The Farm Diaries

#9 Caponata with Burrata

This week is a love letter to Caponata. The Sicilian dish that celebrates the best of summer produce. Dark and savoury aubergine in a braise of courgette, onion, tomato and celery with lots of vinegar and sweetness to hold it together. Finished with handfuls of basil and spooned onto a pool of creamy burrata. One of the best lunches I’ve had in a long while. It’s great with fish, lamb, or even tossed through pasta. An absolute joy to make, it’s such a lovely cooking process, and so rewarding to eat. This one I think you’re going to love.

First a little life update! I wanted to apologise for my sporadic posting on here. Farm renovations, intense weather, too many animals and the busiest time of year has had me frayed a little thin. Living in a building sight and total chaos is never great when you have a list to get on with as long as your arm. Anyway, luckily things are coming together and I hope to be much more consistent on here, with recipes and farm updates every two weeks.

I promised a while back to give you a glimpse of this project I’m working on. So today, a little glimmer… with more to follow soon.

I’ve lived with my parents for most of my life. Left for university and some cheffing, but have essentially been farming with them for the last 10 years. Growing, farming and working with nature together has been a fantastic opportunity and a total joy, but obviously comes with some downsides. Sadly the nature of farming is that you need land, which is incredibly expensive here in England, and completely out of my reach, as it is for most young people. Home was a great place to get started, as it is for many young farmers. But 32 felt like a time for change and about a year and a half ago I found a beautiful and dilapidated little farm just down the road. I’ve been quietly chipping along with the building for the past year, feeling a little shy of sharing that aspect of my life when so many are struggling. But now feels like a good time to show a little glimpse into what has been the most exciting, but stressful year of my life.

It's an old dairy farm that sits high on a hill, exposed to the harshest of elements, surrounded by wild and scraggly land. The trees are old, the hedges are wild and the views are epic. I love old houses, the crumblier the better! And this place is properly crumbly. An old stone farmhouse, haphazardly fixed by farmers who haven’t had a penny to spare for the last few hundred years. The walls were running with water and battened out with plasterboard, the stone concreted over, the drinking water straight out of the ground and red with iron, and if you flushed the loo no one knew where it went. The family who lived there before are the most wonderful people, who held onto much of the land and make the kindest of neighbours.

The project has been a case of stripping back and finding the old features underneath, of which there are many. Beautiful fireplaces, old elm floorboards and stunning timber framed ceilings. But as is the case with lots of old buildings, when you start stripping back, one job turns to many as you uncover rotting lintels, damp walls and leaking chimneys. Soon the bills start piling up and it’s been so unbelievably expensive, that I’ve been struggling to stay afloat.

Anyway, I’m up here with Ellie, my partner, the female goats and their kids and the ewes and this year's lambs. The billies, hoggets, veg patch and last year’s lambs down the road at mum and dad’s. Life’s a bit of a juggle and my hair is rapidly turning grey, but the potential is epic.

We’re nearly finished with the bones of the place and I’ll go into more detail soon. There’s some exciting design decisions coming soon and I’d love some advice. But for now, we’re hay making and the sun is shining. I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Caponata with Burrata.

I love the way Italians do veg. Caponata is just so good. Summers best produce, all in one dish. It’s sweet, sour, savoury and nutty… each element is distinctive as you eat it. You can individually taste the richness of the aubergine, the crisp celery and the juicy tomatoes, but they also exist in total harmony. It’s a wonderful play of flavours. Caponata is great with fish, squid and scallops, it cuts right through the fattiness of lamb and would be fantastic with cold sliced beef. I love it tossed through pasta and eaten at room temp on a scorching day, or eaten on its own with focaccia and prosciutto, but it’s particularly good with burrata (or any dairy for that matter, whipped ricotta/mozzarella/stracciatella).