Garden firsts and squidgy cakes

Coral spot.

Life as an apprentice gardener is full of little firsts. Having 10 out of 10 peas germinate in my growhouse is the sort of first that leaves you bursting with pride (albeit having done little more than offer nature a helping hand).

Correctly diagnosing a garden problem, followed by taking appropriate action, leaves an entirely different feeling.

There have been three bushes of pyracantha in the garden for years and, when we finally got around to having the entire area paved a year last November, these were cut back and the slabs arranged around them.

The amount they grew last year was just one of a series of lessons in how resilient plants are. You may think that you, the snails or the weather have killed something off, but give it time and there is every chance that it will come back.

Last year alone we seemed to witness more revivals than Billy Graham.

But back to the pyracantha – or firethorn as it sometimes known. It was one of the first things we planted, years ago when we moved in and the garden was just a few flags in a square outside the door, and a small ‘L’ of rather poor and uneven grass with a plain, light wood fence to keep the rest of the world out.

It was one of the first things into our small patch after an early attempted break in at the back. The flats were new and, in an area that still had some years to go before the trendiness only then starting to Hoxton would move further east, must have looked pretty damned posh, even though it was a housing association build.

It provides all-year-round greenery – and wonderfully sharp thorns.

There are nice berries for the birds in the autumn and winter – although our three bushes, theoretically producing different colours, only ever actually seem to manage red.

However, one of the bushes, after serious cutting back, has seen one thick trunk die off. And that, together with a little of the joined trunk, had pinky orange spots on it.

Anyway, that’s why there’s a Royal Horticultural Society book on Pests and Diseases on the shelf, for precisely such cases.

It turned out to be a case of coral spot – nectria cinnabarina – which can infect parts of dead trees and shrubs.

Treatment is pruning carefully and possible wound sealant to stop the infection getting in again.

Down on Columbia Road, Les explained that such sealants are usually bitumen-based. But my idea of using melted wax met with approval.

Here’s a thing: you don’t get to go to B&Q and get this sort of conversation. Don’t just cultivate your garden, but your local suppliers too, wherever possible.

Back at the ranch, The Other Half removed the infected parts and then dripped wax over the fresh-cut wood, as a hint of sleet filled the air.

Hopefully, that will do the job.

Not that it was all that needed doing this morning. I’d dug more of the compost in yesterday, finally seeing something that looks like a much more mixed, lighter soil.

But while I’d been doing that, I’d noticed just how many weeds were showing their faces in the rest of the patch that is marked out for communal decking.

If I don’t do anything, they’ll be in my bit before you can say Charlie Dimmock.

Once I was out there with the Dutch hoe, in community-minded mode, I gave Michael’s bare bed a few minutes of attention too, as there were weeds sprouting where he’d cleared away another dying bush, ready to take flowers this year.

So far this year, I’m the only one doing any actual gardening, but I suspect that won’t last, once the weather is a little more consistently warmer and brighter. If …

After that, my hands – even having worn gloves – were frozen. The wind was biting.

And so to the remains of yesterday’s Westmorland farmhouse pie – topped with freshly-rolled pastry from the leftover dough.

Perfect fodder for such a day.

One of the joys of having cupboards that seem to be bursting at the seams is that on the sort of day when it’s cold and grim outside, and you suddenly fancy a cake, it’s not usually too difficult to find enough ingredients in the kitchen.

Having spent such a busy morning, I fancied dipping once more into Recipes of Lakeland as the day got progressively colder and greyer.

There are cakes and fruit breads and biscuits galore in its pages – the only shame being that all those readers who contributed recipes are not themselves credited.

Not very elegant, but plenty of taste.

In his thoroughly enjoyable Eating for England, Nigel Slater notes the extraordinary regional variety of such cakes and observes that, although English cakes lack the elegance and finesse of a Madeleine, they have “a certain wobbly charm to them” and a “lick-your-fingers stickiness”.

Dalton gingerbread seemed likely to fall into exactly that category.

Three cups plain flour,” says the recipe, to be rubbed into “¼lb lard”. This is the juncture at which I admit southern jessiedom.

Much as I have learned, in the last couple of years, to love lard – and dripping – using it in a cake is a step too far. So, butter instead.

And to translate everything into modern money, that’s 450g plain flour and 225g butter.

Once you’ve beaten those together – in a mixer in my case: all the bodybuilding of my younger years still hasn’t equipped me with a country housewife’s forearms – before adding 150g sugar (I used a soft demerara) a pinch of salt, two teaspoons of ground ginger and last, one and a half teaspoons of baking powder.

Into that, mix 150g of melted dark treacle: for some reason or other, lost in the mists of time, there was a jar of organic stuff in the cupboard, unopened.

Then, dissolve a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda into 150g of boiling water – and stir that into the mixture.

Decant everything into “a deep roasting tin” and bake in a moderate oven for half an hour.

The tin in my case was my largest enamel pie dish, buttered. The oven was set at 150˚C (fan).

I tested with a skewer after 30 minutes – and gave it another 10.

This is not a thing of beauty. It is not elegant. It lacks any finesse; although it came clean away from the dish easily, it crumbles even more easily.

