Barley (Hordeum vulgare L)
A field of barley at my brother’s farm in Gloucestershire. Every now and then it’s good to see food growing up close, especially grains, which, most of the time I encounter after they’ve been dried, milled into flour and packaged. Barley grass has such a beautiful structure and colour, and to stand in a huge field of it, it’s long spikelets swaying in the breeze, brushing each other and making a sound not unlike a strong wind, is a serene and special experience.
I picked a few strands, squeezing the unripe germs from the husks, and discovered not only that they are delicious and intriguingly textured, creamy and sweet, but that they taste uncannily like the bee larvae which we investigated and cooked with at Nordic Food Lab in April. Weird, huh ?
More adventures with Juniper Wood - lo-fi steam distillation
As per a suggestion from Ben Reade at Nordic Food Lab, I filled the coffee basket of my stovetop coffee pot with Juniper wood and the bottom chamber with water and a piece of unsalted butter. I filtered the peach coloured liquid that came out, and have a decent glass full of juniper stock. I had no end result in mind, save for a wish to capture the amazing aroma of juniper wood, and am considering making it into a fizzy soda or perhaps a new kombucha.
Kentish Romano Peppers
From the Isle of Thanet and bought at Fruit Garden in Herne Hill.
I smoked them in a drum barbecue for five hours, over a smoldering mixture of elder and juniper woods, green tea and hay. I had planned to try and dry them in the sun during the micro heatwave we had, but this was too micro, and it’s gone, and so I have started to dry them at 70C in the oven. They have been in for around twelve hours so far. The kitchen smells amazing.
Halfway through the smoking, I collected the juice that had been drawn out of the pepper flesh and which had collected in the keel of the peppers. It was insanely good, and I drank it all.