thepassionatecook

Passion fruit curd

   This little number has been causing quite a stir lately... it all started with rather excessive birthday celebrations throughout the month of January, one of which being a breakfast with 12 amazing girlfriends at my place. The amount of food we had was nothing short of decadent, not to mention the copious amounts of bubbly consumed - but you only turn 27 once, right?

After smoked salmon generously scattered with red onion and capers, crisp-toasted bagels brimming with thin slices of pastrami and a chunky tartare-style sauce, sinfully creamy oeufs en cocotte with ham, cheese and thyme-scented mushrooms and a refreshing fruit salad with ginger and mint you would think the ladies would gracefully skip dessert? Yeah, not MY friends... they know good food when they see it and happily indulge in it. That's why I love them!

So my friend Vera had agreed to bring dough for waffles and (wo)man the iron (champagne-glass in hand, of course) - and they sure were delicious... but (sorry, my dear!) it was a rather inconspicuous-looking kilner jar filled with a thick, yellow substance that completely stole the show. People had been having a hard time identifying its contents - was it my famous home-made mayo? or vanilla custard? - until someone finally was brave enough to stick their finger in. The "oh my God"s and ecstatic moaning that followed were undescribable... and I don't think I have ever had so many requests for a recipe before in my life - and not just that, some ladies actually resorted to hefty bribes!

Said kilner jar ended up in one of my friends' fridge and her seven-year old son licked it so clean it could have gone straight in the cupboard without washing. Since that day, this little guy has been following my elder son around at school, trying to talk him into inviting him to ours for a sleepover ("and tell your Mum to make that delicious thing she put on the waffles the other day") - Max being completely ignorant about the whole affair... he hasn't even tasted it, refusing to eat any sweets that don't have insane amounts of chocolate in them!

So here you have it. I am letting my secret out of the bag. We're talking curd here. Not the traditional lemon curd (which I also love), my version is made with passion fruit, one of my favourite, favourite fruits of all times. It alo involves a neat technique for removing the black seeds without losing most of the flesh and juice. So do read on, do try it - you'll be forever hooked like my friends here. A couple of eggs, some sugar and butter and the priced juice is all it takes... plus 15 minutes whisking in a bain marie - but no sweet without sweat, right?

Spicy pear chutney

Autumn time is preserve time... and when my Mum came over the other week, she insisted on making another quintessentially English preserve. I jumped on the occasion since Zlamushka is holding a Christmas preserve event for which this would just be perfect.
Earlier in the year, my Mum and I had been making Seville orange marmelade, this time, she had her eyes on chutney. This sweet & sour (and sometimes spicy) preserve is, of course, big here in the UK, due to Britain's large Indian population. Whereas a traditional Indian chutney is more often than not made fresh to be consumed immediately and a traditional grinding stone used for its preparation, the UK version you find in every supermarket up and down the country is a more convenient affair, prepared very much like a fruit preserve: ingredients chopped up roughly, cooked on the stove for the better part of an hour, then transferred into sterilised jars for keeping.

I went even further than that, making this chutney entirely in the Thermomix - thus no chopping or stirring was required and I could chat leisurely with my Mum while making some bread and fixing dinner for the kids at the same time. (No need to panick, though, the instructions below are for everyone, whether they possess a food processor or make it all by hand!)

That's what I love about the Thermomix, it allows me to throw together so many things that would otherwise be either labour intensive or just need constant attention, whereas this chutney pretty much makes itself once I've weighed the ingredients into the bowl... it'll do the chopping, cooking and stirring all in one place and I can get a million other things done in the meantime. So these days, I can make preserves in preparation for Christmas or as a home-made birthday present, which would normally require at least an hour of my full attention, without so much as lifting a finger... Call it cheating, of you want, for me it's a life-saver and helps keep me (relatively) sane!

