Random Recipe - New Year, New Book - 'Spring' pasta without Wild Garlic

January’s  Random Recipe challenge set by the lovely Dom over at Belleau Kitchen tasked us with picking a recipe from a book we’d received for christmas.  I got a fair selection as you can see.  It included the rather wonderful ‘A Curious Cookbook’  - a look at historical recipes from some of the earliest cookery books on record (14^th C) right up to wartime (sparrows on toast anyone?) 

Given my record in past Random Recipe challenges (rabbit leg, stuffed carrots &c) I thought I was sure to get that book but my random number generator (the Chap) thankfully picked one of the other books he got me – the Herbs installment of the River Cottage handbook series.  These books always have the recipe section at the back so I flipped it open at that end and got… Spring Pasta with Wild Garlic and Purple Sprouting Broccoli.

Now, although we managed to get some ramsons (wild garlic) on Jan 27th last year I thought that one week into 2014 would be pushing my luck rather.  That's not spring in the UK by any stretch of the imagination.  However, I duly went for a riverside potter on one of the few non-rainy days we had around the middle of the month and found....shoots.  Teeny tiny shoots, that was all so far.  Not a massive surprise.  I gathered the tiniest ‘handful’ (midget hands you understand) of the shoots to give an edge of the garlicky flavour and resigned myself to using the suggested chives that the book mentions can be substituted if you have no wild garlic.

The recipe also uses purple sprouting broccoli.  I’m afraid I have to admit to completely forgetting about that detail so this got made with regular calabrese, a substitution that is also mentioned in the book itself.

Overall I found this a bit too rich with creamy goats cheese smothering everything and an additional grating of parmesan on top.  I find it hard to believe that I’m actually going to type this but, I think it was a little too cheesy.  [Too cheesy!  I know what you’re thinking – how can something ever be too cheesy huh?]  It was too rich from all the cheese, rather than the flavour, is what I think I’m trying to say.  It certainly needed a good squeeze of lemon juice or something to cut through it and lift the flavour a bit; it was all rather samey.  That said I imagine this would be a very different beast with actual wild garlic in it.

It was a nice quick dinner to knock up though and one that's pretty frugal if you make it with regular calabrese and Aldi's goat cheese. :-)

It warrants remembering for when the ramsons finally do unfurl their leaves out of the overflowing river Exe.

The clever ones amongst you will have noticed that I mention the middle of the month earlier in the post yet the date of writing is the somewhat later 30th.  Yep - I actually made my random recipe in good time this month but still didn't get it up before the cut off.  Please let me join in Dom, please...

Not foraging season, yet.

I went for a somewhat optimistic little bimble to an area on campus that I know grows wild garlic in abundance during my lunch break today.
Despite myself, the Chap and his brother managing to find some Navelwort to nibble last weekend, and spying these fungi on a tree, there was no sign as yet of the Ramsons.

I didn't really expect there to be, but as it's the first sunny day for a while after all these storms, I fancied a breath of fresh air and a little vitamin D.
Sometimes I forget just how lovely the Campus is here; I really should make more of an effort to have a ramble around in my lunchtimes.

 I did come across this fungus; given it's somewhat forbidding purple hue I left it where it was though!

  Anyone know what it is?

Wild food finds, an apology and my dad

Well blimey - I hadn't realised it had been over a month since my last post but it was all the way back on the 1st May!  I've missed several blog challenges and cooked others but never posted them and generally probably come across as a bit slack.
I seem to have found it hard over May to shake the malaise that accompanies a bout of 'teetering on the brink of' depression.  [I also found it very hard to write that 'D' word then too.]
However, I am here now, albeit with a fairly brief post.  (I realised I was missing posting stuff as I can get so het up in these massively long and wordy missives laden with fairly dull photographs that they take so long to write they never get completed.)
So - that's the 'apology/explanation' bit done - now I have a question or two for us.

