Another Food Blog

Let not the weak pun of the title distract you from two facts: firstly, there was none for you (it was all for me); secondly, more importantly, samphire deserves to move beyond a partner for fish!

I had concluded, without much effort, that the salty aspect of samphire would be an excellent partner for the slight fatty quality of lamb chops and set about creating a meal that would demonstrate the point. I started, however, with neither of these ingredients and instead placed some bulgar wheat in a large bowl and covered it with both boiling water and a lid. Whilst the bulgar wheat cooked – a process that takes about fifteen minutes in this way – I lightly fried, in a little olive oil, some finely chopped red onion, ginger, and garlic. Having drained the wheat, I stirred in the cooked onions along with fresh black pepper and chopped corriander. In a way, this is a dish owing much to tabbouleh but wanders off in the vague direction of India. Try not to think about that too much; suffice to say it was a combination that worked well with the other components of the meal.

I chose to mix the samphire with mange tout; both are (in my opinion) under-rated vegetables and both have distinctive flavours that merit presenting in their own right, unencumbered by strong flavourings or spices. I blanched both for a minute or so in boiling water before lightly sautéing in a little butter (decadent, I know.) Couldn’t be easier. Except it could: the lamb chops went in the oven, at 200C, for about five minutes before being turned over and having another five minutes. On to the plate went everything, with the juices from the oven pan poured over the bulgar wheat.

The lamb was good, and nicely pink; the bulgar wheat made a nice change from potatoes/rice/pasta; the vegetables had a strong flavour, remained crisp, and the saltiness of the samphire – as before – cut through everything else. Lamb and samphire, therefore, a pairing that merits a wider audience. Go: try it!

I think marsh samphire, glasswort, or salicornia europea (call it what you will) is one of the great under-rated vegetables of the world. I was, therefore, very happy to see some sold by the fishmonger on Cambridge’s Saturday market. I’ve never cooked it before, but it’s not hard – think a cross between asparagus and spinach and you’ll be most of the way to cooking it correctly.

I opted though, for this first attempt, to go for a recipe from Mark Hix’s British Food: salmon with samphire. The halophytic nature of samphire makes it a natural pairing for fish. I altered the recipe slightly: the whole dish is baked, as I usually do with salmon, but I omitted the butter that Hix calls for.  So, the salmon cooked skin-up enclosed in foil for 10 minutes before adding the samphire with a little pepper, foil open, for another five minutes. It’s important to wash the samphire and remove any roots and particularly woody stems.

I served the dish simply, with boiled new potatoes and a little lemon juice drizzled over. Lemon mustard was the obvious condiment. It was good. Very good. The samphire was salty, as expected, yet oddly sweet. Not that that is a bad thing, though! Unsurprisingly, the combination of salmon and salty samphire worked well. Still, it was a good way to allow the flavour and texture of the samphire to dominate. For my next dish, something a little more adventurous, I think!

The other Chophouse in Cambridge – oft-frequented by my fellow anotherfoodbloggers – is always a good choice. It’s a bit off the centre-of-town track, so quieter, and has a garden for al-fresco dining.

On a summery Friday evening, we sat outside and picked the house rosé to drink with our meal. There was only one real option for the starter: I love sweetbreads! Whilst the smoked venison looked good, and the other options too, this rarest and most delicious of offals caught my eye straight away. It was good, well cooked, with broad beans and a dark salty sauce (including the odd salt crystal.)

The Chophouse’s suet puddings are the stuff of legend; I was drawn to one on the specials board – a “mini” suet pudding aimed as a starter. I topped it up to a main course with apple mash. So, what was it that caught my eye? The filling: squirrel and hazelnut. I’ve never had squirrel before; it was worth it! Dark and gamey, but very soft and tender. Delicious. My dining companion opted for the smoked pigeon breast salad with bacon for her main course – a Chophouse favourite and always good.

We had a little room left, and split the sticky toffee pudding. It was good, with just the right stickiness and the rich fruitiness that dates bring to the traditional recipe. The trap of too-many undercooked dates was duly avoided. Vanilla ice cream cut through the sweetness, but the sauce was a surprise. Sadly, as the sheen in the photo tells, it had split – the oils of the butter coming out of the sauce. Sad, really, but nothing a little brisk work with a fork couldn’t easily fix!

