Quince Cheese

English Quince

Quince, a fruit of the Cydonia oblonga tree, is gritty, hard and astringent.  Only its fragrance hints at what it can become with cooking.  Bringing out the delectability of a quince takes time, effort and sugar.  These three added ingredients result in a luscious ruby coloured fruit confection.

There is one variety of quince, the Mulvian which was mentioned by Pliny the Elder, that can be eaten without cooking but it's not one most of us are likely to encounter.  Sugar is the key to palatability.  Tasted by the English during the first Crusades of the 11th century, most sugar later arrived here in the form of conical sugar loaves.  Sugars boiled and mixed with finely powered flower petals were considered to be good for colds and other ailments.  Mostly sugar was reserved for the royal table or the greatest households to produce spiced and sweetened confections for close of dinner digestives.  This, as Peter Brears in Cooking and Dining in Medieval England reminds us, is a practice we still indulge in with after dinner chocolates and liqueurs and other sweet morsels.

By the 15^th century, Brears tells us, the confectionary served to end a meal centred around sweetened apples, quinces, wardens (an old variety of cooking pear) in dishes like Pears in Syrup.  Honey as a sweetener was also employed and Brears gives recipes for Chardequince, Chardedate and Erbowle – employing cooking quince, dates and pears respectively.  All three recipes bearing, to my mind, a very close affinity to what in England we’d now term a fruit 'cheese' or paste.  Of these fruits the quince transformed into a paste is a love shared with other nations.  In France they have their pate de coing, Italy has cotognata, Spain is well-known for its membrillo and Portugal has marmalada.  Recipes are all very similar, though the Portuguese paste is made looser than others and was the original marmalade. 

Quince Cheese

Some quince fruits are more fragrant than others.  I have no science to back up my preference but personally, when I buy, if it's not fragrant it doesn't go in the bag.  As I write, two English-grown quince are perfuming my workspace.  How to describe the scent?  Sensual, almost musky with rose and tropical fruit notes.  Apple and pear fragrances are in there too.  It almost breaks my heart to think of taking them to the kitchen to be cooked - almost. 

Quince Cheese is simple to make but does require constant attention in the puree stage of cooking as it burns easily.  With basically only two ingredients, the recipe is straightforward.  Some like to cook the quince whole but I prefer to chop it up.  The 'cheese' is a thick paste which sets to a firm consistency.  It's good paired with many cheeses but particularly goat and blue cheeses, melted into a lamb or game stew or tagine, or cubed and rolled in granulated sugar to serve as that end of meal digestive.  Moro restaurant uses membrillo instead of egg yolk to make the 'quince aioli', serving it with their delicious roast pork.  The recipe can be found in Moro the Cookbook by Sam and Sam Clark.  

Quince Cheese

1.5 kg (3 lb) quince
Around 1.1 kg (2 lb 4 oz) caster or granulated sugar (see method)
Lemon juice as desired

Line with greaseproof paper whatever dishes you want to use as moulds  - I use 2 loaf tins so I have slabs of 'cheese' which I can slice as needed and end up with around 1.8 kg (3 lb 12 oz) of 'cheese' in total from the quantities above.

Wash the quince well and cut into chunks, peel, core and pips included, and place in a large pan.  Cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Simmer until the fruit is soft. Strain and put the fruit through a mouli or mash then press through a sieve.

Weigh the puree and put in a large pan with the same weight in sugar.  Cook on a low heat, stirring almost constantly for the whole cooking time as it can 'catch' and burn easily.  Allow the mixture to bubble slowly until it turns a deep amber colour.  This will take at least 45 minutes.  When you drag a spoon through and the puree doesn't close up straight away, it's ready.  Taste and add a little lemon juice if you find it too sweet.

Pour the mixture into your lined loaf tins or dishes to a depth of about 5 cm (2 inches). Leave to stand in a dry place, at room temperature, for about 24 hours to cool and set.

Turn out and wrap tightly in fresh greaseproof paper, baking parchment or, even better, waxed paper.

The 'cheese' should keep in the fridge in a container for at least 6 months but check it from time to time as the more moist the mixture is, the less well it will keep.  I have been able to keep mine for longer with no noticeable deterioration to it at all.

You might also like:

Quince
Poached Quince
Quince and Ginger sponge pudding

The Blackberry Patch Rules

Freshly churned
Blackberry Ice Cream

It's mid-August and the sun is on our backs at last.  In a summer when we've seen so little of it, it's far more welcome than it would normally be on a summer allotment visit.  Hot, unrelenting sun is not ideal when there's back-breaking work to be done.  But in truth there's been a bit of an uncharacteristic lull on Plot 45.  Though, even at this late stage, there are signs of a possible surge.

Peas and broad beans have all been harvested, their mottled stems cut down to the ground for the last residues of nitrogen to disperse into the soil.  The crop to follow on next year - Brassicas - will benefit.  The garlic planted last autumn is lifted and hangs in the cool, dry conditions it needs to be useable right into late winter with any luck.  All the early La Ratte potatoes have been eaten - a few not by us, it has to be said - as Salade Niçoise has been a constant request this summer.  We have started harvesting the Charlottes and most of the storing onions are drying on the balcony while we make successive forays into the Florence Red onion bed.  These long-necked non-keepers, grown from seed, cook to an unmatched silky smoothness and make a wonderful Onion Tart Tatin (thank you Fern Verrow) and a sweet partner to salty anchovies in Pisssladière.

Harvest of Blackberries, Raspberries
and fragrant sweet peas

This year we confidently constructed extra cane wigwams for Runner and Borlotti Beans.  Hubris met its nemesis in the form of slugs and snails, their population has exploded this year and we're still waiting for our first climbing bean crops.  Chard, spinach, beetroots, courgettes and pumpkin plants have also battled to recover from constant cropping by armies of these gastropods.  But we have had an abundance of extraordinarily fragrant roses and sweet peas to compensate.

