James Ots

This week I made strawberry jam. I started with a kilo of strawberries. I then added sugar. I was supposed to add half a kilo at this stage, but didn’t notice until afterwards. I added a kilo of sugar. This went into the fridge overnight, which brought the juice out of the strawberries. I put ...

This evening I made spiced gooseberry chutney, using this recipe: http://www.chefheidifink.com/blog/seasonal/spiced-gooseberry-chutney/ First I spent about an hour and a half washing and topping and tailing the gooseberries. Then I spent about forty-five minutes simmering the gooseberries. Then I forgot to take any photos while I was doing the canning/bottling, because I’ve never done hot water bath ...

  I made Welsh Rarebit, using this receipe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/welsh_rarebit_05821 It isn’t really interesting enough to warrant a blog entry, except for the fact that it’s number four in my  year of trying to cook new things. And it tasted good.

I tried to make meringues today and failed. Unfortunately, after whisking the egg whites and mixing in the sugar, I ended up with a rather runny mixture which would be no good at all for meringues. I either whisked the eggs too much or not enough, according to the recipe books. Anyway, all was not ...

For my second food, I made cranachan, using this recipe. It wasn’t the greatest success. I reduced the amount of whisky as I only have Aberlour A’bunadh at the moment, which is cask strength, but I think that was a mistake as I couldn’t taste the whisky enough. I probably only had two thirds of the ...

My ’52 New Foods’ challenge is under way, and I have made crème brûlée for the first time. It is an immensely difficult thing to make, and uses a lot of specialist kitchen equipment, as you can see from the photo. I am, of course, being a little sarcastic here. Although I did use a ...