With many thanks to Gil of Corney & Barrow and Ben, our cheeseman from Rowcliffe for their informative and fun wine and cheese tasting at the weekend.  If you weren’t able to join us, we do have all the cheeses and the wines in the shop.  We are now also stocking Chateau Septy, the Monbazillac which many of you enjoyed tasting with the Spanish goat’s cheese Monte Enebro and Ossau-Iraty, the French ewe’s milk cheese.  This sweet wine is also available in half bottles.

For those of you who may prefer a port with cheese, we now have Corney & Barrow’s non vintage ruby port.

Finally, we have gorgeous sunshine; it certainly puts a spring in our step and a much needed boost to the growing season.  Nature has an uncanny way of sorting herself out though and we’ll soon have May’s wonderful produce on the shelves.  Our own asparagus has begun to grow and when it gets going it’s unstoppable.  Do keep an eye out for stocks as you really can’t beat the fresh English crop – full of flavour, nutritious, quick and easy to cook and so versatile.  Cook in boiling water for a few minutes and serve with melted butter or a few shavings of parmesan, vinaigrette or hollandaise sauce.  Bake in a quiche or roast, griddle, barbecue or make into soldiers as in our recipe this month – fantastic!

On the Farm

Over the past few months Andrew has been busy buying at auctions around the country building up our herds of cattle – they are now out in the fields enjoying the sunshine too.  We have Stabilisers, a breed which harnesses the best of an Aberdeen Angus and the best of a Hereford, to produce a good beef animal that calves easily and matures early with good fertility.  Our 3 year old bull, Jock is also a Stabliser – he’ll be busy too soon when he’s put to work with the young heifers!  We’ve also got Black Angus and pretty white Charolais, all reputable beef cattle destined for use in the Café and eventually the Shop.

Andrew’s happy with the cattle but the arable crop’s very patchy after the wet, cold, long winter – “it’s going to push cereal prices up again” – he’s muttering “and we need some warm rain!”

The building of our new agricultural shed for storage is coming along well.  Solar panels have been installed on one side of the roof and creating 30 kw of power per hour for use in the shop.  Landscaping around this store will start soon.

In the Shop

Cheese & Wine Tasting – Saturday 11 May

Do hope you’ll be able to join us for this tasting with our two suppliers Rowcliffe and Corney & Barrow.  They’ll have a variety of cheeses and wines and give you an opportunity to try different pairings.

The cheeses will be our selected cheeses of the month and carry a 20% discount for May, look out for the red star in the shop.

Ben, our cheeseman is one of only two suppliers of Monte Enebro, Spain’s greatest goats’ milk cheese which is hand made by Rafael Baez, the legendary artisan cheese maker and his daughter – they only make about 7,000 a year.  This complex cheese is shaped like a log with a rind made of ash and mold which gives it a blue cheese taste.  In the young cheese it has creamy, lemony, citrus flavours and as it ages the texture becomes denser and the flavour more intense.  It is an award-winning cheese that goes well with a number of wines from Chenin blancs, Sauternes and sweeter sherries.

Ossau Iraty is a traditional, unpasteurized semi-soft cheese made from ewes’ milk.  The cheese, which goes back some 2,000 years, unites two regions of the Western Pyrenees in France, the Ossau valley in the Bearn and Iraty in the beech forests of Pays Basque.  Its AOC protection requires it to be made from the milk of only two breeds of ewes, the Manech and Basco-Bearnaise.   It has an ivory paste with a firm, slightly oily texture and tastes nutty and sweet with hints of olive, hazelnut and fig.  Known as the ‘farmer’s dessert because it has rich and smooth finish.  It goes well with fruity and full-bodied red or white wines such as Zinfandel, Tempranillo or Syrah.

Shropshire Blue is made by the Colston Bassett Dairy in the village of the same name on the Nottinghamshire/Leicestershire borders.  This small independent dairy, one of the few remaining small Stilton dairies that exist from the 19th century, uses milk from local herds and hand ladle the curds keeping the cheese light and creamy.  It is a blue veined cheese, made with the same processes as Stilton but the plant extract annatto is added giving the distinctive orange curd.  It is not matured as long as Stilton so has a milder taste.

Coastal Cheddar is a favourite.  Made by Ford Farm Dairy in Dorset, it has a rugged texture with salty sweet flavour and distinctive crunch caused by calcium crystals that form naturally in the cheese once it is mature.  Pinot noirs and sauvignon blancs both pair well with Coastal cheddar.

New products in the shop now include those from The Fresh Olive Company –plump olives, whole or stuffed with a range of fillings, antipasti, cornichons, semi-dried cherry tomatoes – do look out for them in the olive dome, they are authentic and quite delicious – taste just as if you’d brought them fresh from a Mediterranean stall.

In the Café

Inspired by the fresh new flavours of May’s ingredients, Dan and his team are enjoying cooking tasty lighter dishes with options on the daily specials menu including, fillet of lamb wrapped in Serrano ham with sage, fondant potato, broad beans and Romesco sauce, or a bruschetta with smoked hake, watercress, salsa verde and poached quail egg.  Do hope you can join us soon – the chairs and tables are now all out on the terrace to make the most of the sunshine as well.

Beanie has made a full recovery from her operation to repair a torn cruciate ligament – we’re not quite sure how she did it in the first place but delighted she’s now back on her feet and keeping up with Ed.

