Thank you all of you who read my last post. I know this is normally a place for me to share my fairly inane, and fairly unoriginal drivellings about food, but occasionally, you know, an issue arises which is more important than what we ate for dinner. Actually, most things are more important than what we ate for dinner, but I can't always articulate what I feel about those things. My friend's situation, the chronic category 5 endometriosis and the fact that she has borne it without complaining for all these years, I feel deeply about that, and as we live so far apart, writing the post was the only thing I felt I could do. The good news is that it's had huge page viewings and even made it to the front page of the Mumsnet Bloggers Network yesterday which I was incredibly chuffed about.
But today, my friend is still in hospital, and nothing has stirred me to action, so it's back to the food. Although if you haven't read my last post, please do...
There's a bit in one of the Wind in the Willows stories which talks about it being a 'golden afternoon' - late summer is the season, and if memory serves me correctly, it's when Toad has encouraged Ratty and Mole to join him in a gypsy caravan, before the onset of the motor car. Well, it's only March, but the weather has been golden over the last few days here on the West Wales coast. The tide has been low in the mornings, so my day has started with a good dose of beach, and the kids even braved the sea after school a couple of days ago.
After my jaunt to Aberporth with Fred this morning, I stopped off at the farm shop which is just off the main A487 coast road at Tanygroes (if you were interested). Down a little lane is the Golwg y Mor Farm Fresh Meats shop, and if you are in the area for any reason, like a holiday, or because you live here, it's well worth a visit. The meat is fabulous, and the company friendly and chatty. It's one of the things I really love about living here. People have the time to chat, to pass the time of day. On the downside, it makes work avoidance far too easy - I was struggling to leave the beach in the first place, and I ended up delaying the inevitable enforced time in front of the lap top by at least another 20 minutes chatting about this and that...
The conversation this morning turned to the fact that people have been slow cooking pork for years - the Rayburn being a perfect medium to bung in the joint and forget about it all day - but that all of a sudden it's 'the new thing'. He was saying he gets people coming in asking for meat to make 'pulled pork' as if it's the latest thing. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall et al have a lot to answer for - but in a good way, because if they have opened up the eyes of the cooking public to the beauty that is slow roast meat, that can only be a good thing.
I was, myself, in there for something to slow roast. A piece of pork to whack in the oven when I got home, and leave all day, delicious smells permeating the house, and meaning that when dinner time came, I simply had to knock up some veggies and do some gravy. Veg box day yesterday produced lovely chard, carrots and celeriac, amongst other things. Simply steamed the first two, and made mash with the third - perfect accompaniments.
Speaking of unoriginal drivel about food, I know there are a million recipes for slow roast pork on the internet, and there may even be a version of this somewhere on this blog, but it's so good, and so easy that I thought it was worth posting again.
Slow roast Pork Shoulder (or whatever, it doesn't have to be shoulder)
! piece of pork - about 2 kg
a little oil to grease your roasting tin, plus 1 tbsp
1 medium onion
some sprigs of thyme
2 tbsp fennel seed
zest of a lemon
2 cloves of garlic, peeled & roughly chopped
a good pinch of sea salt
A large wine glass of white wine & water (or all water if you don't have any white wine left over from the previous night)
Pre-heat the oven to 220C
Grease a smallish roasting tin - it needs to be big enough to take the pork, but not so big that the liquid evaporates during the long cooking . Peel the onion, slice it and lay slices over the base of the tin, and chuck on a couple of the thyme stalks.
Pick off the leaves of the rest of the thyme stalks and add to a pestle & mortar (or whatever you use) with the fennel seed, lemon zest and garlic.
Bash all this together with some sea salt and mix in the tbsp of oil, then lay the pork on the onions and smear all over with this rub/paste.
Put the whole lot in the oven and cook at the high temperature for 20-30 minutes, then remove from the oven and turn the heat down to around 110C. Tip the wine/water into the tin and cover the roasting tin snugly with foil. Return the tin to the oven and cook for as long as you need - I left mine in for about 7 hours before doing anything to it.
About 1 hr before you want to eat, remove the pork from the oven and turn the heat back up. Remove the foil and retun the pork to the oven to crisp up the crackling. Keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't burn - and cook for about 45 minutes.
