Local heroes: Mark Hix reveals his Britain's finest independent producers

Ian and Denise Bell's beef

Thanks to the likes of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, free-range, organic farming has become synonymous with the movement for ethically sourced and sustainable food. But for Ian and Denise Bell, whose Dorset farm is a haven for, among other animals, cows, sheep and pigs, that's not enough. The Bells are among a select breed of farmers who produce biodynamic meat. But what exactly is a biodynamic cow? "Our cows not only graze simply on grass in summer and hay in winter but are also given absolutely no pharmaceutical medicines or chemicals," Ian explains. "We have vets who make diagnoses and then we give the animals homeopathic remedies for everything from preventing worms to curing pneumonia. Scientists call it hocus-pocus, but it's extremely effective."

The Bells, who have been farming biodynamically for 12 years, also allow their calves to reach full maturity – usually five years – before they slaughter them. In the commercial world, it can be as low as 16 months. The Bells' cows are also allowed to stay together until the calves have weaned from their mothers.

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The whole process, Ian says, produces cows that are "playful, bright-eyed and, above all, resilient" and meat that is "pure and unsullied". Ideal for Mark Hix's braised shin of beef with dumplings, which, he says, is "perfect if you have friends round over Christmas".

Heritage Prime, Dorset (heritageprime.co.uk; 01308 482 688)

Braised shin of beef with dumplings

Serves 4

1-1.5kg trimmed beef shin, cut into rough 3-4cm chunks
2 glasses of good red wine
1 clove of garlic, peeled and crushed
1tsp fresh thyme leaves
1 bay leaf
Vegetable oil for frying
30g butter
1 onion, peeled, halved and finely chopped
2tbsp plain flour
1tsp tomato purée
1 litres beef stock
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the dumplings

125g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
60g suet
1tbsp chopped parsley
Water to mix
Salt and pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 175C/gas mark 4. Put the pieces of beef into a stainless steel bowl (not aluminium) or similar with the red wine, garlic, thyme and bay leaf. Cover with clingfilm and marinade in the fridge overnight. When you're ready, drain the meat in a colander, reserving the marinade, and dry the pieces on kitchen paper.

Heat the vegetable oil in a heavy-bottomed frying pan, lightly flour the meat with a tablespoon of the flour, season with salt and pepper and fry the meat on a high heat until nicely browned.

Heat the butter in a large, heavy-bottomed oven-proof dish or saucepan and gently fry the onion for a few minutes until soft. Add the remaining flour and tomato purée and stir over a low heat for a minute. Slowly add the marinade stirring constantly to avoid lumps forming. Bring to the boil and simmer until it has reduced by half. Add the beef stock and the pieces of beef, bring back to the boil, cover with a lid and cook in the oven for about 1 to 2 hours until the meat is tender.

It's difficult to put an exact time on braised meats; sometimes an extra half hour's cooking may be necessary. Check by tasting the meat. Once it has cooked the sauce should have thickened to a gravy-like consistency. If not, dilute a little cornflour in some water, stir into the sauce and simmer for a few minutes.

Meanwhile, make the dumplings. Sieve the flour and baking powder into a bowl and add half a teaspoon of salt. Mix in the suet and parsley, then add enough water to form a sticky dough. Flour your hands and roll the dough into 12 little balls. Drop the dumplings into the stew and return to the oven with the lid off for about 20 minutes.

Serve with mashed potato or puréed root vegetables.

Judy Goodman's geese

"Judy's geese," says Mark Hix, "are some of the most pampered birds in the land." Hatched between April and July, they live a free-range idyll in the grass paddocks of Walsgrove Farm in Worcestershire, where Goodman and her family have worked the land for almost 50 years. The poultry business – there are 4,000 bronze turkeys as well as the same number of geese – began as a hobby in 1982 but in that time Goodman has earned a reputation for producing the finest birds on the butcher's hook. The secret, she says, is the life they lead for the 24 to 30 weeks they make a home on her farm. "They roam around, feeding on grass, corn and straw, as well as a special ration that contains absolutely no additives."

