Hedgerow Jelly

Any walk through the English countryside during September and October can provide a multitude of treats for the eagle-eyed forager.  Forget that, there's no need for eagle-eyes - Autumn's fruits are everywhere!  People with apple trees in their gardens have just begun to leave baskets of fruit on their driveways, accompanied by scrawled notices beseeching passers-by to 'Please take some apples!', so of course I have obliged.

However, last weekend there was no need to look for cultivated fruit.  A quick cycle-ride along the canal towpath yielded basketfuls of hedgerow treasures which were just perfect for the 'Hedgerow Jelly' recipe I had had my eye on for a while.

We couldn't bear to get rid of these Fruits de l'Ontario baskets!

Fond memories of buying them full of ripe Niagara peaches and grapes...

Rob got carried away with picking blackberries, as you can see.

However, blackberries were not what I was after...  I had noticed some crab-apple trees up the towpath, and as the recipe called for half the quantity of fruit to be apples, I thought that these would be more appropriate than the apples I had 'foraged' from people's driveways!  I also filled my basket with rosehips and haws (from the hawthorn tree).  I knew that rosehips were edible - they were commonly gathered to make a Vitamin C-rich syrup, particularly during wartime last century - but I had never tried using them.  However, until recently I was unaware that haws were edible and as there's such a profusion of them this year, it seemed a shame not to try them.  Eaten straight from the tree they are uninspiring; slightly mealy and flavourless, but it seems that they have a multitude of potential health benefits, so that seems reason enough to include them in this recipe.

The recipe is, once again, from Pam Corbin's excellent River Cottage Handbook 'Preserves'.  This is fast becoming one of my cookery book essentials, and is certainly the book from which I have cooked most recipes over the past few months.  Typically, this recipe is gloriously flexible, allowing you to use whatever hedgerow treats you find, but with Pam's own favourite combinations suggested too.

500g crab apples (or apples)

500g mixed hedgerow berries (a combination of 2 or 3 of these is suggested: rosehips, elderberries, haws, bullaces, sloes, damsons, etc)

900g white sugar

Pick over your fruit, removing stalks and leafy bits and rinsing the berries if necessary.  Don’t peel or core the apples (they’re an excellent source of pectin), just chop them roughly.  Place all the prepared fruit in a saucepan with 1.2 litres of water and simmer until all the fruit is soft and pulpy.

Turn the contents into a bowl lined with a scalded muslin cloth, and leave to drip overnight.  I tie mine up by the corners and hang it off a clothes-airer with the bowl underneath, which seems to work very effectively, even if it looks a little odd!

The next day measure the juice – you will probably have about 1.2 litres, though this will depend on the berries used.  For every 600ml juice allow 450g sugar.  Put the juice into a large pan and slowly bring to the boil.  Add the sugar as it just comes to the boil and keep stirring until the sugar has dissolved.  Then boil rapidly, without stirring, for 9-10 minutes until the setting point is reached.  Skim the jelly and pot (in sterilised jars) and seal as quickly as possible.  Use within 12 months. 

This recipe can easily be halved, which was in fact what I did.  As you can see, this particular combination of berries produced a gorgeous clear ruby-red jelly, which almost glows as the Autumn sun shines through it.

 

The jelly can be spread on toast, or crumpets (to be eaten in front of a roaring fire of course!) but is equally at home used as a condiment with a roast dinner.  I have a real fondness for fruity jellies eaten in this way, but I think that's something that you either love or hate.  Either way, it's a perfect way to enjoy the loveliness of the new season. 

 

Delicious Damsons

Darn this world of full-time work!  Suddenly I have far too little time to write my blog.  However, I have made an effort to make time for cooking, particularly now we are entering a season full of nature's bounty...  I mean of course, lots of free food!

I'm not sure if we are particularly lucky regarding free food in our area - I suspect the profusion of cherries in our vicinity is very fortunate - but I seem to be continually discovering new sources of free fruit.  A mere 3 minutes walk down the road from our house for example, I suddenly discover a damson tree, laden with beautiful purple fruit!  It is definitely on public land (so no fruit-stealing worries here) and within a few minutes of not-very-arduous picking Rob and I managed to gather a large box full.

