There is something wonderful about the start of a season – bringing in the new always feels exciting. Each new point of the year is wonderful in its own way. In June it is wonderful to tip into summer proper, hopeful that the weather might behave as we want it to. However old you are it feels like the school holidays in August, and there is something about that month that feels carefree even if you are at a desk in an office, as if the barefooted timelessness of such a month is forever etched in our collective minds.In September it is lovely to think ahead to fireworks, to bonfires, to red wine and nights on the sofa behind closed curtains, watching TV and stoking the fire. Then Christmas calls, holding our hand and leading us into the darker months, bringing some twinkle into winter before the slog of January and February that follow.

Now here we are poised for spring. Ready for light and colour to return, ready to remember another way of living. To help us along with this transition we have the food of Easter celebrations. Lamb is a wonderful food for spring –  to me it signals the start of Spring, along with hot cross buns and chocolate (my daughter had Turkey at school for their celebratory Easter lunch, surely they could have been a bit more imaginative?)

I cannot imagine lamb without mint. Horse and carriage, they partner each other perfectly, the tang of the mint bringing out the sweetness in the young spring meat. This weeks’ recipe test, my very last in my year long foray into preserving, is such a perfect condiment for lamb – a sweet apple jelly with mint, that it makes me want to fast forward to Sunday and to family celebrations. It feels appropriate that my last recipe is a jelly, as it was the jelly’s that I was so nervous of making when I first picked up the preserving spoon last April.

Using apple in a jelly provides pectin and I didn’t have to use any Certo in this jelly – it isn’t a hard set, but a lovely, soft, golden jelly that will have you spooning it straight out of the jar and into your mouth. Each recipe that I have stolen from the Tracklements’ shelves has been a joy to make, and easy to achieve at home, which puts a magnifying glass up to how their products are made in the factory- in small batches with a minimum of ingredients and nothing you wouldn’t use in your own kitchen. The jelly’s are no different, the fact that I didn’t need Certo in this one shows that the recipe is carefully put together to work in a natural way, embracing the science available in nature to create a delicious sweet offering to the Easter table.

And so at this time of new beginnings, I have stolen my last words of wisdom from the Tracklementalist, and inherited the last bit of preserving lore from this wonderful medium- sized company with a small company ethos and a large foodie heart. I feel like I have grown up in the last year, and entered a new era myself, a time when I see even more how important it is to preserve the moment, either in a precious memory or bottled in a jar. I feel more of a wise cook, more intune with what can be harvested and stored, and more in love with the heritage of our food and our way of life.

Thank you to The Tracklementalist and his band of mustard stirrers and chutney creators for a glimpse into your vats of bubbling concoctions and for all the advice on preserving and cooking with your glorious condiments. If any readers would like any information on the Tracklements’ products then do have a look at their website on www.tracklements.co.uk or find them on Facebook for recipes, give-aways and general Tracklementalist spoutings.

Tracklements’ Apple and Mint Jelly (makes 6 jars)

1kg cooking apples (approximately 4 large)

1 litre water

For the jelly:

For each litre of juice use:

1kg of raw cane sugar

25ml lemon juice

20g finely chopped mint

(if you are worried about the set you can use some Certo pectin.)

Chop the apples finely and cover with the water. Boil for 20 minutes until the apples have started to disintegrate and then pour into a jelly bag or muslin over a pan or measuring jug and leave to drain overnight. Remember not to squeeze or the jelly will end up cloudy.

For each litre of apple juice, use 1kg of sugar and 25ml of lemon juice.

Bring the juice up to the boil and stir in the sugar until its all completely dissolved. Skim off any scum as it rises to the surface. Bring back to a rolling boil and add the lemon.

Boil until the liquid reaches setting point, about 20 minutes. Take off any scum that has formed on the top – I used a sieve.

To test the set, put a saucer into your fridge to cool. Take out and drop a little of the jelly onto a cold saucer and push it with your fingertip. If the jelly crinkles then setting point has been reached.

Add the finely chopped mint and stir gently. Keep stirring gently every 5 minutes whilst the jelly cools down to ensure the mint is evenly distributed through the jelly and doesn’t all rise to the surface.

When the jelly has cooled down enough so that it’s still liquid but the mint has stopped rising, about 30 minutes, pour into sterilised jars.

