Ingredient

Plum

Plums cover an enormous range — from the sugary Victoria eaten out of hand to the small, austere damsons that are barely edible raw. The practical division is between plums bred for eating and plums bred for cooking, and it is decided by acidity in the skin as much as by sweetness in the flesh.

Where the sharpness lives

In most plums the flesh is sweeter than the skin, sometimes markedly so. The skin carries acid and tannin, and it is what stops a cooked plum being cloying. This is why plum dishes so rarely call for peeling, and why a plum that is delicious raw can taste flat when the skins have been strained out.

It also explains a common complaint: a plum crumble that tastes sharp at the edges and bland in the middle usually has the skins concentrated at the sides where the fruit collapsed.

Cooking softens the skins and disperses that acidity, which is a large part of why plums cook so well.

The main types

Victoria

The British standard. Pinkish-red, oval, yellow-fleshed, freestone when fully ripe. Good raw and good cooked, which is why it dominates.

Greengage

Small, green-gold, honeyed and floral. The best eating plum there is, and a short difficult season.

Damson

Small, dark blue-purple, very astringent raw, clingstone. A cooking fruit, and the best of them.

Mirabelle

Tiny, yellow, very sweet. French, mostly turned into tarts and eau-de-vie.

Japanese plums

Larger, rounder, juicier, mostly imported. Good raw and watery when cooked.

Prune plums

Italian or Zwetschge types — dense, oval, dark, freestone and low in water. The best plum for baking, because they do not flood the tin.

What to do with a full tree

The usual plum problem is everything ripening in a fortnight.

• Freeze them halved and stoned. They freeze extremely well and go straight into a crumble later.
• Plum jam, which sets well — plums are decent in pectin, especially slightly under-ripe, and the stones add more if you simmer some of them in with the fruit.
• Roast them. Halved, cut side up, sugar, a splash of water, a star anise. Twenty minutes.
• Plum chutney with onion, vinegar, ginger and warm spice, which is one of the best things to do with a mediocre crop.
• Plum sauce for duck or pork, sharpened with vinegar.
• Plum gin or vodka, particularly with damsons, which is easy and outstanding.
• A tray-baked plum cake, using prune-type plums that hold their shape.

Preparing a glut for the freezer

Twenty minutes now saves the whole crop.

1. Wash and sort. Discard anything split or wasp-damaged; wasps find the sweetest fruit first, so the damage is a compliment.
2. Halve along the seam and twist. Victorias and prune plums separate cleanly when ripe; damsons and clingstone types will not, so freeze those whole.
3. Lay the halves cut side up on a lined tray, not touching, and freeze until solid.
4. Bag them once hard. Frozen loose first, they stay separate and you can take out a handful at a time.
5. Label with the variety, not just the fruit. In February you will not remember which bag holds the cooking plums.

Common questions