Obviously I bought the Seville oranges pretty much as soon as they came into season back in January.  I got out and washed my eclectic mix of pots and lids to store the marmalade in once made and then….I kind of ignored them all.

Distracted by trotting up to London and doing some serious catching up on restaurants that had recently opened, the beautiful, tangy, tasty fruit just sat there in a bowl.

As anyone following me on Instagram will be aware of I have been methodically going round London , mainly eating at places that have opened in the last 12 months.   Amusingly a follower from the States contacted me after I had failed to post anything new for 3 days to enquire if I was alright, had I “shut my bolt” or had London run out of food ?  “All fine this side of the pond ”! I assured them, ”Just had to slink back off to the West country for a few days to deal with the fruit bowl”.

As it was code red in the cupboard (only one pot of 2015 marmalade left)* the oranges in the bowl weren’t going to get any better and I had just heard that we should be eating 10 portions of fruit and veg a day not 5, it was now or never to get making this years marmalade. I haven’t found anyone willing to say that orange marmalade spread onto thick buttery piece of toast counts towards your recommended daily dose of fruit and veg but I also haven’t read convincing arguments to say it doesn’t ( on purpose).

* So much was made in this batch that we skipped doing any in 2016.

According to recent studies at Imperial College London we should be eating around 800g of fruit and veg a day, that’s about 10 portions, if we want them to be beneficial. Beneficial translating as reducing the risk of chronic diseases (like cancer) and premature death. Have to say my non scientific/ life loving mind translates that as essential rather than beneficial but there we go.  I was interested to read that it didn’t make a difference if they were eaten cooked or raw as I know many people get overly anxious if they should be steaming and not boiling vegetables or worrying if they should even cook them at all.

The study also mentioned that taking supplements did not have the same results, as you needed the whole package that eating fresh fruit ad vegetables gives.  It was noted however that one of the factors that the study did not take into account was if the people eating more fruit and veg and suffering less from chronic diseases also made other lifestyle choices like exercising more which probably also helps to reduce the risk.

In the spirit of better late than never and on the off chance I am not the only one who didn’t made their marmalade in January this postcard’s recipe gives you my favourite way to do it. And if I am the only one who came late to the party, heres how I think you should have done it! This method is simple and well worth the effort of all that chopping and juicing so you can spend the rest of the year enjoying it and if you’re feeling generous even give it away as presents.

They are just about to go out of season though so you best get your skates on! Though have checked in the local grocers, Waitrose and Borough Market and they still had some boxes.

This week

Restaurants eaten at : 12

Marmalade made : 7 lbs

Daily Fruit and veg targets reached : er…..no.

Seville Marmalade

Clearly if I was a more earnest food blogger all my pots would be stylishly the same size but I’m happy to report the house is fairly chaotic and jam jar discipline very slack so the mongrel assortment below is what we had to use.  

Makes about 5 kilos or 9 jars

4 litres water

2 kilo Seville oranges

2 lemons juice and pith only

3 kilo preserving sugar

Wash the oranges, slice in half and juice.

Keeping all the pips in a bowl.

Using a spoon scrape the pith from each of the juiced skin halves and add to the pips.

Thinly slice (or thickly if you like thick cut marmalade… but I disagree ) and place in a large heavy based pan.

Add all the orange juice , lemon juice and the 4 litres of water.

Using a muslin tie up all the pips and pith from the oranges and lemon and place in the pot.

Bring to a simmer and cook for about 2 hours or the skin has softened and liquid reduced by half.

Remove the bag , leave to cool then squeeze out as much of the juice from the bag with its  pectin as possible and scoop this into the pot, discard the pith / pips ect. .Wash the muslin and dry for its next adventure. 

Add the sugar to the pot and slowly heat until all the sugar has melted then bring up to a gentle rolling boil and cook for 15 mins and start checking for setting point.

You know you have reached setting point when a spoonful of the marmalade placed on a cold saucer and left for 4 mins forms a skin and wrinkles when you run your finger through it.

Once setting point has been reached you can pot your marmalade into clean sterilised jars and seal.

