Tag Archives: Dessert

Apple and sultana cake

18 Tuesday Sep 2012

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And now back to cake. This recipe belongs to my cousin, Lucas Hollweg, and you can find it in his book Good Things to Eat, which I think should be re-titled Fricken Amazin Things to Eat. Buttery and brisk, this cake is, and full of sharp and sweet delights. The apples are soft and fluffy and there is a lovely lemony sourness running throughout. The spices and sultanas make me think of Christmas and long, cold nights. Lucas calls the flavours “strudelish,” which I tried out on our recent German guests. Thinking they wouldn’t understand the “ish” I simply said “strudel” and spent the rest of the conversation backtracking. “It’s cake!” I said, finally, and we were all happy with that.

So to apples. My very first apple I do remember, because my dad knocked it out of the tree with a hoe. I think I told people we had “an orchard,” when actually it was two trees in the corner of our garden. It was also around this time that I invented a sister called Melanie which, you can imagine, took a lot more effort to conceal. Melanie was away a lot. Or she was sleeping. Then she died, which was a relief. But my love of apples only increased.

This first apple was my downfall. It was pale green, almost dun in appearance, and smooth and dry to the touch. This was what made the biting of it so exciting, because inside, once my teeth pierced the skin and those first droplets formed on my lips, was the sweet ivory flesh, full of crunch and juice. The bitter mahogany pips, the toughened core was something to work around, gnaw at until almost nothing remained; a little twig dangling from my stubby fingers. I discovered apple shampoo while on a French campsite a year or two later, and I marvelled at how they could have captured the fragrance so perfectly. There was probably not a single natural ingredient in the bottle, but to me it was like having a frothing orchard in my hair. So, apples remind me of being young, and of ‘firsts.’ And how I launched myself at things like a missile.

This cake takes me back to that first, and best ever, apple. It’s incredibly easy to make, yet rich and plump and gorgeous. It’s a happy cake.

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Just so you know, I have also made this cake with quince compote, left over from the quince paste I made, and it was wonderfully aromatic. I have also used plumped-up (soaked) raisins in place of sultanas, which are trickier to find in LA. As to Bramleys – there is no real substitute. Look for sour and tart apples that cook down well.

Apple and Sultana Cake

Lucas Hollweg, Good Things to Eat

For 4-6

125g (4½ oz) butter, plus extra for greasing

125g (4½ oz) light brown or light muscovado sugar

125g (4½ oz) self-raising flour

1 medium egg

200g (7 oz) Bramley apples (1-2 depending on size)

2 handfuls of sultanas

Finely grated zest of 1 small lemon

½ tsp ground cinnamon

Fresh nutmeg

A handful of flaked almonds

“Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4. Grease an 18cm (7in) cake tin and line the bottom with a circle of baking parchment. Put the butter and 100g (3½ oz) sugar in a saucepan and stir over a gentle heat until the butter has melted and the sugar dissolved. Quickly stir in the flour and beat in the egg. You’ll end up with something that looks like what it is – flour mixed with melted butter – rather than normal cake mixture. Don’t worry, it’s meant to look like that.

Spread half the mixture over the bottom of the cake tin, then arrange the apple slices on top. Scatter with 3 tablespoons sugar, then add the sultanas, lemon zest and spices (you want to grate in about one-eighth of a whole nutmeg). Spread the remaining cake mixture over the top, smoothing it out as best you can. Scatter with the flaked almonds and put the tin in the oven for 35-40 minutes, or until it’s a deep gold and firm to the touch.

Have a look after 30 minutes and cover the top with a bit of foil if it’s browning too quickly. Remove from the oven, and leave to stand in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out and cool on a rack for at least quarter of an hour. It’s best while still just warm.”

First ever quince

10 Monday Sep 2012

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My first ever quinces. My first ever quince paste, or membrillo. It didn’t go the deep red I had been reading about, and hoping for, no matter how long I cooked it, but rather a dark, rosy gold. In Mexico it is seen as candy, and it candies as you cook it. It feels and looks like a humongous boiled sweet, the way it wraps itself around your wooden spoon. Gradually, it solidifies, becomes harder to manage and your forearm sweats and reddens. I felt like one of those glass blowers by the end, with roasted arms. And then you must unwrap it, flatten it into a block and cool it on a baking sheet, smoothing it out with wet hands. It’s a tough little thing, and you need to prize it off in cubes. Some suggest burying it in sugar and cinnamon. I was interested in the Spanish version, where you serve it with Manchego, a chalky sheep’s cheese, which you dribble either with honey or olive oil. What I love about Manchego is the crystalline quality when it dissolves on the tongue – there is sharpness, it is intense, but crumbly, frail, reminiscent of ragged, yellowing parchment.

Quinces when they are cooking are startlingly honeyed and musky, almost ‘heavy’ smelling, but it is also an astringent fruit and you are left with traces of acid long after the sugar has gone. The best paste is a reminder of the fruit’s essence. Thin slices of Manchego, a hunk of bread, a few jellied sheets of membrillo – a tapa we would get for free en route to our house in Picena, southern Spain, and a bar stop demanded by the driver, Pepe el taxista. If you bought a drink, you’d get the food for free. Amazing if you think about it, and I doubt it still exists in quite the same way now.

I remember patatas a lo pobre – poor man’s potatoes – served in terracotta dishes, cakes of sweet onion tortilla and chunks of melting lamb. It was just enough to stave off hunger, and the alcohol would make everything nice and blurry. A lot of people died on that mountain road. No barriers, alcohol, a few stray goats. Everything was crumbling and dry. On average, a person a year from the village careered off the mountain side to their death, and travellers were picked off with horrible ease. But I always remember the food first, and only later the slow, lurching ascent into the clouds.

