Hi, We are busy preparing for summer; barbecue menu is ready and will be published very soon. We have welcomed lots of new friends to our restaurant and look forward to seeing you all again. Thank you for all the feedback, Lots of you have been complimenting us about our great British classics which include our fish and chips and pies. We can confirm to you that they are here to stay on our Classics Menu. There is a great pie recipe from David included this month. See you at The Ship soon, Osh     FOOD FOR THOUGHT - News of New Loos! - Offer from Twitter Recipes French Wine Entertainment The menu Twitter Website                     News of New Loos!     < top > If you've popped in recently, you'll know our toilets have undergone a 2010 makeover. We have now unveiled our new bathrooms and would like to thank you for your patience during the renovations. Over the next few weeks we will be turning our attention to the outside area; with plenty more seating and a whole new layout. Summer has never looked so good.           Offer from Twitter < top > We are offering all our Twitter followers a Three Course VIP Menu for two people at just £30, if you're not already following us on Twitter – you're missing out See www.twitter.com/shipwandsworth Terms and Conditions Apply.             Recipes         < top > Classic Dressed Crab Recipe- Serves 8 Ingredients: 8 Small Cooked Crabs, 8 Hardboiled Eggs, 600ml Mayonnaise, Freshly Ground Pepper and Sea Salt, One Bunch of Fresh Parsley (Chopped), Juice and Zest of 2 Small Lemons This is a lovely starter, surprisingly easy to do, full of flavour and eats really well.       First, shell the crabs and divide the brown and white meats or ask your fishmonger to do it for you. Mix the brown meat with Mayonnaise and season to taste. Separate the yolk from the white of the hardboiled eggs. Finely chop the white meat and finely sieve in the yolk. Clean the crab shells for serving. Mix the white meat with parsley and Lemon juice and zest before seasoning. Arrange the Brown meat either side of the shell and the white meat in the middle and then decorate with lines of chopped egg and parsley to garnish. Serve with Crusty brown bread, delicious.               < top > Steak and Kidney Pudding- to serve 8 Ingredients: 500g Self-Raising Flour, 250g Atora Shredded Suet, Sea Salt, 8 tbspns Cold Water For the filling: 1 Large Onion, 1 1/2 tbspns Olive Oil, 3 Large Flat Mushrooms       (approx 250g), 1kg Chuck Steak, 250g Ox Kidneys, 2 tbspns Flour, 1 tsp Fresh Thyme (Chopped), Approx 25g Butter, 750ml Beef Stock, 500ml Red Wine, 50g Redcurrant Jelly Method: It's an exceptional British classic, and surprisingly easy to do, and I'm sure will impress any guest. The secret is in the beef stock, use the best you can get, Chadwicks of Balham sell an excellent reduced stock which we recommend. We use traditional 250g white ceramic pudding bowls. We have loads of them if you ever need to borrow a few. Sift the flour into a mixing bowl; add the suet and a good pinch of salt. Mix, then add the water a little at a time, to bind into a light, spongy pastry. Rest for 20 minutes while you prepare everything else. Halve, peel and finely chop the onion, wipe the mushrooms and cut up into pieces. Trim away the fat and sinew from the beef and cut into small chunks. Cut the kidney into slightly smaller pieces, discarding the white core. Mix the meat and kidney and dust lavishly with flour then heat a large frying pan until very hot and brown off the meat and kidneys in a good amount of butter and oil. Add the mushroom and onion mix and season with salt and pepper. Add the chopped thyme, red wine and beef stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for half an hour. Halve the pastry and flour your work surface. Lavishly butter pudding bowls. Working on one pudding at a time, set aside just over a quarter of the pastry for a lid. Roll the pastry into a circle to fit the basin with a 2cm overhang. Repeat with the second pudding. Add the filling and a sufficient amount of stock to moisten but not drench or cover the filling reserve. The excess gravy is to serve. Roll the lid to fit. Moisten the overhang, fit the lid and pinch and roll the two together to seal securely. Pleat a large piece of tinfoil and place loosely over the top. Tie it securely, going round twice, with string under the rim of the basin, then loop a handle across the top of the pudding, allowing plenty of room for the pudding to expand — which it will. Roll the excess foil up and over the string and lift the pudding into a large saucepan with a tight-fitting lid. Add a sufficient amount of boiling water to come two thirds of the way up the basin, fit the lid and boil for 4 hours. Check every hour or so and top up with more boiling water. To serve, lift the pudding out of the bowl on to a plate. Remove the foil. Wrap a napkin around the basin with the top crust showing and serve from the basin with extra gravy. To make the gravy- add redcurrant jelly to reserved gravy and bring to the boil then whisk in the butter. Pour over pudding and serve with buttered boiled potatoes and green beans. Mrs Faunch's Apple Pie For the pastry: 280g Plain Flour, Pinch of Salt, 50g Lard, 90g Butter, 6 tsp Cold, Water, 1 Egg (to glaze) For the filling: 3 Large Bramley Cooking Apples (chopped, stewed slowly for half an hour and cooled), Sugar (to taste), Caster Sugar (to serve)   Method: OK, cliché here but my Mum's apple pie is absolutely the best, it's simple and delicious, try it yourself and see. