Tag: fruit

Cocktail Special: Summertime Meloncoolia!

5 August 2021

With the summer temperatures peaking, we’ve come up with a melon and raspberry fuelled rum cocktail to help you keep cool.

  • Chill out with a Meloncoolia

The melon season is in full swing in Kazakhstan with honeydew melons and watermelons both at their sweetest. You can find piles of ripe melons on sale all over the country. Its hot, arid climate is particularly well-suited to this instant summer dessert. Stalls appear on street corners with tempting mounds of golden yellow and green streaked melons.

  • Melonmania in Mangystau, Kazakhstan

We’ve used melon in a cocktail this time round, along with raspberries, white rum or vodka and Martini Fiero, an orange-flavoured aperitif that’s been a hit with the KCC crew this summer. You can also try melon in a seasonal salad with halloumi cheese – here’s our recipe for this summertime special from a few years back.

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                                                               Double meloned squeaky cheese salad

Ingredients (makes one litre)

  • 150 g honeydew melon
  • 100 g raspberries
  • 250 ml water
  • 200 ml Martini Fiero
  • 100 ml white rum or vodka
  • 250 – 300 ml tonic or soda water

Method

  • Put the fruit in a blender with the water and mix it into a smooth consistency. Pour the juice, spirit and Martini Fiero into an empty one litre plastic or glass bottle. Top up to a litre with tonic water or soda water and shake well. Fill a tumbler with ice and pour the Meloncoolia over the rocks, put your feet up and enjoy!

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Bukharan Potato Powered Chutney

11 October 2018

Autumn is well and truly here now, so it’s time to start preserving that  seasonal abundance of fruit and vegetables. While looking around the net for something quick and easy to make, we came across some variations on the theme of plum chutney.

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It’s amazing what you can learn when researching recipes – did you know, for instance, that in the Indian sub-continent aloo is the word for potato, as in that curry house fave aloo gobi (potato and cauliflower).

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More surprisingly, it is also used for the humble plum – known as aloo bukhara, so called because the plum first appeared in the sub-continent via the fabled Central Asian city of Bukhara.

Ingredients (makes around 880g – 1kg of chutney

  • 1kg ripe plums
  • 250 g red onion
  • 200g light brown sugar
  • 300 ml apple vinegar
  • 100 g raisins
  • 2 teaspoons mustard seeds
  • 2 teaspoons cumin seeds
  • 2 teaspoons  red pepper flakes
  • One cinnamon stick
  • 2 cm fresh ginger, peeled and diced
  • Glass jars for storage

Method

  • Wash and cut the plums in half, remove the stones then half again and half again so you have eight pieces of plum. Finely chop the onion and then mix all the ingredients together except for the sugar in a large stainless steel saucepan.
  • Bring to a boil over a medium heat, stirring occasionally, and when it’s bubbling add the sugar. Keep stirring until the sugar dissolves and then reduce the heat to low and keep it simmering for two hours or so, stirring every now and then so the mixture doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan.
  • The mixture should thicken and turn a deep ruby red colour, as in the picture above. Allow the mix to cool a bit and then pour it into sterilised glass jars – wash them and leave in the oven at 50 c for 30 minutes. Put a lid on tightly and store the chutney for at least two weeks in a cool, dark place before eating.