HUNTER-GATHERING: wild & fresh food

'Dent-de-lion': Hunting Lions, Salade Pissenlit & the Ultimate pickling liquid.

One of the first questions asked by many a beginner when it comes to their first foray into the wild larder is ‘what easiest to begin with?’ The most obvious would be the stinging nettle, blackberries, elderflower and of course: the dandelion.

Dandelions (Taraxacum officinale) are a member of the Daisy family along with yarrow, burdock, pineapple weed and chamomile. They are one of the most prolific of wild plants and you’d have to try particularly hard not to find them: gardens, hedgerows, fields, disturbed ground- they’re everywhere. The dandelion holds fond memories for me and is largely responsible for my journey into the world of hunter-gathering, when I was seven and entering into my feral child phase, my mother used to send me out to the garden armed with a pair of scissors to hunt lions for supper: ‘Only take the younger paler leaves’ was the only information given. This was very much the ‘Eureka’ moment when I realized that there were more than just blackberries to be had from the hedgerow.

The name dandelion comes from the French ‘Dent-de-lion’, a reference to the shape of the leaves, a jagged row of viscious teeth. Other names include: Pissenlit or Piss-a-bed which points to the plants diuretic qualities from a medicinal point of view. My personal favourite has to be ‘Fairy Cocks’, although why they are named this is beyond me!

In culinary terms, you can’t get much better than the dandelion, everything from the root up is edible, making it one of the most versatile plants to take out of the wild and into the kitchen. The sheer amount of recipes racked up by the dandelion over the centuries is testament alone. Coffee, wine, beer, salads…the list goes on, other than burdock and the rhizomes of Cat-tails, the root of the dandelion is one of the major carbohydrate resources available to us in the UK.

 

Four good things: Flowers, buds, leaves and roots.

How to use dandelion depends largely on what part of the plant you’re going for, what is a constant throughout is the dandelion’s tendency to bitterness, there are a few tricks to limiting it, such as blanching roots or leaves in changes of boiling water, picking only the youngest leaves or going for the preventative method of placing plant pots over select plants and leaving them for a few weeks until the leaves become pale and yellow. Think chicory. One thing that is for certain is a mixture of sugar, salt and lemon juice will really help bring out the best in dandelions.

To help with you with how to get the most out of dandelions here is a rough breakdown of what to do with what:

Flowers: other than adding a vibrant gold to a salad, the flower heads are also used in making quite a pleasant wine. Also you can pick out the stamens as a peasant’s saffron and add to rice which gives a tinge of yellow.

Buds: Prior to the flowers opening, the plump flower buds have a startling resemblance to caper berries- worth pickling to make a caper substitute as you can with ash keys. Follow the steps below using the ‘ultimate pickling liquid’. They can also be used raw in salads or added to soups.

Leaves: The leaves are very much a salad ingredient, although they can be wilted and served like spinach, I have always found them best in their natural state. Try to pick only younger leaves which wont be as bitter as some of the beasts you will find, if you are going to use bigger leaves- dress accordingly with a sweet dressing using sugar or honey. Works very well with a Lyonnaise-style salad, that goes by the name ‘Salade Pissenlit’ which utilizes bacon and the essential fat rendered from frying (see below).

Roots: The roots, once scrubbed well, can be blanched in a couple of changes of water and pan-fried, they can be roasted in the embers of a fire, peeled dipped in a little salt and nibbled on. To make coffee (again the bitterness is the reason it makes a good substitute), scrub and dry the roots, chop into small pieces and place them in the oven at 190C for a few hours, turning occasionally. These can then be put in a coffee grinder and used accordingly. Pleasant and nutty with one downside- Caffeine not included.

The Root: one of the wild's handy carb providers.

Ultimate Pickling Liquid.

(Makes 2 litres).

Based on a recipe from the book Artisanal Cocktails by Scott Beattie, this pickling liquid is a little on the sweet side, very aromatic and works well with bitter flavours. Particulary good with alexanders, fennel and cucumber, I use this as a standard pickling liquid for ash keys, Alexander buds and dandelion buds. Keeps in the fridge indefinitely.

Ingredients

• 4 tsp Fennel seeds
• 1 ½ TBSP mustard seeds
• 2 TBSP Coriander seeds
• 250g white granulated sugar
• 1.4 litres of white wine vinegar
• 3 cloves
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 cardomom pods
• 1 inch of cinnamon
• 1 dried birds eye chilli
• 1 dried smoked chipotle chilli

First, heat a stainless steel pan and add the fennel seeds, mustard seeds and coriander seeds and toast for a minute or two to release the aromatic oils, then set aside.

Place the sugar and vinegar in a stainless steel pan and heat gently, until all the sugar has dissolved- DO NOT BOIL! Just as it is getting to the point of boiling, add all the other ingredients along with the toasted spices and take off the heat and put aside to cool.

To use, simply fill your jars with what you want to pickle, pour over the pickling liquid and seal- et voila!

  

 

Salade Pissenlit.

