Week 1 (2023) - Rainy Day

I haven't finished posting the 2022 challenge yet, so this might get confusing, but I've had most of this year's just sitting and waiting, so it seemed better to try to catch up a little bit here too.

First week of the new challenge! I tried to picture a day with gloomy pouring rain outside and what I would want to eat, and it was actually a fairly easy choice - grilled cheese and soup. I don't know if I ever actually eat that when it's rainy out, but I don't usually time our meal plan with the weather forecast (which changes anyway). But it's my top pick, for sure.

For the challenge, I decided to go with a Kappacasein-style cheese toastie (my favorite version of grilled cheese). I made this for a sandwiches challenge back in 2015 after we returned from London, and at that time, there was an official recipe on the Borough Market (where Kappacasein is) website. That recipe is no longer there, but thankfully I took good notes on it the first time, plus I found another similar version on Feast/SBS.

The biggest difference between this toastie and the last one I made was that I didn't have leeks. The frozen leeks we've had stored for years are getting a little too old and flavorless, so I sadly had to leave them out and just use red onions, because it was too late to go get fresh leeks. Luckily, Trader Joe's still carried the same cheddar-gruyere blended cheese blocks, which is the perfect cheese for this sandwich (if you can't get the local cheeses they use in the original). This toastie is really where I learned to make good grilled cheese sandwiches, so besides being delicious (which it was again this time), it really holds a special place in my heart.

For the soup, I decided to go with a squash, bean, and corn soup I found on the Borough Market website, because why not just go fully British? The basic ingredients were acorn squash, tomatoes, corn, black beans, kidney beans, onions, garlic, vegetable stock, cumin, smoked paprika, lime juice, cilantro, and salt, but I skipped the sour cream in favor of their listed alternative of adding cheese. I couldn't find the specific cheeses they mentioned (Wensleydale or Cheshire), but we went with a white cheddar which was a good match. It was a little more like stew than soup, but that fits my personal soup preference anyway. A lovely way to kick off the challenge, and a good meal for the England AtWCC!

Eel Burgers

When news broke earlier this month that Shake Shack would be collaborating with Chef Fergus Henderson of St. John in London on a special limited edition burger, we were really excited. We love chef collaborations, and the description of the eel burger they had planned sounded interesting. While we were really looking forward to it, I did have a couple of lingering doubts in the back of my mind. First, my experience with eels on our trip to London wasn't the greatest. Although this sounded completely different, those jellied eels are still one of my food nightmares. Second, we hadn't lined up for a chef collaboration or special limited edition item at this Shake Shack for a while, not since the epic 3.5-hour wait for the shrimp stack back in 2014. While I was prepared to wait on line for this event, I wasn't willing to go through a repeat of that stressful time.

My plan on Friday morning was simple. While I was getting ready to head down to Madison Square Park (the only Shake Shack with the eel burger), both A and I would keep an eye on the Shack cam. If the line circled all the way around the park to the point where the end was out of camera range, I would seriously reconsider going. Not just because the wait would be long, but because we had no idea if we'd get a special burger at that point. There was a real lack of detail in the announcements about the event. What time exactly would they start selling eel burgers? How many were going to be available on each day? How many were we allowed to get? (My main worry there was whether any office interns would buy out the entire supply.) We figured that if we watched the line get to a third or half of where it was on shrimp stack day before lunch even started, it probably wasn't worth taking a chance and ending up with no burger and lots of frustration. Lucky for us, some combination of it not being summer, it being a two-day promotion, it not being Momofuku, and maybe some people being grossed out by eels or not liking the flavor of eel led to a much more reasonable, I'd even say short, line.

Although our main focus was on the eel burger, they were also selling St. John vanilla custard doughnuts that they were calling "pillows of joy," so we had figured that even if they ran out of burgers by the time I hit the registers, there would at least be doughnuts left to buy. (There was wine too, but we didn't really look into that.) By the time I got to order, it was around 11:25, but they still had everything. I ordered two eel burgers and a doughnut for us to share. Success!

