Chocolate Brownies from The Pedlar at Monmouth - Food Find

Having noticed the chocolate brownies at Monmouth Coffee had changed over the past few weeks, my resistance finally cracked today and now I'm hooked.  Rich and intensely chocolatey this little square of fudgy bliss went down a treat with a double espresso.  Made by The Little Bread Pedlar, a baker who has got on his bike to bring bread, croissants and brownies to London's streets and small cafes.  Using top quality flours, chocolate and butter, he's only been pedalling since July so you'll need to check out the website below to keep up with him.  Exceptional lemon madeleines and now great chocolate brownies to go with the excellent coffee at Monmouth.

http://lbpedlar.com/
http://www.monmouthcoffee.co.uk/

Bread Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce

Bread Pudding
with Butterscotch Sauce

This is not 'Bread and Butter Pudding'.  Bread Pudding is much less rich.  In August I posted a piece on Bread Pudding dishes from around the world but teasingly I didn't post any recipes.  To make up for that, here's a recipe for English Bread Pudding based on the one in Beyond Nose to Tail written by Fergus Henderson and Justin Piers Gellatly of St John.  This is the follow-up book to Henderson's Classic Nose to Tail Eating.  In conversation with Justin one day I learned they sometimes use their leftover Raisin Bread to make this pudding and that is what I've used in the dish photographed above.  If you can get a good raisin bread, give it a go but any good quality stale sandwich bread can be used together with dried fruit so I have reflected it in the recipe below.  As it is cooking, the spicing will make you think of Christmas and put you in the mood for mixing that Christmas Pud or Cake which we should be turning our attention to soon.

You sometimes see grey, unappetising squares of what they call 'bread pudding' in high street bakery shops in England.  Whatever you do, do not buy it!  Here is the real deal. At St John Bread and Wine they serve this dish with vanilla ice cream and sometimes use ginger cake or date loaf instead of bread pudding.  All three work brilliantly but the thriftyness of bread pudding appeals to me particularly and, as Fergus says, "never waste yesterday's bread".

Bread Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce
(Enough for 8)

350g (12oz) stale raisin bread (if your raisin bread appears rather light on raisins, add a bit extra dried fruit)
[or 250g (9oz) white sandwich bread + 55g (2oz) raisins + 30g (1oz) currants+ 30g (1oz) sultanas]

65g (2½oz) minced suet
130g (5oz) soft dark brown sugar
25g (1oz) chopped mixed candied peel
60g (2oz) Bramley cooking apple, peeled, cored and diced
1 large egg
1½ teaspoons ground mixed spice
½ teaspoons ground allspice
2 tablespoons dark rum
25g (1oz) unsalted butter, diced
1 tablespoon of demerara sugar for sprinkling

Cut the crusts off the bread and rip the bread into small pieces.  Place in a bowl, cover with water and soak for 30 minutes.  Butter a deep baking dish.  I find a loaf tin around 10cm x 20cm is about right but be sure to use a deep dish or you'll end up with a biscuit rather than a pudding!  Pre-heat oven to 170C.
Put all the remaining ingredients, except the butter and demerara sugar in a large bowl and mix with a wooden spoon for 3-4 minutes.  Squeeze all the excess water out of the bread then add the bread to the mixture.  Stir again for 3-4 minutes.  The final mixture will be very wet.  Pour it into the prepared dish.  Scatter the diced butter and the demerara sugar over the top.  Bake in the oven until golden brown - I find if I use the raisin bread as my main ingredient it needs no more than 1 hour of cooking, but the bread and extra fruit version takes 1½ hours at 180C according to the recipe in the book. 

Butterscotch Sauce
This does make rather a lot of sauce so, personally, I find halving these quantities makes quite enough.

250g (9oz) caster sugar
2 tablespoons water
600ml (20 fl oz)double cream
125g (4½) unsalted butter, diced

Put the sugar into a heavy-based saucepan with 2 generous tablespoons of water and melt over a low heat.  Tilt the pan gently occasionally to melt the sugar evenly but don't swirl it or you'll end up with a hard crust of sugar around the pan which won't melt.  Resist the urge to stir it.  Once the sugar has melted, raise the heat and cook without stirring until the mixture turns golden brown and you begin to get that almost burnt aroma.  Slowly pour in the cream (take care as the hot caramel will spit).  Then turn the heat down low to allow the caramel to disolve slowly into the cream for a couple of minutes.  Take the pan off the heat and whisk in the diced butter a few pieces at a time. 

