Spring = Wild Garlic: Nettle and wild garlic soup.

Last spring i discovered wild garlic leaves, for the first time, after selling them at the farmer’s market.  It is one of the few things we do not need to plant on the farm, along with nettles. Our farm is bordered by woodland, and also a river, and wild garlic grows not only in the woodland around the farm, but all over England (and Europe i believe) this time of year. It is coming to the end of the season for wild garlic; and just like last year i thought i would venture out into the woods myself and pick some for the pot before it is all gone.

And here it is: i found a patch. The white flowers are wild garlic flowers.

 

And these are the garlic leaves, which i picked.

 

And here is enough Garlic leaves and nettles for my soup, just washed – before heading for the kitchen. (Washing the nettles under a cold tap completely removes the sting from the tops of the leaves.)

 

This is the end result (recipe to follow), with a tablespoon of yoghurt, and two halves of boiled egg, which have sunk out of sight. Very tasty, and very healthy.

 

I used this  recipe:

http://www.viktoriastable.com/nettle-and-green-garlic-soup/

 

Ingredients:

For two servings:

A bunch of nettles

A bunch of wild garlic leaves

one tbsp butter or olive oil

one onion chopped

1/4 cup fresh dill chopped

2-3 cups of liquid from boiled nettles

one tbsp lemon  juice

one egg yolk

To serve: two boiled eggs, halved, two tbsp of yoghurt

 

Instructions:

1. Bring a pot of (3/4 litre) salted water to boil
2. Add the bunch of washed nettles, biol for 5 minutes. remove nettles from pot, reserve liquid.
3. Lightly fry chopped onions in butter/oil, for 5 minutes.
4. Discard thick stems of nettles, and return soft leaves and soft stems, back to pot – along with 2-3 cups of the reserved liquid,  in which the nettles were boiled.
5. Bring to boil, and then simmer soup for 15-20 minutes.
6. Mix the egg yolk  with the lemon juice. If the soup is cold, add this mixture to pot. If the soup is hot, temper with few tbsp of the hot soup before adding to pot.
7. Puree soup in (or with) a blender.
8. Top soup with a few halves of hard boiled egg, a couple tbsp of yoghurt, and a garnish of whole dill.

Many people at my market, ask for suggestions,  on how to use nettle tips (stinging nettles) and also wild garlic. This recipe combines both, in a seasonal sensation.

Tesco: 1 Farmers’ Market: 0

Yesterday, Christmas Eve, was my last working day. I worked, for the first time Teddington Farmers’ market ( https://www.lfm.org.uk/markets/teddington/ ), a new and very promising market it seems, normally around 20 stalls with everything you need for your weekly – organic/locally and lovingly produced – shop.

Today there were stalls, but the customers stayed away – it was empty. I served one man at the end of the day, and he told me the nearby supermarkets (tesco especially)  were packed, the isles had long queues of people grabbing their last minute shopping.

It is sad, that farmers markets are still not a way of life in this country like they might have been generations ago, and like they are still on the continent. Only the savy, and health conscious (and people from the continent) seem to regularly buy their food from quality local producers in this country. We have lost the art of buying food, cooking with natural ingredients, and the whole art of living it seems in this country, to me.

I am thinking of the many people i have spoken with from countries such as: France, Germany, Portugal, Poland etc… where their traditions are still alive and well along with the modern consumer culture that has spread the world over, and we in the UK are so enamoured with (and have more money than sense at times, to know any alternative way of life).

Today just goes to remind me of how much, we in the UK, “The First Industrialized Nation”, can learn from other countries of the world, about culture and how to live.

How to buy, how to cook, how to eat and live and drink sociably, how to celebrate our holidays, to remember how fortunate we are, to live in one of the richest countries in the world, and what traditions we have lost, and why we should be thinking about reclaiming or starting new, better ones.

Ham Hock Soup: rare breed, and organic.

Today i worked in London on my usual ‘farmer’s market‘. One of the stallholders, is a family run farm selling organic certified meat poultry and eggs. They have chickens and geese, sheep, cows, rare breed pigs and more. I sometimes buy a ‘hock of ham‘, usually smoked, which is a cheap cut of meat, but when well cooked is very tasty – like a good joint of gammon at a fraction of the cost. And as i have just had a bowl of soup topped with ham hock, and cooked with a stock made with the hock itself, i will post the recipe i use here: it is one of my favourite soup recipes. This soup is a classic, and just what i need on a chilly autumn (fall 🙂 ) evening.

