Many moons ago when I was working at a three Michelin-starred restaurant, I was lucky enough to have been ‘good enough’ to make the fresh pasta and raviolis, and I think my personal love for pasta comes from those days. Nowadays, I make it for us at home, especially when we have friends over for dinner, and I still find it amazingly satisfying to make.

We enjoy venison very much and over the years we have used venison shoulder in many recipes. At the pub in Suffolk we used to smoke the shoulder and use the meat for our award-winning Scotch eggs, sausage rolls, pasties and croquettes.

For this recipe, I use a pressure cooker to cook the meat as I find it very effective and much more efficient (but I do also include an oven-braising method in the Cook’s Notes for those who don’t have a pressure cooker).

Serve these tasty little agnolotti as a starter, antipasto or light lunch or simply serve double the amount as a main course. Enjoy!

I’m pretty pleased with this recipe. I really like Argentinian empanada pastry and as we are heading towards canapé and finger food season, I thought it’s a great pastry to showcase the game season’s best.

I have used the hare haunches for this recipe, and by cooking them in duck fat this keeps the meat moist and succulent (roasting the meat is too harsh and will dry it out too much). The pumpkin then adds a welcome natural sweetness to the hare.

The most important route to success with this recipe is time and patience. You must not ‘force’ or try to hurry the curing process along as this will result in a disaster.

We used a meat curing cabinet for this process, as it’s the safest method (we made our own with a fridge, but a temperature-controlled wine fridge works well with a dehumidifier and humidity meter). Humidity also plays a huge part in the process, so I suggest that you buy an inexpensive humidity meter from a DIY store to help you out.

Once the meat was cured and ready to use we were pleasantly surprised at how many servings we got from it. It kept well for a couple of weeks or so (in the fridge) and was used in many delicious dishes.

I buy the Prague powder (cure) No. 2 from https://www.sausagemaking.org/acatalog/cure_2.html

I think raw button mushrooms must have fallen out of fashion for a while; I had forgotten how delicious they are in this fresh, raw salad. It is pretty quick and easy to prepare too, which is a definite bonus on hot summer days.

Please note though that the shaved mushrooms don’t keep well, as they discolour slightly and become soft after about an hour. Therefore, I recommend that you get all the ingredients together, make the dressing and prepare the salad (except the mushrooms), then when you are ready to serve, slice the mushrooms and put the salad together at the last minute; it’s really easy and quick. I have used a mandoline to slice the mushrooms, but a sharp knife will also work just as well.

This salad is delicious served as a side dish at a barbecue with barbecued salmon, Sticky Pork Ribs or Slow-barbecued Lamb Shoulder, or it can be served as a starter with crusty bread. 

This starter is hugely popular at the British Larder Suffolk. The delicious pheasant eggs come from Richard who is running his egg business called “Eggsolicious”. Richard is great, he not only has pheasant eggs but also quail’s eggs and free-range hen’s eggs, which usually have double yolks so they are great value indeed!

Pheasant eggs are a bit tricky to boil and peel. My advice is to boil them in a pan of water with a dash of vinegar, then once they are cooked, drain then dunk them in iced water and hope for the best when peeling, as they are usually very fragile.

We serve this dish at the British Larder as a pretty lunchtime starter, but you could serve it as a hearty lunch for two by making the rice balls slightly bigger, if you like.

This tasty Pig Hash is one of Steve’s creations – Steve is sous chef at the British Larder. This recipe started off as a staff meal using leftovers and then it turned into a ‘real’ dish that we now offer as a lunchtime special on our menu.

Moving to Suffolk always was always about the quality of ingredients on offer. We made it our business to move into a region unknown to us and to adapt, absorb and work with the local area. We have met some fantastic people along the way and Mark Hayward from Dingley Dell has taken us “under his wing” and supported and helped us along the way. He has also in an indirect way helped us firmly confirm our ethos and what the British Larder stands for.

Dingley Dell farm is no more 2.5 miles from us and and having this high quality ingredient so close provides that all important reassurance we require to ensure that we have made the right choice. We are continuously working with Mark either on new recipes or new concepts. Dingley Dell is a Freedoms Food approved farm and has consequently introduced us to the wonderful world of Freedom Foods. We are proud to say that we take part in the Freedoms Foods Simply Ask campaign and tick six boxes in the freedom food categories of high animal welfare! That is stupendously impressive. We are working hard to tick the final three.

I have a conscience and certainly do not want it to be a guilty one!

Well it all just simply makes sense. I would not serve yet alone work with ingredients where I know an animal might have suffered. Why should my customers have to eat it? I make it my business to know where our food comes from and I know that our customers trust that we take animal welfare and indeed customer welfare to heart. We are also serious about food miles; the closer and more local the better for us.

These are a few rules you must remember when preparing baby artichokes:

1. Work as quick as you possibly can.
2. Be organised – prepare as much as possible in advance before you make the first cut. The reason for this is because the artichokes start to oxidise as soon as you cut into them.
3. Prepare a large bowl of ice cold water with plenty of lemon juice beforehand, to submerge the artichokes in while you are preparing the rest.
4. Look after the cooked chokes, they keep well in the fridge for up to 5 days in the cooking liquid.
5. Most importantly, enjoy every single one!

I have prepared a slideshow of how to turn baby artichokes – hopefully it will make the process easier to understand and follow.

This tart makes a delicious light lunch, it could be served either warm or at room temperature, either way it’s delicious.

Goose eggs are quite large in comparison to hens eggs and duck egg. It’s also very rich. He has made the potato rosti with spinach and crumbled smoked goats cheese from Springstep a dairy local to us.

This dish is perfect for all seasons and as already mentioned for brunch, lunch or light supper.