Raw Asparagus Salad Recipe

Unlike last year, the busiest time in the Summer food show season is being blessed with golden English sunshine. So, it was with a cheery bounce in my step that I recently set off for the inaugural Newbury Food Festival.

I knew that this show would be special since I had already arranged a cookery demonstration with our Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper Vinegar. Having corresponded a few times over the years with award-winning blogger, Caroline Taylor, this was the first opportunity we had to meet and for me to introduce Caroline to our whole range. Do take a look at her site, All that I'm Eating, where you will find some beautiful food photography doing justice to some interesting recipes like Elderberry and Apple Turnovers and Spring Green and Bacon Potato cakes. Also there is an asparagus recipe which Caroline adapted to take advantage of the depth of flavour of our vinegar, thus:

Raw Asparagus Salad with

Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper Vinegar

Photo courtesy of Caroline Taylor

You will need (for two):

A bunch of asparagus

Rapeseed Oil

Old Winchester (or Parmesan)

Womersley Lemon, Bay, Basil and Juniper Vinegar

Black pepper

Remove the woody ends of the asparagus but leave enough to hold on to. 

Peel the asparagus from stem to tip, keep the stems (non woody) for making into a soup, or if you’re feeling really adventurous a soufflé or sorbet. 

Pile all your peelings into a bowl, drizzle over some rapeseed oil, the Womersley vinegar, pepper and a healthy shaving of Old Winchester. 

Serve. 

 

Spring Salad Recipe with Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper

You may have noticed that we don't publish that much in the way of salad recipes on here. Of course, you can use all of our vinegars on your salad, according to what style and flavour you are after. For instance, the Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender is great when you want a sour and fragrant, Oriental feel. The excellent deli of the Year regional winner in Leeds, Haley & Clifford have been using this for many months on their in-house salads, to the delight of their many loyal visitors. And our 2011 Gold** Taste Award Winner, Golden Raspberry & Apache Chilli is perfect for a sweet and heat treat. But, for many, the most popular is our Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper.

My father, Martin, was certainly in a particularly inventive mood when he devised this recipe. He loved his Gin and Tonic with a hefty wedge of lemon; those unfamiliar with his proportions would soon find out that these were certainly NOT "Tonic and Gin!" Another great love of his was the propagation of hundreds of varieties of Basil. In Summer, the poly tunnels in the kitchen garden at our home in Womersley bursted with the aromas of this huge variety, from Purple Ruffles Basil to Cinnamon Basil and on and on.... So, combined with his aromatherapy skills, it was with some alacrity that he set about combining lemon with basil and Juniper as well as some bay leaf. With all the buckets lined up, as usual, he eventually arrived at the very recipe we use to this day.

The citrus is so good at bringing out delicate flavours in seafood and fruit dishes, but it is as a salad dressing that it really shines. Those botanical herbal flavours mix well with the Juniper to produce a dressing of such freshness and depth that they really bring a salad to life. So I was delighted a little while ago to receive this beautiful recipe for a mixed salad including my personal favourite, Pine Nuts, and dressed with our Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper from Tessa Stuart.

SPRING INTO AN ENTHUSED WOMERSLEY SALAD

by Tessa Stuart

The Lemon, Basil, Bay and Juniper Vinegar dressing in this recipe gives the salad a wonderfully citrus zing!

INGREDIENTS:

Salad leaves
1 bag of Mixed rocket and leaf salad leaves
¼ of a cucumber, thinly sliced
1 punnet of Pea Shoots
1 carrot peeled and cut into thin strips and thinly shredded.
Sprinkle of Roasted Pine Nuts

Dressing for the salad
10 ml Womersley Lemon, basil, bay & Juniper vinegar dressing
20 ml Rapeseed oil
Sprinkle of Maldon salt


METHOD:
Lightly roast Pine Nuts in the oven until golden brown.
Mix ingredients well together for the salad leaves to get lightly tossed in the dressing.
Sprinkle Pine Nuts over the top and serve

If you would like to buy some of our Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper to give Tessa's recipe a go, check your nearest stockist here, visit our Where to Buy page or give us a call and we will send you some: 01132 865 855.

