The Dales Festival of Food & Drink, Leyburn, Wensleydale

Leyburn Food Festival is here again, the first food festival we ever attended and “my favourite”.  The Festival based in Leyburn, Wensleydale runs from Saturday the 5th May through to Monday the 7th May 2012.

The Dales Festival of Food has a friendly feel, lots of fantastic food producers and great food to eat during your visit.  Attractions include the cookery theatre with five demonstrations daily, the Food & Farming display with sheep, calves, clipping demos and sheep dog display, an Army Canteen will be present as well as speakers and live music.

In the beer tent will be local beers from various local brewery’s including Black Sheep, Dent, Daleside, Wensleydale, Old Bear, Ilkley, Roosters and more…

Do try the fantastic Yorkshire Pizzas from The Pizza Farm – PIZZA a La Cart with Yorkshire Chorizo and proper Mangalitza bacon and pancetta.  Watch out for the fantastic Pizza Land Rover.

Full details of all exhibitors and programme of events on http://www.dalesfestivaloffood.org/

Clandestine Cake Club, Skipton & Yorkshire Dales – My First Cake

The inaugural meeting of the Skipton & Yorkshire Dales Clandestine Cake Club and my first attempt at baking a proper cake!  Whilst I can cook and even bake a bit of flapjack I have never attempted an actual proper cake! so for the first ever Yorkshire Dales Clandestine Cake Club and inspired by Lynn Hill I thought I should make the effort and give it a go….

I made a classic Victoria Sponge with our own free range eggs, home-made raspberry jam and baked it in an Aga that just doesn’t want to get hot these days…  The jam ran out a bit & the lid of the tin rubbed a little of the icing sugar off but it tasted OK!

Other fab cakes on display included, Chocolate & Lime, Lemon & Ginger, Chocolate Marsala, Hummingbird and Chocolate Orange all delicious….

Join The Yorkshire Dales & Skipton Clandestine Cake Club here

Smoked Mackerel, Yorkshire Chorizo & New Potato Salad

Ingredients

1. 120g piece Yorkshire Chorizo, roughly chopped
2. 2 small red onions, chopped
3. 900g new potatoes, cut into small cubes & boiled
4. 250g cherry tomatoes, halved
5. 2 large peppered smoked mackerel fillets, skinned
6. handful of fresh parsley leaves, chopped

Method

1. Heat a large, non-stick frying pan over a high heat. Add the chorizo and stir for a couple of minutes, until most of the Chorizo oil has been released. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
2. Reduce the heat, add the onions to the same pan and fry until clear and beginning to brown and well coated with the Chorizo oil, add the boiled potatoes & stir to get that Chorizo oil coating the spuds.
3. Add the tomatoes and Chorizo to the pan and then flake the mackerel fillets in and gently mix, stir in the parsley and serve with a mixed leaf salad.

Mojito recipes

Along with my love of Havana Club Rum of which I have mused on before here Havana Club Rum & Havana Cultura I do love a cool, refreshing, rum based cocktail….  so it’s Mojito time!  The Classic Mojito and from the guys at The Lucky Pig a Mojito Rosata…

Classic Mojito

2 oz light or blanco rum, 1 tsp of sugar, 3 lime wedges, 5 mint leaves, soda water, you can make directly in the glass or it’s better made in a shaker,  muddle the lime, sugar and mint leaves in the shaker until well muddled. Add ice and the rum and shake briefly, then strain into an ice-filled Collins glass. Top with soda and garnish with mint & a short straw or 2.  From the excellent TheSpir.it cocktail site.

Mojito Rosata

Equal measurements of Dark Rum & Martini Rosato…Add fresh lime juice, mint leaves, a pinch of sugar and churn with ice….  The rosato style mojito is floral and sweet up front with flavors of strawberry and lime while bitter grapefruit and dried herbs emerge on the finish.  Available from The Lucky Pig, Fitzrovia, London. (my old stomping ground!)

Coffeeholic Camping & Travel Coffee makers

Hi, my name is Chris and I’m a coffeeholic!

