Great Taste Awards 2008

I nearly forgot to tell you all about the winners of this year’s Great Taste Awards. I didn’t have time to spend a day as a judge this year so haven’t a sneak preview of the delights that were entered. But it didn’t matter as we stock a lot of the winners right here in the shop.

Teapigs had a very good night with two gold stars for their Jasmine Pearls and Mao Feng Green Tea, and one star for their Tung Ting Oolong Tea and Peppermint Leaves. Williamsons our black tea producer also won some awards. As did Pukka herbs.

Luscombe won a gold star for their organic Sicilian lemonade. Mother’s Garden, the olive oil from Spain which was mentioned by Delia Smith won a gold star as did Vallecoppa’s divine lemon infused extra virgin olive oil. Stratta entered their newest flavoured vinegars this year and won gold award for both the Sweet Black Mulberry and Sweet Damson.

Jules and Sharpie were awarded another star to add to their collection from last year. This time for hot mint jelly. And Tracklements also added to their collection with a star for their apple and sage jelly, strong horseradish & cream, apricot and ginger chutney, farmhouse pickle and onion marmalade.

Atkins & Potts won a gold star for their inventive Purple Basil Jam. Olives et al entered their Dukka in the "any other ingredient" category and it too won a gold star.

Piper’s Anglesey Sea Salt and Sea Salt & Somerset Cider Vinegar Crisps both won gold stars (as did another two of the flavours they produce).

Mike’s Smokehouse was awarded a gold star for heir smoked salmon pate, and for their hot-roast smoked salmon and smoked trout. The Ortiz anchovies also won a gold star.

Fine Cheeses from France

I stumbled across a new web site recently and really liked it. Very informative (it even mentions Tastes Deli!), lots of recipes and well laid out. If you are interested in Fine Cheeses from France have a look at http://www.frencheese.co.uk/

Salad Days

More and more English vegetables are becoming available and to accompany the asparagus we now have a lot of deliciously fresh salad items; little gems, baby carrots, spring onions, cucumbers, sprouted beans and spinach. All grown in England. Which is very timely as Gordon Ramsay was on the news this morning promoting seasonal produce! Now we just need the sun to start shining again and will be all set for picnicking by the Thames.

May Day

Yesterday way May Day and the official start of the British Asparagus season. Right on schedule I took delivery of my first batch of local asparagus! Grown 3.5 miles from the shop and delivered within hours of being picked. You can’t get much fresher!

It's been a while...

I've just been reminded that I've only one day left to put an entry in the blog for April. I hadn't realised it had been so long! I will be back soon....

How to Cheat at Cooking

Whenever Delia Smith, "the nation's favourite cook", launches a new book you can expect a great deal of media attention. Her latest book and television series: "How to Cheat at Cooking" is no exception, generating both acclaim and impassioned debate about the ingredients used and the recipes themselves. Frozen mashed potato and tinned mince aside, a common challenge facing Delia's fans this time around is the difficulty in obtaining the ingredients featured in the book. Many are not carried by the major super markets. This is where we come in!

On hearing what would be in the new book, and realising that many of the items were already being sold at Tastes (and not in the major supermarkets), I set out to source a few more of the high quality and hard to find items. Whilst the series runs on the television and until the end of 2008 at least, Tastes will be able to offer more than thirty of the specialist ingredients used in Delia's book. Many of these are old favourites of ours, some are making a special appearance and will only remain on sale if sales are sufficient.

So if you are hunting high and low for any of these, pop along to Eton:
Vietnamese Spring Roll Wrappers (traditionally made with rice flour so naturally wheat free and essential for making spring rolls at home).
Smoked Spanish Paprika
Tracklements chilli jam
Baked Aubergines
Peraud fish soup
English Provender Company Very Lazy Caramelised Red Onions
Green and Black's Chocolate
Antipasto in a jar (olives, mushrooms and artichoke hearts)
Mother's Garden extra virgin olive oil
Nabisco Premium Saltine crackers from the US
Seasoned Pioneer Spice Blends (we carry the 10 Delia used plus a lot more).
Sapori di Napoli and Martelli Italian pasta
Jars of chillies
Coco Lopez creamed coconut (a sweetened coconut milk designed for making pina colada)

Stock Demonstration

Last Saturday we held another successful tasting day, with Gary cooking up quick dishes using the More Than Gourmet stocks. His simple scallop dish was very popular but fortunately there were a few scallops left over which I had for my dinner! Doing exactly what I saw Gary do in the demo I fried some onions and mushrooms, then some baby scallops, added a few blobs of double cream and a tiny (1/4 tsp) amount of Glace de Fruits de Mer (a reduced classic seafood stock) and a bit of brandy. The Glace de Fruits de Mer adds a delicious fishy richness to the sauce. I had the scallops on toast!

Coconut Fish Curry

A new range of spice blends arrived this week. Fabulous little foil pouches from Seasoned Pioneers with minimal packaging and wonderful high quality spice blends. We have about 15 different blends in the shop at the moment and after much deliberation I chose the Caribbean Poudre de Colombo Spice Blend as the one I would try first. The recipe suggested on the back of the pack was for a very quick and easy Coconut Fish Curry. It was so good that I’ve made twice in one week: once with Tilapia fillets and once with Tuna steaks. Both curries were wonderful but the different fish made them quite different in taste and texture.

The simple (3 step, 9 ingredient) recipe is on the seasoned pioneers web site:
http://www.seasonedpioneers.co.uk/recipedetail.aspx?rid=23&cuisine=caribbean

Spring?

For the first time in months we have had the door to the shop open! It was brilliantly sunny this morning (though I still had to scrape ice off of the car windscreen) and was still sunny at noon. So I pinned back the door and left it open for five hours. I can't feel my fingers now, but it has been nice to have the breeze and remove that barrier with the street.

Pancakes!

This pancake day we experimented with toppings from the deli. After dinner we made a batch of pancakes and added a different sweet topping to each. Traditional lemon and sugar. An American version with Maple Syrup. Not so traditional (but quite yummy) chocolate spread. Quite unusual Vanilla Balsamic Glaze, which was surprisingly moreish and would have been even better with a blob of ice cream. And my surprise favourite honey rum and raisins!