N1KITCHEN

pintade au chou AKA guinea fowl with cabbage

2011-05-03T21:01:00.004+01:00

i had a quick skim of what little i have written here this year and i don't know why i always end up writing about the war. it's not something i think about on a daily basis (any more - i used to) and it has little to do with my day to day life.

i suppose it is the time of the year. mid-april, we left and that was that. a different life started.

it may be hard to believe but i never wanted to write about the war itself, only me in it. i have no idea how we ended up in such a mess, and anyone who claims otherwise is undoubtedly engaged in reductionism of some sort. it would take more than what’s ostensibly a food blog to begin to describe what i think happened.

also, unlike a lot of people who come from war zones, i have a huge amount of moral ambivalence about it. some would call it paralysis. i can’t categorically claim i know that one side was a lot more wrong or a lot more right than the other, as much as lots of people i know would want me to. i am not sure my attitude is correct, and i would prefer to feel clarity about some things, but i just don’t. it’s not that i don’t believe some things were absolutely evil. it’s more than i am not sure where this evil starts and begins (i get the middle bit) and where it merges into something else around the edges. when you factor in all that history, who knows where you end up.

i’ve also learnt not to expect ‘closure’ pitched by cheap psychology as a solution to pain that follows something like a war. that is not why war keeps creeping back into everything i write.

i admit i did think it would happen at first – i remember writing about it in my diary. (the diaries at the time: tightly written pages and pages of trying to fathom what was happening to me, and failing. incredibly boring to read afterwards, and not much fun to write at the time.) i thought i would put the war behind me, in a way people deal with something like a successful appendix surgery. they remember it being bad at the time but it’s a done deal, with little spill over into their present except as an occassional memory.

you soon realise that closure is possible only in films, where happy endings are made up and all the mess is tidied away. in real life, even when the war ended – for me definitely not with a bang but a whimper – everything was already so different, both here and there, that it made little difference.

it's now may so maybe that's enough for one year. i'll start again next march when the hayfever kicks in.

as for food, this is a slightly random recipe, for which no one will thank me as i don't think people regularly find themselves recipeless but with a spare guinea fowl. in my defence, the fowl was on sale in waitrose (where else?) and for less than a fiver, looked big enough to feed two. it was 1kg almost exactly.

so should you find yourself with a spare guinea fowl, or with another game bird or two (or even a small chicken), this is a good 'un. it's everything a recipe should be: short and one-pot. it comes from stephane reynauld's book ripailles on traditional french cuisine. i knew frenchies would come up with the goods - even hugh fearly-wearly's meat book didn't have much to say about this particular bird.

come to think of it, wtf is a guinea fowl??

PINTADE AU CHOU
for two

1 guinea fowl, sans giblets
1 green cabbage or savoy to you and me
250g smoked streaky bacon pieces
1 glass of white wine
6 sage leaves - don't think i had any but i can see why they'd work
3 carrots
3tbs duck fat or butter
200ml chicken stock
seasoning

in a big heavy pot, melt the duck fat and brown the fowl (whole) until golden. add the bacon pieces, sage and the carrots which have been peeled and diced.

cut the cabbage into six pieces and wash well. add to the pot, pour in the wine and the stock, cover and let it cook for about 45 mins on low heat. stir regularly.

piperade

2011-04-10T08:07:00.006+01:00

do you want war first or food first? maybe do war and get it out of the way? ok? good.

just over twenty years ago, the war started. i say 'the' war because for me there is only one war that matters (not so for anyone older than about 65). and i say ‘started’, although wars don't really start like that, not in a clean, precise way that giving them a date would indicate (like first day at school, or christmas holidays).

the weird thing is, croatia had been on fire for a year and we, a couple of hundred miles down the road, behaved as if nothing was going on. i've said it before but it's true: we’d watch the fighting on telly like it was beirut or tel aviv or any of those places we associated with wars, tv reports of tanks on dusty roads and men with kalashnikovs and scarves around their heads.

we knew there’d be no trips to dubrovnik that year and that we wouldn’t be visiting zagreb any time soon. but those people fighting in slavonia or shelling dubrovnik? they had nothing to do with us. we saw refugees from croatia at university but they were ‘normal’ and in our ignorance (arrogance), it may have crossed our minds they had lost homes or suffered but we didn't treat them as if they had. we treated it as if they'd just chosen to move (as if you'd abandon zadar or sibenik in january, in the middle of the school year, to come to sarajevo!).

some of the people at uni had fought in croatia too. denis from prijedor, who smoked incessantly and exhibited a nice collection of nervous twitches and distant looks, told us stories about vukovar and watching his best mate getting blown up in a tank ahead. he was into guns’n’roses and he wrote ‘i don’t need your civil war’ on the inside cover of the notebook i took with me when i left home (to revise, thinking we'd be back in a week or two). i found his tall, spiky handwriting years later living in a miserable house in birkinhead with a bunch of fuckwits, and it choked me for days.

we used to stand huddled in groups smoking cigarettes in echoey concrete hallways of the philological faculty in sarajevo, talking about how “croatia” - a prematurely-given synonym for the worst kind of civil war bloodshed imaginable - could never happen in bosnia. we'd say it with that strange excitement people get when they feel themselves to be a part of some disaster, something newsworthy. (for that feeling to be delicious and sublime, the disaster has to be proximate enough to be scary but distant enough to have little direct bearing on your life. like watching a car crash from behind the wheel of your own untouched vehicle). little did we know we’d end up being headlines for 3 years of every news bulletin on every channel. a

and now food. i know piperade looks like a plate of cat sick on some rocket leaves. or even human sick. but it's a breakfast of champions or, if you think eating vegetables for breakfast is weird, lunch. it's a good way of making something a bit more filling out of some eggs.

you can make it as easy or as complicated as you like. i've made it with peppers from jars and with the ones i've grilled myself. also with tinned and real tomatoes. having said that, it would of course work best with some great summer produce - that's when you'd really notice how amazingly simple and delicious it is.

it's not a quick recipe, i grant you - though using jars/tins will shorten it.

PIPERADE
for four
2 tbs olive oil
2 red peppers
1 green pepper
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
400g peeled and chopped plum tomatoes - i usually don't bother peeling
a pinch of chilli flakes
a sprig of thyme
6 eggs

peppers first. you need to massage them with oil and then either grill them under the grill, whack them straight onto an open flame if you have a gas cooker (maybe skewered on metal skewers for ease of turning but be careful because they get very hot), or use a griddle pan. you want them all chargrilled and soft. when you think they're done, let them cool just a little and then put them in a plastic bag or in a bowl covered with clingfilm. they steam a little, making them easier to peel. discard the seeds and stalks, peel the skin and cut them into pieces.

peel and slice the onion thinly. stew gently in olive oil, then add the garlic and cook until they're soft but not coloured. be patient - i think the onion softening always takes longer than you think. now add the peppers and tomatoes, season with chilli flakes and thyme, and cook for about 15 minutes until the moisture has all but evaporated.

break the eggs into a bowl and whisk. add to the pan with peppers and tomatoes and stir over gentle heat until the eggs are scrambled. taste and season. serve immediately, maybe over some ham or with salad.

haddock with romesco sauce

2011-04-03T17:41:00.007+01:00

it officially being spring, we did some spring cleaning last week. what prompted this rare bout of proper (as opposed to superficial) tidying up was not the spring itself but the realisation that we might not be able to move into a bigger place any time soon. i think i am permitted to sound like a 37 year old that i am and moan just a little about property prices in our area. it's bloody expensive to live here. all we want is another room and a little bit of outside space - i shouldn't have to sell a kidney in order to get it.

so instead of looking at property websites and getting depressed, we thought that getting rid of a few things would be a cheaper way of having somewhere nice to live than quadrupling our mortgage. i am not going to go into the usual platitudes about how you accumulate loads of junk throughout your life (but it's true).

we embarked on a week-long exercise of transforming the flat. quite satisfying it was too, and not only because it involved buying new things. it was in fact largely to do with freecycling our old sofa, armchair and a few other things. most of it went to a nice young lad who’s just bought a house in walthamstow and ran out of cash to get stuff to put in it. seeing him carry sofa cushions down the road pleased me a great deal.

but the spring cleaning also made me realise how easy both rich and i find throwing things away. i have become wholly unsentimental about many of my possessions, which is odd for someone who is quite sentimental by nature. (i cried when they cut a tree down by our mountain cottage, for god’s sake – if that’s not sentimental, i don’t know what is.)

in my case this might be a remnant of leaving home aged eighteen with one bag. we left so much behind that the idea of getting attached to things seems plain odd.

when we first left, i didn’t really think about it beyond wishing i’d brought along more than five pairs of pants and wondering what bastard would steal my spaceman 3 records. those wardrobes full of skis and ice skates, winter shoes and barbeques, raincoats, gloves and wooly hats – they didn’t cross my mind for years, even when during the first winter in the UK in 1992 when i blankly failed to contemplate the absence of a winter coat. it’s only later when normal life re-started with a splutter that i suddenly remembered and got sad about all that was left behind. black skates, size 9, pigs’ skin. red ski boots, bought second hand in the sarajevo 'department store' by a seemingly reluctant mother, getting shabbier every season. elan skis, 180cm, grey, brand new, with barely a season under their wax. and the rest - most of which i can't even recall now.

looking back at it now, i have no idea how the absence of STUFF, the complete loss of..well...EVERYTHING didn't finish me off. i am sure a part of it was about youth. You don’t really plan for stuff when you’re young – you just go ahead and do it, naively and without fuss. part of it was obviously about not having any choice. getting blinkered about life outside what i had was probably quite sensible – i wasted little effort thinking about what i couldn’t have. it was no conscious decision, it just happened that way.

none of which has anything to do with the recipe! sorry, i am completely off piste at the moment. the recipe was, judging from the pink paper, a cutting from the FT i've been saving for ages. i don't normally do this as therein lies a road to madness (and mess - see above for throwing things away). the fact that i did made me finally cook it. somehow, having moved it from one notebook or cookery book for another, i couldn't bring myself to chuck it in a recycling bin.

the author is peter gordon, who now runs kopapa in covent garden. we were there on christmas eve, and very nice it was too, although everything was a bit too sweet for my taste.

you can, of course, eat romesco sauce with other things. i have blogged about it before but this version is slightly different - and nicer, i think. i have replaced the hazelnuts with half almonds/half pine nuts for no other reason that because rich seems to suffer from some strange reaction to hazelnuts. i would make double the quantity of sauce - it would keep in the fridge for a couple of days.

HADDOCK WITH ROMESCO SAUCE
for two romesco sauce
1 dried nora chilli, or similar, soaked in boiling water for 10 minutes
25g blanched almonds and 25g pinenuts - dry fry the nuts together to enhance flavour 75g piquillo peppers from a jar
1 clove of garlic, peeled
1/4tsp finely grated lemon zest
a squeeze of lemon juice
7-8 mint leaves
25ml olive oil

2 haddock fillets
1/2 clove garlic thinly sliced
1/2tsp rosemary leaves very finely chopped
knob of butter
olive oil

i am sure the sauce would be nicer chopped coarsely by hand but quite frankly that's far too much of a palaver so i chucked it all in a food processor and whizzed it up. taste it though and add salt or more juice or mint if you think it needs it. this is best made a couple of hours in advance to let the flavours develop.

preheat the oven to 220C. lay the fillets on a plate skin side down and sprinkle with garlic and rosemary. season, then leave for ten minutes. when you're ready to cook, heat an oven-proof frying pan, add the butter and oil and once they are sizzling, fry the haddock flesh side down for 30 second. turn over, then place in a hot oven for 8-10 minutes, depending on how big your fillet is. to serve, put some buttered spinach or kale on a plate, place the haddock fillet on top, spoon over the sauce and the pan juices.

lukmira, or spring onions and creme fraiche

2011-03-28T21:13:00.006+01:00

this strange concoction of creme fraiche and chopped up spring onions is one of the last thing i ate at home before leaving for what will be forever. it is not exactly a recipe – more of a suggestion to try something you wouldn’t ordinarily think of trying. the crème fraiche has to indeed be fresh and the best you can afford (don’t offend me with half-fat rubbish) and the spring onions should be squeaky and newly dug up.

once you've got that sorted, there is literally nothing to it: you chop up the onions and you mix them with creme fraiche. maybe some crumbled feta if you feel like it and a bit of salt if you don't.

as for leaving home...well, the war started in april, and i have relived that day a thousand times. part of it is a memory of a memory. that blossom on trees – do i really remember that or have i just repeated the image, the trope, in which blossom becomes a cheap symbol, a million times? probably the latter.

other parts i remember vividly, so vividly they still require a sharp intake of breath, twenty years later. the way that sunshine came in from both sides of the flat that morning, still slightly weak and wintry but no longer pallid. the dining room table. just that: the table, brown and wooden. the kitchen, always slightly cooler in the shady corner of the flat, pigeons nesting in corners outside windows. the telephone call (or was it calls?), telling us to get ready. the lists that i have subsequently been making of such trivial, irrelevant things. i suspected those lists to be a literary affectation stolen from writers like danilo kis or bruno shultz but later i realised that the obsessive list-making is a common strategy in the war against forgetting.

the truth is, i have forgotten.

the geography of sarajevo is slowly dissolving in my head. some streets and places are crystal clear but how they fit together, the actual map, has almost disappeared. whole neighbourhoods have been obliterated by amnesia. when i think of gorica (where anela, her sister and i got drunk on her grandmother’s balcony and then ate loads of jam sandwiches), the ‘1 may’ cinema and the bar ‘setaliste’, i can no longer work out how you’d walk between the three.

sarajevo is no longer a real place for me. i know my friends think otherwise, and for those who go back to see their families, it is as real as it ever has been, every building and every street. not for me. the nostalgia that i suffer from, chronically and incurably – the nostalgia that drives me to google photos of sarajevo and just look at them – is in reality a nostalgia for a moment in past. and it is a common malaise. as much as she would deny it, it is what makes my mother read blogs by sarajevans in diaspora, get really cross with them, swear she’d never do it again, and then lapse two weeks later, or post photos of old postcards depicting the city hundred years ago.

but both of us have little desire for sarajevo as it is now.

roast broccoli with prawns

2011-03-20T19:16:00.006Z

i think i like the anticipation of spring as much as i like the actual spring itself. if not more. april and may are probably my favourites, though june still has the pale green lucidity of early summer. by july, i know the end is near despite the reckless sunshine. by august, i've already smelt the end of summer in the parched grass and holiday photos, and started dreading september and the rains.

but as much as spring is my favourite time of the year, it’s also when i am at my maddest. i don’t mean hysterical mad. it’s more of a feeling of unease, or restlessness. nostalgia for something undefined. i don’t really know what it is, or what causes it. it feels as natural to me as the changing of seasons, following its innate rhythm that i almost have nothing to do with. and strangely, it’s not some intellectual or emotional exercise of taking stock of my life which is what you’d expect at the start of a new season. that’s starting to happen anyway, as a sobering byproduct of getting older. instead, it’s just an inchoate feeling, like an itch that needs scratching once a year. i assume it has something to do with the changing of seasons. it happens in the six or eight weeks where things are on the cusp and you notice the change – the light getting stronger or weaker, the leaves coming through or falling. it’s nothing like as strong in the autumn though there is no doubt that autumns make me maudlin too.

i think i had it before i left home. mind you, i then probably thought it all very poetic to get moody as the days got warmer. i’d read too many books and fancied myself a future ts eliott, or at least antun branko simic. you'd have thought it would get worse after the war (AW, like BC and AD. my parents still had to ask ‘which war’, ‘the other one’ usually being WWII and ‘this one’ being the 90’s one) but i am not sure it did.

so, cycling through barnsbury through a storm of pink and white blossom, behind kids on stolen bikes leaving the smell of skunk in their wake, i feel the way i feel every march: like i have a hayfever of the soul.

i should say something about this recipe, i guess. when people marvel at how i can be bothered to cook when rich is away travelling, little do they know that this is the kind of food i eat. you just bung it all in the oven and what comes out is so amazingly tasty that i have thought more than once how being a banking widow isn't all that bad.

ROAST BROCCOLI WITH PRAWNS
for one greedy person or two normals

1 head of broccoli, sliced into thick wedges of just broken up into smallish florets
1 red pepper, cut into 4 - optional and i don't normally use it
around 1/4 cup or 4 tbs of olive oil
1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds
1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes or more if you like
a good pinch of salt (think tv chefs, not home)
loads of ground black pepper
250g fresh or frozen prawns
grated zest of 1/2 lemon
a squeeze of lemon
a good pinch of sumac

preheat the oven to 220C. grind cumin, coriander and chilli in a pestle and mortar, add the salt and pepper, and mix with about half of the oil. put the broccoli in a roasting tin and cover with this mixture, rubbing it in with your hands. you're aiming to cover the florets or bits of broccoli as much as you can.

spread the broccoli on a roasting try and put in the oven for 10-15 minutes. check after this time - it should be nearly ready, soft in the middle and getting slightly crunchy around the edges. if it's not, leave it in for a bit longer.

in the meantime, put the prawns in a bowl and mix with olive oil and lemon zest. when the broccoli is almost done, take it out of the oven and add the prawns. cook for another 5 minutes or until the prawns are done.

once out of the oven, squeeze some lemon juice over it and eat while still really hot. i like to cover mine with sumac - for some reason, the acidic, sharp taste goes really well with the whole thing.

red gurnard soup

2011-02-26T09:41:00.008Z

on paper, i wasn't hugely convinced by this recipe. it's one of the cheffy ones that assumes you will have leftover fish bits AND some fish stock, which most people clearly don't. however, i am clearly the kind of person who does, even if the tub of stock had been hanging around the freezer for exactly a year. (you can, of course, use any veg or chicken stock but fish one really does give it a lot of extra flavour.) we'd eaten the fish fillets for dinner that day, and it just seemed a shame to throw away the ugly, triangular heads and the spiky spines, not least because they still had a fair bit of flesh attached to them.

i was also a bit baffled by the star anise, juniper berries and fennel seeds in a soup. it just seemed like an odd combination - though i have made and blogged about a vegetarian red pepper and fennel soup before. the addition of fish isn't such a huge leap, i guess.

the recipe is from hix's book on seasonal food. i have bastardised it quite a lot, by halving the volume of liquid but keeping the same quantity of vegetables. i also skipped the potato he adds to thicken it - there is just no need.

soup made, i remained unconvinced. it smelt okay, nice even - but it didn't make me want to eat it straight away. it went in the fridge as next day's starter. when we finally got round to eating it, it was a revelation, and i am not exaggerating (much). the spices, especially the fennel and the star anise, give it an almost oriental twist but it's a traditional, recogniseable fish soup through and through, not miles away from the bouillabaisse.

i expect lots of other fish would be amenable to this kind of treatment so i'd urge you to buy sustainably-caught fish from your fishmonger, fillet it yourself or get him to do it but give you the bones.

RED GURNARD SOUP

bones and heads from 2 filleted gurnards
olive oil
1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped
1 leek, trimmed, washed and roughly chopped
1 small fennel bulb, trimmed and roughly chopped
1 red pepper, deseeded and chopped
3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
10 black peppercorns
1 star anise
a small pinch of saffron
3 juniper berries
1 bay leaf
2-3 sprigs of thyme
a tin of chopped tomatoes plus some tomato puree
50ml red wine
1 litre of fish stock
salt and pepper

heat a large pan and gently fry the fish heads and bones, the vegetables, garlic, spices, juniper berries and herbs for ten minutes until soft. add the tomatoes and the tomato pure, red wine and fish stock. simmer gently for about 50 minutes.

fish out (ahem) most of the bones out of the soup and then liquidise the rest with a hand-held blender or in a food processor. some leftover bones are fine - the blades can usually cope with them if they're not huge. at this point the soup will resemble nothing more than a pool of sick. but don't be put off - get a sieve and push the thick soup through it into another pan - use the back of a ladle to help it along. you should end up with a brick-red, finely-fragranced soup.

at this point you can add other things if you wish - maybe a few prawns, or some gurnard fillets. i didn't, and i didn't think it needed it.

blackberry and sloe gin jelly and a note about 'fasung'

2011-02-20T07:26:00.001Z

i’ve not eaten much jelly in my life. i could be wrong, but i don’t remember mum ever making it, and i’ve certainly not eaten it in anyone else’s house. i suppose the obvious next question is whether you could buy jelly at all in yugo supermarkets but 1. there weren’t really any supermarkets as such and 2. you certainly didn’t buy THAT kind of thing in them. oh and 3, making stuff out of packets was sort of cheating.

what you did buy in supermarkets what my parents called ‘fasung’. i have no idea what the word ‘fasung’ means though it is evidently german. whereas turks gave us words for sleeping and eating (duvets and pillows are definitely turkish, as are many fruits and vegetables), the germans contributed with vocabulary of practical things: zips and sowing machines and screwdrivers. oh, and tights, with a word that makes no attempt to hide its origins: schtrample.

'fasung’ was for dull, bulky things: dishwasher salt, washing powder, jars of gherkins, possibly a tube of tommy mayonnaise, tins of sardines (‘eva’ ones with peppers were my favourite, in tins that sported a particularly fetching walrus in a stripey tee shirt), oil, sugar, macaroni. also raisins and little sachets of vanilla sugar, which made our pantry smell how i think all pantries should. that’s about it. you’d nip over to the deli counter and get some sliced ham and salami but the majority of fresh food you’d get from the market.

so why am i making jelly now? well, jelly is fun. it’s easy to make, you can make it in moulds shaped like pigs or rabbits, there is always a moment of terror as you turn it onto a plate and squeals of excitement both if it does and doesn’t work, AND – as a bonus - it wobbles rudely on a plate. what’s not to like? i should also say jelly can be made without the addition of sugar so it’s a pretty decent primal dessert for a special occasion.

i like jellies plain, or just with cream. i’m not entirely sure about the addition of fruit, but i am working on that one. trifle with jelly is, in my view, a complete abomination. (trifle should be: sponge soaked in sherry, raspberry jam, fresh raspberries, homemade custard, lightly whipped cream, cheesy decorations which include a christmas tree made out of candied angelica. end of.)

the basic jelly recipe that’s proved pretty failsafe for me is 500ml liquid and five of those gelatine leaves. a jelly freak, rather than an amateur like me, might consider the consistency too stiff. but having failed to deliver once (at a party, no less), i’d rather be safe than sorry. and anyway, it still wobbles, that’s the main thing.

some pointers – oil the mould very lightly. just wipe around it with an oiled kitchen towel before pouring the jelly in. if making jelly from fruit like berries or rhubarb, let the juice drain in a colander without squashing the fruit as apparently this makes for a cloudy jelly. i think life is too short to aim for this kind of perfection so i regularly squash. do add booze to your jelly – that’s what makes is good. i made a forced rhubarb and limoncello jelly the other day (second photo) but the best one i’ve ever done is blackcurrant and sloe gin bunny a la valentine warner on the first picture.

BLACKBERRY AND SLOE GIN JELLY

5 gelatine leaves
600g blackberries
400ml water
150ml sloe gin

soak the gelatine leaves in a bowl of cold water for about 10 minutes. the leaves need to be covered.

while that's happening, put the blackberries and water in a pan, and let simmer over a gentle heat until the fruit has totally collapsed. now place a sieve with a piece of muslin or an old cloth over a bowl, and tip the blackcurrant mix in. let in drain, until all the juice has been extracted - don't squash if you can help it. i can't and do. you're after the juice - you can throw the fruit pulp away though i'd keep it to stir into greek yoghurt.

now reheat the fruit juice gently, to just warm. take the gelatine leaves out of the water - squeeze them dry with your hands - and whisk into the juice. make sure it's all dissolved. add the sloe gin.

pour into a 700ml mould and put in the fridge - for a good few hours or overnight.

when you want to turn it out, dip the mould very briefly in hot water before doing it. emphasis on very - i did it for maybe 10 seconds and the warmth turned my jelly back to liquid.

chicken with leeks and mustard

2011-02-19T09:34:00.007Z

great meat and veg dish, this - simple, comforting but with a little kick of mustard at the end. you can add another veg to the mix - you can see celeriac on my photos - but i'd probably just do leeks next time.

CHICKEN WITH LEEKS AND MUSTARD
for two

half a chicken, jointed - either in breast and leg, or into four pieces. you can also use 4 chicken thighs or whatever combination of chicken bits you fancy - as long as they're on the bone
salt and pepper
olive oil or butter for frying
200ml dry white wine
4 medium leeks, trimmed, cleaned and cut into 5cm lengths
2 cloves of garlic
leaves from 4 sprigs of thyme
2 bay leaves
200ml chicken stock
1 1/2 tbsp dijon mustard
a large handful of parsley, finely chopped

heat the oven to 200C. season the chicken well on both sides and, in a flameproof casserole with a lid, brown the pieces in olive oil in batches. 3 minutes on skin side and maybe a minute on the other. don't crowd the pan or they will boil. be patient.

take the chicken out when done, tip most of the fat out of it and add the wine. let it bubble for five minutes, then add everything else apart from mustard and parsley. let it cook for another five minutes.

put the chicken pieces back in, cover with a lid and put in the oven for 30 minutes. take the lid off and cook for another 30 or until the chicken is done - depends on how big your pieces are.

finally, stir in the mustard and parsley into the sauce, taking care to preserve the crispy skin. easier to do if you plate your chicken pieces, and then fix the sauce.

what to eat

2011-02-19T09:09:00.007Z

a friend asked recently about what we eat, thinking low carb would be a good way to lose weight before his wedding. both rich and i excitedly tried to explain how easy and straightforward it was, and how it is not like a diet at all and how you shouldn't think of it as such. it's a way of life, maaan.

the reality is probably not quite that simple. easy though it seems now, i remember clearly the horror of a plate piled high with veg and missing the obligatory starchy, carby bit. what do you mean you just eat a piece of fish with vegetables?? where is the rice, the pasta, the potato?? will you not go hungry?

well, no, you won't and that's because you will not be eating a piece of steamed fish with some steamed broccoli and nothing else, victoria beckham-style. your fish will probably be a large hunk of protein and it will probably be fried in butter, with a lovely crispy skin. and you will eat a LOT of vegetables. you will not go hungry, that's for sure.

but first things first. what should you eat?

it IS simple.

do eat: vegetables. non-starchy veg, so don’t just replace pasta with potatoes. potatoes are not really vegetables anyway - they're tubers. think leafy green, like spinach or cabbage, think aubergines, courgettes, peppers, think cauliflower and broccoli, fennel and chicory, not to mention tomatoes. okra, mushrooms,leeks, brussel sprouts. some paleo/primal people don’t eat any root veg so no beetroot or parsnip, or even carrot. i am personally not convinced by that, so we continue to eat them but in moderation. also think squash and pumpkin – again, not in huge quantities as they are pretty sweet. no peas, no sweetcorn. go beyond what you’d usually have or you’ll be bored to death pretty quickly. you have to overbuy vegetables - they will be the bulk of your shopping basket. we are surely our greengrocer’s best customers.

also eat: meat and fish. and i don’t mean chicken breasts either. i mean proper meat, including offal and stuff that has to be slow-roasted, and fish like sardines and herring. in, fact, the kind of stuff that is usually the cheapest - and the tastiest. i also mean - and this is not really optional: flesh from happy animals and sustainably-caught fish. eating as much animal and fish protein as you will do in this case means that you not only have to think about environmental sustainability but also your own health. a cow is not meant to eat grains which it needs antibiotics to digest. it’s meant to eat grass. the fact that you now have to pay extra to get meat from a cow that's eating what it's meant to eat is just bizarre. world gone mad, etc. so choose carefully and be prepared to spend more. if it’s too expensive, eat more offal or properly cheap cuts. a kilo of pigs’ cheeks will feed at least four very hungry people, and it should cost less than a tenner.

also eat: eat coconuts, in all shapes and forms, from milk to fresh stuff. eat butter and some diary, if you like, though i am not so keen on it these days. it's a pretty good guess our ancestors wouldn't have eaten dairy - having seen a programme this week about mongolians trying to catch a wild mare to milk shows you it wouldn't have been easy. but life without cheese would be dull so, though i don't drink milk i do eat cheese, use butter and eat greek yoghurt from time to time.

eat: fruit, in moderation. no fruit juice. no gorging yourself either. eat seasonal, that should take care of things. if you consider where we are geographically, fruit season is short and so exciting. make the most of it. PS bananas are not proper fruit.

don’t eat: anything that comes out of a packet. mainly beans, legumes, lentils and such like. when was the last time you grew a lentil? or a chickpea? the only things we keep in the cupboard are tins of tomatoes, tins of coconut milk and tinned fish. also loads of spices, vinegar and oil. and genuinely not much else - i've just had a look in the cupboard to check. tahini is useful to jazz up aubergines, also those roast peppers in jars, and olives, artichokes and such like. the equivalent of what they called 'zimnica' at home - i.e. vegetables you put away for the winter, preserved in some way, usually by pickling.

so there you have it. i've probably forgotten something but there are loads of sites that will tell you more. it is not that hard but it takes some getting used to. and you can either do this art de vany style, and basically eat pretty bland food which consists of a piece of meat plus some boiled veg, or you could cook like i do and transform those ingredients into something truly exciting.

grilled pineapple with chilli

2011-02-14T18:32:00.006Z

i loved this so much that i want to make it again and again. in fact, if you're coming to ours for dinner any time soon and don't like pineapple, i wouldn't bother. it is very likely to i will be making this for dessert until everyone i know has tried it. if you're lucky, i'll give you a bit of coconut or vanilla ice cream to go with it.

the recipe is by rowley leigh, who writes a food column in the weekend FT. (i know, get me, etc.) he's my new chef crush, largely because he does simple food well, respects great ingredients, and writes in an unpretentious style. a bit like nigel slater used to, before he got repetitive and dull. i've never been to le cafe anglais, where he is the chef, but perhaps i ought to soon.

pineapple is quite sweet so this is an occasional treat rather than an everyday snack. the original recipe uses sugar, which makes sense as the idea is to coat the fruit in syrup. i skipped it, of course, and found that a mere dollop of raw honey was enough. add a pot of chocolate sauce - just melt over gentle heat in a bain marie around 100g of 85% chocolate with a bit of double cream - and it becomes a decent dinner party option.