Quinces (cydonia oblongata) were the original ingredient in marmalade; the word marmelo is in fact the Portuguese word for quince. It wasn’t until 1790 that oranges were used, and all marmalade recipes before then were based on quinces, even in England. These days they are considered too tart, dry and tannic to eat raw (blame the advent of sugarcane). Cooked is the only way to eat them, unless already ‘bletted’ – beyond ripe and softened by decay.

They flummox people. What are they, exactly? For many years, they were thought to be a relative of the pear, and though most pears are grown on quince rootstock, they are not pears and will not hybridise with them. They are a separate species, full of mythology, and loved by preserve-makers and food enthusiasts. They are hard, yellowy, blocky, sometimes shaped like commas, thick-set. Imagine a great aunt with a plinth-like bosom called Enid. Anyway, they are very exciting to cook with because they transform, becoming glassy and gorgeous and they work well with fatty meats. The ones above are green and would benefit from a long sit for a few weeks until they become a mellow yellow.

Quince paste with Manchego

Adapted from Sam and Sam Clark, Moro – The Cookbook & Nigel Slater, Tender

2kg (4lb) quinces

Caster sugar

Juice of 2 lemons

Remove the down/fur on the quinces, wash them and cut them up. Don’t bother to remove the core or peel them, you will sustain injuries. Put the fruit into a heavy pan and just cover with cold water. Bring to the boil, and then simmer until tender. Strain off any excess water and push the quinces through a sieve, removing pips and core as you go, letting the purée collect in a bowl beneath. This can take some time. Alternatively, if you have one, use a mouli, but remember to use the disc with the smallest possible holes, or you will be eating fibres and grit.

Weigh the purée and add to it half the weight again of sugar; the Moro cookbook calls for equal weights of fruit and sugar, and I have adhered to their recipe for years, but having tried this Nigel Slater version, from Tender, I find the paste has more flavour, tang and quincy character and still keeps its shape.

Place both the sugar and the fruit purée in the same (but washed) pan. Return to the stove, and heat gently until the sugar has completely dissolved. Now raise the heat and let the mixture bubble, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon (wear an oven glove to protect your hand). Add some lemon juice to taste. It is ready when it starts to come away from the sides of the pan, attaching itself to your spoon like a thick, deep orange wand. By the end, you can hardly move your spoon through the paste.

Now, remove the mixture and spread it out in a centimetre (½ inch) layer on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. Push it out to the sides as evenly as possible. When it has cooled slightly, wet your hands and smooth it down. Switch the oven to its lowest heat and dry it out for a couple of hours, or simply air dry it. It should be tacky dry and firm enough to be cut into solid pieces. Pack it in greaseproof paper and store in an airtight container. Refrigeration should not be necessary and it keeps for many months.

Traditionally, the sheep’s cheese Manchego is served in thin triangles with the rind left on. The quince paste is sliced and then placed on top of the cheese, with a thread of extra virgin olive oil alongside. Honey is also lovely here if you fancy it.

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Apple mousse, lpq style

29 Wednesday Aug 2012

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This is a recipe from Alain Coumont’s cookbook. He is the founder of the cafe Le Pain Quotidien, and his book is dotted about the tables in a civilized and welcoming (ok, manipulative) way for you to peruse. I’ve worked out that if I go there once a week for the next 6 months, I’ve got every recipe. It’s Belgian, he’s Belgian, and the whole enterprise is as civilized as you can get – in my opinion – in LA. The chairs and tables are made of wood, the walls of brick. Just like humans are made of flesh and blood, he decided that the basics shouldn’t really be messed with, and I agree. I’m a great fan of being able to hear the person sitting opposite me, and not the screeching sound of metal chairs slicing open my cerebral cortex. I also like books and reading and taking my time, which if you leave books lying around is the implicit message; I’m less likely to leave when I’m halfway through the history of sourdough, so I simply order another cup of Brussels breakfast tea, and stare out of the door for a few seconds, thinking about the pleasures of yeast.

It amazes me that something so simple is so hard to get right. All I want is somewhere to go that is unpretentious, that serves well-made, thoughtfully produced food, without millions of other possibilities, all of them involving soy. I also don’t want the server to get so far into my psyche that we have to arrange a separate meeting just to unpack it all. And all the recipes, by the way, are in grams. No conversion chart, no nothing. This man has balls. Also, given his success at creating a chain, I was expecting a businessman in a pinny, but reading his book, he’s clever and genuine about food, with quite messy hair.

This recipe is so simple and soothing, it’s almost convalescent food. It also reminded me of toffee apples. Cool and fudgy and very ‘appley’ – it’s lovely for breakfast or as a lazy pudding. Apples are in season here, especially the crisp and aromatic California Gravensteins from Sonoma, which are peaking as we speak. Feel free to experiment with spices and sweetness, but my feeling with apples is always the tarter the better. I want even my pulped apple to have some bite. The overall blondeness of cashews is pleasing, but if you don’t mind dark brown pudding, I imagine it would also work with almonds.

