China Crumpet

So Christmas is over and your fridge and freezer, if they are anything like ours, are stuffed with leftovers. Here is my favorite things to do with the mess that’s left:

Munch Munch...

What do you do with your holiday leftovers?

Paneer is a kind of Indian milk cheese. My fave is to use it in Palak Paneer, where the cheese is stewed for a little while in a spinach gravy. There are tones of other uses too though and it really is the easiest thing in the world to make.

All you need is:

1 litre milk
1 1/2 tsp vinegar or lemon juice

Boil the milk. When it is boiling, add the vinegar/lemon juice. The mixture will curdle straight away. Turn off the heat and leave it for 5 minutes. Strain the curdled milk into a clean cheese cloth (or cotton kitchen towel) and leave it to drip. You can save the liquid to make bread if you like. When it is dry, tie a knot in the towel (or tie it with a sturdy bit of string) so the cheese is nice and secure in the towel and mould it into a rectangle. Put a heavy weight on top of the whole thing and leave it for a couple of hours to set.

You will be left with a soft bit of white cheese, lovely for cooking with or having with a drizzle of honey. Fried, it turns golden brown and crisp on the outside and soft and mild on the inside. Heaven.

Aren’t these pretty? I have been eating them non-stop for the past few weeks. Delish!

So I was getting water from the cooler at the office and glancing around to see if any new mooncake shipments had reached our lonley administrative part of the hospital. Alas, it had not. However, I was intregued by these:

On the bag it said beef orchid bean. I know these characters, part of them are in my Chinese name, so I knew I was not making a horrible error and that it actually said “marinated century livers” or something. And yet, it did not look like any kind of beef, or any kind of orchid.

My curiosity got the better of me and I grabbed a handful and tried them. They were pretty good, a sort of spiced up, dried broad bean snack. They tasted salty and savoury and sweet at the same time and were very fragrant (fragrant is my new favourite word, it sums up China so perfectly all year round). I suppose they are meant to taste a little floral and beefy, hence the name.

Perhaps it is time to explore other uneaten snacks in the capital.

I will indeed be yummy on breakfast toast...

At the market a while ago, I picked up a kilo or so of fresh, fragrant, sweet apricots from the western part of China. They are slightly smaller than normal ones but they are truly juicy and delicious. Unfortunately, a nasty summer stomach bug hit the household before we could eat a single one and in the fridge they stayed, untouched and unloved.

As I was cleaning out my fridge yesterday, I came across these little golden lumps of goodness and thought, I must do something with them before they go bad. Perhaps a juicy, warm, golden sauce to pour over a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a tangy, sweet condiment to an anise flavoured duck leg. But you can only eat so many duck legs and we had already saturated our ice cream quota for this month by scoops. So I thought, “what would grandma do?”…

My grandma is an extreme over achiever with way way too much energy. She sews her own curtains, gardens, makes her own clothes (very cute and fashionable ones at that), keeps her house impeccable and bakes, jams, pickles and even makes her own blackcurrant cordial at the end of summer. It all seems to go at lightning speed when she does it too, as if a domestic wizard just blew through her house in a whirlwind of kitchen cleaner and embroidery.

Anyway, looking at my apricots and thinking of grandma, inspiration came and I decided that they would make a fabulous, sticky, golden jam to have with crisp waffles and lightly whipped cream. Well, actually, the waffle part Jonas thought of… I was too concentrated on the jammy side of things. That way, I could cook up the whole lot and the jam would keep even if we didn’t manage to eat the lot at our feast of waffles. Perhaps I could even give some away and show off my kitchen prowess!

I have always thought making jam was a painful and long process of boiling and stirring, measuring and pouring, but it turns out that it is dead easy. China has made me think that about lots of things I thought were difficult as a matter of fact. Store bought jam no more! Or mayonnaise, or brioche or pickles. Oh my… I am turning into my grandmother… But let’s get back on topic.

The jam was dead easy to make and it turned out just as I had imagined, a golden, lumpy, sticky goo of goodness. A little looser than the store bought variety but still stiff enough to enjoy on waffles, ice cream, scones or in the Swedish tradition, on top of a sharp cheese sandwich. Yum.

Ingela’s apricot jam:

makes about 1 liter of jam

800g washed and pitted apricots, 4-5 pits reserved
1 dl water
400g caster sugar

1. When you have pitted the apricots, smash about 4 or 5 of the pits with a pestle and mortar (or a heavy rolling pin, pot, hammer… whatever you have) and remove the almond looking thing from inside. Finly chop the almondy thing discarding the hard outside of the pits and add to the apricots. This will add a little bitter zing to your jam and make it a little more adult.

2. Bring the apricots chopped pits and water to a steady boil and cook down for about 15-20 minutes until the fruit pulp is completely soft.

(If you want to check for pectin, the stuff that makes the jam thick, drop a very small amount of the mixture into strong alcohol, like vodka or something similar, if it turns into a firm lump after about a minute it’s done. I skipped the pectin test and had no problems. If it isn’t pectin-y enough for you, keep boiling.)

3. When you are satisfied that it has boiled for long enough, turn the heat off and slowly mix in the sugar while stirring.

4. When the sugar is completely dissolved, bring to the boil again and boil for another 15 minutes. Make sure you stir the bottom of the pan so it doesn’t burn! Skim the foam off the top.

5. When the jam is done, fill a couple of jars with the piping hot mixture and seal.

Let stand in room temperature over night. Done! Enjoy!