Saturday evening opening & dinner menus 31st Oct - 28th Nov

We are a very small family owned and managed business and whilst we enjoy working, we also enjoy having time off with our family. So we have decided to reduce our opening hours in order to get a better balance between work and family.

Until further notice we will open once a week for dinner on Saturdays but only if we receive a minimum of 4 reservations before 5pm on the preceding day Friday.

Brunch will be served until 18.00 and the following will be served alongside our regular sandwich and appetizer menu from 18.00.

Please call us to make a reservation on 0117 973 7165

Thank you for your continued support, we look forward to welcoming you again soon.

Marta, Steve, David and the team

Sunday 18th October 2015

Solet

Saturday 24th October

Perry vinegar pickled Cornish sardines with spiced pears and kichel biscuits (we propose a glass of Severn Cider Perry or Ludlow Pear eau de vie)

Solet - slow cooked Hungarian sabbath casserole of tarka beans and pearl barley with smoked beef short-ribs, duck leg, ox tongue and eggs.

Apple strudel and clotted cream or flodni

Saturday 31st October 

Perry vinegar pickled Cornish sardines with spiced pears and kichel biscuits (we propose a glass of Severn Cider Perry or Ludlow Pear eau de vie)

Solet - slow cooked Hungarian sabbath casserole of tarka beans, pearl barley with smoked beef short-ribs, duck leg, ox tongue and eggs.

Veal schnitzel / Becsi szelet with preserved lemon and pickled baby green tomato relish served with cucumber salad and parsley potatoes

Apple strudel with clotted cream

Saturday 7th November - Duck

Mixed duck hors d’oeuvre - duck crackling, duck egg & liver salad, smoked duck breast.

Duck “Ludaskása” style - duck breast and giblets cooked with rice or

Roast duck leg with stewed red cabbage and potatoes crushed with onions.

Apple strudel with clotted cream or flodni

Saturday 14th November - Anglo Jewish fish

Exmoor caviar with “Jess’ Ladies” soured cream and blinis

Halibut with egg and lemon sauce or

Loch Duart cured salmon with horseradish cream sauce

Apple strudel with clotted cream or flodni

Saturday 21st November - Offal

Kasha varnishkes with duck gizzard and confit

Tripe Goulash with boiled potatoes or

Cornish Bocaddon veal liver with lecso (stewed onions, peppers, tomatoes and paprika).

Apple strudel with clotted cream or flodni

Saturday 28th November - “Village Farm” Devon mutton (TBC)

www.thevillagefarm.co.uk

Please call 0117 973 7165 to make a reservation

"You can leave your fat on!" - R. Gingell, Family Butcher

My grandfather worked in the meat trade at Smithfield, he owned a refrigerated haulage business G C Griston based in Peckham from where he supplied the butchers of South London. We always ate good meat in our family. Eventually the supermarkets and processed meat killed off his customers and the business closed.

My Grandfather Leonard George Griston (centre)

I've always liked butcher's shops and fortunately when Marta and I arrived in Bristol the only proper shop within walking distance of our house was R. Gingell, Family Butcher in Nag's Head Hill, St George.

The place looks like it's been there for ages (always a good sign) and indeed it has. Practically all of their beef comes from Bakers a 5th generation family owned abattoir in Nailsea that operates a "Somerset only" supply chain. Our meat has the kind of provenance that ultimately you can taste and we're delighted to support both R. Gingell and Bakers.

I don't know how old Rich Gingell is and I'm far to polite to ask. However he looks like retirement could be an option within a few short years. He took over the business from his father but sadly it doesn't appear that the business will be passed onto a 3rd generation.

The story of how the business came to him is an interesting one.  Before the war Rich's grandmother always bought her meat from a butcher's shop on the same premises. Nothing particularly unusual in that except that she would travel by train from Shirehampton to Lawrence Hill and then walk or bus up the hill there and back, a distance of about 16 miles, to do so.

