A Dish a Day: Blood Orange Posset

Ramblings from a voracious eater 

on the dish that made her day

The blood orange posset

Once a year, around January and February, the sunset colours of blood oranges give us wintry cheer. The oranges that we have are from Sicily - from the foothills of Mount Etna, so Riverford tells me, and the blush of the segments varies from modest to deep crimson - evoking those Mediterranean hues of the evening sky.

After considering a granita or a jelly, I decide to make a posset. I haven’t many oranges left (after many are consumed nakedly fresh, without fanfare, and as instant cure for the effects from the-night-before) and posset doesn't require a lot of juice. With its use of three ingredients – oranges, sugar and cream, this is possibly one of the simplest puddings to make while looking as though you've put in abundant effort.

  

Squeezing the orange

Serves 4-6

125ml fresh blood orange juice (about 2 oranges)

500ml double cream

115-120g caster sugar (to taste. I don’t like it too sweet)

Zest from one orange

Blood orange segments - from 1 or 2 oranges

Shortbread to serve

Put all the ingredients into a pan - I love pouring the blood orange juice in last and watching the ruby liquid marble the cream as I stir with a wooden spoon. Like thick paints that you mix in primary school, watch the cream turn a pale peach (not unlike the colour of strawberry angel delight).

Heat until it reaches a simmer, then cook on the lowest heat for five minutes. Take off the heat and cool at room temperature. This should take an hour or two. Stretch clingfilm over the mixture to prevent a skin forming.

Served up

Pour into champagne coupe glasses and chill in the fridge until set (another three hours at least). Garnish with two segments of blood orange and serve immediately with a thin shortbread.

More reading

Diana Henry writes a fascinating article about the blood orange here.

Recipe: Angry Flapjacks

Outrage drove me to make flapjacks. It’s a strange irony that affects all parts of life - that a whole chicken will cost less than two sad slabs of breast, teeny tampons more than big... and thongs? Well, you could buy a pack of three-pack big pants for a thong. And yet I was still shocked when I saw the price of five cereal bars almost twice of a big pack of Sultana Bran.

So I thought - hold on. I’ll make my own cereal bars. That’ll show them.

And actually my flapjacks were so easy to make and so deliciously rewarding that I urge everyone who is a flapjack virgin (as I was until yesterday) to follow this recipe and donate that 15 minutes of toil to yield a week or two’s break-time pleasure.

Okay, so I haven't really shown them. But I do have a certain sense of so there. And more to the point I do have amazing bejewelled flapjacks. So there.

Angry flapjacks

Preheat an oven to 170 degrees (fan oven). Gently heat 100g butter, 4 tablespoons of golden syrup and 50g golden caster sugar together until all melted.

Mix with 225g of rolled oats, 50g mixed nuts (chopped pecans, cashews, walnuts are good) and dried berries (anything like raisins, cranberries, blueberries are gorgeous).

Spread into lined and buttered baking tin. Stick into the oven for 20 minutes until the oats have a satisfying golden sheen, and the berries glisten and take out. It should be smelling ridiculously homely. Slice into 10 portions.

Leave to cool for 10 minutes, then slice through again. They are crispy yet yielding with surprising bursts of dried fruit. Delicious over yogurt.

Note: Use baking parchment not foil to line the baking tin as in the picture above.

The lemon, ginger and honey effect

My half drunk steeper

So, with a wave of coughing and sniffing and spluttering striking down my fellow postgraduates (and, it seems half of twitter), this post is for all those who have suffered this week.

Last Monday I was sandwiched between two coldy sniffers for four hours, and lo and behold, by the evening I was a wreck, gibbering and crabby, and from then on unceremoniously adorned permanently with tissues.

I have a steeper to share with you - a most heartening tonic to drink day or night - that makes you feel that little bit better. It beats hot Ribena, it beats Berocca and it beats feeling crap all day.

Take a loved mug and stick the kettle on. Drop in 2 tablespoons of runny honey, 2 slices of unpeeled ginger, preferably bashed once with the handle of the knife. Pour the boiling water over and stir in. Leave for a minute to steep before adding a satisfying squeeze of lemon.

