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Posted Saturday, 19 May 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

Voting is open for the Observer Food Monthly Awards 2012 You can win some amazing foodie prizes and even vote for your fave food blog (*cough*)

Posted Tuesday, 15 May 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

With just two weeks to go to our Summer season, you'd think we'd be getting some decent weather by now. But, as I write this, there is rain sheeting down the Barn windows and 2012's peculiar weather continues.

Living seasonally means embracing the seasons in all their rainy/windy/dry/hot glory but perhaps one of the hardest things is learning to live with the uncertainty of it all. If you saw the front page of our website last week you'll have seen that we were due to go to the Vale of Evesham Asparagus Festival. Sadly, the festival had to be cancelled because...well, there's no asparagus.

As you'll probably know, the season officially starts on 23 April (St George's Day) but this year, it came and went and the asparagus was nowhere to be seen. The recent wet weather and flooding has caused a real shortage of the crop which, when it's wet, remains pretty dormant. All a bit ironic since the festival was actually started as a way of raising funds for the area after the very severe floods of 2007.  

We're still about a week away from cropping for most of the British asparagus farmers. But fear not! On the plus side, when the growth does come we'll have the stuff coming out of our ears because the plants have been holding back all of their energy, waiting for the warm weather. Better still, the Jubilee Weekend is at the beginning of June - usually the end of the season, but it's likely that the delay means they'll still be more than enough to go round on that festival of Britishness.

So sometimes these things work out for the best. Mind you, as I finish writing this the rain has turned to hail. You've got to love the great British weather.

Posted Tuesday, 8 May 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  2 Comment(s)

As you'll know if you're a Twitter follower, we spent last week down in the West Country visiting a range of producers, retailers and general foodie types. On Wednesday we found ourselves at River Cottage.

When Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall first shacked up in a converted gamekeeper's cottage in 1998, even as an established TV presenter and writer he probably didn't realise the influence he would end up having on British food consciousness. The original River Cottage TV series followed his move from London to Dorset to become a self-sufficient smallholder, at the same time creating a generation of small scale farmers, foragers and food enthusiasts wanting to live the River Cottage life themselves.

So, if seasonal eating has a Mecca, it's on the Devon-Dorset border. The physical location has changed - the project quickly out-grew the original cottage - but at the new River Cottage HQ (Park Farm near Axminster) its spirit lives on. As well as acting for a location for the ongoing River Cottage TV programmes, RCHQ hosts parties, weddings and cookery courses for lovers of the organic, seasonal lifestyle. You won't be surprised to hear that the Well Seasoned team are big fans and felt our trip wouldn't have been complete without a visit.

We we're signed up for the simply named "Bread" course and arrived at RCHQ around 9.30am to be taken by tractor and (comfortable) trailer down a bumpy track to the farm. Park Farm itself took us slightly by surprise. Fans of the TV series will recognise its componant parts but it is all rather more compact than you might expect. All the activities take place in and around the main farmhouse and a small number of outbuildings. Due to a serious fire in the main events barn a few months ago, most events are currently being hosted in a sturdy but temporary marquee in a field behind the house. Also, the farm is...well, just a farm. Until you get inside there is little evidence that this is the business hub of a household name celebrity's publishing empire. It's unassuming and in some places pleasingly messy - RCHQ is a working farm rather than a theme park.

It was a cold morning and we were slightly nervous about the "temporary events space". We needn't have worried - the space was well heated and well equipped. In the classroom, 15 or so workstations were neatly arranged in front of the "teachers desk" at the front. We started in the attached dining room with host Steve Lamb, long-standing RC cast member, introducing the day and serving up tea and drop scones drizzled with honey. Steve then introduced our tutor for the day, Aiden Chapman, a master baker with more than two decades of experience.

Throughout the day, Aiden showed us all the basics of bread making and expertly guided us through the methods of producing sourdough, foccacia, pizza bases, and soda bread. Aiden's teaching was totally in line with the River Cottage ethos. "Artisan", "handmade" and "rustic" all got more than a passing mention as he encouraged us to throw away the rule-book and, rather than focussing on recipes, to create "real" bread (with just four ingredients - flour, water, salt and yeast) with soul. Aiden lives and breathes bread (yes ok, medically dangerous but you get the idea) and his enthusiasm is infectious. By lunchtime we'd recapped all the basics of making bread and were secretly planning to chuck in our day jobs and start the Well Seasoned bakery.

Interestingly, there was no sign of Dan "the Breadman" Stevens, author of the RC Bread handbook (which is included in the course price) and original tutor of the course. Conspiracy theorists speculated whether the aforementioned fire was the result of a baking mishap and he left under a cloud of burning buns. Others thought he was probably just on holiday. Either way, whilst not a problem it did mean that the recipes and techniques we were taught were slightly different from those in the book.

For lunch we sat down to pizzas rolled and topped ourselves to be cooked in the outdoor wood-fired pizza oven. At least, that had been the plan. Some wet wood mean that the oven wasn't reaching the required temperature and so our creations were whisked away for finisihing in the indoor kitchen. So, the cooking was a disappointent but the surroundings definitely weren't. We were lucky in that, after what seemed like one of the wettest weeks on record, the weather was stunning and the surroundings of RCHQ are truly beautiful - unspolit rolling green hills of Devon and Dorset with hardly another dwelling in sight. It's easy to see why HF-W has chosen the area as home both for his business empire and personally (apparantly he lives on another farm just down the road).

After our pizzas (which were substanatial but billed as a snack rather than lunch itself) we returned to the workstations for the second part of the course, honing our kneading skills and leaning some more complex techniques. At around 3.30pm we'd pulled the last soda bread out of the oven and sat down for the "real" meal, a two course meal of frittata with home made chorizo and nettles followed by pudding of a "rhubarb frumble" a delightful mix of custard, yoghurt, rhubarb and crumble. The second meal was perhaps not needed - after a full morning of snacking on various doughy creations we were already pretty full and concluded that we'd have preferred to pay a bit less and skip the meal (apparently introduced at the request of corporate attendees who wanted more opportunity to chat with the other guests).

After we'd eaten, there was no pressure to leave and we were free to amble around the famous veg garden and farmhouse for as long as we wanted. We returned up the track laden with bready goodies and some missing items from our ever-growing collection of River Cottage merchandise (all of which had been on display and available to buy but with no hard sell).

Our visit to River Cottage HQ made for a memorable day. Everything and everyone at River Cottage both talked the talk and walked the walk. Without exception the staff we met were polite, courteous and enthusiastic. It's clear that RC make a point of recruiting and working with dedicated people. Or perhaps they brain wash them with a 24 hour loop of RC and Cook on the Wildside once they've signed up - Either way, it' a formula that works. All in all, a fascinating and educational experience.

At £180 a person, Hugh isn't going to dispel the myth that the River Cottage lifestyle is a wealthy middle-class pursuit, but we felt the course was pretty good value. We'd spent the whole day at RCHQ, learned a huge amount and left very well fed. River Cottage deserves the good name that it has and we certainly hope to go back in due course....we've just got a bit of saving to do first.

River Cottage cookery courses can be booked at: http://www.rivercottage.net/
Aiden Chapman's artisan Phoenix Bakery is in Weymouth: http://www.phoenixbakery.co.uk/
The Real Bread Campaign supports good, honest bread http://www.sustainweb.org/realbread/

Posted Wednesday, 25 April 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

Occasionally dancing to Status Quo is the nearest that any of the Well Seasoned team came to any Latin at school, but every day's a school day on the WS blog and today we're learning about Maja squinado. "Maja" derives from the month of May and "squinado" means angular or spiky.

And that very neatly describes the spider crab. These unearthly-looking creatures turn up on our shores in early May and can be found throughout the Summer months. They congregate in huge clusters off the coast; no one is totally sure what they are up to but it's likely to be something to do with mating and moulting. Importantly, however, they make for excellent eating and this is the time to catch them.

You can catch your own spider crab quite easily and without a pot. At low tide, snorkelling for them on any sand or shingle beach, especially where you can see patches of seaweed offshore, will usually be fruitful. You'll find them loitering around the rocks and seaweed but they're also out in the open more (and therefore easier to catch) than their brown cousins. Alternatively, if you don't fancy getting wet, any angler will tell you that spider crabs will latch on to most baits left on the sea bed for long enough. Casting any smelly bait, like mackerel, a few metres off the beach and leaving it for 15 minutes or so will often result in a crab holding on when you reel in (it feels like an enormous dead weight so many people assume they've caught a lump of seaweed. As long as there's still bait on the hook, the crab will usually hang while you retrieve with a slow, steady pull).

There are two types of spider crab you want to avoid eating - any who have recently moulted and females carrying eggs. Both are easy to spot - you'll see the eggs on the underside of egg-carrying or "berried" females and recently-moulted specimens will have pristine shells. Look for older specimens covered in barnacles and seaweed (which they apply as a camouflage). It's generally better to eat the males because they have bigger claws with more meat. Once you've caught your crab you can kill and prepare it in the same way as a brown crab (see our tutorial).

Cooking spider crabs is easy too - simply boil for 20 minutes per kilo. Most good sized crabs will be around the 1kg mark. Let it cool completely then get to work. Compared to a brown crab, you won't find quite as much meat in the claws but it's well worth the effort picking all of the leg and body sections because spider crab meat is very, very tasty. It's sweeter than the brown crab and you can substitute it in any crab recipe.

It's a good job that spider crab are easy to catch because, even in these more enlightened foodie times, you'll find it very difficult to get hold of one in a fishmongers. Pretty much all of ours is shipped across to the continent. The French and Spanish discovered this tasty secret many years ago but it can only be a matter of time before we're eating more of it in the UK. In the meantime, you'll need get friendly with your local fisherman or get your mask and flippers on.

For a perfect late Spring or Summer dish, try our Spider Crab Linguine recipe:

Serves 4

• 3 tsp olive oil
• 1 medium red onion, finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, crushed or finely chopped
• 6 fresh ripe tomatoes, chopped roughly
• Tbsp tomato puree 50ml creme fraiche
• 1 medium red chilli, finely chopped (seeds removed)
• At least 250g white crab meat (preferably spider but brown crab will work too)
• A good handful of fresh basil, torn into small pieces Pasta (spaghetti, linguini or similar)

Sauce: Start by heating the oil and lightly frying the garlic, chilli and onion for 6-8 minutes until soft. Then add in the tomatoes and puree and cook down for around 6 minutes until it forms a good sauce consistency. Stir in the creme fresh then the crab meat and basil. Warm the sauce through, season to taste and pour over the bowl of pasta, stir through and serve immediately.

Pasta: Prepare for 4 x people as per instructions.

Posted Thursday, 19 April 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

We haven't given this an outing for a while but our campaign anthem is timeless. As ever, thanks to rural rap superstars the SY6 for putting this one together for us. Keeping it country...

Posted Tuesday, 17 April 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

At Well Seasoned we've always been fans of "nose-to-tail eating". Fergus Henderson of restaurant St John's is famed for using the phrase as the title to his 2004 recipe book but it, and the ethical principles behind it, have actually been around for much longer. While occasionally it's been hijacked and used as an excuse for gruesome food experiments, it's really just about taking a considerate approach to our meat - if we kill animals for food, we owe it to them to eat as much of them as we comfortably can.

Sustain, the charitable alliance for better food and farming has called for the first half of May to be 'Nose-to-Tail Fortnight', and they are approaching restaurants across London to promote ethical meat to their customers by using the fortnight as an excuse to put offal and other unloved cuts on the menu. As consumers, if you're out on the town between 30 April and 14 May it's pretty easy to support the campaign - simply visit a participating restaurant and order something delicious! If you're a restaurateur and want to take part, get in touch with Sustain though their Ethical Eats website and they'll be happy to help by providing posters and publicity.

http://www.sustainweb.org/ethicaleats/

Posted Sunday, 15 April 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  1 Comment(s)

Despite persistent rumours that Spring, and even Summer, are on the way, last week the Twig came down with what seems to be a severe Winter cold, medically described as "a real stinker". As luck would have it, this weekend we came across something that might just be of help.

Sea Buckthorn is, at first glance, the plant that your mother warned you about. Bright orange berries are accompanied by inch long thorns on this incredibly hardy shrub. It can be found in most UK coastal regions, thriving in harsh, salty conditions that make other plants want to cry. Yet, for generations, those in the know have harvested Sea Buckthorn and put it to a variety of uses. Genghis Khan (a real person) and pegasus (probably not real) are among those reputed to have enjoyed the taste, or at least the medicinal benefits, of Buckthorn berries. They were probably on to something; modern analysis has shown Sea Buckthorn to have 12 times the levels of vitamin C found in oranges. It also has high levels of antioxidants, vitamin E and several other scientific-sounding things that may or may not do you lots of good.

Anyway, as we nosed our way around Blackheath Farmers market this weekend we found an enticing bottle of Sea Buckthorn cordial and had to give it a go. At £4.50 a pop (literally, in the case of the sparkling version) it's not cheap, but then if you'd gone to the effort of harvesting the stuff, you wouldn't give it away either.

Sea Buckthorn is, in it's natural state, incredibly tart but sweeten it up with a bit of sugar and add some spring water and you'll have a very refreshing, citrusy drink with a sweet taste but a slightly dry and quite grown-up aftertaste. Undiluted it would make a great addition to some fizz for a Summer cocktail and also makes an excellent jam.

If you want to harvest your own, few people will stop you because the plant has become a bit of a nuisance in places. However, do take a pair of very sturdy gloves, a bucket (very few of the berries will come off whole and it's mainly the juice you want anyway) and some plasters. You've got a couple of months to toughen you're hands up - the berries will start to show in July and will then be around until the Winter.

Our ready-to-drink Still Sea Buckthorn was purchased from Wild About Food, a small London-based company selling wild food products and wild cooking classes www.wildaboutfood.co.uk

Posted Thursday, 12 April 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

We've just heard that the results of the "Love Your Local Sausage" competition are in! Strictly for local, free range producers, the competition ran from from 18 January to 20 February with sausages entered by 21 producers, all of whom sell their wares at London Farmers' Markets.

And the tastiest sausage in London is....the Cumberland sausage from Rockwell End Pigs. 

A short-list of five of those voted for by the public were put to a tasting panel (including food critic Charles Campion, St John's Fergus Henderson, butcher and blogger Charlotte Harbottle and chef Alan Stewart). The competition was organised by the Jellied Eel Magazine with London Farmers Markets (LFM) to promote some of the wonderful local produce on offer at farmers' markets in the capital. Cheryl Cohen, Director at LFM (which runs 20 weekly certified farmers' markets across London, providing sites for 183 farmers) said, 'The competition helped to highlight some of the fantastic quality products our traders sell and the hard time pig farmers are having. We wanted to show that it really is worth paying a little extra for the high welfare of animals and high quality meat content in your sausage.'

Winner, Matt Emmet rears rare breed slow growing Saddlebacks and Tamworths on his farm in Rockwell. He'll be presented with his award at Marylebone Farmers' Market by the Deputy Mayor of Westminster on Sunday 29th April. Runner up David Wilkinson has been pig farming for 27 years. His Downland Pigs have won gold awards in the Taste of the West. Food critic Charles Campion said; "The Breakfast Marmalade Sausage deserves a special commendation for innovative flavours. Making a sausage with marmalade sounds strange but this banger was surprisingly more-ish".

The competition also highlighted the importance of using the whole of the animal. Ben Reynolds, the Jellied Eel magazine, explains: "We were keen to focus on sausages as a brilliant example of the diversity of great produce available local to London. The sausage is also a great way of making sure that the less well loved cuts of meat don't go to waste and that farmers make money from all the carcass. We hope this competition has meant more people have gone out to farmers markets and tried some new sausages"

The Well Seasoned team are hoping to get hold of some of the prize-winning porky produce soon to give you our own verdict. In the meantime, congrats to Matt and all of those shortlisted - keep that quality piggy production going!

