Friday, June 03, 2011
Error
A long time ago I used to make goat curry from time to time, travelling to Balham to get the goat from one of the Halal butchers there and using a recipe for ragan josh from a book by one Michael Pandya, the gift of a Norwich colleague back in the days of Mrs. Thatcher. This used to work very well, so one day, not being able to get to Balham for some reason, I tried the recipe with beef. Which turned out to be edible but quite wrong. There was something about beef which did not work properly in this recipe.
So yesterday, made another error of the same sort when I was trying to tart up cold chicken with boiled vegetables a bit. The thought was to make some white sauce to go with them, the usual form for which being to start the white sauce by gently frying some onion in butter and then, towards the end of the process, adding some yellow cheese. But yesterday I thought that since sage and onion makes excellent stuffing, why not try sage and onion sauce? Got some fresh sage from the garden, chopped it up and added it to the sauce instead of the cheese. Looked OK. Texture of body of sauce OK. But the chopped sage felt coarse on the tongue, which made the texture of the sauce as a whole all wrong. Edible, but not to be repeated. I now know that sage leaves have a coarseness which is fine in the context of a chewy and savoury stuffing but which is not fine in the context of what is supposed to be a smooth and savoury sauce.
Yesterday's second error was of a different sort. In February I mentioned a book by M. le Comte d'Herisson which included some stuff on a chap called Nauendorff who was actually the missing second son of Louis XVI. I was quite taken in. But yesterday, turning the pages again, I was moved to make netular enquiries and rapidly find that ten years or so ago someone had matched the DNA in an antique pickled heart with that in a hair plucked from Marie Antoinette, thus proving conclusively that the second son did die in the Temple and did not escape to become M. Nauendorff or anyone else. I then get hold of an anonymous article about famous pretenders from something called gutenburg. This article, written in a popular style, makes clear that the French go in for pretenders for Louis XVII in much the same as we go in for pretenders for the princes in the tower. There were lots of them. This particular one made quite a good thing of it for a bit, extracting lots of dosh from credulous royalist ladies, before he retired hurt to Camberwell where he made a respectable living while annoying his neighbours with fireworks.
My error being taken in by the respectable sounding M. le Comte d'Herisson. All very well for credulous royalist ladies before the invention of DNA, but I think I should have known better.
I can wind up with a related error from Google. The post for 1 February of this year seems to have gone missing. Not in the February list, nor has it strayed into the January list - which can happen due to the difference between GMT and PST. But it does appear if you search for 'Herisson'. What is going on? What can one deduce about the blogger database from this particular error?
Friday, July 06, 2007
Regulitis
Interested to see a peice by Simon Jenkins on regulitis in the Guardian. A nicely expanded and embroidered version of one of my own! Ironic that it should be the Guardian that publishes it; I should imagine that there is a strong correlation between reading said paper and likelihood of developing acute regulitis. One point that he makes is that because cats cause an allergic reaction in millions of people - probably costing the economy more than fags do - they will be the next thing to be banned in public spaces. Not a bad thought. They will find something to ban and I can't think of a better target for the moment. Unless, of course, they veer back on the hunting tack and get stuck into coarse fishermen. They will have to leave the other sort alone - partly because the people who do it are mostly posh and partly because doing it is an art form and therefore cultural and historic if not heritage. Something for our shiny new minister for culture to fight the corner for.
Quite windy today, rather than rainy. Two large lumps down on the way to the baker and the broan beans plants are starting to look a bit battered in places. That said, we have had a really good harvest, running down now, but we must have had more than 100 pounds of the things - in their pods that is. Supposing that they are £1 a pound to buy, contrary to early burblings, this part of the allotment is clearly in profit given that the outgoings are, say, £10 for seeds, £10 for spray and £15 for their share of the rent.
Plus the aesthetic appeal of a well laden broad bean plant. Maybe three or four strong stems on the one plant, each stem carrying maybe a dozen well filled, bright green pods. Not a bad return for one plant. And given that it does not seem to be necessary to feed the ground that they are in, the things must have been staples in the olden days. Give or take the labour cost of removing black fly before chemicals cut in.
