Meyer Lemons and Dydd Gwyl Dewi

When life hands you Meyer lemons make pancakes, delicious with a drizzle of mel de cana!

Mild and sunny enough today to get the garden table out of hibernation and eat these in the garden.

These were a lovely gift. I have never tasted nor even seen a Meyer lemon before. They are a bit rounder and softer than a lemon and a more golden yellow with a lovely fragrant smell.

Very lemony, though maybe a little sweeter than a lemon, the lemon flavour has a hint of mandarin.

March 1st is St David's day in Wales ( in Welsh Dydd Gwyl Dewi) and people there traditionally wear either a daffodil or a leek to mark the day, They have similar names in Welsh Cenhinen (leek) and Cenhinen Pedr (daffodil, literally "Peter's leek")

St David's is a pretty little place in Pembrokeshire in Wales, actually it is the smallest city in Britain as it has a cathedral. It is very near the sea but built in a hollow so that in the days of marauding hordes it could not be seen from the sea.

Lemon Sugar

Sometimes I only need the juice of a lemon. The zest can removed and preserved. I cut thin strips of zest from 2 lemons and left them in a low oven to dry out. They can be kept in the fridge to dry out until you have the oven on for something else then placed in the oven to lightly roast either while the oven is warming up or after you have switched it off. I then blitzed the dried rind with some sugar and filled the small jar in the photo above. The smell is wonderful and it make a convenient addition when baking cakes or biscuits.

The other jar was made using a mixture of orange and mandarin peel.

I started out trying a recipe for Roasted Lemon Zest that I saw here on Chocolate & Zuccini I couldn't get the roasted rinds to powder in the pestle and mortar nor in my blender. When I added the sugar the blender managed fine. I don't know whether I roasted the rinds too much or not enough. I will experiment further as I would like to have a non sugar version as well for savoury dishes.

Have your Cake and Eat it

Cupcakes for Valentine's Day.

I used the recipe I devised for the International Picnic Day here

I put the mixture into heart shaped silicone cupcake cases.

The icing was made from some of the juice from the thawing raspberries mixed with icing sugar

Last Friday I went to a cookery demonstration at Fortnum and Masons in London.

They have a demonstration kitchen on the first floor and on the menu for Friday it was cupcakes.

When I arrived Harry from Petis Pois Cakes was grating the secret weapon while her

colleague removed the zest from a couple of oranges. These joined the other ingredients in the mixer to make a slackish orange yellow mixture.

While this batch was cooking some lemon icing was spooned over the 'one I made earlier' batch

and each cake topped with a marzipan pea. We then got down to the real work of tasting and demolished that batch. These cakes contained no butter or marg but due to the secret ingredient were moist and fluffy and tasted good. They were also gluten free. To find out more follow the link above or look out for Harry and Ashley's new recipe book 'Red Velvet and Chocolate Heartache'

Then we were offered samples from the range to see if we could identify the secret ingredients.............. I couldn't.

One of these was a red velvet cake made specially for Fortnums for Valentine's Day.

OK so the secret ingredient for the cakes is one of your 5 a day and for the ones demonstrated it was butternut squash, 200g mixed with 100g rice flour, 100g ground almonds, 2 eggs, zest of 2 oranges, some sugar, baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt. I don't know how much sugar was used but it was less than usual as the butternut squash contributes some of the sweetness.

Dinner at the Gallo D'Oro

Il Galllo d'Oro restaurant is the fine dining restaurant at the Cliff Bay Hotel at Funchal, Madeira. The chef is Benoit Sinthon and the restaurant is the only one on the island with a Michelin star.

Overall I thought the meal was very good. Bravo to Benoit and his team.

I was a bit surprised how close together some of the tables are and facing one another. However on this occasion the company was good (you know who you are !)

We were offered a selection of good breads accompanied by butter and tapenade. This was followed by the chef's delightful and tasty appetiser shown below. Beautiful enough to wear to a wedding, perched on the head at a jaunty angle, the lacy creation shelters a cone of foie gras mousse with a cherry in the middle and some tiny figs. At the side there was 'cherry caviar' which I guessed was made by the process of spherification. The lacy piece was described as cuttlefish crunchy. Both fish courses were cooked superbly.

Red mullet fillets with tomato caviar and tapenade

Clementine sorbet....... this had a beautiful intense mandarin flavour

Sea bream with polenta and a mini ragout of mussels and langoustines

Lemon and lime tart with suzette sauce.

Apple Peeler Slicer Corer

This sturdy piece of kit has a suction cup at the base to secure it to the worktop. The apple is pushed on to the 4 prongs lining it up along its core. Turn the handle and ribbons of peel spiral off like spaghetti while the apple is sliced and cored in just seconds. Great for apple pies. The thickness of the peel can be adjusted.

