Nettle and Wild Garlic Soup

Nettle and Wild Garlic Soup

Nettle and Wild Garlic Soup.  I loved making this partly as it's as cost effective a dish as you're going to get and there is something very satisfying about foraging and making something delicious that hasn't involved a trip to Sainsbury's.  The only cost are some base vegetables - potato, onion, celery and carrots with a couple of pints of chicken stock.  Since making this batch I have picked a load more and picked some broad leaved wild garlic in Devon which had a really powerful aroma.  You only need the leaves of the wild garlic and you must only take the tops of the nettles.  You can only do this when the nettles are young and the tops are nice and fleshy otherwise they become tough and inedible..

To make the soup you cook the base vegetables first.  Fry off the onion and celery and then add the chopped carrots and potato and cook until tender.  

Now add the nettles and the wild garlic and let this cook for a further 15 minutes.  Once you have finished cooking take off the heat and blend.  The colour is fantastic, not too dissimilar to watercress in both colour and texture.

I am not going to bother with a recipe for this as you can follow any recipe for watercress soup and add nettles and wild garlic instead of the watercress and you will come out with a lovely bowl of soup.  I am not sure about the stinging nettle garnish - looks good in the photo!!

River Test 5th May

It was another early start, up at sunrise which was around 5am.  It's the most perfect time of day, it's the equivalent of a spring day in the year.  Everything to look forward to, full of promise and hope - and that's precisely the emotion fishermen go through before each and every fishing trip.  This is going to be the day when we catch the most/biggest fish....the one that didn't get away.

We managed to get on the road by 6.15am giving us an ETA of 7.45am on the river - a first and certainly to the surprise of Phil the river keeper who assumed we had been up all night and hadn't gone to bed yet!  The weather was fair and considerably warmer than the prediction of the weathermen.  The temperature was around 12c and was getting warmer.  Perfect conditions for fly life and we would be shown later in the day what a proper Hawthorn hatch looks like.

We were on the Upper Beat today which is my favourite.  Rather than one large piece of river this is a maze of small carriers with a combination of slack water, rapids, wide glides and weirs.  As a result the fishing is both challenging and exciting at the same time.

I went straight to my favourite spot, a narrow fast moving part of a carrier just down from a weir pool.  It has always held fish and i can't remember the last time that I didn't connect with one and today was no exception.  I put on a Hawthorn as it was apparent that these were in great numbers.  The fly landed at the top of the glide and came over the sweet spot perfectly and sure enough WALLOP!....and then promptly came off AAGGHH now that was annoying as this fish was going to be out of action for the rest of the day.  What's the expression?  Once bitten, twice shy well once pricked by a sharp hook, twice shy that's for certain.

I walked all the way down to the bottom to fish my way up and was consoled by a lively over wintered rainbow trout (no rainbow's had been stocked this year)  It was lean as they tend to be at this time of year before they have had a chance to gorge themselves on the prolific mayfly hatch.

By 10.30am the temperature was now around 14c and the mild temperature had stirred up the Hawthorn and this was a site that Guy and I had not seen before.  We walked across the marsh and were literally covered in Hawthorn.  These as I said last time are terrestrial insects and do not involve the river in their life cycle but when you see the sheer numbers of these insects and the vast number that get blown on the water you can see why the trout get turned on to them.  Interestingly enough though when I looked at the stomach contents of the fish we caught there was a big difference between one fish that had only been feeding on cadis and water snails, bottom feeding which is odd that it rose to the fly, one that had a few Hawthorn and one that frankly would have won any pie eating contest in a former life as a human being - this one was STUFFED and I really mean stuffed.  Its stomach was so full that it was impossible to count  the flies, literally hundreds, crushed under the pressure of so many.  I have never seen anything like that, way more than during the Mayfly.   You can see why they can put on weight so quickly at this time of year which is essential to build up reserves for the energy intense period of mating (although thanks to the previous stupidity of the government fish stocked have to be triploid - sexless, although they still can go through the motions)

Midway through the morning there was a nice fish rising very close to the bank and was clearly taking full advantage of the prolific number of Hawthorn that were passing overhead.  A well presented imitation over its head triggered the feeding response and up it came and off it went.

