Eating Leeds

The Bird by Vineet

2009-03-30T20:57:00.003Z

Fri 27 March 2009

My first foray into Leeds' new(ish) casino was back in September last year when I was lucky enough to head along to the press lunch. On that day, Vineet Bhatia, holder of a Michelin star (2001, 2006) for Rasoi in London, talked us through a selection of dishes and we were able to stick our noses in the tandoor. Not being a 'proper' journalist (whatever one of those is!) I felt a bit of an imposter, but still managed to be one of the few who paid good attention and asked a lot of questions.

On that day we enjoyed a selection of starters followed by a prawn curry. I had to go back to work before pudding, but left with plans to return.

Six months later - we made it back through the doors!

We arrived at the casino at about half past 6 - half an hour before our reservation and settled ourselves in one of the bars for a drink. The drinks aren't cheap (£3.40 for a pint of San Miguel) but, for your money, you get to enjoy them in a quiet, civilised environment. Yes, as every other bar in Leeds in heaving, the casino is an oasis of calm.

A workmate warned me that the portions were small at The Bird so I decided to go for starter and main course: something I almost never do with a curry. I find that by the time I've eaten pappadums, munched on a bit of salad and had my samosas/bhajis/chicken tikkas I'm pretty much stuffed. Frightened by the prospect of Lilliputian portions I demolished the excellent chilli sauce which came with the pappadums and motored my way through the green herb chicken tikka. This was three large pieces of tender, moist chicken, straight from the tandoor (I know this because I've seen this dish being prepared!) and served with a really lovely mint chutney. As good as this was, it wasn't a patch on Andy's Tilapia masala which was (again) large pieces of fish covered in a spicy batter with a 'garlic pea crush'.

So, there I was - almost full and facing a main course.

I had chosen saag gosht (lamb and spinach) and Andy had opted for the lamb biryani - served with a pastry crust. We shared (well, we ate a bit of) a truly excellent paratha. I am happy to say this was the nicest (because I'm probably not qualified to say 'best') paratha I've eaten. I would go back and just eat the paratha if I could.

Anyway, to complement the carbohydrates, my lamb and spinach curry was excellent. Delicious, loads of spinach, a good amount of tender meat. The lamb biryani was also very tasty. Andy congratulated himself on ordering what was basically a large curry pie. Rather than being served with gravy it was served with a pot of raita which I thought was a refreshing change from a generic curry sauce.

Utterly defeated by our main courses (I was quite embarrassed by how much we didn't eat) we declined desserts and headed out to perch ourselves at a blackjack table for a while.

While drink prices might be high, the food is more than reasonable - with main courses ranging from just £4.50 for some of the vegetarian options, up to just £7.95. The restaurant has a very contemporary feel: it's upmarket, minimal and stylish. The service is really very very good (I really want to say flawless but I did see a couple of things dropped!). The service is attentive, considerate, friendly and helpful. The menu is not massive but it covers all the bases: if you can't find something to eat here, you're just picky!

Most importantly, don't be put off by the fact that The Bird is in a casino. You no longer have to sign up 24 hours in advance and while you're in the restaurant you won't be aware of any gambling going on outside. It seems that The Bird is starting to take off: we attempted a visit a couple of weeks ago on a Saturday night but couldn't get a table until 10pm (too late even for us).

As has been noted in previous comments - there are three curry restaurants at Clarence Dock and one stands head and shoulders above the other two for quality and value for money. For The Bird I would most certainly make the effort to head to Clarence Dock.

1. The Bird by Vineet, Alea Casino, Clarence Dock, Leeds, LS10 1PZ, phone: 0113 341 3200, map.

Mumtaz

2009-03-30T11:44:00.002Z

Wed 25 March 2009

Despite economic gloom and doom, Mumtaz at Clarence Dock is finally open! Originally slated to open before Christmas last year we've sat in our office waiting patiently. We headed off on Wednesday to investigate - we had no option but to go in person because the Mumtaz website hasn't quite caught up with the restaurant.

The restaurant is massive and the décor is ... um ... less than subtle. As you enter the body of the restaurant is straight ahead of you and to your left you have a raft of refrigerators selling various takeaway foods, as well as a vast array of puddings and sweets.

You may, or may not, at this point notice the large (and, in my opinion, somewhat unwelcoming) sign informing you that Mumtaz is an alcohol free zone. We managed to miss this ...

We settled ourselves down, and, between admiring the massive black and red chandeliers and feeling rather daunted by the scale of the room, inspected the menu.

As this was a quick work lunch, things were relatively simple: tarka dahl for me, a palak paneer, lamb karahi and chicken tikka masala. Mopped up with paratha and rice. And washed down with Mumtaz branded bottled water (hmmm).

The menu didn't strike me as being particularly innovative and, while the food was pretty good, I wouldn't rate it as outstanding. Portion size is on the generous side, but so are the prices and at least one person has found the food oversalted.

I really enjoyed my dahl - it was topped with crispy onions and hadn't been cooked to a pulp. I was a little surprised by how mild the dish was. At Mumtaz you can choose between mild, medium and hot - so I'd erred on the side of caution and opted for medium and was expecting it a lot spicier than it was. In our group there were no complaints about the food at all: all the dishes were demolished and everyone was well fed and happy. However, given that a one course lunch time curry turned into £10 a head we all felt that the meal was on the pricey side.

Cost aside, my main gripe is that everything took a bit long. The restaurant would have been lucky to be a tenth full and I'm guessing we didn't look like ladies who lunch (or I hope not, as I was the only lady there!): a snappy meal was in order. I appreciate that the restaurant is newly open and so service is probably taking a little time to bed down, however I'd have real concerns about eating there on a busy evening.

While the décor is over the top I'm not sure how much consideration has been given to diner comfort and acoustics. Hard flat surfaces about (although at least the chairs are well upholstered!) and tables are set very close together. I get the impression that on a busy evening things could be very noisy indeed.

I left feeling ambivalent ... I don't think I'd put up a fight about going again, but I don't think I'd be rushing back either. Let's face it, Clarence Dock is just that bit far to go ...

1. Mumtaz, Clarence Dock, Leeds, LS10 1PJ, phone: 0113 242 4211, map.

Another Closure

2009-03-29T16:28:00.002Z

Sun 29 March 2009

A quick note that yet another Leeds' restaurant has closed its doors. Room, on Boar Lane, has shut up shop. Room was part of a chain (that started in Leeds) and it was the parent company that went into administration. The Chester, Lincoln and Manchester restaurants remain open, as do the Grille restaurants in Chester, Harrogate and Lincoln (based on what's on the website at the moment).

During the week I had received an email informing me that the Room Wine Club has now moved to the Lounge on Merrion Street. The first event for this year is 31 March (yes, that's THIS Tuesday) and the focus will be on Italian wines (dubbed 'Tip to Toe' as the tasting ranges from Trentino-Alto Adige through to Sicily). The event costs £30 for which you taste 6 wines and have 6 food pairings. I went to one of these evenings back in 2007 and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I received the email on Thursday so if you're lucky, places will still be available.

Tomorrow, rather than gloom and doom, we bring you food from what must be Leeds' newest restaurant: Mumtaz, at Clarence Dock.

1. Lounge Bar & Grill, St John’s House, Merrion Street, LS2 8JE, phone: 0113 244 4234, map.

Leeds Brewery

2009-03-26T19:45:00.004Z

Wed 25 March 2009

You may have gathered that in between drinking wine and making cakes I am an enthusiastic beer drinker. I am also a massive fan of the Leeds Brewery. My workmates and I also spend quite a bit of time in Leeds Brewery's Pin, where we do a reasonable job of currying favour with the staff.

It wasn't long that someone came up with the idea of a trip to birth place of some of our favourite beers and, after a bit of too-ing and fro-ing, we settled on 25 March.

We piled ourselves in a taxi for the short journey from Hunslet to Holbeck and then spent a very pleasant hour and a half with Sam. After pouring us a beer Sam took us through the brewing process and chatted about the setting up of the brewery and the effort (and headaches) involved in setting up the pubs. Of course, we also talked about brewing and quite a lot about the administrative details involved in running a brewery. That might sound really dull but it's actually fascinating. The way in which alcohol production is taxed is skewed dramatically in favour of the government (hmm, there's a surprise) and it seems like everyone is ready to step in and take a cut at pretty much every point of the production process. Among some of the more esoteric facts we learnt was that in Norwich you will find the National Collection of Yeast Cultures, where samples of yeasts used (currently and historically) in the UK are kept and that the guys from Leeds found a strain of yeast from a now defunct West Yorkshire brewery and resurrected that as 'their' culture. It never occurred to me that such a place might exist!

The brewery itself is tiny: at the moment maximum capacity is around 80, 000 pints a week and, as they only have four fermenters, they only brew four times a week.

We all agreed (over a pint or two later at the Midnight Bell) that this was one of the most enjoyable brewery 'tours' we'd been on. Sam did a brilliant job of imparting a lot of information in a very accessible and personable way.

Leeds Brewery doesn't actually run 'tours' - the place is tiny and wholly unsuitable for a large group (there were only 6 of us and any more would have been difficult), so we were very lucky that we were able to arrange this and that Sam was prepared to hang around well after beer o'clock and talk to us.

Probably the easiest place to see the Leeds Brewery in action is at The Brewery Tap by the station - as they have installed a microbrewery upstairs which is brewing lager. And you can fit a lot more than 6 of you in the bar!

The Market Place, Malton

2009-03-24T12:29:00.003Z

Sun 22 March 2009

If I'm involved in organising anything it is generally planned, booked and sorted well in advance. This is particularly true when money spinning 'events' like Mothering Sunday loom. However, this time around I wasn't involved and, come Saturday morning, it was me ringing highly recommended pubs around the North Yorks Moors and, um, more or less being laughed at.

After a bit, the baton was passed to Andy and I was mortified when the first place he rang actually had space for 4 for Sunday lunch. It wasn't a country pub, but a small restaurant in Malton's market place - and we were fast running out of options!

Malton is tiny and, on a Sunday, not a lot is happening so we arrived at The Market Place Restaurant rather earlier than anticipated. This wasn't a problem and we were seated in the small room upstairs.

The set menu offered us 2 courses for about £15 and 3 for £18. There wasn't a huge amount of diversity in our ordering: one pâté and three smoked salmon for starters, three roast beef and one roast pork for main. On the pudding front we managed a little better: two bread and butter puddings, one cheese and one chocolate tart.

The starters came to the table along with some warm (and very tasty) bread. The smoked salmon was served simply, with a lemon and caper dressing and a little salad. It was a generous pile of salmon and a good start to the meal. The pâté was HUGE: a huge chunk, loads of bread and not for the faint hearted.

The main courses hurried after the starters: the roast beef was generous, thick slices of beef which was actually medium rare. I almost regretted ordering the roast pork except that I love pork and the meat was moist. The meals all came with large Yorkshire puddings and bowls of vegetables (roast potato, carrot and swede mash, broccoli) came separately - along with instructions that if we needed any more vegetables all we had to do was ask.

Main courses demolished we moved on to pudding. I really enjoyed my cheese (it's a bit difficult for me not to) and the other dishes received a thumbs up. In particular the custard on the bread and butter pudding made Andy happy.

There were aspects of the experience which were a little uneven: I was expecting us to be doused in wine as our waitress sloshed it into our glasses, the roast beef eaters struggled with cutlery not quite up to the job and two of our four coffees were forgotten. But when I asked about a pudding wine, I was brought a very generous sample as well as the bottle to look at. The staff were attentive and wanted to make sure we were warm enough and that we had enough vegetables. The forgotten coffees did eventually arrive with a sincere apology and they were gratis (and the coffees came with both cream and milk).

I feel a little mean for using so few words about this restaurant because I did actually really enjoy my meal there. The food is not outrageous or wildly innovative - but that can be a good thing. There really is nothing wrong with a pile of smoked salmon and some roast pork. It can be very easy to lose sight of that, while in search of gastronomic complexity. And friendly, happy faces more than make up for niggles in service.

My own benchmark for restaurants is whether or not I'd go again. In the case of The Market Place - why, yes, I would.

1. The Market Place Restaurant, 46 The Market Place, Malton, North Yorkshire, YO17 7LW, phone: 01653 697100, map.

More WSET News

2009-03-23T21:18:00.002Z

Mon 23 March 2009

Apologies for the hiatus - I'm quite embarrassed that it's been almost two weeks since my last post ...

Rest assured, I have not been sitting on the sofa watching TV and even if I were to do that for the next fortnight I'd still have plenty of material!

Last Monday I had yet another early start as I was on the 0530 train to London hoping that acts of God would hold off so that I could actually complete the WSET Educator Programme. This time things went to plan and I spent three days at the WSET's HQ getting trained up in wine education and tasting some great wines. On the final day everyone in the class (seven of us) gave a presentation and conducted a tasting as our assessment. I chose German wine terms and drew Californian Zinfandel from the wine tasting lucky dip. Even luckier for me, the Zin I was given was the Seghesio I drank back in February! I'm pleased to say that I passed so I guess now all I need to do is the Diploma and I'll have the WSET full set ...

While in London I also squeezed in The Tasting Session's Generation XO night at the Sanderson Hotel - the night before my assessment! I might have been the only person at the event who was worried about having a clear head the next morning but I had a lovely meal and met lots of very friendly people and (perhaps most importantly) tried some great (and expensive) Cognacs. We started with Couvoisier and Hennessy XOs before moving on to the Courvoisier Initiale Extra and Hennessy Paradis Cognacs, and these were followed by some Ports from Quevedo. At this point, I went home - just as everyone else was going to be moving on to the Sherries and what promised to be a long night!

If anyone fancies spending plenty of money on me, the Courvoisier Initiale Extra was my favourite Cognac (only about £250 a bottle), followed by the Hennessy XO ...

Naked Wines

2009-03-10T19:56:00.002Z

Sat 7 March 2009

Last week I was very lucky because I was the 100th follower of NakedWines on Twitter. A day or so later I was the happy recipient of a mixed case of wine (and they even asked me if there was anything I particularly liked or disliked before they put it together).

Note: read to the bottom for a £25 voucher!

Naked Wines launched last December (you can read the back story over at Spittoon) and seems to be embracing social media and Web 2.0 enthusiastically: the company has engaged bloggers, run a video competition to win wine for your wedding and is, tomorrow (that's Wednesday 11 March) running a tasting of Australian wines including a live auction (Naked Wines is buying the wine). If you're so minded you can follow the action online or through Twitter.

But all of that is not much chop if what ends up in your glass doesn't make you go back and buy more wine.

The first wine opened was the Hacienda Don Ramon 2006 Rioja (Tempranillo), which is £7.99. The first thing I noticed was that it's a very pretty wine to look at: a ruby wine with a blushing pale raspberry rim. The nose was not overtly pronounced but had a lot of fresh red berry fruit: very ripe sun kissed strawberries and raspberries that are still in the garden, so there's some earthy, dusty notes as well as some vegetal notes from the berry plants' leaves. That vegetal note was a little bit pervasive for me so I quickly moved on to tasting the wine! Much fresher strawberry on the palate: intensive and attractive. The tannins were definitely present but well balanced by the acidity. The vegetal notes I was unsure of on the nose were much less pronounced on the palate, and were complimented by some more developed woody, leathery flavours. The length was very good although I did feel it was a little dominated by alcohol (the wine is 14%abv). This is a pretty minor complaint because throughout the rest of the palate the alcohol was well integrated.

Andy summed the wine up in far fewer words: "I think this is really nice".

The next night we opened a bottle of Domaine des Anges 2005 Côtes du Ventoux (75% Grenache, 25% Shiraz), from the fringes of the southern Rhône (also £7.99). A noticeably older wine in appearance, it was garnet in the glass but still had plenty of fresh fruit on the nose.The nose was quite pronounced, with white pepper and hot spice notes mixing very ripe red berry fruit. There was also something a tad tarry or medicinal (or perhaps liquorice-like?) in the background.

The palate was pretty true to the nose: pronounced, spicy but with a hit of ripe red berry fruit right at the front. It was more tannic than the Rioja and those tannins definitely dominated the finish a bit. But there was acidity, and some lovely slightly more developed flavours (think strawberries dipped in chocolate) with good length. Although the tannins might be a bit much for some it's a well balanced wine, and if the tannin worries you that much you can always leave it alone for a year or so!

Opinion on preference was divided: Andy thought he preferred the Rioja and I thought I preferred the Domaine des Anges. They are both good wines and priced well.

The really interesting thing about this exercise was that we actually ate the same thing with both wines and the Domaine des Anges fared a lot better. Our meal was a selection of cold meats, olives, cheeses and bread. The Rioja worked really well with our blue cheese (a Dolcelatte) but less impressively so with the Gruyère and really quite poorly with the meats and olives. The Grenache played nicely with all of the above and even survived a second night when it was drunk with spaghetti, chilli, oil and garlic!

If I've inspired you to check out Naked Wines then you can even claim £25 off your first purchase by hitting this page. The code you'll need is EATINGLEEDS and the password is GRAPES.

You can keep up to date with my adventures on the rest of the case by following me on Twitter!

Spaghetti Bolognese

2009-03-09T12:45:00.003Z

Sun 08 March 2009

The other day Jamie Goode wrote a glowing review of a Lambrusco available at Marks and Spencer. Lambrusco comes from Emilia-Romagna, where you'll find the lovely city of Bologna, known as Bologna la Grassa for its top notch food and which gave its name to bolognese sauce. Despite Andy suggesting that I didn't really need to buy any more wine I had an idea and I was running with it.

You'll often hear that Italian wine is built to go with the food of its region. If you think about a rich Bolognese sauce and then Jamie's description of the wine you can see how the match could work: high acidity and fizziness to help cut through the weight and fat.

Unfortunately, I can't tell you about whether or not this wine would go with my Bolognese sauce because yesterday's weather was too awful to contemplate a trip into town for a bottle of wine.

I guess everyone's made a spag bol by just chucking anything and everything into a pot and cooking it up for a bit. I was on the hunt for something a bit more ... Italian. I consulted The Silver Spoon and Antonio Carluccio's Complete Italian Food and what struck me was the simplicity of both recipes. They had very few ingredients and differed only slightly. I took elements from both and resisted the urge to start throwing garlic, chilli, oregano etc etc in the pot. The result was a beautifully velvety sauce with an incredible depth of flavour. I'm saying this upfront so that if you do take the time to make this recipe you actually bother leaving out all the extraneous ingredients I know you want to add ...

I rarely do this but to demonstrate the simplicity here's the ingredients up front:

60g pancetta (or bacon, or just omit altogether)
2 stalks of celery, finely chopped
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 carrots, finely chopped
400g lean minced beef
2 generous tablespoons tomato paste

some dry red wine
a few porcini soaked in a little hot water (optional)
perhaps a little beef stock
(or any combination of the three or just plain water)

That really is it!

Begin by frying off the pancetta in some olive oil and butter. With the heat low, add the celery, onion and carrot and gently fry for about 10 mintes - until the onion starts to soften. Increase the heat a little and add the mince - keep stirring well so it doesn't stick and to break it up. You want to try to brown it rather than steam it!

Remove the porcini from the hot water, chop finely and add to the mix. Stir through the tomato paste.

Next, add about 200 mL of the red wine and stir well.

Reduce the heat, cover and cook for about 1.5 hours. Give it a stir every now and then and if it looks to be drying out a bit or starting to stick add extra stock or water.

After the hour and a half cooking time, I had a taste, added a bit of pepper (the stock I'd used had been quite salty) and set it to one side.

When we were ready to eat, all we needed to do was heat it up. I added extra red wine to adjust the consistency and, very un-Italian like, we served this with fusilli. Carluccio takes great pains to stress that this should be served with tagliatelle rather than spaghetti - but I think you'll be safe getting away with the pasta of your choice! You'll note I didn't mix the pasta through the sauce like a proper Italian would - that's because I had one eye on left overs!

So ... no Lambrusco for us but a lovely meal none the less. I was also very pleased that I'd bothered to follow such a simple recipe: just goes to show that you don't need a cupboard laden with spices to produce tasty food!

Round Up

2009-03-08T16:48:00.002Z

Sun 08 March 2009

It's been ages since there's been a round up but it seems there's plenty of goings on in Leeds and it's mostly gloom and doom.

Good stuff first though!

If you're counting your pennies but still want to head out there are plenty of deals to be had - and, from what I've seen, plenty of places where you'll still need to make a reservation. Team Gopher has an exclusive Yo!Sushi discount available - 20% off your food at all times: what better way to ignore the credit crunch than eat a pile of sushi in the top floor of Harvey Nicks?

And now the bad ...

At the end of February it was announced that Jamie Oliver's Fifteen wasn't coming to Leeds after all - it had been planned for the Dark Arches and (of course) the 'economic climate' was a contributing factor in the decision.

@Larocca at Clarence Dock has closed its doors. On my first visit I was ambivalent and follow up visits did little to change my mind. The pizzas did seem to be pretty good (at one stage being rated by a work mate as 'better than brb') but on my last visit (at the end of January) I was horrified by my spaghetti carbonara. So transparently so that, after about two mouthfuls, my dining companion observed 'you don't like that, do you?'. On this occasion, we were charged twice for almost everything on the bill and I resolved that next time I'd be eating in the casino. @Larocca apparently covered 9000 square feet and was a £2 million enterprise: I think that this goes to show that bigger is not necessarily better and that money is better thrown at the kitchen than at the décor. I wonder if Mumtaz (due to open ~~by Christmas~~ soon) will fare any better ...

Floridita, the Cuban venue at the corner of Lower Briggate and The Calls has also shut its doors - before I managed to even visit (it only opened in November). The restaurant at The Ellington has also ceased trading - even after Jay Rayner's enthusiastic review last December. The boutique hotel remains open but under administration.

Still, it does look like something's happening at the old Felicini site on Albion Street, so hopefully there'll be some good news soon!

River Plate

2009-03-05T12:24:00.002Z

Sat 28 February 2009

After championing local food yesterday I'm pleased today to be able to play the hypocrite and tell you about dinner at River Plate, the Argentinian restaurant on The Calls. The menu cheerfully states that "All our beef is imported directly from traceable farms in Argentina ...". Hmmm, already I'm not sure that I approve!

This was very much a last minute exercise. We were sitting in Sela, I was enjoying a quiet Coopers Pale, and the subject of dinner came up. Where to go? Our first choice was fully booked until 10pm (I guess this is what happens if you start ringing around at 6:30pm) and we were tossing around ideas when Andy (let's blame him!) suggested River Plate. A quick phone call secured us a table for 7pm and as soon as our beers were finished we set off across town.

As soon as we walked in we were greeted and seated, at a lovely large circular table, set with just the two places. Our waitress gave us the menus and straight away told us the dishes that weren't available today (I was gutted that empanadas weren't an option) and brought over a small tabletop blackboard with the day's specials.

With empanadas not an option I ummed and aahed about my starter. Since we'd be eating steak and (obviously!) drinking an Argentinian Malbec (the wine list gets an OK - I'd have been happier if the list had championed Argentinian wine rather than trying to include something for everyone) it was with a great deal of difficulty that I finally settled on the garlic prawns in a white wine and chilli sauce. Andy chose a savoury fried pancake. For main courses, I went for the 225g bife de chorizo and Andy the 300g bife de ancho (rib eye).

Hard part of the meal over we continued solving the world's problems while we waited for our food. I soon noticed I felt a bit cold and, after a slight investigation, we realised that we were sitting very near an open window. Was this a problem? No, as our wine arrived we asked for it to be shut and it was so. I know this is hardly an achievement but I mention this because the prompt and cheerful manner in which the request was handled is indicative of the overall good service we experienced at River Plate.

Food wise, Andy definitely won on the starter. One bite in to my prawns, I announced "these are overcooked" and duly sent a piece Andy's way. He agreed (although only just). That aside I quite enjoyed them but I wouldn't have this again - mainly because it's the type of thing I could put together at home with my eyes closed. Andy's pancake - stuffed with a spicy lamb mix, fried up and served with tzatziki was really tasty though. Fortune had indeed favoured the bold.

Ordering steak is always a fraught exercise. Will it be cooked just right? Will it be served on a hot plate, seasoned, still jelly like in the middle but warm the whole way through? With River Plate the answer was a resounding yes. As Andy pointed out, there'd be something very wrong if you were running an Argentine grill and you couldn't do a good steak, but ... you never know.

I'm really glad we chose two such different cuts. Bife de chorizo appears to be like sirloin (sorry, I'm not a butcher ...). My meat was flawlessly cooked and eating it was like eating a piece of warm, meaty butter. With a cut like this, there's not a huge amount of flavour but I had ordered some chimichurri sauce on the side. Andy's rib eye, unsurprisingly, was a tougher piece of meat but with loads of flavour and, again, perfectly cooked. If you ever want to taste the difference between two cuts of meat I suggest you try this pairing.

We also ordered side dishes of chips which were very good (although the two dishes we ordered might have been excessive).

After all of that, we weren't exactly in need of pudding so we finished off our meal with coffees. The total bill came to an eye-watering £75. Considering that our bottle of wine was under £20 we spent a lot of money on ... well, two pieces of steak.

So this leaves me in a quandry. Great steak, great service ... I should be recommending this place. But it's just too expensive. Perhaps reserve it for treats for the die-hard steak lover in your life.

Of course - given how busy River Plate was on Saturday night you'll need to book!

1. Sela, 20 New Briggate, Leeds, LS1 6NU, phone: 0113 242 9442, map.
2. River Plate, 36-38 The Calls, Leeds, LS2 7EW, phone: 0113 391 2792, map.

Local Food Advisor

2009-03-04T12:38:00.002Z

Wed 04 March 2009

You might have noticed that there's a new badge on the right hand side of this page saying that I'm a friend of Local Food Advisor. You might have gathered that I'm pretty enthusiastic about local food, sustainable agriculture and other food ethics types of issues.

If, like me, you try to shop locally, support small businesses, buy locally (and, where possible organically) produced food and you like to eat happy chickens and British pigs then Local Food Advisor is a good place to start. I put in my home postcode and five pages of results turned up, containing everything from farmers' markets, to butchers and pie sellers! Pages dedicated to producers cover contact information, details of awards and any rare breeds farmed, as well as some general information.

Many producers seem to be offering online sales so it will probably pay to have a good dig around the site by food category as well as location. At present there are almost 4000 producers represented on the site.

I think a resource like this is a great way to support small local businesses - give it a go!

No 3 York Place

2009-03-02T20:47:00.003Z

Thurs 29 January 2009

Something of a delay in posting this ...

I first went to No 3 York Place when it was still Gueller's (I think we're talking 2002 here) and I had an excellent meal and a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Why has it taken me the best part of 7 years to return?

Well, I can't answer that, but I was finally spurred into action by an exceptional deal which was available in January and February. Three courses for 2 and a bottle of wine would set me back only £30. Sound familiar?

Yes, after moaning (quite justifiably) about the Malmaison I can cheer up by reliving a lovely meal at No 3 York Place.

I'd started the day by getting up at 3am and being in at work for 4. I'd also managed to stay up the whole day, so going out and having a few drinks probably wasn't the brightest idea known to man ... but there you go. It must have been the cold addling my brain.

We began our evening with a quick pint at Baby Jupiter (who were in the process of installing a Leeds Brewery pump ...) before heading (almost) next door to the restaurant.

