Recipes: Delicious ideas for damsons

I know that I wrote about plums this time last year, but they are such spectacular fruit that they deserve to be written about frequently. And with plums come damsons, the best of all varieties of these stone fruit, for those who love to cook and eat.

Damsons only grow in very small areas of the UK, with the Lune and Lythe valleys in the northwest of England being particularly noted for their damson crops.

Damsons make the best jam, the best jelly, and the best of all puds. And they freeze exceptionally well, raw, just packed into polybags for use when thawed in any of the ways you would use them fresh.

Plums or damsons are almost as useful in savoury recipes as they are in sweet - on cooking, their sharp/sweet flavour is very good with rich meats such as ham, domestic duck and goose, and with cheese. A plum chutney, for instance, is a perfect accompaniment to a game terrine, and, as you will see in the following recipe, a plum chutney can form a part of a cheese tart.

Plum or damson chutney

3lb/1.5kg plums or damsons,

stalks removed

1 pints/850ml red wine vinegar

2 onions, skinned and halved and thinly sliced

4 tablespoons golden granulated or Demerara sugar

1 cinnamon stick, 1 sprig of thyme about 6in/14cm in length

Put the plums or damsons into a large pan and cover with cold water. Over heat, bring the water to boiling point and simmer until the fruit bursts open. Cool in the liquid until cold enough to handle, then lift each plum or damson and remove its stone. Throw away the stones.

Meanwhile, in a large saucepan (not aluminium), heat the red wine vinegar and stir in the sliced onions, sugar, cinnamon stick and thyme sprig. Simmer all together gently, stirring until the sugar has dissolved completely. When it is stoned, add the plums or damsons to the wine vinegar pan, and cook gently, the pan covered with its lid, but lifting the lid occasionally to give the contents of the pan a good stir, and cook until the mixture is reduced to a thick mush. This should take a couple of hours. Beware having the heat too high beneath the pan, as then you run the risk of scorching the base of the contents. It needs very, very slow cooking. When cooking time is up, pot the mixture into clean pots, seal and label, and keep for one month before using.

Walnut and pink peppercorn pastry tart, with cheese and plum chutney filling

SERVES 6

For the pastry

4oz/110g butter, hard from the fridge and cut in bits

1 level tablespoon icing sugar

5oz/140g plain flour

teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons dried pink peppercorns

2oz/55g walnuts

Put the hard butter, icing sugar, flour, salt and pink peppercorns into a food processor and whiz to the texture of fine crumbs. Then add the walnuts and whiz briefly on the pulse button, just to break up the walnuts but not long enough to pulverise them. Press this mixture firmly over the sides and base of a flan dish measuring about 9in/22cm diameter. Put the dish into the fridge to chill for at least an hour before baking in a moderate heat, 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 until the pastry is a light biscuit colour and just coming away from the sides of the flan dish. The sides will slip down during cooking; have no fear, with a metal spoon, scrape them back into neat sides and bake for a further two to three minutes. Cool the cooked pastry.

The taste of the walnuts and pink peppercorns is so good with the cheese and chutney filling.

For the filling

3 tablespoons plum chutney

a grating of nutmeg and a good grinding, about 15 grinds, of black pepper

1 whole large egg plus 2 large egg yolks beaten well with

pint/425ml milk

8oz/220g soft cheese of your choice, I like brie, and my favourite is Clava brie made by the Connage dairy, with as much of the rind cut off as you can without wasting the brie beneath

Spread the plum chutney over the base of the cooled pastry.

Mix the nutmeg and black pepper into the egg, yolks and milk mixture and pour this into the pastry shell on top of the chutney. Put the bits of brie into the egg and milk mixture, as evenly as you can, and bake in the same moderate heat as for the pastry, just until the filling is set - the last part to set is the centre, so shake the dish gently, until the filling barely wobbles in the middle, about 20-25 minutes. Serve just warm, with a mustardy vinaigrette dressed leaf salad as an accompaniment.

Plum and vanilla clafoutis with toasted almonds

This simple pud makes the most of these stone fruit, whichever you use, either plums or damsons. This is such a stable pudding that it can be made well in advance and served warm. The toasted almonds complement the taste of the plums or damsons while providing a contrast in texture to the soft plums and the soft vanilla custard in which the plums bake.

SERVES 6

2oz/55g butter, melted, to thoroughly butter a wide and shallow ovenproof dish

2 large eggs and

2 large yolks

4oz/110g caster sugar

2 just rounded teaspoons self-raising flour

1 pint/570ml single cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract, if at all possible NOT Madagascar bourbon vanilla, but any other

1lb/675g plums or damsons, cooked in water just until the fruit bursts, then cooled and the stones removed. Drain off the juice and put the stoned plums/damsons into the buttered dish.

3oz/85g flaked almonds, dry fried in a saut or frying pan, to toast them golden brown, then cool the almonds and mix them with

1 tablespoon of granulated sugar

Beat very well together the eggs, yolks and caster sugar. Beat in the self-raising flour, and then the single cream and vanilla extract. Pour this over the stoned plums/damsons in the buttered dish, mixing the fruit with a fork into the creamy mixture. Bake in a moderate heat, 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 for ten minutes, then reduce the heat to 150C/300F/Gas Mark 3, and scatter the mixture of flaked almonds and granulated sugar as evenly as possible over the surface. Bake for a further 25 minutes or until when you shake the dish, the centre is firm.

This article was first published in The Scotsman on Saturday, 18 September, 2010