Pumpkin and Maple Spread

I'm actually in the middle of cooking this right now so have no idea how it'll turn out. Nevertheless, I thought I'd quickly post the recipe as I figure many people will be hollowing out pumpkins this weekend and timely ideas for using up the scrapings may go down well!

Pumpkin and Maple Spread

1.5kg chopped pumpkin (the shavings made when you scrape out the insides with a spoon are perfect)

600g maple syrup (this is roughly 2 bottles. I got mine cheaply from Aldi)

300g honey (roughly a standard jar)

Cinnamon stick if liked.

Stick everything in a big pan and simmer gently for 90 minutes, skimming any scum. The recipe says it can be left chunky or pureed. I'm planning on pureeing mine when it's cool. I'll then heat up the smooth spread back to boiling point to kill off any bugs and pack into sterilised jars which should keep for 6 months.

Suggested uses include:

Spread on Toast

Drizzled over waffles and cream

Combined with cream and eggs to make a pie filling

Eaten with a spoon when feeling low.

This recipe is from Nick Sandler and Johnny Acton's book 'Preserved'. I've never made it before, but will report back on the success or otherwise in more detail tomorrow when it's done.

*Update* It's a roaring success! Sweet, caramelly, spicy, gorgeous. We had it spooned over quince crumble with vanilla ice cream, I think it's probably best thought of as a dessert topping/syrup type of affair rather than a jam.

This recipe made 3 jars so I'm thinking of using the rest of our stash of somewhat insipid orange pumpkins to make some more.

Dewberries in Ancient Places

We had a full on foraging day this weekend at my favourite spot - the nameless bridleway opposite our house. It's an unremarkable, workaday little lane, heading off the B1077 into open farmland. It appears on Faden's 1797 map of Norwich so I know it's at least 200 years old - maybe even more.

Residents of Norfolk and Suffolk may not see anything remarkable in that but residents of my home town, Warrington, probably will. Warrington is the kind of place you can leave for 6 months and, upon your return, be unable to navigate to the town centre because the 2 new by-passes have sprung up in your absence. The Golden Square is full of confused ex-pats who drove into the Leigh Street car park and seem to have emerged in a different century. In short: it changes - a lot. Buildings are pulled down and roads are built, the streets are like shifting sand.

So to this urban girl, it seems astonishing that the oldest known map of Diss shows the town centre largely unchanged from today's street plan and I can pick blackberries from a hedge I'm can be confident is at least 200 years old.

The fruit down there is fairly ordinary, blackberries, sloes, crab apples, rose hips and elderberries but it's convenient being so close. Last year I was delighted to discover some dewberries down there. All the foraging books claim that dewberries are common but this is the only place I've ever found them though I suppose it's easy to mistake them for mal-formed blackberries. As they're tricky to pick without thoroughly squishing them so we guzzled them at the roadside - scrummy.

I think I'm nearly done on the jam making front for the year. I've got cooked blackberries straining in the kitchen in preparation for the king of preserves - Bramble Jelly, and on Sunday I made Apple and Blackberry butter which was truly divine. As I have probably mentioned before, fruit butters are a thick jam made of pureed fruit. They're great for filling sponge cakes as they don't dribble down the sides or soak into the sponge, they just sit in an impressively thick, obedient pile. Similarly they're good in jam tarts as they don't bubble and overflow the pastry shell so you can pile loads in. If the fancy takes you, they can even be turned out, sliced and serves as a dessert with nuts and clotted cream.

Apple and Blackberry Butter.

1.8kg cooking/crab apples

1.2kg blackberries

150ml water

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

butter

sugar

Roughly chop the apples cut out any bruised bits but don't peel or core. Cook them with the blackberries in the water til all the fruit is very soft and pulpy. Rub through a sieve. Return the puree to a clean pan with the spices. For every pint of puree (my jam pan is calibrated which makes this part much easier) add 25g butter and 400g sugar. Stir over a low heat til the sugar as dissolved, taste at this point to check the spices and add more if you think it's needed. Turn the heat up and boil til setting point is reached. Pot up into sterilised jars. The yield for me was 7, almost 8, jars.

Tomato Ketchup

The hanging basket tumbling toms had shrivelled to twigs and the Gardener's Delight in the mini greenhouse were suffering from the attentions of next door's cat (which is a whole other post ....) so I decided to chop them down and harvest the remaining fruit. The green tomatoes went into Green Tomato chutney along with the chillis from Willow's chilli plant. It's too hot for me but Adam will appreciate it I think.

