Manor Farm
Fringford
Bicester
Oxfordshire OX27 8DP
Method:
If you have time here is a quick snack to enjoy with your drink.
We have recently been making a fresh batch of preserved lemons with added herbal flavours.
They are an essential ingredient to Moroccan cuisine but add a savory umani flavour with a mellow citrus undertone to so many more dishes.
Preserved lemons are a luxury to buy but really easy to make.
Essentially fresh lemons are preserved in lots of salt with added herbs, which gives them a salty, slightly tart,
pickled flavour, with all of the flesh, pith and peel softened and edible.
You will need a suitable sterilised jar with a wide screw lid (or a preserving jar with a seal)
that will just hold the number of lemons you plan to preserve.
Cut each lemon nearly into quarters top to bottom to within 2cm of the base, leaving it attached at the bottom end.
As you transfer each lemon into the jar stuff the centre with a tablespoon of salt.
Push them in really tightly and seal up and leave initially for a week.
After this time open up the jar and press the lemons down hard to squeeze them together.
The salt will have drawn out loads of juice, add sprigs of thyme and rosemary
and a little more lemon juice to just cover the fruit if needed.
Top up the jar with 1cm of olive oil to make the lemons air tight and put the jar away in a cool dark place for at least 4 weeks.
Your preserved lemons can be added to all manner of dishes:
For a refreshing treat make some Sparkling Preserved Lemonade:
Coriander isn't one of the traditional cocktail ingredients but its bright, zesty flavour makes a
great combination in our Coriander Margaritos – a cross between a mojito and a margarita!
For each glass:
To serve:
Mint is a classic ingredient for summer drinks.
Our Lemon and Lime cooler is delicious and quick to make.
A large jugful is plenty for several people.
Your guests may add gin or vodka if they wish but either way it tastes great.
(serves 1)
Lightly moisten the rim of a glass with a touch of the lime juice and then dip the glass into the salt to get a good crusting.
If you have time leave to dry for a few minutes.
Put the orange liqueur and tequila into a cocktail shaker with the mint and
crush a little with a muddler to extract the sweet minty flavour.
(A jam jar and the end of a wooden spoon makes a very adequate, if not very stylish, substitute if you don't own a cocktail shaker!)
Add the lime and the fruit juices along with the ice cubes and shake for 1 minute until the cocktail is well chilled.
Strain into the salty glass and garnish with a mint sprig. You can sip though the salty rim or through a straw as you prefer.
Makes 4 servings
Put the sugar, lemon grass stalks and foliage in a small pan with 200 ml water.
Warm gently and stir until the sugar dissolves.
Leave to cool and infuse for at least two hours in the fridge, or it can be left overnight.
When you are ready to serve, strain the lemon grass syrup into a large jug and add the lime juice and rum.
Top up with an equal volume of chilled soda water.
Add 3 or 4 ice cubes and a couple of lime wedges to each glass — give the lime a gentle squeeze as you drop it in.
Top up with the punch from the jug.
You can decorate with extra lemon grass stalks if you have them or a few feathery fronds of lemon grass foliage.
Serves 4 – 6
To serve:
Put all of the sliced fruit and sugar into a large bowl and pour over the wine and rum.
Stir gently to dissolve the sugar then cover and chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours for the flavours to mingle,
or longer if you can wait!
The sangria looks lovely in large bowl shaped wine glasses, but tastes great however you serve it.
Divide the redcurrants between the glasses and strain over the chilled wine mixture.
With a spoon remove the strawberries left in the bowl and add to sangria glasses, leaving the apple and lemon slices behind.
Top up each glass with ice cubes and lemonade to taste — or the sangria tastes equally good neat
but remember it has quite a kick from the rum!
For a special occasion, try substituting a bottle of white port for the white wine,
you may need a little less sugar in this case, depending on the sweetness of the port.
3 – 4 glasses
Try our unusual Basil and Orange Mojito — a refreshing cocktail — summer in a glass just right for a warm summer's evening.
To serve:
Put the basil leaves, lemon zest and sugar syrup into a jug and using a cocktail muddler or the end of
a rolling pin.
