The Story of Marie's Little Jar

“As I develop food and recipes from time to time I come across special a flavour that goes beyond one dish. Marie’s Little Jar is the result of those special flavours.”

When Carine’s not busy running supper clubs or making food for the Supper app, she can be found in her kitchen, coming up with exciting new products for her line Marie’s Little Jar.

How it all started:

Marie’s Little Jar was born from Carine’s deeply-held belief that everyone should aim to cook more at home. At the same time, she understands that not everyone has the time and resources necessary to make delicious meals from scratch every day of the week. Thus was born Marie’s Little Jar, a range of products designed to bring that little extra oomph to your cooking, for minimal effort.

“Marie” is Carine’s first name, and the “Little Jar” indicates that little kitchen secret, that jar of something special you always have in the cupboard. In other words, Carine is opening her kitchen to you, in order to make your life tastier and simpler.

None of the sauces in the MLJ range conform to one specific cuisine, but Carine is continually influenced by the cooking and ingredients of her home country – Cameroon. Cameroonian food makes creative and unexpected use of spices, a theme which carries through all of Carine’s cooking, including the Marie’s Little Jar range and, to this day, many of the spices she uses come straight and only from Cameroon.

What makes MLJ unique:

• The sauces are raw and use only natural preservatives and no additives
• High in flavour
• Minimal processing
• Focuses on “free from”, suitable for vegans
• Besides the Cameroonian spices, all produce is sourced locally
• Increasingly made from foraged produce
• Encourage sustainability.
• Made locally in Carine’s home kitchen

What’s in the range:

Marie’s Little Jar features a range of kitchen goodies - from flavoured sauces, marinades, and jams, to flavoured salts and other tasteful kitchen combinations.”

The Green Sauce – This basil-based sauce is Carine’s secret weapon, developed to add that extra zing to your homemade dishes. It is both a marinade and a condiment - not quite pesto, not quite hot - the exact spices and herbs in this sauce are a closely-guarded secret, but we can promise you, you will love it. Originally created as a marinade for grilled meat, it is ideal for a BBQ.

The Red Sauce – Sun-dried-tomato-based, this warming Mediterranean-inspired sauce is ideal for pasta and fish dishes. The perfect speedy supper without compromising on taste.

The Hot Chilli Pepper Sauce – CAUTION: this sauce is HOT HOT HOT. Made from a highly-confidential mix of spices and chilli peppers, this fiery concoction is packed full of unexpected flavours. Very spicy and utterly delicious, this is a welcome addition to any dish you want to pack a punch.

What’s coming in 2016:

As well as developing her “free from” collection further, Carine has some exciting new additions to the Marie’s Little Jar roster.

The Foraged Range:

• Wild Garlic Pesto
• Wild Apple & Rosehip Chutney
• Blackberry
• Elderberry-Caper

The Flavoured Salt Range, made with real sea-salt from France:

• Cacao, Rosemary & Vanilla-flavoured Salt - Perfect for slow roast (Lamb)
• Penja Pepper-flavoured Salt - Highly-flavoured white pepper from Cameroon, perfect for grilled meat and fish
• Pork Rub-flavoured Salt -Ideal on Pork
• Red Wine-flavoured Salt - Perfect for stew
• Pink Grapefruit & Thyme-flavoured and Lemon & Lime-flavoured salt -The perfect finish for your salads

It looks like 2016 is going to be a delicious year! If you want to try any of the products mentioned here – head to the Facebook page and keep an eye on her Twitter to find out where she will be selling next!

Do Something Good in 2016

Welcome to 2016! We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, full of food and family and friends. But, after all that decadence and all that receiving, we thought it was time to give a little back, so this month we’re focussing on eco-friendly food and eating sustainably. To kick us off, we chatted to Carine about what eco-friendly food meant to her, and why it is important.

What is “eco-friendly food” or sustainable food exactly?