The fish takes

The fish dives again, you can see that it's a good sized Brown Trout

The fish tires, the heads nearly up 

Ready for the net 

They think its all over

It is now!!

Fat as butter, a 5lb brown trout having feasted on Hawthorn soon to be Beetroot Gravadlax and on The Mansion menu

By 1pm we had had a few fish and I stopped fishing to do a bit of foraging.  Nettles.  At this time of year the tops of the nettles are tender and make a great soup.  We had picked masses of wild garlic in Devon and planned to make Nettle and Wild Garlic Soup  and a Wild Garlic and Nettle Pesto for the trout. (Since fishing on Wednesday we have been serving our soup and have a new dish - a trio of trout - cerviche, smoked and beetroot cured gravadlax.  Luckily Guy had rubber gloves in the boot of his car (don't ask) and after a backbreaking hour I had picked a sackful of nettle tops.

And so to the pub....Off to The Boot for our ritual meeting up with the locals, including Johnny Robinson, joint owner of Robinsons, an institution in that part of the world,  a good old fashioned family butcher and smokery where our trout is cold smoked.

After a few pints of cider, Robinsons pork pies were calling and what great pies they were too.  I defy anyone (except that Hawthorn obsessed trout) to eat two of those bad boys, deeeee-licious.

Johnny keeps ferrets which not only provide great sport but are a very effective way of hunting rabbit, lovely little critters but watch your fingers!

After a few hours break we returned to the water and the Hawthorn activity had died down but the prospect of a sedge or olive hatch still loomed.  As the afternoon turned into dusk it was clear that no such hatch was going to happen and the fishing was getting increasingly more difficult and the number of fish rising had dropped off to a few and these few had turned on to something else.  In fact often when there is no noticeable hatch they are often taking very small black knats.  I keep meaning to have a collection of very small flies but my eyesight is poor and when its dusk they are impossible to thread without a magnifying glass and a lamp!! (old age, I didn't think it would happen to me!)

So we pushed on without much luck until we could see no more and headed back to London feeling very satisfied...

another plucky pheasant!

River Test 21st April, first day of the season

This year I promised that I would keep a proper log of my fishing exploits.  I have been given many record books but can never be bothered to fill them out and they are very one dimensional and I could never see myself referring back to them.  Blogging however is a great way to be able to keep a running  commentary and something far more likely that would be used by me as a reference.  A big part of this blog was to diarise my exploits both in the kitchen and in the field, catching, shooting and then cooking.  So this is going to be a record of fish caught and importantly new (and old) ways to deal with trout (trust me you need to be quite inventive with the fish after catching over 100 kilos in a year!)

Without further ado I should introduce my fishing companion, Guy Joseph, a very talented fisherman, who will also be contributing to this aspect of the blog throughout the season....

April 21st 2010
Weather conditions
Bright but cold.  Temperature was 5c when we arrived at 930am and a north easterly wind was adding a significant wind chill factor to an already low temperature.

Fly life
By 11am the wind had picked up and there was zero fly life bar a few early Hawthorn flies, also known as St Mark's flies.  These were almost bang on time, if not a little early, surprising given the winter we have had.  These are terrestrial insects, no part of their life-cycle requires water.  When their numbers get to sufficient numbers, when there is a strong enough breeze the insects are blown on to the water and eventually this triggers a feeding response to the trout and they turn onto them.

Today however there just weren't sufficient numbers.  The default flies in this situation are Daddy Long Legs and Yellow Humpies.

The day

We were on the middle beat and  fished the morning from about 10.00am until 12.30pm.  There was virtually nothing rising and what fish there were, were very low down in the water and nothing was bringing them up.  The wind had come up a bit and was putting a serious chill over the water and the normal hatch of olives was conspicuous in it's absence.  Nothing else for it but to hit the pub and discuss tactics.

A couple of pints of cider and some food (not really worth discussing) we ventured into Stockbridge to Orvis to ritually buy more flies which none of us needed, it's part of the process, makes you feel confident for some bizarre reason even if you have many of the identical patterns in your box.