(serves 2)

Based on a Lyonnnaisse salad from Lyon, the gastronomic capital of France, usually served with bitter endives and frisee lettuce. This salad has been served many a time by our less culinary adventurous neighbours using dandelions hence the name- Salad Pissenlit.

Ingredients.

• 2 handful of young dandelion leaves
• A few scrubbed dandelion roots finely chopped and blanched.
• 2 handful of lardons
• 2 poached eggs
• 2 slices of toasted bread- chopped into squares for croutons

Dressing:

• 1 TBSP of olive oil
• 2 TBSP of white wine vinegar
• 1 tsp of Dijon mustard
• 1 TBSP sugar
• Juice of half a lemon
• Salt & pepper to taste

Wash the dandelion leaves first, then scrub, chop and blanch the roots in boiling water for 10 minutes. Mix up all the ingredients for the dressing in a jam jar.

Pan fry the lardons, then add the croutons and dandelion roots, poach two eggs and then you are ready to construct.

Plate up the salad and add the lardons, croutons and roots- make sure you get plenty of fat from the pan too- essential! Give it agood mix with your hands.

Add the poached egg on top and serve the dressing alongside. Done.

Dandelions are an essential part of the Spring Menu at Hunter Gather Cook. If you want to come and learn all about what’s at its best in spring, butcher a deer and try some wild brews along with plenty of taster dishes, outdoor cookery methods, trapping and fire making, why not book on one of our spring seasonal courses here!

Happy Lion Hunting!

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Ethiopia Part 2: Heading North to the Antsokia Valley. #foodfrontline

Know your onions: Harvesting Red Onions, Antsokia Valley.

After flying into Addis Ababa late in the evening, I arrived to a refreshingly cold ‘St. George’ beer and my accommodation which was better than some of the places I’ve lived (treehouse, cow shed, desert island etc.), I was out like a light.

Up early the next morning, I got a crash course in Ethiopian Date & Time settings: So, It’s 2005 here- I’m 7 years younger. Also, there are 13 months in a year and each month is exactly 30 days long, except the 13^th, which only lasts 5 days. Finally, the hours in a day are slightly perplexing to say the least: an hour after sunrise its 1 o’clock and so on throughout the day till sundown…

  Twister: Freak dust storm/tornado set off by a bus on the drive north.

Day 1 saw us head 6 hours north to the Antsokia Valley. Those of you who remember the devastating famine of 1984, will be familiar with the area. Antsokia was one of the worst affected areas and many of the news reports and images of food drops were from here. The drive up was a flickr stream of Ethiopia drive-by snapshots- getting the feel of a place as they whizz past the window. Euculyptus trees, euculyptus scaffolding, eucalyptus timber frames, thatched roofs and beasts of burden- donkeys & camels. My eyes were glued to the window for most of the journey. My first thoughts on what I was seeing was that this was how England used to be some time ago and knowing what it has become, probably still should be.

We eventually arrived in the town of kimbolcha our base for the next few days. Whilst in Antsokia we were due to visit a number of Area Development Programmes (ADP’s) set up and run by World Vision. What has happened here in the past 30 years is quite astounding. Firstly, this is Development on a grand scale- NOT aid and has been played out in 3 distinct phases:

Phase 1: Relief (1984-85)- Food drops, Feeding centres and emergency health care. Around 4m people affected.

Phase 2: Rehabilitation (1986-89)- Infrastructure, Agriculrural development and child sponsorship.

Phase 3: Development (1990- present)- Livability, sustainable incomes and phase out of ADP’s.

Some of the projects we have visited have included irrigation schemes, Fruit farms and Dairy farms. This is not on the vast scale that you would expect in the UK, but smaller cottage industries: smallholders in the real sense and not some H E Bates fantasy realized by a city dweller. The people here have grafted hard with the unfaltering support of World Vision to turn Antsokia from a dust bowl into a fruitful, fertile Oasis. 

Ethiopian smallholding: Fruit farming in Kamisi, Antsokia Valley.

The Utility room: Ethiopian Smallholding.

Underneath the Mango tree: Smallholder Seada Kamal, 36.

Ripe Apple Mangoes, Kamisi.

Fresh Oranges, on Seada's smallholding, Kamisi.

First taste of 'Tela': Ethiopian Homebrew with bits in, instead of hops they use 'Gesho'- twigs, leaves and berries.

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Ethiopia part 1: Back to Africa.

People are amazing creatures. All individuals, all slightly tweaked versions of one another, yet all drawn to different things as we grow up. As kids we’re pretty much the same, easily pleased by similar things, yet as we grow we start to become different, interests develop, pastimes are forged, firm friends are made, experiences are had and you start feeling the things your parents used to talk about called ‘draughts’ (not the game), but that’s only one side of the coin.

On the flipside is the other person that is developing: the ‘professional side’. Be it school, college or university, there's always a goal in place for you. I still remember when I did my ISCO test I got career options such as tree surgery, jewelry design, graphic design and armed forces. Mainly because I was interested in making stuff and the outdoors, accuracy at its best- I can almost hear David Cameron reading me the results.

