Peach and Walnut Chutney

If you like a fruit chutney and you can get your hands on some peaches, I have the recipe for you! The recipe is for Peach and Walnut Chutney, and comes from The Veg Space.

I love this chutney - thick and fruity and savoury, with nice texture from the walnuts.  It is so good - I wish I’d made a larger batch.

This chutney is good spread on bread with meat and salad, and would make an excellent accompaniment to roasts or in sauces.

 If you would like to make this chutney, you will need (for a full batch):

6 onions, finely chopped

14 peaches 

Zest of 2 lemons

720ml cider or white wine vinegar

700g sugar

175g chopped walnuts

1 teaspoon cinnamon 

1 teaspoon chilli flakes

2 teaspoons finely chopped ginger

First, skin the peaches by putting a cross in the top and bottom of the skin of each peach, covering the peaches with boiling water for a minute, then draining the peaches and pulling off the skins.  Remove the stone from the peaches by cutting each one in half down the middle and twisting out the stone (or cutting it out for clingstone peaches).

Roughly chop the peaches, and place them into a large saucepan with all of the other ingredients. Bring the mixture to a boil, then turn the heat down and allow the mixture to simmer, stirring regularly to stop it from burning onto the base of the pan, for around 90 minutes or until the mixture is thick and jammy. The mixture stinks a bit because of the vinegar, and it is a bit of a time investment, but the end result is worth it.

While the chutney is simmering, sterilise 5 or so jars by either boiling the jars and lids in a pot of boiling water for ~20 minutes and drying them out in the oven, or running the jars through the hot cycle on the dishwasher.

Spoon the cooked chutney into the jars until nearly full  and seal immediately.  I find that turning the sealed jars upside down for a few minutes helps to create an airtight seal (you will hear the button on the lid pop in when the seal has been created). Allow the chutney to cool completely in the jars before storing in a dark cool place.

Leave the chutney to mature in the jars for 4 weeks before opening.

Lemony Pear-Pineapple Preserves

I recently had the strange dilemma of having a bowl of pears on the turn, and a piece of sour pineapple in the fridge.  What do you do with that combination?  I thought of making pear jam after seeing Patty's post on Instagram, but found it hard to locate a recipe in my usual cookbooks.  Turning to Sarabeth's Bakery - From My Hands to Yours, a book I had owned for years but never used, I struck gold - Sarabeth had a recipe for Lemony Pear-Pineapple Preserves.  Fabulous - I could kill two birds with one stone, figuratively speaking.

The resulting preserves contain lovely chunks of pear, and might have had chunks of pineapple too, except that I suspect I processed the pineapple too finely.  It did not  matter - the end result was a wonderful, golden, sunny preserve, quite sweet, but then again, it is a preserve.

Here it is spread on a crumpet:

If you too would like to try these preserves, you will need:

1/2 pineapple, peeled, cored and cut into 1" cubes

450g pears, peeled, cored and cut into 1/4" cubes

2 cups sugar

1/2 of 1/3 cup lemon juice

1 vanilla bean or 1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Put the pineapple cubes int a food processor and chop coarsely.  Strain the juice into a non-reactive saucepan, reserving the pineapple pieces.

Add the pears to the pineapple juice, and bring to the boil over medium heat, stirring frequently, then reduce the heat to low and simmer the fruit for ~ 15 minutes or until tender.

Add the reserved pineapple, the sugar and the lemon juice to the pan, together with the vanilla seeds (if using a vanilla pod), split the bean lengthwise and put it into the pan as well, and return the mixture to  a simmer.  Cook until the pears are soft and chunky and the mixture has thickened (ie when you run your finger through the mixture on the back of the spoon, it doesn't run in to fill the gap).  This will take around 25 minutes.   Remove from the heat.  (If using vanilla essence, stir it in at this stage).

Pour the mixture into sterilised jars, screw on the lids and allow to cool completely in the jars.

Blueberry Jam

Planning for this year's Christmas boxes is well under way, and I have taken another step in the project by making another item for 12 of the boxes - small jars of blueberry jam.