Bash the basil, zest and syrup together until the leaves are well bruised.
Add the orange juice and rum and put into the fridge for an hour to chill — if you can bear to wait!
Add the soda water and pour into glasses half full of crushed ice.
Garnish with a basil sprig and an orange slice and enjoy in your summer garden!
Tips: Simple syrup is used a lot to sweeten cocktails.
Dissolve a 250 ml measure of sugar in 250 ml water over a low heat.
Cool and keep in the fridge until needed
Apples make a great breakfast smoothie, the addition of ginger
and mint will really give you a
boost, making a refreshing start
to the day.
Enough for 2
Core the apples and chop coarsely, no need to peel,
red skinned
apples leave pretty red flecks in your smoothie.
Put half of the applesinto the blender or smoothie maker and whizz until smooth.
You may need a little extra apple juice, it depends on how juicy your apples are.
Add the peeled sliced ginger, mint and lime juice and blend again.
Finally add the remaining apple pieces and whizz until smooth.
Serve garnished with a sprig of mint or some apple slices
This will make about 1.5 litres and keep in the fridge for several days, if you are able to keep it that long!
Blitz the raspberries in a food processor and then stir in the fruit juices and the sugar.
Leave the mixture aside for at least 30 minutes, or prepare in advance and keep in the fridge.
Meanwhile strip the lavender florets from them stems and rinse.
Then put into a small saucepan with 400 ml water.
Bring to the boil, simmer for 1 minute and then leave aside to infuse for 30 minutes.
Sieve the raspberries into a large bowl, discarding the pips left in the sieve.
Strain the lavender infusion onto the raspberry puree, and stir to mix.
Pour the concentrate into a pretty clear jug with plenty of ice cubes
and top up with a litre of still or sparkling water to taste.
Our research shows that this is actually a quite ancient recipe not a modern quirk!
Pour the first 2 to 3 cm from a bottle of vodka.
Peel a 5 - 6 cm piece of horseradish root and cut into about 6 slices,
each about 1 cm thick.
Slip the horseradish into the vodka bottle, you may need to cut it a bit more to get it into the top of the bottle.
Screw the bottle tightly closed and shake every few days.
Leave to infuse for at least a week and up to a month depending on the depth of flavour required.
Decant off the vodka, you can use it as soon as you like but the flavour will improve and mellow with time.
Use in Bloody Marys and vodka cocktails, and keep a bottle in the freezer for ice-cold 'shots'.
Place the mint, ginger and honey in a bowl and pour over the boiling water.
Remove the zest from two of the lemons and add to the bowl.
Cover and leave for 30 minutes to extract the flavours.
Strain into a 1 litre measuring jug, press the contents of the sieve with the back of a spoon to extract all of the flavour.
Add 75 ml of lemon juice and make up to 900 ml with cold water.
Chill, garnish and serve!
Strip the mint leaves from the stalks and put into the bottom of a tall glass.
Add the lime juice and muddle the ingredients together with a blunt utensil.
I use the fat rounded plastic end of one of our forks, this releases the mint juices into the mix with the lime juice.
Half fill the glass with ice cubes, pour over the rum and top up with ginger ale.
A quick stir, garnish with a ginger mint sprig and fresh ginger, and serve!
For an extra ginger kick, pound a thin slice of ginger along with the mint in your glass.
The sweetly scented chamomile flower heads
are the part of the herb used to make a delicately flavoured herb tea.
This is the most important of all herb teas, made famous in Beatrix Potter's 'Tale of Peter Rabbit'.
The flower heads can be harvested and dried, and will retain their flavour for up to a year.
Traditional recipes call for 1 oz (25 g) of flower heads to be steeped in boiling water for 3 or 4 minutes
in a covered jug – to prevent the escape of the aromatic steam.
The resulting tea can be sweetened to taste with honey or sugar if desired.
Spoon the tea and mint into a large warmed teapot. Pour on boiling water and leave to infuse for 5 minutes.
Strain into glasses or delicate cups and sweeten to taste, serve garnished with a whole mint leaf.