Waiter, there's something in my... savoury preserve! - the round-up

*** Two late entries added below *** (update 3 Oct 07)

Another great round of "Waiter, there's something in my...!", co-hosted by Cook sister!, SpittoonExtra and myself, has come and gone and we've had some wonderful contributions surrounding the theme of "savoury preserves". Participation was a bit lower than I would have hoped, but I have a feeling this may be attributed to a certain pickling fatigue brought about by the fact that there was another event with a very similar theme - check out the International Pickle Day round-up for more great ideas on pickling! With all those recipes under your belt, you certainly won't get bored this autumn and should give the Women's Institute a run for their money!

Preserving in oil

Cook sister!, one of the co-founders of this event, has rather a lot of time on her hands one fine Saturday and decides to slow-roast tomatoes until they're all shrivelled and full of concentrated sugar. If only all things grew better with age, I would just jump for joy at every new wrinkle appearing in my face, but alas...

As for myself, thepassionatecook, I decided to re-create a holiday treat I encountered in Tuscany: Pecorino sott'olio thin slices of matured Pecorino di Pienza cheese drowsed in a mild olive oil flavoured with pepeoncini, garlic and peppercorns - a big new favourite as an aperitif nibble or as part of a cheese platter!

Preserving in vinegar

*** "Pampaganang Espesyal", as they call it, is being cooked up in 80 Breakfasts's kitchen, call it a very special, moreish creation of pickles you can't get enough of. This one consists of radishes and its sweet, acidic tang and crunchy texture is apparently scarily addictive - you have been warned!

Cook (almost) anything... at least once travels to Italy, but not before sharing her recipe for a staple on any antipasti platter. Giardinera is ready to consume the minute you finish making it... which makes it perfect if patience is not your thing - you might want to let it cool down, though!

From the beautiful shores of Croatia, with its rich harvest of sea fennel, hails fresh adriatic fish who gets her sister to do the picking, while she takes charge of the pickling. Preserved in vinegar and water, this age-old accompaniment for meat and fish has been a firm favourite since Roman times, apparently!

Küchenlatein used to hate the pickles she grew up with... until one day she discovered just how fantastic they taste when preserved in a sweet-and-sour liquid. So she gets out an old recipe book inherited from her gran and sets out to conserve Asia gherkins  with lots of exotic condiments sure to win you over, too!

After taming kumquat into a light syrup earlier in the month, La vida en Buenos Aires braves sweet red peppers for this month's challenge. Use warm or cold to accompany lamb or pork dishes or just consume as is - and brush up your Spanish and Portuguese as you peruse of the recipe!

Meet resident gherkin expert vegan visitor who swears that size is important - just this once. She loves hers garlicky, dilly, crisp, small... and definitely crunchy! Getting out some beautiful jars from the basement, she also proves that she was right to keep them all those years - waste of space? No way!

Zlamushka's Spicy Kitchen stuffs raisins into spicy chillies of varying shapes and colours... and finds talking pickles to be a better much better pick-up line than bringing up the weather - it seems to work in Slovakia, at least, but I guess fiery chillies speak a universal language!

Chutneys, relishes, et al...

Blog from our kitchen leaves no kitchen utensil unturned as she goes on the hunt for all the equipment needed to make some delectable peach chutney. The girl has stamina, believe me, and even the courage to go about preserving without a "lid wand"... by raise of hands: who actually owns one of those?

If you never thought you could grow lemongrass in your garden, think again! Cafe Lynnylu has so much of the stuff she turns it into a lemongrass & ginger jelly... which she is planning to use for this year's Thanksgiving dinner - if she can keep herself from "trying" the stuff twice a day, that is!

Tempting as it is, it's unlikely that you will be trying this at home: Canela y Comino's cocona chutney is made from the exotic fruit of the same name and the spices that give her blog its name. Unless, that is, you find yourself in Peru at the time and 'tis their season, but nothing's keeping you from craving it, of course!

Cookery Corner spent 19 days preparing for this month's challenge, so it's only fair that you pay her a visit to check out those fabulous pickled limes. I applaud anybody who can wait that long to see the fruits of their labour... I find it tough enough a job  having to bake that darn cookie dough for 19 minutes before I eat it!

