Green & Black

Crop of blackcurrants and gooseberries

It's harvest time for our fruit bushes and what a crop. We picked 9kg from the three blackcurrant bushes, and nearly 4kg from the two gooseberries. The rest of the afternoon was spent washing, top and tailing and freezing - keeping a few back top make some fool.

August fool

August Fool

- Stew some berries with sugar and a little water
- Puree, sieve and leave to cool
- whip some double cream and then fold into cooled berry puree.
PK

Redcurrant Jelly fest

We left redcurrant picking till later this year - what with all the rain this summer things took a little longer to ripen. But it was worth the wait. The berries were plentiful, large and deep ruby in colour. In total we picked 12kg of fruit - freezing 2/3rds and making 4 lge jars and 3 smaller jars of jelly from the rest.

12kg of redcurrants picked on just one day

The best jelly recipe.

It's an old recipe so I use imperial measurements as it makes life a lot simpler. Redcurrants are high in pectin so setting is never a problem - that being the case you can use granulated sugar.

• Wash the berries - there's no need to remove them from the stalks - discard leaves and other debris.
• Place berries in a large pan - for every 3 lb of fruit add 1 pint of water.
• Simmer gently for 30 minutes until the fruit is really mushy.
• Line another large saucepan with a cloth or jelly bag, and pour cooked berries into the cloth.
• Tie the cloth up, and raise it so the juice can run freely into the pan below.
• Leave this to strain overnight.
• Discard the contents of the cloth.
• Measure the juice extract. For every 1 pint of juice add 1 lb of sugar to the pan.
• Heat gently, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.
• Bring to the boil and boil rapidly for 15 minutes.
• Test for set. (Take a saucer that's been in the freezer, drip some jelly onto it and leave for a minute. If it crinkles when you run your finger through it then its reached setting point).
• Remove from heat.
• Skim off scum with a slotted spoon.
• Pour jelly into clean sterilised jars. To sterilise your clean jars place in oven for 20 mins at 130 - remove from oven and pour jelly into warm jars. Put the lids on straight away.

Gluhwein recipe

Vin chaud on the Pla de la Le - Zinal

There's nothing like a drop of gluhwein or vin-chaud (as they call it round here) drunk under the stars on a winter's night. Following several requests here's the Edelwiess recipe.

1 bottle red wine
75g brown sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
1 lemon stuck with cloves
150 ml brandy

Put all the ingredients (except the brandy) in a pan and bring to simmering point.
Cover and simmer for 2-4 minutes.
Remove from the heat.
Add the brandy.
Strain and serve.