Forage

2008-08-10T23:08:00.000+01:00

Sunday 10th August 2008
(Menu subject to late changes. All our meat and dairy is locally sourced and much of our fresh produce is locally sourced or organic and ethically traded. Please feel free to ask where our ingredients came from.)
Amontillado Napoleon, Hildalgo £5.20 Prosecco Rustico, Frizzante, Nino Franco £6.50
Palomino Fino Tio Pepe, Byass £4.20 Bandol Rosé, La Suffrene 2007 £5.50
Starters £6
Carrot soup, raisin puree, Perl Las
Cauliflower, Caerfai Caerfilly and leek gratin with bacon
Salt cured mackerel, potato salad, radish shoots
Marinated beetroot, walnut, goat’s cheese, wildflower honey dressing
Mains £16
Pan roasted leg of lamb, goat’s cheese creamed chard, rosemary potato cake, beetroot puree
(St Chinian “L’Ivresse de Cimes” 2004, Terres Falmet £18.90, 375ml carafe £10.40)

Pan roasted loin of pork, twice-cooked belly cider braised pearl barley, mustard carrots, carrot puree, mead jelly
(Colli Orientali del Friuli 'Galea' 2002, I Clivi, £24.50)

Steamed fillet of brill peas, leek and bacon, new potatoes, pickled rock samphire, pea sauce
(Bouzeron, 2005, A.&P Villaine, £21.70)

Tart fine of carrot, leek and Cenarth Brie, leek shoots onion marmalade and new potatoes

Belu water is £1.50, 750ml bottle (All Belu’s profits go towards third world clean water projects)

Desserts or Cheese £5.00

Montezuma’s dark chocolate fondant, caramel, sea salt, crème fraiche

White chocolate millefeuille, bramble syrup, blueberries

Strawberry ice cream, clotted cream and honeycomb

Regional cheeses

Over the hill...

2007-06-29T22:28:00.000+01:00

And not so far away, lies an inevitable point. Now, consider what you like about climate change (and I've got a few opinions), but at some point we will be faced with oil decline. Rising prices and a massive cultural and economic shock will follow. There is a new buzz phrase soon to trundle past Climate Change. It's called "Peak Oil".

Various sources believe it's a lot closer than we think. Either way, at some point we have to face it.

This Rte Documentary hits the nail on the head. Certainly, rising prices will drive new technologies and change in logistical arrangements, but oil is more pervasive than just what you put in your car, and those technologies need effort expending now, not later.

So, there are some people out there who are facing the change. A movement has started to grow in the UK, called Transition Towns. These are towns, starting on journeys that will take their energy usage down so the impact of Peak Oil is not quite so dramatic.

One of the features of a transition town model, is that of local community involvement. Our town, Newport, Pembs, is embarking on that journey, and it's a very affirming experience. I just hope that we can look back one day and realise that the small pebbles we're kicking around now, were enough to start a change big enough to help us through...

Here's hoping...

The Circle of Life

2007-06-01T12:32:00.000+01:00

Eat what you're meant to.

I reckon.

Following the BSE crisis the government realised that feeding animal protein to herbivores probably wasn't sensible, so it banned it.

Now the industry is trying to reverse that decision (see article below for starters), in the name of more profits for slaughterhouse by products. They believe that opening up this source of protein again will help consumer prices. Now, chickens eat meat. Ours love worms and woodlice, but I still can't envision a flock of chickens hunting a pig down. Why feed them pork?

The question is. Should meat be "cheap"? Meat should be expensive, trouble is we all want plump breasts, and lean loins and fillets. The demands of production determine the price. How many more food scares do we need before this filters through?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6711179.stm

Getting my goat.

2007-05-27T20:35:00.001+01:00

Goats make great cheese. Or rather people do, from goats' milk. Now, kid meat isn't a usual site in most British butchers, so I jumped at a chance at my local farmer's market to try some from a local cheese maker. Now, maybe I was phased by the enormous price he'd put on it - some 6 quid or so for something near half a kilo of stewing meat, but I wasn't terribly impressed. There's much to recommend it - the meat was beautifully tender, and it's good to eat the by products of dairy production (e.g. veal), but it simply lacked in flavour.

