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Anne’s Wonderful Rich Chai Syrup
From Berlin with Love

Anne sent us over a lovely xmas package with some goodies- a yellow spatula, a cute re-usable spotty bag, and best of all some super tasty chai syrup which she knocked up her self. We promptly finished the bottle and then craving more, begged for the recipe, which she very kindly provided.

The syrup is deep with flavour and is sweet without being too sickly. Anne said it would make the house smell great - and by god it did!

Ingredients
2 teaspoon of pepper corns
3 stick of cinnamon
2 tablespoons of cardamon pods
Root ginger, thinly sliced - 3 inch section
2 teaspoons of cloves
3 jars of honey
1 litre of water
Clean and sterilised jars

Mix and crush gently all of the big spices - and then tip into1 liter of water - bring to the boil and simmer gently for 30 mins. Stir in 2 Barry’s tea-bag (Anne was very specific about this, had to be Barry's!) for two mins until a rich deep tea red color.

Sieve the water to rid it of any bits and pieces. Then add the three jars of honey. Bring this to a gently boil until it thickens up and darkens slightly.

Pour into sterilised jars. We did this by boiling them in a big pan of water for 20 minutes. The recipe makes in terms of volume about equal to the amount of honey that you put in – so if you like you could sterilize the jars that you took the honey from.

This syrup is great poured into hot milk, with blueberries over yogurt, on apple pancakes and also very, very good in tea. I’m tempted to use it as the sweetener in a fresh batch of granola also. We made two type on with Barry sand the other with green tea. The barry’s turned out a bit richer and a darer colour. Anne asked for a vanilla pod in the recipe – but we didn’t have one- maybe that’s the secret ingredient.

Thanks Anne I foresee this becoming a kitchen staple - see you for St Patricks Day!

Roast Loin of Pork with apple stuffing and roasted winter vegetables

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We had 10 for a pre christmas Monday night dinner. Lu, Sarah & I ( all three residents of number 7) decided we would each cook a course and really wanted to do a big roast, so I asked if I could do the main event. Sucker for punishment, me.

Thinking we were going to be feeding 12, I bought two MASSIVE pieces of pork loin and asked the butcher to open them out so that I could stuff them. In the end we had 10 people but two were veggies. So between 8 of us we still managed to polish off almost all of the pork, which is a testament to how well it turned out!

We dressed up the table with green napkins, my green goblets from Habitat and some gorgeous green and pink woven fabric that Sarah had spare as she works as a textile designer. Then Pamela arrived with a big poinsettia which we used as a centrepiece. The whole thing was very christmassy indeed!

I made the stuffing the night before heres the recipe for it, first of all

Apple and rosemary stuffing:

4 oz butter

4 tbsps olive oil

1 bag breadcrumbs

1 white onion,

1 red onion

4 cloves garlic

1 handful sage

3 or 4 stalks rosemary

1 eating apple, diced.

Melt the butter with the oil in a large pot. Dice the onion and garlic finely and saute in the butter and oil. When almost soft add the diced peeled apple. Cook for 2 minutes or so but don't let the apple get too soft. add the chopped sage and rosemary and stir in for a few seconds, then add the breadcrumbs and stir well so that they absorb all the butter and oil. Season to taste. Leave to cool.

Roast stuffed loin of pork with roasted winter vegetables.

Loin of pork

olive oil

1 quantity stuffing

5 rashers of streaky bacon

8 cloves of garlic

parsnips & carrots peeled & cut into quarters or eighths.

Salt & Pepper

Open out the loin of pork where the butcher has cut or 'butterflied' it. using a rolling pin bash the meat to flatten it out a bit, then make a 'sausage' shape out of the stuffing and place in the centre of the cut. Bring the sides of the meat back together. Cover the join with the rashers and use string (not plastic string or it will melt!) to tie the whole thing together. You will need to ties 4 -6 lengths of string around the joint.

Place the parsnips, carrots and garlic cloves (unpeeled!) in a large oven tray and toss in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Place the Pork, bacon side up on top of the vegetables. Rub salt, pepper and olive oil all over the joint. The meat will need to cook for 20 mins per pound so weigh it and place it in an oven at about 230c for however long you need. Mine took 2 hours and 20 mins!! so that tells you how ridiculously big it was! Have a peek at it every now and then and if you think its getting burned or dry on the top just put a bit of tin foil over it.

This makes the best gravy as roasting it on top of the veggies will produce delicious juices. When you are almost ready to serve, transfer the meat to a chopping board and let it rest in a warm place with some tin foil over it. Put the vegetables in a dish and put them back in the oven to keep warm. Take the roasting dish and place it on a low heat on your stove. remove any large bits of burned material, and take the roasted garlic cloves out of their skins. Using the back of a wooden spoon, mash the roasted garlic cloves into the juices. Add 1 or 2 tbsps of flour, depending on how thick you like your gravy and stir. Then add some stock & white or red wine. you will need about 1 pint of liquid altogether if you are cooking for 10 people. Stir the liquid in to the pan juices. Season to taste. I also like to add a bit of apple sauce when making pork. Stir until thickened and pour into a jug or gravy boat.

Serve with roast potatoes and apple sauce, which you can make by cutting up 4 or 5 apples and throwing the pieces in a pot with about 3 oz of butter. Stew this for about 10 mins, stirring all the time and add some salt to taste.