If you're concerned about your heart, you might consider delving into En Samayal Arai's amla pickle - amlas are gooseberries and with their high vitamin C content, they're also an excellent way of fending off a cold as well... just what we need on those chilly winter days, right?

Food Good to Eat makes a real Estonian summer treat with pickled cucumber salad. Preserved in their own juices, this way of serving cucumbers is a light summer treat that works well with fish or pretty much anything, really.

Get out your dried fruit and follow Fun and Food's footsteps to make date, raisin & tamarind chutney. Fennel seeds, green chillies and mustard greens all combine to a wonderful spread with a unique aroma.

Ginger has always been something that works both on the savoury and the sweet front - hey, that tastes good! packs all the roots she can find into jars full to the brim with ginger jam, to be enjoyed with cheese, roast chicken or just spooned out of the jar!

Half a kilo of the stuff is roughly the daily amount of spicy or mild ajvar that Maninas: Food Matters will consume in a day - no wonder this red pepper & aubergine relish is produced in such large quantities in the South-East of Europe, if one students gets through almost 200 kg a year!

Married... with dinner can tell you a story or two about processing 100 kg of tomatoes... but shares the tastiest spoonfuls with you in the form of her tomato & bourbon jam. You might call this a ketchup - but don't! or you'll have the kids dancing on the table over supper!

Maybahay swaps her high heels for some fresh fruit and veg when she goes shopping these days... I wish the girl was in charge of the chutney station at my local Indian, as I cannot think of anything more delectable than her rhubarb & pineapple chutney! Forget shoes, get me some pappadums - NOW!

Spicy Italian ketchup features high on Mrs. W's kitchen shelves, especially since the recipe is diabetic-friendly, avoiding the usual loads of corn syrup that make any insulin-conscious eater gasp. Home-made's way better than store-bought anytime, though, diabetic or not!

She's picky when it comes to using raisins in her cooking, but this spicy gooseberry chutney is just the ticket. Tangy and sweet at the same time, it's an excellent accompaniment for pork and chicken and Nami-Nami reckons it's the whole spices as well as the beautiful colour that makes it stand out from the crowd.

Pertelote finally gets over her blogger's block when she turns a bucket of tomatoes into a wonderful chutney spiced with smoked paprika, coriander, mustard seeds and garlic for good measure. Certainly a good way to use up all those tomatoes that grew rampage in her garden, shame my yield was too small this year...

A zen-like state is conjured up by Tasty Palettes as she makes a sundried tomato and walnut chutney. Forget all that scrubbing, dusting and polishing, if you're after some real calm, read the book the recipe comes from and get a lesson in zen teachings while you're preserving!

The Domestic Goddess rises from her sickbed to whip up some cranberry chutney that works perfectly not only as an appetiser that is easily put together for guests to kill off the first hunger, but also as a grand finale to a perfect meal on a cheese platter - definitely one to try for this year's festive season!

Green fried tomatoes find their way into a chutney over at The Golden Shrimp. Does it seem like a waste to you to grow plants only to harvest the fruits when they're not yet ripe? But then again, it shortens the wait for this tasty preserve considerably... so who am I to argue!

She might be finding it hard to adapt to the harsh weather in her adopted country of England, but if more things like that delectable Nectarine & chilli relish hit the shelves of Vanielje Kitchen's pantry, I am sure her husband and daughter won't mind bracing the winds on their own...

*** For once, Wine & Food can travel lightly, simply through home-made pear chutney - no more smuggling across the border from the UK, simply cook some pear with spices and vinegar and it'll stand united with all those cornichons, tapenades and green nut jams they like so much...

Thanks to everybody for taking the time to participate, it's been a great round and I am looking forward to trying lots of new recipes very soon!

Pecorino sott'olio: a contribution to WTSIM!

