Riley's Fish Shack, Tynemouth

Of course, with a storm hitting the country, a red weather warning in place and wind and rain in abundance, it made perfect sense for us to drive out to the coast and choose to eat our dinner in a beach side shack. Seaside shenanigans in December? Why not!

But we love Riley's and, actually, it was one of the most atmospheric meals I think that I've ever had. The shack itself was full of heaters and blankets so it was entirely possible to be cosy while the waves murmured and crashed out in the dark. And the food here is wonderful; if you find yourself in the North East then I wholeheartedly recommend this as a venue, whatever the weather. The only disadvantage is that you have to walk up an awful lot of steps to get back into town, which is not always easy, especially after you've stuffed yourself silly on glorious seafood.

The star of the show was an unctuous squid ragu. I was initially resistant because it came topped with polenta (I am not a fan) but the waiter (and D) talked me into it, and I am grateful to them because it was utterly delicious. Squid should either be cooked very fast or very slowly, and when done slowly it becomes like velvet. But here it was velvet in a sublimely flavoured, deeply savoury red wine sauce. I need to try and recreate this at home.

But a very close second was my John Dory in Cafe de Paris butter. Beneath the blistered skin, the fish itself was as sweet and tender as a kiss and the incredible butter (which includes all good things such as anchovies and capers) was the perfect accompaniment. I devoured it, despite being rather full.

As usual, we over ordered, but were able to take some bits home with us to enjoy the next day in slightly warmer circumstances, which was a wonderful bonus. 

I cannot recommend this venue enough. Yes, on paper it might seem more of a summer jaunt, but I enjoyed our winter sojourn there; it felt oddly otherworldly. 

And a postscript - if you do happen to find yourself in Tynemouth then please, whatever you do, make sure you get to Gerald James and buy brownies. They are amazing and you will be forever grateful to me for the recommendation. You're welcome.

Riley's Fish Shack

King Edward's Bay

Tynemouth

NE30 4BY

Inver in springtime

A quick trip up to Scotland to blow out some cobwebs this weekend. A brief sojourn in Carlisle (not a place I would recommend as a foodie destination, but it does boast the most splendiforous secondhand bookshop) on the way to a night at our beloved Inver, a fabulous restaurant with rooms cum sanctuary that looks out over Loch Fyne. I'm sure I've written about it before, and if I haven't then mea culpa indeed because it is one of our very favourite places to eat.

The chef there has done stages in all manner of high-end places, including a (practically obligatory nowadays) stint at Noma. And the kind of food she cooks is very much of the same sort of sensibility - this is food that is seasonal and local and ingredient-centric but with the odd little twist or flourish that makes you go "Hmmmm" and then, more often than not, "Yum." It can be challenging sometimes, the combinations are unusual, but we have never been disappointed by the food in the five years that we have been making the trip.

This, I think, was the first time that we have been to Inver in the spring and the menu was heaving with glorious shellfish which very much floated our boats.

Snacks to start - oysters in sea buckthorn oil, cured mackerel, cockles in a pickled gel, crab on barley bannock. Fresh and lip smacking, and slipped down very easily with a glass of chilled fizz.

The garden plate - literally, greens from the garden (here, kale and goosefoot) which had just been shown the grill to give a hint of char and then served with a miso mayonnaise which rich sweetness. Makes one see the point of vegetables when they're served like this.

The Scallop and langoustine were so fresh and sweet that they required no intervention from the kitchen - served raw, they melted in the mouth, while the accompanying salad of young broccoli added crunch and a slight bitterness.

The dish of the night - brown crab meat on a buttery celeriac terrine, a salad of apple and white crab and then a creamy fermented celeriac sauce of dreams. It looks so modest in the photo; it tasted absolutely heavenly. Balanced to perfection - and I often find brown crab dishes to be too rich and sickly for my palate.

A feast of pig - loin, head, glazed belly and garlicky sausage with a zingy pickled celery and fennel salad to wake up the palate in between glorious, fatty mouthfuls.

Lanark blue cheese with chicory, chicory jam and gingerbread. I love it when restaurants only serve one cheese for the cheese course, especially when the treatment is so thoughtful and surprisingly delicious. 

