Bottled Fruit: Belgian Pears recipe
I breezed onto the internet just now to see entries for Belgian Pears. I thought that they could be a traditional dessert. Well, in Belgium, they are not. Which is a shame, as anyone, from the Belgians to the Bengalese would love this dessert. Forget any memory of dull bottled fruit. This wonderful concoction just happens to be preserved in a jar. We tend to include this for dinner parties when we’re feeling under pressure. Many jars of this superb non-alcoholic scrumptiousness are patiently sitting in our barn, waiting to be opened and...
read moreSweet Chestnut Jam recipe. Storing sweet chestnuts
I always associate sweet chestnuts with late autumn. And darkness. As a child, there were men on street corners selling chestnuts from glowing braziers, piling them into tiny paper bags. I always wanted my mother to buy them for us. And when she did, I didn’t like them. I’d peel one as we walked along, hoping that I’d suddenly find them delicious. But I never did. The floury texture put me off. I think I probably forced one down as it was the ritual that I liked. Watching the man rake the nuts across the grid, the warmth of...
read moreSunday Roast: How To Make Perfect Crispy Roast Potatoes in Goose Fat recipe
Good potatoes make decent roast potatoes. Great crispy roast potatoes are cooked in goose fat. We discovered this when we had a surfeit of goose fat knocking about in the fridge. Until a month ago, I used to feel a bit guilty about using goose fat. Even so, I secretly looked forward to the highlight of the Sunday roast – crisp, soft centred, irresistible, golden roast potatoes. Imagine my delight last month when I discovered that goose fat is the healthiest of animal fats. It’s high in healthy mono and polyunsaturated fatty acids...
read moreDesign and print your own labels for jam and jelly
I’ve wanted to print our own jar labels for ages. Ever since I saw a cupboard full of beautifully labelled preserves in a client’s house. It’s the old problem of finding the time to buy, design and print the labels. A month or so ago I whizzed down to Newmarket to buy some labels for our chutney. I’ve been buying them from one of those shops that sells absolutely everything and consequently good fun to visit. They run out of these labels pretty fast so I was delighted when I spotted them on a rack. But I was horrified...
read morePear and Lemon Jam Recipe
I spent ages trying to find a recipe for pear jam without success. One day moseying in the recipe section of Waitrose, I spotted a copy of the best selling Italian cook book The Silver Spoon. Leafing through the pages I found a recipe for pear jam. It was hard to justify buying yet another cookbook, so I memorised the ingredients. Somewhere between Waitrose and our kitchen I added one more. I made an excellent jam, not too sweet. A lemony taste with tiny explosions of pear. Everyone that tasted it wanted the recipe. It’s our favourite...
read moreCream of Pumpkin Soup recipe
This pumpkin has been languishing on the windowsill for the last week. Not waiting to be changed into a coach for one of our min pins but to be transformed into a vicious head to ward off the Halloween daemons. Halloween has become a vast industry in Britain. Party and toy shops bulge with decorations and the means to disguise the most innocent looking toddler into a vampire, witch or the sort of half eaten zombie that would not be welcome at your average convention of ghouls. The children in the house where I’m working have already...
read moreThe soufflé omelette recipe
We make this omelette as a treat for each other. We call it The Souflette. If we are cooking for children we always make this for their supper as they love the crisp outside and the super fluffy melt in the mouth centre. At the moment I am working down in Saffron Walden at my friend Clare’s house. She made this omelette for her children’s supper. When her husband Mike sampled it, he insisted that she cooked the same for their supper. Once you’ve tried this recipe, rubbery omelettes will never darken your kitchen door...
read moreGrape Jam Recipe
About fifteen years ago my mother travelled to New York. As an arty, fashion-conscious type, she enjoyed the galleries, the cafés the shops. She returned with marvellous presents but the one thing that has stuck in my mind was her description of grape jam, or “jelly” as it is referred to in America. Last Sunday, Anne Mary and I both decided to make grape jam. This was a first for me. A mutual friend had sent round bulging carrier bags of grapes to both our houses. We conferred on the grape/sugar ratio and discussed the major...
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