(Not up for the chitchat? Completely get it. Click the email title to go to a web-based version then jump straight to the recipe or Cultural Fun.
I’m feeling a bit bleak TBH. As a generally optimistic person sometimes stuff happens that makes me wonder if optimism isn’t misguided. But this is a place for pickles not politics so I won’t dwell on it.
I also take comfort from small things: I gave a demo to the Alexandra Palace WI on Tuesday which was a lot of fun. They seemed like a diverse, community-minded bunch of women. And I had a nice exchange with a lady who admired my enormous cooking pot whilst I was waiting for the bus home after Lunch Club at the Hornsey Vale Community Centre yesterday. I taught a lovely bunch of fermenters at the Dusty Knuckle last night. I smiled at various people in the street and they smiled back. We’re all still here.
Anyway. On with the business of the day. I am gearing up for my supper clubs at the Lacy Nook on November 20th and 27th. There are, obviously, plenty of ferments on the menu so I’ve been getting the kimchi for the devilled eggs and the red kraut for the pumpkin salad and various other bits and pieces underway this week.
Fresh Pasta Dauphinoise ravioli Pappardelle with beef cheek ragu/four mushroom ragu
Seasonal Salads Roast pumpkin with radicchio and ruby kraut Charred greens with four thieves vinaigrette
Dessert Preserved lemon parfait baked Alaska
I’m not sure which bit I’m most excited about. I’m obviously delighted that the crowd-pleasing devilled eggs that were such a hit in the summer are making a comeback but I’m pretty psyched about the new artichoke and goats curd thing (note to self: better name needed for this item) that will be joining them in the snack selection.
And, of course, the double-carb phenomenon that is the potato dauphinoise ravioli. And when is baked Alaska and a chance to get my blowtorch out never not fun?
The Lacy Nook is a lovely, cosy, fairy-lit space, perfect for an autumnal night. It’s going to be really special and I hope to see you there.
There are still tickets available for my November 22nd workshop in Oxfordshire. I had such a wonderful time teaching at Home Farm House in June and am really looking forward to returning. The house itself is grade II*-listed and beautiful with a recently-renovated kitchen just perfect for teaching and the adjoining field is used by Worthy Earth, a no-dig, regenerative agriculture project.
We’ll hear about Worthy Earth from its founder Harrison Fannon before picking our vegetables straight from the ground. We’ll then return to the kitchen and transform them into krauts, kimchis and pickles.
We’ll also enjoy a tasty home-cooked lunch made by Home Farm House’s owner Anita and then investigate vinegar, kombucha and kefir in the afternoon before attendees go home with jars full of goodness and detailed instructions on how to look after them.
I can’t pretend it will be as sunny as it was in June but it will still be delightful.
Tickets are £150 but In Good Taste subscribers get a discount. Use the code IGT20 for 20% off.
I have been researching Japanese pickles - tsukemono- lately. It’s a complex and exciting world. From quick, vinegar-based pickles to things made in a rice-bran fermenting bed. I’m reading and experimenting and will hopefully share a comprehensive overview with you before too long but in the meantime, this is a Japanese-inspired pickle. Inauthentic but delicious.
It’s a take on the traditional cucumber pickles but using a brine made from miso instead of just salt and water. It’s tangy but also deeply umami. Great alongside all sorts of things or as a simple meal with rice.
I made a tiny little 400ml jar with just six cucumbers as that was what I had. I suggest you scale up the quantities as they were very tasty and I have eaten them all already and feel sad that there weren’t more.
Ingredients
2 cloves garlic, peeled and bashed
1 inch ginger, unpeeled and in pound-coin thick slices
2 bay leaves
6 mini cucumbers
50g miso
100ml water
Method
Add the aromatics. Put the garlic, ginger and bay leaves at the bottom of a scrupulously clean jar.
Prepare the cucumbers. Slice the blossom end off the baby cucumbers. The opposite end to the stem - it will have a little spot where the blossom was and contains enzymes that will make your pickles mushy. You just need to remove a few millimetres. You can slice off the stem too to even things up or leave it on if you like that cartoon pickle look.
Pack the cucumbers into the jar. Stand them vertically. They should be tightly packed enough to stop each other floating upwards as gas is produced during fermentation.
Add the brine. Combine the miso and water in a jug and stir well. The miso won’t exactly dissolve but try and disperse it evenly. Pour this over the cucumbers, making sure they are all submerged, then seal the jar and put it somewhere at room temperature out of direct sunlight.
Wait. Leave, burping regularly and tasting occasionally, until the cucumbers have achieved a degree of tanginess that you enjoy. For me this took about a week. Then move to the fridge.
Notes (If Ifs And Ands Were Pots And Pans…)
I used Clearspring Brown Rice Miso. According to the nutrition label it is 12.7% salt per 10g. My brines are usually 4 or 5% salt which is why I went for a 1:2 ratio of miso to water. If your miso is wildly different in terms of salt content try to adjust accordingly.
I snake cut my pickles for fanciness. I made a little reel showing you how here:
Just slice on the diagonal - the chop sticks stop you cutting all the way through. Then flip and repeat. But they taste you as good if you slice them normally!
Cultural Fun
James and I had a lovely few days in Liverpool over half term. We both woke up on the first day with horrible colds but it didn’t stop us getting a good look at the city. I think my favourite thing was the twin cathedrals, the giant neo-Gothic Anglican one and, less than a mile away, the Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral.
Both are 20th century but very different in style. The Anglican (designed by Giles Gilbert Scott) is huge (the biggest in Britain) and reasonably traditional in style. Whereas the Metropolitan is fairly radical.
There’s a fascinating display in the crypt about the original design by Edwin Lutyens which would have been the second largest church in the world, smaller only that St Peters in Rome. It would have dwarfed both the Anglican cathedral up the road and the “Three Graces” on the waterfront. But World War II meant that only the crypt was ever finished.
A really haunting story of might-have-beens, but I really loved the smaller, cheaper building what was created instead in the 1960s. I’m an atheist but found the space very inspiring, the brightly coloured stained glass and abstract art felt relevant in a way that lots of modern religious art doesn’t to me.
We did a little tour of the Royal Liver Building, the largest and most iconic of the Three Graces. The other two - the Cunard Building and the Port of Liverpool Building - aren’t open to the public. The Liver Building barely is - it’s mainly offices - but you can go up one of the towers and look at the clock and the liver birds themselves, worth it to get a sense of the scale of the thing.
There’s an exhibit about a photo of a banquet held to celebrate the clocks, using one face as a table to seat 40!
We took the ferry ‘cross the Mersey and a train to Port Sunlight. I’d wanted to visit this model village since reading about it in Bill Bryson’s Notes From a Small Island. Built by soap magnate Lord Lever to house his workers, I found it charming and loved the Lady Lever Art Gallery built by Lord L to show off his fine taste in painting and pottery to the people.
The redeveloped dock area is impressive although I was slightly underwhelmed by both the Museum of Liverpool and the Maritime Museum. I think I was after more context for the city itself. How the shipping money shaped the place and so on. Instead there’s more of a focus on famous faces and specific ships. There’s a huge exhibition on the Titanic, claiming it as “a Liverpool ship” when it was built in Belfast and set sail from Southampton…
But I loved the city’s galleries. The huge Walker Art Gallery and the Victoria which is attached to the university. Worth mentioning that absolutely all of them are free too!
Bye! See you next week!
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