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Afternoon tea – with strawberry, nectarine and vanilla jam

Strawberry and Nectarine Jam with Vanilla

I hate throwing anything out (as my over-stuffed wardrobe proves), but particularly food. So when I had a punnet of strawberries and a couple of nectarines that looked like they wouldn’t last much longer without serious resuscitation, I had to do something with them. As you know, I’m a great fan of making jams and jellies in small quantities, particularly if you’re not entirely sure how successful the result will be and this was a perfect opportunity.

Now I know, you are meant to make jam when the fruit is at its freshest, but that doesn’t mean it still isn’t good when it may be slightly past its best. To avoid over-boiling which could be the kiss of death if your fruit isn’t as fresh as you may like, it’s better to use ready-prepared pectin which means you don’t have to over-cook. Also, on this occasion though, I decided I’d add a little extra flavouring as an experiment to see what happened. The result was lovely; the added vanilla worked brilliantly with the flavour and frankly, it was good enough just to eat straight from the jar with a teaspoon.

Ingredients

400g punnet of strawberries, stalks removed and coarsely chopped (about 375g chopped weight)
2 nectarines (150g chopped weight)
Juice of 1 small lemon
750g preserving sugar with pectin
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Knob of unsalted butter (about 1 teaspoon)
100mls Certo liquid pectin

Method

Place the nectarines in a jug of boiling water, leave for 2 mins and then take the skin off and chop coarsely
Place the strawberries, lemon juice and sugar in a large sauce pan over a very gentle heat and allow the sugar to dissolve, stirring every now and then
Once the sugar granules have disappeared and the fruit is clear and syrupy, add the vanilla essence, chopped nectarine flesh and a knob of unsalted butter (the butter cuts down the foam)

Turn up the heat and boil for 2 minutes
Remove from heat and stir in Certo liquid pectin
Leave to stand for 5 minutes then bottle in to clean, sterilised jam jars

Scones

The perfect combination with the jam is clotted cream and fresh scones. Scones are not difficult to make, you just have to remember not to over-work them or they will be heavy. They also don’t last, so eat them same-day, which has never proved to be a problem! This is my own recipe, which is a sort of combo of other people’s wisdom.

Ingredients

225g self-raising flour
1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
50g unsalted butter
125ml buttermilk
1 large egg – beaten, with 1 tablespoon of it reserved for glazing

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 200 fan/220 non-fan/Gas mark 7
Butter a baking sheet
Add the flour, baking powder, salt and butter in to a food processor and whizz for a few seconds until it looks like breadcrumbs
Tip in to a mixing bowl and stir in the sugar
Make a well in the middle and add the butter milk and egg
Combine quickly, first using a knife and then with your fingers – do not over-knead – if it is too dry add a little milk, but it should be quite wet and squidgy
Tip on to a floured service and knead very slightly
Press down to a thickness of approximately 2 cms and using a 5.5cm cutter, start to cut your scones – NOTE: apparently they rise butter if you don’t twist the cutter – not sure why??
Place your scones on the buttered tray, glaze the tops with the reserved egg and place in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes until well risen and browned on top
Eat with clotted cream/butter and jam – yum!

Easy-peasy peanut butter cookies and rice crispie bars…and they’re gluten-free, too!

Quick recipes that are gluten-free are always a challenge, so here are my two favourites:

Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients

1 jar of crunchy peanut butter (454g)
2 eggs
400g caster sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Chocolate chips (optional)

Method

Pre-heat oven to Gas Mark 4/180 non-fan/160 fan
Mix everything together and roll in to 12 balls
Place balls on a baking sheet, lined with greased baking paper and cook for 15 to 20 mins dependent on whether you like your cookies soft or crispy
Yes, really…that’s it!!

