The planets aligned just before the New Year. In our January kitchen spheres of Seville oranges, blood oranges and pink grapefruit were in conjunction and made to collide and form the stellar success that is Diana Henry’s recipe for nick’s ‘good morning’ breakfast marmalade. You might be pay-walled at that link. Solution? Buy Diana’s book!
The ‘nick’ in question is Nick Selby from London-based deli Melrose and Morgan. Diana Henry acknowledges his inspiration and instruction for this, her favourite marmalade. Her version of the recipe appears in the first pages of ‘salt sugar smoke’, published in 2012 after three years in which the author preserved something every day. That mix of endeavour, research and experimentation resulted in a book which helps you - almost commands you to - produce something which, however small, will bring happiness to you, the maker, and all who share your bounty.
Marmalades - most of them - continue to remind me of early teenage years when I learned to love the sweet, syrupy candied oranges which glistened on Christmas nights as a treat after dinner. A sticky confection still with enough edge to think I was eating with grown-up taste.
The smell of hot, caramelising fruit and sugars is your immediate reward once the jam pan is bubbling away. The prospect of capturing that moment to be revisited each time a jar is opened is a delightful one.
I'd only dented the bag of Seville oranges for the three fruit marmalade. My mother would never forgive me if I failed to offer straight-down-the-line, bitter-sweet thick glaze for her breakfast toast so Fiona Beckett's 'best ever' recipe for Seville orange marmalade used up remaining fruit for what turned out to be a good yield.
Fiona Beckett has the recipe from her mum but versions are available all over the place. I like her method because it is kind to my increasingly painful arthritic thumbs. Cooking the fruit whole makes it blessedly easy to cut the peel into thin strips without straining fine-motor skills too far.
This year I finally remembered to scoop out a small pot of cut peel from the cooling mix before filling sterilised jars. Its sticky, sweet and tangy notes will find a place in home made nougat later on.
One vital thing with marmalade. Always spread generously. Small espresso shown for scale.
Don’t muck about too long into February before making your own batches.
Have fun with your labels but don’t fret about being too arty-farty. Just make sure it’s clear what the contents are and when they were made.
On the way home from our very recent stay in Norfolk we reached the Kings Lynn road and headed east in the wrong direction. Only for a mile. We had promised ourselves a visit to Back To The Garden - Farm Shop to grab as much of their bounty as we could before leaving the county.
A pre-planned purchase of enough of Mrs Temple’s Wells Alpine cheese to cook Richard Bainbridge’s lovely ‘Alpine cheese soup’ proved successful. And then, amidst the crates of seductive fruit and vegetable produce, were these pale and exceedingly interesting quinces. I’m not sure that this fruit will make Diana Henry spring to your mind but my thoughts immediately turned to her cookbook, ‘salt sugar smoke’*, perched patiently on a shelf back home and I bagged up enough of this slightly unexpected harvest knowing that there was a recipe on page 226 waiting for my attention. This is just one of so many deliciously approachable recipes in the book. Not readily available on the interwebnet thingy - all the more reason to buy your own copy!
*Diana (or her publisher) goes all lower case headings with this 2012 offering so please don’t be jangled by my faithful repetition of the device here and in the title of this post.
The pickling liquor took up the raw sienna pigment from my cinnamon sticks.
It would have been a missed opportunity to ignore our first Poinsettia of the season’s appearance in the house. #feelingfestive
The peeling, cutting and particularly removal of the core will have you marvelling at the decidedly tough nuts you are dealing with. You will need a sharp knife and the taking of much care.
Poaching the quince segments is a tense time. The potential for reducing them to unwanted mush is roughly in line with that of parents who supervise like hawks but suddenly need to ask themselves, “How in Fook’s name did my child come to have that pair of scissors in their hand!?”
Alles in ordnung. (My low grade pass in German O-Level just reared its ugly head!) Sterilised jars and slightly reduced pickling liquid meet up with the just soft, but not too-softened, quinces. Ready for lids to be screwed down and seals to be clipped tight.