Apple mousse with cashew butter*

Adapted from Alain Coumont’s Communal Table

Fills 4 small bowls or glasses

400g apple compote

150g cashew nut butter

4 tbsp acacia honey

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

1 cinnamon stick or a sprinkle of ground cinnamon

For the garnish: 75g dried apples and verbena or basil flowers

For the compote, core and peel 5-6 small apples, and then slice them finely. Add them to a solid pan with 3 tablespoons of water and the cinnamon, and put a tightly fitting lid on. Cook over a gentle heat for about 15 minutes until they have softened and become fluffy. Fork them up a bit, remove the cinnamon stick, and process/blend the apples along with the cashew butter, honey and lemon juice. Much depends on the sweetness of your apples, so taste as you go. Divide out into the bowls or glasses and refrigerate for 6 hours. Serve with a dried apple ring and a verbena flower, if you can remember.

*(1st Sept) I initially thought Coumont had withheld amounts in this recipe; in fact, I got distracted while people watching at LPQ and forgot to write them down. I now include his very sensible measurements. My apologies.

Dried apples for the garnish

Adapted from Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book

If you want to dry the apples yourself, it’s fun to do and not difficult at all, though easy to forget about; you open the oven door a week later to find some wizened ears. Prepare the apples (you choose the number) as you would for the compote, and cut into rings. The point is to slowly remove all moisture from the fruit, without cooking it. A low and steady source of heat is what is needed. The plate-warming part of the oven is good, a warm airing cupboard, or keep the apple rings in the oven on a cake rack at the lowest possible temperature, with the door slightly ajar. The temperature should be between 50 to 60C (120 to 150F). You’ll know they’re done because they’ll be leathery, and will not give up any juice when you cut into them. Cool the fruit before packing away in a paper bag – anything totally airtight will encourage moisture and mould. Store in a cool, dry place. The flavour is quite different to fresh and it’s worth doing if you have a glut.

Banana & raisin bread

15 Wednesday Aug 2012

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This is a lovely cake to make if you are at a loss. A few blackening bananas are all that is required, along with the standard store cupboard ingredients. I made it constantly when I first arrived in LA. It was both escape and focus. I gave almost all of it away to neighbours, who seemed to take longer and longer to get to the door. Perhaps they read into the gesture some of the desperation I was feeling. I didn’t drive and I couldn’t walk anywhere – the sidewalk around where we live peters out after five minutes. And walking has always been my lifeline. I sort out my thoughts that way, or I discover what my thoughts actually are. So the cake was my version of lowering knotted bed sheets out of the window – one of these neighbours would be my escape route, they would be my friend, hopefully give me a lift somewhere, and I could walk.

It never happened – they had jobs. And besides, I’m not a huge fan of the LA genre of walking, which is to spend most of your time in your car looking for somewhere to park. A corner shop, that’s what I wanted. A street, some grass, a view or two. Eventually I was forced behind the wheel, passing my test with white knuckles, my face a sheet of terror and disbelief. I hoped it was a one-off – the driving thing. I wanted to keep on taking the bus, scrambling over medians and edging my way along roads. But to say you don’t drive in LA is like saying ‘I don’t really breathe’.

It’s nothing like walking, but occasionally when the road is emptying out and I see long, luxurious gaps up ahead, or I turn a corner and see a blank space for me to play with, accelerate into, I get a similar feeling in the car – a presence of mind, strangely empty of thought. Sometimes I like to cruise downhill, my foot hovering over the brake pedal, the breeze under my hair, and it’s like sailing and in those moments, I get it. I get California, and the invention of the car and why I’m here. I get the rush. And on the days that I don’t, I bake banana bread.

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Banana and Raisin Bread

Adapted from Nigella Lawson, How To Be a Domestic Goddess

100g raisins (or sultanas)

75ml dark rum, bourbon or PX sherry

175g plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

½ teaspoon salt

125g unsalted butter (melted)

150g caster sugar

2 large eggs

4 small very ripe bananas (mashed)

60g chopped walnuts (or pieces of dark chocolate)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Put the raisins and rum/bourbon (or Pedro Ximenez sherry) in a smallish saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat, cover and leave for an hour if you can, or until the raisins have absorbed most of the liquid, then drain.

Preheat the oven to 170ºC/gas mark 3/325ºF and get started on the rest. Put the flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt in a medium-sized bowl and, using your hands or a wooden spoon, combine well. If you don’t like the taste of bicarb then leave it out.

In a large bowl, mix the melted butter and sugar and beat until blended. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the mashed bananas. Then, with your wooden spoon, stir in the walnuts and/or chocolate, drained raisins and vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture, a third at a time, stirring well after each bit.

Scrape into a loaf tin (23 x 13 x 7cm / 9 x 5 x 3 inches) and bake in the middle of the oven for 1-1¼ hours. When it’s ready, an inserted toothpick or fine skewer should come out cleanish. Leave in the tin on a rack to cool, and eat thickly cut with a cup of strongly brewed builders’ tea.

Lemon sherbet

08 Wednesday Aug 2012

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Remember these? Frozen lemons volcanically erupting with white, sugary snow. Except I never tasted one. I saw them, ogled them from afar; they nested indolently  – hard, little yellow bricks stacked in carts outside French bistros. I could never get up the courage to ask for one. Perhaps I secretly knew it was too adult for my taste. One bite and it would all be over and then I’d feel bad.

But at every port we sailed into in Brittany, I would go through the same internal dialogue, the slow build, the beginning of bravery, starting with, “Dad, can I ask you a question?” To which he would answer “Yes.” “Actually, it doesn’t matter.” Silence. “You’ll probably say no.” “I won’t know what it is until you ask me.” “It’s fine.” What I wanted was for it to be dragged out of me. My mind to be read. Perhaps if I just looked lingeringly in the direction of the ice creams he’d get the idea. But I was taken at my word, and remained lemonless.