Here is the stock pot, before adding water and boiling for two to three hours:

And later the soup, made with the stock water from the above ingredients, and a sprinkle off the cooked ham hock; ontop:

Here is the link to the recipe, i use, and below a cut n paste of the ingredients and method, just in case that page goes offline:

Ham hock soup

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jan/30/easy-ham-hock-soup-recipes-keep-it-simple-stupid

 

Cooking time: 2-3 hours plus soaking of lentils
Prep time: 15 minutes

Serves 6
For the stock
1 onion
1 carrot
1 celery stick
4 leeks, green parts only, roughly chopped (keep the white parts for later)
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp black peppercorns

For the soup
100g split yellow peas, soaked overnight
1 ham hock
4 carrots
4 leeks, white parts only (see above)
1 small swede, peeled
1 tbsp olive oil
100g red lentils
2 tbsp chopped parsley
Salt and black pepper

1 Rinse the ham hock in cold running water. Place it in a pan that it fits into comfortably.

2 Now prepare the vegetables for the stock, throwing them into the same pan as you go. Chop the top and the root off the onion. Chop it in half and peel it. Then chop it roughly. Peel the carrot and chop it up roughly, discarding the ends. Wash the celery and chop it roughly – you can use the leaves in the stock as well as the stalks, but discard the root. Wash the leeks. Chop off the root and the green parts at the top. Put the outer leaves and the green parts into the pan. Keep the white parts for later.
3 Add the bay leaf and peppercorns, cover with cold water and place over a high heat until it comes up to the boil. Turn the heat down to a low simmer and cook gently for about 2-3 hours, or until the meat is pulling away from the ham bone. Keep topping up the pan with water so the ham hock is always covered. Strain off the stock and set aside.

4 Now prepare the vegetables for the soup. You can chop them roughly if you are in a hurry or if you plan to blend the soup, but with a dish as simple as this it can be satisfying to spend some time making them look pretty. If you want to do this, follow these instruction: Peel the carrots and chop off the top and tail. Cut them into four strips lengthways – this can be tricky; be careful not to cut yourself. Then cut these strips lengthways to make batons. Finally cut them across into little cubes. Slice the whites of the leeks into two halves lengthways, then slice each half into strips lengthwise and finally cut them across to make little dice. Peel the swede. Chop it horizontally into rounds. Then slice across these to make batons and finally across again to make little squares.

5 In a large heavy-based pan, heat up the olive oil and add the diced vegetables. Stir well, season and cook covered over a low heat for 5 minutes. Drain the split peas and add to the veg along with the lentils. Cook for a minute and stir well. Add about 1 litre of the reserved ham stock and bring up to a simmer. Cook gently for about 1 hour or until the vegetables and pulses are tender. Add extra stock or water if the soup is getting too thick.

6 When the soup is cooked you can add water to make it thinner if you prefer. At this stage you can keep it as a chunky veg soup or blend until smooth. We like to blend a cupful of the soup mix and return it to the unblended soup. Season the soup well – do this in stages, tasting between each addition of salt and pepper – and add the chopped parsley.

• The meat from the ham hock can be shredded and added to the soup, as it has been in the picture to the left. Alternatively, it can be reserved for another dish such as a ham hock salad or sandwich.

• This is delicious with a blob of cold yoghurt on top. This provides richness, a contrast of temperatures and an acidic twang.

Recipe by Jane Baxter.

 

Market Tales: a plot to grow your own.

Yesterday, at Parson’s green Farmer’s Market, i chatted with a few of the customers – and as usual, learnt a few  things in the process.

I chatted with a regular customer, a girl from Russia, who told me, their growing season was over for strawberries, in her part of Russia (situated near the dividing line between Europe and Asia). My own farm, which is slap bang in the middle of Kent- will be selling fresh grown strawberries for many weeks to come, before the cold of autumn sends them to sleep. I was also told, how every household would have their own plot of land to grow food, which seems a good idea. Throughout the year,  people would be selling the fruits and vegetables from their gardens, so wherever you went you could pick up some fresh grown carrots here – salad leaves there. This also reminded me of one of the Polish guys i work with, telling me of how, when he was growing up, instead of being sent to the local shop to buy a few bits for supper, he would be sent down the country road where they lived, where one of the households would be selling – from their vegetable plot – maybe carrots, the next house, maybe potatoes, and together with what they would have grown in their own garden, my friend could do all the weeks fresh shopping without going into town or anywhere near a local shop.  In England, almost nobody i know grows their own food,  but a generation before, everyone with any available small plot would have to grow something to supplement their diet. Someone did tell me only the other day, that in London, lots of the Italian people they knew,  still grew food on all the available spaces they had – which seems like a good idea. Veg – and not only organic veg, is pricey in the shops, but you can grow your own organic, with a bit of care.

