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The Fountain's team of Chefs share some of our recipes and answer your culinary questions.

Welcome to our web page. As the introduction suggests this page will feature some of the recipes that go to make up our Menu and Daily Specials range and also some of the more unusual and exotic dishes that we offer. Try some out at home. Or better still try them here at The Fountain first!!!

Zoo's Local Recipe of the Month

This month, Chef Zoolander guides you through making an old traditional dish - Fidget Pie;

No one knows how this dish got its name but it was traditionally a supper to welcome home harvesters from the fields. It has a sweet and savoury mix of flavours, so characteristic of this part of the world.

Prep Time 30mins, Cooking 1hr 15mins

Ingredients;

450g Potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced

350g diced gammon, rind and fat removed

2 large onions, peeled and sliced

3 large cooking apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced

2 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon fresh thyme

Salt & pepper

300ml Stock (pork or lamb can be used)

225g Shortcrust pastry

Method;

Add layers of gammon then onion then apple and a sprinkle of sugar to a litre sized pie dish, and repeat the layering until it is full ending with a layer of gammon.

Sprinkle with thyme and season generously.

Pour over the stock just to the level of the filling.

Top with pastry, rolled to a thickness of about 5mm.

Place on the top shelf of an oven pre-heated to 180° (Gas mark 4) for about 20 minutes.

Then move the pie to the bottom shelf and cook for a further 50 minutes.

Serve with accompaniments to suit.

Ask the Kitchen

Having problems in your kitchen or got a question about matters culinary? Then Ask the Kitchen and we will do our best to help. E-mail us with your questions, be they serious or light-hearted, and the answers to the best and most popular questions will appear here on this page.

This month's best question;

Why do some restaurants use pretentious French terms on their menu and can you tell me what they mean?

Kayla replies;

It is not necessarily just pretentiousness. The French have many cooking terms that have no equivalent in English without using a long sentence so, for brevity, the French term is used. There are many, many such terms and I have started with sauces;

Roux; a basic base for a sauce made by mixing equal amounts of butter and plain flour over a low heat.

Bechamel; add milk to a roux and cook out.

Mornay; bechamel with cheese.

Velouté; add stock to a roux and cook out.

Jus;  a thickened gravy, often flavoured to suit the dish it accompanies, eg redcurrant jus with lamb etc.

Consommé; a clear soup

More next month when we explain cuts of meat and fish.