New Year's Eve Delicious Tangerines

In my Auntie Carla’s kitchen (the same one of the delicious green sauce, right), there was a big silvery book full of recipes from the 1920s. The book had been written for ladies of the medium-upper class who wanted to entertain a quality social circle with the help of one or more maids, but no cook. To twelve year old me, the world portrayed by that book was the maximum of sophistication. I remember this recipe especially well because it ended a glorious New Year’s Eve feast full of aspics and canapés and other wonderful things. I tried it on years later and I realised that not only is it delicious, but it can also be preserved really well for quite some time. And you don’t need to be a Milanese high society starlet to offer it to your friends.

Ingredients:

10 tangerines – ripe but not too much

1.5l of vodka

2 cups of icing sugar

2 cups of Grand Marnier

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

Peel the tangerines without splitting the segments. Throw away all the peels but 2, which you will cut in thin, long stripes (as thin as you possibly can). Then cut the tangerines horizontally (i.e. so that you obtain two halves made by one half of each segment) and lay them face down onto a plate where you will have sprinkled all the granulated sugar. Set aside.

In a non-stick saucepan, melt the icing sugar in the Grand Marnier and add the tangerine peels and the cinnamon. Let the syrup bubble and thicken on high heat (you have to watch it and stir from time to time or it will burn) for 5 minutes, then set aside to cool.

Drop the half tangerines coated in sugar into your sterilised jars (try and fit as many inside a jar as you can without cramming them) and  pour the Grand Marnier syrup over them. Fill the jars with vodka and shake vigorously.

Close the jars: this need to be set to rest for at least a couple of days before serving – or giving it away as a present: these are absolutely gorgeous as presents and kitchen decorations with a little violet ribbon. 

Of course you can do this with tangerine segments if you like: they are easier to work with and probably require less maturation time.

You can serve them flambee over vanilla ice cream or over Crepes Suzette, as well as at the bottom of cocktails.

The book recipe, however, maintains its charm. A couple of hours before serving, put the jar in the freezer and shake it from now and then to make sure the vodka doesn’t actually freeze.

Serve a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream with a splurge of crème de menthe on top, a couple of mint leaves and one of the frozen tangerines flambéed.

Spirited Cherries

This is an old Italian recipe which used to involve long hours of macerating into the sun, pure alcohol and a lot of hassle. The result, though, is magic and this recipe has a slightly more modern twist as well as allowing for meteorological conditions that can be less than ideal.

Ingredients

1 kg of red cherries

2l of good russian vodka

6 cups of icing sugar

2 cups of cranberry juice or pomegranate juice

juice of 2 lemons, divided into 4 equal amounts

Start with juicy, ripe cherries. There is no point in doing this if they are some of those revolting light-pink things you are supposed to turn into real cherries at home so don’t even bother.

Wash them thoroughly and dry them, trying to keep as many stems on as possible.

Lay a sheet of parchment paper on your baking tray, and lay the dried cherries on it so they don’t touch each other. Cover them with 1 cup iof sugar and turn them around, so you have cherries coated in sugar, still not touching each other.

Put in the pre heated oven at 160°C for 5 minutes, just the time necessary of all the sugar to seep through inside the cherries. You do not want them to cook.

Transfer the fruit into four sterilised jars and add 3/4 cup of sugar into each, together with the cranberry juice and the lemon juice. Fill up the rest of the jar with vodka and shake vigorously until all the sugar is dissolved.

Leave for at least a month before consuming, it makes a beautiful kitchen decoration as well as an absolutely delicious boozy treat. If you can, leave them in the sun as much as possible if you are absolutely sure the sun will be shining and bright for at least a month then you can skip the oven step and just do this with raw cherries. It is more authentic and probably better.

These are delicious on ice cream or any other type of dessert and, just like the rum raisins, they flambé really easily. They are aso perfect for decorating cocktails.

Speaking of cocktails, the best thing about this recipe is that you can use the vodka, too. It will have become a delicious summer fruit vodka, which you can pair with grenadine and a sliced pineapple to make the most delicious summer cocktail I have ever had.

