curlywurlyfi

"Luscious" - that is the perfect word to describe this cake. And Kit, that sounds fantastic! Would love a PM of the MK recipe? Must Try This At Home!

Does this mean you have scarfed the one I gave you, which came attractively packaged in a... tumbler advertising White Horse whisky, since I too had run out of storage containers???

not just in restaurants but at home too - had some on Saturday night which we could have used for shock absorbers.

thanks everybody for weighing in! A Mediterranean market came to Truro (Cornwall) for four days last week. Mainly French but some Spanish stallholders: paella, cheese, saucisson, speck, tartiflette etc. The cake came from a stall with a sign saying 'specialites bretons'. I don't think the filling is based on creme pat - wrong mouthfeel - this was definitely a little bit granular + slightly crunchy - probably the rough-ground almonds. I'm liking very much the suggestion that it is almond paste let down with extra butter + egg yolks - but it did stay remarkably sticky and gooey. I think there might be SOME almonds in the dough, because it had a slightly 'gravelly' texture + wonderful moistness. But it is probably not, on balance, a dough made entirely of almonds, since that (in my home-baking experience) tends to give quite a close-textured, 'tight' crumb. Spot on! It is the absolute opposite of elegant patisserie, but so plain and simple. Which is sort of why I hope to recreate it at home. Plus it is fantastic with a tiny cup of espresso...

hear hear - supermarket red wine vinegar is my choice every time. and I actively dislike balsamic - or any other vinegar - in olive oil for dipping. Salt + pepper at a push, but keep your nasty caramel-flavoured dark brown goo away.

I also found this thread on other people's baskets.

I occasionally make a beautifully rich aubergine curry, loosely based on a (I think) Nigel Slater recipe. Fry onion, garlic, coriander seeds till soft golden + floppy, add cubed aubergine, grated ginger, dried chilli flakes + crushed cardamom seeds*, fry a little. Add a tin of tomatoes and a tin (or half a tin) coconut milk, and some salt. Bring to the boil then simmer till aubergine is tender + sauce reduced. Chop fresh coriander over, serve with rice and possibly some plain yoghurt. Green beans go well alongside. * spices can be varied as you please

do you know, as I continued my extensive sampling this afternoon (au revoir, cake), I wondered that myself - that it might be a flour cake made with about a metric tonne each of yolks + butter cake (since it is so moist) with a touch of almond essence for flavour, because, as I said somewhere upthread, the flavour really isn't very almondy, and the crumb is not close enough to be purely made of almonds. But such lovely damp cake - sigh, now just a memory - so maybe some almonds were indeed harmed in the making of it. The goo in the middle didn't taste of raw egg yolk (thank goodness) but I wonder how else it could be so nice and sticky and, let's face it, yellow.

thanks, everyone! Lucy - a cake with 12 egg yolks would certainly give the pronounced yellow colour to the sponge! But the stall holder lady was adamant about no flour in the cake. and yes, ludja - the almond filling was certainly not baked into the cake, it was added after. I spoke to a Breton friend of mine last night who said it all sounded v fishy, since almonds are not a speciality of Brittany. Still, I persevere! In fact, here are some shots of said cake, if this helps with ID. And Tom, our office IT person, in the background wondering just what the hell I am doing photographing a cake. edited to add photos

My basic method goes something like this: chop an onion relatively finely, brown in butter till sweet and sticky. Add chopped garlic if liked just before the end. Remove from pan, then fry the (de-tubed) livers in more butter (as much as you like!) till crusty but pink. Deglaze with brandy/port. Chop some parsley and put it, some s+p and everything else in the blender, whizz till desired consistency - I like relatively smooth. Check seasoning + pack into ceramic pot to chill. Can put butter over the top but I never do, the alarming grey colour it goes doesn't worry me too much if I'm eating it soon. Can add crushed juniper berries (really good), more herbs, extra softened butter, double cream, pancetta, orange rind, etc etc, depending on how glam you're feeling. and hey - at 50p a pop, you can stand a little experimenting.

If your audience like them, chicken livers are fantastically cheap (frozen ones are currently 50p for 225g, which is enough for two people as a main course or more if you turn them into pate). I fry up some onions with a bit of bacon + thyme, throw in the chicken livers, fry till nice and crusty but still pink then deglaze with brandy/red wine/bramble jelly (etc), serve over rice.

was at a 'Mediterranean market' in Cornwall last week and picked up a quarter of a cake the stallholder said was called 'amandine'. Incredibly yellow, moist sponge; whole cake probably 30cms across and not very deep (about 5cms in the centre), split and filled with sticky yellow gooey almondy paste; top sprinkled with flaked almonds + caster sugar. It was so delicious (with clotted cream, mmm, look away now all those who know I post on the Weight Watchers thread) I went back the following day to buy a second chunk, and to ask the stallholder what was in it. "Oeufs, sucre, beurre, amandes - tout court!" she said. I asked whether the paste in the middle had egg yolks in it (it is so intensely yellow) but apparently not - it is just very oozy almond paste. I have done a quick Google search for 'amandine specialite Breton patisserie' and various combinations thereof, but have failed to turn up a recipe. I am eating the last of the bit I bought on Friday and it is still deliciously damp and sweet. The flavour of almonds is not very pronounced (this is a good thing). So can anyone help? have you heard of amandine? Even better, do you have a recipe? thanks in advance!

