Results tagged “honey”

The best baklava in Turkey comes from the southeast, notably the town of Gaziantep, which is surrounded by pistachio groves and known for its master baklava makers.  Traditionally it would be made with yufka, which is a super-fine dough rather like filo, and baked in a round dish called a tepsi in a wood-fired oven.  There are all kinds of different baklava shapes - layered, rolled, twisted and coiled - and it can of course be made with different nuts - walnuts, pistachios and hazelnuts being most common.  For added flavour use honey instead of some or all of the sugar.

Nettle pie, smoky red pepper relish, honey-drenched baklava, Kosovan wine and honey liqueur are just some of the treats in store for you at this special event to celebrate Elizabeth Gowing’s new book - Travels in Blood and Honey: Becoming a Beekeeper in Kosovo.  

Like me, Elizabeth is fascinated by the stories surrounding food.  While I teach you how to make several of the delicious recipes featured in her book, Elizabeth will share tales of her remarkable food adventures in a beautiful country that most people know only as a war.  

It's an auspicious evening for nettles too.  So while we munch on the nettle pie we've made, Elizabeth will explain how on 5th May in Kosovo people prepare to celebrate the Orthodox St George's Day, a celebration of the coming of summer and a time to ensure fertility and health in the year ahead, by gathering nettles to put under their pillow.  Come and celebrate with us!

Travels in Blood and Honey is out this month.  Get your signed copy at the class.

Date:  Thursday 5th May 2011

Time:  7pm - 10pm

Location:  London N5 (Arsenal tube 2 mins walk)

Price:  £45, or £80 for two

To book:  Email Anna  Please read the booking terms & conditions before booking your place.  Thank you.

Amlou is served in Morocco with good fresh bread to dip in.  It’s eaten as a snack or appetizer, for example to welcome a guest into your house.  It is delicious, especially with a glass of mint tea.  The three key ingredients are all Moroccan specialities:  almonds, honey and argan oil.  Real argan oil, extracted from the kernels of the nuts of the argan tree, is expensive and hard to find outside Morocco, but is worth the effort.  Try to find one with a delicate nutty flavour, and check it has not gone rancid.   

Being an avid amateur classicist, as well as a honey-loving bear prone to the odd spot of light substance abuse, one of Barnaby's favourite stories is the episode from Xenophon's Anabasis in which thousands of retreating Greek soldiers are rendered helpless by the narcotic effects of the local honey.

Imagine his excitement on arriving in the Kaçkar mountains in north-eastern Turkey and being told by the local Hemşin people that it all happened right here! 

Show me the honey, he thought.

Sadly it turned out to be the wrong time of year for honey.  Or perhaps not so sadly - it turns out that the honey in question is known as deli balı or "crazy honey", and is made from a particular species of rhododendron long known for its strange and potentially dangerous effects.

So Barnaby had to make do with admiring (and sniffing) the flowers.  But he did sleep very well last night.

Today Barnaby discovered that in Poland they make Miodula - a vodka made out of honey.  Yes, a vodka. Made out of honey.

Bears are quite keen on honey.

Barnaby is quite keen on vodka.

You get the picture.

Today we are taking him to safety in Slovakia.

We all know that bees make honey from nectar.  But did you know that they ingest and regurgitate the nectar several times before laying it in the honeycomb?  Or that they use their little wings to fan the honeycomb to evaporate enough moisture from the honey so that it cannot ferment?  

Honey has so much sugar and so little moisture that you can keep it your whole life without it going off.  The sugar kills most bacteria and the lack of moisture prevents natural yeasts from reproducing.  Someone once found a 2000-year-old pot of honey in an Egyptian tomb and said it tasted great.

As promised, some ice cream to go with last week's apple cake.  If you have an ice cream maker, this is really easy.  (Or as they would say here, 'super easy'.)  I made this ice cream having had something similar at Chez Panisse (a famous Berkeley restaurant).  There it was served with roasted figs - delicious.  At home we had it with Carlo's Florentine Apple Cake - equally delicious.  

You should use the nicest honey you can find.  If yours is too hard and crystalline to mix easily with the yolks, first warm the jar in a pan of hot water.  The honey keeps the ice cream soft, which means you can serve it directly from the freezer.  The honey also prolongs the life of the ice cream, so you can keep it for several weeks.  But you won't want to.