Book review. John Partridge. There's No Taste Like Home.

Many cookbooks feature a foreword by the author, particularly if the author is well known. And that's nice – you get to understand what the author's motivation is for writing that book. Then the usual format is to carry on through the rest of the book by filling it with appropriately chosen recipes and very often some beautiful photographs of the cooked food and maybe some preparation stages. No more stories, no more personal insights – just recipes and pretty pictures.

Not so with John Partridge's There's No Taste Like Home. It's a fabulously unpretentious cookbook which features not only a foreword but also heart warming anecdotes with each recipe so you really feel you get to know the man and how his cooking relates to his life growing up in Radcliffe near Manchester. Partridge says “ This is my taste of home. My pictures, my memories, my moments. Some old, some new, some borrowed, some stew! All the dishes in this book have been cooked at home in my kitchen – and some on the telly, too. Cooking the food from my past has helped me to live in the present.

I am a big fan of actor John Partridge having seen and reviewed him in quite a few productions over time including, the fairly recent production of Cabaret when it came to Curve Theatre in Leicester. We also had the pleasure of interviewing John on the telephone before the set up at Curve. He was fascinating and spoke about this book back then as well as his times in Germany and the production of Cabaret playing the Emcee.

There's No Taste Like Home has us aching to try out some of the recipes like Cheesy Mushroom Toast, Fish Pie Deluxe, Egg Custard Tart, Lancashire Hotpot, Wings, Ribs and Slaw, Beef and Guinness Stew, Chicken and Olive Tagine and even some of the 'for fancy' recipes including Pork Chops with Hasselback Potatoes and one day (when friends can visit again) go mad and make a Black Forest Gâteau. The joy of these recipes and many more in the book is that they sound totally straight forward and fuss-free and we love the design of the accompanying photos which have a creative quirk to them as well as a loving feel of nostalgia.

If there is one honest cook book written with lots of humour, reverence and love then There's No Taste Like Home is it. We love it! Order your copy now HERE.

Phil Lowe

Foreign meat cuts posters. Are you as interested in them as me?

A few years ago I was lucky enough to go to the city of Leiden in Holland to visit my friends Emma and Ronald. I wrote several blog posts about the experience and one of the most popular was about Emma and myself going into a Dutch butchers' shop and ordering some sirloin steaks. Having been a former butcher for a goodly portion of my working life I am always fascinated by how the shops in Holland, France and Germany look and display their products. Normally, if I am staying in an hotel I wouldn't buy fresh meat but, as it was, I was staying at their apartment and had promised to cook them steaks. If you want to read about my meat buying experience you can at https://mugofstrongtea.blogspot.com/2017/05/buying-sirloin-steaks-from-dutch-butcher.html

The different names of the cuts of meat on the foreign animals always fascinates me and here are some from France, followed by more modern Dutch versions.

And now the Dutch ones.

Recently I was conversing online with my young German friend Thorsten and we were both barbecuing or grilling a steak for our evening meal. It was an enjoyable conversation with me on the outskirts of Nottingham and he on the outskirts of the German city of Stuttgart.

Thorsten's hufte beef steak with sweetcorn, roast potatoes, bread and aioli.

My rib eye steak with new potatoes, peppercorn sauce and dandelion leaves.

 

He posted me some German meat cuts posters and the white lamb one at the bottom is from Austria showing some slightly different names for the cuts.

Cooking under lockdown. A delicious and unexpected rhubarb crumble treat.

A few days ago I put a few pictures on my personal Facebook page of foods I was missing due to my lack of funds or simply not being able to get to the places or even countries I would need to go to in order to purchase them. This was not in any way asking for food gifts but rather an expression of the foods I especially like. Things like continental dry cured sausages, sardines, mussels, rhubarb etc.

Then out of the blue my friend Allison (Allison and her husband Steve were former neighbours) got in touch with the idea of them sending me some of their own rhubarb which they grow in Lincolnshire.

Allison is a very creative person and runs her own business from home. Her craft products are superb. The business (business plug alert!) is called The Creaking Door.

Of course I jumped at the chance of fresh rhubarb and she cut and posted me some beautiful stalks. It was all done with a great deal of care and the box included a sweet little card.

Within an hour of receiving the parcel I was all hands on deck/kitchen surface peeling and chopping the rhubarb along with two apples and got on with the brief stewing of the fruits adding sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Once stewed I drained the cooked fruit and discarded most of the cooking liquid. Otherwise the crumble would end up far too wet and sloppy. Next step was to put the fruit in a dish intended to house the finished crumble. Thus done I went into mad culinary creative mode and added some sultanas (or raisons), chopped uncooked banana and a fresh lemon's worth of  wonderfully fragrant lemon rind.

It ain't a crumble without the topping and I used a packet I must have purchased back in the Middle Ages at Sainsbury's. As a final touch before putting the crumble into a hot oven gas mark 5 for 45 mins I thinly sliced some unsalted butter and lay it on top of the crumble mix. It gives the finished dish a very buttery taste. Well, there's  a surprise!

The finished crumble was totally scrummy but I did wait until at least an hour until had cooled somewhat! Thanks Allison and Steve.

Cooking under lockdown. Sausage meat ragu with tagliatelli inspired by Rick Stein.

As many of my readers know I don't really do recipes and in this particular case I was inspired by one of Rick Stein's programmes in the series Rick Stein's Long Weekends where he visits the Italian city of Palermo and speaks lovingly of a sausage meat based ragu. I love all his programmes but this series is especially inspirational even if you haven't been to any or some of the destinations. I must have watched it over and over and it comes highly recommended!

 

I happened to have six big fat tomato sausages from the local butcher (Ruddington Village Butchers) and I thought they would be too much to cook all at once unless I took them out of their skins and made, for the first time, a ragu.  

Initially, I chopped up three small white onions and a similar amount of fresh tomatoes and added a small amount of chopped fresh rosemary and four chopped garlic cloves to the well mushed up sausage meat. Obviously I took the sausage skins off the sausages first.

It became hard to tell if the sausage meat was cooked as I fried it in olive oil but I kept moving it around the pan and added a tiny bit more oil when it started to look a bit dry. Then I added the chopped onions as I wanted the flavour adding into the ragu not starting with onions as a base. My intention was to have the onions provide a flavour note but not get over-cooked or burnt. The tomatoes went in next as the onions began to wilt and smell fantastic.

After about 10-15 minutes of cooking in the frying pan I became convinced that the sausage meat was now properly cooked and from here I added a tin of chopped tomatoes, stirring it in and followed by adding a small jar of Lloyd Grossman Bolognese sauce, reducing the mixture and adding another. They were on offer at £1 each so the expense wasn't too bad and the sauce was of a high quality.

Time to put some tagliatelle pasta on the boil and, once it was al dente, I griddled a few thin slices of aubergine and added a few fresh basil leaves to the finished dish. As I had made rather a lot I shared some with my neighbours. They were very impressed.

Delicious!

Cooking under lockdown. Making the most of things for meals. French style potato dishes.

Whilst not having a lot of money to shell out on food I have done my best to bulk cook or at least make some aspects of my cooking last a couple of days like with the pommes boulanger and pommes gratins I enjoy making because they are tasty and fairly cheap to make. Quite often I just had a plate of reheated potatoes.