Welcome to the Nibble Scotland Over Coffee podcast. In the days before social distancing I was lucky enough to be invited to meet Jillian McEwan from Lunan Bay Farm near Arbroath, who you may already be following their fabulous goat breeding stories on social media. I’m also delighted that Billy Boyter, Head Chef from The Cellars in Anstruther joined us to hear more about some of the activities on the farm and start his own creative process from farm to plate for his discerning customers.
So deep within the kidding shed we chat about how Jillian and her husband Neil got involved in goats, their recent busman’s holiday to New Zealand, also hear about Robert the Bruce’s Royal decree to keep goats in the area and how they plan to reintroduce 100% Scottish cashmere to the market.
Lunan Bay Farm are one of around 3 farmers in Scotland harvesting asparagus and this year Lunan Bay asparagus will be found in many farm shops and greengrocers around the country for our enjoyment at home over the summer months.
Be sure to drop us a review and subscribe wherever you listen if you are enjoying the podcast so far. Follow us on social media @NibbleScotland for a first look at future guests and a behind the scenes look of everything mentioned in each episode.
Billy Boyter, Head Chef at The Cellar, Anstruther - https://www.thecellaranstruther.co.uk/
Cider Tempura Lunan Bay Asparagus with wild garlic mayo.
This is a great and simple recipe you can do at home. Making use of 2 great seasonal ingredients. The lovely crisp Asparagus dipped into the punchy wild garlic mayonnaise is perfect.
6 Lunan Bay Asparagus Spears
80g of plain flour
50g of cornflour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder
ice cubes
sparkling Cider
rapeseed oil for deep-frying
Trim the Woody end of the Asparagus off and wash ready to use.
Whisk together all the ingredients in a bowl, stirring in enough cider to give a nice, thin batter. Add the ice cubes to the batter to keep it nice and cold this makes the fryer bubble furiously, which creates a super-crispy, bubbly coating. Please be careful if doing this at home. The colder the batter, the better the result.
Lightly flour the spears and dip through the batter. Fry at 180c until crisp.
Wild Garlic Mayo
90g of Wild Garlic
450ml of rapeseed oil
3 egg yolk
1 tsp Mustard
2 tsp white wine vinegar
Salt
Pepper
Make the wild garlic oil. Rinse the wild garlic, then blanch of 35 seconds in a pan of heavily salted, boiling water. Drain the water and plunge into some iced water, then pat dry with some kitchen towel.
Chop the wild garlic roughly and add to a blender, then pour in the rapeseed oil. Start blitzing on a low speed, then increase in speed for 30 seconds to 1 minute, until the oil is a bright green colour
Pass through a fine sieve, then through a fine sieve or a coffee filter.
Whisk the egg yolks, mustard and vinegar in a bowl until smooth. Continue whisking and pour in a thin, steady stream of the wild garlic oil.
Keep whisking and pouring until all of the oil has been absorbed and has emulsified with the egg mixture - you should be left with a nice, thick green mayonnaise. Season with salt and pepper.