Idyllic River Cottage Veggie Patch

The finale of our trip was lunch at River Cottage HQ. We’ve been to River Cottage for a fantastic day of mushroom foraging in the past as well as to their Autumn festival. So we were keen to introduce Rad of squirrel and hare fame to the delights of Hugh’s rural utopia.

We were given a fascinating tour of the kitchen garden by a charming Chris Evans lookalike who had lots of ingenious suggestions such as:

Grown your seedlings, cress and other micro herbs in guttering. It seems to work brilliantly and is a piece of cake to do.

Try braising the stems of thistles which apparently are delicious.

Use tyres to create unusual containers that are ideal for growing things like potatoes in. The black rubber absorbs the sunshine and therefore keeps the soil warm. Also when it come to harvesting you can just remove a layer of tyres to get to the next level.

Try growing your tomatoes and potatoes in inside out plastic compost bags. It’s a great way of recycling, otherwise wasteful plastic bags.

Rainbow chard looked stunning.

As did the deep red, and slightly seductive, stems of this plant.

The best advice was about how to plan your kitchen garden / allotment. All too often we get a bit overexcited and dive in withouth thinking. We plant rows and rows of potatoes and acres of tomatoes both of which you can buy in the shops. It’s much better to find some interesting varieties of vegetables you love and can’t find in the shops or are expensive, or need to be eaten as soon as they are harvested and concentrate on them. Things like asparagus, raspberries, sweet-corn, squashes and artichokes spring to mind. It’s also well worth developing a strong herb garden and think about planting flowers such as nasturtium which not only taste great in salads but also attract the bugs and therefore save your prize vegetables from getting nailed.

Our tour finished with a casual lunch for 50 in their converted barn. Canapes of rabbit in a light jelly and smoked mackerel pate on a slice of cucumber were deliciously simple and comforting.

And don’t tell Hugh, but we may have nibbled on some of his prize peas as well…

Our main course of uber-local lamb cooked two ways was pretty special too. The shoulder was slow cooked for about a year and half with enough Middle-Eastern spices to deplete a well stocked souk.

Whilst the leg was flash roasted and served beautifully pink. Some slow cooked tomatoes helped to marry the two styles of lamb together, like a squirt of ketchup does with BBQ’d meat…

A slice of cake with fresh English fruit and stiff nutty cream brought our magical meal and adventure around the South West to a memorable close and sent us home wishing we could stay forever at River Cottage.

This is part of our trip around the South West.

River Cottage Autumn Festival

Last year we fell head over heels for River Cottage when we were taken on a mushrooming tour de force by John Wright – Hugh’s brilliant mushroom expert. It’s taken us a nearly a year to return – but we did so eagerly.

The River Cottage Autumn Festival attracted 2,000 visitors over 2 days – each paying £15. Which means that over the course of a year Hugh’s seasonal festivals take £120,000 on the gate. Impressive stuff. Even more impressive when you look at the itinerary for the rest of the year. It’s great to see someone’s rustic dream become a lucrative success.

The festival itself was a jolly affair. Swarming with families and kids in wellies running around without a care in the world.

All the stalls were manned by slightly hippyish people – utterly dedicated to making things by hand, just like the good old days. This is the part that really excites me at the moment. I am dead keen both on smoking my own food and also have a burning desire to build a clay pizza oven.

By sheer coincidence, Cowie and I watched the episode of River Cottage where Hugh builds a smoker on the train down to Somerset. Having learnt how easy it is to do and now armed with a photograph I am planning to convert Cowie’s spare stable into a rustic smoker.

Perhaps more excitingly, I also had a chance to inspect Hugh’s collection of clay ovens. Whilst I can’t afford to go on his “Build a clay oven in a day” course, I have now got the seminal book on the subject. I’ve also found a brilliant website that explains exactly how to make them. All I need is a load of clay, another load of sand, some sleepers and a few spare weekends. Then I’ll be feasting on pizzas…

The folk music band was in full swing as we pottered into the farmers’ market tent. It was full of brilliant local foodie producers.

My favourite was the South Devon Chilli Farm.

Their chipotle sauce is now on my desk at work and has inspired me to smoke my next batch of chillies… Why not combine two of my favourite things. I guess I’ll have to then scatter them all over my innaugrual pizza!

Their chillies ranged from the mellow to the fierce. I’ve invested in 4 new types of chilli… with one weighing in at 450,000 Scoville units… frankly, I’m a bit scared!

We left the skwelchy car park full of beans, but starving! It was a great event that I am very hesitant about critcising… but not being able to provide enough food for a ticketed event is pretty poor… especially when you’re a chef at home on your own farm!

So we went to Lyme Regis and had some sensational fish and chips instead!

Hugh’s Ultimate Cup of Tea

We’ve become big fans of Hugh’s typically eccentric way of making tea! No other method compares! This is an extract from an article on The Guardian.

“That’s all changed. Now, to make my tea, I need two good-sized mugs. I boil the kettle. The hot water goes into one mug first, stays for a few seconds so the mug is heated, then goes into the second mug. The tea bag goes into the first, hot, mug, boiling water is poured in, to within a couple of millimetres of the top, and the two mugs, one containing brewing tea, and the other containing hot water, are left to stand. After about five minutes, the mug of brewed tea is placed in the sink, where some new hot water (freshly re-boiled) from the kettle, is sloshed into it, so it overflows by about half a mug. This is to stop the well-brewed tea being too strong. The full-to-overflowing mug is now tilted a little bit, so it spills out enough tea to allow room for some milk.

