Author: Kvik Management

Homemade jam is purer in taste and texturally far more interesting than the gloopy jams found in supermarkets. This one using figs and vanilla is a favourite.

Always simmer very slowly to extract the pectin. Stir every now and then to prevent the fruit from catching and don’t be afraid to top up with a little water if it becomes dry.

Once you think the jam is ready, place a spoonful on a saucer in the fridge for a few minutes to cool. Run a finger through the jam: if it wrinkles, it’s ready. If not, return to the stove and boil swiftly.

When it’s done, rest the pan with the fruit in it for 10 minutes until the preserve is setting around the edges. This helps even the distribution of fruit and juice throughout.

Fig & Vanilla Jam

1kg/2lb ripe figs
The zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 vanilla bean, cut in half lengthwise
1kg/2lb caster sugar

Trim the figs and place in a bowl with the lemon zest, juice and vanilla seeds. Spoon over the sugar and mix. Steep for 2 hours, then cook on a low heat until the sugar dissolves.

Next, turn up the heat and boil rapidly until the jam reaches setting point.

Remove the pan from the stove, and cool for 30 minutes before spooning into warm, sterilised jars. Pack each jar with a vanilla pod.

Skye’s recipe this month makes the most out of last of the summer fruits and is one of her all-time favourites, the summer pudding.

This particular recipe uses a sponge instead of the traditional stale bread and the extra effort is well worth it.

Serve each portion topped with a dollop of crème fraiche or thick cream.

Summer pudding
Serves 8 – 10

For the sponge
15g unsalted butter, plus extra to grease
7 organic free-range medium eggs, separated
375g caster sugar
Small pinch of salt
360g plain flour, sifted
5 tbsp warm water

For the fruit
300g blackcurrants
250g caster sugar
Finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
200g blackberries
200g raspberries
100g strawberries

For the sponge, preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4 and grease 33 x 23cm baking tin. Melt the butter in a small pan over a low heat; set aside to cool. Using an electric mixer, whisk the egg yolks with half the sugar until pale and thick enough to leave a ribbon trail on the surface when the whisk is lifted.

In a separate, clean bowl, whisk the eggs whites with a pinch of salt and remaining sugar, whisking slowly to begin with, then increasing the speed slightly after a minute or two. Continue to whisk until the mixture holds stiff peaks.

Carefully fold the flour into the egg yolk and sugar mix, a third at a time, alternately with the water. Fold in the whisked whites, third at a time. Finally, fold in the melted butter.

Spread the mixture thinly and evenly in the prepared baking tin. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 8 – 10 minutes or until the sponge is just golden and dry to touch. Leave in the tin for a few minutes, then turn out and cool on a wire rack while you prepare the fruit.

Place the black – and redcurrants in a saucepan with the sugar and lemon juice and cook over a medium heat until the fruit just starts to release its juices. Remove from heat and add the rest of the fruit and the lemon zest. Let stand for a few minutes to allow the flavours to develop.

Line a 1-litre pudding basin with cling film, leaving plenty overhanging all round. Using a pastry cutter, cut 2 rounds of sponge, one to fit the bottom of the basin and one the diameter of the top. Place the smaller disc in the bottom of the basin. Now cut long, tapering strips of sponge and use to line the sides of the basin, overlapping them slightly and pressing tightly to ensure there are no gaps.

Using a slotted spoon, spoon the fruit into the sponge-lined basin, filling it to the brim. Spoon on the juices, reserving a few spoonfuls for serving. Lay the other sponge disc on top. Fold over the cling film to seal and place a saucer on top that just fits inside the rim of the basin. Weigh down with a tin (or something similar) and refrigerate overnight.

To serve, fold back the cling film and invert the pudding onto a deep plate. Using a pastry brush, smear any pale areas of sponge with the reserved juice.

This beautiful drink takes me back to my teenage years in Sydney, to Bill and Toni’s, where I used to drink coffee and hang out with my friends. Just beyond the coffee machine were little glass bottles of wonderful Italian soft drinks, such as chinotto and fruit juices, all lined up in a row. The peach nectar, a thick, velvety, ambrosial nectar, was my favourite.

Here, I’ve flavoured fresh peach juice with lemon verbena. I love this herb’s clear, sharp, citrusy flavour and use it in many desserts and drinks. Look for peaches that are ripe without any bruises.

