Who Do You Think You Are Kidding Mr. Osborne?

Is there anybody who doesn’t know that we are in the middle of the worst economic recession since the war?  This week UK unemployment reached its highest point in 15 years, inflation is running at 5%, real wages are falling and business confidence is being held down by the crisis in the Eurozone.  Even if all that has somehow passed you by, you could tell something big was happening just by listening to the language of our politicians.  David Cameron in his first leader’s speech as Prime Minister resurrected Lord Kitchener’s call to arms telling his party “Your country needs you”.  George Osborne, The Chancellor of the Exchequer, caught the prevailing mood and revived his own wartime slogan to tell voters “We are all in it together”, conveniently ignoring the fact that some of us are more ‘in it’ than others in the way that only a multi millionaire could.  Even the Green Party has recently called for a ‘new home front’ against climate change, Caroline Lucas, the party’s only MP comparing climate deniers to appeasers of the Nazis in the 1930s.

Maybe it really is time to look to the 1940s for parallels in our present circumstances.  After all, the whole of Europe is occupied with the plight of the Euro and in thrall to the Germans. Britain alone, it seems, stands on the outside ready to fight the contagion of Eurozone uncertainty on the beaches.  For the most part, the British public has adopted austerity with the usual blend of sangfroid and chirpy resignation.  There is something in the British character that appears to make the hair shirt almost as comfortable as the ubiquitous shell suit, or in the case of George Osborne, the Barbour jacket and green wellies.

I wonder if all this wartime retrospection is having an impact on the nation’s eating habits yet.  After all the extraordinary fact is that the Second World War was the only time in modern history when the entire population of Britain has enjoyed a healthy balanced diet.  In both WWI and WWII when the UK introduced conscription they found many working class men unfit for military service because of malnourishment.  Almost immediately, as affluence returned in the 1960s, a new disease of obesity began to manifest itself, and is now running at epidemic proportions.  But for a few years in the middle of the twentieth century, government rationing ensured that everyone got a fair share and everyone had the basics for healthy living.

In 1939, (for American readers that’s when WWII started for the rest of us) Britain was completely locked in to the Empire System,  which meant we imported 75% of our food: wheat from Canada; butter, cheese and sheep meat from Australia and New Zealand; sugar from the Caribbean and so on.  Next time you hear someone talking about ‘food security’ think about that.  More than 50% of meat was imported, 70% of cheese and sugar, nearly 80% of fruits and about 70% of cereals and fats.

The Germans knew that the quickest way to force Britain to surrender was literally to starve her into submission.  That is what led to the Battle of the Atlantic where convoys of merchant ships ran the gauntlet of U Boats in order to bring basic food stuffs into the British Isles.

As the blockade began to bite, the government had no choice but to take a firm grip on food distribution and introduce rationing for all.  The minimum weekly allowance of butter per person was only 2oz (57g), cheese was even tighter at 1oz (28g) and sugar was only 8oz (57g).  Eggs were rationed at 1 per week, but only if available.  They usually weren’t.  Meat was rationed by price, but again availability governed consumption more often than the official measure.

The only things that were not rationed at any stage during the war were bread and fresh vegetables.  Ironically bread and potatoes only went on ration after the end of the war, as Britain assumed the additional responsibility for feeding liberated Europe.  In fact as members of the public were urged to ‘Dig for Victory’ the supply of home grown vegetables grew steadily.  The whole country it seems  willingly dug up their lawns and flower beds to grow spuds and leeks.  That hair shirt mentality again!  By 1943 over 1 million tons of vegetables were being produced from gardens and allotments.

The Ministry of Food then set about providing information and recipes to help people make the most of their rations.  Marguerite Patten, who later became a famous food writer, was employed to come up with nourishing recipes which she broadcast on the BBC.  Most famous of all was the vegetable pie which came to be named after the Minister of Food, Lord Woolton, but which was in fact created at the Savoy Hotel in London by the head Chef, Francis Latry.

Frederick Marquis,
1st Earl of Woolton

This diet, rich in vegetables, low in meat and fats, was sufficient to “Keep Britain Fighting Fit,” in the words of yet another wartime slogan, and by the end of the war Britain produced almost 80% of its own food.  The figure today by the way, stands at around 60%.