Posted Friday, 30 March 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

It's April Fool's Day on Sunday. We'll leave the pranks to someone else....probably. But in the meantime, what about a real April Fool recipe? Outdoor rhubarb takes over from forced rhubarb at this time of year and this beautiful, under-appreciated veg (yes, it's a vegetable. No, this is not an early April fool) is now coming down from Yorkshire's "rhubarb triangle" in regular shipments. How better to celebrate the beautiful, warm Spring we're having?

Rhubarb Fool recipe (serves 4):

450g trimmed and roughly chopped rhubarb
100g caster sugar
Zest of one orange
200ml whipping cream
3 ginger nut biscuits

Place the rhubarb in a pan with the orange zest and sugar. Add just enough water to cover and boil until the rhubarb is very soft. Blitz in a processor or with a hand blender until smooth and then chill. Whip the cream until stiff and then carefully fold in the chilled puree. Crush the biscuits (by placing in a teatowel or plastic bag and bashing with a rolling pin). Spoon the fool into tall glasses and sprinkle a teaspoon of the crushed biscuit over each one. Keep in the fridge until ready to serve.

Posted Tuesday, 27 March 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

Mushrooms are Autumnal, right? Well yes, but not exclusively. And over the next month or so we'll be looking out for two real mycological treats in our fields and woodlands. The St George's Mushroom is so named because it usually appears around St George's Day (23 April) and slightly before then (around now) the morels will pop up. We'll come back to St George's next month; morels are special enough to warrant a blog of their own.

They are a strange looking mushroom, quite different to most of the edible species we encounter. The best description is something like a coarse sponge on a stick. As they can't be cultivated (at least, all efforts to date have failed) they are a wild and rare treat. You'll find them in sandy soils in woodland, under trees and hedgerows. They often grow where the land has been burned. In fact, in the in the eighteenth century a notorious spate of forest fires in Germany was caused by mushroom-mad locals trying to create perfect morel growing conditions!

Morels appear in the same place each year but pop up and then disappear very quickly. So you need to keep checking your favourite spot and take advantage as soon as they have shown. On the plus side, they don't have to be eaten immediately; they dry very well and can be found hanging on long strings in some artisan shops.

The fact that they are tasty and grow in the wild means, naturally, that other things like eating morels and you need to give them a good shake before cooking if you want to avoid any unwanted extra protein in your meal! More importantly, you also need to be 100% sure that what you have picked is a morel. Unfortunately there is a species known as the False Morel which looks very similar but is very poisonous.

Here's a link to one of our favourite morel recipes. It's fiddly in places but nowhere near as tricky as you might first think.

Mini Beef Wellingtons with Morel Mushrooms

Posted Wednesday, 21 March 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  1 Comment(s)

It's been a beautiful week weather-wise and even though the Spring equinox only happened this week (on the 20 March - the earliest equinox in more than 100 years) you'd be forgiven for thinking that we were well into Spring already. It's not unusual to have snow in March but it seems pretty unlikely at the moment as we bask in temperatures of up to 18 degrees.

Earlier this month we mentioned the arrival of mackerel to our shores - a sure sign that Spring was coming early. Well, now it seems the cuttlefish have turned up too. They're not usually found in any numbers until April or May so it looks like things really are a little out of kilter this year. But fear not. The seasons have never been confined by our rigid calendar. As we say elsewhere on the site, they are excitingly unpredictable. Think of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter as the worst of all party guests - you know they are coming but they’ll probably turn up early, leave late or be on great form for five minutes then completely lose the plot; which is why you can never be quite sure when anything will be bang in season.

You're unlikely to chance upon a cuttlefish. They are still pretty rare on fishmongers slabs and you'll probably have to order one in. It's well worth the effort though (and not just for the conspiratorial nod you'll get from the fishmonger when he hands over your special delivery). They are every bit as tasty as squid and you won't (or at least shouldn't) find those in our waters until the Summer.

Here's our guide to preparing cuttlefish:

• Give yourself plenty of time. You'll need a sharp knife, chopping board, a tea towel and a metal sink.
• Make sure you're using a non-porous surface like glass or granite. Unless you're a fan of the "ink-stained school desk" look, definitely avoid wooden work surfaces.
• Start with your cuttlefish on a board in front of you.
• Cut off and keep the tentacles by slicing just in front of the eyes.
• Firmly but steadily pull the remainder of the head away from the body. Most of the guts will come away with it. Discard all of this.
• Now put your hand inside the body and gently work out the rest of the innards and the cuttle (the large bone-like cartilage beloved of budgerigars) Give the inside a quick rinse. 
• Preferably all of this should be done without rupturing the ink sac which you'll find inside the body, towards the back end....but its best done in or near the metal sink, just in case you do. If you can get it out whole, reserve the ink because several recipes make use of it. Some cuttlefish, especially those from online retailers, will come with the ink already removed and in a little sachet.
• Next, remove the slippery skin from the body. It should peel off fairly easily leaving bright white flesh. Use the tea towel to help you grip.
• The side wings will usually come off with the skin. Peel and keep those too.

Although a little tricky the first time you can't go too badly wrong and it is well worth persevering because at the end of the process you are left with a huge amount of sweet, white meat, all of which can be cooked the same way as squid. As with squid, if you want to avoid eating rubber, the cooking either needs to be very quick or very long.

Their early arrival has caught us a little off guard but we'll try to post some cuttlefish recipes later in the month. In the meantime, here's our top tip: If you're using either squid of cuttlefish for calamari (squid rings) turn the body inside out before you slice it into rings. This will ensure the rings stay circular when you fry them, rather than collapsing or turning into a figure of eight. Neat, eh? Every day is a school day with Well Seasoned.

Posted Tuesday, 20 March 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

Last Autumn we featured a guest blog from our chum James Whetlor, chef at River Cottage's Axminster canteen and huge goat lover (not in an unsavoury way, you understand). At that time James was just thinking about going into serious business selling goat meat. Well, we're very pleased to report that the dream has become a reality and James's new company "Cabrito" was launched this week.

Cabrito is the Spanish word for a young goat and on the few occasions that goat features on UK menus, it is usually under this name. Under the Cabrito brand, James has teamed up with Somerset goat famer Jack Jennings to offer a simple but enticing proposition: high quality, naturally reared goat meat delivered to high end British restaurants.

The time feels right for the great British public to embrace a "new" product like goat meat. People have never been so willing to try unfamiliar foods and experiment with new flavours. The low fat label and ethical credentials will help too. So when you're next out on the town, if you see cabrito on the menu think about giving it a go. It's sure to taste good and might even be from James's own herd.  

For more information, check out the Cabrito website and James's blog piece for some great goat recipes.

Posted Friday, 16 March 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

How It Should Be (HiSbe) is a community interest company helping people and businesses make ethical, informed choices about their food. Check out the HiSbe website for ethical eating tips and their latest video (which, features none other than your favourite seasonal food website). Now that's definitely How it Should Be.

Posted Tuesday, 21 February 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

One of the driving factors behind our love of all things local and seasonal is, of course, the environment. Eating locally is a really simple way of reducing your food miles and your CO2 footprint. Earlier this week we were sent this really simple food miles calculator. Not only does it tell you how far your food has travelled, it will also give an estimate of the CO2 produced, depending on how it was transported. Get the kids checking how far their food has travelled and learning geography at the same time. We've found it weirdly addictive!

Posted Sunday, 19 February 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

It's pancake day on Tuesday! We thought you might enjoy the top 10 pancake facts we uncovered during our research:

1. The first recipe for a pancake appeared in an English cookbook in the fifteenth century.

2. In Ireland, the eldest daughter would traditionally toss the first pancake. If she did so successfully she would supposedly marry within the year.

3. The name Shrove comes from the old word “shrive” which means to confess.

4. In the Midlands, the first pancake was given to the family chickens to ensure they produced eggs for the forthcoming year.

5. Elsewhere in England, the first three pancakes were sacred. They were marked with the sign of the cross and sprinkled with salt to ward off evil.

6. In Brazil they celebrate “Terça-feira gorda”, in Greece it is known as “Apocreas and in Iceland “Sprengidagur” (Bursting day).

7. The record for speed pancakes flipping is 349 tosses in 2 minutes.

8. Celebrity chef Aldo Zilli holds the world record for the highest pancake toss at 329cm.

9. The first recorded pancake race was in Olney, Buckinghamshire in 1445.

10. The tiny African Pancake Tortoise has a flat, soft and flexible shell, enabling it to squeeze under rocks when in danger. aaaah.

Posted Tuesday, 14 February 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

It wasn't that long ago that your average kitchen didn't even have electricity, let alone a refrigerator. In those days, many methods of cooking were developed as a necessary part of preparing and preserving the food rather than just for novelty or adding flavour. Take pies for example. In ye olden times a thick pastry topping was designed to exclude air and thus preserve the meat. These days, it's definitely more about taste and texture. A flaky rough puff is hardly going to do much for a steak and kidney's shelf life.

So, many modern dishes have a practical genesis that isn't necessarily apparent in our age of fridges, freezers and high hygiene standards. And so it is with potted food. For the uninitiated, potting involves packing your pre-poached ingredient (usually meat or fish) into a pot and sealing it in with a layer of clarified, spiced butter. Some old recipes claim that game, once properly potted, could be kept for a month, making the process a god-send for your medieval kitchen manager. The important factor was, of course, getting a good seal with the butter, resulting in the equivalent of an airtight jar. Old recipes stressed the need for clarified butter (made by heating and separating the butter to remove the milk solids). This too helps the food last longer and most recipes still suggest it although, unless you're planning an unaided voyage around some desolate cape any time soon, this is no longer critical. These days, potted meats are an altogther more delicate affair, eaten as a pate or terrine with crusty toast and a decent chutney; warm toast is essential if you want the butter to melt, allowing the flavours and textures a proper opportunity to mingle.

That's a rather long introduction but segues neatly into our telling you about a very new company doing exciting things with this very old process. The Potted Game Company is a partnership between three young and talented chefs, Hugh Coulson, Jemima Palmer-Tomkinson, and Rory Baxter, united by a shared passion for British food and indeed all things culinary. Jemima, Rory and Hugh were keen to start a venture that made use of the great range of abundant but underrated meats and fish that we have in the UK. Having stumbled across some old recipes for potted meat, they set about putting a modern twist on the product and the Potted Game Company was born.

The small but diverse range currently consists of five products; Pheasant with smoked bacon and hazelnut, Rabbit with cider and English Mustard, Wood Pigeon with walnuts and ginger, Trout with lemon zest and spices and Partridge with apricot and cashew nuts. It will come as no surprise that, as a company trying to create an exciting, young brand, the team have steered clear of the ubiquitous (if delicious) potted shrimp. Seasonal specials such as grouse and crayfish occasionally make an appearance and some more unusual meats like wild boar and squirrel are currently in development.

Over the weekend we caught up with Jemima at London's Borough Market and then returned to the Barn to tuck into samples of the rabbit, partridge and pigeon with a stack of freshly toasted sourdough. Each of them was delicious but our particular favourites were the rabbit and the pigeon. The latter was robust and flavoursome with a perfect balance of ginger and spices; ideal for game fans to enjoy all year round. The rabbit was more delicately flavoured and would make an excellent and gentle introduction for anyone who has yet to discover the delicious world of British game; subtly spiced, moist and not in any way 'gamey'.

The Potted Game Company is a small business but with enthusiastic individuals behind it and we can see it going far. It's always exciting to see a new British producer making use of great British ingredients. If you're a regular at Borough Market make sure you pick up a pot when you're next in town. Otherwise, keep an eye out at other farmers markets and in higher end supermarkets; we have a feeling The Potted Game Company's products will be on a shop shelf near you soon. If you can't wait that long, you can also buy online.

For more information on the Potted Game Company, check out their website.

Posted Friday, 10 February 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

Our February newsletter came out this afternoon. You can find a copy of it, together with older editions of the Bramble, in The Library. If you're not on the mailing list but quite fancy more seasonal info, recipes and top tips being delivered to your inbox every month for the unbelievable price of £NOTHING, then sign up for future editions here.  

Posted Friday, 10 February 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

We were delighted to read this piece in the Independent last week reporting that, in the UK this year for the first time we'll buy more free range eggs than intensively farmed ones. As we blogged at the beginning of the year "traditional" battery cages are now banned in the UK. We still have a large number of caged hens but they must now be kept in "enriched" cages. So, there is still a long way to go before we can claim to be a free-range country but it is definitely progress.

If you have yet to make the free range switch, consider this:

According to the International Egg Commission, the UK average egg consumption per person is approximately 180 eggs a year, or just under 3.5 eggs a week. For a family of 4 that works out as 14 eggs per week. Having just checked the Tesco website (because it's the biggest supermarket) we found the following prices:

• Cheapest Value hens eggs (10 pack) £0.08 each
• Free range eggs (two dozen) on multi-buy offer £0.16 each
• Cage Free barn eggs (two dozen) on multi-buy offer £0.175 each
• Cage Free barn eggs (dozen) £0.20 each
• Free range eggs (dozen) £0.21 each

So yes, the cheapest Value eggs are, per egg, considerably less and that is probably why so many shoppers are put off from buying free range. But have they actually done the maths? For our family of four, eating an average number of eggs, even if they swap from the very cheapest to the most expensive eggs, that works out at an extra £1.82 a week. If they take advantage of the multi-buy offer, that reduces to a difference of just £1.12, for a whole family to eat better quality eggs from happy chickens. Just 28p per person. Of course, there are families in the country for whom these figures do make a real difference, but ask yourself if yours is really one of them. And if not, surely it's a price worth paying?

Posted Wednesday, 8 February 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

We received an email this week asking us to consider blogging about beetroot. The hook that we could hang the piece on, apparently, was Valentine's Day because beetroot was an ideal accompaniment to your romantic dinner a deux. Sure, feeding your loved one oysters and chocolates can be romantic, but an unpopular purple root vegetable? We think not. But then we did a bit of digging (geddit?) and they were only bloomin' right. It turns out that beetroots have been considered a natural aphrodisiac since Roman times. In fact, murals featuring beetroot have been found on the walls of Pompeii's brothels! As with most aphrodisiacs (see our last post about oysters) several theories abound for the food's supposed qualities. In the beetroot's case it could be the high levels of the mineral boron (thought to play a role in the production of sex hormones). Alternatively, some say, it contains tryptophan (also found in chocolate), a substance that contributes to a sense of wellbeing. Certainly, chocolate and beetroot together make a jolly decent cake so perhaps that one's not as far-fetched as it might at first sound. It will come as no surprise that the email in question came from a PR agency who happen to be acting for a British beetroot grower but, as you know, at Well Seasoned we're all for that sort of thing and happy to give their website www.lovebeetroot.co.uk a plug. Just don't blame us if, on the 14th, your intended doesn't find a gnarled beetroot quite as appealing as a diamond ring...

Posted Monday, 6 February 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

Valentines Day is not far away and, by a happy coincidence for romantically inclined seasonal food fans, rock oysters are great in February. Oysters are famed, as we all know, for being an aphrodisiac. A number of theories account for their romantic reputation including a high zinc content and even, according to some, sympathetic magic. However, without wanting to dampen any amorous embers, there is still very little verifiable evidence that aphrodisiacs of any kind actually work. That said, oysters are an extremely well balanced and low-cholesterol food and they are an excellent source of vitamins. Perhaps oyster-eating ancients were just healthier specimens whom more suitors were willing to snuggle up to? Author Jonathan Swift is quoted as saying, "He was a bold man that first ate an oyster", and that is true - at first glance you wouldn't think they were particularly edible, let alone delicious. But, for thousands of years man has bitten the bivalvular bullet and eaten them with gusto. They've been farmed in the UK for much longer than you might think too, with good evidence that the Whitstable oyster farming tradition dates back to Roman times. You'll find oysters in most decent fish markets and many producers are now selling online with several doing Valentines specials. So, if you don't know what to buy your loved one for the 14th how about a plate of highly calcified plankton-filtering molluscs - what could be unromantic about that?

