Taste Gold 2010-11

2010-11 This year’s finest food & drink judged by the experts

FEATURING OVER 180 OF THIS YEAR’S GREAT TASTE AWARD WINNERS

e t a c i l de

THE SECRET TO ITS

MELLOW,

FLAVOUR

HAS FINALLY BEEN REVEALED After your first taste of new Jervaulx Blue, you’ll wonder just how a blue cheese can be so deliciously mild, mellow and delicate in flavour.

After hundreds of years, the secret’s finally out. By using only milk from Wensleydale cows grazed on luscious limestone pastures, our skilled cheesemakers are able to create a soft, creamy blue cheese unlike any other.

TRADITIONALLY MADE, WRAPPED AND MATURED

Lovingly made in open vats, lightly pressed and hand-wrapped in muslin, Jervaulx Blue is left to mature in cool, dark conditions for eight weeks.

During that time, the cheese is pierced and turned to help achieve the distinctive subtle taste that makes Jervaulx Blue so special...and so versatile.

DELICIOUS WITH CRACKERS OR IN A RECIPE

Jervaulx Blue is as delicious with crusty bread or crackers as it is in a creamy pasta sauce or generously crumbled in a fresh summer salad.

Or how about Jervaulx Blue as a mouth-watering ingredient in a wild mushroom risotto or with broccoli in a satisfying soup?

How ever you discover its secret, you’re sure to love Jervaulx Blue.

A delicately flavoured, creamy blue cheese, handcrafted in YORKSHIRE SINCE 1150.

Get a taste for the Jervaulx Blue

www.jervaulxblue.co.uk

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Welcome

Taste Gold

We celebrate the finest foods on sale in delis, farm shops, food halls and supermarkets today.

Every featured delicacy is a gold star winner at the 2010 Great Taste Awards, independently judged by the nation’s top foodies.

Look out for the Great Taste Awards logos whenever you go shopping, and find out if you agree with our judges!

Nigel Barden says: I’m always impressed by the knowledge of the 300 experts gathered together by the Guild of Fine Food to judge the Great Taste Awards.

Any three-star gold winner will have been blind-tasted by at least 20 different chefs, food writers and retail buyers.

That’s impressive!

This year, only 100 out of more than 6,000 entries were awarded the maximum three stars, which says heaps about the Guild’s exacting standards.

At the final judging at Fortnum & Mason, we had to choose the 16 big award winners, and this year there were some truly outstanding products.

Smoked Silver Hill duck from Ireland’s Ummera proved the adage that ‘fat is flavour’.

Laverstoke Park’s buffalo fillet steak, judged Best Speciality from the South East, was lean, tasty and gamey.

A traditional shortbread from Reids of Caithness, the top Scottish winner, had the perfect crunch, buttery mouth-feel and restrained use of sugar. And combining a pair of three-star winners in one drink was a stroke of genius from West Country winner Bramley & Gage – particularly when they’re called Six O’Clock Gin and Six O’Clock Tonic! The perfect way to kickstart a dinner party.

All the finalists’ products were excellent but for one to be chosen unanimously as Supreme Champion is remarkable. So all those associated with the Kentish Cobnut Oil from Hurstwood Farm (see page 6), should be really proud. An intoxicatingly beautiful aroma leads to a rich hazelnut flavour in a product with a great British pedigree – Shakespeare referred to cobnut oil in The Tempest.

The Cobnut Renaissance starts here, as endorsed by some of the finest palates in Britain. A worthy Supreme Champion indeed.

BBC Radio 2 food correspondent, Nigel Barden chaired the Supreme Judging panel for the 2010 Great Taste Awards

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Inside...

Meet the Judges 4 Meet the Supreme Champion 6 Celebrity Recipes 56, 63, 72 Where to find gold?

London & the South East South West Midlands & East Anglia North of England Scotland Wales Ireland (North & South) World Flavours

6 22 32 40 50 58 64 73

EDITORIAL Publisher: John Farrand Editor: Mick Whitworth Product stories: Hilary Armstrong Features: Chloe Scott-Moncrieff Photography: Richard Faulks Art direction & production: www.newcenturydesign.co.uk ADVERTISING Advertisement sales: Sally Coley, Becky Stacey Circulation manager: Tortie Farrand Production assistant: Julie Coates GUILD OF FINE FOOD Membership secretary & director: Linda Farrand Administration: Charlie Westcar Accounts: Stephen Guppy, Denise Ballance Managing director: Bob Farrand Published by: Great Taste Publications Ltd and The Guild of Fine Food Ltd, Guild House, Station Road, Wincanton, Somerset BA9 9FE t: 01963 824464 f: 01963 824651 Printed by: www.newcenturydesign.co.uk ©Great Taste Publications Ltd and The Guild of Fine Food Ltd 2010. Every effort has been made to ensure the details contained in the listings are correct. The Guild of Fine Food cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions. Reproduction of whole or part of this magazine without the publisher’s prior permission is prohibited. The opinions expressed in articles and advertisements are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher.

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Meet the judges

From 6,000 entries… to one Supreme Champion

Pictured above is Catherine Robinson of Hurstwood Farm – winner of the Supreme Champion title for its Kentish Cobnut Oil – with Simon Burdess of Fortnum & Mason (left) and Ewan Venters of Selfridges

T

he Great Taste Awards is your annual guide to the very best food & drink in Britain.

Every product is blind-tasted by teams of independent experts during weeks of intensive judging.

A record 6,000 entries were judged this year, from West Country farmhouse cheese to Jordanian olive oil. www.greattasteawards.co.uk

Over 300 judges took part, from Michelin-starred chefs to Women’s Institute cake-bakers, from deli owners to buyers from top food halls like Fortnum & Mason, Harrods, Harvey Nichols and Selfridges.

Any product awarded a Great Taste Awards gold star was tasted by at least three different sets of judges.

Of 6,000 entries, just 100 were TASTE GOLD 2010-11

awarded the prestigious three-star award and there’s only one Supreme Champion – Kentish Cobnut Oil, from Hurstwood Farm – chosen by a Supreme Judging Panel of some of Britain’s leading foodies.

5 Judging Integrity

Sat Bains, Restaurant Sat Bains, Notts

Charles Campion, food writer & restaurant critic

Xanthe Clay, chef & Saturday Telegraph food columnist

Meet this year’s Supreme Judging Panel

Stuart Gates, director of food development, Harrods

Henry Harris, Racine, London

Lucas Hollweg, food columnist Sunday Times

Tell me more

Bruno Loubet, Bistrot Bruno Loubet, London

Georgie Mason, Gonalston Farm Shop, Notts

Silvena Rowe, food writer & TV chef

Brett Sutton, head chef, Eastbury Hotel, Dorset

Charlie Turnbull, Turnbulls Delicatessen, Dorset

Ewan Venters, food director, Selfridges

Nick Watt, Roka, London

Mick Whitworth, editor, Fine Food Digest TASTE GOLD 2010-11

The Great Taste Awards is organised annually by the Guild of Fine Food, which champions independent fine food stores and speciality food producers in the UK. Since 1994, nearly 50,000 UK and international fine food products have been judged, making this the most rigorous and widely recognised scheme of its kind in the UK. Whether or not they receive a gold star, all producers are given feedback from the judging process to help them improve what they do. In this way, the awards raise the standard of fine food & drink across the board and support the development of smaller, artisan food businesses.

To find out more about the Guild of Fine Food, visit: www.finefoodworld.co.uk

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

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Best Speciality from London & the South East and Supreme Champion 2010 Virgin Cold-Pressed 100% Cobnut Oil - Hurstwood Farm

A taste of autumn in a bottle

Kentish cobnut orchards have been in dramatic decline, but this year’s Supreme Champion gives their prospects a much needed boost

Catherine Robinson who manages the cobnut farming

O

n crisp, russet-hued autumn days at Hurstwood Farm in Kent you’ll find a smattering of people up trees, purposefully picking the cobnuts from row after row of hazels.

Time is of the essence. They must finish in three weeks or the nuts go to waste. Once the plats (cobnut orchards) have been stripped the harvest is carefully laid out to dry before the nuts can be shelled and pressed to make the country’s only commercially produced cobnut oil.

Richard Dain, an 80-something Cambridge-educated inventor and the owner of Hurstwood, is responsible for this rare

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sight, although it is Catherine Robinson, a farmer’s daughter from the Lake District, who manages the cobnut farming on his behalf. “He’s a true oldfashioned British gentleman,” she says, “and he loves to tinker.

He invented a mechanical nut cracker two years ago to remove shells; without it we wouldn’t have been able to make the oil.

For one 250ml bottle we use a kilo of kernels.”

Despite its scarcity nowadays, Catherine believes the craft of making cobnut oil has an illustrious heritage. “I read this quote in an analysis of Shakespeare’s The Tempest

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

recently: ‘The Nut, the Filbert, and the Cobnut, are botanically the same, and the last two were cultivated in England long before Shakespeare’s time, not only for the fruit, but also, and more especially, for the oil.’”

Cobnut production has risen and fallen since then. Its heyday was in the 19th century, according to the Kentish Cobnut Association, which aims to regenerate the neglected industry. In 1913, plantations still extended to over 7,000 acres (2,830 hectares), most of the plats being in Kent.

Stored nuts were available from London wholesalers for most of the year and fetched high prices.

London & the South East

7 London & South East

Now a paltry 200-250 acres survive.

Mr Dain, whose family has run Hurstwood Farm for nearly 70 years, moved from soft fruit to nuts because of global warming. Of the 140 acres here, there are 100 acres of woodland and nature reserve, 40 acres of several thousand cultivated hazels, and four acres of walnuts.

In choosing where to plant the plats, Mr Dain focuses on terroir just as a winemaker does with a vineyard, says Catherine. “He works out which chalk fields are best to grow which variety. Location is very important.”

For gourmands who haven’t yet got their hands on a coveted bottle – and only a few thousand are made available each year – the oil makes a robust alternative to walnut oil and is TASTE GOLD 2010-11

“best served drizzled over salads, or to roast vegetables or marinades,” Catherine says, “It adds a beautiful nutty flavour to dishes. We use it instead of olive oil and it’s more intense than hazelnut.”

Health benefits are numerous too.

“Cobnut oil has lots of vitamin E and amazingly, it has no cholesterol, and then there are vitamins B1, B2 and B6.”

Add cobnut oil to your cooking repertoire now and you’ll be helping secure part of England’s culinary and agricultural heritage. More than that - you’ll be tasting something very special. www.cobnutoil.co.uk

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“Despite its scarcity nowadays, Catherine believes cobnut oil has an illustrious heritage”

8 Love a Duck

Duck Leg Confit ★★ 1 Chef 4U Thomas Maieli is a hardworking man. By night he toils away at a restaurant stove; by day he confits duck legs, shreds rillettes, cooks terrines and brings a taste of Southern France to our shores. His inspiration is part grand-mère, part Maxim’s (where he worked as a chef). Everything’s done ‘the old-fashioned way’. His ducks are marinated in spices and salt for two days, then slow-cooked in fat.

Other awards: Foie Gras Terrine ★, Rillette ★ www.1chef4u.com

NewlyMinted Summerdown Chocolate Mint Thins ★

Summerdown Farms

Not content to spend his retirement putting around the golf course, 82-year-old Sir Michael Colman (of the mustard family) set about restoring Black Mitcham peppermint to Britain, a crop that hasn’t been grown here for 50 years. He now produces 1.5 tonnes of single estate peppermint oil a year on his farm in the Hampshire Downs. The chocolate mint thins launched in 2010 join peppermint creams and mint crisps in his confectionery range.

Other awards: Chocolate Peppermint thins ★ www.summerdownmint.com

Relish the Challenge

Beetroot and Horseradish Relish ★★★ Atkins & Potts

If you’ve ever made your own horseradish sauce, you’ll feel a pang of sympathy for Robert and Nicola Young, the husband and wife team behind Atkins and Potts. When they started out five years ago, they had to grate all the horseradish by hand. So agonising was it, they had to wear industrial gasmasks. Even now, poor Robert personally fans the beetroot relish cool by hand. “There’s a lot of hard work in that jar!” he says.

Other awards: Balsamic & Plum Chutney ★ Kashmiri Korma Sauce ★★ www.atkinsandpotts.co.uk

Coming to the Crunch Cereal Bar ★ Caracoli Caracoli, a coffee shop and food store (named after a type of coffee bean, in case you were wondering) opened in Arlesford, Hampshire in 2005. To meet the demand for grab ’n’ go grub, Gail and Chris Nichols created the cereal bar as part of their home-produced Caracoli Kitchen range.

Packed full of seeds, flakes and fruit, it’s given a nice bit of zip by orange zest.

Caracoli products are now available online.

Other awards: Mincemeat ★ www.caracoli.co.uk

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

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London & the South East ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

Triple Citrus Marmalade ★★★ Caregrow Preserves Swapping pinstripes for a pinny, former banker Steve Page set up his Eltham chutney business in 2007. It’s just him and ‘a nice sharp knife’, doing everything by hand, making jams in batches of 20 and selling them at local farmers’ markets. The South London lad may not be your typical jam-maker but his orange, lemon and white grapefruit marmalade (minimum 50% fruit) would give the Women’s Institute a run for its money. www.caregrow.co.uk

New to Cheese

Ashmore Farmhouse Cheese ★★ Cheesemakers of Canterbury Until three years ago a milk processor in Wiltshire, Jane Bowyer has since taken to Kentish cheese-making with gusto. She modestly admits to “cheating in some ways” by using a recipe found in an old smallholders’ handbook for her unpasteurised cow’s milk Ashmore Farmhouse Cheese. But there’s clearly more to it than following a recipe. Jane has since introduced a goats’ milk version, a new cheese called Canterbury Cobble (great name!) and is currently dabbling in bries and camemberts.

Other awards: Kellys Canterbury Goat Cheese ★ www.cheesemakersofcanterbury.co.uk

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Good Food Takes Time Kiln Roast Salmon (Hot Smoked) ★★

MacGilvray Smoked Salmon

ist in nt, but a special salmon stable, north Ke hit ing W ok in sm d se en Ba s be d , MacGilvray ha an on on lm lm sa h sa tis ild Scot 78. W on, ed way since 19 e farmed salm ad the old-fashion gr ium em ’ – pr is ing – th ly st on be s m xt ‘the ne rtified far ys eedom Food ce ns over two da from RSPCA Fr in brick-built kil ed ok sm ly be served hot n ca at painstaking th at to make a tre and two nights or cold. on ★ : Scottish Salm Other awards k .u .co ay vr www.macgil

Best Balham Bangers Londoner Sausage ★ Chadwick Butchers

Liverpudlian master butcher Gary Chadwick says his relatives back home don’t object to him making ‘Londoner’ sausages too much just as long as he sends them regular consignments. These classic breakfast sausages are made of Blythburgh pork from Sussex. Gary cares deeply about traceability. “Supermarkets rely on paperwork to show their meat is traceable but we know ours is. We know the farms and the farmers.” His shop has been described as one of the top five reasons to move to Balham.

Other awards: The Cockney ★, Chicken Chilli & Sweetcorn ★, Lamb & Mint ★ www.chadwickbutchers.co.uk

London & South East

Urban Jam

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

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10 Plumped and Preened

Copas Free Range Bronze Turkey ★ ★ Copas Traditional Turkeys Copas birds aren’t sold as ‘scrawny teenagers’ with no meat on their bones. They’re raised to maturity, between 25 and 27 weeks old, in time for Christmas. As ‘grownups’, they have the natural layer of fat we all get as we age but that’s what gives them their succulence and taste. Hung for a fortnight, they’re tender too. Different sizes are available but it’s breed, not age, that dictates the turkey’s size. www.copasturkeys.co.uk

Still Life with Lemons

Currying Favour

Crabtree & Evelyn

Honey Garden Sauces

Organic Lemon Curd ★ ★ Crabtree & Evelyn has been making its organic lemon curd to the same recipe for 24 years now. What’s the secret? Long, slow cooking, Sicilian lemons and plenty of butter and eggs. You could even call this one a ‘limited edition’ as it’s only made at the Highbridge preserve factory whenever sufficient eggs are available from the Soil Association-accredited farm that supplies it.

Other awards: Fortnum & Mason Old English Hunt Marmalade ★, Fortnum & Mason Strawberry Preserve Extra Jam ★, Crabtree & Evelyn Damson Extra Jam Preserve ★ www.crabtree-evelyn.co.uk

No Bad Apples

Hill Farm Cloudy Apple Juice ★ ★ Hill Farm Products Every single apple grown on Hill Farm is looked at and graded.

The golden rule by which the apple sorters abide is “if you wouldn’t eat it, throw it out”, ensuring only good apples go into the juice. This cloudy variety is a blend of Cox’s and Bramley. The former, the epitome of the English apple, is for sweetness; the latter for a refreshing tang. Together, they make a beautifully balanced juice. www.hillfarmjuice.co.uk

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

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Balti Curry Sauce ★

Lodue Miah left Bangladesh for Yorkshire in the 1970s but soon found his new home “too cold”. Quitting Doncaster for London, he trained as a chef and hasn’t looked back.

He’s run his restaurant, Madhuban in Hampshire since 1987. The sauce arm launched in 1996 so his customers could enjoy his dishes at home. Only whole spices, roasted and ground to order, are used. “Hard work, but it keeps the customers happy,” he says.

Other awards: Hot Madras Sauce ★ www.madhuban.co.uk

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London & the South East ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

Smoked Free Range Gammon Joint ★★★

Elmhurst Farm

Discover what traceability is all about at one of Trudie and Ian Townsend’s ‘collection days’ at Elmhurst Farm, their 24-acre smallholding in West Sussex. Rather than ordering online, you’re invited to meet the Tamworth pigs, Southdown lambs and Dexter cattle over a glass of wine and some tasty samples of Elmhurst’s additivefree produce. All their animals are slow-growing traditional breeds that lead a stress-free life down on the farm.

Other awards: Southdown Mutton on the bone Leg Joint

★★★, Free Range Pork Sausage ★★ www.elmhurstfarmfreerange.co.uk

The Jam Factor

Strawberry Preserve ★★ Dart Valley Foods With an international following that Take That would envy, this classic strawberry preserve has admirers as far afield as Iceland and Japan. How many other jams get fan mail? A traditional firm English set extra jam (as opposed to the continental soft set variety with lower fruit content), Dart Valley Foods’ Strawberry Preserve is hand-poured to keep the fruit whole.

Good with hot buttered toast.

Other awards: Autumn Fruit Marmalade ★, Bramley Apple Sauce ★ Lime Marmalade ★ www.dartvalleyfoods.com

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Yes Chef!

Deli Sante Vegetable Medley Quiche ★ Deli Santé Deli Santé’s range of seasonal quiches, tartlets, pies and traiteur dishes offers the quality you’d expect of a restaurant or deli in your own home. The quiches are made just as a professional chef would – by blind-baking the bases (a mix of wheat and maize flour for a little crispness), using ingredients of assured provenance and with that extra indulgence that comes from free-range eggs and fresh double cream. Available at Waitrose and Ocado. www.delisante.com

Genuine Gelato

Sicilian Pistachio Icecream ★★ Gelato Mio

ing move from bank Having made the Mio’s Carlo del o lat to ice cream, Ge “making the business of Mistro is now in wants rlo Ca rn bo oCom people smile”’ n lia Ita al re UK to to introduce the ndon his four funky Lo s gelato through ce, he says, lie en fer dif e Th . gelaterias nic British milk ga or s, ur vo fla in natural is awardrange eggs. Th and good freer cent Sicilian pe 0 10 th wi e winner is mad only and rted in season pistachios, impo . ed er never, ever powd ade Pimms Lemon Other awards: ★ et Sorb io.co.uk www.gelatom

London & South East

Meat and Greet

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Joint winner: Best English Speciality Buffalo Fillet Steak - Laverstoke Park Produce

Where the buffalo roam

Scientists may mock biodynamic farming ideas, but Jody Scheckter says the proof is in the eating

T

he water buffalo trampling Jody Scheckter’s pastures at Laverstoke Park in Hampshire make a surreal scene. But then Jody, who won the 1979 Formula One World Drivers Championship, flouts most of the rules.

