Poached peaches

It's been pretty busy at the workshops, so I apologise for the writing lull - we've been busy with some exciting export orders for USA and Germany, as well as the the first of the events we are attending this year.
We kicked off the festival season at the Severn Valley Railway Food Festival -  a roll down the hill from us at the Engine House Museum at Highley Station.
Last weekend saw us at the 3rd Shrewsbury Food Festival - bigger and better than ever.

As a result, the cooking front has been low on the priority list, with old favourites that require little thought being the order of the day.

But a picture post on Twitter prompted a request for the recipe for these, so here we go.

4 peaches
250ml water
100g sugar
Handful of dried rose petals
4 heads of lavender

Place the water, sugar and flowers in a casserole dish 

                                           

Bring to the boil on the hob and then reduce to a simmer until the sugar has completely dissolved.

Remove the lavender or it will overwhelm the finished dish.

Slice the peaches in to 8 and add to the syrup, cover with the lid.

                                                    

Poach gently until the peaches are soft - this will take from 10 - 20 minutes, depending on how ripe the peaches are........... check with the tip of a sharp knife.

Turn off the heat and leave to infuse for 20 minutes.

Carefully slip the skin off the peaches and transfer the slices to a serving dish.  Leave the skins in the syrup. they will add color and flavour.

Bring the syrup back to the boil and reduce until thick and "syrupy".

Strain and pour over the peaches.

Leave to cool.

 Decorate with edible flowers and, if you have them, a few raspberries (those are tayberries from the garden in the picture)
Serve either with clotted cream and Amaretti biscuits or Mascarpone with icing sugar and grated lemon rind.... and possibly a glass of fizz.

Serves 4

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

Rhubarb and strawberry cake

I love the combination of these two classic English fruits - yes, I know that rhubarb isn't technically a fruit - the glorious sweetness of an English strawberry contrasting with the sharp bite of the rhubarb.

This works well in pies and crumbles, but as ever, I wanted something a little different and I needed to keep up my 20+ year tradition of trying at least one new recipe a month.

I was lucky enough to receive a copy of Diana Henry's fabulous book Food from Plenty for my birthday last month and was even more delighted when she recommended to me that I start with her apricot and almond cake.
Quite right she was too.............

.... but damn the woman, I am now constantly plagued to know when I am going to make it again.

Soooooooooooo, I decided to have a play around and came up with the following, just hope Diana would like it.

1 large stick of rhubarb - see method
8 small English strawberries
2 oranges
100g sugar

125g butter
125g sugar
2 eggs
170g self raising flour 
2 tablespoons sour cream
NOTE: I tried this with 170g rice flour too for a gluten free alternative  - scrumptious

Finely grate the orange zest and set to one side.
Cut the rhubarb into lengths to fit across a 1lb loaf tin  and place in a saucepan
Add the juice of the 2 oranges along with the 100g sugar.  Poach gently until the rhubarb is soft, but retains its shape.

Taste and add more sugar if needed.  Set aside and leave to cool.

Heat the oven to 170ºC

Beat the butter, sugar and orange zest together in a large mixing bowl until pale in colour.
Add the eggs and beat again.
Fold in the flour and then the sour cream.
Line the loaf tin with oiled greaseproof paper - or use a butter wrapper.
Cut the strawberries in half - or slice them if they are too large.
Carefully lift the rhubarb out of the orange syrup and space it out in the bottom of the loaf tin.  Place the strawberries between the lines of rhubarb. Reserve the orange syrup.

Spoon the cake batter over the fruit and level the top.

Place in the oven and cook for 40 - 50 minutes - or until a skewer poked into the middle of the cake emerges free of gooey mixture :-)

Leave to cool a little and then invert on to a serving plate.

Spoon over the orange syrup and serve slightly warm with cream, Greek yogurt, creme fraiche or, now that you can finally get it here in the UK, Skyr, utterly delectable Icelandic thick yogurt

Serves 8

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Devilled kidneys

A good old fashioned dish that is sadly overlooked these days.

Offal is fantastically good value, not only is it cheap, but there is very little waste and the flavours are incomparable.
I guess this dish won't be to everyone's liking, but neither is rice pudding, so I urge you to give it a try..... you may surprise yourself.

Feeds 2, with toast for a Sunday breakfast

2 - 4 lambs kidneys - depends how hungry you are
2 tsp paprika
½ tsp cayenne pepper
Knob of butter
Splash of dry sherry - say 50ml
150ml double cream
1 dstsp French mustard

Halve the kidneys and remove the white core.

Put the butter into a frying pan and place over a medium heat.  
When the butter foams add the paprika and cayenne pepper and stir well to mix.
Add the kidneys and cook for 3 minutes on each side.

Stir in the sherry, cook for 1 minute, then add the mustard and cream.

Mix well and simmer gently for approximately 10 minutes until the kidneys are cooked through and no longer "bleed" when pricked with a sharp knife.

