Ceviche in Cheltenham

Grandfa and Oliver

Food shows come and food shows go. As an exhibitor, you don't always know what to expect: plenty of opportunity to catch up with fellow exhibitors, a mad panic to protect your stock from being ruined in a downpour of English weather or lots of enthusiastic people eager to talk about artisan food production.  And so it was in Cheltenham last weekend where I attended the Food Festival for the first time...

On the way there very early on the first morning of three, I had time to work out that it was fully 29 years since I had been at school at Cheltenham College. Maybe I should not have been so surprised to find myself having become a grandfather to a very beautiful boy called Oliver in the same week!


The festival was in the beautiful setting of Montpellier Gardens. We were in a large marquee surrounded by lots of other lovely producers like Cotswold Gold, Grumpies Pies (thanks for the lunch!) and Artisan Smokehouse who use maple for all their smoking, which makes particularly their smoked duck taste really sweet and tender. Being practically unique, we rarely find ourselves having to compete with many other fruit vinegar producers so we enjoy talking to people about how to use them and how to be creative in the kitchen with a good glug of our vinegars. When possible, though, we try to ensure our vinegars are included in the cookery theatre or we work with a local chef to showcase a recipe. I had recently met a charming fellow called Wayne Sullivan at an event at the impressive herb and micro leaf growers, Westlands, near Evesham and found out he is a head chef in Cheltenham, so I asked if he would like to do a demonstration on our stand on the Sunday. He loved the idea and, fresh from having moved house, he turned up with his whole family to show just how easy it is to make a delicious salmon ceviche. And, being a chef, this was also a great opportunity for visitors to ask questions about food preparation and mixing flavours and what is ceviche! (Ceviche is, put simply, raw fish marinated in citrus juice or vinegar and spices; the acid in the juice denatures the proteins in the meat in much the same way as cooking would. The flesh becomes opaque, the texture firmer and dryer, yet the flavours remain spanking fresh. Naturally, our vinegars do the job beautifully).
So, on a day off from his role as Head Chef at the local Storyteller Restaurant, Wayne made a delicious salmon ceviche with our Strawberry & Mint vinegar and finished with our Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender for a punchy sourness.

Salmon Ceviche with

Strawberry & Mint and

Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender

Vinegars

by Wayne Sullivan

Ingredients:
200g fresh salmon, diced as fine as you can make it
1 red chilli, finely sliced up to the seeds (or a little further up for more spice)
1 whole spring onion, finely sliced
10g coriander, finely chopped.
1 lime, zested & quartered
Sea salt
10ml Womersley Strawberry & Mint vinegar
Toasted ciabatta, crackers, biscuits (anything crispy)
Womersley Lime, Black pepper & Lavender Vinegar (for drizzle before serving)

Method:
Prepare all ingredient in a bowl as fine as you can as this will ensure the vinegar can infuse, cure and tenderise.
Try not to prepare too far in advance but the longer you leave it then the more cured the fish will be.
Simply spoon small quantities on to pieces of toasted ciabatta, drizzle over the Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender vinegar and serve.

This recipe was inspired by Wayne's time as head chef at Storyteller, an eclectic fusion restaurant in Cheltenham that blends traditional Californian cooking with modern and European techniques.

After training at a local college, Wayne worked his way around Gloucestershire, fronting up some premier kitchens as well as working for a while in Australia. He then went on to stage at Petrus under Marcus Wareing, and over in the United States at Wheatleigh Hotel, in Lenox, Massachusetts.

A big fan of Sat Bains, Richard Davies and Daniel Clifford, his ultimate goal is to have his own little place where he can cook food that people will come from all over to eat, preferably by the sea.

You can follow Wayne at twitter.com/ChefWayner 

 

Wayne Sullivan

2012 review

Well, what a year it has been! Highlights this year include awards, Olympics, our best year of sales ever, lots of shows, appearances on Radio, a successful trip to Scandinavia to launch our vinegars there and lots of plans in the pipeline for 2013....