Rich's father would accompany her as a child and as he grew up he started working there as a Saturday boy. When he finished his national service the old butcher who owned the premises asked him if he'd like to take over the business, which he did. Quite soon he decided to demolish a wall to open up the premises but he forgot to ask his landlord for permission. The final outcome was that Rich's father borrowed some money from the bank and purchased the freehold from his former employer.

Rich is an old fashioned butcher who still buys whole sides of beef etc. Consequently he can prepare it just the way we need it with plenty of fat to help preserve the moisture content and enhance the flavour.

You can't beat a proper butcher!

Pastrami and other delights..

A new blog entry that I've managed to post between doing the washing up and making lokshen noodles for chicken soup. 

Pastrami

Actually we never intended to produce our own pastrami.

Pastrami is 100% NYC, unlike Salt Beef (Corned Beef to our American friends) which can be found on both sides of the Atlantic (although not in Hungary nor to the best of my knowledge Poland). 

Not that we have anything against NYC, it's just that we're in Bristol.

It must be hot smoked which is a somewhat convoluted procedure that takes plenty of expertise if you're not prepared to throw away lots of failed experimental brisket and so a little reluctantly we decided not to bother.

But Barney "the smoke" from whom we get our delicious smoked salmon (he also smokes lots of other stuff for us like ox tongue and turkey breast) has some previous with pastrami and he agreed to help us. So finally last week we dry cured a 5kg brisket for our first attempt at pastrami and yesterday we sent it off to Barney's to be hot smoked.

When we get it back on Friday we'll finish cooking it for a couple of hours before trimming it, rolling it in crushed black pepper corns and coriander seeds and then finally we'll get to try it. If it's a success then we'll be serving our first pastrami on rye this Saturday.

Maybe I'll even bake some bialys to go with it?

Sólet

Sólet however was always on the agenda. It is a stew of beans and pearl barley braised long and slow with a variety of different meats and whole eggs (ours includes duck legs, smoked beef short ribs, ox tongue and of course an egg or two). 

This is the quintessential Hungarian dish to be served on the Sabbath when it is forbidden for observant Jews to cook. The uncooked Sólet would be taken to the local bakery before dusk on Friday to to be cooked in the cooling oven and then fetched the following morning for lunch. This is a story that that I have also heard (Elizabeth David perhaps?) in relation to French cassoulet a dish from which according to speculation and some scholarship Sólet originates.

It's always on the menu every Friday at Rosenstein's in Budapest.

Lecsó and Shakshuka

Lecsó (English prounciation "LETCH-oh") is a Hungarian dish of stewed peppers, tomatoes and onion with paprika. Sausage, bacon and eggs are commonly added. 

When Disney released the film "Ratatouille" in Hungary they renamed it Lecsó.

Having found a supply of Hungarian peppers in Fishponds we've added Lecsó to our brunch menu, served with our smoked lamb bacon (more assistance from Barney "the smoke"), kosher smoked beef salami or shakshuka style with eggs.

I have to be honest and say that I'd never heard of Shakshuka until one of our customers asked me if we'd be doing any..Apparently it's of North African origin and very popular in Israel and what he went on to describe was a spicy stew of peppers and tomatoes in which whole eggs are poached. 

The Ottomans introduced paprika to Hungary at around the same time that they ruled over most of North Africa. I suggest that herein lies the similarity between Lecsó and Shakshuka!

So that's how Hungarian style Shakshuka flavoured with cumin, coriander leaves and a sprinkling of feta cheese came to a small corner of Bristol BS6.

Szalontüdő zsemlegombóccal

Sweet and sour ragout of veal lung and heart served with bread dumplings

I must admit that Szalontüdő is really only on the menu for sentimental reasons rather than any belief that it will become one of Aron's best sellers.

It is another of the dishes that makes a regular appearance every Tuesday at Rosenestein's Vendéglő in Budapest. Whenever possible I like to ensure, when visiting Budapest that my trip will take in at least one Tuesday so that I can go and eat Szalontüdő.