Many of us follow down the route that has become common place over the last 80 years, the so-called normal life: 9-5 job in a obscure occupation suggested when you were 17, or one you fell into because you didn’t have a clue what you really wanted to do at the time.  Married at 30, kids at 32, buy a house and live out the days doing the same thing everyday.

Us lucky people, the choices, the opportunities and the double life.

A few years back I opted out, I hadn’t figured out what I wanted to do and what I was doing was repetitive and dull. I wanted to do my own thing, so I settled for the woods, a treehouse and the simple life of a hunter-gatherer for six months, with very little idea where it would take me. Living off about  £8 a week on staples, foraging, hunting and growing veggies to make ends meet and with a bartery deal of occasional farmhand work for the land use, I became a free man.

That’s not to say I’m into all that crusty, hippy commune bollocks. It’s not really, like…my bag, man. But what that experience taught me is that there are, as there always have been, four main ingredients to life: food, water, shelter, fire. If you have all those then you are living. We fill our lives with a lot of things we don’t really need (yes I have an iphone- because they’re like a Swiss army knife- useful), but how attached to these things do you need to become beyond using it as a tool and means of communication?

This isn’t a hard hitting post about how fortunate we are in the UK and how less fortunate they might in my next destination. The thought of Ethiopia conjures up one thought from my past- food, and the lack of it. I was two years old when the famine hit the country big time. So what’s it like thirty years later and how have things changed?

I don’t tend to hit up London much these days, when I do it is always a fleeting visit before heading back to the sticks, but one thing I can imagine is that I’ll be bumping into a lot more cheerful folk than I would on the London underground. In my experience of visiting places in Africa and the South Pacific in the past, people who have less are often happier. Their lives aren’t as cluttered with the unnecessary rubbish that we in the UK like to fill it with.

Talking of luck, World Vision UK have very kindly invited me out to see what has happened in Ethiopia 30 years later. I will be spending a week or so visiting some of the organisation's ADPs (Area Development Programs) this month. From projects around the capital Addis Ababa, heading north to the Antsokia valley and south to Lake Assawa. Having downsized myself a few years back a vast step beyond the idyll of Whipping-tool’s ‘River Cottage’ series, I’m eager to see how these people live, how they cook, what they eat and how they produce it, what they do for meat? I’ve heard rumours that hunting and gathering is not an option in Ethiopia, from a legal point of view. So beyond an agricultural or pastoral existence- what options are open to the people of Ethiopia?

I’m sure there’s going to be some epic things to see, some great people to meet and some fine experiences to be had. Myself and two other writers will be reporting back what we see- Helen Graves of foodstories.com and Jo Middleton of slummysinglemummy.com

I’ve travelled a bit and I’ve been to some places and seen some stuff. I have also had my reservations about NGO’s, being a keen reader of Paul Theroux’s books, he paints the picture that they all drive around in big white 4x4’s and are responsible for creating a circle of dependence from giving aid. But that is simply one man’s opinion. I get to see it for real and pass my own judgement- not just from something I’ve read by a man I don’t know. World Vision run a very different scheme- Child sponsorship, an entirely different model. What I am there to write about is their 'Enough food food for everyone IF' campaign which is a collaboration of a variety of charities and organisation that are aiming to end the world hunger crisis.

I know what its like to be hungry, thanks to 3 months on a desert island with Channel 4 and living as a caveman for a week for Reader's Digest, but certainly not to the extent that the people of Ethiopia have in the past.

But I suppose what this all comes back to is food. Here, we live in a world where foraging is an ‘option’, Thrift is a mindset that’s tough to get into for some, buying ‘organic’ vegetables from expensive farmers markets simply because they still have a bit of dirt on them has become fashionable. It’s ridiculous, but the worst thing is, deep down, we know it.

 

When did our lives become like they are? A slave to the system of working in order to buy the food we need to survive (yes, I use the supermarket- can’t deny, but I still haven’t cracked the ‘secret’ recipe for Lea & Perrin’s and rice doesn’t really grow that well in Sussex). Back to the coin and its flipside, I do forage a lot of my food, shoot it, hook it and grow it- mainly because its fresh, I know where its come from and above all its pretty much free. And that makes me happy. I’m not a rich man, not by a long shot, but happiness can be found in the most unlikely of places.

  Last visit:Okovango Delta, Botswana.

I don’t know what I can expect, but I hear world vision have been doing some pretty impressive stuff out there, their sponsor a child program hits at a grass roots level and helps give many children the chance a lot of us have taken for granted. Education can lead to many things and hopefully an ISCO test isn’t one of them!

So we shall see what the next week produces- I hope to be doing live updates every day whilst I am out there with plenty of photos for you good people to see. Check-in same time tomorrow…

 

Peas x

The Rabbit Canape: De-constructed Rabbit Caesar Salad.