Blackberry Ice Cream
with blackberry fruits

Strawberries, gooseberries and blackcurrants are now but a memory - though the freezer is stuffed with pots of fruit and purees for making ice creams and sorbets.  We've moved on from 'summer' to 'autumn' raspberries but the ripening blackberries are a godsend in this lean year on the allotment.   You can buy blackberry plants to cultivate, some are even thornless, but why would you when they grow so prolifically in the wild.  That said, not all 'bramble' patches are equal.  Find one with large, juicy berries and remember where it is for next year is my advice.

This day we circle 'our patch', searching for spots where the fruits are particularly wine-dark and plump.  This year, they look full of promise but taste is all so, of course, we try a few to make sure. They live up to our hopes.  Their flavour is, I think, so much more intense than the cultivated varieties and it's that intensity I want to preserve.  We try not to take too many.  They can be good until late September so there's time aplenty.

Blackberries are undeniably seedy, more noticeably when they fruit after long, dry spells.  Last year's crop was exceptionally seedy here, the year before we hardly noticed seeds, and this year the fruits fall somewhere in between.  As fond as I am of a Blackberry and Apple Crumble, sometimes it's better to sieve out the seeds and make a puree that can be used straight away or kept in the freezer. So, let's make ice cream.

Blackberry swirl

In the UK we tend to think of ice cream beginning with an egg custard base, but as Caroline and Robin Weir point out, in their invaluable book Ice Creams, Sorbets and Gelati - The Definitive Guide, egg yolks in ice cream didn't appear in England until the middle of the 18th century, probably influenced by the French who wanted to enrich the original Italian recipes.  This recipe from the book dispenses with eggs because, as the authors point out, "Blackberry is a flavour that is all too easy to lose" and in a no-cook ice cream "it comes over loud and clear".

Blackberry Ice Cream 
(makes about 1 litre/4 cups/32 fl oz)

450g (1 lb) Blackberries
150g (5 oz)unrefined granulated sugar
Juice of half a lemon, strained
2 tbsp Crème de Mûre (optional, I find)
500ml (16 fl oz) Whipping/Heavy cream (around 36% fat), chilled

Pick over the blackberries and rinse in cold water.  Drain and place them on a double thickness of kitchen paper then leave to dry off.  
Put them in a food processor or blender with the sugar and blitz for 1 minute.
Strain the pulp through a nylon sieve into a clean bowl, rubbing until all that is left are the seeds.
Add the lemon juice (and Crème de Mûre, if using) to the puree.  Taste and add a little more lemon juice if you wish.  Chill in the fridge.
When ready to make the ice cream, stir in the cream and churn according to the instructions for your ice cream machine.

If you're not eating it straight away, keep in the freezer but allow 30 minutes in the fridge to soften for serving.

I'm off to pick more blackberries.  There must be a bit more space in the freezer to preserve this special taste of summer.  With any luck I'll need my sun hat, and, who knows, there may be beans, chard, spinach and courgettes on Plot 45 at last.

Confit Duck

Confit Duck Leg

Occasionally, when roast duck is decided upon I claim the legs.  A disappointment to some until "confit" is mentioned.  If you have a good plump duck it roasts perfectly well without the legs and gives you the opportunity to make one of my favourite dishes in the world - Confit Duck.

Both Simon Hopkinson and Nigel Slater have recipes for roast duck stuffed with potatoes and onion.  I have yet to try the Hopkinson version, but have cooked the Slater recipe several times with great success.  The one time it didn't work out, the fault lay entirely with the quality of the duck. Pre-ordered and ticked-off the shopping list, I collected it, trustingly, unseen.  A more malnourished bird it would be impossible to imagine.  Other times, the dish has been astonishingly good with tender, juicy meat and crisp skin, achieved by adopting the Chinese way in its preparation.  The potato and onion stuffing emerges fragranced with bay and rosemary and rich with rendered duck fat.  The last few spoonfuls scraped from the cavity are sublime pan-fried the following day.  I only wish I could give you a link to that recipe but although you can find Slater's Roast Duck with pancetta and potatoes on-line, the recipe I use is an earlier one.  It appears in Real Food first published in 1998.

Roasting a duck leaves you with a good quantity of leftover fat for cooking the duck legs.  The word confit comes from the Latin conficere, meaning simply 'to do', 'to make', 'to produce'.  In Medieval times the French applied their verb confire to fruits cooked and preserved in sugar syrup or honey or even alcohol. Later it was used to describe vegetables, meats and other foods preserved in oil, fat or salt.  Ancient civilisations are known to have preserved cooked meats under a seal of fat.  Today we generally use the word confit to describe something cooked slowly and gently until it is soft and succulent and not necessarily with the intention of long keeping.  That's a shame because the flavour does develop with storing.  Confit duck, or perhaps pork belly, are foods that immediately come to mind, but it's a good long and slow method for any meats with a lot of connective tissue.  It renders the meat silky soft and luscious.

Duck legs after marinating 

Duck confit is incredibly easy and, given the cost of those sold in jars or vac-packed, well worth preparing yourself.  Once you've gone through the first 2 steps the meat will keep in the fridge for several weeks so long as you make sure it's completely covered in the fat.  Simon Hopkinson suggests at least 3-4 weeks and as much as 3-4 months.  Mine have never lasted more than 2 weeks before my resolve has cracked and I just couldn't resist a moment longer.  You don't have to restrict yourself to the legs but their fatty plumpness gives the best result.

I use either rosemary or thyme to flavour the flesh, sometimes both, depending on what I have, but bay leaf is a must.  I don't tend to worry too much about proportions but I turned to Simon Hopkinson's 'Second helpings of roast chicken' to bring some precision to the mix.