GRILLED PINEAPPLE WITH CHILLI
for four +

2 red chillies, deseeded and sliced into thin rounds
2 tsp raw honey
1 vanilla pod, cut in half lengthways and black seeds scraped out
1/2 cinnamon stick
4 star anis
10 cloves
1 pineapple

prepare the pineapple and cut into thick slices. heat a cast iron griddle pan and then grill the slices, turning them to create the criss-cross pattern. you can see on the first photo that i got to the criss but not the cross bit when i took it. if your pan is hot enough - and it should be - this should take less then ten minutes. when done, arrange the slices on a large platter.

in the meantime, make the syrup. in a small saucepan, combine the chillies, with all the other ingredients and 250ml of water. add both the vanilla seeds and the now empty pod (it's still fragrant). bring to a simmer and cook gently for 15 minutes.

when the syrup is ready, macerate the pineapple slices in it for a little while (if you can. if not, not to worry). if your fruit has gone cold, just reheat the whole thing in the oven for a few minutes.

butternut squash and aubergine subji

2011-01-09T13:53:00.006Z

this recipe caught my eye in one of the observer food monthly supplements - i have changed it only very slightly. it was in fact 'best reader's recipe' and came from one maya glaser from london, who is in possession of a punjabi mother-in-law.

it is a simple vegetable curry, which made me fall in love with 'normal' curries once more. i think the thai and south indian curries with milder spicing and coconut milk stole my heart for a while but i have made this several times in the last few months.you could of course add cooked chicken or raw prawns to the finished dish if you don't like a fully vegetarian version. i don't think it needs it, much like the thai curry i have blogged about before. you can also vary the vegetables - sweet potato instead of squash would be nice, as would the addition of spinach to wilt into the curry right at the end. i put some curly kale, which is a bit too cabbagey for it but okay in small quantities.

i'd suggest doubling the quantities so you have an extra dinner in the fridge or freezer. like all curries, it gets better once it's been standing around for a while. also, do try and use fresh spices - i know it's nerdy but it does make a difference. i don't suggest you make your own garam masala but grinding the cumin and cardamom does make a difference.

BUTTERNUT SQUASH AND AUBERGINE SUBJI
for 2-3

for the base:
1-2 medium-sized onions
3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped
thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
1tsp cumin seeds
2 green chillies, deeseded and chopped
olive oil
salt and pepper
2tsp garam masala
2tsp tumeric
1/2tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tin chopped tomatoes
a handful of fresh coriander, chopped

vegetables:
1 large aubergine, cut into big chunks
1 smallish butternut squash, cut into big chunks - i don't bother peeling them but you can if you don't like the skin
optional: handful of spinach, some button mushrooms, or whatever you fancy

fry the onion, garlic, ginger, cumin seeds and chillies with a pinch of salt in olive oil until soft.

stir in the garam masala, tumeric and cardamom, followed by the chopped tomatoes, and half the coriander. simmer for ten minutes before adding the aubergine and squash, and mushrooms if using. leave to simmer, covered with a lid, for about 45 mins to an hour - or until vegetables are soft. you do need to check about about half an hour as it might start catching - in which case, add a bit of water. if using spinach, throw it in at the last minute and allow it to wilt.

chorizo and goat's cheese-stuffed squid

2011-01-07T14:29:00.001Z

having slagged off the 'more is more' principle in the last post of 2010, i confess this recipe is not miles away from doing the same thing. not so much in terms of quantity of ingredients - there are only three of them, effectively - but in failing to stop at one good thing. why have only goat's cheese when you can have chorizo as well??? why have just chorizo and cheese when you can mix them up and put them inside a squid???

but you can't go wrong with these ingredients, can you?

CHORIZO AND GOAT'S CHEESE STUFFED SQUID
for four

8 baby squid, cleaned
150g goat's cheese
200g chorizo
350ml white wine (or just use water)
a small knob of butter
some chopped parsley

put the chorizo in a small pan with the wine and bring to the boil. simmer for about ten minutes. drain and put in a food processor with the cheese, and blend.

use a small spoon or a piping bag if you have one to stuff the mixture inside baby squid. close the top with some toothpicks - i used wooden skewers because i couldn't find anything else.

heat some oil in a frying pan and fry the squid over medium heat until cooked and nicely browned. when almost done, put in the knob of butter and parsley to finish off the cooking. that's it.

nice eaten with some salad. possibly tomato salad in the summer.

slow roast chocolate and chilli pork

2011-01-04T20:39:00.011Z

i made this for a party we had a while back, when it was seemingly quite a success. soft, juicy meat falling off the bone – you could practically eat it with a spoon – was piled onto floury baps and devoured pretty damn fast, from what i can remember.

i did make a few changes this time, the main one being that i cooked the meat uncovered as i wanted to get crackling. i must admit i was anticipating defeat – it’s hard to get crackling even when you whack the oven up high straight away, let alone when you leave the joint in the oven overnight.

for that is the secret of this pig’s success: it’s one of those slow roasts that requires practically no attention yet tastes absolutely amazing. the trick is to get a fatty piece of meat – i usually go for pork or lamb shoulder – on the bone, add some herbs and spices, and then cook in on very low temperature. i mean low: this cooked for some 15 hours at 100 degrees C. you turn the heat up to 230 for the last half an hour or so to finish off the crackling. but the majority of cooking is long and slow.

you could of course skip all the elaborate flavouring and go for something simple instead (maybe fennel seeds and bay) but i’d urge you to try the chilli/chocolate thing just once. you can’t taste the chocolate as such but, as with the christmas pudding from the last post, it definitely adds some background depth. i used the poncey 100 per cent cacao but you can just use the normal cocoa powder (with no sugar added, obviously).

feel free to play with the herbs and spices used – i used thyme because i had some in the fridge and i also chucked in some sage leaves in the roasting tin.

also, feel free to baste if you can remember. i did do it every now and again as i was at home that morning but i never too convinced it makes that much difference. i guess hot fat might help crisp up the crackling.

final word of advice, when you turn the heat up at the end, watch the skin so it doesn’t burn. i have ruined a piece of crackling in this way before, and there is nothing sadder than trying to eat a cremated bit of black pork skin, when you could be greasing your fingers and your chin and cracking your teeth with some lovely crackling instead.

SLOW ROAST CHOCOLATE AND CHILLI PORK
for more than a dozen

3 ancho or other dried Mexican chilies, stemmed and seeded
2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp coriander seeds
12 cloves
5 in piece of cinnamon bark or stick
1 1/2 tsp black peppercorns
6 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp salt
6 tbsp grated 100% cacao or just proper cocoa powder
olive oil
fresh thyme - a few sprigs
fresh sage - a few leaves (optional)

toast all the spices in a dry frying pan until fragrant. make sure they don't burn so watch them all the time. crush them using a pestle and mortar, then add the garlic and the chilli - size of mortar permitting. i put the spices in another bowl and crushed garlic, salt and thyme leaves separately. either way, mix it all together with the chocolate and enough olive oil to form a paste.

if you have time, rub the paste on the underside of the meat (i.e. not the skin) and leave in the fridge overnight for the flavours to penetrate the meat. if you haven't got time, it's not a big deal - it tastes pretty good anyway.

preheat the oven to 100 C. rub some of the paste taken from underneath the pork onto the skin itself, and rub a little more salt to ensure you get a decent crackling.

now put the pork in the oven, uncovered, skin down to start with, and leave to roast for, say, 3 hours. after that, take the roasting tin out of the oven, turn the pork over so it's now facing skin up, baste the skin with the fat from the tin, and leave to cook for another few hours. i would say 8-9 is probably a minimum and twice that long is fine. i cooked mine from 8 in the evening till 12 noon the next day.

in the last 30-45 minutes, turn the heat up to 230 C to crisp up the crackling.

chocolate christmas pudding

2011-01-01T13:00:00.001Z

this is a note to self for next year, more than anything else. a christmas pudding to end all christmas puddings - chocolatey, fruity, boozy and with none of the bad stuff in it. it IS sweet so let's not pretend this is low in carbohydrates and will help you lose weight. but it has no sugar added and consists chiefly of fruit and nuts, with a bit of booze and a surprise ingredient: 100 per cent cacao.

the recipe comes from willie harcourt-cooze, the king of chocolate and an erstwhile star of a tv programme about the trials and tribulations of growing and processing cacao on his estate. his 100er is stocked by waitrose but you can of course substitute 90 or 85 per cent if you can't find it. interestingly, you can't really taste the chocolate much - it's more of a subtle background flavour. in fact, i'd say you can probably smell it more than it being a distinct taste.

i should add that i halved this recipe and baked two small puddings - one of those was just enough for four people. the large pudding, as below, would feed more than a dozen. probably 15, in fact.

CHOCOLATE CHRISTMAS PUDDING

250g dried unsulphured apricots
200g pitted prunes
145g whole almonds, roughly chopped
145 ground almonds
1tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp ground allspice
1tsp nutmeg
750ml prune juice
90g 100 per cent cacao grated or chopped
300g sultanas
300g raisins
200g apples, peeled, cored and grated
zest of 3 large oranges, grated
4 large eggs
180ml sherry
50ml brandy
splash of olive oil

chop the apricots and prunes (or whizz in a food processor, as i did), place in a large bowl and add the ground almonds, cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg. set aside.

bring the prune juice to the boil in a saucepan over medium heat. lower the hear until reduced by about two thirds. remove from the heat and stir in the cacao until melted and smooth. leave to cool for 10 minutes or so.

stir all the remaining ingredients except the olive oil into the prune juice and chocolate mixture, then tip into the bowl with apricots. cover the bowl and leave in a cool place for a day or two, stirring occasionally. having said 'the cool place', i confess to hating the expression: it basically assumes you have a pantry. i don't. stick it in the fridge.

when ready to cook, lightly grease a 1.8l pudding bowl or two 900ml ones. fill almost to the top with the prepared mixture, then lightly oil the top of the pudding with the olive oil and cover with a double layer of greaseproof paper. tie the paper firmly in place with a length of string, allowing a little extra to make a handle.

place the pudding bowl in a large pan. add enough water to reach about halfway up the sides of the bowl, then place over low heat, cover the pan and simmer gently or 2 1/2 or 3 hours. i did my mini puddings for 2 hours. make sure you keep the water topped up as you don't want the puddings to boil dry.

when finished, allow the puddings to cool. when they are cold, take off the paper and replace it with a fresh piece, tied firmly with string. now you can keep the puddings in that same cool and dry place - i.e. the fridge - for six months.

reheat to serve by steaming again for 2 hours. turn the pudding onto a plate, light a ladle-full of brandy and pour over the pudding to set it alight. switch the light off, for maximum effect, and lots of aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhs. yum.

marinated rack of lamb

2010-12-29T13:54:00.010Z

i pinched this recipe from the ottolenghi cook book. weirdly enough, despite it being just round the corner, we have never eaten there. i have suggested it, on several occasions, but i suspect rich would rather go to dallas chicken than share a large table with complete strangers, in a faux hippy, isn't-being-a-yoghurt-weaver-such-fun. while paying 4 quid for a muffin.

to be honest, i am not hugely keen on going either. i have the same reservations about their set up: i can't help thinking i'd like a bit of privacy (especially at those prices). i have bought meringues from the deli at the front in the past - they look stunning but mine didn't taste much worse - and i've treated others to cakes but i have never tried their 'proper' food.

so why i bought not one but two ottolenghi cookbooks is slightly beyond me. i seem to remember the second one was an attempt to find something to cook for some vegetarian friends - i've since discovered that simon hopkinson's 'the vegetarian option' is a much better bet.

i've cooked hardly anything from either. what puts me off is that a lot of the recipes embody what i dislike about a great deal of vegetarian cooking: it's as if the ingredients have been thrown together without a great deal of thought for which flavours work. this kind of food relies on the 'more is more' principle, whereas the best meat-free options from carnivores are usually the simplest ones. do you really need to cook dill with cauliflower? or sprinkle pomegranate seeds over sea bream? i think not.

i am probably missing a point here - after all, what are you going to eat if you want vegetarian without resorting to stodge? and anyway, this lamb recipe has redeemed ottolenghi from its mung-bean tendencies.

obvious pointers: definitely do marinate for as long as you can. and don't bother doing it unless you have the fresh herbs.

MARINATED RACK OF LAMB
for 4

1kg rack of lamb, french trimmed
20g flatleaf parsley, including stalks
30g mint, including stalks unless they're really tough
30g coriander, again with stalks
4 garlic cloves, peeled
15g ginger, peeled and sliced (fresh, obviously)
3 chillies, seeded
50ml lemon juice
60ml soya sauce
120ml sunflower oil
2tbs red wine vinegar
4tbs water

separate the rack into 2-3 rib portions. place in a bowl. blitz together all the other ingredients in a food processor, then smear/pour all over lamb. the sauce is quite runny. cover and put in a fridge to marinate overnight or even longer.

when you're ready to cook, pre-heat the oven to 220C and get your cast iron pan out and hot on top of the stove. you need the kind you can put in the oven.

remove the meat from the marinade and scrape off excess sauce. sear the meat on all sides - apparently it should take around 5 minutes but i think i did mine quicker. now put the whole pan in the oven, for about 15 minutes. the exact timing will depend on the size of your rack (ahem) and how you like your meat done. 15 minutes is still quite pink.

while the lamb is cooking, transfer the marinade to a small saucepan and bring to boil. simmer the sauce for a few minutes to reduce - you will lose some of the colour the longer you do it but mine would have been too runny without good ten minutes on the stove.

serve the lamb with the hot sauce on the side.

beetroot soup

2010-10-17T07:28:00.002+01:00

everyone always assumes that the yugo food was the standard eastern european fare: grey meat, lots of potatoes, cabbage and beetroot. the reality is different: bosnian food in particular has more in common with what you find in turkey than in krakow or bratislava.

the fact that bosnia was under turkish rule for half a millennium is the obvious reason for this. they left their legacy in every aspect of life: food, language, architecture, mentality and anything else you can think of.

but considering where bosnia is, they were never going to have it easy: their food jostled for position with the cuisine of the austro-hungarian empire. to this day, in any half-decent patisserie in sarajevo you will find both the sweet, syrupy concoctions of the middle east and north africa (baklava, kadaif, tulumbas - universally recognised from aswan to mostar) to the tortes and strudels more commonly found in viennese coffee houses.

climate is the other reason. although bosnia is mountainous, with the exception of the fertile plains of the north, it has a proper continental climate. this means summers hot enough and long enough to grow decent fruit and veg.

for some reason, veg doesn’t feature much in my mind’s eye. all i can see is fruit: tiny wild strawberries, bought from equally tiny mountain women in headscarves and carried home from the market as delicately as you would a dozen eggs to avoid bruising; ripe plums and damsons in colours from apply green to deep, velvety purple of a fresh bruise; small gnarly apples, each with a worm inside. there were also soft, overripe green figs (the kind that is almost untransportable which is presumably why you hardly ever see them here) and cherries brought in small quantities from places like mostar and trebinje, and you could practically smell the sea and sun on them.

there were vegetables as well, of course. the very first greens after the winter warranted a great deal of excitement, and rolled-up filo pies would suddenly feature the very dark green metallic leaves of spinach or swiss chard. the excitement would fade by the end of summer – in fact, as kids, we used to dread the detour to outside markets to pick up massive bags (made of red netting) full of peppers, aubergines or marrows. the reason for such huge quantities was that this was the time to convert the glut into something to be enjoyed during the winter. the trip to the market involved a lot of haggling and tutting and shaking of heads, before money was exchanged and bags loaded in the back of our zastava. i don’t know if it is my imagination but those peasants with big, fat bags of produce were also themselves bigger and fatter than their mountain counterparts who would sell bitter greens or bilberries earlier in the summer.

anyway, this is all a long-winded way of saying we didn’t eat a great deal of beetroot. in fact, i cannot recall a single instance where we consumed it as a vegetable. my memory is probably playing tricks on me but i only even remember dad juicing beetroots in one of his concoctions that was meant to ‘cleanse the blood’ when you were a bit run down or had a cold: it was beetroot, apple and orange and tasted of muddy fields and sweetness. it always makes me smile when i see that kind of stuff sold in health food shops now.

beetroot soup is a recipe for beetroot haters, in my opinion. for some reason, it comes out less earthy than eating beetroot either raw or roasted, which is what i would normally do. everyone seems to enjoy it.

what vegetables you use as a base is up to you – i don’t think there is any need to be prescriptive when it comes to soups – but you do need decent stock. i don't mean to be a food ponce but it makes all the difference - it's the soul of the soup. mine was the leftover roast chicken stock, which had boiled down to almost jelly-like consistency. i would also say don’t skip the creme fraiche at the end – the fat adds that little bit of extra creaminess but, more importantly, the slightly sour note balances out all that sweetness.

BEETROOT SOUP
for four

4-5 large beets, scrubbed (they always say that in recipes but i rarely scrub because the skin gets peeled off)
1 large carrot, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1-2 sticks of celery, chopped
1 medium leek, chopped
2 pints chicken stock
100ml creme fraiche
olive oil
a splash balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper

preheat the oven to 200C.

make a large parcel from some tin foil – i tend to tear off a big piece, fold it in half, then seal the edges by pleating the foil a couple of times on three sides. you will be left with a tinfoil bag of sorts. put it in a roasting dish and put all the beetroots, whole and unpeeled, in the bag. add a splash of vinegar, a splash of water and a good glug of oil, plus some seasoning. seal the last edge of the parcel and place the tray in the oven to roast. it will take at least an hour and in reality more like two. the beetroot should be soft when pierced with a knife but don’t worry about it too much – you can always cook it in the soup for a bit longer (and it's no big deal even if it's a bit raw).

when the beetroot is cooked, take it out of the oven and leave to cool. peel off the skin – either with your fingers or the potato peeler. chop the roots roughly into quarters.

now, in a big pan, fry the vegetables gently. don’t brown them – just allow them to become translucent and soft. this will take ten or so minutes so be patient. add the chopped beetroot, let it cook for a couple of minutes, and top with the chicken stock. cook for another 5-10 minutes until all the vegetables are cooked through.

blend the soup in batches and return to the pan. check the seasoning – it does need salt but the stock i use is normally salty which is why i don’t go crazy before it’s all amalgamated.

serve in bowls, with a dollop of creme fraiche and some more black pepper ground on top.

sea bass with rocket

2010-10-03T07:17:00.001+01:00

this is one of the last photos for the blog taken with an iphone. proper camera from now on, so hopefully the blog will look a bit better!

when i first started cooking anything other than student or deli food (you know what i mean – pasta and pesto, bagels with mozzarella, that sort of thing), i thought gennaro contaldo was pretty cool. this was before he became jamie oliver’s sidekick, appearing in tv programmes as an italian clown with a stupid hat and an incomprehensible accent.

in those pre-fame days, gennaro ran passione, a restaurant on charlotte street. i lived nearby, on the wrong side of euston road, and spent many a day hanging around fitzrovia. (now pointlessly renamed ‘noho’, this area is still where i’d still like to live. it’s weirdly quiet for somewhere so central, and it has lots of decent shops, pubs and restaurants. it’s a staggering distance from soho as well.)

passione was expensive – too expensive for what i was earning then. when i first started going out with rich, he promised he’d take me there as a birthday treat. but the year it was meant to happen, we managed to get spectacularly drunk the night before on beer and makers mark bourbon at some gig in borderline. that was no chance of ever making it out of the house: i was sick for much of the next day. the year after i had food poisoning from a pre-birthday lunch – chiefly remembered for the worst food i have EVER eaten in london and the fact i wore seethrough trousers (not deliberately; and the food was on top of st george’s hotel by the bbc on regent street. never trust a restaurant with a view, i’d say.).

we did finally make it there and thankfully, i was not disappointed despite the tiny little pinch of anti-climax which was unavoidable. i now think it taught me more about what i like eating – and making for other people – than most other places i’d been to until then. it was relatively simple food – in a way i think most italian food is, and there were no foams or jus or artfully arranged micro salads. it wasn’t an ‘experience’ – it was just food.

first thing i loved: every table had a glass of perfectly ripe cherry tomatoes on the vine. they brought out the olives and bread later but i loved those tomatoes – it seemed like such a perfect start to an italian meal. they were totally unadorned – no oil or salt – and they looked, smelt and tasted amazing. afterwards i thought they may have been decorative - i ate them all anyway.

i can’t remember what i had for starter – there may have been truffle oil involved – but for the main i had a big plate of pasta with some kind of ragu, possibly wild boar, which was the meatiest, most delicious plate of food i had eaten in my life. i think i had tiramisu for dessert, the logic being that you may as well try it when it’s made properly.

so, i loved passione. i wanted to go back but it closed a few years after. gennaro started appearing on telly and i bought the cookery book instead. it may in fact have been the second cookery book i have ever bought. i have cooked lots of things from it – i still use the panna cotta recipe, and i loved the limoncello ice cream. the steak ragu and gnocchi was pretty amazing, as was the aubergine parmigiana.

but then the cookery books multiplied, and i forgot about passione until recently. it may have been a search for a sea bream recipe that finally led me back to it (it’s here: http://n1kitchen.blogspot.com/2010/06/sea-bream-with-tomatoes-and-basil.html).

it was then that i also saw this recipe. it is really easy to make and tasted seriously delicious. no idea why, maybe it was a fluke but i’d recommend you try it just to check. i have departed from the original only in the frying of fish - in gennaro's original, the fillet is fried flesh-side down and the skin is then peeled off. madness, if you ask me - there are few things nicer than crispy fish skin. you could make this with bream or other similar fish.

SEA BASS WITH ROCKET
serves 4

4 sea bass fillets
2 tbs olive oil
25g butter - a knob
4 tbs white wine
salt and pepper

for the sauce:
1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
15g butter
3 anchovy fillets
2 shallots, finely chopped
1 medium courgette, finely chopped
300ml vegetable stock
200g rocket, roughly chopped

make the sauce first. heat the oil and butter in a pan and chuck in the anchovy fillets. cook, stirring, until they have dissolved in the oil. sounds weird but you will see it happen. add the shallots and the courgette and cook gently (i.e. don't brown) until the vegetables start to soften. add the stock, bring to the boil, simmer for a minute and then stir in the rocket. season with black pepper and cook just until the rocket's wilted - a couple of minutes, if that. turn the heat off, leave to cool a little and then whizz in a blender until smooth. return to the pan and stir over high heat with a wooden spoon until nearly all the liquid has evaporated and the sauce has become creamy. remove from the heat and set aside.

for the bass, season the fillets first. heat the oil and butter in a large frying pan. add the fillets, skin side down, and fry for around 3 minutes until crispy and golden. don't poke about with the fish during that time - just leave it to cook. turn over gently and cook for another 2-3 minutes. add the wine and cook until it evaporates.

reheat the sauce gently. spoon over a generous amount on each plate and place the sea bass fillet on top.

braised pigs' cheeks

2010-09-30T07:26:00.010+01:00

pigs’ cheeks. not much i can tell you about pigs’ cheeks except that they don’t much look like cheeks and that it’s probably best not to think about where they come from if you're squeamish. what i can tell you is that this is the best stew i have ever made in my life. ever. fact.

it tasted how i want beef stews to taste and they never do. it had the deeply sweet, rich fatty, slightly gelatinous meaty THING. i don’t know what the THING is, but it’s what you get from koffmann’s pigs trotters or gennaro’s wild boar stew. it’s that fleeting moment of pleasure that makes you want to put your fork down and verbalise the joy.

which just goes to show you – you need pig for this sort of thing.

the key to success is slow braising. don’t even attempt to do this if you can’t keep it in the oven for good four-five hours. the rest is like any other stew - easy. these things are pretty forgiving – as long as you don’t let it dry out, whether you put 2 carrots or three, or add a leek (which would be nice) or not is pretty much irrelevant. once you've done the prep and chucked it all in, you don't need to do much with it. make a big batch and freeze half - it'll be proper autumn soon and you'll want some stew for sustenance.

i should add - the pigs' cheeks are from www.markymarket.com he'll deliver to your door and everything. not always handy when you're in a meeting with a vegetarian and have to walk past with a bag full of pigs' cheeks, steaks and a whole rabbit (head'n'all). i had to steal a bin bag from the cleaners to cover it up but i still smelt like blood.