One of the good things about living in France is that you can buy Rabbit in the supermarket, the bad thing is, they ain’t cheap. Back in the UK, I never have to fork out for Rabbits, simply take out the gun and bring back a brace o’coneys. In France I don’t have a gun, let alone land to shoot on and even if I did, there are no bunnies running around the sandy fields of Landes, because trigger-happy hungry Frenchies have already shot them all.

Spenny Rabbit: 6 Euros for 4 haunches!

Rather than potting (see potted rabbit post here), pan-frying and stewing Rabbits, a regular occurrence at Hunter Gather Cook HQ, dainty little canapés are rarely served, something that is due to change this year. Secret Productions have asked the HGC team to come to Wilderness Festival in the Cotswolds to have a woodland lounge serving wild canapés and wild cocktails after teaching deer butchery sessions and conducting foraging walks. I can guarantee that this little beauty will certainly make the cut!

Bitesize Bunny: I love it when they just jump into the basket...

Last September, the Mrs and I tied the knot in deepest darkest Sussex. Naturally, the whole event was a largely bucolic affair in the corner of a field with tents, tipis, hog roasts, hay bales and some fancy cocktails.  Wild food and foraged fare was the main theme on the menu, but as I was in the process of getting hitched and my instructors were guests- who do you get to do the catering and do it well?

Dapper: One of the rare occasions I wear a suit.

Fortunately, we were recommended an excellent Sussex based caterer: Sarah Litchfield of Elm Green, who not only took up the challenge of a wild food menu for the day but delivered an excellent feast. Our list of canapés that were drawn up included the deconstructed Rabbit Caesar salad and it was a firm favourite with many of the guests, some who had never tried Rabbit before…

Wedding Menu hand drawn by Mrs W.

Ingredients:

For the Rabbit:

• Haunches from 2 rabbits, pre-cooked in a court bouillon (see here)
• 1 egg.
• 60g plain white flour (seasoned)
• 100g bread crumbs.
• Salt & Pepper

 For the Caesar Salad Dressing:

• 5 TBSP of Mayonnaise
• 1TBSP of cider vinegar
• Small handful Grated Parmesan
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 anchovies (finely chopped)
• Salt & Pepper
• Water for thinning the dressing.
• 2 heads of Little Gem lettuce.

First deal with the rabbit. They will need to be cooked in a court bouillon for 1 ½ hours so the meat will flake off the bone, 2 hours is too long, you want the meat to still have a fair amount of hold so they can be made into goujons.

Now make the dressing. This certainly isn’t the purest of dressing, we use shop bought mayo as we don’t have anywhere to plug the kitchen aid in at our off-grid kitchen in the woods. Now for a good little tip: If you can, try to keep a bulb of garlic in the freezer to take out with you in the field, below 0˚C garlic cells denature and become a lot less fierce. Finely chop the garlic and anchovies and mix up in a bowl with the rest of the dressing ingredients, at this point taste, season and add a little water to thin the dressing down.

Once you have all your rabbit pieces, lay out three plates: one with seasoned flour, one with a whisked egg and one with breadcrumbs. Dip and roll your rabbit pieces in each in the above order and ensure a thorough coating all over and then place to one side.

Heat up a frying pan with a good glug of cooking oil in it, dip in one end of the rabbit goujons to see if it starts to fry, if so, you are ready to cook- place in all the goujons and fry until lightly golden, flip them over and repeat. Remove and place on a paper towel.

Take a couple of heads of little gem lettuce and break off all the leaves and wash well. You are now ready to plate up on the platter of your choice. The nice thing about this canapé is the DIY-ness of it all, a bit like when you get one of those hot stones in a restaurant and pay an arm and a leg to cook your own meal. Grab a rabbit goujon, dip in the dressing and then place it in a little gem leaf. Eat. Then repeat...and repeat again.

So what does a Hunter-Gatherer's Wedding look like? Mostly homemade...

Dock: Stuffed.

If the first wild plant most of us learn as children is the stinging nettle, then the second one would have to be dock, an equally common plant always found in abundance. It seems unclear whether the dock really does cure a sting…is it the placebo effect? Is it that dock sap contains alkaline that will counteract against the formic acid?  Is it the saliva mixed with the dock after chewing and then applied to the stung area that helps? They grow together, so they must go together?

Dock is part of the dock family and another rumex, Oxalic acid is largely abundant- no sign of alkaloids at all. Apparently they do contain antihistamine, which counteracts the natural histamines found in the nettle…but hey, I’m not a botanist. I’m like…a cook, man. (but I will say plantain beats a dock on a sting hands down). One thing I am sure many of you will agree with me on if you have ever had the pleasure of being caught short in the great outdoors sans loo paper, is that it makes a pretty good substitute. The veins on the underside of the leaves are very good at…actually, I won’t elaborate.

Good Mates: Dock and nettles like to hang out in the same places.

So we all know what dock looks like, but more importantly: can it be eaten?

