Rhubarb chutney!

The exclamation mark in the heading is because this is the first time I've made any kind of preserve since around 2005, when we were still in Farm Road. But both Jonathan and I are very keen on home made chutney. Usually I pick up jars of it at various fairs. One day I asked the nice lady who sold jams and chutneys at the little Karori Sunday market if she ever made kasundi, a delicious Indian chutney I'd found at the big annual Save the Children fair at Homewood. A couple of weeks later she turned up with two different kinds, tomato and eggplant. But with no fairs and no markets, we were running very low.

On the phone to Lesley, I talked about wanting to try making some chutney, but not having any handy surplus produce to make it with. She pointed out that I did: I had my magnificent set of four rhubarb crowns in a big pot. The originals were given to me by Ali some years ago. They somehow managed to survive my inconsistent, cack-handed care, and this year all four are flourishing better than ever.

I hunted around on line and found various recipes, but I wanted something I knew would work. My Auckland friend Rosemary, who regularly embarks on chutney and pickle making, passed on her recipe, so I used that. It's different from the others because you don't put the sugar in until near the end of the cooking, but I could see why: doing it this way makes the mixture less likely to catch and burn.

Rosemary’s rhubarb and ginger chutney

Slightly adapted, and with two quantities, depending on how much fruit you have. I think it would also work well using some firm pears or nashi. For the smaller quantity, I used about 10 sticks of rhubarb weighing around 700g, four small apples, and one and a half large onions. 

1 ½  (3) apples

1 ½  (3) onions

15 (30) g root ginger

1 (2) cloves garlic

750 (1.5) kg rhubarb

½ (1) tsp paprika

1 (2) tsps whole pickling spice

1½ (3) tsps salt

¾ (1½) cups white wine vinegar or cider vinegar

1/4  (½) cup balsamic vinegar (I used a bit more than this – it needed a little more at the end)

juice of ½ (1) orange

1½ (3) cups sugar (I used half white and half brown)

1. Assemble jars and lids and get them ready to use for short-term keeping. The easiest way is to put jars through a hot machine wash, and boil metal lids gently in large pan of water for 5 minutes. (Check methods here.) 
2. Peel, core and chop the apples. Peel and chop the onions. Dice the ginger and garlic (easy to chop these together in the food processor).
3. Slice the rhubarb thinly (I used the processor slicing blade).
4. Put all the ingredients except the sugar in a large pan and simmer until thick and pulpy. 
5. Add the sugar, turn up the heat, and cook until thick and darker in colour, stirring frequently to stop it catching (especially if it's a small quantity). Also check flavour and adjust if necessary. (This is quite a jammy chutney, but should still have a bit of texture.)
6. Fill the jars almost to the top with no gaps, and put the lids on firmly. With any luck, the lids will go down in the middle to seal them. But to be on the safe side, keep the jars in the fridge - they will keep perfectly well for at least a few weeks. 

 Mine all cooked right down to make just 3 jars (not very large ones) plus a small bowl of chutney to have with sausages for our dinner - and it really was good.

Two satisfying soups

So here's the second of my rāhui posts: two healthy, easy, filling soups, just right for the end of daylight saving and the cooling weather (yes, I know this is affecting only those of us south of Hamilton). They're also well suited to a random range of supplies. Click on the headings to find the blog recipes.

Minestrone alla Karori 

This is a meal in itself, and very adaptable. I wrote in my original post:

As Antonio Carlucci explains, in fact there's no such thing as "the real minestrone". Instead there are many versions, each one authentic for those who make it.

In these unusual times, innovation is essential. Cabbage is the mainstay vegetable, but you can use up random bits of most other veges you may have lying around. Instead of borlotti beans, use what's available - even baked beans will do at a pinch, but don't add them until the veges and pasta are cooked. And if you don't happen to have pancetta, any kind of bacon, ham, or bits of tasty cooked sausage will work. You can use any small pasta too, or broken up bits of noodles if that's all you've got.


Pretty Fast Pumpkin Soup

The name of this soup (which I invented) describes it very well - it's both pretty, and pretty fast to make. The ingredients are a bit less flexible: you do need pumpkin, carrots, and some kind of red curry flavouring. For example, I haven't got actual red curry paste right now, but I do have Tom Yam paste, which is also red, so that would do fine. (And in any case, it seems easier right now to find more exotic ingredients such as red curry paste than it does to get some basics, such as flour!)

