Englishly wonderful

27 Saturday Sep 2014

Tags

Dessert, Food, Fruit, Ingredients, London, Pudding, Recipes, Stories, Sunday lunch

This is summer pudding. Perhaps they were being ironic when they named it, because it’s made using late summer fruit; redcurrants, raspberries. A clutch of other berries perhaps if you’re feeling rebellious. But it is more a dark and winy end to summer days. Bread soaked, I want to say blooded, in the juices of just popping fruit, crunchy berries with rather drastic seeds. This thing, this glorious crimson dome, came at the end of a proper Sunday lunch. I didn’t make it, I simply watched its procession from the kitchen out into the garden to where we sat under a canopy of grapes. I think I may well have actually said all this, Dimbleby-like, as it was carried forth. I might have provided some sort of commentary.

I do this when I’m nervous. I say what’s happening, as if for the benefit of an audience. If you like Brecht, then you’d feel quite at home sitting next to me during one of these events. I say things like: “I can’t believe we’re sitting under a canopy of grapes”. Other popular expressions: “it’s such an amazing colour!” It’s basically meta theatre and it makes things more exciting, I find. And also if you don’t know what to say, you just describe your surroundings. “If in doubt, enthuse” a friend at university once advised.

It came with a small jug of the juice – “blood of Christ” – and a bowl of thick and undulating cream – “what an amazing spoon, is it ancient?” – and then there was the eating of it. “How Englishly wonderful!”, said another guest. And it was. Not too sweet, gloriously sodden, the cream a kind of lactic counterpoint. I said all this, but no one was listening. The cold of it was intoxicating.

Liz grows her own fruit in her allotment that she’s had for ages. Fruit is easier to grow than vegetables apparently – blackcurrants, redcurrants, nothing to it – though I think we had her carrots. She also made the apple and mint jelly that accompanied our lamb, and my elderflower cordial was made by her, I think, in France. If this had been me, no one would have needed to ask. I would have volunteered all this information possibly before the removal of coats. But there you go. Some people, Liz being one, have no desire to broadcast their efforts, or to write about them. The festishizing of food is not her style.

The trip from Chiswick to Putney had taken ages, with full and fetid tube carriages crammed with people eating enormous flapping sandwiches. We were hungry and it was cold by the time we arrived and I was wearing a dress in denial of the unrelenting autumn wind with stupid bare legs. And then there were the five years of no one we knew making a Sunday roast in LA. Then there was LA, where nothing was full of fat or scaldingly hot, no gravy, no sauce or large florid ears of cauliflower, no chunks of melting lamb, or red-stained lips and purple tongues or waves of cream. I was unprepared for the Englishly wonderful aspect of it all.

And I was also reminded of being in England before when I was much younger and the odd thing about Sundays, the melancholy aspect to them; that they were always the end of something that hadn’t quite begun. But more than anything, this meal was served with complete knowledge of what a traditional Sunday lunch should be. And we were coming to it as you might after a long absence. It was all a bit of a shock. We left at 5 o’clock and then talked about it for days. We tried to nail down the pudding, what it was that made it so good. Perhaps more than anything it was that this went on. It was the routineness of it, and next year all being well at around the same time if we’re in the vicinity and we don’t get lost, we’ll try it again. Summer pudding, late. With whatever berries you have, and more if you’re feeling rebellious.

The classic summer pudding has only redcurrants and raspberries, but this pudding also had blackcurrants and in fact are a popular addition generally; they add a bit of clout and deep colour. This is Nigel Slater’s recipe, which follows the classic one expounded by Jane Grigson and the like. Spoon over any extra juice which will add drama and will possibly garner you a round of applause. Or pour the juice into a jug to serve along with some thick cream with a preferably ancient spoon.

2nd October – Liz’s thoughts on her summer pudding via email

“So glad you enjoyed the summer pudding! I regret to say, it wasn’t really according to a recipe, although I started with an Elizabeth David one and then adapted it as I went along…. I think it is crucial to use stale white bread , and E D says only use raspberries and redcurrant in a ratio of 3 to 1. The amount of sugar is optional (I think I used about a quarter of a cup) and a little water. Simmer fruit for 5 mins. At that stage I thought mine was too sweet so added blackcurrants, and then not sure there was enough fruit, so added some strawberries. As you can see, I made it up as I went along! A useful tip is to line the pudding basin with cling film before putting in the sliced bread as it makes it much easier to get out.”

Pudding with goosegogs

28 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

Baking, Cake, Dessert, Fruit, Ingredients, Recipes, Stories, Sussex

These are red gooseberries, in case you were wondering. I didn’t realize that gooseberries could be anything but green, but here, as in many areas of my life, I am wrong. Red, yellow and white can be the goosegog, though Jane Grigson argues that none are as good in cooking as the green. These red ones were also on the small side, but I was too excited by the colour to do anything but shovel them up in my palsied hands and throw them into the nearest paper bag.

If you are English and have once seen a hedge or climbed a tree, you have also probably eaten a green gooseberry raw. It comes with a certain feral spirit and being too young not to be able to discern what is and isn’t ‘palate appropriate’. I do remember picking gooseberries (along with elderflowers, their natural bedfellows) and sampling the hairy little pod, being slightly put off by the veins, but somehow knowing I couldn’t not eat it. I was bemused by the elderflower picking, as it was for the making of wine, bottles of which would be stacked outside my bedroom window to ferment and mature etc but be still off limits to me.

However, the gooseberries would at some point make their way under a crumble or pie crust and then be served with cream or possibly ice cream. I even liked the sourness, that puckering beyond-lemon tartness, and the errant seeds that could be shot out like a catapult.