When the time comes to slaughter the birds, they are despatched humanely on the farm and then hung in a cold room for up to two weeks. Goodman then posts her birds in a box, dressed with the liver, giblets and neck in separate boxes, along with extra fat which, Hix says, "makes the best roast potatoes you'll ever eat".

Goodman's Geese, Worcestershire (01299 896272)

Raised goose pie

Serves 8-10

For the filling

1 goose
1tsp chopped thyme leaves
Grated rind of 1 orange
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the jelly

1 litre chicken stock
2 large gelatine leaves

For the hot-water crust

200ml water
175g lard
500g plain flour
tsp salt
1 egg, beaten, to glaze

Remove the breasts and legs from the goose with a sharp knife, then bone out the legs and remove the skin and put to one side. Remove the skin also from the breasts and carcass and chop into small pieces.

Mince the goose legs finely or chop them in a food processor then mix with the fat and season well. Chop the breast meat into rough 1cm cubes and mix with the mince, thyme and orange. Pre-heat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. To make the pastry: mix the flour and salt in a bowl and make a well in the centre. Bring the water and lard to the boil, then stir it into the flour with a wooden spoon to form a smooth dough. Leave the dough covered for about 15 minutes or so until it can be handled.

Take two-thirds of the pastry and roll on a lightly floured table to about cm thick and line a greased raised pie mould or a cake tin measuring about 20-25cm x 4-6cm deep, overlapping the edges by about 2cm. Roll the rest to fit the top. Spoon in the filling to the top, mounding it up in the middle then fold the edges over. Brush the edges with a little of the beaten egg and lay the top on. Trim the edges with a knife and seal well with your thumb. Cut a 1-1cm hole in the top to pour the jelly in later and egg wash the pastry. Bake for 40 minutes, or until the centre is hot when tested with a skewer. If the pastry is colouring too much, cover with foil and turn the oven down. Leave to cool; place in the fridge overnight.

To make the jelly: add the bones to the stock and simmer gently for 1 hour, then strain into a clean saucepan and reduce by half; you only need half to three-quarters of a litre in total. Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for 2-3 minutes until soft, squeeze out the excess water and stir into the hot stock, leave the stock to cool.

The following day, warm the jelly in a bowl over a pan of simmering water until it has just melted. Pour the jelly into the pies to the top and return to the fridge until set. Carefully remove the pie from the moulds and serve in slices or wedges depending on the shape of the mould.

Serve with apple sauce, a fruity chutney or something like a Waldorf salad.

Richard Cook's smoked eels

A-level graduates embarking on a gap year are frequently found to be smoking something. But rarely fish. Richard Cook had tried and failed to work with his fish trader father ("it seemed like an impossible task") and so decided instead to celebrate the bountiful supply of salmon and eel in the Severn and Wye rivers near his Gloucestershire home.

"There was a tremendous catch but it was being sold into the market with no provenance – it seemed such a waste," he says. Determined to "add value" to the fish he had grown up catching, Cook started experimenting with brine and kilns. Almost 10 years later his fish is recognised as some of the best in the world and now appears on the shelves and tables of the Ritz, Claridge's, the Conran Group, Fortnum & Mason, Selfridges and Harvey Nichols.

The key to his success, says Cook, is in the details: "We have complete control over the whole process. We deal directly with fisherman, we do the slaughtering ourselves and use our own wood, which comes from the three oaks we have dropped and used calvados and whiskey barrels from a local sawmill."

Mark Hix recommends buying smoked eel on the bone and using them and the skin to make a broth. "I'm not sure Cookie has thought about doing this but no doubt he will now," he says.

