Autumn – The Watchful Cook

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A QUICK LEMON TART FROM ITALY

One of my favourite books in the last few years has been Helena Attlee’s The Land Where Lemons Grow. It is a happy mix of food, history, art and Italy thus covering many of my interests; it is also beautifully written and so withstands many readings without becoming tedious.

The book traces the development of the growing of citrus fruits throughout the Italian peninsular and specifically the lemons for which Italy is justifiably famous. In the UK, the vast majority of our lemons are imported from Spain and whilst they are reliable workhorses in the kitchen (or in the gin), for me they lack the added dimension of fragrance and flavour that some with Italian lemons, specifically those from the area around Sorrento or from Sicily.

Unfortunately for we cooks, Spanish lemons tend to be at a more economical price point and I use them for the majority of food where lemon is a supporting act, rather than the star of the show. Where a dish has lemon as the main act, I do try to find and use Sorrentine or Sicilian lemons, especially if I am using the zest. This part of the lemon is where I feel the main advantage lies in Italian lemons; there is something deeply aromatic and almost woody in the zest that out-performs the Spanish cousins. A further advantage is that tend to be somewhat larger so do go further.

I have a vast repertoire of lemon dishes (although I cannot abide lemon meringue pie!) and have been in pursuit of the perfect lemon tart for many years. Mercifully, the wonderful Felicity Cloake has now written up the perfect tarte au citron in her fab book Perfect Two. It is however, not a recipe to be hurried or done in a spare half hour, as the author herself says, so much I love this recipe and commend it wholeheartedly, I have also been searching for a quicker, more “do-able” tart and this is it. It is a variation on a torta al limone as found in the iconic Italian cookery book, The Silver Spoon. Now I love this book, despite it being roughly the size and weight of two house bricks, but it does have shortcomings. It makes no concessions to one’s experience (or lack of) and thus assumes you know how to undertake certain cooking processes and can tell when something is done. The prime example of this assumption is that it never specifies what size cake, tart or flan to to use. In other words, you will have learned all the basics from your mother and/or grandmother and this is just to provide you with ingredients and (approximate) cooking times!

I have to admit that I got this recipe wrong a couple of times but I’d like to think that I’ve ironed out all the wrinkles and have also added additional information that might be helpful. It has a simplicity that showcases Sorrentine or Sicilian lemons to perfection and I like to serve it with creme frâiche or home made (or very high quality bought) vanilla ice cream.

If you don’t feel like making pastry but quite fancy making the tart, do feel free to use an all-butter bought pastry but in this case, I would blind bake it first (see recipe)

A Quick Lemon Tart

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Serves: 6 Cooking Time: 30 minutes cooking

Ingredients

Pastry (as per my Rhubarb Almond Tart)
250g plain flour or Italian Tipo 00
125g unsalted butter, very cold from the fridge and cut into small cubes
1 medium free range egg, lightly beaten
100g icing sugar
tiny pinch of sea salt
Filling
3 medium free range eggs
140g caster sugar
finely grated zest of two unwaxed Sorrentine or Sicilian lemons
juice of one Italian lemon
150g softened unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
A well buttered 21cm loose bottomed flan tin. I have neither the inclination nor space to collect flan tins in every possible size, so I use a loose bottomed sandwich tin for this; no fluted edge but I can live with that. Happily, both are about 3cms deep.

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 160C fan

To make the pastry, place the flour and butter in a food processor and whizz until fine breadcrumb stage

Add the sugar, mix briefly and add the egg and salt

Whizz until a soft dough is achieved; tip out of the processor and form into a flattened ball, wrap in clingfilm and put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes

When time is up, roll out to fit the flan tin and press the dough gently into the tin

Unusually for flans, this recipe doesn’t require baking blind first but somehow (miraculously!) avoids a soggy bottom, at least in a fan oven

If you are using bought pastry, increase the oven to 170C, prick the base of the pastry lightly with a fork, line with baking parchment and baking beans; put in the oven for 20 minutes, remove the paper and beans and return to the oven for another 5 minutes