A quick palate cleanser of blood orange and beeswax. I loved this, by turns bitter and sweet; D found the texture of the candied blood orange a little challenging.

Poached pear with walnut ice cream and walnut streusel and a sauce of pear juice shot through with the warmth of ginger and pepper. Another very unassuming looking dish that delivered fabulous alternating layers of succulence and spice.

Petits fours: chocolate cream on sea lettuce (frankly, challenging) and beautifully warm madeleines dusted with bay sugar (not in the least challenging; could have inhaled a bucketful even after a full meal).

Of all the meals we have had at Inver, this may have been the best yet. We are already plotting the next trip.

Inver Restaurant

Strathlachan

Strachur

Argyll & Bute

PA27 8BU

01369 860537

Recipe corner: Mussel and bacon pizza (jingle all the way!)

The thing about authentic Italian pizza is that tends to be pretty simple. Tomato, cheese and then a few, carefully chosen, toppings. Not enough of anything to create sloppiness: a crisp base and the structural integrity of the whole is important. No weird combos. No doughiness, no ten tonnes of cheese (that is the province of Domino's and their ilk). I get all that and I appreciate it. But SOMETIMES it is fun to play a little bit and end up with something which is somewhere between what an Italian Nonna would appreciate and what drunk people order at eleven pm with a side of chicken wings.

When I wrote this up in my notebook I called it "Pizza Bianca del mare e dell'odore" which means "A white pizza of the sea and the sty". And I like that title very much. It sounds so much more elegant than mussel and bacon pizza. But I've stuck with the English for the blog title because it's probably a bit more useful. 

This is a pizza that combines seafood and cheese, that is a little bit on the sloppy side and, to be honest, is a bit of a bloody faff if you're making it because it involves numerous processes. None of them difficult but it's not easy home cooking. Jamie couldn't squish it into a 30 minute meal. So I probably haven't sold it to 99.99% of the people who will come across this blog post. But for the rest of you, who are intrigued, you are in for a tremendous treat. I think this is the most delicious pizza that I've ever made.

When I wrote pizza 101 back in July 2016 (!) I was using Paul Hollywood's dough recipe, but I've fallen out of love with that recently after a couple of issues with the dough being just too sticky to practically use. So I turned to Dan Lepard and, sure enough, his recipe and method worked perfectly. I won't repeat it here but if you DO pop over to have a look I would note:

I used a tablespoon of malt extract and all water, rather than open some of D's precious beer

I went up to 200ml of water - 50ml fresh boiled and 150ml cold from the tap to get it luke(ish) warm.

I initially made the dough the night before using and left it in the fridge overnight before moving on to the stretching and folding stage. This has the benefit of spreading the effort a bit as well.

I was making personal sized pizzas, so divided this recipe into 6 (actually, I made a half batch and divided it into 3). This was a generous portion. If you're not greedy, you could reduce the portion size further.

And for the topping...

Ingredients

1/2 kilo mussels

Splash of white wine or Vermouth

150ml milk

3-4 garlic cloves, peeled and bruised

Large sprig of thyme

15g Parmesan

10g butter

10g flour

75g pancetta (or diced bacon)

Small onion, thinly sliced

100g firm mozzarella, grated

75g smoked cheese, grated

Makes 2 generous individual pizzas

OK, so firstly we want to cook the mussels with no more flavourings added than a splash of white wine. Clean and de-beard the crustacea then heat the wine in a large, lidded pan until it simmers madly, and tip them in. Cover the pan and cook for around 5 mins, shaking gently every so often. They'll be ready when the majority of the shells are yawning open. Incidentally: we tend to buy up bags of mussels whenever we make it the fishmonger, cook and freeze them for future use. But if you do this be sure to freeze them alongside their delicious liquor.

Make the white sauce by first infusing the milk with the garlic and the thyme. Place all together in a small pan, scald the milk (which means heating it until the edges are beginning to bubble) then turn off the heat, cover and leave alone for at least a couple of hours.

