Great Pointless Food Purchases - or what not to do in a delicatessen.

Do you do this too?

You pop into your local delicatessen for a couple of fat, spicy, salty Napoli sausages to pop in the freezer (in lieu of the 'Sicilian style' monstrosities sold by Waitrose, which are, after all, merely British bangers with a handful of fennel seeds and some extra garlic thrown in for good measure, and nothing like the beautiful, firm, semi-cured, juicy Italian creations) but leave with an abundance of mismatched produce that was simply too good to walk past but which you're not quite sure how or when to use? (Round of applause for a ridiculously long sentence, please).

I have done it again.

I drove to Maidenhead a few days ago, in order to stock up on my only local source of Italian sausage, the Intercontinental Deli in Vicarage Road. The shopping list was short. 2 packs of Napoli sausage, 2 packs of Luganica sausage, and maybe a box of Turron de Jijona if they had any. I cannot abide hard Turron, mainly because my vitamin D deficient crumbling pearly whites cannot cope with it, however the glorious, unctuous nougat confection they produce in ingots of golden lusciousness in Jijona, I lust for, and indeed, could theoretically be driven to kill for. At one time in my life, I had to wait for pitying friends to smuggle some back from the annual Spanish package deal, until I discovered it was stocked by this little epicurean haven in the midst of Maidenhead.

But I digress.
 

Digressing, though, is also what happens when I enter such establishments as the Intercontinental Deli (desperately poor website, btw. Which I kind of like, as it shows they care more about the food than their 'web presence'). I digress wildly the minute I set foot over their threshold. I start with one purpose but digress my way around the shelves and counters, stocking up on must-haves such as cherry Mostarda di Cremona (for all those Bolito Mistos I make), along with a Zampone, a Cotechino, some linguine (in different sizes to take account of what mood I may be in the next time I make pasta), orrechiette, 6 slices of Coppa to nibble on in the car, and a whole piece to take home, A1 steak sauce, a jar of Polish pickled mushroons (why?), a panforte, and a fabulous quarter of a sour-dough cushion, burnished by wood-firing, its crust like bark and with a pleasingly firm and tangy mouth-feel .

There is just me in the house. Just me. Quite when or how I ever imagined eating any of this, I cannot be certain.

But perhaps the most wantonly pointless purchase was a couple of packs of frozen Kataifi pastry. I am not sure what it is about pastries of the Eastern Mediterranean and its environs, but I love them. I find it remarkable that cultures with hot, dry climates make pastries that are prone to dry out and shatter, whereas we in damp, cold Northern Europe demonstrate a fondness for great clods of grey flour and fat pastes. Surely it should be the other way round? The fact that the people of more arid climes disregard the cards that appear to be stacked against them and persevere to make such delicate flour films and shreds is testament to a culture that is used to adversity of many kinds as a way of life, and continue making good things in spite of it.

Kataifi, for the uninitiated, is (or should that be are?) the fine shreds that wreath themselves around middle eastern pastries such as those delicious cashew nut rolls, filled generously with nuts, anointed in clarified butter, baked and finally doused liberally in thick sugar syrup, fragrant with rose or orange flower water. Teethachingly sweet, any possibility of savouriness from the nuts banished by the delicate scent of the rose or orange, or both, sometimes combined with honey, cinnamon or cardamon.

I have always fancied that in a previous life, I lived in this area. I could not be precise as to which country, but there is often a hint of the Maghreb in my favourite recipes, or at the very least, the Moors (Spanish, not Yorkshire).

Thus it was, when I happened upon the virgin gossamer strands of pure white pastry, frozen in time, I felt compelled to release them from their minus 25 degree prison, and carry them home to one day bring them to life.

The next question was - what to do with them?

There was a recipe I had in the Momo cookbook which was a kind of Galaktoboureko (recipe here), but more of a baked cheesecake using the kataifi as a base as opposed to custard filling between layers of kataifi. 