All of this under an intermittently blazing and then thunderous English sky. Because I am now back in England, back in time for the thunder and lightning and wild seas and bursts of heat and ladybirds. It’s all gone a bit Brazil here, with long languorous days at times humid and close then cloudy then bucketing down then warm, blank skies of blue. People swim with an abandon I find worrying. Far far out to sea I can see a lone swimmer doing front crawl out beyond the buoy. Children dive in and sometimes they’re naked; another signifier I’m no longer in LA. I’m walking again and so is everyone else.

We are all striding out, wading through fields of old rape and thick stiff wheat. Everyone is eating ice cream – big swathes of white – and everywhere there are bodies in various stages of rotundity; tattooed, jolly, in love, or sullen with a fag on, and I find I’m watching them with the tutored eye of an Angeleno. I’ve become aware of size and shape and it makes me feel uncomfortable. Suddenly I’m shallow. I’ve come back just in time.

But in the meantime there’s cake, or more specifically baked gooseberry pudding using a genoise sponge. All I previously knew about the genoise was that it was ‘difficult’ and a finalist from The Great British Bake Off dropped his all over the floor and was forced to scrape it back on to the plate, presenting it as a strange cloud of something dark with cream.

I made the gooseberry pudding to bring to a party, which served as an object lesson in what you shouldn’t do if you can avoid it: make something you’ve never made before for people you barely know. It looked fine, beautifully brown in that natural way of burnt fields and it smelled voluptuously puddingy. The gooseberries had risen up in revolt at being smothered and had formed a rim of sweet tacky juice. We walked along the seafront in Seaford to the party and the Pyrex dish kept itself cleverly hot all the way. And then the top collapsed, not in the way a flourless cake slumps, but it caved in the way meringue does. It simply all disappeared down a hole.

I grabbed what was down there and it was lovely and hot and gungy, and, I thought, terrifyingly uncooked. I then started to pick at it until there was an undeniable gaping hole in the centre of the pudding which was now unpresentable. ‘It’s the gesture that matters,’ my mother said reassuringly which translated into British English means, “This is a complete disaster and no one will say anything”.

By the time we got there people were peeling off to swim, taking advantage of the sudden heat and sun and all around us were half-demolished cakes, a gammon ripped to shreds, bowls of depleted food and children dancing in that deranged way that happens just before an emotional collapse. My empty cake did not look out of place and by the time everyone had trailed back from the sea under a blanket of rain it appeared to be cooked. It’s rather like meringue in that way, I realize; a crisp outer crust, followed by a hole and then a deep drift of softness below. Actually it’s pudding – that is what it is.

Everyone said ‘Wow!’ a lot but they were also quite drunk. They talked at length about the sweetness, the miraculous crust and the tartness of the gooseberries. And that I had made a cake at all and who was I again? And would I like to come to Faversham? Did I want curry? More Steely Dan! the children cried and they danced red and sweating under the raindrops.

Baked Gooseberry Pudding

Adapted from Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book

I didn’t find the genoise sponge particularly tricky to make, though this might have something to do with my mother’s ancient Chefette free-standing mixer which whisked the eggs and sugar to buggery while I got on with reading the recipe. However, how difficult can it be to stand for seven minutes holding some beaters? This has quickly become my stand-by pudding and is also wonderful with rhubarb – in both cases the fruit can be chucked in raw with the barest tumble in brown sugar. You could use any sharp fruit here – cranberries also work well.

For the sponge

125g butter, plus a bit extra for buttering the bowl

1 large egg and 1 egg yolk (room temp)

175g unrefined caster sugar

100g plain flour, sifted (or rice flour)

½ teaspoon of mace and/or allspice

½ tsp sea salt

For the gooseberries

250-300g gooseberries (they do cook down)

25g-50g demerara sugar or any soft brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 160-170C/325F. Generously butter a Pyrex dish of about 1 litre capacity and 3-4 cm depth. Put in a tight-fitting layer of topped and tailed gooseberries and throw the sugar over them, tumbling them about to get full coverage. Gently melt the butter in a pan and leave to cool slightly.

Now for the sponge – the ‘trick’ is to aerate the eggs and sugar mixture, which means to whisk them together until they are very pale and light, almost white. At first they’ll be gloopy but after about 7-8 minutes the mixture will reach what is known as the ‘ribbon’ stage where it will leave a trail when the beaters are lifted out. Mix the flour, mace/allspice (actually whatever spice you fancy – ginger would be nice) and salt together in a separate bowl and then sift about half over the eggs and sugar, folding very gently using a metal spoon and working in a figure of eight. Fold in the rest of the flour very carefully, so as not to knock out any air.

Now drizzle the melted butter down the sides of the bowl, again gently but quickly working the batter. Now spoon this mixture over the gooseberries, smoothing it out to be level, and then bake for about 45-50 minutes. It will rise and then crack probably. Lovely warm but also gorgeous cold. It is not – though it will appear to be – uncooked inside.

In the street

24 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

Christmas, Citrus, Dessert, Friendship, Fruit, Ingredients, Italy, Nonfiction, Recipes, Stories, Travel

That’s how I met her. Running from a broken down train and away from a car crash, in Newhaven of all places. The last time I made a friend this way was twenty years ago in a bakery in Venice, and my accent gave me away. It was heady, to think that’s how it can still be done, meeting in the street and suddenly you’re friends. I ran after her. I wasn’t chasing her or anything, but she just said quickly “follow me” and so I did. It was like being in Borgen.

Her stepfather was waiting for us in a car, and she had to explain quickly who I was and what was going on. I didn’t wait outside because of the freezing wind. I threw myself into the back like a labrador, and we were away. All round the houses, because of the crash. There weren’t even any buses, so if it hadn’t been for her I would have been walking along the English channel for two hours trying to avoid the dog turds. I still feel bad we completely ignored her stepfather. I slipped in a thanks everso much at the end. But it was too exciting, meeting like this. And having so much in common, we even knew people from way back. A cinematographer meeting an actress. Zero degrees of separation.

