Mudpies And Minestrone

Stichelton, Fig & Walnut Savoury Cake

2011-12-23T10:59:00.021Z

Savoury cake

This post was inspired by a random email from someone who bought a savoury cake from a range I produced for a Christmas Slow Food market at Southbank Centre 4 years ago. Having found my contact details, this ardent fan wanted to order a couple for the festive break. So much in love was she with the memory of that cake that I couldn't help but agree to do such a small order. Quite simply because my memory of the said cake was the polar opposite and inextricably entangled with utter misery. For during that four day Christmas market, I froze in sub-zero temperatures and endured rejection and dejection; I could not give the cakes away, although the homeless of Waterloo appreciated such finery. So now that I have that off my chest and have been suitably seduced with talk of the 'cake of dreams' I baked this cake this morning with a rehabilitated view.

For this is sumptuous mix of Christmas; Stichelton (a blue veined cheese), figs and walnuts. When you are eating this cake it eases you into an old leather chair in front of a roaring fire, with curtains drawn and a glass of full bodied red.

Stichelton is a re-make of Stilton, but uses raw milk. The reason for this reinvention followed the decision by makers of Stilton to cease to use raw milk as a reaction to health scares of a possible link to outbreaks of food poisoning with consumption of the cheese's unpasteurised milk. The cheese cognescenti mourned it's loss. And so in an attempt to recreate the more complex flavours of raw milk Stilton, Randolph Hodgson and American cheesemaker Joe Schneider went about recreating the venerable cheese on the Welbeck estate in Nottinghamshire. In late 2006 Stichelton was born.

I usually make this cake as mini muffins for canapes as, quite honestly I have had a slight aversion to ever seeing this combination as a loaf cake again. But as of today, I have so got over myself and will be indulging in the salty, sweet, creamy complex cake as I curl up in my shabby leather fire side chair. Well, if not exactly the sentiment is very much there.

Savoury mini muffins

Stichelton, fig & walnut savoury cake

100ml olive oil
100ml white wine (I used a Pinot Grigio)
4 eggs
275 Stichelton crumbled (& yes of course you can use Stilton, if you must)
50gm sliced dried figs
50gm walnuts broken
180gm SR white flour
pinch salt (careful, as Stichelton is salty)

Combine the olive oil, white wine and eggs and whisk well
Add crumbled Stichelton, nuts and figs
Add flour & salt and combine
Pile into a lined cake tin of your choice
Bake in preheated oven of 180C about 35-40 mins, testing to see the centre is cooked.
Allow to cool

Panforte

2011-12-05T22:40:00.024Z

Panforte & Other Christmas Food Gifts

Panforte, the Sienese classic fruit cake

Spiced Nuts

I have for too many years crammed Christmas shopping into the last week, remonstrating with myself that next Christmas things will have to change. At last the annual berating has sunk in and this festive season I'm sparing myself the misery of shopping and everyone is getting food gifts.

All day I have baked panforte, Christmas biscotti, spiced nuts, chocolate dipped orange peel. And a vast improvement it was from the shopping streets of central London, I've had a delightful day imbuing the gifts with the good vibrations of happy cooking. No stress, lovely day. What took me so long......

The Panforte (strong bread) is a packed with all that is Christmas; fruit, nuts, sugar and spice. It pairs very well with cheese. For the last few years I have been making my spin on this Sienese classic. This year I am sharing the recipe, which up to now has been a secret. So here it is. Try serving this with cheese, a Parmesan works particularly well.

Try serving with a hard salty cheese

Panforte

100 gms hazelnuts roasted and roughly chopped
150 gms ground almonds
25 gms green pistachio roughly chopped
150 gms orange & lemon candied peel (so much nicer when you do homemade) chopped tiny
50 gms figs chopped small
100 gms glace cherries (leave whole but toss in the flour so they separate)
zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
70 gms rice flour
150 gms soft brown sugar
30 gms butter
60 gms best quality honey (I used raw Norfolk honey)
1 tsp aniseed
half tsp cinnamon
quarter tsp ground cloves
good pinch of fresh grated nutmeg
a sheet of rice paper cut to the size of your cake tin.

You will need a 20cm loose bottomed cake tin.

Method

Line the cake tin with the rice paper.
Pre heat the oven to 160C.
Assemble all the nuts (chopped) and dried fruit which you have cut tiny. The cherries are best tossed in some of the rice flour so they don't clump together.
Combine the rice flour with the 4 spices and add to the nuts and fruit.
In a pan heat the butter, sugar and honey until it melts and just comes to the boil.
Quickly add the butter/sugar/honey mix with the fruit, nuts and spices and mix until thoroughly combined. It's hard work. You want to make sure its evenly mixed.
Press the mixture into the tin and work it down so the mixture is even. Bake in the oven for about 25 minutes. You are looking just to set it, so don't wait for it to turn dark, you want a light golden colour. As it cools, it will further set.

Spiced Nuts

2 recipes here for spicing mixed nuts, which makes a great gift. Almost impossible not to eat half of them as you cook.

Rosemary & Fennel

500gms of mixed nuts (I used macadamia, pecans, whole almond & cashews)
2 Tbsp fresh Rosemary leaves chopped
2 tsp fennel seeds
2 tsp sea salt flakes (Maldon or Cornish)
2 tsp golden caster sugar
half tsp cayenne pepper
2 Tbsp sunflower or vegetable oil

Method

Pre heat oven to 180C
Mix the spices & herbs with the oil and coat the nuts thoroughly
Put on a baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes, keeping a keen eye on it as the edges catch and burn quickly. Keep turning the nuts over until evenly golden.

Spiced Nuts

1 Tbsp sunflower or veg oil
1 Tbsp white sugar
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp whole coriander seeds
half tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp sea salt flakes

Method as above.

A day in the forest cooking with acorns

2011-11-21T21:25:00.083Z

Mighty oaks from little acorns grow

Acorn processing kit

The oak is a mystical, wise and majestic soul. The mighty acorn is the subject of fables, myths and sayings of wisdom. "An acorn holds the promise of a thousand forests". But when it comes to harvesting and eating the fruits of the oak tree there is taboo and a belief that they're toxic and only good for squirrels and swine.

Far from the case, for our stone age ancestors, acorns were the main staple starch food, supplementing hunted meat and foraged berries. Oaks grew abundantly from China, through the far East, Russia, Europe and North America down to Mexico.

This week end I had the chance to rekindle my inner acorn knowledge and reconnect with what my ancient hunter gatherer fore-bearers spent a good deal of their time engaged in the business of processing, cooking and eating acorns. A day in an enchanted forest in Sussex our guide Anna Richardson of Native Hands showed us how to process and cook the fruits of the oak tree.

The rock hard kernels need to be broken & ground down to flour.

The first task in processing acorns is to turn the acorns into flour. Once the acorn is opened, you must break the kernel down. This is best done with a stone grinder (stone age mortar and pestle, family please note Christmas present ideas). Then to grind broken kernels down into flour. We used a maize grinder, though a coffee mill will suffice.

Once ground, it must be leached of bitter tannins.

Next step is to leach out the bitter tannins. Tannin is water soluble so simply many changes of water over 3 or 4 days, until the water is less dark brown will suffice. Then your acorn meal is ready to cook with or to dry out and store.

Acorns have a wonderful buttery & earthy flavour. Anyone who has eaten the Iberico ham from acorn fed pigs will know the wonderful oily flavour of the celebrated charcuterie. This, until recently was my way of indirectly imbibing upon acorns, through the beasts who had consumed them.

Acorn Bread

The day's highlight was the acorn bread baked in a dutch oven. It was a gastronomic top 5 moment, when as the glowing embers were brushed off the cast iron pot, out emerged a triumphant steaming crusty, dark loaf of ancient wheat & acorness. The best tasting loaf I have ever eaten.

The acorn bread was a blend of kamut flour & acorn flour (3parts kamut/1part acorn) kneaded with yeast, salt and water in the usual way and given a day long proving, knocked back twice then baked in a dutch oven.

Dutch oven

Magic moment.

The lovely Anna Richardson beaming with pride at her bread.

Acorn, Hawthorn Berry & Sloe Pudding (authentic stone age special)

Poached apple & sloes - roughly mashed acorn - hawthorn berries
Poach the haws & strain through a sieve
Mix all three together.
Plop into a sycamore leaf and use stalk to thread closed

Leave in the embers of the fire for about 20 minutes.

Open the leaf and enjoy dessert
Fred Flintstone Burgers

Fry some onions, add to acron flour, grated carrot, courgette & anything else you fancy

Form into burger shapes and shallow fry in oil

A memorable day in the woods. I can't wait till next autumn when acorn will be on my menu. Acorn canapes with roasted squirrel and haw jelly?

As a corny, but irresistible foot note I bought these shoes this week. Do they look like an acorn eaters shoes?

Crab, Corn & Chili

2011-10-09T15:49:00.019+01:00

Dorset Spider Crab

Crab and Corn Chili Fritters

Hello Folks!

It's been an absurdly long time, where I almost got into the returning late library book syndrome. Also a lack of camera, then a new camera but couldn't transfer the images to my computer, and a whole host other excuses. So without further ado, I will share here my afternoon's endeavours with the fruits of my forraging from the farmers market.

Having just got to the end of a marathon summer of cooking and catering, I have as most people do on their first day off, gone down with a filthy cold with fever. The food we crave at such times is usually strong, umami and robust. Something to cut through the deadened senses and create some sensory stimulation. Of course chili, garlic, shellfish and onions are all good choices. The bright and cheery colour of corn is uplifting and soothing.

I took this beautiful spider crab and extracted his meat and then made a crab stock. This is where the real treasure is buried. A crab stock is a culinary gem, a crab bisque the ultimate soup in my opinion. And boy do I intend to make a crab and sweetcorn soup tomorrow from it.

In the meantime staying with the crab, chili & corn combination I made some fritters. A fast and easy meal. Once you have extracted the crab meat of course, from start to finish 15 minutes flat. To beat an egg, whisk in some flour, chop some spring onions, chili, zest a lemon and flake the crab meat in, fry the fritters and boil some beans. Now how hard can that be? This would work just as well (though I doubt as delicious) with tinned crab meat and corn.

Crab & Corn Fritters

For 4

The meat from one decent sized crab (approx 1 kilo - yields approx 200-250gm)
Corn kernels scraped from 2 cobs (boiled for about 7/8 minutes)
2 eggs beaten
100 grammes plain white flour
6 Spring onions sliced finely
A handful of mint
Zest of a lemon
2 jallapeno chilis
Sunflower oil for shallow frying
Salt and pepper

Method

Mix the egg and flour to form the basis of the batter.
Add the corn kernels, mint, spring onions, chili and mix well.
Fold in the crab meat and mix carefully and season.
Heat oil in frying pan and when very hot, fry spoonfuls of the mixture until crispy on both sides.
Drain of kitchen paper and serve with chili jam or mayonnaise and a palate cleansing salad.

Crab, Corn & Chili Soup

Now for those beautiful shells.....

After extracting the meat and saving the shells, smash them up with a rolling pin being careful not to get in the way of flying shards of shell. Then follow the usual procedure for stock making, although with fish and shellfish stocks, only a short simmer is needed.

Crab Stock

Crab shells
1 onion cut up small
1 leek cleaned and cut up small
1 small carrot cut up small
2 sticks of celery
4 or 5 tomatoes cut up
2 bay leaves
10 peppercorns
1 tsp fennel seeds
Some parsley stalks
Sprig of thyme
2 Tbsp olive oil

Heat the oil in a stock pot and saute the onion, celery, carrot and crab shells until they begin to colour and aromas are released. About 10 minutes.
Add all the other ingredients, and add water to cover.
Bring to the boil and continually skim off the scum that may arise.
Turn down the heat to simmer for 20 minutes.
Strain through a fine seive and reserve.

This stock freezes very well. Keeps in the fridge for about 3 days.

Crab Stock

Crab, Corn & Chili Soup

Method for Soup

2 Shallots diced
2 cloves of garlic
1 leek cleaned and chopped finely
4 cobs of corn - scrapped of kernels
1 litre of crab stock (heated)
A good pinch of saffron infused with a little of the crab stock
250ml double cream
Fresh chili chopped finely
Juice of 1 lemon (or lime)
Optional crab meat
Knob of butter and glug of olive oil

Firstly heat the butter and oil and saute the shallots and leeks until soft and tender but not golden (about 3-5 minutes)
Add the garlic and chili followed by the corn kernels, fry for about 3 minutes
Add the hot crab stock and bring to a simmer and leave for about 20 minutes until the corn is cooked.
Take off the heat and add the lemon juice and cream.
Add the crab meat if using.

Chestnut & Mushroom Pudding - Vegetarian Christmas

2010-12-11T16:16:00.016Z

Chestnut, mushroom & nut pudding with shallot & madeira sauce

For most folk rolling up their sleeves to take on the often challenging festive catering, the vegetarian at the table can cause the most consternation. Many people are thrown and end up 'just buying a veggie ready meal'. This delicious combination uses all the seasonal standards; chestnuts, mushrooms, walnuts and robust herbs. The suet crust is a wintry and comforting wrapper which soaks up the madeira and shallot sauce.

The quantities given in this recipe will make about 2 portions, enough for 2 small individual bowls. Of course you can double up for a large version. You will have some filling left over which would not be out of place on your own turkey plate. The filling is delicious and will find itself at the very worse as a welcome addition to the left over turkey pie, or post Christmas soup pot.

Chestnut & mushroom filling

1 small onion & bayleaf
2 cloves garlic
1 small stick of celery
50gms dried chestnuts (soaked over night and boiled for an hour) or 100gms chestnuts either from vacpac or an overpriced jar.
100gms chestnut mushrooms chopped quite small but not too fine
50gms mixed nuts roughly chopped (keep the shape of some)
1 tablespoon of breadcrumbs
generous knob of butter
1 tablespoon plain flour
100ml of vegetable stock (use some of the cooking liquid of the chestnuts if using)
A generous glug of madeira wine (or use red wine)
A good handful of mixed sage, parsley, thyme
Seasoning

Firstly fry the chopped onion in the butter with a bayleaf, until soft (5 minutes)
Add the chopped garlic, and finely chopped celery and the roughly chopped mushrooms, fry until soft.
Add the flour and stir until absorbed and cook on a low heat stirring all the time to 'cook' the flour. Then take off the heat as you add the madeira or wine, stir so that the liquid absorbs evenly, then add the stock,
Put back on the heat and cook for about a minute, then add the chopped chestnuts, nuts and stir in the breadcrumbs and herbs. Season to taste and set the mixture aside.