Head up the driveway to his farm near Basingstoke and you’ll see small hints of the role he has taken in the food world. “Avoid white flour,” says one sign. “Use unrefined salt,” says the next. “Only cook in stainless steel, cast iron, glass or good quality enamel – never aluminium,” says another.

Laverstoke Park is farmed under biodynamic principles. Sceptics – focused on the whackier aspects of this creed, such as following the cycles of the moon and burying cows’ horns – regard it as mild hocus pocus. But today, the former racer is downright practical. “I call it natural farming,”

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he says. “We’re natural, organic, slow growing.” He’s fed up with the monoculture of large-scale farming, which jeopardises wildlife.

“Think about it. The rainforest is the healthiest place in the world because of its biodiversity.”

So Jody has transformed his 2,500 acres of hitherto over-fertilised farmland into rich pasture, the soil beneath it teeming with microrganisms. “Since I started here eight years ago we’ve changed all the grasses and planted woods with a range of different trees. We now have 31 herbs and grasses whereas most farms just have rye. ” The animals that graze his land in rotation – wild boar, buffalo and rare breed pigs to name a few – have a “mixed salad” to nosh on, perhaps explaining why Laverstoke meat and cheese wins award after

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

London & the South East

www.laverstokepark.co.uk

award in blind tastings.

Scientists might not buy into biodynamics, but every chef-legend from Pierre Koffman to Heston Blumenthal buys from Laverstoke, while its newly launched buffalo ice-cream recently found its first customers in Selfridges and Harvey Nichols.

And this year saw its buffalo fillet steak win three stars at the Great Taste Awards and share the Best English Speciality title. The beasts have proved a huge hit, both for their meat and for the milk they produce, but wasn’t the initial investment a gamble? Jody says: “I got them because I wanted a natural healthy environment and that meant increasing biodiversity. We bought one herd six years ago. Now we have 2,000 buffalo.”

Everything he does challenges modern farming trends.

There is the on-site laboratory to scrutinise the soil’s richness. Then – almost a legal impossibility these days – Laverstoke operates its own on-farm abattoir, designed by legendary animal behaviourist Temple Grandin.

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Laverstoke meat and cheese wins award after award in blind tastings

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

London & South East

“She is autistic and sees how animals feel,” says Jody. “She is the leading lady in minimising anxiety for animals.” For example, animals pass through curved walkways, with no blind corners to cause panic. “If you stress an animal in an abattoir you get the worst meat.”

Although he claims not to miss the hiss of pistons, it seems odd for a former petrol-head to adopt such an environmentally sensitive form of farming. But Jody doesn’t see the irony. He laughs, saying: “When I joined the biodynamic association in South Africa the lady in charge said: “I feel guilty now – you’re not such a bad guy after all.”

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14 Buffalo Champion Buffalo Fillet Steak ★★★

Laverstoke Park Produce Former Formula 1 champ Jody Scheckter wants to create the best-tasting, healthiest food he can at Laverstoke Park, his biodynamic farm in Hampshire. Buffalo meat is underused, he reckons, but can be superb if cooked properly. Most cuts are better from younger animals, but the slightly gamey fillet from the naturally slow-growing, buffalo is excellent – the buffalo’s best kept secret. Cook it rare.

Serve with horseradish. Simple.

Other awards: Buffalo Milk Coffee Ice Cream ★★, Wild Boar & Pork Burgers ★, Buffalo Milk ★, Ricotta ★, Chocolate Ice Cream ★, Smoked Streaky Bacon, organic ★, Buffalo Biltong ★ www.laverstokepark.co.uk

He’s Jammin’

Tomato Chilli Jam ★ Kush Cuisine Diehard jazz fan Ian Jennings of Kush Cuisine puts the ‘chill’ into chilli jam. The trained chef named his preserve business after a Dizzy Gillespie tune and usually makes his jams, spice rubs and chutneys to a jazz soundtrack. Many of his products have a Caribbean twist.

The tomato chilli jam goes well with fishcakes, bangers and a slice of bubbling cheese on toast. www.kushcuisine.com

The Nutty Professor

Culinary Lineage

Scotch Bonnet & Mango Chilli Sauce ★ Karimix

Kentish Cobnut Oil ★★★ Hurstwood Farm

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Engineer-cum-farmer-cum-piano enthusiast Richard Dain has a tirelessly inventive mind. When not playing with his beloved pianos (his latest invention won an award for innovation in the arts), he’s innovating on the farm. Rather than drying his cobnut harvest for the Christmas market as other producers do, Dain presses them. The resulting oil makes a low cholesterol substitute for olive oil or butter – and was named Supreme Champion in the Great Taste Awards. Try it on grills, in dressings or even in chocolate brownies. www.cobnutoil.co.uk

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

London & the South East ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

Hampshire Biscuit Ploughman’s ★★★ ry Little Rose Bake

w um & Mason sa ersation at Fortn A chance conv to the store’s d ce du ro int te Poole keen baker Ka its Gorgeous She now bakes grocery buyer. ist of fate, she tw er d in anoth Gingerbread. An ant who asked ch er to a grain m was introduced a particular ing me recipes us her to write so alt biscuits (“a m g ltin su re e w come barley strain. Th an oatcake”) no a digestive and , if you kle pic ’n’ se cross between ee an’s version – ch hm ion ug on d plo re s d thi in eese an with Lyburn ch will – flavoured , marmalade. lt Biscuit ★★★ Hampshire Ma Other awards: ★ d ea br er eous Ging Fortnum’s Gorg bakery.co.uk www.littlerose

Hungry forLearning Jasmine Silver Needles Chocolat ★★ Matcha Chocolat

There’s more overlap between tea and chocolate than you might think, asserts Matcha’s Katie Christoffers. “Find a chocolate with a similar flavour to a tea and together you’ll often find they work in harmony to bring out each other’s subtle nuances.” And that’s the case with her white chocolate ganache infused with jasmine tea. Katie, an Oxford-educated neuroscientist, believes her professional rigour, precise touch and willingness to experiment can only enhance her creativity at Matcha.

Other awards: Secret Garden ★ www.matchachocolat.com

Just Add Chocolate Chocolate Fudge ★

Marsdens Confectionery

Cordon Bleu-trained Alex Marsden-Smedley went into the confectionery business armed with a classic vanilla fudge recipe her grandmother had taught her as a child. When, after six years, she finally added chocolate fudge to her repertoire (by popular demand), she only did so after creating a recipe worthy of sitting alongside her granny’s. Schokinag 60% chocolate and Belgian cocoa powder combine to produce a fudge that’s “a bit like eating an intense chocolate brownie”. www.marsdenfudge.co.uk

How About Them Apples?

Moors Discovery Apple Juice ★★ Moor Organics

Kent’s Moor Organics produce 13 different varieties of apple juice but it’s the Discovery that inspires people to eulogy. ‘It tastes and smells like a day’s apple picking’ is a frequent comment on this fresh, floral juice. At the fourth generation family farm, the fruit is left on the tree until it’s good and ready and no apple is picked further than one hundred metres away from the press, thus minimising travelling and storage time.

Other awards: Moor Organic Juice - Cox & Bramley Apple Juice ★★ www.moororganicjuice.co.uk www.greattasteawards.co.uk

London & South East

e It’s Crunch Tim

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

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16 Eruption of flavour

Pistachio Di Bronte Ice Cream ★★★ Oddono’s Gelati Italiani The pistachios in Oddono’s gelato are from Bronte in Sicily, a town close to Mount Etna whose economy depends on its princely nuts. Grown on volcanic soil (which is believed to impart the distinctive flavour), Bronte pistachios are left out in the sun after harvesting to dry. The intensity of flavour and wonderful murky green in Oddono’s pistachio comes from the sheer volume of nuts used and the absence of any synthetic colourings.

Other awards: Vanilla Ice Cream ★, Nocciola Piemonte Ice Cream ★ www.oddonos.com

Thank You For Smoking

Sliced Smoked Scottish Salmon ★★ The Weald Smokery

The Weald Smokery in East Sussex nearly lost a battle with the Highways Agency four years ago when a planned bypass looked set to shut it down. Happily, two smokery employees, Suzie and Christopher Millns, stepped up and took it on to keep it going. It will be a good 50 years before the road happens so until then, let’s enjoy this traditional, handprepared oak-smoked salmon made with Scottish fish from an RSPCA Freedom Food certified farm. www.wealdsmokery.co.uk

Coping with Cravings Biscotti ★★

Peace of Cake London

“I was never a cake person,” says Peace of Cake London’s Guiti Jamshidi. “Then I discovered I had coeliac disease and I started to crave them.” Shopping around for wheat- and dairy-free goodies, she found them too crumbly, too hard and too sugary, so she decided to make them herself. The secret, she says, is the balance of tapioca, maize, cornflour and rice flours.

She also crams her biscotti with apricot, dates, pistachios and hazelnuts for extra nutrients. www.peaceofcakelondon.com

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TASTE GOLD 2010-11

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London & the South East ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

Ginger & Toasted Sesame Salad Dressing ★

Easy Bake Treats

White Chocolate & Cranberry Cookie Mix ★ Scarlet Bakes

Righteous Living LLP Gem Misa of Righteous proves you can care about your health and still be a foodie. Gem loves salads but knows it’s all too easy to gravitate towards the same ingredients time after time. So she has designed dressings using adventurous flavours inspired by her travels. All are vegan and free of anything “you wouldn’t find in your own kitchen”. This Asianinspired one goes well with seafood salads and udon noodles. www.loverighteous.com

Crisps with a Pedigree

Salty Dog Jalapeno & Coriander Hand-cooked Crisps ★ Salty Dog Brands In his previous life, Salty Dog founder David Willis used to deliver crisps to pubs. He spied a gap in the market for something smarter in sharing packs and the idea for Salty Dog was born. His delivery van companion, Ruby, a terrier puppy, inspired the cute doggy logo on the packets. The jalapeno & coriander crisps with their clean kick of spice have been a favourite since 2004 and are still winning awards.

Other awards: Salty Dog Black Pepper & Ginger Handcooked Crisps ★, Salty Dog Sea Salt & Black Pepper Hand-cooked Crisps ★★ www.saltydog-grrr.com

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

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are two bakingJo and Victoria m Hampshire. fro s mad mum y cover that man dis Surprised to one ow kn n’t did of their peers r, la from the othe end of a spatu Scarlet Cakes, up ed ok co ey th s. e baking mixe a range of hom me American so t ou ed tri g Havin rubbish!”), they versions (“just uld do better. co ey fancied th ture real, high fea s jars tied Their mixe ered in kilner nts prettily lay . gs eg d an r quality ingredie tte bu bow. Just add with a scarlet ie Mix ★ ok Co ip Ch te : Triple Chocola Other awards akes.co.uk tb le ar sc w. ww

A Few of Our Favourite Things Apple Strudel ★★ Sissi Fabulous Food

No dirndl-wearing, rosy-cheeked hausfrau, Sissi SchaadJackson, queen of the apple strudel, has been catering for glamorous London parties for 10 years. She is now joined by her Gordon Ramsay-trained chef son, Gregory. Sissi’s stellar strudel – crisp on the outside, juicy and cinnamonscented on the inside – uses a light strudel pastry and mix of Bramley and Golden Delicious apples for the perfect balance of sharp and sweet.

Other awards: Triple Chocolate Fudge Cake ★★, Espresso & Praline Chocolate Tart ★, Vanilla & Hazelnut Butter Biscuits ★ (aka Vanille Kipferln) www.sissifabulousfood.com

London & South East

It’s Time To Branch Out

18

London & the South East ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

Cracking on with it Crab Ramekin ★★★ The Bembridge Deli On moving to the Isle of Wight two years ago, Jo Davies marvelled at the quantity and quality of local crab. It’s what inspired her to create her crab ramekin. Based on lobster thermidor, it involves lashings of cream, butter, mustard, mature cheddar and ‘a lot of crab’. Its popularity calls for hours of labour-intensive crab cracking – work Jo’s happy to leave to her fisherman.

“I can do it,” she says, “if I absolutely have to…”

Other awards: Coronation Chicken ★★, Chicken Liver & Brandy Paté ★ www.thebembridgedeli.co.uk

Turning up the Heat Hot Chilli Oil ★

The Chilli Jam Company Chilli doyenne Tessa Smith blends rapeseed oil from her Hampshire neighbour, Chris Pratt, with cayenne and dried chillies to create Oil Fired. It’s a hard-working condiment, as good drizzled on pizzas, in dressings, stirfries as splashed on roast potatoes.

Michelin-starred Indian chef Atul Kochhar is a fan of Tessa’s chilli relishes; he used her chilli jam on Great British Menu. www.thechillijamcompany.co.uk

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The Beet Goes On Beetroot & Evesse Apple Juice ★

Sunraysia United Kingdom However good our intentions, drinking pure beetroot juice can be a challenge. The smell! Happily, the fruit & veg squeezing folk at Sunraysia have thoughtfully blended their not-from-concentrate beetroot juice with that of Evesse apples, an ancient English apple variety, for a quaffable balance of sweet and bitter. It’s good for the circulation and the social conscience too, as two pence from the sale of every carton goes to the Blood Pressure Association. Available at Waitrose. www.sunraysia.co.uk

Bread for Success

The Sultana and Fennel Ring ★★ The Bread Factory - Gails This fennel & sultana sourdough ring – a great ‘cheese bread’ – is an old favourite at The Bread Factory, where founder Gail Stephens based it on bread she’d enjoyed in New York. The business may go by the name of ‘factory’ but it is guided solely by a love of great craft bread. “The bakers are still the most important people here,” says Tom Molnar, who is managing director of the growing business.

Other awards: Puff Pastry Hearts ★★, Seeded Cracker ★★, Mixed Olive Sourdough Stick ★, Norwegian Bloomer ★, Apricot & Hazelnut Sourdough ★ TYRRELLS_TasteGold_Ad.indd Boule de Moule ★, Pain ay Raisin ★, Fondant ★ www.breadltd.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

1

★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

20 Pure and Simple Pugliese ★★

The Flour Station Jamie, Jules and the girls get a daily bread delivery to their home from The Flour Station, the bakery formed at Fifteen restaurant in 2002. It’s still half-owned

by Jamie Oliver and supplies all the Jamie’s Italians nationwide.

Italian breads are its speciality but until recently it didn’t do a pugliese.

“It’s so plain, so simple, but technically very difficult,” says Flour Station’s Sophie Taylor. “We feel proud that people appreciate this deceptively simple bread.”

Other awards: Croissant ★, Eccles Cakes ★, Tortano Crown ★, Walnut Levain ★,100% Rye ★ www.theflourstation.com

Out of West Africa Unique Ghanaian Chilli Sauce ★ The Gold Coast Foods The number one dish at William Quagraine’s The Gold Coast Restaurants in Brixton and South Norwood is the grilled chicken in chilli sauce. In seven years of business, he’s shifted some 600,000 portions of it. The reason for the popularity of the signature sauce is the chillies. Unique to Ghana, they resemble the scotch bonnet but have a distinct flavour unto themselves. Find William’s sauce at African and Asian grocers across London. www.thegoldcoastbar.com

The Cupcake Challenge Carrot Cupcake ★ The Handmade Cake Company

Thank Sex and the City for the cupcake trend that’s sweeping the nation. Not all cupcakes are created equal, however. Too many look as gorgeous as a pair of Carrie’s Manolos but taste only half that good. The Handmade Cake Company prides itself on making carrot cupcakes with a light sponge and Philadelphia cream cheese frosting that taste great but aren’t overloaded with sugar. Oh, and they’re pretty too. Try one at your nearest Café Thorntons.

Other awards: Granola Slice ★, Chocolate Pecan Brownie ★, Continental Chocolate Cake ★ www.handmadecake.co.uk

The Chef’s Special Thai Style Crab Cake ★ The Cracking Food Company The Cracking Food Company only came into existence when catering company owner Patrick Hoblyn’s neighbour found a good supply of crab meat from the South Pacific. He had the shellfish; he just couldn’t cook. So in stepped Savoytrained Patrick to make these Thai-style crab cakes spiked with lemongrass, chilli, coriander and ginger. From these baby steps into food production, a business plan was born. Patrick’s produce is now stocked at Whole Foods in the South and Booths in the North West. www.crackingfood.com

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TASTE GOLD 2010-11

London & the South East

21

Apple, Prune & Almond Cake ★★

The Incredible Edible Gingerbread Company Had Christine Twitchen’s daughter not had a December birthday, she may never have made the gingerbread house that led to Christine and her friend Fiona Chase going into the gingerbread business. Initially a fun antidote to work, things soon took off with their gorgeous iced houses ending up in the Christmas windows at Ralph Lauren’s London store. Their individual Danish-style apple, prune & almond cakes come prettily wrapped in raffia-tied parchment. www.theincredibleediblegingerbreadcompany.co.uk

Is The Mayonnaise Masters Blue Colour Organic Mayonnaise ★★ Van Dijk Food Even in Belgium, the land of frites and mayo, Van Dijk Foods is regarded as the go-to guy for real mayonnaise. As any home cook knows, getting a good strong, stable emulsion is tricky but Van Dijk, which has been making mayonnaise since 1887, has the experience and expertise to do so without resorting to the ‘nasties’ that others rely on. All the ingredients are certified to Soil Association and EU organic standards. www.vandijkfood.nl

Barkham Blue ★★★

Two Hoots Farmhouse Cheese When Sandy Rose fancied a go at cheese-making she called upon her cousin, Anne Wigmore, to get a few tips. “I’d practise with fresh goats’ cheese and hang them in the shower,” recalls Berkshire-based Sandy. “They were never for sale though – they were just for us!” (Phew!) These days, she makes her award-winning Barkham Blue from rich pasteurised Channel Island (Guernsey and Jersey) milk. Sinfully rich, mellow and not too salty, it’s like “blue butter”, she says. www.twohootscheese.co.uk

Looking for great tasting food & drink?

Search for your nearest deli, farm shop or food hall online

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TASTE GOLD 2010-11

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London & South East

Spice Up Your Life

22

Best Speciality from the South West Six O’Clock Gin - Bramley & Gage

Go botanical

Orris root, elderflower and orange peel notes complement the juniper in a new West Country gin

Above: Michael Kain, who, along with sister Felicity Hall, runs fruit liquour maker Bramley & Gage

O

ne or two shots of gin, poured over ice in a tall thin glass, with two parts tonic to one part gin – and a splash of romance.

That’s the recipe for a perfect gin & tonic according to Michael Kain, who, along with sister Felicity Hall, runs fruit liquour maker Bramley & Gage, which has just released its first tipple sans fruit: Six O Clock gin.

“We’re renowned for our sloe gin, but we thought, why don’t we try making neat gin? So last year, we rose to the challenge,” explains Michael, whose parents started Bramley & Gage 25 years ago on a south Devon fruit farm.

Now based in Thornbury in north Somerset, its latest

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creation was inspired by Kain’s grandfather, Edward, who ritually quaffed an evening G&T once the clock struck six.

Likewise, Michael admits a lot of the work on their latest creation didn’t start much earlier in the day. “When we were researching last summer, we got in various focus groups,” he says. “Once you’ve gone through 12 other gins for comparisons, it quickly turns into a party.”

In contrast, once the research was completed, producing a gin with integrity was a serious business. With so many brands out there already – names like Gordon’s, Tanqueray and Hendrick’s – creating a unique taste was “fundamental”. “The botanicals were key,” he says.

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

“We wanted a complex result.”

Boasting the obligatory juniper, Six O’Clock Gin also has nuances of coriander, angelica, orris root, elderflower and orange peel.

The Bramley & Gage team have even designed a gourmet tonic specifically to complement their gin. “There are so many insipid, saccharin, rubbish tonics out there that overpower the gin’s flavour,” complains Michael.

