I always use surplus apples in cakes and desserts, but what are my savoury options?
Emily, by email
“We use heaps of apples, because we’re in the beating heart of apple country,” says Merlin Labron-Johnson, chef/owner of Osip and The Old Pharmacy, both in Bruton, Somerset. “People can’t give them away, so we’re constantly doing different things with them.” One keeper is apple ketchup, which, happily, just so happens to be a breeze to make. “You don’t even need to peel or core the apples,” Labron-Johnson says. “Bake them whole – we do this in hay, but obviously people don’t necessarily have that to hand – and you get this really savoury, nutty flavour.” Blend the cooked apples, then pass through a sieve and add some sugar and vinegar. That’s good dolloped on the side of sausages, and it keeps and freezes well, too.
Mark Diacono, author of Abundance, says Emily should consider going down two main savoury routes: “One is to use apples almost like a mild spice – something that you wouldn’t necessarily pick up is there, but you’d miss it if it wasn’t.” Take celeriac and apple soup as an example: “I love celeriac a great deal, but if you’re not careful, it can make a soup that would hold wallpaper to the vertical.” Introduce some apple to the mix, however, and the fruit will change the texture of the celeriac, and also soften its bitterness: “It just lets a bit of air out of its tyres. You wouldn’t perhaps say, ‘That’s celeriac and apple soup’, but you would say, ‘That’s an amazing soup’. And that would be down to the apple doing its thing.”