Confit Duck Legs
(serves 2)

2 plump duck legs
2 tablespoons of good salt
2 teaspoons of sugar
1 bay leaf
3-4  sprigs of thyme or a 5cm branch of rosemary
4-5 black peppercorns
A grating of nutmeg
350ml duck or goose fat
3 cloves of garlic, unpeeled but bruised

Step 1:
Briefly pound in a pestle and mortar or just mix together the salt, sugar, herbs and spices.  Pour half of the mixture into a shallow dish, add the duck legs, flesh side down, and pour the remaining mixture on top.  Cover and refrigerate for 24 hours, turning the legs once.

Step 2:
Preheat the oven to 130C/Fan oven 110C/Gas 1
Dry the duck legs throughly with kitchen paper, removing any herbs/spices.
Melt the duck or goose fat in a solid cast-iron pot over a low heat. Add the duck legs and the garlic, bring to a simmer, then transfer the pot to the oven.  Cook for around 2 hours until the meat is soft and yielding to a skewer.
Once cool, place the duck legs in a clean glass or ceramic dish (or a sterilised jar if you plan to keep them for more than 2-3 weeks), completely cover with the fat and refrigerate.

Confit Duck with onion marmalade

Step 3:
Remove the duck legs leaving behind as much of the fat as possible.  To enjoy them as I've shown above, heat a frying pan on a moderate heat and fry the duck legs skin side down for about 10 minutes until the skin is crisp, then turn and fry for 10 minutes more to ensure they are thoroughly re-heated.

Plain mashed potatoes and Savoy cabbage are perfect to balance out the richness of the duck.  A spoonful of onion marmalade provides a good sweet/sour counterpoint.  Alternatively, they are delicious served with Puy lentils and peppery watercress.

Sweetmeat Cake

Candied Citrus Peels

Following a winter of gorging on particularly good citrus, there's a stash of candied citrus peel in the fridge. Maybe I'm a bit mean but I do like to get my money's worth out of citrus fruits.  It's a frugal point I've made before - Candied citrus  - but home-made is far better than anything you can get in a supermarket and way cheaper than the, admittedly, good stuff from up-market stores.  Having urged you to make it, I notice I've been less than helpful on how to use these carefully preserved peels.  Time to remedy that.

We're talking lemon, orange, grapefruit and cedro, sweet and bitter flavours essential to much of our cooking when you stop to think about it.  Chopped peel has to be in the mix for many British fruit cakes like Christmas Cake, and Easter Simnel Cake.  Ditto Tea Cakes, Fruit Tea Loaf, Hot Cross Buns, Yorkshire Fat Rascals, Cornish Saffron Cake and Wiltshire Lardy Cake (although some would disagree). Christmas Sweet Mincemeat too benefits from the tang of bitter that preserved peel brings to the party.  It goes into Italian Christmas Panettone, Colomba di Pasqua, Panforte and Pangiallo.  Chopped candied peel is fantastic in a Cassata ice cream or scattered along with some raisins in a Bread and Butter Pudding.  A little added to a Brioche mix or a Steamed Sponge Pudding works well too.  You can elevate a simple Pound Cake by either folding candied citrus, chopped, into the batter or decorating the top when cooked with thin slices.  I'm sure you can think of more now we've got going.

Here's another idea for which, as so often, I'm indebted to Jane Grigson and her book English Food.  'Sweetmeat Cake' is an 18th century open tart.  There is also a version of it as 'Sweet-meat Pudding' in Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747).  I always approach these old recipes with caution.  Tastes change.  In this case the recipe was very simple and the ingredients list rang no alarm bells.  What caught my attention was that rather than candied peel providing just a background note, here it has the starring role.  There's a 19th century version of this recipe, known as 'Duke of Cambridge Pudding' which dispenses with the hazelnuts (optional in the earlier recipe) altogether and calls for 4 egg yolks (no whole eggs).  Grigson implies she prefers the Sweetmeat Cake recipe and declares it her favourite of the 18th century open tarts.  For her its butterscotch flavour and semi-transparent filling has a "much superior flavour" to the later 'Treacle Tart'.  I get what she means, there is an almost jellied quality to the cooked filling, and a slice of this is lot lighter and less sweet than a portion of treacle tart.

Sweetmeat Cake

Personally, I'd include the hazelnuts because I am a fan of frangipane.  For this tart I made a sweet shortcrust and, because I have a horror or undercooked pastry, I baked it blind before adding the filling (the original recipe does not).  I've given my pastry recipe here but Jane Grigson's recipe states simply "Puff or shortcrust pastry". I've changed her wording in the method a little to allow for giving you my pastry recipe.  I've also slightly reduced the amounts of candied peel, sugar and butter in the filling from the first time I made this.  Otherwise, it is just as she instructs.

Sweetmeat Cake slice

Sweetmeat Cake
(makes a 23cm shallow tart)

PASTRY (this will make twice as much as you need, so freeze half the pastry for later):
250g (10oz) plain flour
25g (1oz) ground almonds
Pinch of salt
150g(6oz) butter
75g (3oz) icing sugar
Grated rind of half a lemon
1 egg yolk
3 tablespoons milk

FILLING:
100g (4 oz) chopped candied peel
50g (2 oz) chopped roasted hazelnuts (optional)
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
150g (6oz) caster sugar
150g (6 oz) lightly salted butter, melted (gently)

Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and add the ground almonds and salt.  Add the butter and rub in with fingertips.  Sift in icing sugar and add grated lemon rind and mix.  Lightly beat the egg yolk and milk together and stir into the dry ingredients.  Mix until the dough just comes together then turn out and knead gently to smooth the surface.  Divide into two and freeze one for later.  Cover the other half and rest in fridge for just 30 minutes.