The Six O’Clock mixer has none of the usual artificial sweeteners and flavours. It had to be the real McCoy. Finding natural quinine for the tonic became an elaborate foodie mission, Michael explains.

“Mr Schweppes in Geneva learnt how to make quinine

23

South West

South West

“Once you’ve gone through 12 other gins for comparisons, it quickly turns into a party”

synthetically, and that’s become standard, but we wanted real, natural quinine from the bark.” So Bramley & Gage sought out a rare plantation in Indonesia. “Natural quinine is purer tasting. Sometimes, you can’t drink a G & T with a meal, but this tonic has length – it doesn’t taste of 7Up – so it’s easier with food.”

Michael has clearly relished rooting out the cocktail’s history.

“Which came first: tonic or gin?” he asks, with glee. “Tonic of course.” The story goes that when a French countess, visiting south America in the 17th century was stricken by malaria, locals gave her quinine from the Cinchona tree as a remedy.

As the curative became widely used, whole plantations of Cinchona were soon being grown, but the high quinine levels meant the tonic was very bitter. “To make it more palatable,” explains Michael, “they added gin.”

And the future for Bramley & Gage will remain gin, gin and more gin. “I can’t see us doing whiskies or brandies. They’re outside our expertise. I’d rather focus on doing things better and staying true to our roots and provenance. Our next mission is to maybe make the gin organic.” In the meantime, Michael, his sister and their parents, who still work one day a week in Bramley & Gage, will continue their mission to create

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

some of the best drinking experiences in the South West.

Completing his perfect gin recipe, Michael confirms the merits of lemon over lime. “Lime has become popular recently, and it’s okay, but I’m a purist. We’ve coped well with lemon for 150 years. Why change now?” www.bramleyandgage.co.uk www.sixoclockgin.co.uk

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24 Chin Chin Gin Gin Six O’clock Gin ★★★ Bramley & Gage During his time in the merchant navy, ship’s engineer Edward Kain would always sit down to a G&T at 6pm. The addition of gin was the only way to improve the taste of the antimalarial tonic, apparently. Kain kept the habit going (for ‘ginspiration’) for the rest of his life. In honour of the man, his great grandson, Bramley & Gage’s Michael Kain composed this elegant London gin with notes of orange peel and elderflower.

Other awards: Six O’Clock Tonic ★★★, Quince Liqueur ★★★ www.bramleyandgage.co.uk

Oranges and Lemons St Clements Cakes ★★★

Free Range Eggs ★

Absolutely Cakes Ex-accountant Janice Jones realised her future was in cakes when she pipped the Women’s Institute to a prize at a local food event. This was just the boost she needed to leave the rat race and follow her heart. Quality celebration cakes and cupcakes are her forté. Her orange & lemon St Clements Cake topped with lemon curd & cream cheese is a teatime treat for any day of the week. “It looks gooey and it is gooey!”

Other awards: Carrot and Pecan Cake ★ www.absolutelycakes.com

They know their oats

Pertwood Organic Porridge Oats ★★ Pertwood Organic A cut above the average, Pertwood Organic Porridge Oats, grown on a large organic farm in Wiltshire, are rolled thickly for a better flavour. They’re a full grain (not a cut flake) and are sifted thoroughly to remove the flour.

These widely available jumbo oats mostly end up in the porridge pot but they also make rather splendid cookies. www.pertwood.co.uk

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Egged On To Succeed

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

Black Acre Farm Eggs The Woods of Blackacre Farm in Somerset are thrilled to be the first egg producer to have won a Great Taste Award. Their free-range eggs come from Blackacre and other carefully chosen farmers within 20 miles. Every egg bears a code corresponding to the farm that produced it – just type the code into their website to see the location for yourself. The face on every Blackacre box is that of production director Dan Wood. “We want people to know who’s accountable,” he says.

That’s traceability! www.blackacrefarmeggs.com

25

South West ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

Top of the Class

Cotswold Gold For Charlie Beldam and Lawrence MillettSatow, recent graduates from the Royal Agricultural College, this is “coursework that came to life”. Partly so as not to waste student work on bio diesel and partly out of wondering “where do all those yellow flowers disappear off to?” they brought the two strands together in a rapeseed oil business.

The big plan is to create renewable energy from the waste product. www.cotswoldgold.co.uk

Mint Condition “Mellow Mint” chocolate ★★★ Chococo

Beetroot Relish ★★ Crellow Preserves

“Beetroot has had a bad press,” begins Deborah Richards. “But there’s lots more you can do with it than just dunk it in vinegar!” For her part, she and husband Michael make a relish that’s particularly good with smoked fish such as salmon, eel and Cornish mackerel, or mixed with crème fraîche or mayonnaise in a sauce. The recipe actually originates from a wartime Ministry of Food cookbook. “It’s good to see beetroot’s back in fashion,” says Deborah.

Other awards: Chutty Chutty Bang Bang ★, Fathers Favourite Seville Orange Marmalade ★ www.crellow.com

Winning Ways Win Green ★★

Cranborne Chase Cheese Cranborne Chase Cheese’s soft white Win Green is named after the highest point in north Dorset, its home county. It’s produced by cheesemaker James McCall, who earned his stripes alongside rind-washed cheese pioneer James Aldridge, using unpasteurised milk collected daily from a neighbouring farm. You can enjoy Win Green just as it is or bake it in its box before serving with crusty bread for dipping.

Other awards: Eldren ★★, Windwhistle ★★, Kings Favourite ★ www.cranbornechasecheese.co.uk

“Like eating toothpaste!” shudders Chococo’s Claire Burnet, describing those peppermint oil-heavy, long-life mint chocolates that dominate the market. Chococo’s three-star gold winner, made using fresh mint gathered from a friend’s garden, infused in fresh Dorset cream and Venezualan dark chocolate ganache, should be eaten within a couple of weeks – if you can wait that long. “You can’t leave a box of chocolates on the coffee table then expect them to taste the same six months later,” says Claire. Luckily, Chococo’s chocolate bars keep a little longer.

Other awards: Milk Chocolate Heather Honey Honeycomb bar ★, Gorgeous Ginger Chocolate ★, Madagascan Vanilla Milk Chocolate Truffle ★ www.chococo.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

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South West

Cotswold Gold Coldpressed rapeseed oil ★

Wartime Hero

26 The Sweet Taste of Success Natural Sweetener ★ Sweet Freedom

Winning a Great Taste Award – emphasis on ‘taste’ – means a lot to Tina Michelucci and Deborah Pyner, co-creators of Sweet Freedom Natural Sweetener. “We’re foodies so it had to taste great as well as having health benefits!” Raymond Blanc’s a customer so clearly they’re doing something right. Tina and Deborah devised their syrup from 100% fruit as a low calorie and low GL (Glycaemic Load) alternative to sugar.

Other awards: Natural Syrup ★ www.sweetfreedom.co.uk

Cheese ’n’ Cheerful

Spice Island

Norseland

La Mare Wine Estate

Jersey Black Butter Chocolates ★★

Double Gloucester with Chive and Onion ★ Flavoured cheeses may divide opinion but even the sniffiest of cheese snobs will give the tried and tested combination of cheese and onion a whirl. Ilchester’s Double Gloucester with Chive & Onion (from the same stable as Beer Cheese and Marmite Cheddar) has earned classic status. Ilchester takes care over its base cheese to ensure a good flavour match and has switched from dried to quick-frozen French chives for a brighter flavour and colour. www.ilchester.co.uk

Their Cider House Rules Perry’s Premium Vintage Cider ★★ Perry’s Cider

The Perrys have been making cider in Somerset for four generations and have every intention of carrying on for the next four. Apples from their own orchards or those of their neighbours are fermented naturally using the apples’ own yeasts. The 100% juice cider is then matured in wooden barrels for at least a year. Compare that with mass-produced ciders that have 30% juice content and are bottled within three weeks of fermentation and, well, they don’t compare.

Other awards: Perry’s Single Orchard Cider ★★, Perry’s Somerset Dabinett Single Variety Cider ★ www.perryscider.co.uk

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TASTE GOLD 2010-11

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27

South West ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

Shear Brilliance

Marshfield Farm Ice Cream

Woodlands Dairy

Mango Sorbet ★ “There’s a reason we have such low staff turnover,” chuckles Dawn Hawking of Marshfield Farm, where she and husband will produce over 1,500 litres of ice cream and sorbet in 30 flavours every hour.

Twenty-one years since they started, “we all still love ice cream.” Organic milk from their Friesian herd is key, and so are local ingredients – usually. Their Sri Lankan mango sorbet is admittedly “not very South Gloucestershire!” but customers love it. www.marshfield-icecream.co.uk

Time To Give A Fig Mascarpone, Fig & Honey Premium Dairy Ice Cream ★★ Mendip Moments Mendip Moments’ ice creams come from the head and the heart. Founder Jayne Lunnon came from a marketing background, has an MBA degree, and was looking for a way to turn rock bottom raw milk prices (her husband’s a dairy farmer) into an opportunity.

In essence, though, her ‘foodie’ ice creams, particularly her signature fig and Somerset mascarpone one, are about pleasure. “Life’s hard enough,” she says. “Let’s just enjoy good food with real provenance.” www.mendipmoments.co.uk

This year’s finest food & drink judged by the experts

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

Organic Sheep Milk Natural Live Yoghurt ★

“Make the best yoghurt in the world, that’s all you have to do” is Crispin Tweddell’s injunction to his team at Woodlands Dairy in Dorset.

His background is in finance; his wife Sue’s in lingerie. “We knew a lot about retail and a lot about consumers when we started – not so much about sheep – but all of us at the farm now know more about sheep than anyone else in the UK”. A goats’ milk yoghurt is also available. www.woodlandsdairy.co.uk

Running Hot and Cold Apricot & Ginger Cordial ★★★ Five Valley Cordials It can’t claim to cure the common cold, but served hot on a chilly day, this punchy cordial certainly soothes a few ills. Chris Baker (ex Bottle Green Drinks) puts this down to Nigerian ginger that’s far fierier than the more common, citrussy Jamaican variety. Served hot, the ginger is pronounced and upfront; served cold, the sweet Italian apricots come to the fore. Next up is a coconut & kaffir lime cordial, inspired by travels in Thailand.

Other awards: Lemon & Mint Cordial ★★ www.fivevalleyscordials.co.uk

South West

Mad for Mango

28 Serious Soft Drinks

Apple & Elderflower Juice ★★

A Full ‘Somerset’ Breakfast

Unsmoked Back Bacon ★

Luscombe Organic Drinks Luscombe boss Gabriel David feels great pride at seeing his drinks served at Michelin-starred restaurants such as Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck. “I hate compromise,” he says.“That’s why we’re not in supermarkets. We don’t want to have to dumb down.” All Luscombe drinks are made in Devon without additives, preservatives and ‘big, harsh, rasping bubbles the size of toad’s eyes’, an approach that has brought them six awards this year.

Other awards: Organic Cool Ginger Beer★, Organic Sicilian Lemonade ★, Wild Elderflower Bubbly★, Organic Devon Apple Juice ★ Pure Organic Apple & Apricot Juice ★ www.luscombe.co.uk

Bringing Home The Bacon Anna Mogford rears and processes all her free-range pigs at her farm near Ilminster in Somerset so she has full control of the process. Born into a farming family and having worked as a meat inspector and in a butchery, she knows her porkers. She keeps chickens too, so Anna can do you a mean breakfast. The secret to the perfect bacon butty, she reckons, is thick-cut, rind-on, dry-cured bacon on doorstep-thick white bread. www.bringing-home-the-bacon.co.uk

Mussel Beach

River Fowey Slow Smoked Mussels ★ The Cornish Fishmonger Smoked fish is a big part of their business at Wing of St Mawes in Cornwall. Founder Rob Wing thanks his time as a chef “many years ago” for teaching him to use smoke to enhance rather than mask flavour. Plump wild mussels from the River Fowey with their more robust flavour work particularly well. They’re served at The Eden Project as part of an hors d’oeuvres plate.

Other awards: Hot Smoked Salmon ★★, Organic Smoked Salmon ★★, Wild Sea Caught Crevettes ★★, Smoked Cornish Mackerel ★ www.thecornishfishmonger.co.uk

Hitting its Prime

Quickes Traditional Extra Mature Cheddar ★★★ Quickes Traditional

Mary Quicke of Quickes Traditional (est.1973) considers herself very lucky to spend all day thinking about cheese – and tasting it. This year, she’s been pleased to see the ‘butteriness’ she’d detected in her younger cheddars coming through to her 18-month-old, cloth-wrapped ones. She puts this down to outdoor grazing and the introduction of Montbeliard blood to her 450-year-old family farm’s dairy herd. “Our goal is always to make world class cheese,” she says.

Other awards: Quickes Traditional Vintage Cheddar ★★★, Quickes Traditional Hard Goats Cheese ★★, Quickes Traditional Mature Cheddar ★ www.quickes.co.uk www.greattasteawards.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

29

South West ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

On the Sauce

Back to Basics

The Bay Tree Food Co

Salcombe Dairy (UK)

Brown Sauce ★★

When it comes to the dollop of brown sauce with our fry-up, we know what we like and like what we know, but Emma Macdonald of The Bay Tree Food Company reckons we’re missing out.

“People are now so used to strong, acidic brown sauce, they miss out on its fruitiness.” The Somerset maker’s old-fashioned version with dates and apricots to balance the tamarind is aimed at real foodies.

“Brown sauce gets better as it matures,” says Emma. “It keeps like chutney.”

Other awards: Korma Curry Sauce ★, Somerset Ale Chutney ★ www.thebaytree.co.uk

The Lighter Cider Life Lyme Bay Sparkling Cider ★★ The Lyme Bay Winery The Lyme Bay Winery started life as the Lyme Bay Cider Company in 1992 but has since branched out into other traditional country tipples such as wines and liqueurs from hedgerow fruits and flowers. West Country cider traditions remain at its heart, however, and come autumn it’s all hands on deck when apples are being pressed for the new season. The Lyme Bay Sparkling Cider is lightly fizzy and refreshing with a long, clean flavour.

Other awards: Ginger Wine ★★, Plum Wine ★ Sloe Gin ★, Traditional Mead ★, Whisky Mead ★Whisky Ginger ★ www.lymebaywinery.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

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Alphonso Mango Sorbet ★★★

m for 30 ing this ice crea has been mak a flavour as it d se Salcombe Dairy lea re now has never Cream years but until uble Cream Ice . Devonshire Do al milk, ht loc rig st n (ju ow e its in recip base ice cream using for e th en ly be ial s nt ha se it at is es r and sugar) th tte bu , m ea cr t double “If comfor since day one. all its flavours m, this would for n ze fro in food came says. h Devon maker be it!” the sout e Cream hir ns vo De : Other awards ★, Madagascan Ice Cream ★★ Fruit m ★, Passion ea Cr Ice la nil Va ★ ★ h Crus dairy.co.uk www.salcombe

Jersey Girl

Emma Carlton’s Light as a Feather Sticky Toffee Pudding ★★★ Sweet Inspirations When Emma Carlton dropped from 17 to 10.5 stone, she didn’t do the sensible thing and plump (sorry) for a life of celery.

Instead, she jacked in her day job to bake puddings for a living.

Talk about willpower. Her surprisingly light-tasting sticky toffee puddings are handmade using rich cream and butter from Jersey’s only independent organic dairy. Available at farm shops, the Co-op and the Boathouse Restaurant Group on Jersey. www.sweetinspirationsjersey.com

30

South West

Ruby Blue

The English Are Coming

Sirloin Steak ★

Red Ruby Devon Beef

Brue Valley Salted Butter ★★

Devon’s Red Ruby is one of Britain’s oldest cattle breeds, yet it’s not that widely known. It used to be a dual-purpose breed, kept for meat and milk, but nowadays it’s reared exclusively for meat. Sarah May of Clannaborough Farm says the Devon sirloin eats better than other breeds because it is so finely grained and well marbled. Naturally, it’s best on the rare side. “I still get the occasional ‘how many hours do I cook it for?’” she chuckles. www.redrubydevonbeef.co.uk

Brue Valley Farms Brue Valley’s traditionally churned, old-fashioned salted Somerset butter is a “celebration of Englishness”.

“What hacks me off,” begins Simon Clapp, a cheese-maker and farmer whose family has farmed on the lush green pastures around Glastonbury Tor for generations, “is all the chefs want to buy French butter. It’s force of habit. So our fine, handrolled butter is real competition for Lescure.”

Other awards: Northwood Butter with Maldon salt ★, Marks & Spencer Farmhouse Butter ★, Brue Valley Unsalted Butter ★, Vintage West Country Farmhouse Cheddar ★ www.brue-valley.co.uk

Looking for great tasting food & drink?

Search for your nearest deli, farm shop or food hall online www.britainsbestdelis.co.uk

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

A family company passionate about good food for 36 years Cottage Delight was created by Nigel Cope 36 years ago, in the family kitchen, making a delicious melt in the mouth butter fudge to sell to small independent shops.

With the popularity of the fudge Nigel turned his hand to producing a range of jams, marmalades, chutneys and pickles providing customers with that delicious homemade taste loved by all.These and more are still made by us in the Staffordshire Moorlands, by hand using the finest ingredients.

Our passion for great tasting products and our devotion to quality has been recognised, to date, by 111 Great Taste Awards.

To find out more about our delicious products register online for our e-newsletter.

www.cottagedelight.co.uk

Our Great Taste Award winners 2010

A family company passionate about good food.

32

Best Speciality from the Midlands and East Anglia Damson Fruit Coulis - Thursday Cottage

Purple patch Back from the brink of extinction, damsons are enjoying a revival

S

everal years ago, beneath headlines like ‘Damson in distress’, newspapers were forecasting the demise of this small, tart purple plum that was once so familiar in country kitchens. It may have originated in Syria – its etymology lies in Damascus – but damson orchards once covered valleys across Britain in spring, carpeting the hills with flowers.

Nowadays, happily, damsons are back from the brink, and sales of damson jam from Thursday Cottage’s small Essex factory have doubled in the last five years. “Plum jams are enjoying a new popularity,” says Tim Came, managing director www.greattasteawards.co.uk

of the artisan-style producer, which was formerly run by River Cottage preserves expert Pam Corbin but is now owned by the famous Wilkin & Sons of Tiptree.

Further evidence of renewed interest is Thursday Cottage’s delectable damson coulis, upon which the Great Taste Awards judges have just bestowed three gold stars. Tim says: “There are actually a fair number of plum orchards in East Anglia. I don’t usually go on about provenance, but our damsons are grown half a mile from the factory. That’s rather lovely, isn’t it?”

Tim joined Tiptree eight years ago and took charge of Thursday Cottage, with its completely separate, artisan jam-making kitchen, TASTE GOLD 2010-11

six years later. He is delighted with the three-star accolade for the damson coulis, which was also named Best Speciality from the region.

Although Thursday Cottage remains small – there are just 20 employees, and one boiling batch makes only 120-130 bottles of coulis – Tim has helped it grow while retaining its purist principles. It now has 80 different styles of fruit preserve but continues to cook in traditional open pans. The boss’s personal weakness is for tayberries.

“They’re a cross between a blackberry and a raspberry, created by Scots on the River Tay. The tayberry has such a lovely soft subtle fruitiness. I think it’s totally underrated.”

Pam Corbin remains his food idol. “She is my guru,” Tim says.

33

Midlands & East Anglia

Midlands & East Anglia

“She lives in the West Country and works a lot with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, but she still advises us.” Pam and her husband, Hugh owned Thursday Cottage for a decade from 1989, and she threw herself into the deep end of the jam pan. Within 10 years her preserves were popping up all over the world in delicatessens, fine food halls and farm shops.

The Corbins sold to Tiptree in 2002, but Tim says her continued influence can be seen in this year’s Great Taste Awards triumph. “We do what we’re told by Pam. After doing curds and jams we thought, why not a coulis? Pam was very enthusiastic, so we went for it.”

