theordinarycook

The Ordinary Cook loves to cook. If I am not cooking or baking then the chances are I am thinking about cooking and baking. I love sharing recipes and ideas and my website is my space to do this.

Concentrated mint sauce

34 Comments / preserves /

To continue with the theme of mint…

Whilst I was picking the mint for the Shropshire Mint Cakes I picked enough to make a jar of concentrated mint sauce to make sure that we have some for our roast lamb this winter. Mary Berry, the source of this recipe, (although I have also found it in one of my Shropshire recipe books), suggests that you make this concentrate in June just before the mint flowers.  I never make it then, as winter seems so very far away and I always think about it but never get round to it.  But actually the mint in my garden flowers in June and then rejuvenates itself and flowers again in September and this year is still growing new shoots even now.

This mint sauce is made with the tender and strongly scented new tips.  I managed to pick 50g, which is a fair amount of mint in a bowl. But as you only need a teaspoon or so each time you make mint sauce, this will last me through the winter roasts until the new mint comes through next spring.  If you have plenty then double up and make a jar for a friend.  It will definitely be appreciated.

To use the concentrate in the winter.  Take a heaped teaspoon of the concentrate and mix in a bowl with a slosh of vinegar and it’s ready to douse your lamb.

50g mint sprigs
100ml vinegar (Mary Berry suggests distilled vinegar but I use white wine vinegar)
75g granulated sugar

Method

Wash a jar and its lid well in soapy water, rinse in clean hot water and place in a low oven for 15 minutes to sterilise.

Place the vinegar and sugar in a pan and bring slowly to the boil (this will allow the sugar to dissolve before boiling point is reached).  Now you can either chop the mint leaves using a knife and then add to the hot vinegar or you can put the leaves in a food processor and add half the vinegar and pulse until finely chopped, then add to the rest of the vinegar (be careful with the hot vinegar).  Pour into the warm sterile jar and seal immediately.

 

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Shropshire Mint Cakes

18 Comments / Shropshire recipes, The Ordinary Cook /

Well, this is my first post in what I hope will become a series of Shropshire recipes. ( I suppose Fidget Pie was the first, but hey…).  Over the summer I found three books on Amazon,

and I found another today, which is winging its way through the British postal system as we speak.  I want to share some of these recipes with you to celebrate the traditional recipes of my lovely county.

The reason I found this fourth book is because I found the recipe for these mint cakes in the red and white book by Mary de Saulles, unfortunately the list of ingredients omits the sugar. So I found myself searching for the original recipe to find out how much sugar I should be using and I think it is in this book and I found the recipe online.

Whilst searching for this though, I found that a recipe for Shropshire Mint Cakes was published in an Australian newspaper on 24th April 1935.  How fantastic is that?  A Shropshire lass in search of a local recipe is assisted by a newspaper article published on the other side of the world 76 years ago.  The internet is a marvellous tool.

I couldn’t use this recipe either though because this one doesn’t seem to specify the amount of butter that you use.  The search has also revealed that like all recipes these little cakes can be adapted, one recipe uses currants but suggests that you could also use dried figs and the other recipe suggests the use of both currant and mixed peel. One recipe suggests that you make them by spreading the mixture over a square of pastry and topping with another square, cook, then slice into squares.  The other suggests that you make individual cakes.  I thought the latter would make for a neater cake, especially if my lack of dexterity became involved.

The Shropshire Mint Cake is a bit like the Eccles Cake, but with the addition of fresh mint.  You can really taste the mint and at first you think that these might be an acquired taste, but I can assure you that they soon become just that.  I had acquired a taste well before I was eating the fourth one in a row, warm from the oven (my well-known lack of willpower again!).

I urge you to give them a try.

For the pastry:

200g plain flour
100g butter, diced
1 tbsp caster sugar
enough cold water to mix

For the filling:
2 tbsp chopped fresh mint
80g caster sugar
80g currants
50g softened butter
1 egg to glaze

Method

First of all place the chopped mint into a bowl and add 40g of the caster sugar and mix well. Leave to sit for at least an hour until the mint juices start to run.

Make the pastry by placing the flour and the diced butter in a bowl and rubbing the butter into the flour using the tips of your fingers, lifting your hands up high over the bowl to incorporate air. (I would use my food processor, but it broke and is at my Dad’s as he valiantly tries to repair it for me – thank goodness for Dads). When it looks like fine breadcrumbs, stir in the tablespoon of sugar and add enough water to make a smooth dough. Flatten the dough slightly into a disc and  wrap in clingfilm and place in the fridge for thirty minutes.