Severn & Wye Smokery, Gloucestershire (severnandwye.co.uk; 01452 760190)

Smoked eel broth with horseradish

Serves 4-6

The bones and skin from one smoked eel
2 litres fish stock
1 small leek, roughly chopped and washed
1 small onion, peeled and roughly chopped
1tsp fennel seeds
10 black peppercorns
Half glass of white wine

To serve

100g or so of eel fillet
A couple smallish potatoes, halved and thinly sliced
1 small leek, halved lengthways, cut into rough 2cm dice and washed
1tbsp chopped parsley
1tbsp freshly grated horseradish

Put the eel bones in a pan with the fish stock, vegetables, fennel, peppercorns and white wine, bring to the boil and simmer gently for 15 minutes then strain through a fine-meshed sieve into a clean saucepan. Check the seasoning then add the potato and leek and simmer until tender then add the parsley and horseradish and simmer for another couple of minutes.

Break the eel into small pieces and divide up between warmed soup bowls, then ladle the soup over.

Julian Temperley's cider brandy

"If there was an appellation d'origine contrôlée for cider," says Julian Temperley from his Somerset farm near the village of Kingsbury Episcopi, "it wouldn't extend to orchards more than two miles from here." Temperley's orchards have been giving up some of the world's finest apple juice, cider and cider brandy for more than 150 years; for more than 30 years under his watchful eye.

"It's a hit at my Oyster and Fish House in Lyme Regis," Mark Hix says. "So much so that I've named the downstairs kitchen bar Shipwreck, after one of the Julian's ciders." Temperley's Shipwreck cider brandy was conceived two years ago when the Napoli container ship shed its load off the Devon coast. "I spotted these barrels on TV and went down but I was too late to salvage any," Temperley says. Several months later more barrels turned up in a container that had been destined for South Africa. Temperley says, "We acquired them with the permission of the Receiver of Wrecks and filled them with our 10-year-old brandy, which now has a surprisingly oaky taste."

The Somerset Cider Brandy Company, Somerset (ciderbrandy.co.uk; 01460 240782)

Shipwreck tart

Serves 8-10

For the sweet pastry

125g unsalted butter, softened
180g caster sugar
1 large egg, beaten
250g plain flour
Flour for dusting

For the filling

3 medium eggs, beaten
200g soft brown sugar
220g golden syrup
120ml Shipwreck cider brandy (or one of Julian's others)
100g melted unsalted butter
1tsp vanilla essence
100g walnuts, roughly chopped
100g hazelnuts, roughly chopped
100g chestnuts, roasted, shelled and roughly chopped
Pinch of salt

First, make the pastry. In a food processor or by hand, cream the butter and caster sugar together until fluffy. Slowly add the beaten egg until well mixed, then fold in the flour. Mould the dough into 2 balls, wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for 30 minutes. To make the filling, blitz all the ingredients, except the nuts, in a food processor until smooth. Fold in the nuts and mix well. To assemble, roll the sweet pastry on a floured table to 5mm thick. Grease a large 25cm tart tin, line the tin with the pastry, trim the edges and refrigerate for one hour. Pre-heat the oven to 180C/gas mark 5. Fill the tart with the nut mix; bake for 20-25 minutes until golden. Serve with vanilla ice-cream, crème fraîche or double or clotted cream.

Sandy Rose's blue cheese

Sandy Rose still can't quite believe her success. Five years ago she was a part-time hairdresser and smallholder. Today she is the brains behind the best cheese in Britain.

She was inspired by a cheesemaker cousin to start experimenting with goat's milk, making fresh cheese in muslin bags. Then she moved on to blue cheese and took three months to perfect her Barkham Blue using a mix of Guernsey and Jersey cows' milk bought from local dairies.

Six months later, she won three prizes at the World Cheese Awards. "People ask me how I got it right so quickly," Rose says. "What they don't realise is how hard I worked and how much cheese I had to throw away or gave to local pigs."

Rose's cheese, which she makes with her husband, Andy, as well as her parents and friends, is now considered to be so good she produces more than 400 a week and sells them all over the country.