First up, the doughnut, mostly because we took one bite of the eel burger and then decided we should eat the entire doughnut first, so that the eel burger would be the last thing we tasted. (There were also fries which we snacked on in the beginning and then as a palate cleanser between the doughnut and burger.) The doughnut had "sourdough notes and lemon zest, filled with creamy custard filling." I'm not a fan of custard doughnuts in general -- they're more A's thing -- but I appreciated being able to see flecks of vanilla bean in the custard. I ate a little of the custard and thought it was nice, but concentrated more on the sugary, chewy exterior of the doughnut, which was pretty great. I'd love to eat a doughnut like that without any filling. A, on the other hand, thought that overall it was a good doughnut, but that the custard tasted better than the doughnut part.

After we finished off the doughnut, we moved back to the eel burger, savoring every single bite and remarking over and over again about how good it was. Piled on a soft bun was the smoked eel burger, along with smoked Niman Ranch bacon, pickled red onion, creme fraiche, fresh horseradish, and watercress. The eel burger was kind of like a fish cake patty, and the smoked flavoring was amazing. (Then again, we are fans of smoked fish in general, like the year that two dishes with smoked fish ended up on my favorites list.) All the other ingredients complemented the eel patty well. The smokiness of the eel, combined with the smoky saltiness of the bacon, the freshness of the watercress, the creamy bite from the horseradish and the creme fraiche, and the sourness of the pickled onions, made for "a perfect melody of flavors" (A's words which I think are quite fitting here).

We were so happy with our lunch, and it was definitely worth the walk and wait on a very muggy and hot morning. It was much better than the shrimp stack that we waited so much longer for, and that was even after walking with these finished burgers for almost a mile to where we were meeting to eat them. We had thought we would probably like the eel burger, since we both like eel, but I'm not sure we expected it to be this good. It was so good that we might even like it more than the regular ShackBurger. We were sad when we remembered that it was probably going to be the only one we would ever get. Really wish this were becoming a permanent part of Shake Shack's menu.

Kerbisher and Malt

Before going to London, I did a lot of research into fish and chips. That was one thing we knew we wanted to get in England, and it seemed like everyone liked different spots for different reasons. One of the highly recommended spots online was Kerbisher and Malt, which we were especially attracted to since it was located in Hammersmith, only a short walking distance from our hotel room.

Kerbisher and Malt offered up fried fish in almost every form imaginable - plain, with chips, in butties and burgers, as fish fingers. (You could get it grilled too, but we don't remember seeing anyone do that.) One thing we really liked about them was that all the fish was from sustainable sources and cooked on the spot after ordering (and then delivered to your table). We also liked that they had some lunchtime specials which came with chips or a salad, ranging from £5-6. I got one of the specials, while A ordered off the regular menu and got fish and chips.

Since A was already getting chips with his fish, I opted for the salad as my side, thinking it would be healthier and we could also get some vegetables in. It was a small portion on the side of the plate, but at least it was more interesting than just some lettuce. The salad consisted of lettuce, tomato, cucumber, red onion, radicchio, and pomegranate seeds. It was lightly dressed with what tasted like olive oil and vinegar. The salad was fine, nothing extraordinary, but it was nice for lightening up the rest of our meal of fried food.

For the special itself, I got the fillet of fish "burger" which really just seemed like a fried fish sandwich. What arrived was a fried fillet of fish on bread with lemon mayo, lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, and onions. We weren't sure which fish this was (they had several options you could choose from for the regular fried fish, but the sandwich didn't specify), but it was good. The vegetables on the bottom were very reminiscent of the salad ingredients (quite possibly were the same without the pomegranate), and the lemon mayo added some nice flavor. Unfortunately I was still feeling some of the effects of the stomach discomfort from the day before, so I didn't have as much of an appetite as I thought I would when we were ordering and couldn't finish the sandwich, but I wished I could have.

A ordered the fish and chips with haddock (the other options on the menu were cod, plaice, pollock, and coley). He also got a side of tartar sauce, but we had forgotten with the initial order that you had to order the sauces separately so we had to add it while we waited for the food to come. (The other sauces they had were mayo, lemon mayo, red curry, and sweet chilli.) The price wasn't too bad for the fish and chips with sauce (a little under £10), and for people with smaller appetites, they did have slightly less expensive "small" fish and chip specials.

