Hi All,
That time of year again - blackberry picking - and if you have some apples and rhubarb also your away in a hack.
These recipes take work and effort - so ensuring its shelf life and giving you something of your own through the dreary winter is worth putting equal effort into. I strongly suggest you read my previous posting on preserving, it is worth taking the effort.
Trust me, when you hear jars with a pop-up top 'click' as they cool, its a very rewarding feeling to know that's a batch of Your work that can safely be stored in the larder/kitchen for the next 12 months, until the next harvest.
Here are 4 blackberry recipes - click on the highlighted text to link to the recipes
Hello readers, well - it's been a few weeks since the last article, but work needs to be done to pay the bills. This is a straight forward little recipe, a seaweed surprise from the shoreline that was collected and dried during the summer.
Carragheen - (Chondrus crispus) is an edible seaweed found on North Atlantic coastlines.
Also known as carageen, carrageen and Irish moss.
It is quite a distinct purple with cream / off white tips to the leafy fringe and dries out to a brown/yellow colour.
It grows in fairly dense, shortish clumps at the mid-tide range, i.e. it likes to dry out a bit on occasion.
It also tends to attract a tiny white barnacle at the stem.
It has a slippy feel when fresh. Just pick it, rinse off with warm water and leave to dry.
Try to cut the upper fronds cleanly, leaving the root to grow back and provide you with future crops.
It is used to create a mild, creamy gelatin with milk.
I collect my own out here but there is a company in Donegal who sell this and other seaweed products in called seaveg. In Ireland their distribution is getting more widespread, and in other places you can normally find some type in health stores.
The carragheen can be plain, with a little sugar or easily flavoured with the blend of your choice - cayenne, baileys, lemon, ginger, vanilla etc can all be used.
TO MAKE CARRAGHEEN FLOAT
10 gm carragheen
500ml milk
½ tsp caster sugar
½ tsp grated lime rind
Take about 5 or 10 grams of dried carragheen, rinse and soak in lukewarm water for approx. 10 minutes.
Bring 500 ml of milk to the boil, add carragheen and simmer for 15 - 20 minutes.
At this point I added a ½ tsp of caster sugar and a ½ tsp of grated lime rind.
Its generally ready to set when the simmering becomes like a fast boil without boiling over.
The mix can be strained into a jug to remove the seaweed bits, but they really do no harm, and don't taste of anything in particular.
I poured the still warm milk over the coulis base, then added a few drops of lime to the top.
Then it gets chucked in the fridge to cool, and can be made well in advance of a meal.
TO MAKE COULIS
500g blackberries
25g honey
½ tsp vanilla extract
Coulis is simply a berry melange, a mixture of berries that can be sweetened as desired.
I used black berries, but there are other variations - any berry, cooked rhubarb, an apple or citrus sorbet blend.
This is a very adaptable recipe, the only reason for presentation was the availability of local black berries.
The other aspect is the dark and white contrast giving an impression of an Irish stout.
Put 250gm blackberries and 25gm of honey into a small pan with 100ml water.
Bring to the boil, then simmer for 5 mins until the fruit is soft. Stir in the vanilla, remove and cool a little.
Tip the contents of the pan into a blender or food processor, and whizz to a puree, then strain through a sieve, rubbing it through with the back of a ladle or spoon
Mix with remaining blackberries and any other flavour you wish to incorporate, like ginger.
Add to base of serving dish - in my case a martini glass
OAT AND HONEY CAP.
To add texture, I made some very thin oat and honey cakes.
It is probably as easy, if not a little better to use shop made crisp cookies.
Take about 50 gm oats, 10gm honey and a little flour and mix.
Bake in the top of the oven for 15-20 minutes
These were then removed from the oven. They will still be pliable while warm, so you can roll them or shape them to create your own style.
As always, comments are welcome and I always apprieciate the feedback
Like my Blackberry Chutney, this is another way to use blackberries.
The final result is a stunning lemon and blackberry flavour with a creamy, buttery texture
It tastes really nice, perhaps a little too sweet, so in future I'll just reduce the sugar content a bit, and maybe use a little carrageen, I just need a little more tartness.
I think it would make a really nice filling for a tart.
The only pain is the straining, but it is really worth the trouble.
Before you start I would recommend reading Val Harrisons advice on curd making
Its just a nice thing to have a bit of variation on the staple blackberry jam, which cant be beaten - but this comes close.
It is advised that you use unsalted butter, but I used a really good butter from a small Mayo based family company who make a really nice butter, far better than anything else I found in the supermarkets over the years. Cuineog have deservedly won several awards for their traditional, great tasting product. It's great to see a small family business doing so well.
Once you have tried Cuinneog, I can tell you it's hard to back to the mass produced kerrygold types.
The flavour is rich, and if your going to the trouble of making this curd, just for the flavour, I'd recommend it fully.
The good news is that Cuinneog's distribution and availability is increasing all the time.