Posted Friday, 3 February 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

The passing of 1 Feb marks the end of the game season for another year. Pheasants, partridges and other feathered game can all rest easy until the Autumn. But where does that leave the meat eaters among us for the next few months? Well, it's a little too early for Spring lamb. That will hit the shops in the run-up to Easter but, even then, it's not always the most flavoursome meat around. New season lamb is expensive generally just because it's a new season and not necessarily because of the quality of the meat. Autumn lamb is usually more flavoursome, the result of the animals having a full Summer of grazing in lush green pastures.

One good option available is venison. Although there are legal seasons for deer, they vary between breeds and sexes, meaning that you can get decent meat most of the year round. Like many game meats, venison is flavoursome and low in fat. Since the extinction of wolves from the UK, deer have needed to be controlled so we have very healthy numbers of all the breeds which can withstand (and indeed need) regular culling. The culling itself is highly regulated and usually carried our by skilled individuals causing minimum stress to the animals. So, wild venison is, as far as meat goes, an ethical and environmentally friendly option.

As I write this, the Met Office have issued a weather warning and predicted temperatures of -11C with heavy snow in some places. It will come as no surprise then, that our recipe recommendation is a warming stew. This weekend, get down to your game dealer and ask him for some venison...provided you're not snowed in, of course.

Mark Hix's Venison Stew with Dumplings Recipe (in the Independent)

Posted Wednesday, 1 February 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

The scene has hardly changed since the 12th Century. It's Autumn in the New Forest and ancient breeds of pig are roaming freely on the Hampshire heathland, foraging and snuffling through leafy undergrowth. They are hunting primarily for acorns but beech nuts, chestnuts and crab apples also feature in their free porcine picnic. It's a tradition dating back hundreds of years; certain inhabitants of the Forest, known as Commoners, are claiming their right to graze pigs in the National Park. In fact, as well as getting a free meal, the pigs are doing good for the more famous residents of the forest because acorns are poisonous to the wild ponies. The practice is known as pannage and it takes place every Autumn. The local forest wardens, or Verderers, together with the Forestry Commission decide when it will begin and end, depending on the weather and when the acorns start dropping. The pannage season usually lasts for 60 days, ending in November or December, after which the pannage pigs are 'finished' on a diet of whey and barley (a pure acorn diet can make for an overpowering flavour so the finishing makes it more palatable). The result is a truly unique tasting meat with a wonderful texture and unusually dark appearance (it can be almost black if the pig has had a high proportion of acorns in its diet). You can still get your hand on some pannage pork but the short season is already coming to close for the year. Make a note in your diary for the late Autumn and experience a very special seasonal and local treat. You can find a list of New Forest Producers supplying pannage pork here.

Posted Monday, 30 January 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  1 Comment(s)

At Well Seasoned, as you know, we love our jam and preserves. One highlight of our seasonal calendar, in January (when the Christmas and New Year festivities are but distant memories) is the short season for Seville oranges, the key ingredient of marmalade. Now, wherever possible on this blog our focus is on British seasonal produce but there are some things that just don't grow in the UK and oranges, unsurprisingly, are one of them. We excuse ourselves on the grounds that, despite the continental provenance of the fruit, marmalade is quintessentially British; a cup of tea, a thick slice of brown bread with generous layers of butter and home made marmalade is what Sunday mornings were made for. If you've already been dabbling in the kitchen and reckon you've come up with a winner you could enter The World Marmalade Festival which is taking place in Cumbria next month (12 & 13th February). And if you've yet to warm up your jam thermometer, you'll need to get your skates on. Seville oranges are in the shops now but you'll probably only be able to buy them for another couple of weeks. Oh, and make sure you make enough to last you through to January 2013! Here's our favourite marmalade recipe.

Posted Thursday, 26 January 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

By any standards we've had a very mild winter. Our trees and flowers are reacting to only light frosts and an almost complete lack of snow by flowering much earlier that they normally do. There are signs of an early Spring all around us with snowdrops, cherry blossom and daffodils all making appearances well before the end of January. Unusual as it may seem, such early blossoming is far from unprecedented and indeed for many years people have celebrated the first signs of Spring around this time. The 2000 year old Imbolc Fire Festival in Huddersfield is a great example of an ancient pagan Spring festival brought back to life for modern times. An procession of torches, fire sculptures and fireworks all feature in the proceedings as well as a theatrical battle between the Green Man of Spring and Jack Frost of Winter (with the crowd hoping that the Green Man will be victorious, making way for the new green shoots of Spring). If you fancy welcoming Spring in with a pagan twist, the festival runs from noon to midnight on 4th February and starts at Marsden station.

Posted Wednesday, 25 January 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  2 Comment(s)

Tonight is Burns' Night and that, of course, means haggis. For the uninitiated, haggis is a savoury dish made from various minced sheep offal, mixed with oatmeal and a variety of herbs and spices. Traditionally a sheep's stomach is used to encase the mixture but artificial casings are now also frequently used. Despite first appearances, haggis is actually very tasty and, as far as we're concerned, a great way to use up some of that offal which would otherwise go to waste. Traditionally served with "neeps and tatties" together with whisky (of course) no Burns' Night supper would be complete without it or Robert Burns's most famous poem, Address to a Haggis. There are few verifiable facts as to the origins of the haggis but it's likely that they were first prepared by cattle herdsmen for easy transportation on the droving journeys across the Highlands. They would certainly have been poor mans food (with the finer cuts of lamb and mutton being reserved for the wealthy land owners). Apparently some 33% of Americans believe haggis to be an animal. You can't exactly blame them when most Scots do nothing to dispel the myth. To this day, rumours abound of an of a small Scottish beast with legs on one side shorter than the other to enable it to run across the highlands without tripping over! Happy Burn's Night to all our Scottish readers.

Posted Monday, 23 January 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  1 Comment(s)

Most people know pollock is a fish but few would claim to have eaten it. As it happens, pollock is a member of the cod family, so it has a familiar taste. However, because it has an off-white or grey flesh, rather than cod's bright white lustre, it is rarely eaten as a fillet. Instead, it is usually minced and used as a filling for fish fingers or fish pies. So, the chances are you have eaten it, you just didn't know! For some reason, the West Country has traditionally embraced pollock as an eating fish and given it due respect. The Scots also eat their fair share (and like to give it an oatmeal coating). But apart from that, for no good reason, it has historically been regulated to cat food. In recent years pollock has regained some popularity and you will now find it in many supermarkets, especially as frozen fillets but increasingly on the wet slab. In 2009, Sainsbury's inexplicably tried to rebrand it as "Colin" (the French name for the fish) and market it as a sustainable alterative to cod. Top marks for intention, none for execution JS. In fact, pollock already has plenty of alternative (and perfectly marketable) names. Depending on the exact species and your location you might also know it as lythe, coley or saithe. Whatever it's called, whilst we'd have to admit it doesn't look quite as appetising as cod, it really is every bit as flavoursome and very considerably cheaper. We tried it recently in this really simple recipe from Jamie Oliver. If this wasn't a family blog we'd say it was the dog's pollocks (sorry).

Pollock is good to eat all year round but at its best from now (late January/early February) through to the end of the summer. Next time you're knocking up a fishy dishy, give pollock a go.

Posted Friday, 20 January 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

One of our (and London's) favourite food markets is Borough Market. Sprawling in the empty space under the arches of the London Bridge railway line, Borough was first mentioned in literature in 1276 but claims to have existed since before 1014! It has, of course, moved site and evolved considerably during that time and is now home to some of the country's finest food producers. There's no 'sleb chef worth his (Maldon sea) salt who hasn't filmed a piece at Borough Market and the place has certainly earned its reputation as one of London's premier food destinations. If you're a food fan and live anywhere near Sout East London, you're missing out if you don't get down there on a Saturday morning. Our top tip is to go early to avoid the tourist crowds. After about 10.30am the place is packed with nibbling sightseers rather than serious shoppers so getting your groceries done quickly is nigh-on impossible. Your early start will be rewarded with the pick of the produce and if it's British and seasonal, someone at Borough will be selling it.

If you are stuck for seasonal recipe ideas, Borough has lots of recipes on its website but this month it's your chance to inspire others. The Market is running a recipe competition. Winning recipes will feature on the website and will be created in the weekly live kitchen by resident chef, Hayley Edwards. All you need to do is come up with an original and seasonal recipe. If you reckon you've got one, click here for more details on how to enter.

Posted Wednesday, 18 January 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

All plants need light to thrive, right? In most cases that's true but rhubarb is something of an exception. Originally native to Siberia, this hardy stem crop (technically a vegetable rather than a fruit) thrives in the cold, wet northern winters of the UK and one variety, forced rhubarb, is coming into season right now.

The method of forcing rhubarb has been around for some three hundred years. The rhubarb starts, alongside its outdoor counterparts, outdoors in fields. After a couple of years of growth, the plants are uprooted and transferred to long dark sheds. This usually happens in late Autumn, after the first frost. Inside the sheds they live in nearly complete darkness. The sheds are heated and lit by candlelight but only so the workers can see their way around. As the rhubarb is, in essence, tricked into thinking it is still underground, it puts all of its energy into growing its long, slender, pink stalks. The result is a tender stem (with an odd looking yellow leaf) which is quite delicious. The forced rhubarb harvest continues through to mid Spring when the outdoor rhubarb season starts.

West Yorkshire once produced more than 90% of the world's forced rhubarb and, at the peak of production, whole trains ran from Yorkshire to London carrying the rhubarb to market. The area of Yorkshire where all of the production takes place has become officially known as the Rhubarb Triangle and Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb, coming from the Triangle, has now been given Protected Designation of Origin status, putting it in the same league as Champagne, Camembert cheese and Melton Mowbray pork pies.

Here's our absolute favourite recipe for rhubarb crumble which is just perfect at this time of year when only something sweet, warm and filling will do.

Forced Rhubarb and Ginger Crumble

Serves 6

600g rhubarb, trimmed and roughly chopped
50ml water
1 tbsp preserved stem ginger, chopped
100g caster sugar
125g demerara sugar
200g plain flour
100g butter
3 ginger nut biscuits

Preheat your oven to 180°C. Put the rhubarb and ginger in a good sized ovenproof dish, add the water and sprinkle the caster sugar over. Cube the butter and place in a large bowl. Now, mix in the flour, rubbing the butter and flour together with your fingertips until you have a crumbly consistency. Add the demerara sugar and crumble in the ginger biscuits. Now spread your topping over the rhubarb and ginger mixture. Bake in the oven for 35 minutes or until the top is just golden.

Posted Tuesday, 17 January 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

The 2012 awards are now open again for you to nominate your favourite ethical businesses. This year is the seventh year of these great awards that celebrate and reward all of those amazing people and businesses that lead the way in ethical, sustainable living. This year there are two new categories; one for arts and culture and, in recognition of the Olympic year, a sports category. The website is open for votes and nominations now. We'd love it if you nominated us again, but we don't want to be greedy, so don't worry too much about that - just make sure you get involved and vote for your favourite ethical businesses.

Posted Monday, 16 January 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

Although the problems of food waste have been well documented in recent years, the scale of it is still staggering. Apparently, wastage for the UK alone now amounts to something like 20 million tonnes annually. Whether it’s fresh fish thrown back into the sea, vegetables ignored for being too ugly, or unusual cuts of meat simply discarded, the amount of produce that doesn't make it onto our dinner plates and into our mouths is pretty amazing. Chef Tom Hunt is one of the people trying to do something about it with his pop up restaurant concept, Forgotten Feast.

Tom knows a thing or two about food. He began his career with Ben and Jake Hodges (formerly of The River Cafe). He then worked as head chef at Aqua Italia in Bristol and then on to Dorset where he worked alongside Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Gill Meller as sous chef and food demonstrator for River Cottage HQ. A respectable pedigree in quality, seasonal and ethical eating if ever there was one.

The Forgotten Feast was launched in Autumn 2011 in partnership with the food charity FareShare. Their first event was specifically focused on highlighting another cause that the Well Seasoned team are passionate about - the incredible wastage of fish that happens as a consequence of EU quotas. Using fish and foods that would otherwise have been discarded, Tom's menu included Forgotten Fish Stew with Cured Pigs Head Bacon & Thames Crayfish and Glut Salad of Miss-fits Chargrilled Courgettes & Baby Leeks with Tarragon. As you can see, Forgotten Feast aim to show that using forgotten ingredients doesn't mean you can't have high-end dining.

Forgotten Feast are now looking for people and businesses that may be interested in supplying food, venues and educational speakers for future events. The next event is at the Friends of the Earth 40th birthday party at the end of January, followed by an official launch on Valentines night. After those events there will be regular events throughout the year. If you or somebody you know would like to help fight food waste, follow Tom on twitter (@tomsfeast) or check out his website www.tomsfeast.com

Posted Wednesday, 11 January 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

We were delighted when, at the very end of 2011 it was announced that the last battery hen in the UK had been rehoused. This followed decades of campaigning from animal welfare groups and, ultimately, an EU wide ban on keeping laying hens in battery cages. The new position still isn't ideal. In the UK we still keep chickens in small cages but they are now "enriched" (with litter, perches and claw-shortening devices) and larger. Disappointingly though, it seems that several countries in the EU, despite being subject to the same legislation, are not yet complying with the ban. The British Egg Industry Council claims that more than a third of EU cage egg production will break the new rules, with more than 80 million hens still being kept in illegal cages in 2012. So there's more work to be done but at least the changes are coming and thr UK is leading the way.

Back in 2009 one of our first ever Well Seasoned adventures (and one of the very first posts on our old blog) was a day spent with campaigners from Compassion in World Farming collecting signatures for their petition against battery cages. We're really pleased and proud to have played a small part in that campaign and delighted to now be seeing the fruits of those labours.

If you'd like to help to rehouse or sponsor an ex-battery hen, try getting in get in touch with the British Hen Welfare Trust, the charity that that re-homes battery hens and educates the public about how they can make a difference to hen welfare.

Here's to a free range future.

Posted Monday, 9 January 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

In John Buchan's 1925 novel, 'John Macnab', three rich but bored London gentlemen decide to go poaching on Scottish game estates. Over time this led to something known as the Macnab Challenge where country sports enthusiasts aim to bag a stag, a brace of grouse and a salmon, all within a 24-hour period. Clearly those kind of activities don't come cheap and the Well Seasoned team are unlikely to be undertaking the Macnab Challenge any time soon. However, last weekend we were invited to try something a little more within our reach, known as the McDougal.

Taking place in leafy Sussex rather than the craggy glens of Scotland, the McDougal is run by Doug Chalmers at his small sporting estate just outside Battle in East Sussex. The aim of his Macnab-inspired challenge is to go rough shooting in the morning to bag a cock pheasant then, over lunch, to use its tail feathers to tie, unassisted, a fishing fly known as a "pheasant tail nymph". After lunch, you then have to use your own hand-tied fly to catch a trout in one of the estate's two lakes.

Never ones to turn down a challenge, on Saturday morning, whilst the sun was just rising, our team of four set off for deepest, darkest Sussex to the very spot where the Saxon Army camped before the Battle of Hastings in 1066. It was mild, dry and bright with a gentle breeze - perfect for a day in the countryside - and, as we joined Doug and head keeper Roy in the fishing lodge for bacon sandwiches, coffee and our safety briefing, we knew we were in for a treat. At around 10am we set off. Throughout the morning, as we strolled through the fields, hedges and woodlands of the 85 acre estate, several pheasants noisily took to the air but the majority of them were hens rather than the cock pheasants we needed for the challenge. By lunchtime, the low number of cock pheasants combined with some pretty shoddy shooting skills meant we had bagged 8 birds in total with only two cock birds - only two of the team were still in with a chance of completing the McDougal. Nevertheless, for them, the challenge was on!