One of my next customers, was a lady who is at the market most weeks, and is passionate about eating only organic produce – also she has her own allotment nearby, where she grows some of the food for her, and her friends, table. She was telling me of her glut of courgettes at the moment. Plots to grow food, are sought after in the city, and so the rules (for this site at any rate) are very strict: you have to actually grow ‘food’, no mucking about – if you don’t your out, and your plot will be up for grabs by people eager to grow fresh fruit and vegetables, and especially families, who i am told bring their children, to show them where the food they eat comes from, and how it is grown (one of the organic vegetable stalls at the market, actually teach school children about growing food, in exchange for the use of some of the school’s land for growing some of their crop – i am told) — we would all do well to know how food is grown, in this plastic age of ours .

I met a few other interesting people today at the market. One guy i served, used to work for the Soil Association, which is one of the certification bodies (companies licensed by the government to uphold the standards that the government has set out for ‘Organic’ food growing, and selling) here in the UK.

Another guy i met bought some damsons, which are just in season now-those bitter small blue plum-like fruit (they are actually a type of plum) – which many people thought were blueberries. He told me he was using the damsons to flavour gin. Soak fruit in the gin, for however long – i forget how long he said, overnight maybe(?). When the gin has absorbed the damson’s flavour, the resulting mushy-soft fruit would be used to flavour a game bird (pheasant i think?). What a lovely idea! Actually our farm is next to a great castle and estate, which rears pheasants for hunting. The adjoining woodland rings out with gunshot from smart tweed clad hunters, starting around this time of year.

But getting back to growing your own, and having a plot to do so. Here is my plot on the farm. It’s next to my humble dwelling, where my neighbour fenced off this little bit of Kent to keep the rabbits off his salad leaves. It is wild right now, but still, in one corner grows some very tasty parsley, which he planted here.

I will post a picture, when i have cleared the weeds and turned over the soil. It will be plenty big enough to plant a few choice vegetables and herbs for my kitchen, and some of my friends.

 

 

Redcurrant Jelly.

Last year i sold a couple of kilos of redcurrants to a delightful Polish lady, who was going to make redcurrant jelly with them. She kindly brought me a jar of the jelly she made, and it was very good.  This year, i finally got around to making some redcurrant jelly, myself, and it is good.  Armed with a kilo of redcurrants from my farm, a kilo of sugar, and a bit of peace and quiet this evening, for a change – i finally made this precious preserve.

I was told all i needed was a 1:1 ratio of currants and sugar, boil and sieve/strain.

I followed Delia’s recipe from her site and used the large stainless steel sieve i have, and a regular cotton kitchen towel – to strain into the sieve, instead of muslin cloth: it worked a treat.

Here is Delia’s recipe: http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/preserves/redcurrant-jelly

Here is my, just washed, kilo of currants:

…and after making the jelly and straining into a bowl:

… and filling my jars (including the one i received from the Polish lady at my market:

… and sealing the (steralised) jars, to leave over a litre of pure-red-nectar:

I hope the lady in question, will be at the market this Sunday. 🙂

 

Cherry clafoutis

We finished picking cherries from our orchard last week, it has been a bumper harvest this year. Before all the new season cherries are gone (cherry season only lasts a matter of weeks/a month), i want to make  clafoutis.

On the Sunday farmer’s market i work at ( https://www.lfm.org.uk/markets/parsons-green/ ), i asked one of my many French customers what they would be doing with the cherries i was selling, and this is one classic French dish to use up all those cherries while we have them. I have been told many other things work well as a clafoutis, including savoury clafoutis also.

Here is the recipe i used, taken from the BBC recipes, by Raymond Blanc: ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/cherry_clafoutis_18623 )

And here is my clafoutis after 3 bites:

 

Farmer’s Markets, the people you meet – and things you learn.

Every Sunday, at a farmer’s market in London, i sell the things we grow on the farm. In the year and a half i have been doing the same market, i have met some really interesting people – customers as well as other stallholders/farmers and the managers of the company that runs the London Farmers Markets ( https://www.lfm.org.uk/ ). I have learnt much from the other stallholders, especially when they are the actual farmers selling their own produce, but especially from our customers, many who really “know their onions” as they say.