You place the kataifi in the bottom of a flan dish, coat liberally with clarified butter, bake until golden, douse with the requisite embalming of sugar and rosewater syrup, fill the shell with clotted cream, then bake some more. Chill it, and serve as you would a cheesecake. I like the idea of this. But my hips don't. And not being at work at the moment, there is nobody to help me eat it. As much as the idea of sitting down to a whole cheesecake-type-affair and eating the entire thing myself appealed, I knew it would end in a session self-loathing and/or vomit.

So I then thought, what about a savoury recipe? I had not seen it used in savoury recipes, but reasoned that there must be some.

So I googled.

And I googled and I googled. Bar using it to wrap around king prawns and serve with cheap sweet chili sauce, I could not find a recipe. And I do not consider a typical Harvester pub starter worthy of my time.

I googled some more.

I found varying recipes that involved wrapping around cheese and deep frying or baking, or using it as a shell or crust and other plays on themes. These did not, however, strike me as overly authentic. They were quite clearly experimental uses, or crude attempts at 'fusion'. Some were found on American sites, some on Turkish sites (which recommended using it for appetisers - so one assumes as a quirky alternative base or case for a canape), one suggested using it instead of phyllo for Spanikopita. But none of these sat right with me. It would appear, there is not a savoury use, one that smacks of any authenticity at any rate, for my Kataifi.

Thus I am left with two packs of white shreds in my freezer. I cannot make sweet as it will make me fat (ter), and I cannot make savoury as it makes me superficial.

And so it has come to pass that the kataifi will take its place in the ranks of my Great Pointless Food Purchases, which I cannot stand the thoughts of parting with, which lend an air of the exotic to my storecupboard, but which sadly will no doubt reach their sell-by date and be consigned to the bin, never having had their chance to live full and productive lives.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, they'd run out of Turron. It was probably for the best.

The Courtyard, Wokingham

The Courtyard, Wokingham, occupies the old town hall building in the market place - a stunning red brick affair that nods to the traditional industry of nearby Reading. The reason we chose this place to dine was because of our love affair with Dolce Vita, its sister - not so much an Italian, but a Mediterranean restaurant in the Kings Walk, Reading. Dolce Vita is well established in Reading - as a family, we have eaten there many times over the last 15 years or so (possibly longer), and every time we have a superlative eating experience. It is not Michelin standard but it is not your local cheesy bistro with carafes of vino plonk on the table. It is light, airy, spacious and welcoming. Front of House lady is one of the warmest hosts I have come across in a local restaurant - she is just lovely. She always remembers my (now teenage) daughter whenever we dine there, and I choose to believe she keeps a mental record of our lives (even though a blonde, blue-eyed 15 year old could conceivably have once been a blonde, blue-eyed toddler, I choose to imagine that Front Of House lady remembers just how special she was). I have had birthdays, engagements, remembrance dinners, even first dates (for which there seems to be an unspoken rule, and they are wonderfully discreet. I am sure if I was partial to affairs, it would be a perfect place to take my quarry).

So much so, I could only imagine that The Courtyard would offer the same ambiance and hospitality when I attended with my mother a few days ago. Alas, I fear that if ones expectations are so high, then you can only be disappointed. And, probably unfairly, I was.

Front of House lady cannot teleport, as was obvious when we arrived, to be pleasantly but brusquely ushered to the table, just outside the kitchen, which is my favourite spot. Sadly it is not my mothers - at one point it looked like we might get moved however I could not face shuffling through the narrow walkways to another table, so sat down assertively. You see, the place is the most awkward shape, and as is the habit of eateries these days, they have crammed in as many tables as possible. The restaurant itself is continentalised by a smattering of tables just outside the door, and inside is an homage to modern day austerity - all blond wood and minimal soft furnishings. Clanky. But contemporary. My dislike of clankiness is a subjective thing, I realise.

