WELL SEASONED

www.wellseasoned.co.uk

Remember when you were so excited about Christmas that you couldn’t sleep? Well, that’s how we’ve been feeling recently about Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. The bad news: From some time in the next week or so this blog will come to an end….BUT 
The good news: As soon as it does, wellseasoned.co.uk will be re-launched as so much more than just a blog. We are launching our no-holds-barred, bells and whistles (too-many-metaphored?) campaign for British seasonal food.

As regular readers will know, we (Patrick, Alex and the Twig) have been running the blog for well over a year now. We’ve foraged, fished and feasted our way around the British countryside sharing our adventures, recipes and thoughts as we’ve gone along. But we felt something more needed doing; It’s all very well telling people to get out there and discover local, seasonal food but we felt we should be leading a bit more by example. So…. here it is:

Our campaign, Food for the Here & Now will kick off on 9th October at the Southampton Pumpkin Festival http://www.jst.hampshire.org.uk/. After that we’ll be touring the whole of the British Isles throughout this year and the next. Our mission; to discover the very best meat, game, fruit and veg the British Isles have to offer every season.

Along the way we’ll be stopping off at some of the festivals, events and gatherings that make Britain really Great. By spreading the word about British seasonal food we hope to generate press coverage, get the public involved and introduce people to some of the producers of the UK’s finest seasonal produce.

The new campaign website will feature recipes, competitions, seasonal food information and event news. We want to create a seasonal food resource that inspires and invites everyone to adopt the seasonal way of life.

We’ll add a link to this blog shortly which will take you to our new website and our very first new blog entry.

Hope to be in touch soon. Until then, keep it seasonal

A, P & T

You’ve probably noticed that the Well Seasoned team have been a little quiet on the blog recently. Well, this is to let you know we’re all still alive and enjoying what’s left of the Summer whilst looking forward the joys of the British Autumn.  

In fact though, there’s a good reason for the lack of activity. And we wish we could tell you about it but we can’t….not just yet. Do keep an eye out as we’ll be announcing something very big, pretty soon. If you’re a fan of seasonal British food and events we’re sure it’ll be of interest.

Cryptic enough? Sorry…. that’s how it has to be for now.

If you want to get the news first, make sure you’re following us on Twitter www.twitter.com/seasonalfood

• Cut the fish into strips roughly 10cm x 2cm
• Season each strip well with salt and pepper
• Put the flour on a plate and season.
• Beat the egg in a bowl and place the breadcrumbs in a separate bowl.
• Dip each fish finger first into the flour, then into the egg and finally the breadcrumbs, ensuring an even coat.
• Heat a tablespoon of the oil in a large pan and fry the fish fingers for a couple of minutes on each side until golden brown.
• Serve with chips, vinegar and tomato ketchup (yes ok, from a bottle)
• Enjoy, safe in the knowledge that your meal is the real deal, from a sustainable source and has been nowhere near the processing room floor

As a seasonal food blog, we couldn’t let this week pass without a mention of the “Glorious 12th”. Yesterday was, of course, the first day of the grouse season and marked the renewal of game shooting in the UK after the Spring/Summer lull. Grouse is the only truly wild game bird left in this country and lives exclusively on the heather moors of northern England and in Scotland. It has a very rich flavour, influenced by the heather on which it feeds.
 
Whatever you think of game shooting, it is the method by which most wild game in this country reaches our tables. Our view, as we’ve mentioned before, is that when done properly game shooting can be beneficial both to the quarry species and the environment in which it lives. In this instance, only the preservation of the natural moorland will ensure the survival of the grouse and the continued influx of money that it brings to the local economies. Having led a completely wild existence most grouse are quickly dispatched by guns who care about and contribute to (sometimes at vast expense) the conservation of the regional habitat. (Did you know that Britain is home to 75% of the whole world’s remaining heather moorland habitat?) We appreciate it’s not everyone’s cup of tea and it’s certainly the case that some elements have given shooting a bad name recently; we could never defend (and wouldn’t want to) some of the practices carried out by people who see gamebirds as no more than flying fifty pound notes. But, on the whole if you’re a seasonal food fan prepared to put some effort into the sourcing and provenance of your game, there is a whole larder of ethical, tasty meat out there. However, rather than just recycle the debate on the rights and wrongs of shooting, we thought you might appreciate a short blog with some tips on buying your first grouse.

