Cocktail Of The Month - The Percy Pig

Although inspired by the farmyard sweet array of the Marks & Spencer's food hall, the Percy Pig cocktail is definitely for adults only. It was created a couple of years ago, during a birthday visit from our in-laws, who had never tasted an M&S Percy Pig (or pal.) Mark decided this was too large a gap in their culinary experience, and rushed out to M&S to rectify things. As day turned to night, he set about turning this 'sweet' experience into an alcoholic one. The Percy Pig cocktail tastes exactly like its sweet counterparts, but in liquid form. 

This weekend we recreated the Percy Pig cocktail for a new audience. The cocktail requires a packet of both Percy Pig faces and Percy Pig Phizzy Pig Tails. The challenge is to make as many cocktails as possible before you've separately devoured the packets of sweets. 

The Recipe
1 oz golden rum (preferably Cockspur)
1 oz vodka
1/2 oz freshly squeezed pomegranate juice
1/4 oz freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 oz grenadine
1/4 oz Roses lime cordial

Shake all ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker.

Take one sweet from each packet, and carefully slice a line through Percy's right cheek, fitting him over the rim of a chilled martini glass. Drape the pig tail over the other side of the glass and pour in the contents of the shaker to create the body. You know Percy would approve.

Marmalade Sunday

Last Sunday was Marmalade Sunday. Due to the short Seville orange season, this day tends to fall near 'Black Monday', statistically the most depressing day of the year. Marmalade Sunday offers a ray of tangy orange sunshine on your toast, come Black Monday morning. Making it more of a murky brown Monday.
This Marmalade Sunday should, by all Rayburn intents and purposes, have started on the Saturday. The Rayburn enables you to do the long slow cooking of the oranges overnight on the oven's idling setting. Making it more economical and less labour intensive. I however, only had the urge for making marmalade the following day, and couldn't wait another 12 hours.

I used the recipe from the Waitrose 'Winter Harvest 2013' booklet. A booklet I seem to have devoured since new year. (The Chocolate Orange Brownies are themselves a cure for winter SAD, but probably break every new year's resolution you've set.) 
This recipe has you squeeze the juice of 1kg oranges and 1 lemon into 2 litres of cold water, and put all the messy bits, i.e. the pith and pips of the oranges, in a muslin bag. This hangs in the liquid for the 2 hours while it simmers. 

The remaining skins are sliced separately and added directly to the liquid at the same time.

The muslin bag is removed after the simmering stage, and 2kg of preserving sugar is added. Turn the heat up as high as possible and boil for around half an hour. (This needs to be done 30 mins before the end of the simmering stage with a Rayburn.) The recipe says 15 mins, but no way. I kept a saucer in the fridge at this stage, and got it out to test the liquid for set-ness. Drop a small amount of liquid onto the chilled saucer and wait a few seconds. Push the liquid, and if it wrinkles, it's set. Start testing after 15 mins to get your eye in, and you get to taste the unset bits before time. 
This recipe enabled me, for the first time, to turn the Rayburn up to its highest setting. The gas mark equivalent of 10. The amplifier equivalent of 11. I wasn't sure if the whole thing would take off. But, it gave the most even rolling boil I've ever seen. And always keen to find a reason to extol the virtues of the Rayburn, this was definitely a time for smug pleasure.

This time I did sterilise the jam jars. I washed them in hot soapy water and left them in the bottom oven of the Rayburn for the full marmalade preparation and making time. Probably 3 hours. They didn't need to be there that long, but they did all give a satisfying 'pop' when the lids contracted as they cooled after filling.

This quantity made 12 jars, but I did use quite a few smallish jars (better if you want to give some and keep some!) My next plan is a marmalade cake. I think this may be the new rhubarb!

When your online grocery order goes haywire and they deliver twice the fruit you ordered, it becomes, in autumn, a harvest festival. If this lot doesn't ward off seasonal depression/the common cold, I don't know what will.

Spicy Apple Chutney

We have three apple trees in the garden. This year, the tall pole shaped tree produced zero apples, the one spread against the wall produced one apple, and the third, a classic crooked old tree, produced lots. They're all mutant shapes with lumps and pock marks, so perfect for chutney. I made this batch with windfalls, having to fight our Pug Treacle for them, she loves an apple of any variety.

I used Nigella's recipe for the apple chutney, which you can find in her Domestic Goddess book. I always do double quantity. If you're going to stink the house out with the smell of boiling vinegar, you might as well make as much as possible in the process.

The smell was contained more than normal due to the use of the Rayburn. After the initial boiling, I cooked the chutney in the oven at gas mark 4, and then finished it on the hot plate to reduce it further.

I sterilised the jars by washing them in hot soapy water, rinsing and then drying them in the bottom oven while the chutney cooked, and I am pleased to say they all gave that satisfying pop as the vacuum sealed. I felt smug.

You can see that double quantity isn't that many jars.  I used smallish jars to make gift sized quantities. Still only used about 2% of my empty jam jar collection, much to husband's annoyance. 

Cocktail of the Month

The Ashgrove

This cocktail was invented to christen the house, so to speak. Whenever someone comes round for the first time, they are offered one of these.

1/2 oz lime juice. (You can use either freshly squeezed or Roses lime cordial)
1/2 oz Cointreau
2 oz Gin (Plymouth is our 'house' gin.)

Pour all the ingredients into a shaker with ice, shake hard, then serve in a chilled martini glass. Garnish with an orange wedge, wiping the wedge around the rim of the glass first. Lime cordial gives an expectedly sweeter version. You'll have to try both.

I recently made oregano pesto, mainly to enable the opportunity to hack back something in the overgrown herb patch. I found the recipe from another blog, so can't pretend to have made it up myself. You can find it here. I didn't sterilise my two jars, and found that the pesto went brown quite quickly. I don't know if this was linked. I kept them both in the fridge and they tasted fine.

My lifetime friend Yvonne lives in the idyllic seaside village of Cellardyke in Fife. Her next door neighbour Steve, a fisherman, gave me a carrier bag full of frozen line caught mackerel, the last time I was there. Of course my first stop was to cook it in the traditional Scottish way Steve'd shown me that morning. Rolled in oats and fried in butter. Unbeatable. A pinch of seasoning, sweet smoked paprika, and a few minutes in the pan, you'll wonder how Mr Kellogg ever made his millions.

With mackerel fillets filling our freezer, Mark made a variation on the Delia recipe of baked mackerel with pesto and mashed potato. Of course he used the oregano pesto. Delicious. You can find her recipe here.

Our version doesn't look quite as professional as hers but tasted amazing.

Cocktail of the Month

My husband Mark spends many an hour inventing and drinking cocktails at home. We don't get out much. With the rhubarb compote to hand, he decided to make a rhubarb based cocktail. This one is based on a 'Knickerbocker', but with the all important addition of rhubarb compote. Another one we tried which only involves one other ingredient is our south west Edinburgh take on the 'Bellini', the 'Balerni'. (Arf)

The Rhubocker
2 oz Gin
1/2 oz Dry Vermouth (Noilly Prat)
1/4 oz Sweet Vermouth
2 tsps Rhubarb Compote

Place all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake hard. Serve in a chilled martini glass.

The Balerni
Put 1-2 tsp rhubarb compote at the bottom of a champagne glass. Top up halfway with either champagne, prosecco or cava. Stir carefully with a swizzle stick, then fill the rest of the glass with bubbly. If you have enough of them it counts towards your five a day.