I have made this every year since goodness knows when. Usually the first week of January even though the base racipe is from Olia Hercules’ Summer Garden book, which I highly recommend.
Essentially it is simply a jar of chopped vegetables in a spiced vinegar solution. But no minute chopping and boiling and waiting to thicken as in making chutney. No. It is even easier than that!
Put 2litres of apple cyder vinegar in a large saucepan with the following: half a dozen bayleaves, a handful of black peppercorns, coriander seed, caraway seed, two teaspoons of salt and 150g sugar. Bring this to the boil and let it simmer for 15 minutes then take off the heat and allow to cool.
Prepare whatever vegetables you have. Today I had cauliflower, beetroot cut into chunks, romanesco florets, thickly sliced onion, garlic cloves, celeriac wedges, swede wedges, whole chillies, garlic cloves, beet leaves. But you can add whatever you like and there are no ‘proportions, as such.
Prepare your clean jars (I swill mine out with vodka), warm them in the oven or microwave. Then pack the vegetables into the jars as tightly as you can. Then pour in the liquid right to the top and include the whole spices where you can. I often slide the bayleaf down the side of the jar. Wait till thenliquid has cooled then sesl the toos with clingfilm and then a lid. Label. Consume after three weeks – if you can wait that long!You can make all these in less than 45 minutes!
Last week it was courgettes. This week it’s quince. And pears!
QUINCE
have been waiting for well over a decade for my quince tree (planted 2010) to finally yield more than three or four fruits. This year – as with most fruit – it has been abundant.
There is no doubt that quince marmalade is my favourite. And it is so versatile. You can have it on toast, mixed with apple in an apple pie or crumble. Of course, you can also make membrillo and eat it with Manchego cheese. But, if I make it – I eat it – and that’s not always a good thing! So quince marmalade it is.
For every 2kg of prepared fruit you will need 1kg of sugar (I like my quince marmalade tart so add a bit more if you wish. It’s not a precise science!) and either 6g powdered pectin or the juice of two lemons. I use pectin.
Cut the quince in half, lengthways, and use a teaspoon to carve out the core and the seeds. Keep these. Then peel, chop the flesh into 1cm dice and put in a large bowl with about 20mllemon juice in it and this will prevent the fruit going brown.
Put the core and seeds in a muslin bag (or use a re-usable mesh vegetable bag often found in supermarkets to save using plastic bags). The seeds in particular are full of pectin. Put the muslin bag in a heavy based saucepan with the string looped round the handle. Add the water, bring to the boil and let it bubble away for about 2 hours. I often do this the night before, leaving the mesh bag in the saucepan overnight. The following morning, squeeze the bag firmly to extract as much juice/pectin as you can and then discard. Keep the liquid.
Add the chopped fruit. Bring slowly to the boil then bubble away for about 20 minutes. If you have a jam thermometer – you are aiming to reach about 105C. If you are a seasoned jam maker you will probably have a couple of saucers in the fridge and after about 20 minutes boiling, you can check the ‘setting point’ by
– observing the marmalade as it cooks and noticing it becoming less liquid
– observing when the bubbling mixture changes consistency and ‘rolls’ rather than ‘bubbles’
– Lifting your wooden spoon out of the pan and noticing when the mixture attached to it ‘drops’ as opposed to ‘pours’ off the spoon
– putting a teaspoon of the hot marmalade on a cold saucer, waiting a couple of minutes and pushing it with your fingers. It should resist and wrinkle.
If none of these methods are indicating it is ready (ie reached or is close to reaching setting point), boil it for another 5 minutes and repeat.
Warm the jars you intend to use. Take the marmalade off the heat. Decant into the warm jars. Put wax circles on top when cool, and lids on when cold.
PEARS
I have a beautiful ‘Robin pear’ tree which is prolific every year. I have to fence it off because Ted the dog is partial to snaffling them!
Apart from poaching pears, I love to smoke them. I had a smoker as a gift a good few years ago and it is wonderful for smoking fish, cheese, chicken, and pears!
I harvested about 15kg this year and half of them went into the de-humidifier (Who knew there was a de-humidifying function on the air fryer? I only discovered it two years ago). I wash and dry the pears. Halve or quarter them length-ways depending on size then dehumidify them for about 18 hours till they are just soft but not crisp. Then I light up the smoker and smoke about 400g at a time for about 30 minutes. They come out looking like leather but they are wonderful on a cheese-board with nuts, gorgeous in a venison casserole, and absolutely splendid chopped on top of caramel icecream!
It’s that time of year isn’t it? Either you have your own glut of apples, courgettes, marrows, pears, tomatoes, chillis etc. Or someone else has a glut and wants to offload some of it onto you!
My latest glut – having dealt with blackberries, apples, tomatoes, chillis…….. is marrow. I didn’t grow any but the courgettes manifested themselves as marrows overnight. TBH there are only so many courgettes one can eat!
So here’s a recipe to use up a marrow or two. All proportions are approximate, depending on what you have to hand. Chutney is very forgiving!
The proportions below made six jars.
I medium sized marrow (about 35cm long) peeled, de-seeded and chopped into small dice
2 large onions, chopped
1 piece of fresh ginger about 5cm long, grated – add more if you love ginger
6 cloves of garlic, grated
500g chopped windfall apples – I used unpeeled Coxes Orange Pippin – just take the cores out
One sweet potato – peeled and diced
One whole fresh chilli about 10cm long including pips (mine were hot, so use your judgement depending how much chilli you like) and remove the seeds if you don’t like it too hot (then wash your hands, dont touch your eyes or go to the loo till doing that otherwise there will be dire and painful consequences)
2 tbs nigella seeds
2 tbs cumin seed
3 tbs turmeric powder
2 tbs sea salt (less if you prefer)
150g golden demerara sugar
750ml apple cider vinegar
1 whole lemon, de-rinded and chopped
Put everything in a preserving pan or large saucepan and stir it round to incorporate all the ingredients.
Place on the hob, bring slowly to the boil stirring whilst you wait.
When it’s bubbling away merrily, keep taking a look every five minutes and stir carefully to make sure it isn’t sticking to the bottom.
After 10 minutes, turn the heat down till it gently burbles away for another 30 minutes.
By then the liquid will have reduced and the mixture will be thicker.
Carefully check that the vegetables are cooked through and if they are not, cook for another 10 minutes.
The consistency you are seeking is an unctuous rolling mixture where the liquid has reduced to coat the vegetables.
If it is still runny, simply keep cooking it till more of the liquid evaporates.
Sterilise your jars either by putting a small amount of water in each jar and microwave on medium for 3 minutes. Or pour some vodka into the first jar, swirl it round then transfer to the next jar and so on. At the end, drink the vodka!
When your chutney has cooled, transfer it to the jars and leave to cool. Then top with greaseproof circles (not too soon or condensation will form – so be patient!). When completely cold, lid and label.
Chutney is very easy to make and doesn’t really need you to be precise about ‘setting times’ as you would with jam. My only tip is to take your time to reduce the liquid content, be adventurous with the ingredients.
and enjoy experimenting.
You can find lots of preserving ideas on my website, so take a look either use the search bar on the landing page or follow this link.
This month has seen an unseasonable amount of blackberries, wild plums, sloes and blackcurrants. Not to mention runner beans, beets, onions, squash, garlic, lettuce, peppers and chilli.
Not only do we have to manage our own over-production, we also try to resist (and in my case, fail) the produce at the end of other peoples’ drives and tracks. It’s all too much! This is why my shelves are groaning with jams and chutneys and the freezer is full of berries and vegetables! Here are a few ideas of what to do with the glut (and it frequently strikes me as obscene, compared with what we are watching in Gaza and other parts of the world).
I’ve picked loads of sloes and wild damsons. Later in the year (when I have accumulated a few large bottles) I will make sloe gin and damson vodka. Putting the fruit in the freezer now really helps to break down the fruit when macerated with sugar and spirits, which I usually do in late October.
Apple and Blackberry Muffins
Heat oven to 210C
300g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda, 1 tsp salt
130g butter
100g sugar of your choice
50g honey or maple syrup
2 eggs – beaten
130g plain live yogurt
80ml milk of your choice
chopped fruit – I used apples and blackberries – about 210g
Beat the butter till soft and creamy then add the sugar and maple syrup, then the beaten eggs then the yogurt and milk. Then fold in all the dry ingredients. Finally, add the chopped fruit and mix till evenly distributed. Then add a dessert-spoon full into muffin cases. Sprinkle a mixture of brown sugar, oats and flaked almonds on top if you wish. Put in the hot oven and bake for 7 minutes to help them rise beautifully, then turn oven down to 190 and bake for another 10 minutes or so. Use your discretion when you take them out.
This is the best recipe I’ve found for muffins – it uses a ‘batter’ base which makes them incredibly light and gorgeous.
Picalilli
Chop whatever vegetables you like into small-ish dice. I used courgette, onion, carrot, runner beans, corn-on-the-cob, apple, chilli pepper, green tomatoes
For every 500g of vegetables, combine 2tbsp dry English mustard, 30g ground turmeric, 750ml vinegar (preferably not the brown malted stuff), 100g sugar. Then to your own taste, add mustard seed, onion seed, cumin seed, chilli flakes.
Put the vegetables in a large deep saucepan, add the dry ingredients that are mixed with the vinegar then add the sugar. Mix thoroughly then bring to a slow boil and cook for 10 minutes stirring regularly. Take off the heat and allow to cool before bottling and securing with waxed paper circles and a lid when cold. (do it before and condensation will form inside the lid and the tops are more likely to go mouldy when storing).
There really is no exact measurement required, just ensure you have vegetables that are mixed in colour but chopped in a uniform size. Then mix the spices, sugar and liquid together – sufficient to just cover the vegetables once they are in the saucepan. Remember more juice will form as the vegetables cook so don’t put in too much liquid at the start. You can always add more later.
Aubergine pickle (Brinjal)
You can find my recipe for Brinjal via this link to another page on this blog
You can find other recipes for preserving, fermenting etc here
This gorgeous summer soup can be served hot or cold.
You will need a mixture of onion, carrot, celery, fennel, lettuce, frozen peas, parsley and dill. Plus a stock of your choice and either dairy cream or oatmilk cream.
The basis of every good soup is sofritto. Onion, carrot and celery chopped finely and in equal proportions, then sautee’d gently in good olive oil and/or butter with a bay leaf a chopped clove of garlic, fresh rosemary and a pinch of salt. Dont fry it swiftly, do it gently over 20 or 30 minutes. Add a little more oil if necessary to prevent it sticking. This method extracts the natural sugars and forms an unctuous base for any soup or casserole.
Then add sliced and chopped fennel (say one large fennel, minus its fronds) and a finely chopped large courgette including the skin. Put the lid on and leave for 10 minues. Add another chopped clove of garlic, a whole lettuce chopped into pieces. You could add chard or spinach too if you like. Put the lid on and sweat it down for five more minutes. Finally add about 150g of frozen peas. Add about 750ml of vegetable stock and cook for 5 minutes. Then use a stick blender to whoosh it up. Add dairy cream or oat cream – about 150ml. Add more salt and a grind of black pepper to taste. Then finely chop dill leaves, parsley leaves and mint leaves and add to the soup when its is off the heat. Stir the herbs into the soup.
And there you have it – a fresh, aromatic green soup that you can serve hot or cold with a dollop of plain yogurt mixed with more chopped herbs and mixed with good olive oil. What better way to manage a glut of lettuce, fennel and those herbs that are quickly running to seed?
Marion asked whether I wanted any plums? Never one to turn down surplus fruit I said yes!
If you’ve been a fan of this food blog for years then no doubt you are familiar with the tale of the ice-cream maker and the blackcurrants. If you are not, then use the search box to find it if you want a laugh!
Here are two recipes for easy ice-cream that requires no churning and no ice_cream maker.
PLUM AND CINNAMON ICE CREAM
Gently poach 1kg plums in a little water with 150g sugar and a cinnamon stick. Then take off the lid and boil to reduce the liquid until its thick. Allow to cool thoroughly.
Whisk 200ml double cream and 100ml thick yogurt until doubled in size. Then add half a tin of condensed milk. De-stone the plums and remove the cinnamon stick. Mix into the cream mixture, swirling it around. Turn into two 1-litre boxes with lids and freeze. Take out of the freezer half an hour before serving.
BANANA ICECREAM WITH CARAMELISED FLAKED ALMONDS
Same technique as above – whisk the cream and yogurt, add the rest of the condensed milk from the tin you have just used. Blitz frozen bananas in a food processer or blender. (Never throw away soft bananas, always put them in the freezer and use them for this icecream!) ass bananas to cream mixture and stir thoroughly to combine. Meanwhile take 100g flaked almonds and put in a shallow pan with 30g butter and 50g muscovado sugar. Melt gently till the sugar and butter are dissolved then turn up the heat for 30 seconds and remove from the heat. Allow to cool then mix into the i ecream. Oour into two containers and freeze.
No hand mixing, no icecream maker needed, no churning. Thanks to Nigella Lawson for the basic method which I have adapted.
This is for everyone who wants to enjoy burgers but doesn’t eat meat. These black bean burgers are so tasty, very moist, and perfect in a burger bun with all the burger trimmings!!
For the close-readers you might be wondering ‘where is the seasoning’? The Feta is the answer!
2 tins black beans – drain the juice and leave for 30 minutes
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 a red pepper, chopped
2 eggs
100g breadcrumbs
100g Feta cheese
2 cloves garlic – grated
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 teasp chilli powder or chilli flakes to your taste
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp brown sauce
chopped coriander to your taste.
Sliced onion
Sliced gherkin
Large slices of tomato
Lettuce
Burger buns
Place the drained beans on a plate between two tea towels and dry them off – remove all the liquid. I often put mine on a flat tray in the oven for 10 minutes to dry them out.
Fry the onion and pepper and add the grated garlic once they are soft. Then remove from the heat.
In a food processor, make the breadcrumbs then add the cumin, paprika and chilli.
Add the beans, garlic and then the onion and red pepper then mix on a high speed until all incoporated but with a chunky texture.
Then add two eggs and the Feta cheese, followed by the sauces. Finally, add the fresh coriander.
Process once more but carefully avoid the mixture becoming a ‘paste’. It’s easier to do this by pulsing rather than one continuous burst.
Prepare a baking try by lining it with parchment (non stick) paper.
Spread coarse semolina on the worktop, wet your hands and then take a couple of large spoonfuls of the mixture into your palm and shape roughly into a burger then put on the work surface and shape it further, using the coarse semolina to stop it sticking. Turn the burger over and coat it with semolina then place on the baking tray. Do this with all the mixture remembering to wet your hands for every burger. You should end up with 10 burgers about 1.5cm thick. Place these on the lined baking tray and put in the fridge for about 30 minutes so the burgers firm up.
When ready to cook, put some oil in a non stick pan and when hot add two or three burgers depending on the size pan. Also add the sliced onion. Cook the burgers for 5 minutes on one side then 5 minutes the other side, turning the heat down if they look like they will brown too quickly.
Push to one side when ready and add the base of the burger buns, cut side down, and cook for two minutes.
Then assemble, tasted bun, onions, tomato, burger, pickled gherkin slices, squeeze of ketchup, burger lid!
These freeze really well if you wrap in greaseproof paper and put in a box in the freezer (unfrozen). Defrost completely before cooking.
Enjoy them. Your meat-eating mates will all want them!
This recipe is one of Meera Sodha’s which I have adapted.
Mix the following ingredients together in the bottom of a large terracotta baking dish:
3 tbsp rose harissa
1 chopped fresh chilli – any colour – including seeds
2 finely chopped garlic cloves
50ml rapeseed oil
1 tsp ground cumin
300g basmati or brown rice
2 tsp salt
Add 400ml boiling water and cover tightly with foil or a well fitting lid then put in the lower oven shelf at 290C and bake for about 40 minutes until the fluid has been absorbed. Keep the foil/lid on so the steam keeps the rice light and fluffy.
