~ Menu ~
St.
Agur Cheese with Sautéed Grapes
Nubbly
Toast
Secret
Red
Vanilla
Ice Cream with …
… a
Taste of my Raspberry Vinegar
As I mentioned the other day I now have a
deadline by which I must have finished the manuscript for my forthcoming
book on leftovers (see below). I now have the onerous task of
testing every recipe and suggestion in the book which is a lot of eating!
Today, for instance, I played with grapes and
in addition to seeing how well they freeze and planning more complicated ideas I
tried sautéing a few which I left on the bunch so they’d look pretty in my photo for this very blog post. I’m thinking all the time, me!
I drizzled the grapes with olive oil,
seasoned, as one does, with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and cooked
them in a hot frying pan till they just started to show dark spots, shrivel and
smell gorgeous. They were sweet, hot and bursty in the mouth; perfect with the cold and creamy blue cheese and good bread. These are definitely a keeper.
Having eaten that I felt the onus was on me to continue my experimentation with a small dessert. A week or two ago I made a batch of raspberry vinegar and I had heard somewhere that it makes a good sauce for ice cream so tried it.
A bit of a surprise at first but whoever said it was good was right. Mind you I only tested a spoonful as you can see so might have to try some more later just to make sure.
Raspberry Vinegar
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| I'm quite proud of this photo ~ please pin for me! |
You need to do a bit of forward planning for this.
1 kg or raspberries (or other berries)
1 ltr white wine vinegar
200g sugar
~ In a plastic, stainless steel or glass bowl (it MUST be non-reactive) crush together the berries and white wine vinegar. (Or, I’ve just thought, perhaps cider vinegar would be best with blackberries!)
~ Cover the bowl and leave to steep for 3 days.
~ Set a nylon sieve over a bowl and pour the fruit and juices through. Allow to sit without disturbing to allow all the vinegar to drip through.
~ Put the juices in a non-reactive pan and add the sugar. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
~ Skim, turn down the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
~ Cool completely then pour into sterile jam jar(s) and store in the fridge for 6 months or more!
This vinegar is delicious and I can think of lots more things to do with it – vinaigrette for instance (lots of homemade vinaigrette ideas here) or maybe add a sprinkling to fruit salads. Anyway it brings a touch of summer to this grim, so far, July!
Rumpot aka Rumtopf
You could halve the vinegar recipe above but
if you only have a few leftover raspberries a better idea would be to add them
to your Rumpot which no doubt you started a few weeks ago. If you didn't it’s not too late – see here for how to make rumpot, a lovely drink made from summer fruits macerated in rum.
News from the Future
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