As for the fish and chips themselves, we found the batter a little on the sweeter side, sort of like those Chinese fried milk things you get at banquets. The fish itself was a really large single piece of fried fish, and very flaky. It wasn't very seasoned or salty, which was good since it seemed like they were trying to let the flavor of the fish itself shine through. We thought similarly about the chips which were also not very salted so you could really taste the potato. I didn't love the batter and preferred the way the fish sandwich was prepared, but A liked it.

Kerbisher and Malt also offered numerous sides, many of which sounded good. We had to decide whether to get mushy peas, or a fennel and dill salad, or coleslaw, or pickled onion rings, or baked beans. I've made no secret of my love for onion rings, and we were really interested in trying the pickled onion rings because they sounded different (and looked good in all the Instagram pics we saw before going). Basically they take pickled onions and then batter them and fry them up. The flavor was definitely different from "regular" onion rings because of the pickled flavor, and they were definitely worth trying. Back then, we had no idea pickled onions were so popular and loved in England, but between these onion rings and the pickled onion snacks we brought home to eat, we feel like we didn't take advantage of this as much as we could have when we were there, and have definitely learned our lesson for next time.

It's hard for us to compare Kerbisher and Malt with other fish and chips places in London, since we didn't visit any others. But we did like what we got there. We probably would have enjoyed it more if our stomachs weren't so uneasy and uncomfortable from the days before (no fault of theirs, obviously), and we would return to try it again if we were in the mood for some fish and chips.

Goddards at Greenwich

Taking a little bit of a break from our Greek honeymoon recaps to dream about London...

This is a post that I've been dreading writing ever since we ate here. I knew that M would ask me to write this, and I'll get into that a bit more later. Before arriving in London, we did our research on what to eat that was traditionally British, and one of the things we found was jellied eels. We figured that even though we'd never had them before, they'd probably be fine. We like eel in other preparations like sushi, so how different could these be?

The location we chose was Goddards at Greenwich. It had really good reviews, and everything we read about it said it was an institution as it had been around for a long time (1890 by the signage). The first thing that we found that was promising was that it seemed like a lot of locals seemed to be eating here. When we're on vacation, we try to find places that are packed with locals when we can.

We figured that getting just jellied eels wasn't a great idea (or enough for lunch) so we also each got a pie with some sides. M got the traditional mince pie with two scoops of mashed potatoes, peas, and eel liquor (the green-ish gravy). The choice of gravy was between brown gravy and "parsley" which was the liquid from the boiled eels thickened with herbs and spices mixed in. I got the steak and kidney pie with mashed potatoes and eel liquor and also the bowl of jellied eels. We opted to share the additional sides (peas and eels) so that we didn't each have to get them.

M's minced beef pie had a very rich and buttery crust, but it didn't have a great deal of flavor from the filling. It certainly wasn't as good as the pie we had the day before. Overall the pie was just okay. The gravy didn't impart much flavor, and the filling for the pie wasn't that special either. The mashed potatoes were just okay. The peas were also just okay though they might have been our favorite thing from this meal. Everything was just somewhat lackluster.

I got the steak and kidney pie. There was a lot more texture to the meat since it was larger chunks as opposed to being minced up. We couldn't tell what was the kidney, though, so for all we knew it was all kidney and no beef or vice versa. There were also onions mixed into the filling. M preferred her pie more, and I preferred the flavor of mine. The only issue for me was that the beef was a little too dry. Overall, both pies were nothing special. We really enjoyed the other pies we had in London far more than these.

Now for the part that I was dreading writing about the most - the traditionally British jellied eels. The options in these old-school pie shops were stewed versus jellied eels. The difference is that the stewed eels are warm and in liquid whereas the jellied eels are cold, and the liquid has solidified into jelly. We opted for the jellied as that's how we read was the way to eat them.

My first bite wasn't so bad. It was a little salty and squishy, but the texture was similar to other eel I have had in other preparations. The jelly also was pretty salty and had a rather heavy fishy flavor to it. It was so salty and fishy to the point that I started to get a little nauseated from eating it. I opted to ignore the jelly and focus on the eel itself. The eel was still okay to me so I made sure to just eat that. Each piece of eel had a small circular bone in the middle so we had to be careful to pick around that as well as the other little bones that were attached to it since there was a possibility of them getting stuck in our throats.