For me, eco-friendly food, or sustainable food, means eating food that is grown locally, using a sustainable agriculture and also eating food seasonally. Eating seasonal vegetables which are locally produced and organic puts you right at the heart of the movement.

Is this something you’ve always been interested in? How did you get into it?

That is an interesting question. I come from a part of the world where organic and sustainable food is a way of living and this was something that I, somewhat wrongfully, took for granted for a number of years. But I have always been fascinated by the process of growing my own vegetables or having my own coops – eggs, fresh meat, etc…. You see, back when I was living in Cameroun, locally-produced food was easy and much cheaper than imported food. And, more importantly, it constituted the staple and cultural belief of locals like me. Market stalls, which might be called “farmer’s markets” in the UK, were open daily.

That said, at age 9-10, I wasn’t so thrilled to be asked to wake up early in the morning to stroll through the local market stalls or being asked to go and look for that special farmer located at that special corner because that farmer always had the freshest vegetables in the market (according to my relatives).

Even though I was a city girl from Yaoundé (the capital of Cameroun), I always preferred spending time in the countryside with my cousins. I felt joyful whenever we could cook our meal made from home-grown vegetables. I was always so jealous that, not only was there a family allotment, but each and every one of my cousins had their own small allotments and learnt to cultivate greens from as young as 5. I was always super excited when we visited, wanting to run in the fields, and get a bucket to scoop out my own prawns or fish from the river (Yes you heard me, this was how easy it was to get prawns - as long as you had the right technique…) and cook my own vegetables. In fairness, that excitement seemed pretty crazy to my relatives as this was their daily routine, so they didn’t see anything exciting about having to harvest yet another root vegetable.

Just speaking about this now has got me really excited all over again! Really, eating sustainably has always been a passion, even before I could say my first word.

What do you do currently to eat and cook sustainably?

There are two things that are truly dear to me - being able to grow my own vegetables, and trying as much as possible to limit my food waste. Again, this is largely due to my background. Although I lived most of my life in Europe, those early years spent in Africa have taught me to respect what you put on your plates, on so many levels.

My 2014 New Year’s Resolution was to get myself an allotment, after having done all sorts of growing experiments from my tiny back yard in Brixton. Now, most allotment-seekers knows that this is near impossible if you live in London. I, therefore, started to look for alternative options, so I was thrilled to find myself a back garden to grow my vegetables through landshare.net. 

My 2016 New Year’s Resolution is to create a network of local farmers with surplus crops – food which I would like to use for my “Ugly Veg”-themed supper clubs throughout next year. As I am also a keen forager, this surplus food, along with the fruits of my foraging, will help invent the most creative, healthy, yummy, and eco-friendly meals. And I am officially calling out to anyone who can help me achieve this.

How can we all be a little more eco-friendly with our food? Give us your top tips.

1) Grow your own. There is nothing more fulfilling than seeing a simple grain transform into something you can safely eat. The best is knowing that you made it happen. Eating locally can help you trace and trust what you eat but growing as much veg as you can, even from your kitchen window, is a great step forward.

2) Eat locally and in season. This is food at its best.

3) Forage, forage, forage. There is no shame in it! It is super-healthy, fun and eco-friendly - as long you bear in mind an element of sustainability when harvesting your findings!

4) Turn your back on mass-produced ready meals. Cook more yourself and share your food! Don’t leave it to other people. The sharing economy has made it fun, and so much easier, to share your experience and skills, and there are plenty of platforms out there which can help you achieve just that.

Christmas Leftovers - Gourmet Burger Recipe

Ah leftovers, simultaneously the best and the worst thing about Christmas. The best – because you can carry on eating tasty Christmas food, the worst – because after 3 days of nothing but turkey, you can begin to get a little bored. Carine, however, likes to take the opportunity to get creative and do something a little exciting with her leftovers. Last year she made a tasty salad using her leftover duck à l’orange, and this week, she’s going to show you how to turn your trimmings into a delicious gourmet burger!

Carine is doing this with her leftover duck, but it will work with any type of poultry, so what are you waiting for?!

