HUNTER-GATHERING: wild & fresh food

In a bit of a pickle...

It hard to say which absolute genius was responsible for inventing the sublime art of pickling.  An hour or so of research drew the rather vague conclusion I was expecting; archaeologists & anthropologists believe that by 2040BC, the Ancient Mesopotamians were into their pickling. Regardless of being able to take my hat off to anyone in particular, all I can say is thank goodness someone did!

Pickling evolved more out of necessity than anything else, as a method of preserving food when it was available for the future. Ancient peoples palates were no doubt blessed and cursed with the same tastes for different flavours as us. Hence pickling must have become a favourable way to process foods because they were enjoyed as well as preserved.

The process of pickling wouldn’t be possible without that most magic of ingredients: Vinegar. Traces of this wonderful liquid have been found in ancient Egyptian urns as early as 3000BC. Vinegar comes from the French expression “vin aigre” meaning “sour wine” and that is exactly what it is; white wine, red wine, cider, sherry and rice wine vinegar are all simply the results of the oxidisation of ethanol found in these alcoholic beverages.

Vinegar has had its fair share of historical reference; Jesus was offered “sour wine” on the cross and the prophet Mohammed declared it one of the four “blessed seasonings”.  Even Lord Nelson, after his untimely death, was placed in a barrel of sherry to preserve his body on the journey back to Blighty (ok, not vinegar but close).

Alongside this age-old process, a select bunch of herbs and spices have become part of its miraculous evolution:

• Mustard seeds
• Fennel seeds
• Cinnamon
• Cloves
• Black pepper
• Coriander seeds
• Dill
• Bay
• Garlic
• Ginger  

  
  There are two other classic additions, salt and sugar, also of vital importance in getting a good pickling. The sugar tends to balance the sourness of the vinegar, especially when making chutney.

The start of winter is the most common time to begin pickling and preserving, not least because most of the fruits and vegetables which receive these treatments have just been plucked from the earth or snatched from the tree (think onions, apples, carrots, cauliflower etc.) and are in great abundance.

I have always had a real passion for anything that involves vinegar, especially salt & vinegar crisps, pickled onions and pickles. I have even been known to drink vinegar directly from the bottle, much more so in my schooldays, now I wouldn’t attempt such a feat unless I had some Rennie Rapeze close to hand! So it was inevitable that the process of pickling would appeal to me and be a source of great satisfaction in the kitchen.

Three lessons I have learnt in my pickling career stand out and I only feel it right to inform you about them before you embark on your own (if you haven’t already).

Make sure you sterilise the jars properly! The prescribed method is to place your jars in a boiling water bath for ten minutes and stick them in a warm oven to dry out. This will prevent your hard graft being spoilt.

Try to leave your pickled items or chutney for 6-8 weeks if you can bear it. This will allow them time to develop more flavour and mature well.

When making chutney, turn on the extractor fan. I recently made a good size batch of red onion chutney without doing this. I then went to watch the fireworks on Clapham Common. Whilst on the bus a group of girls next to me remarked with disgust; “Can you smell pickled onion?” I also received the same treatment in the pub after the fireworks…

I am afraid that the piece de resistance; the pickled onions, have been omitted from the recipes. This is because I was handed the recipe from my girlfriend’s Mother. It is her grandmother’s secret recipe and Clare warned me, that it would be a dumpable offence if I were to post it. I can assure you they are quite something to keep secret!

Pickled chillies

This is a great way to store your chillies for future culinary use, chillies do last a while in the fridge, but due to their fiery heat, they are not always used up before it is too late.

• Selection of chillies (500g)
• 300ml cider vinegar
• 200ml of water
• 1tsp light brown soft sugar
• 1tsp salt
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 tsp black peppercorns
• 1tsp coriander seeds
• 1tsp turmeric
• 5 dried Kaffir lime leaves

Wash all the chillies and pierce each chilli a few times with a knife. This allows the pickling in and the air out, otherwise they float in the jar when the liquid is poured in.

Put all the other ingredients in a pan and heat until the sugar and salt dissolve. Do not boil. 

