Slender pickings

Only pick what you know. That is a fair mantra of foraging, particularly fungi foraging. Avoid the ones with white gills is another. By riding roughshod over these two snippets of wisdom I have just collected my first new species of mushroom in quite some time, and a delicious one at that.

I spotted it before I had even arrived at my intended destination, spotted through the window of my car. Large white caps with pointy centres (I’ll come back to that). At first I thought they were field or horse mushrooms and hoped to see an appetising set of dark gills under the caps. I got out of the car and approached, crouched down, gently lifted the edge of a cap and peered underneath. White gills: I got up, returned to the car disappointed and turned on the ignition. Then I stopped for a second with a thought and turned off the car (please, if you can, try to ignore the terrible anti-environmental nature of all this). The pointy caps reminded me of something, something both fungal and everyday – umbrellas, or, for an alternative use, parasols.

Those with some experience of mushroom collecting may well realise what I was onto, others please bear with me.

I opened my identification guide, and, as if fate decreed, it fell open on the Lepiota pages – the parasols. The first page showed common and shaggy parasols which I have collected before. But the second page I had until now ignored. There was the slender parasol, tall  thin stem, light cap and white gills, with a remnant frill on the stem.

I cut away a bag full and placed them carefully in the back of my car. The rest of my trip on foot was less productive – a couple of bolete varieties and some chestnuts – but I had a meal in the bag.

It was a new and interesting mushroom and I created a new and interesting dish, as it was, a fat free vegan meal, although that was in no way the intention. They were slowly braised in a rich vegetable stock with the first leeks of the season, some sage and waxy potatoes. They had a distinctive, savoury flavour, similar to other parasols and also blewits. So, from slender pickings, a virtuous feast!

Fabulous fungal fail

Foraging for fungi is a bit like comedy I imagine – it’s all in the timing.

I awoke early on Friday morning determined to make my biggest fungal haul in my new Suffolk home. The day previous I had collected a decent amount of sea buckthorn berries, for the first time from within 10 miles of my home, and I was pleased. But at this time of year the woods beckon and hints of the earthy aroma tantalise the nostrils. I wanted puffballs, ceps, saffron milk caps maybe, whatever I could uncover.

So I set off across the heath to the trees. The scenes that greeted me on a late September morning were truly spectacular, as I hope these photos show.

So, as I entered the forest I was eager and expectant. I inspected the tree trunks and canopy and my ordnance survey map to try and stay among mixed pine and deciduous woodland, avoiding the depressing lines of plantation conifer. I expected this habitat to provide the best substrate for fungal spores to develop and mycelia to spread.

I trod a roughly circular route around the wood. I found what I suspect were milk caps of some kind, but they were blue with mould. I spotted an in-its-prime stinkhorn (of the rather obviously coined genus Phallus) but avoided its foul, insect-luring aroma.

There were a few other small obscure toadstools, a lone, insignificant bolete and a couple of common (not giant) puffballs which were not worthwhile by themselves. Nothing else. Perhaps returning to the comedy comparison, when you fail in foraging you become extremely self-critical, but how can you rouse an environment that’s not ready to provide? It’s the timing and a week later it could be so different (or a week earlier?) You see spots so similar to scenes that have been prolific with different species before but there’s nothing there. What have I done? Why are there no mushrooms? But it can’t really be your fault. You have to try, to look for them. Eventually the right amount of rain will seep through the ground, and the temperature will be correct and they will start to emerge. Or I may have already missed them? The few mouldy specimens – all that’s left to say that there was something there but I’ve been too slow.

So, I continued through the wood. I saw more beautiful sites. By a sun-dappled stream I disturbed a two-foot grass snake that slowly curved away ahead of me and climbed past a fallen tree trunk, revealing its distinguishing yellow collar. I spotted a couple of young frogs, climbing about amongst the damp sedge.

As I reached the completion of my circle and neared the start point of my walk, I spotted something more encouraging. Wood sorrel (unusually and slightly confusingly amongst similar-leaved clover) and wild oregano. Wonderful wild herbs that when the fungi do appear in this spot will make a tasty accompaniment. Not so much a foraging failure, more the beginning of some new discoveries I’m sure.

