Mannablog - Food In South Devon

Eleanor: I woke up this morning feeling like I had swallowed a whole elephant the night before and it wasn’t very pleasant but I knew I had a huge brunch coming up. First, we learnt how to poach, fry and scramble eggs and how to make omlette. Then we tried some smoothie and made compot and pancakes. I was feeling a bit more peckish by this point, especially with the smell of bacon looming in the air and soon we sat down for bacon sandwiches, compote and pancakes. It was delicious! Afterwards we cleared up and made some chocolate cake. I will be sad not to come back tomorrow but over the last couple of days I have learnt a lot of skills that I can use forever.

Charles: Sunday morning began with learning how to make smoothies, including a variety of different fruits. After trying these smoothies we began with cooking the perfect poached, scarmbled, fried and omletted eggs. Then we sat down after individually making our eggs to try our ready made pancakes and fruit compot with yoghurt which were delicious. Then, using the barbeque i cooked countless rashers of bacon while others prepared the bread for the best ever bacon sandwiches filled with tomatoes anc sauces, they were pretty deleicious. After this we began making cakes, mine was a chocolate and courgette cake. . doesnt sound too normal but after tasting the ingredients before placing in the oven it is quite promising. This weekend has been a good experiance and has provided me with many skills that i can utilise in the future.

Harry: Today with started by discussing how to make a smoothie and then tasting once made, we then moved onto perfecting how to cook eggs in a variety of different ways followed by making some lovely chunky pancakes and some bacon sandwiches with tomatoes and some salad. during the afternoon we were split into pairs and made cakes. i made a chocolate and almond cake which was good fun, especially the whisking. The course was great and i definately learned alot which i am now looking forward to putting into practice in my own kitchen. Thank you Holly and David, the course was really enjoyable and i picked up many tips and recipies.

hatty: ditto

Tom: ditto

David: Three great days, lots of hard work, great fun. Thanks for your company everyone, and good luck with all your cooking. All the Best, David

Eleanor: This morning, as soon as the sun was up so were we, and at 9.00 we met up to go shopping. We visited the fishmongers, grocery shop, delicatesson and butchers and we learnt a lot outside the kitchen. Then we collected our ingredients, had a few ice creams (a delicious lemon sorbet for me) and headed back to the house. Then we made some dips (dahl, hummus, smolked mackeral pate and tzatziki), a big salad and some coronation chicken and then ate it all up for lunch. Afterwards we started to prepare that nights dinner of dips with toast and carrots, porcetta, casarol, curry, bread and butter pudding, and rubarb fool. Then we had a very active break, playing a lot of ‘Bop-it’ and cheating a lot at table football. The meal was excellent and at the end wew all shared the feeling of satisfied fullness.

Lucy: Today was good fun, not only did we learn about the cooking but also about the backgrounds of some key products, by visiting the local shops. When we got back, we ran a jamie oliver - esque show, by making our dips infront of each other and describing what we we’re doing. The rest of the day has been so busy making a series of meat dishes, that we have just presented to our specials guests, I was determined to try everything and everything was actually delicious, but I’m feeling at least a stone heavier for it now.!!!

Charles: Today was good, waking up in the morning i enjoyed a hearty eggs and bacon breakfast with bread made yesterday. then after shooping in dartmouth we prepared lunch, which was for me preparing coronation chicken and humus. After lunch we began to slow roast the meat, and for my curry was a shoulder of lamb. I learned to bone a joint of lamb, and then cook it also.

Cat: Guest at dinner - what can I say - the “kids” have made a fabulous feast for their guests - the food was a lovely combination of slow cooked pork (porcetta), a beef stew which melted in your mouth and agains slow cooked but this time lamb curry. Followed by rhubard fool (favorite of mine I must say) and bread and butter pudding - they had even made the bread the day before. It is great to see the team work together being great hosts - all taking turns to serve, describe the food and even then clear up! Lucky parents/grandparents - your kids have done a great job - all credit to Hol and David as well as the team - well done and am sure you can look forward to being entertained at home and in future!

This morning started in Dartmouth with a wander round the shops discussing how to shop, what to look for, seasonal produce and other things as we went.  We visited Moby Nick’s Fish Shop, Cutmores Butchers, Jilly Farm Shop, The Smith Street Deli, Somerfield, Julian Graves and the good Intent (for ice cream).  Returning to Kingswear with our goods we planned the day over squash and brownies before starting work.

