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:

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.

STOP PRESS: SHOWS UPDATE

Malton Food Lovers Festival 
Saturday-Sunday19th-20th May 

For the first time ever, we are really thrilled to be exhibiting at the prestigious Malton festival, just north of York. Amongst the many chefs being presented by Elaine Lemm in the cookery theatres this year are Antonio Carluccio, Tom Parker Bowles, Matthew Fort, James Mackenzie, chef-owner of the Michelin-starred Pipe and Glass Inn, Rob Green, award-winning National Seafood Chef of the Year at Green’s of Whitby; Robert Ramsden of Deli Fresh, Stephanie Moon, chef consultant at Rudding Park and recently seen on BBC's Great British Menu.
Also, a bonus for us as we have this year's Masterchef finalist, Tom Rennolds, doing a demonstration on our stand on Sunday- one not to miss!

You can get tickets online or on the day.



Wild Thyme Restaurant Food Festival, Chipping Norton
Sunday 27th May 11am-5pm

After enjoying a very busy day in Chipping Norton Town Hall last year, I am delighted that we have been invited back to my home town food festival at the end of the month. With Prue Leith as patron and, I am sure, a good turnout of "The Chipping Norton Set," this promises to be a vibrant day.
We are also fortunate enough to have Masterchef 2011's James Perry doing a cookery demonstration with our Cherry Vinegar as a macerator!

Tickets for this are only £3.00 on the door and FREE for under 14s.


BBC Good Food Show Summer, N.E.C. Birmingham
Wednesday-Sunday 13th-17th June 9am-6pm

It has been a few years since we last did the Summer show but since our fruity vinegars and dressings are the perfect match for your Summer salads and marinades for the BBQ, it seemed time we should return.
Being Diamond Jubilee year, we will surely be celebrating all that is Great about Britain at the show, too, including the food we produce in this country, which just keeps getting better and better. Check back here for updates soon on our plans for the show and of course we will have a good supply of our new and vibrant chutneys for you.
Tickets are available online.

CHUTNEYS!

After a break of a couple of years, we are now doing chutneys again and these are the beauties we have for you:

Caramelised Red Onion Marmalade

Superb ingredient for many dishes including soups, stews, wonderful 
as a cheese or meat accompaniment. 
 Makes a humble sandwich taste just amazing!

 

Beetroot, Orange & Stem Ginger Chutney

A wonderful relish full of flavour and perfect with a cheese board, 
posh Ploughman’s or speciality breads.  
The savoury, sweet & caramel flavours all work well together in this sticky, scrummy chutney.

 

Tomato and Chilli Chutney

The perfect combination to liven up your sandwich or cheese board, 
delicious with cold meats too.

 

Red Pepper & Chilli Jam

Great ingredient to give a little kick!
 Sweet red peppers balanced with chillies for a lovely jewel coloured relish. 
Amazing as a dip or just about anything!

If you'd like to order some, do call or email Wendy or Sue 

who will be happy to send you some:

01132 865 855

sales@womersleyfoods.co.uk

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...

Kingham Plough Annual Market May 6th

A few months ago, I met Miles and Emily at The Kingham Plough for the first time, as I enjoyed a truly delicious supper with the ever-entertaining Mark Glynne-Jones of "Jump to" design agency. We got talking and I soon found out that they hold an annual market for artisan food producers in Spring. So, several months later, I received this note to invite us to join them this year...

"The Kingham Plough’s annual market, featuring some of the finest Cotswolds producers and artisans, promises to attract even more stallholders and visitors this year."

To be held on Sunday 6th May from 10.30am-2pm, in the garden of the Kingham Plough and with a West Country launch by Tom Parker-Bowles and Matthew Fort's new "Mr Trotter's Great British Pork Crackling", this year's event will be more prestigious than ever. Oh, and for the first time, we will be there with our fruit vinegars and NEW CHUTNEYS.

Now in its 5^th year, the market remains a festival of top quality food and drink.  Many of The Kingham Plough’s local suppliers of meats, cheeses, breads, ales, ciders and liqueurs will be hosting stalls.  In addition, for the first time, there will be local artisans selling their products including Serendipity Baking, Wil’s Smokehouse, Boulangerie Valentin, Wanborough Herb Nursery and hand-designed crockery from Bell Pottery.

"We are thrilled that this year's market will be bigger and better than before", said Emily Lampson, Executive Chef and Proprietor of The Kingham Plough. "We look forward to welcoming Tom Parker-Bowles and Matthew Fort as well as all our previous and new stall holders. There really will be something for everybody". 

Some of the producers will be bringing animals to entertain children while parents can relax in a beautiful beer garden being created by the instant gardener, Gilly, who will be displaying his range of furniture and plants for outdoor entertaining. 

