Nipping through Stowmarket today I saw this street food van and the homemade cakes and soup caught my eye. I bought a pot of Butternut Soup and a small Apple and Blackberry Crumble to take home. Then I started chatting to the chirpy owner, Caroline.She told me that she had made the soup and the crumbles the night before. She also had a heart shaped cake and tubs of homemade rice pudding. The sign for the stall said Colin's Catering Services so I asked Caroline where Colin was. "Oh! There isn't a Colin. That's the board that came with the trailer when I bought it!"

• Caroline
• The Cake Stand
• Soups and Cakes
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Lambrusco from Italy must surely be one of the most unfashionable wines of the past 20 years. Sweet, light and inexpensive, they have suffered a bad reputation. Many mature drinkers may still run as far as possible from the style, but an upsurge in quality is slowly changing people's perspective.Younger generations of winemakers are practicing new techniques and their wines can be enjoyed in many wine bars and top end restaurants throughout the world, and locally in our humble little back street bistro in Bury St Edmunds, Pea Porridge.

Its not entirely easy to obtain the wines that are fronting the “real” Lambrusco revival (although Waitrose have a simple one!) The best sources are in independent merchants and restaurants like Pea Porridge.We have a lovely light pinkish Lambrusco which we offer by the glass as an aperitif, but when it comes to eating meat we have an outstanding red Lambrusco from a producer called Quarticello.

Roberto Maestri works organically and biodynamically on 5 hectares of vines set on clay gravel soil. He only uses wild yeasts and his bubbles are made the traditional way in Emilia Romagna with the second fermentation completed in bottle.The wine is bone dry and full of earth with plenty of wild fruit. It practically screams for meat in any guise, especially those straight from the grill. In this case a big hunka T Bone of Longhorn beef!

 

Longhorn cattle are a brown and white breed originally from the north of England. This old fashioned breed was developed 200 years ago and was the breed that made England famous for its fine roast beef. It has been largely forgotten, but the quality remains outstanding, It is now certified rare breed . We buy it hung for 5 weeks so the fine grain, well marbled meat reaches its maturity and full potential. Wonderful paired with Lambrusco.

We have recently started cooking almost all of our meat over charcoal, for a natural and pure flavour with smoky hints. We use a Big Green Egg which is a ceramic unit in which you can grill, smoke, bake at exact temperatures by easily adjusting the airflow controls, maintaining precision and accuracy as well as outstanding flavour. 

So come check us out, try for yourself the combination of great charcoaled meat with a glass (or two) of pure, frothy,earthy Lambrusco.

• The Big Green Egg
• Hunka Hunka Longhorn
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Our Bury St Edmunds has come up with a brilliant virtual food festival which is running throughout the town in February. Great if you are a social media addict like me. Look out for the hashtag #ffff on Twitter to see who has a special festival offer or promotion running. First up for me is Pea Porridge, our SuffolkFoodie Dish of the Day for February. 

Written by Amy, Consumer Editor at Ideal Home. Lots of great gadgets and techy stuff from a female angle.

They are back! Get nominating in the Suffolk Food and Drink Awards. Do you know an independent butcher, baker or family food business. Maybe an outstanding chef, restaurant, or Suffolk based food and drink hero?  Anyone that provides that "wow" factor in customer service or showcases outstanding examples of food and drink based in Suffolk? There are ten categories celebrating excellence in the food and drink industry of our marvellous county. You have until March 2nd to make your nomination or enter yourself.

His name is Ben Hutton. His restaurant is called Ben's. He has just opened in Bury St Edmunds and here is the link to his story. The food is all locally sourced, with pork reared by Ben himself to create his own recipe Ben's Bangers. The bangers come served on pancetta mash with shredded cabbage, buttered carrots and onion gravy. They were very good indeed. You can't beat bangers and mash on a cold winters night. We also tried the Trio of Jacob lamb prime cuts, which were shoulder, a lamb cutlet and liver. I would argue that liver is not a prime cut and is in fact offal, but I like offal and was happy to order it. It was served with boulangere potatoes, rosemary jus, root veg and savoy cabbage. The lamb was sourced from the local Culford flock and was tender, with plenty of it. I would have liked more gravy. Yes, I call it gravy. Puddings we tried included a selection of the local Alder Carr ice creams ...heaven.. and a cheesecake of the day which was stem ginger and honey. Light, not cloying and very well flavoured. A homemade tuile biscuit perched on the top, some lovely citrussy honey sauce drizzled over and unnecessary squeezy chocolate sauce garnish on the plate. It is good to see a new independent restaurant open in a town which is over run with chains.

• Stem ginger and honey cheesecake
• Trio of Jacob prime cuts
• Bens Restaurant
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Pork pies are much easier to make than you might imagine. Just a little time needed to prepare the filling and the pastry and some patience required with the crimping and sealing of the pies.Jelly or not? It does keep the meat moist and soaks in so you won't get a huge amount of jelly unless you keep adding more stock which is time consuming. I used 1 pint of pork stock with the equivalent amount of gelatine to set and poured it into the warm pies, no jelly layer but succulent meat.

• Top with pastry and crimp well
• Mix the meat and herbs
• Line tins and fill with meat
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Look at this excellent selection of ready made deli-products! I don't usually buy ready made salads and sandwich fillings but was sent these to review by Wolff-Evans and Sons after doing a little feature on them for our Dish of the Day.Their original Homeslaw made with savoy,red and white cabbage was dressed with a creamy mayonnaise and some onion adding a bit of punch. Looks just like homemade coleslaw and tasted as good as the one I make myself. Egg mayonnaise, well I am always dubious about pre-prepared sandwich fillings and expected at least a whiff of eggy sulphur to put me off when I opened the lid. Tah Dah! Nothing but fresh,simple and tasty free range eggs with mayonnaise and also very well seasoned; although I did add even more cracked black pepper to mine. The Tuna fraiche was the highlight for me. A set, light spread which was creamy and delicately flavoured with capers and onion and some texture of free range egg. It could pass off as a dinner party starter, reminding me in style of a salmon mousse. Far superior than I imagined and wolfed down by my family in minutes. Available at your local East of England Co-Op.

• Tuna Fraiche
• Homeslaw
• Potato Salad
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A 16th Century dinner party held by Ivan the Terrible for 300 guests. To Start: Roast peacock in full plumage, spiced swan, cranes seasoned with ginger, guinea fowl with cinnamon, creamed ducks, followed by three consommés, followed by three thick soups. Main Course: a whole calf, a whole sheep, several quarters of beef, loins of a bear, loins of a reindeer. Dessert: A huge pudding moulded in the shape of Ivan’s palace, the Kremlin (borne by lackeys clad in white satin liveries edged with sable)

We nipped into Bury St Edmunds last weekend to the Christmas Fair which was running throughout the town. Fancying a little street food, it turned out that we were too late at 7.30pm, with many outlets sold out. So the second plan was to nip to Bury's latest fine dining opening on Angel Hill called 1921(the one that used to be Graze)to try their bar canapes. Chef Patron is Zack Deakins, formerly from The Bildeston Crown and now heading up his own business.Canapes are £1 each but we went for the offer of all eight for £6.What a bargain!All were delicious and we played Canape Roulette. Spin the pen to see which canape to eat next. That kept us amused as did coming up with a cocktail. We tried for an Aperol Spritz, sorry no can't do that, Margarita? No, don't have the ingredients. So,we bought a bottle of Prosecco, a shot of Cognac and asked for a bowl of sugar lumps, all happily provided and made our own Prosecco Cocktails. A fun night out.

• The canape menu
• A lovely vase of fresh orchids
• Prosecco cocktails
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