Tetbury Food Festival

We’ve had a very busy time lately. I hope to be able to share news with you soon.

This time, it was Tetbury Food Festival. Tetbury is a great food festival. A real celebration of local produce.

Tetbury is a lovely Cotswold town based in the south Cotswolds. With strong links with its royal neighbours, it is well worth a visit. Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall’s country retreat, Highgrove, can be found on the outskirts of town, and they participate in a number of local events in the town. Apparently Camilla is a member of the local Women’s Institute, and strolling around the church, you will see a tree which she planted recently to commemorate the William and Kate’s wedding earlier this year.

In preparation for my cookery demonstrations, I made it my mission to suss out the best local freefrom produce I could lay my hands on. And there were rich pickings.

I really strongly believe in trying to shop locally where possible, especially as I run a small food company myself, so I know what a difference it makes to small businesses. However, I am realistic and appreciate that most of us can’t get by without popping to the supermarket from time to time, especially if you live in an urban area.

So, with a wealth of local suppliers on the doorstep, I decided to pop down to the local butchers in Tetbury, Jesse Smith & Co. based on Long Street, one of the main streets running through this ancient market town. The delightful manager, John, showed me some beautiful, local venison he had in, farmed near Cirencester by a gentleman named Arthur Whitchell. I picked up a loin of venison there, very lean and tender meat, and it’s actually great value meat. Much cheaper than beef fillet. I decided to make a seasonal dish of venison with blackberries, thyme and port. In keeping with the local theme, I hopped on my bike and headed down the lanes nearby to pick some fresh blackberries. I managed to collect an excellent haul. Wild blackberries are so much more delicious than bought. They have a wonderfully intense flavour, and even better, are totally free! You will find my recipes below, by the way.

Turning to dessert, I decided to use my local buckwheat flour which I had picked up at Shipton Mill near Tetbury. Many people following a gluten free diet find they get on with buckwheat flour, so it may be worth a go. And it is beautiful locally milled flour. I made a lovely quick dessert of buckwheat pancakes, with a blackberry compote. Really local and really delicious – it went down a treat with the audience!

One of the best things about the food festival was discovering so many great food producers in the local area. I met Tom Herbert, who runs Hobbs House Bakery who have a shop in Tetbury amongst other branches in the area. Their bread is fabulous, made with traditional methods passed down through the generations of this family-run business. I highly recommend trying their superb bread – they deliver nationwide in boxes which come complete with a bread bag and a freezer bag. The rye sourdough is a favourite of ours. Tom, who has made several television programmes for the BBC was running his stall…

They sell fantastic quality, beautifully fresh vegetables, which are really reasonably priced, including outstanding vegetable boxes for just £5. Mine fed me every day for over two weeks (just me on my own, mind). Do take a look at their work if you can, and why not try and see if you have a local scheme doing something similar? I can’t resist including some photos of their produce.

Another great find at Tetbury was Aunt Addie’s farm project, a local farm project which grows and sells a wide range of excellent vegetables.

 

Venision loin with blackberries, thyme and port

Serves 2 (approximately)

This recipe does not rely on exact quantities, below is just a rough guideline

2 Venison steaks or 4 slices of venison loin

1 tablespoon redcurrant jelly

1 large handful of blackberries

1/2 a wine glass (medium) port

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

A knob of butter

2 tablespoons Olive oil (appx)

Ensure you have a plate warming before you begin

1) Place the olive oil in the pan and start to heat it

1. Add the venison steaks or loin. Fry in olive oil (you can adjust how much you use to taste) for roughly 4-5 minutes on each side.
2. Remove the steaks from the oven and place on the warmed plate. Cover with foil to keep warm
3. Add the port, blackberries and redcurrant jelly to the pan you have used to cook the venison and bring to the boil. Make sure the redcurrant jelly is well incorporated.
4. As the sauce starts to thicken, add a knob of butter, the thyme leaves and stir
5. Serve the venison loin or steaks with sauce poured over them. I like this dish served with garlic sautéed potatoes.

Shipton Mill Buckwheat pancakes with blackberry compote

Makes18-20 pancakes

Ingredients for the pancakes:

500 ml whole milk or soya milk
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
80 g melted butter
70 g Buckwheat flour
105g plain flour or gluten free plain flour
3 large eggs

1. Whisk all ingredients together in a bowl
2. Heat a large frying pan on the hob.
3. Drop a tiny piece of butter or sunflower oil in the hot pan and wipe it around with a paper towel.
4. Pour enough of the batter in the middle of the hot pan, swirling the pan to distribute the batter quickly and evenly. The batter should start cooking within a few seconds, giving you just enough time to swirl it.
5. After about a minute, flip the pancake over.
6. Let the pancake cook on the flip side for about 30 seconds, then slide it out onto a dinner plate. Repeat.

Ingredients for the blackberry compote:

200g blackberries


4 tablespoons caster sugar

4 tablespoons water

2 teaspoons lemon juice

For the compote, simply combine the blackberries, water, sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan.