Each port town we sailed away from – Paimpol, Tréguier, Lezardrieux – I would imagine finding the courage for the next place, and then the next. But suddenly – or gradually, tortuously – we were sailing back home, where there were no frozen lemons.

So it remains a foreign food, a still life. And actually making it myself, though it looks gorgeous with its lemon hat and sticky, oozing syrup, it remains something I long to see for sale. There would need to be barriers to acquiring it – a foreign language, a shaky grasp of the currency perhaps. Some pointing would be necessary. My own frozen lemon, paid for in cash.

Strictly speaking, I was talking about sorbet, but sherbet has more fizz, more of a creamy wave to it, so I have opted for that. To clarify, sorbet is the ‘mother ice’ from which many others have issued. It is made from a sugar syrup with the juice of fruit added. Originally, sorbet was snow infused with flowers.

Sherbert, on the other hand, is really the first ever recorded ice cream. The name is most likely an attempt at the Arabic word sharbat. It has a small amount of cream added to a sorbet base. It is light and soft, cold as hell, with a wonderful citrus tang. I know we shouldn’t think of those lemon sherbets – lozenges that melt into a sweetly-sour plateau on the tongue, the kernel of which contains an explosion of fizzing sugar – but I can’t help myself.

Lemon Sherbet

Adapted from Jamie Oliver, Jamie’s Italy

Makes enough for 6

200g/7oz sugar

200ml/7fl oz water

200ml/7fl oz lemon juice

zest of 1 lemon

1 heaped tablespoon mascarpone or crème fraîche

Pre-freeze a shallow 20-25cm/8-10 inch container (if you don’t have an ice cream maker), or the shells of the lemons, if you like the look.

Put the sugar and water in a pan and bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and continue to simmer for 5 minutes. Once the liquid is clear and syrupy, remove it from the heat and allow it to cool for 15 minutes, then add the lemon juice and zest. Taste it and see if you find it palatable – it needs to be sour, but not horribly so. Add more sugar if you think it needs it. Next, add the mascarpone or crème fraîche and stir until completely combined.

Chill in the fridge. If you don’t have an ice cream maker, pour the mixture into your pre-frozen dish and return it to the freezer – leave it for at least an hour before you check it. If it has started to freeze, fork it up a bit. Do this every hour for the next 3 hours, after which it’ll be ready to eat. It can be kept for a couple of days in the freezer, but it will start to get ice crystals soon after. If you have an ice cream maker, follow the instructions, and decant into the lemon shells if you want to be a bit French about it.

Juice: Instead of lemon you can experiment with grapefruit, blood orange, clementine, or mandarin juice. A couple of tablespoons of sweet sherry (Pedro Ximénez has a strong taste of raisins and molasses) would also be a warming component, if the spirit takes you. Chilling dulls flavour, so taste before freezing and be bold.

Fior di Latte

02 Thursday Aug 2012

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“August is a wicked month,” said Edna O’Brien, and how right she was.
Here in LA, nothing moves or grows. Plants sit and wilt under the warping heat. The cicadas begin their nightly throb. The trees just stand there as if embalmed. I dream of water, the sea, wet, swishing grass and cooling breezes, chlorophyl.

And ice cream. I first tasted fior di latte – (literally “flower of milk”) as a child in London and spent the next twenty years explaining to people what it was like. “White ice cream,” I called it. I mean, it was white to look at. It tasted white. People were confused, as was I, and for a long time I believed I had misremembered it. And then I found it again quite by chance in Venice.

Strictly speaking, fior di latte is a gelato, with no eggs and very little or no cream – in fact, there is a cream version called fior di panna. Originally a Sicilian invention, the base, known as crema rinforzata, is a sweet pudding of milk thickened with cornstarch. In its gelato form, it is soft, but dense, almost chewy, cold but melting.

Here is the recipe. It’s monastically simple. For this reason, it showcases herbs beautifully, particularly the woody variety – the dryness and astringency of thyme, bay or rosemary is offset by the soothing balm of milk. Citrus peel is also a winner. You still get the endless, uninterrupted whiteness – all evidence is strained out before freezing. You can experiment with different ‘milks’ too. Sheep’s milk is exceptional here, though I have given up trying to find it in LA. It is rich and sweet and highly nutritious and reminds me of the softness of Exmoor, those green hills washed by the sea.

If I were a millionaire, I would board a plane today and go to Minehead in West Somerset, position myself at the front of the queue at the Styles ice cream van and buy every single tub of their sheep’s milk ice cream. I would then eat it standing on the beach looking out over the Bristol channel, and watch the sun sink slowly into the choppy waves. That would be a good August.

Fior di latte

Adapted from David Lebovitz, The Perfect Scoop

Serves 6

500 ml (2 cups) whole milk

250 ml (1 cup) cream*

150 gr (¾ cup) sugar

pinch of sea salt

2 heaped tablespoons of cornstarch

*I have used cream here, but you can forgo it and up the milk quota if you prefer more of a ‘milk ice.’

Method

Warm the milk, sugar and sea salt in a non-stick saucepan. Bring to a slow simmer and make sure everything has dissolved. Turn off the heat. If you are introducing herbs, spices or citrus rind, add them here. Fill the sink about 3cms full with cold water – add some ice cubes to get it extra cold. Whisk the cornstarch with the cream until it has dissolved completely – the best way of doing this is to gradually introduce the cream into the cornstarch to prevent lumps. Stir the cream mixture into the milk and then slowly reheat, stirring frequently until it begins to bubble and froth up. Transfer to a heat-proof bowl and plunge into the cold water, stirring to prevent a skin from forming. Stir every now and then for about 20 minutes, or until it has reached room temperature. Cover with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge.