I used this recipe for blueberry jam from Taste.com.  It was very easy to make, just time consuming in that you have to stay close by the jam while it is on the stove so that it doesn't burn while your back is turned.  The jam gets a terrific citrus-flavoured lift from the addition of Cointreau, which not only brightens the flavour, but makes the jam a little less sweet.

To make the jam look a little bit fancy, I added some free labels from A Family Feast and CSR Sugar:

If you have a yen to make this easy blueberry jam, you will need:

4 x 125g punnets blueberries
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup Cointreau
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Put all of the ingredients into a large heavy based saucepan.  Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer.  Allow the jam to simmer for 30-35 minutes or until the jam reaches the correct consistency (ie when you put some onto a plate that has been in the freezer and run your finger through it, the jam does not run back to fill the gap).

Spoon the hot jam into sterilised jars, put the lid onto the jars and turn the jars upside down to allow the hot jam to contact all the surfaces of the jars, then turn the jars the right way up.  Allow the jam to cool completely in the jars before adding labels.  Makes ~ 500ml jam.

Give as gifts or enjoy yourself!

Feijoa Jam

Feijoas are odd little green fruits that I had never heard of until I met a person with a feijoa tree.  You can see what they look like here.

Those people that knew about feijoas seemed to rave about feijoa jam, especially Kiwis. I was curious to try it, and I got my chance when I walked past my local fruit shop and they had feijoas out the front.  I bought some with feijoa jam on my mind.

Finding a recipe for feijoa jam was easy enough - I used this one and scaled it down for the number of feijoas that I had.  I was a bit lost as to what to expect from a feijoa when peeling it - the skin is quite hard and it is difficult to see where the skin ends and the fruit begins.  I have subsequently learned from reading other sites that to get at the feijoa flesh, it is better to cut them in half and scoop out the flesh with a spoon.

I was really pleased with how this jam turned out - it set perfectly: 

Feijoa jam tastes like lemon travel sweets.  I do like it, and it is quite different to what I imagined.  I tried it spread on a pikelet - very tasty.

If you do run across some feijoas, I recommend giving this jam a go - I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Cherry sauce

It is summer here in Australia, and cherries are in abundance.  For my Christmas boxes, I decided to take advantage of the cheapness and abundance of cherries make cherry jam, using this recipe.  

Unfortunately for me, this jam did not want to set - I didn't have any jam setter, so after a while, I decided to call it a day and rebrand my cherry jam as cherry sauce.

It didn't matter in the end - the cherry sauce, as it had now become, was absolutely delicious, especially as I had laced it with a little kirsch to give it a special something.  

I ate this sauce from one of the leftover jars spooned over vanilla icecream - although it was also very good straight out of the jar.  All in all, there was a silver lining, and I have no complaints about the conversion of my jam into sauce. 

Plum Jam

I recently made some plum jam using yellow plums.

To make jam, the general rule is one part fruit to one part sugar.  In this case, I also added the juice of a lemon to up the pectin content (which helps the jam to set).  I removed the plum stones but left the skins on to give some texture to the jam.

Once you have your fruit, sugar and lemon juice (if using) in a saucepan, you bring it all to a rolling boil and continue to boil until it thickens sufficiently that when you place a drop of it on a plate that has been in the freezer and run your finger through it, it wrinkles and a gap remains where your finger had been.  If the jam runs back into the gap and doesn't wrinkle, it is not ready yet, so you have to keep boiling it.

Once the jam is ready, pour it into jars that have been sterilised (by placing in the oven for 1 minutes or by boiling in a pot of water) and seal.

Making a jam is a great way to use up surplus fruit, or to preserve a slice of summer for the winter months ahead.

Homemade Chocolate Hazelnut Spread

When I made chocolates for Easter, I needed something to fill them with.  I didn't have any cream so many of the usual fillings were out.  By luck, I came across this recipe from Honey and Spice for Dark Chocolate and Roasted Hazelnut Spread - homemade Nutella!

I was surprised at how easy and delicious this spread was.  I will shamefacedly admit that I have been eating the remainder out of the jar - it is that good.  Best of all, I know what's in it, which you don't with store bought Nutella.

While this spread  is not as smooth as Nutella, it has that lovely chocolate-hazelnut taste, and would be perfect on toast etc, just like Nutella.  Or for eating out of the jar ...