In short, yes, it can. It does come with a list of warnings that the usual list of plants containing oxalic acid do: do not eat if you have poor kidney function or are in ill health.  The toxic component is calcium oxalate (also found in taro, kiwi fruit , tea and rhubarb), these needle shaped crystals which can cause irritation to the skin, mouth throat and lead to stomach upset.

Still want to eat dock?

The Foraging Diary: invaluable to any hunter-gatherer.

The needle shaped crystals of calcium oxalate is also known as Rhaphides, they can’t normally be destroyed by boiling, but heating them does ‘fix’ the Raphides into a dried starchy matrix, making them less mobile and thus: safer to eat. Phew! As I said, not a botanist, but worth knowing you’re shit if you’re going to put it in your mouth (that came out wrong).

So if that hasn’t scared you off, the key to eating dock is to BOIL IT. If you are in need of further convincing, Andy Hamilton did a recipe for the BBC Food website here.

Although Dock can be used as a spinach substitute, the firm leathery leaves are still robust enough to be used for parceling your food of choice even after boiling.Think of them as vine leaves that grow everywhere. To render them perfectly edible, they need to be boiled twice. Heat two pans of water and add a pinch of salt. Once on a rolling boil, stick your dock leaves in the first pan and boil for 2 minutes. Remove them from the first pan and stick them in to the second pan for a further 2 minutes. Take out the leaves and dry them off on some paper towels. You are now ready to roll…

Filling is completely up to you: Rice, couscous, quinoa, rabbit, venison, horse, mince (preferably horse-free) nettle pesto cakes, the list is endless. I like to do mine with a simple Moroccan spiced couscous: pan fry some diced onion, chilli and garlic, finely chop some tomatoes, parsley and mint, make your couscous and chuck the whole lot together with some sunflower seeds, olive oil, salt, a dash of cumin and a good squeeze of lemon juice.

Origami using vegetation has never been a strong point of mine. After spending weeks on a desert island in the South pacific weaving an entire roof out of palm, my enthusiasm for such activities wore thin. But there is a knack to it with dock leaves and here’s how: 

Lay out your Dock leaves like this- underside facing down.

Then roll up like this and fix with a matchstick if necessary.

So there you have it, dock leaves can be used for more than just placating nettle stings or wiping your backside with. Not many plants have such a plethora of uses attached to their CV.

On another note, the first few Hunter Gather Cook Courses are down in the calendar with many more to follow when our new website goes online at the end of the month:

Spring Fungal Foray & Feast: Saturday 27^th April.

Spring Seasonal Day Course: Saturday 4^th May.

Please email enquiries@huntergathercook.com for more information.

In the meantime, life is busy. The wife and I are moving back to the UK leaving the sun, sea and surf of SW France behind (booo!) and relocating back to good ole’ Sussex. I am then off to Ethiopia with World Vision in March to hang out with some hunter-gatherers and write about it, what an adventure!

Get docking people!

Stag Do’s: Hunter Gather Cook Stylee.

Here at HGC, we like to cater for everyone and a group of lads looking to experience something unique as a send off for their condemned friend is no exception: The Hunter Gather Stag was born.

Trying to blend in: stag wears stag.

No longer are the men of today content with the “Prague, Tits & Beer” of the past, stag do’s are becoming more sophisticated (sort of…), paintball and go-karting don’t quite cut the mustard like they used to. Men want to be men and do manly stuff, collectively they want to unleash their inner caveman once unchained from the desk: they want to eat meat off the bone, they want to make fire, they want to sup a few ales and roar with laughter at each others expense. So where better to go than a Hunter-Gatherer School to let it all out?

 

In reality it seems that man has changed little over the last 10,000 years when it comes to the basics, some things just remain the same…

Being based only an hour from London and 20 minutes from Brighton, HGC HQ is ideally placed for those looking to experience a bit of outdoor adventure during the day and then head off to the bright lights of the city for a bit a bit of nocturnal revelry. No Stag group is the same, some have headed to Brighton, some to Eastbourne and quite a few to Lewes for some serious Ale tasting in the shadow of Lewes Cathedral (also known as the Harveys Brewery).

Racking up the Venison Kebabs.

 So what can you expect from a HGC Stag do?

Without further ado and not wanting to give the game away (a little smoke & mirrors never hurts…) here we go:

Bromance: How many stags can you fit into a 2 man shelter...

HUNTER:GATHER:STAG.

Come and join us in the woods to celebrate your staggy with a day of time-honoured manliness:

Deer butchery and Cook off

Fish trapping

Fire Starting

Shelter building

Wild food wander

Bush tucker trial

Cider tasting

HGC Challenge

Based on the South Downs near Brighton, expect a day of great banter and hands on outdoor action. The stag will receive a special gift from the HGC team as a ‘stagmento’ from his time in the woods.

Arriving At HGC HQ at 10am for a run through the order of play: The day is designed for your group to learn the basics of self-sufficiency and put them to the test!

