Engage with greengages

There are plums and then there are greengages. Bright green and round with greenish-yellow or golden flesh, they have a beautiful sweet scent when ripe and can be used instead of plums for desserts and preserves.

The blogger Pim Techamuanvivit (chezpim.com) has a recipe for greengage and vanilla jam made with 2lb (about 1kg) greengages, 1lb (about 500g) sugar, 2 vanilla pods and the juice of 1 lemon. When cooked down into compote or jam, the fragrant flavour of the greengages intensifies. There’s also a enough acidity to balance the sweetness and plenty of natural pectin in the skin so there’s no need to add extra.

Another blogger, Princess and the Recipe (princessandrecipe.blogspot.com), has adapted Pim’s recipe to make greengage sorbet, substituting lime for lemon and leaving out the vanilla beans. She cools the stewed greengages before they reach a jammy setting point, pushes them through a sieve to get rid of the skins, pops the sieved liquid in the fridge, then churns it in an ice-cream maker.