BERGAMOT SORBET

Bergamots - pale fleshed, pale skinned (though some are green) and petite like a blood orange - have the most extraordinary flavour. Their juice is full of perfume and fresh, fresh citrus, and smells like a cup of the best Earl Grey tea imaginable.

Halved bergamots

Eating this sorbet was a perfect antidote to a cripplingly heavy lunch (mini pizzette with smoked provola, then sausages in red wine with parmesan polenta and pink radicchio, and more cheese after that); just tangy enough that you can get a full dose of bergamot, but not so much that your eyes start to water.

Bergamo sorbet

350g caster sugar

4 unwaxed bergamots, zested and juiced

1. Gently heat the sugar with 600ml water in a pan until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil and simmer for 3 minutes then remove from the heat and stir in the bergamot zest. Allow to infuse and cool completely.
2. Stir in the juice and strain into the bowl of an ice cream machine and churn the machine until almost frozen then transfer to the freezer to set. Alternatively pour the cooled syrup into a large, shallow, freezeproof tub and freeze. Fluff up the sorbet with a fork every hour, then after 4 hours, leave to freeze. Keep it covered in the freezer for up to 3 months. 

Next time I might drizzle it in dark honey to serve, or infuse the syrup with pieces of ginger.

James Ramsden: "spectac"

[Must admit, bergamots aren't the easiest things to get you paws on but you can buy them here at Natoora. Now is when their at their best.]

PRUNE AND RICOTTA FROZEN YOGHURT

PRUNE AND RICOTTA FROZEN YOGHURT
Not too greedy.

SERVES 4-6

ingredients

250g ricotta

200g natural yoghurt

250 prunes, pitted and chopped

1 tbsp dark brown Muscovado sugar

pinch salt

Blend all the ingredients together until almost smooth. You want 70% of the prunes to dissolve and the rest to keep a bit of shape.

The prunes will be sweet already so there is no real need for added sugar in this recipe, but I think a spoonful of dark brown muscovado really enhances the flavour.

Now, for freezing. If you have an ice cream machine, turn for 45 minutes before transferring to the freezer for a couple of hours. If no machine, place the blend in a metal boil with tin foil as a lid and stir every half hour for 3 hours.

Serve as a sticky after dinner desert with a shot of coffee, or piled on pancakes for breakfast.

ELDERBERRY ICE CREAM

This vivid magenta ice cream is wonderfully easy to make and, for the most part, is free. Go and pick the elderberries now - they look like deep purple versions of mistletoe; small berries in a bunch, hanging from an eight-stemmed stalk. You'll find them in trees amongst early sloes and damsons and they'll be around for the next month. Their taste is musky and sharp and much less versatile than the blackberry - we don't use them in cooking very much - but get them swimming in sugar and they become berrily potent and sweet.

ELDERBERRY ICE CREAM


ingredients

600ml double cream
100g caster sugar
4 egg yolks, room temperature, whisked
...
200g elderberries, de-stalked and washed
150g caster sugar

Heat the cream and sugar in a large saucepan and whisk until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil and gently and slowly whisk in the egg yolks until thickened to a custard and evenly mixed. Set aside.

In another pan, gently heat the elderberries with the sugar, until the sugar has dissolved and the elderberries are just bursting. You do not want to overcook the berries but make them plump and juicy. Sieve the berries into another bowl, leaving pips and bits of rogue foliage behind. When both the custard and compote are cooled mix them together in a shallow metal bowl. Cover with cling film or tin foil and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill and set.

After 30 minutes give the custard a whisk and, unless you have a trendy ice cream machine, transfer to the freezer. Every two hours, whisk up the ice cream so that any ice crystals are mixed in. Do this two or three times before leaving the ice cream to set and freeze before serving. Mine took just over a night and a day to freeze but it depends on the temperature and the fullness of your freezer. It is best eaten within the week but can stay frozen, well covered, for longer.