Fascinating. We had some Szechuan beef at the weekend and were trying to work out how the meat was so soft - really, hardly even needed teeth to chew it - but had clearly not been beaten to death with a meat mallet, nor slow-cooked.

there's a Jamie Oliver recipe which I've had once or twice - take a pork tenderloin, rub it with garlic, OO + chopped sage, then lag it in Parma ham. Lay it on a bed of (slender stalked) rhubarb cut in 2-3in chunks. Drizzle with more OO, roast till how you like it. Mulch the rhubarb around in the porky juices + serve the tenderloin in slices with the chunky sauce. Nice.

when an impoverished student [insert wailing violin here] we used to make a sardine 'quiche' with storecupboard ingredients. Cut the crusts off 4-6 slices of brown bread, flatten with a rolling pin, paint with melted butter (or sardine oil) and squash into a metal quiche tin. Fork together some cottage cheese, chopped parsley, couple of eggs, some chopped tomatoes, some caramelized onions, lemon juice (etc etc). Drain the sardines, break up a little, put on the bread base; pour the cottage cheese mix over + bake. Not in the least beautiful, but very good. Hmmm. Sardines...

It's not scary, exactly, but exciting certainly: a bunch of fat squeaky green St Enedoc (ie local) asparagus that was cut in the field this morning. How long till supper?

Welcome, dant! I know that supermarket (it's my local source for green mango) but I've never seen the bags o'bugs...

A pleasure to meet Yin. Big lunch with ten complete strangers? she was brave! a good lunch. Fascinating food, not all of which worked for me, but with a tasting menu, that's ok, there'll be another one along in a minute - plus it means more discussion (ie squabbling). highlights for me were the cauliflower trifle - supercaulifragilistic - and the deep-fried duck egg yolk. Lows were the pineapple/black olive tarte tatin which confused my palate too much + a slight lack of seasonal spring veg (though when the alternative is pig windpipe stuffed with mashed potato...) Exemplary service. Really beautiful glasses (all Riedels, and we must have had at least seven different ones in front of us at once). A very fine afternoon.

It was my first visit to SJBW too so I was delighted by the last-minute change of plan. Suzi's pickled chicory was great, and the sourdough bread was outstanding. ahhhh, we blush. We're just sorry we failed to take you to DreamBagsJaguarShoes for a drink afterwards. Next time!

this just in from Emma: So, if you find a Fountain Violet egg in your Waitrose, PM me and I'll forward the news to Emma. She's not a member of eG (though Andy if you're listening GOD KNOWS I have tried!) so you can't PM her directly. To repeat, you're looking for an egg stamped with OUK17673. And I had two today scrambled for lunch and they were lovely... Fi

I've asked Em for their producer number which is apparently stamped on every egg, so I promise to post it when I get it! They should have some sort of strapline: Take A Little Bit Of Foutain Violet Home With You Today. (actually that's rubbish, but it's Friday night and I need a drink)

Field is fenced and electrified (to deter foxes and badgers) to the point where if you grasp it hard without thinking, it will knock you to the ground. They did have to teach the ladies to lay in the coop. Ed did tell me how, but I was suffering factoid-overload. (sorry!) They've created a little bit of cover in the field - some sturdy log piles - but they're basically out in the open on top of a hill. this is not, apparently, ideal for Columbian Blacktails, who'd really like to be in a thickly covered forest, but then as Ed pointed out, you'd never find any of the eggs, thus slightly negating the point of chicken cultivating.

Ed uses the tried-and-tested 'if it's bigger than the size of my fist, it's probably got a double-yolk' method of selection. seriously - they are just bigger.

No - purely beef. though apparently until about 50 years ago Devon Reds were bred for dairy. They only have a few head of cattle - about 90 at the moment, which isn't really a workable dairy size (as it's turned out, it's not really been a workable beef size either ).

I know, it's a bit odd. Some of them do have a couple of black feathers in their tails, but by and large... maybe it's so they match the cows on the farm, who are Devon Reds, though they are clearly not red at all, thusly: mmmm - shortribs...