I ate from Leicester market for an entire day for the price of a takeaway
The city's indoor market is one of my favourite discoveries in Leicester. While I would not say it is a hidden gem, I do believe it deserves to be shouted about far more than it currently is.
My partner and I have made countless spectacular meals from produce bought there. Whenever I'm cooking for a special occasion, date night, treat meal, or for family and friends, my first thought is 'what will I get from the market this time?'
The range and quality of the offerings are beyond anything I've experienced anywhere else - and the majority of the prices are incredibly reasonable. Shortly before Christmas I went with the intention of buying sausages and streaky bacon to make pigs-in-blankets and came away with goat meat, a wild mallard and four beautiful looking mackerel fillets on top.
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One winter, we ate our way through every game bird on offer, from guinea fowl and mallard to quail and pheasant, in a bid to determine which was our favourite. Last summer, to thank my partner for putting up with me in the stress-fuelled run up to the General Elections, I bought us a selection of fish from the Trawlerman for a homemade sushi night. Fresh enough to eat raw and full of flavour, it was one of the best meals of my life.
Every time I go in, there is something new and exciting that I just have to try (I'm currently desperate to sample the hares legs that I've never seen there before). In short, I love Leicester market.
So, in a bid to showcase the incredible food on offer there, my partner and I set ourselves the challenge of eating for an entire day from its array of stalls for the cost of a takeaway. As most of my previous takeaway reviews have come in between £30 and £50, we decided on a £40 budget.
Knowing the market as well as we do, we planned our menu in advance and went in on a Saturday morning with a shopping list. With the exception of a few store cupboard ingredients and a pot of cream, which we just couldn't find there, everything came from either the indoor or outdoor market.
Breakfast was avocado and duck egg on toast. For a brief moment, I thought we were going to fail at the first hurdle. Every avocado we tested on the fruit and veg stalls was rock hard - nowhere near ripe enough to be able to use the next day. Just as I was about to give up, we found some which seemed perfect. And when we cut one open the next day, our judgement was proven more than founded. There was not a single black mark or speck of greying flesh. At four for £1, they were also an absolute bargain.
I have previously expressed my love of duck in these reviews, and I would extend that to duck eggs - far superior to their chicken counterparts. When I first saw them for sale on the Country Fayre stall, I was over the moon, and have been buying them as often as possible over the years since. The huge golden yolks, bursting with flavour, never fail to fill me with joy and never disappoint.
The bread, from Sherwin's, was perhaps the only thing we bought which caused me to wince slightly at the price - £4.60 for a large sourdough loaf. But it was incredibly fresh and tasty, and they happily offered to slice it for us. Breakfast, then, was a success. And, even better, we had some of everything left to do a couple more of the same at the start of the week.
Lunch was the meal for which we were least sure of what to make. We went through a few ideas - porkpie, ploughman's, some nice sandwich meat to go with the rest of our loaf of bread - before landing on Chicken Caesar Salad. One of my favourites.
One of the leftover duck eggs was turned into mayonnaise for the base of the dressing, and I used some of the sourdough loaf to make croutons. In addition to bread, Sherwin's also sells cheese and I came away with parmesan for the salad and gorgonzola for a blue cheese sauce to go with dinner. Again, neither of the cheeses were the cheapest, but they were both exceptionally fresh and excellent quality. The only lettuce we could find was a pack of two very small heads, but they served.
Butcher Andrew Sykes was selling chicken legs at £1.50 each, so we took one of those as well. In all honesty, the leg did not yield quite as much meat as I was hoping, but that's my fault for misestimating how much we'd need. I ended up adding the meat of half a Lidl chicken thigh to bulk it out.
What this did mean, however, was that I could do a taste comparison between butcher and supermarket. There was a marked difference. Anyone who strips down a freshly cooked piece of chicken and doesn't lick their fingers before washing their hands is doing life wrong. The depth of flavour that came off the butcher's chicken made the juices of the supermarket offering seem like water in comparison. The meat itself was similarly far superior.
Onto dinner, then. Steak, roasties, griddled asparagus and blue cheese sauce. Again, we turned to Mr Sykes for the meat. He's been our regular butcher ever since, shortly after we moved to Leicester, we hosted my parents for a roast and he sold us the most beautiful joint of pork I'd ever had the privilege of cooking. We've never had anywhere near a disappointing piece of meat from him, and his prices are a bargain on top.
We went for two ribeyes, our favourite cut, for £11. (For context, this came in at just 60p more expensive than the closest supermarket to us.) Just looking at the bright colour on them, we knew they were going to be fresh, and the marble of fat promised - and delivered - a fantastic flavour. The meat was also incredibly tender.
Asparagus and potatoes both came from the outdoor market. The potatoes were exceptional quality. Similarly to the avocado we enjoyed with breakfast, there wasn't a black mark or bruise on them - a difficult thing to achieve.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner for two people came to just shy of £30 - £10 less than we had budgeted for. So we decided to treat ourselves to some oysters as a starter to go with dinner. The Trawlerman was selling them for £1.50 each - we took four.
Despite doing the shop the day before, the seafood still tasted incredibly fresh when we came to eat them. Delicious. Almost as big as my hand, they were also very generous on the oyster meat itself - and my partner only cut himself once while shucking them.
All in all then, we spent £35.84 on a frankly excellent day of eating. Three meals for the price of a takeaway for two.
Leicester market is an absolute gem. The range, quality and price of what is on offer is outstanding and every time I visit there is something new to get excited about. If you love good food and are planning for a meal for a special occasion (Valentines Day is around the corner), I urge you to shop there.
Our rating: 5/5
Andrew Sykes Butchers, Trawlerman, Sherwin's and Country Fayre all have an official food hygiene rating of 5/5.
Leicester market traders did not know we would be reviewing them, and we paid for our purchases.