So, I'm on a mission. To find out whether kid meat can be better. For a meat so lauded by the likes of Mr Blumenthal, there must be better. Maybe it wasn't hung for long enough? In the meantime, I won't be putting kid meat on the restaurant menu...the goat's cheese however is amazing and certainly will feature.

The search continues...

Eat the Seasons...

2007-05-15T00:00:00.000+01:00

That's what it's all about.

Or rather this is :

Eat the Seasons

A new site dedicated to seasonal eating. I need say no more. There's no excuse now. Even if you live in the middle of the concrete jungle.

Sticking my neck out...

2007-05-14T23:35:00.000+01:00

I've got a thing about necks.

In this case, lamb necks. Or even better, hoggett necks.

In the rush for the shank that gripped the gastropub "revolution", plenty of other great animal bits were left behind. Such a fad for the shank has seen it appear on so many menus, that I think the country is getting a bit bored of it.

Well, if you've never tried it, then next time go for the neck. What you're after is pieces, bone in, cut straight through the vertibrae. They come out looking a bit like chunks of oxtail. Indeed, the result is fairly similar. You'll normally get three good chunks out of a neck.

What to do with them? Well. Any good braise is fine. With the bone in, you'll get plenty of flavour, but it won't hurt to bolster it up with a good stock. Seaon and sear them until nicely golden to get those caramelisations going, and then soften and colour your veg in the same pan. Deglaze and top up with stock and aromatics. Bring to boil and leave for as long as it takes. A couple of hours in the oven at 135C should do. The meat will fall off the bone just like oxtail, with succulent fibres of meat intertwined with those tremendously moreish sticky bits that are the hallmark of a good braise. Play with the ingredients to your hearts content. The method's always the same...

Happy slow cooking...

Floor of destiny...

2007-04-21T00:51:00.000+01:00

My restaurant has a floor.

This might seem a bit of an odd post, but it kind of explains the time gap between the last post and this one. i.e. the building of the restaurant. The floor in the dining room suddenly makes the picture come together. So, from here on in, a bit more time to blog, and a few more recipes!

Truffle snuffle.

2006-09-18T10:57:00.000+01:00

The ultimate forager's grail. In the UK, the truffle t.aestivum

Sent to me, via my brother, via Truffle UK.

What magnificent specimens they are too. Unfortunately you can't smell them, but the aroma is overwhelming. They've been divided among a number of storage methods. Which I'll detail later.

I had been wondering whether to include truffles in my restaurant's palette of allowable flavours. French and Italian truffles are magnificent but somewhat against the ethic, but knowing that the UK supply can be this good is something that makes the inclusion possible, if in limited amounts.

Truffle farming is a wonderful thing. Anything that makes an economic reason to plant and maintain large stands of oak trees is fine in my book. The fact that I don't need to import them is even better.

Yum.

Bacon run.

2006-09-12T22:18:00.000+01:00

We've solved our bacon dilema. Half the distance to my Tesco is a non-organic but high-welfare rare breed pig farm. Run buy a bloke called Phil. Doesn't need to rave about his products. They sit in the enormous field snuffling at you themselves. Sandys, Old spots, and more. The pork is sold from a fridge in a shed. He makes his own bacon. I'll be making my own with his bellies as well.

Hurrah. Bacon on sourdough.

getting there...

Off to see a man about Longhorn cattle and Llanwenog mutton tomorrow. And hopefully some ducks too.

Beauty and the Yeast...

2006-09-12T21:01:00.000+01:00

Sourdough. It's the answer I've been looking for for years.

Recently, prior to the opening of my new restaurant, I've been experimenting with bread. I want everything served to have a link to the local surroundings. Not just a nod. But an intimate bond to the terrain in which it comes from. I have amazing organic stoneground flours to work with, unbleached and natural. I can use spring water from the hills surrounding, and sea salt from the coast not too far north. Where does my yeast come from? Most of it, in packets or begged over the bakery counter from my local supermarket.

How disppointing, that final, living link. The one cog in the machine that makes it all work. Tied to the supermarket.

