Berry Bonanza

With the end of summer approaching the hedgerows become laden with berries - of all the foraging activities, picking berries is probably the one that most people have done at some time. Coming up is a huge berry bonanza - blackberries, elderberries, bilberries, wild strawberries, haws and rosehips. As winter nears I get the urge to stock up on preserves; jellies, jams and chutneys are all satisfying and bramble jelly is a delicious addition to the cupboard (for a good recipe see ‘The Glorious Blackberry' article in the Food & Drink archives). But I have a more potent use for the blackberry...

Fruit liquors are really tasty yet so simple to make. Whether it's sloe gin, blackcurrant brandy, raspberry vodka or blackberry whisky the same method can apply. You can just substitute your chosen fruit and spirit in the recipe below. Bottle the finished liquor into small bottles for tasty Christmas presents (sorry to use the ‘C' word so early!). WARNING - these fruit liquors are dangerously easy to drink - it is very easy to forget they are a neat spirit! The liquors will mellow in taste and apparently improve over time; I say ‘apparently' because so far all of mine have been drunk within the year! I've now stashed a couple of bottles away in a really awkward place and will test it once a year.

Blackberry Whisky Liquor

• 300g sugar
• 300g blackberries
• 75cl whisky

Pour out half the whisky into each of two clean bottles. Add half the sugar to each bottle, followed by half of the blackberries. Give both bottles a shake and then store in a cool, dark place. Shake the bottles once daily until the sugar has dissolved, then leave for two months before straining the whisky through some muslin cloth into a fresh bottle. This is such a nice treat on a cold winter's night, especially warmed as a variation on a hot toddy!

Dandelion Coffee

Another drink I like to stock up on at this time is Dandelion Coffee... admittedly I'm still perfecting the roast/blend but as a non-caffeine drinker I find this is a good substitute for coffee, with a slightly nutty taste. The gathering can be laborious so maybe for the first time just collect half a carrier bag full and see how you get on! Try to dig up the roots somewhere where the ground is not too compacted and after some wet weather, in spring or autumn. (You can get handy tools for extracting long tap roots in a lot of garden centres.)

Once gathered the dandelion roots need to be washed/scrubbed (be warned - this takes longer than it sounds!). Next, cut the roots into chunks and rinse them in water until it no longer turns cloudy.

Now to dry and roast the roots... I usually leave the roots in the sun for a while to dry, before putting them in the oven to roast on gas mark 2 for about 1 hr 45 mins - they will gradually darken in colour and shrink, however an element of this is down to personal taste and you'll need to experiment with how roasted you like your dandelion coffee. I grind the roasted chunks briefly and then use one heaped tablespoon in a small cafetiere.

Coming back to the berries, I'm looking forward to heading back to the elder trees and collecting some elderberries. I've made Elderberry Wine which has been one of the most drinkable wines I've made but I'm curious to try Elderberry Chutney and am planning to make the following recipe from a fantastic book ‘Edible Wild Plants & Herbs: A compendium of recipes and remedies' by Pamela Michael.

• 500g elderberries, stripped from their stalk
• 1 small onion
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp ground ginger
• A good grating of nutmeg
• ½ tsp mustard seed, tied in a scrap of muslin
• 250ml distilled malt vinegar
• 1 medium cooking apple
• 50g seedless raisins
• 75g soft brown sugar

Wash the elderberries and peel and slice the onion, put them in a large saucepan together with the salt, spices and mustard seed, add the vinegar and cook slowly for 1 hour.

Remove the muslin with the mustard seed and rub the elderberry mixture through a sieve. Return to the pan with the peeled and chopped apple, and the raisins and sugar.

Bring slowly to the boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved, then cook in the open pan for 15 minutes. Pour into warm dry jars, cover with waxed circles while hot, seal with cellophane and cover when cold.

As always with foraging if you're not 100% sure on your identification of the berries then don't pick them! And when you're scrubbing those dandelion roots or trying to get the smell of vinegar out of the kitchen from chutney making just think how nice it will be to open your cupboards to a store of homemade goodies in the winter.

Happy foraging!

Steph

Elderberry photo (c) Carol Hunt 2010