So to the food. I ordered a plate of antipasti, mother order kofta. I recently ate at Fifteen in Watergate Bay and ordered anitpasti there. Maybe it is unreasonable to expect the same kind of thing, but surely antipasti is antipasti? What I got was a plate with slices and chippings of salamis and parma hams (I rather liked the fact that not one slice was perfect - it looked like it had just been sliced off the salami by hand, not carved wafer thin in a factory, which is a GOOD thing), with a tussle of leaves, a punchy dressing, a couple of slices of mozzarella (pleasant but nothing special).

And then the weirdness.

Scattered over the meats were strings of deep-fried calamari. It was good calamari - nice and soft and not remotely rubbery, but was it correct to use it as a sort of garnish over the meats? I was not so sure it was. It all became, all of a sudden, a greasy Italian surf and turf. The dips that accompanied were equally strange. Aioli, maybe, or perhaps a red pepper dip - maybe hummus? No. What accompanied it was the same yoghurt sauce that accompanied my mothers lamb kofta, and a smear of what, just by looking at the vivid pinkness of it, I instantly knew was taramasalata. None of the elements in themselves was bad - even the bread was fresh and tasty (though the somewhat anglicised baguette could conceivably have been replaced with foccacia or ciabatta for a touch more authenticity. Given they offer pizza, I cannot imagine it would be too hard to offer foccacia). Yet it felt a bit like someone putting a plate of deep fried scampi and garnishing it with a slice of battered cod. It doesn't matter how good each element is, they have to work together. It lacked any acidity too, and would have been offset nicely by a peperonata.
So far, so indifferent.

Mains were better - a very nice piece of slow-roasted pork (no crackling though), on a bed of red cabbage, with plum sauce and poatoes dauphinoise. The meat melted and was not overly fatty, though this did seem to be because the fat had rendered into the sauce and promptly split it - the layer of grease was not appetising. It was either this or the fact someone had drizzled olive oil over what is already a greasy meal to begin with. You can see from the photo the puddles of fat in the sauce.

The potato was...fine. Mother loved it. I, on the other hand, like my potato dauphinoise to taste like someone might have crushed an actual garlic clove into actual cream with a grating of actual nutmeg as an accent. However, it was all a tiny bit bland. Just a bit too nursery-school. The red cabbage, on the other hand was well executed, delicately spiced, nicely acidic without being harsh and cut through the richness of the potato and pork wonderfully. The plum sauce was tasty and deep and managed to pull off a tangy sweetness with a strong savoury note that hit the back of the palate.

So to dessert. I do think you have to try really hard to screw up dessert. Most places these days are well versed in brownie, lemon tart, posh ice creams, a crumble - the usual suspects. I was pleased to see a cherry cheesecake on the menu. I love cherrys - and as the season is on its way out, I leapt upon the chance to savour them. Silly me. It might be churlish to say it was cherry pie filling, but thats what it tasted like. With a somewhat random drizzle of blackcurrant coulis (which I can guarantee was out of a bottle). The cheesecake itself was not the ubiquitous american baked affair, nor was it a gelatine-set one (which I have to say is my favourite type of cheesecake - you can keep your new york baked. Nowhere near enough acid for my liking, and far too cloying). No, it was one of those ones that I call 'Sainsburys advert' cheesecakes, popularised in the 1990s. The ones where you mix whipping cream and mascarpone and then leave it to set. Nothing wrong with these as long as the balance is right. But the balance was not, in this case, at all right. The 'cheese' was 2 inches thick and had no acidity to it whatsoever. I know some people would be very happy with that, and that this is probably just my personal issue, given the odd popularity of American cheesecake which is similarly non-acidic. But it did not hit the spot. The biscuit, I hate to say, was also a bit stale.

