Also featuring salad; sausages, mash, and onion gravy; jam roly-poly and custard

A short while ago I made the very pleasant discovery that, if I leave my bedroom door open and the gentleman in the room opposite does the same, and he sits somewhere other than on his bed, I can look through his room and see the sea! (Maybe. It might be the roof of a building that’s inconveniently between the care home and a sea view. I’m pretending it’s the sea, though.)

And so to lunch, the main meal of the day here, and about as classically British a meal as you can imagine today: sausage, mash, and onion gravy with peas, followed by jam roly-poly and custard.

As she helped me wash and dress, I chatted to the HCA on duty and mentioned my disappointment at the lack of fruit and veg, and particularly my beloved salad. And so I learned an important – no, critical – piece of information: I can request salad with any meal! 😲

Of course I hastened to do just that, and below is said salad, dressed with (or maybe ‘drowned in’ is more accurate) hot sauce as I forgot to ask for actual salad dressing. My precious salad proved to contain a rather unwelcome surprise in the form of bits of celery hidden amongst the lettuce: I’m not fond of raw celery but, in the interests of being fair, tried a piece with the hot sauce. It mostly tasted of hot sauce, and therefore not entirely unpalatable, but I still fished the rest of it out of the bowl before munching through the rest of the salady goodness.

Then, after rinsing my mouth repeatedly with water when it belatedly occurred to me that I need to be able to taste something other than chillies when reviewing food, on to the main course.

I asked for peas but, as you can see, instead received a generous pile of braised red cabbage. Not long ago I mentioned on RMHP that I had never tried braised red cabbage and here, very unexpectedly, was my chance.

And so: it’s soft – softer than I expected, being used to the more briefly-cooked green variety – and sweet, with only a vague hint of its vegetal nature. On its own, as a first bite, I wasn’t keen, but once combined with everything else it was pretty good. Not great – I’m not going to be craving it – but good.

As for the rest: proper bangers, full of actual meat, possibly from a butcher (I’ll try to remember to ask), making a nice change from the heavily processed ones that are all that can be offered on a hospital food budget.

Good mash: very smooth – I suspect the involvement of a ricer or similar device – where the hospital mash had some small pieces of potato, and creamy where the hospital mash was buttery. Neither is better: they’re just different. With lots of good, thick, savoury gravy, and I may have taken advantage of eating in the privacy of my room to run my finger around the plate to get the last few traces.

To finish, jam roly-poly with custard. For those unfamiliar with this classic British pudding, it’s simply a suet dough rolled out and spread with a generous quantity of fruit jam (jelly for my US readers) then baked or steamed. This one was baked; I prefer it steamed as, when baked, it turns crunchy and brittle where, to my taste, it should be soft and luscious.

The jam filling was a little light, and the custard very light – I like my puddings to be swimming in the stuff! All finished with a mug of coffee, as I told the HCA I would be the easiest resident in her section as long as the coffee keeps coming, and she has more than kept her end of the bargain. ☕☕☕

Scores:

• Salad: 8/10 – would be 9 without the celery, and 10 if it was a bigger bowl.
• Braised red cabbage: 7/10 – I’m glad I’ve tried it, and liked it, but I don’t think it’s a new favourite.
• Sausages, mash, and onion gravy: 10/10, can’t think of anything I would change.
• Jam roly-poly and custard: 6/10 – I ate it, so don’t feel I can rate it much lower, but it wasn’t what I really want from this classic pud.
• Overall: 7.75/10

So, what did you have for lunch today? Please share here or on the Facebook page, so we can collectively envy each other’s choices.