Mushrooms and ducks

Mushrooms and Ducks

 

   
It would be a mistake to have assumed that at the River Cottage Duck Fair on Sunday that, as one of the chefs, I would be dealing with trays piled high with malards and Pekings. No, no. While Mark, on work experience with us from Jamie Oliver's Fifteen, was faced with carving that mountainous delight, and Dan our bread man made pancake after pancake to wrap said duck, I was set to work on the 'Beetroot Bazaar'. With over 400 people to feed at the Duck Fair, it was a surprise I have to admit, to have my hands stained red for three days from beetroot!

It turned out to be a fortunate position. In the tent we were giving away samples of beetroot humous, beetroot, blue cheese and poached pear tasters, chocolate and beetroot brownies, beetroot crumble, beetroot soup and, believe it or not, beetroot ice-cream. Everything seemed to go down well, although there were mixed reviews on the ice-cream (although one man tried to run off with the tub!). The all out winner, however, was the chocolate and beetroot brownies. I was inundated with requests for the recipe and said I would get it on the website as soon as possible. So here it is...

(I have to admit, I also wrote down the recipe for a few particularly keen people and after looking back over the recipe I did get one of the quantities wrong - so my apologies for anyone who tried it out and broke copious eggs into their mix.. maybe it was even an improvement...?)

Chocolate and Beetroot Brownies

275g good, dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), broken into pieces

275g unsalted butter, cut into cubes, plus more for greasing

275g caster sugar

3 free-range eggs

150g self-raising flour (we used wholemeal self-raising)

250g beetroot, boiled until al dente then peeled and grated

Preheat oven to 160C/320F/Gas Mark 3. Grease a baking tin of approximately 20x30x3cm and line the bottom with baking parchemtn. Place the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and melt over a bain marie. Allow to cool slightly. Whisk the eggs and sugar together in a bowl until combined. Pour in the melted chocolate and butter and stir until smooth and creamy. Gentlyfold in the flour then stir in the beetroot - be careful not to overmix or it will make the brownies tough. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth over the top with a spatula. Bake for 20-25 minutes approximately. A knife inserted into the middle should come out with a few moist crumbs clinging to it. Be careful not to overcook them or they will lose their delicious fudgy texture. Remove the tin from the oven and leave on a wire rack to cool before cutting into squares.

I was fortunate enough to have met some lovely people while working in the tent. Many who already grew beetroot and hadn't really known what to do with it, and others who were converted to grow it. One man who regularly makes his own ice-cream for his family headed home to try out a beetroot ice-cream of his own.

After the excitment of the weekend, we have been running Mushroom foraging events with our mycologist and forager and extraordinare in general, John Wright. These have been some of the first of the year and unfortunately the weather on Monday and Tuesday was not the most encouraging for a mornings forage. However, our guests carried on quite gallantly and to even to their own surprise came back with great hauls. Guests yesterday had a special treat as Tim and Angela who were on the course brought along a black truffle for the group to try. I made up a batch of creamy scrambled eggs and we simply sliced the truffle on the table in front of everyone and served it with the eggs and bread. Today the weather was greatly improved, although unfortunately the bounty was less. Still, 38 different species were found.

Hilary and Chris Wicking from Lyme Regis, John Wright and Phil Guest (pictured above) who between them found jelly ear, stinkhorn, oyster mushroom, plums and custard, birh bolete, shaggy ink caps, earth balls and puffball mushrooms.  

So between beetroot at duck fairs and mushrooms on courses, it's been a rather vegetarian week. Who said River Cottage was all about meat?

Nonie x