I always look forward to making mustard – its simple yet satisfying. This weeks has a feel of France about it – Tracklements’ Tarragon mustard is the ideal accompaniment to steak or seafood. I still haven’t found a way of grinding the seeds without splatter- gunning the kitchen, and find myself crunching them underfoot as I prepare the mustard. Its worth every annoyance however as there is something uniquely satisfying about having a stock cupboard full of mustard, there are so many  meals, so many delicious meals, waiting for these jars.

I might make a vinaigrette. Using the Tarragon Mustard as a base and adding oil, lemon juice and a little salt and pepper. This would be just right to enhance a smoked salmon salad or to drizzle onto steamed green vegetables like the purple sprouting broccoli which is still going strong in our garden.

Or I might mix some of the Tarragon Mustard into the pan juices left after frying some chicken pieces, add a little cream and lemon juice, and pour over the chicken and some buttered tagliatelle. If I’m feeling like an outdoors meal (which I am now we have this glorious weather going on) I might make a potato salad with a little of the mustard, some tiny new potatoes and a dollop of sour cream and mayonnaise.

Mostly I am waiting for the sign to go up outside our village asparagus farm. At first it will be covered in brown sacking, signalling to us that it won’t be long now, to be patient. Then one day I will be driving past and the sacking will be down and the sign will bear the words “fresh asparagus” at which point I will do a U turn and purchase my first slender stems of the season, picked that morning. A vinaigrette made from Tracklements’ Tarragon Mustard poured over these delicate offerings will be as close to heaven as I can imagine.

Tracklements’ use tarragon in this mustard as it has a strong, liquorice like taste, which isn’t overpowered by the strength of the mustard seed. According to The Tracklementalist, yellow and brown mustard seeds, both of which are used in this recipe, do very different things. The yellow seeds are the larger of the two, and they give heat along the side of your tongue whilst the smaller brown seeds give heat up your nose and have a more bitter taste. If you were to eat these seeds whole you wouldn’t have any idea of their taste or their power, but by grinding them or biting in to them, you mix your saliva with the oil from the seeds and the taste is released. So, as the Tracklementalist pointed out to me, calling a mustard a wholegrain is actually a misnomer as it not made from the whole seed at all – Ground Seed Mustard might be a more accurate name!

Tracklements’ Tarragon Mustard (makes 6 jars)

350g yellow mustard seeds

350g brown mustard seeds

8g black peppercorns

3g dried birdseye chillies

900ml cider vinegar

600ml water

60g tarragon

30g sea salt

Grind the mustard seed, peppercorns and chillies finely. Chop the tarragon really finely and add to the ground mustard seed along with the vinegar, water and sea salt. Stir well and leave to mature for 5-7 days, stirring every day.

Check the consistency is right and put into jars.

I have found a lovely sounding Thomasina Miers recipe which would be perfect for using Tracklements’ Tarragon Mustard, (www.thomasinamiers.com)

• Get the butcher to joint the rabbits for you, or do it yourself, cutting the joints away from the body and cutting the body in half. If you have a wild rabbit put it into salted water for a few hours to tenderise the meat – simply dissolve a couple of tablespoons of salt into hot water and then add enough cold water to completely submerge the rabbit.
• Put it in the fridge and after a few hours take it out and pat the meat dry. Smear Tracklements’ Tarragon Mustard all over the joints, leaving for several hours, over night if possible. A few hours before you are ready to eat dust the rabbit pieces in seasoned flour and pre-heat the oven to 140C.
• Melt half the butter in a large casserole dish and when it is sizzling hot briefly brown the pieces on all sides. Remove them to a plate and add the bacon to the dish with the rest of the butter.
• Fry for a few minutes before adding the shallots. After another few minutes add the garlic and cook until soft but not coloured. Return the rabbit pieces to the dish and add the wine and the cream. Bring everything up to a very gentle simmer, cover with a lid and cook in the oven for about 30 minutes for a farmed rabbit and 45-50 minutes for wild.
• Serve with mashed or boiled potatoes and a green salad

I haven’t made a jelly for a while, and I had forgotten how satisfying it is to see the little dribble that you have let cool on a saucer wrinkle when you push it with your finger. It must be the feeling that every scientist gets when an experiment goes right, something to do with achieving the result you want with the instructions you have. I am not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination – far too dreamy for such a profession – but I can imagine how satisfying  it must be to have a simple conclusion – succeed or fail – mission accomplished or start again.