"We've even started selling the cheeses in Japan," Sandy Rose says. "Even more impressive is that the cheese-loving French have now developed a taste for Barkham Blue. Apparently the British ambassador in Paris served it at one of his dinners. It's amazing," Rose says.

Mark Hix is so enamoured of the stuff that he says that it's too good for cooking purposes. "It just wouldn't do poor old Barkham much justice," he says. "But in the spirit of Christmas, a little spiced-up cider set into a jelly is much more like it and would most certainly complement Sandy's fantastic cheese."

Two Hoots Farm, Berkshire (twohootsfarm.com; 0118-976 0401)

Barkham Blue with mulled cider jelly

Serves 6-8

6-8 servings of Barkham blue

For the jelly

1 litre cider
6 cloves
12 black peppercorns
1 bayleaf
A small piece of cinnamon stick
5 large gelatine leaves

Bring half of the cider to a simmer with the cloves, peppercorns, bayleaf and cinnamon and continue simmering for 3-4 minutes, then remove from the heat. Meanwhile, soak the gelatine in cold water for 2-3 minutes then squeeze out the excess water and stir into the hot cider until dissolved.

Strain through a fine-meshed sieve into a clean container, then pour in the rest of the cider. Leave to set in the fridge overnight. You can store in a sterilised preserving jar for up to a couple of months.

Ben Weatherall's game

It doesn't matter how good a bird is – if you don't treat it right you will get bad meat. "What happens after a bird is shot is so important," says Ben Weatherall, who runs Weatherall Foods in Dumfries.

Weatherall sells a huge array of meat through his Blackface Meat Company, named after the Scottish Blackface, one of the oldest sheep breeds in Scotland. Top-quality lamb is his speciality, but top chefs looking for top-class game for their tables are also flocking to his door.

"It's the attention to detail that makes our game so hard to beat," Weatherall says. "We only source it from selected estates across the Scottish Borders. Then we handle it to a very high standard. First the game birds are hung in refrigerated larders overnight. We then turn up at the estate in a refrigerated van and tray them up – never more than one deep – before taking them to be plucked and passed through wax to remove the excess feathers."

Mark Hix suggests using mallard, teal or widgeon for his roast duck with blood orange salad dish. "I personally like small wild ducks like teal and widgeon," he says. "Somehow they feel a little more special and you can pick the whole thing up with your hands and get stuck in to it. Teal and widgeon are among my favourite game birds; they have the delicacy of a snipe or woodcock but all the flavour of a wild duck. On Christmas Day when I have my main meal, this will probably be my main course. I should still have some nice peppery rocket and red veined sorrel leaves in my garden, which will work perfectly with the orange segments."

Blackface Meat Company, Dumfries (blackface.co.uk; 01387 730326)

Roast wild duck with blood orange salad

Serves 4

8 teal or 2 mallards
A couple of good knobs of butter, softened
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the stuffing

1 onion, peeled, halved and finely chopped
1tsp fresh thyme leaves, chopped
A couple of good knobs of butter
The livers and heart from each duck or 50-60g duck livers, roughly chopped
The grated zest from 1 of the blood oranges
50-60g fresh white breadcrumbs

For the salad

Peppery salad leaves – like rocket, watercress, etc – washed
2 blood oranges, peeled, segmented and the juice reserved
2tbsp extra virgin rapeseed oil

Pre-heat the oven to 230C/gas mark 8. First, make the stuffing; cook the onion and thyme in the butter for 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally until soft, then stir in the livers and cook for another minute. Remove from the heat; stir in the orange zest and breadcrumbs; season. Spoon the stuffing into the ducks then rub the breasts with butter, season and place on a baking tray. Roast in the oven (about 10 minutes for teal; 30-40 minutes for mallard), keeping them nice and pink.

Meanwhile, whisk the juice from the oranges together with the rapeseed oil and season. Toss the segments with the leaves and dressing; season. Serve the salad in a bowl on the table and the duck on warmed plates.

Mark Hix's new book 'British Seasonal Food' is published by Quadrille, price £25