A recipe, as a change of pace

I’ve been a bit serious lately, so here I offer a recipe that Ms T and I concocted last night.

First, I should mention that there’s almost always home-made flatbread dough in the freezer. It’s dead easy to make – yeast, water, salt, a little olive oil, and enough flour to make it into a dough – and it’s a great standby if there’s leftovers on a leg of lamb to deal with.

So, there was some dough in the freezer, and there were a few garlic-and-rosemary sausages in the fridge. Three aren’t enough sausages for a family that includes two teenage boys.

We squeezed out the mince from the sausages. That got browned off very lightly in a saucepan with a little oil, some capsicum, onion, garlic and diced tomato. Then the sausage was mixed in with the dough, and rolled out into rounds about a handspan across, and about 5mm thick.

These get cooked in the electric frypan – a light spray with olive oil and a fairly high heat.

While I was doing that, Ms T prepped some accompaniments – home-made hummus (easy, really), fried haloumi, baba ganoush and a green salad.

The boys went nuts for it. Which is always a nice endorsement.

Today’s marmalade

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Except for setting, which drives me nuts, marmalades are easy. So while I wait for the marmalade to set, here’s the receipe.

It’s based on the St Benoit’s Three-Day Marmalade recipe from Jane Grigson with some wrinkles. First, I’m not strict about the timing. Second, I usually mix the citrus up. Third, my wife usually adds some subtle spices. Here’s what’s happening today:

Ingredients

Six small tangellos

Four Seville oranges

Water

Sugar

Star anise

Technique

1.     Slice the fruit (thinly!), put in a boiler, and cover with water. Bring to boil and keep it simmering for about 40 minutes.

2.     Leave 24 hours, add a few star anise seeds, and simmer for another 40 minutes.

3.     Add sugar – roughly 1:1 with the weight of the fruit and water. Bring to the boil and keep it boiling until it reaches setting point.

4.     Bottle in clean, sterilized jars.

If, as often happens to me, you have to delay bottling, just heat the mix each day so it doesn't spoil.

I don’t really know how long it will keep. I’ve got jars that are more than a year old and are still fine when I open them.

The next marmalade will feature blood oranges and kumquats. Stay tuned…