After a hearty lunch of venison stew, apple pie and a glass or two of red wine we plucked some of the impressive, long tail feathers from the cock pheasants and were introduced to the ancient art of fly tying. As you might expect, Doug's decades of experience made it look very easy. Tiny snippets of feathers, some fine wire and a small brass bead were tied onto the tiny fishing hook to resemble the freshwater nymphs that typically inhabit the chalk streams of southern England. The rules of the challenge are simple but strict - you have to catch the trout with your own fly. If you lose it in the grass (a common fate for first time fly fishermen) you have to find it or tie another one. There's no borrowing from the kit box if you want to be a successful McDougler.

After 30 minutes or so of patient tuition, we all had something that could just about be said to resemble a fly and so, on the dot of 2pm, we set off towards the lakes armed with our rods. We were a bit sceptical - not only was our fly-tying handiwork pretty poor, but January is also a hard time to catch trout. At this time of year they usually move towards deeper water where it is marginally warmer and the fish are suspicious of flies because there aren't naturally many of them around in the winter. Yet, incredibly, Nick, one of our number, with his very first cast, found himself reeling in a decent sized fish - a beautiful, silver rainbow trout. The rest of the team looked on enviously as he played the fish into the landing net. Sadly for him, he already knew he wasn't going to be a McDougler because he'd failed in the morning's quest for a pheasant. But he'd shown us that it could be done and, fired up, the rest of us set about casting our own.

Within forty minutes there were two more fish in the bag but both from the pheasant-less anglers. The mild, calm weather meant we were having an unseasonably good day on the trout. Surely it was only a matter of time before one of the two challenge contenders caught their own? Unfortunately, they were demonstrating rather less natural talent with the rods. Despite more patient mentoring from Doug and his team, the trout just weren't going for their flies. Mind you, it helps if your fly is actually in the water; Tom, one of the contenders, did indeed manage to get his fly snagged on the lawn behind him and lost a good 20 minutes of fishing time doggedly hunting for his hook which he knew to be "somewhere in the grass". After a full two hours of arm-aching casting they were still without a nibble and reluctantly reeled in at 4pm when the whistle blew to signal the end of the challenge.

So, challenge failed but honours fairly even among the team, we returned to the lodge for tea and cakes. We weren't too disheartened; only something like 1 in 6 successfully complete the challenge and the day would hardly have had the same excitement if we'd be guaranteed success. We left the estate well fed, with a brace of birds each and three trout between us, all of which would be prepared for the pot over the weekend. All in all, a wonderful day out in some beautiful countryside and, as we crunched up the estate's gravel driveway back to our cars, we firmly resolved to return next year for another attempt.

Both fishing and shooting are emotive subjects and rightly prompt people to consider the moral issues involved. Killing your own food, and shooting it in particular, is obviously not something to be taken lightly but we strongly feel that, done properly, these are some of the most defensible ways of gathering and eating your food. The birds we shot and the fish that we caught had all lived wild or virtually wild lives and had been as happy and free range as it is possible to be. They were then swiftly and humanely dispatched, every one of them to be savoured by the person who caught or shot it and who appreciates its value even more so because of that. If you're a principled vegetarian then you are unlikely ever to think that killing your own food is right. On the other hand, if we eat any meat or fish (and 95% of the population do), our duty must be to ensure that the animals we eat live comfortable lives and are treated with respect. Wild or near-wild animals live happier lives that any of their farmed cousins and, provided we can be confident of a quick dispatch when the time comes, it's hard to see how that is not a better alternative. If you ever get the opportunity to go shooting or fishing for your own food, do at least consider it. Taking an active part in the catching of fish and the shooting of game is a great way to get into our beautiful British countryside and to appreciate, first hand, the source of your food.

Posted Monday, 9 January 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  1 Comment(s)

Just in case you missed it, here's the intro to our January newsletter, The Bramble. The Bramble comes out on the first Friday of every month and is packed full of recipes, event and competition news. If you want to avoid missing future editions you can sign up for them here.

Is it too late to wish you a Happy New Year? Hopefully not. It won't be any surprise when we tell you we had a pretty good time of it over Christmas. There's no seasonal feast bigger than Christmas and if we can't get that right we'd be in trouble. What did we eat? Well, pretty much everything you would expect with goose and wild boar topping the list as our meaty alternatives to turkey this year. It's always hard to choose a favourite vegetable from the smorgasbord on offer but our newly discovered balsamic sprouts (see below) deserve a special mention for changing the way we think about the little green veg we so love to hate. Talking of things we hate, around this time of year you can always rely on the papers printing two stories. First, there is the claim that a particular day in January is the most depressing day of the year. Secondly, there will be a story from divorce lawyers claiming that another day of the month is the day when they receive most new enquiries. In some ways a dislike of January is understandable - the big celebrations are over yet the cold, wet weather continues (see last week's storms for details). But here at Well Seasoned we think January gets a bad rap. There's loads of reasons to be positive about it. Cold crisp mornings, bright blue skies, Burns Night, walks in the countryside, not doing anything in the garden, the days getting longer, snow, robins...the list goes on. And of course, there's still loads of great food on offer. So, as John Lennon so nearly said, give January a chance. Anyway, it'll be the Olympics soon...or does that just make it worse?

Did you know...? The Anglo Saxons called January Wolf Monath because it was the month the wolves came to the villages to look for food. Eek!

And here's that sprout recipe we mentioned...

OK, it might be 355 days before we eat them again but we discovered this recipe over Christmas and wanted to share it with you. There are still some great sprouts around so consider accompanying your next roast with them.

350g brussels sprouts
150g bacon lardons
30ml good balsamic vinegar
25g butter

Boil a pan of water, add a couple of good pinches of salt. Boil the sprouts for 2 minutes then drain and set aside. In a frying pan, fry the bacon over a moderate heat until crispy. Add in the sprouts, balsamic and butter and fry for a further minute. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Posted Thursday, 5 January 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

With its dark green and purple florets, purple sprouting broccoli (or PSB as it is affectionately known in the Barn) is at its best from late January to April. And that's a good thing too because, when it comes to leafy greens, PSB and Kale are pretty much all there is in the "Hungry Gap". PSB is a very flavoursome vegetable and makes a great companion to pretty much any meat or fish. It's also well worth considering as the star of the show in any dish where you're tempted to use imported asparagus. It cooks very quickly with steaming or boiling taking 5 to 6 minutes and stir fried taking just a minute or two. Why don't we eat more of it? Who knows. As a nation, we love "proper" broccoli and PSB has been grown in good volumes in the UK for several decades now. If it's health benefits you're after, PSB contains sulphoraphane (which is thought to help prevent cancer) and is full of vitamin C, iron, folic acid and fibre. Poor quality PSB can be a bit tough and woody, so it's possible some people have been scarred by bad experiences. More likely though, people just never get round to trying it. So, maybe the revolution starts here. When you're in the shops this week, get the SP on their PSB and give it a go.

Posted Monday, 2 January 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

In Spring of this year we wrote a blog piece about eating carp. Having spoken to a few niche producers, we were pretty sure that there was something of a revival going on for this flavoursome (if fiddly) freshwater fish. We thought that it wouldn't be long before we saw it in the shops and, lo and behold, on our trip to Southwark last weekend we saw a huge pile of fresh mirror carp on the slab of Borough Market's biggest fishmonger. We're hardly going to take the credit for this new trend in London's foodie-central but it's nice to be proved right occasionally. Annoyingly, we didn't have a camera with us so you'll just have to imagine the scene. Think big, green and weirdly scaly (the fish, not us).

Posted Sunday, 1 January 2012  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

A very happy new year from all of us at Well Seasoned.

2011 was pretty eventful - it feels like we've had a decade's news in one year! On the food side of things, it was no different. Food crisis, obesity epidemic, fish discards and food labelling all made the headlines. Here are some of our favourites from the BBC:

January - Smart wrapping can detect off food

February - Plans for Lincolnshire Super Dairy withdrawn after pressure from campaigners

March - Unethical fish discards must end

April - Best Before dates to be scrapped

May - Rising food prices increasing the squeeze on the world's poor

June - Climate to wreak havoc on world food supplies

July - EU targets food origin with meat labelling

August - Global governments must get tough on obesity

September - Do celebrity chefs create more food waste?

October - Could insects solve the world food crisis?

November - M1 shut after marmite lorry overturns

December - Devon charity recourses "last battery hen"

Posted Wednesday, 21 December 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

Today (21 December) is the Winter Solstice. If you've seen our Events Calendar you'll know that this is the shortest day of the year and, after tonight (more accurately, 5.30am tomorrow morning), the days will start getting longer again. Not by much (in fact only about seven seconds to start with) but it's a welcome thought in the cold, dark days of December that we've turned the seasonal corner and that the longer days of Spring and Summer will soon be with us again.

Semi-interesting fact of the day.....The word "solstice" is derived from the Latin meaning "sun stands still".

Posted Monday, 19 December 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

As seasonal food fans we try to embrace the changes that the seasons bring to our diet and, by definition, this means we accept that some things just aren't available all year round. That got us thinking though; what sort of menu could you construct with British ingredients that are good at any time of the year? As New Years Eve approaches, we reckon there are at least 20 tasty ingredients that you could safely resolve to eat without ever having to resort to imported varieties:

Veg

Onions
Potatoes
Spinach
Carrots

Fish

Cod
Crab
Lobster
Mackerel
Mussels
Oysters
Pollock
Salmon
Scallops
Seabass

Wild meat

Rabbit
Boar
Pigeon

Reared meat

Beef
Pork
Chicken
Lamb

If an average dish requires 6 ingredients, then some basic maths suggests there are something like 38,000 completely different combinations here, and 27 million combinations in total. OK, beef with lamb and mussels might not work but you get the idea!   

Posted Friday, 16 December 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

Christmas is, of course, the biggest of our seasonal feasts, but is everything you think you know about our 'traditional' festive food right? We had a really good natter earlier in the week with our friends at Emerald Street and they've written a great newsletter featuring Well Seasoned and Christmas food. You can read it HERE.

(If you like what you see and fancy doing a little bit for chariddy in the season of goodwill, sign up to receive future editions of the newsletter and The Stylist magazine, Emerald Street's parent publication, will donate £1 to Look Good... Feel Better, a charity which offers make-up and skincare workshops to women undergoing cancer treatment.)

Posted Wednesday, 14 December 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  1 Comment(s)

Earlier this year we blogged about raw milk. We reported how the ever-dwindling number of suppliers face strict regulation, including having to sell their product direct to the consumer. It is for this reason that you never see raw milk in the shops....until now. Ingenious farmer Steve Hook who featured in our previous piece (and is also a previous Well Seasoned Producer of the Month) has come up with a solution. Londoners can now buy his milk in Selfridges - from a vending machine. By law, a customer buying milk from the machine is contracting directly with Steve and the store is just giving him a licence to place the machine in its Food Hall (presumably for a share of the profits!) So there you have it - raw milk, straight from the farm gate...in the middle of the city.

Posted Thursday, 24 November 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  15 Comment(s)

You know all of those great little artisan shops and producers - that independent cheese emporium down the road, or the bountifully stocked farm shop you simply must visit "when we're next down that way"? Wouldn't it be great if someone compiled a compendium of all of these hidden foodie gems? Well, that's exactly what Rose Prince, longstanding food writer for the Telegraph, has attempted with the Telegraph Good Produce Guide 2012. Now in it's third year, the guide lists over a thousand of Britain's most talented local producers and shops with detailed listings for each including location, opening hours, website and contact details.

The book is handily divided into regions and then into categories including markets, delis, butchers, fish & seafood and dairies. So, for example, if you find yourself in the Devon dying to find a local honey producer, a quick flick through the new "artisan" category of the "West Country" section reveals no less than six likely candidates in the region, together with a brief review of each. A basic map for each locality helps further narrow down your search. Added extras include seasonality charts, a smattering of the better UK food festivals and contact details for some useful organisations likely to be of interest (such as the Marine Conservation Society and Slow Food UK).

By definition, the guide is an ambitious project. We know from our own experience that Britain is brimming over with great quality, small producers who often don't do enough shouting about what they are up to. Rose Prince obviously knows her stuff when it comes to quality food and it's clear from the entries that she has first hand experience of a good number, if not all, of the entries and a good deal of work has gone into compiling the guide.

The guide doesn't claim to be a comprehensive and with "only" a thousand or so entries for the whole country it's inevitable that some will miss out. That said, there are some established favourites of ours who we'd have expected to see but who don't feature. It's hard to say why some don't make the cut but a glimpse at a couple of the maps would suggest that there are some areas that would benefit from some more detailed local research.

Within categories, the entries are listed alphabetically, meaning that if you know the name of the shop you're looking for, you can find it easily. But we thought we'd be more likely to find ourselves touring around and then consulting the map to see what producers were in the area. Browsing in this way is harder because, curiously, the numerical order used on the maps doesn't correspond with the alphabetical one and so, for the sake of a couple of extra pages we'd like to have seen a numerical index included. We felt larger and more detailed maps would also improve usability.

The guide does feel hastily compiled in places. We spotted several typos, particularly in website addresses and even the odd publisher's comment which should have been removed pre-printing, which will no doubt frustrate both the producers and readers trying to find them. Given that is it only the third annual publication, and future contributions are actively invited, we'd expect both the quality and quantity of entries to improve with future editions. Frustrations aside, the book has a good go at compiling a great deal of information on our artisan and independent producers in one place and that aim is certainly laudable. A decent number of great producers are listed, including some which we thought only we knew about! It makes for a helpful and interesting companion for the travelling foodie and we'll be keeping our copy in the Landy's glove box for our next tour around the country.

The Telegraph Good Produce Guide 2012 is available to buy now and at £12.99 is well priced for a Christmas present for your favourite festive foodie. We also have a copy to give away. To enter, just leave a comment below with the name and location of your favourite local artisan producer or retailer. We'll pass all your comments and recommendations on to the Good Produce Guide for inclusion in next year's edition.

Posted Saturday, 5 November 2011  /  Written by Alex  /  Post a Comment

Posted Thursday, 20 October 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  3 Comment(s)

If I say chestnuts to you, what comes to mind? I'd wager good money that a cosy fire, dark nights and a general sense of snug nostalgia would be among your first thoughts. Is any other food so comforting and emotive?*

Late October is the season of the sweet chestnut. A native of the Mediterranean, many of the original chestnut trees in the UK were planted by the Romans and the Latin name "castan" can be found in various guises across Europe including Wales (castan) France (châtaigne) and our own derivation, chestnut. Interestingly, for a food now so quintessentially seasonal and British, very few of the chestnuts sold in the UK are grown here. The chances are that, if you buy chestnuts in the UK (even from a market) they will have come from abroad. We're not quite sure why that is but presumably the 20 year growing period of your average tree makes it, at the very least, quite a long term investment.

I suspect we've all lobbed the odd stick into a chestnut tree in the hope of dislodging a spiky prize or two but (and this is speaking as someone who has had a "discussion" with the Royal Parks Police on the matter) it's best not to do this unless you own the tree. Picking them up from the ground will ensure they are ripe, although of course you need to get there before the squirrels do, but getting to them early will also ensure that they don't get damp. Damp is the enemy of the chestnut as they will quickly rot so, once foraged, make sure you store them in a dry, well ventilated place.