The last time it felt like no big deal. I met Charlotte in a bakery in Venice, and the next thing I know (and because of her) I’m sitting in Trieste having an interview for a place at Warwick University with the head of the Italian department and his daughter over a bowl of penne alla vodka. I remember the pinky-red sauce and the fumes of subtle alcohol, and the sheer exuberance of the conversation. Actually, he was a monologuer, one of those people who talks in order to stay alive. But in those days, it felt normal, this happenstance. Maybe all young people feel like that – somehow touched by a higher hand. I just wandered into things and it all came out alright.

This is a bit of a cheat. But it gives everyone a breather from all the stolid mince pies and Christmas pudding, and the sheer load of food consumed on the day. It twinkles and it’s orange. And it’s a chance to show off your extravagance in buying in some marrons glacés (candied chestnuts) which are bloody expensive so just one each (and completely unphotographable, sorry, they look like bunions). I like to think it’s a nod in the direction of Italy and heat and sun. I have doffed my cap in the direction of the Venetian stalwart aranci caramellizzati, which began life at the Taverna Fenice. Happy Christmas.

Salty caramel oranges with marrons glacés

Adapted from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, The Guardian

Serves 4

4 oranges

4 marrons glacés

Peel the oranges. Use a sharp knife for cutting citrus, if you want it to look pretty. Take a narrow slice off the stem and blossom ends. Cut down the sides of the orange from top to bottom, slicing away the skin and the white pith. Now cut into rounds and put into a bowl. Or, if you wish, serve each person individually.

Crumble the marrons glacés on top, then trickle the molten caramel sauce (by which I mean warm) over the cool fruit, where it will form nice ribbons. Squeeze the juice that has spilled all over the place over the top and it’s ready to go. Delicious with a glass of chilled champagne.

Salty caramel adapted from Nigella Lawson, How To Eat

Serves 4

5 tbs light muscovado

50g unsalted butter

100g golden syrup

125ml single cream

1 big pinch of sea salt flakes

Melt the sugar, butter and golden syrup in a thick-bottomed pan with the salt. When smooth and melted, let it bubble away, gently, for about 5 minutes. Then take off the heat and add the cream. Add more salt at this point if you like it lip-smacking. You can pour the sauce into a jug and serve hot, or do it in advance, refrigerate and reheat. It is truly stupendous.

Always winter

04 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 25 Comments

Tags

Almonds, Baking, Cake, Childhood, Chocolate, Dessert, Devon, Ingredients, Nonfiction, Recipes, Stories

Perhaps it’s because I have been spending a lot of time in the mud, but I’m drawn very much to muscovado sugar. Dark as earth, moist, crumbly and rich with minerals, it has sizeable heft. It is always winter with muscovado. And it reminds me of the eternal cold of Devon, before central heating, and the way our small fingers stuck to the inside of the windows and having to get dressed with our foggy breath snorting out of our mouths like buffalo.

As children we only ever had muscovado and we put it in our tea, which was like drinking turf. We sprinkled it over our porridge in the mornings and the strong malt-like aniseed depth of it was not always easy to take, though it helped if there was a moat of cold milk which the muscovado sweetened to butterscotch. If muscovado is turf then molasses is tar. It was sometimes given to us ‘for nerves’ in the same way that cod liver oil was administered ‘for bones’. And I can still remember the thick gluey strings of molasses making my jaw ache, the smell strangely reminiscent of tobacco and the colour which was like Victorian yacht varnish.

I was aware that other households didn’t have such things. My school friends had white sugar that was often mistaken for salt, and a wet dab of the finger was needed to ascertain which was which. I also remember that theirs were houses filled with neatness and pullovers and tank tops knitted in luminous artificial colours.

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My friends didn’t have to be wrapped in sheets stiff with heat from the storage heater just before bedtime. They didn’t know what they were missing, because being swaddled like this so you could barely move and feeling the starchy steam rise into the room was actually very satisfying. And then we were lowered into our beds like mummies. But apart from this one thing, I really wanted to be banal and suburban and have nothing unique about me at all.

This might be why I called myself Marian, which I did for a while, thinking it was a nice, quiet name. But the black sugar was too much of a give away. It marked us out as odd and therefore vulnerable to attack. And it wasn’t used for things people understood, like chutneys, marinades and fruit cake. It spoke of the chaos underpinning everything, that we used muscovado outside of its real purpose, that we didn’t differentiate. Eventually we left, dad to Exmouth and the rest of us to Exeter and later onwards to London. It has left me with a lifelong nervousness of parochial life, of so-called ‘country living’. Those small places can be tough. But muscovado put iron in the soul and molasses helped to calm our fraying nerves.

The lowdown on muscovado

Muscovado (from the Portuguese açúcar mascavado meaning ‘separated sugar’) is also known as Barbados sugar, and is made differently to other brown sugars: instead of being white sugar to which molasses is added, it is boiled down from sugar cane juice, purified with lime juice, but then not refined any further. Muscovado is made in Barbados, in Mauritius, and in the Antique province in the Philippines, where it was one of the most prominent export commodities, from the 19th century until the late 1970s. It is nutritionally richer than other brown sugars, and retains most of the natural minerals – such as calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium and iron – inherent in sugarcane juice.

Muscovado brownies with almonds

Adapted from Claire Thomson, The Guardian, Cook, 13/2/2016

You can use whatever nut takes your fancy, but almonds always work with this recipe and you can keep the skins on. Walnuts are also lovely as are prunes. This is on the ‘weeping’ end of the brownie spectrum – crisp on the outside and damp within. My earlier brownie recipe is even more luxe. I’m terrified now looking back at those ingredients; you will probably need a defibrillator standing by, just in case. This recipe is a bit more demure. Make it gluten-free by using rice flour or a gluten-free mix instead of the standard plain. You can go the whole hog here and only use dark muscovado or light muscovado if you want to forgo the caster sugar.