Chocolate Crispy Squares (courtesy of BBC Food)

Ingredients

5 Mars Bars chopped up
150g/5ozs unsalted butter (plus a bit extra for greasing the baking tin)
100g/3 1/2 ozs of rice crispies
75g/3 ozs Plain or milk chocolate

Method

Grease a 20cm/8in square deep sided tin with a little usalted butter
Place a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water and add the butter and mars bars
stir until completely melted and smooth

Remove from the heat and stir in the rice crispies until completely covered

Place in the tin and push down to ensure it is in the corners
Add the remaining chocolate the to the bowl, and when melted spread over the top
Set aside to cool and harden, preferably in the fridge overnight
Cut in to squares and keep in an airtight tin

Offer to guests and pretend it was MUCH more complicated than that

Cream cheese and chilli jam – best party dip ever

I had the neighbours round yesterday and to start with, I put out a big plate of tortilla chips and a load of dips, including hummus, salsa, guacamole and cream cheese with chilli jam. Here is a fact, the cream cheese dip with chilli jam always goes completely in the first half hour irrespective of how much you put out. It’s as if there is something secretly addictive in it that makes you actually incapable of only having one dip in it.

The best thing about it, is that it really is the easiest dip in the world to make and th recipe was given to me by the lovely Joyce and there’s a woman who knows a thing or two, about good, simple cooking.

Go for it.

JOYCE’S LOVELY CREAM CHEESE CHILLI DIP

All you will need is 1 packet of cream cheese, I used philadelphia, but you could in fact use a block of any good, really creamy cheese.

1 small jar of either sweet chilli dipping sauce, or my own lovely home made chilli jam (recipe below or buy it, up to you!).

1 tablespoon of chopped fresh mint and

1 tablespoon of chopped fresh basil and

a large bag of plain tortilla chips.

Method: All you do is turn out the cheese on to a large plate, place the majority of the chopped herbs on the top (Joyce adds chopped red pepper, too), leaving a little for decoration on the side. Spoon the chilli jam over the top of the cheese and serve. that’s it – pure genius, Joyce.

This is what it will look like VERY quickly.

Quick recap on the Chilli Jam recipe…(loosely based on Nigella’s)

150g fresh red chillies with seeds removed
150g red peppers, seeds removed ( I like to use green and yellow as well for a rainbow effect)
1kg jam sugar
400ml cider vinegar
200ml apple juice

Method

Place the cut-up chillies into a food processor and pulse until they are finely chopped. Add the red pepper and pulse again until they are chopped in to small pieces
Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar and apple juice over a very low heat with as little stirring as possible
Scrape the chilli-pepper mixture out of the bowl and add to the pan. Bring the pan to the boil, then leave it to bubble gently for 10 minutes.
Take the pan off the heat and allow it cool for about 30 to 40 minutes
Ladle into clean, sterilised jars.

Brighton rocks Part 2 – even more cool places to go

It’s summer, or technically anyway even if it’s rainy and cold. What do we do in the summer? Yes, go to Brighton for the day, or even for the weekend if you’re feeling frisky! After the success of her first Brighton recommendations, I’m pleased to welcome back guest blogger Ellie (pictured below on the right with Kate in Greece last month where it definitely wasn’t raining) and I’m also please to let you know that yes, Brighton still rocks…..

Greetings from the seaside. Regular readers and stalker types among you may remember that, some time ago, I wrote a guest post on eating out in Brighton. Was it last year? The year before? Who knows?

Well, as it’s summertime again and culinary matters have inevitably moved on somewhat since my last little guide, I thought it was due an update…

As you know, breakfast in Brighton is something you don’t want to miss out on, particularly after a traffic-clogged weekend drive or a sticky train journey from Victoria. I believe that all the breakfast establishments I mentioned previously are still in business (and still very good), but there have been a couple of notable additions to the canon.

Mange Tout (81 Trafalgar Street; no website) is my new local first-stop for all things breakfast. It’s French, it’s cool; the staff are all good-looking and really lovely – what more could you want? Well, food-wise it’s pretty rad, too. My usual breakfast companion assures me that the Eggs Benedict is the best in Brighton (it’s beaten the previous gold standard, which was Bill’s); I like the vegetarian breakfast, as it comes with ricotta, a surprisingly brilliant addition to the norm. Everything is served with properly good sourdough bread, and the coffee is excellent.

