Wild Garlic Pesto for 70

I have just returned from a camp with 78 people of all ages from 7 months to 70 years. The camp was in a beautiful oak wood with bluebells and large patches of wild garlic.

I carefully picked a large carrier bag full of leaves and flowers, taking care to pick clean and undamaged leaves, taking only a few from each plant.

I washed everything in clean water with six tablespoons of salt, leaving it to soak for 15 minutes, I was told this was Kosher Washing, but it seems that that involves soap.

I was told by Julie Gritten that my plan to use stalks and flowers in the pesto was a bad one, as they are very fibrous, she was right.

We set to separating the leaves from stalks and flowers, much thanks to Morgan who carried on even when it started to rain.

We rough chopped the leaves.

Put the stalks and flowers to one side.

The camp caterer had a Zyliss Pull vegetable chopper with insanely sharp blades.

A succession of children pulled the cord while I held the lid on with oil covered hands.

After the first chop we added sunflower oil (olive oil is sour when emulsified), a tablespoon of salt, 300 grams of toasted sliced almonds, juice of one lemon, a little ground pepper, and whizzed it again.

Served with a flower decoration.

The stalks were cooked separately, they were very stringy and should have been cut into 1 inch lengths.

On the last day I picked a smaller bunch, from a ride where they were at the limit of their range, and brought it home.

Cleaning and separating leaves from stalks is still hard work, even in a kitchen.

My beloved Coffret was not really up to the task. I added four tablespoons of powdered almonds.

Served with fresh pasta, steak and mushrooms.

I kept the stalks and flowers in the fridge overnight and used a soup blender to completely pulverise them with rapeseed oil, salt, lemon and walnuts.

The result was three jars of white pesto paste. I gave two away as it needs to be eaten fresh. I kept a small number of bulbs to plant in the garden.

We even microwaved a few stems.

Whilst there was a lot of preparation work the result was really good, both on camp with almonds and at home with walnuts.

It was lovely to prepare such good food from scratch for so many people.

Fallow Venison Rump

A 0.39kg rump of wild Chiltern fallow from Sandy Lane Farm.

This was a pyrex and microwave triumph.

In largst pyrex season with salt (half teaspoon), pepper, sage, rosemary and marjoram, (forgot thyme), two crushed cloves of garlic and three tablespoons of virgin olive oil, juice of half a lemon. Marinated for an hour. Meat already defrosted and at room temperature.

Boiled nice potatoes, decanted to pyrex and added butter.

Microwaved chestnut mushrooms with butter.

Sear joint in hot sunflower oil.

Next time put pyrex into oven at this point.

Put seared joint into pyrex, with lid on, at 200°C for 20 minutes.

Microwaved chopped carrots with butter.

Microwaved half a conical cabbage, cur longitudinally into three sixths.

Microwaved sweet stemmed broccoli with butter.

Ensure everything is hot by reheating as necessary.

Easter Half Shoulder of Lamb

Like last year we went to Sandy Lane Farm, sadly I mismanaged my phone and did not photgraph the Oxford Sandy and Black young pigs with white forelocks, or the lambs in the back barn, though I thought I had.

Flora is in France with Varsity and Ellie is recovering from Caving Camp so we have invited Hannah and Becca over.

1.175kg

Marinade

Without really thinking about it I added two tablespoons of my own chili oil, this is pretty string and, pretty much a mistake, so I was thinking of sacrificial marinade: rub on and then wipe off.

1. Marjoram, thyme, chives, rosemary, bay
2. Half a teaspoon garlic powder
3. Half a teaspoon of paprika
4. Three cloves of garlic

Ruth felt this was going far too far towards the middle east and away from the simple English lamb she envisaged. After two hours the marinade should have worked, so I wiped it off.

Flash cook

The idea is to cook the meat hard for 20 minutes, then move to a new pot and roast more slowly on the vegetables. Due to the oven being in use, and an idea that it might be more economical and efffectie I decided to roast hard in a cast iron pot on the inducton hob.

Induction pot roast and oven pot roast are pretty much identical: the pot gets hot and the meat is cooked in steam. Where it differs is that itis easy to brown off the top in an oven by removing the pot lid. In both methods you have to be careful of the bottom of the pan, in this case I used bay leaves and lemon slices to keep the meat out of contact with the pan. Later I added the clean potato peelings, as it always feels like a waste to throw them away.

Prepared the pumpkin.

Removed potato and cleaned pot

Put in onion and a fresh bouquet garnis at 4:00pm.

Removed meat and made gravy with the caramelised onions.

Served with spring greens, carrots, roast potatoes and parsnips.

The flavour was very good.

Baked Field Mushroom and Goat's Cheese

A return to an old favourite.

Using only half a cheese per mushroom works well.

Two mushrooms per person is too much.

I added half a cup of white wine, which went well.

I used shallots not red onions, no discernable difference.

Roast Brisket with Redcurrant Juice

Brisket is a difficult meal for July, so this was lightened with redcurrrant juice and roasted tomatoes.

To celebrate Flora's term ending I cooked a rolled brisket from Tom's farm.

Largely following the River Cottage recipe I made it less autumnal by adding half a pint of juice from our redcurrants and two tablespoons of (a third of a jar) of Sainsbury's slow roasted tomatoes.

Ingredients

• Rolled brisket 1.5kg
• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Onions
• Celery
• Garlic (ours)
• Dried thyme, salt, pepper, fresh bay, fresh thyme, marjoram
• 1 teaspoon of English mustard
• A cup full of red wine
• Half a pint of redcurrant juice

Flat roast for 30 minutes at 220°

Remove from oven, allow to cool for about 10 minutes, removing fat that has run out

Stab and add garlic, also to both ends of the roll

Wrap and roast in a new pan slowly for two hours at 150°

Prepare vegetables, I tend to microwave in order of cooking time and add to new pan.