And so after coffee, we left. Inside me, a little spark went out. I had so wanted The Courtyard to be everything that Dolce Vita was. Mother said she really liked it. I am sure she did. I am sure alot of people will have left, having spent £45 a head (as we did - one glass of wine, one diet coke and one bottle of S. Pellegrino), and in order to fend of the cognitive dissonance at having parted with £45 a head for what is only a little bit above average, will tell themselves it was wonderful. In fairness, it isn't dreadful. Nothing got sent back (which is more than can be said for another recent trip I had to Jamies Italian in Reading), and everything was well cooked. It just lacked a certain je ne sais quoi that Dolce Vita seems to have in buckets. Effortlessly. Would I eat there again? Given the choice available in Wokingham, probably. I will eat there again, if only to give it another chance. It is fine. No really. Fine. In the same way a giftbag from the Boots 3 for 2 range is fine as a Christmas present. Nothing wrong with it and not bad quality. Just not quite special enough. It seems Dolce Vita will for now remain the more sophisticated, elegant and welcoming of the siblings.

Crash of a titan

I watched, with some sadness, the legend that is Anthony Worrall Thompson, interviewed on BBC Breakfast yesterday morning, and today read this link in the Scotsman. It is a sad day when any business has to call in the administrators, however, as much as I respect AWT, I cannot help but be unsurprised by the recent turn of events.

I have visited both The Lamb and The Greyhound on a number of occasions, therefore my comments can only be applied to these two establishments, however on all occasions that I have eaten there, I have been unmoved by the food, not to mention the ambiance.For the sake of this post, I will focus my comments on a couple of occasions I ate at The Lamb at Satwell.

The anticipation of visiting an establishment run by someone of AWTs calibre is, one supposes, always going to be greater than the event itself. The first time I visited was during a lunch break at work. I am fortunate enough to work in relatively close proximity to both The Greyhound and The Lamb. As this was a working lunch, it was short but sweet, and therefore a bar snack was the order of the day, and I chose the Epigrams of Lamb. For the uninitiated, these were goujons of lamb, probably breast from what I could make out, that were then breaded and deep fried, served with mayonnaise. To describe them as greasy was an understatement. Not in the sense that they had been badly executed, for they had not. The breading was beautifully crispy, and they were piping hot when they arrived on my table, however the fat that oozed from the meat itself on crunching through the sandpaper exterior was not entirely appetising. Was breast the right meat to use? The mayo that was served alongside was unremarkable, and only served to add to the cloying nature of the dish. What it actually needed was something sharp and zingy to cut through the fat, and it amazed me that this had not occurred to the dishes creator. I ate this with a cold glass of some cider or other, and the effect only served to encourage the fat to solidify in my stomach. I sat at my desk for the rest of the day with a gall-bladder that ached with indignance at the assault on its very being.

I was willing to concede that perhaps this was perhaps just a blip in the reputation of this establishment, and thus decided some weeks later, on a particularly rainy Sunday afternoon, to attempt lunch. Sunday lunch is amazing when its done right, but is all too easy to get horribly wrong. However surely a chef working under the auspices of AWT would find this a doddle?
We arrived feeling slightly bedraggled, and once we had negotiated our way through the small lake in the badly drained car park, we entered into the warm womb-like interior, greeted by the waft and crackle of a real fire, and the population of a small island. This womb was expecting more than octuplets.

My dining partner, a martyr to the ill-humour of low blood sugar, was palpably irritated by the clinking middle classes that milled about uncomfortably, and I swear at one point was prepared to toss a small, designer clad child onto the large roaring fire that made the temperature in the room a little like sitting in a bakers oven with your anorak on. The child's parents were nowhere to be seen, and I suspect far too pie-eyed to notice their progeny roasting away. This was no fault of their own, I hasten to add. They will have been forced to drink copious quantities to kill time. We arrived at 12.30pm. Not unreasonable on a Sunday lunchtime. We were told that the wait would be an hour and a half. My heart sank as I watched dining partner grow twitchy at the thoughts, however this is where he wanted to eat, so this is where we were staying. 'That's fine', he huffed, and ordered drinks.

