Raiding the kitchen gardens of a real-life Downton Abbey

Leah Hyslop and preserves queen Thane Prince visit Bowood House in Wiltshire to see what autumnal treats they can make from the garden

 Lady Landowne (left) and Thane Prince admire the quinces at Bowood House
Harvest bounty: Lady Landowne (left) and Thane Prince admire the quinces at Bowood House Credit: Photo: Jay Williams

Visiting Bowood house in Wiltshire is a bit like walking onto the set of Downton Abbey. Not only is it a glorious stately home owned by a real-life lord and lady, but there's even a clutch of Labradors who rush out to meet me.

I am here to tour the kitchen gardens with the house’s mistress, Lady Lansdowne, and the food writer Thane Prince – Britain’s jam-making queen, and one of the judges of the BBC’s Big Allotment Challenge – to see what fruits and vegetables we can transform into a late October feast.

There's often not much in the garden in this time of year, but Bowood’s four acres of walled gardens are still bursting with produce. As we wander in the autumn sun, with the family’s dogs at our heels, we pass everything from vibrant orange pumpkins to cabbages and that gloriously old-fashioned fruit, the quince, which fills the garden with its distinctive, sweet scent.

“It’s very much a working garden,” explains Lady Lansdowne, an interior decorator who met the estate’s owner, the 9th Marquis of Lansdowne, in the 1980s, when the house was being remodelled (“I came to drop off paint samples and I never left”).

“Everything is used either, in the house and the café or sold in the shop. It’s a mammoth task picking it all, though.”

Bowood has been in the hands of the Lansdownes since the mid-18th century, but only a fragment of the house remains. Faced with a rapidly crumbling mansion and steep inheritance taxes in the 1950s, the family made the difficult decision to pull down the “Big House” and live in the smaller - though still rather palatial – property behind.

Lady Lansdowne and Thane Prince take a stroll in the kitchen gardens - complete with dogs (Pic:JAY WILLIAMS)

The Capability Brown-designed gardens have changed rather less. The kitchen garden’s glorious russet walls are made from bricks that Lady Lansdowne believes were fired on the grounds themselves in the 1700s, while one of the grape vines dates from Napoleon’s time - it was brought over from France by the fourth Marquis’s wife, and has a sister plant at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. As we wander down an avenue filled with apple trees, many of which are turned into juice at a local press, Lady Lansdowne explains: “All the apples are endless different varieties, because my father-in-law, when he put them in, could never quite decide which one he liked best and just kept planting different apples. They give a supply from August right through to December.”

Maintaining the kitchen garden is far from easy, even with four gardeners: Lady Lansdowne nods in agreement when Thane says that a major lesson she took from working on The Big Allotment Challenge was that gardeners “are in a constant battle with nature”. This year, some of the grapes fell victim to mildew, but they still taste so delicious that we crowd round in an unashamed feeding frenzy. Lady Lansdowne takes an active role in planning the garden with her team: “I’m endlessly getting them to plant new and different varieties because I love cooking and I love the idea of having things you can’t get in the supermarket. A tomato you’ve just picked tastes completely different to one you buy in a shop.”

Once we’ve collected our spoils, we head into Lady Lansdowne’s kitchen, so that she can show Thane and myself how to make a game terrine, while Thane makes two condiments from her new book, Perfect Preserves, to go with it – blackberry ketchup and onion and fig marmalade. As Thane chops blackberries and onions from the garden, Lady Lansdowne shows me her collection of handwritten recipes and menus from the house in the mid 20th century. You can see how much the cooks depended on the kitchen garden’s bounty – the menus include everything from gooseberry fool to redcurrant sauce – though it’s also amazing how heavy the food was, even in the height of summer (someone was clearly a big fan of steak and kidney pie).

Lady Lansdowne’s terrine recipe was inherited from her mother, for whom it was a signature dish: “We always had bits of game to use up, so we joked that it was all she’d ever make.” In days gone by, the house’s cook would have made such a dish from birds sent down from the Lansdowne home in Scotland, but these days Lady Lansdowne sources her meat from a local butcher, Walter Rose’s & Son, which also supplies Tom Kerridge and his award-winning pub, The Hand & Flowers.

