Browsing Category

Suppers, Dinners & Main Courses

Autumn/ Courses/ Lunches & Light Suppers/ Seasons/ Suppers, Dinners & Main Courses/ Winter

A FACE ONLY A MOTHER COULD LOVE

I have been, as they say, unavoidably absent from these pages for the last few weeks as the builders began the work on the London flat and I had forgotten how much a big refurb project can take over your life. And it’s not the big stuff like choosing the kitchen and the bathrooms; it’s the small stuff. I was sitting on the Tube, quietly trying to read Jay Rayner and listen to Bach (what a pair) and I happened to glance up at the advertising. Normally quite safe, as the habitués of that space seem to mostly be wifi providers I’ve never heard of and dodgy looking money transfer outfits. Not this time; now I was invited to consider how meaningless my life would be without electrical sockets that have built in USB ports….what? Genius. Straight on to the builder, who has the patience of a saint. So you see, I haven’t been safe from the damned project even on the Tube. and I am trying to find all kinds of displacement activity to avoid choosing new door furniture. And tiles. And timber flooring. And paint colours…..so talking about the ugly sister of the vegetable world is a delight.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned celery, the Cinderella of the veg world, so let me introduce you to the ugly sister: celeriac. Honestly, it has a face only a mother could love, but it is, in this country at least, the unsung heroine of the vegetable world. I was delighted a couple of weeks ago to receive in my farmdrop.com order a complete plant, as per the picture. This was completely unexpected as normally in the UK, one only gets a trimmed root, which while less startling than the complete plant, still looks a bit like a turnip with a hangover. There the resemblance ends.

Every bit of a complete plant can be used, although there is a fair bit of waste when one trims the root. If you’re lucky enough to own a compost heap, then that isn’t a problem but it is important to trim off every bit of hairy root and any yellowing stalks or leaves. The stalks aren’t really bold enough to use raw, as in cultivation, the energy has gone into creating the lovely big root, but they are fine for using in soups or risotto (excellent in the latter with a morsel of Gorgonzola). The leaves can be used as a herb, so again good in soups, stuffings, risotto and with lentils, quinoa or cous cous.

The root, which is really the focus of this piece, makes wonderful soup but one of my very favourite things to do is put a whole celeriac, cut into chunks, under a roast chicken, mixed with garlic and thyme. I also put a couple of chunks inside the cavity with thyme and half a lemon, salt and pepper. When the chicken is done, keep the bird warm and put the roasting tin with all the celeriac and garlic gunk over a low flame (if there is a lot of fat, just pour most of it off), mix it up with a wooden spoon (the celeriac and garlic will be very soft by now), gradually add as much white wine as will make a deeply savoury sauce and simmer for a few minutes stirring all the while. A few green peppercorns won’t come amiss and although I have tried it with a spoonful of creme fraiche, for me, that’s gilding the lily. This isn’t a sophisticated dish but is very satisfying and people who have eaten this have always asked for the “recipe”. I think, however, that it is so simple as to barely qualify as a recipe, so it’s here and not written up as a recipe proper.

I also love celeriac incorporated with potato mash, but it does retain more water than potato, so I always steam it if I’m going to mash it. It’s also great as part of a platter of roast root veg; in particular it seems to pair and contrast well with roast parsnip (another less than lovely looking vegetable). Above all, it is stupendous in soup and the recipe that follows is wonderful. I can claim no credit for this, as I discovered it in the staff canteen where I worked; the chef was so pleased to have someone ask for a recipe you’d have thought it was his birthday. I have tweaked it a bit to please our palates more and despite the slightly unlikely combination of ingredients, do please give it a go. I promise you, it’s fab.

Celeriac, Coconut and Chilli Soup

Print Recipe
Serves: 4 normal people or 2 greedy ones Cooking Time: about an hour

Ingredients

  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 900g of celeriac root, peeled and chopped roughly
  • 750ml chicken or vegetable stock
  • juice of a lime
  • 2.5cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
  • 1 tsp lemon or ordinary thyme leaves, chopped finely
  • 1 green chilli deseeded and chopped
  • small bunch of fresh coriander, separated into stalk and leaves
  • 250 ml full fat milk (if you insist on using semi or skimmed milk, make something else)
  • 75g creamed coconut
  • grated zest of the lime

Instructions

1

Heat the butter and add the celeriac, cover and cook gently for about 10 minutes but don’t allow it to brown

2

Add the stock, lime juice, ginger, (lemon) thyme , chopped chilli and coriander stems

3

Bring just to the boil, cover and simmer for about 30 minutes

4

Add the milk and simmer uncovered for about another 15 minutes; you’re looking for the liquid to reduce but never boil

5

Remove from the heat, add the creamed coconut

6

Use a stick blender until you have a smooth soup; flecked with green from the chilli and coriander stems

7

Season as you please and garnish with grated lime zest and chopped coriander leaves

Notes

If, like me, you’re not too keen on coriander as a herb (love the seeds), use flat leaf parsley instead. Also feel free to use a different chilli and in fact, I have made this with dried crushed chilli. Both of these changes will alter the flavour slightly, but of course, it is still a delicious, warming soup that is a bit different.

 

November 19, 2016
0
Autumn/ Courses/ Lunches & Light Suppers/ Suppers, Dinners & Main Courses/ Winter

CINDERELLA CELERY

I will come right out and say I love celery and its root, celeriac. Love them to bits and happily crunch away on both of them. But they have a bad reputation; the stalks seem forever associated with the deprivation of a rigid low calorie diets, and celeriac usually evokes a puzzled look and a comment about how ugly it is.