Makes about 700ml

6 ripe peaches
180g golden caster sugar
1 litre water
6 lemon verbena sprigs
2 little squeezes lime juice
crushed ice
sparkling water

Wash the peaches and pat dry. Put the sugar and water into a heavy-based medium pan and add the sprigs of lemon verbena. Place over a medium heat and bring to the boil, stirring every so often to help the sugar dissolve. Once the sugar syrup has come to the boil, turn the heat down slightly and simmer for 5 minutes.

Add the peaches to the pan and cook until tender when pierced with a knife; this will take about 8 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside to cool.

When the peaches are cool enough to handle, lift them out of the syrup and peel away the skins. Chop the flesh roughly, discarding the stones. Discard the verbena sprigs from the sugar syrup.

Now purée the peaches with the poaching syrup in a blender until smooth. It is best to do this in a couple of batches, adding a little squeeze of lime juice to each batch.

Put plenty of crushed ice into a jug and add the peach purée. I like to dilute it with a little gently carbonated water.

Extract from the cookbook Spring by Skye Gyngell published by Quadrille Publishing Ltd.

Aqua cotta translated simply means hot water. It’s a delicious way to use up scraps of bread, over ripe tomatoes and vegetable stalks and tips. It’s one indulgence is a lick of the very best extra virgin olive oil.

Serves 4

4 slices of good quality stale bread

6 x over ripe or slightly bruised tomatoes

3 cloves of garlic

1 x dried red chilli

Any stalks or leaves of green vegetables such as broccoli, asparagus, radish, beetroot or turnip tops

Any herbs such as thyme, Rosemary, sage or parsley

Extra virgin olive oil

A little pecorino or Parmesan.

Sea salt

Place a pot large enough to hold all the ingredients comfortably over a medium heat and add a small glug of olive oil. Once the oil is warm add the garlic and dried chilli and half of the herbs your are using.

Roughly chop the tomatoes and add. Cook for 15 mins, turn down the heat and add a cup of water. Cook for a further 20 mins, then roughly chop and add any vegetables you are using and the rest of the herbs.

Keep cooking until the veg are just tender. Tear the bread and add to the pot. Season generously with salt. Drizzle over the olive oil (be generous) and ladle into warm bowls. Finish with a little Parmesan or pecorino and serve.

I have found that the simplest and best fresh pasta is made with nothing more than flour, good quality very fresh eggs and a little salt. You can make it in a food processor or by hand. As we make it in fairly large quantities in the restaurant, we use a food processor; at home I enjoy making pasta by hand. Whichever method you choose, it’s important that the dough is not overworked; it is also essential to rest the pasta before tolling it out. It’s worth investing in a pasta machine to use at home – they are inexpensive, take all the effort out of rolling and will last for years.

Makes about 500g

400g ‘00’ pasta flour

A small pinch of salt

1 organic free-range medium egg

11 organic free-range medium egg yolks

Put the flour and salt into a food processor and turn the motor on. Add the whole egg followed by the yolks, one at a time, through the funnel, allowing each to be incorporated into the flour before adding the next. Once all the eggs are incorporated, stop the motor and gather the dough from the bowl – it may look slightly dry and crumbly but it will come together and form a ball easily if you press it in your hands. Wrap in cling film and rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before rolling out.

Take the dough from the fridge and flatten it with a rolling pin to the width of your pasta machine. Working in small amounts, no more than 200g at a time, pass the dough through the machine on its widest setting, in one movement.

Lightly dust one side of the pasta sheet with flour and fold each end in, so they meet in the middle with the floured side on the outside. Press the edges together. Roll the pasta through the machine 4 to 5 times, narrowing the setting each time, until you reach the narrowest setting (or one earlier for stuffed pasta). Feed the pasta seam side first into the rollers and flour the sheets lightly between each rolling.

The rolled out pasta should feel smooth and elastic. Allow it to dry for 10 minutes before cutting but no longer, or it may become too dry and brittle to work with. You can now do with the pasta what you like. For ribbon pasta, fit the appropriate cutter on the machine and pass it through. Lay the strands on a sheet of greaseproof paper or baking parchment to prevent tangling.

Extracted from Spring The Cookbook, (Quadrille, 2015), by Skye Gyngell. 

