mwnch

Whilst rooting around in the woods, I noticed the similarity between the leaves of cow parsley (or wild chervil) and flat leaf parsley. Nibbling away at some and consulting a book or two there seemed to be no reason not to eat some.

My plants are quite large and well grown and I guess, like nettles they may have been much more succulent earlier in the year, but I managed to pick some paler, younger looking leaves from the fresher shoots.

Not only is the look similar to parsley, but so is the flavour; a little stronger and earthier to my palate than culinary parsley, but nevertheless, tasty and a great garnish for scallops and bacon which was my first application of them.

We’ll be trying it with my wife’s pea cawl next….

We’ve recently been spending much of our time chopping down brambles and occupied in other such rural pursuits. The stinging nettles that we’ve encouraged to grow in abundance due to the assault we’ve made on the brambles that used to occupy their ground, have looked (at least to me) delicious. As a long time fan of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall scythe in hand I gathered a large bin bag full of them and made some soup.

Tasty, green and spinachy with a tang of nettle sting about it. I like to serve with a good lump of grated cheese melting invitingly in the middle of the bowl of soup.

Thanks Hugh.

I sometimes think I’m taking this simplicity thing a little too far. But regardless of that here is my latest minimalist listing, barely sufficient to be called a recipe.

No need for messing about - let’s keep it simple. [And this is the way that the fishmonger I buy them from cooks them.]

You need raw frozen prawns for this. Serve them piping hot with lemon juice and home made mayonnaise (perhaps with a little garlic) - great!