This is Rosy Garlic.  The Chap and I first came across this on Scilly last year but I recently was massively excited to spot a patch just minutes from the house!  Win!  I had been under the misapprehension that it didn't grow here on 'the mainland' as it likes it warm.
I am coming up fairly short on recipes for same on t'internet though so wondered if anyone else had any ideas?  The Plants For A Future page seems to have the most handy information I've seen so far - just from a very small amount of googling this morning.  Interestingly it also includes cultivation info - may just be worth a try.  I might recommend it to my Ma as well as several other sites suggested that it works to deter deer from your garden.  She suffers from the deer that live in the woods opposite coming and eating all her pansy flowers in the front window boxes each year - they very neatly just take the flowers which understandably does vex her rather!

This image I'm not so sure of - it looks a lot like Navelwort to me but the leaves seem very large.  That's the chaps hand there too - not mine.  (Although there's not that much difference in size between our hands tbh...)  Navelwort can be eaten raw or cooked and I'd imagine would add a lovely crunch to salads but as ever with foraging - you must must be 500% sure what a wild plant is before you think of eating it.  So - a bit more research needed on this one I guess.  In fact I am leaning more and more towards it not being Navelwort - the leaves of Navelwort are apparently generally the size of a human navel so these are deffo way too big.  Hmm - wonder what it is then?

Lastly I gathered some 'Jack by the Hedge' (garlic mustard) a couple of day back and made a vaguely Greek style pie with it in.  I shall endeavour to post that later or in the next day or so but - I will not treat it as a 'fail' if I don't.









Today (here in the UK) it's Father's Day.  Dad was 'got' by cancer in 2005 and I think of him every single day.  Often that is what gets me moving when that malaise tries to descend; the sense of not wanting to let him down and still to show I can do my best.  Anyway, I thought I'd share this picture of my parents getting married back in 1969.  It's not the best pic but it sits on my mantelshelf alongside one of my mother at 21 and I love it.  Look at Ma's hemline!!!

We never know how long we may be here for so love your important people and hold them tight as they could get snatched away without warning nor quarter given.  x

Themes of wild garlic pesto

3 weeks back the Chap and I went for our first forage of the year and were pleased to see the wild garlic sprouting already. We’ve been meaning to go back since but have variously been deterred by rain, being busy and watching the opening 2 weekends of the 6 nations rugby. So today, it being reasonably sunny (though very windy) and lacking in rugby fixtures we made the trip and found a lot more of the garlic has come up.
As a contrast this is the same area I pictured last time, you can see many more of the shoots have unfurled properly, and the river has taken its rightful place within it’s banks again! There were also plants all the way along this stretch that weren’t in evidence last visit so we should have plenty to keep us going this year.
So we stocked up and came back with about 300g of the stuff. We’re wild garlic pesto aficionado’s and made a few batches once we got home trying out using hazelnuts as well as the standard pine nuts and adding lemon juice to some. I think the lemon juice really lifts the mix and I’m a big fan of that version. Otherwise I did prefer the pine nut version to the hazelnut one. I also made one batch with half basil and half wild garlic as I had some fresh basil in the fridge to be used up which was lovely. So with this many herbs I’m going to enter this into this month’s Herbs on a Saturday over at Lavender and Lovage. Having just nipped over there I’ve also found that serendipitously this month there is a mini-theme of foraging!  :-)
We’ve adapted our pesto from the HFW recipe in his Hedgerow book which incidentally is a good read as are the seashore and mushroom ones in that series.

Wild garlic pesto and variants thereof - for a small batch that fills a 200g-ish size jar:

50g wild garlic, rinsed well of any mud etc
30g pine nuts / hazelnuts
30g parmesan / veggie version
80ml olive oil + a little extra
S + P
10ml lemon juice – if using

Toast off your nuts gently. Pine nuts I do in a dry pan, for the hazelnuts we added a little oil as they’re less naturally oily than the pine nuts.

