Time for Haws (Hawthorn Berries)

Haws are the bright red fruit of the hawthorn tree and they're just coming into season right now. Many people just walk past these bright red berries, thinking them only fit for birds. But the truth is that they can be very tasty and you can make a whole range of foods from them, ranging from pies through jams to sauces. They're also extremely high in vitamin C and well worth collecting. They also freeze well and will keep until needed.

This past weekend I saw that haws were just coming into their own and the first truly ripe ones were not available. I will collect lots over the next few weeks, but the weekend's bounty allowed me to collect some fresh fruit and mix these with fresh wild blackberries and a few late season wild raspberries to make a very delicious winter fruit crumble, detailed below:

Haw, Wild Balckberry and Wild Raspberry Oatmeal Crumble

Ingredients:

For the Fruit:
250g ripe haws, washed and drained
30g brown sugar
6 tbsp water

200g wild blackberries, washed and drained
100g wild raspberries, washed and drained
30g brown sugar
4 tbsp water
squeeze of lemon
1 tsp cornflour (cornstarch)

For the Crumble:
60g plain flour
30g coarse oatmeal
60g brown sugar
60g butter

Method:
Combine the haws, brown sugar and water in a pan and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer then cover and cook gently for 25 minutes until the haws have burst and are soft. Take off the heat, allow to cool until you can handle then pass through a fine-meshed sieve. Press the pulp down with the back of a spoon to extract as much haw juice as possible.

In a clean pan combine the haw juice, blackberries, wild raspberries, brown sugar, water and lemon juice. Bring this mixture just to a boil then reduce to a simmer and cook gently until the mixture has thickened and the fruit are just soft (but still firm), about 8 minutes' cooking time.

Turn the fruit into the base of an oven-proof dish and scatter the cornflour over the top. Meanwhile, mix together the flour and oatmeal then cube the butter and add to this mixture. Rub the butter into the flour and oatmeal mix with your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Stir in the brown sugar then, using your hands, sprinkle the topping evenly over the fruit. Tamp the oatmeal crumble mix down slightly then transfer to an oven pre-heated to 200°C. Bake for between 25 and 30 minutes, or until the fruit is hot and bubbling and the top of the dish is a nice golden brown in colour.

Serve hot with milk, cream, ice cream or custard.

If you would like more ideas for recipes using haws as a main ingredient, why not visit the Celtnet haw recipes pages. You can also find more information about hawthorn berries and the use of haws as a wild food on the Celtnet Recipes Hawthorn information page with recipes.

For all the wild food recipes on this blog, see the wild food recipes page.

Last of the Summer Blackberries

Last time I went picking the last of the season's ash keys and the first of this season's elderberries. However, I've been very remiss in picking that hedgerow staple, the one wild food that almost everyone recognizes — the blackberry.

This year has been pretty poor for blackberries, the wet summer and lack of sunlight has led to an underwhelming crop. However, yesterday I did make my way out of the house and managed to spend two pleasant hours dodging showers and picking blackberries.

There is something very relaxing about blackberry picking (despite being stung by nettles and scratched). Maybe it's because it takes me back to my childhood, picking blackberries with my grandmother. Admittedly, this season's foray wasn't exactly as productive as the time I spend with my grandmother. But I did managed to get a big bowl full of the fruit. Enough for two roly polies or two large crumbles (recipe below).

I also found a stand of wild raspberries (basically garden raspberries that have gone wild and survived) and within the next few days I will be adding this to my list of plants in my Guide to Wild Foods. There were even fruit on the vines... and, like the good forager I am, I harvested them!

I also noted that the dog rose hips are maturing and reddening, hawthorn berries are softening as are rowan berries. So, for the next month or so I will have a new fruit to harvest every week. So, expect weekly reports of what I gather as well as recipes for how to use them here.

Today's recipe is for a classic blackberry crumble:


Blackberry Crumble

Ingredients:
650g blackberries
80g golden granulated sugar
150g wholemeal flour
150g plain flour
150g butter
80g demerara sugar
2 tbsp butter

Method:
Wash and pick over your blackberries then place in the bottom of a pie or baking dish and sprinkle the golden granulated sugar over the top. Set aside for about 20 minutes for the sugar to dissolve into the fruit.