When rich politicians decide to preach to the public, or when they urge people to tighten their belts while standing in front of their chauffeur driven Jaguars, it naturally falls on deaf ears.  The public simply does not believe that they are all in it together while they see bankers receiving huge and unjustifiable bonuses, or MPs fiddling their expenses.  But anyone who is nervously watching inflation erode their savings, or struggling to survive on Job Seekers Allowance could do a lot worse than taking up gardening.  Digging is therapeutic and fresh vegetables are delicious.  You will also find that growing and eating your own vegetables is good for your health, good for your wallet and good for the planet.

Recipe – Lord Woolton’s Pie

Ingredients:

1lb diced potatoes
1lb cauliflower
1lb diced carrots
1lb diced swede
3 spring onions
1 teaspoon vegetable extract
1 tablespoon oatmeal

Salt and pepper to taste
A little chopped parsley

Method:

 Cook everything together with just enough water to cover, stirring often to prevent it sticking to the pan. Let the mixture cool. Spoon into a pie dish, sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Cover with a crust of potatoes or whole meal pastry. Bake in a moderate oven until golden brown. Serve hot with gravy.

Wooltons Pie with potato crust

Notes:  I’m not sure what was meant by ‘vegetable extract’ in the 1940s, but I used Marmite.  Also the original recipe suggests varying the selection of vegetables according to season and availability.  Although I have a long standing love affair with swede we are currently not on talking terms, so I substituted some butternut squash.   I didn’t have spring onions so in the interest of austerity I substituted a small red onion.  I’ve also read comments that the pie could be a bit bland, so I added a chopped leek and used a cheese mash for the crust.  I probably blew my ration for the month!

Verdict:  Using a mashed potato topping made this into a kind of vegetarian shepherd’s pie and it had the same comforting, homely feel.  The taste was evocative of my childhood somehow and I thoroughly enjoyed it, which is just as well because even though I halved the quantities there’s enough for two more main meals.  Quite acceptable as a filling, midweek dinner and economical too.

Moules Marinière

Autumn is well and truly here now.  It’s probably my favourite season of the whole year.  I love the way that it assails all your senses at once.  There’s nothing I like more than walking in the Autumn countryside.  Those dank, dark days where your breath hangs in front of your face and smoke rises vertically from cottage chimneys in the still air.  The only sounds are the doleful cawing of crows in the nearby beeches.   The air heavy with rotting leaves and over ripe fruit still clinging to bare trees.  The whole day seems to be only a precursor to night, with lights burning brightly in distant windows in mid afternoon.

The long period of summer fruitfulness is over, and now is the time to turn from salads and abundant fresh produce to warm nourishing and hearty fare.  Personally I love thick homemade soups and rich slow-cooked casseroles.  How good is it to come home cold and damp from a long walk to the kitchen, warmed by the oven, and the smell of cooking permeating the whole house?

Among the greatest pleasures of the Autumn is the return of new season mussels to the fishmonger.  Mussels are relatively cheap.  I pay £3 for a kilo (£5 for 2kg) which serves two people as a starter, or one person,( me), as a main course.

Thankfully they are also completely green.  Most commercially available mussels are farmed, so they are renewable, and they are reared organically.  Unlike other forms of aquaculture they do not rely on fish meal as food. Mussels are filter feeders; they clean the sea water rather than polluting it.  They are not treated with any artificial chemicals.

If you live anywhere near the sea there’s a good chance that they might be reasonably local too.  Mine come from just up the coast from Blakeney in Norfolk.

Many years ago the first recipe I ever tried with mussels was the French classic Moules Marinière and I loved it so much I have never looked much beyond it.  It makes a quick and delicious lunch or light supper and it could hardly be easier to cook.

Choose small mussels and make sure they are fresh.  Use them on the day of purchase.

Moules Mariniere

Moules Marinière - Recipe

Ingredients

·         1 or 2 kilos of mussels

·         1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

·         2 shallots, finely chopped

·         1 knob of butter

·         a bouquet garni of fresh parsley, thyme and bay leaves

·         1 glass dry white wine

·         120ml/4fl oz double cream

·         coarsely chopped parsley for garnishing,

·         crusty bread, to serve

Method

Begin by cleaning the mussels in the sink under lots of clean fresh water.  Live mussels should close firmly when jostled in the sink.  Discard any that don’t.   Also discard any with broken shells.

Remove any dirt, seaweed or barnacles attached to the shell, and make sure to pull off the beard.  That’s the rough, fibrous appendage that they use to attach themselves to rocks.  Also throw away any that feel particularly heavy.  They are probably just full of mud which will ruin your meal.  Drain them in a colander.

