Clinging on to Summer

Autumn is, without a doubt my favourite season.  I love the changing colour of the trees, the chill of the morning air, the first day you can see your breath, and most of all, the golden evening light.  These are the days I want to spend my whole life outside.  As soon as autumn rolls around I feel rejuvenated, refreshed and ready for whatever happens next.

This year, however, autumn hasn't followed its usual pattern.  Yes, the leaves are falling, and yes it's getting cooler.  The light of the evenings is still as golden as ever, and yet it's not giving me the same amount of pleasure it used to.  My yearly love affair with the season isn't as thrilling as it used to be.  Instead, I feel very restless.

It took me a while to figure out why I felt like this, but it was actually quite simple.  For the first time in my life, autumn doesn't mean back to school.  I've graduated, and so have no new term to throw myself into.  I have no coursework deadlines or exams looming.  The only thing stretching out before me is my life.  My future.

This prospect is, of course, far too terrifying for me to comprehend, so in the logical manner I usually conduct myself in, I simply refused to acknowledge the end of summer.  This appeased the restlessness, and the fear of what-on-earth-do-I-do-next abated.  A little.

And what better way to immerse yourself in somewhere you are not, or something than does not exist, than with food?  The dinner that follows is my meagre, but rather successful, attempt to create summer within my flat.  Sure, me and my guests were wearing woolly jumpers as we ate, and we had to try to ignore the fact it was dark at seven, but as we ate a long, slow and shared dinner, with bright, warm flavours, drank plenty of soft, warm wine and huddled round the expanse of candles (as much for warmth as they were for decoration) it felt like summer.  It felt like a holiday, and life paused, just for a night.

An Inauthentic Borek
makes six

six sheets of filo pastry
200g grams of feta
one egg
a big handful of flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
salt and pepper
150g butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 200c

Crumble the feta into a bowl.  I like to use my hands to mash it up a little.  Then crack the egg into the cheese, mixing with a fork.  When it is mixed - it won't be perfect - stir through the parsley, salt and pepper.  You only need a little salt, but a healthy amount of pepper.

Lay out the first sheet of filo and brush all over with the melted butter.  Lay the next sheet on top, and brush that with melted butter.  Lay another sheet over the top, and brush.

Cut the filo into three long rectangles.  Spoon a little of the feta mixture onto the short end of the pastry and roll, folding the sides in to contain the filling.

Repeat until you have six cigar-shaped parcels.

Lay on a baking tray and brush all over with more melted butter.

Bake for twelve to fifteen minutes, or until the pastry is golden and crisp.

good served with a little tzatziki 


Prawns with Harissa and Feta
enough for four

olive oil
four cloves of garlic, finely chopped
three big teaspoons of sugar
a tiny, thumnail sized piece of ginger, finely chopped.
a large glass of white wine
six large vine tomatoes, roughly chopped
two teaspoons of oregano
two teaspoons of harissa
one tin of peeled cherry tomatoes
400g raw tiger prawns.  If peeled, fine.  If not, peel and reserve the shells.
200g of feta, crumbled into chunks.
5 spring onions, thinly sliced.
the juice of half a lemon

Preheat the oven to 220c


If you happen to have the shells of the prawns, place them into a saucepan with a little olive oil.  Let them caramelize slightly before pouring in the wine and letting it reduce.  Then strain the wine into a jug, jar or bowl, whatever you have around, ready to use later.

Warm the oil in a big, oven proof pan,  I use a cast iron casserole, over a low to medium heat.

Add the garlic and cook for a minute or two, then add the ginger and the sugar.  Leave for another two or three minutes, without stirring, before pouring in the wine.  Turn up the heat and let the wine bubble for a few minutes.  Then add the fresh tomatoes.

Let the tomatoes cook and steam in the wine for about five minutes before stirring in the oregano and harissa.  Pour in the can of chopped tomatoes and leave to simmer for a good twenty minutes.  Have a taste and make sure you like it. It should be saucy rather than a stew, slightly spicy, and slightly sweet.  Keep in mind when seasoning that the prawns will add sweetness, the feta will add saltiness, the onions freshness and the lemon will keep it sharp.

When the sauce is delicious, thick and slightly syrupy, toss in the prawns, and scatter over the feta and spring onions and slip it into the oven for 3-5 minutes.  The prawns should be just cooked and the feta slightly browned.

