Drying fruit

Dried apple slices.

My new oven is great. I've hardly begun to explore its features - in particular, the steam function, which is hard to integrate into existing recipes. But one aspect is already well-tested: low temperature control. It can be held at just under 40ºC, which is ideal for proving bread dough. At 60ºC I can dry fruit and certain meat products (on which more in a future article), and that's what I've been doing. I started with tomatoes, but the most successful thing so far has been apples.

I had a couple of bags of apples that weren't doing anything. I tend to buy fruit when it is reduced in the local shops, or at the greengrocer if there is a good offer on (and this is apple season, so many English varieties are quite cheap). In fact, unless I'm buying for a recipe, almost all the fruit I get is less than full price. The advantage of this is, you can get a lot of fruit for very little money - often half or a third of the retail price. The disadvantage (if you see it that way) is, you end up with a lot of the same thing, and have to find a way of using it. I must admit, sometimes I end up composting some of it (a couple of dozen passion fruit I got for pennies earlier in the year still lie heavy on my conscience). Drying could be the answer.

A punnet of red-skinned plums, sliced, stoned, and spread on a tray, ready for drying...

...and here they are, done - they rather unsettlingly resemble mushrooms, but taste fantastic.

Of course, you could make jam. But that requires a ready supply of sugar, possibly pectin, and jars, and can be quite a messy process. Plus, I don't eat much jam. Drying, however, is almost foolproof, and aside from the initial preparation, is a process that needs no supervision. Admittedly, you do need jars or similar for storage, but they don't need to be heatproof, nor do you need to worry about sterilising them. Otherwise, you can freeze the dried fruit in bags, but it's so delicious to snack on, long-term preservation shouldn't be a worry.

For most fruit, the process is the same. You'll need a knife, one or more trays (I bought some new ones with holes in, which will hopefully increase air circulation), an oven capable of being set to a temperature less than 100ºC (the lower the better), with a fan if possible. For fruit that can go brown, you will also need a bowl and some lemon or lime juice (or citric acid).

These apples have been drying for a few hours; they are nearly ready.

The method is simple. Wash and preferably dry your fruit. You can peel it if you like, but I don't. Remove the core of apples, pears, and the like; remove the stone from plums, apricots, nectarines (by slicing in half, and pulling or prising out the stone). For apples, slice evenly - a mandoline is a useful tool, but a sharp knife will do. Incidentally, an apple corer might be helpful if you have a lot of fruit to do (I intend to get one soon). With fruit that can turn brown in air, put it into a bowl with water and lemon juice (or whatever acid you're using). I would simply halve stone fruit. Thicker slices and larger fruit will take longer to dry, of course, but has a more satisfyingly leathery texture at the end. Spread the fruit slices out (grapes, figs, and cherry tomatoes can be left whole, but prick them with a skewer or cocktail stick to allow moisture to escape) on trays, put the trays into the oven. Fan setting, 50-70ºC is perfect. Leave for several hours, or overnight; check once they look shrivelled. Thinner and smaller pieces will dry faster; you may need to remove these first. The longer you leave them, the better they may keep, but the crisper they will be - eventually they will be totally dessicated.

Washed, blanched grapes on a tray...

Storage is easy: pack them loosely into clean jars or resealable plastic storage boxes. Tie a little uncooked rice in a piece of muslin, to make a pouch, put this in the jar. The rice acts as a desiccant, absorbing any excess moisture, and keeping the fruit fresh longer (like silica gel). They should keep weeks or even months, in a cool, dry place, out of sunlight. Check them - discard any that have gone mouldy.

...here they are halfway through - starting to brown and shrivel...

Eat them as a snack, or sprinkle into cereal, or maybe use them in baking (I'm not sure what recipes you could use dried apples in, but they're so delicious, I'm unlikely to find out!).

...and these have nearly finished their transformation into sultanas.

What to do with raspberries (part 2)

Once again, I started this a while ago, when there was still a plentiful supply of fruit coming from the garden. Ten days later, I've finally completed it, but the fruit is gone...

Two bottles of raspberry vinegar (for recipe see part 1); on the right, last year's, made from white wine vinegar, now mature; on the left, white balsamic vinegar just beginning to take on the fruit's colour and aroma.

The raspberry glut continues, so I've been searching out more ways of dealing with them. I have started freezing the best ones, in order to prevent them mouldering around my kitchen (at one point, I had a good dozen bowls and colanders full of soft fruit, and it was getting difficult to prevent some going off), and I've made more jam, but there are other ways of preserving their deliciousness...

On July 4th, my friends had a small barbecue. It was the best weather - mostly sunny, really warm (for round here - low 20s), and mild right into the night. As an American was present, I decided to make a red, white, and blue dessert. Originally, I was going to try pavlova, but I had a lot to do, and wasn't inclined to spend several hours on it. The next best thing was Eton mess - incorporating homegrown strawberries and raspberries. I consulted a few recipes online, and adapted them to what I had in. First I whipped double cream with a good drizzle of honey and a dash of vanilla extract. Into this I crumbled shop-bought meringues. Then I took a bowlful each of raspberries and strawberries. half of these were puréed with a hand blender with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, the passed through a sieve to make a coulis. The final dessert was assembled by stirring the intact fruit (the strawberries were chopped), with a punnet of blueberries, through the cream-meringue mixture, then drizzling the coulis over the top.

