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Tag Archives: Mediterranean

Honey Ice

30 Thursday May 2013

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 26 Comments

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Claudia Roden, Cookbook, Dessert, Food, Ice cream, Ingredients, Mediterranean, Recipes, Stories, Travel

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This recipe comes from Invitation to Mediterranean Cooking by Claudia Roden. It is a small, plain book with no photographs, and at first I afforded it only a few cursory glances. And then I read the introduction and it made sense. I reread it and I was transported. She sweeps through the history of the Mediterranean with such blithe eloquence that all I could hope to do here is a blundering précis of facts and impressions. What has stayed with me is the culinary unity of all sixteen or so countries that nestle around this ‘little inland sea.’ And the sheer amount of traffic.

First there were the colonizers – the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans – who brought their holy trinity of wheat, olives and vines. Then the area was positively over-run by invaders: the Arabs who occupied parts of Spain and Sicily for hundreds of years and introduced new trading routes and cultivated sugar cane, apricots and oranges, pomegranates, dates and aubergines. The Normans and the Republic of Venice also had a go, and then the Ottoman Empire muscled in. And then there were the travellers: traders, troubadours, jongleurs, spice merchants, whole populations uprooted – Tunisians were sent to Palermo in Sicily to build the cathedral, for instance. It must have been a nightmare for Social Services.

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What I loved was the idea of the Mediterranean as its own world, distinct from the northern regions of its own countries. So the cuisine of Andalusia would have more in common with southern Italy than with Asturias, say. Provence and Sicily are related. They use the same clay pots and wood-burning stoves. There is olive oil, the juice of lemons, garlic, tomatoes, almonds, quince, basil and wild marjoram. Food is pummeled, slaked, ground with a pestle and mortar, little old women in black keen and worry beads in their gnarled hands, stopping as you pass to ask why you’re not married and how much you weigh.

And that made me think of all the seemingly disconnected events that had happened to me on my travels there. Rather than random or isolated, one event now began to inform the other. So the gesture of the café owner in Paxos in Greece who brought us a bottle of wine and two glasses as we were about to bed down for the night on the beach (with one sheet and two bin bags) was somehow related to the gesture of the boy (whose name I will never forget: Zoran) who boarded my train in Dubrovnik carrying a mattress and shared his lunch with me. The woman who complained we had flooded her bathroom in Corfu was definitely related to the man who ordered me out of his ballet class in Venice. I remember the alleyways in Tunisia and Amalfi, getting lost in darkness, the sounds of bare feet on stone, and the fear it was my stepmother.

There are big differences between the eastern Mediterranean and western, and there are many culinary distinctions between the countries in both regions. But for now, I like to imagine the similarities. We are encouraged in life to unmake connections, to see things as mere coincidence. But in the Mediterranean, it’s the same sun, the same sea, the same fish, the same herbs; all that empire on the chopping board. All those languages in one clay pot.

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When it came to choosing a Mediterranean sweet to feature here, I was almost limp with temptation. “My soul responds to a mere vanilla ice smeared out into the thick glass of an Italian ice-cream vendor”, wrote Compton Mackenzie in First Athenian Memories, and despite the turrons, the sfogliatelle and the cassata Siciliana, I think ice cream is always a good place to start.

The honey you use can be characterful and not particularly sweet; remember honey is much more complex than sugar, and can range from treacly, nutty and even mildly bitter. Most honey is polyfloral – meaning the nectar has been taken from different floral sources – and is generally known as ‘wildflower’. Monofloral honey is when the bees have taken nectar from only one plant species (although the jury is out on whether a honey can ever be truly singular, because bees aren’t that picky and like all sorts), and the flavour is more pronounced. Some of the most highly prized honey comes from Sicily: orange blossom, the honey from zagara (the flower of the lemon tree), chestnut and thyme. Sardinian honey from strawberry plants has a uniquely bitter flavour and is light green in hue. This ice cream recipe comes originally from Provence where they use lavender honey from their famous fields. There are fields of lavender here in Mediterranean southern California too, of course, as well as some wonderful urban honey around LA. Happy honey hunting.*

Honey ice cream

Adapted from Invitation to Mediterranean Cooking by Claudia Roden

I suggest pairing this ice cream with something resinous and rich (I want to say lusty), such as roasted figs (go to my recipe here), fig jam, or even better, quince paste (otherwise known as membrillo, recipe here). That said, some poached apricots or plums would also be pretty divine. And some chopped pistachios thrown from above.

As to milk, I used goat’s milk which I know is not to everyone’s taste. If you’re not sure you want goaty ice cream, go for cow’s milk. Sheep’s milk would be a lovely alternative.

500ml milk

4 large egg yolks

150g lavender, acacia or other clear, distinctive honey

150ml double/thick cream (I used crème fraîche)

1 tbs orange blossom water

Boil the milk. If you are using goat’s milk, let it almost come to a boil, but take it off the heat just before. Beat the egg yolks to a pale cream, then beat in the honey, the cream, and then finally a tablespoon of the hot milk. Gradually add the rest of the milk.

Return the mixture to the pan and stir with a wooden spoon over a low heat until it thickens to a light cream. Do not let it boil or it will curdle. Let it cool, stirring occasionally to stop the mixture forming a skin. I accelerate this process by transferring the mixture to a bowl and putting it in the sink filled with some ice cubes and tap water. Stir in the orange blossom water. Cover the bowl with cling-film/plastic wrap and put in the fridge to chill thoroughly. If you have an ice cream maker, follow the manufacturer’s instructions. This was my route, and the photo above and below is a soft-serve version directly after churning, and then a firmer set, having frozen the churned ice cream for a few hours. If you don’t have an ice cream maker, according to Claudia you can put the bowl directly in the freezer and freeze overnight or for at least 5 hours before serving. You can serve this ice cream straight from the freezer.

