Nigel Slater: The season for plums is short and precious so make the most of it.
It’s all about having the right tools for the job. There is a chapter in Nigel Slater's A Cook’s Book titled “Kitchen kit - the essential knives, pots, pans and cake tins” in which he explains that what works for him is not a plethora of gadgets and gizmos, but “a humble collection of well made pieces of kitchen equipment and little else”. Turn the page and you will find him describing his Netherton Foundry pie dish as the perfect apple pie plate. You will see it used for far more than apple pie as you meander hungrily from chapter to chapter.
The pie dish makes another appearance, gloriously filled with plum pie and lovingly photographed by Johnathan Lovekin, in Nigel’s feature in the Observer 31/7/22, which starts intriguingly and beguilingly with the following sentence; “There was no sign of dessert.” The recipe for that plum pie ensues, and to be extra sure of preventing a soggy bottom, he has not only mixed the fruit with jam and ground almonds, but placed the pie dish on top of a baking sheet. Our heavy duty baking sheet is ideal for this. We hope you enjoy your baking and may your plums be juicy and your bottoms crispy.
Sue, Netherton Foundry
See the recipe for Plum and almond pie at Guardian/ Observer on-line.
Nigel's plum and almond pie was baked in a Netherton Foundry 10in pie dish, more information here. Click here to see all the Netherton baking tins.
