Spotlight: Pancake Day at the Farmers' Outlet

The best of the toppings. The Spy was sufficiently excited by the whole process that everything else had been consumed by the time he remembered to take a photo.

As far as the Spy is concerned, Valentine’s Day can go hang, but Pancake Day or Shrove Tuesday is a glorious moveable feast celebrated by the Spy with a passion verging on religious mania. This year, the two fell within days of each other, which meant that the Spy felt able to stoically ignore the former and joyfully embrace the latter, with syrupy bells and sticky whistles on. Interrogate the Spy about his favourite toppings and he is likely to become rather over-excited and over-hyphenated, waxing lyrically on the pleasures of old-school choices such as lemon-and-sugar, the exotic delights of bacon-and-maple-syrup, sophisticated continental dollops of fruit preserves, and excesses of good old-fashioned British Golden Syrup. Pausing for breath, he will then continue at increasingly fevered pitch, extolling the virtues of Nutella-and-bananas, honey-and-cinnamon and stewed-apples-and-yoghurt, before passing out on the floor, dribbling feebly and muttering about the differences between crepes and English pancakes, Scottish drop scones and American silver dollars. And don’t even get him started on savoury toppings, lest his head falls off.

The top-purveyors-of-Cantabrigian-pancakes entry will be saved for another time (hint: Cambridge Arts Picture House), since the Spy firmly believes that no Pancake Day is complete without at least one kid (or one grown kid-at-heart) troughing down home-made browned and blistered offerings faster than you can get them out the pan. But where to procure all the toppings, dear reader, I hear you ask? One answer: the Farmers’ Outlet on Lensfield Road. This is an unsung hero whose existence should be trumpeted from the rooftops, a pin that pops the Cambridge bubble inhabited by many living in the city centre and reconnects them to the local delights that lie beyond. The produce changes depending on who has made a glut of jam, who has making venison burgers, smoking fish or baking scones and cakes that week, but there are also regular items such as cheeses, meats, eggs, milk, fruit, veg and flowers.

The Farmers' Outlet celebrates spring, both inside and outside its windows.

So, in honour of the holy feast of Pancake Day, the Spy traipsed along to the Farmers’ Outlet to acquire local eggs, milk and flour (Fosters Mill, Swaffham Prior) for the pancakes themselves. For the savoury offerings, he spied out goats’ cheese (Wobbly Bottom Farm), mushrooms and onions. For the in-between course (savoury? sweet? who knows? who cares!) he purloined smoked dry cured back bacon (Grasmere Farm) to go with the bottle of maple syrup already in his fridge. For the finale, he found fig preserve, spiced apple jam and strawberry compote (Garden of Suffolk) in order to create a veritable painter’s palate of multicoloured splodges on his final pancake.

Eggs, flour and milk for the pancakes, cheese for the savoury fillings, and bread and muesli for next day's breakfast. Sorted.

A surfeit of lampreys may have done for King Henry I, but the Spy has a sneaking suspicion that it will be a flatter, rounder dish that will polish him off. Alas, the Spy has to admit that when his tummy blew the whistle at full-time, there were still a couple of pancakes left, which had to be taken round to the Co-Op for lads on duty, who had been bemoaning the fact that they were working and therefore missing Pancake Day. The moral of this meandering, winding story? Stuff yourselves full of as many pancakes as you can humanly fit in your belly, cover them with toppings gathered from all over the Fens, and try not to polish off the pot of apple jam afterwards, however delicious it might be, as it will almost certainly defeat you and cause you to explode messily all over the kitchen.

Toppings, toppings everywhere, and the Spy's stomach is in no danger of shrinking...

The Spy will sign off with his own basic British pancake recipe. It is ingrained in ancient lore that the first one will always turn out badly, but this should not be cast aside, rather fought over as the ‘lucky extra pancake’:

4 oz plain flour

1 egg (and optional extra egg white to make the batter fluffier, whisked to soft peaks)

1/2 pint milk with little water mixed in

Pinch of salt

Bung everything into a blender and blend until the ingredients are just mixed (dont over-mix or the pancakes will be tough).

