If any of you dodgy lot were to break into Yumblog Cottage, you would probably notice (apart from how bloody cold it is) that despite several shelf loads of cookbooks, there was virtually nothing ‘written’ by TV chefs. No matter how frantically you rummaged, you’d find no Jamie, Nigella, Gordon, Heston, Sophie, Ainsley, Gino, Levi, Hugh or god forbid Nigel. Of course we do allow a few exceptions such as Rick Stein, Valentine Warner and Simon Hopkinson, plus the odd rogue publication by Delia Smith, Gary Rhodes and even Rusty Lee, but generally we eschew anything branded by celebrity.
Another exception to this rule are the cheeky Hairy Bikers as we like their cheeky northern cheekiness and honest, hearty grub …and grub doesn’t get more honest and hearty than this excellent supper dish.
Now put down that book and get out of our house or we’ll release the hounds!
An artist’s impression of what Dave Myers’ Mam
might most probably definitely looks like.
Well I never, I’ve just discovered our local Morrisons now sells packets of fresh yeast for breadmaking… and at the very reasonable price of 50p for 126g. This was unexpected because a) as far as I know you can’t even get it at Waitrose, and b) Morrisons is very much at the (Sp)Asda end of the supermarket spectrum and tends more towards the processed and ‘value added’ convenience foodstuffs. In fact they still seem to think of olive oil as an exotic foreign embrocation for loosening earwax rather than a middle class kitchen essential and prefer to bottle it in vials and shelve it in the ‘Health and Beauty’ aisle somewhere between nit shampoo and Tena Ladies.
Supermarket snobbery aside, I’ve never used fresh yeast before so I did an AW-T, slipped a packet up my chef whites and made a run for it.
It’s taken a while to write up this, the third of our festive gravali because to be honest I got a little over excited at the fishmonger’s (Paul, Todmorden Market) where I bought the salmon and ended up with 1.5kg of the stuff. Delicious as it was (and this beetroot version was the tastiest of the three) this was a lot of gravalax to get through and as a result we ate rather a lot over a short period of time. Subsequently the thought of it has made me a little queasy ever since. But don’t let that put you off, you don’t have to make it in such industrial quantaties.
Although the fridge has now all but emptied of Christmas goodies the cheese compartment is still heavy with half-eaten lumps, wheels and wedges of every variety of soft, hard, blue, holey, mature and goat. It has become clear that the occasional lunchtime snack is never going to make much headway into this cheesey surplus and we need to start shifting the stuff in more varied and imaginative ways. This tartiflette* is one such way.
Incidentally welcome to 2012 – the year which in the future we will look back on as marking the beginning of the end. Quietus anyone?
Obviously our enjoyment of Christmas was seriously curtailed by the devastating news of Prince Philip’s hospitalisation – thank God the BBC ran half-hourly news bulletins to keep us up to date with every nuance of this never-changing national cataclysm. Here at Yumblog Cottage we tried to keep our subjective peckers up by preparing and scoffing a variety of delicious foodstuffs and washing them down with an alarming range of booze – it’s what PP would have wanted. Anyway, one such preparation was this, the second of the three ways – the spicy gingery way.
Despite being grammatically only one letter away from Glogg, this is actually a toddy far removed from its near namesake. The alcoholic element can be supplied by either Rum, Brandy or as in this case Kirsch – we had some left over from our post-modern ironic fondu phase. Less of an infused libation and more of a medicinal compound, this is tasty nonetheless.
According to this year’s Yumblog Winterval menu, on Christmas Eve we’ll be sitting down to a meal of ‘Gravalax 3 Ways with Horseradish Cream and Vodka’. Ever wary of eating raw flesh, we thought we’d do a dummy run of this, the most trad of the trio just to make sure it wasn’t too ‘wet and fishy’. It turned out we had no need to be so cautious as the results were spectacular and far exceeded our expectations. Also, at a little over a quid per 100g, it works out to be about an eighth of the cost of its shop bought cousin – you do the maff. We urge, nay insist, you hot foot it down to Paul the Fishmonger and give this a try over the next few days.