This soup belongs to a variety of dishes I often make, called "vaguely Asian" (David Burton, look away now). No one from any Asian country would recognise any of them, but they do rely on Westernised versions of flavours relating to a range of Asian countries, from India to Thailand.

If you like, you could add noodles to this soup too, and/or cook bits of boneless chicken in it, turning it into a meal rather than just a soup.

Loafing around

Thanks to really lucky timing, the renovation of my 24-year-old kitchen was finished the week before we all went into lockdown. And thanks to having my son and also Pauline, the very kind young mother from the flat up the drive who offered to get things for us when she does her own shopping, we're well provisioned (though I did break into the earthquake supply of baked beans this morning).

The one thing missing from the shelves for quite a while has been flour. But my neighbour, who doesn't bake, had an unopened bag she could leave on my doorstep. So I've been making good use of it with very simple recipes, and leaving a share of the results on her doorstep. But as a baker, I'm far from fantastic, so I stick to super simple, tried and true recipes. I thought I'd pass on a couple of these, just in case you do have some flour and you're looking for something different you or your kids could make, one of these rather long days...

Mandarin Muffins
The first thing I made - and I made sure Pauline got some - was mandarin muffins. They do have 200 grams of whole mandarins in them, so I reckon they're practically health food.



And they're so easy to make, your kids really can do it. Here' s the recipe from the blog:
http://somethingelsetoeat.blogspot.com/2010/04/mandarin-muffins.html



Ryda's Fruit Loaf
Today I made my mother's incredibly easy recipe for fruit loaf.

1 cup dried fruit (one kind or a mix, whatever you're got - I added a bit of preserved ginger to my raisins)
1 tsp baking soda
1 egg
1 cup sugar
1 dessert spoon melted butter (about 18 g of butter but it doesn't have to be exact)
1 tsp vanilla
2 heaped cups plain white flour
1 tsp baking powder
a good pinch of salt

Set the oven to 180C, or 160C fan forced.
Grease a medium loaf tin, or better, line it with bake paper.
Put dried fruit in a large bowl and pour 1 cup of boiling water over it.
Add baking soda, stir well and leave it to cool.
Mix in, one at a time, stirring well after each one, the egg, sugar, melted butter, and vanilla.
Measure flour into a separate bowl and stir in baking powder. Add to wet mixture and stir gently to combine.
Spoon mixture into prepared loaf tin.
Check after about 50 minutes by sticking a skewer or thin knife into it to see how much of the inside is still uncooked. It usually needs to bake for about 1 hour or a little bit longer, depending on your oven.
Cool on a rack and eat, with or without butter. (Yours will be a little larger, as I used some of my mixture to make a separate little loaf for my neighbour - correctly transferred to her without any actual contact, of course!)

Apricot season

The apricots I've bought this year seem to be particularly good.  But nice as they are eaten fresh, the full flavour comes out best when they're cooked.
So far I've used them in two different recipes. One is Apricot Suédoise, a superbly simple dessert that tastes purely of apricot. You can see how to make it here.

The other is even simpler - roasted whole apricots. Here's the recipe.

Small apricots roasted whole

12 small rosy apricots

200 g runny honey

1 Tbsp brown sugar

Juice of ½ or 1 smallish lemon

100 ml water

1 tsp cinnamon
whipped cream and/or yoghurt, to serve

Preheat the oven to 170ºC fan forced (180C without fan).

Place the honey, sugar, lemon, water and cinnamon in a small saucepan. Cook on a medium heat, stirring, until it comes to a boil. Turn down to a simmer for 3 minutes and remove from the heat.

Place apricots into a small ceramic or glass baking dish. You want them to be sitting neatly together without too much extra space around them.

Using a sieve (to filter out the cinnamon), pour over the honey liquid.

Gently turn the apricots over in the liquid to coat them.

Put in the oven and roast for 10 minutes, then take out the dish and spoon the liquid over them again.

Put them back in the oven for another 10 minutes approximately. Remove them when they are cooked through, but not collapsing - you want them to stay whole.

Carefully take out apricots one by one with a spoon and transfer to serving dish or small individual dishes. (I made small dessert servings by putting three apricots in each of four pink glass Arcoroc teacups, with a dessert biscuit in each saucer.) 

