River Cottage Edible Flower Butter Roulade

Those who follow me on my Twitter, Facebook or Instagram accounts may have spotted the #BlogCampRiverCottage hashtag putting in a number of appearances last week. Back in May, Foodies 100 announced that they would be running a food bloggers event at River Cottage HQ in the Autumn. I duly applied for a place and crossed my fingers and toes. When I received the email to say I was on the guest list I'm sure my excited scream could be heard all 600 miles away in Devon. I would definitely be the furthest travelled blogger at this event!

If there was one thing that encompassed for me the whole ethos and excitement of the day it had to be making an Edible Flower Butter Roulade. I've made my own butter on numerous occasions, often in jam jars as part of my children's cookery classes and outdoor food and foraging events. However at River Cottage we went one step further and filled the butter with beautiful edible flowers from their stunning Victorian vegetable garden. Instructions of how to make your own at the end of the post but firstly some photos that sum up a fantastic day. 

Our day comprised of three group sessions alongside networking with fellow bloggers and a sumptuous two course lunch. First up was Food Styling and Photography with the lovely Capture by Lucy of whom it was a delight to finally meet having stalked her online for so long. The Bread and Butter Cookery session was led by Group Head Chef Gill Meller (The bread part will be revealed in future post - I promise it's worth the wait) whilst Head Gardener Will Livingstone took us on a farm and garden tour. 

River Cottage HQ is a 90 acre certified Organic mixed farm. Livestock wise they have beef cattle, large black pigs, sheep, chicken, ducks, guinea fowl and bees. Everything grown on the farm stays on the farm and there is a 30 mile food sourcing policy for their additional requirements. Vegetables are grown in two poly tunnels and the kitchen garden. The Victorian style garden is divided into four plots with a Mulberry tree in the middle (alas there were no takers when I suggested we dance around it). Brassicas, legumes, roots and onions and 'everything else' are rotated annually to help reduce pests and diseases and avoid the depletion of nutrients. The farm aims to be as sustainable as possible with a wind turbine, solar panels, reed bed system for sewerage and biomass generator for heating and hot water. As he showed us around and answered our many questions Will's passion for local, seasonal, organic food shone through, as it did with the whole River Cottage HQ team throughout our day. At last it was time to head to the cook school and get hands on. 

River Cottage Edible Flower Butter Roulade

500ml Double Cream

Sea Salt Flakes

Culinary Herbs

Edible Flowers e.g. nasturtiums, marigolds, chives, borage, pansy, violets. Check the Royal Horticultural Society Guide before including anything you're unsure of 

Whip the cream with an electric whisk until it starts to split and looks a bit like scrambled eggs.

Use a wooden spoon to continue to beat and press against the side of the bowl until you have butter and buttermilk.

Take small balls of the butter into your (ideally cool) hands and squeeze out excess buttermilk.

(At this point you may wish to refrigerate the butter for a short time if it's rather soft)

Wash the butter in iced water to help prolong its life before squishing it out onto a sheet of greaseproof paper to form a rectangle.

Sprinkle with salt if desired and top with edible herbs and flowers.

Run a knife between the butter and the baking parchment before rolling the butter up "swiss roll" style.

Place the butter roulade on a fresh sheet of parchment and wrap it up like a Christmas cracker, twisting the ends to secure.

Refrigerate until solid then slice and serve.

Of course I now had the added complication of requiring to transport my butter 600 miles home. It made it safely back to my B&B, the gorgeous Fingle in Uplyme, Lyme Regis. My landlady Jane kept it in the fridge for me and I enjoyed a slice of it on toast for breakfast on my final day in Devon. Alas by the time it spent the day in a suitcase in the boot of my hire car and onwards to Exeter, Manchester and Aberdeen airports it didn't look quite so pretty!

Thanks to Time To Be An Adult, Lovely Appetite, Supper In The Suburbs, Sophia's Choice and Jen's Food for allowing me share a montage of their beautiful butters above. I'm a wee bit obsessed with this whole idea now and the possibilities are endless. You don't necessarily even need to make your own butter from scratch, just soften and squish out a block of shop bought butter. Fill with edible flowers, herbs, pesto, tapenade, chilli, garlic, lemon & lime zest, wholegrain mustard - my mind is now in overdrive with potential fillings. Its uses are equally plentiful. Beautiful spread on bread or toast but also on top of meat, fish or pasta. The perfect idea to take away from a perfect day. It could only have been better if HFW himself had put in an appearance. However I suspect he has bigger (sustainable) fish to fry than an excitable group of 50 food bloggers

Disclosure - I attended #BlogCampRiver Cottage as a guest of Foodies 100 and River Cottage HQ. All views expressed are my own.

Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons - Seven Course Dining Experience

A guest blog post from my Foodie Sis. I am VERY jealous...

I recently had the pleasure of dining at Le Manoir aux quat’saisons in Oxfordshire. It is located in a beautiful village called Great Milton (where the properties have high price tags) and is owned by the delectable Raymond Blanc. The country house setting is idyllic and the grounds feature a croquet lawn, orchards and a well stocked kitchen garden with beautiful rows of herbs, fruit and veg, perfect for picking and using in the restaurant. The restaurant has held two Michelin stars for the last 29 years, an accolade that they clearly know all about how to retain.

Beautiful setting for le manoir

Rows and rows of gorgeous fruit, veg and herbs ripe for the picking. Puts my allotment offerings to shame.

We were all warmly welcomed to the venue, and sat in a beautiful lounge with our menus to peruse, and an epitome of a wine list promptly appeared. I avoided looking too closely at the wine list as I had elected to drive; it’s probably just as well as I might have then been tempted, although the prices were appropriately high. I did succumb to a cheeky wee gin and tonic as I figured I was going to be there for quite some time. Another guest couldn’t resist ordering a glass of a wonderful Australian red wine called Ten minutes by Tractor which I did have a sneaky sip of, and it was amazingly good. The Sommelier informed us that the wine takes its name from all of the vineyards being no more than ‘ten minutes by tractor’ from the winery where they are produced. 

We all opted to go for the ‘Dining experience’ menu (don’t look mum… £154/head), described as ‘Seven exciting courses, with unexpected flavour combinations which make this menu a real culinary adventure’. I did have a look down the list of courses within this and was marginally dismayed by the desert which was offered ‘Textures de noix de coco et grand cru de chocolat du Ghana’ or Textures of coconut and Ghana chocolate Grand Cru’. I am not a coconut fan, and neither do I value chocolate particularly, so I opted to ‘upgrade’ (+ £15) my desert for one from the a la carte menu which was entitled ‘cassoulet d’abricot’. Well if I’m already spending so much money, I might as well add more to get something I’d like n’est pas? 

Our foodie delights started with our amuse bouche. Tastefully served on dark grey slate and consisted of something like the following (but with posher names) a bit of guacamole on something crispy, a tasty ball of either saffron or turmeric stuff, a smoked salmon bite and a goats cheese ball with black olive. One guest was given an alternative board as he’s allergic to chili and the restaurant were very obliging at providing an alternative for him.

We were then moved in to the dining room, a rather informal setting with glass windows looking out on to the lawns and gardens. The dining room was very unstuffy, but perfectly comfortable (which also pretty much sums up the waiters and all staff for the evening, attentive but not in your face). I was delighted to not be offered a ‘table stool’ for my handbag when I placed it by my chair (seriously has anyone ever thought in a posh restaurant ‘I don’t want to put my bag down on the floor in here’!?).

And so the main event began. We were offered a wide selection of breads, rolls, ciabatta, baguette, tomato bread, wholemeal delights, AND in the middle of those descriptions the waiter slipped in ‘bacon bread’, and ‘mashed potato and ale bread’ and we were all sold! Bacon bread! Bread with little bits of bacon in it! What’s not to love? (I’m now going to try making my own bacon rolls, in order to then add more bacon, and possibly ketchup as well to them!). Actually I did resist the bacon bread but tried some from another guest (and yum!) and I went for a baguette, and then tried the mashed potato and ale roll which was delicious. All served with both salted and unsalted butter (on a grey slate with a sprinkling of sea salt next to the salted as a reminder) 

Our first course was ‘Gazpacho de tomate, olive, basilica’ or Chilled tomato gazpacho with olive and basil. Deliciously rich, with a beautiful tomato flavour served with an olive oil mayonnaise (?), and a tasty skinned cherry tomato with basil and olives on the side, hopefully from the kitchen garden. There was obviously a hint of chili in this course as one guest got a different starter of Salade de betteraves, sorbet au raifort, (salad of baby beetroot with a horseradish sorbet) 

‘Gazpacho de tomate, olive, basilica’

‘Salade de betteraves, sorbet au raifort’

We then moved on to the Mi-cuit de saumon, raifort, concombre (Warm confit of oak smoked salmon, horseradish, cucumber) that was served on shredded mouli, the cucumber was lightly pickled with dill and the salmon was beautifully melty in the mouth. 

