Nunhead Blackberry Jam

Last summer I made my first attempt at jam making. I was at home in Gloucestershire during strawberry season so headed to Over Farm Market and picked a mountain of delicious juicy strawberries. The jam was a big hit and the jars i handed out to my friends and family did not last long, which was a good thing because the couple of jars I left in the cupboard got mouldy after a few weeks. The jam was also runnier than i would have liked.

This year I spent most of the summer in London, I was keen to try my hand at another batch of jam but didn't want to spend a fortune on punnets of fruit from supermarkets.
The one berry i knew i could find in abundance, and for free, a few minutes walk from my house, were blackberries.
On the other side of Peckham Rye there is a huge over grown cemetery in Nunhead. In amongst the neglected graves and shady trees, at this time of year, there are mountains of ripe blackberries.

I headed to the cemetery armed with a big 4L tupperware and a couple of hours later returned home with well over a kilo of fruit and a few stings and scratches to show for my afternoons foraging.

I reserved some of the riper berries for eating and pie making and used most of them for the jam.
Below is a rough guide to how a i went about making the jam. I looked at a few recipes online and found some useful tips in the Preserves River Cottage Handbook. 

If i was to make the jam again i think i would use a bit less sugar and perhaps a mix of normal sugar and jam sugar. I don't think i needed quite the amount of pectin that i added (by using all jam sugar which comes with pectin in it).

The quantities below filled about 5 standard size (400g) jam jars

Ingredients:
1kg blackberries (not too squishy and ripe)
1.25 kg jam sugar
100ml lemon juice (3 small lemons)

Method:
Before setting out fruit picking I dug out some empty jam jars and soaked them in a sink of hot soapy water until the labels came off.
I rinsed and drained them and on my return put them in the oven (along with the lids) at 100C while I made the jam.

I gently washed the blackberries removing any twigs and spiders and then dried them by tipping them out onto kitchen towel.

Before starting to make the jam I put a few saucers in the freezer to get cold as them come in handy when checking that the jam is ready, very useful if you don't have a jam thermometer.

I got out Ceri's huge chutney making pan (make sure you have plenty of room as the jam will bubble up) and chucked in 200-300g of the blackberries with the same amount of sugar. I then crushed the berries with a potato masher.
The pan was then heated gently and once the mixture was warm I added the rest of the berries and brought the jam up to simmering point, stirring with a wooden spoon to stop the fruit sticking to the bottom of the pan. After 5 minutes of simmering I added the remaining jam sugar.

You then need to stir the jam until the sugar has dissolved, this took longer than i expected, about 10 minutes of heating and stirring, checking the back of the spoon for sugar granules.
Once the sugar had dissolved i added the lemon juice and increased the heat until the mixture boiled.

The jam bubbled up the sides of the pan, i let it boil for about 10 minutes without stirring.
I then tested the setting point by dripping a little of the jam onto one of the cold saucers which i had put in the freezer. If you poke the blob of jam on the saucer with you fingertip, if it has set the surface will wrinkle, you can then be confident your jam is ready.

I removed the jam from the heat, gave it a quick stir and took the sterilized jam jars out of the oven.
I then decanted the jam into the jars while it was still hot. I placed a circle of grease proof paper on the top of each full jar before screwing on the lids.

Once the jars had cooled i made sure the lids were tight and then they were ready for labeling and storing in the cupboard ready to be eaten.
Given the amount of sugar i added i am confident my blackberry jam will last a lot longer than last years effort!

Rachaelx

Read More

Roasted & Stuffed Butternut Squash

by Ceri x

Autumn is officially my favourite season.  Summer is lovely, but always infinately hectic and, erm well... hot!