Ingredients:
1.0kg blackberries
350g peeled and cored apples*
150 ml water
110 g butter
Yolks of 2 fresh eggs
900g sugar
100 ml fresh lemon juice
I added 20g Ginger and two tsp lemon rind to give a little more zing to the original recipe that came from the wonderful John and Val Harrison at allotment.org.uk
Vals method is a little different to mine, but they both work.
(*I added 100gm of rhubarb in lieu of apple)
Method:
1.Put blackberries, apples and sugar in a large saucepan with the water. Bring to the boil over a high heat. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer for about 30 minutes until the fruit is is soft and near setpoint.
2.Remove from the heat and push the fruit through a strainer into a medium-sized mixing bowl, pressing down on the fruit with a wooden spoon.
3.Put another heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water or bain maire and melt the butter.
Beat the eggs lightly and stir into the bowl with the lemon juice and pressed blackberry and apple.
4. Cook for 25 to 30 minutes or until mixture thickens, stir frequently.
5. Remove the bowl from the heat and pour the curd into clean, dry, warm, sterilized jars.
IMPORTANT TIP: Filling curd jars is different from jam, you leave as little headspace as possible because Curds shrink.
8. Don't forget to cool them sitting on a cloth, this gives more even cooling.
Keep the jars in a cool, dry place. Curds will last about 3 months if kept in a refrigerator, 6 weeks in a cool, dark place but only about a week once they are opened.
I hope the waterbath may push out the shelf life to about 5 months
Sugar in Jam does two things, it preserves and it gels.
I am not one that worries too much about food intake, sugars, fats etc. but I was so shocked at the amount of sugar that goes into a preserve even I knew that had to be bad for you
But in my attempt to reduce the sugar content of the jam I decided to give this a go. Its an experiment.
How it turns out in terms of shelf life I have no idea, but I am fairly confident that it should last at least 4 months after proper waterbath processing.
Something we have in abundance all along the shore of the Island is Carageen moss.
This is a natural gelatin. It free and available, so I decided to go with that.
Adding carageen to the mix will force it to gel, so that is one aspect of sugars contribution.
Rememember - when you pick carrigeen, put it on the draining board and pour boiling water over it before you dry it.
Pectin will also do the same thing, this can be bought in stores or you can make it at home.
The rcipe for that is later on
The less ripe the fruit, the more natral pectin, so I went with about 10% of unripe (red or green) blackberries
In a recipe for carrot jam (which will come later) Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management 1861, she added brandy at a ratio of 1 tsp per pound of mix to a preserve to make sure it would remain good for months. The alcohol, just another sugar really, in her recipie is what keeps the preserve.
The obvious problem is with its low boiling point, the alcohol cannot be added durning the cooking process, so it goes in at the last possible moment - just after filling up the jar before the lid and liner go on.
So, I decided to do a Blackberry and rhubarb jam, but reduce the sugar content drasticly, to half the normal ratio. Its still a lot of sugar, but at least it is a start.
As far as I know, looking on the net, this is the first time someones written about making a conserve in this way, so I am a little proud of that - Delaney must have inspired me.
750gm sliced rhubarb
500gm Blackberries (at least 50 gm underripe)
150 gm cooking apple peeled and chopped
(total fruits 1.4kg)
600ml water
3tsp lemon juice
100 gm Demerera
100 gm Rich dark brown
400 gm White sugar
75 gm honey
25 gm Carrageen (a.k.a Irish Moss)
1 tsp brandy per jar filled
(or any other strong drink with a volume of about 40% volume/80% proof e.g. slivovitz, rum, whiskey, vodka, gin, you know what you like)
Put the sugar, water, honey, apple, lemon juice and honey to a large pot, mix, bring to the boil.
Reduce heat and let it simmer on a low heat to reduce.
Soak carrigeen in cold water in warm water for 15 minutes, squeeze out excess water and add to the pot.
Now, because of the reduction in sugar this needs to be reduced more than normal, your looking at 30% reduction at least. Because of the energy requirement I just did it very slowly on the Morso, so timing will differ.
When the mix has reduced do the gel test.
Some people like to remove seeds, carageen bits etc. using a cheesecloth or jam strainer, but you should be able to fish out the carigeen f you dont want it, I left mine in.
But if you want to strain out bits, hit the mix with a handblender first
After filling to the mark add a teaspoon of alcohol - (the mark is just below the thread - take a look at any full commercial jar for an indication, thats where the fill should end
If waterbath is done properly, I estimate a shelf life of at least 3 months -
probably about 6 months I would say.
I ended up with a mix that was just a little too runny, but next time out I will just keep reducing a little longer and increase the amount of under-ripe fruit - maybe just a little more sugarthat should solve the problem.
I would really like it if others that gave this a shot gave me feedback on their results, that would be great
The mixture sets reasonably well, and is very sweet already, tastes divine.
It is just that little bit different because of the seaweed, so I think that by a few minor adjustments we may be on to something.