BRAISED PIGS’ CHEEKS
serves four

1 kg pigs' cheeks, trimmed of fat. it's probably about 10 cheeks or so, depending on size
olive oil, for frying
4 onions, peeled and cut into chunks
2 large carrot, peeled, cut into 1cm cubes
4 sticks celery, cut into 1 cm cubes
1 clove garlic, sliced
200 g tomato purée or loads of deeseded and chopped tomatoes (which is what i did, plus some semi-dried ones from the deli i had left over)
1 bottle of red wine – i used pinot noir which i don't like much
600ml stock, or enough to cover – i used chicken but meat would be better
1tsp black peppercorns
3tsp caraway seeds
2 bay leaves

heat the oven to 140C. dry the cheeks with kitchen towel and season on both sides with salt and pepper. heat some oil in a large, ovenproof casserole (that has a lid) and fry the cheeks on both sides until golden brown. get the oil quite hot and don’t crowd the pan or the cheeks will boil rather than fry. you want them nice and crispy and the only way to achieve that is to keep the oil hot and the pan quite uncrowded.

when they’re done, take them out of the pan and set aside. turn the heat down to medium and add the onions, carrots, celery and garlic. fry until they start to colour. then add the tomato pure and a little of the wine, and cook until reduced and thick. keep adding the wine like this, letting it evaporate and cook into the sauce between each addiition.

return the cheeks to the pan and pour in the stock. add the peppercorns, caraway seeds and the bayleaf, stick the lid on and put in the oven. you can now leave it for good four hours – though check after 2 or so to see if there’s enough liquid. if not, add more stock or water.

after four-five hours, when the meat is soft and falling apart, take the pot out of the oven, remove the cheeks and keep warm, then pass the sauce through a sieve. easiest done with a soup ladle – but really push the stuff down to extract as much flavour out of the veggies. if your sauce/gravy is too liquid and thin, let it bubble on the stove for a bit to reduce. put the cheeks back in and heat through. check seasoning.

this would be nice served with some root veg mash – i think celeriac would be perfect as squash is a little too sweet.

fried cauliflower with green sauce

2010-08-13T15:24:00.005+01:00

you’d think i’d be blogging every day now i’ve resigned and working the hours my contract says i should. i am cooking often enough. but no. i’ve not written a word for weeks. it would appear that my decision to change jobs has come with an unexpected side effect: my brain has turned to mush.

i come in every day full of good intentions. i have a long list of things to do and i have arranged things is neat piles on my desk. some of it is urgent and important. for example, i have to get my head around the subject of otc derivatives and, trust me, it ain’t easy. it means reading paragraphs like these: ‘novation is what distinguishes ccp from a clearinghouse. the latter, in effect, performs only bilateral netting, interposing it between two or more counterparties in order to give parties only one point of interaction, but without assuming any risk on its own in the transaction. the alternatives to novation can be open offers or guarantee schemes.’ that’s that settled, then.

but i get distracted. by crap. i waste time lurking on twitter, i check my yahoo email, i read endless recipes and restaurant reviews, i google places to eat, i look at clothes i would like to buy...rubbish, basically. my favourite is twitter. if you follow enough people, you can waste an incredible amount of time reading what they say. most of which is of absolutely no use whatsoever but is, somehow, weirdly interesting.

in fact, i behave how i imagine people who work from home behave, which is why i could never do it: i need someone to crack the whip and shout every now and again. i know it’s not very mature but if i’ve not sorted this out by the age of 37, it’s unlikely i ever will.

all in all, i am astonishingly unproductive. i don’t think booking a restaurant online would count as an achievement, or an ‘outcome’ as they like to call it now, in anyone’s book. i mean, it is an outcome of sorts and i will hopefully have a full belly at the end, but it’s not going to get me ready for the new job.

anyway, here is something i DID cook the other day, and i am only blogging about it so i don’t forget i ever made it. it’s a cauliflower thing, and i am rather fond of cauliflower things, especially when they involve frying or roasting and not boiling. quickly blanched and then fried, cauliflower loses that mildly sulphuric blandness that most people hate (that was syntax worthy of nigella. see post from 25 july. and then kill me.)

as for the green sauce, it’s a pretty standard combination of ingredients, which you can vary according to what you have. you could also put in some capers, i think that would be nice. the quantities given are just approximate. you need to taste and add things and carry on tasting and adding until you have something you are happy with. i’d definitely not put all the lemon juice in at once as it might make it too acidic.

(PS i don’t know why i didn’t just call this salsa verde and be done with it – somehow, i like the ronsil-like approach of ‘green sauce’.)

FRIED CAULIFLOWER WITH GREEN SAUCE
for two

½ large cauliflower, broken into florets (i REALLY want this to be spelt ‘florettes’. isn’t that nicer?)
1tsp sweet paprika (i did not use the smoked spanish stuff, this was ordinary serbian sweet paprika)
½tsp ground cumin

for the sauce:
a small bunch of parsley
a small bunch of basil
a small bunch of coriander
4 anchovies
½ to 1 clove garlic
half a lemon, juiced – but only add half to start with
1tsp dijon mustard
olive oil

olive oil
salt and pepper

blanch the cauliflower in boiling water for about two minutes and drain, leaving it in the sieve for all the water to drip off. either on a big plate or in one of those sealable plastic bags, mix the cumin, paprika and a good grinding of salt and pepper. add the drained and hopefully pretty dried florets, and try and coat with the spice mixture as much as possible.

now make the sauce. whizz all the ingredients in a food processor with enough olive oil to make a paste. kind of like pesto, but maybe a bit runnier. taste, adjust the seasoning, and that’s it.

heat the oil in a big frying pan until hot, then add the cauliflower florets and fry until golden. don’t crowd the pan or they will be soggy – just stick them in and leave them for a couple of minutes on medium heat until they get a bit of a nice crust thing going. keep turning them over as much as you can to get the same effect on all sides. drain on kitchen paper, and eat immediately.

beetroot and feta salad

2010-08-01T09:36:00.005+01:00

have you heard of the flavour thesaurus? it’s fugging genius. someone – well, not someone, she is called niki segnit - has sat down and written a book about what goes with what. how brilliant is that!? some combinations you have heard of, some not - avocado with strawberry dressing, anyone? i am resisting the urge to go out now and buy some.

and it’s such a pretty book – colourful hard cover and an index to die for. useful too – for those of us who don’t really plan our shopping with military precision, it is not unusual to end up with random stuff in the fridge and no idea what to do with it. even though this is not a recipe book as such, if you have the basic vocabulary of cooking, it gives you enough ideas about what could work.

despite its brilliance, i should say this is the kind of project that gives me existential angst. my mind will not bend itself to this kind of order, precision and...well...analness, if that's a word (i know it's not). in particular, it’s how looooong it would take to compile something like this...i would have given up halfway through avocado, no doubt about it. i’ve never been very good at finishing things – i lose interest, and the little real satisfaction i get from seeing the end result does not outweigh the pain of doing it.

all that aside, the feta/beetroot combination was sparked from the book – though she talks about goat's cheese. goat, sheep...it's not that different. beetroot and sharp, salty cheese is something i have done before and i am sure there is a recipe somewhere on this blog for grated raw beetroot with feta. what was new was combining it with some leaves and a lot of chopped parsley – it was all i had but i would be inclined to use other herbs of the same ilk too – and adding some crunch with the toasted sunflower seeds. i had it for lunch at work, as you can probably see from the picture. not ideal as the beetroot bleeds everywhere so you end up with pink cheese and blood-stained leaves. probably best to assemble and eat immediately if you’re trying to impress.

BEETROOT AND FETA SALAD
enough for two lunches if you're greedy

3 small beetroots, whole
1tbs balsalmic vinegar
2tbs olive oil
125g feta cheese, cubed
a generous bunch of parsley
salad leaves - as many as you like
a handful of sunflower seeds
salt and pepper
more oil and balsamic vinegar for dressing

preheat the oven to 200C. take a big piece of foil and place the beetroot - whole, unpeeled but scrubbed - on to it. pour over the oil and the vinegar and season well. scrunch up the foil so you end up with a little parcel that will both roast and steam the beetroot. cook in the oven for an hour or so - actually mine took longer and you just need to test them: if you can stick a knife in them easily, they are ready.

once cooked, leave to cool a little and then peel. you'll have very red hands and i can't really advise you on what the best remedy for that is. cut into chunks, cubes or whatever you want.

finely chop the parsley. toast the sunflower seeds in a dry pan until fragrant and starting to change colour. be careful not to burn, as it happens very quickly.

in a large bowl, chuck in your beetroot pieces, the crumbled cheese, the leaves if you are using them, the parsley and the sunflower seeds. make a dressing with the olive oil and vinegar and mix in to the salad lightly - the easiest way to do it is with your hands. taste and season. that's it.

oh - and don't be alarmed when you next go to the loo. things might be a little pink. you've not had a hemorrhage, it's just the beetroot.

courgette, mint and feta fritters

2010-07-25T18:25:00.010+01:00

i have a nasty habit. you could almost call it an addiction. it’s not too bad if i am distracted by other things but, left to my own devices and with no one to keep an eye on me, it quickly spirals out of control.

it’s called uk tv food.

actually it’s called something else now but i can never remember what – that’s how successful their rebranding was. and - i know, i should be ashamed of myself. there must be better ways to spend an evening than watching ace of cakes and rick stein’s food odyssey shouldn’t really be seen more than once.

but i’m a sucker for it. i think it’s ‘cos it is such benign telly: no one dies, whether for real or for pretend, and usually people are quite calm and happy. you can’t have unhappy people on cookery programs – they’re meant to convey enjoyment. there might be a bit of shouting from professional kitchens but you know that bit is edited to make it look worse than it probably is.

anyway, this is a long-winded way of saying that i watched an episode (or two) of nigella’s forever summer.

as an aside, i normally dislike nigella a fair bit. initially i thought it was for the faux-sexiness but i actually don’t really mind that: if licking fingers and appearing on telly in her nightgown helps her sell stuff, good luck to her. personally, i’d rather have a morose nigel with that pinched face looking like he’s just eaten a lemon, or someone like delia, who has a relaxing, almost soporific effect on me (all is well with the world when delia is in charge).

then i thought i objected to the food she makes. a lot of the time you could hardly call it cooking and there is no way you should be feeding your children most of what she makes. this to me is prime nigella territory: http://www.nigella.com/recipe/recipe_detail.aspx?rid=96 or this: http://www.nigella.com/recipe/recipe_detail.aspx?rid=169. it’s not the fact that it is as far removed from the message of this blog as you can get. rather, it’s the total lack of sophistication - most of this stuff is just sugar and very little else.

however, i realise now that what i actually most hate about her is her use of language. same syntax every time. over the top adjective/s + either made up or unusual noun. guinness cake: damp blackness. trifle: cream-swathed berriness. i could go on – it’s in practically every recipe. it makes me want to go and slap the woman. with a copy of beckett, or something.

anyway, having said all that, the inspiration for these courgette cakes did come from watching nigella skipping around the kitchen jauntily. i did change a few things but the basic premise of courgettes, mint and feta is true to the original.

a few things to note: first, a food processor makes this really easy. it takes about 4 seconds to push two courgettes through a magimix. you can, of course, grate them but i always find that a bit of a pain. second, you really do need to drain the courgettes properly, so this is not one to make in a hurry. i left the grated ones in a colander, salted, for an hour at least and then i wrung them in a clean kitchen cloth. there is A LOT of water in a courgette – you’d be surprised. i’d also say you need to be a bit brave with adapting the basic recipe. much will depend on how big your courgette is and how much water you’ve managed to get out of it. it’s best to mix all the wet stuff first and then add the almond flour gradually. you want to get to the consistency where it’s still like wet batter but solid enough to spoon into the frying pan. finally, fry a small fritter first and check for seasoning. both the almonds and the courgettes and quite sweet and you might need to add some salt to help the feta cheese. (you can, of course, use normal flour if you want. same principles apply).

COURGETTE AND FETA FRITTERS
makes a lot of them.

2 large courgettes, grated or shredded in a blender
3 large eggs
a small handful of mint, finely chopped
100g of feta cheese, crumbled
about 1/2 cup of almond flour plus more
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
salt and pepper

olive oil for frying

whisk the eggs with the mint and add the crumbled cheese. next, add the grated, drained courgettes in. mix thoroughly and season. now, start adding the flour. half a cup is safe but you may well need more. keep adding until you think you have the right consistency. stir in the bicarbonate of soda.

heat some olive oil in a non-stick pan until medium hot and spoon the mixture into hot oil. don't overcrowd the pan - these will flatten as they cook. turn over after 2-3 minutes - you will see when the underside is getting golden brown. cook the other side. don't have the heat on too high as you want the inside the cook - you can of course eat courgettes raw but cooked is nicer.

eat with greek yoghurt, or tomato salad, or anything else you like.

duck breast with broccoli

2010-07-25T18:09:00.007+01:00

for something that looks so good to eat, duck is not my favourite meat. (surely it’s not just me who looks at big fat birds lolling about riversides and thinks – dinner?). i like its feathery, plump-breasted friends of different shapes and sizes – i am quite partial to geese and all manner of small things like quails, pheasants and pigeons. i do love chinese crispy duck too but that takes us back to the deep frying thing: you could deep fry my (insert unattractive body part, in my case usually a foot) and it would be tasty. i guess duck to me is on a par with lamb – i like it but i would probably not order it in restaurants as i will always get more excited by pork or beef or even fish.

but sometimes, of an evening, you will find yourself with nothing to eat but a couple of frozen duck breasts. and sometimes, you just have to keep your husband happy.

we knew duck breast cooking would be like steak – get the heat up high, whack the meat on for a couple of minutes, and don’t procrastinate. but i was hoping there’d be something else to this dinner, basically something to offset the punch of the fatty meat.

so i did what i always do. i lean on the lounge doorway, standing on one leg, and leaf through cookery books while hoping the whole (ikea) bookshelf doesn’t collapse under their weight. or rather, i do, what my tutor at university once called citing milton, “a mouse hunt of an index”.

it’s amazing how different cookery book indices can be. some seem compiled by people who have clearly never cooked. others are specific to the point of obsession, breaking down foodstuffs into the smallest components you could think of. they’re my favourite. i like a bit of detail even if i myself am not very good at it. if there is no separate entry for red snapper and i have to search under fish, forget it. i want to see both. and “snapper, red”. there is a great pleasure to be derived from a good index and i don’t care how geeky that sounds.

i wasn’t doing very well with the duck though. i found one recipe which consisted of, more or less, telling you to fry it until it's cooked. eeer, thanks for that. and then – bingo. hidden in the giant tome that is locatelli’s taste of italy was a marvellous, tasty and quick recipe that had to be written down. and it really was lovely. i think it's the worcestershire sauce that makes it, as there is very little else to the whole thing.

DUCK BREAST WITH BROCCOLI
for two

2 duck breasts
1 head of broccoli separated into florets
1 tbs worcestershire sauce
1 garlic clove, sliced
1 red chilli, deseeded and sliced
salt and pepper
olive oil

bring the duck breasts out of the fridge about an hour before you want to cook them. preheat the oven to 220C.

when you're ready to start, blanch the florets in boiling salted water for about a minute, just to soften the broccoli. drain and keep on one side.

season the duck. get an ovenproof saute pan medium hot, then put in the duck, skin-side down (no oil - the duck is fatty enough), and cook until the skin turns golden. turn over, cook for one minute and then turn down the heat. take the duck out and keep in a warm place.

drain the fat from the pan, add the worcestershire sauce and about 2tbs of olive oil and stir to emulsify. turn off the heat. if it doesn't look like there'll be enough, add a bit more worcestershire sauce and a bit more oil.

heat a saute pan, add more olive oil and put in garlic and chilli, and cook without colouring for a few minutes. add the broccoli and saute until soft, again without allowing to colour.

put the duck into a roasting tray and put in the oven for two or three minutes - this should make it still pink and bloody so cook for longer if you don't like it.

real food

2010-06-29T14:05:00.004+01:00

the most interesting thing about the ‘garden’ i described in the last post has been observing the amount of compost we make. we are like one family composting machine, emptying the little caddy kindly donated by clare every few days. when the first flies appeared in the main composting bin in the garden, and the whole thing started to stink a bit, i was pretty pleased.

it is amazing how much waste it generates. apart from the obvious benefit of hopefully being able to use it next year, i also feel inordinately smug that we recycle so much, one way or another.

and - i am not a yoghurt-weaver but there is some satisfaction to be had from not giving money to companies like nestle or kelloggs which peddle all the packaged rubbish purported to be healthy. take cereal bars, a particular hobby horse of mine: it is only advertising and nothing else that has fooled millions of people into believing these are ‘healthy’. it ain’t gonna change any time soon – there is too much money to be made out of processing stuff. conversely, there is little you can do to profit from a carrot, or a strawberry (not to mention a turnip or a kohl rabi). a celebrity endorsement here or a cookery book there but it’s still not special k, is it?

it is funny that we in the west eat so much packaged food. it freaks me out a bit. michael pollan has written about this before, taking as his dictum that you should eat nothing your grandmother wouldn’t recognise as food. when i think back of what was eaten at my dad’s farm when we were little, very little seemed to come from the shop. come to think of it, i have no idea where the shop was.

perhaps i have rose-tinted spectacles about the whole thing - and i suspect my aunt, whose job it was to feed everyone, wouldn’t have objected to a bit of supermarket help. but you can’t help regretting the demise of ‘real’ food.

i remember bread – huge round ciabatta-style loaves made in a wood-burning stove every two days, with slices so big they didn’t fit into a child’s hand; cheese and ‘kajmak’ in glass jam jars (like clotted cream but sometimes salted to last longer) from their own milk; eggs from the chickens that ran around the garden and that we children would fight to feed corn and seeds every evening; honey from their own bees...not to mention the meat from the sheep, pigs and cows. (actually, that’s a lie – i don’t remember cows being eaten. i can see no reason why they wouldn’t have been but i just don’t.)

mum says everything has changed now, which she illustrates, with horror and dramatic emphasis, with the fact that they buy in ‘yellow’ cheese from a supermarket. the thought of that is pretty weird, i must confess. from a wood-burning stove, pigs killed with a knife under a walnut tree and hens running around the flower beds to plastic cheese and obesity – all in the course of one generation.

i guess i feel i am doing my own little bit by composting - though on an admittedly tiny scale.

fish in curry sauce

2010-06-27T10:57:00.008+01:00

this recipe, or a version thereof, came from a weird book i bought for rich when we first started going out (and when it wouldn't have crossed my mind that we would one day end up married). it must have been for his birthday, or the first christmas together. no idea why i bought it - must have been sufficiently impersonal for him not to think i am a bunny boiler, and inspired enough in that i recognised his love of chilli and thailand.

it's one of those coffee table jobs, all glossy pages, big double spreads of pictures and romantic introductions to different regions. i suspect the thai tourist office had as much to do with it as the recipe contributors.

i don't think i have ever cooked from it - partly because of all of the above, and partly because it is so large as to be unwieldy. it's twice the size or any other book i own. it sat on top of the fridge for years, when that was enough space to hold all my cookery books, and is now covered with a layer of oily grime.

the reason why i looked at it again is because we went to a thai supermarket in hackney. oh, the joy of weird and wonderful things in there! the pigs' trotters in plastic bags, nestling in the fridge like so many plastic chickens in tescos! the weird-looking fruit i've never seen (and some i have - i could smell that durian from a mile off),! the industrial-sized bags of frozen prawns, squid and fish! the fifty seven varieties of chilli sauce! i could have spent a fortune in there it was so amazing.

in the end, we were quite restrained but we came home with a tub of green curry paste, some morning glory (possibly my favourite veg ever), and some incredibly fragrant thai basil. so one night last week, when we had no time to make anything from scratch, we leafed through this monster of a cookery book and - lo and behold, there it was! fish in curry sauce. two minutes to prepare, 20 minutes cooking, some garnish - and you get the nicest meal you can imagine.

the recipe uses red snapper - we used sea bass as that was all we had. you might think it's a waste of bass and ordinarily you'd be right but on this occasion, the fish was a supermarket specimen and a little...well...fishy. you can use what you like, i imagine, as long as it's the whole thing, on the bone.

FISH IN CURRY SAUCE

2 sea bass or red snappers
2 tbs green curry sauce
500 ml coconut milk
25 ml fish sauce
4-5 lime leaves
a small bunch of thai or ordinary basil
a handful of morning glory
olive oil

heat the oil in a lidded pan sufficiently large to accommodate both fish. fry the curry paste for a minute, then add the coconut milk and the fish sauce, and stir to mix. next, add the fish laying them side by side, bring to the boil and reduce the heat to simmer. put on the lid and cook for ten minutes.

turn the fish - good luck with that - and add the morning glory. cook for another ten minutes or a bit less.

if the sauce is still runny - and much will depend on the consistency of your coconut milk - take the fish out and keep warm, then reduce the sauce so it's thick.

add the torn basil and spoon over the fish. sprinkle with crushed or torn lime leaves and, if you really love chilli, some chopped up small red ones.

sea bream with tomatoes and basil

2010-06-24T10:57:00.004+01:00

it’s all gone a bit good life around here.

or as good life as you can get when you live in a one-bed ex-council flat in islington.

a few months ago, at the suggestion of lovely clare from downstairs, we applied for a grant from the council to build some raised beds and grow food. this admirable idea is all about improving shared spaces, getting neighbours together and, of course, planting some stuff to eat. not bad considering the last time we got together was to go to court to kick out a bunch of scratty junkies from the crack den downstairs.

so, we have our raised beds (i still feel guilty for not helping to build them but it was in the run up to the wedding), we bought some seeds and, after a few weeks, stuff started...you know...GROWING. like green stuff. lots of it.

people have gone for different things in their beds – there are lots of strawberries, vast quantities of salad, and one brave soul is growing aubergines. i’ve gone for the simple approach, not wishing to see stuff die on me in my first attempt at gardening – half a bed for carrots, spring onions and radishes - just to see what happens, half for a courgette (and one in a pot – blackfly permitting, i’m determined to eat those damn flowers this year and not pay £2 for a paltry little tray from the farmer’s market), leaving two beds free to indulge in my obsession for leafy green stuff. so we have spinach, lettuce, swiss chard, curly kale and purple sprouting broccoli. and why not – it’s good for you and it costs a fortune in shops. plus, considering the amount of effort involved in growing it, i don’t understand why anyone with a bit of space doesn’t do it.

we’ve had spinach whizzed into a soup, we’ve had a nicely dressed lettuce and radish salad, we’ve had some curly kale stirred through an amazing tomato sauce...i know all of this amounts to about four dinners but the pleasure i’ve had out of it is immense.

anyway, in honour of that curly kale, here is the recipe for something i called the best dinner i’ve ever eaten the other day. we’ve made it twice in the last month, and i’d happily eat it again. it’s a bastardisation of a gennaro contaldo recipe – we’ve added more chilli (just because one chilli is never enough), and used passata rather than water for that extra sweet tomato kick.

don't be tempted to skimp on the olive oil - you need LOTS of it to give it a silky mouthfeel. it makes all the difference.

SEA BREAM WITH TOMATOES AND BASIL
for two

two whole sea bream, cleaned
125ml olive oil
around 25 cherry tomatoes, halved
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 red chillies, deseeded and chopped
500ml passata
a big bunch of basil
salt and pepper

get the biggest frying pan you have and put it on medium heat. it needs to hold both fish, plus all the other stuff, unless you want to do this in two batches. which you don’t. a small frying pan will ensure your kitchen looks like the somme.

heat the oil with the garlic and chilli – don’t burn the garlic as it will taste rubbish. don’t burn the chilli either, or you won’t be able to breathe. trust me on this.

after a couple of minutes, add the fish and fry for a minute, then add the passata, the cherry tomatoes and half of your basil bunch, torn. season and leave to cook for around five minutes. turn the fish carefully and continue to cook for another five or ten minutes. check the fish is cooked – the flesh should be opaque. as it’s on the bone, it will take a little longer to cook.

if your sauce is too runny at the end of the cooking time, take the fish out and reduce the sauce for a few minutes. we don’t bother normally. stir in the greens until wilted (or serve on the side as on the picture – this has been made more than once) and the rest of the basil, check for seasoning and serve.

wedding, and hind's head

2010-06-16T13:50:00.004+01:00

ooooh look, a blog post. my first since february. what’s brought this on, you ask? well, i have felt a little sorry that i have abandoned the blog less than a year after its inception. and i have realised, in the months i’ve not been writing, that the discipline of keeping a record of what i cook is a useful one. it seems a shame, cooking all these things and then letting them all disappear without trace.

as a greedy person, i rarely look back when it comes to food – i am only looking forward to the next meal. i am unlikely to sit around reminiscing about memorable dinners – the promise of meals to come is much more exciting. the flipside of this is that i forgot meals almost as soon as i have cooked them. then the next time all i have in the fridge is some chicken and it’s half seven on a tuesday night, i have to waste time looking for a suitable recipe.

it’s because of this that i thought i’d carry on cataloguing things i like. of course, the more time passes the more i repeat myself in the kitchen and the chances of me cooking something blog-worthy recede. but still...

anyway, a lot has happened over the past six months.

we got married, for one. which was ace. i recommend getting married – apart from the obvious benefit of doing so, it’s a way of spending a weekend with people you like, eating good food, drinking nice wine and just generally having fun. think party but one where no one minds you burn the main course or run out of ice. the amount of goodwill you get from people is touching. oh, and if you’re a girl, you also get to spend two hours having your hair and make up done so you look pretty good at the end of it.

weirdly, getting married didn’t feel like just a pointless ceremony which results in the proverbial ‘piece of paper’. i guess the fact that we decided to do it in the first place means that we didn’t think that but weddings are often about what families and others expect rather than fundamentally about how you feel. i think i knew from the start that this was it, or at least it never crossed my mind that it might not be so it’s not like i thought being married would change things.

i am sure others have written about this a lot more eloquently, but basically it boiled down to the fact that, for me, saying yes in front of friends and family genuinely felt like more of a commitment than getting a joint mortgage or writing a will where i leave lots of morose indie music to him (and books, don’t forget the books!). maybe it is because all relationships are so fragile – based on people’s feelings for each other which, as well all know, can change so easily and so irreversibly – that we try and formalise them in some way and make marriage a public acknowledgement of a private decision. of course, no amount of paperwork will make a marriage work and that’s not what being together is about. but i can see why this hugely prevalent – geographically and historically – social convention has managed to survive against all odds. in any case, there are lots of social conventions that make sense and are probably pretty useful - otherwise we might still be walking around in the nud or killing each other.

i also became an auntie, which was fun. actually, more than anything, it was quite overwhelming: never before have i had the feeling of being perfectly capable of ripping someone’s head off to protect someone. baby sasha is very small and very cute. i am looking forward to her growing up. unless she develops a taste for R&B or something, in which case all bets are off and she can forget about having an auntie in london.

my pesky back is slowly getting better – though when i say slowly, i mean slowly. i can just about sit down at work for a day but planes, trains and automobiles remain hell on earth. don’t ask me to go to the cinema either.

but back to the wedding! we are having our honeymoon in africa in september so we decided to spend a couple of days just wondering about the countryside around henley, doing things we wouldn’t normally do. this largely involved eating and drinking, as well as driving around looking at wildlife. red kites and wallabies (really) were pretty exciting but – oh, the naughty thrill of of having a lunchtime pie and a pint! the freedom and the illicitness of ordering yet another glass of wine on a sunday night and not caring! the possibility of eating steak three days in a row!

the highlight of the eating experience was going to bray. (i say eating, because we stayed in the monkey island hotel which was like being in a particularly glum episode of faulty towers. you know the place: lots of apricot walls and table cloths, broken shower heads and rusty taps, thin polyester sheets and soaps that you could strip paint with). and no, we didn’t go to the fat duck. god knows why – you’d think getting married would be a perfect excuse to blow loads of cash on a posh dinner. we faffed for ages, thinking it’s too much money and it would hurt after just having spent loads on the wedding. when it got to two weeks before, we suddenly concluded we must go. obviously, it was too late to get a table.

but we went to hind’s head instead and i have to say, i wish we hadn’t. it’s ruined all other gastropubs for me, forever. anyone with gastropub pretentions (that’s you, the house on canonbury road, and a few others) should go and eat there to see how it’s done. unpretentious, most definitely still a pub, with real beer, lovely atmosphere, great service, modest prices and, of course, great food. that, and a subsequent trip to l’autre pied in marylebone, made me realise yet again the same thing i thought when we went to eat at pierre koffman’s pop up last year. i am basically not interested in poncey food that much. give me the hind’s head menu any day and you can keep your michelin stars, your foams and your microherbs carefully placed by tweezers.

it’s partly because there’s never enough food on the plate in those places. it makes me anxious that i won’t get enough. (this is also why i dislike tasting menus and sharing food – there are few words i dread more than: shall we order both and we can share). so, i guess that despite my interest in food and my willingness to spend ridiculous amounts of money on it (£7.50 takeaway lunches from manicomio, anyone?), food to me is not a fetish. it’s a way of sating hunger. chef are not rock stars, cooking is not astrophysics and food is not some weirdly sensual and orgasmic experience. it’s just nice stuff to eat. done well, it can be brilliant and that’s why i loved hind’s head.

rich’s crab on toast was a proper, thick slice of crusty bread with a lot of crab on top. i thought it was mixed with chervil but i might have made that up. my asparagus with ham and hollandaise consisted of a lot more than 2 spears and a bit of yellow air: a few slices of lovely ham topped with perfectly cooked asparagus and hollandaise so good it made me make my own for the first time (which tasted nothing like it, naturellement). i then had a proper stodgy pie with oxtail and kidneys and rich had a steak with bone marrow sauce – both were like someone extracted an essence of a happy cow. it was the kind of thing that makes me weep for vegetarians.

we even had dessert – which was nice but nothing special. weirdly, the only thing that wasn’t particularly nice was coffee. no idea why and perhaps it was just an accident.

so, my conclusion is – forget fat duck and go to hind’s head to see what you’re missing in all those poor eagle and anchor and hope clones scattered around london. okay, bray is one of those funny villages in the commuter belt where people talk about bond dealing while having a pint, but honestly, you’ll enjoy it.

ps the pictures are of a bluebell field around henley, and of some wild flowers i picked on the last day before coming home.

blood orange cake

2010-02-26T18:23:00.001Z

this was a happy coincidence - i saw a recipe on elana's pantry website a few days ago (yes, i know it seems that half of what i cook comes from there). then last night, while putting the living room blinds down for the evening, i noticed three blood oranges sitting in a bowl on the windowsill.

i guess using fruit for decorative purposes is a bit mad but sometimes i do put things in the lounge because i like looking at them. they invariably go off because the room is too warm. these were heading that way - they were beginning to look a bit shrivelled - which seemed a shame. blood oranges are delicious and their season is pretty short. fortunately, i remembered the cake recipe, and the whole thing was put together while waiting for the dinner to cook.

this is really an unsweetened version of those flourless orange cakes you can see in places like starbucks. it's the same principle: you boil the orange whole and then whizz it up in a blender, skin and all. i cut down the sweetness for this one - the original recipe uses about 3/4 of a cup of agave nectar and i just added a tiny squirt of honey. it is probably an acquired taste and it would not be sweet enough for most people. use agave by all means if you want. you can obviously use normal oranges - though i'd use two and not three as they are bigger.

