/">News From The CountryMan Inn

Over the Moon at The Countryman, West Sussex

We are pleased to announce that we will be selling a a new winter brew called ‘OVER THE MOON’ now being sold until end of February. It is brewed by the Dark Star brewery in Partridge Green.

A brief history on the Dark Star brewery

Dark Star was originally the name of a porter developed by Rob Jones when he was emoloyed by the Pitfield Brewery. The name ‘Dark Star’ comes from the Grateful Dead stong and was highly successful, being voted Champion Beer of Britain in 1987. Rob Jones took the ’secret’ recipe with him when he moved to the brewery based at the Evening Star. The beer itself is now known as Dark Star original.

The Dark Star Brewing Company was launched in 1994 in the cellar of The Evening Star Pub, Brighton. It became apparent that the brewery could not keep up with up with their customers, so in 2001 the brewery relocated to a new purpose-built brewery in near Haywards Heath, and finally, a third move to a 16,000 square foot site in Partridge Green, which makes the Dark Star Brewing Company our closest brewery.

Enjoy great ales at The Countryman pub in West Sussex

Over the Moon is 3.8 ABV so you can enjoy a few without falling over. Remember that The Countryman is in the CAMRA guide and is a popular pub in West Sussex with a wide range of good quality ales and great food.

Farm Shop at The Countryman West Sussex

Due to popular demand, we have started planning to start work on the Countryman Farm Shop. The Countryman Farm Shop will consist of a new area dedicated to showcasing produce from local suppliers. As well as our own homegrown produce there will be fresh vegetables from keen local gardeners, homemade chutneys and preserves, local cheese and cold meat selection, homemade bread and cakes, and fresh milk, cream and eggs from various farms.

Many of the vegetables that you will see are from the same suppliers that we use for our freshly cooked food at The Countryman – the best country pub in West Sussex.

A few interesting facts about Farmers Markets

The first farmers’ market started 13 years ago in 1997 and there are now over 500! This proves the greedy supermarkets haven’t completely won! On the contrary –  these statistics prove that the public want fresh, high quality food and they want to support local farmers and suppliers. Farmers markets are usually held on a weekly or monthly basis – the emphasis being on quality and freshness. When you talk to the stallholder, you will normally find that you are talking to the actual farmer that grew the produce for sale!  Source: Alliance & Leicester Commercial Banking news.

Our Farm Shop will be open every day!

Once our farm shop is open, you will not have to wait a whole month to buy your fresh food, as our shop will be open every day during The Countryman pub opening hours. We will update you on the progress of the our new farm shop regularly.

Burns Night at The Countryman in Shipley, West Sussex

We can’t believe it’s been a year since the last Burns Night! Yes, it’s true – our sell-out event has arrived once again! Tickets are now available for the 2010 Countryman Burns night which is on 25th January. You will enjoy our traditional Scottish menu. Plus our very own Highland Piper will be playing throughout the evening and addressing our special haggis. The evening will be completed with live entertainment by the Falloons.

Just in case you didn’t know this, Burns Night is named after Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796) who was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. Burns is believed to be Scotland’s national poet and he is celebrated across the world. His poems are written in Scots but is understandable in English!

So come along to our fine dining pub in Shipley, West Sussex to enjoy a night of tradition, great food, beers, ales and fine wines. Phone 01403 741383 to buy your ticket.

Brookland White chickens served at The Countryman

We are pleased to announce that we are working with a new supplier called Brookland White Artisan Poulterers who are based in South Godstone.

Brookland White hold old fashioned values of high animal welfare, traditional outdoor rearing and low food miles. They raise and process all their birds (capons, ducks, chickens and turkeys) so you know exactly where the chickens have come from, and that they have had a good life. Brookland White chickens are not the normal ‘Free Range’ chickens that are being mass produced on large units. Instead, the chickens return to past times where traditional methods and home milled feed are used. All the food is GM free including wheat, peas, barley, oats and triticale are home grown on the farm, along with GM free soya, minerals, vitamins and spices to balance the ration. Unlike many other free range chicken producers, Brookland White do not routinely use antibiotics, instead they rely upon helping the birds to develop a healthy immune system.

Birds are naturally shy and if they have food and drink inside will often never venture out of the hut. To overcome this, the feeders and drinkers are outside to ensure that the birds spend as much time in the field as possible. In fact, the chickens have 24 hour access to the field and they are often grazing or sleeping in the moonlight. It almost sounds romantic!

