Kitchen Magic: Making the Most of Windfall Apples

Here's another post by my fellow blogging witch Jane Mortimer, about kitchen magic with foraged fruit:

A few days ago I scrumped and prepped over 4 kilos of apples from the tree I wassailed earlier this year. Two bags of slices went in the freezer, and one got stewed with a few cloves, and we're still getting through it.  

The peel and any unbesmirched cores were stewed in a small amount of water for about 7 minutes in the pressure cooker, left to cool and put in the fridge. A couple of days on, I've assembled my trusty passata mill and put all the soggy peel and cores through it, putting the waste pulp through several more times till it was completely wrung out. The good stuff filled 3 plastic takeaway boxes for the freezer, and the waste was only a couple of tablespoons of wrung out grot for the compost bin. 

The finished product can be added to fruit to make jam. The apple gives jam a more spreadable texture and helps it to set. Or it can be sweetened, a few cloves added, and eaten like stewed apple, the only difference being all the extra pectin. Pectin is a great fibre for sweeping away cholesterol. It is mostly concentrated around the core and just under the skin of the apple, and is often wasted. Chopping whole Bramleys, stewing them and then putting them through a mill or sieve is a great way of retaining all the pectin and busting a bit of cholesterol. 

My passata mill is one of my favourite kitchen toys, but if you've got one, don't do what I did once and try to de-pip blackberries with it. It just doesn't work! It's perfect for tomatoes and apples though.

Happy foraging!

The photos are copyright Jane Mortimer

Previous related posts
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2020/10/pagan-eye-apple-pie-for-feast-of-pomona.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2021/02/wassailing-apple-tree-in-springtime-by.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2021/08/harvest-time-thanking-apple-tree.html