You can reserve the mixture for several days or freeze until you want to use it.

Suet Crust (enough for 2 small pudding basins)

150gms self raising flour
75gms vegetarian suet (I use Community as they are sound sourcers of palm oil)
half teaspoon dried mustard powder
half a handful of mixed herbs
Salt
Some butter for greasing
A little foil and some greaseproof paper and string
Put a pan large enough to contain the pudding bowl, or bowls on to boil.
Mix the flour, salt, suet, herbs and mustard powder with enough water to bring it together into a soft and pliable dough. Go slowly with the water!
Separate one quarter of the dough which will be for the lid.
Lightly butter the pudding bowl.
Roll out the pastry into a circle which will line the pudding bowl.
Pile in the mixture and then roll out the remaining quarter into a round to cover the bowl. Trim off the excess and dampen the suet disk edges so that it sticks to the top of the pudding bowl.

Grease a piece of foil and place on top of the pudding. Then cover with greaseproof paper tying a piece of string to securely fix the paper down. Trim the paper.

Lower this into the boiling water (which should be about 3/4 up the side of the pudding bowl.
Allow to simmer for about 2 hours.
Allow to rest for about 10 minutes and then turn out the glorious pudding, preferably on a bed of red cabbage and serve the sauce around the outside.

Madeira Sauce

1 small shallot finely chopped

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1 sprig of thyme

half a wine glass of Madeira wine

100ml veg stock

25gms butter.

Fry the chopped shallot in the a knob of the butter with the thyme for about a minute.
Add the balsamic vinegar and allow to boil away.
Add the Madeira and allow to simmer away to almost nothing.
Add the vegetable stock and allow to simmer away by half.
Off the heat whisk in the butter which will give a silky shine and lovely buttery flavour.
Season to taste.

You can make in advance and reheat gently.

Chicken Noodle Soup, Well Being & Happiness

2010-11-25T13:14:00.012Z

Steaming, spicy, warming bowl of goodness

London has just plummeted in temperature and now is the time for warming & comfort-giving food. Food which gives us a glow and enhances well being.

As I write I hear on the radio David Cameron talking about how well being could be evaluated. I say a bowl of chicken noodle soup is a definition of well being and happiness, and we would all be better off if everyone was drinking it. (Vegetarians would have a meat free option of course).

This chicken soup is also topical as we are in European Waste Reduction Week . Virtually all the ingredients for this soup were scraps plus a minor contribution from the store cupboard. The basis of the soup is of course chicken stock, principally made from scraps and leftovers of the chicken carcass.

This soup is dedicated to using up your leftovers, national well being and happiness.

A raid in the cupboard and fridge to find a few bits

This is an idea for soup, and of course can include anything.

1 shallot diced finely
2 cloves of garlic chopped
1 small thumb of ginger peeled and sliced
2 chilis (depending on how hot you wish), supplemented with a few dried
1 lime
2 star anise
2 small carrots
A quarter of slightly worse for wear pointed cabbage
A few leaves of mint
A small bundle of noodles (you could add pasta)
750ml of chicken stock (so much the better when it's from a carcass)
2 Tablespoons sunflower oil
Some shredded chicken meat
Seasoning

Heat oil in pan and add the shallots for 2 minutes, then add the garlic, chili and ginger, fry for a minute.
Add the carrots and stir fry for a minute or two.
Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil, turn down to simmer for 10 minutes.
Add the finely shredded cabbage and when the stock is simmering, add the noodles and cook until soft. Add the shredded chicken to warm through.
Serve with chopped mint and squeeze of lime juice.

Smile and be warm and happy.

Love Food Hate Waste 5 Rescue Recipes

2010-11-14T20:45:00.043Z

No one can deny that food waste is an unpalatable subject, even more so are the statistics. Here are some of the facts....

We throw away 8.3 million tones of food each year
5.3 million tones of this total is food which is fit for consumption
£12 billion each year is thrown to landfill, which is avoidable!
This is equivalent to £480 each year for the average household or £680 a year for families with children, equivalent to £50 per month.
The food sent to landfill generates methane, a greenhouse gas more powerful than carbon dioxide.
This emission is equivalent to 20 million tones of carbon dioxide.
If we stopped wasting food it would be equivalent to taking 25% of the cars off our roads.

It is sobering reading. These statistics are published by Love Food Hate Waste, the campaign which was launched 4 years ago to tackle the food waste in the UK by domestic households. This is not the industry sector, for which we have no influence.

This means you and me. We are in wholesale denial about our own part in throwing away food with 84% believing that they throw no food away or hardly any food away.

Hmmm, 8.3 million tonnes got there somehow......

Over the last year I have held cooking demonstrations for the Love Food Hate Waste campaign, showing how using the foods that are often thrown away can be delicious and very easy to prepare.

Love Food Hate Waste run an informative and resource packed website with excellent tips about storing food, using it up and portion control. Much of the avoidable waste is us cooking more than we eat. One of the top tips from LFHW is to have a well thought out store cupboard, giving you plenty of scope for using up the scraps.

So without further reason to feel incapacitated with the overwhelm of hopelessness in the face of mega tonnes of rotting food in the landfill, it is heartening to realise that changing this can start in your own kitchen. Simply deciding that left overs are worth using, eating up, re-hashing and fun. Some of the family's favourite meals are the left over creations.

Here are 5 recipes showing some simple rescue recipes.

Pear Cake

I am as guilty as the next person when it comes to buying fruit that I don't always eat up. About a tenth of all food waste is fruit. This excellent rescue recipe can save a bowl of pears or apples from going into the bin with store cupboard stand-bys.

225g softened butter
225g caster sugar (reserve a tablespoon)
About 400-500gms of apples or pears of any variety chopped up into small dice.
The rind of 1 lemon finely grated and its juice
4 eggs
225g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tablespoon ground almonds (optional)

Blend the butter and sugar until pale.
Add the eggs one at a time and beat until blended.
Add the lemon and almonds
Fold in the flour and baking powder.
Gently add and fold in the fruit.
Pile into a 22cm springform baking tin 22 cm, sprinkling the top with reserved tablespoon of sugar and bake at 170C for about 45 minutes or until it is golden and cooked in the middle.
Release the mould when cool and serve.

Rocket and Walnut Pesto

Will keep for a least 2 weeks in a jar in the fridge

An instant ready meal

Virtually everyone admits to throwing away salad and herbs. Full of good intentions when out buying and no doubt seduced with 'buy one get one free' offers. This rocket and walnut pesto recipe can save that rocket just on the turn with ingredients we very often have in our store cupboard. The same remedy can be applied to any mixture of herbs or watercress.

50g rocket
1 clove of garlic
25g walnuts
25g finely grated Parmesan or other hard cheese
50ml olive oil
Salt and pepper

Rocket, olive oil, garlic, Parmesan and walnuts (packet nuts work perfectly)

Simply blend all the ingredients in a food processor, adding finely grated hard cheese at the end.

Adding chili would be a welcome addition

Cornbread

Sometimes we buy special ingredients for a recipe and use what is needed and then leave the said ingredient languishing in the cupboard for months. Thrown out when we have exceeded the use by date. On my last Love Food cooking demo I was asked to feature some ingredients that may normally be left behind once we have made the recipe book dish just once. Polenta or cornmeal (the same thing by the way) is a something that may be such an ingredient. This is a great grain for making muffins or cornbread.

This cornbread can be made start to finish in 25 minutes maximum and is so heart warming and comforting that once you have tried it, will become a regular fixture. It makes a welcome change from bread to serve with soup.

Standard Recipe

150g polenta, or cornmeal

150g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

275ml buttermilk or sour milk or just milk

100ml milk

3 eggs

50g melted butter

Salt and pepper

Add any further ingredients

A baking tray about 30cm x 15cm lightly greased

Firstly select what needs using up. You can add cooked meat, grated cheese, tinned corn, red onion, any herbs, veg grated.

Combine all the ingredients together, adding all the 'use up' items.

Pour into a greased baking tin and bake at 180C for about 20 minutes, until golden and cooked through.

Eat as soon as it comes out of the oven.....

Cauliflower Fritters

The great British cauliflower is an unsung hero. I love cauliflower sauteed in spices until caramelised and served as a salad. Making fritters another great way to use it up along with other store cupboard items. One cauliflower and a few ingredients goes a long way. Serve with a raita or herby yogurt and a bit more cupboard combing and you will have a meal on your hands. I love how my fussy son who doesn't like cauliflower loves these.....

1 Cauliflower
1 onion
1 or 2 chilies
1 tsp cumin seeds, 1tsp coriander, salt & pepper
3 eggs
Handful of coriander
100gms of plain flour
Sunflower oil for shallow frying

Cut the cauliflower into florets and boil until cooked, mash lightly
Add all the other ingredients with beaten eggs and flours (I added some oatmeal)
Fry in hot oil until golden and cooked all the way through
Drain on kitchen paper

Serving idea, with herby yogurt dip and salad

Savoury Potato Skins

16% of our wasted food is vegetables and salad. Potatoes rank highly within this total.

This is a delicious snack and served with home made soup makes a nutritious and economical meal. The beauty of this potato skin dish is that you can put anything that needs using up in. Ham, bacon, tuna, left over meat, capers, feta, peppers, courgettes, olives, sun dried tomatoes, mushrooms are some of the typical items that knock around my fridge. Often just a spoon of each, but with this rescue idea will end up as a dish in its own right.

The humble potato along with some scraps

Firstly forage in the fridge and comb your cupboards

Bake the potatoes until soft

Scoop out the potato flesh, leaving the skins intact

Lightly mash the potato flesh with a few tablespoons of milk, grating the cheese and chopping up the scraps into small pieces. Mix together and pile into the skins.

Bake in the oven until hot through and golden on top

Serve with a salad

The Spirit of Terra Madre & An estate in South London

2010-10-29T10:59:00.035+01:00

In the last week I have been on a food pilgrimage to the biannual Slow Food Festival, Terra Madre in Turin. The Piedmonte capital city becomes the destination of 7000 delegates from 160 countries, representing every corner of the planet. Farmers, food producers, cooks, teachers and young people all connected in a common interest of the food we eat and issues of food security at local and global level. Terra Madre is a festival of food communities, where food culture and diversity are celebrated, like minds and hearts meet, ideas are exchanged.

Workshops, seminars, talks, debates and national meetings take place, translated into 6 languages. Films, music, art, craft and national costumes colour the spectacle. Running alongside this Olympic games of food culture, is the Salone Del Gusto, a food exhibition where 2000 traders from all over the world exhibit their wares in an epic market place, under the roof of the former Fiat car factory. Yes, it’s mad. The overwhelm of olive oil, balsamico, Canadian red wheat, blue corn, cereals, poppy seeds, air dried Romanian mutton, fruit pasta from Azerbaijan, apricots from Afghanistan, rare varieties of Dehradun rice, more cheeses than can be comprehended, all create a gastronomic cacophony.

This is not the preserve of the privileged, alongside the likes of Lavazza and San Daniele hams, trades the small producer from the humblest background with a delegation of indigenous communities with air dried meats and forest berry preserves. The united nations of the small producer food world gather, trade and exchange ideas. The gastronomic cognescenti mix with culinary novices. For 5 days a few acres of Turin becomes the centre of the food world.

Despite having mixed opinions on the running of Slow Food UK, I remain resolutely committed to message of Slow Food’s core tripartite of Good, Clean and Fair. I spent time with some inspiring and creative members of the UK food community. Amongst them, Highland crofters from Shetland Isles and Skye, a breeder of Welsh sheep, farming on the side of Snowdon, a charcuterie producer (and winner of the Observer Food Magazine Producer of the Year no less) from Monmouthshire, a food scientist and academic from University of Plymouth, a talented and accomplished Indian chef specializing in British cuisine, who runs Slow Food Cornwall, and some of my old muckers from Slow Food London, to name but a few. In a 4 day marathon we tasted, sipped, compared, recounted this or that lecture and debated the food frenzy.

Slow Food founder and leader Carlo Petrini

The Terra Madre is about the spirit of community and for me the salient issue is how this that can be realistically channelled into the work we do and love.

After the Last Terra Madre in 2008, the UK chef delegation pledged to teach young people about food and the wider issues. I committed to teaching young people in deprived areas of London.

After nearly 2 years of this work I have started a teaching programme, which teaches cooking and places equal emphasis on sitting at the table, eating and talking. It has successfully linked urban young people with the bigger picture of their food.

Over the last year, I have run a weekly class with London Local Authority Southwark, in their Targeted Youth Service, teaching young people involved with crime or those at high risk and their families. The experience convinced me of its benefits and the potential for further developing it.

Southwark Youth Inclusion Programme

Mustafa amazed me with his take on my Patty Pan recipe!

At a summer course I ran, I asked the group how the recent Pakistan floods & Russian fires might affect us here. ‘Wheat prices will increase’ they said. I was bursting with pride as my cohort of Bermondsey youngsters had clearly been paying attention at a visit to London craft baker, Flour Power City, who generously indulged us in a bread tasting of their entire range with a talk which commanded their full attention (no small task).

Which leads me straight into the co highlight of the last week. I gave a demonstration on an estate in Camberwell, which was launching a new food growing garden project. My demonstration featured the vegetables planned for harvesting next year. A wide selection of residents ranging from half term holiday school kids, to older pensioners from an eclectic mix of backgrounds and cultures enjoyed a 4 course vegetable based feast.

The most inspiring thing about community cooking is the way a group comes to life as they engage in conviviality and food discussion. It is never long before stories of ‘my nan used to make….’ and 'back home, we would ....’. And the exchange of ideas and wisdom unfolds. A far cry from a packet being opened and thrown in the microwave, eaten in isolation.

One resident made a tea from the leaves of the quince tree. Adnam is originally from Turkey and is a Camberwell forager, although he doesn’t consider it foraging, more like common sense. He explained that quince and lime leaves should be picked when flowering, then dried and used for making herbal teas. He indulged us all with quince leaf or lime leaf tea, sweetened with his own Kennington Park Lodge honey. This will see off sore throats and build up immunity for winter months. I imagined that this has passed down a very long line of Turkish wisdom. Everyone was touched by this example of zero food miles, available and free in their own estate.

Lime leaves picked when flowering and dried.