We just had to use the delicate and stunning asparagus as the centrepiece to our recipe for April. As I’m sure you’re all aware Asparagus is at its best now and paired with crème fraiche and Parmesan (also known as fonduta) it’s perfect for a light lunch or starter at dinner.

Serves 4

About 20 – 30 asparagus spears

1 ½ tbsp. mild-tasting extra virgin olive oil

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the sauce

2 organic free-range eggs

150ml crème fraiche

50g Parmesan, freshly grated

A scattering of borage flowers (or chervil or chives), to finish

Start with the sauce. Bring a large pot of water to the boil and add a generous pinch of salt. Break the eggs into a bowl that fits snugly on top of the pan and add a pinch of salt. Set the bowl over the pan of boiling water, making sure the base is not in contact with the boiling water, and whisk the eggs until smooth. Add the crème fraiche and whisk continuously until the sauce has slightly thickened; it will become thinner at first, then thicken and almost double in volume.

Remove the bowl from the pan. Add the grated Parmesan and season with salt and pepper to taste. Stir well to combine and set aside while you cook the asparagus.

Break off and discard the woody ends from the base of the asparagus stalks. Drop the asparagus spears into the pan of boiling water and cook for about 1 minute or until the asparagus is just tender to the bite. Using tongs, remove the asparagus from the water and drain well, then dress the olive oil and arrange on warm plates.

Set the bowl of sauce back over the pan and heat for a minute to ensure it is warm, then spoon generously over the asparagus. Finish with the borage flowers, if you have them, or chervil or chives.

The similarities between the food and fashion industry are several, and it is often looking at the food industry that I derive the strength to have faith in fashion, because I know that where food leads fashion will follow – and food is leaps ahead in terms of looking at alternative ways to grow business and feed consumers.

Food and fashion both affect 100% of the population. Both food and fashion have a luxury element and a basic one, so you might not be able to afford gourmet, but you still have to eat, as you may not be interested in fashion, but you still need to use clothing.

Both industries have now reached geographically further afield than we ever imagined, relying on a huge and often exploited work-force; both industries take up space, consume energy and create waste that could be better distributed and reused.

With food, as with fashion, there is literally an ocean of difference between the globalised industry that supplies the big retailers on the high street, and the local, artisanal version of small producers just around the corner.

Global, glossy, perfect food and global, glossy, perfect fashion is what we have been served, in supermarkets and department stores, for the past 20 years, everyday, regardless of season, to the detriment of all artisanal practices.

And yet, food has shown us that this trend is reversible, and fashion is now looking at exploring the same parameters, finally, and beginning the improbable shift from massive to tiny, from the age of dinosaur to the age of the mammal.

Why? Because intensive agriculture and chemical usage has depleted the earth of its capacity to absorb rain water, because people are weary of eating the toxic chemicals our food is drenched with, because we are becoming aware of the environmental and ethical footprint that is linked with battery farming. 

Foodstuff may be checked, controlled and look safe, in its nice packaging and labelled to the nines, but we really don’t know where it comes from, or how contaminated it really is, and questions are being asked.

Consumers understand that what you put inside their bodies affects their bodies, and suddenly, that ugly tomato that was lovingly grown in the organic farm 2 hours away from your home looks, and tastes, very different. It tastes purer, better, real.

If chemicals in food are a concern, chemicals in clothes should also be, and just as we have started to question the origin of what we eat, we need to apply those same health self-care principles to the clothes we wear, as the skin absorbs almost as much as the stomach does.

Our system is not efficient, and it is not safe. 

Safe is knowing where things come from, and who made them, or grew them, what are they made with, and knowing that there is  dignity in that toil, to provide the food that feeds and nurture us and the clothes that cover and adorn us. 

Safe is to consume things, not merely use them and throw them away. 

Food-wise, things are rapidly changing, and trends are moving consistently towards a total about turn, a real quest for forgotten flavours, local produce, purity and things that are genuine.

The new luxury gourmet is all about diversity, and imperfections are now accepted as nature’s creativity. The flavour lays in the fact that everything that is born naturally is unique, it’s only the manmade that distorts this individuality into conformity.

To engage the public on these issues is an important first step, providing information and guidance, advice on how to become a positive and creative part of the solution on a daily basis, because every choice we make comes with its resonance, and for every ugly tomato we chose to buy we stake our claim to a safer future.