Finish with a squeeze of lemon and serve with some crisp lettuce leaves and warm bread.

All I've got right now

These are some photos of food and dinners.  I have been taking a lot of photos, some of food, lots of dancing and far too many of snow.  I have been cooking plenty, and recipes will follow, that's a promise.  But at the moment I am pretty swamped and just wanted to post these few pictures as a little reminder to myself to do some blogging.

Sunday Suppers

Sunday is my favourite day of the week, and it holds a very special place in my heart.  It's the one day of the week I feel like waking up late is justified, barely leaving the house it also completely justified, and eating far too much is pretty much mandatory.  This is the day where I get most joy out of cooking, I think, because I know that nothing special is needed.  On a Sunday, I don't think that anyone wants to eat anything too adventurous, but instead, something soothing.  What I want to eat on a Sunday is something that's going to help me recover from the weekend, fill my belly and send me to sleep.  Those Sunday suppers are an incredible treat, because I feel like rarely is eating so leisurely.  There's no rush, there's nowhere we need to head off to, except perhaps to watch the killing recorded from Saturday night, and a big meal in the early evening is the very best way to fortify yourself for the week ahead, and this is one of my favourite menus for such an evening.

Fish Pie

for four

500g smoked haddock

500g mixed seafood, cooked

a splash of white wine

2 bay leaves

500ml whole milk

50g butter

four tablespoons of plain flour

a handful of parsley, chopped

700g floury potatoes, peeled and in chunks.

some milk and butter

Heat the oven to 200°c.

Put the smoked haddock in a saucepan with the milk and bay leaves.  If the fish isn't covered, add some water until it is.  Simmer for a few minutes, until you can pull the flesh from the skin.  Take off the heat.

Cook the potatoes in a deep pan of salted water.  Simmer them until tender, drain in a colander and leave to steam for a good few minutes.  Mash with plenty of butter and a few tablespoons of the haddock cooking liquor.

Melt the 50g of butter in a big pan, stir in the flour and let it cook until it is slightly brown and nutty.  Add the wine and 500ml of the haddock cooking liquor.  Let it simmer, stirring regularly, for around ten minutes, until it coats the back of a spoon and doesn't taste floury.

Skin the haddock and add to the sauce with the seafood and the parsley.  Season with pepper and salt if it needs any.

Spoon into a oven proof dish, or a pie dish, or a big casserole pot, and layer the mash on top.

Bake for about fifty minutes, and serve with peas.

Apple Tart

enough for six

a 340g sheet of puff pastry

four apples, granny smith work well

a knob of butter, melted

a few spoonfuls of caster sugar

Heat the oven to 200°c.

Roll the pastry until it is really thin and use it to line a tart tin with a removable base.  Prick the bottom all over with a fork.

Peel and core the apples, then slice them thinly.  Lay them in concentric circles on the pastry.  Brush them all over with the melted butter and sprinkle them the sugar.

Bake for twenty minutes and serve, cream or ice cream is always good with this.

My new favourite cake

Oh there has been a lot of work going on in my household.  As Christmas fast approaches, the first term slips away and essay deadlines creep up.  I’ve got a good ten thousand words to write before the year is through, and, considering that the festive period is my favourite thing ever, I am trying to get as much done as early as I can.  Although, in theory, this is a sensible plan, I can’t help but feel like I’m missing out on my favourite part of the year, and as much as I try to think that this is the last year I will have academic work to do over Christmas, it is hard.  When the monotony of my schedule gets too much, however, I have developed a foolproof plan to rejuvenate myself.  I go on a wintery walk, stop off at a few shops and delis, get home, and bake a cake. This cake is one I am very proud of.  Firstly, it fills the whole house with a gingery delicious aroma is better than a tree for conjuring up some festive cheer.  Secondly, it tastes even better than it smells.  It is light and moist, slightly crumbly and just a little bit sticky, with crunchy caramelized almonds and a sweet sticky glaze.  A good cake.  A really good cake.

Ginger Cake with Caramelised Almonds

60g butter

125g golden syrup

60g ground almonds

75g self raising flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 heaped teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

100g caster sugar

a pinch of salt

125ml milk

1 egg

Preheat the oven to 170°c and grease and line a loaf tin.

Melt the butter and golden syrup over a low heat.  When it’s melted remove from the heat.