It’s also open for lunch and, on some nights, dinner. Mange Tout is worth a visit at any time of day, but it’s the perfect place to hang out for breakfast – full of hipster couples and families with the world’s most beautiful children, mostly. Whatever you fancy, though, it fulfills my pet love of being pretty relaxed about what meals happen when – you know, they won’t mind if you really want breakfast just after it’s officially finished for the day, or if you’d like a steak and a glass of red at 11am. As the walk through the Lanes can be a slow and circuitous one, let’s face it, you may not have made it very far by lunchtime. If that’s the case, I’d recommend hanging around a bit longer and joining the queue outside Pompoko on Church Street (110 Church Street; http://www.pompoko.co.uk). Yes, there is pretty much always a queue but it goes down really quickly as it’s a fast, fun, share-a-table-if-you-need-to kind of place; order at the counter from a numbered, laminated menu. The speciality here is genuine Japanese street food – not a piece of sushi or sashimi in sight (if you want posher Japanese food, I’d head up to Café Murasaki on the Seven Dials or Moshi-Moshi, in a delightfully converted public convenience building over in the south Lanes).

Here at Pompoko, it’s all about curries, noodles and dumplings. I usually like to get myself a little variety of snacks – edamame, miso soup, steamed dumplings and, my favourite, fried octopus balls. To drink alongside your meal, it’s basically water, Japanese tea or cans of drink only, and it’s a really fun experience if you just want to grab something quick but different. It stays open late and, being located directly opposite the Dome and the Corn Exchange, it’s also perfect for a quick pre-going out snack.If you’ve made it a little nearer to the sea by now on your travels, you could do a lot worse than ducking into Pho (12 Black Lion Street; http://www.phocafe.co.uk). It’s a chain, but a small, nice one – at the time of writing, they’ve got a couple in London and now this one in Brighton. That’s it so far, but I expect there will be more. There deserve to be, as they are really good at what they do. It’s Vietnamese food and – while they do other dishes as well, such as Vietnamese curries and fried noodles – it’s all about the noodle soup, which is what ‘pho’ is.

You get an absolutely epic bowlful of it, accompanied by a plate of herbs, garnishes, chilies and lime, in order to accessorise as you wish. Proper pho is made with beef stock (although less traditional alternatives are available), with the addition of brisket, meatballs, chicken, prawns or mushrooms. You can customise and mix-and-match as you see fit, but I usually go for one of the classics – you can also choose the extra-spicy version, but that’s a bit hot for me, and I say that as someone who always goes for extra-hot in Nando’s! If you’re feeling brave after your meal, you might sample the special ‘weasel coffee’ – but I’ll let you find out exactly what that is for yourself…My first suggestion for dinner is a Brighton institution, one that’s been there far longer than I have, but which I have been particularly enjoying of late. The Regency (131 Kings Road; http://www.theregencyrestaurant.co.uk) sits on the corner of one of those seafront squares straight out of Brighton Rock, in a fantastic building that gives you a great view of the sea. It’s old-fashioned in the best possible way. Serving mostly fish, there’s a huge variety and if you’re not much of a pescetarian, then you can get anything from spaghetti to a roast dinner or a steak, all best followed up by a good old steamed pudding or (as the menu really says) ‘spotted Richard’. It’s incredibly good value and there’s something for everyone, which has made it a favourite for us whenever we have visitors – you really can’t go wrong at the Regency. Alternatively, if you want to grab something on your way back to the station on your way home, you should head back to Trafalgar Street and to Caffe Aldo (77 Trafalgar Street; http://www.caffealdobrighton.co.uk). As the name implies, it’s a pretty basic café, with options to take-away or to bring your own wine if you’d like to sit in – and, most importantly, they do the best pizza in Brighton. Simple as that.

