Crab Apple Jelly

I love stocking the cupboard with crab apple jelly, it’s great spread on toast or served with pork. It's a fantastic pinky orange colour. High in pectin, there is no need to use jam sugar with these apples.

Try adding other wild fruits, such as blackberries, to the mix.

Ingredients:

• 1kg crab apples

• Up to 1kg granulated sugar

• Water

Method:

Put the fruit into a large pan and add just enough water to cover the apples. Bring to a boil and simmer until the fruit starts to fall apart.

Strain through a muslin or cheese cloth. Leave to drip for several hours or overnight, but whatever you do avoid squeezing or you’ll end up with cloudy jelly.

Measure the resulting liquid and for every 600ml of juice, you’ll need 450 kg of sugar. Put the juice into a pan and bring to the boil.

Add the sugar and stir until dissolved. Slowly bring to a rolling boil and boil rapidly, without stirring, until setting point is reached. I find this varies

Pour into warm, sterilised jars.

Elderberry goat

Ingredients:

• 1 goat leg

• 2 onions

• 1 leek

• 2 carrots (white or purple)

• 1 tsp of fresh or fermented wild Garlic

• 1 tsp juniper berries

• 4 cups of elderberry wine

• 2 cups of beef stock

Method:

Put the leg into a large pot. Roughly slice up the onions, along with the leek and carrots, and add them to the pot with the garlic & juniper berries.

Top up the pot with Elderberry wine and leave to soak for a few hours or, ideally, overnight.

Add the beef stock to the pot and place over a fire. Bring to a boil and simmer for around 2-2 1/2 hours, until cooked through. Alternatively this can be cooked in the oven at 180 degrees celsius.

During this time top up with water, or more wine, as necessary, to keep the joint covered.

Remove the leg from the pot and leave to rest for 5 minutes before serving.

Elderberry Sauce

Ingredients: 

• 2 cups elderberries

• 1 cup water

• 1 cup honey

Method: 
Put the elderberries and water in a pot. Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes.

Strain through a sieve.

Measure the liquid and put it back into the pot with equal parts honey. For example - 500ml liquid will need 500g honey. Heat for around 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the honey has dissolved.

Pour into clean, sterile containers and store in a cool place.

Proceed cautiously, as I have known this to start fermenting, which can lead to exploding containers.

This syrup is said to be great for colds. Either way it tastes great on porridge, or mixed with hot water to make a tea.

Lemon Chicken

Ingredients:

• Whole chicken

• 2 cups of Cider

• A few Juniper berries

• A Small Handful of fresh Sorrel

• A Small Handful of Wild garlic

• A Small Handful of Ground elder

• A slice of Stale Bread

• Olive oil

Method:

Put the chicken into a large pot or cauldron and add the cider and juniper. Top up the pot with water, ensuring the chicken is completely covered. Heat the liquid to a simmer and parboil the chicken for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile roughly chop the sorrel, garlic and ground elder. Tear the bread into chunks and mix into the chopped leaves, with a little oil.

Carefully remove the chicken from the pot (reserve the liquid to use as stock in another dish). Stuff the bread and sorrel mix into the cavity, and place the chicken on a spit. Rub a little oil onto the chicken skin and cook over hot embers for about an hour and a half, turning occasionally.

Be sure to avoid any flames coming into contact with the chicken, or it will burn before cooking all the way through. Skewer the chicken and check the liquid runs clear before serving.

Rocky roads

Ingredients:

• 50g Butter

• 200g dark chocolate

• 2.5 tbsp golden syrup

• 100g rich tea biscuits, roughly broken

• 100g mini marshmallows

• 100g cranberries

• 100g Brazil nuts, roughly chopped

Method:

On a low heat, melt the spread, chocolate and syrup together in a pan.

Line a square baking dish with cling film

Once the chocolate and spread mix is completely melted, add the rest of the ingredients to the pan and mix through.

Pour the mixture into the baking dish and place it in the fridge for a few hours, or overnight, until set.