There's a time for everything... and the autumn is definitely the time for preserving! I have been restraining myself from jamming too much this year, and I mean: really restraining! Not quite in a straight jacket like the one Jack Nicholson wears in "One flew over the Cuckoo's nest", but I've been finding it hard not to buy seasonal produce by the truckload and packing it neatly into jars. I must be carrying an innate urge to prepare for the winter, hording nuts and berries like a squirrel, so this year, I am feeling somewhat nervous that I might not make it through hibernation (God, I wish I COULD actually hibernate - a good stack of wine bottles, tons of good books, chocolates and comfort food, no worrying about calories seeing that you're spending the next few months tucked under a blanket avoiding the scrutiny of your friends or any Joe Bloggs who thinks he's entitled to an opinion on the way you look!)... luckily, the reason for exercising restraint is only that my cupboards are already overflowing, even though, despite spending a full six weeks in Austria in the summer, I missed the delivery of those special apricots for the Wachau again, but my Mum did all the canning for me! Add to those 12 jars of apricot jam in various guises a batch of plum jam supplied by my grandmother who, despite being almost blind, still finds the energy to be cooking and baking, and a fair number of "speciality jams" I collected along the way or received as presents. Definitely quite the gatherer, moi.
So I am definitely covered on the sweet front - but what about savoury? When it comes to preserving, I rarely think vegetables, probably because there isn't a great tradition of it in my family. The thing is that you can buy decent Sauerkraut, gherkins and pickled chillis in almost every shop, even straight from the barrel if you venture out to the markets. So even I had to think hard when I volunteered to host this month's edition of "Waiter! There's something in my...". Inspiration came in the form of a holiday to Tuscany earlier this year - we stayed near Pienza, which is, as you may know, home to the famous Pecorino di Pienza (not to confound with its more common namesake pecorino romano which is not protected and sold up and down the country). Pecorino di Pienza is an origin-protected sheep's cheese (pecora is Italian for sheep) and can come in all shapes and guises, from a soft fresh cheese to a gran riserva, aged and matured and very much like a good parmesan cheese, hard, dense and almost crumbly. I think this is the way I like it best, with some truffle honey drizzled over and enjoyed as is, with some confit shallots in balsamico, a crumb of ciabatta (or two) and a glass of wine (or three). While at one of the many local delicatessen, selling way too many Italian delicacies than my pantry can actually cope with, I came across something I hadn't seen before: pecorino sott'olio (lit. pecorino under oil). Thin slivers of hard cheese preserved in flavoured olive oil. Yumm!
Since I still had a vacuum-packed piece of pecorino gran riserva in my fridge, I prepared the flavoured oil - I leave it up to you which type of oil you use, but for once I think an extra virgin is over the top for this purpose, go for a second pressing, a mild and low-maintenance olive oil that you would use for cooking. With the garlic and the spices (bay leaves, peppercorns and peperoncini) you're gently frying in it, the grassy freshness of a top Tuscan oil would only go bitter and compromise the other flavours too much. I thinly sliced the pecorino with my mandoline, then poured the cooled oil over... if you didn't think cheese lent itself for this treatment, think again: you can use pretty much any cheese, but I would suggest to either do it when it's still fresh (ie more the consistency of a cream cheese), scooped into small balls and seasoned with fresh herbs and garlic, or when it's really old and its crumbly and salty texture benefits from a bit of moisture. The subtle flavour of garlic and chilli is not something the pecorino really needs, but it's a welcome change and is a welome and unusual addition to any cheeseboard or served with your aperitif. As for the flavouring, be adventurous - the world's your oyster!

If you haven't yet, you still have two days to submit your contribution to this instalment of WTSIM - and I am known for turning a blind eye even if you are slightly late... as long as you email me before I post the round-up! Go on then, get perserving!