Pack the chillies into a jar and pour over the pickling liquid. Allow it to cool and then push down all the chillies to release the air inside them. Store in a dark place for a couple of weeks before use.

Pickled cayenne beans.

This was an idea put forward by my brother who lives in New York. He said they are incredible and a jar in his house lasts only a few days! If you want to see them for yourself and place an order visit: http://rickspicksnyc.com/jar.php?jar=4

Or have a go yourself!

• 1 pack green beans
• Pickling vinegar (300ml)
• 1tsp cayenne pepper
• 1tsp salt
• 1 fresh red chilli (finely chopped)
• A few sprigs of dill
• 4 cloves of garlic

 

Incredibly simple! Wash and dry the beans and chop off all the stalk ends.

Place all the other ingredients in the bottom of a sterilised jar, pack in beans, chopped-end down and fill the jar with pickling vinegar.

I have yet to taste these, but from what I have heard, I can hardly wait!

 

Red onion & chilli chutney

(Makes 2 medium jars)

This is absolutely my favourite chutney! Far too often I find myself with a dollop of this, a nice chunk of Stilton and a stack of water biscuits!

 

• 5-6 medium red onions
• 100gs of sultanas
• 1 large red chilli (finely chopped)
• 4 garlic cloves (finely chopped)
• 1tsp salt
• 1tsp smoked paprika
• 300ml red wine vinegar
• 175g light brown soft sugar

 For the spice bag:

• 1 thumb size piece of ginger (roughly chopped)
• 1tsp black peppercorns
• 1tsp coriander seeds
• ¼ stick of cinnamon stick (crushed)
• 6 cloves

 

Wash and chop the onions into half moon slices (5mm thick) and place in a saucepan.

Tie up the spice mix in a piece of muslin and place in the pan with the onions.

Add all the other ingredients and put the saucepan on a medium heat. Once the vinegar has begun to boil and the sugar has dissolved, turn down the heat. Turn on the extractor fan!

Simmer for 1 ½ - 2 hours, stirring occasionally. The chutney is ready when it is rich, thick and reduced; when you draw a wooden spoon through the mixture, it should part to reveal the base of the pan.

Pot up the chutney into warm, sterilised jars and allow it to cool before sealing. Leave well alone for at least a month!

All these recipes have a good dose of chilli, especially the pickled chillies! This is because I have a deep affiliation for heat, but they can, in most cases, be left out if you are not a fan. Pickling is a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon and keep away the blues; it is also something that you will enjoy consuming for the rest of the cold, wet British Winter

 

 

Sussex, cider and a couple of fish.

I only think it fair to pay homage to three of my favourite things all in one post. These three subjects have all had their fair share of the limelight and frequently pop up in my writing. The following pictures were taken over one incredible weekend down south, from the Old smugglers village of Alfriston (fishing & cider) near the coast, up to Winnie the Pooh’s home; Ashdown Forest (shooting and mushrooms). I like to think that these photos epitomise why I love the countryside. Autumn is in full swing, the pike are back in season and the time has begun for getting cosy in crooked country pubs in front of big log fires, drinking pints of fine ale and sharing some top notch banter with friends.

This particular weekend began in the same way most Sussex breaks do, with a spot of fishing. As the winter draws in the pike start to become more active in their violent ambushes on unsuspecting baitfish, so it is the best time of year to chuck your line in the water in the hope of hauling in one of these evil looking beasts.

I had gone down to see my friend Charlie. Charlie used to live down in Alfriston, as his parents owned one of the pubs in the village, University holidays were conducted in glorious states of lawlessness, both in the village and out of it. This was when we found our favourite pike venue a few miles from the village, which sadly has declined in productivity since those hedonistic days, but can still offer up some good fish.

The train ride down from London was fantastic, not just because I was about to go up against the most dangerous of all freshwater fish (at least, if you are another freshwater fish), but because I had a whole 3 days out of town. The day didn’t look at all pleasant. Dreary and grey with a dose of drizzle thrown in for good measure; your typical British weather if you like. It was meant to brighten up in the afternoon, but at 9am, looking out of the train window, it didn’t look hopeful.

