Raspberry Curd

I recently made some raspberry ripple blondies- normal blondies, with raspberry purée swirled through (I intend to post the recipe for this soon). They were an improvised recipe, so I was playing around with quantities. I ended up leaving out about half the raspberry puree I made, so decided to turn the rest into some raspberry curd, something I have been intending on trying making for a while.

The method is simple, and is almost identical to this pineapple curd recipe:

175g raspberries (I used frozen ones)

Juice of 2 lemons

200g sugar
100g butter, cut into cubes
3 eggs and 1 egg yolk

Mash the raspberries with a fork (or quickly blitz in a processor or blender). Push through a sieve to remove pips. In a heatproof bowl, mix the raspberry puree, sugar and butter, and sit over a pan of lightly simmering water. Give it a stir to help melt the butter and dissolve the sugar. While this is happening beat together the eggs and yolks. Once the butter has melted and the sugar dissolved, whisk in the beaten egg mix. Keep whisking for about 10 minutes, until the curd mixture has thickened, and feels heavy on the whisk.

Pour into clean jam jars- this makes about two medium jam jars worth of curd.

 

Other than on toast, I would like to try this as a filling for a sponge, made with some ground almonds and lemon or orange zest. I think I would also like to make a raspberry equivalent of lemon bars with it too.

Pineapple Curd

A friend made some very delicious lemon curd the other day, and it got me thinking about the different kinds of fruit that could be used to make curd. I have explored this a bit in my blog previously, with spiced damson curd and Seville orange curd. April isn’t the most inspiring time of year for seasonal fruit, so it’s a good time to turn to tropical flavours- i.e. something that won’t be grown in the UK anyway. And it’ll get you in a summery mood.  I decided to experiment with pineapple- it had a good amount of acidity that I hoped would work well in a curd. I hadn’t heard of a pineapple curd before, but a quick Google showed that other people have made it with success. Some recipes suggested using fresh pressed pineapple, and others just used pineapple juice- I compromised by using the freshest pineapple juice I could buy.

My recipe started off using an adaptation of this Nigel Slater lemon curd recipe, using pineapple juice instead of lemon, plus the juice of half a lemon, and omitting the lemon zest. While I was cooking it, I found it too sweet, and ended up adding an extra lemon and half worth of juice. Because of the additional juice, I quickly added an additional egg yolk. Despite these last minute changes, it came out as a curd should. I was really pleased with the result- it’s a tangy, fresh tasting curd with a good pineapple flavour. As well as on toast, I have plans to use it as a filling in a coconut cake, and to top some meringues with some cream and possibly some passion fruit pulp. 

125ml fresh pineapple juice

Juice of 2 lemons

200g sugar
100g butter, cut into cubes
3 eggs and 1 egg yolk

In a heatproof bowl, mix the juices, sugar and butter, and sit over a pan of lightly simmering water. Give it a stir to help melt the butter and dissolve the sugar. While this is happening beat together the eggs and yolks. Once the butter has melted and the sugar dissolved, whisk in the beaten egg mix. Keep whisking for about 10 minutes, until the curd mixture has thickened, and feels heavy on the whisk.

Pour into clean jam jars- this made about two medium sized jars for me.

Crispy Pata and Atacharang Papaya

I first had crispy pata about 6 years ago in a pub in Kenilworth, The Famous Virgins and Castle, which has a half English, half Filipino menu. For those who aren't aware of the delights of crispy pata, it is a deep fried pork hock. It should have a rich brown skin that snaps when you break it (like the savoury equivalent of the top of a crème brulee), and very tender flesh. It's rich, fatty, and the meat in almost gelatinous in place, and you'll need a lie down after eating.
The Famous Virgins and Castle serve the pork with rice and atcharang papaya. I only ever have a few mouthfuls of rice, or I fill up and can't eat all my pata, which would be a terrible thing indeed. Atacharang papaya is a pickle, made with unripe papaya. It is sweet and sharp and cuts through the fatty pork very well.
Crispy Pata has to be the most terrifying dish I have ever cooked. I don't think I'll be making it again without a deep fat fryer, and even then, I'm not sure it's worth the clean up and the terrifying noises of the pig skin blistering and popping. I'm glad I attempted it, but I think it'll be a dish that I'll order in restaurants rather than make at home.

