Bessie Jackson

Wednesday afternoon and the clock has just struck 3 - it's Soul Time. For those who don't already, this is the time to switch on your radio, tune into 106.7 PBS FM and bliss out to Vince Peach's excellent show. And seeing as this particular Wednesday afternoon happens to be New Years Eve, I thought about 3 o'clock might be a good time for a cocktail, too.


I can't think of a more perfect drink for this particular scenario than the Bessie Jackson cocktail in my friend Jane's gorgeous new book Cocktails & Rock Tales that I haven't had a chance to tell you about until now. When I picked up my copy and opened it randomly, this was the first recipe l saw. And, I soon realised, that it was housed in the Soul section. And, it uses Stone's Green Ginger Wine - so it really couldn't be more perfect, for a Wednesday afternoon at 3. If it so happens that you're listening to something else, like...The Pixies for instance, or Dolly Parton, Jane's book can help you out too with delicious drinks for a whole heap of genres. But of course for me, it's Soul and so I'm sitting here with my little cat Quincy, my other third away camping with the boys, sipping my Bessie Jackson on New Years Eve. Don't worry - it's quite blissful. And there are plenty of folk arriving later in the evening to attend to the seafood extravaganza that has eaten up all my fridge space. Of course.

Happy New Years. I hope yours is as sweet.x

Bessie Jackson

From Jane Rocca's Cocktails & Rock Tales

8 mint leaves

5 dashes of bitters

45ml Tennessee whiskey

15ml green ginger wine

30ml clear apple juice

mint spring to garnish

Muddle mint leaves and bitters in a shaker. Add remaining ingredients (except for garnish) and shake up with ice. Strain into an old-fashioned glass over ice (not an old champagne glass as in my picture) and garnish with mint spring. So. Good.

Pomegranate and Apple Jelly

I love the way that moulded jelly looks like it has fallen from a children’s storybook onto your table, shining and wobbly. It, like chocolate mousse, was something we loved when we were kids and the best ever was when, for birthday parties, Mum would make layered jelly in different colours in small plastic wine glasses.


I’d been wanting for a while to make this jelly from Tessa Kiros’ beautiful book, Apples for Jam. We (now grown-ups) ate this two tone fruit juice treat the day before Christmas as an after-lunch dessert when we felt like something sweet that wouldn’t bowl us over right before the big day. It was light and refreshing, perfect for summer, or anytime you feel like some childhood comfort food minus the artificial colouring. This is so easy, and you could use all kinds of fruit, but the colours in this combination are beautiful I think. You can’t see it in the photograph, but I threw some blueberries into the pomegranate layer too, and they were delicious.


Pomegranate and Apple Jelly
From Tessa Kiros’ Apples for Jam
Note: If you’ve never juiced pomegranates before, all you need to do is cut them in half just like an orange, and twist away on a citrus juicer. Alternatively, you can buy the juice in bottles at some fruit stores, supermarkets and Middle Eastern food stores.

vegetable oil, to grease
170ml pomegranate juice (or juice from two pomegranates)
2 tbsp lemon juice
75g caster sugar
6 tsp powdered gelatine
170 ml cloudy apple juice

Using some paper towel, lightly grease 6 small jelly moulds with vegetable oil. In a small saucepan, combine pomegranate juice, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice and 50g of the sugar and heat gently, stirring until sugar dissolves. Meanwhile, add 3 tsp of the gelatin to 3 tbsp of water. Leave for a minute or two until it swells and then add to the hot juice. Stir until dissolved and smooth and remove from heat. Pour the mixture into the moulds evenly. Pop these in the refridgerator.

Next, add the apple juice, 1 tablespoon lemon juice and remaining sugar to small saucepan. Heat gently, and meanwhile, prepare remaining gelatin with water as above. When the sugar has dissolved, add gelatin to juice and stir until smooth and dissolved. Remove from heat and leave to cool in saucepan.

When the first layer is set enough for you to touch the surface lightly without rupturing, gently spoon the cooled apple mixture over the top and return to refrigerator until set. To serve, dip the moulds very quickly into hot water and invert.

Roasted Grape Salad

So finally, summer has arrived. And the first thing I want to eat when the temperature reaches over 25˚C is salad, of course. If it reaches over 35˚C, it almost has to be a well-chilled Greek horiatiki salad, or watermelon and feta. But since we’ve not been that fortunate here yet, there are hundreds of salad choices to be made. I sometimes wonder how it is possible that new salads can turn up all the time, with ingredients so scrumptious, so delicious that you cannot believe you’ve never eaten them, in a salad, before. Maybe I missed the boat on this one, but roasted grapes in a salad? I’d never had them, I had to try them, and now I think about them all the time.



This recipe gem was mined from my latest food-porn obsession, bon appétit: an American magazine that is available at Borders for an obscene amount, or on yearly subscription for pretty cheap. And yes, it is out of season and upside down for us here in the land of OZ (oh, I wish. I’d trade macadamia for lunch-pail trees and thongs/flip flops for ruby slippers any day…) but seeing as I keep my magazines forever (really) I don’t see this as too much of a problem.

But back to the salad, which technically, is an autumn salad, I suppose. But seeing as there were pears and grapes and Iranian dried sour cherries (!) at the market recently, I made it anyway. It is the most perfect combination of bitter greens, crunchy toasted pine nuts, tart and luxurious dried sour cherries, salty parmesan and proscuitto, fresh fragrant pear and – its pièce de résistance – red grapes that have been tossed with olive oil and roasted in the oven until wrinkly, juicy and sweet. You drizzle the whole lot with extra virgin oil and aged balsamic vinegar and all together, it is so, so good. Really, yours will look even better than the picture because that was our first version without pine nuts and cherries and we keep forgetting to photograph subsequent versions before we've already tucked in. We’ll be making it as part of our Christmas evening buffet to serve alongside barbecued quail, but it makes an elegant entrée or, with good bread, it is a wonderful lunch or light dinner. Does it sound like the bomb or what?

Roasted Grape Salad
Adapted from bon appétit 2008
Serves 4

¼ cup olive oil + a couple of tbsp extra
2 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
4 long, thin slices of prosciutto
1 cup seedless red grapes, washed and stem removed
1/3 cup dried sour cherries
6 or 7 cups salad greens (such as roquette, radicchio, frisée)
2 small/medium pears, cored
Aged balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted
handful of shavings of Italian parmesan

The following preparatory steps can be done 2 hours in advance of serving.

Preheat oven to 200˚C. For dressing, whisk ¼ cup of olive oil and lemon juice in a small bowl. Heat a little of the oil in a frying pan and when hot, add prosciutto and fry until crisp. Remove and drain on paper towel and break into shards. Toss grapes with a little olive oil until shiny on a rimmed baking tray. Roast for around 15 minutes in preheated oven, or until they shrivel and look a bit sticky. Remove and cool. Soak cherries in a small amount of near boiling water for around 15 minutes until softened, then drain.

When ready to serve, cut 1 pear into matchstick-sized pieces and thinly slice the remaining pear. Toss matchstick pear pieces with salad greens, dressing, most of prosciutto, grapes and cherries in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Divide among plates or arrange on platter. Garnish with pear slices, remaining prosciutto, pine nuts and drizzle with aged balsamic. Add shaved parmesan to taste.