Now I wouldn't say I'm sick of jam...  but I do now have a cupboard full of it, 5 different varieties in all, and a total of about 10 jars which will take us about a year to eat.  So I really wanted to do something different with these damsons.  Thankfully inspiration came in the form of my Dad who often makes this wonderful Spiced Damson Sauce which is a perfect accompaniment to meats.  We have had it with the Christmas Turkey as an alternative to the traditional cranberry sauce, but it's also perfect with chicken.  I'd probably eat it with pork too.  I just love fruit-sauces with meats.  It's not too sweet, with the tartness provided by the fruit and the vinegar, and the flavours of the spices really shine through, especially the mace.  I don't usually like cloves much, but they work so well in this sauce.

Here's the recipe - so incredibly simple as you can see:

2lb / 900g damsons
1lb / 450g demerara sugar
A blade of mace
4 cloves  (I threw in a few more than this)
4 peppercorns  (Likewise - life's too short to count out peppercorns)
half tsp salt
half pint / 250ml vinegar (malt or wine)

Place all ingredients except the vinegar in a pan and simmer for 15 minutes.  (Add 2 tablespoons of water to get it going).  Add the vinegar and continue simmering for an hour.  Rub the mixture through a coarse sieve, return the pulp to the pan and boil gently for 10 minutes, stirring well so it doesn't catch.  Pot and keep for at last 2 weeks before eating.

I made 2 batches of this and discovered - erm, accidentally - with batch 1 that if you forget about timing the final 10-minute boiling and leave it bubbling away for 15-20 minutes, when potted it will set into a firm jelly.  Batch 2 was more carefully timed so is a fairly liquid sauce, but I actually prefer the firmer version for use when making sandwiches as it doesn't make the bread soggy.  Do as you please.

And it seems as though we're not the only ones who like damsons...

(Careless fruit-picking by Rob there - honestly, you can't get the staff!)  And yes, I did wash the fruit before using it!

Stolen Treasures

If a tree laden with fruit is growing in someone's garden, but the fruit is hanging over a public footpath, then is it stealing if you pick it?  This was the question that flitted through my mind as I hurriedly filled my empty sandwich box with luscious sweet Mirabelle plums on a local walk a few weeks ago.

I had done a cursory check into said garden, and established that no one was home, and salved my conscience by telling myself that there were literally thousands of plums on this tree...  but I couldn't help but feel a little guilty about taking them.

However, once home I put all guilt aside and set to turning these golden beauties into jam. 

Mirabelles are a small variety of plum - the perfect size for stoning with a cherry-pitter, and much less messy to do so!  They were perfectly ripe so were stoned with ease, and were soon bubbling away with some sugar and water. 

The recipe I used - this one, from the fabulous River Cottage 'Preserves' handbook by Pam Corbin - instructed one to crack some of the plum stones to extract the kernels and give the jam a slight almondy flavour.  But this sounded dangerous (I had visions of trying to bash them open with a hammer...) so instead, just as setting point was reached I added a scant teaspoon of almond essence.  This has provided a wonderful addition to the fruitiness of the jam - the almond flavour is subtle, but adds a real depth to the preserve. 

As you can see, I upped the almond level in one of my three jars by stirring through a generous handful of slivered almonds, which should provide an interesting texture.  I had never added nuts to a jam, but I have my fingers crossed that it will be a successful experiment.

A quick check through my kitchen cupboard has revealed that I now have 5 different varieties of home-made jam, all made in recent months.  With blackberries still to come, I fear that there will be even more by the time 2009 ends.  We don't even eat that much jam...  I think we'll just have to make the clotted cream tea a weekly occurance!

Ruby Food

Part of our recent Summer holiday was spent in Devon, staying with my parents.  It's an area that we both love, and it's great to have a base down there, with lots of family in the vicinity.  This year was also a special one, in that it was both my parents', and my aunt and uncle's Ruby Wedding Anniversaries.  40 years - impressive!  The Summer of '69 must have been a busy one for my grandparents.

I began thinking about a present as soon as heard that there was to be a family party, and soon came up with the idea of a red-themed hamper.  Sometimes I get struck by a wave of anti-consumerism, and horror at the sheer amount of 'stuff' that people seem to own nowadays (myself most definitely included), and luckily this feeling ties in neatly with the idea that home-made and edible gifts are lovely to receive. 

