Charlotte's Newsletter | Issue 7

Issue 7 | Friday 6th May 2022

Welcome to Issue 7

Welcome back! It's a special day in our family today, as it's a significant birthday for my Mum. So, if you're reading, Happy Birthday, Mum! I am in charge of catering for the weekend, of course, and am very much looking forward to having everyone back around the table at home. I have some lovely food and drink organised for us to enjoy together.

I have my Mum to thank for sparking my interest in food, and I am very grateful to have grown up enjoying good food at home. As a child, I loved picking recipes from our cookbooks and making them myself. Having the space to have a go was so important, as well as cooking with my Mum in the evenings. It really is a dream come true that writing books and recipes is now my job, and I get to meet the people who wrote the books I so enjoyed as a child. So thank you, Mum, for putting up with the mess and allowing me to have a go, and I'd strongly encourage parents and grandparents to do the same.

Speaking of recipes, I write a monthly collection of seasonal recipes for Countryman's Weekly, which is always published in the first issue of each month, and my May recipes are currently in this week's issue.

I've also been busy teaching cookery classes in Worcestershire and Birmingham (see my upcoming dates below) and judging for the Great Taste Awards. I managed a day of spirits tasting recently, with an impressive 60 plus neat vodka and gin varieties blind tasted. All in a day's work...

Finally, I have some top food, drink and hotel recommendations for you for Dublin, following an amazing recent visit, and do feel free to save them and share them if you know someone who may be heading that way soon.

Wishing you a great fortnight,

Charlotte

Charlotte's Basket

In the last fortnight, we've had some fantastic early strawberries from Somerset, which have been so sweet and fragrant. I'll be making a strawberry meringue roulade this weekend.

We've also had some excellent chard, radishes, purple sprouting broccoli and yet more asparagus. I plan on charring the asparagus on the Big Green Egg this weekend, to serve with a big piece of local beef and béarnaise sauce. I've also managed to get a bag of local charcoal to try, as I've given up buying imported hardwood varieties.

Watercress is a real favourite, and another leaf I can eat happily every day. Our greengrocers sell bunches, but if I can't get it from them, then I buy John Hurd's Organic Watercress, which is robust and peppery. 

In the garden, the herbs are really coming to life, and will now hopefully be safe from frost. I am growing as much parsley and mint as I can, which I put into so many dishes. I also grow fresh marjoram, oregano, sweet cicely, lemon verbena and sweet geranium varieties as they are so hard to get hold of.

 

Charlotte Loves

My favourite new product discoveries

• This preserved lemon, ginger and turmeric paste by Eaten Alive is so delicious and very, very useful.

• I've been a fan of Brindisa for a long time. Two of their outstanding products, the salted Marcona almonds and chorizo are now sold in huge bags at a considerable discount, and so I have been stocking up.

• I love all things fermented, and even wrote a book about it. Fermented drinks are such a good  thing to add into our diets, and Bio Kef is a great new discovery. Their honey and cinnamon milk kefir is really good.

• Cornish Sea Salt's seed topper is dangerously addictive. It has quite a lot of onion and garlic in the mix, and I've found myself using it liberally on all sorts of salads.

• I love Highbank Orchard Syrup and have been loving their treacle, too. Such a creative and delicious product range, made in Kilkenny.

What to cook this week

• Everyone loves a chocolate cake, and this one from Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh is very good. I can also heartily recommend the chocolate birthday cake in my baking book, which I've made countless times.

• We've been relying lots on easy oven-baked meals here over the last week or two, and this oven-baked chicken dish by Diana Henry, with cauliflower and n'duja is brilliant. 

• I don't cook a lot of pasta, but very highly recommend Thomasina Miers' lamb, tomato and feta orzo recipe.

• I'm a big fan of Jenny Chandler's work, and I have been making versions of this salad a lot recently, which I especially like with plenty of roasted beetroot in the mix.

• And finally, Ottolenghi again, but everyone just loves this cauliflower salad. It's a wonderful mix of flavours and textures and is pretty easy to put together, too.

Useful kitchen kit

Great kitchen kit really helps to make everything you cook. I favour a 'buy well, buy once' approach. 

• I am so fed up with useless bakeware giving up the ghost. The best trays and tins I've found are made by Mermaid and Silverwood. 

• Bird are a really lovely company to know about, making aprons and fabric wares for the kitchen and dining room in Britain.

• A good peeler is a very useful thing to have to hand. I like Good Grips Y peelers and say it's £7 worth spending.

• Non-stick baking paper sounds ridiculously obvious, but it is absolutely essential for anything that's being cooked. Keep greaseproof for sandwiches and cheese. Lakeland do some great options, including hand pre-cut pieces.

Something for the Weekend

As the weekend approaches, here are 
some of my top recommendations for 
podcasts to listen to and where to stay and eat in Dublin.

Do, please, let me know if you try any of them, and what you think.

Some podcasts to listen to

• Tales from the Veg Patch by Kathy Slack

• BBC Good Food Podcast with Tom Kerridge, Orlando Murrin and Rosie Birkett

• Cooking the Books by Gilly Smith

• Farmerama Radio

My top recommendations for a visit to Dubin

• My favourite hotel is The Merrion. I also like Number 31.

• If you really want to push the boat out, Chapter One is utterly special. 

• To eat and drink, try Michael's and Little Mike's in Mount Merrion, Uno Mas, Loose Canon, Meet me in the Morning for coffee and good baked goods.

My upcoming cookery classes

• Monday 30th May - Spanish Tapas and Wine Tasting at Harborne Food School

• Tuesday 31st May - The Moroccan Kitchen at Harborne Food School

• Monday 6th June - Plant based cooking at Harborne Food School

• Tuesday 7th June - Middle Eastern Mezze (Vegetarian) at Harborne Food School

• Monday 20th and Tuesday 21st  June - Cooking for a Healthy Body and Mind at Harborne Food School

• Monday 27th June - Bread making at Harborne Food School

• Tuesday 28th June - Knife skills at Harborne Food School

Places are available, currently, on all courses. And if you'd like a private class, either one-to-one, or for your friends or business, you can find our more on my website, or get in touch.