The reason I had the cream was a recipe I found in Rick Stein's French Odyssey cookbook for raspberry parfait. Sadly, I never got round to making it. However, for the record, it's a frozen dessert made by whisking eggs yolks and sugar syrup, then adding whipped vanilla cream, crushed raspberries, and freezing in ramekins. They are served topped with fresh raspberries and icing sugar.

Now for something experimental. I developed a love for pomegranate molasses over the winter. I'd never tried it, so when I visited a great Middle Eastern/Turkish/Greek/everything food store in south London in November, I had to get some. It's not cheap, but it goes a long way. It's almost transcendentally intense - sweet and sour together. I like it as it is, but drizzled over roast meat, stirred through cous cous, or added to sparkling wine, it's just as good. I want to make my own sometime, although pomegranates are criminally expensive (as is their juice). However, for now, I'm trying raspberry molasses. I could find no recipes for this online, so I went with instinct. I had a colander of raspberries that were on the turn, so I crushed them, then strained them through muslin with boiling water. I poured the juice into a pan, and added a little white sugar. This was brought to the boil, then simmered very gently, and allowed to reduce until syrupy. I didn't want it to be too sweet, so I kept tasting, to make sure it was balanced (citric acid is useful here, in case you do add too much sugar). The idea was partly to make something unusual, and partly inspired by how quickly the strawberry syrup I made a few weeks ago went mouldy (the liquid under the surface is still fine). A "molasses", being that much more concentrated, will, in theory, keep indefinitely. As for uses, I'm hoping it will work wherever the more usual version is recommended!

A extension of the fruit syrup in the last post on raspberries is the alcoholic version: raspberry liqueur. Essentially, this is a syrup or cordial combined with a spirit. It can keep much longer than the non-alcoholic version, depending on strength. The simplest method is to make a syrup and then combine it with brandy, vodka, or rum. However, I would recommend making the syrup more concentrated, with higher sugar and acidity levels (adjusting with citric acid), in order to counterbalance the alcoholic "burn". Another way of making them is to layer the fruit with sugar in a large jar, topping up with the spirit of your choice. However, it's much harder to balance the flavour, as it takes up to several weeks for the sugar to dissolve, and the fruit juices to seep into the liquor. The method I'm using this time is more complicated than either of these, and based loosely on the recipe for Chambord, a proprietary "black raspberry" liqueur (there are a couple of species of fruit called black raspberries, but I'm not aware of which, if any, is used for this - it has always sounded rather like something dreamed up by their marketing department, especially given neither type of raspberry is native to Europe, yet the liqueur claims 17th century ancestry). The Wikipedia article outlines the method, but it basically involves steeping the fruit in brandy and then pressing. I have started the process, with the addition of a little sugar. The fruit will be left for a couple of weeks, then passed through a sieve, and strained through muslin, before adjusting for taste. This leads to a much stronger liqueur than the first method above, since no water is added to the mix.

Raspberries soaking in brandy. The bits will be strained out before final bottling.

Flavoured spirits were rare a couple of decades ago, but you can buy dozens of kinds nowadays - mostly vodka. It's still worth making your own, however, since you can produce flavours that are unavailable, it works out cheaper (in general), and they tend to taste fresher and less confected (at least to me). Vodka is a clean, neutral base, perfect for any fresh fruit, vanilla, or more exotic things like chilli, ginger, or horseradish. Rum and brandy work with most fruits too, and also spices and dried fruit like raisins and sultanas. Gin is usually paired with the autumn hedgerow fruits damsons and sloes, although summer fruits might be worth a try too. In all these cases, the method is the same: either pour out some of the spirit from its original bottle (assuming it doesn't have one of those pesky plastic contraptions that restrict the flow) and fill with your flavouring of choice, topping up if necessary. Alternatively, place your flavouring into a wide-mouthed jar, and fill up with the spirit. Leave in a cool, dark place for a couple of weeks or several months, shaking regularly. Either strain and return to the bottle, or use as is, although it will need straining before use in cocktails or with a mixer. It goes without saying your flavoured spirit will take on the colour of whatever you've soaked in it - rather than remaining colourless like the commercial versions. If you've made raspberry vodka, try a raspberry martini: shake 2 measures (50ml) raspberry vodka with 1 measure each of sugar syrup (or raspberry syrup, or honey) and either lemon or lime juice. Strain into a chilled martini glass. A measure of fresh raspberry purée would work in this too. Or try a raspberry Collins: stir 2 measures raspberry vodka (or gin), and 1 each of syrup and lemon juice, with ice in a tall glass, and top up with soda water.

(For another cocktail using raspberries, see this previous post).

A raspberry martini - very intense! (Apologies for the use of flash)

No doubt there are plenty of other things you can do with these delicious fruits, but I think that will do for this year.