We entered our Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender Vinegar into the Taste Awards this year and the judges awarded it Gold**, describing it as "drop dead gorgeous!" Also, we decided to enter our Raspberry Vinegar since this was the first one my father, Martin, ever made and a good Yorkshire tradition with your roast beef and Yorkshire puddings.

Much of the year was taken up for us with providing LOCOG with our vinegars. We feel that we did our small part for providing a lasting legacy, showcasing some of the best of what food this country has to offer and we are proud to have been invited to supply our vinegars.

It is always fun to contribute to radio food programmes and so I was delighted to be invited to appear on Vanessa Kimbell's show on BBC Radio Northampton as well as Bill Buckley's Radio Oxford slot. Both are delightful and entertaining hosts and we were also joined by "Great British Bake Off's" Urvashi Roe and food journalist Hazel Paterson. You can listen again to these on the radio widget on the right, numbers 4 and 5.

Our Wendy went to Copenhagen recently and we have already received our first order to supply to Denmark. This is particularly exciting for us, since our brand designs are deliciously Scandinavian and they sure know their fruit vinegars in that part of Europe. More news on this soon....

And the year has been rounded off very nicely by Theo Paphitis awarding us an SBS award on 23rd December: the day which would have been Martin's 74th Birthday.

Thank you to all of you who have kept up the fruity enthusiasm this year, we hope you will find plenty more to keep your imagination flowing next year.

We wish you a very happy and peaceful New Year.

Goldrush

GREAT TASTE AWARDS

We are so delighted to report that our Raspberry Vinegar has been awarded Gold*** and Top50 in this year's Great Taste Awards and our Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender Vinegar has won Gold**

 This is a particularly special recognition since Raspberry is the first one we did, following a traditional recipe, as we still do to this day. And our Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender is perhaps the most inventive recipe with its' fascinating fragrant and sour blend. The Lime one is the favourites in our home as a marinade for chicken breasts prior to pan-frying. And Raspberry is just sublime blended with Rapeseed Oil to make the perfect salad dressing.

In honour of these awards, here is a fantastic new recipe for you:

 

Rhubarb and Raspberry Vinegar Pasties

with Smoked Wensleydale Cheese

by Josh Angell

Ingredients:

PASTIES

200g Rhubarb, finely diced (Yorkshire Forced, if available)

1 Red Onion, finely diced

10ml Yorkshire Rapeseed Oil
100ml Womersley Raspberry Vinegar
75g Dark Brown Sugar

250g Puff Pastry

100g Oak Smoked Wensleydale Cheese

3 Egg Yolks
Pinch Salt and Pepper

DRESSING
50ml Womersley Blackberry Vinegar
25g Wholegrain Mustard
50ml Rapeseed Oil

Rocket or fresh salad leaf
Pinch Salt and Pepper

 

METHOD

 

1. Heat the finely diced red onion and rhubarb in a heavy based pan with the 10ml of rapeseed oil

2. Sweat off the onion and rhubarb, adding the Womersley Raspberry Vinegar at this point; also add seasoning and the dark brown sugar

3. Continue to cook on a low heat for 1 hour, stirring occasionally

4. When the contents have turned to a chutney-like state, set aside and allow to cool gently

5. Pre-heat oven to 180˚C, place a sheet of greaseproof paper on a flat baking sheet and set aside

6. Flour a clean, dry surface and roll out the puff pastry; using a 10cm cutter, cut discs of the puff pastry

7. Cut the cheese into 5cm squares and place on half of the puff pastry discs; place a spoonful of the chutney onto the cheese and then an additional disc of puff pastry on top

8. Seal the discs together using a fork and place the finished pasties on the baking sheet

9. Use the egg yolks to wash the pasties before placing them into the pre-heated oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

