Smoking and preserving
How to wood smoke flaky salt, a recipe for a crab apple jelly and how to lacto-ferment blackberries
West Berkshire, September 2024
The daylight hours, now less in number than those of darkness, propel us toward the last quarter of the year.
The vivid greens of high summer turn to amber, sienna and rust along the lines of soaring canopies that stand along the edge of the woods. Crisp leaves ruffled up in heaps underneath the trees, along the banked-up hedgerows laid down long ago, the twists and knots of the bramble hedges that mark the boundaries between fields, berries still unripe if you look hard enough, ready to be picked for fermenting.
Thin golden leaves from the conker trees spin as they fall in the wind, still brittle without the soft decay from the bite of the dawn frost that will soon come here.
At the farm, stout brown paper sacks full of apples stand in lines on the cold stone floor tiles of the empty old dairy, waiting to be sent to the press. Well over one tonne of fruit has grown in the quiet sunshine of the orchard, with just the muntjac, roe deer and bees for company. The deer come at both dawn and at dusk to eat the windfalls from amongst the grass, scattering fast as soon as their nose finds the scent of anything different. They trigger the cameras in the dark as they eat, unbeknown to them. This will be the third harvest that we will bottle from the estate. Cider vinegar, fermented from last year’s juice, where nearly two hundred litres of fermented cider still sits in large vessels whilst nature goes to work, thick discs of vinegar-mother formed over the last six months floating mid-way in the tanks, suspended in the slowly souring liquid. I know this takes time, and although I check weekly there is little I can do except wait.
Better to wait.
I’d not lit the smoker for a while, as the heap of spindly prunings, cut from the trees last year were not yet dry. Though the tall pile of sticks that we collected from the orchard two years ago that have sat in a great stacked heap under a hazelnut tree, warmed and seasoned over the passing of two summers, now seem brittle enough. A stick that I pull from the middle of the lichen-crusted pile snaps easily in my hands, bone-dry after two years in the wind, yellow and pale-grey scaly plates and tufts of lichen cover the dry bark, the jumble of wood now ready to feed into the loud snarling jaws of the chipper to make sack fulls of splinters that will keep the smoker busy this winter.
The colder months are the best time of year for smoking. Temperatures are lower which helps keep everything cooler but it is the idea of standing in the cold light, feeding splinters of wood to the small pieces of slow-burning charcoal, creating the thick, rich, aromatic sweet smoke that will smoulder for hours that I love.
Blocks of homemade butter smoked over oakwood, piles of flaked salt, bunches of beetroot, plump leeks, trussed pigeons and pheasants all played their part in my standing in the cold worrying about airflow and temperatures. I am a cook who enjoys the simplicity of the old skills. I would rather make a kilo of butter and cold smoke it for an hour than be busy with the ins and outs of a langoustine foam.
Lucky you, I say
Three techniques for you today, the first being an easy(ish) method of smoking salt. Secondly, a jelly condiment which is hyper-seasonal, crab apple and rosehip, something bright and fruity to slather over almost anything. Finally, a way to lacto-ferment the last of the blackberries that are still on the brambles.
And to think I keep getting told I don’t give you any of my recipes.
Smoked sea salt
A task that is relatively straightforward for those of you minded to try this, all that you need are a handful of bits and pieces that most outdoor or at least adventurous cooks should have around them.
Smoked salt is something you can certainly buy in the shops, but to make your own is a step in the direction of brilliance. It is achievable with a minimum of fuss and a little patience.
You need to find a decent amount of well-seasoned wood chips that you like the flavour from. Oak, apple or cherry work best for me.
I would say that chippings are better than sawdust for this as it’s a long smoke, and while others may correct me and say that sawdust works just as well, then that’s perfectly fine, but for me, I like to use chippings. You will need a shoebox full for this, perhaps a little more.
You will need a few charcoal embers to start the smoulder. Some pieces left in the grate should relight, and not a great deal as this is not a barbecue, just a handful or two of pieces to get things going and provide enough fuel to keep the chips burning gently for the hours required.