After the requisite hour and a half, we were still standing in exactly the same spot, and had downed two drinks each. I could not tell you what they were, mainly because the skill with which we were forced to dodge newly arrived customers, children and dogs without being knocked over took all the concentration we could muster and there was no room for savouring the beverages. Still no table.

By half two, we had some success. We were shown to the table, which was being cleaned as we sat, and allowed to peruse the menu for the first time since we had arrived, though this exercise was slightly pointless as we had had ample opportunity to view each dish as they had been paraded past us, torturing the knots in our stomachs. Had I been on my own, I'd have left long ago, but dining partner had insisted we stayed.

We ordered a drink - dining partners beer was clouded and sent back, and then we made our choices (he had the epigrams again against my advice, and I had an uninspiring basket of bread and dips that looked as though they had seen better days. Mains were the roasts - pork for me, beef for him).

You know when you go to an average pub and you are greeted by a roast that has khaki greens, roast potatoes whose skins don't so much crunch as slither, and gravy that only serves to water down everything else on the plate? That was what it was like. Years ago, I worked in a pub kitchen. We used to sprinkle bisto on the roasties in order to make them 'brown'. Now, I couldn't swear to it, but I had my suspicions. One of my roast potatoes was so large it was still hard in the middle. The crackling was unappetisingly charred where it had been thrust under a rather enthusiastic salamander, and the vegetables were a mix of those that had been sat for too long in the bain marie and those that had been placed in a microwave, and immediately removed.

We ran out of drinks half way through the meal and ordered some more, and they never arrived, though they did appear on the bill. We left, exhausted and full, but in my opinion it was not a good meal. Dining partner insisted it was lovely, and it occurred to me that this was the problem.

The restaurant was rammed, but I wonder whether it was rammed with people who love good food, or people who love to tell you that they ate at AWTs place on Sunday. Did this mans PR machine do a very good job at brainwashing his customers that he served remarkable food, when in fact, it is at best average? There are a number of gastropubs in the vicinity that serve far superior food and yet are less well known. Interestingly, though, these pubs have not had to call last orders on their futures. Could it be that, now money is harder to come by, diners are more discerning and choosing to spend money where they know the food is exemplary? Could it be that a massive PR machine is no longer enough to keep the punters coming?

I like AWT. I feel I know him. Not only does he grace our television screens on a very regular basis, but he lived in the vicinity for some time and regularly took part in local festivals. I have seen him and his wife shopping in Tescos with the kids. I have eaten Machins sausages barbecued by AWT himself at the local Christmas fayre. It tasted like barbecued sausage. I don't know what I was expecting, but the man himself barbecued this sausage and i had so wanted it to be an experience. Maybe this is a problem. Maybe he is not managing expectations. Maybe he is a good business man but an average chef and relies on hiring very good head chefs to make his reputation. I once watched him demo stuffed chicken breasts at one of these local festivals. Would it be churlish to tell you that he set his chicken on fire? Possibly, but he did.

For some time I have suspected that AWT coasts on a reputation that he has, at one point, worked very hard for, and now subconsciously or otherwise, expects to run itself. I am sad for him, because I feel that his establishments could be great once again, with a renewed sense of urgency on his part, and perhaps more honesty from his clientele. After all, how is one to improve if you are never given constructive criticism? On the other hand, perhaps he has appealed for too long to a clientele who dine out on 'eating at AWTs place', and not on 'eating a superb meal at a local restaurant ran by...what's his name - you know who I mean - that fella on the telly'. Maybe the cult of celebrity has permeated even our eating establishments, and in our search for a new authenticity, the inauthentic will be the first to fall?

Rhubarb, rhubarb

Between New Year and Spring, there are few things to look forward to. The weather tends to be grey and forbidding, a mix of frost, rain and snow. Mornings and evenings are dark, damp and depressingly chilling, and more often than not the car requires scraping both before you set out to work and before you leave the office. So nothing warms my heart more than the arrival of that most humble of vegetables masquerading as fruit - rhubarb. Forced rhubarb, to be precise, as though it were made to against its will.