10. Whilst your pasties are in the oven, make the dressing; take a glass bowl and mix the Blackberry vinegar and mustard, along with the seasoning. Slowly add the oil, stirring continually to avoid the dressing splitting

11. Remove your pasties from the oven

12. Take your rocket or other fresh leaf, and dress lightly with the dressing.

13. Assemble on the plate and place your pasties on top; if preferred place an additional spoon of the chutney on top

14. Enjoy with a crisp glass of chilled chardonnay for that extra treat

Pork Chop in every glass

Memories of the co-creator of Womersley, my father, Martin Parsons:

My brother, Richard, and I were both born in Melbourne, where we lived for the first few years of our lives. We had a lovely home and garden on Willesden Road in the suburb of Hughesdale. One of my vivid memories was the lemon tree our father planted in the middle of the lawn. While we lived there, Granny came to stay and was delighted to be able to pick a lemon from the tree for her gin and tonic. So, from then on, Richard and I referred to it as the Gin and Tonic tree...

Everyone who knew Martin will relate how he did rather like a drink or two and was always very hospitable. In his twenties, he set up the Pink Elephant Tie Club which only ever had very few members: the conditions of entry inevitably involved the consumption of a "couple" of drinks which, in Australia meant any number more than two and preferably considerably more. After work, he would call in at the now iconic Young and Jackson's bar opposite Flinders Street Station (not far to stagger for the train home) for a couple. Asked once if it was about time he went home for supper, he remarked that there was a (metaphorical) pork chop in every glass! And so it was, on the second anniversary of his death this week, that I decided to remember Fa (as Richard and I called him) with a couple of real pork chops bought from our local butcher within the nearby Garden Centre, Wyatts, tenderised in my favourite of Fa's creations, Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender. Oh, and it was all washed down with a bottle of Melbourne's beer, VB: hardly the best beer in the world, but from my home town, so it tastes special.

Victoria Bitter

This year, we are privileged to have been selected as Food Heroes by fine wine merchants, House Of Townend, who have put a lovely photograph of Fa on their cover. This was actually a picture taken by Joan Russell for the feature in Yorkshire Life in 2010 and shows him with a huge basket of geranium leaves in his garden in Yorkshire. This is a particularly lovely story since one of Martin's greatest friends, with whom he went to Eton and did his National Service, is David Butler-Adams, Past Master of the Vintners Company (2000-1) and Consultant to House of Townend.

Martin Parsons. Photo by Joan Russell

David gave the address at Martin's very colourful funeral in 2010 and has kindly allowed us to share the notes of his words which are a fitting tribute to such a colourful character:

"Born at Nymans, the Messel home, on 23rd December 1938 in the snow! Often having a bad cough as a child, a hyssop bush was planted beneath his window, maybe the start of his love of herbs!
Aged 8, he was sent to Prep school at Summerfields in Oxford. From there, he progressed to Eton where four of us here today became good friends. We had stamp collecting and tennis in common as well as trying to do as little work as possible!
My first visit to Birr (the family home in Ireland), in the early 1950s, was unforgettable. Marts insisted on my taking some pills to stoop me getting ill from so much rish food! Footman behind every chair in the dining room, Connors (the butler) in charge and Hoysted driving the car. His Papa always charming and Mama quite strict as well as beautiful.
On leaving Eton, we found ourselves on the same train going to Caterham on my birthday, to join the Irish Guards at their National Service depot. Basic training was tough and I remember one evening Marts wanted to go to the loo. Permission had to be granted and Marts duly went the 100 yards down to the latrines. Half an hour later, no sign of him and I was sent to investigate... he had passed out from the fumes of the open anthracite fire lit to stop the pipes from freezing!
Martin received an injury which prevented him from completing his National Service. He went on to work at De Steins Merchant Bank for a while before moving to Australia in 1961 to join Consolidated Zinc in Melbourne. He followed this up with a nine year stint at Qantas, where he made all the travel arrangements for international medical conference delegates and during which Aline followed him out to Australia.
1964 saw a get together of friends and family in Ireland: how we managed to drink at Molly's Bar, return to the house where we had some of the famous Birr Cocktails then still had to make sense to Lady Rosse at dinner, I shall never know....
Martin and Aline were married at St Michael's, Chester Square in London, followed by a very pissy party!
They returned to Melbourne where Rupert was born in 1966 and Richard in 1968. Then, in 1972, Martin's aunt Bridget died, leaving her London home in Lennox Gardens to Martin. So the family moved back to London and, a year later, to Yorkshire. I remember well the barbecues in the snow.
In 1976, Martin, Aline and the boys moved to Womersley, the family home for many generations and still the home of Martin's grandmother, Lois de Vesci, who lived to the ripe old age of 101. The house was already in a poor state, with leaky roofs, but the kitchen garden allowed plenty of scope for Martin's botanical enthusiasm to finally be set free. Martin and Aline set up their Craft Shop and Herb Centre in 1979 and soon started making herb jellies and, eventually, fruit vinegars to a traditional Yorkshire recipe.
After years of trying to maintain the house, though, in 2004 it had to be sold and Martin and Aline moved to a far more manageable (and warmer) home nearby.
2009 saw Rupert take time out from his horology profession to take on running Womersley which was, by then, an exclusively food business.
Apart from Marts' great love and expertise in the field of herbs and plants, especially medicinal, the vinegars are still unbeatable.

You could not find a more generous, fun loving person who never complained. But, of course, like all of us, his secret of success was to find his adorable Aline who, against all odds, kept him on the straight and narrow and moved him out of "the fast line..."

Thank God for his 71 years, he will be sorely missed."

Martin in his Greenhouse, with one of his favourite Apache Chillies. Photo by Joan Russell

Teatime for the Chipping Norton set

At the start of May, we spent a warm sunny day at the Kingham Plough Market fair and I was delighted to see, for the first time, an intriguing new business called The Chipping Norton Tea Set. I was even happier when I saw that this is the idea of a friend, Victoria Wills, who I'd not seen for ages but who has a clear idea of what she would like to achieve.
Vicky had the idea of bringing back the vintage tea party, but using her artistic flair and feminine touches, she applies this to making every party from a children's noisy, sticky tea party injected with fun to a corporate affair being much more relaxed and enjoyable.
We got chatting, and it immediately became clear that we have the opportunity to come up with some "fruity" ways of making Vicky's tea parties stand out from the crowd. Already, she has managed to find some beautiful china and great recipe ideas; with the occasional inclusion of some of our fruity Womersley vinegars and chutneys, Vicky has cleverly found a way of raising her tea party idea to a new level, even using our Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender as a mystery cupcake ingredient to win this prize of a box of twelve Lemon and Chocolate cakes:

Vicky has written a few words for us here:

"The idea for The Chipping Norton Tea-Set came from my daughter, she wanted a tea party for her 18th birthday, so I organised the whole event and thoroughly enjoyed it. Many friends and family suggested that I should do it as a business so I took the bull by the horns.... 
We have gone from strength to strength with both social and corporate tea parties under our belts, as well as children's cake decorating parties, providing cupcakes and cakepops for birthdays, weddings, hen do's etc. We use only the best, freshest ingredients in our menus and we have a firm favourite in the chutneys from Womersley Foods. We like to experiment with our cupcake flavours and are currently trying out Lavender cupcakes with a drizzle topping made with Womersley Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender dressing.  We were asked to provide cupcakes for The Chipping Norton Literary Festival and are mid-organisation of The Diamond Jubilee Tea Dance Party. And I am really excited to have been included in the BBC3 "Be Your Own Boss" programme!"
 

It looks like Vicky has well and truly grabbed the horns of that bull... 

We look forward to coming up with more recipes with Vicky so do look out for some particularly fruity cupcakes, all you Chipping Norton tea set. For now, these are some of Vicky's beautifully presented scones and cakes:

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...

