Squirrel Nut Stew

Spent a weekend in the woods and collected a few mushies plus some fresh squirrel!

I've also had a bumper crop of sweet chestnuts and walnuts from trees down the road.

So i had a superb stew made largely from wild local food, apart from the flour (Waitrose farm in Hampshire), thyme (Dennis' allottment), salt (Maldon's, Essex), oil (olive but local rapeseed would be perfectly good substitute. I just happen to have a five gallon bottle of olive oil that was given so am making good use of it!) and carrots (Abel & Cole).

Here is my recipe for squirrel stew, incorporating Tristram's suggestions about the first stage for the meat:

Preparation stage:
1 squirrel, skiined and prepared (see Flickr for details of how to do this)
A few ounces of flour with salt and thyme mixed in
Oil

For the stew
1 or more penny buns (cep mushroom)
A few spiny puffballs
Handful of Amethyst Deceivers
Handful of sweet chestnuts, peeled
Handful of walnuts
Water
6 medium size Chopped carrots
Spoonful of apple cheese


1. Chop and put the carrots in to boil
2. Toss the squirrel meat in the flour mix and fry on a medium heat until nicely browned all over.
3. Tip off some of the carrot water if you think there is too much for the stew. Put the squirrels in with the carrots and add a spoonful of apple cheese or other flavouring. Leave to continue simmering
4. Add the assorted nuts and mushrooms to the frying pan and fry until nicely browned. keep an eye on the stew mix in the meantime.
5. Add to the stew and continue to heat for a bit.
6.Eat!

You could have potatoes with it for filling. The flour on the squirrel helps to make the stew itself very thick and creamy.

The key to this recipe is a) collecting nice things from the woods or local streets and b) getting the timing right so the carrots dont go too mushy.

It is very sweet and very nutty and very autumnal. The ceps really were very good indeed and the mix of the wild foods gives it a deep complex flavour.

Penny buns in the woods

Ingredients for stew: Squirrel, spiny puffballs, ceps and sweet chestnuts courtesy richmond council


Walnuts are big - whats left after processing is not much! Debris in background (subsequently used to dye a scarf and a bag dark brown), edible walnut bits in the front.


Squirrel stew!


Apple cheese recipe (click the pic to see it larger)

...and roast for 60 miles at 65mph

found this and thought of blog...

apparently chicken breasts need 60 miles of cooking at 65mph

Sweet Chestnuts

There is a tree at the end of our road dropping handfuls of fluffy- looking balls onto the pavement and the very busy road next to it.

These are not fluffy at all but very prickly. So one has to stamp on them to find the gorgeous, glossy, yummy, sweet chestnuts inside.

I brought some to work. Not sure yet if they are popular but I hope they can at least make a good showing against the Piggy Gummy Treats from M&S that someone brought in the other day.

I just got an email from a friend who is planning a tree-planting weekend. Apparently the sweet chestnut "was introduced to Britain by the Romans by 400AD and has naturalised here - it is also a very useful wood!"

If you find one, don't mess about. Pick those nice things up!! (Leave some for the squirrels. Or don't. I dont know it so confusing, what species is OK and what isn;t and who gets what. Leave a comment if you feel the need to protest - at anything)

Amethyst Deceiver!

The little purple one was the edible and rather delicious Amethyst Deceiver. The River Cottage handbook claims that they are generic, "filler" mushrooms. I don't agree. They are a bit tough and chewy but that was a good thing.

I spent ages poring over these little lilac beauties thinking they might be Lilac Fibrecaps, in which case a very nasty dose of pretty much everything was in store.

They are called Deceivers because they have a near relative that is edible but takes on a thousand forms, making it very tricky to recognise.

Happily the story ends well with me having a nice purple treat and a full tummy.

The one in the background was Charcoal buirner (Russula cyanoxantha) or simliar, but it turned out to be full of little mushroom grubs. All the other mushies we brought home were poisonous - or couldn't be identified but were similar to known poisonous ones.

Mushroom season

Yesterday we went mushrooming in Epping Forest.

We didnt find much to eat, but I was amazed how many different kinds of mushrooms there are when you start looking. We found at least fifteen different kinds. I will put some photos up.

We did get some Amethyst Deceivers which are edible, but there arent many of them and the River Cottage book suggests they are not a top mushroom but being pretty can be good fillers or with a nice saffron risotto.

We got lots of poisonous ones and a couple I really cannot figure out what they are.

Watch this space for photos or upload your own in the comments!