Oatcakes take various forms depending on which side of the Anglo-Scottish border you call home. The Scots make theirs as baked, savoury biscuits which can be served on a cheeseboard or with smoked salmon, but the English have a very different take on the oatcake. Even these vary from region-to-region but the ones I’ve taken on hail from Staffordshire in the English West Midlands.

Staffordshire Oatcakes are very much like English pancakes, except they contain oatmeal and some use wholemeal flour either instead of plain flour or a combination of the two, and they’re no eggs in there, oh and they’ve got yeast in. But apart from this they are very much like English pancakes. Okay, so they look a bit like English pancakes… if you’re standing quite far away. Sheesh!

My good friend DrMike, who resides only a stone’s throw from North Staffordshire, gave me a fascinating bit of insight into the Staffy Oatcake. For many folks around there, oatcakes have replaced (or more likely were never displaced by) today’s fashionable fast food items; grilled paninis, deli wraps and the like. Why have your lunch-on-the-fly filling stuffed into a corn tortilla when you can have it rolled up in an oaty pancake? The traditional filling would be practically any combination of ingredients from an ‘all-day breakfast’ but anything goes these days. Chicken tikka, chilli con carne and coronation chicken are now quite the norm amongst the oatcake avant-garde.

As for my filling, well I had a bit of an epiphany. There’s a breakfast dish from Southern India called Masala Dosa which consists of pancakes made from ground daal or rice and stuffed with mildly spiced potatoes. Why not bring the taste of Chennai to The Potteries? So I fried some finely chopped onion, garlic and ginger in oil with cumin and mustard seeds for a few minutes before adding some chopped, deseeded green chillis. I mixed a spoonful of tamarind paste with a little hot water and added this to the pan along with turmeric and brown sugar. Finally, I stirred in plenty of cooked, diced potatoes coating them well with the spices and aromatics before finishing with chopped coriander leaves.

I rolled up a good portion of the spicy potatoes in my Staffy Oatcake, sat back and enjoyed my tasty, East-meets-West Midlands lunch. Here’s an oatcake recipe… > > Read on > >

Last week we learned the sad news that Cockney rockers Chas ‘n’ Dave have split up. As an homage to these perennial crowd pleasers I’ve decided to move the blog down to London, figuratively speaking, for a bit of Tommy Tucker (slang for supper). But it’s not jellied eels, pie and mash or even rabbit that caught my attention on this day, but ‘London Particular,’ or pea soup.

A ‘pea-souper’ is an expression that came to refer to the recurrent, smoke-laden fog (or smog) that affected London for hundreds of years right up until the latter half of the 20th century. Lasting for days on end, the smog was a combination of smoke from coal burning in the densely populated city with the frequent fog that time and again brought a noxious, yellow cloud down across the capital. Smog is not something unique to London, but these were, “a London particular,” and, while adding an air of mystery and suspense in Basil Rathbone movies, were morbidly treacherous.

Smog had caused many fatalities in London over the years, especially during the modern industrial era, but culminated with what became known as ‘The Great Smog of 1952.’ A bitterly cold day in December saw tens of thousands of London homes billowing smoke from their coal fires to stave off near freezing temperatures, but weather conditions conspired to keep the smog hanging over the city for 4 incessant days and nights. Fatalities due to smog-related respiratory failure at the height of the event were estimated at 4075 people, but the number of premature deaths owing to the Great Smog is now believed to be many thousands more. Quite staggering numbers when you consider this was not even 60 years ago. The tragedy sparked legislation to improve air quality throughout the city and eventually the last was seen of the London smog.

Of course this, “death-dealing genie,” (Samuel Johnson’s ‘The Idler’) wasn’t enough to quell the black humour of the British. The name ‘London Particular’ was taken by a recipe for yellow split pea soup because of its resemblance to the thick, yellow smog, and still popular in London restaurants to this day.

London Particular is a soup made from yellow split peas in a ham (or bacon) stock. I’ve gone for a smoked ham hock (or hough as it’s known where I am) which gives a deliciously rich, smoky flavour. I’m sure the irony of using smoked meat doesn’t escape either. London Particular doesn’t really differ from any other pea and ham soup, but very fitting that it be adopted and named by a city that knows all there is to know about pea-soupers. Here’s the recipe… > > Read on > >

I’m a huge fan of offal and have been for as long as I can remember. Back when I was very young, liver and kidney would feature frequently on the family menu and I thoroughly loved it, not a claim that the majority of children would make, I suspect. Offal remains a firm favourite to this day but now that I’m all big and growed up I’ve learned to appreciate the more social elements that come with being an offal eater. I can’t claim to be a nose-to-tail diner but there’s something ultimately satisfying about eating more than just the prime cuts of a beast. Besides which there’s a thrifty element that can leave you pleasingly smug as well as pleasingly fed.

