Hi Everyone,
We are great foragers for wild food, it's a great way to supplement the produce from your plot, and gives access to flavours and textures you won't find anywhere else
At this time of year it's all about Elderflowers. These large shrubs/small trees grow everwhere, and are something whose smell you love, as I do, or think it smells like tomcats, as my daughter does
Elderflower cordial is really easy to make, and is great for flavouring ice-cream (cheat and buy a good quality plain ice-cream, defrost a little and beat the cordial in to taste, then refreeze!) or for glugging into a cold glass of fizzy wine on a hot day. There's a couple of good recipes on the bbc.co.uk/food website, or at the same thing on the Channel 4 one.
Note - several recipes mention citric acid, which you can get from Boots and other chemists for a pound or two, and it lasts for ages.
Once you've made the cordial, there are loads of ways to use it in different recipes.
Another way to use them is to make champagne, we have tried this ourselves once and it was lively, to say the least! There's a good recipe here -
http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/chefs/hugh-fearnley-whittingstall/elderflower-champagne-recipe.
But PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF THE FOLLOWING WARNING taken from the webpage -
"Use STRONG bottles and strong seals. A really active mixture can produce a lot of gas if left for a long period, so do remember to let it off regularly to prevent explosions!"
It's a good job they were in the allotment shed, is all I can say
I'll try and update the topic as the year progresses, and if anyone has any suggestions for other foraged favourites I'd love to hear about them!
A Note about the berries - I collect equal quantities of hawthorn hips, blackberries and elderberries from the playing field at the back of our house, cook and strain the juice through a muslin bag and use it to make jelly/jam. Delicious! But be warned, elderberries are a laxative if you use too many or try to eat them raw