Tag Archives: Countryside Kitchen

Are you game?

Dear Reader, if you are of the vegetarian persuasion, you may wish to look away now. I have no wish to offend but this one is for my carnivorous chums and I shall make no further bones about it…..

Watching a recent Great British Food Revival programme on the BBC, I was reminded of the wonders of game by one of my cooking and countryside heroines, Clarissa Dickson Wright. Inspired by her fervour for wild meat, I set to work on finding a suitable recipe and fell upon this. Apparently, November is Game to Eat month. How glorious! Deciding to indulge my ‘wild’ side and always up for a culinary challenge, I thought that I would attempt some gamey gastronomy this week. I suppose as a countryside offering, it doesn’t get any more authentic than game.

First things first, where to find a feathered or furry friend to eat? Jerry and I have often wondered about the deer culls in Richmond Park and where the meat goes as it is certainly not on any of the gastropub menus in our little corner of suburbia. Thinking that local venison would probably not be in the pot and not wishing to pick up any roadside offerings from our jaunts to the country, I began my quest at beloved Waitrose. I found, to my surprise, that they did have a good selection of all the usual gamey items: partridge, pigeon and even wild mallard. Thankfully all plucked and ready for roasting. Not so long ago, I did find myself in a feathery mess when a brace of pheasants were brought to the door by a member of the family. I had been expecting them in more of an oven ready condition….

Moving on from the great plucking incident of 2011, I decided that perhaps birds should not be part of my dabbling on this occasion. I can still hear Jerry reciting the ‘Pheasant Plucker’ ditty and we had to explain to a wailing Primrose that they were very naughty birds who had eaten all the farmer’s crops.

Remembering a delicious meal Jerry and I had in a charming little osteria in Florence some years ago when we were footloose, fancy free and sans children, I thought how wonderful it would be to recreate the roasted rabbit we had had that evening. No feathers to worry about there. I was out of luck at Waitrose so went in search of a butcher. Dear Papa has an excellent butcher down on the South Coast whose shop is beautifully adorned with the heads, skins and feathered carcasses of all sorts. A delight for the meat lover’s eyes but not one for the vegetarians…. I continued my ‘townie’ search for the elusive wild bunny to cook but no fluffy bunny could be found. To be honest, at one point I thought that I would have probably had more luck trying to bag one myself with a shotgun. I pondered, for a brief moment, my friend Minty (Araminta) and her recent dilemma of how to rehome her domestic bunnies but thought that she might not appreciate my idea of ‘rehoming’. Well, after all during the Second World war, rabbits were bred for the pot…..

: One of Minty’s temptingly chubby bunnies….

Three butchers later and I found what I was looking for. One wild rabbit ready for roasting. Primrose wept at the thought of eating dear old Peter Rabbit or Benjamin Bunny (Beatrix Potter, you have a lot to answer for, in my opinion). She was convinced that the butcher would present the rabbit with its dinner jacket still on. Mercifully for all, he did not. I did try the old “He ate all the farmer’s crops” story but no amount of white lies would persuade her to sample the end result. She even hid her toy bunny in fear that I might just cook that too.

Looking down at the rather large rabbit on the meat board, I did feel a little out of my depth trying to follow Clarissa’s instructions on jointing. I wasn’t too sure what to do with Peter Rabbit’s heart, liver and kidneys either. Perhaps I had become a little squeamish by this point? Jerry did remind me that it is not the done thing in the country to name one’s food….. Bolstered with a good glass of Barolo, I soldiered on. The effort was worth it. Memories of Florence wafted back with each mouthful of Coniglio Arrosto con Patate which I can only describe as heavenly. Signor Antonio Carluccio, I salute you. I can only say that with a recipe as good as that, even dear fluffy-tailed Peter might not mind being eaten!

Margot tries Carluccio’s delicious rabbit dish

Rabbit well and truly polished off, Jerry and I settled down by the fire with a box of chocolates and I discovered a recent interview with Clarissa DW in The Telegraph. She seems to have caused quite a stir with her calls for us to eat badgers to solve some of the proposed cull problems. Mmmm. Rabbit, venison, partridge, pigeon..all a resounding yes. Badger….sorry CDW, not sure even I am game enough for that one!

