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.

Autumn = Pumpkins and Squash: Pumpkin and squash soup with sour cream.

I always look forward to the autumn, although it baffles me why we don’t call the season ‘fall’ like we used to, many years ago ( and took the word with us to the Americas, before we stopped using it ourselves over time), it seems so more descriptive of the season.
One of the reasons autumn is such a nice time, apart from the satisfaction of finishing the harvests, and watching the surrounding countryside change from stable green, to 40 shades of  gold, is: it’s pumpkin and squash season. And as the leaves change colour, so do the squashes in my kitchen veg box. I drool at the thought of hearty, earthy, thick warming soups, chocked full of fresh harvested squash. And here is my all time favourite, from Nigel Slater, who Jamie Oliver called “a genius”, and after cooking some of his recipes, you might likely agree.

I had to do some work in the field we grew our squashes, they have all been harvested weeks ago, but some lone squashes were still hiding out, and here is some of the handful i brought back that day. The orange ones are onion squash, the  round stripy ones like the one bottom right, are festival squash, (these ones changed colour before my eyes in my kitchen. The  long yellow squash on the left is delicata, and the perfectly round dark green one next to it is a kabocha squash:

Here is Nigel Slater’s recipe:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/pumpkin_stew_with_sour_06174

And i’ll copy and paste it here, in case that link goes offline:

Ingredients

• 40g/1½oz butter
• 2 onions, chopped
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 1 stick celery, chopped
• 3 sprigs rosemary
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 400g/14oz lentils
• 1.2litres/2pints 2fl oz vegetable stock
• 600g/1lb 5oz assorted pumpkin or squash (total chopped weight)
• small bunch parsley, chopped
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 4 tbsp sour cream

Method

1. In a large pan melt the butter and then add chopped onions, carrot and celery. Tear in the rosemary and a couple of bay leaves and after a few minutes add the chopped garlic. When all have nicely softened, tip in the lentils and pour over 1litre/1¾ pints of vegetable stock. Bring to the boil and then leave to simmer whilst you tend to the pumpkin.

2. Using a variety of pumpkins and squashes gives the stew a more complex flavour. Here I use acorn squash and Cinderella, but you want to end up with about 600g/1lb 5oz of peeled pumpkin in large chunks. Add them to the stew, season and then pour over enough water to just cover all the ingredients. Put a lid on the pan and leave to simmer for 30-40 minutes.

3. When the stew is almost ready, add the chopped parsley.

4. To make the stew creamier, remove a small bowlful to a food processor and blitz it with 200ml/2fl oz of stock. Pour it back in and the stew becomes instantly more velvety.

5. Serve the stew in bowls, finishing each helping off with a cooling spoonful of sour cream.

Here is my ingredients. I used an onion squash, and a delicata this time. Any variety of pumpkin and squash work well, including butternut on it’s own even, but two varieties are better, and Nigel’s choice of pumpkin and acorn squash is excellent, so i suggest using these if you can get them.

After 40 minutes, i sat down to one of my favourite lentil soups, a simple masterpiece; one of my favourite things:

(i have to add, that i missed one crucial detail in the above recipe, which is to take out a small portion of the soup, liquidize in a blender, and add back to the pot, at the end of the cooking process. It really does make for a smoother textured soup. The above is a bit  chunky compared to normal, and i didn’t add fresh chopped parsley till afterwards either in the above. Chunky or smooth, it still tastes delicious!)

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.

 

Nutty sweet mushroom omlette:

While out in the field two days ago, i came across a beautiful mushroom, standing erect by the side of the field (the most impressive of many). It was a pale brown parasol mushroom, and a fine specimen: 7 inches tall, with a 5 inch cap. (a bit like this one : here ) I wish i had taken a picture of it.

I am making stock for soup this evening, and had some leftover leeks (green parts only, about one meduim leek’s worth), so i chopped up the leeks, the parasol mushroom cap (stalk discarded), and added them to a pan of hot olive oil. Five minutes after stir frying on a high heat, i turned the heat to medium and added three eggs. Less than ten minutes after adding the eggs, i divided the omelette/frittata (i never turned it) after seasoning with salt and pepper. It was divine! The mushroom was nutty sweet, and i still have a sweet taste in the back of my mouth, half an hour after i finished it.

One of the joys of living in the countryside, is there is an abundance of wild food just waiting to be harvested. I rarely do forage for wild food, as i work on a fruit an veg farm, and have access to plenty of good shops in the local area. But mushroom season is here and that was the tastiest mushroom i have eaten in a very very long time.

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:

 

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.

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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).

Saturday 8th July, i’m a (healthier)flapaholic!

Today i worked on the farm, and made a tray of flapjacks after i had my evening meal.

I used to buy flapjacks from the shops nearby, all the time, a few years ago. Now, after much experimenting i have settled on my basic favourite flapjack recipe. This one uses no butter-but over ripe bananas instead, for a much healthier (vegan i suppose too) flapjack:

4 medium bananas (150g +)

100g mixed dried fruit/currants/or dried apricots

100g light brown sugar

200g porridge oats (maybe some more if the mixture is very wet)

6 tbsp  rapeseed oil/sunflower oil

One 10 inch by 7 inch by 2 inches deep, baking tray, lined with greaseproof paper.

12 to 15 minutes in oven (180 Deg+)

 

Mash up the bananas in a mixing bowl

Add the fruit, sugar and oil – stir well

Add the porridge oats, mix, place mixture into baking tray and bake @ 180 deg for 15 – 20 minutes (or more even, if you feel like it ). Remove from oven, leave in tray for 5 mins, divide in tray, then remove to cool on a wire rack, for at least another 5 mins –  if you can. 🙂