Elderberry Jelly

The end of summer brings about the bounty of the season, one of our favourites is the Elderberry and this year has seen a bumper harvest. This jelly is well worth the effort of collecting, cleaning and sorting as just one day of labour will give you at least a year of pleasure as you add the jelly to sauces for a rich taste, or just a little dollop with fresh cold meats and cheese rather than using the less flavoursome commercial alternatives. What can be finer than your own seasonal preserves to add a little of the sunshine to your winter meals? A few simple ingredients combine here to make something rather special.


1300g Elderberries
1300g Cooking Apples

Peel of 1 Orange
1 Cinnamon stick
Granulated sugar as per instruction below.



1 Go out on a warm sunny day and collect your elderberries, remove stems to leave just the berries.

2 Place elderberries in a large deep pan.

3 Chop apples roughly, including skin and cores and add to the elderberries.

4 Pour 500ml cold water into the pan, place over heat and bring to the boil.

5 As soon as the apples have softened, turn off the heat, allow to cool a little and pass the mixture through a sieve into another pan or large container. Push as much pulp through the sieve as possible.

6 Use a measuring jug to see how much pulp you have then put pulp into a large deep pan again.

7 Add sugar to the pulp in the ratio of 475g sugar to every 500ml of Elderberry and apple pulp, place pan over heat again and bring back to the boil. Add the peel of the orange and the cinnamon stick.

8 Turn down to simmer and allow to cook. As scum appears on the surface, remove it with a spoon.

9 After about 30 minutes of simmering, begin to check if setting point has been reached by removing a small amount on a teaspoon and placing on a cool plate, in about 5 minutes touch the cooled preserve, if it feels jelly like then it is ready. If still too runny then continue to simmer and check every 10 minutes until the setting point is achieved.

10 Pour the jelly into sterile prepared kilner jars or jam jars, seal quickly and allow to cool.

11 Store until you are ready to use, enjoy.

A bit of a Mess

Forever popular, Eton Mess is a firm favourite of ours. Simple and quick to make, and today this will be the ideal end to a Chinese style meal. The dish can be as simple as just whipped cream with mashed Strawberries but here we add a few twists to give the dish a little more complexity in taste, yet still it retains the fresh smooth delicate balance that has made it a classic.

200g Strawberries
200g Raspberries
300g Lychees
200g Blueberries
Zest of 1 Orange
500ml Double Cream
4 Meringue nests



Method
1. Remove zest from Orange, place  to one side.
2. Remove green leaves from Strawberries, chop into small bite sized pieces, place in a bowl.
3. Remove the shell like skin from the Lychees, cut each in half and gently remove stone from middle, place in bowl with strawberries.
4. Add raspberries and Blueberries to the bowl.
5. Pour cream into another clean bowl and whisk until well risen and stiff.
6. Pour fruit and orange zest over the cream, place in fridge until required.
7. Break meringues into small pieces.
8. At the last minute, add meringue to fruit and cream, fold everything together gently, serve.


The combination of fruits can easily be varied to suit the occasion or even the season, try adding halved grapes, some nuts for texture or even broken biscuits, consider adding fresh chopped mint leaves or the explosive taste of fresh basil with black pepper and some soft crumbly goats cheese. Top it all with a generous serving of honey or Maple syrup, its really there to be tried. Explore, imagine and enjoy.