For the first task three teams made three different dips or patés.  rather than just make them up each team had to demonstrate the preparation of their dish to the other, just like Saturday Morning Kitchen.  Tom and Lucy made Hummus (very lemony), Harry and Eleanor made Tzatziki (very minty) and Hatty and Chrles made a smoked fish paté (very fishy!)  See the results below.

We spent the afternoon making pasta sauces, lasagne, salads, chocolate chip cookies and rhubarb fool. Just waiting for the lasagne to cook so time to get everyones thoughts on the day:

Harry: I walked through the door not knowing what to expect and when Charles and i made the carrott and corriander soup and chibatta bread i never believed it would taste good until i tried it. The first day was more useful than i believed the whole course would be before the start. It was a great start to the weekend and i’m looking forward to day 2 and picking up more useful tips.

Eleanor: The whole day has been very busy. I started off making some white bread and the minestrone with Tom, there was a lot of chopping but the finished result was delicious! We also made pesto to go with it and that turned out REALLY garlicky but still yummy. I can’t wait to eat the chocolote cookies. Yum Yum!

Tom: Today has been busy as first of all i made minestrone with eleanor., it turned out to be very tasty. sfter that we made a mushroom sauce and tomato sauce. i’m looking forward to the second day and the tips and dishes that we’ll learn tomorrow.

Lucy: Today was a really interesting first day, I made Spiced Chickpea soup which came out tasting really good, much to my surprise! This afternoon has been great fun as there’s been a huge bustle in the kitchen with everyone producing different pastas, desserts, cookies etc and I made my first lasagna!! All in all its been a great day but if I don’t get off here now I’m going to miss out on the best part … the eating!!!

Hattie: so far i have had fun i made a spiced chickpea soup what was very nice with some bread afer that we made lasagna what was fun and some other people made mushroom sauce and tomato sauce then we all sat down and ate.

Charles: Today i made a lasange, a carrot and coriander soup and ciabatta bread. The day was on the whole very interesting as i have picked up many different ideas to use later on in life, but also i am starting to understand how different foods compliment each other, and how complex it can be to make up a meal from scratch.

David: everyones worked really hard and the day has been pretty non-stop. The result has been some great tastings and evryone relaxed and laughing and looking forward to day 2. I think we’ll all sleep well.

Our first morning was spent making bread and soup. Soup is an essential; it can be made from just about anything and is capable of infinite variety. Not only that but it is satisfying, warming, homely and delicious (if made right of course).

The bread dough was made and put aside to prove first.  Then knives were sharpened, warnings given and evryone got to do plenty of chopping practice.  David was surprised, nay astonished because no one cut themselves, and he usually does.

Holly did a little demonstrating, but mostly the group worked in three teams to produce three soups.  Hedre we see one of them being “whizzed2 with a hand blender.

And here we see the finished goods.  The bright ornage one is Lucy and Hatties’ Spiced Lentil.  The chunky one is Tom and Eleanors’ Minestrone with Pesto (well garlicky pesto) and the yellowy one is Harry and Charles’ Carrot and Coriander.  The bread is a ciabatta made by Harry and Charles which started as the sloppiest dough ever, very difficult to work with but worth it for the excellent result.

“Survival Cooking” is our three day workshop for teenagers keen to get a head start with the cooking thing as seen on lots of telly. This morning we’re joined by Harry, Tom, Lucy, Eleanor, Charles and Hattie and we’ll aim to keep a regularly updated blog (2 or 3 times a day) with pics of what we’ve cooked and perhaps a little cooking action.

To start here’s the whole group ready to begin. From left to right: Eleanor, Lucy, hattie, Charles, Tom and Harry

And here are Hattie and Eleanor kneading bread dough.

Way back in February we took advantage of our membership of Taste of the West and took a stand in the regional food corner of Borough Market. For those who don’t know it, Borough Market is a foodie’s paradise in South London where you’ll find the finest produce every weekend. Sellers come in from far and wide, including Devon, and the range of stuff to see, taste and buy is amazing. The market is frequented by discerning shoppers and lots of tourists and is always very, very busy. Admittedly, to afford some of the stuff there you need your own hedge fund, but lots of people are very happy to pay for good quality so it all works; and the atmosphere is fabulous. Anyone interested in food should go.

