Seasonal local food recipe No 102: Blackcurrant and almond cake

From Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook. It makes a good pudding, she says, served warm with cream, crème fraîche or Greek yoghurt. You can make it in advance and reheat it gently, covered with a piece of foil.

Preparation and cooking: about 45 minutes

Serves 6-8

Ingredients
200g butter, plus a little more for the flan tin
200g caster sugar
3 eggs
200g ground almonds
1 tsp vanilla extract
200g blackcurrants, topped and tailed
icing sugar

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4. Butter a 25cm loose-bottomed flan tin and line the base with a circle of baking parchment.

Cream the butter and sugar in a food processor or with a hand beater until the mixture is pale. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well and, after each addition, fold in some of the ground almonds and a few drops of vanilla extract. Put the mixture in the flan tin and scatter over the blackcurrants. Their flavour is intense, so don’t be tempted to use more fruit.

Cook for 30 minutes until golden and just firm and, before serving, sieve over some icing sugar.

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Watch this video: How Camel Community Supported Agriculture is helping make local food work

Camel CSA’s contribution in Cornwall to Making Local Food Work is featured in a new YouTube video commissioned by the Plunkett Foundation, made by eclips film.

We turned our grow-your-own dream into reality with the support and guidance of the Soil Association via Making Local Food Work. We have £60,000 funding from the Big Lottery’s Local  Food programme and the East Cornwall Local Action Group (part of the South West Regional Development Agency).

Watch all Camel CSA videos

Read all the stories behind Camel CSA’s latest videos

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All our own! Seasonal local veg in this week’s boxes

The contents of this week’s boxes come from Camel CSA’s own plot at St Kew Highway and from our own expert grower Mark Norman’s smallholding on the outskirts of Bodmin.

We’ve all sharing a bumper French bean harvest. This early crop is growing really well in our first polytunnel.

Everyone will have:
* French beans (Camel CSA)
* round cabbage (Camel CSA)
* salad bags (Camel CSA)
* new potatoes (Mark Norman)
* carrots (Mark)
* gooseberries (Mark)

Standard boxes will have extra potatoes as well as:
* turnips (Camel CSA)
* kale (Camel CSA)
* calabrese (Mark)

* = grown to organic principles

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Seasonal local food recipe No 94: Couscous with chicken and baby spinach

A variation on a recipe by Angela Hartnett that uses pea shoots but we can use the spinach from this week’s boxes instead. You can either cook the chicken from fresh or it’s an excellent way of using up some leftovers.

Serves 4 as a starter or 2 as a main
Preparation and cooking: 40 minutes or so if cooking the chicken, much less if not

Ingredients
olive oil
4 chicken thighs
salt and pepper
1 clove crushed garlic
1 sprig rosemary
250g instant couscous
400ml boiling water
2 spring onions, sliced
½ tsp ground ginger
1 dsp raisins
1 dsp chopped hazelnuts
4 salad radishes, sliced
50ml vinaigrette
½ tsp pesto
½ handful baby spinach or pea shoots

Method
Heat a touch of olive oil in a frying pan. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and cook together with the crushed garlic and rosemary over a medium heat for 15-20 minutes, turning occasionally until it is golden brown and a knife can go through it easily. If it appears to be dry, add a touch of water. Once it is cooked, allow it to cool and either shred the meat or remove the bone and slice into strips, skin and all.

While the chicken is cooling, turn your attention to the couscous. Place it in a bowl with a pinch of salt and 1 tbsp of olive oil, add the 400ml of boiling water, stir and cover with a plate or clingfilm. Leave for five minutes before removing the cover and breaking the couscous up with a fork. Then add the chicken and remaining ingredients. Mix well and check the seasoning.

Serve in a large bowl at room temperature.

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Seasonal local food recipe No 93: Cornish asparagus and free-range egg

The first asparagus of the season is such a treat that it would be a shame to over-complicate it. One of the best things to combine it with is egg. The whole thing will take not much more than ten minutes. Use freshly-picked Cornish asparagus of course.

Ingredients
asparagus
free-range eggs
Maldon or sea salt
pepper
butter
optional extras: balsamic vinegar, parmesan shavings, basil pesto, mayonnaise

Method
Take your asparagus and snap off any woody bits from the base. Put a wide pan of water with a pinch of salt on to boil (obviously it should be large enough to take the asparagus, ideally standing upright, but that’s not too important).

Meanwhile put your eggs in another pan of cold water and bring to the boil. For hard-boiled, allow about 10-12 minutes depending on size; for soft-boiled, allow about 7-9 minutes. Alternatively, if you’re a whiz at poaching your eggs, cook them that way.

Once the asparagus pan comes to the boil, add the spears and allow around 5-6 minutes – test with a sharp knife.

Run cold water on the boiled eggs and shell them. Drain the asparagus and add a generous knob of butter, sea salt and pepper. Serve the asparagus with the egg cut in half on top and add whichever of the optional extras you fancy. A green salad accompaniment would be good. New potatoes too, if you’re feeling a bit greedy.