Leaving it overnight will really encourage the herbal, citrus additions to give up their flavour. If you are keeping it plain, simply chill for about 2-3 hours. In either case, strain the very cold liquid into the ice cream maker and then follow the instructions. Transfer to an airtight container, place plastic wrap directly on the gelato and freeze. This will keep for a few days, but it’s at its best eaten fairly quickly (on the day, really).

A word about herbs and spices and that

With some of the woody herbs – notably rosemary – a little goes a long way, so you’ll have to do some detective work to discover the right balance. A couple of sprigs of rosemary would be enough to impart quite a strong taste. Thyme can be used more flagrantly (up to 10 sprigs). Bay, sage and lavender also work well. Other herbs are worth investigating too: basil (and other members of the basil family such as cinnamon basil, anise basil etc), mint and also scented geranium (such as chocolate, nutmeg and rose geranium).

Citrus peel – a couple of thick-ish pieces of lemon, lime or orange rind infuse well. You could also try any of these spices – a cinnamon stick, some grated, fresh nutmeg, a clove, a few cardamom pods, some saffron threads, blanched fresh ginger, or a vanilla bean.

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The first figs

25 Wednesday Jul 2012

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I never know what to make of figs. They look slightly obscene, but then purple always does (think of aubergines). They are so delicate, shaped like an engorged teardrop, with that satiny, touchy skin. Each fruit contains, not seeds, but a mass of curled-up flowers that will never be. Certain things they like, I’ve noticed. Like honey, a scattering of thyme leaves, a slake of lemon juice, walnuts. I feel on safer ground when they are tarred by the heat of the oven, reduced to their buttery essence. They blister and bead – droplets of sap line the fruit’s seams. They eventually cave in, turning to jam with only the slightest provocation.

Of course if you have a fig tree, you need do nothing but tear one open and suckle, especially if it has already been warmed by the sun. Forget fruit salads, and cold of any sort. Figs are usually a late summer crop, but ‘breva’ figs* (meaning ‘first fruit of the fig tree’) are with us now. They grow on last year’s wood, a couple of months before this season’s crop ripens. They are not quite as spectacular as the ‘higo’ (second crop), not quite as burstingly succulent, less beauteous to the eye, but they are worth investigating.

I first tried breva figs when I was lost on a mountainside in southern Spain. I wasn’t particularly hungry or thirsty, but they were hanging about us as we tramped along the road and so it passed the time. I was wearing corduroy shorts – a fashion fad that lasted about a week in 1991 – and in the midday sun it was like wearing a pair of blankets. I remember the fig’s sweetness, and the way we popped each plump little confection whole into our mouths, the flesh turning into a dewy, flowery syrup. So I associate them with heat and dust and a certain wildness of spirit.

Our house, bought for £2,000 in Las Alpujarras in Spain, was white and chalky and if you brushed past a wall, part of it would come off on your clothes. Swallows nested in the beams. The rats never came upstairs. They preferred the bathroom that had been built in the middle of the cellar, with a makeshift wall around it, like a turret. We had no transport so hitched lifts with the postwoman or a friendly tractor driver, or walked. Occasionally, somebody would throw fruit through our window. This was if they were unfriendly and wanted us to go away. Locals who liked us, and owned fincas in the area, came to the door and handed us their harvest directly. Tomatoes, oranges, lemons, peppers, garlic, figs, sometimes nuts, everything was saddled to the mule standing morosely in the background while they did the deed.

Children played outside our window until 2am. The afternoons were always dead while the whole village slept. Pigs were slaughtered, also outside our window, and the children continued to play under a canopy of dead pig, strung up by its hooves. But it was also easy to disappear. The village was surrounded by farmed terraces, and acequias – streams of melted snow from the Sierra Nevadas – and we dunked ourselves in whenever the heat got too much. No one was about, apart from the local shepherd and his goats, the bell around their scruffy necks sounding their arrival. We picked figs and thought nothing of it.

Figs do well in southern California, having come here in the eighteenth century via Spanish missionaries, hence the name, Black Mission. I am being quite brutish, roasting them with gay abandon, but there are many applications for these treacled beauties and they hang around for ages; dolloped on ice cream, smushed through a sieve and turned into fig butter, partnered with tangy goat’s cheese, piled on hot, yeasty bread, or thrown into a bread dough or cake batter. Or simply potted up and eaten one by one like sticky, gummy candies.

Roasted figs with honey and thyme

Serves 4

I committed the cardinal sin of leaving fresh figs in the oven overnight so they looked like tarmac. They tasted divine, though, so I suggest you do the same.

12 figs (or thereabouts)

3 tbs of clear honey

Walnut-sized knob of butter

A posy of thyme (about 15 sprigs)

Juice and zest of a lemon

1 roasting pan

Preheat the oven to 350F/180C. Bruise the lemon zest and thyme leaves together using a wooden spoon or pestle and mortar. Fish out any woody stems, but don’t worry too much if some remain. Put the butter, honey, thyme leaves, lemon juice and zest in a small saucepan. Heat gently, stirring until liquid. Take off the heat and leave to infuse for about 15 minutes. Cut off the stem at the top of each fig. Cut a deep cross down into each one, then squeeze the sides to expose the flesh. Place them upright in a roasting pan. It’s fine if the pan is crowded, but each fig should be resting on the bottom. Pour over the liquid. Roast for at least half an hour, then turn the oven off and let the figs stew in their own juices. Because first-crop figs can be a hit-and-miss affair, you can be quite brazen about the roasting, and general neglect here. These are not jewels, and they taste better for the wait.

“They say that the Fig-tree, as well as the Bay-tree, is never hurt by lightning; and also if you tie a bull, be he ever so mad, to a Fig-tree, he will quickly become tame and gentle. As for such figs that come from beyond the sea, I have little to say, because I write not of exotics; yet some authors say, the eating of them makes people lousy.“

Nich. Culpeper, Gent., The English Physician Enlarged, 1653

* Also known as ‘breba’ figs.

Apricots

25 Monday Jun 2012

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Apricots can go either way. Flabby, woollen and pointless or lush, tender and – in the case of apricot jam – unforgettable. Also, like plums, apricots are blissful with chocolate. I came over all funny when I realized this. I’d love to know who originally dreamt up apricot and chocolate tart, and give him/her a medal. I think the chocolate brings out the spice and sweet acid in the fruit. Whatever. No glossy cooking terms can possibly do justice to how successful it is. It’s the Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti of food marriages. He’s the chocolate.

Apricot compote is brilliant as an almost-jam. It is also divine on its own, or with a plain summer cake. Ice cream also works – chilly tufts of the stuff melting into syrup – and almost any flavour. I think apricots are one of those stone fruits enhanced by cooking. Particularly poaching, which brings out the fruit’s complexity and freshness. It blooms under heat; its sharpness is mellowed, but still there is edge, and the texture becomes burstingly fragile.

Now to the difference between one apricot and another. One word: water. Dry farmed, however counter-intuitive this may seem, is the reason why the best apricots have that intense concentration of flavour. If apricot trees are too wet, the fruit will be big and puffy, and the texture like eating someone’s earlobes. Arguably the finest apricots, at least in this area, are Blenheims. Their proud owners – or one of the very few – are Eric and Helle Todd from Forcefield Farms in Santa Paula. Their apricot trees grow in a dry riverbed, the fruit is small and has an intense aroma of honeysuckle. This season has been tough on them, and the crop is depleted due to an early frost, but they will be bringing out their little jewels in a week or so. Track them down at your local farmers’ market.

Royals are also very good indeed; some are almost as small as a pea, and rosy-cheeked. These tangy apricots go well with goat’s cheese; Leonora, from Leon in Spain, is gorgeously dense, creamy and cave-like.

It is an early fruit, precocious in name and nature – the word apricot comes from the Latin praecox – and its blossoms often fall prey to the cold. More fragile than peaches, ‘cots have none of their glamour or following, but they are a cook’s dream. I had to do some serious whittling to arrive at these two recipes.

Poached apricots

Adapted from Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book

About 12-15 apricots, whole

2 cups (500ml) water

1 scant cup (200g) cane sugar (or maple sugar)

2-3 cardamom pods

1 cinnamon stick

1 star anise

Zest of an orange

3-4 apricot kernels (optional)

Method

Poach the apricots gently until soft and tender, but still holding their shape (about 15 -20 minutes) with all the other ingredients. Remove the apricots with a slotted spoon, and discard the cardamom pods and star anise. Wash and dry the cinnamon stick to use another time. Reduce the syrup by half by bringing it to a boil. Add the grated zest of an orange, and pour the syrup over the fruit. Cool and chill. Remind people there are stones.

Extracting the apricot kernels: this is not obligatory but if you’re feeling game, you need a hammer and some sort of cushion. I used an oven mitt which I placed over the apricot stone. It muffled the sound, and also stopped the bits flying all over the room. Always try one before adding them to the syrup; some kernels are very bitter.

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I understand the antipathy many feel towards putting chocolate and fruit together, but I hope you’ll make an exception here. This is the companion to the chocolate and plum tart that fell apart in the last post. I’ve since tarted up the pastry – removing the amaretti entirely – and this one stayed whole. I include the recipe for the amaretti crust if you feel like giving it a go, though it will melt into nothingness on your spoon and will not be coerced onto a cake slice, even for money.

This is an idea from Sam and Sam Clark, of Moro fame, and in their tart they use apricot paste called ‘amradeen’ – a  Syrian and Lebanese speciality. I’m using poached apricots in its stead, but dried ones also work. Serve with a few extra ‘cots on the side and some crème fraîche.

Chocolate and apricot tart

Adapted from Moro, Sam and Sam Clark

For the filling

180g (1 cup) poached apricots or paste/amradeen

2 tbs lemon juice

135g (9tbs) unsalted butter, cubed

110g (4oz) dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids) broken into bits

2 large eggs at room temperature

60g (¼ cup) cane sugar

For the pastry

Adapted from Rick Stein’s Food Heroes

50g (2oz) toasted slivered almonds

175g (6oz) plain flour

A pinch of sea salt

175g (6oz) butter, softened

65g (2½oz) cane sugar

1 medium egg, beaten

½ teaspoon of ground cinnamon

For the pastry

Put the toasted almonds into a coffee grinder or spice mill and blitz until fine but with some texture still. Mix with the flour, salt and cinnamon and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth. Beat in half the egg, followed by the flour mixture and enough of the remaining beaten egg to bind the mixture. Knead briefly until smooth. Pat into a round disc, cover in plastic wrap and chill for 20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 190C/375F. Carefully roll out the pastry between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and use to line a greased 8ins (20cm) loose-bottomed tart tin. Prick the base here and there and chill for about 30 minutes. Line the pastry case with greaseproof or parchment paper and baking beans (or rice) and bake blind for 10-15 minutes (check at ten). Then remove the paper and bake for a further 5 minutes. It should look and feel crisp and golden. Remove and leave to cool.