Life, of course, is not black or white, but shades of grey – or rainbows of colours, depending where you fall on the optimism scale. Once in a while it’s good to have something that can be fitted neatly in to a box, with a beginning a middle and a definite end. In that way preserving is a wonderful antidote to the freneticism of the technology fuelled ‘on standby’ lives that we all lead.

Preparing to make a jelly is such a lovely, satisfying labour of love. Chopping fruits, boiling them and then putting them into a jelly bag or muslin, takes time and slows you down. Leaving them overnight and then coming down to a lovely, pale, sweetly fragranced juice is a great start to the day.

Watching your creation come to a rolling boil and splutter with the effort of moving its sugar-heavy form around at high speed, adds excitement to the gentle art of preserving. Will it boil over and leave a thick layer of hot goo all over my kitchen, or can I control this thing just enough to keep it in the pan? Skimming off the scum is strangely satisfying, ideal for anyone who has tendencies towards OCD, as there is a battle to be had to maintain a lovely, clear liquid.

And after all the excitement, a chance to relax (well, clear up anyway) as you gently stir soft sage into your golden nectar, coming back every five minutes to stir again, as gently as you can, whilst observing the liquid slowly transforming into something much more akin to a jelly, before hitting on the perfect moment to pour it into eagerly waiting washed and sterilised jars. And yet the feeling I get as I gently and lovingly stir in the sage, surely that can’t be science? Surely that feeling is about creativity, about nurturing, about making – those things are not scientific are they?

Is preserving (or cooking in fact) a work of art or a scientific act? I’d love to know what you think.

It was a morning well spent, whatever you decide. The musky taste of sage sits well in this sweet jelly and it is delicious with roast pork and then again the next day spooned into a baguette stuffed with the left over meat. Enjoy!

Tracklements’ Apple and Sage Jelly (makes 6 small jars)

1kg of cooking apples (approximately 4 large)

1 litre of water

For each litre of juice that you make you will need:

1kg raw cane sugar

25ml lemon juice

20g finely chopped sage

• Chop the cooking apples roughly, put in a pan and cover with water.
• Boil them for about 20 minutes, or until they have started to disintegrate in the water.
• Pour the apples into a jelly bag or muslin over a pan or a measuring jun and then leave to drain overnight. Do not squeeze the muslin or the jelly will end up cloudy.
• Follow the instructions in the ingredients list. From the quantities given you should have about 1 litre of juice, so you would need to use 1kg raw sugar and 25ml of lemon juice as well as 20g finely chopped sage.
• Bring the juice up to the boil in a saucepan or preserving pan, and stir in the sugar, stirring until its completely dissolved. Skim off any scum with a sieve as it rises to the surface.
• Bring back to a rolling boil and add the lemon juice, continuing to skim off any scum as it appears. Boil until the liquid reaches setting point, about 20 minutes.
• To test the jelly, drop a teaspoonful onto a saucer (if you put the saucer in the fridge it will set quicker for you) and push with your finger. If it wrinkles then the setting point has been reached.
• Add the finely chopped sage and stir gently. Keep stirring gently every 5 minutes whilst the jelly cools down to ensure that the sage is evenly distributed through the jelly. You don’t want to stir too roughly or the jelly will be cloudy and unattractive.
• When the jelly has cooled down enough so that its still liquid but the sage has stopped rising, about , you can pour into jars.

What I love so much about the history of food as we understand it, is that we don’t really understand it at all. We have records and writings, pictures and paintings, receipts and recipes, but there are so many things about food and cooking that we just cannot know.

I’ve been making Tracklements’ Caramelised Red Onion Relish this week, and it got me to thinking about the first time someone caramelised onions. Was it on purpose? Or were they distracted by something and turned around to discover that they had brown, crispy, sweet, tangy onions as opposed to the lightly sweated ones they had been aiming for?

This much we do know. To make this Caramelised Red Onion Relish, (which I have nabbed the recipe for this week) Tracklements discovered that sweating the onions in oil during the first stage made for an unappealing, greasy, relish. So they set to sweating their onions without oil – without anything in fact. They do this in something called a ‘steam jacketed pan’ which provides heat all over, rather than just from below as with a normal saucepan.

At home, sweating the onions in a saucepan without any oil or indeed anything else, felt very strange. I kept wondering if the onions were going to burn or indeed, what was going to happen to them? To manage this sweating you have to keep them on a very low heat, and keep going for as long as you can – 20 minutes at the least, probably more like 30 minutes.