‘Mi-cuit de saumon, raifort, concombre’

Our next offering was ‘Agnolotti de fromage de chevre, miel, artichauts, olives (Agnolotti of goat’s cheese, honey, artichokes and olives). Oh my! This was amazing, so delicate but super tasty, the agnolotti (something akin to a small ravioli) were deliciously packed with goats cheese and crumbled dried olives gave a wonderful unexpected crunch to the dish.

This was one of my favourites ‘Agnolotti de fromage de chevre, miel, artichauts, olives’

Just as we were thinking our ‘main’ must be next, we were treated to ‘Crabe, fleur de courgette du jardin, puree de crabe’ (Devonshire crab, garden courgette flower, crab puree). This was very delicate, arranged on the plate to resemble a fish and the courgette flower was stuffed with much deliciousness in the shape of a light crab mousse. 

‘Crabe, fleur de courgette du jardin, puree de crabe’

And it was here! Finally the main, ‘Filet de boeuf Aberdeen Angus, cresson, champignons sauvages, essence au vin rouge’ (Roasted fillet of Aberdeen Angus beef, braised Jacob’s ladder, watercress, wild mushrooms, red wine essence’. Wow, this was melt in the mouth tasty, perfectly cooked beef (not that I expected anything less, especiallly from a good Aberdeen Angus), a delicate red wine sauce, wonderfully orange wild mushrooms and then, I tried the braised ‘Jacob’s ladder’. I must admit to being unfamiliar with a ‘Jacob’s ladder’. It’s a rather traditional cut of beef also known as ‘short ribs’ and benefits from slow cooking. It was one of the best pieces of beef I have ever tried, totally dissolved in to your mouth with a wonderfully rich flavour. I think I might just have to investigate cooking with a Jacob’s ladder in the future! 

‘Filet de boeuf Aberdeen Angus, cresson, champignons sauvages, essence au vin rouge’

And so our thoughts were turning to all things sweet, and our pre-desert of ‘Raviole de Peches et D’abricots, verveine citronne’ appeared (Peach and apricot ravioli, lemon verbena). Oooh I love all things fruity and this was a total delight! Not too sweet, an amazing tangy abricot and peach sorbet served on top of a whole apricot which was stuffed with a beautifully light filling, served with a hint of pistachios. Definitely my kind of desert!

‘Raviole de Peches et D’abricots, verveine citronne’

It was then that our menus began to diverge a little, two of us had opted to ‘upgrade’ our desert, whilst one stuck to the coconut and chocolate option. I must admit to not having considered that my pre-desert was going to be apricot-y prior to ordering my ‘Cassoulet d’abricots’, I probably wouldn’t win any awards in menu planning with this but I was totally delighted when it arrived! This was most definitely the best desert I have ever had in any restaurant, totally delicious! A beautifully delicate tuile bowl (with lid and gold leaf handle), crammed with fresh apricots, abricot puree, a floating light as a feather meringue, topped with some flavoured icecream/cream with praline nuts and super tasty wild strawberries. It was just perfect for me!

‘Cassoulet d’abricots’

The other guests went for the beautifully sculpted ‘Chocolate manjari et crumble a la framboise’ (manjari chocolate and raspberry crumble) and one stuck to the original desert from the Dining Experience menu, the ‘Textures de noix de coco et grand cru de chocolat du Ghana’ or Textures of coconut and Ghana chocolate Grand Cru’. Both were announced delicious by the other guests, although I think it would have been better if we’d all upgraded our deserts, as there was a substantial size difference in portions! (not that we really needed more food by this point!) 

‘Chocolate manjari et crumble a la framboise’

‘Textures de noix de coco et grand cru de chocolat du Ghana’

And so we eyed up the cheese trolley, YUM, a wonderful selection of cheeses, all perfectly ripe and ready to devour. We were sensible and opted to share one cheese board portion between us which was perfectly enough for us all. Served expertly with some grapes, and sweet chutneys and an assortment of crackers.

Le fromage!

With our night drawing to a close, we adjourned back to the lounge for teas, coffees and petit fours. A HUGE menu of teas and infusions were offered and it was hard to chose between them. I eventually opted for a spiced tea, which was served in a glass teapot with lots of little morsels of sweet delights, lemon macarons, nougat, Turkish delight, and fruity mousse. A perfect ending to a delectable evening.

Petit fours, teas and coffee from a huge tea menu!

Overall we all had a wonderful evening, amazing food in a wonderful setting. We also inevitably had a much lighter wallet than when we started however, the attention to detail and the quality of the food and service was second to none. If you were ever feeling the need to splash out on the Dining Experience at Le Manoir, I’d heartily recommend it. I think their Michelin stars have nothing to fear.