Some of you may have noticed that the attic has had a number of mentions over the course of the last few weeks. This is mostly in association with me bringing down some obscure record that has not been listened to for years and deserves another airing (see Radar Bros from last night’s post). The reason for more trips than usual to the attic is that we have started, slowly, on some tidying up.

A big house is good in theory but when you are hoarder of rubbish like me it means that every spare corner soon gets filled with something else that cannot be thrown away. Tucked away in the further reaches of the attic it is possible to find boxes that remain almost untouched from when we moved into the house almost thirteen years ago. It has also become the repository for all my old records, both those I have bought and those I have inherited from various friend and family which is how I managed to end up with two copies of Phil Collins’ Face Value!

In another post I will set out a list of the various record shops down the years from where most of the records got bought. In the meantime it is probably right to say that good number got bought in Probe at the various locations they have been in round Liverpool starting with the shop down Matthew Street where Pete Burns used to work.

Anyway Galen has decided that at the age of 15 he requires a bachelor pad and he has identified that the attic provides the best location for this so as some sort of payback for him sawing some logs yesterday we have started on the process of tidying up. This meant that a couple of hours were spent yesterday afternoon putting records in alphabetical order and putting into date order the 213 copies of MOJO magazine going back to November 1993.

I haven’t started yet on the NME’s. There are fifteen years or so worth of those including a collection going back to the early 1980’s. If I started on them I could be lost for days. I am sure that I will get round to re-reading them all.

Of course a fair number of the records will have been bought in a branch of HMV and I have just seen the news that they are about to go into administration which means I am going to have to find something else to do in my lunchtimes and who knows I might even start talking to the staff in Probe.

No cooking this evening apart from the reheating of last nights supper. It was just as good second time round.

Furtling around in the freezer last night I realised that was down to my last packet of bacon from last summer. On the last Friday of every holiday we will make a trip to Bantry market to stock up and buy cheese and bacon to take home with us.

The bacon all comes from the Gubbeen stall and my favourite is the Maple Cure. I think I have talked before about the umami smell as it cooks and perhaps the best bit, the sticky residue that is left in the pan once it is cooked. I suspect that it is not good for you to wipe a finger through the bacon grease to pick up the black nicks of maple syrup that have leached from the bacon as it cooks but it tastes very good.

Unfortunately the last of the Gubbeen was not a Maple Cure. It was a Gubbeen Unsmoked, cured with juniper, pepper, hebs, cane sugar and salt petre. Galen and I shared the packet. Two pieces for him and four pieces for me.  I had mine in a toast sandwich with HP Sauce.

Jane Grigson has a recipe for mackerel with bacon. It appears in the first edition in her book on Fish Cookery but for some reason does not, as I recall, appear in the later revised edition.

She suggests taking fillets of cold cooked mackerel, remove the skin. Cut the bacon into strips and fry lightly in a little butter. Leave to cool. Lay the mackerel fillets onto slices of buttered bread, put some mayonnaise on top and then arrange the bacon across it.

I have not tried it yet but will do next summer.

This afternoon we have spent time in the garden raking up the last of the autumn leaves, chopping up logs for the fire and cutting back the ivy that has managed to creep up over the wall by the veg patch. We are back inside now and it is trying to snow. The fire is on and we are listening to old records.

The four quail I bought earlier are now cooking on the oven. It is another recipe from the Ottolenghi book – quail with tamarind and apricots. I started by rubbing them down with a mixture of ground cumin and fennel, dried chilli, salt and pepper and putting them in the fridge for a couple of hours whilst I made supper for the rest of the family

For this I used the last of the spinach from the garden. It looked a bit straggly but having picked what I needed there may be enough left for something else next week. I had to give it a good soaking in cold water to get rid of all the bugs and soil splashed up by the rain. I then cooked it in the water that was left. Once it had collapsed I refreshed it in cold water again and then squeezed it out until I was left with a tennis ball size ball of green. This was finely chopped then mixed into ricotta cheese and mozzarella, salt and pepper and an egg and stuffed into cannelloni. These were all laid into a shallow dish and covered with tomato sauce.

The only tamarind I had was some paste in the fridge in the basement. I brought that upstairs together with the quail. The quail were browned off in olive oil for 15 minutes and then put to one side to rest for a while. The recipe said raisins but we didn’t have any so I used some dried dates instead. These were thrown into the hot pan with some dried apricots and thyme which had a few seconds to take before I seethed it all with water and half a glass of white wine. A teaspoon of the tamarind paste went in and it all tasted raw and uncouth. The quail went back in and a lid put on and it was turned down to a simmer.

By the time it was done it was delicious. With quail it is difficult to get away from them being small birds not much bigger, and who knows how much tastier, than those that strut around the garden, but there is meat on them. I started with knives and forks but only lasted a few minutes before my fingers were delving in pulling leg and wing from breast and dipping into the gravy which by now had become a deep, velvety and good. There was the sweetness of the dates and apricot, tempered by the heat of the chilli and all held together somewhat unexpectedly by the tamarind. It all made for very good finger food.