I used the ripe fruit for Tomato Ketchup. I've made plum and hawthorn ketchup before but never tomato. I was a bit apprehensive because the other ketchups don't have a precedent whereas the comparison inviting spectre of Heinz looms large over this one. I thought it would probably be infinitely preferable to an adult palate but the children are an entirely different matter. I used a Marguerite Patten recipe although she doesn't specify a spice mixture, that bit's my own.

Tomato Ketchup

450ml white malt vinegar

2tbs black peppercorns

1tbs szechuan pepper

1tbs coriander seed

1.8k ripe tomatoes roughly chopped

225g onions finely chopped

350g chopped cooking apples (peeled and cored weight)

450g sugar

salt to taste

First boil the spices in vinegar, then leave them to steep for 15 mins or so before removing them from the vinegar. Put the vegetables in a heavy bottomed pan and simmer until very soft. Rub through a sieve to remove the tomato seeds/skins etc, return the pulp to a clean pan, add the vinegar, sugar and salt and simmer until thickened.

I'm not really sure of the keeping properties of this ketchup but as the original recipe recommends bottling it, it's safe to assume it doesn't have a long shelf life. This recipe made 2 bottles for me, 1 of which I put in the fridge, the other (in a plastic bottle) I put into the freezer.

I love, love, love this ketchup and had to be restrained from guzzling it neat like soup. It has a really bright, zingy fresh tomato flavour that's a smack in the chops after the plastic gloop of commercial ketchup. The only drawback is that it's very thin and runny compared to what we're used to but I can live with that. Luckily, Willow agrees with me. I invited her to test it, she approached the spoon with caution but her little face lit up when she tasted it. The smugness ended with Xanthe though who refused to taste it and made sick noises - oh the joys of cooking for small children *sigh*

Pickled Damsons for Suzanne

This is for Suzanne because I feel bad. A couple of weeks ago she asked what recipe I would recommend for damsons, without a moment's hesitation I went for pickled damsons. They need a lengthy maturation - at least 6 months - but the reward is a rich, velvety smooth, sweet and sour fruit that is just sublime with the (ubiquitous) cheese and cold meats. Though I love them with my favourite breakfast which I hesitate to post in case my followers lose faith in my palate.

After receiving a tip off from Rachel that the damsons in our usual stomping ground were ripe I bobbed off and picked a few kilos (not sure exactly how many due to the temperamental nature of my scales) and skipped eagerly back to the laptop to get my pickled damsons recipe.

Oh.

Sorry Suzanne - I thought I'd recorded it for prosperity last year but I didn't. Fortunately I still have my scribbled notes in the margin of my Marguerite Patten recipe book so here it is.

Pickled Damsons

2.5 pints white wine/cider vinegar

2.25k sugar

2.25k damsons

5 cloves

1 vanilla pod.

Heat the vinegar together with the spices and allow to cool. Fish the spices out and tip the damsons in, heat til they have softened then pack them into sterilised jars. Add the sugar to the vinegar and boil to a thickish, syrupy consistency. Pour the hot syrup over the damsons and seal with a vinegar proof lid. Makes about 11lbs. Mature for at least 6 months.

I always have a problem with excess syrup when making pickled fruit. It seems that a large quantity of vinegar is needed to cover the fruit at the cooking stage which then requires a large quantity of sugar to make a palatable syrup. The upshot is a surfeit of syrup. I'd love to hear from anyone else with experience of pickling fruit, do you have the same kind of problem? Or are your recipes very different to Marguerite's?

Yellow Bullace and Cointreau Jam

I'm slowly working my way through our mountain of yellow bullace. I bottled a couple of kilos in Rose wine syrup with vanilla, not tried it yet though so let's hope it's nice. Another couple of kilos went into this jam/jelly cross, the rest have been temporarily housed in the freezer to be brought out for future ketchup and cordial recipes.

Yellow Bullace and Cointreau Jam

2 kilos of yellow bullace

sugar and Cointreau - exact quantities in recipe.

I simmered the bullace in a little water, didn't need much as the fruit was very ripe and readily gave out it's juice. Once they were softened I rubbed them through a sieve to remove the skins and stones. This stage is very much down to personal taste/patience levels though. I find it quicker than sifting the stones out by hand and removing the skins reduces the tannic flavour making the final product sweeter. This could be a good or bad thing according to your palate and what you want to use the jam for. If it's needed for a glaze for chicken or sticky ribs for example, the extra tannin would be quite beneficial.