Simmered for 5 minutes for tea

Quince leaves to ward off the winter blues and see off a sore throat

The menu of hearty vegetable broth, cheddar, leek & onion potatoes skins, spicy cauliflower fritters and quince, apple & pear stewed in syrup which was whipped up in front of them within an hour was well received and critical acclaim was in order.

The residents all enjoyed the demo and said they were amazed at how these standard everyday vegetables had been transformed into a delicious meal so quickly and easily. I had really enjoyed being part of this day, learning myself yet another pearl of wisdom about the blessed quince and witnessing the residents of a South London estate becoming engaged in food growing, cooking and seeing their food horizons, visibly expanded.

This was a real Terra Madre story.

Quince

2010-10-20T17:22:00.024+01:00

English Quince

The celebrations for Apple day started last week end. I held a cooking with apples demonstration in Crouch End. There, a few hundred of the local community came to celebrate apples, with an old fashioned apple press, apple cakes, varieties galore with bizarre names and a fascinating talk from John Selborne of the Blackmoor Nursery in Hampshire on the evolution of the apple from it's origins in Kazakhstan.

For my demo, as well as green tomato & apple chutney, I side stepped slightly from the apple to introduce a first cousin, the blessed English quince.

Every year I look forward to the arrival of quince. The English quince can be hard to get hold of. But asking around and generally letting all and sundry know, you will find some. As I did, and I thank Gemma Harris of Urban Harvest who put me touch with Hazel, the owner of a tree in Tottenham. Hazel amazed me by saying her neighbour was getting annoyed at the quinces dropping into her garden - Oh the lucky, lucky neighbour, I can only dream of such a problem.

It wasn't long before I was clasping a bag of the blessed quinces, inhaling the intoxicating sweet fragrance. A bowl of quince will perfume a whole room.

The quince originates from the Caucasus region and naturally plays a role in the exotic and refined cuisine of Persia, where they will cook the fragrant and sour fruit with meat, cinnamon, saffron, lemon and rice (Khoresh-e beh). It also makes excellent jam, jellies and syrup, in a similar way the seville oranges makes great marmalade. The Portuguese make marmelo from quince, the original marmalade. The Spanish make membrillo, a thick quince cheese served with manchego. The hard and sour fruit needs to be boiled or baked for a fairly long time and as it cooks its pale colour gives way to beautiful pink hue through to rose red.

For the demo I baked the quince with a fairly impromptu selection from my cupboard. Giving the Western Asian origins recognition in my choice of flavours. I selected a handful of dates, cinnamon, rose water, a splash of brandy, brown sugar, a handful of pistachios and some melted butter. All mixed together and poured into the little cavity where you hollow out the tough core, baked in the oven until soft and red with the sugar and spices turned to an unctuous caramel. The texture of the dates remain chewy against the melting quince with the crunch of some fresh nuts thrown in as garnish. Oh light the fire quick, this is a hearth side treat.

It is easy to see how this would work very well with roasted pheasant or any game for that matter.

Chopped dates, soft brown sugar, rose water, cinnamon, butter & brandy poured into the cavity and into the oven

2 Hours later the fruit is soft, the dates are chewy with a deep cinnamon laced caramel

Garnish with pistachios and serve with greek style yogurt

Baked Quince with warm spice

4 Quinces
50gms dates
100gm soft brown sugar
2 tablespoons rosewater
50gms melted butter
50gms chopped pistachios
1 tsp cinnamon
Glug of brandy or eau de vie
1 cup of water

Preheat the oven to 180C

Wash the quinces and slice in half. Dig out the seeds and hollow out the woody core.
Chop the dates, mix with all the other ingredients except the water. Reserve half the pistachios.
Place in a baking dish and fill the mixture into the cavity of the quinces. Add one cup of water, cover with foil.
Place in the oven for 2 hours. Check after an hour and pour a little more water if drying out. You want to see a dark syrupy sauce developing.
When soft and cooked through, garnish with some chopped pistachios and serve with greek style yogurt or cream.

Autumn Foraging

2010-09-26T00:03:00.030+01:00

Sloe gin, Hawthorn jelly, Rosehip syrup, Nettle pesto and Nettle soup

Shiny powerhouses packed with Vitamin C

The swallows have departed for about a week, and earlier this week we have seen the autumn equinox with an equal balance of night and day. Now the nights rapidly become longer. Autumn is in full swing and the pickings are rich when out on any walk at the moment. I had a great foraging session in Kent on Friday with my Mum. We gathered haws, hips, sloes and nettles.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of demonstrating at Belsize Eco Week and used my gatherings for a cook up to the Hampstead Heath foragers. One of the most popular tasters was the nettle soup. Nettles are in season again and are highly nutritious, abundant and free. The nettle pesto served on little squares of bread is always a novelty and a big crowd pleaser.

Nettle pesto See here for Nettle Soup recipe and Nettle Pesto. (Note that soup & pesto recipes were made in the Spring, so omit the wild garlic and for the nettle pesto, use Kent cobnuts - now in season)

The magical hawthorn tree is a delight all year round and now the fragrant blossoms of May have born deep red berries. Haw jelly is said to be good with meat, and by coincidence I was making a huge venison stock today and realised how this would be a natural marriage, assuming that deer would probably be foraging on these berries. To finish a game sauce with a spoon of haw jelly would be an interesting experiment and one I will reporting on this week.

Amongst my haul were sloes, the fruit of the blackthorn, which is a relation of the plum. The blackthorn blossom is a joyful spring sighting. Miles Irving the forager told me that these blossoms make a wonderful almond flavoured infusion. The colour of these plump berries is magnificent. I pondered what to do with them..... sloe jelly is a possibility but my larder is somewhat groaning with various jellies and so opted for sloe gin. This takes about 3 months to mature and so will make a welcome fireside tipple in the mid winter.

Rosehips are a taste of childhood. At the demonstration many faces smiled at the evocation of taste memory on trying some rosehip syrup. One visitor from Belarus told how she made rosehips with her grandmother. They would scrape out the seeds from each hip, which seems greulling labour. However, what a lovely way to pass an evening to be chatting and story telling whilst making rosehips for tea and syrup for the winter ahead.

Rosehip Syrup

Wild rose hips

Rosehips are abundant and very easy to find. The hips are where a rose had been and now turns to seed. I followed Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's recipe as follows:

The hips picked and cleaned

1Kg hips

1Kg sugar

Pick through the hips, removing the stalks and remains of the rose. Wash, drain and roughly chop (or blitz in food processor).
Bring 2 litres of water to the boil and add the rosehips, bring to the boil and turn off the heat - infuse for half an hour.
Strain through a jelly bag or a colunder lined with a tea towel.
Return the pulp back to the pan with 2 litres of water and repeat the same exercise.
Discard the pulp.
Combine the 2 rosehip waters and boil hard until reduced by half.
Add the sugar and boil hard for 5 minutes.
Pour into seralised bottles.

Sloe Gin

500gm sloes

750ml gin

125gm caster sugar

Pick over the sloes and remove stalks. Wash and drain.
Prick each sloe with a cocktail stick and put in a large steralised jar.
Add the sugar, followed by the gin.
Shake the jar until the sugar has melted.
Put in a dark place and shake every other day for a week.
Shake once a day until the sugar is dissolved. Store in a dark place for 3 months, giving it a shake every now and then, by which time the sloe gin will be ready for drinking or decanting into bottles for christmas presents. (It will keep longer if decanted).

Hawthorn Jelly

Haws from the hawthorn tree

Strain the pulp & juice over night

500gms haws
2 cups water
125 gm sugar
1 lemon

Pick over the haws, removing stalks. Wash and drain.
Add 2 cups of water and bring to the boil and simmer for an hour, mashing every now and then.
Strain through a jelly bag, preferably all night.
Measure the juice and add 450gms of sugar to each 600ml of juice.
Heat the juice in a pan and add the sugar and juice of one lemon, bring to the boil and test for setting point.
Pour into hot steralized jars and seal.

Japanese Nourishment

2010-09-19T18:11:00.031+01:00

Clockwise from top left:

Hijiki & roast pumpkin, seared scallops, kale and miso dressing,

turnip & wakame, green mooli, aubergine & white miso

My dear friend Yuka has just had her second baby, so I offered to visit and prepare some home cooked Japanese food for her and toddler Skyler.

Feeding Mummy, feeding baby Cosmo

Japanese cuisine, particularly traditional Japanese held a deep fascination when I first discovered it 17 years ago. I obsessively practiced classic dishes, reading and researching traditional recipes and finding authentic ingredients in pre internet days.

Every time I dip my toe into its Zen like waters I am reminded of this fascination. If I need a pick me up or I'm feeling particularly ungrounded and manic (as caterers can get), a bowl of miso soup will recalibrate the senses and restore calm almost instantly.

Namayasi, a Japanese grower based in East Sussex produces traditional Japanese vegetables and now runs a London box delivery service. Namayasi were exhibiting at the Japanese festivities at Matsuri held in London's Spitalfields. The vegetables had been harvested that morning at 2.00am. That is crazy dedication for you. The produce was so booming with vitality it was enough to make a cook weep with joy at such beauty.

Clockwise from the top left

Green mouli, red shiso leaves, Japanese turnip, chili, aubergine, edible chrysanthemum

My store cupboard is well stocked with Japanese condiments, such as shoyu, mirin, sesame oil, rice vinegar and miso, so this meal was very easy. A trip to the farmers market this morning to buy some hand dived scallops from Dorset and some lovely pumpkin and kale meant that nearly all my fresh produce was little more than 24 hours from harvest.

Farmer's Market shop

I took these beautiful Japanese turnips, so fresh with their vibrant green leaves still attached, and wanted to do as little as possible to them. Slicing them paper thin and marinading in a few spoons of ume seasoning (Japanese plum condiment) with some leaves of wakame seaweed. The acid of the ume softened the turnip without losing any of its delicate young flavour. The fresh green stalks and leaves were put into the miso soup.

Sliced thinly, wakame and ume seasoning - so simple

Green Mooli

Grated finely

Hijiki seaweed with sesame roasted pumpkin

Hijiki is my favourite seaweed with a very strong taste of the sea, this dish is an old classic which I've been making for years. The Japanese consider this seaweed a tonic for strong and shiny black hair.

Soak in water for about 15 minutes (reserve the water), squeeze the water out as much as possible.
Fry briefly in sesame oil, add a little shoyu and mirin and allow to nearly evaporate, then add a few tablespoons of soaking water and simmer for about 10 minutes, until the seaweed feels soft.
The pumpkin has simply been roasted in sesame oil and salt in a hot oven for about 15 minutes.

Simply show scallops a smoking hot pan with some butter, sear until caramalised, serve with lemon and seasoning

Kale with Miso Dressing

A few stalks of kale shredded finely

2 Tbsp sunflower oil

1 Tbsp sesame oil

1 tsp miso paste melted with a 2 Tbsp of hot water

1 tsp honey

Blanch the kale in boiling water for just 1 minute. Drain and plunge into cold water and drain again. Mix the dressing ingredients and add the kale.

Aubergine & white miso

Place the aubergine in the flame of the gas until blistered and soft all the way through.
1 Tbsp white miso paste mixed with 3 Tbsp hot water.
Peel the aubergine of its charred skin and chop the flesh. Add the miso paste and blend.

Serving suggestion

Take a tablespoon of everything and place on an oblong plate or any regular plate, giving space to each dish. Grate some of the mooli, which in this case was a variety of green mooli. Mooli is palate cleansing and holds remarkable health benefits, aiding digestion. The finest grate is best, so that the mooli is a puree. Serve with a bowl of steaming miso soup and finish with some pickles.

Steaming miso

The Art of Tea

2010-09-05T21:22:00.034+01:00

Fun and frivolous

Miss Haversham's teaparty......

......... with Zandra Rhodes

and Marie Antoinette

Fluffy Scones from the oven

Two bite fruit pavlovas

Chocolate brownies with pecans & dried strawberries, crystalised roses & violets

A concession to childhood memories of tea parties...

Finger cut dainty sandwiches

Tea bread and butter

Tea time evokes nostalgia for a bygone era, of more genteel days. High tea is an unadulterated celebration of chintz, china and clutter. Fun and frivolous, with tiny precision cut sandwiches, fluffy scones, strawberry jam, cakes, colour and cream. Freshly brewed tea, poured from the pot, anything else would be unthinkable.

The ritual of making tea the way my Grandfather taught me is now a rarity. What was standard, and practiced by everyone, is now sadly the preserve of the connoisseur. This sloppy approach to tea making is now the norm and indicative of the decline in our collective relationship with food and drink. The fastest, cheapest route to a brew of tea made with tea dust, produced by the exploited. (Excuse the rant)

My Grandfather taught me how to make tea properly, as a third generation tea merchant, I would marvel as he could identify which area of Assam a tea was from. As a boy he would watch the clippers come into the London docks where wooden tea chests filled with loose leaf tea would be unloaded and sent on its journey, through a relatively short supply chain.

Buying good tea leaves is important and there is plenty of choice even at supermarkets. London based pioneers of single estate teas are Postcard Teas . If you wish to explore the subject in greater depth and discover the world of green teas and tea culture, I would recommend a visit to Alex of East Teas at Borough Market. Alex delights me with exotic stories of the Vietnamese lady teamaster, the tea from 200 year old tea bushes, a sample of the tea which will keep you sharp and focussed without over stimulating your nerves. He is Dr Tea and to be indulged in his tea wisdom is a treat.

But to the serious business of making tea ..... here is the path to a proper cuppa, and salvation to being a born again tea drinker....

The most important rule is to boil freshly drawn cold water. Don't forget to warm the pot and go and find Alex at Borough.

Empty the kettle completely and refill with fresh water (reboiling old water is the horror of all bad tea making habbits)
Boil the water. Add the tea leaves to a warm pot (one teaspoon per person plus one for the pot).
Pour the boiling water onto the tea leaves and infuse for 5 minutes.
Stir the brew and pour.

I'm not going to indulge in the milk in first or last debate, although I do milk in first because that's what Grandpa did, and if it's good enough for him...... Although I have heard someone described as 'she was very MIF'

Damson Cheese & other preserves

2010-08-30T21:51:00.008+01:00

Pear & date chutney

I couldn't stay away from the preserving pan today. The farmers market was brimming with Autumn's bounty and the urge to wave the preserving wand was strong. Besides, it was a good distraction to the many nagging duties I'm avoiding.

Damsons are one of my favourite autumn fruits, as much for it's dark indigo colour as its sharp distinctive flavour. I keep a jar of damson jelly as a staple, which I add to most meat sauces, especially for game, to give depth and a distinguished colour.

