As Strong As Soup

If you've had the misfortune of following this blog for some time, then it's just about possible you may remember that I've wittered on about nonnettes before . But it's nearly 5 years since I last featured them and, since they're one of my favourite cakes, I don't feel too guilty about wittering on again. After all, imagine how bad you'd feel if you went to see a band and they only played new songs and none of their hits. (It felt pretty bad, actually, but let's not go there). This version started when my wife was given a jar of local honey produced in the spring. (I admit that my knowledge of honey is minimal at best). This honey is light in colour, less intense than a high summer honey but with some lovely, subtle flavours and I wanted to use it to produce a lighter and fragrant nonnette with some of the flavours of early summer. I made 11 relatively large cakes with this mix using friand and medium-sized muffin tins. If you choose a small muffi...

In the past I've bored everyone I know and anyone unfortunate enough to stumble across this blog by wittering on about how undervalued I think gooseberries are these days. They make very fine jam and puddings, of course, but they're possibly even better in savoury dishes. So I can't let the gooseberry season pass without one more savoury recipe and this year it's a ketchup. Very easy and very delicious I promise. The weather hasn't been perfect this spring or summer so far (I'm a master of understatement) but the gooseberries finally arrived in abundance at the local pick-your-own farm. I really love a PYO and I'm not ashamed to say it. I've combined the sharp gooseberries with the sweetness of beetroot and I suppose I should suggest that you pick fresh beetroot and cook your own. That's a very good thing to do but vacuum-packed, cooked beetroot without added vinegar will definitely do the job if you're pushed for time (and I bet you are). Go...

A quick plea for the underused gooseberry before the season is gone for another year. At least, I think the poor old gooseberry is underused. They're lovely in puddings and ices and they make very fine jam but I look forward to gooseberry season so that I can use them in savoury dishes. I've wittered on about gooseberry sauces before but this year I've tried combining them with fennel and a fine combination it turned out to be. This sauce is very easy to make and freezes well. It works beautifully with simply cooked white fish, such as bream, but will also sit very happily alongside chicken or richer meats like duck or pork. I use the classic, sharper gooseberries for this kind of sauce rather than the sweeter, modern dessert types. This sauce is not short of flavour and so should make plenty for four people.   1 small to medium bulb of fennel, chopped quite finely 400 g gooseberries 50 g dried apricots, soaked if they need it ½ tsp dark soy sauce A generous pinc...

The food and drink of Yorkshire might bring to mind rhubarb, Yorkshire pudding, Old Peculier, curd tart or a slice of fruit cake with a piece of Wensleydale cheese amongst many other fine things. On the other hand, you might not immediately associate gooseberries with Yorkshire. In fact, there’s a long and very proud tradition of growing gooseberries in that county. The finest symbol of that tradition is the  Egton Bridge Gooseberry Show , which is now over 200 years old and, I believe, can boast that one of its competitors holds the world record for the heaviest gooseberry. This recipe doesn’t require world record sized berries. It’s a very old-fashioned pudding that’s based, albeit loosely, on an Eliza Acton recipe from 1845. Actually, in some form or other, the dish is probably a fair bit older than that. It’s not the most attractive looking pudding but it is seriously full of flavour. This should serve four unless you have the appetite of a particularly aggressive fast bowle...

Around five or six years ago I got a little carried away (well, actually very carried away) at the Pick Your Own farm and came home with far too many gooseberries for the classic sauces and jams that I wanted to make. Looking through some of my cookery books for inspiration I found a recipe for a ‘Spicy Gooseberry Sauce’ in a Sainsbury’s Fish Cooking book published back in the 1980s. This was a little different to the classic, simple gooseberry sauces for fish. Essentially, it’s a good old-fashioned devilled sauce with a mix of ingredients more reminiscent of chutney than a smooth sauce. The British tradition of devilled sauces often seems to be on its last gasps and I think that’s a great shame. I made a version of the classic Gubbins Sauce a little while ago but this fruitier sauce is at least as useful. I’ve developed and complicated the recipe since then but, despite a long list of ingredients, it’s really easy to make and very versatile. It’s good with oily fish such as macker...

Since it's gooseberry picking time, I felt a Gooseberry and Sloe Gin jam was in order. It would probably be more accurate to call this Gooseberry Jam with Sloe Gin but that would remove the huge delight that I get from saying the phrase “Sloe Gin Jam”. It’s astonishing how long little things like that will keep me amused. This is a pretty conventional jam that seems to work best with barely ripe gooseberries. The less ripe gooseberries give the right degree of sharpness and seem to set better. There’s also something very English about this jam; perhaps best enjoyed in an English country garden while reading an Agatha Christie as the distant sound of willow on leather mingles with the music of Elgar drifting from an open window and Blenkinsop, the old family retainer, stumbles drunkenly across the lawn and falls into the ha-ha. (Sorry about that outburst of Old Englishness – I’ve applied a cold flannel to my forehead and I’ll be alright again in...