Peter’s Leagram Goat’s Cheese Salad

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It’s often the case that busy families haven’t got enough time and/or money to stop and think about their food shopping and how they can impact local businesses. Our busy, time-starved, budget approach informs our shopping habits. Gone are the days of the grocer, the baker and the butcher thriving in their local community. As busy families we tend to do all our shopping in one place, to streamline the process. For the last ten years, we have done our weekly food shop with Ocado.

Small changes

There was a time where we bought almost everything from Ocado, largely because of convenience and the ability to do our shopping from my phone late at night. I love that the food comes to our door, that I can add to my list over the week and I can manage our budget easily. But since March 2020 and the Covid pandemic, we have started to look differently at our local economy and how we can support it.

We still use Ocado and that isn’t likely to change anytime soon. But now we use our local butcher every week for all our meat and eggs and we have used a local greengrocer more in the last 12 months than ever before. It is more expensive to buy our meat this way so we changed our habits and eat meat once, maybe twice a week now. It has become a treat. Having this personal relationship with our local butcher has changed the relationship we have with the food we eat.

Supporting businesses, and families

Mark and his Dad run the business and his Grandad before them in fact the business was established in 1782. It is a family business built on skill, knowledge and good customer service. It means we can specify how thick we want our steaks or ask them to cut, slice and chop things in preparation to save us time. Most importantly we are eating better quality and supporting local business at the same time.

Supporting local food businesses and artisan producers has never been more important. In 2020 Jamie Oliver raised awareness of the potential threat British cheesemakers face. They had previously relied on the catering industry which supported a huge part of cheese production. When restaurants, cafes, pubs and other catering businesses closed due to the pandemic cheesemakers faced devastation. The Save British Cheese Makers campaign helped cheesemakers to move stock and save their livelihoods so that they could continue the important work of keeping British cheesemaking alive.

That campaign made me think of my good friend and former boss Peter Booth. Peter has been running successful food businesses for the last 20 years. I worked for him, back in the day, mostly helping run events at Jodrell Bank and The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. His food is joyful, simple, honest and influenced by the seasons and local suppliers. This made working for Peter easy because the food was something to be excited about and proud of.

A salad for spring days

Peter has always prided himself on good ingredients and real connections with his suppliers. We invited Peter to contribute to Family Feed and we weren’t disappointed when he shared with us his recipe Warm Salad of Roasted Sweet Potato, Caramalised Red Onion and Leagram goat’s cheese. I asked Peter why he shared this recipe with us.

It’s a simple yet thoughtful combination of sweet potatoes and sticky onions offset with a young salty goats curd and crunchy pumpkins seeds. In my opinion it has all the perfect ingredients for a classic early spring warm salad, a true taste of Umami “essence of deliciousness” and it is just that!

I made a side portion for my sister who doesn’t eat dairy. But otherwise, we all demolished this salad. It has everything you want and more, depending on what you serve it with. I made Peter’s Spanish marinated olives, some hummus, pittas and crisps. But I knew as soon as I read the recipe that this was Peters handy work. I knew that because he put the focus on the cheese, specifically Leagram soft organic goat’s cheese. Peter is a charismatic chef (most of them are) but his scouse heritage and his early life experience spent travelling and cooking around the world bring an authentic and honest flare to his food. He is passionate about food ethics and his supply chain.

Customer-supplier relationship

As with all good cooking, the sourcing of our ingredients, in my opinion, is of paramount importance whether shopping for yourself or a young family. We must try our best to support the local market and economy. By this, I mean getting out into your local high street or city centre. It is here, no doubt in my mind, you will meet third-generation business owner’s with a wealth of experience and knowledge all ready to share. For those carnivores amongst us, we follow the same principles, support your local butcher, delve into their history, build that customer-supplier relationship and understand the importance of seasonality, animal welfare and husbandry.

Another area of food production I often research and truly admired is cheese making. A rich heritage right on our doorstep! This led me to Leagram organic dairy, an agricultural business, like many of the early millennium years, sprung up out of the need or will to diversify. Established by the late Bob Kitching and now run by his wife Christine and daughter Faye who supported us at The Modern Caterer for many years. There is no better time to support local businesses and artisan producers than now. 2020 and 2021 have been a difficult time for many but we must continue to support each other and plan for brighter days ahead.

Meet the makers

I reached out to Faye at Leagram to tell her we were cooking Peter’s goat’s cheese recipe for Family Feed and she very generously sent us the cheese to taste and cook with. I asked her how the family got into cheesemaking.

My father who was a butcher met my mother who was a vegetarian and he decided to do a quick career change to secure his future love! He started working at Dairy Crest and worked his way up and eventually became one of the management team before leaving to follow a new chapter. He worked for various dairies throughout the North West until he realised his dream was to set up his own dairy and show how cheese was made. With the help of a local landowner at Leagram hall, Leagram Organic Dairy was created in 2000 and his dream became a reality. In 2003 I left my job to come and work with my father and after he passed away in 2013 myself and my mother have been continuing to keep his dream alive.

Masters of Bobs dream

Faye and Christine, like many cheesemakers, are masters of their craft. They work hard with their suppliers to bring wonderful cheeses to the market. Hearing Faye talk about her father’s dream and her and her mum’s determination to keep that dream alive is the kind of story I want to back. I want to support them, especially now knowing that it is more challenging than ever. It is all too easy to look to the supermarkets for goats cheese when a recipe calls for it. Peter is right, there is so much heritage in the craft of cheesemaking and that heritage translates into the product.

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Leagram Nannykins Soft Goat’s Cheese is like no goat’s cheese I have ever tasted before. It is beautifully delicate, sharp and light. Peter gets the combinations, flavours and textures of the dish just perfect to celebrate this cheese. I felt like I was eating something really special and yet it is such a hands-off recipe. Something you can easily bring together within the backdrop of busy family life.

I asked Faye how they eat their Leagram goat’s cheese and how you can buy it without access to your local farmers and artisan markets.

We use it instead of feta, you can cube it the very same way but it is not as heavy on the palate or as chalky in texture. It can be used for sandwiches, a topping on a jacket potato or crumbled over a salad like in this recipe. Our products are available to buy from our website and you can see a list of stockists here.

For those of you reading this story from our home county, Cheshire, you can order and buy Legram cheese at Riverside Organic, Northwich.

Making an impact

Making, eating and enjoying this dish reminded me of the impact that we can have on a local scale. When we make small changes in our sourcing of food or turn to local suppliers for occasional treats we are supporting a dream and a craft. I think that is worth sharing and promoting.

Thank you to Peter for sharing such a wonderful salad and introducing us to Leagram goat’s cheese. The recipe celebrates the ingredients and the people behind the food. Thank you to Faye and Christine for sponsoring this story and sharing their award-winning British Cheese with us.

The Greek dream

Back when I worked with Peter he talked about his dreams of moving to Greece where he worked and lived in his early life. He has an affinity with the people, the culture and the food. I am pleased to say Peter made that dream his reality. He stills runs and operates his Manchester-based businesses but Greece is his home and now. You can find him cooking, running and living in Skopelos. He is hosting the first annual Skopelos trail race in September 2021. Peter’s vision is to promote health and wellbeing through sports and fitness whilst celebrating the biodiversity of the island. I have no doubt the locals have made him one of their own!

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