Pour liquid back into small saucepan and gently reduce to form a syrup. Pour syrup over fruit and leave to cool. 

Serve with either whipped cream, or yoghurt, or a mixture of both (this is very nice). If you want to, you can flavour the cream with a dash of orange liqueur. Remember to warn your diners that there's a stone in each one.

I forgot to take a picture! Sorry. Here's one of the cups I used, only with an incredibly easy to make chocolate cream in it. You'll have to imagine it with apricots. Come to think of it, apricots and chocolate have a marvellous affinity, so you could try a shallow layer of this chocolate cream with apricots on top...

Gingerbread for Christmas: remembering Harvey

In the weekend I decided to make gingerbread. I think it's the first time I've made it since 2010. Unlike Christmas cake, it's really easy to make, and you can bake it as close to Christmas as you like.
       This morning I took some as a small thank-you to shopkeepers in Marsden Village who have been so kind and helpful to me this year, and indeed every year since Harvey and I first moved here in 2007. There was still plenty left over for me, my son and our visitors.
        Nine years ago, on 9 December 2010, I posted about making it for Harvey and gave the recipe, which came via our friend Beth Hill.

In The Colour of Food, I described Harvey finishing off my 2010 batch on what would later prove to be his last day at home:

By the Wednesday before Christmas we had had so many visitors that there wasn’t much gingerbread left in the tin. I cut it up carefully and put it out for that afternoon’s arrivals, then went out to finish the shopping, knowing Harvey was well looked after. When I came home there were three small pieces left – his visitors had enjoyed it, but he hadn’t had any. I sat down with him for a late cup of tea and he asked for a piece, then the second and the third. I watched him eat with astonished delight.

That evening he had a fall and was taken to hospital. At first he seemed to have recovered well, but by the next day he was much weaker. He died early in the morning of Saturday 25 December.

I'm really pleased I managed to make it again this year.

Let them eat brioche?

This rather magnificent brioche can be accurately described by the French term 'maison', meaning house-made. I did make it myself, in my house - but I did it with the help of my new breadmaker. I had a dear friend staying who grew up in a French-speaking country and is fully conversant with French food, so I decided I would make this on Friday night for our Saturday breakfast.
       Honestly, it's magic. Get out the recipe book that came with the machine, fetch the bread pan from the laundry where the breadmaker lives (it's far too big for my kitchen), and put in the ingredients in the given order. Set the machine going and have an extra 70 g of chilled bits of butter ready to add after 55 minutes. Then leave it to do its thing for another two and a half hours. Et voila!
       We ate it very lightly toasted with yet more butter and good jam. In a couple of days the loaf looked like this:

I do of course also make ordinary loaves for everyday use - mostly half wholemeal and half white high grade flour - and very good they are too. No weird ingredients: just yeast, flour, salt, milk powder, butter, treacle, water. It takes 5 hours to bake, but that's easily managed.
       I was spurred into doing this because a few weeks ago, I downloaded an e-book (from our wonderful Wellington City Libraries): The Way We Eat Now: How the Food Revolution Has Transformed Our Lives, Our Bodies and Our World, by UK writer Bee Wilson (Fourth Estate, 2019). It was recommended to me by Asher Regan, whom I met at a food writers' lunch.
        It's one of the best books I've read about, well, the way we eat now - not just in 'Anglo' countries, but around a broad sweep of the world. There's a useful review of it here. It's refreshingly sensible and pragmatic, but at the same time makes it plain that the way we eat now is, in far too many cases, killing us.
        One of the topics Wilson discusses at some length is bread - particularly how its traditional way of making has been speeded up, using various previously unnecessary ingredients, to suit commercial food production and supermarket selling.
        I love good bread, and so does my son. It was one of the best things about the food we ate during our sojourn in Albania: huge dark rye loaves with a slightly sourdough flavour. But here, properly made 'artisan' loaves have to be sought out and are too expensive for everyday use. Vogel's is the best the supermarket has to offer, but at full price it's around $7 a small loaf. And I am not adept or even strong enough to make bread from scratch by hand, as some of my admirable friends do.
        But I do now have some time to spare, So I decided that a good way to improve our everyday food would be to invest once again in a breadmaker, and produce our own. I'm under no silly illusions that this is a mass solution of any kind - obviously that's rubbish, as is exhorting everyone to grow their own veges. And I don't know how long I'll be able to keep it going, But for now I feel very lucky that it's working so well for us.
   