For the filling

Press the poached apricots through a sieve. Add the resulting puree to a pan with the lemon juice and a few splashes of the syrup. Heat gently until the mixture thickens. Stir to prevent the puree sticking to the bottom of the pan. The mixture should taste slightly tart. Spread the puréed apricot over the base of the cooled tart shell. Leave for a few minutes – the apricot will form a slight skin.

While this is going on, put the butter and chocolate in a bowl over barely simmering water. Whisk the eggs and sugar together until pale and thick and fluffy. When the chocolate has melted, take the bowl off the heat and fold in the egg mixture. Give this a good stir, bringing the chocolate up and over, until it is a uniform deep, dark brown. Pour this into the tart shell and smooth out any peaks and troughs with a spatula. Bake on the middle shelf of a pre-heated oven for about 25 minutes. There should still be a slight wobble – not too firm, glossily dark but with just the beginnings of a crust. Serve with some poached apricots, ice cream or crème fraîche and a slick of the poaching syrup.

If you insist – amaretti crust

200g (1 cup) amaretti biscuits

80g (5tbs) butter, melted

Put the amaretti biscuits in a freezer bag and give them a few whacks with a rolling pin. Mix with the melted butter. Tightly press the amaretti into a tart tin and chill until needed. When you’re ready, put this in a pre-heated oven (350F/180C) and bake until the crust is nicely browned. Continue as above.

Plums and Pluots

19 Tuesday Jun 2012

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I’m running out of adjectives. This must happen a lot to people who are trying to describe food on a regular basis. Yes, the plum is juicy, but it’s not juicy like an apricot. It has a wincing tartness and it’s wetter. It’s sweet, but it has a different sweetness to, say, a cherry. It was a surprise to eat a perfectly ripe plum, because on some level I wasn’t expecting it to be so luscious. I have no memory of plums growing up and have always believed them to be rather serious. Perhaps it’s the fact that in England they are an autumn fruit. Evenings are drawing in, there’s a chill in the air. Sundays become Mondays, there are hot water bottles, feet trudge. It’s also the winy red of the skin and a tannic roughness on the tongue. It’s a dark fruit. Maybe it’s as simple as that.

Here in Southern California, plum season starts as early as May and goes through to September. And then there are pluots, a horrible name reminiscent of toilets. It’s a hybrid of plum and apricot, the result of generations of intricate and painstaking crossbreeding. It sounds off-putting, I know, but the fruit is crossbred naturally – not genetically modified – through hand pollination. Think of bees in nature, except here each hybrid takes, not minutes to develop, but years.

The picture above is of the Flavorosa pluot; the white dust is its natural bloom, its skin is less fibrous than a plum, with a soft, plush almost transparently crimson interior. It is sweet but pleasurably so, with some sharpness bringing up the rear. The juice, when you pierce the skin, spills out. Think of it as a summer plum, born under blue skies.

I put it to use sautéed, as a pairing for a cold, dark chocolate pudding, and layered in a chocolate and amaretti tart. I brought them both to the herb garden, where I volunteer, for the other gardeners to test. The chocolate pudding was devoured in silence, standing up by the tool shed. The tart was eaten after lunch. As it almost melts on the spoon you must feed yourself fragments. I didn’t want to applaud my own efforts, but I thought it was pretty phenomenal. Sandy, deeply fruity and blanketed in a heft of complex chocolate, just shy of crust. It’s a mess to look at, so you may want to work on the aesthetics.

“Rich,” said Tony. He wiped the ramekin clean with a paper towel, and placed it back on the table.

“Marzipan?” said Tristan.

“No.” The conversation continued in this way for a while, one word here and there, nothing too formed. It’s helpful to know sometimes that’s what food does. I’ll feature this recipe when I’ve managed to make it look less like a cowpat.

The plum and chocolate pudding is nice cold but not too frosty; you want to be able to taste the marriage of flavours which will start to come through as it warms up. The almond extract  – which I was considering forgoing – is really lovely and works well with the plums. I tried Penzeys cocoa powder, because some cocoa can be underwhelming. The key is the colour: look for a reddish-brown, like an old brick. It should also smell bewitching, simply in its dry state.

Sautéed plums with dark chocolate pudding and crushed amaretti

Adapted from Deborah Madison, Seasonal Fruit Desserts

If you want to make this gluten-free simply omit the amaretti biscuits. Try toasted almonds instead.

For the sautéed plums:

4-6 plums or pluots

2 tbs (28g) unsalted butter

¼ cup (50g) organic sugar or maple sugar

2-3 cardamom pods

1 tsp (splash) orange-blossom water (optional)

For the dark chocolate pudding:

2 cups (500ml) milk

Zest of 2 oranges (less, if you’re less partial)

2oz (60g) dark chocolate (60-70% cocoa)

½ cup (50g) unsweetened cocoa powder

½ cup (100g) organic sugar

Pinch of salt

Scant ¼ cup (25g) cornstarch dissolved in ¼ cup (50ml) of water

¼ tsp (or a small splash) almond extract

1 amaretti biscuit per pudding

For the plums

Rinse the plums, dry, then slice them into wedges. Heat a frying pan/skillet with the butter over a medium heat until it melts. Then add the plums, sugar, and cardamom pods. Raise the heat and cook, jerking the fruit around every now and then so the cut surfaces start to catch and caramelize. After about 10 minutes, the plums will start to give up their juices and cave into one another. Add the splash of orange-blossom water – if you want – and be prepared for a sticky mess.