Although eating is obviously the most important part, you could also go and do some drinking and dancing at the super-cool Green Door Store, have a bit of a singalong at Lucky Voice or in the bar at the Pelirocco, buy some lovely clothes in Nola or go and get your hair cut at Shine. See you there, probably!

When good bananas go bad – Part two – the banoffee souffle

Yes, it’s happened again. There they were looking fresh, yellow and appealing and overnight they turned from innocent fruit in to guilty, squashy criminals that could not be tolerated.

This my friends is another classic case of what happens when good bananas go bad…

One solution was to make banana loaf, which is indeed a noble answer but I really do think I have come up with the best solution ever, so prepare yourselves for …

When good bananas go bad – the sequel.

Banoffee Soufflé, yes get very excited. This is honestly one of the easiest and best dishes I have come up with and I cannot recommend it highly enough

All you need isFor the soufflé:

2 medium bananas, mashed with a little lemon juice
4 egg whites
110g/4ozs caster sugar

Butter to grease the dishes and icing sugar for dusting

For the toffee sauce:

100g unsalted butter
150g dark soft brown sugar
125ml double cream
Seeds from a fresh vanilla pod or 1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Method:

Preheat your oven to Gas 6/Fan 180 non-fan 200

Generously butter 6 to 8 (depending on size) ramekins
Whisk the egg whites until they are stiff and leave peaks
Slowly add the sugar, bit by bit and whisk until really thick and shiny
Gently fold in the mashed banana with a metal spoon, taking care to keep as much air in as possible
Spoon the mixture in to the ramekins and then run either a knife or your finger round the edges (about finger nail width) so that they can rise
Pop them in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes or until they are well risen and browned
Whilst the soufflés are in the oven, make the sauce by melting the butter in a small saucepan over a low heat
Add the vanilla and brown sugar and stir for a few minutes until it has all combined and is lovely and thick
Stir in the double cream and it is ready to serve
Once your soufflés are ready, serve and then when they are at the table carefully make a hole in the top and pour some toffee sauce in to the centre reserving the rest for people to add as they wish. This is so easy and it also utterly delicious. Try it!

Guernsey Potato Peel Pie, not just a book club review, but a recipe too

I am extremely lucky to live in a road with the most brilliant neighbours. They are fun, generous, don’t live in your pocket but are always there if you need them. Even better, we have our own neighbourhood book club which nicely complements our Tomato Growing contest (more to follow on that later in the year) in ensuring we all see each other regularly. Once a month, we meet and discuss the merits of a designated book, which is always a lively discussion aided by lots of wine and the fact that we all love a good debate. Last month, the lovely Helen, pictured below was our host.The designated book was ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society’ which was a light and enjoyable read. The book is set in Guernsey during the Occupation and highlighted many of the hardships that the islanders went through, many of which I have to confess to being completely unaware of, however it also highlighted the extremes they went to to feed themselves and in the course of the book, a potato peel pie is mentioned. Having a few old King Edwards knocking around in the fridge, I thought it might be fun to try and create a potato peel pie to take with me to book club, instead of the usual bottle of wine. I confess that in the interest of making it taste good, I have not used the austerity measures that the original recipe called for and have liberally added cheese, cream and garlic, and the result was that it tasted really good! So if your book club is reading this and you fancy trying to make one for the occasion, or you want a very simple vegetarian potato and cheese pie, give it a try!

