A certifiable night of food, but not a sign of crackers.

I'm unsure whether it was the full moon, or the fabled march madness that made our Lunacy themed night seem particularly mental. It even seemed to rub off on some of our guests, although l'm far too discreet to name and shame.*

Lauren's set certainly helped things along too, as guests entered to find images of themselves distort with a hall of mirrors, then their minds bend with Alice in Wonderland inspired place settings.


As for the food, the first two courses of the night we're a change to the advertised menu due to the late arrival of some of the wild foods l'd wanted to use. The late spurt of cold weather pushed the season back a couple of weeks at least. As l headed off with my basket to collect the young heads of stinging nettles, l found a lot of evidence of the little tinglers bursting into life, but not the difficult teenagers required.

So the first course changed to a tried and tested recipe (and a bit of a favourite at Christmas) was chestnut and chorizo soup with red onion crisps - Nutty, get it? This is a real warming soup and the heat of the chorizo with the comforting heaviness of the chestnuts in the soup feel like a big wooly scarf wrapping the body from the neck down.

The second course was the problematic dish that changed the first first two. It was a shame l couldn't use nettles as l really wanted to use it after learning about how nice, and damn good for you they are on a wild food course in Dorset a few years ago. So out went the feared stingers and in came wild mushrooms in a dish called a Fideau - a Spanish dish (a type of paella). This was served with a large dollop of home-made alioli. I tested this dish on my usual group of baying starlings and the nest bristled so l was eager to unleash it on our guests.


I have to admit to being a little disappointed on the night as it didn't quite live up to the taste of the version l tested. Something seemed to happen when cooking a delicate dish on a larger scale. The tested dish had a wallop of mushroom, and when draped through the mayonnaise became deliciously creamy. I was happy to finally master the art of making homemade mayonnaise after a few disasters experimenting with this white art. Here's my method:

Ingredients:
2 egg yolks
1 tsp of english mustard
250 ml groundnut oil
50ml rapeseed oil
Lemon
salt and pepper

First place the egg yolks, mustard and a drop of groundnut oil in a tall thin container like a jug. It needs to be big enough to just about house the head of a hand blender (the ones you'd normally use for soup) at the bottom. For some reason l've never been able to get a food processor to work, which is probably a blight on the blender! I saw this clip on youtube, tried it, and it has worked every time.

Give it a quick blitz then add slowly the groundnut oil blitzing all the time as you carefully pour. After a while you should be able to pour the oil more freely including the rapeseed oil. I like to add a small amount of rapeseed oil as it gives a little more flavour to the mayonnaise. Add lemon juice and season at the end and your done.

Thankfully the main course stayed true to the plan and bought the mad march hares (actually wild rabbits w/petite poise, cider, lettuce and spiced glazed chicory) to the dinner table. This was a first for us at Toob as l've never prepared or cooked rabbit - although l have caught, skinned and gutted one when l was a vegetarian! I guess it's still a very much a taboo ingredient in Britain and after a quick canvas of the assembled diners it appeared it was many people's first time to eat our furry friends.


I'm sure many of the first timers will championing the merits of le lapin and l certainly intend to carry a carrot shaped torch. It's a delicious meat, and extremely cheap so give it a go if you haven't already. We bought ours online for £3,50 each! The rabbit was braised with a mirepoix and pancetta then stewed in cider for around an hour. The petite poise and lettuce was added just at the end, which added a freshness to contrast with the stewed rabbit. Spiced glazed chicory accompanied the dish which simply involved roasting them in sugar, cointreau, the juice of 2 oranges, and a crushed star anise.

Adding the cointreau to the main meant that some of the citrus flavours from the main was continued into the desert.


For desert a rhubarb fool w/ ginger shortbread almost bought the meal to it's certifiable end - the cointreau making an appearance in the cream. Fully aware that a fool is essentially whipped cream with some sort of fruity accompaniment, l really wanted to craft the pud (mainly because l really enjoy making deserts), into something special. This took a bit of experimentation and a little tinkering to a few recipes l had on my bookcase, the findings…ahem…are as follows:

Ingredients (serves 4 - 6):
500g Rhubarb
1 Ball of stem ginger plus syrup (to taste)
1 cinnamon stick
Juice of ½ lemon
Pinch of ground cinnamon
4tbsp golden caster sugar (to taste)
3 tbsp Cointreau
300ml carton double cream

Method:
Firstly cut the rhubarb into approximately 2cm batons and heat over a medium heat with the ginger (not syrup), cinnamon stick and powder, lemon juice, 4tbsp golden caster sugar and a good splash of water. I just undercooked the rhubarb, which took around 5 minutes, being careful to retain the rhubarb's shape and then let it cool in the pan. At this stage l added the syrup from the stem ginger, a little at a time, until the mixture tasted sweet enough while retaining some of the rhubarb's tartness. Be careful not to overpower the mixture with the taste of ginger too. This was left in the fridge to cool while l prepared the cream mixture.