If I am honest, I love rhubarb in all its guises - either pornographically young, pink and nubile, or the later sturdy green petioles. But the blushed fleshiness of the forced rhubarb stalk seems particularly appropriate for February - a nod from nature at that fictitious celebration of love and romance, Valentines day. Combined with a gravelly crumble topping, gritty with demerara, it is an epicurean snub to the inhospitably biting cold of a February evening.

Yesterday, whilst recovering from my recent op, I had the good fortune to spend an entire day watching UK TV Food, where they discussed the virtues of the humble crumble and how it should be done. The consensus appeared to be that each person has their own preference, and the section was finished off by the wonderful Matthew Fort demonstrating his version of rhubarb crumble.
It brought me close to tears.
Not for good reasons either.

There seems to be, amongst certain people in the foodie world, a need to create tastes never before discovered, and in an effort to do so, flavours are combined endlessly in the vague hope that the sum of the whole will be greater than their parts, and a new, synergistic flavour is discovered. In practice, I fear, this rarely happens. The end result is often a cacophony of badly balanced tastes that only serve to mask the subtleties of each part.


Mr Fort, whom I admire greatly and once had the privilege of having dinner along side (to say with would be a stretch - we were in the same oxfordshire gastropub though not together, but that's never how I tell it), decided to add a handful of shards of root ginger and the grated zest of an orange and its juice to a dish of forced rhubarb, along with a crumble topping which contained a squirrel-pleasingly large amount of roasted hazelnuts.
Why?

Root ginger is poky in the extreme, and orange zest has a habit of making everything an approximation of orange - I can only imagine this would have utterly drowned out any of the delicious rhubarby notes. I felt indignant. Possibly one of those flavourings as a subtle note along side the rhubarb could have worked, but I still feel that this is adulteration of the first order. I suspect people who feel the need to add such copious quantities of 'flavourings' actually don't really like the taste of the main player in the dish. To my mind, sullying this delicate winter treat is akin to a 10 year old slapping on make-up and a basque. Its wrong on so many levels.

The only possible exception to this is the addition of vanilla. Rhubarb and vanilla have a true, unquestionable affinity, immortalised in the gorgeous rhubarb and custard boiled sweet of childhood, and as such, is the only acceptable supporting actor to the rosy star of the show. Either scrape out the seeds and add to the crumble mix, or use vanilla sugar, which I believe is the correct method, the bourbon sweetness a duvet of scent and warmth against the sharply puckering, softly yielding pink flesh of the poached rhubarb. Never stew it - it loses its integrity and becomes a stringy mush.

Below is my recipe for a classically beautiful rhubarb crumble. It warms the heart, excites the tongue and dazzles the palate.

800 grams rhubarb (or two packs of Waitrose rhubarb)
8 tbsp vanilla sugar
a sprinkling of water
4 oz butter
4 oz demerara sugar
7 oz flour

Preheat oven to 180 degrees centigrade or 350 Fahrenheit
Butter a deep ovenproof dish

1. Chop the washed rhubarb into 1 inch pieces and place in a dish with a sprinkling of water and the vanilla sugar.


2. Place in the oven to start cooking for about ten minutes or so.


3. Whilst the rhubarb is cooking, make your crumble mix by rubbing together, or sticking in the magimix, the butter, all but 2 tablespoons of the demerara sugar and the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs.


4. Remove the part cooked rhubarb from the oven and sprinkle over all but a handful of the crumble mix and gently pat down.


5. With the leftover handful, squish it together in your hands so as it forms small lumps, and scatter this over the sandy crumble, and finally scatter over the remainder of the demerara sugar.


6. Bake for a further 20-30 minutes, or until golden brown, with the juices bubbling up in a fruity, toffee mass at the edges.
7. Serve with custard, ice cream, cream or, if you are me, all three.