Here’s wishing you, dear reader(s) a very happy Christmas. We have of course sent each and every one of you a beautiful handcrafted card which you should be receiving any day now. If you would like a magical insight into the brilliant young artist behind this challenging work, please watch the video below. Warning – depicts scenes of child labour which some viewers may find distressing.
We had some Pimms in the house, we wanted to make a new hot boozy drink, a recipe was found that indicated a potentially minimal expenditure on further ingredients in order to fulfill our warm Pimms dream. After no debate apple juice was bought.
The plan is to try out as many festive toddies as we can in the run up to Christmas so that you, dear reader(s), will have a selection of Yuletide tipples to choose from come the big day. With only 12 drinking days to Christmas we realise we have set ourselves a daunting task, but hey, that’s the sort of selfless devotion to duty you’ve come to expect from us here at Yumblog. Bottoms up!
At the last count Yumblog Junior had an impressive vocabulary of 38½ distinct words*. These range from the traditional and vital Mummy, Daddy, Dog, Cat through Cheese, Spoon, Cock-a-doodle-doo to more personal choices such as Shoes, Crumpet and Cheers (accompanied by the touching of the parental beer glasses). One of her first and still most frequently used words is B’nana – not surprising as along with olives, gherkins, apples and salami, this is one of the few things she’ll consistently and enthusiastically opt to eat. As a result we always have a ready stock of bananas close to hand which sometimes, due to regular transport from kitchen to pram to bag and back again, can sometimes get a little bashed up. This recipe was an ideal way to use up some of these less than perfect bananas. Relax, an 18 month old toddler is not a prerequisite.
Restaurants in the Dordogne serve them under the name of ‘Pois Détrempés’; in Italy they are commonly known as ‘Piselli Pastosi’ and are a popular filling for ravioli; the Germans claim ‘Deutsche Matschig Erbsen’ to be their national dish, and of course the Spanish love nothing more than a tapas of ‘Guisantes Fofos’.
Here in the UK Gordon Ramsay has them on the menu at his authentic East End pub ‘Gordon Ramsay’s The Boozer’ as ‘Marrowfat Cassoulet with a Mint Persillade Suggestion’ and charges a reasonable £16.99 per portion, and on her ground-breaking cookery series ‘The Delicious Miss Dahl‘ Sophie added her own inimitable tweest and reimagined them as ‘Sophie’s Luvely Wubly Mushy Wushy Fluffy Wuffy Ploppy Pea Poos’. But that is as maybe, here up north us no nonsense northerners simply call them as they are – ‘Mushy Peas’. And they are reet good.
The inverted commas are there because this loaf contains no yeast and is actually more of a savoury cake than a bread. This has the added advantage that as well as being pleasantly toothsome, it can also manifest from a wishful inkling to an incontrovertible plateful in just under an hour and a half. That’s quicker than it takes to boil an egg*.
Our recent enthusiasm for cooking with mushrooms is appropriate as at the moment we seem to be cultivating several interesting varieties of our own on the increasingly damp internal walls here at Yumblog Cottage. The damp man* who came round to investigate told us we can eradicate 70% of the problem by simply keeping the windows open and the heating on, twenty-four hours a day, for the next four months. All donations towards our winter gas bill will be much appreciated.
We like a bargain here at Yumblog Cottage, so when we spied the veg stall at Todmorden Market selling large boxes of portobello mushrooms for the VERY reasonable price of two quid, we couldn’t resist. They proved to be the frugal basis of three meals – this, a tasty cream of mushroom soup (recipe in the queue), and a disappointing and binned pâté which failed to set properly and slopped out onto the plate like farmyard slurry. But discard all visions of cowplop from your mind, for this is an interesting and tasty dish.
This was less of a search for the perfect pasta sauce, and more because we had an empty fridge and needed to knock up something tasty from what is commonly known as ‘store cupboard standbys’. What do you mean you don’t always have porcini mushrooms in the house? Hand in your John Lewis Store Card at once and never darken this blog again!