Remove from the dish and discard the cling film. Chop into bite-sized squares.

The Battle of Appledore

The year was 878. King Alfred the great was the ruler of Wessex, and not a lot else. He was pinned down to the Isle of Athelney in Somerset, battling the hairy and brutal Viking armies on a daily basis.

Another Viking army had made a base in South-west Wales, under the leadership of a fearsome Chieftain named Ubba, son of the infamous Ragnar Lothbrok.

They formed a plan to trap King Alfred and attack from another side. They sailed across to North Devon with 1200 men on 23 ships. Upon arrival in Devon, in a field now known as ‘the bloody corner’ a large battle took place against a defending party, under the leadership of Odda, Ealdorman of Devon.

The Vikings had pinned Odda and his men into a fortress, known as Cynuit. All seemed lost for the Saxons, so they made one final charge at Ubba and his men.

The Danes managed victory over Odda, but after losing 840 men, including their leader, Ubba, the Danes could not continue with the campaign to defeat Alfred the great.

Ubba’s men retreated to Lundy island before burying him in a place near the river, at Appledore, now known as Hubbastone, under a cairn made from Lundy granite. No longer visible, either washed away or built over, a memorial has been installed by the river in his honour.

King Alfred went on to successfully defend Wessex, and his descendants eventually ruled over England, for a time. And Odda, for his efforts, got a street named after him in Appledore, now called ‘Odun road’

Kombucha

There are many ways to make Kombucha tea, so this is only meant as a beginners guide. You could experiment with adding flavours before you bottle it. Ginger, lemon/lime or a handful of fresh or dried berries are all popular choices.

Kombucha is a really great health food, promoting good gut bacteria. It’s been in use for hundreds of years, all over the world. The first recorded use was in China in 221 BC during the Tsin Dynasty, where it was known as “The Tea of Immortality”.

Although this is a fermented drink, the balance of bacteria and yeast keep the alcohol content so low, it is classed as non alcoholic.

Two important points when making kombucha:

1. As with homebrew, make sure everything is really clean. Avoid antibacterial soaps and sterilisers though, Ecover is ok

2.Do not use metal containers or spoons, as this can kill your scoby!

Ingredients:

• 100g granulated sugar

• 4 tea bags (black, green, earl grey - whatever takes your fancy)

• 1.65L Boiled water

• 1 SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeasts) - Can be purchased online or befriend somebody who makes Kombucha already

• A little Kombucha

Method:

Put the sugar, and tea bags into a large, clean container. Cover with the boiled water and stir well. Leave until cooled to room temperature.

Remove the tea bags and add your scoby and Kombucha. Cover the top of the container with a muslin cloth. Leave to ferment for 5-14 days. The longer you leave it the less sweet and more vinegary it will taste.

Pour the tea into clean swing top bottles, leaving behind some of the liquid and the scooby (ready to start all over again).

This is where you can get inventive and add your extra flavours to the bottles.

At this stage fermentation starts and can take anything from 2-5 days. Pop the lid on and check every day to relieve the pressure. Be careful to keep checking - too much pressure and your bottles will explode. After a few days the Kombucha should be fizzy and ready to drink.

Chill before serving.

Over time new SCOBY’s will form which can be used to make more Kombucha or given away for friends to brew their own.

Lemon & Nettle cake

Ingredients:

• 1L jug full of young nettle tops

• Juice and rind of 2 large lemon

• 200g butter

• 200g caster sugar

• 3 eggs

• 300g self raising flour (sieved)

• 1 tsp baking powder (sieved)

• 1 tsp ground mixed spice

Method:

Stick the nettles into a saucepan, and cover with hot water. Boil for 3 minutes.

Drain the nettles and put them into a food processor, along with the juice and rind of the lemon. Blitz to a fine pulp.

Cream together the butter and sugar and break in the 3 eggs. Add the nettle/lemon and mix well.

Finally add the flour, baking powder & mixed spice, and mix well, until fully incorporated.

