Cormorant Recipe

The Cormorant Recipe comes from a bygone era: Countryman's Cooking, by W.M.W Fowler circa 1965.

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Cormorant Recipe

Having shot your cormorant, hold it well away from you as you carry it home; these birds are exceedingly verminous and the lice are said to be not entirely host-specific. Hang up by the feet with a piece of wire, soak in petrol and set on fire. This treatment both removes most of the feathers and kills the lice.

When the smoke has cleared away, take the cormorant down and cut off the beak. Send this to the local Conservancy Board who, if you are in the right area, will give you 3/6d or sometimes 5/- for it. Bury the carcase, preferably in a light sandy soil, and leave it there for a fortnight. This is said to improve the flavour by removing, in part at least, the taste of rotting fish.

Dig up and skin and draw the bird. Place in a strong salt and water solution and soak for 48 hours. Remove, dry, stuff with whole, unpeeled onions: the onion skins are supposed to bleach the meat to a small extent, so that it is very dark brown instead of being entirely black.

Simmer gently in seawater, to which two tablespoons of chloride of lime have been added, for six hours. This has a further tenderising effect. Take out of the water and allow to dry, meanwhile mixing up a stiff paste of methylated spirit and curry powder.  Spread this mixture liberally over the breast of the bird.

Finally roast in a very hot oven for three hours.  The result is unbelievable.  Throw it away. Not even a starving vulture would eat it. 

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FootnoteThis account is not to everyone's taste. Killing cormorant may be illegal where you are, check first!

I think I am in heaven. We are at a place called the Al Maha Desert Resort and Spa. When we told people that we were going to stay in the desert in Dubai in July, they told us that we were mad. We almost kind of believed them too. But then we got here and wow. Look at the view from our bed. We have Arabian Oryx wandering past and a huge array of birds, many of which come and drink from our own personal not overlooked ( except by occasional oryx) pool. We even have room valets who put towels on the sun beds for us! The temerature in the shade at midday is 48C or thereabouts, but after the humididty in Dubai city, it is absolutely great. It is a much drier heat and we have no problem spending all morning on the sun deck and in and out of the pool. Me? I stay in the shade and write on the laptop, Yvonne lies in the full sun, fully factored up and then we get together in the pool for a cool.

The food here is superb, fully the equal of michelin starred restaurants that I have eaten in. Let me give you a for example, tonights dinner menu was:

Amuse Bouche: Marinated Lobster with a rouille sauce
Starter : Asian Crab cake with Mustard aoilli, fennel salad and caramelized kumquats
Salad: Baby beetroot salad with karkadeh
Sorbet: Summer raspberry
Main: Fillet of Hammour with a spiced crab crust on a saffron potatoe puree with steamed baby asparagus and a light apricot and ginger sauce
Desert: Lavendar & Rhubard panna cotta with pistachio syrup & candied almonds.

Six courses of absolutely stunning prepared food, that tasted divine, and if you don't want what is on the menu, then, they will do you something that you like, you just work it out with the chef (madame chef!) in advance, no hassle, no fuss. My blood sugar is around 6.2 two hours after eating, and so no problems at all with my diabetes, and even if there were, then chef would work with me to sort it out. Not many places where you can say that and get haute cuisine.

Lunch today for me was sushi and a selection of fruit, breakfast was a full English (yes with pork sausage and pork bacon) with toast and marmalade. I have truly never eaten so well on holiday, and that does include staying at the Burj Al Arab.

We have stayed at the Burj three times now, and to be honest, I don't think that we will go back again. We will probably do two nights in a city centre hotel such as the Le Meridien so that we can get a full day of city shopping - Al Karama Souk is the best place for designer bargains on the Ralph Lauren etc style, and then we will head out to the desert for our main chilled out holiday in the summer desert. Yvonne will no doubt use the Timeless Spa again, and me, I will just write and swim and eat. Heaven - oh yes!