Igniting a small handful of coals in the base of the chamber of a barbecue (I use a Green Egg which is a very fine piece of equipment, though let it be said that you must not be deterred if you have something different). Let the coals slowly turn grey and powdery, so they almost have burned out, then add just a few small pieces of the wood chip, letting it ignite and begin to smoke, adding a little more to create a small steady grey plume. Gentle fire building is what is required, not a great blaze.
When the smoke is established (it might need coaxing with a few puffs of air, I use a short section of thin metal pipe to blow through) add more chippings so that the edges of the little pile are smoking, building up a mound of chippings that have a smoky glow at their edge and where wisps of smoke find their through the pile from underneath.
When this is just so, the smoker is lit.
When it is clear that the embers are allowing the smoke to grow, and making sure you can see no naked flames, just a red glow underneath if you peer into the pile, take a fine water spray and gently mist the mound of smoking wood chip, certainly not dousing it so that the embers are extinguished.
Some might choose to soak their wood chips beforehand for a while instead which also works, but the misting works better for me. The moisture will slow the burn down so that a fire doesn’t take hold. You want cool slow smoke, not flames. This is a rudimentary form of cold smoking, whereby you are keeping the temperature of the smoker low. The needle of the gauge should barely rise, and to control this, use the vents on the top and the bottom of the barbecue to minimise airflow. Don’t close them completely, but when the smoke has built into a thick moving cloud, shut the lid, and leave just a tiny gap in the vents. Now take a packet or two of the salt that you like, I use Maldon which is hand-harvested from the East coast of England, pour the contents onto either a fine mesh or a metal tray and place it inside the smoke-filled chamber.
Close the lid and walk away.
This will take hours.
Certainly, keep an eye on the progress, this is irresistible for me, as I could happily sit next to it and watch the plumes and wisps of the curly grey fumes rise from the small opening in the chimney.
Let this smoke build and chug along for an afternoon. Once every so often open the lid, perhaps once or twice stirring the salt crystals back over themselves. The pristine white of the salt will mute and turn golden over the day and as the day draws to a close, the smoke will still curl away into the air and eventually die down. By morning the smoker will be out. I like to leave the salt inside to absorb the flavours that drew up over those hours.
Pure woodsmoke.
Embers and wood, no accelerants, just the smell of gently burned applewood, the oils and resins stained into the snowflake structure of the salt crystals that have now turned a gorgeous shade of burnt umber, a salt that will happily be sprinkled over anything you might care to.
A jelly
An abundance of crab apples hangs from two trees here. As a child, I was told not to eat them, so I dutifully ignored them for decades believing them to be poisonous.
With the small oval rosehips appearing on the wild growing bushes that scatter the woodlands and the large and plump red hips from the Rosa Rugosa, the petals are now almost finished for this year, most made into a bright pink floral vinegar, I am minded to make a clear and bright rosehip and crab apple jelly to pour into jars. Flavoured with citrus, aniseed and cinnamon, a deep reddish orange, sticky and sweet, wonderful spread on buttered toast, also wonderful brushed onto roasted venison or a spoonful sat next to a thick slice of smoked ham.
I treated myself to a bottle of wild rose balsamic from Noma this week. Costing three figures I’m minded never to use it, just admire what they have created and draw inspiration from it. I had a plan to age a pear balsamic over time, but the birds got to the pear trees last year before I had a chance to pick them for juice and I was left with only a handful and now I’m stuck with an empty oak barrel, ready to fill with something. Blackcurrant balsamic would be something interesting to begin, but I dont have the fruit as yet, so when the apple vinegar is ready in the coming months, I will attempt over time a barrel of cider balsamic.
Crab apple and rosehip jelly
Let us begin by picking a small basket of rosehips. If you gathered one kilo then you’ve done well. Now pick yourself roughly the same amount of crab apples. Windfalls are fine, just avoid any that are rotten. Wash the rosehips, removing any crispy bits place them in a saucepan and add enough cold water to just cover them. Bring them to a boil and let them cook until soft. This will take about one hour.
Wash the crab apples, pulling away any leaves and place them in another pan, adding just enough water to cover, a couple of cinnamon sticks, the thinly pared rind of a lemon and a few pieces of star anise. Gently cook them till they begin to soften, then add in the stewed rosehips and stir them together. Simmer gently for a short while, crushing some of the fruit against the side of the pan with the back of a spoon. Dont worry about the seeds or stalks as this will all be strained.
