Today I wanted to really put the Suffolk into my food challenge by using Suffolk sourced ingredients to make a traditional Suffolk pie, which I picked out from a book called Favourite Suffolk Recipes.
(by Dorothy Baldock. Available from Bury St Edmunds Tourist Information Centre)
And boy did I learn a lot, not just about Suffolk food and cooking but about Suffolk history too.
Let's start with the recipe for instance. The pastry called for self-raising flour, fat and mashed potato! Now that was a new one on me. I've never made pastry with potato before and now that I have, I will never look back. From now on, if ever I cook a savoury pie again (dare I say this was my first time) I can certainly recommend integrating a bit of mash. It really does something magical to the texture of the pie base and makes it feel like food rather than simply culinary wrapping.
And of course the flour was a Suffolk product that had been sourced from Maple Farm Kelsale, which had even been ground from wheat that had been grown in the county. I believe it was a recent find as far as the Welovelocalfood shop is concerned as I recall Paul from Local Food Direct only tweeting about it a few weeks ago.
And here's for my next trick. The recipe needed self-raising flour but this particular product seemed to belong in the plain category - despite its other more obvious attractions of being unbleached and organic. It came very close to me dipping my hands into my cupboard and pulling out my regular brand of self-raising, just to be sure the recipe would work.
However, not to be thwarted, I investigated further and discovered that by adding 1 teaspoon of baking powder to 8oz of flour, it would miraculously turn into the self-raising flour that I needed. The things you learn eh when you step away from your old routines.
But it didn't stop there! Next up was the butter.
Well, the recipe suggested margarine, but the only alternative that I had in my fridge was butter! However, it was not Suffolk butter, it was a well know brand from the South West. Now if this was the Norfolk Diet, I could easily source butter from over the border, from Frettenham in fact, but nothing from Suffolk, which is a real shame, particularly because 18th Century writer Daniel Defoe (author of Robinson Crusoe) said when visiting "High-Suffolk", that it had the best butter in the country!
Of course I could have made some myself. Well, I say "of course" in a manner of shedding some expertise on the subject, but the truth of the matter is that I only discovered this amazing factlet the other night, whilst pondering the topic of dairy products. And the news was that butter can be easily made at home, by whizzing up some cream in the food processor for sufficient time to allow the butter to separate out from the buttermilk. But I've already got plans for my Suffolk-made cream, so I thought I'd let the dilemma pass on this occasion and accept there is only so far you can take such a challenge. However next time I see some fresh cream going cheap, I'm tempting to give it a go using the instructions that I found here:
http://www.allotment.org.uk/allotment_foods/Making_Butter_at_Home.php
So, with the pastry made and ready for baking blind, the rest of the job, which involved making the filling, was easy. To hand I had Suffolk grown mushrooms, onions and carrots. However, the instructions suggested peas. I had no peas - except for the frozen ones in the freezer - but I had kale. Indeed I had plenty of kale, so I thought I'd treat it like broccoli and add it to the filling mix, topped off by a white sauce made from the flour and Marybelle milk.
Although the recipe called for grated cheddar cheese, I resisted the temptation to break into a well-known brand of cheddar that sat in the fridge and instead chose the smoked cheddar from the Suffolk Smokehouse in Framlingham. On account of its deliciously intense smoked flavour, I also decided to add strips of ham to the pie filling, to balance the ingredients and I was extremely happy with result, so much so that I will most defiinitely be making pies again.
And the rest of the day? For this morning's breakfast, I joined my youngest in a round of toast, using bread that was made and baked onsite at Viv's Patisserie in Bury St Edmunds and topped off with the Mirabelle jam. We got through even more apple juice, this time pouring one of my favourites that I'd bought on the market this Saturday from local orchard Maynards.
Of course the trouble with a challenge like this always comes when you venture outdoors, as it's not always easy to guarantee there'll be Suffolk produce available when meeting up with friends in a local cafe. And that's what I experienced today. So, not being particularly hungry, I settled for a quick pot of tea, which I let pass under the radar for reasons of not wanting to become a total extremist...and needing a good dose of caffeine to boot!
However, when our tea-break was over, light shone back onto the streets of Bury St Edmunds once more, particularly in the direction of Barwells on Abbeygate Street - the home of the St Edmundsbury Purse
.However, I only popped in to investigate their sausage rolls. The photo you see here is of the best sausage rolls in town, but now I rate them even higher, because I've discovered today that not only are they made in Suffolk, but they are made from Suffolk reared pork too. That was the perfect choice for lunch.
So, as Day 3 of the Suffolk Diet closes, I think it's been a success after all. But it's been so busy with my time being shared between helping to deliver leaflets for a Suffolk Twestival, writing an article for the Suffolk Preservation Society, being interviewed by Lesley Dolphin on BBC Radio Suffolk as well as Jade from Suffolk's Heart FM, I never got a chance to make the Ipswich Lemon Tart.
Maybe I'll make it on Friday when I travel across the county to check out Ipswich. It seems a fitting occasion, especially as it's named after the town. Who knows I might even have a chance of finding a Suffolk lemon by then.
A Suffolk lemon?
Well, stranger things have happened, so who knows what surprises lie ahead. If you've got a lemon that you've grown in Suffolk do let me know, as I could find a really good use for it.
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