Apley Farm game cooking

Last weekend I was delighted to do my first "real" cookery demonstration at the Apley Farm Christmas  Food Fayre, miked up and everything!!!

I was pretty nervous and I can honestly say that when I saw some of the video footage that was taken, I can't remember saying what I did. There's a snippet on our Instagram page.
But I had faith in the kit I was using, our own pans, of course and my IOShen knife, as well as the splendid produce from the farm shop.

 

And what's more, I had practiced my latest dish several times in advance.
Tried and tested thoroughly by the rest of the team.

6 juniper berries

6 allspice berries

2 dstsp flour

Pinch salt

2 pheasant breasts

Rapeseed oil

Butter

100ml White wine

25 ml damson gin or port

2 Tblsp double cream

¼ Savoy cabbage, chopped

50g smoked, streaky bacon

10 cooked and peeled chestnuts

Crush the juniper berries and allspice, with a pinch of salt

Mix with the flour and put on a plate or, my preferred method, put it in a plastic bag.

Coat the pheasant in seasoned flour, if you've put the flour in the bag, throw in the pheasant and give it a good shake.

Dust off the excess flour.

Put a knob of butter and a glug of rapeseed oil in to a frying pan.

Heat the pan over a medium heat until the butter foams

Put the pheasant in to the pan.

Cook for 3 minutes.

Turn over and cook for another 4 minutes. If you've got a steak press, use it now!!

Set aside and keep warm.

Add another knob of butter and 1 tsp seasoned flour to pan.

Stir thoroughly and cook for 2 minutes.  Add the wine and the gin, stir well.

Cook until thickened.

Add the cream, season to taste and turn the heat as low as it will go.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a wok.

Add the chopped bacon and cook over a high heat for 5 minutes, until starting to brown

Add the cabbage and chestnuts and stir fry for 3 minutes

Place the cabbage on a serving plate.

Cut each pheasant breast into 3 slices and lay on top of the cabbage

Drizzle the sauce on top

Serve, ideally with some roast potatoes

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

New York City news

A little over a year ago, we sent off a slow cooker to New York City and keen to see how it was faring, I contacted its new owner and asked.

Here's the e-mail I got in reply, which includes a darned tasty sounding recipe.


Hello Sue,

Enjoying my cast iron slow cooker I purchased from your UK company.

I have made various meat meals with it.

Here is the latest from my NYC kitchen:

Rack of baby back ribs (pork)

Fresh Thyme

Fresh Rosemary

White wine & a little water for the pot

Fresh garlic

Frank's Hot Sauce (not sure if they sell it there in the UK, but you can use any hot sauce of your preference).

Dijon Mustard

Put all ingredients on and marinate over night, then slow cook it for a couple of hrs or until pork is fully cooked.

The meat will practically fall off the bone, juicy and quite tasty.

Enjoy!

Cheers,

Robes

NYC, US

Having shown Robes a picture of our route to work, in contrast to the bustle of NYC, he is now hankering after a drive down our country roads on his Triumph motorbike

...... a ride I've taken many a time on a Harley Davidson.
You didn't know I was a biker, did you?

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

Apples - waste not

If you have been following our social media, you'll know that we have signed up to Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's War on Waste not campaign.  Please take the time to sign up if you agree with what he is trying to achieve

We have always been keen on the reuse/restore/recycle mantra and of course, our cookware is designed with long life and sustainability in mind.

The flax oil coating can be restored again and again, so there is no need to throw away your cookware. what's more we offer a full range of spares, so you can sort out any minor problems.

You may also have seen that we are lucky enough to have some heavy cropping apple trees in our garden and the route between home and workshops is lined with wild fruit trees.

Kate has expressed more succinctly and eloquently than I could hope to, the view that food education is a key factor in the throw away culture in which we live.

I agree wholeheartedly with what she says and regularly rant about this from the dizzying heights of my personal soap box.  I urge you to read and comment on her beautifully written and well set out blog post.

I am on a personal mission to educate our scout group about food in general, alongside teaching them to cook something more sustaining than cup cakes.So many of them are reluctant to touch raw meat and have no idea how to prepare veg.

Enough of the moralising..... what did I do with all the apples from our trees this year?

Chutneys - beetroot and apple, using up some slightly wrinkled beets, and a spicy apple chutney based on a recipe in my battered copy of Jams, pickles and chutneys, which I've mentioned before and which is sadly out of print.

Crumbles, pies and cakes..... More on pies in a new blog coming soon.

Bags full of chopped apples stored in the freezer

Apple sauce to go with the pulled pork posted last week....