I have nothing to say about the service: it was absolutely flawless. We were seated, presented with both the à la carte menu and the menu du jour (available lunch and early evening, weekdays), and the maître d' said that if we were to choose the menu du jour we could order from the wine list and they would simply charge us the difference in price from the house wine. With that, we ordered glasses of Champagne (which, incidentally, is Delamotte and is very good at just £7.50 a glass).

The menu du jour is quite short (excellent, for indecisive people like me!) and we both started with venison terrine, followed by lamb shank for Andy and config duck leg for me. For pudding, Andy opted for the cheese and I chose the bread and butter pudding.

The food wasn't flawless but it was very very good. Yes, I thought the venison terrine could have had a bit more textural interest and my duck skin could have been a little crispier. Did that affect how much I ate or how much I enjoyed the meal? Absolutely no! Would I go back? Without hesitation. And the main reason for that is that No 3 York Place combined fantastic and attentive service with very good food.

Would I go back with guests and pay full price? I think you already know the answer to that!

The menu du jour has gone up in price to £40 for the same deal. That still represents amazing value for money.

Go now!

1. Baby Jupiter, The Basement, 11 York Place, Leeds, LS1 2DS, phone: 0113 242 1202, map.
2. No 3 York Place, 3 York Place, Leeds, LS1 2DR, phone: 0113 245 9922, map.

Majella Coonawarra Riesling

2009-03-01T16:53:00.003Z

Sunday 22 Feb 2009

Limited apologies for yet another tasting note, but I promise to make things up to you with a couple of restaurant reviews during the week.

Last week I taught a class about Riesling so when I spotted the Majella 2005 Coonawarra Riesling in Oddbins (marked down to £6.29 from £8.99) I purchased it on the grounds that it represented 'research'. In the course of more conventional research I did discover a few interesting tit-bits about what is, in my opinion, the Queen of white grapes.

My original attempt at this post went into far too much nitty-gritty wine-bore detail*. Fortunately I had the good sense not to hit the publish button last night! However, I have to give you some trivia ... did you know that in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century German Rieslings were as highly regarded and sought after as their French red counterparts? And that Riesling was Australia's most widely planted white grape variety up until the late 80s/early 90s when Chardonnay took over?

Well, now you do.

So ... what's the verdict on the Majella? Well, after we had a bit of an argument about whether or not it was too cool, we both decided that we were extremely happy with it. Even if you paid £8.99 a bottle for it it would still be good value. It's a lovely wine. The nose is quite floral (think honeysuckle) with overtones of both honey and petrol. On the palate, it reflects the nose: honeyed and floral to start with, which is quickly balanced by some searing acidity, which then develops into lime and sherbert and the wines wraps up some more floral notes on the finish: satisfyingly complex. As you'd expect from an Australian Riesling it does have a mineral quality about it. The length is very good and it's a very refreshing, and food friendly, wine.

I note from the Majella site that frost destroyed the 2006 and 2007 crops so you'll not find a 2007 or 2008 vintage. Let's all hope that last year was a little kinder!

*The extended detail can be found here.

Malmaison Brasserie

2009-02-25T12:34:00.003Z

Thurs 19 February 2009

There are plenty of good dining deals on at the moment and one which caught my eye was the Malmaison's 'two thousand and wine' deal. For the princely sum of £29 two people can enjoy two courses from the Homegrown menu and a bottle of wine: bargain!

Back in summer 2007 we enjoyed an excellent meal at the Mal so we were keen for a repeat treat and headed off last Thursday night, stopping for a swift pre-dinner drink at the Adelphi.

Things were out of kilter at the Mal from the start. There was a bit of confusion about our table (the restaurant was nearly empty as we had a 6:30pm booking) but we were eventually seated and began with beer and Champagne. The drinks took a little while to arrive and when the two remaining settings at our table were cleared one of Andy's forks made a break for the floor. We were promised a replacement.

The Malmaison's wine list is impressive but our food choices were such that wine was difficult. Ordinarily, in this situation, we might have opted for glasses rather than a bottle - but because of the 'deal' we decided to 'upgrade'. The Domaine du Moulin Favre 2007 Brouilly was, to our minds, a bit unbalanced: both alcohol and acidity were a bit aggressive, washing away any fruit there might have been in the wine. Still, dissecting wines certainly gives us something to talk about and prevents me (briefly) from staring (usually open mouthed) at fellow diners.

Anyway, I'm prepared to shoulder the blame for my poor choice of wine. For me - the meal began well, with black pudding hash served with a poached egg and a mustard sauce. It was a good size portion and ticked all the boxes. I was looking forward to my beef bourgignon.

Andy began with what were billed as Thai fishcakes. Neither of us could decide where the 'Thai' came in as they appeared to be salmon rissoles. There was no ginger, no lemongrass, no lime, no hint of chilli. And they were served with mayonnaise. There was a bit of discussion about the provenance of the mayo: was it from a jar or really from the kitchen?

The tables were turned for main course. After our dishes were unceremoniously plonked in front of us ('Fish?', 'Beef?'). From the first piece of meat I speared in my beef bourgignon I knew this was no lovingly prepared, slow cooked beast. The meat was so resistant to the fork I knew my jaw was in for a work out. Close inspection of some of the pieces of meat showed some very dark patches, suggesting to me that someone had tried to prepare this dish far too quickly. The sauce was pretty tasty but the accompanying horseradish mash was a real disappointment.

As I pushed my food around the plate Andy tucked in to his sea bass with prawn biryani. Although the portion looked quite small he said it was enough and that it was pretty good. The biryani part confused us. Andy labelled it a risotto and it was so mildly spiced you'd certainly not recognise it as a curry.

Oh - and Andy's fork? Despite reminding various waiting staff, a fork never appeared so he took one from another table.

With our main courses cleared we still had some wine to finish before contemplating coffee. This gave me a good opportunity to look around and check out what everyone else was doing. While the restaurant was busy it certainly didn't look as though it were full of contented diners. From my seat I could see people trying to order drinks, trying to get orders sorted out and generally looking as though the whole experience was a bit of a hassle.

So it should come as no surprise that, when we ordered our coffees, the order was somehow lost. The sommelier, who was a very friendly young woman from Adelaide, spotted they hadn't turned up and chased up the order for us. Apparently, there was a problem with the till.

After careful checking of our bill, we made our escape, our wallets approximately £70 lighter.

This experience highlights many of the perils of dining on a 'deal'. Firstly, the restaurant seemed to forget that customers dining on the deal probably eat out a fair bit anyway and probably also have friends. Will I rush back to the Malmaison? Er, no. Will I take visitors? Definitely not. Did I tell everyone at work all about my experience the next day? Absolutely.

Secondly, as a diner, it's very easy to think that, as you're on a cheap deal, you'll treat yourself to a glass of bubbly or an upgrade on the wine, or dessert, or coffees, or liqueurs and so on. If the meal is lovely, you don't resent spending the extra money. If it's like Thursday night - well, to be honest, you're a bit annoyed.

So - Malmaison - must do better!

1. Malmaison Brasserie, 1 Swinegate, Leeds, LS1 4AG, phone: 0113 398 1000, map.

Shrove Tuesday

2009-02-23T20:15:00.002Z

Monday 23 Feb 2009

Yes - tomorrow is Shrove Tuesday/Pancake Day/Mardi Gras. The chances are that, yet again, it's snuck up on you and you're tootling around the internet for a recipe and pancake related ideas.

Last year I actually followed a recipe, and produced sweet crêpes, as found in Escoffier's Ma Cuisine. I also posted after the event.

This year, I'm not only posting my own recipe, I'm also letting you know about it in advance.

But first - the hints and tips.

It's better if you can make your batter a day in advance and leave it overnight in the fridge. I don't know why but it all seems to work better. In addition, this has the happy side effect of making it all seem like less work: literally, a few minutes tonight to make the batter, and then it's only the effort of making the crêpes tomorrow. The batter may separate out a bit overnight, but just give it a quick whisk before you start frying.

If you don't have a dedicated, well seasoned crêpe pan then use a non stick pan for frying your crêpes. Use plenty of butter (add to the pan between crêpes) and be prepared for the first one being a bit of a mess (again - I don't know why, that just seems to be the way things go).

Finally - if you make a plain crêpe mixture then consider making a little more. The crêpes freeze well (keep them separate with baking paper) and you can either eat them plain (defrost and then re-fry with some butter) or make a savoury dish (perhaps chicken with spinach and ricotta as a filling, topped with a Béchamel sauce and lashings of cheese, baked in the oven).

All you will need is 2 medium eggs, whisked. Add 1 cup of plain flour. Whisk - and do not be too fussed about getting out all the lumps. Finally, add milk to let down the mixture - I think I used about half a cup tonight but the exact amount you'll need will depend a lot on your flour. You want quite a runny batter as crêpes are thin, delicate little things: about the consistency of pouring cream.

And ... voilà - that's it! Once cooked top with whatever you fancy - sugar and lemon juice every time for me!

WBW54: Passion for Piedmont

2009-02-22T18:33:00.002Z

Sat 21 February 2009

Wine Blogging Wednesday has been one of my more consistent efforts at blogging events over the last year or so. What this says about me ... I'm not entirely sure. Last Wednesday, the event was hosted by McDuff's Food and Wine Trail and the theme was A Passion for Piedmont.

I won't bore you with why I didn't post on Wednesday but, as the round up is not yet posted (providing I type quickly!) and weekend also begins with 'w' I bring you my efforts in the hope that I sneak in at the last minute!

Piemontese wine is not tricky to come by in the UK although you might struggle for variety if you are limited to visiting one or two stores. You also might struggle to keep costs down. I was tempted by a £25 bottle of Barolo in Weeton's in Harrogate but commonsense saw me spend less money at Oddbins. Setting me back around £8, I opted for a Balbi Soprani Barbera d'Asti 2006. Yes, that's the same Asti otherwise famous for a much mocked (but also, arguably, much maligned) sparkling wine. Barbera is the grape and the wine comes from the environs of the town of Asti, east of Turin in north western Italy. Unlike Nebbiolo (from which the handsome, but expensive, wines of Barolo and Barbaresco are made), Barbera is a more forgiving grape. Being less difficult, wines made from Barbera are cheaper.

However, difficult is the word I am tempted to apply immediately to this example. This is not an easy wine to drink. Again, we struggled with the wine's temperature. The bottle suggests serving between 18-22°C: we were no where near that. So, this meant that the nose was not forthcoming. There was cherry and some other red berry fruit, some quite marked warmth from the alcohol (13.5%abv) and a few earthy, woody notes. These more developed aromas matched up with what we observed in the glass: a wine ruby in colour but not particularly dense and with a noticeable pale rim.

It's unsurprising that the wine is no ripe fruit bomb. The palate begins with tart, tart, tart cherries which do mellow and do develop into some slightly riper, red berry fruit flavours which then progress on to the more mature earthy, woody, vegetal notes already spotted on the nose. The acidity is high for a red (which you'd expect, not only because of the extreme tart cherry action, but also because that's Barbera for you) and it balances out the alcohol really nicely. There's some very soft tannins but, in the context of the wine, they're really unremarkable. The length is really good verging on excellent.

I realise that this reads like an extremely positive tasting note but, thanks to that high acidity, this is a wine that needs careful matching to food. We were eating pasta with a tomato based sauce and this just didn't have the richness and fattiness to counteract that acidity. Ironically, tonight's dinner (which is pork and is going to be paired with something altogether different) would probably be a better match. If you were sitting down to a roast duck this wine would probably be a great match. It is most certainly not a quaffing wine!

In terms of value for money my gut feeling is that it is perhaps a tad on the expensive side. Had I been eating different food, that opinion might have been different - but I'm going to assume my ambivalence suggests it's a bit pricey. However, one thing I do think this wine shows is how intimately connected to food Italian wine is!

Seghesio Zinfandel

2009-02-17T19:49:00.002Z

Sat 07 Feb 2009

It's been a while since a straight wine tasting note and that's really because we've not been drinking anything too fascinating. A couple of weeks ago Banrock Station's The Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz was on offer at Somerfield for £4.49 a bottle ('normally' around the £9 mark) which represented sensational value. I don't think you'd want to pay full tote odds but if you spot it at a reduced price it's definitely worth trying.

If you're looking for a treat and a wine which is worth its price tag (discount or no) then you could do worse than part with £17 (yes, I know, it's a lot of money, but you can't take it with you and you should really spoil yourself every now and then) for the Seghesio Sonoma Zinfandel 2006. This is a huge 16%abv so make sure you have plenty of good food ready to go with it!

Zinfandel doesn't seem to make too many appearances here in the UK (well, unless you're in a pub drinking blush!) - but it's stupidly popular in America, and much of it (like this wine) is grown in California. However, you may find it easier to spot some Italian wines made from Primitivo which is exactly the same grape. And Zinfandels are even starting to come out of Australia (I recommend you keep a look out for Kangarilla Road, from McLaren Vale, which I've seen once or twice).

The wine was a dense ruby colour and I noticed quite a pale rim - it was probably more remarkable because of the intensity of the wine otherwise. In terms of the nose, I struggled a little bit because we were in the middle of freezing weather, snow and chaos and there was no way of getting the wine warm enough! However, I did manage to pick up black berry fruits with some vegetal undertones, some chocolate and just a hint of something aniseedy or licquorice-y.

What was gratifying was that all these (and more!) came through on the palate - especially the chocolate. Masses of chocolate with the black berry fruit in the background and softened by cedar and old leather. The aniseed flavours came through on the finish.

I was a bit alarmed by the alcohol content, but it was really well integrated: the wine finished with heat on your lips rather than catching in the back of your throat. The wine really filled the mouth: the tannins were soft and there was some pretty good acidity which not only provided structure but probably helped balance out the alcohol.

With all of this, there was a lot going on with this wine: the interplay of chocolate and fruit, moving to the developed cedar and leather and finishing up with aniseed and warm alcohol made it very enjoyable to drink. I always find that it takes me longer to drink a better wine: a complex wine with great length makes you want to savour and enjoy what's going on in your mouth, rather than rushing on to the next mouthful.

We drank this with a hearty lamb and lentil dish: it's a bold wine so you don't need to be shy with big flavours. If you need to impress with a red wine - definitely keep this in mind!

1. Seghesio Sonoma Zinfandel, Family Vineyards, 2006, £17, Latitude Wine.

Wine for Weddings

2009-02-10T21:31:00.002Z

Tues 10 Feb 2009

No, this is not a subject about which I'm going to write with any great authority! However, those of you who are getting hitched this year may be more than interested in winning £1000 worth of wine for the big day, from Naked Wines.

Of course, such a generous prize doesn't come easily and, in order to win, you will need to produce a video re-enacting the proposal AND you'll need to garner the most votes on the Naked site ... If you win, your wedding must be taking place in 2009/2010 and you'll be able to choose the wines yourself. £1000 will go quite a long way: as far as 125 bottles of Cloudy Bay Sav Blanc apparently.

If you do enter the Naked Wines competition (and you need to do so by 1 March) then do let everyone here at Eating Leeds know!

While we're on competitions, at the end of January I mentioned the Best of British and Irish Food competition. I've had confirmation that you'll need to have your videos in for that one by 19 March.

Finally - just some good old fashioned money saving. Thresher is, yet again, offering a 40% off voucher. This time the discount's on sparkling wine with the offer finishing on Valentine's Day. And if you're looking for bar and restaurant discounts in Leeds (though I wouldn't recommended discounts bubbles and a discounted meal if you're looking to impress on Saturday ...) check out the relaunched Team Gopher.

Banana Cakes

2009-02-09T20:08:00.003Z

Sat 07 Feb 2009

As I've already mentioned, Friday was Eating Leeds' birthday which was, if nothing else, an excuse to make cake. Not that I ever really need an excuse.

I'd recently acquired a large number of bananas from work (don't ask - in this day and age a supplier thought it fit to tell our catering staff to 'throw out' the huge number of rock hard, bright green bananas they'd received ...). As far as I am concerned bananas are pretty much the devil's food. A banana is only good if in a cake, in a smoothie, or mushed up with plenty of cream and sugar. I had far too many bananas for cake alone, so it's a good thing Andy is happy to eat them.

Over at The Goddess's Kitchen, Maria had yet again worked some baking magic, but this time with a honey loaf. Bananas and honey is a good combination (well, when found in a smoothie) and even though the family banana cake recipe is bullet proof I figured there was no harm in a bit of tinkering.

So - preheat your oven to 180°C and, either prepare your 1lb loaf tin or sort out your cupcake pan.

Begin by beating together 125g of unsalted butter with 125mL of runny honey. Add 2 eggs and 300g of self raising flour. The mixture will be very stiff. Add 3 mashed (very) over ripe bananas. And finish with 1/4 cup (60mL) of milk with 1 tsp of bicarb of soda dissolved in it. I also added a splash of rum.

Bake for 30-45 minutes (loaf) or 15-30 minutes (cupcakes - depends on how large your cupcakes are!): cake should be golden and a skewer, as always, should come out cleanly.

The preferred way of finishing the cake is with chocolate icing and walnuts. However, because I had an apple to use up, I topped my cupcakes with a very thin slice of apple and a sprinkling of muscovado sugar just as they went in the oven.

Ready to go in the oven!

They're lovely, light tasty little cakes. In this recipe I've really cut back on the honey (the 'normal' recipe has 175g of sugar) so don't feel bad if you do want to slather them in icing!

Happy Birthday to Us

2009-02-08T10:39:00.002Z

Friday 06 Feb 2009

Friday was Eating Leeds' third birthday! I had all the best intentions of posting on the day but my ISP had other ideas and I spent the evening internet-less.

The very first post was a round up of a weekend out in Leeds, written while I was still living in Guildford. Since then I think the posts have become a lot more focussed (well, I try to stuff less into a single post!). I also 'met' a lot of interesting people (in real life I refer to you all as 'my imaginary internet friends'!), learnt a great deal (about food, wine, SEO ...) and cooked and drank more widely than I would have done without Eating Leeds.

I've got lots of plans and changes lined up for 2009 but you'll have to wait to find out about that ... what better excuse that to subscribe to our RSS feed, follow me on twitter or sign up for our emails (don't forget that if you sign up for an email you'll need to verify your subscription by clicking on a link in the first email you receive!).

And yes, I did make cake to celebrate ... and that's why you'll have to come back tomorrow!

London Restaurants

2009-02-05T20:51:00.002Z

Thurs 5 Feb 2009

We seem to have spent a lot of time in London this year so it's time for a quick scout around some of the venues in which we've spent our hard earned pounds.

So ... to begin, a revisit to L'Accento in Bayswater, first visited by me in summer 2007. I was impressed then and, in the interim, the restaurant seems to have produced a web site and got itself recommended in the Michelin Guide. More importantly - standards haven't slipped. This was a huge relief, since I'd recommended it for an impromptu dinner! L'Accento now offers a cut down menu of two courses for £17.50, but three of our party of four ordered from the à la carte menu. Everyone was happy. I started with the pumpkin ravioli with sage butter which, while a little on the sweet side for me, was still really good. I followed this with osso bucco served on risotto milanese which was fantastic. Also sampled were the calve's liver, the squid salad and the lamb shank. We washed our main courses down with Sardinian Cannonau: a light to medium bodied red wine that went will our combination of dishes (wine choice was complicated by a fish focussed main from the set menu). The wine list is a study in diverse Italian wines and I would have been quite happy to work my way through the whole lot. We also went for puddings and coffees and the final bill ... £45 a person. Bear in mind, this was no exercise in moderation and it would certainly be possible to dine at L'Accento for a lot less.

Next up, another evening meal, this time at The Mercer on Threadneedle Street. Recommended to me a while ago on the basis of its good quality house Champagne, we arrived shockingly late for our 9pm reservation. Having been at a drinks function already our palates might have been a little ... um ... jaded, but the Bruno Paillard Champagne was enjoyed by all before we launched into our food. I started with a smoked eel salad followed by scallops on artichoke puree, washed down with a glass of Albariño. What really stood out was that the service was flawless when we were far from perfect guests. We turned up as the kitchen should have been closing and we might have been a little boisterous but not once did we feel hurried or that we were imposing on staff who were, in hindsight, probably thinking they were going to get an early night. Again, a good wine list with a good by the glass offering. We didn't have pudding and we came out just over £50 a head poorer. Based on this experience, I would head back to the Mercer in an instant.

Finally, on Monday I had the misfortune to find myself in London. Yes, Monday, when snow closed the city. Having got up at 5am to catch the 6am train from Leeds, I was rather disappointed when day 1 of my WSET Educator course was called off. Not that I'd actually figured out how I was going to get from King's Cross to London Bridge with the tube cancelled! I spent the morning drinking coffee in Islington (walking distance, in the conditions) before thinking about lunch. My first instinct was to head to the Charles Lamb, but then I thought I should really try out somewhere new. I drew up a short list and, thanks to Krista's report from September 2007 (and the fact it was closest) I headed to Mucho Mas, even though I wasn't entirely sure I fancied Mexican. It's easy to find: it's on Upper Street, near the big pedestrian crossing. On Monday staff were busy grilling in the snow. As you do.

I ate inside. A chicken burrito is £4.95. The burrito is put together in front of you so you can specify which type of beans you want, and the combination of cheese, sour cream, salad, chilli sauce and guacamole (an extra 80p) that you desire. I also had a beer costing £3.40, so this wasn't the cheapest lunch known to mankind (even by London standards!) but it was very good. The burrito was very generous in size and very tasty. If you're having a normal day, you could easily eat one of these for lunch and just a snack for dinner (or vice versa). Again - I'd return without thinking about it.

Of course, while it was the worse snow in London for 20 years (or perhaps that is 19?) I probably should have been traipsing around taking photos of Trafalgar Square and Tower Bridge and so on. However, I wasn't so you'll have to make do with this shot of Upper Street!

1. L'Accento, 16 Garway Rd, London, W2 4NH, phone: (020) 7243 2201
2. The Mercer, 34 Threadneedle Street, London, EC2R 8AY, phone: (020) 7628 0001
3. Mucho Mas, 27 Upper Street, London, N1 0PN, phone: (020) 7704 2123

Gougeres

2009-02-03T20:28:00.002Z

Sat 24 Jan 2009

Another video for you!

I know gougères have made a previous appearance on this site, but this time you get a slightly simpler recipe AND video instructions. I made this video with two purposes in mind: firstly, late last year I made these for my friends Matt and Parminder who had trouble replicating them. What better way than to be able to show them how it's done? Secondly, I used this as my (rather last minute) Market Kitchen Talent Search entry. Nothing like killing two birds with one stone!

A handy list of ingredients is after the video.

To make the quantity shown in the video you will need:

75mL water
20g unsalted butter
pinch of nutmeg
cayenne pepper/chilli powder/paprika to taste
salt to taste
20g plain flour
1 medium egg
20g grated Parmesan (or other hard - medium hard cheese of choice)

These quantities will do two not very hungry people for a snack. The quantities scale up easily. For a substantial afternoon tea for 2, double up! They're great for serving unexpected guests, but bear in mind that you do need to serve them straight from the oven.

Of course - ensure you have a bottle of good red wine to hand. There's your excuse to buy a lovely bottle of Burgundy!

Best of British and Irish Food

2009-01-29T14:47:00.002Z

Thurs 29 Jan 2009

As promised, we've had the cake and now ... the competition. On 28 March The Best of Britain and Ireland opens at London's ExCel. The event runs over the weekend and is an exhibition dedicated to domestic tourism. In these economically straightened times, with the pound plunging against the euro, it's probably timely to remind ourselves of what's on our doorstep.

Of course, it's also time to think about all the great food that's on our doorstep. We're often hearing about traditional dishes being forgotten in favour of more exotic imports. Now, you've got a chance to champion a traditional British or Irish dish, make a video and, potentially, have your video seen by over 20, 000 people at the exhibition.

A good first step (besides thinking about what dish to focus on) is to join the facebook group (while you're there - join the Eating Leeds network). Once you've made your video you can post to the facebook group directly, to a youtube channel, or to iFoods.tv.

At the moment this is all the detail I have - but rest assured that any updates will be passed on!

Also - don't forget to watch Jamie Saves Our Bacon, tonight at 9pm on Channel 4. You might even get some ideas for your video!

Lemon Yogurt Cake

2009-01-26T21:07:00.003Z

Sunday 25 Jan 2009

As promised, after the food politics comes ... cake! And sometimes, things are just meant to be. In the last week (or so) yogurt cakes have been popping up here and there in my feed reeder: Helen at Grab Your Fork produced a pomegranate syrup cake and Maria at the Goddess's Kitchen a gâteau au yaourt. And me? Well, I had yogurt in the fridge that could do with using up.

I also had some lemons that needed using but (as ever) I was unperturbed by the lack of recipe that fitted exactly and headed into the kitchen.

The result was more than good enough to write about. This is a very simple cake to make - there's no weighing involved and there's very little fat in it (I went Maria's vegetable oil route, rather than Helen's melted butter purely because I'm lazy!). It's also ideal if you don't have electrical kitchen kit to do the usual heavy duty creaming of butter and sugar - even I would be able to make this unassisted by my Magimix!

So - preheat your oven to 180°C (160°C fan). Grease and base-line a 23 cm springform tin.

For the cake - mix 1 cup of caster sugar, 1/3 cup of vegetable oil (light olive oil would be fine - just don't go for an oil with a pronounced flavour, like extra virgin olive oil) and 2 cups of self raising flour. This will be a fine, crumbly mix. Add 1 cup of plain yogurt (full fat, no flavourings) and 2 medium eggs. When this is all combined you will have a proper cake batter. Finish the mix with the finely grated rind of one lemon (if you're cautious, just use the rind of half a lemon - but I love lemon in puddings!) and 3 heaped tablespoons of ground almonds.

Tip the batter into the cake tin and bake for 30-35 minutes, until a cocktail stick comes out cleanly and the cake is risen and golden. Allow to cool in the tin for a few minutes before tipping out onto a rack.

Looking good even without icing!

Because of the almonds in the mix, if you wanted to finish with syrup you could (leave in the tin!). I was originally going to ice this cake but, with the full lemon rind in the batter I knew it wasn't going to need any more flavour. And let's face it, without icing you can almost pretend it's healthy (you know, yogurt, almonds, fruit ...).

This Little Piggie

2009-01-25T17:11:00.003Z

Sun 25 Jan 2009

A bit more food politics for you ... but read this and you'll be rewarded next week with cakes, competitions and videos!

You may have gathered that, here at Eating Leeds, we're enthusiastic eaters of all things porky. I fall into the Homer Simpson camp when it comes to pigs: they are wonderful, magical animals. And they're cute too - especially piglets.

You may also know that the UK pig farmer is in a bit of a predicament and that farmed pigs are, mostly, not treated quite as well as they could be. In addition to this, pig welfare standards are different across the EU and a pig that has been bred and slaughtered in the UK should have had a slightly better life than some of its friends in continental Europe. Because of all of these factors, I always try to buy British pork. Sometimes it's really easy (that's when you're at a farmers' market, buying a rare breed from the farmer) and other times it's very tricky. One of the most difficult places to buy pork (and pork products, such as bacon and ham) is, for us, the supermarket. It seems next to impossible to tell where the pork actually comes from.

And it's not that we're stupid: currently labelling legislation for pork products strikes me as vaguely ridiculous. Currently, a pork pie processed in Britain from Danish pork can be labelled a British pie.

The other problem is that there is no legal definition of labelling terms such as 'free range' (there are EU wide definitions for this term for eggs and chickens) and 'outdoor bred'. Combined with the confused origin labelling, it's no wonder that Andy and I spend a lot of time picking up different packets of ham and bacon and trying to work out which is the soundest purchase.

