Sous Vide Venison

On Friday/Saturday, we were visiting Katherine in Cambridge, who took us to eat at High Table at Pembroke College. I've not eaten so well in years. It was a fantastic menu, in a beautiful setting, and we had a great time.

The menu:

Pea and Coconut Velouté with a Coconut Foam

Smoked Salmon & Mozzarella Terrine

Venison with Caramelized Red Cabbage, Château Potatoes, and a Game Jus

Chocolate Fondant with Peanut Butter Ice-cream and Cumin Caramel

And we then retired to the fellows' parlour for artisan cheese and biscuits (a phenomenally good blue brie-type cheese, a really strong cheddar, something like a parmigiana, and a goat's cheese I didn't try), fruit, and chocolates, with a good port, a lovely Riesling, and a claret.

Pembroke's chef maintains a blog, Under Pressure at Pembroke, which depicts some of these lovely dishes. The sous vide cooked venison was the best venison I've had. I'm still revelling in it all.

We also, inevitably, had a wander: the Backs outside Trinity are looking good, although the crocuses aren't quite out yet.

Aconites outside Trinity College Cambridge (© Ian 2012) 

The Backs and Trinity College (© Ian 2012)

Back home on Saturday, and we've spent today cutting and sawing a load of wood Calderdale council dropped off. We already have too much wood to process, you might say. I'd agree: but we wanted to check this as a possible supply of biomass for wood central heating. Not bad, but not brilliant, in fact; quite a lot of softwood, and some stuff that was a real pain to split.