Pressure Canning First Time

I ordered my Pressue canner from the UK last November and friends of ours who were travelling this way brought it over for me.  I devoured the book of instructions and then put it on the kitchen worktop where it stayed, glaring at me, for several months.  It all seemed a little bit scary.

Finally I thought I had better use it.  Now my rules are that its important to research before tackling aything new so when it comes to Pressure canning you have to look to the experts, and quite simply, that means the Americans.

As much as I love our American cousins I do find some of their practices a little irritating.  For example... weights and measures.  1 cup?  Which cup? Whose cup? Getting an accurate decision on what the volume of a cup is, is almost impossible... I had a set of cups which  were quite old so I bought new ones and these are positively not the same size as the originals.  The internet is not much help either since you get so much information its hard to know which is accurate.

I also have a USA published recipe book that not only measures solids in cups but also in cubic millilitres (a conversion made to no doubt make it easier for the Europeans???)

Since I am old enough to remember pounds and ounces I do have a set of weights in imperial as well as metric (whose a clever girl?)

Anyway, that little bugbear put to one side I wombled over to Iowa Sue on the internet (if you are interested she is HERE) and was actually very impressed by the easy instructions and tips that she gave.

Once I got over the panic surrounding 'what is a quart?' and converted the Farenheit temperatures to Celcius (btw Celsius and Kilograms are the standard precision measurements used by scientists all over the world, including America.  Isn't cooking a science?)  But I digress...

Voila Meat balls!  I passed on my favourite meatball recipe in favour of Iowa Sue's just to be on the safe side.  I did reduce the egg quantity because the mix was a bit sloppy for my liking.  She also mentioned scoop sizes.  Again, another mystery.  I have only one scoop, its for ice cream and it doesn't have a size written on it... I used my fingers.

Three quart jars of meat balls in stock.  Two jars of meatballs in tomato juice and one jar of meatballs in water.  I had enough left over for lunch which I popped into my usual tomato sauce.

And for those who are nervous about the idea of Pressure canning... it was not as scary as I thought it was going to be and I think I will be doing this regularly.   Of course the scary part could still be to come when we eat them!  If you want the recipe, I believe Iowa Sue has it covered.

Lemon Marmalade!

Having been given a big bag of HUGE lemons by a friend with a lemon tree (wish mine would start producing) I thought I had better make good use of them.  Two lemons weighed 900 grams!!

So, lemon marmalade it is... the theory is as follows:

1.  Lemons (look at the difference in size from the ones I was given and the one I already had from the supermarket).

2.  Cut them and juice them and then remove some of the pith (but keep it along with the pips).

3.  Shred the rind finely or thickly to taste but keep the pieces even sized (if you are not sure if the lemons are organic then you need to clean them thoroughly first to remove any wax coating or pesticides).

4.  Put the pith and pips into a muslin bag - or use the gadget thingy you got from Lakeland years ago and have never used before.

5.  Boil the shredded lemon rind and bag of pith and pips along with the juice until the rind is soft.  This may take some time.  Test the rind to make sure that it is soft before proceeding.

6.  Add the sugar and bring up to jam setting point and then boil until the marmalade is set.

Test for this by putting a plate in the freezer and every so often put a teaspoonful of hot marmalade onto the cold plate and wait for it to go cold... you should be able to see the tell tale wrinkles as you push the marmalade, this is the sign that it is ready to be jarred up.  Let the marmalade cool a little.

7.  Marmalade loves alcohol.  Not too much but just a little brings out the flavour of the fruit.  I couldn't get the lid off the Disaronno bottle so I added a tablespoon of port.  Port and lemon goes doesn't it?

8.  Sterilise the jars with boiling water and then fill the jars with the marmalade while they are still hot.

9.  Do not disturb for 24 hours.

Now the reality.  After 24 hours the marmalade had not set.  Even though it wrinkled perfectly when put on the cold plate.  Ho hum, its not the end of the world with marmalade or jam because you just re boil it until it does set.

That didn't exactly work either.  It turned very dark, very quickly and I had to take it off the heat.  It is thicker but its still more syrup than set marmalade and then when I put it on toast, not all of the rind is soft!!!!!  So.  Important things I have learned from this exercise.  Always shred the rind evenly.  Test for pectin before adding the sugar.  You do this by taking a little of the solution out and adding a drop or two of methylated spirits or denatured alcohol... this should cause the pectin to ball up... and the consistency of the ball (really thick or not) should indicate whether you need to add pectin or not.

 

The pith and pips is where the pectin resides which is why I added them back into the mixture but obviously these lemons are not high in pectin - which is quite unusual.

So.... have I wasted my time?  Nope.  It's still edible apart from the odd bit of thick peel which can be removed as you come across them.  And I have learned loads.  Don't be put off by difficult stuff... give it a go.  There is no such thing as failure!  (Well almost no such thing).

