A week in the kitchen

We continued gingerly to experiment with the heat levels on the stove, and to apply our slowly acquired techniques to food that we bought at Waitrose.   Our second meal in London was sauteed lamb chops, tiny green beans, and small flaky Charlotte potatoes.  Meat and 2 veg:

Continuing with the chop theme, and sticking close to potatoes, we then tried to add the oven to our repertoire.  Our standard method for pork chops (using the thick ones from Tamworth pork that we buy at home from the Moore family farm) is to saute them on the stove, and then finish in a 375 degree oven for about 20 minutes.
The oven!  The flat comes with very clear laminated instructions for most of the functions and appliances, and the oven was no exception.  It appears to work on a timer, i.e. it will start cooking your casserole at the time you set. (This feature must have been made obsolete by the microwave.)  To use the oven like normal people, one moves the dial to the icon of the hand, signifying "manual."  But it took a long time for the oven to heat properly, and meanwhile, the rest of our meal was a-cooking on the stove top.
This consisted of sauteed mushrooms, kale and shallots with a little lemon flourish at the end, and  -- yes, potatoes!  The chops got a little over done and the hot pan triggered the smoke alarm, but this allowed us to figure out the exhaust hood -- turn on the "on" button on the plug in the wall; and how to open the kitchen window.   We did not do these chops justice, but perhaps another day we will try some heritage pork again.

Finally Saturday arrived, and we traveled to the famous Borough Market on the south bank of the Thames, near London Bridge tube station.

The market is under construction (again); a rail viaduct is being installed, so the stalls have been moved around and it took awhile to find our favorite places.  The market opens at 8 on Saturdays, but people were still setting up at 8:20 or so.  The nice thing about the early time is that it's not very crowded.  By 10 am things get pretty congested.

We decided that we would buy some scallops from one of the fish mongers. 

and a chicken for Sunday dinner, but in the end selected a guinea fowl from a stall specializing in game.  We added streaky bacon from the Ginger Pig, 

root vegetables and greens, and some nice pears.

Home on the tube to unpack our purchases and contemplate our first serious meal of scallops, inspired by the photo from Koenrat's Gazette.

Saturday night we made sauteed scallops in clarified butter so they would get nice and brown on both sides (see below), 

accompanied by buttered and parsleyed parsnips.  At Daunt Books we had bought Jane Grigson's 1970s Vegetable Book, thinking this would help us navigate the mysterious new vegetables we would have to opportunity to try.  Her recommendation for the parsnips is to cook them standing on their ends, with the smaller tips in the end. The base would simmer and the tops would steam.  But these, parsnips, anyway, were lighter than water, and kept floating, so we cut them up and boiled them like this.

Buttered leeks would accompany the scallops:

And some of those tiny green beans from Kenya, that are really flavorful and last a few days in the refrigerator, too.

A pretty quick meal with top-notch ingredients, and voila!

That was our Saturday dinner.  Sunday was for guinea hen, and time to get serious about employing our Le Creuset casserole on the stove top.

One reason we chose the guinea hen was that the chickens were all kind of big for just two of us and the size of our pans.  The guinea hen was just the right size and had nice texture too.

First R cut it up and then we browned it.

Then we sliced some fennel:

And some lovely endive:

And more of the leeks:

 They all stewed together in some good butter from Neal's Yard Dairy in the orange pot, while the guinea hen rested on the side.

Once they were nice and tender, we added some chicken stock (comes in a concentrate from Waitrose), and some Chimay beer.

Add some thyme, cover, and cook slowly for about an hour.  We were finally getting the hang of regulating the stove top!  Meanwhile, while waiting and savoring the wonderful smells coming from beneath the lid, we sampled some Jamo ham we had bought from the Brindisa stall at Borough Market...

Finally, the meal was finished:  guinea fowl braised in vegetables with blond Belgian beer.  And mashed potatoes, of course, to keep the mouli mill earning its passage over the ocean.

The chicken and its sauce made excellent leftovers, and later the next week we turned it into a soup, pureeing the remaining parsnips.  Excellent!

We had also bought some terrific looking brussels sprouts at the market, but couldn't manage to work them into any of the weekend meals.  So on Monday we made brussels sprouts with bacon, and potato.  we tried steaming the sprouts in a collander over boiling water, but the seal was not really tight enough. The color is good, though:

Meanwhile, we were sauteeing the bacon in the work horse Le Creuset:

Then we combined the bacon and sprouts and let them "get to know one another" and the sprouts to soften a little more:

Note the sprouts are still green!  And here is our Monday supper:

The sprouts lasted a good while, too, and they held their flavor pretty well during the week.  What with leftovers and a couple of visits to restaurants (Great Queen Street and Arbutus), our second week produced no culinary breakthroughs.  But on Saturday morning, we journeyed again to the Borough Market, and will report soon on week two of our pan Atlantic cuisine.