I know that we can't all spend our time (and money) at farmers' markets, chatting to the people closest to the pigs. And if we did, there wouldn't be enough pork to go around. However, I think it probably is time to invest a little more effort in thinking about the pork we buy. Take the time to check the labelling. I'd urge everyone to try to buy British pork and, after that, buy pork that's been raised to the highest welfare standards you can afford. If you can buy RSPCA Freedom Food pork - go for it!

You can always ask questions when you're in store, or you can write to your local supermarket's head office. You can also write to Hilary Benn MP, who is Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

In the near future, there should be plenty of opportunity to learn more about pig welfare: the RSPCA has launched a 'Rooting for Pigs' campaign to try to improve labelling, and they've got Jamie Oliver on-side. You can sign the RSPCA's petition on-line and, on Thursday night (that's the 29th January) you'll be able to watch a pig welfare debate, led by Jamie Oliver, on Channel 4 in Jamie Saves Our Bacon.

Abel and Cole

2009-01-21T22:17:00.004Z

Mon 15 Dec 2008

In the run-up to Christmas I was lucky enough to receive an Abel and Cole mixed organic veg box. For quite a while I've thought about committing to an organic vege box but I've never actually got around to it. There's actually not many reasons not to: Abel and Cole (and other vege box schemes across the country) will deliver to your place of work if need be, it's not that expensive (if you buy supermarket fruit and vege you are already paying so far over the odds it's untrue!), and often you can build up a profile that means you won't receive bucket loads of oranges if you don't like them.

Another plus with a vege box is the novelty value. If you shop at a supermarket, the chances are you're slowly becoming less aware of seasonality. This is actually a bad thing. The number of times I've heard people complain that the only vegetables available in winter are potatoes and parsnips shows how disconnected we can become from what we should be eating (yes, it's winter - eat something big, hearty and starchy!) and that we end up eating tasteless asparagus from Peru all year round.

Anyway, food politics aside ... the vege box arrived on the Monday morning of a week off. The first thing I noticed was that there was a lot of fruit in it. Actually - this means there were apples, satsumas and bananas: but a generous helping of each. The individual fruits were smaller than you'll be used to if you normally munch giant fruit from the supermarket but, as a non fruit eater, I have to say that the apples were really good. They smelt of apple, they tasted of apple, they were crisp and they were juicy. And this is coming from someone who eats about one apple a year (unless it's in a cake - that's the only way I do fruit). Andy (the fruit expert) reports that the satsumas were good and the bananas were really good - as they were actually ripe and didn't go from under ripe to spoilt in a split second.

The box also contained mushrooms, leeks, parnsips, potatoes, carrots, onions and a savoy cabbage.

While this is quite a lot for two people to eat in a week, the great thing about root vegetables is that they last, so we focussed (initially) on using up the more perishable items. The cabbage was used both as an accompaniment (creamed cabbage) and in a stir fry. The mushrooms were used on pizzas (this was our one bit of real wastage from the box - as Andy doesn't eat mushrooms and there were too many for me to eat all by myself) and the remainder of the vegetables were used in a variety of dishes - from mashed potato, to roasts, to soup.

A couple of the parsnips were very large, so they were immediate candidates for a very simple curried parsnip soup. The great thing about using parsnips for soup is that they're already starchy so you don't even need potatoes to help thicken things up.

Begin by softening a chopped onion in little oil (or olive oil and butter). Mix in a tablespoon of good quality curry powder (or less - this is very much 'to taste'). As the emphasis here is quick don't muck around with individual spices! Peel and chop your parsnips (I used two huge ones) and add to the onion. As parsnips will discolour, immediately add about 500mL of vegetable stock or plain water. Bring the mix to the boil and wait for the parsnips to cook.

Once the parsnips are soft, use a blender or stab mixer to puree the mix. If it needs letting down, use milk, water or stock. Adjust the seasoning. Serve - perhaps topped with a little sour cream or a drizzle of chilli oil.

As I can't photograph soup ... here is a picture of the vege box instead:

Spot the monster parsnip in the foreground!

Because of the limited number of ingredients you can have this soup on the table in little more than the time it takes to cook the parsnips. If you have a little more time to play with, you could roast the parsnips (perhaps with some garlic) or you could play around with a more adventurous spice mix.

Not only is this dish vegetarian friendly, but it's also quite easy to ensure it's vegan friendly: stick to oil for sweating the onions and offer your chilli oil or sour cream separately.

Our vege box experience was a very positive one and we both felt that the quantity, diversity and quality of the vegetables would be worth the money - and I even ate some fruit! I'd definitely recommend a box for any busy family who finds themselves stuck in a rut buying the same selection of vegetables from the supermarket. It's also a great way to support smaller businesses.

Other soup ideas: cauliflower and almond, roast garlic, or squash. Really - almost anything you can boil up and puree can be turned into a soup!

Some News

2009-01-16T22:28:00.002Z

Fri 16 Jan 2009

It's been a long time since a bit of a round up, so here's some news from round Leeds and Yorkshire in general.

Firstly - if you are in Yorkshire and you fancy a bit of manual wine-related labour, you may be interested in the Yorkshire Heart Vineyard activity weekend. Over the weekend of 31 January and 1 February, the vineyard, located in Nun Monkton, North Yorks, is opening itself to willing hands. All you have to do is hope for good weather ...

If you haven't already noticed Felicini, formerly on Albion Street, has gone the way of many other businesses and closed its doors. Although I was quite a fan initially, over the last 6 months or so, the menu had been cut down dramatically and it wasn't nearly as good as it had been. I've also been sad to note the closing of Pita in Headingley. They used to make excellent felafel sandwiches - essential food at the end of a night out - and it's a shame a small, independent business making good food has gone, while a well known sandwich chain (with an awful, distinctive smell) seems to be doing a thriving business a few doors down.

Of course, the credit crunch means that there are food offers everywhere. No 3 York Place (on, um, York Place) is offering a very good value lunch/early bird menu - just £30 for 3 courses, including a bottle of wine, for two people. The Malmaison (Swinegate) is offering the same deal (almost - the Mal's is priced at £29) - but you'll need to register on their site to get the voucher. Yo!Sushi (inside Harvey Nicks) is running a 40% off sale (visit the site for the voucher). And Pizza Express (Corn Exchange, Clarence Dock) are in on the New Year sale with a 2-for-1 offer. There are bound to be others - keep your eyes peeled!

WBW53: Wine for Breakfast

2009-01-14T12:35:00.002Z

Wed 14 Jan 2009

When January's Wine Blogging Wednesday was announced at the end of last year I was really excited, as our host, El Jefe, had chosen wine for breakfast. My initial, and utterly unoriginal, thought was Champagne with scrambled eggs and smoked salmon. This was scuppered because, to make life difficult, he had stipulated we had to choose a still, dry wine.

I've obviously had far too good a Christmas and New Year, because at this stage of 2009, I'm bogged down with a head cold and I'm barely interested in food let alone alcohol. The thought of wine at breakfast, or any other time, is not exciting me at all.

Rather than not participate, I hope my theoretical approach will suffice. As soon as I dry out sufficiently to drink at breakfast time I will put my hypothesis to the test.

So - let's begin by thinking about breakfast. A proper breakfast - a full English. This means bacon, sausages, black pudding (all fried, thank you very much), egg (scrambled or fried - probably fried if I've fried the meats because then you get a lovely crispy meaty base to your egg and it's less faff), fried bread and toast (buttered) and, if available, home made baked beans. I'd have mushrooms too, but Andy doesn't like them so for the sake of domestic harmony, we'll leave them off the plate. Of course, I have no picture for you ... this is all in my head and flickr failed to produce even an approximation of the breakfast I'm talking about!

Although my recipe for baked beans includes chorizo I'm not going the way of a Spanish wine. This is for two reasons: there's loads of fat on the plate, so I need something with good acidity. I want to cut through the fat and I want to match the acidity of the tomatoes in the beans. Secondly, I don't want anything too big, weighty, alcoholic or even complex. The flavours on the plate are complex enough: if the sausages are good they'll be full of herbs, if the black pudding is good it'll be spicy and laced with pepper. The beans are a dish in themselves and the presence of the egg just complicates everything.

If I were interested solely in fulfilling the second criterion I'd be tempted to go with a Beaujolais (which, interestingly, Andrew over at Spittoon paired with his bacon butty). I suspect that my plate has too much going on and that the Beaujolais could fail to work with both the beans and the black pudding.

The natural place to find acidity in a red wine is Italy. And I'm going to head for one of my favourite wines: Chianti. I was tempted to suggest Lambrusco, because in theory this should work well too but not only is it not still, I'd also have to find a good one to try at a later date and that might prove a little tricky. My theory is that a Chianti will be robust enough to stand up to the flavours on the plate but won't fight with the spice and herbs. Its acidity should both cut through the fat and complement the tomatoes.

I'm not entirely convinced that wine is a good and proper thing to have with a full English. After all, greasy spoons serve strong tea (from an urn) and strong (instant) coffee for a reason ...

7 Random Things About Me

2009-01-07T12:32:00.003Z

Wed 7 Jan 2009

I'm a very bad person: at the tail end of last year I was tagged a few times for memes and have failed miserably in responding. So, I'm going to redress the back log and start with the Random Things meme. I was tagged for this by Anne, of Anne's Kitchen.

So ... here are my random things (appropriately, no particular order):

1. My favourite food in the world is spaghetti with chilli, oil and garlic. I think this is neither random nor weird - but plenty of people disagree.

2. I cut the tops off tubes to use up all of whatever is in the tube. Again - I think this is normal, but I've been informed otherwise.

3. I think that watching TV is a participation sport. Ditto reading the newspaper.

4. I LOVE entering competitions!

5. I hate peas. I like fresh, raw peas - but cooked peas are utterly wrong.

6. As is Pinotage.

7. I love skiing. Ironically, I did more skiing living in Australia than I've managed in 8 years of living in England.

So - the rules are that I now tag 7 random people and comment on their blogs to let them know.

Here we go.

I'm going to start by tagging Marcus Wareing. Yes, he's a famous chef and yes, his blog hasn't been updated since April last year, but I'm not going to let that stop me! Anyone reading this site often enough will know that I'm something of a fan: I've eaten in his restaurant and cooked (and sung the praises of) plenty of his recipes. Let's see what happens ...

Next is Ros at Living to Eat.

The Half Baked Baker.

Jules, the Domestic Goddess (in training).

Jeanne, at CookSister.

David, at Book the Cook.

And finally - Helen at Beyond Salmon.

Quick Dips

2009-01-05T13:34:00.004Z

Sat 3 Jan 2009

I know the entertaining season feels like it's over, but let's face it - it doesn't need to be Christmas or New Year to have a party. And whenever you have a party - it needs catering. I grew up in a household where party planning and preparation was a joy and I've inherited my mother's need to ensure there's enough food to feed a small army. Andy was doubtful - "don't do too much food", he warned, "we don't want people here all night".

By Saturday morning, everything was ready bar the last minute bits and pieces - and that included two dips. Dips are the easiest things in the world to make (especially if you have any type of food processor) and the home made variety ends up being cheaper and a lot healthier (in case you're on a New Year health kick).

These two dips are very different and come from very different books.

The first is Ainsley Harriott's butter bean hummous, from his Friends and Family Cookbook. This dip is really nothing like hummous - no chickpeas, no tahini and a hell of a lot less olive oil.

For about one cup of dip use a small tin of butter beans (make sure they're in water and give them a quick rinse before using them). Put this in your blending equipment of choice, add a small clove of garlic and some very finely chopped fresh rosemary (probably only a teaspoonful or so - all down to your taste really). Whizzy up. Add extra virgin olive oil to let the mix down to dip-like consistency (often a very personal preference) and adjust seasoning. I added salt and pepper. Transfer to a serving bowl and finish with a swirl of extra virgin olive oil.

For the next dip, I headed to Made in Morocco and produced a spiced carrot dip. This was definitely my favourite of the two, but that's because I love carrots, chillis and cumin! To make this dip you'll either need to buy some harissa, a North African chilli paste, or make your own.

To make enough harissa for this dip, take your mortar and add some chilli flakes, a clove of crushed garlic, some salt and a sprinkling of toasted cumin seeds. Batter this all together and bring it to a paste with a little extra virgin olive oil. The exact quantities you can vary to your taste: I used about a teaspoon of chilli flakes (end product - HOT!), one clove of garlic and about half a teaspoon of cumin seeds. The recipe in the book is the 'in bulk' version and begins with 1 cup of dried chillis!

While you're battering away at the harissa, put some peeled, chopped carrots on to boil. I used four small-medium sized ones. When the carrots are cooked through, tip them into your blender and whizzy up. Add the harissa and extra garlic and extra virgin olive oil as you need. If you're serving the dip to those with delicate palates, go gently with the harissa.

I absolutely loved this dip and will definitely be making it again. It has the sweetness of the carrot, the smokey, rich flavour of the toasted cumin, the fire of the chilli and the tang of the garlic. Fantastic!

Spiced carrot dip & butterbean 'hummous'

I made both these dips in under an hour (and that included washing out the blender and waiting for the carrots to cook). They were very cheap to produce and they're actually very healthy (not actually a priority of mine, but maybe for some people!) because neither requires a lot of olive oil to bring them to a good dipping consistency. Oh - and they're also suitable for vegetarians and vegans.

Happy new year!

How to Open a Bottle of Champagne

2008-12-31T13:59:00.002Z

Wed 31 Dec 2008

Almost time to ring in the New Year, so, as promised (albeit a day late), here at Eating Leeds we're bringing you a video on how to open a bottle of bubbly - so you don't douse yourself or your friends and waste the bottle's contents!

There's been a few technical issues (ironically not with making the video but with getting it on to the web) - hence the delay. However, we're confident that it won't be an issue with future videos.

And ... most importantly - we want your feedback! What do you want to see a video on? Do you never want to see a video on Eating Leeds ever again?! Do you want to see wine? Cooking? Something else altogether? Corrections, criticisms and compliments are all welcome!

Happy new year!

Lemon Syrup Cake

2008-12-29T21:27:00.002Z

Thurs 18 Dec 2008

I've recently had some time off work (hooray for 'having to use up holidays') and took advantage of a lot of the time to do some cooking. At one stage I was faced with a glut of lemons. I've been using delicious for ages now and find it a brilliant way of keeping track of recipes. I no longer need to maintain a folder of scraps cut from the newspaper - I can keep my chaotic recipe hoarding on someone else's server. Excellent.

So - faced with lemons, it took me no time at all to track down a Nigel Slater lemon syrup cake, from January 2007. Being a huge fan of this man's cakes it didn't take long before I found myself in the kitchen.

And only slightly longer before I began adapting the recipe. Seriously - why does anyone put orange in anything ever?!

This is a great cake - quick to assemble (although the syrup takes a bit of faff) and the nuts and syrup ensure it stays moist long enough for a family of two to plough through it.

I began by taking 100g of roasted hazelnuts I already had in the cupboard and giving them a quick whizz in the Magimix. Grind them as finely or as coarsely as you like. I suspect Nigel Slater errs more coarsely than me. Set them to one side. Then, cream 210g of unsalted butter with 210g of caster sugar. Add three large eggs and mix until well combined. Next, add 125g of ground almonds and 150g of polenta. Finish with a teaspoon of baking powder, the hazelnuts and the juice and zest of a lemon. Don't be alarmed - it's quite a stiff cake mixture.

When it's all combined, tip into a greased, base lined 20-23cm springform tin and bake in an oven preheated to 180°C (160°C fan) for half an hour. Then, turn the oven down 20° and bake for a further half an hour or so. If your cake is beginning to colour too much, cover with foil. As always, cook until done. As you will be adding syrup I suspect slightly overdone is better than slightly underdone.

Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool a little while you make the syrup. Grate and zest two lemons into a measuring jug and then top up, with water, to 250mL. Pour this mixture into a saucepan with 100g of caster sugar and bring to the boil. The sugar will dissolve and the syrup will thicken and reduce. When reduced to about 3/4 of its original volume, remove from the heat and add 2 tablespoons of liqueur of your choice. In my case, it was rum.

Stab your cake (still in the tin) all over with a skewer and then pour over the syrup. Leave the cake to cool completely in the tin (it's likely to look a little saggy in the middle, but don't worry) before inverting on to a plate.

You really don't need to ice this cake, but there's no harm in serving with cream or mascarpone.

The nuts and polenta alone would keep this cake moist - add the syrup and it keeps brilliantly. A trifle sticky perhaps, if it's spent the morning on your desk wrapped in tin foil, but a luscious addition to a supper for New Year's Eve!

So there's the sweet fix as promised! Tomorrow - I'll be showing you (quite literally) how to open a bottle of bubbly for New Year's Eve. Last time I did this was at a wine tasting and I ended up drenched ... does the same thing happen when I'm at home with a camera pointed at me?!

Simple Pork Chops

2008-12-21T11:18:00.002Z

Sat 13 Dec 2008

Last Saturday, after our visit to Leventhorpe Vineyard, we drove home via the Methley Bridge Farm Shop, hoping to pick up something for supper. We ended up leaving with two fat pork chops.

My last Simple Supper proved very popular, so here's another recipe in the same vein. Don't forget - if you like a recipe, stumble it!

Although this recipe is very quick and simple you end up with something that looks more than presentable, so you can serve this to guests, even in non-emergency situations.

Pork can be tricky to deal with - people often complain about it being dry and tough. Partly the problem is modern pork: it's bred a little too lean and butchers often strip off a lot of the fat. Personally, I think pork fat is delicious but if you don't like it - cook with it on, cut it off on your plate!

When cooking pork chops I find it best to muck around with the meat itself as little as possible.

Heat some butter and oil in a pan and get it good and hot. Lightly season your chops and, once the pan is hot, add the chops ... AND DON'T TOUCH THEM. As soon as they go into the hot pan the meat will start to catch and if you start prodding at them and trying to move them around it will tear and you'll have opened up a world of pain. The meat will seal in the hot pan and you'll know when this has happened because you'll be able to move the chops around easily. They'll have picked up a lovely colour on their underside and, keeping the pan hot, you can turn them over and repeat the process.

When the pork is almost cooked (personally, I think people overcook pork, but I leave the degree of doneness required to you!) take it out of the pan, put it on a plate, cover with tin foil and rest in a warm oven (the oven might be on for roasting potatoes ... you never know).

Now, to your pan, which should have all sorts of lovely porky goodness in its base, add a generous glug of something alcoholic - we had some Amontillado Sherry lying around so that's what we used, but you could easily substitute Brandy, a dry Sherry, Madeira or Marsala. Even, at a pinch, white wine.

As the alcohol bubbles away, make sure you give the pan a good scrape to incorporate all the porky bits in your sauce. Add some single cream and a generous teaspoon of grainy mustard. When that's incorporated, taste and adjust the seasoning as necessary (in our case, more mustard went in, followed shortly afterwards by more cream).

Serve your chops on hot plates, topped with this sauce. We paired the chops with steamed carrots and brussel sprouts and roast potatoes.

With the creamy, mustardy sauce I think you are better off pairing this with a lighter red wine. Something Italian springs to mind, as Italian reds tend to have reasonable levels of acidity that will cut through the cream and they're usually not too aggressively fruit forward. I'm thinking Chianti - but don't forget many good Australian Sangioveses can be found, particularly from McLaren Vale.

I feel like I haven't posted anything sweet for a while, so to rectify that, next up will be a lemon syrup cake. If want to know when that's posted - subscribe to our RSS feed or emails!

Pipe and Glass Inn

2008-12-17T21:23:00.003Z

Sun 14 Dec 2008

Back in July I'd tried to take Andy to South Dalton's Pipe and Glass Inn and had been turned down because the pub was playing host to a wedding. The nerve.

I'd subsequently spent some time looking around for nearby accommodation but it finally dawned on me that I'd have to drive or we'd never go. I was horrified when it was mentioned recently on Saturday Kitchen. I thought we now had not a hope in hell of securing a table.

Of course, things are never quite that bad and, by Friday lunch time, a table was booked for a late Sunday lunch and the car hire was in place. We took a scenic route from Leeds (not the M62) and, after somewhat disconcertingly driving through a park, we arrived in the village. My tip - if you're not using sat nav, make sure you take the route involving the B1248!

The village is truly tiny: the pub and a handful of houses. The pub's car park is a significant part of the layout. The pub itself is a typical, gorgeous country pub. With winter and Christmas now upon us, the pub was even more pretty. And this was certainly true inside, where the Christmas decorations were stylish, the fire was blazing and the leather sofas fat and welcoming.

As it was 2pm we were quite peckish, so we chomped away on some olives while inspecting the menu and specials. It was all proper winter food and our choices were predictably seasonal. I started with spiced potted Gloucester Old Spot piggy, with a crackling and quince salad, followed by cider braised pheasant, with baked apple, thyme mash and black pudding and chestnut stuffing. Andy began with rabbit rissoles and finished with the most enormous plate of roast goose imaginable.

I was driving - so alcohol was limited to a couple of pints for Andy while I had an orange juice and water. I didn't even look at the wine list although there was a selection of reasonably priced Champagnes available by the glass.

The pub indulges in the weird (to me, at least!) practice of letting you sit in the lounge more or less right up until the moment your starter is ready. Once seated, we took our slices of bread and were presented with our starters. The first indication of how relaxed (a little too relaxed) service was came as Andy's neatly piled rabbit rissoles went tumbling around the plate as it was placed in front of him. Although both starters seemed quite small portions, no doubt enhaced by how famished we were after the drive, the food was delicious. I definitely thought I had won: my coarsely chopped pork was presented in a tiny pot, with matching spoon and was perfectly spiced and seasoned. The word 'spice' instantly conjures up all sorts of ideas of chilli, heat and exotic flavours from the far east - but this was spiced with sage, capers and pepper and was delicious. My crackling salad was generous with the crackling but, while I enjoyed the candied quince very much, I felt the salad had been dressed with just a little too much of the syrup. Andy's only complaint about his rissoles was of a similar nature.

In fact, this was something of a theme throughout the meal - well balanced flavours and perfectly cooked meats rather drowned in sauce.

Our main courses were both very generous portions, Andy's ridiculously so! He had a massive plate, with sliced roast goose breast piled high on creamed cabbage, accompanied by a very festive redcurrant sauce, with potato and deep fried haggis (and yes, that is as delicious as it sounds!). My pheasant (with just one piece of shot) was as described: the baked apple was gorgeously soft and sweet, the stuffing and the mash did a valiant job of mopping up the excessive sauce, and the meat itself was lovely. Our mains were accompanied by three dishes of vegetables: roast potatoes, braised red cabbage and a mix of broccoli and courgette.

The menu was the height of seasonal eating and our food was ideal for a cold, winter's afternoon.

After finishing all of that (Andy did a far better job of clearing his plate than me) we weren't technically hungry but, faced with the dessert menu, we found ourselves sharing cinder toffee icecream with chocolate honeycomb with a pot of coffee. The icecream was served gorgeously soft and the coffee was really, really good.

The bill came to just under £70, which means we rated the experience as pretty good value. Our only complaint with the food was the excessive saucing. Now, a large part of that is personal preference - and we did notice that some dishes were coming out with sauce boats. Maybe this should be extended to more dishes. I know it's hard with something like pheasant, in particular. The meat tends to dry and you want to make sure the diner has plenty of gravy. However, my gravy was so rich (helped in no small part by the cider) that I would have preferred a degree of control.

The service at the Pipe and Glass was good: friendly and efficient, but a bit too casual for the overall ambience. The chef built the little tower of rissoles presumably for them to stay that way, I don't like people unnecessarily leaning across me to collect my bread plate, and there's no need to collect so many plates at once that you create a racket by having the glass jar from the potted pork skittle across a plate.

That's only two small grumbles - both of which could be fixed easily. At the end of the day, the food is good and the restaurant is spacious, well laid out and has a cosy, welcoming atmosphere. It is also worth mentioning that it's very child friendly, and that you might find yourself feeling slightly under-dressed in your jeans!

1. The Pipe and Glass Inn, West End, South Dalton, Beverley, East Yorkshire, HU17 7PN, phone: 01430 810246, map.

Leventhorpe Vineyard

2008-12-17T14:42:00.002Z

Sat 13 Dec 2008

Last Thursday I hosted a tasting of Latitude's wines at The Bowery in Headingley. At the end of the tasting proper a question was asked about the quality of English wine. Aside from a brief encounter with a very old Nyetimber and a couple of glasses of Chapel Down sparkling rosé I was really only in a situation to discuss English wine from the textbook point of view, rather than personal experience.

Time to remedy that, then. Here in Leeds we have, on our doorstep, one of the most northerly vineyards in the world. It's one of those generally accepted facts that most wine making grapes are grown between 30 and 50° latitude north and south of the equator. Leventhorpe Vineyard sits at 53°45' north of the equator, just outside the Leeds ring road. While the south coast has almost a preponderance of vineyards, Leventhorpe was, until recently, all by itself* - dealing with even more rain than its southern cousins.

True to form, our visit was a cold, rainy day - inside the tiny winery cum tasting room it registered a cosy 4°C. We'd rung in advance (as advised) and were greeted by the winemaker himself, George Bowden. He was more than happy to spend quite a long time chatting to us and telling us all about his wines, as we tasted them (yes, wine geek heaven).

We began with the 2006 Hill Field, which is a Yorkshire Regional Wine (how cool is that?!), 11.5%abv, and a blend of Seyval Blanc (a hybrid) and Madeleine Angevine (technically Madeleine x Angevine 7672). Hill Field is the name of the field which houses the vineyard and it has been known as such since at least the Doomsday Book, in which it is mentioned. For this wine, the grapes have been fermented together and the result is a wine with quite a floral nose, but plenty of lemon and citrus on the palate. The level of acidity is quite high, no doubt helped by the chilly conditions, so initially the wine seemed quite tart. It did soften a bit when we warmed it up - which makes me think it would be a good wine for a hot day, or for cutting through the a fatty, warming dish, such as fish and chips.

We moved on to a 2006 Seyval Blanc, of which 10% had been affected by Botrytis Cinerea. At present, this wine is not for sale. Here, similarly high levels of acidity were well balanced by flavours of fresh and dried apricot, with some good citrus fruit.

The 2006 West Riding Red is a blend of five grapes. Again, they've been fermented together, rather than blended. The wine is 60% Triomphe (another hybrid), Pinot Noir, Gamay Hatif des Vosges (a different clone to the Gamay you'll find in Beaujolais), Dornfelder and Rondo (another hybrid). The wine had some quite pronouned Port like characteristics on the nose - apparently from the Triomphe, and they should disappear with age. Underneath this developed fruit there was also some fresh redcurrant. The palate featured plenty of tobacco with some vegetal notes. Of all the wines we tried this suffered the most from being far far too cool. I was unconvinced by the wine (hardly fair, given the conditions), but we ended up buying a bottle and we'll make sure we try it drink it closer to the 15°C recommended by George.

At this point, we realised we'd skipped the 2005 Madeleine Angevine (clearly too much chat) so we back tracked. The nose was very floral - perhaps the reason why Riesling is rumoured to be amongst the grape's parentage. On the palate, plenty of stone fruit matched with good acidity. This was our star wine of the tasting and I'm really looking forward to trying it at a more appropriate temperature!

