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Vin d’orange

2 February 2022

Making apéritif alcohol infusions isn’t the peak or culmination of proficiency and dedication in the kitchen. Just the opposite. Few things are as easy as cutting fruit, scooping sugar, and pouring over some strong alcohol. Everyone should try it, especially anyone who wouldn’t touch a kitchen appliance with a ten-foot pole. Unlike preserving or canning, which usually involves quite a bit of prep, macerating, simmering, and sterilising of jars, not to mention the faintest hovering threat of serious poisoning, here there is no risk attached, the combination of sugar and strong alcohol makes sure of it.

One of my oldest friends, who is possibly also one who cooks the least, has been infusing rum with fruits, spices, herbs — even, I think, vegetables! — for decades. Many start as experiments, none follow a measured recipe. She has a whole trunkful at home, dozens and dozens of bottles. For years, every time we saw her, she also brought along a bottle (or two or three) of prunelle (sloe liqueur), made by her mother, who wasn’t, I understand, a particularly enthusiastic cook either. She had quite a way with prunelle, though.

This is where I got the hint. When I want to make something but have neither much time, nor much patience, I seep fruit in alcohol. And so we have jars of fruit-seeped alcohol — and alcohol-seeped fruit — in every corner of the kitchen. I have now taken up the mantle of prunelle production, I’ve made Seville orange gin, I have a traditional rum pot macerating with summer fruit, and another with dried fruit. I’ve even experimented with quince, though the ratafia needs some fine tuning.

Vin d’orange, a delicately flavoured bitter-orange apéritif originally from the South of France, is just such a project — ridiculously quick and easy. All it needs is a bit of patience (a few weeks at least), and, later, someone with whom to crack open a bottle.

Vin d’orange recipe adapted from Samin Nosrat
I tried a couple of different recipes for vin d’orange last year. I like this one best with just rosé and vodka. I’ve adjusted quantities, the recipe remains pretty much the same.

A large, closeable glass jar with a capacity of 3 litres (and later 3 clean sealable 750ml bottles)

4 Seville oranges
1 orange
1/2 lemon
180g to 200g sugar
1 vanilla bean, cut in half lengthwise
1.5 litres (= 2 bottles) of rosé wine (cheap but drinkable!)
350ml (= half a bottle) of vodka

Wash and dry the jar with a clean cloth.

Rinse all the citrus, cut them it into smallish chunks.

Place all the fruit into the jar. Add the sugar and vanilla bean, and pour in the alcohol. Mix well but gently until the sugar dissolves. Seal tightly and leave in a cool, dark place (or the fridge, if there is room!) for about a month. (Samin Nosrat suggests between 32 and 40 days, but I am pretty sure I left mine quite a bit longer last year. Whatever suits, it’s far from a perfect science!)

After about a month, when the vin d’orange has developed the right orangey and bitter taste, strain the liquid through a fine mesh sieve lined with two layers of cheesecloth into clean sealable bottles. The vin d’orange is now ready to drink, and will only get better and better.

Serve chilled, with friends.

Tags:apéritif, homemade, vin d'orange
Posted in Aperitif / Tapas, Drinks, Easy, Homemade and preserves, Seasonal, Winter | Leave a Comment »

Fig leaf wine apéritif

1 September 2018

Some people will consider this the first weekend of autumn, but, succomb as I may to those plums and first apples, I am holding on firmly to summer for a few more weeks if I can.

I prepared this fig leaf apéritif about a week ago. As it only takes a few days to infuse, now is still the time to make a bottle for those last late summer evenings. There won’t be much of a thematic clash, September is fig season after all.

This recipe is particularly exciting for those of us who live in the North, as it just uses fig leaves. For all optimistic boreal gardeners and green city dwellers (many London gardens have a fig tree stretching its branches above the fence within reach of the sidewalk…), who monitor those trees with anxiety and trepidation, monitoring the evolution of each fruit, this is the solution.

Even if the figs never ripen there is a path straight to Provence with this apéritif.

The recipe comes from Thom Eagle via Diana Henry about two years ago. It bears repeating every year.