To me one of the quintessential tastes of Connemara is soda bread, butter, homemade blackberry jam and sweet tea.
This recipe, an accidental find, is a blackberry chutney that expands the options for a readily available and free resource.
But it is a change, and a new idea in terms of how to use blackberries to make something other than jam - Blackberry Curd isvery fine option, as is Blackberry and Beetroot salad.
The cool thing is that fruit, with their high acid content, are less likely to go wrong during the preservation process, so this might be a good one to start with - particularly with the added acidity of the vinegar.
Its going to be a bumper crop this year, that much is obvious from today's walk to pick blackberries.
It was great to see so many blackberries reaching maturity this early in the year, and the plants are weighed down with immature fruit.
Although I struggle with briar's in the veg patch I am lucky in the fact that the walls here are covered with briar's, and with little or no traffic they are clean.
I came across the basis of this recipe due to taking a spin!! As Brillat-Savarin - perhaps in hubris - once wrote "The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star"
A good friend of mine owns a local store and needed a hand with taking a delivery from a cash and carry.
I went in to see if I could get some allspice, for a Jewish recipe I found for turnips - but no luck there.
However what I did find was Kilner jars - a thing I have wanted for a while, especially after seeing onion preserves photographed on food, flora and felines. Bit sad, but it is a question of catching up with the Joneses, cant have those southerners having their food look better than mine - the cats would never forgive me.
Anyway, getting the jars, they gave a recipe for blackberry chutney. I have never even heard of it so I did a bit of research.
Apparently it is basically a Devon/Cornwall recipe, which is a part of England I love for the food, the surf and the people.
There are a few variations, but he basics are blackberries, chili's, ginger, onion, sugar and wine vinegar.
In this recipe the weights are for standard, but I added a few bits and bobs.
STANDARD
1 tsp Olive oil
1 red onion, finely chopped
3 cm ginger, finely chopped
2 large red chillies, finely chopped
1 lb blackberries
45 grms brown sugar
30 ml (one fluid ounce) white wine vinegar
MY EXTRAS
1 cooking apple, cored, peeled, diced
1 tsp lemon zest
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp sea salt
2 tsp honey
1/2 combined tsp (i.e. - 1/2 a teaspoon of all, not of each) of:
Mustard seed, crushed
Coriander seed, crushed
Cumin seed, crushed
Method:
1: Heat the olive oil in a heavy based pan, add onion, chili and ginger
(I also at this point added the spices and lemon zest)
2: Fry gently for 4-5 minutes until softened, do not overcook.
3: Add blackberries and cook for 3-4 minutes
(I also at this point added the apple, lemon juice and honey)
4: Add sugar and vinegar, mixing well
5: Bring to the boil, then simmer for 20 mins or until thickened.
6: While the chutney is still hot, transfer to into hot, sterilised jars.
Delicious served with goat cheese and crusty bread, but it can be used as a chutney with other dishes, I'm looking forward to having it with bacon wrapped rounds of goat cheese.
I will add photos to this post in about 3 weeks, unless I am back at work.
This recipe has a real salt and sweet flavor, but should not be eaten for at least two weeks after jarring.
That's easier said than done, every pickle so far has either been eaten or given away as a gift.
And that kind of brings it to mind - why, with the availability of good, cheap pickles, preserves and chutneys do I bother with so much work? It does seem quite impractical
Well, I think it is important to know how to preserve food, I can milk a cow, catch a fish, skin a rabbit, butcher a lamb etc. - so there is that primary drive for knowledge.
There is food miles, I wrote before at how shocked I was to be buying garlic from China and onions from New Zealand - when these are not particularly seasonal foods.
But, perhaps, most importantly, maybe it is a labour of love.
For many people, pickling and preserving are a family way of life - a custom handed down through generations.
Its also great to have home grown, fresh from the garden preserves, pickles, chutneys and jams that can provide variety to the table.
On having variety and range in food - and cooking -Again I must quote Brillat-Savarin once wrote "The Creator, who made man such that he must eat to live, causes him to eat by means of appetite, and for a reward gives him pleasure in eating"
Most importantly of all perhaps is the giving of food as a gift - this is particularly true of food you have made or grown yourself.
I am not a religious person by any stretch of the imagination, but there are so many references in the bible, koran and other texts it is hard to ignore how fundamental and intimate the sharing of food is.
Across all cultures, the sharing of food is for joyful occasions, weddings, births and holidays.
I will have an excess of food - the koran says Food for two suffices three; and food for three suffices four
That simply means to share.
A fundamental part of christianity is the last supper, the gathering together and sharing of food.
In Nehimiah 8:10 it says "Go and enjoy choice food ..... and send some to those who have nothing prepared"
And by digging up these recipes, and sharing them with others on the world wide web, maybe that is an extension of sharing food, and maybe that explains why I do this blog.
My garden makes me happy, so perhaps the most relevant quote I can think of is one of Buddhas sayings -
“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
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