Canapes and Cake

A little while ago, I paid a visit to BBC Radio Oxford to talk to the charming Bill Buckley about vinegars on his Sunday lunchtime show. It was a funny feeling: a mere, ahem, 30 or so years earlier, I went to Summer Fields prep school on the opposite side of Banbury Road. Little could I have predicted that I'd be in a radio studio across the road years later...
For this visit, I thought it would be good to show Bill a couple of ways you can use fruit vinegars and so produced a savoury and a sweet canape and a Gluten Free drizzle cake with a twist. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Urvashi Roe for the inspiration for the canapes and Simon Blackwell for the cake: both British Bake Off Greats.

 

Smoked salmon with fresh herb salad,

Womersley Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender vinegar dressing

Use a quality smoked salmon for this dish.

Mixed garden herbs (chives, parsely, thyme) dressed with a little virgin oil

Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender vinegar to taste

Slice the smoked salmon thinly, sprinkle over the herbs and drizzle over the vinegar

Leave to stand at room temperature for about half an hour before serving

Blinis/Pastry cases with Mascarpone and Blackberries macerated in Womersley Blackberry Vinegar

Ingredients:

6 Blinis or Pastry cases

A 250g tub of Mascarpone

Womersley Blackberry Vinegar

Blackberries

Method:

Place 6 blackberries in a smal bowl with a couple of teaspoons of Blackberry Vinegar and leave to macerate for a quarter of an hour

Blend a teaspoon of the Blackberry Vinegar into 100g Mascarpone

Level fill your pastry cases with the blended mixture and top with a juicy Blackberry

Serve

Urvashi Roe did these when we were exhibiting at BBC Good Food last November at the NEC. She made them look really pretty with the addition of edible flowers; sadly my photo does not do them justice, though:

   

Gluten free Lemon Drizzle Cake

 with Womersley Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender Vinegar Drizzle

Ingredients for the cake:

125g unsalted butter

75g caster sugar

2 large eggs

Zest of one lemon

175g gluten free self raising flour (we used Doves Farm)

Pinch of salt

4 tablespoons milk

Ingredients for the Drizzle:

Juice of 1½ lemons

100g icing sugar

2 tbsp Womersley Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender 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 Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender 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.

Key Lime Pie

My father enjoyed most vices in his youth and these caught up with him eventually, as he had a heart attack when still quite young. This did, though, have the effect of making him reconsider his smoking habit (which went from around 40 a day to zero!) and he barely touched another Gin after that scare.However, this event also resulted in him acquiring something of a sweet tooth.
As a family, we never really did puddings but, with my father's new tastebuds starting to quiver, he became interested in an area of our local farm shop which had previously gone almost unnoticed: the sweet section. Sadly, it is no longer there, but the next village to us, Darrington, sported an excellent butcher's which expanded to a popular farm shop employing a few locals. One of these locals was  a specialist in making Key Lime Pies and so we thought we would give one a go...fatal! From then on, the weekly shop always included at least one of these delights, always modestly decorated with a little twist of lime zest.
And so it was, many years later, that my wife and I found ourselves in an American diner in Boston with Key Lime Pie on the menu. I couldn't resist the idea. However, when it arrived, I sure could resist the amount: it was a VAST portion. The flavour did not quite evoke those childhood memories (how often do we find that happening) and so I assigned the Key Lime Pie to my memories.
And then, a couple of weeks ago, we offered to make the pudding for a friend's 40th birthday party and, in going through recipes, we found one for Key Lime Pie without eggs. We had a little play with it and wanted to introduce an element of sourness to counteract the rich sweetness which can overpower. So we tried using some of our Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender Vinegar to the recipe and reduced the amount of lime juice. It was pretty good....not the same as those childhood ones, but a whole new fantastic experience.