Chop a mixture of cauliflower and broccoli into chunks and slice a large onion. Add a slight sprinkling of salt, 50ml oil of any description, nigella seeds and cumin seed plus a flat dessert spoon of ground turmeric. Mix it all together and place on a hot baking tray, cover tightly with foil and put in the oven above the rice shelf and bake for 25 minutes, then remove the foil, stir it round and put back in oven for 10 minutes till cooked but not soft.
Meanwhile, toast some flaked almonds and a handful of barberries or raisins in a little oil in the frying pan till browned.
Remove the rice bowl from the oven and check it is cooked. Stir the contents of the bowl to separate the rice grains, and add chopped parsley, dill and mint – then place the roasted cauliflower and broccoli with its sauce on top of the rice then then the almonds and barberries on top.
Serve with flatbread and a simple lentil dal.
Delicious – and even more delicious the next day!
Red lentil dal with chilli and cumin
Rose harissa mixed with oil and garlic
chopped cauliflower, broccoli and onions
Roast cauliflower pilaf with almonds, rose harissa & mint.
Our favourite way to eat radishes is 20 seconds after we’ve pulled them. Run them under the garden tap, whip off the little root and tear off the leaves (keep them). Pour yourself a glass of something cold and cut a slice of fresh sourdough with cold fresh butter. Then sit in the garden eating the radishes dipped in salt, and the sourdough! Nothing better!
Kissir
Kissir is a Turkish salad dish and a regular visitor to our table in the summer.
Chop lots of tomato, cucumber, spring onions, parsley and dill and mint. Put a mug of bulgar wheat into a wide shallow dish and pour over sufficient boiling water to just cover it. Then cover the bowl with a clean teacloth. Leave for an hour. Then add all the chopped salad vegetables (plus chopped fresh beetroot if you wish) and a big handful of chopped walnuts. Then make a dressing in the blender: Use the radish tops (and parsley and basil), two cloves of garlic, the juice of one large lemon, 75-100ml olive oil or rapeseed oil, a good glug of pomegranate molasses and salt. Whizz it all up and pour over the bulgar and salads and mix it all in together.
Fennel
Fennel – so long as it is young and fresh – is a beautiful plant in a garden border and culinary fennel sometimes flummoxes people! What to do with it, how to use it, what bits to use? If you have a very young fennel bulb then every part of it is edible. And the older they are the more you have to peel away to find the young sweet inner parts. To make a fennel and orange salad, peel away the tough outer parts until you come to the soft inner. Take thin slices top to bottom and drop into water with a squeeze of lemon juice to step them discolouring. Use as many fennel slices as you need, and match the number with very thin slices of fresh orange. Scatter with chopped parsley, lemon juice and olice oil.
Potato salad
Boil about 500g small potatoes in their skins with 4 eggs in the pan for 15 minutes, then drain and place in cold water. Remove the shells from the eggs and chop the potatoes into chunks. Chop loads of parsley and mint and scatter over the egg and potato. Add chopped spring onion if you like. In your blender, whizz up one clove of garlic, one teaspoon Dijon mustard, small amount of salt, juice of a lemon or about 25ml white wine vinegar, fresh basil and about 100ml olive oil and 100ml plain yogurt. Pour over the eggs and potato and mix.
Anything pesto
You can use almost any green vegetable tops (maybe not potato!) for pesto. I’ve used carrot tops, small chard leaves, all sorts of herbs, cavalo nero – so I encourage you to experiment. Place 100g cashews (pine nuts are too expensive!) – a good handful of green veg tops and herbs, a good squeeze of lemon juice, olive oil or vegetable/nut oil and a cup of grated parmesan (or substitute). Whizz it all up and it will keep in the fridge for about 5 days if you keep the lid on. Not only do I use this for pasta, but also to drop into a bowl of soup or as a salad dressing.
I am a bit of a fan (more than a bit) of Gill Meller. My Goodery organic veg box means I always have a great selection of organic vegetables.
There are many possible adaptations – cauliflower and cumin, tomato and parmesan, scorched tenderstem broccoli with gorgonzola, roasted onion. Why not give it a try?
This is my ‘not toad in the hole’ adapted from Gill Meller’s recipe with thanks.
Toad in the hole
INGREDIENTS
Sliced onion
Tomatoes
Mushrooms
Garlic
Parmesan shavings
Two eggs
250ml milk
Two heaped tablespoons plain flour
Salt
METHOD
Make the batter by beating together the eggs, flour, salt, milk until its frothy. Then leave it whilst you prepare the other ingredients.
Set the oven to 220C . Add 2tbsp olive oil in the bottom of your roasting dish of choice. Add the onion, tomato and mushroom. The aim is to slightly scorch these whilst the oven comes to temperature.
When the oil is smoking, add the batter to the hot roasting dish plus the chopped garlic – season – and return the dish to the oven for 15-20 minutes. Bake till golden. As with all Yorkshires, sometimes they have a great rise and sometimes not. Because of the filling, this one probably won’t be a Pagoda!
That is it!
I served it with sprouting broccoli and mash mixed with olive oil and a good grating of parmesan. And gravy!
To be honest Cullen Skink is not a very attractive name, is it? But it tastes gorgeous. This is my take on the Scottish dish Cullen Skink which is a smoked haddock chowder, where I use Jerusalem artichoke as well as the traditional potatoes. I had Jerusalem artichoke, potatoes, spinach and dill in my Goodery organic veg box this week.
Serves four people.
INGREDIENTS
(All ingredients are approximate and can be adjusted according to your taste)
500g undyed smoked haddock
400g peeled Jerusalem artichokes chopped into chunks
500g peeled potatoes chopped into chunks
1 leek chopped
A handful of spinach
500ml mixture of single cream and full-fat milk
1 tsp Dijon mustard
Chopped dill leaf
A bay leaf, salt and pepper
METHOD
Place the fish in a shallow pan and just cover with some milk. Add a slice of onion and a bayleaf. Cover the pan and bring very gently to a simmer. Keep on the heat for two minutes then turn the heat off but keep the lid on.
Meanwhile, chunk up the artichokes and potatoes and slice the leek. Place all these in a saucepan and bring to the boil then cook them gently till just cooked. Take off the heat.
Carefully remove the fish onto a plate and remove the fish skin and any stray bones. Keep the juice in pan. Flake the fish into pieces. Discard the skin via the dog.
Drain the potatoes, artichoke and leek. Place in the wide shallow pan where you cooked the fish, then add the fish and the stock in which you cooked the fish. Mix the Dijon mustard with the milk and cream plus salt and pepper. Pour over the vegetables and fish and bring it all slowly to a simmer, cooking for another five minutes until the vegetables are soft and yielding. Check seasoning and adjust. Add a knob of butter and spinkle with chopped dill. Wilt some spinach and pile on top. Serve in wide shallow dishes with lots of lovely bread. Perfect for a cold winter lunch or supper!
Let me know what you think. Please follow this blog for regular updates and check out Goodery.
Jerusalem artichokes are one of my favourite vegetables and when we had an allotment, were eagerly anticipated! However, now we have a weekly Goodery order, it’s all enjoyment and less hard work!
The easiest way to use Jerusalem artichokes is to make delicious soup, however you can also roast them like potatoes, mash them like potatoes and make crisps with them …. like potatoes!
I haven’t added a photo of the soup because – well, photos of soup are pretty boring, but I have added one of the ‘pesto’ because it’s a great colour.
Here’s an easy recipe for Jerusalem artichoke soup for six generous servings.
INGREDIENTS
400g Jerusalem artichokes – peeled
200g potatoes – peeled
1 leek
1 carrot
1 clove garlic
750ml water
1 tbsp Energita flakes (optional)
salt to taste
250ml oat milk
METHOD
Wash and peel all the vegetables. Artichokes are a bit nobbly so be sure to get rid of all the grit. Either chop all the vegetables into big chunks and put into an Instant Pot or pressure cooker with seasoning and water and cook for 20 minutes. Or, add some oil to a large saucepan, sauté the chopped onion, add chopped garlic and the remainder of the vegetables – then add water. Bring to the boil and simmer away for 20 minutes until the vegetables are soft. Then – whether pressure cooked or cooked in a saucepan – use a stick blender or blender attachment to puree the soup. Return it all to the saucepan and taste. You may need to add more salt, then add the Energita flakes (an excellent source of Vitamin B for vegetarians and vegans), pepper to taste, and finally the oat milk (or dairy if you prefer). Stir till everything is combined.
I served mine today with delicious home-made sourdough bread.
As an extra I also made a ‘pesto’ to dollop on top.
Add a handful of cashew nuts to a Nutribullet and pour in 100ml hot water. Blend. Add 1 heaped tsp Dijon mustard, one chopped clove of garlic, a small handful of parsley, dill and basil, a good squeeze of fresh lemon juice, about 100ml olive oil and then blend again. I often use different herbs in this base (oil, lemon juice, Dijon, herbs plus home made nut milk) as an extra flavour in soups – or, with a little more liquid and half an avocado blended in, as a salad dressing.
Hope you enjoy this – please follow the blog (bottom of the landing page) – to receive regular updates!
Chop onions, garlic, slice leeks and gently sweat them in some olive oil with a few chilli flakes until they are soft.
Wash the spinach and drain it well, then add to the pan with no additional water. Cut the broccoli lengthways down the stem and then across so the sprouting loveliness is not too chunky. Steam separately or if really small, in the same pan. Clamp on the lid and sweat away (the veg that is!) for five minutes. Add a handful of frozen peas. The idea is that everything is cooked, but not overcooked. Texture helps. Allow this mixture to cool completely, then season with a little brown miso mixed into about 10ml hot water – or you can use salt. Then grind in some pepper. Mix it all carefully then crumble in the goat’s cheese (hard, not soft) or the vegan feta. Or you could use non vegan feta if you prefer. Then add the chopped dill and parsley. Check the seasoning, then allow to cool.
Clear your work surface! Take the filo out of the packet and lay four or five sheets lengthways along the worktop, overlapping by about 2.5cm at the joins and using a little melted butter or oil to help stick them together. Brush these sheets with melted butter or olive oil and then add a second layer of filo. Repeat once more. Work quickly because the pastry dries out very quickly.
Now, first checking that your vegetable mix is cold, spoon the mix onto the pastry, making a long line about 5-7.5cm wide (depending on how much mixture you have) and starting about 5cm from the long edge (like you’re making sausage rolls)! Then add crumbled feta or goat’s cheese (or cream cheese, or chopped halloumi). Fold the bottom edge of the pastry over the vegetables and then gently roll the pastry from the bottom until you reach the top edge. Secure this edge with a little oil and roll the ‘sausage’ over again until the seam is on the bottom.
Prepare a shallow pan or a dish by lightly oiling it and then adding a tablespoon of coarse semolina or polenta and spread around the bottom and the sides of the dish. (You could also use ground almonds or finely chopped walnuts for this). Starting at one end of your ‘sausage’ coil it inwards, keeping it taut, until you have a Catherine Wheel. Use a cake lifter to lift it and place into the prepared pan or dish. The idea is that it just fits, to keep it together. Brush with egg, butter or oil.
Bake in an oven at 180C for about 25 minutes until golden and crispy. Sprinkle with dill and chives. Eat!
I swear to you that these are ten times better than the doughy huge monsters you can buy in sourdough shops!
The dough
Rolling the dough into a rectangle
Spread with cinnamon butter
Roll it up
Slice it up
Bake it up
Eat it up – Too good to freeze!
THE DOUGH
200g sourdough starter discard
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
240g warm water
50g sunflower oil
THE FILLING
100g melted butter
180g soft brown sugar
2 tbsp ground cinnamon
1/2 grated nutmeg
Turn oven to 190C
Carefully mix all the dry ingredients together then add all the wet ingredients – water, discard, oil. TOP TIP! Mix the discard with the water and oil before adding to the dry ingredients.
When they are combined the mix should be soft and yielding but not sloppy, so add the water carefully and slowly. If you don’t need it all, then don’t add it. You are looking for a soft yielding dough, not a wet one! Knead the dough gently – pull the sides to the middle, turn 90 degrees. Do this pulling and turning action six times. You will notice that the texture of the dough changes and feels slightly firmer and at each turn is less ‘tacky’. Leave the dough to rest for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile melt the butter, add the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg and combine so you have a soft slurry which is soft and spreadable. I suggest adding the butter to the dry ingredients rather than the other way round, then you have control of the final consistency.
Then gently spray your work surface with water – dont use flour. Place your dough on the work surface and roll out maintaining a rectangular shape. The final size when you’ve finished rolling is roughly 70cm x 50 cm.
Spread the rolled out dough with the butter/cinnamon mixture, leaving a clean margin at each edge.
Use a bench scraper to help you with the next bit…… Roll the dough away from you, keeping it tight, rolling from the long edge so you end up with a tight cylinder that looks like a swiss roll.
Spray the bench again and make sure the dough seam is underneath. Pat and firm the roll (very satisfying)!
Now take a sharp knife and slice the roll into equal slices and place cut side down on a lined baking tray.
Place the swirls 1cm apart and leave to prove for half an hour in a warm place.
Bake at 190C for about 25 minutes, check and give a little bit longer if you think they need it, then remove from the oven and brush with honey whilst still warm.
These will freeze really well but don’t last that long in our house!
More sourdough discard recipes coming soon! Feel free to message me if anything is unclear.
Baked beans fit the bill as this winter seems to have dragged on forever!
I’ve been writing all day and I fancied something hot and sustaining. How about beans on toast with poached egg?
This recipe is for home-made baked beans. Not tinned beans – home-made beans! Here’s the quick and easy recipe, served on my sourdough toast. More about sourdough another day.
Think about the beans first. I tend to pressure cook pinto beans or cannelloni beans and then freeze them in small batches but you can easily buy beans in jars or cans. It’s just cheaper to buy them dried!
INGREDIENTS for four portions
Onion x 1
Garlic clove x 1
Carrot x 1
Fennel, small wedge
Small apple x 1
Oil – your choice
400g Cooked beans or canned cannelloni or pinto beans (and some of the juice)
400ml passata or two tins chopped tomatoes
Salt, black pepper
30ml Tamarind sauce
30ml Molasses or black treacle
10 ml cider vinegar
Pinch of Allspice
A good grating of nutmeg – or a good pinch of ready-ground nutmeg
Finely chop one onion, one clove of garlic, half a carrot, apple and a small wedge from a lovely bulb of fresh fennel.
Fry gently in a little oil (I use olive oil but any oil will do) until soft. Take your time over this so it becomes really soft with no brown edges.
Add passata or chopped tomatoes, then add the cooked/tinned/jarred beans with most of their juice (save some to add later if necessary). Mix together gently and bring to the boil, then immediately turn down the heat so it is gently burbling away.
Add the tamarind, molasses, cider vinegar and mix it in then continue to cook on a gentle simmer for about 15 minutes. Stir occasionally. The idea is to incorporate all the ingredients and flavours and for the vinegar to meld into the sauce. Taste. Then add salt and black pepper. You are aiming for a balanced proportion of sauce to bean!
The mixture should be fairly thick but with enough sauce to make it soft and yummy. If it feels like there is too much sauce, just cook for longer with no lid.
This makes sufficient to fill two 720g jars. Wash the jars in hot soapy water, rinse then put in microwave for a minute to dry off. Fill the jars then seal with a wax circle (as if you were making jam). Allow to cool and the put on the lid. These will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks, but I suggest using within two days once the jar is opened.
I can assure you they are yummy . As you can see, mine was served on toast with poached egg.
My veg box from Goodery was overflowing with mushrooms this week.
