Recipe: Pickled Samphire
I am in my second week at the Waiting Room after I was invited to take on a weekend residency as part of their chef competition which I entered back in the Spring as The Game Keeper’s Daughter.
I will be cooking locally foraged and seasonal produce, serving brunches and lunches each and every Saturday & Sunday 10am - 3pm. I have run quite a few pop ups and a catering business for a while now, but this is my first opportunity to run a regular restaurant/kitchen. You can learn about me, the other resident chefs, review our sample menus or book a table on the Waiting Room’s Food & Drink page.
Each month I have been invited to publish a recipe on the Waiting Room blog – both buying into their open knowledge sharing economy and to give you a flavour of what I am about and the food I cook.
This month I am celebrating the beauty of Samphire.
Samphire is in abundance now, so make the most of it and go foraging! It can be extremely expensive in the supermarkets, so picking your own can be quite satisfying!
The trick is to pick it early while still fresh and capture it in a pickle which will keep for months in a kilner jar (and looks great too!) This pickle works well with fish, or finely chopped can be used in cream sauces and mayonnaise.
Ingredients
Makes 1 large kilner jar or 3 jam jars
- 300g Marsh Samphire
- 500ml white wine vinegar or distilled malt
- 50g granulated sugar
- 1½ tsp alexanders seeds
- 1 tsp mustard seeds
- ½ tsp wild fennel seeds
- ½ tsp celery seed
- I garlic clove finely chopped
Feel free to adapt this pickle to any seasonal veg, for a sweeter pickle use a 50:50 ratio of sugar to vinegar.
Method
- Blanch the samphire for 3 minutes in a medium heat, heat the sugar and vinegar (stirring every so often to prevent the sugar from caramelising) till the sugar has dissolved.
- Add your aromatics of choice (spices) and bring to a simmer.
- Turn off, and pour into a jug.
- Allow the pickling liquid to cool completely, ideally in the fridge.
- Put half your washed samphire into the jars and top up with the pickling liquid, then add the rest till almost full.
Image: Some rights reserved - Theresa