Key Lime Pie

Serves 8
Takes just over 1 hour to make

Ingredients

Base:
250g Basics Digestive biscuits
100g butter, melted

Filling:
405g Can Condensed Milk
Finely grated zest and Juice of 4 limes
1 tbsp Womersley Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender Dressing
300ml Double Cream

To decorate:
30g Bitter chocolate, grated
Grated zest of 1 lime


Method

1. To make the base, crush and crumb the biscuits until they are like fine crumbs. Then combine this with the melted butter in a bowl. Press the mixture into the base and 4cms up the side of a 20cm (8") loose-based, greased cake tin.
2. Place Lime juice and Womersley dressing into a large bowl. Add the cream and condensed milk and whisk until thick and creamy, approx. 1-2 minutes. Add the lime zest and lightly stir in. Spoon over the biscuit base and chill for at least an hour.
3. Remove the pie from the tin and place on a serving plate. Decorate the top with the chocolate and Lime Zest.

Tip
Do try varying the balance of Lime juice to our Lime Dressing

BBC GOOD FOOD SHOW, THE AFTERMATH

In case you were ever in any doubt, it is pretty exhausting doing five days of exhibition at the NEC, but it is also very rewarding...
I arrived very early on Wednesday morning to see what an amazing job our Wendy and Mark had done in designing and assembling our new stand specially for the show. Together with some well disguised kitchen cabinets, Wendy had also brought some aromatic fresh basil, rosemary and geranium to make it all look a lot fresher. This is how it looked half an hour before the first day began:

We exhibited in the Food Lovers area which was a really great part of the hall to be in, since we were with all the artisans and other food producers, rather than competing with appliance and hardware. Also, we had a great position so we saw a lot of people over the five days, all keen to add a touch of fruitiness to their vinegar!

One of the joys of being a producer of a food ingredient with which many are unfamiliar, is that it gives us the opportunity to have a lot of conversations about food, meals, matching flavours, suggested uses and just to discuss how very versatile our fruit vinegars and dressings are. And, at the NEC, we could really give vent to this to thousands of visitors. Also, we took all four of our herb jellies: Rosemary, Geranium, Apache Chilli and Lavender. These proved to be more popular than ever, and led to one customer commenting that "this is the best thing I have ever tasted from a jar!"

We also reintroduced our pouches of olives at the show. My parents used to add two of our flavours to olives and put them in jars: Green olives with our Strawberry & Mint and Black Olives with our Blackcurrant & Rosemary. Needless to say the samples were wolfed down, but the pouches also proved very popular, so we hope to start making these in earnest for you very soon.

"Womersley" is a difficult word to pronounce until you are familiar with it, so it was a joy to meet several people who know the village where I grew up in Yorkshire (and where our story began) as well as a few called Womersley. (If you want to know how to pronounce it, say the "o" as you say the "o" in "woman").

FREE PRIZE DRAW RESULT

We were delighted to get lots of entries in our free prize draw and can report that Mrs Stewart of Newport Pagnell was the lucky winner of 4 Wensleydale Cremaery Cheeses, one of our beautiful slate display stands and some olives, jelly and vinegars. 

 ------------------------------ 

SATURDAY

As a bonus on Saturday, we were joined by Urvashi Roe and Simon Blackwell from BBC Great British Bake Off who both did recipe demonstrations using our fruity vinegars. I will post Urvashi's later, but here is Simon's delicious recipe which he used to make two cakes: after barely a few minutes, they were all gone!

Simon cuts the cake...

Vegan Lemon Drizzle Cake

     By Simon Blackwell 

Ingredients:  
  
  Cake:
            200g  Self Raising Flour
            125g  Caster Sugar
           ¼ tsp  Salt
           ½ tsp  Bicarbonate of Soda
           200ml  Soya Milk
           100ml  Corn Oil
           2 tbsp  Golden Syrup
           ½ tsp  Womersley Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender Vinegar Dressing
                     Rind of 1 Lemon

 Drizzle:
                     Juice of 1 Lemon
           2 tbsp Womersley Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender Vinegar Dressing
               25g Caster Sugar
 Approx 1 tbsp Icing Sugar to thicken

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C/350°F.