Back on the river things had warmed up and there were a few fish starting to move and were higher up in the water.  A nice tout moved to the fly and came up short and was clearly in the mood, another cast just in front put the fly over its nose, Wallop! the fish took and gave a good account of itself, not surprising as this was a good sized fish, around the 6lb mark and in reasonable condition.  The river is stocked but has a good number of over wintered fish and many smaller wild browns and plenty of Grayling.  As the afternoon went on there was plenty more action with Guy and I matching each other fish for fish.

The carrier

We stayed on the main part of the river, nothing was showing on the carrier

   

Nick White and Julian Charrington

Our co-syndicate member, Nick White had a few smaller fish and our guest Julian Charrington had a nice fish at the top of the beat.

It was a lovely day in the end.  A good start to the season.  It's particularly lovely at this time of year, the first swallows had arrived swooping over the river to catch what meagre fly life there was.  I heard both Woodpecker and Cuckoo and the Ash and Willow were starting to take shape, the Moorhen had laid her eggs, what a lovely time of year.  Many different shades of green as everything starts to bloom.  That's a big part of fishing.

Moorhen eggs

Yellow Marshflower

We finished early as it looked unlikely there would be a hatch, once the sun had started to set the chill had come back and it seemed doubtful that a good hatch of Sedge was likely.  It was a good day, Guy and I both catching 4 a piece.  I had two of 6lb which was a very good start to the season

Proudly showing off a fine brace of brown trout

The end of a good day 

Until the next time

Quick Prawn and Squid Indian Curry with Aromatic Rice

I have been very slack with the blog but have a perfect excuse in that we were on holiday so i was out of action for 2 weeks but now back in the saddle so to speak.  This recipe beats phoning your local curry emporium and ordering a heart stopping 3,000 calorie curry that takes its revenge out on you throughout the night.  It's also a very quick curry to make and doesn't involve lengthy marinating.  The only thing you need is to make sure you have all the necessary spices to make this dish taste authentic.  The main spices i use are a combination of Fenugreek (not to be confused with an amusing, moustached encrusted, indebted European), Cumin, Tumeric, Chilli flakes.  Most of these are associated with Southern Indian cuisine and have a very distinctive flavour (and have medicinal properties too).  So what goes into this dish...


For the curry 

• 2 medium sized shallots
• 3cm square of fresh ginger julienne
• 2 cloves crushed garlic
• 100 g closed cup mushrooms
• 1 large knob of butter or ghee (clarified butter) if you have it
• 1/2 teaspoon of 
• Fenugreek
• Cumin
• Tumeric
• Ground coriander
• Paprika
• Crushed fennel seeds
• Brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon of Chilli flakes (I would go less depending on how hot you like it - you can always add you can't remove!)  I use these as I feel in better control of the heat this way.
• 1 large tablespoon of tomato paste
• 300 g of large shelled prawns
• 2 small squid
• 2/3rds of a tin of coconut milk
• 1/2 pint of fish stock. (use a whole Knorr fish stock cube and 1/2 pint of water or your own stock but make sure its reduced and strong flavoured.

The process

Chop the shallots, garlic, mushrooms and ginger and add to a frying pan with the heated butter.  Sweat this down and then add all the spices and mix through so you end up with a gorgeous smelling paste.  Add the tomato paste, stock and coconut milk and let this reduce down so that its not watery.  Test the seasoning and heat and if you feel it needs more add a few more chilli flakes.  Once you are happy with the taste add the squid and the prawns.  These literally need no more than 2 minutes and once these have been cooked through then serve the dish.  If you want to make this look professional put the cooked rice in a cup and turnover on the plate and then put the curry next to it... 

Preparing the squid

Clean the squid (if you don't know how get the fishmonger to do it but its very straightforward - pull the tenticles away from the body and discard the guts, pull the plastic looking quill from the body and remove the wings and the outside skin will come away from the body and you are left with a lovely white smooth body.  Rinse the body out and the tentacles.  One last job is you will feel the beak in the centre of the tentacles, this needs to be removed.  Now slice the squid up either in rings or horizontal strips. 