Wrong, just wrong. Good celery is a staple ingredient for soffritto in Italian cooking and mirepoix in the French canon but the critical word there was “good”. I am sorry to say that so much of what is sold in the UK comes from Spain and is weak, feeble and hollow. Honestly, I’ve had Spanish celery – and Israeli come to that – you could use as drinking straws. The stalks shouldn’t be hollow and yellowy, and a good head of celery will feel quite heavy for its size. Oh and smell fresh and very celery-ry.

It is true to say that there is both green and white celery, but don’t mistake pathetic yellowing specimens for the delicious blanched Fenland celery that can be had in the UK during November and December. This has a strong distinctive flavour and like asparagus, has a short season, so do make the most of it while we have it.

Green celery is available more widely but UK grown, flavourful celery seems mostly available September to April and I have it my fridge most weeks during that time, with an interregnum for the Fenland crop.

This unsung hero is just so useful; I put it in risotto, lentils, soups, quinoa, couscous, stews and casseroles, not to mention cutting short lengths, filling with Gorgonzola and dusting with paprika. I know it sounds a bit Abigail’s Party, but I love it! It also earns a place on a cheese board with grapes and figs, which frankly I prefer over biscuits after a meal. I also use the leaves chopped up as one would a herb, but go gently as the celery flavour is very concentrated here.

Anyway, the celery I had from https://thefoodassembly.com/en/assemblies/8012/products was just gorgeous and although a fair amount was eaten with the lovely Slipcote cheese, I had enough left for this lovely soup which has a distinctly celery flavour and is creamy in texture, without needing the addition of any dairy (although you can add it if you want to!).

Celery Soup

Print Recipe
Serves: 2 - 4 Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 2 tbsp mild olive oil
  • 1 medium onion, peeled and chopped into small dice
  • 1 small clove garlic, chopped finely
  • 2 small/1 medium potato, peeled and chopped into small dice
  • 150g celery stalks, chopped into slices about 0.5mm wide
  • 1 slim leek, washed, sliced in two lengthways, then sliced into slender half moons
  • leaves stripped from two sprigs of fresh thyme
  • 1 heaped tsp Marigold reduced salt bouillon
  • 1 litre hot water
  • salt and freshly milled black pepper

Instructions

1

Heat the butter and oil in a heavy based saucepan and add the onion and garlic

2

Allow to soften but not colour and add the remaining vegetables and thyme

3

Soften for about 15 minutes but do not allow to colour

4

Add the Marigold powder, mix in and then slowly add the water

5

Season and mix well, bringing to a simmer but don’t let it boil

6

Simmer gently with the lid askew for about 30 minutes until the vegetables are soft and can be easily squashed against the side of the pan

7

Cool slightly and use a stick blender to process until smooth; the addition of potato will give the soup a very smooth, almost creamy texture so you don’t have to add dairy to finish the soup

Notes

My favourite finish are garlic croutons and in the picture, you will see a small swirl of Jersey milk, but in truth, it was gilding the lily. This freezes well, but freeze minus any dairy you might want to use.

September 26, 2016
0
Autumn/ Courses/ Lunches & Light Suppers/ Summer/ Suppers, Dinners & Main Courses

NEW SUPPLIER, NEW INGREDIENT

In my efforts to shop with a shorter supply chain and closer to the supplier, I have tried my local Food Assembly. This is a network of local organisations which allow local suppliers to deliver food to organised distribution points after you order on line. I used https://thefoodassembly.com/en/assemblies/8012/products Putney Food assembly. organised by the lovely Floriane and supplying amazing fresh food, bread, dairy and fruit. Oh and there’s jams, jellies and chutneys too, one particular jam coming from as close as a garden in Mortlake. Price wise, well, for the fruit and veg, frankly, no more expensive than a supermarket, but of greatly superior quality. The preserves were a little more expensive than the mid range brands, but in the same ball park as the higher end brands.

It was great fun picking up the order, as it was all set out in a room in a pub on the embankment in Putney, for collection between 6.30 and 8.30. Easy parking (although I went on the bus) and you can have a drink while it’s all happening (hence me going on the bus….). The quality of produce was superb – as if I’d picked it from my own garden (I wish) and the cheese I tried was wonderful. I am sorry to report that that evening we put away the whole 100g of Sussex Slipcote Soft Sheep Cheese with Garlic and Chives with celery and multi seed sourdough, both from the Assembly.

Although it is strictly speaking a bit early in the season, I had ordered celery which I love for not just its flavour, but also its versatility. The stems were a little on the slender side but the flavour was wonderful – a mile away from flaccid supermarket stalks. The new ingredient for me was Rainbow Chard; I’ve had it served in Italy and I do like the flavour but in the UK, have always been deterred from buying it by the price and by the fact that in the supermarket, it looks faded, dusty and ready for its bus pass. Anyway, this was positively juvenile in what I can only describe as a huge bouquet and squeaky fresh. Couldn’t wait to try it, so after having it using Nigel Slater’s gorgeous recipe for Chard with caramelised onions and sultanas (in Nigel Slater’s The Kitchen Diaries Volume III), I still had lots left.

I remembered that I’d had it in a quiche in Treviso about three years ago so had a rummage around for recipes. There wasn’t one that I liked the sound of in its entirety, so this is very much my own recipe, following fairly standard quiche principles which I have tweaked to satisfy my likes and if I’m honest, what I had in the fridge. My Rainbow Chard had brilliant gold and ruby stems which was criminal to chop up completely so I used eight of them as spokes around the quiche. Very attractive looking but will cook them for longer next time as they could have done with being a bit more tender. And when you strip the leaves form the stalks, do make sure you get rid of any nasty stringy bits.

When it comes to pastry, I prefer to use a richer shortcrust pastry, using butter and egg yolk with a small quantity of ice cold water as it always turns out very short and crisp. It is a tad more difficult to work but I find it do-able if it’s left to rest for at least an hour. I haven’t included the recipe here, as you probably have your own favourites but the quantity I used was from 170g of plain flour and 100g butter.