In a big bowl, mix the almonds, flour, soda and spices until they’re all well combined.  Stir the sugar through, add the milk and the egg, and mix well.

Gradually add the melted butter mixture stirring until everything has mingled.

Pour into the tin and bake for 50-55 minutes.

Make a ginger syrup by melting 125g of sugar with 125ml of water with 1 tbsp of grated ginger.  Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes.  Spoon some syrup over the cake whilst they’re both still hot.

When it’s cool, make a little glaze with icing sugar and water, and pour over.  Toast about two handfuls of flaked almonds in a saucepan; watching them, they burn so easily.  Then add about a tablespoon of caster sugar and cook until it has melted and coated the almonds.  When they are all looking sticky and caramelised, spoon them over the cake.

Date Night

Dating is a bit of a mystery to me.  Sure I’ve been on a few dates, and more often than not, meeting up for coffee or a drink is a valid way to get to know someone.  When I am asked to dinner, or lunch, however, I get really nervous.  There’s the usual, what am I going to wear?  What if he doesn’t come?  What if he hates me?  What if I hate him?  How am I going to leave?  These questions are date questions, regardless of the setting.  Going for a meal however prompts one more question, one very important and difficult question: what am I going to eat?  I am a messy eater under the best of circumstances.  I get food on my dress almost every time I eat, and I get food on my face a surprising amount of the time.  I’m just not an attractive girl to be around whilst there’s food, so one of the key concerns for me on a date involving eating, is to try and choose the tidiest thing to eat.

There are the obvious ones.  Spaghetti and noodles are definitely off the table.  Pizza’s ok as long as I can use my knife to cut bit-size pieces; I’ve too often been the victim of stringy cheese.  Burgers are a no.  Sushi is a no.  Anything needing chopsticks: no.  I’m not bad at wielding them, but usually, if I slip up, my dinner will be in my lap.  Salad is a huge no, those deadly leaves are always flicking vinaigrette on my face, dress, and hair, and I don’t want to spend the whole night scented with a garlic and lemon dressing wafting from my person.  Garlic is obviously contentious.  I don’t mind smelling of garlic if he does, but I have a friend who, although he loves eating garlic, cannot stand the smell, and you never know how the person sitting opposite you feels about it.  I once read that there is a state law in Minnesota declaring that you’re not allowed to go to the cinema within five hours of eating garlic. Perhaps the person I’ll be eating with is a supporter of that law? 

The thing is, though, I usually get so nervous by the very idea of eating in front of someone who I don’t know that well, I turn up either so hungry I’ll eat anything that comes with mashed potatoes, or too nervous to eat more than soup (dangerous: so many things can go wrong). All my deliberations are, therefore, thrown out of the window.

When I am cooking for a date, however, I am most definitely in control.  There maybe a little added pressure on whether he’ll like my cooking or not, but generally I’ll cook something that’s going to make me happy, and if it doesn’t make him happy, well, he’s not the man for me.

So when cooking for a man this weekend, I was feeling, although still a little nervous, more confident.  I picked something I could eat with a spoon (my weapon of choice) and out of a bowl (higher sides to catch any splashing).  Made sure there wasn’t any nuts (he’s highly allergic, and I’d already made a joke about killing him) lit some candles, made a playlist and felt pretty much ready to go.

It turns out, however, that there was one thing I probably should’ve thought about a tiny bit more.  When I refused to let him eat until I’d photographed his bowl, I was met with a some-what puzzled look.  I had, of course, neglected to mention that I write a blog about my cooking, and that comes with photos and stories.  I told him in the end, as an explanation, but I didn’t tell him what it was called.  If I’m not happy with him knowing I’m a messy eater, I’m really not happy about him knowing about my neurosis surrounding being a messy eater, or in fact dater, as I have so coherently chronicled here.

Pig and Beans

enough for about four people

five sausage sized chorizo, in chunks

eight chipolatas

six rashers of streaky bacon, chopped

one onion, chopped

two small leeks, chopped

two carrots, chopped

four cloves of garlic, finely chopped

a large glass of red wine

400ml tomato passata

two bay leaves

one can of butterbeans, drained and rinsed

to finish

juice of half a lemon

a handful of chopped parsley

a large handful of coarse breadcrumbs

Heat the oven to 200c

In a heavy casserole pan, fry the sausages and chorizo in a little olive oil until they've got some colour and the fat is beginning to run.  Remove from the pan and set aside.  Fry the bacon in the same oil until crisp, and remove that from the pan too.

