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Apple fritters

11 Sunday Nov 2012

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What a thing of beauty is batter. The crisp dense doughnut, its hole of silken jam revealed through the dough like a gun-shot wound. Sausages in batter, a Seventies masterpiece. Churros, those Spanish curly wurlies of ridged, hot, sugary rope. And gribbles. Gribbles were bits of batter, scrag ends you could get at the fish and chip shop for free. They would be scooped up, grudgingly, if you asked for them, and given to you in a cone made out of newspaper.

The fish and chip shop, Capel’s, was opposite the swimming pool on Heavitree road in Exeter, where I had my weekly swimming class with a monster called Miss Diamond. She made me cry underwater. I also had to tie knots in my trousers, blow them into a balloon and wait to be ‘rescued.’ These were public baths and always full to bursting on a Wednesday night, with kids having fun after school. Trying to get from one end of the pool to another was a challenge. Trying to do it fully clothed in order to save someone who was pretending to drown was a joke. Miss Diamond bellowed instructions at us or blew on her whistle to get above the racket. Never has the term ‘treading water’ felt so apposite, as I waited for the tyranny to end.

After swimming I would have hunger pangs but no money. I remember standing in the chippy with wet hair, watching golden hunks of fish being laid to rest in glass cabinets on the counter. But it was the batter I was after. Sometimes there was a landslide of gribbles, and you could even direct the server to which bits you wanted. Other times, strangely there was nothing. If I was ravenous, I would challenge them weakly. Were they sure? Absolutely nothing? And then the hill-climb home seemed particularly hard.

Still life with gribbles

Peppery, puffy batter shrouds these sweet apple slices, which are ever so slightly cooked while remaining al dente. A pinch of saffron, steeped in a couple of tablespoons of boiling water and then strained into the mixture, will turn the batter a lovely crocus-yellow. Alternatively, you can add sparkling water, cider or beer. You must eat these quickly, even standing over the still-smouldering pan of oil. I can imagine they would work well on a lazy Sunday morning – you can prepare the batter the night before and keep it in the fridge (give it a quick whisk). Do not omit the pepper.

Apple Fritters

Inspired by Emma Gardner, Poires au Chocolat

Adapted from a recipe from Jane Grigson, English Food

6 eating apples

125g (4 oz) flour

2 medium eggs

1 tablespoon of butter

Up to 300ml (1/2 pint) milk

Freshly ground black pepper

Pinch of sea salt

Pinch of saffron (optional)

2-3 tablespoons of sparkling water, cider, beer (tap water is fine)

Caster sugar (superfine), to toss

Cinnamon for the sugar (optional)

Oil to fry – sunflower, canola, peanut, coconut

In a small pan, melt the butter. You can take this to the browning stage for a nuttier flavour, if you like. Leave to cool. Beat the eggs in a bowl, then add the flour, and the water/cider/beer/saffron juice (delete as applicable), and sea salt. Gradually beat in half the milk and whisk until smooth. If the batter is too thick for your taste, add more. It should be thick enough to coat the apples well, and more or less stay put in the pan. Add the cooled butter. Grind the pepper two or three times over the basin and stir it in.

Peel the apples, then use a corer to take out the centre. Cut into 1cm thick slices (but again this is up to you). Prepare two plates: one with kitchen roll and another with a generous layer of sugar, mixed with a sprinkling of cinnamon if you like. Pour about 2cm of oil in a heavy-bottomed pan and heat over a medium high heat until just starting to smoke. Let a drip of batter fall into the oil – that will give you an idea of whether it’s ready.

Dip the slices of apple into the batter and fry until golden brown on both sides. Transfer to the kitchen roll plate for a minute to soak up any excess oil, then move to the sugar plate and toss. Enjoy now.

Toffee apples

11 Thursday Oct 2012

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This is what I will miss: bonfire night and toffee apples. Bonfire night, toffee apples and funfares, to be precise. Specifically, the moment when the glassy seal of toffee is broken, and soft splinters fall onto the tongue, followed by the sharp, merciless crunch of sweet apple – what a heady combination that is. It shouldn’t work, but it does.