Then we make a roux - melt the butter, add the flour and stir briskly to make a paste. Pour in the infused milk, bit by bit, stirring vigorously every time to eliminate lumps. When you've added all the milk, add the mussel liquor - again, bit by bit. Gently bubble the sauce for a few minutes to ensure that all the flour is cooked out (the easiest way to check this is by tasting it - if you can taste even a hint of flour, cook for a bit longer) then season with the grated Parmesan, a tiny pinch of salt and a little pepper. This is the base of your pizza.

Fry off the pancetta until crispy and then remove from the pan with a slotted spoon. Then, turn the heat right down and soften the onion in the bacon fat.

Finally, assemble your pizza. Take your rolled out bases and spread across the white sauce. Top with the cooked mussels, bacon and onion and finish off with the mozzarella and smoked cheese. If you have any spare, sprinkle a few fresh thyme leaves over to finish. Bake in a very hot oven for about 12 minutes until everything is bubbling and beginning to brown. 

If you have any sense at all, you'll allow it to cool slightly (and, in doing so, begin to solidify) before eating.

A brief escape

Usually, D and I manage to mistime everything but the gods were obviously smiling on us last week as we sneaked in a few glorious days in Scotland before the country heads back into lockdown. 

We've really toed the line this year, and have barely left the house, let alone ventured abroad. We had one night in Whitby back in September, and one lunch at our beloved Reliance a few weeks ago, and that's been pretty much it. Both of us are cautious by nature anyway, and given that we've been able to work fulltime from home, it seemed foolish to tempt fate in other ways. But, increasingly, we were getting cabin fever, and the opportunity to escape for a few days, in celebration of D's birthday, was just too good to pass up.

On Friday night, we dined at the wonderful restaurant, Inver. We first went last year and I can't see that I ever blogged about it - so I think it only fair to let it have its own post.

For the rest of the time, we mainly contented ourselves with eating glorious seafood. We were staying in a cottage on the shores of Loch Fyne, which is a name that may well be familiar to you from the restaurant chain. We went to the original Loch Fyne oyster bar and, well, you see for yourselves...

D loves a seafood platter and this one was incredibly good value, featuring a vast array of mussels, clams, langoustine, oysters, crab and lobster for £60. Me, I don't tend to go in for platters so much, but I couldn't resist sampling some oysters and it turns out that if you add a bit of smoked cheese and chilli sauce and whack them under the grill they are just as delicious, in their own way, as if you go for the naked-but-for-a-slick-of-shallot-vinaigrette version.

We spent a good few hours mooching round the little town on Inveraray which boasts not only a castle but an extremely interesting and well preserved jail and courtroom experience as well. In between learning about prisoners, and buying old fashioned sweets on the tiny high street, we repaired to the Brambles Cafe & Bistro, which did an excellent line in breakfasts and cake. In fact, D celebrated the day of his birth with a vast slab of apple and bramble pie, and wore an expression of unashamed glee throughout the consumption of the same.

It rained pretty much continuously, which, given the unremittingly gloomy news coming through, began to feel like pathetic fallacy. But then, on our last day there, the sun fought back and the most glorious rainbow appeared in the sky, soaring up over the grey expanse of loch. Which I take as a timely reminder of the Dolly Parton quotation - if you want that rainbow, you do have to put up with the rain. My goodness, but we've had some rain this year, haven't we? But there is still loveliness and beauty out there and I hope that all of us can hold onto that as we move into the darkest days of winter. 

Recipe corner: coconut and ginger mussels

We got five new recipe books for Christmas which added to an already huge collection. All too often, much wanted books come into the house, get read, drooled over, maybe even tagged and then they get consigned to the shelf. And, come meal planning, it’s the internet that is called upon as the main resource. It’s ridiculous.

So, despite our plan to spend most of January eating down the freezer, we decided to make an exception for the new books. Last night, we pulled out “Made in India” by Meera Sodha. This was a gift from my Mum who has been raving about it for years. On the basis of this dish, I see her point. It wasn’t complicated food but it was utterly delicious and one we hope to revisit soon.

I love mussels in any shape or form and they are so cheap! D picked up a bag in the market for just over £3 which served two of us very generously and felt like a luxury. We just had some well buttered baguette on the side - Sodha suggested paratha which would have been lovely but was an effort too far after a long week at work. Next time!

