Emmer sourdough

One of the joys of baking my own bread is experimenting with different flours. Sometimes that might be seeking authenticity baking a ciabatta using an Italian type 00 bread flour, or baguettes using French T55 flour. What I particularly enjoy is baking with heritage flours, from grains such as spelt or emmer. Humans have a long history of growing grains, and over the millennia have developed and cross-bred countless varieties. The pace of this advance has been particularly fast since the Second World War. As I wrote in another post, mainstream varieties of wheat grown commercially today are quite different to those grown 50 or even 30 years ago. Often, yield and disease resistance, rather than flavour, are the major driving forces behind the development of modern cultivars. (And in many ways this is understandable, we live in an increasingly crowded planet and have only a finite amount of agricultural land.) By baking with heritage flours, we can inject more complex flavours into bread, as well as getting a taste of the breads our ancestors ate.

Fritto misto di mare

After a week of gales and rain, the weather finally came good last weekend, and we got our first real dose of summer. One of the great joys of living by the seaside is that when the weather turns good, it feels like you are on holiday, without having had the hassle of catching a plane or train, or endless hours of driving. I decided to go with the holiday vibe, and cook an Italian classic, fritto misto di mare (literally ‘mixed fried seafood’ – like many food descriptions, it sounds sexier in Italian).

What's in season in June

June is the first month of summer (although at times in the fickle British weather it doesn't always feel that way). In the veg plot, June can herald something of a hiatus - the sowing and planting out of spring has finished, but most of the main crops are not yet ready to harvest. Excitingly, June heralds the beginning of the British summer fruit season, giving a real taste of summer. If you fancy a bit of foraging, elderflowers are at their peak in early June and can usually be found in both the town and countryside.

DIY Smoked Mackerel Paté

For Christmas, my parents-in-law gave me a hot smoker. It is a great kitchen toy. It looks like a mess tin - one of those metal things that survivalists like Ray Mears eat from at picnics. You put some wood chippings in the bottom of the smoker, place a tray over the top and pop your food in. Shut the lid of the tin, and put the smoker on the stove, and leave it to smoke. You can buy a hot-smoker from any decent kitchen suppliers, and I've heard it is possible to make one out of a biscuit tin, or even a wok and some wooden chopsticks.

The walled kitchen garden - an introduction

As regular readers and friends will know, earlier this year we moved to Hove. When we looked round the flat, one of the things that we really liked about it was the garden. The borders were pretty over-grown, but the garden was a good size and looked like it would get a lot of sun. It was quite a contrast to the garden we had in our London terrace, which was narrow, ran up a hill and was overshadowed by trees in the neighbouring gardens. The Hove garden clearly had a lot of potential, but it was also going to be something of a project.

The garden when we moved in

What's in season in May

By May, Spring is in full swing. The trees are in leaf, and all sorts of seedlings are pushing up through the soil. The garden and countryside are awash in verdant greens. In the veg plot, as with all spring months, May is more about sowing and planting out than harvesting. As the risk of frost disappears, tender plants such as courgettes, tomatoes and runner beans can be planted outside. With long days and often plentiful sun and rain, plants seem to put on an amazing amount of growth. In terms of what can be harvested in May, or gleaned from hedgerows, it is often about young leaves for salads.

Wild garlic soup

Wild garlic soup

This is another recipe that is ideal if you have picked or otherwise acquired a large quantity of wild garlic (or ramson) leaves. Despite the abundant use of wild garlic leaves, the soup has a relatively mild flavour and lacks the pungency of raw wild garlic. It has a vivid green colour, and a pleasant earthy flavour, which reminds me of woodland in spring. The method is pretty simple, and can be adapted to make soup with watercress, nettles and other fresh green leaves. This recipe will serve four.