Pre-heat the oven to 200C (fan 180C)/Gas 5.
Roll the pastry thinly and line a greased 23cm shallow flan tin with it.  Prick the base several times and rest in the fridge for 15 minutes.  
Line with greaseproof paper and baking beans and bake the tart base for 10 minutes.  Remove the paper and beans and return to the oven for 5 minutes.
Reduce the oven to 180C (fan 160C)/Gas 4.
Scatter first the chopped peel over the tart base and then the chopped hazelnuts.
Beat the remaining ingredients together thoroughly then pour into the tart case.
Bake for 35-40 minutes, checking it after 30 minutes.  The top should be crusted with a rich golden brown all over.  Expect the mixture to rise above the pastry then sink back down a little after its removed from the oven.  The top will crack on cooling, a bit like a brownie mixture does.  Do not worry if the centre part of the filling is a little liquid beneath the crust as it makes a delicious sauce.  The consistency is a matter for individual taste.

Best eaten warm (though it does keep a day), with or without cream.  A very good use for some of your winter stash of candied citrus.  What do you mean, you don't have a stash - Candied citrus

Rhubarb Grapefruit Preserve

Rhubarb & grapefruit

I've previously mentioned Jane Grigson's declaration that only "pink" rhubarb is worth eating. She was, of course, referring to the 'forced' kind where the plant is grown under cover of a pot or in the gloom of a candlelit forcing shed.  Forced rhubarb is very different from outdoor grown rhubarb and, generally, I have agreed with Jane Grigson's sentiments.  Certainly if you are looking for a beautifully evenly coloured compote with delicate flavour it's worth buying the early, forced, kind. However, this growing-year has made me appreciate the merits of the more robust and vigorous form of the plant.

A member of the Rheum genus of plants, rhubarb is related to both sorrel and buckwheat.  We add sugar to rhubarb to make its natural astringency more palatable and it's easy to forget it's actually a vegetable.  In Persian cooking, rhubarb is used in lamb dishes as a tenderiser.  In Europe, barely sweetened, it's used as a foil for oily fish like mackerel or fatty meats like pork.  In the UK in particular, rhubarb is enjoyed in compotes, crumbles and pies, in much the same way as we use gooseberries.  Both share a mouth-puckering sourness before tempering with sugars and flavourings.    

Rhubarb Grapefruit Preserve
Batch 1

I felt like the laughing-stock of the allotment group, as the only person unable to get a decent crop of rhubarb.  Then, last year, I split the crown of my plant into four sections.  Replanting each in a new location has rewarded me this year with a spectacularly good crop.  There's nothing so guaranteed to make you appreciate a vegetable as a bumper harvest.  So what to do with all that bounty?  Personally I find rhubarb releases far too much water to ever make a good pie but, thanks to the Fern Verrow - A year of recipes from a farm and its kitchen, we've been enjoying bowls of Rhubarb custard fool and bottling up Rhubarb cordial for summer's promise of glasses of Rhubarb gin fizz, Pink lemonade and Rhubarb Bellini.

But it's a recipe for jam I want to share with you here.  A recipe for Rhubarb Grapefruit Preserve from Alice Waters' Chez Panisse Fruit book (no, not the Chez Panisse Vegetable book).  It's not a combination that would normally have caught my attention.  Maybe it was because I'm in the midst of reading Bitter by Jennifer McLagan, which goes into the subject of bitter foods in forensic detail.  Though grapefruit is clearly a "bitter" food in her view, indeed the fruit was the starting point for her taking on the subject, opinions she sought were divided as to whether the flavour is bitter or merely sour.  Personally, I go with bitter and the idea of pairing grapefruit with sour rhubarb seemed a bit of a leap of faith.  Maybe it's something about the British palate, as inhabitants of the North American continent seem to have a taste for citrus with their rhubarb.  And then I looked at Grigson again - "... with citrus fruits it makes a delightful jam".  Sugar can transform the bitterest citrus into delectable marmalade, and the sourest rhubarb into luscious compote, so I swallowed my scepticism and I'm so glad I did.

Rhubarb Grapefruit Preserve
Batch 2

The first time I made this preserve, I took it a degree or two over jam set-point.  The colour changed from jewel-like to reddish-brown in the blink of an eye.  If this happens to you, what you lose in colour you'll gain in a delicious marmalade quality to the taste.  Stopping the cooking at exactly jam set point will give you a ruby-red preserve with the rhubarb flavour to the fore.  I'm still not sure which batch I prefer, so really you can't go wrong in my view.

Rhubarb Grapefruit Preserve (adapted from Chez Panisse Fruit by Alice Waters)
(makes 40 oz/1.125 kg)

2 lbs (900g) Rhubarb, washed, dried and cut into 1cm dice
2 grapefruit (I use red)
4 cups (900g) granulated sugar

Place the rhubarb in a large heavy-based stainless steel pan.
Peel the grapefruits, slice the peel thinly and juice the flesh.  Add the zest and juice to the pan of rhubarb along with the sugar.
Let the mixture stand for at least 30 minutes for the rhubarb to release its juices and the sugar to dissolve.
Sterilise your jars and lids.  Put a small plate in the freezer for testing the jam.
Over a high heat, bring the pan of mixture to the boil, stirring to make sure it doesn't stick.  The mixture will bubble high up the pan.  Skim off any foam around the edges.  Soon the mixture will subside and bubble thickly.  Stir frequently and start testing with a sugar thermometer and/or by using the cold plate for the 'wrinkle' test.  When it has reached set point, take the pan off the heat and pot up the jam.  Will keep for up to 1 year in properly sterilised jars.