Ingredients

1kg mussels, in the shell, debearded and cleaned

Tbsp vegetable oil
2 small onions, finely chopped
Small handful dried curry leaves
4 fat garlic cloves, crushed
Chunk (4-5cm) root ginger, grated
Red chilli, deseeded and chopped

Hefty tbsp tomato purée
1/4 tsp chilli powder
200ml coconut milk
Handful fresh coriander, roughly chopped

Serves 2

In a large pan (with a lid) gently heat the oil then tip in the onions and the curry leaves with a decent pinch of salt. Turn the heat down to low, cover, and cook for 8 mins until the onions are very soft and beginning to turn golden.

Now in goes the garlic, ginger (be generous with the ginger!) and chilli and cook off for another minute until the garlic has lost its raw smell. Stir through the tomato purée and chilli powder, again cook for a minute to get rid of any raw spice, and then pour in the coconut milk, up the heat and bring to a gentle bubble.

Time to tip in the mussels. Swirl the pan gently then put on the lid. Cook for 6-8 mins - it will be dependent on the size of your mussels, but you want all the shells to be wide open and the meat glistening and tender.

Use a slotted spoon to dish the mussels then stir the coriander through the sauce and check the seasoning before pouring over and serving with some sort of bread for dunking.

Recipe corner: Creamy salmon pasta

Everyone has a dish that they remember, perhaps from childhood or perhaps from a holiday, something that sticks out as being the absolute essence of Delicious. For D, it is a creamy salmon pasta dish that he once had while on a skiing holiday in Italy. He cannot explain what it was that made it so perfect, and, as with so many things, I suspect that it was partly a configuration of particular external circumstances that makes the memory so precious but, nevertheless, I wanted to have a creamy salmon pasta dish in the repertoire to please him.

The thing is, the majority of creamy salmon pasta dishes that I looked at are pretty much salmon, cream and pasta. Maybe a bit of white wine and/or lemon. There never seems to be much to them which I think makes them sound pretty bland.

Here, I’ve upped both the umami and the acidity. The shallots, Parmesan and, importantly, the anchovies, add a savoury note to the cream, while the wine and the lemony cooking dishes add much needed zing. I also really like the mustard here - not so much as to make its presence too obvious but just an underlying hum of warmth. Salmon, mustard and dill is a fantastic combination.

This is simple, quick to cook comfort food of the highest order. It may not quite live up to that one plate of pasta eaten by a young man in the Italian Alps, but the slightly older man who had it for his tea in a living room in Leeds seemed pretty content just the same.

Ingredients

1 large salmon fillet
Half a small lemon, thinly sliced
2 tbsp white wine

2 small or 1 large shallot, finely minced
Generous knob of butter
2 anchovies
50ml white wine
150ml double cream
30g Parmesan, finely grated
Scant tsp of English mustard
Generous tsp freeze dried dill

150g dried pasta

Serves 2, generously 

Preheat the oven to a 180. Put out a large square of tin foil and lay the lemon slices out in the centre of it. Season the salmon fillet well and then sit it, skin side down, on the lemon. Gather up the sides of the square foil, sprinkle over the wine and then bring the edges together to make a parcel. Bake in the oven for 15-20 mins (the timing will depend on the thickness of the fish) until the salmon is almost cooked through but still moist.

Once the salmon is cooked, the sauce can be prepared in the time it takes to do the pasta. So bring a pan of salted water to the boil and set a second, large pan over a low heat.

Tip the pasta into the water and set a ten minute timer.

Melt the butter in the other pan and, just as it starts to foam, bung in the shallot. It should be minced fine enough that it turns soft and translucent pretty quickly - 2-3 minutes. Add the anchovies and cook for a further couple of minutes until they have melted into the shallots.

Pour over the wine and turn up the heat. Reduce until practically all the liquid has disappeared and then pour in the cream, add the mustard and simmer for a couple more minutes. Reduce from the heat and stir through the Parmesan until melted completely.

To finish the sauce, flake through the cooked fish (discarding the soggy skin), ensuring that any fishy, lemony, winey juices also get poured in. Season with salt, pepper and dill.

Drain the pasta, reserving a little bit of cooking water. Stir through the sauce adding a splash or so of the water, if needed, to ensure a clinging texture (particularly pertinent if you prepare the sauce in advance).