Soften the garlic and shallots in a large pan with the butter and toss the bouquet garni in.

Put the mussels and wine in the pan, turn up the heat and put a lid on the pan.  Steam them in the wine for 3 or 4 minutes only, giving the pan two or three good shakes.

Remove from the heat and take out the bouquet.  Add the wine and chopped parsley.

Ladle into bowls, giving each person plenty of creamy sauce.  Discard any that haven’t opened properly.

Eat immediately with the crusty bread and the rest of the wine

Foragers' Diary - Part Six

A few days of windy weather recently brought me an unexpected bounty courtesy of a neighbour’s walnut tree.  I know legally the nuts still belong to the owners of the tree, but it’s a second home and they are only summer visitors to Suffolk.  I felt justified in picking the nuts up from the road where they fell,  since the alternative was to watch them being crushed beneath the wheels of the enormous farm vehicles which pass up and down on this stretch of road.

Walnuts

I was surprised to learn that the so called common or English walnut (Juglans regia) is not a native at all.  It does so well in British conditions I just assumed they had always been here. But apparently the name derives from the Old English wealhhnutu which literally means ‘foreign nut’.  The idea goes that the Anglo-Saxon settlers came to understand from British residents that the walnut was a recent arrival in these shores.  In other words the Romans brought it here in the third or fourth century.  In Latin the name is Nux Gallica (Gallic nuts), these particular Gauls coming from Galatia in the central Anatolian highlands.  The trees it seems are native to central Asia stretching from Turkey to South West China, hence its more common name, the Persian Walnut.

Now walnuts are packed with goodness. They are one of the richest sources of plant protein and are also high in dietary fibre, B vitamins, magnesium and antioxidants.  They do contain large quantities of fat but these are mainly ‘good’ monounsaturates or polyunsaturates.  Like most nuts they contain plant sterols which are believed to reduce cholesterol levels and they are also high in Omega 3 fatty acids such as alpha-linolenic acid (ALA).  In fact walnuts have significantly higher amounts of ALA than other nuts.  ALA is believed to play a part in reducing stress and protecting against coronary heart disease.

I got about 80g shelled nuts
from 200g of whole nuts

My problem is that I don’t really like raw walnuts.  They have a bitter, astringent taste.  Niki Segnit, author of The Flavour Thesaurus, variously describes the flavour as woody, nicotine, butterscotch and like ‘a newly opened can of gloss paint’.  However my mother adored them.  She would sit in front of the fireplace with a pile of walnuts on her lap and crack them simply by crushing two nuts together in her hands.  So I guess it’s a personal preference.

Fortunately the flavour does complement a wide range of other ingredients both sweet and savory.  I will save a few to sprinkle on salads and serve with Stilton cheese, but my favourite use is in a delicious, sticky walnut pie.  Supposedly cooking reduces the nutritional benefits. What’s more I will almost certainly add whipped cream to my pie, so forget all that stuff about warding off heart attacks.  But this a sinfully wonderful treat, full of rich autumn flavours and I love it.

Walnut Pie

Recipe

Preheat the oven to 180°c (350°F)

Grease and line a 8-inch (20cm) flan or pie tin.

(Economy Tip: I use the wrappers from packs of butter to line pie dishes instead of greaseproof paper)

Ingredients

For the pastry

125g (4½ oz) plain flour
75g (2½ oz)butter
25g (1oz) caster sugar
pinch of salt
1 egg yolk

For the filling

230ml (8 Fl oz) maple syrup
3 eggs
100g (4oz) dark brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp salt
120g (4oz) coarsely chopped walnuts

Method

Beat the flour, butter and sugar and salt together until it resembles breadcrumbs.  Add the egg yolk and 1 tsp cold water and continue beating until it comes together to form a dough.  Wrap in Clingfilm and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Once chilled, roll the pastry to about 3 mm and line the tin to make a pastry case.

Beat the syrup, eggs, brown sugar, butter, vanilla and salt together until well blended, then stir in the chopped nuts and pour the filling into the unbaked pastry case.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until the centre is firm to the touch.

Serve hot or cold with whipped cream.

