Recipes

Cooking with the Seasons: March

Nettles and Blood Oranges!

With the arrival of daffodils and primulas in the garden and wild plum blossom, Spring is in the air. At the market, winter fare is still with us but there are signs of change. Although it was -3°C at night during the week, more salads are beginning to appear. One of our lovely local stalls has its salade composée back again, scattered with tiny pretty flowers. They prepare this from the different types of salad leaves they grow, along with edible flowers that change according to availability. This salad disappears in the summer and comes back during the winter depending on the weather, and their time! We have been eating mesclun all winter (I love salad at any time of the year), a lovely spicy mixture of leaves but now alternate it with this other salad mix.

A relatively new arrival on their stall are nettles – beautiful bouquets of nettles. My grandmother used to make nettle soup. It is a vegetable full of nutrients, so as a challenge I have bought some to try. I will let you know how I get on.

Elsewhere in the market more varieties of Spanish tomatoes have made an appearance. We try really hard to eat as much that is local as possible, or produced in Spain and the rest of France. This means the produce is fresh and has fewer food miles and thus carbon footprint – a small gesture towards climate change. So as this series of posts indicates, we eat with the seasons – well most of the time. Currently that means a great variety of root vegetables, winter salads, spinach as well as endive, leeks and enormous heads of celery.

Fruit is still very citrus oriented, alongside French kiwis and apples. So I continue to be busy making citrus preserves. This month I tried out a recipe given to me by my neighbour. I mentioned it in last month’s Cooking with the Seasons post, and then didn’t get the recipe for ages, even though I had dutifully handed over the chocolate brownie recipe! To be fair this lady’s husband died just before Christmas, so she has a lot on her mind right now. Anyway, it is a preserve of whole orange slices in a thick syrup – almost marmalade but not quite. It goes really well with vanilla ice-cream or Greek yogurt. I think it could also be transformed with the addition of perhaps some Armagnac or Grand Marnier! Next time I will try this. This time I used blood oranges for their gorgeous red flushed flesh and beautiful pink tinged juice, not to mention the fact that they taste amazing too. However, any oranges or even clementines would work.

Blood Orange Slices in Syrup

2kg oranges

2 litres of water

1: Wash the oranges thoroughly

2: Prick the skin with a needle and cover with cold water, leaving them to soak for 12-24 hours. Drain them

3: Cut the oranges into thin slices (or as thickly as you wish), making sure you save the juice.

4: Put the slices and juice in a large saucepan or preserving pan and add 2 litres of water. Cook for 1 hour

5: Drain, reserving the liquid.

6: Weigh the fruit and return to the pan, adding the same weight of water, using the reserved liquid.

7: Bring the fruit slowly to the boil, turn down the heat and add the sugar, stirring gently to ensure it dissolves properly. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

8: Once the sugar has dissolved, cook the fruit for at least 35 minutes at a medium simmer. When the liquid thickens to become syrupy and coats the back of a spoon it is ready.

Note: It is important to stir the fruit gently to retain the whole slices. If they look like they are about to start breaking up and are cooked, remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and add to sterilised jars. Bring the syrup to a gentle boil for a few minutes until it has thickened a little more. Then pour this over the fruit in the jars and seal. I use preserving jars with rubber seals for this recipe.

As I said above, try with ice cream, Greek yogurt or the vegan equivalent, fromage frais or as an accompaniment to chocolate cake or mousse.

Sterilising jars

Sterilise jars by washing them in hot soapy water and rinse well. Place in preheated low oven on their sides for 10-15 mins until dry, while the preserve is boiling.

Enjoy.

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