Elderflowers - the english hedgrow's strongest perfume. The months worth of rain would fall in the next 36 hours they said on the radio, so I knew the elderflowers had to picked right then, before the rains came. The trouble with food season is they're so short. Asparagus came and went again so quickly this year - again I picked up the last of the crop from Bangrove Farm near Teddington. A walk down the river from my house confirmed the worst - the elderflowers had all gone over and berries were starting to emerge. That's the problem with microclimates. There was one chance left though - the hills around Snowshill, everything blooms/ fruits later. Here I found laden elderflower trees and picked a bumper crop. Here they are before soaking in cold water in the fridge for a couple of days.
This liquor will then be used to make the elderflower poached chicken photographed in an earlier entry, and also elderflower sorbet, 'champagne' and cordial.
Ref: Chicken poached in wild elderflower
No comments
Post a Comment