Pot-roast pheasant with butternut squash, Savoy cabbage and onion

The BSG is a game lover. However, after a bad experience with a sinewy, over-exercised rabbit we picked up in Lincoln a few years back, I haven’t been able to separate that gamey taste from a tough-as-old-boots food memory, so I’ve shied away from it somewhat.  So the prospect of three pheasants in our fridge, ready for the eating, filled me with dread. They say you must face your fears, so I thought I’d tackle mine head on…

When I asked the BSG what to do with it earlier that day, I received a very casual one line email: just bung it in a pot with the veg we’ve got left in the bowl and some stock and wine and cook for about 45 minutes. Easy.

OK, I thought, I can do casual, even though all I could think about was overcooking the damn thing, its stringy carcass languishing in thin, insipid juices. I made sure we had emergency freezer supplies, just in case…

But actually, what resulted was really rather good – helped by a pleasantly mild-tasting bird – and I’ll be doing it again. Not to mention easy; the very definition of a one-pot wonder. Two of us ate well, so figure that this recipe would serve three… It is easily multiplied, but increase the cooking times.

 

You need:

1 onion, roughly chopped

2 bay leaves

3 juniper berries

1 large glass red wine

1/2 pint of stock

1 whole pheasant

1 clove of garlic, crushed

1/2 a butternut squash, deseeded, peeled and chopped into 1 inch pieces

1/4 savoy cabbage, sliced

a lump of beurre manié: half softened butter and plain flour (optional – or add flour to the onions at the beginning)

 

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees.

In a heavy based lidded pan, sweat the onions in a little oil over a medium heat until they start to colour. Add the bay leaves and juniper berries – plus a tablespoon or two of plain flour if you want to thicken the sauce.

Deglaze the pan with the red wine and add the stock. Sit the pheasant in the pan amongst the onions, add the butternut squash pieces, garlic and season. Put the lid on the pan (I added a foil cartouche as well because I thought I ought to but I’m not ever really sure what this does. It just felt right).

Put into the oven for 45 minutes or so, turning the bird over halfway through (again – this just feels proper as I always do it with my roast chicken to keep the breast moist).

Remove the pot from the oven. Check the bird is cooked then rest it on a board and take out the squash from the pan whilst you reduce the sauce over a good heat – here you can whisk in the beurre manié to thicken if you like. Season to taste. Return the squash to the pan and add the cabbage. Put the lid on the pan and let this all cook for a further 7 minutes.

Carve the pheasant breast, joint the legs and serve in a bowl on top of the vegetables with plenty of sauce poured over, like a stewy soup (yes, you’ll need a spoon too).

For extra pleasure, I recommend mashing the squash into the gravy with the back of your fork. Watch out for lead shot – it’s in there somewhere and your molars will thank you for it.

Game on…

Pappardelle with Chicken Liver Ragù

I feel very lucky have grown up in a happy clan of 4 close siblings. There aren’t even five years to separate oldest (moi) from the youngest (H).

Obviously, between supermarket shops, school runs, on-tap medical assistance and missions across the house as peace envoys, Mum and Dad needed a hand occasionally. When my amazing grandparents weren’t available that help came thanks to a series of nannies, most of them memorable, though not always for the right reasons. One crashed the car and told me not to tell anyone…another used to stick her smelly feet in the bath my younger brother and sister were in and make them wash them for her. (Of course, we weren’t entirely blameless. At one stage, I’d say we were turning them over at a rate of one a month; the Von Trapp kids had nothing on us.)

However, in my book of nanny-villains, the worst of the lot made the very small H sit in front of his lunch for such a long time that he was still sitting there when Mum came home that evening. (I remember H being rather stoic about the whole ordeal; he’d managed to smuggle the bit of blanket that went everywhere with him to the table). Needless to say, she wasn’t there to apply the same rules to breakfast the next day.

But what, you may ask, was so bad that he couldn’t finish it?

Liver: normally edible in our experience, but she’d utterly nuked it. Not to mention the crinkled, sad peas scattered around the plate. Bad enough sitting there, tough grey like the sole of a shoe, H’s offal only got more… er… offal (sorry, irresistible) as the afternoon wore on. I’m not even sure how the 3 of us had managed to get ours down… Perhaps we’d conspired with the dog.