Today I made damson cheese, which I intend to serve with some fine cheeses. It couldn't be easier.

Also a batch of pears from my Mum's garden to make huge pot of pear & date chutney. This goes very well with mature cheddar cheese.

And so my winter larder grew today, as well with redcurrant jelly and blackberry and apple jelly, the product of a happy forage in Kent.

Pears, dates, onion, cinamon and ginger

Wine Dark Cheese

Damson Cheese

This recipe is from Margarite Pattern's Jams, Chutneys, preserves, vingegars and Oils. If you only buy one book on preserving, this is the one.

1 Kg Damsons

450gm caster sugar

Cover the damsons in a some water and bring to the boil,simmer for about 30 minutes until the fruit is mushy and soft.
Push the fruit through a seive and reserve the pulp.
For each 600ml of pulp, measure 450gm of caster sugar.
Heat the pulp and and add the sugar. Bring to a rapid boil for about 8 minutes. Check for setting point.
Pour into containers, cool.

Pear, Date & Cinnamon Chutney

(This recipe is from Delicious Magazine - I added the ginger)

1 Kg pears chopped small

2 eating apples chopped small

450gm dates chopped

3000gm demarera sugar

450gm shallots or onions chopped

5cm grated ginger

600ml cider vinegar

Add the chopped pear, apple, dates, onion, grated ginger, cinnamon sticks to a pan with the 300ml cider vinegar and slowly bring to the boil.
Simmer vigorously for 30 minutes and add the other 300ml of cider vinegar. Boil for a further 30 minutes, until the mixture is thick. (you may need to continue boiling for another 15 minutes).
Pour into steralised hot jars and seal.

Crab Apple Jelly

2010-08-30T11:10:00.009+01:00

Seductively warm and amber

Crab apples are rough and ready - don't overlook the rough diamonds.

We are in fully fledged Autumn now, I've spent the last few weeks denying this possibility, indulging in my annual lament at the loss of summer. Luckily the compensation is huge once you accept the departure of the luscious soft fruits, the bright greens, yellows and reds of the peas, pods and shoots and embrace the prospect of building up the larder, preserving the spectrum of Autumn's palate. Damsons, crab apples, plums, blackberries are abundant now, with the quinces and sloes to come.

In the midst of a South London estate lies Moorlands, a tiny treasure of wildlife, nurtured by a community of urban food growers. I was given these crab apples to experiment with.

Crab apples are easy to overlook, they are blighted with dark spots and blemishes and far from the perfect forms we are now accustomed to measuring our foods with. As my pot of crab apples simmered, the sweet perfumed smell of prunus filled the house.

I would implore you not to be put off with the straining and measuring that making a jelly calls for. It really is very little 'actual' time. If you don't have a jelly bag, then a sieve lined with muslin will suffice. And the results by far outweigh the effort.

Thank you lovely folk from Moorlands!

Now what can I preserve.......

This recipe is from the WI Book of Preserves.

(I did not use a lemon and it still worked fine)

1 kilo crab apples
450gms caster sugar
Juice of 1 lemon

Simply wash the crab apples, removing the leaves.
Cover in water and bring to the boil, simmer for about 30 minutes, until soft. Mash.
Pour into a jelly strainer and leave overnight. DO NOT PUSH THE MASH THROUGH. (This will cause the jelly to be cloudy).
The next day pour the liquid into a saucepan and measure 450gm caster sugar for 600ml of liquid.
Heat gently and then boil rapidly for about 10 minutes.
Test for a set (crinkle test on a cold saucer).
Pour into hot jars and seal.

Welsh Laverbread

2010-08-23T07:56:00.004+01:00

I came across this tin of Welsh Laverbread in my cupboard. This was given to me by one of my favourite cooks following a new ingredient revelation. In the Pantheon of my personal food heroes and heroines sits the bearer of this gastronomic introduction. It was a one of those moments in which you die and go to food heaven.

Harvesting and eating seaweed around Ireland, Scotland and Wales is an ancient tradition for our Celtic cousins. The plentiful sea vegetables are laden with nourishment. The seaweed is harvested and boiled for hours, then minced. Looking at laverbread once you've opened the tin, it is difficult to imagine that this black sludge could be such a delight. As you would expect it tastes intensely of the sea. Simply adding a few tablespoons of oatmeal (about one third) shaping into cakes and frying and you have a rare treat,which goes very well with eggs and bacon, or cockles as is the traditional accompaniment in Wales.

You can buy online at Parsons Pickles, where I'm just about to place an order.

To make laverbread cakes, simply mix about one third oatmeal or porridge oats to the laver and shallow fry in hot sunflower oil.

Stuffed Patty Pan Squash

2010-08-16T18:11:00.035+01:00

I have recently joined a CSA (community supported agriculture) scheme. I commit to buying a farm box which is delivered to a local point every week. In exchange I receive a regular and reliable box of high quality fresh vegetables, fruit, eggs, milk, bread and meat, whilst supporting a farm who practices sustainable farming techniques. I know exactly where my food comes from and even the names of those who grow it. The price is extremely reasonable, considering the quality, I rate it as excellent value.

Church Farm is an hour away from my corner of North London. The farm is open for visits and positively encouraged, so that the urban dwellers can connect with the story which lies behind the ingredients. Picking up the farm box is a sociable exchange, chatting to the people who feed the animals, sow, water and harvest the vegetables. Very satisfying. Shortening the supply chain and promoting the link between grower and consumer - a 'co-producer' as such.

In my box last week there was a patty pan squash. As experienced a cook that I am, I've somewhat dodged this variety, stopping short of admiring it's happy yellow colour and intriguing 10 sided form.

So after a few words of encouragement and tips from Richard, a grower at Church Farm, I took an armful of these stunners home. I firstly diced the whole thing, and simply fried in olive oil with an onion and garlic, adding some dried chili and a few fennel seeds. The flesh is somewhere inbetween marrow and courgette, in that it is more flavourful than marrow and less so than courgette. The flesh benefits from being slightly browned and caralmalised. Finding a jar of capers in the fridge, I added a good spoonful and this worked very well, lifting the flavour with the salty and succulent berries. The dish finished up with a garnish of chervil, cut fresh from my garden.

There's no doubt that this is a great base and one of those dishes where you can add anything; anchovy fillets, sundried tomatoes, a variety of herbs, some crispy bacon (oooooh yes, how that would work), diced courgettes, fresh tomatoes, chorizo, cooked and flaked ham hock, and so on. It makes a great side dish and the whole thing took 25 minutes from start to finish.

Dice the flesh

Fried in olive oil with onion, garlic, chili, fennel seeds - viola!

Moving on to a dish requiring just slightly more effort, I stuffed the squash. The shape is a perfect vessel and makes for a great vegetarian centrepiece, which could as in the recipe above be adapted in numerous ways, using whatever you have in. The foundation should always be an onion, garlic and the reserved flesh of the squash, and then build upon that. A rice pilaff would work very well.

Stuffed Patty Pan Squash

(serves 4)

1 patty pan squash weighing about 1 kilo

Olive oil

1 large onion

3 cloves garlic

1/4 tsp chilli flakes or 1 chili diced

1 tsp fennel seeds

3 mushrooms diced

Handful of parsley

Half a packet of feta cheese

Handful of pinenuts (although any form of nuts would work)

2 tablespoons of breadcrumbs

A few ovendried tomatoes (sundried would work)

Lashings of black pepper and salt to taste.

Firstly cut off the stalk end and scoop out the pith, pips and discard and then hollow out the flesh which you reserve.

Fry in olive oil the diced onion until soft and add the garlic, chili and fennel seed, the chopped squash flesh, diced mushrooms and fry until it becomes soft.

Add the diced feta, sundried tomatoes, chopped parsley, breadcrumbs, nuts and seasoning.

Pile the whole lot back into the hollowed squash, place on a baking sheet and into a preheated oven (220C) for 45 minutes. Turn down the oven to about 190C after 10 minutes.

The flesh should be soft when pierced.

Serve with a tomato sauce and some green salad.

Peach and Borage Gazpacho

2010-08-10T21:38:00.015+01:00

Two boxes of luscious peaches from the South of France were to be used up, my Alsation friend and host told me. I thought firstly of a peach salsa to accompany the spicy marinated shoulder of pork, but realised that would use about 3 peaches out of the 20 or so. The recent triumph with cherry gazpacho made the decision very easy, and so the peach gazpacho came to be.

Wild borage was everywhere and cucumbery tones were thrown in to the mix as much for the flavour as for the delightful blue. The chilled result was a summer's delight and just the thing for a scorching day.

This palate cleansing taste of summer would work very well alongside some smoked duck or even duck confit. Or just to soothe and cool down some desperately hot summer walkers; as was the case for a few hot and bothered hikers......

Peach and Borage Gazpacho

4 peaches

8 tomatoes

1 white onion or a few shallots (they need to be mild)

1 clove of garlic

1 red or green chili

1 cucumber

1 red pepper

Olive oil

Red wine vinegar or cider vinegar

Handfull of borage leaves

A few sprigs of fresh mint

Seasoning

Method

Simply wash and chop, blitz all the solid ingredients in a food processor or push through a mouli, add olive oil and vinegar to taste (approx 100ml olive oil and 20ml vinegar), thin with water for the desired consistency and season. Chill very well and decorate with borage flowers.

Sights of Alsace

2010-08-10T21:37:00.014+01:00

I've just spent a fabulous break with some dear friends in Alsace. About 70Km from Strasbourg in the high hills near the German boarder. Over the last century soverienty has changed between France and Germany three times. The house had been on the boarder and during the last two world wars had been commandeered by the invading German army for it's strategic position.

Alsace is still deeply connected to its rich agrarian culture. In houses, cafes and shops, food labels, plates, crockery, table linen, fabrics, virtually everything bears images of agricultural reference; chickens, grapes, storks, cattle, pine trees, ploughs and bunches of grapes.

The region is lush with verdant pine covered hills and fertile, abundant valleys rich in produce and vineyards.

I hardly saw another English visitor, it does seem to be an area largely unnoticed, as everyone speeds down South.

The industrious keeper of the house is a fifth generation Alsation. The cellar of the house was a treasure trove of old agricultural tools, a foundary, animal skins, sauerkraut ceramic pots (boy was I jealous of that), the remains of a smokery, logs artfully stacked, axes, ropes, raffia, boots, sledges, skis, war memorbilia, bottles, jars, onions, garlic, jams, and preserves. I was happy to wonder around marvelling at the neat and beautifully stored wonders.

A peak in the cellar

Flax seed crackers

2010-07-21T19:12:00.014+01:00

The resultant crispbread is a delight!

Take 250gms of flax seed and soak them in plenty of fresh cold water. The flax seeds will swell as the water is fully absorbed. In another bowl, take about 6 tomatoes cut up and an onion chopped which you blend to a pulp. Add the tomato and onion mix, mix well. I added a couple of chilis and a teaspoon of salt.

Spread the mix in a baking sheet and into a low oven (50C) for 18 hours.

This I did early evening and took out the next morning.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I intended to dive into the world of preserving and almost immediately stumbled across Sandor Ellix Katz. wild fermentation workshop.

The caterers who provided lunch were a family run business called cultured probiotics. Amongst their delicious buffet was a flax seed crisp bread which was the most delicious new taste of the year. Sonia of Cultured Probiotics generously told me how she had made it. But like most natural cooks she just did it and doesn't measure and can't quite remember exactly what she did. So I have attempted to recreate hers. (It wasn't as good yours Sonia).

Note to self : Next time use every tray available so that you maximise the long haul.

Oven Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

2010-07-19T23:45:00.014+01:00

These beautiful jewels of cherry tomatoes come from Adrian Izzard, the PhD bio chemist turned organic farmer of salads in Cambridgeshire, who sells in farmers markets all over London. All through the winter Adrian produces a huge range of salads most of us have never heard of, such as mizuna, claytonia, Komatsuma, tatsoi, green in snow (fiercely hot mustard leaves), to name but a few from his extra ordinary range.

Having a jar of oven dried tomatoes to call on for dramatically upping the game on virtually anything is a great cook's secrete. Just adding a few to a tomato sauce will deepen and enhance the flavour.

Also a perfect solution to dealing with a glut of tomatoes. Never mind how beautiful these look.

Wash to remove any dust or mud

Cut in half, sprinkle with some sea salt flakes, adorn with thyme and a very light anointing of olive oil, maybe a bayleaf or two and into the oven on 50C for 12 hours

12 hours later, the jewels are now little powerhouses of the most intense and concentrated tomatoness

Into a steralised glass jar, cover with olive oil and put in a clove or so of garlic and a sprig of fresh thyme

Cherry Gazpacho

2010-07-17T15:33:00.007+01:00

Farmers Market offering

This country has an rich history with the cherry. Today, sadly 90% of our great British cherry orchards have been lost. We now import over 90% of our cherries. This is a national disaster. I realise there is no shortage of both national and international disasters and this simply sits alongside a catalogue of other British agricultural woes. Food Lover's Britain has launched a champaign, CherryAid to promote our British cherries and offers a great resource with recipes, where to pick your own, buy British cherry products and inspiring ideas. It was on this site I saw a cherry and watermelon gazpacho with crab from the Harrow Inn. This was my inspiration for an all British and local gazpacho. I did use olive oil, but save from that, everything else was from the Farmers Market at Stoke Newington.

While you're out buying more cherries than you can eat, try preserving them for an extra welcome winter treat.

1 large punnet of cherries

1 cucumber

500gms of cherry tomatoes, (mixed colours if you can)

A few generous sprigs of basil

1 decent sized shallot

1 chili

About 50ml olive oil

About 5 Tbsp cider vinegar

About 1 cup of water

1 teaspoon of very good salt flakes

Simply stone the cherries (messy job), roughly chop the tomatoes, peel and chop the cucumber, finely chop the shallot and chili and blitz in food processor with oil, vinegar and water. This is where you must use your own palate to judge the consistency and flavour. Serve very cold and drizzle a little oil as you serve.

Jamboree of Summer Salads

2010-07-12T23:47:00.001+01:00

Platter of summer loveliness

As always a trip to the farmers market at this time of year is full of summer colours and a heady indulgent desire to buy everything in sight. I really did overbuy this week and was determined to use everything up, so had a long session in the kitchen making up lots of different salads, which can be dipped into over the next few days to go with the fresh sardines, smoked mackerel and goats cheese. In the photo I made smoked mackerel pate. (click for recipe)

I recommend this rather random buying plan, as you can always prepare the fresh produce and keep in a container (especially when dressed with oil and/or lemon juice) refrigerated for a few days. The root produce will last longer than the leafy stuff, so if you do go slightly mad, cook the leaves and stalks first and later in the week cook the roots along with pulses and grains. That's my rough plan and it works very well.