My lovely assistant Cat (Management Consultant Monday to Friday, ace brownie seller on the weekend) gave up here Saturday and rolled out of her bed at Oh My God O’Clock to navigate us across central London in time to get set up and ready for the throng. We loaded up the tables with Double Chocolate Brownies and Sticky Puddings and went for a quick scouting mission to see who was selling what and to compare prices. Just around the corner we spotted a store which had a pile of Brownies about 4 feet high, this was obviously the hot competition; then we found they had another store at the other end of the market with another brownie tower - they must already have a pretty strong following. No matter, the MFD brownie can reduce people to tears; we knew that the refined palattes of the London cogniscenti would beat a path to our table by the end of the day.Sure enough sales were brisk amongst those who had a taster. Some careful rationing was required as there are quite a few wandering around just to see how much free stuff they can snaffle. If I suspected anyone was a scrounger I tried to ignore them until they moved on toward some other stall. By the end of the day we had cleared the table, gained a few fans in the capital and had a great experience.

Two comments stuck in my mind. The first from a lady who wandered by, looked at our brownies and said, ‘they won’t be as good as mine’. Well I couldn’t let that gauntlet lie unchallenged so I told her that she shouldn’t say that if she hadn’t tried one. She fell for my gambit and accepted a taster. After approx 5 seconds on the toungue she said, ‘Oh s**t, they’re much better than mine!’.

The second came from a German couple who were working their way around the market with ruthless efficiency, trying every brownie available. At about 3 o’clock they reappeared at our table and said,’ ve hef tried effry brownie and yours are ze best; may ve take six pleeese?. I love selling brownies!.

Once again I am guilty of gross neglect of our blog and have been getting regular nags and nudges from several quarters re. the complete lack of updates since March.  It’s been busy Ok!?  There’s been a lot going on.  So I’m going to add a few posts now in quick succession and not necessarily in any chronological order.

I know that in my last post I was writing about Indian Food, and I know that we run Mediterranean Classes, Tapas Classes and Pasta Making at the cooking school, and I know I make Stollen and foccaccia bread to sell; BUT …. having said all that, I am a great fan of all things British. 

I love hot cross buns, sticky toffee pudding, faggots, black pudding, fry ups, sausages and my desert island dish would have to be roast rib of beef with yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes and gravy.  So when I read last week that many of our native dishes are threatened with extinction because of neglect and being overun by invasive species from abroad I was immediately spurred into action to create a national treasure.

I suppose many people are put off making steak and kidney pudding, or any other steamed pudding, because the idea of something steaming for 4 or 5 hours immediately seems fussy and complicated, but it really is a very simple dish.  Suet crust pastry really is the easiest pastry ever to make, there’s no need to cook the meats before they go into the pudding, and apart from checking that your pan isn’t boiling dry the steaming is pretty much a case of putting the pudding in a saucepan and forgetting about it for 4 hours. And the result is so worth waiting for:

Click here for the recipe

Because this pudding had no added liquid I served ot with Boulanger Potatoes - which sounds all foreign again but I’m not sure if we have a name for sliced potatoes baked with stock - any way the juiciness works well with the pud.

The assembled throng loved it and it really was simple, so give it a go and keep the flag flying.

That may sound like the title of a limited release British Film from the 1970’s but it isn’t.  So if you like that sort of thing continue your quest elsewhere. It actually refers to me wondering what to do with a bag of beetroot that arrived in our Riverford Farm Veggie Box this week. 

Normally the beetroot decision is easy. Steam, cool, peel, slice, season, sweeten, pickle, wait 20 minutes, enjoy with sausages.  However, it is January and the humble sausage is currently persona non grata at Fir Mount pending my being able to do up my jeans. Obviously if you have come for B & B you may gorge on bangers at will, but I must be stoic.

Anyway, back to the beetroot.  Wondering what other exciting ways with roots I might try I consulted an old favourite, Madhur Jaffrey.  For some reason we have two versions of her fabulous ‘Indian Cookery’ which was first published in 1982 to accompany her BBC TV series in which introduced us all to Indian Cooking at Home.

Our copies have been well used over the years and are usually consulted whenever Indian Food is on the menu. In this case I went for Shorvedur Chukander or Beetroot with Onions. This is a very simple dish of beetroot wedges simmered with onions, garlic, chili, cumin and tomatoes to make a nice thick stew.

Served with basmati rice and spring greens with peas (Bund Gobi aur Matar) this made a great supper; delicious, colourful, nutritious, not a bit of saturated fat in sight and full of superfood beetroot .  Now where did I put those jeans?

We’ll be exploring a lot more interesting things to do with the vegetables you find in your weekly delivery during a series of Seasonal Vegetable Cooking Workshops  which we’ll be running in association with Jane and Martin Emmett at Riverford Home Delivery Torbay.  There will be one for each season and we’ll look at less well known vegetables as well as new ways with familiar ones.  The workshops will be suitable for both vegetarians and non-vegetarians.  Learn More