Once the crackling is done, leave the meat to rest for 15 minutes or so, then remove the crackling and divide it into equal sized pieces (once you've checked that it's properly crispy and delicious of course), and pull the meat apart to serve.
Such an unassuming entrance but don't be fooled - the Llwynhelyg Farm Shop is a veritable treasure trove of fresh meat and veg, local produce - cheeses, fish, home made 'ready meals and desserts, and 'storecupboard' staples. In the summer months, the car park is also home to the wonderful El Salsa Mexican takeaway (sadly now closed till next year)
The shop absolutely lives up to its Twitter moniker '@FooderforFoodys'.
What I love most is that this is a shop that caters for your every need. I use it mainly for veg and eggs - being as it is on the way to the children's school (indeed, it supplies their school with fruit for break) so very convenient to drop in. However, if you didn't want to cook, they also sell home made 'ready meals' and desserts - which I have on good authority are brilliant. And I know it won't be long before I succumb to the temptation of the pie fridge...
Not only can you get everything you might need to cook dinner - from sausage and mash to something far more sophisticated, it's a fantastically friendly shop too which makes it a joy to go in to, even with fractious post-school children (who welcome the days we drop in as it offers them an opportunity to plead with me to buy them olives there!). Not only are the people happy to help and chat, but the shop is full of great touches - such as pronunciation notes:
and what fantastic 'caws' it is...
No wonder then that its won loads of awards
If you're in the area - on holiday or because you happen to live round here - it's definitely worth a visit - indeed, I'd say it's a destination in itself, but then I am probably biased.
You'll find the Llwynhelyg Farm Shop on the A487 at Sarnau, north of Cardigan. You can also follow them on Twitter and find them on Facebook. They didn't ask me to write this post, and all views expressed are my own. It's a great shop. You should go there!
You'd be forgiven for thinking we'd quickly hopped over to Central America, to some dusty border country, but no, El Salsa Mexican takeaway is most definitely not in Mexico, but situated in the car park of the fantastic Llwynhelyg Farm Shop (about which more another day), serving up fajitas, burritos, quesadillas and nachos to the hungry of West Wales.
And last night, we were all hungry after a post school beach trip - swimming, crabbing and body boarding with friends who are staying nearby for a week. As they said, themselves, they've been surprised by quite how 'foodie' it is round here.
They spent yesterday morning visiting the fantastic St Dogmaels local producers market that runs every Tuesday by the Abbey, so I was pleased to be able to further surprise them with top quality Mexican food in Cardigan. Plus, I've been wanting to visit El Salsa for a while now. It made a brief appearance, serving up on weekends a couple of months ago, and is back on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, 4-9, for the summer.
Apart from the slight incongruity of Mexican Food served from a trailer in the car park of a Welsh Farm Shop, there is absolutely every reason to visit this little haven of taste and spice (and of friendly chiquitas cooking and serving the grub) if you're in this area.
Between us we had chicken fajitas, steak burritos, chicken burritos, and the quesadillas, plus nachos - with plenty of jalapenos (not gherkins, as Blue discovered to his surprise!). Now, I've never been to Mexico, but this was pretty darned good. Tasty, with enough spice, but not too much for the kids, the salsa was fresh and zingy, the guacamole full of lime flavour. Coming from a hot country, it's the perfect sort of food to eat after being outdoors in the sunshine, and although it might not have been hot by Mexican standards yesterday, it was warm enough.
Everything comes in either steak, chicken or beans (vegetarian), and there are even little tables by the trailer for waiting, or presumably, if you wanted to eat there.
It was getting chilly & the kids were tired, so we headed for home with our feast - and a couple of beers - but you could also take it down the beach for a beach feast too...
As well as tasting great (sorry for the rather blurry pictures - I did say we were hungry, and it was a race to get some snaps before the food was gone), it's very reasonably priced - between £5 for a small portion to £7.50 for some of the specials - locally sourced ingredients where possible, and ultra tasty - everything to like.
The only criticism I'd have was that the special pork tacos had sold out by the time we got there, so make sure you pitch up early!
El Salsa doesn't just serve up out of the Farm Shop car park, either - look out for them at festivals: this would be perfect festival food...
Just to be clear - I wasn't asked to write this review, or paid to do so, and the opinions expressed in it are my own.
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