Preserved Cherries

The short season nears the end and I always start to think about holding on to the last offerings as one of the summer's most delightful sights goes.  The cherry tree brings us glorious cherry blossom in spring.  The Japanese revere this tree, with the blossom being their national flower, they celebrate the spring blossom, honouring the custom of Hanami, by way of blossom viewing picnics.  I can only reserve faint hope for us being that sensitively atuned to nature's rythyms that we engage in blossom picnics........ it feels a long, long way off!

So, this very simple recipe preserving cherries in eau de vie and syrup will be a welcome treat in the winter with some ice cream or to add to a simple geonoa cake with cream.  The cherry infused eau de vie will be good too I suspect......

• Cherries
• Sugar syrup (2 thirds sugar, 1 third water, boiled and simmered)
• Eau de vie

1. Wash, dry and sort the cherries discarding any blemished ones.
2. Pack into a steralised jar.
3. Pour one third cold sugar syrup and two thirds eav de vie.
4. Cover and leave for at least 3 months.

Gooseberry Chutney

Gooseberries are with us for a very short while and so the temptation to preserve them is all the more stronger.  The tartness of gooseberries goes very well with fish, especially oily fish.  Here's a very easy recipe.

• 1.5Kg Gooseberries (topped and tailed)
• 500gm diced onions chopped small
• 450ml cider vinegar
• 270ml water
• 500gms soft brown sugar
• 1Tablespoon  ground ginger
• Half teaspoon cayenne pepper

1. Place  the gooseberries, onions, vinegar and water in a pan and cook until soft.
2. Add the sugar and  spices and bring to the boil, about 30/40 minutes.
3. When thickened pour into steralised jars.

Elderflower Cordial, The Essence of Summer - Cinderella goes to the ball.

Elderflowers in their first flush, shimmering like Cinderella's dress at the Prince's ball

The flowers infusing

The elderflowers have been bursting into millions of tiny white flowers and with the floral erruption comes a sweet and heady scent. Brilliantly white and shimmering delicately, they are the fabric of Cinderella's dress at the ball. The Domestic Fairy Godmother can transform Cinderella's dazzling dress into a summer drink which is the definition of summer itself.

In their first flush the smell is delightfully fragrant, but within a few weeks this delight is lost and just as Ciderella's glass coach turns back to a pumpkin, so the sweetness turns to a rather foul cat's pee aroma...... From the Prince's ball, back to the cinders of the fireplace.

But Cinders can go to the ball, and the magic captured for the rest of the year......... The Domestic Fairy Godmother waves her wand.

On a sunny May afternoon, I picked elderflowers on Hampstead Heath. Clearly a forager and safe person, about 6 people stopped to ask me the way to the here and there. It was like walking with a dog and small child, you're alright. Numerous people asked me what I was doing and how to make it and we chatted about steralising bottles, sugar/water ratio and general delights of elderflowers.

Of the few ingredients for the recipe, you will need some citric acid which you will find from the pharmacist's counter.

So here is the recipe.

The most important ingredient is a happy forage.

• 20 heads of freshly flowering elderflowers
• 1.2 litres water
• 1 kilo sugar
• 50gms citric acid
• 2 lemons

1. Shake the elderflower heads to get any tiny insects out.
2. Boil the water, add the sugar to disolve.
3. Clean the lemons and pare the rind, slice the lemons.
4. Add everything together and pour on the sugar water.
5. Cover either with a lid or a tea towel and leave to infuse.
6. Stir twice a day for 5 days.

You really don't need to do 5 days, I am trying it this way this year. But a good 24 hours is essential. 48 even better.

Bottle into steralised glass bottles or plastic bottles. Elderflower cordial freezes very well.

You will taste the summer.

Monks Beard or Agretti

Agretti or Monks Beard

Blanched in boiling water and dressed with olive oil and lemon juice

Monks beard, or  agretti as it is also known,  comes from Tuscany and its very short season is with us now and only around for about 5 weeks.

The fine spindly stalks are like a smooth samphire.  They are a relation of the chicory family.

This is one  of those ingredients where the less you do the better.  The Italians will typically serve simply with lemon juice, oil and salt after a brief dipping in boiling water and then chilling in cold water.  

That is precisely what I did and it was fabulous.  With so few ingredients enhancing this delicate and rarified ingredient, it's worth using the best all round.  I used Cornish Sea Salt and a single estate Italian oil, which all conspire to the guaranteed results of simple, seasonal, best you can get your hands on school of cooking.

Mark Hix recommends serving it with fish.  With such a strong similarity to samphire, you can see why.  Adding to salad is another option.  I can't help but think such a rare commodity deserves more status than being a part of a salad.  Besides, it can't go unsaid that basically, it tastes like grass, and reminded me of when I did eat grass as a child (perhaps a baby, but the deep recesses of taste memory vault were visited).

On further research one can pickle the monks beard, which will be my next weeks work.