Manchester – Poached eggs, Christmas Market and baking (Dec ‘10)

We went up norf’ to Manchester last weekend, just because it wasn’t cold enough in London and we wanted to test out the sub-zero temperatures and wet weather the city is famous for. Boy oh boy was I looking forward to getting soaked by the rain, and then cooled off by the frosty winds. What more could a girl ask for then glaciers on her nose, and stalactites on the ears?

Weather aside, we had a blast of a time there – mainly because we were with good friends, had good food, and very importantly, managed to go to the Christmas market for the first time this year. The ones in London are a bit … meh. To me, anyway. They’re uber expensive, full of pushy people, and just quite angsty. One visit there and you need to take time out for the rage to subside.

So, we set off on the Friday, having taken the day off work. After sorting the car out with the what-nots (de-icer, a blanket in case we got stuck on the motorway and had to eat the cushion seats, snacks and crisps to avoid having to eat the cushion seats), we headed up north towards the bright and foggy lights of the M25.

As we didn’t have much time to get any breakfast on the way, we decided to stop off at the service stations for some nibbles. The place we stopped off at had the usual WH Smith’s (newspapers, pasties and cold drinks), some café place with quite good deals on muffins and stuff, a Starbucks, one of those hot food counters (overpriced everything) and a KFC. We went for the KFC.

One Zinger Tower Box Meal and 3 hot wings later, we were ready to resume the battle against the M25 traffic.

To cut a long story short, after replacing the car battery, going to watch the Interpol gig at the Manchester Apollo, and then drinking lots of mulled wine, it was Saturday. Time to begin the Eat-All-You-Can-Weekend-In-Manchester.

And it began with some fabulous poached eggs on granary toast.

Lovely, yellow yolk slowly drizzling down the buttery toast – each bite better than the last. I know LC is waiting for this moment of Poached Egg fame, so credit has to be given where credit is due. It was an excellent specimen of what poached egg on toast should be. Paved the way just fine for the sausages, stew, wine, pizza, mince pies and Chinese supper that was to come (more on that later).

We then made our way towards the town hall where the Christmas Market was. Even though we’d moved from Manchester about 3 years ago, we’ve been to the Manchester Christmas Market every year since then, so for tradition’s sake, we had to try out some of the stuff on offer. As I’ve had the bratwurst quite a few times now, I decided to try something new.

As I elbowed my way through the crowd (all part of the fun), we came across this stall which I’d previously just overlooked. The thing is, when I’m at a German Market (which this was, kinda), the last thing I wanted to do was succumb to English food. Which is why I’ve never bothered to try the Lancashire Hotpot even though I’m sure the stall is not a new fixture here.

For £4.50, we got the hotpot with pickled red cabbage, and added 50p worth of Pan Heggarty, which to me, looked a lot like potato dauphinoise. Boy was this one of the nicest things we could have had at that exact moment. Being slightly wet (it was drizzling), cold, and quite annoyed at the number of people there were at the market, this was just the thing to lift the mood. It was steaming hot and the stodgy combination of beef stew with creamy potatoes (with a slight hint of crunchy tang from the pickled cabbage) was just brilliant.

Savoury cravings satisfied, we moved on to the sweet. Best thing here is the mini pancakes. Seriously the best pancakes in Manchester. Despite only getting 6 mini ones for £3, each pancake (which really is mini) is soft, fluffy and light, without being too sweet, but still spiced with a little cinnamon, icing sugar and maple syrup. Absolutely one of my favourite things at the Christmas Market.

We bought some sausages also from the market, £10 for 7 types of sausages.

Tried some of them when we got back to our friends’ and they were very nice indeed.

After all that eating, we trooped back to our friends’ flat for more eating. Eating what, though, is the question. Eating mince pies and cookies, is the answer.

LC and RH were making mince pies from scratch, and I mean, from scratch. Like, without using frozen pastry. Even the cookies were made from scratch.

This was what it looked like – I won’t even begin to try and tell you what the recipe was as all I did was eat the raw cookie dough and take pictures.

I’d not had homemade mince pies before this, and it definitely is miles better than the store-bought ones. Yes, EVEN the Marks & Spencer ones, that’s how good it was. The slightly rustic-looking little pies were crumbly to the bite, and each crumbly nibble made me want another. Those cookies were chewy and crunchy at the same time, and tasted of warm, spicy ginger on a cold winter’s night. Perfect with mulled wine.

Some people came over for more eating on Saturday night, and we had a really nice time. Bearing in mind the fact that I’m not that sociable most times (the tube has that effect of making me not wanna be around other people), my dusty (and in fact, quite last season, dah-ling) social skills were brought out and we had an excellent time - plenty of mulled wine, mince pies, brownies, German Christmas cookies, Chinese supper of Szechuan stir fried spicy green beans, dumplings with spicy chilli oil, beef fried hor fun and indigestion tablets.