I gave up too early as I was worried about them burning, and I think it meant that my onions didn’t caramelise as much as they could have done at the next stage when sugar was added. My relish is tasty, but I don’t think it is as tasty as the Tracklements offering, and it is not as dark. This is what my onions look like after the initial sweating – they should have been much more colourless.

According to The Tracklementalist, a good onion relish should not repeat on you – that is, it shouldn’t cause you to burp, which can be what onions do to some people. They have worked hard at making sure that their relishes do not do this, it is yet to be proved whether my attempt at their recipe can make the same claim!

What would I eat this relish with? It screams out to be spooned into a baguette already lined with flash cooked steak strips. I can imagine it on top of a pizza, with a good quality goats cheese melted on top and a few wisps of wild rocket to garnish. Tracklements have a delicious recipe for a quiche made using it at http://www.tracklements.co.uk/recipes/cheese_onion_tart_with_caramelised_red_onion_relish/

The relish is a dark, purply brown, slippery, sweet affair with a wonderful depth of flavour that would be lovely with cheese. I can’t wait to get started on eating mine, with or without burps!

Tracklements’ Caramelised Red Onion Relish (makes 6 small jars or 3 jars)

2.5kg red onions (approx 12)

125g Raw Cane Sugar

375g Muscovado sugar

550ml Cider Vinegar (you could substitute 50ml of this with balsamic vinegar which will give the relish a richer, sweeter taste)

9g salt

A pinch of ground black pepper

• Slice the onions and put then in a large pan. Put the pan on the heat and gently sweat the onions over a low to medium heat until they are soft and translucent. This is to remove as much liquid as possible.
• Add the raw cane sugar and stir for another 10-15 minutes being careful not to let the sugar catch on the bottom of the pan. Now the onions will caramelise.
• Add the muscovado sugar and the vinegar and continue stirring whilst bringing to the boil.
• Finally add the salt and pepper and cook until thick and jammy – mine took about 10 minutes.

I sometimes buy a sweede but very rarely do I take that extra step and buy a turnip, and I have no recipes that use it in my collection (although I did recently see a delicious one for potato and turnip dauphenoise online.) So, if a turnip rears its earnest little head in your veg box any time soon, or if you find yourself popping one in your shopping basket, then I can really recommend this weeks theft, a wonderful, vegful, colourful (enough fuls there?) pickle, Tracklements’ Farmhouse.

Pickles are wonderfully simple to make, but you do need to leave the vegetables in salt overnight to remove the moisture – all essential for that crunch. This one uses parsnips, carrots, turnip, courgettes and onions, so there are certainly some vegetables packed in there.

It is absolutely delicious, crunchy, full of texture and taste and I love that you can see the vegetables and they don’t just disappear into a brown mush. To show it off I had a go at bringing the ploughman’s up to the 21st century (apparently the ploughman’s as we know it was born in a marketing campaign in the 1960′s so its not as ancient and venerable as we might wistfully imagine as we tuck into a plate of the Best of British.) I’ve got Wild Boar Salami on here, with Hobbs House bread, and some chunks of cheese. Cheese on a ploughman’s has to be in chunks, there is no room here for slivers or slices. Sundried tomatoes and olives have turned my ploughman’s a little bit continental, and some celery for that extra special crunch, all accompanied with a great big dollop of pickle. Ploughmans should be all about dollops, hunks and chunks.  Now I just need to find me a haystack and lunch is a good ‘un.

What would you have on your perfect ploughman’s plate?

Tracklements’ Farmhouse Pickle (makes 7 or 8 jars)

5 medium carrots, peeled, topped and tailed

2 small courgettes, topped and tailed

4 medium parsnips, peeled, topped and tailed

1 medium turnip, peeled, topped and tailed

1 medium onion, peeled

40g sea salt

530ml malt vinegar

15ml lemon juice

1/2 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

4g ground allspice

500g muscovado sugar

75g chopped dried dates

15g tamarind

225g tomato puree

The night before you make this pickle, chop the carrots, courgettes, parsnips, turnips and onions into cubes approx 8mm by 8mm. Mix them together in a bowl and add the salt, stirring well to ensure that they are all covered with salt.

Transfer the vegetables to a colander and cover with a plate with a weight on it. Put the colander on a draining board or in a bowl so that the water is expelled and doesn’t go everywhere. Leave overnight.

The next day, throw away the salty water and rinse the vegetables.