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. Sieve the flour and salt into a bowl. Rub in the lard and butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the cold water to the flour mixture. Using a knife, mix the water into the flour using your hand to firm up the mixture. The pastry should be of an even colour and a suitable consistency for rolling. Divide the pastry into two halves. Take one half and roll it out so that it is big enough to cover a 20cm/8in enamel or aluminium plate. Trim the edges with a knife using the edge of the plate as your guide. Cover the pastry with the stewed apples and sprinkle with sugar to taste (do taste it yourself, the balance changes according to the acidity of the apples, if not sure, add more sugar!). Roll out the other half of the pastry. Moisten the edge of the bottom layer of pastry and place the second piece on top. Press down on the pastry edges, making sure that they are properly sealed. Trim off any excess pastry with a knife in a downward motion, again using the plate as your guide. Flute the edges with a pinching action using your fingers and thumb. Prick the surface of the pastry lightly before placing the pie in the oven. Cook for 20-30 minutes. When the pie is cooked it should move slightly on the plate when gently shaken. Slide onto a serving plate, dust with caster sugar and serve with hot Birds Custard.     French Wine     < top > Oh Merde Spring is just around the corner and whilst the weather in February has meant wrapping up to keep out the cold, there is a glimmer of manly drinking hope that comes in the form of the Six Nations Rugby. Furthermore, if you're like Charlie and I there is a large sugar-coated, lovey-dovey, money-sucking, pink-soft-toy-buying misadventure wedged directly in the middle. My apologies, being cynical and drinking wine seem to go hand in hand. However there is one glimmer of manly drinking hope that comes in the form of the Six Nations Rugby. This annual Northern Hemisphere contest gives us the excuse to consume vast amounts of Guinness,   cheer on our national side with pride while hugging the man next to you and singing incoherently about being carried on home. Now you may wonder what rugby and the grace and refinement of wine drinking have in common, on the surface - not a great deal, however we like the fact that three out of the six proud nations produce top-notch quality wine (yes, THREE and one is England…. Just ask anyone in the champagne region about Nyetimber sparkling wine from Sussex and you'll be sent to the Bastille before you can say 'Du Pain, Du Vin, Du Boursin, Non?'). Anyway for the sake of arguments and to keep the peace with our friends on the other side of La Manche, we will begin with the French. Now les Bleu, when they are not on strike or taking four hour lunch breaks, know a thing or two about the wine growing business. Their country's climate being so advantageous aids many regions to knock out a vast array of good quality wine, which incorporate a magnitude of grape varieties. So it would be juvenile, short-sighted and a little silly to pick two wines at random from this Johnny Hallydayesque French wine back catalogue. However that's exactly what we are going to do, because quite frankly we are all of those things above and much, much more. So on to the wine. Chateau Cluzan is a stand out red Bordeaux among our ever growing wine list. A well balanced blend swaying heavy on the Merlot grape, this charming Claret oozes Old World sophistication at the same time as being better value than a dozen long stemmed red roses. Now, if a red isn't hitting the right romantic note over dinner, may be switching to a buttery Burgundy might be a shrewd move. The Chardonnay Les Chênes is an excellent alternative to some of the lesser quality mass-produced New World Chardonnays around. Briefly aged in oak to give it those moorish toasty notes, this bottle is bound to be a hit with the fairer sex. Next month, we continue our European rugby/wine related exposé with Italian wines. We find their wines to be much like their rugby players. They are pucker little buggers who if you let your guard down even for a moment, you can be left lying in crumpled heap on the floor with a thumping headache and stud marks down your face (metaphorically or not as the case may be).           Entertainment < top >                       February         Sunday 21st February Nathan and Nico Live music in the Main Bar from 8.30pm         Tuesday 23rd February Irish Music Tad and the boys set the tone in the Public Bar at 8.30pm         Wednesday 24th February Quiz Night 8.30pm in the Main Bar         Friday 26th February RBS 6 Nations 8pm. Wales v France - Millennium Stadium         Saturday 27th February RBS 6 Nations 1.30pm. Italy v Scotland - Stadio Flaminio RBS 6 Nations 4pm. England v Ireland - Twickenham         Sunday 28th February The Hares Live music in the Main Bar from 8.30pm         March         Tuesday 2nd March Irish Music Tad and the boys set the tone in the Public Bar at 8.30pm         Wednesday 3rd March Quiz Night 8.30pm in the Main Bar         Sunday 7th March Nathan and Nico Live music in the Main Bar from 8.30pm         Tuesday 9th March Irish Music Tad and the boys set the tone in the Public Bar at 8.30pm         Wednesday 10th March Quiz Night 8.30pm in the Main Bar         Saturday 13th March RBS 6 Nations 2.30pm. Ireland v Wales – Croke Park RBS 6 Nations 5pm. Scotland v England - Murrayfield         Sunday 14th March RBS 6 Nations 2.30pm. France v Italy - Stade de France         Tuesday 16th March Almost Famous Live music in the Main Bar from 8.30pm Irish Music Tad and the boys set the tone in the Public Bar at 8.30pm         Wednesday 17th March Quiz Night 8.30pm in the Main Bar             All the best, Osh                         Young & Co.'s Brewery, P.L.C. Riverside House, 26 Osiers Road, Wandsworth, London SW18 1NH Registered in England & Wales Company No. 32762