Threads of silk and gold inspired bruschetta with jewels

It is always a relief to find a restaurant that caters for both the hungry and the discerning. The Ashmolean Dining Room is a modern restaurant in the ancient, recently refurbished Ashmoleum museum, Oxford and it looks after its customers really quite well. It is situated on the top floor of the museum and enjoys fine views of the city's iconic roofscape. 

It is a rather good place to eat a light lunch especially if you are visiting an exhibition. The staff are quick to attend, happy to serve their generous starters for lunch and they get meals out to diners smartly. And if you choose simply you can get a delicious, satisfying lunch in the restaurant for about the same price as in the more ordinary cafe downstairs. 

I have lived in Yorkshire for 30 years but I was born in Oxfordshire and visit Oxford frequently. I spent a year living in the city as a postgraduate student and have loved the Ashmoleum since being taken there as a child to see the collection of Egyptian Mummies. I also remember seeing an exhibition of JRR Tolkein's Father Christmas letters at the museum - a series of beautifully illustrated letters by Tolkein for his young children. Tolkein's illustrations certainly sparked my interest in drawing.

The 'Threads of silk and gold' exhibition of Japanese textiles currently showing at the museum reminds us of the importance of colour and texture in our lives. Fine tapestries of exquisite design and intricate stitch work also remind us of the importance of craft skills. So with thoughts of beautiful designs, colours and texures I went to eat in the restaurant in the museum. 

Just a simple salad of soft goats cheese, caramelised squash, pretty dressed leaves scattered with toasted pumpkin seeds and dried cranberries and served with artisan bread was substantial enough to appease my hunger and colourful enough to catch my eye.

In this week's blog I have turned this jewel dotted salad into a topping for bruschetta which proved very popular with my book club chums last night. So while we discussed the whys and wherefores of Julian Barnes's 'The Sense of and Ending' and the extraordinary journey Jeanette Winterson made to adulthood in 'Why be happy when you could be normal' we crunched our way through some colourful bruschetta washed down with lots of wine.

This bruschetta does not have a precise recipe as the only thing that needs cooking is the bread. 

I used slices of the lovely Olive, lemon and thyme ciabatta cooked to the recipe I found in the Times in a feature about the Handmade Bakery at Slaithwaite, from an earlier post. 

Just brush slices of bread with a little olive oil and toast on a griddle if you have one. Otherwise place the slices of bread in a hot oven for a few minutes. When golden rub with a little garlic and top with a few cubes of roasted butternut squash, a little goats cheese crumbled from a log or small pack and scatter with lightly dressed leaves, dried cranberries and toasted pumpkin seeds. Drizzle a little balsamic glaze or maple syrup to finish - if you have some. Otherwise a little honey dressing will do. My simple recipe is written in note form above and I couldn't quite decide which photograph I liked best and so have left you with several. 

The magic of the dish served at the Ashmolean was the jewel like, deep pink, dried cranberries contrasted with the dark green toasted pumpkin seeds. Dark green and pink go so well together. They just looks so pretty. 


Next time you are roasting butternut squash leave some on one side and try this recipe out. It can be made from left overs - well almost - and makes a great lunch or first course dish.  

ps....you might be wondering if we had anything else to nibble on through our grueling double bill book club.....yes we did (see below). The Florentines were made by Bettys. I made the candied peel and dipped thin strips in chocolate. While I was at it I twisted back the papery leaves of physalis and plunged the orange fruit in the molten chocolate and then placed on silicone paper on a tray in the fridge to allow the chocolate to set. I didn't have time to make Florentines yesterday but will try very soon. Bettys were delicious and will be hard to beat. Perhaps the high price tag will provide the incentive.

The big cheese on the board

 

Andy Swinscoe, cheese refiner and purveyor

A couple of weeks ago an email popped into my inbox from Andy Swinscoe. He had heard about our exhibition on Yorkshire Food and People at the Gallery on the Green, Settle next year and wrote "I have just opened a specialist cheese shop just outside Settle after working in the industry for some of the most famous cheese mongers in France and England and would like to help with the exhibition in any way I can. Thanks, Andy Swinscoe, The Courtyard Dairy, Settle." 