Turn down the heat and cook the onion, leeks and carrot with the garlic until they're all soft.  Add the wine, stir and cook for a few more minutes.  Then add the tomato.  Throw the sausage, chorizo and bacon back into the pan with the bay leaves and the butterbeans.

Leave to cook over a gently heat for twenty five minutes.  After that, you can remove from the heat and put in the fridge for a day or two if you need

Otherwise, stir the lemon juice and half of the chopped parsley into the pan, cover with breadcrumbs and put into the oven for another 25 minutes.

Serve with the rest of the chopped parsley sprinkled on top, and perhaps a green salad.

Baking in protest

I haven’t cooked anything lately.  Absolutely nothing.  I would like to be able to say that it’s because I have been so busy.  But the fact is, I haven’t been doing all that much.  I should be busier, however I’ve been a permanent state of nervous energy.  That kind of insatiable energy you get when you know there are a thousand things you really need to be doing, but you can seem to sit down and get on with any of them.  And unfortunately, cooking is one of the things that I don’t feel like I absolutely need to be doing, so my oven has been neglected.  Cooking isn’t the only casualty of my back-to-school frenzy.  My knitting is untouched, my sewing machine hasn’t escaped its dust cover in weeks.  My sourdough starter has died, and is yet to be replaced.  My kitchen table is, instead of a tablecloth and candles, littered with lecture notes, half read books, articles with random yellow lines over the things that maybe, could be, important to remember.  My notebooks are already, three weeks in, almost full of reading notes.

I have been trying to find some kind of routine by which I can manage all my reading, all my lectures and find the time to cook, but I still haven’t found it.  Today though, after four weeks of reading every day, I can’t face those notebooks.  I refuse to look at those articles, because, today, for the first time, they stir in me nothing but resentment.  It’s not that I don’t love my course, I’ve always enjoyed learning, and reading, but never before have I felt this strongly that you can definitely, definitely have too much of a good thing.

So I went on a walk.  Got a coffee outside.  Sat in the park with a blanket and a novel.  I enjoyed Autumn, my favourite season, the way it should be enjoyed: outdoors.  But as the afternoon chill set in, I set off in order, not to cook, but instead to bake.  To bake some golden, warming biscuits in celebration of the arrival of my beloved Autumn, eat them with a big mug of tea, or perhaps a good glass of wine, some scones made during a burst of energy last night, and refuse to even think about work, at least until tomorrow (the scones were made from this recipe here with golden sultanas).

Just a note: these would be extra good with three to four balls of chopped stem ginger, and a spoonful or two of the syrup from the jar.  Unfortunately, after a long and tiring hunt for stem ginger, the rain defeated me.  But they are delicious without.

Ginger Biscuits

Makes about 24 big biscuits

100g butter

200g light brown muscavado

1 big tablespoonful of golden syrup

300g plain flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

3 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 beaten egg

demerera sugar

Preheat the oven to 160°c and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

Over a low heat, melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup.

While these are melting, sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate and spices together in a big bowl.

Pour in the melted ingredients and mix well.  It should have a sandy consistency, with no major lumps.  I like to do this with my hands, but I’m sure a wooden spoon would work well too.

When everything’s combined, add the beaten egg and mix until the dough is holding its shape.

Roll ping pong sized bits of dough into balls and flatten slightly on the baking tray.  Sprinkle with a little demerera.

Bake for 13 minutes, or until they are just starting to colour.  They will still be very soft when you take them out, but they’ll firm up as they cool.

A really very good cabbage soup

The leaves are definitely turning and the sun is noticeably lower in the sky: this is autumn.  And so, not even the mild battering I received from the wind yesterday could stop me from gathering together the ingredients for a big, chunky soup.  The curly kale is just beginning to fill up the shelves, so ribollita was an obvious choice.

I’ve wanted to make ribollita for quite a while.  Every cookbook I open, I see a recipe for the soup.  Food From Plenty, the Acorn House Cookbook, they’ve all got one.  Not to mention the Hugh and Nigel recipes in the guardian over the past couple of months.  So I has to make it, simply because I couldn’t quite understand what there was to love so much about a cabbage soup.  I mean, I love cabbage in a soup, but, there’s something in me that always wants to add a bit of pig.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s bacon, sausage, chorizo or ham hock, more often than not, when I ’m using cabbage, I crave a bit of pork.  But, living with a vegetarian, I don’t think things would go well if I slipped a little pancetta into my sofrito, so I don’t.  But I just wanted to say, if I could, even with this big and delicious ribollita, I would.