Rainbow Chard Quiche

Print Recipe
Serves: 6 - 8 Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

  • 170g rich shortcrust pastry
  • 150g rainbow chard, well washed, leaves stripped from the stalks, keep the 6 - 8 nicest stalks for the centre, chop the rest into small dice and slice leaves into narrow strips
  • 70g pancetta, chopped into 1cm dice
  • 1 shallot, finely chopped
  • 1 small clove of garlic, finely chopped
  • leaves stripped from two sprigs of fresh thyme
  • 150ml creme frâiche
  • 3 medium eggs
  • 50g finely grated Parmesan cheese
  • 23 cm loose bottomed flan tin
  • oven tray

Instructions

1

Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees C/180 degrees fan and put in the tray to heat

2

Line the flan tin with the pastry and bake blind in usual way

3

Meanwhile, put the pancetta in a non stick sauté pan over a medium flame and cook until the fan runs and the pancetta has taken on colour

4

Remove from the rendered fat and drain on kitchen paper

5

Soften the shallot and garlic in the pancetta fat, adding a little mild olive oil if necessary

6

Ensure they are soft but not coloured and then remove and drain on kitchen paper

7

Add the chard stalks to the pan and allow to soften without colouring; the whole stalks will need longer so you might want to put then in first

8

While all this is going on, crack the eggs into a large jug and beat well, stir in the creme frâiche and mix well and follow with the finely grated Parmesan

9

Add the thyme leaves and season, remembering that both the pancetta and cheese will add salt

10

When they are softened, remove the chard stalks from the pan and drain

11

Add the sliced chard leaves to the pan and also allow to soften but not colour or frizzle - add a little more oil if necessary; remove and drain

12

Spread the onion, garlic, pancetta and chopped chard stalks and leaves over the baked pastry case

13

Pour over the egg mixture carefully and make a pinwheel pattern with the whole chard stalks

14

Place the tin on the oven tray and bake for 25 - 30 minutes until the filing is set and it is a lovely golden colour

15

Serve warm or cold with a green salad or vegetables

September 26, 2016
0
Autumn/ Courses/ Lunches & Light Suppers/ Summer/ Suppers, Dinners & Main Courses

#SUPERMARKET SIESTA 3

I am bit late posting part three of my Supermarket Siesta as we’ve got builders in. Not here, thank heavens, but I had forgotten how much time it takes to choose bathrooms, especially when there are two of you trying to make the decision. It is quite amazing how strongly one can feel about taps, or should I say mixers. It is a curiously British habit to have separate taps in the bathroom and frankly idiotic, although we did agree on that. Anyway, this is not the purpose of this blog but I do feel better having got that off my chest, thank you.

You’ll know by now that I’ve been taking a day from the weekend and comparing costs between shopping from a non-supermarket source and an on-line supermarket. So far, the previous two blogs have been in favour of the non-supermarket source, cost-wise, but to be honest, I have been waiting for this to end! It almost seems too good to be true so this weekend, especially because we were having cod, I was expecting this to be the week it ended. Cod is rightly now an expensive fish; cod stocks were abused for too long and we should have to pay a premium for this beautiful fish, not to mention the fact that trawler men face danger every time they set out to sea. It therefore makes perfect sense to me that its price is where it is.

Anyway, here is what Sunday looked like for us:

Breakfast

Jersey milk yogurt

Blueberries

Lunch

Piedmont peppers

Buffalo Mozzarella

Pagnotta Sourdough

Supper

Pan fried cod finished with beurre blanc

Sweet potatoes roasted with thyme and garlic

Cavallo nero finished with olive oil and nutmeg

Runner beans

We had been given gorgeous chocolate from guidogobino.it in Turin, so that was dessert. Too many, in truth…..although I will post about them another time, as their chocolate is out of this world, even for a non-sweet tooth person like me.

Anyway, bearing in mind ingredients like olive oil, thyme, anchovies, salt and pepper are for me, store cupboard ingredients so I haven’t included them, I was absolutely astonished this week by the price difference. I had to have my maths checked (that not being my strong point…) to ensure I’d got this right. All the ingredients came from lovely Farmdrop.com as with the builders etc, I just didn’t have the bandwidth to shop around or go to Borough Market. Which actually, kind of makes another point; if you’re time-poor, you don’t have to rely on a supermarket when there are other suppliers around who can deliver flavour, cost efficiency and ethical supply chains.

So, Sunday cost us £22.15 and had I sourced from the same on-line supermarket I have used for comparison so far, the bill would have been £30.68. That (I am reliably informed!) is a staggering 38% more expensive.

I guess if your budget isn’t an issue, then this is irrelevant for you but ethical supply chains are, I hope an issue for many of us and flavour and freshness are surely top of any cook’s list? Shopping more closely to the supplier gives much fresher ingredients and I have noticed a discernible difference in the flavour of the food I’m serving. I can assure you it isn’t because of any step-change in my cooking abilities and in fact, in may ways, I am preparing food more simply. I just don’t need to make my home cooking complicated when I am using such beautiful ingredients – life is better all round.

So, the recipe this week is something I mentioned a week or so ago – Piedmont Peppers – and we do eat it quite a lot this time of year as all the ingredients come together seasonally. You can make other times of the year but the ingredients won’t be seasonal, will have probably covered many food miles and this will be reflected in the flavour.

It works well with green salad and good bread as a light lunch and also as a starter. It is easy to multiply up to feed lots of people in a buffet, or to include as a table of anti pasti if you are serving Italian style.

I first cooked this many years ago, using Elizabeth David’s recipe but have been fortunate enough over the years, to see this cooked in Piedmont home kitchens, so have modified my way of doing things. This, however, is very much my way of doing this lovely dish but I encourage you to experiment to find you own favourite way.

