Hedgewitch Adventures @ Linford Lakes Nature Reserve

Autumn Wildfood Cookery 2016

Menu:

Wild Seed Damper Bread with Nettle Pesto
Comfrey Fritters
Roasted Reedmace Roots

Clay & Leaf Baked Trout with Wild Horseradish, Crabapple and Honey
Clay Baked Hazelnut & Crabapple Stuffed Squash

Hogweed Pannacotta with Wild Berries

Damper Bread:

300g self raising flour
75g butter or vegan sub
1 small cup soya milk
2 tsp sugar
½ tsp salt
Himalayan Balsam seeds
Plaintain seeds
Nettle seeds
Flour to add later

1. Put flour in mixing bowl, add salt and sugar.
2. Work in butter and add milk til you form a dough.
3. Chop nettle tops finely and boil in a small amount of water. Drain well.
4. Pick what seeds you want to add and mix in. Mix in nettles.
5. Add more flour if needed.
6. Stretch the mixture into a long snake and wrap around a green wood, non toxic stick such as willow. The stick needs to be about 1cm thick and t least 40cm long.
7. Hold above the hot embers and turn slowly til cooked..it wont take long!
8. Enjoy on its own or with nettle pesto or horseradish sauce.

Nettle Pesto

3 cups nettle tops
olive oil to taste (roughly ½ to 1 cup)
1 cup crushed walnuts
salt, pepper
1 large garlic clove, crushed

1. Boil the nettle tops in just enough water to cover, then drain.
2. Blend or pestle up the nettles then do the same with all the other ingredients (add the oil last)

Comfrey Fritters (serves 2)

100g white self raising flour
250ml soda water
Comfrey leaves (small)
Sunflower oil

1. Chill the ingredients
2. Add oil to a saucepan, heat to 180c
3. Mix flour, cornflour together and pour in soda water til a light batter is formed.
4. Stir it in quickly within a minute, don’t worry about a few lumps.
5. Dip comfrey leaves in..hold 2 or 3 together to make a thicker, juicer fritter.
6. Dry on kitchen towel to absorb excess oil. Nice with soy sauce or other strong sauce.

Clay & Leaf Baked Trout/ stuffed Baked Squash

Whole trout
Clay (a saucepan full)
Comfrey leaves or burdock leaves to cover fish both sides
Crabapples
Horseradish root
Honey

Small squash
Clay
Hazelnuts (a handful)
Couscous ?
Crabapples (a handful)
Garlic
1 onion, chpped
Soy sauce 2 tblsp
Grated horseradish

Trout

1. Get fire ready with a good bed of embers
2. Gut trout.
3. Dress with thinly sliced crab apples, grated horseradish and drizzle with honey.
4. Wrap in comfrey leaves til completely covered, drizzle on a bit of water if needed.
5. Mould a 1cm thick layer of clay smoothly around the whole fish, leaving no gaps.
6. Place on a flat bed of embers and quickly heap more on top. If there isn’t enough embers, turn the fish after 20 min and do the other side.
7. Hopefully it wont fall to pieces and you can hoick it out with flat metal skillet or BBQ tools.
8. Break open…inhale…

Squash

1. Cut squash in two & Hollow out the squash.
2. Fry garlic and onion in saucepan, when golden brown switch off.
3. Crush the hazelnuts in the pestle and mortar and add them.
4. In another pan boil the crabapples for 5 min, add to hazelnut mixture.
5. Add soy sauce and grated horseradish
6. Whack the two squash halves back together
7. Fold in leaves
8. Cover with 1cm thickness of clay, no gaps
9. Stick on a bed of flat embers and cover with more embers.
10. Leave for roughly 20-3omin
11. Crack open and enjoy.

Hogweed Pannacotta with Wild Berry Layer

1/2 sachet Vegi Gel per 2 pannacottas
260ml soya milk
3 tblsp dried hogweed seeds
50g sugar for adding to milk
½ cup sugar for sauce
1 cup Wild berries (elderberry, blackberry, even a few sloes!)
½ a lemon
Water mint to dress

1. Heat the soya milk in a saucepan til it is simmering.
2. Lightly Crush 1 tblsp of hogweed seeds at a time in a pestle and mortar
3. Add the hogweed seeds to the milk and simmer for 5-10 min, tasting and adding more to taste.
4. Sieve the seeds out of the milk.
5. Add the sugar to the milk and dissolve.
6. Make up half a sachet of Vegi Gel in 100ml cold water then add to infused milk.
7. Stir til dissolved, then leave to cool slightly and pour into a china cup.
8. After a few mins put in the fridge for one hour to set.
9. Make up hot sticky berry sauce by crushing berries with potarto masher in just enough water to cover, add sugar slowly to taste and add the lemon at the end.
10. Boil until sauce thickens
11. Tip milk pudding out upside down onto the serving plate and garnish with water mint and berry sauce, sprinkle with a few berries.

ENJOY XX

Hedgewitch Kat