I’ve just spent a moist but merry week en famille in the Cotswolds - five children under 11, four adults and a Nanna all nestled under one (charmingly thatched) roof.
Even storm clouds could not take the shine of this truly sublime patch of England. We fair expected a corseted Helena Bonham-Carter (I’m thinking A Room with a View) to pop up from among the buttercups as we dodged the rain to pick flowers growing waist high in fields around our holiday house, Fox End. This beautiful property sits within view of of Chastleton House, a gorgeous Jacobean gem worthy in itself of a visit.
When we weren’t drifting around pretending to be in a Merchant Ivory film we watched a cricket match on the lawns of Blenheim Palace, pottered through the horticultural wonder that is Hidcote Manor House, ate way too many slices of cake with endless cups of tea and went back for second helpings to a stunningly good foodie pub The Kingham Plough at Kingham, near Chipping Norton. Actually, it’s technically a pub but the food here is very fine restaurant-standard fare.
Then we remortgaged our homes and went to Daylesford Organic Farm Shop.
The owners of Fox End had recommended a visit to this searingly expensive shopping shrine locally dubbed Harvey Nicks in the Sticks. There are outposts in the Big Smoke of course, but this is Daylesford HQ, complete with four-figure cashmere coats, a spa and the poshest morsels known to foodiedom. My favourite (and modest) prize from Daylesford was a beautiful purple wet garlic, the first crop of the garlic season and so-called because it hasn’t yet been hung up to dry. The ginormous cloves are sweeter and creamier than the small and dry little pearls we’re accustomed to.
Once cooked, we smeared these tender cloves on sourdough toast and topped it with tomatoes and basil, smoked trout and lemon juice, or whisps of fresh ham. Actually, I could eat it on its own with a spoon but that probably wouldn’t go down well at all with Daylesford locals. (This technique for cooking garlic confit I picked up from somewhere on the internet but I’m afraid I cannot find the link.)
Confit garlic on toast
- A couple of bulbs of wet garlic or several bulbs of standard garlic
- Plenty of olive oil
1. Separate the garlic cloves from the bulb and place them in a sieve. Bring a pan of water to the boil and plunge the sieve into the pan so as to quickly blanch the garlic. Remove after 10 seconds or so, then plunge the cloves into cold water. This process should enable you to slip the cloves from their skins really easily rather than spend an age peeling by hand.
2. Place the peeled cloves in a saucepan and cover with plenty of olive oil - enough so that the cloves remain covered during cooking.
3. Very gently heat the oil so that it barely simmers - you want champagne bubbles not a rolling boil - and cook this way for 40 minutes. If you wander away from the stove like I did make sure you return regularly to check on the pan and adjust the heat if necessary. Deep fried garlic is not what you want.
4. Once cooked and very tender, remove from the heat and leave to cool in the oil. Mash the cloves and smear on toast, or mix with a little of the olive oil to make a garlicky sauce for pasta or vegetables. Store the cloves covered in oil in the fridge for a few days, or if you eat the cloves on their own don’t forget to use the wonderfully infused oil in cooking or drizzled over something scrumptious.