Another reason for the coulis’ success is the use of Shropshire Blue damsons,

which share the distinctive tartness for which the oldschool fruit is loved. “What I really like about the coulis is it’s stuffed with fruit – it’s 80% damson,” says Tim. The downside is the coulis is not brimming with sugar so it has a relatively short shelf-life. “It lasts around three weeks once opened, although it generally gets used in one or two goes anyway.

“It works particularly well drizzled over vanilla ice-cream, a natural yoghurt or a fruit pavlova, or even in cocktails. In fact, it works in anything you can imagine – and people are getting much better at using their imagination.”

“Our damsons are grown half a mile from the factory.

That’s rather lovely, isn’t it?”

www.thursday-cottage.com

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

34 You Deserve a Treat

Dairy, Wheat & Gluten Free Chocolate Brownie ★★ Cake Angels Six years ago when pregnant with her son, Julia Thomas was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The selfconfessed cake lover gave her diet a radical overhaul during treatment and soon discovered how hard it was to treat herself while on a strict dietary regime. She started baking for herself, then set up Cake Angels as word spread. One pound from the sale of her cakes (all wheat-, glutenand dairy-free) goes to Breast Cancer Haven. www.cakeangels.co.uk

Up for Damsons Damson Fruit Cream Ice ★★★ Alder Tree The Hardinghams are Suffolk fruit farmers. They only got into ice cream when a glut of raspberries one year forced them to branch out. That was 1987, and they haven’t looked back. Their sorbet-like ‘cream ices’ are made to Grandmother Hardingham’s recipe: just fruit (double the amount you’ll find in standard ice creams), cream and sugar. Most of the damsons come from an uncle’s farm, with more coming from generous customers at the family farm shop.

Other awards: Summer Fruits Ice Cream ★★ Tayberry Fruit Ice Cream ★★, Gooseberry & Elderflower Fruit Ice Cream ★,Christmas Pudding Ice Cream ★ www.alder-tree.co.uk

Seeds of Change

Farrington’s Mellow Yellow Classic Vinagrette ★★★ Farrington Oils It’s a family affair at Bottom Farm in Hargrave, Northamptonshire, where the Farringtons have been pressing rapeseed since 2005.

Father and son, Robert and Duncan run the show, while mum Angela helps bottle the oil. Duncan’s missus, Eli, had a hand in this vinaigrette, trying out recipes in her ‘trusty jam jar’ in the family kitchen. Containing Omega 3-rich, cold-pressed rapeseed oil, it has a lower saturated fat content even than olive oil dressings.

Other awards: Farrington’s Mellow Yellow Mayonnaise ★ www.farrington-oils.co.uk

Love a Duck

Oak Smoked Duck Breast ★★ Adlington Ltd The Adlingtons started off in the Christmas turkey business in 1956. They’ve also smoked turkey meat on their Warwickshire farm for some years but only added other poultry to their repertoire when they invested in a state-of-the-art new smoker two years ago. British Barbary duck breast smokes superbly. It’s soft – “almost like a paté” – with just a hint of oak smoke. They’re currently experimenting with different woods such as apple and cherry.

Other awards: Stripped Smoked Chicken ★ www.adlington.co.uk

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

35

Midlands & East Anglia ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

Medium Melton Mowbray Pork Pie ★★ Dickinson & Morris A slice of pork pie on Christmas morning is a Leicestershire tradition. It tastes even better if you’ve braved the 30-yard long queue that snakes out of Dickinson & Morris’ Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe in Melton Mowbray around Christmas-time to get it. Fans make pilgrimages from all over the country to stock up on these hand-raised pies with their natural bone stock jelly, but luckily the maker’s award-winning medium pork pies are widely available all over the country.

Other awards: Large Melton Mowbray Pork Pie ★, 6 Pack Mini Melton Mowbray Pork Pie ★, 2 Pack Snack Melton Mowbray Pork Pie ★ www.porkpie.co.uk

gon Off the Wr Caak e ★★★ Wye Valley Bee Franks Luxury Biscuits Co

al,” “I’m actually teetot confides Lesley ins Cornthwaite, the bra y behind Franks Luxur e Wy zy boo ts’ cui Bis Valley Beer Cake and previous awardwinner, Ginger Wine Cake. Still, it’s those healthy slugs ’s of Dorothy Goodbody that Wholesome Stout help the rich make the recipe and or more. Lesley’s r a good six weeks ove e tur ma ke itca fru ich she raids charity wh for oks kbo e coo addiction is to vintag a look at Nigella”. ing eak “sn averse to shops, but she’s not ke★ xury Christmas Ca Other awards: Lu ts.co.uk cui bis ury ux ksl www.fran

A Pressing Matter

Chiltern Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil ★★ Chiltern Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil After 40 years running a successful farm shop in Wilstone Green, Herts, the Mead family fancied a new challenge. So they started growing, pressing and bottling their own rapeseed oil on land their family has worked since 1860. With the nation’s obesity crisis constantly in the headlines, the timing was perfect.

Low in saturated fats, this gently pressed, light nutty oil can be used where one might otherwise use olive oil. www.chilterncoldpressedrapeseedoil.co.uk

Lobster Pot

Fresh Lobster & Fennel Bisque ★★★ Aubrey Allen Trendy soup is everywhere, and exotic ingredients loom large. For those with a taste for culinary classics, Aubrey Allen’s lobster & fennel bisque is heaven. “It’s a wonderful soup,” admits chef Rob Bean, who’s used this recipe for 30 years (as long as he’s been a chef). “We revived it a couple of years ago as people don’t make soups likes these for themselves.” A generous quantity of lobster shells imparts great depth of flavour. www.aubreyallen.co.uk TASTE GOLD 2010-11

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

Midlands & East Anglia

The Pies Have It

36 Smooth Stuff

Hillfarm Mayonnaise ★★ Hillfarm Oils Six years ago, Hillfarm Oils in Suffolk pioneered cold-pressed extra virgin rapeseed oil in the UK. This 2009 addition to its range is 86% vitamin E-rich Hillfarm oil emulsified with RSPCA Freedom Food free-range eggs. What you’ll notice first is its lovely golden colour, quite different from bog standard white mayo, and then its creamy texture and distinctive nutty taste. Particularly delicious with chips.

Other awards: Hillfarm Extra Virgion Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil ★ www.hillfarmoils.com

ream Man The IcentC y Jamaican Rum

Oil’s Well That Ends Well

ery Lakenham Cream added

Just Oil

Norfolk Cou am ★★ & Raisin Ice Cre

ery (est.1921) Lakenham Cream cream line in 1987. its indulgent fresh cream, sugar and The base is simply redients”, according eggs – “all real ing ughlan. “Our ethos to owner Chris Co wouldn’t run out You . de’ ma me is ‘ho home would you?” at m gu ar gu y and bu nufacturing for ma ent erg det Chris left k an ice cream too and 2 199 in ice cream University. An ng adi Re at ourite, making course s & cream is his fav rrie pbe ras e, ice cream devote vours without fla all like “I : ses although he confes exception.” ★ & Cream Ice Cream lk County Coconut Other awards: Norfo uk co. ry. me www.lakenhamcrea

Just Rapeseed Oil ★★

The Froggatt family has farmed at Hill Ridware in Staffordshire for four generations. A mixed farm until the foot and mouth crisis, the Froggatts chose not to restock it afterwards and instead developed their rapeseed oil enterprise. Their Vitamin E and Omega 3-rich, triple-filtered oil and their delicate smoked oil now grace the kitchens of The Ivy and Launceston Place. Crisps cooked in rapeseed oil are their latest project. Yum! Other awards: Just Cold Oak Rapeseed Oil ★ www.justoil.co.uk

Ooh, Saucy!

Sticky Toffee Pudding ★★★ Lodge Farm Kitchen

Louisa Stout knew she was onto something with her sticky toffee pudding when her husband “who never eats puddings” scraped his bowl clean. “I’m very generous with the caramel sauce,” says Louisa, by way of explanation. The former teacher left her job in London for the Herefordshire country life a year ago and now sells her puddings, made with “fantastic local eggs and the best dates she can find”, online, at local farm shops and at Selfridges.

Other awards: Eve’s Pudding ★, Chicken Pie ★, Fish Pie ★ www.lodgefarmkitchen.co.uk

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

Midlands & East Anglia ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

In Bloody Pursuit

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

Cox’s Original Gavin Cox was obsessed with finding the perfect Bloody Mary. He tried them everywhere but always found them wanting. “People either wouldn’t know how to make them or would embellish them too much then charge the earth.” In response, he created his own seasoning mix using Tabasco, celery salt and Worcester sauce etc that’s now sold at Waitrose. Add as much or as little as you like. Incidentally, Gavin’s vote for best Bloody Mary – other than his own, of course – goes to Le Caprice in London. www.coxsoriginal.com

The Pig’s The Thing

Oak Smoked Streaky Bacon ★★ Redhill Farm Free Range Pork Redhill Farm really does everything itself – ‘We Farm It! We Produce It! We Sell it!’ is the slogan it uses – resulting in an entire range of Great Taste Award winning products. Its oak smoked streaky bacon is dry-cured by hand and then smoked over mature English oak chippings (sourced from a local cabinet maker) in the brick smoke-house on the farm.

Other awards: Oak Smoked 100% Free Range Pork Sausages ★ ★, Dry Cure Ham ★, Dry Cured Collar Bacon ★, Lincolnshire Pork Pie ★, Free Range Belly Pork ★ www.redhillfarm.com

Carry On Camping Malt Whiskey And Orange Marmalade Ice Cream ★ Rowlestone Farmhouse Ice Cream The tourists who stay at Rowlestone Court must be very happy campers indeed. For just metres from where their tents are pitched on Mark and Mary Williams’ Herefordshire dairy farm is the farm’s own ice cream parlour selling ice cream made from the farm’s own cows. Malt whiskey & marmalade is one of the more ‘adult’ flavours available. Honeycomb is the kids’ choice.

Other awards: Mascarpone & Caramalised Peach Ice Cream ★, Honeycomb Ice Cream ★, Raspberry Sorbet ★ www.rowlestonecourt.co.uk

The Triple Threat

Triple Chocolate Brownie ★★★ The Cake Shop David Wright, son of The Cake Shop’s Peter Wright, was the driving force behind this New York-style white, dark and milk chocolate brownie. “We were doing a brownie but it wasn’t very good,” he says. “I thought it was about time we did something really special.” Good ingredients are a given and the multi-stage method is particularly painstaking. David’s other job is with a theatre company. When the backstage crew found out about this award, they downed tools until he baked them a tray. They weren’t disappointed.

Other awards: Root Cake ★★★ www.cakeshopbakery.co.uk

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

Midlands & East Anglia

Cox’s Original Bloody Mary Spicer ★

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

37

38 Damson Season

Know Your Onions Onion Marmalade ★

Damson Coulis ★★★

The Truckle Cheese Co

Thursday Cottage

Richard Callum of the Truckle Cheese Co dusted off his oldest cookery books, dating back to Mrs Beeton, to find a superior recipe for onion marmalade. He strongly believes the secret is in the technique and taking the onions as far as they’ll go without overcooking them. The deep, dark, caramel flavour of his onion marmalade is designed for cheese, sausages or pâté but a teaspoon popped into gravy or shepherd’s pie works wonders too.

Other awards: Oak Smoked Cheddar Truckle ★ www.trucklecheese.co.uk

Pam Corbin, aka ‘Pam the Jam’, may no longer head up Thursday Cottage but she keeps a watchful eye on Wilkin & Sons of Tiptree, owners of the artisan jam maker since 2002. Pam’s the ‘recipe police’ and no product is released without her approval. This damson coulis gets the thumbs up.

Made with 80% local damsons and just 20% sugar, it’s ideal stirred into natural yoghurt or over vanilla ice cream, pavlova, summer puds, or even in a cocktail.

Other awards: Diabetic Three Fruits Marmalade ★★, Lemon Curd ★★, Fortnum & Mason Rum Butter ★ www.thursday-cottage.com

Cheesecake Champ

Irish Cream & Chocolate Cheesecake ★ The Dessert Company Pastry chef Mark Lawson champions real, fresh food.

An admirer of the Roux brothers, his pet peeves are the short cuts and ready-mixes some restaurants use to make ‘fake desserts’. “I make everything from scratch, just as I would in a restaurant.” His desserts, including 20 different cheesecake flavours, go to pubs and restaurants that may not have a trained pastry chef on the staff but do want restaurant-quality desserts.

Other awards: Sticky Date Flapjack ★ www.thedessertcompany.co.uk

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

39

Midlands & East Anglia ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

Midlands & East Anglia

The Crunch Bunch

Cider Vinegar & Sea Salt Potato Chips ★ Tyrrells Potato Chips tage at horse trials and Vin Spied at Burghley ract a higher class att ps chi ato pot Goodwood, Tyrells t of crisp lovers n the most elegan of picnicker. But eve in a good sps cri ls rel Tyr of nch can’t resist the cru when said not ly lar ticu par butty, old fashioned crisp vinegar er cid , ler sel two number es and crisps are Tyrell’s ato pot re shi ord m Heref boast a & sea salt. Made fro tively curled crisps rac att l’s rel Tyr , cider apples te. tas ’ a clean ‘potatoey golden colour and htly Sea Salted ked Chips ★★, Lig Other awards: Na , ★ r ppe Pe d Re ★, Sweet Chilli & ai Chilli ★, Garden Herb ★, Th Chicken & Tarragon Rice Crackers ★ ochips.co.uk www.tyrrellspotat

A Lesson in Chocolate

Dark Chocolate Butterscotch ★★ Toot Sweets Julia Wenlock’s Shrewsbury sweet shop sells everything from pear drops to parma violets and jelly babies to black jacks. Last year, when she fancied adding some local chocolate to her offer, customers egged her on to make her own. So she did a course, learned how and got cracking the next day. All her choccies are now own-made in small batches, fresh each day. Her butterscotch features light and dark organic Fairtrade sugar, oodles of butter and flecks of real vanilla.

Other awards: Shropshire Lavender Truffle (white Chocolate) ★ www.tootsweetsconfectionery.com

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

Looking for great tasting food & drink?

Search for your nearest deli, farm shop or food hall online www.britainsbestdelis.co.uk

40

Joint winner: Best English Speciality Jervaulx Blue - Wensleydale Dairy Products

Singing the blues Cheese judges have been singing the praises of Wensleydale Creamery’s latest creation

“We’re not emulating Stilton.

We wanted to make something for those who aren’t big blue cheese fans.”

T

o the outsider, the cheese world is full of ritual. David Hartley’s homage to his latest fromage, Jervaulx Blue, starts with the turning of the cheese: “We turn them every day for the first five to six days of their lives, and then once or twice a week,” says the managing director of The Wensleydale Creamery in Hawes, North Yorkshire, where they are made.

This delicate new blue – a creamier version of the established Wensleydale Blue – was inspired by a 12th century Cistercian monastery. Jervaulx Abbey, which has been in ruins since it was destroyed by Henry VIII, is only 17 miles from the Hawes factory.

David says of the newcomer: “It’s a celebration of cheese-making in this area. The monks settled very close by and made cheese, so there was a tangible link when we created it.”

It may have historical links, but the new Jervaulx Blue is bang up to date, which could explain www.greattasteawards.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

why it is already winning plaudits. Carefully created to appeal to modern palates, it has a soft magnolia interior mingled with blue veining and a surprisingly mild flavour.

The Wensleydale team were particularly keen to attract new eaters to the cheese scene. “This isn’t mild like a mild cheddar – there is complexity of flavour,” says David. “But it’s not a strong, pungent cheese. We’re not emulating Stilton. We wanted to make something for those who aren’t big blue cheese fans.”

Although it is made in large amounts – 150 to 200 tonnes a year is a “reasonable target” – the milk used is all from local cows. “We use 50 farms nearby and put £11 million back into the local economy.”

Making cheese on this scale requires weighty experience, which David is brimming with. Starting at 16 in a dairy, the Lancastrian progressed to the cheese giant Dairy Crest. When it closed the

41

North of England

North of England

Wensleydale premises in 1992, David got together with four colleagues to save the creamery, becoming managing director at the age of 29. Not surprisingly, he is fiercely proud of the enterprise’s growth – it now employ 200 people.

The production of Jervaulx Blue, he says, is down to skill and meticulous timing. “We use a traditional bulk starter to propagate it. We add blue spores to the milk and then let it age,” he says. The cheese is pierced with stainless steel needles to allow oxygen in, which is when the blue proliferates. “It’s actually the enzymes in the blue mould that creates the creaminess.”

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

Blue cheese is harder to make than others, David says, comparing it to making a fine wine. The product has a mind of its own, it seems. “You’re relying on the right level of mould so you have to manage your age profile very carefully. It is ready when it’s ready, not when there is demand.”

Once we get the cheese home, though, nurturing it is much simpler. Nibble it at room temperature and avoid suffocating it in clingfilm. David stores it on a saucer and wraps film across it, forming a ‘tent’ so there is air around it. “It progresses really well,” he says, enthusiastically.

“I’m not wrapping the cheese. I’m letting it breath. Remember, it’s a

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

living product so it needs oxygen or the blue will die back.”

The dairy-king, who’s just returned from holiday in Cornwall, has numerous tips for eating it.

“Crumble it over a salad – that’s what we did in Cornwall. Or make a red onion chutney, roast beef and Jervaulx Blue cheese sandwich.”

And if you’re looking for a good wine and cheese pairing, don’t just slip into your old ‘Port and Stilton’ habits. “Go for a white dessert wine, like a Sémillon,” suggests David. www.jervaulxblue.co.uk www.wensleydale.co.uk

42 Cutting Edge Cool

Blackcurrant & Liquorice Ice Cream ★★★ Beckleberrys t/a Artisan Foods When the mine where Ian Craig worked closed down, he went into business making real dairy ice cream with his son Peter, then aged 18 and fresh from school. Between them, they bought and reconditioned some old equipment and began supplying restaurants across the North East with ices, sorbets and desserts in flavours that have become increasingly cutting edge. The blackcurrant & liquorice ice cream was dad’s idea – a classic pairing familiar to any retro sweet lover.

Other awards: Bloody ‘Shelia’ Sorbet ★★★, Espresso Ice Cream ★★★, Peanut Butter Crunch Ice Cream ★★, Chocolate & Beetroot Ice Cream ★, Gluten Free Chocolate Truffle ★ www.beckleberrys.co.uk

A Little of What You Fancy Sticky Toffee Sauce ★★★ Friendly Food and Drink / Cumbrian Delights Geoff Monkman originally specialised in healthyeating – the world of glucose-free, dairy-free and wheat-free foods.

So what did he do when he struck upon a recipe for sticky toffee sauce?

He set up a brand new company, Cumbrian Delights, just for the sinful stuff. The key to his gold-winning sauce is golden syrup, he says, adding: “I couldn’t possibly make a healthy version!” Try it on ice cream, pancakes, banana splits – or straight from the jar

Hot New Look

Chilli Jam ★★

Claire’s Handmad e

Every jar of Claire’s Handmade Chilli Jam is packed full of fre red chillies. It won’t sh blow your head off , though, as its pure chilli kick is balanced by enoug h sweetness to take the heat off.

“You’d have to be pretty har d to eat it otherwise,” laughs Claire. Try it with sausages, bar becues or even as a dip. This year’s snazzy, rebranded packag ing brings the company image ban g up-to-date.

Other awards: Ro ast Garlic, Onion & Balsamic Jam ★ www.claireshand made.co.uk

Other awards: Choc-O-Toff Sauce ★★ www.friendlyfoodanddrink.co.uk

This year’s finest food & drink judged by the experts

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

43

North of England ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

Original ★★

rganics Gilchesters O floods of 2007

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Udder bliss

Vanilla Ice Cream ★ Cheshire Farm Ice Cream From udder to ice cream parlour, from cow to cone, it takes just 24 hours for the Fell family to make their farmhouse ice cream. For their latest, the seriously rich vanilla clotted cream ice cream, they’re now trying to find clotted cream locally, even talked to their local agricultural college about creating one especially for them.

