I’ve been feeling a bit poorly lately, which is no real surprise as my boyfriend was ill last week, the germy bugger. He spent a week lying in bed feeling sick and shaky and tired all the time, which is what I now have but with the added fun of what feels suspiciously like the beginnings of a migraine. I used to get them in high school but hadn’t had one in years – hopefully this isn’t a sign they’re coming back! I can’t really take any time off work at the moment either, nor do I want to as there is so much to do in the next couple weeks here. So my solution last night was soup. Soup will cure all!
We had a couple fillets of peppered smoked mackerel and one undyed smoked haddock fillet from Creelers – plus the leftover crushed jersey royals from Sunday dinner – in the fridge, so I thought I’d make Cullen Skink.
Cullen skink is traditionally made with finnan haddie, a smoked haddock. It’s a hearty fish and tattie soup, and you can find it on the menu of pretty much any restaurant up and down the country that claims to have even the vaguest whiff of Scottish theme about it. BIG favourite round the Royal Mile area. I’ve had some good ones and some bad ones, but the best I’ve had was probably in the Roseleaf in Leith, where it was more a stew than a soup, with big chunks of potato and discernable flakes of smoked fish. This is most definitely not a soup that should be served even remotely smooth.
I wanted to use up the leftover tatties and the smoked fish – I’d actually bought the fish in anticipation of making Cullen Skink, but didn’t get around to it at the weekend. We’ll usually make more potatoes than we’ll need so I can use them in soup or stovies during the week…our friend Andy turned up on Sunday evening for his dinner after the Highland Show, so I was quite lucky to have any potatoes left!
The onion came from the famers market from Phantassie Organics. I’ll usually buy our onions on a string from our favourite local butcher, W. Christie, but this time of year they don’t have any. Oh their onions are so good, pink ones that taste slightly stronger (but sweeter) than regular yellow onions, but more versatile than red. Phantassie’s onions are pretty good too, and I’ve stopped buying supermarket onions altogether. Supermarket onions tend to break down faster I’ve noticed, so even though they stay “fresh” for longer, when you cook them they don’t hold their shape as well. They also need more flavouring – I don’t cook with salt as a general rule, but I’ve noticed without salt they’re pretty much tasteless. I’d usually have to throw in some balsamic as well, just to get some flavour into the bloody things! Vegetables should not be that difficult! Now we use “proper” onions and I just need to sauté them in a bit of butter and oil for them to taste nice.
I don’t use salt in my cooking unless it’s for a large joint of roast meat, or for the crackling on a pork roast. I sprinkled the teensiest pinch of salt on a mutton joint recently, and if I’m honest, in the quest for the perfect crackling I have been quite liberal with the old saltshaker, but we use sea salt only, and a tiny box of Maldon flakes lasts us for aaages. My boyfriend doesn’t use any salt, and when we moved in together I stopped salting my food during cooking as well. If I’m totally honest, I sometimes compensate by using things like slightly salted butter, cheese, cream or organic stock cubes. I won’t “add” extra salt though. I think the smoked fish in this recipe is salty enough to flavour the soup without needing to add anything, and as the mackerel is peppered already the seasoning was 100% taken care of.
I’d originally planned to add some double cream to the soup at the very end to add richness, but discovered the cream had gone off (and my boyfriend wasn’t willing to risk it as he’d felt dodgy all last week). What we did have was half a pot of half fat crème fraiche left over from my lunch yesterday (see previous post “Turkey and avocado sandwich filling”), so I added that at the end instead. We don’t drink much milk at home but I’d bought a litre on Monday from RealFoods for when we have guests who drink tea. What I’d really like is to have our milk delivered in glass bottles, but I don’t think there is a milkman in our area.
I love the fact the parsley I used here was grown in our very own “garden”. If you can call the 7 x 3 foot balcony a garden!
It may not have cured my bug, but it was definitely what I needed last night in my pathetic sniffly state…and it definitely helped that the whole thing can be cooked in one pot.
Super-easy Cullen Skink
Rapeseed oil (Summer Harvest - farmers market)
1 medium to large onion, chopped (Phantassie – farmers market)
2 peppered smoked mackerel fillets, skin removed (Creelers – farmers market)
1 large smoked haddock fillet (Creelers – farmers market)
Semi skimmed milk, about half a litre carton (RealFoods)
Leftover crushed new potatoes (I used leftover jersey royals from M&S I’d crushed with some butter for a side to our Sunday tea)
Half a tub of reduced fat crème fraiche (Waitrose)
Parsley (own grown)
Sautee the onion in a little rapeseed oil until they’ve gone slightly translucent, but not too soft. The onions should still have a bit of bite to them as the next step is to poach the smoked haddock in the same pot. Add the smoked haddock fillet to the onions and pour about half a litre of milk over to cover. Poach gently for a few minutes until the fish is cooked – give it a prod with a fork to check, and if it flakes easily it is cooked.
Using a wooden spoon, gently break up the fish directly in the pot. In a bowl do the same to the smoked mackerel fillets. Now add the mackerel, as well as the potatoes, to the soup, gently breaking up the largest pieces but retaining the integrity of the potatoes and fish. Add more milk if necessary, but remember to keep the soup chunky and thick. Finally, stir in the crème fraiche and chopped parsley to heat through.
Wednesday 30 June 2010
Turkey and avocado sandwich filling
I think I may be date dyslexic. Monday evening I was absolutely convinced Tuesday (yesterday) was the day I had plans to have lunch with my old boss, and as we’d decided on sandwiches at 1 (rather than pistols at dawn) I made up some healthy sandwich filler to take in to work in a plastic tub, and I’d even bought a healthy sunflower seed roll from RealFoods after the gym on Monday.
When I got in to work I checked my calendar, where it very clearly said in all its highlighted glory, our lunch was on Thursday. Thursday 1 July, not a difficult date to remember.
Well I had the roll anyways and it was very tasty. I overfilled it and it got messy, but I think totally worth it. Now I have to think up another sandwich filling for my lunch tomorrow…ah, such a hard life. It only took me 3 minutes to come up with the last one, and I now have leftover filling that I will introduce to a jacket potato from the canteen at work for my lunch today. Hello potato.
Turkey and avocado sandwich filling
A few slices thick cut, ready cooked turkey breast (I used a packet of Waitrose Free Range hand carved turkey breast, which was probably 150g of turkey)
1 avocado, cut into medium chunks (RealFoods)
Half a tub of half fat crème fraiche (Waitrose)
A handful of cherry tomatoes (J&M Craig - farmers market)
Chop the turkey breast into roughly the same size chunks as the avocado. Quarter the tomatoes and add. Spoon in the crème fraiche and toss everything together. This will keep in the fridge for a couple days if you leave the stone for the avocado in the tub with the rest of the ingredients.
When I got in to work I checked my calendar, where it very clearly said in all its highlighted glory, our lunch was on Thursday. Thursday 1 July, not a difficult date to remember.
Well I had the roll anyways and it was very tasty. I overfilled it and it got messy, but I think totally worth it. Now I have to think up another sandwich filling for my lunch tomorrow…ah, such a hard life. It only took me 3 minutes to come up with the last one, and I now have leftover filling that I will introduce to a jacket potato from the canteen at work for my lunch today. Hello potato.
Turkey and avocado sandwich filling
A few slices thick cut, ready cooked turkey breast (I used a packet of Waitrose Free Range hand carved turkey breast, which was probably 150g of turkey)
1 avocado, cut into medium chunks (RealFoods)
Half a tub of half fat crème fraiche (Waitrose)
A handful of cherry tomatoes (J&M Craig - farmers market)
Chop the turkey breast into roughly the same size chunks as the avocado. Quarter the tomatoes and add. Spoon in the crème fraiche and toss everything together. This will keep in the fridge for a couple days if you leave the stone for the avocado in the tub with the rest of the ingredients.
