Foreman and Field smoked salmon

I remember back in the day when smoked salmon was a real treat to be ooo and ahhh over. These days it's more of a daily commodity; a mainstay of office meeting catering that can often be taken for granted. However there are still producers that make smoked salmon that rises above the average supermarket offerings.

I had heard of Foreman's smoked salmon and their mail order arm Foreman and Field courtesy of some other food bloggers, so when I was asked if I'd like to try some of their London cure smoked Scottish salmon I said yes (very quickly).

I was sent 200g of their London cure, and wanting to keep things simple I used it in a big grilled asparagus, rocket and watercress salad for two, and two rounds of toast and scrambled eggs the following day. I think this actually might have been the nicest smoked salmon I've eaten. It was beautifully rich, but with a very mild smokiness that really let the flavour of the salmon come through. This delicate flavour meant that it was particular good with the eggs, and didn't dominate either dish.

As you might expect this quality doesn't come cheap, with 200g priced at £9.95 but this amount would easily serve four people as a generous starter (or an equivalent permutation). This is not really an everyday purchase, but is a great example of a product that is really worth a premium price and I quite like the idea of smoked salmon being something for special occasions again.


H.Foreman London cure Scottish smoked salmon from Foreman and Field
I rate it 9/10
Cost: From £9.95 for 200g

Thanks to Foreman and Field who sent me my smoked salmon for free and gratis.

Wimbledon lunching

The Wimbledon mens finals are one of those very English events that occur during the summer, so I thought I'd try to prepare something equally English to sustain myself and the male companion through watching it on TV. Good thing too as it turned into an epic match. So we started off with traditional cucumber sandwiches, open sandwiches with smoked salmon and cream cheese mixed with wasabi, and errrr...crisps. Hard to go wrong with cucumber sandwiches but I did impress myself with the salmon and wasabi combo. The wasabi provided just enough of a sharp kick to cut through the richness of the salmon without over-powering it. I used the S&B brand which comes in a tube, so it was incredibly easy to mix about one-ish heaped teaspoon (adding a bit at a time and regular test tastings required) in with about half a tub of cream cheese.

So onto course two. I was inspired by a recent post by Hollow Legs to try making some scones. I am not a natural baker, having produced a range of rock hard breads and semi-raw pastries in the past, but this looked like quite a straight-forward recipe and the picture was too drool-inducing to ignore. I cut the scones quite small as I wanted something relatively dainty (and also because I used a beaker rather than a scone cutter). And the results......not bad at all. As you might be able to tell from the photo they didn't really rise as much as I expected (cause unknown, but if anyone can enlighten me that would be great), but tasted lovely. Though anything served with huge dollops of clotted cream and jam is always going to taste pretty damn good.


All was accompanied by Pimms- could we get more English?


Cost: S&B wasabi £0.99
I rate it 8/10

Cost: Tesco Finest Cornish clotted cream (by Rodda's) around £1.40
I rate it 8/10

Cost: Tesco Finest strawberry conserve around £1.35
I rate it 7/10 (tasted fine but no different to any old strawberry jam)