Posts Tagged ‘season’

Walnuts | The battle begins …

Wednesday, September 15th, 2010

At home we have a mature walnut tree standing at the side of the house. Every so often you will here one of the fruit dropping from the tree and then bouncing down the tiled roof. Technically they are not in season for another month, but the ones on the ground are ready to store. The maths are quite stunning, this tree can produce several small sacks a year of nuts. Now why am I talking about maths and also an ingredients that isn’t even in season yet? It all started with one of my random rants the other day, which was picked up by our friend PodChef and he sent me the link to this You Tube Video.

Walnuts aka squirrel bait

So how do these little creatures perform the art of subtraction so well that I end up with close to zero nuts each year?

The walnut is a great ingredient and, luckily, you don’t need that many of them to make up simple salad, a nut topping for a dessert or even to make a pesto. Earlier on in the year, these can be collected when they are still in the green husk and pickled. Not to everyones taste but a staple when the game season comes about.

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Google] [LinkedIn] [Newsvine] [Reddit] [Slashdot] [Squidoo] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!] [Email]

April – What’s in Season

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

The real stars of the show this month are the early vegetables and fruits. These are mainly the green leaved varieties such as brocoli, purple sprouting brocolli, rocket, spinach, rhubarb and a couple of our own favourites wild garlic and nettles. A lot of iron rich veg to compliment the strong flavours of wood pigeon and salmon.

Jersey new potatoes are being harvested and are lovely on their own as a side dish or to go with some of the more delicate fish on offer as well as spring lamb.

Flavours of this time of year are earthy and green, which will give way to more subtle fruits and salads in the next couple of months. Shellfish will fade away over summer to some extent, certainly scallops and oysters will be in their breeding season.

The arrival of mint will bring in the best of the lamb, but also the start of the Pimm’s season :)

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Google] [LinkedIn] [Newsvine] [Reddit] [Slashdot] [Squidoo] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!] [Email]

National Taste of Game Week 2009

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Next week is a Great British festival of local ingredients. Game has been on the menu since hunter could errrm hunt and this is the height of the season for gorgeous autumnal fare. We are celebrating the week with an extra menu of game dishes, in addition to our current a la carte. The full menu can be seen online by clicking here.

National Taste of Game Week

British game is something that focuses the pallate on the season and also on what is available from our great countryside. It brings out the true craft of the butcher and the chef and this campaign allows us to share this with our friends each year.

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Google] [LinkedIn] [Newsvine] [Reddit] [Slashdot] [Squidoo] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!] [Email]

Oh Deer, a Seasonal Dilemna

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

This is an interesting problem, we think we have discovered that venison has an invisible off season. What this translates to is that deer hunting has a quirk in availability. At this time of year, all male deer are available for shooting, but none of the females are. If you have a herd of mixed breeds, there is another complication as Roe bucks have a different season to the other deer species. What this adds up to is a nightmare for the gamekeeper, as they often cannot take a clean shot at one animal amongst the rest of the herd.

Follow this link for our homemade Game Season chart.

This is not a problem for our local grey squirrel population though !!!

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Google] [LinkedIn] [Newsvine] [Reddit] [Slashdot] [Squidoo] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!] [Email]