Heat the vinegar and lemon juice and when they are simmering, add the vegetables. Bring to a gentle boil and then add the chilli and the allspice stirring well. Add the sugar in stages, stirring well do make sure it’s dissolved and bring back to the boil. Add the dates and tamarind and boil for approx 15-20 minutes or until the desired consistency is achieved then stir in the tomato puree giving the mixture a final stir.

Fill into jars.

The beautiful plate that I served my ploughman’s on is from David Rogers Pottery at www.davidrogerspottery.co.uk .  Beautiful plates and dishes made in the Raku style all thrown on a wheel.

We should embrace the best of winter whilst we can, making the most of the last of the root veg, serving up a few more warming stews and heavy puddings, before our appetites seek out freshness and light and we turn to the new seasons’ offerings.

This week I have stolen the recipe for a spicy ketchup which I think will be a delicious sauce to see me through the new few changes in the season. I am going to use it to add some heat to a meatball sauce and to marinade pork chops. Come Spring I shall use it to marinade the new season lamb and by the summer I shall be dousing BBQ meats in it and splodging it into baps with juicy burgers.

If you’ve never tasted a premium ketchup, you really must. It is like driving an Aston Martin after spending your life chugging around in a Fiat Panda. It doesn’t drown out the taste of everything you serve it with, like mass produced, cheap ketchups – instead it enhances everything it comes into contact with.

The spices that this recipe uses need to be ground together and give off the most lovely aroma that should warm up your winter kitchen. You will need to whizz the onion and garlic together before heating the sugar and vinegar and then finally add the lemon and the tomato puree and boil. To create a heavy consistency, perfect for dipping chunky chips into, you then boil it for about 15 minutes, making sure that you don’t pepper the walls too much!

Tracklements’ Spicy Ketchup (makes 4 bottles)

145g onions – peeled and roughly chopped

10g crushed garlic

4 dried Birdseye chilli’s

6 allspice berries

12 peppercorns

450ml cider vinegar

340g raw cane sugar

10g salt

10ml lemon juice

600g tomato puree

• Using a pestle and mortar, grind the chilli, allspice and peppercorns. Using the whole spices ensures that all the essential oils are kept. Set aside.
• Whizz the onion and garlic together in a food processor until they form a paste.
• Gently heat the vinegar and sugar and stir until all the sugar has dissolved, then add the garlic and onion. Bring to the boil, stirring occasionally.
• Boil for a few minutes, and then add the ground spices, the salt and the lemon juice. Give a good stir and bring it back to the boil.
• Add the tomato puree stirring well to mix it in and boil for 15 minutes or until the desired, thick, consistency is reached.
• Pour into sterilised bottles. This will keep for 6 months in a cool place.

This weeks theft combines two ingredients which were very popular in the middle ages, beer and mustard. Tracklements Beer Mustard is perfect with pies, cold meats and sausages and those wise folk at Tracklements make their mustards with very little salt knowing that they might well be paired with things that are very salty. The mustard has a lovely, malty taste.

In Tudor times, according to the Tracklementalist, some monasteries had their own ‘mustardarius’ who was responsible for growing and distributing mustard sauces for the monastic communities. The mustardarius would break apart brown mustard seeds, then add an acidic liquid like wine, vinegar or verjuice and some salt, to make a sauce not unlike what we now think of as mustard. The monastic communities would eat this with meat and fish, the latter of which formed a large part of their diet.

Their was a belief that mustard played an important part in maintaining good health – it was considered ‘hot’ and therefore served with ‘cold’ foods to balance the humour of a meal. It was also drunk (gulp!) and gargled to treat sore throats.

Tracklements grow their own mustard seeds in Britain which is very rare as the majority of mustard seed is grown abroad, often on huge farms in Canada. One of the issues with growing mustard seed is that it spreads very easily and so farmers are unwilling to risk the spread of the plants into other crops. However the fact that it can be grown here makes it a more sustainable spice for us to use than others which need the heat of tropical countries to flourish.

I have found it quite challenging grinding mustard seeds in a home kitchen, but the best that I can suggest is to use a stick blender – after much trial and error and scattering of little seeds all over the floor I have learnt to cover my stick blender with a tea towel to stop all of the little seeds flying everywhere and crunching under foot.

I used a good quality local bitter to make the mustard, I felt that as it was a key ingredient it should be a good quality one, but you could use any bitter/stout, just do not use lager. You should leave the beer open overnight to let the bubbles go flat.