If you dont have a blender, sift the dry ingredients into a bowl, make a well in the middle, pour in the egg and milk and whisk to combine. 

If using, fold in the extra egg white.

Leave batter to stand for up to 20 minutes.

Heat and oil a frying pan, pour in some of the mixture and swirl it around to cover the bottom of the pan. Lift the edge and peep underneath to check it is golden brown, then flip it and let the other side cook.

Cover with toppings and devour, greedily and without reserve.

Happy little pancake sizzling in the pan, blissfully unaware of his impending doom...

Spied Out: The Best Chocolate Shots

A pure, unadorned chocolate shot, exulting at his glorified existence. We salute you, sir.

There is a scene in Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where 'that great big greedy nincompoop' Augustus Gloop is so busy guzzling a river of molten chocolate that he falls in, whereupon his bulky frame is sucked up into a tube and becomes ignominiously wedged therein. The Spy realises that this portly lad was probably not intended as a positive role-model of childhood gluttony, but in his own tender years had considerable sympathy with a youth so fixated by the idea of such an unctuous, gloopy lake of joy. Cleopatra may have bathed in asses' milk, but the Spy suspects that if melted chocolate had been available, she would have ditched that calcium-rich goodie-goodie of the dairy world faster than she threw over Julius Caesar for Mark Anthony. So, while coquettish blizzards are still tickling the fens with their feathered flakes despite the sunshine, a bar of the brown stuff might not be quite enough, but thanks to the Spy, you too can indulge your inner-Gloop with a sneaky shot of warm, melted chocolate...

1. Chocolat Chocolat is a piece of handmade chocolate heaven, with excitingly flavoured, rippled slabs stacked along the walls in baskets and smaller nubbley lumps lined up on plates in the middle of the shop. Glass jars stand on the counter by the door, swirling the pure melted chocolate and cream that are the only ingredients in their shots. Nip in for a little cup of molten joy - the best of the bunch.

Ethereal shoppers cannot resist the temptation of the chocolate shots...

2. A similar set-up can be found in Benets, where the glass jar is perched high up on the counter, just above the trays of exciting-looking jammy biscuits and banana flapjack cakes. You can either cart away your spoils in triumph, else enjoy the luxury of drinking your chocolate in the warmth of the cafe, where it is decanted into espresso cups with a biscuit resting nonchalantly on the saucer. Classy and delicious.

  Note the godly hand siphoning off the Spy's very own chocolate shot.

 Just in case a cup of melted chocolate wasn't sweet enough, have a biscuit on the side...

3. The Italian restaurant/deli Carluccio's favours a darker, thicker beast, so dense that a spoon might be stood up in it. However, it might be a question of taste, but the Spy finds the Italian side of the chocolate shot market a little more bitter and a little less pure in its flavour, possibly because of the amount of cornflour that has been added to the mixture. The Spy cannot say for certain that Carluccio's uses this ingredient, since the little cup appears mysteriously from some inner sanctum behind the counter (no swirly glass jar then), but the chocolate shot at Savino's is a very similar animal, and the Spy knows for certain that this one definitely contains said powdery gloopifier. He would like to pretend that he gained this information by sneaking sneakily onto the premises at the dead of night and photographing the recipe with his miniature button-hole spy camera, but the reality is that he knows because his shot was mixed up in front of him, alchemist-style, with powders and potions from a row of exciting little silver pots hidden behind the counter. Which is nearly as exciting...

Chocolate shot with suitably heart-adorned backdrop. The Spy's sole, curmudgeonly concession to the fact that Valentine's Day is upon us, so make the most of it.

Spied Out: The Best Soups

The Spy also likes to make soups, the more colourful the better (carrot&swede, pea and beetroot jostling for a close-up). The Spy also likes to make breads that do not deserve to be yelled at: behold the mighty Scottish griddle bread, soft, thick and perfect for dippage action.