Measure the juice and pulp mixture, for every pint add 1lb sugar and 2tbsp Cointreau. Then boil til setting point is reached and pot up in the usual way. Makes about 10 jars.

The final product is a warm, orange colour (though thanks to the camera situation you'll have to take my word for it. A giraffe is not dissimilar though) and it has a warm, orange tainted flavour too.

So much to report, so little time.

After my last marathon post, in the interests of brevity, I'm sticking with the headlines:

• Turns out foraging with a clutchbag isn't terribly sensible or productive
• Mulberry trees seem to have a predilection for churchyards
• Those courgettes are never going to go away
• It takes an hour, 3 people, a large tarpaulin and a custom built platform to gather 11 kilos of yellow bullace
• The sweetcorn seem to have pulled through
• Digital cameras, akin to mobile phones and Willow's DSi, don't appreciate sitting in a puddle of water
• Indonesian pickle is interesting (evidenced below)

Indonesian Pickle

1/2 cucumber sliced

6oz cauliflower

2 large carrots

1 - 2 chillis chopped

1/2" grated ginger

2 cloves garlic

3tsp veg oil

1/4 pint of nice vinegar (ie, not malt)

2 level tps turmeric

4 tbsp sesame seeds

4oz roughly chopped salted peanuts

4oz soft dark sugar

Cook ginger, garlic and turmeric in the oil til soft. Add the vinegar and bring to the boil. Add the chopped/sliced veg and bring back to the boil. Boil for about 5 mins (depending on veg used, it needs to soften slightly but still retain the crunch) Stir in the rest of the ingredients, heat til the sugar dissolves. Pack into hot jars and allow to mature for a month.

This is from my trusty WI recipe book, 'Jams and Preserves Old and New' though when I made it, I just used cucumber and courgette instead of carrots and cauliflower.

Next on my list to experiment with are the yellow bullace, I'm thinking jam with Cointreau and bottled with pink wine and vanilla.

Apologies for the random photo, see my camera related headline, I'm reduced to using random snaps stored on the laptop til I can get the whole debacle sorted out and further apologies for the layout. Let's just say 'Blogger - ffs!'

Sunshine on a Rainy Day.

Anyone following me on Twitter will already know of my rather dramatic courgette situation. On return from holiday we found 5 monster courgettes, all roughly 50cm in length and weighing around 6lbs. Willow is pictured struggling to hold one. I have to confess to being somewhat daunted by this embarassment of riches but nonetheless, a glut brings out the best in me to here goes.

Yesterday we had courgette pasta for lunch and nut roast with grated courgette for dinner and I reluctantly prepared Marguerite Patten's Marrow and Ginger jam (obviously replacing the marrow with monster courgette), a recipe I derided last year being, as I am, not a lover of marrow or ginger.

This is the recipe as it appears in Marguerite's book, I scaled it up 5 (yes, 5!) times. This recipe makes roughly 750g of jam.

Marrow and Ginger Jam.

1lb marrow/courgette, peeled, seeds removed and chopped to 1.5cm dice

3tbsp chopped crystalized ginger

1lb sugar

1 tbsp lemon juice

Mix the marrow, ginger and sugar in a pan and leave overnight. The sugar will draw a large amount of liquid from the marrow. Stir well to extract as much liquid as possible. From then on it's standard stuff, heat to setting point and pot into sterilised jars. As there are large pieces of marrow it's advisable to allow the jam to cook somewhat before potting up in a vain attempt to distribute the pieces evenly so they don't all float to the top. I'm useless at getting that bit to work though.

I'm surprised how nice it is. Rather sweet for my taste (I seem to have become accustomed to tart wild fruit) but pleasant enough. It's a delicate, summery preserve, sunshine yellow in colour and, as the bland courgette tones down the fire of the ginger, gently warming on the palate. Very breakfasty I feel.

So that's 2 monsters dealt with, 3 more to go. One more batch of pickle I think followed by courgette bake for tea, then I may resort to stocking the freezer with courgette puree for future soup use.

Sweet Cucumber Pickle.

Adam and I arrived at the allotment on Friday to discover our didactic cucumber had burgeoned to monstrous proportions, as we still have half of it's sibling in the fridge I knew we'd struggle to get through this one so I decided to turn it into a pickle.