To be honest – as someone who cooks every single day, it had been a hard cooking week. I wanted something simple for supper. This mushroom dish takes 15 minutes – so it’s a quick and delicious supper.
I gently cooked sliced leeks with garlic and black garlic in sumptuous Mother’s Garden olive oil and a few chilli flakes, and then added sliced flat-cap mushrooms, button mushrooms and a few Shitake that were skidding around in the bottom of the fridge. After 5 minutes I added little sprouting broccoli spears (also in veg box) and gave it all a stir, took it off the heat and clamped the lid on. After 5 minutes the broccoli was cooked but still bright green.
Now for the liquid. I added two tablespoons of mushroom ketchup and a dash of Lea and Perrins, a good grind of black pepper and then a carton (250ml) of Oatly cream. If you don’t have any Oatly, you can quickly make cream with cashews, by throwing a handful of cashews (about 60g) into a blender with 300ml boiling water. Hey presto. Cashew cream.
Stir the liquid into the mushrooms, leeks and broccoli add a good grind of black pepper. Check whether you need salt. Chop some flatleaf parsley and some dill.
You can serve with vegeatables, rice or potatoes. Or,- better still – you can do the quick fix and put 300ml boiling water in a saucepan and add two cups of dried polenta. Keep stirring and stirring till it’s all incorporated (I use a big balloon whisk), then add ridiculous amounts of butter and parmesan. Last night I added gorgonzola and parmesan and no butter. There are times when you can have too much of a good thing! Beat it all in then pile the cooked polenta into a dish and top with the mushroom mixture and sprinkle with parsley and dill.
Buckwheat pancakes with mushrooms
You can serve this with other vegetables and potatoes. Or put it in a pie. Or serve it with spaghetti.
A favourite alternative is to make pancakes with buckwheat flour and then fill with the mushrooms and broccoli. Very yummy with a big green salad and a good dollop of home made mayonnaise.
I’ve spent the day in the garden as an antidote to the Trump story. I’ve taken cuttings from Salvia “Hot Lips”, noticed my Ammi seeds are through. I’ve watered the winter salads in the polytunnel and talked nicely to my foxgloves and echium, wondering whether to plant them out now or in the spring. I’ve put more stuff on the compost pile to be transferred to the new allotment and I’ve sworn a lot at the bindweed. Now I’m indoors and thinking about dinner.
I grew some beautiful bright orange Kobi squash and today we are having one of them roasted with leeks, garlic, pepper, pears off the tree and feta – and a secret ingredient – the smoked pear inspired by Olia Hercules Summer Kitchen. They look so ugly but they taste of caramel and smoke!!
With it we will have couscous and quinoa studded (that’s my Nigella impression by the way) with bright jewels (m0re Nigella) of radish, onion, cucumber and spring onion and beefed up with half a tin of leftover green lentils – then drenched in a sharp hot dressing of chopped fresh red chilli, garlic, tamarind, olive oil, lemon juice, mint and parsley.
It’s only 17.00 and I want to eat it. Now. Perhaps a bath and glass of wine might be a good idea……..
I love beetroot. So does David but it doesn’t suit his digestion. However here are some beet disguises that seem to work for him.
Beetroot and Chocolate cake
I’ve made this in a different shape, as ‘fake’ Brownies too. it works, with a bit of added walnut and chopped chocolate.
This one is a vegan cake and was adapted from BBC Food.
In a food processor, blitz four medium sized cooked beetroot with 100ml sunflower oil, 100g dark brown sugar and 50ml runny honey or maple syrup, 100g SR flour and 150g wholemeal flour, 1tsp baking powder, 200g soya yogurt, 1tsp salt and 50g cocoa powder. Grease a 20cm springform tin and/or line with paper. Put the mixture in the tin and then into middle of oven pre-heated at 180C for about 50 minutes, then test it and give another 10 minutes if needed – if it looks a bit dark then shield the top with some more greaseproof paper.
Meanwhile, melt 100g 70% plain chocolate gently in the microwave, add 100g icing sugar, 3 tbsp soya or almond milk and 1 tbsp sieved cocoa. When the cake has cooled down completely (remember Bake Off and don’t put icing on top of warm cakes) on a cooling rack, put the baking tray underneath the rack and pour the icing over the top of the cake. Leave it there till it has ‘set’. You can have the cake for pudding too and it freezes really well.
Beetroot and nut roast sausage rolls
Steam the beetroot in advance and let it cool, then drizzle over some good balsamic vinegar. Or open a packet of pre-cooked beetroot.
In a food processor, blitz 100g cashew and 100g walnuts/almonds with half an onion, one carrot, a clove of garlic and half an eating apple (yes!). Add 1 tbsp soy sauce, a teaspoon of ground cumin, one egg and a good squeeze of HP sauce and a little chopped fresh thyme. Remove to a fresh bowl. When the beetroot is cool, chop it into little chunks and mix with the nut paste. Taste and add more seasoning if you wish. Leave it for half an hour to settle.
Now make your pastry!! No. Don’t make it, please. Instead pull that frozen shortcrust or puff pastry ready rolled out of the freezer. Open it out and leave it on the paper it is rolled in. Cut in half length-ways.
Take some of the nut/beetroot mixture and lay it in the middle of each rectangle of pastry. Brush the edges with beaten egg and then fold the pastry over and seal the long edge with a fork (make sure you exclude as much air as possible when you fold it over and seal). Glaze the top and edges with beaten egg. I usually cut these into 3 per rectangle of pastry (big sausage rolls!). Lift the paper straight onto a hot baking tray and put it into the oven for about 20 – 25 minutes, tops. Leave on the tray till cool. These freeze well too. If they last that long. Sometimes I add some chunks of feta to the nut/beet mixture.
Beetroot and apple relish
This is a lovely one and makes such a change from green tomato chutney!
Peel and chop raw beetroot into smallish chunks. Do the same with any windfall apples. Chop onion finely. I don’t do these ingredients by weight – more by proportion. So you are looking for an equal quantity of onion, beet and apple. Fry the onion gently in olive oil with some chopped red or green chilli (I used padron peppers as we have a glut) and half a dozen cloves of grated garlic and a couple of inches of grated fresh ginger. Plus a couple of sticks of cinnamon. Fry till its all soft, then add the beetroot and apple. Stir it all round. Then add about 200g soft brown sugar and a teaspoon or two of salt plus about 20 szechuan peppers for a bit more heat – but you can leave these out if you prefer. As for the liquid – again I do this by eye – add sufficient apple cider vinegar to come two thirds of the way up the solid ingredients then top up with cloudy apple juice till it just covers the apple and beetroot in the pan. Bring slowly to a bubble, keep stirring gently till the sugar has melted (bear in mind the sugar will make liquid so dont be tempted to add too much liquid thinking there isn’t sufficient in the pan!). Now keep it on a gentle bubble for at least three hours, stirring occasionally. One of the easiest mistakes with relish and chutney is to take it off the heat too soon. Slow and steady wins the game – you should aim to reduce and reduce till it is really sticky – definitely not runny! When you think it is ready, dare yourself to cook it for 15 minutes more – then it really will be ready! Now let it cool completely.
Scald your jars, or heat them in the oven. Or better still, swill out with some vodka and then drink the vodka. When the relish is cool, you will notice that it will have released more juice and then you will be glad you reduced it more than you thought necessary! Decant into the warm jars, seal with little waxed circles of paper like your mum did, and only put the lids on when it’s completely cold. Otherwise condensation will gather inside the lid and you will have mould quicker than a shake of a dogs tail. Store in a cupboard, not in the light. Then it will stay a great dark red colour.
Lovely with a good strong cheddar, a chunk of good bread, a glass of red and a roaring woodburner!
My preserving/fermenting/sourdough obsession has run riot since lockdown. Which is weird when you think about it… I’ve been on a low carb diet so not eating bread; David is not a great fan of jam, and although he professes to LOVE piccalilli it’s surprising how little he eats. He doesn’t like chutney unless it’s Brinjal. But still the cupboards are falling off the walls with the weight of filled jars, the people in the village have been stripped of all their jam jars and rewarded with a jar or two, and I’ve bought an old larder fridge off Gumtree for storage and for the four sourdough starter(s).
The sourdough is perfected using the three I was generously given by Jo (carefully wrapped and posted from Exeter), from Marion carefully poured into a bag and vacuum sealed and from Shirl’s in a big jam jar. Each has its own characteristics and these are influenced also by the
method, which is amazing, and works; the special instructions from Jo (apparently her starter originated in Ottolenghi’s kitchen) produces a loaf with lots of holes, and the special no-knead instructions from Shirl (which came from The Guardian) that produce a close texture and with great sour texture. Marion’s is a full blooded sour sourdough if you leave it long enough. Enough! I have poseted sourdough on here already – go here if you haven’t read it. By the way I recommend eating any of these with large slabs of Fen Farm slightly fermented butter…. which is another good reason for me to shout to myself don’t touch the bread Dawn!
Brinjal
I’ve featured Brinjal in many guises on this blog so I won’t post again. Suffice it to say I used the last 20 aubergines from our polytunnel (not that I’m boasting) in a great batch of Brinjal last week. The original recipe is here
Fermented tomatoes
II took this recipe from the up-there-with-Nigella. Olia Hercules.
Take as many green tomatoes as you like. Make a cross shape in the tops (don’t cut all the way through) then chop lots of parsley, garlic and chilli, mix together and stuff into the cut tomatoes. Place carefully in a tall jar with some slices of onion and garlic. Boil 3 litres of water with 40g sea salt. Add black peppercorns, bay leaf, 4 short celery sticks and 5 cloves of garlic to the jar with the tomatoes. Then add the brine. As a fan of Russian, Turkish and East European food I have also learned a trick of topping the jar with oak leaves or black currant leaves. The tannin does it’s magic. Put the top on and leave for about a month, I opened mind last week and tried them. They are wonderful
Green tomato chutney
Chutnies are always a moveable feast because it really depends on what you have a available. So. I had 3kg green tomatoes, 1.5kg onions, 6 medium sized windfall Cox’s Orange Pippin apples, 500g Lexia raisins, garlic chopped (lots in our household) 250g brown sugar (less than a lot of people use, I admit), the last dregs of a bottle of molasses at the back of the cupboard, 3 chopped chillies, 1 tbsp Szechuan peppercorns, 1 tbsp ground cinnamon, 2 tbsp coriander seed. 2litres cider vinegar.
The hardest bit is all the chopping – and the belief and patience involved in letting all this gorgeousness gently simmer away for a good four hours. The operative word is gently. It should all melt into a thick, dark brown sludge. That description does it a disservice. It is in the long slow cooking that the liquid reduces and the flavour increases. You have all eaten that pale green watery green tomatoe chutney with a few raisins floating in it. Now you know what not to do!
My gherkins
I planted gherkins in the polytunnel. 6 plants. I planted cucumbers in the greenhouse. 6 plants. Or I thought I did. Must remember to label seedlings! So this year we had a bumper crop of gherkins. Luckily we love gherkins.
Cyder vinegar (say 2l), light brown sugar (say 250g), chopped fresh dill if you have it, dill seed if you don’t. Bring to the boil and let it cool. Quarter the gherkins lengthwise. Put into a bowl of salted water for an hour. Pack drained gherkins into jars (top with oak leaves or black current leaves). Pour in the vinegar.
For all preserves, scald the jars and tops with boiling water, place in a hot oven for 10 minutes or swill them round with some vodka (then drink the vodka!). For all preserves I seal first with cling film then out the lid on tight.
Further thoughts on fermenting
My first attempts at fermenting were variable until I hit on the formula and understood the benefits of very thin slices of whatever you are fermenting. I chop green cabbage, onion and carrot and garlic and fresh ginger root in the food processor.
Weigh your container first. Pile it into whatever container you are using two thirds full – this one is a modern crockpot. Weigh again. Subtract the weight of the crockpot. Fill with mineral water to cover the vegetables. Now drain the water from the container and weigh it. Now you have the weight of the veg and the weight of the water. Add these together. Now multiply that figure by 0.025. This will give you the absolute weight of salt you need to add to the water. Dissolve the salt in the water then pour back onto the vegetables. Add special ceramic or glass weights to keep the vegetables under the water – or simply fill a sandwich bag with water and lay it on top, serving the same purpose as the weights.
Leave in a warm room for a couple of days, you will smell it fermenting or if you are using a glass jar you will see the bubbles rising. The trick now is to wait and get to understand it. Taste after 4 days and then allow it to continue fermenting till you get the flavour you want. Then decant it into sterilised jars and lids and out in the fridge which will stop the fermentation process.
This year, in my world – you know my world: a bit crazy, food and cooking biased, house full of people, veg growing, grandson fixated – many things have changed and some things stay reassuringly constant. Like Gill Meller.
Along with other favourite food writers like Diana Henry, Hugh FW, Olia Hercules, Ravinder Bhogal, when you read Gill its not just for the recipes. And it’s not all about the ingredients. It’s his style, the words, the modest foundation that allows the food to speak for itself. It’s not self-serving but is genuinely brilliant!
And so it was with huge excitement that the postman delivered Gill’s latest Root, Stem, Leaf, Flower a few weeks ago, and as always I disappeared inside its covers for hours. And hours. It is a permanent fixture whatever room I’m in – only an arm’s length away.
Yesterday I made the stuffed buckwheat pancakes. David also had newly lifted (a bit early) pink fir apple potatoes and we both shared a simple salad – and the pancakes.
I could go through the method start to finish but I won’t. Why don’t you buy the book instead? All of Gill’s recipes are straightforward. This was no exception.
In essence – chop onion and celeriac, season well and rub through with olive oil then roast till they are nearly done. Then add chopped field mushrooms and steamed tenderstem broccoli for another 10 minutes. Season well with salt and black pepper. Make lacy pancakes with buckwheat flour (not a flour, but a grass!), milk and egg. And make a thick, well seasoned bechamel – I added a grating of nutmeg. Stuff the pancakes with the roasted vegetables (best if the broccoli is just a little charred in my view) and if you like,
Lacy buckwheat pancakes
Roasted veg dotted with Gorgonzola
Tenderstem Broccoli
Stuff the pancakes
Pink Fir Apples
Simple Salad
Add the bechamel
add dots of Gorgonzola or Roquefort. You won’t need much. Roll the pancakes round the vegetables and place in a dish with just a little olive oil wiped across the base. cover with bechamel and cook in a hot oven till hot, brown and bubbling.
Years ago when I was young, Shirl gave me a copy of Marquez’ Love in the Time of Cholera. I still have it.
Now we are in a different time. David and I are holed up here in splendid isolation. Me on my diet – he not on a diet. Sort of Love in the Time of Corona.
Rifling through the cupboard I thought I’d better use some ingredients that have been kicking around for a while – like the rye flour that I noticed went out of date in 2016 which was when I last attempted to make a sourdough starter. I am hoping that maybe some kind soul might send me some to put me out of my misery in being completely incapable to do the sourdough thing. Or if you know the magic please tell me.
This offering is pie. Made with hot watercrust pastry (my version) which must be the most even-tempered pastry in the world. This pie is filled with onion, garlic, mushrooms, courgette, tomato, spinach and – it gets better – gorgonzola! The most majestic of cheeses. Toast it with cheddar. Put it in the cheese sauce to pep it up. Sneak an inch out of the fridge and eat secretly all on your own. Whatever. Try some!
Your oven needs to be set at 190C. Put an empty baking tray in at the same time.
First, gently fry onion, garlic, chilli flakes (a few), plenty of fresh thyme in olive oil, till soft. Then add about 4 big mushrooms, chopped, or the equivalent volume of their smaller cousins and half a pack of chopped vacuum-packed chestnuts (Use the other half and make a chestnut casserole with onion carrot and jerusalem artichokes – or even better make some chestnut sausages.) Then add a few small chopped tomatoes. Season with gremolata, quite a lot of black pepper and if you have some a tablespoon of Burgess’ mushroom ketchup (other supermarkets are available) or some Lea and Perrins or for the Yorkshire folk – Henderson’s. Then add a big handful of spinach. Put the lid on and let them cook happily together for about 5 minutes till the spinach has wilted. Put to one side to cool (take the lid off). the mixture should be moist but not watery. If it is, wait till it is cold and then drain it off.