Fig leaf wine

10 fig leaves
One bottle (75 cl) dry white wine
160 g sugar
One giant glug of vodka

Crumple the fig leaves and place them in a clean jar with the white wine, sugar, and vodka. Stir or shake well, and leave to infuse for 3 to 5 days.

Strain out the leaves and pour into a bottle with a tight lid.

Serve over ice.

Tags:aperitif, drinks, fig leaf, homemade, liqueurs
Posted in Aperitif / Tapas, Drinks, Foraged, Homemade and preserves, Seasonal, Summer, Wild food | 4 Comments »

Quail eggs with cumin salt

22 June 2017

Since we’re talking about apéros, here is one of my favorite things to accompany those pre-dinner drinks.

The idea is from Moro The Cookbook, which I talked about in detail some time ago. Re-reading now what I wrote then has inspired me to delve back in, because in the intervening years the only things I’ve made from the book were the Pimentón roasted almonds and these quail eggs; there is so much more!

It’s hard to overstate the simplicity: Boil the eggs — four minutes. Run them under cold water. Toast the cumin seeds lightly, grind them with some sea salt.

It can be made ahead. It’s so simple, so pretty, and so good! And now that we’ve all stopped smoking, we need something to occupy idle hands while drinking our negronis.

Quail eggs with cumin salt recipe from Moro The Cookbook

Quail eggs (a dozen serves about 4)
2 tsps cumin seeds
1 tsp sea salt

Boil the quail eggs in a gentle simmer for 4 minutes. Remove from heat, run under cold water, let cool.

In a small saucepan, roast the cumin seeds on low until just beginning to change color, about 2 to 3 minutes.

In a mortar, grind the cumin seeds with the sea salt. Transfer to a small serving bowl.

To eat, peel each egg and dip it in the cumin salt for every mouthful.

Posted in Aperitif / Tapas, Drinks, Easy, Eggs, Year-round | 1 Comment »

L’Apéro

19 June 2017

Summer is around the corner and the weather isn’t lying. One gloriously sunny day succeeds the next; pale limbs are bared, the parks have erupted in green, speckled with readers and sunbathers, the odd spot of color. There is no place like London at this time of year — the air is impossibly mild, fragrant. ‘Tis the season for ‘apéros,’ or better still, ‘apéros longs.’

The apéro — short for apéritif — is the cultural habit any visitor to France will learn. It is the first insight young French children have into the mysterious interactions of the adult world; that fleeting moment, saying hello to the guests before being sent off to bed. — For a French child, staying up through an apéro marks the stages of growing as assuredly as notches on the kitchen door.

‘C’est l’heure de l’apéro’! A tray is pulled, the bright clinking of glasses, a bottle or two, a bowl of ice, some olives, nuts, saucisson — the basics.

The hallowed French tradition of apéros is ubiquitous; a pastis in the South, a beer in Paris; after work during the week, on holiday after an afternoon at the beach. It is the unwinding at the end of the day, the coming together before dinner. The apéro might include a bowl of peas to shell, some vegetables to chop. The evening could continue together, or everyone is free to go on to other occupations.

And in the middle, there are ‘apéros longs.‘ Here, the casual early evening drink morphs more or less intentionally into an informal dinner, a leisurely succession of bite-sized food and drink, that evolves organically into elastic evenings.

I’m a fan, especially when time is constricted by the other stuff of life.

Dinners are time-consuming and can be constraining, even for someone who loves to cook. ‘Apéros longs‘ are less pressure. The food must be forthcoming, and I like to bring different elements out in stages, rather than everything at once, to create a rhythm, give the evening some punctuation. But it can all be extremely simple. Starting with olives, nuts, saucisson; continuing into a platter of prosciutto, mozarella, and basil; always some vegetables — tomatoes, fennel, radishes; cheeses. All of this only requires assembling, no cooking involved.

But of course, one could cook. Lightly charred padrón peppers, chicken liver terrine or pork rillettes, potted crab, quiches, asparagus with burrata! Things to make ahead or last-minute improvisations. And, always, something sweet at the end, even if it is just a bowl of cherries or a few squares of chocolate.

Listen to the call. Apéros longs are the siren songs of elongated summer evenings.