Rough grate the parmesan and place it, the nuts, garlic and salt and pepper in your FP and blend.

During blending pour in the olive oil. Taste and adjust, it may need more salt than you think to bring the flavours out but it’s always best to err on the side of caution to begin with.

With the motor running once more add the lemon juice. You can do this in 5ml increments if you want until it’s pleasing to your own taste. I made one batch deliberately more lemony as that’s my favourite.

Pour into a sterilised jar and tap sharply on the counter top to encourage it to settle and remove any air bubbles.

Lastly drizzle a little more oil over the top to ensure it’s sealed from the air then store in the fridge.

For my basil and garlic version I had just over 25g of basil so just made it half and half with the garlic and used pine nuts and the lemon juice. We had some straight away on a hardboiled egg with a little sea salt sprinkled on and it was divine!

This is also very good with cheese and crackers, stirred through pasta or one of my favourites – smeared on top of the cheese on toast before grilling to melt the cheese. I think it could also work with spinach and feta in a pie, drizzled into the top of soup, tossed with new potatoes for a salad; there’s a myriad of uses.

If you have a patch of wild garlic local to you this is well worth making and works out pretty cheap. The garlic is nuppence and although pine nuts and the cheese are more pricy you only use a little of them. Try it and you’ll be a convert too!!

First forage of the year

 As the sun made a rare appearance today the Chap and I went for little bimble along the river before heading for a lovely roast for National Potato Day.  (Really.)
I wanted to take a certain route to see if there was any sign of the wild garlic yet and we were super pleased to spot some sprouting through the mud in our favourite spot.  Due to all the rain and melted snow the river's rather higher than is the norm so the most advanced plants were on the sunny bank that was also most nearly flooded - here's yours truly harvesting, pretty much 'in' the river!  Nearer the camera and behind me you can see the thin sprouts where the plants in a little more shade are still just pushing through the earth.

As we didn't get too much garlic (it's still early in the year after all) I also picked a handful of nettle tops and I'll pop them all in a soup/stew with some beans, veg and whatever comes to hand later. 

Very pleasing to know that even in January we can get some free tasty food with the minimum of effort walking and rummaging in the undergrowth.  It was a thoroughly pleasurable amble in the sun so I wouldn't really count it as effort myself.  Also nice to see that it looks like a healthy year for the wild garlic as we want to make masses more pesto from it this year.  Top stuff - we ran out far too fast last year! 

We finished the afternoon by going for the aforementioned roast at The Mill on The Exe, a riverside pub near us where they have the distinct advantage of doing a veggie option on the carvery.  Being right on the river they do have somewhat tenuous boundaries to their garden area!

Sloe gin a go-go

We went foraging for sloes at the weekend.  As the fruit has all been early this year we found the lower branches already stripped clean.  However, we gave thanks for short people as I [being the slightly taller of the pair of us] pulled over the higher branches so we could reach the berries on them, before letting them spring back unharmed. 

We collected a respectable 1.64 kg (him) and 1.8something kg (me) giving us about 3.5 kg total between the 2 of us which took us just under an hour and a half - not bad going.  We ended up a little scratched - more from the brambles growing throughout the bushes than the blackthorns themselves but it was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon in the sun pootling along the river.  There's got to be worse places to pick sloes surely...

The sloes are now safely ensconced in the freezer (in lieu of the first frosts getting them) and we have the sugar and the le parfait jars - just the gin to get now and we're on our way.  :-)

Foraging season

It's foraging time again - although really there's something available just about all year round.  However the fungi are most plentiful around now and I'm itching to get out there gathering.  For now though here's the little pretties I picked up last year - I also wanted to share them as part of Black & White Wednesday over on The Well-Seasoned Cook.

The other free food that should be bountiful now are sloes - we're determined to make vast amounts of sloe gin this year as last year's single batch really didn't last us long enough.  This time we're thinking dawn ladder raids and blow everyone else!  :-D  Maybe gloves this time too...