Friday Fish by Stephanie Moon and Rob Green

Ten years of boarding school at Summer Fields, Oxford and Cheltenham College I suffered in my youth...it wasn't all bad, though: every Friday lunch we were fed fish and some of it didn't even have batter! However, thanks to the excellent talents of Rob Green of Green's of Whitby, I now know that batter can taste exceptional with our Lime, Black Pepper and Lavender in the mix: surely the most imaginative twist on fish and chips with vinegar.

ROB GREEN'S POLLOCKS

Green's Fish & Chips

  "The Womersley lime, blackpepper & lavender works great on fish and chips. The lavender is not over powering but adds a great fresh, fragrant dimension to the dish that malt vinegar can not deliver.

Ingredients
1x Bottle Womersley Lime, blackpepper and lavender vinegar,
2x Fillets of Pollock, skinned and boned, dredged in seasoned flour
1 can Lager, 250g self raising flour, 1 tbsp of Womersley Lime, black pepper & lavender, whisked together to form a smooth batter. (It needs to be the same thickness as double cream, to thick and the end result will be stodgy)
Lemon, Tartare sauce, Womersley vinegar and mushy peas to serve!

For the Fish
Heat the oil to 190C.
Holding the tail of the fish, dip into the batter and make sure all the fish is covered.
Carefully lay the fish into the oil.
Cook until golden brown, turning now and then as soon as the batter has started to crisp.
Depending on the thickness the fish should take between 4-6mins
Drain on kitchen paper.

Serve your fish with chips and with the lemon, tartare sauce, mushy peas and lashings of the Lime, blackpepper & Lavender.

Rob Green, Green's of Whitby."

The full recipe including the chips is on our website.

STEPHANIE MOON'S MACKEREL

This week, we have been enjoying the North East region of Great British Menu on BBC2 which has showcased two new talents, Colin McGurran and Charlie Lakin, as well as returning chef, Stephanie Moon. For 2012, the chefs' task is to create a menu that captures the Olympic spirit - food that is breath-taking and awe-inspiring. Every great Olympian pushes their discipline on to new levels of excellence and that's the challenge for the 2012 Great British Menu chefs. We particularly loved Steph's podium pudding, what a terrific idea. Our bottles of Lemon, Basil, Bay and Juniper have been very much in evidence in the GBM kitchen and were used by Steph in her dishes. Of course, Steph also got to cook a fish dish this week and this reminded me that she recently did a beautiful Whitby Fish Mackerel dish also using our Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper.

Whitby Seafish Mackerel, Forager’s Salad, Pickled Baby Vegetables

The recipe for Steph's dish is available on her Wild Cooks blog page so give it a go and let us know how well it works for you.
This weekend, Steph is presenting the Cookery Theatre at Harrogate Flower Show and I even get to share the stage with her on Saturday afternoon: yikes! Unfortunately, Steph missed out on the final by one point- that Nigel Haworth is a very exacting judge!

Now, if only we'd had fish like this at boarding school all those years ago...

Pigeon!

Our little town of Chipping Norton is blessed with an abundance of bird life. We have the most amazing variety of finches, tits, songbirds and blackbirds. Mind you, this should not be such a great surprise, since the good people of Chipping Norton feed them well and there are plenty of trees and hedgerows for cover and nesting.
The Winter months have been unusually dry and mild this year, particularly compared to last year, so the birds have been able to come and have a bath in our pond all through the Winter. We are particularly fortunate to have a lot of blackbirds in our area since their song is so beautiful to wake up to. Our neighbours have a tall, spindly silver birch tree which acts as a good lookout perch for one particular blackbird to sing his little heart out and check that the way is clear down to the pond.
Our friendly blackbird's exalted position has obviously been noticed, though.... This morning, as I looked out, he was chased off his branch by the biggest, fattest pigeon you ever saw. However, he was in for a surprise since his considerable weight caused the treetop to bend swiftly and alarmingly....he held on....the branch swayed some more....he would not be beaten....until he was virtually upside down, when he made an unceremonious dismount and, in a flurry of down he gave up (presumably hoping nobody had noticed).