Taking the sting out of Nettles

Urtica dioica - common nettle

The nettle spread from Eurasia and now it's a weed common throughout the Northern hemisphere.  But, as Jane Grigson observed, nettles are "not to be despised, especially at a season of the year when greenery is scarce".  Revered by today's foragers, nettles have long been considered of value to "purify the blood" when eaten in April-May.  Nettles are stocked with a cocktail of irritant chemicals, including histamine.  Their tiny hairs act as effective needles to deliver a sting to unprotected flesh.

Grigson suggests topping a slice of fried bread with nettles and a poached egg or egg mollet, or pairing them with brains and a creamy sauce.  Her suggestion of a take on that comforting dish, Champ, certainly appeals as does her nettle soup and nettle broth.  If you exclude early season European imports, right now "greenery" is still scarce in the UK. Broccoli, the last of Spring's greens, is now rapidly going to flower, spinach and chard are hardly getting going and asparagus has all but come to a stop in the return to cool weather.  I can see why the earthy mineral, quality of nettles was so valued.  Last week I harvested the remainder of my sprouting broccoli, pulled some spectacular rhubarb and then looked around for what else was available.  The strawberry patch was being over-run by a thick carpet of nettles so the answer was clear.  A bag of weeds it was.  Somewhere in the depths of my memory I remembered a recommendation to take only the top 6 leaves of the plant and these were duly, and respectfully, plucked with gloved hands.

In Honey from a Weed, Patience Gray mentions the Southern Italian taste for nettles in a dish of Pasta colle Ortiche, though it's a recipe for Nettle Soup she chose to share.  Soup is an excellent way to harness all the goodness this "weed" has to offer.  It's good plainly served, just thickened with potato, or enriched with a little cream.  The addition of a salty contrast of bacon or meaty snail is a good idea for the carnivore.

Arriving home, top of my agenda was the need to preserve the plant before it lost all rigour, so I decided on a nettle butter. This way I could buy some time to decide on a recipe.  Half the resultant verdant butter went into the fridge and the other half in the freezer.   With all of these influences floating around in my head and with little time, I decided on a pairing of potato, egg and nettle butter and created a lunch dish that worked a treat.

Baked potato, nettle butter, poached egg

Baked Potato with Nettle Butter & Poached Egg
(Serves 4)

110g (4oz) unsalted butter, softened
2 good (gloved!) handfuls of nettle tops
4 eggs
2 large (or 4 small) baking potatoes
A little olive oil
Salt and pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 180C (fan 160C)/Gas mark 4.
Wash the nettles carefully.  Cook in a covered pan with a splash of water and a pinch of salt for 2 minutes.  Drain the blanched leaves, squeeze out excess water, dry well on kitchen paper and chop roughly.  Mix the chopped nettles into the softened butter.  Turn out onto greaseproof paper and roll the nettle butter into a sausage.  Keep in the fridge until ready to use (or freeze it for another day).
Rub the potatoes with a little olive oil and salt and bake in the oven for about 45-60 minutes.
Poach the eggs and whilst they are cooking, split the potatoes and spread with the nettle butter before topping with the eggs

Nettle butter

Getting a little more up-to-date, and rather more refined, Giorgio Locatelli in his doorstop of a book, Made in Italy, offers a Risotto alle Ortiche.  In One, Florence Knight favours a Nettle Gnudi, describing Gnudi as a "stripped-back gnocchi".  Both recipes will definitely be getting an outing in this house soon.  I never thought I'd be looking forward to harvesting nettles from the allotment.

Summer to autumn by way of Fried Courgettes

Fried courgettes (Zucchini scapece)

Jane Grigson credited Elizabeth David with introducing Brits to courgettes, asserting "She was the first to relieve courgettes of their italics".  David wasn't actually the first to offer a recipe to the British market but before David wrote her book Mediterranean Food in 1950, courgettes were largely unknown of here.  The Cucurbit genus came to us mainly in the form of marrows and, if you had access to a greenhouse, there were cucumbers and melons to try growing.  It is only in the last few decades that we have also come to appreciate the merits of pumpkin and squash.  If only we hadn't been focussed on growing those large, watery marrows we wouldn't have taken so long to appreciate the courgette.  These days, there are specific seed varieties bred for courgette and marrow production although they come from the same family and a courgette can still grow to marrow proportions if you let it.

At this time of year those of use who grow our own can never get enough recipes for using courgettes.  Fruits the size of stubby pencils can swell to monstrous proportions within 2-3 days if you don't keep a close eye on them.  If growing is not your thing you'll want to skip to the end of this piece for the recipe because this is the one time of year when I have the time and opportunity to share some gardening photos taken over the past week.  If you do read on, however, you will find links to earlier recipes you might like.

Yellow courgettes

I never seem to get around to writing about the allotment in June or July.  There's far too much planting and picking to get time to write about it.  Looking back, it's May and August when I feel the urge to tell you what's happening on Plot 45.  Unlike this time last year, there's no denying there's a touch of autumn in the air.  The first sign for me is a change in light rather than temperature, but cooler nights have definitely arrived.  This time of year suits me, not least because I can sleep at night.  Growth has slowed down a bit, no more frantic picking of luscious raspberries before they tip over from perfect to spoiled in the space of 24 hours; no more trying to hide my precious blackcurrants from marauding birds; and no more livid scratches on arms earned reaching for the last of those sweet golden gooseberries... Until next year.

Raspberries 'Autumn Bliss'

Not that I'm finished with raspberries yet.  Autumn Bliss is just getting into it's stride, but it's slow-pick-pick-slow for autumn fruiters.  They may be less prolific than the high-summer berries, but their deeper flavour more than makes up for that.  It's earlier than last year but a reminder of Blueberry & Raspberry Mascarpone Pots seems appropriate now that we may be gathering the last of the berries and you need to make a little go a long way.

Borlotti Beans

And now come the borlotti beans.  Definitely a harbinger of late summer.  My favourite way of using them freshly picked is in, punchy, Borlotti Bean Bruschetta.  Dried in their pods for a couple of weeks, they store really well for re-hydrating and adding to soups and stews when the temperature really drops.  This year's crop was grown from a handful of beans squirrelled away last autumn. The wigwams of lush green growth hide long, broad green pods which turn to deep pink with white marbling maturing through to purple/red if you leave them long enough before picking.  Once you can feel fat beans inside the pods, get picking.

Changing seasons fruits

This week's haul of late raspberries, juicy wild blackberries and unknown varieties of plum and apple makes it difficult to argue summer is nearly over.  It is the perfect excuse for looking to this Almond, polenta and lemon cake with Blackberry Compote or this Plum Tart, or even Raspberry Ripple ice cream if you have enough berries.

Calendula

Growing calendula (marigold) on the allotment is the best way to hold onto summer.  It's the plant that just does not want to stop flowering.  Once planted, it will also never go away as it self-seeds prolifically.  Having to weed out new plants that come up just where you don't want them next spring is a small price to pay for the joy of having the yellow/orange blooms right through into late autumn.

Courgettes and Pumpkins

Growing biodynamically, I'm constantly on the look-out for slime trails and white dust in the cucurbit patch but courgettes and pumpkins are going strong and, incredibly, are pretty much free of slug/snail damage and powdery mildew this year.  Once courgettes get going they come thick and fast so here are a couple of favourite recipes: a surprisingly creamy Courgette Soup and Courgette, lemon & thyme linguine.

Happily for us Brits, by the time Elizabeth David was ready to publish here book French Provincial Cooking in 1960 she could write "Enterprising growers are supplying us with little courgettes as an alternative to gigantic marrows".  So, here's another recipe.  Fried courgettes or more properly Zucchini Scapece (meaning marinaded in vinegar and mint) as it is surely the Italians who are the courgette's greatest appreciators.  It's based on the the recipe in Claudia Roden's The Food of Italy.  My copy is the original 1989 version so hopefully the recipe is in the new updated version published earlier this year.  I know in Italy it would be served as a separate course but I also like it alongside roast lamb.

Fried Courgettes (Zucchini scapece)
(Serves 4)

500g (3 medium) Courgettes sliced diagonally, about 4mm thick
Salt
1 clove of garlic, whole
1 clove of garlic, very finely chopped
Extra virgin olive oil
1 small dried, deseeded, chilli crumbled
A handful of fresh mint, chopped
1 tablespoon wine vinegar (I prefer Moscato vinegar but red or white wine vinegar will do)

Salt the sliced courgettes lightly and leave them to release water for up to an hour (if the courgettes are small you won't need to salt them but do let them release their water).  Pat dry thoroughly with kitchen paper.
Use enough olive oil to just cover the bottom of a large frying pan.  Add one clove of peeled garlic and heat to soften and brown lightly before removing and discarding it.
Fry the courgette slices in batches to brown on both sides.  Drain on kitchen paper.  Layer in a serving dish with the chopped garlic, chilli, mint and vinegar.  Serve at room temperature.

Raspberry Ripple ice cream

Raspberry Ripple Ice cream
in the making

It's February.  Why on earth am I making ice cream?  Because I have a bag of frozen raspberries in the freezer and a great recipe.  In any case ice cream warms you up.  Really, it's true.  OK, the reason it's warming is that the body has to produce energy to digest the protein and fat content and, as every schoolchild knows, energy produces heat.  So, you see, it's good to eat ice cream in winter.  Personally, I don't need any persuading.

Last year we had a glut of raspberries so bagged a couple of kilos for the freezer. The thing with raspberries is, no matter how carefully you freeze them - yes I have tried spreading them on a tray - you end up with a soggy unappealing mush when they defrost.  Options for using them are limited, though I did find this Nigel Slater recipe worked pretty well.  Later in the year they'd be fine in a Summer Pudding, but I needed to start clearing space in the freezer now.  Making a raspberry syrup concentrates the flavour of the fruit, and it's perfect for swirling through vanilla ice cream.

Raspberry syrup

Adding salt to ice to lower its freezing point was known to the Arab world as early as the 13th century.  Using this technique, a container of fruit essence placed in the ice could be frozen.  Fruit ices were described in Italy in the early 17th century but the first written reference to "ice cream" appears in a 1672 document from the court of King Charles II.  If the recipe was written down, it remains undiscovered.  A hundred years later, the French found that frequent stirring of the ingredients gave a smoother, less crystalline result.  They are also credited with being the first to add egg yolks to enrich the mixture.

La Grotta Ices in
The Observer Food Monthly

I love ice cream but it's something I rarely buy from the supermarket as a quick look at the ingredients list most often shows sugar content way too high for my liking.  When you make it yourself, you are in control.  If you have a good recipe your ice cream won't be stacked with ridiculous amounts of sugar.  This recipe comes from La Grotta Ices who not only use the best quality milk, cream and eggs, but make a point of adding only as much sugar as is necessary, and not a spoonful more.

I've mentioned La Grotta Ices before, so if you want some background just click on the name.  I'll just say that I've never tasted better ices than those coming out of Kitty Travers' La Grotta ice cream shed.  Kitty's recipe for Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream, below, appeared in The Observer Food Monthly (OFM) magazine on 16 June 2013.  This is the first chance I've had to follow it and I can confirm it's a great recipe.

Raspberry Ripple ice cream

I made extra quantities of the raspberry syrup, and some meringues from the leftover egg whites. This gave me the opportunity to produce individual meringue desserts by lightly whipping up some cream, adding broken meringue and some syrup and freezing for later.  When you want to serve them, if you have more puree, you can pour a little over the top.  Note: I used dariole moulds but, if you prefer, the mixture can be frozen in a block and sliced for serving.