Now the pastry. I put equal amounts of wholemeal and rye flour in a bowl (about a cup and a half in total). Season with salt (sometimes just with grated Parmesan). Put 150ml boiling water in a jug and 30ml olive oil in the same jug. Pour it over the flour and bring the dough together with a wooden spoon. Simple as that. Rest (the pastry) for a few minutes while you prepare the springform tins. I used two smallish ones, liberally greased and floured.
Roll out half the pastry to the thickness of just less than a £1 coin. Cut two circles and drop into the tins, push it up the sides so there is pastry beyond the top. Add the cold mushroom mixture. Then slice a courgette into very thin slices and put on top. My theory was that these will steam whilst its cooking and add a little structure to the innards. Then dot with gorgonzola. Slice off the excess pastry and recombine, then roll out two tops for the pies. Use beaten egg to baste the edges then put the tops on the pies, knock them up (tap the edges with the blunt side of a knife), make a steam hole, use the rest of the egg to glaze the top.
Remove the roasting hot baking tray and put the pies on it then return to the oven for 40 minutes till golden and toasty.
Remove from the oven. Leave for 15 minutes, slide a knife round the inner edge, then release the springform tin sides. Dinner is served!
As most of you will know, there is a diet going on in the house. Me. Low carb. 800 calories a day. 14 hour fast daily (or rather, nightly). Dinner at 20.00hrs. Breakfast after 10.00hrs. I live with a man who can eat a plateful of carbs every meal and still has a waist that is only 2.5cm bigger than when we met 40 years ago. That’s just not fair. Whereas I only have to look at a slice of bread and gain 2kg.
What’s my favourite diet meal, you might ask. No it’s not the fish in coconut sauce, or the celeriac chips, or the quinoa porridge. It’s my invention of a pie. I needed pie. But not the carbs. So here it is. My pie.
The whole dinner (including 8 celeriac chips, plus lots of greens) is 380 calories and 26g of carbs out of my 40g daily limit). The most important thing is it feels like I’ve eaten a whole meal. The pie makes four portions. Two for today for him and me, and two for tomorrow.
I use a 20cm springform tin for this. Line the base first. It just makes it easier.
125g ground almonds in a bowl, add one teaspoon of grated parmesan, two teaspoons of olive oil and a little salt plus one beaten egg. Squidge it together as if you are making the base for a cheesecake with digestive biscuits. Then load into the tin and press down hard and bring a little bit up the sides.
Steam 8 slices of 1.5cm thick butternut squash and one sliced courgette (or any other vegetables but make sure they are not watery).
Fry half a dozen chopped mushrooms in a little oil with lots of garlic and a few chilli flakes. Add a dash of Lea and Perrins at the end, when they are cooked and all the liquid has evaporated.
Pile the mushrooms onto the base of the pie and spread them out. Then layer with butternut squash and courgette on top.
Put 125g Quark or thick plain yogurt in a bowl. Add two beaten eggs, a little mustard and season well. Pour over the top of the pie. Cook in the oven at 190C for about 35 minutes. The top should be just wobbly and the bottom will be crispy, like pastry – but not!! Remove from the oven and slide a sharp knife round the edge of the pie. Leave for 10 minutes, then remove the springform sides of the tin.
As many of you know by now – my strategy for weight loss was to tell everyone so I would be ashamed if I failed – I am following the Michael Mosley Fast800 diet. Inspired by Barbara and my brother in law Mark. The decision-making line in the sand was a bit like deciding to give up smoking – something clicked and I was ready.
Similar to the smoking thing, it has taken me about 30 years to get to this point. And the point is? To be more trim, fitter and to stave off the reality of being 67 in a month’s time! So far, so 800 calories a day for the past 4 weeks. 12 kilos has been shifted, according to the morning weigh-in today.
The ingredients I had lurking in cupboard and fridge were ground almonds, sweet potato and mushrooms. The MM cookbook has a recipe for a quiche but instead of pastry it uses ground almonds. I am not fond of quiche, but I was intrigued by the ground almonds bit.
True to form, all my life I have I bastardised methods set out in all recipes that start off in a book, and turned them into my own. Don’t be fooled by Mary, Jamie, Nigella or Nigel. All recipes are derivative!
Ingredients
125g ground almonds (or if you only have whole almonds, grind them in the blender or Nutribullet)
25ml olive oil
2 eggs
1 sweet potato
1 knobbly end of celeriac that was rolling around in the fridge drawer
ditto 1 medium sized courgette
2tbsp Parmesan cheese
2 tbsp Quark or Greek yogurt or creamer fraiche
Put the ground almonds in a bowl and season with some gremolata (you should know how to make that by now, otherwise it’s here). Add the olive oil and one beaten egg. Mix till it is moist enough to just hold together.
Grease a 20cm springform tin like this one then sprinkle with some coarse semolina – or breadcrumbs. Put the ground almond mixture in the tin. Press it all down firmly and draw some up the sides a bit. Put in the fridge.
Choose three or four mushrooms with a couple of spring onions. Fry gently in olive oil then add a little tomato purée and season with some Worcestershire sauce. Cook till all the mixture has evaporated. Allow to cool.
Steam your sliced courgette, sweet potato (sliced) and celeriac. Allow to cool.
Beat the remaining egg with the Quark or yogurt of crepe fraiche. Add black pepper. Add 75% of the Parmesan.
Remove the tin from the fridge. Spreathe mushroom duxelles (for that is what it is) in and spread over the base. Now add layers of celeriac, sweet potato and courgette, season with gremolata. Pour the egg/Quark over the top and place on the middle shelf of the oven at 190C for about 30 minutes – until the top is firm to touch.
Let it cool for 10 minutes the run a sharp knife round the edge to free it up a bit. Unspring the tin after half an hour.
It looks good. It smells gorgeous. It serves 4 – so guess what we will be eating tomorrow night! 325 calories per portion and 20g of my allowable 35g carbohydrates per day. David will have a plate full of roast potatoes with his. Sadly, I shall not!
This one is for my mate John who offers me potatoes, parsnips and aubergine. In return, I have a two-way offer here. A meat one and a vegetarian one.
For four servings:
Take two fat aubergines and slice lengthways into 1.5cm thick slices. Place in a bowl and season well with sea salt, black pepper and olive oil. Pre-heat your oven to 200C then put some baking parchment on a baking tray and line up the oiled aubergine slices flat on the tray. Cook in the middle of the oven for about 25 minutes or until soft. OR. Do the same, but microwave.
It’ll be even more tasty if it’s a bit crispy at the edges. Remove from the oven but leave on the tray to cool.
Meanwhile, slice two or three big potatoes and a couple of parsnips into chip sized lengths and boil in salted water until just cooked. Run cold water over them to stop them cooking and drain.
Meat version
If you want a meaty lasagne, and spread out 750g well seasoned mince onto the hot roasting tray on which you roasted the aubergine. (First removing the aubergine). Put the tray of mince into the oven and roast the mince for 20 minutes, turning it as it browns (this is a Tom Kerridge trick). Then drain the fat from the meat.
Now you can either make a good thick tomato sauce by frying onion, chilli flakes and garlic in olive oil till soft then throw in half a glass of wine and let it reduce, followed by two tins of chopped tomatoes and some herbs like oregano, rosemary, thyme and the meat Plus a flat teaspoon of cinnamon powder and simmer for a while till the liquid is reduced. (Or just use two 250ml boxes or jars of Passata instead of tinned tomatoes).
Now start layering up. Start with a little sauce in the bottom of a good deep dish. Then add a layer of aubergine then meat in sauce – wait for it – then a single layer of potato and parsnip strips. Season with a little salt and black pepper. Then carry on layering until you end with a meat layer.
I haven’t made that potato bit up. When I worked nights in a nursing home my friend Cheryl – who was married to a Greek – she gave me the potato tip. I just added the parsnips because that’s what John has in his fridge.
The non-bechamel topping is the same for both meat and veggie options so I will do that at the end.
Vegetarian
For for the veggie option, make (or open a jar) the same sauce and pimp it up with the same herbs and add some chopped fresh spinach and/or chopped broccoli to it. check the seasoning.
As with the meat version, use a good deep dish and layer the Moussaka in the same order, sauce, aubergine, potato and parsnip etc.
My cheat’s bechamel goes like this. Take four eggs and half a pot of creme fraiche or full fat yogurt. Add a touch of English mustard, salt and pepper. Beat the eggs then beat into the crepe fraiche or yogurt. Add a handful of grated cheese. Any sort. Pour onto the top of the Moussaka.
Bake in the centre of the oven at 200c for a good 30 minutes. Put the dish on a baking tray in case it overflows.
The biggest and best tip is to WAIT for 15 minutes. there is a reason why Greek dishes are served at room temperature and it’s not just to do with the scorching sun!
Evening falls
Have a glass of wine and make a salad. 15 minutes later the temperature of the Moussaka will have reduced from molten to moderate and it will have firmed up so you can slice it rather than slop it onto the plate! I am so good to you with these tips!!
Cathy asked for this. An easy recipe for hot cross buns.
This morning I needed to make bananananana bread for Matthew over the road. It’s his favourite. He’s home from school and the young man must have his bananananana bread. Also on my mind was hot cross buns. Should that be ‘were’? I don’t know.
Paranoid about running out of bread flour, we have a stash. So that was ok. I take back everything I said to Angie about her 10 year old grains because I found some sultanas that went out of date in 2015. Then I tried to find some yeast that wasn’t for our electric breadmaker. I found some. Out of date. Dang. Anyway, I used both.
450g bread flour, one teaspoon of salt, 7g dried yeast (in-date if possible), 125g caster sugar, two teaspoons mixed spice. Into the Kenwood bowl it goes. 50g butter in a Pyrex jug. Add 350ml full cream milk. Microwave till the butter has melted and the milk is warm but not hot (put your finger in it to test). Add one beaten egg to the milk and butter, then add it all to the flour and turn on the Kenwood which has the dough hook attached and churn away for five minutes. Alternatively, do it all by hand. The dough will be on the wet side. It should be. Knead by hand on a work surface for 10 minutes. Put back in the bowl (or leave in the bowl if using the Kenwood) cover it with a clean cloth and put somewhere warm to prove for a couple of hours. Ours goes on the south-facing kitchen windowsill in the summer and the airing cupboard in the winter.
Weigh out 125g in-date sultanas. Peel, core and chop one eating apple. Grate the rind from one orange. After the dough has proved, remove the cloth and add the fruit. and grated orange rind Knead again for five minutes by hand or a couple of minutes in the Kenwood. Leave for another half an hour.
Turn the oven to 220C. Line two baking trays with baking parchment. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface. ‘Punch it in the middle’ then draw the sides to the middle, turning as you go. Flip it over and brush off any flour. Divide into equal sized portions and roll each piece (the size is entirely up to you, but remember that they will spread) into a ball and place on the baking tray with a little space between them. You should get 12 to a standard sized tray. Mix a little plain flour with water until it makes a thick but runny paste. Then trail it across the top of the buns in a X.
Place in the centre of the pre-heated oven for about 15 minutes then check them. If done, they should feel firm, not doughy. If you are unsure, take one out and cut in half to check. (You can always put it back again if it needs a couple more minutes).
Remove to a cooling tray and whilst still warm, brush with plum or apricot jam , diluted slightly with boiling water – just to glaze.
Do I really have goat lurking in the back of my cupboard? No. But it is lurking in my freezer. Goat is one of my favourite meats. Did you know that goat is the world’s primary meat? Over 70% of the red meat eaten globally is goat. Not pig. Not dog. Goat.
So tonight it’s curry goat for me, plus sag aloo and paneer and pea for him.
I usually get my goat from Fielding Cottage. However this batch was actually purchased at the Jesmond Food Market on Armstrong Bridge Newcastle and has been buried deep in Will’s freezer and then mine ever since. On that freezing cold February day in Newcastle Katie and I ate the biggest sausages I’ve ever seen and David had Tartiflette.
I have a goat cook-book and it is one of my favourites. Funnily enough it’s called ‘Goat’ and is by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough.
You shouldn’t be worried about goat. Just treat it like lamb. It tastes gorgeous, just a bit more meaty than lamb, a bit more chewy. It’s great casseroled, skewered, barbecued, roast. But my favourite way is curried.
Yeaterday I defrosted the goat, took the bones out, then weighed just the meat. Then put the bones back in the bowl with the meat (adds flavour and juiciness during the cooking). I had 800g goat meat before boning and 675g afterwards. This will easily feed four. I sliced an onion quite thin and crushed 8 cloves of garlic with a bit of salt. Threw it in with the meat, then grated a thumb sized piece of fresh garlic (I store mine in the freezer then grate it from frozen #tip), half a teaspoon of ground turmeric – 3 small dried chillies, cut in half lengthwise – and two tablespoons of my bese bese curry powder – see here for the recipe. Or just add a pot of really good quality curry paste or sauce. Then added 200g of full-fat yogurt, a teaspoon of salt and a chopped up lemon (rind off). Mixed it all together, covered and left it alone for the rest of the day.
About 4o/c this afternoon I threw it all in a saucepan, added a box of passata and a tin of coconut milk and a cinnamon stick. Brought to a gentle simmer and cooked for about 3 hours or so. Then removed the bones, scraped any remaining meat from the bones back into the pan. Tasted and adjust salt/pepper.
The plan is to eat it now, or even better, eat it again tomorrow. With paratha.
You might wonder why I haven’t gone to the faff of sweating the onions etc. This is because I have cooked this dish and other curries so many times I have found it makes not a jot of difference to anything like a casserole/stew/curry if it is going to cook on the hob or the oven for at least 3 hours!
Sag Aloo
This really is so simple, even our Otto could do it. If you have a bag of washed small potatoes in your fridge just take them out of the bag and cut them in half. Otherwise peel and chop two big old potatoes into chunks. Add some oil to a wide shallow pan, Throw in the potatoes and stir them round a bit, then add a couple of teaspoons of salt (it needs it) and a large tablespoon of Sambar curry powder (see my recipe here) or some shop-bought curry paste. But make sure it’s good. Stir it all around keeping watch if you are using the curry powder as the turmeric in it will thicken and stick to the bottom of the pan. Now add about 175 mil water, put the lid on, and cook the potatoes gently until just cooked. Then add half a bag of spinach. Stir it around. Done.
Paneer and pea
Who said home made curries are difficult huh? Take a packet of paneer (you will find it in Tesco, Waitrose blahdeblah) and chop into chunks. Put some oil the the bottom of a pan – just enough to cover, add chilli flakes and garlic (chopped not squeezed). Add a little curry powder if you wish – about a tablespoon – I would normally use the bese-bese powder on the blog page. Stir around and fry the paneer till it has what I call a ‘curry crust’ on it. Then add three chopped fresh tomatoes or half a tin of tinned tomatoes and a little water or the juice from the tin. Stir again. Let it cook for about five minutes then add a cup full of frozen peas. The key here is not to have too much liquid, so you might have to use your judgement here. Use the picture as a guide. Cook gently until the peas are cooked through. Check seasoning.
Spice and lemon
Re these spice mixes I keep going on about. Every three months or so I make a load and store them in Mason Jars. It is so easy to make them and very zen in the kitchen with all those spices! Use the links above to find the page.
Fran, my oldest buddy – if memory serves me well, this is your second favourite after my beef chilli!!
The best and easiest prawn curry, coming up in a hurry, and it only takes 20 minutes to cook. Just enough time to put the rice on.