We would eat them with the searing heat of the bonfire reddening our hands and face, while leaving the rest of us frozen. There were fireworks too, and sparklers, but I’m probably getting all my Pagan festivals mixed up. We didn’t really have Halloween back then, it being essentially an American import that took off in the 80s. What we had instead was the Tar Barrel tradition. This was peculiar to our town Ottery St. Mary, in Devon, where we lived. Men would run down the main street on November 5th – bonfire night, to celebrate the burning of Guy Faulks – carrying a barrel of tar on their backs that had been set alight. I remember the flames pouring out from behind them as they ran, their hugely mittened hands blackened and charred, and the screams as they collided with onlookers. One man ran into the wall next to us and the barrel exploded with sparks and detritus. There was a maniacal glee about the proceedings, an undercurrent of bravado and violence.

I won’t miss that especially, but there are other things impossible to carry with me on the plane – the chill in the air, and coming in from the cold, the train, being a passenger again, crispy leaves, conkers on the ground, always a glossy chestnut-brown, round and firm like a horse’s rump. Shelves and shelves of chocolate. My first wet walnuts. Salt and vinegar crisps. Views of hugeness from small bays and ports. I will miss my DNA.

And apples. I can’t get enough of them, though so far I have been largely enamoured with the tart and sour varieties – ‘cookers,’ such as the Bramley. The sweeter, gentler, dessert apples work better here, like Early Windsor, Falstaff and Discovery.  So, apples, I will miss you. Wet and windswept, rough-cheeked, and a bit the worse for wear, peppered with holes where small things have burrowed. Hope to see you next year.

Be prepared for a puddle or two when making the toffee apples (see top picture). The homemade version lacks the thick umber coating and square ‘seat’ at the base that you get with the commercial ones. You will also need to prise the toffee from any surface it has been in contact with – the upside is that it’s a bit like sucking a Werther’s Original from the odds and ends bin. The photo of the shelled wet walnuts, above, is not quite as random as it seems. I think they go well with a smattering of toffee apple.

Toffee apples

Adapted from Abel & Cole, http://www.abelandcole.co.uk

4 dessert apples

225g demerara sugar (or any soft, brown sugar)

110ml water

2cm slice of peeled ginger (optional)

1 cinnamon stick (optional)

3 cloves (optional)

1 tsp cider vinegar

25g butter

4 wooden skewers

Line a tray with greaseproof paper. Skewer the apples until it reaches half way down (remove the stem beforehand). Place a pan over a high heat. Add the sugar, water and spices. Simmer until the sugar has fully dissolved. Add the vinegar and butter and cook for 7-10 minutes. The toffee will start to bubble and thicken and darken a bit, which is what you want. Stir constantly. Check the toffee is ready by adding a trickle of it to water. If it firms up immediately, it’s done. Coat apples generously, swirling them through the mixture. Place them on the lined tray. The toffee will go everywhere. Leave them to set. To store, wrap loosely in lightly oiled greaseproof paper and tie with string.

Hedgerow crumble

03 Wednesday Oct 2012

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I’m in England and it’s autumn, my favourite time of year. September in particular is lovely in Sussex; soft air and bursts of sunshine (everyone is wearing sunglasses in brief interludes) in between the torrential downpours and foggy breath. Cobwebs stretch for miles it seems – it’s like being surrounded by endless pairs of gossamer tights.

On my walks so far I have seen crab apples, rose hips, elderberries, haws from the hawthorn bush, the first blackberries and what looked like small, blushing quinces. The last time I was here there was a fox lying in the brambles nearby. It was a beautiful orangey-red with streaks of black. Apparently it had signed up with the local vet and was receiving regular meals from neighbours. Every time I passed by that spot, it was there.

This time it was gone. But there are cats everywhere, large and languid, stalking their way through the golf course. The sea is one big, frothy grey drink. People stare at it through their windscreens and eat sandwiches. It reminds me of Victoria Wood’s story about the English couple who visited the Taj Mahal and said, “It’s nice, but I think it would look better with a tax disc and some windscreen wipers.” I am craving a Yorkie bar. I am also thinking about pork pies.

Whenever I come back from LA, I am amazed by how easy it is to walk to the shops and buy things. How small and green it is here, how different. The space we occupy involves other people who you must always take into account. When you walk, you may be barring someone else. This happened as I was looking for the right luggage carousel at Heathrow and I heard my first muttered “tsk”. Not yet through Nothing to Declare and I had already got in the way. I think he also rolled his eyes as he overtook me and then stood waiting for his suitcase, which failed to arrive. I left first.