Serve on thick slices of sourdough toast.

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Mango chutney

I make no claims to the authenticity of this recipe - but I can lay claim to its deliciousness and it's just as good with a goat's cheese as it is with a Goan curry.

In this part of the world we are blessed with a fabulous collection of farm shops and local food producers, but there is a dearth of the "ethnic" shops that make city shopping so much fun.
There being no local mango growers in Shropshire, I was obliged to turn to Sainsburys  where I got this fantasitic mango box, containing 8 perfect mangoes.

4 have been kept in the fruit bowl waiting for them to ripen and turn into honeyed balls of  juiciness and 4 have been converted into homemade mango chutney.

The only thing I will say about this is that traditionally chutneys were made to preserve food and make it last - this doesn't happen to this in our house.

It's great to eat straight away and I have absolutely no idea if it improves with age - we have yet to be patient enough to find out.

Ingredients

4 green (under-ripe) mangoes

2 tsp salt

¼ pt malt vinegar

¼ pt distilled malt vinegar

5 oz sugar

½" ginger

10 cardamom pods

2 small dried chillis

2 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp fenugreek seeds

1 tsp nigella seeds

Peel and chop the mangoes and place in a large bowl. Sprinkle over the salt, cover with a clean tea towel and leave for 24 hours.

Drain and rinse the mangoes.
Place the vinegar, sugar and finely chopped ginger in a casserole dish or large pan.
Bring to the boil, then simmer for around 10 minutes.
Add the mangoes and nigella seeds.  tie all the other spices into a muslin bag and throw that it in with the mangoes.

Cook gently for about 20 - 30 minutes until the mangoes are soft and pulpy and the vinegar has virtually disappeared.

Taste and add more sugar, if desired.

Pour into a hot sterilised jar and seal.

Now - a note about seasoning the cast iron casserole: if you buy one of our casseroles, you will receive a note explaining that you should season it if your first dish contains a lot of acidic ingredients.  Obviously vinegar is an acid - acetic acid to be precise, so this may not be the best dish to christen your casserole with.

Acetic acid /əˈsiːtɨk/, systematically named ethanoic acid /ˌɛθəˈnoʊɨk/, is an organic compound with the chemical formula CH₃COOH (also written as CH₃CO₂H or C₂H₄O₂). It is a colourless liquid that when undiluted is also calledglacial acetic acid. Vinegar is roughly 3 %-9 % acetic acid by volume, making acetic acid the main component of vinegar apart from water.

However, I have been using my casserole for over 4 years now and this is what it looked like when I cleaned out the chutney - so you need have no fears about any lasting damage!!

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

UK Manufacturing Awards - the results are announced

We are thrilled to announce that we were runners up in the first ever UK

Manufacturing Award!

Of course, it would have been wonderful to bring home gold, but we are delighted that our British made cookware has been recognised and appreciated and, as we were up against some very tough competition, there is no shame in coming second.

Read all about the awards here

Fanfare please - award nomination

More exciting news that we are shouting from the rooftops.

We are thrilled to announce that we are one of the nominees for the first ever UK

Manufacturing Award!

The awards, sponsored by long time manufacturing firm RH Nuttall, were set up to give some much needed spotlight to manufacturing firms that are still proud to be 100% British. 

In being nominated for the award, we have been pointed to as a firm that symbolises all that is good about the UK manufacturing sector.

Long has the industry been prophesied to fail, due to the sheer level of outsourcing from big businesses, but it is still a strong, thriving sector, and Netherton Foundry are doing our bit to rebuild that reputation.

We were nominated by MadeCloser, one of the 6 members of the judging panel comprised of industry experts, and face stiff competition from the other 14 nominees. You can check out all of the other nominees over at the awards website, and wait with baited breathe alongside us before the winner is announced on Friday, May 15th!

Wish us luck!

Mushroom puddings

There is nothing more comforting than a suet pudding and although we are already into May, the recent weather has sadly called more for this kind of food than a Spring salad.

Pastry
4oz self raising flour
2oz suet 
Salt
Water

Filling
1 oz butter
1 large potato 
200g field mushrooms
1 clove sliced garlic
1 dstsp flour
½ apple
1 wineglass red wine
150ml stock
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground white pepper
50g dried cranberries

Pre-heat the oven to 180º

To make the pastry, mix the flour, suet and salt. Add enough water to bind to a stiff dough.
Roll out the pastry and place in a greased loaf tin, leaving enough pastry to form a lid.

Put the butter into a frying pan and heat gently.
Add the finely chopped mushrooms, garlic and diced potato, with the cumin and pepper. Cook gently for 5 minutes
Add the flour and stir thoroughly to mix.  Add all the other ingredients and simmer gently until the potato is cooked.
Allow to cool.
Spoon into the suet pastry case and seal the top with a pastry lid.
Bake in the oven for approx 30 minutes.
Serve with green beans and a red wine gravy.

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk