Preserving Fresh Horseradish: freezer or olive oil but please, not vinegar

Fresh horseradish root

Can you think of any two more disparate words than 'horse' and 'radish'? These are not words that - outside the English language at least - have a natural affinity. After all, a horse is a useful, flicky-tailed, muscular beast of considerable majesty, who has endured all manner of abuse over the centuries that it has been bred, tamed and enslaved by humans, while the humble radish is a stinging little red fart bomb with has few redeeming qualities apart from its ability to grow really quickly, and its habit of sending a blast of hot peppery air through your sinus cavities.

 I love horseradish in all its forms, and a few weeks ago I dug up the stupendously enormous and gnarled roots of a horseradish plant that's been hogging my small vegetable patch for years.

This great big brooding tangle of root was far too woody and leathery to use, but alongside it were several slim, crunchy parsnip-like offshoot roots that were perfectly ready to be preserved.

Last year, I followed the advice of fellow food bloggers and preserved my horseradish roots by grating them and pickling them in vinegar. But the results weren't great: the mixture was far too vinegary and acidic, and lacked the fresh zinging taste I like so much about horseradish.

So this is what I did with this year's crop: first, I washed them to remove all caked dirt. Then I timmed off the brown bits, and scrubbed them clean, in a sinkful of cold water, using an abrasive pot scourer to scour away the skin.

Use a micro-plane to grate the fresh root

Half of the scrubbed roots I wrapped tightly in cling-film, and packed straight into an arctic freezer (I have treated them like whole, fresh ginger root, which freezes beautifully, grates like a dream, and loses virtually no flavour in the freezing process).

Postscript: The roots retained their good flavour for six months in the freezer.

The other half I grated finely, using a microplane grater. I packed the gratings into a sterilised jar with a pinch of salt, and then filled the jar to its brim with olive oil.  The jar steeped on a warm windowsill for three days, and then went into the fridge.

The result is a fragrant, zingy, nose-tingling oil that is just lovely in a salad dressing, or drizzled over rare roast beef, or dabbed alongside a piece of panfried tuna.

Please note that this oil should be kept in the fridge and used within 3-4 weeks. It should not be bottled and shelved, because the gratings are raw, and without any acidity in the form of vinegar, the mixture may ferment.  If the oil solidifies in the fridge, place it on a sunny windowsill,  or warm a few tablespoons over a gentle heat.

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Oven-dried Cherry Tomatoes Preserved in Olive Oil

Oven-dried cherry tomatoes

Yes, I know sun-dried tomatoes are so last-century, and about as fashionable nowadays as Avocado Mousse and Prawn Cocktail. But what am I supposed to do when I come across mountains of gleaming, juicy, deep-red cherry tomatoes, going for a song, at my local greengrocer?

I spent a lot of time in the Nineties experimenting with drying tomatoes in my oven, with uneven results.

 The reason the results were uneven was because in those days I didn't have a fan-assisted oven, so the tomatoes took forever to dry out.

Now that I have an oven which, (although elderly, and missing its knobs) has a powerful fan, I have found that drying fresh fruit, vegetables and herbs is a breeze. A warm, super-desiccating breeze that turns plump little tomatoes into summery, sweet-sharp nuggets.

If your oven has a fan, try this recipe when cherry tomatoes are in season. These keep very well in a cool cupboard, if packed, while piping hot, into spotlessly clean, hot, sterilised jars with plastic-lined metal lids. (Preserving jars with loose disc-lids and screw-on rings are perfect.)

To halve cherry tomatoes in a hurry, line them up on a rack.

If you are dealing with a huge amount of tomatoes, a quick way to get them all sliced is to tip them onto a cake-cooling rack or oven rack set on a chopping board or your kitchen counter.

Shake the rack, and nudge the tomatoes so that they fall into neat, aligned rows. Using a razor-sharp kitchen, slice downwards along the rows so that each cherry tomato is neatly halved.

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Oven-dried Cherry Tomatoes Preserved in Olive Oil

2 kg ripe, sweet cherry tomatoes
3 Tbsp (45 ml) flaky sea salt
2 tsp (10 ml) caster sugar
olive oil, to cover

Preheat your oven to 100 °C. Slice the tomatoes in half.