Next to all these small places and quiet maneuverings, LA feels like a giant’s enclosure. Everyone seems very big over there now – too tall for proper eye contact. Maybe it’s the cars and the wide, scary freeways. I feel like a Lilliputian among my own people again.

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Apples have been a worry in England. Too much rain has soaked the orchards and they have been slow to appear. But our local greengrocer has some fine-looking varieties. The tart and chunky Bramley, the ruddy Cox, and Russets, grey-green and alabaster smooth. For all the concern about the tardiness of this year’s crop, in almost every garden I passed I saw a tree laden with apples. Nice for me at least.

Crumble is such an English staple that I thought it was the obvious choice: it’s warming, beautifully simple and not too sweet. I have used blackberries my mum and I picked while out on a walk and a mixture of apples I ‘scrumped’ (stole). Quinces, if you had them, would need to be pre-cooked. Damsons are the ultimate in hedgerow treasure. They are a relation to the garden plum, wild, dark and dusky and brilliant in crumbles and cobblers. They also make a phenomenal jam. Spit the stones out.

Hedgerow crumble: blackberry and apple

Inspired by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, All Change, The Guardian

Serves 8-10

6-8 tart apples (around 750g)

35g butter

2 tbs soft brown sugar

225g blackberries

For the sweet shortcrust pastry (this is optional, but dresses it up a bit)

200g icing/powdered sugar

Pinch of salt

125g cold, unsalted butter, cubed

1 large egg yolk

50-75ml cold wtaer (or milk)

For the crumble (not optional)

100g plain flour

75g unsalted butter

50g light brown sugar

50g ground hazelnuts or almonds

To make the pastry, put the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and blitz to combine. Add the butter and blitz again (or rub in with your fingertips) until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolk and enough milk or water to bring the mixture into clumps. Knead this into a ball and wrap in clingfilm/plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 190C/375F. Roll out the pastry quite thinly, to fit a 24cm tart tin. Prick all over with a fork and chill for 10 minutes, then line the pastry with greaseproof paper or foil and baking beans, or rice, and bake blind for ten minutes. Remove the beans/rice and paper, and cook for about 10 more minutes, until lightly browned. Trim the edges if need be.

Quarter and core the apples, then slice thickly. Heat the butter in a large pan until foaming, then add the apples. Fry gently for five minutes, tossing them about until they start to soften. Sprinkle over the sugar and stir so it dissolves into the apples and the juices. Spread this mixture over the baked pastry case, and scatter over the blackberries.

For the crumble, sift the flour into a bowl and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and ground nuts, squeeze into lumps and then scatter over the tart to give it a rough topping. You can improvise here and add spices such as cinnamon or grated nutmeg and even finely chopped rosemary to the crumble topping. Bake the lot for 30 minutes until golden brown and bubbling. Serve warm with cream or ice cream.

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.

Dark chocolate gelato

22 Wednesday Aug 2012

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Apparently, green tea smells of old cars. Anything red is a no. No also to green and crunchy, to onions, to fruit. But this chocolate gelato was a winner. “Really nice,” said Oscar, my nephew, who had come to stay along with his two brothers. Homemade is always a bit suspicious to children, I’ve noticed. Because you’ve had some input and this is scary to them. And this is grown-up stuff; it has a dark, strong caffeine hit, almost –  but not quite –  bitter. It is salty, why I don’t know, but it makes you head straight for the tap afterwards and glug water like a person found wandering for days in the desert. It is rich, velvety, it has a tinge of red, like dried blood; it glistens, it drips from the spoon and forms dark, chocolatey pools. I thought it would get lost in all the fast food, the junk, the Twinkies and Oreos, the ice cream sandwiches. But it did not go unnoticed. They nodded wisely in between mouthfuls, the spoon tinkling like a bell and growing more insistent as the bowl emptied. There was silence, focus.

“I had a banana three months ago. It was in a smoothie. That was so I didn’t have to taste it,” said Oscar, in defense of fruit. I never realized food could hold such trepidation. I ate snails as a child, picked them out of their shells and dipped them in garlic butter. I ate earth – whole mouthfuls – and peeled chewing gum off the floor. I peeled it off the pavement and popped it in my mouth. I ate ratatouille and sweetbreads. I ate chalk. I was fearless, verging on deranged. And I lived. The only thing I wouldn’t eat was cheesecake and that was because of the name.