Remember the second mug, full of the hot (now not so hot, but still quite hot) water that was used to warm the first mug? That is now emptied. The tea bag is fished out from the first ‘brewing’ mug, and placed in the bottom of the empty ‘warm’ mug, where a small splash of milk is poured over it. The effect of the hot tea bag, and still-warm mug, is to take the chill off the milk – and impregnate it with a mild tea flavour. To encourage both these objectives, the mug is picked up and swirled, put down for a few seconds, picked up and swirled again, and left to stand for a short while longer. The tea-coloured, warm milk is now poured from tea-bag mug to brew mug, which is given a stir.

The resulting colour is observed. A little more milk may be necessary, in which case it will go via the still-warm tea bag mug, into the brew mug. When the colour is exactly right, I will stir in exactly one rounded teaspoonful of golden caster sugar. The tea, which at this point is still far too hot to drink, will now be left to stand for at least five minutes, before a sip is attempted.”

The tea tastes better – stronger, hotter and more balanced. It’s fun to do and has is fast becoming one of life’s rituals. The ceremony known as tea making is sacred. Hugh’s come up with a piece of Japanese tea zen for Britain!

Chicken Out

I’ve been eagerly looking forward to seeing Hugh’s Chciken Out programme on Channel 4 having become really intrigued by his chicken play pen we saw whilst mushroom foraging at the River Cottage. There were quite a few references throughout the day to Hugh’s “Second Life” chickens. Not pixelated chickens in digital format but birds that he has taken out of the intensive system shown on his show and reared in peace and harmony. Just look at the fun you’d have in this little field!

Having only watched the two epsisodes so far it’s very compelling stuff. I’ve always tried to buy free range eggs and chickens, mainly because they are tastier. I guess it’s hard to always be able to afford it. If you decide that you can afford free range chicken then you’re obliged to buy free range pork, bacon, sausages etc as well. I’ve not got much of a clue about pig farming but I have heard it is every bit as depressing as intensive chicken farming at its worst.

What struck me yesterday was how top heavy the intensive birds were. Toppling over because they were growin so much breast meat so quickly. The odd thing is that on the continent they much prefer leg meat and breed their birds the opposite way round. I wish we did that here. There’s nothing quite like a tasty chicken leg.

This recipe for chicken leg confit looks delicious. Thanks to Brian Garthwaite

Well done Hugh for throwing his heart and soul into the plight of the UK’s chicken. I can only hope that our supermarkets can find a solution. It’s appalling that they won’t even talk to Hugh on camera. But then again I can see their PR gurus going beserk about the possibility of being shown up by the UK’s most idealistic cook. At the end of the day it’s all about business.

Be sure to sign up to the campaign here. And be sure to watch Jamie Oliver’s Fowl Dinners on Friday night on Channel 4.

Mushroom Foraging at River Cottage HQ with John Wright

I’ve become a bit of a mushroom bore recently. Cowie says I am a mushroom nerd. I prefer the expression mushroom enthusiast! And all my friends at work are a bit dubious about my bureoning funghi fetish!

So off Cowie and I trekked down to River Cottage HQ down on the Devon/Dorset border on a glorious Tuesday morning. All the more brilliant for it being a great day off work. We had been looking forward to our day of mushroom foraging with Hugh’s mycologist, John Wright for bloody ages.

We were immediately thrilled by the charmingly ecentric chicken obstacle course where Hugh’s roosters and hens charge around and play with the mobiles and other crazy bits of kit for the happy birds to play with. It was a sign of the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory world we were letting ourselves in for.

We started with a very entertaining briefing by John and Steve in a brilliantly converted barn with a great angled mirror with a plea to us not to eat any bright red mushrooms or break our legs in a rabbit hole! All washed down with a great cup of tea and an organic bacon and egg bap…

Off we pottered with our 24 fellow mushroom hunters to the forrest to start foraging like our lives depended on it. Within 20 seconds I had almost trodden on a tiny little mushroom and yelled over to John, triumphant! Not a great mushroom to start with… but victory nonetheless!

Every time a new mushroom was spotted we all gathered around to see John get really excited and tell us all about the latest find. John seemed to take great glee in telling us stories about some of the more gorey stories about dangerous mushrooms. He is such a great guide with so much energy and knowledge it was a complete privelege to spend a day with him hunting shrooms! He’s a legend. Nothing less.

Here’s John in action from a while ago when he had long hair!

We spent 3 hours trawling through the forrest finding 37 varieties of mushrooms ranging from the tiny and dull to the huge and delicious like the ceps that Cowie found!

And these slimy chaps that apparently are delicious… although you would have to be a brave man to give them a try! Apparently they are better when they are smaller and tend to grow on the trunks of beech trees.

We all headed back with our baskets heaving with mushrooms to HQ where we were treated to a cooking demonstration of how to cook a fantastic mushroom tart and a chicken stew all washed down with a nice mug of pumpkin soup.

In the meantime John had sorted through all the mushrooms we found and laid them out in the wort for him to identify all the varieties in the hope that we would then know what to avoid and what to pick! We were so overwhelmed by his sheer enthusiasm that we are now always on the look out for mushrooms and will use his excellent book as a guide.

We sat down for a delicious dinner with all the brilliant people we met. Our mushroom tart with a foraged salad was stunning as was our chicken stew which we thought was very worthy of a photo…

As were the fried up ceps that Cowie picked… wow!

We loved the charming personality and energy that everyone and everything at River Cottage HQ exude. The loo was an amazing eco contraption that uses a reed bed to filter all the bad stuff out… and it’s made from re-used floor boards.

All this was topped off with a trip to see Hugh’s pigs which couldn’t stop scratching themselves on whatever they could lay their ample bottoms on.

We’d really built they day up and had huge expectations of it before we arrived and were delighted to have them hugely exceeded. River Cottage HQ over-delivered massively and we can’t wait to go back and try another course. Maybe we’ll do pig in a day next time. So long as it doesn’t involve butchering the pig I made friends with!