rhubarb and rose jam

Posted on 15 May, 2013 by Andrea Mynard

At the beginning of May, I definitely wouldn’t have considered making jam. All that sunshine made me want to spend any spare moments outside. Planting fruit, not cooking it in the kitchen.

Now everything is so lush, the rhubarb is really flourishing and I can see sweet cicely with its pretty cream flowers from the kitchen table.

But it’s very cold and rainy. So instead of dusk gardening, evening jam making beckons.

Popping out to the garden to gather fruit and herbs, an abundance of mud and cooking are a dangerous combination I find. Once I’m outside there are always a few bits and pieces that I notice need attention and I’m easily distracted. But I’d planned to cook and hadn’t exactly dressed for gardening.

One evening there was a cold-frame avalanche. Shoddy placing of the top shelf (by me of course) meant that it suddenly collapsed. Of course it was crammed full of pots of seedlings, which all landed on top of the poor courgettes and Mother Hubbard squash plants sitting below. I’d only popped out for a minute of watering the pots inside. An hour later, I arrived back in the kitchen, having re-potted as many undamaged plants as possible. Thankfully there weren’t too many plant casualties, just very muddy arms for me.

Looking back at pictures of Ruby gardening, I think she may take after her Mum in her insistence that there’s no need to change, one outfit suits everything:

This was taken after a Jubilee street party last year (you may spot the face-painting) – we’d returned home and were checking the potatoes! Ruby’s pretty dress soon became very muddy. I don’t exactly have an extensive wardrobe but I do like to wear and enjoy my favourite clothes too. Skirts and dresses are happily intermingled with my scruffy jeans. Often worn with these of course:

So after my very lovely girly excursion to the village hall vintage tea party, I may have been tempted to browse these (totally out of my price range!) Brora Liberty Print and tea dresses and these maxi dresses. But even if I had cash to spare, I know I’d end up cooking in them, pop out to pick a few herbs and water the cold frame a little before turning the compost heap.

Perhaps these great Howies organic t-shirts (I love the fact that they’re called ‘Go Wild’ and in violet) may be more practical. And I’ll have a feminine fix from these very pink drinks and preserves.

The gloriously pink bottles are rhubarb cordial, made from the Jamie Oliver recipe here. It’s a very refreshing (and pretty!) drink diluted with sparkling water or just tap water. And I think it’ll make a fabulously summery drink added to Prosecco once we have warm evenings again.

The rhubarb and rose jam (I know, at last I’ve got to the point!) is adapted from Diana Henry’s Salt, Sugar, Smoke. Rhubarb, rose and cardamom jam is one of the many jewel-coloured inspiring preserve recipes in this very lovely book. I will make the original recipe too very soon. But much as I love cardamom, I thought Ruby (who I’m hoping will like this fragrant pink jam with stove-top rice pudding and porridge) would prefer a version without. And besides, this is the first year I’ve had Sweet Cicely thriving in the garden. I’ve read so much about how brilliant it is paired with rhubarb and wanted to try a rhubarb/sweet cicely combination.

I made this jam twice – first, using jam sugar with added pectin as in Diana Henry’s version. This produced a jam that set easily, but I wanted a runnier jam, so tried it made just with granulated sugar. I prefer this version, and will even try it again with less sugar – especially as Sweet Cicely is well known as a herb which reduces the acidity of tart fruit. It wouldn’t last as long and would need to be kept in the fridge, but as I have so many uses in mind, including scones, Victoria Sandwich cakes with mascarpone and just spread on good toasted sourdough, I don’t think that will be a problem.

Rhubarb and rose jam with sweet cicely

1 kg rhubarb (untrimmed weight)

900g granulated sugar

juice of 1 lemon

a few sweet cicely leaves

100ml apple juice

1 dessert spoon rose water

Trim and wash the rhubarb, cutting into short lengths. Toss with the sugar in a preserving pan and pour over the lemon juice and apple juice. Cover and leave overnight, or at least for a few hours to draw out the juices from the rhubarb.

Add the sweet cicely to the rhubarb. Slowly bring the contents of the pan to the boil so that the sugar dissolves, then boil rapidly until you reach setting point. I found this only took a few minutes, but then I’m prepared to have runny jam dribbling over the sides of my scones.

Remove from the heat, remove the sweet cicely and add the rose water. Return to heat and bring to boil again quickly. Remove from heat, tasting and adding a little more lemon juice or rose water (although remember you’re after a lovely fragrant jam, not creating perfume) to taste. Put in warm, sterilized jars and seal.