We ended up buying 2 bottles of the Madeleine Angevine, one of the West Riding Red and one of sparkling wine. The still wines are all £7 a bottle at the cellar door, a price point which puts them up against some stiff competition once you're in a retail environment. Because of our climate, the wines are very high in acidity, which might not be to everyone's taste. In addition, as the wines are made from grapes we don't see often, there's very little to compare against. Drinking one of these wines will most definitely NOT be like drinking a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc! Having said that, I think the quality of the wines certainly elevates them above being curiosities. It is clear that the wines are being made not only with love but with consideration and an open mind.

For those of you who can't enjoy a trip to the vineyard, you can order the Madeleine Angevine, a straight Seyval Blanc (not tasted by us) and the sparkling wine from the Yorkshire Deli.

* It is now joined by Yorkshire Heart, at almost 54° north, which should be producing wines for sale in 2009.

1. Leventhorpe Vineyard, Bullerthorpe Lane, Woodleford, Leeds, LS26 8AF, phone: 0113 288 9088

Books for Cooks, Eaters and Drinkers

2008-12-15T15:08:00.003Z

Mon 15 Dec 2008

The chances are that, by now, you've either finished your Christmas shopping or you're facing the next week or so with an increasing sense of dread.

I've already done some of the work for you by suggesting places to shop. Now, I'm raiding my bookshelf to offer up a list of my favourite books, in case you need last minute inspiration. I have linked through to Amazon, but I'd also urge you to pay a visit to any local bookstores and charity shops. The chances are that, by browsing, you'll find something far more interesting than anything I list here.

If you need to buy for someone showing an interest in wine, but not delved too far into wine geekdom, I recommend Oz Clarke's Introducing Wine. It covers a lot of information but in a chatty, approachable and, most importantly, memorable style.

For the fully matured wine geek, my favourite book (at the moment) is The World Atlas of Wine, by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson. The current edition has the green cover, and the book covers the wines of the world by focussing on geography. Maps and wine all in one book!

Eating wise, my personal all time favourite book is Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries. It's chatty, focusses on seasonal eating and the majority of the recipes are low fuss affairs. It's size might make it intimidating for the novice cook, but all you should need to do is point such a person in the direction of the chocolate brownies ...

In terms of self promotion, you should all be buying The Fairtrade Everyday Cookbook, and heading straight to page 146 where you can make my recipe for Japanese style duck breasts! Other than my excellent recipe this book will highlight just how many Fairtrade ingredients are available and what you can do with them.

As far as I'm concerned, the best part of any cookbook usually has something to do with cakes and puddings. If a book is ONLY about puddings ... what can go wrong? For the aspirational cook, look no further than Gordon Ramsay's Just Desserts. Most of us will recognise James Martin as the King of Puddings and the desserts in his Desserts book cover very solid territory: I've not had a single duff experience from this book.

I also love the two Marcus Wareing books I have but if I had to choose one it would be One Perfect Ingredient. I received this as a review copy and promptly made about two recipes a week from it for about a month.

Finally - for the very serious, the one book that should be in everyone's collection is Larousse Gastronomique. It's not called an encyclopaedia for nothing. Just make sure the recipient has suitably sturdy bookshelves!

Finally - some quick non-book gift ideas. Threshers are re-running the 40% off promotion. This time you have up until 31 December to redeem this voucher and it includes sparkling wine. Last time round I picked up a bottle of Moët & Chandon 1999 vintage Champagne for around £30 (normal retail price over £40). Not only should this sort any panic present buying but it will serve you well for New Year's Eve. Remember that these vouchers are redeemable at stores that are part of the Threshers family, such as the Wine Rack and Victoria Wine.

And, if the guest recipient is based in West or North Yorkshire, Karen at The Wine Academy will be more than happy to provide gift vouchers for either WSET courses or the 'Just for Fun' events.

Best of luck with the gift buying!

WBW52: Value Reds from Chile

2008-12-10T12:10:00.002Z

Wed 10 Dec 2008

This month's Wine Blogging Wednesday is hosted by Cheap Wine Ratings, who has chosen value reds from Chile. The 'rules' are a red wine from Chile that retails under $US20. At the moment, that's about £13, and no one (not even me!) thinks that £13 for a bottle of wine is cheap (of course, there's a monstrous difference between cheap and value, but bear with me). There's been some discussion and, for those of us not spending US dollars, there's some flexibility.

So ... I rolled into Latitude Wine and announced I needed a cheap Chilean red. My last cheap Chilean red outing (an Andes Peak Merlot, at about £6 a bottle) left me underwhelmed. This time round, I went for the cheapest Chilean red in the store: a Casa Roca 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot, at £4.75 a bottle.
Yes, a 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot. As you might expect, it made a big purple splash in the glass and had a very open, punchy, cassis rich nose with some vegetal notes. Now, I'm not someone who has a problem with vegetal in my red wines at all: back in April I very much enjoyed a Cabernet Franc from the Loire, precisely because of the green pepper and bramble leaf action. However, on the aroma front the Casa Roca begins and ends with cassis and vegetal.

On the palate, things were equally, um, unsophisticated. A big, big hit of fruit and ... um ... not a lot else. To me, it was unbalanced - all fruit and nothing else. No weight, no mouthfeel, no structure and no length.

Andy's comment sums it up well: there's a lot of fruit and it's not very nice.

Now - there's a huge part of me that says we're being very unfair here. Let's face it, the wine was under a fiver. While it's not impossible to buy wines that punch well above their weight at this price, it's certainly tricky. Also - I, in particular, have quite a taste for developed reds. Fruit bombs don't work for me at all - I like plenty of structure, I like complexity, I like smoke, leather, those vegetal notes ... Let's face it, if I wanted to drink Ribena ... I'd drink Ribena.

Personal preferences aside, for £5 this is a wine that would do to take to a BBQ or a party. However, if you're heading to a dinner party, I'd save my pennies and opt for something more expensive. The wines from Errázuriz, Montes, Amayna or Casa Lapostolle (which are among the Chilean reds with which we're familiar) are a little pricier but they are all more interesting to drink.

Perhaps I should have gone with the £13 price limit after all!

Moroccan Mackerel

2008-12-08T19:15:00.005Z

Sat 6 Dec 2008

A couple of weeks ago Saturday Kitchen featured part of a Rick Stein episode where he visited Morocco and made a very tasty looking sardine dish. Of course, we didn't pay nearly enough attention, deleted the episode from iplayer and subsequently couldn't find the recipe on the web. Oh, or spot sardines at the market.

Still, the inspiration was in place, and the end result was Saturday night's dinner. I doubt Moroccans would recognise this dish but it was incredibly tasty and very easy to put together. This is now firmly on my list of dishes to serve others - especially on those occasions when I've rashly invited people for a mid-week meal ...

We used one very large mackerel (just over a kilo), and this has served the two of us for two meals. Any firm fleshed, oily fish, that can stand long slow cooking, will do.

The recipe begins with chermoula - a spicy marinade (that can also be used as a sauce or for dipping). I used the recipe from Made in Morocco: make a coarsely textured paste from a small bunch of fresh coriander, 3 cloves of garlic, 1 teaspoon each of ground cumin, coriander and paprika, a red chilli, a pinch of salt, some lemon juice and some good quality olive oil. If you are planning on using this as a cold sauce or for dipping you will want to be less generous with the garlic. Also, depending on your audience you may want to omit the chilli, use less or substitute chilli powder to taste. You can make the chermoula in advance and store in the fridge.

Chermoula made, heat some vegetable oil in a pan, add the chermoula and fry it off. Add a couple of good handfuls of chopped tomatoes (skins and seeds are OK). We used about 8 small tomatoes. I'd avoid using tinned tomatoes as they will be too wet: our feeling was that using passata at this stage would be an improvement.

You don't need to cook this mixture for too long: just so that the raw edge comes off the garlic and tomatoes. Empty this mix into a baking dish and even out, so that it forms a layer.

Peel and thinly slice enough potatoes to form a generous layer over the tomato/chermoula mix. Next, add your fish, tuck a whole red chilli between the pieces and then cover with finely sliced lemons. Roughly chop another 4-6 small tomatoes and cover the lemons. Finally, top with a combination of finely sliced and chopped green pepper. Drizzle (generously) some olive oil over the top, cover the dish with foil and put in a slow oven (fan 140°C) for about an hour.

After an hour, check on how saucy your dish is. At this point ours was very saucy, so we increased the oven temperature to 180°C and removed the foil for a final 15 minutes.

We just served this in bowls, with spoons (no need for knives and forks with that slow cooking!), but you could add any type of North African inspired side: couscous, tabbouleh, or a minty-onion-potato salad would all work really well. To drink, we chose the Raimat Albarino, £8.49 a bottle from Oddbins. Although it might seem a bit strange to a wine from north eastern Spain, it's not such an odd choice. Fish is a huge part of the Catalan diet, and the wine's acidity and weight paired well with the richness of texture and flavour.

A different way of treating mackerel (but with similar flavours) is this spiced mackerel.

Simple Supper

2008-12-02T20:59:00.002Z

Mon 01 Dec 2008

A very quick supper idea tonight. Normally, because I graze, I'm a light evening eater - for me, a couple of slices of toast and a cup of tea usually does the trick. However, the cold, cold, cold weather is making even me want something more substantial.

So - what to have on a weekday when you're home late (or you've been busy doing chores), or even on a Sunday when you've just come in from the pub? Eggs - of course!

This is my take on an fritatta/omelette/tortilla (henceforth, fromto). Reasonably exact quantities for a change, and this will serve two cold, possibly wet, hungry people.

Begin by heating some vegetable oil in a deep, and grill resistant, frying pan. Chop four rashers of bacon and fry them off. When the bacon starts to crisp up, add one finely sliced (not chopped) onion. When the onion is soft, add one potato, peeled and very finely chopped. It's important that the potato is cut into very small dice, because, as well as it adding body to the finished dish, you want it to cook!

Turn the heat down and stir the potato through the bacon and onion mix. Leave this to cook for 5 or so minutes before adding one chopped green pepper.

Beat 6 eggs (I said you had to be hungry!), whisk through a splash of milk, and pour the eggs into the pan. Give the pan a shake, to ensure the egg mix is distributed evenly. Finish with a generous grinding of pepper.

Leave this (still on the low heat) to cook for about 10-15 minutes or so - until the top is actually starting to firm up. Grate some parmesan cheese over the fromto and finish off under the grill. You want the eggs to be firm (this is the tortilla and fritatta territory here - don't even think omelette) and if the top is golden, even better.

When you're happy with how things are looking (probably five or so minutes), remove the pan from the grill and (this is important), cover with tin foil and leave it to sit for 10 minutes. Don't worry - it's not going to go cold!!!! Letting the fromto sit will make it a lot easier to get out of the pan - it sort of relaxes, moves away from the sides and releases its grip on the base. This handy tip I picked up from Tom Norrington-Davies' book Cupboard Love (good Christmas present territory for anyone in need of a variety of store cupboard recipes!).

10 minutes up? Uncover the fromto, slice and serve (perhaps with a salad or some lightly steamed vegetables). Any leftovers will work well in a packed lunch and, because this can be eaten cold, it would also work as a canapé - remove from the pan, cut into cubes and skewer with cocktail sticks! As there's no salt added to the recipe, you may need to adjust seasoning (particularly if you're eating this at room temperature).

The onion and potato (aside from the eggs!) are the two critical ingredients here - add whatever else you have lurking in the fridge. I imagine left over roast chicken would be good, and mushrooms could work well too, or perhaps something with chorizo and a hint of chilli ...

Other eggy cold weather food? You can't go past toad in the hole or gougères (red wine essential!).

7 Places to Find Foodie Presents

2008-12-01T19:59:00.003Z

Mon 01 Dec 2008

In the run up to Christmas I thought I'd intersperse some gift idea lists amongst the usual posts. Today, we start off gently with a few places in Leeds (and across the country) where you should be able to find gifts for food loving friends.

1. Harvey Nichols (Briggate, city centre). Yes, obvious, but it is a bit of a one stop shop. The fourth floor food market might not be huge but you'll be able to tick off an array of gifts, from biscuits, to cook books and wine. And if you need to recover, the bar's handy. Harvey Nicks also has stores in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Bristol and Dublin. And you can order hampers on line.

2. Peter Maturi (Vicar Lane, city centre). My favourite shop in Leeds! Extreme cookware on the ground floor and interiors on the second: you'd be hard pressed not to find a gift for a serious cook in this place. Online shopping is now (dangerously) available. Also in Manchester.

3. Salt's Deli (Swinegate, city centre). As well as hampers for friends you'll find a good array of cheese, wines and other artisan foods.

4. Latitude Wine (The Calls, city centre). If you're looking for a good selection of wines (across all price points), as well as an impressive collection of spirits, drop in to Latitude, put together a case and, if you've spent over £30, delivery is free within Leeds. At the moment, the shop is running themed tastings on Thursday nights from 6 - 8pm. This Thursday, they're pairing poultry with Pinot Noir ...

5. Salvo's Salumeria (Otley Road, Headingley). Plenty of goodies like biscotti, quince paste and cakes can be found here. If you know someone who loves Italian food you need to head to Headingley. There are also themed meals throughout the year, if you want to spoil yourself.

6. TK Maxx (Headrow, city centre). Sounds ridiculous? Not at all. If you don't have a particular gift in mind, browsing at TK Maxx (in the big new store on the Headrow) can yield all sorts of food-oriented gifts. I've picked up everything from cookbooks to Le Creuset. All you need is a bit of patience!

7. Beer Ritz (Weetwood Lane, Far Headingley). If you're shopping for a beer lover Beer Ritz should be able to supply you with plenty of different beers (and often the matching glass!) to keep his or her Christmas interesting. You'll also find wines and spirits - but it's really all about the beer.

Finally, in the run up to Christmas it will be worth checking out the various farmers' markets: the main one is held at the city centre's Kirkgate markets on the first and third Sunday of the month (so head along this Sunday!). The Headingley farmers' market will be held on Saturday 13 December outside Trio on North Lane. And the Chapel Allerton farmers' market Saturday 20 December at the Oakwood Clock.

If I've missed your favourite supplier - let us all know!

Windsor Castle

2008-11-24T21:08:00.003Z

** NOTE: if you're looking for the full notes from the Majestic tasting - they're here. I've updated the original post with the missing link!

Sat 22 Nov 2008

Usually when I'm planning on eating in a pub in London I have a variety of resources on which I draw to ensure that I've got a good chance of hitting a happy combination of good food, good beer and a good atmosphere. Normally I consult more than one such oracle and spend a disproportionate amount of time agonising over location, decoration, price and menu. Yes, it's very sad.

However, on Saturday as we left the Decanter Fine Wine Encounter (more on that later) the need for food was quite pressing. The weather wasn't great, so it had to be near to Marylebone station, and Andy was in need of a beer.

Thanks to the magic of internet enabled mobile phones I was able to make a quick visit to fancyapint and find us a venue. The closest 5 pint pub to Marylebone tube happened to be the Windsor Castle so off we headed.

The pub is home to a Thai restaurant, which is upstairs and opens at 6pm - which we found out as we tried prise open the door! So there was nothing to do but settle down at a table and ... have a beer. There's not a huge selection of beers on offer: three handpulls and a few standard lagers. Still, the pints of Wells Bombardier and Adnam's we ordered seemed in good order.

The pub is reasonably traditional in layout: small bar and a couple of rooms that aren't huge, but it's definitely not poky. The walls are crammed (and I mean, CRAMMED) with photographs. Celebrities adorn the bar and a couple of wall panels are dedicated to various shots of the royal family.

We were eventually allowed in the tiny restaurant. Wall decoration follows the royal theme and the tables are set with alarming plastic laminated green gingham tablecloths. To say we were a bit scared is something of an understatement! Still, putting on a brave face we decided our meal would either be excellent or monumentally awful.

And I'm so happy to say it was excellent and very cheap! The menu contains the usual suspects as well as a few new turns - so we needed some time (and some prawn crackers) to inspect it. The star turn of the starters was, without a doubt, my spicy Thai sausage. This was delicious: spicy, lemongrassy, full of flavour and dense with meat. Given the sausage's 1 chilli on the menu I was wondering how hot my 3 chilli main course would be. A milder version of the sausage also appeared at our table which, while good, had to play second fiddle to its spicier cousin. Six small vegetable spring rolls and some dumplings also got the thumbs up.

For our main courses we had both red curries on the menu. Mine was the spicier of the two: almost ferociously hot, with just barely cooked veggies (that's a good thing - I worry about vegetables sitting in curry sauces for days on end ...) and a curry base not too laden with coconut. We also had a vegetable green curry and a seafood noodle dish.

As we were starving it didn't take us long to polish off the food, but we were lingering over our drinks. The restaurant manager eventually asked us if we'd mind moving down to the bar as they had a reservation that needed seating! Throughout our meal the service was quiet, efficient and friendly - even when we were being asked to move it was done in the nicest possible way.

The final bill was just £66. For two courses each, for four people, in central London - I think that's something of a bargain. If you ever find yourself knocking around Marylebone/Edgware Road you could do a lot worse than nipping in for a drink or something to eat. Whatever you do - don't let the distinctive décor put you off!

Now I, for one, am on the hunt for spicy Thai sausage recipes!

1. The Windsor Castle, 27-29 Crawford Place, W1H 4LQ, phone: 020 7723 4371, map.

Another London pub we like: The Charles Lamb in Islington.

Majestic Christmas Tasting

2008-11-21T18:41:00.005Z

Thurs 13 Nov 2008

Back in June the Leeds Majestic closed after a fire. It's now re-opened (in time for Christmas!) and on Thursday night we went along for an 'exclusive tasting evening', showcasing some wines from the Winter range.

We weren't sure what to expect so set our expectations low. On arrival we were greeted with a glass of bubbly and a wine tasting card which listed the wines available for tasting with plenty of space for notes. Even though I'd brought along my tasting notebook and pen I was impressed.

There were ten wines on tasting, and very generous measures were being poured. As you'd expect, the staff were up to speed on what they were pouring so there was plenty of opportunity to learn about the wines. I was interested to see that people were asking lots of questions and I wasn't the only one taking notes!

After the sparkling, we tasted four whites and five reds. You can find the full list and read my full tasting notes here, but for now I'll mention just the standout wines.

To start with, the Langlois Crémant de Loire that we started with punched well about its £12 price tag (£7.99 if you buy two or more). It has an interesting, complex nose and drank well. It doesn't appear to hold its mousse that well though - the wine had obviously been poured prior to the tasting starting and the bubbles were rather thin on the ground by the time we got to it. Still, I doubt that would be a problem if you're opening a bottle in a social setting ...

On the still whites, both Andy and I agreed that we weren't overly fussed by either of the Chardonnays. We were split on the two Sauvignon Blancs we tasted: I preferred the Paul Mas (France) while Andy preferred the Lanner Hill (South Africa). While I did think that the Lanner Hill was the better wine in most respects it lacked the excellent structural acidity of the French wine. The Lanner Hill did have an aggressively asparagus nose so it may not be everyone's cup of tea.

On the reds we were in agreement. The star of the show for us was the Marco Porello Barbera d'Alba. At £8 a bottle it looks like a bit of a bargain. The nose was rich cherries and stewed rhubarb - and the cherries carried through to the palate. Good structure and a nice long, slightly bitter (and that's bitter in a good way) finish.

Runner up was the Premier Vin du Château de Pitray - a Côtes de Castillon Bordeaux. A typical blackcurranty Bordeaux nose with enough vegetal character on both nose and palate to lead me to guess there was some Cabernet Franc in the bottle. It turns out I was right: the wine's a Merlot Cab Franc blend from this new appellation.

Probably the most disappointing wine was the Roaring Meg Pinot Noir from New Zealand's Central Otago region. At £17.49 a bottle I want to be impressed and I just wasn't. To be totally fair to this wine - it was the 7th wine we tasted and we tasted it after the Barbera.

We left the tasting feeling that the hour or so we'd spent in Majestic was a massive improvement in experience over the time we'd spent in Vinopolis a few weeks ago. There were interesting wines on offer and plenty of opportunity to learn. My only criticism is that I would have liked a few more spittoons - I only spotted one, which meant I ended up drinking rather than spitting!

Decanter Fine Wine Encounter

2008-11-19T21:01:00.002Z

Wed 19 Nov 2008

A very quick post to let you know that on Saturday we'll be heading to the Decanter Fine Wine Encounter at London's Landmark Hotel.

I'm very excited because, not only will I be spending a day tasting wine (well, it might be half tasting, half drinking ...), but this year the show is featuring a Gold Room which is playing host to a selection of wines which won gold medals at the Decanter World Wine Awards. I've been doing plenty of research and hope to taste some really good wine!

More importantly - I plan to twitter about the experience - so, if you follow me* you'll be kept updated with what we're tasting and pictures too! It will be the ONLY thing I twitter about on Saturday so I won't be using hashtags.

Unfortunately, no mobile phone operator in the UK has cut Twitter a deal, so it's unlikely I'll be picking up too many (if any) tweets. This means that if you have something you'd like me to watch out you'll need to let me know in advance.

Of course - any readers (or twitterers) who will be at the event - please give me a shout before the end of the week.

Not really that into this whole internet mullarkey? Not a problem - as I'll round up the day next week!

*Firefox/Flock users may want to consider using the excellent TwitterFox add-on.

SHF: Glitter

2008-11-17T20:51:00.001Z

Sun 16 Nov 2008

This month's Sugar High Friday, hosted by the Well Seasoned Cook, is Glitter. Susan offered a few ideas to get participants started but I always knew where I was going.

When I was little, we used to have a tube of silver cachous in the cupboard. They were used, unsurprisingly, for decorating cakes. At one point, I also decided that they represented an important part of my diet and eating one (several times a day, obviously) probably granted me some kind of exciting, superhuman quality.

It was clear that, for SHF, I should revisit the cachou.

Now, thanks to the interent, it seems that 'cachou' is the Australian (and Kiwi) word for 'silver balls'. I prefer 'cachou' - 'silver balls', while descriptive, is just ridiculous.

Because I knew my cake decorating was likely to be a bit lame, I made up my own recipe for little chocolate studded cupcakes.

Take 50g of dark chocolate and either process or cut into small pieces. You could always use 50g of very small chocolate chips.

Cream 175g of unsalted butter with 130g of caster sugar. Add 150g of self raising flour, 1 tsp of baking powder and 2 (medium) eggs. Finish with 1 tbsp of rum. Finish by mixing through your chipped chocolate.

Spoon into your baking receptacle: I used my silicone muffin tray, without papers, and bake at 160°C (fan) for 20 minutes. A skewer should come out clean.

When the cakes were cool I made a basic vanilla icing. I used about 25g unsalted butter, which I melted. I then added icing sugar and hot water until I had about enough and it was the right consistency (this was around 6-8 tbsp of icing sugar), and finished with 1 tsp of vanilla essence.

I finished my iced cakes with writing icing (surprisingly difficult to use) and the cachous. I discovered that very long fingernails are utterly impractical for positioning tiny silver balls in soft icing.

In the end I was a little short on icing, so I had 10 iced cupcakes, and one plain (one had already been eaten for quality control purposes). My favourites are the circus-tent style cakes: this was the easiest decoration to do and it looks the best. Things like love hearts and lettering are clearly beyond me!

The cake itself has been rated highly: because I chipped my chocolate in a food processor it's very fine, so you don't end up biting into a big chunk. In addition, it's remained distributed throughout the cake batter. The rum flavour is there, but it's not overpowering and the cakes are nice and moist.

Cake - yes, we'll definitely visit the cake again. The cachous? I'm thinking it might be time for some superhuman qualities ...

tagged with: shf, sugar high friday, cake, baking, chocolate

Linseed Bread

2008-11-16T18:18:00.003Z

Sun 16 Nov 2008

I am busy trying to use up stuff in the cupboards. This also means that stuff doesn't get replaced immediately it runs out. Last weekend I used up the last of my carraway seeds so I had to think about what else to put in the bread.

Every now and then I go through a stage of making my own breakfast cereal. When I do that, it's eaten topped with yoghurt, milk and golden linseed. As I've not managed to make cereal for a while, the golden linseed was looking lonely and neglected. A quick scoot around the internet and I'd decided I'd need about a quarter of a cup and I'd soak the seeds for an hour or so before using them.

I got quite a shock when I came to use the seeds: they'd not really swollen but they'd turned all slimy and sticky and they'd made their soaking water all ... sort of ... gelatinous. I tried rinsing them but they stayed slimy and even though I was having visions of food poisoning I put together my usual basic bread recipe.

1 tsp of dried, active yeast, 12 fl oz of warm water, 1 tablespoon of sugary stuff (in this case, maple syrup - more stuff to be used up). Once the yeast starts to bubble away, I added some salt, 500g of strong white flour and the slimy linseeds. As always, it was the KitchenAid that did the work.

Given the sliminess of the linseeds I wasn't surprised to have to add just over half a cup extra of flour. I also used a fair bit extra later, when kneading the dough.

The dough seemed to take a while to get going with its rising but eventually it got to the point where I could give it a kneading and shape my loaf. The second rising was a lot quicker and before I knew it - the loaf was out of the oven.

It looked fantastic and, as I was hungry, it wasn't long before I broke the rule about not slicing into your bread while it's still warm. The bread is delicious. The linseed hasn't weighed it down at all, hasn't imparted any sliminess and (best of all) I'm still here to tell the tale! It doesn't really add too much in terms of flavour (perhaps a slight nuttiness) but it does add to the texture. As linseed is a bit of a wonder food (high in omega-3 fatty acid, as well as B1, iron, phosphorus and magnesium, as well as good amounts of other B-group vitamins and various trace nutrients) it rather transforms the nutritional value of a slice of white bread!

Which is excellent ... as I've got rather a lot left to use up!

tagged with: bread, baking, linseed

Wine School of Excellence

2008-11-14T15:42:00.003Z

Fri 14 Nov 2008

I'm not really one for blog awards (I'm not sure I'm a warm and fluffy enough soul!), but it has occurred to me that there is someone who really deserves a bit more of the limelight than she's received.

So, especially for Karen Hardwick, at the Northern Wine Academy, I've created the Wine School of Excellence award. Karen runs classes throughout Yorkshire: mainly Leeds, Harrogate and York. She covers the WSET Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced courses, as well as running small group tastings, themed days and corporate events. Regular readers will know that I completed my Intermediate and Advanced courses in full day formats in Leeds and Harrogate, but the Northern Wine Academy also runs evening courses.

Karen's an incredibly dedicated tutor: she's more than happy to field questions outside classroom hours (very handy when you're having a last minute panic), she provides masses of support material during the courses (yes, that means homework and practice exams ...) and (of course) a great selection of wine to learn about! She also organised the trip to Provence (souther Rhône) I went on in September. In the run up to my scholarship exam she was on hand to answer questions about everything from dress code to question format.

I know that this year Karen has been nominated for WSET Educator of the Year. I really hope she wins it because I've seen first hand that her dedication to her students extends well beyond just ensuring they get through their exams.

And, of course, if you're thinking you'd like to know more about wine - you should check out the Northern Wine Academy site. Karen runs events that cater for all levels of knowledge and hosts events in York regularly.

On top of all of this, the Northern Wine Academy is celebrating its tenth birthday this year! So, happy birthday!!

1. Northern Wine Academy (Karen Hardwick), phone: 01904 701180.

tagged with: wset, northern wine academy, wine school of excellence, yorkshire, leeds, harrogate, york

WBW51: Madeira

2008-11-12T20:15:00.002Z

Wed 12 Nov 2008

Ooooh, I think this is the toughest Wine Blogging Wednesday yet! Joe, the 1WineDude, chose Baked Goods. By this, he meant Madeira but he widened the field to fortifieds in general, recognising that Madeira may not be readily available.

