Preserved Slow Roast Tomatoes

I'll be banging on about preserving every time I get a glut of something worth covering in sugar, salt or oil and shoving in a sterilised jar. It's only September - this means we have plenty of time.

Post parental France holiday I had some lovely plum tomatoes that were not all going to get used in salads and sauces before spoiling. They got seasoned, oiled and roasted on a low heat for a long time then shoved in a kilner jar with olive oil once cool.

These little flavour bombs are great for adding sparingly to anything from cheese on toast to pasta, antipasti boards to pizza, old weather salads to savoury baked goods.

We all like a bit of autumn/winter food, the squashes, the brassicas, the apples, the sloes but to be able to pair them with ingredients you actually had during summer is a guiltless pleasure.

You can embellish with different vinegars and herbs or spices when roasting if you want, I prefer to leave that to when I'm preparing a particular dish, your call.

Preserved Slow Roast Tomatoes

As many tomatoes as you can find, halved. 

Generous glug olive oil for tomatoes, plus however much you need to fill kilner jar.

Salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 120C

Oil the baking dish you're using and put the tomatoes in cut side down. Then turn right side up, season and place in oven.

Roast for 2-3 hours, or even overnight on a super low heat, until they reach a semi-sun dried tomato look.

Leave to cool, put in sterelised kilner jars and fill with oil.

Walnut Pesto (with Purple/Green Beans & Fusili)

Cheap store bought, or even upmarket brands of fresh pesto have become less appealing the further we come form the 1990s. Once as bohemian and middle class as houmous, now you get pesto topped houmous, this craze has to stop. can all be used

Fresh peppery leaves, such as basil, rocket or nasturtium can form the base of a great home made pesto, you don't need to be a slave to Genoan tradition - native Italian, Squirrelface, even said he preferred this walnut type to the traditional made with pine nuts.

Garlic can be a contentious issue, with the peppery leaves you don't want too much of a punch in the mouth from excessive allium use, one fat clove is adequate without being over-powering.

I'm definitely an Italian hard cheese purist in the case of pesto, vegetarians can use the 'Italian style hard cheese', my insistence on the use of these cheeses is their ability to be grated finely without clumping - essential for a good rustic pesto.

I use a pestle and mortar here as I like to get my frustrations out and I prefer a more coarse textured pesto, smooth green gloop makes me think of soylent green. But use your food processor if you prefer a more uniform consistency.

I served the pesto with dried whole-wheat fusili and a handful of purple runner beans, from my parent's garden in France, which turn green on cooking. I chucked the sliced beans in halfway through cooking the pasta.

Walnut Pesto (with Purple/Green Bean and Fusili)

Serves 2

Half the leaves on a plant fresh basil
50g walnuts, chopped
1 fat garlic clove
25g hard Italian cheese (I used Gran Padano), finely grated
Glug olive oil
Glug walnut oil
Salt & pepper

Pulverize the garlic to a paste with salt in the pestle and mortar.

Crush the walnuts in to the garlic to form a coarse paste.

Add basil and pound until a light green.

Add cheese and mix.

Add a glug of each oil and incorporate until desired consistency is reached.

It stores well in an airtight jar in the fridge, make sure there's oil covering the top of the pesto.

Fig and Vanilla Jam

I was very lucky this year – I got a nice mix of wine, cheese and fresh fruit and vegetables form my yearly trip to see my parents in France. The figs were really delicious, we’d been having them stuffed with cheese and wrapped in prosciutto then baked. Delicious as a side dish or as a simple starter.

This time of year, as the nights draw in and there is a nip in the air you know a foodie will think about preserving. Seeing as my freezer is like a letterbox (even smaller when it is frosted up, like now) the only way I can preserve all my delicious figs before they spoil is jam.

Jam making may well be a scary concept for some, the correct temperature, the sterilisation of the jars, the right amount of pectin and enough cheap fruit to hand will put many off but please let me demystify this and ease your fears, it’s easy and fun and rewarding.

Think about that cold midwinter day when you’ve made hot toast with jam (and in my mind peanut butter too) and all the summer sweetness is still there. Even better - when you have a sharp cheddar on crackers or a creamy goaty cheese baked for a hot salad you can marry this jam with sweet shallots and some balsamic or raspberry vinegar for a flavour sensation.

Don’t burn your tongues now…

Fig and Vanilla Jam

750g fresh figs, diced 

500g jam sugar

1/2 fresh vanilla pod (I put the other half in a jar with some sugar to make vanilla sugar).

1 lime, zest and juice

Set the oven to 120C or Gas Mark 1 if you don't have direct control of the heat.