Seaside bimble with a forage thrown in

Well in contrast with the excess of the food festy we took a little bimble along the coast the previous week from Exmouth round to Sandy Bay and picked up some rather more frugal foodie goodies.  The weather was glorious, the sea - er - bracing!  [Mighty nippy.]  All in all it was a thoroughly restorative day for someone cooped up with hurty eyes for too long.  Found various shells, some dog whelks and one full size whelk which we stashed in the cool under a rock and failed to find again on the way back!  [Darn those pesky rocks all looking the same!]  I loved the colour of this little crab shell though.

We had taken along the River Cottage 'Edible Seashore' guide and having carefully perused the pages on mussels decided we'd collect a few of decent size to try.  I must say it's a tiny bit thrilling to be doing so when you consider mussels in a pub or restaurant are perceived more as a luxery item with price tag to match and here we were getting them for nuppence - the best price!  Do be aware though that you will need a 'sacrificial knife' once you get home to deal with them.  No - I don't mean for any dodgy offerings to some formless deity of your choice but a knife you don't mind getting very blunted for the purposes of pulling off the *beards and scraping off any barnacles.  The knife I snapped the tip off of getting into oysters after last years food fest does me nicely!  Having got a plastic bag from the local plastic tat / buckets 'n' spades type shop [we were woefully underprepared apart from the book having both forgotten to pick up anything to put any foraged goodies into] we collected a decent handful of mussels and some Sugar Kelp seaweed.  According to the book of words it's good flash deep fried as a kelp crisp - you can tell the difference from regular kelp (which can also be treated this way) as it has wavy edges and a bumpy look whereas regular kelp is flat.

Now - mussels can contain grit as they're filter feeders.  (This is why it's very important indeed you only get them from clean water areas and at certain times of the year which I'm not going to tell you thereby forcing you to look it up yourself.  I take no responsibility for any wild food misadventures, only for my own!)  Containing grit means you need to 'purge' them - soak them in aerated salt water for several hours with or without oatmeal (apparently it can speed the process) before cooking.  If you're going to cook them in a sauce like a classic moules marinière this is important as grit in the dish is a real killer to the enjoyment of great food.  We however; due to time constraints amongst other factors, opted to cook them in plain water letting any grit fall into the pan then shelled them and used them in a fish pie.  Chap and I did taste one each 'straight' as it were and they were delicious.  Sweetish as really fresh prawns can be, a delight to eat knowing we'd scooped them from the waves mere hours before.  We'll definitely be repeating this experience though we'll have to wait now until after the summer as this is when they spawn so you shouldn't pick them.  Apparently they are biggest in Autumn after their summer feeding and before they lose weight over winter so it'll be a treat I'm looking forward to already.

*I learnt from the book that the 'beards' or 'abyssal threads' are made from iron the mussel extracts from the seawater and used to be woven into cloth called 'mussel silk' which such luminaries as Caeser and Ghengis Khan used to wear!  Cool huh?  [In case you hadn't picked up on it yet I am a lover of the odd random and/or esoteric fact or three.]

Oh and the kelp?  Er...we kinda forgot about it so the taste of Sugar Kelp crisps remains to yet delight our tastebuds, or not as it may be.  (We had to throw the seaweed away.)  We will gather some again another time though.  I know - my bad.  :-(  Even free food wastage annoys me!  :-D

Wild food weekend #4 - the Wrap up

Having spent the latter part of Saturday and almost all of last Sunday feeling decidedly under the weather [no - not the foraging but a bug going round at work I picked up for the weekend] once I felt slightly better and the sun came out on Sunday early evening I fancied a meander along the river. We discovered a great swathe of the broad leaved wild garlic Ramsons about 5 mins from home. Certainly closer than the previous stash I knew about of the narrower leaved type. [I just can't ascertain whether that is Field garlic - wrong leaves, Garlic chives - wrong flowers, or what. Plants for a future has a list of 19 types of 'garlic' and I'm still not sure.]We gathered some leaves and a few of the unopened flower heads having read somewhere on-line that these are good fried in a little butter. [Sorry - I just can't find it or remember where I saw this.] Always ensure you have the right plant - Ramsons can resemble the leaves of Lords and Ladies / Cukoo Pint which is very bad for you indeed. This is one below.

