Bull and Co serves up steaks, burgers and other dishes inspired by American style steak houses, also including sharing platters, loaded fries and milkshakes. The emphasis is very much on indulgence here, with hefty quantities of rich food being the order of the day. I’ve been meaning to visit since its opening but the loosening of restrictions over the last year haven’t merged with an appropriately free bit of time to call by, so a delivery was the perfect way to right that wrong. The delivery arrived on time on a Friday evening, perfectly timed to relax into the weekend.

We kicked things off with a Bull and Co York sharing board which borrowed from a few of the other starters to pull together a selection of wings, ribs, onion rings, cheese bites and fries to pick at along with sauces and pickles. This generous selection was a great way to get our fingers and chins dirty, there’s no elegant way to engage with food like this! We then set about loaded fries that piled on rich pulled pork and a generous round of pickles to sharpen things up, I can see these being a winner as it becomes socially acceptable to share dishes in restaurants again!

Next up were signature Bull and Co York burgers, making great use of Haxby Bakehouse buns and good quality meat as a basis for embellishment by cheese, pickles, salad and other accoutrements as appropriate to the burger’s theme. The New Yorker threw sauerkraut and pastrami into the mix to make a compelling case for a repeat order and the classic burger was just as satisfying a way to break the days calorie allowance.

It would be a little odd to go for a meal as indulgent and calorific as this without having something sweet so a gooey chocolate brownie and a banana milkshake finished things off on a suitably over the top note. In a few months’ time we’ll have a better idea of where we stand with eating out and what the role of a takeaway will become, but eating dishes like this in the comfort of your own home where there’s nobody to witness the inevitable minor indignities of this wonderfully comforting food is an attractive prospect.

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A price of fifteen quid made this pizza kit an impulse purchase that had dropped out of my consciousness a little bit by the time I received notice of the imminent delivery, which was slightly delayed from the original date. All the packaging is environmentally on message, featuring sheeps wool insulation, cardboard and compostable pots to keep the components separate and the packet neatly aped a pizza delivery.

The following day we set everything out for dinner and watched the instructional video, realising that there wasn’t really any further prep to do and that we were good to have a bash at turning balls of dough into pizza bases. Obviously this is a skill that can be honed and perfected over years so we were never going to turn out something more than tolerable, but we had fun doing it, which is surely the point, assuming the end product is edible! After all, if it was possible to mess it up badly enough to warrant an emergency takeaway, I’d be unimpressed. That wasn’t the case though and we were soon arranging toppings.

Up until this point we’d not really deviated from standard pizza production but the lack of a pizza oven in our domestic kitchen was about to push us down a different route, the clue rather being in the title. The trick to this technique would be to combine a hob and a grill to effectively cook the base and toppings so while stretching the dough, I’d got a frying pan as hot as practical and the grill pre-heating. With the base successfully transferred to the hot pan, further assembly was straightforward and included quality San Marzano tomato, Fior de Latte & parmesan cheeses as well as a drizzle of olive oil and basil leaves. Thankfully this wasn’t too much of a race against time to complete while the base took on some colour and I was soon ready to shift to the grill and give the cook some symmetry.

After a few minutes the crust had begun to blister and the cheese melted appealingly into the tomato to produce a good approximation of a top quality take out pizza from one of my local favourites. The quality of the toppings was beyond question and that all important dough had obviously been subject to plenty of development and love. In all honesty it was evident that the end result came from a domestic setting; there wasn’t the same depth of blistering and lightness of touch that a quick cook in a super hot oven brings to the best pizza, but that’s missing the point slightly. I learnt a bit about making pizza, was entertained in the process then got to eat something delicious at the end of the process. Seems pretty fair value for fifteen quid (for two pizzas) to me.

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Having not been through the series of questions that would determine the menu, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the delivery arrived promptly in the promised time slot and was reassuringly chilled when I got through to emptying the contents. The only thing I knew was that I’d be receiving a three course meal for two, so I was happy to be surprised as I unboxed the delivery and stowed it in the fridge ready for a special Friday evening meal. Each element of the meal was accompanied by an instruction card that gave a brief description of the dish and clear, concise instructions on how to get it onto your plate. Having spent a good portion of my working life looking at project plans, I’d have quite liked to have a separate document that drew together the timings for each element of the meal, but I can see how labour intensive that would be to pull together. My former colleague who used a Gantt chart for his Christmas meal every year would have loved to see that!

The first course of our Dine Delivered meal was an “Oak Roast Salmon Pate Martini” which arrived ready to serve without any intervention more taxing than sprinkling a couple of herbs across the service. The martini glass had pearls of cucumber in the base and a spiced tomato jelly across the surface to sandwich flakes of smoked salmon. Having already got the larger parts of the main course in the oven, there was little to do other than enjoy the starter, easily achieved with the balance of spiced tomato and cool cucumber pairing off nicely against the salmon.