Sunshine and sea veg

The grass is dry, the wheat is harvested, the days are hot but the breeze is cooler. My first Suffolk summer has been incredible and now I can sense autumn’s figure standing at the door, bringing with it that sense of change, with a hint of melancholy. This is how I feel after my last event at The Table.

I’ve been getting to know Woodbridge and its surroundings through its food – collecting it, cooking it and serving it. And so far its been a wonderful time. I’ve worked with Vernon and his colleagues at The Table for three more events and each was successful, exciting and rewarding in its own way. The latest was a ‘Lazy Breakfast’ street food night. Prepared and served in the restaurant’s expansive yet cosy courtyard, the evening had a truly joyous, convivial atmosphere, with the DJ’s soul records and the buzzing conversation. The food was a mixture of international breakfast classics – shakshuka, cornbread and bacon, blinis and smoked salmon, kedgeree, and cinnamon french toast – and the twist on the street food theme was fully embraced by the crowd of diners.

But the event that meant the most to me this year was my Suffolk Harvest & Summer Feast. It was something I have wanted to do for a long time – bring together some of the best seasonal ingredients from local suppliers and producers, with a substantive haul of tasty vegetables and fruit gathered from the surrounding woodlands, heaths, fields and shores. So I devised the menu:

Woodbridge Tide Mill wholemeal sourdough
Crab croquettes with apple, sorrel and coriander grass salad
Cider-cured mackerel, beetroot, pickled Peppy’s gooseberries and Newbourne white currants, rye sourdough
Beer-braised beef short rib, nasturtium pesto, burnt shallots
Salt-baked sea bass, fennel mayonaise, new potatoes, Deben shore vegetables
Plum jelly and hogweed ice cream
Blackberry clafoutis

And from there, a vegetarian alternative to each plate, with similar accompaniments:

Carrot and coriander grass fritters
Suffolk yoghurt cheese
Burnt courgette, wood sorrel, Tide Mill wholemeal and greater plantain shortbread
Charred hispi cabbage, wet walnuts

Samphire and sea purlsane growing together

I managed to collect coriander grass, sea aster, sea purslane and samphire from the muddy banks of the Deben – without losing my wellies, just – and wild fennel from higher up. With such a dry summer I was too early for fungi. A small and woodlouse ravaged beefsteak was all I could find. This remained unused. I gathered three kinds of sorrel from the woods and fields, along with greater plantain. From the hedgerows there was
hogweed and blackberries. The hogweed was infused into a custard to make an intriguing and moreish ice cream.

Suffolk heath byway

The gooseberries, pickled to go with the mackerel, were from my neighbour.

Nasturtium was overgrown into my garden (from my neighbour). All the bread flours were from locally grown grain and mills.

The haul

The Table were able to get amazing Deben-caught sea bass which were moist and sweet from the salt bake, and beautiful, chunky Ketley beef ribs. The croquettes were made with fresh local crab. I spent a lovely Friday morning outside The Table picking these. What was difficult was having to mash up each perfectly revealed meaty claw. Cold-pressed Suffolk rapeseed oil was used throughout. Pretty much everything that could be was from Suffolk, or at least East Anglia.

There was an enthusiastic and supportive mixture of guests – some friends and family, many just turning up on the night, perhaps holiday makers enjoying their own Suffolk summers. All with delighted reports of the meal.

It was a fabulous evening and it has been a stunning summer. I can now turn to new things and prepare for changes and exciting times ahead with confidence and hope.

I have also just found, at last, a nearby sea buckthorn shrub …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teatime strolling salad (and dessert)

I have just been for a teatime stroll along the banks of Woodbridge’s River Deben, downriver to Martlesham creek. It’s been a dull, blustery June day but I wanted to see some sky and breathe some clean air and to watch the antics of some of the shoreline wildfowl.

Having been spoilt by autumn curlew, winter avocets and early spring godwit, the birdlife of late has been a little disappointing. The turnstone and redshank have also gone. The oystercatchers have returned and I love hearing their distinctive call – to remind me that this environment is better than London. There were also a couple of terns and the shelduck couples are still padding about in the mud together (where do they nest?) but I think the tidal deluge of the Deben prevents the other waders from nesting here, or they are hiding within their nests, only emerging to forage (perhaps I should get out earlier).

