The last of the apples

Among the chillies I grew this year was a yellow variety called Hot Lemon from Nicky’s Seeds. It lived up to its name, ripening from emerald green to a bright lemon yellow, a punchily hot flavour and, yes, a distinctly citrusy tang.

I had thought my final apple jelly might be a spicy version with cinnamon, cloves and maybe some ginger, but then remembering the success of the red chilli jelly I made last year based on Nigella Lawson’s recipe, I decided a clear clean sharp lemon version using these chillies might be the best way to use them.

It took a couple of goes to get it right – my first attempt was visually stunning, a shimmering pale yellow, looking more like Roses’ Lime Marmalade, but the set was too weak. Once the liquor was boiled down to a good set, the colour was more amber than lemon, but the taste is there – hot, sweet and crystal sharp all at the same time.

Lemon chilli jelly

150ml cider vinegar

750ml water

Juice of 4 lemons

1½kg cooking apples

600ml juice

450g sugar

1 large yellow pepper

150g yellow chillies, eg, Hot Lemon, or Aji Amarillo

Put all the liquid ingredients in a large pan. Roughly chop the apples – do not peel or core, but discard any bruised, damaged or holed bits – and add to the pan. Bring to the boil and simmer for around 45 minutes, stirring and squishing the apples from time to time.

Let the mixture cool a little, then strain through a jelly bag or butter muslin overnight. Do not try to speed the process up by squeezing or pushing the liquid through the fabric, or the resulting liquid will make a cloudy jelly. Just let it drip.

The next day, measure out your juice into a large pan. For each 600ml juice, add 450g sugar, and heat, gently at first to dissolve the sugar, then turn the heat up so that the mixture can boil hard. Meanwhile, core and deseed the pepper, removing any white pith and cut into large pieces. Cut the stalks off the chillies, slice in half lengthways and remove the seeds and core. Put the pepper pieces and chillies into a food processor and blitz until well minced.

Back to the jelly - when the setting point has been reached, skim the surface very carefully to leave the liquid clear, then add the minced chilli and pepper pieces. Leave the jelly to cool in the pan until it is just beginning to solidify, then ladle into sterilised jars, seal and label.

Apple glut III

We had our first frost of the autumn this week so everything needs to be safely gathered in rather earlier than usual this year. I still have two rows of pink fir apple potatoes in the ground, the chillies are still ripening and the large white beans - the fabes de granja, which are very late this year anyway – won’t make it to maturity before it gets too cold, I think.

So the kitchen is looking rather full at the moment. Pumpkins and squashes curing on the sunniest shelf; the last of the tomatoes stubbornly remaining green on a wide plate in the window, a big bowl of quinces, a netted bag of borlotti beans drying out and strings of shallots and garlic from earlier in the summer. And I’m still working my way through the apples.

We are two jellies down and one to go. The apple and rosewater jelly has a beautiful floral fragrance and is a shimmery pale gold in colour. I was surprised how little rosewater was needed to lift the jelly – just two teaspoonfuls to 2l of apple juice.

Apple and rosewater jelly

First make the apple juice:

5-6lb cooking apples

300ml apple vinegar or cider vinegar

250ml lemon juice (that’s six lemons, the way I squeeze them)

1.2l water

Wash/rinse the apples. Put the vinegar and lemon juice in a very large pan. Roughly chop the apples and add them to the juice. Don’t peel or core them, but do remove any stalk and bad bits.

Add the water and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and simmer for about 45 minutes until the apples are very mushy.

While the apples are simmering, rig up your jelly bag. I used to tie jelly bags up with string and suspend them from cupboard doors, until we refurbished the kitchen and I found that none of the cupboard door handles are high enough – there isn’t enough clearance between the handle and the worktop to suspend a jelly bag with a bowl underneath.

I’ve resorted to the time-honoured method of upending one kitchen chair on another. The bowl to catch the juice sits in the (inverted) seat of the chair, then I tie a big  metal colander by its handles to each upside-down chair leg, so that the colander hangs high over the bowl. The jelly bag sits in the colander – in fact, it’s not really a jellybag, just a very large piece of butter muslin, draped over the sides of the colander.