Time to change all that. I've been meaning to nurture a leaven for a while now. Ever since I read about Steingarten's effort (in which volume I can't remember) on making a New York Sourdough. I love the elegance. The chance to hunt wild yeast. So much more ephemeral than picking a blackberry...

So. I did my research. Comparing various methods and recipes I set my starter going.

10 days.

Mix. Feed. Rest. Feed. Rest. Feed. and so on.

I started it with four wild bullaces, with their natural bloom still chalky blue on the surface.

Day 5, it started to smell just like Edelweiss (a wonderful Weissbeer I'm rather partial to.) and also unfortunately a little whiff of banana, which my future wife was not impressed with.

Day 9. Every day now it foams up the side of the jar as if it wants to get out there and do stuff.

Day 10. Knead, Nurture, Wait. Shape. Wait. Slash. Bake.

Day 10. Eat some of the best bread I've ever made. Tangy, individual, irresistable.

If this leaven ever dies, I shall be mortifed (or I'll start it again using the sloes which are so abundant this year). My life has just become slave to a 500g kilner jar.

Ho hum.

Barmy Bacon

2006-09-08T21:58:00.000+01:00

Sadly, pragmatic food solutions often lead us into the depths of our national supermarkets. Not always horrible. More and more of them are realising there is a burgeoning market in both organic and local marketing.

Here's my rant. Why is it that there are still enormous gaps in the thinking?

Take bacon. My local Tesco sells umpteen types of cures, all "british". So why are all the organic cures Danish? As a consumer who generally cares about where my meat comes from in this order : organic, high welfare, local, british... and I'm not alone, I'm stuck in a what do I value more judgement, and I end up avoiding bacon.

Arrrgh.

Big Barn

2006-09-08T21:32:00.000+01:00

One of the biggest issues I find as both a home food buyer and a chef-restaurateur, is that finding all that wonderful artisan food can be a right kerfuffle. All those who know the wonders of Borough Market can point at the ease of popping down there on the weekend to get amazing stuff. Many a blogger has written on the wonders of the market. But how many people can get that range of produce in their farmer's market? (Not that we shouldn't support them) Many are simply well below par, diluted with second phase suppliers, rather than the producers we really want to meet (I can make my own chutney and cake thanks...). Even when living among it in the countryside it can be difficult to locate that farmer round the corner who's got just what you need.

The answer.

Big Barn.

Well, part of it anyway. A growing resource to find exactly what's on your front door.

Have a go!

www.bigbarn.co.uk

Abundance

2006-09-08T18:49:00.000+01:00

Well, the sun is creeping lower in the sky, and certainly where we are, the ravages of autumn are getting into full swing. While we absorb these last blasts of heat in the Indian summer we know that the frosts are coming, and laying down some goodies is the next perogative, while enjoying the summer's last fruits as well.

This week we've been out in the hedgerows collecting bullaces and brambles. It's jelly season.

Here's a basic rulebook for your berries...

1. Make sure you know what you're picking. The two above are fairly straightforward. Bullace is a wild plum. Amazingly this year, in our area they're almost edible off the tree, but they can be rather tart and astringent. Blackberries are hopefully familiar to even the most ardent urbanite.

2. Wash. For brambles it's worth soaking in a salt solution to lure out the maggots and various other minibeasts eager to eat your spoils. Leave them for a while and rinse well.

3. A good rough guide recipe is to briefly stew your fruit until the juices are really flowing, mash it well, and then pass it through a couple of layers of muslin overnight (or a jelly bag if you're feeling flush). Don't squeeze the bag! Measure the resultant volume of juice, and add an equal volume of sugar. Boil, starting slowly, to 108C. Jar. Enjoy.

4. For low pectin fruits, then the addition of apple in moderate quantities makes for good setting qualities. I usually add about a 5th to bramble jellies. When picking brambles, picking about a quarter slightly underripe, will also boost the pectin levels. The final way to get pectin is to buy it in, either in pectin-added sugar, or as pure pectin.

Our hoarding now lasts us until this time next year. How sensible.

Here's a place to start...

2006-08-30T22:33:00.000+01:00

Look in your fridge.

How many things can you see that you can tell where or how:

a) it was grown
b) it was reared
c) it got to you

I wonder?