I turned once more to my Norfolk WI booklet 'Jams and Preserves Old and New' from whence my acclaimed Courgette Pickle came and it came up trumps once more with this surprisingly flavoursome pickle. This is the recipe exactly as it is in the book:

Sweet Cucumber Pickle

3 large cucumbers

3 large onions

2 green peppers

2oz salt

1 pint white wine vinegar

1lb soft brown sugar

1/2 tsp turmeric

1 tbsp mustard seeds

1/4 tsp ground cloves

Peel the cucumbers and cut into 'finger' sized pieces. Slice the onions and peppers finely. Mix the vegetables with the salt and leave to stand for 3 hours. Drain, and rinse very well.

Bring all the other ingredients to the boil, add the vegetables and simmer for 2 minutes (no longer, or the cucumber will be too limp) Pack into sterilised jars and leave for a month to mature before eating.

I reduced the quantities given as I guessed my monster cucumber was probably roughly equivalent to 2 standard cucumbers and so reduced the other ingredients by a third too. This yielded about 4lbs of finished pickle.

I tasted a little in it's pre-matured state and was very surprised at the punch the seasoning packs, it's an amazingly strong flavour though I have to admit I don't think I rinsed my vegetables well enough as it's still on the salty side.

On an entirely unrelated matter, we had a lovely family walk today the highlight of which was the discovery of several new foraging spots. We found more cherry plums, a walnut tree, 2 pear trees and a new quince tree! I think 1st August should go down in Norfolk Kitchen history. Fingers crossed for tomorrow too as Adam is hoping to forage our first ever Mulberries. I think 2010 is going to be a good year for foraging even if the allotment is a bit of a damp squid, errrr, squib.

Candy Cane Cookies

Maybe I've been wandering around blindfold in the past but it's only the last two Christmases that I've noticed candy canes in the shops. This year, I went a bit crazy and bought loads, festooned a dozen or so on the tree and used the rest to decorate wrapped presents.

While they have a nostalgic aesthetic charm to them they're actually not that great to eat. Place one in the hands of a small child at your peril, within 5 short minutes every surface in the house will be smeared in a sticky, fluff catching layer of sugar and probably best not to think too seriously about what's happening to their teeth.

This afternoon we made Candy Cane Cookies which were a very efficient way to make the darn things actually more edible and use up the remaining tree canes. This is an American recipe but I've anglicised the weights and measures.

Candy Cane Cookies.
200g butter
200g sugar
1 egg
1/4 tsp each peppermint essence and vanilla extract
280g plain flour
Approx 200g finely crushed candy canes
3 tbsp sugar.

Cream the butter and sugar together, add the egg and flavourings, mix well. Add the flour and mix to a sticky dough. Wrap in cling film and chill for an hour (the dough, not you - you've got candy canes to crush)

Mix the crushed candy canes and sugar together. Take walnut sized pieces of dough and roll the cane/sugar mix then flatten onto a baking tray. Bake at GM 5 for about 12 minutes.

Now, these are cookies, not biscuits and this is the first time I've made American style cookies so it was something of a learning experience. They spread like swine flu so don't overcrowd the baking tray. I lined my tray with baking parchment but the pesky blighters still stuck to it so maybe oiling the baking parchment would be a good idea. They're very soft when they first come out of the oven but they harden and crisp up fairly rapidly as they cool, in fact, don't hang around too long or they get even harder to chip off the baking tray.

They are utterly delicious, buttery, chewy, crispy - I seem to have repressed some vague memory about January and, ummm, what was it? H - h - healthy? Healthy eating? Surely not .....

The BEST slow cooked chicken (and stock)

A bit of background info about this post: I was vegetarian for about 20 years but started eating meat again roughly 3 years ago, I've spent the time teaching myself how to cook meat and think I'm finding my feet a little now (aside from beef which I'm somewhat intimidated by).

I've experimented with cooking chicken (free range, obviously) in a few ways but think I discovered my favourite last night. Like most right thinking people I adore chicken rubbed with olive oil, salt and pepper and simply roasted but this has the double edged sword of producing lots of lovely, tasty, fatty, hip expanding crispy skin. Plus making stock from the carcass requires a second cooking process which can be a bit of a faff and often makes stock with an 'overcooked' taste. My solution is to poach the whole chicken in the slow cooker which makes stock at the same time as cooking the bird. It produces achingly tender meat which literally falls off the bone, true the skin is soft and unappealing but at least then it's not a chore to peel it off and give it to the cat.