Scrumptious with crushed Amaretti biscuits and a few fresh mint leaves.

LOVELY DAY FOR A GUINNESS

The West of Ireland. What a place.

It feeds us, it waters us, it drenches us. And any ray of sunshine is welcomed with open, if not wary and suspicious, arms. Pouring with rain and it's 'a good day in Ireland!' Wellies just aren't done - you get stuck in with the wet and that's that.


There's one thing that is as solid as a rock though; never changing, always reliable. In five minutes of sparing sunshine or wet feet up by the fire, Guinness is the guy who'll warm your toes. An Irish Barry White, if you will, drowning out the sound of force 8 Atlantic winds and sideways rain, with his smooth, melodic gulps.

So what happens when Guinness steps out of the glass and into the saucepan? Surely it's just not done. Never changing, I said. Always reliable.

I meant what I said. Even as the can of Guinness is poured out of its comfort zone into a pan of warm custarding cream, the flavour stays put. Mix it with honeycomb and chocolate, and freeze it into ice cream, and you'll be shouting 'Aim for a FROZEN Guinness!'

GUINNESS AND HONEYCOMB ICE CREAM

(Inspired by Paul Hartley's book, Guinness: Celebrating 250 Remarkable Years)

SERVES 4-6
INGREDIENTS:
6 egg yolks
125g Light Muscovado Sugar
300ml single cream
225 ml Guinness (we added more - and sipped the rest)
2 x 40g Crunchie Bars, broken

Whisk the eggs yolks lightly and melt with the sugar in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Make sure the bowl does not touch the water - you want only the steam to melt the ingredients. Once the sugar has dissolved, remove from the heat.

In a separate non-stick pan, heat the cream and Guinness to just below boiling point. Pour the cream over the egg yolk and sugar mixture, beating well with a balloon whisk. Drink the rest of the Guinness to whet your appetite. Chef's rights.

Return the mixture to the non-stick pan and cook over the lowest possible heat, stirring constantly, until the custard starts to thicken and coats the back of the spoon. This will take about 10 to 20 minutes.

Pour the mixture back into the heatproof bowl and leave to cool completely. It's delicious on its own as a custard, so make sure you don't accidentally 'test' it too much. Stir in 1 1/2 of the crumbled Crunchie bars - You want to leave half a bar to chop over the ice cream on serving. Some of the chocolate may melt slightly and ripple through the ice cream - this is no bad thing.

Turn the ice cream into a shallow plastic container and freeze for 2 hours, then remove it from the freezer and stir well. Return to the freezer until completely frozen.

When ready to serve, remove the ice cream from the freezer and leave at room temperature for 5-10 minutes to soften before serving. All agreed that it tastes better soft and melting. Sprinkle over the remaining chunkily chopped Crunchie bar.

There you have it: Pub versus pud. And bloody good too, so it is.

DESSERT BEFORE MAIN

A relaxing holiday abroad. It seems just the thing for de-stress after the torment of leaving another country. I needed to hold on to the dream-world a little longer so rehab was at hand, our holiday destination in the Costa Blanca region of Spain offering me heat, sun, and most importantly foreign food.

I never thought I would miss Italian cuisine so much - that fresh pasta, pizzas which hang off the plate and overflowing markets of fresh fruit and vegetables. After nine months of nothing else, why was I so longing for it again?

The weaning off process from a oh-so-delicious high carb diet proved difficult... In this part of town, the restaurants seemed to offer me exactly what I had just left behind.

Spain? The land of Paella, fresh fish, patatas bravas and tapas?

Instead, the fresh calamares fritas seemed overwhelmed by Italian menus. Even here there was nowhere to escape! Suddenly my daydreaming of tortellini left me gagging for Spanishness.

With luck, our villa was perfect for cooking at home, so instead of spending holiday cash on wannabe Italian dishes, we stocked up with the fresh stuff and feasted on salads, olives, couscous with chorizo, and stuffed green Piquillo peppers. Despite looking rather unimpressed in the photo below, the peppers were more than edible!

