Gooseberry & Elderflower Wine - Sixth Bottle (A4), 10th-13th June 2014

It was the Feast Day of St Ithamar on Tuesday. I cooked a spicy tomato and cod dish by way of veneration and opened a bottle of Gooseberry & Elderflower wine. Admittedly, this is a long way from one of my best wines. It is on the 'just drinkable' spectrum, and not a wise choice for a wine to pay homage to a saint. Within five minutes of me opening it, a bottle of blackberry exploded. The cork shot into the air and wine volcanoed out. Obviously Ithamar was displeased, and pointedly chose something rather better and more fitting to his celebration. We still had an open bottle of gooseberry & elderflower, however, and have drunk it slowly throughout the week. Its musty taste seems to have lessened as the wine has aged.

A Window at Rochester Cathedral

Recipe for the Spicy Cod and Tomato Dish

1 onion - chopped fine
1 clove garlic - crushed
1 chilli, taking out as many seeds as you want, chopped fine
a few strands of saffron
4 large tomatoes chopped roughly
1 cod fillet
half a teaspoon of sugar
a teaspoon of vinegar (flavoured with herbs if possible)
salt and pepper to taste

Method

Fry the onion, garlic and chilli in olive oil until soft
Add the tomatoes
Soak the saffron in a little boiling water for about five minutes, and throw it in
Once the tomatoes have disintegrated a little, add the cod in flaked pieces
Keep cooking for probably until the fish is done (maybe 20 minutes)
Add the sugar, vinegar, salt and pepper
Serve on cous-cous flavoured with salted lemons or artichoke hearts or whatever you want, really.