BLOOD ORANGE CAKE

3 blood oranges or two normal ones

2 cups almond flour

a squirt of honey (or 3/4 cup of agave nectar if you want a sweet cake)

a teaspoon of baking soda

4 eggs

40g dark chocolate

preheat the oven to 190C.

boil the oranges whole for about 1 1/2 hours or until tender. cool them a little, then whizz them in a food processor whole (minus the water in which they boiled but plus skin, pips, etc). if the mixture is really hot, let it cool down a little or you will scramble the eggs. next, add all the other ingredients and blend until thoroughly combined. if it looks really wet and sloppy, add a little bit more flour.

pour into a greased and lined 9in cake tin and cook for 45-50 minutes. test with a skewer and if it's wet, cook a bit more. leave to cool in the tin but, while still hot, break the chocolate into pieces and plonk on top of the cake. the heat will melt it in 3-4 minutes and you will be able to spread a thin layer of chocolate all over the whole cake.

roast chicken with prosciutto and celeriac

2010-02-25T18:50:00.011Z

roast chicken on a cold february weekday is better than therapy. not only does everyone love a roast chicken but having one on a tuesday rather than for sunday lunch feels extra naughty (we did in fact crack open a bottle of wine to go with it - seemed a shame not to).

it's a jamie oliver recipe and came about less by design than by a lucky dip in the ever-multiplying cookery books. a plain roasted chicken, maybe with some lemon, will always be my favourite but this makes a pretty nice change.

ps - i won the battle for the skin and therefore the stuffing - it was a trade-off for giving him both legs. not a contest, if you ask me (though i know he always sneakily eats bits of skin while carving).

ROAST CHICKEN

1 1.8kg organic chicken

1 large lemon

8 slices of prosciutto, thinly sliced

1-2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped

2 handfuls of fresh thyme, finely chopped

115g of butter, softened

1/2 head of celeriac, chopped into large chunks

preheat the oven to 220C and put your roasting tin inside it to heat up at the same time.

work the prosciutto, garlic, thyme and the zest of the lemon (save the lemon for later) into the softened butter. take balls of the mixture and push them carefully under the chicken skin on the breast. make sure you don't break the skin or it will all be ruined. now cut the lemon in half and stick it inside the chicken.

put the chicken in the roasting tin and cook for 25 minutes. after this time, take it out and chuck the celeriac in. roast for another 45 minutes. that should be it but do pierce the chicken with a skewer to ensure juices run clear. leave to rest for ten minutes before tucking in.

almond butter chocolate cups

2010-02-25T18:03:00.005Z

i've said it before, and i will say again - i do love elana's pantry (www.elanaspantry.com). she comes up with all sorts of crazy things you can make when you're craving something other than veg. and i adore almond butter - i keep buying it to keep in my desk at work, thinking i will just spread a bit on a piece of fruit, or eat a little after lunch. it goes without saying that i invariably end up eating the whole jar with a spoon and feeling sick afterwards.

these little things were genius - like a reese's peanut butter cups which i used to love - but minus the nasty bits. you can sweeten them if you like - elana does and i didn't, and you can use different chocolate. i guess 85% stuff is a bit hardcore but don't make it with less than 75%, i'd say.

i can't tell you how much of what you need because it was all a bit of a guess (i was in the middle of cooking dinner when i thought i'd give this a go). you can look for the original on elana's website, or jump in and hope for the best.

ALMOND BUTTER CHOCOLATE CUPS

about 1/2 jar of almond butter
about 75g chocolate
some vanilla essence (or extract - can never remember which is which but you want the good stuff)

you will also need silicone moulds, which i oiled lightly, and a pastry brush. it will be extremely messy without either of those things.

all you need to do is stir about 1/2tsp of vanilla essence into the nut butter and sweeten with honey if you like.

melt the chocolate in a double boiler, gently, and when it is completely melted, paint the sides of a silicone mould with it. stick it in the fridge or on a cold window sill and leave it to harden. i found i had to repeat this process several times as the effect of gravity was that the chocolate slid off the sides of the mould. it became obvious after the first one that there was no way the whole thing would come out - hence the repainting and leaving it to set process. it doesn't take long so don't worry about it.

next, spoon about a teaspoon of the nut butter inside the hardened chocolate cup. leave it to set a little, then paint the top with the chocolate. this is much easier - you can just drop a bit of melted chocolate on and swirl it around.

stick them in the fridge for a little while, so the whole thing hardens. unmould carefully, proceed to eat several, and forget to take a picture. finally take a photo of the last, misshapen cup once you have eaten all the other ones.

doh.

venison burgers

2010-02-15T21:46:00.007Z

i used to rather like februaries. they were the coldest, nastiest of months which is probably one reason why i was quite partial to them. the other must have been the imminence of spring – march in sarajevo used to bring the kind of early spring that still makes me slightly demented, if that’s the right word. it is probably the equivalent of april in the UK, it being the cruellest month, etcetera. (in april, you’d get blossoms and the city would probably be at its prettiest, and then by the end of may, it was summer.)

i am not so keen on februaries now. there is nothing much to recommend them – they are a bit cold and a bit wet and a part of that indeterminate season that lasts from about october to about may, where months, marginally more or less wet and/or cold, merge into one.

plus, february has to be the worst month when it comes to food. gone is the excitement of stodge – you’ve had three months of comfort food by now. the sight of a butternut squash or a jerusalem artichoke fills me with despair. and it’s still a long way to spring despite the first daffodils at the farmers’ market (and our kitchen). you have to wait until at least the middle of march for things to start looking up.

so...i am running out of ideas for dinners. the venison thing was a fluke – we just happened to buy some at the marylebone farmers’ market the previous sunday and i’d bunged it in the freezer. i didn’t buy it for a reason, i just like having mince in the freezer as a back-up for when there is nothing else to eat – you can usually find enough things in the cupboard to throw something together.

mixed with some pork mince for fat and a few juniper berries, these burgers were brilliant. super quick and easy to make and only take a few minutes to fry. we ate them with roasted red peppers and some battered aubergines.

VENISON BURGERS

500g venison mince
250g pork mince
1 tsp juniper berries, crushed
2tsp white peppercorns, crushed (or just use normal black pepper)
½ red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
2tbs or more finely chopped parsley
lots of salt and pepper

just mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl. you will have to use your hands to squish the whole thing together. i am sure i read somewhere that the more time you spend doing this, the better the final product is but i see no logical reason why this would be the case. as long as everything is thoroughly combined, you can stop. some suggest you take a small ball and fry it to check to seasoning but i didn’t bother.

still using your meaty hands, form golf-ball sized balls of meat, then flatten them with your hand to make burgers. you can make them as little or as big as you want but adjust your cooking time accordingly. i made five big ones. now, you can put the meat in the fridge at this point to allow flavours to develop a little – it also helps them firm up so they fry easier.

fry for 4-5 minutes each side, depending on size, until cooked through.

new year - paprika and fried shallot pork tenderloins

2010-02-05T20:04:00.011Z

back is still giving me gyp but i am learning to live with the pain, in a way that one learns to deal with irritations - like sharing room with a stranger or having an ingrowing toenail. on the plus side, it makes all other aches and pains seem trivial. i have breezed through a nasty cold, the kind i’ve not seen for decades. it felt minor and, somehow unexpectedly, terminal. in a weirdly self-obsessed way, i have enjoyed monitoring its progress, feeling a little better each day, and knowing it will peter out soon.

anyway, despite my less-than-stoic approach to pain, i have cooked a little more. i guess another reason for my laziness in the kitchen is the winter. i love food but my heart sinks at the sight of the fridge full of cabbages and celeriac. it has felt like a long winter too - properly cold, with lots of snow.

incidentally, as soon as the snow starts falling, i seem to become a self-appointed expert on the stuff. much to my own annoyance, i can’t seem to stop myself from making slightly pompous and entirely unhelpful remarks about the various aspects of it. like – the sky is a bit yellow, that usually means it’s going to snow properly. or – no, that’s not real snow, the flakes are tiny and i am sure it will stop soon. it’s as if eighteen years of sarajevo winters have somehow made me into an expert. i have to remember to bite my tongue a bit more often, or i'll become a parody of myself.

anyway, nothing much to say about this dish except it was the first in ages i've felt like noting down. it's an amalgamation of two recipes which somehow worked quite well together - the slightly spicy pork, redolent of chorizo, tasted better with the addition of shallots and thyme. i'd say you should definitely fry the shallots in butter rather than oil, as that is what makes them so sweet.

PAPRIKA AND FRIED SHALLOT PORK TENDERLOINS
for two

2 pork tenderloins, about 200g each
1 heaped tsp sweet paprika
4 banana shallots
1 tbsp chopped thyme
20g butter
seasoning
olive oil

preheat the oven to 200C. rub the paprika all over the pork, then oil lightly and season with salt and pepper. leave to stand for a little while. chop the shallots and fry them in hot butter until they are crispy and brown. drain on kitchen paper, then mix with the chopped thyme and a little sea salt..

now heat a little oil in an ovenproof frying pan and brown the tenderloins on all sides. stick the pan in the oven for 12-15 minutes - do check after a while as you really don't want to overcook it. once it's done, leave to rest for a few minutes, then serve with the shallot mix on the side.

winter

2009-12-23T08:05:00.004Z

i can't believe i've not written anything for almost a month. december has just disappeared, days spent lying down merging into one. weirdly, i was not exactly bored but neither was i relaxed. i wanted to kick myself for every time i had that thought, usually when busy at work, about how nice it would be to spend a dull winter day at home reading books or watching movies. the reality is, you only really want to do that for a day or two, and part of the sweet attract on of laziness is precisely because you know you ought to be doing something else - because it feels slightly naughty. when you've been signed off by your doctor and can legitimately spend a whole day watching the good food channel, somehow the appeal is not there. i tried to work a little - not easy lying down, i can tell you - i read a few short stories in french, i watched a film here and there, and i basically fretted over all the things i ought to be doing.

and the truth is, cooking has been the last thing on my mind. there's a lot of bending and twisting when you prep and cook, which was definitely not a good idea, and obviously there's also the job of getting food in, which is impossible when you can't carry stuff. also, when you do nothing but lie down for days on end, you're not really very hungry.

so, my breakfasts and lunches have been pretty weird, by my own admission. eating quickly lost all of the usual patterns and deteriorated into random things you can eat straight from the fridge, without the application of heat, or stuff cooked be cooked with the minimal amount of effort. plates rarely came out of the cupboard. i have eaten: raw carrots from the farmers' market, unwashed (too much effort); sauerkraut straight from a jar (oh yes), small pink radishes, ends untrimmed see carrots), roasted purple sprouting broccoli (in industrial quantities, sometimes with frozen prawns chucked in at the last minute, if available), nuts out of a giant jar in the cupboard, dark chocolate, dried figs, and anything else i could find in the cupboards.

i have cooked a bit and i promise i will post some recipes soon. so bear with me and, if anyone has any great ideas about how to cure a herniated disc in time for a skiing holiday, do let me know!

slow roast shoulder of lamb with anchovy, rosemary and lemon zest

2009-12-06T14:13:00.001Z

okay, i don't know how to rotate this picture. that makes me a bit stupid but i ahve tried everything.

i stole the recipe shamelessly from the chocolate and zucchini blog (http://chocolateandzucchini.com/). it's one of my favourites - it makes you realise the skill and attention to detail that you need to put into running a proper blog. very much unlike this thing, with its typos and random formatting.

you must forgive me for the former though - i am typing this lying down, with the small laptop propped up ingeniously on a couple of pillows, and almost entirely with one hand. i have, yet again, done my back in spectacularly - this time warranting a caudal epidural. don't ask. suffice it to say it involved a big needle.

anyway, this is a great recipe and i've made it twice already. every time we've been so eager to tuck in that i forgot to take a photo of the whole thing, as it comes out of the oven. so, instead, you have a half-devoured piece of meat, with only the tomatoes still intact.

there is something about the salty anchovies which, i promise, you can't taste once it's cooked, and the acidy bite of tomatoes cutting through all that fat.

i cut and paste from the original, as typing with one hand is a pain in the backside. the picture you see is of a half shoulder as there were only two of us, so i just halved the quantities.

Epaule d'Agneau Frottée au Romarin, Anchois et Zeste de Citron

For the seasoning paste:
- 1 bushy sprig of fresh rosemary (you can substitute 1 tablespoon dried rosemary, but fresh really is preferable)
- 1 organic lemon
- 10 filets of anchovies packed in olive oil, drained
- 3 cloves garlic, peeled, germ removed if any
- 2 teaspoons whole mustard seeds
- A few generous grinds of black pepper
- 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
- 2 teaspoons olive oil

For the meat:
- 2.2 kg (5 pounds) bone-in shoulder of lamb (depending on the size of the animal, this may amount to one large shoulder, or 1 1/2 small shoulders)
- 8 small ripe tomatoes, about 650g (1 1/3 pounds)
- 4 cloves garlic, still in the last layer of their papery sheath

Serves 6 to 8.

Pluck the needles of rosemary and discard the tough central stem (you can leave it to dry and use it as a skewer on a later occasion). Peel the zest of the lemon using a zester or a simple vegetable peeler (save the naked lemon for another use).

In the bowl of a mini-chopper or blender, combine the rosemary, lemon zest, anchovies, peeled garlic, mustard seeds, pepper, vinegar, and oil. Pulse until the mixture turns into a coarse paste, scraping the sides of the bowl regularly.

Place the meat in a baking dish large enough to accommodate it, and rub in the seasoning paste, taking care to spread it well, and on all sides. (Clean your hands meticulously before and after the rubbing.) Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 1 hour, preferably 3 or 4.

Remove the meat from the refrigerator 30 minutes before cooking to bring it back to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 220°C (430°F). Remove the plastic wrap from the baking dish. Add the unpeeled garlic cloves and the tomatoes, cored and halved, slipping them under and around the meat, wherever you can.

Place the dish in the oven to cook for 30 minutes. Lower the heat to 130°C (270°F) and cook for another 2 1/2 hours, basting and flipping the meat every 30 minutes or so. Cover with a sheet of foil if it seems to brown too quickly.

thai green curry

2009-12-04T17:11:00.000Z

can't believe i have never blogged about this before. i have made this curry countless times, as you can tell by the food-splattered page in the nigel slater's cookery book. (ah nigel...i wonder what he does on wet saturdays like this one. jumpers, pots of tea, scones and writing? radio 4 in the kitchen?) not sure why i look at the recipe any more when i know it off by heart.

it's a dish that makes you never want to buy a thai curry paste again - it's just not a patch on this homemade version which, if not necessarily authentic, at least has the zing and the freshness of the real thing. don't be put off by a long list of ingedients - once they're all assembled in front of you, all you need to do is some peeling and a little bit of chopping.

you can vary the veg used - i have done vegetarian versions with squash, aubergine and mushrooms but the addition of chicken is very nice too. i think the aubergine is essential. the rest can depend on what you have in the fridge and your desire for authenticity.

the only thing is, you can't really make it without a food processor, or a very large pestle and mortar and someone willing to do the crushing. i have done it in a blender but you need to add some kind of liquid to get it going, and it will eventually blunt the blades. not to be recommended. (how exactly did i live without a food processor?)

THAI GREEN CURRY
for four, though not in our house

for the paste:
4 stalks lemongrass, tender inside leaves only, chopped
6 green chillies, seeded and chopped
3 cloves of garlic
1 thumb-sized piece of garlic, peeled and chopped
2 shallots, peeled and chopped
a good fistful of coriander leaves
1tsp lime zest or 5-6 lime leaves
juice of one lime
1/2 tsp ground peppercorns

for the rest:

2 chicken breasts, chopped into chunks
4 small aubergines, or 2 large ones, cut into large chunks
200g button mushrooms (or any other kind of mushrooom)
1 400ml tin of coconut milk
300ml chicken stock - usually made from powder in my case
a handful of basil leaves - thai basil if you can get hold of it, chopped
a handful of coriander leaves, chopped

put all the paste ingredients in a blender and whizz until smooth.

in a large pan, fry the aubergine and the chicken in oil over quite high heat. you want them to colour a little. when the aubergine is beginning to soften, add the mushrooms and fry for another couple of minutes.

add about 4tbs of paste, stiring so it doesn't burn, and fry it off for a minute or two, then add the coconut milk and the stock. leave to simmer for ten minutes or until the vegetables are fully tender. taste it and see if needs any more paste adding to it - which i always conclude it does, thus making the initial 4tbs game totally ridiculous. if you do add more, cook it for another minute or two.

that's it. just stir in some basil and coriander before serving.

things to do with scallops

2009-12-01T20:09:00.009Z

okay, this is very much the masterchef territory, and i don't mean the professional version either. i am half-expecting greg the egg to come along and say something totally banal and obvious like: she has got the right idea but will it work in practice??

cooking doesn't get tougher than this. and so on.

simple idea - you pair the scallops with a sweet, starchy root veg of some variety, and then you add crispy, salty bits of pig on top. you can't really go wrong with the pork and seafood combination. well, you probably can, but you know what i mean.

the first picture is fried scallops with jerusalem artichoke pure and grilled pancetta and the second is carrot pure with black pudding. i prefered the artichokes - for some bizarre reason they really do go very well with scallops (and i know because this was our christmas dinner starter last year).

SCALLOPS WITH JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE PUREE AND PANCETTA

for two

300g jerusalem artichokes, peeled

a knob of butter

6 slices of very thinly sliced pancetta (bacon won't really do)

6 scallops (or however many you want per person x two)

olive oil and butter for frying

seasoning

some freshly chopped parsley

cook the artichokes in some boiling water until they are tender. they're tender like potatoes - you should be able to stick a knife in them easily. drain well and whizz in a food processor until smooth. return to the pan, reheat and add a knob of butter. season generously. that's the pure done.

in the meantime, grill the pancetta until crispy. drain on kitchen paper and set aside.

for scallops, heat some olive oil and butter in a heavy based frying pan or a decent non stick pan. season the scallops and fry for 2 minutes on one side, depending on size, and maybe a minute - if that - on the other.

to assemble, place a dollop of the pure on a plate, top with scallops and scatter over the crispy pancetta. sprinkle the parsley on top.

for the carrot version, it's the same thing - cook the carrots, whizz up with butter, grill the black pudding, and that's it.

celeriac and carrot remoulade

2009-12-01T19:45:00.004Z

i kind of made this up, though it is loosely based on a crab starter recipe i am yet to post.

hilariously, i split the mayonnaise for it - AGAIN. i mean, what is it about me and mayo? it's a pretty simple thing to make. i've tried it with handheld whisk, food processor, wire balloon whisk, plastic whisk, i've tried it with vinegar, with mustard powder, with nothing, with one yolk or two, i've tried rescuing the split yellowy gunk by starting again...it's all failed. all of it.

but i'm not bitter. i made macaroons with the egg whites and poured the rest down the sink. and then i went to sainsbury's to get a jar of their own. (the list of ingredients on shop-bought mayo is frightening, have a look when you get a chance. what the hell is all that stuff??).

the remoulade was a success, even with sainsbury's own. we had it with roast chicken and some wilted spinach but it would go well with cold meats too.

CELERIAC AND CARROT REMOULADE
for four

1/2 celeriac, peeled
2 carrots
3 tbs grain mustard
1 level tsp dijon mustard
3 tbs mayonnaise
1/2 lemon, juiced
small bunch of parsley, finely chopped
salt and pepper

grate the celeriac and the carrot - magimix is great for this unless you press your thumb against the raised dimples on the grating disk and cut your finger so badly that your kitchen looks like a scene from a slasher movie.

put into a large bowl and add the lemon juice. stir. in a separate bowl, mix the mustards and the mayo. stir into the vegetable mix, then season (generously). finally, stir through the parsley. taste for seasoning and serve.

it was great the next day too.

prawn tangiers

2009-11-29T07:00:00.000Z

this is the kind of recipe i'd read and think - whatever. prawns and spinach - big deal. but somehow, despite the very modest list of ingredients, this was so succulent and lovely that i'm sure it will become a staple. valentine warner, whose recipe it is, is rarely off the mark (apart from that sloe gin jelly which i will never forgive.)

one note: don't use baby spinach from supermarket bags. this is the job for the old, dark green leaves.

PRAWN TANGIERS
for two

100 raw prawns, peeled
2 large bunches of spinach, washed thoroughly and chopped into wide ribbons

2 vine tomatoes
1 garlic clove
1 level tsp of cumin seeds
3 tbs olive oil
juice of a 1/4 of lemon
sea salt and black pepper

dry fry the cumin seeds in a frying pan till you can smell them - they'll get darker but just make sure you don't burn them. when they're done, chuck in the olive oil, then the spinach. you'll have to do it in batches, turning the leaves in the pan as they wilt. then put in the garlic, the tomatoes, the lemon juice and the seasoning. cook quickly so you get the moisture to evaporate but the whole thing doesn't burn.

you can cook the prawns in some olive oil separately but i just cut each into half and added them to the pan at the end. they're ready when they've changed colour. that's it. taste for seasoning and tuck in.

root vegetable daupinoise (sort of)

2009-11-28T16:12:00.011Z

after the first excitement of the winter food, i get a bit despondent about the whole thing. i've spent ages at the greengrocer's this afternoon, looking around for something marginally more exciting than purple sprouting broccoli. abel and cole boxes come full of mud.

but this is it - from now until about april, it will be cabbages, squashes and root veg. all of which i like, of course, but they don't give me the same thrill as the first crop of asparagus, the green leaves of wild garlic or baby courgettes.

the fridge is full of roast veg and i am not using it fast enough. i keep making mash, mixing and matching parsnip, swede and celeriac. but i am bored of mash and it doesn't exactly go with everything.

so i had an idea instead, one that can only be executed if you're in possession of a mandolin or a sharp knife, and some double cream. everyone loves dauphinoise potatoes. i couldn't think of a good reason why it wouldn't work with other root vegetables. you slice the veg thinly, layer it with some thyme and chopped garlic, pour over the cream, and that's it. wonderfully creamy, earthy and sweet root veg, with crunchy, caramelised bits around the edges and on top. you could use a lot more cream, of course, and a proper dauphinoise does, but i didn't really fancy that kind of a dish.

in terms of your choice of veg, you need things that cook in about the same amount of time. i choose sweet potato, swede and jerusalem artichoke but you can do it with celeriac, which i think would be pretty amazing, and squash or pumpkin. lots of people don't like jerusalem artichokes so you might want to skip that. i think they're weirdly interesting - every bite is somehow a surprise.

ROOT VEGETABLE DAUPHINOISE
for two

1 sweet potato
1/2 swede
2-3 jerusalem artichokes
100ml cream
a splash of water or stock
2 sprigs of thyme, leaves picked off
1 clove of garlic, chopped finely
20g butter

preheat the oven to 200C. grease a round 8in tin generously.

scrub the veg, then slice very thinly using a mandolin or a very sharp knife (the latter would be a pain). put overlapping layers of veg into the dish, until you've used about half of what you've sliced. scatter over half of garlic and half of thyme, season, then pour over half of the cream. repeat with the rest of the ingredients. when done, add just a splash of water if it doesn't look like there is enough cream. or use more cream.

put little knobs of butter evenly over the top and bake in the oven for some 40 minutes or until the veg are properly soft when you stick a knife in them and the top is caramelising nicely. check after 15 mins and if it's browning too quickly, cut a disc of greaseproof paper and put it over the top, pushing it down with your hands so it sticks.

jellied ham, parsley and quail's eggs

2009-11-22T11:45:00.009Z

so...this is the second of the ham recipes. the dish you end up with is pretty big - it would easily serve six as a starter, if not more. i gave half of it to a friend - hence the cut (though a wiser person might have taken a photo before cutting it but there we go), and there was still enough left for our lunch and for my breakfast the next morning. well, why not?

i have to confess a couple pf things about this recipe. it is a faff to make so you have to be the sort of person who enjoys spending time in the kitchen (having a dishwasher would also help), and it kind of falls apart when you cut into it. the first cannot be remedied - you're either willing to spend 10 minutes chopping up ham or you're not. which brings me to the second thing - cutting up the ham really finely, into chunks much smaller than i could be bothered with, is the way to ensure the ease of cutting. the falling apart thing doesn't really bother me but it's probably not something you would want to serve at a dinner party.

the dressing is a must - the mustard kick makes all the difference.

