Pickles and Potter Deli

It could be said that at one point, Pickles and Potter had become something of a victim of its own success. Queues could be seen curling well out of the door of the deli and trailing down the insides of the Queens Arcade, with hungry punters salivating in anticipation of some of the best homemade sandwiches in town. Times have changed however, with the shop expanding to cater for the Leeds lunchers with extra time on their hands. Now we can all sit down and enjoy the full range of sandwiches and hot and cold foodstuffs, along with a nice cup of tea or bottle of juice in the homely dining room.

I always find that I get hungrier when I know that the place I’m about to eat at is really quite good, and that is exactly what I found happening to me as I waited in line to place my order on a recent visit to the newly-expanded premises. As I stood, surrounded by other twitchy eaters, I felt my hands getting sweaty and my eyes darting about in my head — taking in the different sorts of homemade tiffin resting on the counter, the piles of cheeses teasing me from beneath the glass and the bowls of salads glistening in the light — not to mention the abundance of meats and chutneys jostling for my attention.

The place is a veritable orgy of good, wholesome, fresh ingredients and you only need to glance around you to realise this. There really is something verging on debauched about the sheer variety of treats on offer — as the painting in the back room of the extroverted owner Lorna wearing nothing but fruit and veg aptly proves.

I was awoken from my gluttonous daze by the charming counter girl who seemed more than happy to whip up a sandwich feast for me and my eating chum. We opted for two sandwiches from the blackboard — me going for the award winning beef (£3.90), and my friend for the roast ham (£3.80), along with a cloudy lemonade (£1.75) and a filter coffee (£1.85). Soon we were sitting at a big wooden table, among other happy diners, my friend making polite conversation as I drummed, wide-eyed on the table, maddeningly jealous of the smug people who were already enjoying the delights on their plates.

We weren’t waiting long though before the objects of my hunger-lust were placed before us, spilling off the plates with fresh salad and I was digging my teeth into some of the best beef in Leeds. If there is a better sandwich in existence than rare roast beef with thick slices of mature cheddar, rocket leaves, mustard, horseradish and red onion marmalade on herby, oily, toasted foccacia, then I’ll happily eat it, and my hat too. My pal made similar squealings about her ham — but I wasn’t really listening — I was too busy enjoying my beef. So if you’re serious about food, and you want your tastebuds to be mesmerised on a lunchtime, then I highly recommend you make your way down to Pickles and Potter for some food porn.
18-20 Queens Arcade, 0113 242 7702

The Boar's Head, Ripley

When I opened the door to our room at The Boar’s Head in Ripley, north Yorkshire, I fancied that I was not staying at a hotel at all, but rather at an eccentric, rich uncle’s country retreat. Paintings of dogs, chintz curtains and a sherry decanter all screamed for my derision, but somehow the bowl of fresh apples and homemade butter biscuits won me over. It was all very ‘Brideshead Revisited’ meets ‘Calendar Girls’, but how would this ‘Great British Inn’ - as it is so marketed, fare in the food stakes?

The carefully contrived British charm may be the selling point of the hotel, but the restaurant is all about the continent, with a French-inspired modern menu curated by none other than Lady Ingilby, the owner of the inn and Ripley Castle. The setting couldn’t be more classic, rural money – all dark wood panelling, mauve walls and huge oil paintings - but the menu I am pleased to say, was full of surprises, like the sweetcorn mousse with lobster vinaigrette and a dessert of butternut squash sorbet – which we will come to later.

We were seated at are table by an incredibly jovial and attentive Frenchman, and brought warm bread and some creamy, salty butter as we breathed in the sumptuous smells coming from the kitchen. The menu works like this: mains are priced around the £30-£40 mark, but this includes a starter and pudding, to which an extra course of cheese can be added for £6.

The wine list was a joy, with page after page of French wines, varying from the good to the extravagantly special, a true exploration of the finest wine regions. Not long after we had ordered, our wine, a fine Châteauneuf-du-Pape, was brought over, opened, and poured into a huge wine-glass for me to try. It was deep, powerful stuff with hints of cherry, and everything you’d expect from such a superior Cotes du Rhone.

The starters came promptly, my companion’s salt cod resplendent on a fragrant seafood bouillon. The cod was meaty and moist with a crispy, slightly tinged skin, and surrounding it were muscles and clams just visible beneath the coral coloured liquid. The seafood was fresh and delicious, but it was the smooth, thin bouillabaisse that stole the show with the sheer intensity of its flavour, which sang of a rich fish stock, fine wine and saffron.

My langoustine mousse was a shimmering, two-tone, pretty pink tower of quivering foam that held within it two meaty langoustine tails, and was topped with a generous spoonful of caviar. Beside it came a mound of nutty crab and herb salad with a lemon dressing that cut through the lush, creamy mousse. These starters witnessed a sophistication that earlier, when staring at a lurid red, boar shaped bath fizzer in our en-suite, seemed an unlikely prospect.

We barely had time to compose ourselves before our mains, along with a dish full of colourful, buttered vegetables were laid before us. My fillet of Yorkshire beef was among the best I’ve ever tasted – bloody and meltingly tender. It came with porcini mushroom infused buckwheat rice, which tasted smoky and glorious, and a vivid green smear of guacamole puree.

