Life On The Road

As promised, I wanted to cook V something very Czech following the delicious meals we'd had in Prague over Xmas, and she'd taken such a fancy to the traditional Xmas dish of carp that I thought it would be fun to try cooking it. A visit to Morrisons on Friday really paid off, and I was able to buy the solitary carp that was languishing on the bed of ice. This particular specimen was labelled as being French and had that classic Gallic look of sang-froid on its face: the ones the Czech eat are normally more like the type seen in garden centres. I asked the fishmonger to prepare it for me, and was duly presented with a bagged, headless, gutted carp: success! I then had to get white onions for the soup along with some crusty cottage loaves: these would be used as soup bowls (another Czech tradition) and I sourced a couple of tasty and fragrant Lemon and Pumpkin-seed loaves for 99p each. I already had Emmental cheese, so all that remained was to get some broccoli to accompany the fish and some more Paprika. Total cost for the meal was about £20. Although I prepared the fish first, I'll relate the tale in "course order".

The Soup

The Czechs have a fine tradition of serving hearty food, especially soup, sometimes in a crusty loaf. The loaf is hollowed out and a lid is cut out to help keep the food warm between oven and table. I bought the loaves on Friday and left them on the kitchen worktop overnight so that the fresh crusty exterior would harden a little, preventing the soup from leaking out. This worked quite nicely and I proceeded to cut out the lid using a sharp knife at an angle so that it didn't just drop straight into the soup. With the lid out, I then cut the bread core out vertically and saved it for making breadcrumbs later. Next I chopped two large, very fresh white onions which were then sauteed in olive oil. Once that was complete I added half a 500ml bottle of beer: the recipe called for Black Lion beer, but as I can't get this locally I used Black Sheep ale instead. Ideally it would have been a dark Czech beer equivalent but Guinness would have been a bit too heavy: the Black Sheep was an excellent substitute though. I turned the heat down a little and continued to cook the beer/onions until the beer no longer bubbled (about 7 minutes). After that, I tipped the contents into a normal pan and simmered for 20 minutes, adding 1/2 pint of water and salt and pepper. Once that was done it simply a matter of adding a generous amount of grated Emmental cheese and stirring it in until it melted. I tipped the thick soup into the two loaf bowls and served: there was practically no leakage and on finishing the soup we did our best to eat the bowls :-) Delicious, and we'll definitely do it again. We both had a bottle of chilled Staropramen which complemented the soup very well. The only thing I'd do different next time though would be to add more water as the bowls had a larger capacity than I'd thought.

The Fish

The Czechs traditionally eat carp at Xmas and both of us had several carp meals in Prague. The fish itself is light in flavour and despite being quite boney, there's a lot of meat to be had from a typical fish. All the meals we had there were fried in breadcrumbs, but I wanted to bake it in order to preserve the flavour. First task was to prepare the fish: the fishmonger had washed, gutted and decapitated the fish but the backbone and fins were still on. I'd never prepared a fish to that extent before and decided to check out some YouTube videos to see what to do. I eventually cut out the thick backbone and removed the fins with a very sharp knife. There were only a few scales left to remove and these were very large; about the size of adult thumbnails. I considered skinning it but decided against it as I didn't want the flesh to flake during baking. A quick wash (the fish I mean) and I was left with two substantial fillets. I was actually a bit over-generous with the trimming, but even so I ended up a large amount of useable fish: next time I'll be able to improve my technique.

Next job was to make some breadcrumbs, and for this I used the delicious bread cores from the soup bowls. Rather than spend an hour crumbling bread by hand I decide to use my long-suffering electric hand blender from Argos - just over 4 quid and actually very powerful. I ignored the screams of protest from the tortured machine and was left with a bowl of breadcrumbs: lemon scented and no waste! I also added a few carraway seeds for extra flavour.

The fish was nearly ready for baking, so V buttered a large Pyrex dish. At the same time I coated the fillets in beaten egg, and then liberally coated them in the breadcrumbs. Then a light dusting of paprika and finally topped off with some sliced, allegedly "medium hot" chillies. Oh, and a few more carraway seeds.. Into a medium-high oven for 20 minutes and turned once. As you can see, the fish came out beautifully cooked although the presentation was somewhat let down by the breadcrumbs which didn't quite adhere to the fish properly (apparently the ones in Czech were deep-fried and didn't have this problem). However, the flavour of the fish more than made up for this, and the meat literally fell off the bones. The broccoli was also beautifully tender and wasn't too strong to overpower the flavour of the fish. Again we had bottles of Staropramen with this course and it added a very authentic touch to the meal.

As stated, we had intended to cook the famous Czech bread dumplings (not like your mother used to make), but we were so stuffed from our hearty soup that we decided not to bother. Even so, we intend to experiment with this delicious dish and I'll be reporting on the success, or otherwise at a later date.

To finish the meal we had Gu Cheesecakes in ramekins - very rich and a perfect complement to the subtle flavours of the previous courses. And of course, the inevitable but mandatory Becherovka liqueur.. The meal was deemed a success and we'll definitely be doing it again: we'll write it all up of course and maybe you'll be inspired to try some for yourself. Na shledanou!

I'd jokingly said earlier that i'd pop in for a "cuppa tea and a bun", and bless her, she'd actually gone out and bought buns :-) We had those over a chat and went out for a walk in the summer sun. Again, lots to discuss and our plans for Q1 of 2009 look to be on course.. We went back via the pub and drank white beer as the sun set over London.

This morning i'm back at London Bridge-it's a misty, drizzling morning and I'm hoping to take some pictures that I didn't take yesterday. We'll see though..

Sunday morning was spent having a rather quiet breakfast with some very strong coffee, and then a stroll into nearby Windsor town, followed by a look around early-morning Eton. It's all such a very different world and I can't help wondering how much longer it can go on for. I think as long as we have a monarchy though, the lifestyle will be safe. As the sun got much hotter, we walked back across a playing field where they were playing cricket - all so very British. Back to the house and straight out for another walk! It was such a nice day we'd decided to go out for a pub lunch and parking in Savill gardens car park, we walked around Virginia Water, Valley Gardens, saw the obelisk, the totem pole and what looked like a temple ruin. V's friend was convinced that "we only walked 4 miles or so" but to us it felt more like 10! It was such a pleasant afternoon and the weather was superb; just like the summer we'd been expecting so long and had finally arrived.

We drove back to the house again had a quick cuppa and set off back to our respective homes again: parting at Clapham Junction was difficult and although we're seeing each other again next weekend it doesn't make it any easier. I finally got back to the apartment about 8.30 and feel asleep in the chair sorting out the weekend pictures. One thing we're both conscious of is that we can cram so much into a weekend, and it really is a case of taking it easier in the week. See you later!

The guest house link is here. Recommended!