Place the currants, mint mixture, remaining sugar and the butter into a bowl and using a fork combine well.

Roll the pastry quite thinly and cut out discs using a scone/cookie cutter.  Place half of these discs onto two baking sheets. Then place teaspoonfuls of the currant mixture in the middle of the discs. I used a scone cutter that measures 6 cm and this made 24 little cakes.

Beat the egg with a fork and then brush a little of the egg all around the edge of the discs of pastry and place another disc on top, sealing well around the edge by pressing with your finger.  Brush the egg all over the tops and then place the baking trays in a preheated oven at 200°c, gas mark 6 or the middle/bottom of the roasting oven of the Aga for 10-12 minutes until golden brown. Remove carefully onto a wire rack and leave to cool a little before you sample your first one.

 

 

 

 

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Chorizo, lentil and bean stew

10 Comments / savoury, stew /

It’s mid October and the light for taking photos is lousy, but the weather (cold and blustery) demands comfort food of the highest order.  Mr OC had phoned at lunchtime asking if I had any recipes for lentils that he could make for his lunch the next day.  I took this as a hint that he wanted me to make something with lentils that he could take for his lunch. So we had some of this for tea with a pumpkin and potato mash and he took the rest in his flask today.

Serves 4

100g chorizo, diced chunkily
1 large onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, chopped finely
2 carrots, peeled and diced
1 sprig rosemary, chopped finely
4 sage leaves, chopped finely
1 bay leaf
a glug of Madeira or Marsala or sherry (optional)
400g tin of tomatoes
100g split red lentils
400g tin of beans (I used three bean salad but you could use cannellini, kidney or whatever you like or have)
600ml vegetable stock
salt and pepper to taste at the end of cooking

Method

Fry the onion in a little oil in a large saucepan for a few minutes until starting to go translucent.  Add the carrots and the garlic and continue to fry for a few more minutes until the carrot is beginning to become tender.  Add the chorizo and the herbs and fry until the oil begins to leach from the chorizo.  Pour in a good glug of Madeira wine (if using) and continue to cook until that has almost evaporated.  Pour in the tomatoes, the beans, lentils and the stock.  Bring to a simmer and simmer gently for at least 40 minutes (I left it in the simmering oven of the Aga for two hours).  Taste and season accordingly with salt and pepper. Serve with crusty bread or pumpkin and potato mash like I did last night.  A meal fit for a king, or a man who likes his stew.

 

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Crabapple jelly

35 Comments / preserves /

I was reading Cathy’s post about the beauty of design in nature and found it very inspiring.  I immediately felt the need to take a walk to experience some of this beauty just outside my door.  The perfect excuse for this was provided by the heavily laden crab apple in the hedge.  It has been a few years since I have seen such drooping branches.  The crab apple is a beautiful fruit, a miniature apple made all the more beautiful by its scars and blemishes. I filled a large bucket with carefully picked beauties and wandered back admiring the beginning of autumn and the hues of red, brown and gold peeking between the green.

A quick rinse of my 2½ kilos and they were destined for the preserving pan.

How a green bitter fruit can turn into an amber jelly is one of the magical acts of cookery. When you cook those apples into a green sludge you do wonder how the jelly will be transformed into something that you may want to eat alongside your roast lamb. But, honestly, you will enjoy every sweet appley mouthful and it feels even better that all you paid for was the heat and the sugar.

As many crabapples as you want to use ( I picked 2½ kilos)
Enough water to just cover them in the pan
Granulated sugar  450g for every 600ml of strained juice
If you wanted a little spice then feel free to add a cinnamon stick, 4 cloves, coriander seed or  a star anise into the pot

Method

Rinse the crab apples and place whole into a preserving pan (if you have time and patience you could quarter then to reduce the cooking time a little).  Add enough water to barely cover them (I needed 3 litres for my 2½ kilo). Bring to the boil and simmer until the fruit has turned to a sludgy mush. You can give them a stir to help them break up a bit.

Allow to cool a little and then pour into a jelly bag and leave to strain overnight into a large bowl. Do not squeeze the bag or the jelly will be cloudy.