When to buy?

The season starts on 12th and runs to 10th December. Birds will be available from the 13th August and it is generally accepted wisdom that the better quality birds will be available later on in the season. That said, any that you buy up to the close of the season should be pretty good; there are few dealers around who don’t respect the quality and expense of the grouse so, provided you’re buying from a specialist dealer, you should be assured reasonable quality

Plucked or unplucked? 

Well, you might like the challenge of doing the work yourself. Also, it is easier to tell how old a bird is when it is in feather (younger birds are tastier and more tender). However, you’ll have a better idea of how well it was shot when you buy it pre-plucked. We’d suggest, unless you really want to do the hard work, you buy an oven-ready bird. Check it hasn’t got too much shot in it (which you can see from the small purple holes in the breast where the individual pieces shot enter) or excessive bruising (which can happen as the bird hits the ground).

What to pay?

Despite some gloomy early projections, this season looks set to me a decent one and so prices shouldn’t be too high. By waiting a couple of weeks you should find better birds at a lower price. If you were buying an actual grouse moor you’d expect to shell out £4,000 to £5,000 per brace of birds on it! Thankfully, the cost to your average consumer isn’t so great. Expect to pay up to £15 a bird (possibly more at the very beginning of the season). You’ll get a discount for bulk purchase and can get the price down to £11 or so if you’re having a dinner party. It’s still pricey but, we’d suggest, well worth it for a taste of something really quite special.

Where to buy?

Finally, if you cant make it to the market, here are some places where you can buy your grouse online:

www.ovenreadygrouse.co.uk
www.blackface.co.uk

If any readers find other good dealers selling grouse online, let us know and we’ll add a link.

Enjoy, but no grousing if you don’t like it! (sorry).

If it’s possible for a single food to sum up the best of the British summer, I reckon cherries do it. Unlike many of our fruits which just aren’t quite ready to pick until the Autumn, cherries come into their best around August whilst we’re still enjoying the long, hot days of summer.
 
Cherries were king of the fruits in ye olden days; in medieval times whole fairs devoted to the fruit were very common. Cherry sellers did a roaring trade and the finest were shipped to London to be sold direct to the consumer from hand carts. Rotherhithe, in the Docklands area, then became famous for its cherry orchards (and Cherry Garden Street still exists there today).
 
I came across this recipe the other day and couldn’t wait to try it. I can’t think of anything that better represents the peak of the British summer – a combination of cherries and ice cream. The recipe is called Cherry Ice Cream although, because of the marscapone, it tastes more like a frozen cheesecake to me. Either way, it’s a delicious summery treat on a hot afternoon and is very easy to make:

4 oz caster sugar
150ml water
Juice of half a lemon
9 oz ripe stoned cherries
1 lb mascarpone cheese
1 tbsp kirsch
 
Heat the sugar, water and lemon juice in a pan over a low heat until the sugar is dissolved. Bring to the boil and boil the syrup for 3 minutes. Reduce the heat, add the cherries and simmer for 10 minutes until the cherries are soft. Remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool completely. Beat the mascarpone cheese in a bowl to soften. Then beat in the syrup from the cherries and the kirsch until combined. Finally, fold in the cherries and swirl them through the mixture. Spoon into a freezer-proof container and freeze. Transfer to a fridge for 25 minutes before eating to allow it to soften slightly.

We’ve raved about fresh British crab before – it ticks all the boxes in terms of availability, sustainability and of course, taste. Female brown crabs tend to come into their best in mid to late summer season i.e now, and they remain good through to January when they start to spawn. It’s also around this time that there is a real glut of spider crabs around as they come inshore from the deeper waters.

1. First…catch your crab! In fact, this has potential to be the most enjoyable part of exercise. You could dive for it (as we did), hunt for it at low tide, blag a day out on a fishing boat or pick one up from the quayside on an early summer morning. Any of these methods are a huge pleasure and will only heighten the sense of satisfaction you’ll get at the end of the day. However, for the purposes of this blog, we’ll assume you are at your kitchen worktop with a fresh, cooked, whole crab in front of you.


 

 
2. Now assemble your tool kit - two bowls, a chopping board, a pair of nutcrackers (or something to use as a small hammer) a lobster pick or small kebab skewer and a teaspoon. Also, make sure you have plenty of time. To do it properly for your first time, you’ll probably want to allow 25 minutes from start to finish.