Atacharang Papaya
You need to know if you want atacharang papaya a few days before you eat- it improves with a little time. Every recipe I looked at specified the importance of using green, unripe papaya. Luckily, that was all I could find in the supermarket anyway.

1 green, unripe papaya
1 tbsp salt
4 cups vinegar
4 cups sugar
5-10 shallots (the recipe I was using this a base for specified red shallots- I could only find regular ones, and used these)
1 red pepper
2 large red chillies
1 large carrot
1 cucumber
handful raisins
I head garlic
a few slices of ginger.


Peel, destone and finely shred the papaya. Place in a bowl, and sprinkle with the salt. Let it sit for a minute or two, then place in a sieve and rinse off. Squeeze the papaya to remove as much as the moisture as you can. Set aside. Shred the cucumber and carrot, the pepper and the chilli (removing seeds and pith from the last two). Peel and finely slice the shallots. Mix all these together in a bowl, with the papaya and the raisins.

Put the vinegar and sugar in a large sauce pan with the slices of ginger. Slice the head of garlic horizontally in half, and add this too. Dissolve the sugar over a low heat, and then boil for 3-5 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes. I discarded the ginger slices, but peeled and separated the cloves of garlic and included them in the pickle.

Put the shredded vegetables in a large jar and pour over enough of the pickling liquid to cover. Leave for 2 days before using.

Crispy Pata
1 pork hock
6 bay leaves
2 tbsp whole black peppercorns
4-6 star anise
teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
2 to 3 teaspoons garlic powder
12 to 15 cups water
8 to 12 cups cooking oil

Bring the water to the boil in a pan large enough to take the meat later.
Add the bay leaves, whole peppercorn, star anise and 4 teaspoons of the salt along with the pork hock. Simmer the meat until it is tender. The recipe I used suggested 45-60 minutes, I ended up cooking it for more like 2 hours.

Remove the pork hock and set aside to cool.Rub the leg with the ground pepper, garlic powder and remaining salt. Let it sit for at least 15 minutes.

Heat the oil in a large cooking pot with a lid. Don't use a pot without a lid, it is far too messy, and more importantly, dangerous to leave this uncovered.

Gently put the pork in the oil (to avoid splashing). Cover, and leave top crisp up on one side, then turn and cook the other side. This takes far longer than you would expect. The skin needs to properly crackle and blister before it is ready. When the skin is well browned and crunchy, it is ready.

Serve with the atcharang papaya and some plain rice.

A Small Collection of Elderflower Drink Recipes

Gooseberry and Elderflower Cordial, Gooseberry and Elderflower Vodka, Elderflower Cordial

To make elderflower cordial, you will need:
2.5 kg sugar
about 30 elderflower heads- check for bugs, thick green stalks removed
2 unwaxed lemons
85g citric acid

Put the sugar and 1.5 litres of water in a large saucepan and put over a low heat to dissolve the sugar. Stir from time to time. When all the sugar has dissolved to syrup, bring to the boil and then remove from the heat. Leave to cool slightly- go and pick your elderflowers now if your you have a nearby supply. Pare off the lemon zest with a peeler, and then cut the lemon up into slices. Add the lemon, the elderflowers and the citric acid. Leave for 24 hours.

The next day, strain the elderflower cordial through a sieve lined with muslin. Using a funnel, pour the cordial into sterilised bottles.


To make gooseberry and elderflower cordial, the procedure is much the same. When the sugar has dissolved, add 1kg of halved gooseberries (no need to top and tail) and boil the syrup for about 8 minutes. Let it cool slightly, and add the elderflower and citric acid in the same quantities as the above recipe. No lemons this time. Leave to cool and bottle as above.

