Me and Food

It's the time of year to lift the gaze and maybe reflect.
Some time ago it dawned on me that all my memories were food based. I would remember incidents and people not by their physical appearances but the food or meal that was mostly connected with it! At that point I came out and admitted to everyone else the already self-evident fact that I was a foodie.
I enjoy all the processes of food, from buying the ingredients, to looking in the larder and constructing a meal from its contents, to the cooking of the meal and eating it with relish. Not so hot on presentation (though I do have opinions on the subject) and certainly I seem to have a blind spot when it comes to clearing up the resultant battlefield. My range is savouries, sweets, puddings and cakes I leave to Anna's skills.
Nowadays when I construct a meal I try to avoid all the old easy taste pleasures of cream, butter, thick sauces and salt, going now for simple but excellent ingredients enhanced with complimentary or contrasting flavours or textures. Cooking has taken a bit of a back seat recently as the people I get to cook for the meals are significantly constrained by dietary or food dislike considerations! A sign of the times, once we all ate the out of the same pot and were grateful for it the more so if it was different to yesterdays.
The intention was to use my web site, http://www.somersetspiess.co.uk/, to post the more interesting recipes that I came up with and maintain links to good food sources as I came across them. However to make to my website more accessible to a wider range of viewer, it is now awaiting a complete re-structuring. So no move on that particular front in the foreseeable future. In the meantime I shall use this blog to make links to these good, quality and empathetic food outlets.
My criteria? Well obviously, the best quality. To me that means it is an outlet that really cares for its product, tries to produce the very best product that they can and take a pride in the products and care for their customers reactions. At the end it is not price, it certainly isn't fancy packaging, it isn't celebratory someones endorsement and the quality may even not be readily discernible to the pallet. Why, because the bottom line is that someone who day-in day-out cares will offer a better product consistently than someone who doesn't. Yes, it really is an act of faith, you buy in or you don't as there are no scientific scales by which to measure quality as experienced in the palate and the nose.
Enough, so why post links. Well some years ago we had a holiday in Scotland and came across a pie producer. These pies were simply the best and tastiest pies I had ever eaten, each of the range of fillings was good, solid with discernible ingredients and taste not drowned in seasoning. Excellent. I wanted to tell the world and now I have the means to.

Before I leave, my recipe for the season:
Large turkey carcass with meat removed and set aside (mine was 18lb drawn weight) simmered in water to cover, un-covered, on low heat for some 2 hours. Sieve and discard carcass, take off fat layer on top of stock.
In stock pot put in peeled and coarsely chopped, large potato, sweet potato and medium butternut squash with seeds removed, 2 carrots, 2 cloves of garlic, 4 bay leaves and seeds only from 8 cardamon. Cover with stock and simmer, un-covered, for about 1.5 hours. Blitz in liquidiser until fine then rub through sieve back into stockpot, adjust seasoning and add more stock if too thick, a loose creamy fluid texture is the aim.
Meanwhile, take a large chunk of turkey breast meat, about 0.75lbs, cut into fine cubes, peel a large potato and cut into similar sized cubes and saute in turkey fat until golden on all sides, reserve. Medium chop 2 red onions, saute in turkey fat until soft and transparent, turn up heat to drive off water, reserve. Chop 2 good handfuls of fresh coriander leaves. To serve, put onion and turkey meat into soup to warm through, serve into bowls and scatter with potato cubes, coriander leaves and a swirl of double cream cos its Christmas.
It is good!!