Book Review - Preserves by Jill Nice

Book review – Preserves: A Beginner’s Guide to making jams & jellies, chutney & pickles, sauces & ketchups, syrups and alcoholic sips – by Jill Nice



Despite the number of books I have read (and indeed, written) on the subject of preserves, I was nonetheless excited to come across this book by Jill Nice. I’m always on the look out for new recipes and tips for jam and chutney making and this book looked like it was bursting with ideas.

Many recipe books these days are stuffed full of glossy photos, sometimes at the expense of information. This one, in contrast, has no photos at all but instead the occasional monochrome line drawing. When I say, monochrome, I don’t mean black on white, for the text and illustrations throughout this book are green and purple. It is a simple design that works well, giving colour but also a feeling of authority, like an old-fashioned reference book.

There are 47 pages of information about various aspects of different preserving technique before the recipes even begin. This offers in depth explanation as to why all the various parts of the preserving technique are required and I have to admit I learnt a thing or two from reading this section. The recipes themselves include serving suggestions as well as advice on how to adapt the recipe and when it should be followed without fiddling. There is also extra information within the recipes about the main ingredient and these paragraphs are both informative and very readable. There are a few recipes included that have non-British ingredients such as bananas, pineapples and mangoes but most recipes are made with British ingredients and give a nod towards dealing with gluts and using the freezer to bring together non-seasonal ingredients.

The back cover boasts that the book contains an impressive 140 recipes. Many of them are the basic recipes that every preserving book needs to contains, such as raspberry jam and piccalilli , but there are also recipes in there that I have not seen in any other book. I have to admit that I’m quite excited about the prospect of trying to make my own Worchester Sauce or Mushroom Ketchup, but I may not bother with Pickled Broad Beans!

Having read this book I’m left with a feeling that Jill knows her onions. She has clearly been making preserves for a long time and has had her share of successes and failures. In this book she attempts to impart this experience to her readers. For someone like me, it is a useful reference that has provided a few insights and given me some new ideas to try in the summer. As for it being a guide for beginners, well, it certainly is thorough and does provide the beginner with everything they need to know. However, I think in some ways there is perhaps a little bit too much information and anyone considering preserving for the first time might decide to jack in the idea before they get to the recipes.

When I pick up any book on preserves I want to see if it ticks certain boxes. Does it deal with realistic seasonal British ingredients? Does it explain why you should do the different parts of the method? Does it suggest ways to eat the preserve once you have made it? And does it allow for recipes to be adapted? I’m pleased to say that this one does tick all those boxes.

20 meals from one chicken

Is it really possible to get 20 meals out of a medium chicken? And are those meal worthwhile and filling? I think so.

When Steve was growing up his mother would put a couple of ounces of corned beef into a mound of mashed potato and call it corned beef hash. He said it was mash potato with the occasional pink fleck. But that was one way to feed the family with not much. I would like to point out that we're not poor and don't need to eek out our food in this way (thank goodness), but I do feel a moral duty to make the most of what we have. So when I bought a chicken to roast last week I knew it would make more than one meal and I planned for this in my shopping and cooking.

On Sunday I roasted the chicken but at the same time I planned for the leftovers. This started by making the chicken tasty with the use of two different types of stuffing. The first type of stuffing is for the cavity to infuse flavour into the chicken but not to be eaten. To make this you need do little more than roughly chop up an onion, some fresh sage from the garden and a limp piece of celery that is no good for putting in salads anymore. Just drop this inside the bird. The second type of stuffing is for eating so needs more care. One small onion, some fresh sage, salt and pepper and either breadcrumbs or sausagemeat for this one. Finely chop the onion and then the sage in a food processor then mix together with the breadcrumbs (and a little water) or the sausagemeat. I tend to make a large batch of this in one go then divide it into portions and freeze it until required. This stuffing needs to be stuffed into the crop.

