Eliza Acton's redcurrant jelly

The quickest and best way to make redcurrant jelly, so that the flavour of the fruit shines through. Can't believe I've never posted this before, but I couldn't find it when a friend asked for the recipe. It comes via Jane Grigson, from her Fruit Book, so I'm quoting her direct:

Run a thin layer of water over the base of the preserving pan, then put an equal weight of red currants - no need to remove the stalks - and sugar. Stir and heat slowly until the sugar has dissolved, then raise the heat and boil hard for 8 minutes. Tip out onto a sieve set over a bowl, or into a jelly bag, and pour the resulting liquid into small pots.

I always use a fine plastic sieve.

Tarte tatin

I made Tarte tatin for pudding the other night; it's an indulgence, but an enjoyable one - Lucius said it was the best thing I'd ever cooked, and he was still talking about it the next day. It's very rich, so not for everyday .... but it's perfect for friends, as you have to make it early so that you don't burn your mouth on the caramel.

I followed the instructions on the box of the de Buyer tarte tatin tin I bought from Lakeland; so delicious there's no need to look for another recipe. By the way, you don't need to have a special tin for this: any heavy-duty oven-proof tin would do (a Le Creuset frying pan would be ideal, provided it doesn't have a wooden handle).

This is a very good way to use up slightly-past-their-best apples; I know we're supposed only to use the freshest produce we can, but we also need a few strategies to combat waste in the kitchen. My grandmothers used to cook up wrinkled apples, and so do I.

Tarte tatin
(it says for 2-4, but I'd say this would easily do 6)

20cm tin

shortcrust pastry (I used ready-rolled Dorset puff, a truly excellent product)
85g butter
200g granulated sugar
4-5 apples (800g is specified, probably unpeeled weight)
juice of half a lemon

Use the tin as a guide to cut a circle of pastry 2-3mm thick. Prick the pastry and put in the fridge.

Peel and core the apples. The recipe says you should end up with apple halves; that's too fiddly for me, and quarters looked fine in the finished dish. Drop them into a bowl of lemon juice as you work.

Put the butter and sugar into the pan, stirring constantly for about five minutes until the mixture starts to become golden. Arrange the apples over the caramel (pour in the lemon juice too) and keep cooking, without stirring, for 15 minutes.

Now give it five minutes in a very hot oven (250C is suggested; I used 220C on fan, and that was quite fierce enough).

Next, arrange the pastry over the apples, tucking the edges under. Put the tin back into the oven for 15 minutes (have a quick peek just before the end, you don't want the pastry to burn).

Cool the tin for 25 minutes before turning out onto a dish. It will come away easily and firmly in one piece, glued together by the caramel. Eat lukewarm.

The recipe ends with this instruction: Lovers of Tarte tatin savour it without whipped cream nor vanilla ice cream to appreciate its authentic taste. To be honest, anything with it would be overkill.

Lemon pots

My sister brought Meyer lemons from her garden in California. It's impossible to buy a Meyer* lemon here, so it was a wonderful gift - they have a scented taste quite unlike other lemons. So, something special. But my sister's only here for a few days, and I don't want to spend them chained to the stove.

These little citrus pots take moments, although you'd never guess. They're rich, so tiny quantities - a shot glass would work well, if you don't have ramekins (which, in truth, are too big; I half-fill mine). Perfect. So there was time for a walk by the river in the snow, even though we were nine for dinner.

Lemon pots

75g sugar
300ml double cream
one lemon

In an ordinary saucepan, melt the sugar in the double cream. Add the juice of a lemon and pour into tiny pots or shot glasses. Put them in the fridge, and by the time the cream is cold, it will have set. I generally use the zest, too, because I value the sharp taste over a truly smooth appearance.


* Just before my sister arrived, David Lebovitz, who used to be Alice Waters' pastry chef at Chez Panisse, posted interestingly about Meyer lemons, with a recipe for lemon curd

Feeding of 5k in Trafalgar Square

Lunch was an elegant protest in a flurry of snow in Trafalgar Square. Delicious fruit smoothies, vegetable curry, all the fruit you could find. Supermarket waste. And all of it would otherwise have ended up in landfill. Not even composted.
























