Wild rub rub Maysfield brewery stout & beef silverside

It’s freezing outside. Jack Frost has moved in and the meadows have glistened all day in a shimmer of ice crystals. But inside the house you’d be forgiven for thinking it is the height of summer – no, we’re not strutting around in Havaianas & shorts with the heating on full blast, it’s certainly not balmy in the house. Summer is however, definitely in the air. Meadowsweet pollen to be precise is in the air, and it is dusting its sweet scent on everything in the kitchen as if in an act of defiance to Jack & his frosting outside – if you’ve walked past a billowing Meadowsweet bloom on a warm summers day you’ll know the intoxicating smell I’m breathing in..vanilla, almond and warmth. The reason Meadowsweet pollen is wafting around like a whisp is because today I’m blending a new batch of Wild Herb Rub – Wild Herb Rub is our homage to the smell & flavour of drying hay – we race against harvesting tractors to gather a blend of red clover flowers, meadowsweet, wild marjoram & sorrel seeds, dry them in the summer sun (the children’s climbing frame makes an excellent drying rack) & blend them with other herbs until the smell of drying hay is just so.

Why do we do this? Well it’s pretty lovely gathering flowers in a meadow on a warm mid

t that’s not the reason. The reason is this; we think that meat is best flavoured with the very same flavours it has been eating – and well cared for, outdoor reared British meat will of grazed on the flavours and the herbs crammed into wild herb rub. It makes a simply cooked piece of meat taste even more like itself – and on these cold winter days, a slowly braised piece of silverside flavoured with a ray of sunshine gives everyone a warm glow inside.