When the birds are ready around about 12 weeks old (shed birds are killed at about 6 weeks) they are killed, plucked, dressed and wrapped on the farm. The birds are hung in the chiller for at least 3 days.

So when you eat chicken at The Countryman, you know that your chicken had the best life a chicken could have.

Call 01403 741383 to reserve your table, or you can click here to book a table through this website.

Catch the last glimpses of autumn with our delicious Autumn crumble cake. Did you go a bit mad and pick too many blackberries this autumn? Are they hogging space in your freezer? If so, our autumn crumble cake is an excellent excuse to use up your frozen blackberries! If you don’t have blackberries, simply use up whatever frozen fruits you may have kicking around in your freezer.

At the Countryman, we LOVE FOOD and HATE WASTE. Have you seen the website called www.lovefoodhatewaste.com? This is an excellent website which is loaded with recipes to use up your left overs plus any odds and ends which may have gone a bit manky in your fridge.

If you simply can’t be bothered to cook, or you fancy treating yourself to a night out,  then why not phone 01403 741383 and book a table so you can sample the chef’s version of our Countryman Autumn Crumble Cake.

Ingredients:

175g unsalted butter
160g golden caster sugar
4 eating apples, (Cox’s or Braeburn) peeled, cored and cut into 8 wedges

OR…
4 pears (conference or Williams) Peeled and cut into wedges
3 large free range eggs, beaten
200g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
150g crème fraîche
150g blackberries
3-4 tbsp clear local honey
Double cream to serve
FOR THE CRUMBLE TOPPING
50g unsalted butter
50g soft brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
75g plain flour
50g blanched hazelnuts toasted and roughly chopped
METHOD

1. Heat the oven to 180C (fan 160C) or gas 4. Butter and line a 20cm springform tin with baking parchment.
2. To make the crumble topping, melt the butter, then mix in the soft brown sugar, cinnamon, flour and chopped hazelnuts.
3. Heat 25g of butter in a large frying pan. Add 1 tbsp caster sugar and the apple/pear wedges. Cook for about 10 minutes until the apples/pears are tender and golden. Cool.
4. Beat together the remaining butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually blend in the eggs. Using a large metal spoon, fold in the flour and baking powder. Add the crème fraîche and mix until smooth.
5. Spoon roughly two-thirds of the cake mixture into the tin, spread level and scatter over one-third of the crumble and the blackberries . Top with the remaining cake mixture and level again. Scatter on another third of the crumble and arrange the apple/pear wedges on top. Finally top with the remaining crumble.
6. Bake for about 90 mins. Loosely cover the top of the cake with a sheet of baking parchment or foil halfway through the cooking time if it is browning too quickly.
7. Cool the cake in the tin for 10 minutes and then transfer to a serving plate. Warm the honey and drizzle over the cake. Serve warm with double cream.

How can you not resist!

If you haven’t booked your Christmas meal yet, what are you waiting for? Tables are filling up fast, however, we do have a few seatings left. We have kept our prices the same as last year so you still have some money left for Christmas Shopping! Two Courses is £20 and Three Courses is only £25.

To help tantalise your tastebuds, here is the Christmas menu …

Starters

Countryman Chicken Liver Paté
Homemade and served with onion chutney & melba toast
Springs Traditional Smoked Salmon
Locally smoked and served with cream cheese, home-baked
rustique bread and dressed baby leaf salad
Spicy Parsnip Soup
Classic Christmas favourite with garlic croutons

Main Course

Roast Sussex Free Range Turkey
Locally reared and served with chestnut and apricot stuffing, with all the trimmings
Plaice Florentine
Locally caught Shoreham fish, poached in white wine and
served with a creamy sauce on a bed of saffron mash with wilted spinach
Pea, Tarragon & Cream Cheese Pithivier
Homemade round puff pastry savoury pie, served with medley of
honey roasted vegetables and buttered mashed potato

Dessert

Christmas Pudding & Brandy Sauce
Homemade Banoffi Pie
Cheese Selection
with pear, apple & water biscuits
Coffee

If you’ve already sorted out your Christmas celebrations, why not think about New Years Eve.

