Salaric Cooking

Through out the autumn and late summer we harvest berries from the hedge rows near our house. We dry and/or freeze these and have found that they make a good addition to mulled wine.

The sorts of berries you can find:

Elderberries
Sloes
Wild strawberries
Rose hips
Haws
Blackberries
Wild raspberries

We tend to have mostly blackberries and elderberries – rose hips and haws grow in abundance but taste wise you want the juicers berries plus rose hips have hairs in them you mustn’t eat and haws have stones so they need to be put in a muslin cloth for boiling in the wine or you sieve the drink before you give it to people.

The recipe is:

One bottle of red wine
1 liter of orange juice
1 liter of water
1/4 liter of brandy
2 table spoons of brown sugar
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon of cloves
1/s apple chopped
3 slices of orange
Selection of fruits mentioned above

Put in a saucepan over a moderate heat, stirring int he sugar before adding spices and fruit. Once everything is added, bring to a rolling boil and then reduce heat. Serve warning that it is hot!

FISH.–Barbel, brill, carp, cod, crabs, eels, dace, gudgeons, haddocks, herrings, lobsters, oysters, porch, pike, shrimps, skate, sprats, soles, tench, thornback, turbot, whiting.

MEAT.–Beef, house lamb, mutton, pork, venison.

I’m not quiet sure what house lamb is but assume its some sort of lamb – here I go stating the obvious again!

POULTRY.–Capons, chickens, fowls, geese, pigeons, pullets, rabbits, teal, turkeys, widgeons, wild ducks.

GAME.–Hares, partridges, pheasants, snipes, woodcocks.

VEGETABLES.–Broccoli, cabbages, carrots, celery, leeks, onions, potatoes, parsnips, Scotch kale, turnips, winter spinach.

FRUIT.–Apples, chestnuts, filberts, grapes, medlars, oranges, pears, walnuts, dried fruits, such as almonds and raisins, figs, dates, &c.,–crystallized preserves.

I just love this gastropub/veiwing lounge at Staverton.

We get to watch the plans and helicopters and occassionally their are classical cars lurking around, the pub itself has comfy chairs and reasonable prices. Their walls are festooned with pictures, paintings and photographs of planes, helicopters and over be the door that leads to the garden and veiwing plateform there are formular one pics.

The staff are friendly and the food is fantastic – though it does tend to be on the traditional English side of things with cheesey chips (£2!) and sunday roasts with heaps of veg.

They also have free Wifi and therefore are a convient bolt whole when we are say flooded out or have lost internet connectivity as we did in January.

I would recommend them to anyone and in fact when we have guests staying we like to take them there for lunch though that does rely on us having money to do so – but they are not expensive and you get a lot of food for the money.

I must have put too much water in the rice cooker – the result was a startchy mess splattered all over the walls, cupboards and floor of the kitchen :/

Also brown rice has a habbit of cooking into a ‘rice paper’ buscuit in the bottom of the pot which is interesting.

*1 tin of adzuki beans

*1 tin of haricot beans

*2 tins of chopped tomatoes

*1 tablespoon of vary lazy pre chopped garlic in white wine vinegar

*Dried sage, rosemarry and thyme added to taste

*Slices of bread for toasting preferably a multigrained loaf

Place all beans, tomatoes, herbs and garlic into a suacepan and bring to a simmer, mean while cut and toast the bread.

Once toast is ready place two slices on a plate and load up with the bean and tomatoe mix, draining off any excess liquid back into the pan to be used as a base of a soup later on.

Serve whilst hot.

This serves at least four people and my dad will not touch ‘beans on toast’ but goes back for seconds of this.

FISH.–Brill, carp, cod, crabs, eels, gudgeons, haddocks, oysters, pike, soles, tench, turbot, whiting.

MEAT.–Beef, mutton, veal, doe venison.

POULTRY.–Chickens, fowls, geese, larks, pigeons, pullets, rabbits, teal, turkeys, widgeons, wild duck.

GAME.–Hares, partridges, pheasants, snipes, woodcocks.

VEGETABLES.–Beetroot, cabbages, carrots, celery, lettuces, late cucumbers, onions, potatoes, salading, spinach, sprouts,–various herbs.

FRUIT.–Apples, bullaces, chestnuts, filberts, grapes, pears, walnuts.

*Chick peas

*new potatoes chopped up

*a tin of chopped tomatoes

*an onion chopped

*garlic crushed

*ginger bruised

*very lazy chilli

*teaspoon of turmeric.

Fry up the turmeric and onion in hot oil, add the chillis, ginger and garlic and then the other ingredients bring to a simmer and serve with rice or naan bread or chipati.

I love dressing the table for events and am fortunate that we were given lovely Slate place matts and serving matts along with coasters for our engagement and wedding and even extra for my birthday!

I thought that the black slate worked well with the red table cloth and the purple fluted glassed. I also used my metal butterfly napkin rings which I was given for christmas a few years ago – I only have four of these so they are limited to which meals they can come out at. They orginally came from Monsoon and are my favourite napkin rings 🙂

The napkins are a baige with red/orange stripe on them – I think that I need to find other napkins to go with this table cloth (other than the green holly christmas ones!) but they are passable.

I love these glasses they came from TK Max in Romford and they were bought for our wedding dinner!

This was really very cheating but was nice a quick – I put the rice cooker on and then took some pre-cooked strips of chicken, a jar of slightly more expensive sweet and sour source that had onoin and pinapple in it and opened a tin of carrot slices, drained them and bunged the whole lot in a wok once the rice cooker switched to the warm setting. It was a nice easy meal with about 5 minutes preperation time which is why I thought I’d share it with you.

FISH.–Barbel, brill, cod, crabs, eels, flounders, gudgeons, haddocks, lobsters, mullet, oysters, plaice, prawns, skate, soles, tench, turbot, whiting.

MEAT.–Beef, mutton, pork, veal, venison.

POULTRY.–Chickens, fowls, geese, larks, pigeons, pullets, rabbits, teal, turkeys, widgeons, wild ducks.

GAME.–Blackcock, grouse, hares, partridges, pheasants, snipes, woodcocks, doe venison.

I assume doe venison is female deer.

VEGETABLES.–Artichokes, beets, cabbages, cauliflowers, carrots, celery, lettuces, mushrooms, onions, potatoes, sprouts, tomatoes, turnips, vegetable marrows,–various herbs.

FRUIT.–Apples, black and white bullaces, damsons, figs, filberts, grapes, pears, quinces, walnuts.