My avian dissatisfaction was quickly repaired by herbaceous (perhaps herbivorous even) distraction. First I plucked a  grass-like stem I thought was arrow grass. I was wrong, no coriander scent, but I removed all the outer husk and bit into the white inner – so sweet, but also estuarine, like salty sugar cane. I shall have to identify it properly and hopefully collect more. Then I found some real arrow grass and the coriander quest was complete.

I nibbled on a small piece of sea purslane, salty and bracing, followed by some sea beet, that added sharpness. Then I spotted the first stumpy shoots of samphire. Not enough to collect yet but the mud could afford me one small bite. I had forgotten why this was the queen of the sea veg. All the brackish, saline and herbaceous qualities of the others, but with an added succulent burst. I’m sure there was the ozone hit of the sea, like when you get salt water up your nose – or first eat an oyster.

On the return leg I looked the other way into the hedgerows that border the riverside path. Some of the hawthorn was still in flower. I’d read somewhere about someone using hawthorn flowers in a salad. I took a bit but it was all so bitter and unpalatable and I spat it out. There was a hint of something better though, so next time I attempted to just eat the flower part. I carefully bit above the green calyx and just took the petals and stamens. That was much better, honey and floral. I found some jack-by-the-hedge (its other name, garlic mustard, describes its flavour). That reset my palate so the next hawthorn flower was even better. I switched between the two a few times – each one improving the flavour of the other. A peculiarly addictive experience.

After that amuse bouche was my pudding. A healthy sprig of elderflower. Although there had been no sun to warm it, and possibly because of the relatively bitter preceding flavours, it was immediately refreshing, fizzy and somehow comforting – like cream soda.

I finished off with a beer, well the very tip of a wild hop shoot. But it’s a bit late for those and the bitter hop flavour was already very present, unlike when they first emerge and are still nutty and taste of the hedgerow.

A flock of pretty long-tailed tits were filling the trees with tight chirrups and they buzzed past my head. No doubt collecting their insectivorous tea for themselves and their chicks.

First feast

Last night I ran my first food night in my new home of Woodbridge.

I happened to have moved in between a restaurant and a pub and managed to get chatting to the person who ran them both, Vernon, courtesy of an introduction by my next-door neighbours. I have been running a successful bread-for-eggs barter scheme with these neighbours for the last few months (they keep chickens).

Following a few runs with Vernon (and the neighbour) we hatched a plan (no pun intended, I promise) to run a Turkish/Levant inspired night at The Table restaurant. I would devise the menu and he would put on the staff and run the bookings.

And so we did. That style of food has always been one of my favourites and it was really exciting and inspiring to work on some mainstays and to innovate some new ideas for a large crowd. I’m particularly proud of the spinach, pine nut and feta kibbeh that I developed from scratch for the night. Crunchy bulgur around spinach and pine nuts with a hint of cinnamon and sumac and a centre of gooey feta. Centrepieces were slow-braised spiced shoulders of Suffolk lamb and anise-braised squid. There were breads, flatbreads, yoghurt, dips, pickles and vegetables throughout.

A quick forage on the Saturday before, by Woodbridge’s River Deben, yielded a new-to-me sea vegetable, arrow grass, to dress the charred asparagus and labneh. A fascinating plant: looking like a grass but with tender lower stems that taste of sweet coriander and the upper stems being salty and slightly bitter. I want to make more use of that.

In terms of ingredients, it was a gentle poke into what was available locally, but I intend to fully plunder the Suffolk larder for more events. The night itself was exciting and amazingly supportive in the kitchen. Vernon runs a great team and everyone was extremely enthusiastic and capable, able to pick up new recipes and adapt throughout the packed service. We even managed to deal instantly with the fact that I had expected supper club style, all big tables, but they were all ready for a normal restaurant service.

The diners seemed really happy and we got some amazing feedback on how much the dishes were enjoyed. I was particularly pleased that by far the simplest dish – rhubarb and sea salt – was recognised as a great accompaniment by some. It’s essentially like an instant pickle – powerful, sharp and palate-cleansing.

An hour before the event I had the inevitable queasiness, the self doubt and the questioning, ‘Why am I doing this?’ But now, as ever, I am really looking forward to the next one.

Coming up …

Woodbridge

I am getting excited. Last September, my wife and I leapt out of London and moved to Woodbridge in Suffolk. We caught the very end of the tail of the summer and the place still felt exciting and vibrant. There were various live music and food events going on, but it all sort of blurred into the mayhem of moving house.