Look out for the new Cheshire Farm ice cream van at regional events.

Other awards: Armagnac Ice Cream ★ www.cheshirefarmicecream.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

2010-11 This year’s finest food & drink judged by the experts

The Big Smoke Grants Premium Smoked Scottish Salmon ★ Grants Smoked Foods This is smoked salmon like it used to be.

Most on the market is mild, whereas Grants premium deeply smoked is full flavoured, more heavily smoked and arguably the connoisseur’s choice. It’s produced to an old family recipe that has only recently been revived. The exact method is under wraps but use of a different cut of a different type of oak is part of the equation. www.grantssmokehouse.com

North of England

e Going With Th Grain Spelt Biscuits

44 Looking Good Praline Cup ★★

Holdsworth Chocolates

Genevieve Holdsworth took over Holdsworth Chocolates from mother Barbara in 2002. After 20 years working for mum, Genevieve had total faith in the chocolates but felt the packaging needed an update. She rebranded two years ago but kept the original drawing of the Theobroma cacao tree in the logo. In other respects, the Peak District company is little changed since 1988. Its calling card is luxury artisan chocolates made from high cocoa couverture and pure ingredients. Other award: Tiramisu ★ www.holdsworthchocolates.co.uk

Backpack Flapjacks

Get Stuck in the Muddees

Kendal Jacksmiths

More? The Artisan Bakery

Date and Molasses Flapjack ★★★ Kendal Jacksmiths’ flapjacks have been sighted all over the world – down caves, up mountains – and they’re about to go to the South Pole. So highly regarded are they among outdoor enthusiasts for their high energy content that Leo Houlding, the UK’s top free climber, packed 250 to power his ascent of Mount Asgard. Founder Liz Berners-Lee is a stickler for quality: she blind-tastes all the ingredients and bakes in batches of just two dozen a time.

Other awards: Orange & Pumpkin Flapjack ★★, Hemp & Raisin ★, Plain Flapjack ★, Lemon & Ginger Flapjack ★★★, Festive Fruit ★★, Apricot & Almond ★★ www.kendaljacksmiths.com

More? Multi Muddee ★★★

After an early career rattling pans at country houses in the Lakes, chef Patrick Moore followed his heart to set up an artisan bakery. “I look at ‘brownies’ in supermarkets and think ‘that’s not what I’d call a brownie,’” he says. Rather than debase his gooey milk, dark and white chocolate creations with the over-used name, he calls them ‘muddees’. Patrick cites Raymond Blanc as an inspiration, saying: “He showed you don’t have to be the same as everybody else.”

Other awards: Lakeland Treacle Bread ★★, Wild English Sourdough ★★, Jewish Rye Bread ★★, Monty’s Revenge ★★, VKB ( German Rye Bread) ★, Rustic Ciabatta ★, Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum ★ www.moreartisan.co.uk

Top Banana

Mr Vikki’s Banana Habanero ★★ Mr Vikki’s

Posh country house hotel cooking is an unusual apprenticeship for an ‘Indian fusion pickle’ maker, but chef Adam Marks’ first love is Indian food.

His Hot Banana Habanero made of fresh banana, cardamom, habanero chillies and root ginger is terrific with curry and pretty good with a ham sandwich too. The mysterious Mr Vikki, in case you were wondering, is a former employee, now back in India, who kindly donated his nickname to the business.

Other awards: Chillia Jam ★, Tomato & Nigella Relish ★★, Hot Goan Curry Paste ★★, Tamarind Chipotle ★★, Hot Brinjal Piquin ★ www.mrvikkis.co.uk www.greattasteawards.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

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North of England ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

The Sweet Smell of Success All Butter Fudge ★★

When the Corus steel plant on Teesside was mothballed in early 2010, Michelle Prest’s husband was out of a job, but the pair found a silver lining by investing some redundancy money into a new business. Michelle had been making fudge for friends and family for years anyway and they all loved it, so why not give it a go professionally? The secret, she says, is in the butter – organic, local stuff from Acorn Dairy.

Other awards: All Butter Ginger Fudge ★, White Chocolate & Mixed Berry Fudge ★ www.northumbriafudgery.co.uk

Vanilla Ice Cream ★ Peak District Dairy

In the Middle Ages, the village of Tideswell in Derbyshire was known as the ‘King’s larder’.

Any royals passing through these days would do well to stop off at the village ice cream parlour for a scoop (or three) of Peak District Dairy ice cream.

All the milk, double cream and butter used here is produced on the Walker family farm where cows graze on limestone grassland at 1,100 feet above sea level. Ice cream vans help spread the word.

Other awards: Honey Yoghurt ★, Forest Fruit Yoghurt ★, Salted Butter ★, Pistachio Ice Cream ★ www.peakdistrictdairy.co.uk

Flower Power

Gooseberry & Elderflower Jam ★★★ Rosebud Preserves

Elspeth Biltoft of Rosebud Preserves uses mountains of elderflower heads from the hedgerows around Masham to ensure she gets that “delightful, Muscat-y aroma” into her gooseberry & elderflower jam. She isn’t, however, a stickler for local produce, instead going for good sharp fruit that’s not overripe. As she doesn’t add any pectin at all, her sets rely on the natural quality of the ingredients alone. This is jam the way it ought to be.

Other awards: Seville Orange Marmalade ★ www.rosebudpreserves.co.uk

Roe’s a Rare Treat

Wild Northumberland Venison Striploin ★★★ Ridley’s Fish & Game Roe deer is often seen as red deer’s poor relation but this is a mistake, says Carolyn Ridley of Ridley’s Fish & Game near Hexham. The Ridleys only get a few local roe deer each week so it’s a rare treat. Carolyn celebrated her birthday over striploin, chunky chips and salad but says it works just as well in a posh Venison Wellington. The main thing is: don’t overcook it. “Eat it as pink as you can,” advises Carolyn.

Other awards: Smoked Haddock Mornay ★ www.ridleysfishandgame.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

North of England

Northumbria Fudgery

A Royal Scoop

46

Speciality Producer of the Year Kendal Jacksmiths

On top of the world Liz Berners-Lee’s flapjacks are a hit with mountaineers and peaked in this year’s Great Taste Awards too

M

ike Berners-Lee likes to describe his wife Liz as a ‘flapjacksmith’. It’s not a job title that comes up too often at cocktail parties but it neatly sums up what Liz does for a living.

Every morning in the kitchen of her Cumbrian home, she rustles up flapjacks constantly until lunchtime for her business, Kendal Jacksmiths. “At lunch, I go out for a jog, as it’s my only spare time,” she says. “Then, in the afternoon I’m off down to the factory to pack them.”

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Liz, who has installed several industrial cookers and a second kitchen at home to cope with burgeoning demand, paints an evocative scene. “It’s a lovely place to work in,” she says. “I’ve got original art on the walls, high ceilings, oak floors and all the cupboards are hand-painted. It is a bit Cath Kidston.”

But Liz is also a businesswoman with strong ambitions. Her clients include the National Trust and Boots, www.greattasteawards.co.uk

and she distributes nationally.

Mike, who runs the financial side of the partnership as well as being director of a carbon footprint company, Small World Consulting, adds with pride: “Her record is making 1,000 jacks in a day but she normally makes around a 100.”

The company began in 2006 when Liz launched a sandwich business with friend Julie Thomas. In 2008, when Liz continued the business on her own, she started specialising TASTE GOLD 2010-11

in the sticky oat parcels that are now her mainstay. “She’s always had a business making something nice,” explains her husband. “Once she was an interior designer, later she ran a café, and then she started this baking enterprise.”

Liz’s date & molasses flapjack collected a maximum three gold stars at this year’s awards, and she won the title Speciality Producer of the Year after no fewer than seven of her recipes collected gold awards.

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But the duo are determined to keep this a cottage industry.

“Production will be going up, “says Liz,” but it has to stay homemade.”

Mike adds: “We’ve experimented with automating production but when you start pushing flapjacks through a machine they’re just not as good.”

Initially each creation was hand-wrapped too, with labels stuck on individually, but now Liz takes her flapjacks down the road to Quiggins of Kendal, maker of the famous mint cake, to share its wrapping line.

With Mike’s eco-credentials – Small World Consulting offers ‘green’ business expertise – Kendal Jacksmith’s flapjacks naturally have a low carbon footprint too.

“Nothing is air freighted,” says Mike. “Most of the ingredients are local. The only thing is the butter…” Butter, of course, being from cows, which pump out methane.

Bizarrely, just as gnomes get taken on worldwide tours and photographed in exotic locations, so do Liz’s products.

The natural ‘energy bars’ seem to be particularly popular among the mountaineering cognoscenti (British climber Leo Houlder is a fan) and among the holiday snaps sent back to Cumbria by Liz’s customers was a shot of a flapjack being nibbled on a perilous trek up Mont Blanc.

“I love the thought that people are climbing mountains, going on huge adventures – and eating my flapjacks,” she says. www.kendaljacksmiths.com

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

North of England

“We’ve experimented with automation, but when you push flapjacks through a machine they’re just not as good”

48 Bottoms Up Riggwelter ★★ The Black Sheep Brewery It’s grim up north – if you’re a riggwelted sheep i.e flat on your back and unable to get up again. Drink too much of Black Sheep Brewery’s strong Yorkshire ale, Riggwelter, and you might find yourself in a similar position.

Even at 5.9% ABV for the cask-conditioned version (available in the Yorkshire heartland) and 5.7% for the bottled, it’s surprisingly easy to drink. Expect a deep chestnut brown beer with a rich head and hints of coffee and bananas. A real winter warmer.

Other awards:

Lakeland Cheddar

Organic Cheddar Cheese ★ South Lakes Organic As luck would have it, Frank Morphet had some organic milk spare at the very same time that Appleby Creamery in Westmorland needed some for a new cheese. The first attempts in late 2008 turned out so well that the recipe is now in full production.

Matured for 12 to 15 months, it’s cheddar in style and name but with a taste of its own thanks to the Lakeland milk and the efforts of Appleby’s cheese-makers.

Other awards: South Lakes Single Cream ★★, South Lakes Double Cream ★★, South Lakes Whipping Cream ★★

Choc Full

Triple Chocolate Brownie Slab ★ The Corper Deli

Black Sheep Ale ★ www.blacksheep.co.uk

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

Take one deliciously indulgent treat – a hand-baked chocolate brownie – break it up and set it in a 500g bar of milk chocolate, throw in some white chocolate pieces for good measure and – holy chocoholics! – that’s one seriously hardcore chocolate experience. Helen MacNeil and Nicola Proctor, the two in-house chocolatiers at Corper Deli in Longridge, Lancashire, love to play around with flavours. Their ‘slabs’ set with honeycomb, chilli and lime, coffee beans etc are a big hit. www.corperdeli.com

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

49

North of England ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

North of England

Bountiful Berries Hedgerow Jelly ★★

The Hawkshead Relish Company

Hawkshead ry season, it’s the Every year come ber local birds as they the sus ver any Relish Comp ckberries the best of the bla battle it out to pick gerows. The hed al loc the m fro and elderberries enough for share, leaving just birds get their fair ead to forage iteh Wh ria Ma and Hawkshead’s Mark of port, this h das its th jelly. Wi for their hedgerow h and fruity ric a is ve ser tish pre quintessentially Bri game. and s pie , pâté, cheese , accompaniment to & Ginger Jelly ★★ e Lim illi, Ch s: Other award Fruttacotta ★★ n ria mb Cu de Lizzie’s Handma relish.com www.hawkshead

In The Pink Jaipur IPA ★★★

Name that juice

Thornbridge Brewery

Yorkshire Wolds Apples

Bakewell brewery Thornbridge named its hugely popular India Pale Ale after Rajasthan’s so-called ‘Pink City’. This citrusdominated yet subtly sweet, soft smooth ale celebrated its fifth anniversary this year and is available in casks right across the UK. Many of its most ardent admirers, surprisingly or not, are women. “I don’t normally drink beer…” they begin, before taking their first sip and making an immediate exception.

Other awards: Halcyon ★★, SAWT Petersburg ★★ www.thornbridgehall.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

Apple Juice ★★

In the spirit of ‘waste not, want not’, Yorkshire Wold Apples founder Ray Kirby, a former lecturer, began pressing local apples that would otherwise go to waste. “What was clear to me was that there was a clear difference between the apple juice being produced in the north of England and in the south,” he says. Now in its third year, the farm-based business produces traditionally pressed juices using such colourfully monikered Yorkshire apple varieties as Hornsey Herring and Dogs Snout. www.yorkshirewoldapplejuice.co.uk

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Best Scottish Speciality Traditional all butter shortbread - Reids of Caithness

The well travelled shortbread If you want to visit the best biscuit baker in Britain, be prepared for a long journey…

A

hundred miles north of Inverness, almost at Scotland’s northernmost tip and a short hop from Orkney, is Thurso, where Graeme Reid gets up at an unfeasibly early hour to turn out groaties, biscuits and warm breads for a hungry public.

It is quite a feat getting baked delicacies into Scotland’s more populous areas, let alone into

the big English market. Nevertheless Graeme, a baker, and his brother Gary, the business head, have succeeded in exporting their Reids of Caithness nibbles across Britain. Not content with

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

that, the brothers are in current negotiations to export their Scottish biscuits to Singapore.

The bakery has changed somewhat since 1964, when their parents opened a modest baker’s shop.

Gary says: “I returned to Scotland and the family business about seven years ago. We’ve doubled the turnover since then and we have up to 30 employees today. I hope that five years from now we’ll have 100.”

Graeme grew up baking with his dad, Donald Reid, and stayed in the business. In contrast, Gary, a trained engineer, travelled the world with his work then settled in Australia before deciding the good life was back in Scotland. “I did baking at school but I was more interested in girls and farming,” Gary says. “I never thought I would return to it.

But now this is what gets me out of bed every morning.”

Dad has only just retired but still pops in from time to time, to help out with the bakery and café on Thurso High Street and the family fish & chip shop.

While their products today range from honey &

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Scotland

oat biscuits to the awardwinning Viking fruit cake, it’s the traditional all butter shortbread that has caused a stir among the gastrocenti at the Great Taste Awards. Gary says of the three-star gold winner that was also named Best Scottish Speciality: “We wanted something melt-in-themouth, so Graeme spent a lot of time developing the recipe.”

The formula remains well guarded, but Gary attributes its success to his older brother’s perfectionism.

But he also admits to a preference for another Reids speciality. “The groaties, are my favourite. They’re one-bite, mini oat cakes, and they’re great with cream cheese and smoked salmon.”

Best-sellers among the Reids of Caithness biscuits include treacle, toffee & honey, and there are several new oatie flavours too: banoffee, stem ginger and maple & pecan.

Meanwhile, the bakery’s breads, rolls and cakes continue to find a ready market among top hotels and castles across the Highlands and Lowlands. Gary says: “My father used to make fresh cream gateaux, cream cakes and breads, and he once made gateaux for the Queen Mother when she visited Scotland.

Black Forest and Strawberry were her favourites.”

The Queen Mum yesterday, tomorrow the world.

“Products today range from oat & honey biscuits to the award-winning Viking fruit cake”

www.reidsofcaithness.com

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

52 Oat of this World Oaty Vanilla Crunch Creams ★★★ Cobbs Cakes Cobbs Cakes has an archive of recipes, some from friends, from neighbours, from Aunt Janet, even ‘the old lady at the post office’. Its Oaty Vanilla Crunch Creams are a

Flavours of the Past Rhubarb & Elderflower Jam ★★ Galloway Lodge Preserves Growing up on Orkney, an archipelago not known for an abundance of fresh fruit, Fiona Hesketh had to be inventive with what she had. “We had one elder tree with about three flowers on it and we had rhubarb. Once a year, Dad would get his favourite pudding, stewed rhubarb with elderflower.

This jam always reminds me of that. It’s what I call a ‘Scottish jam’.” She likes a dollop with old-fashioned semolina pudding.

Other awards: Beetroot Chutney ★★, Bramley Apple Chutney with Cider ★, Raspberry & Redcurrant Jam ★, Gooseberry & Strawberry Jam ★ www.gallowaylodge.co.uk

Game Point

Wild Venison Salami ★★ Great Glen Game recent invention, however, created when recipe-tester-in-chief Sheena Lloyd tried a delicious biscuit in Edinburgh and reckoned “Good… but I can do better”. The resulting confection is already a firm favourite at staff teatime.

Other awards: Highland Flapjack ★, Gluten Free Belgian Chocolate Brownie ★ www.cobbs.info

Great Glen Game’s Dutch owners, Jan Jacob and Clnja Baak, had the original idea of making a healthier type of salami – using 100% wild venison from the Scottish Highlands. Their iron-rich charcuterie, including bresaola, chorizo and pepperoni, is made at the old butchers’ shop at Roy Bridge, Inverness-Shire, without the addition of extra fat. The Baaks are waste-conscious as well as health-conscious: Mrs Baak uses the deerskins to make babies’ booties.

Other awards: Wild Venison Chorizo ★★ www.greatglengame.co.uk

Whisky Chaser

Benromach 10 Years Old Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky ★ Gordon & Macphail The story of Benromach, the smallest working distillery in Speyside, is one of a heritage distillery revived. Established in 1898, it was mothballed in 1983 and only resurrected in 1993 under new owners, Gordon & MacPhail, which took a conscious decision to restore to it the smoky style for which Benromach was known in the 1950s and 1960s. The 10-year-old is elegant, with notes of citrus and malt. www.gordanandmacphail.com

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

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Scotland ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

Stuck in a Jam Holm-Made Jams & Chutneys

After 40 years in social work, Joe Donnelly fancied a relaxing time of it, transforming produce from his allotment into jams and chutneys to sell at Queen’s Park farmers’ market in Glasgow.

Some retirement project! He’s at the stove seven hours a day keeping up with demand for his preserves. Much of his produce comes from the garden at his Cathcart home. Having bought a quince tree on eBay, quince jelly is his next project.

Other awards: Raspberry and Rose Jam ★

She’s Got Zest for Life Lemonchello ★ Isabella’s Preserves Though just 26 at the time, Louise Myles was the perfect person to take over Isabella’s Preserves five years ago. She’s a country girl, brought up on homemade blackcurrant cordial (“We never had Ribena!”) and taught “the dying art” of making jam from home-grown fruit by her mum and granny. She still does everything by hand. Her Lemonchello is a smooth, zesty preserve spiked with limoncello. She likes it blended with whipped cream in meringues. www.isabellaspreserves.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

Changing with the Times

Hot Smoked Honey Salmon ★ J Lawrie & Sons

salmon rted smoking ily business sta back go ey th y, da The Lawrie fam is years ago. To th tes change tas as t bu , and kippers 65 es cures and recip ed honey repeatedly to old products too. This hot smok new w by mail ce no le du ro ab int ail av ey th and five years ago flaked od ted Go ea cr e. , oic on ry ch salm a contempora h way. uc g m lon ry a ve es is order, a little go a filling treat so over salad, it’s : Hot Smoked Other awards on ★ lm Sa ed Pepper k o.u s.c fy jaf w. ww

Addressing Haggis Haggis ★★

John Lawson Butchers In the week before Burns Night, the queue for haggis at John Lawson Butchers in Uphall snakes out of the door.

Customers come from Edinburgh especially for it. The traditional haggis is made to a family recipe used since 1971 and includes meat from the family farm. Around 300 are sold each week. John’s two sons, John and Graham, are now in the business too. Mail order available.

Other awards: Black Pudding ★★, Sirloin Steak ★★, Dumpling ★ www.johnlawsonbutchers.co.uk

Scotland

Raspberry Jam with Amaretto ★★

54 Grist to the Mill

Biscuits with Oats, Sweet ★★ Kenmore Bakery Unlike the majority of Kenmore Bakery’s biscuits and sweets, this one isn’t made to one of the ‘old granny’s recipes’ in its archive. The biscuit with oats is one created 12 years ago for the old watermill at Aberfeldy (now a gallery and bookshop, not a working mill, alas).