  
        

Memories are made of...rissoles

Being drawn back into paid work on a major Suffrage 125 project this year has seriously got in the way of my own writing, including this blog. But today I got another comment about what I think must be my most popular post ever: Real-life Rissoles.
        I received the latest comment today, and looking back, I realised that they've kept coming in since I first posted this eight months before Harvey died. The rissole recipe seemed to have remarkable power to prompt readers' detailed memories of the versions they had eaten in their childhood. I think this must be partly to do withe rissoles being a sort of quintessential waste-not-want-not recipe, an approach to daily food which still prevailed in so many post-war families - they could usually afford a weekly roast, but they made sure they used up every scrap of it.
      So in honour of all our mothers and grandmothers who thriftily concocted something so tasty out of leftovers and scraps, here's the recipe again, together with all the wonderful comments. Thank you to everyone who sent them in - and if they helped you recreate a taste of the past, that makes me very happy.

Real-life rissoles

(First published Thursday, April 29, 2010)

I grew up with rissoles - usually on Mondays. They're one of those things that I never actually asked my mother how to make. But when I came to make them myself, I realised I must have been watching, because I did know roughly what to do. But I've just been looking up rissole recipes on-line, and I'm shocked. In my view none of them are authentic, because they use fresh mince. That's not what rissoles are made of! The real-life rissole is always made of leftover roast meat (which is why we had them on Mondays, after Sunday's lunchtime roast and teatime cold meat). When I was growing up they were usually made of hogget or beef - pork was for special occasions only, and it all got eaten before there could be any question of rissoles.
            Harvey loves any kind of rissoles, and after we've had a roast he always asks hopefully if there's enough meat left over for them. He never wants any potato or bread with them - he argues that there's already enough carbohydrate inside. If he eats three, I know I've got them just right.
             I used to put the meat through a mincer, but then we acquired a food processor. The first time I used it to make rissoles, it was a disaster. I put everything in at once, and the result was a kind of brownish paste. You could make patties with it, but the texture had nothing to do with the authentic rissole, which should just hold together and be a bit crumbly when you cut into it. Since then I've learnt to grind up the various ingredients in separate batches before mixing them together. 

             There's no exact recipe, because it all depends on the amount of cold meat available. You mince the leftover cooked chunks or slices of meat in the processor first, see how much you've got, put it in a big bowl and add the other things to it.
             First you need something to bulk it out a bit. You can use leftover mashed potato, or fresh breadcrumbs (which can be made in the processor after you remove the meat), or either or both of these with a little flour. The crucial thing is not to overwhelm the meat with the padding, or the rissoles will be too stodgy and dull.
             Mix meat and padding together well, with plenty of salt and pepper. Then use the pulse button to mince a small onion, garlic if you like it, and some herbs - parsley, thyme, oreganum - together in the processor, and add them to the mixture. 

             Break in an egg (or two, if you have a lot of meat etc) and mix thoroughly. The mixture should not be too wet or too dry - it should just hold together enough for you to shape it into balls, using damp hands. If one egg leaves it just a bit too dry, you can use a bit of stock, wine or water, but be careful not to make it too wet. 

              Flatten each ball and coat it lightly with flour on each side, or fine dry breadcrumbs if you prefer (but flour is traditional!).

              

Set the oven to low - about 100C - and put an oven tray in to warm, with a folded piece of kitchen paper on it to absorb any excess oil.  

              Heat a frypan with a small amount of oil. (My mother, of course, always used lard or dripping, but we wouldn't do that now, would we. It tasted good, though.) When it's hot (but not smoking), cook the rissoles over medium heat in batches, not too many at a time - I get five into a large non-stick pan. They should be brown and a little crispy on each side. As each batch cooks, put them on the tray in the oven to keep warm. You may need to add more oil between batches.

We eat them with a salad, and I like some kind of chutney or chili sauce too (at home it was always bought tomato sauce) and some fresh bread and butter. Harvey is a purist - he just wants plain rissoles, followed by a bit of salad because it's good for him. If there are any left over, they're good cold for lunch next day.

COMMENTS:

Deborah said...

I simply fail to see how there could possibly be any left!

AnneE said...