Serve a slice of warm pudding with a slick of butterscotch sauce and either a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a little extra cream.  Should you not finish the pudding all in one go, it will keep for a couple of days wrapped in clingfilm - fry slices of pudding in a little butter.  The butterscotch sauce is also good for a couple of days if kept in the fridge - pour into a heat-proof bowl and warm through over a pan of hot water.

Pietro Romanengo - Genoa comes to London



Pietro Romanengo
Candied Fruits and Chestnuts

Rose petal jam.  Is there a food which sounds more decadent?  Can breakfast get more indulgent than rose petal jam on a slice of warm toasted brioche?  Last Sunday morning started well and just got better as La Fromagerie in Marylebone was showcasing Genoese sweetmaker Pietro Romanengo Fu Stefano.

This artisan producer has been making candied fruits and chestnuts, syrups, flower waters, jams, chocolates, sugared dragees and more since 1780 and is now run by the 8th generation of the Romanengo family.  Based in Genoa on the Ligurian coast, the company has remained true to its original ideals and is considered by many Italians to be their country's finest sweet maker.  The Romanengos arrived in Genoa in the 18th century from France, bringing French ideas and influences to sweet production in this northern Italian port.  The area is nestled between the Maritime Alps and the Mediterranean sea where there is a perfect micro-climate for fruit growing.  Most of the ingredients used, excluding the sugar, are sourced from producers surrounding Genoa, some suppliers going back generations.  No artificial preservatives or colourings are used in the products.

But back to that Sunday morning breakfast at La Fromagerie.  Starting with an intense Black Cherry Syrup poured over yogurt and the sublime Rose Petal Jam on brioche we progressed through Ricotta scented with delicate Orange Flower Water, a smooth Chestnut Cream on truffled Caprini goat cheese, and a dash of Almond Syrup in warm almond milk.  The main show was the demonstration of candying fruit and chestnuts which illustrated just how special Pietro Romanengo is.  Maria Palumbo gave a flavour of the artisan techniques employed to bring out the best of the apricots, peaches, oranges, loquats and pears we tasted.  Maria also candied the finest new season chestnuts.  OK, so we were lucky to be eating them still warm from the final process, but they were delicious and by far the best marron glace I've ever eaten.  To bring our sugar rush to a peak, there were pots of 'Confetti' and dragees including aniseed (literally individual sugar-coated aniseeds, good for stimulating lactation in new mothers apparently!), almonds and sensational sugared pine nuts.  The Violet Chocolate Fondant was a little too sweet for me but the candied violet on the top, a Romanengo speciality in itself, was lovely.

Production is still largely unmechanised and mostly done by hand with equipment and moulds many decades old.  Sugar syrup for candying fruits is used for one fruit only so as not to allow any muddling of flavours.  The sugaring technique is very particular to the Romanengos and it's a slow, time-consuming and very skilled business.  Low temperatures are maintained to preserve the full flavours of the individual fruits rather than just producing the sugary sweetness of many candied fruits. To watch a Romanengo chocolatier giving a final polish to a chocolate egg is to appreciate the love and care that goes into their creations.

The good news is you can buy a selection of Pietro Romanengo's products from La Fromagerie in time for Christmas.  If you try only one thing, I urge you to indulge in the Rose Petal Jam.  In England we are more familiar with a syrup made from the hips of roses.  Perhaps because roses appeal so much to the eye and to the nose in this country of gardeners, we have tended to stay our hand until the blooms have passed and the fruit appears.  The hips are packed with vitamin C so the syrup has long been taken to ward of winter's chills.  Taken neat or used as a cordial, it's a memory of childhood for many.  The rose has long been valued for medicinal, culinary, cosmetic and aromatherapy use.  The use of rosewater in Persian cuisine has been traced back to the early 9th century and in Turkey roses have flavoured Turkish Delight since the 15th century.  The passion for roses spread thereafter into Europe.

As it happens I'm going to Genoa in November, and I now know what I'll be bringing back.  
http://www.romanengo.com/
http://www.lafromagerie.co.uk/

Observer Food Awards 2011 finds Maltby Street - Food Find

Good to see national recognition for "Maltby Street" with the Observer Food Awards voting this collection of small businesses "Best Newcomer" 2011.  Maltby Street is the centre of my Bermondsey Trail which I first posted about in September 2010.  The award encompasses the  businesses operating from the railway arches starting with Tony Booth's fruit and veg  (Tayshaw Ltd) at 60 Druid Street and ending at Kappacasein and Union Ice Cream at Spa Road/Voyager Park.  You can buy everything here from fruit and veg, bread, coffee, wines, beers, prosciutto, mozzarella, parmesan and salamis, British, French and Swiss cheeses and cheeses made on site, Polish sausages, meats, ice creams, cakes, honey and more.  Kernel Brewery was also runner-up in the Best Producer category for its beers, stouts and porters brewed here underneath the arches at 1 Ropewalk.
You won't find a better selection of high quality traders than in this little enclave in SE1.  Also, happily, some of these traders who left Borough Market after a dispute have returned to stalls there now that the Market is under new management. 