M had a much different experience with the eels. She hated them and would never eat them again even if it was the only thing left in the world to eat (and she hopes it never comes to that). They were slimy and salty, they were a ton of work with all the bones for not much benefit, the taste and texture of the jelly and the eel skin made her feel sick, and she just did not like them at all. She could barely get through more than one bite, which is why she thought I should write this post instead of her.

Overall, this was a very disappointing meal for us. The pies, mash, and peas were fine. There was nothing special about them, and they were generally bland. The eel liquor poured on top didn't add much either. The eels were a touch on the nasty side, but at least I could eat the eels themselves if not the jelly that came with them. M, on the other hand, would not touch them ever again. While we're glad we got to experience this very old, traditional meal, I doubt that we'd ever do this again.

Week 15 - British

I really like Scotch eggs and was always curious if I could make them myself, but the fact that I don't deep fry at home posed a bit of a challenge. After we got back from London, I started looking around for alternatives and found a recipe for baked Scotch eggs on Food.com that looked promising. I saved it but never got around to making it, so it seemed perfect for the British challenge.

The ingredients for the baked Scotch eggs were:

- 5 eggs ($0.25)

- 1 lb ground turkey ($4.50)

- salt and pepper ($0.05)

- thyme ($0.05)

- sage ($0.10)

- garlic powder ($0.05)

- flour ($0.15)

- bread crumbs ($0.35)

The total was about $5.50 but two eggs each wouldn't really be enough for dinner. (We ate a lot of other stuff along the way.)

The steps for the baked Scotch eggs were:

1. Hard boil 4 eggs.

2. While eggs are cooking, combine ground turkey with salt, pepper, thyme, sage, and garlic powder. [I didn't measure anything, but just used what looked like a good amount to me.]

3. Split turkey mixture into 4 even parts.

4. Cool and peel eggs.

5. Set up bowls for dredging system (this should have been my first clue that maybe this wasn't going to go perfectly) - one with flour, one with bread crumbs, one with the last egg beaten, one with water, and then the peeled eggs and turkey mixture in their own bowls.

6. Dip each egg in water, then flour, and surround with turkey mixture. Then dip in egg and cover in bread crumbs.

[When I did the first two eggs this way, they looked gigantic, way too large for a regular Scotch egg. For the last two eggs, I split one of the turkey portions into two and just used half on each egg. That left us with a quarter of the turkey mixture and no eggs, so I just made it into a turkey burger that we ate for an appetizer.]

7. Chill eggs for an hour. [It was supposed to be an hour but it was late, and I had somehow forgotten the chilling step was there. We ended up chilling it for maybe 45 minutes instead.]

8. Bake eggs at 400 degrees until turkey is fully cooked. We started with 30 minutes but they weren't done, so we probably cooked them for 40 minutes total.

9. Cut eggs in half and serve.

The Scotch eggs were okay. Not as much flavor as the ones in the restaurants, but healthier because not deep fried. Way too much meat surrounding the eggs, but I think that was my failure in execution rather than the recipe. I just couldn't seem to get a thin turkey layer to cover the egg evenly on all sides. I really don't know how they do it, even to deep fry it, and get it so even. The turkey wasn't bad as a substitute, but I probably could have added more seasonings to it. While this was good, I probably won't try this again as it's easier to just get them at a restaurant.

Week 3 - Made Healthy

Figuring out what to make for the Week 3 challenge was tough, mostly because the philosophy I already employ for home cooking is to try to make it healthy. I rarely cook red meat, I don't deep fry, and we try to leave the more unhealthy stuff for eating at restaurants instead of at home. The challenge introduction gave examples like substituting lean meat for fattier ones (already do that), using whole grains instead of white (almost all our grains already are), avoiding heavy cream and using low fat substitutes (already do that whenever possible), baking instead of frying (have you seen all the baked substitute disasters?), and lots of vegetables (already our philosophy). What could I make that was new that was also making something healthier? The only things I could come up with were substituting zucchini for starches, until I found a sweet potato shepherd's pie recipe on Skinnytaste. That would work - substituting sweet potato for regular potato and turkey for less healthy meat.

