Melon and rose teacake
This uncooked rose and wild strawberry conserve is an old trick from the moorcock inn. We had plenty of wild strawberries and roses growing in the garden, but seemingly never enough to do a days service. So we sort a way to try and preserve the fruit and the fragrance. The problem with preserving is you often have to heat products, ie jam or cordials. The moment heat touches the rose petals or the wild strawberry the flavour is gone.
I researched how the persimmon and citrus cha preserves were made in the Korean mountains. They are made in areas which are high altitude, warm clear days and harsh freezing nights.
The persimmon and citrus are the last of the fruits on the trees when the frosts come. The fruit are packed into large clay pots with honey or sugar and left outside. Each night the fruit freezes solid, only to defrost in a the sun the following day.
Whenever you freeze a cell containing water the liquid expands and create sharp crystal edges. These hard frozen crystals pierce the cell walls then when the ice thaws it allows the liquid out of the cell wall.
This is why you have to defrost meat in a tray or bowl. The moisture inside the muscles is ruptured and allowed to be released. It is also why frozen meat is not as succulent as fresh.
A similar process happens during cooking, by heating food above 85 degrees C the water expands and bursts the cells walls.
The only problem getting to this point is the fragrance seems to disappear from most fruit around 50 degrees.
The raw conserve idea came about from the Korean cha tea, from lemons. Freezing and defrosting fruit and sugar every day forty times.
The nice thing about the method is you can keep adding to the jar. So if you get a handful of roses and 50 wild strawberries one day and only 10 strawberries the next you can add to the jar and over the 2 month season you will have a very large jar of summer ingredients to enjoy during winter. I no mainly use the technique of freezing and defrosting multiple times to get the ingredients and the jam to make a sauce for desserts using less sugar. After 40 freezings stirring each time the conserve seems to become shelf stable. Although I tend to keep it in the fridge.
The traditional citrus conserve is made with 2kg of sugar to 1kg on citrus. It is drunk with boiling water as a tea, its really great if you have an excess of lemons or yuzus if you can find them.
all fruit will work, i reccomend trying fruits with less water content, juicy plums are tasty but makes more of a syrup than whole sliced citrus with the peel. sliced rhubarb works very well too
other winning combinations worth trying are orange and elderflower, golden raspberry and osmanthus, clematine and lavander, strawberry and rhubarb.
Rose petal conserve.
1kg (combined weight) fresh roses (make sure they are not sprayed with pesticides) and wild strawberries
1kg caster sugar.
Gently seperate the roses petals from the flower heads
wash the rose petals gently in cold water and drain in a colander.
Once dry (can be slightly damp) toss in a bowl with sugar.
Fill mixture in a glass jar and place in the freezer.
The following evening remove the jar from the freezer and allow to defrost at room temperate.
Once defrosted stir the conserve together so the liquid which forms on fruit mixes with the sugar crystals in the bottom of the jar and over time will dissolve.
Repeat this process 40 times. Then store in a cool place.
This jam is incredible with ice cream or inside jammy dodgers.
Here is a simple recipe for using any jam, but one which benefits from the fragrance of the rose or citrus if you have that instead.
A tea cake for the end of summer, after all the berries have finished, no more plums or stone fruit. A last flourish of fruit before the long winter of apples come in.
To be honest I have never been a massive fan of cantaloup melons, until I was given a piece at a restaurant in Australia called Brae, they had a variety I hadn’t seen before and grew the melons hanging in pantyhose so they had contact with the sun all the way over (typically melons sit with one side in the soil). The melons were kept on their vines until they were ready to serve, never going near a fridge. they became so fragrant, almost savoury. I guess had never found one so perfectly ripe before that time. I have been converted.
The only other melon dishes I recall really enjoying is a chilled savoury soup with salmon eggs and marigold served by Sebastian Myers at Planque in London, the other at a restaurant in north east Victoria with meringue, apricots and roses. In both cases the other ingredients which were about fragrance.
Melon and rosewater are really good friends. I had a jar of rose petal conserve made in spring I didn’t have plans for, why not try them together.
3 large eggs
300g sugar
200g olive oil
Seeds of 1/2 a vanilla pod
360g plain flour
1 Tablespoon dried ground ginger
1 Teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 a nutmeg (grated)
1 Tablespoon salt
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 Teaspoon baking soda
250g grated cantaloup melon (flesh only)
8 heaped Tablespoons of rose conserve.
Syrup/drizzle
85g sugar
85g lemon juice
Preheat your oven to 160 degrees C
1. In a stand mixer with a whisk mix eggs, sugar and olive oil until light and fluffy (approx 3 minutes on high).
2. Add your melon and vanilla, mix for 1 minute.
3. Lower the mixer speed to the lowest setting and add all remaining ingredients.
4. Pour your cake batter into a terrine mould or loaf tin lined with baking paper.
5. Place in the oven and allow to bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out cleanly.
6. Place you cake in the mood on a cake rack and allow to cool for 1 hour before turning out of the mould.
7. The cake is now ready for its soak, mix together the lemon juice and sugar and pour evenly over the cake, after all the juice has soaked into the cake it is ready to enjoy or once has been left for a day can be sliced and placed in a toaster when ever you feel the desire to have a piece. It will last a week on the bench, 2 in the fridge. A lot longer in the freezer.
Enjoy with a cup of tea, spread some salted butter, cream fraiche, some more rose conserve or a spoon of lemon curd. But always with a cup of tea.
Comments