Dogshit Park

So what do you do with a fungi find from a location that's used as a doggy toilet, or else otherwise contaminated? Or if you find an example of a prized species that's well past its best?

You could simply leave the fungi to decay in their natural habitat, however I pick them anyway and seed them in more desirable locations - not least because next season, I'll know where to look.

Picking doesn't harm the fungi since what's on the surface is only the fruit: the main body of the plant - the cobwebby mycelium - being underground.

Here's an Agaricus bitorquis I found today in Epsom town centre's notorious 'Dogshit Park':

Agaricus bitorquis is good to eat - it's the wild parent of the cultivated Portabello mushroom.




However this particular example was riddled with worms and not something I'd consider eating, quite apart from where I found it. I've chopped it up and scattered it around the garden, hoping for rain.

Hyacinths for the soul

Out on the North Downs Way, I stumbled across a bluebell wood. Bluebells aren't to be eaten, since all parts of the plant are poisonous, but they reminded me of the famous poem:

If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,
And from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.

I'm surprised at how little-used the North Downs Way is. Once past the car parks and lookout point at Box Hill, I've walked for hours and not seen another (human) soul.

Pizza

Truly poverty-spec food, this. Personally I resent paying £5+ for supermarket pizza - albeit hand-crafted by virgins over ley lines - when I can make better myself for a quarter of the cost.

The dough (based on Jamie Oliver's recipe)

Ingredients (makes 3 pizza bases for two):

500g strong white bread flour or Tipo ‘00’ flour
1/2 level tablespoon fine sea salt
1 x 7g sachet of dried yeast
1/2 tablespoon golden caster sugar
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
325ml lukewarm water

Method:

Sieve the flour and salt on to a clean work surface and make a well in the middle. In a jug, mix the yeast, sugar and olive oil into the water and leave for a few minutes, then pour into the well. Using a fork, bring the flour in gradually from the sides and swirl it into the liquid. Keep mixing, drawing larger amounts of flour in, and when it all starts to come together, work the rest of the flour in with your clean, flour-dusted hands. Knead until you have a smooth, springy dough, adding a dusting more of flour if the dough is too sticky.

Place the ball of dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover the bowl with a damp cloth and place in a warm room for about an hour until the dough has doubled in size. Then, remove the dough to a flour-dusted surface and knead it around a bit to push the air out with your hands – this is called knocking back the dough. You can either use it immediately, or keep it, wrapped in clingfilm, in the fridge (or freezer) until required.

If using straight away, roll out the dough with a flour-dusted rolling pin. Then, add toppings: some of my favourites are mushrooms, goat's cheese, salami and red onions. Top this off with grated mozzarella and parmesan, and sling the whole thing into a hot oven for 10 minutes. Eat. Enjoy.

Dryad's saddle

An unexpected fungi find while out hunting for kindling wood - it's the size of a tractor seat.


I've picked the smaller, younger one at the top. Fried in butter with a sauce of garlic, sour cream and dill, that did nicely for tonight's supper.

Beech leaves

These can be used as salad leaves when very young and tender, though I think they're rather bitter to eat on their own. I'd use them to bulk up a rocket salad, or liven up otherwise dull greens.

I've picked a load to make into noyau - an old French liqueur recipe from Roger Phillips' book Wild Food:

Beech Leaf Noyau

Ingredients:

Young beech leaves
1 bottle gin
225g white sugar
1 glass brandy

Method:

Collect young beech leaves and strip them off their twigs. Half-fill a 2-litre preserving jar with the leaves and pour on the gin. Seal the container and steep the leaves for 3 weeks, before straining them off. Boil the sugar in 300ml of water and add this to the gin with a large glass of brandy. Bottle.

I haven't tried this before, but have been itching to give it a go from the moment I first heard about it. Although I do hope it tastes better than it sounds, else I've wasted a bottle of gin. (Which would be criminal.)

St George's mushrooms

I need to find some of these and fast. My credibility as a wild food enthusiast is at stake here.

Annoyingly - in suburban Surrey - I never have.

Allegedly St George's can first appear up to a week later than 23 April.

I live in hope :-)

Ramsons (wild garlic)

Wild garlic is everywhere on the North Downs Way at the moment. Some people think these leaves are bitter when cooked and best used raw instead of chives.

I disagree. Although these work well as a garnish for potato salad - or as a gourmet leaf to feed captive snails ;-) they're also very good in an oriental stir fry or Thai curry.

Spring / summer heating

I can't justify using the gas-fired £100-a-month central heating in April, and there are no logs for the woodburner to be had anywhere.

As a child I remember my parents' house being full of candles in winter, and the surprising amount of heat these generated.

Good quality tealights are £5 for 100 from Waitrose and burn for 4 hours each. 10 or so dotted about the place beautifully light a draughty old barn after dark, and heat it in the process for 50p.

Compared with the cost of running the central heating for 4 hours = £3. A no-brainer.

However, since paraffin wax is a by-product of crude oil, candles aren't particularly 'green' - though every Grand Designs eco-hovel seems to have them in profusion... Tut, tut.

Vegetable wax candles are available, but while they're 10 x the price of the paraffin wax variety, I shan't be buying them. Hence the title of this blog.

Wild primroses

Primrose flowers are edible and can be used in salads. Or, dipped in egg white then icing sugar and left to dry, as cake decorations. Personally, I leave them as I think they're too pretty to eat.