See http://www.maltbystreet.com/ for regular updates.

St John Bread & Wine - for those in need of steadying

St John Bread  and Wine

Looking back through my posts, I'm struck by how much St John (in the form of Fergus Henderson rather than the saint) has informed my thinking and tastes over the years, and continues to do so.  Yet I've never written about my favourite of the three St John restaurants, St John Bread and Wine.  Having eaten several perfect lunches there recently, now is the time for me to rectify this glaring omission. 

This monastically plain square room prepares you for the straightforward food you can expect to eat.  It provides "everything you want and nothing you don't need", which is what Fergus Henderson is all about.  He sees good food and drink as steadying and uplifting, and that's just how I feel when I've eaten there.  You will not find over-elaboration or gimmickry at his restaurants.  He is, however, tireless in his pursuit of the best.  No matter how plain the dish set before you, and some are very plain indeed, it will be the best it can possibly be.  It may be a stunningy fresh sea bass or mackerel, brought to the table whole, or rich brown crabmeat on toast with a spoonful of mayonnaise and half a lemon.  That's not to say you won't get some beautiful plates of food too.  In spring you may be offered a plate of fresh peas, pea shoots and Ticklemore cheese, a drift of purple pea flowers making it look positively pretty, but everything on the plate contributes to the savour of the dish.

British food is St John's thing.  Meat dishes can be hearty, from a simple Gloucester Old Spot pork chop to Boiled Beef and Dumplings, or as delicate as a plate of Roast Quail.  At Bread and Wine you'll find a lot of the food on the menu is offered as small plates so it's a good idea to order a few of these to really get a taste of what the place is about.  Dishes like Cold Roast Beef on Dripping Toast, Bone Marrow with Parsley Salad, Hereford Snails and Oak Leaf Lettuce, Confit Pig Cheek and Dandelion, Kedgeree, Soft Roes on Toast.  Mains are substantial and often shared.

A few dishes have stood out recently: a salad of Potatoes dressed with mayonnaise, Spring Onion, Soft Boiled Duck Egg and Sorrel, a transcendent combination of Smoked Anchovies, soft boiled duck egg and crispy potato stacks and a deeply comforting dish of Oxtail Stew with Turnip Mash.  You will eat sublime versions of classic English puddings:  Bread pudding (or sometimes ginger cake) with butterscotch sauce and vanilla ice cream, Treacle Sponge and Custard, Summer Pudding, Crumbles such as Blueberry and Peach, the fruit changing with the seasons, and Brown Bread Ice Cream.

You can eat at St John Bread and Wine from Breakfast to Dinner.  Their bacon sandwich with home-made tomato ketchup is just the best start to the day you can have, but there is always porridge and prunes, granola, and gorgeous poached seasonal fruit with yogurt and honey served with toasted brioche too.  To fill that odd hour between 11.00 and lunch you can take an uplifting glass of Madeira wine and seedcake.  Lunch can be had well into the afternoon, until 4pm in fact, though be warned some dishes will be sold out.  There's barely a pause before dinner is served from 6pm.  There's quite an extensive wine list and a wide range of prices.  You can also buy wine, bread and some just-baked sweet things to take away with you.  Enjoy a great breakfast for £10 a head or lunch with a glass of wine for as little as £30 each, including service.  Dinner comes in at a shade more.  

Go, and you too will feel steadied and restored.  Just don't all go at once as, up to now, I've never had to book for lunch.