Sophie Dahl's Rose Petal Jam

 

When I made my rose ombre cake for Valentines Day, I had quite a few leftover rose petals, as they did not all fit on top of the cake. I didn't plan on making too many salads that required rose petals, so I was pleased when I picked up a copy of Sophie Dahl's Very Fond of Food:  A Year in Recipes to see that she had a recipe for rose petal jam, as part of a recipe for rose petal icecream. 

 

 

You can find the recipe for Sophie's rose petal jam online here.

I was attracted by the fact that not only did this recipe use rose petals, but it also contained sparkling rose, which I just happened to have a bottle of in the house.

The flavour of the jam is unusual.  It is not sweet, and is in fact only faintly floral.  The flavour reminds me of a lemon sherbet - zingy and tart.  I am not sure why that is, but I enjoyed it.

I am yet to think of an imaginative way to use my rose petal jam (to fill a cake perhaps?), but I am glad that it has preserved my beautiful rose petals for another day.

On an unrelated note, Happy St Patricks Day!  Have a green beer for me.

Spiced Christmas Cookies & Peach Jam

When making my Christmas box goodies, I made a boo boo with the gingerbread men. For the gingerbread men, I intended to use the Bourke Street Bakery recipe.  A slight problem arose when I tried to watch TV while making the dough at the same time.  I misread the ingredients and added white sugar instead of brown sugar to the dough - oops.

What to do? I didn't want to waste all that dough, so I rolled it out, cut out Christmas shaped cookies from it and baked them. I then decorated them with rolled fondant patterned using an embossing mat, which I stuck onto the cookies by brushing the cookie surface with warmed apricot jam before applying the fondant. A winner! People loved these, even though they were the accidental cookies.

My goodie boxes also featured peach jam made using Maggie Beer's recipe that I have made before, using skin and all.  Because I was giving away the jam as presents, I dressed them up with labels and paper tied with string:

I think it looks cute, although it was fiddly to do.

Have you had any recent baking mistakes that you were able to come back from? If so, what happened and how did you fix it? I'd live to hear your stories.

Cherry tomato and sweet chilli jam

I had a punnet of cherry tomatoes left over from a blog project, and wondered what to do with them.  I am not a person who will eat cherry tomatoes as a snack, and it is definitely not salad weather here at the moment.  As I also had a lonely chilli in the fridge, I thought that it would be wonderful to make some jam with the cherry tomatoes and chillis.

After a quick search, I found this recipe for cherry tomato and sweet chilli jam.  I loved how super easy it was to make, and I just reduced the proportions to match the quantity of tomatoes that I had.

The end result was a lovely jam to eat with cheese and crackers (as the recipe suggests), or to serve with beef or other meats, or even spread on a sandwich with vegetable or meat fillings.  

Maggie Beer's Peach Jam

It has been a week of using up lacklustre fruit from the end of the season.  I had a kilo of peaches languishing in my fridge because - well, they were pretty bland peaches.  However, I didn't want to waste them.  Initially, I thought of making baked goods with them, but I thought that a whole kilo of peaches would take an awful lot of baking to use them up.  Plan B was to make jam!

I searched for the right recipe for peach jam for me, and I chose Maggie Beer’s Peach Jam recipe from The Cook and the Chef TV series. I liked the fact that Maggie did not peel the peaches - she used the whole fruit in her jam after de-seeding them.  In fact, she even uses the seeds in the cooking process, presumably to add flavour.  Instead of amaretto, I added brandy to my jam.  I am so glad I didn't skip it - the alcohol added a lovely flavour to the jam.

This jam is so versatile.  As well as indulging my habit of eating jam out of the jar, I have been mixing it in with my rolled oats for breakfast and putting it on icecream for dessert.  It would also be fabulous in muffins, to fill cakes or on toast.  And it transformed some very ordinary peaches into the extraordinary.   Perfect!

The recipe is as follows:

1.5kg peaches

750g sugar

rind of 1 lemon

juice of 2 lemons

2 tablespoons amaretto (optional)

Wash the peaches, then cut the peach flesh off the stone and chop the flesh into pieces. (Use a mixture of ripe and less ripe peaches - the less ripe peaches add pectin.)  Maggie's tip is not to store the peaches in the fridge (oops!) as it reduces the pectin in the fruit.