My attempt at the Guernsey Potato Peel Pie: You will need:

For the pie crust:

3 large potatoes – skin grated, including some of the white flesh
Teaspoon of oil to grease the pie dish
1 small, finely chopped white onion
1 large egg, beaten
25g plain flour
25g grated parmesan
1/2 teaspoon of paprika

For the filling

Remainder of the potatoes above
1 clove of garlic
1 egg yolk
100g cheddar grated
50g parmesan grated
1 tablespoon of cream
salt and pepper to taste

Method

Preheat the over to Gas mark 6/220 fan/240 non-fan
Grease a small pie dish with the oil
In a bowl, mix up all of the ingredients for the pie crust
Press in to the pie dish, to form a nice thick crust and place in the oven for 20 minutes
In the meantime, place some water in a saucepan and add the chopped potatoes and garlic. Bring to the boil and simmer until the potatoes are tender
Drain and allow to cool slightly
Add the remaining ingredients and mix well
Turn the mixture out in to to the cooked pie crust and smooth out so it looks like a flan
Reduce the Oven to Gas Mark 4/160 fan/180 non-fan and cook for a further 12 to 15 minutes or until the top is golden brown
Serve immediately

It turned out to be a rather lovely, slightly different Cheese and Potato pie.

Next month’s book is”The Hunger Games”…that could be interesting…

Have a happy Easter with amaretto soaked simnel cupcakes

Happy Easter! Last year I posted a recipe for simnel cupcakes, which was my version of the traditional Easter Simnel Cake. Simnel cakes were made for mothers by their daughters for Easter, so get baking Ellie and Katy! My cupcake version is really simple, and the joy of amaretto soaked fruit combined with marzipan is honestly worth doing. There is very little that doesn’t translate well in to a cupcake, although probably not liver pate, although my dog Lily would definitely disagree with that! Bake these for Easter, or just because you can, they really are worth it!

You will need: 225 g unsalted butter, softened, 225 g sugar, 4 eggs, 225 g plain flour, 120 g sultanas, 120 g currants , 220g chopped fresh dates, Amaretto liquer (optional, grated zest of 2 oranges, grated zest of 2 lemons, 2 tsp ground cinnamon, 2 tablespoons sour cream (or plain yoghurt, or buttermilk), 250 g almond paste, cut in half – half rolled in to small balls, other half cut in to fine slices, 24 cake cases

For the icing: 400g icing sugar, 200g unsalted butter, 1 teaspoon almond essence

Place all the fruit in a bowl with enough amaretto to cover the top

Pre-heat oven to 180°C /160oC Fan/Gas 4.

Place the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, orange zest, lemon zest and cinnamon in a food processor and whizz until blended
Strain the fruit but keep the amaretto
Add the fruit and the sour cream to the cake mixture and stir well

Place a teaspoon full of the mixture at the bottom of each cake case

Add a slice of marzipan
Top with a remaining spoon of mixture so that the marzipan is coverd

Place in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes until risen and golden brown. Remove from the oven and immediately prick all over with a cocktail stick.

Add a teaspoon of amaretto to the top of each cake so that it soaks in. Allow to cool

Whilst the cakes are cooling, throw the icing ingredients in to a food processor and blend until smooth.

Ice each cake with a swirl of almond icing and place a marzipan ball on top

These little cakes are so delicious, the idea is that you bite in to them and then hot the secret layer of marzipan. they are far too good to save just for Easter time.

Dinner Party Wars continue with duck rillette and rack of lamb

As you may know, amongst our friends are many keen cookery types but none more so than Richard 9pictured above) and Peter, and we take it in turns to go to each others houses to sample each others cooking. No don’t get me wrong here, this isn’t “Come dine with me”, we don’t use this as an excuse to rummage around each others’ knicker drawers, it really is all about the cooking, but no matter how nonchalantly we pretend we treat this, this is serious competition . This last time, we went to Richard and Lisa’s house. Richard is famous for his ability to smoke and preserve things, he’s the only person I know who has been on a foraging course and would know a wild mushroom from a deadly toadstool. So on this occasion, he didn’t disappoint and to follow, here were his divine recipes for duck rillette and rack of lamb. Lisa always cooks the dessert and this was absolutely delicious, and as below, recipe courtesy of James Martin.

Starter -Duck Rillettes.

A great evening starter or snack…..make it in lots of small jars as it keeps for weeks and can also be frozen.

