Sea Buckthorn (“catina”) & Orange Seedless Jam

Iridescent magic with good butter and home made bread….

Catina berries (and the Romanian word is just so much prettier and less cumbersome so I have adopted it) are available on roadside stalls and in markets all over Romania in the autumn. They are the European Goji berry and when cooked (being pretty revolting raw unless doused liberally in honey ) take on slightly passion fruity flavours. I like how they respond well to a touch of citrus but not so much as to overpower the pure catina flavour.

i decided to apply the same method as for seedless redcurrant jam, something we Brits confusingly call redcurrant jelly…. I was very pleased with the results. I am still tinkering around with adding some apple puree and juice and will see how that works out – for now this is the neat version…in all senses.

Gadgets and Gizmos

The food mill really does make a difference. Hard to think how else to make a good puree. The seeds are pretty big and bitter so blitzing would be a disaster.

Ingredients

a quantity of catina (sea buckthorn) berries – 3kg will yield approx 20-24 medium jars

1 orange – juice and zest

sugar – probably 2.5kg but you need to weigh your fruit pulp…all in the How To

How To

1. Boil your berries lightly in just enough water to cover them. Approximately 20 minutes

2. Pass them through a food mill to obtain a puree with the water they were boiled in.

3. Weigh the resulting puree and add the orange juice but not the zest.

4. Add the same weight of sugar as your puree.

5. Boil to obtain a set. See The Jam Making Rules.

6. Add the orange zest

7. Jar in hot sterilised jars.

Fragrant Poached Quinces & Quince Jelly

The colour red

Quinces being a member of the rose family are naturally perfumed so to add aromatics to them might seem a little too much but this works beautifully – the star anise, the vanilla, the bay and the cinnamon all accentuating the quinces natural flavour.

I used to go to a restaurant in Beyoglu in Istanbul where the bottled poached quince were stacked up in enormous jars to last the winter and where they were used for the simple but delicious “kaymakli ayva tatlisi” (poached quinces in sugar syrup served with buffalo clotted cream). This was the inspiration behind my fragrant version and my “Bosphorous Afternoon Tea”…. these quinces, fresh scones, little glasses of dark sweet Turkish tea, “kaymak” and that view. Magic.

And as for that colour? how can something that starts off looking like an apple and a hard unforgiving apple at that end up a deep crimson red? The quince is unique in that it responds well to “over” cooking and in fact changes colour as it cooks. The longer it cooks the deeper the colour.

Ingredients

2kgs quinces (if they are furry just rub the fur off with a damp cloth)
1 kg sugar
2 litres of water
4 star aniseed
2 cinnamon batons
2 vanilla sticks
2 bay leaves

Gadgets & Gizmos

A casserole dish or heavy bottomed saucepan with a well fitting lid.

How To

Set the oven to 150C
Peel the quinces and halve them. Remove the core or if you want to you can do this part later when the fruit is soft.
DO NOT THROW AWAY THE SKIN AND CORE! put that all in with the fruit as this is full of valuable pectin!
Put all the ingredients in the pan and bring to the boil
Once the mixture has boiled place in the oven
Check periodically on the colour and softness. They are done when they are a nice rosy red and a knife slices through easily. Approx 4-6 hours. they are better if left overnight as they will take on more of the aromatics. Use to make a crumble, tarte tatin or just eat with cream the Turkish way or ice cream or custard or yoghurt.

KEEP THE SYRUP THAT YOU DO NOT EAT COMPLETE WITH THE PEEL AND CORES TO MAKE JELLY.

Quince Jelly

This jelly already has some sugar added as it started life as a light 2:1 syrup. Quinces are higher in pectin than even apples so now we can take this syrup and add some water. here is my recipe for this particular syrup made from the poached fruit.

Measure the syrup from the poached fruit. Lets say you have 500ml of syrup.

Add 75% of the quantity of water. This would be 375ml.

Add the juice of 1 lemon (strictly not necessary from the pectin point of view but I like how citrus adds bright notes to jams and jellies) for every litre approx of juice and also keep the zest for the same reason.

Add 80% sugar to your liquid. here you would add 80% x 875 so 700g sugar

Boil until setting point – see Jam Sessions – Rules for making jam

Add the lemon zest just before potting in hot sterilised jars.

You will have a beautiful bright fragrant jelly.

Cream of Roast Red Pepper & Smoked Paprika Soup

Luscious smoky and sweet

I love roast red peppers and their smoky sweet flavour in all their guises and this soup takes them to a sophisticated new height. Roasting red peppers of course accentuates their flavour and although skinning and de seeding them is a bid fiddly I think the results are so worthwhile it is one of those steps really worth doing. Smoked paprika adds yet more smokiness and depth – worth a shopping trip to la Boqueria for.

Ingredients – serves 8 generously and some to freeze

20 quite fat sweet peppers (they do shrink down to nothing)
1 large chopped onion (red or white) and some olive oil to fry them in lightly
2 or three cloves of garlic
1.5 litres stock (I like chicken but a vegetable one is fine and you will not be judged for using ready made)
500 ml double cream (thats “heavy cream” in ‘Merica or “smantana dulce” in Romania)
3 teaspoons sweet smoked paprika – I like the sweet one not the hot one in this recipe
2 bay leaves
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Gadgets & Gizmos

A stick blender or blender, Fairly large saucepan, Baking tray

Plan Ahead

Roast the peppers and skin them ahead of time, freeze them and have them handy for recipes like this.

How To

Bake the red peppers at 180C on baking trays lined with aluminium foil or baking paper until they blacken. This is what gives the smoky taste. They really do need to look a bit cremated – fear not!

To remove the skins of the peppers place them in a large plastic freezer bag when still warm (this helps the skins loosen from the pepper flesh). Strip of the skins and remove the seeds. It’s a fairly messy process and depending on how seedy your peppers are you may need to hold them under running water. You should end up with pieces of red pepper flesh. Personally I prefer to have a few seeds in and not use running water because this keeps all the flavour concentrated in.

Cut the and onion into rough cubes. Finely chop the garlic. Fry gently in a little oil until the onion is just cooked (5-8 minutes) but not browned and it remains translucent. Add the smoked paprika. You want a bright coloured soup not a muddy brown colour here. Add the red pepper flesh, the bay leaves and and the stock. Simmer for 10-20 minutes until all the flavours have mixed and the soup is very hot.

Remove the bay leaves. Really! Blitzed bay leaves are bitter and horrible! Blitz the soup until it’s a thin puree like consistency. Now add the cream – here I had some really good local sweet cream I had found.

Now heat again very gently until hot. If this soup splits (the peppers might be a tad acidic but the roasting should take care of that) then add 1 teaspoon of cornflour thinned in 2 tablespoons of milk.

Serve with smoked paprika sprinkled on top or chives or a generous amount of chopped parsley. I also like it topped with (vegans look away) crispy smoked bacon or chorizo. Add your favourite bread and a glass of hearty red wine. Enjoy!