piesandkates

There’s a positive to having a hangover. On the second weekend of every month, the Farmer’s Markets are held in town, and coincidentally it’s usually the morning after I’ve had a lovely night eating and drinking with a little puddle of friends. It’s the red wine euphoria, when you get out of bed smiling and armed with an empty envirobag. You head to the market, a little scattered and a smidgen terrified about who you’ll run into and won’t be able to converse with properly, but you’re loving having the option. These are the wonderful few hours, before the afternoon low, when living in regional Australia is easy and sunny and fragrant and fresh.

In saying this, I don’t love the Farmer’s Markets. There’s a certain element of wankerism that I just can’t get past. I go because I love the neatly lined bunches of rhubarb, the handwritten signs, the dirty potatoes and white cheeses floating in olive oil. It’s a feast for the eyes, racked with potential for home, with Australian native flowers in white plastic buckets and packages of everything ‘pig’ kept cool from the summer sun in a container full of ice. The ‘foodie’ element of the market is what gets me, the part where it’s assumed that just because you’re shopping locally and organically, you should pay $3 for a knob of garlic. And you should wear a hat made of pink organic cotton and push a stroller around with a designer child munching on a sourdough baguette. Still, I have to admit the food tastes better…. Or is that my justification?

This morning I met a couple who epitomise what a farmer’s market should be. A cheery middle aged country couple, complete with muddy boots and tattered akubras, selling their preserves and farm eggs. I bought 24 of their duck and chicken eggs for under $10. When I remarked at how cheap they were (the stall adjacent was selling duck eggs for $10 a dozen), the woman told me she loves her chooks and her ducks and they just happen to lay too many eggs for them to eat. She only charges that price because of government regulations with regard to labelling.  Ridiculously, she felt she had to apologise that they weren’t clean enough, but apparently people turn their noses up at dirty eggs – like they eat the shell anyway.

Since Orange NSW feels like Europe at the moment (the leaves on my trees are already turning … at the beginning of February), and the produce that fares so well here features in a lot of British cooking, I chose my relatively new book Jamie’s Great Britain for this week’s theme.

Ploughman’s Lunch featuring Scotch Eggs and Worcestershire Beef Sarnie: Here I cheated and managed to combine three recipes in one. A Ploughman’s lunch is just a selection of whatever you have really, knocked into a meal for the worker. Seeing it in the book reminded of the last time I last had this meal. I was at the family property with my late grandfather Harry and uncle Chris, marking lambs for cash during one of my uni holidays. We moved the lambs down the road under the October sun shining through gums and willows and retired back to the house for lunch where we ate terrine, cheese and Harry’s own pickled walnuts*. My grandmother can’t believe she ever had children because before bed every night, Harry would wash down a cheese and onion sandwich with a glass of whiskey and finish with a smoke of his pipe. He had the right idea with this combination, so I copied.

The one I made had baby dill cucumbers, Mersey Valley cheese, English pickled onions, Scotch Eggs, wholegrain mustard and my tomato, fig and peach chutney (recipe below) and a crusty loaf of sourdough.  The star of the show was the Worcestershire Beef – cooked in a pot with 150ml of Worcestershire sauce, bay leaves, rosemary, celery and onions for about 6 hours on low. It fell apart in delicious meaty strands.

Also, if you’ve never eaten a Scotch Egg, you’re missing out. Basically, it’s Cumberland sausage meat squeezed out of the casings, mixed with herbs, wrapped neatly around boiled eggs, crumbed and fried in a pan. Jamie uses quail eggs, but home grown chicken eggs were good enough for me. This was lunch for three days afterwards. Yum.

Banana and walnut loaf: This simple and delicious treat was made with my lovely duck eggs. I had already made some breakfast burritos with the eggs, but I was stunned that I found them too strong to eat alone. This, coming from the weirdo who eats eggplant pickle and anchovies from the jar. The recipe calls for six bananas, and aided by their lovely ‘nearly past their peak-edness’ caramel goodness, it threw a spanner in the works for getting rid of my pre-wedding fadoobadas.

My final attempt at cooking a lean meal this week, was ER’s Diamond Jubilee Chicken – a refresher on the old Coronation Chicken. I loved that this infused some flavours of the other cultures of Britain, with the chicken served with, nuts, chilli, limes and spices on a salad of pineapple and cucumber and dressed with coriander yoghurt. I boringly used breast, but the recipe calls for lovely bits of crispy thigh skin which would have been lovely but chicken skin is a habit I’m trying to kick.

I love all my Jamie Oliver books. I just can’t wait until I have a new oven so I can make more recipes from this one.

Tomato, fig and peach chutney (blend for tomato sauce)
Makes: about 15 small jars

3kg (or about 15) tomatoes, roughly chopped
5cm piece ginger, shredded
10 peaches, seeds removed, roughly chopped
1kg onions roughly chopped
375g dried figs, roughly chopped
6 cloves garlic
450g sugar
60g salt
2 cups vinegar

Method: Place all ingredients in a pot and cook for around 1 hour. Transfer into sterilised jars. If you would prefer to make the sauce, allow to cool slightly before blending, then bring back to the boil.

*Harry’s pickled walnuts: I was teased for taking these black goodies wrapped in foil to my Montessori preschool until another kid from Hungary brought an onion to school for morning tea and ate it like an apple.

Harry’s Pickled Walnuts – a recipe for the dedicated!

In late November, walnuts are ready when a needle can be inserted into them without resistance. Pick from the tree and place in the sun (Harry did this on an old shearer’s wire bed frame) for about a week, or until black. Put gloves on and prick them all over with a pin and place in a large vessel. Pour brine over.

To make the brine, combine 2L water with 500g salt. Drain and change the brine in three days and again in another three days. Drain brine again and pour over spiced vinegar.

For the spiced vinegar: combine 2L vinegar with 2 cups sugar and 1 teaspoon each of cloves, mace, whole spice, fresh ginger, 4 bay leaves and 1 tablespoon whole black pepper. Bring to the boil.

Seal jars very tightly and eat in 9 months. They last unsealed for decades!