What also blurred was the profusion of sea vegetables growing along the edge of Woodbridge’s tidal River Deben. I saw samphire, sea beet, sea purslane and aster, all coming to the end of edibility, the samphire turning a beautiful deep red, colouring the grey muddy banks. But I never had the right cooking opportunity to collect them.

I did manage a long walk through the Suffolk heaths, on which I collected ceps, giant puffballs and horse mushrooms to see me through a weekend of meals. Incredible for the first foray in a new environment.

So, now, as spring approaches, my excitement is building. I can’t wait to fully embrace this new place. To get out among the woods, heaths, beaches and river edges and find new things; and to start cooking here and building new contacts and new opportunities to share the produce and wild bounty of Suffolk.

Feast in the Woods, 22–25 May 2015

I’m cooking the Feast at a great festival in May. It’s called Feast in the Woods and is a truly fun, relaxing and collaborative experience. I’m doing a menu based on locally produced meat, cheese and veg and as much wild stuff as I can lay my hands on!

My first cep! (and other finds)

I’ve just posted about my autumn haul. Take a look.

Sharing Noma

I have just been to Noma and eaten at the ‘best restaurant in the world’. Whatever your perceptions of that accolade it sets a certain amount of hype and expectation. This is not a review. That would be meaningless. This is an account of my experience. I want to outline how that experience did or didn’t meet those expectations and the immediate impact it had on me, culinary or otherwise.

Spoiler alert: given the already unavoidable hype, I preferred to remain as naïve as possible to what Noma would offer before I went. If you’re like me in that respect, and are thinking of visiting, you may prefer to read this after you’ve been.

Aside from the obvious exposure, the Noma experience began some time before visiting the restaurant – particularly for my wife. She had secured this golden ticket for my 40th birthday … after 7 months of trying. This included considerable research to find the best time to try to book (it’s the first Monday of the month), several website crashes, failed booking attempts and Noma reclaiming its number 1 spot in the world ranking just before her final attempt – naturally causing booking attempts to surge. She had all bit given up but decided to have one more go to book a table for four rather than two. In this she was successful and this was where the story began for me.

My 40th birthday present was a trip to Noma in Copenhagen, for lunch on 6th August, with a small caveat. We had to find two more people to come with us. And this was certainly a good thing. Noma have just introduced a sharing table and the idea of sharing any dining experience with others is usually a better idea, and for something as once-in-a-lifetime as this, all the more so. As it turned out, those to join us were the manager of the cookery school I teach at and her husband – these were people I hadn’t socialised with before, which made it all the more special. (It also happened to be her 50th birthday two days before the reservation date.)

So we arrived. What an arrival. Some slightly awkward, photos outside the restaurant, taken by one of the waiters (friendly, professional, no hint of pretentiousness) and we were encouraged to ‘come and eat’. We stepped into the darkened building to be greeted by a line of chefs and waiters and as my eyes adjusted, I realised, as did my companions, that amongst them was the man himself, René Redzepi. We chatted briefly with him about where we had come from and why we were there. I mentioned the birthdays, there was a joke of ‘knocking up a cake’. We shook his hand and we were led to our table, all, I’ll admit, a bit starstruck.

A young German woman was to be our main waitress for the meal. She was cheery, bespectacled and slightly geeky in a good way, and, as for all the staff, completely professional but very relaxed. She introduced the unique meal format: a snappy start with quick sharing plates, followed by some individual ‘main courses’ and finally a couple of deserts. The eating began. I can’t remember how everything appeared, all the components or exactly how it all tasted but I made some notes afterwards and below I attempt descriptions of each plate from the menu in order. (It is all delicious, by the way.)

Sharing plates

Red currant and gooseberry

In a bowl, appearing exactly as described, were a gooseberry on a twig skewer and a string of red currants per person. But subtly and remarkably they had been altered. They were cold, almost part frozen, but still with a fresh crunch, and a light brine seem to have been applied, but the saltiness only seemed to enhance the natural sweetness and freshness.

Kohlrabi and Spanish chervil (‘Nordic coconut’)

A whole kohlrabi is somehow hollowed out, leaves in tact; from a hole emerges a stem of Spanish chervil. We sucked the contents of the kohlrabi coconut out through the chervil straw. A chilled liquid, herby, earthy with hints of chervil and celery enters the mouth. It reminds you a bit of of gazpacho I suppose, both nourishing and refreshing. No one knows if it’s OK to make sucky straw noises in a two-star restaurant, but everyone does anyway.