This lovely fruit made thousands of smoothies, full of goodness. Why don't supermarkets TRY selling less-than-perfect fruit, and see what happens? Why don't they give the rest to homeless charities. And COMPOST whatever's left.














































They couldn't give these grapes away fast enough. No stalks, so no good to the supermarket, apparently. Daft world: I spent a few minutes earlier in the week taking grapes off their stalks to put in a sauce. But even if they don't want to sell them, they should at least PUT THEM IN THE COMPOST.
























Then on to Heywood Hill to pick up a book they'd found for me; and a walk round Shepherd Market. Heywood Hill really is the most life-enhancing shop, laid out a little like a library in a private house, and full of well-chosen books, both old and new. Always lots you want to browse, some you want to buy. Nancy Mitford used to work there; now there's a helpful young man called Ben, and a bevy of girls in the room at the back.
























And home, to find the house looks like this:

Plums in muscovado

Breakfast this morning: yoghurt with stewed plums. Bliss. The plums were slightly past their best, but fully revived with a little muscovado sugar. So much flavour there's no need for spice. 20 minutes, covered, in a moderate oven.

Wholemeal apple & almond cake

Delicious, with a hint of cinnamon. Eat warm from the oven as pud, or cold for breakfast/elevenses. Much nicer than the appley-cinnamony pastry I had in Selfridge's yesterday. There's a strong taste of almonds, even though they're cut 50:50 with flour (so economical).

It's from Hugh FW's new book, Every Day; he made it with pears on his show last week (you may need to be in the UK for this link to work).

Apple and almond cake

150g butter
125g caster sugar
2 eggs
75g wholemeal self-raising flour
75g ground almonds

for the apples

4-5 eating apples
25g butter
1 heaped tbsp granulated sugar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

20cm springform cake tin
pre-heat the oven to 170C

Peel and core the apples, cut them into wedges and fry gently in the butter and sugar. When they are nearly tender, add the cinnamon and take off the heat.

Beat the butter and sugar together; add the eggs, then the flour, then the almonds. Scrape into the tin, smooth over, arrange the apples on top, spoon over the juices from the frying pan.

Bake for 40-45 minutes (until a skewer comes out clean). Leave for a while before unclipping the tin (although this is probably going to fall apart anyway).

Notes:
* I made it on the spur of the moment to use up some apples that had been sitting around for a few days; there were six, not quite too many.
* I had only 140g butter in total; the apples were fine in 10g, and the cake was fine with 130g. So no need for the full 175g.
* My cake is a little stodgy ("but good stodgy", said Amy) because I used plain wholemeal and forget to put in baking powder.
* The apples sit nicely on top of this cake, but when HFW made it with pears, they sank down almost to the bottom.


Related posts

Apple tart - Alfred once ate half of this at one go
Hugh FW's wonderful ginger cake
Easy almond ring cake - another pudding-y cake, better served with a little fruit

Spiced peaches (or prunes)

I recently made this delicious preserve with peaches ... I'm posting it now so that I don't forget, and because it can also be made with prunes for a winter alternative. It's from Picnics for Motorists published by Hilda Leyel in 1936.

We ate something pretty similar with ham at my goddaughter's wonderful 21st birthday party in Somerset at midsummer.

Spiced peaches

6-7 peaches (500g soaked prunes)
200g soft brown sugar
250 ml water
75 ml red wine vinegar
a stick of cinnamon
six cloves
four allspice
two blades of mace
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Cook everything together gently. When the fruit is tender, strain it into sterilized jars using a slotted spoon. Boil the syrup for 4-5 minutes until it has thickened slightly. Pour over the fruit. Seal and label the jars.