So this is how I did it:

1 whole chicken
Dried mushroom (I used about 1/4 pack of Merchant Gourmet mixed dried mushrooms)
1 onion chopped
2 roughly chopped garlic cloves (but they were HUGE)
sprinkle dried thyme.
1 Knorr chicken stock pot/cube thingie

Put the chicken in the slow cooker and pour in cold water to about half way up the bird. Add the rest of the ingredients and leave on high for 6 hours.

Carefully remove the bird and don't be surprised if it loses a limb or two in the process. Remove the breast meat to serve Sunday 'roast' style, then once the carcass has cooled the rest of the meat can be removed for stew/soup/tagine the next day.

The stock obviously needs to be strained before use. I got rather carried away with it, last night I used it in the mashed potato, to make gravy and to cook the savoy cabbage in. I stored it in the fridge overnight to allow the fat to solidify which makes it easy to remove. Today I'm using it and the leftover meat to make a chicken and barley broth with butternut squash and savoy cabbage.

I forgot to take any photos of the food last night so in it's stead I've put an ironic shot of an unsuspecting Feathers. I always feel guilty when I'm cooking chicken and catch sight of one of ours through the kitchen window.

I kissed a frog and I didn't like it.

I've been making an effort to balance my preserves store of late. I have oodles of jams and jellies but was feeling a bit chutney lite. I'm always looking for something new to try so have been experimenting with a number of recipes that caught my eye. This approach is something of a double edged sword as, yes, there are previously untapped gems out there but to get to them you have to kiss a few frogs (and mix a few metaphors). Unfortunately, 'kissing a frog' in chutney terms is hard work as it involves a few hours chopping and simmering and a whole heap of washing up.

So to help you tread a little more sure footedly on the chutney path, here's a brief review of my recent chutney frogs:

Sloe Chutney - Avoid, avoid, avoid. Excessively tannic to the point of unpleasantness.
Spiced Pear Chutney - Sounded lovely, I imagined something sweet yet chilli hot. Unfortunately the spice blend was far too 'currified', it's like eating cold curry. Avoid unless you're Dave Lister.
Lavender Chutney - Probably unfair to include this as an out and out frog. If it was called Lemon Chutney it would be fine, it tastes lovely, very lemony but the lavender taste seems to have been completely destroyed in the cooking process though. Plus the recipe only made one jar. And the onions made me cry. Huff.
Date and Walnut Chutney - This one should be nice and it very nearly is, the spice blend is far too heavy on the cumin though and the it overwhelms the walnuts completely.

The Spiced Pear Chutney I'm hoping to use up as actual curry sauce, I've got half a sheep being delivered next week so I'm thinking some sort of slow cooked mutton curry may be in order. To be fair, the Lavender and Date and Walnut could be salvaged with some tweaking of the recipe next time round so I have a bit of a dilemma. It seems daft to make another batch now that I have about 10 jars of chutney in the cupboard but it also seems daft to chomp my way through 10 jars of not quite up to scratch chutney.

For the time being I'm keeping hold of them in the hope that the taste improves as they mature. I have had one success though:

Hedgerow Chutney
1lb onions
2lb cooking apples (peeled and cored weight)
2lbs blackberries
2 tsp grated lemon rind
3/4 pint cider vinegar
12oz sugar
3tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp mustard powder
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
1/2 tsp ground ginger.

Put everything except the sugar into a pan and simmer until the onions and apples are soft. Then add the sugar and heat gently til it has dissolved. Boil steadily until it becomes thick and jammy, spoon into sterilised jars and seal with vinegar proof lids.

Why the picture of the baldy chicken? Just because her little baldy head is making me laugh quite a lot at the moment!

Christmas Present Series Part 2 - Figgy Mostardo

This is another recipe from Pam Corbin's 'Preserves' book. I chose this to put into my Christmas Hampers as it struck me as being quite a masculine preserve which would be a good partner with the delicately feminine Lavender Jelly as a present for a couple. Plus the name is irresistible, how could I bypass the chance to write out 'Figgy Mostardo' labels?

Figgy Mostardo
500g dried figs
zest and juice of 2 grapefruit
1 tbsp yellow mustard seed
200g sugar or honey
25g mustard powder
100ml cider or white wine vinegar

Using scissors, snip the figs into 4 or 6 pieces. Put in a bowl with the mustard seeds and grapefruit zest. Measure the grapefruit juice and top up to 500ml with water, add to the bowl. Cover and leave overnight.

