I was poking about in the freezer yesterday in search of peaches to make chutney and somehow burst a bag of blackcurrants. Suddenly there were hundreds of frozen blackcurrants on the move so I hastily closed the lid and carried on on my chutney mission. Late last night I remembered the blackcurrants and realised that they were going to be rolling about the freezer for ever if i didn’t do something. Luckily we had a bottle of poitin lurking in the cupboard. It’s been there for the past year as it tastes (to my mind) quite disgusting so today I headed out to the freezer armed with a large bowl and a torch and scooped the blackcurrants up.

I left them to defrost for while, then gave them a good bash and put them into a couple of large screw top jars. I divided the poitin between the two and now they are sitting on the kitchen counter.

The idea is to give the jars a shake every now and then and then just before Xmas strain them off and add sugar syrup.  I’m thinking of bottling it up for gifts and using some in the aperitif department to make Kir.

I’m not quite sure what the result will be but it’s definitely got potential!

I’m always curious and when I saw Ottolenghi’s recipe for spuds in last weeks Guardian I noticed there was an Iranian lime in it.

I had bought some dried limes in the Turkish supermarket some time back as I had seen a few recipes that called for limes but of course once I had some it seemed to go quiet on the dried lime front. This was the ideal opportunity for me to try them out. The recipe is quite simple ; spuds, butternut, onions etc., in a lightly spiced sauce. I didn’t have any butternut squash but I had a big Queensland Blue pumpkin which was an ideal substitute and of course I erred from the original recipe in a couple of other places too – scaling down the amounts and adding the fresh herbs toward the end rather than boiling them up.

The recipe began with cooking onions, cummin seeds and turmeric in clarified butter. I made some clarified butter – these instructions weren’t included in the original recipe – by gently cooking some butter in the pan until it frothed up and the milk solids went golden and sank to the bottom. I didn’t bother to strain it as I wasn’t bothered about the bitty bits, I just like the flavour, and continued as instructed. I didn’t have any tomato paste either so I grated fresh tomato in on top of the onions. This is always a handy trick when something like that is called for. I added in chunks of potato, pumpkin and the Iranian lime which I stabbed a few times as instructed and added a little salt and enough water tocover everything. Initially the lime bobbed about on the top like a life-buoy but with a little encouragement from my wooden spoon it did eventually submerge.

The oven was on and getting hot whilst the potatoes and pumpkin cooked until barely tender. Next in were a few quartered tomatoes, a whole chilli, a spoonful of currants (instead of barberries which I have never found in West Cork)  a bunch of spinach and a big handful of coriander and tarragon. I gave everything a big stir then dumped it into an ovenproof dish and popped it into the oven for about fifteen minutes.

We ate this with rice and a dollop of yoghurt as advised and it was delicious. The lime gave a delightful tartness to the dish and chilli had a spectacular effect when my unsuspecting diner chomped it before realising. If you make this dish and don’t feel like spiking your audience maybe take it out before serving!!

50g butter – clarified

half tsp turmeric

1 tsp cummin seeds

1 tomato or use 1 tbs tomato puree

4 small waxy potatoes

about 300g firm pumpkin

1 Iranian lime

1 whole chilli, split down one side

salt

3 tomatoes, quartered

a small bunch of spinach

a handful fresh coriander

a handful fresh tarragon

1 dsp currants

salt

Method as above

I only have a few photos of the membrillo that I made. One of the quince at the beginning, a big splatty pot and then a slab of membrillo at the end. As usual i got carried away with the cooking and forgot to take photos along the way.

We have a quince tree in our garden and this year we had our third harvest of about fifteen knobbly pears. Quince look like rotund freestyle pears and are very hard. They are not for eating raw and are difficult to peel but it’s well worth the effort in order to make delicious membrillo

.

Membrillo is a set quince jelly that is eaten in Spain with cheese. The first time that I ate membrillo we were guests in a friends’ mother s house in the north of Spain. It was a small village near the Portuguese border and the mother welcomed us into her little house and made us a feast. The dessert was fresh white cheese and membrillo. The cheese didn’t look very appealing to me but it would have been rude to refuse. It was delicious,. Somehow the musky sweetness of the membrillo opened up the delights of this otherwise quite bland cheese.  I’ve been a fan ever since although these days I usually enjoy membrillo with Manchego, which is a hard Spanish sheep cheese.

It’s very easy to make membrillo but as I only make it once a year I can never remember quite how I made it the year before.  Here’s this years version

Peel and chop the quince  – however many you have.

Put the chopped quince into a saucepan and just cover with water.

Split a vanilla pod and scrape the seeds onto the fruit and then chuck the pod in too.