Piedmont Peppers

Print Recipe
Serves: 2 - 4 depending on how/when you serve Cooking Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 red peppers (look for heavy, fleshy specimens with the stalks intact)
  • 3 San Marzano tomatoes, skinned
  • 4 anchovy fillets (make sure you rinse them well if you are using salted)
  • 2 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
  • fresh basil leaves
  • extra virgin olive oil (I like Ligurian oil for this but if you prefer a more peppery oil, that's fine too)
  • freshly milled black pepper
  • an oven proof baking dish or baking tray with a lip

Instructions

1

Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees c/180 fan

2

Slice the peppers lengthwise, trying to slice through the stalk and preserving it as part of the pepper

3

Remove all the seeds and white pith

4

Sit in the oven proof dish, propping them up against each other if you have any wobbly specimens

5

Pour a couple of teaspoons of oil and an anchovy fillet into each pepper

6

Add a few slices of garlic and a torn basil leaf to each pepper

7

Season with black pepper

8

Halve the tomatoes lengthwise and add to the peppers

9

We like a good amount of tomato, so cut them to make them fit, although you do not want chopped tomato

10

Pour over a little more oil to moisten the tomato and tuck in more basil if you can

11

Put in the oven for about 45 - 50 minutes, until the peppers are a little blackened round the edges and they look relaxed and wrinkly

12

Best served warm or at room temperature; too hot or too cold and the flavours are lost

13

There are squabbles in our house about who gets to mop up the lovely savoury juices and I would implore you not to waste them.

Notes

I have tried this with yellow peppers - nope, doesn't work. The full, red ripeness is needed for the flavour to be at its best. I have used yellow peppers but then altered the ingredients to include capers and black olives but then they are not Piedmont Peppers! Lovely, but not Piedmont Peppers as I was told in no uncertain terms when in Turin.

 

 

September 22, 2016
0
Autumn/ Courses/ Lunches & Light Suppers/ Seasons/ Spring/ Summer/ Suppers, Dinners & Main Courses/ Winter

BAKED EGGS

This is such a simple recipe, I am wary of actually posting it but a good friend said that she’d never thought of it, so why not?

I think this is something that you can throw together from things you mostly have in the house anyway, plus the fact that you can add all kinds of bits you might find lurking in the fridge. I recently used a few scraps of left over Parma ham; any small pieces of salami are also good but I am reluctant to use anything fishy as i just can’t imagine how it might test. Although it might be good with lovely Morecambe Bay shrimps?

Apologies too, for the dayglo cheese; I was using up a bit of left over Red Leicester and it does come up bright! Tasted good though and that’s what counts.

Baked Eggs

Print Recipe
Serves: 1 Cooking Time: 8 - 9 minutes

Ingredients

  • scrap of butter for greasing
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • i small leek washed and sliced finely (or a small shallot finely chopped)
  • 1 large tomato, skinned and cut into 1cm dice
  • 2 medium eggs
  • 2 tbsp cream or creme frâiche
  • 2 tbsp grated cheese
  • 2 tbsp breadcrumbs
  • Salt and freshly milled black pepper
  • small oven proof dish, buttered

Instructions

1

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C/160 fan and put in an oven tray to heat

2

Melt the butter in a small pan on a medium flame

3

Add the leeks and soften but don't allow to colour

4

Remove from the heat and drain well on crumpled kitchen paper (don't omit this step as to do so will render this dish too greasy)

5

Spread across the small dish

6

Add the tomato dice

7

Carefully break the eggs into the vegetables, without breaking the yolks

8

Drizzle over the cream and season, taking account of how salty the cheese is likely to be

9

Sprinkle over the breadcrumbs

10

Place the dish on the oven tray for about 8 minutes until the egg is set

11

Watch the egg yolk carefully - hard-boiled is not what we aiming for!

Notes

It easy to increase this to serve more than one person but I'd use individual dishes if you can. Serving could be messy from one large dish.

September 22, 2016
0
Autumn/ Lunches & Light Suppers/ Summer/ Suppers, Dinners & Main Courses/ Uncategorized/ Winter

#SUPERMARKETSIESTA 2 AND A HALF

The idea for this blog came when I realised, after leaving my corporate life, how much food I was throwing away, if I had over-provisioned (that happened SO often). It was therefore a stark reminder of my old life when towards the end of last week I was faced with leeks, feta cheese, an astonishingly pretty striped aubergine, a couple of San Marzano tomatoes and the dregs of the carton of creme frâiche. A rummage in the dry goods drawer also revealed a sad, almost empty bag of pearl barley. This post therefore, is not quite episode 3 of Supermarket Siesta which follows later this week, but I felt did talk to the origin of this blog.

The weather had begun to feel more like autumn, although not yet cold enough to trigger my soup-making (although enough to make me feel like Kanga counting Roo’s vests). So what to make? When in doubt, consult Elizabeth David is my motto and after half an hour in her company, and an espresso, I had inspiration, although I have to say I made most of this up as I went along.

So here are two simple recipes that are quick, reasonably priced and can be dressed up and down to suit either a solo lunch or supper at home, or serve as starters or main courses. I have a number of vegetarian friends and these work well for them, although I’m still working with a limited repertoire for vegans. I don’t seem to be able to get past using eggs, cheese and butter; my fault I know and I probably need to find the time to do a whole lot more research.

I think the stuffed aubergines will be a regular through the autumn and winter and I’m looking forward to playing around with the flavours.