Wednesday 23 June 2010
Market day
The fridge is full again, and all is well.
I finished work earlier on Friday as we had friends visiting. They turned up just after lunchtime so my boyfriend entertained and fed them full of cheese (and chutney) until I got home. Neither of us fancied cooking so I dragged one of the boys out to Peckhams to stock up on snacks for a munch. We came back with far too much cake and some random savoury tarts – and one of those kitsch “lucky” Maneki Neko cats from the oriental supermarket near my house for my friend. Oh my it is so camp, but that’s the look he’s going for in his bedroom, so it should be perfect.
I also found a lovely 3-panelled Buddha’s head wood relief on sale, much like the one I’d seen in Linda’s Restaurant in Toronto only on a smaller scale. I’ve no idea where to put it but I’m sure we can make a space. I’ve gotten right into my Asian art recently, especially the Tibetan and Himalayan. The house at the moment is a mix of Tibetan singing bowls, third-eyes and turn-of-the-century gas chandeliers. I’m not sure we have anything “new”, but I’ve always appreciated a good antique. We even have an impressive sword collection of Ghurkha knives and samurai swords from as far back as the 1500s.
Friday was pretty chilled out, we sat in and some of the boys had a drink. I made it to midnight then passed out in the granddaddy armchair – so good for slumping. The boys had rearranged the furniture and dragged the orange sofa out from hiding so we didn’t have to sit in a half-moon around the telly.
The boys left quite early on Saturday morning so I went to the farmers market by myself. I had to do the bank mission as well so I stopped by Clarks Deli on the way home and picked up a random selection of cheeses, some pears and a head of pink garlic. I also got a few strawberry tarts from A la Carte and a brownie for our electrician Paul, who has put in some serious effort t for us since he started at the beginning of the year. I ended up giving Paul a couple tarts and the brownie to take home to his family, and my boyfriend made a crack about Paul telling his wife he was bringing home an Edinburgh tart.
The farmers market was pretty crowded by the time I got there as it was a lovely day, and there’s nothing like a bit of sunshine to get people out in hordes for some alfresco shopping. I started at the far end so hit Creelers first, as I do most weekends. I am so predictable. Sadly no Cullen skink until winter, but I bought some cooked langoustines and some fish soup. Last week when I was at their stall, a couple people ordered the oysters and made a point of saying how great they were, so I ordered three and wolfed them down with a squeeze of lemon. Yum! I couldn’t do that with the boys with me as I think the idea of raw shellfish freaks some of my friend out.
Next it was Arran’s Cheese shop. I went for the cheddar with peppercorns and another with caramellised red onion as I fancied trying something new. I also bought a pot of crowdie like I do every weekend, and the lovely lady threw in some free oatcakes.
This week the Cairn o Mohr stall was at the market, so I got a bottle of elderberry (the sweeter of the two reds), a bottle of cider and some of the sparkling elderflower – which is non-alcoholic. I’m not really a big drinker usually and I love their sparkling elderflower. It’s tangy and not overly sweet like most elderflower drinks, and it’s so refreshing in the summer. I appear to be stockpiling the cider.
I went a little overboard with the meat and dairy this week, which does go to show that shopping whilst hungry is a bad fucking idea! Luckily I have a very skinny boyfriend with a very big appetite, so no doubt he’ll polish off a couple packets of sausages to himself one morning. Unfortunately the guy from Puddledub Pork was out of the reduced salt bacon by the time I got there, and he did mention he had brought less than usual this week by accident. I got a couple packs of middle bacon instead, some pork chops which my boyfriend is working his magic on tonight to make into a Thai green curry, and some lemon and fennel sausages. Let me just say I’ve bought these sausages several times, but I’ve never tasted one as he usually polishes off a packet before I get around to it. They sound tasty though, and lighter than your average Joe sausage. To add to the sausage-fest I also bought a packet of curried sausages from Ballencrieff Pedigree Pigs. These I’d tried before and liked, but my boyfriend loves all things curried so here I am, indulging him.
The bloke from Hugh Grierson recommended the mutton this week, and suggested a long slow roast in a very low oven. 120ºC for 5 hours he said, with a cup of water chucked in to keep the whole thing moist. I also got a packet of chicken wings for snackage. I’d planned to do it on the Saturday night but we got sidetracked and ended up at our neighbour’s flat for the evening. The boyfriend was doing some gardening for her with her boyfriend, and me and my neighbour “supervised”. It was a quality evening, as we’d not really spent much time with them since Dee’s gran died, and they’re lovely folk. My dad and Dee’s dad Mr M would love to pal around with each other, and Mr M has made jokes about taking my dad for a spin in his flash new car. We should set a date.
I should mention my flat used to belong to Dee’s family, back in the day. She’s not much older than me but she’s lived on the street for most of her life – her gran Maidie used to own the entire building as a hotel in the 70s, and my bit used to be the hotel bar and lounge. We’re in the process of restoring it to its former glory, which is taking some amount of blood, sweat and tears. Luckily, not mine – we’re getting builders in to do the work, the same company that ripped down and rebuilt the big front bedroom after a flood last year. We’ve got the best group of guys doing the work, totally honest, efficient and hardworking. Not typical at all in Edinburgh! Paul hails from out of town and is a good mate of my boyfriend’s brother-in-law. He puts in some amount of exceptional effort pretty much every weekend, rewiring the house and making sure we don’t burst into flames! The wiring is so dodgy in these houses as a total nut job cowboy did the conversion into flats about 10 years ago. We’re still all paying for it! Paul and my boyfriend just ripped a 21-foot long tube of metal ducting from an extractor fan out of the false ceiling, which could easily have come crashing down on our heads!
So back to the food…always back to the food. I bought a couple packs of buffalo steak from Puddledub Buffalo as both me and my boyfriend prefer the taste to regular beef steak. It was a packet of ribeye and a packet of popseye this week. We had the ribeye I’d bought last week for dinner on Sunday night, with chips (from frozen, I’m ashamed to say) and some cabbage sautéed in butter. That head of cabbage has been lingering for ages now and we’d just been pulling leaves off the outside to feed the rabbit so it was getting down to a fairly manageable size by Sunday night. We fried the steak in a pan with some balsamic, then heated up some ready-made green peppercorn sauce from TrueFoods. I quite like their sauces as they come in handy pouches instead of a plastic tub, so slightly less waste. The George was far too grotty to even attempt an emergency clean! We had it with some of the horseradish cream I’d bought from Stichill last week, which is by the way so far superior to supermarket creamed horseradish I don’t even think they should share a name. It would be an insult to Stichill’s horseradish to even compare the two.
Then it was on to SS Dei Naufragati for some mozzarella-based fun. I bought a tub of straciatella, which is mozzarella strands in cream, and some ricotta. I love “tasting” at this stall as I firmly believe that food sampled is totally fat free. I must have consumed half a tub of straciatella on the spot.
From Stichill I bought four large pots of jersey double cream and some roasted red pepper dip. I plan to make ice cream at some point this week with the double cream and some of the whopping 6 punnets of strawberries I bought from The Strawberry Shop this week. I also bought four punnets of cherries, but as I’m already halfway through them I doubt there will be cherry goodness left for frozen treat fun.