We begin at HQ where you will learn how to skin and butcher an entire deer for your lunch using flint tools, then skewer up the meat to cook over the fire with a selection of HGC marinades and wild taster dishes. During lunch there will be a spot of cider tasting (we provide 5 gallons of cider for the day), then it is off into the wild to identify & taste some of Mother Nature’s bounty from the hedgerows. We can also provide supper, consisting of pit roast Haunch of Venison and all the trimmings.

After walking off the deer, you will embark on a tutorial of basic fire lighting, trapping and shelter building before the bush tucker trial where the stag will have to eat his way through insects, squirrel cock, deer testicle and fish bits.

Then it is time for the HGC challenge, which only the best man (or men) are allowed to know about…

Hunter Gather Cook will unleash the hunter-gatherer within and ensure you pick up plenty of tips for your next adventure into the wild!

If you are interested in booking a Stag do with us, please get in touch and send us an email: bookings@huntergathercook.com for more information, prices and available dates.

‘Staggy staggy stag stag.’

Hairy Bittercress Pesto.

There’s a surprising amount of stuff out at the moment- especially down here near Biarritz. The mint that has grown so profusely in the meadow outside my front door has braved the winter well and is already begun throw up new patches, the sorrel is just as plentiful as ever and even the red dead nettle is poking out all over the place. Granted we don’t have any snow like the UK at the moment and our winters are not so harsh near the Spanish border, but the weather is perpetually shit, there is very little to do as it rains almost constantly and even worse- Frenchies don’t ‘do’ pubs. Not even in the countryside. The warm beer of my motherland has never been so missed.

Hairy Bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta) is perhaps one of the most adventurous of all wild plants, in the sense that it can be found almost anywhere and is seriously invasive. Often it’s the back garden, flowerbeds and anywhere that man has disturbed the ground that will yield a good crop. You are more likely to find bittercress growing out of a crack in the pavement on the streets of London, than in a field in the countryside.

The plant itself grows in small rosettes that are easy to harvest- simply pinch the plant out of the ground and slice off the muddy root. The leaves have the typical cress-style look and small white flowers that can be seen reaching for the skies between February and September. The flavour has the peppery hit you would expect from rocket, indeed if you wish to up the stakes you can reach for Hairy Bittercress’ cousin: Cardamine pratensis also known as Lady’s Smock or Cuckoo flower (not to be confused with the name cuckoo pint/lords and ladies which is poisonous). Lady’s smock really does pack a punch, indeed it is an acquired taste with the power of horseradish…I have seen more people spit it out on courses than reach for another leaf.

As with many wild foods how we use them makes all the difference, the majority are best in their natural state and quite often don’t need cooking at all. Understanding what they work best with in terms of more common larder ingredients is an important skill for the 21^st century hunter-gatherer.  These days we are so lucky to have amazing ingredients from all around the world readily available to us. The internet is chock full of millions of recipes at our fingertips only a click away. Often the best way to begin when experimenting wild foods is to really taste the plant your dealing with and think of what it tastes similar to, then find a recipe that you think will showcase it well and make the substitution for the wildling.

This is partly why this blog has always featured more than just wild food, I have more cookbooks than is probably necessary and I rarely cook any recipes from them, but they are an invaluable resource for inspiration and ideas. Cookbooks should always have pictures to accompany the recipes- I want to try before I buy, I want to picture the end result and see if I like the look of it. The same cannot be said for restaurants, but then how many of you have had a cursory mooch around the room checking out what other diners are chowing down on? Thought so.

Of course this doesn’t always go to plan, I have had some epic disasters, but that’s all part of the learning curve. One recent exploration was pickling sorrel, I wouldn’t say it was a colossal balls up, more of sensory overload infliction to the palate: the sharpness of the oxalic acid combined with pickling fluid was enough to give you heartburn at 40 paces. However, left to marry and mingle with the Indian spiced pickling fluid for a few weeks and the result was quite a revelation!

 

Badass pickled Sorrel.

Experimentation is key. Playing with your wild food cannot be stressed enough. The most common wild food recipes you will come across will be elderflower cordial (can’t complain) and the quite repugnant wild garlic pesto. Granted wild garlic can be used in pesto, but mellow it out with other wild ingredients, rather than one big hit- all you will taste and smell of for the next few days is garlic! This illustrates the point perfectly, learn to use your wild food correctly and you will be off to a flying start.

Bittercress has always been something I have added to my Wild stinger nettle pesto for pepperiness and in the same way you can make rocket pesto, this is the wild version. Bittercress doesn’t tend to last very well once plucked from the earth and has a tendency to wilt and shrivel up, so this way you can increase its longevity indefinitely.

Hairy Bittercress Pesto.

Please note, the original recipe for Pesto from Genoa never contained pine nuts, so neither does mine…but feel free to add them if you wish.

15 rosettes of Hairy bittercress.

2-3 TBSP good quality Olive oil

1 garlic clove

Small handful of grated Parmesan

A few twists of salt and pepper

1/2 tsp of sugar

A good squeeze of lemon juice

Firstly, clip the bottom of the rosettes off and place the bittercress in a bowl of water, give it a good swish about to remove any dirt/soil/sand. Remove and drain in a colander.