Luckily, it pays to have a contingency plan up your trouser leg for just this kind of unforeseen circumstance. On the way to the Fishing spot I suggested that we pull into Middle Farm (mentioned in the Atomic cider post a couple of months ago. www.middlefarm.com) and pop in we did.

To the Cider aficionado, this place is stepping through the pearly gates...

As well as being a working farm, the cider barn is quite something to behold as you can see. Gallons upon gallons of the stuff line the walls, floor to ceiling. The best part is that you can happily wander around trying as many different Cider and Perry’s as you like, armed with a small, plastic tasting cup the world is your oyster. As you can see, when in the country, it is important to wear a Barbour jacket at all times.

We set about looking for the perfect Cider in earnest (myself more so, as I wasn’t driving), with all these different brews to get through, its damn thirsty work, which is just as well. 30 minutes later I was groggily filling up my 2-pint plastic carton with ‘Red Rooster’ a local brew with a head-splitting 8.4% alc. content. I couldn’t resist purchasing a pint of Lindisfarne Northumbrian Mead (14.5%). No wonder Vikings and the like went berserk back in the day, they were tanked up on this stuff!

As we stepped out of the barn into the cold light of day, sunlight burst through the grey skies, had we been in there that long? Outside a young maiden was in the midst of crates of apples, feverishly putting them through a sort of mincer/masher (the apples, not the crates). The pulp was then plonked in a press and the juice was unceremoniously squeezed out of what was a perfectly tasty looking bunch of apples, oh the sacrifices that are gone through for the delights of cider!

 

With the weather clear, fishing was to commence. There we sat, dead baits in the water, pasties and cider for lunch. I was the first to score with a pike and Charlie soon followed with an equally impressive fish. The rest of the day passed fairly uneventfully, although we saw some big fish moving none of them took the bait. I think just being there was good enough.

The next day, I put away the rod and line and out came the gun. Fur and feather were the order of the day and a friend’s farm the venue for an afternoon of hunting and gathering. This time of year the mushrooms are just clinging on to the edge of autumn before the first frosts wade in and put an end to free fungal feasts.

Armed with the trusty 12-bore and a load of cartridges, I set off on my jaunt. Three hours later, 2 squirrels, a wood pigeon, a pheasant and a bagful of hedgehog mushrooms were stuffed in my satchel, which was fit to burst at the seams. All these wonderful ingredients were destined to end up in a game pie. Sadly this never happened, next time perhaps…

Despite the fact I haven’t done a single bit of cooking for this post, it is still important to put in a recipe and this is an absolute corker! With the festive season upon us (almost), I have procured a small gem from the Middle farm national collection of Cider and Perry. So, feet up in front of the fire and get a batch of this on.

Sussex Mulled Cider:

• 4 pints of still, dry farmhouse cider
• 3 apples- washed, cored and sliced
• 2 oranges, washed and sliced
• juice and zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
• 2tsp ground mixed spice
• 8 whole cloves
• 2 cinnamon quills snapped in half
• 6tbsp light brown soft sugar

Put all ingredients into a pan, cover and heat gently for a minimum of 1 hour. Do NOT boil.

Serve with a few slices of all the bits and enjoy. If you have any crab apple jelly, substitute a few tbsp of sugar for a few of jelly for a uniquely pleasant twist on this old classic.

As I approach the end of this post, I start to question the relevance of this lost ramble about a weekend in the country, why put it on? I think maybe the point is that these pictures sum up my relationship with the countryside. I suppose it provides an insight into my life and the way in which I view the world around me and above all, the things that I appreciate most be it a fence post or a rickety flint-stone barn. Each tells their own story and have long been part of something that comes together to form a most impressive landscape. So here's to you Sussex…

 Thanks for everything.

Above: South downs, as seen from Ashdown forest.

Thank You!

Hello Everyone,

This is just a quick note to all of you that drop in to my corner of the ‘Net’. Thank you very much for all of your lovely comments and appreciation of the blog. Whilst sifting through it the other day I had a horrible feeling half were missing!

Fear not, at the bottom of each page (as in how far you can scroll down) there is a small blue ‘>>’ which is quite hard to make out, I would urge you to click on this especially with the “wild” section to see earlier escapades (the wild weekend is one of my favourites!).