This week was Belhaven Fruit Farm’s cider week, so I tried and bought a couple bottles each of the “red” strawberry cider and the ginger cider. The ginger is quite different, lovely and warming but refreshing at the same time – sort of like “hard” ginger beer. The strawberry cider I think may become addictive. It’s definitely not as tangy as regular cider, not “dry” at all, and not overly sweet like some fruity ciders. I’m a big believer in only drinking alcohol that tastes nice rather than to get pisht, but I could drink quite a lot of this stuff! Luckily the cider stall is only ever in town once a fortnight, so next week it’s back to the ice cream. Mmm…gooseberry, here I come!
From the middle-stretch of the market I got a loaf of spelt and honey bread from Falko Konditoreimeister, a tub of broccoli soup from The Good Soup Company, and a “posh” chicken and mushroom pie and a loaf of carrot cake from North Country Lass (half of which we gave to Paul for his hard work). The guys from Falko are the same as the guys who work in the shop during the week, so I’m sure they think I’m stalking them – especially as they know I live round the corner from the shop.
To finish off I bought some onions from East Coast Organics and a half dozen eggs, some “Something Different” toms from JM Craig, and then it was back home with my super-heavy trolley to try to fit everything in our newly cleaned fridge!
I finished work earlier on Friday as we had friends visiting. They turned up just after lunchtime so my boyfriend entertained and fed them full of cheese (and chutney) until I got home. Neither of us fancied cooking so I dragged one of the boys out to Peckhams to stock up on snacks for a munch. We came back with far too much cake and some random savoury tarts – and one of those kitsch “lucky” Maneki Neko cats from the oriental supermarket near my house for my friend. Oh my it is so camp, but that’s the look he’s going for in his bedroom, so it should be perfect.
I also found a lovely 3-panelled Buddha’s head wood relief on sale, much like the one I’d seen in Linda’s Restaurant in Toronto only on a smaller scale. I’ve no idea where to put it but I’m sure we can make a space. I’ve gotten right into my Asian art recently, especially the Tibetan and Himalayan. The house at the moment is a mix of Tibetan singing bowls, third-eyes and turn-of-the-century gas chandeliers. I’m not sure we have anything “new”, but I’ve always appreciated a good antique. We even have an impressive sword collection of Ghurkha knives and samurai swords from as far back as the 1500s.
Friday was pretty chilled out, we sat in and some of the boys had a drink. I made it to midnight then passed out in the granddaddy armchair – so good for slumping. The boys had rearranged the furniture and dragged the orange sofa out from hiding so we didn’t have to sit in a half-moon around the telly.
The boys left quite early on Saturday morning so I went to the farmers market by myself. I had to do the bank mission as well so I stopped by Clarks Deli on the way home and picked up a random selection of cheeses, some pears and a head of pink garlic. I also got a few strawberry tarts from A la Carte and a brownie for our electrician Paul, who has put in some serious effort t for us since he started at the beginning of the year. I ended up giving Paul a couple tarts and the brownie to take home to his family, and my boyfriend made a crack about Paul telling his wife he was bringing home an Edinburgh tart.
The farmers market was pretty crowded by the time I got there as it was a lovely day, and there’s nothing like a bit of sunshine to get people out in hordes for some alfresco shopping. I started at the far end so hit Creelers first, as I do most weekends. I am so predictable. Sadly no Cullen skink until winter, but I bought some cooked langoustines and some fish soup. Last week when I was at their stall, a couple people ordered the oysters and made a point of saying how great they were, so I ordered three and wolfed them down with a squeeze of lemon. Yum! I couldn’t do that with the boys with me as I think the idea of raw shellfish freaks some of my friend out.
Next it was Arran’s Cheese shop. I went for the cheddar with peppercorns and another with caramellised red onion as I fancied trying something new. I also bought a pot of crowdie like I do every weekend, and the lovely lady threw in some free oatcakes.
This week the Cairn o Mohr stall was at the market, so I got a bottle of elderberry (the sweeter of the two reds), a bottle of cider and some of the sparkling elderflower – which is non-alcoholic. I’m not really a big drinker usually and I love their sparkling elderflower. It’s tangy and not overly sweet like most elderflower drinks, and it’s so refreshing in the summer. I appear to be stockpiling the cider.
I went a little overboard with the meat and dairy this week, which does go to show that shopping whilst hungry is a bad fucking idea! Luckily I have a very skinny boyfriend with a very big appetite, so no doubt he’ll polish off a couple packets of sausages to himself one morning. Unfortunately the guy from Puddledub Pork was out of the reduced salt bacon by the time I got there, and he did mention he had brought less than usual this week by accident. I got a couple packs of middle bacon instead, some pork chops which my boyfriend is working his magic on tonight to make into a Thai green curry, and some lemon and fennel sausages. Let me just say I’ve bought these sausages several times, but I’ve never tasted one as he usually polishes off a packet before I get around to it. They sound tasty though, and lighter than your average Joe sausage. To add to the sausage-fest I also bought a packet of curried sausages from Ballencrieff Pedigree Pigs. These I’d tried before and liked, but my boyfriend loves all things curried so here I am, indulging him.
The bloke from Hugh Grierson recommended the mutton this week, and suggested a long slow roast in a very low oven. 120ºC for 5 hours he said, with a cup of water chucked in to keep the whole thing moist. I also got a packet of chicken wings for snackage. I’d planned to do it on the Saturday night but we got sidetracked and ended up at our neighbour’s flat for the evening. The boyfriend was doing some gardening for her with her boyfriend, and me and my neighbour “supervised”. It was a quality evening, as we’d not really spent much time with them since Dee’s gran died, and they’re lovely folk. My dad and Dee’s dad Mr M would love to pal around with each other, and Mr M has made jokes about taking my dad for a spin in his flash new car. We should set a date.
I should mention my flat used to belong to Dee’s family, back in the day. She’s not much older than me but she’s lived on the street for most of her life – her gran Maidie used to own the entire building as a hotel in the 70s, and my bit used to be the hotel bar and lounge. We’re in the process of restoring it to its former glory, which is taking some amount of blood, sweat and tears. Luckily, not mine – we’re getting builders in to do the work, the same company that ripped down and rebuilt the big front bedroom after a flood last year. We’ve got the best group of guys doing the work, totally honest, efficient and hardworking. Not typical at all in Edinburgh! Paul hails from out of town and is a good mate of my boyfriend’s brother-in-law. He puts in some amount of exceptional effort pretty much every weekend, rewiring the house and making sure we don’t burst into flames! The wiring is so dodgy in these houses as a total nut job cowboy did the conversion into flats about 10 years ago. We’re still all paying for it! Paul and my boyfriend just ripped a 21-foot long tube of metal ducting from an extractor fan out of the false ceiling, which could easily have come crashing down on our heads!
So back to the food…always back to the food. I bought a couple packs of buffalo steak from Puddledub Buffalo as both me and my boyfriend prefer the taste to regular beef steak. It was a packet of ribeye and a packet of popseye this week. We had the ribeye I’d bought last week for dinner on Sunday night, with chips (from frozen, I’m ashamed to say) and some cabbage sautéed in butter. That head of cabbage has been lingering for ages now and we’d just been pulling leaves off the outside to feed the rabbit so it was getting down to a fairly manageable size by Sunday night. We fried the steak in a pan with some balsamic, then heated up some ready-made green peppercorn sauce from TrueFoods. I quite like their sauces as they come in handy pouches instead of a plastic tub, so slightly less waste. The George was far too grotty to even attempt an emergency clean! We had it with some of the horseradish cream I’d bought from Stichill last week, which is by the way so far superior to supermarket creamed horseradish I don’t even think they should share a name. It would be an insult to Stichill’s horseradish to even compare the two.
Then it was on to SS Dei Naufragati for some mozzarella-based fun. I bought a tub of straciatella, which is mozzarella strands in cream, and some ricotta. I love “tasting” at this stall as I firmly believe that food sampled is totally fat free. I must have consumed half a tub of straciatella on the spot.