A whole 25 years later, I hope H has managed to get over what must be a crippling fear of liver at lunchtime. If he hasn’t, the BSG and I think we’ve found the remedy.

We think this is one of the best pasta sauces we’ve had outside a restaurant. You can find it in the marvellous Bocca cookbook by Jacob Kenedy (the best argument for the onset of summer I can think of):
 
Serves 2  (or 4 as a starter)

200g chicken livers
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
½ small onion, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
150ml dry Marsala
100ml white wine (we used some leftover rose that was in the fridge)
1 tbsp chopped rosemary
2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
40g butter

Heat a wide frying pan over a high heat until very hot and smoking. Toss the chicken livers in a bowl with 1 tablespoon of the oil and some salt and pepper, then pour into the hot pan making sure they are in a single layer. Fry for a couple of minutes without moving, until well browned on one side. Turn and fry the second side for 2 minutes, then transfer to a plate to cool. When cool enough to handle, chop the livers finely, and keep the juices.

Sweat the onion, celery and garlic in the rest of the oil with salt and pepper in a small saucepan over a medium-low heat. When very soft (after about 10 minutes), add the chopped liver and its juices and fry for a couple of minutes until heated through. Add the Marsala and wine and cook at a very gentle simmer until the sauce is very thick (almost like a pâté) with a little oil risen to the surface, for at least an hour. Add about 100ml of water during the cooking if it starts to dry out. Stir in the rosemary and remove from the heat.

Cook 200g dried or 260g fresh pasta according to the pack and re-heat the sauce in a wide frying pan. Drain the pasta, keeping a bit of the water and add to the sauce with the parsley and butter. Cook everything together for a few minutes or until the butter has melted and the pasta is well coated. Serve with grated Parmesan.

Come Back Chicken and a Big Apple

As food goes, there’s nothing more homely than roast chicken. It was the first thing we cooked in the box-fresh oven in the new kitchen and the last thing we laid on for my sister and brother-in-law last Friday night, hours before they jetted off to a new chapter in New York. I had been desperately flicking though my mental rolodex of ways to make them stay and failing that, I settled on a dish that might remind them to return home one day…

We managed to cram in a decent enough amount of wine as well – not so much that it got too emotional – plus some passion fruit creams in little espresso cups from my Christmas copy of Kitchen Diaries II, speckled with the seeds and soaked in a pool of golden juice, which accompanied my teaspoon with every mouthful, right to the bottom.  Once blasted Banuary is over, I am going to give it a bash with other fruit as it was particularly delicious and super easy.



What’s below is NOT rocket science obviously but how I do my roast chicken which, the BSG tells me, is pretty good. The basic formula will take on almost anything throughout the year; fresh herbs such as sage or tarragon, or wild garlic in the cavity, spices like Ras-el Hanout or Harissa and yoghurt rubbed into the skin and sit proudly alongside any salad as well as lasting you through the week. Good for the diet and the budget: what better friend could you ask for right now?

Basic Roast Chicken

You need:
1 chicken (free-range. One of those happy Woodland-roaming ones will do – not sure of the weight but should cost you between 6 and 8 pounds)
1/4 lemon
½ onion
Fresh thyme sprigs (optional)
Olive oil/butter
Salt & pepper

Remove the chicken from the fridge 10 minutes before you need it to bring it to room temperature and then place it in a roasting pan. Heat your oven to 190C. Slice the top quarter off a lemon and squeeze it over the top of the chicken before putting it into the cavity with the thyme sprigs and the half-onion. Drizzle the top and legs with oil or smear with a few knobs of butter. Season generously with salt and lightly with pepper before putting into the hot oven.

Cook for 20 minutes, before taking the tray out and turning the chicken over breast-side down (be careful here!). This should do some basting for you and ensure that everything is as juicy as possible. Return to the oven and cook for another 20 minutes before turning the chicken back over, spooning some of the basting juices over the legs. The onion, lemon or thyme may fall out at this stage, but they will go towards making lip-smacking gravy as they cook away in the tin. The skin should crisp up and brown in this last 20-30 minutes.

