Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 20:33 
so, skye and the three chimneys. this was, afterall, the main reason for our recent scottish jaunt and yet it’s taken me over a month to write something about it which is very poor. a simple summary is that it was wonderful. but of course there is much more to it than that!
scotland, skye in restaurant reviews, travels Monday, November 16, 2009 at 07:00 
i know i still owe you a review of the food we ate in skye but i wanted to jump in with a quick word about the pierre koffman pop-up at selfridges.
i rarely write about the food i eat out that is not up to scratch – sat bains and l’anima being two such disappointments – but given the almost unanimous rave reviews i wanted to put out a dissenting view about the pop-up.
the setting is wonderful – the temporary structure has a real feeling of contemporary glamour – as is the welcome and service but the food we ate really wasn’t great.
Saturday, November 14, 2009 at 07:00 
i’m not a big fan of rich creamy food but when i heard a friend raving about his mum’s “last lick sauce”, describing it as the perfect accompaniment to roast chicken and a fabulous gravy replacement in the summer, i had to give it a try.
garlic, rosemary, anchovies and sundried tomatoes. plus cream for richness. definitely worth a go.
the sauce has a fabulous depth of savoury flavour but it is very rich. i tried versions using crème fraiche (full and low fat) and sour cream. none of these was a patch on the original so, here it is, the original last lick sauce.
it is indeed a great accompaniment to roast chicken and is a very delicious way to ring the changes if your sunday roast is looking a little jaded.
Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 06:00 
i've been eating a lot of squash recently. these small squash - acorn and onion - were roasted with their skins still on (they are soft enough to eat) with garlic, chilli flakes, salt, pepper and olive oil. i added a few baby carrots as well and we had them with roast chicken instead of the more predictable, and very dull, roast potatoes.
pumpkin, squash in vegetarian Monday, November 9, 2009 at 06:00 
i’ve had a really hectic couple of weeks and feel as though i am sitting in the middle of a giant cooking rut. so, to get things back on track i decided that we need a week of cooking new stuff. abel & cole sent me some black salsify earlier in the week and, having got stuck into my cook books, i decided that sunday lunch should be gordon ramsay’s fish in red wine with beurre rouge.
his recipe calls for brill (aka poor-man’s turbot) but i ended up using line-caught cod loin which was really delicious and coped well with the strong flavours. the fish is served on bed of buttery mashed potatoes with glazed salsify and baby shallots round the edge.
it is ridiculously rich – for each portion there is 45g butter and over a tablespoon of double cream – which means i’m unlikely to make this again any time soon. however, it is really delicious, especially that beurre rouge sauce (which is where most of the butter is!).
and in case you’re wondering, the fish was tinged red for about 1mm and was then beautifully snowy white inside. the wine flavour was subtle with the fish and mostly confined to the beurre rouge.
