A Week on the Estate: Wintry Week, Checking Chicks & Supping Soup

Here’s another date for your diary. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed meeting our customers at our monthly Click & Collect days. To help set you up for a lovely Easter Weekend – and to show off our fine spring produce – we’ll be holding our next Click & Collect session on Good Friday, 15th April.

Hosting the family on Easter Sunday? A tasty, farm-reared Norfolk Black turkey crown could be just the ticket. For lovers of our flavourfully succulent, grass-fed Lincoln Red beef, the 2.8kg Variety Beef Box packs in a joint, minute steaks and both diced and minced beef – all for the bargain price of £40 (RRP £65).

We’ll also be offering our range of award-winning, artisan gins – Burrell’s Dry, Marie Jeanne, Blood Orange and any other delicious surprises Tristan may have up his sleeve!

Reserve your Click & Collect goodies and our galloping gourmet Mark Vines will greet you with complimentary tea, coffee, soup and our famously moreish warm beef rolls. It’ll be cupboard-love at first sight and you’ll get to say hello to the Estate team while helping us reduce our food miles.

Finally, Jacqui Rhodes chose perfect weather to treat us to warming cream-of-leek-and-potato soup made with the last of Colin’s leeks and spuds from the Walled Garden. She also rustled up fresh, crusty spelt bread.

If this looks as good to you as it does to us, read on for the recipes. Enjoy!

SOUP (serves 4)

You’ll need:

– 60g butter

– 4 large leeks, trimmed and sliced

– 1 onion, chopped

– 3 potatoes, cubed

– 2 pints chicken stock (veg stock is good too)

– 1 clove garlic (optional)

– Salt and black pepper

– Bouquet garni

Melt the butter in a large pan, add onion and garlic, cook for a couple of minutes then add leeks, stirring occasionally until soft but not coloured. Add potatoes, salt, pepper, stock and a  bouquet garni. Cover and cook gently until the potatoes are cooked. Blend in a food processor then push through a sieve. Season again to taste and add ¼ pint of single cream to serve.

BREAD

You’ll need:

-250g plain strong flour

-250g spelt flour (wholemeal will work)

– 2tsp sugar

– 2tsp salt

– 7g sachet dry yeast

– 400ml tepid water

– 1 tbsp olive oil

Combine all dry ingredients together and make a well in the middle. Mix the oil and water and pour into the well until a dough forms. This will be sticky. Cover it with a tea towel and leave it to rise. After about 1 hour, knock back the dough, knead again, place in a lined bread tin and cover. Preheat your oven to 180C (fan). When ready, place bread tin in oven and leave for 45-50 minutes. If the bread sounds hollow when you tap the base, it’s ready. Cool on a wire rack and then store. It’s best eaten fresh but will last for a few days.

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