 

I called Andy and within seconds I knew he had an extraordinary knowledge of fine cheese and his shop was worth a visit. 

 

Its hard to believe Andy is only 26 years old. He seems to have packed so much into his life already. Born just over the Yorkshire border in Appleby, Andy studied Culinary Arts and Hospitality at Sheffield Hallam University and then went to work at the famously grand Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh. It was here he met his partner Kathy Bull and his interest in cheese was tickled as he spent several months looking after the cheese trolley. He went on to work at Paxton & Whitfield cheese mongers to the Queen on Jermyn Street, London and from there was awarded a Queen Elizabeth Scholarship to fund an apprenticeship at the Saint Haon le Châtel caves in the Loire region of France. He spent every weekend during his eight month stay there visiting cheese makers and learning everything he could about how to make and care for cheese. 

The Courtyard Dairy, Settle is housed in a converted stone barn. As soon as a customer walks in through the door Andy pares slithers of cheese from one of the handsome truckles and proffers samples for tasting. As a slither is placed, communion like, on a warm tongue it melts to release wonderful aromas. As the sensation hits your brain you are in danger of becoming hooked. Nothing tastes so good as Andy's perfectly ripened cheese.

 

Dale End Cheddar

I tasted Dale End Cheddar made in Botton Village, North Yorkshire by Alastair Pearson – two sample made 7 days apart. One on 8^th July and the other on 15^th July. I did not realise the difference a few days can make to the flavour of cheese. The weather, the grass, the time of day cows are milked all effect the flavour. Both samples were equally pleasant but the younger was more buttery and less 'grainy'. Alastair only has 46 shorthorn cows and produces one of Yorskhire's finest cheeses.

Interestingly the milk of shorthorn cows is one of the best for cheese making. This breed of cow does not produce a lot of milk but the quality of the butter fat is superb and ideal for this purpose.  

 

Andy stocks a carefully chosen selection of 28 cheeses - twenty regular and eight that change according to their availability and the season. Most are made from unpasteurised milk. 

I adored the Reserve Gruyere de Jura with a rich butterscotch flavour which Andy refers to as "one of my ten mile cheeses because you can still taste them after driving ten miles from the farm on which they were made." 

I fell in love with Corra Linn from Scotland – a Manchego style cheese full of herbacious flavours and made from the milk of the Lacaune sheep, famous for use in making Roquefort cheese. Its lovely heathery flavour would match a fragrant heather honey really well. The cheese is made by Selina Errington and named after Corra Linn, the highest waterfall in the magnificent Clyde Falls. 

Red Leicester

Andy has an engaging manner and a good tutor. I learned so much about cheese in just a couple of hours. For example, that half of all Stilton made is sold in the run up to Christmas and the aging of the cheese is controlled by inoculating the cheese with mold later and holding it at lower temperature for longer compared with other blue cheeses with more year round appeal. 

Or that some cheese is made using bacteria in the atmosphere, rather like sour dough bread. Some French cheese makers ripen cheese in oak where the bacteria naturally present in the wood is used to mature the cheese. Another good example of this is the distinctive character of Roquefort is derived from Penicillium roquefort which is found in the soil of the caves.

One final question I did have for Andy was "Could he explain why he is described as a cheese refiner?" "A refiner is someone who know how cheese matures and how to look after cheese to optimise its quality and taste." "Of course" I thought to myself as I recalled the number of times I have bought or tasted cheese that has not been stored or looked after well. Few people who sell cheese deserve the title of "Cheese refiner" but the young Andy Swinscoe certainly does. 

Read my article about Andy and the Courtyard Dairy in the Yorkshire Post and get some great tips on how to create the perfect cheeseboard and make the best ever twice baked cheese souffle. The Big Cheese on the Board

To find the Courtyard Dairy: follow the A65 to Settle and just before the turn off to Settle on the right you will see a large sign on the left for the Courtyard www.thecourtyarddairy.co.uk

A well chosen cheeseboard. Think about the order you eat cheese from clean and mild to strong and blue

 

Kathy Bull, Andy's partner using a cheese iron to sample the cheese for ripeness.

