Kitchen Garden Experts

We love kitchen garden books.  That being said, Kitchen Garden Experts is quite extraordinary. We came upon this very British book by way of the photographer, Jason Ingram.  We love, love, love him.  He photographed our favorite cookbook of recent memory, The Ethicurean.  So now we have kitchen gardens and Jason Ingram!  Add in Cinead McTernan, the editor of The Simple Things magazine, who manages to corral gardeners, chefs, recipes and dynamic photos to pull it all together and you have a great book.  In the old stereotype, the English were great gardeners but rather lousy cooks.  This book proves that they are both. 

Raymond Blanc's 27 acre Le Manoir garden

 To start with, this is not your raised bed in the backyard type of kitchen garden.  These are farms, educational centers, walled ecosystems, and plots with elaborate greenhouses.  There are a few gardening tips, but the biggest tip is to hire a full time gardener!  As for the recipes, don't think just because these guys grow their own peas that the menu will feature a nice bowl of mushy peas.  These chefs haven't gone to the expense of hiring passionate gardeners and fussing over ingredients to simply toss them in a salad. 

The recipes are often long, with several preparations to achieve the final dish.  There is Chef Duncan Barham's whose dish, Beetroot Textures, requires eight different preparations to pull off  his beet salad.  Then we have the ever elegant, yet simple Ruth Rogers of River Cafe with a Sorrel Frittata. 

The book features venerable names like Jekka McVicar and Sir Terrance Conran along with new kids on the block like the Pennington brothers and Mark Cox at the Ethicurean.  Some of the gardens were gardens in past centuries, some only a few years old.  The mix is intoxicating. 

David Kennedy and Ken Holland in "The Pod" bringing the kitchen to the garden.

One of our favorites, Skye Gyngell, who spent many years cooking in a small kitchen behind Petersham's Nurseries, has moved to a larger canvas, but retains a desire for home grown produce.  Here is her recipe for a simple syrup that transforms a plain, soft cheese into an elegant dessert.

Rose Hip Syrup

1kg/2lb 3oz rose hips
350ml/12fl oz water
750g/1 1/2lb caster sugar

1. Wash the roe hips and remove their stalks.  Pulse the hips in a food processor to chop coarsely.  Quickly place the hip pieces in a saucepan of 175ml/6fl oz boiling water.  Once the water has come back to a boil, remove the pan from the heat and let it stand for 15 minutes.  Then strain, reserving the liquid.  In another 175ml/6fl oz boiling water, repeat the boiling process and strain once more. Having strained off the liquid, this time discard the rose hips.

2. Measure the strained liquid, then put back in the saucepan on the heat.  For each 1 liter/1 3/4 pints of strained liquid add 750g/1 1/2 lb caster sugar.  Stir to help dissolve the sugar.  once it has boiled and the sugar dissolved, remove from the heat and pour the sugar into sterilized jars to cool. 

Kitchen Garden Experts is a must have.  The biggest problem is where to shelve it.  Maybe we should get two copies, one for the cookbooks and one for the gardening books!  Not a bad idea.

Read More

Seasonal Recipes From The Garden

For a long time my cable provider didn't provide a PBS station.  It seemed weird, no PBS, but I learned to live it.   After changing providers, I suddenly had PBS again.   I started taping P. Allen Smith and watching his gardening show.  

Like most of those "gardening" shows, there is more looking at gardens than actual gardening going on.  Smith shows fields where he planted thousands of crocus bulbs.  I once planted 200 crocus bulbs with  two friends.  We planted for about three hours.  You do the math!  Smith has a small 600 acre farm that he keeps beautifully manicured.  Seriously, all by himself?  Well, that is the way of garden television. 

Anyway, Smith published a cookbook several years ago, Seasonal Recipes From The Garden.  Truth is I might have been more interested in the pictures of the 600 acre farm than the actual recipes and I do have a bias as Mr. P. and I share a birthday. 

Seasonal Recipes From The Garden is exactly what it bills itself as, a collection of recipes cooked from ingredients that might come out of any garden.   It is a solid, simple cookbook featuring recipes from Smith's family and from many of the chefs and cooks that he know around the Little Rock, Arkansas area where he is located.   Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with solid, simple recipes.    Martha Hall Foose described recipes as being "approachable as a handshake."  "This is not a cookbook that will leave you thinking, "Wow, why didn't I think of that!"  It does offer up solid recipes with a garden flair.

On a trip to California, Smith found a merlot and pomegranate juice.  He loved it, brought it back to Arkansas, ordered more, convinced his local grocer to carry the product and then it was discontinued.  He set about to recreate that lovely flavor and turn it into a sorbet.

Pomegranate Merlot Sorbet

3 cups bottled pomegranate juice
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cu water
1 cup melot wine
1 cup sugar

   Combine all the ingredients in a medium nonreactive saucepan, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.  Continue to boil the mixture for approximately 45 minutes, reducing it by about half to a syrup consistency.  Remove the syrup from the heat and let it cool to room temperature.

Transfer the syrup to an ice cream maker, and process according to the manufacturer's directions.

Transfer the sorbet to and airtight container and store in the freezer.  Remove the sorbet from the freezer and let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

We love sorbet and fruit and wine so this is a win win win.

Read More