From Stichill I bought four large pots of jersey double cream and some roasted red pepper dip. I plan to make ice cream at some point this week with the double cream and some of the whopping 6 punnets of strawberries I bought from The Strawberry Shop this week. I also bought four punnets of cherries, but as I’m already halfway through them I doubt there will be cherry goodness left for frozen treat fun.
This week was Belhaven Fruit Farm’s cider week, so I tried and bought a couple bottles each of the “red” strawberry cider and the ginger cider. The ginger is quite different, lovely and warming but refreshing at the same time – sort of like “hard” ginger beer. The strawberry cider I think may become addictive. It’s definitely not as tangy as regular cider, not “dry” at all, and not overly sweet like some fruity ciders. I’m a big believer in only drinking alcohol that tastes nice rather than to get pisht, but I could drink quite a lot of this stuff! Luckily the cider stall is only ever in town once a fortnight, so next week it’s back to the ice cream. Mmm…gooseberry, here I come!
From the middle-stretch of the market I got a loaf of spelt and honey bread from Falko Konditoreimeister, a tub of broccoli soup from The Good Soup Company, and a “posh” chicken and mushroom pie and a loaf of carrot cake from North Country Lass (half of which we gave to Paul for his hard work). The guys from Falko are the same as the guys who work in the shop during the week, so I’m sure they think I’m stalking them – especially as they know I live round the corner from the shop.
To finish off I bought some onions from East Coast Organics and a half dozen eggs, some “Something Different” toms from JM Craig, and then it was back home with my super-heavy trolley to try to fit everything in our newly cleaned fridge!
Thursday 17 June 2010
RIP Boudiche
I just found out yesterday one of my favourite shops has gone out of business. It was my Pilates teacher who mentioned it at yesterday’s evening class, possibly as her studio is just around the corner from it. I knew the girls who ran the shop and they’re lovely – it was a proper fancy knicker shop, very glam, almost like an old-school dressing room you could imagine Bettie Page lounging about on the chaise longue. I’m not a girly girl and I’m not a fan of abundant frilliness – I look like a tranny in too much lace – but this place was more glamour and less shrill prink and girly.
So it is with great sadness that I’ll say now, RIP Boudiche.. I’d bought many a corset and many an impractical but irresistible gorgeous pair of undies over the years, and I’m sure Fiona and Clare will go on to do great things wherever they choose to go next.
x
So it is with great sadness that I’ll say now, RIP Boudiche.. I’d bought many a corset and many an impractical but irresistible gorgeous pair of undies over the years, and I’m sure Fiona and Clare will go on to do great things wherever they choose to go next.
x
Wednesday 16 June 2010
Steamed honey soy salmon parcels with rice noodle stir fry
We had salmon for dinner last night, which is a pretty big deal in my house as my boyfriend is not a fan of fish – childhood trauma, fish bone, choking etc. The topic has come up before how we should try to eat more fish, but we’re the kind of household that resorts to meat in a pinch, and to be honest I’m a lazy cook on days I work. So Monday to Friday we slap a slab of meat onto a plate with potatoes or rice, or pasta if I win that night. We don’t do much to the meat except grill it on the George with some balsamic.
Except last night, I had a big tail piece of salmon from Creelers calling my name in the fridge. Too often I buy fish and have to freeze it at the last minute because we’d totally forgotten about it, but I was determined that food I’d bought fresh would be eaten fresh from now on (dagnabbit!)), so into the oven it went. We even went all-out with the healthy eating and had loads of veg with it.
The fish and the onion came from the farmers market, the fennel from RealFoods (my regular stop off point in town on days I go to Pilates class), and the rest of the veg I picked up in Marks and Sparks yesterday on my way home – I don’t usually get veg from the supermarket, but their food hall is ok (I was there to return some clothes I’d bought in a moment of madness) and I only picked up produce sourced from the UK.
Oh, and I don’t always do measurements. I am a firm believer in seasoning to taste, so there will be no “tbsps” and “grammes” here. Where possible I’ve included the source of the produce)
Steamed honey soy salmon parcels with rice noodle stir fry
Honey
Soy sauce (I use Kikkoman or ClearSpring)
Chilli oil
Salmon tail end, cut into fillets
1 bulb fennel, julienned (RealFoods)
1 onion, thinly sliced (Phantassie – farmers market)
Rapeseed oil (Summer Harvest oils – farmers market)
Bok choy, shredded (M&S – UK)
English chestnut mushrooms, sliced (Phantassie)
Broccoli, in florets (M&S – UK)
Spinach (M&S – UK)
3 cloves garlic, chopped (W Christie’s butchers)
2 packets Ready-cooked rice noodles (M&S)
Preheat oven to 180º C.
On the non-shiny side of a rectangle of foil drizzle some rapeseed oil. I folded a long sheet in half shiny side to prevent leakage. Make a bed of sliced onion and fennel. Place the salmon fillets on top, skin side down. Season
Mix up the honey, soy and chilli oil. At this point you could also add grated ginger or garlic but I just left it smooth. Brush or drizzle on the salmon fillets.
Wrap the parcels up – I found doing it in a triangle made it easier to open up and plate. Place on a tray and stick in oven – they should bake for about 30-35 mins.
About 10 mins before the salmon needs to come out, heat some rapeseed oil in a wok. Add the diced bok choy and stir fry. Add a splash of soy sauce and a little honey. Then add the rest of the ingredients in this order: mushrooms, broccoli, garlic, rice noodles, and finally spinach. By this time the salmon should be ready and the spinach should be wilted.
Plate the noodles and remove the salmon from its parcel. Serves 2 with leftover noodles for the next day
Except last night, I had a big tail piece of salmon from Creelers calling my name in the fridge. Too often I buy fish and have to freeze it at the last minute because we’d totally forgotten about it, but I was determined that food I’d bought fresh would be eaten fresh from now on (dagnabbit!)), so into the oven it went. We even went all-out with the healthy eating and had loads of veg with it.
The fish and the onion came from the farmers market, the fennel from RealFoods (my regular stop off point in town on days I go to Pilates class), and the rest of the veg I picked up in Marks and Sparks yesterday on my way home – I don’t usually get veg from the supermarket, but their food hall is ok (I was there to return some clothes I’d bought in a moment of madness) and I only picked up produce sourced from the UK.
Oh, and I don’t always do measurements. I am a firm believer in seasoning to taste, so there will be no “tbsps” and “grammes” here. Where possible I’ve included the source of the produce)
Steamed honey soy salmon parcels with rice noodle stir fry
Honey
Soy sauce (I use Kikkoman or ClearSpring)
Chilli oil
Salmon tail end, cut into fillets
1 bulb fennel, julienned (RealFoods)
1 onion, thinly sliced (Phantassie – farmers market)
Rapeseed oil (Summer Harvest oils – farmers market)
Bok choy, shredded (M&S – UK)
English chestnut mushrooms, sliced (Phantassie)
Broccoli, in florets (M&S – UK)
Spinach (M&S – UK)
3 cloves garlic, chopped (W Christie’s butchers)
2 packets Ready-cooked rice noodles (M&S)
Preheat oven to 180º C.
On the non-shiny side of a rectangle of foil drizzle some rapeseed oil. I folded a long sheet in half shiny side to prevent leakage. Make a bed of sliced onion and fennel. Place the salmon fillets on top, skin side down. Season
Mix up the honey, soy and chilli oil. At this point you could also add grated ginger or garlic but I just left it smooth. Brush or drizzle on the salmon fillets.