Dark chocolate gelato doesn’t seem like much of a stretch, but I think it was a surprise. Perhaps it went with all the other new things: the road signs, the accents, the crazy heat, the big waves, the seals, cars, loud women and lady boys. And they ate other stuff too – homemade tacos with spicy beef and sour cream, Mexican cheese, Orangina, chillies. They were brave in the sea and came back with bashed knees and bloodied feet. Being in a strange new land on another continent makes you more inclined to try new things perhaps; you are not quite yourself.

We ended up in a Thai restaurant, which was where the green tea debate began.

“It smells like a reptile enclosure,” said Ben.

It did in fact smell quite nasty. Dank, musty, old. Also, it was hot, and we were hot, overheated you could say, sweating and limp with fans not quite disguising the wet walls, the presence of steam. Why drink hot green tea and not water? But I have developed  a taste for it; I like the weirdness, the way it heats my throat as it goes down, makes me wince. Maybe it’s the daredevil in me. It helps me remember when I was invincible.

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I will try to shed some light on the difference between gelato and ice cream. In Southern Italy, gelato is traditionally made without eggs, using mainly milk rather than cream. As I wrote about in the Fior di Latte recipe, the base of many Sicilian ices consists of a milk pudding thickened with cornstarch (I used a little cream, because I wanted some richness). The homogenized fats in milk are what creates a lighter texture, with that lovely melting quality. Ices made with more cream and less milk or equal amounts, though luxuriously buttery, can coat the mouth in a way that gelato never does. It can also mask flavours. In Northern Italy, eggs are used, but the principle of milk over cream remains. If you go to a gelateria, you’ll find the gelato light yet dense. This is due to the speed at which it is churned, keeping a lot of the air out.

Dark chocolate gelato

Adapted from Marcella Hazan, Marcella’s Kitchen

Makes 2 ½ cups (600ml)

4 large egg yolks

½ cup (100g) plus 2 tbs extra-fine sugar

2 ¼ cups (500ml) whole milk

3 ½ oz (100g) dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids) broken into pieces

½ cup (50g) unsweetened cocoa powder

In a heatproof bowl, beat (using an electric whisk) the egg yolks with ½ cup (100g) of sugar until thick and creamy. Heat the milk gently in a saucepan until it looks as if it’s starting to rise to a boil. Remove from the heat and add only a little milk to the egg mixture, to temper the eggs, then gradually add the rest. Beat well.

Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Resist the temptation to stir. When no lumps remain, beat the melted chocolate into the egg mixture, followed by the cocoa powder. Place the bowl over the pan of barely simmering water again, and stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture coats the back of  it. Remove from the heat. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, make a caramel by combining 2 tablespoons of sugar with 2 tablespoons of water. Boil the mixture until it turns a dark amber, but isn’t burnt. Swirl the pan as it darkens and watch it like a hawk.

Whisk the caramel into the chocolate until fully incorporated. It will sizzle. Leave to cool, then cover the surface of the bowl with plastic wrap/cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour, then churn in an ice cream maker, according to the manufacturer’s instructions. At this point you can serve it as it is – it will be soft and slightly sloppy. Alternatively, transfer to a freezer container, cover the surface with plastic wrap and freeze.

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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.

Floury fingers – in memory of cake

03 Tuesday Jul 2012

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I recently read about a three year old French child who bakes her own cupcakes. I imagine she needs help putting them in the oven, but apart from that she’s her own pastry chef. Much has been written recently about the difference between French and American children, and the way the French like to ignore their offspring.

I remember teaching English to a Parisian lady (and mother) who told me outright that she found ‘pre-language’ children uninteresting. They were simply beneath her until they could find the right words to keep her in the room. So the idea of a small child not just able to feed herself, but preparing baked goods was interesting to me. The French idea is that children should learn to be self-sufficient from a young age, resourceful and able to deal with periods of boredom and frustration – periods of aloneness, without setting fire to themselves or the house.

