Helen Graham serves up intelligent methods to make use of plums and cucumbers.
Each plums’ and cucumbers’ seasons are slowly grinding to a halt. Rising up, our next-door neighbours had a plum tree that hung over our backyard, providing juicy fruit simply out of attain for me and my little brother for a lot of the summer season. Trying again, our neighbours Joan and Charles wouldn’t have cared one iota about us plucking the plums. However we’d make it our stealth mission to fly below the radar, plonking my brother on a makeshift statement tower (a precariously positioned step stool) whereas I stuffed my pockets.
In direction of the tip of September, as soon as the plums started to fall with abundance and pile up in our backyard, rapidly turning into a cool smelling sticky slime, we’d placed on wellies and do a celebratory soar and slide by means of the backyard, actually coated in plum mulch.
These days, because the plum and cucumber seasons come to a detailed, as soon as I’ve bored with plum tarts, jams and compotes, and cucumber-based salads, I attempt to have a look at this stuff anew earlier than I set my sights on root greens for the approaching winter.
A former head chef’s voice all the time rings in my ear: ‘‘inform me one thing new concerning the star of the dish’’.
With plums, the purpose the place my brother and I have been carrying them head to toe would have been a superb time to attempt the fruit with the second recipe on this function, the place ripe plums are roasted with cabbage, collapsing and dissolving, changing into the sticky dressing for his or her roasting tray’s bedfellow. The result’s sudden, but extremely addictive. Plums supply an incredible foil for one thing as deeply savoury as a cabbage, with a sourness that’s extra pronounced by the addition of lime juice and the slight bitterness of the charred cabbage leaves.
Within the first recipe, I share a dish for grilled cucumbers. Solely child cucumbers will do for this, with their skinny pores and skin, agency texture and excessive density of flavour, permitting them to resist the warmth and develop into, someway, extra akin to a courgette, but lighter and crunchier. It’s a whole revelation.
When you have a barbecue on the go, these could be even higher for a lick of stay hearth, so long as you continue to salt them earlier than cooking to make sure their texture is firmed and they’re seasoned all through and that you just solely cook dinner them on the reduce aspect, so to not soften them an excessive amount of and lose their chunk.
Grilled cucumber, fennel, curry leaf and pomegranate salsa, garlic yoghurt
I really like tzatziki. I like it a lot that I’ve reconfigured it right here to make it the star of the present, with a number of untraditional starring company. Grilled cucumbers may appear slightly unusual, however they tackle such a special character after being cooked, and are extra in a position to stand as much as daring flavour pairings with out disappearing right into a puddle. Do be sure to use the child cucumber selection — it’s their concentrated flavour and denser texture that makes this dish sing.
Serves 4
Prepared in 35 minutes.
5 Tbsp olive oil
1 fennel, halved, robust outer leaves eliminated and reduce into small cube
1 tsp desk salt
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
5g curry leaves, stalk eliminated
3 Tbsp lime juice
1 Tbsp agave syrup
50g pomegranate seeds
For the garlic yoghurt
300g Greek yoghurt
2 garlic cloves, finely grated
½ Tbsp dried mint
Salt a superb pinch
For the grilled cucumbers
600g Lebanese cucumbers, halved lengthwise
½ tsp salt
Methodology
Warmth the olive oil in a saucepan set over a medium warmth. Add the fennel and salt and saute for 4 minutes, stirring often, till the fennel is starting to melt. Stir within the garlic and curry leaves and saute for an extra 4-5 minutes, till the curry leaves are crisp and the garlic is smooth.
Decant right into a bowl, enable to chill slightly earlier than including within the lime juice, agave syrup and pomegranate seeds. In a separate bowl, stir collectively the substances for the garlic yoghurt and set to 1 aspect.
Lay the halved cucumbers on a baking sheet, sprinkle with the salt after which combine along with your arms so it’s evenly distributed. Enable to sit down for 5-10 minutes, till they launch their liquid. Pat this extra liquid dry with a paper towel.
Set a large saucepan on a excessive warmth. You’ll must cook dinner your cucumbers in 2-3 batches, however as soon as sizzling, place the primary batch of cucumbers reduce aspect down and permit to cook dinner for about 5 minutes, till they’re blackened and slightly burnished. Don’t flip them — you continue to wish to retain some crunch and freshness. Switch the primary batch to a plate, then repeat with the remaining cucumbers.
To serve, unfold the garlic yoghurt on to a plate, high with the cucumbers and sprinkle over the salsa.
Roast savoy cabbage and plums with star anise, cinnamon and soy dressing
Whenever you roast plums on this approach with the cabbage slices, they collapse and dissolve into the cabbage, making a candy, tangy dressing. Do be sure the plums are ripe and smooth — it is usually a good way to make use of overripe plums, particularly when the season is drawing to a detailed and also you’re left with a glut.
Serves 3-4 as a aspect
Prepared in 45 minutes
1 savoy cabbage, reduce into 8 equal wedges
300g ripe plums, halved, de-stoned and every reduce into 8 slices
4 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp desk salt
For the dressing
40g brown sugar
100ml water
5 star anise
3 Tbsp lime juice
1 Tbsp soy sauce
½ tsp floor cinnamon
1 tsp fish sauce/vegan fish sauce
For the garnish
40g roasted peanuts, roughly chopped
15g coriander, roughly chopped
Methodology
Preheat oven to 220°C/fuel mark 7. Convey a big pot of salted water to the boil. Add the cabbage and cook dinner for 3 minutes, till the leaves are vivid inexperienced.
Pressure and permit to chill and steam dry within the colander for 10 minutes or so. Add to a big lined baking tray together with the plums, oil and salt.
Toss so it’s all coated within the oil, then roast for 20-25 minutes, turning midway, till the cabbage leaves are crisp on the edges, and the plums have collapsed and turned jammy.
Whereas the cabbage is roasting, add the sugar, water and star anise to a small pan and set on a medium-high warmth.
Simmer for 10-Quarter-hour, till diminished by half, then pressure the syrup right into a small bowl, discarding the star anise and permit to chill. Stir within the lime, soy sauce, cinnamon and fish sauce.
Take away the baking paper from the cabbage, then pour over the dressing and toss collectively completely. Switch to a serving dish and garnish with the peanuts and coriander. — The Observer
Helen Graham is a chef and meals author in London