Most of these ideas are simply the ingredient and little else. We sometimes forget to enjoy simple ingredients for being just what they are, served with the minimum seasoning & splash of oil or lemon juice. As much as different things go fantastically well with cracking combinations, it's really welcome to celebrate the produce in its raw simplicity.

Here are a selection of colourful and delicious salads that we have have been feasting on this week.

Red cabbage

Red cabbage is more associated with slow braising and a winter vegetable. This fabulous salad is cooling in the heat and works well with everything. As cabbage is robust, it keeps well for a good 5 days.

1 head of red cabbage

1 small red onion

celery leaves

Small handful of raisins or sultanas

3 Tbsp rapeseed oil

1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 Tbsp honey

Salt and pepper

Finely shred the red cabbage, onion and celery.

Mix the oil, vinegar and honey with seasoning and combine.

Add the sultanas or raisins.

As the acids work on the cabbage it becomes soft and the texture improves.

Kohl Rabbi & Beetroot

This has been my new favourite salad. And oh so good for you.

1 bunch of kohl rabbi

1 bunch of beetroots

4 stalks of celery

Handful of parsley and chervil

3 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp fennel seeds

1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

Salt and pepper

Peel the beetroots and kohl rabbi and finely grate or use a food processor for an easy life. Mix the dressing and combine with herbs. This will keep for at least 4 days.

Samphire Salad

Samphire is one of those outstanding ingredients which doesn't need or particular benefit from any other influence, save for a mere splattering of oil and a squeeze of lemon. It is the taste of the sea, so why not enhance that.

Simply wash, then into boiling water for 60 seconds, drain and immediately plunge into chilled water. Dress with olive oil and lemon juice.

Turtle beans, avocado & chili

I love these shiny black beans. A good selection of salads should always have a guesting pulse and turtle beans are my bean of choice for hot and cold. As always, soak overnight, change the water and bring to the boil, skimming off any white froth and simmer for about 40-50 minutes, until the beans are soft, but still retains a bite. Chill in cold water and drain ready for whatever delight you wish to bestow on these black gems.

250gm Turtle beans soaked and cooked as described above

1 large ripe avocado

1 hot chili cut up and diced tiny (or if a milder chili cut into rings)

5 spring onions sliced thin

Handful of coriander

Olive oil

juice of 3 limes or 2 lemons

Salt and pepper

Simply combine all the above and dress.

New Season Roasted Carrots

And what doesn't it go with?

Although you can roast carrots all year round, new season bunched carrots are the best by far. Much sweeter with a more tender texture. I recommend roasting a big bunch, or two and leave in the fridge for up to 5 days. In prepping, just wash them NOT peel (God forbid).

The addition of any fresh herbs at the end works wonderfully. And anything goes. Chervil was my herb today, but parsely, tarragon, mint, coriander, sorrel and so on.

1 bunch of new season bunched carrots, washed

Olive oil

1 tsp fennel seeds

Salt and pepper

Handful of finely chopped parsley or as today chervil

Squeeze of lemon juice

Preheat oven to 190C

Cut the carrots in half if they are big. Just take the top ferns off and the stringy root.

In a baking tray add the carrots and toss in a generous amount of olive oil, season well and add a teaspoon of fennel seeds.

Give the tray a shake and move the carrots around to ensure an even roasting.

When you have a golden and caramalised tray of carrots, transfer to a dish and add some finely chopped parsley and a squeeze of lemon

Grilled Courgettes

Possibly my favourite seasonal vegetable is the baby courgette, simply sliced and fried on quite high heat with some olive oil until golden. These I actually grew in my garden. My lunch guest said I was showing off when I nonchalantly dropped that in. And I suppose I was, but why not?

Radish and Arame

This wonderful combination came from one of my oldest cookery books by Rose Elliot from over 20 years ago. She was way ahead of her time back then; when vegetarian cooking was omelettes and cheese. I learned how to cook from her book. She remains one of my greatest influences.

I don't remember exactly what she did here, except for this combination and the lovely black and pink. This Japanese style dressing works with so many palate cleansing dishes, such as kohl rabbi, mouli, cucumber; anything crunchy and with lots of water basically.

10gms arame seaweed soaked until soft and doubled in size. Drain.

1 bunch of raddishes washed and thinly sliced

3 Tbsp toasted sesame oil

1 Tbsp rice vinegar

1 Tbsp shoyu sauce

1 Tbsp sesame seeds

Simply combine the above

Fish Soup

2010-06-17T17:43:00.000+01:00

Fish Soup has as many variations as fish in the sea; bouillabaisse, usually being the first which springs to mind, although a typical fish soup found in Brittany and the South of France is blended fish with rich tomatoes, onions, fennel, celery, red pepper and a dollop of firey red rouille balanced on a little croute is a close second and my personal favourite. The blended version is least intimidating to the many folk who find all the bits of unknown things floating too challenging. The Scots have the wonderfully comforting Cullen Skink, a milky soup of smoked haddock, with onion, celery and parsley.

I had been at Billingsgate at the crack of dawn one day this week. Sadly, I do not find it such an inspiring place when it come to the simple task of buying fresh fish and knowing exactly where it has come from. Provenance is definitely not promoted by any of the traders I saw. As for fish crisis, 'what eel shortage?'. If you are motivated to buy fish responsibly, you are on safer ground buying from your local farmers market or to track down a box scheme from a day boat who will courier fresh fish overnight to you. There is always a minimum order, if you can organise your order with neighbours or work colleagues, well worth doing for optimum quality. Or even at the supermarket where you see MSC logo (Marine Stewardship Council), which is an accreditation scheme of sustainability and full traceability.

On a more positive note there is a fish school attached to the market and I can testify to the excellent teachers and tutors, who share their considerable knowledge with gusto. There is so much to learn when it comes to fish anatomy, seasons, how best to prepare it. I have been twice and now a few of the things I learned the first time are just starting to sink in.

I came away with a bag of mixed fish and made a fish soup, loosely based on the bouillabaisse idea. That is, different fish cooked in a flavourful broth. I had a glut of beautifully ripe tomatoes, perhaps it could have passed for a fish stew, along the lines of the Genoese classic, Burrida. Ultimately any fish soup or stew is about what you have and what needs using up.

Here's what I had

1 kilo mixed fish (Octopus, bream, gurnard) all chopped up either on the bone or you can fillet if you want an easy life eating it.
1 big onion finely chopped
3 cloves garlic finely chopped
1 red chili deseeded and finely chopped
Thyme, bayleaf and fennel fronds,
Roasted red pepper stripped and chopped
8 tomatoes roughly chopped
About 500ml fish stock (I used shellfish stock)
Good pinch of saffron
Glug of Pastis
Plenty of seasoning
50ml of olive oil
a piece of orange peel (or star anise)

Infuse the saffron in a few tablespoons of warm fish stock for as long as possible and set aside. Heat the oil in a pan and then add the onion, bayleaf, thyme and fennel fronds, and fry for about 7-8 minutes. Then add the garlic for one minute further. Splash in the pastis and allow to bubble away completely.
Add the tomatoes, chopped chili and roasted red pepper and cook on a low simmer for about 10-12 minutes, until it looks soft and cooked down.
Add the saffron infused fish stock and bring to a simmer, at this point add the octopus and piece of orange peel(or star anise) and simmer gently for at least 40-50 minutes on low.
Then add the delicate fish fillets and gently simmer for about 10 minutes maximum.
Take off the heat, remove the orange peel and bayleaves, add some fresh herbs (I didn't have any but for the luscious fennel growing in my garden).

Aah, you can taste the South of France, or Brittany, Cornwall, West coast of Wales, Ireland or Portugal for that matter. Remember this is but a suggestion and you can add many other things. If I had had celery in stock, that would have been a worthy addition, but no worries if not and suggest this is a good approach to have, rather than being hung up on having all you think you need.

Rosemary and Olive Oil Bread

2010-05-19T23:01:00.001+01:00

Rosemary is a herb associated with remembrance and traditionally used in baking cakes for funerals. I was testing a recipe today for a course I am teaching at the week end. Synchronistically my very favourite aunt died early this morning. A long life, lived to the absolute maximum, who could out party many a fifth her grand age. And so I baked this loaf for the Morandi matriach, who was Pauline Lipinska.

The recipe is a triumph. The potato water makes a super light and flavourful loaf.

400g strong white flour
1st dried instant yeast
2 Tbsp rosemary stripped and chopped
1 tsp sea salt flakes
4 Tbsp good olive oil
200g potatoes peeled and sliced
150ml potato water (approx)

Boil the potato in cold water till soft. Drain and reserve the potato water.
Blend the flour, yeast, rosemary, salt and mix well.
Add the potatoes, olive oil and enough of the potato water to bring the dough together.
Kneed for about 10 minutes.
Set in a bowl and cover and leave in a warm place until dough doubles in size (hour or so).
Kneed the dough and place on a floured baking tray and allow to re prove for about 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 220C.
Bake in oven for about 20-25 minutes until golden.

Cured Rainbow Trout

2010-05-18T23:14:00.000+01:00

Cured trout with mandarin oil & chervil

Trout fillet, sea salt flakes, demerara sugar and lemon

I can feel a new obsession coming on. Having always been fascinated in preserving, whether it be fermented soya beans, pickled cabbage, fruit jams and jellies, smoked fish, cured meats, pickled plums, salted cod, snow dried tofu, air dried game and mushrooms there is a whole new chapter of gastronomy to dive into. Man has been preserving food since ancient times and it's a wondrous thought that all over the world different methods were discovered to harness nature and preserve the hunt or harvest. Probably most fascinating is the Japanese art of fermenting and the painstaking process of snow drying tofu.

Jams, jellies and preserved fruit along with duck confit is as far as my practical skills have extended, so, enough of being fascinated from afar, I have now rolled up my sleeves and embarked on my new curing career.

An easy cured oily fish seemed a good place to start. A rainbow trout from the farmers market weighing about a kilo was filleted, and simply embalmed with some sea salt, demerara sugar, lemon zest and juice. Left in the fridge for 8 hours, washed, rinsed and dried very thoroughly and sliced finely. Served with a slurp of oil, I used mandarin oil and black pepper, garnished with chervil. This was a very satisfying place to start. All sorts of wonderful options await, vodka; beetroot; thyme; ginger......

The good news is that this recipe is totally fool-proof and a delicious rewards within just 8 hours.

Goose egg Tortilla

2010-05-16T22:11:00.000+01:00

Goose, duck and araucana hen eggs

A tortilla coming up

Assistant Skyler

Ready one side

Service!

Goose eggs and duck eggs are great for some novelty and fun. Beech Hill Farm in Barnet produces duck and goose eggs and the gorgeous blue and green eggs from the araucanas, a breed which originally came from Chile. These araucana are stunning birds, who produce a pure blue egg. With the purity of the breed lost here in Europe they are now a wonderful palate of pink, blue, green and olive.

If you like your eggs, then be sure you'll love the rich and deep flavours. The colour is considerably more golden, with less white. I along with my gorgeous visitor today made a simple tortilla, with new season's charlottes.

Simply, boil some sliced new potatoes till just cooked. Fry an onion in olive oil for 5 minutes, add some garlic. Add the potatoes, onion & garlic to some beaten goose or duck eggs (I used just 2 goose eggs), add a handful of parsley and then fry in a little olive oil until cooked, invert on a plate and slide back in to cook the top.

Wild Garlic Potatoes

2010-05-13T16:46:00.000+01:00

A simple baked potato, take the middle out and mix with mature cheddar, a little butter or oil, some red onions and wild garlic leaves, season and return to the oven for 10-15 minutes for a delicious and healthy snack.

Red and Green!

2010-03-15T16:03:00.000Z

A Bowl of Vitality anyone?

It's been a long time and I've somewhat fallen off the blogging habit with so much of life's demands and a crazy work schedule of late.

This particular dish has been the product of inspiration from the cuisine of Azerbaijan. Azer-by-where? you may well say. And until a few months ago I had no idea of this culinary superpower. Azerbaijan stands on an amazing geographical crossroads with the Caspian Sea to the East, Armenia, Georgia, Russia and Iran as surrounding neighbours. Ancient Azerbaijan was on the Silk road and most fascinating of all, the country enjoys 9 out of 11 of the world's climatic regions within the country. Hence its rich and bountiful larder offers a huge range of culinary treasures. Pomegranates are a big part of Azeri diet.

I feel as though I’ve been in the dessert with virtually no nourishment other than kettle chips and earl grey. Albeit single estate Ceylone One Earl Grey. So in an attempt to recalibrate my depleted energy and lack of anything decent to eat (this is a caterers downfall) I will share with you what I made today, and as you can see I was very happy and pleased with myself!

How many anti oxidants do you want in a single mouthful? …… and while you’re at it, a kidney holidaying, life affirming, pranic punching, palatte cleansing bowl of ruby red.

I have been reminded of the much underused herb tarragon. The bunch I had was particularly strong and sent my palate wild with its potent aniseed cum licorice flavour. It will lift anything humdrum and breathe new life into any dish or sauce that needs some help.

The Reds

2 Roasted beetroots grated
4 Tablespoons of aduki bean sprouts
2 pomegranates deseeded
1 small red onion finely chopped

The Greens

A handful each of :

Dill
Taragon
Mint
Pistachios

Dress with some cider vinegar, pomegranate molasses and 2 tablespoons of your best olive oil.

This is a great side to something like smoked mackeral with a watercress salad.

Rabbit and Tuscan Kale Pie

2010-01-18T22:33:00.000Z

The sage infused olive oil marinade for the stripped rabbit meat.

A recent tasting for a forthcoming summer banquet where rabbit was a request has been the spark which has set me on a rabbit mission. I have talked rabbit with as many people as I could and experimented with rabbit as never before. The final dish was a big success with my tasting panel and my harshest critics.

An Italian inspired method of brining the bunny, poaching it, stripping all the meat and marinating it in olive oil has been my personal favourite way. I can't stand lots of little bones; this way all the meat gently falls off and is then marinated in a sage infused olive oil. Left in the fridge for up to 2 weeks, there is no end to what you can do with it.

I have added it to risotto, pasta and tomato sauce (check out Mark Gilchrist on You Tube for some great rabbit tips), a salad with bitter leaves and of course the new creation for a summer banquet.

