Crumbs on the Table -- stories about food

Anise hyssop gelato

August 9, 2018 Leave a Comment

If you don’t know it already, meet anise hyssop. I’m very excited by this delightful new acquaintance, my serendipitous culinary discovery of the summer. Also known as liquorice mint, its leaves and beautiful purple flowers taste remarkable. It is actually sweet, which gives its liquorice flavour an instantly more-ish quality that herbs like aniseed and fennel don’t have without a bit of treatment. The liquorice flavour is definitely there in anise hyssop, but not at all macho, and not quite just liquorice: it has complexity, with subtle undertones of mint and something else herbal and wild. Even if you don’t like liquorice, you might very well be seduced by this versatile and surprising herb.

Its leaves and flowers can be used for sweet and savoury dishes, as a primary flavour component or a subtle accent. I’ve been harvesting from a pot in the garden to use in beef stir fries; in salads with raw Florence fennel; alongside dill and bronze fennel with fish; and scattered on fruit salads, where it’s particularly lovely. Its poker-like flowerheads are easy to strip into myriad little flowerettes with a gentle stroke, and these have also gone into shortbread, and on top of sliced tomatoes and beetroot. They’re irresistible as an edible flower garnish that actually tastes of something.

Without doubt, however, this refreshing gelato-style ice cream is the very best way I’ve found to highlight anise hyssop’s unique qualities. It truly is a stunning celebration of this herb, as the dairy medium carries its flavour unimpeded, allowing it to taste of itself. And who could resist the transformation of such a lovely flavour into a treat so cooling, with such an exquisite mouthfeel? [Read More…]

East Asian style chicken thighs with apricots

August 1, 2018 2 Comments

The Cambridgeshire apricots are in, and they are beautiful, despite this very challenging season. The trees are full of fruit (no frosts at blossom-time and a good spell in spring for the pollinators), but this summer’s exceptional heat wave and drought have been hard on the trees and growers. Fruits are tending to be smaller, so yields are actually lower and harvesting takes longer, with more left unpicked. The fruits are also ripening on the trees more quickly than usual, making the season shorter. But here’s the good news: the apricots that are harvested have an incredible intensity of flavour in the absence of rain. We can benefit from this superior taste, and also help the farmers, by not overlooking the smaller fruits: juicy gifts of nature in dry times.

At home, we’re eating them fresh at an indecent rate, and also finding lots of ways to tinker with them, from pie, to jam, to compotes, to this lovely savoury dish with chicken. This has been a favourite dish of mine for some years, but it’s not often I’ve been able to make it with local apricots. In some years the frost takes the blossom, or there’s too much rain for the pollinators.

The fruits are baked fresh with skin-on chicken thighs, and there is also apricot jam in the delightfully sticky sauce, which is given oomph with a mix of East Asian flavourings: fresh ginger, garlic, chili, tamari and a little sesame oil. I’ve used some fresh thyme from the garden as well, as it goes beautifully with apricots; and there are spring onions (scallions) for more freshness, and sesame seeds for a little more crunch on the crispy skin. This dish has a delicious balance of fruity sweetness, salty umami, and heat from the chili, ginger and garlic.

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Damn fine cherry pie

July 10, 2018 Leave a Comment

I long for this pie every summer, but hardly ever get it because the sour Morello cherries that make it so lust-worthy aren’t often sold fresh in Britain. Personally, I wouldn’t make a cherry pie with anything but a cooking cherry (Montmorency is another sour ‘pie cherry’ cultivar, but Morello is the one I know and love). The jarred imports we do get here are good, though they can’t compete with my memory of making this pie with fresh fruits. My childhood friend, Zehra, and I once made the stickiest, most glorious sour cherry pie on a blistering summer’s day in southern New Jersey after spending the morning up a ladder in one of the local pick-your-own orchards so common in those days. I can see and smell the juices bubbling over my mother’s glass pie-dish onto the oven floor, now.

Well, raptures! This year I lucked into fresh Morellos in one of the supermarkets here in Cambridgeshire, sold as a trial from a grower of sweet cherries. I bought 12 punnets and had a cherry gorge-fest with sauce, jam, and (saving best for last), this million-dollar pie (just thinking about it brings out these repressed Americanisms). If you see them, don’t hesitate.

I’m so hoping Morello cherries catch on here. Surely anyone who has ever tasted a pie made of these tart beauties would want the experience to become an annual ritual. Germans and Eastern Europeans understand this. They make delicious use of them in soups, Black Forest gateaux, pastries, pickles, and savoury dishes. Morellos are in fact sometimes grown in the UK as pollinators for commercial dessert varieties, but the trees are normally so tall they aren’t cost-effective to pick; it will require grafting this sour cooking cherry onto shorter rootstock to make them a worthwhile commercial crop. Here’s hoping….

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