Green Tomatoes

Green Tomatoes

I heard on the evening weather bulletin that this has been the coldest summer in the UK since 1993.  Now I have no reason to disbelieve the man from the Met but I can’t say that I have any meteorological recollections of that year. You see my second child came in to the world in April 1993 literally kicking and screaming, and if memory serves me right, she didn’t stop either activity until well in to the autumn.  That summer, if I wasn’t driving her round the neighbourhood in my Renault Chamade at all hours, ostensibly to induce sleep, but actually to give the neighbours a break and share the pain equally between all the denizens of west Kent, then I was probably comatose while ‘her-indoors’ took a turn at the wheel.  However one thing I am sure of, I was not attempting to grow tomatoes.

If I had been, I might have been better prepared for the more or less total failure of my tomato crop this summer.

When I arrived here back in April, a couple of tomato plants were among the first things I bought. Moneymaker is a variety I have grown under glass several times before with great success.  It is a high yielding plant bearing good tasting, mid-sized fruits on fast growing vines.   In my old greenhouse I produced literally pounds and pounds of tomatoes and filled the chest freezer with bags of delicious salsa pomodoro.

As is often the way of things, shortly after I bought these plants a friend gave me some more, although these were different.  In addition to my Moneymaker I now had a couple of Big Boys, which again is a variety I have grown before, and a single plant of Sun Gold which was entirely new to me.

Big Boy is one of the most popular tomatoes in Britain.  With sweet, red, smooth-skinned fruit that can weigh up to a pound or more, they are strong growing plants with good disease resistance, and they have never been out of fashion since their introduction 60 years ago.

Sun Gold is listed as an orange coloured cherry tomato, exceptionally sweet and adaptable to most climates or soil types.

All the plants grew well and produced reasonable amounts of fruit, but the ensuing weeks just didn’t bring enough sunshine to ripen them.  I hung on all through the summer, keeping them watered, snipping off lateral trusses, pinching out growing tips and tying the plants in to the fence.  Above all I kept repairing them through some unseasonably windy weather. But for all my efforts, all I got was more and more green tomatoes, with one exception, the Sun Gold.

Sun Gold

This variety, that I had never heard of, has produced good quantities of the sweetest cherry tomatoes I’ve ever tasted.  They never turn red, just a beautiful orange colour, but don’t have any concerns that they aren’t ripe because they certainly pack taste.  It was also a nice compact plant which could easily be grown indoors on a window cill.  I will definitely seek out this variety in future.

For the rest however I was faced with a couple of kilos of green tomatoes, and with the weather starting to feel more autumnal every day I lost faith that they would ever ripen.  The other issue that I was facing was a quantity of fairly skanky apples slowly rotting in the box where they are stored.  These are mainly windfalls from a neighbour’s tree plus a few ‘wild’ apples that I found growing on the edge of a local wood.

So, reluctant to waste anything, I searched out the following recipe and yesterday I picked my green tomatoes and spent a couple of hours making a vat of green tomato chutney.

Recipe

Green Tomato & Apple Chutney

Ingredients:

1 kg green tomatoes, chopped
250g apples, cored, peeled & chopped
125g raisins, chopped
320g onions, peeled and chopped
20g root ginger, peeled and chopped
2 fresh chilies, chopped
1tsp salt
1/4 tsp allspice
250g brown sugar
300 ml vinegar (I used cider vinegar)

Method:

Simply place all the ingredients in a large pot or preserving pan and bring to the boil. Don’t worry that there isn’t enough liquid at the start. More will come out of the fruit as it cooks. Stir well until all the sugar has dissolved, then turn down the heat and let it simmer slowly for about one and a half hours.  This is important to make sure that the fruit softens properly and that all the flavours run together. The finished chutney should be a rich dark mixture with the consistency of thick jam.

Chutney has the consistency of thick jam

I’ve never used this recipe before but early tastings were encouraging.  A good chutney should be a complex mixture of flavours, sweet, sour, fruity and spicy all at the same time.

This is now packed away in sterilised jars to improve with age.  I won’t even think about them again for three months, when I will broach one for Christmas and hopefully I’ll have something tasty to go with the cold cuts on Boxing Day.  I would like to think that something special might come out of all my love and hard work in the early part of the summer, just as it did eighteen years ago.

Beet or Cane?

One of the questions I set myself to answer when I started my sugar odyssey was is there really any difference between sugar made from cane, and sugar made from beet.  Frankly I had never considered this question before. To be honest I regarded sugar very much as a commodity and bought it entirely on price, although I did know that in Britain the market is pretty much a duopoly between Tate & Lyle which produces only cane sugar, and British Sugar which exclusively processes domestically grown sugar beet.   These two brands take over 90% of the UK market.

