Cherry Stone Wine Cooler

when life gives you cherry pits….

Half a glass of the cherry stone wine, a healthy slurp of prosecco, ice and orange slices. Delish! This is way nicer than Sangria.

I’ve read John McEnroe’s autobiography “Serious” and in it he details the simple pleasure of chopping up breakfast fruit for his kids. I like to think he would welcome the simple frugality of this seasonal wine cooler and pour it over fresh fruit and sup it in the commentary box and shout out instead “This is the pits”…in a good way. Because if JM can mellow there is hope for all of us. When temperatures head towards 40C its time to drink sensibly ie things with prosecco and a lot of ice and soda in. This clever cooler has a tangy astringency because of the cherry leaves that you macerate in the wine mix. Here is how this came into being…

Firstly there was a lot of sour cherry jam making going on…

which meant a surfeit of cherry stones…or pits if you is American. That bothered me. I don’t like throwing food away. Then the ladies told me about Romanian pickles flavoured with cherry leaves. Then I thought about how the stones of apricots and cherries left in liqueurs and jams permeate them with soft mellow flavours. And so this little concoction was born.

Here is how to make your own version…but follow your instincts and what you have in your spice cupboard to personalise your own summer wine cooler.

Gadgets & Gizmos

A big jar. A dose of patience – about a week. uffff

Ingredients

3 litres of quite dodgy red wine. Those semi sweet bottles that you were given as a gift and cant bring yourself to throw away are just perfect.

A slug of vodka

a couple of spoonfuls of sugar unless using the really very dodgy wine as above

quite a few red peppercorns

a big handful of cherry stones/ pits

quite a few cherry leaves (washed)

How To

Mix all ingredients together and leave for a week

Drink within the next 2-4 weeks, with a lot of ice and a slice or two of orange.

Cardamon & Star Anise Preserved Pears

delicately spiced these store cupboard gems will lead you on all kinds of culinary journeys….

3 Kilos of hard pears (must be hard)
2 lemons – juiced (do save the zest for other things – freeze it)
450g sugar
2 litres water
2 – 4 star anise
4 – 6 cardamom pods
2 sticks cinnamon
2 bay leaves

gadgets & gizmos

One very large jar or several smaller jars. I often make them “serving size” so think about your family and choose jars that will take say 2 or 4 or 6 half pears as a half pear is a good serving guide.

How To

Acidulate a bowl of water with the juice of the lemons. Dont forget this step as this keeps the pears a beautiful bright colour by halting the oxidation process. Plus we will recycle this lemony water into the syrup!
Peel, core, and quarter the pears. This is tedious and as the pears are hard they can be a tad difficult to peel. Add them to the acidulated water as soon as you peel and core a portion of pear.
In a large saucepan add the sugar, acidulated water, and spices. Bring to a boil quite fast because the pear pieces can only sit around so long outside the lemon bath. As soon as a little vapour rises from the syrup plunge the pears into the syrup. Let come to a boil again, cook for 5 minutes.
Pack the jars with the pears. This is where you can indulge your inner pear packing nerd and stack them up neatly. In fact the bigger the jars the easier this is. I insert just one or two star anise and cardamon pods inside. Pears have a subtle flavour and we dont want to overwhelm them.

Pour the remaining syrup over the pears to cover, leaving a little space approx 1cm of headroom from the tops of the jars. Put on the lids.
Now water bath them and this is important. If you do not do this they may ferment and they certainly will not keep at room temperature. Either use a bain marie or better for tall jars, your biggest deepest saucepan. Boil in water for 20 minutes.

Leave for a few days to let the syrup infuse.

Ideas and Improvs

Use in crumbles, in frangipane tarts, with a vanilla tart, to acompany blue cheese or just served with a delicious home made custard laced with brandy in winter to warm you up!

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.