mwnch

Pudding for (virtually) nothing and it’s tasty as can be …

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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 stuck to my usual method for cooking my ham on Christmas Eve this year, boiling it in cider before baking in the oven. However, I used some of the crab apple and sloe jelly that I made earlier in the year as the basis for the glaze - and very pleased I was with the results.

For a 2.5 kilo ham, I used a quarter of a jar of jelly, two tablespoons of mustard powder (for the ham) and a tablespoon of allspice (for Christmas) with a glug of maple syrup, all melted together and used in place of the sugar and butter concoction of the original recipe. Tasty!

Served with a parsley sauce, mashed potato and peas this makes a great Christmas Eve preparation for the festivities to come.

I make my parsley sauce by adding a generous serving of chopped parsley (5 - 6 tablespoons) to my white sauce, prior to adding the milk to the roux, along with a tablespoon and mustard powder.