Shiso, aka Japanese Basil

My friend Kyoko recently gave me some shiso plants for the garden. Shiso has an unusual taste like nothing else that I have tasted. The nearest I can get to describing it that to me it has a fresh green summery taste a bit like the smell of new mown grass with a hint of that smell you get when you brush against tomato leaves, with a whisper of lemon.

I have eaten this with salad and deep fried in tempura batter.

For a present, Kyoko made a bottle of clear magenta cordial for me from the red ( purple) shiso and she tells me it is used when pickling plums. The cordial is easy to make. Pick some red shiso leaves and soak overnight in some water with a little citric acid added. Not too much water, just enough to cover the leaves. Green shiso leaves can be mixed in with the red ones. In the morning drain the juice and boil it with some sugar. Don't use an aluminium pan as the acid can eat into the metal. When cool bottle and refrigerate the cordial. Add water and ice to taste.

Pepsi Japan even produced a Pepsi shiso.

It is used in cooking throughout Asia. The green shiso is wrapped around chicken pieces to be stir fried.

The purple shiso can double up as an ornamental plant, I have seen it in planting schemes at the Chelsea Flower Show. If the birds and snails don't eat them they can grow to 2 or 3 feet high.



The botanical name for shiso is Perilla frutescens and it belongs to the mint family along with basil, coleus and nettles. They all have square shaped stems.
It is used in Chinese medicine and is said to boost the immune system.

Pasta with courgettes, almond and lemon

I found a recipe for Zuccini pasta with almonds and lemon zest on one of my favourite food blogs, Chocolate and Zuccini. Click here for the recipe.

I followed the recipe fairly closely. I didn't have any harissa paste so I ground a mixture of coriander, cumin, caraway with some powdered chipotle. I used about 1/4 tsp of each with 1/2 a tsp coriander.

I used a couple of mini garlics fresh from the garden. They were self seeded from a previous year's crop. This and the dry weather may be why they are so small but there are plenty of them. I chopped some of the green leaf part and added that as well. Raw that tastes surprisingly strong. I also added some chopped flat leaved parsley at the end of the cooking time. That also came from the garden as a self seeded bonus.

This is a gorgeous combination of flavours and textures. I like the combination of the spices with the lemon and the contrast of textures from the crunch of the almond to the softness of the courgettes and pasta. It made 2 portions and I have a little left over to have cold with salad

Sweet Cicely

Sweet Cicely (Myrris odorata) is a traditional hardy cottage garden perennial. It grows wild in the North of England. It is related to anise, fennel and caraway and has a similar flavour to anise. It thrives on well drained soil and tolerates partial shade. I have it growing under a fig tree.

It produces umbels of frothy white flowers in late spring providing an early nectar source for insects.. The flowers develop into long slender seed pods as shown in the photo above.

The leaves can stewed with tart fruit like gooseberries or rhubarb to reduce acidity. It can be used to flavour fish. in some countires it is used to flavour Schnapps.

The seeds can be dried and used as a spice or left on the plant to self seed.

Have you used this in cooking and if so what did you use it with?

Today's Bread

White bread dough sprinkled with red onion and olive oil with thyme, rosemary and garlic from the garden. The dough was rolled and topped with sliced Moroccan olives then baked ready for lunch in the garden. The top photo shows the rosemary bush in flower.

An orange tipped butterfly seen in the garden a few days ago

Wild Food part 2

After a few warm Spring days the nettles are starting to grow. This is the common stinging nettle, Urtica dioica. I usually cut the new growth back and put it in a bucket of water. After about 2 weeks this turns into a very strong smelling liquid plant food that gets fed to the roses. This year I thought I would grasp the nettle and make soup! The new leaves are said to be be rich in minerals and vitamins.

so here goes, a panful of Spring nettle tops

cooked together with these ingredients a bay leaf and some thyme, then blitzed till smooth

add some milk and voila , nettle soup with cheese, onion and herb scone.

Delicious, and no it doesn't sting, the cooking takes care of that.

Wild Food

served with smoked trout and boiled egg

These are not just any old leaves, these are organic leaves with a very low carbon footprint. They have travelled just a few feet rather than food miles and can be eaten fresh within seconds of picking.The taste is peppery, similar to mustard and cress or rocket and it may well be growing in your garden.

This plant is a member of the mustard family (Cruciferae family) and is native to Europe, Asia and North America. This small plant forms a rosette of leaves at ground level, during Autumn and Winter then from March onwards sends up stems with white flowers made up of 4 petals and provides an early source of nectar for bees and butterflies.

It is Cardamine hirsuta or hairy bittercress but it's not bitter and you would need a magnifying glass to see any hairs!

A long distance runner of the plant world it can produce seed about 5 weeks from germinating. The flowers produce thin seed pods that explode when touched, throwing the seed several feet. It pops up in plant pots, flowerbeds, lawns and cracks in paving.

This wild flower is an invasive weed so I don't encourage it in the garden but it pops up anyway and makes a good alternative to those supermarket pillows of air full of 'designer leaves'

It is the wild version of land cress.

It loves sneaking into overwintering plant pots and has often produced seed before I've even noticed it.

Pasteis de Nata

Pasteis de Nata are like little caramelised creme brulees in a puff pastry case. I love the contrast of the crisp and flaky pastry with the smooth and creamy custard filling. I look for the one with the most caramelised top. They are said to have originate from a monastery near Lisbon to make use of spare egg yolks. The whites were used for starching the nuns' habits and in wineries for the clarifying of wines such as Port.

Penha d'Aguia near the cathedral in Funchal serves excellent ones and good coffee too, both at a reasonable price. You can get Bolo de mel there too and queijadas which are baked using a soft white cheese.