Place a large, heavy based saucepan over low heat. Add peaches and lemon rind to the pot and allow to simmer in the juice that will ooze from the peaches, stirring occasionally. Add the peach stones tied up in a clean Chux (dish cloth) to the pot and continue to simmer.

When fruit seems cooked (ie soft), remove the peach stones and add the sugar and lemon juice. Once sugar has dissolved into the fruit increase the heat. Allow to boil rapidly until setting stage has been reached, stirring occasionally so nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot. Just after removing the jam from the heat, stir through the amaretto.

Carefully spoon the hot jam into glass jars and top with the lids.  Turn the jars upside down while cooling to sterilise the whole of the jars with hot jam.

FFWD - Garbure from the Supermarket

This week's French Friday with Dorie recipe is Garbure from the Supermarket.  Huh? 

Apparently the name of this rustic, chunky soup comes from the fact that you eat it with a fork. There are no set ingredients in France, as it is meant to use up whatever you have.  This impresses me because I bought but forgot to add the beans, I couldn't buy turnip, I didn't add sausage or duck confit, and I used cayenne pepper instead of the fancy spice you were supposed to use.   As you can see from the photo, I also didn't end up with much liquid in my soup after the three hours (yes, you read that right!) of cooking time.

Despite all of that, this dish was really, really good.   It had heat, it had texture, and it had both meat and veg, making it a complete meal.  I used a ham bone to make my garbure, and the meat just fell off the bone, creating deeply satisfying, gelatinous goodness.

Because of the long cooking time, I probably won't make this again, but boy it was good to try once.  It was so delicious and satisfying - my kind of soup.

I also made Dorie's lemon curd:

This curd is great because it uses the whole egg (so there are no whites left over), and it is easy to make in a few minutes.  I made it to fill some cupcakes, but I have a pleasing amount left over to eat from the jar:

To see what the other Doristas thought of Garbure from the Supermarket, visit the LYL section of the website.  Next week, we have two toasties on the menu - oops, tartines.  Harry and Christo, eat your heart out.

Fig and Ginger Jam

The fruit man's fig tree has come to the end of its run, with autumn now well and truly upon us.  Sandra shared the last of the figs with Lee and I, and with mine, I decided to make fig and ginger jam to preserve those glorious figs for the long winter months.  (In Melbourne, it certainly doesn't get as cold as in parts of Europe and North America, but it doesn't really warm up again until November-December.)

My fig and ginger jam was inspired by this recipe on TahiniToo.  However, I didn't use as many figs (as I didn't have as many ;)), I left the skins on, and I upped the fruit:sugar ratio so that I didn't have to use pectin.  However, I did take on board all of their glorious flavours, including the addition of vanilla, cinnamon and of course, fresh grated ginger. The resulting jam was just marvellous - I could eat it by the spoon from the jar.

My recipe is as follows:

900g fresh figs, washed and stalks removed, mashed
600g white sugar
1" knob of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
zest of one lemon
juice of one lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Sterilise some glass jars and their lids by boiling them, or heating them in the oven at 180 degrees for 10 minutes (my preferred method).

Put all of the jam ingredients into a large, heavy-based saucepan, and bring to the boil over medium heat.  In the meantime, place a saucer in the freezer.  Once the ingredients have come to the boil, reduce the heat and continue simmering the ingredients ("a rolling boil") until they begin to thicken.  Test whether the jam is ready by taking your saucer out of the freezer and dropping a small amount of jam onto it - leave it for around 30 seconds, then run your finger through the jam (being careful not to burn yourself) - if the jam does not run back into the gap made by your finger, then it is ready.  Otherwise, if it is still runny, keep boiling the jam, but be careful not to overboil it or you will get candy.

Once the jam is ready, pour it into the sterilised glass jars (ideally you should fill them almost to the top to eliminate air), then seal.  Allow the jam to cool on the bench in the jars.

Enjoy your jam however you fancy and remind yourself of summer on a cold day.