Once cool wipe the pots and label. Keep in a cool dark cupboard.

I am not sure how long the shelf life is of marmalade but we have happily kept and eaten ours from over two years ago. 

Next stop…Hereford.

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Out of the woods….

Confused by which way to head in 2015 ? No one more so than this pheasant…

I found myself whirling from 2014 into 2015.  I was cooking up in Scotland for a Hogmanay celebration for about 25 guests.  With the help of a sensational sidekick we conjured up feast after feast.  Curry nights, Middle Eastern table spreads, hearty lunches, big breakfasts, game pies and decadent afternoon teas.  The group threw themselves into their weeks celebrations with shooting days, mammoth walks, ceilidhs nights and by even having a piper lead them into supper.

I am delighted to say the job also gave me some record breaking statistics for my ‘this weeks’ section (see below) as well as a stunning setting to see the old year out and welcome the new one in.

Having cooked a lot of game over the last couple of months I have to say I feel a tinge of sadness as the season comes to a close.  Grouse are well ‘out of the woods’, as their season closes early December with some of the more Northern Scottish estates ending it even earlier as frankly no matter how much of an enthusiast  its just too darn cold to stand out on a moor and wait for a bird to fly your way in November or December. Partridge and pheasant still have to be wary but by the 31st they too can sleep sound at night.

You may be thinking that I will wistfully be giving you a game recipe for this postcard…

but I have a far more important list of ingredients to share with you.

I have noticed a trend that seems to have caught on in every house I visited lately and unfortunately it’s not a good one.  Colds, lurgies, coughs and fevers seem to be rife with some places sounding more like infirmaries than households!

So to battle this I decided my first recipe for 2015 should be a juice to help set you all back on track.  Packed full of fruits, vegetables and herbs that will help reboot the system, perhaps not the drink that you were hoping to celebrate the start of the year with but remember it will do you the power of good.

 You can now follow me on instagram by searching for phollowphilippa as well as twitter @phollowphilippa

New Year Job:

306 eggs (yes really)

41 packs of butter (ditto)

Percentage of ‘Auldlang syne’ choruses sang in tune: 50%

Pints of cream used:14

Pipers left to pay : 0

Fire alarms set off: 2

Last year;

Different beds slept in: 32

Food Markets visited: 23

Culinary Triumph :Verveine  cream

Culinary Disaster : gluten free scone attempt

Total numberof fire alarms set off : 4

Toothbrushes left behind : 0

Reboot juice

Serves 2

 Small bunch of Parsley stalks (loads of vitamins and may act as an antiseptic for teeth and gum disease)

50 g Watercress (helps with a healthy complexion)

2 Apples (boosts your immune system)

2 sticks of Celery (soothes the nerves)

2 large peeled Carrots (helps to regulate blood sugar and boost the immune system)

1 finger of Ginger (anti-inflammatory )

40g white cabbage (lowers cholesterol)

Put everything through the juicer and drink straight away and I admit it may not be the tastiest thing you drink this January or the most attractive but it will do you good so get juicing and ‘bottoms up’!

Next stop…. Dublin

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 Jelly in a jar

The shooting party in West Sussex was indeed jolly.  Although the day started a little overcast, after an early lunch the skies cleared in time for the first drive of the afternoon.  A drive being where the birds are driven towards the guns by the beaters, not a leisurely jaunt in your 4 x 4 round the country lanes….

I had spent the day before cooking about 12 different dishes for my client’s freezer –  tarts, stews, venison wellingtons, sticky toffee puddings, a luscious ginger and lemon cheese cake as well as using up some of the gamebirds from last years shoot that we found at the bottom of the freezer.

As a general rule most houses I cook in will laughingly admit the‘ finds’ at the bottom of their freezers are often in need of carbon dating, never quite knowing how long they have been there.  In this case I had been there the year before so knew their exact vintage.