2. Line the base of a 7 inch cake tin with baking paper.

3. Sift flour,salt and sugar into a bowl and make a well in the middle.

4. Dissolve bicarb into the milk and then pour into the well.

5. Add corn oil, syrup, Womersley Foods Lime, Black Pepper and Lavender Dressing and lemon rind.

6. Beat until the mixture is a smooth lump free batter.

7. Pour batter into the lined tin and bake in the lower middle part of your oven for 25 minutes until golden brown, and until a metal skewer comes out of the middle of the cake clean.

8. Whilst the cake is cooking, heat the lemon juice, Womersley Foods Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender Dressing and sugar until the sugar has dissolved to make a lemon syrup.

9. When you have removed the cake from the oven and it is still warm, prick all over with a cocktail stick and drizzle some of the syrup over the cake so that it soaks into the sponge.

    
Save half back if you like to drizzle over the cake just before serving.

I got a slice!

Many thanks to Simon for this recipe and for entertaining us all on Saturday afternoon. Also, thank you to Callie Blackwell for the slice photo.

"Duck and Lime" by Ben Spalding

GRESSINGHAM DUCK BREAST, ATOMIC RED, GLAZED GIZZARDS

With Womersley Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender Vinegar Dressing

By Ben Spalding of Roganic

Ingredients

2 Gressingham Duck Breasts (plucked)

250g atomic red carrots or (young carrots with green tops attached)

10 large donkey carrots

200g salted butter

50g mizuna or rocket leaves

200g concentrated brown chicken stock to sauce consistency or 4 chicken stock cubes mixed with boiling water

100ml Womersley Lime, black pepper and Lavender vinegar dressing

10 Redcurrants

Rapeseed oil to finish

Maldon sea salt to finish

Fine table salt to cook with

Ground black pepper to cook with

Method

Carrot Puree

·         Peel and juice half the carrots, then reserve,  meanwhile slice the other half thinly and boil until tender in salted water

·         Strain the tender carrots off through a colander and then return to the pot and cover with the reserved carrot juice, boil until reduced to almost dry and then blend for 3 minutes in a blender until silky smooth, check the seasoning and add 50g salted butter while blending, then transfer the puree to a small pan with cling film over until required later on.

Duck

·         Pre heat the oven to 180°c

·         Heat a large non stick pan , lay the 2 duck breasts out and rub with rapeseed oil and season both sides heavily with fine salt and black pepper, place the duck breasts in the pan skin side down and heat on a low heat to render the fat for up to 20 minutes, pouring the fat away every few minutes.

Bring it all together

·         Meanwhile, heat a wide pot with a glug of rapeseed oil. When hot add the carrots with skins on and everything, season well with fine salt and black pepper and place a lid on the pot, shaking the pan every few minutes to pot roast the carrots. After 10 minutes, add 100g salted butter and continue to cook with the lid on until just cooked, then pull off the heat and keep warm.

·         Now the duck breast is rendered, transfer it to a tray and into the oven for 5 minutes, remove and rest

·         Warm the brown chicken stock and add 100ml Womersley Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender Vinegar Dressing and the redcurrants and keep warm.

·         Assemble on 2 large plates, add a good spoonful of the carrot puree, lay the carrots out all over and then slice the two duck breasts each into 6 slices, drain on a cloth and finish with Maldon sea salt. Pour the sauce all over the meat and finish with rocket leaves scattered naturally over the top.

·         Serve.

  

Notes: Many thanks to Ben Spalding for taking time out from his very busy kitchen to write down this recipe for us. If you would like to see some of the other great dishes at Roganic, do check out these photos and you can make a reservation at Roganic:

19, Blandford St,London,W1U 3DH     Tel:0207 4860380    Email:info@roganic.co.uk