Category: food

Scrambled duck eggs

I don’t know why duck eggs aren’t more popular… They’re almost always bigger, have a firmer white, and a deeper more flavoursome, nourishing yolk with heaps of omega 3 fatty acids… There’s nothing like fresh scrambled eggs eaten straight from the pan, especially when they’re duck eggs.

The feature image was produced with:

  • 3 large duck eggs
  • 50-100 ml of full fat milk (for the consistency… In all honesty I just poured some in and don’t know the measurements 🙂 )
  • As much butter as you want!
  • Dash of ground black pepper
  • Dash of ground Maldon salt (Or another non-treated natural salt brand)
  • A wooden spoon
  • A non stick milk pan

I’m not going to tell you how to scramble eggs, you already know how!

A hot shower on a cold day

I awake and greet a clear and alert head with great gratitude.  It’s noticeably cooler today, and to me this is welcome because:  It means I take a hot shower. On cold days they are truly soothing, but you have to wake up cold!

Out to the supermarket before the crowds to grab a freshly baked sun dried tomato loaf, then back home with the spoils of the supermarket foraging session.  The morning is spent eating buttered tomato bread and boiled duck eggs, with a fresh pot of dusky black coffee. The great British weather is living up to its reputation.  It could go one way or the other as great tears of sunshine glow through grey blankets of cloud.

The yolk from a good egg is not yellow, but deep ochre, and they are almost always free range, meaning lots of omega 3, which many of us neglect with our high grain diets.  Duck eggs have especially rich yolks and are great for home made custard.  They come into their own when boiled and coupled with the good fresh bread and rich salted & grass fed butter.  We are so lucky in this country to have such a rich farming heritage, and that many of our cows are treated with the respect that all living things deserve, and are allowed to roam free and eat grass.

Wild mint and honey on an autumn day.

We walk along the various paths surveying the decay of the vegetation.  Piles of leaves are scattered everywhere.  In the wetter parts of the woodland, wild spearmint grows.  I pinch a flower atop half a stalk, first crushing the surrounding leaves, then the flower itself. It strikes me how much more potent the scent is from the flower.  Fresh mint evokes a sense of cleanliness, uplifting while imparting a soft cool numbness.  I vow to create a dish where the mint flower is the star, but today we are here for work.  There is a new hive in the back of the car, full of rather relaxed bees.  The constant bouncing of the car on the journey over would usually infuriate other strains, and by now they would be ready to kill, but today we are lucky.  We install the beehive, and feed every hive present so that the other stronger colonies will not steal the newer, less established hive’s food and try to kill them.  The sun is setting and the air temperature is dropping so we head back.  In tribute to the day’s success a steak and onion sandwich with Manx wetland honey and Canadian cheddar is the only way to go… Served up in giant fresh white baps with the caramel lick of slow fried shallots.  When eating the mind wanders to whether those bees found the clump of spearmint nearby, and whether it is emaprting any flavour compounds into what I’m eating.  I also wish I’d taken a fucking picture of the mint.

 

A sandwich of swine

IMG_2983Yet another weekend passes by, I drink too much and mix it up too…  Beer, wine and spirits.  It’s toxic, and I pay for it on Saturday morning.  A good gym session sorts this out as far as is possible.  I can feel the toxins dripping down my face as I drive them out of my body by red-lining it with kettlebells and a good cardio session on the cross trainer.  I like the equlibrium of feeling healthy, so I couldn’t possibly enjoy a hangover cure until I’d paid for Friday night’s indiscretions.  I celebrate the conquest of my hangover by getting a good nights sleep on Sunday, the kind of deep sleep you only get once in a while.  The next morning I wake with a taste for Sunday morning bacon!  Streaky is all I have so I roast it slowly in the oven.  After around 40 minutes I cannot wait any longer and eagerly clank the grilling plate out of the oven.  The bacon is so brittle you can hardly handle it, dripping in roasted brown bacon fat.  The smell is un-beatable, anticipation towers above me, urging me to chuck 2 pieces into my mouth before they even meet the bread.  I pile it all into 2 small pieces of freshly toased rye with no butter, but a touch of tomato sauce.  I bite in.  Soft bread and brittle crunch of bacon.  The best hangover cure.