There's an old saying that 'worries go down better with soup', and in this thin, sleety weather, few things could be more heartening than a ladleful straight from the pot, steaming away happily with wodges of bread nestling close to the bowl for warmth. Blended or chunky, meaty or veggie, swollen thickly with pearl barley or a salty thin consomme, when the Spy has grown tired of soups, the Spy will have grown tired of life. Of equal importance if the accompanying bread, for many a fine soup has been ruined by a dry baguette, a lacklustre bap, or even (horror!) a square of sliced white. Indeed, the Spy is only mildly ashamed to recall an occasion upon which he ordered soup in a mediocre Italian cafe (the honourable Spy mentions no names), and accompanied said order with the vociferous demand to "Show me your rolls. SHOW ME YOUR ROLLS!" The cowering proprietor duly extend a trembling hand, upon which skulked and squirmed the sorriest, limpest specimen of dough this side of Timbuktu. The meal that followed was little more than ashes in the Spy's mouth, for the bread had soaked up the joy infinitely more effectively than it was ever able to soak up the soup. So, partly in order to exorcise this ghoulish memory, the Spy is delighted to reveal four of the best places to quaff a merry bowlful, each accompanied by a fine hunk of le pain quotidien.

1. During the colder months, Le Gros Franck offers a smooth and sophisticated number, with a proper stock that shines through and an authentic length of chewy crusty baguette. The flavour of the day is chalked up on the little blackboard propped up by the pot, along with crunchy croutons for sprinkling. The flavours are inventive and sophisticated (vegetable, split pea and celeriac have been particularly fine), but apart from one nightmarish day when the chef got creative with a tomato and fish number (ever bit as revolting as it sounds, God help us all), the soups are always bowl-lickingly good. And the Spy is not just referring to his own bowl; he is also happy to attend to the bowls of other diners at no extra cost.

 

Little chalk board, big silver pot of joy. (NB this is clearly an authentic French dish, as caution has been thrown to the wind and the extra 'c' in 'broccoli' has been tossed aside with gay abandon. None of your dirty English spellings here, they might pollute the soup.)   

2. Continuing with our international theme, the German cafe Trockel Ulmann & Freunde is perhaps the best-known soup joint in town, with three changing flavours (one creamy, two plain) chalked up every day on the board outside. The portions are generous and served in cheery yellow bowls, with thick doorstops of gloriously chewy brown bread for dipping (the Spy has been known to pop in just to pick up a brown-paper-bagful of bread, a steal at 50p a portion). The occasional lunchtime queues are testament to its popularity, and at peak times, take-away is the only options (soup-and-sandwich deals available), but if you can, take a seat in this cosy, fairylight-adorned interior with classical music playing in the background and the option of a slice of German cake for afters. Just beware of the owner, who will try to round you up and herd you out if there are other customers waiting (even if you haven't quite finished your soup).

From left to right, three bubbling silver pots, the sign outside (complete with little window box and idyllic bicycle basket), and a close-up of the soup (cream of broccoli, this time catering to the English-speaking market). The Spy worships chastely at the altar of the blonde waitress in TU&F, who took the soup close-up shot, thereby winning the Cantabrigian Espionage Award for Thoroughly Good Egginess.  

3. The two branches of Benets cafe boast a range of often brightly coloured soups served in ceramic bowls with little handles, and with squishy sofas on hand upon which to enjoy them. With their little kitchen out the back of the Benet Street site, they have been known to get creative with the bread end of the soup-and-bread model, which changes over time. Right now, it's a rather uninspiring piece of ciabatta, but look out for the return of items such as their homemade cheesy scones. These knobbled and bobbled creations were scones but not as you know them, resembling lumpy little aliens from some rock-based planet, and much approved of by the Spy, a firm supporter of such enterprise and culinary innovations.

 

Lumpy alien-free soup, from the planet vegetable.

4. Finally, get yourself by hook or by crook to the cafe in the Botanic Gardens for a slurp of their lovely daily soup, complete with a chunky triangle of granary bread. Due to building work, the cafe is currently housed in a temporary building near the scented garden and opposite Cory Lodge. However, seek it out before snazzier premises are secured, because this is a lovely (if slightly ramshackle) place complete with fairy lights, a tree-leaf mural (in the summer, individual leaves are designed by local children, but due to botanical-correctness, the tree is bare during the winter) glass jars full of gingerbread men and garlands of greenery adorning the walls. And the soup's not half bad too. 

In the absence of a soup picture, the Spy presents the cafe's bare winter tree. An artistic masterpiece.