Sugar beet plants

Looking around the world.

Beet sugar has a hugely dominant market position in much of Europe, including France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria all of which have internationally renowned reputations for patisserie or other confectionary products.

In the USA the market has changed in recent decades.  Sugar cane has gone from a dominant market position to hold only about 40% to 45% of the market while sugar beet has 55% to 60%.  American Sugar Refining of Yonkers NY is the biggest cane producer with brands that include Domino, California & Hawaii (C&H), Florida Crystals and Redpath.  Crystal Sugar based in Minnesota is the largest beet producer.

In Canada Lantic produces about 10% of the country’s sugar from sugar beet in Alberta, but overall the market is 90% cane sugar divided between Redpath and Lantic.

Australia is a big cane sugar producer and exporter.  The CSR brand has approximately 60% market share in Oz and 80% in New Zealand.

Elsewhere it seems that countries are more or less divided by climate.  Sugar cane cannot survive in temperate zones and beet does not do well in hot climates.  Yet globally sugar beet has 30% to 35% market share.

Claims

However, a quick trawl of the web casts up a litany of accusations aimed at beet sugar and clearly in some people’s minds sugar cane is real sugar, and sugar made from beet is some sort of synthetic imposter.

Claims include:

·         Beet sugar doesn’t set jams. “That’s why people in Europe or North America need to use pectin.”

·         Beet sugar cannot be used in fine baking.  One contributor claimed to have “done several recipes both ways and the beet are tough and mealy”.

·         Martha Stewart, allegedly tested cane vs. beet sugar in various trials and “didn't notice a discernable difference except in fine baking, especially cakes.”

·         Several people claim that beet sugar smells.  One describes the smell as “like old tobacco smoke”.

·         Beet sugar doesn’t caramelise like cane sugar, while cane sugar turns golden-brown under a blow torch, beet sugar almost immediately turns black.

Now one difference I am aware of is in brown sugar. Brown sugar made from cane is partially refined to leave a greater or lesser amount of molasses in the sugar.  Molasses derived from sugar beet is not considered palatable to humans so brown sugars made from beet sugar are normally refined white sugar that has been ‘painted’ with molasses from sugar cane. The painting process coats the granules but does not necessarily penetrate them, and supposedly it can be rubbed off in certain situations as the grains grind against each other.

When it comes to refined white sugar however, this is almost entirely pure sucrose whatever the source.  EU regulations specify that it be 99.7% pure which means any variation in taste or behaviour would have to be caused by something in the remaining 0.3%.  I am bound to say I was skeptical, but let’s consider the claims one by one.

Well the first one I know is false.  I have used both beet and cane sugar to make preserves with equal results.  Recipes usually stipulate added pectin (or more often pectin rich fruits such as lemons or apples) to be added whenever the main fruit is lacking in pectin, such as strawberries, apricots or cherries.

Berlin's Cafe Opera

Does beet sugar produce tough and mealy cakes?  Again I have used beet sugar for years, as did my mother, and never had any complaints.  Anyone who has ever drooled over the cakes in a German kaffeekonditorei, or eaten a delicious Sacher Tort in Vienna will know this to be false.  Those countries use almost exclusively beet sugar.

I couldn’t find the Martha Stewart experiments so will have to defer judgement on that one.

I have spent several minutes with my nose stuck inside various bags of sugar and I can’t tell any difference at all in the smell.  All of them are pretty much odour free.  Neither can I discern any difference by a simple taste test.  I also employed some younger noses than mine, and they were similarly unable to detect any difference.  However it seems this claim may have a foundation in reality.

Harold McGee, the great food writer, says claims about smell “may be an undeserved legacy of the early 20th century, when refining techniques weren't as effective". He attributes the smell to poor storage during which bacteria and mold can grow on the beets and contribute off-flavors”.  Sugar cane by contrast doesn’t keep and so it is always processed immediately after cutting.  Whatever the cause this problem seems now to have been solved.

