Watch the pigeon!

Back in another lifetime, when R and I were still living in West Yorkshire, we had a chance conversation in the pub with a friend of a friend. Dave enjoyed hunting, but his family were not very interested in eating what he shot, so he usually ended up feeding the game to his dog. We both expressed horror at this situation and said that we would be delighted to buy any surplus from him.

And so began our education on the topic of cooking and eating game.

Throughout the season, almost every Sunday afternoon we would come home to find something hanging from the door handle. A brace of pheasant. A bagful of wood pigeons. Half a dozen rabbits. Or, best of all, a hare or a couple of woodcock.

The first time this happened, we discovered a brace of pheasant outside the door. Complete with feathers, insides and the like. We both stared at them for a few minutes - while logically we knew that just-shot birds came with all the aforementioned, I think we had both fondly imagined that the feathers would just drop off automatically! So we stared at them for a little longer and then boldly decided to hang them in the cellar for a bit.

I am not keen on very high game so after a couple of days I decided that Something Had To Be Done. R came home from work that day to find me sitting in the (empty) bath, having donned a pair of Marigold gloves, plucking away surrounded by a sea of feathers and wearing my best Margo Ledbetter face! Eventually I handed the now-denuded bird to him and announced that he could do the rest.

Armed with my well-thumbed copy of John Seymour's Complete Guide to Self-Sufficiency, we squinted over the pictures and tried to match them with the bird in R's hand. It probably took half an hour or more to finally prepare the first pheasant for eating, but we got there eventually. And so we established the division of labour that we retained until he died - I would remove the fur or feathers and cook the beast. R would do the squelchy hand-up-the-critter's-nether-regions bit.
That suited me fine.

We often received wood pigeons. In the UK they are classed as vermin, so there is no closed season for them. The first time, I foolishly sat and plucked the entire bird. Fortunately this doesn't take very long with a pigeon, but I quickly realised that the only bit on a pigeon that is worth eating is the breast, and you can simply pull the skin back and remove the meat.

Last weekend I was in the fishmonger's shop and he had a nice selection of game for sale.

Nope. I don't understand either why game should be sold by the fishmonger, rather than the butcher, but that is often the case here. And this weekend he had some nice-looking wood pigeon.


As someone else had done the messy plucking and evisceration part, I bought a couple, froze one and removed the breasts from the other. There really isn't anything else on a pigeon that is worth eating as the legs and wings are unpalatably bitter, but the carcase makes a great stock.

So, what to have with it?
The garden is starting to run down now. The only likely candidates I could find were leeks, the last of the courgettes and some peppers in the greenhouse.

But those three form the base for a very good risotto, particularly the Tromba d'Albenga courgettes which are rather more substantial than the average courgette and can stand up to cooking for a half hour or so.

Thereafter it was simple.
Cook the risotto. Heat up some butter in a frying pan and quickly sear the pigeon breasts. Two minutes on either side is enough. Remove to a warm plate for a few minutes while you add some of this year's favourite ingredient - sloe gin - to bubble away until reduced to give a small amount of a slightly sticky sauce.

Then simply assemble.
A portion of risotto. Sprinkle on some chopped parsley. Slice the pigeon breast and place on top, then pour over the reduced sauce. That's it.
This isn't a risotto that needs parmesan cheese.

Mix and match

At this time of year, my first port of call when deciding what to eat is the garden. First find out what is ready for picking and then work out what to have with it. As a general principle this works well, but every now and again the vegetables ready to be eaten are not happy bedfellows at first glance.

Broad beans are one of my favourite vegetables. I like them at every stage - from the tiny underdeveloped beans in their fluffy pods that can be eaten without shelling right through to the mealy giants that somehow escaped picking, but nevertheless can play a starring role in a vivid green dip.

I rather overdid the planting this year. As the early sowing season went a little awry, I bought a couple of dozen plants from a roadside stand, rather than growing them from seed myself. When I got them home, I found that they were actually a dwarf variety called The Sutton which only grows to about 15 inches high. This sent me into a bit of a flap as I was worried that they wouldn't be very productive. As broad beans are one of the few vegetables that I freeze in any quantity, I made another sowing of a normal-sized variety just to be on the safe side. But Sutton has been incredibly productive and I have been picking, podding, eating, blanching and freezing broad beans nearly every day for the last couple of months. And now the second sowing has come onstream! The pigs are happy though, as they love tucking in to the crunchy pods.