Quick plum tart

Last night was the last time until Christmas that all six of us will sit down together to eat. So I made a quick pudding - I went into the garden in the gloaming, picked a few sticky-sweet Victoria plums, halved and stoned them and put them on a sheet of puff pastry which I'd brushed with jam made from last year's crop. 15 minutes in a hot oven. Mmm ... except for one thing: those fabulously sweet plums turned sour in the oven. Any ideas why this should be?

Spiced plum sauce for roast pork

Back from Scotland to find a HUGE glut of plums, despite thinning the tree when the fruit set. The Victoria plums are good to eat, but can't begin to compete with the greengages on a neighbouring tree, which taste as sweet as any fruit I've ever eaten. So the gages are all being eaten where they grew, only the purple plums are getting as far as the kitchen.

I made this very good sauce to go with roast belly of pork (which I smeared with olive oil and chopped thyme, sprinkled with a little Maldon salt, then roasted for half an hour at 220C and an hour at 180 - great crackling, or, if not, then a quick blast at the highest temperature your oven will crank up to).

Plum sauce

15-20 plums
2 medium onions
2 dssp runny honey
1 tsp Chinese five-spice
3 cloves of garlic, smashed
1-2 tbsp chilli jam
a sprinkle of wine vinegar

Halve and stone the plums. Chop the onions. Place in a roasting tray with all the other ingredients. This needs about an hour at 180C, so it went into the oven with the pork when I turned down the heat.

A lighter crumble mix

Traditional English crumble mixture uses equal quantities of butter and flour, and a bit more sugar (say, 4oz butter, 4oz flour, 6oz sugar). Last night I put a lighter crumble topping on some very sharp stewed plums ... using ground almonds meant I could use less butter, and gave the crumble a pleasing nubbly texture too.

These were the proportions I used:

125g plain flour
85g butter cubed
4 tablespoons caster sugar
100g ground almonds

Blitz the flour and butter to breadcrumb texture, stir in the sugar and almonds. Put on top of prepared fruit (or some pre-stewed fruit) and bake for half an hour at 180C if the fruit is already cooked, longer if not.

No pic, this post is mainly for my reference

Yoghurt and lemon cake

I don't keep butter in the house when the young are away, which made it tricky this afternoon when I took it into my head to cheer myself up by making a lemon cake. But then I remembered Turkish yoghurt cake, and found a good recipe in Claudia Roden's Arabesque. It's a soufflé of a cake, no butter, not much flour, eggs, yoghurt and a lemon. Just the thing.

Turkish yoghurt cake - yogurtlu tatlisi

4 large eggs, separated
100g caster sugar
3 tbsp plain flour
400g Greek strained yoghurt
grated zest of a lemon
juice of a lemon

Beat the egg yolks and sugar until it is pale. Beat in the flour, then blend in the yoghurt, zest and juice. Whisk the egg whites until they are stiff, then fold into the cake mixture. Pour this into a non-stick baking tin - I use a 23cm clip-ring tin which I grease with olive oil.

Bake at 180C for 50-60 minutes, until the top is brown. Eat warm or cold.


PS you can serve this with a syrup made with 150ml water, 25og sugar, 1 tbsp lemon juice, and the finely grated zest of an orange ... Claudia Roden says she doesn't bother, and neither do I.

PPS picture to follow - I meant to save this as a draft until the cake came out of the oven, but hit publish instead ... I've been a little distracted for the past couple of weeks, which is why I need cake!

Apple tart - Alfred's new favourite

This apple tart is quick and straightforward as apple tarts go, and there's the added oomph of thriftily boiling up the peels in the syrup mixture. It's the prettiest apple tart I've ever made, thanks to a new-to-me way of dealing with the fruit: peel the apples whole, halve them, dig out the core, slice them and leave them in their halved shape so that you can easily fan them out in circles on the pastry. Obvious really, but it had never before occurred to me.

Apple Tart
for an 8-9 inch tart lined with your usual pastry

5-6 dessert apples (I used Jazz apples, grown in Kent)
a little butter
sugar

Heat the oven to 200C (400F).

