Antipasti and fish curry

Last night we had an enormous meal. It began with antipasti and sherry - we piled little plates with marinated garlic cloves, sunblush tomatoes, avocada salsa, cold, sliced ham, black olives, marinated white anchovies, pepperdews, warm ciabatta and many other goodies.

If that wasn't enough, we then got stuck in to the main course - a delicate fish curry with coconut milk and tamarind, served with white rice and green beans with a chilli/black mustard seed and garlic dressing.

And then we had cheese...

I was stuffed.

Friday Sunday lunch

It's a Friday, but it seems that it's a Sunday, as we're definitely having a full Sunday roast and pudding. I don't know why and I wouldn't dare ask in the post-Christmas frenzy we seem to be experiencing in this house. But I'm not complaining. We had delicious roast beef (topside) from the village butcher, perfectly rare and tender, as you'll see in the picture, with roast potatoes and parsnips, green beans and cabbage. We served it with Suffolk Mud (the brand name - thankfully there's no mud in the ingredients) cider and horseradish mustard and other horseradishes and mustards which went well too.

For pudding we had a sort-of pavlova. Home-made meringue covered with a layer of whipped double cream, then a layer of British pears, sliced, and pomegranate seeds. Delicious. I've shown you a picture of it on my plate and a picture of it whole. It was all eaten very fast. Scrumptious.

Venison casserole...

Made with lots of red wine, vension from the local farmers' market, mushrooms, onions and tomatoes, served with green beans and delicious jacket potatoes. I've kept mine off the plate as I like the skin to stay as crispy as possible so I prefer it if it doesn't sit on the plate getting soggy in the sauce. I did mash a bit of the fluffy potato into the sauce while I was eating it - lovely.

Succulent roast chicken

On Sunday night we went to my parents' for roast chicken. I wasn't feeling very well so I had a smallish portion, although looking at it there it really isn't so small. I was really unhappy not to finish it, although the gannets around the table swooped on my discarded sausages and spuds as soon as I was finished. The chicken was so juicy and delicious there was no need of gravy and the mixed vegetables which had been roasted underneath the chicken (it was on a rack above the veg with the bacon slices laid across it) added the necessary meat juices and moisture. As you can see, we also had green beans and roast potatoes. Fantastic.

Sunday Roast Beef

Wow, I'm stuffed. And I think I might pop into our local butcher's on Monday morning to give Tom the Butcher a kiss - the joint of beef (Scotch topside) he sold me yesterday morning was simply incredible. It even looked so perfect when it was cooking that I took a photo of it in the pan (see below).

I dabbed it with a mixture of grainy mustard and butter, roasted it at 220 degrees centigrade for half an hour, then sloshed a glass or so of red wine over it and turned the oven down to 200 for about an hour. I left it to rest for a good twenty minutes while I simmered the carrots and beans and made the red wine gravy. As you can see from the steamy photo on the left, we had roasted salad potatoes (I had lots in the cupboard and when roasted they're lovely and sweet), roasted parsnips and boiled carrots and beans. And we opened a bottle of beaujolais - roast beef just wouldn't be the same without a glass of red wine.

Somehow, everything worked perfectly - the meat was rare and beautifully tender, just how I like it, the potatoes were crispy on the outside and fluffy in the middle and everything else turned out really well. I was really pleased as I haven't cooked a roast for ages and last time I overdid the potatoes (even I admitted they were a little too charred, and I love crunchy roast potato) so I wasn't expecting too much from this one. And I even had a bit of gravy on the meat - as its main ingredient was red wine.

And yes, of course we had seconds. But fortunately I bought such a large joint there's loads left for the rest of the week. Cold roast beef butties - I can't wait!

Salmon fishcakes from The Barnsbury Grocer

This morning we went to visit our local butcher to buy a joint of beef for the weekend - more on that later. Caught in a massive thunderstorm, we ran home to drop the meat off in the fridge. It was incredible, two minutes later the rain had cleared, so we thought we'd go to the Barnsbury Grocer to get some cheese and other bits. We wanted quail's eggs, for a change, but they didn't have any. But we got some interesting looking, oblong white bread, some brie and some hard sheep's cheese, a few feta-stuffed chillis (creamy, with a delayed kick - lovely).

We were going to leave it at that, when we saw some salmon fishcakes in a dish in their fridge. They looked lovely - all fat and filling - so we got two each. When I got round to cooking them (shallow fried in olive oil for about five minutes on each side) I realised one each was easily enough - partly beacuse that's all that would fit in the pan. I simmered some green beans, then drained them in a colander, slipped some cherry tomatoes into the warm pan with a touch of olive oil to warm through, then mixed them with the beans and some wild rocket to made a pretty, warm side-salad. And wow, the fishcakes were fantastic - that sort of fresh, quick, good-quality, ready-made food just can't be beaten.

Weekend food

This picture sums up our weekend's food - local, Kentish produce.

We had a delicious venison casserole last night with jacket potatoes and green beans. The venison and potatoes were from my parents' local farmers' market, the tomatoes used in the casserole were from their garden - I doubt the beans or red wine were local though. It was delicious - a lovely November meal - warming, filling, rich-tasting, and with beautifully tender meat. I'm afraid I haven't got a photo of the plate - I was too hungry to find my camera.