For the Buns

Ingredients

• 2 Eggs – 1 for dough, 1 to glaze
• 4 tbsp milk (full fat) 
• 50g softened butter
• 3 cups Strong/Bread flour
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• Fast-action dry Yeast
• 1½ tsp Sea Salt
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 1 cup water

Method

• Combine warm water, milk, and butter (in a food processor or a bowl)
• With a Thermomix – 3.5mins, 50 degrees, speed 2 then turn to speed 3 halfway through
• Without Thermomix, combine ingredients with yeast, mix well, and leave it somewhere warm
• Once mixture is combined and warm, add all the dry ingredients – strong flour, all-purpose flour, salt, sugar and yeast – couple of tsp (about 7g)
• Thermomix – mix for 3 minutes
• Without Thermomix - mix really well for 3 minutes, by hand, kneading it – don’t worry if it’s sticky, it’s meant to be!
• Then beat your egg and add it to the mixture – once your mixture has cooled down – DON’T add egg to warm mix
• Then your dough will be ready! Expect it to be very sticky.
• Remove the dough and place it on a well-floured flat surface
• Knead it with plenty of flour then shape into buns – with a dough-scraper, if you have one
• Leave to prove for an hour or so then pop in the oven for 15-20 minutes at 180◦.

For the Salad

Ingredients

• 50g shredded red cabbage (or any other cabbage, or Brussel sprouts – any leftover leafy veg, basically!)
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tsp whole grain mustard
• 1 dash lemon juice
• 1 Tbsp good olive oil
• 1 pinch sea salt
• 1 pinch freshly ground black pepper
• A little hot water

Method

• Shred your cabbage or other leafy veg using a mandolin, a blender, or simply by finely chopping
• Boil some water and blanch the veg for 30 seconds
• Remove from the hot water and rinse in cold running water
• In a bowl, mix all your other ingredients until they are thoroughly blended
• Add your cabbage and mix together.

For the Chips

Ingredients

• 2 roasting potatoes – again, if you’ve got leftovers from Christmas dinner, use these!
• 2 tsp melted duck fat
• Pinch of sea salt
• Pinch of black pepper
• 1 Sprig rosemary

Method

• Boil your potatoes and slice into large, thin chip-shapes!
• Sprinkle them with salt and pepper, and spread on a little of your leftover duck fat (if you made duck) or butter/oil if you didn’t
• Spread over a baking tray and pop in the oven at 190◦c for 10-15 minutes until golden brown and crispy.

For the Burger itself

Ingredients

• Leftover duck meat (or whatever meat you had for Christmas Dinner!)
• Leftover orange sauce (this could be replaced with gravy!)
• Carrot purée, made from any leftover carrots or from the sieved carrot mixture if you made our Duck à l’orange.
• A little hot water

Method

• This bit is the easy part. Remove all leftover meat from the carcass and shred it into a microwave-safe bowl 
• Add a few tablespoons of your sauce à l'orange or gravy – make sure the mix is not too wet, you just want the sauce to hold the mix together 
• Mix it well and warm in the microwave for approximately 2 minutes.
• Take your leftover carrots and pop them in the blender with a splash of hot water to make a carrot puree

To assemble, slice your buns and lightly grill them, spread on your carrot puree and top with duck mix and salad. And there you go - the perfect, gourmet, duck à l'orange, Christmas, leftover burger. Leave the dry turkey in the past!

Fancy French Feast - Duck a l'Orange Recipe

In Carine’s house, Christmas is – at the very least – a two-day affair. Her Swedish husband and mother-in-law rule the roost on the 24th, with their Swedish Christmas, complete with meatballs and mustard and pickled herring. Then, on the 25th, it’s Carine’s time to shine with a “posh” French feast. And the star of the show? Canard à l’Orange.

This dish may seem to many of you far too fiddly and complicated to try to recreate on Christmas Day, but we assure you it’s actually fairly simple. And we’re going to show you just how simple right now!

