Blue tit fury

I realised yesterday that I didn’t post anything at all in April, which made me feel very neglectful and tardy. While I get on with writing some more food related content, I thought I’d post this in celebration of spring, which has finally sprung in time for the May Bank Holidays. I think a spot of beer gardening may be in order if the weather stays nice.

Spring’s arrival has been marked by a noticeable increase in avian activity everywhere, including the balcony garden. Nesting material is being gathered, the feeders are emptying faster than ever, and territories are being defended. The blue tit in the video below has been visiting several times a day for the last couple of weeks, tapping at the windows. A quick bit of Googling suggested that this behaviour is quite common at this time of year, with male blue tits attacking their reflections in windows and car mirrors, thinking it’s another male trying to move in on their nesting site.

Crazy little bird.

(Oh, and while I’m here – Happy Star Wars Day! May the fourth be with you. Always.)

The Hairy Dieters’ (almost) guilt-free chicken korma

Owen and I recently invested in a set of bathroom scales, ending years of blissful ignorance towards any excess weight we may be carrying. It was a little unsettling. While blissful ignorance may not be an entirely accurate description – we do make an effort to eat good, healthy food most of the time – we have accepted that we really need to reduce our calorie intake as well as getting off our arses and doing some exercise.

I’ve honestly never been the sort of person who bores everyone to tears with their fad dieting and all that sort of nonsense, but I do believe in eating well – with the odd indulgence thrown in of course. When I hear the word ‘calories’, I tend to immediately zone out, drifting off into daydreams of cake and curry. I think this relates back to years ago when I used to work in a library, where a large majority of my colleagues were middle-aged women on diets. They were all very lovely – don’t get me wrong (it was like having about twenty mums), but I was a svelte youngster in my late teens, and could therefore eat and drink whatever I wanted without getting fat. I had little interest in such concerns.

Needless to say, I am no longer eighteen years old, and when I eat lots of crap, there are consequences.

Should you find yourself in a similar predicament, I can recommend this curry, which is from the Hairy Dieters: How to Love Food and Lose Weight cookbook and TV series. Gawd bless those lovable Geordies.

The only changes I made were to halve the recipe as there are only two of us, and to leave out the double cream (I just used yoghurt instead). I would usually use a bit less cardamom in a curry, but this actually came out fine with the amount suggested. We ate this on Friday night and I will definitely be making it again. Admittedly, the idea of it being a ‘lighter’ curry may have been undermined by the naan bread and beers we had with it…

Seville orange marmalade

I know this post comes a bit late for the Seville orange season but I’ve been somewhat preoccupied with house hunting recently, hence the delay in writing this. Still, you can make marmalade at any time of year using normal oranges or other citrus fruit, so there’s no reason to wait if you fancy a spot of marmaladary.

This was my first attempt at making marmalade, and from what I can tell, it didn’t turn out too badly. I’ve given some away to family members so I’ll be asking for their honest verdict.

I amalgamated several different recipes – as I often do – after initially being inspired by Nigel Slater’s recipe in The Kitchen Diaries II. The recipe given here is what I did this time round, but I’ll probably make some adjustments next time (which I’ve mentioned within the recipe).

Ingredients

(As usual, please excuse the mishmash of metric and imperial quantities)

• A lemon
• 1.3kg of Seville oranges
• 1lb of sugar for every pint of resulting liquid (I used preserving sugar which has larger flakes, but granulated is cheaper and would be just as effective. Just make sure you don’t use jam sugar with the added pectin.)
• Grated fresh ginger (optional)

Gently zest the lemon and juice it. Put the zest and juice in a bowl and put any pips onto a clean square of muslin. Chop what’s left of the lemon and add it to the muslin.  Cut the oranges in half and squeeze out the juice into the bowl, again adding any pips to the muslin. I can recommend using one of those little wooden pointy things to do your squeezing.

I juiced the oranges one by one into a smaller bowl before de-seeding and adding to the larger bowl, as this made the seeds easier to pick out. However, there were still a few seedy bits left in the finished product, so in future I would consider just juicing all the oranges into a big bowl and sieving the juice for a clearer result. The contents of the sieve could then be added to the muslin.