Wrap the parcels up – I found doing it in a triangle made it easier to open up and plate. Place on a tray and stick in oven – they should bake for about 30-35 mins.
About 10 mins before the salmon needs to come out, heat some rapeseed oil in a wok. Add the diced bok choy and stir fry. Add a splash of soy sauce and a little honey. Then add the rest of the ingredients in this order: mushrooms, broccoli, garlic, rice noodles, and finally spinach. By this time the salmon should be ready and the spinach should be wilted.
Plate the noodles and remove the salmon from its parcel. Serves 2 with leftover noodles for the next day
Tuesday 15 June 2010
Strawberry tarts
I really must post about this – last weekend I had the most amazing strawberry tart, and I’d like to share it. Well no, I wouldn’t actually like to share it. I barely let my boyfriend get a look in, but he's quick with the grabby hand and was close to the fridge.
Light pastry (I wouldn’t call it a shortcrust as it wasn’t stodgy like a typical sweet pastry shell), freshly whipped cream and a lightly glazed dollop of strawberries. It may have been the best thing I tasted all weekend.
Even my boyfriend liked it, and he is not a fan of the sweet. He claims it is because he is so naturally sweet himself, but I say it’s his supersensitive teeth and his fear of emergency dental surgery. Which he had a month ago.
The tart is seasonal and can be found in my gob - or at À la Carte in Bruntsfield. The address is 156 Bruntsfield Place in Edinburgh. If you’re one of those people who has their GPS permanently welded to their face (ahem my dad) the postcode is EH10 4ER.
The shortbread and cheese scones are something to write home about as well.
Light pastry (I wouldn’t call it a shortcrust as it wasn’t stodgy like a typical sweet pastry shell), freshly whipped cream and a lightly glazed dollop of strawberries. It may have been the best thing I tasted all weekend.
Even my boyfriend liked it, and he is not a fan of the sweet. He claims it is because he is so naturally sweet himself, but I say it’s his supersensitive teeth and his fear of emergency dental surgery. Which he had a month ago.
The tart is seasonal and can be found in my gob - or at À la Carte in Bruntsfield. The address is 156 Bruntsfield Place in Edinburgh. If you’re one of those people who has their GPS permanently welded to their face (ahem my dad) the postcode is EH10 4ER.
The shortbread and cheese scones are something to write home about as well.
Monday 14 June 2010
Goodies from the farmers Market
I am most definitely the untidy one in our home. My boyfriend jokes that he’d rather I go on holiday with him so he doesn’t have to come back to a messy flat. I am a hurricane of partially read magazines (mostly fashion and lifestyle mags, but I think the ones that annoy him most are the foodie mags), unopened post, makeup, laundry and clothes.
I also buy too much food. I get a little starry-eyed when I go to the farmers market every weekend and I bring home random veg and at least a couple joints of meat I have every intention of roasting in some wacky and inventive way for our Sunday dinner. Only I keep forgetting there are only two of us, and the cat and the dog are really just not heavy-eating enough to help polish off the rest of a leg of lamb. The cat’s watching her waistline and the dog has worrying vegetarian leanings. The bunny just looks exasperated all the time, which I put down to her advanced age and the fact she lives on the balcony.
Last Saturday I tried to rein myself in a bit. I’d not been in a few weeks due to various foreseen circumstances – a celebration of the life of Maidie Dickson Murray a couple Saturdays ago, and an incredibly short trip to Canada last weekend. Which I am still recovering from (jet lag, the fifth horseman of the apocalypse?).
I managed to make it by around noon, which is a bit late in the day in my opinion. The market shuts at 2pm, so by noon a lot of the choice is taken out of the equation. I was quite chuffed to see this was one of the weeks Phantassie Organic veg was at the market, as they have a bigger range and more interesting veg than most of the other organic veg stalls. They’re also only at the market once every fortnight, as far as I am aware.
When I first started going to the farmers market a few months ago, it was still bitterly cold outside and the stallholders had a distinctly windswept and interesting look about them. I’d go to every stall and as I’m easily tempted by handsome-looking cuts of meat and appealingly organic bunches of carrots, I’d pretty much buy something from every stall. This is how we ended up with freezer bursting at the seams and a second freezer groaning under the weight. Now I’m a veteran market-goer and I’ll have my favourites (they’re my boyfriend’s favourites as well, though he’s never been to market with me and is forced to eat only what I bring home)., so every week I start at one end of Castle Terrace with a purpose and a bright red granny trolley.
On the far side of Castle Terrace (I usually like to start on the side furthest from Lothian Road as I take Lothian Road to get home) I’ll usually hit Creelers and Phantassie. Creelers does seafood, and it’s partially thanks to their langoustines that my boyfriend will now eat (some) shellfish. He’s never been a big fan of seafood since he choked on a fish bone when he was wee, and he’s said he’ll only eat fish prepared by me or his gran as we are sympathetic to his fear. I usually get langoustines and their cullen skink (it’s better than mine *sob*), but they were out of both by the time I got there this week so I got some hot smoked salmon, fresh salmon and some smoked peppered mackerel.. I spoke to the lovely lady manning the stall and asked if it would be ok for me to bring in my own plastic tub for the fish rather than plastic bags, and she was very enthusiastic about the idea as their policy is NO excess packaging (and it would save on plastic bags). In fact their peppered mackerel is packaged 2 fillets per bag as the vacuum sealed bags only come in a certain size, so it’s more economical with the plastic to stick them in two-by-two (mackerel, saints, ants…).
I’ve plans to poach or roast the fresh salmon – no idea yet what to serve alongside, but I think new potatoes may be involved, along with my boyfriend’s own-grown fresh herbs (parsley, mint, chives, rosemary?). I bought extra so I could flake the leftovers for a pasta salad with crème fraiche, dill, cucumber and mustard. Maybe chuck in a few cherry toms as well. I may mix some of the smoked salmon into the pasta salad as well, but this will just be for my lunch that I take to work, as the boyfriend may be willing to eat the odd bit of fish, but he’s not quite ready for the smoked stuff just yet. I haven’t decided what to do with the smoked mackerel yet, but it looked so nice I figured inspiration would strike later on in the week. I will most definitely be back next weekend and earlier for the cullen skink.
Next I went over to the Phantassie stall, where I got my grubby little mitts on 2 bags of chard – one with yellow stalks and one with bright red stalks. I have vague plans to make some sort of soup, but will have to look for a recipe to adapt I think. I’m not even sure I’ve ever tasted chard, but it was on offer at £1 a bag. I also bought 3 bags of chestnut mushrooms (their mushrooms are amazing, they keep their texture and don’t lose much water at all during cooking), a bunch of the last of this year’s carrots, and quite a few onions. I restrained myself from buying any more, and as they were out of wild garlic I moved on to my next target.
For pork I usually go to one of three producers – Piperfield Pork, Puddledub Pork and Ballencrieff Rare Pedigree Pigs. Piperfield specialise in “Middle White pork” do some very tasty chorizo that come with a handy string to hang them from (they’re not meant to be refrigerated), and a very good glazed ham. I usually get a few slices of the ham just to pick at whilst I’m walking through the market. This week I bought a couple chorizo to take to a friend’s, an unrolled loin of pork to possibly take to my boyfriend’s mum’s for Sunday dinner, and a smaller joint of rolled pork shoulder to have for our own weekly roast. I’ve become increasingly fond of the shoulder cut recently, as it seems to stay tender no matter how much I forget about it or overcook it (case in point on Sunday, when I forgot to uncover the pesky thing and had to cook the joint an extra 20 mins at max heat to get at least some form of crackling on top, so it was on max heat for over half an hour), and it has a stronger flavour. On a slight tangent, I didn’t realise until about 5 minutes ago that the “Middle White” refers to a breed of pig, rather than the area on the pig the meat comes from.