A few Saturdays back one of us (me) joined the Incredible Edible Foraging Walk which took place in and around the IE Market Garden Training Centre just down the road at Walsden. Contrary to naive expectations I didn’t skip home through the woods afterwards with a trug filled with wild garlic and exotic fungi, however I did more importantly get an excellent introduction to the fascinating (and increasingly fashionable) world of foraging. As our instructor Mike said, foraging isn’t about self-sufficiency or eating for free, it’s about understanding the natural environment with the occasional tasty nibble thrown in on the way.
Much of what we foraged was necessarily green and leafy and invariably tasted similar to either spinach or watercress (nothing wrong with that), however a few stand-out discoveries were Wild Sorrel (sharp and more lemony than a lemon), Goosefoot (seeds like tiny hazelnuts) and best of all, Fuchsia (sweet fruits reminiscent of Pomegranate). Less desirable was a fungi called Jews Ear, the eating of which was like sucking mushroom-flavoured jelly from a slightly perished condom.
The woman at the market who sold us our Jam Round informed us that it is sometimes also referred to as a Brighton Tart. Asking the obvious question as to why this traditional local treat is named after an East Sussex town caused much debate among the staff which, even after one had tweeted her friends, came up blank. Further investigation back home was also fruitless with a Google search of ‘Brighton Tart’ inexplicably returning Peter Andre as the main result.
Now I know I don’t need to remind you dear reader, that when Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calender in 1582 he decreed that the third Sunday of October would herald the beginning of Soup Season (Source: Wikipedia). Obviously in these most modern of times we are much more relaxed about such things and tend to live and eat to a generally less proscriptive timetable – some of us even eating cold soup in summer! But whatever your beliefs on such matters, I’m sure we can all agree that the nights are drawing in and there is a whiff of Winter in the air, so what better way to fortify oneself against the forthcoming long months of cold and misery, than a warming nutritious bowl of soup?
A few Sundays back (BT*) we travelled out east to Walthamstow where we came upon Belinda and her lovely stall of tasties. Once upon a time Belinda was ‘Gavin’s sister Belinda who’s in a band and is an Arsenal fan’. Now she’s Belinda who makes lovely jams and chutneys and cordial too. Special mention also to her father John who made the bread for tasting the jam with, a nice crumbly wholemeal. Marvellous. Oh, and her scones, they were very good.
Yumblog has won ‘Best Food Blog‘ for an unprecedented tenth year in a row! (Surely some mistake – Ed) So thank you to the thousands of kind and generous readers who voted for us in this year’s Observer Food Monthly Awards. Thanks also to OFM’s panel of judges who singled us out for our extraordinary talent, enthusiasm and vision … we feel humbled.
Waiting in the Tudor Chippy for the haddock component of our chippy tea to be cooked, I noticed ‘Dab – 30p’ chalked up on the menu board. Enquiring on your behalf, dear reader, I was told it was a lump of mashed potato deep fried in batter. Before I had time to ask for one to be added to my order a free sample had been slid onto my fish and chips, wrapped up in a copy of the Manchester Metro and handed over with a bid to ‘Enjoy’.
Well this is as close to perfection as you are likely to get in this increasingly imperfect world. As with all the other sauces in this occasional series, I turned to the ever reliable Marcella Hazan for inspiration and guidance, and once again she delivered the goods with this simple (slightly faffy) delicious recipe.
This is another traditional regional delicacy which ended up being a teatime treat for a appreciative family of local ducks. Unlike us, they didn’t seem to mind it being a dry and heavy approximation of cheesecake.
A belated congratulations to Joanne for deservedly winning the final of this years TGBBO and commiserations to Mary-Anne for being such a gracious loser. We would have been happy if either had won, so long as it wasn’t Yummy Mummy Holly (Ooh look, I seem to have already got a book deal!), with whom we took an instant dislike which, as the series progressed, bubbled over into profound hostility.