JELLIED HAM, PARSLEY AND QUAIL'S EGGS

1kg or a bit less of leftover ham, cut finely into very small dice

reserved ham cooking liquid (you can throw away the veg or make a little soup with some of the remaining stock - you should have more than the 500ml needed here)

2 eggs

100ml nice white wine (possibly not as nice as the italian gavi i used)

5 sheets of gelatine

12 quail's eggs

a huge bunch of curly parsley, chopped very finely

DRESSING:

2tbs white wine vinegar

2 tsp dijon mustard

salt and pepper

5tbs olive oil or more

put 500ml of the reserved cooking liquid into a pan and bring to a simmer. break the eggs, reserving the shells, then separate the yolks from the whites and beat the whites until they form stiff peaks. spoon the whites onto the stock. crush the egg shells with your hands and also pour over the stock. stir, then turn up the heat until it comes to boil. as soon as it does, turn the heat down completely and let the mix calm down. then repeat the process one more time. the point of the bizarre egg white business is to clarify the stock and, though it definitely works, i just don't think i'd bother next time. cloudy stock is not really one of my top concerns in life.

strain the stock through a fine sieve. stir in the wine.

in a separate bowl, soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for five minutes. lift them out with your hands, squeeze out the excess water and put into the pan with the stock and the wine. stir until the gelatine has dissolved.

now do the eggs. put them in a small pan, cover with cold water, bring to the boil and after exactly two minutes, take them off the heat. drain and rinse until cold water to cool down. to peel, roll each egg gently under your hand to break the shell. cut in half - wetting a knife will help not drag the yolk out of its nest.

in a large bowl, mix the ham and the parsley, and season generously.

take a loaf tin and line with clingfilm so it overlaps the sides. start putting layers of the ham and parsley mix, interspersed with some egg halves. you might want to start with a few eggs as that is the side that will be visible when you turn the whole thing out. if you see what i mean.

when you've used up the lot, pour the stock over. cover with clingfilm and leave to set in the fridge for at least eight hours or preferably overnight.

for the dressing, mix all the ingredients together and whisk. and to serve, cut into generous slabs and spoon over the dressing.

roast ham with honey and mustard

2009-11-21T09:27:00.012Z

i am such a sucker for the christmas food write-ups that invade every newspaper, blog and tv programme from about mid-november right up until christmas eve. i know it's ridiculous - there are only so many ways you can cook a turkey and use up its leftovers. and i don't even like turkey that much. but, for a greedy person, there's something quite seductive about a mountain of food featured, desired and consumed.

eating primal(ish) for christmas is actually remarkably easy - if you're at home. you can do snacks and starters of nuts, cold meats, pickles, smoked salmon, and then the roast bird with some veg for the main. you can either skip the pudding or have something diary-based and not very sweet: last year we had panna cotta, probably with some sort of a berry coulis. this year i might consider some version of a chestnut/chocolate moussey combo but we will see. you can then have a huge cheese board - i am leaning towards a whole vacherine baked till runny and eaten with rosemary skewers with apple chunks, but i guess there will be stilton and goat's cheese and dried figs and frozen grapes. (you don't really need biscuits with all that stuff.) yes, you'll eat more than you ever normally do but it's all good stuff and won't do you any harm.

anyway, the reason i'm rambling on about christmas (is it too early for decorations???) is because of the ham.

we’ve been talking about getting a ham to bake since last christmas. then it was prompted by the ginger prince’s triumph of luck over knowledge in getting a waitrose vacuum pack to roast perfectly in time for christmas dinner in the cottage we rented. the only thing that defeated us was the skin. there were calls for it to be roasted separately until it resembled proper crackling. despite my assurances that there was no way on god’s earth that was ever going to work, the boys went ahead and tried it, as boys would. needless to say, they ended up with a piece of soggy, disturbingly human-like skin swimming in a puddle of fat. not nice. the ham itself was gorgeous though – salty, meaty and with that pen, grainy texture that just gives when you bite into it, without any gristle or fat.

also, for the whole of last december, our butcher had hung dozens of ham on hooks in the ceiling and every time we went to the shop, in addition to salivating over mini melton mowbray pies on a weekly basis, i also had to content with the hammy goodness above my head.

a couple of weeks ago, we finally bought a ham. not the bone-in variety that you would do for christmas, but a hunk of boneless salted pig. the idea was to get two meals out of it - a baked ham like the one prepared by the ginger prince, and a ham-jelly thing i've been hankering after since seeing the recipe in valentine warner's book.

ham prep is a simple thing if you know how salty it is. many hams need to be soaked overnight to get rid of some salt but this one, according to the butcher, only needed bringing to the boil once (and throwing away the water) before the full cooking. how you cook it seems to be a matter of some disagreement - it was not easy to find a definitive recipe so everything was a bit of an improvisation.

for some reason (haste? greed?), i failed to take the picture of the ham as it came out of the oven so all you get are slices on my plate. i've concluded i loved ham and will definitely be baking one for christmas.

ROAST HAM WITH HONEY AND MUSTARD

1 hm, 2kg approx
1 onion
2 celery sticks
2 carrots
6 black peppercorns
2 bay leaves
a few sprigs fresh thyme
3tbs honey
3tbs dijon mustard
10 or so cloves
seasoning

put the ham into a large pot of water, bring to the boil and, as soon as it has started bubbling, drain and throw away the water. repeat, if the ham is very salty - you do need to follow the instructions on the packet or ask your butcher.

next, put the ham into the same pot again, cover with cold water and add all the veg, the black pepper and the herbs. bring to the boil, and for the first 10 or so minutes, skim the grey horrible stuff that collects on the surface. cover and simmer gently for about 2 hours.

when it is done, turn the heat off and leave the ham to cool in the liquid for an hour or so - or until it is completely cold.

put the oven on to heat at 220C. drain the ham, reserving the liquid (for the next recipe, to follow) and put the ham on a chopping board. with a sharp knife, take off the skin leaving a thin layer of fat on the meat. you can throw the skin away - not sure it can be used for anything else. score the fat in a criss-cross patter and stud the rhomboids with cloves.

mix the honey and the mustard in a little bowl, then smear over the ham as well as you can. this is much easier done when the ham is cold - when hot, as mine was (impatience is my middle name), the honey just melts and slides off the ham.

stick it in the oven for about 20-25 minutes or until the skin has caramelised nicely and the ham is golden brown and sticky. yum.

creamed chicory

2009-11-12T19:29:00.001Z

very exciting news - we have been given a small grant from the council to start growing veg in our communal garden. kind of like a mini-allotment. the idea is not only to grow things to eat but also to bring neighbours together. which is nice, especially when you live on an inner city estate.

now, i haven't got the faintest idea of how to do this - grow stuff, i mean - but if i am not eating my own stuffed courgette flower next summer, i'll be damned.

in the meantime, eat some cream - i bet you've forgotten just how good it is.

CREAMED CHICORY
for two

2 head of chicory, cut in half lengthways
a knob of butter
1/2 lemon, juice
150ml double cream (or more!)
salt and pepper

melt the butter in a frying pan and, when it's finished foaming and hot, put the chicory in cut side down and fry until it's beginning to soften and caramelise. it will take a few minutes. season, then pour over the lemon juice. let it bubble for a minute. pour in the double cream and let it bubble for another 5 minutes or so. you want the chicory to be soft so carry on cooking (and maybe add a bit more cream) if it's still hard.

mash - celeriac, parsnip and swede - but not potato

2009-11-09T18:57:00.009Z

people always seem surprised when i tell them that i am not overly bothered about ditching potatoes. it's the truth - i am just not. rich and i never ate that many potatoes anyway and it's not something i would ever have bought regularly. so it's not been a great loss.

but there are days when all you want is something creamy and fluffy to mop up the meaty juices from a gravy or a stew. though i love using green leafy veg to soak up some of the liquid, sometimes only mash will do.

the good news is, it doesn't have to be potato. i have used three different kinds of root vegetables in the past week and i can vouch that they are all pretty amazing.

number one is celeriac. who would have thought it, eh? i think i am actually falling in love with this the ugliest of vegetables. its mash is perfectly textured, with a faint whiff of not so much celery as just something earthy and fresh. it is also amazing in soups, again because of the texture, and raw grated and mixed with mustard and mayonnaise.

to mash, just peel it and cut it into chunks, then boil until tender. drain well, then put in the food processor with a generous knob of butter and lots of salt and pepper. if you have some double cream or creme fraiche, put a little of that in too.

next up, parsnip. seems obvious, right? same cooking method, though you're better off steaming than boiling them - they end up less soggy. they also like a lot of dairy so don't skip the butter and the cream. i'd say the former is absolutely indispensable and the latter is nice to have.

finally, swede. which i suspect isn't called swede in the US. rutabaga? maybe, though i reckon that's a parsnip. which is too watery for a mash, in my opinion. don't eat swede too often but its yellowy buttery mash is actually lovely. again, same cooking method and same warning about steaming and letting them drain properly to avoid the mash being too watery.

you can also combine the three - with each other or with potatoes.

there you have it, mash without spuds. it is seriously good and hits the spot on a cold winter evening. so good i found myself going back to the kitchen to lick the cold parsnip mash off the food processor bowl.

maybe i shouldn't have mentioned that.

butternut squash and walnut soup

2009-11-08T13:49:00.006Z

it's squash season - there's barely been a day when i have not eaten it in some shape or form: in muffins, roasted with chilli, as a sweet in its own right (more of which later) and in soups like this one.

i have blogged about squash soups before but normally about ones made with chilli and possibly coconut milk. this one is a much simpler affair and would suit those not hugely keen on spicy food.

the addition of walnuts and toasted seeds works not only as a crunchy contrast but actually improves the taste. even rich, who is not normally a lover of walnuts, said it worked.

do try and use home made stock. i know it's a pain but it really does make a difference. i didn't have any and, though it was perfectly acceptable, the soup lacked that creamy mouthfeel that i guess comes from either fat or gelatine in the real thing.

the recipe is mark hix's.

1 onion, chopped
1 small leek, chopped
1kg butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and cut into chunks
a knob of butter
1.2l of stock, preferably homemade
10-15 walnuts, shelled
1tbs or more of pumpkin seeds, dry toasted till crunchy

melt the butter in a saucepan and fry and onion and leek gently until soft. don't rush this bit and don't burn the vegetables. next, add the squash and the stock, bring to boil, season and let simmer for about half an hour, or until the squash is totally soft.

transfer to a blender, leaving a few squash chunks behind. cut those up into small cubes and blend the rest until smooth. be careful - hot liquids and blenders are dangerous so always wrap a tea towel around the lid to stop the hot liquid from exploding all over you and your kitchen (i speak from experience).

return the soup to the pan and reheat if necessary. check for seasoning, and plate. add the walnuts and the seeds to each bowl and stir some cream or creme fraiche if you like.

thai prawn omelette

2009-11-08T13:27:00.006Z

my phone is playing up so, for some strange reason, i can't transfer pictures to the pc. no picture of the thai omelette - instead, that's me, aged not much, picking my nose.

we had this as a weekend brunch dish but i actually think it would make a nice, spicy supper to be enjoyed with a glass of beer. it's quite punchy and there is every chance you will stink of garlic. (i know it's ridiculous but somehow i can't help telling myself that all that chilli and garlic are somehow really good as a cold preventative.)

the original recipe uses sugar and i can see how that would work but there is no real need for it.

THAI PRAWN OMELETTE
for two

for the spice mix:
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 stalks of lemongrass, soft inner leaves only, finely chopped
2 coriander roots, finely chopped - or use coriander stalks as i did, just make sure they're chopped finely
1 or more red chillies, finely chopped
10 large raw prawns, halves (though you could of course use cooked ones too)
3 sping onions, chopped, white and green parts, plus a bit more for garnish
1 tbs fish sauce

for the omelette:
4 eggs
2 tbs water
2 tsp fish sauce

small bunch of coriander, chopped, to garnish

first, make the spice paste. gently fry all the spices with the coriander root in oil - make sure it doesn't burn as burnt garlic and chilli is pretty horrendous. after a few minutes, add the prawns, the fish sauce, the spring onions, and season with some black pepper. cook until the prawns have changed colour to pink.

remove the mix from the frying pan into a bowl and wipe the pan clean. in a clean bowl, mix the eggs with the water and the fish sauce. heat some more oil in a frying pan and pour in the egg mixture. working quickly, lift the set edges and tilt the pan so that the egg mixture spreads to the sides. i tend to do it with a small knife though i guess a spatula would make more sense. once the egg is barely set - and by that i mean the middle is still slightly runny, tip the spice mixture on top and quickly fold the sides of the omelette so you get a square with a hole where you can see the spice mixture.

transfer to a warm plate and scatted over the shredded spring onions and the coriander to garnish.

roast duck and squash salad

2009-11-06T07:41:00.000Z

amazingly, there were leftovers from the duck we roasted the other day. this is a rare occurrence in n1 kitchen. there are, occasionally, bits of chicken dutifully stripped from the carcass destined for the stock pot, saved in the fridge in some tin foil. but more often than not, they'll end up getting eaten as a snacklet, something to gnaw on while cooking or, most likely, the thing that rich will pick at after he's arrived home from work, before he's taken his shoes off or got changed. (which sounds very 1950's, come to think of it.)

it was a large duck. really, the duck i went out to buy was an imaginary one. i know full well that you either get a mallard, i.e. a small wild duck, or a proper, big christmas-for-six number. yet i though i would get some mythical creature that was a cross between the two.

of course, when i got to the butcher’s, the duck in the cabinet was a stonker of a bird, yours for £14.99. we bought it at rich’s insistence.

this salad was a great way of using the leftovers. in fact, i think it was one of the dinners i've enjoyed most in a while. i think it would be very nice with other meat too, though chicken might be a bit too bland. some rare roast beef would work - it seems to go well with limey, spicy thing, as vietnamese beef salads demonstrate more than adequately.

i admit it's a bit of a faff to make but it really is worth it.

ROAST DUCK AND SQUASH SALAD
for two

leftover duck meat, stripped from about half of a roast duck
a small bunch of mint leaves, chopped roughly

for the roast squash:
1 dried chilli, crumbled
1/2 tsp coriander seeds
a pinch of ground cinnamon
1/2 butternut squash, cut into half and deeseded but keep the seeds

for the dressing:
1 lime, zest and juice
1/2 tsp of sesame oil
1/2 tbsp soy sauce
1 fresh red chilli, chopped finely (or less, to taste)
1/2 clove of garlic, finely chopped
2-3 spring onions, finely sliced (including the green bits)
a bunch of coriander, finely chopped
olive oil

first, roast the squash. preheat the oven to 180C. crush the coriander seeds and chilli together in a pestle and mortar, add the cinnamon and a good pinch of salt and pepper. cut the squash into large chunks, sprinkle over the spices and roast for around 45 minutes or until the flesh is soft when pierced with a knife and the edges are starting to caramelise.

for the last ten minutes of the cooking time, warm the stripped duck meat. i just put it all in a piece of foil, scrunch it up and put it directly onto an oven shelf.

while that's happening, wash the squash seeds you've saved and dry them on a cloth. now mix them with a little salt and some olive oil and then dry fry in a pan until they're nice and crunchy. they'll start popping so be careful or you'll have a kitchen full of exploding seeds. kinda dangerous.

put all the dressing ingredients in a bowl and mix it all through with enough olive oil to be dressing-like. taste - you'll probably need a little bit of something. i ended up putting in more sesame oil which seemed to balance the lime.

to assemble, mix the duck and the squash with the dressing and the crunchy seeds, and finally sprinkle over with some chopped mint.

Koffmann pop-up/Restaurant on the roof of the Selfridges

2009-11-05T20:44:00.003Z

I am spoilt. No two ways about it. Spoilt and possibly a bit stingy though I’d prefer to call it prudent. Or, even better, keen to get value for money.

I was all excited about getting a table for the Koffmann pop-up on the roof of Selfridges, and on Saturday night, no less! (this thanks to obsessive checking of food-obsessed twitterers and emailing Selfridges practically before the ink had a chance to dry on Koffman’s contract).

The man was a culinary legend, his signature dish were pork trotters stuffed with sweetbreads and morels, and the preview reviews (my god, whatever next?) were great. What is there not to like?

Well…quite a lot, as it turns out.

Don’t get me wrong - there wasn’t anything wrong with it, as such. The food was better than good. But I could think of other ways we could have spent that money. Quite a lot of money. We could have eaten at Tom Ilic’s place at least three times. Damn, I probably could have got Tom Ilic to come to my house and cook for me. (Tom, if you‘re interested, my door is always open. There must be pigs to be had in London.)

Basically, the issue is that I am over expensive French food. I am not entirely sure if I was ever IN it but I am definitely over it.

It all seems so pointless, somehow. The difference - in terms of my enjoyment - between that and, say, any of the main courses at Ilic is not large enough for me to want to spend the extra cash.

We both had scallops with squid ink for a starter. I’m sure there is some serious technical mastery in getting the perfectly-cooked scallops to sit in a pool of perfectly-textured ink but it tasted no better and no worse than the scallops we rustle up at home.

I then had the trotters - I just had to, of course. Now that was lovely, the sweetbreads a particularly pleasing revelation, and the sauce that made you want to lick the plate clean: rich but cutting through the fatty, melting boned trotter (with a few little piggy bones that had t be spat out). But Rich’s duck was not, in my opinion, a product of a Michelin-starred hand - I’ve definitely seen its equivalents in a less grand restaurants in London.

I forgot which pudding I had but Rich’s apple pie was pretty hideous - cloyinging, teeth-rottingly, diabetes-inducingly sweet, the kind of thing I can imagine being served in a Pizza Express (where it would be appropriate and presumably appropriately priced). Nice pastry, I suppose, but reckon my granny’s was no worse. It came with a dollop of nice ice cream though I couldn’t tell you which flavour it was. The whole thing went back unfinished.

We also had some nice petit fours but by this time, we were both in a bit of a sugar coma, so most went uneaten. The ones I did eat were nice, to give credit where it’s due.

On the plus side, we had a good bottle of Italian wine, expertly poured - if there is one thing I hate in restaurants, it’s when waiters hover around your table wanting to top up your glass every 67 seconds, and to the brim. In this instance, her timing was immaculate, as was the quantity dispensed.

I had other issues with the pop-up. Whereas other reviews have raved about the décor, I thought it looked like it’d been done by a provincial art student let loose in a poncey London furniture shop for the first time. Likewise, whereas some had found the bouncing floors and fabric ‘walls’ charming, I thought they were a pain in the arse. The fake floor felt like the waiters were trampolining along and I kept threatening to fall through the beige, tent-like fabric that was masquerading as a wall on my left. The lighting was all wrong too - it was too bright and felt like eating in an institution of some sort, or a canteen, complete with the smell of new furniture and glue.

And the people…well, the majority looked like they’d been shipped in on a special bus from West London - all identikit blondes in Philip Lim dresses and expensive shoes, and men with double cuffed shirts (I like a cufflink but on a Saturday???) and blazers, sniffing at wine and examining labels like they were born in the Loire valley and not Kensington.

So there you have it. It was a moment of self-revelation in my culinary journey. Give me small, unpretentious, authentic, local, give me Mark Hix’s and St John’s of this world, give me proper portions and seasonal ingredients, give me good food by all means - but don’t bother with Michelin stars for roast duck breasts or apple pies. If I want to spank hundreds, I’ll go elsewhere.

roast duck

2009-11-03T07:39:00.001Z

can't believe i didn't take a picture of the whole duck when it came out of the oven. criminal. and what i did take is blurred - maybe my hands were shaking from hunger.

it's a marvellous thing, a roast duck. all that fat, and fighting over who gets which bit of the skin. it's what home life should be all about.

you'll end up with about a cupful of duck fat from pouring away during roasting - don't throw it away. you can use it to roast lovely things like parsnips or sweet potatoes - or anything else for that matter.

ROAST DUCK
more or less verbatim from the channel 4 hugh fearnley-whittingstall recipe

1 large duck, with neck and giblets
salt and pepper

for the giblet stock/gravy:
The neck and giblets, and wing tips
1 small onion
1 celery stick
1 carrot
a little oil
1 bay leaf
1 small glass of red wine
½ teaspoon redcurrant jelly (optional)

preheat the oven to 220°C/Gas Mark 7. if the duck is tied up, untruss it - i.e. cut the strings and gently pull the legs apart, away from the body. this will help the heat to get at them.

cut off the wing tips (the last bony segment) - there's no meat on them and they will boost the flavour of the giblet stock. make this first: roughly chop up the neck, heart, gizzard and wing tips, plus the onion, carrot and celery. fry these over a fair heat in a little oil until the meat is nicely browned and the vegetables slightly caramelised. transfer to a saucepan with the bay leaf, cover with water (about 600ml) and bring to a simmer. leave at a gentle simmer for about 1¾ hours - i.e. the time it takes to cook the duck.

now tackle the duck. remove any obvious spare fat from inside the cavity. you can, if you like, turn the duck breast-side down on a board and press hard on the middle of the backbone until you hear a crack, it means that when you turn the bird breast-side up again it sits flatter in the pan, which helps it to cook more evenly.4. now, using a needle, prick the skin all over the fatty parts at the breast and where the breast joins the leg. don't prick deeper than is necessary just to pierce the skin. you want the fat to run, but not the juices from the meat. season the skin lightly with salt and pepper.

put the bird in a roasting tin. place into oven for about 20 minutes, so the fat starts to run. then turn the oven down to 180°C/Gas Mark 4, baste the bird and return to the oven.

baste the duck every 20 minutes or so. check the bird for doneness after about 1½ hours' total cooking time. poke a skewer into the thickest part of the leg, close to the breast. when the juices runs clear, the bird is done. tip the bird to pour any fat or juices out of the cavity into the roasting tin and transfer it to a warmed plate or carving tray.

now fix the gravy. carefully pour off the fat from the roasting tin into a heatproof bowl or dish, leaving the brown juices in the tin. deglaze the tin with the red wine, scraping to release any tasty browned morsels. strain the giblet stock and the deglazed pan juices, into a clean pan and boil hard to reduce them to a rich, syrupy gravy. taste for seasoning, and add a little redcurrant jelly for sweetness, if you like.

beef topside with porcini mushrooms and proscuitto

2009-11-02T09:23:00.002Z

I’ve cooked up a few disasters over the past couple of weeks. Pumpkin ‘custard’ made with coconut milk that ended up looking like grey scrambled eggs and tasting like...eeer...the unmentinable? The same pumpkin, this time mashed to go with some fat, mustardy sausages, leaking watery juice all over the plate? Roast chestnuts that ended up so hard, I could practically see my dentist rubbing his hands with glee...not good.

So, instead of writing about any of THAT, I thought I’d post a recipe f a dish we ate at least a month ago, and that was so bloody nice it might be time to make it again.

We’ve had a piece of beef topside in the freezer for months. I think we’ve both avoided taking it out because our previous attempt at cooking beef - a silverside, as it happens - was a disaster. I read somewhere that the best way to cook a joint like that is to braise it slowly so it goes meltingly tender. I’m afraid it just ended up grey and tough as old boots.

We weren’t’ going to make the same mistake this time. A decision was made to treat it as you would a piece of fillet, and roast it quickly until it’s about rare to medium rare. But as it’s a pretty fatless piece of meat, I knew it needed a little help with the flavour and juiciness. Enter porcini and ham. You can’t really go wrong with those ingredients, right?

It was gorgeous - meaty, salty and sweet, full of umami and nice things you only get from eating something that’s oozing blood all over your plate.

i think this is a jamie oliver recipe but wouldn't swear on it.

BEEF TOPSIDE WITH PORCINI MUSHROOMS AND PROSCIUTTO
for four (i made risolles with leftovers - tasted okay but can't remember how i made them!)

1kg beef topside
10-12 slices of prosciutto
3 cloves of garlic, peeled
1 handful of dried porcini, soaked in 300ml water
3 knobs of butter
lemon juice
salt and pepper
some thyme and some rosemary, chopped finely (a sprig of each if about enough)
150ml red wine

preheat your oven to 230C and put a roasting tin in it to warm up.

drain your porcini mushrooms, reserving the water. make sure you sieve them as the mushrooms are usually a bit gritty. heat a knob of butter in a frying pan and fry one of the cloves of garlic (chopped) with the porcini for a minute or so. then add half of the mushroom soaking liquid and leave to simmer until it's reduced quite a bit. add a squeeze of lemon and stir in the other two knobs of butter. season.

lay the pieces of prosciutto on a large piece of greaseproof paper or clingfilm, overlapping slightly lengthwise. it's the way they usually come anyway if you buy them in a deli - the supermarket ones have the annoying bits of plastic in-between which makes this quite a painful job.

spread the mushroom mixture over one half of the laid out ham.

season your beef and roll it in the herbs laid out on a plate or a chopping board - they should stick. if some fall off, it doesn't matter much. now place the beef on the ham and roll it so it's wrapped in it. make the paper/clingfilm help you do it - though it's still a delicate operation. tie some string around the beef to keep the ham and mushrooms in place - about 3 pieces spread out evenly will do.

now put a drop of oil in a tin and place the beef in it with a couple of cloves of garlic. cook for about 30 minutes for rare or 35-40 for medium rare, adding the wine to the tin halfway through. don't even think about well done - you may as well be making something else for dinner.

while the beef is resting, reduce the red wine gravy if it needs it. you can add the beef juices to it once it's rested.

quail with ras el hanout

2009-10-31T07:35:00.000Z

A Nigel Slater recipe, this. It made me think that, all things considered, I would actually quite like to have Nigel Slater’s life.

No, really.

Of course, I don’t really want to be Nigel, with his strange childhood and his slightly awkward manner. But I can’t help thinking that his life, his day to day existence that most of us spend on crowded trains and in air-conditioned offices, would actually be really rather pleasant.

In my head, in Nigel’s life it’s usually winter. Proper winter of snow and wooly coats and jumpers, rather than the pointless, wet and mild winters of north London that he endures with the rest of us. The garden is covered in frost. Nigel wakes up early - he is no slacker, I reckon - and goes downstairs to his big white kitchen for a pot of proper espresso and maybe a croissant. The kitchen is, I think, all stripped wooden surfaces, with a bit of marble here and there, and cabinets painted white, with Kitchen-aids and Magimixes artfully exposed. No ostentatious displays of wealth, and nothing fancy, frilly or chintzy abut the place.

He goes back upstairs with another cup of coffee, and writes a little. Maybe he has had a wander around the garden too, and a quiet think on the bench at the bottom behind the gate.

Mid-morning, he goes out shopping. Not to the local supermarket, with screaming children and women loading sliced white and crisps into enormous trolleys. No, he’ll go down the road to La Fromagerie for some cheese and crème fraiche, and maybe the odd sausage or two, then to the butcher’s on top of Highbury Fields. A veg shop, and maybe a pastry from somewhere nice.

Then he’ll go home and cook lunch, making something he is thinking of including in a new book. Obviously, in my head, his recipes come out perfect every time, and no time is spent making the same thing over and over again until you’re sick of the sight of the bloody thing. And, though Nigel lives alone, and likes the solitude (thank you very much), he actually always has people round for lunch.

So they eat lunch around a big kitchen table, looking on to the garden, and, at the end, someone offers to stack the dishwasher and tidy up, before more coffee is brewed.

In the after non, alone again, Nigel does a bit more writing. He also talks to his agent, or suppliers, or his book people. He replies to a few emails, popping down to the kitchen every now and again, to stand in his stockinged feet on one leg in front of the fridge, absent-mindedly snacking on whatever is there - a piece of leftover ham, a chicken leg or a piece of fruit. Though I think he doesn’t actually eat a lot, somehow.

And then in the evening, more people and more cooking, and a bottle of wine.

I’m sure his life is actually nothing like this at all, and he’s probably stupidly busy and certainly doesn’t have time to go to five different shops every day. But the idea that pottering about, cooking, gardening and eating, while also seeing enough people and being sociable, actually constitutes gainful employment is just amazing to me and fills me with visceral envy. The truth is, I think if I had to spend every day in the kitchen - not cheffing, mind, just cooking - and have someone eat the proceeds with me, I’d be very happy.

As for the recipe - it uses ras el hanout, the Moroccan spice made with rose petals. Which sounds weird but isn’t. To continue the middle-Eastern theme, we ate it with baba ghanoush topped with toasted pine nuts, roasted red peppers and slow-roast tomatoes. Lovely.

QUAIL WITH RAS EL HANOUT
For two

4 quail
1 large clove of garlic
1 heaped tbs ras el hanout
3-4 tbs olive oil
Salt and pepper

First, spatchcock the quail. I cut through the backbone with a pair of sturdy scissors but you can of course do it with a sharp knife. Once done, place the quail breast side up on the chopping board and squish with the back of your hand. You’re trying to flatten the bird to speed up the cooking time on the griddle pan (of course, this would be perfect on a barbecue).

Now mix the finely chopped garlic with a bit of salt, the ras el hanout and the olive oil into a paste. Spread this mix thoroughly all over the quail with your hands, and then leave it to marinade for a couple of hours (I left it overnight).

When you’re ready to cook, heat the griddle pan, and whack on the quail - we could fit all four on in one go - for about 10 minutes each side. It might need longer, depending on how big it is and how much you’re managed to flatten in (I didn’t do a very good job). The juices have to run clear.

autumn

2009-10-29T07:45:00.003Z

there'll be some autumnal food later but, in the meantime, i just wanted to post a picture taken this sunday on highbury fields. for no other reason than because autumn is pretty good-looking.

sarma

2009-10-26T09:22:00.000Z

it has all slowed down a bit in N1 kitchen. being busy at work doesn’t allow time for just daydreaming about food, mulling over what goes with what or what i have in the fridge that needs using up. there has been cooking, of course, but the kind of utilitarian, stripped-down version that gives me little pleasure. the kind of cooking that has led my mum (a great cook, especially when it comes to puddings – unfortunately) to say that thirty odd years of cooking for a family of four have knocked the fun out of cooking somewhat. she just doesn’t find day-to-day feeding of oneself particularly exciting any more and i could sympathise with that last week. i could also see the appeal of ready made meals – coming home from work and thinking about the latest twist on ratatouille is just not what you want to do, or have time for. masterchef final was on, for one thing. (and there are only two of us - i really don’t know how people with children actually have time to do anything at all.)

anyway, sarma...every yugo worth his salt would have eaten sarma hundreds of times, me included. it’s staple food – i bet there are thousands of pots of sarma slowly simmering on thousands of stoves all over the balkans right now. and this afternoon, once the kids are back from school and parents from work, families will be sitting down to tables covered with patterned lino, to warm plates of sarma (soup plates, this is stuff more suited to eating with a spoon), perhaps with a bit of creme fraiche on top, and always with lots of sliced bread.

there are lots of version of sarma, and probably lots of arguments about what is authentic and what’s just some new-fangled nonsense. big, hefty sarmas made with sauerkraut in the winter boiled with cured pork knuckles or bits of ham for extra flavour, dainty little sarmas made with fresh vine leaves in the summer, nestling in a pot like miniature green parcels, and common-or-garden sarmas made with ‘sweet’ cabbage as it is called at home, sauce thickened with tomato and a bit of flour, with a whiff of paprika.

they’re all good – though i have a personal preference for the vine leaves version: they taste pleasantly bitter, and of minerals somehow. conversely, i’ve never liked the middle eastern cinnamon/sultana twist that seems to be quite common in the uk – sugary sweet is one thing sarma should not be, if you ask me.

this recipe is from my grandmother's pata markovic cookery book - i thought that would be as authentic as you get, all things considering.