Rather like a digestive in style but with the addition of oatflakes, they were such a great success Kenmore still bakes them to this day.

Other awards: Biscuits with Fruit ★, Shortbread Plain ★★, Tablet ★★

Watch out Nigella Mrs Bridges Chilli Jam ★ Mrs Bridges Nigella’s got nothing on Mrs Bridges – the kind of unflappable cook we all need when the kitchen’s a mess and dinner should have been ready 10 minutes ago. The original ‘good housekeeper’ and matronly cook in Upstairs, Downstairs is the inspiration behind this nostalgic range of preserves. Chilli jam is one of the more contemporary recipes. It works well as a marinade or mixed into dips.

Other awards: Mixed Vegetable ★, Ginger Chilli Chutney ★, Jar of Curd with Ginger ★ www.mrsbridges.co.uk

La Crème de la Crème

(Mackie’s) Extra Posh Belgian Chocolate Ice Cream★ Mackie’s of Scotland Mackie’s most la-di-da ice cream to date earns the ‘extra posh’ moniker, as its original Luxury Ice Cream is already ‘quite posh’. So this is the super-fancy version, rich in dark Belgian chocolate and with a tiara-wearing Jersey cow on the label. This isn’t style over substance: the Mackies practise ‘sky to scoop’ farming at their Aberdeenshire base, using wind turbines to generate power and producing all the milk they need from their own dairy herd. www.mackies.co.uk/ www.mackiescrisps.co.uk

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

He Can Stand the Heat Sweet Balsamic Dressing - Chilli ★ Little Doone Foods It was “The most wonderful moment” for Colin Hanna when he left the stock-broking job that made him miserable three years ago and started making his balsamic reductions full time.

He originally just made them for friends but now sells to the likes of Michelin-starred chef Tom Kitchin and the Hotel du Vin Group. The chilli version isn’t hot but has a “wee kick at the very back of the taste”.

Other awards: Sweet Balsamic Dressing Strawberry ★, Sweet Balsamic Dressing - Garlic ★, Sweet Balsamic Dressing - organic Raspberry ★, Sweet Balsamic Syrup - Orange Zest ★★ www.littledoone.co.uk

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Scotland ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

Caithness Butter Shortbread ★★★ Reids of Caithness

How to make your shortbread stand out in the land awash with the stuff? For the Reid brothers of Reids of Caithness in Scotland’s far north, the answer is “keep it simple”. “Shortbread goes severely wrong when you overcomplicate things,” says Gary Reid, the bakery’s business brains. Brother Graeme, overseer of the ovens, drew on his knowledge of Scottish baking to fine-tune this new, smoothtextured, melt-in-the-mouth shortbread so you can really taste the butter. Enjoy with a nice cup of tea.

Other awards: Viking Cake ★, Original Oaties ★ www.reidsofcaithness.com

Scotland’s Challenge to the Olive Oil Diet Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil ★★ Summer Harvest Oils Mark Bush was an ‘accidental IT consultant’. He would read cookbooks on the way to work, dreaming of a career in food. He made the move in 2008 when he planted rapeseed on the family farm near Perth. The keen cook now uses his oil in dressings, stir-fries (it has a high flashpoint of 230ºC), roast potatoes and – his favourite – chocolate & beetroot cake. Scottish chef Alan Murchison used Summer Harvest oil in his Great British Menu. www.summerharvestoils.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

Meet the Pieman

Honeyed Venison Collops Pie ★★ Simple Simon’s Perfect Pie Simple Simon - aka Bernard ‘Don’t call me simple’ Alessi – planned to open a pie shop as a ‘retirement project’. It’s now a full-time business operating from a converted farm building in Scotland’s Southern Uplands. His venison pie, once a Christmas special, is now a menu mainstay. Featuring haunch of wild Highland venison in ‘collops’ (large pieces) marinaded in juniper and orange then finished with heather honey, it’s topped with a lid of demi-puff pastry.

Other awards: Danny Wild’s Magnificent Cheese & Onion Pie ★ www.simplesimonspies.co.uk

Bonny Biscuits

Cairnsmohr Crunchy Handbaked Wholegrain Mustard Crackers ★★ Thistle Products enir a Scottish souv Best known as ssie toys Ne ly dd cu ink specialist (th le my’ hats), Thist and ‘See You Jim by surprise by the en Products was tak smhor ess of its Cairn immediate succ ain gr ole wh e es biscuit range. Th ced in rs, hand-produ mustard cracke ray Firth, were Mo the ar ne ry a bake t gifts but eived as touris originally conc th Scottish wi lar pu po as have proved g for th visitors lookin shoppers as wi fridge magnet. a n tha ter ar something sm baked Crushed Crunchy Hand Other awards: itional Scottish acker ★★, Trad ★★, Black Pepper Cr pper Oatcakes Pe & an es rm berry sp Ra , ★ Oatcakes ★, Pa s ★, Lemon Shortie Haggis Oatcake Shortcake ★ ducts.co.uk www.thistlepro

Scotland

The Long and Short of It

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Scotland

Celebrity Recipe Sponsored by

Snack Attack

Ingredients 10 hand-dived king scallops in their shells

Blackcurrant Infused Apple Bites ★

sunflower oil

XA Trading

It’s not often you come across such a quirky new idea, so look out for Crupples, the air-dried diced apple snacks from New Zealand.

XA Trading’s Shamus Ogilvy was introduced to them by a cousin who met the inventor while sailing in the Tongan Islands (as you do). With no added sugars, preservatives or sodium, Crupples seemed a perfect fit with Ogilvy’s focus on natural produce. Good in lunch boxes, with cereal or crumbled into desserts. www.xatrading.com

Nick Nairn

Celebrity ‘Ready Steady Cook chef and Michelin star winner

150g mixed organic salad leaves 20g picked herbs flat parsley, dill, coriander

juice of ½ lemon

5ml lemon juice

4 slices Stornoway black pudding

20ml extra virgin olive oil

8 slices pancetta

4 tbsp crème fraîche Maldon salt freshly milled black pepper

Serves 4

The White Stuff Lanark White ★★ H J Errington & Co The Errington family of Carnwath have widely been known since 1985 for their unpasteurised ewes’ milk Lanark Blue cheese, so the success of Lanark White has taken them by surprise. This relative newcomer, created five years ago by Humphrey Errington, was an experiment to use up surplus milk.

His next project, a pressed white sheep’s milk cheese, doesn’t have a name yet but its packaging will feature artwork by artist Tom Errington, Humphrey’s brother. www.lanarkblue.com

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

Seared Scallop and Black Pudding Salad with Crispy Pancetta

F

irst thing to do is shuck your scallops.

Preheat oven to 200C/400F/ gas mark 6.

Lay the slices of pancetta onto a tray lined with baking paper and pop them into the oven to cook until crisp.

Remove from the oven but leave it on.

Next, heat a griddle pan and feel with your hand just over the pan for a good ambient heat. Brush the scallops with a little sunflower oil and a little of the clear fat from the pancetta tray.

Place four oiled scallops into the hot griddle pan and sprinkle them with a couple of grains of sea salt and a small squeeze of lemon. Cook for a minute, then, using tongs, turn them through 90 degrees and leave for another minute, so that you end up with a criss-cross pattern from the griddle pan on each scallop. Turn them over and repeat the process. Total cooking time is 4 minutes. Remove them to a warm tray and cook the second batch.

(The remaining 2 are there in case you

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

had any mishaps during the shucking process. If you didn’t then you’ve got 2 bonus scallops!)

Once the scallops are all ready, remove them to the warm tray. Reheat the pan and remove the skin from the black pudding slices before brushing with oil and cooking for a minute or two on both sides.

To serve, mix the lemon juice and olive oil in a small bowl and toss the leaves and herbs in a little of the dressing.

Pass the tray of scallops and black pudding through the oven for a minute, maximum, to warm through.

Take four warm, not hot, plates and place a round of black pudding in the centre of each. Place 2 scallops on top of each piece, followed by a couple of slices of crispy bacon and a pile of salad.

Stir the crème fraîche and run a little off the tip of a teaspoon around each plate. Drizzle around a little more of the salad dressing and serve immediately.

57 ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

Indulge yourself – and take Action Against Hunger

Ben Tre Single Estate Vietnamese Chocolate Bars ★★★ Demarquette Fine Chocolates

It’s not often you get to spoil yourself silly while doing a good deed for charity.

But thanks to a tie-up between artisan chocolate maker Mark Demarquette and the Guild of Fine Food, you can do just that. Inspired by Mark’s three-star gold award winning Ben Tre Single Estate Vietnamese Chocolate, they’ve joined forces to launch a special edition bar in aid of Action Against Hunger. The bars come in 70% dark and 40% milk versions, and for every one sold, £1 will go to the charity, helping save the lives of malnourished children. If your local store doesn’t stock them, buy online on Amazon’s grocery section (search for ‘wicked appetite’) or Demarquette’s website. Mark Demarquette has the perfect track record for making this very special chocolate. His London chocolaterie picked up an amazing 10 Great Taste Awards this year. www.demarquette.com www.amazon.co.uk/grocery

de: Stockists inclu

Buntings nshire NN14 4JH od.co.uk Northampto83 www.buntingsfinefo 01832 7317 Caracoli LtdSO24 9AR Hampshire 30 www.caracoli.co.uk 01962 7387 ltaire Chutney of Sa Cheese and ire BD18 4SB k sh rk dchutney.co.u Yo t se es W www.chee an 01274 597008 Cockles PA31 8LZ cklesfinefoods.com Argyllshire 92 www.co 01546 6062 d Lt on nt Gu H. Z s.co.uk Essex CO3 3E www.gunton 01206 572200 d Lt n se Delicates Leonardo’sire o.uk LL15 1AE Denbighsh 161 www.leonardosdeli.c 01824 707 obal Deli N Local not Glsh ire NG9 1E -deli.co.uk Nottingham60 www.localnotglobal 71 07901 06 ons Lots of Lemsh ire GL52 8RN eli.com Gloucester 62 www.lotsoflemonsd 01242 6747 & Fine Foods ie er ag om Fr MacFarlane4’s9NF London SW 73 020 8673 53 ne Foods Macknade Fi F ade.com Kent ME13 8X www.mackn 01795 534497 TASTE GOLD 2010-11

Mmm...

Tyne & Wear NE1 5QQ 01912 714194 www.mmm-food.co.uk Northfield Farm Shop Leicestershire LE15 7QF 01664 474271 www.northfieldfarm.com Praze Fine Foods Ltd Derbyshire SK13 8AZ 01457 860916 www.praze.co.uk Priory Farm Shop Surrey RH1 4EJ 01737 822603 www.prioryfarm.co.uk Provender Brown Perth PH1 5JY 01738 587300 www.provenderbrown.c o.uk Pumpkin Delicatessen Somerset 4EB 01934 713289 www.pumpkinwedBS28 more.co.uk Tastes Delicatessen Berkshire SL4 6AF 01753 641 557 www.tastesdeli.co.uk The Best Possible Taste Somerset TA11 7LL 01935 841120 www.thebestoftaste.co.u k Turnbulls Dorset SP7 8HZ 01747 858575 www.turnbulls.co.uk www.greattasteawards.co.uk

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Best Welsh Speciality Sirloin of beef - Rhug Estate

A gentler approach to farming

Lord Newborough says organic husbandry brings out the best in his Rhug Estate beef

R

aymond Blanc adores the Rhug Estate’s produce.

The Michelin-starred chef of Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons regularly cites the 2,500 acre Welsh organic farm, owned by Lord Newborough, as one of its favourite suppliers. So it’s no great surprise that after blindtasting by judges at the Great Taste Awards, Rhug’s aged-onthe-bone beef sirloin was named this year’s best speciality product from Wales.

Speaking from the Rhug (it’s pronounced ‘Reeg’) estate HQ in the rolling hills of Denbighshire, Lord Newborough says the win is thanks to the gentler type of farming he has adopted for his herd of 260 pedigree Aberdeen

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Angus cattle.

“The pastures are always clean,” he explains. “We use herbs instead of medicine – we use chicory for example as a natural wormer. To keep fertility in the pastures we introduced clover. The idea of ‘organic’ for us is giving the animals space and working on prevention as a cure for illness, rather than commercial medicine. And we let the hedges have fresh growth as

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they supply natural minerals for the stock, and that’s also good for the birds.”

The organic sector has taken a bit of a bashing recently, so does Lord Newborough – who as Robert Wynn became the eighth baron of Newborough on his father’s death in 1998 – really think this type of husbandry affects the steak’s flavour?

Absolutely, he says, insisting his livestock enjoy more freedom and less stress, which is significant to improving taste. “Why organic?

Because an animal has to have a certain amount of space. It is stipulated in the rules if you want certification.”

Every farming decision is made with the aim of creating

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“Our beef is hung for 28 days in an ideal humidity. Although it’s costly, it improves flavour and tenderness.” harmonious living for his cattle.

Organic methods mean the cattle are not regularly rounded up for dosing with medicines, and at the end of their lives they are moved just two miles up the road to the abattoir rather than suffering the long final journey endured by most British livestock these days. This means less fear and adrenaline, says Lord Newborough, which in turn means better meat quality.

So how can Joe Public, shopping in the supermarket or at the local butcher, ensure a superior cut of sirloin? Hanging, says Lord Newborough, is a priority, so ask at the meat counter if your purchase has been dry-hung or cured in a bag – a sneaky shortcut in food production.

“Ours is hung for 28 days in an ideal TASTE GOLD 2010-11

humidity. Although it’s costly, because the meat loses weight, it improves the flavour and tenderness.” Curing in a bag, he says, makes the meat “a little sour”.

Despite sticking to some age-old traditions, Rhug is also a prime example of progressive farming. A herd of primordial looking bison is the latest addition to the estate. “That was a bit of madness really,’ says Lord Newborough. “I drove past some in Sussex and thought, ‘I must have them’.”

But the softly-spoken aristocrat adds firmly: “No buffalo for us – I am loyal to the bison and cows.” www.rhug.co.uk

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60 Sheep Farming in Style

Fresh Spring Leg of Lamb ★★ Glam Lamb ‘Glamorous’ may not be the first word that springs to mind when you think about sheep farming, but seventh generation farmer John Davies begs to differ. With ‘Glam Lamb’, he’s not just referring to the Vale of Glamorgan, home to his 250-acre farm, but also to the immense pride he takes in what he does. “Everything we sell we lamb, rear and process ourselves. It’s not by chance we won an award. We’re at the top of our game. That’s glamorous.”

She’s a Jammy Thing

Raspberry and Cassis Conserve ★★ Angharad’s Anglesey Farm Foods An old wine, spirits and beer recipe book of her father-in-law’s provided the inspiration for Angharad Holmes to start making her own Anglesey cassis using organic blackcurrants grown on the farm. Most goes into raspberry jam – it really lifts the flavour, says Angharad, but she adds: “It’s nice to drink too!” Try it on scones with her farmhouse salted butter. Angharard makes all her preserves herself in batches no larger than 2kg.

Other awards: Penmynydd Piccalilli ★ www.angleseyfarmfoods.com

Earning Brownie Points

Chocolate and Cranberry Brownie ★★★ Blas Y Ffrwd Margaret Morgan was inspired to create her chocolate & cranberry brownies by a friend with coeliac disease who wanted gluten-free treats that “others around her table might enjoy too. Rather than try out new recipes on her friend, Margaret prefers to check her cakes pass muster with those who don’t need to go wheat-free, including her harshest critics – her children. “If they say ‘there’s something funny about these’, I know I have to start again!”

www.glamlamb.co.uk

Other awards: Spelt & Oatmeal Biscuits ★

Starstruck Puddings Sticky Toffee Pudding ★ Anne’s Patisserie Anne and James Elwood were thrilled to win a gold star for their sticky toffee pudding as that gives them a gong for each one of their sticky puds (last year’s award-winning ginger and chocolate varieties being the others). The Elwoods’ patisserie business started life in their three-bed semi near Mold in 2003. For five years they managed there before “icing sugar everywhere” persuaded them to move to a production unit. Specialities are dinner party desserts, restaurant-style pastry and celebration cakes. www.annespatisserie.co.uk

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

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61

Wales ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

Chocs Away

Rhug Estate

Siocled Sarah Bunton Chocolates

Sirloin of Beef ★★★

Rhug Estate’s sirloin of beef is on the menu at Hong Kong’s five star Mandarin Oriental Hotel. In other words, not only is it benchmark beef at home, but its reputation has spread to the other side of the world. Rhug Estate owner Lord Newborough ascribes his beef’s global renown to organic farming, grass feeding, hanging on the bone for 28 days and a stress-free existence for his stock, even on abattoir day.

Other awards: Salt Marsh Lamb ★★, Pork Rack ★★, Gammon ★ www.rhugorganic.com

Amaretto Swirl ★

ite on had some wh en Sarah Bunt ain she hired nt fou te It all started wh ola oc over from a ch arched on chocolate left waste it, she se s. Rather than d up for ne sig en th , out for wedding up e it ck. Her a mould to us ba for d t ke ne er loo ’t Int e sn th ha ing course and Caban, Y ak m fé, teca s’ ola nt oc re a ch r pa s sells from he es sin bu g lin fledg etto yth. Her Amar near Aberystw l, made of ra atu -n all e Swirls ar d, m, Amaretto an chocolate, crea er, that’s it. colates.co.uk www.sarahcho

Down on the Farm Welsh Shoulder Bacon ★★ Neuadd Fach Baconry

Gelato Bello

Cappriccino Goats Milk Gelato ★★ Lovespoon Goat’s Milk Gelato Jo Knight calls this creation “cappuccino in frozen form”. She should know – she learned ice cream making at an artisan gelateria in Bologna, eschewing stabilisers and flavour pastes. Her gelato is Italian-style, using milk not cream, and should be served at a slightly warmer temperature “so you’re not literally freezing your taste buds!”

It’s appropriate that the goats’ milk Cappriccino won an award as, according to Ethiopian legend it was a goat herder, Kaldi, who discovered coffee.

Other awards: Lemon Grove Goats Milk Gelato ★, Turkish Delight Goats Milk Gelato ★ www.lovespoongelato.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

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The happy atmosphere at Neuadd Fach farm is one of the secrets to Lynda Brown’s dry-cured bacon. Husband Ithyl is in charge of rearing the pigs and prides himself on mixing all their meal himself and producing a high quality carcass.

Workers at the baconry often help out at the farm to see both sides of the story. Just 10 pigs are processed a week.

“This is a small farm, not a factory,” says Lynda.

Other awards: Welsh Shoulder Bacon - Thin Cut ★ www.baconry.co.uk

Wales

World Beating Beef

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Wales ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

Now There’s a Catch

Ales From The Hills Ramblers Ruin ★★

Smoked Mackerel Fillets ★★

The Breconshire Brewery As any rambler knows, all that walking in the beautiful hills of the Brecon Beacons soon works up an appetite. Ramblers Ruin is a superb thirst-slaker and is, as head brewer Buster Grant observes, “disturbingly easy to drink for a 5%”. This is a modern take on an old ale – dark amber in colour with a malty undertone and good balance of hops.

Founded in 2002, the brewery makes ‘ales from the heart of Wales’.

Llandudno Smokery Llandudno Smokery selects only larger sized North Sea mackerel for cooking and smoking. That’s what keeps the flesh so moist and the flavour so delicate – quite unlike the dark, heavily smoked, dried-out specimens that sometimes pass for this true British classic. Sea bass, haddock, kippers, trout and salmon are also smoked over Welsh oak at this smokehouse for a delicate but distinctive smoked flavour.

Catch them at delis in Wales and at Selfridges in London.

Other awards: Slow roasted smoked salmon ★★, Smoked duck ★ www.llandudnosmokery.co.uk

Other awards: Golden Valley ★ www.breconshirebrewery.com

Good With Fish Dill Sauce ★

Welsh Lady Preserves The name’s a red herring. Of Marion and Dio Jones, the husband-and-wife team that has been making sauces and preserves under the Welsh Lady banner for close to 50 years, it’s husband Dio who’s the whizz in the kitchen.

