Recipes
Each month we add a new seasonal recipe using the ingredients we produce on the farm.
Noemi's hot apple cake
This apple cake is a real favourite on our smallholder courses; when we've been getting chilled outside, coming into the kitchen to the scent of cinnamon, caramelising demarara and hot apples warms the heart as well as the stomach.
6oz self raising flour
1/2 level teaspoon of baking powder
3oz caster sugar
1 duck egg (a hen egg would do, I suppose....)
1/4 pint of milk
1 1/2 oz butter
1lb dessert apples or mix of baking and dessert
4oz demarara sugar with 1 or more teaspoons of cinnamon
Butter a small baking tin (approx 10 x 6 x 2 inches, or 25 x 15 x 5cm). Rub the butter into the flour and baking bowder as if you were making a crumble topping. Add the caster sugar, egg and milk and beat to a thick batter. Pour into the baking tin. Peel, core and slice the apples, scattering them on top of the batter. Sprinkle generously with the demarara and cinnamon mix. Bake in a hot oven for 35-40 minutes. Use a clean skewer to test that the batter is cooked and comes out clean from the centre of the cake. Serve hot with thick cream. You can make this the day before and reheat in the oven for 10 minutes. The quantities double or treble easily (I make a triple quantity and cook in a big roasting tin lined with parchment).
Kate's chutneyThis is my very favourite chutney, only to be outdone by my tomato and chilli relish, and is the best thing to go with strong hard cheeses, or to be stirred into your barbeque sauce to give a sleek gloss to Berkshire pork spare ribs. You have to make it in Victoria plum season, so your apples will be rather underripe (if you use English ones), but that never seems to matter. Apart from the sugar, dates and ginger, all the other ingredients we produce on the farm.
2lbs Victoria plums, stoned and chopped into 4
1lb tomatoes, chopped
1lb stoned dates, chopped
8oz chopped onions
1lb chopped apples
1lb chopped carrots
tbsp salt
1lb moist dark brown sugar
tsp ground ginger
1.25 pints malt vinegar
Boil everything except the sugar and the ginger for an hour to an hour and a half, until soft - don't let it stick on the base so use a heavy bottomed pan and stir from time to time. Add the sugar and ginger and boil for a further hour. Then put in hot jars and seal. It keeps, literally, for years, and best after 12 months, but you can dip in after 6 months if you must! And why Kate? It's a family heirloom recipe.
Cheesy Chard
I'm not a fan of spinach but I love the central ribs of chard leaves. The leaves are very spinachy and are cooked exactly the same way as spinach - rinsed and then steamed in the droplets of water left clinging to the leaves for a few minutes. But back to the ribs. I cut them into chunks, steam or boil them until the tip of a sharp knife sinks in easily, then drain. I make a bechamel sauce with butter, flour and milk, and a great gob of grainy mustard. Grate a fat wedge of strong hard cheese - the local aged Devon Oke is good, or Quicke's hard goat cheese. Stir half into the bechamel, then put the chard into an oven-proof dish, pour over the bechamel, season, scatter over the remaining cheese and put in an oven for 15 mins or so til the cheese starts to go cripsy. Delish.
Raspberry vinegar
This is my favourite salad dressing ingredient for summer and makes a great gift for salad loving friends when put in a pretty bottle.
- Allow 1 pint of white malt vinegar, white wine vinegar or cider vinegar to each pound of raspberries
- Put the fruit in a glass bowl. Add the vinegar to the fruit, and leave for 3-5 days stirring occasionally
- Strain off the liquid, discard fruit and measure the quantity of liquid. Add 6-8oz white sugar per pint to the vinegar
- Boil together for 10 minutes and bottle. You can put a few fresh raspberries in the bottle if you fancy.
Raspberry and blackberry fool
This is a seriously posh pud and perfect for when you feel the need for indulgence. If you’ve wandered around hedgerows, the garden, or your local pick your own farm gathering berries, at least you’ve built up a guilt free appetite. Many fool recipes don’t cook the berries at all, but I think it gives a more intense flavour and colour. Serves 10 minimum.
1lb of fresh blackberries
1lb of fresh raspberries
2 pints of double cream (not the extra thick kind, as it has to be whippable)
4-8 oz of caster sugar (depending on sweetness of berries and tooth)
Keep back a handful of whole berries for decoration
Wash the blackberries and drain. Put in a pan with 4 oz of sugar and heat gently so that the berries release their juice (5 mins max). Then sieve, pushing through the berries to get as much flesh and juice as possible. Discard the stuff in the sieve; it’s the strained glory you want, so leave that to cool. Stick the raspberries in a liquidizer/processor to puree. Taste the berry mixtures. If they are sweet enough you don’t need any more sugar, if not, add some caster sugar to the cream, mid whip. Whip the cream to soft peaks and add in the blackberry mix, and whip more so things aren't sloppy. Fold in the raspberry puree. Spoon into individual glasses or a huge glass bowl and chill for at least an hour, longer if possible to firm up. To serve, decorate with the whole berries, and if you have it, a sprig of fresh mint. This is an incredibly rich pud and you can serve in ramekin sized portions and still make everyone very happy. It's an autumn dessert that tastes of summer.
Devilled lambs' kidneys
I just love kidneys. I know heaps of folk wrinkle their noses and refer to them as urine strainers and worse, but I'm with Mr. Leopold Bloom who "ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart; liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod's roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine." I served up a heap of these kidneys to the builders recently and the dish vanished, fast. I don't think they licked their plates but I can't be sure.