I really wanted to source a high quality Madeira for this exercise, but Madeira has a rather poor reputation. Unfortunately, this poor reputation means that, in Leeds at least, you're a little stuck for choice. So, I ended buying a Blandy's Duke of Clarence Rich Madeira, available online from Oddbins at £11.49, or from Latitude Wine, Leeds, at £12.99.

It's a bit hard to know where to start with Madeira. I think the best place to start is that it's pretty much indestructible! This means you can buy a bottle now and next Christmas ... it will taste the same (certainly can't say that about Port!). This is all thanks to the wine's production: it's oxidised and, effectively, heat treated. After fortification the wine enjoys the estufagem ageing process: it's left to cook - either in the sun, in temperature controlled wine saunas, or in large warehouses (estufa) where it's stored high-up to be kept as warm as possible (the island of Madeira, while part of Portugal, is off the north coast of Africa). Temperatures easily top 40°C.

This interesting approach to wine making is all about emulating Madeira's origins. Fortified wine was used as ballast in ships stopping at Madeira and crossing either to the East Indies or to the New World. Sailing through the tropics, the wine was heated over a long period of time, sloshed around, oxidised ... and then it turned out that everyone liked it better after it had done its world tour.

Now, with Madeira being part of Portugal, the wine is subject to EU labelling legislation - and this has meant changes. Madeira used to be labelled according to style: from Sercial being the driest, to Verdelho, Bual and Malmsey. The problem is that these are all grapes ... and often some (or all) of the wine in the bottle had been made from other grapes (most commonly Tinta Negra Mole). Today - a bottle labelled with the grape variety will still fit that sweetness profile but it will actually be made from the grape. No grape variety - you'll have to rely on descriptors on the label for style (for example, sweet or rich) and the wine is likely to be made from mostly Tinta Negra Mole.

One final fact before we move on to the wine itself - unlike many wine producing areas Madeira is very fertile. Not only is it a volcanic island but, supposedly, early Portuguese settlers burnt the island's woods. The fire lasted for years and the fertile volcanic soil was further enriched.

So - today's wine was a rich brown colour, with a nutty, raisin nose with just a hint of chocolate. On the palate it was sweet, but not cloyingly so, and the sweetness was cut through with some good solid acidity which quite surprised me. The palate was all about raisins, nuts, chocolate: I'd describe this as half way between a Christmas pudding and a bar of fruit and nut chocolate. The length wasn't bad but it was dominated by the acidity - in itself quite refreshing - and the heat from the alcohol (19% abv). I found this alcohol a little too aggressive and persistent, but then, if I were drinking this with coffee and chocolate, or cake, I doubt I'd notice.

The surprise of the evening was Andy announcing that it wasn't too bad at all. Coming from someone who doesn't like, and actively avoids, sweet wines this is high praise indeed.

I think Joe's done really well with combining topic and timing for this WBW: as we head towards Christmas, seriously consider buying a bottle of Madeira instead of Port. Given you don't have to polish it off quickly, see if you can track down one of the varietally labelled examples (online, Laithwaites sell a Malmsey). You might have to spend a little extra, but it will last you through the year in a way no other wine can!

tagged with: wbw, wine blogging wednesday, madeira

Lemon Lime Cheesecake

2008-11-10T21:50:00.005Z

Sat 08 Nov 2008

One of the British food celebrities you'll not find featured often on these pages is Jamie Oliver. When he first appeared I was too busy being wound up by the annoying voice over woman to realise how much he irritated me.

This, I suspect, is quite a shame, as more than once people have enthused about his recipes. On Friday I got to have a peak in his Jamie's Ministry of Food. For those not in the UK, this accompanies a television series in which he teaches 'ordinary' people to cook a couple of simple recipes, and the idea is that they go out and teach two friends and so on. Pyramid cooking.

Many of the recipes in the book are very basic, so the book itself might not appeal if you already know how to make scrambled eggs and knock together a stew. However, I did spot a cheesecake recipe that looked quick ... and, well, it's cheesecake ... what's not to like?

Firstly, I really admire that Oliver has put together his recipe without resorting to an array of esoteric kitchen kit. I recognise that failing in myself: if there's a gadget to do the job, I'll use it and rarely do I bother pointing out alternative means. I might have to start considering that.

So - we begin with our cheesecake base. Take 200g of Digestive biscuits and crush to fine crumbs. Oliver suggests wrapping the biscuits in a clean tea towel and battering them with a rolling pin. You so know I put them straight in the Magimix. Toast (in a dry pan) 100g of rolled oats. At this point I melted 150g of unsalted butter and added the melted butter and biscuits to the toasted oats. I'm not sure why I did that, and next time I'll follow the recipe, and dice the butter and then add it to the oats. Less washing up.

Combine the oats, butter and biccies and then press the mixture into the base of a greased 23cm springform tin. I found I had a little too much mixture - but any you don't use, keep to one side. You need to press the biscuit mix down firmly and evenly, and then cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for at least an hour.

For the filling, you'll need 600g of cream cheese (you'll find supermarket own brand just as good, and about a quarter of the price, of branded), 300mL of double cream, 150g of caster sugar, a vanilla pod and one lemon and one lime.

So, mix together the cream cheese and sugar. If the cream cheese is looking quite wet in its container, drain it off. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla pod (or substitute 1 tsp vanilla essence - a lot cheaper but you won't have all the little black flecks!) and mix in. Add the finely grated rind of the lemon and lime and the juice of the lime*. Make sure it's all mixed together well.

Whip the cream to soft peaks and fold this into the cream cheese mix.

Have a good taste and adjust as you feel necessary.

This probably won't take you an hour, so after you've made the base make yourself a cup of tea and have a rest.

Once your base has had a chance to set, remove it from the fridge and fill with the creamy filling. Smooth the top, cover with the clingfilm and refrigerate for at least another hour. You'll need to keep the cake refrigerated until you eat it all up!

Oliver finishes his cheesecake with an easy raspberry coulis (raspberries and caster sugar mixed together). You can easily manage without: the cake is rich and full of flavour. If you have some left over topping, sprinkle this over slices to serve - it's delicious!

I rate this cheesecake recipe highly because it's not baked and doesn't involve the use of gelatin. This means it's easy on the cook and also makes the end product suitable for various flavours of vegetarian. As I've already mentioned, I rate Oliver's instructions and the fact he doesn't resort to gadgetry. The only thing I think he should mention is the importance of covering the cake with clingfilm. With all that cream and cream cheese it will absorb the slightest smell from your fridge - which might be less than ideal if it happens to have last night's curry as a neighbour! Depending on your springform tin, it's may be a bit of a bother to slice: my base has quite a pronounced lip and next time (and there will be a next time) I'll go to the effort of base-lining the tin with baking parchment.

All in all - quite a result and a dish which is ideal for preparation in advance. With a fruit compote on the side (or the raspberry coulis) I would be more than happy to serve this as a dessert at a dinner party.

tagged with: cheesecake, dessert

*Oliver's recipe uses the rind of a lemon and an orange and then uses the juice of the lemon. Because of my rather strongly dislike of orange-flavoured food this was never an option ...

Vol-au-Vent

2008-11-09T19:30:00.003Z

Sat 01 Nov 2008

Former housemate's 30th birthday party on the horizon, I cheerfully volunteered to do some cooking. All well and good, but, with the chocolate brownies under control I realised that I was going to struggle with the schedule AND tracking down sausage meat to make sausage rolls.

With my logistics head firmly on my shoulders there was no time to look at the post, even though it included this month's Australian Gourmet Traveller. What was I going to make for the party that was savoury? My first idea was macaroni cheese - soon scrapped because it's not finger food. The bed was covered in cookbooks and I was getting nowhere when I decided that, just perhaps, the AGT would have something suitable.

Given that it is coming up to Christmas, I shouldn't have been surprised to find the magazine stuffed with ideas for canapés. However, I ended up taking on board the Classic Dish: Champagne Chicken Vol-au-Vent.

I know you can buy pre-made vol-au-vent cases, but where's the fun in that? Especially if you've already bought the puff pastry (yes, I was going to make my own rough-puff but ran out of time during the week!).

Making the pastry cases is actually easy, if a little fiddly. I re-rolled the pastry as I was worried that it was not quite thick enough (the AGT recipe advises 4mm). Then, I cut out 4 cm rounds with a pastry cutter. As I didn't have a 3cm cutter, I then hand-cut inner circles - not quite all the way through the pastry. If I'd had a cutter this would have been a LOT quicker.

The oven heated to 200°C and the pastry discs brushed with an egg wash, they were baked for 7 minutes. This was long enough for them to puff up and I could remove the central disc. The trick here is to ensure that not only do you remove the lid but also enough of the inside. Anything you leave behind will bake hard and will take up valuable filling space. With the middles removed, return to the oven for 5 or so minutes, until crisp and golden.

In an ideal world (and, indeed, next time) this would have been done well in advance and the little blighters frozen, ready to be used.

Moving on to the filling ... well, really, you can stuff them with whatever you fancy!

For Champagne chicken ... take one chicken breast. In a small pan, combine 125 mL of water and 250 mL of sparkling wine with a sprinkle of dried tarragon (or a small twig off fresh) and a strip or two of lemon rind. Do this in a small pan, so the chicken fits snugly. Bring this mix to the boil, add the chicken, return to the boil. Turn off the heat, cover the pan and leave to cool in the liquid. The chicken cooks surprisingly quickly.

Once the chicken has cooled, shred by hand and mix with a little lemon juice and grated lemon rind, cream, strained cooking liquor and season with white pepper and salt.

When ready - fill the vol-au-vent (generously) and return to a hot oven for a minute or two, before serving immediately - garnished if you wish. If you need to transport your vol-au-vent, I recommend doing so separately, and filling the cases just before serving.

Very 1970s, but actually, very easy and very popular!

And, if you think about it, something a little retro is what you need at a 30th birthday anyway!

Round Up

2008-11-08T12:43:00.002Z

Sat 08 Nov 2008

It's been a while since we've taken a quick tour around the Leeds' restaurant and bar scene ... so here goes!

Closures: both Nick's Brasserie on Dock Street and Battered at Brewery Wharf have fallen by the wayside. I always suspected that Battered might have been on a bit of a hiding to nothing selling scraps for something like £2 a pop!

Openings: Floridita has taken over from where Break for the Border left off.

The big news has been that earlier this week Carlsberg announced plans to close the historic Tetley's site in Leeds. The brewery, founded in 1822, won't be closing until 2011, but (unsurprisingly) there's already a fair degree of outrage. And not just from me! CAMRA's not happy and neither are some MPs. In a move typical of large corporations, Carlsberg is going to move production of Tetley's to Northampton. Clearly whoever makes the decisions at Carlsberg doesn't understand that one of the most important aspects of brewing is the water. If you're brewing in Northampton, you're not using Leeds water and you won't be producing Tetley's.

I know that many people aren't huge fans of Tetley's (and I know it travels badly and can be temperamental) but if you get an opportunity - have a pint while it's still brewed in Leeds!

And if you want to hit Carlsberg where it hurts, the other beers in the portfolio are: Carlsberg, Carlsberg Extra Cold, Tuborg, Carlsberg Export, Holsten Pils, Birra Poretti, Becks, Corona Extra, Budweiser (not the real Budvar!), San Miguel, Miller Genuine Draft, Carlsberg Special Brew, a frightening array of bitters, Guinness, and in the cider department, Magners, Olde English and Strongbow. All the details can be found on the Carlsberg trade site.

But let's finish on a positive note! There are rumours that a new Leeds Brewery pub is opening soon ... while Simpson's, on Dock Street, will be hosting a Christmas wine tasting in conjunction with the Malmaison.

Pin Bar

2008-11-06T20:38:00.003Z

Thurs 6 Nov 2008

I've been toying with writing a review of my new favourite bar and place to eat for quite a while. At first, my friends encouraged me to do so, to increase patronage and ensure its survival. Now, they've started asking me not to, in case other people discover it.

A really rubbish lunch at another bar has finally forced my hand.

Pin, on Dock Street, is the Leeds Brewery's newest bar. It's only been open a couple of months and business appears to be getting brisker.

On our first visit (quite a while ago now, very soon after it opened) we were a bit perplexed. Was it a restaurant rather than a bar? Why was there a cocktail menu? What was going on with our beers? Then Nigel's pie arrived and everyone (especially him) shut up. After he demolished it, he announced that it was very good and that the mash was real potatoes and that the vegetables had not been over cooked. On that day, I had the steak and blue cheese sandwich and was also happy.

We decided that it was worth another visit. This time, I wasn't eating, which I regretted as soon as Andy S's chicken kiev appeared. Not only was it huge, but it had clearly been made on the premises. Think what a chicken kiev looks like out of a packet. And now think of a big chicken breast, stuffed with garlic butter, crumbed and fried. Two completely different beasts. There was a lot of lip smacking - perhaps there could have been a little more butter but the chicken was lovely and moist and the chips were fantastic. On this occasion, Nigel had the fish and chips, and again ... no complaints.

And you know what - we haven't had a duff pint, or a duff meal, yet. Amongst us we've tried risottos, burgers, soups, pies, sandwiches ... and it's all really good. And the chips remain fantastic. The lager drinkers are happy because the bar stocks some 'premium' types of draught. The bitter drinkers are happy: FOUR Leeds Brewery beers to choose from (I've been enjoying the Gathering Storm). I guess cocktail drinkers would be happy too ... we've not ventured into that territory yet!

While the food isn't cheap (£5.50 for the sandwiches, which do come with crisps and salad, around £8.50 for the rest of the menu) it's not a lot more expensive than the substandard out of the van/freezer type fare you'll find in most pubs. In fact, I think Pin is doing an excellent job of treading the middle ground: it's not gastropub food, it's pub food that happens to be very well done.

Today, I went to the other extreme: a cheap (except that a mistake was made in the bill, which I didn't notice until we'd left, so not actually so cheap at all) lunch in the Aire Bar. My burger arrived in a soulless white bun, a piece of iceberg lettuce and a wedge of hard tomato served as garnish. The burger itself was barely cooked (to be honest, if we hadn't waited 40 minutes in a near empty bar I might have been tempted to send it back). I'd almost finished eating by the time my chips arrived. A colleague's chips arrived and were undercooked.

I've spent the rest of the day feeling quite ill. I feel like I've just finished eating the burger and the stomach is not happy.

I, for one, am more than happy to pay the Pin premium. We reckon that Pin's food prices are about £1 up on those of nearby pubs selling equivalent, but not as good, food. And that is a very small price to pay.

Other people rate pin too: Katie at Leeds Grub also raves about the chips!

1. Pin, 24 Dock Street Leeds, LS11 9RU, map (the postcode doesn't give the right location on googlemaps!)
2. The Aire Bar, 32, The Calls, Leeds, LS2 7EW, phone: 0113 245 5500, map.

More WSET Success

2008-11-04T12:53:00.002Z

Wed 29 October 2008

Back in April I sat my WSET Advanced exam and at the beginning of July the results arrived. I was stoked to have received a distinction overall and relieved that the study and bad moods had not only been worth it but were also well and truly over.

Good things only last so long ...

Mid September I received a letter from the WSET inviting me to participate in the Advanced Scholarship Exam. Every year the top 30 students (this year, out of over 5000) are invited to take part in a viva voce exam, at the end of which a selection of very nice prizes are handed out. This year's exam took place last Wednesday at the WSET's headquarters in London.

So ... that was another six weeks of stress! In many respects, preparation for the viva was less stressful than preparation for the written exam, mainly because I had NO idea what to expect.

I was in the final group of 10, so midday last Wednesday saw me arrive at the WSET, collect my number (22) and wait to be shown into the room where the examiners had spent the morning examining the 30 candidates (an hour+ per group). The questions weren't questions are such: more like topics for discussion. At each table we had a minute to choose between two questions (they were in themed piles, and the examiners flipped over the top card, so they had no idea what was coming either) and then 5 minutes to answer. We had 8 of those, a blind tasting of two wines, and an interview.

Very briefly, I answered questions (in order) on: Chablis v vendange tardive, Fino Sherry, noble rot, European wine labelling legislation, Italian grape varieties (2 red, 2 white), Cognac, German labelling, and the white wines of Bordeaux and South West France. Most of my answers I was pretty happy with: the first wasn't great because I was nervous, no idea what to expect, and no idea how 5 minutes can be! I susprised myself by being able to talk non-stop about Sherry! And while I felt I made a few small factual errors overall I was pleased that I'd not made myself look like an idiot.

I wasn't thrilled with my tasting (2 wines in 5 minutes is tricky indeed) as I was worried I hadn't ticked off enough of the aspects of the systematic tasting, but I was pleased to subsequently discover that not only had I picked the region correctly but also the grapes (not as impressive as it sounds, as I got the grapes in the wrong order - though I suspect with a little more time I might have sorted that out too).

The examiners were all very kind and did a great job of maintaining interest and enthusiasm after three hours. By the end I was actually rather enjoying the experience - I know that sounds a bit perverse, but don't forget that I got to spend all that time talking about wine!

After the exam a fellow candidate and I had time for a glass of wine at the Wine Wharf. I had a 2006 Loimer Riesling from Austria's Kamptal. A hefty £8.65 for a large glass although this wine does look to retail around the £20 a bottle mark, so WW's £33.25 bottle price tag doesn't look too outrageous. It was very good - my mood wasn't quite right for serious tasting, but while I think that retail this might be a little rich, the relatively modest markup in WW makes this a better buy here than many whites you'll find in less wine focussed establishments.

Anyway, drink over and done with it was back to Leeds and time to settle down and wait for results.

Fortunately - I didn't have to wait long and I've found out already that I've won the Cálem Port Award! At this stage, I don't know any further details but at some point I'll be heading to the Douro as a guest of A A Cálem and I'll be learning all about Port! Fortifieds are probably my main weakness (hmm, should I be disclosing that here?) so I'm looking forward to the opportunity to strengthen both my technical knowledge and my palate.

I feel very privileged to have won this - I won't say lucky because I did study bloody hard and I do take my wine very seriously! However, I doubt that I'd have done as well without Andy's endless, patient quizzing and the classes with Karen, at the Northern Wine Academy, so a big thank you to both!

Cheers!

Vinopolis

2008-11-02T16:57:00.002Z

Sat 25 October 2008

Earlier this year I won a pair of tickets for Vinopolis's "The Vineyard" tour. These tickets are normally £22.50 a person, so I was pretty chuffed. We haven't been to London much this year, so we ended up planning a weekend with a trip to Vinopolis as its main focus.

The Vinopolis literature advised us to allow approximately 2.5 hours for the experience, so I booked us in for 11am. After breakfast at Borough Market we arrived at Vinopolis about 10 minutes early. Despite not actually being properly open, we were handed our tickets, tasting vouchers and Vinopolis notebooks.

The tour is self guided, although it does begin with a 15 minute class in 'how to taste wine' - and we were told that the first of these would be at 11:30. So we had just over half an hour spare.

The tour begins with a room which focuses on Georgia. There are a few interactive computer displays, a couple of display cabinets and that's about it. The idea that's being communicated is that Georgia was the birthplace of wine. Having established that in the space of a few minutes we wandered past the area where we'd learn how to taste wine and had a look at some very cursory displays covering Burgundy (a few road signs, a model of a vineyard), Bordeaux (displays showing the cru hierarchies for reds and sweet whites, a Jancis Robinson narrated video), past the Champagne bar, into a room dedicated to Australia (corrugated iron, an Oz Clarke narrated video) and then, a bit bored, we decided to have a sit down.

Despite now being after 11, Vinopolis was still drowsy. We appeared to be the only members of the public there, and staff were arriving for work, moving stuff around, setting out glasses. We had the surreal feeling of being somewhere we shouldn't - as though it wasn't open yet and we were being treated to a behind the scenes experience. By this stage, Andy was also pretty cross (quite a few strong things were said about what would have been happening if we'd paid for the tickets).

Finally, 11:30 arrived and we took our seats to learn how to taste wine. No complaints there - the information was well delivered and correct but covered very quickly - necessitated by its 15 minute slot. This part of the Vinopolis experience is, quite clearly, sponsored by Chamarré. The wine used was Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc blend. It didn't really do a lot for me (at all) and I was a little surprised at the selection. It's not a blend you'll see often and it wasn't varietally expressive. I would have something like a textbook Sauvignon Blanc.

Having learned to taste it was time to put this into practice. As The Vineyard tour includes 2 'premium' wine tasting tickets, we thought we'd start there. There are four tasting tables at Vinopolis and one is dedicated to the premium wines. The man staffing the table seemed quite surprised that we were there to taste - apparently on a Saturday it's usually people who are intent on knocking back a few drinks. Right.

We saw evidence of this later: in amongst hen parties and people who thought it clearly hilarious to make a huge amount of noise drawing air through wine there didn't seem to be a lot of serious wine action (or education) at all. Having gone to the effort of teaching people the physical process of wine tasting it's a shame it's not followed up by well ordered tasting tables (the premium table started with a Port!) and more information about the wines. Most of the staff were really pleasant, and reasonably knowledgeable, people, but almost all seemed somewhat jaded.

The heavy corporate sponsorship we'd seen in our first session continued throughout the tour and I got (rightly or wrongly) the feeling that much of the wine selection was dictated by cold hard cash.

I was also extremely disappointed to note an incredible lack of attention to detail. I observed at least one board which contained grammatical errors, and the Vinopolis tasting notebook is riddled with them. In just half an A6 page I spotted SEVEN errors - without even trying. This sloppiness is also evident on the website.

It's probably obvious that I wouldn't go again, and it's not an experience I'd recommend. If you are genuinely interested in learning a little about wine, I think you're better off experimenting in your local wine shop, quizzing the wine merchant and doing a bit of reading. Between two people, £45 is going to buy you a LOT of good quality wine! Keep a look out for tastings in your area - they're unlikely to cost anywhere near as much to attend and will often have a broad range of wines to keep you occupied.

Rather than go through everything we tasted, I'm going to note the standout wine, which was from Brazil: a 2005 Miolo Quinta do Seival, which is a blend of Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz (which you my know as Tempranillo) and Alfrocheiro. This retails for around £11 and, aside from the obvious curiosity value (Brazil ... Alfrocheiro ...), it's a very pleasant drop. There are some vegetal notes on the nose with blackcurrant, blackcurrant leaf and damp woods (perfect autumn drinking then!). These characteristics follow through to the palate, accompanied by some soft tannins. It's reasonably full bodied - so at this time of year it's perfect with both roast meat and slow cooked stews. I'm not entirely sure where I'd put it on a value for money scale - I tasted it directly after a rather unpleasant Dornfelder and just before an extremely nasty Thai wine. We took a bottle around to a friend's house for dinner but by the time it was consumed my palate was less than clear (ahem).

There's a lot around Vinopolis which should be recommended: Borough Market, the Majestic where the wine tour finishes (the only Majestic in the UK to sell single bottles), and the Wine Wharf, which has an impressive (but expensive) array of wines by the glass. All of which you can enjoy without subjecting yourself to a costly and soulless 'experience'.

1. Vinopolis, No.1 Bank End, London, SE1 9BU, phone: 0207 940 8300, map.

tagged with: wine, london

Cascade and 45mL

2008-10-28T13:02:00.002Z

Tues 28 Oct 2008

Today, I was going to tell you about our visit to Vinopolis, but that will have to wait. Andy has drawn my attention to this item he spotted on the ABC website.

Earlier in the year, Cascade, a brewery based in Tasmania, owned by brewing behemoth Fosters, decided to downsize its stubbies but not pass on a price cut. Now, Australian bottled beer comes in two sizes: the stubby (375mL) and the longneck (750mL). Many bottled beers come with a twist top, rather than a crown cap. This means you don't have to resort to ensuring you have a bottle opener in every room of the house and one on your key ring. Indeed, it provides young men with the opportunity to prove their mettle by opening stubbies with the crook of their elbow (or eye - although I'm sceptical about that one).

But Cascade/Fosters knew better and decided to lose 45mL from a stubby and repackage in a sleeker 'European-style' 330mL bottle.

And that's what gave me a giggle and prompted this little rant. Australian corporations and politicians have a bit of a history in attempting to sell ideas to the public as 'European'. They invariably get it wrong, too.

For example, a South Australian politician said we needed to have covered air walkways at Adelaide airport because ... that's what they have in Europe. I've spent most of my holidays in the last 8 years scurrying around tarmac at various European airports, dodging inclement weather.

Similarly, another politician (or maybe the same one) said we needed extended shopping hours because ... that's what they have in Europe. Clearly, this man has been considerably more successful in going to shops in Italy around 2pm than I have ever been.

So, now the Australian public is faced with a smaller bottle of beer because ... that's what they have in Europe. If the beer drinker wanted this, he or she would probably have already been drinking Stella.

What really intrigues me is how they settled on 330mL. The cynic in me says that they could fill it with less beer, charge the same because people probably wouldn't notice - it's only 45mL, and sell the idea as 'European' if anyone had a grizzle.

Cascade sales managers, spokespeople - please visit Europe and head to a supermarket.

A beer like Stella or Kronenbourg comes in a variety of sizes: from 275mL up to 500mL, in cans or bottles. A quick look at a well known supermarket's off-licence section (on line) shows beers in bottles up to 660mL and cans in odd sizes like 568mL (well, not really odd, since it's an imperial pint). In the UK bitters and ales tend to turn up more reliably in 500mL bottles. On the continent and in a bar? You'll be served 250mL, 500mL or even a litre of draught beer.

I'm left to draw the conclusion that the cynic in me was right.

Of course, the Australian beer buying public seemed to think this was a bit of a money grabbing ruse and, with sales in some places dropping 50%, Tasmanians will be able to enjoy a stubby of Cascade from November. Other Australians will be able to buy them "during 2009" - by which time, well, they'll probably be drinking something else.

tagged with: beer, australia, tasmania

The Angel Inn, Hetton

2008-10-23T11:45:00.003Z

Sunday 19 October 2008

After our lovely dinner at 5 The Square we rallied ourselves and found some space for Sunday lunch at The Angel Inn in Hetton.

Unlike 5 The Square there was nothing impromptu about the visit to the Angel. It's been on "the list" for a long time, and we got as far as a reservation once. Andy had had a cold and, as it turned out, I'd failed massively on the travelling calculations, so we decided it was better to defer our visit. Fortunately, on Sunday, full bellies, rubbish weather and another cold didn't put us off.

The village of Hetton doesn't seem to be much to write about (please feel free to correct me on this!) but, thanks to its pub turned bar/restaurant/brasserie, with rooms and an excellent wine shop it's turned into something of a destination.

Would it live up to the hoopla and prove itself worth the wait?

We arrived a little early and decided to explore the village. It appears to be a single street with the pub on one side and the wine shop on the other. Fortunately for my wallet, the wine shop is closed on Sundays. We decided that we could live with being 10 minutes early.

The restaurant is a proper restaurant - plush, cosy, full (and propery) napery. Nothing puts me in a good mood like a restaurant with soft furnishings and carpet: I am actually going to be able to hear my dining companions' conversation.

On our way through I'd spotted that Champagne was on offer by the glass, so I started with that, while we ordered a bottle of Cave de la Visitation Côte Rôtie 2002 to go with our food.