Cook for about forty minutes, or until the quince are tender.

Strain, remove the vanilla pod and weight the fruit,

Blend the fruit to a puree in a processor

Put the puree into a clean saucepan with the equal weight of sugar .

Gently bring to the boil, then turn to simmer for about forty minutes.

Stir every few minutes and beware of moulten plops of membrillo.

Pour the jelly onto a tray lined with parchment paper and leave to set

My kitchen was totally trashed when I had finished, there were blobs of membrillo far and wide but it was well worth a little scrub.

I went to the market today  and bought five fatty prawns. This was even though I am home alone. Home alone with a bowlful of fresh borlotti beans that is. Prawns and borlotti beans are a mean combination and one that I hanker over each autumn when the borlotti beans are ready. It’s such a small window of opportunity to have the fresh beans and find fatty prawns at the same time that even though it seemed slightly sad that I cooked this all for myself  I had to go for it.

I cracked the heads off of the prawns and put them into large pot with a little olive oil and roasted them for a few minutes before bashing them with the end of a rolling pin. When they were well bashed I put enough water to cover, half a diced onion and a stick of celery and bought it to the boil. Once it was bubbling away I turned it to simmer.

The borlotti beans were podded and popped into a pot with a couple of shallots and cooked for twenty minutes. Once they were tender I tossed them in olive oil and a little salt.

The prawn bodies were butterflied and left to relax in a bowl with a drizzle of olive oil, some chopped garlic and black pepper – this is one of the best ever ways to cook fatty prawns.

I drained the prawn heads. it had reduced down and there was about half a cupful of stock.

In a small pan a I cooked half a diced onion in a little olive oil then stirred in a clove of chopped garlic then I stirred in a grated a ripe tomato – a clever Spanish trick – and the half cupful of stock.

I let this all bubble away whilst I heated a pan and the cooked the prawns

First belly down

Then belly up

I seasoned the sauce, put a puddle on the plate , then a little heap of borlotti beans and piled the prawns on top.

Yum! Absolutely yum!  Even if I do say so myself – mind you my kitchen is trashed and I’m feeling very stuffed!

This summer has produced some fantastic fruit. Right now the hedgerows are filling with ripe blackberries and the garden has an incredible amount of apples. The apple trees are espaliered around the wall and some are really ancient – they’ve certainly been here longer than we have – and produce both fragrant eating apples and gnarled knobbly cooking apples. We have also planted lots of crisp juicy eating apples in our time here and these trees are literally drooping with apples.

We have been picking up the windfalls and our kitchen has buckets of apples lined up against one wall. This has started an apple cooking frenzy. We have apple chutney, apple compote, apple muffins and apple tart tatin on the go.

In our house one of autumn’s special treats is an apple tart tatin. They have to be the ‘queen’ of apple tarts and they also use an impressive amount of apples to make each tart, so are ideal in the apple consuming quest. To make a tart tatin the apples are gently caramelised in butter and sugar, then covered with pastry and baked. When the tart cools it’s tipped out onto a platter so the apples sit on top. It tastes divine. I wouldn’t normally be an apple tart person but these are the business. To prevent ourselves from dying of tart over consumption we are sharing these with the shop so if you would like to try a slice pop in and get a piece.

I was going to write the tart tatin recipe but when I sat down to write it I realised it was a bit tricky. It’s one of these recipes that you really need to see to unlock the secret.

Amidst all this apple mania I have been experimenting with muffin recipes. Muffins are a North American invention and the recipes are so simple that it’s possible to imagine early pioneers with very little in the way of a kitchen knocking these out. No fancy equipment needed, just bowls, a wooden spoon and an oven. Here’s one of my successful culinary creations: apple and blackberry muffins.

Apple and Blackberry Muffins.

100g whole wheat flour

125g white flour

225mls natural yoghurt or sour cream

125g butter

2 eggs

1 dsp ground cinnamon

1tsp baking powder

1 tsp bread soda

125g light muscovado sugar or light brown sugar

2-3 eating apples

1 large cup of blackberries

A little extra sugar for the top of the muffins

Pre heat the oven 180c

Grease a twelve-portion muffin tin with butter or line with muffin cases.

Melt the butter in a small pan then put aside.

Put the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar into a large bowl and mix together.

Beat the eggs together with the yoghurt or sour cream.

Peel the apples and chop into small pieces.

Tip the egg/yoghurt mix, chopped apples and blackberries and melted butter into the dry ingredients and mix briefly. Put a large spoonful of the mixture into each muffin case. Sprinkle the top with a little muscovado sugar then bake for 20-25mins.

Check the muffins by inserting a clean sharp knife; if it comes out clean the muffins are ready.