Falafels are a chickpea fritter from the Middle East often served in wraps with hummus or tahini* or served in a tomato sauce like meatballs. Falafel takeaways are hugely popular in Amsterdam, served in pitta bread with salad and sauce. Find them in Norwich – Moorish, Ruth’s or Falafel and Friends on the market. (All listed on my directory)
Roast chicken has got to be one of the finest comfort foods around, the house smells amazing, you are drawn to the oven to peek inside and the sizzle makes your mouth water. As well as enjoying roast chicken on the occasional Sunday I also like it mid-week with salad, pickles and a few warm Jerusalem Artichokes tossed in olive oil and garlic. Herby chicken is a perfect family dinner you could even cook some diced potatoes, sweet potatoes and parsnips in the tin around the chicken for a complete meal.
My mum used to make me this dish when we came home from London for the weekend after an exhausting week working as a chef. We would walk in and the whole house would smell divine and boy did we have a treat ahead of us – tender slow cooked belly of pork that fell off the bone, covered with tons of the crispiest crackling, all casseroled on a bed of good old English root vegetables, oozing with flavour and all bathed in sauce from heaven. This dish takes less than 15 minutes to prepare but 6 hours of slow cooking in the oven, giving you time to build up an appetite.
Buy half a whole pork belly on the bone, a Two kilo piece cost me £6.20, making the total dish price £2 per person. Harvey’s sell organic, Hazels will get it in for you if not in stock and most local butchers will sell locally reared pork. Ask the butcher to cut the fat of the pork in one piece but keep for making the crackling.
Mushrooms and cheese just love each other, but blue cheese and mushrooms make the perfect couple.
My family all mushroom forage this time of year but you have to know what your looking for and with hundreds of varieties growing in England it’s easy to get confused, there are over 60 poisonous ones with several deadly – within minutes and of course mushrooms can change appearance from one day to another.
So an organized mushroom forage is recommended.
Ted Elliss in Surlingham and the Whitlingham broad both do mushroom hunts. But you can find hundreds of mushrooms growing in all the woods across this region, but don’t pick any and take a good book – a mushroom one of course!
In this recipe I cook half of the blue cheese and then crumble in the rest so you get the two delicious tastes of melted and raw blue cheese, blended with rich mushrooms, garlic and cream. An addictive taste, especially served with warm toast!
This is a Tapas batter recipe I usualy use with mushrooms but it works a treat with whelks too. The batter is light and airy with a little crisp from the vinegar with the bonus of the plump juicy whelk in the middle. Serve with a garlic mayonnaise.