So what to do when you cannot get a decent cup of coffee? my trusty Bialetti stove top makes a great travel companion but as I also love gadgets there are other options for coffee on the go, camping and travelling.

Handpresso Wild Espresso Maker for Coffee Pods

Not one I have even tried but this coffee gadget sounds and looks fantastic! Basically you need some hot water and an ESE coffee pod, the flat style, lots of different manufacturers of these coffee pods available from the supermarket.  You just pop in a pod, pump up the gadget to 16bar, bike pump style and you have 50cl of perfect espresso complete with crema!

GSI Mini Espresso

Basically a tiny stainless steel stove top espresso machine, can be used on a camping stove and very tiny & light to pack or throw in the rucksack.  cold water goes in the base, then a filter that you fill with ground coffee of your choice, screw all together and place on a heat source, the water turns to steam and is pushed through the coffee for a quality cup of espresso, (but no crema).

Bialetti Moka Express Espresso Maker

The classic stove top espresso maker and uses the same principle as the GSI above, available in 1, 3, 6 or 12 cup sizes. Alloy so very light.

Kelly Kettle

Not strictly a coffee maker more of a simple and very fast kettle for boiling water with very little tinder or fuel, you can boil the Kelly or Storm Kettle with a few sheets of newspaper!  Great for backpacking, camping, canoeing & bushcraft trips, hot water & a teabag and your sorted!

Homemade Pimm’s

I never really thought about Pimm’s being basically a cocktail bottled for your convenience but of course that is exactly what it is, so how about making your own?

Here is a recipe supplied by The Lucky Pig cocktail bar in Fitzrovia, in That London…

Mix 15ml Sipsmith Gin, 15ml Grand Marnier, 15ml Cherry Heering, 15ml Sweet Vermouth and cubed ice and stir. Add 1 Raspberry,1 blackberry,  1strawberry,  8 mint leaves, 1 orange slice, 1 lemon wedge, stir again  and top with lemonade. Add mint sprig and 2 long straws.

Unexpectedly Yorkshire & Cornucopia at The Corn Exchange

As part of #GoodFoodFriday in Leeds and in conjunction with Cornucopia I experienced some unexpectedly Yorkshire food & convivial company at the Corn Exchange in Leeds. This was truly Yorkshire Fusion Food, Leventhorpe Wine, Shepherds Purse Cheese & Yorkshire Chorizo in a Sushi Fusion created by Simon Phillips the Sushi King.  Anyone for Roast Beef & Yorkshire Pudding Sushi, Yorkshire Blue & Asparagus Sushi or maybe even some Yorkshire Chorizo Sushi….

Yorkshire Blue from Shepherds Purse, a mild, soft, creamy, blue veined cheese made from Yorkshire cows milk, a unique buttery/sweet flavour with no bite.

Yorkshire Chorizo a fully cured Spanish style sausage containing British free range pork, made in Yorkshire.

Leventhorpe Wine, Leeds very own vineyard within the Leeds City boundary and the most northerly commercial vineyard.

Simon Philips works tirelessly to promote Sushi – it doesn’t have to be all about fish!

Northern Food Words & Regional Vocabulary

With the help of Twitter, my recollections and a little bit of research I am trying to put together a collection of Northern Food Words, food related vocabulary from the North of England my favourite being Brossen or Brussen meaning full to bursting from over eating….

What are your favourites? or any you heard Mum, Dad, Gran, Grandad say in the past….  possibly just regional food terms like teacake, bap, bun, bread cake, barm please comment below or let me know and I will add them here..

Anything relating to Flat Caps, Greyhounds, Whippets & Ferrets does NOT count (that was for the Southerners! and to avoid any confusion!)

