The British Larder Inspirational recipe diary

Autumn has finally settled in and our resident cherry tree has turned the most delicious shades of yellow, orange and copper. I watched autumn taking hold of this tree and in a matter of two days it turned colour over night and the leaves have dropped in a wink. The oak tree at the back is still hanging onto its leaves but slowly it’s producing a lot of raking for Mr.P, our own jack of all trades. He’s really meant to be cooking but is to be found to be doing almost everything, you might even find him with the loo brush in one hand, the feather duster in the other, and on the odd occasion he’s got hold of the rake to gather up leaves!

We have been fortunate enough this season to have been inundated with the most glorious varieties of apples from our lovely customers. It’s great,

Winter is settling in and the game season is well underway. Our deer friend and local game expert David Grimwood came bearing gifts, amongst the wonderful array of game was these tufted ducks. The lovely thing about David and his gamey gifts is that every time we learn something new.

Tufted duck, Aythya fuligula, is a diving duck. Due to grazing on marshes and closer to the sea shore its meat has a dark red colour and has a stronger gamier taste than the rest of the wild duck species.

Davids recommendation was to boil the duck and then blend it into a pate. My thoughts turned to the chicken liver parfait recipe that we current make at the restaurant. So the inspiration for this recipe came from that. After a good look and prod and feel I realised there is not much to these tufted ducks, however the breast

With Autumn finally kicking in and the last breath of the Indian summer making way for the cooler days and nights ahead, we are frantically making chutney, pickles and preserves.

Another year has come and gone and we are near Halloween and Christmas once again. The Aldeburgh Food and Drink Festival took place at the end of September and as per last year, the British Larder contributed in many ways to the fringe events. One of my possibly maddest ideas was the Foodie Booty that we hosted in our car park on the 1st of October.

It’s all innocent and a bit of fun. Simple concept: I invited locals to come and sell their wares from the back of their car, van, horse and cart, tractor… It’s an awareness campaign and reiterated our values of buying local, involving the locals and just being us… slightly different.

We achieved all of

We had great fun last season with the Wild Meat in a day Food Safari events. It’s popular and everyone seemed to enjoy it thoroughly. Ray Kent and Robert Gooch from the Wild Meat Company are the experts in this field as they show the “students” step by step how to de-bone stuff and truss items from rabbits, partridges to cutting up haunches of venison.

These events give us the opportunity to prepare and create mouth watering dishes. The recipe opportunities are endless. Now that the game season has begun with autumn in full swing it’s time to bring back our show stopping game dishes.

This venison carpaccio is a twist on a classic beef carpaccio with the addition of a crispy venison shoulder lollipop and a delicious shallot and hazelnut vinaigrette.

I like cooking with game, the meat is lean hence being healthier, and for me personally it’s all