Two Lovely Chestnut Recipes

I promised I'd cook more with our native chestnuts this year while they're in season, and in the last week I've made not just one, but two spectacular chestnut dishes.

First up, we enjoyed this beef and chestnut stew as a welcome-home dinner for my parents last week when they returned from their narrowboat for the winter, with roast potatoes, parsnips and sprouts. I confess I read a few chestnut/meat stew recipes and decided it was fair play just to use my signature beef-stew-and-dumplings recipe, which always goes down a storm, and simply throw in chestnuts too - they're a lovely seasonal addition that add rich, earthy nuttiness and succulence. It's great hearty winter food, and a nice alternative to a Sunday roast. The dumplings use oil instead of the traditional suet and are really tasty!

Beef, Guinness and Chestnut Stew with Dumplings
(serves 6)

• Dice 600g or so beef and sear in hot oil in small batches in an ovenproof pan until sealed and browning on all sides. (I usually use quite a high quality lean steak, but you can use cheaper stewing beef and simmer it for longer if you prefer.)
• Remove beef from the pan and throw in 6-8 rashers chopped bacon and a handful of whole, peeled shallots. When the bacon's cooked, add the beef back in and stir in 3 tbsps plain flour.
• Add a bottle and a half of Original Guinness or other stout. That's... let's see... 750ml. You can sip the rest ; )
• Add a generous sprinkle of mixed herbs, half a teaspoon of mustard powder, a beef stock cube and some white pepper. Stir and simmer a few minutes.
• Add two or three large carrots and a small swede, diced. Add around 200g roasted chestnuts (optional).
• Now cover and let that simmer gently for half an hour or so - no need to be precise - while you prep veggies and make the dumplings...
• In a bowl, mix 250g plain flour, 1 tsp salt and 2 tsps baking powder. (You can also add a pinch of dried thyme or other herb if you like.)
• Gradually add 150ml milk and 2 tbsps olive or rapeseed oil, bringing the dough together with a fork. You might not quite need all of the milk - stop when the dough comes together (if you add too much your dough will be too sticky to manage and you'll end up with crazy-shaped dumplings like mine above - whoops!) Knead briefly, roll into walnut-sized balls, and arrange on top of your stew.
• Put the lid back on the stew and place in an oven at 180C for 35-40 minutes. Remove the lid for the last ten minutes of cooking, to let the tops of the dumplings turn golden-brown.
• Serve with your choice of winter veggies. Yum!

Chestnut Cookies

These are a delicious and wonderfully Christmassy treat, dusted with icing sugar on the outside, moist and buttery in the middle, with a hint of spice. They're perfect with tea - or a tot of something stronger - and certain to please at parties, I reckon.

I used Smitten Kitchen's recipe here so I won't reproduce it, but I will heartily recommend it! The cookies needed a slighter cooler temperature in my oven - I had better results at 200C for 14 minutes. I also experimented (can't help myself) by taking half the dough and adding 2 tbsps cocoa powder and 2 tbsps brandy, and they were really good too (probably even better with rum - and best served cold, while the plain ones are awesome served warm), but you know, I don't think this recipe can really be improved upon - the flavour of the chestnuts shines through and really doesn't need any more help than the touch of cinnamon and nutmeg provided. Delicious.

Winter Seedings and Buried Treasure!

I feel all springy - what a strange time of year to be bringing seedlings into the world. The seeds I've been sowing last week and the week before are all popping up into the autumn sunshine.

Nero di Toscana kale:

Claytonia:

And radishes:

The turnips on the allotment are all coming up fast too, and will need thinning soon. I just hope I wasn't too late and these all put some good growth on before the temperatures drop too low.

Yesterday we planted out our autumn onions (Radar), shallots (Yellow Moon) and garlic (Provence Wight) too. I bought this collection from Marshalls and was very pleased - they came quickly and seem to be very healthy and high quality (and they were one of the few places that hadn't already sold out - phew!) After years of weak and tiny onions, I finally also bought some special onion feed to try to boost their growth. We simply scattered it on the soil and raked it in before planting. Fingers crossed we'll get a bigger harvest and it'll strengthen them somewhat against the white rot and snails that always kill a few!