Fig Jam

Every year, the fruit man at work shares his home-grown figs with the lucky person who collects the fruit from him each week.  As Karen has sadly moved on, Sandra, our receptionist, is now the lucky recipient of the figs.

I am lucky in that Sandra passed the figs on to me.  I decided that a great way to use the figs would be to make fig jam to preserve them for weeks to come.

The recipe that I used for fig jam comes from p227 of The Country Show Cookbook, and comes from Margaret Bradley from the Trundle Show.  The recipe is as follows:

1kg figs
750g white sugar

(I used 700g figs and 500g sugar)

Cut the thick, milky part of the fig stems off.  Place the whole figs (skin and all) in a large saucepan and cover them with water.  Simmer the figs until they are tender.

Drain the cooked figs, then mash them with a potato masher.  Pour the sugar on top of the figs, then boil the mixture until it reaches setting point.  (To tell this - put a saucer in the freezer; when you think the jam is ready, drop a small amount of teaspoon onto the frozen plate, put in the fridge for a couple of minutes, then run your finger through the jam on the plate.  If it doesn't run back in to fill in the track you made with your finger, it has reached setting point.)

Pour the jam into sterilised jars and seal.

Spread your jam on bread or cakes:

or just eat it out of the jar!

Passionfruit friands and lemon curd

Do you like friands?  I had not experienced the joy of a friand for a few years until this week, when I finally got around to making Kate McGhie's recipe for passionfruit friands from p4 of the Taste section of the Herald Sun, published 12 July 2011.  These buttery yet light little cakes are an absolute joy to eat, and the passionfruit pulp in Kate's version added contrasting tang and crunch. 

As you can see, my friands were left a tad too long in the oven:

however, they still tasted delicious, with the browner bits having a nice, caramelised crunch.

To make these friands, you will need:

5 egg whites (I had heaps in the freezer left over from making pastry)
76g self raising flour
200g icing sugar
125g almond meal
189g melted butter
2 passionfruit

friand or mini muffin moulds (Kate made 20, I got 12 in a regular sized 12 hole friand tin)

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius.  (I wonder was this a little hot - my large friands baked to a dark brown within 20 minutes at this temperature, so I suggest 180 degrees.)

Grease your muffin tin or friand tin well.  (I sprayed mine with cooking oil.)

Whisk the egg whites to the soft peak stage.

Sift the flour, icing sugar and almond meal over the egg whites.  (I find that almond meal is too coarse to sift, so I just added it after the flour and icing sugar.)

Pour the melted butter around the inner edges of the bowl, and add the passionfruit pulp.

Using a rubber spatula, carefully fold all of the ingredients together, being careful not to deflate the egg whites.

Spoon the batter into your friand moulds (I always find that an icecream scoop is perfect for this - it picks up around the right amount of batter and prevents spills.)

Bake the friands for 15 minutes in the oven (remember, this timing is for 20 small friands - I think that 15 minutes would have been enough for my 12 regular sized friands at this temperature, so keep an eye on them!) until the friands have risen and are springy in the middle when touched.

Remove the baked friands from the oven and allow them to cool for a few minutes in the tin before unmoulding.  Be careful when turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely - I ran a knife around the edge of mine, but still found that they stuck a little resulting in a few casualties.

Enjoy with a nice cuppa for arvo tea (as Sunday Reed was so fond of).    

I also made a half batch of Stephanie Alexander's lemon curd using the two egg yolks left over from my meringue making adventures earlier in the week:

Stephanie's recipe is my favourite lemon curd recipe - it has the right balance of tart and sweet, and doesn't end up sugary. (My brother, bless his heart, buys me home-made lemon curd every now and then from a market stall at Cabarlah, and it is always very grainy and sugary.)

You can enjoy this lemon curd with the friands, or spread on muffins, scones, or toast, as a cake filling, or as a sauce for icecream.  And it's a great way to use up any egg yolks left over from friand making!

Grapefruit marmalade

 

Jan from work recently gave me a huge bag full of grapefruit from her mother's tree.  They were very gratefully received, and my first thought as to what to make with them was grapefruit marmalade.

