The Wine Merchant - Hot & Spicy Cuisine, why Taylor & Shroff.

Over the centuries western/ European wines have developed to compliment
and enhance the styles and flavours of western foods. So much so that
we now have a sophisticated set of rules , ideas and beliefs regarding
which wines are best paired with various foods. These  wines styles,
with subtle fruit, exacting balance, good acidity …

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The Wine Merchant - Two More For Taylor and Shroff

Presenting two more launch events and two more new restaurants listing Taylor & Shroff, British Wines Made to match curry (spicy foods from around the world).

The success story of Taylor & Shroff, British wines made to match curry continues with the launch of these unique and versatile wines at the …

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The London Forager - A bit of an old chestnut

Only the last few bumble bees, buzzing around grumpily and crashing into living room walls, seem to be resisting the arrival of Autumn. Everyone else is getting on with it, particularly the squirrels of Greenwich Park, who are racing against the foragers to gather up chestnuts for the winter. The soil in the flower beds is pitted with little craters, and  if you hang around long enough a squirrel will hop along, dig a hole, drop a chestnut in cover it up again, before darting off for another.

Chestnuts offer a guilt-free harvest in London. The squirrels in parks have their diet supplemented with monkey nuts all year round, and there are so many chestnuts to be had that anyone who wants to get a bag full can do so with ease.

I’ve been having raw chestnuts for breakfast every morning as I walk through the park. They’re best roasted, but a freshly fallen nut, shelled and rubbed to remove the bitter pellicle (the thin, translucent inner skin) is glorious, as crunchy and creamy as a Kentish cobnut.

We made a little video which you can watch here.

www.londonforager.com/roast-chestnuts-video.htm

Chestnuts are extremely versatile. They make fantastic puddings, ice-creams and fondants, and also go well with braised kid or beef. They also form the basis of the classic confectionery marrons glaces, but I wouldn’t recommend trying these at home- it’s a lengthy delicate business that’s best left to the commercial kitchen.

Aside from chestnuts, we’ve gathered bags and bags of Malus Golden Hornet crab apples, damsons and sloes this month. People have been asking about sloe gin- where to find sloes, when to pick them etc. I’ve yet to find a wild blackthorn bush here, and I can’t work out why this is (our sloes were from Bedfordshire, not London). So I’m afraid I can’t help out with the first one. As for picking them, rural wisdom dictates that you should wait until the first frost. This ‘bites’ the sloes, breaking the skin and softening the fruit. If you don’t want to wait however, you can simulate Jack Frost’s cruel embrace by bunging them in the freezer. Then let them thaw and they’re ready to be made into sloe gin.

Don’t feel that your dreams of liqueur making are shattered though just because you can’t find sloes. Damsons are a worthy substitute, and pretty much any fruit will sing if steeped for long enough in alcohol. There are a few basic principles regarding the sugar/booze ratio for different fruit, and some fruits will need a syrup rather than powdered sugar, but beyond this you can experiment and the results will rarely be disgusting.

There’s still time to make crabapple schnapps for Christmas if you can’t get hold of sloes. There’s nothing to it, just cover a couple of handfuls of crabapples in 50cl or so of neat vodka, seal in a kilner jar and store in a dark place until mid December. It’s just as good as sloe gin.

We’ve got a couple of other liqueur recipes on our site, and I’m in the process of putting together a pdf which I’ll put up for download later in the week (promise).

www.londonforager.com

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The Wine Merchant - Taylor & Shroff Come To Town.

Thursday 8th October 2009, a date to remember. The date that Taylor and Shroff, British Wines for a British Dish, was launched with tremendous success with the famous Rajesh Suri at his Imli Restaurant in Soho/London.

The guest list included a range of Curry-istas and Asian “AllStars” as Imli’s was the …

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The Farmers Market Reviewer - Winchester Farmer’s Market Review

With the expectation of an interesting morning and the possibility of finding something interesting to eat, we arrived at Winchester Farmer’s Market on a drizzly August bank holiday via the underground car park of a rundown Brooks Shopping Centre. As we climbed the stairs into Middle Brook Street, possibly influenced by the weather, our enthusiasm waned and our impression of the Brooks was not hopeful.