On the day of the shoot, after a day gallivanting about the countryside the guests came in ready for a feast. Their menu read as follows:

Canapés

Quails eggs and salt

Chilli crab cakes

Arancini with mozzarella and rosemary

Smoked salmon blini with sour cream and chive

Starter

Lobster risotto with fennel, chopped rocket and lemon

Main

Pan fried Duck breasts with roasted potatoes, carrots and beetroots, braised greens and roasted cinnamon plums

Dessert

Quince and sloegin sherry trifle.

Fresh mint tea, Coffee and Michel Cluizel chocolates.

I have found myself recently putting meat and fruit together more and more.

The tartness and acidity of the fruit is an excellent way to cut through the richness and fattiness of the meat.  Game meat, although usually not at all fatty also really benefits from having something fruity along side it. Think venison with redcurrant jelly or grouse with fried pear.

For this menu I roasted plums to serve with the duck which added a sweet and sour effect to the dish  – which I will share with you in this postcard recipe as well as a recipe for making crab apple jelly which goes really well with pheasant, venison, grouse, partridge and of course pork.

This Week

I’m driving: a Mercedes E Class

Post dinner cigars puffed: 8

BabyMammoths found in permafrost at bottom ofclients freezer: 0

Nearest food shop: a comforting 10 minutes away.

Roasted plums with cinnamon

The last of the plums are being picked in the uk about now, although every time I head further north on a job I seem to come across another glut so the season seems to be endless.

Adding a sprinkling of salt to fruit helps the senses work out we are eating something savory – much needed when pairing fruit with meat.

I would suggest one plum per person.

8 plums

1 tbsp light brown sugar

1 level tsp of cinnamon

1 tbs soft butter

1 tbs olive oil

salt and pepper

Pre heat the oven to 180°C

Cut the plums in half and remove the stones.

In a bowl toss the halved plums with the sugar, cinnamon, olive oil and butter.

Season with salt and pepper

Lay the plums cut side up on a roasting tray and cook for 20 minutes on the top shelf to just soft and has a slight carmalised look.

Serve warm with the meat of your choice.

Crab apple Jelly

Magical in colour this jelly is superb served with meats and also as part of a cheese board. 

The project does span over two days but the rewards are high!

This recipe will vary depending on how many crab apples you pick so I will give the method in ratios.

Take off most of the stalks and all of the leaves from your crab apples.

Put in a pan and cover by 1 inch with cold water.

Bring to a boil then turn down to simmer and cook for 40 minutes.

Take off the heat and strain the juice through a colander lined with a cheesecloth or clean tea towel.

DO NOT PRESS OR SQUASH  – this will make your jam cloudy.

Leave somewhere cool and allow to drip through over night.

The next day, measure your juice. You need 10 parts juice to 7 parts white sugar in volume.

Discard the apples  – it always seems a waste but my consolation is that I least I got to the crab apples before the birds !

Put the crab apple juice in a pan and bring to the boil giving it an occasional stir to make sure all the sugar dissolves.

Turn down to a rolling boil and cook for a further 30 minutes removing any scum as it forms ( do not stir during this stage).

Test for setting point by putting 1tbs of the liquid in a saucer in the fridge.

If after 3 minutes you run your finger through the saucers liquid and it crinkles the jam is ready.

Pour into hot sterilised jam jars and leave to cook and set.

Use as a condiment with roast meats including chicken, pheasant grouse and pork or use as part of a cheeseboard.  I also put spoonful’s into my dressing instead of honey – which works partially well when making an autumnal partridge and chestnut salad with sherry vinegar (and crab apple) dressing.

Next I find myself back on a plane and heading for the hills of Scotland to cook near Nairn.

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 Recruiting successful Hedge Find Managers…

The tropical sun set a thousand colours over the lush vegetation as the choruses of tuneful birds swooped through the warm evening air back to their roosts for the night…. Oh no, wait a minute, I’m in Dorset. Anyhow it was a beautiful end of a day.

I had visited the Great Dorset Chilli festival. It didn’t take a Poirot to deduce what one might have expected from such and event, lots of chillies and chilli products showcased in Dorset, so no great surprises.

