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

Pumpkin, Ginger and Orange Marmalade

Pumpkin, Ginger and Orange Marmalade from Nashtown Castle made from our own home grown pumpkins, picked in the autumn, air dried and naturally matured to ensure they are eaten at their best.

Nashtown Castle Pumpkin, Ginger and Orange Marmalade

Made in our traditional country kitchen, the orange and ginger flavours are dominant in this unusual, but delicious marmalade. Use it as a relish with free range pork sausages or on fresh brown soda bread for breakfast.

Email: kilkennyseakale@gmail.com 

Sea Kale on the first day of Spring

The Sea Kale plants were checked today to ensure that all was well and that the pesky slugs had not launched an attack.

Blanched young Sea Kale shoots

The plants have spent the winter under terracotta pots, excluded from all light. The new blanched shoots are beginning to sprout and are doing well under their upturned pots. The shoots are blanched, not forced, and are allowed to develope in their own natural time.

In a few weeks time, they will be ready for cutting and they will be available for sale in Glasrai & Goodies shop in Gowran, County Kilkenny.

Look out for them so you can eat them when freshly cut.
Email: kilkennyseakale@gmail.com

Kilkenny Salsify

SALSIFY

An under rated old fashioned vegetable once grown in Irish Victorian kitchen gardens. Like sea kale, it became unfashionable and forgotten. Look out for the seeds, it is well worth growing and you will find the tender roots a welcome addition to your autumn meals.

Leave a few plants to over winter and if you leave them until they flower, they will seed freely. You can eat the young shoots in salads. The purple flowers are an added attraction.

Dig roots carefully, they are brittle and will easily snap. Dig them while they are still young. 

RECIPE: Gently wash and remove long green leaves. Scrap off skin, chop into one inch long pieces, place in salted boiling water that has some lemon juice added to it, until they are just beginning to soften. Drain.

Roll in a little butter, with chopped parsley and a little lemon zest and enjoy their beautiful delicate flavor.


Email: kilkennyseakale@gmail.com

Sea Kale in Autumn

The Sea Kale has done well over the summer months, recovering fully after all its spring shoots were cut for eating. Despite the bad summer, it has built up its reserves for the winter and now looks like some nobbly monster.

Sea Kale in the Autumn

Today, it was mulched with three year old well rotted horse manure and once the final leaves have fallen off, it will be covered with earthenware pots and tucked away until the spring, when there should be a mass of lucious, blanched shoots - a great delicacy.

Sea Kale ready to be covered

It was nurtured in this manner in Victorian and Edwardian kitchen gardens, but has subsequently grown out of favour with diners.
Email: kilkennyseakale@gmail.com