Scoop the rest of the flesh from each orange (I used a metal ice cream scoop to do this) and add to the square of muslin, leaving half shells of skin and pith. Trim off any dodgy bits from the oranges and add these to the muslin as well. The reason for doing this with the flesh and pips is to add additional pectin to the marmalade to help it set.

This is what you should end up with:

Tie up the muslin securely into a bag, and put it in the larger bowl of juice, along with the half orange ‘shells’. Cover the bowl with cling film and leave it in the fridge overnight.

The next day, add the juice, muslin bag and orange peel shells into a preserving pan or other large receptacle. Add 2.5 litres of water. This seemed like a lot of water to me, but it boils down and concentrates the flavour, so don’t panic.

Bring all this to the boil and allow it to simmer on a low heat for one and a half to two hours, or until the orange skins are nicely tender. Turn off the heat and allow to cool a bit. Once the orange skins are cool enough to handle, remove them from the pan with a slotted spoon. Scrape out any excess pith (again, I used an ice cream scoop) into another clean square of muslin. Tie up the muslin and squeeze out as much excess liquid as possible into the pan. This liquid is rich in pectin and will help further with the set.

Remove the muslin bag of flesh and pips and again, squeeze out as much excess liquid as possible. I untied the muslins and scraped out the pulp before washing them ready for re-use, but you can always just throw them away if you can’t be bothered with all that.

Slice your orange peel into your choice of strips or chunks. Obviously, if you prefer shredless marmalade, you can just bin them. I sliced mine into very fine strips, but only used a few of the orange shells as while I like shredded marmalade, I don’t want too much of it in there.

Add the strips back to the pan and measure the amount of liquid you have. I had three pints. I was a bit confused about how much sugar to use as the recipes I’d read varied widely. Some calculated the amount of sugar to the original weight of the oranges, some just gave a specific amount and so on. I decided to stick with what I know and used the ratios I use for jelly – i.e. 1lb of sugar for every pint of liquid.

I divided my mixture into two batches of one and a half pints each, making one into normal marmalade (normalade) and adding a couple of heaped tablespoons of fresh peeled and grated ginger to the other. I did consider adding whisky and other spices, but thought this might be better suited to a regular orange marmalade (which I will probably try at some point).

So, once you’ve added your sugar to your juice/ peel mixture, bring it to the boil and basically boil the shit out of it until it reaches the setting point. I’ve always used a jam thermometer for this bit, but now find that my preserve-making instincts have developed sufficiently to allow me to judge fairly accurately when the setting point has been reached. As a result, I went ‘freestyle’ for my second batch (much like Luke Skywalker in the attack on the Death Star where he switches off his targeting computer). I still use the method of putting a plate in the freezer before I start and spooning some of the marmalade onto the cold plate to check for a set (easier said than done when you’re standing over a pot of what is essentially boiling syrup with a teaspoon, tentatively trying to spoon it out). If it wrinkles when you push your finger through it, it’s ready. I also find that another indicator of the setting point is when the mixture settles to a slower, bubbling boil rather than a frothing, rolling boil.

Once it’s ready, turn off the heat and leave it to sit for a bit to allow it to set slightly. This will prevent the strips of peel from sinking to the bottom of the jars. Decant into hot, sterilized jars and seal.

Makes about 6 jars of marmalade.

Chilli jam

This goes with loads of things – cheese, curry, smeared on a bit of fish before grilling – whatever you fancy. I have a tendency to add more chilli to this each time I make it, and obviously you could adjust the amount and variety of chilli and whether you leave the seeds in depending on personal preference or who you’re giving it away to.

You can double the ingredients for this if you like, but I don’t recommend it as it’s much more manageable with these quantities – even if it does only make two and a bit jars.

I have plans to develop a less faffy, more ‘everyday’ recipe for this, perhaps using whole roasted tomatoes in order to reduce waste and save time. If and when I do, I’ll post it here for comparison and bump the recipe given here up to ‘deluxe’ status…

Ingredients

• 6 Average sized tomatoes, as red as you can get them
• 1 normal red pepper and 1 red Romero pepper (or 2 normal red peppers)
• 3 fresh red chillies, halved and de-seeded
• 3 cloves of garlic, peeled
• A piece of fresh ginger, about a large ‘thumb’s worth, peeled and finely grated
• 50g balsamic vinegar
• 100g white granulated or caster sugar
• 100g jam sugar (the one with added pectin)

Halve and de-seed/ de-stalk the red peppers. Place in a roasting tray as they are, with no oil, and roast at about gas mark 6 for 30-45 minutes, or until they look nicely roasted. Don’t worry if the edges become slightly charred- this adds to the flavour.