My companion’s sliced lamb with spicy roasted parsnips and braised fennel had him in raptures. The lamb apparently tasted “like it had been grazed on a diet of wild mint and honey”. The food had induced in us the kind of warm, fuzzy satisfaction which left us (along with a little help from the 15 percent alcohol) gazing at each other with hazy, purple-toothed smiles like two gluttons from a Dickens novel.



And so, our trousers tight around our bellies, but our mouths wanting more, we agreed on sharing a light pudding of hazelnut panna cotta with crystalised roasted hazelnuts and butternut squash sorbet. If any pudding has ever captured the essence of its constituents with utter perfection this was it – the panna cotta silken and nutty and the sorbet refreshing but somehow earthy and sweet all at once.

The Boar’s Head is a restaurant that plays with expectations and delivers immaculate, superior cuisine. Set in the scenic beauty of the north Yorkshire countryside, I’d certainly recommend making a trip to eat there, or staying there, as we did. Just don’t make our mistake of emptying the sherry decanter afterwards.

The Bill (for two)
Yorkshire beef fillet £39.50
Roast lamb with braised fennel £37.00
Châteauneuf-du-Pape £28.00
Total £104.05

The Joys of Truffade

Last summer when travelling through the Auvergne, I discovered truffade, and it became a bit of an obsession. It’s a local speciality, which is served with most dishes in most restaurants, and I became fixated with finding the best truffade I possibly could, on every possible occasion. I even ate it by the pool in Belieau.

The first time I tasted it was in Mauriac - a lovely little town about 20 miles north of Aurillac. I was walking through a farmer's market in the square when I was captivated by an incredible smell of frying herbs and garlic. The source of the smell was a cauldron bubbling with a pale, coagulated goo, stirred by a French lady not dissimilar in appearance to an elderly uncle of mine.

“Mademoiselle, mange ce truffade délicieux - c'est la spécialité de l'auvergne,” she croaked. Before I had much of a chance to enquire as to what, exactly truffade was, she had thrust a paper cup of the warm stuff into my hand.

I wasn’t complaining – it tasted devilish. Being a person with much more of a savoury disposition than a sweet tooth, this was my idea of the perfect snack. To put it crudely, truffade is a cross between a potato pancake and mashed potato, loaded with melted Tomme cheese, garlic, fried onion and an abundance of herbs and butter. Its texture and the way it is served varies from place to place – sometimes its more like a potato cake made of clearly sliced, sautéed spuds, and other places serve it like a roughly mashed potato, which is my personal favourite. Sometimes they add lardons to this.

When melted, Tomme, (a mild cow’s milk made in the Alps), goes stringy and is somewhere between gruyere and mozzarella. The cheese and potato often stick to the bottom of the pan where they brown, crisp, and sometimes burn. This is then scraped from the bottom of the pan and stirred in with the rest of the mixture, giving the whole dish an irresistible crunch.



My most memorable truffade experience was at a fantastic restaurant called Le Drac in the small town of Salers. Salers is about as scenic as you can hope to find in a ridiculously scenic region. It’s high up, characterised by cobbled, sloping streets, archaic architecture and an incredible view across the valleys. Le Drac is a bar-cum-restaurant with some of the friendliest service we encountered and alfresco dining in the courtyard out the back.

We ordered a pierrade, which is a hot rock that they plug in at your table, for you to cook your own meat on. The meat we were served was an incredible cut, with no gristle or fat, and meltingly tender. It came with a quartet of different sauces - red wine jus, béarnaise, dijon and blue cheese, and a huge mound of truffade.

I don’t know whether it was the tenderness of the meat, or the way they had made the truffade – but this was certainly one of the best, and memorable meals of my life -hence the fact I find myself writing about it now. So if you’re ever in the region, and find yourself driving through Salers, go to Le Drac and eat as much truffade as you can stomach.

On a recent trip to Waitrose I was overjoyed to discover that they sell Tomme cheese, meaning that I was able to recreate the indulgence of my holiday (be warned – I put on four pounds in two weeks) in my own kitchen. Not having managed to get a recipe on my travels, all I had was my memories and a picture postcard, from which I derived my very own truffade recipe. I can’t vouch for its authenticity, but it tasted spot on.

Here’s my recipe for truffade:

Serves four

Ingredients
6-8 large potatoes
250g Tomme or Cantal cheese
Four fat garlic cloves
Half a large onion
Mixed herbs
50g butter
Salt and pepper

Method
1. Slice the potatoes to the thickness of a pound coin and par-boil in salted water for six minutes. While this is boiling melt half the butter in the pan and add the herbs, garlic and then the onion. Sweat on a low heat for a few minutes, until the onions are soft. Drain the potatoes and add them to the frying pan, breaking them up ever so slightly with a wooden spoon. Add the rest of the butter and the Tomme and cook for another ten to fifteen minutes, stirring the mixture together and scraping the bits that stick to the bottom into the middle. Season generously with salt and pepper.

Serve with a steak and a green salad.

Bon appetit!