The next flavour consideration is the gravy and for this reason I also boiled a leek from the allotment to have with the dinner. When it was almost time to dish up, I made some gravy to go with the meal. This was just the usual Bisto granules but I put in enough to make half a pint of gravy more than we needed for the meal. Rather than just pouring water from the kettle for the gravy, I drained the leek water into the jug and then the water from the carrots too. It is a good idea to use vegetable water to make the gravy as some of the nutrients from the vegetables get leached out into the water so using it returns those nutrients to your meal. In the case of the leeks, it also adds flavour to the meal. Unless everyone in your family likes cabbage, I would avoid doing this with brassica water as it does tend to make the gravy taste like cabbage water! For further flavour, after the chicken was carved, I pour the juices from the meat into the gravy too. A very tasty gravy for the meal and for the leftovers.

That meal we ate both legs and slightly more than half of one breast between us. I do love meat myself but it is worth remembering that a portion of meat for an adult should be roughly the size of a pack of cards and the rest of the meal should be bulked out with vegetables.

On Monday afternoon I took a block of ready made puff pastry out of the fridge to come to room temperature and later that evening I made chicken pies. I make these pies for my girls because, although they like pies, they are a bit fussy about them and there are only certain ones they like. Buying a pie is a bit hit and miss but they always love my homemade pies. They are really easy to make too and I make 12 at a time so they last for weeks before I have to do them again.

Chicken Pies (makes 12)

The meat from a breast of roast chicken
1/2 pint of gravy
1 block of ready made pastry
Egg or milk to glaze

Take the meat from the breast of the roast chicken (or use the leg meat if you prefer to eat the breast for your dinner) and break it into small pieces with your fingers. Put this in a bowl and mix it with the cold gravy (left over from the roast). Cut the pastry block in half and roll it out into a rectangle. Cut the pastry into 6 roughly equal squares. Dollop a tablespoon of the chicken mixture into one half of each piece of pastry. Brush the egg or milk around half of the edge of the pastry then fold the pastry over the top of the filling to completely it. Brush the top edge of the pastry then turn over the edges of the pastry to seal the pie into a pastie shape (about the size of a Findus Crispie Pancake but sooooo much tastier!). Make a couple of vent holes with a knife and brush all over with egg or milk to glaze. Repeat for the second half of the block of pastry and until all the filling is used. Place the pasties on a tray and freeze then remove from the tray and put into labelled bags. Can be cooked from frozen for 20-25 minutes at 200°C, gas 6.

Having fed 4 people with a Sunday roast and made 12 pies, that was 16 meals from one chicken. Just another 4 to go then. There are so many possibilities - chicken soup maybe? I do on occasions boil up the chicken carcass, complete with its tasty cavity stuffy to make chicken stock which would be a good basis of soup or even a casserole so a meal or two from that. But I also picked the chicken over to remove the remaining meat to make chicken spud pies for dinner on Tuesday. This recipe is for 2 but I had just enough meat left to stretch it out to 2 smaller spuds for the girls but for them I mixed a little chicken with a bit of ham and pasta sauce and grated some cheese on top to call it a pizza potato pie instead.



Spud Pies (serves 2)

2 large baked potatoes
About one breast of roasted chicken
Butter
A slurp of milk
6-8 mushrooms, quartered
1 small leek, sliced
5 fl oz chicken stock
2 teaspoons of cornflour
Oil for frying
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Bake the potatoes using your preferred method. Turn the oven to 220°C, gas 7. Cut the potatoes in half and scoop out the potato from the skins. Place the potato in a bowl and mash with the butter, milk and seasoning. Mix the cornflour with a little cold water in a glass. Fry the mushrooms and leeks then pour in the chicken stock and the cornflour. Add the chicken and seasoning and stir until heated through and the sauce thickens. Spoon the chicken mix into the potato skins then top with the mashed potato then place in the oven for 10 minutes until the top of the potato is just beginning to brown. Serve immediately with a salad or hot vegetables.

It was £6 for that particular chicken. I think I got value for money.

Stuff the rush

Thursday night I had a meeting at my daughters' school that started at 6.30pm. I could have gone down the easy option of having a ready meal for dinner but that's not my style. Instead, I opted to just start making dinner extra early. Just before 5 I put a couple of spuds in the oven to bake then set about preparing stuffed mushrooms whilst my eldest got on with making a scone-based pizza for her and her sister.