As some of you may be aware I spent three months last year in the Cook islands as the “Survival Expert” for Shipwrecked 2008, a UK program for Channel 4.  It was a brilliant experience for me, how often do you get a desert island to do what you want with?!

If you would like to see episode 1 (there are 14 25 minute episodes!) starring yours truly please go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLX_zoGcbbM

All episodes are on you tube.

Please also see a friend of mines Website: http://www.maketravelfair.co.uk/2008/11/06/shipwrecked-surviving-the-cook-islands/

Make Travel Fair was established at the end of 2006 as an online platform to communicate some of the global issues associated with travel, to encourage education amongst travellers and to encourage travel as a means of education.

Thanks again everyone, next post coming over the weekend!

Nick.

 

 

Pumpkins aren’t just for Halloween.

Why ruin a perfectly good pumpkin? Every Halloween you see 100’s of ‘Jack-o’-laterns’ in peoples windows and porches each emitting a faint eerie glow through sketchy-carved out features, not that I am one to poo-poo a time honoured tradition. When it comes to the end of October I feel pumpkins should be purchased in pairs, not because they are particularly sociable vegetables, because one can be carved out and the other can be used for filling your belly.

As I remember I used to be a bit of a dab hand at carving pumpkins, I loved drawing as a child and to be able to put a scary face on a vegetable was something you don’t get to do everyday. The only down side I found with carving a mean looking pumpkin and sticking it by the gates was that no-one would get to see my handiwork (not at the end of a half mile driveway on the forest anyway).

The pumpkin’s association with Halloween was conceived in North America around the 1860’s and in folklore terms it had something to do with warding off demons. Cinderella used to get the fairy godmother to turn a pumpkin into a carriage when she went for a night on the town and even Harry Potter is quite partial to pumpkin juice or three.

So now you have the historical facts about the pumpkin, what use does it have in the kitchen? Being a member of the squash family it can be used for all sorts: mashed, baked, roasted, sautéed and pureed, there is no end. One of my favourite ways to eat a pumpkin is taken from the River Cottage Cookbook. I have to hand it to Hugh, he did a fantastic job with this one. I‘ve made a few changes like adding pancetta and using cheddar instead of gruyere.

A great by-product of this recipe is the pumpkin seeds themselves. If you are feeling thrifty, then one of the things I like to do while waiting for the pumpkin to bake is to chuck the seeds in a bowl with a splash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, a sprinkle of mixed herbs and a pinch of salt & pepper and roast them in the oven for 5-10 minutes. Yum!

 

Baked Pumpkin with Cheddar and Pancetta.

Not the healthiest meal, we’re talking gluttony of the highest order and one hell of a winter warmer. (Serves 1)

 

• 1 smallish pumpkin.
• 500gs of mature cheddar (depending on size of squash)
• 1 small pack of Pancetta
• 200ml of double cream
• Freshly grated nutmeg
• a small knob of butter
• Black pepper

Slice off the top of the pumpkin (about 1” down) and put to one side, you will use this as the lid later. Scoop out all the seeds and the stringy, soft bits. Keep the seeds for roasting (as mentioned earlier).

Preheat the oven to 190C. Fry off the pancetta and place on a kitchen towl to cool for 10 minutes.

Season the inside of the pumpkin with pepper, the pancetta will provide the saltiness. Fill the pumpkin 2/3 full with the cheddar and pancetta and pour in the double cream till ½ and inch from the top. 

Add the knob of butter, black pepper and a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg.

Put the lid of the pumpkin back on and place in a dish in the oven (190C) for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Test for doneness by poking the flesh on the inside.

Serve piping hot with a nice chunk of bread for dunking.

I have done this dish many a time and it is so simple and so delicious. You can also add onion and play around with different cheeses, even add some different meat if you like. The beauty of this dish is being able to scoop off bits of pumpkin flesh from the sides, just try not to go through the skin and cause a terminal leak as I have on occasion!

 

Homebrew: Hops.