Come down and enjoy the live music from Freedom, who will be playing a range of music from the 60’s 70’s & 80’s. Dine from 9pm to 12.30pm and then dance your socks off and enjoy the celebrations until from 11.00pm – 12.30am. If you prefer to see the New Year in at home, we are pleased to offer you our early-bird sitting from  6:30 – 8.30 pm. This is only £25. (Tables to be cleared by 8.45pm).

The cost for the first sitting is £25 (dining only), and £40 for the second sitting (with entertainment).

Starters

Countryman Paté
Homemade smooth terrine served with onion marmalade and garlic bread

Crab Thermidor
Local crabmeat from Selsey in a horseradish and cheese thermidor sauce. Served on lightly toasted ciabatta

Roasted Pumpkin & Leek Risotto
Topped with toasted almonds & parmesan shavings

Coquille St Jacques
Locally harvested scallop baked in the shell. Finished with white wine sauce

Main Course

Monkfish Provencal
Fresh from Newhaven, braised in a red wine & tomato sauce.
Flavoured with mixed herbs and garlic served with steamed rice

Seared Beef Tournedos
Bakers farm beef fillet seasoned with cracked black pepper.
Drizzled with garlic butter served with sautéed new potatoes,
Portobello mushroom & grilled tomato

Chicken Melt
Roasted Breast of Locally Reared Free Range Chicken wrapped in
Pancetta and served with a Stilton Sauce, buttered New Potatoes and
winter vegetable medley

Mushroom & Red Pepper Stroganoff
Sliced oyster, shitake and portobello mushroom with roasted red
pepper, cooked in a traditional sour cream sauce finished with pine
kernels served on a papadelle pasta with tomato & onion Salad

Dessert

Cranachan
Classic Scottish New Year pudding with toasted oatmeal in a
whisky cream laced with fresh raspberries

Sussex Lemon Posset
Fresh lemon and crisp Chablis whipped into a Sussex dairy double cream
Coco Loco Chocolate Brownie
Served with Downsview Farm Vanilla Ice Cream
Cheese Selection
Tangy Roquefort, creamy Brie, and mature Sussex Cheddar
Served with onion chutney & water biscuits

Coffee

Please note that there will be 10% group service charge for parties of 10 or more …

Farmer trades manure for Countryman Inn restaurant tickets

Way back in July, we told you about about our voluntary scheme and how you could earn some Countryman food vouchers. Click here to read the full story

We are pleased to tell you that a local farmer called Charlie Liverton donated 12 tons of farm manure for our garden composting. And guess what? We swapped him for a romantic meal for two, for him and his girlfriend.  We made sure he showered first though!

Manure – what does it conjure up in your mind? Upon researching the subject of manure, we came across this interesting article which we found on www.stressbuster1.com

We welcome your comments – do you think it is true?

Once upon a time, way back in the 16th and 17th centuries, everything had to be transported by ship, including manure, as commercial fertiliser had not yet been invented. The story goes …

Manure was shipped dry, because in dry form, manure weighed a lot less than when it was wet. However, once the ship was at sea, the fertiliser became damp and it not only became heavier, but the process of fermentation began again – of which a by-product is methane gas. As the manure was stored below decks in bundles, it is obvious what happened!

Methane began would build up below decks and the first time someone came below at night with a lantern – BOOOOM!

Several ships were destroyed in this manner before it was determined just what was happening.

After the discovery, the bundles of manure were stamped with the term ‘Ship High In Transit’ on them. This meant that sailors could stow the manure high enough off the lower decks so that any water that entered into the hold, would not touch the manure and start the production of methane!

Thus evolved the term ‘S.H.I.T ‘ , (Ship High In Transport) which has come down through the centuries and is in use to this very day.

You probably did not know the true history of this word. Neither did we!

This story is courtesy of Stressbuster1.

The cows have come home!

The Countryman Inn is pleased to welcome some brand new neighbours. The moved in last weekend and include a Longhorn Bull and several Longhorn cows, plus lots of other calves.

We’ve found some interesting facts about cows that we thought we would share with you. Courtesy of iloveindia.com.

• The male cow is called a bull and the offspring is known as a calf.
• A cow can climb up the stairs, but cannot climb down. This is because her knees cannot bend properly.
• A cow gives milk for the first time, only after she gives birth to a calf.
• A cow stands up and sits down about 14 times a day.
• A cow produces around 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.
• A cow that weighs 1000 pound can produce an average 10 tons of manure every year.
• A cow usually spends 6-7 hours in day eating cud and around 8 hours on chewing it.
• Almost all the cows chew at least 50 times per minute.
• An average cow has more than 40,000 jaw movements in a day – that’s the first time anyone has ever beaten Alan – how amazing is that!
  