Tracklements’ Beer Mustard

120g Yellow Mustard Seed

120g Brown Mustard Seed

3g (1 heaped tsp) Black peppercorns

2g Allspice berries

1g dried birdseye chillies

400ml cider vinegar

200ml beer (bitter not lager)

10g salt

• Open the beer, add the salt to it, stir and leave overnight. This will allow the beer a chance to go flat so that the bubbles don’t react with the mustard seed.
• Using a stick blender, whizz the mustard seeds and the spices .
• Pour the beer into a bowl, stir to make sure that the salt has dissolved, and then add the seeds and spices and stir.
• Leave to mature for a couple of days, stirring every so often so that the mustard soaks up the liquid.
• Fill into jars and enjoy with a sausage and a pork pie.

I’ve been messing around with an iconic British food again this week as I stole a recipe for Fruity Brown Sauce from the Tracklementalists’ vast collection of the great and the good.

Brown sauce is something that has always been there, lurking around whenever there is a bacon sandwich in the offering, gracing tables across the country with its unassuming yet tasty presence. But as to where it came from and how you make it, I never thought to ask these questions of something that forms as much of my blurry childhood scenery as custard, cornflakes and tea.

The where? Well the victorians liked to ‘devil’ food – that is to marinate it in a piquant sauce which was thereafter used as a pouring sauce. It is thought that the origins of brown sauces as we know them, came from those prudish, sentimental forebearers of ours, who liked to live carefully and well.

As to the how, just think for a moment. What ingredients do you think are used to make brown sauce? Think of say, 5 ingredients, jot them down, then if you have a second write me a comment below with your thoughts. You see I am really interested as I truly had no idea before this morning, I couldn’t even think of 2 things on my list. I knew that it was a spicy, fruity sauce, and a rich dark colour, but I could get no further than that.

Did your list of 5 include soy sauce? Or tamarind? Chillies, tomato or dates? If so then you are much more knowledgeable than me. Old, reliable brown sauce suddenly became more exotic when I read those ingredients on my stolen recipe sheet, and I started to root around in my store cupboard for some tamarind, sure that I had used some in a Thai curry at some point. With no luck I bought another jar and took the opportunity to quiz the owner of Wildfood, a wonderful Malmesbury food institution, about Tamarind, which it appears is a fruit, not a spice as I had thought.

The sauce is a joy to make. A real cauldron brew, with the end product belching forth great big blotches of brown, piquant mixture as it comes to the boil for the last time – I ended up having to clean the ceiling and several pictures which had been heavily splattered.

Tracklements’ Fruity Brown Sauce

180ml Soy sauce

300ml Cider Vinegar

330g raw cane sugar

1 small onion peeled

8 garlic cloves, peeled

20g chopped dates

1 rounded teaspoon of salt

1 large red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

1/2 green chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

1 tablespoon of tamarind paste

1 dsp of lemon juice

600g tomato puree

• In a saucepan heat the vinegar and the soy sauce over a medium heat and add the sugar. Stir until all the sugar has dissolved.
• Whizz the onion, garlic and dates together in a food processor to form a paste, add this to the pan and stir well. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 10 minutes stirring regularly.
• Chop the chillies very finely and add them to the mixture with the salt and the tamarind. Bring back to the boil, boil for 20 minutes stirring frequently.
• Mix in the lemon juice and the tomato puree and bring back to the boil briefly before removing from the heat.
• Use a funnel or a jug to decant into bottles.

The Fruity Brown sauce will keep for up to a year.

It is time to marmalade again (I think that should become a verb if it is not one already), and my mother has borrowed back Granny’s preserving pan to make her excellent annual orange offering from the little Sevilles that are tumbling out of the shops.

Whilst a preserving pan isn’t essential in preserve making, something with a broad, flat bottom and straight sloping sides aids quick evaporation and thickening which then quickens the cooking time and keeps the essence of the fruit. Using one of these traditional shaped pans connects you back through the centuries to those who toiled over brass or copper kettles, sometimes outdoors over an open fire, to bottle and jar their gratitude for natures’  bounty. The pans look lovely on a kitchen shelf too, and tell people that you mean business!

The recipe that I have stolen this week involved using a ready made sauce, Tracklements’ Redcurrant Jelly to make a wonderful, rich Cumberland Sauce which will be a tangy condiment to serve with ham, sausages or game.