Thane shows how to make her fig marmalade (Pic:JAY WILLIAMS)

To make the terrine, Lady Lansdowne marinates a mix of game meat – including grouse, pheasant and rabbit - with juniper berries, brandy, thyme (fresh from the garden, of course) and bright green pistachio nuts, which give it lovely flecks of colour, before layering it with sausagemeat in an old-fashioned earthenware mould. Thane shares a useful tip to check if a terrine is seasoned enough before it goes off in the oven: “Just break off a small meatball-sized lump and fry it up. If it tastes a little overseasoned, then it is probably perfect.”

I have always been a little put off making my own preserves, for fear of how many gadgets I might need, but Thane is insistent that such trappings are unnecessary. “You don’t need a thermometer or jam pan - I just use an ancient Le Creuset casserole pan,” she says firmly, as she simmers the blackberries and onions on the Aga. If you have a glut of fruit and veg, Thane recommends freezing it: she doesn’t even defrost the produce, but puts it straight into a pan. “Freezing is not the opposite of fresh: it holds the fruit at its best point,” she explains. “In the past, preserves were mainly about storing food for the winter – these days, it’s about creating a really delicious, unusual jam or chutney that shows the fruit at its best.”

The finished dishes are delicious, and look entirely simple to make at home, even if you aren’t lucky enough to have a grand kitchen garden .“I always say life is difficult,” Thane says sagely, as she takes off her apron. “But cooking is quite easy.”

Bowood House will be holding a Christmas shopping extravaganza from December 3-5. Thane Prince’s book, Perfect Preserves, is published by Hodder & Stoughton, £25.

LADY LANSDOWNE'S GAME TERRINE RECIPE

Lady Lansdowne's game terrine, based on her mother's recipe (Pic:JAY WILLIAMS)

INGREDIENTS
100g best quality sausage meat (85% meat)
300g game meat* 3 tablespoons Armagnac
250g thinly sliced rindless streaky bacon or pancetta
3 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 tablespoon chopped tarragon
1 tablespoon chopped thyme
1 dessertspoon mixed peppercorns – crushed
50g nibbed pistachio nuts – roughly chopped
5 juniper berries – crushed in pestle & mortar

*Game meat – could be pheasant, pigeon, duck or partridge breasts (use chicken or guinea fowl if unavailable) or saddle and hind quarters of hare or rabbit.

METHOD
Trim meat into long strips, cutting off any sinews and fat. Crush garlic. Mix meats in bowl with garlic, sprigs of thyme, olive oil, crushed juniper berries and lots of crushed black pepper, add the Armagnac. Marinade for 12-24 hours.

Drain off marinade and retain.

Make the forcemeat – mix sausage meat with chopped parsley , tarragon and thyme, plus the chopped pistachio nuts, crushed peppercorns and juniper berries. Season with a generous amount of salt and pepper and mix in the remains of the marinade.

Line a loaf tin or earthenware terrine dish with stretched rashers of bacon. Add a layer of the forcemeat, then a layer of the game meats and repeat until used up, finishing with a forcemeat layer (to give at least 3 layers).

Fold over the remaining bacon and cover completely. Lay the bay leaves on the top. Cover tightly with double foil or terrine lid, well sealed with flour/water paste.

Place in a roasting tin half filled with boiling water. Cook in the oven at 160°C/325°F/Gas 3 for approximately 11⁄2 hours until fat on the top is clear and not pink (can test with a skewer – it should come out very hot).

Allow to cool overnight with a heavy weight on the top to press it down as it cools.

Slice with a sharp knife and serve with crusty bread, green salad and good fruit chutney.

THANE PRINCE'S FIG AND ONION MARMALADE RECIPE

The fig and onion marmalade pairs well with cheese (Pic: KEIKO OKAWA)

Yield approx. 800g | Keeps 3 months

INGREDIENTS
400g red onions
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
500g dried figs
2 red chillies
1 orange
150g light muscovado sugar
1 teaspoon sea salt
250ml cider vinegar

METHOD
Begin by peeling and finely slicing the onions. Place these in a heavy-bottomed, non-reactive pan with the oil. Cover the pan, place it over a low heat, and cook for 25–30 minutes or until the onions have wilted.