Added to red cabbage with juniper, cider and brown sugar and simmer for ages
......and juice.

and this is how I made my own, delicious Howgate Wonder apple juice

Quarter the apples, no need to peel or core

Put in a pan - just choose the right size for the number of apples you've got.

On this occasion I had so many that I used my trusty old pressure cooker, the biggest pan in my kitchen

Add water to the level of the apples and simmer until the apples fall apart.

Press through a sieve, until all you have left are skin and pips.

Then strain the pulp through a muslin.

                            

You will now have a bowl full of juice and cloth full of purée.

Return the juice to a pan and add sugar to taste, our apples, Howgate Wonders are quite sweet already so I only added 2 Tblsp sugar to 3 litres of juice.

Bring to the boil, making sure the sugar is dissolved.

Allow to cool and either bottle or pour into jugs and store in the fridge.

Won't keep for long, so enjoy it while it lasts

And as for the purée, what about a special apple pie...........recipe coming soon.

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Slow cooked pork

It would seem that everyone has a recipe for pulled pork these days, I'm not even sure when the phrase became so ubiquitous and I make no claims for originality or authenticity for the version I'm about to share with you.  An amusing tweet I saw claimed that someone's "pushed pork" simply hadn't taken off, but who knows, it could just as easily have been the latest craze.

This one was dreamt up when I was catering for the Scouts' Bonfire Party and wanted something that we hadn't offered before, alongside the traditional hot dogs and home made baked beans.
The speed with which it disappeared gave me the verdict I needed to turn this into a formal "recipe" and share it with you guys..... no kneckers or woggles required.

1 large shoulder of pork joint - the size is entirely up to you.
Remember, you can always freeze the leftovers for another occasion.
¼ head of white cabbage
1 large cooking apple
1 dessertspoon black treacle
1 dessertspoon white wine vinegar
200ml water
Salt and pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 150ºC or use the slow cooker.
Coarsely chop the cabbage and put in the bottom of a casserole dish
Cut the apple in quarters - no need to peel it - and take out the core.
Cut each quarter in half and add these to the cabbage.
Lay the pork on top of the cabbage and apples and season with salt and pepper.
Mix the treacle, water and vinegar and pour into the casserole.
Cover with the lid and place in the oven or on the electric base of the slow cooker
Cook in the oven or on the LOW setting of the slow cooker for around 5 hours

Remove the casserole from the oven and turn up the heat to 200ºC

Cut the skin off the pork and place in a prospector pan. Season liberally with salt and return to the oven for about 15 - 20 minutes to become crisp.  Cut into shards

Meanwhile, shred the pork using 2 forks and keep warm over a low heat.

Serve in bread rolls with apple sauce and shards of crackling, all washed down with a good cider.
Alternatively, served with baked or roast potatoes and buttered carrots, but always with apple sauce.

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Cauliflower soup

I hadn't intended to write this one up, after all, it was just "lunch". But after I carelessly posted a picture on Twitter, I got a request for the recipe.

So without further ado and none of my usual ramblings, here we go:

4 tblsp rapeseed oil
1 onion
1 cauliflower
2 large potatoes
700 ml vegetable or chicken stock
Grating of nutmeg
Black pepper
Grated Parmesan
50g hazelnuts
Sage leaves

Chop the onion finely.
Warm half the oil in a large pan or casserole
Add the chopped onion and cook over a gentle heat until soft and translucent.
Meanwhile, peel the potatoes and chop into even sized chunks.
Cut the cauliflower into florets
Place potatoes and cauliflower in the pot with the onions.
Pour in the stock, season to taste with nutmeg (optional) and black pepper (essential!)
Bring to the boil and simmer for around 20 minutes until the vegetables are very soft.
Stir in Parmesan to taste.
Blend the soup until smooth.
Check the taste and add salt if you wish - do not add salt before you add the Parmesan, as it contains a lot of salt itself.
Keep warm.
Toast the hazelnuts in a dry frying pan over a medium heat - keep an eye on them, they can burn in the twinkling of an eye
Chop coarsely when cool enough to handle.
If using the sage leaves, warm the remainder of the oil in a frying pan and drop in the sage leaves. Cook briefly - we are talking seconds - until crisp.

Drizzle the oil (either cold or from the frying pan) over the soup and sprinkle on the nuts and leaves.

You can make a vegan version of this by omitting the Parmesan

Serve with bread or cheese scones.

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

News from abroad

Alongside our fantastic local shops, many of whom have sent our wares around the world, we have a growing number of overseas outlets, in places from Germany,to Slovenia, Texas and New York...... and growing. We are committed to "going global" with our Great British Brand

But, of course, we also send Netherton Foundry products around the world from our website - if you can't find a shipping option for your country, please send us an e-mail and we'll find the best possible deal for you.
We love to hear from the people who have bought them.

