An 'elpful 'int from 'Arry

oho, I have tales to tell... a week away in the West of Ireland and I am brimming... tales of such ebullient gastronomy I can bare withhold... but first, a note from Harry's pantry: 

 

POMEGRANATE and ORANGE BLOSSOM VINEGAR

 

i thought you might be interested in the attached and wonder if you've come across it before? i bought it at a lebanese stall the other day, and it's truly delicious. the ingredients look pretty straightforward, so no doubt you could make your own - white wine vinegar, pomegranate molasses, sugar and orange blossom water - and i'm having fun experimenting with it in salads, with oils, dressing grilled meats and sometimes just a nip from the bottle. complex and sprightly, it's magic stuff. and of course a little goes a long way.

p.s. and have you ever had a spoonful of madeira in your porridge for breakfast? if not, do!

A note from Harry on Cider... Vinegar

We've been making some cider over the last couple of months, and this batch turned to vinegar.  It's tasty stuff - we used Cox, D'Arcy Spice & Worcester apples & Japanese pears, all in equal quantities, but it did throw some massive protein-tannin ectoplasm after the yeasts died. We filtered out the protein-tannins with some muslin and let it settle - and I think we'll have to do another filtering later. I also ran some tests using the soil testing equipment at work, and discovered that it has a fearsome pH 3.5!

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A note on the apples - Cox is the well-known Orange Pippin, a very full flavour, best in early autumn, recognisable by its rattling seeds when shaken.  D'Arcy Spice, an East Anglian apple, belongs to the Russet family, sweet, small apples of grey/green colour, popular in Cider.  Worcester is most likely Worcester Pearmain, a desert apple, very crisp and used cut up in salads very early Autumn.  The Japanese pears... I know not.   

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More to follow on Cider making, but perhaps not till the Autumn.