I’ll usually get a few loin steaks from Puddledub and their reduced-salt bacon, which my boyfriend adores because he’s very anti-salt. He won’t add salt to any of his cooking except roast pork, and even then it’s only for the crackling. I get the feeling he could take or leave crackling if it weren’t for me hovering over his shoulder asking for crackling updates. Mmm…pork fat….drool. Sadly they weren’t there this time as I checked the calendar and they only make an appearance 4 out of 5 weeks a month (missing out on the second Saturday of each month).
Then it was on to Ballencrieff Pedigree Pigs, where I got a couple packets of casserole pork for dinners this week. Again I wasn’t sure what we’d be having, but with pork stews I usually let the boyfriend deal with it as he’s got the knack. I’m better with red meats and game when it comes to casseroling. I’ll sometimes get the premium dog food from Ballencrieff, which is pretty much the sausage meat that doesn’t quite make the cut for their sausages, but is probably better quality than the sausage meat that goes into most supermarket sausages.
Every week I’ll get a tub of the crowdie from Arran’s Cheese Shop. Crowdie is a lower fat alternative to cream cheese as it is made from skimmed milk, and theirs is rennet free. I also bought a smoked cheese with chilli, and a couple of smoked cheeses with garlic – one to give a friend. We’d bought both before and loved them – the chilli cheese has a bite to it that is really rather pleasant, and the garlic is more subtle but absolutely gorgeous. The lady who runs the stall is lovely as well, and I do like to think she remembers me from week to week. She’ll usually throw in some oatcakes for free as well, and they’re much better than even the deluxe versions you can buy in the supermarket.
This week I got half a dozen “dirty” eggs from Brewster’s – they were slightly grubby (but I’m not fussy like that about a little bit of dirt) and they only cost £1 because they were “unwashed”. Bargain. They sometimes have rarer varieties of eggs as well, and they will let you bring in an empty box to refill, which is always something I like to see. I mean, what use are empty egg cartons if you don’t have kids to use them for various Blue Peter projects?
To finish off my egg and dairy run, I bought some soft cheese from Stichill Jerseys. I bought 2 pots of creamy horseradish dip (I’d have roast beef every day of the week if it meant I could have Stichill’s horseradish dip as a condiment every time), a soft cheese with lovage, a baton of fresh butter, a pot of jersey double cream and some lemon and garlic butter. The boyfriend and I had a surprise visitor on Sunday afternoon whose eyes lit up when he saw the cream – proper jersey cream is pretty rare where he lives as there is only one shop in the neighbouring village. I used half the garlic butter for the potatoes we had with our Sunday lunch yesterday – 2 bags of Jersey Royal potatoes simmered whole then crushed with the garlic butter. My guilty confession? The tatties were from Waitrose, but they were tasty and I only ever get the jersey Royals from their plastic bagged selection, though I’ll buy their locally sourced potatoes and carrots.
I managed to restrain myself from buying huge amounts of red meat this week, so kept it to 2 packets (so 4 in total) of buffalo rump steaks from Puddledub Buffalo – one of which I gave to a friend as I know he appreciates a good bit of buffalo meat. I also bought a packet of steak and marmalade sausages, as every time I buy them my boyfriend eats them all before I get a look in (surely a good sign as he doesn’t even like marmalade). I briefly eyed up a leg of lamb but managed to drag myself away in time, muttering “2 roasts are enough” under my breath. I think next week will be a lamb-laced week.
This was the first week I’d seen Belhaven Fruit Farm at the market, so a sure sign it’s nearly summer even if the slightly chillier weather and rain might indicate otherwise. Unfortunately they were out of the larger tubs of ice cream, but I got a small tub of the gooseberry dairy free ice cream, which was lovely. I know purists may argue the strawberry was the original, but I think I actually prefer the gooseberry. SO refreshing, and just tart enough. They only do ice creams every other week, so next weekend it will be cider.
The past few weeks I’ve stocked up on strawberries from The Strawberry Shop (wonder how they thought up the name?) as they keep fresh the whole week and I take them into work to nibble on. I went away with the mother load this week – 8 punnets! The lady who runs the stall (possibly the farmer’s wife – the farmer being David Leslie of Perth) makes the best redcurrant jelly I have ever tasted, and I consider myself a redcurrant jelly connoisseur. No seriously, I put it in everything. Her jelly isn’t too sweet and has just enough tartness – you can totally taste the redcurrants in it, and it is a softer jelly (less of the texture of Jell-o than some).
Now being the lazy bastard that I am, I bought our bread this week from Falko Konditoreimeister at the market instead of from their bakery 100 metres from my flat. I will sometimes get the spelt and honey variety, or my boyfriend’s preferred bread which is the pumpkin seed – they were out of both (being quite popular) so I went for the light rye. I’m partial to a stronger tasting bread with a firmer texture, which they are great at. Reminiscent of my schooldays in Switzerland I think. I hated boarding school but the food was great.
Then it was on to Findlaters pates and pies. I’d noticed there was a glass top to the counter and commented on it – I’ve been known to drop my money into it by accident before, and apparently I wasn’t the only one as it had become enough of an issue for them to replace it. The stallholder said he’d dropped his coffee into it once, which may have been the straw that made the camel buy a glass shelf. Or something like that. I’ve been trying to restrict myself to 2 pates a week since I started buying their pies as well, so this week it was duck and apricot and my old favourite, Dunsyre and pressed pear. It’s always one vegetarian one and one meat every week. That way I can “pretend” I’m being healthy. I also got a carrot and Dunsyre pie, and a few Mexican chicken pies for my boyfriend, who has actually requested that particular pie before.
Finally I was down to my last two stops – North Country Lass for an apple pie and a veg pie with Stilton, and J&M Craig for tomatoes. North Country Lass’s pies and cakes are some of the only ones my boyfriend will eat as they are not overly sweet (and unkind to his teeth) – he was quite pleased with this week’s apple pie, but usually his favourite is the carrot cake. In fact the only comparable carrot cake I’ve ever tasted has been the Olifeira recipe cake, and even then I can’t quite seem to make it right. He looooves that carrot cake.
My last stop was J&M Craig, which was quite handy as it is the closest to Lothian Road. I usually buy the “Something different” toms, so I can never tell which ones have come home with me each week. I tried one and all I can say is they’re richer in taste than the sweetest ones (the Soopersweet) but still quite sweet. I plan to stick them in the salmon pasta salad later this week, unless I eat them all before I get the chance.
So last night was Roast Pork night. Our friend Chris turned up on Sunday just in time for breakfast (scrambled eggs from Brewster’s, a couple slices of Falko bread spread with fresh Stichill butter, and some Ayrshire back bacon I’d run to Peckhams to buy earlier on in the morning), so we decided to stick one of the joints of pork on for dinner. I braised the shoulder joint with the fat rubbed generously with salt and fennel seeds for an hour and a half at 160°, covered, on a bed of shallots and onions (with a little tiny bit of water). Then I cranked the heat up for the last bit of cooking. I also roasted 5 bulbs of fennel sliced from north to south in some butter and rapeseed oil, sprinkled with an organic vegetable stock cube. The stock cube may have been overkill, but it still tasted ok. When the meat was about 30 mins from done I boiled up 2 bags of Jersey Royals in the largest pot we have. Unfortunately I forgot to uncover the pork, so instead of 15 mins at max heat, the pork was blasted for 35 mins at max. We also boiled up some corn on the cob to have as an additional veg. When the meat was taken out to rest (my boyfriend has a trick to it – he cuts the crackling and the fat off before it is covered to rest, so the crackling is still nice and crisp when it comes time to eat), I stirred in a veg stock cube and a bit of water to the shallots and onions, and my usual tablespoon of redcurrant jelly. Can I just say, redcurrant jelly makes ALL gravies better, a tip I learned from Mrs Emily MacGregor, who used to run MacGregor’s Provisions on Strathearn Road with her husband.
