03 Apr Local Salads From Gog Magog Hills Farmshop review
Wild and delicious greens – The other day I noticed on the Twitter stream, that the Gog Magog Hills Farm shop was getting excited about their upcoming ‘salad tasting’. I thought I had seen it all, but a ‘leaf tasting’. How would that work?
I have to admit, that I had completely forgotten about it when I made my way to the Gog Magog Hills Farm shop on Good Friday to get a nice leg of lamb. As usual, I get completely distracted when I visit the Gogs by the lovely produce, cheese and catching up with Charles and his mother. On my way to the cheese shop, it was difficult to miss out on the salad display outside in the courtyard. This looked like ‘heaven’ to me. I am sure, this sounds rather bizarre to you. However, my children call me ‘Mrs Rabbit’ as I love salads and vegetables. I’m known to eat a whole curried cabbage for dinner.
I munched my way through all the salads and was even converted to eating Jerusalem Artichokes raw! I was lucky and managed to pick up the last bag of Sorrel leaves and some of their homemade Haslet too, which I turned into a small appetiser terrine at home with thinly sliced Jerusalem Artichokes. Really nice and easy to make; line a container with plastic foil, then put on the bottom some Haslet. Press it down hard, cover it with one layer of thinly sliced Jerusalem artichokes and repeat. The last layer should be Haslet. It is quite brittle so when you take it out of the terrine, you have to be very careful when you slice it. You could fill up the terrine with white wine mixed with gelatine so it will not collapse. However not needed though!
I can’t wait to experiment with the other greens too. I did make a lovely Sorrel mayonnaise to go with the leg of lamb, but there is so much more you can do with this; for example, roll a leaf around some soft goat cheese. I also made a starter with beetroot foam a soft gorgonzola terrine. I mixed some sorrel in the terrine of gorgonzola too together with some lemon rind, which gave a really nice hint of lemon to it.
I have been told, this ‘salad market’ is very popular in London. They visit about 25 there and the Gog Magog Hills Farm shop will be no. 26! That is another good excuse to go down there every week.
Do you know what is really nice? The salads are farmed just down the road from Cambridge in Great Abbington. In a week where local shopping is the centre of attention in Cambridge, this is a great addition to local shopping! Buy locally grown salads from a local Farmshop!
What can you expect on ‘the salad market’?
- Mixed Salad – interesting and addictive (in a good way!) the original and the best!
- Rocket – although this fussy fella doesn’t like the cold
- Sorrel – Lemony loveliness -use either raw or cooked – great with fish
- Claytonia – Packed with Vitamin C and has Omega 3
- Watercress – grown in the ground
- Landcress – very strong – not for wimps!
- Spinach – succulent
- Chard – rainbow, neon whatever – very colourful
- Greens – spring greens – but all year round
- Tuscan Kale – Cavolo Nero
- Pak Choi – white, green
- Tatsoi – small buttery pak choi
- Komatsuna – Japanese pak choi style
And… they might start growing Endives soon too! I can’t wait for that!
Gerla
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