Phil is a young and enthusiastic chef who has worked in some of the top restaurants and pubs in the area and since leaving school 8 years ago. He specialises in fish which are plentiful on The George’s weekly changing specials board. Presentation and quality of his food are Phil’s pride and joy as well as sourcing from local producers wherever he can.

Pan fried seabass fillets on buttered purple sprouting broccoli with phils salsa verde.

Ingredients.

• 2x 4oz seabass fillets
• 6x heads purple sprouting broccoli
• 125g unsalted butter
• Handful of thyme
• Handful of sage
• Handful of parsley
• Handful of chives
• 10x small capers
• 10x anchovie fillets
• Splash white wine vinegar
• Teaspoon wholegrain mustard
• Good standard olive oli
• Juice and zest of a lemon.
• Teaspoon chopped garlic

Method

• Trim and score sea bass.
• Dust with seasoned flour.
• Trim the heads from the broccoli and pan fry until al dente with the cubed butter.
• For the salsa verde, Finely chop the garlic, capers, anchovies and herbs and put them into a bowl. Add the mustard and vinegar, then slowly stir in the olive oil until you achieve the right consistency. Balance the flavours with freshly ground black pepper, a bit of salt and maybe a little more vinegar.
• Place a non-stick pan on the heat until just smoking, coat sea bass in olive oil, place in the pan skin side down until golden brown ( about 4 minutes) turn and cook skin side up for a further 4 minutes or until cooked through (should be just firm to touch)
• Drain sea bass on kitchen roll to remove excess oil.
• Assemble on a warmed plate as pictured, enjoy

P.I.BOLTON

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Sage is also used in many other cuisines such as Italian, in Eastern Europe and in the Middle East.

We always have a plentiful supply of sage for our restaurant and catering trade and us it in our processed herbs for our food production customers.

Sage figures prominently in our recipe for Herb Fed Turkeywith the perfect Christmas stuffing.

Other varieties of sage are grown in season – including Pineapple Sage and Blackcurrant Sage

When in season, this is a popular vegetable amongst our chef users who come up with lots of creative ways to use it. Purple sprouting broccoli works well with most fish and meat dishes and adds texture and colour.

Purple sprouting broccoli contains the phytochemical sulphoraphane (thought to help prevent cancer) and may provide resistance against heart disease, osteoporosis and diabetes. It is packed with vitamin C and is a good source of caretenoids, iron, folic acid, calcium, fibre and vitamin A.

Seabass on a bed of purple sprouting broccoli with salsa verde

Philip and I are now onto completing the Marks and Spencer’s Field to Fork assurance scheme which will be our job over the next month along with starting to get ready for this year’s production by beginning propagating herbs such as Sage and Thyme in the greenhouse.

Winter Purslane is still growing well in our tunnels and is great to see a carpet of bright green salad around the site!

Some of our staff arrive back at the beginning of February after the winter break to help us start preparing for spring by carrying out maintenance of the site, carrying on with propagation etc.

But as is tradition with farming, the weather may put a halt on our plans if winter actually decides to arrive later than expected!

We grow many speciality herbs and salads within our other growing areas and it will be the Propagation Assistant’s responsibility to work with the Production Manager to ensure continuity of supply is achieved through good crop husbandry. Some harvesting of our speciality crops may also be required.

The role is seasonal with the work starting in February and finishing in October. Hours of work are Monday to Friday with occasional Saturday mornings. Hours worked during the day can be flexible.

The suitable candidate will have some general growing experience and have an eye for detail.

Please apply in writing, enclosing a copy of your CV to Philip Dodd, Herbs Unlimited, Hawkers Lane, Sandhutton, Thirsk, North Yorkshire, YO7 4RW.

Amongst these is Winter Purslane, which makes a fantastic ingredient for fresh UK grown winter salad. Winter Purslane is also known as ‘Miner’s Lettuce because it was eaten in vast quantities during the Californian gold rush due to its high vitamin C content.

Winter Purslane is a great ingredient for salads in the winter months as it provides a crisp texture to any salad and can be sourced from the UK when other salad varieties are not available.

We’ve brought together two local producers to bring you a recipe for, what we think, could be the perfect Christmas stuffing. Herb Fed Poultry produce fantastic bronze turkeys (their feed is supplemented by our very own herbs) and Paganum Produce make wonderful sausage meat from their own home reared pork.

Ingredients

• 1lb tin chestnuts, roughly chopped
• 1 1/2lb pork sausage meat
• 1lb cooking apples (peeled, cored and finely chopped)
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 1 egg, beaten
• Salt and black pepper
• Zest of 1 large orange
• 1 tablespoon flat leaf parsley
• 1 tablespoon chopped sage
• 1 rosemary sprig snipped
• 6oz firm white bread cut into dice
• 4 sticks of celery (roughly chopped)
• 2oz butter

Method

Melt butter and gently sweat the onion, celery and rosemary until soft.

Add the parsley, sage, bread, apples, chestnuts and orange zest.

Season with salt and pepper and mix well.

Allow to cool slightly, then add in the sausage meat and mix well again.

Stuff the neck of your turkey and put any left over stuffing on a tray to cook later.

You can order a Herb Fed Bronze Turkey on line, including the herbs needed for this recipe. These are also available from Paganum Produce as is the sausage meat.

Biological Action Plan (BAP), buffer zones, field maps and wildlife monitoring to name just a few, all need to be considered. All of this information combined into a single document will help to enable Philip, our Growing Director, and I to create a wildlife friendly habitat on the farm next spring.

Another part of LEAF Marque assurance is to get the public involved with their local environment. Our next plan is to purchase some information boards to put on the footpaths crossing the farm to help inform about what we are trying to achieve and to ask for everyone’s co-operation.

For more information on LEAF and their conservation aims please visit: http://www.leafuk.org/leaf/home.eb

For years Alison has fed her chickens at home with fresh herbs that would normally have gone to waste. Her neighbours and friends have often commented on how wonderful the eggs taste.

A couple of years ago Alison’s nephew, Ed, took delivery of some bronze turkeys and began supplementing their feed with excess herbs from our production. Ed reasoned that if the herbs had an effect on the flavour of eggs, they would impart some of their flavour to a bird with a reputation for being dry and tasteless. The turkeys loved the idea and thrived on the new addition to their feed. Feedback from customers and local chefs was very positive and the turkeys were judged to be moist and full of flavour.

Ed’s Herb Fed Turkeys have gone from strength to strength and he is now ready for Christmas with a new batch and has extended the idea to Herb Fed chickens, some of which featured in our open day food and went down very well with local chefs and foodies.

To find out more about Herb Fed Turkeys and Chickens visit the website here >>

At Herbs Unlimited we’re members of LEAF, who offer us useful guidance on helping to protect the environment on our farm.

‘LEAF Marque’ is a step further and a deeper commitment as it is a recognised assurance scheme for which we will be audited on an annual basis.  Although we conform to most of the standards required already, passing the LEAF Marque audit will demonstrate that we are caring for the environment and the process will help us to fill in the gaps.

Susie Wilkinson, our growing manager, is currently reviewing and re-writing all our written policies on the Environment, Crop Protection, Water Management, Soil Management and Nutrient Management enabling us to conform to LEAF’s standards. This will help us further in using more Integrated Farm Management (IFM) techniques in our production practices to help protect and enhance the environment whilst also helping to make the farming business more sustainable. From these written policies we can then go on to implement each point such as creating habitat areas on the farm to encourage wildlife.

Implementing all this will be Susie’s next project and we hope to bring you news of progress in a regular blog section.

Environmental Policy >>