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!)

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).