Another Food Blog

It looked wrong and it was, and I only made it work by changing it. It was a recipe from the Independent newspaper for strawberry jam. Against my better judgement I tried it.

1kg/2lb strawberries, hulled
1kg caster sugar
The zest and juice of 1 lemon

I used lime instead of lemon, but otherwise followed the recipe. Heat the lot until the sugar dissolves, then boil vigorously for 10 minutes. Ten minutes?!? I thought “this is never going to set.” Where’s the setting agent? The wrinkle test (a spoonful on a cold saucer) showed no propensity to set. Not did it after 15 minutes, 20 or 25. Finally I gave up, poured it into jars and waited. When it was cool, but still sloppy, I put it in the fridge. It had still not set next day, so I poured it all back into the saucepan and added about 125ml of Certo, an apple pectin setting agent. I boiled it up for a couple of minutes, let it cool a little, then poured it again into (newly washed) jars. This time as it cooled I noticed the strawberries were not all floating to the top. It set, and after a spell in the fridge it set even more.

I tasted some on a baguette. What a fantastic fresh taste! But what a lot of unnecessary trouble. Strawberry jams are notoriously hard to set. The easiest way is to use the sugar that supermarkets sell that already has pectin added. However, I ended up with a few excellent jars of homemade strawberry jam, and had my opinion of a certain newspaper reinforced.

Roast potatoes are easy. You peel and parboil the potatoes – I do it for 8 minutes. Then you roughen their surfaces, and put them on a tray of hot fat, basting them before putting it in the oven for about an hour. I use goose fat for a really good taste. I thought I’d experiment with that “roughen their surfaces” bit. Delia, who is rarely wrong about anything, recommends shaking them in the pan with the lid on once the water has been drained off. This knocks them against each other and against the pan. Others recommend draining them in a colander and tossing lightly to achieve the same effect. I’ve used a sieve for this before.

This time I thought I’d try another suggested way. I ran a fork over all sides of each potato to roughen it up a little with the prongs. It was more labour-intensive than the other methods. Did it work better? No. The potatoes came out far too crunchy. They were still edible, but were too crisp on the outside. They tasted great, probably because they’d taken in more of the goose fat than usual, but way too crunchy. Ah well, back to Delia. I prefer them slightly crunchy.

It was on the deli cheese counter at the big Sainsbury’s near Victoria. It was in a pile of assorted off-cuts which had been cling-wrapped. It said “Sheeps milk T/WENS.” Thinking it read “Tiwens,” I looked it up, unsuccessfully. I then looked more carefully and tried T/WENS and made no more progress. It had a pleasant taste, acidic as sheep’s milk cheeses tend to be. They lack the huge amounts of the lactose sugar that makes cow’s milk cheeses sweeter.

Could the “WENS” be short for Wensleydale? And could the “T” be for “Teddington’s”? The Teddington Cheese Company makes a sheep’s milk Wensleydale. It’s described as having “an open, crumbly and moist texture, a clean tangy flavour and a bright white colour.” It’s also covered in wax rather than cheesecloth during manufacture. All of the above description fits except “crumbly.” Mine was moist and creamy, rather than crumbly. Maybe that comes from its cling wrap, and it might go crumbly when stored properly? It’s difficult to work out what else it might be, but it’s very good stuff.

They’re not from Bombay, but from Bombay gin, the subject of a special promotion by Balls Brothers wine bar. Some of them look to be worth trying.
1. Garden Martini: gin and elderflower, shaken with rosemary over ice and fine-strained.
2. Queen Mum of Cosmo (now there’s a splendid name!): gin, cointreau, cranberry juice, fresh lime juice, shaken and strained.
3. Filthy Martini: gin shaken with ouce brine and orange bitters, and served straight up.
4. The 007 Vesper Martini: gin, Belvedere vodka, Lillet vermouth, shaken, not stirred (of course), and served straight up.
5. Royal Martini: berries muddled with gin and myrtille, shaken and served straight up.

The obvious question is what are ouce brine and myrtille? The latter is just the French word for blueberries, and is unnecessarily pretentious when used here. ‘Ouce’ is harder, and seems to be a misprint, in that a filthy (sometimes called ‘dirty’) Martini seems to include the brine from an olive jar. It should probably read “1 ounce brine,” as some recipes stipulate.