There were a lot of ingredients for the pie and I mostly stuck to the recipe, although I increased a lot of the vegetable amounts. (Healthier!) The ingredients, as adapted, were:

potato topping:

- 3 large sweet potatoes ($2.25)

- 3 cloves garlic ($0.08)

- 1/2 cup milk ($0.20)

- 1/2 cup chicken broth ($0.20)

- 2 tbsp light sour cream ($0.45)

- salt and pepper ($0.05)

meat filling:

- 1 lb ground turkey ($4.34)

- olive oil ($0.10)

- 1 large onion ($0.50)

- 3 celery stalks ($0.30)

- 2 parsnips ($0.72)

- 3 cloves garlic ($0.08)

- a few handfuls of white mushrooms ($1.95)

- frozen mixed vegetables (didn't measure exactly but just did what looked like a good amount) ($1)

- 2 tbsp flour ($0.10)

- 1 cup chicken broth ($0.40)

- 2 tsp tomato paste ($0.20)

- Worcestershire sauce, a couple tsp ($0.10)

- dried rosemary, a tsp or so ($0.10)

- salt and pepper ($0.05)

- paprika ($0.05)

The ingredient list was not short, so probably not surprising that the total wasn't low either at $13.22. But it made enough shepherds pie that we were able to save at least 40%, if not 50%, of it for another day. I guess we'll see at a later date how well it reheats after being frozen, but being able to make this for two meals definitely made it pretty affordable.

The process for making the dish was:

1. Peel and chop sweet potatoes. Begin heating a large pot of salted water to a boil, and drop in sweet potatoes whenever done chopping. Add chopped garlic cloves to pot. Cook until sweet potatoes are very soft.

2. While sweet potatoes are cooking, cook ground turkey, seasoned with salt and pepper, in large skillet. (Thankful A was able to help by doing this, so I could prep other things.)

3. Also while sweet potatoes are cooking, prep other ingredients. Chop onion, garlic, celery, mushrooms. Peel and chop parsnips.

4. When turkey is cooked, remove to separate plate. In the same skillet, cook the onions. Add the celery and parsnips with salt and pepper and then cook until softened.

5. Add garlic and mushrooms to skillet, and after the mushrooms have released most of their water, add the flour, frozen vegetables, chicken broth, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, rosemary, cooked turkey. Cook until vegetables are no longer frozen and most of the liquid has evaporated from pan.

6. While meat mixture is cooking, make the mashed sweet potato topping. Add the chicken broth, milk, sour cream, and salt and pepper, and mash and stir potatoes until smooth.

7. Grease a large baking pan and add meat mixture, evening out the layer. Add the sweet potatoes on top and cover the entire pan with the sweet potatoes.

8. Use a fork to create ridges in the sweet potatoes and top with paprika.

9. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes and then let stand a few minutes before eating.

When the shepherd's pie came out of the oven, there seemed to be liquid pooled on top of the sweet potatoes in certain parts, and when we started scooping out the pie, it seemed a little watery. I guess I didn't let enough of the liquid evaporate before loading the filling into the baking pan. (It was getting late.) The dish sat longer as we ate, and by the time we got to the end, it wasn't quite as watery which was good. I think if I make this again, I'll just let the filling cook until all the liquid is gone.

As far as flavor, the dish was really good. Of course, it wasn't a traditional shepherd's pie since it was made with turkey and sweet potatoes, but it tasted healthy and had lots of flavor. It reminded me of when we would stir fry turkey with vegetables and eat it over rice, but here it was with sweet potatoes. While we liked this, it wouldn't really be a shepherd's pie replacement for us since the heavy comfort food aspect of that, with all of its luxurious and fattening items, is part of what makes "real" shepherd's pie so good (and also why I don't make it at home). A also noted that the sweetness of the sweet potatoes was too noticeable for it to be a true replacement in his mind. This was good for what it was, and something I might make again at home, but just not sure it would hit the spot if we were looking for the real thing.

Battersea Pie

We had an eventful afternoon sightseeing in London after our stop at Nordic Bakery. I got bird crap in my hair near Piccadilly Circus, which didn't raise my opinion of the place, as it just seemed like a busy, touristy intersection these days. We stopped by Whole Foods and ate some free cheese and chocolate. We walked around central London and lucked into seeing the Horse Guards Parade with no advanced planning. We found ourselves near Big Ben and Elizabeth Tower around golden hour on a clear afternoon which made for some really beautiful views. We learned that the bathrooms in the Westminster train station (which you had to pay for) were atrocious. We got our first glimpse of the Thames while crossing Westminster Bridge. After all of that, we got really frustrated with inconsiderate hordes of tourists and just the oppressive crush of too many people on streets that were really not big enough to hold them, so we got on the Tube and went to Covent Garden for a snack.

