One of the many awesome things about the place I worked for the summer in Switzerland was the airport right next to my lab building. And one of the many awesome things about that airport is that on the road just after it, there are dozens of wild blackberry bushes that nobody touches. I had so many fresh, sun-ripened blackberries from those bushes this summer, and this is the first of three posts where I’ll explain just some of what I ended up doing with all of them!
This jam was delicious the way I first made it, which was exactly according to the instructions here, but it contained a bit more sugar than I usually like. Next time, I’ll replace a large portion of it with honey or some other natural sweetener, and skip the Splenda recommended in the no-sugar version. For a first attempt at jam, though, this stuff jelled beautifully with no trouble at all, thanks to the pectin we put in, and tasted absolutely marvelous. For any attempt at jam, it was delicious, but especially for a first attempt!
Wild Blackberry Jam
(Recipe from the much, much more thorough article at Pickyourown.org)
1.5 L blackberries, washed under cold water
4.25 cups granulated sugar, divided
1 packet fruit pectin (can be bought at supermarkets)
Clean the canning jars with very hot water or in a dishwasher; if you’ll be storing them on the shelf, use brand-new lids. Set the jars upside down on a rack over a pot of boiling water for about ten minutes to sterilize them.
Rinse your berries clean.
If you’ve got a Foley mill, use it to crush the berries, or if you haven’t, then use a potato masher, upside-down drinking glass, your child’s fists, whatever.
Mix the pectin with 1/4 c of the sugar, and stir that mixture into the berries. Heat over medium to high heat, stirring constantly, until the mix reaches a full, rolling boil.
If you’re planning to store the jam on the shelf, heat the lids right now, in a pan of hot-but-not-boiling water for a few minutes; this softens the gummed surface so it can seal to the jar.
Add the remaining four cups of sugar, bring the mix slowly back to a boil, and boil hard for one minute.
Remove from heat and test for doneness, using a cold metal tablespoon: take a half spoon of the hot mixture, let it cool on the spoon, and if it thickens to the consistency you like, move on to the next step; if not, add more pectin, bring it to a boil for one more minute, and test again. Repeat until the jam reaches the desired consistency.
Fill the jars to 1/4 in. (6 mm) with hot jam, put the lids (and rings?) on; if you’re keeping them in the refrigerator or freezer, you can be done with them right now. If you want to keep them on the shelf, then completely submerge the jars in boiling water for 5 minutes, or longer if you’re at higher altitude. I skipped the last step myself, and am keeping my jam in the fridge.
You’re done! Jam stores for about a year, but tastes weird after 5-6 months, I’ve heard. But I’ve never been able to keep mine around for that long, so, of course, I don’t know. . . enjoy!
Another more-than-two-week-old post for you! Anyway, back when Misha was in Thun, he made an interesting discovery in the supermarket, of something I think most Russians wouldn’t expect to find in the store: chanterelles. It’s not that they’ve never seen a chanterelle before–on the contrary, fried chanterelles and potatoes comprise one of the most delicious traditional Russian dishes–it’s just that in Russia, chanterelles are almost too pedestrian to appear in stores. Yes, believe it. You’re supposed to go to the woods and find them yourself, since they’re everywhere, or buy them in buckets from sweet old grandmothers with hands and clothes still dirty from finding them to sell. It’s so wonderful how a food that Europeans and Americans deem fancy is just another workday dinner for the Russians.
Needless to say, when Misha found chanterelles in the supermarket in Thun for the sale price of 7 Fr./500g, he was shocked by the price, but nevertheless, he wanted to show me some traditional Russian food in the middle of Switzerland. He was on vacation, after all. Fried potatoes and chanterelles it would be.
Since the baskets of mushrooms were so large and we had enough for two dinners, we decided to make a contest of it. His mother’s recipe of traditional Russian lisichki s kartoshkoi (chanterelles with potatoes) and no spices, cheeses, or anything except mushrooms, potatoes, and a half an onion–vs. my improvised version, where I threw in any spices we had in the refrigerator along with pepper, garlic and a bit more onion.
The results: Misha’s version was classic comfort food, with soft potatoes and nothing overpowering the chanterelles’ texture and flavor, which even seemed nicely to appear in the potatoes: simple and wonderful. Mine was a little different, where you could taste the garlic, onions, rosemary, thyme, and other fresh herbs in everything, but the chanterelles’ flavor came out only when you bit directly into one. Misha agrees with my evaluation: both are good, but they’re for completely different functions. Try both!