Measure the strained juice and pour back into the preserving pan.  Bring this slowly back to the boil.  measure out 450g sugar for every 600ml of juice you have and then add this to the boiling juice.  Stir until the sugar dissolves and then leave the juice boiling rapidly until setting point is achieved.  You can tell setting point by placing a few saucers into the fridge when you start to boil the fruit and then testing the jelly by taking a spoonful of the mixture and pouring onto the cold saucer.  Leave to cool and then push your finger through.  If it wrinkles it has reached setting point.  Carefully pour the hot jelly into hot sterile jars and seal immediately.  Leave to cool before labelling. My 2½ kilos made 7 jars.

To sterilise your jars and lids, wash well in warm soapy water and rinse with clean water.  Place in a roasting pan, lids as well and place in a low oven for 10 minutes (the simmering oven of the Aga is ideal). They should still be hot when you pour the mixture into them.

 

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Book Review-All About Roasting

6 Comments / Book review, The Ordinary Cook /

I have not received any payment for this review.  I did receive a free review copy of the book and was asked by the publishers to review this item on this blog. This review represents my considered and honest opinion of the book. 

I was pleased to receive a review copy of this book in the post a few weeks ago. As regular readers of this blog will know the Sunday roast dinner is a tradition that we like to uphold in this household.  I have picked this book up lots of times in the last couple of weeks – sometimes just for a read whilst I have a cup of tea or eat my breakfast ( I am not one for doing just the one thing at a time); sometimes to get inspiration and twice to follow a recipe.  As regular readers will also know I am virtually incapable of following a recipe word for word, so there are no pictures of the recipes that I (sort of) followed. However, I used the recipe for Tandoori-style roasted chicken legs (except I used diced lamb shoulder and didn’t have the pot of yoghurt in the fridge that I thought was there and so marinated the lamb in the spices first and then added the yoghurt later after returning from the shops.  This resulted in the paprika having already disappeared into the meat and the finished dish being more white than red) and the resulting dish, with its small changes, was very good indeed.  I also sort of followed the porchetta recipe for sunday dinner, with a few short cuts and dabbling with the ingredients (what did I tell you about being incapable of following recipes?) and that was very good too.

The recipes in this book take you from the basics (Straight-up Roast Beef) to the more complex (Pork Tenderloin Roulade with Fig-Cherry Stuffing and Port Wine Sauce). Each recipe has at least three or four pages of text which gives an indication of the technical detail this book goes into.  For example for the porchetta there are seven pages dedicated to this one recipe.  It begins with a mouth-watering photo of the end result then an introduction of the inspiration behind the recipe (New York’s Porchetta).  A description of the number of people the recipe will serve, how long it takes, how to plan ahead, and which wine you should serve with it. Then two pages listing the ingredients and thorough instructions.  A page with detailed photographs showing you how to season and tie the porchetta.  A page about shopping for the porchetta and finally a page with another photo of the finished roast made into sandwiches. It is the attention to detail for each recipe which makes this book a worthwhile buy.  Even if you are, like me, incapable of following a recipe word for word each recipe provides enough detail to make you think about experimenting with the way you cook your roast.

Whilst this book would particularly suit a meat-eater with chapters devoted to beef and lamb; pork; chicken and poultry; fish and shellfish, it does also have 100 pages devoted to the roasting of vegetables and fruit. Roasted brussel sprouts with capers and lemony browned butter and slow roasted grapes are two recipes in particular which are calling out to me.

The main reason to buy this weighty tome is for the technical knowledge contained within it.  I admit to have never having heard of Molly Stevens before I received the email from the publishers asking me to review this book but I have been digging around the internet to find out more about her.  She is a classically trained chef, cookery writer and teacher based in the US and it is this last skill that shines through in the book. She provides lots of detailed instructions and tips and I like the concept of providing shopping tips with each recipes. However, as this is an American cook book the shopping tips are rarely useful for the UK based reader.

And this is perhaps the one reason I wouldn’t spend £25.00 on this book.  It is written for the American market and has not been adapted for the UK market. As a result I now understand even more how some of my own recipes on this site may well be confusing for my American readers.  Apart from the measurements (cups and sticks), and this book does provide comprehensive conversion tables in the introduction, Americans also use different terms for cuts of meat, particularly it seems for beef.  The terms strip loin, top round, tri-tip roast and flank steak are unfamiliar to the British reader and it is difficult to understand which cut we should be buying. A note about this in the Conversion Tables chapter would be very welcome as a means of decoding the book.

