Isle of Wight: Fish & Chip Supper

Our Isle of Wight excursion was not really marked by forward planning but my good lady and I were both hoping that part of the trip might involve some sea food, sadly the imagined sea food bistro failed to materialise. Not to be put off and with our bellies full of cream tea we went for an exploratory walk through Shanklin village looking for contenders for our supper venue.

We had barely walked a hundred metres from the Pencil cottage when my attention was immediately caught by the smell wafting from the door of a small cafe - that distinctive smell of beef dripping, so rare to find in fish and chip restaurants, certainly in the south of England, but so important if you want to make simply the best fish and chips - a quick peek inside and I already knew I wanted to eat dinner here. Further inspection of the shop front revealed a clipping from the Independent Newspaper which had placed June's as the second best fish and chip shop in the UK - now I definitely wanted to eat dinner here.

There was no airs and graces about this place, the tables were covered with check table cloths with rows of those sorts of wooden chairs, we ordered our suppers from the serving hatch and sat waiting with great expectations and tired from our walk back down to the seashore to help burn off a small fraction of calories that we must have consumed with the cream teas. Our order was called and we headed up to the serving hatch to collect our orders.

They were well worth the wait, the chips were golden and crisp with light fluffy centres - very much like tiny little roast potatoes. The fish was cooked perfectly in a golden crisp batter and was just what we needed. Easily the best fish and chips I've had in years and I'm sure my waistline is grateful that June's is a ferry and train ride away - but we'll be sure to come here for one or two suppers when we return for a longer visit.

Isle of Wight: Afternoon Cream Tea

This Friday just gone saw myself and my good lady head over to the Isle of Wight for a day trip. Having spent three years looking at the island from my desk we finally got round to making the excursion. Not really knowing what to expect we set off on the Fastcat passenger ferry with a ticket that gave us free reign of the island's railway system. A few tips from my colleagues pointed us toward the Shanklin and the old village. It was after a glorious walk along the coast from Sandown and a bit of a climb we came to the lovely old village itself. Traditional thatched cottages line the winding roads and a host of traditional pubs and tea rooms to visit.

We came to rest at the Pencil cottage, who were runner up in last year's Cream Tea awards and immediately ordered two deluxe cream teas. It is worth noting that we've both been enjoying cream teas recently, but the efforts purchased from the supermarket pale in comparison to the mountainous scones that arrived at our table. The scones, homemade every day in the tea room bakery, were truly something to behold, each one at least the size of two scones and amazingly light and delicious - perfect with the lashing of clotted cream and homemade strawberry conserve.

The village really capped off an amazing day, the island really is a great escape from all the usual 'brands' and franchises that seem to be part and parcel of modern living - and very much I hope it stays that way.A walk was needed afterwards in order to rebuild up our appetite for our planned for dinner...

In the Bag: Risotto with asparagus and poached egg

In spite of a busy month for me, I was determined to find some time to do something with delicious British asparagus. As it happened the opportunity came last weekend, when our roast chicken didn't quite go far enough for two complete dinners, so with some leftover chipolata sauages from yesterdays potato salad to throw in the mix - a lovely risotto was born . While down at my local supermarket, Somerfields of all places, they had some very fresh and tender stems of asparagus, I had the perfect accompaniment for my bank holiday Monday lunch.

The risotto was made with onion and leaks and a bit garlic, with leftover roast chicken, sausages and some dried porcini mushrooms. For a touch of luxury I'd saved the chicken 'oysters' and popped them in right at the end and made sure that one each was served on each plate, one for me and one for my good lady, that and a generous handful or two of grated parmesan.

The asparagus was steamed quickly for just two minutes, plunged into ice cold water to stop the cooking. Next I sauted the stems in butter, before adding lemon juice. The asparagus was served on top of the risotto with a soft runny poached egg on top.

First Barbecue of 2008

The sun has been shining the last week or so and what with the weather sages telling us that yesterday would be the last good day of sunshine for about a week, the rallying call went out to the regular bunch of guys who enjoy unwinding with an after-work drink, an activity affectionately known as a 'midweek skirmish'.

