Wild Food Night - April

Last night we attended another Wild Food Night in Woolmer Green. We ended up sat with some friends of a friend of a friend - likeminded allotmenteers, chicken-keepers, brewers and campers whose company we enjoyed very much, and I may just have been inspired to give wine-making a go...

We started off with a trio of canape-type tasters, and one of the most pleasing and surprising mouthfuls of the night was that very first one, on the left in the picture. Can you guess what it is?

It's horseradish candy - apparently a reworking of an old traditional recipe for candied horseradish root but rather different. The texture's like Turkish Delight, the flavour is absolutely of horseradish, but with sweetness where the heat should be. Very interesting and rather lovely, although I couldn't quite decide whether it should really be eaten as an entree, or as a sweet, or something else...

The second canape is a mousse of rabbit and bacon - rich and smooth and delicious. And the third, sorrel jelly! The menu called it palate-cleansing but personally I found it rather overpowering - too lemony and too sweet for my taste. Still, an interesting idea that I was glad to sample.

Next, the starter; a smooth consomme of hare, served with a roll with wild garlic baked into the dough. I've never had hare before but I understand the taste can be rather strong. Not so with this extremely delicious soup.

The main course, a venison and porcini risotto, with port sauce drizzled over the top, was a bit too rich and salty for my liking, although the individual elements - the venison and mushrooms - tasted lovely and the port sauce balanced it very nicely.

And the dessert - wow! A bramble brulee, topped with a bramble and balsamic vinegar meringue. Under the classic custardy brulee was a layer of bramble and port sauce. This was soooo good.

Thanks again, Mr Bumpkin, for another delicious and inspiring evening! I have to say, I went home feeling a little too full for comfort, but then I probably shouldn't have eaten quite so much from the bread basket... Can't wait to see what May has to offer!

The Underrated Salad Sandwich

Finding the fridge bare at lunchtime today, I headed out into the garden...

Clockwise from left to right, you see here chopped chives, claytonia, winter gem lettuce, little gem lettuce (the thinnings from my overcrowded trough), spiky Mizuna, and Pizzo mustard (also thinnings). Not a bad selection; the gem lettuces provide a good base, the mustard and mizuna add spice, the claytonia leaves are beautifully succulent, and the chives brighten the whole thing up with that mild oniony flavour.

I piled the leaves into a sandwich with mayo and a generous grinding of black pepper, topped them with a couple of slices of tomato, and voila! Not just a few leaves between two pieces of bread, but a thick sandwich full of crunch and flavour. And as I ate it I kept thinking of other things I could have added too; basil or oregano leaves, garlic chives (used sparingly - they're very strong raw!), spring onions which are just approaching a decent size now, and a trayful of peas grown for shoots that I haven't cut yet.

And how I wished for the first radishes from the allotment, or some lemony sorrel!

Of course, a sandwich of plain lettuce wouldn't have got me so excited, but with all these flavours to play with you can really make a sandwich or salad to suit your tastes. Later in the season of course there will be carrots and beetroots to grate in, tangy saltwort, sweet and crunchy mangetout pods, more herbs, spinaches, peppery nasturtiums - all sorts! I'm resolving right now to eat more salad sandwiches...

It's so easy to grow salad leaves like this, everyone should do it! And when they're freshly picked they're fantastically nutritious. All you need is a few pots on a patio or balcony and a quick check each day or two to make sure they're not drying out or under attack. (A sprinkle of organic slug pellets around the area and a simple soap spray to combat any aphids is enough to keep pests at bay.) Most leafy greens don't even need much sunshine and will do fine in shady areas.

And if any of the salad-growers amongst you haven't tried claytonia (winter purslane) I recommend you do! It has grown very quickly and the leaves are really fleshy and succulent with a mild, cool flavour. It's supposed to grow well through winter as well, hence the name.

If you can't beat 'em... EAT 'em!

Having tasted nettle soup at The Country Bumpkin's wild food night last month, I thought perhaps it was time to embrace the native plants permanently resident on my plot and give it a try myself. If you can't beat them, eat them - that's how it goes, right?

