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| Black Pudding Potato Cakes with Tomato Chili Chutney |
British food usually does not get people
excited. I love British food, but it seems many people find it bland and
boring. This black pudding potato cake is perhaps one of the attempts to
modernize British food. You probably think this is just black pudding and
potatoes, shaped and fried. You are right, but at least its progress.
It goes without saying that this dish is great.
Black pudding and mashed potatoes are great on their own, combining and shallow
frying it is a different way of having the same thing. Plus by making cakes you
can add other ingredients to the mixture such as cheese, onions or bacon. The
recipe is available here.
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Blood Orange Tart with Rosemary Butter Crust
Today’s Favourite Blog
The article starts off by saying “a potentially
dangerous wave of food fraud affecting everything from olive oil to tuna,
spices and pomegranate juice has been exposed.”
This does not sound good. Extra virgin olive oil
is being diluted with cheaper vegetable oil. I already discussed this earlier here. Tea bags might be
bulked up with lawn grass or fern leaves, according to US researchers. I
suppose the good news is that one kind of leaf is being replaced by another
kind. It could have been worse like saw dust!
Apparently healthy white tuna on a menu may
actually be the less-expensive escolar, a fish that has been banned in many
countries because of its links to food poisoning. There is evidence from
America that manufacturers are secretly adding cheap pear and grape juice to
pomegranate, while spices such as black pepper, paprika and saffron may be
bulked up with other plant material and coloured with industrial, and
potentially dangerous, dyes.
One estimate suggests British families are
wasting as much as £7billion a year paying over the odds for food that has been
faked in some way. This includes foreign beef being passed off as British beef and
inorganic produce passed off as organic. Harrods was found to be selling farmed
salmon as wild. Another interesting one is honey laundering, where foreign
honey is mixed with EU honey, or even worse, corn syrup or sugar added to
honey.
So if you tea, honey and beef taste different from what you expected, you know why!
Glad to know we can trust no one for our food and it being real or healthy!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE black pudding and this recipe is a great idea. Just last week my colleague had an omelet with some black pudding on top..yummy.
That sounds like a half english breakfast:)
DeleteBlack pudding is a favourite here-hubby doesn't like it but I do so I get extra ;) That's very concerning about the food fraud!
ReplyDeleteMore for you, good for you:)
DeleteI looooove black pudding (I even have some always in the freezer because when I crave it... there is no way I don't eat some the same day). Your black pudding and potato cakes sound extraordinary! I absolutely must test your recipe soon. (And I have to post something with blood pudding soon).
ReplyDeleteThe cheating in food production is apparently nothing new... From what I recently read in a historical book about food, we have never eaten as safely and as high quality as now. The problem arises of course when we pay more to eat the best (like organic) and then we eat mass-produced meat...
The main problem is that we are too far from the sources of our meat, vegetables and real farmers are less and less common on farmers' markets (here at least). Most stalls just sell what they had bought in bulk.
My friend's mother lives in Hungary in a small town not far from a village and farmers. She has never bought meat from any shop: she only buys from her neighbours... I envy her so much (and the meat tastes great!).
Have you heard about the recent scandal with horse meat in British hamburgers?
I know you do! Looking forward to your creation.
DeleteThats interesting, before people ate what was produced naturally. Now quality has improved and also products separated and sold according to quality. We can have high quality beef from Aust/US etc or low quality beef from other countries. BTW India became the worlds largest beef exporter last year. Its almost all buffalo (which is considered beef).
Yes I heard about the scandal. Horse is eaten in many countries and its good quality meat - so whats the scandal???:) I suppose they prefer yorkshire pudding and mushy peas!!!
The scandal is that if you buy beef you don't want to find even chicken in it, but you know in Europe (and maybe in the US too?) many people don't eat horse meat because horse is often considered as a noble animal who has rendered for centuries (and still renders) many services to the man and consider eating horse meat a thing of extreme situations only like war or famine (I am one of those). I know many people who wouldn't enter a restaurant which serves horse meat (or a butcher) not because it's disgusting the way dog meat can be disgusting to Europeans, but because they think it's irrespectful. One doesn't have to have religions reasons to have one's own values which exclude eating meat from certain animals.
DeleteOver all I think the most important is that beef hamburger should contain beef. There is a reason why horse burgers are not sold so often (and they would be cheaper certainly).
I have heard about India! This is the way they have managed to produce beef because buffalo is similar but apparently according to Indian law it doesn't count as beef which is I think forbidden in many states.
I meant "disrespectful", sorry (I have mixed French and English again...).
DeleteI was joking when I referred to the horsemeat scandal. Of course its pretty bad if the meat is contaminated, even if the amount was quite small. There is also the religious aspect - Muslims not eating pork Hindus not eating beef etc. It will be interesting to learn how horse meat traces (or DNA) was found, considering UK is not a horse eating country.
DeleteHorses are still used widely in the UK (at palaces, by police etc) but I guess some people don't eat horse meat because its not normal/common (at the moment). Long time ago lobster was given to prisoners in the US, general public would not eat it because it was disgusting - it looked strange etc. Now times have changed. I wonder if horse meat may become more common over time. Kangaroo/crocodiles are starting to...
According to Indian customs they are not allowed to slaughter cows, and as you say buffalo is not considered cow. When I was in India, I don't think I saw beef/pork on menus, but the hotel I stayed at (Radissons) had buffalo on the breakfast buffet!!! I still find it very very strange
Recently there have been rumors the meat comes from Poland, which is definitely not a horse-eating country (on the other hand until recently the first exporter of snails to France was Poland and frankly no one eats snails there...).
DeleteIn UK also many people also ride horses, own horses, use them to hunt... I can imagine how those who had the hamburgers and like horses must now be disgusted.
It seems Poland likes to export that it doesn't eat - snails, horses:)
DeleteI guess it would have been worse if horse meat was found in shepherds pie, meat pie etc. Hamburgers are less popular.