Faggots are an ideal example of this. They are essentially meatballs made from offal and offcuts, anything that is either left over or to hand, and well within the means of the frugal housekeeper whether by want or necessity. Here, I’ve chosen ‘Ffagod a Pys,’ a Welsh variation of the dish, but faggots reach far wider across many English regions too, such as Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Lancashire, and are particularly fondly regarded in the Black Country where they are also served with peas.

And not to ignore the elephant in the room entirely, the origins of the modern, more derogatory use of the word swim in an entirely different etymological fish pond. ‘Faggot’ is a word we stole from the French meaning ‘bundle.’ You may have seen the term ‘faggot of herbs’ in older cookery books, referring to what we nowadays call a bouquet garni, but centuries ago it was the term given to the bundle of sticks, twigs and branches used to burn heretics at the stake! Given the choice I would certainly choose Ffagod a Pys over a torch-wielding Cardinal.

I served my faggots sliced on English potato cakes known as bacon floddies, (a much daintier version this time) crunchy roasted parsnips and sautéed spinach. I boiled frozen garden peas until they were cooked through, drained them and made a rough purée with a stick blender, adding a few mint leaves to lift its freshness. Finally the gravy was reduced to my liking and spooned over the top and round about.

The faggots themselves were made to own preference, still getting plenty of richness of liver and heart but using belly pork to keep the offal from overpowering the dish. Here are the ratios I used. > > Read on > >

Go back to the 1980s and you’ll find me, knee-high to a grasshopper, attending a small primary school in South Manchester. It was a faith school of only about 120 pupils but it was by no means exclusive. We still had our ubiquitous, ‘girl who smelled of Spam,’ (thank Lee & Herring for that one) and none of us were from particularly affluent families. We all enjoyed our mid-morning bottle of free milk - quite how that survived the clutches of Thatcher the milk snatcher I’m not 100% sure - and we all enjoyed our school dinners.

It was a very simple affair, a two-course set meal usually consisting of sliced pork or beef with gravy and some boiled veggies followed by a sponge pudding or a crumble. There was no menu, no buffet to choose from and come to think of it I can’t even remember there being a vegetarian option. But it was good hearty stuff, not exciting I’ll be the first to admit, but a balanced diet. We were eating what we needed, not necessarily what we wanted. I wolfed it down anyway, of course. (This blog isn’t called Pernicketydave!)

In recent years school dinners have rarely been out of the newspapers. It took a celebrity chef back in 2005 to embarrass the authorities into improving what had become shockingly low standards. The budget per child that schools were being asked to work with was so low that their only option was to provide cheap, processed foods that were alarmingly unhealthy. The government’s response to the problem? As always, to appear on television and say they’ll throw money at it - money it was later reported they didn’t actually have. The ‘quango’ that was set up to deliver reform, the School Food Trust, was initially criticised for having a conflict of interests due to many of its board members having links to large catering firms that already supply to schools. These concerns do appear largely to have been redressed and the School Food Trust have compiled new guidelines for food standards which are now mandatory in English primary schools, with a looming deadline for the same in secondary schools. Of course, it wouldn’t be a quango if there weren’t conflicting reports on its success so far, but it’s early days. Let’s hope the shame that kicked this whole thing off is matched by an ongoing sense of responsibility to our kids.

Here’s a dessert from yesteryear, though one which is unlikely to appear in the SFT’s guidelines.

Gypsy Tart is a fondly remembered school dinner dessert, particularly in the South of England. A sweet pastry tart with a filling made from whipped evaporated milk and muscovado sugar, very basic ingredients for essentially a very basic pudding. It might be a little on the calorific side but nothing that can’t be worked off by shinnying up a rope in the school gym afterwards…
> > Read on > >

A former work colleague of mine, native to Nandyal in Southern India, would jump at every opportunity to remind me that the food in our British curry houses isn’t truly authentic fayre. I think we’ve all known this for quite some time, deep down, not least because two of the most popular dishes on every menu are commonly known to have been created over here! Still, this has always been the furthest thing from my mind whilst enjoying a slap-up meal down the Curry Mile. One thing that can’t be ignored, however, is that the majority of food on the curry house menu does at least have its roots in the Subcontinent, although perhaps in name alone.