Seville orange marmalade

Strange as it seems, there is actually fruit that is seasonal at this time of the year and its season is a very short one indeed... merely four weeks from mid January before they disappear from the shelves again! That's almost as short as the season for white asparagus in June.
I ordered some the other day from my new organic fruiterer - with the baby here, my shopping habits were the first thing to change and I buy more and more online... a weekly box, full to the brim with organic fruit and vegetables, is the best thing since sliced bread.
When it comes to oranges, you might think that it doesn't really make a difference whether they're organic, or rather waxed and sprayed or otherwise treated, given that you peel them anyway - if you're planning to make a chunky marmalade, however, that's a different matter entirely! Of course, the only oranges worth considering for marmalade afficionados are Seville oranges, so when I saw some on Abel & Cole's speciality fruit list the other day, I felt compelled to add some to my delivery.
Now, I am not a big marmalade lover per se, but I had my Mum here, who always buys some jars of it when she is in the UK - it's a perfect souvenir for discerning gourmets back home and the people she buys for like it cut thick and chunky... which is not always easy to find in the shops, so we decided to have a go at making some ourselves.
Cutting through the first orange, we immediately understood why this variety is used for preserves only - there is virtually no flesh or juice, the main components are, indeed, peel and pith. According to the recipe I found on my supplier's website, nothing goes to waste - the peel is cut (thin or chunky to your liking), the juice is added to the pot and even the rest of the fruit is used to act as a sort of gelling agent, cut up and tied into a pudding cloth, it is cooked with the marmalade to extract all the pectin in the dry matter, to make sure the marmalade sets.
We altered the recipe just by cutting right down on the sugar - Seville oranges are very bitter, a prime flavour characteristic of marmalade, and some brands disguise this by adding sugar by the truckload. You don't actually need that much, if you're keen on that bitter taste, and if you're not, then I dare say you should rather buy apricot jam! My Mum was very pleased with the result and so were her friends back home, so even though I won't eat much of it myself, I thought it's worth sharing the recipe...

Rillettes de canard with apricot purée

It's not long ago that I talked about my love for rillettes in this very spot... and I got so many emails and comments encouraging me to make my own that I finally succumbed. I only went half-way, though, as I was cooking up some confit de canard the other day and had two duck legs left over. What better way to use them than to try and make my own rillettes!
Killing two birds with one stone, I took this opportunity to try my first recipe out of a new cookbook that's been adorning my bedside table for a few weeks now - I got it as a present from someone who seems to think that more bistro cooking could come out of my kitchen... it's not the first Thomas Keller book I have laid my hands on, either, I once ordered "The French Laundry cookbook" for a whopping £40 and decided to return it - the photography is stunning and the recipes appealing, but I always get so frustrated with imperial measures that I tend to look at these American-style cookbooks for inspiration only... and £40 is a lot to pay for some inspiration!
His new book "Bouchon" (after a new bistro chain he's establishing in the US) is a different matter, of course: firstly, bistro cooking is nowhere near as accurate in its measurements, secondly, I feel more at home with the simpler French cooking than haute-cuisine and therefore feel I intuitively know how much of a certain ingredient to put in (mostly) and, thirdly, it was a present, so I don't feel the pain in my own purse ;-)
I read this book from start to finish in a matter of a few days (don't forget I have children, if I hadn't, an afternoon would have sufficed) and thoroughly enjoyed the very detailed descriptions and background stories for the individual dishes, the twists they bring to the plate at Bouchon and lots of handy suggestions not only for preparing each dish, but how to enjoy it as well. There are tons of recipes I want to try, dishes I have always loved but not ever ventured into trying at home... the techniques are so simple and straight-forward that I will certainly get good use out of this book!
Keller offers two types of rillette recipes in his book: salmon rillettes and hare rillettes with prune purée... so I just took the basic idea behind it for my duck rillettes - as I said, I didn't have to bother making the duck, as I had bought some confit de canard at the Borough Market a few weeks back and all there was to do was to get the duck meat off the bone, shred it, season it generously and cream it up with some of the fat - very little fat, indeed, just enough to let it pass as a spread, rather than some tattered remains of a bird. Instead of the prune purée they use for their hare rillettes, I went for apricots cooked in marsala - a lovely sweet contrast I wouldn't want to miss - and definitely an improvement over the layer of fat that is usually associated with rillettes... I love them, but making it myself proved that using less fat might not be the most economic, but is such an improvement tastewise that the whole family (traditionally firmly in the anti-rillettes camp) happily tucked into them!