Whilst riding on the crest of all things rabbit I made a rabbit and tuscan kale pie tonight. Rabbit pie is honest and evocative of the old days, this is what my mother used to eat and I had never made one before. I had some luscious and squeeky Tuscan kale or cavello nero as it is otherwise known. Tuscan kale is one of my favourite greens. You will feel instantly better for eating it. These dark green brassicas are overflowing with goodness, with a list as long as your arm of nutrients and trace minerals.

This recipe uses the meat which I had put in a brine for 12 hours and then poached for 2 hours, cooled then stripped and submerged in a good olive oil and some torn sage leaves and seasoning.

First steam some finely shredded kale and set aside.

Fry a large shallot in butter and then add some garlic and thyme.

Add a dessertspoon of plain flour and mix to form a roux and add some fresh chicken stock.

Add a splash of white wine (this is basically a veloute).

Add the marinated rabbit meat which should be carefully drained of the olive oil. (keep the oil). Add the chopped kale.

Pile this mixture into either individual pie dishes or a large one and cover with a lid of pastry. (I used a home made short crust) But would have used the fabulous Dorset Pastry if I had some in my fridge. Basted with milk. Egg is even nicer. Baked in oven at 180C for 25 minutes.

I made roast potatoes with the marinade olive oil and added some paprika which worked very well.

Cassoulet

2010-01-09T22:08:00.003Z

The rustic French farmhouse classic is just the dish for these arctic cold winter days. There's no holding back on the meat and goose fat. This isn't an every day dish so why not devour this carnivors feast of saturated fat with abandon.

Allow a good 3 hours, this certainly benefits from a long and slow simmer.

Serves 4

500gms belly of pork with rind removed but reserved and cut into small pieces
350gms Toulouse sausages
2 sausages
2 duck confit legs
350gms white haricot beans (SOAKED OVERNIGHT)
1 small onion chopped small
1 carrot diced
1 stick of celery sliced small
2 fat cloves of garlic sliced thickly
pinch of powdered cloves
Bouquet garni
A fat spoon of goose or duck fat
1 tablespoon tomato puree
2 tablespoon chopped tin tomatoes
Salt and pepper
Fresh parsley

Preheat the oven to 160C

Transfer the beans into a pan with fresh water and add the rind of the belly pork. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Drain and reserve the beans and rind.
Melt the goose/duck fat in a casserole and fry the onion, carrot, celery until beginning to caramalise, add the bouquet garni and belly of pork and stir fry to seal.
Add the tin tomatoes, tomato puree and pinch of cloves, stir for a few moments. Add the white beans and cover with water(just cover the beans). Bring to the boil and place in oven, giving a stir every now and then.
Fry the sausages to give some colour and reserve.
After 2 hours simmering, add the sausages cut into bite size pieces and the legs of duck confit.
Simmer for a further 30 minutes and add some freshly chopped parsley.

Stuffed Mushrooms

2009-12-27T22:47:00.000Z

My favourite part of Christmas cooking is using up the left overs. With heaps of herbs, vegetables, cheeses, hams and all the unusual ingredients we all buy in abundance at Christmas. I had lots of portabello mushrooms to use up and simply mixed up handfuls of herbs with garlic, some chili and parmesan.

With a palate cleansing crispy salad, this was a welcome meal after the sumptuous meals of the last few days.

6 portabello mushrooms of flat open gill mushrooms
3 fat cloves of garlic
3 big handfuls of herbs (I used tarragon, parsley, dill, sage, thyme)
1 lemon grated and the juice
1 red chilli
50gms grated parmesan
50gms very roughly chopped stale bread
olive oil
seasoning

Cut the stalks off the mushrooms and chop finely.
In a bowl mix all the ingredients after chopping everything very finely.
Add olive oil so that you form a dryish paste and then spread onto the mushrooms and drizzle lightly on top.
Bake in hot oven (200C) for about 40 minutes, until the mushroom base feels soft when tested with a knife.

Pistachio and Cranberry Biscotti

2009-12-13T21:50:00.000Z

Here's another lovely Christmas present idea.

I have made pistachio and cranberry also a batch of almond and fig.

300gms plain flour
200gms granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp baking powder
90gms cranberry or thinly sliced fig
100gms pistachios or whole unblanched almonds

Whisk the eggs with the sugar until pale and doubled in volume.
Sift the flour, baking powder and add the cranberry and pistachio.
Fold into the eggs and sugar mixture.
Form the dough into an oblong about 30cm x 10 cm
Bake in the oven for 30/35 minutes.
Allow to cool for 10 minutes
Cut the 'biscotti' into strips and bake in oven until golden and dried out.

Store in an air tight tin for at least 2 months.

Chocolate Dipped Orange & Lemon Peel

2009-12-13T18:17:00.001Z

With Christmas presents in mind, these are fabulous gifts, if you can stick with the decision to actually give them away. Already I am thinking of alternative gifts to those I had earmarked for the chocolate dipped candied orange and lemon peel.

You need about 3 days and a strong willpower not to keep tasting as the candied peel dries out in the fridge.

I cooked the orange and lemon peel separately, keeping the lemon in a simple sugar syrup. For the orange peel, I found the exotic spices jumping out of the cupboard. Star anise, cardamon, cinnamon and cloves. It was an exotic concoction and worked very well to contribute a subtle background.

The best by-product of this exercise is the resultant syrup. I mixed the simple lemon syrup with the fragrant and spicy orange syrup and realised it is indeed God's gift to pancakes. I have had a constant batch of pancake batter in the fridge ever since! With a dusting of icing sugar I can promise you a memorable dessert.

Take 4 or 5 each of oranges and lemons.
Wash the peel and squeeze the lemon juice out. Reserve.
Cut the oranges in half length and then quarter, cut the flesh out and carefully scrape away the pith.
Slice the skin into thin strips.
Bring the sliced peel to the boil and then discard. Do this a total of 3 times and drain.
Make a syrup of one part water, 3 parts granulated sugar by heating gently to melt.
For the spiced syrup make a plain syrup and add 7 cloves, 6 lightly crushed cardamon pods, a stick of cinamon broken in half 3 or 4 star anise. Wrap in a muslin pouch.
Bring the peel to the boil and simmer for about an hour. You want the peel to be translucent.
Drain the peel, keeping the precious syrup.
Lay the peel out on a cooling rack and when cold, place in the fridge for 2 days to dry out.
Melt 200gms best quality dark chocolate and dip the peel and dy on baking parchment.

These will keep well in an air tight container for 2 months, although I can't imagine they would last. For Christmas presents, drop into celophane bags and tie with a beautiful ribbon.

God's gift to pancakes

Brussel Sprouts

2009-12-13T17:38:00.000Z

Squeeky and shiny

Everyone has something to say about brussel spouts. They have a reputation like no other vegetable. It seems no one can pass the opportunity to express that they had a bad childhood with brussels, or once they hated them and now are born again, or how much do they hate them, love them; few are ever indifferent.

Brussels were one of the first vegetable I saw being cooked so differently from the customary boiling. It was one of those epiphany moments when I marveled at the scope of creativity possible for the humblest of everyday vegetables; and one which continues to amaze me. A friend sliced the sprouts very finely and simply stir fried them with garlic and finished with lemon juice, they were delicious! So I once again send my thanks for that seed of inspiration.

Here's a quick idea for those considering a different way to cook brussel sprouts for their Christmas dinner, or indeed to enjoy these shiny green, squeeky mini cabbages.

Roasting vegetables will always intensify the flavour and the end result of this dish a very 'brussely' flavour.

Simply:

Take the outer coating of leaves off, cut in half.

Add one shallot per dozen or so brussels, peeled and sliced into rings

Toss in olive oil.

Season well with salt and pepper.

Roast in a hot-ish oven (190C) for about 30-40 minutes, giving them a shake at least once.

Finish with lemon juice.

Scotch Eggs

2009-11-21T21:20:00.001Z

I made scotch eggs for as a special request for a client this week. As part of a canape menu and celebrating classic British, winter christmassy food, I chose to use wild boar sausage meat. The result was a winner, everyone loved them. A great party food, serve with English mustard or mayonnaise.

For the cook I suggest you time this task with a play on the radio, and follow that with your favourite music, they are very labour intensive. Peeling the quails eggs alone will set you back at least an hour. The rest, well call it another couple of hours (at least), this is a labour of love!

1250gm wild boar sausage meat or sausage meat

50 quail eggs

3 eggs

4 Tbsp seasoned flour

250gms finely ground breadcrumbs

1 litre of sunflower oil

Boil the quail eggs and chill, peel when cold.
Take a ball of sausage meat and flatten, place the scotch egg in the middle and shape the meat around the egg, forming a point along the shape of the egg. (don't get too involved with the play or you will have to unfold the egg and see where the point is, as I did several times).
Line up a bowl of seasoned flour, beaten egg and fine breadcrumbs.
Roll the eggs first in flour, then egg and finally the breadcrumbs.
In a deep saucepan, heat the oil so a piece of bread will turn golden within 10 seconds.
Deep fry about 8 scotch eggs at a time until golden, about 5 minutes or so, drain on kitchen paper.
Cool and chill.
To serve cut in half.

Wild mushroom & ricotta filo parcels

2009-11-15T23:22:00.001Z

I may be sounding like the Tony Booth fan club here, but the stall is so inspiring. I picked up some giroles and ceps. I was in a fit of Autumnal madness last week at Boro. It was white truffles, wild mushrooms and Joselito for me.

My guest at the market, asked me how best to use mushrooms. My answer is nearly always to stay with simplicity and allow the mushrooms to take central stage. To fry quickly in olive oil and a bit of butter, garlic, parsley and a splash of wine. In a baguette or in an omelette.

However, I went all complicated with mine when I got home and the trouble was well worth it. As a big fan of filo pasty I would implore you to try this and enjoy the journey. This recipe would work just as well with a crepe either rolled up or a money purse.

Mushroom and Ricotta Filo Parcels

120g wild mushrooms (giroles & ceps, or any mix for that matter)
120g chestnut mushrooms sliced
1 large shallot chopped finely
1 fat clove of garlic finely chopped
25g butter
olive oil
Splash of white wine if available, but not essential
Juice of half a lemon
2 tbsp tarragon
250g ricotta
250 g filo pastry

saute the shallot in 50g of the butter for 3 minutes
Add the garlic and chestnut mushrooms for 1 minute, followed by the wild mushooms
Saute on high heat for 3 minutes, add the wine and let bubble away to nothing, followed by the lemon juice
season and allow to cool down, then add the ricotta and mix well.
Melt the remaining butter and a slug of olive oil set aside
Cut the filo into strips 8cm x 50cm and cover with a damp jay cloth
Taking one strip at a time, baste one strip lightly with the butter oil and place another strip of filo on top, basting with oil and butter as before.
Place a heaped teaspoon at the left end, near to the bottom corner, fold the bottom left corner up to the top edge to meet a point 8cm along. Keep folding to create a triangle.
Place on a baking tray lined with baking parchment
When all the mixture is used up (will make 10 triangles) bake in 180C for 18 minutes until golden.
Allow to cool for 10 minutes before serving on a bed of bitter leaves.

Quince, crab apples & medlars

2009-11-09T20:58:00.002Z

Quince, meddlars and crab apples

Crab apple jelly

Quince & rosewater syrup

In much the same way as I madly preserve the last of the summer fruits, I have done the same as the last of the Autumn fruits begin to make their exit for another year. I have particularly enjoyed the old fashioned English fruits, crab apples, meddlars and the blessed quince.

Quince is my favourite. A member of the rose family, an old fashioned English fruit which can be hard to get hold of, although good old Waitrose sells them (so I'm told), of course the utterly dependable Tony Booth of Borough will have them at this time of year. And English ones at that. The more commonly available Greek and Turkish are indeed beautiful, but there is something very romantic about English quince. A delicate pink hue with a heady perfume, you can almost smell the roses.

I made a quince syrup to which I added some rose water, for an extra fragrant tone. With a nod to its Western Asian origins I would imagine some star anise and cinnamon working really well. Note to self: must pick up some more blessed quince at Booths.

.....And talking of the wonderful Tony Booth, I spent way too long smelling Tony Booth's white truffle stock last week. I ended up buying the smallest white truffle as I couldn't separate myself from its esoteric aroma. I placed the truffle with some eggs and enjoyed a truffle scented omelette.

Quince & Rosewater Syrup

1 kilo quince

1 kilo sugar

1 litre water

Some rosewater

Wash quince, quarter and take out very woody core. Chop up and add to water and sugar.

Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes. Strain and bottle.

I would like to tell you that I used the quince for something, but did not. I think the way to go would be to peel the quince and add this to the mix and then use the quince flesh afterwards for a puree, maybe the filling for a tart. Add some cream, egg and sugar mix. The colour would be amazing. I will try to make this, in my next practical with quinces.

Pumpkin Pancakes

2009-10-27T23:23:00.001Z

These pumpkin pancakes are spiced up with the simple addition of the cumin, coriander and chili. They make a delicious snack especially served with a lavishly herby raita. The chestnut flour adds further autumnal tone. Make mini versions for a tasty canape.

250gms pureed pumpkin
100gms chestnut flour
200gms rice flour
4 finely chopped spring onions
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds lightly crushed (thank you Barbara Landell Mills - good advice)
1 tsp cumin seeds
half tsp tumeric
salt
chopped green chilli
handful of coriander
300ml of milk
3 eggs
Sunflower oil

Method: Dry fry the spices and saute very briefly in some oil with the spring onions and reserve. In a separate bowl add the flours, eggs and milk. Blend the whole lot up and allow to rest for 30 minutes. Fry spoonfuls in hot veg oil.

Barley Goodness

2009-10-27T23:07:00.000Z

I love barley!

Barley is comfort itself. From here on in till the spring barley goes into something every week. I particularly favour barley and root vegebables for fortification during the cold winter months.

This brothy soup was made with pheasant stock. Any stock will do, a light vegetable stock or brown beef stock.

Simply:

Saute a chopped onion, parsnip, carrot, celery, any root vegetable for that matter, for 3 minutes in olive oil. Add a clove or 3 of garlic, fry for a minute, add the barley, pour on the stock, bring to a boil and simmer for 25 minutes or until the barley is soft. At this point add some finely shredded strong green leafy veg such as cavello nero or savoy cabbage, winter greens, brussel sprouts, curly kale and simmer for a minute.