I suppose it all began over the summer. I went down to visit my mother and noticed her hop plant had begun to gradually worm around the side of the fence and coil itself around it’s annual perch of the lengths of wire I had helped my mother put up the year before. This year I felt different about them. They had to be used for something. I had read about the Romans gorging themselves on hop shoots (an early form of asparagus appreciation no doubt) and I was well aware of the humble hop’s proven abilities in the brewery. By now they were almost halfway across the fence, out came the hammer, nails and wire and up went a further extension in the hope of maximising this years harvest.

There are certain things every young man should have achieved by the time they are 30, various research on the Internet and suggestions from friends revealed some interesting goals:

• Spend a night in a police cell
• Lick the terminals of a 9v battery
• Make a million pounds
• Do something illegal
• Use a whole roll of gaffer tape in a day
• Poo outdoors
• Kill your own food
• Appear on TV
• Jump out of an aeroplane (with parachute)
• Running with the bulls in Pampalona
• Make money on the stock market
• Stop saying “I want to be a…” and start saying “I am a…”
• Learn to surf
• Lose a week’s salary in a casino
• Hotwire a car
• Write a novel
• Live on a desert island for a month
• Drive across a country

Some of these I can happily say I have achieved, others I have little or no interest in. I think we all have our own personal goals as to what we wish to achieve by 30 and one of mine was to make my own booze.

My family has, both past and present, quite an affiliation with Alcohol. My father used to make all manner of brews when I was a child and to this day I believe he has perfected his winemaking skills (still waiting for the recipe!). My Brother works in the drinks industry in conjuction with some of the top brands. His company, Bamboo (http://www.eventmixology.com) has done extremely well in the UK and is now taking the USA by storm. 

So I felt that it was my time to get involved, I would stop being a consumer and switch to producer. How hard can it be? Harder than I thought, making your first brew is quite a struggle, rather like those first few tentative metres on a bike with the stabilisers removed. Once you have the basic understanding of the principles of beer production and have your first batch done, confidence is boosted and you feel you are ready to tackle the next challenge…cider, mead or wine. The most satisfying thing about beer compared to the others is that you don’t have to wait long to sample it: a month tops!

Beer is one of the oldest alcoholic drinks in the world dating back as far as the 6^th millennium BC, it appeared in Europe around 300 BC amongst the Celtic and Gaelic tribes. Traditionally beer is made from, as many of you will know, Malted grain (starch), hops (flavour) and yeast.

First the grain is malted by being soaked in water (called Wort), which starts germination, malting grain produces enzymes that convert starches in the grain into fermentable sugars. Hops are then added to the Wort, the bitterness of hops balances the sweetness of the malt and produces flavour and aroma (citrus/herbal/floral) depending on hop type, as well as this, the citric acid found in hops acts as a preservative agent.

The yeast is then added to the hop-flavoured Wort. The yeast metabolises with the sugar and produces alcohol and carbon dioxide, yeast also contributes to character and flavour. Before the beer is barrelled, finings are usually added which clears the beer so it doesn’t have a cloudy appearance. Finings are often made from seaweeds rich in gelatin (caragheen) and even isinglass (found in the swim bladders of fish).

Now it was simply a waiting game, once my delightful Sussex hops were ready I could commence with my first steps into the world of brewing. It turned out September 20^th was the day on which my hops were harvested, my brother and I went down to Sussex and stripped the hops straight off and into a string bag for drying.

The first thing I noticed when picking them was just how sticky they were, the hops seemed to exude what looked like pollen in the clefts between the hop’s ‘petals’. It did not surprise me to find out that hops are part of the Cannabinaceae family, that’s cannabis to you and me. In its early stages, individual budding hops have fine white hairs, indicating it is female, these eventually turn brown, in much the same way as cannabis buds. The leaves also bear a resemblance to cannabis leaves.

Many people often dabble with the hop’s more notorious cousin during their university career. Mine was no different, due to the market prices of cannabis being at a premium, my friends and I took it a step further after a lost weekend in Amsterdam. We returned with a packet of ‘Big Bud’ seeds and a book that touted itself as the ‘indoor grower’s bible’. The set-design company I worked for kindly (and unknowingly) donated a high-powered flood light, the university art department provided sheets of white card and my desktop fan came in fairly useful along with a timer switch. After much deliberation, soil types, light cycles and methods of making our plants female (turns out a bit of nitrogen and blue light is the way forward), we made the perfect little home in an upstairs cupboard for two plants. 4 months later, the fruits of our labour were cut, dried and consumed. It turned out we had done a very good job, I suppose this was the ‘something illegal’ tick on the things-to-do-before-your-30 list!