For the rice

Wash the rice thoroughly with cold water as this helps reduce any sticking.  Add the spices to the pot and add twice the quantity of water to the rice and bring to a simmer.  Don't put the lid on as you want this to evaporate.  When you come to serve the rice its up to you whether you take the spices out - it looks pretty but you don't necessarily want to bite into them...

• 1/3rd of a cup of Basmati rice per person - this is for two people so 2/3rds!
• 10 cloves 
• 10 cardamom pods
• 2 sticks of cinnamon
• 3 curry leaves
• Salt

Very Slow Roast Pork Belly in Cider, Apple and Spices with Colcannon

I think I am getting obsessed with pork belly, not ideal if you're also trying to loose weight.  I have cooked this a few times, differently every time but I think I have hit on the best recipe yet.  The way I cooked this was quite different from previous attempts, the main difference was i wanted a good jus from the cooking process.  The other differences was the time.  I marinated this for a shorter period of time, only 4 hours but cooked the meat for 8 hours in a low heat. I read recently the term 'ticking over' which is a culinary term to describe a cooking process where there is barely no noticeable cooking going on.  This was about 130-140degrees in a conventional oven, fan assisted as we know cook a lot quicker and they cause much greater evaporation which you don't want.  

The Marinade

The great thing about apple is that it really lends itself to both sweet and savoury dishes and works incredibly well with both herbs and spices.  The main spice I used was Star Anise as that works well with both meat and  apple.  The other spices used were a combination of All Spice, Juniper Berries, Fennel seeds, cloves and black pepper.  The spices, excluding the Star Anise, were ground in a pestle and mortar and rubbed into the meat side of the joint.  If the butcher has left the saddle of fat on the underside, remove this and save it for something else - had I been un-phased by the 1,500 calories I was already going to consume I would have used the fat to cook the cabbage and spring onions for the calcannon but as I am still able to get into my skinny fit jeans and I am about to unleash my near naked body on the Red Sea coast so I thought better of it.

Ingredients

• 5 All Spice (berries or seeds - not sure what you call them)
• 5 Juniper Berries
• 10 cloves
• 1 flat teaspoon of Fennel seeds
• 1 heaped teaspoon of sea salt
• 10 pepper corns

Once you have cut the fat off and scored the meat (I would do this yourself as I have had butchers cut into the flesh so deep that they have nearly come through the other side and you really only want to score it).  Pour boiling water of the joint both sides and then dry thoroughly and salt the rind.  Turnover and rub the marinade into the meat and break the star anise into bits and put into the meat.  Place in some tin foil and leave in the fridge for a few hours or overnight if you have got your act well and truly together.

To cook the pork belly you will need

• 2kg of Pork Belly for 4 people
• 2 cooking apples
• 2 medium onions
• 1 bottle of premium dry cider

Take the pork belly from the fridge brush off the marinade (I left in the star anise as that can be removed after cooking) and place on top of the melange of roughly chopped onions and apples and pour in half the cider in a baking tray and then place in a low oven - about 130-140 degrees and cover with foil. This was a conventional oven and suggest going lower if fan assisted.  You really want this just to tick over - I put the joint in the oven at 1pm and we were planning on eating at 8pm.

So to cut a long story short, having kept one eye on the cooking, remove the foil and top up with cider.  This was at 7pm so 7 hours in and turn the heat up.  Now to finish this dish off you take the meat from the roasting tin and remove the juices, apple and onion which are now very well cooked.  Put these in a cylindrical sieve and mash through so that all the liquid is removed and you are just left with a pulp.  The remaining liquid is one of the nicest tasting jus I have ever tasted.  It is quite liquid but as you are having this with mash I couldn't see the point of reducing this any further, I did also add some chicken stock to this.  To have reduced this down i think would have made the jus too intense and to have used cornflour was just cheating and I refused to do that.

Finally place the meat under a grill and let the crackling bubble up and really crisp - a very satisfying part of the process.

The dish was served with colcannon, again a nice easy dish and one that can be made in advance as the final process is quick.

