Mother in Laws Birthday part 3 -Strawberry ice cream

We are having three desserts on Sunday and this is the first.
It could have been done ages ago but there were two very large salmon filling the freezer. As they came out today my favourite ice cream could be made. This is so easy and soooooooooo delicious I have to restrain myself from eating it before any one else does. It only works with strawberries though, there must be some alchemy with the acidity and the sugar, but who knows and actually I  think I want to keep the delicious mystery!
Two punnets of strawberries were hulled and finely chopped and then frozen. I should have frozen them on a tray but there was no room so they were crammed in to a plastic pot. Tonight they were removed and as they had frozen into a big lump, bashed with a rolling pin till they were back in bits. These were then whizzed in the food processor with two tablespoons of vanilla sugar, normal sugar is fine with a bit of vanilla essence but I made the vanilla sugar weeks ago and just had to use it. (Its a vanilla pod in a jar of sugar; nothing too taxing, and left for a few weeks.)Then when all pureed 1/2 litre of double (heavy) cream is poured in and whizzed again. Before your eyes it will change to baby pink ice cream as if by magic. When I was given the recipe I was very sceptical by this stage, but just wait! Taste it and enjoy a piece of heaven before popping in to the freezer.  The joy is no need to rewhizz after an hour or so , it is ready to go!

Maybe I just need to recheck it! nom, nom, nom ,nom!

And the price £3.00 for about 1 kilo.

Mother in Laws birthday stage 2

I want to say that I bubbled 2 kilos of ham hocks in a huge cauldron for hours but to be truthful , said ham hocks were cooked in the pressure cooker. Pressure cookers are much underrated and I do love them for things that need to be boiled or steamed forever.  So into the pressure cooker went said 2 kilos of ham hocks which had been soaked in water for to days to remove a lot of the salt. These were bathed in a bottle of mead, an onion, two carrots and some celery and placed on full steam for 40 minutes.

They were left in the stock to cool till the next day then taken out and shredded by hand into a large pile.

250 grammes  of cornishons (baby gerkins) and silverskin onions were then finely chopped with 50 grammes of fresh parsley and stirred in with the ham.The mix was then put into a large glass bowl. The stock was then strained and measured to 1/2 litre and boiled with 4 sheets of gelatine and when the

gelatine melted it was poured over the ham and a plate and cast iron pan were placed on top and into the fridge.

Ready for starter 'Jambon au persille' to go with the blackberry chutney. So looking forward to turning it out and tasting it.Yum , yum, yum. The whole thing cost £5.50, as the mead was home made! Bargain yum!

So it's been awhile, well a long time since I posted , life events and all that and starting a new business www.theelvishtailor.co.uk. Anyway the elf is now back in the kitchen with a vengeance  Posting regularly this week as we prepare for the biggest function of this year. Next Sunday is the mother-in-laws 80th birthday. This is no little old lady, well she is little but he is bright and feisty and stubborn and keeps her three boys in check and we love her. So her birthday present is a banquet for the whole family  cooked by yours truly!!!!

I have gone through about 50 cookery books looking for recipes but went back to the old favourites last week . The problem at this time of year is the weather , after about 6 months of freezing temperatures , greyness and snow  ; spring has finally decided to grace us with her loveliness and next Sunday will be lovely . So going from ideas for heavy pork with a Parmesan and pine nut crust we decided to go lighter and classically French . But that means lots of preparation and lots of work through the week to make things easier for next weekend.

I started two days ago making a blackberry chutney, the blackberries were gathered back in September from  mother in laws favourite place on the Suffolk coast. Not with any thought of this celebration but just because they are lovely. But they seemed perfect to go with the rest of the starter, more of later. 400g of blackberries were boiled up with 400g sugar, 1 chopped onion, 200g raisins, 1/2 litre malt vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon each of mixed spice, smoked paprika and sumac and 3 cloves garlic. This was simmered for 2 hours the smell was incredible and not in a good way , overpowering and vinegary that took the linings off your eyes! I thought it was going to be a disaster but once your half way there you may as well go to the finish. So it was left to cool.
Blackberries have a gazillion seeds and these need to be removed but rather than go through that  mammoth task first we decided to let it cool and taste.
The taste was sublime, sweet, sharp and slightly smokey. The perfect combination with the rest of the starter.
So the next night it all had to go through the vintage mooli ; a mooli is like a sieve with a handle that presses the given substance through thus removing seeds etc. It takes for ever, we ended up with just over a kilo of chutney before going through the mooli. After 2 hours of filling , winding, scraping and cleaning the result is a of a perfect molasses smooth blackness all jarred up and ready to roll.