Ingredients
4 duck legs
Rendered pork fat
1 bottle Cider
1 star anise
Salt and pepper
Mace
3 cloves
2 bay leaves
1 bulb of garlic
(Christmas cheat: use mulled cider and remove the star anise and mace from the ingredients)

Brown the duck legs in a pan.
Add all the remaining ingredients except the cider. Bring to a slow simmer.
Add the cider.
Cook on the hob (covered) on a low heat for 2 hours.

Remove the duck legs and strain the remaining liquid into a bowl through a sieve and retain.

Remove the meat from the bones making sure you shred it as much as you can with two forks.

While you have been removing the meat from the bones, the fat and sediments you retained will have settled with the fat on the top, and the juices and sediment at the bottom. Use a spoon to remove the fat keeping the sediment and the juices.

Combine the sediment, juices and meat in a bowl and mix by hand tasting and seasoning as you go.

Spoon into sterile jars.

Place the jars sealed into a pan of boiling water and place in an oven at 120 deg c for 20 mins.

Allow to cool and leave in the fridge for a few days before eating as it gets better with ageing (comment from Kim: unlike me!).

Serve with toasted brioches, pickle and sliced gherkins.

Main course –

Rack of lamb with haggis.

Most can be made in advance and heated up. A great winter warmer!

Ingredients.
Rack of lamb
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Fresh rosemary (chopped)
Garlic (chopped)
Mashed potatoes
Mashed parsnip
Lamb stock
Mulled wine
Bramble and recurrent jelly
Port

Place the lamb, garlic and rosemary in a bag with some olive oil and leave it for 6 hours in the fridge.

Using a cooks ring place some haggis on the bottom layer, some parsnip in the middle and top with mashed potato make one per diner. Place in a pre heated oven (180 deg c) for 8 minutes. While this is baking brown the lamb on hob in a pan, then place into the oven for 12 minutes.
Then place the lamb on a board to rest for 10 mins, turn off the oven but leave the mash in to keep warm.

While the lamb is resting place the lamb pan on the hob and heat. De glaze with red wine add stock and port, reduce and finish with the bramble and recurrent jelly.

Plate up and enjoy!

Pudding – (Alas no photos, so here is the lovely Lisa instead!)

Chocolate fondants (serves 6)
(courtesy of James Martin, ‘Desserts’)

190g dark chocolate
100g butter
35g ground almonds
2 large eggs separated
35g cornflour
85g caster sugar
6 plain chocolate truffles
Berries to garnish

Pre heat oven to 180deg C.

Grate 40g of the chocolate. Rub half the butter over the inside of the dariole moulds, then dust with the grated chocolate. Put on a baking tray.

Melt the rest of the chocolate and butter in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, to melt. Scrape into a bigger bowl and add ground almonds, egg yolks and cornflour.

Whisk egg whites separately until they form stiff peaks, then beat in caster sugar. Fold the merringue into the chocolate mixture. Spoon half the mixture into the bottoms of the moulds, then add the truffles, then the rest of the mixture.

Bake for 10-15 mins until still squidgy to the touch on top…this is trial and error and depends on the heat of your oven, but you don’t really want to over cook it!!

Serve with berries and creme fraiche.

Thank you for the above, Richard. My turn next…oh dear, any suggestions anyone??

(Peter, I’m not ignoring you – but you haven’t sent me your recipes!)

What am I, Chopped Liver? Yes, actually.

I was thoroughly inspired by my recent visit to Mishkin’s, and so all fired up with this new enthusiasm for Jewish deli food, I decided to try and make my own chopped liver. Now, I love chicken livers and I think they are a thoroughly underrated food as they are cheap, nutritious and frankly delicious. I know some people aren’t quite so keen, but if you like pate then try this is a good alternative to chicken liver pate, then you honestly will like this, too. I know this isn’t the prettiest looking dish I’ve ever cooked, but it is really tasty and also excellent if you are on a carb-free diet. So to follow is my own devised recipe for chopped liver, I apologise profusely to all of those out there who will throw their hands in the air with horror, if I’ve committed some ghastly faux pas in my recipe. I don’t promise authenticity (how I wish I had a lovely Jewish Aunt to beg a recipe from), but I do promise it tastes good.

