Derby Pyclet Company, Derby

Resurrecting and reinventing great local food; - that's the tagline on the Derby Pyclet Company's website. The great local foods in question are pyclets and Derbyshire oatcakes, the latter essentially the same as the famous Staffordshire variety.

But what the hell is a pyclet you might ask? If I wrote pikelet instead perhaps that will help, as that's what I'd always known them as in Yorkshire. Think of a flatter, broader crumpet.

They have a stall in Derby's original market hall (the city has two, an enormous modern one and its Victorian predecessor which has somehow miraculously survived redevelopment as something other than a proper market) where you can buy the goods to take away, or sit at the counter and order them to eat there and then.

I did both, pyclets for lunch and a bag of six (£1.50) for breakfasts and snacks in the week. You can keep it simple with butter and jam or go all out with a more substantial topping. Two with stilton, walnuts and honey (£4) made for a hefty lunch, they're not small these pyclets, that's a large dinner plate they're sat on.

If I'm a honest a little too hefty. The cheese was excellent stuff, rich and creamy, but a bit overbearing with the sugar hit and the soft, doughy innards of the pyclets. Not that I didn't wolf down the lot. The pyclets are still great though, they just benefit from an age in the toaster. Toast the hell out of them (twice on a medium high setting should do the trick) until the edges are lovely and crisp, the insides chewy and yielding, and they're a delight. Spread with butter, butter and jam, or butter and cheese.

I'll be back to try the oatcakes.

7/10

http://www.derbypycletcompany.co.uk/

Staffordshire Oatcakes

Last weekend a friend reminded me about Staffordshire oatcakes. A conversation over lunch about cheese led on to cheese accompaniments, crackers and oatcakes, and then onto the joys of a Staffordshire oatcake stuffed with bacon, mushrooms and cheese.

If you've never heard of them they're not like the biscuit-y oatcakes you eat with cheese, rather an oat-based pancake. I love oats so I've been wanting to try them for ages, and not having any trips to Stoke planned soon I thought I'd make my own.

I searched the web for recipes, none of which exactly suited the ingredients and time I had available, so I came up with my own hybrid version that turned out very well.

The resulting cakes are thicker than a crepe-style pancake, thinner than an American one, and have a heartier, slightly nutty taste from the oats. They are indeed very good with bacon (or leftover spam, sorry guilty pleasure!), mushrooms and cheese but I also had one for dessert with honey and the leftovers are just about to get warmed up with bacon and beans. They'd work well with anything you'd usually stuff in a pancake.

What you need (makes 6-8 oatcakes):

120g medium oatmeal
120g strong wholemeal flour
250ml milk
250ml water
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sunflower oil
1 x 7g sachet of dried yeast

What to do:

1. Put the milk, water, sugar and yeast in a large bowl and whisk together. Set aside for 5 mins somewhere warm.

2. In another bowl mix together the oatmeal, flour and salt.

3. Pour the dry ingredient mix into the wet, add the tsp of oil and whisk.

4. Put somewhere warm for at least an hour, preferably two.

5. Give the batter a stir and get a frying pan hot. Add a knob of butter to fry them in if you like. It's not necessary in a non-stick pan but as we all know everything is better with butter.

6. Pour a ladle of batter into the pan and roll it round to spread out across the pan surface.

7. When it's gone all bubbly and dried out on the top, flip and fry on the other side.

8. Serve immediately with whatever takes your fancy, or cook a whole batch and pile them up on a plate separated by kitchen paper. They will keep for a couple of days and taste fine warmed up.