From the category archives:

jams and pickles

Cinnamon Butter and Applesauce

November 7, 2010

For the past few minutes, I’ve been pondering over how to start this post. All attempts were defeated as I stared at the words – cinnamon, butter and applesauce. Biting into three of my favourite things spread rather generously on a piece of toasted bread – I’m not thinking clearly. If you were next to me right now, all you’d hear would be squeals of joy.

When you take a tour of food blogs around this time of the year, you will notice the space bursting with all things fall – pumpkins, persimmons, apples – but nothing yet on Purple Foodie (gasp!). I know I’m a little late in coming up with a recipe for the ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’*, and I clearly got the hint weeks ago when I noticed frantic activity on the recipe for apple chips. But the truth is, there is no fall here in Bombay. No rustling leaves in crimson and gold, no woolen scarves and jackets, none of that. And to top that, we have apples available all year round which saps the charm out of apples being seasonal fruits. But you know what? Making the cinnamon butter and homemade applesauce will make you happy, regardless of how the weather around you is.

The first time I had applesauce was a little over a year ago at a farmers’ market stand in NYC. The pink hued applesauce was calling my name from afar. I traipsed over, and bought a tub of the raspberry applesauce and a loaf of raisin and fennel bread. And that was my breakfast every day for the rest of my trip. Just to relive that moment, I added a little raspberry puree to this homemade applesauce, and I am only too happy to report that this sauce has surpassed the one from the farmers’ market. I’m going to attribute the success to Granny Smith apples – they are magical when cooked.

Some tips on making homemade applesauce:

Use apples that are meant for cooking like Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Fuji or Mcintosh.
Add some lemon zest to the sauce while cooking to intensify the flavour.
If you’re using a cinnamon stick, don’t discard it when bottling. The cinnamon will continue to add flavour to the applesauce.
If you’d like a chunky applesauce, use a potato masher, and if you’d like a smooth texture, you could whizz it together with a hand blender or pass it through a food mill.
I used raspberries for that pink blush to the sauce, but you could use cranberries or strawberries too. If you’d like increased tartness, you could add more of the berries.
I have made homemade applesauce with two methods: first by caramelising the sugar with the apples and butter and the other by dumping all the ingredients into the pan at the same time. This didn’t make much of a difference, but I’m partial to the method of caramelising the apples first.
If you’d like to make a super quick version of the homemade applesauce, you could throw all the ingredients in a microwave safe bowl along with a little apple juice, cover it leaving the slightest and microwave it on high for 10 minutes. I’m not a proponent of microwave cooking, but this saves you a lot of trouble of toiling over the stovetop.

Go ahead, and make this. Make sure you dollop the toast with blobs of the cinnamon butter. And when your house health police isn’t looking, add another. You can blame me if you’re caught, I’ll take one for the team.

* To Autumn – John Keats.

Cinnamon Butter

Ingredients:
100g butter, at room temperature
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons castor sugar

Method: Mix all the ingredients until combined and then fill it in a small jar. I like to refrigerate it for a little while until its firm, but still malleable and then roll it in parchment. I then cut small discs and plop over some hot toast.

Applesauce
Approximate yield: 500g / 1 lb.

Ingredients:
5 apples, peeled, cored and diced
2 cinnamon sticks
2 tbsp butter
4 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp vanilla bean sugar

Optional: A few frozen raspberries/raspberry puree

Equipment: Potato masher

Method:

Heat a saucepan, and add the butter to it. Stir in the sugar and let it cook with the butter until it is almost dissolved. Add the apples, and stir to coat.
Cook the apples for 10-12 minutes, stirring often until the apples have softened and yield to pressure when squeezed between fingers.
Stir in the cinnamon until evenly distributed.
With a potato mashed, squish the cooked apples until it reached the texture you desire.
If you’re adding the berries, now is the time. Mash them together until uniformly blended.
Turn of the heat and lick off the masher while no one’s looking.

{ 21 comments }

Marinated Sweet Peppers

July 24, 2010

Marinated Sweet Peppers

We have a very unusual current favourite in our house these days. I say unusual because it is not something sweet or baked but quite the opposite. It is sour, tangy, spicy and pleasantly mushy: Alice Waters’ marinated peppers.