Peel and slice the apples. Arrange them on the chilled pastry. Dot with tiny slivers of butter (or melt butter and brush it over - I would have, but my pastry brush is moulting, and I found this just as effective). Bake for (up to) three quarters of an hour, turning once or twice.

Meanwhile, put all the peelings into a saucepan with a couple of tablespoons of sugar and as little water as you can. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Strain - it will be beautifully rosy coloured. You might then want to boil some of the liquid off if you think it's not thick enough.

Give the tart a minute or two to settle out of the oven, then brush with the apple-y syrup.

Serve warm, or at room temperature. Very good. Alfred ate half in one sitting.

Preserved lemons

I've got a glut of lemons, so - at long last - I'm going to preserve a jar or two. And now I need a little advice from those of you who have done this. It comes from too much reading and not enough doing: does it really matter if you top up the jar with water as well as lemon juice? Or should it be only lemon juice? Paula Wolfert is stern: no water, just the juice of lemons you have squeezed yourself. But Pam Corbin, the author of the River Cottage handbook on Preserves, says you can top up with a little water.

I'll give both the methods (principally so that I can find them easily when we get back from a lunch party) ... but I'd really like some advice from anyone who's done this.

Paula Wolfert's preserved lemons

5 lemons
70g (or more) salt
freshly squeezed lemon juice if necessary

+ optional Safi mixture:

1 cinnamon stick
3 cloves
5-6 coriander seeds
3-4 black peppercorns
1 bay leaf

Quarter the lemons from the top to within a centimetre of the bottom; sprinkle salt on the exposed surfaces; reshape fruit.

Put one tablespoon of salt in the bottom of a Le Parfait jar. Pack in the lemons, squashing them down, adding more salt, and the spices if you're using them. Press the lemons to release juice, and add more if necessary until the fruit is covered. Seal.

Keep in a warm place for 30 days, shaking daily.


Pam Corbin's preserved lemons

for two 450g jars

1kg small lemons
150g sea salt
1 tsp pink or black peppercorns
3-4 bay leaves
1 tsp coriander seeds (optional)

Set aside 3-4 lemons for juice.

Partially quarter the others by slicing lengthwise but keeping them intact at the bottom. Rub a teaspoon of salt into the cut surfaces of each lemon. Pack into the jars, sprinkling with salt and spices. Cover the lemons with juice. Top up the jars with a little water if necessary. Seal. Leave for four weeks.


What would you do?

Extra fruity Christmas Cake

I recently found myself promising to make a Christmas cake for the raffle at the cricket dinner. Fine, I'm good at making fruit cake (if I say so myself). But not so good at decorating them. So I took the easy way out, and studded it with almonds, as if it was a Dundee cake.


















This is the extra fruity Christmas cake I made last year, after lots of help from readers. I made two. I'll make marzipan for ours - it's a doddle, and much much nicer than anything you can buy. In fact, if I didn't have time to make a cake, I'd buy one and STILL make the marzipan, it's that good.

Icing? Well, I aim to crack that this year ... in the past, I've either bought very nasty ready-rolled, or made rough icing that slid down the cake, onto the plate and off onto the worktop. Can anyone give me any good tips on making Christmas cake icing?


Links to related posts

Boiled fruitcake my mother-in-law's foolproof and delicious recipe
Pistachio marzipan

Christmas chutney

For many people, the warm spices - cinnamon, cloves, cardamon, nutmeg, mace - are the smell of Christmas. They're also the typical contents of a jar of mixed spice. I've got two lots of mixed spice on the go at the moment: Bart's contains coriander, cinnamon, cassia, ginger, caraway, nutmeg and cloves; whereas the Spice Shop Christmas Pudding Mix contains cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, cloves, anise and cardamon. Either way, they can be substituted for individual spices when you're following a recipe - or you can make your own mixture with the flavours you like best.

This Christmas chutney is brilliant for people who've never made one, because it's made with dried fruit, which means you don't have to boil it for hours and hours while the moisture from fresh ingredients is driven off. It's also brilliant for people without much time, because you don't have to chop - you just pulse the cooked chutney in a food processor. And it's delicious.

