Shopping

Hampshire Farmers Markets – exploring our wonderful local food scene

Food has always been, and continues to be one of my greatest passions in life. It must be in my blood.  Both of my parents were amazing cooks, although very different. My father was classically trained, perfecting omelettes at the Café Royale in London in the fifties, whereas Mum was a creative intuitive cook, able to rustle up modest but delicious suppers with whatever was in the fridge.

A major part of my love of food, is the sourcing and buying of it, and so I have always loved markets, and many a holiday has been centred around going to the abundant daily markets in Europe. (She says with a wistful sigh…)

Hampshire Farmers Markets have been going for twenty years and it has been interesting to see how our local Winchester market has changed over the years, starting off in the carpark in Middle Brook Street and then in the high street, with a bit of back and forth and now in the Broadway.

The second and last Sunday of the month are firmly diarised in my calendar and it is definitely a highlight of the weekend, getting up on a Sunday morning and heading off to the market with whichever family member feels so inclined. Nothing gives me more pleasure than connecting to where our food comes from, chatting to some of the producers, finding out about new produce and products. It truly brings me so much joy.

Last weekend, I ventured to the pretty Petersfield market which is one of the only ones in a traditional square, as I had missed the previous week in Winchester. Many of the stalls are the same, as the producers travel around to the different towns in Hampshire, but there are a few different ones that caught my eye.

I tried some date coffee, aptly named Dafé, which is a new stall. I wouldn’t call it a coffee substitute as naturally it is caffeine free, so great for anybody needing to avoid the stimulus of caffeine. It is made in a similar way to coffee, by roasting the dates and then grinding them. The result was a light and fresh drink, slightly sweet, and equally delicious with added milk or plain black.

Late spring/early summer is probably my favourite season for the market, as it marks the wonderful arrival of our local asparagus, and at today’s market I wasn’t disappointed. There were several stalls selling beautiful asparagus, but I chose Durleighmarsh, as they are known for their asparagus and at this time of year it is their only crop. I chatted toPaul Abbott, owner of Durleighmarsh Farm and was fascinated to learn some top tips. Whilst I already know you should never cut the end of the asparagus off, but rather gently bend it so that it snaps naturally at the right place, thereby avoiding any wastage, what I didn’t know is that if you find your asparagus a little gritty, then you need to gently scrape the little brown triangular scales that grow on the spears as they can sometimes contain a little dirt! Paul’s suggestion is not to steam the asparagus, but to gently fry it in some butter and olive oil (that stops the butter from burning) for 4 or 5 minutes, perhaps with a little garlic. 

But do be sure to load up now as the asparagus season will be over before we know it!

24 hours in Manchester

I think I have been to Manchester before some where in my dim distant past, but last weekend Peter and I spent 24 hours there, and thoroughly enjoyed it. We were blown away by the slick service, the sophistication and the fantastic energy of the city.

We went to Manchester to see John Mayer who was playing at Manchester Arena – I have to admit that you cant help thinking about the horrific attack that took place there two and a half years ago, but as I said to somebody, you cant live your life in fear, and the atmosphere inside was certainly fearless and electric.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Leaving aside the six hours it took for me to get to Manchester, when I eventually arrived, we still just about had enough time to get our supper which Peter had booked at Dishoom. What an incredible slick operation – I haven’t experienced service like that for a long time. Despite us being over half an hour late for the booking (we did call to let them know), we were whisked to a table, drinks orders taken and fairly swiftly after that our food order.

Dishoom is contemporary Indian, and I have to say the food was as slick as the service. Our okra fries arrived with our drinks – demolished within minutes. Followed by masala prawns, lamb sheekh kebab, house-style chicken tikka and gunpowder potatoes. Did I mention the service? Super friendly, efficient with plenty of managerial presence conducting proceedings without a hitch. We were in and out within an hour, but dearly would have liked to stay and linger with another glass of wine…

A ten minute walk took us to the Arena and swiftly through (very tight) security and into our seats. A fantastic concert – two and a half hours of all of his best tracks with a super-talented band and backing singers – and of course it doesnt hurt that John Mayer is fairly easy on the eye!

