Although grapes are often imported to the UK, it is possible to grow grapes at home. Certain varieties of vine grow well despite the domestic weather, especially in the south of the country.
While imported grapes for eating tend to be very sweet and seedless, grapes grown here in the UK are often sour in taste and contain many pips, which can make it challenging to use them in your home kitchen.
How to prepare your sour grapes
If you have a vine at home, use a sharp pair of scissors to cut each grape stem, with a hand underneath to catch the bunch as it falls. Put your grapes into a large container and fill it with fresh water, leave them to sit in the water and allow any debris to float to the top (at this point you may wish to rescue any insect life taken unawares during the harvest).
Pour off the water. Set up two bowls, one large and one small. Line the base of the large bowl with kitchen towel. Manually sort through the grapes, put any bad or rotting grapes into the small bowl and put the good grapes into the large bowl. Discard the bad grapes in the small bowl and you’re left with your nice edible grapes to cook with. At this point you can freeze the grapes if you don't want to use them immediately.
Seedless sour grape recipes
If you are lucky enough for your grapes to be seedless, you have a few more options available to you such as adding them directly to a savoury meal. Here a few recipes to try:
- Iranian Dish’s chicken with sour grapes (pictured above)
- Minakshi Singh’s grape pickles
- Simi & Milo’s grape berry smoothie (for sweeter grapes)
Seeded sour grape recipes
If your grapes have seeds in them, you’ll need recipes that use their juice. Luckily there are many delicious ways to use grape juice, even from the most sour of grapes! Depending on the sourness of your grapes, you may need to adjust the sugar content of these recipes to suit your taste.
- Sig’s homemade grape jelly recipe - a simple dessert with just three ingredients, grapes, sugar and cornflour
- Yui’s grape vine jam recipe - combine grapes and sugar - yes just those two ingredients - and you too can make this lovely soft set jam (pictured above). Delicious spread on toast!
- Sonia’s grape vine red onion jelly recipe - this grape chutney uses crab apples or a dessert apple to act as natural pectin. Perfect served with roast meats or vegetables.
- Irum Zaidi’s grape juice recipe - in this wonderfully simple juice drink, simply add sugar and lemon juice to taste for a refreshing treat.
Other ways to use sour grapes
Boil your grape juice with sugar (450g of grapes to 35g of sugar) to make a sweet and sticky grape syrup, perfect for adding flavour to cold lemonade or as a drizzle on cakes.
Make grape 'must' by squeezing your grapes with the stems, seeds and skins, then pass it through a muslin cloth. Boil the juice and skim off any froth, until the juice thickens. Strain it again and then you can use the must to make puddings! Find grape must recipes on Cookpad here.
Don’t forget the grape vine leaves
Did you know your vine leaves are edible too! Find stuffed vine leave recipes on Cookpad here.
We hope that you feel inspired to try making some of these sour grape recipes. Don’t forget you may need to add more or less sugar depending on the tartness of your grapes. Find more grape recipes on Cookpad here.