The Long Weekend (41 page)

Peel and cut the celeriac into chunks and cook in the chicken stock until soft. Fry the apple in butter until soft. Drain the celeriac, retaining the stock, then liquidize the celeriac and apple with a teaspoon of curry paste, adding stock until you get a smooth consistency.

Pan fry the black pudding until crisp, then remove and keep warm. Pan fry the scallops for a minute each side.

Dollop a spoonful of the puree onto a plate, then place a piece of black pudding flanked by two scallops either side.

You can also serve this with a cauliflower puree, liquidized with a little double cream and some cumin

Crab Linguine

Cook the pasta according to the instructions.

Meanwhile, combine the crabmeat, chilli, crushed garlic and lemon zest in a bowl with the olive oil.

Drain the cooked pasta and return it to the saucepan. Add the crab mixture and stir thoroughly. Add extra olive oil, sea salt and lemon juice to taste, then sprinkle generously with flat-leaf parsley.

Fish Stew

If you have friends over for lunch, this is wonderful served with lots of crusty bread. Just don’t wear white linen while you’re cooking or eating it! The key to this is just to make a rich tomato-y sauce as a base, then add whatever is good at the fishmongers. There are no strict quantities – add as much or as little of everything to taste – but the bigger the pot the better. This is a very sociable and hands-on dish, and a Townhouse favourite.

Then add a selection of responsibly sourced fish and seafood. Monkfish, cod, sea bass, red mullet, tiger prawns and mussels are all good.

Corned Beef Hash With Fried Eggs

The brunches at The Townhouse by the Sea are legendary, and this is one of their most popular dishes on a lazy Sunday.

Cut the potatoes into cubes, then par-boil them – make sure they are still firm. Drain and cover with a cloth till slightly cooled.

Heat some oil or some lard (this recipe is not for a calorie-counter!) in a heavy-based frying pan, then add potatoes, stirring them until they start to crisp nicely. Remove potatoes, then lower the heat and add the corned beef and onion. Let the onion soften and the beef brown slightly, then add salt, black pepper, a slug of Worcestershire sauce and some chopped fresh thyme. Tip the potatoes back into the mix and heat it all through gently.

In a separate pan, heat some olive oil and fry four eggs.

Divide the hash between four plates and top with an egg each. Serve with as much tomato or brown sauce as you like!

Sea Urchin Cocktail

Mitch, the barman at the Townhouse, has this glorious cocktail as his special on hot weekends. But don’t guzzle too many!

For this cocktail you will need a jar of wild hibiscus flowers in syrup.

Place a hibiscus flower in the bottom of a martini glass to resemble a sea urchin. Shake the vodka, Campari, Curaçao and lime juice in a shaker with ice, then strain into the glass. Add a drizzle of hibiscus syrup, then top up with soda water.

Cornish Clotted Cream Fudge

No trip to Cornwall is complete without a chunk or two of crumbly, creamy fudge – buy a bag or two to take home to friends, or make your own.

It’s best to use a sugar thermometer when making this recipe for accuracy.

Grease and line a 20cm tin.

Melt all of the ingredients over a low heat in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and stir with a wooden spoon until amalgamated. Then boil the mixture until you reach the ‘soft ball’ temperature, which is 116°C. Remove from heat and plunge the pan into a bowl of iced water to cool it down. Continue stirring until the mixture has that lovely thick grainy fudge texture. Pour it into the greased and lined tin and leave to set. Cut into rough cubes and enjoy.

By Veronica Henry

Honeycote

Making Hay

Wild Oats

An Eligible Bachelor

Love on the Rocks

Just a Family Affair

Marriage and Other Games

The Beach Hut

The Birthday Party

The Long Weekend

Copyright

AN ORION EBOOK

First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Orion Books.
This ebook first published in 2012 by Orion Books.

Copyright © Veronica Henry 2012

The right of Veronica Henry to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

‘Sea Fever’ by John Masefield reproduced by permission of The Society of Authors as the Literary Representative of the Estate of John Masefield.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN:
978 1 4091 3093 2

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