It is pointless preserving fruit if you forget to use it and so, to finish off yesterday’s dinner, I uncapped some of the gooseberries we bottled in syrup last summer. Set in a pastry case and placed in the oven, I set to thinking about what would go well with it. Double cream came to mind but we didn’t have any but we did have some milk I could try thickening.
Milk, cornflour, sugar and a dash of vanilla essence combined in the presence of gentle heat to form a thick, sweet white sauce that worked very well with the flavour of the gooseberry pie, at which point it struck me that I had essentially whipped up an egg-free custard. If I’d had some yellow colouring to add in, it would even have looked the part.
Hmmnnn… perhaps I could infuse the milk with saffron? I’ve got some of that in the cupboard so now I need to think of what would go well with a sweet saffron sauce?