The pork was tasty and still tender, and there was a lovely pink bit in the middle for me (the boys each took an end). The tatties were lovely and sweet, not at all like bog standard supermarket potatoes. The fennel was sticky, sweet and carmellised, and I added a splash of Stichill’s jersey double cream at the end and just heated through.
That’s all for me today – phew!
I also buy too much food. I get a little starry-eyed when I go to the farmers market every weekend and I bring home random veg and at least a couple joints of meat I have every intention of roasting in some wacky and inventive way for our Sunday dinner. Only I keep forgetting there are only two of us, and the cat and the dog are really just not heavy-eating enough to help polish off the rest of a leg of lamb. The cat’s watching her waistline and the dog has worrying vegetarian leanings. The bunny just looks exasperated all the time, which I put down to her advanced age and the fact she lives on the balcony.
Last Saturday I tried to rein myself in a bit. I’d not been in a few weeks due to various foreseen circumstances – a celebration of the life of Maidie Dickson Murray a couple Saturdays ago, and an incredibly short trip to Canada last weekend. Which I am still recovering from (jet lag, the fifth horseman of the apocalypse?).
I managed to make it by around noon, which is a bit late in the day in my opinion. The market shuts at 2pm, so by noon a lot of the choice is taken out of the equation. I was quite chuffed to see this was one of the weeks Phantassie Organic veg was at the market, as they have a bigger range and more interesting veg than most of the other organic veg stalls. They’re also only at the market once every fortnight, as far as I am aware.
When I first started going to the farmers market a few months ago, it was still bitterly cold outside and the stallholders had a distinctly windswept and interesting look about them. I’d go to every stall and as I’m easily tempted by handsome-looking cuts of meat and appealingly organic bunches of carrots, I’d pretty much buy something from every stall. This is how we ended up with freezer bursting at the seams and a second freezer groaning under the weight. Now I’m a veteran market-goer and I’ll have my favourites (they’re my boyfriend’s favourites as well, though he’s never been to market with me and is forced to eat only what I bring home)., so every week I start at one end of Castle Terrace with a purpose and a bright red granny trolley.
On the far side of Castle Terrace (I usually like to start on the side furthest from Lothian Road as I take Lothian Road to get home) I’ll usually hit Creelers and Phantassie. Creelers does seafood, and it’s partially thanks to their langoustines that my boyfriend will now eat (some) shellfish. He’s never been a big fan of seafood since he choked on a fish bone when he was wee, and he’s said he’ll only eat fish prepared by me or his gran as we are sympathetic to his fear. I usually get langoustines and their cullen skink (it’s better than mine *sob*), but they were out of both by the time I got there this week so I got some hot smoked salmon, fresh salmon and some smoked peppered mackerel.. I spoke to the lovely lady manning the stall and asked if it would be ok for me to bring in my own plastic tub for the fish rather than plastic bags, and she was very enthusiastic about the idea as their policy is NO excess packaging (and it would save on plastic bags). In fact their peppered mackerel is packaged 2 fillets per bag as the vacuum sealed bags only come in a certain size, so it’s more economical with the plastic to stick them in two-by-two (mackerel, saints, ants…).
I’ve plans to poach or roast the fresh salmon – no idea yet what to serve alongside, but I think new potatoes may be involved, along with my boyfriend’s own-grown fresh herbs (parsley, mint, chives, rosemary?). I bought extra so I could flake the leftovers for a pasta salad with crème fraiche, dill, cucumber and mustard. Maybe chuck in a few cherry toms as well. I may mix some of the smoked salmon into the pasta salad as well, but this will just be for my lunch that I take to work, as the boyfriend may be willing to eat the odd bit of fish, but he’s not quite ready for the smoked stuff just yet. I haven’t decided what to do with the smoked mackerel yet, but it looked so nice I figured inspiration would strike later on in the week. I will most definitely be back next weekend and earlier for the cullen skink.
Next I went over to the Phantassie stall, where I got my grubby little mitts on 2 bags of chard – one with yellow stalks and one with bright red stalks. I have vague plans to make some sort of soup, but will have to look for a recipe to adapt I think. I’m not even sure I’ve ever tasted chard, but it was on offer at £1 a bag. I also bought 3 bags of chestnut mushrooms (their mushrooms are amazing, they keep their texture and don’t lose much water at all during cooking), a bunch of the last of this year’s carrots, and quite a few onions. I restrained myself from buying any more, and as they were out of wild garlic I moved on to my next target.
For pork I usually go to one of three producers – Piperfield Pork, Puddledub Pork and Ballencrieff Rare Pedigree Pigs. Piperfield specialise in “Middle White pork” do some very tasty chorizo that come with a handy string to hang them from (they’re not meant to be refrigerated), and a very good glazed ham. I usually get a few slices of the ham just to pick at whilst I’m walking through the market. This week I bought a couple chorizo to take to a friend’s, an unrolled loin of pork to possibly take to my boyfriend’s mum’s for Sunday dinner, and a smaller joint of rolled pork shoulder to have for our own weekly roast. I’ve become increasingly fond of the shoulder cut recently, as it seems to stay tender no matter how much I forget about it or overcook it (case in point on Sunday, when I forgot to uncover the pesky thing and had to cook the joint an extra 20 mins at max heat to get at least some form of crackling on top, so it was on max heat for over half an hour), and it has a stronger flavour. On a slight tangent, I didn’t realise until about 5 minutes ago that the “Middle White” refers to a breed of pig, rather than the area on the pig the meat comes from.
I’ll usually get a few loin steaks from Puddledub and their reduced-salt bacon, which my boyfriend adores because he’s very anti-salt. He won’t add salt to any of his cooking except roast pork, and even then it’s only for the crackling. I get the feeling he could take or leave crackling if it weren’t for me hovering over his shoulder asking for crackling updates. Mmm…pork fat….drool. Sadly they weren’t there this time as I checked the calendar and they only make an appearance 4 out of 5 weeks a month (missing out on the second Saturday of each month).
Then it was on to Ballencrieff Pedigree Pigs, where I got a couple packets of casserole pork for dinners this week. Again I wasn’t sure what we’d be having, but with pork stews I usually let the boyfriend deal with it as he’s got the knack. I’m better with red meats and game when it comes to casseroling. I’ll sometimes get the premium dog food from Ballencrieff, which is pretty much the sausage meat that doesn’t quite make the cut for their sausages, but is probably better quality than the sausage meat that goes into most supermarket sausages.
Every week I’ll get a tub of the crowdie from Arran’s Cheese Shop. Crowdie is a lower fat alternative to cream cheese as it is made from skimmed milk, and theirs is rennet free. I also bought a smoked cheese with chilli, and a couple of smoked cheeses with garlic – one to give a friend. We’d bought both before and loved them – the chilli cheese has a bite to it that is really rather pleasant, and the garlic is more subtle but absolutely gorgeous. The lady who runs the stall is lovely as well, and I do like to think she remembers me from week to week. She’ll usually throw in some oatcakes for free as well, and they’re much better than even the deluxe versions you can buy in the supermarket.
This week I got half a dozen “dirty” eggs from Brewster’s – they were slightly grubby (but I’m not fussy like that about a little bit of dirt) and they only cost £1 because they were “unwashed”. Bargain. They sometimes have rarer varieties of eggs as well, and they will let you bring in an empty box to refill, which is always something I like to see. I mean, what use are empty egg cartons if you don’t have kids to use them for various Blue Peter projects?