Christmas chutney is good for presents, for eating with cold Christmas leftovers, and to perk up sauces and gravies. It takes half an hour of fuss-free cooking. If you make it now, it will be at it's best at Christmas, although it will keep for years.

Christmas chutney
enough to fill three 0.5l Le Parfait jars

250g dried apricots
250g pitted dried dates
250g dried pears**
250g dried cranberries
125g light muscovado sugar
300ml cider or wine vinegar
300ml water
1/4 tsp ground cloves*
1/2 tsp ground allspice*
1 tsp ground cinnamon*
1 tsp ground ginger*

Put everything into a large stainless steel saucepan. Slowly bring to the boil, simmer for 20 minutes, loosely covered. Stir occasionally, to ensure everything is properly cooked through. Leave to cool for a while, then tip into your food processor to pulse. Three or four quick pulses is enough, as you want texture, not babyfood. Spoon into sterilised jars (ie, straight from the dishwasher cycle, or from 20 minutes in a low oven).

*Do not worry if you don't have all those spices - don't go out to buy allspice specially, just make up the amount with a mixture of the others. And if you don't use much spice, then mixed spice will do fine - look at the ingredients, and you'll see they are not much different.

** I had a little trouble finding dried pears (Cooks' Ingredients section of Waitrose). But dried apple slices would do just as well, and are more widely available.


This is adapted from Nigella's Christmas, a book I am much enjoying


Related posts

Other things to make as Christmas presents

Caramel-salt nuts - you can make these just before you go out
Spiced apricot and orange chutney
Fig vinegar
Chilli and pepper chutney
Red onion marmalade
Plum jam - there are still a few plums in the shops
Home-made vanilla extract - superfast: put vanilla into a jar, then pour on vodka!

Fig vinegar

Christmas presents are so much nicer when they're homemade: I treasure the chopping boards made by my children, the necklaces made of conkers, the jewelry cases made from old boxes decorated with beads, grandma's delicious marmalade and shortbread.

This is the work of moments, and I know it's going to be delicious. Lovely for dressing seasonal salads. And Christmas presents.

Fig vinegar
for one litre

250g ready-to-eat dried figs
75g runny honey
a sprig of thyme (or a teaspoon of dried)
a pinch of peppercorns (I used multi-coloured)
1 litre white wine vinegar

Snip the figs fairly small into a two-litre Kilner or Le Parfait jar. Add all the other ingredients. Shake. Put in a cool dark place for a week, shaking occasionally as you remember. After a week, decant into 4 sterilised 250cl bottles, using a funnel and sieve.

Keep in a cool dark place until you're ready to use it or give it away.

This is adapted from Nigella's Christmas.

Sticky pears with gorgonzola

Here's a delicious autumn recipe for those hard pears you find everywhere at this time of year - and a way to make a little piece of cheese stretch further. No photograph, I'm afraid, because we ate it so fast - I made it in seconds as we were all sitting down for soup. It's very quick, and it brings the age-old combination of pears and blue cheese to new heights.

These flowers from the garden were on the table at the weekend - there won't be many more, as the nights are getting colder and colder.

Sticky pears with gorgonzola
for six

three pears
honey*
Marsala**
walnut halves
gorgonzola

Cut three pears into eight slices each. Fry them gently in olive oil until they start to brown. Meanwhile, mix 2 tablespoons of honey with 3 of Marsala. Coat the pears with this mixture in the frying pan, then lift them out with a slotted spoon and arrange on a large flat dish. Throw a handful of walnut halves into the pan and stir fry for a minute or so, until they are completely coated in the sticky sauce. Put them on the dish, then add the cheese. Drizzle everything with the remaining sauce.