125g almonds (or walnuts/softened prunes, drained and roughly chopped)

150g dark cooking chocolate (60-70% cocoa solids)

150g unsalted butter

3 eggs

100g dark muscovado sugar

100g caster sugar

100g plain flour

15g cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt (plus a pinch to sprinkle over the baked brownie)

Lightly grease a non-stick baking tin 6 x 10 inch (15 x 24 cm) and line with baking parchment. Allow the paper to come 1 inch (2.5 cm) above the tin. Heat the oven to 350F/180C, then chop the almonds roughly, put them on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for about 5-8 minutes, keeping an eye on them as they burn easily. Use skin-on or blanched, both are fine.

While the almonds are doing their work, put chocolate and butter together in a heatproof bowl fitted over a pan of barely simmering water. Allow the chocolate to melt without stirring it, then remove from the heat and gently stir to smoothness.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and sugars together until the mixture is creamy and thick. Mix the melted chocolate and butter into the egg and sugar mixture.

Sift the flour and cocoa powder and salt into the chocolate mixture. Beat together until smooth. Fold in the almonds.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake on the centre shelf for 20 -25 minutes. Don’t overcook the brownie – you want it to be just firm to the touch (not scorched at all) and still gooey inside. Leave to cool for ten minutes, and then put on a sheet of parchment on a wire rack. Cut squint, so you can eat the stray bits while no one’s looking.

Ripe

23 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

Autumn, Cooking, Dessert, Fruit, Ingredients, Los Angeles, Recipes, Spices, Stories, Sussex, Unbuyables

Steaming pineapples and musky roses. Damp, heady and sweet. A bit like a fruit and veg shop. That’s the best I can do when it comes to describing the strange perfume of quinces. Warm and wet? Sultry. They smell like perfume. I’m at a loss.

This is also what happens when I’m asked (and this happens a lot) “how do you find LA?” I haven’t yet found it, I want to say. I’m still at a loss. Sometimes words are tricky and some things are hard to grasp. There’s no ‘it’, there’s no graspable thing. The quince is yellow when ripe and is almost waxy, and it smells definitely of pineapples. It is hard in the hand – there’s no give in it, unlike a pear which it resembles. A pear with a big bum. You can’t eat it raw unless you like having bloody stumps instead of teeth. You have to wait for the fruit to become bletted, which means soft to the point of decay, if you want to eat it like that. The quince needs to be cooked, and then there’s the smell (see above). It’s probably what is known as an acquired taste.

LA is dry and hot and sunny most of the year. Sometimes it rains and then it buckets down and no one knows how to drive when the road is wet so they crash. There is no centre, but lots of grids. So if you get lost, then you just take the next left and go backwards. It is a maze of suns. Everyone wears sunglasses all the time, even at night. It is a city of endless fragments where you are unlikely ever to bump into anyone you know. If you want to get lost, it’s a good place to be.

There is a huge botanical garden, The Huntington, with a library attached that has the first edition of Darwin’s The Origin of the Species. Oskar Schindler lived above a dry cleaners in Beverly Hills for a while. David Hockney learned to drive in LA (and drove all the way to Las Vegas after his test, because he didn’t know how to get off the freeway), as did I. The smell of wild fennel is strong, and I would say it is a place of colour. It is rarely damp.

I found these quinces in a bag on someone’s front lawn on the outskirts of Seaford. Previously there have only been apples there, so discovering quinces was very exciting. I hope it was okay for me to take them. I took all the other things they left out, and nobody said anything. You are unlikely to find local quinces in the shops. Along with mulberries, you’re better off befriending someone with a tree and a glut and a kind heart. It is worth it.

One of the many spectacular things about quinces is the way they turn a deep rosy gold during cooking, which makes them rather dramatic and a bit serious-seeming. Good for dinner parties, or just on your own, slumped over a book. This compote is lovely served with yoghurt, cream or ice cream. Good as a sorbet too, or puréed for a tart.

Compote of quinces and allspice

Inspired by Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book, originally from Audiger’s La Maison Reglée, 1692

Allspice isn’t, as I once thought, a combination of ‘all the spices’. The name was coined around 1621 by the English, who likened its aroma and taste to a combination of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Allspice (Pimenta officinalis) comes from a tropical tree native to America, also cultivated in the West Indies and Jamaica. The berries – as seen below – are often tied in muslin and used in the making of preserves and pickles. The flavour, like the quince, is elusive, and works well here.

6 quinces (or thereabouts)

Sugar or honey to taste

3-4 Whole allspice berries

Cut up two quinces – use windfalls for this, as it doesn’t matter what they look like – and put them, peel, core and all into a pan. Cover generously with water. Also peel neatly the four remaining quinces. Add these peelings to the pan, and then the cores as you cut them into quarters. The cores are very tough, so pare gradually away otherwise you’re left with shards and splinters of quince.

Prevent the pieces from discolouring by dropping them into a bowl of lightly salted water. Boil up the pan of quince ‘debris’, and stew lightly until it begins to turn a rich amber. Not red as many suggest – you’ll be waiting forever for that. Now strain off the glowing juice, add sugar or honey* to taste, and bring slowly to simmering point, stirring every now and then. In this syrup, cook the quince pieces along with the allspice berries, until the fruit is tender. Serve with something white and cool.

Allspice berries

Other recipes with quince:

Quince paste with Manchego

*I have not used honey in the making of this recipe so far, though it was used traditionally, before the advent of sugar. However, you may need to experiment with the strength and sweetness, as honey behaves differently to sugar in the cooking process.