• Apeth – meaning a halfpenny of sweets
• Baggin – packed lunch
• Bait – as in “Bait Box” meaning packed lunch, sandwich box
• Beeroff – off licence
• Brossen or Brussen – “oh I’m reet brossen” meaning full to bursting from over eating, term of satisfaction after a good meal
• Buttie – sandwich
• Cake’ole – meaning mouth
• Char – “fancy a cuppa char”, meaning a cup of Tea
• Chip hole/Chip oil / Chippie – fish & chip shop
• Clem or Clemmed (see Klempt) to starve, starving hungry
• Drinking – “were oft for’t drinking”, meaning going for tea & biscuits
• Dripping -
• Eating irons – knife & fork
• Famished – Hungry
• Gaspin – thirsty
• Growler – Pork pie
• Guzzle – meaning eat greedily
• Hotpot – as in Lancashire Hotpot does this count or is it just a regional dish?
• Kali – meaning sherbert
• Klempt – “I’m nearly klempt to death” meaning starving, hungry
• Lowence – a snack while working, especially for farmers.
• Mash – “mash the tea” meaning brew
• Nosh – Food or to Eat
• Pikelet – crumpet
• Pogged Out – meaning full (see brossen)
• Pop – as in fizzy soft drinks
• Potted Meat/Potted Beef – meat pate or sandwich spread
• Put you on – as in “have a buttie to put you on” a snack to keep you going until teatime
• Sarnie – sandwich
• Scone – fish cake from fish & chip shop
• Scran – general term for food
• Scraps – from a fish & chip shop the bits of batter that fall off the fish, “a bag o chips we scraps”
• Skeel – a Milk Pail
• Snap –  meaning packed lunch
• Spanish – another word for liquorice as in Spanish Liquorice
• Spew – vomit, to be sick
• Spice – meaning sweets
• Spoggs – Sweets
• Sup – “to sup your tea” meaning to drink
• Teacake, Bap, Barm, Bun, bread cake, oven bottom cake – all regional variations on a small usually white bread teacake

A few Scottish words:-

• Pieces – meaning sandwiches
• Messages – meaning shopping list

Please either comment below or Tweet with the HashTag #NorthernFoodWords to me @cwildman

British Pie Week – Denby Dale Piem

DENBY DALE, YORKSHIRE’S PIE VILLAGE CELEBRATES NATIONAL PIE WEEK WITH A “PIE PIEM”

Yorkshire Poet Ian McMillian Raptures Lyrical on Crust, Taties, Gravy and Meat

Denby Dale, the UK’s only designated “Pie Village” celebrates National Pie Week (5-12th March) with a “Pie Piem” from Yorkshire Bard Ian McMillian.

Denby Dale is the famous Pie Village, nestled the picturesque hills of West Yorkshire.  The famous Denby Dale Pies are a 220 year old village tradition; usually baked to celebrate national special occasions and events.  Not your normal run-of-the-mill pies, but monster meat & potato pies registered in the Guinness Book of Records.

Denby Dale Pies on a more digestible scale are still handmade in the Dale, by a team of craft bakers in a small factory nestled under the famous viaduct. The business was recently rescued and bought out of receivership by a team lead by food entrepreneur Andrew Hayes preserving 17 jobs in the region.

“We wanted to mark National Pie Week in a quirky way that celebrates what’s special about the village, and remind folks we’re making award winning pies again.  Denby Dale is famous for pies and we hope to keep Denby Dale on the map as the pie capital of Britain,” explains Andrew Hayes.

“Yorkshire is famous for pies, and there’s a nostalgia about pies that taste of home.  I think Ian sums it up in the lines.  They’re as Yorkshire as puddings and good strong ale, You can smell ‘em through the cottage door!”

DENBY DALE PIEM

It’s pleasing to the nose

And delightful to the eye

Wait till you taste that Denby Dale pie!

It’s a symphony of crust,

Taties, gravy and meat

A Denby Dale pie makes your life complete!

 

They’ve been making pies in Denby Dale

For centuries and more

They’re as Yorkshire as puddings and good strong ale

You can smell ‘em through the cottage door!

They’ve been eating pies in Denby Dale

Since King George was a youth!

Each massive pie could tell a tale

or a slice of historical truth!

 

They’re making them again

And the pie-maker’s art

Is once more close to this town’s heart!

So all those in favour

Stand and bellow Aye!

Then have a taste of that there Denby Dale Pie!

 © Ian McMillan

Link to Ian McMillan reciting his Piem on YouTube

Bacon Infographic about Bacon, yes 25 Bacon Facts from the USA!