The main course didn’t require any notable skill to get to the table, requiring just oven reheating of chicken, cabbage and carrots while creamed potatoes just needed a visit to the microwave, as with thyme jus. I managed to plate everything up with almost as much delicacy as it deserved and was impressed with almost everything the dish ‘delivered’ (sorry). All the quoted timings were correct so the porcini chicken was tender and was reassuringly well seasoned without showing any disadvantage from being reheated at home while the creamed potatoes were smooth and comfortingly rich. The carrots were seasoned with orange butter and gave lightness to the dish though the cabbage parcel was less successful, being unnecessarily skewered with a sharp flavour reminiscent of fresh horseradish or even wasabi. Thankfully that was easy enough to look past due to the thyme jus pulling everything together with impressive aplomb thanks to tremendous richness and depth.

The final dish was a salted caramel slice with a fruit compote that was rich enough to defeat me in one go and therefore provided a second sitting the following day with leftovers. It was a suitably impressive and indulgent way to end an impressive meal that I may or may not have been able to replicate myself with considerable effort.

Dine Delivered is available at surprisingly short notice and, for a menu similar to that described here, would run you around thirty five pounds for two people. The food I received was easy to get to the table and well realised, offering scope to impress without the anxiety one might attract when attempting to score points by cooking from scratch. I was happy that the delivery delivered.

Disclaimer: No charge was made for this experience, opinions are as impartial as ever.

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Born and Bred deliver recipes designed by the inestimable Yorkshire food champion Steph Moon along with great quality locally sourced produce to show them off to best effect. The care and effort that goes into sourcing the highest quality produce is immediately obvious when you open the box, which contains offerings from reputed suppliers such as Herbs Unlimited, True Foods, Bracken Hill, Dumouchel Patisserie and Listers Farm shop.

For my box, I chose Yorkshire “Savoury Ducks” and “Crispy Yorkshire Haloum!” with mushroom and leek cakes and decided to have a go at the “Ducks” first. This recipe reads really well as a hearty winter dish which pairs lamb mince and liver into good sized meatballs fleshed out with onion, egg, mustard, breadcrumbs and Hendersons Relish. Preparation was easy enough with all the ingredients pre-weighed or measured for you. It was at this point it really dawned on me that this wasn’t going to be a substitute for cooking. While the pre-measured ingredients were a definite neat shortcut, there was still chopping, dicing, grating, zesting and mixing involved though with maximum amount of end user judgement removed by the recipe card. The finished product was everything it promised: a rich and hearty meal for two that was generously portioned enough to deliver some leftovers the following day. The only issue on the plate came from my failure to read the recipe card closely enough and adding too much orange to the sauce, definitely user error.

The fried Halloum! (from Yorkshire Dama Cheese) was a slightly simpler recipe. Fried cheese is a fairly obvious pleasure and the mushroom and leek cakes were reminiscent of Steph Moon recipes that I’ve cooked before. The finished plate was predictably delicious and rather lighter in character than the “ducks”. I ended up making this for a light dinner, finishing the left overs the following day, which were no less enjoyable for the delay.

These boxes are available monthly either on subscription or for a one off payment. Three meals for two people comes to £39, breaking down to £6.50 per portion. I think that’s a very reasonable amount, especially given the obvious care that’s gone into sourcing produce and delivering it in such a way as the consumer can take best advantage of that quality. The only note of caution I’d sound is to make sure you don’t see this as a lazy substitute for cooking. Yes, there are a number of shortcuts handed to you, but this is still cooking and requires some effort. If you enjoy chopping onions as much as me though, that really isn’t a problem. The ingredients I received were enjoyable to cook and turned into lovely meals. I’d happily recommend trying out Born & Bred.

Disclaimer: No charge was made for the delivery I received. Opinions are impartial.

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The Riverford Veg Masterclass was held near one of Riverford’s farms not too far from York up at South Otterington, in whose village hall we gathered to receive instruction from a friendly young tutor by the name of Ben. Nine of us were in attendance to put together a rice salad, a curry and spiced dip while taking tips on the broader points of cooking with vegetables. I like to think that I’m a competent home cook, but it was nice to have my technique reinforced by a pro’ as we ran through basics such as chopping onions and basic knife skills.

Over a couple of hours we talked through suggestions such as ‘curing’ spring greens with lime while we kept on chopping, and ended up with a delicious spiced carrot and cannellini dip and a spinach, green bean and chick pea curry along with a delicious rice salad that used those cured spring greens.

All the attendees commented that they had learnt something new as we enjoyed the fruits of our labours over lunch so Ben deserves great credit for keeping the day moving to schedule and making sure that all skill levels were taken into account while neither boring the more experienced nor patronising those newer to cooking. One thing I’d not realised about Riverford was that there’s no subscription; if you have an account you just order as and when you fancy taking a box. That being the case, it’s certainly something I’m going to be looking at more closely.

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