Paper Palate

Is Fresh turning into a bi-monthly publication? This issue is marked as September/October. Despite the huge popularity of cooking and the food revolution in the UK, none of the UK food magazines sell in huge quantities or make staggeringly huge profits either.

This issue opens with the usual In Season recipes – Rosemary Spiced Pears, Stuffed Peppers with Salt Cod, Pear and Elderberry Crisp, Slow Honey Roast Duck with Orange Sauce and Chicken cooked with 40 cloves of Garlic. Nothing really exciting until a few more pages are turned and a section on Cider is revealed.

Cider Can Chicken sounds OK, but Cider Risotto followed by Baked Cream, Cider Syrup and Granny Smiths are much more adventurous. Great inspirational photos here too. They list several ciders to use in the recipes – skip over the bland Magners (currently the hot drink for 20-somethings, which should tell you enough) and go for the Luscombe Organic Cider (made using old-fashioned apples such as Pig’s Snout, Sops in Wine and Slack ma Girdle) or the Jack Ratt Vintage made by the Lyme Bay Winery and packaged in a distinctive handled bottle.

The Slow Food section offers my personal favourite recipe of the issue – Caveach of Mackerel; which I am dying to try. Basically mackerel fillets served cold with a sauce made from onion rounds, white wine, white wine vinegar, bay, tarragon, ginger, nutmeg and coriander; there is a splash of Tabasco in there, too.

Tarragon is also featured in the Cooking with Herb column – Baked Chicken with Smoked Ham Tarragon Rarebit sounds interesting, as does the savoury cheesecake (Gorgonzola and Tarragon). Not sure I fancy a savoury cheesecake mind.

What I noticed in this issue is the large number of sponsored recipe sections - recipes from olive oil producer Filippo Berio, various Autumn dishes by Pyrex, Aoste meats and Jarlsberg cheese all have multi-page sections.

Coming from a wine background, I am always interested in the food and wine matching angle; Fresh has a regular wine section and selects several to accompany various recipes. This month they pair:

Da Luca Italia Primitivo Merlot, 2004 (£4.99) with Roast Camembert
Three Choirs Bacchus 2004 with Green Summer Soup
Château de Sours Rosé, 2004 (Majestic £7.99) with Creamy Leek and red Pepper Mash
Traidcraft Chardonnay, 2004 with Shittake and Prawn Hotpot
Sichel Sauternes, 2003 (£8.99 Morrisons) After Dinner Cheese

The latter is Stilton spread over radish halves and Brie stuck on a toothpick with a cherry tomato. An interesting take on the after dinner cheese and biscuits.

Fresh Magazine Issue 15 £3