With the arrival of Autumn comes the crisp clear mornings and the inevitable back to school feeling, that I still very much get due to how busy the summer is.  I love seeing your breath as you step out into a cold sunny morning with frost still on the ground, kicking and crunching the leaves underfoot in the park, digging out the knitwear and cosying up by the fire.  Then to top it all off: there is the food!  Autumn brings us the harvest so is the very best time for picking, foraging, pickling, boiling up big vats of chutney and generally getting the best that the country and season has to offer.  Stews, pies, casseroles, steaming puddings, soups, crispy skinned jacket potatoes and all the other foods that are just too heavy for the hot summer months.

This year, I have been loving the fig.  That delightfully juicy fruit with an amazing texture,  flavour and which I recently cooked up a fig tart recipe courtesy of our Jules (currently on location in Berlin) which she posted previously and is well worth a look.  However, my other dearly beloved part of  the autumnal menu is the return of the most traditionally fabulous of British food institutions, the Roast!

I love a Sunday roast.  Sundays and Autumn seem to go together hand in hand.  Lazy Sundays reading the papers, giggling about the activities of Friday and/ or Saturday night, doing the crossword, drinking good coffee/ Bloody Marys and having a stroll in the park whilst donning aforementioned knitwear before coming home/ going to a decent pub and settling in for a damn fine roast eating session for me are irresistible.

This Sunday, Rachie cooked up a Pork Belly with delicious home made Apple sauce and the crunchiest crackling I ever did chomp.  However, for  this post I am going to go for a vegetarian option and roast up another shining star of Autumn, the Butternut Squash.  This works very well as the vegetarian option on a Sunday, or you can do as I did and serve it with salad for your Monday Roast (why limit yourself to just once a week).

(Apologies for the slightly fuzzy picture, my camera is playing up!)

Roasted & Stuffed Butternut Squash
Serves 2

Ingredients
1 medium sized butternut squash
4 garlic cloves
1 small onion
100g chopped walnuts
60g blue cheese (I used roquefort)
a few sprigs of fresh thyme or rosemary (dried will be fine if that's all you have)
5 mushrooms
150g spinach
200g watercress or other leaves for salad
drizzle of olive oil + more for dressing if used
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper

Tip- You can more or less make up the stuffing as you wish.  Goats cheese, peppers, celery, tomatoes, feta, cabbage, pine nuts, toasted almonds, olives etc etc would all work well and it's fun trying out different flavour combinations.  I have done a few though and this is my favourite.

• Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees. Cut the butternut squash lengthways.  Scoop out the seeds but do not throw away. Cut out the flesh approx 2 cm down leaving a 2 cm ledge around the edge of the squash.  If the flesh is too hard for this at this stage, you can always do it once it has cooked a little.  Place both halves skin side down into a baking tray.
• Score crosses in the flesh, drizzle some olive oil over both sides, add a garlic bulb inside each + one in the bottom of the tray.  Season with salt, freshly ground pepper and the thyme then bake in the oven for 45 minutes.
• Meanwhile, add the walnuts to a heated, dry frying pan with the squash seeds and a little salt, moving the pan often for approx 5- 10 minutes until they start to toast- set aside in a bowl.
• Then chop the garlic and onion, add to the frying pan with a bit more olive oil and gently fry.  Once the onion has softened, add the chopped mushrooms . Fry for another 5 minutes, then add watercress and spinach until it wilts.  
• Check that the squash has cooked through  the flesh will be soft and the edges will have begun to brown slightly.  Cube the blue cheese and sprinkle throughout the stuffing mixture along with the toasted walnuts and place inside the squash.  I like to give the whole thing a short drizzle with balsamic vinegar or worcester sauce at this point.
• Turn the oven down to 100 degrees and return the squash for 5-10 minutes until the filling has heated back through and the cheese has begun to melt.
• Serve with a salad and enjoy!  Happy Monday Roast :)

Read More

Sloe Gin

This year on my birthday i was in Cornwall. One of the gifts i was very happy to receive was the River Cottage Handbook 2 - Preserves. This has been an important resource in the Keston Kitchen, particularly at this time of year, very glad to now own a copy myself as the previous one moved to Camberwell with Charlotte!