Ladle the appley mush and all its liquor into the butter muslin and leave to drip overnight. Don’t be tempted to help it along by stirring it or pushing at it  - this will make the resulting jelly cloudy, so just let it drip.

Next day:

Get some jars together and sterilise them by washing in very hot soapy water, rinsing in very hot water and then drying/warming them, on their sides in an oven heated to 120 degrees. They can sit happily in the oven while you get on with the rest of the jelly, I find it impossible to estimate at this stage how many jars I need, so I always wash and sterilise what looks to me like far too much.

Measure out how much juice you have, and pour into a very large pan. Then (this is so much easier in imperial measurement), for every pint of apple juice in the pan, add 1lb sugar. Next add 2 teaspons of rosewater. Heat the juice and sugar slowly at first, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Taste the juice and add a little more rosewater if you think the taste is very faint. Once happy with that, raise the heat to bring it to the boil. Once boiling, boil hard.

Apple juice doesn’t take long to set. Start testing after five minutes, then every 2-3 minutes after that. Spoon out 2 teaspoonsful of juice from the pan on to a saucer. Leave for a minute or so to cool a bit, then push a forefinger through the middle of the juice puddle. When the mixture wrinkle as you push the finger through, and the juice won’t flow back to meet in the middle again in your finger’s slipstream, you have reached a set. Turn off heat and skim the surface of the jelly. Retrieve the warmed jars and ladle the jelly into them – I use a strainer as well if there still some floating bits in the jelly. Seal the jars and leave to cool.

Apple jelly with a hint of mint also works. I wanted to keep the mint reasonably subtle rather than producing a green sludge, and also I over-enthusiastically threw the chopped mint leaves into the jelly *before* I skimmed it. So when I did skim it, I ended up removing quite a lot of mint as well. Ahem.

But, you know what? It’s prettier, and the flavour isn’t overpowering. I think I might prefer it.

Apple jelly with a hint of mint

Apple juice as above

Sugar, as above

A large handful, maybe two large handfuls, of mint.

Remove the stalks from the mint and chop finely. Make the apple juice and jelly as above (though minus the rosewater, obviously) and when it reaches setting point, turn off the heat and skim the jelly meticulously. Leave for about five minutes. Add the chopped mint and stir well. Leave the jelly again and then stir to make sure that the mint is being held in suspension in the jelly and not all rising up to the top.

Ladle into jars as before, and seal. Leave to cool and keep an eye on them. If the mint leaves are all huddling together, invert the jars for a minute or so to let the mint flecks resettle.

Apple glut II

I have two carrier bags full of apples, mostly cookers, waiting hopefully in the kitchen at present. That’s too much apple and rosewater sorbet for me to think about, so instead I’m going to make apple jellies.

Or at least, I’m going to think about making a few different apple jellies. What I’ll get going with straightaway is turning 10kg of apples into the apple juice that will form the base for the jelly. Once I have the basic juice it will keep in the fridge for a few days, or if I run seriously short of inspiration, it will freeze. Or I can make cider.

Apple jelly is particularly versatile: tasty enough to eat on its own as a spread or with meat, but also good to add flavour and consistency to gravy, and sauces, for deglazing the pan after cooking meats. With a high pectin content, it will help to set jellies whose main flavouring ingredient doesn’t contain pectin – chilli jelly, mint jelly, for example.

As well as an unadulterated apple jelly, which should set to a beautiful clear amber colour, I’d like a warm spiced version – perhaps with cloves and/or ginger, and in contrast something lighter, possibly floral. I have a recipe for apple and geranium jelly in The National Trust's book Jams, Preserves & Edible Gifts, by Sara Paston-Williams, and since I don’t have any geraniums, I wonder if the rest of that rosewater might do stand-in duty for the geraniums.

I also like the idea of adding a hint of thyme; rosemary appeals as well but I think it would be easy to make it rather overpowering.