Stuffed Aubergines

Print Recipe
Serves: 2 Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 40g uncooked weight pearl barley
  • 2 large tomatoes, skinned and chopped
  • 1 small shallot, finely chopped
  • 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
  • 2 sprigs thyme, leaves stripped and chopped (I don’t always bother to chop as I don’t mind seeing the little leaves in the finished recipe)
  • 0.25 tsp ground cumin
  • finely grated zest of half a lemon
  • 1 dsp capers, rinsed and chopped
  • 40 - 50 g feta cheese
  • 2 tbsp dried breadcrumbs
  • Salt and freshly milled black pepper
  • A greased oven tray

Instructions

1

Pre heat the oven to 200 degrees C/180 degrees fan

2

Set the pearl barley to cook over a moderate flame until al dente then drain

3

Cut out the flesh of the aubergine, chopping it into 1cm dice. Leave a slim shell of aubergine skin and set aside.

4

I find an old grapefruit knife remarkably useful for this operation. Try your best not to pierce the shell as it will leak horribly.

5

Heat the oil in a thick based pan and soften the shallot and garlic, without letting them colour

6

Add the aubergine flesh and cumin and cook until the aubergine begins to soften

7

Add the tomato, thyme and barley and mix well

8

Allow to simmer until the mixture is quite dry - the tomato juices must evaporate to stop the mixture being sloppy and also to intensify the flavours

9

Add the grated lemon zest and capers and check the seasoning

10

Fill the two aubergine shells, packing the mixture quite firmly

11

Crumble over the feta cheese and finish with the breadcrumbs

12

Cook for 25 - 30 minutes until the stuffing is hot, cheese melting and the aubergine shells a bit wrinkly

Notes

I prefer to eat this warm rather than hot and like it with either a simple green salad or buttered savoy cabbage. Feel free to experiment with the spices here; I can imagine cinnamon being good and to shake things in a different flavour direction, ground cardamom and/or fennel seeds. Just thought - dried porcini mushrooms, soaked and finely chopped could be good too.

September 22, 2016
0
Autumn/ Lunches & Light Suppers/ Summer/ Suppers, Dinners & Main Courses

#SUPERMARKET SIESTA 2

Last week I started my response to the Supermarket Siesta challenge and I have to say, everything about it talks to my desire to move away from (my) mindless on line ordering or wandering in a supermarket. As I said also last week, I am not going to declare supermarkets instruments of the devil (although I can think of a couple of brands that do approach that status), but I am finding using farmdrop.com and Borough Market (to name but two), does make me plan meals better and think more clearly about the seasonality, balance, flavours and economy of what we’re eating.

Yes, it takes a bit of time a couple of times a week to do that planning but in truth, it’s time I look forward to, as it allows me to think about what’s seasonal and then rummage around, either in my food library (I’m going to write about that soon) or in my head, to find solutions. Sometimes I am beguiled by something so appealing when I’m shopping that I do click or buy and then think afterwards about what I’m going to make! On reflection though, that is exactly what I do when we’re in Italy, so interestingly, I am moving my UK habits closer to those I have in Italy.

Our menu for Sunday looked like this:

Breakfast

Jersey milk yogurt with blueberries
Sourdough toast with blackberry and gin jam

Lunch we had out, so doesn’t count here

Supper

Piedmont peppers (will write this up soon)
Salmon fillet wrapped in Parma ham with bay leaves (ditto!)
Chargrilled golden zucchini with lemon, fennel seed and basil dressing
Spiced apples (recipe elsewhere on this site) with creme fâiche

My bill for this lot from non-supermarket suppliers was £27.20 and the same on-line service that I used last week for comparison came to £34.91. I have not included store cupboard ingredients such as anchovies, fresh basil or garlic as I have those to hand all the time. If it’s not basil season, it will be thyme or rosemary, both of which obligingly supply the kitchen all year round.

The most remarkable price differentials came with the Sourdough bread (£3.20 versus £5.33 weight for weight), two organic red peppers (£2.00 versus £6.00) and the San Marzano tomatoes (£2.70 versus £3.99 by weight). I used lovely farmdrop.com for some items and others came from traders within Borough Market.

Also, I had made enough Piedmont Peppers and Chargrilled Zucchini for us to have them for lunch on Monday with bread and a bit of goat’s cheese.

Chargrilled Golden Zucchini with Lemon, Fennel Seed and Basil Dressing

Print Recipe
Serves: 4 Cooking Time: 30 minutes (ish)

Ingredients

  • 500g golden zucchini, or indeed any fresh looking ones you can get
  • olive oil for brushing
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 100ml extra virgin olive oil
  • freshly squeezed juice of half a large lemon
  • quarter teaspoon of fennel seeds
  • fresh basil leaves

Instructions

1

If the zucchini are quite large, the skins can be a bit tough so just scrape a vegetable peeler down it to give a striped effect

2

Dispose of the stalk and slice into 2 - 3ml thick slices

3

You can either produce “coins” (hence the word “zucchini” in the first place), or on the diagonal, or even lengthways; do what pleases you

4

Brush them with olive oil but don’t soak them

5

Heat a griddle pan until hot but not smoking - you’re dealing with delicate zucchini here, not a chest-beating steak

6

Add a few slices at a time but don’t over-crowd the pan or you’ll start to get too much steam kicking up

7

Once each slice has nice clear stripes, turn them over; for me, they are then done when they have gone floppy and have good chargrilling marks on them

8

Remove to a platter and spoon over the dressing, building up the platter in layers as the zucchini become readyFor the dressing:

9

Crush the garlic with sea salt under the blade of a knife and put into a small bowl

10

Gently crush the fennel seeds, just enough to allow the fragrance to release more easily and add to the bowl

11

Pour in the extra virgin olive oil and whisk briskly

12

Add lemon juice to your taste; I quite like a lemony sharpness to counteract the smoothness of the grilled vegetable and we were having it with salmon which is a rich fish

13

Add freshly milled black pepper to taste

14

Once you have layered and dressed all your zucchini, finish with torn basil and a final flourish of oil

Notes

You can also include aubergines in with this and I do still salt and drain them first. Habit, I suppose, as we are told that modern varieties aren't bitter. Slice them a little thicker, say 3 - 4 ml, and they need a little longer on the griddle, too. Later in the autumn, I add a little ground cumin to the dressing, if I am using aubergine for a warm flavour. Finely chopped chilli also works well here in the dressing.

