Make the most of summer’s stone fruit season with these simple ideas for lunch and pudding
Halfway down the garden, in the middle of the thick yew hedge, a wild plum tree is heavy with fruit, each one hanging like a bauble on a Christmas tree. The tree was never intentionally planted and is probably the result of my habit of throwing plum stones into the garden. The first I knew of it was an arching branch of snow-white blossom that appeared from the hedge one spring. Late each summer, its branches are bent low with chartreuse gages, the size of a thrush’s egg. Tiny and sweet as honey, the fruits are almost translucent in the late summer sunshine.
Plums have been trickling into the market, too – the rare Reine Claude, the purple-red Opal and the ubiquitous but welcome Victoria among them. Ripe and jelly-fleshed, there is rarely a plum I don’t like, but I appreciate them most in the kitchen, where they will be bubbled down into sauces for pork or duck, tucked under pastry crusts or oat-freckled crumbles or thrown into the jam pan with sugar, a cinnamon stick and a few cloves.
Continue reading… Make the most of summer’s stone fruit season with these simple ideas for lunch and puddingHalfway down the garden, in the middle of the thick yew hedge, a wild plum tree is heavy with fruit, each one hanging like a bauble on a Christmas tree. The tree was never intentionally planted and is probably the result of my habit of throwing plum stones into the garden. The first I knew of it was an arching branch of snow-white blossom that appeared from the hedge one spring. Late each summer, its branches are bent low with chartreuse gages, the size of a thrush’s egg. Tiny and sweet as honey, the fruits are almost translucent in the late summer sunshine.Plums have been trickling into the market, too – the rare Reine Claude, the purple-red Opal and the ubiquitous but welcome Victoria among them. Ripe and jelly-fleshed, there is rarely a plum I don’t like, but I appreciate them most in the kitchen, where they will be bubbled down into sauces for pork or duck, tucked under pastry crusts or oat-freckled crumbles or thrown into the jam pan with sugar, a cinnamon stick and a few cloves. Continue reading… Food, Life and style, Summer food and drink, Chicken, Baking, Cake