 

Taking samples of cheese to assess ripening is referred to as ironing.

Limestone Country Beef

Longhorn cow taken at dusk on Malham Moor

The Yorkshire Dales is a magnificent landscape with broad horizons, craggy limestone uplands and dry stone walls. It is one of the wildest yet most beautiful places in England. Farmers have been grazing hardy native breed cattle and sheep here for centuries using a clever system of dual action grazing. As the cattle graze they tug up the coarse grass and tougher deeper rooted plants such as thistles and ragwort with their long tongues, while sheep nibble off the top layer of grass leaving room for wildflowers to flourish.

Over the past fifty years EU subsidies introduced to farmers for the number of sheep they kept has all but dismantled this ecological, dual action grazing system.  So too has the introduction of continental cattle breeds which grow more quickly indoors without needing to graze on rough upland pastures leading to an overgrowth of unkempt scrub-land with fewer flowers and less wildlife. In recent years native beef all but disappeared from shelves in supermarkets and the Yorkshire uplands. 

Fortunately Natural England and the Yorkshire Dales National Park together with a group of fifteen farmers forming the Limestone Country Beef Group have worked together over the last ten years to reverse this trend and restore the limestone upland to the condition it once was. The idea was to return native breeds such as Longhorn Cattle, Blue Greys and Belted Galloways to more than 1,000 hectares of the Dales. The beef would be promoted and sold in such a way as to make it particularly relevant to this part of the country while at the same time managing and conserving this precious and rare limestone habitat.

So has the project worked? Substituting sheep for traditional breeds of cattle has helped farm business but only if they are paid premium prices for the beef they sell. Farm income still relies on subsidies and environmental grants for up to 80% of its income.

The famous limestone pavements with square slabs known as clints and deep crevices know as grikes are now supporting ferns and other wild flowers such as mossy saxifrage. 

Baneberry, angular Solomon's-seal and bird's eye primrose now flourish amid blue moor-grass which is washed by the lime rich water that percolates this area. Rabbits which also threaten these plants have also been better managed.

Longhorns look scary but are docile

The photographs above and below are of Longhorn cattle taken last week on Malham Moor close to the Darnbrook Estate. The Longhorns remind me of  ancient pieces of furniture. Their coats are a beautiful palette of antique colours - oak, chestnut, roan and cream. The fur is woolly, tangled, ragged and tagged. They bear magnificent horns which look terrifyingly sharp making the cattle look ferocious which they are not. Many do not have matching symmetrical horns but a queer arrangement with one pointing up and the other down. Or both pointing downwards. I liked this look.

Longhorns have a docile nature and allow you to come quite close as I did to take these pictures.

Longhorn calves stay with their mothers for 6 months

Longhorn calves are known as 'sucklers' because the young are kept with their mothers for at least six months. They are hardy, calve easily and have a long, even lactation which is good for the calf. The milk is famed for the quality of its butterfat which is rich and nourishing for the calf and was used traditionally to make cheeses like Stilton and Red Leicester.

During the Middle Ages Longhorn were used by peasant farmers for pulling a plough  Their creamy white horns were treasured by manufacturers of buttons, cups and cutlery. Their fat was used for tallow to make candles. There was little of the animal that was not used for something. 

                  

It was a wonderful experience coming across these ambling, gentle beasts so high on the moor just off the Monks Road, a footpath that snakes above the road from Arncliffe to Malham. They give a sense of history, majesty and presence to the wild, windswept rain soaked  landscape. And they are doing a great job of managing the landscape to boot. So perhaps when you are buying beef you might think of choosing cut from one of the native breed cattle which will also help keep the landscape as beautiful as it has been for centuries.

Limestone beef is available from:

Paganum's, Kirkby Malham  

Town End Farm Shop, Airton

Colin Robinson's Family Butcher, Grassington

There is an informative essay referring to Limestone Beef in Chapter 5 of 'What to eat? by Hattie Ellis and published by Portobello Books. Hattie discusses what kind of beef is right to eat. 

Belted Galloways watch us eat lunch

Mossy saxifrage growing in a grike at Malham Cove Peny-y-ghent one of the famous Three Peaks - limestone country.