Wildfood party |
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Recipes for wild food lovers! This coming year, plan ahead for a special dinner party made from wild food collected from the countryside and from ‘local’ suppliers. It is often difficult to find ‘bulk’ wild food, enough even for a small party. By collecting over the summer and freezing a few elements (soups and fruits), a varied and multi-course, easy to find and make, and fun wild food dinner party can be had. Bon appetit! I suggest early autumn as most fruitful time for a party but start collecting in the spring. Look out for what is local and seasonal to your area and vary the menu accordingly. The recipe ideas below have a distinctly ‘coastal / river’ flavour (lots of fish) because that’s the sort of place where I live! Once again I find myself apologising to vegetarians and vegans for most of recipes below. I can understand, as at the age of 10 years old I was the first and only vegetarian at my school. But now I am not, although I am only an infrequent ‘flesh eater’. What matters to me more now is the authenticity of the food – I’m with Hugh Fearnley on this one! Wild Food Party Starters:A most delicious appetising and nutritious soup – click the link for recipe. A most delicious appetising and nutritious soup – click the link for recipe. 3. Mackerel and Caragheen savoury mousse with fresh baked bread and herb butter Mackerel is an underrated fish bursting with essential Omega 3’s. Get it local if you can as ready smoked versions are often exposed to chemicals during preservation and then wrapped in toxic plastic. Your local Farmers Market is a good place to look for authentic food. Serves Four: Soak the dried carragheen in water for 15 minutes, remove any grit or dried ends and discard the water. Add together the lemon rind, the carragheen, the milk and the water. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for about 25 minutes until the milk is really thick. Separate the egg yolk from the white, beat the yolk and add it to the strained milk and carragheen. Break the smoked mackerel into little pieces and add to the mixture. Flavour to taste with pepper and salt. Beat the egg white until stiff and then fold into the egg yolk mixture. Pour into a damp mould, leave 2-3 hours to set and then turn out with fennel, lemon slices and black olives. Serve with fresh baked brown bread. Herb butter: Mix appropriate herbs, such as thyme, parsley, coriander, rosemary, fennel, dill etc with slightly warm butter and stand to infuse. Then chill the butter and roll it in foil, into a tube shape. Rechill and cut to slice as needed. Wild Food Party Main course:1. Chargrilled or baked river salmon/trout on a bed of fennel with sorrel sauce Again see if you can source the fish fresh and local – or even go and catch some. You should be able to find fennel and sorrel quite easily. Bake or barbecue the fish wrapped in Fennel leaves, allowing the perfect combination of fish and herb, fennel is an ideal accompaniment to fish because it helps make oily fish more digestable. Sorrel Sauce: Gather 125g (4oz) sorrel leaves Strip the sorrel off the stems, wash and cut the leaves into small strips. Boil the onion with the wines and add 4 tablespoons of water, until the liquid is well reduced. Put the onions and yolks into a blender and mix at high speed for 30 seconds. Return to the pan. Cut up the butter and melt with half of the sorrel leaves. When almost boiling, remove from heat, pour onto yolks very slowly. Stirring vigorously, then increase the stir speed as the sauce thickens. Taste and gradually add the rest of the sorrel. Reheat the sauce over a gentle heat or using a bain-marie. Do not overheat as the eggs and butter may curdle. Serve with poached salmon, salmon trout or sea bass. 2. Hop top omelette with flower and wild leaf salad (with a wild thyme dressing) This is a light meal, suitable for a lunch or single course in a larger meal. Make an omelette with hop tops, eggs (organic please – if bird flu gets here that’s the last we’ll see of free-range eggs – so treat yourself) and olive oil! Search out (unpolluted) wild salad leaves and herbs such as: 3. Rabbit and bacon casserole with Hogweed shoots and roast potatoes Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall of River Cottage has fast become ‘the man’ for wild game recipes in UK. This recipe is from his book ‘A Cook on the Wild Side’ from Boxtree Publishing. Rabbit Casserole: 2 rabbits, skinned and jointed Choose a pot into which your rabbits fit without too much room to spare. Cut the bacon into 2.5cm (1 inch) pieces. Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the bacon gently for a few minutes. After it has released plenty of its fat, but before it gets crispy, remove with a slotted spoon and transfer to the pot. Brown the pieces of meat on all sides in the sizzling fat, then place in the pot. Add the carrots and onion to the frying pan and fry until they begin to take on a little colour. Spoon those into the pot around the meat. Add the wine, stock, herbs and garlic to the pot, with 1 teaspoon of salt and a few twists of pepper. The liquid should cover the meat almost completely, - add a little more stock or water if you need to. Bring to a gentle simmer, cover and cook for 1.5 hours. Serve each person with 1 large or 2 small pieces of rabbit. Spoon the bacon and vegetables, and plenty of juice from the pot, over each portion. For the hogweed (Heraculeum sphondylium) – gather them early before they are unfurled. Remember that giant hogweed (H. mantegazzianum), is not the same plant and that it can cause unpleasant allergic reactions with skin, so take care, its well worth the effort. Wash the shoots in cold water and cook in a heavy pan without drying the stems. Add a good knob of butter, ground black pepper and salt and cook for about 8 minutes until tender. Serve with lemon and a bit more butter (from Roger Phillips - ‘Wild Food’). I personally love roast potatoes that have been boiled for a few minutes to soften the skin, then rolled in flour with a touch of salt before roasting to make a nice crispy skin. Serve in shallow bowls with freshly ground black pepper. 4. Seafood Paella with wild saffron rice and a coleslaw salad Again this takes advantage of the local fish situation in Cornwall but Paella may also be made with a variety of meats, or even tofu at a pinch. See what you can find locally at your farmers market and search out some unusual rice types, a mix of wild rice and basmati is striking, but give the wild rice a bit longer to boil.. Ingredients: Salad is a basic coleslaw (shredded cabbage and carrot with mayonnaise) with ginger, red pepper, chives, sage, celery, mint, watercress added, dress with balsamic dressing. Serve with lemons. Instructions: Wild Food Party Desserts:1. Elderflower and Blackberry water ice with fresh strawberries This is where the freezer comes in useful, but fresh is best as food loses nutritional value and quality when frozen and stored. To make water ice for 4: Elderflower water ice: 7.5dl (1 and a quarter pints) water In a heavy pan bring the water and sugar to a boil over a moderate heat, stirring constantly until sugar has dissolved. Boil the syrup for 5 minutes and stir in the lemon juice and rind. Put the elderflowers in a double thickness of cheesecloth and tie the ends with string. Add to the mix and heat again for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cool. Remove elderflowers and squeeze out excess liquid into mixture. Pour into freezing containers and freeze, stirring every hour for 4 hours or until ice is well blended and firm. To make other water ices, such as blackberry, substitute the water for a fruit liquid and water mix. 2. Summer Pudding with Cornish Clotted Cream Sliced loaf day old bread Try summer pudding with a fruity red wine to complement. This is a great recipe for wild fruits such as raspberries, blackberries and bilberries, but strawberries and tayberries work just as well. See what you can find locally that’s organic and fresh – my favourite is an in-season tayberry / strawberry mix. Line a (damp) pudding basin with slices of day-old bread (can be bought at ‘reduced’ cost) with the crusts off. Make sure there are no gaps. Dissolve the sugar in the water over a low heat and add the fruits. Cook for a few minutes only and then strain off about a quarter pint of the liquid. Pour the fruit into the bread basin and line the top with more bread slices until the fruit is fully enclosed. Cover the pudding with another bowl so that it is pressed down overnight. The next day remove the saucer and weight, place a saucer over the top of the basin and invert the pudding. If you’re lucky it should come out easily. Heat up the fruit syrup you extracted for a sauce and serve with Cornish Clotted Cream, or ice cream. 3. Fruit Salad Combine dried fruits such as apricots, figs and dates with grapes, roast almonds, strawberries, raspberries, tayberries, blackberries, orange, lemon, apple, cloves, wine, liquor etc. Eat it with chopsticks. This adds the potential ‘food fun’ and you might like to line up some interesting jellies especially for a food fight. The next course could be you! Finish the meal with coffee, exquisite chocolates and liquors, and maybe a shower if it gets messy.
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Here is the WHY and the HOW of reaching for a holistic lifestyle from the heart of your home. Discover for yourself the power of Mother Nature’s Gifts – a real integrated medicine working for you from your very own kitchen. Hiding in your meals, is a whole FOOD MEDICINE for health, for healing – and for fun! |
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