These nettle tops were picked on Good Friday and have been tied up in a bag in the fridge until today. I picked 60 tops (four leaves each, plus the spiky new growth at the top) which came to 200g. I thought they'd be all limp and lifeless, but they actually kept very well. And no, they hadn't lost their sting either!

I washed them in a sinkful of cold water to help perk them up a bit, and used scissors (and a glove - I mean a plastic carrier bag over my hand) to cut the leaves off the stalks - a fiddly task, but these nettle tops are from fairly big plants so the stems were tough and not wanted. If you pick them as young plants you can keep the stalks. Without the stalks, the weight came to 160g.

As usual, I didn't follow a specific recipe but read a whole range of them and then made my own up. This is how I do most of my cooking! Here it is:

Nettle Soup
(serves two)

• Saute a small onion, chopped, in half a tablespoon of rapeseed oil.
• When soft, add a small potato or two (diced) and a couple of cloves of garlic (chopped) and stir in.
• Add half a litre of vegetable stock. Bring to the boil, cover, and simmer for ten minutes (or until the potato is cooked).
• Add the nettles (160g or thereabouts). Like spinach, they'll be huge in the pan to start with but will wilt down fairly fast - stir them in gently until they do.
• Simmer another 5 minutes, then blend until smooth.
• Add a teaspoon or two of lemon juice, to taste, and check seasoning.
• Serve garnished with cream and black pepper or nutmeg. 

Look at that colour!

Nettles are fantastically high in vitamins A and C, with plenty of B, D and K too, and rich in iron, potassium, calcium, magnesium and many trace minerals. They also contain lots of fibre, they have diuretic and blood-purifying properties, they stimulate serotonin, and they contain histamines which can help fight allergies.

I must try to eat them more often!

Good Friday

Spent a fab afternoon at the plot on Friday, catching up with weeding and planting.

I've been a bit nervous about planting my potatoes, since last year's crop was so disappointing after late frosts bit it in May. But with all this warm weather and with May just a week away now I thought it was time. Even if we do have early-May frosts, the potato shoots will probably still be safe underground! We've planted all Kestrel - 54 of 'em. Every year I try other varieties and they never seem to do as well as Kestrel do, and after a couple of serious disappointments I felt like playing it safe this year. They've been chitting on the bathroom windowsill so long now, they were raring to go!

We also weeded the strawberries, which are flowering busily now...

...the onions, shallots and garlic...

...and the salad beds, which I'm very proud of. Apart from a couple of little gaps, they look almost professional!

And check out the giant radishes starting to swell down there:

We gave everything a good soaking too of course - much needed in this lovely sunny weather! And we cleared the last of the leeks and a few old carrots, cut a big bagful of asparagus, and picked this small and slightly-sprouting cauliflower - the first from our 'everlasting cauliflower' plants - much of which we nibbled raw right there at the allotment!

I also took the opportunity over the weekend to pot-on some peppers. Like the tomatoes, they were previously two-to-a-pot, but now they're all in their own pots. And despite a very slow start, they seem to be doing okay.

We've ended up with just one Jalapeno (the only chilli I dare eat), two 'Kaibi Round No 2' (very early sweet red peppers which hail from Bulgaria, bought from Real Seeds), two sweet 'Doux tres long des Landes' (long, thin, sweet red peppers recommended from Mr Fothergill's 'Vegetable Explorer' range), four 'Dedo de Mocha Sweet Aji' (rare smoky-flavoured variety from Real Seeds) and five 'King of the North' (early green peppers, also from Real Seeds). Now I just have to figure out where I'm going to plant them all!

Billions and Billions of Bluebells!

Did everyone have a lovely Easter Sunday? After a rather untraditional Spanish tapas lunch, we headed to Ashridge Park on the edge of Hertfordshire and spent hours wandering round the ancient woods. And what a treat - the bluebells are in flower!

It was magical! I've never seen so many! In this part of the woods there are lots of narrow winding paths so you can really get in and walk amongst the flowers.

 

The sight drew the crowds too - crazed children bounded about, parents posed their kids for idyllic family photos, photographers everywhere struggled not to get each other in shot...

 

And of course, the cover of woodland was the perfect place to avoid the hot sun on a day like today!

Happy Easter, all. Hope everyone's having a fab long weekend!