Pam the Jam's Piccalilli

 

I used to get Haywards Piccalilli but find it really difficult to get anymore - tastes change. I now make this a few times a year and it is superb. It is a complete faff to make and it won't be ready for more than a month. But I love it and I will be the God of sandwiches.

There are lots of recipes out there but I like the one from Pam the Jam in River Cottage. Remember to cut the vegetables into tiny pieces - about the size of a baby finger nail.



Inredients

1kg washed, peeled vegetables –  cauliflower; green beans; cucumbers; carrots; small silver-skinned onions or shallots; peppers. You can substitute if you like. BTW - I scoop the watery 'core' out of the centre of the cucumber as it gets a bit mushy.

50g fine salt

30g cornflour

10g ground turmeric

10g English mustard powder

15g yellow mustard seeds

1 tsp crushed cumin seeds

1 tsp crushed coriander seeds

600ml cider vinegar

150g granulated sugar

50g honey

Place chopped vegetables in a large bowl and sprinkle with the salt. Mix well, cover the bowl with a tea towel and leave in a cool place for 24 hours, then rinse the veg with ice-cold water and drain thoroughly.

Blend the cornflour, turmeric, mustard powder, mustard seeds, cumin and coriander to a smooth paste with a little of the vinegar. Put the rest of the vinegar into a saucepan with the sugar and honey and bring to the boil.

Pour a little of the hot vinegar over the blended spice paste, stir well and return to the pan. Bring gently to the boil. Boil for 3–4 minutes to allow the spices to release their flavours into the thickening sauce.

Remove the pan from the heat and carefully fold the well-drained vegetables into the hot, spicy sauce. Pack the pickle into warm, sterilised jars and seal immediately with vinegar-proof lids. Leave (if you can) for 4–6 weeks before opening. Use within a year.

Oranges make a landscape look more beautiful.

Each day I would walk North along the old Roman roadways, the stone, humpbacked bridges, and forest paths that have brought pilgrims from Porto for thousands of years. Limestone flags have been worn down by legions of feet before me. The road has changed little. Through the vineyards and eucalyptus forests, through the farmyards and bucolic peace, through the North of Portugal in the water-colour, wintry, sunshine. The land was devoid of young people – they have left for Brazil and the hope of prosperity – they have left a land melancholy, bordering on Gothic. Black, arthritic, vines twist behind ornate, wrought iron, rusting gates. Decaying protection for valuables long gone.

In the evening I would eat baked pike or tench or the ubiquitous salt cod bacalao, drinking bottles of Super Bock and cold sweet glasses of Porto Brancho. I would be packed and on the road before seven each morning and be moving well before the grey light of dawn showed my first yellow arrow.

There is a Portuguese word, Saudade, for which there is no direct translation but it broadly means the love that remains after someone has gone. This was melancholia with knobs on. I am tempted to tell Portugal to stop socializing with other depressed countries.

After five days on the road I walked down the hill in Valenca in Portugal, across the big metal Eiffel
Bridge and into Tui in Galician Spain. Bridges had become an important aspect of my journey and they resonated with the historic importance they would once have had. Crossing a bridge normally meant a change in landscape, a change of people and this time a change in language. And, as bridges over water are at the lowest point in the vicinity, the road that leads out is invariably uphill.

And so I walked into Spain in early December and Spain was beautiful in the tourist free winter. There is a man roasting chestnuts and the smoky, wintry smell is carried along with the strains of a busker playing a set of Galician pipes. Evocatively named towns like Pontevedra, Redondela and Padron signpost good times ahead. There is a big copper, bas relief, commemorating members of the Quinta Brigada slain in Tui and, skateboarding past the symbols of their recent history, tanned boys in white t shirts leap in a timeless dance before pretty young girls. 

Incongruously, there are orange trees along the street, I bend to pick a fallen fruit from the grass verge. I peel it, going down the street and marvel at the different plump sections packed together in one orange nation. I steal off Galicia and taste it – it is both bitter and sweet and irrepressibly fresh.