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Recipe List

I have created a permanent recipe list if you’re interested in finding something specific. I will refine the categories as I go, but for now it’s a start. Hope it helps and you enjoy having a rummage through the archives.

*Addition 2nd June 2013

I found some lovely honey at the farmers’ market today from Bill’s Bees and wanted to share the discovery. I tried their local buckwheat honey which was strong, hearty and malt-like. The orange blossom honey was beautiful and surprising: clear like blown glass, smooth and silky, and floral without being overpoweringly sweet. There was also a small kick of acid when I was least expecting it, right at the end when I was about to ask another question. If you are in the area I would recommend giving them a visit.

Buckwheat honey

Buckwheat honey

Orange blossom honey

Orange blossom honey

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A word about thyme

08 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

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Cooking, Dessert, Herbs, Ingredients, Mediterranean, Recipes

Of all the herbs, I find thyme the most satisfying and the least temperamental to grow. Native to the Mediterranean where it grows wild, it loves neglect, drought and miserly earth – the more woeful the better – as well as a fair whack of sun and heat. It suits the confinement of a terracotta pot, just make sure it’s thoroughly parched before watering; it hates wet feet. One of my favourite pastimes is running my fingers through each knotty cascade and getting a headful of that bracing, lemon-and-fresh-grass aroma. Then there is the taste; pummeled with lemon zest and roasted with garlic and tomatoes, or deposited into the cavities of lamb and chicken, it can be slow to release its flavour but when it does, woody, herbal, charcoal notes can lift a pedestrian offering and make it sing.

Thyme is a herb that loves to be steeped and infused with citrus, lending an aromatic depth to dishes. In desserts, I find it tempers the sugars and brings out the other, less sweet, elements. It works particularly well in this way with figs and stone fruit, such as apricots and peaches. Flecked through a cake it can get lost, so a good bruising beforehand will encourage the release of essential oils. On the other hand, too much thyme and too leisurely a steep in custard (for use in ice cream or a flan) and it’s like drinking cough mixture.

March is a good time to talk about herbs. Even in Southern California, where it’s reported that the amount of uninterrupted blue sky is commensurate with the number of people in therapy (a lot), this is the month when LA can have a frosty face. Traditionally, March has always been known as the famine time; the Irish used to call it “the grey blast of spring.” Any stored fruit had more or less expired by this point, so the cook was dependent on fresh new shoots from herbs to awaken tired dishes. Conveniently grown near the kitchen door, it meant a single hand could slip out, grab what herb it needed and then beat a retreat, away from glowering skies.

The time to plant is now. Young shoots will lack the pungency of a mature thyme that has been baked by the sun; slow cooking helps give the older plant a milder presence while introducing younger leaves near the end of cooking preserves the delicacy. Aside from Thymus Vulgaris – otherwise known as common or English thyme – lemon thyme (T. Citrodius) is the one used most often in cooking; it has a softer, less searing flavour and does well in shortbread and as a final flourish. Orange balsam, caraway and Sicily, with its celery scented leaves, are among the hardiest with the most concentrated perfume, while the creeping coconut thyme has a more fugitive scent and is not considered culinary at all, though I’ve used it if there’s nothing else (I can’t say it tastes much of coconut).

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The lemon cake with thyme recipe, made with almonds and a swipe of flour, is fragrantly moist with just a breath of savoury to it, thyme once again bringing up the rear, adding warmth, depth and a much-needed bit of rough.

Mushrooms with thyme on toast

I can think of no lovelier start to the day than this: earthy mushrooms, woody thyme and razor-sharp lemon zest all collapsing into a fragrant heap over a heft of hot, buttered toast. Some crushed garlic is a lovely, warming addition, as is brown butter. Although it looks in some senses ‘wrong’, brown butter (or beurre noisette) adds a toasty, nutty dimension; you simply heat the butter gently until the milk solids on the bottom of the pan turn a dark, chocolatey brown, then add the rest of your ingredients. If you want to make a concession to health, olive oil is a good alternative here.

One of Jane Grigson’s luxurious ideas is to bake the mushrooms in the oven with clotted cream, but I think we’ll leave that for another day.

Serves 2

8 smallish mushrooms or 4 large field mushrooms (Morels appear in spring, as do ‘Hedgehogs’, if you want to go foraging)

1 tbs butter

1 clove of garlic, crushed

1 heaped tbs of thyme leaves stripped from the stem

1 tsp lemon zest (or finely chopped preserved lemon)

Bruise the leaves of the thyme with the lemon zest and garlic in a pestle and mortar, or in a bowl with a wooden spoon. Add a few grinds of salt and pepper. Brown the butter, lower the heat and add the thyme mixture along with the roughly chopped mushrooms, that have been wiped clean, not washed. Cook over a medium heat until the mushrooms are wilting and have started to brown. The trick is to keep things moist, so add a tablespoon of water if you need to. If you want your mushrooms to have something of the damp, forest-like interior about them, keep them in a bag in the fridge for a day or so before cooking. As to toast, I will leave it up to you. Tradition dictates white and thick and toasted within an inch of its life (it will go soggy soon after the mushrooms have arrived) but it’s hard to go wildly wrong with this classic.

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