Back to more legitimate activities, I now had everything to make my homebrew. I wont go through a detailed process of how the basic kit works except to show the differences. This kit doesn’t involve making a wort or adding hops. A large tin containing a pungent treacle-like substance is warmed and poured into the well sterilised 5 gallon bucket. Add 6 pints of boiling water, 1kg of glucose powder and give it a good stir. Top up with cold water, stir again, add a water treatment tablet, place on the lid and leave for 4-7 days at 18-21C.

Obviously with a first attempt, things don’t always go to plan. Firstly, I had no hydrometer to take a reading of the sugar content at the beginning, if I had then I would be able to work out the beer’s alcohol percentage when fermentation was over. Secondly, our cellar is a consistent temperature, a colder one than what it should have been…the beer took about 14 days to finish fermenting. I had visions of a beer being produced that tasted like the devil’s urine after a bender on absinthe, but you learn from your mistakes…

After a unusually long fermentation period, it was time to put my hop harvest to good use. But how? It turns out once fermentation has taken place, the beer is much more stable and unlikely to be spoiled by any bacteria present in the hops.

Adding hops after fermentation is known as “dry-hopping” and has some interesting benefits. By not boiling the hops, they don’t impart any bitterness yet they do contribute floral, fruity essence to your beer and a more intense ‘hoppy’ flavour. Such commercial breweries that apply dry-hopping to their beers include Youngs, Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada and IPA.

Two days of soaking my hops in the beer with finings (to clear the brew) and I was ready to begin bottling. I bought 25 PET plastic bottles (basically a Schweppes Tonic water bottle) from the same website the rest of my kit came from. I would have preferred glass bottles, next time I think I might buy a couple of crates of the Grolsch pop-cap beers, have a party and save the bottles. Each of my bottles held about 2 pints, to each bottle 1 teaspoon of sugar was added, the beer was siphoned in, sealed and left in a warm place for 2-3 days and a further 14 in a cool place (the cellar). I must point out it is crucial before bottling to make sure the beer HAS finished fermenting, 3 days of consecutive readings with a hydrometer (at less than1008) will confirm it has, otherwise your bottled beer will turn into mini timebombs capable of soaking anything in close proximity.

The moment of truth.

In much the same way the first joint was rolled from our University harvest 10 years ago, I poured out my first glass of Homebrew. It had cleared up nicely and certainly smelt like a good bitter. The first taste was quite strong, very hoppy with wonderful floral tones, the harvest had done good! The second taste was certainly much better than the first, pretty soon the glass was empty, so I poured another and another two after that. Four pints later, my mild daze was evidence enough to convince me my beer had an adequate percentage, not rocket fuel, but quite potent (5%?) all the same. 

I was overjoyed that my first brew was actually very drinkable and didn’t cause any stomach issues as some dodgy pints sometimes do. I have learned a hell of a lot about how to make beer, but I feel I have only just brushed the surface. An art that has been changing and developing over thousands of years is going to take years if not decades to fully understand on an unprofessional level. Am I going to buy a micro-brewery and take it to a professional level like Mr Morrissey and Mr Fox? No, best of luck to them though! I am content to continue making my own out of a big 5 gallon bucket! Keeping it simple and playing around with different ingredients is an extension of my cooking, I want to move onto some wild ingredients and possibly make beer the traditional way.

When it comes to naming a homebrew, I think provenance should take centre stage, Ardingly ale didn’t sound too inspiring to me, so in the tradition of some of the West country cider brands, Weston’s Hopping Mad was born!

This was probably the best £30 I have ever spent, with superb results. With winter closing in, the festive season approaching and the media constantly reminding us we are in recession and suffering a credit crunch, I can tell you exactly which my next £30 will be heading…oh and I may have forgotten to mention that 5 gallons is about 40 pints!