Parma Duck

No I don't think I can call it Parma Duck since it doesn't come from Parma and there is probably a protection on this particular name anyway... but in the same way that Parma Ham is a cured meat so is my version of it made with duck breast.

Firstly.  Take a duck breast and remove the skin.  Except I couldn't remove the skin because it was so firmly attached to the very thin layer of fat and I wanted to keep the fat layer.  Ideally you will ask for a really fatty duck breast - or grow your own.  The fat is quite important for the flavour.

Wash and dry the duck breast thoroughly.  Then mix together a large amount of slightly chunky sea salt and some fresh thyme.  Coat the duck in this and leave it in the fridge for 24 hours.  Give it a turn or a squidge around in the salt a couple of times during this period.

You will see a lot of moisture/water comes out of the breast.  After the 24 hours is up rinse off all the salt and thyme and again dry the duck breast thoroughly.

Wrap the breasts in clean (previously boiled is good) muslin and tie with string.

Hang it up in the fridge so that the air can get all around it and leave it there for two weeks.

Ah the joy of having an empty fridge just for special projects like this.

The duck can then be cut very very thinly and served on canapes or toast or with a salad for a light and tasty lunch.

The outdoor fridge comes into its own for things like this.

Sadly mine was still a little salty.  The error.... My sea salt was fine not chunky and it obviously penetrated the duck while curing during the first 24 hours.  I was quite disappointed but this was my fault not the recipe... sometimes you can cut corners and play fast and loose - which I do, often, but on this occasion it didn't work.  Hey ho... this is how a cook learns.

Drying Mushrooms!

It's autumn, and what do you get fresh from the fields after the rain?  Yes of course you do... Mushrooms!  OK... well in spite of having loads of field mushroom lookalikes on our finca we have bought our mushrooms from the supermarket.  This is a precaution.  Firstly.... I have been mushrooming for field mushrooms in the UK since I was a child.  I am very happy spotting a field mushroom and very confident about eating them.  But here.... I looked at all the mushrooms popping up and although at first my heart leapt and I thought... yippeee... very soon after I had a nagging doubt.

The mushrooms appear to be your common old field mushroom but this is rural Spain.  Lots of very strange mushrooms pop up on our finca and I am filled with doubts.  So... not to worry... I'm not an expert and I am happy to admit it... I don't want to poison myself or my family... so its off to the supermarket where the season is reflected in the prices.

A couple of packs of Setas - Wild Mushrooms - a couple of euros and I have peace of mind as well as yummy food.

The mushrooms are ripped apart into roughly similar sizes and then I hang them up in net bags (rescued from onions at some point in the past) on the veranda to dry.

At night they are brought into the kitchen and then put out again in the morning.  Its rained a bit these last few days so they may take as much as a week to dry.  Once they are very very dry - like cardboard,  I will put them into a jar and keep them for use in stews and soups over winter.  They can be reconstituted by adding hot water and leaving them to soak for a little while and then they can be used almost like fresh mushrooms, except you might notice that the mushroom flavour becomes stronger after drying.  They can even be blitzed into a powder which is a wonderfully flavourful addition to a meal, without using a lot of mushrooms to achieve it.

Now, we have a very dry atmosphere here in South West Spain, its only really during January or February that it is too wet to air dry stuff.  If you live somewhere wetter then you might want to dry them in the airing cupboard, on the aga, above a radiator or even in a very low oven for several hours.  It all works.  Just make sure they are totally dry before storing or they will go mouldy.

Herb Butters

Although it is possible to grow herbs all through the winter here it is still useful to try and preserve some for when the weather is bad and I don't want to don wellies and rain mac to make the journey to the herb garden.  The most usual and easiest way to keep herbs is to simply dry them.  You'd think this was easy with the amount of sun that we have but no, nothing is ever quite that that straight forward.

The sun is so fierce that drying stuff is fraught with difficulties - things that are still not dry can be burned to a crisp just an hour later.  So I decided to make some herb butters for putting on cooked veg.  This really is a no brainer when it comes to the difficulty ratings.

Choose your herb.  (I picked some mint and some sage.)  Wash and dry the herb and pick off the leaves.

Chop the leaves very finely.  And mix with softened butter.

Roll the butter into a sausage shape using some greaseproof or parchment paper.

Label and pop it into the freezer.  A slice can be sawn off the frozen butter as and when needed and mixed with potatoes or whatever takes your fancy.  If you are going to use it up fairly quickly you don't need to freeze it, just put it in the door of the fridge to harden up a bit.

Still on the herbs and preserving lark I also put some home grown chillies and basil into extra virgin olive oil.

This is not so much to preserve the herb as to flavour the oil which will be delicious used for salad dressings or drizzled onto cheese and tomato sandwiches or on pizza or... well the list is virtually endless.  One of the jars of oil is also going to be a gift for someone's birthday.  So easy to do and looks really special if you use a nice bottle or jar and decorate it.