September 14, 2016
0
Autumn/ Suppers, Dinners & Main Courses/ Winter

#SUPERMARKETSIESTA 1

Not the most delicious looking dish perhaps, but I promise you, it is wonderful

No, I wasn’t quite sure what it meant either. But I was invited to an event in the far north of London (OK, it was near Moorgate Station but I live in Wimbledon so anything north of the Marylebone Road induces a nosebleed) that invited me to discover what it was all about.

It was worth the trek as happily, it was a convention of some of my favourite suppliers who were launching a mission to “challenge the UK public to shake up part of their weekly shop – switching from supermarkets to specialists” (taken from their marketing material) for the month of September.

Now, I am already a huge devotee of farmdrop.com who supply the most wonderful fruit & veg, fish, meat, bread & cakes and fresh pasta from small local suppliers, so it was a delight to meet the lovely Lucy and gifted Beth (a semi finalist in Masterchef who now masters the Farmdrop social media content and cooks, too). More about them later, but I was also introduced to pongcheese.co.uk I am afraid to say that Edoardo and I were a little less than restrained with the sampling of their fabulous cheese; we will be ordering from them so I’ll write about that later this month.

Edoardo is already a devotee of HotelChocolat.com so was happy to sample their luxurious chocolate and by luxurious, I don’t necessarily mean expensive – it is the flavours and inspired combinations that denote luxury here. Chocolate is not my weakness so I went back to the cheese zone, via FishforThought.co.uk where I sampled fresh crab – one of my favourites, and nakedwines.com Regrettably I might have sampled there just a tad over-enthusiastically so I needed more cheese to mop it up…..that’s my excuse anyway.

I am also not going to sit here and criticise all supermarkets, but increasingly they are NOT a good place to buy your fresh food. In my view, they place far too much emphasis on visual appeal and how easy it is to pack food. I guess for them, life is easier if all tomatoes or apples or whatever are of a uniform size, making packaging and general logistics more predictable and thus cost-controllable. As shoppers though, we perhaps have to take some of the blame for this obsession with the perfect tomato; a tomato’s perfection should be assessed by its flavour, not the fact that it looks shiny and perfect. The British by and large don’t shop with their noses – how may times have you observed someone in a supermarket sniff a melon to see if it’s ripe? Unless you’ve seen me, I’d say quite rarely. And how can we sniff a tomato if the poor wretched things are imprisoned in a plastic box and wrapped in cellophane? Never mind, they look good so that’s all right then!

I do have some sympathy with supermarkets when the media coverage tends to focus solely on their price competitiveness, so they find themselves in a race to the bottom. And back also to my lament that wanting to have good food, fairly priced is somehow seen as elitist or the province of the chatterati in the UK. No, it isn’t, the less you have to spend on food, the less you can afford to be taken in by supermarkets; the less you have to spend on food, the more you need to be able to cook a few basics like soup, casseroles, anything eggy and bread. And I don’t buy the time objection either, but you do need to be organised and prepared to learn. Rant over…..

Anyway, to go back to the challenge issued by these great producers, Edoardo and I decided to see if we could eat for a whole day using fresh ingredients only from these guys. I planned the menus for Sunday which also prompted me to try an Italian dish I ate once years ago and have wanted to attempt myself ever since. Here’s what we ate last Sunday:

Breakfast

Jersey milk yogurt & blueberries
Cafone sourdough toast with unsalted butter

Lunch
Chargrilled courgettes and aubergine with crumbled feta cheese
Rosemary focaccia

Dinner
Beetroot tortelloni with sage butter and poppy seeds
Loin of pork in milk (recipe later – don’t be deterred by the title, it’s scrumptious)
Boiled potatoes
Chard
Apple tart with creme fraiche (Edoardo had room for this – I didn’t!)

All these came from farmdrop.com and my bill was £37.00 and did several meals: the chargrilled veg, left over pork and potatoes were all upcycled into delicious meals today and the bread will last for several days. The sourdough comes in a huge 800g loaf that goes in the freezer on day three and is perfect for a week or so. The focaccia is so good that I’m afraid that despite the fact it arrives in a monster 400g slab, it doesn’t last more than two days so never sees the freezer!

I have virtually shopped this same list with from a supermarket’s on line shop (no, not saying which one!) and the bill came to £41.77; several ingredients were not available as organic and I couldn’t get Jersey milk yogurt. I also know that the supply chain is far shorter with Farmdrop and the producer gets a fairer cut of the money, which matters hugely to me. I shop mainly organic because I have concerns about animal welfare and again, I know with Farmdrop, I can be easier in my mind about that.

We both also said that the quality of the food was considerably better, so we are going to continue using Farmdrop.com and before anyone asks, no, I receive no remuneration or other consideration from them – I just want good food, honestly priced and sourced and they hit the spot.

So, on to the recipe with this blog. Loin of pork in milk sounds hideous but please trust me when I say it is absolutely scrumptious. If you like a deeply savoury, umami flavour then this is the dish for you. The milk renders down into a dark, double cream that is glossy and chestnut coloured; the meat becomes tender and can be cut with a spoon. It is simple but does need an eye kept on it, so best to cook it when you can be near the kitchen every 20 – 30 minutes. It is also very rich, so I recommend keeping the accompaniments very simple; plain rice or potato and a leafy green vegetable go well. Please, buy the best quality pork you can find; something sitting on a blue polystyrene tray in a chiller cabinet won’t cut it. It is easier to carve if you buy a boned, rolled loin but I do prefer the extra flavour that is there when the bone is present. It’s not that much harder to carve if you loosen the meat away from the bone first and of course, use a surgically sharp knife! This recipe also calls for the joint to be skinless and this is also easy to do with the properly sharp knife. Just cut the string, slice off the rind as close to the skin as possible and roll and tie it up again. I keep the rind in the freezer to add to beef casseroles later in the winter for extra depth of flavour.