And all of this reminded me that it is about time I posted a pigeon recipe!

Last year, at the CLA Gamefair, I was fortunate enough to meet Chef Ralph Skripek of The Butler's Pantry, Derby. Ralph specialises in excellent Game recipes and has recently published a book on Game recipes called "Wild Chef" in which we are featured. Ralph is particularly good at challenging conventions so was delighted to taste our wares and see how they can "add a whole new angle to a dish." He was good enough to use a couple of our bottles in his demonstrations at Blenheim Palace last Summer and has now come up with a tasty Pigeon recipe for us using our Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper. So, the next time you find a tasty wood pigeon who has fallen off his last twig and could do with a good marinade, here is the recipe for you:

Marinated wood pigeon pan fried with smoked bacon on a croute

Marinated wood pigeon pan fried with smoked bacon on a croute, finished with a tossed spring saladette, fresh asparagus and finished with a zesty dressing

(serves two)

4 x pigeon breasts

Sprig of fresh rosemary

4 rashers of smoked streaky bacon

2 slices of thick cut seeded wholemeal bread

Assorted salad leaves (rocket, ruby reds & lambs ears)

8 x fresh asparagus

2 small cooked beetroots (cut into strips)

Little olive oil

Salt & pepper mill

WOMERSLEY Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper

For a fuller flavour, marinate the pigeon breasts with a drizzling of the Womersley dressing, the day before (preferably) and proceed with recipe as per below

1. For a quicker dish, season the pigeon breast with salt & pepper & place on one side

2. Prepare asparagus by trimming the end and peeling the outer bark layer from half way up the asparagus

3. Place in a pan of boiling water, cook until tender, remove and refresh under running cold water

4. Add a little olive oil to a frying pan with the Womersley dressing & a few sprigs of fresh rosemary

5. Remove the fillet from under the pigeon breast, add to the pan (once hot), top side of breast down

6. Pan fry for 3 minutes on each side and remove ‘to rest’

7. Add a little more olive oil & dressing to the same pan

8. Cut two croutes from the seeded bread using a medium sized pastry cutter

9. Chop the smoked bacon into small diced pieces, add to the frying pan with the croutes

10. Cook until croutes are nicely browned on each side and the bacon is crispy

11. Remove bread & bacon from the pan and place the bacon on top of the croute

12. In the middle of a plate, place the croute with the bacon & layer the asparagus on top

13. Add a handful of leaves to a bowl with some strips of beetroot, drizzle over some Womersley dressing & a little olive oil with a few twists of the pepper mill

14. Mix the leaves to coat & place on top of the asparagus

15. Slice the pigeon breast around the leaves

Valentine Supper

As wonderful as it is to go out for dinner on Valentine's Day, I can't help feeling a little sorry for all those restaurants having to cope with rooms full of tables for two. And, is it just me, but there is something of an air of blokes putting in a minimum amount of effort to treat the one they love so much....
Of course, it is not always like that and many ladies will tell you they love being taken out for Valentine's dinner; also, and particular these days, many restaurants would far rather a full list of covers than a quiet Tuesday night.
Me? Well, I am a very lucky man. I'm married to a beautiful Kiwi who does nearly all the cooking at home. So, this year I decided that it would mean more to her if I put in the effort to make her a romantic dinner (albeit with our 11 year old son very much in evidence).

We both prefer unfussy food done well, so I decided to keep it fairly simple:

Smoked Mackerel Pâté

Warm Duck Salad with Blackberry Vinegar Dressing

Raspberry Yoghurt with Raspberries and Shortbread

Should you fancy giving them a go, here are the recipes:

Smoked Mackerel Pâté
Mum gave me her "Smackerel Pâté" recipe recently, so this was a good opportunity to try it out. It is so simple that the most tricky part was removing the bones from the fish!

Ingredients:
2 Smoked Mackerel Fillets, boned and flaked
3oz Cream Cheese
1 tsp Horseradish Sauce
2 tsp Womersley Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper dressing
Black Pepper

Method:
Place all ingredients into a blender and blend until achieving a smooth consistency. You may need to add a little more Horseradish or Lemon Dressing to get the taste to your liking.