You will help yourself by foraging by hand too - don't cut big swathes with scissors or a similar instrument as you could easily get unwanted leaves in there along with the garlic. Lily of the valley is another plant with similar looking leaves that won't do us any good either.

As well as the Ramsons we found great swathes of nettles - far from the road so ideal for harvest, wild chives which I didn't even know about, mustard garlic and a plethora of other edible greens. We also mentally marked the position of some cherry trees so will return in season to see if they produce anything nice for us.

This was foraging at it's best - a gentle walk in the sun surrounded by the fresh smell of just-rained-on spring greenery drying out, in earshot of the river and it's wildlife with the bonus of some freebie tasty food. What more does one need? :-D [Other than a practical foraging bag of some kind but bear with me - it's in the mulling around stage in my head at present.]

Oh - nearly forgot to tell you - Chap said the squirrel tasted like a gamey pork, with an undertone of nuts / acorns. So not chicken then. :-D

Wild food weekend post #3

Some more of the edible plants we saw on our foraging walk, or 'bimble' last weekend at Otterton Mill. Bear in mind that all these were in the village; it's certainly not necessary to go trekking off for miles in the wilds to get some fresh free greens. Give it a go!

Bittercress - make a pesto using the raw leaves together with nettles and wild garlic, hazlenuts or walnuts and oil, lemon juice and parmesan. Grows in a rosette as seen here. Nipplewort - used to be used as a soothing poultice by nursing mothers, hence the name. Leaf and stem both edible. Use leaves raw in salad or wilt gently to cook. Yellow Flowers.

Cow Parsely - another of the umbellifers therefore easily mistaken for the poisonous Hemlock plant so I'm not posting a pic. It has a hairy stem though with an angle or ridge to it. I think most of us know what cow parsely looks like in the hedgerows but if you're even thinking of eating it get a good field guide! Use the stem - has an aniseed flavour. Can eat raw or cooked and can pickle it. Peel before using.

Cleavers / Goose Grass - yep - that blimmin sticky stuff that hooks it's little burrs onto your clothes and your cat in the spring and summer months. Best early in the year - around February but fine now. Just pick the very tops and cook - it's too scratchy to eat raw. Don't overcook. The seeds can be eaten when young - like peas. Can also use the scrunched up plant as a natural scourer and at one time people in the Outer Hebrides would weave a quick temporary basket from them for gathering foraged goodies. Red Valerian - Has red / pink flower spike heads. Cook leaves as greens and can eat raw in salad.

Navel / Penny Wort - Use the succulent leaves in salad. Taste better when growing in shade where you will find bigger leaves too.

So a lot of easy to find plants out there can be eaten and there's many more than this. Nettles and Wild Garlic to name 2 favourites.

After our walk we returned to the mill where later in the day we watched the cookery part of the wild food foraging. Here we had Alexanders as well - these grow either by or very near the sea and pretty much can be treated like celery - they sauteed it in butter which seemed to work. I must admit that in the cookery theatre everything seemed a little overwhelmed with butter but as least it gave us an idea of what all this stuff tastes like - and whether you think it's worth going out and getting again. As well as the Alexanders and various of the plants we'd seen on the forage we had Sea Beet; which the Chap and I have had before, and Ground Elder - something I was eager to try as it's so easy to come by. We also had Wild Sorrel and Garlic Mustard (Jack by the Hedge) stems.

