Thanks to all of you who requested recipes from Canterbury Food Festival. Here they are! You can also download the recipes for easy printing.
Kentish sausages braised in Kentish red wine
Ingredients
Olive oil
250g Kentish bacon cut into lardons
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
2 small onions peeled and chopped
15 juniper berries
2 bay leaves
200g Kentish white mushrooms
500g Kentish pork sausages
1 tsp Kentish mustard
2 tbsps bramble jelly, rowan jelly or redcurrant jelly (cranberry even if it’s Christmas!!)
Black pepper
½ bottle of Kentish red wine
Heat a little oil in a large pan. Add the onions, garlic, mushrooms and bacon and fry until beginning to soften. Add the sausages and continue to cook until all are a little bronzed. Crush the juniper berries slightly – you can use your fingers or the back of your knife but don’t destroy them completely – and add to the sausages along with the bay leaves and just enough red wine to cover. Cover and simmer until the sausages are tender or pop in a slow cooker for a few hours. Once the sausages are cooked add the mustard and the bramble jelly and allow the sauce to bubble and reduce a little.
Celeriac and blue cheese mash
Ingredients
1 large head celeriac, peeled and chopped into even sized chunks
2 large potatoes peeled and chopped into even sized chunks
Butter
Milk
Nutmeg
100g blue cheese, smoked cheese or cheddar grated
Boil both the celeriac and the potato in two separate pots of hot salted water. Do not be tempted to cooked together as each of them will cook at different rates almost guaranteeing that one will end up raw whilst the other will be over cooked!
Once they are both cooked, drain and then mash them both together with a little butter, warm milk and a touch of nutmeg to taste. Once smooth add ¾ of your cheese and combine well. Pop in a pot and place the rest of the cheese on the top and then warm though again in a preheated oven or under the grill.
Warm salad of wood pigeon with Kentish cobnuts, Kentish bacon, Kentish new potatoes and mixed leaves
Ingredients
1 tsp Kentish rapeseed oil
1 tsp Kentish cobnut oil
2 pigeon breasts skinned
100g smoked Kentish bacon or pancetta or even chorizo cut into strips
2 new cooked new potatoes, sliced
Sea salt and black pepper to taste
Few spring fresh thyme
Handful Kentish cobnuts shelled
Mixed leaves
For the dressing
50ml Kentish rapeseed oil
50 ml cobnut oil
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
½ teaspoon Kentish mustard
First make the dressing – it will sit in the fridge for a couple of days so you can make it well in advance. Simply mix all the dressing ingredients together and season. That’s it.
This next bit take only a few minutes so make sure your guests are sat!! Mix the rapeseed and cobnut oil together and put half into a hot frying pan. Fry the bacon in the oil until crisp and then remove. Add the rest of the oil mix to the same pan and then add the pigeon breast, sea salt and pepper and thyme. Pan-fry for about 2 minutes on both sides, remove from the pan and place on a warm plate. Cover and leave to rest. Now return your bacon to the same pan and add the potato and shelled cobnuts. Saute until all are warmed through.
Meanwhile grab you mixed leaves and add a little dressing. Plate across two plates. Sprinkle over your potato, bacon and cobnut mix. Slice your pigeon into wafer thin slices (or great fat ones depending on preference) and arrange artistically or just greedily over the salad. EAT with additional dressing if you like!!
Super quick cobnut and chocolate mousse
Ingredients
1/2 cup chocolate-hazelnut paste, such as Nutella
1/4 cup crème fraîche
1 1/2 teaspoons brandy or hazelnut liqueur
1/2 cup heavy cream
Handful of shelled cobnuts roasted and semi crushed
In a medium bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the chocolate-hazelnut paste with the crème fraîche and brandy at low speed until smooth. In another bowl, beat the heavy cream until firm peaks form. Using a rubber spatula, fold the whipped cream into the chocolate-hazelnut mixture until no streaks remain. Spoon the mousse into small bowls and sprinkle with cobnuts and place in fridge for 20 minutes.
Prawns and mussels in chilli and coriander cream
Ingredients
100g each of peeled prawns and cooked mussels out of the shell
1 fresh red chilli finely chopped (leave the seeds in if you like it hot!)
1 small onion finely chopped
1 tblsp coriander leaves torn
1 clove garlic peeled and finely chopped
200ml double cream
6 small bread rolls
75g grated mature cheddar cheese
Either cook and de-shell the prawns and mussels yourself (email me if you need instructions) or buy freshly peeled cooked prawns and mussels that have NEVER been near any vinegar! If you do cook your own mussels make sure you keep the juices as not only can you put a little in this dish (no more than a tablespoon though as the cream won’t thicken) but you can make amazing sauces and soups from it for another meal. It even freezes well.
When you are nearly ready to cook, take the bread rolls and carefully remove a little from the tops to create a lid. Hollow out a little of the remaining bread roll (this is where your prawn filling will go) and then brush with a little melted butter and toast carefully until a little brown.
Heat a little oil in a frying pan and once hot add the onions, garlic, chilli and coriander and sauté until softened, golden rather than black!! Add the mussels and prawns and then enough cream to just cover. Bubble furiously until the cream has reduced and the shell fish is heated through. Put a little of the mix in each of your bread rolls and top with a little grated cheese. Grilled until bubbling and serve straight away.
Meringues with Gianduja (posh for hazelnut and chocolate spread) and cobnut filling
For the filling
150ml nutella or other chocolate hazelnut spread
50ml crème friache (or whipped double cream soured with a little lemon juice)
100ml double cream whipped
1 tbsp brandy or to taste (Amaretto is also nice but you can omit it completely)
2 tbsp Kentish cobnuts roasted and roughly chopped
Meringues (we used Head in the Clouds meringues at the demo but you can make your own – email me and I can give you some tips…)
Beat the nutella with the crème friache and the brandy until well combined. Fold in your whipped cream until all are lovely and combined – no white streaks! Pop in the fridge for a couple of hours to set and then simply fill with your meringues with the lovely mixture finishing with a sprinkle of cobnuts to the outside edge.
Of course you don’t need the meringue – you can just eat it from the bowl, pop it into posh glass dishes and serve as a mousse, use as a cake filling…. the possibilities are endless.