After between an hour and 5 minutes and an hour and a quarter’s cooking time, the chicken should be done, but to double check, insert a skewer between the leg and the breast to see if the juices run clear. It is almost always an hour and 10 minutes for me, but ovens vary. Lift the bird out and set onto a board, covering with foil if you like. It does well to rest for 10 minutes while you make the gravy; it will be juicy and easier to carve after resting.

For the gravy: drain off as much of the clear fat from the tin as you can, squeeze the remnants of the lemon quarter with the back of a spoon and keep any bits from the onion in there which have caramelised but not burnt, discarding the rest. Put the tin over a medium heat and scrape the sticky brown bits loose – they will be packing valuable chickeny flavour. Add a knob of butter and melt it. You can add a tablespoon of plain flour at this stage and cook it lightly, for thicker gravy. Add some hot or boiling water – about an espresso-cup’s worth – and a slug of white wine, smear it all together and simmer for a few minutes. Taste, adding more water and seasoning if necessary.

Pitt Cue Co: Smokin’

 

I thought I’d help you out if you are, like me, a bit disgruntled (to say the least) with the ‘democratic’ no-bookings policy the newest places in central London have adopted, by letting you know that in order to avoid the Saturday lunch queue at Pitt Cue Co*, it is advisable to turn up at 12.03pm precisely, PDQ.

A bit early, you might say? Well, you get there at 12.04 and– just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

After the BSG’s nose had led us nowhere in particular, I took over on our BBQ quest, well in the know having trodden the same path in vain a week previously. My friend Lucy and I had come a cropper in our mission as instead of bouncing up to an easy table at 5.59pm we’d had the temerity to opt for a post-work drink and now faced a two hour queue at 7.15. Several unsuccessful stops (can’t book v. must book) later we’d plumped for some very good tapas and sherry at our old friend Brindisa. Honestly, I am not sure I can keep up. To book or not to book: that seems to be the question, to which there is no clear answer.

Despite this gripe, lunch was really, really good. The clanky tractor seat stools and the high wood counter roared rough and ready from the get-go, as did the heavy metal soundtrack and the bottles of amber everything backing the bar. However, the sun was barely over the yard arm so we stayed off the hard liquor and the BSG was delighted to find root beer on offer (I think it tastes like Germolene). Perusing the menu and seeing enamel trays of smoky glistening ribs and charred flesh coming sizzling from the kitchen we reckoned you’d have to be a brave vegetarian to sit comfortably here for long. Though a couple of pickleback shots (pickle brine and whisky) might have taken the edge off.

Anywhere that the pickled:etc ratio is 50:50 is high on my list, and my caramelised pulled pork came with generous heaps of two different kinds, plus a hunk of bread and a fresh chipotle slaw. I rolled up my sleeves, tucked one of my napkins (I got through 4) in and ate like I supposed a hungry trucker would (no offence to truckers though, I very much enjoyed it). The BSG wondered for a moment how to tackle his enormous ribs before throwing caution to the wind and attacking them with gusto. It was at this stage that we realised why the counter was so high – a tactical few inches from tin plate to gob made pigging out easy. No, we agreed, Pitt Cue was not a first-few-dates kind of place.

We were briefly joined by a plastic cow (pictured) as the place got steadily fuller – it was waiting for a table, I suppose. We gave St Patrick’s Day a little nod with a hearty side order of burnt-end champ: totally unnecessary after a starter of chilli chicken wings and pickled celery (2 napkins) but oh-so deep and delicious. There wasn’t any room for pudding but there’s not an inkling of doubt that we won’t be back with our bibs on – with Lucy - for that and a pickleback one evening soon. At 5.59 on the dot.

*As Pitt Cue tell you on their website, their no-bookings policy has more to do with their size than with being ‘'cool’. It’s true that this is a tiny place - just a wee step up in size from their original van guise - but it serves big, hunky food. Plus, it closed my week with a modicum of cool, in stark contrast to its traumatic start when I caught Slash (hero of my teenage years) playing out the series of Top Gear astride a crushed Ford Focus in front of a crowd of balding, denim-clad motor enthusiasts.

Borrowed and blue (well, green, actually)

If you, like my friend Antonia, happened to be jogging in St James’s Park early this morning you might have been party to the dress rehearsal, amongst the barriers, big screens and bunting. The city has been combed polished and planted to its best for the biggest day of pageantry in decades. If you’re not sure what I am talking about, do switch off and crawl back under that republican stronghold that is your rock.