To our surprise, as we reached the top of the stairs and despite the drizzle, we were embraced by a vibrant, colourful, street theatre just as markets used to be. Tightly packed stalls, where great effort had been made on the presentation of the produce of the stalls, to tempt the passers by, as if shouting ‘we are professional’, we’re not your ordinary, everyday market, take a look, have a taste, we have time to talk to you, you may find something really interesting. The effort of our trip looked fruitful, one of the first stalls we came across was Blackmoor Game, they had rabbits, which I had not had for years, I had recently watched the video Mark Gilchrist of Game for Everything and had made a mental note to have a go. They were cooking venison sausages, for tasting, which were great, but I had no intention of buying, I always spend more than I plan too, so decided to wait to see what else was on offer.

From Middle Brook Street we crossed the road into a large car park with lots more stalls, not so intimate as Middle Brook Street, but with the same great attention to detail. Lots of great looking vegetables on offer, very difficult to decide who to buy from, we finally purchased our normal veg from Nick of Wylds Farm at Liss who was situated on the corner of Middle Brooke Street. He also had some little gem squash, we hadn’t had those before and he was happy to tell us how best to cook them, he suggested we use them as a vegetable , just cutting off the tops, taking out the pips, putting in a knob of butter, maybe some garlic and roasting. We also bought a large squash for soup.

All this talk of cooking was making us hungry and we felt we needed a snack. I had the water buffalo burger, the burger was tasty but I do like the fat you get from beef, my wife had the hogg roast in a bap, the taste of the acidic apple sauce was the only flavour and it was wrapped in what appeared to be a cheap supermarket bap, not very impressive.

On we went, we had bought some onion chutney last time we went to Borough Market which we had enjoyed to the full, so we were looking for something as good. There were lots of home made pickle stalls but we could not find anything that was tempting enough. I think if you are charging £3.50 for a small jar of preserves, you need to be offering something special or unique, we did not buy any.

On the way back to he car park we sampled some Sussex Charmer from Pallinghurst Farm a real creamy mature cheddar with a kick, a really great cheese but again I didn’t buy as I felt that it was expensive for a direct sell from the Producer. Which I suppose gives us the dilemma of what is the correct price on a Farmer’s Market, on one hand we had the likes of Nick who is selling good honest vegetables and is struggling, even though he was always selling while I was watching or niche trend product producers who, because they consider they have a quality product (whether they have or not) feel they can charge main stream prices from a barrow. There has to be a happy medium. I feel I had great value in veg, but come on guys I don’t want to pay for non existent middle men, transport and advertising costs.

On the way back to the car, we bought some rabbit to cook as a pie from Blackmoor Farm and I couldn’t resist some of the venison sausages.

When we arrived home we decided to cook and try the little gem squash as Nick had suggested, we added some chopped onions and garlic and put them through the oven for about half an hour, when cooked I grated parmesan on the top. Delicious, will buy again and would happily pay more for them, they would make a good, unusual starter, maybe with a little chopped bacon too. Wonderful. Cooked the squash soup with a little smoked paprika, enough for the whole week and very tasty!

Then onto the rabbit which was already prepared ready to cook, we bought two and prepared a scrumptious pie for supper that night and a lovely rich casserole for the freezer, for 4 people, really good value, very tasty, this is what market shopping is about. Eat your heart out Jamie Oliver with your meal for a £5!!!! Later on in the week, in a father and son moment, I fried the venison sausages with onions and served with Dijon mustard and few beers whilst watching T V, they tasted even better than on the market.

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The Farmers Market Reviewer - THE FARMERS MARKET REVIEWER

Our Farmers Market Reviewer has worked for over 40 years in the Catering and Hospitality Industry.

Following Catering College in both French and German kitchens, he advanced into management via Corporate Catering and Holiday Complex catering culminating in his own Events and Restaurants
Business.

Now semi retired, he fills his time indulging in buying good seasonal produce from Farmers Markets around the country from where he will now blog to us.

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