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Cornish asparagus for all in our Good Friday boxes

Small and standard boxes will all be getting:
potatoes (Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn)
spring greens (Restharrow Farm, Trebetherick)
cauliflowers (Restharrow Farm)
* leeks (Jeremy Brown, St Kew Harvest)
asparagus (Lower Croan, Sladesbridge)

Medium boxes will have extra potatoes plus:
* rhubarb (Mark Norman)
round lettuce (Growfair, Cornwall)
swede (Growfair, Cornwall)

* = grown to organic principles

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Seasonal local food recipe No 92: Warm salad of papardelle with herbs and baby spinach

Another recipe from Annie Bell’s Evergreen. She makes homemade pasta but bought is fine. It’s tossed with some herbs and baby spinach leaves while still hot, and the salad is served warm.

Serves 4

Preparation and cooking: 15 minutes

Ingredients
300g papardelle, fettucine or other flat ribbon pasta
Dressing
½ tbsp red wine vinegar
salt, pepper
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
4 tbsp groundnut oil
Salad
55g baby spinach
2 level tbsp chives, snipped 2cm long
½ level tbsp tarragon leaves
½ tbsp basil, torn
1 level tbsp flat-leaf parsley leaves

Method
Bring a large pan of water to the boil, add a shot of oil and then the pasta. Cook till al dente, depending on which size pasta you’re using. Meanwhile whisk the vinegar with the seasoning. Add the oils.

When the pasta is cooked, drain and toss with the dressing, adding all the leaves and herbs at the last minute. Adjust the seasoning and serve immediately.

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Seasonal local food recipe No 91: Stir-fried purple sprouting broccoli

It would be a shame to tinker too much with this week’s lovely fresh broccoli supplied by Jeremy so why not try this recipe from Sybil Kapoor’s Modern British Food?

Serves 4

Preparation and cooking: 10 minutes maximum

Ingredients
225g purple sprouting broccoli
2 tbsp vegetable oil
6 small red dried chillies
½ tsp rice vinegar
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1-2 tbsp soy sauce
½ tsp sugar (optional)

Method
Trim the stalks of the broccoli, removing any yellow leaves and cutting out any scars, before washing thoroughly. If any of the stems are too thick, slice them into elegant strips.

Heat the oil until very hot in a large, heavy-bottomed frying pan. Add the chillies, and when they begin to sizzle and deepen in colour, stand back and quickly add the vinegar. The frying pan will spit and sizzle for a few seconds and you will suddenly inhale a huge amount of chilli. Despite this, immediately add the garlic and broccoli.

Stir fry for a further 2-3 minutes, then add the soy sauce and sugar (if wished), check the seasoning and serve.

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It’s all grow, grow, grow…

Members of Camel Community Supported Agriculture’s volunteer grow-our-own team are busy sowing, planting and watering as the season gets into full swing. 

Expert grower Mark Norman is now employed on our St Kew Highway site two days a week to ensure everything goes to plan.

We’ve composted allium beds and planted onion sets – row after row of them. Broad bean and brassica beds have also been prepared and spring cabbages planted out. Additional lettuce varieties have been sown in modules, as well as turnips.

The potting shed is about to be erected and the cover put on the seeding tunnel. The mixed salad leaves planted in the polytunnel will be ready to pick for the veg boxes in a couple of weeks.

Many thanks to expert grower Mark N and current team members Bob, Bridget, Charlotte, Danny, Jenny, Kitty, Mark M, Mary, Mike S, Penny, Rebecca H and Robert plus five-year-olds Keira and Max.

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Seasonal local food recipe No 90: Penne with cauliflower and chilli

From Annie Bell’s Evergreen. She recommends ‘any squat and tubular pasta’ and says that both the cauliflower and the pasta should be ‘on the firm side. The sauce is richly flavoured and hot, and just coats the pasta and cauliflower. Parmesan would be out of place.’

Serves 4
Preparation and cooking: 15-20 minutes

Ingredients
400g cauliflower florets (1 large cauliflower)
3 garlic cloves, peeled
2 level tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp harissa
3 tbsp olive oil
450g tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped (or a tin of chopped tomatoes)
salt, pepper
225g penne

Method
Cut the cauliflower into 1cm florets. Finely chop the garlic cloves. Dilute the tomato puree with 3 tbsp of water and stir in the harissa. Take a deep frying pan and heat the olive oil. Cook the garlic until it gives off an aroma, then add the tomato solution, the chopped tomatoes and seasoning. Simmer the sauce for a couple of minutes. Add the cauliflower and cook, covered, for 7 minutes, stirring occasionally. It should remain on the firm side.

While the cauliflower is cooking, boil the pasta, leaving it firm to the bite. Drain it, though not too dry, and toss it with the cauliflower. Adjust the seasoning and serve.

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