I have a bit of an excited feeling in my stomach, even though come Friday I am going to be hundreds of miles from the big smoke, trying to watch the coverage in a tabac in Normandy with a ‘staunch monarchist’ named Colette; we will both be wearing our hats. Although the BSG isn’t fussed and is much more interested in the outcome of the football season and in this evening’s Masterchef final, I am sure he will peek in at some point to have a look…

After last weekend, the weather’s looking dodgy. But, like birds dropping their wares on your head, rain on the wedding day is likely to bring good fortune (well somebody had to present an upside.) I am sure that William and Kate’s giant street-party/bbq will still go ahead unhindered, the two Dads manning the coals. I reckon it’ll be that old favourite, butterflied leg of lamb, rubbed in salt and sumac, and I’ve borrowed Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipe from Saturday’s Guardian to go with it. The BSG, his mum and I had it last night with our lamb chops and it was flavour fit for a princess. Call it our dress rehearsal.

Lamb cutlets with sumac, aubergine and green tahini

Serves four.

4 medium aubergines

2 tsp white-wine vinegar

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tsp dried mint

1 tsp ground cumin (can make it without this)

Salt and black pepper

For the lamb

2 600g racks of lamb, French trimmed

2 tbsp olive oil

5 tbsp sumac mixed with 2 tsp Maldon sea salt

4 tbsp Greek yoghurt

For the tahini sauce

60g tahini paste

1 mild green chilli, deseeded (or less, to taste)

40g parsley, leaves and stems

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 garlic clove

60ml water

1 pinch each salt and sugar

Pierce the aubergines in a few places with a knife, then lay on a foil-lined tray and place under a hot grill for up to an hour, turning them a few times. They need to deflate completely and the skin burn and break. Once done, remove from the grill. Set the oven to 220C/425F/gas mark 7. Cut down the centre of each aubergine and scoop the flesh into a colander. Leave to drain for at least 15 minutes. Chop up the aubergine, add the vinegar, oil, mint, cumin and plenty of salt and pepper, and set aside.

While the aubergines are cooking, start on the lamb. Put a large nonstick frying pan over high heat. Brush the lamb with oil and sear until golden-brown all over. Place on a baking sheet and press sumac and salt all over the flesh. Roast for 15-20 minutes, until cooked but still pink, then leave to rest for five minutes.

Put all the sauce ingredients in a small food processor bowl and work for two to three minutes, until you have a smooth, green paste. Add a little water, if needed, to get it to a pouring consistency.

To serve, carve the racks into individual cutlets and divide between four plates. Spoon over some of the aubergine, followed by some sauce, and top with a dollop of yoghurt.

Meat and greet

So that’s it – we’ve done it, and if I ever see another cardboard box it’ll be too soon. The night before we left the well-appointed two bed with leafy views in EC1 for somewhere more westerly we thought we’d nip down to Exmouth Market for a pizza. However, (thanks to Time Out’s pizza issue earlier this year) Santoré was rammed as usual, so we gleefully skipped onwards under the strings of twinkling lights to Medcalf, an steadfast stalwart in our dating life. Whenever there have been plans to make, a small anniversary to celebrate or a treat to be had then it has been the bavette at this erstwhile butcher’s shop - rich, glistening, always beautifully seasoned and accompanied by the crispiest golden hand-cut chips, lamb’s lettuce, buttered spinach and a pot of nostril-tickling horseradish. The staff are fuss-free, the wine list interesting. Never boring, always met with enormous satisfaction, this is a warm, cosy foodie friend we are enormously sad to leave.
The BSG, however, has wasted no time and has already sent me the link to the Chamberlayne, a pub in the new neighbourhood whose focus is entirely on meat, and even better, meat sourced from our old friend Smithfield Market. A little bit of home from home then.
Our eyes are also dazzled by the shiny glass and lights of The Dock Kitchen which we’ve penned in the diary for a pre-Yuletide date. We’ll be just about ok I reckon.