First fry a couple of finely chopped onions with two chopped cloves of garlic and a red chilli (don’t include seeds if you want it mild, keep seeds in if you want it hot).
Then add the following: a teaspoon ground cumin, a teaspoon of ground coriander, a couple of ground green cardomom, a teaspoon of turmeric, a couple of ground cloves.
Cheats curry sauce – recommended.
Alternatively Fran, just get Jonathan to go to Waitrose and buy a really good quality curry sauce like this one. (See, I cheat too!) Jonathan you are not allowed to get Chicken Tonight sauce!! Oh, and tell him to get some fresh coriander too, please. If you are not using sauce purchased from Waitrose, add a tin of chopped tomatoes and a good squeeze of tomato puree plus a little sugar. Cook for 10 minutes only otherwise the prawns will be as hard as bullets. Add a tin of full fat coconut milk and stir it around, then a good handful of chopped fresh coriander.
Finally, you might fancy some dal. You can do not better than consult with Asma Khan. I love her recipe for tempered dal. Put a cup of red lentils in a saucepan with a dried red chilli, a teaspoon of chilli and a couple of cloves of garlic and a teaspoon of cumin seed. Boil till fluffy then whiz with a stick blender. Meantime, put a couple of tablespoons of oil plus a good knob of butter in a small pan. Add a couple more chillis plus a teaspoon of turmeric and a teaspoon of cumin seed. Get it really hot then pour over the cooked lentils. It’s magnificent.
This one is for my friend SNShakes. We haven’t seen one another for years. We must remedy that when all this nonsense is over.
SN gave me matfoul, butter beans, tomatoes and olives. To be honest I had to look up the matfoul but found that it’s just like the giant couscous or mugrabeh, much loved by Ottolenghi. You’ll probably find it in his recipe books. This is my take on a matfoul and butter bean soup – although you could also have it as a tagine I guess and serve with flatbread. Either way it’s easy.
Put 75g of the matfoul in a saucepan with some water and boil vigorously for about 10 minutes or until it is just soft, drain it and roll in a little olive oil.
Sweat chopped onion and celery in a pan with some good olive oil, then add chilli flakes to taste (preferably Aleppo which are sweeter), a teaspoon of cumin seed and half a teaspoon of tumeric and half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon. continue to fry gently remembering that the ground spices will start to thicken, so don’t let it catch on the bottom of the pan. Add a little more oil if necessary. Now add the drained tinned tomatoes and squish them up a bit, mixing with the onion and spices. Add the tin of butter beans and its liquid, plus some more vegetable stock. Add seasoning at this point. Bring to just under simmering point then add the cooked matfoul. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.
First Angie offered me garlic, chilli and a bag of 10 year out of date mixed grains. I declined the latter. She insists they will be eaten at some point. I hope I am not there in Forest Gate when she does!
I thought of a number of chilli/garlic/cabbage combos to be honest none of them filled me with delight. I have one that includes all three, just to play the game. After all, I started it! Then there are other suggestions for each ingredient. Apparently there is a lot of garlic and a lot of chilli!
Sauerkraut
(Sauerkraut is not particularly photogenic and so I offer you pickled dill cucumbers instead).
Bet you were not expecting sauerkaraut! Full of probiotics, it’s all the rage. I have some fermenting away right now. Having experimented this is what I have learned:
Slice your cabbage really thinly. Take a few leaves and roll them up tightly then cut on the diagonal.
if the leaves are big, chop them in half. Remove the stems (but use another day in a stir fry)
don’t use tap water, use bottled water. Fluoride will impede the fermentation. You want the bugs. They are good bugs!
start small to check the process out
when you have finished the prep and have the sauerkraut in its jar, put it somewhere where it is consistently warm
don’t be worried if mould forms on top
dont seal the jar with a lid till you are ready to stall the fermentation
OK. Enough advice. This is what you do. Remove thick stalks. Use any old cabbage. About 1 kilo or so. Slice very thinly then slice again if the bits look too long. The idea is to increase the surface area of each slice. Put it all in a big bowl and using the end of a rolling pin bash it. And bash it and bash it some more. You want to bruise it so juice comes out. Mix in 2 tbsp coarse sea salt. Mix and squeeze, massage and pummel for at least 10 minutes. Maybe more. Then do it again. By now brine will have formed so if you like add some caraway seed and black pepper then push the cabbage under the brine.
Cover with cling film and do push down to exclude all the air and weight it with a plate that fits inside the bowl with a couple of tins of beans on top. The idea is that the cabbage should sit beneath its brine. Cover the bowl with a lid and leave it somewhere at 18-20C for a few days.
Check the cabbage every other day, lift the lid and peer in. You should see bubbles after a couple of days. Stir it round a bit and weight it down again. Wait about 6 days and it should be ready to bottle.
Don’t worry if you see flecks of mould, just flick them out. Taste it. It should be sour. Pack into sterilised jars put a lid on, and store in the fridge.
Sometimes I add turmeric and grated fresh ginger or grated horseradish and grated carrot. Yummy.
Garlic
Does garlic require a recipe? We grow lots of garlic and usually it is hanging in the greenhouse once it’s been lifted and the last lot is finished about 2 months before the next lot is harvested. You can salt it, brine it, store it in olive oil, chop it into your own gremolata, cook a roast chicken with 20 cloves, pierce lamb with slivers of garlic and rosemary. Or you can make Skordalia. Thick, unctuous loveliness.
Boil a pound of potatoes with 6-8 peeled cloves of garlic. Mash or mix with a food mixer (not processor, that turns it to wallpaper paste!) and season well with salt. No pepper. Pour in 200ml olive oil. Mix till all combined. Add a squeeze of lemon juice. Taste to check seasoning. Serve with Greek mezze, olives, aubergine, bread, anchovies. Imagine you are in Ithaka.
Chillies
Quickest and best way to keep chillies? Hang them up to dry then put them in the food processor until they are in pieces. Store in tins or jars. Use in everything (in our house) – except custard and cake!
This is so creamy you just won’t believe it. And it is for Roo and Hugh who nominated sweetcorn, gluten free pasta and paprika.
It’s a quick supper, that’s for sure. I am not certain whether this is a tin of sweetcorn, or corn on the cob that they’ve chosen. If the latter then the first thing to do is to shave the corn off the cob top to bottom. Then put the stalks in a pan with 200ml salted water and boil for 10 minutes with bayleaves and thyme if you have it. Yes! Just that! Then pour the stock into a jug. If you are not choosing fresh, then drain the tin and use the juice as stock and top it up with water.
Now roast five black peppercorns in the dried pan for a couple of minutes, then grind in a pestle and mortar. Put back in the pan, add the stock and about 30g butter. Add the corn cobs and a teaspoon of paprika and simmer gently for 5 minutes
Now add your pasta – you are aiming for the liquid to just about cover the pasta. Bring it all to the boil till the pasta is cooked and most of the liquid has evaporated. Now add a good cup of grated parmesan. This will melt and make it creamy.
If you are really going for broke, you could boil a handful of non-salted cashew nuts in 150ml water for 10 minutes then let them cool slightly and blitz in the Nutribullet or liquidiser. Combined with parmesan, it makes an even creamier sauce for pasta.
This recipe is a slight adaptation from the original from The Tasting Table.
Jude asked for a recipe that included butternut squash, Camembert and chilli.
How did she know that Camembert is my least favourite cheese? Don’t get me wrong – I love strong cheeses: Roquefort, Gorgonzola, Stinking Bishop, Un-pastuerised Brie. But Camembert, no! I think it all started when we returned from France in high summer 1986 with a boot full of luggage, picnic boxes, buckets, spades and little circular wooden boxes of Camembert. By the time we arrived home I thought I was a Camembert!
I recommend you have the following in addition to those three ingredients. Some fresh sage. An eating apple or two. A few shelled walnuts. Some crusty bread – a baguette maybe?!
Turn the oven on to 200C. Take your squash and cut it in half lengthways. Lay the two pieces side by side and take out the seeds and the stringy bits! (Keep some of the seeds and plant them end-on in pots then plant out in the garden). Crush a couple of cloves of garlic and mix with some seasalt, chopped fresh chilli (the heat is in the seeds so if you don’t like it chilli-hot just remove them) and a couple of grinds of black pepper. Put these ingredients into a plastic bag or a bowl. Add 75ml olive oil. Whisk it all together. Now put your squash in there as well and massage the oil all over the squash.
Place the squash side by side in a small-ish baking tray or a terracotta dish/similar. Put in the middle of the oven and roast them for 45 minutes until quite soft. Check with the point of a knife to test ‘resistance’. Leave in a bit longer if not done.
Meanwhile take your Camembert (or Gorgonzola/Roquefort/Brie/soft cream cheese) and cut it to a size where it will either sit in the dimple of the squash where the seeds were, or you might need to chop up the cheese a bit. Either way be generous. When the squash is just about done, remove the pan from the oven, add the cheese to the dimple in the squash, pierce with a couple of sage leaves or fresh rosemary, grind some black pepper and put back into the oven for 15 minutes so the cheese is all runny and bubbling.
Chilli apples on the side
When the squash are ready and the cheese is bubbling over, take out of the oven and rest for five minutes (the squash, not you!) then maybe carefully transfer to a bigger dish and surround them with the apple. Serve it with crusty bread and a lovely green salad.
Of course this will serve four people with generous portions. You could keep some for tomorrow and reheat, or you could scoop the flesh and any cheese into a bowl with half a tin of chickpeas (no liquid) and make a squash hummus to eat with the rest of that crusty baguette.
Hope you enjoy this Jude. And if you don’t like Camembert, use another cheese. Send me pictures!!
Su has a cold. She’s just come back from LA and she’s chilly. Fortunately she has a tin of red kidney beans, a bag of boil in the bag rice and a tin of anchovies. What to cook?
Su, I can imagine you after you’ve cooked this. Snuggled up on that sofa with a big bowl of steaming rice and beans, feet tucked under you, fire a-blazin…… and the best bit about this is it only takes a trice to cook!
First chop and fry an onion and some carrot and add half a tin of anchovy and oil into the pan whilst it is cooking. In the end you won’t taste the anchovy it will just act as seasoning.
Then when the vegetables are soft, add grated fresh ginger if you have it – about 2cm piece – if not half a teaspoon of ground ginger; also add a finely chopped fresh chilli if you have it, if not some chilli flakes. Then add a teaspoon of cumin seed or ground, and a teaspoon of mustard seeds. Finally, nip out into your lovely garden a snip off a bay leaf or two and throw that in too. Add a little more oil if you need it. Keep frying till everything is soft and it smells divine.
Drain the beans (the water will be full of starch and be sludgy coloured) in a sieve then throw just the the beans into the pan with the vegetables. Mix it all around. Now, if you have any fresh tomatoes you could chop a couple and put them in too – but don’t use tinned ones in this recipe. Mix it all togther, then add the rice and just enough stock to cover. Add salt and black pepper too. Maybe a little more chilli. Now bring to the boil and then gently simmer for about 15 minutes. That is IT! If you have a tin of coconut milk or a bar of creamed coconute in the cupboard you could use that instead of stock.
If you have a bit of salad lurking in the fridge you could make yourself a tomato salad with some thinly sliced onion and maybe some fresh coriander and sprinkle with a little olive oil and wine vinegar. But if you don’t who cares, just serve it into your bowl, pick up a fork and head for the woodburner!
I have been teaching myself to crochet. An absolute beginner. I’ve just hurled crochet hook, yarn and my sanity into the basket. I know – I’m over-reaching myself as usual. Sue Maton – the yarn genius – has a new online project and I thought I’d join in. With no experience. Obvs, I was going to be a disaster. I digress.
Brenda has so generously offered me wilting celery, half a pot of Quark and half a jar of red peppers. It is crying out to be a tortilla darling! One of our all-time standbys when we don’t know what to cook. In fact (I am now editing this piece) I find that I have already posted a tortilla recipe in 2016. Never mind, here’s another with a little variation to fit Brenda’s requirements!
If it’s just for you and Brian tonight then halve these quantities. Or, damn it, make all of it and have the rest of it for lunch for a couple of days.
OK. Those all too familiar staples of sliced onion (two of) and a cup full of finely chopped celery in a good sturdy frying pan that you can put under the grill with plenty of olive oil. Add a couple of cloves of chopped garlic. If you have a nubby end of chorizo you can chop this up and put it in, or some bacon, at the same time. Peel and slice potatoes about 1cm thick. Add to the pan, making sure there is sufficient oil, and fry them gently; keep turning them, turning them. It doesn’t matter at all if they break up.
If you prefer a lower fat option then put the potatoes in a pan of boiling salted water and cook for three minutes then drain. Let them cool a bit and then add to the onions and celery. Add chopped parsley and fresh thyme or oregano, a goodly amount of salt and black pepper. Drain the red peppers and pat dry, then cut into strips and add to the pan, distributing evenly across the top. Break four large eggs into a large bowl and beat them then add the quark. If you have half a tub of thick yogurt or cream you could add that too. But half a tub of quark is fine if you haven’t. Mix the quark/cream/yogurt into the eggs and beat again. Season with salt and pepper.
Check that the potatoes are very nearly cooked, then turn the heat up and add the egg/quark mixture. Move the potatoes around a bit so that the liquid is evenly distributed. Watch it carefully. The idea is to seal the eggy base on a high heat (which will take 4-5 minutes) then turn down the heat, sprinkle smoked paprika on top and then put a lid on it and cook gently on the hob for another 10 minutes. Keep the heat low so the bottom doesn’t burn. Alternatively you can put it in the oven at 190C for about 15 minutes without the lid, to set the top.
Leave in the pan until it cools. Then either turn in out onto a plate (plate over pan and invert it – easiest to do this when it is cooler) then bring to the table and slice into quarters. Or serve straight from the pan if it is hot with green beans or spinach or with a salad.
This is a regular dish for us. Usually all the ingredients are in the house and if we don’t have Quark we just use eggs.
Gill was having a laugh, I think. And her chestnuts are out of date. I’ve been saying that for years, actually: Gill – your chestnuts are out of date, get them seen to! She offered me a can of Octopus, a bag of vacuum packed chestnuts (out of date) and garlic.
Try as I might, I could not work up a recipe that was palatable with that concoction, so instead I’m offering a number of suggestions. The first being to throw that bag of out of date chestnuts away. Sell-by dates are not necessarily consume-by dates of course. So if they were close to the consume-by date I would probably use them.
Chestnut and Tofu sausages
If you have in-date chestnuts though, you can do no better than go to another page on this blog and find a post that tells you how to make vegetarian sausages from vacuum-packed chestnuts.
Chestnut and Jerusalem Artichoke casserole
Another favourite of David’s is chestnut and Jerusalem artichoke casserole. Sweet, nutty, savoury all in the same mouthful. Sometimes if I am feeling generous I will make some wholemeal hot water crust pastry, and put the leftovers in a pie the next day.
Do the usual and sweat some onions and chopped carrot and celery in olive oil and grate some garlic in at the end. Then add the bag of vacuum-packed chestnuts, a couple of large chopped fresh tomatoes, a couple of chunked carrots and 500g washed Jerusalem artichokes. These do not come in nice neat uniform sizes so you might have to chop them into chunks if some are as big as your knuckles! Add some seasoning, a good sprinkling of chopped fresh thyme and chopped fresh parsley, a tablespoon of Energita yeast flakes (wholefood shop), half a glass of dark sherry (the stuff my mother drinks, not your best Amontillado), about 500ml stock and 125g chopped mushrooms. Simmer away gently without a lid. Check your seasoning at the end.
Tapas
For tapas, just open that tin of octopus Gill, and drain off the oil. Slice the bigger pieces into thin strips and lay on a plate with thin strips of roasted red pepper – along with olives, little cubes of bread fried in olive oil, fresh tomatoes and basil, hummus and baba ganoush.
