It’s called Terrasota 2007 rosé, and it’s from Marks and Spencer, coming in at 14 percent. It is very full-bodied, with a real tang of summer fruits, but without being too sweet. The label suggests cranberry, strawberry and red cherry, which I think is just about right. It is very good, totally unlike the sometimes bland European rosés, but without the acidity of some of the American ones.
The meal I cooked for friends was fairly straightforward except for one thing: every course required the oven, and it was quite a job fitting things in and around each other. However, it all worked out.
I began with savoury tarts, in effect mini-quiches. I made a shortcrust pastry with flour, bran, and goose fat, and into the small flan dishes I put chopped chorizo and blue cheese, with creamed spinach in the egg and milk mixture. They took about 25 minutes to cook.
The very traditional main course was roast chicken. I decided not to stuff it, but did score cuts in the skin, into which I rubbed dried thyme. Then I rubbed butter over it and put it into a 180 oven. It had one and a half hours with regular basting. Alongside it I cooked roast potatoes, parboiling for 8 minutes, shaking in the pan afterwards to roughen the surfaces, then roasting in goose fat. They took about an hour and 40 minutes. When everything was nearly ready I steamed some mixed cabbage and leek.
The pudding was a pear crumble. I used two sweet Williams and one harder one of a variety I’ve not met before (Rocha). I pre-cooked for a few minutes with a little water and caster sugar before putting in a deep dish. The crumble mixture had flour, bran, baking powder and margarine, worked to a light, crumbly texture before I added caster sugar to it and sprinkled over the pears. I gave it half an hour in the oven, then served it with vanilla soy ice-cream.
The verdict? My guests said three out of three. The tarts were crumbly and sharp, with just the right balance of chorizo and Damish blue. The chicken was moist, the cabbage and leek still with some bite, and the potatoes were beautifully firm on the outside and tender within. The pear crumble was delicious, sweet and crunchy on top. It was quite traditional, but quite nice. With it I served a Rioja rosé at 14 percent, which was just right for it.
This weekend, I was lucky enough to try three new chamapgnes which I never had before. Once you get above a certain level of quality, I’ve found it’s very difficult to tell apart different champagnes. They’re all very smooth, with very fine bubbles and always magnificently balanced, so that it’s rare to find any with a sharp edge or a bitter aftertaste. I’ve previously tried and enjoyed Veuve Clicquot, non-vintage and twice very nice vintages. The difference between the standard version and the vintage version is pronounced. It has more depth and many more flavours, carefully designed to be revealed one after the next. This weekend, however, I drank non-vintage stuff and for the first time tried Bollinger, Taittinger and once, very specially, a small glass of Dom Perignon, which was magnificent (and only comes in vintage versions, meaning all the grapes used to make it were harvested in the same year). Many thanks to a generous friend who funded all this consumptive iniquity.
I made them triangles so they’d fit onto my baking tray. Puff pastry bases, with the usual egg-brushed borders. I softened the onions with thin-sliced garlic in butter first, then added chopped walnuts. Onto the triangles it went, followed by small cubes of Danish blue.
After its 13 minutes in the oven, I sprinkled basil on top and served it with garden peas. It needed neither salt not pepper, but I did serve it with Wolf Blass yellow label, which went down like liquid velvet. Oh, and I served my own miso soup before it, and fresh blueberries with goat’s milk yoghurt afterwards.
You certainly need good bread for it. I used two quarters of ciabatta, toasted under the grill. But you also need pesto, green pesto, spread over it. And the tomatoes have to be good, tangy ones. In this case I used British vine-ripened ones which I’ve previously found to be sweet and juicy, and rough cut them. I sprinkled garlic powder rather than real garlic to spread it more evenly across each slice. I used a turn of sea-salt, then returned it to the grill for a few minutes. More sea salt and black pepper, then freshly chopped basil as I served it up. Which one is the magic ingredient? I think it takes all of them to make a good slice of tomato on toast. I ate two slices for lunch.
It sounded too intriguing not to try. I was at Fish Works near Piccadilly, inside this time to escape the rain and cold winds. I began with whitebait, plump and lightly cooked, while my dining companion tried the Fish Works starter platter with a selection of small helpings on a wooden block. All were good, but the marinated squid was given particularly high marks.
Then came my swordfish Milanese. It was brilliant, with two huge steaks appropriately but lightly egged and breadcrumbed, and moist and tender. My companion had the roasted skate with black butter sauce, which looked and tasted scrumptious, and we shared a dish of sugarsnap peas.
With the food we drank a Chilcas Chilean chardonnay. Despite its 14 percent, it had no finish at all, with nothing lingering in the mouth after each sip was swallowed – a pity, because the fish was superb.
It was the 20th anniversary of her speech at Bruges, and the Bruges Group held a dinner at the Grosvenor House Hotel to mark the occasion. It’s a very grand place on Hyde Park, and its Great Room easily fitted the 320 or so who attended. The food was suitably grand, too.
The first course was a very good ‘double oak smoked’ salmon steak, Pacific style, with rocket salad and saffron mayonnaise. The main course was Denham Estate venison, with a confit of sweet red peppers in a light game juice, and with Savoy cabbage and potato and carrot gratin alongside. It was superb – a nice thick block of tender-cooked venison, gamey and delicious.
Finally came pineapple upside down cake with coconut ice-cream. This was less successful, with stringy bits of coconut where a creamed version would have worked better. Then coffee and superb chocolates at the end.
The white wine was an Errazuriz Casablanca Valley sauvignon blanc, and the red was La Campagne cabernet sauvignon. The speeches included a typically masterful one from Lord Tebbit, and of course the good lady dominated the room by her presence.
The restaurant was Aki Teri, and the food was once again magnificent. This time, I altered the format slightly, by choosing several small intro dishes instead of one larger dish. We had deep fried prawns with garlic, deep fried soft shell crab and deep fried chicken breast with Japanese bread crumbs. We also shared some meat dumplings, which came with a crispy exterior (I prefer the soft version, but they didn’t have any on the menu). We filled up on steamed rice and enjoyed with the meal a Keats Drift Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa, whose tangy edges and dry bite complemented the food perfectly.
The cornerstone of the meal was definitely the two onglet steaks that we had for the main course. They came with Maris Piper pommes frites and grilled tomato Provencale on the side, and a delightful Béarnaise sauce in its own little dish. Before this, my friend had the friture of squid and whitebait, which is deep-fried and battered. With that was some caper mayonnaise. I had the melted crottin goat cheese, which came on two small pieces of bread alongside crunchy baby gem lettuce with smoked bacon and sunblushed tomatoes. We drank with the whole meal the French Aimery Cabernet rosé, nice and dry and 12.5%, from 2007. The restaurant was Chez Gérard, with quiet tables and excellent service.
It made quite a tasty lunch. I rolled out the puff pastry very thin, pricked within the scored border and brushed beaten egg on the outer strip. Then I spread pesto – thin, because I didn’t have much left. Then garlic, and one large field mushroom cut into strips. Extra virgin olive oil was drizzled on top, then it had 12 minutes in a hot oven. I drizzled more olive oil, then black pepper and sea salt before serving. Mmm. It was moist and succulent. Very easy, very good.