Apple, pear, wild black berry cider

Too many apple and pear, even after eating, cooking and giving away! Last resort is to juice and make cider. This time having a twist, adding a good kg of wild black berry for extra colour and flavour. 

I use a neural wine yeast to kick start fermentation. To do this, warm a small amount of juice to around 35˚C, add a tsp of wine yeast (I store it in the freezer), stir and wait. In around 15 minutes, the yeast is activated and blooms. 

Pour into juice and shake well. Keep at room temperature and give it a stir/shake every day for the first week. Traditionally people start to drink this in December, but should be ready to consume when bubbling stopped. 

Wild sloe and elderberry

elderberry with honey

elderberry fermenting in honey

sloe coulis

First dry and sunny morning, get out to have a walk, knowing that it is the season for wild berries, we bring along bags for foraging. 

Indeed found very juicy sloe and elderberry. 

Elderberry seed and stalk have mildly irritating materials and need to be either cooked or fermented out. I choose using honey for the fermentation. Simply add raw honey 1 part to 2 parts of elderberry, mix well and let it ferment at room temperature. Stir once or twice every day until berries submerged. When bubbling stop, ready to use the cordial. 

For sloe, there is a lot more work to get rid of the small stone. First cover with water and bring to boil, berry will be soft very fast.

Press with potato crusher to break the berries, then press and pass through a sieve, to get the stones out. 

Boil the puree and sweeten to your taste, store in freezer. 

Stuffed bitter melon and eggplant

With Pollock fish paste, I make these stuffed veg, using raw bitter melon and already steam cooked eggplant.

 To simplify, I bake them instead of searing on stove top, then drizzle with soy sauce, sesame and chilli paste sauce on top. It is easier but bitter melon is not soft enough. It will be better to sear them then cook in the sauce to soften. 

 

This is Big Mountain bitter melon, longer than the Okinawa one. 

 

Pollock fish paste

Fisherman brought back pollock, again no sight of mackerel, what a bad sign. What to do with 1.5kg of pollock fillets? Turn to fish balls to keep in freezer.

 I use a simple recipe to get maximum flavour, not after the bouncy texture of traditional HK fish balls that uses a lot of flour. I notice with more flour in fish paste, there is less real fish flavour. 

1.5kg fillet
450ml coconut milk
salt, white pepper, chilli powder 

Use a machine to blend into puree, it will turn very sticky. With a pot of gently simmering water, make fish balls by squeezing through the thumb and first finger, cook until floating. 

I kept some fish paste behind to make fish cake and stuffed veg. 

Fish cracker version 2

 

Given a big Wrasse from online fishmonger, very big, I eaten a quarter steamed with soysauce and olive oil. The rest turned into fish cracker, I improved on the recipe of the last one. Adding more water to form a softer dough, and more baking powder for better fluffing up effect. The tricks worked, very crispy crackers. 

These fish crackers are actually high protein snack, the best way to eat more fish.

60% fish ~250gm

40% tapioca flour ~200gm

Baking powder 2tsps

Water ~200gm

Seasoning

Just a bit of work to blend with water to a soft dough, steam in long sausage form, cut into very thin slices, and dry, that’s all.

Make a big batch and keep for a long time.

Deep fry in olive oil, wonderful snack.

Fermenting eggplant and bitter melon

The last 3 weeks have been mega harvests every other day, non stop. Never have such good results even with heat loving plants like tomato and eggplans, on top, bitter melon too. 

Decided to dry to lactic ferment some of them, for another way to keep longer, and eat more fermented food.

Cut into slices/batons, salt for a few hours to soften, pour away liquid. Make a brine with 1% salt, I added dried lactic culture to make sure it works fast. If not, use 2% brine. Feel free to add other flavoring ingredients, I added chili pepper and garlic with eggplant. 

Bubbles form the next day, after a few days can start eating and keep in the fridge. 

Water melon 山椒鳥

This is the first time I successfully grown water melon, with 1 fruit. I waited and asked around how to tell that water melon is ripe. Got two advices, first knock on it, should sound sound; second, the small tendrils turned brown. 

I checked regularly and even though got both signs, still prefer to leave as long as possible to get maximum ripeness. 

Time has come to cut it, 2kg fruit, deep red, sweet, middle is sandy while the rest is crunchy, so happy. 

Venison saddle

Baked this saddle for 40 minutes at 180˚, super tender and juicy, I am so impressed with this Sika venison, so far, every part is juicy and so easy to cook. 

Season with salt, pepper and rosemary oil for a day. 

Myoga Japanese ginger 茗荷

Bought back this root from a trip to japan in previous year, it is in the ginger family with only consume flower buds in summer and shoots in spring. 

This is the second year and many shoots came up (from 3 I planted), lucky to be alerted by a fellow gardener that the buds are out. I checked and happily found a lot, some opened, and can experiment how to cook it.