Misha’s Traditional Fried Potatoes and Chanterelles
200 g chanterelles, washed and chopped roughly
500 g potatoes, not too starchy, chopped into sticks
1 small or 1/2 medium onion, chopped coarsely
2 tbsp sunflower oil
On an oiled skillet over medium heat, sweat the onion for a few minutes until it becomes fragrant. Add the mushrooms:
Cook until the water is gone from the mushrooms, then add the potatoes:
Cover and cook until the potatoes are soft, stirring intermittently (burned stuff on the surface of the pan is very tasty, so scrape it up and keep trying to create more) :
Then enjoy!
Erin’s Non-Traditional Chanterelles and Potatoes
To make it vegan, skip the butter and cheese, and don’t serve with beef or anything.
200 g chanterelles, washed and roughly chopped
500 g potatoes, not too starchy, chopped into disks
2 tbsp sunflower oil
1 tbsp butter
1 medium onion, chopped coarsely
2 small cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp fresh rosemary, chopped
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves, chopped
2-3 leaves fresh basil, chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
crushed red pepper to taste
grated hard cheese (Sbrinz!) to taste
Melt the butter in the oil, and saute the onion over low heat until it becomes fragrant; add the garlic, and cook for about 5 minutes before adding the potatoes and chanterelles together. Cover and cook about 30 minutes, scraping burned potato from the pan every 5-7 minutes.
Add the herbs, salt, and black pepper about five minutes before serving; stir and keep covered over the heat until done!
Serve with grated hard cheese and crushed red pepper.
Want to know the thing I love about stir fries?
OH MAN, before you could finish asking I whipped some up from what was in the fridge, plated it with rice and sprinkled with some sesame seeds and soy sauce, and it’s now ready for us to devour as fast as we can make our chopsticks go! Sorry about that; what were you saying?
Yeah. It’s that damned fast, and it’s dead-simple* too.
Stir-fried vegetables and tofu
Go ahead and make this with whatever you’ve got in the fridge and on the shelf.
1 tsp cooking oil
1 red, orange, or yellow bell pepper, chopped
1 white onion, chopped
1 red onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
200 g broccoli, chopped
200 g eggplant, chopped
1 red chili pepper, minced
200 g tofu, cut into bite-sized cubes
400 g dry aromatic rice, cooked
soy sauce to taste
sesame seeds to taste
Put everything but the rice, sesame seeds, and soy sauce in a pan over high heat, and keep stirring until the onions are cooked and the tofu has browned, around five to seven minutes. Serve on aromatic rice, sprinkled with sesame seeds and soy sauce.
*Unfortunately for me, taking photographs in the dark is less dead-simple, so you get this sorry excuse for a picture. I promise it tastes better than it looks.
With all of that creme anglaise left over from last time, and with three boxes of merlot left over from Sunday’s epic birthday party, I decided that it was the time to poach some pears. They came out lovely-ly.
Poached Pears
These poached pears were great with the leftover creme anglaise, but they’re also great with almost anything else–ice cream, chocolate sauce, custards, puddings–and especially with the sauce that results when you reduce the wine mixture in which you’ve poached the pears. Just reduce that mixture over low heat for a few hours, and you’re in business. I think that no matter what you’re serving them with, poached pears are always prettier garnished with mint, but I had none on hand. . . so I picked a couple of leaves off of the nearest houseplant for this photo, hoping that would lead its viewers to ignore the lumps in the vanilla sauce that resulted from microwaving it. Don’t try that at home, please.
To make sure these are vegan, choose your wine carefully. Some have trace amounts of animals left in them, believe it or not, and it depends on the filtering process used. And definitely don’t serve the pears with creme anglaise, your vegan friends will probably hate you for that.
750 mL bottle of red wine
1 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise -or- 1 tsp vanilla extract
4 whole dried cloves
zest from one orange
juice from one orange
4 firm ripe pears, peeled and with the stems left on
Combine the wine, sugar, vanilla, and cloves in a saucepan that will hold all of the pears, put on low heat, and stir until the sugar is dissolved. While the mixture is heating, zest and juice the orange, and add the zest and juice to the saucepan. Heat until mixture simmers. Add all four pears, and simmer uncovered for 30-40 minutes. Remove pears from sauce. Serve warm.
And, my favorite new mixer stand:
