June Slow Food Supper at Edinburgh Larder Bistro - Nose to Tail with Gorgie City Farm

Monday night saw me attend a Slow Food Supper at the Edinburgh Larder Bistro, a restaurant committed to using the best local Scottish produce. Slow Food Suppers are an opportunity for like minded people to come together to chat and enjoy really good food. This element of conviviality, of the enjoyment of sharing good, clean and fair food together is central to the Slow Food movement. Edinburgh Larder Bistro have hosted a number of suppers and are keen supporters of Slow Food.

In recent months the Edinburgh events have welcomed special guests and suppliers such as Clyde Valley Tomatoes to talk about what they produce and why it's special in today's world of tasteless mass-produced food. This time, the speaker was Donna from Gorgie City Farm in Edinburgh who talked about the pigs they raise there. At the farm she does amazing work helping disadvantaged and troubled children and teenagers by getting them involved looking after the pigs and learning more about farming and animal husbandry. At the heart of its local community, the farm is a valuable place where the kids can find out about where their food comes from, but more importantly helps them feel engaged and included in their often troubled lives.

Crackling

I was there supporting both Slow Food and the farm, where I have been volunteering with their 'Fork to Fork' gardening and cookery lessons. Our feast for the evening was some of Gorgie Farm's very own pork, raised less than a couple of miles from where we were sitting. These pigs have a happy life, something Donna is passionate about, having grown up on a farm and been around animals all her life. She draws the line at giving them names, only referring to the Gloucester Old Spot we were eating as 'Pig 006'. Using as much of the animal as possible is important to her, and this nose to tail ethos is shared at Edinburgh Larder Bistro. We started with some crackling, I'm not always a fan but this was wonderful, crisp, not too chewy and flecked with spices including sweet roasted fennel seeds.

Pig 006

From the choice of mains we had to try Pig 006, including different cuts cooked different ways. There were choice slices of pan fried loin and then slow cooked belly and cheek (I think), with a decedent layer of  fat. Also included was the oink, so I'm told, although I didn't spot it I ate it all up. The pork was served with braised peas and lettuce in a jus and garnished with wild rocket flowers. Our table played a game of 'guess the foraged wild flower' for a while!

Also on the menu was home smoked Pollock with cauliflower, heritage potatoes and bacon. This was a  generous slab of fish, highly seasoned and served with some perfectly cooked veg. A veggie option of spelt and barley risotto unsurprisingly didn't get a look in! I wasn't planning on having  a dessert (extra in the price), but the Espresso and Pecan tart with homemade ice cream changed my mind. I love coffee and pecans so I had to have it; the ice cream, though a small portion tasted had a pure, milky taste, worth ten yellow scoops from a carton. The tart was good, the pecans were excellent, however I didn't get a strong taste of espresso but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Though it was exciting to visit the restaurant, somewhere that's been on my list for a while, the supper wasn't all about the menu. It was a chance to meet some kindred spirits and share the evening talking about food, life and everything else (if there is anything else!). More so, it was about showing support for those that care about where food comes from and celebrating the work they do. That can go beyond producing and selling us the best in artisan produce, it can have a life changing effect. Gorgie Farm is a charity, so if you're in Edinburgh do visit, see the animals, buy some sausages and help them continue to make a difference.

Edinburgh Larder Bistro, 1a Alva Street, Edinburgh EH2 4PH

http://www.edinburghlarder.co.uk/bistro

Slow Food Edinburgh
http://slowfoodedinburgh.com/
http://slowfoodedinburgh.wordpress.com/

Gorgie City Farm, 51 Gorgie Road, Edinburgh EH1 2LA
http://www.gorgiecityfarm.org.uk/

Ballymaloe Day 42, March 7th - Eggs 70s

Week 9, Day 2 and I was cooking the Cumberland Sauce, Bacon with a sugary pineapple glaze and Eggs Mayonnaise. I also practiced another brown soda bread. As ever easier than it sounds, the bacon took forever to cook as it simmered on the hob. It only goes into the oven to brown up but by the end of it I was getting sick of the dish. The Cumberland Sauce too took a long time and just didn’t go very well, too watery, then too overcooked, tricky to master. The Eggs Mayonnaise involved boiling 10 eggs (double the recipe) which I also failed to master, then making mayonnaise in the food processor and adding that to the sieved egg yolk. You then put it with some chives back into the halved egg whites and serve with a garnish. Easy, no? I swear this will be coming back into fashion if it hasn’t already! I also made some vanilla ice cream today, made by the method of pouring syrup onto the egg mixture. It was really sweet and tasty!

