Potted History

I have just used up the last of the windfall apples from my neighbour. I was looking through this book the other evening when I came across an interesting recipe.

The book is The Lark Rise Recipe Book by Mary Norwak [pub 1986] cost me all of 20p at some village event held in the Parish Church Hall earlier this year.[sft mentioned Lark Rise yesterday in her post too!]

It’s a lovely little volume, full of super reproductions of Victorian paintings of rural life. Here’s “Picking Turnips” by Robert Cree Crawford…

 

But the recipe for “Potted Apples” caught my eye- it looked so ridiculously easy. And it was!

• 4lb Mixed Apples
• Granulated Sugar
• Ground Cloves

1. Cut up the apples without peeling or coring.Only just cover with with water.
2. Cover and cook in a moderate oven [150ºC] for 45minutes until the apples are soft
3. Press well through a sieve, forcing out all pulp and juice
4. Weigh the puree and add 6oz sugar and pinch of cloves to each 1lb of puree
5. Stir over low heat till sugar has dissolved, then boil for 5 minutes.
6. Put into small, hot jars and seal tightly.

Mary says “This makes a good sauce for savoury or sweet dishes, or it may be used like jam and spread on toast or biscuits.”

I had no ground cloves, but put 8 whole cloves into my pan.

I made 6 jars altogether – I have already used up two of them. I used half the smallest jar on toast [yum!] and the other half into a sauce for pork chops.

The second small jar, I combined with custard and stirred in another half punnet of blackberries [picked after school yesterday] to make a fool-ish dessert.

I like the fact that the apples needed so little preparation, and cooked in the oven, alongside a load of other stuff. I poured them into the sieve, weighted it down with a plate and some weights from my scale pan set. Came back later to find the puree almost all gone through, and it was less that twenty minutes from there to jars filled and ready to label!

Another picture from the book – this one is “The Harvesters” by George Vicat Cole, painted in 1881.