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

Nettle and Barley Pudding - An Experiment

It is time to go foraging for Nettles, they are now in season, here in County Kilkenny.

Bunch of Freshly Picked Nettles

Best eaten tender, soon after emerging from their winter slumber.  When picking them, wear rubber gloves, so you will not be stung. This recipe calls for a decent bunch. Make sure they are growing in a spot where they have not been sprayed, away from a road and preferably where there are no livestock grazing.

Added ingredients: leeks, sorrel, watercress, thyme & chives

This recipe is based on an ancient type of pudding, commonly eaten in the past. 

Puddings, nowadays, apart from blood puddings, are usually regarded as sweet dishes, but this was not always the case. Originally, they were placed in an animal's stomach, like the modern Scottish haggis. From the seventeenth century, puddings, generally savory, wrapped in a cloth and thus cooked. Later, in second half of the nineteenth century, they were placed in a pudding basin and steamed. 

Barley and Nettle Pudding being placed in Lamb Stock

RECIPE

Lamb, ham or chicken stock

Barley (pearl barley was used in this case)

Bunch of nettles

Bunch of watercress

Bunch of sorrel

2 leeks

Chives

1 wild garlic leaf

Sprigs of thyme

Salt

The barley was soaked before hand, in lamb stock and then drained (there is a similar version of this recipe, that uses barley flour). The greens were finely chopped, added to the barley, along with some sea salt, mixed together.  Some of the larger leaves were held aside and used to line the pudding cloth, and to wrap the pudding. It was then tied up and cooked in a saucepan of lamb stock for an hour and a half.

Nettle and Barley Pudding

VERDICT

The pudding should have been opened, once it had cooled, but being in a hurry to taste it, it was opened while still steaming - so it lost its shape! It was wonderfully tasty, and was eaten with some locally produced lamb. It is likely that in medieval times, all sorts of exotic foreign spices (of which they were so fond), would have been added - by those who could afford it. 

Next time, I am going to try the barley flour version, it is an inspirational dish: traditional, healthy, cheap, local and seasonal. 

Email: kilkennyseakale@gmail.com