• An average cow produces 30 lbs of urine and 65 lbs pounds of feces daily.
• Cows are honoured in the Hindu religion of India.
• Cows can drink up to 35 gallons of water a day.
• Cows do not bite grass; rather they curl their tongue around it.
• Cows have a single stomach, but four digestive compartments.
• Cows have almost total 360-degree panoramic vision.
• Cows have an acute sense of smell and can smell something up to 6 miles away.
• Cows produce around 90 percent of the milk in the world.
• Dairy cows can produce up to 125 lbs of saliva a day.
• The average body temperature of a cow is 101.5°F.
• The oldest cow till date was Big Bertha, a Dremon, which died just 3 months shy of her 49^th birthday.

Remember that The Countryman sources all it’s meat from local butchers. You can read more about our local food heroes by clicking here.

Keeping local businesses’ buoyant is both environmentally crucial. Through maintaining low carbon foot prints and money circulating locally will contribute towards a healthier economy, and speed up its recovery process.

Thinking more laterally about the ways we can choose our suppliers and how we can have a positive effect in boosting our Community’s financial well-being may at first seem difficult to know how to implement; but we must remember, that it’s always the small changes we make that have a significant impact, immediately on the financial health of sterling being exchanged locally.

And where provenance is en vogue, we can surely capitalise on the social trend of the support of purchasing locally, whilst addressing the global benefits too.

There are many minor changes that local businesses can help when choosing suppliers. For example, Alan Vaughan, proprietor of The Countryman Inn in Shipley could easily make his own chocolate Brownies. However, he prefers to use local Chocolate company Cocoa Loco because they are based within his local area and because Cocoa Loco only import from fair trade origins. Alan also supports Sussex Gold, who are growers & producers of extra virgin rapeseed oil in the same way, and applies the same buying principles with all his suppliers’.

“Once these buying principles are considered there are so many other benefits too”  Alan says, “frankly having a great rapport with my local fellow community members, also means that feasibly, my productivity levels are highly efficient because my suppliers’ are on my door step whenever I need them, and it feels great that we all work together as a thriving community.”

So next time you have an order to place do first speak to your immediate producers because it really is a case of “united we stand”!

Plums are in season

We are giving away yet another delicious Countryman recipe below – Rum Baked Plums – yummy! If you haven’t got the energy to make it yourself, why not book a table in our restaurant and have it for dessert. Phone to check availability first though as our rum baked plums are exceedingly popular!

Did you know that plums were grown in the gardens of medieval monasteries and have been eaten in England for centuries? Sussex is the birthplace of the popular Victoria Plum and there are now more than 300 plum varieties in the UK.

Plums are nutritious

Plums are an excellent source of potassium, fibre and vitamins A and C. You will also benefit from the rich antioxidants and amino acids which help to fight free radicals and keep you fit and healthy. Plums are definitely in the top five for one of your 5-a-day fruits and vegetables.

Always wash your plums before cooking. Plum skins are normally sharper than the flesh and many people prefer to leave the skins on for a fine balance of sharp and sweetness.  If you prefer a mellower, sweeter flavour, you can easily skin your plums (cut a small cross in the skin and then blanch in boiling water for approximately 10 seconds before peeling).

We have just harvested this year’s batch of Damsons and Victoria plums from the garden, and we have had a bumper crop this year, with not too many being attacked by wasps. As well getting busy making the jams and chutneys, plums are very versatile and can be baked, stewed or poached. For this recipe we have baked our plums into a delicious mouthwatering dessert. You won’t be able to resist this …

Rum Baked Plums

8 large ripe plums (any variety), pitted and halved
Melted butter
3  tablespoons honey
Grated orange rind
50ml dark rum
75ml orange juice
1/4  teaspoon  ground cinnamon

Preparation

1. Place plums in a baking dish brushed with the melted butter.
2. Combine honey, orange rind, rum, orange juice, and cinnamon in a saucepan and bring to a simmer, then drizzle orange & rum mixture over plums.
3. Bake in a moderate oven for 15 minutes until sauce is sticky.
4. Serve warm with a big dollop of vanilla ice cream…

Mmmmmmm!!!