Fermented Verbena Tea | Fig and Autumn Raspberry Crumble #6

Recipes that take more than minutes

In this week's newsletter I wanted to share with you my refined method for making fermented tea, this time as a means to capture the sweet, perfumed aroma of lemon verbena (Aloysia citrodora) before autumn claims it for another year. Whilst the title of this newsletter describes the method as a tea, in the following recipe I’ll show you how I also use it to infuse desserts and sauces, namely a custard to pair with a delicious and unashamedly humble fig and autumn raspberry almond crumble. Along with a brief update from the farm, and some kitchen musings I’ve had this week (which are similar to shower thoughts, only less wet). 

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The topics we’ll cover:

• Cook’s Almanac, lemon verbena

• Teas that gets better with age

• Half a million minutes

• Fermented tea recipe

• Fig and autumn raspberry crumble

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There has been a distinct shift this week at the farm. The first of the leaves are starting to fall, the hedgerows are flush with blackberries, the rowan berries have turned highlighter red, and a refreshing chill rides the wind, cracking the humid Welsh summer wide open for autumn to come tumbling through.

Is it just me, or has this year been quicker than most?

Truth be told, I’ve been playing catch up most of the year, having dedicated my winter and spring to finishing off my new book, but even so, it can’t just be me. Or is it an age thing? Does time continue to speed up the older we get? Either way, this has prompted me to act quickly before the summer bounties are over, in equal measure, making the most of fresh harvests and capturing some of my much loved favourites to preserve for the winter months ahead.

Herbs, like sage, parsley, and basil are simple enough to dry or turn into a herb salt (both of which are far superior to the dried herbs available in supermarkets). There are then the herbs that we let run to seed, like dill and coriander, which can then be dried and ground, or crushed green into a compound butter and frozen for year round tastiness. Of course there are the hard herbs too, like rosemary and thyme, but these are available fresh all year round, seemingly as relieved by the cooler months of the year as I am. But then we have the interesting herbs, like mint, willowherb, and lemon verbena, each of which present an opportunity to do something a little different.

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Cook’s Almanac: Lemon Verbena
May to November

Lemon Verbena

As a 90s kid (born in 88), lemon sherbet brings back fond memories of sour sweet drops from the corner shop and the chalky powdered filling of those cardboardy flying saucers. And nothing quite hijacks my mind for a joy ride through these memories like the scent of lemon verbena. Like a dream you know you had, but can’t pin down long enough to recall, the smell of verbena doesn’t bring back a specific memory for me, but rather a sense of place in space and time, wrapped in the muffled fog of feelings and fondness that softens the edges between what actually happened and how I remember it. The comfort of having my grandma and mum nearby, the annoyance of my little brother, the excitement of going to the cinema, the only place I regularly ate sweets, and with strange specificity, the odd disco pattern and colours of the carpet in the cinema foyer.

Standing in the garden, rubbing the leaves of verbena, or making a cup of tea from it, it’s always that carpet and the colour of those flying saucer sweets that float up from the depths.

Verbena wasn’t that common on the menus at restaurants I cheffed at, so until I started gardening I hadn’t come across it all that much. Much like most herbs, the fragrance of the plant is largely thanks to aromatic compounds in its oils. When processing it, I always take care not to heat it before its final infusion, to better preserve the aroma.

Verbena can be paired with both savoury and sweet dishes, providing a lemony aroma without the acidity for fish, poultry, and vegetables, as well as salad dressings. In desserts it can be infused in fruit salads, yoghurt, jellies, and sauces, as I’ll show you later with my verbena spin on a classic English custard.

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A tea that gets better with age

This tea recipe isn’t just some dried leaves, it is (of course) fermented. This type of fermentation was taught to me by Aimee Cornwell, from Peggyfarmandforage on Instagram, who had experienced varying degrees of success with the technique. When she visited, she demonstrated it with Willow herb, and since then I’ve been developing and refining a method for it in small home kitchens for multiple plant varieties. And yes, that also involved closely studying videos on aged and fermented white tea from China.

The initial fermentation of this recipe only takes two days before a distinct shift in the smell of the leaves tells you it’s ready to dry, but once dried, this tea gets better and better with age. You can store them loose in an airtight jar, grind them into a coarse chaff for smaller containers, or press them into tea cakes, disc shaped pucks, and wrap them in parchment to store in a cool, dry place. Stored properly, these teas will last years, decades, or even longer. And so they say, whoever ‘they’ are, that the teas improve and develop over this time.