If it lasts that long, it’ll be lovely when the roses are blooming to decorate little bowls of rice pud or cakes that include this preserve, with petals. In the meantime, I’ll make do with violets.

This is a sponsored post, but as usual all rambling opinions are my own.

vintage bakes, recycling and primrose curd muffins

Posted on 14 May, 2013 by Andrea Mynard

Perhaps to some the words vintage and bakes aren’t ideal partners, bringing to mind images of stale rock cakes rather than the tempting teatime treats on pretty floral china I have in mind.

But a recent village hall fundraiser with a vintage tea party theme has inspired me. Copious amounts of pretty bunting, ladies dressed in forties style frocks and tea dance music playing in the background created such a lovely feel-good atmosphere. Not to mention trestle tables laden with a wonderful selection of home-made cakes. Rosemary madeira cake, mini bakewell tarts decorated with pale blue flowers, cake stands heaped with cupcakes and millionaires shortbread were all so beautifully presented.

Having enjoyed the lovely vintage vibe of this tea party, I’ve been keen to savour it a little longer. Yet while sitting around like a lady in a pretty frock all day sipping Darjeeling may occasionally be appealing, it isn’t likely to happen in this house. Fitting in a bit of vintage recycling and baking seems a little more practical.

Ruby has been given a lovely little girls tweed jacket that was found in a friend’s attic. It’s missing buttons and my daughter has suggested bright pink. I’m thinking “why not” if it means it’ll be enjoyed and worn again. Even better, Grandma and Granny have both offered us a choice from their button tins.

Our current run of rainy days means that sorting out our cupboards (not normally high on my list of priorities!) seems a good thing to do. We have had lots of moths in the house too, so I need to have a clear and a clean and make more lavender bags. I often take old clothes to charity shops or sell them on ebay rather than letting them end up in a landfill, but musicmagpie seems like a good option too for recycling clothes as well as old cds, dvds etc. They give you a valuation of items online, arrange for free courier collection or you can post for free. Payment is then made by bank transfer, cheque, e-vouchers or you can choose for the money to be donated to your choice of charity. It could be a good source of fundraising for schools too.

Unsurprisingly, pottering around in the kitchen baking is a much more appealing activity to me than clearing and cleaning! So, feeling smug from all that Spring cleaning, this is the sort of wholesome baking that I think fits perfectly with the vintage vibe as well as making good use of the lush, May countryside.

Primrose Curd Muffins

Ingredients:

Primrose curd from Liz Knight’s lovely recipe here.

120g plain white organic flour

100g spelt flour or other wholemeal flour (flour from heritage varieties of wheat gives a lovely flavour and wholesome feel)

2 teaspoons baking powder

100g caster sugar

1 free-range egg

125g plain yoghurt

125ml milk

75g butter, melted and slightly cooled (I put it in a dish in the oven while it’s warming up – but don’t forget it’s there!)

Directions

1. Put 10 large paper cases into a muffin tray. Put the flour, baking powder and caster sugar in a large bowl and whisk lightly to combine.2. Mix the egg, yoghurt, milk and melted butter together in a jug. Pour them into the dry ingredients and mix lightly, stopping as soon as everything is combined. This is very rough and ready mixing – perfect if children are helping. Or for rustic, imperfect bakers such as myself.

3. Divide half the mixture between the muffin cases and top with a teaspoonful of primrose curd. Add a final spoonful of muffin mixture to encase the curd and three-quarters fill the cases.

4. Bake in an oven preheated to 180°C/gas mark 4 for about 30 minutes until golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. They’re lovely to eat with a cup of tea (in a vintage china cup of course!) while still warm though. You can also have fun decorating these cakes with pale yellow primrose flowers.

I’ve adapted the River Cottage recipe for Lemon Curd muffins here. If you’re in a slightly less wholesome mood and want lighter muffins, you can follow the original recipe more closely and use 220g white flour instead of the mixture I’ve used above.

For those who make the primrose curd, it’s great with meringues and thick cream too and I can also recommend spooning some into greek yoghurt. A classic Victoria sponge cake with primrose curd in the middle, dusted with icing sugar and decorated with primroses is also on my baking list. I have lots of mismatched pretty plates and saucers to serve on, bought (very luckily) from a garage/barn sale a couple of years ago for 10p each. Now I just need the retro floral pinny!