MPM: 8th May 2018

I know life is busy, but at the very least I should be making times for meal planning posts. I mean, it is a basic right of all my beloved readers to hear about what I am eating, is it not?

I jest, and although I always feel that the first post after something of a pause should contain an apology for the blogger’s absence, it is something of a liberty to assume that people notice or care. Apart from my Mum, who texts me asking where the blog is. But she’s my Mum, and is therefore contractually bound to consider everything I do important and special.

The truth is that the last few weeks have been busy and stressful. We’ve not been sticking to 5:2 particularly and any weight loss has most definitely stalled - boo. Things should be improving now though, so we approach the new week with renewed vigour. I am also seriously considering signing up for a 5k run to incentivise me to actually complete the Couch to 5k programme. Every time I have started it, I have actually quite enjoyed the session but it is finding the motivation to trek out to, er, the garage in the first place which is proving tough (and yes, reading that back I know EXACTLY how pathetic it sounds). There’s one in a local park in mid July but I’m fretting that might be too soon as I need 8 weeks to do all the training runs and would then like to have at least a month of consolidation, including some Park Runs, to feel confident going in to the actual, organised event. So I might see if anything is going on in late August or early September. A lot of my colleagues are quite into running and from chatting to them I have gleaned that there are quite a lot of events going on from which to choose.

And so to meal planning. D has spent the last couple of days doing some serious batch cooking, so the garage freezer is now stocked with umpteen Merguez sausages and several pots of chilli. Our goal for the rest of the month is to try and eat down the indoor freezer. I’ve been desperate to own a Smeg fridge for quite some time now, and we’ve agreed that since we can’t afford to do the kitchen renovations we crave at the moment, we can at least splash out on a pretty fridge to make the space slightly more attractive. I mean, how beautiful is this?

Anyway, this is a convoluted way of trying to explain why sausages pop up not once but twice this week, albeit in different guises.

Monday: a bank holiday fast day - soup.

Tuesday: to celebrate the lovely weather, I suggested a salad. So tonight there is going to be some element of shredded veg and then some sort of satay dressing, probably with noodles and definitely prawns. This dinner is still rather at the concept stage.

Wednesday: already looking set to be a shocker of a day for me work wise. So I suggested something simple but oh so comforting with a half pack of sausages lurking in the freezer - the good old sausage sandwich. D is to contrive some sort of red onion marmaladey accompaniment.

Thursday: more soup.

Friday: a summery fish dish. Again, this evening is still rather at the concept stage.

Saturday: I am cooking the books, the book in question being Diana Henry’s latest (“How to Eat a Peach”) and the dish in question being crab, saffron and tomato tart.

Sunday: Merguez sausage stew with couscous.

Happy cooking and eating all!

Recipe corner: Mussels on toast

I’ve got behind on talking about the cook books / blogs that we used as the basis of our March meal plans. Which means you’ve been spared a blog post full of me banging on about how excellent all my old recipes are. (Although in all seriousness, I cooked five recipes from this blog’s back catalogue and they were all delicious. Yay me.)

During the week in which we cooked from Valentine Warner’s “The Good Table” there was, for me at least, one stand out dish. I’m usually a bit chary of sharing recipes here that appear in books or magazines because…y’know…copyright but this one happens to be posted on Mr Warner’s own website, so I figured that it wouldn’t cause any great harm if I reproduced it here as long as I linked to it. Voici le link.

It is such a simple idea that I am kicking myself for not thinking of it previously – creating a béchamel sauce using the wondrously fragrant, sea-redolent cooking liquor of the mussels and then stirring the little blighters through to create a rich, creamy pile of deliciousness. Yes, I am getting a little adjective heavy here but I thought it was that good. We’re coming to the end of mussel season now (if you hold by the old adage that you should only eat them if there is an “r” in the month) so maybe this is one to tuck behind your ear for a bit later on when the nights begin to draw in again. It is comfort food par excellence. Mr Warner suggests serving the mussels on toasted soda bread and the slightly dense, cakey texture does hold up particularly well here. I commend to you my very own soda bread recipe – it’s an absolute doddle to make and, I think, worth the effort in this case.