This got me thinking…

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Half a Million Minutes.

Over the last year I’ve been writing a lot of recipes for other formats and companies, and I’ve noticed that there are three criteria that fermented foods don’t translate to. Shelf life, portions / servings, and the time taken to make them. The latter has become such a staple in written form, both online and in books, that you’d be pushed to find a recipe without the number of minutes it takes to make it written somewhere at the top. Food editors insist this format be stuck to, the assumption being that readers won’t want to follow the recipe without some quick, snappy guidance on how long it’ll take. And the push is for quicker and quicker recipes. What started out as a means to estimate timings when preparing a meal has seemingly become a race to develop the shortest, fastest, easiest recipes. If I were to include this for even the quick, initial stage of this tea recipe, it would be listed as 2,880 minutes. The fully aged version would be over half a million minutes and could make 1,000 portions or more. A technique like this quickly breaks this way of looking at recipes.

The move towards quick and easy recipes follows our busy lifestyle, with a trend for time saving meals that fit with our work-life balance. The benefit being that it encourages even those with little time or skill to cook healthier meals from scratch. Quick recipes tend to use fewer ingredients and require less technique to make, lending themselves to adaptability in the kitchen, with a priority on basic skills which can streamline meal planning and shopping. And of course, making any meal from scratch reduces the amount of processed food we consume, which is better for us and the environment.

But there isn’t a single one of these benefits that doesn’t come naturally with learning good cookery the old fashioned way. I’m keenly aware of the eroding and loss of traditional culinary skills through over-simplified recipes and diminishing techniques. The cultural dilution of cuisines that involve slower, more complex cookery that quick meals may overlook or misshape, losing their significance. Hindered further by social media food trends for a global audience. Compromised flavour and a lack of variety leads to the potential for nutritional gaps in diets that are often aimed at those trying to make good health choices.

Much in the same way John Green pointed out in his incredible book The Anthropocene Reviewed, the five star review system on websites has ruined the art of in depth, complex, and thought provoking critical review, I fear the encouragement of recipes that are quick and easy leads to a shallow, unfulfilling experience with food. And I get it, these recipes are easy to produce and accessible to the largest number of people, making good sales, but the market seems to lack publications that inspire readers to take their skills to a new level and further their understanding of nutrition, tradition, and quality.

Now, I don’t blame people who write these quick and easy recipes, nor do I blame those who rely on them. As with many trends, the challenge lies in striking a balance between convenience and maintaining the integrity of cookery, as both an art form and a vital life skill. How do we tip the scales back in the favour of passion-driven recipes over trend-driven? 

Something I love about making fermented foods is that they cannot be bought any other way. Store bought fermented foods are often pasteurised or so soured that they’re a far cry from the versions that can be made at home and eaten at peak flavour. When it comes to an investment of time, a few minutes actively preparing a ferment, followed by weeks or months of hands off ageing is a pretty powerful way of improving your future for very little cost.

But why do we feel the need to label recipes by the number of minutes they take? Why not rate them by enjoyment? Fulfilment? Or a tasty rating?

Of course, simple and easy doesn’t have to mean bad. A clever cook knows which corners can be cut without sacrificing quality or flavour. Some of the best meals come from a time when humble ingredients were all that people had, and these recipes have stood the test of time because there is simply no way to improve them. Equally, a needlessly complex recipe does little but stray further from the true beauty of what nature gave in the original ingredients. I can’t help recalling a phrase that was told to me time and again growing up, “You are what you eat.” Do I want to measure my life in terms of quick and easy? Something that fills a gap? Or is food more important than that?

