Now is the time of year when rhubarb is readily available. Why not get the preserving pan out, celebrate this most English of vegetables, and try some of the following recipes:

 

Elderflower and Rhubarb Jam
A combination of the best two early summer flavours.

Rhubarb and Ginger Schnapps
A delicious summer drink, spiced up with a hint of ginger.

Rhubarb Schnapps
A special drink ready in time for the summer, great served with fizzy wine.

Rhubarb and Ginger Jam
A subtle tasting jam with crystallised ginger.

Rhubarb Chutney
Recipe for a rich dark chutney with apricots.

 

Rhubarb Relish
Make with maincrop rhubarb, good with curries, oily fish and cheese.

 

As the pickle and preserve website has been going for over a year now I thought it would be interesting to see what the most popular recipes have been amongst visitors.

So here goes the top five in ascending order:

At number 5, and very apt for this time of year is Rhubarb Chutney.

At number 4, well worth making yourself,  Pickled Onions.

At number 3, lovely on toast, Rhubarb and Ginger Jam.

At number 2, a modern classic, Red Onion Marmalade.

And the surprise entry at number 1, the perfect accompaniment to the nations favorite dish, Lime Pickle.

With 7500 views between them that's an awful lot of jars of preserve.....

image source kilmerhouse.com

I used up some of my bargain car boot sale limes on making lime chutney, but have been searching for a spicier Indian style lime pickle recipe. The problem I've been coming up with is that most of the recipes involve leaving the pickle in full sunlight for several days, fine if you live on the Indian sub-continent, but a bit more difficult during your typical English summer.

In the end I had to go with one just to try it out, this is an interesting recipe as far a pickling goes in that it doesn't contain vinegar or oil, the preserving is presumably done with a combination of the acidic lime juice, salt and sugar. I'm still looking for a recipe for an oil based lime pickle as I still have a few limes left (now safely stored in the freezer)

See here for the lime pickle recipe.

Recipe Costs

£0.32 1kg (about 16) limes (or £2.56 if buying from tesco)
£ 0.04 100g salt
£0.47 500g sugar
£0.26 1 teaspoon cardamom seeds (ground)
£0.12 2 teaspoons cumin seeds (ground)
£0.10 Half a teaspoon cloves (ground)
£0.03 Chilli powder as per taste required
£0.75 75 g of grated ginger root
£0.03 1 teaspoon Fenugreek (methi seeds)
£0.03 1 teaspoon Mustard seeds
£2.15 Total (or £4.39 if buying limes from tesco)
£4.09 per kg of chutney - about the same as the equivalent at  tesco (£8.28 with buying full price limes - nearly twice the cost of equivalent at tesco)

Salting the limes brought out a fair amount of juice.

The remaining juice is then squeezed out.

Seeds ready for grinding in my favorite pestle and morter, I didn't grind these to a powder as I don't mind a bit of texture in the chutney.

All the ingredients are mixed together and boiled for a minute, the limes are still quite hard when packed into the steralised jars, or in this case jar, as it was reasonably large. There was a lot of surplus liquid once the jar had been topped up.

 Amazing that 16 limes can be packed into one jar, this was then left on a sunny window sill for a couple of weeks, hopefully this will replicate the Indian sun. 

Recipe Timings

30 mins preparation
10 mins simmering
5 mins potting

Taste Test

I left these for around 10 months before opening, and the first thing I noticed was that they were dryer than shop bought pickles. When making these again I will probably not pack the fruit in so tight so as to allow a it more room for some of the surplus liquid.
The texture however is spot on, just firm enough to provide some bite, without being overly chewy. The sour lime flavour comes through very well, more so than the spices. Next time I'll try increasing the quantities of the spices, especially the chilli powder as I prefer my lime pickle to have a little more of a kick.

I was in Manchester yesterday and popped into an old haunt, Appna Food Stores, to stock up on spices and pickles. In amongst the lime pickle and mango pickle was this jar of Gooseberry pickle, which I couldn't resist bringing home to try.

After a bit of research it turns out this is a pickle made from Indian Gooseberries (nellakai in tamil, amla in hindi) as opposed to the commen or garden English gooseberry. Bit of a shame as I had grand plans to turn the gooseberries from our overladen bushes in the garden into something hot and spicy.

The ingredients are listed as Gooseberries, Salt, Red Chilly, Mustard, Turmeric, Asafoetida, Ginger, Garlic, Vinegar and Gingelly Oil.
I'd assumed the last ingredient was a mis-spelling of gingery oil, but it turns out to be sesame oil.

I've found a marvelous looking recipe with pictures on the tickling palates blog, which would be good to have a go at if I can find some of the fresh fruit next time I'm near supermarket a bit more exciting than Morrisons.

The pickle itself tastes extremely hot, as you might expect, with a sour note from the fruit. The Indian gooseberries are much more crunchy and firm than ripe English ones would be.