SARMA
for 4 (sort of - it was for two in our case, plus one breakfast)

250g minced beef
250g minced pork
1 large cabbage
2 onions, finely chopped
1 large egg
a handful of finely chopped parsley
salt and pepper
olive oil
one tin of chopped tomatoes, mashed so it's puree-like
1tsp paprika
2 long green peppers (or just normal ones)

discard the tough outer leaves of the cabbage and try and take out as much of the core as possible without damaging the leaves. put the cabbage in a large pot and pour some boiling water over it. leave it on low heat for a while, until the leaves start to come away from the cabbage. separate the leaves and put them aside - cut out the spine if hard. you want the leaf to be soft and pliable, so you can fold it, but not to soft as to be falling apart so the timing is crucial.

now make the filling. fry the onions in some olive oil until soft and translucent, then add the meat and fry for ten or so minutes until cooked through. take off the heat and, when it's cooled down, add the egg, seasoning and the chopped parsley. set aside to go completely cold as it's much easier to make sarma that way (apparently).

take a leaf of cabbage (or two, overlapping, if small), put some meat in the middle and roll up like a cigar, tucking each end in. i messed this up quite spectacularly - i blame the cabbage but it was probably more to do with my skill. pata gives no instructions on how to do this - she just says 'now roll sarma in the normal way' - err, thanks. i resorted to toothpicks and force - it kind of worked.

take a large lidded pot, put any discarded small leaves and the cabbage core at the bottom, and then layer your sarmas on top. pour over the tomatoes - shake the pan a little so they are evenly distributed throughout the pan. sprinkle over the paprika, lay the two green peppers on top (whole) and leave to simmer on low heat 'until it's cooked'. that probably means an hour or so but do keep checking as you don't want it to burn. if it's too 'wet' at the end, take the lid off and boil rapidly to evaporate some of the sauce. you don't want it to be too dry - sarma should be juicy and there should be some bread mopping at the end.

(note: pata obviously doesn't use a tin of tomatoes. instead, she simmers a kilo of fresh, chopped tomatoes with some onions and a red pepper, and then pushes it through a sieve. one day, i might make it that way but in the meantime, j sainsbury will remain a good friend.)

pear clafoutis

2009-10-25T20:00:00.000Z

i have to tell you, this is not really clafoutis as such despite being billed as such. traditional clafoutis are light, with soft fruit bleeding juice into the batter and the crunch of caster sugar on top. this, on the other hand, is more of a custardy pie with fruit - but no less nice for that. serve it while warm when it's at its best - though i ate the rest cold for breakfast.

like all low carb desserts, this is seriously easy to make. just as well, really, because my previous experiences of making clafoutis have been a bit of a disaster. i once tried making it in a tart tin with a removable bottom, with the predictable result that it leaked all over the oven. we were scraping sweet batter off baking trays for days afterwards. the original recipe, from elana's pantry (another food porn website, and one that doesn't cease to amaze me with its inventiveness and quality), uses two mixing bowls for wet and dry ingredients but i am willing to bet that the whole thing would work if you just bung it all in and mix. i'll try it out one of these days. i omitted all the agave nectar from her recipe too - i find the pears sweet enough and it didn't seem to spoil the texture.
www.elanaspantry.com

PEAR CLAFOUTIS

4 large eggs
½ double cream
½ cup butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup almond flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon sea salt
4 large pears, peeled, cored and sliced

butter a 9in cake tin - ceramic looks nice but i only have metal. be generous. preheat the oven to 170C.

in one bowl, combine the eggs, cream, butter and vanilla. in another bowl, mix the almond flour, cinnamon and salt. stir dry ingredients into the wet ones and mix thoroughly.

arrange the pears in a circular patters at the bottom of the tin - i ended up with two layers. use the smaller bits to fill in gaps, unless you are very fussed about it looking neat. pour the mixture over the top and bake for 50 or so minutes.

the pears start off at the bottom but as the clafoutis cooks, they rise to the top, which is how you end up with a cake that looks like the one on the photo.

autumn salad of squash, salsify, cavolo nero and cobnuts

2009-10-25T09:45:00.000Z

i've half-stolen this recipe from the british larder (http://www.britishlarder.co.uk/). it's a bit of a food porn website for me, i have to admit, as the food is consistently mouth-watering. it also seems to give me ideas, rather than full copy&paste recipes - perhaps it's because what she cooks is basically seasonal so makes use of weird and wonderful recipes you pick up as the year goes on.

speaking of which, enter black salsify. it arrived in an abel&cole box, all muddy and misshapen, and cost me half an hour on the internet looking for what to do with it. i reckon it's one of those they only dare include once a year because they know they'll be outrage, middle-class stylee, at being given stuff you barely reoognise.

anyway, black salsify tastes like a cross between a jerusalem artichoke and nothing. literally nothing. it's one of those vegetables, a bit like turnip, that to me are just padding, something to give texture rather than any real flavour (or excitement about eating it).

the picture really doesn't do this justice: the light is wrong and it all looks a bit grey. in real life, it was a beautiful mix of deep greens and oranges. i loved the crunch of the nuts and the black salsify with the soft, caramelised flesh of the squash and the wilted leaves.

AUTUMN SALAD OF SQUASH, SALSIFY, CAVOLO NERO AND COBNUTS
for two

1 very small butternut squash
2 roots of black salsify, cut into finger-length batons
10 or so cobnuts, shelled
1/3 head of cavolo nero, leaves stripped off tough stalks and shredded
butter
olive oil
parmesan cheese for shaving on top
salt and pepper
1tsp wholegrain mustard
1 lemon, juice only

preheat the oven to 200C. first, core the squash and slice into 5mm or so thin slices. put in a roasting tin and coat with enough olive oil to cover. season. add the shelled raw cobnuts to the same tin and shake it all together for the nuts to get a coating of oil. roast for half an hour or until the squash is cooked and starting to caramelise around the edges.

while it's roasting, prepare the salsify. have a bowl of water with half a lemon squeezed in ready - this is to stop the salsify discolouring when peeled. bring a pan of water to boil and cook the salsify batons for about 3 minutes. drain and, when cool enough to handle, peel the skin off. it comes off quite easily but you might need to help it out with a vegetable peeler. put them in lemony water as you go along.

heat a frying pan with a knob of butter and some olive oil. fry the salsify until browned, then remove and drain on kitchen paper. in the same pan, fry the cavolo nero for 5 minutes or so until soft and cooked through. don't burn it - if it looks too dry, add a little water to get it going.

make the dressing with 3 parts olive oil, 1 part lemon juice and stir in the mustard.

return the salsify to the pan to heat through. now mix the squash and cobnuts with the cavolo nero and the salsify. drizzle with the dressing, then scatter over the parmesan shavings.

roast partridge - redux

2009-10-24T08:42:00.002+01:00

well, if something is so good, you obviously have to do it again. so we did.

our usual pigeon supplier at the market was selling braces of partridges and it seemed churlish not to buy one. i think the flavour of the bird bought at steve hatt's a couple of weeks ago was better - they were probably hung properly - but these one had the advantage of getting a bit of bling in the form of streaky bacon. there are few things in life that can't be improved with the addition of streaky bacon (and pig, more generally).

this doesn't warrant a recipe as such - basically i just wanted to post a picture of it because i enjoy looking at the two birds with their neat bacon coats.

you take a partridge, season it, stuff a quarter of a lemon and a few sprigs of thyme inside it, rub it with butter all over and then drape it with a couple of slices of streaky bacon. you whack it in a very hot oven (220 C) for half an hour, leave it to rest for ten minutes, and that's it.

eaten with some gem lettuce braised in chicken stock.

aubergine stew

2009-10-20T13:08:00.003+01:00

for the past 17 years, i have tracked the passing of seasons with an obsessive zeal of a proustian meteorologist. i am not sure where this comes from: i've never been too concerned with time: most years i can't even remember how old i am, and i couldn't tell you what year it was when i met rich or started work. it's probably more of a worry that things will pass away and disappear. the inbetween seasons, spring and autumn, when the change is actually happening, are the ones that make me slightly mad.

at the beginning, i had harboured a mild disappointment with the english seasons: i remember thinking (and writing) that the springs were colourless, and the wet, mild winters induced only despair.

i guess this has changed and, probably precisely because the four seasons are not as distinct as at home, i have learnt to appreciate the nuances. i'd still rather have a full-blown frozen february of my childhood, or the sticky august of car journeys to the croatian seaside. but all this week i have been desperate to go for a walk in the woods somewhere, just to enjoy the changing colours, even if they do make me melancholy.

and this week, walking past the little park on the way to the station in the morning (which has become my only real insight into what's going on in nature), i suddenly realised that when i really miss sarajevo, it is actually its autumns that i miss.

you'd think i'd miss the snows, the white winter mornings, the springs in full bloom or the summers of overgrown hillsides. i do but the real nostalgia is for sarajevo at its ugliest - cold, dirty, grey and full of smog. the summers would end abruptly - by the time the school started, you'd need more than a tee shirt. octobers it would rain, clouds hanging off the side of the mountains, slopes into the city dark green and dripping with fog. sometimes wet snow, with unmelting slush on the streets for days. dirty shoes and wet feet. then november - colder (now in full winter gear) and more rain and snow. and that was it. december was winter, and it would last until the end of february.

this is a recipe from nigel slater's new book - it's the kind of thing i've made before in various guises but this was pretty good, so i thought i'd note the recipe. perfect for a dull october day.

SPICED AUBERGINE STEW
for four, greedy ones

2 very large aubergines
3 medium onions
8 ground cardamom pods
2 tbs coriander seeds
2 level tsp black peppercorns
4 cloves of garlic
a thumb sized piece of ginger
2 rounded tsp ground tumeric
10 medium sized tomatoes (or a couple of tins)
500ml stock - i used chicken
2 400ml coconut milk tins
4 red chillies, finely chopped
a small bunch of mint - i didn't have any
2 small bunches of coriander

cut the aubergines into quite large chunks - i find if you cut them into bitesize pieces, they dissolve into mush during cooking. sprinkle with salt and leave in a colander to drain for half an hour.

while they're doing that, peel and roughly chop the onions, and cook with oil in a large pan until soft and translucent. don't burn them.

crush the cardamom pods with the back of the knife and get the little black seeds out. add those, the coriander seeds and the peppercorns to a spice grinder - or pestle and mortar, but i struggle with that.

crush the garlic and chuck it into your pan with the onions, together with the tumeric, the ground spices and the peeled and finely chopped ginger. peel and seed the tomatoes and add those too.

now pat the aubergines dry and dry fry them - no oil - on a griddle pan until they are starting to soften. turn them as they cook so all sides get those black lines.

when you've done them all - and you'll probably have to do it in batches - add them to the pan as well, and pour in the stock and the coconut milk. add the chillies and a little bit of soft, then simmer for 45 minutes.

there is a final step in the original recipe which i missed as it's too much of a faff: slater suggests taking out the tomatoes, aubergines and some of the onions and whizzing the rest in a blender before returning the veg in and sprinkling with the chopped herbs. i just sprinkled.

haloumi cheese with lemon and chilli

2009-10-18T14:22:00.001+01:00

we ate this in the place where we will be getting married - one of the reasons why i picked it was because of the food.

admittedly, this is more of a summer recipe but it's a nice way of recreating a sunny feel as the days get shorter. there is nothing to it but i thought it was a really nice way of jazzing up a bit of haloumi which most people eat plain.

HALOUMI WITH LEMON AND CHILLI

for two

1 haloumi cheese, cut into thick slices

1 red chilli, deseeded and chopped

1/2 lemon, zest and juice

a small bunch of parsley and basil, chopped

olive oil

sea salt and black pepper

heat a dry frying pan (or a griddle pan - though i've never had much luck with those as the cheese always falls apart) and fry the cheese without any oil for a couple of minutes on each side or until nicely browned.

in the meantime, mix the olive oil - 3-4 tablespoons will do - with the lemon juice, zest and the chopped chilli. stir in the herbs and pour over the hot cheese.

roast partridge

2009-10-13T14:33:00.001+01:00

not inspired to write much about this even though it was extremely nice and made me vow to buy more game. i suppose it's because it's not really a recipe as such - more a reminder to myself about how to cook it. (i like looking back at what i have been cooking over the year. it makes me realise that what we eat is pretty seasonal and the blog becomes a diary of the year. it also surprises me what weird and wonderful things i could be bothered to make.)

partridge, in actual fact, isn't very gamey at all. it does smell a bit funny uncooked - kind of like it's gone off - but that's presumably because it has been hung properly. once out of the oven, it's succulent and sweet and really very tasty.

the recipe i used, which was mark hix's, said to cook the partridge for fifteen minutes. we found this was not enough so we doubled the time. they were not overcooked at all - though if you like your partridge pink, perhaps stick to hix's recommendation.

ROAST PARTRIDGE
for two

2 partridges
salt and pepper
about 50g butter

preheat the oven to 220C. season the birds generously and then rub the butter all over them. place them in a roasting tray and cook for 30 minutes, basting once or twice. allow to rest properly - at least ten minutes - before eating.

shallot, cauliflower, mushroom and taleggio bake

2009-10-12T07:00:00.002+01:00

this was a leftovers kind of a saturday lunch but it was so good that i felt i had to do a post on it. it shows you how a bit of nice cheese can transform a few simple ingredients into something quite special. taleggio melts quite spectacularly but, unlike most melting cheeses which i find a little bland, it also has an interesting flavour. the only reason why we ended up with it is because the woman i let queue jump before our marathon salami-slicing session in the italian deli only bought a chunk of taleggio. it was from a big block cut in half, so the other half clearly had my name on it.

i think the idea for the dish came from an onion and taleggio puff pastry tart i did once for a christmas party. initially, i thought i’d do a thin omelette as a base and pile the stuff on top before grilling it but i’m a bit bored of eggs at the moment (yes, there is such a thing) and i just didn’t fancy another version of omelette/frittata/eggy bake.

so, the way to do this is to peel and halve loads of small shallots – 10 or so will do for two people, break up half of cauliflower into quite small florets, and slice up a couple of large mushrooms quite thickly. chuck them all in a big roasting tin and sprinkle generously with olive oil. rub it in with your hands so that each bit of veg is covered with some. season – generously with pepper but don’t go crazy with the salt depending on how salty your cheese is, and chuck in some thyme sprigs if you have any.

bake in a hot oven at 200 for about 45 minutes or until all the veg is cooked through and starting to caramelise. do shake the roasting tin every now and again and check it’s not getting too dry/burnt. if there are no crispy edges after that time, turn up the heat a bit for another 10 or so minutes. right at the end, slice up the taleggio and drape over the vegetables evenly. let it melt in the oven for a minute or so.

we ate it with reheated leftover roast chicken, which was perfect, though it’s substantial enough to have on its own.

coconut macaroons

2009-10-11T13:02:00.005+01:00

it feels like i've been away from here for months though it's only been a couple of weeks. first we had the outlaws here for a weekend, and then we went diving in egypt.

the thought that only a few days ago i sat on a boat in a bikini seems a bit weird: the weather has definitely turned while we've been away. i spent this morning packing up summer clothes and doing double-takes every time i notice a patch of tanned skin peeking out between socks and jeans or looking back at me in the mirror.

it was nice, this final flirt with the summer. though i've never been any good at beach holidays (fidget gene dictates i get bored surprisingly quickly, even if i have a good book to read), diving is different. you spend a lot of time on boats which are somehow inherently not boring - no idea why but people always seem quite content doing nothing on boats. plus you have to set up your kit, put on your wetsuit (if someone could invent one that doesn't require ten minutes of sweaty agony, i'd be grateful), do all the checking, tightening, squeezing, inflating, deflating, blowing and waddling around trying to put your fins on without falling over and losing your mask.

still, it's kind of nice to be back and there is something quite comforting about the arrival of autumn. i know it's astonishingly shallow but one of the things i actually look forward to most is winter clothes. you can reinvent yourself - in my head, i'm in a bottega veneta a/w 09 campaign. also cosy nights in with heating on and candles (candles seem slightly frivolous in the summer) and lots of red wine. and nice pubs with pints of bitter. and then there's skiing. small things, and all that.

anyway, a bit about food...these little macaroons were so nice i feel like abandoning the blog now to go into the kitchen to make them. you can see from the pictures that i'd nibbled on one before they'd even cooled, and then on another as they were getting the chocolate covering. basically, think i ate three before they were 'ready'.

the only thing is, you needs quite a few egg whites so it's best to do it when you have leftovers. mine were after an attempt at making creme brulee (surprisingly not sweet unless you add the sugar on top which i substituted with mango and lime coulis) - i say an attempt because, although seriously tasty, i lacked what rich's dad called moral courage and took the whole thing off heat a few seconds too soon. it didn't quite set properly - everyone ate it, mind.

the macaroon recipe is from the orangette blog, with a few tweaks. she uses sweetened coconut, for which there is no need whatsoever. she also adds sugar, which i left out completely. and i didn't have any almond extract. but the principle is the same and they really were sweet enough.

a word of warning - they are very fragile, possibly more so than normal because there is no sugar in them.

COCONUT MACAROONS

3 cups desiccated coconut
¾ cup egg whites (about 5 or 6 large)
1 ½ tsp pure vanilla extract
8 ounces 85% chocolate, finely chopped
3/4 cup double cream

this is what orangette says, verbatim:

"Place the first three ingredients in a large, heavy saucepan, and stir to combine well. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring regularly, about 10-12 minutes, until the mixture is pasty but not dry. (The uncooked mixture will look sort of granular at first, then creamy as it heats, and then it will slowly get drier and drier. You want to stop cooking when it no longer looks creamy but is still quite gluey and sticky, not dry.) Remove from heat. Mix in vanilla. Spread out the coconut mixture on a large baking sheet. Refrigerate until cold, about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Line another baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat baking mat. Using a ¼-cup measuring scoop, scoop and pack the coconut mixture into domes, and place them on the baking sheet. You should wind up with about a dozen. Bake the macaroons until golden, about 30 minutes. Transfer to a rack and cool."

you can leave the chocolate bit out altogether, of course. the only reason i did it is because i had cream left over from the creme brulee. they were perfectly nice without it (see nibbling, above).

if you want to do it, you just put the cream and the chocolate in a pan and heat very gently until the chocolate has melted, stirring well. you then just use a spoon to pour the mixture over your macaroons. leave to set somewhere cold.

i found the macaroons are best eaten on the day you make them, as they go a bit soggy after a while (though still tasty).

chicken with beetroot and slow roast tomato sauce

2009-09-23T13:21:00.009+01:00

as i stood barefoot in the kitchen at half past ten at night slicing tomatoes and wondering if i should use the turkish pepper or just the normal chilli flakes, i had one of those rare moments when you see yourself as others see you. a kind of a sub specie aeternitatis job. and i thought the whole cooking thing had just gone too far.

at half ten at night, i am normally tucked up in bed reading a book. okay, sometimes it's a cookery book but most of the time i just read fiction. (cookery books are too big to read in bed). so what on earth possessed me to slow roast tomatoes while i am asleep, and on a school night too??

well...i bought some beetroot at the farmers' market and i knew it needed using. so, while watching telly that night, i was leafing through some cookery books, as you do, and i spotted this recipe for a slow-roast tomato and beetroot sauce to go with roast birds.

suddenly, the idea of chucking some tomatoes in the oven at 60 or so degrees C overnight seemed like such an obvious thing to do. it's easy - it only took me a few minutes to prepare, and you end up with leftover tomatoes for lunchboxes. there is also something nice about your oven humming and glowing warmly in the dark while you're asleep - but maybe that's just me.

still...it is a bit crazy.

the craziest bit was making the sauce the following day. beetroot is an absurd vegetable, a freak of nature - nothing not artificial should be THAT red. the food processor looked like a nasty accident in an abattoir or like i'd whizzed up a smallish mammal in it.

the end result was worth it - a sweet, earthy sauce with just a hint of an acid kick from the tomatoes and the yoghurt, and then the crispy and salty chicken skin. it's definitely something to do again, especially as i am always looking for ways of using beetroot.

CHICKEN WITH BEETROOT AND SLOW ROAST TOMATO SAUCE
for two

4-5 slow roast tomato halves
2 medium beetroots
1-2 tbs of creme fraiche
seasoning

first, you have to slow roast the tomatoes. just halve them, put them in a roasting dish cut side up, sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper and drizzle of olive oil (plus chilli flakes if you like) and roast in a very low oven for a good few hours. when i say low i mean less than 100C and when i say a few hours, i mean four or five at least. mine were done at about 60C overnight. oh, and start with good tomatoes, otherwise it's all a bit pointless. and make quite a few - no point in doing one or two.

take 2 medium beetroots and boil them in their skins for about an hour or until you can stick a knife in them and they're soft. when cool enough to handle, peel off the skins, chop roughly and put in a food processor with 4-5 tomato halves, a tablespoon or so of creme fraiche (i used thick yoghurt - but no low fat stuff please), and quite a lot of salt and pepper. whizz until smooth. reheat in a pan and serve with the chicken.

courgette and feta cheese bake

2009-09-22T19:43:00.013+01:00

i've not eaten a meatless or fishless dinner for a long time now. until tonight. the truth is, i couldn't really be bothered to cook so i wanted something i could put together and whack in the oven while i do other things. this fitted the bill, and i had no meat in the fridge anyway.

i didn't exactly set out to eat meat every day. it just kind of worked out that way. i think i function better on lots of protein as it keeps me sated. this dinner only served to reminded me that i was permanently hungry when i was a vegetarian (and i did spend the rest of the night going back to the fridge to 'investigate').

you could say i am permanently hungry now, and i certainly think about food often enough, but it's really not the same. i can wait for my food now without thinking i will faint, and i can exercise hungry. i used to get into a mild panic at the thought of going somewhere where i won't be able to eat for a few hours, that's how bad it was. i guess i must have been prone to massive blood sugar fluctuations and i did/do have a sweet tooth. my palate and my tastes are changing but it takes time. i'd still like to ditch fruit - there is just no need to eat 2-3 pieces a day when you eat tons of vegetables.

it was funny timing to be eating a veggie dish because i am in the middle of a book called the vegetarian myth by lierre (only in america) keith. the title kinda says it all but what's interesting - and what makes it different from the usual carnivore 'propaganda' - is that it was written by a former vegan.

she does the same job as ex-smokers who proclaim the evils of fags louder than the healthy lobby itself: she's pretty militant. as a result, the tone can be a little annoying in places. but i still think it should be obligatory reading for anyone who is open-minded enough to realise that the vegetarian doctrine has some serious holes in it. and that's for both ethical and medical reasons.

we're made to eat meat, that's about the long and the short of it.

being a vegetarian is a bit of a crazy choice to make, for your own health and the health of the planet. the medical argument seems pretty obvious to me - there is so much science to support it (proper science, not some dodgy observational study paid for by the soya manufacturers) that i think you'd have to be seriously blinkered not to accept it.

it was the idea that the meat is destroying the planet that used to bother me a lot more. but it is only partially true: yes, it is the grain that's fed to cows that's wiping out huge swathes of rainforest and grassland but there's the bleeding obvious hiding in there: cows are not meant to eat grain in the first place. HELLO!!!! and that's the nub of it: we need to go back to proper animal husbandry. yes, the price of meat will shoot up and only the rich will be able to afford to eat grass-fed beef fillet steaks. the rest of us will go back to cheaper cuts and the whole nose-to-tail job. we'd also have to make do with cheap protein. a bit grim but perhaps that's the price worth paying in the long run.

interestingly, keith also dismantles the humane i-don't-want-to-hurt-anything stance which i was definitely prone to (except in my case it applied to plants too). the brutal truth is: for everything you eat, something has to die, and that includes grains. in fact, she puts the blame squarely on the rise of agriculture for much of the destruction of flora and fauna. it's a pretty convincing argument too.

have a look at the book and also check out dr michael eades' blog for a shorter summary of the arguments (www.proteinpower.com/drmike/.) and hold the veggie hate mail, i am not interested.

anyway, for something semi-made up, this dinner was really very nice. very soft, pillowy on the inside - the courgette almost turns to thyme-scented, salty mush - with the crispy, cheesy, baked outside. while i was making it, i thought i must have lost my mind and was in fact making a fritatta in a pointlessly complicated way. but i promise you this tastes different - somehow, it is like a souffle in the middle which i don't think you really get when it's done on top of the stove.

COURGETTE AND FETA BAKE

2 large courgettes, sliced into rounds no thicker than a two pound coin. best use a mandolin but you can do it by hand
2 smallish cloves of garlic, crushed
2 eggs
1 cup of feta or a bit less (to taste, really)
5-6 sprigs of thyme
1 tbs of creme fraiche or thick greek yoghurt
olive oil
sea salt and pepper

preheat the oven to 180C. grease a 20cm/8in round dish.

in a large dish, fry the sliced courgetes in olive oil until they begin to soften. add the garlic and thyme and season. you don't have to fry this for ages as the courgettes will carry on cooking in the oven.

mash the cheese with the fork, then whisk in the eggs and the yoghurt or creme fraiche.

now place a layer of courgettes (a third of your mixture) in the bottom of a dish, cover with half of the eggy cheese, then put another layer of courgettes and top with the rest of the 'filling'. finish off with a nicely arranged layer of courgettes and bake in the oven for about 45-50 minutes. if it starts to brown too quickly, cover it with some foil and then uncover for the last few minutes to crisp up.

autumn roast of squash, carrots and onions

2009-09-21T18:50:00.000+01:00

september is possibly the best month of the year for food, with the exception of may. it's those months on the cusp, the ones that span two different seasons and so get the best of both, that seem to get me really excited about food.

it's the tail end of summer - the markets are still full of tomatoes and aubergines, and there are raspberries and strawberries around. but there are also squashes and first pumpkins, wild mushrooms and game - all of them precursors of colder autumn days.

it made me think about food, this bounty of september. no sooner had i nailed my colours to the mast http://n1kitchen.blogspot.com/2009/08/primal-blueprint.html) than i started to have second thoughts about the whole thing. not about the food itself - though it amazes me i am still eating like this a year later - but about aligning myself with a 'movement'.

the problem is, like all fringe activities, this community - for want of a better word though it's making me cringe as i write it - is full of nutters. we sometimes refer to them as 'the crazy people'.

in my experience, the crazy people fall into two categories: the militant primals and the fluffy food allergy/nutritionist brigade.

the first are the people who talk about potatoes or bread as if it's arsenic. pictures of their food on blogs (for every crazy person shall have a blog!), look kind of...brown. or sparse. it's not the sort of thing that would make you salivate. but they're so convinced they've found the holy grail that it never crosses their mind to entertain the possibility that they might actually be wrong, wholly or partially. i find it hugely ironic that they fall into the exact same trap as the one for which they lambast the low-fat proponents. it's pretty obvious that our understanding of what's good for us moves on as science develops so who knows where we will be in 50 years time. this seems to make more sense than anything else at the moment but i think it would be preposterous to presume (sweet jesus, that's too much alliteration) that we've cracked it.

the second are the allergy/nutrition people. usually women, usually into homeopathy and usually not primal but just low-carb and/or gluten-free. they come up with some good recipes but by and large their understanding of science is on a par with my grandmothers. actually, i might be doing my grandmother a disservice by saying that, especially because i really liked michael pollan's rule in in defense of food of not eating anything your grandmother wouldn't recognise as food.

the thing is, food is about more than fuel. it's about pleasure and it's about socialising. although intricately bound with cultural and social norms, it's by and large not about rigid rules and about denial. life is just too short for that, and prolonging it by a little bit by never touching a banana or a piece of bread just doesn't make sense to me in the great cost benefit analysis of life. look at our froggy friends across the channel - my recent day trips to paris and brussels have served to remind me just how different their attitude to food is. there is pleasure oozing out of every patisserie and every greengrocer, and there is wine, and cream, and chocolate all over the place.

don't get me wrong - i am not advocating that anyone should go out and stuff themselves full of cake. but relax a little, and enjoy the seasons. you could get run over by a bus tomorrow.

so to celebrate autumn, here is a recipe for a nice seasonal bake. hardly a dish, really - more of an idea. i do think that roasting onions and carrots creates magic, and the addition of thyme, cumin and chilli just lifts it from being plain. it's the kind of food where the quality of ingredients does matter so buy the best you can find.

we ate it with some lamb chops fried in sumac (i'm officially addicted to the stuff), beetroot leaves wilted in the leftover lamb fat, and some baba ghanoush from yesterday.