For the Well Seasoned team, nothing beats a traditional roast chestnut. Get a crackling fire going and throw a handful of chestnuts into a roasting pan (make sure you cut a small cross in the top of each nut first, to prevent any unwanted explosions and a dash across the living room to stamp out burning embers). After about 10 minutes, depending on the heat of your fire, your nuts should be beautifully roasted and easy to peel. If you haven't got an open fire you can roast in the oven at 200 C for about 25 minutes (again, cutting them first). If you've got a large number you can grind the roasted nuts into chestnut flour which makes a delicious (and gluten free) base for pancakes and shortbread. There are plenty of other recipes out there. Here's the BBC's helpful archive: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/chestnut

There's an old Corsican saying that "he who has nothing will not eat. If you want flour, go gather chestnuts." I'd love to end this blog on an educational high note by telling you what it means. Unfortunately, I have no idea. Enjoy your chestnut season!

(*it's technically possible that you were involved in a horrific chestnut-related incident as a child and the word invokes nighmarish green and spiky flashbacks, in which case, apologies but, for most people, I'm pretty sure I'm right.)

Posted Wednesday, 14 September 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

It's no fluke that things which grow at the same time of year often taste good together. Our forager ancestors learned to couple their freshly caught summer fish with the samphire growing in the nearby marshes and to match their autumn pork with the local apples that the pigs had fed on. Our tastebuds have evolved with the same instinctive ability to pair flavours and, of course, seasonal eating is all about combining the best natural ingredients which are available at the same time. So, with our hedgerows bursting with sloes and with the game season kicking off, we were very excited to be able to try some of the the Real Boar Company's 'wild boar with sloe gin' salami recently. It's a great combination for this time of year. A Great Taste 2011 double gold star winner, the salami has the distinct gamey richness of wild boar with a mellow, fruity and spicy sloe gin twist. We've raved about the RBC and wild boar before (their salamis are apparently sold in three of the top five restaurants in the world and in establishments holding a total of 15 Michelin stars!) and this year's offering is no exception. Definitely worth considering if you're putting together an autumnal plate of British charcuterie.

Posted Thursday, 1 September 2011  /  Written by The Twig and James Whetlor  /  5 Comment(s)

We recently asked people on Twitter if they knew what the most popular meat in the world was. There were a lot of guesses including pork, chicken and beef. But only a shrewd few got the right answer... it's goat. Seen occasionally on our menus as chevon, kid or cabrito, there are nearly 800 million domesticated goats around the world. Yet, in 2010 just 11,000 were slaughtered in the UK. Compare that to the 3 million cows we eat every year and you'll see it's a pretty small part of the British meat market. We were lucky enough recently to catch up with James Whetlor, chef at Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Canteen in Axminster. James is keen to increase the demand for this underappreciated, low fat meat and owns a small herd of his own. Here's what he told us about his experience of keeping (and cooking) goats...

It wasn’t meant to be like this. I was meant to have pigs. You have a bit of land and you have ambitions to be a bit of a small holder and you get pigs right? Well, the people that live next door to the land share I occupy weren’t too keen on the idea so I had to come up with something else and goats seemed like the perfect solution to the “need a mower/hedge trimmer and a bit of dinner” problem.

One of the great things about working for River Cottage is that if you have a growing/farming/food question there is always someone to ask. So I asked around and eventually I got in touch with Will at Hill Farm Dairy, the makers of Stawley cheese. He was happy to sell us a couple of boys and this is where it got interesting.....

The obvious by-product of the cheese making process is male goats. The majority of which are gassed or worse just bashed on the head, leaving them for dead as soon as they are born. This is a brutal and widespread practice. Will wanted no part of that so he has sold his boys to the neighbouring farmer who is going to bring them on in the hope of finding a market for the meat. This, given my obsession (and yes it is an obsession) with meat, meant I had to get it on the Canteen menu.

Apart from it being free range, outdoor reared and local to us at the Canteen, it being a pretty exciting and unusual product (in this part of the world anyway) and it being a new revenue stream for the much under pressure British farmer, these goats would otherwise be killed the second they were born. Which is an ethical car crash. We sat down and worked out a £ per kilo price that meant it was worth everyone’s while and I took my first delivery a few days later.

I will admit to some nerves at this point. I’d just invested in two goats and had no idea if they’d sell or not. It felt like a gamble. It would be the first time I’d put goat on the Canteen menu so, what to do with them?

A goat carcass on the block looks like a huge rabbit. All muscles and tendons with not an ounce of fat on it. It has the look of a game animal more akin to venison than anything farmed. The flesh has the milkiness of rose veal and it has that musky smell of hare. I butcher a lot. In fact, I butcher everything that comes into the Canteen and the goats have become one of the most enjoyable tasks. The lack of fat and the excellent muscle definition make them easy to cut and the small size of the kids makes them easy to handle.

So how was I going to sell the goats? What could I put on the menu that would ensure they’d sell? I decided on roasting the legs, braising the shoulders and the neck for a ragu and the rest I would curry. I was hedging my bets a little. If all else failed surely the curry would sell…

So, below are the three things I did with the first two goats I got in. We regularly turn to the River Cottage books for inspiration at the Axminster kitchen and you’ll usually find one or two ‘River Cottage’ recipes on the menu. These, however are mine. They went on the menu and honestly, I need not have worried. We sell out of goat every time we have it on; it’s always the first thing to go.

I’ll assume that you have a whole goat and include all the recipes. If you don’t have a whole goat (and I can help you with that, more later) just do the recipe that fits the bit you’ve got. The curry will work with any part of the animal. If have a whole goat, you’ll need a sharp knife and a saw. Remove the shoulders and you can either chop in the neck into 1-2 inch ‘chops’ or braise the whole neck as one piece. Saw the legs off just above the rump the down the middle so you have two separate legs. Finally trim the belly, the soft flappy pieces on either side of the loins. Then cut the loin in two.

Braised Shoulder (or neck) of Goat with tomato, anchovy and rosemary

If you have a neck, or two shoulders, double the quantities below. Serves 4/5

You’ll need:

1 goat shoulder
3 carrots
2 onions
2 bulbs of garlic
Tin of plum tomato
Bunch of rosemary
4 (fish forever) anchovies
A glass of red wine
Butter

Brown the seasoned meat in a heavy based ovenproof pan. Dice the onion and carrot and mince the garlic. (For the garlic I find chopping it fine, then sprinkling with salt and scraping the side of a knife over it works well) Roughly chop the rosemary. Once the meat is browned add a knob of butter to the pan, then add the onions, carrot, garlic and fry till soft but don’t let them brown. Once that’s done add the wine and let that bubble away until its almost gone then add the tomatoes, squishing them in your hand as you do it. Then add the rosemary and put the meat in too. You still with me? Great! Now you need to add some water so the meat braises rather than boils. Fergus Henderson has a lovely phrase “Alligator in the swamp theory.” You know how you just see the eyes above the water line? You want just enough water so the meat is half in and half out of the water. Lapping at the sides. Now cover it with silver foil and stick it in the oven at 160*c for an hour. (two hours for the neck) When the time is up remove the foil and if the meat comes away from the bone when pressed with the back of a spoon it done. If not put it back in the oven for 20 minutes. Once it’s done its best if you leave it in the fridge overnight to allow the flavors to develop. This isn’t essential but if you can do it you will notice the difference. You now have options. You can pick all the meat off the bone, shred it by pulling it apart with your hands and serve it with pasta, pappardelle is my favourite for meat braises, or chickpeas or another pulse. Or you can just pull pieces off and serve it with boiled potatoes and bread for mopping.

Roast leg of kid goat with lentils and salsa verde

I would take lentils and salsa verde as an accompaniment to roast meat over anything else and I include the Sunday roast in that. It is my all time favorite. Its also great with roast fish and even just on its own. Having a good lentils and salsa verde up your sleeve is very, very useful. I’ve read that some people find roast goat meat dry. Don’t worry. Roasting it on the bone will ensure it stays moist. Serves 4/5

You’ll need: 

1 leg of goat
350 grams lentils
2 carrots
2 onions
Spoon full of Dijon mustard
Butter
2 lemons
Bunch of thyme
Chives
Parsley
Tarragon
Dill
Mint
Cornichons
Capers
1 anchovy
Good olive oil

Preheat your oven to 220C. Season the meat and stick it in the oven for 30 minutes if you like it pink (medium rare) and 35-40 if you don’t. While it’s roasting, boil the lentils until they are soft. You can test them by dropping them on the work service. If they bounce, they aren’t cooked, if they splat, they’re done. Soften the onions and carrots in a knob of butter but don’t let them brown. Add the chopped thyme. Once the lentils are done, mix them with the softened onion and carrots so you have a nice pile of lentils with a decent distribution of veg. Stir in a spoonful of Dijon and squeeze in the juice of half a lemon. Adda few glugs of olive oil. You want the lentils quite ‘wet” So add a bit of water if they seem to stiff and dry. Check the seasoning and they are done. Now, for the salsa verde. You don’t need all the herbs listed so don’t worry if you don’t have them but I'd say parsley and mint are essential and go easy of the dill, it will take over given the chance. Chop the herbs together and put them in a bowl. Chop the cornichons and capers, throw them in too, then add the olive oil until you have something you can stir without all the herbs sticking to the spoon. Stir in half a spoon of the mustard, squeeze in the rest of the lemon juice and season. Take the leg out of the oven and let it rest for at least ten minutes. Carve it, stick it on a pile of the lentils and tip a spoonful of salsa verde over it. Wonderful.

Goat Rendeng

And finally, the curry. In some ways I can’t win here. Everyone likes their curry different and I’m sure there will be Malaysians out there cursing my name for ruining their national dish and for that I can only apologize and say I’ve done my best to do it justice. I’d also say that we are about to make our own curry paste. If you know you like it hotter add more chilies or with more cloves say, then add a few more. There are no rules here at all. Oh, and always try and use the whole seeds and pods rather than the ground versions of the spices. They always have a much better flavour. It may seem like a hassle having to pick the bones out at the end but the extra flavour it lends, by cooking it on the bone, to the finished dish is completely worth it and it means you don’t have to spend time butchering it.

Serves 4/5

You’ll need:

1 goat saddle (or just about any bit of goat really)
8 onions sliced
One bulb of garlic minced
Bunch of coriander, stalks chopped, leaves left whole
2 tins of coconut milk
Cloves
Star anise
Cardamom
2 whole dried chilies
Cinnamon
Ginger
Lemon grass
Tamarind paste
Turmeric Oil for cooking

Brown the seasoned meat in a heavy bottomed ovenproof dish then remove. Add onions and the garlic and soften then add the chopped stalks of the coriander. While this is happening make the curry paste. If you feel confident, make lots and it will keep. A teaspoon of each of the cloves, star anise and half a teaspoon of cardamom, one of the chilies and a whole stick of cinnamon is a good start. Put them in a dry pan and cook on a high heat until the flavors are released. It will be obvious when this happens. It smells amazing! Put the toasted spices in a blender and add a teaspoon of turmeric, a teaspoon of lemongrass, a thumbnail size chunk of ginger and two teaspoons of the tamarind paste. Wizz it. If it looks a bit dry pour in a little oil till you have a paste consistency. It will look like brown sludge and this is a good thing. Add your curry paste to your softened onions and stir. It will probably dry your pan out almost instantly, don’t worry just keep stirring on a low heat until you have mixed it into your onions evenly, adding a bit more oil if you need to. Once that’s done add you meat to your onions. Now you need to add the liquid to braise remembering the “alligator in the swamp” from earlier. Although this time using half water half coconut milk. Put it back on the heat and bring it up to the simmer, then cover it and throw it in the oven on 160c for well, at least two hours. It’s done when the meat falls off the bone when pressed with the back of a spoon.

Traditionally this would be cooked over an open flame, rather than in an oven so the sauce would have a chance to reduce. In the oven this won’t happen and you don’t want a runny Rendang. So I get round this by reducing the sauce, draining it off and boiling it until half is evaporated. Once this is done put the juice back on the meat and leave overnight in the fridge. The next day pick the bones out of the meat and you’ll have a lovely curry. Serve it with some boiled rice or chickpeas and the unchopped coriander you have left.

So there you go. Three different ways of cooking your Goat. I am amazed and very happy that it has proved to be so popular at the Canteen.

I really believe that with the right cooking and willingess from the public we could begin to appreciate this magnificent meat and wonderful creature a bit more. As you’ve probably guessed, I love goats. Adore them. They are very much individual characters but they are all mischievous, friendly, funny and bright. We keep four at the moment with plans to have many more next year, with most of them destined for the plate. In the meantime, we try to give them the best life they can have. It's not perfect and I have a great feeling of sadness that some of the boys are going to die at my hand. I am nowhere near as tough as I pretend to be! But surely this way of doing things is better than just leaving them for dead the moment they are born. If you’d like a butchered goat delivered to your door so you can try all the above please contact me via Twitter @nopigtoobig

Posted Friday, 12 August 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  2 Comment(s)

Today is of course the “Glorious 12th”, the first day of the grouse season. Grouse are the only truly wild game birds left in this country and they live exclusively on the heather moors of northern England and in Scotland. Our recent newsletter promised some tips on buying your grouse, so here you go:

When to buy?

The season starts today (12th) and runs to 10th December. Birds will be available from tomorrow 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?

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 of shot enter) or excessive bruising (which can happen as the bird hits the ground).

What to pay?

It's not yet clear how the season will turn out. Because the birds are all wild, the grouse estates currently only have a rough idea of their numbers. Only when shooting starts will they really know how their birds have fared over the winter. The early cold snap this year followed by a lot of wet weather meant that fewer chicks hatched. However, the warm spell in April also brought lots of insects out early, meaning that those chicks that did hatch had plenty to eat. So the picture is pretty unclear, with estimates varying considerably within comparatively small distances.

The reports will start coming in later today and we'll then have a better idea of likely numbers for the season. If it turns out to be a good year, prices will come down accordingly. In any event, 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. You can probably expect to pay up to £15 a bird and with a discount for bulk purchases you might be able to get this down to just under £10. Obvioulsy it’s still pricey but, we’d suggest, well worth it for a taste of something really quite special.

Where to buy?

Your local game dealer or large farmers market is the obvious place to start but if you can't make it to the markets there are some good online dealers around now. Here is just a selection of the ones we've found.

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

If you know of any other good dealers selling grouse online, do share it by adding a comment with the link to the end of the blog.

Posted Monday, 8 August 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  1 Comment(s)

At Well Seasoned we've always tried to encourage people to do what they can in terms of seasonal living. Not everyone has space for a vegetable patch and it's pretty rare for anyone to be completely self-sufficient these days, especially if you live in a town. But, at the same time, we're pretty confident that everyone should be able to find somewhere to grow something. Our first ever blog piece (on the old Well Seasoned blog) was about growing chillies on your windowsill and in fact we still do that today, even though we're now lucky enough to have the Barn and the WS allotment at our disposal. If you still think you don't have enough space to pot a potato (let along swing a cat), have a read of our latest guest blog piece from rooftop gardener and newly-published author, Helen Babbs...

My tiny rented flat sits atop a 1930s terraced house in north London, on a cul-de-sac that’s sandwiched between three busy main roads that heave in the direction of Camden and King’s Cross. Buffeted by traffic noise, and framed by the backs of Mary Poppins style townhouses and chimney tops, my small home is found in an urban but oddly idyllic spot.

What makes my part of this paltry palace extra special is the fact my bedroom has a door that opens out onto a fenced-in flat roof. Just three metres square in size, I’ve made it my mission to turn this patch of grey into an aerial, edible garden.

Despite having no gardening skills whatsoever, I’ve managed to turn the rooftop into an allotment of sorts. I’ve grown myself a set of green fingers and toes, and I’m pretty proud of them. Floating on its cloud of noise and dust mere footsteps away from my bed, I confess I’ve done some of my best roof garden work still in my pyjamas.