Or, if you don’t like it or don’t drink vodka or don’t drink enough vodka to keep up with your cherry-eating you can give it away as a present. You just need to find some pretty glass bottles (I really like the ones a certain brand of cider vinegar comes in). Strip them of their label and put them through at least two washing machine cycles (or a couple of 4 hour rinses in soapy water) to get rid of the taste of whatever they contained before and then pour the vodka in. You can add a couple of the cherries as well for decoration, trying to pick the ones with still a stem. Close tightly, add a ribbon and the trick is done. 

Of course, no one is stopping you from doing this with other fruit as well. I had a great aunt who used to do this with chopped up white peaches and raspberries, which was absolutely divine.

Raisins in Rum

Ingredients

4 cups dried sultanas

4 cups dried raisins

2 cups dried cranberries

2 cups dried blackcurrants

1.6 litres of good quality dark rum

4 tablespoons of dark moscovado sugar

4 caramelised orange skins

Wash the dried fruit with warm water and pour it into four 400ml jars. Add a tablespoon of the sugar and and orange skin into each jar and fill up with the rum. Shake vigorously.

Leave to soak for a couple of days shaking every now and then: this is perfect either as a present (it takes almost no time and almost no money) or as a delicious snack, spooned over a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream. This is very flammable, which means you can use it to flambee ice cream, crepes and anything you like really: the burning alcohol forms a delicious boozy caramel over the fruits that is simply heavenly.

You can add and substitute any typed of dried fruit you like: figs, prunes, dates, cherries, anything you’d like. You can also substitute the rum with another type of spirit, just reduce or increase the amount of sugar according to the sweetness of what you use.  Another idea is to add some nuts to the mix as well. You can use shop-bought fruit and nut mix, or create your own combinations.

I like dried cherries and almonds (1 part of almonds an two parts of dried cherries) with no sugar added, a couple of drops of peppermint extract (or caramelised mint leaves if you’re in the mood) and sherry instead of rum. My mother’s favourite is walnuts and white sultanas, with a spoonful of white granulated sugar, soaked in white rum and with an added shot of Curacao which will make everything of a pleasant summery shade.

Japanese Plum Extravaganza

I have never been to Japan. This shames me, because I am fascinated by the culture and I really want to, but I haven’t (yet). So I do not claim any authenticity for this plum concoction, which is mainly inspired by a scene in Memories of a Geisha where the little girl gets offered caramelised fruit on top of some ground ice. So I don’t mean to offend any authentic Japanese people when I say this is delicious and, because of the plum-cherry-sake combination it reminds me of a mythic Japanese land where the cherry trees are in blossom and all the ladies are dressed in fabulously silky kimonos.   

1 kg small red plums

200g red cherries

300g granulated sugar

4 cups of pomegranate juice

1l sake

Quarter the plums and get rid of the stones, wash the cherries and take the stems off.

Cover the sugar in water and melt it on low heat in a large saucepan. Add the fruit and bring to a medium boil for about 10 minutes until all the fruit is caramelised in the syrup.

Pour the pomegranate juice into the jars and add the syrup from the cooked fruit. Stir in the jars until you achieve a homogenous mixture and then add the fruit. Fill up the jar with the sake and shake vigorously. You can substitute sake with vodka if you don’t like the flavour.

Leave for at least a couple of weeks before scooping out on ice cream of crepes. In my pathetic attempt to give my dinner parties an exotic spin, I make crepes with rice flour and serve them with whipped cream or mint ice cream (I originally used vanilla, but mint is just divine) and a scoop of these plums. They flambé easily and they make fantastic presents. You can make a small basket with other Japanese specialities, or team them up with other boozy fruit for a festive feel.

Once again, the spirit that you use will become absolutely heavenly after a month or so of shaking and macerating in the fruit, caramel and juices. You can give it away as a present in small bottles, or just drink it all up yourself. If you use vodka, you can try my Plum Martini, which is not a martini at all.

Put a quartered plum (a fresh one, not one of the caramelised ones) at the bottom of a martini glass. Cover with the vodka, add a shot of vermouth and one of cranberry juice. I serve it with little pink umbrellas and it is fabulous.