This was created by beating the double cream until it thickened (not too stiff though as it'll come unworkable when serving), then adding cointreau and some of the rhubarb juice to taste.

To serve l strained excess liquid from the rhubarb mixture and reduced it in a saucepan a little. This isn't totally necessary, but a surprising amount of moisture leaks from the mixture, and l didn't want to waste any of it, and i didn't want the presentation of the dish to leak through the layers. This was then added back to the original rhubarb mix. I then placed a layer of rhubarb mix in some small clear herb jars, then piped the cream on top and repeated.

A night themed lunacy couldn't have finished without our guest succumbing to the maddening ways of the green fairy. For this, slightly sorry looking Absinthe jellies were served. I'd wanted to make them extra wobbly and had bought some great edwardian jelly moulds on Ebay, but unfortunately hadn't quite added enough gelatine so they slided into a heap, rather than naughtily standing up and waving to our diners. Still, we weren't short of takers and the actual taste of absinthe jelly is pleasant, much to everyones surprise. I used a recipe posted on the independents website, which can be found here.

Oh, and before we go i have to mention that we had a little surprise up our sleeve for one guest, the lovely Gail Haslam, whom was celebrating a birthday. The following cake was created by our talented Toob (ee) Anna Reid of 'Crumb roll please'.




The idea was to have the cake in sight the whole time, which we then presented half way through the night much to everyones delight and surprise. We're happy to cater for special occasions so if you'd like a cake made let us know and we may be able to help.

All at Toob awoke on Sunday and felt different, almost cleansed. I guess it's good to go nuts now and again.

*Adam, you're absolutely barmy bless you, it wouldn't have been the same without you.

You don’t have to be mad to work here but it helps

It’s nearing the end of March, the sunlight begins to extend the days, heating can be turned down a notch, as the promise of summer starts to yawn into our psyche. Our brains start to flicker with excitement, heads get giddy, and a peculiar furore takes over. Perhaps I’m speaking for myself here, but isn’t it around late March, early April that things go slightly off kilter, a little mad?

The sales cry ‘March Madness’, a whole day is dedicated to hoaxes and practical jokes with April Fools day; the evidence is there and it seems enough to decree that this is silly season.

So just ask yourself a few questions. Ever eaten a tomato like an apple? Walked into a room and thought, what am I doing here? Rang the doorbell to your own house before letting yourself in? If yes, then we urge you to embrace it, nay encourage you to bring out that wacky side at our next supper club, on the 27th March - themed Lunacy!

Yup, we’ve gone stark raving bonkers, and have created a menu that shows we’re not afraid to fool around. This may be subject to change on the night, which will be slight.

Starter:

Wild Mushroom Tom Yum Soup

2nd Course:

Fettucine w/ stinging nettles three ways

Main Course:

Rabbit w/ petits pois, cider, lettuce and spiced glazed chicory

(Mad as a march hare? Almost)

Desert:

Rhubarb Fool with ginger shortbread

Digestif:

Absinthe jelly

So are you a few sandwiches short of a picnic? Then book here and prepare to go crazy! info@trailofourbread.com

A successful voyage, even a little POSH (Port Out Starboard Home)

So I’ve just about had a week to get this old sea dog acclimatised to land living after our 3rd supper club ‘the ocean commotion’ sailed by with a prevailing wind puffing out the spinnaker.

I really enjoyed the theme this month and think Lauren did a great job of making the ocean theme so immersive. As our guests took their seats, the surrounding jellyfish that twinkled around their heads felt like we were all holding our breaths. Check out her blog by the way, she’s a talented member of the Toob team!





Also, our guests couldn’t have been more enthusiastic – especially Fred with his Gallic passion! Talking of guests, a special thank you should be set aside for Tom, who arrived a little early to find us at Toob scratching our heads over our hifi that was not playing ball. I’m still not quite sure there was a science behind the fix, but Tom enthusiastically twizzled the leads enough to get the damn thing spluttering back to life.

So, with the sound of sea shanties misting our ears, the first course was served; Mussels with a fennel scented broth.



There’s nothing like mussels to give you that sweetness of the sea in your mouth, especially when they’re in season as they are now; plump and juicy. I used a Scandinavian recipe for the mussels, which was to create a broth with Celeriac, fennel bulbs, fennel seeds, a few carrots, home-made fish stock, and a dash of Pernod.

Next was a change to the original menu, which saw the inclusion of Malaysian Prawn Corals, with Crispy Seaweed and Cucumber Salad that replaced the Scallop and Lime soup.



