Red Currant & Lavender Jelly for the Easter Lamb

At Nashtown Castle our preserves, jellies and pickles are made seasonally with local seasonal produce where possible. They are home grown and home made. Here is our list of the preserves that are currently available.

Nashtown Castle Red Currant & Lavender Jelly for Easter

• Apple Jelly - made with apples from an old traditional Kilkenny orchard
• Apple & Lavender Jelly - made with our homegrown lavender
• Bitter Orange Marmalade - this is our only preserve that has no locally grown ingredients
• Cucumber Pickle - made with three varieties of cucumber, grown in our garden
• Gooseberry & Apple Jelly - has a subtle gooseberry flavour
• Pickled Red Cabbage - robust old fashioned pickle, made with our own red cabbage
• Pumpkin, Ginger & Orange Marmalade - more like a relish, delicious with cold meat
• Spicy Pumpkin Chutney - perfect with cold beef and a baked potato
• Red Currant and Lavender Jelly - to be eaten with the Easter roast lamb. Fresh mint will be difficult to find as Easter is so early this year, so here is a great alternative

Email: kilkennyseakale@gmail.com

Is it a Cabbage or a Turnip? Kohlrabi

Is it a cabbage or is it a turnip?

Kohlrabi is a mysterious vegetable that is a hybrid cross between the two.

The leaves and the swollen stem may both be eaten, but it is grown for its swollen stem.

A popular vegetable in Germany and Italy in the nineteenth century, the Italians ate it before the stem grew any larger than a hen's egg, while the German's preferred it fully grown.

Red Kohlrabi grown in Co. Kilkenny

Kohlrabi can be eaten raw in salads or cooked. There is a school of thought that believes its distinctive flavour is mainly in the skin and near it, so it is probably best steamed intact until tender. Then it can be peeled, if required, and sliced. Also, delicious, when simply roasted - just peel, roughly dice along with other root vegetables, some onion and herbs, mix with olive oil and roast until tender.

The leaves are also good for eating and are best treated like kale. Easily grown in County Kilkenny, so give it a go.

Email: kilkennyseakale@gmail.com

Purple Sprouting Broccoli

A delicious, welcome spring vegetable that even the most incompetent Kilkenny gardener can grow, provided they have a sheltered spot. A descendant of the wild cabbage, found in the Eastern Mediterranean, and a cousin of the cauliflower.  Gradually, it evolved into the vegetable that we now know as, Purple Sprouting Broccoli, and made its way up through Italy into Northern Europe and thus to Ireland in the early eighteenth century.

Purple Sprouting Broccoli waiting to be picked

Not to be confused with the Italian Calabrese that is commonly seen in our supermarkets, the Purple Sprouting Broccoli has a fresher, more delicate flavour and melts in the mouth when cooked.

A welcome green vegetable at a time of year when edible, seasonal, greenery, locally grown is difficult to find. The small purple heads are made up of tiny flower buds on little stems, these are picked and eaten before they open.

Purple Sprouting Broccoli waiting to be cooked

Traditionally, after picking they were tied into small bunches and placed in boiling water standing up, so that the stems were in the water and the heads were steamed. If life is too short for such niceties, just throw them into boiling water, for not more than 5 minutes, or steam them, until barely tender.

Steaming Purple Sprouting Broccoli waiting to be eaten

The shorter the time between picking and eating vegetables, the more flavoursome they will be and the more nutritous they are. So, try and source locally grown vegetables, snap them up whenever they appear in your local shop, cook them as soon as you can, then they will be squeaky fresh when you taste them.

Email: kilkennyseakale@gmail.com