I was a definite fan of the Alexanders but found myself a little disappointed by the Ground Elder. It had been done with the stems on and I found I was chewing and chewing and chewing then picking them out of my teeth after. I'd try them again but just the leaves if I cooked it.

All in all and good experience though, which inspired us to go foraging for some Alexanders on the way home down by the coast at Budleigh Salterton. There was masses here - I don't seem to have taken a pic of the whole plant but they have glossy leaves [yep - it's another umbellifer so be careful] and should have this pinkness to the stem sheaf where the leaves are growing out from.

I thouroughly recommend giving foraging a go - you get out in the fresh air, learn stuff and filled with pleasure when dinner time comes round that you got that bit of it for free. You find yourself looking at the hedgerows and pavement edges with a different eye I can tell you!

Wild food weekend post #2

As promised, some more info on the wild food weekend we had. On the foraging walk we learnt many different plants as well as some interesting and useful facts on each one, and prep guidance. I'll post some pics here but bear in mind this is a reference for me as much as anything else. In the words of Robin from Eat Weeds - 'never ever put anything in your mouth unless you're at least 110% sure it's edible. For some plants that have a poisonous lookalike this should be more like 500%.' Therefore I take no responsibility etc...

Ivy Leaf Toadflax - The daylight will make the underside of the leaves go red which in turn makes for a more bitter taste. Better if growing in shade and in the Autumn.

Smooth Sour Thistle - Can eat the leaves raw or cooked.

Violet Leaf - Bland. What was used as a 'pottage' plant in the past when the women would start the stew on the fire in the morning, go out in the fields for the day and gather these edible greens on the way home and add them to the pot. Can make a pleasantly flavoured sugar with the flowers.

Daisy - some people can react badly to this. Use just the leaves and cook them - saute. Don't eat raw! I figured I / you don't need telling what a daisy looks like so no pic.

Primrose - similarly no pic though I was later horrified to discover the Chap had no idea what a primrose was. I know he's Londoner originally but that really is ridiculous!! Can use the flowers in a salad or can try drying the leaves and flowers.

Lesser Celendine - As mentioned leaves only. Must be cooked - saute or use in risotto. Pic in last post.

Hogweed - Regular not Giant one. Member of the umbellifer family (like carrots) which means there's a lot of options out there that look the same but which won't do us any good at all. One of the 'you must be 500% sure what it is' brigade. [The edible members of the family tend to be hairy - but that doesn't mean they all definitely are or that all the hairy ones are edible. Carrots aren't for a start. You have been warned!]

The sap can give some people a skin reaction; especially in conjunction with the sun, so gather with gloves. Eat the young shoots and leaves in March - April. Can be made into soup, fermented (think Kimchee style) or sauteed with butter until caramelised. The root can also be eaten but must be cooked. Apparently the seeds taste of Cardamon.

That will have to be it for this post - wow - I haven't even finished all the plants we saw let alone the eating of them, the coastal forage after or the river bank one on the sunday and it's nearly another weekend already! I'd better get my typing fingers out eh? I'm afraid it's far too sunny though to even vaguely think of being late at work and I have what are rapidly turning into mutant broad bean plants desperate to get into the allotment. Thus I am forced [you can tell it's taking a lot of forcing eh?] to bid you adieu. :-)

I have thoroughly given up on this stupid spacing Blogger seems to favour whenever I try and post multiple pics. My apologies for it - know I have tried my best m'dears.

Wild food weekend post #1

At the weekend we visited Otterton Mill for their annual wild food day. They've been running this for the last 3 years. Chap tried Squirrel (!) and we went on a wild food foraging walk with the incredibly well informed Robin Harford of Eat Weeds. It was a lovely day in a very pretty setting. I have to admit to not having come across Otterton or it's Mill before but they're both lovely. We learnt a lot on the foraging walk; I scribbled notes and took pics all the way round and will do a proper post on these shortly. We discovered some surprising things you can eat - I never knew the leaves of Lesser Celendine were edible - you must cook them though!