The last claim about caramelisation intrigued me, so the only thing to do was to conduct my own experiment.  I made Crème Brûlée  and set them in individual ramekins to allow me to vary the sugar topping.  On one I used a measured quantity of Tate & Lyle Granulated sugar (pure cane) and on the next one I used an identical quantity of British Sugar’s Silver Spoon Granulated sugar (pure beet).  On a third batch I used Silver Spoon Caster sugar just because I had it available.  I normally use a blow torch to caramelise crème brulee, but on this occasion I decided the grill would allow me to get a consistent duration and heat and avoid any unconscious manipulation by me.  The results were as follows.

Crème Brûlée , L to R Caster / Beet / Cane

The Silver Spoon Granulated took longer to caramelize and there was a small amount of unmelted sugar even though this ramekin was in the centre of the grill.  The other two caramelized completely and both had patches of black and gold, but the Tate & Lyle retained a glossy sheen while the caster sugar took on a kind of egg-shell finish.  They all tasted delicious although there was a clear order of preference amongst my panel with the cane sugar coming top and the caster sugar coming third.  The caster sugar gave a finer crust but this was felt to lack bite.

So in conclusion, I could discern no real difference between cane and beet with the possible exception of the crème brulee test.  On that evidence I probably would chose cane sugar in future when making caramel but I certainly would not be deterred if I could only buy beet sugar.

Recipe

I have been criticised for not including more recipes in this blog, so my recipe for crème brulee is included below.  Crème Brûlée uses 5 egg yolks and so obviously I had 5 egg whites left over, as well as a lot of sugar!  So I made a Pavlova too, and took the opportunity to enjoy a few more of this year’s marvelous summer fruits.  That recipe is included as well.

Crème Brûlée

450ml / 16fl oz double cream
50ml / 2fl oz milk
A few drops of vanilla extract
5 large eggs
75g / 2½ oz caster sugar, plus more for topping

Method

1.       Heat the oven to 150C/300F/Gas Mark 2

2.       Put the cream, milk and vanilla in a heavy saucepan and bring to a simmer

3.       Separate the eggs and blend the yolks only with the sugar to form a paste

4.       Just before the cream boils, take it off the heat and pour it quickly into the egg mixture stirring briskly to prevent it from cooking.

5.       When all the sugar is dissolved ladle the mixture into ramekins or if you prefer, one large oven proof dish.

6.       Place the Crème Brûlée  dishes in a deep baking tray and fill the tray with hot water until it comes half way up the outside of the dishes.  Then place in the centre of the oven.

7.       Cook until the Crème Brûlée  is set but still wobbles when shaken. In my oven this takes about 45 minutes.

8.       Allow the Crème Brûlée  to cool.  (In fact you can refrigerate them at this point and serve them later)

9.       Just before serving, sprinkle sugar moderately over the surface, about half a teaspoon to each ramekin. Then caramelize the sugar to form a thick crunchy topping.  British cookers come with an overhead grill. If you use this set the grill as high as it will go, they only take a minute or so.  Elsewhere you will need to invest in a blowtorch, available in good cookery shops.

Crema Catalana dish

The best dishes to use are wide, shallow, teracotta dishes from Spain traditionally used for the Catalan version of this dish.  They look attractive and give a large surface area so you get lots of delicious caramel in each serving.

Pavlova

4 egg whites
225g / 8 oz caster sugar (make the Pavlova bigger or smaller by using more or fewer eggs. Just use 2oz sugar for each egg you use!)
1 tsp cornflour
1 tsp white wine vinegar
284ml / 10fl oz double cream
450g / 1lb fresh fruit (strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc.)
Icing sugar for dusting

Method

1.       Heat the oven to 160c /325F / Gas mark 4

2.       Line a baking sheet with parchment and oil it lightly

3.       Whisk the egg whites until they form shiny peaks.

4.       Add the sugar a little at a time until it’s all incorporated and then continue whisking until the meringue is stiff and glossy.

5.       Add the cornflour and vinegar

6.       Spoon the mixture onto the parchment and spread with a knife to make a circle about 20cm/8inches wide.

7.       Put in the centre of the oven and immediately lower the temperature to 110c / 225F / Gas mark ½ and cook for 1½ hours.  At the end of the cooking time turn the oven off and leave the meringue in the oven to cool.

8.       When completely cold remove the parchment and place on a serving plate (don’t worry of it cracks). Spread the whipped cream over the meringue then simply bundle the fruit over the top. Finally dust with a little icing sugar.



Strawberry and Raspberry Pavlova

The meringue should be crisp on top and soft and light on the inside.  This dessert was created in the 1920s in honour of the famous Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova, during one of her tours down-under.  However the exact provenance is hotly contested by both Australia and New Zealand.