As many lambs kidneys as you can get hold of - at least 2 per person, preferably far more
large sliced onion
dessert spoon of grainy mustard
jellied stock from a recent roast or chicken stock
generous gob of schmaltz (that's dripping to you)
half a glass of sherry or marsala
Halve the kidneys lengthways and remove the fatty core (scissors work best for this). Sizzle the onions in the schmaltz until translucent and starting to brown. Chuck in the halved kidneys and keep on a highish heat so that they brown too. Flip them over to brown on the other side and then stir in the mustard - the yellow stuff won't do for this, you really want the grainy type. Glug in the alcohol and let that sizzle too, then add in the stock. Bring up to a simmer and then cover and cook for 15 minutes or so on a gentle heat so as to keep the kidneys tender, or put in the oven. If this is for breakfast or brunch, serve on split hot muffins, or if you want it as a starter, stir in a generous gloop of thick greek yoghourt and sprinkle with coriander (or if you must, parsley, but I really don't like the stuff) and serve on a small mound of carbs: rice, couscous, tagliatelle, or ciabatta.
Roast leg or shoulder of lamb
My favourite dish of all time – roasted fabulous meat is about as good as it gets. Simple. Take your whole leg or shoulder. Generously spoon French mustard over the joint, covering the skin, fat and flesh (use smooth Dijon or the more grainy mustards as you prefer). Then trickle over either runny honey or maple syrup. In your fave roasting pan sit the joint on a tablespoon of flour and stick it in the oven. For the first hour cover with foil, so the honey/syrup doesn’t burn. Then remove the foil and let it brown up. Depending on how pink you like your meat, roast in total for 1 ½ to 1 ¾ hours. Serve with baked spuds, carrots and parsnips par-boiled and then roasted round the meat, and red cabbage casserole (recipe below). Gravy is simple – put the joint on a hot dish for serving, pour off any excess fat from the roasting pan, and use the water saved from par-boiling the carrots and parsnips to pour over the meat juices and flour. Keep stirring over the heat til the right consistency. Season and you are done.
Red Cabbage Casserole
A deep purple hot veg dish, a perfect partner for fattier meats. This is amazing from frozen, so I make a buckets of it (3 large cabbages or armfuls of small ones), anoint it with alcohol and any Blenheim Orange or Bramley apples from the orchard, and freeze in portion sized bags to be reheated on demand. For a modest quantity that will still serve at least six people you need:
1lb of apples – dessert or culinary as you prefer
3 oz demarara sugar
Big handful of sultanas
Red wine dregs – a glass or three
Red wine or cider vinegar - a sploosh
Slice the red cabbage thinly and remove the hard core. Push the cabbage into a lidded casserole. Peel, core and chunk the apples and put with the cabbage. Scatter over the sugar and the sultanas. Pour in the wine and a couple of tablespoons of wine vinegar. Bung on the lid, bring to a simmer on the stove and then stick in the oven. A good two hours in a medium oven should do it. It tastes great fresh, but the flavour deepens the next day or from frozen. Serve it hot with lamb, pork, goose or duck (probably not all at the same time). Some folks add onion, but I think that's a mistake.
Succulent sweet roasted Berkshire gammon
One joint of gammon, around 2 kilos or 4.5 lbs
a handful of carrots chopped roughly into chunks
a couple of small onions, ditto
half a celery, ditto
a handful of fresh thyme
runny honey, maple syrup or muscovado sugar
your favourite mustard (Moutarde a L'Ancienne, Dijon etc)
Plonk your joint into a big pan or casserole, cover with water and bring to the boil. Drain off the water, cover again with fresh water, bring back to the boil, scoop off any scum and then add the carrots, onion and celery and the thyme. Either simmer on the stove or in the oven for an hour. Take out the joint and using a sharp knife slice off the skin but leave all the fat. Score the fat diagonally, and again in the opposite direction so you have diamond shapes popping out, making the joint look a bit like a hedgehog. Smear liberally with your fave mustard - it might be whole grain or smooth, just as you like. Then add your sweet ingredient of choice, so pour the maple syrup, spoon the honey or using your hands, clart the sugar onto the surface of the fat to make it cling. Put the joint into a roasting pan. Spoon all the veg out of the cooking juices and scatter around the joint. Add a few generous tablespoons of the liquor around the joint and then roast in a hottish oven for 45 minutes. This can be eaten hot, as it comes, with baked spuds and red cabbage casserole (above), with the cooking vegetables and a swirl of the pan juices, and is wonderful cold in sandwiches or with salad. Also great sliced and fried for breakfast with a duck egg.
Duck Egg Brioche
375g strong white flour
2.5 teaspoons dried yeast
2 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
6 duck eggs
200g softened unsalted butter
Mix the yeast with a couple of tablespoons of water and put to one side. Put the flour, sugar and salt into a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre of the flour mix and add the yeasty water, 5 of the duck eggs (beaten) and mix together to make a soft , damp dough. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes until it's nice and elastic. Wash and dry your mixing bowl and then grease it with a knob of melted butter (taken from the 200g). Put your dough in the bowl and turn it to make it nice and buttery all over. Cover the bowl with a clean tea cloth and leave to rise for an hour or more in a warm place to double in size. Using your knuckles, knock it back and leave to rest for another 10 minutes. By hand, squish small nuts of butter into the dough, until you've added 175g. Turn out again onto a floured surface and knead for a few minutes til the butter is evenly incorporated. Grease a pound loaf tin with butter. Divide the dough into ten balls and place them, 5x2 into the loaf tin. Cover the tin with your tea cloth and let the dough double in size once more; this should take half an hour. Heat the oven to 220c/425f/gas7. Brush the loaf with an egg yolk mixed with a dash of water and bake for 20-25 minutes. Turn out of the tin and leave to cool on a wire rack, or, like us, tear off balls of brioche and eat warm with raspberry jam.