Sunday lunch is a set menu at £22.50 for three courses. I started with smoked poached salmon, with beetroot, a horseradish dressing which was absolutely delicious. Next to me a (not so) little moneybag was devoured: a parcel of seafood in crisp pastry, with a lobster sauce, while Andy may (or may not, as the salmon was good) have won with a Goosnargh duck salad, with chorizo, bacon and croutons.

For main courses, everyone bar me chose the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Being difficult (especially when it came to the wine matching) I opted for the Goosnargh chicken breast, with red wine shallots, mash and girolles. OK - our main courses weren't pushing out any culinary boats but they were well executed, generous portions and all delicious.

Mains cleared, it was time to finish the red wine and contemplate dessert. I chose a fig tarte tatin with vanilla ice cream and tobacco syrup. The restaurant matched this with a class of Château de Chantegrive, so I thought it would be rude not to try out the match - it was lovely. The pudding was fantastic. The tobacco syrup was not what I expected at all: there was only a tiny amount of it and it was a beautiful peppery flavour which played against the icecream and tart well.

Other puddings were a chocolate and mango délice and baked alaskas (hmm, there must be a political joke in there somewhere ...).

As you can imagine, by the time we wrapped up with coffee we pretty much rolled out of the restaurant into the car. For £22.50 a head, the three courses at the Angel's Sunday lunch represent excellent value for money. I was impressed that our wine, which retails in the Angel's sister wine shop, had a tiny mark up - £28 retail, £40 in the restaurant. The service was good: there were a few little niggles (yes, it IS a trial when your Champagne takes just that little too long to arrive!), but I'd go back to the Angel without hesitation.

Let's just hope that next time it doesn't take me 2 years to organise my visit!

tagged with:north yorkshire, restaurants

1. The Angel Inn, Hetton, Near Skipton, North Yorkshire, BD23 6LT, phone: 01756 730263

other country venues on Eating Leeds: L'Enclume (Cartmel, Cumbria), The Star (Harome, North Yorkshire) and 5 The Square (Grassington, North Yorkshire).

5 The Square

2008-10-20T12:19:00.003Z

Sat 18 October 2008

A quick trip to the Dales has left me feeling extremely well fed!

We were stopping in Grassington (at Grove House B&B - it was excellent) and the original plan for Saturday was to head over to the Craven Arms in Appletreewick for the annual beer festival. Unfortunately, city-girl Alex failed to take into account sufficiently the vagaries of rural taxi services and, as we watched the grey sky drop rain over Grassington we lost our nerve. Would we find ourselves, cold and wet, in the middle of nowhere (with no mobile phone reception) in the wee hours of the morning with no way home?

With the answer looking, increasingly, as though it would be yes, we opted to stay in Grassington where we'd be reliant only on our own feet. Although small, Grassington is home to several pubs and restaurants and, based on nothing in particular, we ended up booking a table for 6pm at 5 The Square, part of the imposing Grassington House Hotel. As the 36 seat restaurant was fully booked, we were given a table in the bar, which turned out to be the perfect spot for people watching.
Things didn't get off to a brilliant start: our initial drinks order (2 beers, 1 Prosecco and 1 glass of Chilean Sauvignon Blanc) took an age to arrive. When it did, the Prosecco was not really much chop at all.

Still, that was as bad as things were going to get. We started with a selection including moules marinières, tiger prawn filo parcels and two portions of (Thirsk rare breed) pork belly with scallops and honey mustard leeks. My initial disappointment that the pork belly's skin was not crispy was replaced by quiet content when I discovered the skin was soft enough to eat, but gorgeously sticky and chewy with it. The meat was soft and moist, the scallops were cooked perfectly and everything was good. The other starters also disappeared - although not quite as quickly as mine did!

Main courses had caused a lot of umming and aahing. I eventually settled on a roast lamb rump, with Asian spices, served with chickpeas and a mint crème fraîche jus. I'd asked for the lamb to come pink and it was perfectly cooked: an even pink colour from edge to edge, juicy and tender. The chickpeas were soft with just a bit of resistence and neither the spices nor mint overwhelmed the flavour of the meat. Our other main courses consisted of home made chicken and black pudding sausage with mash, sea bass with pea puree, dauphinoise potato and roasted red pepper compote and Goosnargh chicken breast, with bacon, spinach gnocchi and greens. Judging by how the plates were cleared - everyone was as happy as me.

Somehow, we almost all managed to find space for pudding. Coffee crème brûlée (a special) for me (I was announced the winner on the pudding front), a raspberry and blackberry cheesecake, and a baked chocolate mousse. I might have been the winner, but I wouldn't have been disappointed to have ordered either of the other dishes - especially the chocolate mousse!

We washed all of this down with Mitchell Watervale Riesling from the beautiful Clare Valley. At £21.95 a bottle the mark up was neither exhorbitant nor a bargain (it appears to retail around the £9 mark and other restaurants where I found this on the list appear to be selling it for about the same price). As digestifs we enjoyed a Janneau Armagnac and a 10 year old Laphroaig.

The damage, after a reasonably generous tip, was £40 a head - not bad for all that food and drink at all. Of course, it would be very easy to cut back on this, particularly if you head to the restaurant on a Monday night where, with pre-booking, you can enjoy 4 courses for £32.50 PER COUPLE.

As you can tell, we very much enjoyed our meal at 5 The Square, but I don't want to give you the impression the experience was flawless. Our pre-dinner drinks were a bit slow coming and they really need to sort out that Prosecco. There were a few spelling mistakes that I spotted on the menu and the service, while very friendly, was uneven. There was one young man who was fantastic but some of the other waiting staff fell a little short of the mark. How can you have one waiter who knows instantly that the last pork has been sold but another who has no idea what the soup of the day is?!

Apparently the hotel and restaurant are relatively recently refurbished, and judging by the full house on Saturday and the standard of the meal we enjoyed, I would be more than happy to head back.

tagged with: grassington, north yorkshire, restaurants

1. Grassington House Hotel, 5 The Square, Grassington, North Yorkshire, BD23 5AQ, phone: 01756 752 406, map.

Thai Khonkaen Restaurant

2008-10-17T18:45:00.004Z

Thurs 16 Oct 2008

At work we have what is known as "The Anti-Bah-Humbug Initiative". In the 'good old days' (before I joined) apparently the office was the type where, on a regular basis, everyone would go out for lunch or beers after work. People have since married and had children, which scuppers the beers after work, and we've been through enough name changes and re-orgs to make even the most sociable people spend their lunches peering at their monitors. Apparently.

Anyway, any excuse for a wander, a feed and a beer ...

A week or so ago I visited Thai Khonkaen for an evening meal and was impressed enough to suggest it for lunch. This new Thai restaurant, situated at the back of House of Fraser (opposite Little Tokyo), offers a 2 course lunch deal for £5.95. Would it match up to my dinner experience?

Oh yes.

For a start, the choice of dishes is solid. You're not forced to choose one of three starters you're not really interested in. We started with the complimentary prawn crackers and ummed and aahed before coming up with our orders. Between the five of us, as starters, we had three servings of fish cakes, one chicken satay and a portion of 'Golden Bags'. A 'Golden Bag', as well as being a cause of lunch time hilarity for those who don't get out enough, is along the lines of a wonton: a deep fried little parcel of minced seafood and chicken. I was a fish cake person, although I had been tempted to try out the spring rolls. The fish cakes weren't brilliant (mainly because they weren't my mum's and her recipe came direct from the kitchens of a very well known hotel in Adelaide), but they were good enough and between them and the chilli sauce the dish had a pleasant spiciness. The Golden Bags and chicken satay both received the thumbs up.

However, it was the main courses which did really well. We had a three green curries (permutations of chicken and pork) and two of the stir fry dishes. I was a green pork curry and it was good. Again - the chilli level was bang on. It wasn't so hot you couldn't taste anything else, but still warm enough to let you know you were eating it. The curry had an interesting array of vegetables and others at my table complimented it on being not too sweet and not too coconutty. There were no complaints from the stir fry eaters, either. The main meals were all served with a very generous portion of jasmine rice. I felt full all afternoon. My hungry workmates, who are far more likely to complain about not being full, were all happy.

By the time we included drinks (including beers) AND a tip, the meal worked out at £9 a head. This is stupidly good value. The service is, as I think we've all come to expect from Thai restaurants, very friendly, quiet and attentive. When we arrived, we were asked if we were in a hurry and wanted everything at once. Rarely do you see that kind of consideration when out for lunch. I could start listing venues that really need to take note of this.

What makes me even more happy than finding a good venue for lunches out is that, having been for an evening meal, I can tell you that good service and food doesn't appear to be a one off at Thai Khonkaen. Former housemate (who has actually been to Thailand) and I arrived quite late for an evening meal and scoffed a main course each as well as a full plate of pad thai and, having paid about £25 for the privilege of an evening meal for two, left very full and happy. The evening dishes do appear to be considerably larger than the lunch dishes (probably a good thing unless you want to sleep all afternoon), and there's an early bird evening option which is £8.99.

At the moment, Thai Khonkaen is new and therefore quiet - but this shouldn't last long. It might not be in the most glamorous part of Leeds, but the restaurant's interior is smart: nowhere near as over the top as Chaophraya but a lot more impressive than somewhere like Thai Cottage. And the food - it's excellent.

1. Thai Khonkaen, 8a / 10a Market Street Arcade, Leeds, LS1 6DH, phone: 0113 242 1726, map.

tagged with: thai, restaurant, leeds

Other Thai restaurants we like: in the city centre, check out Maitai, and if you're out in Headingley, you can do worse than visit Sukhothai.

World Bread Day - Naan

2008-10-16T15:48:00.005Z

Sun 5 Oct 2008

For all the curry eating and bread making that goes on at Eating Leeds you would think we'd manage a better track record when it comes to breads from the Indian subcontinent.

The cold that seems to be afflicting the whole of Leeds has caught up with me (hmm, should have spent longer in France!) so Andy has had to do the bulk of weekend running around and I have been grumpy and tired.

Of course, when you do have a cold, one of the best things for it (besides the whiskey or cognac that everyone has been prescribing) is a big curry because all the garlic, chilli and ginger will sort you out. Andy put together a murgh makhani (butter chicken - with some extra spice) and suggested naan.

With limited patience to hand, the recipe had to be simple and immediate. Fortunately, lots of recipe books meant plenty of choice on this front and I settled on the recipe from the excellent Curry.

I chose this recipe for two reasons: no yeast and no yoghurt.

I made a half mix which produced 8 small naan: more than enough for two for supper with leftovers for lunch the next day.

As usual, everything went in the KitchenAid, and as this dough mixture is quite soft and wet, I was happy because it meant less bench wiping down!

In a jug, mix 200mL of milk (the recipe states full fat but I used semi-skinned) with 1 egg and approximately 1/2 ouce of caster sugar. Beat until the sugar has dissolved. I was a bit worried about what seemed like a lot of sugar, but the resulting read did not taste sweet.

Add the liquid to 375g of plain flour, 1 tsp of baking powder and a generous pinch of salt (almost a couple of teaspoons) and mix to a soft dough. The recipe says not to overknead, so I just let the KitchenAid work its magic until I had a soft ball.

Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and leave for 15 minutes.

Prepare your tandoor. Or, heat your oven to 220C (fan), with a couple of trays in the oven getting hot.

After letting the dough rest, mix in 2 scant tablespoons of vegetable oil and tip the dough onto the bench and knead lightly. Divide into 8 and roll out each piece til quite thin (if you've ever eaten naan before you'll know when you get there - as the dough is very wet you won't be able to roll it out very very thinly). Remove a hot tray from the oven, put your naan breads on it and bake for about 5 minutes.
They cook quickly - so when they start to turn gold, they're probably done.

When you take them out of the oven you could brush them with a little melted butter or ghee, or just leave them plain (which is what we did).

To me, they tasted a little like scones, and, because of this, I think I'd be tempted to have another bash at this recipe and substitute self raising flour for the plain and omit the baking powder. They also didn't keep particularly well: great with dinner, fresh from the oven and OK with lunch the next day - but that was the extent of their staying power.

I was pretty happy with this recipe but not overwhelmed, so I think I'll experiment with it and try out some of the (many) alternatives on offer. However, if I need to rustle up some naan with short notice and a bare cupboard (it happens - Andy often volunteers me to cook things at other people's houses!) this recipe will be more than adequate.

Today is World Bread Day, and this is my contribution to the World Bread Day blogging event - hence the delay in posting.

tagged with: bread, baking, world bread day, naan

Other bread on Eating Leeds: paratha, refrigerator bread, and a standard white.

SHF: Chocolate Chilli Fudge Cake

2008-10-15T11:26:00.003Z

Sat 11 Oct 2008

Apologies for the hiatus in service - too much going out and not enough sitting in!

However, last Saturday I set to making the chocolate chilli fudge cake, which Dan Lepard shared with the world in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago - and it's going to be my contribution to this month's Sugar High Friday, hosted by Dessert First. The theme is spice and this recipe offers two: chilli (the more important, flavourwise!) and cinnamon.

In another first for me, because this recipe is a bit off the wall ... I actually followed the instructions ... sort of. My order is a little different from Mr Lepard's, but that's about as good as I get!

So ... we start by heating the oven to 160C (fan), and greasing and baselining our 23 cm springform tin. The recipe in the paper says to use a square tin while publishing a picture of a round cake. I have NO idea what was going on there ...

For the cake, finely chop (using the Magimix, of course!) 100g of plain cashew nuts. Set the nuts to one side, and then combine 200g of plain flour, 75g of cocoa, 1 1/2 tsp of cinnamon, about 1/2 tsp of chilli flakes (add less if you're nervous!), and 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder (to be honest, as my jar has no label I'm not entirely sure if it's baking powder or bicarb, and I seem to be able to use it when a recipe calls for either with no ill effects ...). Add 225g of light muscovado sugar (I wouldn't start substituting sugars like demerara or caster sugar for this) and 3 tbsp of tahini.

Melt 100g of dark chocolate with 75g of butter in a double boiler and add this to your dry ingredients. Finish by adding 2 large eggs and 175mL of cold milk.

Put the mixture into your cake tin, smooth the top and bake for about an hour.

Leave to cool in the tin for tipping out and leaving on a cake rack to cool properly. To finish, I made some lime icing. The recipe suggested lime water icing: I wasn't really sure what that was, and to be honest, I wasn't convinced about the whole lime thing ... but as Dan Lepard's recipes are usually spot on I kept the faith and made a very simple lime icing.

Who'd have thought I'd complain about too much sunlight!

I melted unsalted butter (probably just under 50g), then, off the heat, mixed in icing sugar and hot water until I had enough icing of the right consistency. I finished it by mixing through freshly grated lime zest.

The verdict: this cake is great! The lime icing really works! The chilli adds extra oomph (and let's face it, who doesn't like the chilli-chocolate combination!), the tahini (another element I thought was a bit weird) adds moisture and texture, the cashew nuts add moisture, texture and weight. It's all good!

Next time I might cook the cake for five minutes less, as it wasn't as fudgy as I was expecting. The original recipe gives no indication about how wet or otherwise you'd expect your skewer to be ... after an hour, there was what I thought was a bit too much moisture, and the extra 5 minutes meant my skewer came out clean. That said - the cake has kept its moisture beautifully and has made a very welcome addition to my lunch box this week! Because the cake is quite high, you get decent sized wedges for your afternoon tea.

I think so many elements of this recipe have so much going for them: a use for tahini (other than hummous!) is always welcome, and the chocolate and lime combination is something I might work at a bit more in future!

tagged with: chocolate, baking, cake, chilli, shf, sugar high friday

Other "chocolate and" cakes on Eating Leeds: chocolate and red wine, chocolate and coke, chocolate and beetroot.

WBW 50: Wine Hiking

2008-10-08T19:06:00.003Z

Wed 08 Oct 08

I have to confess, when I saw this month's Wine Blogging Wednesday topic I was pretty disappointed. Russ at Wine Hiker has chosen ... wine hiking. Wine hiking?! Choose something local?!

I live in the north of England! My nearest vineyard is Yorkshire Heart (I think this is one of the most northerly vineyards on the planet) and the vines were only planted in 2006!

The last time I hiked and wine was involved it was in Morocco (well, the wine was at the end of the day). I knew I had no hope of laying my hands on a Moroccan wine (and wasn't sure I really wanted to, either!).

So, time for lateral thinking. I've just been to the southern Rhône - where I walked through a vineyard in order to sit under a tree and have lunch (yes, that's hiking). I'm a bit Grenache-d out, so let's stretch that to the Rhône in general. Hmm, so let's go for Shiraz. Oh, or a Shiraz Viognier blend - very Côte Rôtie.

I can't do local to where I live now, so let's go for local to where I grew up. I grew up in Brighton, South Australia and (happily) McLaren Vale is just 30km (or about a 40 minute drive) away.

And so I am sitting down to drink Battle of Bosworth 2006 Shiraz Viognier from McLaren Vale.

And yes, that is very very tenous. But! The closure is a screw cap which makes it ideal for hiking or picnicking in general!

All bases covered.

The wine. The short answer is that it's a very good drop. It did cost £10.99 from Oddbins, so it does need to deliver. And in this case, the Viognier is adding the flair that it should do. The nose is quite pronounced, with plenty of blackcurrant as well as warm spice. There's a touch of red fruit and some perfumed notes that I couldn't quite put my finger on. This is a real fruits of the forest nose. The palate has masses of fresh fruit: blackberry fruit rather than blackcurrant, black pepper, with some cedar and tobacco flavours developing. The tannin is very soft and well integrated but there's some good acidity and the length is great. There's some warmth from the alcohol (14.5% abv) but it is well integrated - I didn't pick it nearly as high.

As you can probably tell, I was really happy with this for £11 (Andy did think we've had better for the money but hasn't actually named those bottles yet!). It's a very approachable wine but it's not simple. The masses of fruit will appeal to those who aren't after a challenging wine but its complexity will keep adventurous drinkers (and hikers) happy.

Russ - I'm really sorry I've been so rubbish at joining in the spirit of this month's WBW! I hope you'll forgive me!

Please, 1winedude, choose something easy for WBW 51!

tagged with: wbw, wine blogging wednesday, wine, mclaren vale, shiraz, viognier

Beer Bread

2008-10-07T15:30:00.003Z

Tues 7 Oct 2008

This week's Root Source Challenge is lager. Hmm, how easy that would be if it were all about drinking it. Of course, it's not, and while my first thoughts were along lines of pork and chicory braised in lager I had to take a reality check. I'm currently enjoying the cold which appears to not only be doing the rounds of my office but also of Leeds in general, so I had to make do with what was to hand.

Which was, predictably, flour and yeast.

Beer bread. Not something I've made before but not exactly out there either. Only recently, the Hairy Bakers made a really tasty looking ale and cheese bread ... but I wanted something where the lager was the focus.

After a bit of a google and a peruse of my cookbooks I was tired of looking at recipes where I was to use self raising flour, a ton of baking powder and just knock up a dough that goes straight in the oven. I've got the time and eventually I got fed up and made up a recipe based on a couple I'd seen and my usual bread mix.

So, I took about 30g of unsalted butter and melted it. When the butter was just melted I added 12 fl oz of lager (Kronenberg) and allowed it to warm. This was very quick because the lager was at room temperature. I poured this mix into the mighty KitchenAid, added 1 tsp of dried yeast and gave it a quick stir.

About 10 minutes later I was starting to worry because it didn't really look like there was a lot of yeast action. But it was also hard to tell, because of the butter in the beer - it was starting to form what looked like a bit of a cap. Was it too cold? Had the beer and butter been too hot when I added the yeast? Should I have added some sugar? Or should I just stop worrying, walk away and leave it for a bit?

I chose the last option and returned probably about 10 or 15 minutes later when I convinced myself that the yeast looked like it had been activated and then dumped in 500g of strong white flour. I then left the machine to do the work and it formed quite a nice dough: not stiff, but good and elastic and holding together nicely. I covered the bowl with a tea towel and walked off again.

Half an hour later - a bit more panic. It didn't look like it was rising AND I realised I had forgotten (as usual) to add salt. Oh, wait! I didn't forget to add salt! I want to know what effect the beer has on the bread's taste ... silly me ...

After another half an hour or so I decided that the dough had risen (although probably not quite doubled) and that it was time to knead it and shape it into a loaf. It's funny how as soon as you start kneading dough you know whether everything's OK or not. The dough was still lovely and elastic and had plenty of air in it. What a relief!

I was going to bake it in a loaf tin, but we find the resulting bread awkward for sandwiches, so I reverted to a round loaf. Another hour, sitting on the bench and it was ready for the oven!

from this ...

And the verdict? The flavour was really good. I tried half a slice neat and half a slice with salted butter. With the neat slice I didn't miss the salt at all and the bread has quite a distinct flavour - but not beery, at all. I suspect that's because Kronenbourg is a relatively neutral flavoured bee - dry and crisp, but not overwhelmingly hopp or citrussy. I suspect that making the bread with a stout will call for some wholemeal flour at the least! The crumb was fine and soft and the crust was ... crusty. Very good.

... to this

All in all, quite a result. I'll definitely experiment with other beers (and additional flavourings) in future - I really like the fact that I didn't add any sugar, although I appreciate that that might have to change on a beer by beer basis.

tagged with: bread, baking

Want to drink your beer instead? Try my every day white bread, a plain wholemeal bread, or a bread made with potatoes!

Tarte au Citron

2008-10-05T11:09:00.003Z

Tues 30 Sept 2008

In a moment of white wine induced tomfoolery I came back from France and promptly invited some friends over for a mid-week supper. Never mind that I needed sleep, a bit of a detox or that there was washing to be done!

My main course was a very simple, but deliciously aromatic, slow cooked chicken dish. I forgot to take any photos so I'll be leaving that recipe for another time.

For pudding, I opted for tarte au citron, from The Ultimate Mixer Cookbook. This book came free with my KitchenAid, and while the recipes do give specific instructions for attachments and speeds you'll be able to use this book just as happily with a bowl and spoon!

Indeed, my pâté sablée was made in the Magimix: as far as I'm concerned that is the king when it comes to pastry making.

So, for the sweet pastry, take 150g of flour and a pinch of salt and mix in 75g of chilled unsalted butter, cut into little cubes. Add 25g of icing sugar, 2 egg yolks, 1/2 tsp of vanilla essence and 1 tsp of chilled water. The mixture came together really quickly, and, after a light knead to form it into a ball, it was wrapped in clingfilm and left to rest in the fridge.

As this is a chilled tart you do need to bake your pastry blind. I'm the last person who should be giving advice on this, as my first attempt (yes, there were two) saw me hit the timer on the oven and wander off. I was alerted that I might have left things a little too long when I smelt sugar caramelising. The pastry just tasted burnt! On take two, I baked the pastry case with baking beans for 10 minutes at 180C (fan). I then removed the beans (and parchment) and baked for a further 10 minutes. I think that next I'll bake for longer with the beans and then finish off briefly.

I'm usually far too lazy to bother baking pastry cases blind but this experience has taught me that really I should make far more of an effort. Of course, if you're lazier even than me, you can always buy a pastry case from the supermarket!

On to making the lemony filling ... lots of eggs, butter and sugar required. Take 5 lemons: grate their rind and then juice them. Bring the juice to the boil.

While the juice is heating up, whisk well 5 eggs, a pinch of salt, 250g of caster sugar and the lemond rind. When the lemon juice is boiling, slowly pour it in to this mix, whisking all the time. Once the lemon juice is combined, pour the mix into a clean saucepan and cook over a low heat, stirring continuously. Nothing looks like it's happening for ages, but eventually the mix will start to thicken. When it coats the back of a wooden spoon remove from the heat.

If you are using a mixer you will need to pour the hot eggy-lemony mix back into a clean bowl, ready to add the butter. Or you can just add the butter by hand. Cube 150g of unsalted butter and add to the mix a piece at a time, beating well between each addition.

Once all the butter is mixed in - that is your filling done. Pour into your cooled pastry case and refrigerate. The recipe says for at least 2 hours, but this is unlikey to be enough - aim for overnight.
Serve dusted with icing sugar, a dollop of crème fraîche, and a pudding wine. I served this with Miranda Golden Botrytis 2002 which was very good. I picked this wine up over a year ago when my local Somerfield was getting rid of it at a bargain basement price (of course, now utterly disappointed I only bought one bottle). You can still but this wine but it's around £11 for a half bottle (available from Laithwaites). A cheaper (and lower alcohol) alternative would be to try serving this dessert with a high end Moscato d'Asti, such as the 'Nivole' Michele Chairlo available from £7 a half bottle from Oddbins.

tagged with: baking, lemon

On a similar citrus note, you can check out a lime tart, or try a rich chocolate and caramel tart, or a good old fashioned Bakewell tart!

Cafe Aagrah

2008-10-04T07:50:00.002Z

Fri 03 Oct 2008

I'm not entirely sure what's going on in Leeds at the moment but things seem to be creative, to say the least, in the bar and restaurant stakes. We have @Larocca and Chilli White competing on the "strange-name" front and now we have Café Aagrah: "tapas and fusion dining" Asian style. This isn't the only venue in Leeds serving you tapas curries (or should that be curried tapas?) and Image (in the Old Police Station in Chapel Allerton) I think got there first.

Still, I guess in a competition market you have to find your 'unique selling point' (USP) and if tapas curry works for you, then why not?

My first visit to Café Aagrah was a while back on the very first Friday lunch it was open. It really showed. The service was comedic and while the food was good it hit the table at different times, beers managed to get muddled, and we ate our whole meal in less time than it took a table of our workmates (who had arrived before us) to get any food at all.

Still, things should have bedded down by now and, with the experience of the Aagrah chain behind it, everything should be ticking over nicely.

Or so you would think.

We arrived to find a lunch time special on the door: three dishes, one from each of three short lists, for £6.90. That could be the ticket, we thought. We were seated, handed some menus and offered some poppadoms, which we accepted. No sign of the lunch special. I had a wander around and couldn't find any details inside the restaurant. Our waiter appeared brandishing four plates of rice papri, with some pickles. OK, not quite what we were expecting but we could live with it. We asked about the lunch special, but he had no knowledge of this. He asked one of the chefs, he went outside to read the note posted in the window, the chef went to read the note posted in the window and finally it was decided that we could order any three dishes from numbers 1 to 28 on the menu for £6.90. But we'd already had the rice papri so we could order two. WHAT? We thought we'd been ordering a plate of poppadoms to share, not a component of our meal!

We settled down to ordering and awaited our food. While waiting one of our party discovered an alarmingly long hair in his rice papri. When he pointed it out it was inspected carefully, and we were told that they would make sure they let their supplier know. So that's one thing they're not making on site. To the restaurant's credit, the aggrieved individual did receive a complimentary bowl of rice with his curry and I got to watch one of the chefs go through a massive plastic box of papri inspecting them for hairs ...

I ordered lamb bihari tikka and dahi vada, white lentil dumplings soaked in yoghurt. While I was surprised that the dahi vada was cold (that gap in culinary knowledge now rectified!) it was all very tasty and the level of chilli heat was spot on: a pleasant tingle but not so hot that the flavours of the spices were obliterated. The menu covers many things you won't see on standard curry house menus, and it's definitely worth giving new things a try, as we've done that on both occasions and the food has all been very good. So far the only dish we wouldn't revisit is the papri!

What seems to cause us most problems is not what to order but how much to order. As a rule, big eaters seem to leave disappointed. Yesterday, one big eater on the lunch offer left peckish and another big eater, who ordered curry, probably would have been hungry had it not been for his free rice. While the food service is quick, it's probably not quite quick enough (especially at lunch time) to eat, pause, decide you're still hungry and order more. As a gross generalisation, if you're a bloke and starving, I'd say choose at least three dishes (not including those papri).