“He says it’s not what’s in them, it’s the way he mixes them,” says Marion. Their new dill sauce is a light, creamy concoction that makes a good accompaniment to fish.

Other awards: Ginger Preserve ★, Wholegrain Mustard with Leeks ★ www.welshladypreserves.com

Looking for great tasting food & drink?

Search for your nearest deli, farm shop or food hall online www.britainsbestdelis.co.uk

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

63

Celebrity Recipes Peppered rump of Elwy Valley lamb with flageolets

Chef: Henry Harris

Serves 4

Chef: Sat Bains Restaurant Sat Bains with Rooms, Nottingham.

Chocolate cre am -

cobnut oil - toa st -

sea salt. 10 portions Chocolate crea m 250g cream, 25 0g milk, 250g chocolate prefe original beans rably Cru Virunga, 10 0g egg yolks Bring the milk , cream and eg g yolks up to 86 o over chocolate C, pour and emulsify.

Leave to cool.

Cobnut Oil Jelly 180g cobnut oil , 100g water, 50 g sugar, 100g 25g glucose, 1.5 isomalt, leaves of bron ze gelatine Bring the water and the sugars to the boil, add gelatine and slo the wly emulsify wi th the oil (as if making a may you were onnaise), leave to set.

Sweet Toast Thinly slice so me granary br ead from froze with melted bu n, brush tter and sprinkle wi sugar. Bake in the oven at 16 o th sea salt and a little 0 C for 6 minu and golden. (1 tes until crisp slice per porti on) You will also ne ed: Roast and crus hed cobnuts, Or ganic sea salt To Finish Spoon a quen elle of the choc olate cream jus on a plate. Top t off centre with some crus hed cobnuts, a of sea salt and few grains a couple of sli ces of the swee Spoon a little of t toast. the cobnut oil jelly (about a th size of the choc ird of the olate cream) int o some caster shake off the ex sugar, cess and place next to the choc cream. Drizzle olate with a little co bnut oil and se rve. www.restauran tsatbains.com

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4 Elwy Valley lamb rumps 4 tsp coarse cracked pepper 3tbs vegetable oil 100gms unsalted butter 50ml brandy 100ml lamb stock 100ml veal stock Preheat an oven to 50oC. Trim the fat and sinew from the surface of the lamb rumps.

Press a teaspoonful of cracked pepper into the flat surface of each rump. Then and only then season with salt.

Heat the vegetable oil in a large wide pan and place in the lamb pepper side down. Fry over a medium heat to form a good crust. Turn over and lower the heat. After one minute tip out the oil and add the butter. Allow to foam up and go a light brown but no further. Cook for about ten minutes basting frequently.

Then add the brandy and cook off the alcohol.

Add the stock and bring to a gentle simmer. Remove the lamb and keep warm in the oven whilst letting it rest for ten to fifteen minutes.

Keep the sauce to one side and when the time arrives to serve the lamb bring it to the boil and reduce to a light syrup-like consistency. Check the seasoning.

Put a generous spoonful of the flageolets on each plate.

Take the lamb and slice each rump into 3 or 4 pieces and arrange on top. Spoon over the sauce.

The Flageolets Serves 8

750g flageolets, soaked overnight in plenty of water, or use 4 tins flageolet beans and omit the bean cooking stage 1 carrots 1 onion 1 leek 2 celery sticks 6 garlic cloves, finely chopped large sprig of rosemary 750ml whipping cream Strain the beans and place in a large saucepan, cover with plenty of water, bring to the boil and remove the scum. Lower the heat and simmer for anything from one to two hours, it really does depend on the vintage of your beans. Drain the beans and keep warm.

In a separate pan, heat all the other ingredients, season well with salt and pepper and simmer for 10 minutes.

Add this mixture to the beans, stir well and heat through.

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Celebrity Recipies

Racine, London. www.racine-restaurant.com

64

Best Irish Speciality Smoked Silver Hill Duck - Ummera Smoked Products

Oak smoke and romance

An idyllic corner of west Cork is home to Anthony Cresswell’s award-winning artisan smokery

“We made the decision that as wild salmon wasn’t sustainable we’d opt out”

“A

h, it’s a beautiful day today,” says Anthony Cresswell, owner of Ummera, an artisan smokehouse nestled in a rural sliver of West Cork in Ireland. “I’ve just come back from Kilbrittain and it’s glorious.”

It’s plummeting down in Blighty, but it’s not only the unusually dry weather that Anthony is celebrating across the Irish Sea. “Cork is the cornerstone of Irish gastronomy,” he says.

Near-neighbours include Gubbeen Cheese, Darina Allen’s cookery school at Ballymaloe and numerous acclaimed smokeries.

As we talk, four slow-growing Gloucester Old Spot pigs are snuffling around in the grass

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outside his office, and its clear Anthony has chosen an idyll many a city-dweller can only hanker after. The name Ummera alone has deliciously romantic connotations. “It’s the name of the townland [a smaller version of a parish] that included my parents’ house, overlooking the Argideen River,” says the fish,

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meat and game smoking virtuoso.

“The word means a ridge or cliff in Irish.”

Anthony spent much of his career in the wine trade but packed up his spittoon and Riedel glasses for the good life in the 1990s. “The wine world changed so much,” he recalls. “When I was in London, we’d have regular tastings of

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seriously good wine. That would be a great challenge now. But we try to do the same thing here – produce quality with passion.”

It was serendipity that spawned Ummera.

In the Sixties, Anthony’s father, Keith Cresswell, had a chicken business in Essex. The prospect of launching another chicken company in Ireland meant he moved the family there, but then Harold Wilson’s credit squeeze ensued and his investors pulled out. “We were in effect marooned, abandoned here,” remembers Anthony. His father started smoking the salmon he caught with friends and by the early Seventies Ummera was born.

Since then, it has grown into an acclaimed smokehouse-cum-online gourmet food shop. Anthony is not surprised that his latest addition, Silverhill oak smoked duck, picked up three gold stars at this

year’s Great Taste awards. “We did an initial test smoke of duck breasts from Silver Hill Ducklings in County Monaghan back in July 2009. In November 2009 we tasted it with some wine lovers who attended the Cork Wine Show, and such was the reaction we knew we had something very special.”

Silverhill oak smoked duck has gone on to be named Best Irish Speciality – good news for a business that, despite its idyllic location, has not been without its challenges. The collapse of wild salmon stocks has had a tragic effect on all Irish smokers. “In 2002 we started doing mainly organic farmed fish,” says Anthony, “and by 2006, we realised there was a real problem with wild stocks and gave up the wild salmon all together.

We made the decision that as it wasn’t sustainable we’d opt out.”

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Yet thanks to his entrepreneurial spirit, he has expanded into other delicacies – among them smoked eel, gravadlax and smoked dry cured bacon – as well as selling award-winning organic farmed salmon from the Clare Island Seafarm, off the coast of Mayo, until wild stocks recover. With such challenges in mind, does he not miss the wine trade? Not at all, it seems. “I still pull plenty of corks!” www.ummera.com

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66 All in the Family

Beef Fillet Steak ★★ Alfie Murray Family Butchers Alfie Murray Jnr took over this 42-year-old County Down butchers from Alfie Snr eight years ago.

The latter still keeps an eye on the business and the pair hand-pick every animal from Ballymena Livestock Market. Their 21-day aged beef is Limousin or Charolais, lesser-known breeds that bring in customers from as many as 100 miles away ‘even in lean times’. You are advised to book your fillet 10 days ahead – it’s that popular.

Other awards: Chicken Fillet Pie ★, Sirloin of Beef Steak ★★, Rib Roast ★

An American in Ireland

Banana Walnut Loaf Cake ★★ All Things Nice When chef Elissa O’Donoghue moved to Co Wexford from Chicago, rather than looking for a job, she went into business making cakes for cafés and restaurants.

She did what she knew and loved: American-style baking such as her banana walnut loaf packed so full of fresh fruit “you don’t have to feel guilty about eating it”. “Seeing the change in food in Ireland since I first came here in 1998 has been so exciting,” she says.

Other awards: Roasted Tomato, Goat Cheese & Pesto Tart ★ www.atn.ie

The Grass is Greener

Tipperary Brie ★★★ Cooleeney Farmhouse Even for fourth generation cheese-makers like the Maher family of Cooleeney Cheese, making a brie still presented a challenge.

“The main thing was it had to be a cheese in its own right.” says Breda Maher. “A ‘me too’ cheese is never any good.” Her Tipperary Brie – available in Ireland from Superquinn – fits the bill. It’s full flavoured and buttery, thanks to the famously green, green grass on which her dairy cows graze.

Other awards: Gleann Oir ★★, SQ Gortnamona ★★, SQ Cooleeney ★ www.cooleeney.com

Swedish Fish

Burren Smoked Honey, Whiskey & Fennel Marinated Irish Organic Salmon ★★ Burren Smokehouse Call it a culinary cultural exchange. Birgitta Curtin, the Swedish co-owner of Co. Clare’s Burren Smokehouse since 1989, cites gravadlax as the inspiration for this Irish salmon cure. Substituting honey for sugar and fronds of fresh fennel for dill, hers is a contemporary Irish riff on the Scandinavian classic (although honey was actually used for fish preservation in Ireland in times long gone by). This one is marinated for six hours then cold-smoked for the best part of a day.

Other awards: Burren Hot Smoked Irish Organic Salmon with Honey, Lemon & Dill ★★, Bureen Smoked Halibut ★★ www.burrensmokehouse.ie

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TASTE GOLD 2010-11

67

Ireland ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

The Brothers McErlain

Genesis Bread / McErlain’s Bakery With the six McErlain brothers now running the family bakery in Co Londonderry (est.1968), there’s a fierce panel of critics to get past before anything hits the shelves. Notice the warm yellow colour of their hand-rolled, triangular cut scones; this is the telltale sign of the 100% Irish butter that goes into the recipe. The McErlains still do everything by hand and until the day a machine can match the taste and texture of handmade, they’re sticking to their roots.

Other awards: Superquinn SQ Apricot & Raisin Speciality Fruit Bread ★ www.genesisbreads.com

Kilcrea Gold Manuka Honey ★★★ Healys Honey ‘Manuka’ is a label that’s snuck onto honey jars and pots of beauty cream in recent years but for Healy’s Honey, not all manuka honeys are made equal. It buys direct from a beekeepers’ cooperative on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island – historical Maori land where manuka (tea tree) flowers flourish. Many other manuka honeys, it says, are blends and therefore low in the anti-bacterial and antioxidant agents for which pure manuka honey is revered. www.healyshoney.ie

Cherry Aid

Forest Feast Dark Chocolate Sour Cherries ★★ Kestrel Foods A little bit of luxury goes a long way in a recession. Kestrel Foods, a dried fruit & nut specialist, conceived these sour cherries dipped in dark Belgian chocolate as a ‘handbag snack’, something to stash in a desk drawer until ‘chocolate o’clock’. The cherries inside are real fruit as opposed to the freeze-dried stuff in some confectionery. You could consider them one of your fivea-day, but that’s a bit naughty, isn’t it?

Other awards: Forest Feast Milk Chocolate Mango ★ www.forestfeast.com

Getting Their Goats’ Milk Goats Milk Ice Cream ★★★ Mullins Ice Cream The Mullins have been making pure dairy Jersey ice cream in Kilrea, Northern Ireland, since 1954. Last year, for the first time, in response to growing consumer demand, they made a goats’ milk variety. The only challenge was finding a vanilla to complement the distinctive natural flavour of goats’ milk, but after much trying and testing they were satisfied, and so were the Great Taste Awards judges – they named this Best Speciality from Northern Ireland for 2010.

Other awards: Pistachio Ice Cream ★★, Rich Chocolate Sorbet ★★, Prosecco ★ www.mullins-icecream.com

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

Ireland

Genesis Crafty Double Butter & Sultana Scone ★★

Super Manuka

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Best Speciality from Northern Ireland Ballybleat goats’ milk ice cream with vanilla - Mullins Ice Cream

Pride of Kilrea

Half a century after their parents started the family ice cream shop, the Mullins brothers have topped Northern Ireland’s foodie charts

E

very kid loves ice cream, but brothers Walter and Colm Mullin have been surrounded by the stuff since they were in their cradles. Their parents started the family ice cream business at the back of their village shop in Kilrea, Co Londonderry, in 1954, and since Walter and Colm took charge in 1980 they’ve transformed it into a 2 million litres-a-year operation.

And last year, to satisfy the growing number of lactose intolerant consumers, they whipped up their first goat’s milk ice-cream, Ballybleat.

An estimated one in nine of the UK population – that’s around six million people – are either lactose-intolerant or are advised to avoid cow’s milk. But Walter

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

says you don’t need a dietary reason to try Ballybleat Vanilla.

“It’s rich and creamy, like cow’s milk ice cream, and our fat content is still 10 per cent. It’s genuinely delicious.”

The Great Taste Awards judges clearly agree, because Ballybleat was one of the delicacies sampled during this year’s final judging at Fortnum & Mason, where it was named Best Speciality from Northern Ireland.

For its regular Jersey cows’ milk ice cream, Mullins generally sources milk from a single farm, based just eight miles away. Finding the goats’ milk has proved more of a challenge.

“There aren’t enough goats,” says Walter, “so we’re using several farms.”

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“You must have good ingredients, good storage and good handling – and we have all three”

The key to this winning ice cream is the time taken over the production process.

“We’re not a very small business, but we’re not so big either, so we can focus on batches,” says Walter. “We let our ice creams age over night so the flavours develop. You must have good ingredients, good storage and good handling – and we have all three.”

Radical flavour combos have become de rigueur in the ice-cream world – take for example, the Mexican chilli chocolate variety created by Jude’s Ice Cream for Thomasina Miers’ restaurant Wahaca, or Welsh ice cream queen Morfudd Richards’ black gelato made from squid ink. And the Mullins brothers are not averse to stretching the boundaries – for example, developing a range of ice cream cakes after picking the idea up in Italy.

Walter took two of the company’s staff to a flavour house in the Bologna region to develop the necessary new skills with help from ice cream expert Marco Congedo.

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The brothers look both east and west for inspiration while keeping an Irish take on it all. “In Italy we look for the flavours you find in gelati,” says Walter, “and in America we pick up on the luxuriousness and fat content in the likes of Ben & Jerry’s. We travel a lot, but it’s always so nice to come back.”

And it’s the verdant wet pastures of home that mean Mullins ice cream boasts a richness that rivals, both east and west, can only wish for. www.mullins-icecream.com

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

70 Seafood and Eat It Seafood Chowder ★★

The Blue Haven Food Company The signature dish at the Blue Haven Hotel in Kinsale’s modern Irish restaurant is seafood chowder. So popular is it, the Blue Haven Food Company was created in September 2009 to launch it along with other specialities on the retail market.

It’s an indulgent chowder packed with salmon, cod and smoked haddock with white wine and a good splash of cream. The offer now includes signature seafood, grocery and bakery ranges. Available throughout Southern Ireland. www.bluehavenfoodco.com

University Challenge

Their WhBeaetaetnen!

Can’t BeRustic

White Chocolate & Hazelnut Digestive ★★

O’Donnell’s Wheaten ★

Nutritious Nibbles

Young entrepreneur and part-time cook Rebecca Smyth has wasted no time since graduating in sport and nutrition from Glasgow University. Though part way through an MSc in culinary innovation, she’s already in business selling her gluten-free biscuits at Carlow Farmers Market. Her hazelnut digestives, coconut kisses and French macaroons are to be enjoyed by everybody, even those not on restricted diets.

Other awards: Hazelnut Digestive ★★, Cinnamon & Raisin ★★ www.nutritiousnibbles.ie

ry O’Donnell’s Bake

ek Inn on the cliffs The Smuggler’s Cre rlooking Donegal ove h lag ow ssn Ro in s family bakery ell’ onn O’D ed ask Bay tic wheaten rus a e bak to 69) (est.19 pub’s the nt me ple com bread to This being seafood chowder. food’s taken Donegal, where sea ting the right very seriously, get O’Donnells got bread was no trifle. e up with a dark, cam and ng cki cra “something your malty wheaten like liked ke”. Aldi tried it and ma uld wo ma grand . too it l sel now y it so the

The Garden’s the Secret Irish Herb Sausages ★ Stewarts Butchers Thirty-year-old Northern Ireland family butcher Stewarts of Enniskillen does a nice new line in sausages thanks to the green-fingered daughter of the family, Aisling McDwyer. Aisling, the deli manager, took herself on an organic gardening course last year and has since planted all manner of herbs, including chives, sage, rosemary and thyme,in a new organic patch at the back of the premises. Expect more flavours as Aisling’s garden grows.

Other awards: Pork, Leek & Mustard Sausages ★, Home-cooked Honey Roast Ham ★

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TASTE GOLD 2010-11

71

Ireland ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

Duck Tales

Ummera Smoked Siver Hill Duck Breast ★★★ Ummera Smoked Products

Mushroom Magic Stuffed Mushrooms with Garlic and Cream Cheese ★★ Unimush Ireland Someone once said that life’s too short to stuff a mushroom. They didn’t say anything about getting other people to stuff mushrooms for us, so give a big hand to Unimush’s Mushroom House label for doing the fiddly work.

Its ultra-fresh, local mushrooms are hand-stuffed with cream cheese, garlic and parsley then topped with garlic butter breadcrumbs and Irish cheddar. The result: a restaurantquality starter for those days when you can’t justify eating out.

Other awards: Stuffed mushrooms with cheddar, Sundried Tomato & Onion★ www.unimushireland.com

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

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The Call of the Wild Wild Smoked Salmon ★★★ Woodcock Smokery Sally Barnes set up this artisan smokery three decades ago.

Daughter Joleine now runs the show but has inherited Sally’s perfectionist approach. Their wild Scottish salmon (they won’t touch farmed) is oak-smoked for some 24 hours. “You can’t rush it.” The same goes when serving it. Joleine’s bête noire is fridge-cold fish. “Give it 24 hours at room temperature. It takes that long for all the oils to come out.”

Other awards: Hot Smoked Mackerel ★, Hot Smoked Albacore Tuna ★ www.woodcocksmokery.com

Ireland

(itself many ’s Silver Hill Foods It was Co Monaghan initially o wh ) ner Award win about times a Great Taste Ummera smokery s rk’ Co st We d approache ck breast. The du ry rba -Ba kin smoking its Pe at a wine t batches sampled reaction to the firs to Ummera’s ing ord acc ” ng azi tasting was “so am ck went into that the smoked du Anthony Creswell ive people ens exp so s “It’ . t day production the nex e, the reaction onc n eve it try t if they often pass it by bu is just ‘wow!’” m www.ummera.co

72

Celebrity Recipes Grilled seabass with watercress, bacon and barley with cobnut oil & damson dressing Serves 4

Chef: Silvena Rowe Quince at The Mayfair, London opening Spring 2011

k with Buffalo stea in remoulade tahini & cum fillet steak 4 x 2 g buffalo in yoghurt pla z) (5o 0g 15 2 tbsp tahini ushed 1 clove garlic cr cumin 1/2 tsp ground juice of 1 lemon huan pepper rsley 1/2 teaspoon Sic ped flat-leaf pa op ch 1 tablespoon kins er gh d pe op 1 tablespoon ch opped capers 1 teaspoon ch lemon c , cumin and urt, tahini, garli ly. Add the gh ou or th r Combine yogh ethe and whisk tog wl bo a in ce jui r well. redients and sti remaining ing d then y griddle pan an av ak, heat a he nding on how pe de tes To cook the ste inu Cook for 4/5 m it well done. add the steaks. ger if you like ak cooked, lon ste d ur an yo e ini lik tah u e yo th accompaned by Serve the steak e. cumin remoulad Serves 4

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Chef: Oliver Rowe Freelance chef and writer

4 medium fillets of seabass ½ cup raw barley 1 stick of celery cut into rough chunks 2 cloves garlic 1 bay leaf 4 slices of dry-cured, unsmoked streaky bacon 3 handfuls of roughly picked watercress - some stem remaining Juice of ½ a lemon Olive oil Salt and pepper 3 tablespoons of cobnut oil 2 tablespoons of damson or blackberry puree ½ teaspoon Dijon mustard A pinch of fresh thyme leaves, chopped.

