Cheapskate... where to eat out for under £15
Telephone: 01704 822208.
Address: The Red Lion, New Street, Mawdesley, Lancashire L40 2QP.
Pub grub is often a pre-frozen affair, either that or it's a cheese toastie and a packet of limp salt and vinegar crisps. The Red Lion, on the other hand, is an astonishingly busy village pub serving a rather nice pint of Theakston's, and downright brilliant food in the cosy, conservatoried dining room out the back. There's an early doors menu (6-7.30pm, Mon-Fri; 6.30-7.00, Sat) when it's £9.50 for two courses and £10.50 for three. The menu changes daily, but expect such delights as grilled black pudding with black peppercorn sauce, duck breast with apple and cider sauce, and strawberry and vanilla parfait for pudding.
Quick bites... where to eat out in under 15 minutes
Telephone: 01704 823396.
Address: Cedar Farm Cafe, Back Lane, Mawdesley, Lancashire L40 3SY.
Cedar Farm is a working pig farm with craft workshops and studios, a gallery, clothes shop, aroma room, deli, and espresso bar. The cafe, which is also licensed, has been open for 10 years, and is renowned for its soup, which comes in starter-sized portions with flavours such as celeriac and cider or butternut squash with lime and ginger, and main course sizes, which are deliciously gloopier almost-stews and chowders. But there are pasta dishes, bagels and wraps available too, and nothing costs more than £5.50. Puddings are hearty and toe-warming, of the poached plums and bread and butter pudding variety.
On the menu
Cassonade
What is it? Not too sure, to be honest.
Not admitting to fallibility are we? Not as such. In the dictionary it is defined as crystallised unrefined sugar.
That's clear enough. So what's the red pepper cassonade that cropped up on a fashionable menu the other day? Ask the chef.
I did. He said cassonade is a dried substance, usually, but not always sugar, which is defined by the size of the granules as well as the level of sweetness. Oh, do the hokey-cokey and shake it all about. Sounds like chef-poesy to me.
What does it taste like? Hot stuff.
Just out
Yellow beans
Form: Long pods like bobby beans or extra big French beans, and distinctly yellow.
Flavour: Very bean-like; fresh, slightly grassy; quite mild; really rather delicious.
Verdict: A handsome addition to the range of beans and domestic vegetables. But beware. The yellow bean conceals a hidden menace. No, not the ones you're thinking of. They need to be thoroughly de-strung. High tensile fibre runs down either side of each bean, which, if not removed, can cause very dramatic choking fits as the fibres link the bit of the bean you've swallowed to the bit if the bean still in your mouth. I know.
Price: £1.29 for 200g at Sainsbury's.
Food on the net
Chicken soup cravings? Does your mind keep wandering to thoughts of lox and bagels? Then this site is for you. With a list of gefilte fish recipes as long as your arm, and a frankly obscene number of hamentaschen recipes, you'll be able to quell those jewish grub cravings faster than you can say blintzes.
Pros: Squillions of recipes, including artichokes with okra vinaigrette and duck with pomegranate sauce. All recipes are labelled pareve, meat, dairy or pesach-friendly, and there's a handy link to an online guide to help you keep your kitchen kosher.
Cons: Kosher Komedy section, featuring such "gems" as "Let my people fress". Groan.
