I slipped out the garden gate on Saturday afternoon with my rifle – to head up to the meadow behind my cottage where the rabbits live – and the pie finally went into the oven two days later.
Wild food takes time.
From the Victorian period right through to about the 1950s, rabbit was an integral part of the rural diet but it’s now something of a rarity.
I decided to write about rabbit in my latest column for @countrylifemagazine . It’ll be out next week.
RECIPE
1. Brine one rabbit
2. Joint it, brown it, then cook low and slow, for at least four hours, in pheasant stock and cider
3. Strip the meat off the bone
4. Mix it into a bechamel sauce with asparagus and oyster mushrooms
5. Cover it with pastry
6. Put it in the oven for 40 minutes
Drink with cold Guinness or a glass of white wine
Duck eggs often get eaten by things like crows and magpies but you can give the ducks more of a chance by making duck nesting tubes.
I was a bit late in making them this year but hopefully there’ll be a some occupants.
Make sure its horizontal - as I did just after filming - so the eggs don’t fall out 🦆
How to make one duck nesting tube
1. Lay out the 7-foot chicken wire. Create a 12-inch diameter loop at one end and secure it with cable ties, allowing about 3-4 feet of “open” wire to remain for the outer layer
2. Add nesting material: Evenly spread 2-3 inches of packed hay over the remaining flat wire mesh.
3. Roll the Tube: Roll the mesh over the hay to create a “Swiss roll” effect, where the hay is sandwiched between two layers of wire.
4. Secure the Structure: Use ample cable ties to fasten the mesh, ensuring the hay is firmly held. Ensure excess wire is tucked in to avoid harming the ducks.
5. Stuff the finished tube, filling it roughly half-to-three-quarters full with more hay to encourage nesting
I never get bored of eating muntjac, which is good really given how many of them are in England.
They are little deer, originally from Asia, that eat saplings and destroy woodland understory where the songbirds nest.
RECIPE
1. Muntjac steaks
2. Marinaded in lime, chilli, garlic, Asian fish sauce, soy sauce, brown sugar
3. Serves with noodles and cucumbers
The egg vending machine in Great Snoring, which was installed by local farmer @davidperowne is one of North Norfolk’s (if not the world’s greatest retail experiences) and the produce, including David’s own walnuts, is superb.
It’s a very welcome addition in a world where local food is harder and harder to get and village shops are fast closing
Pop in if you’re passing
Why does sparkling wine sparkle?
The whole process, I learned from Clovis at the @walsinghamestatevineyard is actually quite complicated and it’s not like making Vimto or Irn-Bru
Just how appalling is the salmon farming sector?
Over the past couple of weeks they’ve been trying to hard to get me to stop writing about them.
The problem, they argue, is actually the salmon anglers not their toxic farms. It’s extraordinary
People sometimes say that one of the challenges of having so many deer in England is that the public don’t want to eat venison.
I often wonder if that’s doing the public a bit of a disservice. I’ve been really delighted to see how much venison the team at the @walsinghamfarmshop are selling.
Often they call me up mid-week to tell me they are out of muntjac sausages again.
People, at the moment anyway, really seem be going in for locally-sourced sustainable food, which is a great opportunity for venison
“I imagine the ancient Celts would think the idea that nature is something to be looked at rather than engaged with and eaten is complete madness”
For my latest column in @thecriticmag , I wrote about foraging, wild garlic, and bears
English wine is a lovely idea but there’s a problem - even in May, frost in the small hours can kill buds as they start to burst.
When frost descends on European vineyards they sometimes light fires, but there are other more high-tech options too
We all tend to think that sparkling wine or champagne should be drunk very cold but perhaps that’s a little overplayed.
I caught up with Clovis who has a vineyard where I shoot deer and we had a couple of not-so-cold glasses of his Bacchus brut on the tailgate of his pickup
“Go on my little girl”
This afternoon, I had the great privilege of standing with a local bookmaker as he cheered on his own beloved greyhound.
At the end of the race, when she’d won, he went down to see her. He hugged her and kissed on the head. Then he turned to me and said that there are people who know nothing about greyhound racing but would like to see it banned
You can read about it soon in @telegraph