When i got the book i was keen to use some of the recipes from it as soon as i could, where we were staying by the Helford river, the blackberries were not quite ripe. There was one thing though that could be found growing along the shore in vast quantities - sloes.
I filled a bag full of the fruit, they were small and took some persuading to be parted from the blackthorn bush. As i understand you ideally wait until after the first frost before picking your sloes but if you are concerned about the birds eating them all before this has happened, or if like me you have to grab them while you can, the alternative is to freeze them. This process helps break down the internal structure of the berries and gets the juices flowing.

When i got home to London i popped the sloes in the freezer for a couple of days and then let them defrost before following the recipe below. These instructions make about a litre of sloe gin but i just worked out how many sloes i had an adjusted the other ingredients proportionally.

Mine has been infusing for about a week now, should just about ready in time for Christmas!

Ingredients:

450g sloes, frosted or pricked
450g granulated sugar (or less for a more tart gin)
600ml gin
A large glass jar or bottle - Make sure your jar has a good seal and you will be shaking the contents around and you don't want the precious liqueur leaking out. I found that for the quantities above i needed a jar with a capacity of about 2 litres because the fruit takes up a lot of space.

Put the defrosted sloes into your jar or bottle. Pour over the sugar, followed by the gin. Secure the container with the lid and give it a good shake to mix up the contents. For the next week shake it daily to prevent the sugar from settling on the bottom and to help get the juice out of the sloes. Thereafter shake and taste once a week for 8-10 weeks.
When the sloes have instilled their flavour, pass the mixture through a fine sieve. Pour the strained liqueur into bottles.
Ideally, you should leave sloe gin for 18 months before drinking to allow the flavour to mature and mellow but i know from experience that it rarely lasts until the end of the festive season.
In the preserves book they recommend keeping the sloes, removing the stones and eating them with ice cream or folded into melted chocolate, i have not tried this yet myself but i will report back!

Of course if you don't have sloes you can use different fruit like damsons or blackberries and apple. One year some friends brought round their greengage rum which was delicious! Adding fruit and sugar to any half empty bottles of spirits sat in your cupboard is definitely the way forward.

Rachael x

Read More

Join us for - BRUNCH CLUB - Hackney - 22nd Sept





Join Keston Kitchen and the Elrington Table in Hackney E8 for BRUNCH this Saturday.

email to book: patrickgray82@gmail.com / charlotte.whiting@gmail.com

Read More

I Heart Italia: Sausages & Broccoli

I Heart Italia: Sausages & Broccoli

Italians do it better. Well, sometimes at least. If you like sausages and broccoli this is the dish for you. It goes very well with a smooth, creamy mash and takes sausage and mash to new heights. I dream about this dish.

850g Italian sausages - the ones from East Dulwich Deli are simply the best!

600g broccoli, cut into florets

1 teaspoon olive oil

2 French shallots, finely chopped

3 garlic cloves, crushed

1/4 red chilli, finely chopped

125ml chicken stock

1 tablespoon lemon juice

6 pitted black olives

Serves 4

Place the sausages in a single layer in a deep non-stick frying pan and add cold water - 1.5cm deep. Bring to the boil, reduce and simmer for 20 minutes.

Turn the sausages from time to time and when they are cooked all the water should have evaporated, leaving just a little sausage fat in the pan.

Meanwhile, bring a large saucepan of water to the boil. Add the broccoli with a teaspoon of salt and simmer for 4-5 minutes, until the florets are barely tender. Drain and set aside.

Add the oil to the pan and brown the sausages. Push them to one side and add the shallots, garlic and chilli.

Cook on a low heat for 3-4 minutes, stirring from time to time.

Add the stock and lemon juice, turn up the heat and cook until reduced by half.
Add the broccoli and olives, spoon the sauce over and serve when it has heated through.

