Local Recipes

Modern day dishes served by Jersey’s top chefs all promote the availability and excellence of local produce.

Jersey Royals Recipe

Thyme roasted fillet of sea bass with sautéed globe artichokes and Royal New Potatoes

Ingredients

20 Jersey Royal New Potatoes 4 Globe artichokes (cooked and prepared) 4 Sprigs of thyme Salt & pepper Baby spinach 4 8oz Sea bass fillets

Method

• 1. In a sauté pan add a knob of butter and melt
• 2. Add the Jersey potatoes, artichoke chunks and fry until golden
• 3. Add the thyme and season and place in the oven
• 4. In a non stick pan place the sea bass skin side down and fry until golden
• 5. Turn the fillets over and leave to gently finish cooking
• 6. Place a good spoonful of potato on 4 plates and place the sea bass on top.
• 7. Serve with baby spinach and buttered asparagus

Find more Jersey Royal New Potato Recipes on www.jerseyroyals.co.uk

Traditional Dishes

The traditional dishes listed are not widely available but represent the variety of Jersey’s food heritage.

Black Butter  (‘Le Niere Buerre’)
Between 1600 and 1700, twenty percent of Jersey’s arable land was made up of orchards. Cider was made by farmers to give to their staff, making up part of their wages. The island’s export trade in apples peaked in 1810 when 4.5 million litres left the island. A great tradition that exists as a result of Jersey’s proliferation of apples is the production of ‘black butter’ or ‘Le Niere Buerre’. Made from cider apples, the new cider is boiled over a fire for many hours - up to two days! When the cider is ‘reduced’ by half, apples, sugar, lemon, liquorice and spices are added. The mixture is continuously stirred with a wooden ‘rabot’ or paddle.

Production of the butter is a very popular community event following each winter crop with traditional singing, dancing, storytelling and chatting going on into the early hours of the morning. Although not as common, the black butter evenings still take place. The tradition also exists further afield. In Pennsylvania USA, early immigrants took the custom with them but renamed it ‘Apple Butter’. Visitors to the island can take part in a cider-making weekend at Hamptonne (farm buildings that are now a Jersey Heritage Site open to visitors) which takes place annually in October.

Bean Crock
(Un Piot et des Pais au Fou)
Jersey bean crock is one of the island's best-known recipes. The mixture of dried beans, which are left to soak overnight, is placed in an earthenware jar and boiled. Onions, herbs and pigs trotters are added. The dish was originally eaten for breakfast, especially on Sundays but it is now more commonly eaten for supper, served with a large portion of crusty French bread.

Fiottes
Balls of flour, sugar and eggs, cooked in milk and traditionally eaten on Good Friday.

Des Boudelots
Apples baked in spicy dough.

La Soupe D'Andgulle (Conger Eel Soup)
Conger eel soup, garnished with marigold flower petals.

Jersey Wonders (Des Mervelles)
Deep fried doughnut type of cake eaten hot or cold and shaped like a lovers’ knot. There is a belief that Jersey Wonders should not be made on a rising tide.

Vraic Buns (Gaches a Vrai)
These buns were eaten in the old days when farmers went to the rocks to cut vraic (seaweed) as fertiliser for the fields.

Cabbage Loaf
The traditional Jersey bread baked between two cabbage leaves. Historically, Jersey produced sturdy walking sticks fashioned from the stalks of cabbages, known as 'Tall Jacks', which had been induced to grow tall stalks by removing leaves from around the heart.

Why not learn a few words of our local language Jersey French en route?

Quand la pomme est meûse, ou tchait
When the apple’s ripe, it falls

L’êpice est au fond
The spice is deep down (The best is at the bottom)

Dé bouanne vielle soupe rêcaûffée vaut mus qué d’la fraîche tchi n’vaut rein
Good old soup reheated is better than fresh soup, which is no good

Quand la pâte est levee, I’faut la metre au fou
When the dough has risen, you must put it in the oven

Vaut mus payi l’boulandgi qué l’docteu
Better to pay the baker than the doctor

Du paîsson dait nagi trais fais – dans la mé, dans l’beurre et dans l’vîn
Fish should swim three times – in the sea, in butter and in wine

À la tabl’ye coumme au clios
Car ch’est l’ventre tchi souôtcheint l’dos
At table as in the field:
It’s the stomach that supports the back

Mageons l’miyeu tandi qué l’piéthe amende
Let’s eat the best while the worst improves

Y’a un tas d’tchi bouan à mangi en Jèrri au mais d’Mai!
There are loads of good things to eat in Jersey in May!