Packing for the beach: sand-proof picnic

Ah, the seaside. Sweeping views, breezes, sandcastles and picnics. You sit back, the sun on your face and the wind in your hair and let the fresh air permeate. Now time for lunch, you unwrap your carefully made sandwich (make sure it’s yours though, with the special mark you made – you don’t want the dry-looking one), bite into the soft roll and get the unmistakeable grind of sand between your teeth. How the devil did that get in there? Split seconds from cling-film to mouth - unbelievable!

It may be fun for building with and burying people in, but when it comes to food, sand is an evil grain with many cunning plans. If your chosen bite falls to the ground with a thuck, you can forget it; it is irretrievable (except maybe if you’re a dog, but I know some fussy dogs). No, for a worry-free shore-side lunch, you need to come up with food that exposes as little of itself as possible to this elements, but remains as exciting and varied as picnic food can be.

I think we may have found a solution.

 

Last Saturday was scorchio, so a secret seven hit our local beach at Brancaster. The unfathomable Brit beach-going rule that ‘the nearer the car park and toilets the better’* meant that we had a huge stretch of it pretty much to ourselves. Not ones to miss a picnic opportunity like this, we took some sandwiches - two, actually. And they were HUGE. We hadn’t so much made these as packed them: two loaf suitcases rammed with flavoursome delights, one all hunter-gatherer and the other perhaps a bit more metrosexual (well, it has more veg in it). Both were free from the mountain of cling-film hell and the guesswork that accompanies so many beach outings. In the battle against the sand invasion, these brutes are all the food you’ll need, I promise. They’re neat, they’re fun to make and a bit like cake, sharing one makes you feel you’re all at a party (there’s also something rather grown-up about bringing a chopping board to a picnic…)

The first, manlier of the two (but refined – like Tom Ford) was the Shooter’s Sandwich, which G had read about courtesy of Tim Hayward on the Guardian food blog earlier this year. Over came the link and down went the gauntlet. This comprised well-seasoned steaks cooked medium-rare, whipped straight out of the hot pan and laid into a hollowed-out long loaf, lined with mustard and/or horseradish and smothered in a savoury, duxelles-type thing. Once the mustard-slathered bread lid is replaced, the whole thing is wrapped in greaseproof paper and string, weighed down with books/saucepans of water/chopping boards and left in a cool place (you’d be amazed how much debate surrounded this particular stage at one in the morning – GCSE Physics, was it? Everyone was an expert.) After an uncomfortable night under the press, the precious package was richly squished with savoury juices and ready to be transported, carved and consumed. Minimum fuss: maximum excitement.

As we did it in a wine-fuelled frenzy in the wee hours I have no photos of the process, but here’s the ‘after’.

I more than made up for it the next morning when we started on the second sanger, based on a New Orleans invention, the Muffuletta. It is a picnic in a sandwich.

This involved a sundried tomato and olive mush made in the food processor with which we lined our hollow loaf, partnered with liberal glugs of green olive oil.

Then alternating layers of Parma ham, salami, Taleggio cheese and roasted red peppers were carefully added.

If I were to be really picky, it perhaps could have done with some more green in the form of avocados – but these would have quickly turned brown so perhaps courgettes and basil instead – I confess that I am prone to over-packing. Nevertheless, that’s the beauty of it: anything goes. To be honest, it would have benefited from the overnight torture the Shooter’s Sandwich had received, being a bit drier and less yielding (perhaps more olive oil required?) Who knows, but it was delicious, fun to build and sand-free. I am very much looking forward to experimenting with the next one.

*Two miles of wide, dune-backed beach and the 50 metres around the entrance is a labyrinth of windbreakers, killer stunt-kites** and orange Crocs.

**Having seen it with my own eyes, it is perfectly possible (probable) that such a stunt kite when badly driven is capable of grounding and swallowing a hefty teenage boy – especially when said bad driver is their dad. It is also absolutely hilarious; just ask his mother.

Wilkommens and wursts

On the website it says that the food is the main draw at the Tiroler Hut, suggesting a veritable showcase of the best of Austrian fare. I’ll not be knocking the food AA Gill-style, but I would beg to differ – we all know why we’re here and the nosh ain’t it. For the best Austrian fare in the big smoke, I have heard that Kipferl does a mean bratwurst, and that Kurz & Lang is the only Austrian deli in London. If they are as much fun as the Tiroler Hut this city will be an ever-so-slightly happier place.