Things to do with chillis

November 10, 2009: I grow chillis in my back garden in tubs - three plants to a tub. Even in poor summers, they produce a crop which provides me with plenty of chillis to keep us going over winter and into the next year, and enough to share with family and friends as well. This year, I grew four varieties: Cayenne, Joe's Long Cayenne (and they were long - up to 6inches); Numex Twilight and Fiesta. The last two look like little chilli-coloured bullets and are much hotter than the others.

In previous years I have tried jalapenos (reliable but a trifle dull), orange cayenne and Big Sun; I'm also looking for some dwarf varieties for next year.

What I like about growing chillis, apart from the fact that they are very attractive plants and ridiculously easy to grow, is that you never really have a glut that's overwhelming. There are lots of things you can do with chillis and they keep well on the plant or in the bottom of the fridge while you find time to hang them up or make that jelly.

Pickled chillis

A straightforward pickling recipe from Jamie Oliver’s Naked Chef. He stipulates medium green chillis; I use this recipe for my little bullet-shaped flavour bombs. They lose their colour a little bit in the brine, but none of their flavour.

600g chillis

15 black peppercorns

5 bay leaves

2 tbsp coriander seeds

5 tsps salt

6 heaped tbsps caster sugar

1l white wine vinegar or rice vinegar

Sterilise a large jar by washing, then rinsing, in very hot soapy water. Then leave the jars to dry in the oven at 120 degrees. (Jamie doesn’t say you should do this; I always think, why not?)

Carefully score the chillis from the stalk end to the tip one one side only and remove the seeds (use the handle of a teaspoon for this). Pour boiling water over the chillis, let them sit for 5 mins, then drain. This will get rid of most of the seeds left behind.

Next put your black peppercorns, bay leaves, coriander, chillis and salt into a large jar or other airtight container. Put the sugar and the vinegar into a pan and heta until the sugar is fully dissolved. When this is quite hot but not boiling, pour into the jar with the chillis. Allow it to cool down nd then put the lid on, put into the fridge and lave for a minimum of two weeks before using, They will keep in the fridge for at least 4 months. (Mine keep for over a year, by which time I‘ve eaten them all.)

Pickled plums with chillis

You get two for the price of one here: hot pickled plums and sweet pickled chillis

20 plums

10 whole red chillis

250ml white wine or cider vinegar

400ml water

300g sugar

5 bay leaves

2 star anise

2 cloves

½ teasp chilli powder or chilli flakes (optional)

1 teasp salt

Sterilise jars by washing, then rinsing, in very hot soapy water. Then leave the jars to dry in the oven at 120 degrees.

Wash the plums, dry them, cut in half lengthways and remove the stones. Wash and dry the chillis, trim the stalks and pierce the chillis a few times.

Heat the vinegar, water, sugar, spices and salt in a pan. Pack the plums, chillis and bay leaves evenly among the jars. When the pickling liquor comes to the boil, remove from the heat and pour into the jars. Stir the jars with a clean spoon to let any trapped air escape, the seal the jars and cover. Leave to cool, then put into the fridge.

Frozen chillis

Destalk the chillis and remove the seeds if you wish. Chop roughly and put in the goblet of a blender with a little water to help swish them along. Blend until you have a rough puree. Squash the pulp into ice cube trays and freeze, then pop the cubes into polythene freezer-proof bags. Every time you want a chilli hit, you can either use a whole cube or chip a bit off as required.

Dried chillis

Thread a needle with ordinary sewing thread and tie the ends in a knot so that you have a double strand to sew with. Then thread the chillis together – just push the needle through the stalk of each chilli. Once you have your chilli ‘chain’, hang it up somewhere with plenty of airflow. Mine are suspended from the top of the kitchen cabinets immediately above the cooker hood. Then every time you want a chilli, just snip one off with scissors.

These keep for months, although they will lose colour a little bit.

Chilli jelly

This is based on Nigella Lawson’s beautiful chilli-flecked jelly or jam, the recipe for which is published in her Christmas book and also at http://www.nigella.com/recipe/recipe_detail.aspx?rid=20157. I say based on because the first time I tried it, it needed longer than the 10-minute boil that Nigella stipulates and I ended up finding it easier to test for a set the traditional way, even though Nigella says this is all too difficult and time-consuming (no, it isn’t). Since then I have also used apple juice as well as water as the base liquor which I think gives it a deeper, more fruity flavour – without being obviously appley. But I love having the fragments of chilli suspended in the jelly in the way that Nigella suggests, so this recipe is a mixture of hers and my own.

