Food & Drink
Apple farmer and author James Rich celebrates his favourite fruit with these sweet and savoury recipes
Apple recipes from James Rich, plus Rose Murray Brown on a new cheese and wine pairing venture
Apples and humans have a long and illustrious past. Grown, harvested and eaten for centuries, they have been a constant not only in our kitchens, but also as symbols within our culture, history, science and even modern technology, as well as featuring in religious texts and myths. From Newton’s apple epiphany to apples being referenced as the fruit hanging from the tree of life that Heracles sought out in Greek mythology, they’ve long held symbolic power. Of course, they also famously feature in the Book of Genesis, referring to the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden, though this is hotly disputed (especially as the fig leaf is the only reference made to any trees).
You might say that the apple is a beacon of human health and prosperity, and very few other fruits, or even vegetables for that matter, have had as big an impact or been as symbolic as that of the humble but unapologetic apple. In fact, you might even say that the apple is so important, so intrinsically entwined with human history and everyday life, that is deserves its very own book: a celebration of one of the most important and popular fruits in the world. n
Goats cheese, apple and honey tarts
It’s best to use a sweet apple for this recipe to complement the tanginess of the cheese, so try a Braeburn or Royal Gala instead of Granny Smith or Cox’s. You can either bake this as individual tarts – as I have done – or as a traybake, in which case just roll out the puff pastry into a rectangle.
Makes 10
75g unsalted butter
1 onion, thinly sliced
½ sprig of rosemary, leaves removed and finely chopped
2 x 320g packs of ready-made puffpastry a little plain flour, for dusting
1 egg, beaten
200g goats cheese
1 tbsp lemon juice
4 crisp eating apples, such as Braeburn, peeled, cored and sliced pinch of ground allspice
4 tbsp runny honey micro purple basil salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 Preheat a fan oven to 180C/gas Mark 4 and line a large baking sheet with baking parchment.
2 Heat a saucepan over a medium heat and melt half the butter. Add the onion and rosemary and fry until the onion begins to brown. Leave to one side.
3 Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to about 5mm (¼ in) thick. Using a round, 10cm (4in) biscuit cutter, cut out 20 rounds. Place 10 on the prepared baking sheet and prick all over with a fork.
4 Make pastry rings by cutting smaller rounds into the remaining 10 pieces of pastry using a 9cm (3½ in) biscuit cutter. Then, take out the centre sections and save for another recipe.
5 Brush the whole rounds on the baking sheet with the beaten egg, and then place a pastry ring on each one. Pop in the freezer for 15 minutes to cool.
6 To make the cheese topping, put the goats cheese, lemon juice and some salt and pepper into a bowl and mix with a fork. Avoid over-mixing as you want the cheese to still be crumbly.
7 Spoon about 1 tablespoon of the cheese mix onto each piece of pastry, then top with the sliced apple, overlapping slightly. Melt the remaining butter and brush it over the tarts. Sprinkle over the allspice.
8 Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes until golden brown. When the tarts are out of the oven, drizzle with the honey and micro purple basil while still warm and serve.
Chicken, apricot and cider with miso
Miso is great with chicken and the flavours of the apricots take on a syrupy jamminess, mingling with the cider to create a sticky-sweet sensation. It is something a little different but, trust me, it is incredibly flavourful.
Serves four 2 tbsp olive oil
8 skin-on bone-in chicken thighs 1 onion, cut into wedges
4 large, ripe, fresh apricots, halved and pitted
2 tbsp miso paste 500ml dry cider
1 tbsp pine nuts handful of parsley, roughly chopped your choice of vegetables and greens
1 Preheat a fan oven to 160C/gas Mark 3.
2 Heat the oil over a medium heat in a large flameproof casserole dish. Add the chicken and fry for 5-7 minutes on both sides until the skin is starting to crisp.
3 Add the onion and fry for a further 7 minutes until soft then add the apricot halves and fry for another 3 minutes until they start to soften too.
4 Stir in the miso paste and cook for 1 minute. Turn up the heat and pour in the cider. Bring to the boil for 1 minute, then take off the heat. Transfer the casserole dish, uncovered, to the oven and cook for 20 minutes until the chicken is tender and cooked through.
5 While the chicken is in the oven, toast the pine nuts in a dry non-stick frying pan for 5 minutes, stirring regularly, until lightly browned.
6 Remove the chicken from the oven, garnish with the chopped parsley and toasted pine nuts and serve with your favourite veg and greens.
Apple, raspberry and almond cake
This was the very first cake I made for this cookbook. I wanted to start by creating something that combined some of my favourite flavours: apple (obviously), raspberry, almond and rose. So, essentially, I threw them all together to see what happened. The result is a fragrant and moist sponge filled with fruit. You might find this needs a little longer than an hour in the oven. This is fine, just top with foil and let it bake until done.
Serves eight 150g ground almonds 250g caster (superfine) sugar 185g self-raising flour
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
4 eggs, beaten grated zest of ½ lemon
1-2 drops of rose water
200g unsalted butter, at room temperature
125g raspberries
2 sharp eating apples, such as Granny Smith or Cox’s, peeled, cored and diced into 1cm cubes
50g icing sugar
¼ tsp almond extract
1 Preheat a fan oven to 160C/gas Mark 3 and grease the base of a 23cm (9in) springform cake pan with butter and line with baking parchment.
2 Put the ground almonds, sugar, flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl and mix well. Gradually add the beaten eggs, mixing well all the time.
3 Add the grated lemon zest and rose water – be careful not to add too much rose water as it is a really intense flavour.
4 Fold in the butter and mix thoroughly so that everything is well blended. Finally, gently mix in the raspberries and apple, being careful not to mix too much so that the raspberries stay whole.
5 Pour the mixture into the cake pan and smooth the top of the cake with the back of a spoon to make it level.
6 Bake in the centre of the oven for 1 hour, keeping a close eye on it so that it doesn’t burn on top – you may need to cover with foil for the last 10 minutes. Check the cake is thoroughly cooked and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean before removing from the oven. Leave to rest in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out.
7 While the cake is baking, make the icing. Mix the icing sugar with the almond extract and a drop of cold water until combined into a thick icing. Once the cake is cooled, drizzle with icing, slice, grab a fork and tuck in.