Loin of Pork in Milk

Print Recipe
Serves: 4 Cooking Time: 2 hours

Ingredients

  • 1kg loin of skinless free range organic pork
  • 2 tbsp mild olive oil
  • 25g butter
  • 550ml whole organic milk (please don’t try this with semi- or skimmed milk, it won’t work)
  • bay leaf
  • sprig of thyme or rosemary
  • salt and freshly milled black pepper

Instructions

1

Use a thick based casserole or stout pan, just large enough to hold the meat

2

Heat the butter and oil until the foaming point is subsiding and then add the meat, initially fat side down

3

Brown all sides of the meat and turn down the heat if the butter becomes dark brown or if it smells too nutty

4

Season and gently add the milk - I usually take the pan off the heat momentarily to do this and avoid sudden eruptions - followed by the bay leaf and your choice of herb

5

Allow the milk to slowly come to the boil and then turn the heat own to a gentle simmer

6

Put on the lid, slightly askew and simmer for about 2 hours

7

Every 30 minutes or so, turn the meat and in the meantime, keep an eye or ear out for overboiling

8

You might need to add a little more milk

9

After about the first hour, the milk will start to change colour and also create little clusters that will gradually also go a golden brown - don’t worry, it’s not curdling

10

Once you can easily pierce the meat with a fork, remove it to a carving board or dish and cover with foil to keep warm

11

While this is happening, draw off the surface fat from the milk mixture but do be careful not to rob yourself of any delicious nutty clusters

12

Stir quite vigorously and if you prefer to thin it a little, add a couple of tablespoons of warm water; ensure you loosen all the scrummy bits adhering to the base of the pan

13

Discard the bay leaf and herbs

14

Cut the string on the meat and slice into medium thick slices, arrange on a platter and pour over the sauce

Notes

As I’ve said, you might want to keep accompaniments simple and any first course could be vegetable based, for example Piedmont peppers or chargrilled courgettes with basil. Having said that, last Sunday we preceded it with a small portion of pasta, so anything non meat based can work.

September 6, 2016
0
Autumn/ Books & Blogs/ Equipment/ Suppers, Dinners & Main Courses/ Winter

HOW IT ALL STARTED

When I married in 1978 (stupidly young and it didn’t last….), I knew kitchens existed but wasn’t entirely sure what went on in them. I knew food emerged but had no idea how it happened. Didn’t do “Domestic Science” at school as I was in the stream that did Latin and French, both of which I have to say, have been remarkably useful. It now enrages me to think that learning to cook was (and might still be in some schools) regarded as less demanding than learning languages.  Better I don’t get started on that one; it is probably a whole other post.

Shortly after becoming engaged my wise mother, fearing that my husband would have to live on toast, bought me the Delia Smith Complete Cookery Course, which in those days came in three paperback volumes. In truth, I wasn’t terribly impressed with that as an engagement present (what an ungrateful creature I was) but when I finally opened the first volume, something in me blossomed and food became an enduring passion. I am also terribly attached to some of the books and equipment that I bought or was given in those early days. I still have (see picture) the very first wooden spoon I was given and the casserole in the same picture is now over 35 years old and.

In some quarters, it is now fashionable to decry Delia and whilst I no longer cook from her books, she did teach me the basics, allowed me to start cooking edible meals (and then good meals) and for me, best of all, that edition included a Bibliography! One of my other passions is books and reading (to the point that when I met Edoardo, we realised that consolidating our homes would mean accommodating over 5,000 books), so pointing me to other writers and cooks was just bliss.

Now, for me, this is where a deep, enduring love of food, cooking and its social and political history started. The first person I investigated from Delia’s bibliography was Elizabeth David and for me, this was when I really began to understand flavours, textures and the simple joy of good food eaten seasonally with minimal interference. I think I was a little in awe of her in the way I never was with Delia, but I as grew older and matured myself, Mrs David’s (never, just never Elizabeth) approach to much in life resonated with me.

The second aspect of Mrs David’s writing that spoke to me was the sheer poetry of it. Should you doubt this, may I refer you to the first two paragraphs of her chapter on Fish in “Italian Food”. The description of the Rialto fish market takes me straight back there every time I read it. She makes me not just see it but smell and hear it, too.

It has probably also taken me some years to understand how brave Mrs David was to publish her first book in 1950 post war Britain, when food was still rationed and olive oil was something requested in the chemist’s to sort out wax in one’s ears. Can you imagine the reaction of people being asked to cook with something they regarded as medicinal? I also have huge sympathy for the early brave devotees of Mrs David – I cannot begin to think what it must be like to cook without olive oil, lemons, garlic, spices and fresh herbs; for those intrepid cooks, the frustration must have been enormous.
That first book, “A Book of Mediterranean Food” is still amongst my most referred to and certainly takes the prize for the most bespattered pages (none of my foods books is pristine – if I come across one it usually means it was rubbish and, no, am NOT naming names!). It is a continual source of inspiration, not dogmatically but as a jumping off point for interpreting her recipes.

There are points upon which I depart from her advice; for example, adding oil to water for cooking pasta is nonsense. It will just float there on top while the water boils away, doing its job and ignoring the oil. You are therefore wasting precious oil and thus money. I know there are people who swear by this, but I have never come across an Italian who does it and when I enquired, was met with a sigh of resignation indicating that the craziness of the British in the kitchen should never be underestimated. She also says pasta can take up to 20 minutes to cook. Nope, not unless you like wallpaper paste.