Stuffed Mushrooms (serves 2)

4 large flat mushrooms
1 leek
2 rashers of bacon
Pepper
Breadcrumbs

Preheat oven to 180°C, gas 4. Pull the stalks out of the mushrooms and finely chop. Slice the leeks finely and snip the bacon into small pieces. Next, fry the mushrooms stalks, leeks and bacon together for about 5 minutes, adding a little pepper for seasoning. Divide this mixture between the 4 mushrooms then sprinkle breadcrumbs on top. Bake for 20-25 minutes and serve hot.

Scone based pizza is a really handy recipe to have up your sleeve because it means you can make a pizza from scratch with basic food cupboard ingredients - no need for strong flour and yeast. You just need self-raising flour, butter and milk to make the base and then some pasta sauce or passata, cheese and toppings.

Anyway, despite my best efforts and estimates, it took slightly longer to prepare and cook all this than I had anticipated and I ended up sitting down to eat at 6.10. I don't know about you, but I hate eating in a rush but that was what I had to do. I managed to cram most of it in ten minutes flat but decided to admit defeat on half my baked potato.

Half a baked potato is a good starting point for a left-overs lunch. You could put all sorts of things on that a make a complete meal. Baked beans maybe - only that would leave a part open tin as left overs for another day. Instead, I decided to make pizza-style baked potato for my lunch, using some left over pasta sauce from the girls' pizza and left over cheese from the Christmas cheeseboard. There seems something luxurious about a 3 cheese topping!

So for this I heated the half potato in the microwave for a minute then spooned on some pasta sauce and grated over plenty of cheese before returning it to the microwave for another minute to heat the sauce and melt the cheese. Two minute lunch from left-overs - yum!

Winter warmers

Despite the stormy weather today I nipped over to the allotment this afternoon to fetch a leek for a casserole. The meat for the casserole tonight was left over goose from the Christmas dinner (thawed from frozen) but any meat would do just as well. Left over roast meat work best but you could also use fresh, raw meat but you would have to brown it off in a frying pan first. I, of course, love making good use of left over meat, combined with loads of seasonal vegetables.

Casserole (serves 2)

100-150g cooked meat
1 vegetable stock cube
2 carrots
1 parsnip (or some swede or turnip)
1 stick of celery
1 leek
2-4 potatoes (depending on size)
4 mushrooms
1 small onion
1 teaspoon mushroom ketchup
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon sweet chilli sauce
2 teaspoon oyster sauce
Freshly ground black pepper
Worstershire sauce

Preheat oven to 180°C, gas mark 4 and get out a suitable ovenproof dish. Crumble the stock cube into boiling water in a pan then add to it the peeled and chopped carrot, parsnip, celery and leek. Simmer for about 5 minutes. In the meantime, peel the potatoes and cut into discs about half a cm thick. Remove the vegetables from the pan with a slotted spoon and place them in the casserole dish then put the potato slices into the pan of vegetable stock. Bring back to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes. In the meantime, slice the mushrooms and onions. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside then quickly fry the onions and mushrooms for about 3 minutes then turn down the heat and add the mushroom ketchup, soy sauce, chilli sauce and oyster sauce and stir. Add the mushroom mix to the casserole dish, along with the cooked meat. Pour the vegetable stock over the contents of the casserole dish until covered then layer the potatoes on top. Grind over the pepper and splash on some Worstershire sauce. Place in the oven for 1 hour and in the meantime go and have a lovely bath whilst delicious smells fill your house.

Once the casserole was cooked, I popped a bread and butter pudding into the oven to cook whilst we ate and to make good use of the hot oven. Bread and butter pudding is the ultimate use of leftovers - no one ever buys ingredients especially to make it! I decided to make it because I had nearly a whole pint of full fat milk left in the fridge from my mother-in-law's stay with us and half a jar of my rather yummy Figgy Pear Mincemeat to use up. Oh, and there were 4 slices of stale white bread left too. Perfect!