The other star waiting to be photographed this week was the cavolo nero. Back in the days when we had an organic veg box every week I remember finding this a troublesome vegetable. I don't know whether it was the variety or the way I cooked it, but we always found it rather bitter and unappetising.

A couple of years ago my sister offered me some plants, so I decided to give it another go as it is one of the winter-hardy brassicas. Unfortunately cavolo nero proved to be the chickens' no. 1 favourite vegetable ever - they pecked the poor plants to stalks in very short order.

This year the chickens are well and truly locked up and are no longer able to take their toll of my veg beds, so I decided to give this Tuscan kale another try. And it has grown beautifully. The problem today was to find a way to pair it up with another wave of broad beans. Ribollita would be the obvious answer, but it wasn't a soup sort of day. A bit of google fu came up with cavolo nero con le fette, or bruschetta with kale. It was such an unlikely-sounding proposition that it just had to be given a try.

The cavolo nero was still quite young and probably didn't actually need de-ribbing, but all the authorities seemed to think this necessary and for once I followed their advice. I put the chopped leaves to simmer gently for about 20 minutes. This is much longer than I would normally cook kale or cabbage and it felt slightly wrong to do it, but the resulting leaves were beautifully non-bitter, which probably explains why my attempts at cooking it years ago were so unsuccessful.

While it was cooking I podded the broad beans and steamed them for a couple of minutes until the skins started to loosen. Removing the skins is indeed a faff and such a labour of love that I tend, selfishly, to only do it for someone who will appreciate the effort. Generally myself! The vivid inner beans went into the blender with some salt and pepper, chopped mint and a little olive oil. A quick pulse was enough as a purée isn't what is needed here.

The rest is simple self-assembly. Slice some crusty bread and toast it. Rub the slices with half a clove of garlic. Drain the kale, spoon generously onto half of the bread and season. Do the same with the broad bean mix. Drizzle very lightly with a little posh olive oil and sprinkle with a few slivers of air-dried ham. Both of the bruschetta toppings worked surprisingly well, particularly the kale which had a depth of flavour that belied its humble origins.

After the lettuce has bolted

One advantage of living in a place that is rarely hot and dry for any length of time is that green leafy crops stand well in the ground. I am still finishing off the first sowing of lettuces made back in early April. Conventional gardening wisdom is to sow a few seeds every couple of weeks, but I find that three (or at most four) outdoor sowings of saladings is usually sufficient for the whole season. And that applied even when there were two of us here to eat them.

But even under my cool, damp conditions they do eventually bolt. My chickens don't appear very interested in them, and I am a little reluctant to give the pigs too much lettuce. I am sure they would happily demolish the lot, but I am not sure the effect it would have on their, admittedly none-too-delicate, digestions while they are still quite young. It is certainly a waste to throw it straight onto the compost heap. So what to do?

Lettuce is not an obvious ingredient for hot dishes, with one or two notable exceptions. I sometimes use a few chopped leaves if I am short of green stuff for noodle soup, and braised peas and lettuce is a lovely way to make use of peas that escaped being picked while young and tender and have turned a little mealy.

Sadly there is no excess of peas, either fresh or mealy, in my garden this year. I have made several sowings - both directly into the ground and in lengths of guttering indoors - using older and freshly-bought seed. In return I have had about half a dozen pea plants. A complete disaster that I am at a loss to explain.

There were some shop-bought peas in the freezer, however, which gave me the idea of making a soupy version of the braised lettuce. I simply softened a couple of chopped shallots in a little butter (and I think it does have to be butter here, rather than oil), and threw in a couple of handfuls of frozen peas, the washed and shredded lettuce and a nice sprig of mint. I then waited for the mountain of lettuce to subside a little before pouring in some vegetable stock (in this case the liquid saved from cooking chick peas, which makes a very serviceable and savoury stock). This was simply simmered for ten minutes or so, seasoned and then attacked with the hand blender until smooth.

I was very pleased with the result. The slight bitterness from the lettuce contrasts beautifully with the sweetness of the peas, while the hint of mint gives the whole soup a satisfying depth of flavour. I did think of adding a little cream, but in the end didn't think it needed it.

