Have you ever heard the phrase ‘the clue is in the name’? The word coleslaw means ‘cabbage salad’ da DA! Right my attempt at QI over, you may be wondering why you would want to make your own coleslaw when you can just buy it from a shop. The fact is homemade coleslaw is a treat especially when made from organic ingredients, and not like nasty bits of old cabbage in horrid tangified wallpaper paste – so be told 
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I don’t normally deep fry food but sometimes it makes a lovely change to have a proper homemade fried delight. Here is my version of this classic and delicious dish.
Ingredients:
• 400g minced haddock (or any other firm white fish)
• 50g ground almonds
• 750g of vegetable oil (for frying)
• 50g of medium matzo meal (or plain flour)
• 1 large free range egg
• Seasoning
• 1 tsp Fair Trade granulated sugar
Method:
1) Everything starts with good preparation! Make sure you have the kitchen to yourself for the next couple of hours as you do not want to be interrupted.
2) Put on old clothes and a 1970s scarf or old baseball cap on your hair, open the kitchen window and put the answer phone on! Frying fish is *ahem* a rather a stinky business – but so worth it!
3) Set up a couple of plates with layers of kitchen roll on to drain the fish balls on when cooked.
4) In a large bowl mix the minced fish, matzo meal, egg, and seasoning (about 1 tsp salt, ¼ tsp pepper), and sugar. Now the key to making the fish stick together into ball shapes is not to over use the matzo meal – you want to just keep mixing the fish and other ingredients for a good 10 minutes at least. This will release the natural isinglass which acts like a ‘glue’.
5) Make the fish up into ball shapes or patties (the patties will cook quicker as they are flatter), this is up to you.
6) In a large frying pan with deep sides (I like to use a wok frying pan) heat the oil. To test if the oil is hot put in a crust of bread. If bubbles form around the bread then the oil is hot enough.
7) Using a fish slice or slotted spoon carefully place about 4-5 fish balls into the hot oil. The oil will foam up a bit which is normal. After a couple of minutes turn the heat down to medium.
The fish balls will begin to brown and you want to carefully again turn them in the oil using the fish slice and a wooden spoon if need be. You will know when the fish are cooked when they ‘bounce’ back when gently pressed with the fish slice.
9) Remove the fish ball with a slotted spoon and put onto a plate with kitchen roll. Add another batch of fish balls and continue the process.
10) Safety points: remember hot oil can be dangerous, do NOT leave the frying fish or hot oil unattended at any time. Don’t answer the phone, go on Twitter, or whatever. And don’t chuck hot oil down the drain, you must allow the oil to cool completely before disposing of it correctly.
11) You can serve the fish straight away (once drained) with chips and a big dollop of ketchup, yum! Or you can allow the fish to cool and have later with a blob of chraine (horseradish and beetroot) and some new potatoes.
This article is reproduced by kind permission of margeland.co.uk www.margeland.co.uk
Although by now the wild mushroom harvest is in full swing, hogweed makes a delicious starter for a fungal omelette, steamed and served with lashings of melted butter…
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Roe may eat fungi, but their venison is a fantastic base for wild mushroom dishes…
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Bats are just one of the many species which hunt fungi-eating insects to build up their fat reserves in winter…
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Fieldfares arrive in large flocks in early autumn and stay to spring, long after the last mushrooms have gone.
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The fungi season starts in March with the emergence of morels on waste ground – surely one of our most delicious species?
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I love rice pudding as it is such a comforting dish and can be eaten hot or cold. I know you can buy rice pudding out of a tin but it is no where near as good as one your have made yourself – so be told! (more…)
Although not the greatest wild vegetable, bittercress is available at a point in the year when few fungi are available…
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Fungi fanatics hate the phrase ‘toadstool’ because it is both laden with prejudice and deeply-misleading – when did you last see a toad on a mushroom?
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It’s extremely cold here in the UK at the moment (coldest winter for over 30 years apparently), so what better way to warm yourself up than to have a lovely bowl of homemade soup! I often cook up chicken soup however I fancied a change and to make something a bit more filling, so I adapted a sweetcorn soup recipe and made a dozen portions of this to cool and freeze for lunches over the next couple of weeks 
The soup is great for a base and for freezing. Then when you want to eat it you can just add in some fresh vegetables and/or a bit of extra meat such as cooked chicken, bacon or prawns.
Ingredients
1 teaspoon of butter
2 large potatoes sliced
1 medium onion chopped finely
1 leek, chopped
3 rashers of streaky bacon, chopped
1 pint / 268ml of chicken stock
150g of frozen sweetcorn
700ml of milk
1 tablespoon of corn flour
Method
Fry the onions and bacon in the butter in a large/tall sauce pan until the onions are soft. Add the potatoes, leek and stock. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 15-20 minutes until the potatoes are soft (you can add in a chopped celery too at this point if you want to). Blend the corn flour with the milk and add that plus the sweetcorn to the pan and stir well. Bring to the boil and simmer for a further 5 minutes. Blend the soup with a hand blender. Mix in some seasoning to suit your own taste.
For freezing: put the soup into freezable containers and allow to cool before freezing.
For eating: put the soup into a saucepan and add some sweetcorn plus either some prawns, chopped bacon or chicken (all already cooked, but can be cold). Add some extra veg such as peas or leek if you wish.
It’s pretty simple but it’s quite filling and it’s great on a cold winters day
This article is reproduced by kind permission of Sarah Anderson Food and Drink Meanderings
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