Freddie rocks up......

I'm still a bit dumbfounded about yesterdays antics. Did I really spend a whole day knocking about on a cricket field with my ultimate sporting hero?

Was the weather so nice that I'm current sat here trying not to change any facial expressions due to the pinkness of my sun scorched head?

Also just how big are world class international (ex) cricketers?

The answer to the first two questions is "Yes" and the the third is "Huuuuuuuuuuuuuge"





Freddie was down at Sonning CC quite out of the blue to film a documentary for the BBC on the effects of weather on sport. He was a really nice guy and had no quarms about signing autographs for the kids when they came over once school had finished.





Having dropped him in the deep early on I was singled out for catching practise, pretty unsuccessfully I might add. My hands today are aching.....that lad can get some height on those cricket balls I tell you !!!





Ultimately though "safe hands" Zagorski proved too good for the young upstart and he had to make the lonely walk back to the pavilion (or maybe it was just the end of filming that segment.....you decide)





All in all a really good and wholly unexpected experience. We only knew about the shoot the day before. I'm guessing they keep the schedule tight so that there isn't enough time to get the word around and have hundreds of people turn up making background noise and harrasing the celebrities.

We were told that our club was chosen for the film shoot because of recommendations from other clubs for our reputation as a hospitable and picturesque venue. Personally I think it was all down to the hanging baskets and flowerbeds :-)





Back to normality today and a busy day ahead it is too. I have a few technical bits I need to tidy up at work then at 2:30pm I have to head off to the Royal Berks Hospital to have a small operation on my hand......nothing to do with Freddie and the dropped catches I might add although the local anaesthetic might be a welcome relief.

After that I have my very good buddy Razer coming over for dinner. I take Razer's opinion on food very seriously, he's a bit of an aficionado so I'm keen to make a excellent spread. The menu is -

Starter - Hot smoked mackerel pate with pickled fennel and gooseberry purée.
Main - Rack of Lamb with summer vegetables and a minted Lamb broth.
Dessert - Crème Caramel with tempered dark chocolate.

I've tweaked the starter even more from my previous efforts this time using hot smoked mackerel rather than fresh and added some horseradish. I've combined a bit more spice and seasoning with the pickled fennel and I've retained more sourness in the gooseberry purée rather than have it too sweet.

I've never tried the main course before, it's something that just popped into my head and I think it's really going to work well.

The dessert again is something I've not really tried. I did have a trial run a couple of days ago and since then I've given it a bit more of a tweak especially with a bit more vanilla in the custard and less caramel. I've never tried to temper chocolate but I think a small sliver of bitterness will be a nice contrast to the sweetness of the caramel.

As a menu it's really rather a good one to use for a dinner party because the starter and dessert can be done a day or two in advance and the only really cooking on the day is for the main course which really shouldn't be difficult at all. It's seasonal, has lots of good flavours and is well balanced.

I'll let y'all know how it goes....toodlepip xxx

It's a worker....

Following on from yesterday and my gooseberry themed recipe creation I think I can say although it wasn't a resounding gastronomic success I was hoping for but it was certainly on the right track.

First off I was slightly disappointed with Waitrose in Twyford not having any fresh mackerel at all so I had to buy frozen (sustainably sourced of course) and even though the Waitrose in Caversham did have two fresh mackerel left one of them looked like it had been gutted by some crazed knife wielding maniac.

Unfortunately too from a photographic perspective a couple of the down-lights in our kitchen are blown, combined with the fact that I only have a iPhone for a camera the pictures I did take are not really worth posting up so you'll have to take my word for it that the dishes looked good.

I'll start with the dessert as it was an absolute success. The gooseberry fool was very simple to make too. I just created a syrup out of some gooseberries and mixed that with a chantilly cream whisked to soft peaks before topping it off with some chopped roasted almonds.

To make the gooseberry syrup I just put a layer of washed, topped and tailed berries into a small saucepan and just covering them with water I simmered until the fruit had broken down into a pulp. I then added a small glug of white wine vinegar and around 4 tablespoons of caster sugar, a little extra water and gave a it a good mix.

You don't want the mixture to be stiff at this stage otherwise it'll set when cooled rather than keeping a syrup like consistancy. Also I like to keep all the lumpy bits in for texture but you could strain through a sieve if you liked before setting aside to cool down.

Chantilly cream is just double cream, caster sugar and vanilla whisked together. I do this by taste so I can't really give you exact measurements but again if you do make it add the vanilla and sugar a bit at a time until you have the flavour you want then whisk the whole lot to a soft peak stage.

(You can use vanilla pods but I have a really brilliant little bottle of vanilla extract which I use, it's quite expensive but lasts much longer and even have the black seedy specks in it.)

To serve I put a layer of the cooled syrup into the bottom of two glass ramekins then folded the remainder of the syrup into the whisked and chilled cream so it gave a kind of marble effect. After spooning equal amounts of the cream into each ramekin I topped with chopped almonds and left in the fridge until it was time to serve.

This can be repeated for virtually any fruit and need not be restricted to just gooseberrys. Apple and rhubarb work well too.

The Mackerel dish was a triumph in a sense because the flavours really did compliment each other. Rather than just have a plain fennel salad I decided that I'd try to pickle the shaved fennel in a gooseberry vinegrette, worked excellently with the oily mackerel!

To make the gooseberry vinegrette I just whisked up olive oil with white wine vinegar along with some seasoning, as per a normal vinegrette, then I added some skinned fresh gooseberry which I'd cut into a small dice. To that I then added my shaved fennel which once stirred and covered I set aside to begin the pickling process.

This really is quite a sharp pickle so I added a bit of sugar water to balance the flavour a bit more. You still want it fairly sharp though so it cuts through the fish so don't over do it.

The gooseberry and mint jelly didn't really work at all although it had a very nice flavour and I think that if combined with vodka it'd make one hell of a good jelly shot! The coldness of the jelly was just too fresh especially as the fish was warm.

Yesterday I griddled the mackerel fillets and rested them on a bed of salad which I'd dressed with the fennel and gooseberry, although it looked and tasted very nice it was a bit muddled and quite difficult to eat.

All I kept thinking while I was having it was that it would work so much better if I'd made a terrine or pâté out of the mackerel, perhaps with a little horseradish then served that up as a starter with some of the pickled fennel and a gooseberry and mint jam rather than a jelly. The salad need not be there at all and you could just serve it with some nice crisp bread.

I'll try this over the weekend if I get time then report back.

Onto the weekend plans and tonight I shall be meeting with a few friends at the Ivory Lounge on Reading's riverside to celebrate the birthday of one of my wonderful friends. We'll be there until around 9pm then we'll be heading a few doors down for dinner at LSQ2.

So far I have a free day on Saturday and if it stays that way I'll retry the mackerel dish as described above and then maybe head up to watch a bit of cricket at Sonning providing the weather looks OK, maybe town in the evening but most probably not as I'm down to play cricket on Sunday again providing the weather holds off enough to get a resonable game in.

Toodlepip xxx

Gooseberries.......

I've been thinking about these little green orbs of fruitiness since yesterday evening when LSQ2 posed a question on Facebook asking what their followers think they should do with the big batch they've just picked. My mind started ticking right away.

Instantly I though of a classic gooseberry fool. Who can resist the swirled green, slightly sour gooseberry purée mixed up with a vanilla sweetened and chilled chantilly cream perhaps topped with some chopped toasted almonds? I'm not even a big dessert fan but that sounds devine !!

However............

Having ditched my recipe making plans yesterday for an evening of sport and beer at my cricket club followed by a curry from my buddies at the Haweli. I've been enlightened by the thought that gooseberries may very well be a perfect accompaniment for these little beauties...






Mackerel.






All fish like Mackerel need a bit of acidity to cut through their natural oiliness and I think that a couple of nicely cook mackerel fillets over a fennel salad could be brought to life with some lovely gooseberry flavour.

I was first thinking of just a basic gooseberry dressing but then I started imagining how it would feel to eat and how it could be made a little more complex in texture and taste.

You'd get a bit of crunch from the fennel salad but maybe adding some croutons would add another texture level. The dressing would add flavour but why stop there? I'm thinking that adding a bit of fresh mint to the dressing would really lift it all in terms of taste so now it's become a gooseberry and mint dressing....better still a gooseberry and mint jelly !!!!! Even betterrerrerrrerer both a dressing and a jelly !!!

Oh this is sounding good....I'm even going to give cricket practise a miss to make it. Actually I'm going to make both. Massive gooseberry off this evening :-)

Toodlepip xx