Beetroot/Wood

Yellow Beetroots

1. Beets in a pressure cooker with bay, butter, mulberry vinegar, ground ginger, water and toasted hogweed seeds. Cooked at 15psi for 45 minutes

2. Cherrywood sheets soaking in homemade mulberry vinegar.

3. After being roasted at 180°C for an hour on infused wood sheets and brushed with rendered roasted oxtail fat.

5. Wood beets Mk. 1

Green Elderberries

Green Elderberries

I climbed the elder tree in the back yard on three separate missions, armed with a deformed coat hanger, to harvest green elderberries. I have just over a kilo, which are vacuum packed with Maldon salt (5% by weight) - as they ferment they will detoxify, lose their bright colour, and start looking a lot like capers. After a couple of weeks, I’ll pack them into jars with spirit vinegar, infused with the elderflowers from the same tree, which I bottled about 6 weeks ago.

Juniper wood, brought back from Denmark, but foraged in Sweden. I have been bewitched by it’s aroma and have been experimenting with various methods to manifest it’s nuances in an infusion. Being a member of the Cupressoideae  subfamily …

Juniper wood, brought back from Denmark, but foraged in Sweden. I have been bewitched by it’s aroma and have been experimenting with various methods to manifest it’s nuances in an infusion. Being a member of the Cupressoideae  subfamily of the Cyprus, and thus related to cedar, it is reminiscent of both cigar boxes and saunas, but sweet, and nothing like the berries. I have no love for juniper berries, though I love gin. I’m not sure why this should be, but I spent many hours peeling them with the tip of a tiny curved knife when stageing in Denmark last year, and can’t help but think it has something to do with it.

On the left, an infusion in some pretty intense Polish grain vinegar (10% acidity). It has been infusing for around two months, and has captured a lot of the subtleties I was hoping for. It is incredibly strong vinegar, and I am hoping that ageing will soften it somewhat.

On the right, an infusion of wood in (Polish, again) rectified spirit (79% ABV). It is two weeks old, and the alcohol has drawn a lot of pigment from the wood (it is more pink when not being photographed under strip lights) Although this suggests promise, it is very vodka-y and to lean over the open jar to smell it is still something of a trial. Again, some ageing seems necessary.