"Down it in one as you would with an oyster,” said Rosemarie, as we eyed the round ‘pillow’ of white transparent jelly wobbling in front of us.

But I had other ideas and tackled Emily Watkins’s new take on Gin Fizz with a spoon. The result was that it broke open like a runny fried egg; this jelly had a completely liquid interior. All was not lost, though, since this elegant opening to the Plough at Kingham’s Taste of the Cotswolds was served in a commodious porcelain spoon of the kind presented with soup in a Chinese restaurant. This, of course, ought to have given me a pretty strong hint as to how I should have tackled it . . .

The gin-based liquid, sans alcohol by this stage of the preparation, had been introduced into the casing in the form of a frozen ball. Not that the casing was a casing at the time, rather a liquid mixture of cucumber juice and gelatine into which the ball was placed. This coated the ball and solidified; the ball melted. Hey presto – Gin Fizz. This was a very delicate operation and a sizable proportion broke during preparation, Emily told me once her evening stint in the kitchen was over.

Having heard of her high-tech approach to cookery, readers will perhaps not be entirely surprised to learn of the influence on her technique of Heston Blumenthal. She worked with him, in fact, at the Fat Duck in Bray, though her cooking style at the Kingham Plough, which she has run for nearly three years, is much more rustically robust. This month’s dinner menu, for instance, has featured such dishes as slow-cooked shoulder of Bledington Black Angus beef, and suckling pig cheeks.

A Taste of the Cotswolds is a six-course ‘taster’ menu celebrating local produce, which is available every Thursday to Saturday. Rosemarie and I joined a full house gathered to launch it last week. Emily and her team knew who I was and that I would be likely to write about the evening, which represents a one-off departure in approach for this column. The test conformed with usual style, though, in that we paid our way.

If anyone raises an eyebrow at the number and variety of alcoholic beverages mentioned in this article, I should say at once that our journey was accomplished by train (a ride through glorious spring scenery on a sunny evening), with the services of Chipping Norton’s estimable Excelsior Taxis to carry us between station and village.

Customers are not obliged, incidentally, to go with the wines selected; we thought it sensible to do so, though, since each had been chosen to supply a felicitous match to the dish it accompanied.

Medley Manor Farm at Binsey having not opened for business at the time of the test (it has now), the spear or two of asparagus featuring in the second course was the first of the season for me. Deep green, lustrous and refreshing on the tongue, it was a good contrast in both taste and appearance to the Lower Swell pressed pork it accompanied. This moist, juicy meat was taken from the pig’s head and, in this sense, reminiscent of the brawn to which I was introduced as a child by a favourite uncle, a Lincolnshire pork butcher. Emily, who puts much effort into reviving ‘lost’ dishes, based this on a local recipe from 1880.

The wine, from a delicious blend of colombard and ugni blanc grapes, was a fine fit, as was the unusual Ligurian white with the fish course that followed. Here we were treated to a chunky ‘sandwich’ of wild salmon, lightly cooked and shiny, with a filling of smoked eel (another childhood treat – my local river, the Nene, being full of eels). Fir apple potatoes pressed into a layered cake, a bitter wild garlic leaf, small chunks of peeled Broadway tomatoes and parsley sauce completed the dish.

Stowell Park venison was the main course. It was offered in two equally excellent ways – the haunch roasted and presented in thin pink slices; the shoulder braised to a perfect tenderness and sealed within a wrapping of pastry made, I think, with suet. Also on the plate were a squiggle of horseradish sauce and beetroot cooked in three ways – a rectangle of boiled (or similar), a purée and a crisp-like fried disc. We drank an extremely powerful 2007 Rhône red, from Domaine Raspail.

The wine was ideal, too, with the Cheltenham cheese pudding that followed, though we were also given a glass of lovely damson brandy from Cotswold Country Liqueurs. The pudding came in a cup in the form of a foam containing pieces of diced mushroom and shallots. It was too thick to drink. I told Emily later we should have had a spoon. We had. It was the pastry strip I had eaten with the first mouthful of the pudding. Oh dear.

Cotswold Cream Tea brought a fanciful assembly of Earl Grey jelly, lardy cake (!), and rhubarb both puréed and in the form of thin ‘peelings’ of it deep-fried. We drank a very light (4 per cent alcohol) fizz from Piedmont. Coffee came with hand-made chocolates, some with fresh mint – sensational – others with orange and whisky. This was super evening. At its end we greeted the driver of our Excelsior Taxi with faces wreathed in smiles, vowing we would like to eat at the Plough every week.