Bhuna would be a good example. Order one in your local Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi restaurant or takeaway and you know exactly what you’re getting; the meat of your choice swimming in a spiced gravy. But what of the bhunas served at bazaars, by street vendors and by ‘homemakers’ in these countries? Not an easy answer to track down by any stretch, but many accounts describe the dish in a different light. Bhuna, meaning ‘brown’ in Hindi/Urdu, is a cooking method by which a masala of spices are browned in a karahi pan before the dish’s other ingredients are added to receive the same treatment. Instead of a thin gravy, the cooking liquor is heavily reduced down to coat the meat, ultimately creating quite a dry dish, ideal for eating with flatbreads such as my personal favourite, chapatis. As for the bhuna’s origins, I suspect that might be a leap too far into history, although I was quite taken by a suggestion that it was influenced by the Tibetan/Chinese method of stir-frying. Geographically, that appears to hold water with China’s proximity to Bangladesh and Punjab (seemingly bhuna central) although it is a dish enjoyed far wider than in just these territories.

This Bhuna Gosht recipe has been a firm favourite of mine for the best part of a decade. The ‘gosht’ (or meat) that I’d normally use would be shoulder of lamb but on this occasion I had the opportunity to use mutton from a reputable Lakeland farm. The depth of the dish is just astounding, with the fennel seed and fenugreek flavours so far removed from those that you would shovel down with several pints of Cobra beer at the nearest balti tavern… not that I’m promising to give up the latter! Here’s the skinny… > > Read on > >

Industry holidays in Britain, known as ‘Wakes Weeks’ in parts of Northern England, were one week in the year during the latter part of the Industrial Revolution when whole mills and factories would down tools and its employees would flock to the seaside and other resorts for a week of well deserved vacation. And flock is an understatement, with literally millions of people descending on seaside resorts such as Blackpool and Llandudno. Trains had to be chartered especially to accommodate the summer madness. The term ‘Wakes Week’ was probably coined from religious celebrations held a few centuries earlier but was adopted by this summertime coastal migration. Wakes (also known as Fairs in many parts) still take place to this day. Indeed, my own town in Scotland had its annual Fair last month, although this has been trimmed down from a week’s holiday to just a single day, shame! Even so, the extent to which the town closes down is simply astonishing. Not a car on the road, not a person in the street.

Hindle Wakes is a dish from Lancashire eaten to celebrate this holiday. A whole chicken is stuffed with black pudding, prunes, bacon and other goodies before being braised, then roasted and served with a creamy lemon sauce. Its origin is accredited to 16th century Flemish immigrants but its name is a little more uncertain. I did see a couple of naughty websites describing it as being, “A dish eaten in Hindle, Lancashire during the annual Wakes.” No gold stars I’m afraid. Hindle is a fictional town dreamt up by playwright Stanley Houghton in his 1912 play which shares its name with (or possibly lends its name to) this dish. One credible explanation is that it derives from, ‘Hen de la Wakes,’ owing to its Flemish origins, but I favour that the dish simply adopted its name from Houghton’s play as there seems to be no documentary evidence that this name existed before his controversial tale of scandal and tragedy took to the stage.

Traditionally, Hindle Wakes would be served as a whole poached and roasted bird, liberally stuffed, smeared head-to-toe with sauce and served as a centrepiece. However, I’ve pulled it apart somewhat and used only the legs of my chuck, quite simply because I have other plans for the breasts and carcass, but using a good slug of my chicken stock in the stuffing to preserve its integrity. It’s quite an alien palate of flavours; chicken, prunes and lemon are a combination that time has forgotten and undoubtedly this does smack of history. But are the flavours wrong? Well, no, and it was quite a pleasure to taste something a little out of, what we might call, the ordinary. Here’s how it goes… > > Read on > >

Still on a breakfast theme (the Floddies, not the Pimm’s) and it’s high time I posted a dish from my current part of the world. I moved to Scotland just over a year ago and it’s been equally an education of cuisine as one of culture.

I didn’t know until my time here that jumbo sausages could be deep-fried in batter, that the Pakora was regarded (by some) as Scotland’s national dish, nor that the Scotch Pies at Ibrox could make your gums bleed for more than the duration of a Glasgow Rangers football match. Here, just as in the rest of Britain, great food doesn’t come looking for you. It has to be hunted down, which is really what this blog is all about.

Herrings in Oatmeal doesn’t take too much hunting down. A very famous Scottish breakfast, one which even I’ve known of for years, and so simple there’s really no recipe involved. My herrings came to me filleted by my fishmonger with the skins left on, but these little blighters are über boney so a little time was taken to pluck out the worst offenders. Once boned and trimmed the fillets were well seasoned and dropped flesh side down onto a plate of pinhead oatmeal and pressed hard making sure the whole side of the fillet was firmly coated with the oats. The oiliness of the fish was all the adhesive needed for this. Finally the fillets were fried in a hot, oiled skillet on the oaty flesh side for 3 or 4 minutes until the oats were toasty and brown, then flipped onto the skin side for another couple of minutes along with a knob of butter.

Of course, your average 280 lbs Scottish bare-knuckle prize fighter might skip the sprig of parsley and lemon wedges, but this is one tasty brekkie that will set you up, well, until lunchtime at least.

