Great Coffee from New Zealand

This isn't actually about coffee from new zealand, its a message from Eve in New Zealand about making Great coffee.

Thanks Eve!

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Yesterday the guy from Atomic Coffee roasters came for the fair trade coffee event. He told us how to make coffee properly and how we hadbeen doing it so wrong... This is with a plunger as we don't have a machine.

The coffee must be ground quite coarse a bit bigger than granulated sugar.
Grindjust as much as you need at the time coz it oxidises quite quickly. about a heaped desert spoon for a cup but more or less if you like.
Then.....you pour the water on just a bit and let it go frothy but not boiling water, you need water just off the boil about 85. This will make the coffee much sweeter because it burns at about 95 which is what makes it bitter. mmmmm
So then poor the rest of the water on and leave for not longer than a minute (its not like tea wher it keeps gettingstronger) and then plunge away.

Ooh and store coffee in an airtight container in the dark (and not in the fridge because water would condensate on it when you got it out of the fridge).

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I dont actually drink coffee - it gives me the shakes - but I do love it and if i did drink it I would definitely want to do it this way.

Comfrey Fritters and other marvels

Comfrey or knitbone is famed for its ability to heal wounds. Rob and I have both tried it and its marvellous. No really. But that is in the form of oil or crushed leaves.

Then I discovered you can also eat these very rough-skinned leaves. The comfrey plants are brimming with life these days so its a good time to collect these leaves. Apparently comfrey fritters are the thing, and are particularly enjoyed by Germans I read.

Anyway you take some comfrey leaves from your plant in the back yard that seeded itself and grows most vigourously.

You make a thin batter using oil, water, flour and fold in a whipped egg white, as you are making a sponge.

Dip the leaves into the batter and drop into hot oil, like you would with deep fried mars bars or whatever you normally deep fry.

Actually this wasnt very nice, not because of the leaves, which are lovely, but because they are too oily. Maybe the oil was at the wrong temperature but I would welcome any tips on improving this recipe.

Comfrey is also good for making a stinking goo to nourish your plants with. Leave some leaves in a bucket with rainwater and let them rot down. A nutritious nitrogenous soup for all (vegetables) to enjoy.

May Gathering

I was in Stroud in early may and we went for a walk across the tops of the hills. I was nearly out of hawthorn tea from last year so when I saw the may bushes I decided to collect it in my walnut-dyed scarf.

I made Rob take pictures with his mobile.

The may leaves have been dried since then and I have a full jar of leaves again, to last another year.

Apparently the phrase 'Ne'er cast a clout till May is out' doesnt mean 'until the month of May is over' but ' Until the May flowers have blossomed'

May (hawthorn) apparently has had a huge significance in English (and Scottish) folklore in the past. It smells a bit nasty as Rob so eloquently expressed when we started this lark...this and other factors have been woven into the folklore. Read Richard Mabey 'Flora Britannica' for all the lowdown on May.

chicken of the woods - feeling chicken?

I was walking home the other day when I saw a huge orangey-yellow fungus growing in a the nook of a tree in our road (I think its a type of birch but I am not great on tree species. that is my best guess from my new tree book).

So I bethought myself to investigating this large orange putrescence.

The mushroom books tell me it is Chicken of the Woods (Laetiporus sulphureus)

This extraordinary fungus is apparently - very occasionally - toxic - with hallucinations and upset stomach.

Hallucinations etc

So I have approached this particular culinary adventure with some trepidation and tested a small sample first before eating it for a meal.

Even though the books say it can't be mistaken for anything else, I still am a bit nervous about having got it right.

Nice for lunch

No suffering followed the initial test so I have just eaten up the lot for lunch. I fried in in small pieces with olive pesto, mackerel, a squeeze of lemon and some balsamic vinegar.

As you can see on the right, I had with it some aubergine, cold greens, radish and yoghurt. Actually the mustard and the yoghurt both help to make the meatiness of the fungus stand out more, and compensate for its lack of flavour.

It tastes quite mild, although it smelt heavenly of that lovely fresh, cool mushroom smell. The texture is the most notable thing when eating it, its rather floury or rubbery, a bit like eating synthetic sponge I suppose. Not very appealing but definitely it has a kind of 'meatiness' which I suppose gives rise to the Chicken analogy.

I read about herbs a suggestion to 'sit and listen' to a herb and feel what it is like to be that herb and then ask the herb permission to eat it and then listen for the answer. I tried this in a minor sort of way when I was feeling nervous about the mushroom and I seemed to feel I had a postive answer. I sort of felt then that it was absolutely safe to eat and rather good. I would like to develop this intuition further.

Apparently if you cut away only a part of it you can come back and harvest again next year this spring crop mushroom. We cut off about a fifth of what you see in the picture at the top. I don't think anyone else in Kew is after it.

Another Link - Roger's Mushrooms, nice and scientific for those who like that sort of thing.

Very detailed info with an omelette recipe here