The slicing and coring bit can be moved aside if you only want to peel. Ideal for getting ribbons of orange zest. I prepared the orange zest for Cranberry and Orange Relish using Delia Smith's recipe. Lovely with the Christmas turkey. I also mixed some with mayo and added it to chopped red cabbage and red onion for serving with cold ham.

Go and have a look here This is the cast iron and stainless steel version. It is based on an original Victorian design.

Candied Figs, Sikalaki gliko

above: candied figs with ginger

below: ginger sugar

I have a fig tree that specialises in producing unripe figs. To be fair it has produced some ripe figs too. The figs from the first crop ripen well and are large. Those from the second crop are plentiful, small and don't usually ripen. This year we had an unsually warm April and October and the tree has produced a supply of ripe figs from July to November. We ate them fresh from the tree and I made fig chutney and fig jam too.

 

I picked the last few that hadn't ripened and this year found a recipe on a Greek food blog for candied figs that requires unripe figs. Figs are preserved in this way in Greece and Turkey. My recipe below is based on this one here Mama's Taverna  

I made some additions and I used less sugar. For the first batch I added lemon zest to the vanilla and cloves. For the second batch I added ginger and cloves. I made some ginger sugar by blitzing about 1 oz peeled root ginger with the sugar till the root ginger disappeared. It smelt wonderful.

I used this to make the syrup. Next time I will try it with a bit more ginger.

The recipe has several stages but each one doesn't take too long and the end product is well worth it.

My Version of Candied Figs   update 2014

3lb unripe figs
The syrup
3lb golden granulated sugar (or substitute  1lb with muscovado sugar)
3 cups water
Juice and zest of 1 large lemon
TIP to get more juice out of a lemon I tried Mary Berry's method. Cut the lemon in half widthways and microwave on high for 30 sec then squeeze.
Flavourings
cinnamon 2 sticks, cloves a desert spoonful.
root ginger 3-4 in peeled or unpeeled and chopped into several pieces.
if you don't like spices try vanilla.

1. Using a skewer make a hole in the side of each fig
    The stalks can be removed or left on. I remove them at this stage. Leave to soak in cold water for several hours.

2. Boil the figs in plenty of water for 15 min. (I wouldn't risk using a a non stick pan as the white juice that comes out is latex and very sticky and you may need to use a scourer.)
Throw the water away and replace with cold water. When the figs are cool throw this water away too.
3. Repeat 2    Clean the pan to remove the latex residue. See tip below
4. Make the syrup. If you are using ginger, cut it into pieces and blitz it in a liquidiser with some of the sugar. I don't peel it any more, it just disappears into the sugar. Add this to the rest of the sugar and the 3 cups of water. Stir and bring to the boil. Add the lemon zest, cinnamon and cloves.
5. Add the figs and boil for 15 min. Leave to cool and leave to soak for 12 hours.
6. Remove the figs from the syrup. Add the lemon juice to the syrup and boil till it begins to thicken a little. This could take 20-30 min
7. Put some jars and lids on a baking tray in a low oven to sterilise.
8. Put the figs back into the syrup and boil for another 15-20min The temperature of the syrup should be around 105C, 220F
9. Use a large spoon or ladle to transfer the figs to the hot jars. Pack in as many as you can and divide the syrup between the jars. Seal by tightly screwing on the hot lids as soon as you can.

above  ladling the syrup into the jars of figs

They are ready to eat as soon as you want or if properly sealed keep for ages.
Usually the lids make a pop sound after 10-20 mins as the lid pulls back, then you know they are well sealed.

Try them with ice cream and liqueur of your choice.


TIP The pan you boil the figs in will have a sticky residue left on it. You could use elbow grease and a scourer as long as it's not a non stick pan but much easier is to put some cooking oil on a cloth and wipe the pan out with that and the gunk comes off easier. Thanks Rachel for this tip.

Update 2015
This year I doubled the amount of figs and used a lime as well as a lemon. I didn't double the amount of water to cut down the time reducing the syrup.

Apple Chutney

The photo above shows some of the ingredients. The apples were from my garden. I recently took one to the RHS for identification and they think it is an Allington pippin.

Apple Chutney

500g apples, cored

1 onion quartered

2 cloves garlic

100g muscavado sugar and 100g golden granulated sugar

250ml cider vinegar

2.5cm root ginger

1 heaped tsp powdered mixed spice for pickling

10g salt

1-2 handfuls raisins

This chutney was made in my Thermomix, very easy!

First I put some jars and their lids into the oven on low heat to sterilise.

Everything except the raisins and the vinegar was blitzed. Then the raisins and vinegar were added and the whole lot cooked at 100C until thickened. It was then poured into the jars.

It can be eaten as soon as it is cool if not before. It does keep well too and brings a taste of Autumn sunshine to a grey Winter's day.

Lovely with home made granary bread and aged gouda.

This my my home made apple picker made from a large yogurt pot sellotaped to a pole.