Bread & Butter Pudding

2 eggs
1 tsp caster sugar
2 tsp custard powder
12 fl oz (350ml) milk
1 oz (25g) butter
4 slices of white bread
4 to 6 oz (110-180g) mincemeat

In a jug, beat the egg, sugar and custard powder together then add the milk. Lightly butter a suitable ovenproof dish (wide and shallow is better than narrow and deep). Butter the bread and then cut the slices of bread into 4 triangles. Layer two slices worth of triangles into the dish then spoon over half the mincemeat. Lay the remaining triangles on top and spoon over the remaining mincemeat. Pour over half the milk mix and place the dish in the refrigerator until needed or for at least 15 minutes to soak. Preheat oven to 180°C, gas 4. Pour the remaining milk mix into the dish and bake for 20 minutes then increase the temperate to 190°C, gas 5 for 5-10 more minutes until the bread on top is crisp and golden. Serve hot with custard or cream.

2012 - the year to reduce food waste

Regular readers of my blog will know that I often find myself making one recipe, which leads onto another recipe and then another and so on, using up as many ingredients as possible. During the summer you will find me tirelessly trying to come up with new and inventive ways to use up the gluts that come off my allotment. I hate food waste and always do what I can to avoid throwing food away.

In Milton Keynes we have been provided with a green wheelie bin in which to put garden waste and food waste. I hardly ever put garden waste in it as that goes into one of the 3 compost bins I have on the allotment. In theory, all food waste can go into the green bin, including animal products, meat and bones but all my fruit and vegetable waste from the kitchen finds its way into the compost bin on the allotment so again doesn't go into the green bin. That just leaves the food waste that can't go into the compost because it would attract vermin and become very stinky. The combination of my compost bin and my efforts to avoid wasting food means that all that does go into the green wheelie bin once a week is one small paper bag of food waste. It is quite nice to have it all gathered together like this so that I have a measure of it to monitor.

Anyway, having decided that I'm actually quite good at avoiding buying too much food in the first place and using up leftovers in a practical way, I thought I would share with you on this blog any instances where I have made good use of leftovers along side my usual recipes for using homegrown food. Hopefully, you'll find this useful as well as inspiring and that 2012 will be a good year for reducing food waste.

So to get started, here is a short tale of using up excess potato.

My parents went away for 3 weeks over Christmas and asked me to pop into their house a couple of times whilst they were a way to check on things. On my first visit, I discovered a bag of huge onions and half a bag of huge potatoes under a t-towel on the kitchen counter with a note asking me to take them away and make good use of them. So on Monday night I used three of these huge potatoes to make some mashed potato to go with our sausages. It was the usual stuff - boiled potatoes, mashed with butter, seasoning and a little finely grated mature Cheddar. But because the potatoes were so huge I had over estimated the amount we needed and had made enough mash for 6 people. The left over potatoes went into a box in the fridge for the night. The next day, I cut it into slices and fried it as potato cakes. This I served with a mix of mushrooms and the left over bacon lardons from Christmas. Not a great meal for anyone trying to lose weight but, hey, my New Year's Resolution is to avoid food waste so I'm happy!

Thinking ahead

It's funny how our brains change over the Christmas holiday. We start off focusing on preparing for the "big day". Organising presents, buying and making food and co-ordinating various visits. And then for a few days after Christmas we sit around, rubbing our fat bellies, feeling lazy and cosy. It all seems like we are right in the middle of winter, winding down as the year comes to an end...

And then, suddenly, New Year's Day arrives and we wake up. We chastise ourselves for our gluttony and make promises about how we will be better people in the coming months. We begin to look forward. For the kitchen gardener, it is all about the move into spring and the new growing season. It was hardly a surprise then to find me sat on the sofa this new years eve, with one eye on Jules Holland's Hootenanny as the minutes ticked past towards midnight, the other eye on my laptop as I placed my seed order.