After removing the case from the oven, reduce the heat to 160C

Beat the eggs with the caster sugar in a large bowl until the mixture becomes creamy with a small amount of foam on top

Stir in the lemon zest and juice and then stir in the butter, mixing well

Pay attention at this point as if you over mix, the mixture can curdle, which doesn’t affect the flavour but will affect the texture; it’s probably safer to mix by hand at this point rather than use a mechanical mixer

Pour the mixture into the pastry case and bake for about 30 minutes until golden and firm to the touch

Cool in the tin then dust with icing sugar, remove from the tin and serve with creme frâiche or ice cream

Notes

This looks very pretty topped with raspberries or halved strawberries, too. I have also tried this as a blood orange tart with some success (but I do love lemon!) in which case I like to sprinkle with cocoa powder, as indeed I did for the lemon tart in the photo

April 13, 2018

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

A SPRING RECIPE FOR PORK

As you know I am someone who tries to eat seasonally and reasonably locally, although I am not going to apologise for buying avocados or olive oil. Traditionally, pork has not been much of a spring meat, which I think is a shame as while the weather remains unpredictable during March and April, I think free range organic pork is a splendid choice.

Our local butcher recently had beautiful pork chops, with a fair layer of flavour – adding fat so I snaffled a couple. Once home, however, I then had the “what do I do with them” problem. Pork chops have flavour at the more delicate end of the range and frankly, can also be dry, if not cooked carefully. For that reason, I am not a fan of the plain grilled pork chop, so I consulted better cooks than I to decide how to get the best from them.

I have a quite a fair size cookery book collection which is something of a double edged sword when it comes to consulting them, as it can take so long to look through them. There is also the serious risk of becoming completely engrossed in a book I haven’t opened for a while and losing sight of my original need to look in the book in the first place! Anyway, my fingers hovered around Richard Olney’s three books that I have in the collection and I realised that I really haven’t paid him as much attention recently as I should have done.

For those of you who don’t know him, please may I take a moment to commend his writing to you, especially if you are partial to good wine, or at least reading about it. He was an American who, like many before him, fell in love with France and its attitude to food and wine. He lived in Paris during the 50s and 60s and writes evocatively about the arts scene of the time. He eventually settled permanently in Provence where he wrote most of his books. My favourite is “Reflexions” in which he is deliciously gossipy about many food names from the second half of the twentieth century. I no longer feel quite the same about Julia Childs but did have my view of Elizabeth David positively reinforced.

I found the inspiration I was looking for in Mr Olney’s “Simple French Food” and whilst I didn’t follow the recipe to the letter, I did like the method and most of all, the outcome. This is my take on the Olney recipe and I am very grateful for everything I have learned from reading his books.

PORK CHOPS WITH APPLE AND MUSTARD CREAM

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Serves: 2 Cooking Time: 45 inc prep

Ingredients

500g eating apples, preferably with a bit of tartness to them and a crisp texture
1 tbsp unsalted butter, plus more for greasing
2 free range organic pork chops, skin removed if present
sea salt
150ml dry white wine (I used a Gavi of which I doubt Mr Olney would approve as he didn’t seem to be a fan of Italian wine)
4tbsp creme frâiche
4tbsp Dijon mustard
black pepper
A well buttered gratin dish or other shallow oven proof dish, into which the chops will fit without overcrowding or distortion

Instructions

Take the chops out of the fridge about half an hour before you start cooking

Pre heat the oven to 180C fan

Peel, core and quarter the apples, slicing the resulting pieces into thin slices and lay them in the dish, turning them over so they acquire some of the butter clinging to the dish

Place the dish in the oven and bake for 15 minutes

While that’s going on, over a medium heat melt the tablespoon of butter in a sauté pan and brown the chops, about 7 - 8 minutes per side

Remove the apple from the oven (leave the oven on) and put the chops on top, leaving the sauté pan on a low heat

Add the wine to the pan, scraping any meaty scraps from the base and sides of the pan

Turn up the heat a little so that the wine bubbles enthusiastically and reduce it by about half

