Carr’s water biscuits

When I went home last time, my parents and I went to Helsingor in Denmark for a few hours, and as we always do, we went into the cheese shop in town; Lynhjems eftr. Ole Jensen, and as ever we couldn’t resist buying some nice cheeses.

Dad went for a typical Danish stinky hard cheese called Sorte Sara (Black Sara, because it has a black rind) and mother had some blue cheese I think. And I, I wanted the truffle brie.

I’ve never seen truffle brie before actually, and it just looked so good I had to try it. Suspiciously I asked the shop assistant if you could actually taste the truffle much. You could. Hallelujah!

The cheese consisted of two cheeses really layered together. Brie of course; which had a nice taste and wasn’t overpowered by the soft cheese flecked with truffle.

I had it with my favourite cheese biscuits; Carr’s water biscuits, and acacia honey and it was soooo delicious! Can’t wait to have it again, even if it means a trip to Denmark…

I have mentioned green pea soup on this blog before, but that was a while ago now and I think it is time for a gentle reminder. The reason for this is, that I think this is one of the nicest soups around and probably the only one I find light enough to enjoy during the summer. Hot, that is. I don’t really do cold soups.

I live for the weekends, although I like doing things during the week as well, I adore weekends when you have time to prepare and eat a meal with plenty of time on your hands. That’s why I usually make three courses at the weekends, or at least two. And when one is busy at the weekend, then this works just as well on a Thursday.

I suggested to Christopher that we would have a nice bottle of wine with dinner, and then I made the one course weekday meal I had planned into a three course meal quite easily. The peas in the freezer made this lovely soup, the main course was the aubergine dish I had already planned (it needs some modifications until it gets posted on here) together with garlic bread. And some cheese and crackers left over from the weekend was our dessert. Easy peasy and incredibly fulfilling.

The cheese board consisted of, from the top: Rebluchon (creamy, French, cow’s milk); a lovely French blue cheese that I have forgotten the name of; Brie de Meaux (French, cow’s milk) and last but not least Ossau Iraty (Basque region, France, ewe’s milk, hard). My must-have crackers with cheese are both British; Carr’s water biscuits and Bath Olivers (the two types to the left in the bread basket).

Greenn pea soup, serves 2

300 g frozen petit pois

water to cover

a dash of concentrated vegetable or chicken stock

100 ml cream

2 dashes (3 tbsp approx) dry white wine

Place the frozen peas in a sauce pan, just about cover with water. Bring to the boil and let it boil for a minute or two. Drain but keep the water. Blitz the peas with about two ladles of the water until you have a thick soup. Pour it back into the pan, add cream, wine and stock and bring to the boil again. Add more liquid if the soup is too thick. Season. Pour into bowls and decorate them with whirls of cream and truffle oil.

Tag: Carr’s water biscuits

Truffle brie

A reminder: green pea soup