Read More

Best Steak Lettuce Wrap

Best Steak Lettuce Wrap by Charlotte

Thanks to friends Phil and Sonya I have discovered the best steak lettuce wrap. This is food that is very pleasing to the eye and mouth. It can be made in three shakes of a lambs tail and will be sure to give you that red meat fix.

The ten steps to steak wrapping:

1) Go to your butcher and get a tasty piece of rump steak (to cook whole)

2) Marinade the meat in lemon juice, chilli (fresh or dried) and fresh ginger

3) Grate carrot for salad

4) Make a dressing - I used lemon juice, sesame oil, fish sauce, fresh red chilli, ginger, salt and pepper

5) Mix the dressing with the carrot

6) Use a good sturdy leaf like Romaine as your wrap

7) Griddle or bbq your meat - a few minutes on each side will leave it pretty and pink

8) Slice the steak and put it in the lettuce with the dressed carrot

9) Get kitchen roll ready as the wrap may leak!

10) Enjoy

Read More

St. John Bread & Wine

St John Bread & Wine by Charlotte

Nose to tail eating. A concept that to some may seem rather unrefined, when really it is the best way to eat; you cook every part of the animal, indulging in dishes and cooking methods that are novel, inventive and definitely worth talking about.

A pig’s head - euugh! The imagination goes wild, a large blackened pig’s face looking at you as you daintily cut off his cheek and chew it down, while trying not to look him in the eye. In reality, St John Bread & Wine is an informal eatery (initially intended as a bakery to service the St John restaurant), with small tables and unassuming chairs, plain walls and chefs whizzing about in the background. You choose wine and dishes in a tapas fashion, sharing plates of gorgeous food as and when they arrive at your table. This is possibly my favourite way to eat, you can share and try lots of things, chat in depth about each mouthful and not get food envy!

So, on the night in question, we ate- pig’s head, which came as a light stew packed with incredibly tender meat and seasonal vegetables; ox heart with winter leaves and capers, a wicked dish which really got my taste buds dancing; mallard, big pink, meaty chunks of it, with tiny black elderberries; beetroot and goats curd salad, a creamy tasty compliment to our meat feast; and finally a dish of pork and sprout tops, an amazing slab of perfectly cooked pork with the biggest and greenest sprout leaves I have ever seen. For dessert we shared a gingerloaf pudding with a super sweet buttersc0tch sauce and a ball of vanilla ice-cream. And to drink we had some sparkling wine (it was a celebration after all).

The price is right, that is, it’s not too expensive, I will be going back soon and already have a list of different people that I’d like to share food with at St John.

The atmosphere is perfect for a lazy lunch or dinner, great for a group of friends. And if you really do want to eat a whole pig, you can! For a mere £330 (for 14-16 people) and provided you order a week in advance you and your pork loving chums can tuck into the whole hog!

Read More

Perfect Pud for Autumn - Poached Pears in Red Wine.

Love pears - these ones were for Charl and Matt x

I made this as the dessert for Charlotte's birthday meal. After Rachael's deliciously rich and creamy garlic tart (our last post), I felt the need for a lighter pud. I have to say, this dessert surprised me - how can you make pears in red wine taste like anything other than pears in red wine? Well, by infusing them for hours in a sweet, spicy, warm liquid so that it soaks through the flesh and transforms the humble pear into a succulent, delicately flavoured morsel of delight - that's how!

It's a fairly easy pud to make. However, you do need to prepare the pears the night before - trust me, it's worth it as it means that the pears are entirely soaked through and also frees you up to make the main course/starter when it comes to the day.

One downside to this dessert - if you have a foodie who is somewhat impatient hanging around (aka Charlotte), they can become a bit whiney. Charlotte arrived home from her romantic birthday meal with Matt (at St John, no less - if you nag her she'll do a review), by which point the smell of mulling wine had transfused the house. Cue the whining. No Charlie, I know it's your birthday today but you really do have to wait until tomorrow. And then, after she had tasted the fruit, the whining intensified: Ju - leeeene! When are you going to make those pears again? When?