All in all a happy end for something that originally looked destined for the compost heap!

Woodland poultry

Weird-looking critter, isn't it?

I have had my eye on this chicken of the woods for a couple of weeks now. I decided not to risk leaving it until I got back from my holiday; it rained here for most of the time I was away and I was a little worried about losing it to slugs. Or worse still, to another mushroom hunter!

Chicken of the woods is a wonderfully dense, solid mushroom. It doesn't take on a slimy texture when heated, and really shines in situations that call for diced or sliced chicken, particularly when cooked gently in a sauce.

I may be looking in all the wrong places, but it doesn't seem to do well here. There have been a few down in the valley, but those have been growing on trees in fields I have driven past and don't have permission to forage in. More's the pity.

Ironically I saw a beautiful one on a tree this week as I was walking along the bank of the Spree in Berlin. But it was quite high up and I was wearing my respectable clothes... And sadly the rest of the party probably wouldn't have understood my excitement either!

It has been warm today, so I wasn't looking for a heavy pasta and sauce sort of supper, nor a substantial stew. But I did buy a couple of nice big aubergines at the greengrocer this morning with a view to making moutabal, and they suggested the perfect solution.

Pizza!

Cut the aubergine into slices roughly 1 cm thick. Brush them lightly with oil and grill under quite a high heat on both sides until browned and softened.
Meanwhile chop and soften a shallot and some chopped garlic in a little oil. Throw in some chopped pepper as well perhaps, then add the diced mushroom along with some fresh marjoram or oregano. When the mushroom cubes have softened a little, pour in some of the now-dwindling stock of passata from the freezer and simmer until the liquid has reduced and thickened.

Ladle generously onto the aubergine slices, top with olives, sliced tomatoes or whatever else takes your fancy and add a little grated cheese (in my case parmesan, as that was all there was in the fridge).

Grill until the cheese is bubbling, then allow to cool just a little before eating.

This week we shall mainly be eating...

... leeks!

I couldn't wait any longer. They were still occupying the bed that I have earmarked for the beans this year, so they had to come out this weekend. The biggest ones are probably only fit for making stock, but there are still enough for several meals there. I'm not sure yet what to do with the middling leeks, but the babies need to be enjoyed quickly.

Way back when, in the days when my garden was the tiny back yard of a terraced house in Manchester, and I could only dream of a proper veg patch rather than a couple of dozen pots, a South-facing windowsill and a cold frame, I had a book entitled, "The Weekend Gardener", or something like that. It gave fortnightly lists of jobs to do in the garden, most of which didn't apply to me due to lack of garden. But the entry I liked most over the Summer months was "Eat at least one meal a week outside", and it is something R and I always tried to do whenever the sun was out.

The window of opportunity for doing that here is very short, so it is even more important to make the most of the sunshine.
R's parents gave us the table when we moved here. During the Summer it lives under the big sycamore tree in the rather grandly-titled "orchard". This was where we would shell peas and beans together, share a glass of wine when he arrived back after a week away and, after a weekend of work outside, would just sit with our tired bodies and watch the sun go down over the hill, kept company by the ever-busy swallows and house martens, while we waited for the bats to make their entrance, signalling a change in temperature and time to go indoors.

I firmly believe in the principle that the better the food, the less you need to do with it.
A handful of peas picked, shelled and eaten in the vegetable garden tastes better than just about any dish that can be cooked with them. A perfectly-ripe strawberry picked with the early morning sun on it just cannot be imitated by any supermarket's Finest range. And a new-laid egg still warm from the nest box makes a poached egg that most top chefs would be hard-placed to beat.

So, for a Summer lunch take a bunch of asparagus from the farm shop, the final few broad beans from the freezer (after removing their dull grey coats to reveal the vivid green kernels) and some just-picked baby leeks. Steam until just tender. Perhaps add a little freshly-ground salt and pepper, and just enough butter to make everything pleasingly glossy. Poach the eggs discovered in the nest box this morning and attempt to place them attractively on top. Carry outside and eat in the warm sunshine.
The shop-bought apple and tomatoes add a sour note of commercial realism to the picture, but perhaps the home-made elderflower cordial mitigates this a little.