We source all of our veal from Bocaddon Farm Veal in Cornwall who were more than a little surprised when I asked for lung but they duly obliged.

Interestingly (at least I thought so), when I was surfing the web for a szalontüdő recipe, I discovered that it is a Viennese dish of Jewish provenance and there it goes by the name of Salon Beuschel. 

For those of you with a liking for offal I can heartily recommend it.

New Saturday evening opening & this week's menu.

Starting this week, we're restricting our evening opening to Saturday night until further notice.

We haven't had any time off since we started the renovation back in February and so we need to cut back on the hours we're all working. Opening for dinner only once a week will allow us all to take a bit of a rest as well as produce a more interesting and varied offering every week.

In the future we intend to open more often for dinner but for the moment we look forward to welcoming you on Saturdays.

Dinner menu Saturday 10th October

Plum pickled Cornish mackerel with kichel biscuits.

-or-

Beef soup with seasonal vegetables and matzo balls.

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Sólet (stewed tarka beans & pearl barley) with smoked beef short ribs, duck leg, ox tongue and egg.

-or-

Szalontüdő (pejsli) - sweet and sour veal offal ragout with bread dumplings.

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Apple strudel with clotted cream

-or-

Flódni

Two courses £19  / Three courses £24

The full range of deli sandwiches and appetizers will also be available.

Street party stuffed cabbage

The annual Chandos Road Festival will be this Sunday afternoon the 27th September. Fortuitously, the Jewish festival of Sukkot begins at midnight on Sunday, which gives us an opportunity to produce some appropriate festival food alongside the salt beef beigels with which we hope to feed the masses!

Aron's sauerkraut

Sukkot is in part a harvest festival and it is traditional to serve food at Sukkot that represents the bountifulness of harvest time. Vegetables and fruit dishes garnished with pomegranate are served and in Ashkenazi culture stuffed cabbage and chicken soup with kreplach (triangular ravioli stuffed with meat) are popular.

Our Sukkot menu includes Spinach salad with walnuts and pomegranate, Chicken soup with kreplach and Hungarian stuffed cabbage.

Of all the unskilled work that I've found myself doing since we opened Aron's, there are two jobs that have transported me back to another place and time. The first is filleting salt herring and the second is shredding cabbage to make sauerkraut.

It used to be common place in the Hungarian countryside for families to be semi self-sufficient. I was fortunate enough to know one such family very well and it was always a pleasure to visit them and help with seasonal work in their small holding. Maize was grown to feed their two pigs. They had a huge walnut tree, lots of apples, peaches, apricots, quince, strawberries and vegetables galore. Vegetables would be pickled or more accurately fermented in brine which would then keep for months through the winter. Baby melons, green tomatoes, peppers, tiny "pearl" onions, carrots, cucumbers and of course cabbage.

The outer leaves of the cabbage were first removed whole and retained as "wrappers". The remaining leaves were then finely shredded with a huge long bladed knife and submerged, along with the whole leaves, in a brine flavoured with caraway seeds and juniper berries.

Stuffed cabbage was one of the dishes that would be made when the whole family gathered to help with the bi-annual pig killing. Everyone had individual responsibility for one or more parts of the piggy process and I was left alternatively begging for work or consuming countless plum palinkas and proffered tidbits until I was incapable of doing anything except watching.

Our recipe uses minced beef rather than pork and instead of smoked pork bacon we will use our own smoked lamb bacon. But otherwise the stuffed cabbage we will serve on Sunday will be essentially the same.

The meat is mixed with rice, paprika, onions, garlic, herbs and eggs to bind it and it's then formed into patties and wrapped in individual cabbage leaves. The cabbage bundles are placed in layers in a large pot and covered with more onions, the diced smoked bacon and plenty of shredded sauerkraut from which the excess salt has first been rinsed. Water to cover and simmered gently for about 3 hours.

