Category: Recipes

Easy No Peel Apple Sauce

There are huge numbers of windfalls under two of the apple trees.

I can’t bear them going to waste so I decided to cook, puree and freeze them.

I’ve just realised there’s a much easier way to process them that avoids peeling and coring them.

Scrub the windfalls vigorously

Wash the fruit well, quarter and remove any blemishes.

Then bung everything in a big pan with two or three cupfuls of water and steam the apples with the lid on.

After about twenty minutes they are cooked through but they still hold their shape and haven’t disintegrated.

Ladle them into a mouli/food mill with a slotted spoon (to drain any excess liquid) and push through with the rotating handle and blade.

The soft apple is separated from the skin and cores.

Wonderfully easy.

I’ve frozen the first two bucketfuls.

Tomorrow I’ll bottle a similar amount.

Good for breakfast on top of porridge or apple pie.

I have also seen cake recipes where apple sauce is called for as a healthy alternative to fat.

 

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Chinese Plum Sauce

What do you do with tens of kilos of damson plums?

Share them.

Make jam – it’s almost as good as blackcurrant.

And make up a new recipe for Chinese plum sauce aka damson ketchup.

I must have read twenty recipes to get a feel for what I wanted.

I followed my old friend, Stephanie Alexander’s for plum sauce but changed the spices from old style English to Chinese.

I decided to squeeze the juice from a tablespoon of grated ginger rather than add it whole to the sauce.

I roasted the spices and roughly crushed them and tied them in a piece of muslin to go in the 3 kilos of stewed damsons that I’d pureed through a large holed food mill removing the stones as I went.

The basic recipe I followed morphed and ended up including 2 medium sized roasted sweet potatoes which I skinned, added and blended.

I’m pretty pleased with how it’s turned out.

It made a dozen smallish bottles to give away and a big bottle for the pantry.

5 from 1 vote
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Chinese Plum Sauce
Prep Time
1 hr
Cook Time
2 hrs
Total Time
3 hrs
 

Sweet and sour sauce for stir fries or as a condiment on sandwiches or salads

Author: Cath
Ingredients
  • 3 kg damson plums, washed and de-stalked
  • 2 1/2 cups (UK) brown sugar
  • 3 cups (UK) white or cider vinegar
  • 2 medium sweet potatoes (roasted whole and skinned)
  • 1 tbsp finely grated fresh ginger
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 3 whole star anise
  • 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
  • 3/4 tsp sichuan pepper or dried chillies
  • 6 whole cloves
  • 1/2 long cinnamon stick
Instructions

  1. Stew the damsons in a large preserving pan or saucepan with only the water that they have clinging to them after being washed. Stir frequently to prevent them sticking on the bottom of the pan. This should only take 20 mins to 1/2 and hour.

  2. In stages, pour the stewed damsons into large food mill and push through - removing the stones as you go. I used my bare fingers as I found gloves stopped me from picking them out cleanly. I just rinsed my hands between times.

  3. You should now have a large pot of damson puree to which you add the sugar and vinegar and bring to a slow simmer.

  4. While this is brewing, roast your whole spices in a dry pan watching carefully to avoid burning. Then crush roughly in a mortar and pestle before tying securely in a piece of muslin.

  5. Add the muslin to the damsons along with the juice of the ginger - use your hand to squeeze it firmly - you should be left with the dryish pulp which you can add to your compost.

  6. Season with the salt and cook for an hour or so. Then remove the spices in the muslin and add the roasted sweet potato flesh.

  7. Remove from the heat and puree preferably with a stick blender. Bring back to a simmer and then remove from the heat.

  8. Pour into clean hot sterilised bottles or jars.

 

 

 

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The Greens Kale and Potato Soup with Red Chili

This is described in the Greens Cook Book as a “vigorous and deeply satisfying winter soup” but actually all the ingredients are in their prime now, in late summer.

But yes, I agree – they will go on to nourish us through the darker, colder months as well.