Frozen Raspberry meringue puddings

I'm giving Kitty's recipe for Raspberry Ripple ice cream here but you can follow the link to The OFM for the original with Kitty's invaluable insights on ice cream making.  Her advice to start making your mixture a day ahead does make all the difference to the result.  In case, like me, you don't have an ice cream machine, I've given the instructions for making it with or without a machine.

La Grotta Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream
(Serves 12)

400ml whole milk
200ml double cream
1 vanilla pod, split and seeds scraped out
Small pinch of salt
6 large free-range egg yolks
120g unbleached granulated sugar

For the raspberry syrup (yields 430g):
400g raspberries
150g sugar

Ice cream:
Pour the milk and cream into a pan.  Add the split vanilla pod its seeds and the salt.  Place on a low heat and, stirring occasionally, until it just begins to simmer.
While the milk is heating, briefly mix the sugar into the egg yolks.
Pour most of the milk into the egg mixture and whisk to combine.
Return the pan to the heat and pour in the egg and milk mixture.  Slowly heat, stirring constantly, to a temperature of 85C (it will start to thicken at 65C).  Take the pan off the heat immediately and place it in a sink of cold water with ice cubes in it to cool the mixture quickly.
When the mixture is at room temperature, cover the pan with cling film, put the lid on the pan and place in the fridge overnight or for at least 8 hours.

Raspberry syrup:
Place the raspberries in a bowl with the sugar and set it over a pan of simmering water.  Cook until the fruit bursts and the sugar dissolves.  Remove from the heat, blitz with a hand blender and push through a sieve to remove the seeds.  When the syrup is at room temperature, chill in the fridge overnight.
(Kitty suggests stirring the raspberry seeds into a jug of water, leave in the fridge until the seeds settle, then sieve.  It gives you a delicious juice drink).

Next day:
Put a large, preferably metal, bowl in the freezer to chill.
Sieve the ice cream mixture into the bowl to remove the vanilla pod.  Blitz with a hand whisk for 30 seconds to re-emusify.

If you have an ice cream machine: Start the machine churning and pour the mixture into the ice cream machine.  Churn for about 30 minutes or until the mixture looks dry.

If you don't have an ice cream machine: Place the bowl in the freezer.  After 90 minutes take it out and whisk the mixture vigorously.  Repeat this procedure twice more.

Pour the syrup over the mixture, fold and swirl.  Scrape into an airtight container and freeze.

The ice cream will keep for up to a month in the freezer.

Quince & ginger sponge pudding

Quince

The first time I cut into a quince the unyielding flesh, gritty with stone cells, and its pale, off-white, unappealing colour tending to oxidise made me despair of making anything from it.  It was the flowery aroma with notes of tropical fruit that made me buy it.  There it sat, for at least a week, perfuming my kitchen until I plucked up courage to cook it.

Poached Quince

Most of that distinctive aroma is concentrated in the skin and, like the apples and pears to which it is related, its skin cooks down well.  In Middle-Eastern cooking the quince is usually added, unpeeled, to meat dishes which are then cooked for several hours.  In the West we often remove the skin, seemingly only for aesthetic reasons, just as we regularly peel apples for cooking.  Note to self: think twice before peeling.

Picked when it turns a pale yellow, long, slow cooking with sugar softens the natural astringency of the quince and turns the flesh ruby-red and translucent.  High in pectin, it makes wonderful jam, jelly, syrup and fruit cheese or Membrillo.  It was used by the Portuguese to make the original 'marmalade' (marmelo being Portuguese for quince) before it was usurped by the Seville orange. In 16th century France quince were stored immersed in honey.

The Quince has long been associated with love. Brides scented their breath with a bite of quince.  Poets referred to it in their love poems.  Despite searching long and hard, I can find no better love poem than the one Jane Grigson recommended.

" …When it stood fragrant on the bough and the leaves 
had woven for it a covering of brocade,

I gently put up my hand to pluck it and to set it
like a  censer in the middle of my room. 

It had a cloak of ash-coloured down hovering over
its smooth golden body,

and when it lay naked in my hand, with nothing more than
its daffodil-coloured shift,

it made me think of her I cannot mention, and I feared
the ardour of my breath would shrivel it in my fingers…"

                                                                          Shafer ben Utman al-Mushafi

Quince & ginger steamed sponge pudding

From Moorish Andalucia to England.  To mark the change from autumn to winter,  I've married a favourite simple ginger steamed sponge recipe with a vanilla scented poached quince for a very English style steamed pudding.

Quince & ginger steamed sponge pudding
with cream

Quince & ginger steamed sponge pudding
(Serves 4-6)

About 400g poached quince, including syrup
115g (4oz) softened butter
60g (2oz) soft dark brown sugar
2 medium eggs
115g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 knob of preserved stem ginger + a little syrup, OR, 1 tsp ground ginger
A pinch of salt
1 tablespoon milk

Lightly butter a 550ml (1 pint) pudding basin and in the bottom place the poached quince (and preserved ginger if using) with the syrup.
In a small bowl, lightly beat the eggs together.  In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, (powdered ginger, if using) and pinch of salt.
Cream the soft butter with the sugar well then gradually add the eggs, beating well - add a tablespoon of flour if the mixture begins to curdle.  
Gently fold in the dry ingredients followed by the milk.
Spoon the mixture on top of the quince.
Cover the basin with a square of buttered greaseproof paper (folded into a pleat) and tie in place.  Top with a pleated square of kitchen foil.
Steam for 1 hour.

Good served with a thin custard or cream.