Heat up a small frying pan, take your clove of garlic and bounce it around the pan for a bit- this will help make it less pungent, alternatively if you stick a few bulbs in the freezer this will have the same effect.

Put all ingredients in a blender with half the olive oil and whizz in short bursts, add a bit more olive oil as you go until you have the desired thickness and texture.

I don’t think I need to tell you how to use pesto…

Weekend whittle: you don't always have to shoot an Deer to get a set of antlers, this beast was French and called Hazel. 

 

Please check our COURSES section for HGC 2013 courses or get in touch if you fancy a private course: enquiries@huntergathercook.com

The Hunter Gather Cook Buckshot: Venison in a Mug.

We get through a fair amount of Deer at HGC HQ throughout the year, from beastly 70kg Fallow to dainty 25kg Roe. All the deer that come the the HGC kitchen are locally stalked and hung for the best part of 2 weeks before they appear on our table. In most cases its down to Ash, one of our instructors, to teach the delicate art of seam butchery with our guests. They all get stuck in be it removing the pelt, pencil fillets, backstrap, neck fillet or dissecting the haunch into a variety of fine cuts: The tender sirloin, top and bottom rounds, rump and the slightly tougher shank.

High Quality Banter plays an important role in our Butchery sessions.

HGC instructor Ash with one peice of backstrap ready for the camp kitchen.

Butchery is an important part of what we do and making it go as far as possible is firmly engrained in the Hunter Gather Cook ethos. Once Ash has finished with his apprentices, the meat is divvied up: Dave gets a fillet to make smoked biltong, I get the pencil fillets for carpaccio, haunches are put aside for the underground oven or split into cuts, antoher fillet is marinated and put on hazel skewers and all the offcuts are minced by hand. The 2 front haunches either end up in the freezer, go to my landlord or go home in a lucky course attendees rucksack. One deer, dealt with…

…not quite.

One Roe deer done: the remains of the carcass in the foreground ready for roasting.

What we are left with is not necessarily going straight to our very well fed foxes and buzzards (although the buzzards are more partial to picking apart rabbit pelts on a large fallen oak), but into our stockpot for plenty of future HGC meals. It works especially well in our Jelly Ear Broth with Sorrel.

First we fire roast the bones over the hearth on a bed of Oak and hornbeam before dismantling the ribcage and placing it in the pot with all the necessary goodies to form the basis of a fine stock: the holy trinity (onions, carrots, celery), a few crushed bulbs of garlic, salt & pepper, a good slug of red wine, crushed juniper berries, a sprig of rosemary, dried Wood Avens roots and an inch of cinnamon.

HGC instructor Dave roasts the remains on the fire ready for the stockpot.

Left to simmer away for the afternoon and reduce, by the end of a day course we have one hell of a stock and as most of the deer we get are virtually fat free- no need for skimming!

What we’re focusing on hear is a hearty, warming drink similar to the better known Bullshot (made using beef stock). The Buckshot is the far superior cousin and that little bit wilder. We served this wonderful concoction, a hot version of a Bloody Mary if you like, on our Fungal Foray & Feast’s back in October after a good two hour, drizzle-ridden yomp in search of ‘shrooms. By jingo did it go down well!

HGC course attendees filleting, mincing and mingling.

If you don’t happen to have a deer carcass to hand, try asking your local butcher and he might be able to get hold of some bones for you or substitute the venison stock for beef stock (then you have a bullshot). Without  further ado…the buckshot:

Ingredients.

(Serves 4)

500ml of Venison Stock (reduced)

300ml of Homemade Tomato passata

160ml of Vodka (Whisky can prove to be an interesting alternative!)

Juice of half a lemon

1 TSP Horseradish sauce

1 TSP red wine vinegar

a few drops of Tabasco (add more if it’s a cold day)

a drizzle of Worcester sauce

Salt & Pepper

Heat up the Venison stock and Tomato Passata in a saucepan, then add the rest of the ingredients and heat gently. You may wish to adjust seasonings to suit your taste, being a Tabasco addict, I like mine extra hot, but have to restrain myself when serving to guests!

Final thought- don't mess about when trying to manhandle a large deer carcass that weighs more than you into the back of a jeep. Trust me... 

If you would like to take part in any of our courses for 2013, please email:

enquiries@huntergathercook.com

Duck Hams: Easy Charcuterie.

I find that the beauty of eating duck is that its a relatively guilt free experience; I spent half my childhood feeding them, so its only fair to have the favour returned.

Duck. Not only has this humble fowl enriched the lives of many across the globe, but it has even lent its name to the familiar term of ‘get down’ when in the line of fire and being out first ball (that would be cricket to the uneducated). Everyone loves duck, whether it is from Peking: crispy with lashings of hoi-sin and pancakes or dished up with an abhorrant combo of orange. Duck, duck, duck and duck: the tastiest bird I have ever tucked into (although my wife might beg to differ). Chicken? Turkey? Both bland, both white and none should really be eaten raw. So in short, disappointing fowl with very few double entendres to back it up.