I used to come home from cheffing exhausted. After a 20 hour shift I’d be dead on my feet, but also too wired to rest. Back then, I couldn’t possibly imagine taking up a hobby or setting aside the time to cook a meal, no matter how simple. But one day, I saw a poster for evening pottery classes in my local town, and best of all, they lined up nicely with the one day a week the restaurant I worked at was closed. As soon as I started, I fell in love with it. The spin of the wheel, the shaping of stoneware clay, and the mystery of glazing. It was equally meditative and great fun. But after a few weeks, the opening times changed at the restaurant and before I knew it I was travelling to my classes after many hours in a hot, busy kitchen. But I noticed I wasn’t tired. Because I was looking forward to sitting at the wheel and throwing clay into pots and bowls, a second wind carried me through the close of my shift, up the hill on the 20 minute walk to the studio, and for hours of physical labour and mental focus. I wasn’t tired. And, from my unqualified, layman perspective, it purely came down to enjoyment.

Time flies by when doing something you love. And crucially, you make time for what you love. To paraphrase Rory Sutherland’s talk on speeding and train journeys, I’d rather spend two hours enjoying a lovely train ride than one hour riding a bus.

It's the joy of cooking that compels me to make the best food I can, even though I, like many, work every hour I’m awake, 7 days a week. The joy of sharing something delicious with loved ones, or discovering a new pairing or technique. It helps having an idea of timings if you’re making a multi course meal or concentrating on a particularly complex method, but for the most part I don’t need to know a salad recipe is ready in just 10 minutes. I’d rather know how enjoyable the process is and how delicious the flavours are. After all, every second we spend preparing a meal to share is time spent investing in a relationship and our health. The same is true if I’m cooking for just myself. They are an act of service. A gesture of love.

This focus on quick food seems to me, in response to less and less time spent doing homely things. A shift that took place when the average home went from being a producing unit to a consuming one.

Fermentation forces us to slow down. Take time. Make something from scratch, and enjoy a nurturing process. And we are rewarded for it. Those of you who know me on Instagram will be familiar with my regular pushback against short form, attention farming content and my efforts to provide something of substance over spectacle. The same is true for the recipes I share. Are they needlessly complicated? No, I hope not anyway. But their simplicity is not the goal. The goal is good food. The kind of food you want to eat. From sourcing the best of humble ingredients to unlocking their inherent characteristics in the kitchen. And if they happen to be simple or quick once in a while, then that’s because little more is required to reach this goal, especially when cooking with the seasons.

Through the Cook’s Almanac (the updated version of the Chef’s Almanac that I was writing with each newsletter) I hope to build on your knowledge of the world of food and nature, so you can source the very best ingredients when they’re most abundant and cheapest, when very little is required to make them truly delicious. It’s why I love growing food too. Living with the seasons in a supplementary way is handing control back to nature, and nature is the true master of making ‘simple’ delicious.

It’s one of the things I love about writing this newsletter. Together, we can take the time to explore and enjoy, there’s no time limit. I’m told by many that despite how slowly I read the audio recording of each newsletter, many choose to listen instead of read whilst they curl up on the sofa, cook their dinner, spend time in the garden, or commute home from work. But why? Because they find it more enjoyable. Even the kind of comments you leave are longer, more considered, and insightful. Our exchange is one of time, where we are both happy to give a little more.

In summary, to inspire is far harder than the promise of something easy, but ultimately more rewarding.

Anyway, I hope I haven’t rambled on for too long. What started out as the urge to share a spontaneous thought about how this recipe for fermented tea breaks the accepted format for recipes these days has turned into a bit of a tangent. Albeit, an enjoyable tangent I hope. It’s funny the thoughts you think whilst you wait for a tea to brew.

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Fermented Lemon Verbena Tea Recipe
Citrus, sherbet, gentle herbal notes

Whilst this recipe might take 2,880 minutes to ferment (2 days), it’s easy to make enough to last you for years. Verbena doesn’t tolerate low temperatures very well, so make sure to catch it before any signs of frost and strip the leaves from the branches you plan to cut back for winter. This process undergoes oxidation as the chemicals in the plant react with oxygen in the air, providing gentle depth to the tea.

1. Harvest the verbena and give it a thrashing outside to remove insects. You can wash it too, but you’ll need to dry it off before making the tea and the longer you wait, the more moisture the plant loses, potentially drying too much for microbes to ferment it.

2. Holding the stem of verbena at the tip, run your hand down the length to quickly strip the leaves from it.

3. Pile the leaves in a large mixing bowl, then, taking handfuls, roll into tightly packed balls so that the leaves are darkened and bruised. A word of warning, this will stain your hands a bit yellow for a day or two, but you’ll smell great.