I’ve discovered that lots of plants can bear an entirely container bound life. This week I’ve harvested a haul, albeit a humble one, of heritage purple potatoes that were grown in a hessian sack lined with a bin bag. Their skin is an iridescent indigo and their flesh an equally inky purple.

A few weeks earlier I dug up some gorgeously striped bulbs of garlic, grown in a large pot from supermarket bought cloves. At the moment I’m growing runner beans, squashes and tomatoes, all in containers, alongside various salad leaves and fragrant herbs.

Evening primroses are blooming in an old paint pot and a strawberry plant is getting bushy in a rusty colander. Sweet-peas are tangling themselves in knots as they tumble out of a beautiful picnic basket that I found discarded on the street. Wooden vegetable boxes house oregano, sage and mint, and a couple of tomato plants have found a happy home in an upended, broken cat travel basket.

Alongside edible crops I’ve also sought out fragrant and night blooming flowers. Warm evenings on the roof are perfumed by lavender, tobacco plant, rose and jasmine. I’ve turned my urban balcony into a true living room – an outdoor space woven about with plants where (when the weather is kind) I can daydream, moon bathe and entertain friends.

A city girl, I also love nature and I’m fascinated by urban ecology. London supports a wealth of wild species and natural land covers an impressive swathe of the capital. What already exists is valuable and should be protected. I wanted to create a little bit more green space, and I’ve made my roof a wildlife friendly one, full of flowers that attract bees, butterflies, birds and moths.

I share the space with various creatures. There are havoc-wreaking squirrels and hungry slugs and snails, but also welcome beetles, bees, butterflies, birds and even bats. Bugs like undisturbed areas that are allowed to grow a little wild, while other creatures are attracted by specific plants or the promise of nesting materials and food.

Pollinators are drawn in by the nectar-rich likes of lavender and sweet-pea. Runner bean, strawberry and potato flowers are also loved. Evening primrose and tobacco attract moths. Ladybirds eat my aphids, birds eat my slugs and bats pick off any biting mosquitoes.

My favourite visitors are a dishevelled blackbird and his lady wife. He sits and sings on my fence posts, while she steals string from my bean poles. Their efforts mean a space that’s sandwiched between the Camden and Holloway Roads is sound-tracked with birdsong as well as bus hum.

There’s something extra special about the wildlife and wild places found within a city sprawl. The fact that nature can be vigorous and that a range of creatures can survive and even thrive in such a seething, heaving place as London is brilliant. I love the fact my tiny rooftop kitchen garden has become a nature reserve of sorts.

Helen has just written a book about the glory of growing things and urban ecology. It charts a year spent on her Holloway rooftop and adventures off into London’s wildernesses. My Garden, the City and Me – Rooftop Adventures in the Wilds of London is published by Timber Press. Read more at www.aerialediblegardening.co.uk and www.helenbabbs.wordpress.com

Posted Wednesday, 13 July 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  1 Comment(s)

What mixed fortunes the humble European eel (Anguilla anguilla) has had. Back in the olden days they were largely left alone, seen as a commoners' fish. A slimy beast that skulks around at night, hoovering up dead things from the river bed is hardly a meal fit for a king. But then someone discovered that they actually taste rather good. Now they are critically endangered.

In the 1990's eel, especially smoked, became all the rage and could be found on every swanky restaurant menu. They were easily obtainable and their delicate easy-to-prepare flesh was a hit with chefs and diners alike. Unfortunately, disaster then struck and eel stocks began plummeting. This particular fish stock crisis isn't exclusively caused by over-eating (or at least there's little evidence to suggest it is) but there is a good chance that it is man made - habitat loss, contamination, barriers to migration and transfer of diseases have all been cited as contributing to their significant decline. Whatever the cause, the problem is now an extremely serious one.

How has it all happened so quickly? Well, it has something to do with the eel's unique and complex lifestyle. There is one single European eel stock and nearly every eel in the world returns to one place, the Sargasso Sea, to breed. Hatching into baby eels, or elvers, the offspring then travel back across oceans and up into our fresh water rivers, facing perils at pretty much every turn, whether it be hungry predators or flood barriers. So, if we impact on the Sargasso population we really are depleting an entire species. The stock is now at a historical low which, scientists generally agree, leaves the eel population dangerously close to collapse. The International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) has repeatedly called for an urgent recovery plan to be put in place and the Marine Conservation Society currently rates the eel as a "5"; as their website puts it bluntly "Avoid all European eel."

Dai Frances at Severn & Wye Valley smokery is a rare example of a retailer who knows he's on both sides of the fence. He wants to sell smoked fish, including ideally eel, to a public that enjoys it, but is fully aware that if we continue to deplete the stocks, it won't be long before there are none left. Step up Severn & Wye's educational and restocking programme, "Eels in Schools".

In order to highlight the barriers and obstacles that the elvers face, Severn & Wye promote the Eels in Schools scheme. In 2010 just two schools took part. In 2011 that number had mushroomed to twelve with additional tanks being taken by chef MattTebbutt at his restaurant the Foxhunter at Nantaderry, Billingsgate fish school in London and Feng Sushi restaurant at Royal Festival Hall, London. The idea is that the schools and restaurants raise the elvers until they are of a size suitable to be released back into the wild, providing an educational and entertainment resource at the same time.

This year's tanks have now been in place for many weeks and all the elvers will be released over the Summer months. Last month, comedian and farmer Ade Edmondson, who was filming for a food programme on eels, took part in a return of elvers to the wild and numerous celeb chefs including Brian Turner, Valentine Warner and the Hairy Bikers are now backing the scheme by taking part in similar releases. Severn & Wye hopes to use the scheme to contribute three live elvers to the Eels in Schools scheme every time a Severn & Wye Smokery product is eaten. The smokery is also a member of the Sustainable Eel Group, setting standards for sustainable eel fishing in Europe.

If you'd like to know more about the scheme or to speak to Dai about a tank in your school, you can drop him a line at dai.francis@severnandwye.co.uk You can also download a copy of the Eels in Schools leaflet HERE.

Posted Monday, 11 July 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

If you don't know by now that we're big fans of scallops then we're doing something seriously wrong. But it's worth saying that one of the reasons we love them so much is the experience of collecting and preparing them. A morning in Lyme Bay on the dive boat followed by an hour in the water with our scuba kit and an afternoon in the kitchen is all so rewarding. It beats a trip to the supermarket any day.

Well, we can't teach you how to dive on this blog (we're pretty sure our insurance won't cover us for that) but we can tell you how to prepare your own scallops. The advantages are obvious - you'll know that your scallops are as fresh as it's possible to be and you wont have to pay anyone to do the job for you.

First, with the curved edge of the shell sitting in your palm, rest the fanned edge of the scallop on a chopping board.

Force a strong, sharp knife into the gap at the edge of the shell near to the hinge. If the scallop is slightly open, this will be an easy task. If not, it'll take a little more work and wiggling of the knife. Push the knife right across to the other side of the shell and then slice downwards, keeping the knife slightly angled towards the flat edge of the shell so that you slice as much of the white muscle as possible away from the flat shell.

Having sliced through the muscle the scallop will gently fall open to reveal its inner workings. The edible parts are the white muscle and the orange coral. The size and shape of both will vary depending on the condition of the scallop.  

Remove the black stomach sac with your fingers. Be gentle with it because you want to avoid tearing it if at all possible. It's not poisonous as such but if it does burst you should rinse the spillage off the rest of the scallop as soon as possible. 

Next, break off the flat edge of the shell and pull away the frills. They will peel off without much resistance.

You should now have the curved part of the shell with the white muscle and coral sitting neatly in it.

Cut away the muscle from the shell with a blunt knife or a spoon. Again, you want to save as much of the muscle as possible. 

Now give the scallop a little trim and a rinse under the tap. Pat dry with some kitchen towel. 

That's it! For our example we trimmed off the coral (as most restaurants will do) but there's no reason to do so other than for presentation.

Scallops really are one of the easier shellfish to prepare so if you looking for that smug glow that only comes with being able to say to the fishmonger "don't worry, I'll do it myself", pick up some scallops and give it a go. 

PS It goes without saying that if you're young (or old but clumsy) you should get an adult to help you with this. A missing finger can put a serious downer on your scallop dinner. Keep is safe and seasonal!

Posted Thursday, 7 July 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

The European lobster hommarus gammarus is the king of crustaceans. Its size and appearance (both the dark blue of the natural animal and the bright red, once cooked) are impressive and have long been coveted by seafood fans, making it a famously expensive dish.

Generally caught in pots or 'creels' all year round by small inshore boats, they don't have a "season" as such, and the quality of any individual animal will depend on when it last spawned or moulted, but they are generally at their best from mid-Summer through to early Spring.

For the Well Seasoned team, our lobster season starts in July when we first don our scuba gear specifically to hunt for lobsters (before then we tend to focus our diving efforts on scallops and since lobsters prefer lots of rocks with plenty of places to hide in, it's rare to find them on the sandy, flat scallop beds).

This weekend is our first dedicated lobster dive and we'll let you know how we get on. Apparently the Twig once did a university course studying lobster behaviour - we're not sure if that will be of any help, or just shows how weird he is, but in the meantime, we've compiled some top lobster facts and stats for you:

• The lobster belongs to the same taxonomic group as crabs, prawns and shrimps, the Decapoda (meaning ten legs).
• Most lobsters caught commercially are around 0.7kg and with a total body length of about 40 cm.
• To be of legal landing size in the UK the lobster's carapace (the front section of their shell) must be at least 9cm long.
• It is thought that lobsters can live for more that 100 years.
• Most lobsters of dinner table size are between five and seven years old.
• Killing lobsters by boiling is illegal in some places (such as in Reggio Emilia Italy, where you can be fined up to €495).
• You can expect to pay £15 to £25 for a live lobster (although you'll get them for significantly less on the quayside, straight off the boat).
• The largest ever recorded European Lobster was 1.26m long and weighed 9.3 kg, It was caught in 1931 in Fowey, Cornwall. Monster!

Finally, a lobster joke told to us recently by a fisheries officer. To appreciate it you have to know that, in order to protect spawning lobsters, fishermen who catch "berried" or egg-laying females will cut a v-shaped notch into their tales before throwing them back. It's illegal to land any lobster carrying this protective sign. 　

In a small Dorset fishing village, a local man was walking up the quayside carrying two live lobsters, one in each hand and each with a v-notch cut into his tail. As he's bundling his kit and lobsters into his car a local fisheries officer comes up to him, sees the lobsters and says "Gotcha. Those lobsters are both v-notched and it's illegal to take them from the wild."
The man says, "No, I'm afraid you are wrong! These are two trained lobsters that I caught ages ago. The v-notch is just a little sign that helps me recognise them."
The fisheries officer asks, "Trained? How?"
"Well," says the man, "each day I bring them down to the harbour here, drop 'em in the water and let them go for a swim. I smoke a couple of cigarettes, then, when we're ready to go, I give them a whistle, they trot out of the sea and we all go home."
"A likely story," says the fisheries officer says. "Let's take them down to the harbour now and see if it’s true." So the man goes ahead of the fisheries officer, back along the harbour wall, where he carefully lowers both lobsters into the water. The man sits back and lights a cigarette. After about 15 minutes the fisheries officer says to the man,
"OK. Now how about whistling?"
"What for?" the man asks. The fisheries officer answers, "To call in the lobsters!"
The man says, "What lobsters?"

Well, we thought it was pretty funny! Have a great weekend everyone. We'll be back on the blog early next week. Until then, keep it snappy and seasonal!

Posted Thursday, 7 July 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

Today we (re)introduce you to Well Seasoned's campaign anthem from Shropshire-based rural rap enthusiasts, the SY6. In case you haven't heard the story before, at the beginning of our campaign we thought it would be great to have a catchy tune to call our own and to shamelessly draw attention to ourselves at events. Unfortunately the Well Seasoned team's musical skills extend no further than a primary school certificate of merit for the recorder, so we concluded some outside help was needed. We then came across Jake and the SY6 who had already produced the comedy hit 'We Make Hay' (as well as some rather more serious "real" music). It couldn't have been a better match so we asked if he'd be interested in penning our campaign anthem for us. Jake and the Church Stretton massive not only came up with a very catchy tune (which surely secures them top spot in the sub-genre of hay and vegetable-themed hip hop) but also a brilliant video to accompany it. Here it is in it's full glory. (And yes, we did have the idea before Yeo Valley muscled in on the act - but we're definitely not bitter...)

If the embedded video doesnt work you can always watch it on our YouTube channel 

Posted Wednesday, 6 July 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

Did you know that there are wild boar, alive and well in the British countryside? We're not talking about farmed animals here but genuinely wild beasts. The breed itself is known as "wild boar" so, even where it has been farm-reared, the retailers will use the 'wild' name. However, many people will be surprised to learn that there are actual wild ones (wild wild boar?) roaming free in the UK.

In the past, large numbers of boar inhabited our woods and fields. The Tudors loved to hunt them and a spit roast wild boar was the centrepiece of many a mediaeval knees-up. Sadly, some time in the 17th Century, British boar were hunted to extinction and nothing was seen of them for many years. But then, in the 1980s, boar farms breeding imported animals were established in Britain. In several incidents, most notably the great storm of 1987, some of the animals escaped and in a few rare cases they were able to establish themselves as free-living populations. Although there is some debate as to how widespread they are, since around 1990 breeding populations have existed in our countryside and are now certainly established in Kent, Sussex, Dorset and the Forest of Dean.

The boar are extremely wary, generally venturing out only at night. However, they cause problems for a number of groups including farmers and estate managers, who have to deal with the damage they do to the land (boar feed in the same way as pigs, quickly reducing the ground to a hummocky quagmire) and ramblers who, on several occasions have startled boar with their dogs, unexpectedly finding themselves in the middle of a canine/porcine rumpus.

Because the boar are extremely hardy and have no natural predators, most land managers agree that they need to be culled in the same ways as deer. This ensures a healthy population and limits the damage they do to crops, land and fencing. The upside for us foodies is that, if you know where to get it, truly wild boar meat is a seriously tasty, free range and organic feast. Really wild boar breed during the Summer and so, while there isn't a legal season for them, you'll probably have to wait until September to eat any.

Pete, an estate wildlife manager in the Kent/Sussex countryside, has been monitoring the boar in the area for several years now and recently sent us this amazing picture of a whole family captured by the night vision cameras he has been using to track them. There is a healthy debate surrounding the boar and whether (or to what degree) their populations should be kept in check by hunting. Some farmers would prefer to eradicate them altogether but Pete sees the boar on his estate most weeks and has no doubt that they are in the area to stay. His view is that it's great to see these magnificent beasts roaming the British countryside again and that a control programme which maintains a healthy wild population whilst providing us with the occasional meaty treat, is the answer. We couldn't agree more.

Posted Sunday, 26 June 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

So, this last weekend we were in Glastonbury. The unique meteorological conditions (biblical rain for two days followed by 48 hours of scorching sunshine) meant a rare opportunity to come home with both trench-foot and severe sunburn.

Yes, it was horrendously wet and muddy at times, but as we like to say (whilst, admittedly, sounding like our granddads) there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing and preparation. Some sturdy footwear and decent wet weather gear meant we could still enjoy what is truly a global showcase of musical talent. You can see and read plenty about the music in the national press so we wont bang on about it here. Suffice to say there's pretty much something for everyone and so, if you're into your music, of any kind, you'll be missing out if you don't make it to Glastonbury at least once in your life.

On to then food then and, having not been for two years, we were actually very pleasantly surprised. It really did feel like the seasonal, local message was getting through in places. For every greasy burger van (of which there are still plenty!) there was a stall purveying one or more regionally-sourced speciality such as Welsh venison burgers, Somerset pork sausages and even free range British ostrich steaks.

Perhaps the best part of it though, was that each of these products was competing keenly on price with said greasy burger. It's really no longer the case of twice the price for an organic beef burger, but possibly £6.50 competing with £6.

