Ellerslie Rapeseed Oil - 2 recipes

Aaah spring is here and with it rain, snow and sleet. Lovely!

For my column I went off-campus at Ellerslie farm in Crosby and was joined by Pentti Christian who has been selling his rapeseed oil since September 2009 after 3 years of research and development.

Pentti is a sheep farmer by trade but had seen the value in diversification. The original plan was to grow rapeseed to produce biodiesel, however they soon realised that they could produce a high quality food-grade product from their crop.
The 3 years of development included growing test batches of rapeseed and building his own bottling machine.

The rapeseed is a fantastic multi-purpose crop. The seed is pressed and the oil used for the Ellerslie Oil. The waste is used as sheep feed as it has a great high protein content to keep them happy. And the ‘hay’ is used as bedding for horses, better than the usual barley hay as the horses won’t eat it.

Pentti tells me that the health benefits of this oil are fantastic ‘It has half the saturated fat content of olive oil, and much higher levels of omega 3, 6 + 9’ These are the fats that are great for brain function, immunity...oh and they make your hair and nails look great too, Pentti is a walking advert for it!

But I mainly use it for it’s great taste. It has a strong nutty flavour which works really well with Asian dishes. Has anyone else noticed how ‘nutty’ is the trendy flavour to reference??? I think Heston started it all and where he leads I am happy to copy.

Honey and Mustard Dressing – Pentti’s classic dressing

1 tsp honey
1 tsp wholegrain mustard
1 tsp French mustard
100ml Ellerslie Oil

In a jam jar, put 1 tsp honey, 1 tsp wholegrain mustard, 1 tsp French mustard and top up with Ellerslie Rapeseed Oil (about double the volume of the other ingredients). Shake vigorously (you have put the lid on, haven’t you). Tada! It’s done.

Garlic stir-fry oil – super simple multi purpose oil

100ml Ellerslie Oil
3 cloves garlic

Into a cold frying pan pour about 100ml of Pentti’s oil. Add 3 cloves of finely sliced garlic. Put it on a very gentle heat, watch it carefully and as the garlic just begins to change colour take it off the heat. It will keep cooking in the oil.
Use this oil to get a stir-fry started or as a garlicky salad dressing

Check out our video on www.iomtoday.co.im for the full tutorial - it should be online by 16th April

Ellerslie Oil can be found at the following stockists:

Anagh Coar Butchers
Bry Rad Sexy Veg (Ramsey)
Butlers Choice
Deli @ 35
The Good Health Store (Port Erin)
Greens Restaurant
Isle of Man Farmers
Mostly Manx
Paddys Market
Peel City Butchers
Radcliffe Butchers (Castletown)
T & P Kermeen (Onchan, Port Erin and Andreas)
Tynwald Mills
W.E. Teare Butchers (Ramsey)
Willaston Butchers

Review - Ottolenghi Knightsbridge

So I'm back on the rock after a few days in London. Looks like I'll be eating dhal for the next week after 'investing' heavily in various London eateries.

So where did I make it to?

• Ottolenghi - Motcomb St branch
• Leiths cookery school
• Hummingbird Bakery - Old Brompton Rd
• No. 10 - Schezuan place we went to last time
• HiX Soho

Plus...errrm...Pret and Marksies....but you probably know what they're like

I was sooo excited about going to Ottolenghi, their food is definitely my cup of tea. Delicious filling salads with loads of herbs/spices and amazing cakes, all beautifully presented with loads of colour.

I hit the salads in the form of

• Chargrilled broccoli with chilli and garlic
• Green beans and mange tout with hazelnut
• Roasted aubergine with saffron yoghurt
• Courgette with feta
• Roast fillet of beef with a l0vely dipping sauce (watercress and mustard I think)

Then after much consideration I went for carrot cake and a vanilla/mascarpone friand style something for dessert.

Everything was beautifully presented and chock full of flavour

They have 4 branches over London, I'd highly recommend a detour :o)

Thai Pork Noodle Salad

After a celebratory evening out for Stokesy's b-day we needed a day of rest and hangover food. Some more than others, mentioning no names, but I managed to watch Basil at his track day whilst Stokesy 'rested' on the sofa.

To make this deee-licious salad you will need:

2 portions of egg noodles - cooked according to packet instructions

350g minced pork - fried until crispy

20 pods of peas, podded by your hungover boyfriend

1 handful of green beans, boiled for 4 minutes (blanched being the fancy-pants chef term)

1 red onion - finely sliced

a big handful of peanuts

2 tbsp fresh coriander, roughly chopped

Dressing -

1" ginger grated

1 clove garlic grated

1/2 red chilli
juice of 1 lime

2 tbsp peanut or sunflower oil

Combine main salad ingredients in a big bowl. Combine dressing ingredients in a jam jar and shake well. Add the dressing to the main salad, give it a good stir and leave for 5-10 minutes so that the flavours from the dressing can be absorbed by the rest of the salad. I also pour over the pan juices from cooking the pork.....mmmm yummy pig fat. *Note* if you are one of my nutrition clients then I'd prefer that you ignore that last line

Here you can see Stokesy mentally portioning out the salad.....hmmmm 2 spoonfuls for Kathryn, the rest for me.

I love summer salads...

