Sugared ligonberries Rårörda lingon (Sweden)

Lingonberries contain a lot of naturally occurring benzoic acid, something that industry adds to many preserves and jams to help them keep. The levels are so high that lingonberries just don’t go bad. Thanks to this, there is really no point in boiling them into jam and bottling them; you can just add some sugar for flavour and they will keep in a fairly clean jar at the back of your fridge for years. You can use fresh or frozen berries. It makes no difference to the end result.

Especially in northern Scandinavia and Finland, we eat sugared lingonberries on many things, sweet and savoury. They all seem to benefit from a good scoop of sweet and astringent ruby loveliness.

(makes 650–700g)
500g lingonberries
150–200g sugar

Place the lingonberries and sugar in a large bowl and mix with a spoon. Keep the bowl at room temperature and stir from time to time, until the sugar has dissolved. It should take a while for this to happen, at least overnight. Refrigerate when done.

Nigel Slater’s butternut squash with cappelletti and tomato recipe

The recipe

You will need 350g of butternut squash – that’s half a medium-sized squash. Scrape out the seeds and fibres from the middle and discard. Cut the flesh into long pieces, then into short, postage stamp-sized bits.

Warm 40g of butter and 4 tbsp of oil in a shallow pan then add the pieces of butternut, fry at a moderate heat for about 15 minutes or until they start to brown, basting them as they cook. Get a large, deep saucepan of water on to boil and salt it generously.

Roughly dice 200g of tomatoes then add them to the squash, with a couple of sage leaves, salt and pepper. Toast 1 tsp of cumin seeds in a dry frying pan for a couple of minutes then tip into the tomato and butternut together with a half tsp or less of dried chilli flakes and a half tsp of ground sweet paprika.

Add 125g of cappelletti to the boiling water, stirring as you do so, and cook for about 9 minutes until the pasta is al dente. Drain and toss with the butternut and tomato mixture. Serve with a good helping of grated parmesan. Serves 2.
The trick

It is often not necessary to peel butternut squash unless you intend to mash it. However, check the thickness of the peel first. If it is very shiny and thick, then best remove it with a potato peeler before you chop it into cubes and fry it.
The twist

Courgettes, marrows and white-fleshed summer squashes are good here, too, but will need a shorter cooking time than the butternut. Baste regularly with the butter and oil as they cook. Introduce herbs instead of the spices if you prefer. Tarragon and basil are wonderful with both the tomato and squash.

Autumn pudding with blackberries and bay

It is hard to describe just how intensely pure and fruity this variation on summer pudding is. It’s best made with sliced white bread, preferably slightly stale, and is as tasty on day three or four as it is on day one. You will need a 1.5-litre pudding bowl. Serves six to eight.

750g damsons or plums
125g caster sugar, plus extra to taste
Peel of 1 orange
1 vanilla pod, split in half
2 bay leaves
500g blackberries
250g raspberries
60g softened butter
About 12 slices of sliced white bread, ideally stale, crusts removed
Creme fraiche or thick cream, to serve

Stone the damsons or plums and cut into blackberry-sized chunks. Put the sugar, orange peel, vanilla pod, bay and 100ml water in a large, deep pan and bring to a boil. Add the damsons, turn down the heat and simmer gently for six to eight minutes, until the fruit is soft. Add the blackberries and raspberries, and taste the syrup: add a little more sugar if you think it could do with extra sweetness. Bring back up to a simmer and, as soon as a few of the berries have burst, take off the heat, discard the vanilla, bay and orange peel, and leave to cool.

Butter the pudding bowl and generously butter the bread slices. Line the bowl with two-thirds of the bread slices, laying them in butter side up. Tear a slice or two of bread into the required shapes to patch up any gaps, then pour the fruit into the bread-lined basin, gently pressing it down with a spoon. Top with the remaining slices of bread, trimming them as necessary, then cover tightly with clingfilm and put a saucer or small plate on top (ideally, one that fits neatly inside the bowl). Weigh down the plate and refrigerate the pudding overnight.

The next day, remove the weights and saucer. Run a thin blade all around the edge of the pudding, gently to loosen it from the sides, then put a large plate on top and flip it out. Serve with lots of sharp creme fraiche or rich, thick cream.

The good-looking dessert: Plum and salted almond ripple ice-cream

This is a really easy way to achieve a delicious “iced cream” without a machine or eggs. Its texture is almost identical to ice-cream and you save yourself a lot of fuss. Use regular snacking almonds in this, or forgo them altogether if you wish – we think they add a lovely crunch and their saltiness offsets the sweet plums beautifully.

Plum and salted almond ripple ice-cream. Photograph: Yuki Sugiura for The Guardian

Makes a small tub
300g roasted plums
1 litre double cream
1 x 397g tin sweetened condensed milk
200g roasted salted almonds, crushed
A squeeze of lemon juice

1 Put the plums in a sieve to strain out any excess juices (keeping any juices for a cocktail later).

2 In a large clean bowl with an electric whisk, whip the cream until you have soft peaks. Pour the condensed milk into a separate bowl and stir in 2 tbsp whipped cream (to lighten it) before folding it into the rest of the cream. Transfer to your freezer container and freeze. After an hour, remove this from the freezer and whisk up the mixture using a fork. Return it to the freezer, repeating this whisking after another hour.

3 Meanwhile, roughly chop the plums. Once the cream has thickened, scatter the chopped plums and almonds on top of the cream, then swirl the handle of the spoon through the mix – try not to over-mix as you want to achieve distinct ripples. Cover and return to the freezer until set (about another hour).

Skinny Chinese Pan-Fried Fish

This is an unknown dish for most readers outside China. I have not heard of it until I met my husband and his family. In Chinese, we name it as 糍粑鱼, with the English translation glutinous rice cake fish. Surely we will fail to find any glutinous rice cake in the dish. We use this term to describe that similar pan-frying process.

Pan-Fried Fish

I am using a grass carp, which is the most popular and inexpensive edible fish in China. This dish is originated from Chinese Hubei province. I get the recipe from my mother in law. You can replace it with other fishes, just choose fat ones.

Hubei province is known as Chinese fish and rice fields. Fat grass carps are harvested every year. It is a custom for people to dry some grass carps naturally to enjoy in cold winter days. Traditionally, this recipes calls for dried fish. I find out a easy version by using it, you can make yummy, skinny pan-fried fish with marinated fresh fish chunks.

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

One grass carp around 1000g, remove head and tail (you can ask your batcher to help)
4 dried chili pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 stalk scallion, minced
1/4 teaspoon white sesame seeds
1 tablespoon cooking oil
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon sesame oil
1/8 teaspoon sugar
Marinating sauce
2 tablespoons cooking wine
1/4 teaspoon whole Sichuan peppercorn seeds (optional)
1 and 1/2 teaspoon salt
2 stalks scallion, minced
1 thumb ginger, minced

Instructions

Cut the fish into large chunks around 3-4 cm thick. And then add all the marinating sauce. Mix well and then transfer to an airtight bag, refrigerate for around 2 days.

Transfer the fish out. Remove the ginger and scallion attached; drain the fish chunks with kitchen paper.

Heat up cooking oil in a pan, place the fish chunks in. Do not turn them over at the beginning, turn over to fry the next side one side becomes slightly golden brown.
Add garlic, dried pepper, scallion and garlic. Fry for another half minute until fragrance. Add soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar and white sesame seeds. Mix well and enjoy, possibly with a cup of beer.