A gorgeously red redcurrant jelly

Redcurrant jelly is a preserve I have to make every year. A spoonful of this can lighten up any meat gravy (as in the classic English Cumberland Sauce) or vegetable dishes (a Christmassy red cabbage stew, for example). I love a spoonful of tart redcurrant jam with my morning porridge, or some jelly smeared on a slice of buttered white bread.

For best flavour, it's important to use ripe redcurrants for this jelly. Yet avoid overripe berries, as the level of pectine reduces in berries as they ripen, and jelly won't set as beautifully.

Don't you think the colour and texture are simply gorgeous? I do :)

Redcurrant Jelly
(Punasesõstraželee)
Yields 1 litre of jelly



1 kg ripe (but not overripe!) redcurrants
1 kg sugar

Rinse the redcurrants (no need to clean of the ribs!), place in a large saucepan with a dash of water. Bring slowly to the boil, stirring with a wooden spoon to avoid burning. Simmer gently for 10 minutes, until berries soften.
Now add sugar, and stir, until sugar has dissolved. Boil for 8-10 minutes, stirring all the time.
Cool a little, then pour through a fine sieve into sterilised warm glasses and close the glasses immediately.

Perfect scoops: Vietnamese coffee ice cream, Coconut sorbet, Watermelon sorbet and Vanilla Ice cream

When Santa brought me a flashy KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer (in stunning Imperial Red, of course) for Christmas last year, then I got a free food grinder on top of the deal. I LOVE the stand mixer, and use it a lot. The food grinder attachment has proved to be quite a handy piece of equipment as well, I must say, which I've put into good use by grinding my own lamb for small lamb and pomegranate molasses pies, pureeing various berries for flavoured cheesecakes, and mincing beetroot, garlic, pinenuts and coriander for Alanna's fabulous beetroot pesto. But I knew that a sturdy Kitchen Aid is capable of so much more, providing you get the right extras. In April, with the long Estonian summer nights still only looming, we decided that we could really do with an ice cream attachment. Kitchen Aid is not readily available in Estonia yet, but we were going to London in April for a weekend with Johanna to feed our stomachs at The Petersham Nurseries and our eyes at The Borough Market. A perfect opportunity to buy the ice cream machine, no?

No. Although we spotted the ice cream machine in question in several good cookshops, with a big sign stating the RRP, they refused to sell it to us. You see, apparently you would have to buy the Kitchen Aid standing mixer, and then you'd get the ice cream machine for free. But to buy the ice cream machine separately was against some weird corporate rule. Well, we had the stand mixer already and had no plans of buying another one just so we could get the ice cream attachment! The same thing happened in Edinburgh in June - the Kitchen Aid ice cream machine, if available at all, was only sold as part of the stand mixer deal. Not separately..

Luckily, the rules in Germany are more relaxed. My friend Margit, who moved to Köln last year, drove to Estonia for a few weeks, and didn't mind to pick up the long-awaited-for ice cream machine to us. So now we have our ice cream machine, and we've certainly put it into good use. During the first week of ownership we churned out a new ice cream every night. We even used the excuse of a movie night to serve 5 different ice creams to our friends!

To start with, we made four ice creams/sorbets from the Reigning King of Frozen Desserts, David Lebovitz. The first ice cream we tried was his Vanilla Ice Cream (photo bottom left), which was a traditional custard-based ice cream. I loved the strong vanilla flavour (I used one of those fat vanilla beans that I had got as a gift from Melissa), but found the ice cream itself to be a bit too rich for my liking. Next time I'll try David's Philadelphia style vanilla ice cream, as that contains no eggs, so should be much lighter. Second ice cream we tried was Watermelon Sorbetto from his highly praised book The Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accessories. The sorbetto was fantastic - so simple to make, with a pure watermelon flavour and extremely refreshing (see photo top right and see recipe here or here). A definite keeper! That was another followed by another super-easy and extremely delicious (and here I didn't even mind the ice cream being quite rich) ice cream - Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream. The name refers to the way coffee is served in Vietnam - always with sweetened condensed milk. The ice cream couldn't have been easier to make - you mix a can of condensed milk with 2 cups of strong coffee, cool and churn. Absolutely wonderful (you'll find a recipe in this article in San Francisco Chronicle), and I can see myself making this again and again. And last, but not least, we made a coconut sorbet. Well, there is no such recipe in David's book, if I'm honest with you. David provides a recipe for a Chocolate-Coconut Sorbet (see recipe here), but as I've been dreaming about coconut ice cream ever since I had a lovely version in Edinburgh just over a year ago, I simply adapted David's recipe to fit my ideal of a coconut ice cream :) And it was a successful adaptation, if I may say so myself - whiter than white, and really coconutty.