But once we'd finished eating we went back to the comedy service. Our waiter did an impressive job of piling up our plates and taking them away in one go - even though I'm not sure that that's the wisest approach. There's just far too much opportunity for spills and breaking a lot of crockery. No customer is going to mind a few visits to the table to clear. The bill arrived and, perhaps unsurprisingly, it was wrong. We took a little while to work out what exactly was the problem, but eventually spotted that it was being charged twice for the rice papri.

Eventually the bill was sorted out and we were back in the office.

So ... the verdict? To be honest, while the food is tasty I'm not convinced that Café Aagrah represents good value for money. The menu format is confusing and the front of house staff don't have the communication skills necessary to ensure you order appropriately. Yesterday we spent about £10 a head, and for that money you can't guarantee you'll be leaving sated. That, combined with the bumbling service, hairs in food and errors in the bill, means I'm not in any hurry to return.

Café Aagrah is likely to face some stiff competition in the coming months: The Bird is open at the casino and a Mumtaz is opening soon. Time for some staff training ...

tagged with: leeds, curry

1. Café Aagrah, 1 The Boulevard, Clarence Dock, Leeds LS10 1PZ, phone: 0113 242 4040, map.

Looking for a more conventional curry? Try Akbar's, Aagrah or Shabab.

Back From France

2008-09-30T11:41:00.003Z

Tues 30 Sept 2008

A week ago today I landed in France to spend a few days in the vineyards of the southern Rhône during vendange (harvest). We were a group of 12, mostly students (or alumni) of the Northern Wine Academy. Our base for the trip was the pretty town of Vaison-la-Romaine and we spent the days visiting various wineries. We spent a lovely day and a half at Domaine Roche-Audran, a biodynamic winery near Buisson, with Vincent Rochette, as well as half days at Domaine de Mourchon (Séguret), Domaine des Escaravailles (Rasteau) and Domaine de Villeneuve (Châteauneuf-du-Pape).

We had lovely weather and ate and drank far too much! Highlights on the food front were lunch in the vineyard at Domaine Roche-Audran, a meal with matched wines at Bistro du'O in Vaison and our final lunch at Verger des Papes in Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

At the moment I'm a little bit grenache-d out but I'm hoping to bring you more detailed highlights (and even photos!) from the trip over the next few days.

In the interim, I draw to your attention a wine survey being run by Wine Sooth. Even though the background article's title mentions the 'average American' Arthur is happy to have responses from across the world.

Just Quickly

2008-09-22T20:38:00.003Z

Mon 22 Sept 2008

I'm off to France tomorrow for a southern Rhône winemaking adventure! And yes, I'm very excited, although this tends to manifest itself in me walking around moaning about packing. Some stuff has been thrown in a bag, so hopefully that's all done!

The trip may mean another hiatus in posting: that all depends on the availability of free wifi in Vaison la Romaine!

However, in the meantime, sign yourself up for alerts from Local Wine Events!

Sorry for being so brief, but I have to be up at 0530!

WBW 49: Special Release

2008-09-17T18:52:00.002Z

Wed 17 Sept 2008

This month's Wine Blogging Wednesday is hosted by dhonig at 2 Days Per Bottle. I'm a lot scared, because this month's topic is a bit political and here at Eating Leeds we stay off politics (unless it's directly related to food). We have been asked to choose the wine with which we'll toast the end of Bush's 2 terms in office.

I'm going to start with the wine and perhaps you'll stick around for the politics at the end (hopefully brief, but I'm not making any promises).

My wine of choice this month is De Bortoli's Willowglen Shiraz 2006, from the Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia. In the UK (possibly elsewhere) the region for this wine is labelled as "South Eastern Australia". My bottle cost £5.99 and came from Latitude Wine in Leeds.

The wine is ruby red, with a pale rim and of a medium intensity. The nose is clean and quite pronounced, although not nearly as fruit forward as I was expecting. It's a surprisingly complex nose, with some black fruit, earthy and green vegetal notes, with touches of vanilla and aniseed.

The palate is (almost aggressively) fruit forward, dominated by red fruit and a touch jammy. The alcohol is a little unbalanced - the wine finishes a little too hotly which probably contributes to the jamminess. Again, some really green flavours are evident and the vanilla is present, with a hint of chocolate. There is some acidity for a bit of backbone but the tannin is surprisingly low. The length isn't bad but it's alcohol dominated and the flavours aren't complex and they don't develop.

Drinking this is a bit like drinking a 'fruits of the forest' jam. I suspect that the green notes might put a lot of people off if you were serving this without food.

For £6 this isn't bad value. It's actually surprisingly complex for a relatively cheap wine. However, fans of a bigger, more aggressively grippy Australian Shiraz may be disappointed. I'd buy this again if I were going to a BBQ. It's an unpretentious, clean, well made wine that's happy to do it's job.

So, why I have I chosen this wine?

The wine comes from the Riverina in New South Wales. This is one of Australia's bulk wine production areas and it is also one of wine producing areas in the world hardest hit by drought. Apparently 2006 was a pretty bad year (things aren't improving) - and I suspect that the wine's greenness is a product of this.

Now, I think that the Bush administration has failed the American people on many issues. The world is not a safer place than it was eight years ago. The people of America have been let down by their government at times of crisis (yes, I'm talking about Katrina/New Orleans, and I'm sure there are other examples that didn't make the world stage). The American economy is in tatters.

I do think that these are all really serious issues that need to be addressed by the next administration. But the big issue? The massive issue? The issue where not only the American people but the population of the world have been let down is the environment.

I am not a geologist or geophysicist so I can't dazzle you with science. What worries me is that when we have concrete proof of man's effect on the environment it will be too late to do anything positive.

In life, as in medicine, prevention is better than cure. In the last eight years America, the world's largest polluter, has lost the opportunity to become a real world leader. America could have shown the way forward, invested in research and renewables, assisted developing nations and made real inroads in cutting domestic emissions.

But it hasn't. No individual driving a 4x4 is responsible for the drought that grips much of southern Australia. But every individual is responsible for his or her decision to vote, or not bother to do so, or to vote on emotive or short term or local issues, rather than taking a slightly broader, long term view. And frankly, when only 64% of the population turns out to vote*, then there's 36% that needs to take a good long hard look at itself.

In the mean time, I'd encourage anyone who's got this far to make sure they turn off their mobile phone charger when they're not using it, to catch the bus or take a walk to the shops once in a while and consider buying more energy efficient products. When you come to replace your car, buy something smaller and cheaper to run. Guys - you'll save money and maybe lose weight! I believe that grass roots action can make a difference and that it might be the only way to make politicians take notice - especially when so many of them come from big (polluting) business backgrounds. Oh, and VOTE! I can't say I don't care who you vote for but I'd rather the next presidency be one which is truly representative.

Otherwise in 20 years time we could all well be sitting in a room chanting 'drill, drill, drill' - and, environmental concerns aside, that kind of mob mentality really scares me.

More WBW and Shiraz on Eating Leeds: WBW48 (Peter Lehmann Shiraz) or Mitolo Jester with a good steak.

tagged with: wine, wine blogging wednesday, wbw, shiraz, riverina, drought

*http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/voting/004986.html

Akbar's

2008-09-16T18:49:00.002Z

Sat 13 Sept 2008

In all the curry eating we seem to do I (at least) have never made it to Akbar's on Eastgate. It always seems so busy and my one experience of booking a table at the Akbar's on the Leeds Bradford Road (about seven years ago!) lead to a great deal of disappointment (of the 'would you like a drink and wait for about an hour?' kind).

However, everyone raves about how good the food is at Akbar's so I decided it was time to get out of my very comfortable Shabab rut and try it out.

Things didn't start off too well when we found out they don't take bookings. If you want to book, you can go to the restaurant on Greek Street (on a Saturday night - are you crazy?!). This meant that our early evening activity finished and we found ourselves wandering around town. In a moment of madness, we decided to give Akbar's a shot ... there might just be a table for two.

We arrived around half seven and the restaurant looked full. I thought I spotted a spare table so we stuck our heads round the door and, miraculously, there was a table for 2 ready to go!

I'm going to get all the bad stuff out of the way first, so we can finish this review on a high note. The very first thing you're likely to notice is that the restaurant has something of a personality disorder. This is a curry restaurant, and the menu (and website) are proud of its unique dishes and heritage.

So ... why the Egyptian décor?! I am not joking: busts of cats and Tutankhamun and generic mummies abound. There's a gold and black theme in the decoration which, normally, I'd say works quite well with the lighting and pale walls. But there is only so much Egytiana I can take - especially when I'm tucking into a curry ...

On a Saturday, the restaurant seems a little unsure if it's a restaurant or a nightclub. The hard surfaces and lack of soft furnishings mean that this is a noisy venue - particularly when combined with an eclectic (I'm being kind) and rather too loud soundtrack.

So there we were, bellowing across the table, waiting for our beers to arrive. They turned up without glasses, so then we waited for the warm glasses to arrive. By this stage, we were starting to realise another human comfort flaw: the air circulation. Those first beers went down very quickly, as we started to wilt under the oppressive conditions.

By the time our food arrived, we also managed to have a waiter's bum in our face. The tables are packed so closely together that there's little room for personal space and usual restaurant niceties.

Right - hopefully I've established that Akbar's isn't perhaps the ideal venue for a quiet dinner for two. And that's a shame because ... as everyone says ... the food is very good.

We began by sharing the keema samosa, which was delicious. It wasn't a huge portion: 2 quite small samosas, with some salad, but enough to whet our appetite for our (much larger) mains. Andy had the lamb handi (meat on the bone, and named after the cooking vessel) while I played safely and chose lamb and spinach. While we both agreed that my meat was more tender we both thought that respectively we'd won on flavour. It speaks volumes that this was one of the very few times that I've actually eaten my whole dish. We shared a pilau rice and decided against breads (Akbar's specialises in the massive naan breads which hang from comedy trees - walk past the restaurant any evening and you'll see what I mean!). In terms of flavour I think my sole criticism of my dish would be that I wouldn't have minded a little more chilli heat.

As we finished our meal, a flower seller turned up and made his way through the restaurant. The waiter collected our dishes and managed to spill a little rice mixed with curry on me.

Yes, the food is very good at Akbar's and it comes at reasonable cost (our final bill was around £30). But, from our experience, almost nothing else is. We were hot, uncomfortably close to our neighbours, and the service was harried. All the restaurant needs to do is turn down the music, take out a few tables and maybe hire an extra waiter or two - and then I'd go back in a flash.

But until that happens - I'll be heading over the road to Shabab, where I can eat my curry without being able to inspect every morsel on the adjoining table's plates.

tagged with: leeds, curry, restaurants

1. Akbar's, 15 Eastgate, Leeds, LS2 7LY, phone: 0113 245 6566, map.

Other curry restaurant reviews: Hansa's (vegetarian), Aagrah, and, of course!, Shabab.

Honey Almond Cakes

2008-09-15T12:24:00.003Z

Sun 14 Sept 2008

Back to baking! Hooray!

My eye was caught by a recipe for wholemeal honey cake in Saturday's Guardian, but (as usual) circumstances prevented me from following the recipe exactly. I was also a little put off by the large quantities involved, so I scaled it down to produce a tray of cupcakes. Perfect for work lunches!

Preheat the oven to 160C (fan).

I started by creaming together about 175g of unsalted butter and 130g of caster sugar. I wasn't able to buy golden/unrefined, and while I agree that the golden caster sugar does seem to taste better (I wonder if that's just psychological though ...) using the white stuff makes little difference in the baking process. I followed this with 2 eggs, 75g of ground almonds, 75g of (white) self raising flour and a teaspoon of baking powder.

A taste test revealed something a little lacking so I added a teaspoon of vanilla extract and gave the mix a final blast. I know cake recipes like this always encourage you to "gently fold" this and that, but I find that, unless I'm dealing with whisked egg whites, you can let your food processor of choice (in my case, a Magimix) do the work. Not only does it reduce preparation time, but it also reduces the washing up!

This amount of mixture filled perfectly my 12 muffin/cup cake silicon baking tray. I'd lightly brushed the holes with some oil but (for reasons to come clear) I'd recommend using paper cup cake liners.

Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a knife in the centre comes out clean.

With the little cakes still hot, stab a few holes in the top of each one and drizzle over some runny honey. I used just under a teaspoonful for each cake. My honey was slightly crystallised and this has given the cakes a slightly sweet crunch - delicious!

Of course - the honey works its way through the little cakes and makes them reluctant to pop out of the baking tray. Three of mine wouldn't budge at all, but after leaving them to cool completely the remainder more or less behaved. Still, paper liners next time!

The cakes themselves are gorgeous: moist, sticky, sweet, slightly dense. I'm not sure I'd want to use wholemeal flour - especially for cup cakes, as it might weigh them down a tad too much.

As far as we were concerned, my take on this recipe was just right! They'll definitely be made again!

other good cakes on Eating Leeds: apple & blackberry, plain almond, plum, chocolate & beetroot, chocolate & coke, and (if you've got plenty of time) Gâteau Opéra.

These cakes are also my contribution to this month's Root Source Challenge at CookThink!

tagged with: cake, baking, honey, almonds

More Rounding Up

2008-09-14T15:41:00.001Z

Sun 14 Sept 2008

I apologise for the hiatus in reporting back from Wednesday's Eggs Factor. I didn't win.

There were 11 contestants, including quite a few professional chefs, and we were divided into three heats. My heat cooked first (quite a relief!) and I found myself pitted against at least two, if not three, chefs, including one from Harvey Nichols. Although I was less than thrilled with my gougères (my choux mix was far too loose, and they came out a little flat, although apparently very tasty) I won my heat - so I was pretty chuffed! We all received a copy of Michel Roux's Eggs as well as a British Lion Eggs apron. I'm sure most of you can guess that I would have turned up for the cookbook alone! The overall winner was another amateur, Daniel Costello, from Doncaster. He goes on to cook in the final in London at the beginning of October - so hopefully he does Yorkshire proud and takes home the winner's cheque for £5000!

Most of this week's news is rather gloomy. It appears that the credit crunch/recession/financial crisis is starting to bite. Thursday's Yorkshire Evening Post reported that the much vaunted food emporium to be housed in the Corn Exchange is finding it hard to sign up leaseholders. Very hard. In fact, so hard that the only area accounted for is the basement where Anthony Flinn (of Anthony's) is planning on expanding his empire. As much as I love food (and that's quite a lot!) I thought the treatment of leaseholders in the Corn Exchange was shabby and it's a disgrace that a really vibrant and interesting shopping area, in a stunning building, is now a shell.

The other closure noted this week is Cuban Heels, in the Dark Arches. The city centre is now running short on Mexican and Latin American eateries. Las Iguanas represents the chain option, with Viva Cuba and Sandinista more independent offerings.

The Townhouse, also near the Corn Exchange, is set to re-open as Chilli White (hmm, surely competing with @Larocca in the bizarre name stakes) at the end of September.

And if you missed it, the big deal in Leeds this week was the opening of the Alea Casino at Clarence Dock. Here at Eating Leeds we've had a sneak peak at the food and from what we've seen it's a massive thumbs up. The casino houses two restaurants: The Bird, run by Vineet Bhatia, a Michelin starred chef based in London, and Fig. The opening party on Friday night was a very loud (not to mention boozy) affair, and the venue should give the Clarence Dock area quite a boost.

tagged with: leeds

1. Las Iguanas, 3 Cloth Hall Street, Leeds, LS1 2HD, phone: 0113 243 9533, map.
2. Viva Cuba, 19 Queen Square, Leeds LS2 8AF, phone: 0113 244 9550, map.
3. Sandinista, 5/5a Cross Belgrave Street, Leeds, LS2 8JP, phone: 0113 305 0372, map.
4. Chilli White, Assembly Street, Leeds, LS2 7DA, phone: 0113 2194001, map.
5. @Larocca, 5 - 6 Armouries Drive, The Anchorage, Leeds, LS10 1LE, phone: 0113 2346000, map.
6. Alea Casino, 4 The Boulevard, Clarence Dock, Leeds, LS10 1PZ, phone: 0113 341 3200, map.

Fingers Crossed

2008-09-09T20:11:00.002Z

Tues 09 Sept 2008

Well, the last egg has been poached in preparation for the big Eggs Factor heat tomorrow morning! I had a full scale dress rehearsal last night which almost ended in tears when four out of five eggs had broken yolks! The final egg turned out to be a less than sterling example of what I can do (not to mention over cooked!), so I rushed down the shop, bought more eggs, had a relax and then produced a good poached egg! Hurrah!

I went to bed happy but still thought it prudent to have another go tonight. While not quite as pretty I'll be thrilled to produce an equivalent under pressure tomorrow.

My signature egg dish (which is gougères - I'm happy to spill the beans on that one now) has been practised over and over again as well. However, having seen press releases detailing the winning dishes from other areas I'm worried that it might be a little on the simple side. Still, it was described honestly in my original application, so the judges should be expecting simple!

The heat is taking place at the Thomas Danby College in Leeds and all the anxiety should be over by 1pm tomorrow. Of course, celebratory drinks (or just drowning disappointment in beer!) will be taking place tomorrow evening so results may not be posted here until Thursday. However, if you follow me on twitter you'll catch the news first!

Keep your fingers crossed!

tagged with: eggs, leeds, west yorkshire

Round Up

2008-09-07T13:13:00.002Z

Sun 7 Sept 2008

Let's start off with two closures in the Leeds area. Nooshi, the noodle chain which started in Headingley and spread to Chapel Allerton and Bridgewater Place appears to have closed its doors. Either that or someone's not collecting the mail! My original (and not particularly complimentary) review has been one of Eating Leeds' most commented upon posts. At first there was a fair bit of apparent astro turfing but recently action has hotted up again with some colourful opinions being expressed. It's no surprise that it's sitting fifth in my most read pages!

Another venue which has closed is Noode on Dock Street. I never managed to eat there (despite its proximity to work) and it looks like I've missed my chance. However, the restaurant appears to be available for immediate possession so if you're a budding restaurateur it might still be worth a wander down.

While you are that side of the river, interest in Larocca, Clarence Dock's Italian restaurant, continues. In just a couple of months it's become the most visited review on this site and with the opening of the Alea Casino this Wednesday Clarence Dock might be set to become a destination.

Wednesday will also see the Leeds' regional heat for the Eggs Factor - featuring me! Expect the highs and lows to feature here on Thursday! Stress levels are certainly up and while I'm hapy with my signature dish execution, I'm now worrying it's too simple. My poached eggs seem to have a mind of their own so I just hope that one the day I keep my cool and Lady Luck is on my side! Please all do keep your fingers crossed for me ...

In Headingley on Thursday night The Bowery is hosting a wine tasting which is part of this year's Celebrate Headingley. The tasting, which starts at 7:30pm, is led by Oddbins staff and tickets are just £10. Tickets and further details are available from The Bowery, phone 0113 2242284.

Other popular reading this month has included my visit to the Oakwood Farmers' Market. This has been in no small part due to its appearance on StumbleUpon. I've been a fan of StumbleUpon but only just managed to include a Stumble button for articles on this site. Check out StumbleUpon and if you enjoy an article - do consider hitting the Stumble button and sharing it with the nearly 6 million stumblers out there! You can also follow the Eating Leeds action on Facebook, twitter, by subscribing to our RSS feed or by signing up for email updates. If there's a form of social media you think we should be involved in ... let us know!

Fleshing out the top five pages for this month are Nigel Slater's fabulous apple and blackberry cake (which just serves to remind me how long it is since I've baked a cake!) and a review of Viva Cuba.

Now ... I really MUST get back to the egg poaching!

Trio, Headingley

2008-09-04T18:20:00.003Z

Thurs 4 Sept 2008

I've just come home from a bar re-opening. Yes, it's about half past 7 and I'm writing a post about it. Something must have gone wrong ...

Last year, when I tootled along to the opening of Napa I had a great night out, wrote a positive post and all was good. So when I received an email invitation to the re-opening of Trio, Napa's Arc Inspirations stable mate, I thought I'd head along. After all, the party was starting "at 6pm with Champagne cocktails and canapés for the first to arrive" AND Trio is around the corner from my house AND I could easily arrive for 6pm. "Come early to avoid disappointment" exhorted my invitation.

Given the mad queue that built up early at Napa, come early I did. Somehow we arrived in time for Andy to have a cigarette and for it to turn 6pm. Things weren't looking promising: glasses were lined up for the Champagne cocktails but they were empty. Eventually someone appeared and started partially filling them with mango and raspberry puree. A few people went in ahead of us and we decided it was time to bite the bullet.

As the Champagne cocktails weren't ready we were just ushered down to the bar. The waitress, busy with the fruit puree, didn't look too sure what to do with punters. Down in the bar it seemed like a cocktail presentation was in full swing. The bar itself was almost inaccessible: bar stools with bodies made the pumps tantalisingly out of reach. As I waited to order drinks some women arrived who had the temerity to laugh too loudly. A member of the bar crowding-stool hogging crew turned and issued a stern "shush!". Oh dear - no fun allowed here!

Pints of Amstel in hand (£2.95 each) we shuffled off to find a table and settled down. It turned out that we'd actually stumbled into the middle of a cocktail making competition!*

By the time we'd acquired drinks, realised what was going on and inspected the food menu (£3.50 for some bread perhaps?), the not-so-early-arrivals were turning up and popping downstairs with Champagne cocktails in hand. Andy nipped out for a cigarette and on return asked about a drink. He was told that the bar was downstairs ...

Now, I'm not particularly fussed if I get a free drink or not - after all, I'd more or less stopped in on my way home and a couple of beers is not going to break the bank. However, what irks me is the "come early" on the invitation and the subsequent realisation that the Champagne cocktails were clearly for some but not for others. Don't bother having a launch party if you're not going to get organised.

On that note, we finished off our rather flat Amstel, waited for the results of the cocktail competition and took our leave. At this stage the bar was less than half full.

It speaks volumes that as we left the two staff members on the door were absorbed in messing around with fruit puree and bubbly and completely ignored us.

1. Trio, 44 North Lane, Headingley, LS6 3HU, phone: 0113 203 6090, map.

tagged with: leeds, headingley, bars

* It turns out that the competition, for bartenders from across the north of England, was for a trip to Venezuela to visit the Santa Teresa Distillery (they make rum, rum being quite a theme for Trio) and I'm pleased to announce that the final standings were ... (drum roll ...):

3rd place - shared by Nino from Jakes in Leeds and Tom from Menzels in Sheffield
2nd place - Lee from Mojo, Leeds
1st place - Alan from Socio Rehab in Manchester

Congratulations to you all - but particularly to Alan - I hope he enjoys the trip!

The Box Tree

2008-09-01T18:30:00.002Z

Sat 30 Aug 2008

I've managed to acquire a massive back log of potential posts and many things seem to be conspiring to prevent me from working my through it. Today, I was going to have a chat with you about wine ... but that has been set aside for another day because on Saturday night we ate at the Michelin starred Box Tree in Ilkley.

I could make this event sound a bit A-list, because we did only make our booking at lunch time on Saturday and we never even really made a decision to go ... but that would be dressing it all up, as we have been planning on going for ages, we had a small (and long overdue) celebration, and we did actually discuss it in the pub on Friday night. The availability of a table was down to luck and not the sway either of our names (or that of Eating Leeds!) holds.

If you need the executive summary: it was excellent. In fact, rather than dealing with the experience in order, I'm going to get the two niggles out of the way before discussing anything else.

Firstly, I was a bit unimpressed by the fact that our wine was opened out of our sight. The bottle was presented to us while we sat in the lounge and it then reappeared at our table, already open. The impressive theatre of the wine service at Pétrus aside (trolley, carafe, decanting at the table, silver coasters for the wine bottle - left for you to admire), I think it's essential to open the bottle in front of the customer. I also think it's excellent practice for the customer to see the sommelier at least smell, if not taste, the wine. While I hope that I'd pick a corked wine, and have a quiet word, I'm sure there are many customers who are either not confident in their nose or too diffident to 'make a fuss'.

Second grumble goes to the bread. We both chose granary, so the white may have been exemplary ... but the granary was really underwhelming. It had a slightly squishy, light weight consistency, with no real flavour or body.

We began the meal by sitting in the lounge-like bar area. Settled in our comfortable chairs we started with glasses of Champagne (Michel Arnould, £9.50 a glass) and a plate of treats which included anchovy cheese straws, roasted almonds, a pot of olives, some mini toasts and some delicious artichoke dip which was cold, smooth and scented with truffles.

Wine choice was complicated by the rather eclectic choice of dishes: I began with a roasted ceps and girolles risotto which I followed with roast turbot, served with a white bean purée. Andy chose to start with a warm salad of ham hock, smoked eel and duck liver, and a main course of roast grouse (the special - he ordered the last one). From a wine matching point of view - what a mess!

From a selfish point of view I was tempted by a Pinot Noir from Oregon (not ever having tried one before), but, on the advice of the sommelier, we opted for a premier cru Burgundy: a Chambolle-Musigny Les Charmes 2000 from Dme Amiot-Servelle. At £65 a bottle it looks to be the standard restaurant mark up of somewhere between 200 and 300%: not extortionate and not outrageously good value. This was a lovely wine: a very smelly farmyard Burgundy, with plenty of red fruit, but also a very restrained wine. The restraint meant that it worked really well with all of our food: the soft, approachable fruit and low tannin meant that, where it might have failed (with the eel) it was fine, and despite the grouse's strong flavour, it was not lost nor did it overpower the turbot.

The food was all ... delicious. The smoked eel was declared the "best thing ever tasted", the risotto was earthy, soft and redolent with truffle, and the fish was perfect: simply roasted, served atop some white bean purée, the plate scattered with olives, beans and tomatoes. The real pièce de résistance was Andy's grouse. Before being served the roasted bird was brought out whole (its oddly long, spindly legs crossed daintily, which caused some hilarity on my part), presented on a silver tray with all its accompaniments. Andy was quite grateful it was taken away to be plated up, although I enjoyed the grandeur of the moment. "Chef would like you to see the bird before we carve it for you". If ever you will feel like royalty at the dinner table I imagine it will run something like that.

After all this, it was only right to plough on to desserts. In a reversal of the usual state of affairs, Andy chose the Valrhona chocolate tart with orange sorbet while I lined up the cheese board. The chocolate tart was gorgeous: intense, smooth and Andy's "well, it's a bit plain really" meant I got to eat half of it.

Cheese was, as it should be, a highlight of the meal. A lovely big tray of cheese arrived and, in a show of restraint, I chose four: a Corsican cheese covered in lavender and rosemary, which I think is called Fleur de Maquis, Swaledale goat's cheese, Époisses and a Yorkshire blue - and some quince paste. The Époisses was, in my opinion, the (smelly) star of the show but for Andy it was trumped by the Yorkshire blue. We shared a glass of Pansal del Calas from Spain, which is a sweet, lightly fortified red wine from Spain. I often struggle with sweet red wines and this wine didn't convince me: I remain ambivalent.

After all of this, we rolled back out to the bar area (the upstairs coffee lounge might have been a challenge!), and enjoyed coffees, chocolate, Cognac and whiskey.

A night out at the Box Tree is hardly bargain basement material: starters were between £9 and £15 and main courses between about £28 and £35. That said, the wine list does run the gamut in terms of prices, and not only contains a good range of wines by the glass but also a selection of half bottles. So it would be possible to dine here and maintain a tight hold on the budget.