* I used the last of some chestnut honey for this, and the taste shone through, so I would say it was worth using good honey here, if you have some

**I think this would work with other flavours ... next time, I'll use the Armagnac I use for Agen prune tarts

As you may have guessed, this is Nigella (Express)

Prune and armagnac tart

Computer still dead, so once again no pictures. This is fab. Also a bit of a triumph for me, as it was an experiment in baking on our new Esse woodburning stove - even the manufacturers are dubious about how much cooking you can achieve ... so I'm feeling particularly pleased that I managed an entire roast for six PLUS this baking. Lovely traditional French food.

Prune and armagnac tart
for 6 individual tarts

200g Agen prunes
2-3 tbsp armagnac
15-20g ground almonds
1 beaten egg
20g sugar
100 ml cream or creme fraiche

enough pastry for six individual tarts

Prepare the pastry cases and rest in the fridge.

Pour armagnac over the prunes and leave for at least an hour, more if they are not already very soft.

Prick the pastry cases and bake in a hot oven (200C) for 15-20 minutes (or don't prick them, but use greaseproof paper and baking beans). Remove from the oven just before they start to brown, brush with a little of the beaten egg and give them another couple of minutes in the oven.

Drain the prunes, reserving the armagnac in a bowl. Add the almonds, eggs, sugar and cream. Arrange the prunes in the pastry cases, then pour over the custard. Bake at 180-190C for 45 minutes.

Plum jam

Both our plum trees failed to produce any fruit this year - I think they were frosted in the spring. But there are plenty of plums in the market at the moment. The little hard ones which aren't much good for eating are cheap - and brilliant for making jam. I bought small Sungolds for this jam, and the plums were cheaper than the sugar.

I've been eating this with a slice of homemade wholemeal bread for breakfast every day this week. No butter/marge - no need, it would only mask the fresh flavour.

Plum jam
for about 2.5 kg

1.5kg plums
1.25kg sugar

Halve and stone the plums. Simmer them in 400ml of water until they are cooked through (once you put in the sugar, they won't soften any more) - 15/20 minutes. Add the sugar, bring to the boil and cook rapidly until setting point is reached. This will take at least 10 minutes.

Test: I use a thermometer AND the saucer method (put a drop of jam on a saucer, wait til it's cool, then see how runny it is). You want quite a firm set. Bottle in sterilised jars (put them through a dishwasher cycle). Cover while hot; label when cold (otherwise the glue melts).


This is my entry for Heart of the Matter's September topic: preserving the harvest. Hosted by Michelle The Accidental Scientist.

Delia's spiced apricot chutney

I'm having a clear out, and in the larder I found a number of old packets of apricots. I also put Delia's Christmas book in the Oxfam pile. Then I remembered her recipe for spiced apricot chutney, utterly wonderful, the best thing in the book (the only thing I've cooked more than once). I've given it away for Christmas presents, and I often use it to liven up the leftovers which are my lunchtime staple. Delia recommends using it as the basis of a sauce to go with roast pork; that's good too. I'm posting the recipe because the book is definitely going to Oxfam. And because I'm down to my last half jar.

Spiced apricot and orange jam
enough to fill a 1-litre jar

400g no-soak apricots
1 tsp whole coriander seeds
225g soft light brown sugar
425ml cider vinegar
1 medium onion, chopped
50g sultanas
2 tbsp finely grated fresh ginger
2 chopped cloves garlic
grated zest and juice of one orange

Chop the apricots small. Dry fry the coriander seeds; when they are toasted bash them with a pestle. Put everything together in a stainless steel saucepan, bring up to the boil and simmer gently for up to an hour (it will take at least 45 minutes).

When it's good and thick, pour into sterilised jars and seal. (I sterilise my jars by putting them through a dishwasher cycle.)


Spiced apricot sauce for pork

Pork pan juices
15g plain flour
570ml white wine
3 tbsp chutney
grated zest of an orange

Blend the flour into the pan juices (I wouldn't weigh this, I'd do it by eye/feel, but you know what a stickler Delia is for detail). Gradually stir in the wine (I might well use stock, cider, or even water). When you've got a smooth sauce, cook it gently for a few minutes until the flour is cooked, then add the chutney and zest. Simmer for a little longer.