Plum Sauce

The garlic sauce is good but this is my all time favourite homemade sauce.  In fact this is my all time favourite sauce - sausages, fritters, barbeque, baked potatoes, cheese toasties...

Plum Sauce

3 kg plums (small tart, dark red ones scrumped from trees that hang out of hedgerows are best)
2 large onions
1.5 kg sugar
6 cups malt vinegar
3 cloves garlic
2 Tb salt
1 tsp cayenne
2 tsp ground cloves
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground black pepper

Count the plums so that you know how many stones to extract from the stewed plums before you add the rest of the ingredients.  Either that or laboriously cut all the plums and remove the stones before you start. 

Add all the other ingredients and cook gently for about an hour.  I then whizz it up with the blender to make a nice smooth sauce.  Make sure it is close to boiling when you pour it into hot clean bottles and seal them up.

Let it mature for a couple of months before you use it.  It improves with age (the vinegar and spices mellow together and the flavour goes from raw to rich) so don't be afraid to leave it 6 months before you start to use it.

Pickled Beetroot - overflow method

My allotment is finally producing such quantities of veg that I can start preserving, pickling, making chutneys and jams, and filling the freezer.  I am also drying peas and beans for winter soups and stews.

My family call this 'bottled beetroot.'  It is relatively straight forward if you have the preserving jars to do it.  

Boil up some scrubbed beetroot.  While it is cooking, put your clean preserving jars on a tray in the oven and heat them up to 100 degrees C and keep them hot.

Prepare pickling brine in the ratio 1 cup malt vinegar, 1 cup sugar, and 2 cups water.  Combine, and bring this to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.  Reduce heat to a slow simmer.  (That is a 500ml jar in the picture.  This quantity of brine fills approx 5-6 of these jars when they are packed with sliced beetroot.)

Separate the seals and put them in a bowl so that you can cover them with boiling water just before you start the actual bottling process. 

Make sure the screw bands (that hold the dome seals on until the jars cool and are sealed) are clean and wiped with a skim of vaseline on the inside.

Once the beetroot is tender put on a pair of heavy washing up gloves, lift each beet out of the hot water with a slotted spoon, squeeze them gently to wipe the skin off, slice them up and pack the slices into a jar.  I do this one jar at a time to keep everything as hot as possible to ensure they seal.

Pour hot brine over the beetroot to completely (completely) fill the jar, put a seal on top and make sure it is properly bedded with nothing between the jar the the rubber edge of the seal, and then tighten down the screw band.  Set it on a board to cool and get on with the next jar. 

Any that don't seal will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks (as will the contents of any jar you open to use later).

If you don't have preserving jars, you might be able to use any decent sized jar which had a lid with one of those pop up centres to show they are sealed.  If you do, make sure the inside of the lid is coated so that it is resistant to the effects of vinegar.

Sorry but beetroot is messy and there is no possible way I can photograph the steps in this process without a second pair of hands - messy but worth it.  My favorite pickled vegetable.

Garlic & Apple - Doofer Sauce

Fantastic sauce that needs to be kept AT LEAST 6 weeks from making before you try it, but its better after 6 months.  I save a certain brand of beer bottles with those wonderful wire clip tops for this sauce.  Seal it up hot and it keeps indefinitely and just keeps getting better and better.


Apple & Garlic Sauce

750g apples
250g garlic
1.5 litres malt vinegar
3 chillies
piece of fresh ginger
2 Tb cloves
4 tsp salt
4 Tb peppercorns
500g treacle

Coarsely chop the apples (skin and cores included) and separate the garlic cloves without peeling.

Combine all the ingredients except the treacle.  Slowly bring the mixture to the boil and cook gently, uncovered, for 1 hour till apples have pulped and garlic is tender.

Rub the sauce through a strainer, return it to a clean saucepan, add the treacle and boil for a further 5 minutes.  Pour the sauce into hot clean bottles and seal.

Makes about 2 litres.

I hate rubbing this through a sieve; I prefer to squash the garlic with the flat of a large knife and extract all the skin, and core the apples, so that once the sauce is cooked I just whizz it up with a blender (one of those handheld wand ones).

(Doofer - short for 'do for anything')