I’ve always wanted to try my hand at creating my own crispy seaweed, and the results are certainly worth the effort. You need a lot of Bok Choy, which you then shred, dry out in the oven (about 5 mins being careful not to burn it) and then deep fry in a flavourless oil like groundnut oil. Finish the crispy seaweed with chopped toasted pine nuts and a little natural cane sugar.

For the Prawn Corals, I made a prawn fritter mix and instead of moulding into careful disks, left the mixture loose, and pressed in large whole raw prawns before dropping into the deep fat fryer. This made them appear like large corals washed up against the crispy seaweed.

Malaysian Prawn Corals Recipe (serves 8)
500g raw prawns, shelled and de-veined
240g fresh bean sprouts, rinsed
120g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 small, fresh red chillies
1tsp of fresh ginger finely chopped
1 tsp ground coriander
½ tsp ground turmeric
2 tbsp finely chopped spring onions
2 tbsp finely chopped fresh coriander
1 tsp salt
2 eggs, beaten

This recipe makes about 16 corals so to start reserve enough whole prawns to press into the amount of corals you intend to make, then take the remaining amount of prawns and finely chop. Then combine all the ingredients with the chopped prawns and the mixture should be quite wet and loose. Take a heaped tablespoon of the mixture, press in one or two whole prawns then drop into a deep fat fryer or a wok filled with groundnut oil. Once browned, take them out and drain on some kitchen towel and serve.

The main course was Mackerel w/ chorizo, braised leeks and shallot crisps.
Mackerel happens to be one of my favourite fish; I love its intense flavour and think it’s robust enough to be coupled with another strong flavour like chorizo, which is quite unusual. Didn’t get a picture of this one for some unknown reason, may have been something to do with having to get 14 of them out. Tsk, promise to be a better snapper in future – no pun intended for once. It did seem to be the most successful dish of the night though.

To finish things off we served Chocolate delice w/ sesame snaps, salted caramel and home-made barley ice cream.



Salted caramel is one of those things that are so easy to make, but always the show stealer. I worked tirelessly the night before on creating a chocolate mayonnaise that becomes the base of the delice, but ultimately, if I’d just served the ice cream, with salted caramel oozing over the top, everyone would have been more than happy. I loved seeing the small saucepans of salted caramel being finger dipped at the end.

Salted caramel
250g granulated sugar
25ml water
150ml double cream
150g unsalted butter, diced
Maldon salt, to taste

Put the sugar and water in a pan and heat without stirring until the mixture becomes a deep golden caramel colour. Take off the heat and let cool slightly before whisking in the cream, bit by bit, trying not to split it. Then add the butter, little at a time, and then salt the caramel to taste.

The night ended with our guests swaying off into the night with the taste of our fisherman’s friend vodka shot cocktail. It was fun and nice to see everyone that came give it a go. Can’t say it was exactly the taste we wanted to leave in our visitors’ palate, but certainly warmed all of their cockles.

We’d love to see some of our guests pics so don’t forget to get them up on facebook and tag it with ‘trailofourbread’. Especially would like to see some of the people with their face in the mermaid posing gallery.

The Ocean Commotion, and getting things ship shape.

It could be the rolling waves, or ill winds, that sea [sic] this months supper club announcement coming a little late, so for that may we firstly apologise.

It's around this time, as captain of the TOOB vessel l start to think about things to do with the ocean. Partly because it's my birthday, and although l don't believe in the stars i know that Aquarius and Pisces are vaguely connected to the ocean. It was also, almost a year ago, that l visited a beautiful Welsh village called Tenby and found the following sign, which has supplied this months theme name - Ocean commotion.



Initially, l loved the idea of a landmark having such a funny and intriguing name so i had to snap it. I then proceeded on a voyage of discovery to find out what this mysterious landmark could be. Imagine my disappointment and finding the name belonged to a child's indoor activity centre; l guess not much happens in Tenby. Still, a great name.

Our next supper club is on the 27th February and is themed Ocean commotion, l'm sure you got that already.

So get your sea legs on, shout yo ho ho, and prepare for the romance of the sea to excite the depths of your appetite. The menu may be subject to a few changes as we've not fully tested all of it yet, but it won't be far of the following:

Ocean Commotion Menu

Scallop cream soup w/lime and deep fried chervil

Mussels in a fennel scented broth

Mackerel w/chorizo braised leeks and shallot crisps

Chocolate fondant with salted caramel and malted barley ice cream.

Fisherman's Friend Vodka Cocktail

Fancy taking a deep on our ocean odyssey? Email info@trailofourbread.com to make an enquiry.

Just thought we'd add a picture of our practice efforts to warm your cockles, or sea bass...which doesn't have quite the same ring.

Toob, the evil temptress

It only took our 2nd Supper Club before we decided to get evil on our guests, the theme being temptation, and Toob assuming the role of that wicked whisper in your ear.