So, recently, a large bundle of us hit the ‘Hut’. This kitsch, faux chalet-cum-basement is nestled into a mountainside in West London (ok, not quite a mountain – does the barely distinguishable undulation that is Notting Hill count?) Inside, you are greeted by the owner Joseph and his family-based team, clad in lederhosen and dirndls, barely showing the strain of chafing aforementioned leather shorts, bearing trays heaving with gargantuan steins of beer, bottles of Grüner Veltliner and Schnapps. You and they are complicit in one fact, knowing looks are exchanged: it is the party, the virtual après-ski that is the main event here, their chief draw and the main breadwinner - the food is surely secondary. The food is a punctuation mark, a driver’s airbag keeping this friendly establishment just this side of being a messy drinking hole, sponging up the alcohol intake of its clientele.

More bread, madam?

Anyhoo, this said, the menu is not too bad in places but it is a bit of a crevasse field, if we are going to continue with alpine analogies. We lost G at the first turn, at Champignons Tiroler Hut; just because the description says they’re served warm doesn’t mean they’ve been cooked, apparently. My avocado vinaigrette consisted of a whole pear, sliced and splayed roadkill-fashion on an iceberg lettuce, grey and bruised rather like it had been up and down a mountain or two (getting warm in someone’s backpack) before reaching my plate. Serves me right for ordering it suppose – there’s always a touch of Fawlty Towers about it.

Meat, however, is something they do really rather well: the Mir ist alles Wurst on PJ’s plate were salty and delicious – sizzling bits of sausages and gherkins – the thinking person’s approach to a starter and luckily for me, a pickle-fiend, he was happy for me to assist. You can, however, have too much of a good thing and to finish his main course would have required an appetite generated by several hard days on the slopes – a handbag-sized entrecote piled high with crisp golden onions was lowered into position before him. PJ put his head down and set to work, very quietly – this was going to take all his time and attention.

 

Further down the table, through the towers of beer I saw that the BSG and James, his companion in most manly ‘eat-offs’, had chosen the platter of ‘lots of meat, etc…’to share between them. I am not even sure if the word ‘etc’ bothered either, let alone what it referred to but it certainly hadn’t appealed to me, displaying a distinct lack of knowledge – or interest – on the part of the kitchen as to what they included. However, it didn’t touch the sides or cause any problems.

I confess to being a creature of habit in this place (yes, we’ve really been here more than once) and am awfully fond of the crisp, salty schnitzel. It appeared that this particular night so was everyone else as ours has been cut in half, presumably to ensure they stretched as far as possible, an odd approach which made us feel more than a bit affronted, especially as they’d only done this to the girls - presumably because ladies eat less. El wrongo.

Our trip to the real mountains in Austria seems a long time ago now, but it was nice for us all to get together again – though this time we did refrain from dancing to EuroPop in ski-boots on the tables (it’s just what they do in St Anton – it’s almost rude not to…) The same hospitable display was extended to us everywhere we visited during our week there. Unlike ski-resort restaurants in France and Switzerland, those in Austria have successfully retained their culinary and cultural identity. Of course, on every menu there’s the ubiquitous spag bol but this is barely visible amongst offerings of wurst, pretzels, sauerkraut, schnitzel, spätzle and strudel – comforting and perfect for refuelling after a morning of more strenuous exercise than is taken the rest of the year. These dishes are delicious; little wonder the Austrians have safeguarded them against the invasion of the chip.

Speaking of delicious, our blue-eyed chalet man-host Ed was an absolute dab hand in the tiny kitchen he had at his disposal – we are just sorry we’d had to stop and sample the Austrian-style après ski on the way home each afternoon; I’m not sure we took full advantage of the tea and cake window. Every night he would turn out a few courses to a large, slightly-too-merry group all too fond of dancing on the furniture. Sorry Ed, we do remember your broccoli and bacon soup (strangely good), your amazing roast pork and the raspberry clafoutis amongst all the other lovely things you produced for us. Most of all, we remember swimming in those eyes…

Back in London, the views in this subterranean chalet are not quite as spectacular - unless you like a badly-painted alpine idyll behind a red gingham curtain - and we’d gladly have had the EuroPop (sadly the cowbell cabaret didn’t happen this visit as Joseph was absent, but Ricardo the singer was there) but my goodness we all had fun. Come to think of it, thank goodness there were no glazed windows; they would have shattered on the final, wobbly high-note of Ricardo’s rendition of ‘Delilah’. PJ, still soldiering away at the paving stone of meat before him, would have barely noticed.