I have three kinds of kale, the red ruffles of Sutherland Kale are cheek by jowl with the showy more jagged leaves of my white kale and the dark green almost black plumes of Cavolo Nero which I used for the soup.

My chillies are beginning to turn red – they dangle like earrings off the short squat leafy plants that I have in pots outside the back door.

And I’ve just lifted the potatoes – blight resistant varieties for the most part.

Anyway.

This soup is one of my favourites and we had it for lunch yesterday.

Enjoy!

Print
The Greens Cook Book Kale and Potato Soup with Red Chili
Servings: -4 people
Author: Cath
Ingredients
  • 1 bunch kale about 12 to 14 big leaves
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 medium onion diced
  • 6 cloves garlic finely sliced
  • 1 red chili, finely chopped you can also use dried chili, or flakes
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 4 medium potatoes, scrubbed, washed and diced into 1/2 inch cubes
  • 2 tsp nutritional yeast (optional)
  • 7 US cups water or stock a little over 1.6 litres
Instructions

  1. Using a sharp knife, cut the washed kale leaves off their stems. Slice the leaves thinly then chop roughly.

  2. Heat the olive oil in a large soup pot, add onion, garlic, chili, bay leaf and salt, and cook over medium heat for three to four minutes, stirring frequently.

  3. Add the potatoes and nutritional yeast, if using, plus a cup of the water or stock. Stir and cover to cook for five minutes.

  4. Add the kale, cover and steam until it is wilted, stirring occasionally.

  5. Pour in the rest of the water or stock (I use Marigold bouillon powder) and bring to the boil and simmer, covered, until the potatoes are quite soft, 30 to 30 minutes.

  6. Use the back of a wooden spoon to break up the potatoes against the side of the pot or puree and cup or two in a blender and return it to the pot.

  7. Taste for salt and add a generous grinding of pepper. If possible let the soup sit for an hour or so before serving to allow the flavours to further develop.

  8. Serve without any garnish.

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My Top Ten Cookery Writers

One of my greatest inspirations in the kitchen is the Greens Cook Book.

I’ve just made a kale, potato and chilli soup from it for lunch.

My sister, Deb, gave it to me many years ago and I think she came across it when she was living in San Francisco where the Greens Restaurant is to be found.

I was so inspired I went there for lunch when I travelled to the West coast 20 years ago and I was not disappointed.

I remember the crisp white table linen, the sparkling wine glasses,  the view across the bay to Sausalito and the iconic Golden Gate Bridge nearby.

The food was pretty good too!

Black bean and fresh corn chilli followed by a delightfully wobbly pannacotta, I seem to remember.

After the trip the book enabled me to recreate dishes like that back at home.

It was only on closer inspection that I realised one of the authors, Ed Espe Brown had written another of my cookery bibles, The Tassajara Cook Book.

It’s more of a manual than a conventional cook book.

It described the alchemy of cooking and taught me how to trust my taste and intuition and to use what was to hand.

Ed also showed me there was more than one way to chop a carrot!

Other books that have inspired me are those passed down by my mother.

Jane Grigson and Elizabeth David’s slightly academic, scholarly tomes adorn our bookshelves alongside newcomers like Yotam Ottolenghi, Dennis Cotter (owner of Cork’s Paradiso restaurant) and Rebecca Wood who wrote The Splendid Grain recommended to me by my late friend, John Mixer VII.

I also treasure my copy of Claudia Roden’s A New Book of Middle Eastern Food, given to me by fellow Sacred Harp Singer Lin James.

Marcella Hazan’s Italian cook books and Fuschia Dunlop’s books about Szechuan cookery also rate highly in my pantheon of cookbook writer greats.

And I can’t leave out Madhur Jaffrey and Stephanie Alexander.

They’ve become like old friends and during this pandemic are even more important windows to other worlds.

Who’s inspired you in the kitchen?

I’d love to know more about your influences.

 

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