Having said that, for me, the best bit of this book is the introduction in which Stevens covers the principles of roasting and where her technical knowledge and skills really shine.  The chapter is very illuminating on the actual techniques of roasting and whether something should be fast roasted in the highest heat or slow roasted at low heat, or indeed roasted at a moderate temperature.  It gives detail of what constitutes roasting and how it differs from baking, the history of roasting and the science behind roasting. She also details how to test for doneness and the importance of basting, using fat and resting the meat.  But quite the most interesting thing is her use of presalting the meat hours in advance to produce the juiciest of roasts and it is this that will probably have the biggest impact on any future roasting that I will do.

In conclusion then, would I buy this book?  Well, it’s an interesting read with some interesting recipes and it is a good technical instruction manual on how to roast food.  It is a shame, however, that it has not been adapted for the UK market and so perhaps with its current price at £25.00 I might be more tempted by a homegrown book over this one if I was just looking for a recipe book. However, if you are keen to develop your technical cooking skills and knowledge then this book would be a very good buy.

The book will be available to buy in November and is published by W.W.Norton & Company (ISBN978 0 393 06526 8).

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Mushroom and Chestnut Wellington

22 Comments / pastry, pie /

Lurpak are launching a Christmas website and have contacted food bloggers to submit recipes for an alternative to the roast turkey dinner. I was more than happy to contribute an idea that had been bubbling around in my head for a while.  I love a beef wellington and I think it would be a great Christmas Day dinner but if you are catering for vegetarians they want something just as delicious on their plate too and in fact this Mushroom and Chestnut Wellington is as good as any beef wellington I have eaten, so everyone is happy.

On Christmas Day, of all days, you want to eat something decadently rich and this is definitely that with its butter rich flaky pastry and a filling that oozes cream and sherry. But the real beauty of this dish is that it can be made the day before and will happily sit in the fridge waiting for you to pop it in the oven 45 minutes before you want to eat it. This means you get to spend less time in the kitchen and more time doing whatever makes you happy on Christmas morning.

But you don’t have to wait until Christmas to enjoy this. I think it might be even better cold than it is hot and so if you are having a party serve one of these sliced as part of a cold buffet and people will be asking for it every  time they come to yours for a party.

 

For the pastry
275g plain flour
225g unsalted butter
pinch of salt
cold water
1 egg to glaze

For the filling
60g butter
250g shallots or onions, sliced finely
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
500g mushrooms (I like to use a variety, the tastier the better, but avoid button mushrooms as they have little taste)
200g cooked and peeled chestnuts
½ tsp dried tarragon
2 tbsp soy sauce
4 tbsp sherry, madeira wine or marsala
3 tbsp double cream
100g breadcrumbs

Method

Begin by making the filling as you will need to allow it to cool before you can assemble the wellington.  Weigh the butter for the pastry, wrap in foil and place in the freezer for thirty minutes.

For the filling melt 40g of the butter in a large pan and gently fry the onions and garlic for three to five minutes until the onions are translucent.  Turn up the heat to medium and add the mushrooms (no need to slice them unless they are large) and the remaining 20g of butter and fry again for a further five minutes.  You want the mushrooms to have taken on a good brown colour with a little caramelisation. Add the tarragon and the chestnuts and continue to cook for a few more minutes. Add the soy sauce and the sherry (or madeira or marsala) and allow to bubble away until the juices have reduced by half.  Add the cream and bubble again for a minute or two.  Stir in the breadcrumbs. Season to taste with salt and pepper and pour the mixture into a bowl and allow to cool.

To make the pastry put the flour into a large bowl.  Take the butter out of the freezer and, working quickly, grate the butter into the flour.  Use a palette knife to coat the butter with the flour.  Add enough cold water to mix (add the water gradually as you don’t want the pastry to be sticky) and continue using the palette knife to combine the pastry.  Once it starts to come together briefly shape into a disc with your hands.  Wrap in clingfilm or a food bag and place in the fridge for thirty minutes.

Place the cooled filling in a food processor and pulse until you have a chunky texture.

Roll the pastry out onto a well floured board to measure 40 x 35 cm.

Pile the filling in the middle of the pastry to form a sausage shape. Cut the overhanging pastry in each side into strips of 5cm and then take a strip from alternate sides to the top of the filling. Place onto a greased baking dish.  You can now keep this in the fridge until you are ready to cook.  Before cooking, beat an egg in a small bowl and brush over the top of the pie to glaze.

Cook in a preheated oven at 200°c, gas mark 6 or the roasting oven of the Aga for 30-35 minutes, turning once, until the pastry is golden.  It is best to leave it to rest in a warm place for 15 minutes before serving.