AUTUMN ROAST OF SQUASH, CARROTS AND ONIONS

1 yellow squash - or any other variety, cut into chunks, seeds removed

5-6 thin carrots, scrubbed

5-6 onions, halved

6-7 sprigs of thyme

1/2 tsp ground cumin

2 whole dried red chillies (or less if you prefer)

olive oil

sea salt and black pepper

set the oven to 180C. put all the veggies in a roasting tray, sprinkle the olive oil and then rub it all in with your hands, trying to coat everything with a thin layer. season, then sprinkle the thyme (take the leaves off the sprigs if they are hard) and the cumin, crumble the whole chillies and season. you could add some chopped garlic if you want - i didn't as the baba ghanoush was very garlicky.

roast for 45 minutes or longer, until everything is cooked through, soft, and starting to caramelise.

baba ghanoush

2009-09-20T11:12:00.007+01:00

i suspect most people have eaten this at some point, either in a turkish restaurant or as part of those horrible supermarket dip selections (food snob, moi? jamais!). it's usually not bad in restaurants - i guess it's difficult to mess up such a simple thing - though it's sometimes a bit too watery for my taste.

i think a good baba ghanoush needs to pack a real punch of garlic and tahini. also, it tastes much better when the aubergines are chargrilled or cooked on a barbecue - it seems to impart a subtle smokey flavour which works really well. (we did an aubergine and yoghurt thing on a barbecue in turkey and it was delicious.) i cooked mine in the oven this time as i was roasting pork at a very high temperature, and they were nice anyway. you can also grill them or cook them over a naked flame on a gas hob but i am way too clumsy and would end up burning down half of islington if i tried it.

by the way, the recipe is from the moro cook book.

BABA GHANOUSH

for four or six

3 large aubergines

2 cloves of garlic squished to a paste with 1 tsp of salt

juice of one lemon

3 tbs tahini

4 tbs olive oil

sea salt and black pepper

preheat the oven to 230C. prick the aubergine skin a couple of times - this stops them from exploding - and then roast them whole on a baking tray for about 45 minutes or until they are completely soft and collapsed. remove and leave to cool a little.

peel the skin off, scraping any bits of flesh stuck to it. discard the skin and place the flesh and any juices into a large bowl. beat with an electric whisk (as i did) or by hand until the mixture is almost smooth. add all the other ingredients and mix well. taste and see if it needs more of anything - i kept adding lemon juice and salt until it got to the point where i liked it.

serve with meats - traditionally with lamb but it went well with roast pork as well.

roast pork belly with fennel seeds and garlic

2009-09-19T21:05:00.012+01:00

i can't believe i have never blogged about pork belly before. pork is my favourite meat by a long way and pork belly is probably one of my favourite cuts. all that fat - there is no way it could taste anything but great. amazingly enough, the gordon ramsay chefs we met at the loft said they cooked pork belly with goose fat - now you know why restaurant food tastes so good!

i have made this dish before when a friend came round for dinner but i generally don't blog about food i cook for other people - all that picture taking and faffing about detracts from just eating and talking.

the recipe is seriously simple but very very tasty. pork and fennel seeds is a classic combination and the addition of garlic makes it sing. i ate it with some baba ganoush (recipe to follow) and some thinly sliced cabbage and fennel tossed in olive oil and lots of wholegrain mustard.

ROAST PORK BELLY WITH FENNEL SEEDS AND GARLIC

for two

1.5kg piece of pork belly, bone in and skin scored

1tbs fennel seeds, ground finely in a pestle

2 cloves of garlic, crushed with a bit of sea salt

olive oil

sea salt

mix the crushed garlic with the fennel seeds and rub the flesh (not the skin) with mixture. dry the skin as much as possible and sprinkle with fine salt (about 1 tablespoon or so) and leave to rest for about half an hour. halfway through, heat the oven to 230C.

after half an hour, scrape off the excess salt and whack the pork in the oven on the top shelf and roast on high heat for 230C. reduce the heat to 190C and cook for another two hours or a little bit longer. you can grill for a couple of minutes to crisp up the skin if you want - but watch it very carefully as it can burn in seconds.

when done, take the pork out of the tin and put it on a plate, cover with foil and leave to rest for at least ten minutes. you can make the gravy with the leftover fat in the pan - i didn't bother as i was too keen to get my chops around that crackling.

sirloin steak with chimichurri sauce

2009-09-16T07:32:00.003+01:00

this should just be called chimichurri sauce as i am not posting another recipe on how to cook a perfect sirloin - there is one on the blog already.

we got the steak for free when we were buying grass fed burgers at the farmers' market this weekend. getting there at the last minute clearly pays off as we also got a chicken for five quid less than it should have cost.

a word on the meat - we buy it from muddy boots and i have to tell you that their burgers make me swoon with pleasure. really. i keep checking the label to see if they've sneakily put something else in them, like sugar or e numbers or msg or something but no, it's just the meat. it's bloody expensive but it is worth it as a sunday treat. a burger apiece and some fresh leaves from the market, and maybe some mushrooms from the beardy mushroom stall man, and that's all you need. (http://www.muddybootsfoods.co.uk/)

i'm not convinced that posting a chimichurri recipe is particularly helpful as there are so many versions of it about. and it's not exactly as if i've invented it. it's a traditional thing so who knows how authentic this one is. it was nice though, so it seems a shame not to log it.

SIRLOIN STEAK WITH CHIMICHURRI SAUCE

for two

4 garlic cloves

2 long red chllies

a handful of parsley

1 heaped tsp of dried oregano and a little bit more

1 tsp of sea salt

2 tbs red wine vinegar

2 tbs olive oil

2 tbs cold water

chop the chillies, the garlic and the parsley very finely together and then add the rest of the ingredients. best done in an old jam jar with a lid you can screw on and shake vigorously. leave to stand for a few hours at least, overnight if possible.

pecan and carrot bread

2009-09-15T07:38:00.008+01:00

back from liverpool and it was just nice to be back at home. it was a fun weekend: apart from spending time with friends, i also saw the most amazing sunset on friday night, exorcised some small ghosts, and slept in a very comfortable bed. small things, and all that.

i've written before that sunday afternoons are my favourite time for pottering around the kitchen. i think it may be because a nice sunday dinner is a way of warding off the back-to-school dread - a huge roast chicken is a pretty good way to make you stop thinking about hedge funds. i also tend to rustle up something for during the week as it's realistically the only time i have for spilling almond flour on the kitchen floor, getting every spoon in the house dirty and running a dishwasher with just the food processor parts in it.

this sunday i fancied making a snack but wanted something that was an edible symbol of the feeling of gladness to be at home, and messing around in the kitchen, and sitting around and reading newspapers on the new chair. maybe also a little touch of the end of summer - you don't go in for much baking in july when fruit on its own is enough but now there is definitely a turn.

so i spent some time looking for a thing to bake. it had to be something not sweet as i didn't really fancy that, and it had to be pretty straightforward. this was perfect.

the recipe is from straight into bed cakefree and dried. i omitted the honey and i changed the cooking time - i found that an hour at 160 is nowhere near long enough. also, i ground my own nuts in the magimix.

PECAN AND CARROT BREAD

7oz grated carrots
8oz pecan nut flour
4oz butter
3 large eggs
Pinch salt
good squeeze of lemon
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp cider vinegar

preheat the oven to 180C. grease a 1lb loaf tin (or whatever) and line with paper - if it hangs over the sides, you can lift the cake out much more easily.

whizz the butter in in a food processor with about 2 tbs of the nut flour and the bicarbonate of soda. separate the eggs and add the yolks to this mixture one by one and beat until it's all light and a bit fluffy. stir in the rest of the nuts and the carrots. (i just pulsed it all in a food processor briefly.) in a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until they form stiff peaks, then add the vinegar and a squeeze of lemon and whisk a bit more.

fold in about 2 tablespoons of the whites into the rest to loosen it a bit and then stir the remainder with a metal spoon, trying not to knock all the air out. cookery books always try and make this sound complicated but you just need a few firm and decisive stirs and that's it.

pour the mixture into the loaf tin and bake for around 75 minutes. check it's ready by inserting a skewer and if it comes out clean, it's done. leave to cool for a few minutes in the tin, then transfer onto a rack and let it cool completely.

calves' liver venetian style

2009-09-13T15:34:00.008+01:00

rich is not very keen on offal. like most people these days, the thought of liver, kidneys or various 'glands' doesn't fill him with too much excitement. it's not squeamishness - i can vouch for that as he would happily eat bits of animals that i wouldn't dream of putting in my mouth. apparently it's the texture he objects to. which is funny because that's precisely why i like them.

liver and kidneys were a part of my mum's cooking repertoire. it's not something we ate all the time - maybe once a month, if that - but it was pretty standard stuff. she used to make these amazing kidneys simmered in sauce (i always think: a small enamel pan with two side handles), and pan fried chicken liver with lots of salt. so, i guess my liking for offal is inspired less by the nose-to-tail fashion and more by her.

i usually cook it when rich is away as a solitary and self-indulgent treat. unfortunately, i found this recipe in roast chicken and other stories only after i'd already bought the liver. as the dish demands VERY thin slices cut into pieces no bigger than a postage stamp, i had to do a bit of surgery on it myself. suffice it to say that i was elbow-deep in blood and what remained on the chopping board in front of me looked like a result of a particularly nasty operation.

PS though i do like offal, i've never been not too keen on brains. my mum's attempt to make us eat them by telling us it would make us clever (sorry mum but even at the age of seven i knew that was just bollocks) failed when she presented us with a heap of steaming, grey, mushy...stuff. there was no disguising what it was: it just looked like a brain on a plate, the grooves and the bulges pretty much how they'd look in a medical textbook.

CALVES' LIVER VENETIAN STYLE

for one solitary offal indulgence

1 red onion, peeled and sliced very thinly

4 thin slices of calves liver - they ought to be as thin as possible so ask your butcher to do it for you, and cut into small squares, postage stamp-size

1 tbs red wine vinegar

olive oil

a handful of finely chopped parsley

cook the onions in a frying pan in a bit of oil until they are completely cooked through and soft. it doesn't matter if they catch a little bit but the point is to cook them gently for a long time - mine took at least half an hour.

when that is done, heat some oil in another frying pan till smoking hot. season the liver with salt and pepper, then toss into the hot oil for 20 seconds or so. drain in a colander. add the onions to the pan and fry briefly until golden brown and crisping in places. now return the liver to the pan with the chopped parsley, and stir in the vinegar. that's kind of it. don't overcook it - the whole thing, from when you add the onion to the pan, shouldn't take more than a minute.

cauliflower cheese mash

2009-09-05T12:31:00.004+01:00

not sure where the idea for this came from - i am pretty certain i've not seen it anywhere else though it seems like such an obvious thing to do. it might partly have been the cauliflower paste dessert we had at the loft the week before or it could be that the autumn really has arrived and i suddenly crave soft, pureed food redolent of milky mashed potatoes of my childhood. or it could just be that i had some leftover grated parmesan and a small nugget of hard goat's cheese in the fridge and i didn't want them to go to waste.

either way, all i did was boil a whole cauli broken up into florets until soft, drain it well, then whizz it in a food processor with the grated cheeses (a couple of handfuls), a little knob of butter and a teaspoon or so or creme fraiche. i was tempted to put it some milk but think it ought to be hot and i couldn't be bothered to get a pan dirty for it. that was it. you do need to season it well - a generous amount of salt and pepper makes all the difference.

we had it with veal saltimbocca (sage and parma ham attached to the veal with a toothpick - i find the process worrying satisfying) and some swiss chard fried in the same pan while the veal was resting. it was absolutely delicious and took no more than fifteen minutes to do the whole thing. you can't argue with that.

harissa

2009-09-02T07:00:00.001+01:00

well, yes, making your own harissa seems pretty mad. but it's not exactly difficult and you do get a lot of it - we've been eating it all week (not sure that is always a good thing).

the picture is of some chicken roasted with harissa - basically, smother the chicken with the sauce (be generous), leave it in the fridge for a few hours if you can, then roast as normal. a word of advice - before you put the chicken in the oven, pour some oil over it and lightly grease the roasting tin. if you don't do this, the harissa just burns (which tastes ok but looked like an accident in a crematorium).

don't forget to make gravy with the leftover burnt bits in the tin - while the chicken is resting, pour away most of the oil from the tin, heat and pour some stock or water plus some lemon juice or white wine and stir until reduced, scraping all the nice bits into the sauce.

HARISSA

250g red chillies - (not the really hot, small ones. just the normal longish ones, deseeded and roughly chopped
3 heaped tsp ground caraway seeds
3 heaped tsp ground cumin seeds
4 garlic cloves
100g piquillo peppers (mine were from a jar, sold by most supermarkets) or 1 large red bell pepper roasted, peeled and seeded
1 dessertspoon tomato puree
1 dessertspoon red wine vinegar
2 level tsp sweet smoked paprika
6 tbs olive oil
salt and pepper

put the chillies, half of the spices and pinch of salt to the food processor and blend. add the peppers and carry on blending until the paste is really smooth.

transfer to a mixing bowl and add the rest of the spices, the tomato puree, vinegar, paprika, olive oil and seasoning. mix well.

that's it. if you want to store it in the fridge, cover with a layer of olive oil.

almond and coconut pancakes

2009-09-01T18:39:00.010+01:00

it's been a foodie bank holiday in N1.

i have damsons and chilli behind my fingernails and i probably smell of garlic a little. every kitchen surface is covered by vegetables - there are small, orange and green harlequin squashes lined up against the wall, muddy baby beetroots with leaves still attached, a paper bag full of baby plum tomatoes, and two melons slowly turning orange and perfumed on the windowsill. the fridge is full of jars of sauces: rocket and basil pesto in clear tubs, damson dipping sauce with garlic, damson puree to be stirred into creamy turkish yoghurt, olives marinating in spices since last week. there were almond and coconut pancakes with plums fried in butter, there was a roast pork belly and cured ham and chorizo. we went to the farmers' market and the local greengrocer, had a chat with the butcher about football and walked up to la fromagerie in N5. and, of course, there was a trip to the loft.

i might get around to posting a few recipes of dishes we ate but, for a starter, here is a holiday brunch treat: coconut and almond pancakes. they are an amalgamation of various recipes collected from primal blogs. it seem that most people go for either the almond or the coconut variety but i thought it would be nice to combine both. i am sure someone else has thought of that already - it does seem the obvious thing to do.

these are obviously a bit heavier than your normal american pancake. i am not sure if my palate has changed but, to me, they taste no worse than those.

we ate ours with plums fried in butter and a dollop of creme fraiche - i know, it sounds like a fat-phobe's nightmare - just fry some plum halves in a hot butter until soft and caramelised.

PANCAKES
makes around 8 or 9

2 large eggs
1 cup of almond flour
1/4 cup of coconut milk plus more if required
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
2tbs dessicated coconut
a pinch of cinnamon
a dash of vanilla essence
coconut oil to fry

just mix all the ingredients together - easily done by hand. check the consistency of your batter - if it's not wet enough, add a bit more coconut milk. i can't really tell you how i know it's the right consistency but when i first mixed it, it was a bit like a hardcore bowl of porridge. you want it wetter than that.

heat the coconut oil in a pan over a medium heat. when hot, drop generous spoonfuls of the batter making sure there's enough space between them as they spread a little. fry on one side until bubbles appear and the underside is golden brown, then turn and fry on the other side until cooked through - probably 3-4 minutes.

nuno mendes - the loft project

2009-09-01T07:00:00.001+01:00

i wasn't sure if there was any point in writing about our trip to the loft. as i've said before, writing about food is difficult enough when you know what it is that you're eating. but when you can't get further than just stating that something is crunchy or savoury without having any idea even what foodstuff it is, you're going to struggle.

i decided to do it simply because i didn't want to forget the food. it's as close to heston as i have got so far (there are plans...) - though, for nuno, i expect the comparison will probably get a bit irksome after a while).

the whole concept is pretty crazy: you pay upfront to sit in someone's flat with a dozen strangers and watch someone cook. it's a nice flat and all - but it's still a strange way to spend a saturday night.

but it works. it's a self-selecting group of people, for a start: i can't imagine a banker's wife from chelsea wanting to go to shoreditch (dalston, if you're feeling less generous) for some cauliflower paste dessert. the people we ended up sitting next to were good fun: two chefs from gordon ramsay's restaurants, and a couple from staines who, like us, just like food and booze. and there was plenty of booze too, which helped - they give you a lychee cocktail topped with basil oil as soon as you walk in and continue with white wine, sake, red wine and finally dessert wine. it helps people relax but, as the wine is poured for you, there is no risk of anyone getting drunk.

as for the food....my god, the food was amazing. it made me realise i know NOTHING about cooking. not in the sense of 'technique' as they'd want you to demonstrate on masterchef - though, of course, i'm not exactly an expert in using a water bath that rich recognised from his time in the lab (it's the currently fashionable sous vide). i mean cooking in the sense of knowing how flavours and textures work and what makes something taste right - and experimenting, mixing ingredients in a way that produces something new. what surprised me most, i think, was that none of it felt pointless, and done solely for the sake of being different. it genuinely tasted amazing.

i can't remember all the courses we got - there must have been ten or more. there was the onion soup formed into a perfect, soft little sphere, like a table tennis ball, that you pop into your mouth whole and then it just kind of...melts. there was the egg cooked in the water bath where the yolk and the white were of the same texture and tasted like the eggiest egg ever. there was the 'cake' (in a very loose sense of the word) served with passion fruit and a thick, tar-like black olive sauce. there was some black squid porridge and steak cooked in the water bath with enoki mushrooms. (there was basically more umami going on there than you could shake a stick at.)

the two dishes that really stick in my mind - the ones where i wanted to pick up a plate or a bowl and lick it clean - were the aubergine roe with an aubergine consomme, truffle oil and a slick of the most amazingly savoury japanese plum paste; and the strawberry cauliflower dessert which was without doubt the strangest thing i have eaten in my life - a patisserie cream consistency and colour but smelling of blue cheese and white chocolate, eaten with some sliced strawberries and something else i couldn't identify. when i first tasted the cream, i thought it would be the first dish i didn't like. but then rich said i should eat it all together rather than taste the individual components. this seems logical until you're presented with a plate of unrecognisable stuff so your instinct is to try each bit. and it worked, it worked so crazily well i was blown away. maybe i have a weird palate but i just wanted to carry on eating it. it's funny how your brain works too - i smelt the cream and all i could think was - cheese and chocolate. it's only when one of the ramsay chefs said cauliflower and vanilla that it suddenly smelt of precisely that.

we walked home after midnight, tipsy and content. maybe you wouldn't want to eat like this all the time - but i'd be quite happy to have supper at the loft every couple of weeks.

so, when nuno opens his restaurant next year, i suggest you go. http://www.nunomendes.co.uk/loft.html

poached eggs with yoghurt, sage and chilli

2009-08-31T07:45:00.009+01:00

i bought the moro cookery book and it seems that all i am cooking at the moment is in some way inspired by it. it feels right for the tail end of this summer, somehow. (ironically, i've only eaten in their restaurant once, even though it's about ten minutes down the road.)

this dish is just something nice and a bit more special to do with eggs for brunch. it was soft and mildly garlicky, with the slightly bitter and very distinct sage flavour. don't be tempted to skip the sage - i do think it's an essential part of the dish.

use turkish yoghurt with ten per cent fat if you can find it - our local shops sells it. if not, try greek but thin it with a little bit of milk. basically, as long as you don't use any low fat stuff, you're fine.

the chilli flakes i used was the turkish kirmizi pul biber - it's less spicy than the normal chilli so less likely to dominate the flavour.

POACHED EGGS WITH YOGHURT, SAGE AND CHILLI
for two

a small bunch of fresh sage, maybe 4 leaves per egg
1/2 garlic clove, crushed to a paste with some salt
150g yoghurt
30g butter
a splash of vinegar
2 eggs
some turkish chilli flakes or paprika
salt and pepper

first, caramelise the butter. place it in a small saucepan and heat gently until it melts. you'll see the milky, white stuff separating from the oil - carry on cooking past this stage, stirring occasionally, until the butter has turned brown and smells nutty. now chuck in the sage and fry it for a few seconds until crispy. fish the sage leaves out and drain on the kitchen paper but reserve the oil.

mix the garlic and salt into the yoghurt. divide this mixture up between two plates or ramekins.

poach the eggs - add the vinegar to some boiling water and slide in the eggs. being back to the boil, cover and turn off the heat. they should be done after a couple of minutes.

while that's happening, reheat the sage-flavoured butter.

drain the eggs and place an egg on top of yoghurt in each ramekin. scatter over the reserved sage leaves and sprinkle with the chilli flakes. spoon the hot butter on top.

if only everything i cook was so photogenic...

scallops with a pumpkin seed, chilli and coriander sauce

2009-08-29T09:48:00.011+01:00

a happy accident, this. one of those dishes that comes together at the last minute, thanks to my well-stocked pantry and the seemingly ever-present stash of fresh herbs in the fridge. oh to have a garden....

it's a rick stein recipe - sort of. cooking is quite democratic in that respect - it's pretty rare that a recipe is actually someone's. more often, it's a permutation of an already existing thing. or just a downright copy in a i-found-it-first kind of a way. look at jamie oliver - he's made a career out of anglicising italian food.

rick's scallops were grilled and his sauce had spring onions and possibly some other stuff in it. but this pared-down version worked perfectly and it was one of the nicest scallop dishes i've ever made. the sauce could be served with other seafood, i think - flash fried squid, or even some nice white fish.

SCALLOPS WITH A PUMPKIN SEED, CHILLI AND CORIANDER SAUCE
for two

enough scallops for two people - depends on how greedy you are and whether it's a starter or a main
25g pumpkin seeds
1 green chilli (or half if you don't like thinks too hot), deseeded
a handful of coriander leaves (i chucked in the stalks too, for good measure)
1 small garlic clove
a squeeze of lime
a small wedge of parmesan - smaller than a cherry tomato (i know, i know, i can't think of a better comparison)
olive oil
a small knob of butter
seasoning

chuck everything except oil in a food processor and whizz until almost smooth. a bit of seed crunch is quite nice. add the oil - maybe a couple of tablespoons, and pulse once or twice just to mix.

melt the oil with the butter in a pan and, when hot, fry the scallops for a couple of minutes on each side. much depends on their side - just don't overcook them. remove from the pan and keep warm.

in the same pan, put all the pumpkin sauce and fry on medium heat - don't burn - for a couple of minutes. pour the sauce over the scallops and season with sea salt.

roast patty pan squash with herb dressing and cobnuts

2009-08-28T07:37:00.011+01:00

i should have taken a picture of this squash before i cooked it as i suspect most people will look at the title and go: 'roast WHAT??'. they are the bright yellow relative of courgettes and marrows, shaped a bit like a flying saucer. i got them in my abel&cole box - a great way of acquainting yourself to weird vegetables.

i have to be honest with you - patty pan squash don't taste of very much. they look great but, like a miss world or a supermodel, there's not a lot there once you get past the attractive exterior.

but then, courgettes don't taste of very much either unless you griddle them on a very hot pan and then douse them in good olive oil and chopped chilli. i did think of giving these the same treatment (i have done it in the past) but changed my mind when i stumbled upon a recipe from the chocolate and zucchini blog (http://chocolateandzucchini.com). she makes this with herbed chickpeas, which sounds nice, so this is in effect one half of her recipe.

i have also added the cobnuts just because they needed using up. you can, of course, use other nuts. i think pine nuts would be nice. you could also scatter some fresh, torn mozzarella cheese for a more substantial veggie dish.

i promise you you will not taste the anchovy at all.

ROAST PATTY PAN SQUASH WITH HERB DRESSING AND COBNUTS
for two

2 patty pan squash, cut into wedges
a few chives if you have them - i didn't
a small bunch of coriander
a couple of leaves of mint
1 anchovy in oil, drained (substitute 1 tablespoon rinsed capers if you prefer)
a small pinch cayenne pepper
a little bit of lemon peel (half a strip)
1tsp lemon juice
seasoning
olive oil

put the squash wedges into a roasting tray, drizzle with olive oil and roast at 200C for about 45 minutes. check them after half an hour though - they need to be cooked through but caramelised at the edges.

in the meantime, whizz all the ingredients except oil in a blender, then add the oil slowly until you get the right consistency for a dressing.

serve with the dressing drizzled over the squash.

but then neither do courgettes. i think it's because they are so watery.

lemon sole with lemongrass butter

2009-08-26T07:23:00.005+01:00

this lemongrass butter idea was pretty cool. nothing to it and makes a nice change from just grilling or frying fish. it looks good too - a bright green, fragrant disk of butter melting on the hot fish.

the recipe makes quite a lot of butter but keep it in the fridge and add to other meat and fish.

LEMON SOLE WITH LEMONGRASS BUTTER
for two

6 small lemon sole fillets (if you're greedy)
1 stalk of lemongrass, tough outer leaves removed and core finely chopped
½ lime zest grated finely
2 tsp lime juice
1cm ginger, peeled and chopped very finely
1 tbsp thai fish sauce
2 tbsp parsley, finely chopped
125g butter - mine was unsalted and not soft, which is the opposite of what the recipe says
salt and pepper

just throw everything except the fish in a food processor and whizz until well combined. then take some cling film and lay it on a flat surface. scrape the butter mixture out of the food processor bowl and deposit it on the cling film in a fat sausage shape. wrap the cling film around it and then mould into a sausage. it's easy as the butter is totally soft. put it in the freezer for 10 minutes to firm up.

grill or fry the fish fillets and, while still hot, slice off some butter as thick as two pound coins and lay on the fish to melt in the heat.

rocket pesto

2009-08-21T19:00:00.000+01:00

nothing much to say about this except it's nice. if you like pesto, you'll like this. same premise - leaves, nuts, olive oil and cheese - which you could vary in all sorts of ways. it doesn't taste bitter at all, in case you were wondering.

recipe from the lovely mr mark hix. i'm due for some bone marrow in his restaurant soon, i think.

ROCKET PESTO

you end up with a pot as big as the one on the picture so probably around 400ml or thereabouts

2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

50g handful of flat parsley leaves

100g handful of rocket leaves

60g lightly toasted pine nuts

200ml olive oil

salt and pepper

1-11/2 tbsp grated pecorino or parmesan (optional)

whizz everything except cheese and oil in a blender. when thoroughly mixed, start adding the oil in a steady stream. you might not need all of it. mix the cheese in as and when you need it - it keeps in the fridge without it. i actually made it without cheese and it was very nice.

banana cake

2009-08-19T07:00:00.000+01:00

i was in the mood for a cup of tea and some comfort food and this is what i ended up making. it's lovely - not sweet at all (i modified the original recipe to get rid of most of the sugary stuff as i think the bananas are sweet enough) but moist and fragrant with real vanilla. you can of course use vanilla extract. it's also very cake-like, which you don't always get when you don't use flour.

i think this could be made in a loaf tin - i used a sandwich pan. grease and line the bottom just in case, though i suspect it's greasy enough not to stick.