Foragers' Diary - Part Five

This is my first summer living in Suffolk and I haven’t yet worked out where the best fruit for foraging is to be found.  Blackberries for instance are quite plentiful everywhere but the size and quality of the berries is very variable.  Some are big and compact, others seem to have no real shape and are impossible to pick, others again are small and mean looking. I put this down to local factors like soil type, or how much sunshine the plants receive, but then I read a very informative piece in the Guardian this week explaining that what we know as the Blackberry (Rubus fruticosus) is actually made up of no fewer than 350 ‘microspecies’ in the UK alone, and perhaps as many as 2,000 world-wide.

Apparently blackberries are apomictic, meaning they reproduce by cloning instead of good old sexual reproduction employed by most flowering plants.  Anyone who has ever tried to uproot a bramble bush from the garden will know that those long, lateral branches it throws out take root whenever they touch the ground.  In this way, over time the plant actually produces genetically identical copies of itself, hence the ‘normal’ hybridization doesn’t occur and each plant becomes its own microspecies.  So when you find a good site the best thing is to keep it in mind for future reference.  So far I have a found an ‘adequate’ supply, and for obvious reasons I won’t say exactly where, though I am still on the lookout for somewhere better..

Anyway, in about half an hour of picking yesterday, before the combined attacks of thorns, nettles and a rather determined wasp persuaded me to call it a day, I collected 2 lbs of delicious fruit.  That was enough to put me into preserving mode and so out came the preserving pan, the muslin cloth and the other paraphernalia of jam making.

When it comes to blackberries I prefer a clear, strained jelly to a traditional jam made with the whole fruit.  This is because the thousands of little pips in blackberries get in between my teeth and annoy me.  Bramble jelly is easy to make and the sweet, unctuous taste seems far too good for it ever be a free food.

Start by washing and picking over the fruit, discarding any stalks, hitchhikers etc.  Put the fruit in a large pan, I use a specialist preserving pan.  For 2lbs of fruit I added about 1 pint of water and the juice of one lemon, the pips fell in too but that is ok. They add more pectin which helps the jelly to set, and they get filtered out later along with the blackberries.

Simmer for about an hour then pass the whole concoction through a muslin cloth or jelly bag if you have one.

Squeeze the cloth carefully to get all of the delicious juice out.  You can discard the strained fruit.

Stir in 1 pound of sugar for each pint of liquid you have, in this case it was one of each, and simmer again in a clean pan until the liquid becomes thick and sticky.  Turn a desert spoon through the liquid until it coats the back of the spoon.

Alternatively put a drop on a clean saucer and watch how it starts to set.   How runny you make the jelly depends largely on taste, but don’t over cook it or you’ll get a black sticky mess.  Make sure your jars are sterile.   When you’re ready carefully pour the jelly into the prepared jars and seal them as soon as the jelly is cool enough and stops steaming.

That’s it!  You have now captured some late summer sunshine to be brought out throughout the winter months whenever you need a luxurious treat!

Lobster smörgås

One of the consequences of branding myself as a 'foodie' is people assume that I can cook. That’s what occurred this evening as I walked into the kitchen before supper, and was casually tossed a chilled, cooked lobster along with the request (or was it an instruction), “you can do something creative with that can’t you?”

Now I would like to tell you that I eat lobsters all the time, but the truth is I may have cooked them three times in my life.  Still I had a quick look around the kitchen, and set about making a kind of improvised canapé, and if I am honest the result was not at all bad.  Here’s what I did.

Get all of the meat out of the lobster. (Twist off the claws and crack them with nut crackers or a tenderizing mallet, cut the body of the lobster in half from the head down to the tail and scoop out the pinky white flesh, discarding any brown gunk.) Cut the flesh into bite sized chunks and pop in a bowl.

In a saucepan, melt about 2 oz (60g) of butter and immediately mix this with the lobster flesh.  Add a couple of tablespoons of mayonnaise and mix well.

Thinly slice some sourdough bread, (rye bread or good quality whole meal would work too), and toast it lightly.

Butter the toast, and cut into pieces about 2 inches (5cm) square. Scoop the lobster evenly over the bread pieces, sprinkle with paprika and serve with lemon wedges. Delicious! And no real cooking involved.

So good in fact that I completely forgot to take any photos.  Only one thing to do, get another lobster!