My Bacon and Cumberland Sauce, and a garnished Egg Mayonnaise

My Eggs Mayonnaise, 70s revival on the cards

 

The demonstration today was good, there was a spectacular ciabatta bread which is a two day job, a lamb curry and accompaniments, melon cocktail, sorbets, stuffed dates and a cardamom cream with pomegranates. It was a great feast; the blood orange sorbet was especially good and had an amazing flavour.

Tomorrow we have plenty on, a canapé demonstration, a talk on spices and freezing (not freezing spices) and then a visit up the road to Ballymaloe House.

Ballymaloe Day 18, 1st February - This is the Life - Wine in the morning, Cake in the afternoon

Wednesday the 1^st of  February and another Theory Day. Curiously in Ireland February is considered Spring?! I am finding the theory days to be just as hard if not harder than days in the kitchen, as there is so much to concentrate on. First of all it was an early start as some of us students went to the massive greenhouses to plant some seeds. We dug some little trenches and sowed in dried peas (Ambassador is the variety) which had been saved from the previous year. The next thing they’ll grow in the same patch are broad beans but it was a bit early to sow them. En route to the green houses we saw the piglets racing towards us in a nearby field, looking for food. We fed them, they were thrilled and stuffed their faces without a snort of thanks. They are Saddlebacks I think. It was good to see them running free more to the point!

Zero table manners

Oink!

Sowing the peas

My little lettuce, 3 weeks bigger

The greenhouses

Then back to the school and after some tasty Tunisian and Moroccan Orange Cake and Fermoy Cheese it was onto the wine! A Wednesday morning with a wine tasting ahead beats any Wednesday morning going to work in the office. For this wine 'lecture', yes it's a struggle here, we had Colm McCan from Ballymaloe House again and this time John McDonnell from Wine Australia. There were loads of great wines of course including an introduction to sparkling wine and the methods of making it, Riesling - very nice I have to say, and then some reds, a biodynamic Cabernet Merlot, a Tim Adams Shiraz and a Syrah from the Rhone valley, the Guigal (the winery) Côte-Rôtie (the appelalation) 'Côte Blonde et Brune' (the name). We were supposed to have another Australian Granache instead of the Syrah but it was corked! This was a good opportunity to smell some corked wine though, smells like mouldy carpet in a damp shed or something.

John in action

It was also an introdcution to biodynamic wine, planting to the phases of the moon etc and harvesting to a different calendar and treating the vines with almost homeopathic remedies. It's interesting stuff and the wine we tried is highly regarded - €60 a bottle!!

Phew, after all that excitement there was no let up. In the afternoon we had a talk from Nood Teas about tea and the teas that are sold in the supermarket, those you get in tea bags are dust grade - what does that tell you! Their company puts proper leaves in a new sort of teabag that biodegrades - it's pretty cool. Then that was a introduction into the afternoon's demonstration, Afternoon Tea!

As ever, it was a full-on production. Rory and Pam, one of the teachers made some amazing creations. There were perfect cupcakes, meringues, different sponges, cider cake, the icing of the mega-Simnel Cake, and sandwiches served in a 'treasure chest' of a loaf of bread. There was so much going on and so many ideas to take from it and so many recipes that if done well would be amazing if you had a cafe or catering business or something. Really it was another brilliant day and we are so lucky to be exposed to this stuff day in day out, even if it is a bit exhausting!

Rory & Pam

Perfect Cupcakes

Better than the Savoy!