The tea maybe strained and chilled, and stored in the fridge, to serve as iced mint tea.
In this case sweeten to taste whilst still hot.
Serves 12 people.
This punch needs a bit of forward planning but is well worth the extra effort!
To garnish:
48 hours before your party pour the gin and chosen liqueur into your punch bowl.
Peel, core and thinly slice the pineapple, then cut into neat thin triangles.
Not too big or they won't fit into the glass!
Bruise the mint leaves gently in a pestle and mortar
and add these to the punch bowl along with the cloves.
Stir and cover the bowl and leave until your guests are arriving.
Remove the cloves and mint leaves, add your champagne, and the lemon and mint garnish.
Serve with a ladle into punch glasses or tumblers and wait for the compliments!
Fresh leaves make the best tea.
Use about ¼ cup of bright green chopped parsley leaves
and fill up with boiling water.
Leave to steep for 10 minutes and then strain and sweeten to taste.
Some people find the taste of this tea too astringent,
if so then try halving the amount of leaves or reduce the steeping time if this is the case.
Try our recipe for mulled cider, it makes a inviting change from mulled wine.
Great to welcome guests with to a Christmas party.
Method:
Whilst researching mulled cider we came across a very interesting and also seasonal concept: You might also like to try 'Fire Cider'.
Fire cider is based on cider vinegar and sweetened with honey to give sweet and sour, hot and spicy flavour. Not a cider as such, but a blend based on cider vinegar and honey with added ingredients of onion and garlic, ginger, horseradish and chillies.
We have added parsley and citrus for extra vitamin C, with rosemary, thyme and cloves for their antibacterial properties and of course their great taste.
The resultant brew is great to have during the winter months – and it has a huge variety of uses:
This makes 350 – 400ml:
Enjoy experimenting!
Flavoured vodkas are one of the most popular drinks at the moment. This recipe uses lemon vodka but it is every bit as successful made with ordinary vodka – just add a tiny bit more lemon juice.
Those of you with cocktail set will be well away whilst the rest of us can manage very well
with a pestle and a clean jar with a lid! All of the ingredients are variable,
you may for instance prefer to add extra sugar for a sweeter cocktail
Chop the cucumber roughly and put into a small bowl with all the ingredients except the vodka and the ice.
Bash and press it with the pestle until the cucumber is well bruised but not totally pulped and all the sugar
(if you are using it) is dissolved in the resulting juice.
If you have a cocktail set this can all be done inside the shaker with the end of the bar spoon.
Add the vodka and 4 ice cubes to the cocktail shaker.
If you are managing without a shaker then transfer the crushed ingredients to the jar and add the vodka and ice,
rinsing out the crushing bowl with a little of the vodka to make sure that you transfer over all of the flavours.
Shake for a minute to chill thoroughly then strain into a glass, garnish, relax and enjoy.
Bruise the lavender lightly with a rolling pin to release the essential oils.
Combine all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker and shake for a full minute.
Strain into 2 chilled glasses and decorate with a couple of sprigs of lavender.
Lets hope for some sunny evenings to sit outside and enjoy it!
Make a sugar syrup by dissolving equal quantities of sugar and water in a small saucepan.
1 cup of each is ideal.
Once the sugar is dissolved, simmer the syrup gently for 10 minutes then allow to cool.
Tear up several eau de cologne mint leaves and put into a tall chilled glass.
Add a little sugar syrup and a measure of whisky, stir well and top up with lots of ice.
Relax on a balmy warm evening with one of these and feel your stresses melt away.
A fresh aniseed taste which is slightly sweet which is very refreshing.
Use seeds from plants which you have in your garden for culinary use or dried seeds from a spice pot.
Crush one tablespoon per person in a pestle and mortar, just enough to release the flavour.
Pour over freshly boiled water and leave to steep for 5 minutes, before straining and drinking.
As well as being a refreshing drink fennel tea is said to help sore throats and also relieve digestive problems. In winter add a slice of fresh ginger, lightly bruised, to the fennel seeds for a warming drink.
For the syrup which you can make the day before:
For the lemonade: