My sister Bridget gave me a second hand cookery book for Christmas, Seven Hundred Years of English Cooking by Maxime McKendry and edited by Arabella Boxer. There is a recipe in it from 1730 for Mackerel with Fennel and Mint which is worth repeating.

The common Way for Mackerel, is after boil’d to make a Sauce with thick Butter, Mint, Fennel and Parsley boil’d and minc’d, and drawn up with the Butter; If you broil them whole, hack them, and season them with Pepper, Salt and Nutmeg, some Mint and Fennel minc’d, and grated Bread, and wash them over with Butter, and dredge them over, and fill the Hacks full of that Seasoning, and broil them over a gentle Fire, and sauce them with thick Butter drawn up with an Anchovy, and garnish with Lemon.

The recipe is attributed to a Charles Carter and begs the question as to what exactly a Hack is.

There is another recipe for mackerel with mint in the book going back to the thirteenth century. There is some mint in the garden round the back of the Cottage so it will be something to try next summer.

So I wrote last night that I was gearing up for some Kate Bush and a reappraisal of Snow and I wake up this morning to find she has been awarded the CBE. An achievement I think that should be higher up on the news pile than Bradley Wiggins getting knighted but then my biking abilities are limited to a once a year getting the bike out of the shed and putting it back again as I am reminded the back tyre has a puncture.

As for Kate Bush I must have been listening to her since I was thirteen. Somewhere in the attic I still have the tape cassettes of her first two albums. She was the first proper singer I got into having got over my Wombles phase and it started from the off with Wuthering Heights. She is be the only person who I have listened to for so long and I will still go out to buy her new album the day it comes out. I can remember at school spending days sat by the radio waiting for them to play the first single from Never Forever Breathing.

The attic may also hold the giant poster I had of her that followed around the wall above my bed be it at home, school and university. At university I tried, and failed, to write a review of The Sensual World for the college newspaper.

There was the excitement of Ariel coming out after so many years of no music from her. People were surprised that I was so eager to have it. It would be good to spend the day now listening to her all over again.

Unfortunately I can only listen to one thing at a time so on the moment i am listening to Snow. It is grey and wet outside with ore rain to come. The music slips up on you slowly, working almost as a pulse in the background with her voice hovering over the piano. Time to light the fire and wrap in a warm blanket.

One of my favourite of her old songs is Oh England, My Lionheart.

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.