For something a little stronger, and even easier to make, you can try gooseberry and elderflower vodka. I filled a jar about halfway with halved gooseberries, about 8 elderflower heads, a good pour of caster sugar and filled it to the top with vodka. The only downside is the waiting time- at least a month is recommended. I am trying to leave all my vodkas for a year, so I can drink suitably seasonal alcohol all year round come 2014.

"Seville" Orange Curd

Seville oranges have a limited season, just a few weeks of availability in January. I don't think you can get them in Australia, but in the UK they are usually available in the greengrocers, mostly for marmalade makers. Not being a fan of the preserve, I spritz it where I would lemons. You can get a very good approximation of the flavour by mixing regular orange juice with lime juice, to get the flavour of the orange  with the correct eye-wincing sourness, if Seville oranges elude you.

Despite the winter associations of Seville oranges, this looks and tastes like summer in a jar. I'll post some recipes using the curd over the next few days, so watch this space.


Ingredients
4 large oranges, e.g. navel, zested and juiced
6 limes, zested and juiced
150g caster sugar
4 eggs, plus 2 egg yolks
150g butter, cubed 


First sterilize your jar; wash with hot soapy water and let it dry out in a low oven.
Put the juices and zests in the saucepan with the eggs, egg yolks, and sugar. Beat together to make it a uniform consistency.  Over a low heat, stir with a wooden spoon. Once it is heated through, add a cube of butter, stirring all the time until in is melted and mixed in. Continue to add the butter cubes, one by one, until they are all used. Keep cooking and stirring the curd. Once it thickly coats the back of the spoon, it is ready. Pour into your sterilised jar. Once it is cool, keep in the fridge for up to a week.

Spiced Damson Curd, and Some Uses.

I bought a small bag of damsons in a flush of seasonal excitability. A lot of the fruit I buy for this reason ends up as flavouring for vodka, but I had the urge to make something more family-friendly. I don't think you can get much more wholesome then homemade preserves, in particular curd, which has a rather old fashioned feel to it. I love making and eating curd, but I'd never made it with damsons before. I hypothesized that they would be tart enough to withstand the process required to turn them into a curd, and went about my usual method, with the addition of some spices. I was rather happy with the result, which was not only tasty, but also a pleasing shade of maroon.

If you make this, or any other preserve, you'll need to sterilise the jar, which you can do by washing in hot soapy water, then drying in a low oven.

*Update 2709/15- this has been the most visited blog post by far, so I wanted to revisit this recipe- it's a lovely way to welcome autumn. Here are some newer photos:

Damsons, before cooking

Damsons, after cooking

Damson purée, eggs, sugar and spices

Finished curd

Ingredients
300 grams damsons
100ml water
150-200 grams caster sugar
3 eggs, plus 1 egg yolk
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 cloves
100 grams butter, cubed

Method
Put the damsons in a saucepan with the water, and bring to a simmer. Turn the heat down to low, clamp on a lid and let them stew for a few minutes till softened, and some of them have split their skins.

Put a sieve over a bowl, and tip in damsons and the accumulated juices. Push the damsons through the sieve with the back of a large spoon, until you are left with just skins and stones in the sieve. Put the sieved juice and damson flesh back in the saucepan with the eggs, egg yolk, sugar and spices. Beat together to make it a uniform consistency.  Over a low heat, stir with a wooden spoon. Once it is heated through, add a cube of butter, stirring all the time until in is melted and mixed in. Continue to add the butter cubes, one by one, until they are all used. Keep cooking and stirring the curd. Once it thickly coats the back of the spoon, it is ready. Pour into your sterilised jar. Once it is cool, keep in the fridge for up to a week.

Now you can either eat it as it is, spread on bread or toast. Or try it on scones, or between the layers of a sponge cake, with some softly whipped cream. Basically wherever you would use jam, substitute curd. My housemate and I had a quick pudding of Greek yogurt with crushed meringue and the curd folded in.

