Lulu's SW England foodie notes

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lulu

Head Chef
Joined
May 29, 2006
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Location
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My Lombardia notes were well recieved, I could commit to something in England now too. Also I've got six months in Paris next year, so I could make it a trilogy if any one is interested?:ermm:
 
Well, thats a can of worms Sweets (hello!).

In this part of the world you put butter on the scone, then am then a big spoon of clotted cream, further west still they save calories, and put the cream on the scone with a spoon of jam on top of that.

There is fearsome debate over which is correct!
 
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I'm all about dairy ATM. Milk puddings and cheese especially. I'm especially loving the two local goats cheeses. One is a fairly starndard chevre, the other is a hard cheese that mananges to be both goaty and quiet in flavour. And, milk puddings.....Spanish Creams, Lemon Possets, blamanges, I want them all! DH made a blamanche to a centuries old recipe a few weeks agp and it was divine! Absolutley wonderful.

But the big food news here is that we are in the frenzies stages of the elderflower season. The hedgerows and road sides of my village are peppered with women colecting the Queene Anne's Lace of elderflowers cordial. Later this year there is to be an elderflower competition, along idea the apple pie competition, and cordial and wine are both to be judged. I feel lost as I am possibl the only person in England to dislike the elder flower. A drop of elderflower in a gooseberry fool is delight ful, bu be yond that tey leave me somewhat cold. I trei making elderflower fritters a couple of weeks ago with the first open blossoms, this is very popular with the fodie-fashion set right now, but I thouht is tasted like fried fish with sugar. So, I have made one small bottle of cordial to submit but thats as ar as I go.

On the other hand, the roses are have a super year and on the shelves here are stacked freshly bottled rose petal jam. Nw, thats a flower I can eat all day. At the county fair the was a woman selling, among other hing, japonica jelly. I had no idea japonicas were edible in any form, but they taste just like one would expect, I lighter, less heady but perhaps more dreamy quince. Yum.

There are lots of local foods I've never tried, or tried once and turned my nose up at, like Dorset Knobs...funny dry things...but it'll be fun to look at those too.
 
Sure....

I used to keep a journal here on what I was eating in Lombardia, the local foods the restaurants etc...

Now I'm thinking of keeping one for food here in the SW for a few months, and then possibly a Parisian one too....just noting foodie observations, restaurant recommendations for travellers, etc

But I've been away so long I'm not sure if anyone remembers the first one and would be interested in another similar thread on my glutony in Europe ;)
 
LOL, glad I made more sense this time ;)

Yes, I used to speak fluent french, before the brain blip. I'm confident it will come back pretty quickly. Paris has been a big surprise to me too ;)
 
Crumpets.

Nothing beats a crumpet. For us they are normally a cold weather food, just by habit but DH wanted some this weekend and there was a special offer on them so we bought instead of made, so as well as breakfast with marmite, honey and/or jam we've had them cheese and tomato topped this weeend.

Crumpets look like sponge, and to those foolish enough to try them not well toasted enough they taste and have the texture of sponge too but once toasted those holes become little butter and taste traps. For me they are the best past of an afternoon tea spread and one of the simplest but most wonderful delights of an English kitchen.

They are not at all hard to make either.
 
No mudbug, they are not the same at all (although in a huge array of British teatime breads I can see where confusion can arise!)

Scones take a very short time to throw together and should be eaten on the day of baking. In my opinion they are best served just before hitting room temerature (breaking open further cools them to room temperature anyway. stale scones are a travesty, especially as they really are quick and easy to prpare fresh.

Crmpets take a little longer (as they are yeasted and have to have rise time) but hey also keep better and freeze well. Crumpets are always served warm and toasted so the butter (and any meltable topping) can ooze into the little spongey holes.

OK, ingrediants:

2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
2 cups unbleached white bread flour
2 teaspoons of salt
1 and 1/2 cup of milk*
1 cup water *
2 teaspoons sunflower oil
1 tablespoon caster/superfine sugar
1/ oz of FRESH yeast
1/2 a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
1/2 a cup of lukewarm water

* the recipe I have says 2.5 cups water/milk mixed I tend to divide it as given above.

Heat the milk and water mixture with oil and sugar until luke warm, mix the yeast with about 2/3 of this liquid.

Sift the flours and salt together into a large bowl, make a well in the middle add the yeasty liquid (and the rest of that same liquid) into the well an bat, with gusto for five minutes or so till the dough is elastic. Cover with oiled clingfilm and set aside somewhere warm for about an hour and a half. Its ready when the dough is really bubbly and about to fall back.

Dissolve the soa in the warm water and stir this into the batter then you must recover and let rise for half an hour or so.

Grease a heavy fryingpan/griddle and heat to a medium heat. Also grease some round cookie cutters (don't see why they couldn't be less tradtional shapes though) and put them in the frying pan and then fill the cutters to about 1/2 inch deep.

They take about 7 minuts on medium, then you should have dry tops and load of tiny holes. Remove cutters, flip crumpets and cook other side till a light gold, a couple of minutes.

Like this you can eat them straight away, hot, if you are preparing them in advance you will need to serve them toasted.

I found a wikipedia entry, which has a good picure so you know what you are aiming for ;)
Crumpet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
On other tea time breads, and there must be hundreds!, a New Yorker colleague of Dh recently emailed to ask me what an American equivalent of the Chelsea bun might be. well, I just can think of any equivalent, but I thought it would be more likely that you guy might have done!

Is it possible to get Chelsea Buns in NYC I wonder........
 

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