Bibliocook: All About Food

My Nana always kept hens. As a child, I spent a lot of time at her house - just the other side of the hill from where we now live - and hens were an ever-present, taken-for-granted part of growing up. Previously my Nana, a trained and skilled poultrywoman, had kept flocks of hens for breeding; by the time I came along she just supplied Dwanes, one of the local shops, with fresh eggs for sale at the counter. But there were still jobs for the grandchildren to do. One of the dreaded chores was that of collecting the eggs. Slowly, slowly, slowly, the straw-lined wicker egg basket banging against my Wellington-clad bare legs, I would go through the gate in the far corner of the yard, wander past the haggart with all its fascinating bits of rusty farm machinery, turn right on to the lane the cows ambled along twice a day for milking and, keeping close to the less muddy inside side, come to the old wooden hen house. After taking a deep breath of clean air, I would twist the old bolt across, opening the door into the musty fug of the hens' world and prepare myself for the egg search.

These were very much free-range eggs; the hens spent their days roaming through the nearby grove and surrounding farmyards. Very few of the outdoor escapades of my cousins and I didn't involve encountering some squawking hen in an unlikely place. But there were always a few indoors and they looked very imposing indeed, especially to a little girl who wasn't too much bigger than the basket that she carried. Most of the nesting boxes that lined the hen house were empty that time of the day but there were always a few hens in place to put the heart crossways in you as you pulled back the disintegrating curtains that gave the layers some privacy. Unlike my Mother and aunts, I could never bring myself to root under a hen for eggs, always too afraid that that shar-looking beak would seek to defend its owner from the unwarranted intrusion. I wonder how many eggs I left behind in those days?

On Saturday the Husband picked up four Rhode Island Red, point-of-lay pullets from a hen lady near Kanturk to populate our sturdy and stylish new hen house and run from Fingerprint Wood Products. The crooning and clucking from the girls as they figure out their new surroundings has unlocked a stream of long-forgotten memories. Every time we go into the garden there has to be time spent observing the new arrivals and marvelling at their antics. Even though we are keeping them confined at the moment, they have already managed - even at a remove - to terrorise the local tom cat who was paying visits to our own cat. The cat herself normally follows us around the garden as we work outside; her movements are now more confined as she tries to avoid being seen and commented on by the hens. Last night the Husband and I spent half-an-hour in and out of the run, trying to find a bowl or bucket that our ever-so-slightly dense foursome would recognise as a water receptacle. They walked around - almost into - the various water containers for quite a while but not once while we were there did they actually see what was in them. Figuring that they wouldn't expire from thirst overnight, we eventually left them to it. I think that my Nana would have been very entertained.

Although there has been lots of salad planted in the garden on recent weekends, including mustard greens, rocket and mizuna (at least I'll be able to distinguish between the plants after cramming in Ballymaloe for the salad leaves and herbs exams!), it's going to be a while before any of the leaves are big enough to eat. Then, of course, because our planting in succession routine is not entirely developed - despite best intentions - we'll have another glut to work through. But that's all ahead of us and, until then, I've been growing my own salad on the windowsill.

I bought a small, three-level seed sprouter last summer but it was much too warm in our Dublin flat so my first attempts weren't very successful. Now, on a bright windowsill in my unheated cottage, it's really coming into its own. It's on the window behind the sink which makes it easier to remember to rinse the sprouts twice a day - it's not so good when you forget although the smell will help you remember.

I started off using the seeds that I bought at the same time as the sprouter - broccoli (a bit weedy), fenugreek (spicy addition to salads), mustard (peppery, really good in sandwiches) and red clover, which is all a bit anonymous. Getting more adventurous, I recently moved on to the contents of the store cupboard. Mung beans - the bean sprouts we all know - have been a success, especially in their crunchy and juicy early stages but the quinoa never really grew properly and the wheatberries were much too much like grass to be palatable. I suppose that's why wheatgrass is normally used for producing juice. My absolute favourite - so far - are the sprouted lentils. I've been switching between the simple brown and crunchier Puy lentils, both which are great mixed with the stronger-flavoured mustard and fenugreek sprouts in salads and stuffed into sandwiches, pitta breads and wraps. With this tiny garden, I'm much better with successive planting - hopefully we can make it work better outdoors this year!

If you're interested in reading more, there's some very useful information about sprouting in the recent Guardian Grow-Your-Own Guide and the ever-useful Nigel Slater gives a few ideas about how to use them here.

Spring may not be properly sprung, judging by this week's storms, but there's still a lightness in the air, a brightness in the mornings and evenings which translates itself onto the dinner table. Not being entirely well organised gardeners, it took us a while to figure out which of the selection of plants still standing (or half battered down) in the garden is kale - the other that we still have growing is purple sprouting broccoli or PSB, although not yet P or S, although we still have our fingers crossed. We're growing a variety called Ragged Jack, with large frilly leaves, and I had only ever encountered curly kale before this so initially refused to believe that it was edible. After confirming that it is indeed edible - more than that, it's actually delicious, with tender and juicy leaves - we have been eating it with abandon.

During the dog days of winter, it made frequent appearances as a last minute addition to stews and soups - that was if someone felt like braving the nasty weather and Very Dark Garden outside. Happily, the Husband's head torch (normally used for camping) proved very useful in a winter countryside setting. Washed, de-stemmed and shredded, it just takes a few minutes to cook in a pan of bubbling winter-time food, softening into a delicious bright greenness in minutes. But there's more to kale than using it just as a last-minute addition other meals. Here's a recipe for those times when you feel like you need a spring tonic - just kale, garlic, chilli, olive oil and lemon juice. After a plateful of this, perhaps on a slice of your own homemade bread rubbed with more garlic and drizzled with some of the olive oil you used to cook the kale, you'll feel ready to face whatever the weather may throw at you.

Continue reading "Days of kale and wonder" »

The veggie garden is looking a little sad at this stage in the year. Just a few scraggly kale plants, as-yet-unformed purple sprouting broccoli - but we still have some leeks, when we remember to cook them! We've recently been having a cold snap so I've been making lots of soups and, one day when I happened to remember that we still had to use up the leeks in the garden and actually had some potatoes in the house, I made a version of Clothilde's minimalist Leek and Potato Soup, which she in turn had adapted from Sophie Brissaud's recipe. As I was just after a stock-making session, I used chicken stock as well as water in the soup for more depth of flavour, and finished it off with dollops of ever-present yoghurt. This is very much an approximation of the recipe - I just didn't want to get out the weighing scales!

Continue reading "Leeks from the garden" »