The short life of pears

12 Tuesday Nov 2013

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

Autumn, Cooking, Dessert, Fruit, Ingredients, Lucas Hollweg, Recipes, Somerset, Spices, Stories

img_1879-2

There was a pear tree outside the window in Watchet. Conference pears that suited the palette of the place. Seaford was grey – pewter grey, oyster grey, pinky grey after the sunset. And Watchet was the full spectrum of brown. Deep russet, rust, coral red, the sand on the beach brown like earth, the red earth in the fields slack with rain, giving us all ‘ginger boots’ (dad’s phrase). High iron deposits in the soil, that’s what.

And even though there were tons of apples – in fact so many no one knew what to do with them all – pears were what we ate. And I love pears. I’d rather eat a pear than an apple. No peeling required. The juice is more forthcoming in a pear, the softness a surprise.

I was allowed to pick the pears, as many as I wanted. A lot had fallen on the ground, and were in the process of rotting back into the earth. It was the perfect time for them, almost to the day – ‘the tradition is to pick them on or soon after 1 November and then watch them as they come to perfection’ according to R.H.L Gunyon – and it was lovely to see how many sizes they came in, unlike the Stepford Wives versions I’m so used to seeing at the supermarket.

They were all hard, but this is normal. They should be picked firm and allowed to ripen at home. A ripe pear yields slightly around the stem, but doesn’t split or feel squashy. I ate pears two ways during my stay in West Somerset. The ones I picked I didn’t eat until five days later. I was unconvinced they would work out, but I kept them in my bag, ready.

The first pears I encountered were cooked; they were buttered, sugared, salted, spiced with ginger and cardamom, and phenomenally rich. It was hard to talk about them during or even after eating. My cousin Becky cooked them, following Lucas, her brother’s recipe. Made in the Aga, with crates of apples out the back. I remembered how Lucas used to read cookery books as a child in this house, and now here we were eating his gingery pears, reading them as we were eating them, his limpid prose coming from the shiny page. There are ten minutes in the life of a perfect pear, he wrote. Best get on then, as they say down this way.

On my last day, I picked more pears from the tree, and put them in my bag. None of them felt ready to eat. Even the ones from my first day felt disappointingly robust. Dad drove me to the train station. Another cancelled train. What is it with me and trains? The cancellation this time was due to the existence of ‘disruptive passengers’. We got back in the car. It was two hours until the next one and we were both hungry. It was pouring with rain and now it was cold; proper weather at last.

We ate smoked mackerel and pears while listening to a radio programme about drug overdoses. The pears were perfect. The mackerel was greasy – the savoury to the pear’s sweet. We wiped our hands on an old towel. And because we had two hours, we talked about our memories of things past.

Strange what being in a stationary car will do. I almost missed the next train. The conversation felt too short and suddenly I was out in the driving rain, just in time for the 7.05, the hems of my trousers slopping about in muddy pools. No more pears now, but I’m glad for both lovely meals. Pears cooked, pears raw. Short-lived and perfect.

Caramel pears with ginger and cardamom

Recipe by Lucas Hollweg, originally in Waitrose Kitchen, October, 2013

Pears in cooking often need a little something – another fruit or spice. Lemon juice is good, because it also helps to arrest the pear’s discolouration after peeling. Pears and apples, pears and quinces, pears and greengages, pears and cheese, pears and bay etc. Here Lucas uses cardamom and ginger to spectacular effect – a pudding that tastes of the coming winter. Don’t be shy of the salt.

Serves 4-6

50g unsalted butter

75g dark brown sugar

75g granulated sugar

¼ tsp sea salt flakes

1½ tsp ground ginger

12 green cardamom pods

4 medium pears, peeled and halved

Preheat the oven to 200C/392F. Put the butter in a saucepan with both kinds of sugar, the sea salt and ground ginger. Using a sharp knife, slit open the cardamom pods and shake out the dark seeds from inside. Chop them with a knife (or grind them lightly in a pestle and mortar) and add to the butter and sugar. Warm over a gentle heat until the butter and sugar have melted together.

Pour into the bottom of a roasting tin or ovenproof frying pan that’s just large enough to fit the pear halves in a single layer. Arrange the pears on top of the sauce, cut side down. Place in the oven for 20 minutes, then carefully turn the pears over, basting with some of the hot sauce, and return to the oven for 20 minutes more. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 5 minutes. Serve with some of the sugary juices spooned over the top and a glug of double cream.

Cry loud the pears of anguish

Parisian street sellers, 13^th century

Sussex apple cake

02 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 27 Comments

Tags

Autumn, Cake, Dessert, Food, Fruit, Ingredients, Nonfiction, Recipes, Stories, Sussex

The sign read: “recent windfalls – ‘cookers’ – please help yourselves”. There was another sign next to it that said ‘eaters’. Cookers and eaters – two types of apple, one sour, bulky and big-shouldered, good really for cooking, where it goes to mush, the other sweeter, smaller – one to have in the hand. Although the sweet apple wasn’t particularly sweet; sharp, dry as bark on its dappled outside, but a brisk, juicy interior. When juiced later, the froth was brown, leading to a startling pink beneath.

There was not much wind to speak of that day. The air seemed suspended, with swifts carousing through little channels above us, their wings like black darts. Actually their wings were like wings, the kind you draw as a child – two V shapes. We listed with our enormous load, my plastic pockets crammed. Blackberries now liquidized were dripping like blood down my arm. And all this before lunch, which happened at three. Rather like Christmas day, without the presents.