Cocina Mexicana - Learning to cook Mexican III

(Sopes with salsa verde)
This third instalment of our Mexican Cooking Extravaganza will see the introduction of salsas - sauces, for those not versed in Spanish (or modern cooking). It is a common misconception that Mexican food is spicy - it can be, of course, but it isn't necessarily all the time. In fact, the families I stayed with when living in Mexico cooked very few dishes with hot chilli, instead, they would add salsas to their liking once the food was on the table. And when they did, like for my beloved "chiles rellenos" which are a bit hit and miss in terms of just how spicy they are, they'd let me taste it first - if it was mild, I'd pass it on to them, if it was spicy, I'd have to eat it. But even if you can't stand the heat, you'll easily get by in Mexico!
Sauces are many and varied and wherever you go, people will have a tray of different ones on the side board of their dining room - using different kinds of chillies, they vary in heat* (jalapeños, for instance, are reasonably mild whereas habaneros are definitely nothing for the faint-hearted) and flavour, some are smoked, some or not, some contain just chile, others are based on tomato... the list is endless. But the best salsas are obviously those that are home-made and a bit more elaborate than the ones you buy in the grocery store.
When you go to a good taquería, you'll have a choice of freshly-made salsas to accompany your tacos. We prepared the most common ones for our introduction to Mexican Cooking the other day:

Guacamole has celebrated a veritable culinary crusade, but sadly become bastardised a lot of times. It is really hard to come by a good one and buying it ready-made (or, worse still, using the omnipresent OEP sachets) is not a good idea for obvious reasons. For a dummies guide to guacamole, here are some tips on how to handle your avocados:
Three handy tips for a successful relationship with your avocado:
1) If your avocados are not ripe, wrap them in newspaper. (Don't expect them to be ripe and ready in a matter of minutes, though, the Mexicans don't insist on "mañana" for no reason)
2) If you want to speed up the ripening process even more, put a banana next to them. (It still will need a good day or longer, depending on how ripe it is to start with)
3) To keep the guacamole from turning brown, don't throw the stone away, but leave it in the bowl with the guacamole - old wife's tale or not, it's done the trick for me every time.

(photo courtesy of Cooksister!)
Pico de Gallo (more commonly known as Salsa Mexicana, as everything carrying the name "mexicano/a" will consist of something green, white and red like the Mexican flag) is a fresh sauce based on tomatoes, onion, chile jalapeño and generous amounts of fresh coriander, seasoned with lime juice. The ingredients are raw, but it doesn't hurt to prepare the salsa ahead for the flavours to infuse. This sauce is mainly used as is, simply added onto a taco or enjoyed with nachos (tortilla chips baked in the oven with grated cheese), rather than being used in cooking.

Another favourite of mine is Salsa Chipotle - I love chipotle chillies for their rich and smokey flavour - very addictive! This type of chilli is also more fiery than the jalapeño, so care must be taken by novices of spicy food. This sauce is very smooth and uses tomatoes and lime juice, but can be used for cooking as well as a condiment for tacos. The simplest way is to use tinned chipotle, which is juicy and gorgeous!

Salsa Verde (main photo, used on sopes) on the other hand, is a cooked sauce. Its base are "tomatillos" (note that in Mexico,  "tomate" always refers to this green, husked variety, a member of the gooseberry family, hence the name "physalis philadelphica", whereas a common tomato is called "jitomate") and they are cooked with garlic and chile jalapeño or serrano, then blended and seasoned with fresh coriander. The green sauce can also be consumed as is, on tacos, sopes, flautas etc, but it is also often added to cooked dishes - like chicken breasts in salsa verde or chilaquiles, a sort of lasagna made of stale, fried tortillas interlaces with cheese... the most successful hangover cure ever invented!

