Blueberry fool

I always think blueberries are a bit over-rated, but I found some relatively cheap ones - and they've been hiding in the fridge for a while.  Desperate for a pudding, I first made them into a sauce, with sugar, orange juice, water and orange zest - thickened with a little cornflour.  Then I discovered some cream that needed to be used - so whipped that and mixed it in - and a wonderful purple fool emerged... very good with the coconut cake I was making - and generally nice.   It occurred to me that a fruit fool like this could make a good layer in a really wonderful trifle... maybe I'll make one in the summer.

A History of Cheese Making in America

Well - this is the fantasy title of the book I will one day write - alternatively, a rather short book that will never be written.  I am still trying to get to the bottom of the US cheesemaking tradition - it seems pretty clear that there isn't one.  I know that there is Monterey Jack, "yellow cheese" "white cheese", Kraft, Cheese Whizz - and a number of tiny locally made artisan cheeses.

The US was primarily peopled by Italians, Germans, the English, the French (initially), the Spanish, the Dutch (initially), the Irish, Scandinavians - these are all cheese-making peoples (I am not excluding Afro-Chinese etc. americans, but they aren't great cheesemakers).  So what happened when they got to America? Presumably those who farmed carried on making cheese when possible (I don't remember any cheese making scenes in Little House on the Prarie though)?  Presumably mass production killed it off, and now it is being revived on an artisan basis in small isolated spots...

Recently I have tried asking Americans and Canadians about this... they don't seem to recognise that there is any sort of deficiency in not having at least a dozen decent, enjoyable domestic cheeses which are as different from each other as Stilton from Cheddar, as Aged Red Leicester is from Cornish brie, Yarg from Ashmore or Fleur Marie or Blacksticks or.... well, you get the picture, and we are not really a Great Cheesemaking Nation.  

Green sauce

There are lots of green sauces - I love them all.   This one, which comes from Claudia Roden's Spanish Food, is predominantly coriander.  It is meant to be served with wrinkled, salty new potatoes, but it was excellent with dry meatballs.

75g fresh coriander, 3 cloves garlic, 1/2 green capiscum, 1/4 tsp cumin, salt, pepper, 1& 1/2 tbsps white wine vinegar - + olive oil.
Mix all ingredients, except oil, in a food processor until very fine.  Remove and mix in olive oil to make creamy sauce.

Mine did not really make a creamy sauce - the consistency more like an indian fresh chutney - but v.v. delicious (if you like coriander).  Would be good with all sorts of things, but really worked well, setting off the meatballs and the green beans (and the new potatoes everyone else had).

Sourdough 2

I have kept the sourdough going for 12 days now - very good... the latest loaf was huge and delicious, but infuriatingly I forgot to put salt in it (I usually add it with the last helping of flour).  The kids prefer sourdough to the other kind (probably because I tend to make white sourdough).

I have also go an ongoing sourdough cake mix, the dreaded "Herman" - I have made several cakes of different kinds, including a rather successful simnel cake.  The important thing is that one adds lots of moist ingredients.  For my next one I am planning to make a pineapple and coconut cake - with a drop of rum perhaps.  The walnut and apple one is lovely; the banana one is ok, but doesn't remain moist for long (add sour cream/yoghurt to the mix perhaps?) and the choc chip and toasted hazelnut was intolerably dry.  

Sourdough

I once managed to create viable sourdough from flour, sugar and water.   Since then I have failed every time.   A few weeks ago I made sourdough from left over pizza dough, mashed into warm water with a bit of extra flour and sugar.  Next time I tied it didn't work.  So I tried again this week - saving some dough from a loaf, mixing in warm water and flour and making sure it was a fairly thick paste, rather than too watery.  This worked brilliantly and the following day I had a fantastic bubbling mix.  I topped it up with another cup of flour and a cup of warm water.  Another day and I divided it, made a loaf of bread, very good sourdough, with it. Now I have another loaf about to go in the oven, and then a further mix.   It's quite good making bread by the sponge method.  You start with the sludgy sour dough mix - add some more warm water and flour and leave it for a bit.,   Then add a further quantity of flour(s), seeds and salt and knead, etc. as normal.  

Good Places to eat No 1.

I have little to report on the catering front, but I have made one or two discoveries about places to eat out.  Firstly is the Three Mariners at Oare near Faversham.  It's a really nice pub with a fantastic a la carte menu, but two good value 3-course lunch time menus.  I've had the "walkers' menu" twice now - quite similar both times, but still good: yesterday, croque madame, whiting aioli and veg, cheese for £11.50 - increasing to £11.95 shortly.  My only reservation, maybe not enough variety in the menu, and exactly the same puddings...  maybe just coincidence.  I was tempted by the slightly more interesting £16.50 Business menu - it had duck, gravadlax and more interesting puds.    To my shock although it was a wet Thursday lunch time they were "full" - but kindly agreed to let me and Lorna eat there any way.   Book next time!

