Culinary affairs

Last weekend we thought to try the wine from the German bit of Italy, that is to say the South Tyrol, noticed at reference 1. With the most recent mention of the Tyrol before that being reference 2. I also remember meeting an Italian cook in a public house in Sussex who came from the Alto Adige, but have failed to trace any notice of him.

The centre piece of the occasion was to be a roast chicken, so sage & onion stuffing was clearly called for. First stop the organic shop in Epsom to buy some hazelnuts, a shop which seems to be doing better out of selling coffee and snacks that it is out of selling ingredients for home use. Second stop the bread stall in the market for a white split tin, which had almost certainly been through a freezer at some point in its life. Rather heavy feeling. Third stop the butcher in Manor Green Road for some smoked streaky, the presentation of which was very poor, but the bacon itself was fine. The resultant stuffing can be seen between the rose and the wine, good, but even better cold as it turned out. I think I should have used more bread, given the amount of celery, onion and what have you.

Rose looked and smelled very well, from the prolific floribunda by our back patio. I didn't used to care for this sort of pink rose, but I think I must have got used to them. The originals of both paintings above can sometimes be found in Tate Britain.

A bonus of the white bread, being rather heavy to eat in the ordinary way, was that the balance, that is to say about half of it, was made into a bread pudding, pudding which like stuffing is hugely better when made with white bread than with any kind of brown bread. Something which we used to have every week or so, so it made a nice change to have one last week.

But dessert on this particular occasion was cherry clafoutis, my having acquired two kilos of very cheap cherries from Spain. Cherries which looked OK, red and shiny enough, with only about 5-10% of them being damaged, but which were curiously tasteless. Better stewed, better still in clafoutis form.

Some of the bacon went on top of the chicken, the rest served to flavour the chicken soup, made with the carcass of the chicken a few days after the main event. With the chicken broth being thickened with both grated potato and red lentils. Very good it was too, with the half gallon or so of it being done in a meal and a bit.

Last but not least, the Praepositus wine was excellent. Topped off with a drop of middle of the range Calvados from Majestic. Roger Groult Réserve 3-Year-Old.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/06/hampton-court-not.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/11/mistake.html.

Reference 3: http://www.organico.co.uk/. The organic shop in Epsom. Slightly more organic than their rival Grape Tree, these last being good for brick dates.