A quick browse through my many 'preserves' recipe books provided inspiration aplenty, but I thought I'd share one of the most successful projects with you: Ruby Fizz.  Earlier this Summer we had great success with making Elderflower 'Champagne', using this recipe, or something quite like it.  To be honest, there are a multitude of different recipes out there, each with varying quantities of elderflower, sugar, water, etc, so take your pick!  We soon got to thinking that we could use the same principle to create any kind of alcoholic (and it is alcoholic!) fruit fizz.  As we had a basket of the wild plums that I mentioned previously in this post, and a bag of foraged blackberries in the freezer from last Autumn, this seemed the perfect place to start.

Simply crush the fruit - enough to cover the base of a clean washing-up bowl - gently with a potato masher, and add about 500g of sugar.  This will seem a lot, but the fermentation process 'eats' some of the sugar, so the finished product shouldn't be too sickly-sweet.  Pour on 1 litre of boiling water and stir to dissolve the sugar, then add 2 litres of cold water.  This should create the ideal temperature to activate the yeast - add a pinch of dried yeast now.  Stir, cover with a clean tea towel, and wait...   After a day or two, you should begin to see signs of the fermentation starting.  As you can see from the first photo, ours looked rather sinister, like a bubbling swamp!  A quick taste will confirm that it is beginning to fizz.  After 3 days, scoop out the fruit (pic 2) and then strain into PLASTIC bottles (can't emphasise this enough - read what can happen if you try to use glass), leaving a few cm free at the top.  Then leave the bottles for at least a week.  Of course, plastic bottles can explode too, so every day I opened the lids very slightly just to let the excess gas escape.  You will hear a very satisfying fizzzzzzzzz when you do this.  In fact Rob and I began almost racing eachother downstairs in the mornings for the privilege of being the one to do this daily job!  You'll see the bottles begin to bulge ominously if you don't do this every day, so be sure not to go away on holiday at this point.

 

 

 

Et voila, Ruby Fizz ready for the hamper.  We have also kept a couple of bottles of this.  It's several weeks old now and has 'aged' well.  It's definitely worth chilling it thoroughly before serving as it remains very 'lively' when opened!  

So the fizz went into the hamper alongside the Cherry Jam, Rhubarb and Strawberry Jam, Cherry Ratafia (liqueur) and Raspberry Vinegar (all homemade, and mostly with foraged fruit), and the Ruby Port, Lindt Chocolates and bar of Bourneville Chocolate (bought, obviously) to complete the gift.

Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes were made for the afternoon tea, 'dressed' most beautifully once again by some gorgeous Cupcake Wrappers made by the wonderful Dani - check out the website here.  I asked Dani if she had suitable wrappers for a Ruby Wedding and she went to the trouble of ordering some new papers, and sending me several samples to choose from.  Now that's customer service!

The cupcakes were filled with macerated strawberries, and topped with cream cheese icing, much as I did with the cherry ones earlier in the Summer.

The party was a lovely occasion - many congratulations to Jenny and Bob, and Nick and Gwen!

Back to Blogging

I haven't written anything on my blog for waaaay too long. I've been away on a few short trips over the last month, part of our 'staycation' here in England, and had a great time. However, I have also been doing some foraging and some cooking so have several things lined up to blog about.

In my absence Sarah from Sarah Cooks has presented me with the Kreativ Blogger award, which was a very lovely surprise!  Do pop over and visit Sarah's blog - her restaurant reviews make me yearn to live in Melbourne!  I first 'met' Sarah online via her amazing project to cook every recipe from Nigella Lawson's first book How to Eat in one year...  a project which she completed in style, and in the process created a fantastic online resource which I find myself returning to every time I cook a recipe from this book.  I love How to Eat, but have always wished it had pictures.  Well, now Sarah Discovers How to Eat has rectified that problem.  Sarah, you're a legend!




As part of this award I have to list 7 things about myself that people might find interesting.  Of course it's perfectly possible that you won't find them interesting at all but never mind.  Here goes...

1.  I am unhealthily obsessed with correct spelling and punctuation.  I shudder at the sight of a misplaced apostrophe.  I am managing to cope with the spelling of 'kreativ' simply because I've checked online and it's the German translation of 'creative' so that's OK.  Of course admitting this obsession of mine leaves me wide open to criticism as I'm quite sure that there are a few cases of incorrect spelling and punctuation in this blog, but no one's perfect!

2.  I always write grammatically correct text messages.  I can't bring myself to shorten words to single letters or numbers...  I h8 txt spk!