Another year down, and it’s time for Cambridge’s 37th Beer Festival – the second-largest beer festival in the country. For the first time in a few years, I’ve been volunteering; hence why, on Saturday and Sunday, I found myself lugging all manner of heavy things around in the baking heat!

I was pleased to see Hopshackle’s Double Momentum, a favourite from last year, on offer again this year. Guilsborough Gold, from Nobby’s Brewery, was also particularly good. Moonshine’s Chocolate Orange Stout – a dark stout that tastes distinctly of both chocolate and orange – stood out as a crowd-pleaser. There’s a barrel of Harviestoun Old Engine Oil (an extra-strong one, too) that measures in at 9.6%. I’m told it’s currently “a bit soupy” and, hence, isn’t being served yet. When it is, I’m sure it’ll be a treat.

The usual range of food counters are also on site, with the cheese counter as always have a lengthy clue. I picked up some Stinking Bishop and a smoked pigeon breast for my dinner on Monday night, before returning to the bars to continue serving the happy punters.

I’ll be working there again in the week, so perhaps I’ll see some of our readers down there…

Or, in actuality, pork. I decided to follow Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s instructions, from his Meat Book. So, the oven was preheated to 230C and the meat went in for about twenty-five minutes. After that, I turned the oven down to 160C and the joint had about 25 minutes per 500g. 15 minutes before it came out, I drained some of the fat into another tray to roast potatoes in (these having previously been par-boiled for about 5 minutes.) When the meat came out, the oven went up to 200C for the next half an hour. Before leaving the meat to rest, I took the crackling off and put that back in the oven to finish crisping up.

Pan gravy: a much under-rated cooking skill it seems. To make a gravy, I put the roasting tray on the hob to heat up. The aim here is boil off most of the juices to concentrate the flavour and to darken any little burnt bits. When it was looking dark, I added enough flour to form a paste with the fat, then fresh water. Shortly after this stage, I usually transfer the whole concoction to a saucepan to allow for better stirring. When it was thick enough, in went some fresh black pepper. Perfect.

It was good – the pork moist, so the gravy mostly went with the (crispy) roast potatoes and the steamed cabbage and leeks. I finished up my Fortnum’s apple sauce with it – sad to see that one go, but it’s been delicious. There’s plenty of pork left over, too, for sandwiches.

Conventionally, it is not considered politik for the authors of anotherfoodblog to post comments that suggest with whom they have dined. Once a year, however, we break that rule; this night was my third such event, and the fourth of our improbable culinary adventure. Madsen, Helen, Xander, Philip, and I dined at Midsummer House in Cambridge. A credit crunch-worthy two Michelin stars, compared to the three stars our last few forays have earned!

We all opted to share the “Midsummer Tasting Menu,” a sumptuous ten courses – with cheese an optional extra. Expect, therefore, to see two courses written up by each of us over the next few days; it should come as no surprise what I picked to write up.

First up for me, three or four dishes in, were sweetbreads. I love sweetbreads – the thymus and pancreas glands. Soft and slightly sweet, the maple syrup sauce and parsnip purée they were served with was fantastic. I suppose it is the fact that sweetbreads are from the thymus or pancreas that puts people off, but I wish more restaurants and butchers would sell them!

Some time later, after many courses, came a dessert. Tiramisu. Except it was what may be referred to as a “deconstruction” of a tiramisu. On our plates were an amaretto madeline – still warm – and a coffee ice cream, along with a chocolate “wafer” containing plain cream and chocolatey cream. The chocolate cream had roasted coffee beans and cubes of coffee-flavoured jelly mixed in. The whole stack was topped with candyfloss. When it came to the table, fresh espresso was poured on top. The smell was incredible and set the mood for the whole dessert – all the traditional flavours of a timarisu were spacially separated — an odd concept, which is at the heart of such “deconstructions,” but it worked. With the latter half of the menu, we enjoyed a Marlborough Pinot Noir, and it worked well with the coffee-based dessert. Anotheryear, anothergooddinner, anotherfoodblog.com.