In the meantime sift the flours together into a bowl then cut the butter into fine cubes. Add to the flour mixture and rub in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Now stir-in the demerara sugar and combine well before spooning the mixture over the top of the fruit, ensuring it's completely covered. Press down gently with your fingers to tamp down the crumble mix then dot the butter over the surface.

Transfer to an oven pre-heated to 190°C and bake for about 40 minutes, or until the blackberries are bubbling and the surface of the crumble is golden. Allow to cool for a few minutes then serve hot with custard.

These aren't the only blackberry recipes I have. If you want many more ideas for how to use blackberries see my List of Blackberry Recipes page.

You can find more information about blackberries and hundreds of blackberry recipes on the Celtnet Blakbery Wild Food information and Recipes page.

For all the wild food recipes on this blog, see the wild food recipes page.

Making Use of Wild Foods

A wet and miserable August in the UK has made this month pretty bad for wild foragers. Wild blackberries, which you would expect in profusion really aren't lasting on the briars so it might take a few trips to get enough to be useful.

Indeed, I left much of my standard harvesting until far too late. Normally I pick Ash Keys early in August. It wasn't until this weekend that I picked them this year though. These you have to pick whilst young and green and you have maybe a week left now before they start drying out. This late in the season you will need to look for small ash trees in deep shade. This way you can still find younger, less mature keys.

Whether Ash keys are really worth picking is another rather vexed question. They're quite bitter and you will need to boil them through at least 3 changes of water to make them palatable (and to soften them). Once you've done this take about 400g Ash keys, add 300ml vinegar, your favourite pickling spices, 1 tsp paprika and 1 tbsp salt and bring to a boil. Bottle in sterilized jars and store. You will get something that tastes rather like bitter capers.

What I did discover, however, is that ash keys make a very acceptable substitute for a number of biter spices normally found in West African cookery. So this year my wife and I have developed a recipe for a Spiced Ash Key Pickle that works very well in West African soups and stews.

Just to show how this works, here's a link to a Kale and Ash Key Stew that's based on the classic Liberian dish of Cassava Leaf Stew. (You can find many more classic Liberian Recipes at the Celtnet Liberian Reicpes page which has the web's most extensive collection of these recipes.

Finding this use for Ash Keys really has changed my view of this wild food and I now have several large jars of pickled ash keys ready for use well into next year. It's amazing what you miss if you limit yourself to one type of cuisine.

This weekend I also picked my first elderberries. They're just beginning to ripen now and I had just enough to make an elderberry and blackberry roly poly (recipe below). It will probably be another 10 days before the elderberries are properly ripe, but you will have to be quick this year to get them as the birds are already stripping ripe elderberries from the trees. Pick them as soon as you see ripe ones (cut the whole spray of fruit from the elder tree and when you get home use the tines of a fork to strip the berries from the stalks).

Blackberry and Elderberry Steamed Roly Poly

Ingredients:
300g blackberries, washed and cleande
100g elderberries, de-stalked and washed
5 tbsp soft brown sugar
450g plain flour
180g vegetable suet
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Place the elderberries in a bowl and scatter 1 tbsp of the sugar over the top. Meanwhile, sift the flour and salt into a bowl and stir-in the suet. Mix together before adding just sufficient water to form a stiff dough. Cut 1/3 of the dough off and set aside. Roll the remaining dough on a lightly-floured surface until large enough to cover the base and sides of a 1l pudding basin. Combine the fruit, mix add the sugar then tip the fruit mixture into the pudding basin. Roll out the remaining dough and place over the top of the pudding to form a lid. Allow enough room for expansion and crimp the lid to the pastry lining the sides.

Either cover with a lid or a circle of greaseproof paper then cover the entire pudding in a double layer of kitchen foil and tie securely with string. Place in a steamer (or on top of an inverted saucer in a large saucepan) and boil for 2 hours.

