Officially Out-Pestoed

I'm so pleased when someone actually tries one of my recipes, and then slightly put-out when they do it soo much better than me.

After the wild garlic pesto post, I received this photo from my friend and wild garlic fan, Emily. Emily makes the best lime and mascarpone ice cream this side of the caribbean, so I should have known her attempts at pesto would make mine look utilitarian. This is the sort of pesto jar you would sell/give/receive with pride, and a warm glow of joy.

I made a double batch of said utilitarian pesto last night (5 whole smallish jars, 300g cashews) and have a few extra tips on dealing with larger quantities. 

Fill the sink with cold water and swish the leaves around in that to wash them, before transferring in small amounts to a colander, checking for stray flower buds and beasties along the way. Lay the washed leaves out on a clean tea towel, and roll it up to dry them a bit before processing. Don't overfill the processor as the bottom leaves turn to mush and the top ones don't move. The introduction of the cashews helps to break the leaves down, but the oil really gets things going. I take the drizzle nozzle off the oil and glug it in. There's not enough time for drizzling before it's over mushed, and we're not making mayonnaise.

Wild Garlic - The Pesto Rub

Roast butterflied leg of lamb with wild garlic, served with boulangere potatoes. This recipe is courtesy of husband Mark, and I personally feel it is worthy of the Waitrose app., being both easy and delicious. Move aside Heston, you have a bald rival!

Mark used a Waitrose pre-butterflied leg of lamb which was part of the 3 for £10 range. I think it weighed around 400g. On that note, have you tried the Boston Butt? Please do. I think a post about that will have to follow.

Turn the oven up to gas mark 4, then prepare the potatoes. Mark can't remember how many he used, but you want enough for four (two with leftovers, as they're even better the next day.) They need to be peeled and thinly sliced. Do the same with two shallots. Smear a small roasting tin with butter, and cover the bottom with a layer of potato slices. Add a layer of shallots and season. Repeat until all veg are used and the tin is at least half full. Pour over approx. one pint of hot vegetable stock (the veg need to be covered.) Cook in the preheated oven for one hour before you add the meat. The potatoes need to absorb most of the liquid and they take a while to break down at this temperature. 

In a bowl mix 3-4 tablespoons of your home made wild garlic pesto with 3 biggish sprigs of finely chopped fresh rosemary, Maldon salt, black pepper and a dash of olive oil. It needs to be paste-like. Mark used a pestle and mortar which was unnecessary.

Smear the top and sides of your lamb with the paste and leave it to marinade at room temperature while the potatoes get their first hour in the oven. Set the meat on a roasting rack and position the rack on top of the potato tin. That way, any juices will spill onto the tatties. Roast in the oven for one hour.

We served the meat by cutting it down the middle and dividing it between two plates. You could do some fancy slicing I suppose. 
This somehow looks like the most British dinner you could eat! A variation/addition could be adding breadcrumbs to the paste. Then you could call it a herb crust, which sounds very posh.

Wild Garlic Pesto

A lot of research has been carried out by me this last week, to establish the best nut to go with wild garlic in a pesto. Pasta and pesto have been consumed every night for this important research, and I am happy to say the votes are in (mine and Mark's.) The best nut for wild garlic pesto is the cashew. Not a roasted and salted one of course, although there could be some application for that, but unadulterated raw ones. And, if you happen to know a shop where you can buy them cheaper broken, all the better.

To make the pesto, first of all wash a couple of jam jars and pop them in a low oven to sterilise. Then put a load of washed wild garlic leaves into the Magimix (or equivalent.) Pulse them briefly (2 secs. max.) so they're not taking up all the room. Throw in a couple of handfuls of cashew nuts, a good pinch of Maldon salt and a grind of black pepper. With the top funnel removed, turn on the motor and pour in some extra virgin olive oil. Don't whizz the mixture for too long as the garlic breaks down very quickly. You still want a bit of bite. 

This is really good stirred into al dente pasta and garden peas. Not forgetting a generous grating of parmesan, and an extra splash of olive oil.

Wild Garlic - Get It While You Can

Every year I get in a tizz about wild garlic. I'm never sure which plant it is and when it should be picked, and which is the best bit, etc. I'm so scared I'll get it wrong, in case I end up eating the leaf equivalent of the Death Cap mushroom, I leave the whole business too late. This year I was determined to bring home the bacon. 

Because spring has sprung so late this year, my indecision period is shorter than ever, but I think that's helped. What I hadn't worked out in previous years, is that wild garlic changes when it flowers. Before the flowers it has broad dark green leaves. What seems to happen when it flowers, is that the dark green leaves die back and the lighter narrower leaf that the flower's been growing in separates from the flower and becomes a leaf. This is my understanding of proceedings, but would be grateful for any clarification. Here are my evidential pics. 