Put the figs in a pan with the sugar, heat gently til the sugar dissolves. Blend the mustard powder with the vinegar and add to the pan. Simmer, uncovered, for 20 mins til thickened.

Spoon into sterilised jars and seal with vinegar proof lids, mature for 4 weeks before opening. Should keep for about 12 months. Makes 4 225g jars.

Mine have been maturing for a couple of weeks now and have nice hot and fruity taste with an unexpectedly crunchy texture, perfect for a Boxing Day cold meat buffet.

Spiced Crystalised Quince

Christmas Present series Part 1. (Anyone who receives Christmas presents from me, please look away now)

I'm pleased to finally be in a position to blog my crystalised quince recipe. It's been weeks in the making but I'm thrilled with the final version. It looks daunting as it takes at least a week but the time input per day is minimal. They keep for ages, one recipe book confidently claims they keep 'indefinitely' but more modern recipe books are a bit more cautious. Either way, they're ideal to make now and will happily sit in the cupboard in an air tight container til Christmas. There's also plenty of time to browse Ebay and get some pretty sweetie wrappers and cello bags to put them in.

Spiced Crystalised Quince.

1lb quince, peeled and cored weight.
White sugar
Brown sugar
1tsp ground ginger
half tsp ground cinnamon

I used Japonica quince for this recipe which are tiny so it was sufficient to just peel and quarter them. If you're using the larger quince, they'll need to be cut into bite sized pieces.

Put the pieces into a pan, cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes and then refresh under cold, running water. Make a hot syrup with half a pint of water and 6oz white sugar, pour over the quince slices and leave for 24 hrs. (I left mine in a lidded pan)

Next day, add a further 2oz white sugar to the pan, heat to dissolve the sugar then leave for another 24hrs. Repeat for a total of 7 days.

On the 7th day, spread the quince onto a baking sheet in a single layer and put into the oven on it's lowest setting for an hour or two. The aim is to dry the pieces leaving them with a crisp sugar coating. Allow to cool and then place the fruit in a jar with about 6 tbsp of brown sugar and the spices (or to taste) and give it a good shake to coat. If you find the fruit too sticky, leave it a week or so then dry them out in the oven again, at this stage they should be totally dry.

Maybe it's because I used freshly opened ground ginger rather than the old jar that had been sitting around for years but, heavens to betsy, these spiced quince are gorgeous. And that's saying something coming from someone who's not that fond of ginger unless it's in Grasmere Gingerbread!

Chocolate and Aubergine Cake

I don't know if anyone else has noticed but cakes incorporating vegetables seem to be in vogue all of a sudden, even Matthew Wright ate a courgette cup cake on The Wright Stuff the other day. We're all familiar with carrot cake and even beetroot and chocolate cake, but Harry Eastwood's book 'Red Velvet and Chocolate Heartache' takes the vegetable cake to a new level.

She uses a huge range of veg, aubergine, parsnip even potato and turnip. I've only tried 2 recipes so far but what I'm quite impressed with the subtly and sophistication of her cakes. I was expecting endless variations of carrot cake, ie fairly chunky crumbed, wholemeal, spicy doorstops but her Chocolate Chip Cupcakes and Heartache Chocolate cake couldn't be more different. Dense, squidgy and intensely chocolaty, you'd never guess the moist texture was down to microwaved aubergine.

My only slight complaint is her rather irritating habit of personifying her recipes, for example Heartache Chocolate Cake (the aubergine one) is "...sad. It's dark and drizzling down the window panes. She puffs her chest in hope when she goes into the oven; she then breaks, like a chest heaving a sob" Am I the only one rolling my eyes and muttering "it's a cake for God's sake"? Maybe that makes me an old curmudgeon with a soul as bitter as a kumquat. Who knows?


Heartache Chocolate Cake
400g aubergine
300g good dark chocolate
50g cocoa powder
60 ground almonds
3 medium eggs
200g clear honey
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp brandy

Pre-heat the oven to gm4/180C/350F. Line a 23cm, 7cm deep, cake tin with baking parchment and oil lightly. Stab the aubergine a few times, put in a covered bowl and microwave for 8 minutes. When it's cool enough to handle, slip the skin off and blend to a puree. Mix the chocolate into the aubergine and leave while the heat melts the chocolate.

Meanwhile whisk all the other ingredients together, then mix in the chocolate and aubergine. The recipe says bake for 30 mins but this seems to be quite variable. Rachel said hers was over cooked after 30 mins but mine was still squidgy after 50 mins so keep checking and take it out when it still quakes a little in the middle.

