New England Still Life

A friend brought me produce she picked at a local farm... Somehow apples, peaches, plums, and pears all ripen at the same time up here... I don't quite understand it, but I've enjoyed eating it.

Sticky Crab Apple Meringues

My shortbread experiment needs more work, so in the interim I thought I'd share another crab apple failure. The New York Times had a recipe for a walnut meringue with caramelized apple and still I had some quartered and seeded crab apples in the fridge that needed to go.
I also have fond memories of a nutty meringues my grandmother used to make with pecans -- although that may only have been when she was visiting us since Iowa has lots of black walnuts -- and the addition of herbs and alcohol made it seem like the sort of recipe I was meant to make.
But then a mild cold front came in, and my meringues got sticky. I tried rebaking them, which never looks pretty but can work texturally, but the net result just wasn't exciting. The caramel crabapples were still very tart and didn't meld with the nutty meringue at all... I think it was a pretty solid fail, but I blame myself, not the newspaper.
I'll encourage JG to post his opinion, since we don't always agree on these things.

Crab Apple Preserves

JG and I were at a wedding in New Hampshire recently and came across a crabapple tree in a park. There was fruit all over the ground and the tree was chock full of fruit still, so we emptied a shopping bag and filled it full of fruit (~4 lbs). I'd never done anything with crab apples before, but we quickly discovered they're extremely tart like cranberries but with a heady apple scent, which took us into thanksgiving-style thinking. The idea was to preserve them in a spicy syrup for serving after turkey, but I was wholly unable to keep the skins from splitting during the simmer, no matter how many ways I pricked them.
Luckily, as super potent apple, they also have a very high pectin content, so I sieved the whole mess and turned it into some wildly-colored preserves that we can serve in lieu of cranberry sauce this year... unless I happen upon a wild cranberry bog up here, then we may have to have both.
How do you know that weird little fruit is a crabapple? Cut it in half; it should have a 5-star seed pattern. If it doesn't, I don't know what it is and you probably shouldn't put it in your mouth.
I attempted to make crabapple jam squares, but they went horribly awry in snack-cake kind of way. Tasty, but not what I wanted to send to my grandfather.
I think I came up with a solution today, but more experiments are required...


Recipe: Crab Apple Preserves
What I made was an amalgamation of a few failures, but this way will work the first time around.

~2 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups water
1/2 stick cinnamon
6 black peppercorns
3 cardamom pods
1 alspice berry
1/4 tsp anise seed
1 lemon, juice and zest (or an orange, for a little less zip)

~ 2 lbs crab apples, whole

Use 1 1/4 cup sugar for every 1 lb of crab apples. Combine spices in a diffusing ball or tea bag. Bring sugar, water, citrus, and spices to a boil and simmer in a small stockpot or dutch oven, uncovered, for 15 minutes. Remove spices with a slotted spoon and discard. Add crab apples and simmer gently for 15 minutes. [Congratulations if your skins don't split.] Set up a strainer over a big bowl, pour the contents of the pot through, and press the solids until only the skins, stems, and cores remain -- the cores are much tougher than a normal apple. Return the contents of the bowl to the pot over medium heat and stir frequently until the preserves hit 220F (they'll foam up and come close to boiling over at about 218F). Pour into hot jars and seal. Process in a water bath, if desired.