Day 278: jiggling beauties
“If you can’t buy ‘em, grow ‘em” seems to be the common theme determining what we plant in our garden.
I believe (where possible, and certainly for me in this cookalong) that all listed ingredients in an original recipe should be used, at least for the first time you’re cooking it; I think it allows you, the cooker, to connect with the cook/writer/developer and understand how - and, indeed, why - they might have ended up with that particular choice and combination of ingredients. Of course, in general, all recipes are tweaked here and there by the cooker - to suit personal tastes, budget, dietary requirements and ingredient availability - but for me, in the case of this cookalong, I believe that specific ingredients are chosen for a reason: Nigella thinks they’re the best fit for that particular recipe. And, as this is a Nigella cookalong, it wouldn’t make much sense to go swapping things about, even if the chances of finding Ingredient X are only slim, would it now? Also, I am a very stubborn person and often take recipes with (for me) hard-to-find ingredients as a personal challenge. This does tend to mean that if I can’t get hold of a specific ingredient, no matter how easy the alternative might be to find, I will hold off until I can source it - even if that means growing it! This is of course both admiral and foolish: good things come to those who but I then also spend a significant amount of time missing out on something really good. But I won’t change. I think it makes that moment when you actually can proceed and finally take that first mouthful even more precious.
Examples? Blackcurrants for a cake: I can’t find them fresh or frozen anywhere. So, four years ago we planted our own bush. Last year, it gave us our first crop, which adorned Nigella's Liquorice and Blackcurrant Chocolate Cake so beautifully; this year, the bundles of black orbs have at least tripled in number and will be used for another edition of said cake and a tub of No-churn Blackcurrant Ice Cream with Liquorice Ripple (coming soon). I also really struggle to find yellow courgettes, which before being introduced to the aptly-named Double Courgette and Bean Salad (by the lovely Nic Miller) never really bothered me. Now, however, I feel I need them in my life for the sole purpose of that one recipe (and they do taste different, imo). We’ll look into growing those next year. I forgot this year (not that I have any space). Parsley: I’ve become hooked on it since starting this cookalong. I once thought it merely an annoying, pretentious sprinkle. Now, I adore it and always have a bunch in the fridge drawer. I grew it this year, in the hopes of having to buy less, but soon spent its life with the first few crops. Note to self: allocate more pots and any spare border space to it next year.
Of course, we can’t grow everything - time and space being major factors here - and not everything is available to everyone, so we just gotta work with what we can and be grateful for it.
What brought me onto this random babble was white currants: since seeing that gorgeous photo of a wobbling dome of G&T jelly surrounded by the pearly beauty of white currants in HTBADG, I just knew the only way I could feature it in this cookalong, for its debut, would be to also use them. And since I have never seen them in any shop near where I’ve lived in the UK, I knew I’d have to grow my own. We used to have a couple of white currant bushes in the garden when I lived in Norway, so there’s something rather nostalgic about their translucent beauty to me. Another reason I wanted to grow them (and redcurrants, too).
Anyway, this year, we got our first crop!
Nigella’s Gin and Tonic Jelly
The birds were already helping themselves to them, but hubby rescued what remained, just in time. They were also quite ripe so I couldn’t really wait for a bigger group of people for whom I could make the large wobbling dome of jelly (also, I’m very impatient), so I halved the recipe and made little - I think 7 or 8 (I didn’t count, I just ate) - jiggly knolls instead.
I did imagine slurping these delicately in the heat of a summer’s afternoon, under the parasol on the patio; as we’ve hardly had the weather, I did so in the cosiness of my living room, under a blanket on the sofa instead. Mightily enjoyable, if not better: I intensely dislike eating in the heat, really.
These are, of course, a million miles away from the cheap vodka-spiked, budget raspberry jelly shots from my uni days (that always failed to set for me because I insisted on pushing the vodka ratio way past the point of no return).
The recipe for this jiggling, refreshing summer beauty can be found in How To Be A Domestic Goddess and on nigella.com (link below).
