Sampling in the Square

Today I indulged in one of my favourite past times: wandering around the Saturday food market in the Duke of York Square, Chelsea.   The market is a relatively small one with roughly thirty stalls displaying a whole host of culinary delights, from fresh, green coconuts to sea-salty oysters to intricately detailed cupcakes.

The first stall I went to was Galeta, a cookie and brownie stall, aptly described as 'Cookie Heaven'.   I had a sample of their chocolate brownie, and goodness me, it was DELISH: baked on the outside and beautifully rich and gooey in the centre.   I also tried their tiffin, which is a version of the classic fridge cake (broken biscuit mixed with dark chocolate and golden syrup, and whacked in the fridge for a few hours).

Next was Peggy's Cupcakes: a beautiful range of home baked, gourmet cupcakes topped with swirls of pastel coloured icing and sugar flowers.   Absolutely stunning and a great treat for the discerning cupcake lover.

I then decided to venture into the savoury and landed upon Conscious Food's stall: "an Indian organic food company producing hand baked, artisan snacks since 1992."   Their range of goods are gluten, dairy, wheat and yeast free, and only use 100% natural ingredients.   So what do their snacks taste of? cardboard? absolutely not!   I tried their Cashew Nuggets, Sesame Chews, Finger Millet Dippers and Sorghum Millet Crackers with Hummus.  Power Snacks by name, Power Snacks by nature.

My final stop was at the Rainha Santa Portuguese Foods Ltd stall where a range of condiments awaited.   I by passed these, favouring the smoke and air cured sausages (chouricos).   The chouricos are marinated to take on a range of flavours, including red pepper, garlic, wine and spices.   Their website suggests eating these chouricos in stews and soups, or fried and eaten with chunks of bread, olives and red wine: yum.