Put figs, sugar, vanilla, lime juice and zest into a large bowl and leave to steep for 2 hours.

Add to a large heavy-based pan and dissolve the sugar over a low heat. 

Bring to the boil and turn the heat down low and stir regularly.

Wash 3 regular or 1 small and 1 large jar in hot soapy water, including metal lids.

Place on a baking tray and leave in the oven for up to 15 minutes.

Once the jam has reached a thick and gloopy consistency pour into sterilised jars and clean thread with paper towel then place and screw on lids.

Leave for at least 3 weeks before eating. 

Fig, Serrano and Gorgonzola Salad

When its warm outside and you can pair seasonal foods with simple complementary flavours in a mouth-watering salad - like fresh, ripe figs, Gorgonzola and Serrano ham with a fig and balsamic dressing on baby spinach - it is a win/win situation. You get to eat something that feels sophisticated and tastes delicious without having to heat a thing in your kitchen.

If you can't find fig vinegar, balsamic will do just as well.

Serves 2 as a main with bread or 4 as a starter.

Fig, Serrano and Gorgonzola Salad

2 handfuls of baby spinach, washed and drained

4 ripe figs, topped and quartered

50g Gorgonzola, cubed

75g Serrano ham, shredded

3 tbsp fig vinegar

6 tbsp olive oil

Salt and pepper

Chuck them all in a bowl however haphazardly you wish.

Bleeding Beetroot Chocolate Cake for 'Labolis::Threshold'

Today I will be making 11 cakes. 11 of the same cake – I’m not totally insane. Labolis has been a constantly evolving and beautiful beast, part immersive theatre, part scavenger hunt, part role playing game and part art kaleidoscope. The amazing Ultra Violets have the fifth Labolis this weekend and it is gearing up to be the best yet.

I was asked to play a ‘Mad Chef’ and create something suitably surreal for the participants to eat during their experience. After some conceptual clambering I settled upon a bleeding beetroot chocolate cake. Something suitably delicious, with an earthy note that is visually arresting was a hard spec to follow but I made it in the end.

This post is as much about the recipe as it is about my trials and tribulations over the day of baking 11 cakes. I’ve already decided that the blood filling (red fruit coulis, maple syrup, treacle and red food colouring) and the ganache icing will be made in one batch so i can concentrate on the conveyor belt of cakes. I’m hoping the weather is suitably damp and cool in Manchester so I can get some respite outside away from the kitchen inferno.

The pictures should be pretty kick-ass too, the kitchen I’m working in has windows. Crazy what happens when you live away from London, the mod cons you get.

After this weekend I’m aiming to be a better actor, performer and mass caterer – although one out of three would suit me well.

Bleeding Beetroot Chocolate Cake

Cake

200g dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids)

200g softened butter

135g plain flour

1 heaped tbsp baking powder

3 tbsp cocoa powder

1/2 tsp ground ginger

250g puréed cooked beetroot

5 eggs at room temperature - separated

200g caster sugar

Ganache

200g dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids)

200ml double cream

4 tbsp golden syrup

Filling

200g fresh or frozen raspberries

1 tbsp treacle

3 tbsp maple syrup

50g icing sugar

heat the oven to 180C then grease and line two 20cm spring form tins.

Whisk egg whites in stand alone mixer until at the stiff peaks stage.

Meanwhile whisk egg yolks until pale and fluffy and mix in with beetroot purée.

Heat chocolate in a bowl over a pan in boiling water making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the water directly. Once melted add the butter, cubed, and stir until melted and glossy. Leave to cool for a few minutes.

With the mixer running tip the sugar slowly into the egg whites and mix until they resemble a good marshmallow mix.

Add the cooled chocolate mix to the beetroot and egg yolk mix and fold in thoroughly. Sieve in the flour, cocoa, ginger and baking powder and fold in thoroughly till no four can be detected in the mix. Finally add the egg whites and fold through gently with a metal spoon until you reach a smooth mousse like consistency with volume.

Bake for 30 mins and allow to cool while you make the filling and ganache.

For the filling process the raspberries in a food processor and pass through a sieve to remove seeds. Add raspberry purée, syrup, treacle and icing sugar back to food processor and process for 5 minutes and refrigerate until using.

For the ganache tip cream, chocolate and syrup into a pan, heat slowly, stirring continuously until glossy. Leave in pan to stay warm for easy pouring.

Tip and spread filling over base cake and top with remaining cake. Pour over ganache and smooth over with palette knife.

Eat. Scream, Run....