This post was sponsored by musicmagpie.co.uk. All of the rambling opinions are my own!

wild garlic egg-fried rice

Posted on 13 May, 2013 by Andrea Mynard

I’d planned to make egg-fried rice with purple sprouting broccoli, but an impromptu walk in the garlic woods with friends led to a fragrant addition to our supper.

This picture was taken in May last year and the garlic isn’t flowering quite as profusely yet. But there were lots of garlicky greens to gather as we walked down into the woods and nearer to the stream, Ruby found that the garlic flowers were just beginning to open. Her 2 year old friend gathered garlic leaves just as enthusiastically as us, before sitting down to happily remove her wellies and socks so that her leggings and feet could become more closely acquainted with the mud. We all had lots of fun.

Back home in the kitchen, I was as excited as ever to have a bag crammed full of nutritious and free greens. My friend Heidi used her wild garlic leaves in a lovely Moroccan inspired soup with chickpeas, saffron and tomatoes. But I was still in the mood for a Saturday night Chinese supper. Not authentically Chinese at all, I have to point out, but the sort of fragrant yet wholesome food I felt like.

As Ruby had been involved in gathering the ingredients, she tucked in to her supper packed with greens with enthusiasm. Not something that always happens in this kitchen.

It made use of our current Purple Sprouting Broccoli garden glut as well as the wilder glut in the woods and was very simple to cook. Ideal for a May day when we’d made the most of the sunnier parts of the day outside between showers.

Wild garlic egg-fried rice

For 4 average appetites or 3 very hungry people

250 g brown rice

3 free-range eggs

2 tablespoons rapeseed oil

2-3 teaspoons soy sauce (I use the Clearspring organic variety)

3 handfuls wild garlic leaves, chopped

1 handful wild garlic flowers

2 handfuls purple sprouting broccoli

Break the eggs into a bowl and mix with a fork. Heat a small amount of the oil in a large wok and stir-fry the broccoli briefly. Remove and reserve on a plate. Heat the remaining oil and stir-fry the rice. Add the soy sauce and wild garlic leaves, stirring - the heat of the wok will wilt the wild greens nicely. Add the broccoli, stir and push the rice mixture to one side of the wok. Quickly cook the eggs in a sort of omelette in the wok, then slice into thin shreds with your spatula or chop sticks and mix with the rice. Heap into bowls, scattering a few wild garlic flowers on top.

If you want to make this dish more authentically Chinese you can of course use white rice and vary the oil. I’d normally add spring onions or Egyptian walking onions from the garden at the beginning of egg fried rice, but this time the wild garlic seemed to add plenty of that fresh allium flavour. Later in the summer I’ll probably make it with peas picked from the garden instead of the PSB and wild garlic.

We ate it with some spare ribs that I’d marinated and cooked in the oven, but this would make a good vegetarian dish on its own.

As it combines a seasonal garden glut with lots of wildly seasonal food, I’m entering it in the lovely Ren Behan’s Simple and in Season for May.

The Urban Rajah’s Curry Memoirs – book review

Posted on 8 May, 2013 by Andrea Mynard

In chilly weather, curry is often exactly the sort of comfort food I need. Yet the fabulously sunny bank holiday weekend we’ve just enjoyed had me craving some heat in my food too. So this book of fabulous curry recipes, with lots of wonderfully spiced dished that are simple to prepare, was very welcome.

Dishes such as Kachumbar, a refreshing looking Asian version of salsa, looks like perfect summery food:

The energising Dudh Badam (Almond Milkshake) made by the Urban Rajah’s grandmother to “breathe life into my father’s nutrition-starved body on his return from his Catholic boarding school,” looks perfect for sunny weather too.

And I’m looking forward to making the Cricket Chicken, where frugal chicken thighs or drumsticks (I’ll use the very flavoursome ones from Great Farm in the Cotswold’s very free-ranging birds) add taste and nutrition to a spiced stock that you then cook basmati rice in, before reuniting the succulent chicken pieces with fragrant rice.

There are some beautifully spiced versions of familiar classics that I’m keen to try too, such as Aloo Ghobi, Comfort Daal and Mama Peters’ Jhalfrezi.