There will also be the opportunity to sample some of The Kingham Plough’s delicious food including their famous burgers straight from the barbecue and a range of homemade ice creams.  There will also be local beers, lagers and ciders on offer. 

Once again, there will be a raffle at the event to raise money for the local primary school and nursery with generous and tempting prizes to be won.

For more information about The Kingham Plough, please visit www.thekinghamplough.co.uk

The Green, Kingham, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire OX7 6YD

01608 658327

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.

Jamie Oliver on Vinegar

Many thanks to Sabrina Ghayour for drawing my attention to this nicely written article by Jamie Oliver in the Daily Mail online (published in Femail on 9th March).
And, if you don't want to make your own Raspberry Vinegar, you know where to buy the best!

And here are a few lovely Raspberry Vinegar ideas and a recipe for you:

• Blend with a fine Rapeseed Oil for a smooth and fruity salad dressing
• Splash into a glass of fizz or mineral water
• Drizzle over your Roast Beef and Yorkshire Puddings
• Swirl into a hot toddy

SUGGESTED RECIPE

CHICKEN BREASTS WITH RASPBERRY SAUCE

(Serves 4)

1. Pan-fry 4 boneless chicken breasts in sunflower oil; remove chicken from pan and set aside.
2. Pour off excess fat from pan and add 150ml raspberry vinegar and bring to boil; reduce quickly until sauce is half original volume.
3. Add 250ml of whipping cream and bring to the boil; simmer until slightly thickened.
4. Season with salt and pepper; add some freshly chopped herbs e.g. parsley, thyme, chervil, basil, coriander, tarragon.
5. Pour sauce over chicken; sprinkle with extra fresh herb. Serve immediately.

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

Guest post from Simon Jury

After some months of Tweeting to each other, I was delighted to receive this guest piece from Chef Simon Jury recently and hope you will enjoy reading it, too:

"Duck and cherry, two of my favourite flavours. I love that gamey meat flavour of the cherry and fresh fruity freshness of the duck...... no, hold on, I think I may have got something mixed up there. I'm also a fan of flavoured vinegars but have found that many cherry vinegars are often lacking or are a bit sharp and, much of the time, too vinegary. Yes I know that sounds a bit odd saying they are a bit vinegary, there are just a lot of flavoured vinegars that really don't offer more than, well, vinegar.

"A few weeks ago, I happened to be talking on the subject of vinegars and dressings and Rupert from Womersley Foods joined in asking if I have tried their vinegars. To my shame I had to admit I hadn't. Shame because I've spoken to Rupert on Twitter for a while now and hadn't really looked at the products that Womersley do. So when Rupert offered a bottle to try, I jumped at the chance. Well I jumped after deliberating over which flavour to choose. I was allowed any bottle I wanted so I had to choose wisely. I saw the cherry flavour straight away and looking back, I'm not sure why it took me so long to decide.

"The package arrived and like an excited child on Christmas morning I tore it open and didn't wait to taste it, I tipped a bit out, dipped my finger in and couldn't taste a thing. This is no sleight to the vinegar, I had a stinking cold and hadn't been able to taste anything for days. A course of antibiotics later and the taste buds were back. I had another tasting session with a ciabatta loaf and dipping bowls with unrefined olive oil and the vinegar. The vinegar is great: fresh, full of cherry flavour and not the usual harshness of vinegar. You could get away with the vinegar on its own as a dressing as it is that smooth. Also it is the first cherry vinegar I've tasted for a while that actually tastes of cherry.

"Finally I got to match the vinegar to duck which I had been waiting for during my cold filled weeks. (Please note I did not have man flu, I really was ill!) I kept the duck salad very simple as the star here was to be the vinegar. I pan-fried two duck breasts, skin side down until the fat was rendered and the skin was crispy. I then turned the duck breasts over and took off the heat to continue cooking through while I made the salad.

"I made a quick red onion salad by peeling, halving & slicing one large red onion, added some chopped cucumber , quartered cherry tomatoes and a few sliced spring onions. I made a dressing using half and half of the vinegar and unrefined olive oil and a pinch of salt. That's all you need for the dressing as there is so much flavour and sweetness in the cherry vinegar. I put half of the dressing in with the red onion salad and mixed this to coat.

"To serve, I made a bed of peppery salad, rocket, watercress & baby spinach and piled the onions salad on top. The duck, now nicely rested, was sliced and placed on top. The remaining dressing was then drizzled over to flavour the duck breast and drip through the salad. Cherry and duck is always a winner and maybe a little bit predictable, but when it tastes this good, who cares?

"Many thanks for the vinegar, it really is great and found out a friend of mine is a big fan too..."

You can follow Simon on Twitter @Simonlovesfood 

Simon also has a lovely blog title: saidsimontothepieman.com