GDave

The lowly potato has been taken unto the bosom of so many nations. Who would have thought that when Sir Isaac Newton brought the potato back from the Holy Land it would have proven the cornerstone of our diet? (this actually happened, I read it in a book about history ‘n’ stuff) As soon as we were convinced they weren’t poisonous we went on to discover just how versatile potatoes truly were; creating chips, mash and other delicacies. But it was the potato cake that ultimately united the world. Enjoyed on every continent of our Earth, they might be different shapes, sizes and flavours but they all contain that same key ingredient… cake! (uh no, make that potato)

Enough waffle, this version of an English potato cake comes from Gateshead and Durham in the Northeast of the country. Bacon Floddies are a traditional breakfast course said to have been a staple of the ‘navvies’ working on the northern canals in the 19th century, a tale leading to them being otherwise know as Canal Floddies. A hearty start to the day for labourers and the big-boned alike, they would be served with rashers of back bacon and good butcher’s bangers. An interesting story, if not a little fanciful, is that the navvies would cook these up for themselves on their shovels over an open fire. Undoubtedly a romantic image, but I’m having difficulty seeing hardened canal workers leaving home with empty stomachs and knocking up potato cakes on frosty mornings. Isn’t that what wives are for?

Floddies belong to the Swiss rösti/hash brown school of potato cakes, using grated potatoes rather than mashed, although the addition of flour make them a little heavier than a rösti. But I can see these babies coming to the rescue on a hungover Sunday morning. Here’s the forme… > > Read on > >

Today in the Commonwealth we celebrated The Queen’s Official Birthday. The Queen’s real birthday is on 21st April but this is a day to mark her coronation to the throne and a day of pageantry and celebration for our Royal Family, armed forces and anyone who wants to revel in a bit of national pride.

I’m not much of a monarchist and about as likely to put my hand on my heart when the national anthem plays as John Lydon, but something very strange hit me during the 2003 celebrations of The Queen’s 50th anniversary, even stranger than Bryan May’s guitar solo on top of Buckingham Palace. The thing was, I actually buy into this stuff! I love the fact that The Queen is adored by millions of Britons. That Australia, who by all rights should be a republic, still voted to retain her as head of state. That Fiji, after more than 20 years of independence, still celebrate her birthday. Despite all of her offspring’s (and husband’s) misdemeanours she remains a talisman of Britishness and, for me, Englishness. I’ll leave it to Stephen and Hugh to sum up what it means to be English.

Coronation Chicken was a dish created in 1953 for The Queen’s coronation by Rosemary Hume and subsequently published in her, and Constance Spry’s, cookery book. The recipe has been changed and adapted over the years but this is quite a faithful version of Hume’s original. > > Read on > >

Ynys Môn, better known to non-Welsh speakers as Anglesey, is an island that lies a short distance off the Northwest coast of Wales across the Menai Strait and is the fifth largest island off the British mainland.

A large part of the local economy depends on tourism thanks to its outstanding rural beauty and dramatic coastlines, very typical of North Wales, but that’s not to say entirely dependant. Industry and agriculture also play big roles for the population of 69,000 people, two of its largest employers being the Wylfa nuclear power station and Anglesey Aluminium (owned by Rio Tinto). However, Anglesey faces testing times in the coming years. Wylfa is provisionally earmarked for closure in 2010 (a good or bad thing is not for me to comment) and as a result Rio Tinto have decided that the aluminium smelters cannot viably survive without their cheap source of energy. Combined job-losses could total over 2000 people, obviously a devastating blow for a community of this size.

But Anglesey has a few rays of hope on the horizon. There are discussions to keep Wylfa open until as late as 2014 which will at least secure those jobs for the near future (and hopefully beyond the recession) after which, German company RWE npower have an option on the site. But Anglesey has also secured part of a £38m EU regeneration grant aimed at helping the most deprived areas of Wales as well as private companies looking to invest in the area. Further to this, a new scheme is being rolled out to encourage the placement of students with existing island businesses designed to stem the “brain drain” of high achieving school-leavers and university graduates from leaving Anglesey, a statistic recorded as a massive 89% by the 2001 census.

Hopefully the proposed support will make a difference to Anglesey’s inhabitants. My own countless holiday experiences in North Wales (albeit never across the strait) have always been a joy and it would be terrible to see their community degenerate as is currently threatened.

Okay, no more ‘heavy’ stuff. Let’s see what Anglesey has to fill our bellies! Here’s a very tasty dish from the island.

Ŵyau Ynys Môn (lit. Anglesey Island Eggs) is a gratin of mashed potatoes and boiled eggs, topped with white sauce and cheese. Very simple to make and is destined to be a regular at Chez Greedydave. > > Read on > >