Thursday 31 December 2009

My Links

During the Scottish holiday we also discovered a small salmon smokery and were impressed with their quality, so even though they do not offer organic/wild salmon or delivery outside of UK as Inverawe do, they are our preferred supplier. Make sure to order the salmon trimmings to make a fabulous mousse with dill, lime and creme freche. We prefer the whisky flavoured, it is very light and does not overpower.
Another great find was the smoked eel and meats of Brown & Forrest. The eel is exceptional, dont be put off by prejudice. Give the bought in smoked meats a miss and just buy their own smoked on the premises.
A stand-by is our local fresh trout, the best we have found but they also make their own paté. Just changed hands and the paté is not what it was.
One of the pleasure during the year is to open the insulated box of fresh fish. They are so very fresh, not the limp stale, smelly fish you find elsewhere. The downside is they dont offer half kilo weights and you cant eyeball the fish size available but they try to guide on the probable sizes. If you have a particular need you can always try phoning.
I havent included a link to Wallaces of Hemyock even though they are a local producer of venison and bison. All their meat is vacuum packed, meat is not suffiently hung and lies in pools of liquid, is over-priced and they have lost sight that the meat is their primary product and not all the ancillary products they now focus on.
Perrys loves cider and apple related products so there isnt a better place to go for passion that produces a fine range of drinks.
For all true whisky lovers, if you know your stuff where else would you go?


Japan Centre, great source for all japanese ingredients, but with totally indifferent, take it or leave it, attitude to customer support and delivery I cannot recommend it as a link. Watch point, goods are as sold in Japan, so no international labelling, be sure you know what you have got!
Just tried the butcher, Pynes of Somerset, showcased in the One Show, some weeks back and can confirm his bacon is well worth turning off the M5 at J24 towards Bridgwater and at the next traffic lights for. Delicious, tasty and none of this water that spoils so many other claimed 'dry cured' bacon. Best of all thickly cut so you can actually taste what you eat, none of this mean miserly thin slices. I am sure he will cut thinner is you are daft enough to want it. Smoked equally good. Just for the opportunity tried some of his traditional pork sausages. Not a fan of flavour adds, prefer them herbie and plain. But again delicious, produced fat which is quite right but not water nor that white enzyme. Only downside, casing split along length even though I started them gently  I just drooled at the beef on display, clearly long hung, dry and a deep red. Cant wait to get back and try some.

Our previous trusted poultry supplier is cutting back towards retirement. Just met the supplier he has confidence in. Website
of Otter Valley makes all the right noises and meeting the owner I am confident the claims made are being followed through. So we now have a pleasant run of 9miles to pick up our new supply of chicken. Goose, turkey and guinea fowl are available but only seasonally or to special advance order. Operates mainly as a wholesaler to significant shops out to London and up to Cheltenham but sells locally. So well worth ducking off the A30 on the way home.

Tuesday 29 December 2009

Me and Food

It's the time of year to lift the gaze and maybe reflect.
Some time ago it dawned on me that all my memories were food based. I would remember incidents and people not by their physical appearances but the food or meal that was mostly connected with it! At that point I came out and admitted to everyone else the already self-evident fact that I was a foodie.
I enjoy all the processes of food, from buying the ingredients, to looking in the larder and constructing a meal from its contents, to the cooking of the meal and eating it with relish. Not so hot on presentation (though I do have opinions on the subject) and certainly I seem to have a blind spot when it comes to clearing up the resultant battlefield. My range is savouries, sweets, puddings and cakes I leave to Anna's skills.
Nowadays when I construct a meal I try to avoid all the old easy taste pleasures of cream, butter, thick sauces and salt, going now for simple but excellent ingredients enhanced with complimentary or contrasting flavours or textures. Cooking has taken a bit of a back seat recently as the people I get to cook for the meals are significantly constrained by dietary or food dislike considerations! A sign of the times, once we all ate the out of the same pot and were grateful for it the more so if it was different to yesterdays.
The intention was to use my web site, http://www.somersetspiess.co.uk/, to post the more interesting recipes that I came up with and maintain links to good food sources as I came across them. However to make to my website more accessible to a wider range of viewer, it is now awaiting a complete re-structuring. So no move on that particular front in the foreseeable future. In the meantime I shall use this blog to make links to these good, quality and empathetic food outlets.
My criteria? Well obviously, the best quality. To me that means it is an outlet that really cares for its product, tries to produce the very best product that they can and take a pride in the products and care for their customers reactions. At the end it is not price, it certainly isn't fancy packaging, it isn't celebratory someones endorsement and the quality may even not be readily discernible to the pallet. Why, because the bottom line is that someone who day-in day-out cares will offer a better product consistently than someone who doesn't. Yes, it really is an act of faith, you buy in or you don't as there are no scientific scales by which to measure quality as experienced in the palate and the nose.
Enough, so why post links. Well some years ago we had a holiday in Scotland and came across a pie producer. These pies were simply the best and tastiest pies I had ever eaten, each of the range of fillings was good, solid with discernible ingredients and taste not drowned in seasoning. Excellent. I wanted to tell the world and now I have the means to.

Before I leave, my recipe for the season:
Large turkey carcass with meat removed and set aside (mine was 18lb drawn weight) simmered in water to cover, un-covered, on low heat for some 2 hours. Sieve and discard carcass, take off fat layer on top of stock.
In stock pot put in peeled and coarsely chopped, large potato, sweet potato and medium butternut squash with seeds removed, 2 carrots, 2 cloves of garlic, 4 bay leaves and seeds only from 8 cardamon. Cover with stock and simmer, un-covered, for about 1.5 hours. Blitz in liquidiser until fine then rub through sieve back into stockpot, adjust seasoning and add more stock if too thick, a loose creamy fluid texture is the aim.
Meanwhile, take a large chunk of turkey breast meat, about 0.75lbs, cut into fine cubes, peel a large potato and cut into similar sized cubes and saute in turkey fat until golden on all sides, reserve. Medium chop 2 red onions, saute in turkey fat until soft and transparent, turn up heat to drive off water, reserve. Chop 2 good handfuls of fresh coriander leaves. To serve, put onion and turkey meat into soup to warm through, serve into bowls and scatter with potato cubes, coriander leaves and a swirl of double cream cos its Christmas.
It is good!!