Nordic Bakery was never meant to be our entire lunch, and we always intended to go somewhere else for another small meal, so perhaps I'm overstating our "escape" to Battersea Pie, but that's how it felt. We left behind the crowds near Westminster Bridge, got on the Tube, and then took a nice walk through a park on our way to Covent Garden. Once there, we descended into a little pie shop at the foot of the stairs where there was no line (because it was off hours), there were no annoying crowds, and there was good food. It felt like an escape to us.

Battersea Pie was probably the best pie we had during our entire time in London. We got the mince beef and onion pie, which was definitely large enough for us to share, along with a side of baked beans. It was so good. The flavors were rich, and the filling was like a delicious meat gravy. It had so much more flavor than the pie we had on our first day in London. The baked beans weren't that different from beans we'd had before, fairly standard, but just not as much sugar which was good. We wanted more pies, but we knew we had a nice dinner coming up that night, so we couldn't eat too much.

We were hoping to have some good pies in London, so we were really glad we found Battersea Pie. After our pie, we walked around the Covent Garden area for a little bit and then watched a fun street performer. It was a nice end to our afternoon before we went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. Whenever we get back to London, we would love to get another pie (or pies) from Battersea.

The Pig and Butcher

One year ago today, we were in London enjoying one of our favorite experiences of the entire trip - Sunday roast at The Pig and Butcher in Islington. We hadn't planned on a Sunday roast prior to getting to London (and therefore had no reservations anywhere), but felt like it was just such a classic English experience that we should try to fit one in. We only had one chance to do it, our first full day in London, and even though the wait was an hour and a half, we knew we had to do it.

We already mentioned what we did with our waiting time (some snacks and a trip to the Emirates), and we were really excited (and hungry) when we finally made our way back to the restaurant. We had read some reviews of various Sunday roast places at our hotel, and The Pig and Butcher seemed like a consensus good restaurant. We were also pretty happy with our choice of restaurant because of their philosophy on food and hospitality. The place just felt so welcoming and friendly, and they focused on locally sourced, sustainable ingredients, with a menu that changed every day depending on what was available. Our table was located right near a giant drawn map on the wall showing which farms were the sources for all the meat and fish on the day's menu. This was definitely the type of place that we wanted to be at for our roast.

We started off with some drinks. M was still feeling a little off and very dehydrated from traveling, so she chose not to get any alcohol with supper. A got the beer of the week, which was a German IPA called Handwerk. The beer didn't have the same hoppy bitterness as one would find from an American IPA and it also didn't eventually turn sweet like the IPAs A normally drinks. It was crisp and refreshing, though. A prefers the American IPA style compared to the European IPA style but in the end it was still a good beer. We also got a bottle of charity water for £1. It's called charity water because they make a donation to a charity that provides clean water to impoverished regions.

Although a lot of the starters sounded delicious, we chose to begin with "The Board" (£17.50, all prices as of a year ago) which had a sampling of a bunch of different things. The contents on the board change every week (and we still check out the menu from time to time to see what's being offered), and the one we got had a Scotch egg, cheese fritters, Trealy Farm ham, potted chicken, radishes, anchovy butter, crostini, and pickles (pickled cabbage and cauliflower). We were a little disappointed since the menu the previous week had had black pudding croquettes and we were hoping to try those, but missing out on dishes is always possible when a restaurant changes their menu all the time based on availability.

Our favorite part was probably the Scotch egg, which tasted like breakfast sausage and egg wrapped up into one and was really delicious. One of the more interesting items was the potted chicken, which we didn't know anything about beforehand, but really was just a pot of shredded chicken, almost like a dip, which we spread onto crostini. Everything on the board was really good, but it probably wasn't necessary to get (other than to satisfy our curiosity and try more new things) since the roasts were more than enough food for our midday meal.