England Preserves

Seasonal Specials
at England Preserves

The renewed interest in home preserving is a trend I hope will long continue.  A desire to be more self-sufficient and, hopefully, a little less wasteful has in recent years sent many more of us foraging and gleaning, reaching for the jam pan and bottling our finds.  Eliza Acton, Constance Spry, Jane Grigson and the Women's Institute were where most of us turned for guidance when faced with a hedgerow harvest or a glut on the allotment.  Often, these days, the first port of call is the internet. However, some good preserving books have hit the shelves over the past couple of years.  Diana Henry's Salt Sugar Smoke is one of the best I've found.

Allotment harvest

Having an old tried and tested recipe for strawberry jam is a wonderful thing, but, in the pages of these more recent books lies inspiration for preserving the less obvious pickings.  These recipes are also more likely to retain the flavour of the prime ingredient at the forefront.  This may mean the preserve won't keep so long.  Times change and our tastes change too.  

Bergeron Apricot Jam
from England Preserves

Preserving is not all about jams.  However, as the fruit:sugar ratio of that preserve has excited so much debate recently, I will come off that particularly sticky fence and declare myself in favour of using less sugar.  I'm more interested in tasting the fruit than having jars of sweet unidentifiable spreads lining my larder.  My level of preserving is modest so I'm no expert and I'm always on the look-out to see who's doing it well.  It's a crowded market and I've tried and tested aplenty before settling on a personal favourite.

Sky Cracknell and Kai Knutsen began making jams in their home kitchen in 2001.  Selling initially on Farmers' Markets, their England Preserves are now stocked by an impressive list of food shops, cafes and restaurants.  Fruits are sourced as close to their Bermondsey base as possible.  At this time the focus of their attention is the apple, pear and quince harvest.  They take full advantage of the fantastic crops from Brogdale in Kent.  Fruit butters such as 'Salcott Pippin & Cinnamon' and 'Beurre de Beugny Pear butter with Vanilla' are favourites in our house right now.  We are also just coming to the end of our stock of Bergeron Apricot Jam.  The vibrant colour and stunning apricot taste of this jam convinced me I'd found my favourite preserve-maker.  Jams, fruit-butters and fruit-cheeses (Damson, first this season, and now Quince) are made in small batches, cooking the fruit gently to retain "flavour and colour" and using as little sugar as possible.  It's a sympathetic approach which I can relate to.  When my own fruit harvests are exhausted, England Preserves is my larder.

England Preserves
See website for list of stockists.
Also open Saturdays for direct retail sales from their production unit at:
Arch 4 Spa North
London SE16 4EJ

Rosie's Blackcurrant and Lemon Posset

Rosie's Blackcurrant and Lemon Posset

Blackcurrants don't have the jewel-like appearance of red and white currants but they pack a powerful punch.  A little goes a long way.  This is just as well if you grow your own, as keeping them to yourself in the kitchen garden is a battle.  Despite their tartness, birds love to feast on them.  I can happily strip redcurrants and eat them straight from the bush, but a little sugary help is necessary to make blackcurrants palatable.

Rosie's Blackcurrant and Lemon Posset
refrigerated overnight

Having picked blackcurrants at my allotment I was looking for some different recipes.

Almonds go wonderfully well with blackcurrants, so anything involving frangipane is an excellent idea. Chocolate and mint, I know, also pair well, but what else, I wondered.

According to Niki Segnit, author of The Flavour Thesaurus, blackcurrants have an affinity with juniper and coffee too. Even more surprising perhaps is the suggestion for pairing the fruit with peanuts.   Her thesis is based on the American taste for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Segnit does point out, in the USA,  the jelly involved is likely to be made from Concord grapes rather than blackcurrants.  She does, however, detect a "catty" quality common to the currant and the grape to support this idea.  I confess to never having eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich so I can't vouch for the combination.

For the recipe below, I think the blackcurrants work fine on their own.





Recipes for 'possets' are recorded as far back as the 15thC.  The term usually refers to a mixture of hot milk curdled by the addition of ale, wine or sack and sometimes with spices such as ginger added.  It gave a looser result than what we expect of a posset today.  By the 16th century sometimes egg was added to thicken the mixture.  The poor used old bread to achieve a similar result.  Later, cream began to be used and lemon juice became the preferred curdling agent.

Blackcurrant compote

This recipe comes from the talented and scholarly *Rosie Sykes, currently Head-Chef at Fitzbillies in Cambridge.  It was recently printed in her column for the Guardian (co-written with food journalist Joanna Blythman).  It's so perfect that, apart from adding a little extra sugar to my very tart home-grown blackcurrants, I make it as instructed.  Blackcurrants are coming to to the end of their season but blackberries are taking over and they would, I think, make a great alternative.

Blackcurrant and Lemon Posset
(Serves 4)

300g blackcurrants, washed and stripped from their stalks
25-40g icing sugar, depending on tartness of fruit
400ml cream (I used double cream)
Rind of 1 lemon
125g caster sugar
Juice of 2 lemons

Put the blackcurrants in a pan with 1 tablespoon of water.  Heat gently to a simmer and cook for about 5 minutes until soft and bursting.
Remove from the heat and, while still warm, stir in 25g of sifted icing sugar.  Taste and add more sugar if the fruit is very tart (as Rosie says, you want to carefully balance the tart and sweet).  Leave to cool.
Put the cream in a small pan with the lemon rind.  Bring to a "scald" (just to the point where it's about to boil) and, over the heat, add the caster sugar stirring to dissolve.
Turn up the heat and add the lemon juice.  Simmer for 3 minutes.
Remove from the heat and leave to settle for a few minutes.  
Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a jug, discarding the lemon rind.
Divide the sweetened blackcurrants between 4 ramekins or glasses and gently pour the posset on top (too fast and you'll get too much 'bleeding' of fruit into posset).
Cool to room temperature then cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight.


* Rosie Sykes' book The Kitchen Revolution is published by Ebury Press