Taken another couple of pounds of blackcurrents, big ones from the small plant and little ones from the big plant. Maybe the latter needs pruning. They all get tray frozen - presumably for speed - and wind up in tarts and the like through the winter.
Thinned out the apple crop as far more apples had set than the trees could bear. Too much of the fruit at the end of stems - reflecting, I think, the lack of winter pruning - not having liked to do much cutting with the trees so badly weakened by the deer. But with that problem now in the past maybe I shall start.
Dug some more Desiree. Crop continuing quite reasonable although this particular row was infested with some tall weed with yellow, daisy like flowers. White tap root about three or four inches long and quite easy to pull up. Managed to spear rather a lot today - maybe ten - and so decided, rather than chuck them, I would keep them back for today's evening meal. So I get to scrape them and found that they gave off something which quite irritated the airways. Not something that I had noticed with the Kestrel. Maybe I can have allergies too.
Discovered a new way to use left over new potatoes and leef beet. Thought of the potato and spinach dish you get in Indian restaurants and had a peek in our one Indian cook book for it (a gift from a collegue from Gildengate Square in Norwich). Didn't find it but did find a recipe for doing something spicy with potatoes. All far too complicated for this occasion, so chose four spices from the recipe, more or less at random, and used them. Black pepper, cumim seeds, pale cardoman pods and termeric. Melt butter and add pounded spices. Fry for a bit. Add a large, finely chopped onion. Fry for a bit. Add coarsely chopped cooked potato and finely chopped cooked leef beet. Leave on heat, stirring occasionally, until heated through. Serve with a hint of jus de cassis. Quite a good variation on bubble and squeak.
Same book has an excellent recipe for Ragan Josh (I think). Being a goat curry, it gives me an excellent excuse to pay a visit to Balham.
Quite windy today, rather than rainy. Two large lumps down on the way to the baker and the broan beans plants are starting to look a bit battered in places. That said, we have had a really good harvest, running down now, but we must have had more than 100 pounds of the things - in their pods that is. Supposing that they are £1 a pound to buy, contrary to early burblings, this part of the allotment is clearly in profit given that the outgoings are, say, £10 for seeds, £10 for spray and £15 for their share of the rent.
Plus the aesthetic appeal of a well laden broad bean plant. Maybe three or four strong stems on the one plant, each stem carrying maybe a dozen well filled, bright green pods. Not a bad return for one plant. And given that it does not seem to be necessary to feed the ground that they are in, the things must have been staples in the olden days. Give or take the labour cost of removing black fly before chemicals cut in.
Taken another couple of pounds of blackcurrents, big ones from the small plant and little ones from the big plant. Maybe the latter needs pruning. They all get tray frozen - presumably for speed - and wind up in tarts and the like through the winter.
Thinned out the apple crop as far more apples had set than the trees could bear. Too much of the fruit at the end of stems - reflecting, I think, the lack of winter pruning - not having liked to do much cutting with the trees so badly weakened by the deer. But with that problem now in the past maybe I shall start.
Dug some more Desiree. Crop continuing quite reasonable although this particular row was infested with some tall weed with yellow, daisy like flowers. White tap root about three or four inches long and quite easy to pull up. Managed to spear rather a lot today - maybe ten - and so decided, rather than chuck them, I would keep them back for today's evening meal. So I get to scrape them and found that they gave off something which quite irritated the airways. Not something that I had noticed with the Kestrel. Maybe I can have allergies too.
Discovered a new way to use left over new potatoes and leef beet. Thought of the potato and spinach dish you get in Indian restaurants and had a peek in our one Indian cook book for it (a gift from a collegue from Gildengate Square in Norwich). Didn't find it but did find a recipe for doing something spicy with potatoes. All far too complicated for this occasion, so chose four spices from the recipe, more or less at random, and used them. Black pepper, cumim seeds, pale cardoman pods and termeric. Melt butter and add pounded spices. Fry for a bit. Add a large, finely chopped onion. Fry for a bit. Add coarsely chopped cooked potato and finely chopped cooked leef beet. Leave on heat, stirring occasionally, until heated through. Serve with a hint of jus de cassis. Quite a good variation on bubble and squeak.
Same book has an excellent recipe for Ragan Josh (I think). Being a goat curry, it gives me an excellent excuse to pay a visit to Balham.