Serve with warm french stick or Water Table biscuits.

Warm Gressingham Duck Salad with Flaked Almonds, Pine Nuts and Blackberry Vinegar Dressing

I have the lovely Xanthe Clay to thank for this one. On January 26th, page 3 of The Daily Telegraph featured news on The Duchess of Cornwall's challenge for school children to devise a Diamond Jubilee dish. Next to this was a "Royal Recipe" from Xanthe Clay which featured our Blackberry Vinegar: that was a delightful surprise! I adapted it a little for last night's dinner (exchanging Mangetout for Fine Beans and adding Pine Nuts).

Ingredients:

A bag of rocket salad leaves
2 Gressingham Duck Breasts
100g Fine Beans
40g Flaked Almonds and Pine Nuts
3 tbsp Womersley Blackberry Vinegar
2 tsp Wholegrain Mustard (I used Black Sheep's Riggwelter)
9 tbsp Cotswold Gold Rapeseed Oil
Salt crystals

Method:

• Spread a handful of rocket onto two plates
• Roast the nuts in the oven for around 2 minutes at 200°C until golden
• Steam or boil the beans so they remain just firm. Drain.
• Put 1 tbsp Rapeseed Oil in a large non-stick frying pan and fry the duck breasts face-down for around 10 minutes then turn and continue to cook on a high heat for a further 4 minutes. A pan with a lid is handy- it spits a lot! Check that the meat is cooked so still pink in the middle then remove from the pan and leave to rest
• Whisk 2 tbsp of the Blackberry Vinegar with the mustard and a good pinch of salt then add the remaining 8 tbsp of Rapeseed Oil
• Slice the duck and arrange on the rocket. Add the beans and sprinkle over the roasted nuts. Drizzle over the dressing.
• Pour off the oil from the pan, add the final 1 tbsp of Blackberry Vinegar and, over a high heat, reduce the remainder and keep rubbing the pan with a spatula to retain all those lovely flavours. Drizzle the reduced glaze over the dish and serve.

 

Ok, I admit it, I cheated a bit for pudding: some good quality Raspberry yoghurt and fresh raspberries in a glass with a heart shaped Raspberry Shortbread. But it did round off the meal quite well.

♥ Happy Valentine ♥

BBC Radio Northampton show

Vanessa Kimbell

The Winter months can be a bit quiet for many of us Artisan Food producers, so this is a good time to try to generate a bit of publicity. So I was delighted when Vanessa Kimbell invited me to join her and presenter Kevin Saddington for their live radio show, "Kitchen Garden" on BBC Radio Northampton on Sunday morning.

We had a jolly good discussion all about the history of Womersley, the making of our fruit vinegars and a couple of recipes too, below. I "met" Vanessa on Twitter and have corresponded with her for many months, finally meeting her properly at the Real Food Festival at Earl's Court last year. I can still picture her first approach to our stand, beaming smile and enjoying all the food treats in the hall. Sure enough, we had a jolly good chat and I discovered Vanessa was once a grower of lavender but, as can happen when handling plants with strong essential oils, she suddenly became so sensitive to it that she can no longer use any at all....which is a shame, since my favourite vinegar dressing is our Lime, Black Pepper and Lavender! The Orange & Mace proved a real winner with Vanessa, though, as you can hear on our soundcloud widget, here:

During the show, Kevin played some appropriate Sunday morning tracks (and Abba's Dancing Queen!) while we all had a taste of our sausage casserole recipe (using our Blackcurrant and Rosemary) which we'd had at home for supper the night before as well as our own Lemon Drizzle cake recipe using our Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper to make it really moist and delicious...

Sausage Casserole with

Womersley Blackcurrant & Rosemary Dressing

SERVES 4

Takes 25 minutes approx.