For our main courses, we both selected different meats from the roast section. There were four options for the roast: chicken (which was only served for two people to share), pulled pork, leg of lamb, and sirloin. Although M would usually choose the chicken given those meat choices, she went with the pork because it sounded good and because she didn't want A to be forced to also eat chicken. Considering how good the pork turned out to be, she didn't regret that decision one bit. A picked the sirloin because when he thinks of a roast, he often thinks of something like pot roast which is a large hunk of meat. It also helped a lot that the waiter (owner?) mentioned that it was prime rib so that was a really easy decision.

The pulled pork was a slow roasted Hampshire pork shoulder (£16.95), which came with applesauce on the side and also a side sauce of dijon mustard (which I picked based on their suggestion). If this all sounds familiar, it's because both of us chose our Pig and Butcher roasts for our favorite food experiences last year (here and here). As M mentioned then, that was the best pulled pork she had ever had in her life, and that's still true to this day. It was so different from other pulled pork we had had, since that was mostly barbecue. The texture was similar, but the flavor of the meat was just so rich and comforting. Although M doesn't usually gravitate towards a giant plate of meat as an entree, she would absolutely get this again, if only there were a place here that we could get this.

The beef option for the roast was a 35-day aged roasted Hereford sirloin (£18.95). The prime rib (which was only allowed to be ordered rare) was sublime. The meat was super tender, and it had just the right amount of seasoning. A got the horseradish with it, and the pairing was perfect. The jus that came with was made mostly from the beef stock which was imparted with a great deal of flavor. Adding the horseradish gave it a great spice kick that horseradish is known for.

Every roast came with the same sides: Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, creamed leeks, and vegetables (primarily Hispi cabbage and carrots). Yorkshire pudding is one of those classic English dishes with a name that's often tricky here in the States because it's nothing like what we think of when we think of pudding. It's basically a giant puffed bread, which was so good but so filling, even though it felt airy. The leeks gratin came in a little cup on the side and were so rich and creamy. The roast potatoes weren't nearly as soft as we were expecting, but a little crispy on the outside like they had been fried. The vegetables were good. We had never had Hispi cabbage before, and it was sweeter than any cabbage we have found back in the US. Paired with the carrots, it was a nice mix of textures with a sweet finish to pair with the meat. We really liked all the sides, but unfortunately we were so full that we couldn't finish everything on the plate.

We were so stuffed after finishing our meal (definitely no room for dessert) and so incredibly happy. The roast was exactly the type of thing we wanted to experience in London as it's such a quintessential eating experience. We would definitely recommend that everyone try to make it to a roast if there on a Sunday. British food gets such a bad reputation for being bland and flavorless, but this meal (and others later on) proved to us that that is definitely not the case.

Square Pie

It was late morning when we arrived in London. After going through immigration (which took a while because we landed at the same time as a plane full of NFL fans going to the game), we bought our Oyster cards and jumped on the train to head to our hotel. We checked in and rested a little bit, and then went out for a late lunch. We were really hungry by that point and the most logical option seemed to be the food court at the Westfield London (sometimes called the Westfield White City), which was located only a short walk from our hotel in the Shepherd's Bush neighborhood.

The food court was packed. Apparently everybody wanted to eat lunch after 2 pm at the mall. The Westfield had a ton of options, and in our exhaustion, everything sounded good. Many of the outlets were restaurants that had other locations throughout London in addition to their space at the mall. In my pre-trip research, I had come across a few of those spots with locations at the Westfield so we headed for those first. One of those was Square Pie. Eating pie was high on our list of things to do in London, so we were able to check something off our list right away.

Square Pie had a lot of pie options, which were all, of course, square shaped. The menu and choices were enormous. You could get a classic pie, or a skinny pie, or mini pies. The varieties included many classic English choices, as well as some more "modern" pies. You could get steak and Guinness, or lamb and rosemary, or spinach, sweet potato and goat cheese, or many others. On top of all the pies, they also had sausages, sausage rolls, and jacket potatoes. (We didn't know what jacket potatoes were at the time, but quickly learned they were baked potatoes.) Even the jacket potatoes came with lots of options. There were more than 10 ways you could top those, everything from curry to cole slaw to prawn cocktail.

If choosing the type of pie wasn't enough decision-making for you, there were the sides and extras. Each pie/roll option came with the choice of getting them plain or with 2 sides. The sides included fresh mash, oven baked wedges, mushy peas, beans, sweet potato mash, cole slaw, or various salads. On top of all that, you could also top your plate with onion gravy or parsley liquor for free. There was a lot to choose from.