Home-Cured Salt Beef

Last Saturday was Leamington farmers market, which I go to every month. I have to limit myself to a single purchase, or I would spend far too much. I chose for this month's buy a small joint of beef brisket, a hard-working piece of the animal that is not as popular as it should be. It's cheap and delicious, but requires slow cooking to break down the connective tissue and turn it into good eating.

There were several routes I could go down- brisket is a traditional cut in Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine, where it turns up as a pot roast, or the prune-sweetened beef tsimmes. The Chinese stew it, or put it in soup with noodles. This particular brisket was to become salt beef.

After a bit of cookery book consultation, I used a recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's book Meat. I had to downscale it slightly- he writes in terms of joint of around 3kgs, whereas I had mere slice of beef, weighing in at 800 grams. I halved the brine quantities, and only left the meat in it for 3 days as opposed to the suggested 7-10. I also decided to leave out the optional saltpetre, which is used to keep the meat a more attractive pink colour instead of stewed brown-grey. If you decide to use go down the more attractive route, saltpetre is available in larger pharmacies.

Here is the recipe in it's original form, it is up to the reader to implement any changes:

Ingredients
For the brining stage:
3kg brisket
5L water
500g demerera sugar
1.5kg salt
1 tsp black peppercorns
5 cloves
4 bay leaves
30g saltpetre

Method
Put all the ingredients except for the beef in a saucepan and bring to the boil- give it the odd stir to help the sugar and salt dissolve, if like me, you hate feeling uninvolved with the cooking going on. Once it has reached boiling, take it off the heat and allow it to cool completely.
Put the meat and brine in a non-reactive container (i.e. tupperware or similar, nothing metallic). You may need something to way down the meat to keep it submerged; Hugh suggests a piece of wood,I used a small plate. You can keep it in a cool place, as suggested. I decided to keep it in the fridge as my flat is too warm for me to feel comfortable to do so.
After your brining time (see above for notes on this), remove the meat from the brine. The joint will feel firm, and also be a rather unappetising brown. But have faith. Now you need to remove excess salt by soaking it in fresh water for 24-48 hours, depending on the size of your joint. The water needs to be changed at least once. After this rather uninteresting stage, we move onto cooking.

For the cooking:
1 bouquet garni
1 onion, peeled and halved
1 carrot
1 stick celery
1 leek
1/2 head garlic

Put all the ingredients, plus your beef and water to cover in a casserole and bring to a simmer. Cook gently for around 2-3 hours, till the meat is tender. You can either eat it hot there and then, or have it cold. Personally I prefer it cold, so I allowed it to cool overnight in the cooking liquid before removing.

Salt beef, pre-cooking...











......and post cooking... 

...and mid slicing, please note the essential accompaniment alongside.

Flavoured Vodka

I like vodka. Or, I like getting drunk. Maybe both. Flavouring your own vodkas is a great way to feel superior to your run-of-the-mill lush. There's even something slightly wholesome about having a cupboard dedicated to glass jars filled with fruit macerating in alcohol. Maybe not so much as jam making, say, but certainly a lot less effort.Over the past year there has been raspberry, blackberry, quince, cranberry, lychee, passionfruit, rhubarb, kiwi, gooseberry, and currently peach vodkas made and drank. And they've all been great nights.

All you need is a glass jar (Kilner or otherwise), cheap vodka, sugar, and your chosen fruit. Mash/crush/grate your fruit, depending on what sort it is, add sugar to taste, top up with vodka. Shake the jar every day for the first two weeks or so, and leave for a few weeks more. Hard fruit like quince needs a longer time then something soft like raspberries. But you can keep tasting until you are happy with the result. Strain into a clean bottle, and serve very, very cold.

The only non-fruit vodka I have made is vanilla vodka. It has the benefit of having a short flavouring period, and not needing to strain it, so it's even easier than fruit vodka. The same principle applies here, only use a vanilla pod in place of fruit. I leave the pod in when I bottle it, I think it looks quite beautiful. Vanilla vodka is an essential ingredient for Orange Creamsicles, the recipe for which can be found here.