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Dovedale and Ilam Country Park
14km, about 4.5 hours, teashop at half time.
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The Peak District is easily the most visited of all our National Parks, and Dovedale in its South is one of the most popular places to go. It’s easy to see why when you see the photographs of the great scenery and how accessible it is to people who perhaps aren’t all that used to being in the countryside.
It’s owned by the National Trust, presumably administered along with the nearby Ilam Park, so its paths are well maintained and there’s a steady stream of information boards in case you missed something interesting.
If large, privately owned car parks aren’t your thing, the Trust has a modest and, above all, free car park in Milldale, at the North end of Dovedale. Whilst there’s just the loo block and 1 household doing a steady trade selling ices, snacks and postcards from their kitchen door, I’d thoroughly recommend starting at this end. It’s less developed, has way fewer people and I think it looks better too.
For a single valley, it’s entirely possible to walk a circular route, there’s a smaller footpath in the west that winds and climbs around the valley, though there’s one part of it in the North that would be underwater when the stream’s in spate.
We started mid morning in Milldale and walked south west to Ilam, where we paused for lunch at the NT tea rooms. Expensive but reasonably good food, unless you’re into huge slabs of cake then it’s good value. There’s an hour or two’s worth of wandering at Ilam if you’d like to look around, the archiecture of the houses in the village is quite impressive.
 Ilam |
 Ilam |
The return leg by way of the main path alongside the water in Dovedale is along the most popular part of the beaten track, you might need a spot of patience at busy times but don’t panic because most people don’t stray too far from the car park so it will get quieter soon enough.
Many people
Despite the paths being flat and well paved, I’d allow some time for sightseeing along the way. When we were there, there were a series of paintings on display near to the landscape features they depicted, there were plenty of orchids for spotting, if you like that sort of thing. The route back is straightforward, following the path of the water back to Milldale.
Dovedale
Cherry choc fridge cake
This is one of my favourite value cakes. It’s still slightly more effort than taking a Mr Kipling cake out of its wrapper and eating it, but not by much. I don’t want to imagine how many calories are in each slice but, well, butter’s nice and it’s nearly as quick to make as the microwave chocolate mug pudding.
Ingredients
Serves at least 10
400g choc, at least 55% cocoa solids
2 tbsp golden syrup
75g sugar
200g glace cherries
250g digestive biscuits
300g butter
2 tbsp kirsche or brandy (optional)
Method
Put a couple of tablespoons of spirits into the cherries tub, give it a shake and leave it to soak overnight.
Line a 900g loaf tin with two layers of parchment or clingfilm
I used a mix of Bournville and hotel choc 70% dark for this. Scientifically break up the chocolate into chunks. I left it in its wrapper and smacked it a few times with a claw hammer. A rolling pin or hob nailed boot would also work.
Loosely dice the butter so it melts quickly.
Put the chocolate, sugar, syrup and butter into a pan and gently gently melt it together, stirring until it’s smooth. Do not let it get too hot.
Whilst the hob is doing its thing, put the biscuits into a plastic bag and gently use your fingers to break them apart. You want chunks, not crumbs.
Once it’s smooth, dump the cherries and biscuits into the chocolate mix. Stir it together thoroughly and pour it into the loaf tin, trying to not leave air gaps.
Choc cherry fridge cake
Leave it to cool to room temperature, then give it two hours in the fridge before turning out and slicing thinly with a sharp knife.
Mediterranean fish pie
For no apparent reason, I made the full quantity of this recipe, so this week I will mostly be eating fish pie. Luckily, this version is light and summery and it’s freezable in portions. Full credit for this recipe goes to Tastes Divine, I only tinkered with the mix of fish and the topping. Adding pesto and sun dried tomatoes might sound odd but I thought it worked together wonderfully, making it taste very fresh and light instead of the usual cloying creaminess.
I hadn’t met sunblush tomatoes before, but they were going half price from the supermarket’s deli counter. They’re half dried so have a nice concentrated sweet flavour whilst being soft enough to eat. The oil-soaked jars of sundried tomatoes would also work, but you’d need to rehydrate fully dried ones.
Ingredients
Serves 5 – 6
900g of mixed fish. I used about 300g trout, 300g coley and 300g undyed smoked haddock
100g grated hard mature italian cheese. I used Parmigiano-Reggiano
Olive oil
2 hard boiled eggs, shelled and cut into wedges
75g peas
1 bunch of spring onions
250ml creme fraiche
200ml double cream
6 tablespoons of pesto. either basil or rocket is fine.
100g sun blushed or oil soaked sundried tomatoes
600g potatoes
400g celeriac
2 tablespoons yellow mustard seeds
Method
Roughly chop and boil the potatoes and celeriac until they slide off a knife. Drain nearly all of the water, keep a tablespoon or so in the bottom of the pan. Mash it thoroughly, stir in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, 75g of the grated cheese and season well.
Skin and bone the fish if necessary and slice into bite sized chunks, going across the grain if you can so that it flakes on the fork, not on the chopping board.
Put the fish into the bottom of your baking dish or dishes
Chop the spring onions on the diagonal and cut the tomatoes into quarters and evenly scatter them amongst the fish, and do the same with the wedges of egg. Add the peas.
Mix together the creme fraiche, cream and pesto and evenly spoon it over the top of the fish mixture.
If you did a good job with your mashing, you can try piping the potato mix over the top so it looks fun when baked. I didn’t and nearly exploded the piping bag so made do with dolloping it instead.
Sprinkle over the rest of the grated cheese and either freeze it or give it half an hour in a 200C oven until the top is golden and crusty.
Fish Pie