150g long fresh red chillies.

150g red peppers

1kg jam sugar

475ml cider, apple or white wine vinegar

2 apples

300ml water

Juice of one lemon

Squeeze the lemon juice into a large pan. Add 75ml of the vinegar. Chop the apples roughly – no need to peel or core them – and add to the pan along with the water. Bring to the boil and simmer for an hour. Strain overnight through a jellybag, leaving the liquid to drip through into a bowl underneath. You should end up with about 250ml apple juice.

Next day, sterilise your jars by washing them in very hot soapy water, rinsing in very hot water then leaving to dry in the oven at 120 degrees.

Deseed the chillis and cut into about four pieces. Core and deseed the red peppers and cut into rough chunks. Put the cut-up chillies into a food processor and pulse until they are finely chopped. Add the chunks of red pepper and pulse again until you have a vibrantly red-flecked processor bowl.

Dissolve the sugar in the rest of the vinegar in a wide, medium-sized pan over a low heat without stirring. Add 250ml apple juice. Scrape the chilli-pepper mixture out of the bowl and add to the pan. Bring the pan to the boil, then leave it at a rollicking boil for 10 minutes.

Start testing for a set: take a clean teaspoon and a clean side plate. Spoon 2 teasps of the jelly mixture on to the plate. Leave to cool for a couple of minutes then push a fingertip (which will, of course, also be very clean) through the middle of the pool of jelly mixture on the plate. If your fingertip parts the jelly into two sides which then stay separated AND the jelly you’re pushing away wrinkles nicely, then you have a set.

The first time or two that you try, you will probably separate the jelly liquor into two separate pools but there will be no wrinkling. Clean the plate and spoon and leave the pan boiling for another 3-4 minutes before testing again. You should really remove the pan from the heat when you’re testing (in case it has set already) but in practice I only start doing this when I know the liquor is close to setting anyway.

Take the pan off the heat and allow it to cool. The liquid will become more syrupy, then from syrup to viscous and from viscous to jelly-like as it cools.

After about 40 minutes, or once the red flecks are more or less evenly dispersed in the jelly (as the liquid firms up, the hints of chilli and pepper start being suspended in it rather than floating on it), ladle into your jars. If you want to stir gently at this stage, it will do no harm. Then seal tightly.

Quince jelly

October 30, 2009: They’ve been weighing down one branch of the quince tree for months. Four fat quinces starting off like little green pears, then swelling into bumps and gnarls and slowly turning bright yellow. For the last two week I’ve been impatient to pick them and made myself wait until the threat of an overnight frost became real. Three of them weighed in at 500g each, the fourth a ‘mere’ 270g. I’m exceptionally proud of them – the tree is only two years old and the branch that the four quinces hung from was indeed the tree’s only branch in spring when the fruits were forming.

The three big fruits will make jelly. I thought of cutting the quince with some pear to make it go further, or infusing it with chilli for an extra kick, or bay leaves for a herbal note, but really I think it should be a pure quince jelly.

Quince jelly

1.5kg quinces

1.8l water

Zest and juice of one unwaxed lemon

Sugar

Destalk the quinces and chop roughly. No need to peel or de-core. Place in a large pan with the lemon zest and juice and add 1.8l water. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 1½ to 2 hours, occasionally pressing down on the quince mixture with a potato masher. Pour the mixture through a jelly bag and leave to drip overnight.

Next day, pre-heat the oven to 120 degrees, wash out some jars in very hot soapy water, rinse and dry them off in the oven – this will sterilise them. Discard the quince pulp and measure the slightly thickened, pinkish liquid. For every 600ml of liquid you need 450g sugar. Pour the liquid in a large pan and add the sugar. Bring slowly to the boil, then boil hard until the setting point is reached – start testing after about five minutes.

Once set, remove from the heat at once. Skim if necessary, ladle into the sterilised jars, seal and cover.