The Pearces

Asparagus soldiers

1 portion

Ingredients

4 sticks asparagus

4 slices white bread

4 slices parma ham

1 jar pesto

25g grated parmesan

20g butter, melted

Method

Boil a pan of salted water and blanch the asparagus for 2-3 minutes then plunge into cold water, pat dry.

Cut the crusts off the bread and roll out each slice to 1-2 mm thick, spread each piece of bread with pesto, then sprinkle on parmesan, and finally a slice of parma ham.  Then roll the asparagus up in the bread.

Brush all over with melted butter and chill.  Cook for 8-9 minutes at 180⁰C or until golden. Serve with a leaf salad or poached duck egg

We’re really quite excited about our tasting next Saturday as our two suppliers, Rowcliffe and Corney & Barrow, are bringing along some wonderful cheeses and wines for you to taste.  Ben, our cheerful cheeseman is one of only two UK suppliers of Monte Enebro, the Spanish goats’ milk cheese so a great opportunity to taste this amazingly complex cheese – it pairs well with sweet wines.  Ben is also bringing Ossau-Iraty, another wine-friendly cheese as well as Shropshire Blue and Coastal Cheddar.  Corney & Barrow, will have a decent selection of wines for you to try out different pairing combinations.  Should be fun – do hope you can join us.

On a practical note, we are putting up post and rails which we hope will improve the efficiency of the car park, particularly on the busier days.

Beanie, by the way is now back up and running again having had an operation to repair her cruciate ligament, many thanks for your concerns about her.

Our May cheeses of the month are Monte Enebro, Ossau-Iraty, Shropshire Blue and

Coastal Cheddar.

These cheeses carry the 20% discount for the month of May – look out for the red star in the shop.

They will also be available for tasting on Saturday 11 May

Whatever has happened to Spring? Certainly didn’t expect to be writing our April newsletter whilst it’s snowing!  However, when it finally does arrive everything will suddenly explode into life and make up for the fact that nature’s about a month behind.

As you may have seen, we have been getting on with landscaping around the farm and planting hornbeam and hawthorn hedges and building a new agricultural store.  We’ve also planted the strawberries and wrapped them in layers of fleece hoping they will get going at the first signs of warmth.  Our new heifers have arrived but they’ll have to stay indoors until the grass grows – they’ll explode too with excitement when first let out in the fields!

Inspite of the weather, we are pleased that the newly installed solar panels are substantially helping to heat and light the Shop.  Talking ‘eco’, one of our local suppliers Guy and Wright at Green Tye, near Much Hadham, built their own anaerobic digester a few years ago that produces all the biofuel they need to heat the glasshouses.  They grow fantastic tasty tomatoes which we now have in the shop as well as cucumbers.  Do pick up pound or two for salads or mix with oil, herbs and olives and pile on bruschetta for a flavoursome starter.

Cheeses of the Month

We have three cheeses of the month that carry the 20% discount – look out for the red star in the shop.

Blacksticks Blue, a unique soft blue veined cheese with a distinctive amber hue from Butlers at Inglewhite Dairy in Lancashire that has a creamy texture and smooth yet tangy taste.  It is handmade in small batches from cows milk; the curds are poured into individual moulds, then left to rest and drain naturally resulting in the characteristic soft texture that Blacksticks is known for.  The cheese is then pierced to create the blue veins and nurtured and turned for five to eight weeks.  A British classic and quite different to other blue cheeses.

Dorset Red, a smoked hard cheese made by Ford Farm in West Dorset.  This distinctive amber coloured cheese has a rich red rind and delicate subtle flavour created from the gentle smoking over oak chips and a smooth, velvety texture.

Perl Wen, an creamy Brie-style cheese made by  Caws Cenarth Cheese, the award-winning small family business in the heart of West Wales.  It is soft and succulent with a citrus centre.  Enjoy with a glass of white wine, also goes well in toppings and tarts or in a baguette.

In the Café, we are delighted to welcome our new pastry chef Claire who has been creating some delicious desserts and scrumptious cakes, such as lemon tart with meringue crust and maple syrup and a chocolate marble cake.  Hope you can join us for a cup of tea and slice of cake soon.

There’s something about making your own bread that is very satisfying and rewarding and if you haven’t had a go before, Dan who makes all our bread for the Café, urges you to try with this easy recipe for onion and chive bread.

The Pearces

Onion & Chive Bread

 To make 2 loaves

Ingredients

Small bunch chives

1 onion finely chopped

750 g bread flour

1½ tsp salt

425 ml water

25 g fresh yeast, or 2 ½ tsp dried yeast

60 g butter, melted

Method

Put the water in a bowl and stir in the yeast, add all the other ingredients finishing with the flour.

Mix together well into a dough and knead.  Leave in a warm place for an hour or so to prove and double in size.

Knock the mixture back and lightly knead again, shape into a loaf, rolls or sticks and leave to prove again for another hour or so.

Cook at 180⁰C for 35 minutes depending on shape.

As a variation for cheesy bread, sprinkle grated cheese on top of loaf before cooking.

Our April cheeses of the month are Blacksticks Blue, Dorset Red and Perl Wen.

These cheeses carry the 20% discount for the month of April – look out for the red star in the shop.