Today i talked with a lady who buys from me most weeks, who was a herbal practitioner, gained a few cooking tips/recipe ideas for cooking/marinating courgettes with miso paste (i get at least one recipe or recipe idea each week), chatted with another regular – about her memories of growing up in farming communities in South Africa, and also Zambia, and at the end of the day had a chat with a man – who is at the markets most weeks, and likes to know about the fruit and vegetables we sell, how we grow them and the different varieties we have on our farm. This week i happened to mention the farm’s social media site (we are in the middle of the cherry season, and their are lots of pictures of our cherry orchards  and harvesting online right now, a bumper harvest this year,  and really worth a look), and also of the blog of a former market manager, who is a freelance writer, with a passion for food and food sustainability issues (her dissertation for her masters degree was on the topic of Genetically modified crops in Africa, and she writes for various publications on many environmental issues, as well as agriculture).  My friendly customer, who likes to chat about our fruit and veg,  was interested to read the blog of my old market manager (she is a very young, and pretty market manger actually ), and told me about his own job briefly, where he works for an international agricultural research and development company, where he is involved with Chinese farming (he mentioned Chinese farmers, fed a population of 1.3 billion, when i asked about the Chinese farming industry: a sobering statistic).

The story of the food on our plate, is such an important story, with so many different people involved – from the seeds we use in our modern world to grow, to the actual farmers who then grow and sell, and the people who buy and cook and feed their families. Each week, there are many people fresh out of their yoga classes, clasping, yoga mats (and many others fresh out of the gym or playing field) with shopping bags full of fresh veg. Many families with newborn babies and buggies, buying pesticide-free produce for the table. And many who also are directly or indirectly connected to the agricultural industry.

I am back on the farm, to be ready for work Monday morning, and ‘my’ onions will need watering, and some TLC to be in top condition  for the market next weekend. It’s late and i really should be heading to bed, so i can play my part in the vast supply chain that feeds our planet.

Summer fruits = summer pudding.

I was at Parson’s Green farmers market again today,  selling the fresh produce from our farm. Today was the first day i had red-currents (and white-currents) for sale, the first of the season (although they have been out a week or two in small numbers).  Last week i had a couple of ladies asking me when i would have red-currents, as they are – along with blackcurrents, and raspberries (which have both been out for a while now) – both essential ingredients for a true English classic: “Summer Pudding”.  Delia Smith, on her wonderful website says: “If you going to make just one pudding this summer, then this should be it”. I’ll leave it to Delia to show you how. I used her recipe last summer, and was very pleased, as were a few of my friends.

http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/international/european/british/english-summer-pudding

The lady who last year bought red-currents for summer pudding,  and was shocked when i told her i had not heard of this, “English Classic” – bought lots of currents again this year, some to freeze as well as some for making a fresh pudding. I have two tips for summer pudding

1. get a one litre bowl – i used a larger glass mixing bowl last year, and the pudding collapsed in a heap when i turned the bowl upside down to serve. It still tasted, and looked delicious.
2. this tip from the lady i served today: do not use thick slice bread to line the bowl (as i did ) and let it go ever so slightly stale/hard. This will help keep the pudding in a nice roundshape like in Delia’s picture from her site, hopefully.

I will post a picture here of my summer pudding, hopefully a perfect upturned ‘bowl’ shape, when i make it soon.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

And one week later, i finally made my summer pudding.

And after two bites:

I’m pleased it didn’t collapse in a heap this year (using thin-slice white bread helped, i am sure) – and it tasted great even though i didn’t have the proportions of fruit Delia used (i used half of the proportion of raspberries, instead using white-currents, red-currents and more black-currents, aswell as 200g of raspberries).

Farm to farmers market, and back again.

Today, Sunday,  i got up early and left the farm with a van loaded with fresh produce from our farm. As i do each Sunday, i swapped my, often muddy, farm workwear for more civilized clothing of: clean shoes, jeans and T-shirt, and headed for a ‘farmers market’ in London.  The market is in Parson’s Green, which is near Fulham, not far from putney bridge, where the Oxford v Cambridge university ‘boat race’  starts each spring.

At the end of the market day  (we open for business at 10am and finish at 2pm), i was talking with the market manager, about how life and work on the farm would be good material for a blog; so here it is- my first post. Thanks for the inspiration Racheal! 🙂

Today as usual i had apples and pears, which were harvested, last season from our farm; apple juices, and mixed fruit juices (all pure fruit juice with no added water or sugar – the best in the west!); lots of naturally grown salad leaves and vegetables; strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants, and for the first week – cherries: the very first of (the very short) season. Next week i will be selling more new season produce as it becomes ripe (tomatoes maybe, courgette soon, red-currents, white-currents maybe).

For me, a weekly outing to London, is a nice change from working on the farm all week. It is always good to meet new customers, and welcome back regulars each week. At the market, i get a chance to answer many questions about the farm, and what is grown there, and to chat with many interesting people. I have learnt alot from speaking with the people who buy our produce, (including a few tasty recipes) and enjoy describing the methods we use to produce what i sell, and about the family run company i work for.

Back at the farm, life is easy and relaxed on a Sunday evening.  The working week for most people here, begins Monday.  which can wait till the morning now – as i end my first blog entry.