This week's skirmish would be relocated to Southsea Common for the first barbecue of 2008. Armed with disposable barbecues, beers and coolbag full of food we embarked upon the field of battle - Southsea Common. Amongst other goodies purchased from Buckwell's of Southsea, I had 'jerked' some chicken - not entirely sure how authentic it was - my good lady's Mum does some nice seasoned West Indian chicken, but as she's from Trinidad it's not exactly the same as Jamaican jerk so mine may have been a curious mixture of the two. As always more inspired by a rummage through the store cupboard than any particular method, I kinda threw a lot of things into a blender and blitzed them up. Here's the ingredient list for my jerk seasoning.

4 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp of jerk seasoning
2 dried birdseye chillis
1 dried kashmiri chili
1 dried chilli (from my pot of home dried chillis)
1 tsp of hot chilli powder
good pinch of thyme leaves
1/2 cinnamon stick
juice and rind of 2 lemons
1/2 onion
2 sticks of celery (including the leaves)
sunflower oil
sea salt

I stabbed the chicken drumsticks a few times with a knife, poured the whole lot over and let them marinade overnight.

The finished article was very impressive and went down very well with the 'midweek riflers'. The spice was quite hot, more of a slow builder with a lovely tingle on the lips and a nice citrus zip - good job I didn't throw in the chopped scotch bonnet that I was contemplating.

Plans are afoot to get a proper barbecue and stow it with a rifler who lives near the common - so weather permitting more adventurous barbecue action should be occurring later in the year. Looking forward to doing my chilli king prawn kebabs again at some point.

Picture to follow.

Stuffed Aubergines - Morrocan Style

Have been meaning to get on a bit of a North African to Middle Eastern tip for sometime - I love the food - something that the Donner Kebab has done a great disservice too. So I've had some spices and rose fragranced paste and preserved lemons in my fridge for some months. Well the perfect opportunity came along at the end of the weekend. My good lady's Mum managed to grab some excess Aubergines from M&S intending to cook them for a relative this weekend, but when said relative couldn't make it at least half of the shiny bulbous veggies became mine. Here's what I managed to make with them - once again just sort of made it up as I went along. I guess I could have looked in my excellent Middle Eastern cookbook but didn't want to have to buy anymore expensive ingredients.

Will drop the recipe later on today when I'm back at home.

Gardener's Pie

This weekend included a trip up to Nottingham this weekend for some filthy techno action. On two previous occasions my friends have filled me full of very tasty curry, provided me with a bed for the night, well morning and are the perfect hosts - so it was only fair that I should invade their kitchen and provide them with some nourishing pie - there's a vegetarian in the house so I decided to just make this a total vegetarian meal. I was veggie myself for a few years (sadly not for me anymore) but one thing I do not like it all the fake meat - so this was going to be proper vegetarian - no Quorn or Textured Vegetable Protein.

So my dish was a veggie Shepherds Pie, which I've decided should be named a Gardener's Pie. I just kinda made it up as I went along - but here's the recipe.

Ingredients
3 cans of green lentils in vegetable stock
1/2 small can of tomato paste
1 veg stock cube
onion chopped
leak diced
carrot diced
courgette diced
aubergine diced
mushrooms sliced
stick of celery diced
6 plum tomatoes (deseeded, no need to peel though)
sprigs or two rosemary
chopped parsley
2 tsp paprika
glug of HP sauce
a load of creamy mash
strong cheddar cheese to top.


Method
Gently fry all the veggies, and garlic in olive oil until nice and soft add the tomatoes and keep cooking until it's all a nice marmade consistency.
Add the paprika and tomato paste and cook for a few minutes
Add the lentils, the stock cube and enough water to make a thick sauce suitable for covering in mash.
Pour the sauce into a shallow oven proof dish, top with the mash, coat with the cheddar and finish off under the grill.
If left to go cold before cooking, warm though in a medium oven - grill at end if cheese needs to be crisped up.
I served with a version of the spring salad I made recently.