St John Bread and Wine
94-96 Commercial Street
London  E1 6LZ
Tel: 020 3301 8069
http://www.stjohnbreadandwine.com/

Roti Chai Indian street kitchen - Food Find

Portman Mews sounds a bit of a swanky address for what turns out to be an unpretentious Indian "Street Kitchen" serving street food from around India.  In fact the location for this useful little Food Find is an unremarkable alley at the Oxford Street end of Baker Street.  In an area not exactly bursting with decent places to eat, Roti Chai serves up the kind of simple, fresh food you can buy from street cart vendors, roadside dhabas and railway stations when travelling around India.  Dishes from Keralan, Gujarat, Kolkata, Punjab, Bengal and Andhra Pradesh include good spicy Tarka Dhal and Samosas, Papri Chaat (wheat crackers spread with sweet chutney and topped with potato and chickpeas, yogurt and coriander), Idli Sambar (lentil and vegetable stew), Macher Jhol (fish curry) and Railway Lamb Curry.  Desserts include cooling Kulfi and Payasam.  Good food, laid back ambience but focused staff.

Roti Chai
3 Portman Mews South, London W1H 6HS

Les Fines Gueules - natural wines and good food

Les Fines Gueules
Paris

While some good natural wine bars are springing up in London, it's worth remembering that they have been popular in Paris for much longer.  Les Fines Gueules is, I think, one of the best.  Not only does it have interesting wines but very good food to match. 

I stumbled upon it by chance one evening back in 2008 en-route to that old stalwart Chez Georges.  Heading for place des Victoires, it was getting late and panic was setting in - not having a dinner reservation in Paris used to be anxiety inducing.  The 17th century townhouse on the rue Croix des Petits Champs is a Jules Hardouin Mansart (architect to Louis XIV) beauty and all lit up on a rainy night it looked too inviting to pass by.  The welcome was warm, the wine good and the food delicious.  This small bar with a few tables and two small dining rooms, a 3 minutes stroll from les Jardin du Palais Royal and just off Place des Victoires, has been a firm favourite ever since if I happen to be in the 1st arrondisement.

I'm always happiest eating in a bar.  I like the constant activity, the ebb and flow of customers, the chance to see everything that's going on, and not to miss out on any of it.  Owner/Manager Arnaud Bradol sources organic, biodynamic and natural wines as well as top quality ingredients for the kitchen.  Suppliers are name-checked - Desnoyer for meats, Poujauran for breads, even butter and vegetable suppliers are proudly listed on the website - if you want to know they are pleased to tell you but no big deal is made of it.  Everything about this place is understated.  They are confident enough to serve up a delicious plate of what we would call 'Heritage' tomatoes simply dressed with best olive oil.  Good charcuterie is sliced on a 1947 Berkel hand-operated slicing machine which is squeezed into the narrow space behind the bar. The daily changing menu is chalked on a board and is reassuring seasonal. 

I understand the chef has changed in the past year but I didn't detect any fall in standards.  On this visit two of us sampled a natural Beaujolais listed on the board, which was so good we stuck with it.  Ask for the wine list if you want to sample something from the huge cave of wines below the bar.  We shared a starter of burrata, mozzarella and San Daniele ham with fantastically fresh toasted almonds, and a dressing of fragrant olive oil.  The burrata wasn't the creamiest I've had but it was very good.  A dish of Carré de Porc arrived as a huge, perfectly cooked chop on a bed of silky early season mushrooms.  The star dish was Noix de Veau, an exquisite and generous piece of rose veal with a tranche of pan-fried foie gras on pureé  de pommes de terre and finished with an aromatic truffle oil and a scattering of borage (I think) flowers made the plate pretty as a picture (sorry, I didn't whip my camera out but I was too busy eating). Sadly we had no room for pudding but I know from previous visits that they do a gorgeous pear clafouti around this time of year.  We spent 90 Euros on 4 glasses, one starter and two mains and it was worth every Euro.

Les Fines Gueules does get busy, though I have to say I've never booked and they've always managed to squeeze us into the bar.  In good weather you'll want to sit outside.  Inside it's cosy with lovely lighting, bar stone walls, a zinc bar and knee-to-knee dining.  On the second Sunday of each month there are jazz sessions.  You know, I've never been back to Chez Georges since.

Les Fines Gueules
43 rue Croix des Petits Champs (1er)
75001 Paris
Tel: +33 1 42 61 35 41
Open 7 days a week for lunch and dinner
Metro M3 Bourse or Sentier
Metro M4 Les Halles

Rose Bakery, and more, on rue des Martyrs

Sweet Chestnuts

On a quick trip to Paris this week I decided to look up what I guess now could be called an old favourite.  I don't remember what had taken me to rue des Martyrs that day in 2003 but it was the intriguing wrought iron decorated door which caught my eye and the aroma of baking which lured me in.  If I had needed any more impetus to enter Rose Bakery it was provided by the sight of a familiar face glancing up to greet customers. 