We went into a cafe which specializes in china teacups and ladies. It is very English; everyone feels undeserving. The lady next door to us was alone. She ordered tea and apple cake. It is the kind of place where you are so close to your neighbours that you need to make a decision early on about whether to include them in your life for that brief window of time. But this was unnecessary because there was a flurry of misunderstandings, panic ensued, as the apple cake was off – and then suddenly back on – the menu. Almost no apple cake – not really a story. No tragedy there. Except it gave the lovely young waitresses (gap year) a chance to flounce around a bit, and have a laugh with each other. For the lady to show off her cool and calm persona. After the apple cake arrived, and her fork had made its incision, she produced a mobile phone and began a quiet, very civilized conversation with someone unknown (probably male) on the other end. She was very organized, I could see.

This is what I don’t have in LA: the chance to watch people at such close quarters. To notice things, like a certain kind of hair-clip, a cardigan, skin tone, imagining the man on the other end of the line. Watching a thought alight on a face. And aren’t English people interesting? We are so swathed in layers, submerged in stories that become more and more intricate with the telling. I am always surprised by English people, I think that’s it.

We waited at the bus stop, next to a couple eating ice cream. They shuffled up to let us in on the bench. I watched a man opposite with his dog, a scruffy thing, his tail wagging, his tongue out, looking around and occasionally up at his master. Two horses clip-clopped by. We got on the bus, a small Noddy bus, green and miniature, our coats bulging obscenely with our apple stash. We were deposited back to Seaford. I made the cake.

This is Mark Hix’s lovely regional apple cake made with cider and honey. In his case, the region is Somerset – mine is a Sussex story. You can use whatever local apples come your way – choose cookers, such as the Bramley, or sharp eaters at a pinch. A sweet dessert apple would be missing the point here.

Sussex apple cake

From Mark Hix, on Baking

I once ‘hilariously’ used cider vinegar instead of cider, by mistake. I thought it would destroy the cake but actually the flavours were enhanced by it, though it did make me think of fish and chips. If you’re unsure, stick to the original recipe. Also, don’t be put off by the sheer amount of apples required here. It really does make a difference. Dry apple cake isn’t fun.

Makes 1 x 24cm cake

170g unsalted butter, softened

170g soft brown sugar

3 medium eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten

1 heaped tbs of honey

240g self-raising flour, sifted

1 tsp mixed spice

600-700g cooking apples, peeled, cored and cut into smallish chunks

80ml cider

Prepare a loose-bottomed 24cm x 6-8cm deep cake tin by greasing it if it’s non-stick, or lining the base with buttered greaseproof paper if not. Pre-heat the oven to 160C/320F. Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs with the honey. Gently fold in the flour and mixed spice then stir in the cider and apples. Transfer to the cake tin and bake for 1 and a 1/4 hours, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes our clean. Cool in the tin; serve warm on its own or with thick cream. Clotted cream would be stupendous here.

Other apple recipes to try:

Apple and rosemary cake

Lucas’s apple and sultana cake

Apple fritters

Hedgerow crumble

Rum & Raisin

23 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

Alcohol, Autumn, Dessert, Food, Fruit, Ice cream, Ingredients, Recipes, Stories, Travel

The last of the bewildering hot weather. Nights where one cotton sheet feels like being shrouded in carpet. Talking alone brings on the vapours, sweat beading on our foreheads as we nod sagely at someone we’re not listening to. Everyone drives like Vin Diesel, ramping up the volume on their car stereos, burning rubber as they overtake me on blind corners, tyres squealing like guinea pigs. And all I can think is how rude they’re being. That’s my version of a riot. Because I can’t complain. Because I’m English, and that’s all we do, while saying that we can’t do it. “I can’t complain” is our watchword. And I have been drawn to this detail of Englishness recently, perhaps because it’s so absent in LA.

Our English guests never complain either. We dance around each other in pained politeness. It must be akin to observing some ancient ritual – like conversational Morris dancing – with no one able to say exactly what the problem is, or even if there is a problem. “Do you have a parrot?” our English guest asked me today. “Er, no. Why?” “No, no, it’s fine. I just thought I heard a parrot at around five o’clock this morning.” I knew what it was because it had woken us too. “It was a coyote.” “Really?” “Yes, they live in the hills here and when they’ve killed a deer, they make a kind of ‘yipping’ sound. They do it with car alarms and fire engines as well.” “Oh right.” We all imagined a decapitated deer. “Great, well, see you around then! Thanks for breakfast.” “Don’t worry, it’s really safe here. They very rarely come down into the complex.” As I said this I remembered the coyote in the hallway and the mountain lion up by the tennis courts. They tranquillized it and carried it off somewhere. I wish I’d just said: “Yes, we have a parrot. We’ll kill it for you.”

I can’t imagine this conversation between Americans. I still don’t know what it was really about, but I felt in strange harmony with it. I’m leaving soon for England and it helped me get into the rhythm of things again. It was nice to talk to someone from Eastbourne, knowing that in a few days I will be walking the Downs, talking about the weather, bemoaning the end of summer, arms folded against the wind.

I would be happy if there were only five flavours of ice cream in the world: vanilla, chocolate, hazelnut, pistachio and rum & raisin. And raspberry ripple as a bonus flavour (for nostalgia purposes). But no cookie dough, rocky road or banoffee pie. And ‘sugar free’ vanilla – what’s that? Rum and raisin is a classic, and much underrated in my opinion. I know there are people who don’t like alcohol in sweets, but we will forge ahead regardless.

And this ice cream also lends itself to subtle doctoring: round and treacly Flame raisins, seeded Muscat raisins (sticky and crunchy and used traditionally in old bread recipes), meaty, soft, pale gold raisins (above) and Thompson seedless down below, still with their tails on, drowned in a saucer of rum – they are all so Californian, dried from the grape by our endless sun, and yet weirdly invisible, except for a few market stalls with their lumpen quarry. But I never gravitate there. Does one ever crave a raisin? But plumped up juicily in some searing alcohol and it’s quite a different matter. You could substitute the rum for sherry, if you like, and go for Pedro Ximénez if it’s available. This is a very ‘raisiny’ sherry, treacly and intense and good for a grown up ice cream such as this.