Another reason I decided on ribollita is because I had a bread baking date with a girl who lives in my block, and although most recipes call for stale bread, or ciabatta, I didn’t think we could really go wrong with bread fresh from the oven, and it was really very good.

So, with all my ingredients and the garden in shadow unthinkably early, I set about soup making.  I understand theat ribollita literally means ‘reboiled’ but I rarely have the foresight to make something for the next day, so I just made as much as I could fit in my pot, and cooked it very, very, very slowely. We’ll reboil the leftovers today, so that’s when we’ll eat proper ribollita, but for now, well, it’s a very delicious cabbage soup, I guess.

Ribollita

For four

Two leeks, chopped

Four carrots, chopped

Three sticks of celery, chopped

Three cloves of garlic, finely chopped

One tin of chopped tomatoes

One tin of cannellini beans

500ml vegetable stock

400g kale

Parsley leaves and stalks, separate, but finely chopped

In a big pan, over a low heat, warm some olive oil and cook the leeks, carrots and celery very gently for about 20 minutes.  Turn the heat up slightly until there’s some very, very gentle caramalisation and cook for another 15-20 minutes.

Add the garlic and chopped parsley stalks and let them all cook for about ten minutes.

Add the chopped tomatoes, vegetable stock, kale and beans and cook for another 20 minutes.

Place a slice of bread, toasted or not (depending on desired sogginess) in the bottom of a bowl and ladle some soup on top.

Serve with parsley and a glug of olive oil.

What we ate last night

I haven’t been doing all that much cooking lately.  It’s been a busy few weeks, and there have been a few changes going on.  In reaction to all this business, I’ve been surviving on a diet made entirely of cheese, sushi and Yorkshire tea.  Not at the same time, but usually at hourly intervals.  So when I invited a few friends round for dinner, I realised I had no idea what to cook.  I couldn’t just give them cheese; no matter how much I wanted to eat the cheddar that I knew was in the fridge.  So I thought I’d ease my self back into cooking with my favourite Nigel Slater recipe.  But the thing about using a recipe you know off by heart is that you always end up experimenting.

Honestly, I don’t know how many times I’ve been shouting at the TV when someone on masterchef says they haven’t practiced their dish.  I mean, come on, it’s masterchef.  Masterchef.  Why on earth would you experiment on masterchef?  Now I’m not saying that the friends I had round for dinner were John or Greg, but still, as I meandered through the shops, picking up what looked good, I did worry that if it wasn’t delicious, I would be giving my guests cheese.

So at home, faced with my new knife, which, incidentally, is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever owned, my new casserole pot, which is also big and very beautiful, I started cooking.

There were no disasters.  The stew was, well, a stew.  There’s not really so much that can go wrong.  Once I got into the routine of stew making, which, looking back at the past recipes I have posted here, stew making is something I am very well practiced in.  But the cake was what I was most nervous about.  Because you can never really tell how a cake is going to turn out until it’s done, and then there’s nothing you can do to rectify any mistakes.  And with a gluten free beetroot and chocolate cake there are a lot of things that could’ve gone wrong.  I was nervous that it was going to be too wet, with the beetroot and the ground almonds all together, but it was the best cake I’ve ever made.  I keep looking at the remains with warm affection, and a hefty dose of pride.

Chicken and Bean Stew

For five

Two chicken thighs per person

Three leeks, sliced

Eight cloves of garlic

200g pancetta or bacon, cut into small chunks.

500ml chicken stock

a large glass of white wine

a handful each of thyme and parsley

2 tins of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed.

Preheat the oven to 160°c

In a big casserole pot that has a lid, over a medium high heat, brown the chicken pieces in a little olive oil.  It might take a few batches.  When they’re brown all over, remove them from the pan.

In the same oil, fry the bacon, and remove from the pan.

Reduce the heat to a low heat before adding the garlic cloves, whole but flattened a little.  Then add the leeks.

Add the glass of wine and let it bubble gently before adding the stock and the beans.