Firstly I was instructed to let some port and spices infuse for half an hour, the smell was warm and welcoming on a grey January day. Then I heated the redcurrant jelly and added lemon and orange juice and the port and spices. Easy, done, jarred.

No one knows exactly why Cumberland sauce has the name that it does, but The Tracklementalist has some theories.  He believes that it is either named after Ernest, an 19th Century Duke of Cumberland or after the old county of Cumberland, which also leant its name to the popular sausages. Apparently you can buy Cumberland sauce in German supermarkets bearing the same name, and this might be because of the German ancestry of the Duke in question who was in fact a brother to George IV. There has been speculation that it actually originated over there, although there is no proof of this. Wherever it was first made, it is now as British as a Barnsley chop, a sandwich or a slice of Beef Wellington.

Tracklements’ Cumberland Sauce (makes 4 medium jars)

4 x 250g jars of Tracklements redcurrant jelly

15ml orange juice

15ml lemon juice

10g orange zest

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

Pinch of ground ginger

Small pinch of chilli powder

50ml Port

• Mix the port, ginger, chilli powder, mustard and zest together and leave to infuse for half an hour.
• Grind your mustard seed in a pestle and mortar until they form a coarse grind.
• Put the redcurrant jelly into a pan and gently heat until liquid, add the orange juice and the lemon juice and bring just to the boil, remove from heat.
• Stir in the port mix and leave for 5 minutes. Stir again and fill into jars – this is to make sure that the port mix is evenly spread through the product.

My last attempt at jelly making wasn’t a big success.  It was very was cloudy, which according to the Tracklementalist is because I shook it up to disperse the bits in it evenly whilst it was setting. That said, it did taste delicious, but I think presentation is at least as important as taste when it comes to something like a jelly.

The way that the Tracklementalist has suggested achieving the right set in this weeks attempt, Red Pepper and Chilli Jelly, is by gently stirring the jelly every 5 minutes for half an hour as it starts to cool down, that way dispersing the ingredients without allowing it to go cloudy. It is a labour of love, but no doubt worth it, and you can get on with other things whilst you are doing it as long as you remember to pop back every 5 minutes to stir. Infact my jelly set within 20 minutes, so I only had to remember to stir it a few times.

I used Certo as a setting agent as there is no high pectin fruit in the recipe – jellys often have a base of apple to make sure that they set. Certo is very appley in smell, so I presume that there is apple included as an ingredient. Another piece of advice from The Tracklementalist was to cut the chilli and pepper in a blender to pieces about 3mm large (I actually used a knife as my blender wasn’t playing ball.) You don’t want a puree as you don’t want to add a mush to the jelly, you want clearly defined pieces that make the jelly pretty.

And pretty the jelly is! The little flecks look like red jewels suspended in the tawny base. I can’t wait to eat it with goats cheese, just the thing to add some fire and sweetness to the palate with a sour cheese.

We can sometimes be a little predictable with our condiments, sticking to what we know – but I suggest giving mint jelly a rest next time you have roast lamb and letting this gorgeous jelly play substitute, it won’t disappoint you.

The recipe only makes 3 jars, but don’t be tempted to double up on the quantities. Making jelly in small batches gives an intensity to the flavour that is so important in something that you use in small quantities on your plate. So keep one for yourself, give one away, and save another for a rainy day.

Tracklements’ Red Pepper and Chilli Jelly (makes 3 jars)

340ml Certo (available from ocado, tesco)

320ml Cider Vinegar

60ml water

30ml lemon juice

1kg raw cane sugar

30g red peppers

30g chillies

• First put the red peppers and chillies in the food processer and pulse so that you end up with 1-3mm diced pieces.
• Put the vinegar in the preserving pan and heat.  Slowly add the sugar and stir until all the sugar has dissolved then bring to the boil and add the pectin and the lemon juice.
• Boil vigorously for 3 mins and then take off the heat.  Remove the scum off the top of the pan with a sieve and then add the pepper and chilli and stir into the mixture.  Stir gently every 5 minutes for up to half an hour whilst it cools which will stop the pepper and chilli pieces rising to the surface.  You can test whether it’s cooled sufficiently by dipping a jug into the mixture and either filling one jar, or just watching whether the pieces of pepper & chilli rise to the top in the jug.
• Once cool enough (but not too cold or it will have set) fill into jars.  Don’t agitate or shake the jars at all or the set of the jelly will break and you’ll end up with cloudy jelly.