Cornish All Around

The last couple of weeks I've been continuing my Cornish culinary kick. Due to a busier than anticipated schedule I've fallen a little bit behind on a couple of dishes but I am confident I'll be allowed to catch up at some point. October probably. I've been looking at my calendar and nearly every weekend through September looks to be booked up with one event or another. Travel and anniversaries and festivals and concerts and whatnot. Ah, first world problems.

I managed to follow through and make Cornish Pasties not once, but twice. I substituted lamb in place of the called for beef because 1) I love lamb, 2) the grocery stores have actually been carrying it of late, and 3) the lamb is, as I've mentioned before, locally grown and processed. The first batch was delicious but the pastry crust to savory filling ratio was a bit off so we correct for this in the second attempt. I wish there were still more in the freezer. I have yet to make the Celery Sauce or Russian Cream so I'll have to rectify that in the near future.

This past Sunday I was back on schedule with the Cornish Fish Pie. This incorporated several similar elements of the previous chicken and parsley pie. Once again the meat and stock were laid in to the bottom of a pie pan along with parsley (a much lesser quantity this time around) and a crust placed on top. After the main baking time had elapsed cream was poured in through a hole in the crust and then the pie was baked for a further few minutes. The recipe calls for white fish. We used cod and I was a bit disappointed to find that after just 20 minutes in the oven the fish had basically disintegrated. No nummy fishy chunks left at all. Still, the soupy creamy fish filling was tasty so I didn't complain to much. For all I know that's what was supposed to happen.

While the fish pie was baking I knocked together the dough for the Cornish Splits. These are little bread rolls with a hint of sugar to them - perfect with the Gooseberry Jam we made last month when while we still had some berries on our plants. I set aside the dough for about 20 minutes until it had risen to about double it's initial size. The rolls turned out quite nicely I think. Not fluffy but firm and delicious. I've been eating them at work for breakfast with a with of cream cheese.

Finally, I was due to make Clotted Cream and Blackberry Ripple Ice this week but as blackberries here are only beginning to ripen and I need to send away for clotted cream I made next week's scheduled Cornish Fairings instead. These were my FAVORITE of the bunch. Instead of the called for golden syrup I used honey. Honey + sugar + butter + flour + powdered ginger = win. The texture was quite similar to a scone and I think that adding a bit of fresh or dried fruit to these would result in something bordering on magic. Maybe fresh blueberries or dried currants.