Throw the bacon and the chicken back in the pan.  Tuck in some thyme stalks, put the lid on and put it in the oven.  Leave to bubble gently for an hour, turn up the heat to 180°c and take the lid off for the last twenty minutes, with a sprinkling of thyme leaves.

Sprinkle with parsley before serving.  It’s nice with a simple salad.

Chocolate and Beetroot Cake

Makes a twenty cm cake

250g cooked beetroot, pureed into a coarse paste

200g 70% chocolate

4 tablespoons espresso

200g butter, cubed

5 eggs

190g golden caster sugar

3 tablespoons cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

100g ground almonds

100g buckwheat flour (plain flour or rice flour would be good too)

crème fraiche and poppy seeds to serve

Lightly grease a 20cm cake tin, and line the bottom with greaseproof paper.

Preheat the oven to 160°c.

Sift the flour, almonds, baking powder and cocoa in a bowl together.

Melt the chocolate in a separate bowl over a pan of simmering water, without stirring.

When it’s almost melted, pour over the hot coffee and give it all a stir.

Push the cubed butter into the mixture, take the chocolate off the heat and stir until the butter is melted.

Separate the eggs, with the egg whites in a big bowl, and mix the yolks with the chocolate, stirring until all the egg is combined.  Then stir in the beetroot.

Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and whisk in the sugar.

Lightly fold the egg whites into the chocolate, followed by the flour mixture.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes.

Leave to cool completely in the tin.

Serve with the cream and poppy seeds.

Oh, how we've grown

When I was younger, I had a real aversion to sauces.  Not condiments, I’ve always had great affection for mint sauce, and I could, and still can, eat good bread sauce with absolutely anything.  It was the thick sauces, the ones that mixed with things.  Thinking back, I can’t quite remember whether it was the sauce or the things that required sauce that I hated, but I just couldn’t do it.  I hated rice, hated it with a passion, so many saucy foods where just not part of my diet.  Stroganoff, ratatouille, chilli, and, to the disappointment of my family, I used to hate curry.  Every Friday, there was a curry takeout.  My dad is a big curry eater, and my mum’s mum grew up in Burma, so my mum too grew up with a lot of curry around.  And every Friday I’d sulk, because it was one of the meals that I just refused to eat.  All I can say is that I have, wholeheartedly, realised the error of my ways, and I can only apologise to my parents for being so precious about my eating habits back then.

In my older, wiser existence, sometimes only a curry will do.  If I’m at home on a Friday night and there isn’t a curry takeout, I think I’d probably sulk.  But, I do also really enjoy cooking curry, or in fact, anything sauce-based.  That’s my favourite part of cooking, because it’s up to the cook to make it taste just how they like it.

The one thing I do not like about cooking curry, is shopping to cook a curry.  Mr. Slater wisely says that, although the ingredients list is long, once you’ve bought all those spices once, you’ll have them in the cupboard for the next time you want a curry.  This is, of course, true, and I’d never doubt his wisdom, but sometimes you want to change things up a little bit, and it’s always that one ingredient that you’re missing which is impossible to find.

So when, quite late in the afternoon, I decided I wanted to cook a curry for my brother and me, I should have anticipated the hour of wandering I had to do before I could find what I was after.  And even then, I came home missing some of the ingredients I’d wanted, but I’d compensated by bringing home some more.  A little improvisation was needed, and even though I was sure that it wasn’t going to taste good, it did.  I had intended to make more of a spicy stew than a curry, with lots of harissa and preserved lemons.  Having been thwarted by the shops, however, I was going to use a base of harissa, and then add, well, coconut milk.  I don’t know if it’s just me that feels like this is not a good combination.  I was a little bit frightened, to be honest.  Sweet and tangy harissa and smooth coconut milk?  If we’d had some yoghurt, I would’ve been more comfortable with that, but I’d got home with coconut milk, and there was no way I was going out again.  All in all, we enjoyed it.  It kind of tasted like a curry, but we ate it like a stew.  There was no rice on the table, just a few flatbreads.  One step at a time, I guess.

Harissa Spiced Coconut Stew

For four

Two onions, chopped

Two cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Three carrots, chopped

One teaspoon cumin seeds

One teaspoon coriander seeds

300ml vegetable stock

Two teaspoons Harissa

Two chopped, deseeded, red chillies

Four tomatoes, chopped

One teaspoon tomato puree

400g can of chickpeas

200g spinach

250g coconut milk

a big handful of coriander, chopped

In a big pan, over a low to medium heat, dry-fry the cumin and coriander seeds until they smell nice.

