Mrs Aitken, who will make these forays regularly during autumn, ignores many varieties of smaller edible fungi, which she knows that Alex, her husband, wild food enthusiast and chef at the couples' Michelin-starred restaurant, Le Poussin at Whitley Ridge, in the heart of the Forest, will not want to cook."Why bother with the lesser ones that don't taste that great when you have all these magnificent tasting prime fungi like the ceps and other boletus varieties?'' she said on a three-hour walk. She then finds several more large brown fungi, with solid stems and caps that vary between golf and tennis ball in size. These are more smaller ceps - also known as 'Penny Buns' - and several other boletus varieties.She also picks some small, white, Devil's Purse puffballs - "they taste like sweetbreads" - some saffron milk caps, a huge parasol mushroom, a few russulas and a fragment of Sparrassis crispa, the so-called "cauliflower mushroom", just some of the 50 or so edible varieties, out of around 3,000 larger species of fungi. She searched in vain for the prized wood chanterelles - "too early, not enough rain" was Mrs Aitken's verdict.Twenty-five years' experience enables her to avoid not only the tasteless and less interesting ones, like the orange milk cap that exudes milk, and the primrose russulas that taste just too peppery, but also the known poisonous varieties, such as the startling red and white fly agaric or the poison pie.But these do excite Peter Marren, a naturalist, writer and fungus expert also on the walk, who seizes on a small inoffensive looking mushroom, which he declares to be a false death cap. Bake it for 1 hour, then turn off the oven and leave it in there for 2 hours, then put it in the fridge overnight How you top it is up to you I like it with mangoes or kiwis. Into a bowl, add the eggs, quark, sugar, vanilla essence, the fruity liqueur and the zest and juice of half a lemon.
Beat them until smooth, thick and creamy, then stir in the raisins Pour on to the base and smooth the top. Take a deep, loose-bottomed cake tin - 20cm across - and press the biscuit on to the bottom to make a flat base. Either way, it's still delicious, and a good recipe to know if you're on a diet.200g reduced-fat oaty biscuits 60g butter or margarine 4 x 250g tubs of quark 3 large eggs 100g sugar 1tsp vanilla essence 2tsp Cointreau 1 handful of raisins Half a lemonPre-heat oven to 170C/ gas mark 3 Melt the butter and crush the biscuits, then mix together. Of course, we do work extremely hard, and we burn a lot of calories, but I've got a sweet tooth, so I generally have to resist puddings. This cheesecake is something that I can eat - I came up with the recipe myself.
It uses quark, a low-fat cheese that's big in Estonia, where I come from. I also have a friend who's diabetic, so I often make it with sweetener rather than sugar, bringing the calorie count down even lower. Heat the butter in a heavy frying pan and cook the herrings for 3-4 minutes on each side until golden Serve with lemon wedges. With plain boiled potatoes and spinach you have a simple, healthy and delicious meal.. Being a dancer means I can't eat too much.