In 1988 the Anglo-French team of Jean Charles and Rose Carrarini set up one of the most influential food shops cum café/restaurants in London.  With their treasure of an epicerie fine, Villandry, they drew people from all over the capital to their tiny space in what was then a rather jaded Marylebone High Street.   In the early days, the shop was stocked with continental foods mostly unheard of anywhere else in London – Italian Pagnotta and French Poilane breads, perfectly ripe French cheeses, top quality cured meats and bacon, preserves, wines and an ever-changing array of sweetmeats.  These were supplemented by savoury and sweet tarts, cakes, and biscuits.  Ingredients sold in the shop were used to produce deliciously simple dishes for the café.  It was a joy to have the flexibility to walk through the shop and select a perfect Saint Marcellin to eat in the café with good bread, a glass of wine, a perfectly dressed mesclun salad and followed, perhaps, by a slice of fig tart.

The atmosphere was quirky, the staff laid back, and the attitude unpretentious.  A strong design eye was evident in the second-hand furnishings and the eye-catching, ever changing window displays.  Back then this was pioneering stuff in London and everyone who aspired to open their own traiteur or deli checked out Villandry first.  The Carrarini’s left Marylebone High Street, when the property owners, Howard de Walden Estates began their gentrification of the area.  Leila's in Calvert Avenue is a welcome, more recent, embodiment of what I think of as those Villandry principles.

It was that style which I subconsciously recognised when I was stopped in my tracks and drawn into Rose Bakery on a perfect autumn day in the 9th arrondisement.  Although I was surprised, in fact it made perfect sense for them to be here.  Instead of bringing France to London as they did for many years, they have, since 2002 been bringing Britain to an appreciative Parisienne clientele.  Jean Charles' design background is visible in the eclectic mix of second hand furnishings, stark paintwork and concrete floors, enlivened by a hand-painted mural on the rear wall of the café.  It’s a look which suits this narrow space, a former chartil, where fruit and vegetable sellers stored their carts.  

The kitchens at either end of the shop are the domain of Rose.  She is supported by an energetic brigade who constantly pass through the café laden with the latest trays of baking fresh out of the oven.  Carrot cake, scones, shortbread, slab cakes, crumbles and brown betty go down a storm.  Savoury dishes include kedgeree, bangers and mash, organic Irish smoked salmon with scrambled eggs, soups, tarts and pizzettes.  Seasonal risottos and dishes such as Braised Artichoke, Lemon and Lamb Chops make use of what is best, and preferably organic, at that moment.  British cheeses from Neal’s Yard Dairy confirm the French have developed a taste for British food at its best.  Even Christmas cakes and puddings are lapped up in December.  

An exceptionally good value ‘formule’menu is available weekday lunchtimes, always including a mix of salads which the French clientelle expect.  Saturday brunch of eggs, bacon, tomatoes and toast, or soft boiled eggs with marmite soldiers, porridge or pancakes is popular.  The ethos is simplicity and quality.  Customers are predominantly French with some expats.  The young, multinational staff can get a bit distracted, but Jean Charles does not miss much, and they are so damned nice you forgive them any lapses.  Prices, it has to be said, are on the high side, reflecting the quality of the ingredients so you may want to consider their take-out instead of eating in. 

Rose Bakery is not the only draw on rue des Martyrs.  Paris' 9th arrondisement is bordered by the Gares du Nord, de l'Est and St-Lazare.  This may not sound like the most appealing location to recommend to you, but stick with me.  Rue des Martyrs snakes uphill  from Boulevard Haussmann (rue Lafitte becomes rue des Martyrs) to the Basilique du Sacre Coeur in Montmartre.  It's also an easy 15 minute walk from Gare du Nord, so a perfect place to either start or end a visit to Paris.  Food now dominates the street with good fromageries, traitteurs, boulangeries, patisseries, cafes, a poissonerie and more.  The latest opening is La Chambre aux Confitures dedicated to preserves and honeys.  Using four suppliers, who prepare the confitures with the lowest possible sugar to fruit ratio, which varies to suit the particular fruit, they are presented with typical French style by the charming Lise.

The Carrarinis have not totally cut their ties with London.  You can visit a scaled-down version of Rose Bakery on the top floor of the ultra-cool Dover Street Market in W1. Rose's book, ‘Breakfast, Lunch, Tea’ still sells well.  It is based on the food at Rose Bakery and almost twenty years of dedication to good food.  Rose is not a trained chef and this is not simply a list of recipes but also an expression of the philosophy and style of the Carrarini’s.  It conveys a deep love for good ingredients and a passion for cooking and feeding people which all true cooks should have.  Further Rose Bakeries can be found in Japan and, I understand, will continue to open to spread the philosophy.  