Turn down the heat to low and add the creme frâiche, stirring it all in

Add the mustard, tasting you go to your satisfaction; you may like more or less than the amount I’ve suggested

Season with salt and pepper and pour the sauce over the chops and apples

Give the dish a good shake to ensure the sauce penetrates down to the apple

Return the dish to the oven and leave it there, unmolested for 15 minutes; if you have particularly thick chops, you may need a few minutes more

Notes

It’s very easy to multiply this up to feed more than two people and is equally good with wholegrain mustard. I have also tried adding a small amount of chopped sage or thyme, but decided I preferred the simplicity of the basic recipe. I like to serve this with brown rice and a green vegetable, or good bread and a green salad. Drink the wine you’ve got left from making this dish!

April 6, 2018

Autumn/ Spring/ Summer/ Suppers, Dinners & Main Courses/ Winter

FEEDING PEOPLE – EASY BAKED SALMON

Let me state right up front, I love to have a table full of people for whom I’m cooking. Don’t much mind if I’m just making a giant risotto for twelve with antipasti first and green salad then fruit and cheese, or a full scale cordon bleu high French cuisine meal for four. Have to say the former scenario is less stressful and much easier on the budget. On reflection, I am not sure anyone really entertains at home in that formal way any more and I can’t stand it when home entertaining becomes a competitive sport.

On that basis, I am going to do a series of occasional posts talking about recipes and tips I have found useful when feeding people at different times of the year and of the day. I will probably include a few failures as well, on the basis that I’m human!

Having said that, having friends round their table is something that sometimes worries people though, so this post is giving you an absolutely foolproof main course that can be put on the table in under 30 minutes, is stress-free and can be done even if you’ve over done it on the aperitivi before you get in the kitchen…not that I have any experience in that regard…

Before we get to the recipe, I would like to emphasise that the quality of ingredients here is crucial: when we cook something this simple, the flavours must be clear and authentic, so do try to find the best you can and in the case of the salmon, preferably organic.

In terms of setting this within the context of say, a three course meal, I usually give people either a simple soup (prepared the day before) or a cold starter (Roquefort, pear and walnut salad is a crowd pleaser and dead easy), followed by a big bought tart, fresh fruit and cheese. Again, very simple so look for the best you can afford.

While I’ve been writing this, I have come to the conclusion that I really don’t like the word “entertaining” in this context. It’s all a bit Abigail’s Party (find it on You Tube – it’s genius) or 1980’s Cuisine Minceur (don’t bother Googling that – dreadful phase in food; everything served on black octagonal plates and so tiny you just wanted to make a pile of buttered toast once home). Having people round a table, eating good home cooked food (ahem, apart from puddings…) accompanied by conversation and laughter is one of great pleasures. Yes, wine helps but some of the best conversation round our table has come from teetotallers or designated drivers. On second thoughts, maybe there is a correlation there…

That’s a long paragraph to describe why I dislike the pretensions that can accompany feeding people at home and I still haven’t found a word to replace entertaining, so I am going to leave it at “feeding people” and hope it doesn’t make me sound too institutional!

Don’t be deterred by the length of these recipe; it is dead easy and when you’ve done it once, it will all slot into place and you’ll do with your eyes closed – or after a few aperitivi

EASY BAKED SALMON

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Serves: as many as you like Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

1 fillet of organic salmon per person
1 slice of Parma ham per fillet (optional - see notes)
bay leaves
olive oil
1 lemon
small bunches of cherry tomatoes, left on the vine
sweet potatoes, say, 1 chunky one per person but depends on appetites!
mature spinach (not those wimpish “baby”leaves that are for salad but have no flavour when cooked); buy more than you think you can possibly eat
fresh or dried thyme
1 clove garlic
butter
double cream or creme frâiche
salt
black pepper
nutmeg

Instructions

Pre heat the oven to 200 degrees/180 degrees fan

Peel the sweet potatoes and cut into chunks about the size of a golf ball

Wash the spinach in two or three changes of water and leave in a colander to drain