Add the onions and let them sweat for a little bit, making sure they don’t colour.

After about five minutes, add the garlic, chilli and carrot, and leave to cook, gently, until the onions are very soft.

Turn up the heat a bit, add the harissa and the chopped tomatoes and leave to bubble around a bit, perhaps a minute.

Stir the tomato puree through, add the stock and the chickpeas, bring to the boil and leave to simmer for half an hour or so.

When everything is more or less cooked, add the coconut milk and simmer for another five minutes.

Add the spinach when you are almost ready to serve, and let it wilt in the sauce.

Serve with chopped coriander on top and flat breads for mopping up.

It's not autumn yet

Towards the end of august, there’s a strange thing that happens that happens in my mind.  There’s a fear that every sunny day will be the last sunny day, so all of a sudden I have to do all the summer things I can think of.  Sitting on the grass in the sun, picnicking, barbequing, Pimm’s.  I’ve been doing these wholeheartedly for the past couple of weeks, and every time, thinking, perhaps this is the last time I’ll be able to for a whole year.  And they have been really good, because the threat of imminent autumn makes them all the more special.  I do love autumn, and I definitely can’t wait for a bit of a chill on the breeze, but that doesn’t mean I want to let summer slip by without one last barbeque.

So at home in Bristol, there was some sun.  Of course, that sun was often mingled with showers, but there was definitely sun, and so the fire pit was fuelled, the paella pan dusted off, and supper was cooked, and eaten, outside.  We ignored the occasional raindrops, and the fact that it was so cold we’d also lit a fire inside. We ate, as if it were a Mediterranean sun that shone, rather than the feeble, end of summer glow that there really was.

I’ve always enjoyed a paella, but this was my first time cooking it.  I was nervous, but towards the end of an hour or so perusing the Moro cookbooks, the guardian website, and some Simone and Ines Ortega cookbooks, I think I got the main idea: just chose the things you like and make sure everything is cooked.  So we had monkfish and chicken and prawns and squid, with a few chunks of chorizo thrown in.  I still wasn’t feeling hugely confident with it all, so I cooked a starter of clams with ham and sherry, just to get the cooking underway, and to placate my hungry family, because I wasn’t sure how long it would take to cook on the fire.

Al in all, it wasn’t perfect.  It cooked very very slowly, and by the time I impatiently took it off, it was still just a tiny bit wet.  Everything was cooked though, which is always nice, and the rice was pretty good.  There was only the merest hint of the socarrat that, I am told, is the sign of a great paella, but it was really tasty.  For a first attempt, I was proud of how it all turned out.  Sure, there were some things that could’ve been better, but, looking at the rain today, it looks like we won’t be eating another paella till next year.

Clams with ham and sherry

for four

700g clams

3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

2 shallots, finely chopped

500g serrano ham, diced

a big glass of fino

handful of chopped parsley

In a big pan, one that has a lid, over a medium heat, cook the onion in a little olive oil for around three minutes, before adding the garlic.

After another three minutes, toss in the ham and leave, stirring occasionally, until the onion is cooked.

Turn the heat up, and when the pan is hot, throw in the sherry followed by the clams.

Put the lid on, give the pan a shake, and leave for two to three minutes until the clams open.  Apparently Banging the pan with a wooden spoon makes the clams open quicker to ensure they're not overcooked.  I tried it, and I don't know if it made a difference, apart from some strange looks from my family.

Sprinkle over a big handful of chopped parsley and serve with some bread for dunking.

Paella

for four - six, depending on hunger

300g boned chicken thighs, cubed into about 2cm cubes

one fillet of monkfish, cubed into about 2cm cubes

one squid tube, sliced into rings

200g chorizo, in chunks

eight raw prawns, in their shells (or some shells you might have reserved for such an occasion)

250g paella rice, I used Bomba

one litre chicken stock

a big glass of white wine

four cloves of garlic

one and a half big spanish onions

one green pepper, cubed

pinch of saffron

parsley

two lemons, cut into wedges

Bring the stock to the boil, add prawns and leave them to cook in the stock (or just throw in the shells).  When they're cooked, throw in the saffron and leave to infuse whilst you get on with the chopping.