European Peasant Cookery

A great book for the parsimonious: Elisabeth Luard's bible of kitchen thrift derives from traditions where the only part of an animal that's ever wasted is the moo / oink / squawk.

It also ticks the 'seasonal' and 'local' food boxes for those who are concerned about such things, since the essence of peasant cooking is making the best use of whatever ingredients are to hand.

Nettles

Yes, the horrible 'stingers' you were pushed into by bullies as a child. (Or at least I was.)

Nettles are rich in iron and can be used in exactly the same way as spinach. Lovely they are, as nettle soup or as a substitute for spinach in the Greek spanakopita. Pick the tops from March to the end of May, after which they become bitter and rather 'insecty'.

Nettle soup

My version of this is a combination of Roger Phillips' and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's approaches to the subject. I hope they won't mind.

Ingredients (for two):

2 celery sticks, finely diced
1 large carrot, finely diced
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
A colander full of nettle tops (picked with gloves on), washed
1 large floury potato, diced
A handful of cooked rice
250ml of chicken or vegetable stock
Small carton of single cream
Salt, pepper
Nutmeg

Method:

Chop celery, carrot, onion, garlic and potato and sweat in butter. Add nettle tops, stock and simmer until the potato is soft. Add rice (for thickening). Blend. Season with salt and pepper and the merest scraping of nutmeg (it's easy to overdo the nutmeg, but a hint really enhances the flavour). Add cream. Eat.

This soup is delicious hot or cold with Ramsons (wild garlic leaves) chopped and sprinkled over.

Spanakopita (Greek feta and 'spinach' pie)

This recipe is based on Anthony Worrall-Thompson's version, with added input from my friend Vic's Greek father, which is that if you don't squeeze out all the water from the spinach, nettles or whatever greenery you're using, you'll get a 'soggy bottom' to your pie. Funny how all 'celeb' chefs forget to mention the need for this - makes you wonder whether they've ever actually cooked the dish themselves. :-|

Ingredients (for four):

400g nettle tops, picked with gloves on and washed
1 tablespoon chopped parsley (or more)
Small bunch spring onions, chopped
225g onion, finely chopped
300g feta cheese, crumbled
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Olive oil, for frying onions and brushing filo
6 thin filo pastry sheets


Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/250F/Gas 4.
2. Steam the nettle tops for 5 mins or so until wilted, squeeze out the excess water in a cloth and chop finely.
3. For the filling, in a large bowl, combine the nettles, parsley and spring onions.
4. In a pan, gently fry the onion until golden. Add to the nettle mix.
5. Now add the feta and mix well. Season.
6. For the spanakopita, grease a shallow baking dish with oil and line with three of the filo sheets, placing one on top of the other. Brush each sheet separately.
7. Put the filling over the pastry and spread evenly. Cover with the remaining filo. Brush the top with oil and, with the point of a sharp knife, trace the crust into square pieces.
8. Bake for 40 minutes. When golden brown, remove and leave to cool. Cut and serve with a tomato salad.

Also goes beautifully with tzatziki and a lamb (or rabbit) kebab.

Snails

The commonly eaten French snail is no different from what's found in our own gardens.

Thankfully, we've had a bit of rain these past few days and there are lots of snails on the move. If not, I give the garden a good dousing with water just before dark, wait an hour and go out with a torch. Walls, fences and around the gas meter and garden tap are all good places to look.

Snails can't be eaten right away, on the basis that you don't know what they've eaten. Hence the need to feed them up and then starve them to get rid of whatever's in their intestinal tract.

Presently, I have a dozen or so of Surrey's finest in their own snail Hilton where they can lounge about, gorge on gourmet leaves and otherwise chew the fat, blissfully unaware of my plans for their future: I'm thinking a gutsy stew of chick peas, chorizo, garlic, tomatoes, paprika and coriander would suit.

Meanwhile, some pictures...

Snail Hilton

A washing up bowl with vine leaves. Vine leaves are what the Burgundians - the innovators of snail cuisine - use to feed theirs:
















Ensuring they don't check out too early

I've fashioned a lid from a table, and weighted it down with some cans:

After 5 days of gorging I'll starve them for a further 3 days, give them a wash and throw them into boiling salted water for 10 minutes. They then need to be winkled out of their shells with a pin, tossed with a bit of salt, and rinsed. After this they're ready to use.

All this may seem like a faff, but I think the results are worth it. I only ever collect wild food that is worth eating in its own right: if anything needs expensive ingredients adding, or complex cooking then I can't be arsed with it.

For me, the idea behind foraging is to collect gourmet treats such as wild mushrooms to to use as 'taste adders'; or free direct substitutes such as nettle tops to use in place of spinach. Snails are somewhere between the two.

Done badly (as I've had them in the UK) snails can be rubbery and tasteless. Done well, in a garlicky tomato stew with chorizo and chickpeas, they're meaty and very flavoursome.

The results

Yum yum.















The recipe

Ingredients:

Snails, prepared as above
2 small chorizo sausages, diced
1 large onion, sliced
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 chilli, chopped
1 can chick peas
2 cans chopped tomatoes
Splash of red wine
Pinch of smoked paprika
Chopped coriander for serving

Method:

Fry the chorizo in a non-stick pan over a low heat until it's slightly browned and the fat is slightly rendered. Soften the onions and garlic in the rendered fat, and throw this and everything else into a slow cooker for 8 hours. Serve with the chopped coriander stirred in, and hunks of crusty bread to mop up the juices.