Rum & Raisin Ice Cream

Adapted from Ice Cream! by Pippa Cuthbert & Lindsay Cameron Wilson

The soft brown sugar creates a darker, more complex flavour, but you can use caster sugar instead if you like. Sherry works well in place of rum.

100g (¾ cup) raisins

100ml (½ cup) dark rum or sherry

300ml (1¼ cups) whole milk

4 large egg yolks

100g (¾ cup) soft brown sugar

200ml (scant 1 cup) heavy/double cream

Put the raisins and 75ml (¼ cup) of the rum or sherry in a bowl and set aside to soak overnight or until the raisins have absorbed almost all the liquid.

Heat the milk and cream in a heavy-bottomed saucepan to near-boiling point, then remove from the heat. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together, using an electric whisk, until thick and pale. Loosen the egg with some of the milk/cream mixture, then pour the eggs and sugar back into the saucepan. Stir well to mix everything properly and then return to a low heat. Stir until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Remove from the heat, pour into a bowl and place over iced water to cool. You will need to stir it from time to time to avoid the custard developing a skin.

When the mixture is completely cold, churn in an ice cream maker, adding the remaining rum/sherry and all the raisins towards the end of churning. The raisins have a tendency to sink to the bottom before the ice cream can harden and suspend them, so you may want to give it a stir after half an hour or so in the freezer to distribute the raisins more evenly. Serve with a glass of either rum or sherry, or just pour it straight over the ice cream.

Other recipes with raisins:

Banana and raisin bread

Sticky toffee pudding

Lemon, almond, olive oil cake

14 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Almonds, Baking, Cake, Dessert, Food, Gluten-free, Ingredients, Lemons, Meyer lemons, Recipes

These are no ordinary lemons. They are Meyer lemons, big and blowsy, a deep yellowy-orange, the colour of fresh egg yolk. The smell and feel are both quite different to the pocked and gnarly Eureka, say: smoother, sweeter, riper, heavier in the hand. They are poreless, and at times almost round, and their leaves are dark and glossy. And they came from our friends’ garden. Before we got to the lemon tree, I was taken on a tour by their eight-year-old daughter, who picked me a posy of clover to eat (peppery) and we examined the orange tree we had given them as a present, which was actually two trees grafted on to one root. Their avocado tree was huge with leaves like big, green jazz hands. There were no more avocados though, so we stood and admired the foliage.

The lemon tree was matted with cobwebs. There was a birdhouse that hung from one of the branches which looked as though it had its own hammock, so cleverly had the house been divided by the spider’s yarn. When we brought the lemons home and lifted them out, spiders skittered over the surfaces of the fruit, unmoored. I liked the way that parts of the tree were still attached; bits of branch, leaves sprouting, as if the fruit was still in the throes of living.

We are back to the stagnant heat again. All this week there will be nothing to break the seal. The air is utterly still where we are, and at night one feels cloaked in it. The only place to be is the coast where there is a sea mist and a breeze. Inland we are engulfed; like characters from a Tennessee Williams play, we are bathed in a halo of glowing sweat. It seems the next logical step is a silk negligee and a bottle of scotch.

Although it may seem strange, being in the kitchen at times like this is actually a reprieve. Inside is cooler. Of course, if you have a glut of lemons, making lemonade would be perfect on days like these: a jug filled with ice and mint, frothing with syrupy lemon fizz. But this is a light cake and goes well with fresh seasonal fruit (the first apricots are in). I wanted to do something sufficiently involving and I liked the processes involved. I have made this flourless; it gives it a lovely dampness and it goes down beautifully. (In fact I wanted to call this post Rising Damp because the memory made me smile but I couldn’t fit it all in).

I blanched, roasted and ground the almonds myself – it makes a difference if you like uneven nuttiness in a cake, which I profess I do. It doesn’t rise and fall quite as dramatically as other ‘broken’ cakes I have featured, such as the chocolate marmalade slump cake and the bitter chocolate olive oil cake but it has the same softly flattened character.

Lemon, almond, olive oil cake

Adapted (almost beyond recognition) from Pastry Studio

I am quite hardcore here about the almond preparation but using a packet of already ground almonds is totally acceptable. Give them a gentle toast in a frying pan beforehand to release flavour. If you are using regular lemons, the cake will generally be sharper and taste more lemony.

Serves 8

5 free range eggs, separated

150g (5½ oz) sugar, divided

175ml (6 fl oz) extra virgin olive oil

Juice of 1 lemon

Finely grated zest of 2 lemons

175g (6 oz) blanched, toasted and ground almonds

½ tsp salt

1 tbs sugar, for the top of the cake

Preheat the oven to 350F/180C. Lightly grease a 23cm (9in) cake tin with olive oil and line with parchment.

Beat the yolks and just under half of the sugar until thick and pale. Reduce the whisk to medium speed and drizzle in the olive oil. Then add the lemon juice and zest. The mixture may look a bit sloppy. Sift half the ground almonds into the batter and fold in gently. Sift in the remaining almonds until combined, making sure to lift up the batter from the bottom and sides of the bowl. Beat the egg whites with the salt until foamy. Slowly rain in the rest of the sugar until they hold a soft, satiny peak. Fold a third of the whites into the yolk mixture to lighten the batter, then fold in the remaining whites.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and gently tap the bottom on to a work surface to release any air bubbles. Sprinkle the 1 tbs of sugar on to the top of the cake (don’t omit this as it gives the cake a nice crunch). Bake until the cake is puffed and golden – about 30 minutes. Place on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Release the cake and let it cool completely. Gently invert the cake and remove the paper. Serve with some crème fraîche and some poached apricots or other seasonal fruit.

