Wild Foraged Haggis

I'm just back from a refreshing few days in Galloway with my mum. I took her foraging every day and we found Porcini (Ceps), Chanterelles (Girolles), Winter Chanterelles (Chanterelles) and Hedgehog Fungus.

My mum has been a vegetarian for all of my adult life and I eat a predominantly vegetarian diet at home. I decided to play about with the old Scottish favourite, Haggis, and utilise my fresh and preserved foraged foods to make it a more local affair.

Here's the result:

Wild Foraged Haggis (vegan) recipe

Ingredients:

25g pickled Marsh Samphire (optional - might be better fresh)
75g pearl barley
100g oats
200g fresh mushrooms, blitzed in the food processor (I used 50g each: Hedgehogs, Porcini, Winter Chanterelles and Chanterelles)
1 tsp dried, powdered Peppery Bolete
2 pickled walnuts
1 large onion
600ml veg stock
2 tbsp rapeseed oil
Neeps (I used Swede)
Tatties

Method:

Boil the barley according to pack instructions (30-45 minutes)/until al dente.

Heat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.

Brown onion in 1tbsp oil.

Add mushrooms and cook for 1-2 minutes.

Add powdered bolete, samphire, walnuts and oats and stir to combine.

Add 400ml of stock.

Bring to a boil, then turn simmer until the mixture thickens, adding more stock if necessary.

Add the barley and 1tbsp rapeseed oil and mix together.

Taste the mix for seasoning.

Transfer to casserole dish.

Bake for 30 minutes (covered).

Bake for 30 minutes (uncovered).

Serve with neeps and tatties (preferably cooked).

Roughly based on this recipe.

Scottish Hazelnut Shortbread

Today I made some truly Scottish Hazelnut Shortbread, with Hazelnuts I foraged in Fife last week.

This recipe makes about 40 small shortbread bites - enough to feed my colleagues and give me the option to snack on dairy-free treats at work.

Ingredients:

100g Hazelnuts (out of their shells)
100g sugar
225g plain flour
200g dairy-free spread (or butter)

Method:

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Toast Hazelnuts for 10 minutes.

Rub hazelnuts in a clean tea towel/muslin/between your fingers to rub off their skins (the hazelnuts, not your fingers).

Leave to cool.

Grind hazelnuts to a powder.

Mix together hazelnuts, flour and sugar.

Mix in dairy-free spread until it makes a soft dough.

Dust work surface with a mixture of flour and sugar.

Roll/flatten dough to 1cm thickness.

Cut out shapes.

Dip in sugar (optional).

Bake, one tray at a time, for 10 minutes.

Allow to cool.

Eat.

Until next time... Good Foraging! :)

Hedgehog Korma (v)

Today I made a Korma with the kilo of Hedgehog Fungus (Hydnum Repandum) I picked earlier this week. I love cooking with these guys because they fill the kitchen with a gloriously sweet smell.

I'm not a fan of spicy food, hence making a Korma, but you could subsitute Hedgehogs for the chicken in your favourite taste-bud-destroying recipe.

Hedgehog Korma

Ingredients

1kg Hedgehogs, torn into pieces
200ml coconut milk (save any remnants)
Ginger, 2cm peeled and grated
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
6 Cardamom pod, bashed
2 tablespoons tomato puree
1 tablespoon cornflour
2 teaspoons garam masala
1/4 tsp dried crushed chillies
2 onions, finely sliced
50g cashew nuts
50g butter
60ml rapeseed oil

Method

Grind the garam masala, dried chillies and  cashews in a food processor or pestle and mortar (I use a coffee grinder). Transfer to a large bowl.

Add the ginger, garlic, tomato puree, coconut milk, cardomom and Hedgehogs and mix well.

Cover and leave in the fridge to marinate (2 hours+).

Once marinated, contiue as follows:

Heat oil and butter in a large frying pan.

Fry onions until browned.

Add Hedgehog mixture and cook for 15 minutes, stirring frequently.

Mix together 3 tablespoons of coconut milk (or water if there's not enough left) with the cornflour.

Add to pan and cook for a further 5 minutes.

Season to taste and serve.

Pig-in-cake (Hogweed Gingerbread)

Pig-in-cake (Hogweed Bread)

Despite calling myself a forager for over a decade, this is the first year that I have felt confident in my ability to identify Common Hogweed. Like any good forager I have been wary that I might pick a deadly lookalike and I wouldn't pick Hogweed until I was sure what I was picking.

