Beef came around at the end of last month, possibly the largest single piece of beef that I have ever bought. A purchase which was paired with a new stock pot. This last leveraging the fairly recent arrival of ProCook at the Ashley Centre.
The first step was to investigate Aga. We have a set of their saucepans which have done very well, but the biggest, at 22cm wide, is not quite deep enough for comfort when making stews, soups and stocks. Something which perhaps happens once or twice a month. And then there are the occasions when one needs an extra large saucepan for extra vegetables. A little late in the day I investigated the Aga website to decide that they were too expensive for occasional use.
The second step was to measure the roasting tin. I did not want to get home with something too big to fit. Something I have been careful about every since we roasted in a Baby Belling - in far-off days when butchers knew about such things and could prepare your joint to suit. 13 inches wide by 11.5 inches deep.
Then off to town with the trolley, not fancying carrying a joint home the old-fashioned way. Or in a rucksack come to that, a device I have resorted to occasionally when at Borough with a Bullingdon. And at ProCook I lighted on a 24cm stockpot, a little wider and quite a lot deeper than our largest Aga. But at well under half the price of their equivalent. I thought it would serve. And as it turns out, I have enjoyed have the glass lid through which I can keep an eye on developments. It's first outing is snapped above.
The arty version.
From there to Upper High Street, where I was invited to select my beef from the cold cupboard. I settled for four ribs from one of the smaller joints, four ribs which weighed in at just under 6.4kg or just about 14lbs in old money. Not quite as long in the rib as I would have liked, but that is how they usually come from the wholesaler and it served. Plenty of fat, but not much of a blanket outside. Maybe that is down to dairy cow rather than beef cow? Maybe the trade thinks that we don't want the blanket?
Dessert in progress right.
With the beef joint being supplemented by a kilo of beef bones.
Pushed the beef, the bones the new saucepan and some grapes back home along Temple Road, where I came across the mistletoe snapped at the top of this post. Outside St. Barnabas Church, the place which had an expensive extension tacked on the front, maybe 25 years ago. Where on earth did they get the money to pay for it? By selling their church hall to be our local mosque (that community having been denied access to the then disused Horton Chapel along the road)?
While this morning, I wonder why 'Temple Road'. Was there an evangelical shed there at some point? They are sometimes called temples. Or, more mundanely, was 'Temple' the family name of the wife of whoever built the houses?
A digression at this point concerning the borscht taken at reference 3 - and where better to go than to Stalin's famous cookbook known as the 'Book of healthy and tasty food', which we have in a not particularly well-produced, fat paperback reprint. Noticed at reference 4. It offered a number of recipes for borscht, but the one snapped above looked like the regular one - including a fair whack of meat to give the soup a bit of body; not a veggie job at all. With the doses of sugar and vinegar accounting for the taste of jam - or perhaps sweet n'sour. With beetroot accounting for under half the total. We will get around to making it one day - and in the meantime we wonder how closely Delaunay stuck to the script?
I then moved on to examination of beef precedents and beef recipes, with the most recent beef being noticed at reference 5. Three bones for three hours at 190°C. Which, pro-rata at just under 1.5 gives 4 hours 30 minutes, say 08:30 for 13:00. While the Radiation Cook Book talks of 20 minutes to the pound, less 20 minutes for a large joint. We settled on 08:30.
The stock went on at around 14:00: bones, onions, celery, some white cabbage, an elderly leek and a few elderly carrots. More a less a clean sweep of the old vegetables.. Topped up half way then strained at 17:45. BH had go at the bones when they had cooled off a bit: good flavour but not much meat. On this occasion, the stock did not set overnight: I must have used more water to the bone. Or maybe not going into the refrigerator in the morning was the difference.
Joint in at 08:30. Tested at noon, when it was still running a little pink. Plated at round 12:45, freeing up the roasting tin for stirring in the stock, thus picking up the roasting juices. Pouring the fat off first.
Further preparations. Including giving the stock another go with the vegetable peelings. Fat bottom right lifted off the stick top left. Fat which went on to make the roux for the gravy.
At this point gardening digressions, starting with a comic pigeon feeding on the plum buds outside the study window. Rather more comic when you have several of them bounding up and down on the slender twigs.
A snake's head in good form. Maybe they are slowly spreading.
The Baby Blue Christmas tree, still not looking very happy, despite being in the ground now for a couple of years or more. Does not cope very well with the dry summers - with the bigger trees round about sucking most of the water available out of the clay. For some reason, the other one planted a year earlier, more or less under a nut tree does rather better.
A tall fir tree of some sort in the garden next door. Rather bigger in real life than it appears here.
Odd how different the world looked from the top of the big compost heap.
While down below, a lot of worm action.
Plated up on trestle table No.1. Swede just about visible at the back: it has been quite pale this year for some reason. Sometimes it is a much stronger yellow.
Not the smoothest carving, but it served. And the meat, while not pink, was still damp, which was good. And it had a good flavour. And another outing for the cherry serving dish, a relic, I believe, from my father's oldest sister. New stock pot, now a vegetable pot, visible at the back.
Dessert.
The scene at the end of the day. In the event, we had more or less done the beef in one go. The carving technique having been to rotate the cut clockwise, which reduced the amount of fiddling around with bones.
From the other side.
For wine, mostly the red from Guildford noticed at reference 6, supplemented by some elderly Buck's Fizz, supplemented by some tins of San Pellegrino (as discovered in the Glass House café at Wisley), supplemented by a spot of dessert white.
Neither Bing nor Google can get through the shops to the maker of 'Wairau Cove', but gmaps takes me to the river (but not the cove) and Gemini turns up reference 7. Which is certainly the right sort of outfit, which does work with UK supermarkets, and which owns the 'Villa Maria' brand which I learned about from Wetherspoons. But I have yet to find 'Wairau Cove' there. More digging indicated.
Perhaps the list snapped above is not exhaustive. Maybe the answer lurks in: 'Our unique production model [Indevin, that is] gives retailers the assurance to invest in exclusive brand strategies, delivering customer focused wine. Unlike traditional spot market models our partnerships offer full branding and production control, eliminating quality concerns and ensuring regional exclusivity. Our sub-regional growing strategy guarantees consistent quality and quantity, year in and year out, regardless of harvest variables'.
Pushing onto to reference 8, said to be the bottler, I come across all kinds of New Zealand brands which I have bought in the past, particularly from New Zealand, particularly from Majestic, but not this one.
But Gemini is ahead of this game, pointing me to the Tesco product page for this wine, which does indeed mention Indevin. And he points out that Kingsland very probably appear on the label on the back of the bottle - which I did not think to snap on this occasion.
Quite an impressive performance on this occasion.
PS: it turns out that the bottle is still in the recycling bin in the garage. It admits to being bottled by 'W1226 at M44 6BD'. Which last does indeed turn out to be the postcode of a Kingsland facility between Manchester and Warrington. Presumably 'W1226' is some internal Tesco code. The links are all made!
References
Reference 1: https://bensbutchery.co.uk/.
Reference 2: https://www.procook.co.uk/.
Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/04/dancing-stars.html.
Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/01/oleaster-removal.html.
Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/bens-beef.html. As it happened, the nail lost in February turned up in March - in the front room where we had not been looking for it.
Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/shoulder.html.
Reference 7: https://www.indevin.com/.
Reference 8: https://www.kingsland-drinks.com/. 'An employee-owned drinks specialist providing innovative solutions to the UK trade and beyond'.
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