But thanks to the self-styled Urban Rajah’s (aka Ivor Peters) wordsmithery and entertaining storytelling ability, lots of gorgeous pictures ranging from family snaps to street food in Karachi and descriptions of food ranging from wedding feasts to Bazaar snacks, this is far from just a cookbook. It’s the sort of lovely book that’s perfect for reading in bed or in the bath. But be warned, it’ll transport you to colourful Indian streets where chefs with manicured silver moustaches conjure up earthy meals with notes of musk and bursts of fresh chilli and ginger. You’ll be ransacking your cupboards for spices in the morning.

Ivor Peters grew up in 1970s Britain and so his memories of falling in love with curry as a young boy in Slough mingle with ones of hot summers, street cricket, fishfingers and a pair of orange curtains. His Curry Memoirs offer great recipes for home-cooked spiced food that are influenced by the East and married with Western cuisine. These are introduced to us through fascinating, often amusing stories that have obviously been as lovingly passed through the generations as some of the recipes.

The Urban Rajah had a spell as a pirate radio DJ, is a food writer with a great blog full of travel, style and food, and has a highly acclaimed pop-up restaurant, Cash n Curry. A social enterprise dedicated to raising funds for projects helping India’s street children, profits from Cash n Curry also help to liberate trafficked children and those in bonded labour. Some of the author royalties from this book will also be donated by the Urban Rajah to support these organisations.

One of the things that makes his Curry Memoirs such an enjoyable read is the way that the Urban Rajah’s zest for adventure, as well as food, is evident from every page.

It reminds us of the comforting warmth of a family kitchen as well as tempting us with some far-flung escapism. We begin with the chapatti shuffle in the Peter’s kitchen, are led past Asian camp food high atop cliffs of Big Sur, and are taken via a Siberian Duck Curry on a trip to a lake fringed with man-sized rushes near Karachi.

I also like the way that a lot of the dishes seem to be a lot healthier than the dumbed down ghee-laden dishes that often pass for ‘Indian’ food in this country. I’ve only travelled to India once, to Kerala, where I stayed at a fantastic homestay and enjoyed the beautifully spiced home-cooking of our hosts. It included lots of fresh fish and vegetables, plenty of fresh-tasting home-made chutneys and I couldn’t resist wrangling an invite into the family kitchen to see how these dishes were made. Curry leaves, black mustard seeds, fresh ginger and chillis were used a lot, all adding flavour to great local produce. Much of it growing within sight of the table where we ate.

Many of the dishes in this book remind me a lot of the fragrant southern Indian food I enjoyed on this trip; I was glad to see a Kingfish curry included as well as a Keralan Fish Stew. There are lots of dishes that are new to me that I’m eager to cook too. In fact I have a feeling that this is going to be one of those books on my kitchen shelf full of tell-tale food spattered pages. It’ll also be a book that I’ll reach for when in need of a feel-good read. As the Urban Rajah proclaims:

“This book isn’t just about nutrition, it’s about nourishment at every level. It’s about food to fill your senses and bellies and spark a lust for adventure.”

With many thanks to Headline publishing for my review copy of The Urban Rajah’s Curry Memoirs by Ivor Peters. Published in hardback and ebook by Headline on 9th May 2013.

All photos used in this post are from The Urban Rajah’s Curry Memoirs by Ivor Peters. See www.urbanrajah.com.

gypsy eggs and a scruffy mum

Posted on 6 May, 2013 by Andrea Mynard

Very much loving the sunny weather we’re having lately. I’m addicted to evening gardening at the moment, potting and digging until it gets dark and I’m in danger of planting weeds and digging up beans.

I’ve been tempted away from work for the last hour of the school day a little too frequently recently too. The compost heap has been luring me away from the computer. Conscious of the lack of nutrients in so many of our new beds I have a worrying addiction to turning the compost from one of the three bays to another, layering with comfrey as I go.

Often I mean to quickly change before setting off on the school run, but I think “just a few minutes more” as I dream of the verdant plants I’m going to grow from my compost. Before I know it I’m having to set off over the hill for school, still in my very old, ripped jeans – their muddy state giving plenty of clues to the fact that I’ve been bunking off in the garden.

The properly hot sunshine this weekend though has been making me think that I should be thinking of attire a little less muddy and definitely more summery than my wellies.

I’ve been browsing sandals, checking the John Lewis website for comfortable/practical footware that I also like the look of.

But looking at Merrell sandals such as these or these, it’s just struck me though that even the sandals I like appear to have names like ‘mimosa’ ‘hibiscus’ or ‘honeysuckle’ while browsing the Gabor shoes range, the ones that appeal most seem to be called dandelion!

