Apple and Blackberry Crumble Tart

The August butterfly survey gives me a chance to pick wild blackberries on a couple of my Parc de Boussay transects. Last year I chose to combine them with windfall apples from the orchard to make Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Apple and Blackberry Crumble Tart. I would have used hazelnuts from our orchard too, but they hadn't ripened in time. The recipe is in The River Cottage Cookbook and is this one, just using blackberries instead of raspberries. It's really good.

Wild blackberries. 

If it is dry, make sure you pick them from along the side of a ditch or similar, so they've had a good supply of water to plump up the berries. Otherwise they will just be a load of seeds and no flesh.

Wild caught blackberries held in a saucepan with diced apple, ready to be stewed.

The pastry case weighed down with small change to blind bake it. The copper coins are excellent heat conductors.

The finished tart.

Served with home made custard and a blackberry coulis.

Plenty left over, and it freezes well.

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French Expression: Un contrôle = 'a check up'. That's what Simon had yesterday at Poitiers hospital, to check that his eye is healing as expected after the operation a week ago. This revealed that the retina has indeed reattached nicely and the operation was a success. However, the gas bubble is causing a bit much pressure and so on top of his gazillions of drops he must now take a tablet to reduce the pressure and another tablet to mitigate the side effects of the first tablet.

Cars in France have a contrôle technique (= 'technical check') every two years, usually referred to by the initials CT (pronounced 'saytay').  That's their roadworthy test.