Watch How to Cook Well with Rory O'Connell at 8:30pm on Tuesday evenings on RTÉ One.
Ingredients
This is simple and really a lovely surprise. The combination of apple and fresh turmeric is quite perfect. My regime of adding a little fresh turmeric to my morning drink of lemon, ginger and honey has yielded a few surprisingly good results as I become more familiar with the wonderful flavour of the fresh rhizome rather than the dried powder.
The powder of course has its place and I continue to use it, but the scented and sweet flesh of the freshly grated root is something of a revelation to me.
It is worth noting that when you are cooking bitter bramley cooking apples, the smaller you cut up the raw apple, the longer it takes to collapse to a frothy puree. Yes, this seems entirely illogical but that is my experience. The fluffiness of the cooked froth is lighter and more air-filled from the collapsed larger pieces than smaller ones.
We tend to take lovely bitter cooking apples such as the Bramley for granted in this part of the world but it is worth noting that in France where they have given us so many of the great apple tarts such as Tarte au Tatin, Normandy Apple Tart , Tarte Fines au Pommes and so on, that all of those creations are made with sweet dessert apples. They do not grow or really know the bitter apples that we love and are using in this recipe. I wonder if they grew them, would they have ended up in some of the classic pork and apple dishes or with pheasant and cream as in sauce Valee dauges.
Serve the sauce with a grilled Pork Chop with Roast Almond and Sage Salsa and Apple Glazed Carrots.
It is also delicious served as a pudding with Vanilla Custard and Sesame Seed Brittle.
Serves 6-8
- 375g bramley cooking apple, weighed after peeling and coring
- 25-30g caster sugar
- 1 tablespoon of peeled fresh turmeric root, grated on a microplane
- A few drops of lemon juice.
Method
- Place the peeled and coarsely chopped apples in a small saucepan with the caster sugar and 1-2 tablespoons of water.
- Cover with a tight-fitting lid and cook over a low heat until the apples collapse to a lovely froth.
- Stir in the turmeric and add a few drops of lemon juice to brighten up the flavour.