It is a serious business buying the seeds for the coming season. Some people do it by going into a garden centre and selecting seed packets from the racks. For me it is a slower, more meticulous and enjoyable task done at home. I start by gathering together all the seeds that I still have left from the previous year. I go through the lot, making a note of anything I still have a good supply of. I use my judgement too as to whether the seed has become too old to keep. Most seeds will be good for a second year (although parsnip seeds should be fresh every year). Many seeds will be good for three years. You can usually tell when seed is too old because the germination rate will become poorer and poorer with age.

As I go through my old seeds and empty packets I make a note of anything I remember I definitely want to grow so I don't forget to order more later. Next I get out the collection of seed catalogues that started coming through my door in October and which I have carefully stashed away for this moment. I share this task with my girls too so they get a say in what they grow (with guidance) and feel ownership of the whole experience. We go through the catalogues and star those things we think we would like to order. These are a combination of things we have grown before and we know are reliable in our conditions or produce a particularly lovely crop. They may also be things we have grown before that failed but which we would love to try again to see if we can get them to work this time. And there will be selection of things we have not tried before but we fancy because of their description (and/or picture) in the catalogue.

The next task is the make a list of all the seeds (with their order codes) that we want to order from each catalogue. This gives me a chance to check that I'm not ordering the same thing from different catalogues, and checking I'm ordering the one at the best price. Finally, armed with this list, I can sit down at my computer and place my orders via the companies websites.

Once again my youngest daughter has chosen a selection of yellow vegetables to grow in her veg patch. I love this idea and it has led me to discover some very good crops that I might not otherwise have tried. The yellow mangetout and yellow climbing beans have been very good and this year I shall only be growing yellow courgettes as they taste better and have a better texture. Against that, I won't be ordering either of the Mayan potato varieties the girls chose last year as they provided too tempting for the slugs and gave a very poor yield of thoroughly munched potatoes.



I have ordered my usual favourite, reliable varieties, of course, such as Early Nante carrots, Boltary beetroot, Marathon calebrese, Mussleburgh leeks, Jack O'Lantern and Baby Bear pumpkins, Burpless Tasty Green cucumber, Blue Lake and Hunter French beans, Scarlet flowering broad beans and Sutton broad beans, Kestrel and Charlotte potatoes. But I'm also looking forward to trying out some new varieties, particularly as this year will be the first year ever that I've had a greenhouse. Placing the order is always exciting and as usual I'm eager to get started. Roll on spring!

Jelly, jelly & jelly

Jelly is a funny old word with a surprising range of meanings. In my world it usually refers to an amusingly springy fruity dessert stuff, a jam without seeds in it or a soft, fruity, sugar coated sweet. Oh, and I guess it is also that stuff you get inside pork pies that some people love and others fund totally gross.

All of these types of jelly will be featuring at my table this Christmas.

The first will be made from homegrown raspberries from the freezer, pureed and mixed with powdered gelatine to provide the "jelly" set. This will be poured over slices of Swiss roll and topped with custard and cream to make a classic trifle. We all love trifle in this house and you can't beat the lovely fruity flavour you get from a homemade jelly rather than the weird artificial flavour of the stuff you just mix with boiling water.

Raspberry Jelly

3 tablespoons cold water
1 tablespoon or 1 sachet powdered gelatine
8 oz (225 g) raspberries
4 oz (110 g) granulated sugar
12 fl oz (400 ml) cold water

Put 3 tablespoons of cold water into a small pan and sprinkle over the gelatine, then stir and set aside for 5 minutes. Put the raspberries, sugar and 12 fl oz of water into a large pan and bring to the boil. Leave the fruit to simmer for 5 minutes until soft then press through a sieve to make a puree. Heat the gelatine over a low heat for a minute or two until clear then stir this into the raspberry puree.

