Hampton Court Palace, Our Annual Picnic and Coronation Chicken

This week was our annual picnic and concert Bikerboy and I have been attending since we’ve been together; Hampton Court Palace Festival.  It’s like all things we do together often, it becomes a ritual.  Now and again we’ve attended the event with extra company be it parents, friends or the girls but this year we were back to just the two of us.  This is what happens; around March I start to think about the event booklet arriving in the post any time now.  I open the envelop straight away, look through who’s playing that might be of interest to us, discussed it with Bikerboy, book it.  I then forget all about it until around the week before the event, when I look out for the weather reports to see if we’re going to have a picnic under the hot English sun…yep….ok…I know…what I can I say…I’m an optimist! A few days before the picnic this conversation always happens between Bikerboy and I:

I ask him, ” What shall I make for the picnic this year?”
He answers, “Oh…the usual” in a very casual way.
I say, “What’s that?” trying to give a blank expression in a vain hope that he’s forgotten what the usual is.
He says, “You know…what we always have” he’s now looking at me.
Desperately hoping that his selected memory is fully functioning here I give him a bewildered look, “What do we normally have?”
He perks up and says, “Coronation chicken of course.  We’ve got to have coronation chicken!”
I desperately say,”…but wouldn’t you like to have something different…for a change?”
He says, “Nope…I look forward to it, Hampton court palace and coronation chicken”
Clutching at straws I say, “..but aren’t you bored? You have coronation chicken for your pack lunch sometimes..don’t you want something different?”
He says, “Nope…never bore of it”

And this is how we end up with coronation chicken every year.  Cooking for me is as much about experimenting with new recipes  as it is pleasing the person I’m cooking for.  Bikerboy will continue to get his beloved coronation chicken until the day comes when I can come up with an alternative he will love as much.  However there’s nothing stopping me pleasing myself and making something different for starters, which I did.

We have this picnic down to an art now.  The first year we sat on a picnic blanket, but my back and Bikerboy hayfever meant the following year we had folding chairs and we were so pleased with ourselves until we started to notice other people upping the ante by bringing the whole Victorian style picnic with them, tables, tablecloth, candelabras, gazebo….everything minus the servants.  And slowly we’ve followed suit…to the point now we even have a wheel trolley to carry the stuff from the car to the grounds!

Bikerboy setting up the scene

At this point we sit down look at what we have and start to feel incredibly hungry, I think eating outdoors makes you hungrier than normal.  The reason there’s only half of the bread left is because we started to eat it as soon as we parked up…well it was still a little warm and you could hear it calling from the back of the car…

Bikerboy was very happy with his tummy full of coronation chicken and potato salad…ok he may not look as if he’s happy but he was really…

We normally arrive very early and while eating leisurely the palace grounds start to fill up.

You see what did I say, every year someone ups the ante…right there at the back there’s someone with the whole works…gazebo, candelabras and probably an icebox too!

The Picnic

Prawns stir-fried in lime.

A very quick and delicious way of cooking thin asparagus, in a frying pan with a drop of oil, giving a roasted flavour.

Pan fried baby squid with chopped dill, baby broad beans.

Bikerboy had his potato salad and had this; watercress, rocket, spinach, Greek olives, baby artichokes, roasted red peppers and cherry tomato salad.  The only thing Bikerboy would eat from this salad is the cherry tomatoes!

Bikerboy’s beloved coronation chicken and potato salad, too much mayonnaise for me but he loves it.

My sourdough stuffed with pepperoni.  I don’t like pepperoni normally but then I discovered this excellent quality pepperoni and like all things sometimes it takes having very good quality to appreciate it.  It has a high percentage meat to fat ratio and is more like a good chourizo, it has this lovely warm spiciness from the pepper that lingers on and when you combine it in a good crusty bread it’s a heavenly combination.  Delicious.

I experimented with using some of my sourdough mixture to make a sweet variation with chopped dark chocolate and hazelnuts.  It needs a little more tweaking to get it right but I still enjoyed picking at it…munching away on the nuts and chocolate.

And then the picnic was over for another year……

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