Paella
Octopus in paella, well that’s a different thing altogether. My favourite paella contains rabbit, octopus, squid and white fish. Maybe a prawn or two. Everyone has their favourite recipe and this is mine. It does not claim to be completely authentic and Spanish amigas and amogos may turn their heads in horro at this stage!
For four, use a suitably sized paella pan. I don’t have a gas stove so I use our portable camping stove or cook the paella out in the campervan on the drive! First, joint your rabbit and cut it into chunks rather than legs, arms, saddle and loin. Easiest way is to cut it into joints then chop up the pieces. Leave the bones in. Use half the rabbit for four people. You don’t have to use rabbit at all; if you prefer you can use chicken. In fact any bird.
Add two finely chopped onions and a finely chopped carrot and a finely chopped stick of celery to the pan with more olive oil than you would usually use. Fry gently till soft. This is the sofritto. Turn up the heat and add the rabbit, stirring all the time and letting the rabbit get a bit brown. Now add the garlic (too early and it will stick and burn) then chopped red pepper, then sliced squid, a drained tin of octopus or fresh chopped tentacles. Keep stirring as it all cooks. At this point add a generous mug of paella rice and stir it round in the juices. Add a glass of white wine if you wish and let it splutter and reduce. Now add 1 litre of hot and well seasoned fish stock and a small packet of paella seasoning (you can get it in the supermarket or deli’s). Or if you cannot find it use a teaspoon of smoked paprika and a large pinch of saffron slaked with hot water. Cook it gently, gently, keeping an eye on it and adding more liquid as you go. It will probably take between 25 and 30 minutes. Stir a little if you must and keep topped up with liquid – the paella, not you! After 15 minutes add chunks of white fish if you wish, such as cod and push these down into the rice. Add prawns at the end and make sure they are completely pink before you serve them. Check seasoning.
Mussels and clams are popular additions but I don’t eat them – an aberration of advancing years is that my gut no longer tolerates them. That is why they don’t appear in this recipe.
The final thing to achieve is the authentic crispy bottom. Yes – a great paella should have a crispy bottom and it is called socarrat. To achieve it (if it hasn’t already done so of its own volition) turn up the heat to crisp (not burn) the bottom for a couple of minutes.
Garlic
Where do we start? Could I cook without it? Is a kitchen a kitchen without it? Grate into olive oil and chopped basil leaves and then add to mashed potatoes for Skordalia and dip raw vegetables into it; mash with butter and load onto bread and toast it; stuff a chicken with 20 cloves and taste it; bake a whole head of garlic in a terracotta dish then squeeze out the caramelised cloves onto bread or roast vegetables; stud a leg of lamb with garlic cloves and rosemary stalks. Best of all plant it. I must have planted about 60 garlic plants – it works in pots as well as in the ground – this year. Here’s some advice on growing garlic from The Garlic Farm on the Isle of Wight.
We use so much garlic the vampires will never get us!
Marion bowled me a curveball this morning and it made me think.
Her three ingredients were Raw beetroot, red cabbage and baked beans and my first thought was eek!
From the mists of time rose the memory of sitting in a university canteen in Moscow with Lynne and Liz, Malcolm and others eating borscht with a fish head floating in it and hating it, yet on the other hand being amazed and delighted by the beautiful soft warm rolls with minced spiced meat in the middle – Piroshki. So here’s a Brucie’s Bonus. Soup and rolls recipe.
First the soup
1 small red cabbage, sliced thinly and removing the core and thicker hard stems; 1 chopped onion, 600g or so (doesn’t need to be precise) peeled raw beetroot chopped into dice. You could also add a chopped apple if you wish. Two diced cloves of garlic and a thumb sized piece of ginger (I keep mine in the freezer and grate on the microplane grater). One teaspoon ground coriander and half a teaspoon of ground cumin, some chopped dill if you have it, 75ml olive oil. 25g butter. One large tin baked beans.
In a heavy pan, sweat all the vegetables in the oil and butter, then add the apple if you are using it, garlic, spices and ginger. Give it all a good stir. Add some salt and a little water. Clamp on the lid (I might patent that phrase, I use it so often) and let it burble away for 10 minutes or so. Then add a litre of stock – vegetable or chicken and a big splurge of tomato puree if you have it and a dessert spoon of dark sherry – or some vodka if you prefer. Stir and simmer for a good 25-20 minutes then blend half the soup and return to the pan. Meanwhile, take the tin of baked beans and empty them into a sieve. Wash the sauce off with water from the kettle. Baked beans are only haricot beans in sauce, after all! Check the seasoning in the soup – more salt, black pepper needed? Add the beans and heat gently. Don’t boil again. To serve, add a dollop of thick yogurt on each serving plus some more chopped dill or even a little chopped lovage if you have it.
For the rolls
Half a cup of warm water mixed with half a cup of plain yogurt. 1 teaspoon dried yeast for hand baking (not for bread maker). 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon sugar. 1.5 teaspoons of cumin seed. 150g plain flour. Add the liquid to all the dry ingredients and knead till smooth. Cover the bowl with a cloth and leave for a couple of hours till it doubles in size.
For the filling
Turn the oven on and put an empty baking tray in the oven at 200C. Finely chop an onion, a clove of garlic and sweat gently in a little oil until soft. When the baking tray is hot and the oven up to temperature, spread out 400g minced beef or beef and pork onto the tray, add the cumin seed and season with salt and pepper. Roast this in the oven for 15 minutes until it goes brown. This is a great Tom Kerridge method of browning mince without frying it. Drain off the fat from the meat then add it to the onion with some chopped dill, chopped green onion tops, a dessert spoon of Marmite or vegemite and a tablespoon of coarse semolina if you have it. Check the seasoning – you will need it very well seasoned as the bread dough will dampen it down. Cook it down in the pan then leave to cool. When cool, put it in a bowl and mix in an egg yolk.
Returning to the dough, knock the dough down in the bowl and turn onto the work surface. Knead it a little then form into as many balls about the size of a golf ball as you can make from the amount of dough you have. Flatten each one slightly then add a teaspoon of the cold meat in the middle. If you do this in the palm of your hand, you can then cup your fingers round it to draw the edges in and pinch them all together. Try to ensure that there are no air pockets left in the middle. Then roll the dough in your hands to form a ball, or elongate it slightly to a boat shape. Place on a baking tray lined with baking paper, about 9 to a standard sized tray. Then leave to prove in a warm place for half an hour.
Put in the oven at 200C and bake for no more than 15 minutes. You can also fry them in deep oil.
This one is for Claudia and Malc. Claudia gave me cod, all sorts of tomatoes, courgette and sweet potato.
First, the tomato sauce. It is rich and savoury.
Finely chop an onion, a celery stick if you have it, and a carrot. Melt some butter in a pan with some olive oil and half a tin of anchovies and a couple of bay leaves. Add the vegetables and stir around in the buttery oil and then add a good grating of a large clove of garlic. Don’t stir this in, otherwise it will caramelise, be bitter and stick. All at the same time. Just let it melt into the vegetables.
I rarely use a garlic press nowadays, instead I either give a clove of garlic a damned good slam with the heel of my hand and then work in some salt having transferred it to a little pestle and mortar (Alternatively use a fine microplane grater held over the pan).
Add a few chilli flakes to taste. Keep it gently burbling away without a lid, until the vegetables are soft – about 10 minutes The Italians call this sofrito. When it is soft, throw in a glass of good red wine (cheap wine = cheap tasting sauce), and reduce on a high heat to practically nothing. Then add two tins of chopped tomatoes and some chopped thyme or rosemary. Bubble away, stirring from time to time, for a good 20 minutes until the sauce reduces a bit more. Toward the end, add black pepper, a few black or green olives, maybe a little salt but you probably won’t need it because the anchovies will have seasoned it, and a flat dessert spoon of brown sugar. Taste, stir, taste, adjust seasoning, take out the bay leaves and set the sauce to one side.
Whilst the sauce is cooking, season two cod fillets with gremolata which always sits on my work surface beside the chopping board. If you are using frozen cod, make sure it is thoroughly defrosted.
What about the courgette and sweet potato, I hear you ask? If you have a spiraliser, then use it to spiralise one big courgette and a peeled medium sized sweet potato. If you don’t have a spiraliser (I don’t) then use the potato peeler or a sharp knife to cut strips off the vegetables about 0.25cm thick, then cut the big strips into smaller strips, lengthways. It really doesn’t take long. You now have lots of strips of courgette and sweet potato – not as long as spaghetti or spiralised but just as tasty.
Now put the fish onto the tomato sauce and keep it bubbling gently for no more than 10 minutes (depending on the thickness of your cod). The idea is to just-cook the fish, not massacre it!
Put a wide, shallow pan on the hob with a glug of olive oil and about 75ml water. Turn the hob to very hot. When it is steaming, add the courgettini and the potatotini. Clamp on the lid and cook fast, shaking it about to distribute the oil and water. The reason for using the shallow wide pan is to increase the surface area on which the spaghettini cooks so that it cooks quickly and evenly in the water, oil and eventually, steam. Eventually after 5 minutes or so – no more – they should be cooked (al-dente) and with very little – if any – liquid left in the pan. If there is any, just drain it off. You are ready to serve. Throw in a good knob of butter and season with a bit more gremolata and some chopped basil if you have it.
Either serve straight onto a plate with the vegetables serving as ‘spaghettini’ with the sauce and its friend the cod on top, or straight into a serving dish. Finish with a little more basil and a grind of black pepper. Have a little parmesan to hand to sprinkle on top if you wish.
This one is for Mags who has offered me a bit of a challenge! Jackfruit, Japanese rice vinegar and dill mustard. Hmmmm. Thanks Mags
First, what is Jackfruit? Personally I can’t stand it but David had a great Jackfruit with hoisin in a bao-bun at Latitude a couple of years ago. Jackfruit is a relative of fig and breadfruit. it grows in the tropics and is frequently used by vegans and vegetarians as a meat substitute because it has a very firm texture but will ‘pull’ apart in shreds so you can use it to casserole, for pulled ‘meat’ in a pitta or flatbread.
Here we go then. First make your paratha. These are so easy and so delicious, you won’t need the flatbread! This paratha recipe is unashamedly lifted from Asma’s Indian Kitchen which was my favourite cookery book of 2019. I’ve cooked them hundreds of times since. Now I have to stop myself cooking them because they all get eaten.
Put 300g plain white flour in a bowl with half a teaspoon each of salt, baking powder and sugar. Add 3tbsp melted ghee or oil. Slowly add 175ml water – feel your way here, depending on the flour you might not need all the water. Mix it all together into what should be a fairly firm dough then knead for about 10 minutes on a floured work surface. If you are lazy like me, throw all the ingredients in the Kenwood and use the dough hook instead! Cover and leave to rest in a warm place. My ‘go-to’ place is in the airing cupboard in winter and on the kitchen windowsill in the summer.
After resting period of about an hour, divide the dough into 8 pieces. dust each piece with flour and roll into circles about 17cm across. Melt some butter (go on, you know it makes sense!) then brush each circle with some butter. Now roll it up tightly from top to bottom, and then curl it up in a tight spiral. Do this with each one. When they are all done, flatten each one with a rolling pin again, and roll each one into a flatbread shape. Have a goodly amount of hot oil on the go in a wide pan. When it’s practically smoking, drop in the paratha two or three at a time depending on the size of your pan. They will puff up a bit in bubbles, after just a minute flip over and cook the other side for no more than a minute. Drain on kitchen towel and leave until you are ready to serve the curry. What curry? The one I’m about to tell you about. The one with the jackfruit that’s in Mags’ cupboard. The jar with the dust on top because no one know what to do with it!
Jackfruit curry
Gather all your curry spices together first. In a dry pan, roast the following: two teaspoons cumin seed, one teaspoon brown or yellow mustard seed, as much chilli flakes as you wish, half a dozen green cardamom pods, a two inch stick of cinnamon, one teaspoon coriander seed, one teaspoon of tumeric, half a teaspoon of asofoetida. Wait till they are popping – about a minute or two – then pour into a mortar, wait till they cool a bit then grind them with a pestle, or grind in a coffee grinder (my ‘spice’ coffee grinder is a Freecycle cast off and about 15 years old). Please don’t use curry pastes – most run-of-the-mill supermarket ones are heavy on tumeric and low on authentic flavour.
In a deep wide pan, add oil and chopped onion and cook till the onion is soft. Then add the spices, making sure there is sufficient oil in the pan (the spices cook then start to thicken in the oil so you need enough oil there in the first place). Cook for about 2 minutes then add a tin of chopped tomatoes, salt to taste, a tablespoon of the rice wine vinegar and just a little sugar. (Seriously, curries often have vinegar in them, I’m not making it up!) Cook at a moderate heat for a good 10 minutes until the sauce is rich and thick. Now add a tin of drained jackfruit and cook for a further 15 minutes. Toward the end, use two forks to pull the jackfruit into shreds. You should now have a pretty thick sauce and thick shreds of jackfruit. Check the seasoning and adjust if necessary. Let it rest for 5 minutes while you cook the parathas.
Now, you’re wondering, where does the dill mustard come in? Pour 100ml good thick plain yogurt into a bowl and add two big dollops of the dill mustard and mix it thoroughly.
Have some plates ready, a bowl of chopped coriander and an extra bowl of the dill mustard yogurt on the table – maybe spike with more chopped fresh dill and mint. Take a paratha, spread it with a little mustard/yogurt then tear off a good sized chunk and scoop up some curried jackfruit, top with some more yogurt from the bowl and a sprinkle of chopped coriander.
Phew. Shame I don’t like jackfruit. It sounds rather good!!
This one’s for Tricia! Wild garlic….. she’s obviously been walking in the woods again.
Generally, you can smell wild garlic before you see it, especially if the sun is out. Before you pick any make sure you are not on private or protected land!! And make sure that if you pick it, only pick the leaves – don’t pull it up roots and all.
The first time I came across wild garlic was when my parents in law lived in Tregoose in the depths of a valley in the depths of Cornwall. Walking through the path in the woods on the other side of the small river that ran through their garden was always magical – the delicate tracery of new leaves silhouetted against a bright blue sky. And wafting from the ground was the pungent smell of crushed garlic. Heavenly.
Here’s a couple of recipes for wild garlic. It will be in the woods somewhere near you right now!
Wild garlic pesto
Who doesn’t love pesto? On pasta, dolloped into soup just before you serve it, spooned onto freshly cooked fish in a pan…..
Wash the leaves thoroughly in lots of running water. Dry them on a clean tea towel.
In a blender, Nutribullet or in a deep pestle, put three large cloves of garlic and a teaspoon of salt. Crush with a mortar if using the pestle, otherwise flick the switch and chop. Then add two large handfull of leaves, 150g pine nuts and about 75g parmegano regiano. Blend again. Add olive oil in a drizzle – probably about 200ml but it depends on the bulk of the dry materials you’ve blended. The idea is that the mixture should drop off a spoon. Taste it and see. It might need a bit more parmesan or salt but these things are down to personal taste.
As a variation – and I have three different types of pesto on the go at the moment – you could substitute walnuts and parlsey for the wild garlic and pine nuts; or basil and cashews or pumpkin seeds – ditto.
Wild garlic pesto lasagne
First off take 150g red lentils, put them in a saucepan with a dried red chilli and a bay leaf. Add water to 1.5cm above the lentils. Bring to the boil and simmer until nearly all the water is absorbed, but not quite.
Pasta is easy and the easiest way is to make it in a food processor. Or you can do it by hand by blending 600g flour (00) – although I have made it with good quality plain flour. Add a teaspoon of salt. Make a well in the centre then add 6 beaten eggs, gradually drawing the flour into the centre. when all the egg is absorbed, knead the dough until it is soft and springy. If you are vegan use the recipe here using tofu instead of eggs. Or if you are lazy like me, put it all in the food processor until it forms a dough. Put in a bowl, cover with a damp cloth and rest the dough for 30 minutes.