Arrange the halved tomatoes, in a single layer, cut side up, on baking trays. You can place them racks set over baking trays, which will slightly shorten the drying time, but this is not essential. Crumble the flaky sea salt over the cut tomatoes and sprinkle with sugar.

Place in the oven and allow to dry out for three to six hours (the drying time will depend on the size and ripeness of the tomatoes, and the power of your oven fan). Check the tomatoes every hour or so: they are ready when they are shrunken, dried on the outside, slightly leathery, but still bendy and a little moist on the inside.

Sterilise four glass jars by submerging them, and their metal lids, in a pot of rapidly boiling water for 10 minutes. Place three sheets of newspaper on your kitchen counter. Using tongs, remove the jars and their lids from the boiling water and place upside down on the newspaper to drain for two minutes. (Alternatively, you can place the jars and lids into an oven heated to 160°C, for 10 minutes.)

Remove the hot tomatoes from the oven, and, without allowing them to cool, tightly pack them into the hot glass jars, filling the jars to within 1 centimetre of their rims. Pour the olive oil over the tomatoes, pressing down firmly with with the back of a dessert spoon to remove each and every air bubble. Top each jar up with a 5-mm layer of olive oil, so that every scrap of tomato is submerged. Tightly screw on the hot metal lids (or the disks and the metal rings). Set aside for two hours, and then re-tighten the lids. Store in a cool cupboard.

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Spiced Kumquat Compote

Perfumed winter kumquats

How very rude the word 'cumquat' looks in black and white. I can barely type it without blushing, let alone say it out loud to my greengrocer or my children.

It doesn't help to spell it 'kumquat', with a 'k', or to know that its Cantonese etymology is entirely innocent: it's the sound of the word colliding with my brain-bank of slang words that makes my ears shrivel.

It reminds me of that apparently innocent yet raspingly vulgar-sounding name, 'Slartibartfast'. Invented by the late, great Douglas Adams, this is a word that one really cannot say out loud in polite company. (Here, by way of contrast, is my post about evocative food words.)

I always know that winter has arrived in Johannesburg when I visit my greengrocer and find mountains of beautiful little oval citrus fruits, each one a dazzling orange and about the size of a quail's egg. Thin-skinned and wonderfully aromatic, these little kumquats darlings are dirt-cheap and plentiful when in season in South Africa, and are just lovely when cooked in a light, spicy sugar syrup, or pickled with sugar and vinegar.

This compote keeps well in the fridge for up to three weeks. It' s delicious with a slab of cold smoky ham and wedges of sharp Cheddar, and equally good poured over vanilla ice cream, along with an optional dash of Van Der Hum or Cointreau. Or try the fruits dipped in dark chocolate: see end of this post.

I used a small quantity of whole spices in this dish (all of them warming spices that pair nicely with citrus flavours) because I wanted the sharp citrus fragrance of the orangey rind to predominate. You can add whatever spices your heart desires, but I would advise against cinnamon, which, in spite of its gentle, woody, spicy name, is just too aggressive a flavour.

If you like kumquats, try my recipe for Chocolate-Dipped Half-Candied Kumquats.

Spiced Kumquat Compote

1½ cups (375 ml) water
1 cup (250 ml) white granulated sugar
a 10-cm strip of thinly pared lemon rind
juice of half a lemon
1 blade of mace
8 whole coriander seeds
6 whole peppercorns
1 cardamom pod, lightly crushed
300 g ripe kumquats

Put the water, sugar, lemon rind, lemon juice and whole spices into a saucepan. Bring to the boil, stirring now and again to dissolve the sugar. Cook briskly for 5 minutes. Now tip in the whole kumquats, reduce the heat, and simmer gently for 25 minutes or so, or until the fruit is soft, slightly transparent and beginning to look wrinkled. Remove from the heat.

Set aside and allow to cool completely. Remove the spices and lemon rind, decant into a lidded container or a glass jar, and place in the fridge.

Makes about two jars.

Cook's Note: if you'd like a really spicy compote, leave the whole spices in the syrup.


