Do you know your Cucumbers?

Why do shoppers prefer to buy their cucumbers, well aged, wrapped in tight plastic, imported from abroad when freshly picked, Kilkenny grown cucumbers are available? If a cucumber is bought on the day it is picked and eaten soon afterwards, the flavour is incomparable.

Four different types of freshly picked cucumber available from Glasrai, Gowran, Co. Kilkenny

Each variety of cucumber has a slightly different flavour, so it is worth trying them all. The small smooth green Lebanese ones are our favourite. The prickly ones at the bottom are gerkins, which are delicious when pickled.

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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

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A Bucket of Blood

A friend arrived with a bucket of fresh organic pig's blood a couple of days ago, this was the opportunity that we have been waiting for. Fed up with eating black puddings, posing as being made from traditional recipes, but actually made from dried imported blood, here was our chance to make our own genuine organic pudding.

Fresh organic pig's blood

The first problem was to locate a traditional Irish recipe, there were plenty telling us how to use them in cooking, but few were found on how to actually make them and those ones had quantities of white breadcrumbs in them, that we wished to avoid. Not having used fresh blood before, the safest course of action was to use a sensible French recipe. So, we began with Jennifer McLagan's Boudin Noir. This proved to be a success and good starting point.

Black pudding made with fresh organic pig's blood, ready for the oven.

The next morning, feeling a lot braver and considerably more foolhardy, it was time to go it alone and create our own recipe to try and achieve the traditional style of Irish black pudding, that we were aiming for.
It turned out to be as simple as rendering down some organic pork back fat, cooking onions in the fat, adding cooked pearl barley, oat flakes, spices and last of all: the blood. Then baking it all in a bath of water, in the oven.

Traditional homemade black pudding ready to cook for breakfast

What a delicious breakfast - two different types of homemade, locally sourced, blood pudding, fried slowly with a nob of country butter. The first one was very rich and light in texture and the second was exactly as we had hoped: moist with a rich traditional flavour.

Homemade black pudding almost ready for the breakfast table

From now on, we will find it difficult to buy blood puddings, as we know that we can make vastly superior ones, in full awareness of the origin of all the main ingredients.

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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. 

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Kilkenny Pheasant Liver Pate

Eating local and seasonal is hard to beat. A brace of wild Kilkenny pheasants, locally shot and hung for 6 days, arrived on the kitchen table. These pheasants had a healthy, free life until they met their demise.

A fine brace of Kilkenny Cock Pheasants

They were plucked and gutted. The pheasant feathers made a welcome addition to the compost heap. These pheasants were roasted with some fatty bacon and stuffed with a traditional seasonal herb stuffing, using breadcrumbs made from stale homemade soda bread.

The plump breast of a half plucked Kilkenny Cock Pheasant.

The livers were gently cooked, 3 to 4 times their weight, in country butter. Once they were cooked through, they were placed in the food processor along with a clove of garlic, a teaspoon of fresh thyme and lots of freshly ground pepper. The pan was rinsed out with a large splash of sherry, which was then added to the food processor. It was all whizzed up together and poured into a small bowl and placed into the fridge.  So easy.

Pheasant Livers on Melting Country Butter

The pate, with a little added sloe gin jelly, makes a rich starter to any winter meal. 

Pheasant Liver Pate with Sloe Gin Jelly

Waste not, want not... 

The pheasant bones should always be simmered up with root vegetables, herbs and spices to make a good stock. The base for a hearty seasonal soup.

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Ham Hock and Potato Pie

A local Kilkenny organic pig is killed and no one wants the delicious ham hocks, so they landed up on my kitchen table. If we kill animals for food, we should be respectful of the fact that a life has been taken and be prepared to make use of the entire animal. Some of the lesser known cuts of meat make for the best eating. This Ham Hock and Potato Pie is made using mostly locally produced Kilkenny ingredients.

Ham Hock covered with water, simmered with celery, onions,

leek tops, herbs and spices.

INGREDIENTS TO COOK THE HOCK 

1 ham hock, 

Leeks, 

Onions, 

Celery,

Bay leaf, 

Black pepper, 

4 cloves,

1 star anise, 

Herbs.

Cover with the ham hock with water, add fresh leeks leaf tops, onion, celery, bay leaves (anyone can grow a bay tree), whole black peppers, cloves, star anise, parsley stalks, sage, thyme. Simmer 2-3 hours until the meat is falling off the bone.

Leave to cool in stock. Strain the stock and reduce it and retain whatever you do not require for soup.

Ham Hock cooling in its own stock

INGREDIENTS FOR PIE

Meat off hock,

Onion,

Freshly dug carrots,

Freshly dug leeks,

Freshly picked thyme - tablespoon

Goose grease left over from Christmas

1 tablespoon flour

500 mls Homemade cider

250 mls reduced ham hock stock

Creme fraiche

6 floury potatoes

Some Kilkenny produced ingredients for Ham Hock Pie

Fry onion, fresh carrots, fresh leek, thyme in goose grease left over from Christmas. Once soft, add tablespoon flour mix in and add 500 mls homemade cider, 250 mls reduced ham hock stock. Add ham removed from bone and simmer 10 minutes.

Ham Hock Pie filling ready for Potato topping

Steam 6 floury Golden Wonder potatoes, until they are smiling, these ones were grown on the fertile flood plain of the River Nore. Remove the skins, mash with 100gms of creme fraiche or milk and add any seasoning you wish. Place on top of meat and vegetables.

Kilkenny Organic Ham Hock & Potato Pie

Put in moderate oven for 45-50 minutes and you will wonder why we do not eat ham hocks more often.
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