After a week of home cooked meals, albeit scrumptious and highly satisfying, my holiday companions and I were champing at the bit for a taste of Javean authenticity.

I am a firm believer of local and traditional food is best, as I'm sure most are. I prefer a restaurant with a small menu - mainly to speed up the decision process - with dishes plucked from the family tree and embedded in the livelihood of the town. So to find a good-looking restaurant, out of the way of the heaving beach promenade, was just what el dottor had ordered.

Our last night in Javea, dressed to the nines and in panic to find some fresh fish, took us away from the pizzas and into true Spanish territory. A restaurant under the name of Amare (hmmm...an Italian name, no?), looking out onto the harbour with, luck had it, a table laid for 14 and a charming waiter.

Surely too good to be true?

The menus were handed to us, and the gaze of 14 clucky chicks immediately flicked towards paella and the three course set menu. An array of calamares, sea bass with balsamic vinegar, coconut ice cream...my eyes now far bigger than my stomach.

One thing that really caught my eye, was the melon sorbet. Not served as pudding – that was something else, far more indulgent – but as an unexpected inbetweener, a miniature course slipped in after the starter and before the main.

It arrived, very gracefully, as a palette cleanser. And a genius one at that. A strange concept to tuck into dessert when you have hardly begun your main meal, but it really worked. I could no longer taste the fried batter of the succulent calamari, but a sweetness that made me excited about gobbling up my next course.

Is it greedy to drop in an extra mouthful amongst a mountain of food? No, I don't think so. By the time the sorbet is demolished, one miraculously feels un-full again, and could go on eating and eating.

Finally, I felt I could happily release myself from cucina italiana, and begin to be normal again - remembering the important fact that there is more out there other than spaghetti bolognese...

Sadly I was unable to swindle the recipe from the restaurant in Spain, but have instead stolen, tried, tested, and translated the measurements of the melon sorbet recipe from another great blog 'GLUTEN FREE IN SOUTH AFRICA', and although not Spanish, it tasted pretty similar and mouthwateringly tasty.

MELON SORBET

The success of this sorbet all depends on the melon; under ripe fruit only produces an underwhelming result.

1 large, ripe melon- enough to make 4 cups (US measures) /940 ml / 2 pints puree

1/2 cup /125ml water

1/2-3/4 cup / 125-180g Castor sugar, depending on sweetness of melon

pinch of salt

2 teaspoons witblits (heated dry white wine at 80 degrees C) or other alcohol

Ice cream machine needed for churning

Puree the melon with the water, sugar [start with 125g of sugar], salt and taste. Adjust with more sugar if necessary.
Stir in the alcohol and churn 15-25 minutes, or according to the instructions on your machine.

And perhaps to eat before or after the sorbet...

VERY SIMPLE, HIGHLY DELICIOUS STUFFED PIQUILLO PEPPER

Makes 20

20 small green Piquillo peppers - topped and de-seeded

(1 tbsp olive oil if frying)

200g soft cheese

1 garlic clove, very finely chopped

juice of half a lemon

20g fresh parsley, roughly chopped

Tabasco (4 drops but add more for more spice)

salt and pepper

These little bite-size peppers are full of flavour and perfect for handing round as an aperitif. They are also extremely quick and easy to make, and seemed to go down as a success.

Before anything, top and de-seed the peppers, making sure you leave the bottom half intact for filling later. Heat up the oil in the pan on a medium/high heat until soft and the skin is starting to brown, or alternatively place them under the grill for 20 minutes.

The peppers need to cool, so meanwhile, mix up the other ingredients for the filling until all the flavours have merged together. With a small teaspoon, fill the peppers carefully with the soft cheese mix. Then they are ready to serve warm, or put in the fridge for later on. They won't last long...