Jammy

29 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Afternoon tea, Cookbook, Dessert, Food, Ingredients, Jam, Lucas Hollweg, Recipes, Strawberries

I feel not particularly enamoured of jam and I’m not much of a jam maker as a result. Perhaps it is because of the often unrelenting sweetness. And the strawberries I had to hand were already sweet, so adding sugar and watching the whole thing boil volcanically in a pot seemed far too one-dimensional for my tastes; a cascade of red, sugary lava. But enter lemon juice and the jam became richer, tarter and more interesting. The strawberries became altogether more themselves. I upped the ante with the lemon juice because I wanted my jam with a bit of spine. However, balsamic vinegar is also an option; according to Nigella Lawson, they make the strawberries “strawberrier.” I believe her. If you can preserve some of the berries in their whole state, this would lend the jam a jewel-like aspect, I should imagine. Mine fell apart, a quivering mess.

Felicity Cloake’s recipe was the one I plumped for. She advocates the juice of two lemons and I went for three, but other than that, I followed her to the letter. She did all the homework, testing and tasting, and I just did what I was told. Sometimes I like that about recipes.

I’m not sure what it is about strawberries I don’t trust. Perhaps it’s that they no longer taste as they once did, or look neat or darkly red enough. Small lobes of crimson was what I remember, studded with yellowing seeds. And the taste was concentrated, sturdy, and there was juice, goddamit. I doubt what passes for cream nowadays is really the strawberry’s natural mate (what is?). Perhaps leave the cream for the raspberries to come, and simply macerate the strawbs’ – mashed up a bit – in some sugar. There’s something lovely about watching them leach their winey juice. Anyway, the jam was very good – a soft set, but definitely jam as opposed to strawberry sauce.

It is good spooned straight from the jar, Pooh-style. A warm, buttered scone is lovely, with the requisite pot of tea alongside. Here you have cold jam caving into a yellow pat of butter, and of course there are dancing crumbs to lick. But honestly, if you have some homemade strawberry jam, try it with some fresh cream cheese – a version of coeur à la crème. The plainness is the thing, substantial and not overly sweet, lemon-flecked, but not trying to compete. And if you have some good strawberries to hand, by which I mean on the small side, uniformly red, no whiteness within and definitely not hollow, then resist the temptation to cook them at all. No cobblers, pies or tarts, no jam, no heat, no flame. Let them rest. They’ve been through enough.

Coeur à la crème

This is a standard French country dish to serve with soft fruit and to showcase preserves in the winter months such as apricot and strawberry. It’s made using fromage frais – fresh curd cheese – and either crème fraîche or double cream. Yogurt cheese or cream cheese, such as mascarpone, can be used instead of the fromage frais. If you want to set it in a heart-shaped mould, which is traditional, then the cheese and cream need to be drained through muslin overnight. The heart-shaped mould will have holes in it, so you will have, quite literally, a bleeding heart (whey, in this case, not blood though). If you don’t drain the cream cheese mixture, it will be a bit swimmy, but no one has complained so far.

Lucas advocates serving these with some strawberries soaked in red wine and basil leaves, which is also lovely. Or do both – jam and wine-soaked berries. Although it sounds it, it isn’t overkill. Think ‘islands in the stream’ (that is what we are etc).

Inspired by and adapted from Lucas Hollweg, Good Things to Eat

½ a vanilla pod, split lengthways, or a few drops of natural vanilla extract

250g (9 oz) cream cheese*

250ml (9fl oz) double/heavy cream

2 tbs caster/superfine sugar

Zest of ½ a lemon

Scrape the seeds from the vanilla pod and whisk into the cream cheese (or add a few drops of vanilla extract). Pour in the cream, sugar and lemon zest and whisk everything together until well combined.

As you can see, I used a cookie cutter here to get some sort of shape. I put the moulds in the fridge to set; this is where you might want to drain off any liquid that has collected before serving.

*Interesting cream cheeses

I used a goat’s cream cheese here from the Meyenberg company, in Central California, but there are other lovely ones to try. Neufchâtel (from which American cream cheese is derived) is one. Cowgirl Creamery does fromage blanc (though I’ve yet to try it) and Creole cream cheese, listed in the Ark of Taste, and championed by Deborah Madison, was made originally by French settlers in New Orleans and is making a comeback. So if you’re down that way, nab some; apparently, it works very well in coeur à la crème. Failing that, Philadelphia is not to be sniffed at; go for the full-fat version.

Strawberry jam

Adapted from Felicity Cloake, Word of Mouth, The Guardian

Makes 4 x 200ml jars

2kg ripe strawberries
1.7kg jam or preserving sugar
Juice of 2-3 lemons

Wash (if necessary, and if not, simply rub off any dirt or dust) and then hull (cut the tops off) the strawberries and discard any rotten ones. If you wash them after you’ve pulled the little ‘plug’ of leaves, the strawberries will become waterlogged, and in the words of Jane Grigson: “A strawberry that has become acquainted with water loses its virtue.” Pat dry very quickly. Set aside about 10 of the smallest berries, and then mash the rest up into a rough pulp. Put into a wide, thick-bottomed pan, add the sugar and the lemon juice, and bring slowly to the boil. Add the remaining strawberries to the pan, and put a saucer in the freezer.

Boil the jam for about 15 minutes, stirring regularly checking the setting point every minute or so during the last 5 minutes. To do this, take the cold saucer out of the freezer, put a little jam on it, and put it back in to cool for a minute. If it wrinkles when you push it with your finger, then it’s done. Strawberry jam is unlikely to set very solid though, so don’t expect the same results as you would with a marmalade. Take off the heat and skim off any scum. Pour into sterilized jars and cover with a disc of wax paper. Seal and store.

Addendum posted April 3rd

If you want good strawberries and you live in the Los Angeles area, visit McGrath Family Farms. Jam-makers and strawberry lovers swear by them.