Heat slowly for around 20 minutes until the fruit has softened and the liquid is thick and syrupy. Sweeten further to taste, if required.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 10th, 2011 at 13:57. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

Feast of Dorset- the recipes

So, I said I would report back, and here I am. We’ve all had a jam packed weekend at Feast of Dorset.

Although I was booked to cook there on the Sunday, we all decided to head down to Dean’s Court, the beautiful venue in my home town of Wimborne in Dorset, to see what was going on a day early on the Saturday. The site was packed and the sun was shining.

Dean’s Court is one of Dorset’s most idyllic private ancestral homes, dating back to the 11th Century. It is, in fact, set in the town centre itself, with a very discreet entrance. So much so that most people living in the town haven’t even realised that the estate even exists, let alone have visited it. Home to a wonderful apiary, well-stocked kitchen garden and a lovely orchard, it is the perfect foodie venue for the festival.

Having grown up in Dorset, I am clearly biased somewhat towards the county. However, I do think it is simply a matter of fact for me to state that there are some wonderful food producers and chefs in the county, and a great number of them support this festival. They include Anna del Conte, Lesley Waters, Mat Follas, Rose Prince, Jez Barfoot and many more. It was a great privilege for me to be part of the festival.

Our first port of call was to watch Rose Prince cook. I am such a great fan of Rose Prince’s cooking. I really admire her ethos of using great British produce where possible, and of her attitude towards sustainability. Rose cooked three lovely dishes; a chestnut and honey soup, John Dory with brown butter and fresh herbs and a grape strudel, all of which looked delicious, but sadly we were not allowed to taste the food once it was cooked. I was lucky enough to chat with her afterwards about her cookery books. I was pleased to hear that my favourite, The New English Kitchen is her favourite, too!

We then took a tour of the site, which was jam packed with food stalls selling takeaway food and produce. Spoilt for choice, I tried some Mackerel from a Weymouth based company, who have been involved in Hugh’s Fish Fight, which was very good. As the others went off to have a go at archery, I peeled off to go and inspect the glorious kitchen garden. I thoroughly enjoyed inspecting their bounty, wishing I could have a kitchen garden of my own. One of the highlights was this lovely apple stall, which displayed a huge number of apple varieties, which was fascinating.

We went home very happy and I spent Saturday night prepping for my demonstration on Sunday.

Sunday morning arrived and we awoke to the sound of heavy rain lashing down outside. It was a truly grim morning. Unperturbed, we set off to Dean’s Court arriving laden down with all my kit. Fortunately, the rain hadn’t put many people off and the tent was packed full for my demonstration, which is the first one I’ve ever done wearing my wellington boots!

For those of you who have asked, my recipes are below. So, thank you, Feast of Dorset, and look forward to next year!

Blackberry fool

A simple and seasonal dessert. It has a distinct autumnal flavour, yet is still light. Perfect for this time of year as we head into autumn.

Serves 4

400g blackberries (I prefer wild blackberries which you can find at this time of year for free)

3 tablespoons sifted icing sugar (although adjust to taste)

200ml double cream, whipped

200m whipping cream, whipped

Method

1. Place the blackberries into a shallow bowl. Add the icing sugar and stir in.
2. Then, mash the fruit until the fruit starts to break down. I like to leave some larger chunks of fruit though
3. Whip the creams separately in individual bowls. Tip both creams into one bowl and add the blackberries and gently fold until it is roughly combined. I don’t like to over-mix this so as to retain as much air in the cream as possible. I also like to retain some purple streaks through the cream, which looks so pretty, so mix as little as possible to get this effect.
4. Serve in glass bowls. You may wish to adjust the quantities of icing sugar and the ratio of cream to fruit to taste. I personally don’t like to add too much sugar as I don’t have a particularly sweet tooth and I love the flavour of the berries on their own, particularly as I use wild berries when I can which have a much more interesting flavour than supermarket berries.

Spiced plums

These spiced plums make such a delicious treat. Have them on their own or with yoghurt or porridge for breakfast, delicious in a plastic container taken for a packed lunch or an indulgent dessert served with ice cream and are completely gluten free and vegan. You could try a non dairy ice cream with this. But I like to serve them spooned onto my blackberry fool (recipe above)

Serves 4

500g plums. I use English plums at this time of year. I like Marjorie Seedling or Victoria, which are amongst the easily available varieties.

4 tablespoons caster sugar (again, to taste)

4 tablespoons water

2 whole star anise

1 vanilla pod, slit lengthways and seeds extracted

1 cinnamon stick

1. Slice the plums into halves or quarters, removing the stones
2. Sprinkle over the sugar and water
3. Add the spices. Make sure the vanilla seeds are mixed into the water and add the vanilla pod for now
4. Heat on the hob on a low heat until the fruit softens. This should take about 10 – 20 minutes. Try to ensure the temperature is not too high as the fruit will turn into a puree. I prefer for the fruit to remain as its shape and texture as much as possible
5. Remove the whole spices before serving.