Ingredients:

·         1 tbsp Vegetable Oil

·         8 Thick Pork Sausages

·         1 Medium Red Onion, cut into thick slices

·         2 Braeburn or other eating apple with the skin left on, cored and each cut into wedges

·         1 ½ tbsp Womersley Rosemary Jelly

·         300ml/ ½ Pint Chicken Stock (can be made using a stock cube)

·         1 ½ tbsp Grainy Mustard

·         2 tbsp Womersley Blackcurrant & Rosemary Dressing

Method:

·         Heat the oil in a large frying pan, add the pork sausages and fry for about five minutes, turning them so they brown all over. Add the onion slices and continue to fry until the onion and sausages have turned a dark gold, stirring occasionally.

Turn up the heat, add the apple wedges and stir them in carefully until they have glazed in the pan juices.

·         Stir the Rosemary Jelly into the chicken stock until it is dissolved, then add the Blackcurrant & Rosemary Dressing and mustard. Pour this in to the pan and cook on a high heat for 5 minutes.

·         Reduce the heat and leave to simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes until the sausages are cooked and the liquid has reduced to a syrupy gravy.

Serve with your choice of rice or potatoes and veg

Sausage Casserole with Womersley Blackcurrant & Rosemary Dressing

Lemon Drizzle Cake

 with Womersley Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper Vinegar Drizzle

Ingredients for the cake:

125g butter

75g caster sugar

2 large eggs

Zest of one lemon

175g self raising flour

Pinch of salt

4 tablespoons milk

Ingredients for the Drizzle:

2 tbsp lemon juice

100g icing sugar

2 tbsp Womersley Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper Vinegar

Method:

- Pre-heat oven to 180°C/ gas mark 4

- Butter and line a loaf or cake tin (make sure the lining goes well up the sides   of the tin)

- Cream together butter and sugar, add eggs and lemon zest and beat well

- Add flour and salt, folding gently until mixed

- Add milk and mix in

- Spoon cake mix into prepared tin

- Cook for 45 minutes until golden and skewer comes out clean

For the Drizzle:

(Make just before the cake is due out of the oven)

-    Put icing sugar, lemon juice and Womersley Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper Vinegar into a small saucepan

-    Heat gently until the sugar is dissolved and the vinegar has reduced the mixture to a viscous drizzle

-          When cake is ready, take out of the oven and pierce it all over with a skewer. Pour the drizzle all over. Make sure the cake is totally cooled before taking out of the loaf tin or it will crumble.

Note: For a Gluten free cake, use Gluten Free flour and add extra milk.

Lemon Drizzle Cake (right) with the rest of the day's baking

Christmas and New Year, Food and Family

Happy New Year!

Well, Christmas is well and truly over, now, and we even have some frost on the ground, at last. The Yorkshire forced rhubarb growers will be pleased with this, since the rhubarb needs that cold ground temperature to make it grow.
Our Christmas tree was decorated very tastefully, of course, and enhanced no end by a beautiful flower arrangement a friend sent us (thank you Katie!)

Following her emigration to Brisbane, this year was the first time for ages that the aforementioned Katie had not joined us on Christmas Day, so we had to find an alternative to the joint of ham she would traditionally bring with her. We found a honey glazed Gammon and, after some excellent ideas from a few Tweets, I decided to stick a few cloves in it and make up a glaze of more honey and some of our Orange & Mace vinegar. I'm delighted to say that it turned out really well! The ham was really succulent and the mixture of the Orange, honey and spices added well to the flavour of the meat.

Honey with Orange & Mace vinegar glazed Gammon

We also opted for a Turkey Butt(erfly) joint for our Christmas dinner again this year. Turkey can be dry if you don't take good care about the way it is cooked, so I decided to wrap it in foil until 30 minutes from the end of the cooking time, and I also glazed it with a liberal helping of our Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper before putting it in the oven. WOW! Amazingly, the flavour and texture was perfect; so much so, that even the frozen slices are still making for delicious sandwich fillings.

I have to admit we are not great ones for going overboard on decoration at Christmas time, but these twig reindeer adorn our kitchen windowsill. These are very special to us, being a farewell gift from Katie and her husband, Stephen.

