There is something satisfying in using the whole of an egg. For the late lunch today I thought I would cook fish and chips. Inevitably on the list of things to pick up on the way back from work appeared Tartare Sauce. That was fine, Wards always have a jar available.

But then I noticed that pudding for the evening was a Pavlova. That would end up with another bowl of egg yolks going crusty in the back of the fridge.

“Don’t they make Tartare Sauce with mayonnaise”, I asked. Before there was an answer I remembered Roger cooking breaded plaice in Ireland and him spending time in the kitchen fining down bread crumbs and finely chopping gherkins and capers. I pulled down from the shelf the book on Sea Food cooking by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and was pleased to find that it open up at the same page that Roger must have cooked from five years ago.

Roger went off to buy the plaice and other ingredients whilst I spent an hour or so chipping off limpets from the the the rocks down by the sea to make a limpet stew, a recipe I had spotted in the same book. I should have anticipated the reception the stew would get from the half hearted praise it was given in the book  the limpets are chewy, but pleasant nonetheless, and the stew liquor is fantastic.

With the benefit of hindsight I suspect that he underplayed the chewiness of the limpets but the rest he got right. I enjoyed the stew.

i am not sure that the Tartare Sauce I made was as good as Roger’s. But it was satisfying chopping up the gherkins and capers and then finely chopping the hard boiled eggs. I suspect that we don’t really know what a Tartare Sauce should taste like having been innurred over so many years to the plastic packets that sit by our plates of scampi.

Listening to Giant Sand but gearing up for some Kate Bush later and a reappraisal of Snow.

There was a small white cabbage in the bottom of the fridge and three egg yolks left over from the meringues that were made for Christmas Day so I decided to make some coleslaw to go with cold capon and baked potatoes.

I had not made a coleslaw before so made it up as I went along.

I sliced up the cabbage as finely as I could using my sharpest knife. I had also found some celery sticks and I sliced up two of those as well. Next I added a finely diced onions, a handful of sultanas and minced dill and parsley.

I made mayonnaise using an electric whisk. I stirred a crushed clove of garlic into the bright orange yolks and then started adding a half and half mixture of olive oil and groundnut oil. The bright orange dimmed to a pale yellow as the metal paddles left ribbon shapes in the bottom of the bowl. I was using a light metal bowl which turned with the whisk as I was pouring in the oil and I found myself using my stomach to keep it steady.

Having added about half a pint of oil I was left with a thick mayonnaise that stuck to the bottom of the bowl. This was then stirred into the cabbage. It was a bit thick so I loosened it with the juice of a lemon.

I made an orange salad was well and there was a murmur round the table that a Boxing Day lunch was often better than a Christmas Day lunch.

Still listening to Sufjan Stevens and his Christmas Songs.

I stuffed the capon with a mixture of sausage meat, black pudding, ham, breadcrumbs, stoned dates, sultanas and chestnuts all held together by half a bottle of manzanilla. It was thick, black and heady. Before filling the bird I rubbed down the inside with ground cinnamon, salt and pepper. Once it was stuffed and trussed I rubbed the same mixture over the outside before lubricating it with olive oil and more manzanilla.

The bird weighed about 7 kilos stuffed and I cooked it for about three and half hours before leaving it to rest for 40 minutes. The best part of the meal was the gravy. Once i poured the fat from the pan there was a thick sticky treacle like residue stuck to the bottom. It tasted sweet from the dates and the sherry and Galen and I greedily dipped our fingers in.

We drank Pasion de Bobal. I had had a glass when Kristen and I ate at Morito last month and I was able to track down a couple of bottles in Lunya.

Boxing day morning started with the sun shining and blue skies. There has been so much rain over the last few days we decided on a walk where it would not be muddy underfoot.

The beach at Moreton was grey and forbidding, the tide was going out and the sea blurred against the wet sand. The people walking seemed dwarfed by the concrete of the promenade and the scale of the sea and sky.

Birds swarmed out over the water their flight breaking and pulling back together. Closer to shore gulls argued with black crows, and the oyster catches were disturbed by dogs chasing balls. By one of the breakwaters we say a heron and a white egret standing perfect still by the waters edge. An oyster catcher bounced in the water. I though it was tapping the sand to draw up the worms but then I saw one its legs at an angle behind it.

When we got the the coastguard building at Hoylake we came across half a dozen or so small boats pulled up from the slipway. Some of them had been painted to break up the grey.

Back at home and listening to Gil Scott Heron.

Halfway through a Christmas lunch and the adults are asleep and the children watching Dr Who. The Christmas pudding is still in the steamer waiting to be broke open and there is a great board full of cheese waiting to be eaten with the quince paste I made a few weeks ago.

The good news is that all the presents have been opened to a general acknowledgement that this has been the best year ever – we had glasses of champagne with a bowl of oysters, smoked salmon and crisps. There was a lurch of recognition when I saw that the oysters had come from Craig Balfour. It seemed right that we ate them, if that is what you do with oysters, drinking Moet & Chandon.

The capon cooked well. We had it with roast potatoes ,sprouts, roasted parsnips ans carrots. The carrots were cooked down in water, honey and crushed cumin seeds and we caught them just before they started to burn.

Listening to Suvjan Stevens and looking forward to the cold capon tomorrow.