In a big pan with some olive oil, saute the chicken, until very nearly cooked, then take it out.  Do the same with the monkfish, and then the chorizo.

In the same pan, gently cook the onion and garlic until very soft.  Add the cubed green pepper.

Turn up the heat, and add the rice.  Fry for a minute, stirring to coat with oil, before adding the wine.  After the wine has bubbled down a bit, Take the prawns out of the stock and pour it over.

Leave to cook until there's only a little bit of liquid covering the rice, then bury all of the almost cooked chicken, monkfish, chorizo and the raw squid in the rice.  Then lay the prawns on top. It should take about seven to ten minutes to finish off.  

Take it off the heat when everything looks as you imagine a paella should look, and leave to stand for about five minutes.

Sprinkle over lots of chopped parsley and arrange the lemon wedges around the edge in the manner of a 70s cookbook.  Serve.

A perfect afternoon

I am a big fan of the rain when I’ve got nothing urgent to do.  We’ve got some real big windows in our flat, and sometimes I’ll just sit and watch the rain bounce off the stone floor.  So when I woke up the other morning and heard the rain, I put off everything I had been planning on doing, made a new plan, and set out to do it.  This new plan wasn’t particularly challenging.  It involved nothing more that buying enough milk to make some scones, and then timing it so that I was making the scones whilst the afternoon play was on the radio.  It was a delicate operation.  I made sure I had all my ingredients, laid them out on the kitchen table, washed my hands, made a cup of tea, and turned the radio on as the closing music of the archers faded out.  Perfect.

And so I sat, watching the rain and rubbing together fat and flour, dividing up my mixture for a few different flavours of scone.  My tray was greased and floured.  And then, in the calm of my kitchen, disaster struck.  I wanted a teaspoon of salt.  Just a teaspoon, but those stupid bags of salt never do what you ask, and suddenly my whole bowl of flour was coated in a fine white dusting.  The calm, however swiftly returned, as I spent about ten minutes just scooping salt out of my flour, I mean, I had forty five minutes till the play was over, and really, it was wonderfully relaxing.  I reweighed my flour, adjusted the quantity (inevitably my salt mining picked up a little debris on the way) and got back to my scone making.

One of the things I really love about baking is how you have so much time, until you add one ingredient, and then you know it’s all about getting it in the oven as soon as you can.  So, I’d added the milk, the chemistry was taking place.  My scone mixture was patted down, swiftly but surely.  And then a pause.  Do I have any cutters?  The answer is, of course, no.  When I first moved into the flat, living by myself, I didn’t really feel like there was all that much point in buying much baking equipment.  It’s pretty difficult to scale baking recipes down for one person, and it turned out that whenever I did fancy baking some biscuits and saving them for a week or so in the biscuit tin, I invariably ate the whole lot within a couple of days.  So I had some time off baking, which worked out quite well, as my problems with eggs reached their peak.

So the scones took the shape of little, slightly irregular and in no way dainty, triangles and were slipped into the oven.  Timer set, I opened the cupboard for a wire rack.  Of course I don’t have a wire rack.  I don’t know why I thought there would be one there.  Because there never was.  Luckily, though, I was very hungry when they came out of the oven, and my tea guest had just arrived.  So we ate them warm from the oven, with jam and butter, and some good Yorkshire tea, with skimmed milk of course.  The play was over, the lack of equipment was forgotten, and we simply ate lovely scones.

Scones

Makes 12 chunky scones

500g plain flour

2 tblspoon baking powder

110g cubed butter

pinch of salt

300ml whole milk

2 tablespoons of sugar

two handfuls of blueberries, 80g of raisins

or

omit the sugar and instead add 80g of grated cheese

Preheat the oven to 180c

In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder together.

Rub the cubed butter into the flour mixture until you've got a bowl looking full of fine breadcrumbs. 

Stir through the cheese, raisins, or blueberries.

Make a well in the middle, add the milk, and quickly mix to make a soft, but not sticky, dough.  Add more flour if it's to wet, more milk or water if it's too dry.

Tip onto a floured surface and roll to about 3cm thick.  Shape into whatever shape you fancy.

Brush all over with a little milk or beaten egg.  If sweat, top with a sprinkling on sugar, if cheesy, some more grated cheese on top.

Bake for 15 minutes.