And I warn you now - there will be lots of ice cream posts on Nami-nami in the near future. For starters, there's this gooseberry sorbet recipe I simply have to share, and then there's a post by a very special guest blogger on the way. Stay tuned!!

Eestikeelsed retseptid (NB adapteeritud kohalikele kooreprotsentidele jms!):
Vietnami kohvijäätis
Kookosesorbee
Arbuusisorbee

Meadowsweet Cordial (Filipendula ulmaria)

A fortnight ago, K. and I spent a lovely weekend on Hiiumaa, Estonia's second-largest island, which you can reach in about an hour on a ferry. There were our friends Siobhan and Meelik and their newly restored country house, there was a folk music festival, a wild boar farm, lots of green strawberries (Fragaria viridis, which are close relatives of wild strawberries or Fragaria vesca L.), beautiful sandy beaches. There was also a lively country fair in Kärdla, the main town on the island, where we stocked up on local honey, bought some new lamb wool pillows, and a trio of different carrot marmelades.

Several stalls at the fair offered angervaksajook or a meadowsweet cordial, which reminded me of elderflower cordial that was a popular summer drink in Scotland. Neither one of us had ever had - or heard of - meadowsweet cordial before, so we were excited about discovering something new, and inquired one of the sellers about the drink. Meadowsweet, you see, grows wild everywhere on the island*. Or almost everywhere on the island, as after we had received the instructions from one of the drink sellers, we headed back to our guesthouse, keen to make meadowsweet cordial ourselves. The 25 kilometre journey back home went past a field after a field covered with flowering meadowsweets. Yet when we reached the place we were staying, we found ONE lone meadowsweet plant on a huge field behind the house!!! Luckily, we did manage to pick 50 blossoms from that single plant after all..

Meadowsweet**, as Wikipedia helpfully explains us, is a perennial herb that grows on damp meadows in Europe and Western Asia. It's also known as Queen of the Meadow, Pride of the Meadow, Meadow-Wort and Bridewort. Meadowsweet is known as Mädesüß in German, Reine-des-prés or fausse spirée in French, älggräs in Swedish, mesiangervo in Finnish. It's an excellent plant for attracting bees, as it's delicate and creamy-white flowers have a strong, sweet smell.

Meadowsweet has been used in herbal medicine - apparently it relieves headaches and reduces fever and cures acidic stomach. This being a foodblog, however, I should focus on the culinary uses of meadowsweet. My Estonian sources didn't describe any (apart from using it to make healing infusions). But Wikipedia says that meadowsweet can be used to flavour wine, beer and vinegars, the flowers can be added to jams and stewed fruit.

And last, but not least, meadowsweet is considered to be a sacred herb by Celtic Druids, who use meadowsweet to enhance their love spells!

Here's a meadowsweet cordial, prepared according to the recipe of a friendly stall-holder at Kärdla country fair. A lovely, fragrant and summery drink with a difference.

Meadowsweet Cordial
(Angervaksajook)
Makes 2 litres



50 meadowsweet blossoms***
2 l water
250 g sugar
2 lemons

Pour the water into a large saucepan and add meadowsweet flowers. Bring to the boil, then add sugar and stir, until sugar has dissolved. Turn off the heat, add the juice of one lemon and let the flavours infuse.
Drain through a fine sieve, season with more lemon juice (and sugar, if you wish).
Serve diluted by water (1 part cordial and 1-2 parts water, depending on your preference), adding ice cubes and garnishing with a lemon slice.

* And in our back yard, as we realised when we got home again :)
** Note that what is commonly known as meadowsweet/white meadowsweet in the US, broadleaf white spirea or Spiraea Alba, is a somewhat different plant (thought information on the web is somewhat confusing. They're both in Rosaceae family).
*** Make sure to collect your meadowsweet flowers from clean environment, avoiding the ones growing next to busy roads.

WHB: This is also my entry to the Weekend Herb Blogging, this time hosted by Kalyn herself. Click on the logo below for more information about this established foodblogging event! Kalyn's roundup for the 94th round of WHB is available here.