This is not like the other kind of crown roast. A crown roast, in poultry terms, simply means that the legs of the bird – in this case a Gressingham duck – have been removed, leaving only the breasts and wings. It took an hour to cook this one, going into an oven that had been heated to 230C and turned down to 190C after five minutes.

As per usual with this sort of thing, I parboiled potatoes, carrots, and parsnips for five minutes before allowing them to dry a little on a plate. They went onto a tray with a little of the duck fat – I didn’t want to cook them in the same dish this time, as there’d be too much fat. The duck came out to rest whilst the vegetables had another half an hour. I skinned it at this stage, returning the skin on a clean tray to crisp up.

I made gravy – by draining the roasting tray into a clean pan, heating till the liquid boiled off and all the scrapings browned, before adding flour to make a paste and then home-made game stock. I thinned it a little with water from the green vegetables – savoy cabbage and peas.

It was good – although the carrots weren’t as crsipy as I’d hoped; the duck was moist and still pink inside, the skin crispy, and the gravy flavourful. With the remaining breast and the trimmings from the rest of the carcass, it’ll make another two meals. Not bad, given the crown only cost me fiver in Waitrose!

I like kangaroo. A lot. So much so that, at a recent Conference in Australia, I was introduced with a line that my hobbies included – amongst other things – “eating kangaroo.” I was, therefore, a little disappointed by Xander’s recent post – a waste of a perfectly good pun in my opinion!

It did send me on a little trip down memory lane though. In November and December 2008, I was in Australia for a few conferences, and ended up in Adelaide at the Australian Institute of Physics’ National Congress. I was presenting a paper on educational outreach here in the Cavendish, and so got talking with a lot of people from the Physics Education group – they invited me to dinner on a few occassions; as I was on my own on the other side of the world, I was glad of the company.

One sunny evening we headed down Rundle Street towards a Thai restaurant; I forget exactly which, but a little help from Google and Street View leads me to think it was LemonGrass Thai Bistro. Three of us, students, at one end of the table opted to share a couple of dishes between us – a Thai red curry, with kangaroo, and a crocodile-based stir-fry. The latter, if I recall correctly, was in a spring onion and cashew nut sauce.

What I do recall, however, is that both were delicious. Kangaroo is a lot like beef, only a little gamier, and stood up well against a surprisingly spicy sauce; crocodile is like fish with the texture of chicken and benefited from a lighter sauce.  I can’t say I’m entirely surprised that what I ate sticks more in my mind than exactly where I was at the time; if I’m ever in Adelaide again, I think I’ll go hunting for the right place though! Thai me kangaroo down, indeed.

Hooky Bitter, from the Hook Norton Brewery, is a golden and hoppy beer, and one I’ve enjoyed before.

At 3.6% it’s light and designed as a session bitter; it’s also won a number of international awards over the last decade. Progress, according to the brewery’s motto, is measured in pints. I imagine quite a few pints have progressed out of the brewery since the installation, in 1899 of a steam engine. A steam engine that, to this day, is an integral part of the brewing process and likely the oldest steam engine in the country used daily for its original purpose!

This particular bottle wasn’t brewed in 1899, but rather 2009. I opened on a recent sunny evening, and enjoyed both before, and during, my dinner. Lovely.

The Brooklands Hotel in Barnsley is now a Holiday Inn, but the Brooklands Restaurant there still serves the double chop from across a lamb’s loin it is credited with naming.

I bought one in Waitrose, and it had been lounging in the freezer for a little while. The chop wouldn’t take long to cook, so first into the oven went a potato – whole, at 190C. It was large, so would take about an hour and a half to bake, but that was fine.

When the time came, I got a frying pan as hot as I dared, and put the chop in. Lots of smoke, but with a few minutes on each side (and more on the “back” to crisp up and melt the fat), it was done. It sat on a warm plate to relax whilst the veg – savoy cabbage and leek – steamed. Whilst this happened, I sorted the potato – cutting a cross into in, pushing the sides together, and adding black pepper. All-in-all, delicious, and simple. Minimal washing up, too, as the frying pan and oven tray got cleaned in the time it took the vegtables to cook.