Wednesday 28 April 2010

High Peak Food

I had these scallops in a local Dorset eating place. They were horrid. Smelt fishy, not in a good way, and had been microwaved to the point where the edges had gone hard and crusty.

The scallops below were eaten in another local hostelry, very small and shrivelled, and I had no leaves or bread to mop up the garlic butter so I had to ask for some. 














 
We were in The High Peak this weekend. So of course we ate a lot. The above is yet another variation on the ubiquitous scallop. These were some of the best I've eaten lately, resting on some very lush, moist black pudding. I'm giving up on scallops until an imaginitive chef comes up with something new. How about deep fried in a tempura batter? Why not?

These two photos are of our Roast Sunday Lunch in The Fallow Deer in Chapel en-le-Frith, Derbyshire. Yes-two massive Yorkshire Puddings. That's gravy in the brown jug. The vegetables were fresh and lightly steamed, the roast beef was good. This plate of food is far more hearty than most Sunday lunches where I live and only cost £7.95. Locally some places charge almost twice that. Of course we couldn't eat both Yorkies but most plates were going back to the kitchen empty so plenty of diners managed to eat them. Or maybe they gave them to a friend.

On cooking. With all these baby leaves being presented as a garnish on many dishes and they are so very small why not go back to mustard and cress?
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3 comments:

Gail Is This Mutton? said...

Good idea about mustard and cress. Anything to eradicate rocket, which I can't stand.

maddie said...

Trying to work out where those places are Bugs. Like the idea of tempura scallops. I used to do them in garlic butter and then flame them in Pernod, but that was 10 years ago and our supplier was the guy who ran the garage opposite and used to go diving as a hobby.

Buggles Balham High Road said...

Because I'm knocking them I don't like to say where the local places are but the tired, over-microwaved scallops were in The New Place at the traffic lights. We also had the roast carvery on the same day. It was a huge plate of food and it tasted of nothing - maybe water. The pork was sliced so thinly you could see through it.

It isn't just baby rocket is it, but baby pea leaves, baby broad bean leaves sprinkled in a haphazard manner trying to look arty.

At the other local place of the scallops we were served foam. It was hysterical as the foam looked like whale spit and it tasted of Nothing. I think caterers are buying ready made foam in aerosols and spraying with wild abandonment.