skip to main |
skip to sidebar
As you know, I'm always on the look out for interesting new olive oils, particularly at budget prices, so when I saw a promotion at Tesco on Borges oils I was immediately intrigued. I'm normally wary of big internationally successful brands of olive oil — I prefer obscure makes, or supermarket own brands.
But in this case I couldn't resist the promise of a "Fruity Taste" extra virgin olive oil. And the description of it being 100% arbequina olives suggested it would be a cut above the usual. And, crucially, the price was down from five quid a bottle to three quid (in other words, it cost £6 a litre). I hesitated, counted my pennies... but the fruity taste claim and the arbequina olives had seduced me. I bought a bottle.
So I imagine my horror on the bus going home when I checked the bottle and saw the expiry date on the oil was a mere four months away. The oil had already been in the bottle for 14 months. No surprise, then, when I got it home and found that it tasted flat and uninteresting. I took it back to Tesco's and returned it, telling them it was stale, which I felt it was.
I exchanged it for another bottle. Unfortunately every bottle in the store was on the same dates. This second bottle actually tasted slightly better — I think it might have been a different batch, or stored under better conditions. It was pleasant and buttery.
But a comparison with my current standard baseline extra virgin olive oil, Lidl's Prima Donna immediately showed how insipid the Borges was. The Prima Donna was complex, spicy and flavourful. The Borges simply tasted flat. Given that result, and the fact the Prima Donna is half the price of the Borges — even when the Borges is at a reduced price — I won't be buying this Fruity Taste again any time soon.
I don't think Tesco or Borges are doing the brand any favours by selling such old stock.
(Image credits: the dark green image is from the Borges website — sorry chaps, I'm sure you do some fine oils. This specimen just was not one of them. The light green picture is from Tesco, who are a bit naughty to be selling such an uninspiring and late-dated product on promotion and pretending it's some kind of bargain.)
I'm currently addicted to these. They're utterly delicious. Fortunately I've been able to limit my addiction to the breakfast hours...
I slice the scone into two or three segments, toast them and then spread them with coconut oil, which is solid at room temperature and a superb butter substitute — I figured these All Butter scones probably had enough butter in them already.
Plus the coconut oil is simply delicious. I've got nothing against butter, but it's sensible to limit consumption of animal fats and coconut oil is a tasty and healthy alternative. And in some cases tastes better than butter.
These scones also freeze supremely well. The ones I'm currently tucking into were in the freezer for months and only got dug out because I needed to make room for some Poilane bread. They still taste fantastic.The only consequence of freezing is that they're perhaps a bit more crumbly... So use a sharp knife.
(Image credit: the pack shot is from Waitrose, where indeed I bought the scones.)
I was in the budget supermarket Lidl last night buying tomatoes to make my favourite pizza sauce this weekend. The tomatoes are £1.19 a kilo since you asked, fairly unbeatable and though variable in flavour and quality, often deliciously sweet. As I ran through the recipe in my head I realised I'd run out of olive oil.
Well, I hadn't actually run out. I had plenty of bottles of tasty, classy and high end oils of various kinds. But I'd run out of my standard 'house' oil I use for cooking — Sainsbury's organic unfiltered, a strongly flavoured, peppery and yummy olive oil which I also use for everything else. But it's my 'cheap' oil and in a recipe like this that requires lots, it's the one to use rather the high end oils.
Since I wasn't going to be at Sainsbury's in the next few days I considered gambling on trying some olive oil from Lidl. What the hell, I was already here... and when I saw the price of their oil I was sorely tempted. I noticed a guy wearing headphones picking up a bottle and I asked him what it was like. He politely removed his headphones and said he used it all the time and it was great. So, not without trepidation, I bought a bottle...
Just now, again not without trepidation, I tried it. And was relieved to discover it's very good. Just fine in fact. Good clean, buttery taste. Rather like a Spanish oil in character. I'm going to start using it regularly. At this price, how can I resist?
The price: £2.39 for a 750cl bottle. Or, just under £3.20 a litre. In fact, you can buy litre bottles of it — though not at my branch of Lidl — for £2.99. This makes it less than half the price of the Sainsbury's organic unfiltered. So now the Primadonna is going to become my house oil. And the Sainsbury's organic unfiltered gets promoted to a place among the high end oils
So everybody's happy.
(Image credits: The main picture is from The Eurofood website, which looks interesting but is all Greek to me. The litre bottle is from Lidl's own site.)
I can't remember where I first tasted Chaource. Possibly it was an expensive purchase from Waitrose's high end cheese selection. But I remember that I loved it — meltingly soft, with a slightly mushroomy flavour and a yummy rind — and I have a dynamite recipe for it which I will post soon.
Recently I was delighted to discover that this traditional French village cheese (it's named after the village of origin) has become more widely available. It turned up, quite reasonably priced, at both Tesco and Sainsbury's. So this is my comparison of the two.
