Tasty Lunch variation

Clearly I love my sprats on toast with tomato. Tried out this variation and, can you believe it was even better! First off it was helped that I used our own beef tomato that was so sweet and tender, such a difference compared to the hard flavourless commercial 'vine' tomatoes. So generally follow my previous Tasty Lunch post. But having butterfly filleted the sprats and cleaned the inside of the fillets with a kitchen towel, the next step is to take some very thin cut prosciutto ham and cut into long strips, the length of the slice, about 30mm wide. Layout on a board. Take each fillet with tail end, less fin, placed at the bottom edge of the ham with the rest of the fillet lying on the ham up towards the top. Cut a firm gherkin into long thick strips, about 6mm square and roughly 50mm long. Place a gherkin strip on the fillet end, then, making sure you pick up the end of the ham, roll is tightly up, place with the top end of ham at the bottom to keep it in shape. Now grill with a sprinkle of olive oil for about four minutes until fish flesh turns white and ham begins to crisp, Keep a watch and do not over cook them. Keep warm and set aside

Now time for the toast, lightly grilled, cut off the crust if you prefer and coated with your prepared tomato mixture (skinned tomato, shallot, garlic, olive oil, all lightly blitzed) taking it right to the edges and then place a line of thin raw tomato slices along the toast. Splash of oil put toast and tomato mixture under the grill briefly until the raw tomato just softens, remove, place the sprat rolls onto the toast and enjoy with a green salad.

The way to Damson Jam

Damson Jam has the greatest intense flavour and a great balance between intense sweetness and the bitter sharp undertones. But these small plums with the stones clinging onto the fruit are tiresome and laborious to prepare. I read across many recipes and this is the method I followed which has produced a well set jam, full on flavour and not unduly arduous to make. Weigh your just ripe damsons, (thank you Pixford Fruit Farm, Bishops Lydeard for perfect fruit) and weigh out an equal measure of granulated sugar. Put the sugar in a low oven to warm. Using a cherry stoner, remove the stones from each fruit keeping the fruit separate from the stones. The stones will cling on to some of the fruit depending on how ripe the damsons are. No matter. Put the de-stoned fruit into a large enough preserving pan so you have room to easily turn the fruit around and put over a very low heat. At this moment you are just warming the fruit through, getting the juices to flow. Put the stones and their clinging fruit into another saucepan together with a small quantity of water. I used just under three-quarter pint water to 5lb of fruit so you must adjust the water to suit your weight of fruit. Put onto a medium to high heat but watch and keep giving an occasional stir. Very quickly the pulp will begin to thicken the water which will easily catch and burn on the bottom of the pan, a good sign that these damson have a high pectin content. When the stones are clear of any pulp, time to use a colander, yes colander not a sieve, put the stones, pulp and juice into the colander over the preserving pan that holds the fruit and stir with a spoon until just the stones are left. Discard the stones. Now turn up the heat to about a medium heat and gently simmer the fruit and the pulp juice until  the fruit and skins are soft. Remember to keep stirring occasionally as the pulp will again catch and burn very easily on the bottom of the pan. If the pulp starts to get very thick, wash the stones with a very little water just enough to slacken the pulp. Be careful when adding water, too much and the fruit wont set or you will have to boil off excess water spoiling the deep flavour, not enough and it will catch and burn. The fruit will soften very quickly and doesn't need boiling. Time to add the sugar, raise heat to highest setting, stir until sugar dissolved. With a thermometer watch the temperature rise, give the odd stir to even the heat out, until 104°C is reached. This will happen very quickly, do a plate wrinkle test for peace of mind that you have a good set. Give a final stir to make sure all is at this temperature, check temperature again, then remove from heat. Skim off the scum and leave for 20 minutes before filling your pre-warmed jars. Screw the lids on tight and impatiently wait for the next day to try out this delicious jam.