 

Some tasty treats we got for Christmas included these divine chocolates from Stow-on-the-Wold chocolatiers, Miette. They are made by Katherine Abel in a shop which used to be the baker's on Digbeth Street, just off the Market Place. Last year, Silvana de Soissons visited and wrote a lovely article on her beautiful blog site, The Foodie Bugle.

Miette chocolates

Of course, NO Christmas would be complete without my fix of Kiwi goodies, so many thanks to my darling mother-in-law and father-in-law for these two staples. Peanut slabs may be shrinking over the years, but they still taste as good as ever. Want to try for yourself? You can buy them from SANZA online, along with lots of other tasty Antipodean treats.

Lastly, my darling wife, Jani, does make a really good Christmas cake (laced with Brandy) and this year our daughter, Laura, did the festive decoration: it has all gone now!

 

Smoked Salmon Pate Recipe

Christmas time is surely the season for Smoked salmon so I was delighted to receive this delicious recipe from fellow Tweeter, Bill King, today. After some Tweetery, I was delighted to meet Bill at Abergavenny on Sunday, full of enthusiasm for our vinegars and dressings. He left with a smile on his face and a bottle of our Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper, so I was keen to hear how he would use it...

Bill was a Local Government Officer who longed to be involved in food and was immensely keen on local food and quality ingredients. Cuts meant the chance to break free so, in anticipation, he went to Ballymaloe Cookery School, where "cooking is fun!" You can read about Bill's Ballymaloe experience on his blog, all 84 days of it, the highs the lows and the effect of being in the "Ballymaloe Bubble." Currently he is a "Freelance Foodie" (unemployed) but hoping to set up a deli - using his many local producer contacts and favourite ingredients with some in house production.

He is married to Janet who does not cook but enjoys food and indulges his foodie expeditions and expects to spend ages in a shop/stall whilst he discusses the product/ingredient and plan usage on the spot. Bill says that Janet's highest accolade is "YUM" whilst a 3* Michelin was rated "Alright"!!

Bill tells me that this recipe for Smoked Salmon Pate "really did lift the whole flavour sensation. I have used lemon juice in the past but found an amazing difference when the Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper dressing was substituted. Mrs K has just loaded a couple of homemade baguettes with the pate to feed a horde of ravenous midwives at their team meeting!" Can't be bad...

You can get a lot of pate from this recipe!

 

Smoked Salmon Pate

This richly indulgent pate has deep layers of taste and flavour and can be as coarse or fine as you like.

Ingredients

300g Smoked Salmon (I use Black Mountains Smokery for the deep smoke)

10 capers

2 small gherkins or cornichons, cut into slices

6 Black Peppercorns, crushed

3 Dessert spoons of Crème Fraiche

1 Dessert spoon of Womersley Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper Dressing

Method

Tear the Smoked Salmon into large-ish pieces and place into a food processor with the capers, black pepper and gherkins. Process to a coarse pate.

Add the Crème Fraiche and pulse.

Then add the Womersley Dressing and process to a finer pate – you should still have some small chunks of salmon.

Serve with Melba toast, crudités or pipe onto crackers or blinis.

The dressing has natural companions for smoked salmon – Lemon and Juniper and the Basil and Bay add subtle background notes – and balances the lovely oily, smoky taste. I have never needed to add any salt but Halen Mon Sea Salt would be my salt of choice.

For small presentations I garnish with a little grated Lemon Zest; in a larger dipping bowl I would put thin slices of Lemon and Cucumber around the bowl.

How to jazz up your BBQ

A Great idea from Veronica Hayes

 

A fab BBQ last night using a trio of Womersley Foods divine products. Here's the first idea I had...

Some kind friends had given us some super fresh produce from their garden and included in our windfall of goodies were some lovely beetroot. I used 3 of them, sliced in half from stem to root, and then placed them on 4 sheets of foil. 1 -2 dessertspoons of the oil from a bottle of Italian sundried tomatoes plus about the same of Lemon, Basil, Bay and Juniper vinegar. Scrunch up the foil to make a pouch and then sling the pouch onto the bbq. I left mine in for about 1 hour and they were tender, tender, tender. And delicious! 

I think you could happily use any of the superb vinegars that Womersley make ...mmmmmm