Leave to cool in the tin for 15 mins or so and then turn out and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!

Sloe Jelly and eating underground.

It's been an exciting time of late in The Kitchen. One of the hottest new food trends at the moment is the underground restaurant. (I missed Jamie last night but apparently he went to one in New York) I'm pleased to report that for once, Norfolk is actually up to speed with the rest of the known world! I visited my new friend Clarissa yesterday and she is starting a Supper Club in Norwich which is wildly exciting. Judging by the amazing Malaysian lunch I was treated to, the food should be superb, especially the chutney. Why yes, gentle reader, the Unthank Supper Club will exclusively offer Norfolk Kitchen jams, jellies and chutneys.

Making a list of the preserves I have available in my larder for Clarissa made me realise that I've leaned quite heavily to the jam/jelly rather than chutney side of things. So obviously I'm keen to put that right and am now buzzing with chutney ideas, sloe and crab apple coming up, possibly quince, probably pear, need more jars - how many days ago did I say I'd finished with the preserve pan?

I seem to have re-discovered my puritan work ethic this last week. As well as busting a gut on the hawthorn ketchup, I finished my candied quince but want to try another batch and experiment a little more before I post a final recipe, it's frustrating when I've been working away in the kitchen but can't blog about it!

Also under my belt (quite literally!) is the 2009 sloe jelly. Here's the recipe, I have posted it in my comments elsewhere but thought I'd write it up properly.

Sloe Jelly.
2.1kg crab apples
900g sloes
sugar

Put crab apples and sloes in a pan with 1.3 litres water, cook til apples have softened then strain in a jelly bag. I would suggest re-boiling the pulp to increase the final yield, use half the original amount of water and repeat the process.

Measure the juice and use 1lb sugar to each pint (sorry to mix metric and imperial measures!) and boil til setting point is reached, pot in the usual way. Makes about 5lbs.

Rachel - I've not forgotton, I'll be round with a jar (plus that yarn) very soon!

Hawthorn Ketchup

This ketchup has seen me run the full gamut of emotion, from eager anticipation through boredom and frustration to eventual triumph. The recipe comes from Pam Corbin's book River Cottage Handbook No2, Preserves. I was keen to try it as haws are so abundant it seems a shame not to make use of them somehow and I'm always keen to try out a new taste.

In all honesty I found the preparation a royal pain in the arse. Picking the berries takes forever as they're so tiny then they have to be painstakingly snipped, one by one, from their stalks with scissors. Cooking is quite time consuming as they take ages to soften and then putting them through a moulis to separate the skins and stones from the flesh has given me a dodgy shoulder and a stack of washing up a mile high. I was quite disappointed with the yield as after all that effort I only had one bottle.

However, all is not lost, the resulting ketchup is fantastic, rich, fruity and spicy. It also keeps for 12 months without any additional canning process which is an improvement on the plum ketchup I made from the Gardener's World magazine which only keeps for 4 months unopened. For that reason alone I'd make it again to keep in the cupboard and cheer us up in the new year.

Hawthorn Ketchup
500g haws
300ml white wine or cider vinegar
170g sugar
1/4 tsp salt
pepper

Snip the haws from the stalks and rinse in cold water. Place in a pan with the vinegar and 300ml water, simmer until the skins have turned brown and split to reveal the flesh inside. Remove from the heat and rub through a sieve or pass through a moulis.

Return the puree to the pan with the sugar, heat gently til it dissolves then bring to the boil and cook for 5 mins. Season with salt and pepper, pour into sterilised bottle and seal with a vinegar proof lid.

Forager's Reward

Willow requested Elderberry crumble again last night so I tweaked the original recipe a little and think this is a rather more refined version.

Forager's Reward.
For the filling:
600g victoria plums (stoned weight)
200g elderberries
100g blackberries
pinch ground cinnamon and allspice
brown sugar
For the topping:
100g butter
225g plain flour
100g brown sugar
50g roughly chopped hazelnuts

Combine the filling ingredients in an oven proof dish with enough brown sugar to lightly coat.
Rub the butter and flour together, leave it fairly chunky at this stage. Mix in the brown sugar, pour the crumble mixture over the fruit and scatter hazelnuts on top. Bake at gm 4 for 40 mins. Serve with cream or ice cream.

