Tag: drink

Rooibos, lemon & mint iced tea

Hugo HarrisonLeave a comment
Rooibos iced tea. Source: DWD.
Rooibos iced tea. Source: DWD.

Recent warm weather (as well as plans to fly across the pond) have had me dreaming of all things light, cool and refreshing. Following on from my recent southern food obsession, I decided to try my hand at brewing iced tea.

Here rooibos tea not only provides a beautiful smoky flavour and ruby red aesthetic, but it’s naturally caffeine free.

It’s important to steep the tea for around 12 hours, and once brewed it will keep in the fridge for at least 4 days.

Serves 4

60g loose leaf rooibos tea, or 3 rooibos tea bags

100g granulated sugar

2 lemons, sliced

1 bunch of mint, roughly chopped, plus 4 small sprigs to serve

Method: In a large container or bowl, add the rooibos tea and 1l of water. Allow to brew for at least 12 hours, covered, in the fridge.

Add the sugar, 1 lemon, mint and  200ml of water into a small saucepan. Over a medium heat, stir continuously until the sugar has dissolved. Once dissolved, bring the syrup to a rolling boil and simmer for 10 minutes, until it reaches the consistency of olive oil.

Pass the syrup through a sieve into a sterilised, sealable bottle, using the back of a wooden spoon to push all of the liquid from the lemon and mint leaves (which will be quite mushy) through. This will keep for up to two weeks in the fridge.

To serve, use a ratio of 1:4 syrup to brewed tea. Add the syrup over crushed ice and stir. Add the iced tea and top up with ice if required. Serve with half a slice of lemon and a sprig of mint.

Are we losing our taste for gooseberries?

Hugo HarrisonLeave a comment

When was the last time you tasted a gooseberry? The encounter may well have been short and sour – you could even be one of a growing number of people whose first experience of a gooseberry is their last. In the not-too-distant future, however, these encounters (pleasurable or not) could be few and far between.

In August 2015, The Telegraph reported that ‘the death of the British gooseberry is nigh’ – but how close are we to the extinction of this heritage fruit from the British isles?

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A basket of gooseberries.

Piers Pool’s fruit farm, High House, is one of the few places left in the country that you can pick your own (PYO) gooseberries. ‘Their status somehow has changed,’ he said, ‘from being a sort-of staple to something that is a little bit more select and sought-after’.

The Suffolk farm has been growing gooseberries on a small-scale for 15 years. Before that, when Piers’ father ran the farm, the gooseberry field was nearly five times larger, spread over two and a half acres. ‘When we used to open [the field] for pick your own there would be cars parked all the way up that road and the public would come in here and clear the lot in one weekend – it was just unbelievable.’

Piers now sells an 100th of that quantity over the entire six week gooseberry season, but what is driving this fall in popularity? ‘Gooseberries, like rhubarb, are not something you can just buy and put in your mouth like you can with strawberries or raspberries,’ Piers said. ‘I think our cooking habits and our eating habits have changed, and now I think people aren’t so keen on the things that you actually have to cook and do something with.’

A bowl of gooseberries.
A bowl of gooseberries.

There is, according to Piers, still a small and steady demand for them as a ‘seasonal rarity’, but their short shelf life and limited availability make it difficult for the majority of consumers to buy them. On paper at least, there is very little incentive for farmers to invest in this small, grape-like fruit – so why grow them at all?

‘The sort of fruit farm that we are, we like to grow a little bit of everything,’ explained Piers. High House can also boast a number of apple and pear varieties, cherries, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries and a rarer relative of the latter – loganberries.

‘They’re not particularly difficult [to grow],’ Piers admitted, ‘but you’ve got to pay attention to detail…the biggest difference in growing gooseberries over the last few years is that pigeons are a massive problem.

‘We’ve had to start netting the gooseberries to keep [the pigeons] off, otherwise we would lose the whole crop.’ This intervention is only driving the cost of production higher, something that is not ideal for growers and buyers alike. Will Piers continue to grow gooseberries? ‘As long as the demand, albeit on small scale, is there.’

A baker’s hot toddy

Hugo Harrison2 Comments

hot toddy 2

Until recently I thought this honey, whiskey and lemon combination was a drink exclusively for victims of winter’s illnesses, or those with trouble sleeping. That was until a Canadian baker I had the pleasure of working with suggested it as a festive alternative to a beer, for marking the end of the week in the bakery.

Admittedly I had to do some reading, as I wasn’t entirely sure of a reliable hot toddy formula. Eventually I found one, and as Friday arrived, so too did the hot toddies.

hot toddy 1

We added a slice of apple to ours, providing not only the delicious smell of spiced cider, but a little treat at the bottom of the cup when all the whiskey has been washed away.

Here’s a slight variation on the traditional Scottish hot toddy:

1 measure of whiskey
1 heaped tsp of honey
2 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
1 slice of lemon
1-2 tsp of lemon juice
1 mug of hot water

Add all the ingredients, besides the hot water into a mug. Pour over just-boiled water (90/95c) and give a good stir. The reason for using water that isn’t boiling here is that if it is too hot, the whiskey’s alcoholic properties can deteriorate, which isn’t very jolly at all.

Best enjoyed with Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses. Merry Christmas everyone!

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