I tried raw pickling with salt and sugar and baked with butter, both turned out to be delicious, nice crunchy texture and mild ginger aroma. 

Pear frangipane

Need to bring some snacks for a gathering, while there are a lot of pears, I have to think of how to use them up, hence this frangipane.

2eggs
100gm butter
120gm almond flour
60gm flour
2 tbsp sugar
pinch of salt
small pieces of pear

Mix the ingredients and place in muffin tins, bake at 180˚C until golden, around 30 minutes. 

Steamed eggplants and pesto

With various ways of cooking eggplants, I realise the only way to appreciate its pure white flesh is to steam it whole. Can do a big lot at the same time (very good harvest this year) and serve it in various ways in the next few days. The simplest is cut into halves and serve with pesto. 

My pesto only has basil, pine nut, olive oil and salt only, and actually rough cut by hand, more coarse texture, has better flavour than using blender. 

Also easy to sear the cooked eggplant to warm up, goes well with roasted tomatoes. 

2025年9月3日苦瓜乾咁既樣

今年第一次種苦瓜，瓜藤飛快長得高大分枝多葉片嫩綠，欣欣向榮，只是結果比較遲（相對其他歐洲農友），要到七月底才終於肯定授粉（昆蟲）成功，苦瓜在長大。

到現在，好高興可以用果實纍纍來形容，且有餘可送人，個個歡迎，這才知道南方人原來這樣喜歡吃苦瓜。

來自浙江的父母，苦瓜從來未曾在家中餐桌上出現，成年後在餐廳亦不常見到苦瓜菜式，也許見到也不會點。

直至年初到冲繩旅遊，當地名食之一是苦瓜，我最喜歡吃地道美食，於是吃了苦瓜炒蛋、炒午餐肉、醃漬苦瓜、苦瓜天婦羅等。覺得味道可以，顏色美麗，這兩點都較青瓜和翠玉瓜優勝。以經多年沒種這兩種瓜，佔地多又沒大滋味，留下寶貴菜地種其他蔬菜更理想。

但比較有個性的苦瓜，倒是值得試種，買了冲繩苦瓜種子回來。

有收成後，就煮各樣苦瓜菜，例如基本的醃漬和炒蛋、文友說蒜蓉豆豉牛肉炒苦瓜最美味、原來有苦瓜排骨湯…全試過。自己的結論是和野味的材料同煮最合心水，蒜蓉豆豉蝦米鹹魚炒苦瓜茄子加一小匙紅糖，沒有肉，已經味覺大滿足。

然後突然想到，小時候沒有吃苦瓜，但「苦瓜乾咁既樣」這形容倒常用到，也就奇怪苦瓜乾究竟有多難看？切片、切半風乾，不怎麼難看呀！前人的形容，一定有道理，這回就是想不透。

Irish surf clam

Online fish monger informs that local surf clams are meaty, so I give it a try. These local surf clam have thick shell and only worth eating if they are really meaty. Cold water clams are sweet but no umami flavour like tropical thin shell clams.

 

Cooked in a broth with pear and tomato, both I have a lot in the garden. The broth turned into a soup with bitter melon

Pear compote

A lot of pears from the 3 old trees planted by previous owner, other than giving away and making dried pear, thought of making this compote. Baked pear with mix seeds and nuts, with a fried egg this will be a healthy breakfast.

Soak flax seed, chia seed, quinoa and millet for an hour to swell up, a lot of pectin will come out.

Chop up mixed nuts.

 Mix a tin of coconut milk with the seed and nut paste, season with a big pinch of salt. 

Peel pears and chop into rough cubes, add to mixture, spread in a big baking tray. 

Bake at 180˚C for an hour, turn over every 20 minutes.  

End August harvest

Just away for a few days and back home with loads of veg and fruits to harvest. New on the list are apple, pear and romaine lettuce sown in end June, So nice to have leafy greens to eat. 

2025年8月28日遠古大石墳場

在西岸遊玩，參觀在山頭的古墳場，有多個巨石墓地，每個墓地以三件巨石作主建築，兩片豎放，上放第三嚿石，在外再以大石圍繞一圈，地下可找到數個至幾十個人的骨頭。

附近山頭，散佈多個如此古墓地，但又找不到聚居留下的痕跡。不少墓地，已經成為現代農場的一部分，只餘下抬不動的三嚿巨石。

建於五、六千年前，在大西洋沿岸各國，都找到類似墳墓建築，是同一路人的文化，自然年代久遠背景歷史所知不多。

據導賞人員解釋，近年在出土骨頭上找到因瘟疫而亡的痕跡，有可能是瘟疫蔓延，所以把墳場建在遍遠山頭，以巨石鎮壓，再以一圈大石劃出距離，是安全措施。