When ready, remove from the pot an allow to cool for a few minutes before carefully removing the foil and lid. Invert a serving plate over the bowl then turn everything over so the pudding slides out of the bowl and onto the plate. Slice and serve hot with ice-cold milk.

This recipe is based on my mother's traditional family recipe for Blackberry Roly Poly, a dish that, in our family always marked the end of harvest time and the beginning of autumn.

I have to say that I was so delighted at getting a decent collection of elderberries on my first forage that I decided to create a whole new dish to use them: Chicken Thighs with Chickpeas in a Tomato, Chilli and Elderberry Sauce! Over the next few weeks, as my freezer begins to fill with fruit, be ready for recipes for Elderberry ice cream, elderberry sorbets, sauces, preserves and jams.

For all the wild food recipes on this blog, see the wild food recipes page.

Linden Leaf Pap (Porridge)

An African porridge with an European twist.


The use of dried leaves and mucilaginous greens to thicken stews and porridges is a well known tradition in African (particularly West African) cookery. Indeed, this is one of the many ways that the leaves of the Baobab tree are used in northern West Africa. Baobab is very versatile, with the dry pulp of the fruit being made into a drink that's very high in vitamin C. Indeed, the vitamin C content of baobab leaves is very high and the young leaves can be eaten as a vegetable. The older leaves are dried and pounded to a paste or shredded and are made into tea or are used in soups, stews and porridges as a thickener (the tree is grown commercially in Senegal for this very purpose).

What might be surprising to many people is that there is an European tree, the leaves of which have been used for a very similar purpose (and which were commonly used for these purposes in France as recently as 60 years ago). This is the Linden or Lime tree and there's a cognate species in North America.

During the Second World War, when supplies were getting scarce and even grain was a rare commodity, the French returned to a Medieval method for making flour go further. They began collecting linden (European lime) leaves which were dried in ovens before being pounded to a powder and sifted. This 'linden leaf flour' as it was commonly called was added to wheat flour to make it go further.

Linden leaves contain a mucilaginous substance which acts as a thickener. As a result linden flour was also added to stews to thicken them (useful if little meat and few vegetables are available) and it was also added to oats and wheat to make a porridge.

It's this porridge that's re-created here. I've based the recipe on one from West Africa, but linden leaf flour is substituted for Baobab leaf powder (the two dried leaf products have very similar culinary properties). It should be noted that 'pap' is actually an Afrikaans word meaning 'porridge' or 'gruel' but it's a word that's come into common currency in most English-speaking African countries.


300g maize meal (or polenta)

60g linden leaf flour

300ml water

Bring the water to a boil and add the polenta until a stiff mixture is attained then stir-in the linden leaf flour. Leave to simmer for 25 minutes, stirring every five minutes to prevent burning. Serve with a stew or a sauce.

You could make a version of this with porridge oats and that could be served as a breakfast.


As it turns out, recent research has revealed that linden leaves may even be beneficial when added to flour as they contain a high percentage of invert sugars. As a result they are readily metabolized by those suffering from diabetes and can be an useful addition to diabetic recipes. Thus this porridge makes an excellent start to the day for diabetics (or anyone else, come to that!).


If you are interested in the parallels between the use of linden leaves in African and Louisiana Creole cookery then read this article on Clues to lost recipes with Linden.

For more information about the European lime, linden, see the Celtnet Wild Food Guide to Linden and Linden recipes page.

If the use of linden leaves has piqued your curiosity, then you can find many more linden (and other wild food) recipes on the Celtnet Wild Foods Recipes pages.

For all the wild food recipes on this blog, see the wild food recipes page.

Recipes for Spring Wild Mushrooms

Though almost everyone thinks of mushrooms as being autumnal in their bounty there are a few species that fruit very early in the spring and these are well worth hunting out and trying. Because they fruit so early they are also difficult to confuse with poisonous species and, as long as you take a few precautions they are safe to go an hut for and to pick.

Below are recipes including three of the commonest spring mushrooms and I include a link to an identification guide for each.

1: St George's Mushrooms

You can find an identification guide for St George's Mushrooms here. This is one of the earliest of all field mushrooms and is a wonderful-tasting mushroom well worth the hunt.