Ingredients

500g mussels, in the shell, cleaned and beards removed

25g butter
Level tablespoon plain flour
150ml milk
A good grating (perhaps ¼ tsp) of nutmeg
Salt and pepper
Small handful chopped curly leaf parsley

2 thick slices of soda bread, toasted Butter (optional)

Serves 2

Put the mussels in a large pan with a splash of water, cover and cook over a medium heat for 3-5 minutes until the shells have started to open. You may need to give them a good shake about half way through the cooking time to ensure that they are evenly distributed – also, it is an excellent stress reliever. 


Remove them using a slotted spoon and set aside. Strain the remaining juices into a small jug ready to make the sauce.

When they have cooled slightly, remove the mussel meat from the shells and hold them ready to go in the sauce. Discard any mussels which have failed to open at this point.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over a low heat. When it is just on the point of foaming, add the flour and stir briskly to make a paste – I always favour a wooden spoon for this operation. Continue to stir until the paste is beginning to dry out – you will notice that it starts to form a ball away from the sides of the pan.

Now you can add the strained mussel juice, a little bit at a time, stirring hard in between each addition until the sauce appears smooth. A liberal application of elbow grease is required here. Once the mussel juice has gone, start adding the milk in a similar fashion, until it has all been absorbed and you have a creamy white sauce.

Turn the heat up a smidge and allow the whole to simmer for 5 or so minutes. Then, add the nutmeg to taste (not too much – nutmeg can take over a party if you allow it), a pinch of salt (again, not too much, there is a natural salinity to the mussels) and plenty of black pepper. Finally, stir in the mussels and the parsley and heat for a further 30 seconds to ensure that the meat is warmed through.

Toast the bread, butter it if you wish (I always wish for more butter) and then spoon over the creamy mass of mussels and serve immediately.

Note: I am convinced that this would make a fabulous brunch dish, if you were looking for something a bit different. If you were planning on doing it for brunch, I would recommend making the béchamel and the soda bread the day before, and then all you would need to do in the morning is make toast and stir through the mussels. If you do ever make béchamel in advance, once it is cooled, cover with a layer of cling film directly touching the surface of the sauce – this will prevent a skin from forming.

Further foodie notes on Brighton

We decided to visit Brighton on something of a whim. Despite growing up in deepest, darkest Essex I don’t really know the South coast that well at all – my family always headed North for holidays, and that remains my instinct even as an adult. But Stewart Lee was playing a few dates down there and we fancied doing something a bit different, so off we went. It’s good to expand your horizons.

Brighton is actually a city - it was granted city status by the Queen during her jubilee - and, it seemed to me, a rather affluent one.  It smelled like it had been on the receiving end of time, care and money, in stark contrast to some of the Northern seaside towns that I have visited in recent years that are dying on their arse.  In addition, Brighton has benefited from the influx of students from not one but two universities.  There was a definite buzz to the place and the juxtaposition of the beautifully elegant Georgian architecture and the messy vibrancy of youth culture made for a fascinating melting pot of a place. 

As I mentioned in my previous post, it turns out that Brighton is quite the foodie destination which is not something that factored into our initial considerations. Although like any UK city it had its fair share of chain yawnfests, there was a pleasing spread of independents as well offering a range of foodstuffs at a range of price points.

First off, we have Bincho Yakitori does not have the most user friendly website in the world, but if you’re interested in Japanese bar food (and who isn’t?) then definitely one to check out. The chicken heart yakitori skewers were one of D’s favourite dishes of the trip.

I had heard good things about the vegetarian scene (if such a word can be used in the context) and we ended up having lunch in one of Brighton's oldest vegetarian restaurants, Food For Friends.  It was fun.  Nothing earth shatteringly amazing perhaps but an interesting menu that resisted tumbling into standard fare or cliché and hearty portions of tasty food.  I would quite like to recreate my halloumi, mango, avocado and cashew nut salad at home. 

