Little Miss Muffet

I've always had a guilty crush on lemon curd. I'm talking spoon, jar, midnight snack addiction. Its sticky, gooey, smooth, sweet, tart creaminess- I just love it. So I decided to make a day of my condiment making session and had a crack at two types of curd; lemon and passion fruit. I discovered its very easy and less time consuming than a chutney so this makes a great, swift gift. To make lemon curd (a Delia recipe so you know you can trust it,) all you need is:

4 waxed lemons- zest and juice

200g golden (unrefined) caster sugar

100g unsalted butter- cut into cubes

4 eggs (3 egg whites and 4 yolks)

Create a bain marie (heatproof bowl over a fitting saucepan of boiling water,) and gently heat the lemon zest and juice, sugar and butter, stirring until the butter has melted. In a separate bowl whisk the eggs and stir them into them into the lemon mixture. Whisk all the ingredients until well combined and leave to cook for 10-13 minutes, stirring occasionally. The mixture should become thick and creamy in front of your eyes. It's magical. Once the mixture is thick enough to cling to the back of a metal spoon, it's ready! Take off the heat and leave to cool, stirring occasionally. Once cooled, spoon into sterilised jam jars and seal. It'll keep in the fridge for about 3-4 weeks!

When I was at the market, it was about 4 o clock, so it was 'POUND FOR A POUND' time and it would have been rude not to buy a bowl of juicy , juicy passion fruit. To make the curd I used;
11 passionfruit
2 large eggs
2 egg yolks
150 g caster sugar
100 g unsalted butter, cubed

Scoop out the passion fruits' seeds and flesh into a sieve. Use the back of a metal spoon to strain the juice though the sieve into a bowl. Keep the flesh and seeds for later. Beat the eggs and sugar together. Melt the butter in a bain marie. Once melted, stir in the egg mixture and passion fruit juice. Whisk all the ingredients until well combined. Keep cooking and stirring constantly until the curd has thickened. Once you have a curd-like texture, stir in the seeds and pulp. Let it cool slightly and spoon into sterilised jars. Seal and keep in the fridge. 

Sweet, Sweet Chilli Jam

No point beating round the bush when it comes to chilli jam. The more you make, the more you will inevitably eat. It's not one of those pickles that lurks in the back of the fridge and has a sell by date that makes you feel old. It's in the popular gang in the condiment playground. The recipe was simple and made one very large (750 ml) jar and one 250 ml jar. I went to a local London market to get my ingredients which you must do or you'll be spending an absolute fortune on ingredients. I wangled all this for £9 (top right are a passionfruit that will feature in my next blog post.)

What you will need for this fool-proof recipe is:

Food processor or time to do some serious chopping

Heavy bottomed pan e.g. Le Cruset (quite important as need to cook slowly to avoid sugar burning)

• 8 red peppers, deseeded and roughly chopped

• 10 red chillies, roughly chopped

• finger-sized piece fresh root ginger, peeled and roughly chopped

• 8 garlic cloves, peeled

• 400g can chopped or cherry tomatoes

• 750g golden caster sugar

• 250ml red wine vinegar

First you need to de-seed the peppers and cut into touch chunks. Then you need to put the pepper,  chills (including seeds,) garlic and ginger into a food processor and whizz until finely chopped. Then scrape into your heavy bottomed pan (I hope I have never been described as heavy bottomed) along with the sugar, tomatoes and red wine vinegar. Bring to the boil and remove any of the white scum that might come to the surface. Once bubbling, turn right down and allow to gently simmer for 50 minutes. Stir occasionally. After 50 minutes, the jam should start to thicken quite rapidly, turn the heat up a notch and continue cooking, now stirring frequently so it doesn't catch and burn (that naughty bottom, up to no good.) You should now be left with a sticky, bubbling volcano of goodness. Turn the heat off and allow to cool slightly before you ladle into sterilised jars. Put the lid on while the jam is still hot but allow the jars to cool completely before storing in the fridge for up to 3 month.  It will not make it 3 months. Far too delicious. 

Sunday Jammin'

Homemade gifts are a forgotten art; left behind in your primary school years where you got 50p a week pocket money so your only option was to give your old man a handkerchief that you made in a textiles class a month ago. Queue the cycle of life repeating itself. Being a twenty something, in my first job in London, I'm a little strapped for cash so I've gone all Kirsty Alsop on my family and friends and for the time being, its homemade cards and presents. My dad is into his cheeses (and unbeknown to him getting a fancy cheese board from his birthday) so I decided to make him a little line up of jam's, chutney and curds. Stay tuned for some sweet jams.