3.  I am about to start my 12th year of primary school teaching.  That makes me feel old.  However, it does allow me to indulge in my passion for spelling and punctuation.

4.  I love to read.  I keep a 'book book' which is a notebook where I list the books that I read.  I have read nearly 70 books in the last 12 months.

5.  I am a Cathedral-Spotter and would love to visit all the cathedrals in England.  I went to Guildford last week, which was another one ticked off my list.

6.  I play the piano very badly.  In fact I can only play a few primary school hymns, which can prove useful on occasion.

7.  I have just bought a CD of Jamiroquai singles and have rediscovered my love for Jay Kay.  He lives down the road from me.  I might become his stalker...


I hope you've all had a lovely Summer (or Winter of course, if you're 'down under'!).  It's good to be back.

Ways with Walnuts

Remember those walnuts we spotted last week? Well, we decided that we had better do something with them, and fast. Apparently the squirrels are likely to get to them before we do if we wait for them to ripen, and this blog-post by David Lebovitz convinced me that the time was right to get picking.

I must admit that I was a little wary of making a whole litre of Nocino - not to mention the fact that there was no way I could find a large enough jar to do so (as it was I had to decant my preserved lemons out of the jar I used), so I ended up halving the recipe that David gives. But then of course we had, in our zeal for foraging, collected far too many walnuts...



A quick flick through a recent charity-shop-bargain recipe book - 'The National Trust Book of the Country Kitchen Store Cupboard' by Sara Paston-Williams - soon presented me with an ideal solution... Pickled Green Walnuts (recipe below). This is a lengthy process, but here are some of the more tender walnuts, pricked with a darning needle (note to self, wear gloves. These are worse than the cherries!) and floating in their first bath of brine. (Three days later the brine is black, and the nuts are beginning to blacken too... they look very sinister!)



But back to the Nocino...



It was a simple process, involving some careful chopping - some of the nut shells were beginning to form within the green casings - and then packing them into the jar along with the cinnamon stick, lemon peel, cloves, vanilla pod, sugar, and of course the 500ml of vodka.



And now all we have to do is wait. Already it's beginning to darken, but I think we will have to wait for Summer 2010 before it's ready to drink. I'm pretty excited by it.




Pickled Green Walnuts

The walnuts need to be soft enough to pass a knitting needle or skewer through them - I'd suggest picking in late June or early July. We used the softer ones for this pickle, and the ones that were beginning to harden (the shell starts to form at the end opposite the stalk) for the liqueur. Remember to wear rubber gloves unless you want to end up with the hands of a 60-a-day smoker...

1lb (450g) green walnuts
2pt (1.2 l) water
40z (125g) cooking salt
About 1pt (500ml) Pickling Vinegar (or simply use malt vinegar)

Prick walnuts lightly with a darning needle to allow them to be permeated by the pickle.

Make a strong brine mixing 1pt of water with 2oz of the salt to gether in a bowl. Add the walnuts to the brine and leave to stand for 3-4 days.

Drain, and mix up another brine solution using the remaining water and salt. Put the walnuts into this and leave for a further week.

Drain well, rinse and dry them, and spread them out on a tray or plate. Leave them in a sunny place for a couple of days or until the walnuts are completely black.

Pack into clean jars and cover with hot pickling vinegar.

Seal well when cold and store in a cool, dry place for 6-8 weeks before using.

Walking with Moths

From Ivinghoe Beacon the next hill along is topped by Whipsnade Zoo. I love the lion carved into the chalk hillside, and I know from my visit to the zoo that there are hundreds of wallabies roaming wild on said hillside, a sight which I always find quite amusing in the middle of the English countryside.



But more wildlife was to be found in this rolling chalk downland. Not perhaps as exciting as wallabies or lions, but just as beautiful in its own small way.



These are 6-Spot Burnet moths, and we walked through a field in which there must have been thousands upon thousands of them. Their wings are iridescent green with bright scarlet spots - 6 presumably... or maybe they were named by someone who had issues with their numeracy skills?




Some flowers were just covered in them. They seemed keen on these purple thistles.



But we also saw lots on these Birdsfoot Trefoils. I think they look especially beautiful against the bright yellow flowers.



On closer inspection the long grasses were covered with the empty chrysalis shells. I think that in some master-stroke of Mother Nature they must have all emerged within a day or so of eachother.




It was an amazing sight.