It appears I have now been ‘French’ for over a year. Life in South West France is grand…in the summer. Come winter, imagine English weather, regular storms charging into the Bay of Biscay and not a warm fire and country pub in sight. These are dark days indeed messieurs-dammes and blighty beckons like you wouldn’t believe, as far as I’m concerned this is karma paying me back for bragging about beaches, surf and 30C temperatures for the last six months to my UK counterparts- no one likes a willy waver (Al Humphreys-circa 2011).

Every Brit Ex-pat who ends up in France IS a willy waver. And if you know one- tell them they are. Big time. They all like to lay claim to living in a region that produces the best this and cooks the best that. All I will say is that I live in Aquitaine so that’s: Bordeaux wines, Armagnac, Perigord truffles, Bayonne ham, and Espelette chillis. But, above all else, this is foie gras country where the duck is king.

Whether you agree with the ethics of foie gras production or not (I have noted the absence of protesting folk around these parts, but mind you I’ve never met anyone that would want to be dissected with a blunt pitch fork), Foie gras is good stuff, so is veal, badger, lamb and horse, but I don’t want to get sidetracked- this is about the bird itself, not its liver.

Here in Landes, the Frenchies have developed a cunning way to hunt their Duck. Rather than chase fowl, they sit back comfortably in a sort of ‘bunker’ and eat and drink until the duck & geese come to them. Clever. Just down the road from us is L’etang Blanc, which hosts many of these hides known as ‘Palombieres’. Traditionally a palombiere is a high-rise platform in the trees that the armed Frenchie uses for nailing pigeons, often they have cages strategically placed in the surrounding trees where they keep live decoys to help bring in the unsuspecting pigeon.

On L’etang Blanc they have just taken the same concept to water. These elaborate man-made ‘islands’ are built on stilts in the middle of the lake and camouflaged to buggery (see picture).

Many of these Palombieres have running water and electricity piped in, stoves, tv's, fridges, beds, tables and chairs. Surrounding the palombieres are lots of plastic decoys sat on the water and attached to one side of the hide are the live decoys in a cage. These are not your standard live birds, but ones which have been specifically bred for their call- they are responsible for calling in passing duck or Geese and also alerting the hunters to incoming fowl.

All the Frenchie 'Chasseur' has to do is place down his Claret, spit out the baguette, flip open the flaps in the roof and fire away at the approaching silhouettes. Most hunting is done from dusk till dawn on clear moonlit nights, hence the reason for having beds to sleep in. Well thought out indeed, these are not simply hides but an elaborate setup that takes a lot of looking after- plenty of times when I’ve been out fishing for pike I’ve seen dedicated Chasseurs rowing out to their palombieres to take care of their harem of live decoys. Good lads.

So there’s the background on how we get our duck around these parts. On to the hamming…

This recipe for duck hams is based on one I came across in Paula Wolfert’s ‘Cooking of Southwest France’ and quite a fine read it is too. The recipe is fairly standard piece of charcuterie:

Ingredients.

2 Large duck breasts

½ cup Salt (100gs)

2 TSP of Ground black pepper

½ TSP of Herbes de Provence (or Thyme on its own work well)

2 TBSP cider or red wine vinegar

Other.

Muslin

String

1. The duck should have its skin and fat intact, shave off the skin leaving a good layer of fat behind. Score the fat cross-hatch fashion just to the flesh.
2. Rub the salt, pepper and herbs into both sides of the duck so it is completely covered and place on a few pieces of kitchen roll on a plate, cover with kitchen roll and put in the fridge for 24 hours.
3. The next day remove the duck breasts and wipe off all the seasonings with a damp cloth. Put the red wine vinegar in a shallow dish and dip the flesh side in for 20 seconds and then dry well.
4. Place the breast fat side down onto a piece of muslin (20 inches by 20 inches) and roll up in a nice tight cyclinder to ensure there are no air pockets. Tie up nice and tight with string from end to end.
5. Hang the hams in a cool dry place such as a garage or cellar for 2 weeks, they should be done when they have a bit of give when pressed between thumb and forefinger.The hams will last in the fridge for 1-2 weeks although you will probably devour them in one sitting! To seal them once used, just dip the cut end in some red wine vinegar.

 

So there you have it: ham of duck. Well worth doing, especially if you haven’t delved into the world of charcuterie before. Another particularly good one is this homemade Bresaola that I did a few years back.

Just returned from Christmas up in the mountains, some great snow and far too much indulgence on and off the slopes. Now back in Hossegor for a busy start to the New Year.

 

Adios 2012, and hello 2013, hope you all have a super New Year wherever you are and do please come and see us at Hunter Gather Cook for one of our courses next year, if you are interested in a joining us for a group day or a private day just drop us an email: 

enquiries@huntergathercook.com

This will be the last blog post here before our brand spanking new website and branding comes online in January with a shop full of our favourite kit, all our courses and a new blog packed full of HGC Recipes.