For the colcannon

• 4 large mashing potatoes (Maris Piper is a good all rounder)
• 1/2 a medium size savoy cabbage
• 6 spring onions
• 1 good slab of butter
• 1/4 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
• (cream optional)
• seasoning 

Slice the cabbage nice and thinly removing any of the core,  Fry the cabbage for 3 or 4 minutes until it has wilted, be careful not to brown it and then add the finely diced spring onions and cook for a further 3 or 4 minutes.  You want to make sure there is still some bite left in the greens.  I didn't use cream but if you did then when you have mashed the potato you then add the cream and nutmeg and whisk.  One very useful piece of kitchen equipment is a potato ricer - goodbye lumpy potato, hello restaurant quality mash every time.

.

I feel very bad that I don't have an image of the finished dish but I managed to take several pictures all of which were out of focus but to explain the serving is simple - the colcannon as above served with a decent square of pork belly with a good helping of that wonderful jus all over and around.  An awesome dish though I say so myself...

Black Pudding and Tiger Prawns and Mushroom Duxelle Wellington with Wild Mushroom Sauce

This dish makes sense when you think about it.  I understand it if you're a non black pudding person but believe me, and I did test this on some non black pudding people, the upshot is they now like black pudding.  I wouldn't have said that I was a particular fan of black pudding myself but that's down to the black pudding - as with everything there is good and bad and I would say that bad black pudding is not a nice experience by any measure.  However good quality black pudding, as I have since discovered, since my days of screamingly average cooked breakfasts  on our annual pilgrimage to Ireland fishing on the Corib during the Mayfly, where black pudding sat on the plate staring back at you, daring you to slice into it and bite it, is a pleasure.

Pork and seafood as we already know is a great combination, something the Chinese had worked out long ago and now it's very trendy to mix the two together.  Whether it's Palma Ham and Monkfish or Chorizo and Scallops or Roast Pork Belly and Prawns (see Honey, Soy and Chinese Spice Pork Belly with Prawn Tempura) it isn't such a great leap to add black pudding together with prawn.  Add a lovely creamy wild mushroom sauce to this and you have a delicious, rich dish that is perfect as a starter.  I had experimented with this on my own so I had this as a main course and would have happily have devoured the entire lot saved by the fact that I was desperate for others to try it and not just take my word for it!

There are two stages to this.  Making the Wellington and making the mushroom sauce although it makes sense to cook the mushrooms and shallots at the same time for the base of the sauce and the duxelle.

Ingredients

• 2 medium sized shallots
• 200g Oyster and Chestnut mushrooms
• 25-50g Dried chantarelle and porcini mushrooms
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
• 1 teaspoon of chopped sage (or half that if its dried)
• 1 1/4 teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper (this is hot so be careful)
• 25ml of medium dry sherry or 50ml of white wine
• 1 knob of butter for the duxelle
• 200ml of single cream
• 200ml of chicken stock
• 100g of black pudding
• 200g of fresh prawns
• Puff pastry (you could make your own but let's face it why bother!)
• 1 egg (for the glaze)
• Salt and Pepper

Stage One


For those that don't know a duxelle is a stuffing or element to a sauce involving two of my essential favourite ingredients - the shallot and the mushroom.  A duxelle is common to Wellington's and is essentially finely chopped shallot or onion (shallot being more refined and less, 'oniony') mushroom and herbs.  It is then cooked off with wine or sherry and reduced to as dry as you can mixture.  If you are making a beef wellington it needs to be very dry as a lot of moisture is given off by the meat when it rests and moistens the 'croute'.

Cook off the shaIlots in a knob of butter and then add 150g of the oyster and chestnut mushrooms finley chopped, sweat down and then add the herbs and put to one side in the dish.
Stage Two
Add the black pudding.  In this instance the black pudding was large so I had just two large slices which I fried in the pan along with the mushroom.  This needs to be fried until cooked through which is about 2-3 minutes on both sides.  Remove the black pudding from the pan and then slice into small cubes.

Stage Three

Roll out the puff pastry so that you have enough to cover the black pudding and the prawn mix and add the black pudding.

Stage Four 

Now slice the fresh prawns into small pieces and add to the pan and cook through until pink and mix with the duxelle and then layer on top of the black pudding.