Ingredients

500g chicken livers
½ pint strong chicken stock
400g shallots or white onions ( I used shallots as I love the sweetness, sweet white onions are good, but ordinary onions okay too)
1 tablespoon of chopped fresh sage (1 teaspoon dried)
1 big fat clove of garlic or 2 smaller ones
½ teaspoon of paprika
100g butter
3 hardboiled eggs, chopped finely
Salt and black pepper to taste

Method

Place the chicken livers in a saucepan with the chicken stock over a high heat
Bring to the boil and reduce the heat until they are gently simmering
Cook for 15 minutes then take off the heat, drain and allow to cool

In the meantime, finely chop the shallots, garlic and sage – try and do this as small as possible
Place the butter in a large frying pan and place over a medium heat until it bubbles

Add the shallots, garlic and sage and cook on a very low heat for about 30 minutes until the shallots or onions are caramelised and brown
Take off the heat and allow to cool

Using a hand blender, a food processor or a fork, mash up the livers until they are creamy.

Using a spoon mix the onion mixture in to the chopped liver

Gently fold in the chopped, hardboiled eggs and you’re done!

You can serve this any way you want.

I served it on bruschetta with finely chopped red onion, red chilli and fresh coriander and obligatory pickled cucumbers on the side.

Do try it, it is honestly, delicious! Well Les and Katy thought so!

Mishkin’s smishkins? or was it Jewish deli heaven?

Having been advised by my two favourite food critics (Jay Rayner and the lovely Ellie) that Mishkin’s (25 Catherine Street, Covent Garden) was a lovely place to experience Jewish deli food and amazing gin cocktails, what was a girl to do? Rush there for a lovely long lunch of course! We had the perfect excuse. I was going to the Lucien Freud exhibition (SO worth visiting, his art is amazing once you’ve got over the visual shock factor of all the nakedness) with Ellie and Joyce, my favourite art exhibition companions and fellow-lunchers. So, it was an easy walk from the National Portrait Gallery to Covent Garden.

I loved the informal atmosphere, with the small bar and the booth-style seating. Booths always make me happy, they remind me of New York holidays and treats as a child to the local Wimpy Bar (Don’t turn your nose up, their milk shakes are heavenly!) We indulged in the gin cocktail of the day, whilst we looked at the menu, which appeared as typed by a 1930’s olivetti. Gin, prosecco and elderflower worked extremely well. Gin cocktails at lunchtime seem faintly naughty, but I think should definitely be encouraged in the future. We chose randomly from the menu and decided to share everything. We started with the chopped liver and pickles on the side, and this was truly heavenly. I had imagined it would be like pate, but the addition of the egg made it far different and far more delicious, we all loved it. The macaroni cheese divided us, as it was topped with thinly sliced horseradish (or maybe hot radish of some sort) which Ellie and I adored but Joyce found a bit too hot. The white fish knish divided us again, as Ellie and Joyce were very impressed, whilst I like it but wasn’t bowled over. I did like the little jug of parsley sauce and just the fact that is was called a “knish” was somehow appealing. This was followed by oxtail and cholet. The oxtail was satisfyingly tender and falling off the bone and the cholet seemed odd, as it was served in a separate dish and seemed to consist of salt beef and egg, but then what wasn’t there to like? If I was being super-picky, it could have been seasoned more, it seemed a little bland, but we did devour it.We finished with an obligatory bowl of chips, just for Joyce, as it really wouldn’t have been the same for her if we didn’t. So what was the verdict? Definitely deli delight. I would go back if only for the chopped liver and gin cocktails. Really good lunch place.