What I have read is to pick the garlic before it flowers. And what I've discovered is, to use the leaves on the day of picking. More of that to follow.

Dark leaves before the flowers

Starting to Flower

 Fully Flowered

Nettle Season - Risotto

The season for nettle picking has begun. While the shoots are young and tender, and still a yellowy green, the taste is sweet and earthy. As they age, the leaves and stalks turn a darker more blue green, and the stalks get stringy.

I found a good patch of nettles behind the coach house, and with gardening gloves on, picked a carrier bag full.

With my rich pickings a risotto was on the cards. Keeping my washing up gloves on throughout the process, I separated the leaves from the main stalks, and then washed and chopped the leaves and finer stalks. This little lot weighed in at around 125g.

In a heavy bottomed pan I fried 2 sticks of celery and 2 leeks, all finely chopped.

I added the chopped nettles and 200g risotto rice, and stirring well, poured in one pint of hot vegetable stock. Once the risotto reached the boil I put the lid on and stuck it in the Rayburn for 20 minutes at gas mark one. Easy Rayburn risotto. The results were delicious.

The New Rhubarb

Over the past week or so, the rhubarb has come on leaps and bounds. In fact all the plants now seem to be making up for lost time. I was going to wait a few more days before picking my first crop, but decided I would be giving the smaller shoots a chance by cutting some of the (not much) bigger ones, mainly by removing their leaf canopy. So it was a gesture of goodwill really.

I picked just under 600g once the leaves were removed, and chopped them into approx. 1cm lengths. They went into a heavy based pan on the simmering plate, stirred with 200g of sugar, (150g cinnamon sugar and 50g soft brown sugar,) and cooked for around 20 minutes with the lid on, stirring occasionally. 

After a few stirrings, the fruit breaks down and produces a lovely pulpy jam. This proportion of sugar to fruit works better for eating 'as is' than 50:50 (which I used last year.) It gives the perfect balance of sweetness and acidity, and the cinnamon sugar adds an element of toffee apples. Highly recommended. I will mainly be eating this with Greek yogurt or vanilla ice cream, or straight out of the pan.

Edible Garden - The Seedlings

With the vegetable seeds in the propagators, our indoor south-facing windowsills have turned into a makeshift greenhouse. I've done two rounds of planting, first in the propagators, and then out into small pots. The next batch of seeds are in the propagators, but no signs of life yet. (Just a rogue slug next to Treacle's dinner bowl, yuck! Luckily our four legged hoover didn't spot it.) 

For this batch of seeds I used our own compost which seems to be full of egg shells and tea bags, so this may have an effect on propagation levels. I also ran out of Vermiculite (which I used in equal measure to the compost in the previous batch.) So this batch could be seen as an experiment, in a philosophical moment.

So Far So Good With The Tomato Plants.

 Tomatoes, Carrots, Turnips, Beetroot, Celeriac and Dwarf Beans.

Lettuces and Runner Beans.

Edible Garden - Progress

The edible garden is getting somewhere. While I was away on a sneaky weekend in London, my very kind husband took it upon himself to sure up the borders of the vegetable beds. They're not all finished but wow, what a difference! He also weeded the majority of the beds. No easy task. 

The next stage is to cover the 'paths' in old carpet, and a layer of gravel from the front garden. The only difficulty with this plan is that the gravel in question is still on the ground in the front garden, encased in a few years worth of mud. 

Edible Garden - The Beginning

This year I am determined to have an edible garden. We have the vegetable patches already allocated against the south west facing wall, and I have started the seeds off indoors. Here are some 'before' pictures. The rhubarb is already planted (from previous years) and is starting to come up. The espalier trees have nothing to show as yet. The lovage was donated by our kind next door neighbour, and the raspberry and blackcurrant canes have just been planted this month. Much weeding and bed reinforcements are on the agenda before the plants go in. Mainly I can't wait to get my new plant identifying sticks in the ground (check out the lovage!)

Snowy March

I don't normally approve of too much chat about the weather, but we have had snow every week this month and it's getting a bit ridiculous. However, it is rather pretty, so here are a few garden shots.
In the few days of lovely sunshine a couple of weeks ago, I went mad online and ordered a load of vegetable seeds and fruit canes to start our edible garden off in earnest. Suffice to say, everything's still in its packaging waiting for Spring.

