Book: The Ethicurean Cookbook

By Matthew Pennington, Iain Pennington, Paula Zarate and Jack Adair-Bevan

In my dream world, I'd have a small, self-sufficient farm, where I, or rather my staff (this is a dream, after all), would grow fruits and vegetables, and raise animals for meat. It is a wondrous place and one that sounds much like the Barley Wood Walled Garden, home to the Ethicurean restaurant.

Except for the cold weather - which, this garden being in England, lasts for a good part of the year - it sounds idyllic. The authors, who run the business, admit winter can be difficult - after all, there's only so much you can do with beetroot, one of the few vegetables that grows during the coldest season (although these are supplemented by fresh greens grown in polytunnels). But the rest of the time the garden produces a bounty of ingredients, so many, in fact, that the restaurant menu can be changed on a daily basis.

The recipes are listed by season and include duck terrine with cranberries and cobnuts; roast partridge with bread and cheese; sweet-cure mackerel with morels, spelt soda bread and horseradish; clear ham hock broth with poached eggs; goat meatballs, mash, lovage butter and mustard greens; ewe's curd-stuffed courgette flours with fennel sherbet; elderflower and lavender marshmallows; and venison, cider and quince stew with herbed butter dumplings.