Rose Bakery

46, rue des Martyrs, 75009 Paris

Also at: 30, rue Debelleyme, 75003 Paris

and now at La Maison Rouge Foundation, 10 Boulevard de la Bastille 75012 Paris
Dover Street Market, Dover Street, London W1

Terroirs - Natural Wine Bar

I finally got round to trying Terroirs when I met a friend who was staying in a hotel between the Strand and the river and we needed somewhere local to eat and catch up.  This was the opportunity to enjoy more, natural wines and, after all, I had enjoyed Brawn over on Columbia Road.

Terroirs was buzzing and the crowd had spilled out onto the pavement in one of the most unlikely streets around Trafalgar Square for a good wine bar. After stepping down into the basement room I was struck immediately by the weight of the leather clad wine list handed across the bar.  As I struggled to select a suitable red, a friendly voice from the other side of the bar invited me to try an unusual blush white which they had decanted and which reminded me of the cidery “nose” often found on natural whites at Gergovie Wines.  With advice and a tasting to confirm, I selected an Italian red (Trinchero) from Piedmont and we were set for a good evening.

The food menu was short but interesting with small and larger plates.  As I had heard, the charcuterie was good.  The freshest sardines were served whole with a salsa to cut the oiliness of the fish.  Fegato Veneziana came with a side dish of soft polenta.   One gripe I had was that bread and butter (and not the greatest bread), a staple accompaniment to charcuterie, was extra, and a request for more incurred a further charge.  Note to restauranteurs: parsimony is not an attractive trait.   

All in all it was an enjoyable experience, too noisy for a quiet chat, but another triumph for natural wines and the culture of enthusiasm and knowledge they seem to engender.  Of the 200 wines on offer, there was little under £20 a bottle.  The bill for two - four dishes, wine and service (and not forgetting the bread and butter) - came in at £90 including service.  Well, it is the west end so you can expect west end prices.  Making the inevitable comparison with Gergovie Wines, I will be back at my seat at the bar at 40 Maltby Street in Bermondsey, next opportunity.

Terroirs
5 William IV Street
London WC2N 4DW
Tel: 020 7036 0660
http://www.terroirswinebar.com/index.htm

Early autumn foods

Still life with crabs at
Gergovie Wines

The days have shortened and the sun has lost some of its heat but the food larder just gets more interesting.  Jars of jams, bottled beetroots, compotes and candied fruits all await their moment when, in the depth of winter, a twist of the wrist releases those heady summer fragrances.

Apples and pears have arrived a little early this year, perfumed Norfolk Royal Russets and silky Red Beurre Hardy pears are amongst the first.  Wet walnuts, sweet chestnuts in their spiky overcoats and luscious purple figs have arrived from France.  Greengages and other plums have been fleeting this year but Damsons are still available for making into crumbles or Brown Betty.  Ceps and chanterelles are appearing at market, the latter being particularly abundant right now and, consequently, well priced.  Game birds and venison are plentiful, and cuts of pork come back into favour, all pairing well with our varied autumn fruits. 

The photograph above of a dish of crabs on the bar at Gergovie Wines  (now additionally open Thursday evenings) at the weekend speaks for the beauty of our shellfish at this time.  Simply boiled and served with mayonnaise as it was here, it beats lobster hands-down for me.  According to Fergus Henderson, cooking time (from boiling point) is roughly 15 minutes for the first 500g then 5 minutes per further 500g.  He also warns against boiling your crab in insufficiently salty water (it "must be as salty as the sea") or it can result in a wet flesh to the crab.  Jane Grigson advises salting the water until an egg will float.  When cold, pull away the main shell and remove the fluffy greyish gills either side of the body (the' dead mens' fingers') and discard.  St John Bread and Wine serve a deliciously simple dish of brown crabmeat on toast with mayonnaise, which requires only a squeeze of lemon to make it perfect.

As September rolls on, pumpkins and squashes are just beginning to make an appearance, but let's not rush things.  The mellow days of autumn have only just begun.

Gergovie Wines
40 Maltby Street
London SE1 3PA
Currently open Thursday and Friday evenings and Saturday  10.00 to 5pm
http://www.gergoviewines.com/
http://www.maltbystreet.com/

St John Bread & Wine
94-96 Commercial Street
London E1 6LZ
http://www.stjohnbreadandwine.com/