But it is crisp on the outside, squidgy and sticky inside; dense and rich and yet not heavy; gloriously aromatic and, tasted together with a bit of Stilton (Lancashire or Cheshire would also work well) it is a thing of warming, comforting pleasure.

A pie from the past

The week just ending has, apparently, been British Pie Week. It’s difficult to know just who declares such things – whereas it’s also been National Butcher’s Week, but that’s rather clearly industry-related.

The only proper-looking website for pie week revealed that it was all the idea of Jus-rol pastry, which is one of the brands owned by General Mills, itself one of the world’s largest food companies, so on that basis, I decided against making much of it.

But then something else happened.

Some time ago, out of curiosity and a certain sentiment, I bought a copy of Recipes of Lakeland, which was complied by readers of Cumbria and published in 1966.

It’s an intriguing record in its own right, illustrated with idealised black and white photographs from the area.

It’s very easy to view Lakeland through the haze of Wordsworthian daffodils and chocolate boxes, as an eternally picturesque part of the country.

But it’s also a hard place – the fells are not the easiest farming country and the eastern fells of the Eden Valley perhaps even less so. For instance, it doesn’t get much bleaker than Shap Fell – yet my parents knew people who farmed even up there.

Browsing that booklet again a few days ago in a mood of nostalgia, I had been looking at the vast array of biscuits and breads and cakes when I spotted something called a Westmorland farmhouse pie, and the germ of an idea took root.

The recipe itself is scant in detail. Diced mutton, beef and bacon are layered in an earthenware pot on top of sliced potatoes and followed by layers of onion and carrot in between. It’s finished with a further layer of potato.

The ratio of potato to meat is approximately two to one, but it's not really the sort of dish where you need to worry about measuring things.

Water is added to cover, the lid is popped on and it goes into a slow oven for two and a quarter hours. Then a pastry top is added and it has another 45 minutes.

A pretty picture and plenty of puddings.

Voila.

The recipe doesn’t say what sort of pastry.

I don’t remember eating anything like this when we were staying on farms in later years – I have abiding memories of all the family where we stayed, plus us, sitting around the vast, old table in the dining room next to the kitchen; a room with a sort of ancient, dark wood dresser built into one entire wall, full of small, square cupboards.

And I remember having tea with cold meats and Cadbury’s miniature chocolate rolls, and I remember hams.

Nothing like the farmhouse pie features in those memories, but I had a hunch that this was a dish for the end of winter, when supplies were running thin. And a little research supported this – not with any mention of the dish itself, but noting that those meats would have been dried to preserve them through the harsh fell winter.

The right pot for the job.

There were always going to be limits to just how authentique it could be – not least because I wasn’t going to be using leftover mean that had been preserved for the winter.

Question one was the dish: I have an earthenware one – but it’s rather deep to make this for just two people and be able to put a pastry lid on.

The best option seemed to be one of my enamel pie dishes, which would then tightly ‘lidded’ with foil for the first stage of cooking.

And finally – what pastry?

The obvious would be shortcrust, but I did consider trying my hand at puff pastry before settling for a really flaky short made with lard.

It’s a dish that reminds me of Lancashire hot pot, with its layers of meat and vegetables, topped off with potato.

On Broadway Market early this morning, before many stallholders had even got their produce ready, I was delighted to find that Matthew had a little mutton – already diced: we were on.

In the end, with the amounts I had (approximately 400g beef and 200g mutton, plus two rashers of unsmoked back bacon), I plumped for that earthenware, half-glazed pot – a lovely worn, old one, made in France originally and a house-warming present from the days before I was really interested in cooking.

First layer of potato with some of the meats and thyme.

It has, in the years since, been used for more than one Lancashire hot pot, and although it made the pastry lid a tad awkward – that had to be fitted inside the pot – it was the best choice from a practical point of view because of diameter and depth, while it even leant aesthetics to the business, its very sense of age seeming perfect for this culinary dip into the past.

So, the base was lined with a sliced potato, followed by a layer of mixed, diced meats, then onion, carrot and celery (another slight change) and more meats, before the final potato.

Seasoning was salt, plenty of ground black pepper and dried thyme, added as the dish was built up.

Water was added – but not to cover, only up about three quarters of the way; also reminiscent of how I've learnt to cook a hot pot.

The oven was heated to 140˚C (fan) and the lidded pot placed inside.

It got two and a half hours to start before I added a shortcrust top – 150g plain flour mixed with 75g lard, a pinch of salt and cold water to bring it together.

The temperature of the oven was raised to 180˚C (fan) for a final half an hour with the pastry but no lid.

It could have done with more salt – I’d been particularly cautious about that, given the bacon – but let's face it, it's easier to add salt than take away.

Otherwise it was a success, with enough to feed two of us twice – it'll be reheated tomorrow for lunch, with a fresh pastry top made from the remaining dough.

This is the sort of food that wins brownie points just for the glorious smells that gently fill the house as its cooking; the sort of smell that makes a house a home.

And if the combination of meats and vegetables seems a little clichéd, that’s because it works well.

This was hearty food – and is very much a dish that, having been discovered, will be made again.