The recipe follows:

St George's Mushroom Croustade

Ingredients:
150g breadcrumbs (preferably wholemeal)
150g plain flour
100g mixed nuts, chopped
1 tsp basil leaves, chopped
75g butter, softened
1 large egg
500g St George's Mushroom, cleaned and sliced
75g butter
450ml milk
1 tbsp flour
3 tomatoes, finely sliced
6 asparagus spears, cooked
salt and black pepper, to taste

Method:
For the base, add the breadcrumbs, flour and nuts to a bowl. Rub-in the butter with your fingers until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the egg and mix to a dough. Use this to line a well-greased 22cm flan tin. Press down with the back of your hand or a wooden spoon to compact the mixture to about 1.5cm thick.

Place in an oven pre-heated to 200°C and bake for about 14 minutes, or until set.

Meanwhile, fry the mushrooms, onion and garlic in the remaining butter for about 2 minutes before stirring-in the flour and adding the milk. Stir well to combine then cook until thickened. Adjust the seasoning then spoon the mixture into the prepared base. Decorate the top with the tomatoes and asparagus, cover lightly with foil and return to the oven. Turn down to 170°C and cook for 10 minutes.

Serve warm.

2: Morel Mushrooms

The morels are some of the more regonizable of the Spring wild mushrooms (you can find an identification guide for morels here). Note that morels contain a mild toxin which is rendered inert by cooking and they should always be cooked before eating. For gourmands this is definitely one of the most sought-after of the spring fungi.

The recipe follows:

Asparagus and Morel Bread Pudding


Ingredients:
8 cloves garlic, peeled and halved lengthways
750ml whole milk
450g loaf of firm white bread cut into thick slices (slightly stale bread is best)
700g peeled asparagus cut at a diagonal into 1cm lengths
3 tbsp unsalted butter
1 large shallot, finely diced
300g morel mushrooms (chanterelles also work) cleaned and coarsely chopped
4 large eggs
50g frehshly-chopped parsley
3 tbsp finely-chopped tarragon (or marjoram) leaves
350g freshly-grated Gruyère cheese
sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste

Method:
Add the garlic and milk to a pan, bring slowly to a boil then remove from the heat and set aside to cool and steep. Break the bread into chunks (much easier to do if it's stale) and pour the milk (through a strainer) over the top. Set the dish aside (but return to turn the bread every so often so that it absorbs as much of the milk as possible.

Meanwhile fill a large, deep, frying pan with water, bring to a boil the salt lightly and add the asparagus pieces. Cook for 3 minutes then drain and refresh under cold water to stop the cooking.

Melt half the butter in a non-stick pan, add the shallots and cook for 1 minute before adding the mushrooms. Increase the heat and cook for about 8 minutes, or until the mushrooms begin to brown and release their liquid, Remove from the heat, season and set aside.

Break the eggs into a bowl and whisk until smooth then add the parsley, tarragon or marjoram, 1 tsp salt and black pepper to taste. Add the soaked bread and the asparagus and mushroom mixture (along with any liquids). Add 2/3 of the cheese and mix to combine thoroughly. Pour into a gratin dish and spread out with the back of a large spoon or spatula. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top and dot with the remaining butter.

Place in an oven pre-heated to 180°C and bake for about 50 minutes, or until puffed and golden brown. Allow to cool a little before serving.

3: Fairy Ring Champignon

The fairy fing chanpignon is not the prettiest of mushrooms, but it is tasty and very common (an identification guide for fairy ring champignons can be found here.

The recipe follows:

Fairy Ring Champignon Omelette

Ingredients:
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp water
Salt and Black pepper, to taste
3 tbsp chopped onions
90g Fairy Ring Champignon caps, sliced 1 tbsp clarified butter (or oil)

Method:
Mix together all ingredients except the butter, onions and mushrooms. Put half of the butter in a skillet heated to medium and cook the onions in this until softened (about 4 minutes) then add the mushrooms and cook until the onion browns (about 5 minutes). Remove the onion and mushroom mixture and set aside then add then remaining butter and the egg mixture. Using a small spatula run around the edges of the pan, tipping the frying pan so the uncooked egg from the center of the pan can run under the bottom of the cooked egg. Continue to do this until the egg in the center is still just a little moist. Sprinkle the fried onions and mushrooms on the egg then roll the omelette with three folds as you turn it onto the plate.

You can find a wild greens and a wild mushroom recipe at: Wild Food as a Way of Saving Money.

I hope that these recipes have raised your interest in wild foods and you can find far more information on the Edible Wild Foods Guide. There are also several hunderd recipes incorporating wild foods in the Wild Food Recipes guide and for mushrooms at the Mushroom Recipes page.

For all the wild food recipes on this blog, see the wild food recipes page.

Moroccan Chicken Stew

Admittedly, I don't often feature North African cuisine on these pages, as my major love is sub-Saharan African cookery, particularly West African cuisine (my wife is Liberian, after all). But Moroccan cuisine has a vibrancy and a mix of flavours and colours that no true gourmand can really ignore. As a result I'm presenting here (and nowhere else) my twist on the classic Moroccan Chicken Stew. I've made the recipe slightly richer (but staying true to Moroccan flavours). However, the dish is influenced by my wife's twist on a traditional Senegalese dish: Cëebu Jen, which itself is probably highly-influenced by North African couscous-based dishes.

Moroccan Chicken Stew Recipe

Ingredients

8 chicken thighs, skinned
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp hot chilli powder
4 whole cloves
2 bay leaves
700ml chicken stock
400g canned, chopped, tomatoes
1 medium green bell pepper, sliced in 2cm square pieces
2 carrots, sliced
generous pinch of saffron
1 small aubergine, peeled and cubed
1/2 tsp salt
550g chickpeas (canned or cooked), drained
900g hot, steamed couscous
100g seedless raisins
100g slivered almonds
8 tbsp mixed, finely chopped parsley and coriander


Add the oil to a metal casserole or Dutch oven and heat to medium hot. When ready add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring for about 3 minutes and the onion is soft and translucent. Add the turmeric, cinnamon, chilli powder, saffron, cloves and bay leaves and stir to combine. Add the chicken and chicken stock and turn-up the heat to medium high and continue to cook until the liquid comes to a boil.

Cover the pot, reduce to a simmer, and allow to cook for 25 minutes. At this stage add the tomatoes, green bell pepper, carrots, aubergine and salt. Allow to cook for a further 10 minutes, or until the carrots are tender.

Place 1/8 of the pre-steamed couscous in eight soup bowls. With slotted spoon place a chicken thigh in the centre of the bowl and arrange the vegetables around the meat. Ladle the broth over the top and sprinkle the raisins and almonds over the top. Sprinkle the parsley and coriander mix over the top and serve immediately.


If you enjoyed this Moroccan recipe then you can find more North African Recipes and more Moroccan Recipes on the Celtnet Recipes site.

For more African Recipes, see the Celtnet Recipes Blog African Recipes page.

This list of African regions and African recipes is brought to you in association with the Recipes of Africa eBook. With over 1000 recipes covering each and every country in Africa, this is the most comprehensive book of African recipes available anywhere.

If you love African food, or are just interested in African cookery, then the Recipes of Africa eBook is a must-buy. You get information about every region of Africa and every African country along with a selection of classic and traditional recipes from that country.

This is a must-get book for anyone interested in food. Learn about a continent that to this day remains mysterious to many people. The recipes presented here are written by someone who has travelled extensively in Africa and who is a published Author. The book is a properly-produce and published eBook and the collection is immense.

Don't delay, get yourself a copy of the Recipes of Africa eBook today!

New African Recipes: Cëebu Jen from Senegal

With my work on the Help Stefan campaign I've just returned from Dakar, Senegal after both visiting my wife and presenting the Liberian community with sufficient money to send two of their children to school for an entire year. Of course, as a result of visiting both my wife and the Liberian community I have gained a whole slew of new recipes. Many of these are presented on my African Recipes recipe list page. However, the majority of the recipes come originally either from East Africa (specifically Kenya and Zanzibar) or North Africa (Morocco, Algeria and Egypt). There are also many additional recipes from the East African country of Benin.