While the peppers are roasting, you can peel your tomatoes. The easiest way to do this is to cut a small cross in the skin of each tomato, and place them in a large bowl of boiling water. After a few minutes, you should find the skin peels away easily from them (if doubling the ingredients, it’s best to do this in two batches and replenish the water in between). This is also easier if you start with the tomatoes at room temperature, rather than straight from the fridge.

Once you’ve peeled your tomatoes, cut them in half and scoop out and discard the seeds and pulp, leaving the firm tomato flesh. A metal ice cream scoop is ideal for doing this.

Once your peppers are roasted, add the peppers, tomatoes, chillies, garlic, ginger and balsamic vinegar to a food processor and whizz everything until it’s a consistent texture, with no large chunks.

Add the mixture to a large pan and add the sugar. Bring to the boil and then simmer, stirring regularly until the overall texture becomes nice and syrupy. If you scrape the spoon over the bottom of the pan and can see a clear line in the mixture, it’s pretty much done.

Decant into hot, sterilised jars and seal.

Makes about 2 jars of jam.

Mugged off by a pigeon (or how I learned to stop worrying and tolerate the pigeons)

For the last few months, I’ve been embroiled in an ongoing battle of wits with the local pigeon population. Along with the other small birds on my balcony, I’d been enjoying a nice pigeon-free existence until the local pigeons discovered that there was food to be had there. They started visiting in ever increasing numbers, and with ever increasing confidence. And who can blame them, really? After all, they’re wild animals in need of food and are therefore unlikely to turn down an easy meal.

So what’s the problem, then? The problem is: they are a massive pain in the balls. They hoover up all the food before the smaller birds can get a look in, they shit everywhere, and they dig through the soil, chucking it about and making an absolute bloody mess.

It’s a shame, as I used to be visited several times a day by chaffinches- who tend to prefer feeding from a flat surface to a feeder. However, since the bird table stopped having any food left on it, they seem to have lost interest and I’ve not seen one for ages.

My pigeon-proofing efforts have included raising the height of the bird feeders so the pigeons couldn’t reach them, installing pigeon spikes, and enlisting my dad’s help in making a rather nifty little cage to go over the bird table:

Me (and all the other small birds) one, pigeons nil.

The cage seemed to work for a while, until this happened:

One all.

“This isn’t over!” I exclaimed, shaking my fists out of the window at the feathered bastards. They didn’t care, of course, because they’re pigeons and they have no understanding of human language or hand gestures.

Another of my ideas was to put garden canes in the pots to stop the pigeons from getting into them and digging up the soil (and some newly-planted bulbs). Again, this works up to a point but they still seem to wedge themselves in among the sticks to get to the food.

A better alternative to the sticks seems to be to cover the pots in chicken wire, a tactic I have deployed on my pots containing bulbs. I’ve also used upturned hanging baskets with some success.

My increasingly obsessive desperation to outwit the pigeons is demonstrated quite well in this photo, I think:

Unsurprisingly, they still don’t seem that bothered:

Short of putting up netting around the entire balcony (which I’m not going to do for fear of smaller birds getting caught in it), I don’t think I’m likely to ever deter them completely. I think I need to just get over it and learn to admire them for their perseverance. I am essentially the Wile E. Coyote to their Road Runner, employing ever more elaborate Acme brand products in a futile attempt to overcome them. And anyway, perhaps it’s wrong to discriminate against them, just because they’re not as popular as the other avian visitors. They are quite beautiful when you think about it, with their iridescent neck feathers. I certainly wouldn’t do them any harm – I have, in fact, been known to free them from buckets and from my watering can when they’ve got stuck inside them (although I admit it was with a smug “who’s the smart one now, eh?” feeling as I did it).