After flicking through  a few recipes, I chose to make Nigella Lawson's pink grapefruit marmalade from p351 of How To Be A Domestic Goddess, using ordinary grapefruit rather than pink grapefruit.  You can find the recipe online here.  This recipe won me over because it does not require the fruit to be soaked for 24 hours beforehand, and the whole of the fruit is used, pith and all.

The finished product is a rather bitey marmalade, despite the 1kg of sugar used in making it.  I assume that using the pith as well as the flesh and skin of the grapefruit added to the tartness.  However, if you like your marmalade to really zing, this is a good recipe to use, and it is a no fuss way to make marmalade.

Quince and Orange Jelly

The quince is one of the strangest fruits.  It is related to apples and pears, and looks like a strange overgrown yellow pear with downy "bum fluff" all over its skin.  Quinces must be peeled and cooked before being eaten, as the uncooked flesh is pale, woody, bitter and unyielding.  However, once cooked, the flesh becomes soft, dark pink and slightly tart.

I adore quince jelly and have always wanted to make my own.  When the opportunity arose to acquire some quinces, I was determined to make quince jelly.  Jelly is made using reduced fruit juice, as opposed to the whole fruit, like jam.

Flicking through my cookbooks, I found a recipe for quince and orange jelly in Greg and Lucy Malouf's Saraban - A Chef's Journey Through Persia.  I liked the idea of combining the flavours of quince and orange, so this is the recipe I went with.

I was surprised at how easy the jelly was to make.  It has to be made over a couple of days, as the boiled fruit must drain overnight and only the juice is used to make the jelly.  However, the jelly itself comes together quite easily.   The finished product is delicious, although I think the orange to some extent overwhelms the quince.  It can be enjoyed straight out of the jar (my preference!), or on crumpets, toast or icecream, or melted to make a glaze for pies and tarts.

To make your own quince and orange jelly, you will need:

1kg quince, washed and dried

1kg Seville oranges, peeled and pith removed

white sugar

Chop the quinces and oranges roughly.  The quinces do not have to be peeled or cored (which is a relief, because they are quite a challenge to peel and core!).  Put the fruit into a large, heavy based saucepan, cover with water, and bring to the boil.  Lower the heat and allow the fruit to simmer for 45 minutes or until the quinces are tender.

Strain the fruit overnight through muslin or a clean Chux wipe, catching the juice in a clean bowl.  Just allow the juices to drip through and don't press on the fruit to avoid the juices becoming cloudy.

The next day, measure how much juice you have collected, then pour it into a large heavy based saucepan.  For every 500ml of juice, add 400g of sugar to the pan.  Stir the juice and sugar mixture over low heat until the sugar has dissolved, then bring the mixture to the boil, and continue to boil it for ~ 25 minutes or until the jelly reaches setting point.  You test for setting point by chilling a saucer in the fridge, then dropping a small amount of jelly onto the chilled saucer and  running your finger through it.  If this causes the jelly on the plate to wrinkle, it is at setting point.

Remove the jelly from the heat and skim all the froth off the top.  Pour the jelly into sterilised glass jars (remove any labels and boil the jars and lids or heat them in the oven at 180 degrees for ten minutes or so) and seal the jars while still hot.  You should fill the jars so that there is only a small gap between the jelly and the lid to create the best seal.  Allow the jelly to cool in the jars.

The jelly will keep for 12 months, so you can enjoy it until next quince season.  Alternatively, you can share it with your friends, which is what I did (keeping a jar for me, of course).

Cauliflower mustard pickles

When I attended Regional Flavours recently, one of the stall holders was selling jams and cauliflower mustard pickle. Everyone was raving about the pickle, so I tried it too, despite it being visually rather repulsive to me (being cacky yellow). Boy, was I pleasantly surprised! It was delicious - just the right blend of sweet and sour to tickle my tastebuds.

When I mentioned the pickle to my Mum, she said that she used to make it. I honestly can't remember her making it, but it inspired me to have a crack at it myself.

Armed with a cauliflower, a bottle of white vinegar and some mustard, I looked up a recipe for cauliflower mustard pickle in the Schauer Fruit Preserving Book. (Later, I found a few recipes on the Internet that were a lot less vinegary - oh well, maybe next time!)

