Its all about black currants for me right now…..

With the glut of currants that I have got this year with the good weather; I’m thinking about other things that I could do to this wonderful fruit use them in my wedding catering menus?

My first memory of blackcurrants was when I was a child, spending time with my grandparents in  Tubber, 8 miles outside Gort, Co Clare.   

They were simpler times where we spent carefree days out in the open country side. It was 30 years ago so you can only imagine a tiny house on a sleepy little road where you could hear a car from miles away before it would pass the house!

My Gran would go out and pick the black currants.  She would make a sweet yet tarte black currant jam that would double up as a drink before you would buy mi-wadi in the shops.

When I first started to grow black currants I was obsessed with making that jam, it would evoke memories of my childhood and would share it with the rest of my kin so that they would remember, like having a food time capsule that transport you back to simpler times.

With the abundance of currants in my garden I poached them with sugar and just enough water to cover the fruit.  I put a layer of cling film on one of the drawers in the dehydrator.

I poured the black currant through a chinois on to the cling film and left it overnight at 95 degree C. What was left was flexible black currant leather, with a very intense flavour of berries.  No preservative just real taste from my garden! What I will do with this? Cut them into disks?  Dry it out even more so it can turn into a hard candy? I really don’t know!  I’m thinking it would be a fantastic injection of flavour on one of our wedding catering desserts. The possibilities for me are endless!

Talk soon,

Val the Chef