Arbutus and abstinence

So the BSG-instigated ‘meat-free week’ has started well for me, depending on how you look at it. Whilst not one morsel of beast has passed my chops since Sunday, neither in fact has a great deal else - nothing like an untimely reverse from some dodgy shellfish to put paid to that eating malarkey. My rescuer - apart from the BSG of course - was the trusty, uncontaminated banana; I never cease to wonder at this magic fruit Mother Nature has so kindly packaged for me. In my journey to recovery, rather like Colin Firth’s fridge man, this wonder-food has been instrumental. There are so many wonderful things to say about it that I am going to devote a post to it, and soon. In the meantime, try writing in biro on a banana skin – it is one of life’s pleasures.

So anyway, back to seven days of meals without meat. I think that there is more chance of Sarah Palin winning the Nobel Prize for Geography than me giving up meat altogether; I love it in so many forms – restorative bacon sandwiches, lemony roast chicken, good pork sausages, the ceremony that is steak tartare… I could go on and on - but I suppose of all the things I can do to put less strain on the planet, my wallet and my health, this is quite a realistic measure to take. So the BSG and I thought we’d devote a week to investigate exactly how do-able life with less meat would be, and try out other recipes and combinations – a sort of cold turkey (sans turkey of course). Recipes and results to come next week.

By complete coincidence we’d had a suitable swansong. Last week we took my Dad to one of our tried and tested favourite eateries, Arbutus on Frith Street in Soho. It is just past all of the hubbub and noise; every time you approach it you start to wonder if you’re on the right street, but then there it is, our reliable friend, aglow and convivial, tucked between dark shop-fronts and offices. If ever there was a place to feast the night before giving up carnivorous delights, then this is it. Arbutus does flavoursome, interesting and Michelin starred grub for reasonable prices - their set lunch is probably the best value food of this kind in London. I have yet to try its sister restaurant, Wild Honey, but I have heard wonderful things about it and am excited to go.

Seduced by snippets of poetry devoted to various animal treats I eventually did what I always do and ordered the squid and mackerel burger which gives such an intense, brazen lick of fishiness that it’s verging on naughty, adorned with a tangy green sauce, pretty sea purslane and macho razor clams. This is perhaps the perfect dish, though the pork belly petit sale with braised lentils that followed was pretty stupendous, as was the saddle of rabbit with shoulder cottage pie we’d cajoled Dad into ordering (not much cajoling required, in truth). The BSG jumped at the prospect of pieds et paquets (lamb’s tripe and trotters to you and me), Marseillaise-style which he hummed his way through, comprising three – yes, three - different elements (I think I like these Marseillaise – one look at the copper pans of bouillabaisse at the next table convinced me that we must get down there soon). He would be the first to admit that he is a bit of an offal strumpet, homing straight in the sections of menus devoted to on appendages and organs, but I tried it and this was pretty wonderful.

The slow-cooked Norfolk hare he had to begin with - an apt cooking method for a creature that spends so much of its life tearing thought the countryside – mentally prepared us for the weekend we were about to spend there with Ma BSG for her birthday. It seems that there is not a furrowed field in that part of the world that doesn’t sport a couple of the jumbo-haunched athletes. They have spectacular hearing too (who wouldn’t with those ears?); on Saturday morning just one rap on the kitchen window from me was enough to send one of these skittish numbers, already half a mile away, into a Usain Bolt for dear life across the snowy field.

The weather was unpredictable to put it mildly; a sunny Saturday spent walking under epic skies gave way to a Sunday muffled by a heavy fall of fluffy white stuff. We had to escape early or risk being snowed-in (I could think of worse ways to spend a Monday). However, in our short sojourn, we did manage to sample some sweet brown Norfolk shrimp, some local, thick-cut bacon and had a very good lunch at the Victoria in Holkham.

Sometimes, a picture can speak a thousand words.

Needless to say, the prune and Armagnac soufflé with Lapsang Souchong ice cream I had at Arbutus was not around for long…