This is particularly delicious with jacket or mashed potato. Very comforting. And your kidneys will be happy too!

Beef Stock

2009-10-21T11:46:00.000+01:00

As soon as the weather starts to get colder my attention turns to the serious business of stock making. Beef, veal, lamb and pheasant stocks are among my arsenal of winter cooking. With a bowl of stock in the fridge or the freezer, as stock freezes very successfully, many dishes can be created out of virtually nothing. A rummage in the store cupboard and an onion will produce a rissotto, a left over pie or a hearty soup.

I made a pheasant and bacon pie the other day from leftover pheasant, some smoked Cumberland streaky bacon, an odd shallot, and left over mashed potato. Served with roast parsnips. It was so comforting and autumnal, and transformed with the robust pheasant stock.

Beef stock is a fairly big undertaking, only for the number of hours it needs to simmer. What may seem daunting is actually very little work when you realise stock needs hardly any intervention from the cook at all. The big pot sits bubbling away for a whole day creating a fabulously homely smell as it slowly gives up it the deep flavours that bone stocks create.

As the stock needs at least 6 hours of simmering I tend to make as much as I can in any one go. This will usually cause a storage problem. Once the marathon simmer is done and you have strained the stock, put back into a clean pan and boil like fury until the stock reduces down to a third of the original volume. The dark gelatinous stock is a special ingredient. I can't help but feel a sense of pride as I add the precious stock to any sauce or casserole, knowing that there is such a loving process behind it.

This concentrate can be frozen in small quantities, allowing you to take a smaller and more concentrated stock and either dilute with wine or water to use as you wish.

A good haul of beef/veal bones from your butcher
A couple of onions left whole, take the outer skin off, but don't peel
1 or 2 carrrots whole
A leek peeled but whole
2 or 3 celery sticks washed
1 tsp peppercorns
Thyme, as many parsley stalks as you can get your hands on, 3 bayleaves

Preheat the oven to 200C
Place the bones in a roasting tin with whole onions and carrot and roast for 20 minutes until just browning
Tip into a big stock pan and cover with cold water.
Bring to the boil and skim off any scum which may arise.
Turn down to a simmer and leave for six hours.
Allow to cool for an hour and drain.
If reducing to jus, boil until reduced by two thirds

Grouse

2009-10-20T23:13:00.000+01:00

Quite simply one of the most memorable meals of the autumn so far.

Covered with smoked streaky bacon and butter with seasoning, hot oven for a short blast, a rest and go!

A red wine reduction, whole roasted golden beetroot, pumpkin puree and mashed potato, on a bed of rainbow chard.

Chicken and Sweetcorn Soup

2009-10-11T12:29:00.000+01:00

So Soothing: Chili Chicken and Sweetcorn soup

I had one of those fabulous sessions at Borough Market this week. Sometimes being at the market is too exciting and I have to force myself not to buy everything that grabs my fancy.

I picked up some mutton chops from Sillfield Farm, 'hung for 2 weeks' Peter proudly told me of his own Herdwicks. Chatting to the traders and producers and hearing about their news. The owner of my favourite tea, Ceylon 1 who blend an Earl Grey like no other; was so proud to tell me the new crop is the best yet. Last year the rain had been just the perfect amount for tea leaves. So my favourite tea is about to get better, I can hardly believe it possible.

This is the essence of markets and it's this that makes me love the market like I do; the interaction and connection to the product through real and actual stories of the right rainfall, or not enough, or too much, or the increase in cost of pig feed. This is what brings another dimension to the ingredients. Having an ongoing relationship with your butcher, baker and candlestick maker does indeed make the world go round in a more satisfying way than going to the one dimensional, 'one size fits all' supermarkets.

So this recipe here is a product of the fabulous chicken stock I made from chicken carcasses from The Ginger Pig at 25p each. Because stocks are the real essence of flavour, I sometimes start with the question 'what will go with the stock?' At today's farmers market (Alexander Palace) I saw some beautiful husks of sweetcorn from another of my favourite, Perry Court Farm in Kent.

Chili,chicken and sweetcorn soup is coming up. This soup is SOOOOOOOOO comforting and the colour is bright and happy. I am sure that anything with chicken stock in is automatically life affirming. I chose to use shallots rather than onions as they are more delicate than onions and I was compulsively obliged to buy them when I saw them this morning.

This serves 2/3, so simply multiply up accordingly.

1 litre of chicken stock either home made or a good quality stock cube
3 shallots
2 cloves garlic
1 red chili
2 corn cobs
1 large potato peeled and cubed
Seasoning
2 spring onions finely sliced
Olive oil

Saute the chopped shallots in olive oil for 5 minutes
Add the garlic and chopped red chili and saute for 1 minute
Cut the corn kernals from the cob and add to the pot with chopped potato
Add the chicken stock and bring to the boil.
Season
Simmer for 20 minutes.
Blitz
Garnish with sliced spring onions.

Hen in the Woods and Beef Mushrooms

2009-10-09T00:02:00.000+01:00

The Livery Beef Mushroom

Hen in the Woods

Another great session with the Rooney brothers on sunday; I procured these two unusual forages. Beef and Hen in the Woods.

More about these when I make a risotto.

Cobnut and Chocolate Cake

2009-10-08T23:26:00.000+01:00

Reading a post on a forum last night I discovered the prodigiously talented Kitchen Goddess to be found on http://culinarytravelsofakitchengoddess.wordpress.com who made cobnut macaroons with home made nutella. Now that is plain showing off. I debated whether to go and make them right there and then, but it was heading for midnight........ I cracked open 100gms of cobnuts (which isn't a quick job) and then decided it was too late. First thing this morning I decided on a cobnut cake to which I added some melted chocolate.

The recipe was a french recipe, courtesty of a forum poster Shyvas, who I sincerely thank.

I added chocolate and chestnut flour.

100gms cobnuts (shelled)
4 egg whites
200gms sugar
80gms plain flour
30gms chestnut flour
90gms melted butter
75gms melted 75% cooking chocolate

Roast the nuts and grind.
Whisk the egg whites with the sugar.
Add the 2 flours.
Add the melted butter and then the nuts.
Pile into a loaf tin and bake on 170 for 30/40 mins.

Jamming and Preserving

2009-10-06T23:39:00.000+01:00

Clockwise: Plums, damsons, tomatoes & blueberries

Damson jelly, Plum jam and Blueberry jam

I've had some great jam making sessions. The farmers market awash with autumn berrries and fruits. Including one of my favourites, damsons. The blueberries were on offer, 2 punnets for £1.50. All that you see in the this image cost £15 and I made 15 jars. Plenty of Christmas presents and all the jam we can eat throughout the winter.

The plum jam was really excellent. The recipe called for the addition of the plum kernal near to the setting point. A kernal? I didn't know there was a kernal in a plum; when I cracked the stone and to my childish astonishment found a fat pip of a kernal. What a revelation! On further investigation I have found that, as with almonds, applepips and apricot kernals, these seeds contain mild and safe does of cyanide. Check out The Little Cyanide Cookbook: Delicious Recipes Rich in Vitamin B17.

The plum jam is possibly the nicest jam I have ever made. The addition of adding the plum kernals helps the setting. As they are such an interesting taste, I left the pips in. The recipe was very easy, although quite time consuming in extracting the kernals.

Tomato and chili jam is a fridge staple, which transforms virtually anything into a tasty snack. Especially chicken, pork, halloumi, avocado, eggs or any combination of these with rocket in a sandwich. The following recipe is from Peter Gordon. A friend challenged me to a tomato and chili jam taste off. I was reasonably confident in Peter's reliable recipe until he told me he used Skye Gyngell's Roasted Tomato & Chili Jam; there I had to concede the challenge. Without even tasting it, there's no doubt that roasting the tomatoes are going to produce an easy to imagine superior result............ next time.

Here are the 3 recipes for my jamming sessions

Plum Jam

1kilo plumbs (stoned weight)
1 kilo granulated sugar

De stone the plums and cut up.
Crack open the stone and reserve the kernal.
Simmer the plums in a pan. If the plums are not ripe add enough water to poach until soft.
Add the sugar and heat slowly until melted fully and bring to the boil, add the kernals as the mixture comes to setting point.
Transfer to hot clean jars.

Damson Jelly

This jelly is essential for your game cooking. Especially good addition to gamey sauces.

Damons
Sugar

Simmer the damsons in a pan until soft
Push through a seive and throw away the stones.
Weight the pulp and add the same weight in sugar.
Bring to the boil until setting point is reached.
Add to hot and clear jars.

Tomato and Chili Jam

500gms ripe tomatoes
4 cloves garlic
6cm ginger
4 red chillies
30ml fish sauce
100ml red wine vinegar
300gms soft brown sugar

Wash the tomatoes and roughly chop half of them
Peel and chop the ginger, peel the garlic, wash and chop the chillies
Blitz the roughly chopped tomatoes, garlic, ginger, chili with fish sauce and vinegar.
Finely chop the other half of tomatoes and reserve.
Slowly heat with the sugar and bring to the boil.
Add the diced tomatoes.
Simmer for about 30 to 40 minutes until the jam looks thick.
Transfer to clean and hot glass jars.

Reishi Mushrooms

2009-09-30T21:52:00.000+01:00

A deep red wax coverd kidney shaped cap and stalk

An exciting exchange at The Mushroom Table at Islington Farmers Market introduced me to a new mushroom, the legendary Reishi. William and Mathew Rooney are two brothers who cultivate organic mushrooms and forage wild fungi in Essex. A shop and chat with either of these boys is tantamount to a session with a modern day shaman. Both are knowledgable and generous with their culinary and medicinal wisdom. I wrote earlier in the year about the billowing white cloud mushroom.

The photo above does not do justice to the lacquered waxy coating. It has a kidney shaped cap. The gills show that it is not dried as the texture suggests. I was almost afraid of cooking with this extra terrestial, which seemed to be way too knowing and aware. Mathew advised me to make a stock out of it, then marinade the mushoom in alcohol for a couple of months for a tot every now and then when one is below par.

The rieshi is a symbol of wisdom in Chinese culture. The wizzened old chaps you will see in Chinese art are most likely depicted carrying a reishi mushoom. Regarded as a tonic with potent medicinal properties.

I boiled the reishi for 2 hours as Mathew suggested. I tried a spoon and it was very bitter. I felt a strong sensation almost instantly in my synuses. Momentarily I wondered if a scary mushroom moment was going to follow.

I called brother William up to discuss and debate this fascinating new discovery. He duely indulged me for 20 minutes as I received a barrage of fresh data and mind blowing reishi history and facts. Science, medicine, art, where it grows, what it's good for; how to cook it, marinade it, eat it, make a tea, concoction.

William told me that the synus sensation was because I was unbalanced in my synus. I have just been ill, so the reishi knew! If only I could recall a quarter of what I learned; I chose to bask in the wonder that are reishi; to revere the knowledge that enthusiasts such as the Rooney brothers exude. It doen't matter that I can't relay these extraodinary facts.

I delight that I know these eccentric mushroom men, who know their product in the same way an artist knows his instrument or paint brush.

Keith Floyd

2009-09-16T23:03:00.000+01:00

Keith Floyd's departure cannot go without a toast to the greatest character in food on TV. Floyd on France and Floyd on Fish were amongst my first serious cookery books which sat alongside Elizabeth David's Mediterranean Cookery. His influence in my learning to cook was a major one.

His unique brand of panache and bravado that will be sorely missed.

Bless Keith!

Food for the Ill

2009-09-16T21:59:00.000+01:00

This is a subject dear to my heart.

It's one of the more rewarding aspects of being the feeder to feed patients when they are ill. Mummy's chicken soup and miso soup are healing soups when poorly. One of rare joys of nursing ill children is the glow of appreciation as the wounded soldier is fortified. I remember my mother's home made soup; a hearty broth with good things floating in it.

I'm ill at the moment and feeling miserable and I have to rely on me to feed me. Although I would love a delivery of some healing food, I have to do it myself! Strangely this is satisfying. I know exactly what I want. My son offered and I snapped 'you don't know what I want; I want a spicy, lentil....... something' I realise I'm an infuriating person at times like this. The fussiness is at an all time meteoric high.

I made my healing food like an animal in the forest. It's a fascinating business to feed the ill, even if it is yourself. When you have a miserable cold, as I have, the hunger is intensified.

Setting about creating that special medicine I chose onions, garlic, leek, chili, lemon grass, ginger, carrots, kale and puy lentils with chicken stock and probably way too much salt. I was so deliriously happy; it hit the spot completely, nobody else but me could have done this. My misery is cloaked with a comfy blanket of spice and warmth.

On the subject of healing foods, I used to make the good people of the music community when suffering from a cold or flu a tea of cardamon, cinammon, ginger and cloves and lashings of honey. On that note, that is what I am going to make right now.

Interesting that a cold calls for the most robost of food, spices, roots, broths with balls or the magic of miso. Soup is a magic food which warms people deeply.

I send my culinary wishes to anyone who is feeling in need of healing food. Get chopping the onion, garlic and chili.

Cobnut and Pumpkin Puree

2009-09-14T16:14:00.001+01:00

Pumpkin & Cobnut Puree Canapes

This puree I made reference to in my homage to the dawn of autumn. Not only does this make a great canape, it is the beginnings of many other possibilities. Try serving this with the new season's game instead of potato, either as a dollop or a more elegant quenelle. Or make a comforting autumn soup, recipe follows.

1 pumpkin peeled and chopped into chunks
1 medium onion peeled and cut into 8
2 cloves of garlic unpeeled
Rapeseed or olive oil
100gms shelled cobnuts
Finely chopped parsley
Seasoning

Preheat the oven to 180C

Place the shelled cobnuts in the oven to dry roast for about 10 minutes, until they smell like toasted hazelnuts. Reserve till cool and then blitz to fine crumbs.
Simply toss the chopped pumpkin and onion in the oil to coat liberally.
Season well, add the garlic cloves.
Roast in the oven until the corners start to tinge with a golden colour.
Tip into a blender and pulse, adding more oil to make a smooth puree.
Carefully season with salt and pepper, then fold in the ground cobnuts.

Cobnut and Pumpkin Soup

Pumpkin and cobnut soup

Another way of using the roasted pumpkin and cobnut comination is as follows.

From the big batch of roasted pumpkin puree I made a soup today which was a bowl of autumn itself.