We'll serve it with a slice of fresh bread and a generous dollop of sour cream.

When I shred cabbage it takes me back to autumnal days spent on the Great Hungarian Plain enjoying the hospitality of Sanyi and Margitka and their extended family.

dinner menu plus..

This weeks dinner menu includes a little background info about the dishes:

Aron's Deli dinner menu
Thu 24th Sep - Sat 26th Sep

Starters
Bone marrow with pickled garlic, paprika and rye toast £6.25
Chicken soup with matzo balls, kreplach, soup mandel & egg noodles £6.50
Hortobagyi pancakes filled with veal goulash and baked with sour cream £7.00

Mains
Roast duck leg served with braised red cabbage & onion crushed potato £12.50
Hake goujons in an almond and breadcrumb crust with a green salad £13.75
Romanian skirt steak with a board sauce & potatoes sauteed in goose fat £14.50

Warm bone marrow with toast is one of my favourite dishes at Rosenstein Vendeglo in Budapest. Gently rub the toast with the pickled garlic clove, crush the marrow onto the toast, sprinkle with paprika and a little salt and enjoy (preferably with a glass of kekfrankos).

Chicken soup with everything. Corn fed chicken gives a natural yellow hue to our chicken soup (we don't condone cheating with a pinch of saffron). This soup contains, chicken meat, celery and carrot battens along with our home made matzo balls, kreplach (triangular ravioli filled with chicken liver and chives), crispy soup mandel crackers and home made egg noodles.

The Hortobagy is a national park on the Great Hungarian Plain in eastern Hungary, These savoury pancakes are a recent Hungarian culinary creation, first becoming popular with East German tourists in the 70s and 80s.

Roast duck leg with red cabbage is another classic Hungarian combination that is best enjoyed with a glass of kekfrankos. Raising ducks and geese was a trade synonymous with Jewish people in Hungary and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. This dish is an autumnal tradition, the remaining meat and liver is preserved in its own fat for winter consumption, the neck is stuffed, the skin turned into crackling and finally the carcass is made into soup.

Hake goujons with a side salad is an adaptation of another of Tibor Rosenstein's dishes. At Rosenstein's it is made with fogas (pike perch or zander) a freshwater fish. Here we make it with Hake. The crisp almonds neatly complement both the fish and the plainly dressed salad. Try it with a chilled glass of Wien1.

Romanian steak is actually a New York City inspired dish. In New York skirt steak is also known as Roumanian (sic) steak because it was a cut eaten a lot by Romanian Jewish immigrants. We serve it seasoned with olive oil and fresh herbs accompanied by potatoes sauteed in goose fat.

Festival food September 2015

The following is available in addition to our regular menu: Rosh Hashanah - Jewish New Year (Monday 14th Sep)
available Tue 15th Sep - Sun 20th Sep
New season apples with Hungarian akacia honey	£1.50
Sweet Potato Latkes with apple and mango sauce	£5.75
Chicken soup with matzo balls and soup mandel (mandlen)	£5.95
Spinach salad with pomegranate and walnuts	£4.95
Honey cake	£3.25
Challah with honey and raisins (Barhesz)	£0.60 / slice
Mint tea	£1.85
Yom Kippur - the day of atonement (Wed 23rd Sep)
available Tue 22nd Sep - Sat 26th Sep
Chopped herring with beigel chips	£5.25
Matjes herring and new potato salad with apple and sour cream	£5.50
Chicken soup with matzo balls, kreplach, noodles and soup mandel	£6.25
Lemon tea	£1.85
Sukkot - Feast of the Tabernacles (Sun 27th Sep - Sun 4th Oct)
available Sunday 27th Sep - Sun 4th Oct
Hungarian stuffed cabbage (Sun 27th Sep only)	£9.75
Chicken soup with matzo balls, kreplach, noodles and soup mandel	£6.25
Spinach salad with pomegranate and walnuts	£4.95