 

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Roasted pumpkin stuffed with risotto

16 Comments / pumpkin, rice /

We grew this little beauty.  It seemed such a shame to cut it up that I just popped it in the oven at 200°c, gas mark 6 or near the bottom of the Aga’s roasting oven covered in olive oil and roasted it until tender. Because it is quite small it took only twenty five to thirty minutes to roast.  Whilst it was roasting I made a risotto inspired by my recent fidget pie adventures using cider, sage, prosciutto, cream and a deliciously sweet apple from our tree. I stuffed as much of this risotto into the hollowed out pumpkin (removing the seeds but leaving the flesh intact) as I could and then roasted again for 15-20 minutes until bubbling.

It’s a wonderful celebration of autumn even if we are having a last fling with summer here in the UK this week. It’s a great dish to take whole to the table and let everyone dig out as much risotto and pumpkin flesh as they can.

This pumpkin served 2 hungry adults and 1 hungry child (and 1 child who said yuck – no surprise there though).

1 small to medium-sized pumpkin
Olive oil

25g butter
1 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, chopped finely
1 small apple, cored and sliced thinly (you can leave the skin on)
3-4 slices of prosciutto (reserve 1 slice to place on top for the final roasting)
5-6 sage leaves, finely sliced
120g risotto rice
300ml cider
250ml water
2 tbsp double cream
salt and pepper to taste

Method

Place the whole pumpkin in a roasting tin and drizzle with olive oil.  Roast in a hot oven, 200°c, gas mark 6 or the roasting oven of the Aga until tender when a skewer is pushed through to the centre.  How long this takes will depend on the size of the pumpkin. Mine took thirty minutes. Allow to cool a little and then slice off the top and scoop out the seeds. Place the hollow pumpkin back onto the roasting tray.

Make the risotto by frying the onion, garlic and sliced apple in the butter for a few minutes until the onions are translucent.  Heat the cider and water together in a pan and keep at barely simmering. Add the prosciutto and sage leaves to the onions and continue to fry for a minute or two.  Add the rice and stir until all of the grains are coated in the butter. Add a ladleful of the cider and water mixture and stir the risotto continuously.  Add another ladleful when the first has evaporated and continue in this manner until the rice is creamy and has only a tiny bit of resistance when you bite into it.  Add one more ladleful of cider and water and cook for a minute or so and then add the double cream, stir through. Season to taste and then fill the pumpkin with this mixture and place the reserved prosciutto on top.  Place back into the oven for 15-20 minutes until all is bubbling. Serve with crusty bread and parmesan grated over the top.

 

 

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The All Shropshire Fidget Pie

12 Comments / The Ordinary Cook /

Yesterday was the BIG day – the tasting of the actual All Shropshire Fidget Pie.

The Drive team at Radio Shropshire set themselves the task of making a fidget pie with all the ingredients sourced from producers in Shropshire and they used my recipe as the ultimate fidget pie.

The last two weeks have seen Vicki and Adam from the Drive programme charging around the beautiful Shropshire countryside meeting wonderful producers to gather the necessary ingredients. They visited a poultry farm and saw newly hatched chicks; a dairy farm where the cows are milked robotically (yes you read that bit right – the cow decides herself when her udders are heavy enough to be taken into the milking parlour); a rare breed pig farm; a farm where they turn an apple into a wonderful beverage.  They sourced wholemeal flour from Daniel’s Mill, cream and butter from Acton Scott, water from Wenlock Water, apples from a Blenheim Orange tree owned by a couple who now supply Attingham Park with their apples, Wilja potatoes from Rolly Farm, honey from Church Stretton and sage and green chilli from kind listeners’ gardens.

It has been really wonderful listening to their adventures and hearing all about the fantastic producers that we have here in Shropshire. I have been very jealous and have wanted to join them on their sojourns across the county.

Then yesterday they took all of the ingredients to The Plough Inn at Allscott and assembled and cooked their pie with the help of Martin, the chef. When I listened to it all on the radio I was very nervous, hoping that Martin would like my fidget pie as much as I do.  I heard him struggling with the pastry as it is very short with all that butter and of course using wholemeal flour makes it even more tricky to roll.  But he valiantly managed it and Martin loved the pie and as he was making it for his lunch guests I hope that they did too.