My acceptance for the pigeons was cemented further recently when Winterwatch featured a piece about The Feral Pigeon Project, which aims to find out more about the ecology of feral pigeons. It taught me a bit more about the different colourings of these birds and prompted me to observe them in a different way.

And so, that’s the story of one person’s begrudging resignation to the way of the pigeon. I’m such an old softie.

(Belated) Burns Night: Haggis with neeps, tatties and whisky sauce

I’m not Scottish. As far as I’m aware, I don’t have any Scottish heritage. Neither does Owen. However, eating haggis with neeps, tatties and whisky sauce on Burns Night has somehow become a tradition for us since we first moved into our flat over three years ago. Come to think of it, most of the traditions in our home revolve around food and drink – eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, making elderflower cordial in June and, more recently, making parkin for Bonfire Night.

We’d originally planned on having our Burns Night dinner last night, after going to the pub in celebration of January Payday Friday (sweet, sweet January Payday Friday). However, you know how these things go – you’re persuaded to stay for another drink, and then to go out for something to eat instead of going home to cook. So, our Burns Night was tonight instead. And very tasty it was too, eaten while watching the Pixar film Brave, appropriately enough.

Stem ginger and clotted cream ice cream with rhubarb compote

My ever-beloved Nigella has often written about her mantra of “I may be extravagant, but never am I wasteful”. This is a sentiment I took to heart when I made this, as while it’s undeniably indulgent, it involved using ingredients which may have gone to waste otherwise.

As is often necessary after the festive season, I became a bit of a self-styled Queen of the Leftovers at the beginning of January, tailoring almost every meal around what was left in the fridge (even more so than usual). Among the leftovers this year was an unopened tub of Cornish clotted cream, which Owen’s mum brought for us – among other gifts – when she came to stay over Christmas. We both love clotted cream (who doesn’t), but knew we were unlikely to use it before it went out of date a few days after New Year. So, I decided to make ice cream, the idea being that I could stash it in the freezer until we could face eating pudding again (bearing in mind we’d only just finished the infamous New Year cheesecake). I went Googling for inspiration, and settled on stem ginger ice cream.

As luck would have it, I also found a lone bag of rhubarb in the reduced fruit and veg section when I went shopping. Rhubarb and ginger are notoriously tasty bedfellows, so I took the opportunity to make a rhubarb compote to go with the ice cream. This was also stashed in the freezer.

I had a 227g tub of clotted cream, which made a large amount of custard. I therefore had to churn the ice cream in two batches as it wouldn’t all fit in my ice cream maker. To make things simpler, the recipe below gives the amounts for one batch of ice cream.

Stem ginger and clotted cream ice cream

Ingredients

• 115g clotted cream
• 250ml whole milk
• 2 egg yolks (you can freeze the whites for use in something else)
• 70g caster sugar
• A pinch of salt
• About 50g stem ginger from a jar, chopped into small pieces (this is equivalent to about three or four balls of stem ginger)
• 2 or 3 tablespoonsful of stem ginger syrup from the jar

Add the cream and milk to a pan and heat together gently, stirring as you go, until almost boiling but not quite. Turn off the heat and set aside.

Add the sugar, salt and egg yolks to a bowl and beat together until the mixture turns a pale shade of yellow.

Gradually add the heated milk and cream mixture to the bowl, a ladleful at a time, whisking as you go. You want to do this carefully so the eggs don’t scramble with the heat.

Once all the mixture is combined, return it to the pan and heat it gently again until it is of a consistency which coats the back of a wooden spoon.

Put the mixture into a bowl and allow it to chill thoroughly. Once chilled, put it in an ice cream maker and churn according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Once the ice cream has churned, fold in the stem ginger pieces and syrup. Scrape it into a container and put it in the freezer until you’re ready to eat it. (It’ll probably need at least a few hours to firm up properly).

Rhubarb compote

Ingredients

• 400g rhubarb
• 40g caster sugar
• A tiny splash of water (and I mean really tiny – the rhubarb will leak a lot of liquid)

Chop the rhubarb into pieces about an inch long and add to a pan along with the sugar and water. Heat on a medium heat, stirring regularly until the rhubarb is soft, but still has some shape. You could add more sugar to taste if you like.

If freezing, transfer the stewed rhubarb (stewbarb) into a container with a lid and chuck it in the freezer.