Ingredients

• 1 whole duck (ideally, plus giblets), about 2 kilos for 6-8 people (but for 10 people, Carine normally goes for 2 ducks)
• ½ cup vinegar
• 150g Caster Sugar
• 6 Oranges – 3 for the sauce, 3 for decoration
• 1 small cup Gran Marnier
• 100g butter or – even better! – duck fat from your roasting duck
• 2 Carrots
• 2 Onions
• 1 clove Garlic
• 1 bunch Thyme
• 2 Bay Leaves
• 500ml White wine
• 1 tbsp tomato puree 
• Salt 
• Pepper

Method

Roasting your Duck

• If you bought a duck with giblets - well done! – remove these and place your duck on a wire cooling rack in your roasting tray. You want the duck slightly elevated so the fat can run off and your duck can get nice and crispy.
• Rub your duck all over with salt and pepper – on both sides!
• Pop it in the oven at 190◦ for about 90 minutes.
• Baste it with its own juices every 15-20 minutes.
• After the first 20 minutes, you can cover it with some foil to make sure it doesn’t dry out.
• After 45 minutes or so, pour off some of the fat and juices and set it aside – you’re going to be using it later.
• That’s it for the duck!

Making your Sauce

• Take one large, oven-proof pan. 
• If your duck came with giblets, add these now and brown them on a high heat. If your duck did not come with giblets, don’t worry! It’s not the end of the world.
• Pop in the butter or 3tsp of the duck fat you set aside.
• Add the onions and garlic – finely chopped – along with the thyme and the bay leaves.
• Cover the pan and leave to simmer on a low heat for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
• While that’s happening, chop your carrots into discs and add those to the pan.
• If you want an extra duck-y flavour, you can also add in a few tablespoons of the duck juices.
• Cover the pan and simmer for a further 5 minutes on a medium heat.
• Add the wine.
• Pop the pan in the oven for about 45 minutes.

• Now you are going to make what is called a gastrique, which is a basic sweet-n-sour sauce made from sugar and vinegar.
• Put your sugar in a pan and caramelise – adding a tablespoon of water to help it along. Don’t stir it lots, just let it sit until it starts to go brown
• Add the vinegar.
• Warning – this is NOT a nice smell, so be prepared for something pretty pungent
• Also, when the cold vinegar is added to the hot sugar, it can spit a bit, be careful not to burn yourself!

• Peel the zest of 3 oranges and cut into small pieces – like you might find in marmalade
• Blanch the pieces of zest in boiling water – just boil the kettle, pour the water over the zest and leave it to sit for a bit.
• Juice the 3 oranges. 
• Add your chopped orange peel to your gastrique

• Remove your onion-carrot mixture from the oven.
• Add the tomato puree, the Gran Marnier, and the orange juice.
• Pop it back on the stove and leave it to simmer on a low heat.

• Pass the carrot mixture through a chinois or fine sieve, making sure that no bits get through
• Add the sieved carrot mixture to the gastrique
• Add salt and pepper to taste.
• And your sauce à l’orange is done!

Serve your duck whole and carve at the table, before adding sauce and fresh orange slices to the plate. Have it alongside green beans and crispy roast potatoes (cooked in duck fat) and voila! A very French – and very tasty – Christmas dinner. Joyeux Noël!

Edible Christmas Gifts - Hot Chocolate Sticks

With just a week and a bit to go until Christmas, it is highly likely that, for some of you, present-based panic has set in. If you read our blog a few weeks ago, you may have got some lovely vanilla extract ready, but if you fancy something a little more traditional, we’ve got the perfect edible gift for you – Hot Chocolate sticks.

These delightful little sweet treats are perfect for the Christmas season – not only are they a delicious and thoughtful gift, they are also a wonderful warming treat to enjoy during a long cold January, post-Christmas.

This recipe can be done in one of two ways – one which can be made with normal bars of chocolate, which you can get from your local supermarket, but is best done with a blender, and one for which you don’t need a blender which is made with cacao butter and raw cocoa powder.

