As the seasons change at Home Farm, Gill Meller serves up a slice of spring

Celebrating a time of new beginnings among the hedgerows, woodlands and pastures of Home Farm, chef and food writer, Gill Meller has cooked up a recipe for each season using Quicke’s award-winning clothbound cheese. Inspired by the abundance of life in every corner of this ancient environment, the Gather author’s spring recipe combines crumbly pastry and smoky goat’s cheese with freshly foraged nettles.

Delightfully simple yet packed with flavour, Gill’s nettle, bacon and smoked goat’s cheese tart uses Oak Smoked Goat's Milk Clothbound Cheese, which is cold-smoked with oak chips from trees on the Quicke's estate. A dish designed to satisfy the shifting tastes and appetites of spring, the tart reflects the changes that are also taking place out on the pastures.

As the cows are sent out to graze on the fresh spring grass, the very next day their milk makes a softer, richer, more aromatic curd, with the grass flavours giving warm, animally rich notes to the cheese. Each truckle in the cheese stores tells a tale of the land and the changing seasons, so Gill’s recipes have been created to help take the story of this little corner of Devon from the rolling fields to the kitchen table. 

The recipe for Gill Meller’s nettle, bacon and smoked goat’s cheese tart can be found at www.quickes.co.uk/blogs/recipes, with his summer, autumn and winter recipes due to be unveiled later this year.