* If you want to find out more about the different varieties of chillies and their heat score, refer to the following entry on wikipedia. Also refer to this article for more on Mexican Cuisine. If you're after a cookbook for all things Mexican, with good explanations of the ingredients used, I can recommend Diana Kennedy's From My Mexican Kitchen: Techniques and Ingredients. Yes, I know, she's English - but it's the best introduction to Mexican food I have come across as it covers all the basics.

Fig & peach jam

Late summer is usually when the market stalls abound with the best figs. Good, fresh ones are incredibly hard to get here anyway, but I had a lucky strike last week, when Waitrose had some beautiful, plump and juicy ones on offer. With a punnet of peaches sitting in my overflowing fridge, I knew just what to make: jam! I had never tried fig jam before, hadn't sampled it, hadn't made it, but it seemed like a good idea. I blame Nicky and her SHF for the fact that my kitchen cupboards are now full with jars, but I have really enjoyed experimenting with jam this summer. You can't really go wrong when you make jam, if you are in the possession of some tastebuds, that is, but most combinations of fruit work wonderfully. I had been suprised by my raspberry and apple jam which has become the family favourite this year, but I am equally impressed with this fig & peach jam - it's got the right balance of fruit, sugar and acid (I used quite a bit of lime juice to lift the flavour, given that cheap supermarket peaches can taste a bit bland in jams, not being able to stand up to the sugar). As you can see, I like my jam quite chunky, especially with soft fruit like this, and although I do puree about half of the fruit, I love having some pieces of fruit with every spoonful - just to remind me what it's made of! I also love the fact that the figs add a certain subtle crunch with their many seeds - I've only enjoyed it on croissants, rye bread and some brioche so far, but I wouldn't hesitate to add a bit of fleur de sel and have it with foie gras. If only I could get my hands on good foie gras here, can anyone help?

Raspberry & apple jam

Hot on the heels of my SHF contribution of apricot & roast pistachio jam, here’s what I claim to be this summer’s jam surprise. Now, I always say I find raspberries to be among the most perfect of fruits and simply love their cute looks but also their juiciness and fresh taste, which for me has just the right balance of sweetness and acidity. I didn’t want to make plain raspberry jam, however, as I had just brought home two jars of my Mum’s, and the only other fruit I had at home in abundance was apple – so apple it was.
Adding apples to your jam has one obvious advantage: they contain loads of pectin (in fact, the pectin you can buy in store, be it in its powdered or liquid form, is usually gained from apples) so you’re adding a natural jelling agent to your jam. Of course, it is possible to make perfectly good jam without adding any jelling agents whatsoever, but I like my jam thick and onctuous so I’d always end up cooking the jam for quite a long time until all the liquid of the fruit has evaporated. This does bring out the flavours even more, I find, but what you gain in taste, you lose out on colour. With the addition of the apple, I found that my jam thickened more quickly than usual and the jam turned out to be the brightest, liveliest pink and wonderfully glossy… a beauty to behold, just as the main ingredient!
The apples and a pinch of cinnamon also evoke childhood memories – there’s no specific experience attached to it, but this combination of flavours is a real heartwarmer for me: apple strudel, apple purée, apple compote, apple pie – all these dishes I used to love as a child but don’t make nearly often enough anymore… I’ve never tried a cinnamon and apple jam, but maybe that’s what I should make next!

How to sterilise jam jars:
If you, like me, like to use and re-use your jam jars, wash them thoroughly once empty. While you make a new load of jam, put a massive pot of (filtered) water with a generous splash of (white) malt vinegar to the boil in which you "cook" the jars and lids for ca. 10 minutes. Carefully remove them from the water, turning them upside down to make sure all the water's gone.
Place glasses and lids on a baking tray (opening facing up) and dry in the oven (fan @ 100C) for at least 15 minutes until fully dried. Avoid drying them with a towel as this might transfer new germs and other impurities into your neatly sterilised jars.
Pour in the jam while the glasses and lids are still hot, leave them to cool by placing them on your worktop with the lids down, this will help seal them properly.

