Good things to eat [Volume 13]

Here's another round-up of a few good things I've been eating recently.

Wensleydale Creamery Cheeses

I've had a long and enduring relationship with Wensleydale cheese. As a teenager trips to stay at a mate's parents caravan near Aysgarth often entailed a trip further up the dale to gorge on freebies at the creamery shop.

These were some of my earliest full-on food orientated weekends really (though I'm not sure that's quite how we saw it at the time), with fish and chips in Leyburn followed by a visit to the butcher's for ham and egg pies and slabs of belly pork to tide us over until a sturdy pub dinner and a skinful of Riggwelter. Oof. And that's before we even got to the cheese.

The last time I was there I was worried that they'd sold out to the mass-production gimmick-cheese gods (maybe they'd got Alex James in as a consultant?), there being little of interest beyond the basic Wensleydale and far too many fruity, sugary, stupid versions with bits in. Wensleydale with pineapple anyone?

This time around they seem to have had a rethink. The gimmick cheese is still there in spades, but attentions have been re-focussed on cheese for people who like the taste of cheese. I was particularly impressed by these three cheeses.

Photo credit: Wikipedia commons

Kit Calvert Wensleydale - an extra mature version that somehow manages to retain the fresh crumbly character of the young cheese while also being softer in texture and less acidic in taste. It's quite buttery and rich, and probably best eaten on its own. Or maybe with an Eccles cake or an apple.

Bishopdale - a good quality cheddar-alike, with a very smooth almost processed texture rescued by the presence of loads of little crystalline bits and a fantastic flavour. Rich and meaty, sort of like the surface of a properly cooked steak. Great in anything you'd put cheddar in I would have thought.

Coverdale - Wensleydale taken in the opposite direction to the Kit Calvert version, wonderfully bright and tart, a fresher alternative to the original. Would work well in salads in place of feta, but worth eating on it's own.

The cheese shop at the Hawes creamery has lots of free samples. You can really fill your boots and no-one seems to mind. Probably polite to actually buy some as well, which I always do these days.

http://wensleydale.co.uk/


Forge Bakehouse

A new bakery that's just opened on Abbeydale Road in Sheffield. I came across it completely by accident on what was actually their opening weekend. I bought a very good baguette, but need to investigate their bread further before writing about it.

What doesn't warrant further investigation, but does warrant many repeat purchases, is their pastry. A lemon meringue pie and a Valrhona chocolate brownie were an absolute delight, the pie especially so. In really skilled hands it's possible to make calorific fat and sugar laden pastries and puddings with such a deft touch it's as if you were eating delicious air.

Whoever is baking at the Forge has that level of skill. I could eat one of these pies in two mouthfuls. Two mouthfuls of burnished sticky sweet meringue, smooth tangy lemon and the shortest, most delicate pastry.

232 Abbeydale Road
Sheffield
S7 1FL

http://www.forgebakehouse.co.uk/


Raspberry Curd

Until I saw this in the gift shop at Rievaulx Abbey I'd never even considered the possibility of a curd being made from anything other than citrus fruit, but why the hell not. Any suitably acidic fruit ought to work right?

Raspberries, being the best fruit there is, make an excellent curd. The flavour is purest essence of raspberries and butter, sweetened a little. You want this on your toast, trust me.

Available at National Trust shops, but home-made would be even better. Come to think of it, how about a raspberry meringue pie?

A few good things to eat (volume 6)

Here's another round-up of things I've enjoyed eating in recent weeks.

Quiche, Blacker Hall Farm Shop, Wakefield

For reasons I won't go into here I'm not the biggest fan of Blacker Hall Farm Shop, but I do like their baked goods. I'm particularly partial to a fat slice of their quiche lorraine. Quiche lorraine is a bit of a misnomer really. As far as I know the classic version of this dish is made from white shortcrust pastry, with a wobbly, eggy filling and not even any cheese. The Blacker Hall version is made from wholemeal shortcrust pastry, with a filling that seems to be about 80% cheese to 20% egg, studded with fat, salty chunks of bacon. More of a cheese and bacon tart, it's savoury heaven. Whatever you want to call it, it makes a cracking good lunch washed down with a bottle of Fentiman's ginger beer.

http://www.blackerhall.com/

Liquorice ice-cream, Yummy Yorkshire

After your quiche, how about an ice-cream for afters? I'd heard about this stuff, and wasn't convinced that liquorice was a good idea for an ice-cream flavour. I was wrong, it was very nice. It wasn't the best textured ice-cream I've eaten, being a little grainy, but the flavour worked really well. The prominent taste was of sweet, dark caramel with just a subtle hint of the herbal, aniseedy notes of liquorice.

I bought mine at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.


http://www.yorkshiremilk.co.uk/ice_cream.php


Yorkshire chorizo, Paganum

Another product I've been meaning to try for a while. Chorizo made in the Yorkshire Dales, from Yorkshire pork.

I have a love-hate relationship with chorizo. Most of the time I love the stuff, but the quality of the pork is really important. At the top end of the scale, chorizo made from acorn fed iberico pigs is absolutely delicious. The deeply flavoured flesh and silken, creamy fat makes it very, very moreish. In a sausage with such a high fat content, I think it's actually the quality of this fat that's key.

At the bottom end of the scale, I actually find some cheap chorizo's quite offputting. Rather than silken and creamy, the fat is sickly and metallic tasting. It really does make all the difference. A prime example of the crap stuff is Tesco's cooking chorizo. I had it for breakfast and over half was left on the plate untouched.

I was really hoping that the Yorkshire chorizo would be in the moreish camp, and it was. Not quite up there with the finest Spain has to offer, but pretty damn good. I had it for breakfast with eggs, tomatoes and sourdough toast (pictured above). The plateful was wolfed down in no time.

I bought mine from the Paninoteca deli stall in Leeds Market. 


http://www.paganum.co.uk

Everything made by Tunnock's

Everything made by Tunnock's is delicious. This is a statement of fact. My favourite is the classic caramel wafer.

If you think they are low grade obesity fodder for pasty-faced Scotsmen who probably deep fry them, then think again. Firstly that's insulting to Scotsmen, and secondly the chocolate encasing the wafer contains 25% cocoa solids. That's 5% more than you'll find in Dairy Milk. And the website has a French version. They're obviously sending us macarons at two quid each, and we're sending them Tunnock's teacakes at six for two quid. They win.

http://www.tunnock.co.uk/

Raspberries

Give me a raspberry over a strawberry every time. The perfect summer berry as far as I'm concerned. Nothing compares to the dense, sweet perfumed fragrance of raspberries. If you think I'm talking nonsense, buy a punnet then leave it somewhere warm for an hour, then inhale. Wonderful. I like to eat them unsweetened with thick cream or vanilla ice cream, or scattered on top of thick yoghurt and muesli for breakfast.