Ah well, there never used to be - but Harvey has such a small appetite now, and is the one person I know whose eyes are NEVER bigger than his (minute capacity) stomach. And I'm trying very hard NOT to pack all the leftovers tidily away on my hips...

mermaidnz said...

I don't remember my mother ever making rissoles - we always had Shepherd's Pie on Mondays to use up the Sunday roast. It was one of my favourite meals - the meat moistened with left-over gravy, and eked out with any left-over veggies, some sage or thyme added for extra flavour, and the mashed potato topping nicely browned. Real comfort food, and nothing ever wasted. After reading your blog I googled Shepherd's Pie and like you was shocked to find that most recipes used fresh mince! Some even included garlic, red wine and tomatoes, with things like cheese and sour cream in the topping. We hardly ever have a roast nowadays, but I'm tempted to go out and buy a leg of hogget (can you still buy such a thing?) for the nostalgic pleasure of Shepherd's Pie just like Mother used to make.

Suzieanne said...

Rissoles - that brings back memories of my mother making them when I was a child.I can only remember them made with corned beef left over from tea the night before.I have attempted to make them, but somehow they were never very nice usually falling to bits before they reached the plate, there were always these strange looks at what they were supposed to be as they were never round , so I then decided my talents in the cooking department lay else where.

I'm not here said...

My Mum's recipe was for equal quantities of minced cold meat and cold cooked rice. Mix it with @1tsp curry powder, 1/2 tsp each garlic and onion powder, 2 tblspn tomato sauce (ketchup) for every 1 cup of meat, one small onion chopped finely and one small egg. Mix this all together, form into rissoles and egg and breadcrumb them and fry until brown. These are a such a favourite that we roast lamb/beef etc just to make the rissoles.

Eirwen said...

My husband has been begging me for rissoles like his Mum used to make for years. When we were first married I sometimes made them but couldn't be bothered after that. Now I am inspired to make them again - I won't tell him until he sees them on the plate. Thanks for the recipes (the rice one looks interesting too). I agree that it's not authentic to use raw mince - that's what beefburgers are made from.

Anonymous said...

When I was a child I the 70's my mother used to buy rissoles from the butcher. I dread tothinkwhat was in them as they tasted horrible. The worst part was the fact that my mother used to cook the rissoles in the oven for me and my two brothers while she cooked my dad a lovely pork chop or steak.

sharon said...

I remember my mum making rissoles just like your recipe and I have managed to make them just as nice, thanks to you! I added chopped wild garlic leaves (in season right now), as my partner can not eat onions so the garlic was an alternative. Absolutely delicious!

Anonymous said...

These recipes were from a different era and before my time, but sound lovely. I'm interested in the old ways and will certainly try making these. Thanks for sharing

Anonymous said...

this sounds like the ones i remember in the late 60s 70s yummy

Djc said...

A really tasty tea with crusty bread and butter d jc

Carol Hansen said...

i make mine with minced beef left over from Sunday a bit of corn beef if got some,mashed potato and i mix in sage & onion stuffing served with baked beans, that's how my Mum made them.

Richard said...

I have yearned for rissoles as our mother used to make in the 50's and early 60's. Always from cold leftover Lamb. Sadly she seemed reluctant to remember how to do them in her 60's and recently died aged nearly 87 without my being able to extract the recipe from her which almost certainly would have come from her Mom, our Nan. Your recipe seems to be very close to that which I remember. However, I have always been intrigued by the flavour and just what seasoning and/or spice she added, as in those times there just wasn't the range nor inclination to seek out exotic! flavourings. I WILL be attempting to make your recipe, so now to get the Lamb for the weekend. NB If any one does know of the 50's Wolverhampton style Rissoles please pass it on.

Anni said...

I have been craving the rissoles made by my Nana in the early 50s, like yours with left over roast but remember the pork ones with rice from a very early age , probably 3 onwards. Sadly, I don’t remember my mum making them. I couldn’t remember the missing ingredients and realising reading your recipe, it is parsley, onion and maybe garlic. Thank you! Off to start cooking, oh and like you, realise you have to process in stages, like meatballs or stuffing!

Unknown said...

My childhood memories of Rissoles are of a hamburger shape of (probably) mincemeat with a filo-like pastry around the edge of the pattie (rather than encasing the pattie). I remember the meat being really dark. I think they were bought from a butcher and then fried or grilled or ovened --I used to love them but don't see them now.