SHF XXII - We're jammin': Apricot & roast pistachio jam

We're jammin
I wanna jam it with you,
We're jammin, jammin
And I hope you like jammin too

Like the rest of the foodblogging world, I guess, I have had rather a lot of jam sessions lately - mostly featuring members of the Berry family. Chuck couldn't make it, unfortunately, but Blue, Rasp and Goose (you sometimes do have to wonder how they come up with their pseudonyms these day, don't you) all staged brilliant performances in my kitchen. So within a matter of hopefully no more than weeks, you will be able to read more about combinations like gooseberry & black currant, blueberry & raspberry and, my personal favourite this year, raspberry & apple.
I only found out about the theme of this SHF by chance, when I met up with the hosts, Nicky and Oliver of delicious:days, in Salzburg two weeks ago and as I was expecting a delivery of apricots from the Wachau region that same week, I decided to contribute a recipe for apricot jam. Now, I've done a fair bit of travelling and lived abroad for most of my adult life and I have come to notice one thing about food (and especially fruit): it never quite tastes the same depending on where you eat it. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to grasp that fruit that travels far will have been picked long before it has actually reached the necessary degree of ripeness and, bananas aside, no fruit ripens off the plant. (No matter how Sainsbury's want to make you believe it.) It may get softer with time, but this is more a sign of beginning decay than a proof of the fruit reaching its hayday. If you've ever tasted a banana or a mango on your holidays somewhere in, say, Latin America, you will know exactly what I am talking about.
But in addition to choosing the right time for picking the fruit, variety and climate play a big part as well. I cannot understand those people who say that white asparagus tastes insipid - not in my part of the world it doesn't! But if you insist that you must have it preserved out of a glass, then it will, of course. Saying that, I've also had fresh white asparagus in France one time and found it to be inferior to the variety we get in Austria: if you ever happen to be there in its very short season (late May to late June), make sure you have some - simply cooked in salt water and drizzled with butter and parmesan... this will change your opinion of white asparagus forever.
I find apricots to be just as capricious. It's difficult enough to find a shop in the UK that sells them ripe, but even so, I have never, ever, managed to find some in this country that came even close to what they taste like in Central Europe. No matter whether they were imported from France, Israel, Chile or even locally grown... it must be the continental climate with harsh winters and dry and hot summers that makes apricots from Hungary and the Wachau (a wine growing region on board of the River Danube in Austria) superior to any other apricots I have ever tasted.
So when my Mum said she'd be getting 20kg of apricots from the Wachau region on the last day of my stay with them, I was jumping for joy... only to be bitterly disappointed when the day came and the farmer said he couldn't deliver because the fruits weren't ripe enough. I bought 2 kg of Hungarian apricots instead to ease the pain and made two varieties of jam: I prepared half of the apricots with lemongrass (a preserve I had  made before and found to be delicious, if very subtle in its flavour), but that wasn't enough of an experiment for SHF. I settled on pistachios, roughly chopped, then roasted, a sort of North African (or Turkish?) twist to a breakfast staple. Shame that the addition of nuts limits its shelf life quite a bit - but no matter how much other people will insist that jam tastes best after standing around in your cupboard for 8 months, I disagree. Anything tastes better fresh, and jam is no exception. Of course, jamming is a necessity in countries where fruit is highly seasonal, but the fact that it does keep for months doesn't mean that its taste will improve. So I am not bothered about the fact that I will have to consume this particular jam within no more than 2 months. Especially not seeing that I am already down to my last glass after just two weeks... the combination of flavours with the smokiness of the nuts and the bursting fruit of the apricot makes it simply irresistible!

Jam's about my pride and truth I cannot hide
Too Keep you satisfied.
True love that now exist is the love I can't resist
So jam by my side.
We're jammin
To think that jammin was a thing of the past,
We're jamming, jammin
And I hope this jam is gonna last!
(lyrics: Bob Marley)