Preserving Archives - I THINK THEREFORE I JAM

Caponata

a mozaic mezze with aubergine pulling everything together

With its sweet and sour “agrodolce” sauce cloaking a medley of olive-oil-fried aubergine, assorted veg and piquant olives and capers, Caponata is a halfway house between English chutney and Turkish “Zeytinyağlı Sebze”; olive oil poached vegetable mezzes.

I like to use it as a vehicle for late Autumn scavengings of markets and lucky gifts from friends with gardens and no two batches are ever the same! I like to think Sicily, its homeland, approves of this opportunistic make-do approach.

Roast Plum Compote

Easy roast plums with rosemary and cinnamon which bottle beautifully

This is a very simple way to relish end-of-summer plums and capture that dusky, rich flavour for darker days. Roasting seems to do something to concentrate the flavour as well as rendering the flesh creamy-smooth and the skins pleasantly chewy. I add rosemary and cinnamon, sometimes lemon or orange rind. Plums do vary in their tartness so the sugar quantity here is a guide. You can eat them all as simple roasted fruit or go on and bottle them – I generally eat some and bottle some!

Eat them cold or warmed a little with yoghurt, creme fraiche or good old custard. Make breakfast bowls with museli or serve them with syrniki – sweet cheese pancakes. Use as instant crumble, cobbler and pie filling – this compote really is super versatile and easy to use.

For bottling them you do need to create enough syrup (and allow for ahem…sampling!) I add some sugar and a little water to create a light syrup that is so heavenly I find myself drinking it “cough-medicine” style by itself! Roasting = lazy; I roast on a low heat slowly and gently and check occasionally in between doing other things.

“Tarhana” – the art of culinary resurrection

Possibly the world’s most ancient convenience food, this is preserving genius, relying on fermentation, patience, sunshine and nothing else. Take the bounty of summer (tomatoes, peppers, onions and herbs), ferment with yoghurt, flour and herbs and dry it in the sun. Smash it into granules and store in a dry place until you want to bring it back to life.

Come winter all you need to do is rehydrate your tarhana and all those cultures spring back to life dessert flower like. Add some tomato/pepper concentrated puree (“salcası”), a bit of garlic and some stock and you have a pretty instant, extremely nutritious and very satisfying “tarhana soup“.