As the size of the quality food market increases, simple economics dictates that the price differential between it and the cheaper stuff also gets squeezed. The end result is a much easier choice for festival-goers deliberating between an anonymous bacon butty and an outdoor-reared porker from a local farm for an extra few pence.

There's no Glastonbury next year but we'll be returning in 2013 and we'll let you know if the seasonal revolution has continued at the same pace. If it has, we're unlikely to go hungry.

Posted Monday, 20 June 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

Last week the Well Seasoned team were at Royal Ascot. The world famous annual race meeting celebrates the very best of horse racing and fashion. Ascot week can normally be relied on to be sunny and still. Not this year! Squally rain and showers dominated the weather on Wednesday and Friday with at least some heavy rain on every other day. The WS team did have the odd flutter and came out on top (though sadly not enough to make up for the ticket price!)

As ever, we had one eye on the food and were given some staggering statistics. We're still waiting to hear the final numbers for 2011 but in 2010 the following quantities were consumed over the 5 day meeting:

• 48,992 bottles of champagne
• 63,746 glasses of Pimms
• 162,736 draught pints of beer
• 35,000 strawberry scones
• 1,400 kilos of fresh lobsters
• 25,000 local spears of asparagus
• 6,780 punnets of strawberries

Recession? What recession?

Posted Thursday, 2 June 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

Following our big weekend fishing trip, we thought you might like to know what happened to the mackerel that didn't get barbecued on the beach. Well, the Twig's brother, who's a dab hand at these things, gave us this great recipe for a very simple smoked mackerel pate.

You can buy (or make) a smoker very cheaply and it really adds an extra dimension to a number of foods, especially fish. We went with an oak sawdust to create a really rich flavour which accompanies the strong horseradish very well.

• 400g smoked mackerel fillets
• 250ml crème fraîche
• 2-3 tbsp grated or creamed horseradish
• Zest and juice of half a lemon
• Freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 1 tbsp chopped dill 

Skin and bone the smoked fish then blend in a liquidizer (or mash well with a fork) with all the other ingredients and chill in a bowl or ramekins for 2 hours. Sprinkle with a little paprika for that cheffy touch and enjoy with a sourdough or brown bread toast and a squeeze of lemon.

Posted Wednesday, 1 June 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

Chesil beach in Dorset is 18 miles long stretching from Portland to West Bay. Geologically it is a unique landmark (from my A-level days I think it’s a shingle spit but don’t quote me on that). It forms part of the truly spectacular Jurassic coast – a UNESCO world heritage site (which puts it on a par with the Great Barrier Reef and the Grand Canyon). Another feature that Chesil has, and the main reason it attracts seasonal food fans, is a steeply sloping bank into the warm (ok, it’s all relative), clear waters of the South coast. Strong currents flow up and down the beach with the tides, bringing with them, in the Summer months starting around May, large numbers of bait fish in the form of sprats and sand eels. And where there’s small fish there will be bigger ones…

From late May onwards, huge mackerel shoals patrol up and down the Chesil shoreline, hoovering up the bait fish in massive numbers. Which is great, because it means that they come close enough to be caught from the shore. What’s more, mackerel seem to have by-passed the usual evolutionary rules and developed an astonishingly relaxed attitude to eating, which means they snap at anything that passes their nose, including a big shiny hook with a feather stuck to it. All in all this makes them extremely easy to catch. Apparently in the past, shoals have been so close to the shore and so frenzied in their feeding that they have beached themselves at Chesil for lucky anglers to stock their freezers without even having to trouble the tackle box! On most occasions though, the standard kit is a casting rod with a 3oz lead weight and anything from three to six feathered hooks on the business end.

Last Friday, as reported on Twitter, we set off for Chesil beach and by mid-afternoon we were parked up in the Ferrybridge car park just of Portland. It's a steep climb up and over the back side of Chesil beach but what welcomes you at the top is an uninterrupted view of the full 18 mile stretch of beach. A truly unique sight. Three hours of fishing produced about 10 good sized fish. Not the greatest catch ever but enough to give four people a good meal and as many as we wanted.

Because mackerel are an oily fish they will cook well on the BBQ with very little accompaniment and that's exactly what we did. There really can't be much that's more satisfying than cooking a meal of fresh fish that you've caught yourself as the sun sets on a glorious early Summer's day. Magic.

Posted Thursday, 26 May 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

Last night the Twig was invited to the Sustainable Fish Supper at Selfridges in London. The evening, hosted by Selfridges head of food purchasing together with chefs Valentine Warner, Mitch Tonks and Mark Hix, was to raise awareness of sustainable fishing and Project Ocean, Selfridges new sustainability campaign.

The evening started with a discussion about sustainability with the chefs and Chris Gorell Barnes, executive producer of End of the Line, the award-winning film about the global fishing industry and the future of our seas. What was immediately apparent from the lively debate (which included contributions from the Twig himself) was that there aren't necessarily easy answers to the sustainability question. For example, while there was unanimous agreement that 'discards' (the practice of throwing back dead but undersized or out-of-quota fish) need to be stopped, there were very different views on how this could or should be achieved. But at least we had the conversation - we certainly won't come up with the answers if we're not talking about the problem. The debate was followed by an excellent meal of sustainable fish designed by Valentine, Mitch and Mark.

Selfridges deserve the good publicity they will get from Project Ocean and for being the first major retailer to commit to never selling an unsustainable fish again. We'll be holding them to that! In the meantime, here's the evening's delicious, sustainable menu the highlights of which were sub-Lyme (geddit?) red mullet and an equisite sea buckthorn posset.

Posted Sunday, 15 May 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

Yesterday saw both halves of Manchester celebrating after two thrilling spectacles of football. In both games we saw a number of substitutions when players got tired, with managers seeing the warning signs, pulling the players off the pitch and replacing them with fresh-legged alternatives.

As managers of the global ecosystem, scouring the world for new players in the Premiership of flavours, we need to remember to the apply same principles if we want the league to have a future. At great expense we fly-in highly-prized foreign recruits for our league; young players, unused to the high demands of the top flight, are thrust unexpectedly into the limelight; as players become popular we clamour to sign them up, throwing huge amounts of money at their agents to pull them in. With the country placing unrealistic expectations on them, our players get tired, their stocks exhausted. We could continue to play them, demanding that they keep going for the full 90 minutes, but if we do, there's a high chance they will burn out altogether. Surely better to give them a rest, allow them to recover and bring on a sub?

Subs are not, as any professional manager will tell you, an inferior grade of player. They are brought on at critical moments to breath new life into the game. They have to be every bit as tasty as those they replace. So, let's give the veteran Cod a season off to recover from the pressure of recent campaigns. Instead let's play the newcomer Coley (from the same pedigree and equally good). Haddock has performed well over the seasons but he definitely needs a rest. How about calling up Pollock? He's been around for a while but never caught the eye of the selectors. Poor old Tuna has definitely struggled recently. If we want to see him back to full strength he needs to go into intensive care. Let's replace him with Mackerel who is playing in a lower division at the moment but looks like tremendous value.

Responsible management of a team needs someone to keep an eye out for the players, making sure they are fit and healthy, and ensuring they have a future in the game. Substitution is a vital part of any team's strategy and as fans, managers and promoters, it's up to all of us to play our part. This game really is in the balance.

Posted Thursday, 12 May 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

As you know, the Well Seasoned team are big fans of game. During the winter a good supply of pheasant, partridge, duck and woodcock more than makes up for the limited amount of fruit and veg available. The only limitation with game is that, if you prefer not to eat from frozen stocks, it is generally only available during the game season. This means that from February onwards there isn't much available until September. One exception to that rule is rabbit, which is essentially available all year round (although at its very best towards the end of the Summer when the bunnies have had plenty of lush grass and recovered their condition from the breeding season).

It is often said that rabbit tastes 'like chicken'. That isn't really true - it definitely tastes more gamey than chicken - but it does have a similar consistency and is a great introduction to game for those who don't like the stronger tastes of some meats. You do need to look carefully at what you are buying; lots of rabbit sold, especially by larger retailers, is from rabbit farms and many of those are intensive operations no better than battery chicken units. Indeed Compassion in World Farming have recently extended thair anti-factory-farming campaign to include lobbying against such operations in the UK. So, your best bet is to buy genuinely wild meat from a reputable butcher or game dealer. Because there is virtually no county in the UK without a rabbit problem, they are bountiful, cheap and local. Your game dealer will also be happy to skin and joint the rabbit for you (and because rabbit is difficult to get off the bone the best recipes are usually those which allow you to casserole it, jointed). It goes brilliantly with most wild herbs especially rosemary and wild garlic.

Get into the rabbit habit and enjoy game all year round.

Posted Monday, 9 May 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

Posted Friday, 6 May 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

At the beginning of this month, My-Farm.org.uk launched. MyFarm is a new National Trust initiative based around the Wimpole Estate in Cambridgeshire. After paying a subscription fee of £30, 10,000 people will get to vote each month on the running of the 2,500 acre farm for the next year. They will be given a say in matters like which crops to plant, which animals to breed and how environmental issues on the estate should be handled. With £300,000 in their pocket the National Trust can't go too badly wrong financially and the farm will still be overseen by an experienced manager so it's not as if they've completely handed over the reins to the uneducated public but at Well Seasoned we love this project because its underlying aim is to re-educate people about where our food comes from. Spread the word, get the kids involved and get back to your (beet)roots.    

Posted Tuesday, 3 May 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  2 Comment(s)

As we strolled through Hampshire in glorious sunshine last week and watched the odd trout rising on the beautifully clear water of the river Itchen I was envious of those who get to fish in this wonderful, tranquil part of the world. The Hampshire chalk streams have some of the finest trout fishing in the country, indeed some would say the world, and it was apparently on the river Itchen that fly fishing was first born. As a country, we got a real taste for trout in the 1950's and since then, most of the UK's supply is produced in purpose-built farms (there are now 350-odd farms in the UK producing some 16,000 tonnes of trout each year). Trout farms are of varying quality and consequently they produce fish of varying quality. But it's fair to say that the best farms (by which I mean organic farms with low stocking density and using natural feed) now produce fish which are virtually indistinguishable from wild ones.

It did get me thinking though - can you name another freshwater fish that we eat regularly in this country? Apart from salmon (which is lives its life partly in salt water and partly in fresh) I struggled. Why is it that we eat sea-fish but not freshwater ones other than trout? Is it because we've tried them all and none compare favourably to the trout? Well, that could be the case but I doubt it. No; far more likely is that, as a nation, encouraged by large retailers, we follow food trends. Art, architecture, clothes - things come in and out of fashion and not always for good reason.

Carp are, these days, seen by most as a sport fish. Every day of the season anglers take to stocked ponds with huge amounts of the latest kit, eager to bag the biggest specimen they can. But few people appreciate that carp were introduced to the UK originally as an eating fish. In mediaeval times they were the staple protein of monks and every priory had its own carp pond, certainly not for recreational or ornamental purposes but to sustain the holy habitants. Around the same time all of our river fish were seen as fit for the table; tench, chub, dace and eels were perfectly good eating as far as your medieval peasant was concerned. Now, I'm not suggesting we go out today and raid the local ponds for our supper (indeed there has been some concern recently that migrants from countries who value their freshwater fish have been taking rather too many for the pot) but I am saying that we should all open our minds to potential alternatives and recognise that as a nation we are victims of food fashion. Carp does seem to be enjoying something of a mini-revival and we've found a couple of places where you can now buy it online. If you have any great carp recipes or you've bought some recently (whether you loved it or hated it!) we'd love to hear from you.

Posted Friday, 8 April 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  3 Comment(s)

At Well Seasoned we are, as you know, big on seasonal food, good animal welfare and generally growing things in a sensible, natural way. We were asked recently “why don’t you go the whole way and insist on organic?” It's an interesting question and one I thought I should devote some time to answering. I say it’s an interesting question but it’s also, in my mind, a fundamentally flawed one. It starts with the premise that organic is always best. For a number of reasons I don’t believe that is necessarily the case and I’m going to try to explain why. 

Organic farming is defined as “the form of agriculture that relies on crop rotation, green manure, compost, biological pest control, and mechanical cultivation etc… to maintain soil productivity and control pests, excluding or strictly limiting the use of synthetic fertilizers and synthetic pesticides, plant growth regulators, livestock feed additives, and genetically modified organisms.” (thank you Wikipedia.) 

Now, that all sounds great. Doing things the natural way, cutting out all of the nasty stuff and reducing the harmful chemicals that can taint our food. But in recent years big retailers have seized upon our thirst for organic produce and twisted it to something that suits their brand of global economics. We’ve ended up with a product which technically meets the organic definition but have seemingly forgotten the principles that underlayed the organic movement when it first started.

Incidentally, that's definitely not to say that there are not very high quality organic products out there (see Riverford and Abel & Cole for details of how to get organic right as a big business) but it does mean (because the majority of organic produce sold in the UK are retailed through supermarkets) that any element of locality or seasonality is is missing in the majority of cases.

I'd suggest people’s reasons for buying organic fit broadly into the following categories:

i) organic food is intrinsically more nutritious
ii) artificial chemicals could have toxic effects
iii) it’s kinder to the environment
iv) it tastes better

So, let’s say we pop into our local supermarket and buy some organic lamb and asparagus. Which of these is necessarily true?

Well, a 2010 study by the Food Standards Agency concluded that organic food is no better for you than non-organic. Now, I’m not for a minute going to say that was a good bit of work by the FSA – it’s a terrible piece of reporting and misses many of the fundamentals, focussing entirely on the nutritional benefit of food and ignoring all of the other factors listed above. But, rubbish reporting aside, it nevertheless reaches valid conclusions on the narrow point; if it’s nutrition you’re after, organic isn’t necessarily better for you.

On to chemicals then. This one I do at least accept is a potential advantage of organic over non-organic. We don’t really know the long term impact of some chemicals on our bodies. But how big is the risk? Is it really one to be concerned about? I just question whether organic converts have the balance right here – we have a long history of using artificial fertilizers which are (in this country) stringently tested and proven safe. For decades now, they have been used with very few negative impacts on human health. I happily put artificial chemicals into my body when I take a couple of ibuprofen for a headache, I live in London where I breath car fumes on a daily basis, I drink alcohol and partake in some potentially dangerous activities like scuba diving (though try to avoid these two at the same time). Is non-organic food really the risk I should be focussing on? (By the way I certainly don’t include here GM foods. That’s a debate in itself which might feature here at a later date, but suffice to say that’s not something I think we should be doing.) But we take so many risks on a daily basis and have so many safeguards in place in this country when it comes to food, that I’m really not sure this is one we need to be concerned about. 

The environmental issue is probably the main one that gets my goat here. And by environment I’m including the social environment as well as the natural one. An organic label as such says nothing about where your food was reared. It gives no assurance about what conditions the local workers work in or what the farmer was paid for his produce. For UK products we generally don't need to worry. But our supermarket organic lamb could quite easily have been flown in from South America and our asparagus from Thailand. The organic label gives no assurance as to how, or how far, our food has travelled, so what are the chances that all the environmental good done by the organic farmer in Brazil has been undone by the fuel-guzzling aeroplane that flew it to the UK supermarket? Pretty high I’d say. In addition, organic systems will usually produce lower yields than “conventional” systems that use artificial fertilizers. If everyone were to eat organic, the logical conclusion is that it might increase the total area of farmland needed to feed the world. This in turn might encourage the clearing of rainforests and produce more CO2 than conventional farming. So, our organic food might be a little better for us personally but is the net effect of getting it to our plate a positive one? 