I was surprised however to find out that I had up ‘till now been eating Padron in their infancy. For those of you who haven’t tried these, they are usually found as part of a Spanish tapas menu and are simply fried and sprinkled with salt, they go incredibly well with a glass of Fino sherry. I used to cook at the wonderful Moro restaurant in London, where the chefs would play Russian roulette with a cazuela filled of these. Our theory was 1 in 7 were really hot, the Dorset padron seller said 1 in 10 but the chances are increased as the Padron matures. So if you like it hot, and some do, go for the larger ones.

I bought a bag full of mixed chillies with varying positions on the Scoville scale. We did a big curry night where I put ½ Chocolate Hababero into a Keralan style fish curry I was making. Silly me. The sauce was so spicy I couldn’t serve it and had to do a last minute substitution. I then donned protective clothing of overalls, goggles and thick gloves and split the seriously spicy Choclate Haberno chilli sauce into 8 bags before cryogenically freezing it for a date when we had either ‘manned up’ or could get asbestos lined mouths.

The rest of the chillies are still in their bag in the fridge where they will remain for a bit, I am sure I can hear them taunting me every time I open the door.

“Cant handle us eh?!!, If you cant stand the heat…”

Well as it turned out I couldn’t stand the heat and so took the chillies advice and got out of the kitchen to go for a walk. Scrabbling across the fields I was in perfect luck to have timed my trip here with the ripening of hedgerows full of blackberries.

Despite the possibility of either being stung by nettles or pricked by the thorns it is great fun to go out hunting the hedges for these beauties, though be warned recruiting children to be the ‘hedge find managers’ is not always wise, as they tend to eat more than they put into the pot.

The blackberries fate I decided was to be made into jam, a great way to enjoy the fruits little by little over the coming months, or in one tea time sitting when served with bread and butter to an army of kids as it turned out.

For this postcard recipe I give you my recipe for Blackberry jam.

This week;

Chillies cooked with: ½ a chocolate habaerno.

Chillies eaten 0.0000001% (of the half).

Blackberries picked 3 lb

Blackberries put in the pot 1 ½ lb

Successful head hunts for hedge find managers: 0

Every home should have … Jo Malone English Pear and Freesia scent sticks

Blackberry Jam

I have tried lots of jam and I always come back to the conclusion that simple is best so I rarely add anything now apart from fruit and sugar into the pot.

This recipe yielded about 3 ½ lb jars.

Ingredients

Blackberries 1 ½ lb

Preserving sugar 1 ½ lb

1 teaspoon butter (salted or unsalted is fine)

Method

Place 2 saucers in the fridge.

In a heavy bottomed saucepan heat the blackberries until they have yielded lots of their juice, stirring regularly and not worrying about them becoming a little bashed up, it will take about 5 minutes on a medium heat.

Add the sugar then stir on a low heat until the sugar has melted.

Once the sugar has melted increase the heat so the mixture is simmering fast and cook for a further 8 – 10 minutes.

Take off the heat and scoop out 1 tbs onto one of the chilled saucers.

Put the saucer with jam on back in the fridge and leave for 3 minutes.

If after the 3 minutes the jam skin crinkles as you push your finger through it, the jam is ready. This is the setting stage. If not return the saucepan of jam to the heat and simmer rapidly for another 5 minutes, then test again.

When setting stage is reached pour the jam into hot, sterilised jars and seal with the lid.

Delicious on scones, drop pancakes , in melting moments, swirled through yogurt sweetened with honey and frozen as lollypops, layered between victoria sponges and cream, injected into doughnut, shaken with gin and topped with tonic water for a seasonal cocktail and of course simply spread onto bread and butter.

Next stop, the South West of France…

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Fur Coat, no twitters…

Never having been a seasonaire (usually someone in their early 20’s that spends their winter working in a chalet and off on the piste/p**s in some ski resort) I was not sure what to expect when asked to cook this week in Verbier.  With a ‘chalet girls /boys’ reputation of working and playing seriously hard, I hoped I could keep up with the pace…

The journey there was stunning.  I flew into Switzerland, then hopped onto the train that whizzed by the elegant Lake Geneva, then onto a bus that snaked up the mountain until I finally arrived in the swish ski resort of Verbier.   I am very glad I packed my warmest coat ( though it wasn’t fur) and multiple layers because as was expected, it was rather cold.

The days flew by as the chalets routine is rather busy, there wasn’t even time to tweet (Philippa Davis@phollowphilippa)

Up with the snow plough at 6:00am I was heading off to the bakery to get the first batch of croissants fresh from the oven.  A big breakfast of meats, cheeses, fruit, eggs, bircher muesli ( see recipe below) and yogurts fueled the skiers for their day ahead on the slopes.

When breakfast has been cleared up and a tea time treat has been baked this would be when, if you were in the swing of things, you too would head off out to the piste. If you were sensible however you would have a quick afternoon nap, providing you didn’t have to do a shop.

Shopping up the side of a mountain has its challenges.  On the positive side there was an amazing butchers, cheese shop, bakery and even the vegetables were impressive considering our location.  Getting them back to the chalet is not quite such a positive experience.  Over the week I unintentionally perfected my free style skating and am now worthy of a gold medal, although I don’t think path sliding is an Olympic sport, yet.

When the guests arrive back to the chalet around tea time they all need there little sugar fix after an energetic day on the slopes.  Cakes, tea and hot chocolate (recipe below) are all served then the fire is lit and its time to start the five course supper.

Canapé 

Deep fried mozzarella 

Starter 

Double baked cheese soufflé with radicchio, chervil and chicory salad dressed with pedro ximenez vinegar. 

Main 

Pan fried veal escalopes with rosemary and garlic roast potatoes and braised chard

Desert

Chocolate bread and butter pudding with salted caramel ice cream

Cheese Board

Goats Truffle log,  Aged Gruyere and Roquefort with home made oat cakes, honey and celery

When the last plate is washed, the glasses all polished and the breakfast table is laid, then you’re off the hook. Then you too could go off out on the “piste’ to one of the many late night bars and clubs tucked into the mountain OR off to bed, but that’s only if you were sensible…

Having had an enjoyable busy week and experienced the life of those young fun loving seasonaires,  I’m now heading home for a cup of tea and to watch Miss Marple, then its off to Cheltenham to cook for the races.

This weeks statistics

Hot chocolates drunk 7 ( without cream 0)

Altitudes reached 1592 m

St Bernard’s patted 3

Bircher Muesli

Possibly my new favorite breakfast option, this takes “rabbit food” like muesli to a whole new wonderful hight.

The recipe below is a starting point, use what you like in terms of fruits, nuts and seeds, if you prefer not to use fruit juice you could soak the oats in milk or in contrast omit the dairy side altogether and use more juice.

Serves 2

1 cup of oats soaked over night in 1  1/2 cups of either apple or pear juice or half milk half yogurt OR a dairy free alternative  ( upon first soaking the liquid should just top the oats)

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 apple grated ( skin left on)

1 cup of ; mixed seeds/ nuts and dried fruit this could include hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios, raisins, dried apricots, dried prunes, dried apple, linseeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds

In a bowl mix the oats with the chosen juice   / milk  / yogurt , the grated apple and the spices. Mix well and leave overnight.

In the morning mix the soaked oats with the dried fruits, seeds and  nuts, .  You can top with some fresh fruit like a handful of raspberries, blueberries etc.

Hot chocolate with cream

As comforting and warming as hugging a big hairy St Bernard a mug of good hot chocolate is the perfect sugar fix to a day out on the chilly energetic slopes. I used Swiss chocolate and then cream from the laitare in Verbier for my guests but the important point is just to get quality ingredients as its so simple and unadulterated. For me, making hot chocolate by this method is so much superior to any powdered coco/ hot chocolate you can get.

Per person

for an 8 oz mug you would need

4 squares of 70 % chocolate

Milk (almost one mug full)

a generous spoon of thick cream

Heat the chocolate and the milk in a sauce pan, whisking a little to get a slight foam. Once the chocolate is melted pour into the mug and slide in the spoonful of cream.

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