 

Purple sprouting broccoli is at its very best just now. Serve this as a first course or accompanied by really good bread as a light lunch.

A generous bunch of very fresh broccoli

Sea salt

Finely chopped dried red chilli

For the dressing

3 organic free range egg yolks

The juice of one lemon

3 good quality anchovy fillets

280 ml extra virgin olive oil

1 tbspn creme fraiche

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Place a large pot of well salted water on to boil. Wash the broccoli – trim off the woody ends but leave as much of the leaves and stem on as possible ( this is the most delicious part). Once the water has reached a rolling boil plunge in the broccoli – cook for one minute then drain. While still warm season with a little salt, the dried chilli and a good glue of extra virgin olive oil. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Place the yolks, anchovies and lemon juice in a food processor. Turn on the machine and drizzle the olive oil very slowly through the funnel. Be carefully to not pour quickly as it may cause the dressing to curdle. Once all the oil is incorporated you will have a thick emulsified sauce. Turn off the food processor and stir in the creme fraiche. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary adding a little more salt or lemon juice if you think it needs it.

Arrange the broccoli on a plate and spoon the dressing over the top. Serve at once.

This year was the first time we bought a chest freezer for the kitchen. During the summer months we have an abundance of soft fruit from Fern Verrow and have found that if we put some in he freezer as soon as it has been picked (it never sees the fridge) we can capture some beautiful summer flavours that we can draw upon during the cold and bleak winter months.

Don’t worry if you can’t find damsons though – you can substitute with a tablespoon or so of bitter orange marmalade.

Start by placing the damsons and 180gs of sugar into a heavy saucepan. Place over a gentle heat and cook stirring occasionally until the sugar has dissolved and the damson have begun to pop from their skins. Turn up the heat to medium and cook until the damsons are really soft and have taken on a beautiful glossy darkness in colour. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly before passing the damsons through a sieve – discard the stones and reserve the puree.

100g of unsalted butter, plus a little extra for dariole moulds
100g caster sugar
2 organic free range eggs
100g of self raising flower
The finely grated zest of two lemons
4 knobs of preserved stem ginger
A little pinch of salt
4 tablespoons of golden syrup
200g damsons
180g caster sugar

Thick Jersey cream to serve

Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees (gas mark 4). Butter 4 x dariole moulds or small individual pudding basins and set aside. Cream the softened butter and sugar together until pale and smooth. Add the eggs one at a time beating well after each addition. Sift the flour from a good height and fold in gently. Finally add the lemon zest, the strained finely chopped stem ginger and a little pinch of salt. Stir gently and well to combine.

Place a tablespoon of golden syrup in each mould plus a generous tablespoon of damson puree. Spoon the pudding mixture on top (the mixture will rise quite a lot during the cooking so be careful not to over fill). Cover each mould loosely with butter parchment paper. Place on  tray and bake in the oven for 30 minutes until risen and cooked through.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly then invert onto a plate. Spoon a little remaining warmed damson sauce and place a generous dollop of jersey cream alongside.

This is a really simple, quick dish to prepare. You can ask your fishmonger to order langoustine in for you. But it is also lovely with any white fish. We use this butter with Dover sole, lobster and hake.

Serves 4 as a starter

12-20 very fresh langoustine

Mild tasting extra virgin olive oil

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the seaweed butter

250 g of unsalted butter

1 tablespoon of tamari or soya sauce

Juice of one lime

1 clove of garlic peeled and chopped

1 tablespoon of freshly grated ginger

30g of hijiki or wakame seaweed

Start by preparing the seaweed butter. Melt the butter gently in a heavy based pan over a low heat.  Once it has melted stir in the tamari, lime juice, garlic and ginger. Stir well to combine. Add the seaweed and cook gently for a couple of minutes then set aside to infuse while you prepare the langoustines.

Pre heat your grill to its highest setting. Using a sharp knife split each langoustine in half lengthwise, season the flesh with salt and pepper and drizzle over a little of the oil. Place flesh side up on the grill and cook for a minute or two until the flesh is just opaque. While the langoustine are cooking gently reheat the butter. remove the langoustines from the grill, arrange on warm plates and spoon the butter over the top. Serve piping hot.