For the filling, fry a finely chopped onion and some celery with some garlic until soft. Throw in a glass of red wine and reduce. Then add two tins of chopped tomatoes, a small sprinkle of chilli flakes, half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, chopped thyme and rosemary to your taste and just a little sugar. Simmer until it is thick and almost sticking to the pan. Now remove the bay and chilli from the lentils and add the lentils to the tomato sauce. Mix and taste and adjust seasoning.
You do not need a pasta machine. Just a floured surface, a good rolling pin and some elbow grease. Roll the dough, keep turning it one quarter turn at a time, roll, turn, roll, turn. A bit like doing front crawl! It needs to be really thin (see picture). Cut lasagne sheets to size.
Now choose your dish – just choose one deep enough to leave a gap at the top when it’s full. Neat trick – put a thin layer of sauce in first, then layer up with pasta, sauce, pasta, sauce, pasta, a few dollops of pesto (see above) then sauce, finish with pasta.
You might want to make a bechamel for the top. Personally, mostly I can’t be bothered and find that 200g quark, or full fat yogurt works just as well, with 3 eggs beaten into it and a handful of parmesan and some black pepper and a little scrape of nutmeg.
Put into the oven at 200C for 30 minutes then check it. It will probably need another 10 to 15 minutes after that. Take it out of the oven and let it rest. Don’t serve straight away. Leave it for 15 minutes – it really will not get cold – before you slice and serve. Belissima!
One of my fondest food memories was eating in an Agritourismo in La Marche in Italy. Layers and layers of paper think pasta with a smear of passata between them, a light grating of parmesan and a basil leaf or two.
Ready Steady Cook Viral Antidote 3 is for Sheila Horner. Oh Sheila, how we wish we were sitting on your terrace staring at the Sierra de la Contraviesa!! I’ve cooked this – and variations of it – many times in your kitchen.
Sheila asked what can she do with a tin of tuna, a tin of chick peas and tomato puree. Well you live in Spain girl, the answer is in your kitchen!
Shakshuka is a smoky mix of onions, red pepper and eggs. Today I am adding tuna and chick peas.
In a wide shallow pan, gently fry onions and chopped garlic in lots of olive oil. When soft, add 2 sliced red peppers, a good heaped teaspoon of hot smoked paprika, four large or six small fresh tomatoes, a tin of chick peas with its liquid, a generous tablespoon of tomato puree. Mix it all together an add another 150ml water, salt, black pepper. Clamp on the lid and simmer away for 10 minutes then remove the lid, stir and simmer for 20 more. The aim is to reduce the liquid by half but still leave juice in the pan. Now chop a generous handful of parsley and some fresh coriander add a desert spoon of brown sugar and stir the sugar and the herbs into the pan. Check the seasoning. It should be deeply tomatoey, slightly sweet and thick but not runny. Drain the tuna and dot the chunks over the surface, pushing them down slightly. Now make four indentations in the mixture and drop an egg into each indentation. Lightly sprinkle the eggs with hot smoked paprika. Put the lid on again and cook gently for about 10 minutes. If you want your eggs runny cook it for about 5 minutes. Always with the lid on. Take off the heat, remove the lid and leave for 5 minutes. Serve with crispy bread and salad.
Best eaten on Sheila and Jack’s terrace about 21.30 with a bottle of rough musto from Pampaniera! I dare you not to finish it.
I was talking to Peter online about food (plus ca change?) and we came up with an idea. A Covid19 Ready Steady Cook Challenge to use the stuff that is at the back of your cupboard. You know the sort of stuff. 3 year out of date mung beans. 5 year out of date rice flour. A lonely tin or artichoke hearts. Or six in his case. Here’s a recipe. You can do it in a couple of ways. It is so simple – one even requires no cooking at all.
Open your tin of artichokes. Turn them upside down in a colander to drain them then pat dry with kitchen towel. Take a packet of proscuitto or Serrano ham or similar. And some spinach leaves. Take an artichoke, encircle it with ham, then a spinach leaf or two. Hold it all together with a cocktail stick. Place them all on the plate. Crush a clove of garlic with a little salt, black pepper and maybe some ancho chilli flakes. Or maybe just some garlic mayo. Spoon over your artichokes. Eat with lovely bread. Maybe with a roasted pepper or two.
Alternatively, drain a couple of tins of artichokes (that leaves four, Peter). Gently sweat a couple of onions in olive oil and butter with some garlic until they are soft. Put the onions in an ovenproof dish. Then add the artichokes, cut side up. Add 300ml cream – maybe with a little tarragon chopped into it, but this isn’t necessary, it could be basil or parsley or chives. Give a good grind of black pepper, maybe a light grating of nutmeg then a good handful of parmesan over the top. Cook in the oven at about 190 for 25 – 40 minutes until bubbling and piping hot. It’s oh so yum with a big salad and garlic bread.
Of course there is no such thing as a viral antidote! Only social isolation will do that. I am doing it already. But I thought maybe a few nice recipes from my kitchen might not go amiss. It will be part of my self-management strategy but also might fire ideas for lunch, or dinner. Peter certainly thought so and asked for the recipe. So here it is.
Soda bread is a quick bread to make and a quick bread to cook. It is not yeasted but relies on bicarbonate of soda to make it rise. It only takes 5 minutes to rise and 25 minutes to bake. We had soup and bread on the table in 30 minutes today.
You can add loads of variations to it, such as olives, caramelised onions (or, for ease, snipped spring onions), cheese, herbs.
The sodabread doesn’t keep well, which is a great excuse to eat it all in one day. You could halve the quantities and make sodabread scones instea.
Sodabread
450g plain while flour, or 300 g wholewheat plain flour (not bread flour) and 150g plain white flour
1 level teaspoon salt
1 level teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
600ml sour milk, buttermilk or yogurt and milk mixed (to make sour milk, squeeze lemon juice into the milk – it will curdle slightly)
Pre-heat the oven to 475 or Gas 9. Put all the dry ingredients into a big bowl and mix them thoroughly. You can add other ingredients at this point, if you wish. Make a well in the centre and pour in the milk. Stir the ingredients together from the centre to the outside until all are combined. Do this gently. When it is combined, turn onto a floured surface. Don’t knead it, just gently shape it into a round that’s about 3cm deep. Cut a cross across the top. Place onto some baking parchment on a flat baking tray and into the oven she goes for about 25 minutes. when its done you should be able to pick it up and when you knock the base it should be crisp and sound hollow. Cool on a wire rack.
Vegetable and bean soup
Use whatever vegetables you like but chop them all into equal sized chunks. Today I used onion, garlic, carrot, celery, butternut squash and red pepper. Sweat in a little olive oil, plus a bay leaf in a deep saucepan. Here’s a tip. Season at this stage and add about half a cup of water. Clamp on the lid and simmer for 5 minutes. This reduces the amount of oil or butter you would have used. Then add 250ml passata or chopped tinned tomatoes and a drained tin of cannelini beans. Taste. Add more seasoning and cook till all the vegetables are tender but not mushy.
Four extra tips
use gremolata for your seasoning – use link for the method I always have a jar beside the hob. It’s easy to make
add a couple of tablespoons of Brown’s mushroom ketchup for a deep savoury hit (Tesco and Waitrose stock it)
when you serve dollop on a spoonful of parsley and walnut pesto. There is usually some in our fridge – or some other sort of pesto
grate some cheese on top of your sodabread before you put it in the oven
The crowds have gone and we are left with leftovers in the veg basket. Most of them are still edible.
Here’s a quick fix before they go too soft and manky round the edges.
With the merest hint of a nod to Olia Hercules……
Veg and salad drawer basket offerings today included
spring onions, dry skin and root removed
shallots – banana and pickling onion shaped
red cabbage, sliced thin
radishes cut in half top to bottom
courgette cut into chunks
garlic cloves for good measure
half a jar of medium sized pickled gherkins
Carrot, peeled and chunked
crisp apples, cored and quartered
Put all the vegetables in a large bowl and season with sea salt.
In a saucepan bring 750ml organic cider vinegar to the boil. Add a handful of coriander seed, a couple of star anise, black mustard seed and green cardamom seed plus two heaped tablespoons of raw cane sugar. Boil again. Then cool.
Sterilise a 2litre jar with boiling water or blast it in your microwave with a little water in the jar. Make sure it is scrupulously clean.
Put a couple of fresh bay leaves and a couple of whole dried chillis in the jar. Pack the veg in nice and tight then pour in the vinegar making sure to cover the veg. Bang the container firmly on the worktop to bring any air bubbles to the surface. Allow to cool and start eating in a couple of weeks, then store in the fridge once opened.
Horseradish
I bought some horseradish root, meaning to make horseradish cream for presents. I failed. I fished it out of the salad drawer today, it was a bit wrinkly. The last time I made horseradish we had to evacuate the house as the fumes were breath-stopping. This time I was more careful! WARNING! Do not put your face over freshly grated horseradish and then breathe in.
Peel a 15cm length of horseradish root and wipe it clean. Put it in a MicroBullet or food processor to chop it finely. Add a teaspoon of mustard powder, half a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of sugar, a teaspoon of lemon juice and mix again. Remove contents and place in a bowl (remember to keep your head out of the bowl) and mix in 200ml thick cream or mayonnaise. Stir to combine. Place in sterilised jars and seal. Give to friends for leftover beef, or hot mackerel, or tuna sandwiches this week!
We are in the middle of decorating having had three rooms plastered. Why, then, is the whole house in tatters? Time for something warm, hearty and vegan/gluten-free on this miserable October day.
Peel and chop one leek, one clove of garlic, four parsnips and a stick or two of celery. Sweat the vegetables with a bay leaf or two and a sprig of rosemary in the bottom of a pan for 10 minutes using some good quality olive oil and half a cup of water. Add that cup full of vegetable soup left over from yesterday, a tablespoon of Energita (yeast flakes) – or alternatively about 500ml of vegetable stock (I use Marigold). Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for about 15 minutes. Then add that pear that’s been going a bit soft on the windowsill – peel, core and chop it into the soup, adding 250ml of Oatly or Almond milk. Cook for five more minutes. Allow to cool, then whizz with the stick blender. Taste, and add a bit of gremolata if it needs seasoning. It probably will.
Today, whilst himself drove off to Diss to buy a paint kettle (don’t ask) I made the soup and some gluten-free soda bread. With some fake Parmesan.
Sift 250g gluten free white flour and 250g gluten free wholemeal flour plus 1.5 teaspoons of salt and the same of bicarbonate of soda into a bowl. Add a good handful of fake Parmesan. Add 400ml Oatly or similar, into which you have squeezed the juice of half a lemon (it encourages the Bicarb to fizz, in case you are wondering). Mix it all together till it just binds, then turn out onto the work surface that you’ve drifted (like Snow White) with coarse semolina. Gently form into a round, slash the top, prick the quarters to let the fairies out then place onto a baking tray lined with greaseproof. Sprinkle with more fake Parmesan. Slide into a very hot oven (225) for 10 minutes then turn the temperature down to 200 and cook for a further 20. Turn the break over for the last 5. When you knock on the bottom it should sound hollow. A bit like me. If it doesnt, give it 5 more.
By the time David returned (with a paint kettle plus an inspection lamp – going to Screwfix for him is like me going to IKEA – lunch was ready.
Now he is painting and I am cutting back the Verbena and bringing the pots into the greenhouse. Sounds idyllic doesn’t it! Anyone who knows me that idyllic is not me!!
Anyway, we were talking burgers here. Especially non-meat burgers. I said I’d share some recipes with The Fry Up Police guys so I thought I’d share them with you too. Now don’t get me wrong. I love a big, juicy, meaty, slightly underdone burger. However I live with a vegetarian, so meaty burgers are definitely treats, eaten on the street (don’t tell my ma I was eating on the street!) or at a Festival.
Here’s a selection of vegan burgers for you to try. I have made and eaten them all, but the photos are someone else’s.
The trick with making burgers is to finely balance the amount of moisture and the seasoning in the mix (too little, and they will fall apart and be bland, too much and you will have a stew instead of a burger!) Only you can judge this, so go with what you are feeling in the bowl and with your instinct for the level of seasoning. Does the mixture feel too dry and crumbly, will it form easily into a burger shape in your hands without falling apart, is it too sticky/tacky? Taste a bit to check the seasoning and if anything over-season in the bowl as the flavours will mellow when cooking. Here’s some top tips.
#toptip1 – Remember that the burgers will ‘firm up’ when you’ve made them, and it helps if you get it just about the right texture, form them into burgers and then put in the fridge to hasten the process of firming up before you cook them.
#toptip2 – When you are ready to cook them, dredge a generous amount of coarse semolina on the work surface and put the burgers onto the semolina, turning them over and round so that they are coated. This forms a lovely even and crispy outer shell which holds the burger together
#toptip3 – Seasoning. Always be generous with your seasoning. The reason why most non-meat burgers you’ve eaten up till now are disappointing, is simply because they are under-seasoned!
#toptip4 – Added bits. Always have added bits – raw onion, avocado, sliced tomato (at room temperature), dill pickles, thick brown sauce, Dijon mustard or that lovely mayo mixed with Dijon mustard….. the list is endless. But you must have bits!
Black bean burgers could not be simpler – mostly because they have in-built juice! But you don’t want all of it! Drain a tin of black beans into a bowl until all the juice has gone. Finely chop three spring onions and one large clove of garlic (grated), a teaspoon of cumin powder, half a teaspoon of smoked paprika and if you like, a chopped chilli (to your taste), a heavy dash of Tamari (like soy sauce), a good squirt of HP brown sauce or a tablespoon of tamarind paste, a cup of fine breadcrumbs or Matzo meal.
Combine all the ingredients by simply squishing them all together with your hands. Leave some texture in there. There should be sufficient moisture to hold it all together when you form it into burger sized patties (how I hate that word – patties).
When making any bean burger, make sure you rest it before you cook it. You have to make the starch in the beans do the work for you, which is why you squeeze them and break them down a bit. Form the mixture into burgers and leave in the fridge for a couple of hours if you can (or half an hour in the freezer) before shallow frying in hot oil.
Who can resist bubble and squeak? Not me! Memories of Monday -wash-days at home with the twin-tub burbling away. Coming home from school at lunch time, steaming kitchen, old heavy frying pan on the stove and the smell of yesterday’s sprouts/greens/potatoes frying up in the pan, slightly blackened at the edges.
This burger is better with left overs than made fresh!
Take equal quantities of cold roast, mashed or boiled potatoes, cold dark greens and/or sprouts, a handful of chopped spring onions, salt, black pepper, just a little chopped chilli, grated garlic and squidge together in a bowl with some seasoning. If it is just a little bit dry (it probably won’t be) add a smidge of plant-based milk or plain yogurt. Keep squidging – again its about releasing those starches that will hold it all together. Check for salt and pepper and remember that all that starch will ‘eat’ the seasoning so if anything, over-season and it will taste milder after they are cooked. into burger sized burgers and do the magic trick again. Rest them in the fridge, then take out, dredge with coarse semolina and fry in hot oil.
Don’t forget the magic of your mum’s bubble and squeak. Make sure you have some charred bits on the outside!
This one is in contention for my favourite burger of all time. It is ludicrously simple.
Cut 2cm thick slices from a whole cauliflower.
Add salt and black pepper, a dollop of olive oil and a couple of tablespoons of harissa to a bowl. Drop in the cauliflower and marinade for as long as you like. Then put a shallow roasting pan, lined with baking paper, into a hot (200C) oven for 10 minutes. Then sprinkle olive oil onto the paper and lay the cauliflower steaks on top. Roast in this hot oven for 25 minutes then turn the steaks over and roast for another 10. Now, you can either pile into a bun with salad, roasted juicy onions and pine-nuts, or allow to cool then freeze.