Beets

For such an unprepossessing, mild-mannered vegetable, beetroot certainly polarises opinion - or at least it does in my family. On the one hand we have my younger sister who believes it is the work of the devil; my whole family is still traumatised by the time that she demonstrated in full Technicolor why it is a bad idea to force children to eat something they have really taken against! In contrast the rest of us adore it any way you care to serve it.

R was never great with traditional pickled beets, though, as he wasn't a great fan of anything vinegary.

I can't remember exactly who introduced me to the idea of roast beets. It may have been the late, great Christopher Lloyd in his lovely book The Gardener Cook. Whoever it was, they were absolutely right. Roasting the beets gives them a sweetness and depth of flavour that just doesn't happen with the plain boiled variety.

R's favourite way to serve them was as an accompaniment to mackerel, either smoked or fresh. Mixed with sharp green apple, spring onions and a good dollop of freshly-grated horseradish, and then stirred into a mix of greek yoghurt and mayonnaise, this sharp, crunchy salad was perfect to cut through the richness of the fish.

I keep coming back to soup, however.

My freezer still holds plenty of chicken stock and the tomato or tomato/courgette sauce that I froze over the Summer. The recipe is simplicity itself: mix peeled and roast beets, chicken stock and tomato sauce in roughly equal quantities. Heat through, then whizz up with a hand blender and season to taste.
Serve with the usual crusty bread and a sprinkling of cubes of feta cheese.

This may possibly be my very favourite soup of all. Why not give it a try. You won't regret it, even if you think you don't like beets.

Tomatoes

R bought me the greenhouse for my 40th birthday.

The fact that I was actually 43 when it arrived didn't take the edge off my excitement one little bit.

Life at the top of our hill is windy. Very windy indeed. I had wavered for a couple of years between a polytunnel (bigger, but less robust) and a greenhouse (not so much growing space, but less chance of being uprooted and ending up in the next county).

After one very windswept Winter, during which the barn roof nearly blew off, we decided that the sensible option would be the greenhouse.

Never knowingly under-engineered, R dug the foundations and put in enough reinforcing bars for a small tower block before pouring the concrete. Believe me, that greenhouse is going nowhere!

From the moment it went up, it has been my place.

I love to stand out there on an early Spring afternoon, pricking out seedlings and listening to the Sunday play on the radio.
It was my bolthole in the days after R died. I would hide in there with Moose when the noise from all the people in the house became too much for me.
Its warmth makes it a safe cocoon from the world. I am happy in there.


And most of all I love to grow tomatoes.

Tomatoes have never grown well outdoors here. If the blight didn't get them, the cold or my chickens would. But in the safety of the greenhouse they grow beautifully.

When R was alive, I mostly grew the cherry varieties as they were the ones he loved. Once the plants started to produce, I would put a large bowlful of tomatoes on the kitchen table every day and he would eat them like sweets, picking up two or three whenever he went past.

I am a sad creature of habit, so was unable to prevent myself from planting the same number of cherry varieties as usual this year (the sweet-as-sugar Sungold and the much more tomatoey old favourite, Gardener's Delight). I can happily eat a small mountain of tomatoes every day myself, but even so I am still not making a dent in the daily output. So pasta sauce-making is underway already, even before this year's paste variety (San Marzano) comes onstream (apart from the one enthusiastically premature specimen at the back of the tray).


Over the years I have tried various methods for making sauce, but I find that the best-flavoured and easiest is to throw the tomatoes into a roasting tin along with a couple of chopped onions, a few cloves of garlic, a couple of chopped courgettes and assorted herbs (in this case leaf celery and thyme), add a little olive oil and then to roast the lot for 30 minutes or so.

When everything has softened nicely, it all goes into the food mill with a few sprigs of fresh basil, which gives a slightly chunkier result than the blender and has the added benefit of removing all (or at least most) of the tomato skins.


The end result is the best tasting pasta sauce in the world - even if the colour could be improved somewhat.
I make a batch of this most evenings at the moment. Most of it is destined for the freezer to cheer me up during the winter, but I can feel a pot of my favourite soup coming on


Watch this space!

Samphire

Another trip to the tip to consign some more junk to oblivion meant that I was later than usual with my shopping on Saturday morning. By the time I reached the fishmonger, the choice was limited. But what he did have was some vivid green samphire, which really cheered up my morning. I love the salty crunchiness of this strange, almost prehistoric half vegetable / half seaweed and always buy some when it is on sale.