Baking, shaking and no stirring in sight

1 Reply

Apparently, it is National Baking Week. How do they dream these things up? Tuning in to the Great British Bake Off this week, I found myself riveted. Not for tips from Mary Berry on good baking as you might think…… Now that Jerry is out of earshot, I will admit that I was glued to the screen, unable to concentrate on the recipe for a Paris Brest due to a rather dishy young baker named James. Once I dragged myself away from watching him making fondant fancies, I got to thinking about my own baking skills which, it has to be said, are rather hopeless. I have all the relevant kit as you can imagine. Bread scraper, cake and loaf tins, silicone moulds, palette knives, spatulas and EVEN a flour shaker! I know I know, with all this kit, you would think that I would be able to produce something edible. I try very hard but the cakes, bread, scones etc I have made in the past have always had the qualities revered in London brick. I can’t help myself. Even though I know that baking is a science and instructions must be adhered to strictly, somehow, I can never help trying to cut a corner here or adding something to the recipe there. Dare I say it, on one occasion, I even thought that I knew better than the housewives’ staple and goddess of plain cookery, Delia.

In desperation, I turned my hand to some baking research. Reading some serious tomes on the matter, namely Bread Matters by Andrew Whitley, it seems that soda bread is the place to start as it requires very little skill on the baker’s part! No problems there then! Past that, it was all sourdough starter this and proving baskets that. Not for the serial baking criminal…..

Well in the end, after some serious deliberating over recipes, I used a classic soda bread recipe (thank you Mr Whittingstall!) and tried as best I could to follow the baking rules! Preheat oven, weigh out ingredients, mix then knead. I did take a turn towards inventiveness and added a few crumbled handfuls of a lump of cheese I found in the fridge, fried off some smoked bacon and put those in too. Mixed altogether, it looked a bit like a small brain on the baking tray. Unappealing I know. Not even Primrose could give a vote of confidence on this one!

Not very appetising…..

Whilst it had its twelve minutes in a hot oven, I remembered a nifty bit of magic which might just steer Primrose and Poppy away from the inevitable baking failure. Making your own butter! About the only truly memorable thing from my prep school days other than girls having embroidery lessons on Wednesday afternoons whilst the boys went out to play sport. Before you ask, no I did not to go to school in the 1950s but might as well have. Just in case you want to have a go at this, here is how I did it:

At the beginning….

Get a jam jar and fill a third full with room temperature double cream. (I used it straight from the fridge….and it took ages to get through the next bit so follow this even if you don’t follow any of the other instructions)!
Put the lid on tight and then start shaking. If the cream is the right temperature, then you may only need to shake for 10mins. I attempted to banish the bingo wings for roughly 20mins. You must shake vigorously and continually.
The jam jar will go silent…..don’t PANIC. In the words of the WWII propaganda poster, “Keep Calm and Carry on”.
Shake until the sound changes to a slosh and you have a creamy mass and some watery milky liquid in the jar.
Pour off the liquid (this is buttermilk and you can use it in your next batch of soda bread).
‘Rinse’ the butter in the jam jar with cold water. Keep doing this until the water runs clear.
…and here’s one I made earlier!
When it does, then your butter is almost ready. Just press out the rest of the liquid. You can use a delightfully vintage set of butter paddles for this. Failing your ability to procure these, your hands will do just as well.
Wrap in greaseproof and put in the fridge.

I mixed in a little ground sea salt into mine before putting in the fridge but I shall leave the flavourings up to you. Anything goes really. You won’t make enough to rival Anchor but you will have made enough to smother on a slice of soda bread. It would seem that butter requires little culinary know-how. Bread on the other hand….well it looks like I may be going back to the bread board again. Sadly you could have used my efforts for shot putting. Shame I am a few months too late for the Olympics! Still, three loaves later and apparently if one follows the recipe and uses buttermilk instead of fat free yoghurt, a bacon and cheese soda loaf with a fluffy inside can be made. A tiny taste of heaven with our homemade butter. Dare we say that Margot has had success in the baking department at last?! Dear Reader, I’ll let you decide….