Part of the reason I didn’t write much on here towards the end of last year was because I got hung up on a blog I was writing about cooking apples. We had a bumper crop and found so many ways to use them up, I just couldn’t find the time to write it all down. It’s far too late now, of course, but in anticipation of more apples next year, here goes.
Over the last couple of years I’ve made jars and jars of chutney
using various recipes such as Beryl Wood’s simple apple and walnut recipe and my
favourite, Alys Fowler’s green tomato chutney. But I still have plenty of jars
in the cupboard, so this time around
we were on the hunt for alternative ways to use up our glut. I don't know the variety of apples growing on our tree. I've checked against online identification charts and there are so many varieties growing in the UK, it could be anything. If anyone can identify them I'd love to know.
The first recipe we tried out, which worked brilliantly with
the early windfalls, was Bircher muesli.
I must confess that Seb made most of the muesli, diligently peeling and grating
apples every other night to make enough muesli for the next few mornings. And
it’s delicious. There’s not much to it – simply grate some cooking apples into
a bowl, mix with porridge oats and yoghurt and leave overnight to soften. You
can add all sorts of other ingredients to mix it up – we added raisins with
the apples, banana slices and extra yoghurt in the morning. It makes a really
simple but delicious summer breakfast, plus we were making our own yoghurt (more of that in another post), so all in all it worked out
as a really cheap, healthy breakfast.
I’ve described in another post how Seb made our apple compote. This is still going
strong as we froze a lot of it and it’s great for topping yoghurt for dessert,
for porridge and muesli, and for adding to savoury meals that need a hit of
something sour and sweet, like my scallop galettes. It’s super simple – just
peel, core and chop a few apples and cook down in a pan with a sprinkling of
sugar for a few minutes until the apples are soft. Easy as that and a great one
for children because there’s plenty of fruit with only a small amount of sugar
(although you can heap the sugar in if that’s your preference).
An unexpected use I found for some of the grottier apples
was for sourdough starter. Between
holidays and work I lost a couple of starters this year and had to start again
from scratch. I usually use flour and water and feed for a few days until my
starter comes to life, but this time I added a grated apple to the mix and the
starter was starting to bubble a day later. It’s a much faster method than just
waiting for a starter to get going by itself and it saved me plenty of flour. I
know you can use raisins and various other fruit for this, so grab whatever you
have to hand. It really does work.
But by far the best use of our apples last year was for Apple Jam. Particularly in the early
part of the season, there’s so much pectin in the apples that they turn to jam
with barely any boiling, so we often had sweet, tasty jam within 10 minutes of
adding it to the pot. Later in the season it took a little longer for the jam
to set, but not as long as it would do for other fruit. I’m at a loss as to why
the shops aren’t full of apple jam; it was that easy and made a sweet, tasty
jam that’s delicious spread on wholemeal bread with a slick of butter.
We also experimented with sugar content and found that the
pound for pound, or sometimes three-quarters sugar to apples, ratios preferred
by traditionalists really isn’t necessary. The sugar keeps the jam from
spoiling, but as long as we sterilised our jars properly and kept them in the
fridge once opened, they kept perfectly well. We still have lots of jars sitting in the cupboard waiting to be opened that haven't spoiled at all.
To sterilise your jars, wash them in hot soapy water and
leave to drain dry, or run them through a hot dishwasher cycle, or fill with
boiling hot water, or place in a hot oven for 10 minutes. Make sure you
sterilise the lids and spoons, too.
Here’s our recipe.
Low-sugar Apple Jam
cooking apples,
peeled, cored and chopped
preserving sugar
You will need
sterilised jars
Weigh the prepared apples and put them in a pan over a
medium heat with a third of the weight of sugar (e.g. 600g apples would need
200g sugar). You can add a few cloves at this point, but we didn’t bother. (I
think the cloves counter the sweetness in traditional recipes, but with the
reduced sugar this wasn’t a problem for us.)
Cook down until soft and mushy, stirring often. This took
anything from 5 to 15 minutes, although traditionally you would cook the apples
for an hour.
Transfer to sterilised jars, seal and leave to cool.
Beryl Wood’s apple and walnut chutney recipe can be found in Let’s Preserve It, published by Square
Peg.
Alys Fowler’s green tomato chutney recipe can be found in My Edible Garden, published by BBC
Books.