Peter had found and booked us a hotel called Native Manchester. If you havent stayed in a Native before, do yourself a favour and check them out. They are studio apartments in old refurbished buildings or super-cool modern developments or even mews houses, with a great contemporary design and lots of extra details you wouldn’t expect. The one in Manchester is an old converted warehouse in the Northern Quarter and has only been open a month.

In fact, I am pretty sure we were the first to stay in our room, as it didn’t look like any of the bath/body products had yet been opened. We booked the smallest room as we were only there for one night but it was still spacious and edgy with the original girders and brick work. But wonderful design details – a little table attached to the end of the sofa, a discreet drawer under the sink in the bathroom, gorgeous lotions and potions from Bramble, set up by somebody from Cowshed. Every studio apartment has a little kitchenette which had the basics you would need to cook something simple but everything was quality, even a Sabatier knife!

We got a late check out as it was all important rugby World Cup quarter finals in the morning, so whilst Peter languished in bed watching England thrash Australia, I nipped down to the oh-so-cool lobby and fetched us some cinnamon rolls and flat whites – it all felt very New York.

Rugby over and we had a lovely wander through Manchester. Those of you who know me, know that no outing is complete without a stop for coffee, and of course this was no different and top of our list. We found a Scandinavian artisan coffee house called Takk – they actually have three outlets in Manchester, and like our whole experience of Manchester, it was slick, sophisticated and plenty of substance.

Manchester – we will be back, and cant wait!

Winter warmers for a cold and snowy week

Last week was certainly a week for winter warmers, if ever there was one, and I, for one, loved every moment.

Whilst our temperatures here in the South of England plummeted to a freezing -6C for several days, the snow fell and our already beautiful countryside looked even more magical. This was indeed an unexpected pleasure, as having had magnificent snowfalls in Istanbul over the past four years, it is not such a regular occurrence in Hampshire.

But back to the winter warmers – this sort of weather definitely calls for warm and hearty fare, usually meaty as far as we are concerned, and gave us all the inspiration we needed for some delicious suppers all week.

Sunday: was a traditional roast rib of beef, as Waitrose had one last rib going cheap (always an eye on a bargain), which we decided to roast using the untraditional reverse sear method, taking inspiration from Jess Pryles and her Hard Core Carnivore book. That means, instead of the usual sear in a pan to brown all over, and then whack in the oven for a short time, you cook it in the oven at a low temperature first, and when it has reached the right colour of pink for your taste, achieved by using a meat thermometer, you rest the meat for a while before searing in a hot pan, which gives it a gorgeous colour as well as wonderful caramelisation. The result was a beautiful even pink throughout with no grey bits around the edges where the meat has cooked a little more. We had this with roast potatoes and roast purple sprouts doused in walnut oil. A triumph, as Thomas would have said.

Monday: Cold rib of beef, of course! With sweet potatoes and horseradish creme fraiche.

Tuesday: A warming and divine Bengali chicken curry from Peter’s new cook book, Indian Kitchen by Maunika Gowardhan. I was full of cold and requested a warming curry from Peter, and he certainly delivered!

Wednesday: was the remains of the rib of beef made into a very warming and hearty ragu, which we had with fresh tagliatelle and a winter salad of red cabbage, little gem, goat cheese,broccoli and walnuts.

Thursday: we managed to nip out to Waitrose for a quick stock up before we became completely snowed in, and bought some beautiful fresh Cornish hake – might not sound hearty, but with the addition of chunks of chorizo, and crunchy cubes of potato, it certainly worked for us!

Friday: after several days of being confined to our cottage, with heating and fire blazing, we decided to break out and head to the local pub with some lovely friends and neighbours, and had a gorgeous homemade steak and ale pie in a rich gravy with light crispy pastry.

