Parisian restaurants and pistachio marzipan.

11 September 2023

Travel

UK

We are on the coast this week. The Telegraph says with the ‘South Downs National Park, a vineyard and one of England’s greatest coastlines on its doorstep, the Sussex village of Alfriston has it all. It also has advice on spending the heatwave in Britain with a guide to the nation’s top beaches, walks, days out, campsites and seaside hotels and the Observer stretches out summer with 10 last minute beach breaks include Southwold, Dartmouth and Rye.

The FT goes across the Yorkshire Dales in the footsteps of JB Priestley article and at the White Lion Inn at Cray, while the Independent describes seven of the best walks in the Yorkshire Dales along with nice places to stay including Malham Tarn and the Three Peaks and details of a free walking app of walks there.

Everything you need to know to plan your first ever cycling holiday in the Independent.

Europe

Six of chef Hélène Darroze’s favourite Paris restaurants in the FT  as well as a special bonus, Diana Henry’s Parisian favourites from Instagram.

From the UK to Sicily by rail in the Guardian.

The Times says Austria is great for families as they describe a holiday on the Wolfgangsee in Salzkammergut and also go to Modena in Italy in search of Ferraris which they think ‘is easily more charming than gritty Bologna and even pretty Ravenna’. Meanwhile, the Guardian is in Emilia-Romagna, hiking the Ducati trail. Starting in Reggio Emilia, it runs for 125 miles to Sarzana, near the Ligurian coast.

Restaurants 

In the FT, Tim Hayward opined about food photography. 

In the Guardian, Grace Dent was at Blåbär, in Putney, London SW15 and said ‘damn these Nordic types with their delightful, dignified living.’

In the Observer, Jay Rayner loved Origin City, a meat-led restaurant in Smithfields, London EC1, and wrote, ‘it’s good. At times it is nothing short of magnificent and that’s because of the way they source their ingredients.’ 

In the Standard, Jimi Famurewa went to Evi’s in East Dulwich, London SE22 where he described the cooking as ‘a gently contemporary, elegantly rugged parade of dishes that, though not always perfect, knock you over with their culinary acuity, gushing succulence and punching, vibrant freshness.’

In the Telegraph, William Sitwell travelled to Newcastle upon Tyne, city of my birth, Khai Khai, an Indian restaurant ‘near the centre of that great city whose avenues and vistas drag your eyes skywards to vast bridges, grand buildings and the raucous screeching of seagulls, I zone in on the dal.’ He had two courses and gave it a firm thumbs up.

In the Times, Giles Coren was at the Beckford Canteen in Bath which, he informed us, ‘comes from the same stable as those giants of West Country restauration, the Beckford Arms, the Lord Poulett Arms and the Talbot Inn, all of which I have reviewed with delirious approval over the past 15 years, and is just a few doors down from the Beckford Bottle Shop, which I probably reviewed too.’ He liked it.

Recipes

Nigel Slater has recipes for green beans, spring cabbage, toasted hazelnuts, and coppa, fig and gorzonzola tarts. The tarts look another good way of using puff pastry to make an easy supper.

The Guardian had a Scandinavian theme. I’ve picked out Ottolenghi’s recipes for beetroot soup with quick-pickled celery, and a ‘salmony’ potato salad with pickled mustard seeds and crisp onions. This has Poacher’s Relish in it, a salmon version made by Pater Peperium who make Gentleman’s Relish. I’d never heard of it but apparently you can buy it in Waitrose.  I made his pistachio and lime kransekakestenger cookies, (pictured above) as an intended thank you present for someone, but my husband said they were a ‘bit rich’ - his way of saying he didn’t like them, so now I am doing a box of brownies instead.

Trine Hahnemann contributed recipes for smörgåskaviar potato pancakes, fried mackerel with shaken redcurrant frikadeller with sweet-and-sour cucumber salad.

Benjamina Ebuehi’s recipe for Daim almond cake in the Guardian, after you’ve gone to Ikea for the Daim bars with a fluffy sponge and a rich Daim buttercream, covered in a nutty chocolate glaze. I also liked Felicity Cloake’s no cook apple cake. ( link to be aded later)

Family-style recipes from Rowley Leigh’s new restaurant, ‘Chez Rowley’ in the FT, including bavette, sauce gribiche and cep toast, poulet Antiboise, (which includes onions cooked down to make a sauce for the roast chicken) raw sea bass, oyster emulsion and anchovy bits, and grilled pineapple with chilli syrup and coconut ice cream. Chez Rowley opens at Laylow, 10 Golborne Road, London W10 5PE, on September 13.

Eleanor Steafel in the Telegraph with a summery salami and fennel pasta. She says it will make your kitchen smell gloriously like a French market. I think it would be great for a night’s self catering anywhere in Europe, especially if you took the fennel seeds in your luggage, which is the sort of thing that I would be prone to do. I once posted an envelope of mahleb through a friend’s door so she could make Honey and Co cherry, coconut and pistachio cake.

Mark Hix explained how to make stocks, soups and sauces with clear chicken stock and creamy chicken soup, mushroom and ginger broth, and fish stock and then a white wine fish sauce.

Books 

Roast Figs, Sugar Snow by Diana Henry, (a new edition published in 2023)

with an interview here and recipes for Quebecois mussel chowder with cod and cider, stuffed quail with marmlade and roast figs and plums in vodka with cardamom cream which she says is best served chilled with ginger biscuits,

5 Ingredients Mediterranean by Jamie Oliver 

with a new Tv series and recipes including crispy-skinned mackerel, pomegranate seeds and syrup, ras el hanout and walnuts, glorious stuffed squash, mixed herby grains, oozy coddled egg and harissa dressing and stuffed cabbage leaves, sausage and rice filling, tomato sauce and oozy Camembert.

There seems to be a lot of ‘oozy’ which does not look pleasant on our new big TV on the wall.

I’m not sure what either of these books add to the culinary lexicon but I’ve added them for the sake of completeness.

Pub Kitchen: The Ultimate Modern British Food Bible by Tom Kerridge 

with recipes in the Times for prawn cakes with dill mayonnaise, smoked mackerel salad with beetroot and horseradish, crispy chicken Caesar salad, whole roasted spiced cauliflower and mini pork sausage rolls with nduja 

The Thrifty Baker by Hermine Dossou

the ex Bake-Off contestant with an interview here in the Independent and recipes for coconut, raspberry and chocolate muffins, spinach and mushroom quiche and Biscoff microwave mug cake.

I have enough apples to make Felicity Cloake’s cake from the tree in the garden.