I gladly let A choose the pie since I was completely exhausted and unlike A, hadn't taken a nap before lunch to refresh my brain. He went with the chicken and mushroom pie with sides of fresh mash and mushy peas, topped with onion gravy. Sounded good to me, and it looked pretty good as they piled everything on the plate.

Our general feeling about the pie was that it was just okay. It tasted like a chicken pot pie, which was fine, but the flavor wasn't that special to us. As we sat there eating our pie, we wondered whether our expectations were just totally off, whether exhaustion was dulling our taste buds, or whether the pies here were just okay. We've had a lot of good pies here in NY (our favorite is the NZ style DUB Pies, which we shamefully haven't finished our post on yet), and the ones we had in NY just seemed better to us. We also started to think that maybe we didn't know what a "proper" English pie really was like, since our exposure has been mostly to Australian or NZ style pies in the States. Maybe this is what English pies were supposed to be, and we just didn't know it.

The mushy peas were fine, but they were much more mushy and mashed than we thought they would be. We were picturing something akin to the Thirsty Koala's mushy peas, smashed but still with some texture, but maybe that's again a difference between English and Australian styles. (If it is, we prefer the Australian.) The mashed potatoes were also fine, skin-on red potatoes all mashed up and buttery. The best part of the meal was the rich onion gravy, but that's probably because we like onions. The mash and the mushy peas both tasted better with the gravy, as they were light on seasoning without it. We guessed that they figured you would get either the gravy or the liquor since they were free, so maybe they deliberately seasoned the sides a little less (which is fine).

Overall, our feeling about Square Pie was that it was fine, solid but not spectacular. We mostly found ourselves each independently thinking about DUB Pies. While we didn't feel any need to return if we found ourselves back in the food court, we were glad that we had opened our eating exploration with some classic pie, mash, and peas.

Week 44 - Welsh

When I started doing research for Week 44's Welsh theme, I stumbled across this site on BBC Good Food, which had so many recipes that sounded delicious. I saved a whole bunch of them and found myself exclaiming to A that the Welsh must love leeks, because all these recipes were full of leeks. It was a little later that I realized that it was because it was an entire list of recipes for St. David's Day, the feast day of the patron saint of Wales whose personal symbol was a leek. Maybe there were other Welsh recipes, but after I found that site, I was pretty much obsessed with making leek-filled recipes, and had taken to calling it leeks week. There were so many recipes I wanted to make but I narrowed it down to two. The first one I made was based on this recipe for leeks with bacon and mushrooms which they recommended serving with a roast, but which I made on the side of our Week 45 English toastie.

The ingredients for the recipe were simple:

- 1 tbsp of butter ($0.20)

- 4 strips of bacon, chopped ($2.25)

- 10 oz cremini mushrooms, chopped ($1.99)

- most of a bag of frozen sliced leeks * ($1.34)

- salt and pepper ($0.05)

- dried thyme ($0.20)

* I would have used the entire bag of leeks, except I put aside a few of them to use for the other half of the meal which was the toastie.

The cost was a little over $6, which seems like a lot for a side, except for the fact that it had a lot of bacon in it. Once we tasted it, it was totally worth the price.

The steps to make the dish were:

1. Prep - chop bacon, chop mushrooms.

2. Melt butter in large pan over medium heat. Add bacon strips and fry for a few minutes, letting some of the fat render.

3. Add mushrooms, leeks (I separated out some of the layers when adding them to the pan), salt, pepper, thyme. Coat everything in the butter/bacon fat.

4. Cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for about 20-30 minutes. If there's still liquid in the pan, continue simmering with the cover off until it is at a level you like.

This dish was so good. Between the toastie and the leeks, we had such a good dinner. All the flavors melded together so well, and all the vegetables were infused with the richness of the butter, the thyme, and that awesome applewood smoked flavor. The flavor of the leeks really came through too, and since I love leeks, I was pretty happy about that. It was a decadent yet healthy tasting dish, and despite the butter and bacon, it still felt light because the majority of the components were vegetables.

We would definitely make this dish again. They were right - it would go really well as the side to a roast, so I'm seriously considering making it again at Thanksgiving. I'm really glad I had leftovers for breakfast so I could enjoy this for two days instead of one!