Saturday was homemade pizza – well, the kids were home from school, what more can I say? Topped with yet more chorizo, and local Laverstoke Farm buffalo mozzarella. Perhaps our least hearty meal of the week.

 

Sunday – we rounded the week off with a magnificent venison chilli – local venison cooked with several different types chilli, using a fantastic recipe again from Hard Core Carnivore. This was superb – rich, unctuous, with lots of flavour from the sweet chilli, but never overpowering. We ate this spooned in soft tacos with dollops of creme fraiche. This probably wins the vote of most hearty dish of the week.

Usually we try not to drink alcohol during the week, but sometimes you have to throw reason to the wind, and these suppers cried out for full-bodied rich red wines, from a Barolo, to Rioja, to a Southern Italian Primitivo. I have loved our winter week full of snow and hearty food, but I think my waist line will appreciate the spring weather when it arrives!

My haul from the UK

20130909-101229.jpg
It was touch and go whether I got all my luggage on the plane back to Istanbul on Thursday – when I got on the bus from the rental car depot to terminal 3, the bus driver asked if I was flying business class? I shook my head. First class? Again no. He muttered something about no wonder the handle on my suitcase had broken and good luck getting that on economy.

Still, it all went fine and I managed with Daisy’s violin on my back, a hand luggage suitcase, handbag and duty free plus one incredibly heavy suitcase – thanks to Jed Hewson for carrying up 4 flights of stairs to our apartment in Istanbul 😉

Here is what I brought back –

A loaf of spelt bread
3 x packets salt and vinegar crisps
Waitrose pancetta
Saucisson
Pizza express pizza for daisy
2 x bottles of wine
2 x bottles of Jim Beam
Hundreds of bars of chocolate
Jar of horseradish
Jar of béarnaise
Jar of hollandaise
Egg noodles
1 kg soft brown sugar
1 kg caster sugar
Vanilla extract
Cake sprinkles
Cake candles
Cooking chocolate
Jordan’s cereal

Out of my comfort zone

I’ve been hankering after making a cake as havent done any baking for a month now and realise that its what makes me feel normal.

So I decided to head down to the supermarket with Peter when he went to work this morning and buy some sugar flour butter but boy, was is it ever difficult? You wouldnt believe how frustrating it is standing in a foreign supermarket with shelves of flour but no idea which one to get. Stupidly, as I had left on a spur of the moment decision, I hadnt brought a Turkish dictionary with me and my Turkish phone is not working at the moment as we have fallen foul of Turkish regulations and not registered it.

Eventually I gathered everything I might need including a cake tin, a purple spatula and some sachets of something I hoped might be baking powder – on literal translation at home I realise I have bought ‘pastry swelling dust’ – sounds about right to me!

20130813-125022.jpg

After Billy and Daisy raced down to help me lug the shopping 4 floors up (no lift), Billy made us omelettes for breakfast – the first time he has done it on his own after me showing him yesterday and delicious they were too.

20130813-125155.jpg

It was only after we had eaten the omelettes that I realised we had just eaten the eggs we were going to bake the cake with….

Market Produce

Here is some of the wonderful market produce in season at the moment in turkey.

20130809-145215.jpg

This photo looks like I’ve styled a still life, but in all honesty, its just everything we bought in the market!

20130809-142936.jpg

We made a fig, walnut, green bean and sheeps milk cheese salad for lunch which we had with our left over chicken sis kebabs.

20130809-141056.jpg

Tonight we’re going to make a pasta sauce with the local salami – its quite a wet one and spicy so should crumble down to make a nice sauce with all those fat ripe tomatoes and the aubergine and a large dollop of that delicious local olive paste.

And peaches for pudding that come from trees surrounding the village. Even the olive oil is made from olive groves just half an hour further up the hill from here.

20130809-142233.jpg