Moss and cep

Swedish reindeer moss is deep fried and seasoned with cep butter. Four grey-ivory clumps of the moss appear on a ‘bog island’ of inedible live green moss with a twig sticking out. We’re cautioned, with appropriate irony, to not eat the live moss or the twig. It’s crunchy and tastes of Sweden (I would guess).

Flower tart

Vivid flower petals apparently randomly arranged on a slice of seaweed crust, eaten by hand. The crust is light and so crispy in texture but deep and just marine enough in flavour. The petals are fragrant and perfumed but in perfect balance with the crust. This feels like nothing in your hand – in contrast to the effect on your eyes and mouth.

Peas and radishes

I don’t remember this that well but I don’t think that’s a reflection at all on it’s taste. There seemed to be pieces of chopped fresh pea in amongst an impossibly non-sloppy pea purée with slices of radish and tiny lemon thyme flowers. It was sweet and pea-and-radishy.

Pickled and smoked quail egg

One of the theatre pieces. Two fake eggs, bigger than a goose egg but decorated with the distinctive marks of a quail egg, are placed on the table, smoke falling out of the sides. We are instructed to eat it quickly as it is ‘temperature sensitive’ but for some reason everyone else on the table is being slow with the previous course and I don’t want to go ahead alone. I sit frustrated, nodding at the conversation, thinking ‘get a  bloody move on’ and watching the smoke subside (I think). Unable to wait any longer I lift the top half of the lid and there is a nest of smouldering hay with two glistening, peeled quail eggs. I announce I’m going for the all in one, pop an egg into my mouth and bite in. I haven’t been foiled by the wait. The yolk is still all delicious, oozing liquid, the white lightly acidic and salty with pickle and hinted with hay smoke.

Flatbread and wild roses

This is simply a crispbread (I can’t recall what it’s made of) layered on top with caramelised rose petals. Aside from the question of how on earth you caramelise rose petals without turning them into cinder, the overriding thing about this dish was the memory it evoked. Something so familiar and distinctive from my childhood but something I couldn’t and still can’t place. I hope I’ll remember.

Cucumber and scallop

This was charred baby cucumber, with parsley flowers, ants and scallop fudge. Those are words I would never have imagined in the same sentence let alone being things I would end up putting  into my mouth at the same time. The first of two dishes to use ants, they are citrussy and slightly tropical, lifting the charring of the cucumber. This was also an example of the apparently nonsensical genius which keeps the surprises coming no matter what the hype.

White cabbage and samphire

Circles of cabbage are somehow dried until transparent and take on a sweet flavour. These create a sandwich with samphire in another non-sloppy purée, this time of watercress. Everything tastes the same but different and the textures are unexpected and delightful.

Caramelised milk and monkfish liver

Another temperature sensitive dish but this time I didn’t have to wait. I have no idea how you might even think about caramelising milk but it was somehow made into crisps and topped with monkfish liver in a sort of ice cream shaved on top. It was buttery and irony and fishy and slightly sweet, perhaps the foie-gras of the sea (and without the husbandry issues).

Burnt onion and walnut

This was one of the very few seemingly familiar dishes on the menu (in fact I learned how to do what this looked like at Moro). A whole onion charred on the outside so that the centre was sweet and fragrant. However, as might be expected but confounding expectations, the onion was carefully split down the middle, the centre removed, delicately sliced and each slice coated with a walnut oil dressing and thyme flowers, then placed back into the onion. We had to pull open the whole bulb to reveal the surprise.

At some point around here (or a bit before) a loaf of warm and wonderful sourdough was brought out with what was described as ‘virgin butter’ – cream churned until just before the whey separates. We joked this was ‘overwhipped cream’ but of course it was much better than that.

‘Main courses’

Shrimp and goosefoot, radish and yeast

Described by our waitress as a bit like a shrimp and goosefoot ravioli, this was circles of tender goosefoot leaves sealed with a shrimp filling in a broth of burnt yeast and seaweed. I have absolutely no concept of how all these flavours were created in this dish but that’s just what it tasted like. The ‘ravioli’ fresh, salty and sweet and the broth deep and comforting.