Given our proximity to the sea, we were determined to make as much as we could of the local seafood and it didn’t disappoint. At Riddle and Finns, D, a crustacea afficionado, was presented with his biggest shellfish platter to date, all for a ridiculously reasonable £30 - the picture below does not do it any sort of justice, but it turns out that it is hard to photograph something so huge without getting one or other of us in shot.  And, as you know, this blog is a mug free zone.  Anyway, he reports that the whelks were a little bit on the chewy side but that everything else was perfect and he was particularly taken with the dinky little winkle picker that was provided alongside the cutlery  In general, the fish cookery here was exemplary and the menu boasted a good range of dishes albeit all variations on a theme of classic. The service was friendly but haphazard – nothing, however, that an unexpected glass of limoncello from the restaurant manager couldn’t fix.

The following evening we headed to the Tempest Bar for some rather up market pub grub - check out the stunning langoustines in the picture; these tasted even better than they look.  On a Saturday night, this was predominantly a venue for younger and trendier people than ourselves, but we were quite content in our little booth with our seafood and several decent bottles of white.  I really liked it here: the bar staff were young and cute and charming and the food was delicious (in addition to the langoustines we indulged in popcorn mussels and fire kraken squid - bar snacks to put pork scratchings and packet of peanuts to shame). 

You always know that you've had a good trip when you start talking about "next time".  "Next time we'll try this...go there...do that..." We were next timing Brighton before we had even left and writing up this post has made me start it again.  Good times.

Bincho Yakitori: 63 Preston Street, Brighton, 01273 779021
Food For Friends: 17-18 Prince Albert Street, Brighton, 01273 202310
Riddle and Finns: 139 Kings Road Arches, Brighton, 01273 721667
The Tempest Inn: 159-161 Kings Road Arches, Brighton, 01273 770505

Day 11: Mull - over the yardarm

Ah, holidays. It is six o clock ON THE DOT and I am sitting outside the local pub with a glass of wine BECAUSE IT IS ALLOWED. Above, a surprisingly blue sky given how doomy and gloomy were the earlier weather predictions. It is also exceedingly mild considering that we are now into September. Not quite balmy, but not all that far off.

We have had such a lazy couple of days which has been gorgeous, especially since my book group decided to make "Wolf Hall" their Big Summer Read. I'm enjoying it very much, although I have started alternating chunks of its dense, beautiful prose with chapters of cupcake-strewn chick lit for shits and giggles. 

I also am in serious danger of turning in to a fish given the amount I've been choffing since we got here. Every meal, breakfast aside, has been marine based and it has been GLORIOUS. Check out the stunningness of Cafe Fish's posh fish finger open sandwich (today's lunch) draped with a beautiful, dill spiked slaw:

Recipe Corner – Mussel Paella

D and I are exceptionally fond of pretty much any foodstuff that comes out of the sea and a pretty large proportion of our meals feature fish or seafood of some kind. Recently, his father gave us a huge bag of frozen mussels which we’ve been eating our way through and the following recipe (adapted from one in an old WW cookbook) entered our meal rotation as a particularly delicious way to use them. I should say that it’s only a paella in the loosest sense of the word (I sense generations of Spaniards looking around for kitchen implements to hurl at me for accosting it). I should also say that it would probably be equally delicious made with one of those frozen seafood mixes that you can pick up in the supermarket, or with fat prawns. Some finely diced chorizo sausage added at the initial stages would be good too, although obviously would up the points.

Ingredients

Tsp olive oil
Onion, chopped
Clove of garlic, crushed
Red pepper, chopped
110g risotto rice
½ tsp smoked paprika
½ tsp dried thyme
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
Pinch of saffron
50ml dry sherry
450ml chicken or vegetable stock
200g frozen unshelled mussels (defrost before using)
60g peas

Serves 2, 8 Smart Points (WW Flex) per portion

Warm the oil and gently soften the onion for a couple of minutes. As it starts to sweat, chuck in the garlic and the pepper and continue to cook, gently. Meanwhile, add the saffron to the sherry to infuse.

Stir through the risotto rice and the spices and thoroughly combine.

Add the sherry (which should now be a lovely golden colour) and allow to bubble off. Then pour over the hot stock, bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 15 minutes.

Next in are the peas, which cook for about 5 minutes. Then finally, the defrosted mussles for another minute or so – they require very little cooking so really you’re just warming them through here.

Et voila! (or whatever the Spanish equivalent is).