Follow the method above to roast the pumpkin, and roast and grind the cobnuts, set aside.
Peel and chop an onion and saute in olive oil, add the celery, carrot and leeks. Saute until soft.
Add the roasted pumpkin and pour on the stock to a half centimetre above the vegetables.
Bring to a simmer for 20 minutes.
Blend with a stick blender.
Stir in the ground roasted cob nuts and serve with a cob roll (it would have to be really).

Cinnamon and Blueberry Jam

2009-09-08T23:43:00.000+01:00

Here's the recipe I referred to a couple of weeks ago. This is not an economical preserve. It is a fabulous jam and cinnamon was clearly invented just for this combination.

450gms blueberries

450gms sugar

half teaspoon ground cinnamon

Simply simmer the fruit over a low heat stirring well at first so the juice flows. As soon as the berries begin to soften add the sugar. Add the cinnamon. Stir over a low heat until the sugar has disolved then boil rapidly until setting point is reached. Spoon into hot steralised jars and seal down.

Serve with white bread and lashing of unsalted butter.

An Autumn Dessert - Chocolate Dipped Physalis Vanilla Cheesecake

2009-09-08T23:02:00.000+01:00

This is a celebration of autumn. Just to show that I'm letting go of the summery raspberry pots and embracing the Autumn and it's rusty tones. Physalis or cape gooseberries are like Chinese lanterns. A simple and stunning trick is to pull the paper case off and backwards, dip in melted chocolate you will deliver a dramatic statement.

This vanilla cheesecake is a real treasure and I thank Nigella for this. I have copied the recipe from How to be a Domestic Godess. I have changed the cream cheese to using curd cheese which I think makes for a lighter cheesecake. You can adorn it with anything. Soft summer fruit, but that's so last season. Figs, caramalised quince, plain, squiggles of melted chocolate, there's no end.

200gms digestive biscuits

75 gms butter melted

600gms Cream cheese (I used Curd Cheese)

3 eggs

3 yolks (save the whites for a round of meringue)

100gms caster sugar

1.5 Tbsp vanilla essence

For the topping

280 ml sour cream

1 Tbsp caster sugar

Few drops of vanilla essence

You need a 20cm springform cake tin and foil

Wrap the Springform tin with foil on the outside so that it is sealed.
Blitz the biscuits in a food processor or use the rolling pin and mix with the melted butter. Press into a springform cake tin.
Clean out the food processor and blitz the curd cheese, eggs, yolks, sugar, vanilla to a smooth batter.
Pour onto the biscuit base.
Place the tin into a roasting tin filled with hot water (bain marie)
Cook for about 50 minutes. So that the batter is just set.
Mix the sourcream and sugar with vanilla and pour on top of cheesecake and bake for 5 minutes.
Allow to cool completely before releasing.
Decorate with your choice, or leave plain.

Serve with cream.

Raspberry Pots

2009-09-08T22:34:00.001+01:00

I've been meaning to write this post all summer. Here is my favourite summer dessert, even though I write this in Autumn. I made these raspberry pots last week, when it was still summer. Last attempt to hold on to the summer before it slips away.

I've been enjoying this dessert for years. The recipe is from the late and outrageously flamboyant Francis Coulson. "You need a light heart to bake a light cake". He didn't hold back on the double cream either.

225gm raspberries

3 Tbsp caster sugar

4 egg yolks

300ml double cream

1.5 Tbsp Cointreau

Preheat oven ot 140C.
Puree the raspberries in a blender with sugar and yolks. Pass through a seive (although I didn't).
Stir in the crean and the Cointreau. Mix.
Pour into ramekins and cook in a bain marie for about an hour.
The custard should be just set and slightly wobbly in the centre.
Allow to cool and chill thoroughtly for at least 6 hours.
Serve with cold double cream poured on top so that each time you take a spoonful, the cream fills up the hole.

The original recipe is with strawberries and Francis recommends raspberries, which I prefer.

A dusting of icing sugar makes for an elegant dessert which matches almost anything.

Autumn is coming - Cobnuts and Corn

2009-08-25T22:30:00.001+01:00

Plums, new season's apples and glorious cobnuts

English Blueberries

There's no getting away from it; there is a change in the air, a chill which is different from a cold summer's day, the night's are drawing in rapidly. But boy is the market an inspiring place right now. The sight of the new season's apples, plums, corn cobs and squash is the most exciting appearance in the theatre of the market. We have been spoilt through the summer for colour and variety, but autumn's variety has more statesmanship. Somehow it seems to be more senior, holding more respect. I hear accusations of madness here; although I think it makes perfect sense.

Amongst Autumn's line up I would rate the glorious return of cobnuts in my top 10 favourite seasonal moments. Never mind the glorious 12th. Although grouse will be the subject of a forthcoming post.

The cobnut is one of our very few regional and season specialities. For us in the South East there are not many offerings which fall into this category. Cobnuts are a first cousin of the hazelnut. They grow in clusters of 6 nuts covered in a husk, looking like a star. Early in the season they are green and very wet, fresh with a slight coconut flavour; as the short season progresses they become golden and drier with a nuttier flavour.

A favourite seasonal offering is to shell and roast the nuts then grind them and add to vegetable puree, such as pumpkin or roasted carrot. To this puree, plonk some protein offering, like chicken or sea bream, mind you some flash fried duck, or duck confit for that matter, and the more I think of it, just about anything really. The point is that the cobnut puree is sharing the leading role here, not supporting.

The other option here is to use them in a meringue, but that's bordering on showing off. I'm not against that at all when it comes to cobnuts. The real challenge in using cobnuts is to crack all of them ready for roasting or adding to what you like. It is nigh on impossible to resist eating 2 and saving 1. I suggest doing the job when completely full.

Whilst they are so fresh and green enjoy them just for being themselves. Although I do keep meaning to put them into a salad, they just never quite get there.

So having waxed lyrical about one of my top ten ingredients I will drag myself away and reflect on the English blueberry. I bought some blueberries from the farmers market and made the humblest offering of blueberry jam. Blueberry and cinnamon to be precise. Couldn't have been easier. It ends up costing about £4 a jar!! But what price for that amount of joy in your jam?

At the risk of too much autumnal excitment I will break off here and put this post down to an exuberant celebration of the autumn feast on the eve of it's arrival.

In the next few days I'm going to post some cobnut recipes and also the delightful blueberry and cinnamon jam.

This is a great antidote to the melancolny of autumn's appearance, just not quite ready to give up the summer and the lament of the disappearing light, the joy of autumn's bounty is a compensation indeed.

Mezze Platter - Leftover's surprise

2009-07-26T17:22:00.001+01:00

A colourful plate of tasty dishes

This is a 'mezze platter I made for our lunch. The surprising result was the product of clearing out the fridge, using up ingredients on the cusp of turning and just a few fresh ingredients from the farmers market.

Here's what I assembled:

Roasted baby carrots in olive oil and fennel seeds.
Smoked aubergine dip (see method below)
Griddled courgette slices.
Samphire & beetroot salad tossed with a little lemon juice & pepper
Quinoa salad with dill and Iranian barberries

The smoked aubergine dip was as follows:

Blister an aubergine on the fire until it completely collapses and is soft right through.
When cool enough to handle peel off the charred skin, chop roughly.
Blitz with garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, some parsley and seasoning.

This is particularly delicious with middle eastern flatbread. Also goes really well with chicken.

Preserved Cherries

2009-07-25T19:09:00.000+01:00

The short season nears the end and I always start to think about holding on to the last offerings as one of the summer's most delightful sights goes. The cherry tree brings us glorious cherry blossom in spring. The Japanese revere this tree, with the blossom being their national flower, they celebrate the spring blossom, honouring the custom of Hanami, by way of blossom viewing picnics. I can only reserve faint hope for us being that sensitively atuned to nature's rythyms that we engage in blossom picnics........ it feels a long, long way off!

So, this very simple recipe preserving cherries in eau de vie and syrup will be a welcome treat in the winter with some ice cream or to add to a simple geonoa cake with cream. The cherry infused eau de vie will be good too I suspect......

Cherries
Sugar syrup (2 thirds sugar, 1 third water, boiled and simmered)
Eau de vie

Wash, dry and sort the cherries discarding any blemished ones.
Pack into a steralised jar.
Pour one third cold sugar syrup and two thirds eav de vie.
Cover and leave for at least 3 months.

Tastes of Provence

2009-07-20T23:39:00.000+01:00

Grilled Figs

Black currants

Apricot Chutney

7 local onions

Sanglier - Wild Boar, roasted for 6 hours

Confit d'Ail - Caramalised garlic

Grilled Courgettes

Salad of Roasted Carrots, Onion & Haricots

While the spirit of Provence is fresh in my mind, here are some images and local ingredients, cooked simply.

Leg of Wild Boar - Sanglier

2009-07-20T22:01:00.000+01:00

One wild boar leg marinaded for 3 days

6 hours later, a smoking on the BBQ

Some elegant carving

Served at sunset with some griddled accompaniments

On a recent visit to a sleepy village in Provence, my hosts presented me with my first leg of wild boar to cook. The 'Sanglier' had been given by our forthcoming dinner guests, who had shot the boar in neighbouring La Garde Adhemar.

My first consideration in giving this gift the treatment it rightly deserved was to marinade the meat for as long as possible. A few logistical issues of not having a bowl big enough to marinade it, the old mini oven wasn't working properly and the fact the leg wouldn't actually fit in the said oven, were minor details; "Oh just BBQ it" said the hosts.

A bottle of local merlot, a couple of heads of garlic and all the local herbs I could gather, with a small fistful of peppercorns and a big black bin liner sat on the bottom shelf of the fridge with a ritualistic morning massage through the bin bag.

Not having extra wide foil to keep the heat in; the leg not fitting in the oven....... I ummed and arred during the 3 days of marinade as to how confident I felt about BBQing this 6 kilo lump.

On the day of cooking, my host (incidently a vegetarian) took some tree surgeon branch cutters to trim the last 4cms of bone off. Now the leg would fit in the mini oven, which incidently did work, but at what temperature, God only knows. This option failing I would have dug a hole in the ground and built a fine on top. Luckily it didn't come to that, but none the less a good lesson in thinking how to cook our spoils without the usual 21st Century gagets. Some bushcraft skills may have been called upon, even if only as far as emergency planning......

I opted for my favourite method of cooking, which is a long, low and slow roast. After 3 days marinading, the leg was deep red. I simply popped it onto a ludicrously small roasting tin, with as much marinade as would fit in the tin and a piece of foil to help keep what dubious heat was there to stay where I wanted it. Into the mini oven at a temperature I would guess to be 100 -120C. Timings, temperatures and all the usual reference points had long gone out of the window. The delerious smells told us all that something remarkable was unfolding.

Here the leg roasted for 6 hours. As the BBQ was alight to griddle the courgettes and figs, it seemed a good idea to anoint the leg with some smokey charcoal flavour. The whole meal was an improvisation and that's how these kind of cook-ups should be.

The griddled figs were a complement to the gamey, robust flavour of the boar. For the sauce I simply made a little roux and fed the cooking juices and extra marinade to it. I added some water and a little lemon juice to bring down the overwhelming intensity. Some plum, fig or red currant jam would not have gone amiss; anything in fact that I could imagine the wild boar foraging for.

Our guests who had brought this leg, carved the joint with no small amount of skill, deftly removing the bone and elegantly slicing it across the grain.

As the Provencal sun set there were murmers of approval and satisfaction. The simple rule of marinading and long, slow cooking triumphed once again.

Incidently my vegetarian host tucked in appreciatively!

I list the whole process below without the ramblings....

One leg of wild boar
2 whole heads of garlic
1 bottle of red wine
Handfuls of marjoram, rosemary, sage, bayleaf, thyme, fennel fonds, juniper berries
For the sauce, 50gms butter, 50gms plain flour

In a big roomy plastic or stainless steel bowl (or bin bag if that's all available) place the leg with all the marinade ingredients (garlic chopped up small).
Leave in the fridge covered for 3 days, turning to ensure even coverage.
Preheat the oven to 120C and place the leg in as room a roasting tin as you have and pour over as much of the marinade as possible. Cover with foil losely.
Roast for 6 hours with periodic bastings to ensure the joint is moist.
Allow to rest.
To make the sauce, make a roux by melting the butter in a saucepan and adding the flour. Allow to bubble for a minute.
Remove from direct heat and slowly add the cooking juices, incorporating fully before adding more. Add the strained marinade as well if you have any.
Check the flavour, and if too intense, add some water and a little lemon juice. Allow to come to the boil and simmer for a few minutes to thicken and reduce slightly.
Taste Add some plum jam, or red currant jelly and serve.

Gooseberry Chutney

2009-07-20T21:34:00.000+01:00

Gooseberries are with us for a very short while and so the temptation to preserve them is all the more stronger. The tartness of gooseberries goes very well with fish, especially oily fish. Here's a very easy recipe.

1.5Kg Gooseberries (topped and tailed)
500gm diced onions chopped small
450ml cider vinegar
270ml water
500gms soft brown sugar
1Tablespoon ground ginger
Half teaspoon cayenne pepper

Place the gooseberries, onions, vinegar and water in a pan and cook until soft.
Add the sugar and spices and bring to the boil, about 30/40 minutes.
When thickened pour into steralised jars.

Bagels

2009-07-12T16:36:00.001+01:00

This is what I make when I really want maximum Domestic Goddess effect. This is cupboard love, but I'm completely fine with this. Guaranteed results and to see the smile spread over loved ones faces is indeed payment.

Homemade bagels are far from uniform but they taste better than any other bagel. There is a fair amount of work, albeit in different stages, but don't be put off, the rewards are well worth it.

Here is Nigella's recipe, from the excellent How To Be A Domestic Goddess....

1Kg Strong White Flour
2 tsp Doves Farm organic yeast granules
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 Tbsp salt
500ml warm water
1 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp sugar for the water

Method

Combine the flour with the yeast, salt and sugar
Add the oil and mix well.
Add the water slowly until you have an elastic dough and kneed for 10 minutes.
Leave to prove for an hour, until doubled in size.
Punch down the down and kneed for a minute.
Divide the dough into 3 sections and roll each into a rope and sub-divide each rope into 5 bagels by joining the two ends. (I don't stand on too much ceremony here, it's not the point). Allow the bagels to prove again for about 40 minutes.
Boil a pan of water with 2 Tbsp of sugar
When the water has come to the boil, poach 3 bagels at a time for about a minute. Fish out the bagel and leave to drain on a tea towel.
Preheat the oven to 220C.
Place the bagels on a baking tray and bake for about 10 minutes, until golden brown.
Cool on a tray.