The Sainsbury's one (£3.30) was, ahem, simply divine. The Tesco example (£3) was, initially, disappointing.
More sour than Sainsbury's and with a less appetising texture. But, in fairness, the Sainsbury's Chaource was vastly riper — to be honest, I forgot it was in the fridge and only discovered it weeks later, after the blur that was Christmas.
And as the Tesco Chaource grew more ripe and runny, its flavour improved dramatically.
I will have to get two more samples, and age them for exactly the same length of time, eat them both and report back with the results.
It will be hell, but I'm willing to make the sacrifice for you.
Update: I've now had another sample of the Tesco Chaource (thanks, Chuck) and it was simply delicious.
(Mind you, it's time I tried all the other ones again, too. It's such a hard life. Sigh.)
(Image credits: the Tesco's pack shot is from All About You. The Sainsbury's one is from My Supermarket.)
As so often happens, a special offer at Waitrose tempted me to check out a novel food item. This week, "Genesis Crafty Pancakes". These comes in a pack of four and are small to medium sized pancakes — you could hold them in one hand.
The flavours I selected were Blueberry and (Belgian) Chocolate Chip. You're supposed to warm them/toast them under a grill, but in my house that was never going to happen. Straight into the toaster with them — their small size making them ideal for this.
I started with the blueberry ones. Warm from the toaster I then treated them just as I would home made — spread them with coconut oil instead of butter (great, you should try it) and sprinkled them with brown sugar. The texture and flavour of the pancakes was generally excellent — indistinguishable from home made, really.
Where they fell down was on the blueberries. Because of the thinness of the pancakes I suppose whole blueberries were never a possibility, but what blueberry fragments were present were few and far between. Just occasional little brownish splotches. Disappointing, although there was some blueberry flavour throughout the pancake.
The chocolate chip ones on the other hand were jam packed with those chocolate chips (careful they don't melt in your toaster!).
I prefer the blueberry pancakes in principle, but if chocolate is your thing these will go down a treat. They're too rich to need butter (or coconut oil) spread on them. Although I do have a devilish little notion to try them with peanut butter...
(Image credits: I got both the blueberry and chocolate pack shots from Waitrose.)
I try to avoid writing disparaging commentary about restaurants, so when I had a disappointing experience in Miami a few months ago — I fancied a burger, a friend recommended a chain with a high reputation, I went there and was decidedly unimpressed — I decided to just let it go.
But now I've discovered that this US burger chain is opening up in London. So I can no longer remain silent.
The chain is called Five Guys and they've just opened a branch in Covent Garden. I paid them a visit — the place was bustling, busy and obviously already a considerable success — and asked the pleasant and helpful staff there about their cooking policy, which it turns out is the same as in the States. So I can confidently assure you the end result will be the same as I experienced in Miami. And it was not good.
There are many things to commend Five Guys. The restaurants are inviting, nice design, friendly service, the chips are tasty, the toppings are free... but my praise ends there. The burgers are not, in my humble and purely personal opinion, worth eating.
Because they insist on cooking them well done. The customer doesn't get any other options. It's well done or no burger. And the result?
A tasteless, colourless, overcooked slab of dry meat at the centre of your bun. You have to stuff the damn thing with those free toppings in a desperate attempt to get some moisture into your meal. But it's no use...
Why boast of your "certified stamped prime fresh beef" if you're just going to cremate the stuff? I know some people prefer their burgers well done, and some go even further, way beyond the Five Guys burger, and devour it burnt (but isn't burnt food a potential health risk?) However, many other people don't want a cremation-burger. Give us rare, medium rare, or medium...
It's also true that in some places, burger joints have to cook their meat well done by law. Luckily, in the UK, that isn't a nation-wide situation.
And that being the case, Five Guys doesn't stand a chance as far as my taste buds are concerned. Not when there are other burger joints like Byron or the mighty wonderful GBK out there.
Make mine medium rare, please.
(Image credit: The — admittedly delicious looking — burger & fries shot is from Battle of California's post about Five Guys versus another US burger chain. The fries pic is from a review on the blog Ink and Paper (Napkins).)
There's been a recent wave of British cheeses with added fruit — and I have to say I heartily endorse them. Some are better than others, though — and I've just encountered one of the best.
Bowland is a Lancashire cheese with apples and sultanas and a coating of cinammon. It's available at Waitrose — I bought some purely on impulse and I'm very glad I did. It's excellent, and the combined flavours of the cheese, fruit and spice has a synergy which is usually lacking in these fruit cheeses.
The whole is definitely greater than the parts. Give it a try.
(Image credit: the picture of the Bowland cheese in its wrapper is from Michael Lee Fine Cheeses, a tasty little site.)
