Sidney's Place: A MENU IN OUR DREAMS

I have had requests to provide my ideal menu but I tread warily as food indulgence may not be in accordance with the “spirit of the age” at this difficult time. Maybe soon we can celebrate a sensible exit agreement with the EU and the end of the wretched Covid pandemic.

Anyhow, I will give you 2 menus – one I call the “hearty” menu (probably closest to my real desires) and the other is a “refined” menu for entertaining visiting friends of discriminating taste or elderly regal ladies from Windsor Castle!

Hearty Menu

1. Cullen Skink

A delicious fish soup of smoked haddock, potatoes and onions. Our proud Scots reply to New England’s adequate Clam Chowder or the over-stocked French Bouillabaisse. My maternal grand-mother came from Cullen. This dish is served in select hotels and restaurants in the North East, and Baxter’s tinned version is toothsome.

Cullen Skink

2. Steak and Kidney Pie

I lie awake in bed trying to recapture the aroma of a freshly cooked steak and kidney pie. The purists will insist that the covering should actually be made of suet and be a pudding rather than a pie, but I adore a product made of short-crust pastry, brown and drenched in flavour by the diced meat. I insist on the kidneys, currently much avoided by the health conscious, but uniquely tasty. I would add boiled potatoes, decorated with parsley, and crisp, sweet Brussel sprouts and English mustard.

To drink heartily I suggest a fruity red to swig from the sun-kissed Rhone valley, probably a Chateau-Neuf du Pape, introduced to me in my student days in Paris in 1961, first sampled by me at La Mère Catherine, Place du Tertre in Montmartre.

As an alternative, knowing that lady cooks do not like handling offal, like kidneys, liver and sweetbreads, I propose 2(a) Braised Oxtail Bretonne, a very nourishing stew-like dish with exquisite little sweet forkfuls of meat nestling between the bones of the tail. It was one of my favourites in the 1960s at our Capitol Restaurant, Aberdeen, then under the management of talented caterer Bill Nixon.

3 Vacherin

As an indulgent dessert I propose Vacherin, a delicious confection of cows -milk, ice cream, chocolate sauce, and meringue.

Vacherin is on the menu of the mini-chain Le Relais de Venise, commonly called L’Entrecote, with outposts in London (off Marylebone High Street), Paris and New York, all with identical menus.

The Refined Menu

Now for the real McCoy! A feast to remember!

1. I dozen native Whitstable Oysters, each

Served raw with slices of squeezed lemon and a dash of Tabasco, from the ancient Roman oyster beds of my now-native Kent

2. Poached whole Scottish Salmon

Poached whole Scottish Salmon

Lightly poached, melt-in-your mouth-salmon, easily sliced away from the bone, a dish for kings! With a Hollandaise sauce, to soften and enhance this delicious repast.

For the above 2 dishes I serve the bone-dry white Burgundy Montrachet.

3.Chinese Crispy Peking Duck Pancakes

A complete change, to bring savour to the mouth, and to wallow in the joys of the tastiest duck imaginable with piquant soy sauce.