... and its time to snuggle down and enjoy some wholesome seasonal comfort food. We start serving our English Winter menu on the 12 December cooking the best local seasonal produce we can find to create a delicious four course dinner. This is not a tasting menu, no micro herbs and ironic juxtapositions, just generous portions of good traditional English food freshly prepared in our galley.
Our on line menus are deliberately brief, no half page descriptions listing each separate ingredient, but people do ask what’s in the dishes so here’s what we do to prepare this winter feast.
The pea and garlic soup has a freshly made vegetable stock base with blitzed peas, spiced up with a generous dollop of mashed roasted garlic, served with crusty home baked bread.
Our fish course is based on Brixham caught smoked haddock, milk poached and mixed with cream cheese, eggs, chervil and mace and steam baked into a firm mousse. This is served with a winter salad of puy lentils, roasted parsnip and chopped walnuts in a toasted walnut and red wine vinegar dressing (good enough to be a course by itself.)
Then there is the main event; two pies with generous servings of freshly made gravy and winter vegetables.
The Barge pie ingredients change from season to season. In the winter it’s a raised pie with a decorated, freshly made, flaky pastry case filled with layers of leek and potato and home roasted duck, enhanced with the secret ingredient, oloroso sherry! This is served with home made gravy based on duck stock made from the roasted carcasses and another generous glug of sherry.
As if that wasn’t enough there is also an open topped homity pie made with the same pastry wrapped around a filling of local cheddar cheese, double cream, onions and potato seasoned with sage and dressed with fresh sage leaves.
Plentiful portions of braised buttered cabbage with a hint of nutmeg adds freshness to the course.
No winter feast would be complete without a proper pudding, in our case an oven baked fruit crumble, it might be rhubarb, plum, blackberry and apple, whatever is good from our suppliers, topped with a nutty crumble and served with jugs of freshly made egg custard and double cream.
And that’s it! Just simple traditional English comfort food served hot and fresh to large shared tables in the warm cosy salon of Snark. What’s not to like!
And of course, it all goes down better accompanied by something good to drink;
Fruity and robust Italian wines that can hold their own with the rich food, locally crafted organic beers, refreshing spicy fruit cordials and as a treat an elegant cava or for the special occasion a delicious house champagne.
If you’re mouth is now watering, it’s time to head online and book a place for dinner or Sunday lunch.
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