To be continued …

Manchester Christmas Market

Sometime during the end of November, Christmas markets pop up all over town. In London, there are markets in Hyde Park, in Covent Garden, and even one at the O2 from the posters I’ve seen.

Our favourite, though, remains the Christmas market in Manchester.

Rudolph for vegetarians.

Once a year, the area around St. Peter’s square is transformed from a pigeon social club to a place of food aplenty, and mulled wine merriness. It’s magical in the daytime, but more so at night when the fairy lights are switched on, and icicles litter the end of people’s breath.

All this magic comes at a price, though. It used to cost approximately £3.50 (for a pint of beer, a mug of mulled wine, a bratwurst, a portion of crepe, uh huh, everything). Now it costs £4.50. Call me a cheapskate, but a £1 increase is quite steep for something which was only £3.50 to begin with.

Nevertheless, it’s once a year, it’s cold, and it’s making me wanna eat, so £4.50 it is.

There are so many stalls there that it’s always best to have a first look around before buying that thing that looks so good, only to realise that everything else looks so good also.

So, what stalls are there?

1. The ‘I didn’t know there were even that many types of sausages’ stall

This nice lady was busy cutting up sausages as samples, and boy did we sample quite a few.

The peppered sausage was actually not as spicy as I expected it to be, considering how it’s almost entirely covered in pepper. Nice, slightly crunchy peppery bits, and salty when you got to the sausage.

So many types of sausages, that it began to get slightly confusing at one point. Which ones do I get, are they the same, what on earth do I want with 5 sausages. So many questions.

2. The bratwurst factory, selling a choice of either spicy, or non-spicy bratwurst in a bun - £4.50

This is the one stall that we HAVE to go to every time we’re here. Selling both bratwurst (spicy or non-spicy) and mulled wine, it provides an almost complete meal (no desserts, but that can always be found somewhere else).

The buns merely serve as sausage holders, and are quite unimpressive (slightly hard, and definitely been left out in the cold for some time), but hey, you don’t complain about the plates being hard and tasteless, do you.

3. The cheese stall featuring some 3D-style background

You would have thought it might have smelt slightly cheesy going by this stall, but it was surprisingly odour-free. Maybe it was because the cheese were all cling-filmed.

4. The hog roast stall, also known as ‘I want one of those’

It was almost difficult trying to take pictures of these, due to the immense number of people queuing up for a hog roast roll. Traditionally served in a bun / bap / roll, with some shredded pork, some crackling, some apple sauce, and lots of drool (added factor on my part), this is one amazing treat which we didn’t treat ourselves to (had to save some space for the sausages).

5. The strudel stall, with the very nice man who started chatting about his Nikon DSLR

This was the nice man, who, when he saw me snapping pictures of his strudel, started chatting about how he took pictures of food too. I chatted back enthusiastically, hoping that he might take a liking to us, and give us more strudel. Don’t reckon that happened, but the strudel was very nice anyhow.

I’d never had strawberry strudel before, and only thought that studels existed in the form of apple strudels, but this strawberry version was made with strawberry which had been cooked to an almost jam-like consistency, with bits of strawberry still in the jam.

This is what it looked like before it was served.

This is what it looked like with ALOT of custard. We love custard, and asked him to give us more of the stuff, which is why we ended up with a strudel which was literally treading in custard.

Marzipan on the outside, chocolate on the inside, making this a marzipan chocolate strudel. My friend said it was really nice.

6. The pancake house, with lots of serious-looking pancake-making men (and huge Nutella jars)

Nutella features quite heavily in this stall, one of the favourite pancake fillings, with bananas.

Mmm, one jar of those please, with some pancakes.

Now, the process of getting from pan to mouth.

a) Man makes pancake, with nutella and bananas.

b) Pancake gets onto plate, but only for a short while, prior to getting to mouth.

c) Pancake gets eaten.

Figured I didn’t need to elaborate much here.

7. Pretzels

Wasn’t quite sure how this was meant to be eaten, but it made for a nice photo anyway.

8. Wooden carvings stall, not rabbit pie

9. Stall selling Christmas trees and other decorative things

Look, they even have little reindeer things made of dried … leaves.

And when we got back to London, we excitedly took the little shiny and wrapped block of Black Bavarian Ham out of its packaging (from the first stall), sliced a few pieces out from the block, and this is what we had for nibbles.

The entire block of ham is cured in some spices (don’t ask me, I didn’t ask the lady about this), so slicing into it was like unwrapping a lovely piece of waxed cheese.

It felt as though it was made specially for us, and not sliced from the huge piece like what you get from the supermarket.

How did it taste? Absolutely amazing, the best ham I have had so far. When you bit into it, it had that slightly springy texture, as how perfectly cured meat should, and the amount of salt was just right. But it wasn’t just salty, it was also slightly spicy (as in, like five spice, and not chilli spice), with an aftertaste which just can’t be described by someone like me, so I’ll stick with the word amazing.

If you want to try the Christmas market out, best get there soon as it’s only there until about mid-December.