Because this recipe was in old measures, and I was only making a half batch, I had a guess at a lot of things, including how much cornflour to use as thickener. However, my pickles worked out OK in the end, and are delicious in corned beef sandwiches, where the salty meat and the sour pickles play off against each other.

To make your own cauliflower mustard pickles, you will need:

1/2 head large cauliflower, divided into florets
salt solution (50g salt dissloved in 500ml cold water)
500ml vinegar (recipe suggested malt vinegar; I used white vinegar)
1 tablespoon mustard (I used Masterfoods Australian mustard)
1/2 tablespoon turmeric
1/4 cup cornflour
extra cold vinegar

Soak the cauliflower in the salt solution overnight, then drain. Mix the cornflour with just enough vinegar to make a paste. In a large saucepan, combine the 500ml of vinegar, the mustard, the turmeric, and the cornflour paste, and bring to the boil. Add the salted cauliflower, reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes or until thickened. (You may need more or less cornflour; you need just enough to thicken the pickle.) Spoon the pickled cauliflower into sterilised glass jars (I used 2 x 300ml jars for this quantity of pickle).

Spread the pickle on thick, crusty bread in place of margarine, and top with corned beef, tomato and cheese, then toast in a sandwich maker - delicious!

Mixed berry jam

Greetings to everyone on this Good Friday, the holiest of holidays in the Christian calendar. I hope that you and your families are having a relaxing break.

I have moved out of my Melbourne apartment and I am currently "homeless", in that my furniture is in transit who knows where, and I have no keys to my apartment at the other end. I won't call it my "new" apartment, because I have lived there before - it is more of a homecoming, although I have lived in it over two stints that total less than the time I lived in Melbourne.

It hadn't been part of my life plan to come "home" yet, so over the summer, I busily stocked up on berries while they were cheap and plentiful and froze them to last me over the long, grey, cold, non-berry season. When I had to move, I knew I couldn't just take the frozen berries as is with me (which is such a shame!). However, I couldn't bear to part with my hard-won berry booty, so I decided to make jam with it. I was awfully surprised at how many berries I had stored - I had over a kilo of them in 125g punnets!

Here are my beautiful berries (raspberries, blackberries and blueberries) sitting in the pot waiting to be transformed into jam:

and here is the jam mid-"rolling boil" before it reached setting point:

In theory, jam making is easy - boil up equal parts of jam and sugar together with the juice of a lemon until it reaches setting point, then pour into sterilised jars and seal. However, I have never been able to get the setting point right. Of course, this was only the second time I have tried to make jam (if you discount my failed attempt at making microwave chilli jam), and both times I have overboiled the jam, so that I end up with a very thick, if very delicious, paste that is rather hard to spread easily without warming it first. Oh well, it helped me to preserve my precious berries so that I can continue to enjoy them in my new home. I also figure that too thick is better than too thin - who wants to put berry coulis on their crumpet?

Happy Easter everyone!

Lime curd

After the Daring Bakers Opera Cake challenge, I had a large number of egg yolks (6!!) left over. I didn't want to use them to make even more desserts, given my groaning fridge was already full of them, so I chose to make lime curd instead.

After Googling for a curd recipe which used six egg yolks, I came up with the following recipe, which came from here at the I Love Desserts section of GlobalGourmet.com:

1/3 cup lime juice
6 egg yolks
1 tablespoon cornflour
125g butter, cubed
1 cup sugar
zest of 3 limes

Combine the lime juice and cornflour in a small saucepan. Add the sugar, zest, and egg yolks, and mix well. Place the saucepan over a larger saucepan of simmering water, and whisk the curd mixture until it is thick. Add the butter slowly in small pieces, combining between additions. Once the butter has been mixed in, remove the saucepan from the heat and spoon the curd into a bowl. Press clingwrap onto the surface of the curd and chill in the refrigerator.

Lime curd can be enjoyed in so many ways - as a spread on toast, muffins, crumpets etc, as a filling for cakes and desserts, or straight out of the bowl! This curd has a lovely tart edge to it, which I prefer to the creamier curds, and contrasts nicely with the sweet blandness of a crumpet - my favourite way to enjoy it.