Foraged Seafood Stew

Limpets - hmm. The books seem divided on these with Hugh F-W enthusiastic about them; although admitting to their rubbery qualities, and John Wright of Edible Seashore rather more disparaging - describing eating them as like eating pencil erasers dipped in fish paste!! Not exactly encouraging but I didn't share that section with the boys when we were collecting the things. ;-D

We'd placed them in salted water [35g sea salt to 1l water] until we were ready to use them in an effort to purge them - ie rid them of the grit in their stomaches.
Anyway, having seen a few too many references to rubberyness we decided that a long cooking time would be the way to go so we'd use the slow cooker for this stew. It was an experiment really but I was hopeful they'd prove palatable being an easy forage that's not exactly hard to find. I also added some Sea Beet we'd foraged from the same stretch of beach - this is a common seashore plant that we'd never tried before that John Wright was rather more complimentary about than the limpets; likening it to a superior kind of spinach as it doesn't lose it's shape on cooking as spinach does. This is how it went then.

Slow cooker Limpet stew
3 small onions
2 cloves garlic
2tbsp EVOO
0.25 pint white wine
1 tin chopped tomatoes - drain but retain juice
1tsp smoked paprika
Limpets - we had 3.25lb of them in their shells
0.75 pint fish / veg stock
2-3 potatoes
3 white fish fillets chopped into chunks
Sea beet - 3 handfuls
Frozen prawns - 1 handful
Frozen cockles - a handful
Lemon juice

Put EVOO in pan to heat. Finely chop onion and garlic and fry off to soften.

Place wine and drained tomatoes in the SC on high - retain the juices from the toms though.

Add smoked paprika to the frying pan with the onions and garlic and cook for a couple more minutes, stirring well then add the lot to the SC.

Scrub the limpets and add to the SC in their shells. Switch to 'low' setting and add fish stock to cover - I used 0.75 pint made from a cube. Add the tom juice at this point if more liquid is necessary to nearly cover all those shells.

After 8 hours the limpets will fall from their shells with ease; pick the shells out being careful not to burn fingers!

Add the potatoes, chopped into smallish dice and leave for another 2 hours to cook through.

At end of this time try the limpets and discover they're still disappointingly rubbery in texture so decide to try Mr Wright's tip of blending the things.

Blend mainly the limpets and chunks of potato with a little of the liquid. Be startled at the - er - 'interesting' shade of green it goes. [At this point it's fair to say I was getting a little more perturbed as to whether this increasingly long-winded process was actually going to produce something fit to eat. Looks appetising deosn't it?!] Return to SC where the sauce has been cooking away for another half hour.

Add the 3 white fish fillets (I buy the value packs of frozen ones in the stupormarket) to the SC and leave for a further half an hour.

Strip the stems out of the sea beet - they are a remarkably obliging plant in that these tear out very easily. Add them to the SC. Taste for seasoning - I added salt.

Add handful of defrosted prawns and cockles to the SC and stir in. Leave until fully heated through at least.

Immediately prior to serving add a splosh of lemon juice to taste.

Hmm - we all liked this to start with - although liquidizing the whole limpets (rubbery foot and dark stomach section) had left a bit of grit in - solved by just serving from the top of the pot. However after a while the taste becomes a bit much. Having tried this at various points in it's creation I think that next time the best use for limpets would be to simmer them in stock / toms; whatever you want, to give a basis for a bouillabaisse type soup or stew then discard the limpets themselves. The taste of the liquid before blending the limpets into it was better I think.

Anyway - you have to try these things and now we know. Try yourself and make up your own minds though - it may be a taste/texture combo you love but for me - it just didn't live up to the ones I'd had in garlic butter in Madeira a couple of years ago. As you can see from the shells though they're not the same variety as our native type. Perhaps the shore is the best place for me to leave those in future. :-)