Monthly Archives: July 2014

Harvesting garlic

Posted on by
Reply

Last year in October I planted out some bulbs of garlic in the veg patch.

Mending things and planting garlic

Yesterday, some nine months later, I was able to pull the fat bulbs from the ground.

They are a mixture of ordinary garlic that have come up tight and hard, and elephant garlic which are about the size of a small fist.

Most of it is tied up in bunches and hanging up in the greenhouse to dry but I have brought two bulbs into the kitchen to cook with and the house is now filled with the smell of it.

Last night I cooked Galen a Minute Steak from The Farmer’s market. It looked good enough to stay in for.

Well rotted cheese

Posted on by
1

 

DSCN0746

My mother occasionally worries about the stuff that I am able to find at the back of my fridge. it is lucky she is away on the moment as she would have gone into a complete spin over the well rotted cheese I found there today. It was a Durrus cheese bought in Ireland when we were there at Easter. It had come out for a party in the middle of May and had not been eaten. I thought it would keep in the basement for a few days but it had started to develop some flecks of blue mould so it went into the fridge.

I found it this morning and we had it for lunch.

I sliced off the blue rind of mould and once it had gone was left with a lump of creamy pale yellow cheese. This was sliced up as the grill went on to heat up.

Bread from Thursday’s delivery from the Bread Circle was sliced and toasted on one side. As they were done they turned over and the cheese laid out on top. Some of the bread had pieces of ham as well.

We ate it outside with Branston pickle and a glass of pale summer ale/

Pomegranates

Posted on by
Reply

You can’t help feeling when eating up pomegranate seeds that these must be good for you. The two books cooks I am using this summer seem to have pomegranate either on or in every other recipe.

If the seeds have not been mixed up with beetroot or tomatoes or cucumber they will have scattered over some spiced lamb or chicken with tahini yogurt or a plate of sliced beef. And the juice is in every salad mixed up with oil and herbs and some pomegranate molasses for extra intensity.

I have got so now I cannot leave the greengrocers without having at least one in my bag just in case I might need it. I took two of them home with me this morning.

Half of the seeds have gone on top of some cooked beetroot that has been mixed up with feta and dill and the rest of the seeds are going into the salad. We are eating the beetroot and salad with piri-piri chicken cooked on the barberque and a spinach and fennel pie from the Morito cookbook and fried potatoes.

When we were in Spain at Christmas some of the trees still had old and withered pomegranate fruit hanging from their branches. There is something obscene about them. Especially when you open them out and prise out the seeds, each one caught in a thin membrane holding together the sweet tannic juice.

We spent a large part of the day in Liverpool, admiring the graffiti and looking at art out of car boots. We had lunch in the Kazimer Garden drinking Liverpool organic Summer Wheat Beer in the sun before going to look at more graffiti in the Baltic triangle and picking up two bottles of very good beer (just drunk – should have saved them) from The mad hatter Brewing Company.

 

All of a sudden Liverpool is looking pretty good in the sun.

Skinning mackerel

Posted on by
Reply

This time last year I only two weeks to wait from the beginning of July until we were off to Ahakista. Sitting here now we are not going until the middle of August so I still have a full six weeks to wait.

By way of whetting the appetite I have been sent a few ripped pages from The Financial Times  Weekend Magazine which someone thought would have a a couple of recipes I might think worthwhile. It does!

My eye was caught by a recipe for  Mackerel Tartare. It comes from the Polpo Cookbook, which I have and have enjoyed cooking from, but for whatever I reason I had not noticed this before.

So long as I make sure I bring the right ingredients with me it should be a doddle to make and I am never going to have fresher mackerel to make it with. The list of things to make sure I have will only need include a small jar of capers and a similar sized jar of gherkins.

I will need to catch two good sized mackerel, fillet them and skin them. Filleting them won’t be a problem but I have never skinned a mackerel fillet before. The knives should be sharp enough to be up for the job but I may need to make sure I catch a few extra fish in case I make mess of it at first.

The making of it involves dicing the mackerel, marinading half a skinned and seeded cucumber in sugar and salt for an hour, chopping a handful of gherkins and capers and then mixing all together with salt, pepper, olive oil and lemon juice. There will need to be lots of tasting for seasoning.

We will eat it with good bread from Bantry Market with a beetroot and horseradish pickle.

Lips are being licked.DSCN0285