Spied Out: The Best Croissants

Croissants, still warm and perched nonchalantly on their baking trays. 

As February swings into action, bringing with it the promise of pre-7am sunrises and post-5pm sunsets, the hope of — dare we whisper it — spring, returns to these marshy plains. Winter's belly-ballast breakfasts of syrupy porridge laced with spices, hot milky cereals studded with dried fruit, or hunks of thick-sliced buttered toast become less of a necessity.  Likewise, yearnings for fireside afternoon teas with a stack of buttered crumpets and toasted muffins begin to lessen somewhat (although come off it, even in Cambridge, the bastion of old fashioned Englishness, how often do any of us enjoy such a luxury these days? The Spy has a tealight candle that could be used for crumpet-toasting, but fears the end product would be a singed, rather underwhelming and possibly carcinogenic affair). So, as springtime hovers in the wings, something lighter and more chic can be entertained. Now is the perfect time to enjoy a croissant, out and about in the increasingly early morning sunlight, or whilst pausing with an afternoon coffee. Here are two of Cambridge’s finest, plus a wildcard.

1. The undisputed Croissant King of Cambridge, Savino’s has a fresh supply of these warm, softly squidgy delicacies constantly cooking in the oven behind the counter, filling this deceptively dingy Italian café with the smell of pastry and chocolate. The chocolate croissant comes with a thick and oozing chocolate core running down his middle, while his squat, praline-filled cousin is the stuff that dreams are made of, topped with shiny caramelised hazelnuts that make the shell crackle. Special mention must go to their oh-so-sweet almond croissants, stuffed to bursting with marzipan-like goo and dusted with icing sugar.

Savino's chocolate croissant (L) and hazelnut croissant (R). Pictures clearly from separate trips, thus confirming the Spy's gluttony.

2. If you prefer your croissants authentically flaky and full of Gallic charm, the croissants at Le Gros Franck are more your bag. Once again, the almond croissant is the one to watch, less sickly sweet than his Italian neighbour down the road, filled with a sophisticated nutty paste and topped with a chewy white crust unlike anything the Spy had hitherto experienced. While we wont go into Danish pastry territory, it is worth noting that both the jam-and-custard number and his apple puree mate are also extremely tasty. Big Frank brings his croissants over from France, and what with the French radio playing in the background and the French waiters and waitresses, Ze Spy really felt that he had somehow ended up on the other side of Ze Channel (pardon, La Manche). Tres bien.

The almond monster and the jam-and-custard imposter. Some villainous fiend seems to have stolen him and taken a bite. Or two. 

3. Finally, the wildcard of the pack, the loose basket croissants in the Co-Op on Hills Road, more specifically, warm and doughy at 7am on a sunny spring morning. The Spy is not claiming that these croissants match the quality of the previous two examples, but these little fellows, nestling snugly in their paper-lined basket beds, prove that there is nothing better than an early morning croissant fresh out of the oven. This is not to suggest that the quality is not high, merely that it is not extraordinary, but the Spy is no food snob, and will readily admit that some of the best bread to be found in Cambridge issues forth from those Co-op bread baskets (see future posts for the unavoidable Great Lament concerning the dearth of  good Cambridge bread).       

 The Cinderellas of the bunch, but with little glass slippers on their feet.

Pilfered: The Best of the Medlar Trees

 

Intrepid medlar tree in the snow.

On this latest adventure, The Cambridge Spy veers off onto a more bosky path in honour of the Sidgwick Site medlar tree, a venerable citizen of this fine city currently clinging onto life behind the palisades of a building site. The Spy feared that this entry would be by way of his obituary, and that the distant roar of the chainsaw would soon be upon him, but having spoken to the building contractors, it seems that he has been granted a reprieve (along with a Bhutan pine and a holm oak, but sorry lads, you're not edible, so you stop here). Imperiled free food is a cause close to this gluttonous cheapskate's heart,* and so despite the fact that the medlar-pilfering season is drawing to a close, consider this as both a homage to a fine yet endangered figure of fecundity, and a heads-up for the best to be snaffled in the coming year.

