A wonderful ingredient for any pantry, Vanilla is the fruit of a climbing orchid from Central
America. Within the pods there are numerous amounts of tiny sticky seeds which can be scraped out
and put into custards, cakes, tarts, and used in poaching fruit. The whole pod, cut down the middle,
can be added to liquid preparations such as custards and syrups while cooking to impart more
flavour, and once used it can be dried off and placed in your sugar pot to impart vanilla flavour
into your sugar. Unusually the flavour of vanilla can also be used in seafood and chicken
dishes.