To finish off my egg and dairy run, I bought some soft cheese from Stichill Jerseys. I bought 2 pots of creamy horseradish dip (I’d have roast beef every day of the week if it meant I could have Stichill’s horseradish dip as a condiment every time), a soft cheese with lovage, a baton of fresh butter, a pot of jersey double cream and some lemon and garlic butter. The boyfriend and I had a surprise visitor on Sunday afternoon whose eyes lit up when he saw the cream – proper jersey cream is pretty rare where he lives as there is only one shop in the neighbouring village. I used half the garlic butter for the potatoes we had with our Sunday lunch yesterday – 2 bags of Jersey Royal potatoes simmered whole then crushed with the garlic butter. My guilty confession? The tatties were from Waitrose, but they were tasty and I only ever get the jersey Royals from their plastic bagged selection, though I’ll buy their locally sourced potatoes and carrots.
I managed to restrain myself from buying huge amounts of red meat this week, so kept it to 2 packets (so 4 in total) of buffalo rump steaks from Puddledub Buffalo – one of which I gave to a friend as I know he appreciates a good bit of buffalo meat. I also bought a packet of steak and marmalade sausages, as every time I buy them my boyfriend eats them all before I get a look in (surely a good sign as he doesn’t even like marmalade). I briefly eyed up a leg of lamb but managed to drag myself away in time, muttering “2 roasts are enough” under my breath. I think next week will be a lamb-laced week.
This was the first week I’d seen Belhaven Fruit Farm at the market, so a sure sign it’s nearly summer even if the slightly chillier weather and rain might indicate otherwise. Unfortunately they were out of the larger tubs of ice cream, but I got a small tub of the gooseberry dairy free ice cream, which was lovely. I know purists may argue the strawberry was the original, but I think I actually prefer the gooseberry. SO refreshing, and just tart enough. They only do ice creams every other week, so next weekend it will be cider.
The past few weeks I’ve stocked up on strawberries from The Strawberry Shop (wonder how they thought up the name?) as they keep fresh the whole week and I take them into work to nibble on. I went away with the mother load this week – 8 punnets! The lady who runs the stall (possibly the farmer’s wife – the farmer being David Leslie of Perth) makes the best redcurrant jelly I have ever tasted, and I consider myself a redcurrant jelly connoisseur. No seriously, I put it in everything. Her jelly isn’t too sweet and has just enough tartness – you can totally taste the redcurrants in it, and it is a softer jelly (less of the texture of Jell-o than some).
Now being the lazy bastard that I am, I bought our bread this week from Falko Konditoreimeister at the market instead of from their bakery 100 metres from my flat. I will sometimes get the spelt and honey variety, or my boyfriend’s preferred bread which is the pumpkin seed – they were out of both (being quite popular) so I went for the light rye. I’m partial to a stronger tasting bread with a firmer texture, which they are great at. Reminiscent of my schooldays in Switzerland I think. I hated boarding school but the food was great.
Then it was on to Findlaters pates and pies. I’d noticed there was a glass top to the counter and commented on it – I’ve been known to drop my money into it by accident before, and apparently I wasn’t the only one as it had become enough of an issue for them to replace it. The stallholder said he’d dropped his coffee into it once, which may have been the straw that made the camel buy a glass shelf. Or something like that. I’ve been trying to restrict myself to 2 pates a week since I started buying their pies as well, so this week it was duck and apricot and my old favourite, Dunsyre and pressed pear. It’s always one vegetarian one and one meat every week. That way I can “pretend” I’m being healthy. I also got a carrot and Dunsyre pie, and a few Mexican chicken pies for my boyfriend, who has actually requested that particular pie before.
Finally I was down to my last two stops – North Country Lass for an apple pie and a veg pie with Stilton, and J&M Craig for tomatoes. North Country Lass’s pies and cakes are some of the only ones my boyfriend will eat as they are not overly sweet (and unkind to his teeth) – he was quite pleased with this week’s apple pie, but usually his favourite is the carrot cake. In fact the only comparable carrot cake I’ve ever tasted has been the Olifeira recipe cake, and even then I can’t quite seem to make it right. He looooves that carrot cake.
My last stop was J&M Craig, which was quite handy as it is the closest to Lothian Road. I usually buy the “Something different” toms, so I can never tell which ones have come home with me each week. I tried one and all I can say is they’re richer in taste than the sweetest ones (the Soopersweet) but still quite sweet. I plan to stick them in the salmon pasta salad later this week, unless I eat them all before I get the chance.
So last night was Roast Pork night. Our friend Chris turned up on Sunday just in time for breakfast (scrambled eggs from Brewster’s, a couple slices of Falko bread spread with fresh Stichill butter, and some Ayrshire back bacon I’d run to Peckhams to buy earlier on in the morning), so we decided to stick one of the joints of pork on for dinner. I braised the shoulder joint with the fat rubbed generously with salt and fennel seeds for an hour and a half at 160°, covered, on a bed of shallots and onions (with a little tiny bit of water). Then I cranked the heat up for the last bit of cooking. I also roasted 5 bulbs of fennel sliced from north to south in some butter and rapeseed oil, sprinkled with an organic vegetable stock cube. The stock cube may have been overkill, but it still tasted ok. When the meat was about 30 mins from done I boiled up 2 bags of Jersey Royals in the largest pot we have. Unfortunately I forgot to uncover the pork, so instead of 15 mins at max heat, the pork was blasted for 35 mins at max. We also boiled up some corn on the cob to have as an additional veg. When the meat was taken out to rest (my boyfriend has a trick to it – he cuts the crackling and the fat off before it is covered to rest, so the crackling is still nice and crisp when it comes time to eat), I stirred in a veg stock cube and a bit of water to the shallots and onions, and my usual tablespoon of redcurrant jelly. Can I just say, redcurrant jelly makes ALL gravies better, a tip I learned from Mrs Emily MacGregor, who used to run MacGregor’s Provisions on Strathearn Road with her husband.
The pork was tasty and still tender, and there was a lovely pink bit in the middle for me (the boys each took an end). The tatties were lovely and sweet, not at all like bog standard supermarket potatoes. The fennel was sticky, sweet and carmellised, and I added a splash of Stichill’s jersey double cream at the end and just heated through.
That’s all for me today – phew!
I do not want to become fat and complacent
I love food and fashion in equal measure, but the two don’t seem to go hand in hand and I have spent the past 6 months trying to get fit and healthy so I can enjoy the things I love without gasping for breath or needing a nice long sit down.
I have become increasingly conscious of my (your, everybody's) impact on the environment and have made an effort to “live greener”. I work in the field (although not as involved as I’d like to be) and am going back to uni to study sustainability this autumn.
I am a total spendaholic and can burn through my paycheck in a matter of minutes. I refuse to buy less but try to buy better. It is not just the big gestures but also the little things we do that count. I’m always on the prowl for ways to make my home more eco-friendly and finding sustainable alternatives.
I won’t be giving up eating meat or buying designer handbags anytime soon, but I can still make a difference.
I have become increasingly conscious of my (your, everybody's) impact on the environment and have made an effort to “live greener”. I work in the field (although not as involved as I’d like to be) and am going back to uni to study sustainability this autumn.
I am a total spendaholic and can burn through my paycheck in a matter of minutes. I refuse to buy less but try to buy better. It is not just the big gestures but also the little things we do that count. I’m always on the prowl for ways to make my home more eco-friendly and finding sustainable alternatives.
I won’t be giving up eating meat or buying designer handbags anytime soon, but I can still make a difference.
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