Having done beef the Sunday before, we thought that chicken was appropriate on this day, chicken without full-on, heritage stuffing. So started the day with a run around Jubilee Way, when, oddly for a Sunday morning, joggers and people in Lycra on bicycles were thin on the ground - from which I returned for chicken dinner.
Not completely convinced by the joining of stewed celery to roast chicken and will perhaps take advice before doing it again. But stewed celery seems to go down better than the raw variety these days, not being altogether convinced by what Sainsbury's are pleased to call organic: green, hollow and thin on flavour. I remember the days when celery was grown in the black soil of the Cambridgeshire fens, was white, and came in specialised wooden crates: a rather different quantity altogether. Also the days when one could get white celery served in a glass jug and Stilton served from a truckle wrapped in white linen from the Great Western Railway Company. Which for some reason used to do better grub than other railway companies.
Plus 'Mademoiselle'. Down to our last thee bottles.
Plus a spot of date slice for dessert. Made from brick dates which arrived in Epsom from a warehouse in Cullompton in Devon.
Followed by a spot of Calvados, followed by smashing BH at Scrabble, albeit in a rather low scoring game, snapped above. In which 'saxe' is allowed by OED as a sort of porcelain or something and the 'G' was left over. But not enough of a penalty to affect the clear result. A win by several lengths.
Later on we took in 'Firefly Dreams' of reference 1, a hand-me-down from Surrey Libraries which we don't seem to have ever watched before. We thought it was rather good: stroppy teenagers in Japan are not that different from the home grown variety!
Day two in pie mode, on much the same lines as on the previous occasion, noticed at reference 2, a rather grander affair in other respects. Onion, garlic, leek and a little flour.
Mushrooms put in just before removing the stew from the stove. A little butter or oil in the mashed potato to ease the way, but a bit of care is still needed to get a smooth top.
The result, after about an hour in the oven. More precisely, 80 minutes at 180°C. I like a bit of brown on top.
Brown on top, then a layer of potato mush, then the stew proper. Not bad at all. We did about three quarters of it on the first shift.
Day three for soup - with chicken, which would not have been the case had we stretched the meat part of the operation out another day. Plus mushrooms. Celery. Leeks. Potatoes. No frying. No onions. No bacon. No orange lentils from Ontario. Or perhaps from Turkey. Very good it was too.
All done for lunch bar a smidgen for later.
Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-stuffing-which-never-stuffed.html.
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