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Quince Jelly: how to make a delightful old-fashioned preserve

Image source: Wikipedia Commons 

Do you remember all those juicy ripe quinces you ate as a child? Me neither! The first time I held a quince in my hand was in my twenties, on lovely weekends away in the historic Cape village of McGregor, where the dusty streets, with their burbling water-furrows, are lined with many ancient quince trees.

Although the fruit has fallen out of favour in the last hundred years in South Africa, many old quince trees still flourish on Cape farms: judging from the number of fresh quinces I've seen in greengrocers over the past few years, it's still considered viable as a speciality fruit.

You can't easily eat a ripe, furry yellow quince; it's too hard and too tart. A quince needs to be gently stewed or jellied before it reveals its rosy and perfumed soul.

Beautiful clear quince jelly

This is an old-fashioned fruit with a long and noble pedigree, and it makes a most delicous preserve. (I hesitate to use the word 'jelly', because that word means different things in different parts of the world. This recipe is for jelly in the British sense - a crystal-clear, wobbling gel.)

It's excellent with ham, turkey or venison, stirred into a gravy, or melted and brushed over the top of a fruit tart. Or try blobbing the jelly onto a piece of sharp Cheddar or a wedge of oozing camembert or brie (see Cook's Notes, below).

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Quince Jelly
6 large, ripe quinces water
white sugar
juice of 2 lemons, strained to remove pips and bits

Rub the quinces with a tea towel to remove excess fluff, and then, using a cleaver or heavy knife, chop them roughly (and I mean roughly - they can be rock-hard) into pieces. Put the chunks, peel, pips and all, into a large saucepan and add enough water to cover. Set over a high heat and bring to the boil.

Turn down the heat and allow to cook at a gentle rolling boil for an hour or so, or until the fruit begins to break up and is softened and mushy. Top up with more water every now and then so that the fruit is always covered.

Get a large basin or bowl ready. Place a jelly bag (I use an old, clean, cut-down pillowcase) into the bowl, and ladle the hot fruit and liquid into the opening of the bag.

Tie the mouth of the bag closed with an elastic band or a piece of string, then lift up the bag and suspend it above the bowl, so the liquid can drip downwards. (Tie the twisted mouth of the bag to the knob of a top kitchen cupboard, or turn a chair upside down and suspend the bag between its legs, with the bowl place below).

Leave to drain for at least six hours, or overnight. Don't be tempted to squeeze the bag - you might end up with a cloudy jelly.

Untie the bag, toss the quince pulp into the bin (or on the compost heap) and rinse out the bag for future use.

Measure the quince liquid using a jug or cup measure, and strain it, using a kitchen sieve, into a large, clean saucepan. Add an equal quantity of white sugar. (ie, if you have 500 ml of quince juice, add 500 ml of sugar). Stir in the lemon juice. Set over a high heat and bring to the boil, stirring gently now and then so that the sugar dissolves. Boil briskly for 30-40 minutes, using a flat spoon or skimmer to remove any grey scum that rises to the top of the pan.

The mixture will look dull and cloudy at first, but after a while will clarify into a beautiful pinky-amber colour. If you have a sugar thermometer, bring the mixture up to a few degrees below jam point. Or, much easier, take an ice cube from the freezer and drop a large blob of the mixture on to it. If the mixture, once it's cooled for 20 seconds, slides enthusiastically off the ice cube, you're not there yet - carry on boiling it for a little longer. If the sauce sets to a wobbly, trembling gel within 20 seconds of hitting the ice cube, it's ready.

Skim off any remaining foam and ladle into hot, sterilised jars. Screw on the lids tightly.

Keeps for up to a year; opened jars should be kept in the fridge.

Makes 3 jars.

Postscript: I've used a teaspoon of this jelly in all sorts of gravies, and it makes such a difference to the taste (don't use more than a teaspoon, though: it's very sweet.) It is also makes a delicious base for a mint jelly: finely chop and handful of fresh mint. Melt a big blob of quince jelly in a saucepan, stir in the fresh mint, and add a little squeeze of lemon juice. Good with roast lamb.

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