Pam Brunning

I went on line to find a recipe yesterday for chicken gizzards. Several said boil first so I tried a recipe chosen by voters on a site as 'best answer'. Boiled for 15 min then deep fried. They were good flavour but tough as old boots - can someone help? I have had them in restaurants and they have been tender and delicious.

That is facinating Darienne. We were UK pig farmers for nearly 50 years. The first part of my cooking life is to be published this week I will post it shortly.

I think Kitchen Dairies is the best by far it covers such a wide range, mine is used a lot and full of notes. It is the type of book that is a good base that you can build dishes from with slightly different ingredients. Real Cooking is also useful.

Sea bream with samphire, new potatoes and wild sorrel sauce last night very simple but delicious. Welcome ‘dcarch’ not a tofu lover myself but that looks stunning and a lot of work.

Hey what is wrong with making fish stock with some good old fish bones rather than all this tinned rubbish - of course Delia is still cheating, always has been.

How sad to have such a closed mind.

That was my reaction to Aldi a few years ago - went once and didn,t go back. But a new one opened near us two years ago and was totaly different to the older stores. Bright, clean and everything on shelves not stacked in boxes on the floor and a good range of products. Their staff are helpful though thin on the ground and their checkouts are mega fast. Having said all that I still go to Waitrose for some things. We favour Aldi over Lidl mainly because when I was researching for the Credit Crunch dinner for the Wine & Food Society we did a tasting of their wines and Aldi's showed up as much better quality so we ended up using all Aldi produce. Never shopped at Netto - looked in one some years ago and our reaction was the same as soundman's to Aldi!

You should have gone to Aldi as I told soundman. I don't know what people think is wrong with Aldi? We have a Waitrose close but I can buy a kilo of sugar for over 20p less in Aldi - all their basics are a lot cheaper than Waitrose or Tesco. Their veg, meat etc is all top quality UK produce. I did a credit crunch dinner for 24 people that normaly shop at Waitrose, comparing Aldi produce with Waitrose,the Aldi dinner cost half the price and everyone agreed the quality was as good as Waitrose.

You need to shop at Aldi. I bought 200g of top quality Hereford asparagus on Thursday for 99p. It was lovely.

I thought you would know all the top ones. That is the big problem around here there is nowhere close to pop out to when you don't want to cook. There is Ruchetta in Wokingham which has been our favourite for a long time but their head chef has gone to Angelo's other restaurant - Ruchetta at Peppard and we don't think the guy there now is quite as good. Give it a try and see what you think - it is not cheap though.

Hi Jester - well named - anyone that thinks there might be anywhere worth eating in Bracknell must be a jester! I have been watching this thread since it came up. What is your budget? You have to go out of the area for anything good. How far are you willing to travel? We are local and have tried them all.

Elderflower champagne is great stuff - our kids used to love it. Watch those plastic bottles though. They can be lethal - we were opening one once, it was very blown and as the top came off it flew out of my husbands hands and flew across the pond with flames coming out of the back! It was just lucky it went in the right direction - away from everyone on the patio

Ground elder is no relation to the elder tree. It is an herbaceous plant not a tree. The reason it is called ground elder is because the flower, which blooms later in the summer, is similar to the flower of the elder tree. I tried using it like spinach last night and just wilting it in butter but it was very tough so I had to liquidise it with cream and use it as a puree.

That is not the leaves of the elder tree - it is Aegopodium podagraria - ground elder - also known as Goutweed because it was considered a good cure for gout by the Romans. I am using wild garlic at the moment - I slice it very thinly and wilt it in butter then crush it with some new potatoes. I use nettles for soup. My daughter is in the herb business supplying a lot of London hotels/restaurants and she is always getting asked for wood sorrel. We have lots in our woods but she refuses to go picking because it is so labour intensive. I have never tasted it, I must make an effort this weekend and get some for a salad.

Sounds good - which Burlington-Dublin?

Well done Lizzy a good report - tell it as it is. I get fed up with my reporters saying everythig is wonderful although I ask for them to tell it warts and all.

These Yuppy gastropubs are getting above themselves on pricing. They have low overheads compared with the likes of Holbeck, few laundry costs, little ambiance, no grounds to maintain and just look at the comparative dishes - work has gone into the different component parts of the Holbeck menu. There is not a lot complex about an ox tail and kidney pie - it might have tasted better but it didn’t look a lot different to Brakes! And if I had overcooked the pastry, the way it looked, on that onion and goats cheese tart I would have chucked it in the bin and started again.

Hi David, been following your travels - thought your meal at Holbeck looked much better value than the Hinds Head. The food looked OK but basic pub grub - if your bill had been half the price it would have been about right. You obviously have to pay through the nose for HB's reputation!

You could try http://www.europeanfreezedry.com/index.cfm?pageid=homing they do fruit powders in small quantities.

Be interested in your report on Whatley Manor. We stayed in 2007, lovely place but we weren’t overly impressed with the food, haven't been back.

My stillyard is probably one of the oldest things in my kitchen, I think it is late 1800’s, it weighs up to 300lbs so can be used for weighing carcases. I also have a collection of coffee grinders and some of them are old.

How long did you roast your steaks for Kim - they look great. I made Charter Pie last night - this is a favourite with all the family - it is good hot and cold. It is my adaption of a chicken pie published in Jane Grigson’s book Good Things. The original recipe was mentioned by Parson Woodforde, a Norfolk clerical glutton in 1785. Grigson tells us it was originally a Cornish recipe, hers is made with two bunches of parsley but when I haven’t got enough parsley I use spinach on top of the chicken, it cuts the richness of the sauce. When it is cold the sauce sets into a delicious jelly. The pastry has a little icing sugar in it which picks up with the sweetness of the onions is the sauce. It is best to fry the onions slowly in butter and brown the chicken well. My pastry art is not very good, that is supposed to be a chicken!!

With pork, beef or lamb you can move it into a warming draw if you have one or turn the oven off and leave the door open a bit. With beef and lamb I give a joint at least 30min of its cooking time at 200°F anyway - I find it finishes cooking better that way. Chicken is a different kettle of fish. Whatever you do with it the steam from the inside will make the skin soggy - the best bet is to eat the skin straight away while it is still crisp!!

You have to have a really sharp knife with a good point - it is hard work with tough skin. My husband has talked for years of inventing an electric scorer with blades set at just the right depth but has never got round to it. If you score too deep it lets the juices out and they sog the crackling. All the pork joints in the supermarkets in the UK are just slashed and not properly scored. I just rub the rind with a little oil to keep it moist until the fat starts to melt. I slice some carrot and onion into a dark coloured pan and lay the pork on top, put some water in the pan enough to cover the veg and cook at 200C for about 2 hrs. Keep an eye on the water when it dries up and the veg starts to brown add more water. Rest the meat for about 20 min while you pour off the pan juices, skim the fat then use a spoonfull of fat to make a roux in the pan with a bit of flour, pour the juices back in the pan and boil up scraping all the crusty bits from around the pan. If I need more gravy I add some stock but this time I didn,t need to.

That lasagne looks great. Cold and wet Easter in the UK so decided on comfort food too. Roast pork - it was delicious with lot of yummy gravy. We finished the pork today for lunch on crusty bread.