Pour into a greased and lined loaf tin and cook in the centre of a preheated oven at 180 degrees celsius for 60-70 minutes, until a skewer can be cleanly inserted into the centre of the cake. If the cake is browning too much, cover with a piece of lining paper.

Chilli Chocolate brownies

Ingredients:

• 300g really dark chocolate

• 300g light soft brown sugar

• 250g Butter

• 2 teaspoon of Chilli flakes

• 220g Plain flour

• 3 Egg whites

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees.

Put the chocolate, sugar, butter, and 1 teaspoon of chilli flakes into a pan and slowly heat until dissolved.

Meanwhile whisk the egg whites to form soft peaks.

Take the chocolate mix off the heat and stir in the flour. Fold in the egg whites.

Pour into a baking tray and sprinkle the rest of the chilli flakes over the surface. Cook for around 25 minutes.

Leave to cool fully before cutting into squares.

Fermented Wild Garlic

Ingredients:

• Salt

• Wild garlic

Method:

In a large mixing bowl or trough, layer garlic leaves and flowers with a small amount of salt.

Leave for several hours.

Massage and squash the leaves, working the salt into the leaves and leave for a couple more hours.

Transfer to a bowl or suitable container and weigh the leaves down with something heavy. Leave overnight.

Tightly pack the garlic into a jar and weigh the contents down using a bottle filled with water, squeezing the juice from the garlic and ensuring all the leaves are fully submersed in the extracted liquid. If there isn’t enough liquid top up with spring water, not tap.

Leave to ferment for a minimum of one week before consuming

King cake

Ingredients:

• • 750g strong bread flour

• 120g sugar

• Handful of sultanas

• • 12g salt

• 20g bread yeast

• • 100g Butter (melted)

• 450ml warm milk

• Ground cinnamon

• 125g Icing sugar

• 15ml Lemon juice

• Purple, green and yellow food colouring

Method:

Mix the flour, sugar, sultanas and salt together in a large bowl.

Add the yeast and the butter. Slowly add a little milk at a time, while mixing together with your hands to form a sticky dough.

Tip out onto your worktop and knead for a few minutes.

There are various ways to knead your dough, I like to stretch it out, then roll it back in, and give it a 90 degree turn, before stretching it out again.

Cover with a damp cloth and leave to prove for about 2 hours. Lightly dust your work surface with a little flour and roll out the dough to form a rectangle a quarter inch thick.

Sprinkle a good layer of cinnamon evenly over the surface and roll the dough up to form a sausage.

Place into a greased and floured bundt tin, making sure the 2 ends meet. Seal the join with a little oil or water. Leave to prove for a further 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Put the cake into the oven and cook for about 40 minutes, Remove from the oven and upturn to remove the cake from the tin.

Mix the icing sugar with the lemon juice and divide into 3 equal portions. Add the food colouring to the icing and drizzle over the cake.

Leave to cool fully before cutting.

Ember baked oysters

Ingredients:

• 4 Oysters

• Knob of butter

• 1 tsp finely chopped parsley

• 1 tsp fennel seeds (freshly ground)

• 1 tsp finely chopped wild garlic (or 1 garlic clove)

Method:

Melt the butter in a pan. Remove from the heat and stir in the parsley, fennel & garlic.

Shuk the Oysters, discarding the flat pieces of shell. Add 1 teaspoon of the garlic butter to each shell.

Carefully place the Oyster shells onto hot embers and leave to cook for 3-4 minutes.

Remove the hot shells from the embers and serve immediately.

Blood sausage (black pudding)

Ingredients:

• 100g oats

• 100g barley

• 1 onion

• 100g pork fat

• 3 tsp salt

• 3 tsp ground pepper

• 1 tsp ground coriander seeds

• 1 tsp ground mustard seeds

• 1 tsp finely chopped fresh thyme

• 1 tsp finely chopped fresh savory

• 50g dried blood

• 150ml cold water

• Sausage casings

Method:

Cook the barley until soft, drain and leave to cool.

In a large bowl, mix together the oats and barley. 