It seemed the temptation menu had put a fire in our guests belly too, as Jamie and Agatha arrived with some home brewed hooch in their pockets for later. In fact it was a lovely home-made strawberry vodka, using strawberry's they'd grown in their garden. Thanks Jamie, we very much approve of our guests bringing gifts!

The first course was a slight amend from the menu we posted previously, as l trailed a black bean soup that used coke as a stock. I used half coke, that had been used for basting a ham and half vegetable stock with black beans, cumin, chillies and few other bits and pieces. The soup had an unusual sweetness from the coke, but ultimately I found it lacked the wow factor for the amount of cooking it required. Instead I hit on the idea of creating a kind of ying and yang soup which combined a classic black bean soup with a Tuscan white bean soup. By pouring them into the bowls at the same time it pretty much created a soup split in two. For some reason I couldn't help demeaning this in my head by singing 'Ebony and ivory' by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson. O no, it's in my head again as I write.



The next course was a Mac n Cheese that I adapted slightly from a Simon Hopkinson recipe which can be seen here. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article6861528.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1



The inclusion of tomatoes really is a nice touch and I added some extra mature Red Leicester cheese for colour, along with some mature cheddar and a slight amount of gorgonzola for a creamy kick.

The third course of Sticky Ribs with Coleslaw really was the surprise winner of the

night, and a course I mostly picked due to the Adam and Eve connection. See what I did there? Aye?



It was the one course that most people insisted I gave the recipe for as they left so here is my take on BBQ ribs. This should serve 8 people comfortably:

Ingredients:

24 Pork Belly Ribs


Sticky Sauce:

Tomato ketchup 400ml
Worcester Sauce 2 tbsp
Black Treacle 2 tbsp
Cider Vinegar 180ml
White pepper 1 ½ tsp
Ground cloves 1 ½ tsp
5 cloves of garlic crushed.

The Rub:

2 tbsp of Paprika
2 heaped tsps of English Mustard
4 heaped tsps of dried oregano
2 tbsp of sea salt flakes

Firstly you need to cook the ribs in salted water on a gentle simmer for 30minutes. The ribs should then be allowed to dry and then placed in a shallow dish containing the rub and liberally covered. Then dip the ribs in the sticky sauce (all the mixture needs combining) and then put them on a large baking tray and cook for 40-45 minutes, basting a few times if they look a little dry.

By the time the main course arrived I think the evil menu had started to take its toll on our guests...that and the extra portions of the ribs that most people managed to tuck away! Still, I can whole-heartedly recommend triple cooked chips as the best way to make chips. I've been doing this for a while now and the results really are worth the effort.



Lastly, and my personal favourite, was the Treacle Tart with clotted cream and raspberry coulis. This is a recipe I've been tinkering with for a while, but the key to making the treacle bit nice and light is to add lemon juice. I was inspired to do this by a Heston Blumenthal's recipe, but personally I found the amount he adds over powers the treacle. I know, I'm not sure where I get the gall to challenge it, but hey...personally I found it too lemony so cut the amount of juice added by half. Nurr.


I really enjoyed our second supper club, it feels like it's getting better and better, and in no small way it's due to our guests that are just so nice to have over, and help from friends. So a big thanks to Lauren, Llinos, Ella, Anna, Simon, Jenny, Simon, Gail, Jon, Nathalie, Matt, Jaime, Agatha, and Nicola.

Our next theme is The Sea...just for a sneaky peaky. x

Temptation; we're the devil on your shoulder

Knowing that most of us will be straying into a new decade, with thoughts of reform and attempts to be less noughties, we thought we'd see in the new year by offering a menu that acts like the friend you mum wished you didn't have.

On the 30th January, it's our 2nd supper club and the theme is TEMPTATION.

With your new year resolutions probably starting to wobble, we thought it would be nice to create a menu so glutenous, so naughty, so damn right wicked that you'll think to hell with the diet, and damnation to no diary. After all, it's far more positive to take on more with the coming of a new year, than to give up the things you like...isn't it?


So here's the menu, which may be subject to a few tweaks, but not anything significant. If you don't eat meat, or have any allergies please look at the menu before booking and let us know as we may be able to help.

The Evil Menu

Black bean soup with cornbread

Mac 'n' cheese

BBQ styled pork ribs with coleslaw

Steak burger with deep fried quails egg, triple fried chips and a trident of sauces

Treacle tart with clotted cream pots

Are you tempted? Email info@trailofourbread.com for bookings.

As your festive feelings ebb, we add a little more festive cheer

We'll, that's what we'd like to think...but the truth is we were a little lazy at adding a few more pictures of the creations made for our first supper club. So here they are:


Think you can appreciate the folded reindeers a little more from this pic.


and Laurens laurel, nice idea!

If you'd like to see more of what Lauren does check out her very own blog here:
http://laurennikrooz.blogspot.com