But with such good food and attentive service, I think it's worthwhile to make the effort to loosen the purse strings.

tagged with: ilkley, michelin, restaurant

Our Daily Bread

2008-08-27T12:10:00.005Z

Any Night of the Week

Since the arrival of the KitchenAid I've been very very good about making my own bread. Things started with the onion bread tart and since then I've done a bit of experimenting and I've found it really very easy to fit bread making in with all the other activities, including preparation for the Eggs Factor!

My first batch of bread was turned into rolls using the Patricia Wells' recipe which is the base of the tart. These would be brilliant dinner rolls, although they rose a bit too much to be successful for sandwiches (our main concern). I'd definitely revisit the recipe for anything where you need a solid bread base. I think it would even do for pizza base ...

At work, someone suggested digging out a Jamie Oliver bread recipe. As I don't actually own any Jamie Oliver books, I consulted google and hit upon this recipe. I have no idea how true to the original Jamie Oliver recipe this is, but I do know that it's worked for me as a good basic dough.

Start with 1 teaspoon of yeast, 1 tablespoon of honey and 12 fl oz of warm water (this is approximately 325mL). Combine these (don't forget, you can let your stand mixer do the work for you!), and leave for 5 or so minutes until the yeast starts to bubble up.

Mix in a generous teaspoon of salt and 500g of strong white bread flour and knead the dough until elastic. Put in a bowl (I rub olive oil over the dough first, to stop it sticking too badly), cover with clingfilm and leave in the fridge over night.

When ready to make the bread, remove from the fridge, punch down the dough and knead it for about 10 minutes on a floured board. I find that just shaping it into a rough loaf shape and leaving it on a floured baking tray produces a loaf which is just right for making sandwiches. Leave the bread to rise until double (an hour or so) and then bake at 225C for 20-25 minutes or so.

Plain White Loaf: Dead Impressive Effort

You'll find the dough a little easier to handle if you bring it to room temperature, rather than kneading straight from the fridge. If you can be bothered to spray your oven with water just before putting in the bread (and then spraying every two minutes for the first 6 minutes of cooking) that will help you get a good crust. By roughly slashing the top of the dough before putting it in the oven you'll get quite a good look from your loaf, as well as giving it a little more room to rise while baking. And finally - don't tuck into your loaf of bread until it's cool! Sit back, let it finish off its cooking and enjoy the sound of the crust crackling away ...

But the real fun with bread making is experimenting. With this basic dough I've had great success with substituting stoneground wholemeal for half of the white flour, and also adding a teaspoon of carraway seeds to this basic white mix.

Flecked with carraway seeds for extra flavour: fantastic for ham sandwiches!

Because this has turned out to be such a foolproof, and QUICK, method, this is our standard mid-week way of producing bread. I'm hoping to do some more substantial experimenting in the near future ... but in the meantime, I'll be churning out variations on this basic theme.

tagged with: bread, baking

Baked Beans

2008-08-22T14:19:00.002Z

Sunday 17 August 2008

The latest Australian Gourmet Traveller featured the perfect recipe for the Well Seasoned Cook's second helping of My Legume Love Affair: baked beans.

Baked beans are one of those things I won't eat. I can't imagine anything more disgusting than opening a tin of pallid little beans in a sickly tomato sauce, heating it up and slopping it over toast. Andy is only allowed to eat it if I'm not in the house.

However, I do love beans and pulses, and I'm more than happy to eat a lot of them: just not out of a tin.

The recipe in AGT is that of Bradley Main, head chef at the Riverstone Café in Bellingen, NSW. There were more tweeks than usual, so this is my version, with a nod to Bradley.

Quantities are for two people, with left overs for lunch or supper. Make this on a cool day as your oven will be on for a couple of hours!

Preheat your oven to 180C.

Begin by making the sauce. Heat some olive oil in a frying pan. Finely chop an onion (use the food processor for this), and sweat down with a couple of cloves of garlic. Add a couple of finely chopped carrots and a good chunk of chorizo, also finely chopped. Add a couple of bay leaves and a sprinkling of time, and a tin of chopped tomatoes. Leave to bubble away for a bit. Finish by adding a finely chopped red pepper.

Stunning colours! The beans didn't make quite such a pretty photo ...

Take a tin of butter beans and drain and rinse the beans. Pour them into a cassoulet dish and cover with the tomato sauce mixture. Add some water and give it a good stir. Cover the dish with tin foil, put its lid on and pop in the oven.

Give the beans a stir every now and then and, if necessary, add some extra water. I left the beans to cook for about 2 and a half hours. About half an hour before the end of cooking I added a teaspoon of paprika and just before serving I stirred through about a tablespoon of maple syrup (the original recipe called for 1/4 cup!).

We served on toast, topped with poached eggs.

This was absolutely delicious: the sauce was really well balanced both in terms of weight and flavour. It was naturally sweet from the onions, carrot, pepper and tomatoes. The chorizo and paprika added smokiness, the poached egg and toast contrasting textures, and the beans gave the dish weight and something to carry all the other flavours. It was brilliant for lunch the next day too - my work mates all commented on how great it smelt and were amazed that baked beans could smell so good and that I'd bothered to make my own.

Seriously - why would you eat them out of a tin?!

tagged with: beans

The Mill Race

2008-08-21T12:04:00.001Z

Fri 1 August 2008

I first went to The Mill Race about 7 years ago - before I really cared too much about where my food came from and how it had been produced. The main consideration was whether or not it tasted any good. The restaurant had ticked all the boxes then so I was interested to head back and check out the current state of play.

The Mill Race is in a bit of a funny spot. At the bottom of Kirkstall hill, next to Morrison's, on the corner of a busy intersection: not perhaps the place you'd choose to stick a restaurant. However, once you get inside, you don't really notice the slightly unfortunate location. There's a newly opened courtyard area at the rear which is nicely secluded, and there's a lounge area upstairs. The restaurant is laid out spaciously: you certainly won't feel as though you're sharing your neighbours' meals.

Drinks wise, we started off with organic gin and tonics before moving on to organic Valpolicella. There were a few blackboard specials and the main menu contains something for everyone. Remember - this is an organic restaurant, not a vegetarian one! I started with a special: roast beetroot and blue cheese salad, while Andy opted for the smoked mackerel pâté. The combination of beetroot and blue cheese was never going to fail and the pâté had a good smokey flavour and was served with plenty of bread.

Moving on to the main courses, I chose another special: roast pork with caramelised apples and gravy. Andy again went à la carte with venison served with sweet potato wedges and an orange chutney. The venison was beautifully pink and it went well with the sweet potato, but Andy thought that the chutney was an unnecessary step too far. My pork was delicious. My only criticism would be that it was a little dry, but the flavour was fantastic and the potato dauphinoise, caramelised apples and gravy were all pretty near perfect.

We wrapped up the meal with a tarte tatin (me) and a cheese plate (Andy). Again - a tiny criticism of the tarte tatin would be that the pastry was a little tough, but otherwise we ended the meal full and happy.

The final bill was around £90. However, you can dine at The Mill Race far, far more cheaply. The early bird menu costs just £11.95 for two courses and £14.95 for three. Even better, while this is available before 7pm on Fridays and Saturdays it's available ALL evening Tuesday to Thursday. The restaurant is also open for lunches on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with 'express' lunches starting at just £4.95. So actually, it was quite an achievement for us to spend so much!

The Mill Race may not be serving flawlessly executed food, but I think it's an essential destination for anyone who is after an interesting meal, with soundly sourced ingredients.

1. The Mill Race, 2/4 Commercial Road, Kirkstall, LS5 3AQ, phone: 0113 275 7555, map.

tagged with: leeds, restaurants, organic

The Eggs Factor

2008-08-19T20:09:00.002Z

You may have noticed that things are a little quiet at the moment and that is partly due to the fact that, last week, I received the eggs-citing (well, it had to be done!) news that I am a in the Leeds regional final for ... the Eggs Factor!

The competition is being run by the British Egg Information Service and a series of regional heats is being held to find the Face of Eggs. Regional winners receive £500 (in itself not to be sneezed at!) and go on to compete in the national final in London where the main prize is a whopping £5000!

Clearly, this is something worth putting a smidgin of effort into! My first task will be to poach and plate an egg in 10 minutes. After this, I'll be cooking my signature egg dish (which I might keep secret!). This is complicated because we have 15 minutes preparation time, but we have only 10 minutes from receiving our eggs to plating up! Quite a tall order!

Needless to say, we're making our way through a fair few eggs at home and the practising is going ... OK. I'm a bit worried about the egg poaching, as the eggs seem to have quite a mind of their own about the extent to which they want to fall apart! At the moment I'm at a 50-50 split between 'acceptable' and 'a bit of a state'!

I'm also doing quite a lot of other cooking, and I've fitted in visits to quite a few restaurants, so as soon as I stop poaching eggs there should be something of a flood of new material ...

As a taster ... the next post will be our visit to The Mill Race in Kirkstall! Make sure you sign up for our email newsletter or our RSS feed!

WBW#48: Back To Your Roots

2008-08-12T11:47:00.003Z

Sun 10 August 2008

It's Wine Blogging Wednesday's fourth birthday and the party is being held by Lenn Thompson at Lenndeavours, with the theme 'back to your roots'.

The idea is to choose a wine from your early wine drinking days, perhaps the first wine you ever tried, and blog about it. I imagine, for some people, this might involve revisiting some less than stellar vinous experiences ...

I'm lucky as I can't remember the first wine I ever tried, so that rules that out. And, having grown up a 30 minute drive from McLaren Vale and about a 60 minute drive from the Barossa Valley, my list of seminal wines would probably run to several pages.

Even though I wasn't able to try any of these wines (availability of South Australian boutique wines in Leeds is somewhat limited) I'll give you a taster of what I was lucky enough to cut my teeth on ...

Right up there, Henschke Mount Edelstone Shiraz 1991 (or was it 92?). It probably costs a fortune now! Bought for me over dinner at the Adelaide Casino by a good university friend just before I went travelling at 21.

Post travelling, a 1982 JJ Prüm Kabinett and a 1986 Château Montrose, bought for me by a winemaking student I had met while abroad and who was visiting Adelaide for his university studies. This taught me that Riesling is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful wine. Oh, and Bordeaux - that's OK too!

Post travelling boyfriend lived very close to an excellent wine shop and one of the highlights was a Bests Great Western Pinot Meunier. It's not often you see PM outside a bottle of bubbly, let alone as a straight red. It was magical!

For this event, the obvious choice was a Barossa or McLaren Vale Shiraz. And that happened to be the Peter Lehmann 2001 The Antiquus Old Vines Shiraz (£15.99 from Latitude Wines).

South Australia has some of the oldest vines in the world: while much of the Old World suffered from phylloxera South Australia's vines puttered along and today they're quite unique. For example, the Henschke Hill of Grace vineyard was planted in the 1860s, and, despite the 1980s vine pull (there was so much Shiraz being grown the South Australian government paid growers to pull up their old vines and plant something different!), there are plenty of old vines around to produce complex, long lived wines.

Peter Lehmann is one of those rather ubiquitous supermarket brands but I wouldn't let that put you off buying some of the label's more expensive wines (such as the Stonewall, or even The Antiquus) and I would certainly suggest visiting the cellar door if you're ever in the Barossa Valley.

So, when you finally get the cork out of a bottle of this wine ... what happens? The wine was ruby in colour, with slight tinges of garnet. The nose was not as pronounced as I'd expected, but with red fruit (berries?), plum, warm spices. The fruit was very ripe, perhaps a touch confected and there are a few savoury notes too, with perhaps a touch of tobacco.

On the palate, the wine was almost vegetal at the edges, but was dominated by chocolate and more very ripe fruit. This was backed up by both good acid and tannin levels, which made me think that this could do with some time lying down in a cool, dark place.

The length was very good and the flavours definitely developed, moving through to stronger warm spice (think mince pie) and loads of pepper.

Although this is a good (to very good) wine, I'm not entirely sure about the hefty price tag. I've been focussing on expanding my European wine drinking, and certainly, a Côte Rôtie would probably set you back at least as much if not (a lot) more. I suspect that built into this price is a little trading on the Peter Lehmann name ...

There was a little left for a revisit on Monday night. The nose was more perfumed and the wine had softened. The wine definitely has some ageing potential, which might be advisable if you're planning on unleashing all that pepper on Old World Shiraz drinkers. At 14.5% abv there is NOTHING lightweight about this wine.

But then, there was nothing lightweight about the massive pieces of sirloin with chips and mayonnaise which it washed down!

Moral of the story - no matter how far you are away from home, nothing will bring back memories of the flat, dirty, dusty land outside Tanunda quite like a bottle of Barossa Shiraz.

tagged with: wine blogging wednesday, wbw, wine, shiraz, australia, south australia, peter lehmann, barossa valley

Julia Child's Mayonnaise

2008-08-11T12:21:00.004Z

Sun 10 August 2008

After the salt and pepper squid we were left with two egg yolks. What to do? Custard? Hmm, that wouldn't involve the KitchenAid ... so I hit upon the idea of mayonnaise. As Champaign Taste is hosting an event in honour of Julia Child's birthday, I thought I should use her recipe, from Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Mayonnaise is a simple enough thing to make. You either need a sturdy piece of beating equipment or a very strong right (or left) arm. Fortunately, with the mechanics of the whipping sorted all you need is patience.

Child's recipe begins with three egg yolks, and as I only had 2 I adjusted the other quantities down.

Begin by beating your room temperature egg yolks until they are thick and sticky. Then add 3 teaspoons of white wine vinegar, some salt and just under a quarter of a teaspoon of dry mustard powder. Keep beating.

Keep beating. Now start adding your oil. I use a mix of extra virgin olive oil and sunflower oil. If you are using a lighter olive oil, and depending on your taste, you need not use a blend. Add the oil a drip at a time and every now and then pause to ensure the oil is being incorporated.

Basically, you keep going like this and the mixture continues to thicken up. Once it's starting to look like a cream you can add the oils in tablespoon type measures - and, if you're beating by hand, you can have a little rest.

Eventually, the mayo will properly thicken up. At this point, you can add some more vinegar or lemon juice to let it down, and you can adjust the seasoning with some extra mustard powder. Child suggests adding a couple of tablespoons of boiling water to prevent the sauce splitting.

More oil and beating required!

If you're impatient (like me) and you stop the beating in of the oil too soon you will end up with a more saucy version of your mayonnaise. Mine was almost hollandaise consistency, which suited me perfectly.

The mayo was great with steak and chips (well, really, how could it go wrong?) and used as a dressing on a salad was absolutely gorgeous!

Do be careful not to overdo the extra virgin olive oil, as it can give the mayonnaise a very strong taste. Tasting all the way through should allow you to adjust the oil balance as required.

tagged with: eggs, mayonnaise, julia child

Salt and Pepper Squid

2008-08-10T12:13:00.002Z

Sat 09 August 2008

Joelen's Culinary Adventures is hosting an 'Asian Appetizer Adventure' which seemed like a top notch excuse to make salt and pepper squid.

This sounded like it would be a pretty easy exercise, until I started digging around for recipes. Most of the recipes we could find seemed to involve quickly pan frying the squid and then tossing in a salt and pepper mix. Not what I had in mind at all. I was expecting a light batter, but the internet was not so swift in producing the 'right' recipe.

Fortunately, Australian Gourmet Traveller, as ever, came to the rescue. Thanks to the annual recipe index, I found that the January 2005 issue had featured salt and pepper squid as the month's Classic Dish. And it was exactly what I had in mind.

The article also features a potted history of the dish: I had no idea that this may be Cantonese in origin. I'd have to say that I've eaten it in primarily Thai restaurants.

Prep is very simple. First, take your squid, give it a rinse and then cut into generous bite size pieces. Lightly score the inside of the hoods in a criss-cross manner. Marinate the squid in some lemon juice in the fridge.

The spice mix consists of 3 teaspoons szechuan peppercorns, 1 1/2 teaspoons of black peppercorns (both dry roasted), 1 1/2 teaspoons of ground white pepper and 2 1/2 teaspoons of salt (though you may want to reduce this). Grind these all up using a pestle and mortar and then mix into a blend of 35 g of rice flour (or ground rice) and 75 g of plain flour.

As the squid is deep fried, fill up your wok (or deep fryer) and get ready for the mess. Ideally, use an oil with a hot smoking point (peanut oil is an excellent choice). When you're ready to cook the squid, take it out of the fridge and dry it off. Dip the squid into lightly beaten egg white, then into the flour and spice mix and then straight into the hot oil for a minute or two, until golden and crispy.
Serve immediately. We had plain rice and salad on the side, and washed it down with a selection of international lagers from Beer Ritz. Keeping with the Asian theme, we made sure we enjoyed Beer Lao (from Laos) and Hue Beer (from Vietnam) while we were eating!

This dish does cause chaos in your kitchen and you end up feeling like you've done a full shift in a chip shop. Don't plan to cook this for dinner parties! Unfortunately, here in the UK, the squid ranks 4 on the scale of "fish to avoid" over at fishonline, so it's a once in a while treat.*

However, if you're lucky enough to live near the sea, I can't imagine anything better than a day on a boat, a couple of big squid as your haul, and this for supper!

*If you want to read about why fish stocks are important, read this recent article by Alex Renton.

tagged with: squid

Roast Beef and Bordeaux

2008-08-06T17:57:00.002Z

Sun 20 July 2008

A bit of a trip back in time here!

When my parents visited us last year, they bought us a lot of wine, which included a bottle of 1998 Château Bouscaut. I knew this hadn't been a particularly cheap wine so we'd wanted to make sure we made a bit of an occasion of drinking it.

The "occasion" presented itself in the form of Sunday lunch: a piece of roast beef from Yorkshire Highlanders, roast vegetables, and (of course) Yorkshire pudding and gravy.

Yorkshire pudding still in the oven at this point!

However, I'm going to take this opportunity to give you an overview of Bordeaux. Nothing like learning while you're drinking!

The label of this wine proudly announces Grand Cru Classé de Graves, and has Pessac-Léognan in large letters. Nowhere does it mention Bordeaux - so even a little bit of knowledge goes a long way (I think this is more true of Bordeaux than pretty much any other region in France - I'm sure that will spike some debate!).

The label of more recent vintages has had a design change. 'Grand Cru Classé de Graves' is in gold letters across the top.

In wine terms, Bordeaux is the region in south-west France which encompasses the Gironde Estuary, formed by the Garonne and Dordogne rivers. This region is divided into smaller regions, one of which is Graves, and some of those are divided further still - hence Pessac-Léognan.*

Very importantly, the two dominant red grapes are Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, and the dominant white grape is Sémillon.

Usually, wines from Graves would be Cabernet Sauvignon dominant, but the Bouscaut is about 60% Merlot, with the balance made up of Cabernet Sauvignon and a touch of Malbec.

So what did it actually taste like?

The short answer: very good.

The long answer ... well, it was pretty closed to start off with, but unceremoniously sloshing it into our decanter certainly helped open it up (don't worry - it hadn't thrown very much sediment at all!). It definitely developed as we drank it, so if you have a bottle it might be worth decanting it an hour or so in advance of drinking it. On the nose, both red and black fruit developed into definite forest fruit aromas, accompanied by tobacco, cedar and hints of warm spice. Initially, the palate had considerably less fruit than the nose, but here too the fruit flavours developed into definite black fruit. The fruit was complemented by the same cedar and spice notes found in the nose. The tannins were still quite grippy (although nicely integrated - they didn't hit you and dry out your mouth in one hit), so make sure you drink this with a big piece of red meat, or leave it alone for a little while longer. The wine is only 12.5%abv, but did feel slightly warm.

We both really enjoyed this and it went really well with the lovely beef. If you're fortunate enough to have some bottles stashed away, wait until mid-winter, cook up a hearty beef daube and invite me round for supper!

* You can click through to a map pinpointing the Château here - zoom out for the Bordeaux region.

tagged with: bordeaux, pessac-leognan, cabernet sauvignon, merlot, red wine, france, beef

Roundup

2008-08-05T12:07:00.002Z

Tues 05 August 2008

The start of a new month and time to take stock of where things are at.

Although not related to Leeds, I was pleased to read this gem on the BBC website: Starbucks has closed 61 of its 85 Australian shops!* As you may know, I grew up in Adelaide, a city with quite a high number of Italian immigrants. This translates into a lot of very superior coffee - and if you're a visitor to the city I recommend you check out either Lucia's at the Central Market or one of the many Cibo Espressos. Frankly, Starbucks' sterile and formulaic environment and not very good coffee have never really done it for me, so I'm pretty chuffed that Australia's bucking at least one globalisation trend!

Cibo Espresso, Moseley Square, Glenelg, in winter

Closer to home, the news of the day is that Oddbins has been sold. It's all over the web today, so you'll find more information than I can offer here by googling it, but it's interesting to note that the small company (two outlets) that has bought the chain is run by Oddbins' founder's son. It will be interesting to see what changes.

And really close to home ... on Thursday 24 July the Leeds heat for the PUDZ Amateur Pudding Chef was held at Thomas Danby College. I found out about this too late to participate but the heat was won by Louise Yankovic of Chapel Allerton, who'll be heading down to London for the final in November. There's time for people in the Glasgow, Birmingham and Bristol areas to participate, but I'm sure that all of us in Yorkshire will be wishing Louise and her mixed berry shortcake tart all the best in London!

Louise Yankovic's Mixed Berry Shortcake Tart

In writing news ... by far the most popular post at the moment on Eating Leeds is our visit to Larocca. Eating Leeds got its review of this new Italian restaurant out before even the Metro! I was a little undecided ... so have you been yet? What did you think?

Finally ... don't forget to subscribe to the Eating Leeds feed, follow me (Alex) on twitter, or join the Eating Leeds Facebook blog network! Adding to the Web 2.0 armoury, if you see a post you like, don't forget to stumble it!

*Thanks to Robert at The Wine Conversation.

Onion Bread Tart

2008-08-04T12:19:00.005Z

Sun 03 August 2008

This started off as an excuse to make use of the KitchenAid, but I've now discovered an excellent technique which should mean we can keep ourselves in home made bread for much of the time.

Both parts of this recipe come from Patricia Wells's At Home In Provence.

I started by making her basic bread recipe. The KitchenAid turns out to be a fantastic beast for bread making, because it turns it into a all-in-one-bowl exercise, and also removes from my hands the mucky work of incorporating flour and liquid!

So - in the bowl of your heavy duty mixer, put 1 tsp of yeast (I was using dried, active yeast), 1 tsp of sugar and add to this 11 fl oz (approximately 325mL) of warm water. Set the mixer on to its lowest setting to stir up the yeast and sugar, and then leave for the yeast to activate.

When the yeast has started its bubbling, add 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and a teaspoon of salt. Stir this, and with the mixer on, start adding 500g of strong bread flour. I add it a heaped tablespoon at a time.

Once you've added all the flour, let the mixer do the work until you have a smooth, elastic ball of dough. If, like me, you like kneading, you can pull it out earlier and knead yourself. Place the ball of dough in a large bowl, cover with cling film and leave in the fridge overnight.

To make the topping for the onion tart, take 3 or 4 large onions, slice finely and sweat in some olive oil. Add a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of sugar, a sprig of rosemary and a bay leaf or too. When the onions have softened and taken on some colour, add pepper to taste and leave to cool.

Preheat your oven to 230°C. Take your bread dough (preferably already brought to room temperature, but straight from the fridge is fine) and roll it out and shape it to fit a standard baking tray. If your tray is non stick, just place the dough on, stretching it out so it meets the edges. If it's not a non stick tray, grease or line with baking paper.

Mix the onion mixture with a beaten egg and a teaspoon of carraway seeds and spread over the dough, right to the edges. Bake in the hot oven for about 25 minutes - until the onions are golden and the bread is risen. Serve on its own, or with some salad, and (of course) a glass of wine.

Thanks to our enthusiastic fan oven, some of our onion came out a little darker than I would have liked, but fortunately it was not at all bitter. This was absolutely delicious and between the two of us we managed to polish off the whole thing, bar two lunch sized portions.

Of course, you may not be as greedy!

tagged with: bread, baking, onion

Farmers' Markets

2008-08-03T07:38:00.003Z

Sun 03 August 2008

Back in May I wrote about my trip to the Oakwood Farmers' Market. This has become a quasi monthly fixture on the Eating Leeds calendar, helped along in no small way by the fact some friends live nearby and it's an excuse for a bit of food shopping followed by a coffee.

A Scientist in the Kitchen is hosting a farmers' market blog event, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to cover not only Oakwood (the subject of this photo montage) but other farmers' markets in Leeds.

The markets I have been known to frequent include Headingley (second Saturday of the month, the Rose Garden, on North Lane) and the Leeds' event (first and third Sunday of the month). There are also markets in many of Leeds' suburbs, including Shadwell, Chapel Allerton and Pudsey: the chances are that there's one near you, so there's no excuse not to go along. Check out West Yorkshire Food to find details on your nearest market.

You'll find that many of the stall holders will visit more than one market: Yorkshire Highlanders, for example, are at both Oakwood and Leeds (as well as other markets), as are Woodside Pick Your Own (the lovely asparagus above, and some gorgeous raspberries last month), Lincolnshire Poacher Cheese and Church View eggs. Of course, you can't visit a market with too much of a definite shopping list in mind ... but then, that's half the fun!

tagged with: leeds, yorkshire, farmers' market

Meringues

2008-07-30T11:16:00.004Z

Mon 28 July 2008

I appreciate that this may be rather like teaching one's grandmother to suck eggs, but the newest toy in the Eating Leeds' batterie de cuisine is a shiny, eggshell blue (and very heavy) KitchenAid Artisan.

Of course, it had to be tried out immediately, and luckily there was a single egg white left over from a batch of brownie baking on the weekend ... and Andy loves meringue and I've never made him one. Not a single one, let alone a whiff of pavlova or lemon meringue pie ...

The real secret with meringues is to let them dry out rather than cook them. To this end, preheat your oven to just 100°C.

So, having acquired your egg white*, weigh out 50g of caster sugar. There are many ways to ensure good egg white whipping and on this occasion I used a pinch of salt. Marcus Wareing (in How To Cook The Perfect ...) directs you to rub a cut lemon over the entire surface of the bowl. Other people will use a pinch of Cream of Tartar, or a drop of lemon juice. The most important thing is that your bowl and whisk are clean and dry.

All of that sorted, egg white in bowl with a teaspoon of the sugar, and begin whisking. Start slowly and build up the speed. When the white has reached soft peaks, keep whisking, adding the sugar a generous teaspoonful (or so) at a time. When you're at stiff peaks - you're done.

Shape your meringue how you please. I used tablespoons to make quenelles, but you could use a piping bag, or just drop spoonfuls of meringue on a tray lined with baking paper.

Place in the warm oven for an hour, and then turn off the oven and leave the meringues in for as long as possible. This way, they'll dry out but should still retain a gooey, chewy sticky centre. Ours did! Also, because the temperature is so low, they'll stay gloriously white.

We just ate them. But, if you have some cream or mascarpone and some fresh fruit lying around, you could coarsely crush them and make yourself some Eton Mess. It may just contribute to your five a day ...

*I've read horror stories about people trying to make meringue with pasteurised egg white (whatever that is) and sugar substitutes. DON'T DO IT! It's a meringue - it's a pudding - it's NOT MEANT TO BE HEALTHY.

tagged with: meringue, dessert, baking