The combination of sour and sweet and the presence of quince’s perfume make this a heady mix. I’m not even going to question if this batch will be mature enough by the end of the month. It will most definitely make an appearance on Boxing Day with our traditional ‘cold collation’ lunch.
An extra reward for my efforts remains. Enough pickling liquid survived, its tang softened by quince contact. Leaf gelatin will be added to make a jelly. Lozenges of that around a cut of pork or a terrine will add a ‘Cheoffy’ touch to some of my more developed plates very soon.
Labels were applied for a final photo before I settled down to write on some of Mrs Cheoff’s hand-crafted Christmas greetings cards. It looks like we have enough of a generous Kilner jar of pickled tracklement to accompany our own festive hams, cheeses and terrines. That small, but perfectly formed, supporting duo of mini jars might be used as gifts. But for whom? Hmmm…
Our tomatoes are ripening at last. We only grow outdoors so have to hang on a little longer than anyone with a greenhouse.
I still have this cutting from ‘Stella’ in 2010. It comes out as soon as we have enough ripe fruit for the recipe. A glorious combination of Diana Henry food and Susy Atkins wine. Irresistible stuff.
The recipe does not appear in any of Diana Henry’s cookbooks but is available online.
What? No… just for once bloomin’ well Google it for yourself!
As you prepare onions and caramelise sugar syrup it becomes obvious that you are in for a treat. Oh, grow some herbs. Fingers and nostrils stained with thyme from picking and chopping is another small but wonderful signal that something good is happening in your kitchen.
Susy Atkins’ wine match suggestions always sound infinitely sensible but I decided to go with what we had and paired the tarte with a recent purchase from Lidl. Fruity and aromatic it was. With enough acidity to keep the whole experience in savoury territory.
Here is the finished article with some chunks from a rolled log of French goat’s cheese. A few wedges of roasted beetroot and green salad from our raised beds as well. Pepper and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil completed what was a simply splendid way to celebrate our first tomato harvest.
Diana Henry offers up “A VINE ROMANCE”
I call it a marriage made in heaven.
As usual, the tried and trusted Diana Henry continues to delight. Before her bumper bundle of crowd-feeders appeared recently in the printed and online Stella Magazine I thought I'd planned more or less all for this year's menus. As I got to the last of the recipes I'd determined to store most for future use but I really fancied some of that 'Turkish coffee ice cream' as soon as ever was possible. Its simplicity was over-powering.
Just one problem. I have not had instant coffee in the house for six years or more. Coffee snob, eh? In my defence I do have a bottle of 'Camp' chicory and coffee essence for baking. Four teaspoons of that replaced the coffee powder ingredient. I discarded Diana's geography suggestion and took things away from the Turkish connection with a freshly pulled triple shot of hazelnut espresso (also kept for baking duties). The cardamom seeds were steeped in that until cooled. Noting the information that this ice cream is likely to set a little hard, I added 20 grams of liquid glucose to compensate in a small way.
The bowlful above shows the mix after being churned in the almost frozen bucket used by our ice cream maker. This had seen plenty of recent action with six custard-based mixes and a couple of sorbets already boxed and stored. The gel in the bucket seems to like three days of freezing to be efficient and the coffee mix responded slowly in an impatiently used one and a half day old frosty environment.
The texture was still convincing but after freezing it does appear firm. I reckon it will be fine with that recommended fifteen (or more) minutes out of the freezer before serving.
Having had several sneaky spoon licks, the taste which comes through is a fully-fledged bolt-on first prize candidate. If scooping proves tricky I can guarantee that letting it melt to be drunk as an indulgent iced coffee is worth considering. Although carving off a thin slice straight from the freezer and eating it between two thin biscuits would deliver the flavour delight immediately.
Make it. This one is not just for Christmas.
