I’ve been to Wales and fallen in love with it. True, it wasn’t raining and true, put me on a long sandy beach anywhere and I’ll potter on and on, grinning stupidly, like a Duracell Bunny. But it is beautiful and friendly and I had some great food.
They do better ice cream than the ice-cream renowned county down south whose name begins with a ‘C’. They do super fresh mackerel and crab. They make fudge that looks like a giant puked on the counter and after cooking tastes wonderful. They brew good beer (so I’m told) and serve it in a winning combination with tex-mex food. And I had dinner at the Salt Cellar restaurant in Tenby that completely blew me away. Worth a Michelin star as much as it’s worth their Salt…
So this week of course I’ll be trying to replicate some of the stuff I saw and had there and I’ll report on the results. For the time being, some suggestions inspired by the ingredients used in Cellar.
Beetroot – and it’s now in season – in a warm or cold salad. Cook it or leave it raw; grate it like I did or leave it chunky. Tomatoes – how about tomato salad with creamed corn? Or perhaps a classic Caesar salad – but with prawns or lobster chunks instead of chicken? Genius.
For my main I had brill and it was pan fried – it can be skinless like I had it or skin on, like this recipe says. And swap brill for any other tasty and sustainable white fish fillets.
The Weather Man had pork belly and I must shamefully admit it was better than when I cook it, even though he didn’t say it. But hey – pork belly is always good if you leave it long enough in the oven. The pork came with leeks (I’d have been horribly disappointed if I’d not encountered them on my trip) and that’s a winning pair. Creamy leeks like this will be great with the pork, just swap the wild garlic with spring onions out of its season.
And I didn’t have the pudding. I know, a shocking neglect in the research process, but I stuffed my face with excellent malty bread (quite like this treacle rye) before starters arrived so I couldn’t justify dessert. But they had peanut butter blondie and I can only hope my blondie is only a few leagues down…