When everything is bright and soft, let’s say about an hour or so, turn off the heat and leave the mixture to infuse, let’s say for the time it takes to sit down with a pot of tea.
You must now strain the mixture through a muslin cloth or a jelly bag, as you only want the bright, clear liquid.
When you have squeezed the last drops through the cloth, measure it in a jug or on a scale, and pour it back into a large clean pan.
For every half a litre of juice that you have, you should add an equal amount of sugar. For instance, if you have one litre of clear juice, then add one kilo of granulated sugar. Bring to a simmer, giving a stir once in a while to dissolve the sugar and when boiling, turn down the heat and give it a skim to remove any froth.
Use a thermometer to measure when the setting point is achieved.
Aim for no less than one hundred and six degrees Celsius.
The old-fashioned way as I’m sure you know, is to drip a spoonful onto a saucer that you have kept in the freezer, leaving it to sit for a couple of minutes to see if a skin forms. This does work and if you like to do this then go ahead. If for whatever reason the jelly is not set, then bring it back to the boil again for a few minutes.
The best way to sterilise jars is to wash them with their lids and place them on a tray in a low oven at one hundred degrees Celsius for a while. Often this tip is overlooked, but it is important as it will be the difference between a perfect jar of jelly in one year or instead one covered with mould.
The jelly must be poured carefully into the hot jars and sealed with the lids whilst all is blisteringly hot. Screw down the tops tightly using a cloth and then forget about the jars for a few months.
Don’t label the jars when they’re hot either, as the sticker will wrinkle when the glass is cool and will annoy you.
Fermented blackberries
What is indeed a very easy and a fine addition to the larder, is a pot of fermented blackberries.
Search the hedgerows for the last of the blackberries. Take young unripe red ones, fat black ones and anything in between. As a preserved fruit, left to the wonders of lactic acid fermentation, the starting point is often a world away from the finish. What is essentially the Lactobacillales bacteria turning natural sugar into lactic acid.
Think sourdough bread, pickles and beermaking for another way of looking at what initially might make you nervous.
You will need
300g blackberries, a mixture of ripe and unripe works well
375ml cold water
22g sea salt
1 mandarin zest- pared- no pith
20g wild honey
1 tsp elderberry syrup
Gather a bowl full of whatever blackberries are left on the hedgerows, as said, they don’t all have to be ripe. The little stubbornly unripe ones are also excellent as a pickle. Don’t wash them, but allow any little insects to walk away, then tip them into a bowl, adding the sea salt and mixing gently together. Now place everything in a glass jar, and using a rubber spatula, make sure to scrape every last bit of salt in with them. Add the rest of the ingredients and gently stir, then cut a disc of greaseproof kitchen paper to keep everything submerged. Place a lid on top, you could use a fermenting jar, but as long as you remember to burp the jar once or twice over the coming days, then any good-sized jar will do. Now the thing to do is to leave them in a warm room for about a week. You will notice that they will start to emit little traces of bubbles after a day or so, this is what to expect.
They are fermenting.
The lacto-fermentation is going about its business.
What you should do is to taste after let’s say four to five days of gentle fizzing and if you like what you taste, then place the jar in the fridge to stop the process. They will certainly develop more tang and flavour as a few more days pass, so leave them until they are to your liking, then keep them in the fridge. Lift them out with a spoon and scatter them over nice things.
I use them with roasted game, along with the rosehip jelly as a way of giving sharpness and sweetness to enhance the flavours on the plate.
They are also delicious with a piece of ripe soft cheese and the juice can be used as part of a vinaigrette or dressed over a pile of roasted beetroots.
Finally
I hope that this email finds you all well.
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Thank you to you all for joining me here.
Till next week when I shall likely tell you about porcini mushrooms and wild honey amongst other things.
William
I love the idea of fermenting blackberries - I've never done it and I've no ides why...probably because you are less dim than I. Thank you, I shall get on with it
I’ll try the ferment with some mulberries. Or maybe some of our native raspberries, which are not really like regular raspberries.