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.

 Goat meat is eaten by 70% of the worlds population, yet in Britain until now it has been somewhat kept as a niche meat  but alongside its gamey counterparts, goat is experiencing a long awaited revival. One of our favourite ways to cook goat is slowly infusing it with North African promise…spices, almonds, apricots and fennel turn the gruffest of billies into a comfort blanket of a meal….

Rub a leg of young goat meat with a mixture of 2 tsp of  rose el hanout (you can use other Ras el Hanouts, just look for ones with an anise flavour), olive oil and a pinch of salt & leave to marinade for a couple of hours. Place the meat on top of thick slices of fennel bulb in a casserole, add a wine glass of water and cover with a lid. Cook in a low oven (110 – 120c) for 3 hours, remove from the oven (deeply inhaling the amazing smells – a sign of things to come!) add a handful of ground almonds and dried apricots to the liquor, cover again and return to the oven for another couple of hours. Serve with a good bread to mop up the juices and a salad or green beans.

Like the sound of eating goat? You’ll love the sound of Cabrito Goat Company, they supply goat meat to the food industry, rearing young billy kids on a farm in Somerset, they buy unwanted male kids from goat milk farms across the UK – these billies would otherwise be killed soon after birth. Instead they have a delicious time grazing in meadowland before they are slaughtered. We like them a lot.

http://www.cabritogoatmeat.co.uk