While the marinated peppers are pretty simple to make, what can get tedious is peeling the peppers if you haven’t roasted them well enough. By well, I mean roast the peppers until the outside is absolutely charred black. Else you might get stuck in spots when the skin is firmly stuck on the pepper and that can be annoying. After you’re done roasting it,you should put the peppers in an empty bowl and cover it. This way the skin will further loosen from the pepper and it will slip off easily.

I love to top it on pizzas along with oven dried tomatoes, and I can imagine it lending itself beautifully to a sandwich with arugula and roast beef. A rather unconventional use of what Ms Waters intended to make as a part of a mezze platter, is eating alongside everyday India dal and rice in the guise of an aachar! That’s how we’ve managed to finish bottles of it. You should try pairing it with your local food – you might just be pleasantly surprised.

In other news, I’ve been hooked on to Spilled Milk Podcast every since they began. Molly and Matthew eat, cook and talk about food and I can’t stop giggling when I’m listening to it (I’m pretty sure people think I’m crazy when I’m walking on the streets). Go listen! And if that’s not enough, Clotide has a list of 5 more foodie podcasts; time to make some space in my mp3 player. Happy times!

I have also updated the Baking in Bombay post, and added more places on the map. Have a look! And more importantly, tell me if you know of any hole-in-the-wall places that I might have overlooked.

Oooooh and I almost forgot to tell you about the catering menu that finally took shape after I told you about my new “venture”! Hop over to the page and let me know what you think of it!

Roasted Sweet Peppers

Marinated Peppers Recipe

(Loosely) adapted from: The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters (US | UK | India)

Ingredients:

4 large peppers, could be either yellow or red or a mix of the two
3 cloves of garlic, peeled, chopped coarsely
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp cider vinegar
1 tsp fresh thyme, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

You could either roast the peppers in the oven or over a flame, whatever’s more convenient.
Brush the peppers with a tiny bit of olive oil so that they get done sooner.
In the oven: Roast for 20-30 minutes, turning the sides, until uniformally charred.
Over a flame: Hold the pepper, one at a time, over the flame, using tongs. Keep turning until blisters and charred thoroughly.
Place the peppers in a bowl and let it sit in the steam before you being to peel the peppers.
Peel the peppers, cut up into half and discard the seeds. Cut the peppers into smaller segments through its length.
In a bowl mix together all the remaining ingredients. Toss the peppers in this mixture. Check for seasoning.
Store in a sterilised glass jar.

Variation: Roast over coals for a wonderfully smoky flavour.

Storage: These should last you about two weeks, when refrigerated.

{ 20 comments }

Pickled Jalapeños

March 19, 2010

For weeks, nay months, almost a year (without any exaggeration), I’ve been looking for jalapeños in Bombay. On the rare occasion that I did find them, they looked as if they were sitting in the cling film wrapped box for weeks before they reached my hands. Yesterday while shopping at a supermarket, I was thrilled to find some jalapeños. And this time they were actually fresh!

Ever since I was introduced to pickled jalapeños years ago, I’d religiously buy a bottle every few weeks and make sure that I’d never run out of them. I especially love eating them in sandwiches, so slicing the jalapeños before pickling is more convenient. If you’d like, you can pickle them whole (just like I left the red one in the jar). When leaving them whole, the outter membrane needs to be pierced for it to absorb the pickling liquid. A nifty tip from my grandma for handling chillies so that you don’t end up with burning hands: Instead of using a knife that will result in squirts of the Capsaicin, use a needle to cut through the membrane, while you hold the chilli by its calyx.

This recipe fits perfectly in an 820g jar. If you’re using anything else, I suggest you first pack it with all the jalapeños and then add water until it reaches the brim. Now strain this into a measuring jug and this will give you the exact quantity of pickling liquid you need. Throw out half of it and replace it with vinegar. I found this method on Michael Ruhlman’s blog and I think this is just genius, and you will not need a recipe for pickling ever again if you remember theRatio (pun intended). All you need to do is add spice, flavour, and seasoning to this vinegar mixture.

