Another Food Blog

Unimaginative, maybe.  Six of us went for a meal at Fish Works in Swallow Street.  I ordered squid rings followed by cod and chips, and was slightly surprised when three others did the same.

Mind you, they do it very well, and it goes perfectly with the Paarl Heights chenin blanc.

They didn’t call them chicken dippers, but that is effectively what they were. Not feeling very hungry at a Slug & Lettuce lunch, I ordered just a starter.  The fried chicken strips sounded fine, and when they came, I was glad I’d not ordered a main course and had to give it away.  For a starter I thought this quite substantial.  It certainly filled me up.  The barbecue sauce that came to dip them in was perfectly adequate, and I noticed at the end of the meal that I hadn’t used any cutlery.  I often do this.  The wine to accompany them, although not chosen with that in mind, was a Clos Ministrol vintage cava.  Delicious.

I was pleasantly surprised by the seabass I ordered at Cote in Cambridge.  It came skin side up, as it should, and was in a lovely creamy sauce.  The surprise was that, in the creamy sauce underneath the fish, was another piece of seabass, about as big as the visible one.  There was about twice as much as I’d expected, but it was so fresh and soft that I actually managed to eat it all.  It took time, but I had the onions it came with and the gratinée potatoes on the side to turn to when I wanted a change of tastes.  I drank their house Lagarde white wine with it.

I was visiting speaker at a school last week, addressing the sixth formers and answering questions.  It was a very impressive school, state grammar, non fee-paying, and I found the students very clued up.  When they came to thank me for my visit, they proved this by presenting me with a bottle of wine.  Either they had done their research, or they struck lucky: I suspect the former.  It was a Chilean Merlot, Isla Negra.  This is what is said about it: “Isla Negra is a seaside village famous for the artists and writers who came to be inspired by the ocean and the mystical landscape. A sumptuous, smooth Merlot with notes of cherry, plum and dark chocolate.”  Yes, I’d go along with that.  It’s a lovely wine, and excellent value from wine shops and supermarkets.  It is 12.5 percent, but tastes stronger than that.

With rhubarb season in full swing here, I made my version of rhubarb fool, adapted from several other recipes.  Firstly, I bought a couple of large sticks of rhubarb from the market.  It’s important to choose very red ones.  I chopped these and roasted them in a covered foil dish with a sprinkling of cane sugar.  After about 35 minutes I saw they were soft, so I took them out and zapped them in a blender with two tablespoons of Grand Marnier and a teaspoon of vanilla essence.  The purée went into the fridge to chill.

I whisked a tub of double cream until it thickened, but not to the stage of being stiff, adding a little sugar, and then folded in the rhubarb purée, leaving a little for decoration on the top of each glass.  These went into the fridge until it was time to serve.  It’s a very light dessert, practically frothy, and somehow conjures up the taste of Spring.  Gosh…roll on summer pudding.