Marmalade Cake

Of course I ended up making the aforementioned marmalade cake. It would have been rude not to, especially as we had friends coming over. In retrospect, after I'd used nearly a full 'gift' jar on the cake, I wished I'd just used some shop bought. In fact, the perfect one would have been the Bon Mamon Tangerine marmalade, as that has tiny pieces. Mine created large lumps in the cake, breaking up the flow of the sponge and mascarpone buttercream filling/icing. However, when I opened our half finished jar of tangerine marmalade a few days later, it smelt alcoholic, so it was probably safer that I hadn't thought of that at the time. With orange juice poured over the warm sponge before icing and zest grated over the finished article, the cake had the perfect zingy sweet balance, and looked lovely.

The only annoyance was 5 days later when I opened the tin in the pantry, and the remaining quarter cake had turned a musty shade of blue. I knew I should have been on a minimum of 2 pieces a day. Oh how I cried over my abstention.

Cocktail Of The Month - The Percy Pig

Although inspired by the farmyard sweet array of the Marks & Spencer's food hall, the Percy Pig cocktail is definitely for adults only. It was created a couple of years ago, during a birthday visit from our in-laws, who had never tasted an M&S Percy Pig (or pal.) Mark decided this was too large a gap in their culinary experience, and rushed out to M&S to rectify things. As day turned to night, he set about turning this 'sweet' experience into an alcoholic one. The Percy Pig cocktail tastes exactly like its sweet counterparts, but in liquid form. 

This weekend we recreated the Percy Pig cocktail for a new audience. The cocktail requires a packet of both Percy Pig faces and Percy Pig Phizzy Pig Tails. The challenge is to make as many cocktails as possible before you've separately devoured the packets of sweets. 

The Recipe
1 oz golden rum (preferably Cockspur)
1 oz vodka
1/2 oz freshly squeezed pomegranate juice
1/4 oz freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 oz grenadine
1/4 oz Roses lime cordial

Shake all ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker.

Take one sweet from each packet, and carefully slice a line through Percy's right cheek, fitting him over the rim of a chilled martini glass. Drape the pig tail over the other side of the glass and pour in the contents of the shaker to create the body. You know Percy would approve.

Marmalade Sunday

Last Sunday was Marmalade Sunday. Due to the short Seville orange season, this day tends to fall near 'Black Monday', statistically the most depressing day of the year. Marmalade Sunday offers a ray of tangy orange sunshine on your toast, come Black Monday morning. Making it more of a murky brown Monday.
This Marmalade Sunday should, by all Rayburn intents and purposes, have started on the Saturday. The Rayburn enables you to do the long slow cooking of the oranges overnight on the oven's idling setting. Making it more economical and less labour intensive. I however, only had the urge for making marmalade the following day, and couldn't wait another 12 hours.

I used the recipe from the Waitrose 'Winter Harvest 2013' booklet. A booklet I seem to have devoured since new year. (The Chocolate Orange Brownies are themselves a cure for winter SAD, but probably break every new year's resolution you've set.) 
This recipe has you squeeze the juice of 1kg oranges and 1 lemon into 2 litres of cold water, and put all the messy bits, i.e. the pith and pips of the oranges, in a muslin bag. This hangs in the liquid for the 2 hours while it simmers. 

The remaining skins are sliced separately and added directly to the liquid at the same time.

The muslin bag is removed after the simmering stage, and 2kg of preserving sugar is added. Turn the heat up as high as possible and boil for around half an hour. (This needs to be done 30 mins before the end of the simmering stage with a Rayburn.) The recipe says 15 mins, but no way. I kept a saucer in the fridge at this stage, and got it out to test the liquid for set-ness. Drop a small amount of liquid onto the chilled saucer and wait a few seconds. Push the liquid, and if it wrinkles, it's set. Start testing after 15 mins to get your eye in, and you get to taste the unset bits before time. 
This recipe enabled me, for the first time, to turn the Rayburn up to its highest setting. The gas mark equivalent of 10. The amplifier equivalent of 11. I wasn't sure if the whole thing would take off. But, it gave the most even rolling boil I've ever seen. And always keen to find a reason to extol the virtues of the Rayburn, this was definitely a time for smug pleasure.

This time I did sterilise the jam jars. I washed them in hot soapy water and left them in the bottom oven of the Rayburn for the full marmalade preparation and making time. Probably 3 hours. They didn't need to be there that long, but they did all give a satisfying 'pop' when the lids contracted as they cooled after filling.

This quantity made 12 jars, but I did use quite a few smallish jars (better if you want to give some and keep some!) My next plan is a marmalade cake. I think this may be the new rhubarb!