Page 52 - Phonebox Magazine December 2016

Beaujolais and Special Specials
Beaujolais Night at Cowper’s Oak
Rustic French cooking washed down with a drop of red wine. What’s not to like? And on a school night too. Back in the 80s Beaujolais Day was a BIG thing. People raced over to France to be the rst ones to bring back a bottle of the nouveau vintage to London. The parties were long, the hangovers erce, and the wine, quite often terrible. The fashion soon disappeared along with shoulder pads, leg warmers and Boy George.
So it was with some nostalgia that we booked a table at The Cowper’s Oak, Weston Underwood, to celebrate 2016 style. The Cowper’s is a good pub. It is a well-loved local. And well-loved both by customers and the staff/landlords. I suspect it’s the latter that makes it work so well. For this night, they’d made a proper effort. All the tables decked in traditional red gingham table cloths, little French ags ying, with Tim, the landlord sporting a beret and string of onions. It set a lovely scene for a lovely night.
To the food. Baskets lled with fresh French baguettes (baked by Amazing Grains with real French our) was an excellent start. First course was a choice of Leek and Goat’s Cheese Tart or Chicken Liver and Pork Terrine. The tart looked pretty as a picture. My terrine was chunky
52 Phonebox Magazine | December 2016
Panettone
Courtesy of Gabriella’s Dolci
Ingredients:
Starter:
1kg Strong bread our 500g Milk
100g Egg yolk
200g soft butter
10g of fresh yeast
The Panettone:
Your starter
300g strong bread our
15g salt
300g sugar
150g egg yolk
200g soft butter
700g selection of dried fruit, sultanas, candied fruit and chocolate chips (you can also make this just chocolate chips and it tastes amazing!)
30g honey
50g milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
Equipment:
A mixer
Panettone tin – Lakeland sell a great one, alternately you can use the bottom of a giant cupcake mould.
A traditional Italian Christmas cake, this light and uffy sweet bread is full of festive avours and a really delicious alternative to the typical English Christmas cake. It’s great with a cup of tea, or spread with mascarpone – and any leftovers make great bread and butter pudding. This recipe makes four large Panettone, so halving the recipe might be a good idea if you do not want to make so many, but it does keep well and I’m certain it won’t last very long – it doesn’t in our house! It must also be made a few days before you want to eat it, to allow resting time.