Monthly Archives: March 2012

the Countryfile snail pizza

If you missed the programme, you can watch the clip here (1 min 58 secs): http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00pzr77

To recreate the pizza, you’ll need:

sufficient pizza dough to make one 12″ pizza (about 165g)
100g cavolo nero, or other kale, or spinach
1 small onion, sliced finely
1 garlic clove, chopped
parma ham, to taste
Roquefort (or other blue cheese, but Roquefort melts particularly well), to taste.
3 or 4 sage leaves, fried in hot oil until crisp (this takes a matter of seconds)
as many pre-cooked snails as you like
rapeseed oil (I use Quex Foods) to drizzle over

1. Pre-heat the oven to 230C/450F/Gas 8.
2. Strip the cavolo nero leaves from their stalks, and chop quite finely.
3. In a large pan, fry the sliced onions over a medium heat until soft and transparent, and just starting to turn brown at the edges. Add the garlic.
4. Add the cavolo nero to the pan, and cook until wilted – you may need to turn the pan down a little. When the kale is cooked, set the pan aside.
5. Roll out your pizza dough as thinly as possible. Add the kale and onion base, then all your toppings in the quantity you want them (don’t go mad on the Roquefort, though – it can be overpowering).
6. Drizzle some oil over to finish, and put the pizza in the oven for 10-12 minutes.
7. When it’s ready, remove it from the oven, and crumble over the fried sage leaves.
8. Slice and eat immediately!

the slowest food of all, and Countryfile

It’s not often that a television crew turns up at your doorstep, wanting to film you cook something with snails. But thanks to Twitter and a neighbouring snail farmer, Helen Howard, that’s exactly what happened a couple of weeks ago.

What happened next?

Well, you’ll have to watch Countryfile this evening, 11 March, at 7pm for the full story, but here’s an abbreviated version in the meantime…

Take some of these:

Countryfile snails

Add a Countryfile presenter, a few other choice ingredients, and a hot oven. Wait for about 12 mins, and serve:

Countryfile pizza

Finish filming, let the crew devour the pizza, and then take a few snaps for posterity:

Countryfile 1

And then wait for the show!

#kentfoodtweetup banquet at The Goods Shed

If you follow me on Twitter (@AKentishKitchen), you will already know about this. If you don’t, or if you do, and simply want to know more, here’s what it’s all about… And if you have any questions, please tweet or DM me!

Kent-based food-loving Twitterers from around the county will gather at The Goods Shed on the evening of 9 March 2012 for a 5-course banquet, organised by Helen Parkins (@AKentishKitchen) and The Goods Shed, to celebrate and raise awareness of Kentish produce and to help put Kent on the map as a food-lovers’ destination. The menu will be created especially for the event by The Goods Shed’s chef, Rafael Lopez, who will showcase Kentish ingredients throughout the meal.

Kent has for long been known traditionally as the ‘Garden of England’, particularly for its orchard fruit production. It is also renowned for its hops, shellfish, Romney Marsh lamb and, more recently, its vineyards. Agricultural farmholdings, pastoral and arable, still make up about half of the county’s total area. Yet Kent’s produce is arguably less well known outside the county than it should be, and its restaurants and cafes rarely register on media lists of top places to eat.

The Goods Shed banquet will give those attending the opportunity to eat and drink Kent, to talk to the stallholders about their farm suppliers, and to taste exciting new products from small independent Kentish producers. There will also be a raffle held during the evening in aid of the Pilgrims Hospices, with prizes kindly donated Eastwell Manor, The Farmhouse, The Whitstable Hamper Company, and Foodari.

Helen Parkins said: “I am very excited about the event we’ve planned. It frustrates me that Kent isn’t better known as an area for food lovers to visit when we have so much fantastic produce here. I want to see if we can do something to change that. There seems to be a great groundswell of support for Kentish food and our small producers, and if the banquet is a success, I hope to organise more events like this around the county in the future”.