Then it was my turn to taste it.  I went to the radio station yesterday afternoon and into the studio with Vicki and Adam doing a live show.  It’s quite nerve-wracking sitting in a studio with mics and expensive looking radio equipment all around you knowing that the county is listening.  I was presented with my piece of pie and I was very relieved to find that my recipe had stood up to it and that the pie was indeed delicious.  The ingredients from all those wonderful producers made the pie quite outstanding and the pastry tasted fantastic (note to self: must use wholemeal flour in pastry more often).  The combination of cider, cream, rare breed gammon, apple, potato and pastry is one that is very hard to beat. Martin and Vicki both felt that it needed a bit more seasoning. Of course, salt and pepper are not produced in Shropshire so they had used a bit of chilli and relied on the gammon bringing its own salt to the dish.  However, I thought it was great as it was (I am always a bit light handed with the salt anyway).

Being involved in the making of this pie has been really exciting and I have absolutely loved listening to Vicki and Adam visiting the people who have provided the ingredients.  For a while now I have been thinking about sharing some more Shropshire recipes with you and I think this is just the impetus I needed.  So be prepared for more Shropshire recipes here in the coming weeks and months.

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Caramelised pear and almond cake

15 Comments / cake, sweet /

This is another recipe using the pears kindly given to us by a friend.  The pears are Conference but you could use any eating variety.  The cake is my almond cake batter – light and moist. This pear cake is very good with lots of cream as a dessert or indeed with a cup of tea in the afternoon. Shaheen recently made a wonderful chocolate pear crown cake that looks fantastic, take a look at the post on her blog about it for more pear cake inspiration.

4-5 pears (the ones I used were quite small)
25g butter
2 tbsp caster sugar

175g softened butter
175g caster sugar
3 eggs
150ml natural yoghurt ( I use Greek yoghurt)
1 tsp almond extract
200g ground almonds
100g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder

Method

Grease and line a 23cm springform pan and preheat the oven to 160°c, gas mark 3.

Peel the pears and remove the base and the stalk.  Slice the pear through but keep the top intact so that you can fan the pear out.  You will see from the picture that I wasn’t entirely successful at keeping the pears in fans but it doesn’t matter too much. Melt the butter in a pan that is large enough to take the pears in a single layer.  Add the sugar and swirl until melted.  Add the pears and cook for about 10 minutes over a medium heat until they become a lovely caramel colour.  Set aside and allow to cool a little while you make the cake batter.

Beat the butter and the sugar together until light and fluffy.  Add one egg at a time, whisking well between each addition.  Add the yoghurt and the almond extract and beat well.

Add the ground almonds, flour and baking powder and fold in carefully.

Put the batter into the cake tin and level the top.  Place the caramelised pears on top, fanning them out as you go.

Place the tin into the centre of the preheated oven (the baking oven of the Aga) and cook for about 1 hour until golden on top and a skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool for about ten minutes in the tin.  Then turn out upside down onto a plate, remove the base and turn the right way up onto a wire rack to finish cooling. You could serve it warm or cold with lots of cream (and those poached pears if you wanted to).

 

 

 

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Poached pears in spiced red wine

12 Comments / fruit /

A friend of ours has the most marvellous garden.  It is like The Secret Garden, only better.  It is full of fruit trees; apple, medlar, plum, cherry and pear.  Fortunately for us our friend is also very generous.  He turns up with buckets full of whatever fruit is ready.  Last week was the turn of the pear and what lovely pears they were. They deserved to be turned into something special.  In fact I made not one but two desserts with them, these poached pears and a caramelised pear and almond cake which will feature in the  next post. The two made for some very nice eating after a lovely meal at my mum and dad’s house.

6-8 pears (fairly firm)
1 bottle of good red wine
1 vanilla pod, split and cut into three pieces
5 cm cinnamon stick
1 star anise
2 whole cloves
2-3 sprigs fresh thyme
225g caster sugar

Method

Peel the pears, leaving them whole and the stalk intact.  Cut a little off the bottom so that each pear will stand upright.

Pour the wine into a saucepan that is large enough to take all the pears but not too large as you want the pears to be as covered in the wine as they can be. Add the sugar, the spices and the thyme.  Place over a gentle heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Add the pears and turn the heat up until the wine is simmering.  Cover the pan with a lid. Simmer for twenty to thirty minutes until the pears are just tender when you test with a cocktail stick or fork tine. If the pears are not fully submerged in the wine then turn them every five minutes during cooking to make sure they become evenly coloured.

Remove the pears to a deep bowl.  Turn the heat up under the wine and boil vigorously until reduced by about half and it has become syrupy. Allow the syrup to cool a little and then pour over the pears.  This way they will develop a deeper red colour. Place in the fridge.  The pears can be made up to two days ahead. Serve with lashings of cream.

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