- Food Lovers Club

Simple Pleasures

Sausages, puddings, and pies. Oh for the simple pleasures. Wonderfully fulfilling simple snacks and meals. This is the lull before the gastronomic overload of the Festive Season, so let’s make the most of it and discover some of secrets that lie within.


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Hungry ?

 

9th November is British Pudding Day, a celebration of a long history of pastry-wrapped goodness.

A BIT OF HISTORY:

Way back in 1305 the word ‘pudding’ derived from the Middle English word ‘poding’, which meant a ‘meat filled animal stomach.’ The word ‘pudding,’ however, is closer to the Latin word ‘botellus’ which means sausage.

The word ‘botellus’ gave rise to the word ‘boudin’ which then came to mean pudding. Thus, the British pudding is often viewed as a descendant of the Roman sausage.

Boudin Noire is the French equivalent of our Black Pudding, squaring the culinary circle of sausages, puddings & pies.TIP: Don’t over-complicate a sausage dish. Classically served with mash and onion gravy, try folding a little of our Cider & Horseradish Mustard into the buttery mash and hold the gravy, letting the juicy sausage release its full flavour.

With new potatoes and wilted greens, try a spoonful of Fig Relish on the side, complementing the pork and herbs of the sausage.Sausage meets Pudding in Toad in the Hole where the tray-bake Yorkshire Pud rises around the toads.

TIP: pre-cook / bake the sausages in an oven tray for 10 / 15 minutes while making the batter – 140g of flour with two eggs cracked into it, 2 tsp of Classic English Mustard, then 175ml of milk slowly whisked for a classic batter.

Pour the batter around the spitting-hot sausages and bake for a further 25 minutes until the pud has puffed up and turned deliciously golden brown.QI:

The 17th / 18th C mining boom in Cornwall brought pasties to their fore. They became the ‘go-to meal’ for the miners’ crib break (a mid-morning break), an all-in-one meal that could be taken down the mines.

Sometimes fruit was cooked into one end of the pasty to provide a sweet treat at the end of their meal. Savoury main course and a sweet in one pasty.

A miner’s wife would carve her husband’s initials into his pasty, so that he was able to distinguish his from others – cute huh!

Sadly, they didn’t have the grownup sweet dates and Persian spices of our Real Brown Sauce to go with them.

It’s a match made in heaven.

Recipes for Hungry Tums

 

Slow-cooked Beef Pie

The long, slow cooking of the diced beef ensures the tenderest tastiest filling for this delicious pie. Adding our Real Brown sauce gives the gravy a wonderful depth of flavour, sweet with dates and aromatic with Persian spices. Enjoy the recipe & video HERE.White Bean, Woodland Mushrooms & Pancetta Strudel.

This is a fantastic winter feast with hearty woodland flavours wrapped in a light, crispy filo pastry. Enjoy the recipe & videoHERE.Sausage & Egg Pie.

An old favourite with Stokes food lovers, combining the eponymous sausage and the pie in one. Enjoy the recipeHERE.

Bloody Mary Ketchup

 

If you haven’t tried our Bloody Mary Ketchup, then you really have missed out on one of the best.

The natural flavours of rich tomato ketchup infused with the warming essence of that ‘morning-after-the-night-before‘ Bloody Mary are truly amazing.

It is an award-winning sauce to make you smile. Our classic tomato ketchup made with a dash of real vodka and a splash of Spicy Table Sauce for a touch of Bloody Mary spice.Rich, colourful and full of body. Perfect for those morning after bacon butties!

Pie Puns

 

A slice of pie is $2.50 in the Bahamas and $3.00 in Jamaica. Those are the pie rates of the Caribbean!

Q: Why did the beef pie cross the road? A: It saw a fork up ahead.

Q: How do you make gold pie? A: Put 14 carrots in it.

Q: Why did the pie crust go to the dentist? A: Because it needed a filling.

Q: Why did Toto charge off into the storm clouds with a pie? A: Because Dorothy sang “Somewhere over the rainbow, weigh-a-pie”.

 

I’d better go before you make me eat humble pie !