A truly outstanding crumble, even if I say so myself! The quantities of fruit can obviously changed to suit what's available but I wouldn't recommend including more than 200g of elderberries as their taste is very strong.

Pickled Plums

So I got round to pickling Sophie's plums yesterday and, yes, that does mean pickling in vinegar! I've not tasted them yet as I'm giving them time to mature (see Just a Quick Boast) but this is how I made them, based firmly on a recipe in Marguerite Patten's book Jams, Preserves and Chutneys. It works best with slightly under-ripe fruit.

Pickled Plums
2.25kg sweet plums
1.5 litres white wine or cider vinegar
1.7 kilos sugar
1 vanilla pod
5 cloves

Put the spices in the vinegar, bring to the boil and simmer for 3 or 4 minutes. Take out the cloves but leave the vanilla pod in and allow the vinegar to cool. Once cool remove the vanilla pod, add the plums and cook gently til they are softened but still whole. Lift out of the vinegar and drain well then pack into sterilized jars. At this stage I allowed the fruit to settle a little then drained more vinegar by tipping the jars up while holding the fruit back with a spoon.

Add the sugar to the vinegar in the pan and heat until the sugar dissolves then boil steadily til a syrup like consistency is reached. Pour the hot vinegar over the fruit and seal the jars.

How long to leave them to mature is a moot point. Marguerite suggests 2 months but last year I found this wasn't enough. I re-tasted last year's fruit a couple of days ago, at 10 months old they were delicious - so somewhere between 2 and 10 months! Think I'll keep tasting at intervals and will report back on the optimal maturation period. I'm dedicated to my work : )

If anyone out there is experienced in pickling fruit I'd love to hear your tips and hints. I'm finding I'm left with huge amounts of syrup at the end, does this mean I'm doing something wrong? I'm wondering if too much vinegar is getting in at the draining stage leaving less space for syrup and maybe this has something to do with a long maturing stage too? Any advice gratefully received!

Elderberry Crumble

I totally forgot to take a photo of the crumble before it got snaffled up so I had to quickly catch Willow finishing off the last bit, here's my eldest daughter cheesin' it up for the camera!

I'm afraid I've been a bit rubbish on the weights and measures so I hope you can make sense of my ramblings. I think I put about 10oz elderberries in a pan with about a 1lb of de-stoned plums. I added just a smidge of water plus a pinch of ground cloves and a generous shake of cinnamon together with about a cupful of brown sugar. I simmered this together til the fruit was tender. I'd recommend tasting at this point and adjusting the sugar to taste.

I made a crumble topping consisting of 100g ground nuts, (I used hazlenuts and almonds because that's what I had in the cupboard. The hazlenuts were the magic ingredient, in my humble opinion.) 200g flour and 100g butter, rubbed together then mixed with 100g brown sugar. The crumble was then baked at gm5 for 20 mins or so. We ate it with vanilla ice cream.

I've never had elderberries before and was stunned at how strong the flavour is. By pure accident I think I put the upper limit of what would be acceptable in there, any more would be quite overwhelming but as it was, the crumble was wildly popular in this household.

I still have a huge boxful of elderberries in the kitchen which I'm not sure how I'm going to use up although I have seen a recipe for pear and elderberry jam. Hmmm.

Lavender Jelly

At last, my experimental Lavender Jelly is made. I first tried it in The White Apron while on holiday up north. It was served with cheese and oaty biscuits - the texture of the biscuits is important I think. I enjoyed it so much I decided to have a go at copying it and this is what I came up with.

2 kilos crab apples (rosy red ones give a nice colour)
25g dried lavender
sugar (see recipe for amount)

Put the apples in a pan and barely cover with water. Simmer til the fruit has completely collapsed, adding more water if necessary. Strain through a jelly bag but add the lavender to the receptacle it's draining into so that the flowers steep in the apple juice. Leave overnight.

Next day, strain the lavender out of the apple juice. I used a colander lined with a muslin cloth. If you wish, you could leave some flowers in the juice (the jelly I had in the restaurant was studded with flowers) but I wasn't confident in my ability to make sure the flowers were evenly distributed through the jelly rather than floating at the top of the jar.

Measure the juice and add 1lb sugar to every pint. Bring to the boil til setting point is reached and pot in the usual way.

As you would expect, this jelly has a delicate, perfumed flavour and a beautiful colour. The perfect accompaniment to afternoon tea I feel, it's crying out for scones, clotted cream and cucumber sandwiches.