Yup. Chestnut and rice. It’s another of my favourites.
Take one packet of cooked vacuum-packed chestnuts and half a packet of ready cooked wholemeal rice and half a pack of tofu (well drained). First, put your tofu onto a plate with three or four pieces of kitchen towel underneath and on top. Press down with the heel of your hand to release as much liquid as you can and pour away the liquid. Finely chop a couple of spring onions, put all the ingredients into a bowl and – yes, you got it! – squidge. Break up the chestnuts, combine with the rice and the tofu. Add a good squeeze of tomato puree, the grated zest of half a lemon, salt and pepper, some chopped fresh parsley or coriander and combine into burger shapes. As usual, rest in the fridge, then dredge with semolina and cook in the pan or roast them in a hot oven until crispy.
You get the idea. Burgers can be made of anything. So get experimenting! And don’t forget the bits!
It’s Summer. It’s picnic time. I am going swimming.
Yesterday we attempted – and failed – to get to Sea Palling. Traffic.
Today we will leave late afternoon and head for our old haunt, Walberswick beach. For years we would camp there every summer. Kids, friends, swimming, beach fires, swimming all hours of the day and night.
Scotch eggs are called for. Of the vegetarian variety. And cold potatoes with aioli. And radish, tomato and onion salad. To be eaten post-swim, on the beach, with beer.
i realised I’d not made a scotch egg since I was at school, let alone a vegetarian one.
Hard boil four or five eggs. Cool and take off the shell.
Drain a tin of chick peas and half a tin of red kidney beans.
In the food processor add one small onion, three fat cloves of garlic, a handful of parsley and fresh coriander, a good sprinkle of Aleppo chilli flakes, a tablespoon of medium oatmeal, two teaspoons of cumin seed, the seeds from half a dozen green cardamom, a flat dessert spoon of garlic powder, salt and black pepper and a tablespoon of yeast flakes. Blitz in the processor then add the beans, blitz again until it is no longer chunky, but make sure it doesn’t turn into hummus! It needs a bit of substance to it. Turn into a bowl (the moisture, not you!), cover and put in the fridge for half an hour.
Prepare for action. Have plenty of kitchen roll ready for draining. From right to left, have a bowl of cold water, your bowl of bean mixture, eggs, brinjal chutney (my special ingredient but you can delete if you don’t like it), a work surface dusted with gram flour (chick pea flour), a slotted spoon and then your vegetable oil in a pan. The pan should be big enough for you to turn the egg over whilst it is cooking but not so vast that you waste a lot of oil..
Wet your hands then take a good palm full of bean mixture. Flatten it out across your palm then spread a teaspoon of brinjal over it, then roll the egg in the flour and put the egg on top. Cup your hand so that the mixture spreads up the side of the egg, then gently seal the bean mixture round the egg at the top so there are no gaps and no air trapped inside. Do this with as many eggs as you need then put on an oiled plate, cover and put in the fridge to firm up for 15 minutes.
Gently lower in one egg at a time. Leave it I disturbed for 3-4 minutes so that the bottom crisps, then gently roll it over until all surfaces are golden brown giving each ‘roll a further two minutes until evenly brown and crisp all over. Repeat.
Cool on kitchen towel on a rack.
(If you want to join us. We’ll be on the beach near the huts about 18.00)
Why is it that when you know you can’t eat lots of grains and flour, you really, really want CAKE?! Especially, in my case, sticky, gooey gingerbread.
I have a couple of go-to books that are great for intolerants. Cake Angels by Julia Thomas and The Intolerant Gourmet by Pippa Kendrick, who I’ve mentioned before on this blog.
I’ve adapted Julia’s Gingerbread recipe here and its the one I shall be using for one layer of Wil and Angie’s wedding cake in March #watchthisspace.
Grease and line a 21cm square cake tin. Heat your oven to 170C.
You will need black treacle and golden syrup here. Top tip for how to measure it out at the bottom of this page.
175g molasses (black treacle)
75g runny honey
75g ginger syrup from the ginger jar
175g Flora or similar
100g dark muscovado sugar
350g gluten free plain flour (brown or white)
0.5tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp cinnamon
3 preserved ginger chopped into small pieces
2 tsp ground flax seed (just grind in a pestle and mortar or coffee grinder) mixed with a little cold water
150ml soya or almond milk
Heat the runny ingredients and the margarine in a large saucepan, in a gentle sort of fashion. Allow it to cool. Add the ground flax seed and its water (this is a raising agent). Add the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and mixed spice plus the chopped ginger and beat with a balloon whisk until it’s all combined and looks glossy.
Pour into the lined tin and bake in the middle of the oven. Check after one hour by inserting a skewer into the middle. If it comes out clean, it’s done. If not, put a square of tin foil on the top and bake for another 15 minutes or so at a slightly lower heat.
Cool the cake in the tin for an hour before removing to a wire cooling tray.
This cake tastes best if you can bear to leave it for a week in an airtight tin. It’s lovely with a little runny icing drizzled on top. Equally, it is delicious with Cheshire cheese! You can also make more than one, cook in round cake tins and then sandwich together with whipped coconut cream.
Whipped coconut cream
Put a tin of high quality coconut cream (the liquid kind) in the fridge overnight. In the morning, open it and pour away the liquid, reserving the remaining solid element. Put this in your food mixer bowl then whisk with the balloon whisk until it is really thick (like double cream). Add a little chopped preserved ginger, a teaspoon of vanilla essence and a tablespoon of maple syrup. Whip again. Then cut your cake in half and slather it on then add the top half! If you feel really fancy you can even pipe it!
Believe me the combination of rich ginger cake, light coconut, maple syrup and vanilla is #fanbloodytastic
#TopTip
Weigh then grease a shallow dish then coat liberally with cornflour. Pour your syrup and treacle into the dish. Weigh it. Slide out into the saucepan and you should have a clean dish and no sticky residue! I learned that at school!
750g chuck steak. I use steak from Yare Valley Oils Belted Galloways or Beautiful Beef in Tharston Red Polls. All herds are free-range, ethically raised and slaughtered locally. I say that because some of my friends are very sensitive to animal welfare and not that excited about me eating meat. I live with a vegetarian and so meat doesn’t figure that high on our menus. However I am happy with my conscience knowing that I have incisors (therefore I am a meat eater) and I won’t buy cheap mass-produced meat, preferring to know its provenance.
Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, chuck steak.
750g chuck steak. Two medium sized onions. One large knobbly carrot. One stalk of celery. Two cloves of garlic. A teaspoon of cumin seed. The remainder of a bottle of red wine (about 100ml), Gremolata Beef stock (in my world, that’s Oxo), half a tin of chopped tomatoes, a little cornflour (this is made from maize, not wheat!), black pepper.
Cut your steak into medium sized pieces and put in a bowl. Add a good tablespoon of gremolata and a good few churns of the pepper grinder, add the cumin. Drop in a couple of bay leaves. Add two tablespoons of cornflour and mix around to coat the meat.
Chop your celery into fine dice and your onions into slices and your large knobbly carrot into moderate sized pieces. Put a big glug of oil into a pan (I use the le Crueset I’m going to use for the meat) and bring it to a moderate heat. Add the vegetables and sweat them slowly and gently with the lid on until soft. Remove vegetables from the pan and scrape around the bottom of the pan a bit. Add a little more oil. Get it hot then drop in about 30% of the pieces of meat and sear it till it gets brown. Don’t overfill the pan otherwise it will just steam and it will go grey instead. Remove meat from the pan and add to the vegetables. Repeat until all the meat is browned. turn up the heat and add the red wine so that it bubbles and boils, boiling away the alcohol. Keep scraping the bits off the bottom of the pan as it boils. Then take off the heat and add the meat and vegetables, turning them round in the winey sludge at the bottom. Put back on the heat and add the tomatoes and sufficient stock to cover the meat. Bring gently to the boil with the lid on, then turn the heat down and simmer for a good 2 hours. Or you can put it in the oven. Then allow to cool. Check the seasoning to see if you need more salt. After it has cooled down, if you are making it ahead of the game, put in the fridge and take out the next day and allow to come to room temperature before you put into the pie.
For the pastry. Use 250g gluten-free flour (plain white, or plain wholemeal) and 120g Flora or similar. Half a teaspoon of salt. Rub the fat into the flour then add sufficient water to bring the dough together. Then leave the dough for half an hour. Put your meat and its gravy into a dish and if you have one, add one of those pretty little pottery birds in the middle – the ones that let the steam out!
Wet the edges of the dish. Roll out your pastry making it a good 2cm wider and longer than the dish. Cut long strips off the pastry and lay along the dampened edges of the dish. Then roll the pastry onto your pin and roll it over your dish, making a little hole for the birdie’s beak to poke through. press the edges down, then glaze either with egg wash or with soya milk mixed with a little custard powder or turmeric. Believe me, it works!
Bake in a pre-heated oven at 190C for about an hour, turning down to 160 and maybe protecting the top with a bit of tin foil, after 40 minutes. Depends on your oven.
OK. So I am clearly entering Erikkson’s eighth psychosocial stage. That of wisdom and despair. I’m happy with the wisdom bit. And I’m not a despairing sort of person as those who know me will attest. However I have found over the past 3 years that parts of me – including my digestive system – is more sensitive. Along with my first ever bout of gout, combining alcohol with my drug regime (!) and a dodgy hip. And so a few adjustments have been made. The good outcome is dropping two dress sizes. Less good is being unable to drink beer, eat too much liver, mackerel, smoked salmon, sardines, spinach and cavolo nero, having to moderate the wine intake and be careful about eating too many grains. Has it driven me to despair though? No it hasn’t. It’s another opportunity to adapt and find new things and new ways. Does it mean I never eat any of those things? No!
So here’s my first ‘sensitive’ recipe. Gluten-free vegan mince-pies.
Soak 100g raisins and a tablespoon of chia seeds n some hot tea for half an hour. Drain then add 2tbsp maple syrup, 1tbsp of molasses and the grated rind of a small orange. Grate two eating apples into the raisins and then 2 tbs pine-nuts and two of pumpkin seeds. Add about 25g marzipan paste (egg free) chopped into tiny pieces. Add about 1 tbsp of any spirit such as brandy, whisky or port. Combine all the ingredients. Best do this a few hours before you are making the pastry – or put in a sterilised jar and keep in the fridge for no more than a week.
I used 240g of Dove’s Farm gluten-free flour for the pastry, half a teaspoon of salt, a sprinkle of baking powder, a little grating of lemon rind and 120g Flora. Just make it like normal pastry by rubbing the fat into the flour, pull it together with some cold water and leave to rest for half an hour. You will find that gluten-free flour makes a very ‘soft’ dough and – inevitably – it’s not very stretchy. But it is perfectly workable with a little care.
Prepare your tins by greasing liberally first, then throw in some coarse semolina and swirl around the base and the sides. This makes the finished article lovely and crisp on the bottom and prevents stickage! Roll out the dough, use a cutter that’s big enough (don’t know about you, but incy-pincy mince-pies look so mean, so I use a muffin tin – call me greedy if you like). Fill the bases with your fruit mixture, then add the pastry tops, using a little liquid to seal the edges.
#Three Top Tips.
Grease the tins and then throw a little coarse semolina into each depression and swirl it around to coat the bottom and the sides
Use a round-bladed knife just to ease the edges away from the pan after you’ve added the tops, then they won’t seal as if stuck by super-glue when you try to take them out!
Mix a tablespoon or so of soya milk with a tiny amount of custard powder if you don’t like egg-wash. Use egg-wash or the yellow milk to glaze the tops.
Bake toward the top of a pre-heated oven at 200C for 15-20 minutes. Check just before 15 minutes. I swear you will burn the roof of your mouth because you won’t be able to wait for them to get cool!
I was a frequent flyer at the Festival of Food tent at Latitude Festival last weekend. All sorts, from a recording of The Kitchen Cabinet, baking, sourdough. Felicity Cloake (How to Cook the Perfect…. in The Guardian) was worth seeing, if only for her tips on making butter.
Yesterday morning I thought I’d have a go – having loads to do already, it seemed a good way of not getting on with what really needed to be done!
900ml double cream (95p per 300ml from Asda). 2 tbsp live yogurt. Put it in the food mixer bowl and use the balloon whisk. First, whisk it to the point where you might use it for spreading the cream on a cake or a trifle. Then continue whisking until the curds separate from the whey. Strain through sterile muslin and squeeze out all the buttermilk (the whey), and reserve this. Put back in the bowl with 500ml ice cold water. Whisk again (the reason for this is to wash out the buttermilk which turns the butter sour if it is too wet). Drain again. ‘Wash’ again and whisk. Drain again. Now squeeze out as much liquid as you can.
Turn out the solids into a clean dry bowl or onto a new piece of muslin and sprinkle with seasalt to taste. If I had kept my granny’s butter paddles I would have used them at this stage to ‘pat’ and turn the butter. But I had failed to recognise what use they might be and they went to a jumble sale 20 years ago. Instead I used two spatulas.
The result was 500g of butter, which in £££ terms is better value than buying two 250g packs of President or similar.
My reward was fresh bread, spread with butter then with Marmite. Bliss!
After 4 days sweltering at Latitude, today I dipped into Diana Henry’s latest How to Eat a Peach. It is divine. For a few years I was in love with Nigel Slater and Dennis Cotter. But Diana Henry has it. Great writing. Great stories. Great history. Brilliant no-fuss food.
Latitude was exhausting although the food outlets there excelled themselves. Bao Buns, Souvlaki, 90second pizza from local foodies Fundhi, pop-your-head-off Rendang beef…… ooo, and hot sugary donuts and hot chocolate in the middle of the night. And a vertiginous Ferris-wheel ride with my man.
Tonight though, it was Fideua. A Valencian dish that is a bit like paella but without the fish and the rice!
It is simple. Chopping and prep take about 5 minutes, cooking no more than 20. So here we go.
Empty the oil from a small jar of artichokes into a wide shallow cooking pot. Add finely diced celery (about 1 stalk), one chopped onion, one chopped courgette, one chopped red pepper, sliced fennel, two grated cloves of garlic and finally the artichokes that we’re in the bottle. Cook for 5 minutes. Add two generous teaspoons smoked paprika (picante) and stir around. You will notice that the paprika, steam plus oil makes an emulsified vermillion coating for the vegetables. Make 1litre stock from good quality pouches or cubes. Add a large pinch of saffron and pour it into the vegetables.
Add 250g of fine pasta – I used Greek Mitzes from Asda. Add the liquid and just a little salt if necessary (depends on the saltiness of the stock. Stir once, then leave it bubbling away gently till the pasta is cooked. The key is not to stir. The best bits are the slightly crunchy bits on the bottom.
When nearly ready – 10 minutes tops – throw in some frozen peas or if you are up for it, blanch some broad beans in advance, then slip them out of their little grey overcoats onto the pasta.
Guaranteed success – just don’t stir the pasta or the carbs will release and make it gloopy!
One p
Ready Steady Cook Viral Antidote 3
This is by special request.
OK. So I am clearly entering Erikkson’s eighth psychosocial stage. That of wisdom and despair. I’m happy with the wisdom bit. And I’m not a despairing sort of person as those who know me will attest. However I have found over the past 3 years that parts of me – including my digestive system – is more sensitive. Along with my first ever bout of gout, combining alcohol with my drug regime (!) and a dodgy hip. And so a few adjustments have been made. The good outcome is dropping two dress sizes. Less good is being unable to drink beer, eat too much liver, mackerel, smoked salmon, sardines, spinach and cavolo nero, having to moderate the wine intake and be careful about eating too many grains. Has it driven me to despair though? No it hasn’t. It’s another opportunity to adapt and find new things and new ways. Does it mean I never eat any of those things? No!
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