                                          

Stage Five

Roll the Wellington together and put in the oven for about 20 minutes at 180c.  While the Wellington is in the oven finish the Wild Mushroom sauce by adding the dried mushrooms to the stock and once they have re-hydrated add the stock and mushrooms to the remaining duxelle which is in the pan. Add the remainder of the wine or sherry and cook off the alcohol and then finally add the cream and reduce until thick enough.

Stage Six

Remove the Wellington and serve as appropriate.  As a starter, 2 pieces with the Wild Mushroom sauce would be perfect as a starter.  I ended up eating half of this and I could, as I say, have munched my way through the lot...

Now to add credibility to this dish Andy Jones has since added this to the repertoire at The Mansion....'nough said!

Painted Heron on Cheyne Walk

The Painted Heron has a great reputation.  It was one of those evenings when we decided we wanted a curry (actually we wanted Tsunami but couldn't get a table until 10.30).  We phoned at lunchtime and getting a table for 8.30pm on Friday night was no problem.  Should that mean anything?  May be curry eaters are going more native and exploring Tooting and Brick Lane.  We arrived and were promptly seated, which was as far as the promptness was going to last.  They were clearly expecting a quiet evening as they had staffed accordingly but as we all know there is a minimum level you can't go below and they seemed to have limboed too far below that.  We ordered the set menu, this seemed the most sensible option as 1)  That normally includes dishes the restaurant would like to show off and 2) it covered all the curry bases from my point of view.

The Painted Heron has as I said earlier a great reputation and has received many accolades including Nomination for Best Indian Restaurant and Top20 in Taltler's Restaurant Guide last year so our expectation of the food was high, that combined with the food positioning as being modern Indian...

We kicked off with the essential bowl of poppadums and associated dips, pretty standard fare for any self respecting Indian restaurant but certainly nothing out of the usual, what was unusual and I can not say for certain but it looked suspiciously like one of the waiters was putting unused relish back in the pot when i visited the men's room downstairs where the kitchen is located - it wasn't a bin and it was being put back not added to...

Let's not dwell too long on that and move on to the food.  The pre starter was Mixed lentil sprouts & pea poppadum roll which was perfectly pleasant with two flavoursome dipping sauces, one not unlike hoisin sauce.  The starter was a mixed tandoori plate with tiger prawn, chicken tikka and lamb chop and was perfectly cooked and the marinade bursting with flavour - this was what we had come for.  The lamb was wonderfully rare, the chicken thankfully not.  

Then came the sorbet - it was allegedly a champagne sorbet, none other than Piper Heidsieck but I could have sworn it was lime sorbet.  It was way too sweet and lacked the sharp acidity that I was expecting as a nice refreshing interlude.  The main event arrived and I felt like I was on familiar territory with essentially a Chicken Tikka Massala,Menu description: Chicken tikka with almonds in tomato & cream curry  pilau rice and a naan bread (how many times have I said that in an Indian restaurant?) Salmon tikka with samphire & basil and Lamb roganjosh.  This was, how should I put it?  It was average, that's not to say that had I had this at my local Indian restaurant I would have said 'It's good tonight'  (as we know these things tend to ebb and flow.  But this was one of the top Indian restaurants in the country and therefore expectation was running higher than that.  It was pleasant, naan dipped in the sauce, just how I like it, but no culinary epiphany that's for sure.  Now I am leaving the best bit until last and i have added a drizzle of irony there.  OK its fair to say i have NEVER ordered pudding in an Indian restaurant in my life.  By that point my buttons have already become weapons of mass destruction so rarely have the minuteness of space to include a pudding but we were on a set menu and pudding we shall have. 


This was a mango kulfi lollipop and was incredibly sweet but what made it worse was the drizzle of factory made raspberry purée.  It was not a pleasurable experience.  

Over all it was a very pleasant evening, the staff were friendly and the food was good but not earth shattering and at £117 (that included a nice bottle of Gewürztraminer) I would say average value for money.

Service 3.5 out of 5

Food 3.5 out of 5

Value for money 3 out of 5