Eating Out

I have done an abnormal amount of eating out in the last two months, which will surely stop in a minute.  There was some birthday eating out (Jojo's in Whitstable, Eddie Gilbert's in Ramsgate, Elizavet's in Sandwich), then some emergency eating out (Esma's in Broadstairs, Milo's in Margate) and some celebratory eating out (the 3 Mariners at Oare, Mauresque in Canterbury).   I feel I have run the full gamut of East Kent eating - of course none of the expensive places (no Sportsman, no Age & Sons, no Rocksalt) were included, but on the whole, the experiences have been good - and curiously I have eaten calamari at each of these places.   The best calamari was probably at either Jojo's or Elizavet's (although the overall experience at Elizavet's was less thrilling).

The most enjoyable were probably the 3 Mariners (new to us) and Jojo's -  but today was lovely, went to Mauresque with Anna T and shared a seafood starter platter - it was all I needed really.   Had such a raging conversation!  I'm sure it would have been deeply satisfying to any eavesdroppers... ranging over sex, love, illness, old age and depression.... actually, I have a lot of conversations about illness, old age and depression, so getting sex and love into the mix was a vast improvement.

Roman Feast

I forgot to photograph this damn!

We had a Roman Feast for 11 on Thursday.  It was pretty successful.  The Romans ate 3 course meals with a variety of dishes at each course.  This is what we had.

Olives, onion relish, cheese relish (a dip), Apicius' pork morsels, fish dumplings, barley bread, spelt bread

Ferculae:(roasts) pork with cumin sauce, chicken with ginger, lentils and chestnuts, green beans with coriander sauce, a salad (which consisted of mozarella, nuts, cucumber, capers, chicken livers with a thick dressing containing mint and egg yolks.

Apples, soft cheese, honey cakes, olives, Alexandrine dates

I think the third course was the least successful - probably because I didn't serve snails - a common feature of the last course.

Roman food is unusual, but quite good.  People really liked the fish dumplings, the onion and the cheese relish,  and the roasts.  I loved the salad - it was great.  I think the dates were a bit over cooked, the honey had got like toffee so they were crisper than they should have been.  Robert suggested we should do another Roman meal, but I need to think about whether I want to broaden this - get more people to join the mailing list and do this a bit more often.  

Ides of March

Tomorrow is the Ides of March and I am having a Food Odyssey dinner - I have been unable to source any silphium or make any garum - but I'm hoping to do something reasonably authentic.

Roman dinners were 3 courses of mixed dishes: first some hors d'oeuvres - a variety of little dishes, then the middle course was roast meats of various kinds, the third course had both sweet and savoury elements - which might include snails.  Dormice were served as a starter.

There is an earnest temptation to make the food more civilised: I remember making a Roman cake once which wasn't very nice, because I think it had no fat/oil in it.  I think when I make it tomorrow I will put some in. Similarly there are some Roman fish balls that I'm going to make which are really rather like the Turkish fish sticks I sometimes make, only missing an ingredient - and some of the date pastries are not unlike something in Claudia Roden's book.

This evening I prepared a little, first by straining yoghurt - to make some soft cheese, and by soaking some dried chestnut to make a chestnut and lentil dish, also defrosting some fish (for fish sticks) and some chicken livers for a salad.

I think the menu will be roughly:

1: Olives, radishes, cheese dip, pork morsels al'Apicius, fish balls
2: Pork in wine honey sauce,  Chicken in a fruity sauce, chestnuts and lentils, mussels?, green beans, a Roman salad
3: Roman cake, apples, pears, nuts, yoghurt cheese, custard

I think I've left something out.  And lots of nice bread (I am trying to make sourdough and it's not working - too cold I think, although I made some 2 weeks ago).  I bought some fresh yeast so I'm making a starter tonight, hope that will help. The most challenging thing about these are that the methods are slightly different, and the ingredients and combinations ditto.  I will have to be chained to the cookbook.

All this means that cooking for my mother-in-law on Mother's Day will be very laid back in comparison.

Well?

Yes - I have been cooking over Christmas - so much cooking that I spent most of January wanting to take time off.  We have a Colombian student here now - and have had 2 Chinese students - so there was a week of making chinese oriented food - sadly one of them didn't like chicken - but they mostly had pork!

Now I am back into the good old wintry carb foods: pasta, chilli, pork and beans, red cooked beef/pork, stews, sausages, chicken pie, lots of nice veggies.   Last week I bought some sweet potatoes, so that I could make a really nice gratin I had at Claire & Kai's - this week I felt very strongly that due to my efforts to extricate myself from our sofa, it might be time to do an Atkins diet for a bit - with a view to a long-term low-carb lifestyle....The cold winter is over - I hope, so no more dumplings: steak and kidney pudding eventually will appear...

At the moment I really am not in the mood to cook, because I am writing.... I would show you lovely photos of food - were it not for the fact that my camera is broken.