3. Place your crab, upside down on the chopping board. Twist of all of the legs and claws and put these to one side.

  

4. Now, break off the small tail flap on the underside and prise the central body section away from the shell.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Although nothing inside a crab will actually harm you, some parts are unpleasant to eat and these need to be removed. Look for the small grey-white stomach (at the front of the shell, behind the mouth) remove this and discard. Then, from the sides of the body section, remove the ten grey pointed ‘dead man’s fingers’ (actually the crab’s gills) and bin these too.

 

 

6. Now, mine the body for the meat. Every part of the crab will contain either white meat or brown; separate it into the two bowls. A combination of the teaspoon and skewer will be needed and do take your time; if you go at it too hard and fast you will shatter the thin inner shell or miss some great meaty sections. The brown meat may not look quite to so appealing to begin with but do keep it all.

7. Next, address the shell of the crab and do the same – the soft under-shell should come away easily and in satisfyingly large chunks of brown meat.

 

8. Finally, crack open the each of the claws and legs using the nutcracker (try to apply minimal pressure so you just gently crack the shell; if you shatter it into tiny pieces some of them will end up in the meat which can ruin an otherwise perfect meal). Use the skewer to pick out all of the small pieces of white meat.

9. It’s always a nice touch to serve the meat in the original shell. To do this you will need to crack off the lower part of the shell. Use the small hammer to do this and it should break quite neatly along the join. Grip the shell with a tea towel as it can fracture leaving a very sharp edge. Then give the shell a good rinse.

10. Fresh crab meat will be delicious anyway but we usually season the white meat (shredded it into small pieces) with a bit of black pepper, salt and lemon juice. The brown meat should be mixed up with a fork to a uniform paste and seasoned in the same way. If needed, you can add a small amount of mayonnaise to loosen it up. Spoon the crab meat back into the shell – usually the white meat goes on either side with the brown meat in the middle. Other traditional finishes include a sprinkle of parsley or finely chopped boiled egg but we prefer to keep it simple. (Note that on this particular specimin there was a surprisingly small amount of brown meat – we’d normally expect twice as much as you see here)
 

11. Serve with a wedge of lemon, some mayonnaise and brown toast.

12. Top up that glass of white wine and enjoy!

Grouse

The ‘glorious twelfth’ brings the end to our summer game drought. One of the few truly wild game birds left, this rich meat is rightly savoured.

Beetroot

Crunchy sweet beetroot should be a world away from the pickled purple mush you were served at school. This delicious late summer root is a perfect addition to a seasonal salad.

Spider Crab

Available all along the coast in great numbers in the summer months and yet strangely hard to get hold of from fishmongers. Even sweeter than brown crab, this delicious crustacean deserves to be given a go.

(PPS coming soon, a masterclass in how to dress a crab for that summer picnic)

The heat of Summer tends to mean we tend to eat less meat and hot food. But sometimes only a filling warm meal will do and that’s when you might want to consider this zuppa di pesce (fish soup) as a slightly lighter option. It’s also happens to be very simple to make, leaving you plenty of time to enjoy those late Summer evenings.

The very first tomatoes and potatoes of the year from the Well Seasoned allotment went into this summery soup. It requires a white fish and we’d implore to you try something other than cod. Coley or pollock are ideal (we used the latter) and far more sustainable at current consumption levels. People often consider both to be poor cousins of the cod because their flesh is slightly grey rather than bright white. But because it is in a thick soup you won’t notice the difference here and we promise they are just as delicious.

 For two good sized portions of zuppa di pesce:

400g tomatoes, chopped (tinned will also work)
400ml fish (or vegetable) stock
one clove of garlic, finely chopped
half a red chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped
half tbsp tomato puree
bay leaf
small onion, sliced
one large potato, peeled and quartered
2 large white fish fillets
tbsp olive oil
salt and black pepper

Start by heating the olive oil and lightly frying the onion and garlic in a large saucepan for five minutes. Add the tomatoes, chilli, bay leaf, 300ml of the stock, puree, potatoes, a couple of pinches of salt and a good twist of black pepper. Simmer for 30 minutes until the potatoes are tender and the soup is thick. If it  gets too thick, add a little of the remaining stock.  Add the fish and simmer for a further five minutes until cooked through. Serve in large bowls with a final twist of black pepper and some crusty bread to mop up.