Recipe 1

Ingredients

• 50g Cocoa butter - 1kg is about £15
• 100g Raw cacao powder - 1kg is about £13 BUT you can make it with normal cocoa powder
• 1 can (normally 397g) Condensed milk
• Double cream
• Icing sugar, to sweeten, to taste

Method

• Weigh out all your ingredients
• Put your cocoa butter in a bain marie (a heatproof bowl over a pan of boiling water)
• Add the cocoa powder.
• Mix until smooth.
• Add the cream and continue to mix.
• Add the condensed milk and keep mixing.
• Taste, and add icing sugar if you want it to be sweeter.
• Coat the inside of your moulds with coconut oil or some other mild-tasting oil.
• Pour the mix into moulds and allow to cool in the fridge for 1 hour
• Then add the sticks.
• Allow to cool entirely in the fridge overnight.
• Remove from moulds, wrap in cellophane.

Top Tip – add some fun extras like spices - how about powdered cinnamon to make it Christmassy?! – or little marshmallows, like we've done below.

Recipe 2

Ingredients

• 600g of bar chocolate (dark, milk, or white) – you could do a mix
• 375g condensed milk
• 125ml Double Cream

Method

• Pour condensed milk and double cream into a pan, mix a bit then heat it GENTLY on medium heat until it starts to simmer
• Make sure it doesn’t stick – keep stirring it.
• Blitz up your chocolate in a blender or – if you don’t have a blender – just chop/bash it up as small as possible. You are aiming for a powder-like consistency if you can so it will melt as quickly as possible.
• Turn the temperature right down on your cream and condensed milk mixture.
• Pour your blitzed up chocolate into a heat-proof bowl and add in your cream and condensed milk mixture.
• Mix thoroughly, making sure there are no lumps.
• Pour into moulds – or into a normal deep baking tray, lined with greaseproof paper, to be cut into squares later.
• Pop your moulds or tray in the fridge for 3-4 hours.
• After 4 hours, pop in your sticks, then put back in the fridge overnight.

Top Tip – Use three different kinds of chocolate, split your cream and condensed mixture into three, and make different coloured layers, like we've done below – or you could make swirly patterns in it. It’s up to you!

To use either of these lovely chocolate sticks, all you need to do is heat up a cup of milk and swirl the stick through it for the perfect wintry hot chocolate. (Or, don’t bother with the sticks at all, and just enjoy it as a delicious, rich pudding!) Have fun!

Merry Christmas Markets!

Nothing says Merry Christmas like a tasty foodie gift. Thankfully, Carine will be selling a multitude of delicious stocking fillers at a number of Christmas Markets across London this month.

This Friday she will be heading to Wimbledon High School from 3-5:30pm and these are some of the delicious things you can hope to find… if you get there quick enough!

Hot Chocolate Sticks

Choose from triple chocolate or chocolate with marshmallows – these cocoa treats are perfect for winter. Simply swirl them into a cup of warm milk for the best hot chocolate yet.

And, even better, tune into the blog or our YouTube channel next week, and we’ll show you how to make a version of these yourself!

The Green Sauce

Curious about this “green sauce” we keep talking about? The top-seller in Carine’s Marie’s Little Jar line will be available to sample at each of her Christmas markets!

Also available will be her hot-hot-hot chilli sauce, The Red Sauce. With a delicious, aromatic flavour like nothing you’ve come across before, this one is not for the fainthearted!

Peanut Candy

A childhood favourite from her home in Cameroon, if you’ve never had peanut candy before you are in for a treat! These Peanuts roasted with sugar are the ultimate moreish nibble. You may want to get more than one packet…

Carine will also be selling lovingly-packaged Christmas hampers so, if you can’t pick just one thing…you don’t have to! The ideal Christmas gift for a food-loving someone who wants to try something a little different. 

Come say hello in Wimbledon on Friday or keep your eye on our Twitter account for other upcoming markets!