Recipes for Jams & Spreads @Not Quite Nigella

Category Archives: Jams & Spreads

Roasted Chestnut Puree

Sweetened Chestnut Puree is one of those wickedly delicious things that you shouldn’t really be eating by the spoonful from the jar but its sheer deliciousness beckons you to, much like peanut butter, nutella and morello cherry jam. As chestnuts are in season, I saw them for $3 a kilo but since I didn’t actually know what to do with them, I only bought 1/4 a kilo. I set about making one of my favourite things, the sweetened chestnut puree as I had in mind to make Nigella’s Chocolate Chestnut refrigerator cake in mini dariole form sometime in the near future.

A word of warning, as I learnt the hard way, peeling chestnuts will ruin your nails and is tedious work. The first recipe I found told me to cut the “round” part of the chestnut before baking but I mistook this for the curved area, what they actually mean is the round base of the chestnut. I only wondered if they meant this when I was almost done making an incision through most of them so I tried cutting the base and the ones I did this to were infinitely easier to peel with the troublesome skin peeling away easily. Also you will want to cut an “X” to ensure that it peels without taking most of your nail polish along with it. Another alternative way with chestnuts is to cut them in half with a large knife and cook them in boiling water for 8 minutes and then dunk them in cold water straight afterwards to remove the hard-to-remove membrane. I found this slightly easier to remove them although the taste was slightly different, it was more muted.

If you can’t be bothered with the palava of making your own sweetened chestnut puree, and believe me, half way through I realised how truly demented it was when you can buy it tinned without ruining your nails, even simply roasting them is rewardingly good. They’re naturally sweet as they are so snacking on these gorgeous little morsels with a hot cocoa is a lovely wintertime experience.

Sweetened Chestnut Puree

Makes 1 cup/250ml

200gm fresh chestnuts, in shell
Water, as needed
2 1/2 cups milk
1/2 a vanilla bean
1/4 to 1/3 cup of sugar (to taste)
3 tablespoons of Cognac or Brandy (optional)

1. Shell chestnuts by making an “X” incision only in the bottom round portion of each nut.

2. Place the chestnuts on a baking tray in a small amount of water and bake at 240c for 8 to 10 minutes. Let cool. **Stop here if you’re just eating roasted chestnuts and peel these in front of watching some sinfully so-bad-it’s-good television. **

3. Slip intact nuts from shells

4. Remove the skins and discard

5. Place the chestnuts, 2 cups of the milk and vanilla bean in a saucepan and heat to simmering.

6. Simmer until all liquid has evaporated and chestnuts are tender.

7. Add last 1/2 cup of milk and sugar and heat to dissolve sugar but do not evaporate.

8. Blend milky chestnut mixture with brandy

9. Rub the chestnuts through a sieve to puree.

10. Place in sterilised jar

16 comments | June 6, 2008 by Not Quite Nigella

Tomato jam

My jam obsession knows no bounds. Despite the fact that I’ve sworn off buying or making jam due to the 10 opened jars in my fridge and 3 in my cupboard, I was lured again by this recipe. In my defence, Your Honour, its only makes 1 cup so its not like I will have jars and jars of this and I made it to go with tofu burgers, to give it much needed flavour beyond the usual tomato sauce that goes into burgers. I’d also like to admit, into Evidence, Exhibit B, the jam which is delicious. Sample it and try and convict me.

Tomato jam

Makes approximately 1 cup
Ingredients

2 tbs canola oil
2 tbs grated ginger
1 red onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup (125ml) red wine vinegar
1/2 firmly packed (100g) brown sugar
1 small red chilli, finely chopped
425g can chopped tomatoes
1 tbs honey

Method

1. Heat the canola oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the ginger and onion, and cook for 2-3 minutes until the onion is soft. Add the vinegar, brown sugar and chilli, and cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes until sugar dissolves.

2. Stir in the tomatoes and season with salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 30-35 minutes until thick (I leave the lid off so that some of the water will evaporate which can take up to 45 minutes but be warned, your stovetop will look like a crime scene with red splatters everywhere. Don’t wear your best outfit). Stir in the honey and cool to room temperature.

Notes & tips

* This jam keeps for up to 2 weeks, covered, in the fridge.

Source delicious. – October 2006 Recipe by Valli Little

13 comments | April 12, 2008 by Not Quite Nigella

Spiced Grape Jam

I’ve never made jam before but I’ve eaten plenty of it and somehow this has deluded me into thinking that I can actually give this a go. The recipe from Sean Moran’s Let It Simmer (he of Sean’s Panorama restaurant in Bondi). White seedless grapes are a great buy now and he specifies using thick skinned, early season grapes that have just ripened as they have more pectin to help them set. However he does warn that a batch is usually quite runny, making more of an appearance as an ice cream sauce than a jam. Grapes don’t have much pectin in them so you can either add some in or leave it liquidey (and believe, me, it is rather liquidey).

As it is quite runny you can do a few things with this: 1) Make a grape gelato out of it by adding water or 2) Make a spiced grape ice cream by folding it through vanilla ice cream (as he suggests in the recipe)