For pudding we had a quick version of tiramisu in individual pots. Sadly, again, I gobbled mine up before taking a photo, but it looked delicious, covered in freshly grated chocolate shavings.

And today is Sunday - so it's a big roast lunch for us, upping the red meat stakes in our diet a little further. I should really confess that the meal you see next to this was not actually my meal... I usually avoid gravy (it depends on what it's made of - red wine = good, bisto or boring flour and potato water = bad. Actually, it's mainly because I can't abide soggy potatoes, and if the meat's good and tender enough it's beautiful without gravy, which can often mask rather than enhance the flavour). I put up a photo of one of my family's meals because I know that with gravy it looks like a better meal - even I can see my plate looks like there's something missing.

We had wonderfully succulent roast beef from the village butcher with all the trimmings (crispy roasted potatoes and parsnips with carrots and cabbage), followed by pudding which, if we discount the sugar in the crumble, had virtually no food miles involved in its transport from plant to table.

The same can't be said for the wine, which was once kept on a boat and probably travelled most of the way around the world several times before reaching our table - I won't go into the story of why we were able to drink it, but safe to say we were privileged today to drink one of the best clarets in the world - a Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1970 Bordeaux - probably a rarer find in homes like ours than the pears we had for dessert.

They were from a tree planted against a wall in my mum and dad's garden. They estimate it was planted in about 1890 - the area was once an enormous fruit garden - and despite how the plant has been ignored for the past hundred years or so, it still produces the most amazing fruit. They are actually cooking pears - very unusual these days. We had the pears poached with quinces from a garden down the road (see photo of the fruits looking pretty in a basket at the top of this post) and quince and apple (from down the road too) crumble, with a bit of vanilla ice-cream. See my half-eaten pudding on the left too.

And now, in my usual Sunday afternoon fashion, I think I'm going to go for a nap - weekend naps cannot be beaten, especially after such a filling meal.

Feeling the burn again...

20/10/06

It's not been a good week for burns. I was creating a tuna nicoise salad last night (see left) ... I put the organic Charlotte potatoes in to boil, then later on added green beans to the pan. I finely chopped a red onion and sliced a few olives (I only had green rather than black), some cherry tomatoes, added it all to the bowl with some lettuce and a drained tin of tuna in springwater. I made the dressing (crushed garlic, grainy mustard, red wine vinegar, olive oil, a pinch of sugar and seasoning) then I thought I'd better give the spuds and beans a quick stir as the beans as usual had floated off to the sides of the pan. But as I stuck the spoon in to stir, in an unfortuanate mix of circumstances somehow the potatoes bundled on top of each other, splashing boiling/simmering water straight out of the pan and on to my stomach. Owww... Bloody painful. I cried out with an animalistic, shrill yelp. Which even at the time sounded weird. I drained the potatoes and beans, boiled then shelled the eggs and mixed the salad together, all with a great big block of ice held to my belly. I've got the leftovers for lunch today and they'd better be good. I just hope burns don't come in threes...

The Barnsbury, 209-11 Liverpool Road, N1 1LX

12/10/06

I have eaten here a few times before from the lighter bites section of the menu and it has been consistently fantastic. Twice I've had a stack of moist aubergine, mozzarella, beef tomato and portobello mushroom drizzled with pesto and garnished with a few sprigs of basil (it was so tasty the first time I couldn't wait to have it again) and I've also shared a crayfish pasta in a creamy sauce and some crunchy, perfect chips - all can be thoroughly recommended. As can the good value bar snack of 'chorizo al inferno' (two skewers of chorizo lapped with flames from booze in a dish underneath, accompanied by a couple of chunks of bread), although it would be helped if the liquor was more palatable than the paint-stripping, toxic variety which looks much nicer swirled with the chorizo juices than it tastes. Anyway, I went back again last night on a bit of a whim. Aware that I salivate regularly as I remember the aubergine stack, when I saw the 'turkish-style aubergine' starter on the menu I couldn't resist. And I'm glad I didn't. It was just lovely - a substantial slice of aubergine cooked to a squidgy texture, topped with a portobello mushroom and a mix of spices, tomato and unidentifiable veg, set on a plate prettily decorated with dabs of creamy sauce and chutney. We shared it and it didn't last long. While my boyfriend chose the scallop starter as a main course with chips (well presented and perfectly cooked), I decided on the herb-encrusted, English (local - woo-hoo!!) rump of lamb with fine green beans and sweet potato mash. I asked for it as rare as they would let me have it, and that's how it came. Wow. Beautifully tender, sliced halfway through to show the pink meat contrasting with the crispy exterior - just how I like it - on a pile of beans surrounded with a dark and rich balsamic sauce, it looked great and tasted even better. The sweet potato mash was a little too thin and smooth for my liking, but the flavour melded with the lamb, sauce and beans very nicely. All in all, it was delicious. I was seriously full and couldn't even finish my boyfriend's chips... unusually for me. And we had a fresh and fruity bottle of Sauvignon Blanc which went down well, particularly with the scallops, and wasn't too budget-busting at around £14. The only annoying thing was that our section of the restaurant was too dark to really see the food (or photograph it successfully - we only had a 2 megapixal camera phone with us). But I won't let that stop me going back. The Barnsbury is not cheap, but it serves top gastro-pub food with charming and friendly service. Mmmmm. Yum, yum.