday was the first time I'd ever done so. The view was really interesting - I could see out to the very edges of greater London and identify loads of landmarks I recognised. I also leant my forehead against the window to see what it was like looking straight down to the ground, which was fun!

But of course it's a bar and restaurant, not merely an observation gallery, so how about I mention the food and drink?!

We sat in the bar first of all and ordered cocktails. I tried Barman's Revolution, which was very nice and refreshing. The barman had never heard of a Moscow Mule but managed to mix a passable one for my husband when we asked. The complimentary olives and mixed nuts went down a treat, too!

We went to the London Taste Festival a few weeks ago and sampled some delicious dishes from Rhodes 24, which is why I was so keen to book us a table. My husband, therefore, chose the ruinously expensive beef, since we already knew it would be delicious. I was a tiny bit miffed when it arrived and he discovered that it was slightly overcooked (medium rather than medium rare as requested). The saffron vegetable salad accompanying his cauliflower cream to start was also a slight disappointment: it was too strongly flavoured and overpowered the delicate cauliflower and vegetables.

My starter, haddock and leek pie, was amazing and I really can't fault it. This is the sort of traditional British comfort food I was expecting to find at this restaurant and I was thrilled with my choice. My main course - salmon with champ and smoked bacon - was also excellent and I was pleased to be *told* how the salmon would be cooked rather than asked my preference.

I'm not generally a pudding fan but I was looking forward to trying the signature pudding dish. A lot of good British restaurants seem to be making a name for themselves lately by raising their game pudding-wise (Brian Turner is a good example) - I might have to change my mind and get into desserts if the standard is going to be this high! I had a mini jaffa cake, a bread and butter pudding with creme Anglaise and a Baileys creme brulee, all of which were pretty good (possibly the B&B pudding was a bit too custardy, but that's all I'd change).

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed this restaurant and I was pleased with the quality of the food and the service. But ... well, I won't be going again in a hurry because it's simply too expensive. I don't mind spending some money on good food and wine, but some dishes seemed overpriced compared to others. We found ourselves having to scan the wine list for affordability rather than choosing according to quality (the £300 1991 Ribiera del Duero sounded great, but ...!). So I'll be waiting for Toptable to present me with a special offer for this place before going again.

Monday 6 August 2007

Picnic heaven

First things first: the pork pie. I visited our local deli and was confronted by 'the perfect pork pie', as reviewed by Giles Coren in The Times and Tony Turnbull on Times Online. It's made by Bray's Cottage in Norfolk and also won the title of 'best pork pie', awarded by BBC's Olive magazine.

So, of course, I bought two. The high praise is certainly richly deserved: this is a top-quality pie. It's clear straight away that the meat used is far superior to the cuts found in your average pork pie and the slight hint of bacon and onion enriches the taste. We think we also detected a hint of rosemary ('sausagey-tasting' was the phrase that came to mind). The pastry was perhaps a little bit crumbly for cutting into wedges with a picnic-grade knife, but I'd imagine it's a little bit better directly out of the oven (I bought them freshly cooked beforehand and refridgerated them). All in all, though, they made a good addition to our lunch.

I went a bit meat-crazy in general when planning this picnic. As well as the pork pies par excellence we also had some mini pork, cheese and pickle pies, serrano ham and a platter of Italian cured meats. Oh, and some chicken pieces although they never made it to my side of the rug!

We gave the Swiss cheese industry a bit of a boost too, trying out some Emmental, Gruyere and Jarlsberg. The Fine Cheese Co. make some nice walnutty oat biscuits to accompany cheese, although I think they'd have been better matched with something softer (brie would be my preference). A bit of coleslaw and potato salad completed the perfect picnic experience - I'd love to say I made them myself but I'm not Nigella.

I managed to plan the perfect weather too - hurrah for that! Now if we could sort out the boat situation so that we get to have a good pre-picnic row rather than a punt-based slalom, everything would be just right.

Friday 3 August 2007

A perfect summer picnic

Things I need to buy for our picnic on Sunday:

  1. Serrano ham
  2. Potato salad (Tesco Finest)
  3. A nice, good quality pork pie (from the rather good delicatessen down the road, probably)
  4. Emmental cheese
  5. Chutney
  6. Biscuits for cheese (perhaps the rosemary ones from the Fine Cheese Co.)
  7. Sabai wine spritzers with hibiscus - my new summer drink!
  8. Some kind of crisps or maize snacks (probably Skips or similar)
  9. A carrot cake
  10. ... and indigestion tablets.

I think you'll find that constitutes a near-perfect picnic.

What's in a name?

I had no end of trouble coming up with a name for my blog. No end, I tell you!

I considered 'All in good taste' or 'One good taste deserves another'. I even had a brief moment of madness when I thought 'Food, food everywhere!' was the way to go.

But ... well, it's mainly about great big foody blasts*, so I think I chose wisely in the end.

*And winey blasts, occasionally.

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