I accept that there is a potential environmental impact of artificial fertilizers but it’s wrong to think that organic farming does not also have the potential to harm too if it’s carried out in an irresponsible way. Organic farmers use alternative methods such as petrol-burning flame throwers for weed control. So just because they aren’t using synthetic chemicals, doesn’t mean they can’t have negative impacts. What’s more, it’s generally the excessive use of fertilizers, rather than the chemicals themselves, which have been responsible for the majority of environmental damage reported. As with so many things which are potentially harmful (alcohol, guns, cars) doesn’t the user bear primary responsibility for ensuring they are used safely? Should we really exclude their use entirely because of an irresponsible minority? I’d argue not. 

Besides which, there is actually quite a long list of chemicals which can be used in organic farming. They are deemed ok to use because they are derived from natural products. Is that entirely logical? In the EU, farmers are permitted to use up to seven pesticides and more than 30 additives. In the US, those include nicotine sulphate (a pesticide derived from tobacco plants), pyrethrum (a pesticide from chrysanthemums) and blood meal (fertilizer from cattle slaughterhouse by-products). Personally I have no problem with any of these things being applied to my food – I just believe the distinction between artificial and natural chemicals is an arbitrary one which doesn’t always stand up to scrutiny. 

That leaves us with the taste. Now, it’s absolutely right that organic food can taste better. Without artificial production, it generally grows more slowly and the flavours are, as a result, more concentrated. So, if we grow two identical plants, in otherwise identical growing conditions, I believe the one grown organically will taste better. But the problem is, with "supermarket organic" we are not getting identical plants. Our organic food produced abroad needs to travel well. We’ve mentioned this previously (and sorry to bang on about it) but nearly all strawberries sold in the UK are Elsanta simply because they can be transported easily with minimum bruising and staying firm for a long time (insert your own gag here). You can grow those strawberries as organically as you like; plant them in five tonnes of the finest organic cow manure and have them tended by Percy Thrower himself – they’ll never taste that good. Add to this the time taken for imported goods to reach your plate (with the tasty sugars turning to tasteless starch as the clock ticks) and you have a recipe for an extremely bland tasting product. With the emphasis away from taste and towards transportability “organic” has evolved to suit the global market and is no longer a guarantee of good flavour.

So, you see, I love the principles behind organic food. I completely buy the idea of natural growing processes and cutting down on pesticides. And I’m utterly convinced that naturally grown food can taste better. But if it comes to the choice between a poor quality supermarket products flown half way round the world with the “organic” boxes technically ticked, or a UK producer who grows his products in season and who can get his food onto my plate within a few hours of being picked, but who uses a small amount of artificial fertilizer, in my mind it’s a straightforward choice – the local, seasonal producer wins every time.

What are your thoughts? We’d really like to know, particularly if you’re a supermarket organic fan and you disagree!

Posted Tuesday, 5 April 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

We and other campaigns have focussed a lot on fish recently. The sterling efforts of the Fish Fight campaign produced action from the European parliament with almost unprecedented speed. Although we have yet to see the final result, it really goes to show the impact that public campaigning can have in the age of the internet and social networking.

One good tip given by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (mastermind of the FF campaign) in his original River Cottage cookbook is never to eat the same fish twice in a row. Certainly good advice and if everyone in the country did this the pressure on at-risk species such as cod and haddock would be instantly reduced. But why stop at fish?

By definition seasonal food is diverse food and diversity is the key to so much. Environmentally, it reduces pressure on the land. We've known for centuries that crop rotation is a good thing, allowing the land to recover its nutrients on an occasional basis, so the principle is age-old. Economically, diversity means your money goes to different producers each week. If you shop at a farmers market you can actually hand over your hard-earned cash to a different person, knowing you are spreading the benefit. And (perhaps most importantly from a foodie's perspective) from a personal point of view, diversity in our eating habits means we get to taste more of those delicious flavours that this country's producers strive so hard to make.

One problem is, for those who shop at supermarkets (and most of us do for at least some of our food), we are provided with the same produce year-round and so we settle into purchasing patterns which repeat themselves - it's much easier to stick to the same buying and eating habits regardless of the seasons than it used to be. The science of supermarket shelf stacking is a fascinating topic in itself but suffice to say we are actively (if subconcioulsy) encouraged to repeat our shopping routine on every visit. Even when shopping on the internet we are coerced with "helpful" reminders of what we bought last week and things we "might have forgotten". We're not saying these are necessarily bad from a customer service point of view, but they certainly encourage us to stick to the same old routine.

Take cheese an example. As we've tweeted recently, there are over 700 British and Irish cheeses including great names like Swinzie, Blue Vinney, Exmoor Blue, Merlin, Gubbeen and Perl Las. Why then do we import 138,000 tonnes of Cheddar?? Forgetting for a moment that it's not "real" Cheddar (i.e. it wasn't made anywhere near the famous gorge) and that large amounts of it are mass-produced and flavourless, it's completely crazy.

So, we all miss out by not branching out. Instead of automatically reaching for the favourites next time you're shopping, why not take a look at what else is on offer? Even if you're just in the supermarket, glance away from the middle shelf (where they deliberately place the cheddar!) and you'll see some excellent, less-known British cheeses well worth trying.

Until next time, keep it seasonal and diverse...and cheesy.

Posted Sunday, 3 April 2011  /  Written by The Twig  /  Post a Comment

One of the things that really bugs us about ‘modern’ eating is the way in which proper food is replaced by processed varieties to the extent that people think the processed version is the ‘real’ one. Take a well-known brand of tomato soup for example. Now, in fact it’s a pretty good soup but it tastes nothing like freshly make tomato soup. If you order tomato soup from a restaurant menu you might be disappointed, not necessarily because it tastes bad but because it tastes completely different to the version you are used to. The same goes for a whole host of mass-produced staples including tomato ketchup, sausages and...fish fingers.

Next time you’re tempted to buy frozen fish fingers, why not make your own? As you can see, it really is simple and you can be assured your ‘prime fish fillet’ is exactly that. You’ll also be able to choose your favourite sustainable fish as the star of the show. At just over 10 minutes to prepare and cook, are you really saving anything by resorting to the frozen version?

Sustainable fish fingers (serves 4)

• 500g fresh white fish fillet from a sustainable source, skinned (try pollock or coley as good alternatives to cod, or use MSC certified products)
• salt and ground black pepper
• 3 tbsp plain flour
• 1 large free range egg
• 100g white breadcrumbs
• vegetable oil

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 if you must!)

Enjoy, safe in the knowledge that your meal is the real deal

Posted Tuesday, 1 March 2011  /  Written by Alex  /  Post a Comment

As you know, at Well Seasoned we love our good quality meat and provenance is high on our list of requirements when we're buying it. We recently asked Helen Mackellar from Orchard View Farm, our Producer of the Month for March, to tell us exactly how her porky pals make it from being a twinkle in their mother's eye to a meltingly tender piece of pork belly on your plate. Here's what she told us:

“All our traditional breed, free range pigs are raised on our small holding in Buckinghamshire, between Aylesbury and Thame.  27 acres of pasture land nestling at the foot of the Chiltern Hills: an idyllic location in which to raise our Large Black and Oxford Sandy Black pigs and Jacob lambs.

We started rearing pigs in 2009 and currently have 22 with one sow due imminently. Sows come in season every 3 weeks.  This is her fertile period and the time when the boar must serve her in order that she become “in pig”.  Gestation is 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days so the waiting starts!  Ten days before giving birth she will ‘bag-up’, meaning her belly will drop and her milk will start to form, so it is time to think about moving her to her own house.

Once it comes to giving birth, a sow is best left alone, she will just get on with it, and getting close to her at this stage is not a good idea as she can be very protective of her vulnerable young!  Once all is quiet we sneak a peak into the house to check all is well and try to count the number of new arrivals, generally a fruitless endeavour as all that can be seen is a mass of small pigs.  The mother’s milk is a great source of food and the young piglets grow fast: after a week or so the first adventurous ones venture out of the house to check out their new surroundings.  At four weeks they are starting steal mums food from the trough at which point feeding time becomes a more hectic undertaking with a seething mass of little bodies jostling, squeaking and grunting around the food trough, often making it difficult to get the food into the trough.

The piglets grow up fast and by eight weeks are independent from their mother, in that their diet is predominantly the food we give them, rather than the milk they get from their mother and so it is time to wean them.  Taking their mother away sounds a fairly traumatic process, but our experience shows us that the mothers at least have generally had enough of their piglets by this stage and are glad of a quieter and less demanding life.  Generally once the sows have finished feeding their litter they are quite slim so we feed them up for a month or so (depending on the sow, her age & how long she takes to regain weight). We aim for the sows to have 3 litters in 2 years. Some of the larger, more intensive pig farms go for 2.5 per year, but we want our sows to have a longer and less stressful life!

Once the piglets are independent of their mothers, they are fed twice a day on an non-GM diet of pig nuts supplemented by fruit & veg that can't be sold from a local fruit & veg shop. Contrary to popular belief, however, pigs don't eat everything! They can't have potatoes or parsnips or too much citrus fruit. We've also taken the active decision to not be certified as organic as we want to have the option to treat our animals with the appropriate medication when they are sick and with preventative medication, such as worming. The animals' welfare is of utmost importance to us and all them do live in at least the conditions required by organic standards, if not better.

Pigs are most certainly highly intelligent and when left in a large group do work as team, something we have experienced to our cost a number of times!  Team work generally takes the form of a mass ‘great escape’ style breakout with some piglets working on removing electric insulators whilst others get their noses under an intermediary post.  With their work complete all that remains is for them to pluck up the courage to rush the now severely weakened fence.  Once out they rarely go far and can be easily tempted back in with a bucket of food – pigs love their food!  As pig keepers you soon learn, never underestimate a pig, they will always surprise you!

As the piglets near 6 months old, we start to make decisions about their futures.  The males will all go at 6 months old and become chops and joints.  If you wait much longer than this there is a risk of boar taint spoiling the meat.  Now, if you are a continental then boar taint is something you might like, but not for our delicate English palette!  With the girls we make a choice whether to keep them an extra month or two and get slightly larger chops and joints or some good sized hams, or keep them a few more months and make them into sausages or to keep them as a breeding sow as part of our succession planning.  We currently take 2-3 pigs per month to the abattoir so that's about 30 per year, although we plan to increase that as demand increases. Our ultimate plan is 8 per month (but that may be in a couple of year's time)!

So, early on a given Thursday (about 5am) we load up the pigs and drive off (with the tons of requisite paperwork) to the abattoir in Long Compton, near Chipping Norton.  There is always a moment of reflection when any of our animals go to slaughter; however, we know we have given them the best life, with plenty of space, high quality food and the sun on their backs.  Better this than some poor factory farmed animal.  We then return the following Tuesday to collect them, butchered to our customers exact requirements.

Once we get the butchered meat and sausages home, we wrap it in catering grade parchment and secure it with butchers string for a traditional look and so it can be safely frozen without risk of “freezer burn” and then pack it into boxes for our individual customers.  This type of packaging is also environmentally friendly, which with the 75 ‘food miles’ per pig, makes this about as environmentally friendly as possible.

Once packed, each customer can either come to the farm to collect their meat box or have it delivered, if they live locally.  We are promoting ourselves as providing local food but we also can deliver by courier if you live further afield and don’t want to miss out on the delicious free range, traditional breed pork.

We also like to enjoy and share the fruits of our labour with our friends!  Personally I like to cook the joints “low and slow” as it gives the most amazingly tender, falling off the bone meat and the flavours have the chance to fully develop and mature during the cooking process.  We had a wonderful party recently where the “piece de resistance” was an entire pork shoulder which I had cooked for about 20 hours – divine, if I say so myself!”

Thanks Helen! For more on the Orchard View Farm story and to order from the farm, check out www.orchardviewfarm.co.uk or email Helen at helen@orchardviewfarm.co.uk Pork is available in mixed cut boxes of 5kg (£45), 10kg (£85) or 20kg (£150) and if you're one of the first two people to mention 'Well Seasoned' when you order, you'll get a kilo of Orchard View Farm's best bangers for free.

And finally, if you're trying to do the supermarket comparison maths, Tesco is currently charging about £6/kg for their fresh pork leg joint. So, we think that Orchard View Farm's prices represent pretty extraordinary value when you consider everything that Helen and her family go through to make sure their piglets have the best possible life. They taste pretty good too. Mmmmm, bacon.

Posted Tuesday, 16 November 2010  /  Written by A, P & T  /  Post a Comment

Time for a short progress report on the campaign? We think so. 

As you can probably tell, we're still getting to grips with the new website. You might have seen a few things come and go - for which, apologies but we are very nearly there. Technical glitches aside, we're really pleased with the campaign's progress. We've now got hundreds of regular seasonal foodie contributors sending us recipes, photos and competition entries. Do keep them coming. We've got some great prizes for the competitions and more on the way. We'll be uploading lots of the pictures shortly so if you've sent us something, keep an eye our on the galleries.

The seasonal Twitter collective has now topped 5,000 which is brilliant - we have a really friendly network of some of the finest foodies in the country all tweeting the local, seasonal message. 

On our travels we've been speaking with seasonal producers all round the UK from wild boar farmers in Scotland to cobnut growers in Hampshire and everywhere in between. Some trip reports to follow in due course but there's no doubt that the producers, like us, have witnessed a surge in demand for quality, local and seasonal produce so it seems more and more people are buying in to the seasonal way of life. Keep an eye out for details of our next WS event in London. We can't say much yet but details coming soon!

As you've hopefully seen, we sent our first issue of our newsletter The Bramble at the start of the month and are already busy writing the December one. If you haven't received it, you can sign up for future issues here. 

Very excitingly, our all-conquering, super-snazzy seasonality charts are nearly finished. We hope you'll love them - we certainly do. We're producing charts for Fruit, Veg, Herbs, Hedgerows, Fish, Meat and Game so you'll be able to use them to find out when pretty much anything is in season and if you print them off they'll add a real splash of colour to any boring white fridge. Keep an eye out on our What's Good Now? page and if you want to be among the very first to get them, make sure you're following us on Twitter and Facebook.

Now we've mastered (or at least we're no longer being beaten by) the blog, you can expect to see us on here more often. Let us know what you're up to on the seasonal side of things and keep all of those campaign contributions coming in.

Until next time, keep it seasonal!

Posted Monday, 4 October 2010  /  Written by A, P & T  /  Post a Comment

Well here it is at last!! What can we say that does justice to the first entry on our new website blog? It seems fitting that, having started Well Seasoned as a concept just over a year ago, we've now come full circle through Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer to start this new Autumn with a new chapter.   
 
It's difficult to put down in writing how excited we are about our new campaign for British seasonal food.' Food for the Here & Now' kicks off on 9th October at the Southampton Pumpkin Festival. After that we'll be touring the whole of the British Isles throughout this year and the next.
 
So many bygone traditions of our green and pleasant land are based around our old seasonal eating habits. By rediscovering cheese-rolling, apple orchard wassailing and pumpkin fettling we hope to reconnect people with everything that is so fun, exciting and delicious about the British seasons and their produce.  By visiting farmers, growers and producers to sample the very best British produce throughout the year we think we can convince people that seasonal eating is not just something that people did in the past, but what we should all be doing in the future.
 
Most of all, we want you to get involved with the campaign - send us your stuff. Not your PIN number or actual belongings, but your pictures, recipes, random thoughts - whatever you want. If we like them we'll put them on the website and share them with the ever-growing seasonal foodie population of Britain.
 
Keep up to date with what we're doing by signing up to our newsletter and following us on Twitter and Facebook. Oh, and enter our regular competitions for the chance to win some amazing prizes. We did think about giving away a Well Seasoned apron as first prize for our opening competition but didn't want to crash our beautiful new website with the high demand. Until we're sure of it's capabilities, you'll have to make do with every seasonal cookbook you could ever possibly want...ever

That's all for now. We'll be keeping the blog as up to date as possible with our plans so do check back regularly.
 
Until then, keep it seasonal!