If you scroll through the recipes, you'll find contributions from Finland and Hungary, as well as a post courtesy of our friend in the Philippines.

We love to share the great stories sent to us and so it is a huge pleasure to introduce you to the Thomsons from Australia and let them tell you their story in their own words.
Sadly the Netherton Foundry to which Heather refers is no longer in operation, but we hope that we are carrying on the traditions that they laid down.


Hello, We recently purchased a Coalbrookdale Clock and kettle from you which arrived at our home in Palm Tree, Queensland, Australia yesterday. We are thrilled with the quality and the story behind your products. We live on an a farm outside Toowoomba, which has a rich history of dairying and saw milling. Our property had been in our family for almost 100 years so we have many remnants of yesteryear which we treasure. One of our special items is a Condamine Bell. 

Samuel William Jones (a blacksmith and Wheelwright) whose family originated in Pontybat, Brickenshire, Wales, in 1860 moved to the small town of Condamine, Queensland, Australia in 1866. Samuel began crafting Condamine Bells after a drover requested a stock bell for his horse. There were no bells on hand but he fabricated a bell (with his knowledge of his home country - England), using a discarded pit saw from which was the only suitable material available to him. He hung it at the entrance of his shop in Condamine, until the customer returned. It was an ingenious design and became a sought after product for teamsters/drovers and kids with a goat and cart who recognised its value. The Jones' Condamine Bell had a distinctive deep tone which could be heard a great distance away, unlike other bells at the time. Samuel became famous for his bells and before long, the cross cut saws and pit saw blades (the material used to construct the bell) became scarce due to the size and volume of bells people required. Samuel needed to source materials to make his Condamine Bell elsewhere. As a result of the demand, Samuel began to order heavy and light gauge English Netherton Iron which was sent from Brisbane. We searched the Internet to verify the story and were amazed to find the Netherton Foundry is still in operation and links directly to our Condamine Bell. Thank you for the beautiful pieces and we look forward to adding to our collection of Netherton Foundry craftsmanship.

A savoury pumpkin pie

I love this time of year - seeing the breathtaking array of colour everywhere, crisp mornings, tramping through crunching leaves, the smell of bonfire smoke and also the fantastic selection of seasonal produce; quinces, apples, pears, figs and of course, pumpkins.

I'm not entirely sure when pumpkins and squashes became such a big thing, though I am pretty sure it has something to do with the commercialisation and Americanisation of Hallowe'en.

When I was a child and living up in North Yorkshire, Hallowe'en was virtually ignored, but we did have turnip Jack O'Lanterns and "celebrated" the 4th November as Mischief Night, which mostly seemed to involve knocking on people's front doors and running away...............another age!!

We did get up to slightly more mischievous activities, but if you think I am going to own up to those now, you are very much mistaken.  what happened in the past, stays in the past.

But for all I dislike the bought costumes, the dreadful Hallowe'en themed cakes and sweets for the equally awful Trick or Treating, I am pleased that we now have ready access to pumpkins and all their relatives.

And it has to be said that no pumpkin flesh is ever thrown away on carving day.

                                                      

                                         

Pumpkin pie is quintessentially an American institution and I am not going to attempt a version of their sweet confection.

I have gone for a savoury version, which went down a storm in our house and I hope you like it too.

None of these measurements are critical, so please feel free to adapt this to what you have on hand.

2 tblsp rapeseed oil

500g pumpkin flesh, peeled and chopped

1 large leek, washed thoroughly and cut into thick slices

2 tblsp dessicated coconut

2 tsp salt

1 dried chilli, crushed

200ml double cream

2 large potatoes

50g melted butter

Start by toasting the coconut in a frying pan over a medium heat.  Remove from the pan and set aside.

Heat the oil in a 10" frying pan - an oven safe one is ideal or, as this is going into the oven, remove the oak handle covers.

Put the pumpkin into the pan and cook for approx 15 minutes, until starting to take on a little colour and becoming soft.

Add the leeks and stir well to mix.

Throw in a couple of tablespoons of water and simmer until the water is absorbed.

Add the toasted coconut, salt, chilli and cream.

Mix well and remove from the heat.

Heat the oven to 170ºC

Slice the potatoes thinly.

Bring a large pan of water to the boil and add the potatoes.

Cook for 5 minutes, then drain and rinse with cold water.

Arrange the potatoes in overlapping layers over the pumpkin mix.

Pour the melted butter over the potatoes and put the pan in the oven.

Cook for 20 - 30 minutes until the potatoes are soft and golden.

Serve piping hot with peas and roasted tomatoes.

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015