4. Place each of the balls of verbena in a large bowl and place another inside with a weight in it. I used a 1.5kg bag of flour. The aim here is to provide a weight that’s enough to keep the leaves compact enough to stay moist, but not so much that air can’t flow between them.

5. Leave the double bowl contraption somewhere warm (19-25°C / 66-77°F), opening it up once or twice each day to move the leaves around before repacking them again. This helps prevent mould from growing on the outside.

   

6. By day 3 the smell of the leaves should shift from a grassy lemony smell to a full on perfumed citrus smell. It has a sweetness to it that’s a clear sign fermentation has unlocked the flavours we’re after. At this point you have a choice. You can lay the leaves out on a rack and let them dry on a sunny windowsill beside an open window. Or you can grind them up and lay them over a clean piece of fabric beside an open window. The latter will allow them to continue fermenting as they dry slower, but will require regular mixing to ensure they dry evenly and no part turns mouldy.

7. If you opt to use a dehydrator, don’t use the heating element at all. Keeping the tea cool will help preserve the aroma up until actually making tea. It will only take 8 hours with just a fan.

8. Once dried, store them in an airtight container on a cupboard shelf out of direct sunlight. They’re now ready to use for teas and other culinary adventures but will slowly mature over the next 6-12 months and develop deeper, richer notes.

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Notes on making this tea

For this tea, less is more

Getting just the right infusion comes down to personal preference, but for me, I love the gentle bitterness of herbal notes when just a small amount of verbena is infused in piping hot water. Too much tea, and it can quickly taste like a bar of soap. You can also use honey or sugar to sweeten, and additional aromatics like cardamom for a extra layers of warming, earthy fragrance. It also suits chilling, which nicely brings out more natural sweetness. To do this, infuse the verbena tea whilst hot, then blend with ice or chill and freeze the whole lot.

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Fig and Autumn Raspberry Crumble

Back in restaurants I had a reputation for fruit crumble. I’d joke that crumble is a pudding for the rainy season, which of course is all year round here in the UK. This humble, delicious, broken pie is a staple in every home and suits fruits from every season.

Serves 5-6 (or 2 Sams)
1 hour

Base:

• 410g fruit (I used 160g figs, 100g autumn raspberries, and 250g plums)

• 70g raw cane sugar

Topping:

• 150g plain flour (all purpose)

• 100g ground almond

• 125g butter

• 100g sugar

• 40g rye flakes (rolled oats)

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F (160°C / 320°F for a fan oven).

2. Clean and prepare the fruit, place them in a ceramic baking dish (roughly 25-15cm), then top with 70g of sugar and leave to macerate whilst you prepare the topping.

3. Rub the flour, almond and butter into a crumb, then add the sugar and rye (or oats if you don’t have rye). Mix lightly, then top the fruit and bake for 50 minutes.

   

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Verbena Custard

I’ll be the first to admit that yoghurt it not a normal ingredient for custard, but just a small amount really compliments the creamy verbena flavour by providing a tang that balances the sweetness. If you’d rather make it without, add 20g extra single cream instead. This recipe makes enough custard for 3 portions, so double it if you plan to eat the whole crumble in one go. It also freezes well, so make as much as you like, portion, and freeze.

Serves 3

• 170g single cream

• 20g tangy yoghurt

• 2 egg yolks

• 30g sugar

• 1tsp vanilla paste

• 1g fermented verbena

1. Add the cream, yoghurt, vanilla, and verbena to a saucepan and very gently heat it until just below a simmer.

2. Pass the cream through a sieve and press the verbena lightly to remove as much cream as possible.

3. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together, then slowly pour the cream in whilst whisking quickly.

   

4. Return the whole lot to a gentle heat (5 out of 9 on my stove) and stir continuously for 4-5 minutes until it thickens.

5. Serve with the crumble right away.

   

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This week I’ll be arranging when to hold my first livestream event here on Substack for paid members, where we get to chat about all things food. If you need a hand with any particular techniques, from growing, to preserving, cook, to eating, be sure to keep an eye out in the group chat.

As always, thank you so much for joining me in my weekly explorations. Let me know if you enjoyed these recipes and my random musings. I’d love to hear what you think! Subscribe for more weekly newsletters, and as always, if you have any questions, ask them in the comments and I’ll be sure to answer them.