Sour cherries, turbot roe and seaweed

This was slices of dark sour cherry with ‘tuiles’ of somehow dried turbot roe, placed on top. I think the waiter poured a seaweed broth around this. It was sweet, fruity, fishy and salty.

Beef tartar and ants

A flat board with a laid out strip of tartar, sprinkled with ants. The second appearance of ants and adding quite a different dimension here. Seasoning the beef and enhancing its meatiness, apparently without further addition of salt. The only truly meat dish and very welcome.

Salad root

I don’t know what a  salad root is but from further research it seems to be just a lettuce root. Perhaps? Anyway, it was first nutty, almost peanutty, then slightly bitter. It came with a salad of foraged leaves including, I think, goosefoots and common orache, and, I think it was this dish, the earliest of peeled wet walnuts. Loads of deep and bitter flavours, I loved this and its disarming simplicity.

Cured egg yolk, potato and elderflower

Noma beehives

A just firm but still translucent egg yolk was served surrounded by a ring of finely sliced new potatoes and then an elderflower oil dressing that included beeswax and honey (from Noma’s own bees). This had an incredible flavour of the countryside and fields. It also won the prize, I think any prize, for the most unimaginable technique. Apparently the cure for the egg was produced from the juices that had run off beef that had been hanging and fermenting for three months. How could anyone think that up?

Turbot and nasturtium, cream and wood sorrel

The fish course I suppose. A fillet and perfectly arranged fin meat of a good size piece of turbot, served with a nasturtium dressing, horse radish cream and a big and pretty pile of wood sorrel. This was truly the most amazingly cooked piece of fish I have ever tasted. Soft, firm and tender all at once. Also, however, this was the only dish where I thought there might be a problem. There seemed to be too much wood sorrel. It then occurred to me that given the acidic and prolific nature of this leaf perhaps it was a nod to the traditional lemon wedge of the fish course, it was up to the guest to eat as much or as little as they liked. As it was I ended up eating and enjoying it all anyway.

We then retired briefly outside to digest and take in some early August Copenhagen harbour-side sunshine.

Desserts

Rhubarb, creme fraiche and sorrel

A beautiful and intricate rose of rhubarb was placed onto a tuile of creme fraiche and a sorrel broth. Virtually no, if any, sugar was added and the rhubarb was the sweetest thing on the plate. The flavours of everything were so pronounced because of this.

Raspberries, double cream and rye

The only apparent process in this was the cream. I’m not sure where the rye came in but I believe it was some kind of fermentation process, but there was also liquorice. I don’t think we might have known this, it may have been a mystery flavour, but one of our party had said early on, in passing, that she didn’t like liquorice. This had obviously been relayed to the kitchen and they had brought out a cream without liquorice just for them! They tried the liquorice version anyway and agreed it was better with.

We then retired to a lounge area for coffees and ‘sweet treats’.

The coffee itself was quite interesting. Very mellow and no bitterness, served from a glass vase, a bit like a Chemex, but the brew wasn’t as clear as a Chemex. Perfect drinking temperature and no option for milk or sugar.

The first treat was a plate of ‘caramel yeast’. Apparently this was caramelised rye sourdough. It came with a pot containing a kind of Icelandic fresh cheese on top of a sea buckthorn marmalade. It was very delicious but next was a bigger treat.

Birthday cake

René Redezepi seemed to have take on my challenge (I’d like to think). The kitchen had made us a a birthday cake – and what a cake. A kind of rich yoghurt cream in a perfect cylinder coated with a dark, deep chocolate ganache.  This felt so thoughtful and like such a special treat. And we got to cut it with an amazing reindeer horn handled knife.

Next was a cinnamon and liquorice Danish. This was quite likely the best Danish of my whole trip to Copenhagen but I was still quite overwhelmed by the cake.

Finally we were bought a tin containing a huge shard of puffed pig skin coated in chocolate and lingonberries, which we had to break and share. We gave a little cheer to the pig skin, which our waitress seemed to find amusing. An appropriately surprising and unusual way to end the meal of a lifetime.

It was full of surprises, entertainment and excitement and a wonderful way to share an experience.

Thank you Noma, thank you Sofia and Ollie, and thank you most Diana.

Pig skin with chocolate