Roast the vegetables on high as you prepare and add them in order, tomaties last.

Unwrap the joint, remove any additional fat that has drained out.

Add joint ontop of vegetables (on a bed of the herbs) and poor over the redcurrant juice, any non-fat juices saved, mustard, red wine (mix separately before pouring).

Cook hard, possibly covered, for 20 minutes.

Serve with greens and red wine.

Largely successful, with a fantastic flavour, but a bit dry and chewy. Maybe cook in foild for another hour, or casserole after roasting.

Pan fried bream with Mediterranean tomatoes and cold courgette salad

Ingredients

Hot

• Two headed and scaled sea bream
• 16 black olives
• 12 cherry tomatoes
• One red onion
• A lemon
• Sunflower oil
• Thyme
• Oregano

Cold

• One medium courgette
• Half a kohlrabi
• A cup of frozen petits pois
• Three spring onions
• Mint
• A clove of garlic

The bream had been bought from the fishmonger at Aberdovey, and kept frozen since then.

Fillet the fish and marinade for thirty minutes in juice of the lemon with olive oil, half the herbs and black pepper.

Cut courgette longitudinally and use a peeler to shave courgette into strips.

Chop kohlrabi into one centimeter cubes.

Add the petits pois still frozen

Make a dressing from olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a teaspoon of wine vinegar, the mint and garlic finely chopped.

I added spring onions, but would not do so again.

Chop red onion and cut tomatoes and start to fry in olive oil, then add black olives and some of their brine.

Fry the fish hard in hot sunflower oil.

Steak from Alders

Rump steak from Alders Oxoford. Served with chips, mushrooms, tomato, peas and a half a fried lettuce.

Easter Shoulder of Lamb

We got the last shoulder of lamb from Sandy Lane Farm, where they had piglets!

Starting a little late I put the swede on to boil, and started to research. I have cooked lamb of many times, this Leg of Lamb recipe is about right. It references Delia and Ruth found this BBC Good FoodLeg of Lamb

We have rosemary,some thyme, mint, lots of chives in the garden.

A marinade of garlic, ginger, olive oil and black pepper.

In Colliore in August 2022 I made salt,

one litre of sea salt yields quite a lot of salt, I have been keeping it for a special occasion.

Roased with parsnips and carrot

Which all turned out well

and was followed by Ruth's pannacotta topped with raspberries.

Fun with Buckwheat Pancakes

Not being a fan of waste I was keen to try and use a bag of four yer old buckwheat form Doves Farm.

The classic formulation for a nrmal English pancake is:

1. 100g flour
2. 2 eggs
3. 300ml milk
4. 1 table spoon vegetable oil

As I was scared that the flour might taste rancid even if it smelled OK I did not want to waste two eggs, so only used one, but as it turned out two would have been fine and might have made the pancakes stiffer.

Instead of milk I used clotted cream and water as the cream needed eating.

The first three seemed a little bland so I added a third of a teaspoon of salt.

All fine, but now lets play, adding a little water when needed adding the following between batches of three cakes.

A teaspoon of Colemans English Mustard flour, nice.

A teaspoon of ground garlic powder - strong but fine

A teaspoon full of ground pimento - slightly too dominant for me

A squirt of tomato ketchup - not really noticable

Two tablespoons of chili vinegar - nice

I recommend this playful bit of cooking!

Korma Cashews and Chicken Korma, Saag Aloo, Mushroom rice

Ingredients

• Chicken drum sticks and thighs
• 400g cashew nuts
• Coconut oil
• Ground almonds
• Flaked almonds
• Garlic powder
• English mustard powder
• Turmeric
• Frozen chopped ginger
• 6 crushed cardamons
• A teasoon of ground black pepper
• Two teaspoons of mild Madras curry powder
• Two teaspoons of English mustard
• 10 shallots

One sauce for two dishes

The idea is that the sauce will suit both a cashew disk and chicken leg dish. I currently think this is a bit ambitiout and I should have gone with chicken breast.

For those that think English mustard is unknown in Indian cuisine, my research seems to say that it is normally ground from seed rather than stored as flour, but it it widely used.

Assemble the dry ingredients.

Add a 450g plain yoghurt, a splash of milk, stir into a runny mix.

Add half of the mix to 600g cashew kernels, stir, add milk if too dry. Microwave for three minutes.

Fry 10 finely chopped shallots

Add shallots to cachews and stir in. Microwave for two minutes.

Chicken Korma

Microwave the chicken for 5 minutes, allow to cool, keeping jouices, skin and debone.

Add shallots and meat back to juices and add sauce. Microwave for three minutes.

Saag Aloo

• Bag of fresh spinach
Four potatoes
• Ginger
• Turmeric
• Powdered mustard
• Finely chopped garlic
• One red chilli
• Two small shallots

Fry shallots, ginger, chillie, garlic

Peel potaoes and cube hem

Microwave the potatoes for 4 minutes with some oil

Add turmeric and mustard to potatoes.

Add cooked potatoes to seasoned oil and fry off the water.

Wash sinach and add to pan, fry gently until wilted.

Mushroom and Spring Onion Rice

• Punnet of brown mushrooms
• Bunch of Spring Onions
• 2 cups of rice
• Bouillion powder

Finely chop the mushrooms and spring onions.

Fry in a little oil.

Wash rice and add to frying pan, fry until water absorbed.

Add four teaspoons of boullion and four cups of water. Bring to boil. Simer until water absorbed.

Serve with popadoms.