Finely chop 1 onion and cut the pork fat into cubes. Add to the bowl of oats and barley, along with the salt, pepper, coriander, thyme and savory. Mix well. 

Mix 50g dried blood with 250ml of cold water and stir into the oat/barley mixture.

Attach a length of sausage casing to a sausage horn or funnel, tying a knot in the bottom.

Stuff the mixture through the horn into the casing.

It's a messy job, best done outside, or in the sink. Avoid over filling the casing, or it will split when being cooked later, as the filling will expand during the process.

Tie the end of the casing, and cook in hot, but not boiling water. If you have a thermometer, you are aiming for around 80 degrees Celsius.

Cook for 60 minutes. Once cooked leave to cool fully.

To eat, slice and fry for several minutes.

Chicken & Broad Bean Stew

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Ingredients:

• Butter

• 1 onions

• 2 celery sticks

• 2 carrots, including the greens (white or purple – not orange!)

• 2 chicken breasts

• A few rashers of bacon

• 600ml/2 cups chicken stock

• 300ml/1 cup ale

• 2 bay leaves

• A few sprigs of thyme and marjoram

• 1 cup podded broad beans

Method:

Melt the butter in a large pan or cauldron. Chop the onion, celery & carrots and add to the pan. Fry for a few minutes to soften.

Dice the chicken & slice the bacon. Add to the pan and fry for a few minutes. Pour over the chicken stock and ale, add the herbs and the beans.

Stir well, bring to a boil and simmer for about 20 minutes. Remove the bay leaves and serve with fresh sourdough bread.

Sweet Saxon Bread

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Ingredients:

• 100g/1/4 cup melted Butter

• 250g/3/4 cup full fat cream

• 2 tablespoons honey

• 1 Egg

• 450g/ 2 1/4 cups flour

• Tsp Yeast

• 1/2 tsp Salt

Method:

In a large bowl mix together the butter, cream, honey & egg.

Add the flour, yeast and salt and mix together to form a slightly sticky dough.

Tip out onto a work surface and knead for around 5-10 minutes.

Roll your dough into a ball, and dust with a little flour. Put it into a bowl and cover loosely with a damp cloth, to stop it drying out. Leave to prove for half an hour.

Divide the dough into four, take one piece and roll it into a sausage. Join the two ends of the sausage together, forming a circle. Finally twist the circle in half to form an ‘8’. Continue until you have four ‘8’ shaped mini loaves.

Bake for 20 minutes in a preheated oven at 220 degrees Celsius.

Remove from the oven, the loaves should sound hollow when you tap them on the bottom.

Leave to cool fully before eating.

Ginger wine

This one is super easy to make and great on a cold winter evening by the fire.

Ingredients:

• 50g root ginger

• 1.5kg granulated sugar

• 100g raisins

• 2 tsp of citric acid (or the juice and rind of 2 lemons)

• 4.5l water (boiled)

• 1 tsp of wine yeast

• 1 campden tablet (optional)

• 1 teaspoon fermentation stopper (optional)

• 1 teaspoon Bentonite (optional)

• Rum

Method:

Grate the ginger into a bucket, add the sugar, raisins, citric acid, and 2.5l boiled water and stir well.

Mix in 2 litres of cold water and finally add your yeast. Take a reading using a hydrometer. This is known as the Original gravity or OG.

Cover loosely for 1 week before straining into a demijohn with an airlock.

When fermentation ends (bubbles passing through the airlock at less than one a minute) take another hydrometer reading. This is known as the Final gravity or FG. Using a simple formula, (OG - FG) x 0.13 = %, you can then figure out the alcohol content of your finished brew

Finally, add a few capfuls of rum to your bottles, syphon the wine in and cork. Age for a minimum of 3 months before drinking.

Halva

The word Halva comes from the Arabic word Hulw, or sweet. There are versions of it appearing all over the world, in different forms, and under different names, with some versions dating back as far as the 7th century!

There are so many ways to make this, you could replace the honey with sugar, for a vegan version, or replace the pistachios with other ingredients, such as, dried fruits, nuts or chocolate.