And for a frisky Lemsip which really greets your sinuses, I like to add a slug of whisky. A gentleman's measure, if you please.

How to impress your date: Gelupo in Soho

Mysinglefriend.com has a lot to answer for. This website has claimed too many of my friends. A spate have lost successive evenings to serial dating and revealing what they do for a living. And though a few have found themselves embroiled in unlikely situations, I cannot knock it. One has already found love. Many, flagrant embrace.

For the not-so-lucky in those incipient stages of datehood (juggling five dates a week, perhaps even two a day), innovative thinking is required for each date.

My suggestion would be Gelupo, in Soho, as the place to take a date.

It’s an ice-cream parlour - but Italian. Which means it's actually a gelateria - less schmaltz, gaudy colours, and cherries on top than your average parlour. And ice-cream is a safe bet - take your date on the premise that everybody likes ice-cream.

Teetotal date? Chocolate sorbet it is. Loves booze? Chocolate and Grand Marnier then. Vegetarian, or dare I say it - vegan? Well, let’s just say there is a flavour for everyone. For, Gelupo’s sorbets are as rich as as egg custard and cream without them comprising of egg custard or cream.

And as if that wasn’t enough, it’s across the street from brilliant sister restaurant Bocca di Lupo, well-wishing your date with its name which fortuitously translates as ‘good luck’. 

Ask to taste. That’s the perk.

Gelupo, who make all gelati on the premises, are so proud of their flavours, they will urge you to try them. Chocolate sorbet sounds an anomaly - almost a paradox. The expectation is of something watery and one dimensional, but no. The sorbet is of a rich sort, made from 100% cocoa and sugar and is positively creamy. Their white peach sorbet will take you back to the heat of Venice (think Bellinis of ripe white peaches and Prosecco). The gelato of pear, cinnamon and ricotta is a sweet taste of autumn. Burnt almond granita, which I have to order on fellow tweeter Dinehard’s insistence, is a triumph. The raspberry sorbet is juicy and ripe, the ricotta and sour cherry ripple gelato is especially good fresh from the churn and in a huge waffle cone. My only regret is that I could not taste the naughty milk-infused fig-leaf ice cream as I'd not arrived in time.

In the case that you and your date get on well, the gelateria is open until 1am from Thursday to Saturday. If you do run out of things to say to each other, let me suggest a perusal of the amazing Italian produce on offer at the back of the shop. I defy anyone to lack conversation whilst looking at the refrigerated octopus.

And Gelupo have recently announced that they will be launching an online ordering service. Which means for true love there will be only one thing for it: home delivery of the fig-leaf variety. 

Gelupo
7 Archer Street, London, W1D 7AU
Website

Check out my Pomelos

I first tasted a grapefruit aged 10 - my mother only brought it home as a novelty English product. Blissfully unaware of its bitter fruitiness, it was only through reading Enid Blyton and visiting friends’ houses that I realised the English had such a penchant for grapefruit that there was cutlery specially devised for it.

Ignorance of grapefruit meant knowledge of the pomelo. The pomelo is a bigger, sweeter, juicier fruit than its grapefruit descendant. My mother grew up right next to “the best pomelos in Malaysia” in Tambun which, in my mind, qualifies her as a surefire expert.

The Thais know how to work this fruit; they dip it straight into sugar, salt and chilli or tart it up in a salad with dried shrimp and fish sauce. The Chinese candy the peel.

But it’s honestly so good that it should just be eaten on its own, unadorned with sugar, naked - as part of breakfast, a refreshing end to a rich meal, or even down the pub (the lads feasted on pomelo and peanuts as they watched England lick the Welsh in the six nations last Saturday…).

Pomelos are in season until the end of February and you can buy them in most good Chinese supermarkets. The pomelo in the picture is from China, and is a honey pomelo. Sweet, but faintly bitter, the flesh is pale golden.

Here's how to peel a Pomelo:



Score the thick skin with a sharp knife into quarters.



Grip the pith and strongly peel the skin from the segments.



Pull apart the segments, and they are ready to be peeled and eaten straight away.



It is a big fruit, so if you do want to eat some then keep some without ripening further, then just keep the segments wrapped in an airtight container or in clingfilm, and keep in the fridge.