......so you will be seeing a vast array of them over the coming months. The organic veggie box from Dot is really fantastic and contributing greatly to my salads. I have even cracked out my official summer serving bowls......woohoooo!

Here we have fried mushrooms (from www.greebafarm.co.im), herbs from Dot, a big pile of leaves from Mill @ the market, quite a few more leaves from my enormous 'garden', chickpeas, feta........all topped with a new oil from Ellerslie Farm, extra virgin cold-pressed rapeseed oil, the colour is fantastic....oh and it tastes pretty good too. It should be on general sale in a month's time. I'll update with details of when + where.

So I thought I'd done pretty well with this, but I was serving to a tough crowd (Stokesy's parents). Kenny didn't like the wait and Helene picked out all of her mushrooms. There's just no pleasing some people.

Plant Watch! Kitchen Garden

I am the least green fingered person in the world, having committed mass murder to a herb garden last summer. However my friend Kim (the lucky owner of 8 very green fingers) persuaded me to give the old growing thing a try. She has started a small business selling seedlings and these funky little instant gardens. Okay I confess that the main reason I agreed was because the pots she had looked cool.

As I only have an indoor windowsill to 'grow' things on she picked out the appropriate seedlings and helped me to create my garden. There were only babies when they arrived but seem to be thriving. Although Stokesy watered them last night and they've looked a bit sad since then.......I'm suspecting overzealous watering......he is not taking the blame but who else could it have been?????

Oh if you want a cool garden like mine give Kim a bell on 819434

Week 2 @ Ashburton - Red mullet nicoise

So it's back to the stove for my second week of training at Ashburton. What a great dish to start the week with. The colours are just fantastic! Oh and it tasted pretty good too.

We had a new chef today, Stuart. He is lovely. Here he is putting the finishing touches to our main for the evening tasting.

Basil's Valentine Meal

As it is the international night of romance/cards/flowers/expensive meals out we decided to ignore all that commercial b*llocks and have lovely dinner at home with Wee Jan and Basil in attendance. Basil gave me Indian Cooking Made Easy* for Xmas so we broke that out and cooked a few dishes from it.

*It should be noted at this point that the only reason Basil bought me that cookery book was because he wants to do bad stuff with the author, Anjum Anand.

For main it was 1. Coconut and Chilli Halibut 2. Tandoori Salmon

On the side 1. Toasted chickpeas 2. a really refreshing cucumber/tomato/green chilli/peanut/coconut salad combo 3. cucumber raita

Then for puds it was a baked concoction, combining condensed milk/greek yoghurt/ cardamon/raisins. I just love that hint of cardamon. This recipe was taken from Atul Kochar's Simple Indian, if you're into Indian food you have to get this. The flavour combinations are incredible. One thing people often say to me is that they don't like Indian food because they think it is too oily. Aaargh not true.......Get this book people!

Sides for ribs

Okay I confess we had ribs again, so good! Stokesy and his mate Pete had gone to price some work so needed some man food when they got back. Pete is a...errmm....selective eater so I didn't want to make anything too adventurous. But I got some quesadillas on the go as soon as they got home and he loved them.



I wanted some vegetable-ness to go with the ribs so after rummaging in the fridge decided on some coleslaw. finely sliced cabbage, carrot, red onion, plus a bit of parsley mixed with mayo and natural yoghurt.

This weekend I'll finalising the recipes for next weekend's Saturday cookery class 'Back to Basics', plus planning for a birthday party on the Sunday. For the birthday party the client has chosen lots of different finger foods, I love doing finger food and canapes because you can make everything look wicked! The two mini puddings are Torta di Ciocolatta and Mini Pavlovas, I'll try and get some pics if I have time on the day.

Easy Dinner - Chorizo Salad

So me and the boyfriend (let me introduce Stokesy) were peckish tonight, yeah yeah I know, no change from usual. He has been plastering ceilings today so extra hungry. But we were also not in the mood for mountains of washing up. Queue our old faithful standby of quesadillas, combined with our new standby of chorizo salad.

The quesadillas, or very flat and not very filling cheese sandwiches as Basil (another hungry friend) would call them, are great for when you are in a hurry. Just stick a dry pan on the heat, place in 1 tortilla, layer up grated cheese/ham/coriander/spring onion/peppers etc and them add your top tortilla. Fry until toasted, flip, fry again and then serve with guacamole or salsa. It is the law in our house to a dunking dippy sauce which we buy in. We are always on the look out for new ones. Currently gracing our table are Levi’s Reggae Reggae and Spanks Chilli Mein.

The chorizo salad recipe was nicked from the Moro cookbook. Up top you have a pic of the salad itself. Fried chorizo, chickpeas, parsley, tomato, red onion and dressing.

And the dressing, the olive oil lurking in the background is some posh stuff that my brother gave me for Christmas. Cheers Andrew! He lives in Milan so always provides good food presents. Thinking about Milan reminds me of eating burrata there. Burrata is the most amazing mozzarella style cheese, so soft and delicately creamy. Errm sorry just having a burrata moment………it is soooo good. Okay let’s get back on track….…olive oil! I only use the really good stuff in dressings where I’m going to get the best from the flavour.

Oh yeah so you'll want to know what's in the dressing. 1 garlic clove, big pinch salt, 1 tbsp red wine vinegar, 4 tbsp olive oil and a squeeze of lemon