Now remove the lid and turn the heat up a little, cooking the onions until they brown and caramelise, stirring frequently.

Meanwhile, place some clean jars and their lids on a baking tray and then into the oven preheated to 100 C/200 F/Gas 2 for 20 minutes.

Start to prepare the other ingredients. Remove the stems from the dried figs, and slice the flesh finely.

Remove and discard the chilli stems, and finely chop the chillies. Wash the orange, and dry it.

Finely grate the zest, and then halve the orange and squeeze and retain the juice.

Once the onions are a good mid-brown in colour, add the figs, chillies, orange juice and zest, and all the remaining ingredients.

Still over a low heat, and covered with the lid, cook the chutney, stirring often with your wooden spoon, until the figs swell and the sugar has completely dissolved.

Remove the lid, turn the heat up to medium, and simmer for a further 20 or so minutes, cooking the chutney until it is thick. Stir the pan often, especially towards the end of cooking, as it is then that the chutney will start to stick to the bottom and may burn.

To test that the chutney is ready, pull a wooden spoon through the centre of the pan. If both sides stay apart you’re good to go. If they run together cook a little longer.

Take the pan from the heat and let it sit for 5 minutes.

Take the baking tray of jars from the oven at the same time.

Pot the chutney into the hot jars, pressing it down well. I use a jam funnel to help with this, but a ladle is fine. Be sure to leave a little head space by filling to the shoulder of the jar and not up the neck.

Screw the lids on loosely and leave to cool.

Once the chutney is cold, check the lids are tight, then label the jars.

Store in a cool, dark place.

THANE PRINCE'S BLACKBERRY KETCHUP RECIPE

Blackberry ketchip (Pic: KEIKO OKAWA)

Yield approx. 1kg | Keeps 6 months

INGREDIENTS
1kg blackberries
350g red onions
30g garlic
1–2 fresh red chillies
1/2 teaspoon celery seeds
1 teaspoon juniper berries
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
500ml cider vinegar
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
400g white granulated sugar

METHOD
Wash the berries in a colander and shake off as much water as possible. Tip them into a large heavy-bottomed, non-reactive preserving pan.

Peel and finely chop the onions and the garlic.

Chop the chilli. I leave the pith and seeds in, but for a milder flavour take these out.

Grind the seeds, berries and peppercorns finely, using a spice mill or a mortar and pestle.

Now put everything but the sugar into the pan with the blackberries. Place this over a moderate heat, and bring the mixture up to a simmer. It should bubble gently.

Cover with the lid and cook gently for 30–40 minutes or until everything is very soft. Remember to stir from time to time.

Remove from the heat and allow to sit for 5 minutes, as blending the hot mixture can be explosive.

Once the ketchup has cooled a little, spoon it into the blender and whizz until smooth. It may be necessary to do this in batches.

You now need to sieve the ketchup to remove any unwanted lumps, skins etc. Place a sieve over a glass bowl and, using a wooden spoon, rub the mixture through the sieve until you have a dry, fibrous residue left in the sieve. Discard this.

Place some clean bottles and/or jars and their lids on a baking tray and then into the oven preheated to 100 C/200 F/ Gas 2 for 20 minutes.

Return the ketchup to the washed saucepan and add the sugar, stirring it in well.

Put the pan over a low heat and stir until the sugar has completely dissolved.

Simmer the ketchup over a medium heat until thick, about 15 minutes, stirring often, as it has a tendency to stick to the pan at this stage.

Once it is as thick as you wish, remembering that it will thicken on cooling, remove the ketchup from the heat and allow it to stand for 5 minutes.

Take the baking tray of bottles/jars from the oven at the same time.

Stir the ketchup once more, then pot into the hot jars or bottles, using a funnel, and leaving a headspace of about 2cm at the top of each bottle or 1cm at the top of each jar.

Screw the lids on loosely and allow to cool.

When cold, label the bottles or jars, and check the lids are tight. Store in a cool, dark place or the fridge.