I too have memories of long, starchy afternoons, when time would linger and there was nothing much to do and no one around. This was before the days of constant adult supervision –  or in the words of the late, great Nora Ephron, before parenting became “a participle.” My refuge was reading, and making concoctions from scrag ends of food and my mother’s baking chocolate, which was like snacking on tar. It wasn’t just unsweet, but rock hard, greasy and impossible to either bite into or break off. I think she got it from a wholesaler called Norman’s in Budleigh Salterton. I don’t remember it ever being employed in a cake, but perversely for something inedible, she always hid it so it could only ever be accessed by balancing on a stool, hoisting myself up onto the counter and rummaging through packets of dessicated coconut and paprika until my hand landed on a wrapped lump the texture and weight of a horse-shoe. I cut my gums on it.

My nana from Australia sent me my first cook books. Floury Fingers by Celia Hinde did interesting things with fondant, but left me with a lifelong suspicion of cup sizes. The second book, though, became my friend, babysitter and an endless source of material both for my cooking life and beyond.

It was called the Kids’ Own Book of Stories and Things to Do. It was an absolute treasure trove. I think it was seasonal because one section was all about ice lollies and then another one had pictures of snow and mittens. There were stories of betrayal, wallabies, children of different ethnic backgrounds, slides, kites and all sorts. I loved the recipes the best and returned year after year to try them out. I rarely had the right ingredients. Sugar was banned in our house, except for muscovado that turned tea to treacle, though it was nice on porridge. We kept goats, whose warm (and occasionally hairy) milk softened our cornflakes in a way that I can only describe as off-putting. Raspberries were picked fresh from the bush for breakfast. There was ratatoullie and lambs’ brains. I wasn’t particularly appreciative.

What I wanted was cake. Preferably with thick slopes of icing and cut into giant-sized wedges. I do remember being terribly sick but still managing to swallow a few slabs of chocolate cake at another child’s birthday party, the sweat beading across my brow, twin flares of fiery red on each cheek. So slabs it must be here – as an homage to what I would have baked had I had the requisite ingredients. I did my best. I made chocolate logs that my dad said looked like dog turds, and rock cakes that lived up to their name. Had I not had huge swathes of time to explore, I probably would not have made them at all, so I’m grateful I was allowed to get on with the business of childhood without too many interruptions.

I am still in search of the perfect cake, even now. Something you can eat for breakfast (toasted, with butter), for elevenses, or brunch, for afternoon tea, and of course, for pudding. Beginning with this cherry-almond loaf cake, the cataloguing has officially begun.

Now’s the time for cherries – the Bing variety has that deep, glossy coat, almost mahogany in hue, but any cherry can be made into a decent compote. The trick is no water, only a little sugar and a splash of balsamic vinegar. The cherries should keep their shape and not be overcooked. If you already have a jar of such things, or you have some (preferably undyed) glacé cherries, you can skip this bit.

Cherry compote

Adapted from Lindsey Shere, Chez Panisse Desserts

1lb ripe cherries

2 tbs sugar

2 tsp balsamic vinegar

Method

Put the cherries, stems and all, in a colander, pick out any bad ones, rinse and pat dry. Put them in one layer in a pan. Sprinkle the fruit with sugar and shake over a medium high heat for about 5-10 minutes. The sugar will melt and the cherries will feel soft to the touch. Don’t go to mush.  Sprinkle with the balsamic vinegar, and shake for a minute or so more. Scrape the cherries, together with their juice, into a container and let them cool before chilling. You can serve them as they are (they love ice cream), or stone and stem them for use in the cake.

Cherry-almond loaf cake

Adapted from Nigella Lawson, How To Be a Domestic Goddess

Here, I’ve reverted to grams; going back to my roots.

200g cherries (stoned, stemmed and halved)

250g self-raising flour

(or add 1tsp of baking powder to every 125g/4oz of plain flour)

225g softened butter

175g cane sugar

3 large eggs, beaten

2-3 drops of almond extract

100g ground almonds

6tbs milk

9x5ins or 23x13x7cm loaf tin, lined and buttered

Method

Preheat the oven to 325F/170C. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually add the beaten eggs and almond extract, alternating with the flour and ground almonds until it’s all one. Fold in the cherries, and then the milk and spoon the thick mixture into the loaf tin. Bake for ¾ – 1 hour, or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave in the pan on a wire rack until completely cooled. Makes 8-10 slabs.

p.s I read about the cupcake-baking three year old in The New Yorker. Here’s the whole article if you want to read on.

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.”