When she speaks of meat and fish, however, she remains for me definitive and whilst I have adjusted her recipes to suit my taste, her basic advice and method remain unaltered. As we approach the cooler months of the year, I’d like to share with you my version of her Daube de boeuf provencale. It is easy, if not cheap, but does serve 6, or fewer with left overs and smells utterly divine while cooking. It is a recipe that denotes for me the arrival of autumn, as I always seem to make it in September after the lighter foods of summer.

Daube de boeuf provencale

Print Recipe
Serves: 6 Cooking Time: 2.5 hours

Ingredients

  • 1 kg top rump of beef, cut into squares about 7/8cm and 8mm thick (I always buy the beef in the piece and cut it myself to get the right sized pieces)
  • 175g unsmoked streaky bacon or pancetta, sliced into strips
  • 2 carrots, peeled and sliced into rounds
  • 2 medium onions sliced into half moon slices
  • 2 tomatoes, skinned and sliced (you can use tinned and then use the rest to make soup as a first course)
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and squashed under the blade of your knife
  • bouquet garni (I use a piece of celery with a bay leaf, a generous amount of thyme and parsley and if possible, a large slice of orange peel, sans pith, tied up with kitchen string and anchored to the handle of the casserole)
  • a (very) generous glass of red wine, French if possible, but use what you have
  • salt and freshly milled ground pepper

Instructions

1

Pre-heat the oven to 140 degrees C/130 fan

2

In the bottom of a thick based, heat retaining pot (I use an ancient and much loved le Creuset casserole) pour in the olive oil, the bacon or pancetta, then the vegetables and then layer the meat slices, overlapping them slightly. Bury the garlic and bouquet garni in the centre.

3

Season and with an uncovered pan, start cooking over a moderate flame for about ten minutes

4

In a separate pan, heat the wine until at a lively boil and set it alight

5

Once the flames have died down, pour the bubbling wine over the meat mixture

6

Cover VERY tightly (I add a layer of tightly clamped tin foil before the casserole lid) and out in the oven for about 2.5 hours

7

I like to add pitted, black olives about half an hour before the end of the cooking time

8

It might not seem that you start with much liquid here, which is true, but long, slow cooking will produce a fragrant, delicious dish for so very little effort.

9

Although I am usually all for saving on the washing up, I do like to serve this in the traditional way on a wide shallow platter, having extracted the bouquet garni, poured the sauce around the meat and garnished with persillade of finely chopped garlic and parsley, or a few capers and a couple of chopped anchovies

10

This goes well with wild red rice or plain boiled potatoes

Notes

As there is no pre-browning of the meat, this is wonderful for a slow cooker, but do try to find time to flame the wine. I have to confess that I have on occasions made do with just heating the wine, as I am not always at my brightest before my first cup of coffee in the early morning. Flames in my kitchen prior to coffee is a tad alarming for me. Anyway, the upshot is that it is subtly different without the flaming trick, but not worse. Just different.

September 3, 2016
0
Lunches & Light Suppers/ Spring/ Suppers, Dinners & Main Courses

SPRING SOUP

Well that was another miserable Spring Bank Holiday weekend; cloudy, cold and uninviting generally. Something had gone wrong with my quartermastering and I opened the fridge yesterday to unused fresh peas and fresh broccoli. Perhaps I should call this blog the aspiring watchful cook, as there are times when I get things wrong, but I guess now the difference is that I do something edible with the excess, rather than just throwing it away. Anyway, peas and broccoli: we’d already had risotto over the weekend, so my default soup making inclination kicked in. It was also another miserable day, not just grey and cold but absolutely chucking it down; I was drenched when I went out, so the comforting process of soup making seemed just right for the day – honestly if it wasn’t for leaves on the trees, you’d have thought it was November.

In terms of ingredients here, use what you have; I had the ordinary broccoli, but you could use sprouting and you can use frozen peas, too, but add them just before you add the stock, rather than sweating them in the butter and oil. I used both chives and flat leaf parsley as I had fragments that needed using up; I did think about mint and if this had just been a fresh pea soup, I think that would have been good, but I was wary about the combination of mint and broccoli. It also occurred to me afterwards that if I had had left over pancetta or prosciutto, that could have been crisped up and added as a topping, but I didn’t so I didn’t, if you see what I mean!

Spring Soup

Print Recipe
Serves: 4 as a starter or 2 for a light lunch Cooking Time: An hour or so

Ingredients

  • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  • 1 small clove of garlic, finely chopped
  • olive oil
  • unsalted butter
  • 200g fresh peas, rinsed and podded if necessary (mine came podded already)
  • 1 head of broccoli, broken into small florets
  • 0.75 ml vegetable stock (as usual, Marigold or Kallo is fine and if you have pods, let them steep in the hot stock for a while to boost the flavour)
  • salt and freshly milled pepper
  • cream, yogurt or creme fraiche
  • chives or flat leaf parsley, very finely chopped

Instructions

1

In a thick based pan or casserole, heat about 1tbsp each of olive oil and butter, add finely chopped onion and garlic

2

Sweat over a low to medium heat without colouring until they are soft and fragrant

3

Add the broccoli and mix around until well coated with the oil and butter mixture, add the peas and cook gently for two or three minutes

4

Add the hot stock, partially cover and simmer for about 30 minutes

5

When the soup has reduced by about 20% and the broccoli and peas are soft, allow to cool slightly, blend to a consistency that pleases you and adjust the seasoning

6

Serve in warm bowls, stir in your dairy of choice and top with herbs.

Notes

Scrumptious with the simple wholemeal bread posted elsewhere on this site.

August 17, 2016
0