Another Food Blog

It’s been some time since I made a quiche, so I thought I’d do one in a deeper dish than usual.  I used a foil dish instead of my ceramic quiche dish.  First the pastry, shortcrust of plain flour, bran and flora.  Then the cheese, strong cheddar to line it.  Then chopped onions and mushrooms.  Then rough chopped chorizo and halved cherry tomatoes.

In went one egg whipped up with goat’s milk for 35 minutes in a 180 oven, with the top covered for the final 10 minutes.  It came out tasting pleasantly tangy, and I served it with garden peas, and followed it with lightly stewed Pink Lady apples, served chilled with double cream.

I may have overdosed on cheese.  We preceded the port tasting at the Cork and Bottle with some Cooper’s Creek pinot noir and a cheeseboard selection.

Then when the food came to accompany the ports, it also turned out to be a cheese selection with French bread.  And since one of us was lactose intolerant, I had to do double duty with the stilton and port salut….

This month’s wine tasting featured different types of port.  We began with a Dow’s white port whose taste was rich with honey and nut tones.  The second was a Graham’s late bottled vintage, which was strong with jam and red fruit tastes, and a slightly peppery finish. It would be good with chocolates.  Our third was a Graham’s crusted port, blended from several good years, and decanted before serving.  It was smooth, with cherry and damson flavours.

Smith Woodhouse 10 year-old tawny was deep and dark, with molasses, nuts and caramel. Gorgeous stuff.  Then came a non port, but one of my favourites – Grant Burge 10 year-old tawny, from Australia.  It’s a blend featuring Grenache, syrah and mourvedre, made by the solera method, and tasting strongly of raisins.  Finally we tried a Smith Woodhouse 1988 Madalena vintage port, which tasted slightly burnt, and might be ideal with crème brulee.  A great evening and six rather good ports.

Returning to the Abbey, I did try the gammon my companion ordered last week, the one I thought looked really good.  It was amazingly salty – indeed, too much so.  I also prefer my eggs with the top spooned, like the one a week ago.  And I ate about a quarter of the fries.

The wine was the best part, a tempranillo rioja called Vina Alarde.  It was pleasantly fruity and full flavoured.

The scallops were unavailable, so I had the poached duck egg with parsley sauce and spinach on toast.  I like duck eggs because their flavour is more intense than a hen’s egg.  This was good.

My companion could not resist trying the roast bone marrow with tomato, red onion and parsley relish.  It came on the bone.  He said it didn’t really have a strong taste, just a kind of savoury jelly.  It looked really interesting, though.

He was out of luck with the main course, in that there was no shoulder of goat, so he settled for venison liver with parsnip mash, roasted vegetables and gravy.  I tasted a little of the liver, and didn’t find it significantly different from calf”s liver

I ordered the Chop House coil with fried egg, Boston baked beans and chips.  It was very good, especially the baked beans that were nothing like the sweet canned version.

Wow! This was something completely different.  I wanted a whisky and water after  a meal, and saw Pikesville rye whisky.  This is obviously not a Scottish malt, nor even a bourbon.  A rye whisky?  With 50 percent water added, it became a pleasant sip, with a slightly spicy taste that Scotch does not do.  Not a bad drink at all.

I was back in my old college for a dinner in the Old Library at Pembroke College, Cambridge.  We used to hold our graduate dinners there every month.  This occasion was the CUCA Chairman’s dinner, held towards the end of term.  We began with a champagne reception, then sat down to chestnut soup with truffle oil.

The main curse was roast loin of venison, served with dauphinoise potatoes (done in triangles, this time), and red cabbage, beetroot, and parsnip puree.  This was very good indeed.  It was followed by a rather good spiced apple cake with clotted cream on what looked like a crisp flattened treble clef, and there was plenty of red and white wine.  We finished with college port and chocolates served alongside our coffee.

It was quite appetizing, but not very pricey.  The salmon was from Sainsbury’s ‘basics’ range, and consisted of three salmon fillets, one somewhat misshapen, for about £4.50.  Make that £1.50 per salmon fillet.  I wrapped one in cling-film and microwaved it for just under a minute, until it all turned bright pink with no raw patches showing.  This cooking method keeps the salmon moist and retains all the fish oils.  I scrambled one large free-range egg with a splash of oil and milk.  That added about a further 25p to the cost.  After the egg and salmon I ate some of my cold stewed apples with a spoon of yoghurt.  These came free from a friend’s garden, but if I’d bought a Sainsbury’s ‘basics’ apple and stewed it I suppose it might have cost about 20p.  The upshot is that my two-course meal cost in the region of £2.  All right, that’s more than pot noodles or pasta might cost, but it’s still a fairly small sum, and the meal was pretty tasty.

The light wasn’t very good, so neither are the photos, but the food and drink were very good, which is what matters.  It was a pre St Andrews Day dinner at Queens’ College by the Cambridge group of St Andrews alumni.  St Andrews, along with Edinburgh and Cambridge, features among my almae matres.  After the reception we began with baked oak-smoked haddock topped with a Welsh rarebit.  It was a most unusual and excellent taste.

The main course was roast haunch of venison with braised red cabbage and dauphinoise potato (done as a cuboid).  The meat was surprisingly tender, and the cherry, cinnamon and walnut sauce complemented it nicely.

The dessert was a nicely tangy caramelized lemon tart with lemon syrup.  Pretty good stuff.  The wines were San Rafael sauvignon blanc and merlot, with Queens’ Label port afterwards with the coffee and chocolates.

We needed a quick early lunch at the Abbey, so I opted for the soup of the day with crusty bread.  It was a tangy tomato soup with croutons.  The soup was very tasty indeed, but the croutons were just partly toasted bread, and were rather pointless.

My companion had the gammon, egg and chips.  It looked pretty good, although the gammon was browner than one usually sees.  The egg was nicely soft.  There was a slice of grilled pineapple, and lots of fries.  I thought I might try that myself next time.  We each drank a glass of Spanish tempranillo with the meal.