Pickled Jalapeños Recipe

330g, whole or sliced
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup water
1 tbsp peppercorns (I used pink because I like colour)
2 bay leaves
3 cloves of garlic, lightly pounded
2 tbsp coarse sea salt
1 tbsp sugar

Pack the jalapeños in a glass jar.
In a saucepan, add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for about 5 minutes.
Pour the hot pickling liquid over the jalapeños and let it rest for a few hours. Shake it up a little so that the peppercorns are evenly distributed.
For a crunchy bite, you can start nibbling on them within a few hours. As for softer texture, let this sit for 4-5 days.
Keep refrigerated for upto two months or can it according to jar manufacturer’s instructions.

{ 51 comments }

Strawberry and Apple Jam

February 19, 2010

When I saw the picture of the strawberry jam in Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics, I just knew that I had to make that jam. Gorgeous ruby red, with blueberries peeking through, the jam looked spectacular. What I found even more interesting was that Ina had used green apples with the strawberries for the jam. Her reason was to use up the natural pectin that is abundant in green apples, but mine was to highlight the flavours of strawberries and apples equally (well, almost.)

You might feel making jam might be super labour intensive and would probably think that these tasks are better left to grandmums. I used to think so too, until I realized how quickly this jam came together.

I love, just absolutely love how this tastes. I always prefer my jams chunky to get the feel of the fruit, but you can go ahead and puree it if you like a smooth texture.

Strawberry and Apple Jam

Liberally adapted from: Barefoot Contessa, Back to Basics by Ina Garten

1 lb / 500g strawberries, washed and hulled
14 oz / 400g caster sugar
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and diced
½ cup fresh blueberries (I used dried)

Cut the large strawberries into half and leave the small ones whole.
Now place the berries in a heavy bottomed saucepan, such as a Le Creuset, and toss it with the sugar.
Bring the mixture to a boil over a low heat, stirring often. Now add the apples and blueberries. Let the jam continue to boil until it reaches 220F on a candy thermometer; this should take 25-35 minutes.
Make sure to skim and discard any foam that rises to the top every so often.
Allow the mixture to cool and store it covered in the refrigerator for 1 week or can it according to manufacturer’s instructions.

{ 33 comments }

Peach And Cherry Jam Infused With Vanilla Bean

July 9, 2009

This has been a bountiful season of peaches and cherries; I’ve eaten boxes of cherries and a whole lot of peaches with honey but sadly, the season is coming to a close. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find good peaches. Every time I see the velvety fruit blushing away, I have got to buy it! So like a crazy girl I kept buying the fruit in such copious quantities, that I ended up with more of it in the refrigerator than I had space for. The wonderful idea of canning them dawned upon me.

I’ve never made jam before, so I read up a lot of resources before finally arriving at a recipe that would work for the fruits I had in mind. It turned out just like what I wanted – sweet and tangy at the same time, with gorgeous specs of vanilla and the sweetest fragrance any jam could ever have. This is testament to the fact that real vanilla beans can make everything better! I was a little worried when in some places I saw people use pectin to help set the jam, but the jam set perfectly without any of it.

I love this jam on toast with ricotta cheese but I’m already thinking of ways to use this in my baking!

Peach and Cherry Jam Infused with Vanilla

14 oz / 400g peaches
7 oz / 200g cherries
14 oz / 400g sugar (my fruits were very sweet) Use up to 600g of sugar.
1-2 cups hot water
Juice of 1 lime
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and the gorgeous caviar scraped out.

Stone the cherries and cut into two.
Dunk the peaches in hot water and then cold water to remove the skin. Cut into chunks.
In a jar or a bowl add the fruits and sugar and toss to coat. Pour in 1 cup of hot water. Add the scraped out vanilla as well as the stick. Also squeeze out the lime juice. Let this sit overnight or until 24 hours.
If you like a smooth texture now is when you can use the stick blender to give you a more consistent jam. I like mine chunky so skipped this step all together.
The next day, transfer this to a large post and let it simmer, stirring frequently for 40-50 minutes or until the texture is a little more runny than what you’d like (because, as it cools it is going to thicken). Add up to 1 more cup of water whenever you feel that the preserve is rather chunky.
Once cooked, let it cool. Transfer to sterlised jars to preserve.