Ingredients:

• 340g honey

• Handful of pistachios

• Tsp vanilla extract

• 450g tahini

Method:

Heat the honey in a pan until it reaches 115 degrees Celsius, or ‘soft ball’ on a thermometer.

Stir in the pistachios and vanilla extract, followed by the tahini. Mix well, until fully incorporated.

Pour into a greased and lined cake tin, and leave to cool.

Once cool remove from the tin and wrap well in cling film. Refrigerate for a minimum of 24 hrs.

Hot Saxon Cider

Ingredients:

• 4 cups of dry cider or apple juice

• 2 sprigs rosemary

• 2 sprigs thyme

• 12 juniper berries

• 2 tablespoons honey

Method:

Put all the ingredients into a pan and bring to a simmer. Heat for around 15 minutes, allowing the herbs to infuse into the cider..

Strain the liquid through a muslin or cheesecloth and serve immediately.

In a none authentic setting I recommend adding a shot of brandy before serving.

Parsnip Wine

Ingredients:

• 2 kg parsnips (cut into 5mm pieces)

• 4.5l water

• 1.5 kg granulated sugar

• 200g raisins

• Juice & rind of 2 lemons

• A strong cup of black tea (for tannin)

• 1 teaspoon pectolase (to prevent pectin haze)

• 1 teaspoon of wine yeast

• 1 campden tablet (optional)

• 1 teaspoon fermentation stopper (optional)

• 1 teaspoon Bentonite (optional)

Method:

Boil 2.5 litres of water and add the parsnips. Boil for around 20 to 25 mins until soft, but not falling apart, otherwise the wine will never clear.

Strain the water from the parsnips into a bucket, add the sugar, raisins, lemon juice/rind, tea and pectolase, and stir well.

Mix in 2 litres of cold water and finally add your yeast. Check your gravity and make a note of it. Cover loosely for 3 days before straining into a demijohn with an airlock.

When fermentation ends (when bubbles pass through the airlock at less than one a minute) add a crushed campden tablet and fermentation stopper, if using, as per the instructions on the packet.

After 3 days clear the wine by adding bentonite, if using, as per the instructions on the packet. Don’t forget to check your final gravity, if you haven’t already and want to know the percentage of alcohol in your brew.

Finally, syphon the wine into bottles and cork. Age for a minimum of 6 months before drinking.

12 Mini Fruit Cakes

I usually make this in September and feed it every couple of weeks, up till December, with a mixture of brandy, dark rum, and sloe gin, for a really boozy cake.

You'll also need 12 small (and empty) 'half tins' of baked beans. I like to make these as gifts, covered in icing and marzipan.

Ingredients:

• 1kg mixed dried fruit

• 50g chopped glacé cherries

• Brandy

• Kraken rum

• Sloe gin

• 225g plain flour (sifted)

• 1⁄2 teaspoon salt

• 1⁄4 level teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated

• 1⁄2 level teaspoon ground mixed spice

• 225g dark brown soft sugar

• 4 large eggs

• 1 dessertspoon black treacle

• 225g butter

• 50g chopped almonds

• zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange

Method:

Put the dried fruit into a bowl and add 100ml of brandy. Mix well and cover the bowl with a cloth. Leave to soak overnight. Pre-heat the oven to 140°C

Put the flour, salt, spices, sugar, eggs, treacle, and butter, into a large bowl and beat with an electric hand whisk until thoroughly mixed.

Fold in the pre-soaked fruit mixture, chopped nuts and finally the grated lemon and orange zest. Grease and line the tins and spoon the mixture evenly between them.

Wrap the tins in a double layer of greaseproof paper, covering the tops of the cakes. Bake on the lowest shelf of the oven for 60-90 minutes until they feel springy to the touch.

Leave to cool before removing from the tins and skewering all over and feeding with a small drop of rum.

Wrap in greaseproof paper and store somewhere cool and dry. Feed every 2 weeks.

If you want to decorate the cake with marzipan and icing, do this shortly before eating.