Cëebu Jen Recipe from Senegal

Ingredients
250g black-eyed beans (with a few black beans added to approximate the colour of native African cowpeas)
2 small cabbages
1 medium aubergine
2 medium carrots, halved and cut lengthways
3 Scotch Bonnet chillies
250g French beans 'topped and tailed'
3 x Maggi cubes
2 tsp salt
1 tbsp black pepper
2 chickens, quartered
1 tbsp whole black peppercorns
8 garlic cloves
1 large bunch curly parsley, washed and roughly chopped
5 Maggi cubes
300g cassava peeled and cut into large chunks
1/2 tsp baking soda.
1 tbps chilli paste (made by pounding 12 Scotch bonnet chillies and 1/2 onion, sliced to a paste in a pestle and mortar)
500g rice
lime wedges to garnish

Put the black-eyed beans (and black beans) in a large pot and cover with plenty of water. Bring to a boil and cook for about 50 minutes, or until the beans are soft. When done take off the heat and allow to cool in the cooking liquid. Meanwhile chop and mix the vegetables and season with the Maggi cubes, salt and black pepper.

Add the garlic and black peppercorns to a pestle and mortar and pound to a paste. Add half the parsley, half a Maggi cube and pound to incorporate. Use this paste to stuff into he chicken pieces (placing it under the skin). Season with the remaining Maggi cube half and place in a large pot. Cover the pot, place on a medium flame and allow to cook slowly for about 20 minutes then take off the heat.

Heat a 2cm depth of oil in a large pan. Add the chicken pieces to this and fry until done, turning them every few minutes. When the chicken is done (About 20 minutes), add the baking soda to the oil and use it to fry the vegetables. Add 1 tbsp chilli paste and cover the pot, allowing the vegetables to cook for about 10 minutes.

At this time drain the black-eyed beans (reserving the cooking liquid) and add to the other vegetables. Allow to cook for a further 10 minutes then add about 500ml water and 500ml of the bean cooking liquid and bring the mixture to a boil. Season with 2 Maggi cubes, 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp black pepper. Allow to cook for some 30 minutes before adding the chicken pieces. Bring the mixture to a boil and cook for a further 20 minutes then lift the chicken and vegetables into a separate pot along with 2 large ladlefuls of the cooking liquid. Leave about half the beans behind if you can.

Return the cooking liquid to a pot, bring to a boil and use this to cook your rice. You will need about 500g of rice and 1l of liquid (add more of the bean cooking liquid if you don't have enough). Cook until the rice is done and all the liquid has been absorbed.

Cëebu Jen is traditionally eaten as a shared dish. To serve arrange the rice over the serving tray and spoon the chicken and vegetables over the top and garnish with lime wedges. These should be squeezed over the dish when ready to eat. Simply give everyone a spoon and let them tuck in. The dish can also be eaten with the hands. Roll the rice into balls and eat.


Please note that this recipe is my wife's original recipe and it cannot be copied without permission. It is proffered as a 'thank you' to all who have contributed to and helped with the One Million People Campaign. If you enjoyed this recipe, then please consider making a donation yourself. Only $1, if enough donate, can make a real difference to those who have nothing...


For more African Recipes, see the Celtnet Recipes Blog African Recipes page.

This list of African regions and African recipes is brought to you in association with the Recipes of Africa eBook. With over 1000 recipes covering each and every country in Africa, this is the most comprehensive book of African recipes available anywhere.

If you love African food, or are just interested in African cookery, then the Recipes of Africa eBook is a must-buy. You get information about every region of Africa and every African country along with a selection of classic and traditional recipes from that country.

This is a must-get book for anyone interested in food. Learn about a continent that to this day remains mysterious to many people. The recipes presented here are written by someone who has travelled extensively in Africa and who is a published Author. The book is a properly-produce and published eBook and the collection is immense.

Don't delay, get yourself a copy of the Recipes of Africa eBook today!