For the pudding

Warm half the milk with the chocolate and orange zest over a low heat. Meanwhile combine the cocoa, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Stir in enough water to make a smooth paste. Whisk this paste into the warming milk. Mix the remaining cup of cold milk into the cornstarch. I find it works best by slowly introducing the milk to the dry powder, which then becomes slacker the more liquid you add. The other way round results in a lumpy glue. Now add this cornstarch mixture to the pan.

Raise the heat slightly and stir as the mixture thickens. Then lower the heat and keep stirring until it appears custard-like, but still with some movement. You don’t want the spoon to stand up of its own accord. Remove the pan from the stove and add the almond extract and give it a stir. Pour the pudding into little ramekins and place plastic wrap directly on the surface if you don’t want a skin to form. Served chilled with a spoonful of plums and a smashed-up amaretti biscuit on each.IMG_8325

Plums for Breakfast

I like to think of these as ‘sleeping plums.’ They are overnighters, having been tucked into the pan and lapped by their own considerable juices. By morning, they are deflated, dilapidated even, but the juice is spicily intense, having been concentrated by the wait. Nothing quite prepares you for the depth and zing of that first slurp. I quote Nigel Slater, from his book Ripe, in his entirety here. Feel free to add your own spices – such as a cinnamon stick or some cardamom pods. I would also add that it took a fair bit longer for my plums to collapse – you could go to 30 minutes, easily, on a very low heat. That’s when you clap the lid on, turn off the heat and leave them til morning. And remember there are stones to navigate before you dole this out. I used pluots instead of plums.

“A pot with a sturdy bottom, a pound of plums (500g), ½ cup (100g) of sugar, a vanilla pod split down its length, its seeds exposed, and just enough water to leave a wet film on the bottom of the pan. Place over a gentle heat, let the sugar melt and the plums burst, their juices mingling with the sugar. Keep the heat low and your eyes on the job. After ten minutes, maybe fifteen, the plums will have collapsed, their juices taken up some of the warm, vanilla notes and you will have a dish of plums to cool, then thoroughly chill, and eat for breakfast.”

Winging It

11 Monday Jun 2012

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On Wednesday, I flew on the trapeze. When you watch it, it looks so easy. I came down after the first try, my body shaking with adrenalin and fear and, frankly, embarrassment that people had had to watch me.

I kept looking at the grapefruit tree that stood in the background and the orange tree next to it, its branches crowded with fruit and tried to think about recipes, and yet who was I kidding. I was thinking of not getting it right, of somehow not hearing the instructor’s orders, his barks up to the platform. The platform wobbles as you stand on it, by the way, and is 40 feet off the ground. It’s also frighteningly slim. This is what they tell you, the trapeze aficionados – that the experience teaches you to become a ‘connoisseur’ of your fear. And then you jump.

I had three goes at the ‘knee hang’ – see the picture. If you think you’re fit, try doing that one day. You have to use all your upper body strength to hoist your legs over the bar. I now realize I have no upper body strength. I had one more go left before the instructor called time. “Think of something that makes you really angry,” he shouted angrily. And then: “You can do this!” “Knees to nipples!” a woman yelled. She was a midwife.

I can’t remember what happened next except a feeling of relief and then the blood rushing to my head. I let go of the bar too late – everything in you resists it – and was out of whack with the catcher. I was all over the shop, but his grip was monumental. I dangled, a dead weight. But it’s that in-between moment that gets you, the moment of weightlessness. You’re flying! Everybody looks the same when it happens – lost in rapture. You hope that no one notices, but they do.

There are other sensory impressions: the grass turning brown underfoot. Scorching flagstones. The smell of horse from the field next door. Not dung exactly, but the smell almost of the horse’s breath; musky and hot, mixed with summer air. Low slung wire fencing turning a rusted orange. The clink as you’re unclasped from the ropes. The enormous web of net. Toes inching over the platform. The two bushy trees – grapefruit and orange against the back wall, the flashes of colour a pleasing backdrop to the soaring, swooping and plummeting bodies, the last one being mine.

Citrus with Orange Caramel

Adapted from Deborah Madison, Seasonal Fruit Desserts

This is fruit at its most chaste. The caramel is very subtle; warm rather than sweet. I used grapefruit and oranges because they come from the story, and I made it that night, but you can use anything citrussy.

6-8 citrus fruits

⅓ cup (70g) organic sugar

½ cup (120ml) freshly squeezed orange juice

1 cinnamon stick

1 clove

A few splashes of orange-blossom water

Fresh mint sprigs or lemon balm

Method

Finely grate the zest of an orange, and put to one side. Peel the rest of the fruit. 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 fruit from top to bottom, slicing away the skin and the white pith. Now cut into rounds and put into a bowl.

Melt the sugar over a medium heat, until it turns a rich, chocolatey brown. Don’t stir, but keep tipping the pan this way and that, so the sugar doesn’t burn. When it has become liquid, stand back and pour in the juice. It will splutter and the caramel will seize, but after a few minutes back on the heat, it will dissolve again. Add the reserved orange zest, cinnamon stick, and clove. Splash in a few drops of the orange-blossom water, slide in the slices of fruit and swish them around so they’re coated, then pour the fruit and caramel back into the bowl. Serve very cold, speckled with the fresh herbs. This dish is very accepting of ice cream, and Greek yogurt.