Put olive oil into a shallow baking tin or oven proof dish, add the chunks of sweet potato ensuring they are all well coated with oil

Add black pepper, thyme and a smashed garlic clove (no need to peel it)

Put in the oven for 20 minutes

Take a second oven proof dish and add a drizzle of olive oil - just enough to lubricate the base

Pat dry each salmon filet and wrap each in a slice of Parma ham with the “seams” underneath

Slot a bay leaf under the ham, on top, with the tips poking out

Add the tomatoes to the dish, with the salmon, making sure they have a drip of olive oil of them but aren’t swimming in it

Put in the oven proof dish and wait until the sweet potatoes have had their 20 minutes

At that point, turn over the potatoes and return them to the oven

Put the salmon in the oven and set your timer for 15 minutes (Note that this time is for a slender fillet - if you have gone for a chunkier size, add a few minutes)

About 5 minutes before time is up, take your largest pan and melt a good sized knob of butter

When it has foamed, add the spinach and ensure it is all well coated with butter

Add a pinch of salt, put the lid on and leave it alone for about four minutes over a medium heat

When the time goes off for the oven; switch off the oven and leave everything in there while you finish off the spinach

Take the lid off the spinach and you’ll see it has shrunk beyond belief which is why I recommend you buy more than you think you’ll need

Drain it through a colander in the sink and then take an old saucer or small plate and press down hard on the spinach to force out as much of the liquid as possible

(You can do this to this stage a couple of hours in advance and in some ways that’s better, as it does give the spinach time to properly dry out)

Return the resulting green heap to the pan over a low light and move it around a bit more to drive off more liquid Turn up the heat to medium and add a couple of tablespoons of double cream or creme frâiche, heating until it bubbles and sizzles

Add black pepper and freshly grated nutmeg

Turn off the heat, plate up the fish and tomatoes put the potatoes and spinach in serving dishes - job done

Notes

This is colourful, healthy and not too expensive, especially if you replace the sweet potatoes with lentils or brown rice and leave out the Parma ham In truth, the method for this meal can be adapted for any firm fish such as cod or haddock and the spinach replaced by whatever green veg is in season, so do experiment and find your own speciality that you can produce with your eyes closed - or after a few aperitivi!

April 3, 2017

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

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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

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

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

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

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

Remove from the heat, add the creamed coconut

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

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

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

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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

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

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

Soften for about 15 minutes but do not allow to colour

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

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

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

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

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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

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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

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

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

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

Remove from the rendered fat and drain on kitchen paper

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Serve warm or cold with a green salad or vegetables

September 26, 2016

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#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

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

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

Remove all the seeds and white pith

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

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

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

Season with black pepper

Halve the tomatoes lengthwise and add to the peppers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melt the butter in a small pan on a medium flame

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

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)

Spread across the small dish

Add the tomato dice

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

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

Sprinkle over the breadcrumbs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Add the tomato, thyme and barley and mix well

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

Add the grated lemon zest and capers and check the seasoning

Fill the two aubergine shells, packing the mixture quite firmly

Crumble over the feta cheese and finish with the breadcrumbs

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

Autumn/ Breakfasts & Brunches/ Desserts & Savouries/ Spring/ Summer/ Winter

BANANA EMERGENCY

I had a bit of a challenge to my Watchful principles last weekend, as I discovered three elderly bananas that were quite beyond eating “as is”, and for some reason I had neglected to eat most of the Discovery apples that had been delivered by Farmdrop.com. I can’t really explain that latter event, as I adore those apples and they have such a short season. It might have had something to do with my stuffing myself with a friend’s homegrown raspberries and the delivery, direct from Italy, of the most fragrant melon, another gift from a friend – lucky me!

Anyway, these poor apples had become a tad on the wizened side, so I made Spiced Apples (elsewhere on this site), not thinking they’d also come to the rescue in a banana emergency.