Well, it's lucky Charlotte's got such a pretty face. It just so happens I can't resist the English pears that are in the shops at the moment, and have some stowed away in the cupboard. Maybe if she's a good girl at the weekend…Jules xxx

This recipe below is based on a Heston Blumethal - but with unnecessary fancy bits taken out. It is the only Heston recipe I have ever made, as I generally consider him to be out of my culinary league… but do not fear, this one really is quite easy.

Pears poached in red wine

You will need a casserole large enough to fit the pears in one layer.

Serves 6-8

8-10 ripe pears (allow 1-2 pears per person depending on their size)

1 bottle red wine

200ml crème de cassis

(NB I didn't have any creme de casis, but I did find a random cherry liqueur in the cupboard that seemed to work very well! If you don't have any appropriate booze, use an extra 100g sugar)

200g sugar

1 cinnamon stick

6 cloves

1 star anise

zest of 1 orange and 1 lemon

Bring the wine to a boil, flame it to reduce some of its acidity and add all the other ingredients.

Meanwhile prepare the pears. Peel them and remove the core so that they will cook evenly the whole way through. To do this, insert the tip of a normal peeler into the base of the pear, just on the edge of the core, push it into the fruit and turning the peeler around the core, cut it out.

The liquid will have cooled down a little. Place the pears side by side and top with a disk of greaseproof paper, the diameter of the pan, with holes pierced in it. Press down slightly so that some of the poaching liquid comes through the holes made in the paper, keeping the pears submerged during the cooking. If the liquid does not cover the pears, add a little water until it does.

Place the casserole back on the heat and bring the liquid to a simmer. As soon as this happens, turn the heat down and cook at a very gentle simmer, just enough to form the odd bubble on the surface of the water.

Cook until the pears are done; you can test this by inserting a small pointed knife into the flesh. If it goes in with little resistance, they are ready. Remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool. When cold, carefully transfer the fruit to a sealable container. If you have added some extra water now reduce the liquid to the required consistency and taste.

Pour the liquid over the pears in their container and store in the fridge for at least one day. The pears will keep for a week in the poaching liquid. Serve hot or cold and adjust the consistency of the liquid as required.

Read More

Sweet Autumn Fennel

Sweet Autumn Fennel by Charlotte

Fennel is a top ingredient that should not be confused with celery (for those of you who are strongly against the long stringy stuff). The first time I tried fennel was in Italy, eaten raw and dipped in oil with salt and pepper, which I highly recommend. Last year we had a spate of making a roasted fennel and chestnut side dish - this is also a great dish and in season right now. Maybe go for peeled chestnuts as peeling lots can really test your willpower.

This recipe is taken and adapted from the first Ottolenghi cookbook and has been made twice and tried and tested by lots of friends, who expect a good spread when they come round. Instead of making it in one large baking dish I opted for small ramekins as both occasions were a wee bit special and I decided individual pots were in order. 

Serves 10

Ingredients:

4 fennel bulbs

3 tbsp olive oil

Sprigs of thyme, about 6

3 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tsp black pepper

200ml whipping cream

100g Parmesan, grated

300g cherry tomatoes, tasty ones

Crumble top:

100g plain flour

2 heaped tbsp golden caster sugar

65g cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes

Method:

- Mix the flour and sugar and rub in the butter to make a crumble topping.

- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

- Trim the fennel and slice into  small pieces, place in a bowl with the olive oil thyme leaves, garlic, salt and pepper and mix together.

- Put a small amount in each ramekin, divide the cream and pour over the fennel in the 10 ramekins.

- Mix the crumble topping with the grated Parmesan and sprinkle over the fennel.

- Cover each ramekin with foil and bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes.

- Remove the foil, arrange 3-4 tomatoes on the top of each ramekin and bake for a further 15 minutes. 

Read More