BANANA CAKE

3 cups ground almonds
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/8 cup agave nectar
1/8 cup coconut milk plus a little more
1/4 cup olive oil
3 eggs, whisked
seeds from one vanilla pod
2 bananas (about one cup) mashed

preheat the oven to 180C. mix the almonds with the salt and the baking powder. in a separate bowl, mix the agave, coconut milk, olive oil and the whisked eggs with the vanilla and the mashed bananas.

stir the wet ingredients into dry and mix thoroughly until combined. add a bit more coconut milk if the mixture seems too dry.

bake at 180C for 40 minutes - though check halfway through and if the top looks like it's browning too fast, turn the heat down a little. it's cooked when the skewer comes out clean.

crab and cobnut salad

2009-08-16T18:12:00.006+01:00

green cobnuts. no, me neither. but the veg shop sold them and obviously i had to buy them. i had some last year but that was in autumn and it was a different kettle of fish altogether. couldn't tell you how, precisely, but they just tasted very different. more like almonds.

raw, green cobnuts taste like pretty non-descript (nice though) but toasted they're crunchy and sweet - delicious. almost popcorn like. you could chuck them in any salad - i just fancied crab and there is something special about a combination of crab, avocado and chilli.

so this is less of a recipe and more of a suggestion to eat weird and wonderful things you see sold in greengrocers.

CRAB AND COBNUT SALAD

for two

a bunch of watercress or other leaves (rocket would be nice)

1 dressed crab

1 avocado, cut into chunks

1/2 chilli, deseeded and chopped finely

3 tbs olive oil

1tbs lemon juice

20 or so green cobnuts (other nuts would be okay, obviously)

seasoning

first, toast the cobnuts. well, actually, first, shell the cobnuts. in my case, this involved a rolling pin and a sore thumb. toast them in a hot oven at 200C for around 45 minutes. keep checking - they go soft at first but then harden a little while later. this is what when they're ready.

next, make the dressing. just mix the olive oil, lemon juice and the chopped chilli, and season.

finally, mix all the ingredients together and pour over the dressing. mix lightly with your hands. that's it.

creamed aubergines

2009-08-16T17:47:00.006+01:00

this is either a perfect accompaniment to some slow roast lamb - which is what we had it with (recipe to follow), or the lamb chops i blogged about yesterday. it would also be nice as a dip in its own right, i think. it has that mellow, sweet taste that aubergines get with long cooking. adding the oil at the end makes the whole thing emulsify like a mayonnaise, so the texture is silky and smooth. it was so nice i fancy making some more soon.

the recipe is from simon hopkinson's roast chicken and other stories, which i seem to be using more and more.

CREAMED AUBERGINES
for four

2 large aubergines, peeled and diced
200 ml olive oil
juice of one large lemon
salt and pepper
1 heaped tsp of ground cumin
2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1 tbs tahini

make a roasting bag out of some tin foil. tear 2 large pieces of foil, place one on top of another, then fold over so you get the beginning of a bag. seal the 2 side edges by folding the foil over several times to the depth of 1cm or so. you're left with a 'bag' with the top still open. chuck the aubergines in, with half of the oil, the lemon juice, the salt and the pepper. bake for an hour or two in a 150C oven until they are completely collapsed. mine took almost two hours but they were old and full of seeds (and a bit bitter, truth be told).

when you think they're done, tip the contents of your 'bag' into a food processor, juice and all, and add the cumin, garlic and the sesame paste. blend until smooth. keep the blender on and add the remaining oil in a thin stream, as if for a mayonnaise. check the seasoning.

you can eat this hot or cold. we ate it warm the first night, but i think i preferred it room-temperature cold with hot leftover meat the next day.

indian-spiced lamb cutlets

2009-08-15T13:40:00.014+01:00

if i were to write a book about my life - a very detailed book, obviously - this week would be titled 'Nausea' and subtitled 'The Week In Which I Lost My Appetite'.

i have eaten, of course, but in a sickly, non-interested kind of a way of a faddish child or an anorexic. eating because you know you have to eat rather than because you want to. i have been opening and closing the fridge door without taking anything out, i have stared at the cupboards blankly, i even tried eating bread and a couple of biscuits just to see if a sugar rush would get me going. (it didn't.) but mainly i have been wondering why and how i can normally spend hours thinking about what i am going to eat for dinner. this week, i almost forgot to eat a couple of times.

in the end, i thought i'd cook something that would normally make me salivate, something irresistible, just to try and coax my tastebuds out of hiding and my get my stomach working again. it had to be something salty and fatty - the kind of thing your doctor would balk at. i had some lamb cutlets in the freezer and i thought they'd fit the bill perfectly.

we've been eating these lamb chops from the local indian takeaway (emni on upper street - it's pretty amazing stuff) and i thought i'd try and replicate them at home. of course, you can't really do that because you need a proper tandoori oven or a barbecue but this was pretty good nevertheless. the secret is to leave the griddle pan to heat up to the point where you think it's not wise to have a lump of metal that hot in your kitchen. just stick it on the highest heat for 10 minutes while you go and do something else(without any oil, or you'll definitely be getting the fire brigade out). it's also best to leave the meat in the fridge for a day or two.

i stole the recipe from another food blog with a great title of hollow legs (www.lizzieeatslondon.blogspot.com). the recipe below is the original one.

INDIAN-SPICED LAMB CUTLETS
for two

4 lamb cutlets
1 tsp cumin seeds
3 green cardamom pods
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp garam masala
2 fat cloves of garlic, sliced
2" ginger, minced finely
1 green chilli, chopped finely
zest of a half a lemon
1 tbsp tomato puree

dry fry the cumin, cardamom pods and the black mustard seeds until fragrant but make sure you don't burn them. use a pestle and mortar to grind into a fine powder.

mix with the rest of the ingredients and smear all over the lamb cutlets. leave to marinate.

when ready to cook, heat the griddle pan till very hot, then fry - without any oil - for two minutes on each side for medium rare. leave to rest for ten minutes before eating - it will make all the difference.

the dip on the side is just some creme fraiche mixed with finely chopped mint.

globe artichoke with vinaigrette

2009-08-11T18:34:00.003+01:00

i will struggle to write this post. the fact that i will write it you should see it as a proof of my dedication to bloggery, despite the dearth of recent posting (i do have a life, you know).

in fact, it will be a long time before i can so much as look at a globe artichoke again. and don't mention the eggs: eggs are off the menu for a while.

basically, about two hours after i ate this and some spicy mackerel (the recipe for which you will never see for the same reason), i started being voilently sick. the kind of sick like you are when you're little and you've eaten worms from your garden or not washed your hands after playing marbles in the park. the kind of sick when you lie on the bathroom floor, because you can't make it back to the bedroom, picking mackerel out of your nose and hoping god will kill you now rather than make you suffer more. the kind of sick where you crawl to the living room to get a cushion 'cos your knees are getting sore from the bathroom floor. that kind of sick.

and you know the worst bit? i had a glass of red wine with my dinner. just the one, leftover from the week before. all night i kept throwing up this fishy red mush, as if i'd drank a whole bottle of the stuff. as vomit combinations go, mackerel and red wine is pretty disgusting.

so you see why i'm struggling with this. ironically, i'm sure the artichoke or indeed the mackerel had nothing to do with it. it would have been something i had the day before.

it takes a fair bit to put me off food (i can scrape mouldy bits off bread and don't mind eating things from the floor) but i have to confess that even just looking at the fridge makes me slightly queasy.

but when i try really hard to remember the good bit before the bad bit, i have to tell you that the artichoke is worth trying. i'm not normally that keen on fiddly food, prefering to wolf things down, but it's kinda nice to savour things sometimes.

GLOBE ARTICHOKE WITH VINAIGRETTE

for 2

2 large globe artichokes

1 tbs sea salt

for the vinaigrette:

1 heaped tsp dijon mustard

1 large egg yolk

1 1/2 capfuls of white wine vinegar

a pinch of sea salt

4 tbs extra virgin olive oil

cut the stalks off the artichokes so they can stand flat on plate. bring a large saucepan of water to boil with the salt, add the artichokes and cook for about 35 minutes. do it for 30, then check - if the leaf comes out easily when pulled, they're ready. if it falls out, it's overcooked. mine took about 35 minutes but they weren't huge.

in a small bowl, combine all the vinaigrette ingredients except oil and mix well. then slowly beat in the oil - not as slowly as you would for mayonnaise but slow enough for it to emulsify - until it's thick and creamy.

eat, leaf by leaf, sucking the succulent bit at the bottom. when you get to the core, get rid of the choke bit - it looks hairy and fibrous - and eat the heart at the bottom. the best bit.

primal blueprint

2009-08-08T18:40:00.000+01:00

i have probably said this already but i have to say it again - i have an aversion to belonging to clubs, societies, parties, groups or gatherings. something in me recoils from being a part of a group of people who all think the same. that's why i could never belong to a political party.

it might seem arrogant - and to a certain extent i admit it is (and childishly so) - but it's also a post-commie hangover. subconsciously, i am suspicious of any attempt to be similar. communism was all about being similar - about no one standing out in any way. (that's why i love this country, incidentally. you could get on the tube naked and most people would just carry on reading their newspaper.)

but there is clearly one club i have chosen to belong to and that's the 'primal' - or whatever you want to call it - eating one. i don't think i talk about it too much on the blog - i think a lot of people don't realise that that's what it is. but every now and again i think it's worth pointing it out.

which is why i thought i'd post a link to a mark's daily apple, one of the websites that probably has the best introduction to this way of eating and exercise. i must admit i read it less and less the more i get the hang of what i should and shouldn't be doing. nevertheless, it's a great site and a great source of information for almost every question you may have thought of asking about 'the primal blueprint'.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-to-succeed-with-the-primal-blueprint/

chicken and sausage one pot meal

2009-08-04T18:56:00.005+01:00

elizabeth from cavemanfood.blogspot suggested this recipe when i was looking for things to do with chicken joints. i must confess that if she hadn't, i would never have made it. it sounded slightly odd, and i thought there would be too much mustard. but it was lovely. the pictures make it look like it's been incinerated but it was actually really tasty, full of sweet, crispy bits.

we didn't have any sage as suggested in the original recipe so we just used a bit of parsley. it was good but sage would have been better, which is why i include the original recipe.

actually, i should say rich cooked this rather than me. and, because he didn't think the original recipe was for the whole chicken and we only had what's effectively a half, he didn't reduce the marinade ingredients accordingly. but i think it worked, and i haven't changed his quantities.

CHICKEN AND SAUSAGE ONE POT MEAL
for two

2 small onions
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tsp english mustard
1 tbs ground sage
1 tbs worcester sauce
1 lemon
4 chicken joints - 2 legs, 2 breasts - on the bone
4 large sausages
fresh sage leaves, chopped

find a freezer bag big enough to hold all the chicken pieces. in the bag (or just a normal bowl if you don't have one) the oil, the mustard, the dried sage, onions cut into chunks, a grinding of black pepper and worcester sauce. cut the lemon in half, squeeze the juice into the mixture, then cut it into eights and all to the bag as well. add the chicken pieces and then squish everything together to combine. leave overnight or even for a day.

when ready to cook, preheat the oven to 200C. transfer everything (including bits of lemon etc) from the bag into a roasting tin, and tuck the sausages around the chicken pieces. sprinkle with fresh sage leaves and bake in the oven until done - probably around an hour and a half, depending on how large your chicken pieces are.

roast summer squash with tomato chilli sauce. or a rant about weddings

2009-08-04T09:34:00.001+01:00

i made this once in the winter with butternut squash and real tomatoes instead of tinned ones. i think winter squash works better because it is firmer - so it's probably something you'll want to put off until at least november. once you start eyeing up squash and sweet potatoes at the greengrocer's, you know it's all over. mind you, we've had the kind of summer where you can't leave the house without an umbrella. i keep looking at all my summer clothes, bought in a moment of optimism so divorced from empirical evidence that it hurts to admit it, and wondering when i'll just give in and put them in the cupboard downstairs.

considering saturday morning was another autumn-like day, eating a breakfast as warm, sweet and spicy as this was actually really quite nice. i was on my own and i ate it while looking at dresses for the wedding on the internet. not wedding dresses, you see, but dresses for the wedding.

i don't really know why i am doing this nine months before the event. in fact, the whole wedding thing has become a bit strange, if i am totally honest. i oscillate violently between thinking it is such a ridiculous thing to be doing (i don't mean the getting married bit, i mean the reception - i don't and never have had any doubts about marrying him) and reconciling myself to what looks like the inevitable. as in, if you're going to do it, you may as well do what people expect, even if you are not bothered.

the whole set of expectations that goes with it - the white dress, the cake, the speeches - i genuinely don't get. it's not an affectation, or some firmly held feminist view (though it is tinged with the latter) - i just DO NOT GET IT. honestly. in the same way i don't get why people continue listening to anything that the organised church has to say. i suppose i get people who are religious and who have made the leap of faith and decided that this something, whatever it is, exists. that's fine by me, even though i think the evidence is pretty well stacked against them. but the church - the robes, the hats, the beards, the incense, the ridiculous prohibitions about condoms, the canonisation of saints and veneration of miracles? what the hell is that all about??

i guess i understand the context in which the wedding paraphernalia came about. once upon a time women really were virgins on their wedding night, give or take the odd tart, people believed that throwing grains or rice (now confetti) would bestow fertility upon the couple and that going over the top with decorations and noise would ward off evil spirits. but what exactly is the point of all of this now? it's like believing that it's unlucky to walk underneath a ladder.

i can see my mum rolling her eyes and saying: 'boze, danka, jesi cudna', roughly translated as (exasperated): 'for god's sake, don't be such a weirdo.' she is not a woman with much time for girlie nonsense but i think she secretly likes a bit of pomp and circumstance if the occasion is right. unlike me (and dad, who feels no need to conform to expectations he perceives as ridiculous) - she also has an overdeveloped sense of what's right, in a middle class kind of a way, and that generally means going the whole hog and trying to please everyone.

i mean, i want to wear a nice dress as much as the next woman and - let's face it - probably more, but do i really need to have some flowers artfully tied into a bouquet by a GCSE leaver from maidenhead? or, considering i've lived with this man for 5 years, will not seeing me for one night really make him look at me any differently than any other time i put on a f##k-off dress and heels? i'd like to think not but it seems the world and his wife disagree.

i am determined not to give in though. this means i will not turn into bridezilla and spend sleepless nights worrying about the width of the ribbon on my bouquet or how the colour scheme will work. this might disappoint some - i can guess who they are already - and i'm sure there will be some tutting and a few bitchy comments, but what the hell. i am just really looking forward to marrying the man. (even if he does hate my taste in music - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox6aHGmfxB8 - genius! but do listen till the end.)

oh - and don't expect there to be a cake.

ROAST SUMMER SQUASH WITH TOMATO AND CHILLI SAUCE
for two

1 summer squash (the small, round, orange kind)
salt and pepper
chilli flakes (optional)

for tomato sauce:

1 clove of garlic, chopped
1 red chilli, deseeded and chopped
1 tin chopped tomatoes
a generous handful of chopped coriander

for the squash, preheat the oven to 180C. cut the squash into eights and deseed. put in a roasting tray, sprinkle with olive oil, salt, pepper and chilli flakes if using. roast for 45 minutes or until the squash is soft when pierced with a knife and nicely charred around the edges.

for the tomato sauce, heat some olive oil in a small pan, add the garlic, chilli and tomatoes. simmer for 20 or so minutes, or until the sauce is no longer watery. stir in the coriander at the end.

PS if someone can tell me what exactly 'favours' are all about and if they existed before yanks introduced them in an effort to sell stuff, i'd be most grateful.

moussaka (a la pata markovic)

2009-08-01T07:58:00.005+01:00

somehow, i ended up with four aubergines in the fridge after the abel&cole delivery. i can usually think of ways of using one or two - and i briefly considered making a roast aubergine and tahini salad. but you need a hunk of meat to go with it and i'd already taken out some beef mince to defrost. i had vaguely thought about making burgers but then fancied something a bit more substantial.

if you have mince and if you have aubergine, there is only one obvious thing to make - moussaka.

i have tried making moussaka in the past - using both my mum's and other recipes - but somehow the end result was never quite right: too dry and crumbly or too sloppy and wet. and the aubergine always tasted a bit how i think it does to people who don't like them: slightly spongy with hard, leathery skin.

instead of trying the same thing again, i thought i'd go straight to the source, to what is likely to have the most authentic (to me at least, if not to greeks) recipe. so i checked out my grandmother's cookery book and, of course, there it was.

there are a lot of moussakas in pata's book: with kale and chicken (sounds nice), rabbit meat (even nicer), courgettes with cheese, green beans, and so on. the idea behind all of them is the layering of vegetables and meat, and - as i discovered - generous quantities of beaten egg with creme fraiche to lubricate the whole thing. also, it's not for the fainthearted - you need a lot of olive oil to fry the aubergines.

i did change a few things - i didn't use flour and breadcrumbs for the aubergines so i just dipped them in beaten egg and fried them. i also didn't use any pork mince - she uses two thirds beef and one third pork which makes sense as it's fattier and stops the whole thing from drying out. i didn't have any so what i used was some organic, grass fed beef steak mince. it's great stuff - with a flavour totally unlike normal mince. sweeter, somehow, and also redolent of pastures and, well, cows. the kind of smell vegetarians would object to: slightly bloody, too.

this time, the end result for almost perfect. it was just slightly too wet - which is why i suggest you deseed the tomatoes below. but the flavour was amazing. i think the grass-fed meat makes a huge difference, as does battering the aubergines first. also, the whole egg-creme fraiche thing is a revelation - my mum and my grandmother would have used it a lot but it's just not something that's common here. in fact, the smell of the dish in the oven reminded me of my granny's kitchen.

a fitting end to a week which included a gig by goran bregovic. so, if you make this, eat it while listening to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg44qKSbsdQ&feature=related

MOUSSAKA

for four (or even five if you have side veg - plain tomato salad would be nice. i had piles of quickly braised swiss chard)

4 aubergines, thinly sliced lengthwise, slightly thicker than a pound coin

750g beef mince or 2/3 beef, 1/3 pork

1 onion, finely chopped

3 ripe tomatoes, deeseded and chopped

1 green pepper, deseeded and chopped

2tbs finely chopped parsley

5 eggs

200ml (one small tub) creme fraiche

first, salt the aubergine slices and leave to drain for at least an hour. i have no idea if this makes any difference but i thought i'd listen to pata and do it properly.

while that's happening, fry the onions, pepper and tomatoes in hot fat - lard would be best but i used olive oil. add the chopped parsley, then the meat and fry until the meat is browned and the mixture is no longer wet. i think this would take some 10-15 minutes. make sure it doesn't dry out too much though. when it's done, take it off the heat, leave to cool a little then season and mix in one egg. leave to stand while you make the aubergines.

drain the aubergine slices and pat them dry with a kitchen paper. do it thoroughly as this allows you to skip the flouring bit - flour is used to soak up residual moisture. in a deep-sided plate or another dish, beat 2 eggs. dip aubergine slices in the egg and then fry in hot olive oil for about 2 minutes on each side, depending on thickness of your aubergine slices. they should be golden brown and soft inside. you can always take one out to taste - i see this as a chef's prerogative and think i probably ate 5 of them while cooking. obviously you'll have to do this in batches so drain the finished slices on some kitchen paper.

when it's all done, you can put the dish together. first, beat two eggs in a bowl with the creme fraiche. now use an earthenware dish or just a pyrex one, and start layering: first the aubergines, then some meat, then about a quarter of the creme fraiche mix sprinkled on top as you would in lasagne, then another layer of aubergine slices, more meat, more 'sauce', and finally the last layer of aubergines, and the rest of the creme fraiche mixture. you might need to press the whole thing down with your hands before you pour the last bit of the creme fraiche so it doesn't escape down the sides of the dish.

bake in a hot oven - 180C - for about 45 minutes or until the whole thing is golden and bubbling slightly underneath.

lemon sole with capers, achovies and parsley brown butter

2009-07-30T07:42:00.006+01:00

the problem i used to have with going to the gym was the amount of time it took. all that pointless cardio and even more pointless machines. it feels like i spent too many evenings in air-conditioned rooms lit with strips of neon. it makes me want to weep when i see people do it now. weep of boredom, that is.

funny places, gyms. (by gyms i don't mean the body builder's basements in local neighbourhoods.) in your average virgin active or LA fitness, most people have no idea what they're doing and a lot of personal training is not just money for old rope but downright dangerous.

as for the punters...well, most girls just tend to waste time in classes to which they go week in, week out, never looking any different for it. blokes are worse - they think they're strong but they're just one half-arsed squat away from a spine or knee injury. it makes me feel like going round and correcting people and all i know i've learnt from two books and the odd crossfit video. which is better than men's health, i suppose, but still...

my new gym strategy is little and often. rich has always done this though i suppose he manages to cram in a lot more in half an hour by virtue of not being 'disabled', as my GP once called it (i prefer spazzy - www.hypermobility.org). last night all i did were some tabata sprints on the bike (4 mins), a 5 minute climb on jacob's ladder (you think it's easy - it's not, it makes me want to vomit), three sets of deadlifts, some stretches for my ever-dodgy shoulders and thoracic spine, and that was about it.

i suppose what i do goes against the idea that for exercise to be effective you have to balance with one foot on bosu ball, lifting a kettlebell in one hand while simultaneously being stretched by your trainer. in fact, i blame the rise of semi-amateur personal training for the widespread belief that this has to be complicated and involve fancy equipment. the truth is, most guys (it's usually guys, let's be honest) you see who look like they work out generally do pretty basic stuff.

anyway...the point of this rant is to say that not wasting time in the gym means you have enough time to cook a decent dinner when you get at home. we did consider stopping off for a japanese but i knew there'd be an abel&cole delivery waiting at home.

and what an exciting delivery it was - some fat pork belly slices, a bright orange summer squash, acid pink radishes and rainbow chard, beautiful lemon sole fillets - soft, suede-like grey with rusty spots - and, best of all, a little box of heirloom tomatoes. i got inordinately excited about those and decided that nothing more should be done with them than a simple tomato salad.

a word about tomato salads (actually, two words): never, ever keep your tomatoes in the fridge as they will taste of nothing at all, and always season generously, especially with salt, and leave the whole thing to stand for a little while.

flat fish like lemon sole is pretty versatile but we decided to go for a simple and quick recipe of basically frying it in clarified butter. it's funny how i now don't flinch when the recipe includes a huge slab of the stuff. before i would have given up altogether or used olive oil - which would have been a waste of time as the whole point of this recipe is butter.

i'd encourage you to try this - it was lovely. the fish was spanking fresh - you could see the edges curl when it hit the hot fat - the sauce both buttery and sweet, and salty and sour from the capers and anchovies. i could have eaten more, and i was forcing myself to eat slowly.

LEMON SOLE WITH CAPERS, ANCHOVIES AND PARSLEY BROWN BUTTER

for two

100g butter

6 lemon sole fillets

6 anchovy fillets, coarsley chopped

3tbs capers, drained and rinsed

juice of half a lemon

a large handful of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

clarify the butter first - melt it slowly in a pan over low heat, then pour away the oil leaving the milky solids behind. you won't be able to get it completely clear but that doesn't matter.

season the fish fillets with pepper and a tiny bit of salt (don't forget the anchovies and capers are both pretty salty). heat half of the clarified butter in the pan and, when it begins to foam slightly, fry the fillets for 2 minutes on each side. you might have to do it in two batches - we did - in which case, keep the cooked ones warm somewhere.

in the same pan, add the rest of the clarified butter and turn up the heat. add the capers and the achovies to the pan and cook until they are nutty brown. turn the heat off, add the lemon juice and the parsley and stir.

gammon steaks with parsley sauce

2009-07-28T07:33:00.006+01:00

i have finally got round to defrosting some gammon from the wellhungmeat company. we ordered one of their mixed meat boxes in june and have been working our way through it ever since. there’s not a lot left, except some diced veal and a shoulder of lamb i’m saving for a rainy weekend. of which we are having many.

i think i have cooked some of their meat on here before – the feather steak didn’t quite make it (i recall the meat being tasty so it must have been the recipe that didn’t impress) but i think the pork steaks and chops from the last few weeks were theirs.

i’m totally sold on gammon after last night. i didn’t think i’d like it – my previous experience was of oversalty and overly pink slabs of pig served with sweet things like pineapple. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again – pineapple in savoury food is criminal.

this was extremely tasty – nice piggy texture and a good bit of fat to keep it moist. salty, yes but not overly so, and perfectly balanced by the sweetness of the honey and the sharpness of the vinegar.

GAMMON STEAKS WITH PARSLEY SAUCE
for two

2 gammon steaks
3 cloves of garlic
olive oil
2 tbs white wine vinegar
2 tsp honey
2 heaped tbs finely chopped parsley

heat a generous glug of olive oil in a heavy frying pan and fry the whole garlic gloves until golden brown. don’t burn them so keep the heat relatively low. the idea is to get some garlic flavoured oil.

when they’re done, discard the cloves and fry the gammon steaks for around 3 minutes on each side.

while they are cooking, mix the vinegar with 2tbs of water and the honey. when the gammon steaks are cooked, remove them from the pan and keep warm. add the vinegar mixture together with the chopped parsley into the hot oil. switch the heat off and stir and scrape until it’s all mixed with the fat in the pan and you have a sauce of sorts. taste – it will taste very sharp but trust me, it does work. spoon over the meat and season with a bit of black pepper.

braised peas, rocket and spring onions

2009-07-27T07:20:00.006+01:00

the funny thing about eating primal when away from home (or away from london restaurants, with a few exceptions) is that you descend into an atkins-type low carb diet pretty quickly. which is better than eating cakes but still quite a painful experience.

you get to eat cooked breakfasts, and you can ask for salads instead of chips, but you soon start craving vegetables and textures other than flesh and tinned mushrooms. you overdose pretty quickly on processed meat like bacon and sausages – which taste exceptionally salty – and wilted leaves and cold unripe tomato which go by the name of salad in many pubs.

it makes you realise how different paleo or primal eating actually is from plain low carb or atkins, and how there is absolutely no way someone who likes food could stick with the latter: you really would die of boredom even if the heart disease risk is a myth.

anyway, i’ve had a decidedly non-primal weekend – we were at a wedding in lancashire, which was great fun but obviously you eat what you’re given. and what we were given was nice – nicer than the average wedding food, in my opinion. good soup, nice roast beef and a lovely yorkshire pudding.

a particular favourite was the evening snack of bacon or sausage sandwiches in those soft, floury baps you rarely see down south in this age of wholemeal everything. also cheese on toast on thick slices of crusty white. yum. oh, and beer – the bitter was absolutely amazing.

what i struggled with was the pudding – it was a dark and white chocolate mousse and i am sure it was very nice indeed but it was so shockingly sweet that it made me go a bit funny. and, whereas i think it would be relatively easy to get used to eating bread again, i have no desire whatsoever to eat a dessert for a long time to come.

having said all that, peas as in the recipe below are not strictly speaking primal but it seems a shame to ignore something fresh (i podded them myself) and green and seasonal for the sake of a relatively arbitrary rule. we had them with some wilted spinach and a peppered rump steak, and finished the meal off with some fresh strawberries. it tasted clean and summery.

BRAISED PEAS, ROCKET AND SPRING ONIONS
for two

a bag of wild rocket (at a guess, 120g?)
6 spring onions, trimmed (keep the green bits for using in stocks or when you want a milder onion flavour in other recipes)
200g (or however much you want) of freshly podded peas
20g butter
seasoning

put the spring onions, rocket and the peas in a pan with the butter and some salt, add about a tablespoon of water, cover and braise for 10 minutes or so. season with fresh black pepper and a drizzle of good olive oil at the end. that’s it.

mayonnaise

2009-07-26T09:42:00.001+01:00

mid-summer evening
a whisk and a jug of oil
i fear it will split

well, it made me laugh...