Alnwick Stew

When I was at university, quite a long time ago now, I spent six months studying in the Northumberland town of Alnwick. That's 'Annick', mind. We actually lived in Alnwick Castle, home to the Duke of Northumberland.

For a pimpley teenager from the Midwest, this was a big deal. It was where my life zagged when my friends zigged. I saw my own country though the perspective of another country. Among many, many other things, I learned to be open to trying new things, because you never know what you are going to experience. And I learned that European women can be smokin' hot.

I still, over 20 years later, think about it, or remember something, or reference it, a number of times a day. And my experience there can follow me and pop up in surprising places.

Like The Times, the right-wing paper in this country. Gordon Ramsay has published a new cookbook. And one of the excerpt recipes was for Alnwick Soup, adapted, as he wrote, from the fameous stew.

?

So I raced to Google and found that that sure enough, there was a stew you could only get in Alnwick, that it was loved by the late Ian Percy (the Percys owned the castle), who ate it at the White Swan, and that I'd never heard of it.

So I made it. It would be a way to bring the past into the present, and reconnect me with my with the place. It did.

You see, when I was there, Alnwick was a post-industrial shithole. Having no money, we rarely ate out. But it reminded, the way only food can remind you of a place, me of being in Alnwick. It was hearty, and sparse. It was cheap, and simple. At first, I thought it was bland.

But I cooked the leftovers, and discovered something else. It wasn't bland. It was understated. Maybe subtle is a better word. It was never going to be full of the firey spices of Indian cooking, obviously. Or deep and layered like French cooking, I knew. It was, well, British. Of a time and a place. And what I discovered is that's exactly what I wanted it to be.

Alnwick Stew

900g piece gammon
25g butter
3 onions, chopped
2 tsp dry English mustard
4 large waxy potatoes, peeled and cut into slices the thickness of a £1 coin
2 bay leaves
1 litre hot vegetable stock, made with low-salt bouillon powder
handful flat-leaf parsley

1. Place the gammon in a large pan of cold water and bring to the boil. Remove the gammon and discard the water.

2. When cool enough to handle, cut the meat into 2cm cubes.

3. Melt the butter in a heavy-based pan.

4. Put half the onions in the bottom of the pan and season with black pepper and a little mustard powder.

5. Layer half the gammon on top, seasoning again, then top with half the potatoes and a bay leaf.

6. Repeat with the remaining ingredients: onions, mustard, black pepper, gammon, potatoes and bay leaf.

7. Pour in enough stock to reach just below the top layer of potatoes. You may not need it all.

8. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 1 hour until the meat and vegetables are cooked.

9. To serve; spoon into shallow bowls and sprinkle with chopped parsley