Welcome to my first Food Column and Food Notes page. I’m completely passionate about food, especially locally grown and sourced foodstuffs, and I believe that you are what you eat, so I always recommend that you only use the very best quality food that you can afford to buy.

I’m looking forward to sharing with you some of my recipes, food notes and hints and tips over the coming months - I’ve also included a little information about some of the ingredients I’ve used in this month’s column.

This month, I’ve chosen a dish that can be served as a hearty brunch after an early morning walk with the family and children around Burghley Park or Rutland Water. It could also be a light lunch or refined to make a delicious first course:

Recipe:

Mushroom & Lincolnshire Poacher Rarebit on Toasted Rearsby Bread

Ingredients

Serves 4

4oz/100gm plain flour

4oz/100gm unsalted butter

10fl oz/300ml milk

4oz/100gm Lincolnshire Poacher cheese, grated

1tsp Worcester sauce

1tsp English mustard

2 egg yolks

400gms mushrooms

Method

Rarebit: Melt butter in a thick bottomed saucepan, then add flour to the butter and stir well with a wooden spoon until the roux begins to come away from the side of the pan.

Gradually add the milk, mixing thoroughly to obtain a smooth sauce-like consistency. Cook the sauce for 5 to 10 minutes before adding the grated cheese, mustard and Worcester sauce.

Remove pan from heat and stir in egg yolks. Season to taste, cover and leave to cool.

Mushrooms: Heat frying pan, drizzle with olive oil and a knob of butter; heat until it starts to foam. Sweat off a little chopped onion, and a pinch of garlic, then start to fry.

Add a good handful of sliced mushrooms and sauté until golden brown

Season to taste. Finish with a squeeze of lemon juice and chopped tarragon.

Assembly

Cut four slices of bread, nice and chunky, and toast. Place toasted bread on an oven tray, scatter the pieces of bread with the sautéed mushrooms.

Liberally spread the rarebit mixture over the mushrooms and place under a hot grill until golden brown.

Serve with either crispy smoked streaky bacon or a homemade fruit chutney.

Food notes to recipe

This brunch has 3 key ingredients – Lincolnshire Poacher cheese, beautiful locally grown mushrooms, plus our famous Rearsby Pumpkin Seed Bread; or you can, of course, use your own bread, preferably home-baked.

Lincolnshire Poacher Cheese is produced on a beautiful dairy farm on the edge of the rolling Lincolnshire Wolds by F. Read & Sons, where the cows are treated like royalty, even having their own dedicated ‘happy cow brush ’ so they can give themselves a really good scratch! The company is committed to producing the very best cheese possible (with a little help from their 230 Holstein Cows!) using only their own unpasteurised milk and traditional methods. Visit www.lincolnshirepoachercheese.com to find out more.

Mushrooms have been known to be good to eat since the 1st century when the Roman poet, Martial wrote that it was easy to despise gold and silver but exceedingly difficult to refuse a dish of mushrooms. Being low in calories, fat and sodium, mushrooms are a valuable addition to any dish, especially for those who are watching their weight

Sean’s Top Tips

• You could use some of the more unusual types of mushrooms in this recipe such as oyster, cepes, girolles, blewitts or shitake mushrooms. For lottery winners, foie gras or truffles when in season are a must!

• Always weigh out and prepare your ingredients before you begin, so you can just enjoy cooking without having to run back and forth to the fridge and larder

• I find the best way to clean the mushrooms is to use a dry pastry brush to remove any dirt. Try to avoid washing them in water as they soak it up.

• Don’t season the mushrooms with salt until they are golden brown, otherwise it will absorb the moisture out of the mushrooms and they will boil! .

Local suppliers

• Our Rearsby style pumpkin seed loaf, which we serve on the table at both pubs, is produced at Mick Smith’s King’s Road craft bakery at Melton Mowbray from my own recipe. The bread has a slight natural sweetness as it is made with honey, malt extract, toasted pumpkin seeds and wholemeal flour which is ground at Whissendine Mill halfway between the Red Lion Inn and The Olive Branch. Our bread is also available to buy from the pubs.

• Julia at Simpole-Clarke in Stamford says: “ We stock between 80 and 100 cheeses at any one time and the Lincolnshire Poacher is always popular. It’s a full-flavoured, general-purpose, strong and tasty farmhouse Cheddar that would complement any cheeseboard”. Simpole-Clarke Delicatessen, 10. St. Pauls’ Street, Stamford, PE9 2BE. Tel: 01780 480646.