In the Bag: Spring Salad with Feta Cheese, Watercress and New Potatoes

This is my second entry for this April's In the Bag food blogging event. Still had a few of the ludicrously overpriced Jersey Royal new potatoes left over so they had to go into something and I felt like something nice and light for my Monday evening supper. I also decided to get a bottle of extra virgin rapeseed oil. I've seen a few chefs using this recently for salad dressings so decided to give it a go. It has a really light, refreshing taste, the scent puts me in mind of a balmy summer meadow. The salad taste really delicious was so refreshing, a real taste of the spring season.


Ingredients
Mixed leaves - watercress, rocket and baby spinach
Feta cheese
Some cucumber cored, peeled and sliced
Stick of celery sliced
Some spring onions sliced
About a mug of green beans, broad beans and peas (I used frozen)
Mint leaves sliced
Parsley
1 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp extra virgin rapeseed oil
Salt and pepper

Method
Bring a pan of salted water to boil and put the potatoes in - boil until tender, drain.
Next as I'm using frozen veg, I threw that in the water for a minute, before plunging it into ice cold water to stop the cooking process.
Once the potatoes have cooled, slice them up and put them and all the others leaves, herbs and vegetables in a salad serving bowl - crumble the feta cheese on top.
Mix the lemon juice, extra virgin rapeseed oil and salt and pepper, beat together to make a dressing - pour over and toss the salad.

In the Bag: Watercress Soup with Feta, Potato & Thyme Bread

This is my first go at the In the Bag seasonal produce blogging event and I was keen to marry my new found enthusiasm for baking with getting more involved with the food blogging lark.

So I figured soup and bread would be a good start.


Ingredients for bread
175g self raising flour (I used light brown as that is what I had)
100g feta cheese cut into 0.5 cm dice
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
4-5 sprigs of thyme stripped of leaves
170g jersey royal potatoes grated
4 spring onions finely sliced
1 egg
1 tsp of grain mustard
splash of milk

Ingredients for soup
170g of Jersey Royal potatoes diced
170g bag of watercress
1 leek diced
1/2 onion diced
vegetable stock
splash of creme fraiche (optional)


Bread method
Preheat the oven to 190C.
Sift the flour, salt and cayenne pepper.
Add the grated potato, thyme leaves and 3/4 of the feta and mix thoroughly with a knife.
Gently beat the egg, milk and grain mustard, then add this to the flour mixture, use the knife to mix into a rough dough.
Empty the dough onto a well greased baking sheet, creating a rough round loaf, press the remain feta cheese into the top, dust with a little flour and add a sprig or two of thyme.
Place into the middle of the oven, bake for about 50 minutes, or until the bread is golden.

While the bread is baking make the soup.


Soup Method
Sweat the onions and leeks in a little olive oil and butter, add a touch of salt to draw the moisture out of the onions and prevent them catching.
Add the vegetable stock, I used just over a pint, and the diced potatoes.
Simmer gently until the potato is tender.
In another pan, steam the watercress briefly - when it is wilted and cooked plunge it into ice cold water to stop it from cooking. This will keep your soup bright green.
Drain the ice cold watercress, add it to the simmered stock and blend the soup.
Adjust the seasoning if necessary and serve with a dollop of creme fraiche and drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Serve with hunks of the freshly baked bread.

Delightful Breakfast from Lawrence Keogh

This week's Saturday Kitchen on BBC1 featured Lawrence Keogh of the restaurant Roast in Borough market making a delicious breakfast dish - Tattie scone with bacon, field mushrooms and slow-roasted tomatoes in Worcestershire sauce . Voted the number one breakfast in London and a restaurant that boasts one hundred and seventy plus covers for breakfast, lunch and dinner - I certainly had to give it a go.


I had to substitute soda farls for the tattie scone and didn't have the fancy eggs that Lawrence used the results were still very delicious - I was really surprised at how nice the tomatoes in Worcestershire Sauce were - I thought they would be too strong a flavour, but the reduction made it less acidic and intensified the flavours and give it a nice little spicy kick to boot.