I have a fairly large collection of cookery and food books, together with favourite websites and years and years worth of good, old-fashioned clippings from magazines and newspapers. I wish I could tell you that the latter are in apple pie order and that I can lay my hands on exactly what I want in a trice. Nope. Not a hope. This lamentable lack of organisation came back to haunt me when I wanted to save these poor bananas from the bin and had a vague recollection of a good recipe from some years ago. I will cut a long and frustrating story short, by saying it took me nearly an hour to find what I wanted. Yes, there were other recipes more readily available, but stubbornly, I wanted that particular recipe that turned out to be snipped out of an American newspaper eleven years ago. It probably wouldn’t have taken me an hour if I had remained on task, but I kept discovering long forgotten gems, some of which revealed just how rusty my once fairly fluent French has become. Anyway, back to bananas.

The recipe is straightforward enough, in fact it is so simple it barely counts as cooking. Assuming, of course, one has all the ingredients…..now, I am an incurable recipe tweaker, except when it comes to cakes and baking generally. I don’t seem to have to same instinct for baking as I do for other areas of cookery, so tend to tweak only minor ingredients. I am not sure, however, it counts as minor when I discover I only have slightly more than half the required peeled weight of bananas. At this point I had greased the tin, was heating the oven and had weighed out all the other ingredients so opting out wasn’t an option. And Edoardo was expecting cake…….I sympathise, I get a bit like that when I’m expecting cheese…..

Anyway, for once I decided to tweak on a more major scale and made up the weight by using Spiced Apples that were drained of the juice that is inevitable with them. I did wonder if they would make it a bit too damp but decided to keep a close eye on the cake in the oven. For me, it is a minor miracle that it turned out perfectly: moist, light and full of flavour. I might even make this more often (cue for E’s eyes to light up – he complains he is cake-deprived normally).

I have written up what I did, but I suspect you could tinker around with the proportions, so long as it added up to 225g. And it wouldn’t have to be the Spiced Apple recipe; I might try it with raw grated apple and increase the spice content a bit. If you do try that, please let me know how it works out.

One last note; in the picture I was worried to see what looks like a lump of uncooked cake mixture but was relieved when it turned out to be a piece of apple!

I hope you enjoy this – we now call it “Leftovers Cake” but it’s not a very appetising title!

Spiced Banana and Apple Cake

Print Recipe

Serves: 10 Cooking Time: 45 - 60 minutes

Ingredients

butter for greasing the tin
85g unsalted butter
225g plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
0.25 tsp bicarbonate of soda
0.25 tsp salt
0.25 tsp grated nutmeg (or cinnamon, or a mixture of both)
120g peeled weight ripe bananas
105g drained Spiced Apples
110g caster sugar
2 medium eggs, beaten in a cup
100g roughly chopped walnuts
1kg/2lb loaf tin, base and long sides lined and greased with butter

Instructions

Pre heat the oven to 190 degrees/170 degrees fan

Melt the 85g butter in a small saucepan over a gentle heat (it mustn’t colour) and allow to cool

Mash the bananas thoroughly and stir together with the apple

Stir in the sugar, eggs and melted butter

Sift in the flour, baking powder and bicarb, folding in carefully

Fold in the chopped walnuts

Turn the mixture into the prepared tin, giving it a smart tap on the work surface to eradicate any air pockets and smooth off the top

Bake in the oven for 45 - 60 minutes, testing with a skewer after 45 minutes.

This one was done after 50 minutes but I suspect the banana/apple proportion will influence the time

Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then remove form the tin and cool on a wire rack

September 14, 2016

Older Posts

I was always an enthusiastic cook, but I was a wasteful and lazy cook. Leftover broccoli? In the bin, because I couldn’t be bothered to work out what I could do with it. Now I know differently and the purpose of my blog is to share with you (and, I hope, learn from you all) how it is perfectly possible to keep a good table (to use my mother’s phrase), be watchful of cost and buy in keeping with my conscience. Oh and food and eating should be FUN! In the UK, we seem to have become a but earnest and holier-than-thou about food and whilst I agree that there are few things more important than the food you put in your body, for heaven’s sake, let’s have some fun and pleasure with food.