FRESH IDEAS FOR DRIED FRUIT

Whenever I put together lists of useful storecupboard ingredients, many of them are relatively ‘new’ to cooks in the UK. Japanese miso, Middle Eastern date syrup, Italian nduja – I wasn’t buying these 10 years ago. Not everyone will think they’re necessary, but if you’re making simple food, the flavours these ingredients deliver are transformative. There are others, though, that nobody gets excited about because we’re so used to them. Take dried fruit: raisins, currants, sultanas, tubs of prunes and boxes of dates. We associate these with Christmas, old-fashioned bakes (my mum used to make wonderful dried fruit pastry squares) and, not to put too fine a point on it, keeping our bowels in order. But, I couldn’t cook without dried fruit. It’s ancient – the first mention of dried fruit was on Mesopotamian tablets dating from 1500 BC – but it’s also a fundamental part of many cuisines, including Iranian, Moroccan, Spanish (at least certain regions), Turkish,