Raspberry Trifle

1 pint (600 ml) of raspberry jelly (see recipes above)
1 small Swiss roll
Sherry or apple juice
1 pack of ready to make custard powder
150ml double cream
100ml creme fraiche
12g (1/2 oz) icing sugar
Decorations

Make raspberry jelly as shown in the recipes above. Slice up the Swiss roll and layer it into the bottom of suitable containers and pour over enough sherry or apple juice to cover. Allow the cake to soak up the liquid and become mushy. You could also add a layer of fresh raspberries too at this point. Pour the jelly over the cake and refrigerate for 2-3 hours until set. In the meantime, make up the custard as instructed on the packet and allow to cool completely to room temperature - placing a piece of clingfilm on the surface of the custard will stop it forming a skin. Once the jelly has set, pour the custard over the top and level off. Return to the refrigerator for at least another hour. Combined the cream, creme fraiche and icing sugar together and whip until it forms soft peaks then spoon this on top of the custard layer. Add any decorations just before serving.




The next kind of jelly will be redcurrant jelly, made from our homegrown redcurrants earlier in the year. Some people seem a little confused by the name "jelly" on a jar and it can put them off as they seem unsure how to use a jelly. Well, it really is just a seedless jam, usually strained to produce a beautifully clear end product. If you fancy spreading it on your toast then do so but it can also be eaten as an accompaniment to meat or a flavour added to it when cooking. Undoubtedly, we will use some redcurrant jelly to accompany a nice bit of lamb but I shall also use it for redcurrant cheesecake.




Redcurrant Cheesecake

Base:
6 oz crushed digestive biscuits
2 oz melted butter

Filling:
7 oz soft cheese
3 oz caster sugar
1 egg
4 fl oz whipping cream

Topping:
4 oz redcurrant jelly

To make the base: Put the biscuits in a bag and crush them with the end of a rolling pin until finely crushed. Melt the butter and mix it with the biscuit crumbs. Press the mix firmly into the bottom of a flan dish and chill for about 1 hour.

To make the filling: Preheat oven to 180 °C, gas mark 4. Cream together the cheese and the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and cream and whisk until thick. Dollop the creamy filling onto the biscuit base and spread out evenly. Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes then turn out the oven and leave it in the oven for another 10 minutes. After that open the oven door and leave the cheesecake inside to continue its slow cooling so that it doesn't crack. Once cooled but still slightly warm, carefully heat the redcurrant jelly in the microwave (2 x 20 seconds) or a pan of hot water until it is runny. Pour the warmed jelly evenly over the surface of the cheesecake. When sufficiently cool, refrigerate until ready to serve.



When I was a kid my lovely next door neighbour (Mrs P, we used to call her), used to give my brother and me a large tube of Fruit Pastilles every Christmas. A lovely treat, although back then they were full of artificial colours and flavourings. I'm pleased to say that, as so many food items have, they have vastly improved since then. Even so, they do not taste anywhere near as fruity as the homemade fruit jelly sweets I have made this Christmas. Using little more than fruit and sugar, I have concocted both blackcurrant and raspberry flavoured blocks of fruit jelly. They need to be stored in the fridge and they aren't quite as robust as the ones you get in a tube but, my God, they knock your head off with their lovely ziggy fruity flavour. And as an added advantage, they are a jelly that doesn't contain gelatine so are suitable for my vegan step-daughter. Hmmm... makes me wonder if I could make a vegan trifle... now there's a challenge!

Real Fruit Jelly Sweets

300-350g blackcurrants (or other high pectin fruit - e.g. gooseberries)
300g of apple or crabapple pectin stock
2 tsp lemon juice
250g granulated sugar
2 tbsp glucose syrup
Granulated sugar for rolling

Blitz the blackcurrants in a blender until it forms a thick liquid. Add the apple/crabapple to it then strain through a sieve to remove the seeds and skin. Pour the liquid into a large saucepan and add the lemon juice, sugar and glucose. Gently heat, stirring all the time, until the sugar is dissolved and it no longer feels gritty. Bring to the boil and boil vigorously for 15 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent sticking. Remove from the heat and pour into a greased plastic food container. Leave to cool then refrigerate until set. Use a spatula to loosen the jelly from the container then turn out onto a surface sprinkled with sugar. Cut into stripes then cubes. Roll each on in sugar then place in a container and keep refrigerated until ready to eat. The jellies do not melt if left out of the fridge but they do become softer and harder to pick up.