The seeds can be dried and ground to make a spice that has an orangey-ginger flavour. I used it to make a Gingerbread without the ginger. I'm lactose intolerant but feel free to substitute the margarine for butter and the soya milk for any other milk (hazelnut milk might be nice too).

Wet ingredients:
250g margarine
250g dark muscovado sugar
100g black treacle
2 eggs, beaten
300ml unsweetened soya milk

Dry ingredients:
375g wholemeal plain flour
5 tsp ground Hogweed seeds
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method:

Preheat oven to 160°C

Grease and line a 23cm baking tin.

Heat the margarine, sugar and treacle until saucy and combined.

Add the milk and eggs and mix well.

Add the dry ingredients and mix together.

Pour mixture into baking tin.

Bake for 50mins -1 hour (check readiness with a skewer - prod into the centre of the cake and the skewer should come out clean).

Eat.

Chanterelle Cake

Here we are again in the midst of foraging season and the weather has been perfect... for mushrooms! Lots of rain = lots of delightful goodies to be found.

I've been finding hordes of Chanterelles over the last few weeks and I decided to hide them in cakes. This was today's recipe. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Chanterelle Cake 

(I can't believe it's not Carrot Cake)

Cake Ingredients:

275g sugar
200g butter, melted
4 medium eggs
300g Chanterelles, grated
Candied lemon and orange peel
225g wholemeal plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp vanilla extract (I make my own by steeping vanilla in rum and it's less concentrated than shop-bought versions, so you may only need 1 tsp)

Topping Ingredients:

125g unsalted butter, melted
125g cream cheese
275g icing sugar
Candied lemon peel to decorate

Method:

Preheat oven to 180°C

Grease mini loaf or muffin tin

Mix together the sugar, butter, vanilla and eggs.

Add the grated Chanterelle and candied peel.

Then add the flour and baking powder and mix well.

Fill the loaf/muffin tins about half-full.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a skewer poked in comes out almost clean.

Whisk together the cream cheese and butter.

Add the icing sugar and stir together.

Finally whisk to remove any lumps.

Spread some topping on each (cooled) cake and decorate with candied peel.

Try not to eat them all.

Until next time... Good Foraging.

Porcini Tortelloni

Last year I made pasta with dried chanterelles and mused about a future recipe using dried Porcini. Today, I made Porcini Tortelloni. Tomorrow is the taste test.

All the Porcini I used in this recipe were foraged in Fife; some within walking distance of my house.

For the pasta:

Ingredients:

30g dried porcini
170g '00 grade' flour
2 eggs

Method:

Make pasta dough (see my previous post for details).

For the filling:

Mozzarella Pearls
Bresaola

Porcini Tortelloni:

Cut rounds from the freshly made pasta dough (I used a pint glass, as it's what I had to hand).

Wrap each mozzarella pearl in a small strip of Bresaola (just enough to cover once).

Place a Bresaola Pearl in the centre of each round.

Trace the edge of a round with water and fold into a semi-circular parcel.

Pull the edges together around your thumb to make a tortelloni shape. Check out this post by Emma Christensen for a step-by-step guide.

Repeat process for all other rounds and dust each tortelloni with flour.To cook:

Boil in salted water for 5 minutes or until the tortelloni rise to the surface.

I hope they taste as good as they smell (wonderful)!

Update - they were delicious!! So much so, that I now keep a jar of pre-mixed Porcini pasta flour in my cupboard, so that I can whip up these rascals on a whim :D

Until next time, Good Foraging! :)

Death by Gin? (Bird Cherry Gin)

This morning I took an amble around Gartmorn Reservoir (my favourite local foraging location).

I saw apples, plums and hazelnuts and picked some Scotch Burnet Rose Hips. I also picked some Bird Cherries and thought I would take a wee gamble on them.

Bird cherries are small and incredibly bitter. Try biting into one and you'll see what I mean; first you get the juicy cherriness and then your entire mouth becomes instantly dry - hardly a thirst-quencher. Nevertheless, I thought I would try to make them palatable.

I thought it might be possible to use them to flavour gin. My only concern is that the seeds are said to be toxic. I'm thinking that this is the same toxicity that applies to all prunus seeds and that the small quantity I have used is unlikely to cause any harm. Any volunteers to taste my recipe?!

Bird Cherry Gin

177g bird cherries, washed and de-stemmed
100g granulated sugar
350ml gin

I'll shake this every day or so, to macerate the fruit. It should be ready for winter.

Until next time, Good (non-toxic) Foraging.