* If you find yourself in The Orchard, look out for the sawn-off ivy around the base of the old pear tree, the result of a midnight liberation raid by candlelight. Nobody messes with the Spy's favourite pear tree and his fruit-bearing abilities, not even ivy...

The medlar tree, a wizened creature with medieval associations, has fruit flatteringly referred to as a 'dog's bottom' on account of its shape, which must be 'bletted' (left to rot) before it produces the fragrant, sweet paste so prized throughout the centuries. This may account for the tree's popularity amongst wasp populations, and the elderly specimen under the spotlight today is no exception, with a magnificently gnarled, droning  paper-globe nestling in its branches. One winter's day, the Spy had snuck into the Sidgwick Site, and was busy scrabbling about in the frosty mud for these little rotten gems, when an elderly academic in tweeds walked past, twinkling, "So, you've discovered the secret of the medlar tree!" His own memory of the tree stretched back to 1960, and he took the opportunity to pass on his own Christmas Day breakfast recipe: roasted medlars with the tops sliced off, filled with cream and sprinkled with brown sugar. In addition, the Spy now presents its own two favourite medlar recipes, designed to preserve the delicate flavour of the fruit throughout the year (and even to preserve the memory of the tree, should the worst come to pass).

Little dogs' bottoms peeping through the snow... 

MEDLAR JELLY  

(Good with meats, cheese, buttered toast, scones, in stews to tenderise the meat)

900g (2lb) medlars, halved

Enough water to cover the fruit in the pan (about 1L / 1.75 pints)

Sugar (650g for every litre of juice)

1 lemon, quartered 

Place the medlars and lemon pieces in a pan and cover with water.

Bring to the boil and simmer with the lid partially on for an hour, stirring occasionally to stop it sticking.

Pour the liquid into a muslin bag/jelly bag/the chopped off toe and leg of a clean pair of tights, and suspend the bag from chair legs/between sink taps/in a colander, and let the juice drip through into a bowl over night.

Measure the volume of juice, place it in a clean pan and boil for 5 minutes, then add the sugar.

When sugar has dissolved, do the wrinkle test to check that it has set (put a blob of jelly on a chilled saucer, place it in the fridge for two minutes, and if it wrinkles when pushed with a finger, it is done).

Pour into sterilised jars (wash the jars, place in a warm oven for 5 minutes until they are dry), put the lid on tightly and cool. If you like a more citrusy tang, place a slice of lemon peel on top of the jelly before sealing.

New-born medlar jellies.

MEDLAR CHUTNEY

(Good with cheese and meats)

6 Medlars, cored and chopped (with their 5 stones removed)

2 large apples, cores and chopped

2 onions, peeled and chopped

225g (1/2 lb) raisins

115g (3/4 lb) sugar

150ml (1/2 pint) vinegar

A few slices of fresh ginger

A cinnamon stick 

A pinch of chilli flakes

1/2 a grated nutmeg

A big pinch of salt

Put everything in a pan and simmer for an hour, stirring occasionally to stop it sticking.

The chutney is ready when it is thick enough to be parted with a spoon leaving the bottom of the pan visible without it closing over.

Pour into sterile jars (see above), screw the lids on tight and cool. 

An army of chutneys lined up for battle. 

So, come late spring, look out for these knobbly, crooked creatures, spiked with their pointy green leaves and covered in papery pink and white blossoms. In the autumn, the leaves take on warm, rusty hues, and their little golden apples start to peep through. After the leaves have fallen, these fruits remain on the branches like burnished Christmas baubles, ready to be picked and left in a bowl to blet until they are soft enough to eat. So to conclude, ladies and gentlemen, the Spy presents the three best medlar trees to be spotted in Cambridge:

1. The Sidgwick Site medlar (off West Road), on the edge of the lawn between the Law Faculty and the English Faculty. Long may his withered branches prosper.

2. The Orchard medlar (in Grantchester), nestling in the corner nearest the field gate and flanked by apple tree guards. 

3. If you find yourself wandering through the university colleges, look out for the medlars in the gardens of Newnham and Trinity. There are bound to be more tucked away in nooks and crannies, so keep a weather-eye open...  

Wasps like medlar trees too.