Back to the garden then – and to the pale yellow primroses to make Liz Knight’s lovely primrose curd recipe. It seems so perfect for May and we enjoyed it with meringues and thick local cream with friends. The girls were very happy to pick yet more primroses to sprinkle on top.

I know that my Gypsy eggs recipe may not appear to be quite as summery a recipe as one with primroses. But although it does fit well as comfort food on colder days, I’ve made it a few times lately, including today when we ate it outside, under the shade of a wild cherry tree. And not only did it seem to have a holiday food sort of feel, eaten in the heat with a cool beer, it does honestly suit now. When it’s a gorgeous weekend and you want to spend maximum time outside, not in the kitchen, it’s so simple and quick to prepare. Then while it’s in the oven, I found there was plenty of time to carry on constructing my extremely rustic bean wigwams. It’s one of those one pot dishes that doesn’t create too much clearing up and it creates something tasty out of the sort of ingredients that are normally in the house.

Gypsy eggs recipe:

This is the amount I made for 3 of us.

4 medium size potatoes

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 garlic cloves

1 tin tomatoes

1 dried chilli (optional)

2 inches chorizo chopped (optional)

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

3 free-range eggs

Preheat oven to 200C. Peel and thinly slice potatoes, place in an overlapping layer in an ovenproof frying pan or shallow baking dish, season with salt and half the olive oil. Cover loosely with greaseproof paper and place in oven for 40mins until soft.

Meanwhile make the tomato sauce: thinly slice garlic cloves, heat the remaining olive oil in a pan and add the garlic, chilli (I tend to leave this out if sharing it with my 5 year old, then we add fresh chilli individually at the end), fennel seeds. If you’re using chorizo add now – I made this before we had lots of homemade chorizo without it and it’s still very tasty.

Once the garlic has browned slightly add the tomatoes, half fill the tin with water and add, then cook for 30 mins or so until you have a rich sauce. Season to taste. Add the tomatoes to the potatoes, then crack the eggs on top, pop back in the oven for a few minutes until the eggs cooked. Great if you remove while the yolks are still runny – lovely to dip rustic bread, including flatbread into. I sprinkled a little parsley and Egyptian walking onion over the gypsy eggs too.

This post was sponsored by John Lewis. All opinions are my own.

goose eggs, air-dried ham and asparagus

Posted on 3 May, 2013 by Andrea Mynard

Boiled eggs and soldiers are firm favourites in this house. And at this time of year the best soldiers have to be asparagus, with the rich abundant yolks of goose eggs perfect for dipping.

Not the most patient of cooks when it comes to fiddly sauces, I have to admit to not being a hollandaise expert. So I love the idea from Alex at Dale Cottage Diaries idea that if you add a drop of vinegar to the egg yolk of a soft boiled egg, it makes an easy hollandaise substitute.

I was also inspired by Rusty Pig at Ottery St Mary when we visited Mazzard Farm recently. Rusty Pig were cooking a Saturday night feast for a group of partying farmers when I popped in. The feast started with an ‘edible table’ where everyone could tuck into a spread of proscuitto style ham (from free-range pigs reared at local smallholdings), goose eggs and asparagus.

We don’t have geese, but are lucky to have a couple of great farmshops just down the hill with us. The goose egg season is short and obviously asparagus isn’t around for long too. So I was very excited that it coincided with our air-dried ham being ready too.

The air-dried ham from our pigs had been hanging in a cage in our open woodshed – protected from the worst of the elements (and inquisitive animals) but with wind able to dry it. We were still nervous when we unwrapped it from its muslin, wondering if we had a foodie treat or a mouldy mess on our hands. Amazingly it was the former.

It’s quite strong tasting, pretty salty and best savoured in thin slivers. I’ve added it sparingly to risottos, frittata with goats cheese and it’s adding a lot of flavour to countless meals.

The saltiness goes perfectly with fresh asparagus and the richness of egg yolks. This isn’t a recipe, more of an idea. But I boil goose eggs for about 7 minutes for a nicely runny yolk. The asparagus is steamed for a few minutes and everyone can help themselves – wrapping slivers of air-dried ham around the asparagus if they like and dipping the ’soldier’ into an egg. It’s worth varying it with purple sprouted broccoli dipped in soft boiled eggs too. All you need is some good bread and butter and this is such an easy but lovely treat of a supper.

shabby chick

estbd 1968