And look what we dug up while we were preparing the soil for our alliums. I wonder what it was for... I can't believe after nearly six years on this plot we're still finding buried treasure!

Pickling

I've had another tentative go at pickling this year; first, sliced beetroots from the allotment, and then some of the more diminutive specimens from my onion and shallot harvests.

Pickling beetroot is really easy - just cook the beets in their skins, peel, and cover with vinegar. It's important not to cut or pierce the beets in any way before cooking - cut the stalks to a couple of centimetres and wash them gently, then boil or roast until just soft. (I boiled mine, but I think I'll roast them next time as a lot of colour and aroma seemed to escape into the water even with their skins intact.) Allow them to cool enough to handle comfortably, then rub the soft skins away. Have plenty of paper towel at hand - this is a messy job! Slice the beetroots (or you could leave them whole if they're small) and pack into sterilised jars. Bring the vinegar to the boil with a few spoonfuls of sugar and some pickling spices (mustard seeds, allspice berries, peppercorns, mace, coriander, cloves, etc. to taste) and then pour into the jars, to cover the beets, and seal. I won't share my recipe here because I'm not quite happy with it - less spice, more sugar next time, for me. But I'm enjoying my beetroots all the same, usually in sandwiches with ham, mayo and lettuce. Yum!

Pickling onions and shallots takes a bit longer - they must be marinated in a handful or three of sea salt (or a strong salt solution) overnight first. They'll smell just like pickled onions after marinating! Then they are packed into sterilised jars and covered with vinegar in just the same way. Again, these are a bit punchy for my taste, and I'll use more sugar next time, but Dad loves them so they're still going to good use!

I'm rather sad I didn't get to pickle some courgettes too - I really enjoyed these last year - but the courgettes haven't been up to much this year and the usual glut never happened. Ah well, maybe I can get some more beetroot chutney made with the winter crop soon...

Summer Harvests

We've harvested our onions recently, and they're spread out to dry at home. A disappointing result, as usual, despite the fact I bought a 'giant' variety this year! There's definitely something lacking in our soil, despite the generous dressing of manure we gave it in the spring; next year I'll have to invest in some onion fertiliser.

I was also surprised that several onions suffered white rot as usual, despite the Armillatox fiasco... (On which note, I'm pleased to report that there is indeed no trace of the Armillatox in the soil now, and no smell or taste of it in the onions! However, I won't be bothering again since it doesn't stop the problem...) Perhaps I'm wrong and it's not white rot but just a few weak plants going bad, but they do seem to have all the right signs; yellowed leaves, white mould underneath, and weak or rotten roots.

Our shallots (on the right above) and garlic are harvested now too - it's a pretty good garlic crop, and there are more to come, although a few bulbs seem to have disappeared!

We've dug up our first few potatoes, and boy, was I surprised! I was pretty concerned about them because when we returned from our holiday the foliage had all died down and I hadn't seen a single flower! I guess I just wasn't paying attention...

These are Kestrel - a 'second early' variety that's particularly good for roasting, baking and mashing. They've got some pretty bad scab in places, but it's only cosmetic. We scattered some potato fertiliser from the Organic Garden Catalogue over the bed before planting and it looks like it did its job! These babies weigh up to 360g each!

Fat hen swallowed our French bean bed while we were away, but as we weeded we found a great crop of beans hiding in the jungle. We also found a surprise late handful of broad beans when we cleared the plants - I thought they were finished ages ago! I pureed them with some lemon juice and a spoonful of fat hen pesto, spread them on toast and topped them with cheese for lunch one day. Mmmmmmm.

And we're now harvesting our runner beans. The beans are setting well in this damp weather and there are hundreds of them! But somehow I don't think we'll be winning any shows with these crazy shapes...

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!

Onions and... Garlic!

This is our onion and shallot harvest. Well, most of it - there were a few onions still putting some effort in, which we thought we'd leave in the ground a bit longer. We lost a fair few to white rot, and a lot of them are still quite small, but well, we've had worse.

And the really good news is... we've actually managed to produce some garlic this year too!

All right, they could be bigger, but I think they did quite well considering the forest of weeds that has swamped them for most of the summer. And they smell sooooo gooood. When are you supposed to harvest garlic? I forget. There are plenty more where these came from!