The Great British Issue

Australian Gourmet Traveller June 2012, the Great British issue

As I have commented earlier, a friend passed these magazines on and I for some reason just shelved them, neither using them nor passing them to someone who will. Now is the time.

I made almost everything on p44.

I did not make smoked trout kedgeree, partly because I didn’t have access to smoked trout but mostly because if I am going to make kedgeree there is only Kelda Hains’ version. And I didn’t make broccoli and Stilton soup because I have an excellent Lois Daish recipe for that.

I started with Grilled Barnsley chops w crushed peas and mint sauce. I love the sound of a Barnsley chop which is a double loin lamb chop. This was barely a recipe. The chops were coated with oil, garlic, rosemary and lemon zest, chargrilled in a pan and finished in a medium oven. The peas were cooked and lightly crushed with butter and lemon zest. The mint sauce is the classic my mother used to make, mint, sugar, vinegar, and I served it in the jug my mother always used for mint sauce. I served them with roasted potatoes, because roasted potatoes belong on most plates.

I moved onto Bangers and mash with crisp onion and hot English mustard. The potatoes were mashed with cream, butter, garlic, thyme and were luxuriously delicious, but not something I would do everyday. I usually mash mine with infused olive oil. The thinly sliced onions were fried in about 60 ml olive oil until crisp and a few thyme sprigs were fried in the same way. While those were draining, most of the oil was drained from the pan and the sausages cooked in the oniony, thymey pan. The onion and thyme were sprinkled across the sausages.

I turned to the recipe for Eccles cakes, p46 and then I decided this recipe was bit fancy so I used Jane Grigson’s recipe from English Food. And I wasn’t confident with puff pastry so I used bought. They were very nice though and I will make again perhaps braving the pastry next time.