So that decision was easy, but what to have with it?
All the interesting choices had gone by the time I arrived. There were plenty of salmon fillets and farmed rainbow trout, but they didn't appeal. In the end I opted for a piece of worthy-looking, but rather dull naturally-smoked haddock.

If R were still here, he would automatically have demanded kedgeree. Specifically the Delia Smith recipe - still my favourite version of the dish, although my own rendering looks a lot greener from the excess of parsley I always add.

As it is technically impossible to make a worthwhile kedgeree for one, and I didn't fancy eating it for the next few days, I opted for my second favourite thing to do with a piece of smoked haddock - fishcakes. There is nothing at all sophisticated about a fishcake, but I find them very comforting; it must be the nursery food nature of the beast. There was also some leftover mashed potato in the fridge that needed using up.

The haddock was gently poached in a mixture of milk and water, boosted with a little onion, a few peppercorns and a couple of bayleaves. Had there been no leftover potato in the fridge, then this poaching water would have served nicely for mashing some spuds. As I had no need for it, the dog happily obliged.

I then mixed the flaked haddock (Moose had the skin as well) with the mashed potato, added a couple of finely chopped spring onions and a few snipped chives, plus salt and pepper. It is a good idea not to break up the flakes too much so that the cakes retain a bit of texture. Then I shaped them into little patties. I was intending to dip the patties in egg and then breadcrumbs, but my recent minimal bread intake meant that there were no crumbs in the freezer. So, the patties had to be satisfied with being coated in seasoned flour.

While they were frying in a little sunflower oil, I washed the samphire and braised it quickly in nothing more than a little butter and the water clinging to it. That's all it needs - its natural saltiness means that nothing else is required apart from a little ground pepper.

There are lots of other things I could have served this with, but for once I didn't fancy a salad. A few capers sprinkled on top added a little sharpness, and that was it.
Not even any ketchup!

First harvest

The greenhouse has been yielding lots of salad lately, but there has been very little else of interest now that I have dug out all the winter crops and replaced them with summer vegetables. Salad is great, and I can eat a lot of it, but today was wet and cold, and cried out for something a little more substantial.

So I was really pleased to see that some of the first early potatoes were looking ready. The Roseval plants looked the most likely, and a quick firkle just under the surface revealed several perfect rosy pink baby spuds.
Last year, our potato-growing efforts were almost entirely wiped out by the slug epidemic. The wet conditions grew some lovely big potatoes, but almost all of them were riddled with slug holes and fit for nothing but pig food. I am hoping that the combination of a hard winter and timely application of nematodes will mean a reasonable harvest. With any luck I won't have to buy another spud until at least the end of the year.


The first new potatoes need to be celebrated, and ideally partnered with some other baby veggies. A quick look around revealed some 'just about, but only just' ready peas and a potful of early carrots destined to be eaten in their infancy.

R's Mum introduced me to the idea of cooking early new potatoes with mint to bring out their flavour, so a sprig of apple mint went in with the other pickings. Last, but not least my trip outside revealed a couple of eggs that I had missed earlier in the day.

So, what to do with them?
With vegetables that tender and fresh, my initial reaction is always to do as little as possible; to steam them gently and add a knob of butter. But today was crying out for something rather more robust and, for no logical reason, the new potato / mint combo didn't seem right for the pink-skinned variety. Nor did I fancy an omelette, which was the obvious end for the eggs.

What then?
A cursory examination of the fridge contents revealed some cooking chorizo - its spicy, robust flavours would be ideal for a less than perfect day. There were also some baby leeks on the vegetable rack.

The potatoes were set to simmer gently. Fresh-from-the-ground spuds don't take long to cook at all, so around 12 minutes would be fine. Meanwhile I braised the leeks, carrots and peas in a little butter. The chopped chorizo was dry-fried until the fat started to run and it crisped up a bit. Then I drained the spuds (which had lost their lovely pink skins in the water), roughly chopped them and chucked the pieces in with the chorizo to cook for a little while.

The result wasn't particularly pretty, and could probably have done with a little salad, but it was exactly what was wanted given the conditions.