It was with Bake Off in mind that I bought this copy of Mary Berry’s ‘Cooking at Home’ from a local charity shop (Published in 1983 and ‘As seen on TV’). What drew my attention was a footnote at the end of the ‘Cooking with cream’ chapter headed ‘Home Made Cream’
‘Cream’ Mary explains ‘is very expensive, so I often make this one in the blender and nobody seems to notice’. She then goes on to describe how to make her fake cream by mixing together milk, butter and gelatine. Now I could be wrong, but I suspect if any of the contestants on TGBBO had slapped this stuff in the middle of a Victoria sponge and served it up to Paul ‘Silver fox’ Hollywood, he might have noticed the difference.
A lot of things have changed since 1983,
although sadly Thatcher is still alive.
Our recent move to dwellings considerably larger (and colder and damper) than our old lair at Yumblog Towers has meant our cookbooks can now be displayed in a more prominent position and as a result this long forgotten book on Alsatian cookery … I’ll pause for a moment while you insert your own dog joke.… book on Alsatian cookery was rediscovered. The majority of the dishes tend to be a German take on French cuisine and as a result lean towards pork fat (Schweinefleischfett) and stodge (Schlammeizölrückstoßabdämpfung), however one or two of the recipes stood out as potential meals (and postings). This peppery stew of lentils and smoked haddock was one of them.
Regular readers may be surprised to hear this but neither of us are trained psychologists and so wouldn’t presume to make a judgement on the mental disposition of this particular baked treat, melancholic or otherwise. However we do feel (humbly) that we are qualified to make an impartial assessment of its overall cakiness and, similar to the Barm Cake below have come to the conclusion ‘not at all’ – although this time the description would be biscuity rather than bappy.
Hello again dear reader and sorry for the brief interruption in transmission but the logistics of relocating the entire Yumblog Corporate Empire Inc. from fashionable East London to its new HQ in the even more fashionable outskirts of Media City, plus the switch over from analogue to digital (can you see the difference in quality?), has meant that only now can we resume quality broadcasting to the world. Besides, personally I did all my blogging at work and since I’ve handed in my notice and left (to the quite shocking but not entirely unexpected indifference of my employer), I just don’t seem to have the time.
But worry not, we have a backlog of delicious new recipes with which to pad out the autumn schedules, plus an exciting new series taking a sideways glance at the culinary delights of Yorkshire (and Lancashire). Take for instance this Barm Cake which (these days) is no longer made with barm, and is not and has never been anything approaching a cake. It’s a bap. One of many similar but differently named baps available in these parts. It is light, airy and a perfect accompaniment to a Friday night chippy tea.
Lately crabs have become very much the decapodic crustacean of choice here at Yumblog Towers. This is a preference very much aided by the fish stall at Roman Road Market which sells big brown locally caught (Mile End Road at low tide) specimens for under four (s)quid.
Having recently made this magnificently delicious crab tart by Rick Stein, for comparison and out of the need for more double cream in our diet we turned to Simon Hopkinson.
Over the years we’ve covered the entire spectrum of gazpachos – from the lush red of the classic tomato, to the cool white of almond and grape via the verdant green of avocado. I suppose we could start searching for other colours, possibly blue, but that would be getting dangerously close to Bridget Jones territory and before you know it we would be getting into all sorts of hilarious scrapes. So instead we have revisited red, this time trying a slightly more complex Rick Stein recipe.
Trawling through the dusty archives in the Fanny Craddock Wing of the Great Library here at Yumblog Towers, it seems that in all our years as honoured custodians of this esteemed and venerable blog, we have never written up a recipe for pizza. A possible explanation for this (should your legal department require one) is that maybe in the past we have considered pizza so ‘simple’ that to post a recipe would be an insult to you, dear reader. Perhaps we were wrong, or perhaps you have gone down in our estimation, but here now, historically, unprecedentedly, for the first time, ever, is a Yumblog posting for pizza. And ironically (like rain on a wedding day), this is the simplest of all … no olives, mozzarella, tomato sauce or even pineapple … just a spud and a few sprigs of rosemary.
As well as a handsome moustache and a penchant for white trousers, The Frenchman also has a strong liking for desserts. We made him this HF-W dish. He had three helpings.