Soak the barley in cold water for about 20 minutes. Strain and place in a saucepan with 1 clove of garlic, the celery and the bay leaf and plenty of fresh, cold, salted water on a high heat. Skim off any scum that is released as the barley approaches the boil.

Bring to the boil and cook until tender, remembering that it will become slightly firmer as it cools. Strain and run under cold water.

Cut the bacon into 5mm strips and fry until crispy. Remove from the pan and leave to cool on a plate covered in kitchen paper.

Make the dressing for the salad with the lemon juice, salt and olive oil to taste. The lemon should come through but not enough to catch the back of the throat.

Crush the other clove of garlic in a pestle and mortar with a good pinch of salt and mix in the mustard, the damson, the thyme and the cobnut oil. Add pepper and taste - the two main flavours, the oil and the damson, should both come through. Adjust if necessary. Don’t worry if the dressing doesn’t emulsify, it’s not supposed to. This is now ready to serve and is to be drizzled onto the fish.

Season the fish fillets with oil, salt and pepper and cook, skin side first on a really hot griddle pan – or over charcoal if barbequing – until just cooked through. This shouldn’t take much more than three or four minutes on each side and you can tell when it’s ready when the flesh has just lost its transparency.

Don’t cook it any more than is needed.

Whilst the fish is cooking, get everyone seated, mix the barley with the bacon and the watercress, dress it with the lemon dressing and serve as soon as the seabass is ready.

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

73

World Flavours ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

Just Take Five

Choi Time Tea

Bart Spices

White Silver Needles★★

The Chinese have a saying about tea, says Choi Time’s Melissa Choi. “The first cup you give away; the second you keep for yourself; the third is for the emperor; the fourth for your wife; the fifth for the servants.” With rare white silver needles tea, “the lady of all teas”, you may want it all to yourself. Made from the very tips of the leaf, this pale golden tea comes from the Fujian Province.

Other awards: Jasmine Green Tea Pearls ★ www.choitime.com

Bristol Blend 5 Pepper ★ The name pays tribute to Bart Spice’s hometown of Bristol, but the blend itself is rather more exotic. Five types of peppers – green, white, black, pink and pimento – come together in one handy refillable grinder, providing a colourful mix that’ll add pep to roasts, shepherd’s pie and sauces.

Converts to this pretty, speckled seasoning swear they’ll never go back. www.bartspices.com

In The Family Way

Panettone Gran Milanese ★★★ Fine Italian Foods

The Bonifanti family in Piedmont has been baking panettone since 1932. The natural yeast used in their baking goes back even further, however, to the nineteenth century. Four generations on, Lorenzo Bonifanti, sticks with tradition, baking for just four months of the year and proving the panettone three times before they’re baked. Turkish sultanas and Sicilian candied peel are further marks of quality. Available at Marks & Spencer.

Other awards: Piemontese Grissini ★★, Croute d’Or with Rosemary ★★, Italian Carnerollo White Rice ★★, Truffle & Porcini Triangle Fresh Pasta ★★, Croute d’Or with Sesame Seeds ★, Grilled Artichoke ★, Anchovies in Olive Oil ★, Seafood Salad ★, Robiola Cheese ★ www.fineitalianfoods.co.uk

Pick a Peck of Pickled Pepper Franks RedHot Chile n Lime ★ Bespoke Foods

The Original Franks RedHot Cayenne Pepper Sauce originated in Louisiana in 1920, but truly found its form further north in 1964 when it was the ‘secret ingredient’ in the original Buffalo Wings recipe in Buffalo, New York. The secret’s out now. It has since been followed by other hot sauces including the Chile ’n’ Lime version in 2003, which was developed in response to a growing demand for Mexican food. www.bespoke-foods.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

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World Flavours

One for the Pot...

74 Turning Over a New Leaf Bai Lin Gong Fu Black Tea ★★★ Canton Tea Company

Thanks to a family friend in the Taiwan tea trade, Jennifer Wood had been drinking high grade China tea for 20 years before she realised how lucky she was to get hold of it. She started Canton Tea as a “little website” selling “a bit of tea”. Only then did she discover the labyrinthine world she was getting into it. She now employs a full-time buyer (and tea master’s apprentice) with privileged access to the best farms. Direct sourcing and minimal packaging helps keep her prestigious teas affordable.

Other awards: Ali Shan High Mountain Oolong Tea ★★, Jasmine Pearls Tea ★★, Meng Ding Huang Ya Yellow Tea ★, Pouchong Green Tea ★, Vietnomese Loose Puerh Tea ★, Silver Needle White Tea ★, Phoenix Honey orchid Oolong Tea ★ www.cantonteaco.com

Tea-total Digest ★

Blessed Tea Brighton-based homeopathic healer Nicki Hutchinson married her day job with her enthusiasm for tea and – voilà! – Blessed Tea was born. Her cooling, soothing Digest blend, a mix of spearmint, marshmallow, licorice and peppermint (with not a single leaf of black tea to pad out the natural herbs), is designed for post-prandial consumption. We’re reliably informed it works wonders if you’ve overindulged. www.blessedtea.com

Inspired by the Groves

Quinta Vale Gourmet Blend Single Estate EVO ★★ Joaquim Santos Lima, LDA Olive oil has been produced on the Santos Lima family estate in Portugal for four centuries but the family only began bottling it under their own label in 2004. Two olive varieties go into the balanced, complex Gourmet Blend (namely arbequina and conbrancosa) which is now stocked by Fortnum & Mason. Literature buffs will be interested to know the house on the label was once the home of Portugese writer Alexandre Herculano. www.valedelobos.com

You Should Cocoa

Valrhona Celaya Hot Chocolate ★★★ Classic Fine Foods UK

Say nighty night to your usual mug of cocoa. Valrhona’s ready-to-drink Celaya Hot Chocolate is made using the upscale French brand’s ‘Mariage de Grands Crus’ chocolate. You can drink it hot – mais oui – or try it cold, in a cocktail if you like. This is faff-free, no-burntmilk-pan chocolate. Ready to pour and reheat, it has a 10-month shelf life.

Other awards: Alain Milliat Mango Necta ★★, Bordier Seaweed Butter ★★, Bordier Smoked Sea Salt Butter ★★, Varhona Equinoxe Gianduja ★★, Alain Milliat Vine Necta ★, Valrhona Manjari Bar ★, SJ Sliced Iberian Ham ★, Bordier Yuzu Butter ★ www.classicfinefoods.co.uk

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TASTE GOLD 2010-11

75

World Flavours ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

World Flavours

Bagging The Best Tea Novus Egyptian Mint ★★ Novus tea Those ‘dust teabags’ so many of us unthinkingly dunk in a mug of builders’ tea are anathema to Novus. Bad bags produce cloudy tea and unwanted flavours, it says.

Novus put its best loose teas inside chic pyramid infusers resulting in brews of exceptional clarity (you’ll see to the bottom of the cup). This Egyptian mint tea is popular among chefs, including the double Michelin-starred John Campbell – who even cooks with it.

Other awards: Novus English Breakfast ★ www.novustea.co.uk

A King Among Biscuits

Tortas De Aceite ★★★

Delicioso UK

These sugared olive oil biscuits flavoured with aniseed and sesame are a Seville speciality and are delicious with a cup of coffee. Handmade in the traditional way only with high oleic acid sunflower oil in the mix along with the usual olive, these are lighter and more to the modern taste than most. Their makers, Upita De Los Reyes, are a small family business. Their UK agents, Delicioso UK, now sell them on Amazon.

Other awards: Cecina De Leon ★★★, Chorizo Longaniza de Iberica ★★, Iberico de Bellota Ham ★, Oak Smoked Cooking Chorizo ★, Salsa Ali-oli ★, Gran Seleccion Compage Blend EV Olive Oil ★, Mahon Curado ★ www.delicioso.co.uk

An Ideal World Kalamata Olive Oil ★ Friedrich J. Blauel In the old days you’d have called Friedrich Bläuel ‘right on’. Arriving in the Greek Peloponnese in the 1970s, he pioneered organic farming in the region. He now employs 30 local families and has 500 contract olive farmers producing Protected Designation of Origin Kalamata oil. Respect for its consumers and producers is at the heart of the company. which now runs a holistic seminar centre, sponsors the education of four Nepalese children and is generates all its own energy.

Other awards: Kalamta Olives ★ www.windmillorganics.com

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

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This year’s finest food & drink judged by the experts

76 The Pick of the Plantation

Qi Organic Fairtrade Golden Vanilla Tea ★★ Herbal Health

Qi (pronounced ‘chee’) differs from other tea companies in dealing directly with the farmers in China – no traders, no middlemen. This gives full control of the finished product, from the bushes chosen for picking through to the packing. Qi’s organic golden vanilla tea is a black tea which, unusually, uses the smaller leafed tea normally used for white and green teas. A hint of caramel brings out its natural sweetness.

Other awards: Qi Organic Fairtrade White & Spicy Tea ★ www.qi-teas.com

A slice of Italy Tuscan Pancetta ★★ Mediterranean Direct

Mediterranean Direct’s cured Italian salumi and hams come from the Gelli family‘s business near San Gimignano, Tuscany. Eighty-year-old Signor Gelli may officially have retired but he can’t keep away. The recipes have been passed from generation to generation, including the method for this peppered pancetta with its good balance of fat and meat. It shines in simple recipes where quality is key: think amatriciana or classic spaghetti carbonara.

Other awards: Riccosa Chocolates ★, Tuscan Extra Virgin olive oil ★, Green Pesto with truffle ★, Balsamic Vinegar ★, Parmigiano Reggiano PDO 30 months ★★, Linguine Pasta ★, Bucatina Pasta ★, Truffle honey ★, Truffle Balsamic Vinegar ★ www.mediterraneandirect.co.uk

A Bit of Bulli Ferran Adria Olive Oil with Black Olives ★ J R Watkins UK Known simultaneously as the mad scientist and the Salvador Dali of the culinary world, Ferran Adrià of El Bulli (voted the World’s Best Restaurant in 2009), closes his restaurant for six months each year to develop new ideas at his Barcelona workshop. This olive oil is one of them.

Unique in that it contains fresh black olives (without the use of preservatives), it’s used wherever you’d use olives – on a pizza, say, or over simply grilled fish. www.watkinsproducts.co.uk

Purist Bar-65% Dark 120hr Conch Rabot Estate, Saint Lucia ★ Hotel Chocolat

British chocolatier and cocoa grower Hotel Chocolat is on a mission to de-snob fine chocolate and make top grade cocoa accessible to all. Its new seven-strong Purist ‘rare and vintage’ range, available in 35g and 70g bars and with a multibuy deal on three bars, includes the likes of this ‘punchy’, flavoursome Rabot Estate chocolate with its notes of oaked wine and spices.

The agreeable new ‘dash of milk’ style falls midway between dark and milk. Other awards: House Dark 65% Island Growers, Saint Lucia ★★, Smudge Chocolate & Hazelnut Spread ★★, House Dark 70% made with Ghanain Beans ★, House Milk 50% Chocolate ★, 50% Dash of Milk Intense Pralines ★ www.hotelchocolat.co.uk

www.greattasteawards.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

77

World Flavours ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

La Vida Local o

Newby Imperial Jasmine ★★★ Newby Teas

Romanic Almonds ★★★ Agroles

work of 5,000 , Agroles is the Founded in 1982 lley, producing Va ro Eb s ia’ on : farmers in Catal ds. Its mission ars and almon n and the olive oils, vineg gio re the t ou word ab spreading the ard-winning diet. Agroles’ aw Mediterranean They are the s. or ad ss eat amba almonds are gr talonia and Ca to us ty, indigeno rcona – all the Largueta varie Ma n tter shape tha the Romanica with a longer, fla of s ur rbing the flavo better for abso oil. ★ Arbequina olive ★★ EVO Tagornar EVO Romanico : ds ar aw r he Ot m www.agroles.co

We’re only beginning to scratch the surface when it comes to Chinese tea, believes Newby’s Edward Berry. “The levels and qualities of tea there are exceptional. Sadly, we don’t often see the best.”

Newby’s Imperial Jasmine from Hunan features green tea infused five times with jasmine then hand-rolled into pearls.

“There’s a wonderful visual aspect to it,” says Edward. “The twist and shapes play an important part. The Chinese love to look at it as well as to drink it.”

Other awards: English Breakfast ★, Kaziranga Caddy ★, Gir Caddy ★, Hakunda Caddy ★, Kailash Caddy ★, Indian Breakfast ★, Rosehip & Hibiscus ★, Jasmine Blossom ★★, Fujian Oolong ★, White Peony ★, Jasmine Monkey ★★, Green Sanguinello ★★ www.newbyteas.com

Hive Mind

Pine and Fir Tree Honey ★★

Odysea

An apiculture superstar in his native Greece, Alexandros Gousiaris’s passion is bees. When he’s not transporting his hives around the country, 120 at a time over six nights without a break, he’s lecturing on the subject. Each summer he takes his hives into the mountains to make his pine & fir honey for Odysea. It’s a vitamin-rich honey, made not just with nectar but with honeydew, the sticky substance secreted by aphids.

Other awards: Green Olives with Lemon and Extra Virgin Olive Oil ★★, Iliada Exclusive Selection EVO, produced by Agrovim Greece ★, Iliada Kalamata EVO produced by Agrovim, Greece ★, Red Saffron & Sage Herbal Infusion produced by Krokus Kozani, Greece★★, www.odysea.com

Full Moon Harvest

Pago Baldios San Carlos - EVOO ★★ Pago Baldios San Carlos

There’s hardly a three Michelin-starred chef in Spain who doesn’t use Pago Baldios San Carlos oil – Ferran Adrià of El Bulli among them. Basque chef Martin Berasategui even name-checked the oil in an avant-garde red mullet, white chocolate and seaweed dish he served to the world’s best chefs at San Sebastian Gastronomika 2009. What makes it so special? Perhaps that the Arbequina and Cornicabra olives are harvested on full moon nights – that and the producer’s four centuries of experience.

Other awards: Full Moon- Pago Baldios San Carlos EVOO ★ www.pagobaldiosancarlos.com TASTE GOLD 2010-11

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World Flavours

Aesthet-teacally Pleasing

78 Giving Irish Coffee A New Meaning

Indian Blend Cafetiere/Filter Coffee ★★★ Ponaire Coffee Roastery Having “never had a really good cup of coffee in Ireland”, Jennifer and Tommy Ryan were moved to set up Pónaire Coffee Roastery (so named after the Irish for ‘bean’) four years ago. Their smooth, chocolatey Indian blend features El Salvador Cup of Excellence and Indian Monsooned Malabar beans. The latter are ‘monsooned’, i.e. exposed in open warehouses to monsoon winds, resulting in a plump, white bean with low acidity. This three-star gold winner is available at Limerick’s Milk Market.

Other awards: Connoisseur Blend for Espresso ★ www.ponaire.ie

Magic Meals in an Instant Fast Gourmet Classic Chinese ★

No Ordinary Cup of Joe...

Hawaii Kong ★★

Sea Island Coffee

Spice Way Original

Luxury coffee company Sea Island was established in 2008 to focus on rare exotic coffees, mainly from islands. This limited edition coffee from Greenwell Farms, the most famous estate in Kona, Hawaii, is a perfect example. From the Greenwell family’s private reserve, it’s produced in strictly limited quantities.

Other awards: Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee ★ www.seaislandcoffee.com

Old friends Louise Pomerance and Karen Caplan stumbled across some unusual dried herb and vegetable mixes while on holiday in Israel.

Intrigued, they filled their suitcases with them and brought them home.

They found they could rehydrate the mixes in anything including pasta, salads, rice and noodles, and have since created their own range of healthy, salt-free ‘magical meals’ like this Classic Chinese version. Two Terra Rossa Jordan tablespoons per person is all you need.

The Aqallal family has been making oliv e oils in the Atlas foo Other awards: Posh Pomelo & five generations. Th thills for e oil from their Ma rrakech estate is the Melon Fruit Infusion ★ themselves use at one they home. Produced in limited quantities www.spicewayuk.com a year), it’s produced (just 25,000 litres from trees that hav e three or four diff varieties growing on erent olive each tree. They we re grafted onto the the hope that one tree trunks in might take…then the y all did. The more Other awards: Ba the sil Oil★, Lemon Oil ★ , Chilli Oil ★, Zaatar merrier! www.terra-rossa.c Passata ★ om

Very Moorish Les

Terroirs de Mar rakech

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TASTE GOLD 2010-11

★★

79

World Flavours ★ Close to perfect

★★ Faultless

★★★ Wow, you must taste this!

Black Lab egar ★★ Balsamic Vin The Gift of Oil

al wooden years in tradition t Matured for 12 lsamic isn’t jus ba ed ag s thi , na barrels in Mode nilla ice cream va , ak ste th wi y it for dressings. Tr er looking to . To the consum or strawberries Phil Bianchi’s l’s Oi of ft Gi egar, splash out on vin ic should m lsa Ba . the label” grape advice is: “read ed ok co other than . contain nothing gar are no-nos su d an es tiv va ar must. Preser “red wine vineg lly ua us e ar s Cheap version il warns.

Ph , ic” m lsa ba as masquerading l Estate Olive Oi Sicilian Single ★, Other awards: mic Vinegar ★ lsa Ba ed tur Ma ★, Gold Label Vinegar ★ tured Balsamic Green Label Ma k o.u il.c www.thegiftofo

Tetsuya’s Truffle Salt ★ The Food Emporium

When Laura Sykes went travelling after graduation, she made space in her backpack for chef Tetsuya Wakuda’s truffle salt. Laura had happened upon it at a fishmonger’s in Sydney and loved it. Over rare roast beef or scrambled egg “it can really enhance something simple”. Japanese-born ‘Tets’ (whose Sydney restaurant is regularly voted among the world’s best) gave her the go-ahead to sell it in the UK. Other finds from her travels are also available.

Other awards: Garlic Australian Extra Virgin Olive Oil ★★, Roasted Seaweed Vinegar ★, Hibiscus Flowers ★, Bowen Mango Finishing Vinegar ★, Black Cherry Vinegar ★, Organic Lime Infused Extra Virgin Olive Oil ★ Organic Kalamata Extra Virgin Olive Oil ★, Spiced Beetroot Vinegar ★ www.thefoodemporium.co.uk

Tip Top Tea

Temi Estate 1st Flush ★★ The Real Tea Café

Temi Estate First Flush Tea comes from the sole tea estate in the tiny northern Indian state of Sikkim in the Himalayas. Grown at altitude and produced from young buds and in small quantities, this rare tea’s a good choice for Darjeeling drinkers. If you fancy trying it for yourself, you can find it online or at the Real Tea Café’s first contemporary tea house, opening this year in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Other awards: Signature Blend ★, Earl Grey ★, Moroccan Mint ★, Jin Zhu Mao Jian 1★ www.realteacafe.com

Certified Coffee

Tudor 100% Rainforest Alliance Certified Amazonian Espresso Blend ★★ Tudor Tea and Coffee

Though up against coffees three, even four times more expensive, Tudor’s characterful Rainforest Alliance Certified espresso blend still stands out. Great value for money, it’s been a bestseller for Tudor since the business launched and it can be found at high profile establishments including London Zoo. Interestingly, this blend has been tailored specifically to the UK espresso market – that is, for the four out of five of us who take our coffee Italian-style with milk. www.tudorcoffee.co.uk

TASTE GOLD 2010-11

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World Flavours

The Genuine Articleel Matured

Salt of the Earth