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cream or crème fraîche 4 tablespoons
date syrup 2 tablespoons
Put the oats and 400ml of water into a small saucepan and bring them to the boil. Add a good pinch of salt and stir the oats continuously for four or five minutes with a wooden spoon until the porridge is thick and creamy.
Divide between two bowls, then add the dried mulberries and golden sultanas. Add spoonfuls of crème fraîche, then trickle over the date syrup.
• I often use dried apricots in place of the mulberries, but cranberries and dried cherries are good alternatives.
• The sweetness of the date syrup can be balanced by a spoon or two of stewed tart apples.
On a winter’s evening, I warm butter and olive oil in a shallow-sided, cast-iron pan, turn the heat down low and use it to fry thin slices of potato, Jerusalem artichoke or fennel. Vegetables that will crisp or soften as you wish, and to which I can add other ingredients at will – sweet black grapes and whole parsley leaves to the crisp artichokes; peas and salty cheese to the softened fennel. I do the same with slices of pumpkin or butternut squash, then introduce feta or breadcrumbs or perhaps a fried egg whose yolk will double as an impromptu sauce.
A heavy frying pan in which you can leave things to cook at a moderate temperature is worth its weight in gold. It is the gift I would give to a kid leaving home. The possibilities are endless. Mushrooms, sliced and sautéed with herbs to pile on a mound of silken hummus; beans whose outsides slowly crisp in olive oil and are then tossed with tomatoes and a wobbly egg of burrata; Brussels sprouts fried with miso paste to a deep walnut brown, then forked through sticky brown rice. They all give a substantial green and deeply savoury supper. The list is endless.
The success often lies in the pan itself. A pitted or wobbly-based pan will produce uneven results. Sometimes you need a thin-bottomed pan in which to flash-fry, other times a pan as heavy as possible that will hold the heat and which can be left to do its task while you get on with other elements of dinner. Choose your weapon.
It is worth finding a suitable lid. Especially if you are cooking vegetables that need to be brought gently to tenderness before a final crisping, such as potatoes, parsnips and carrots. The sort of heavyweight pans I find so useful for slow winter cooking often come without a lid, so it is not a bad idea to find one that fits before you leave the shop.
I am very fond of my old iron sauté pans, but they do need a bit of care when you first get them home. A good oiling with linseed oil, a long, slow bake in the oven and a careful dry before putting them away will give them a chance to develop a patina, a naturally non-stick layer that will, unlike a commercial non-stick finish, see you through a lifetime of suppers.
ARTICHOKES, BEANS, GREEN OLIVES (#ulink_f1b425c2-6f85-563b-ae18-af9a1b5db413)
Crisp beans and fried artichokes. Dinner from the deli.
Serves 2
green olives, stoned 200g
olive oil 100ml
basil 20 leaves
lemon juice 75ml
parsley leaves from a small bunch
black garlic 2 cloves
olive oil, for frying 2 tablespoons
haricot beans 1 × 400g can
fine ground polenta 6 tablespoons
eggs 2
artichokes in oil 350g
groundnut oil, for deep frying
Put the olives into the jug of a blender, then add the olive oil, basil leaves, lemon juice, parsley leaves and black garlic. Reduce to a thick purée.
Warm the olive oil in a shallow pan that doesn’t stick, drain the beans and add them to the pan, then let them cook over a moderate heat, turning occasionally, until they are lightly crisp.
Put the polenta on a large plate. Break the eggs into a shallow dish and mix the yolks and whites together lightly with a fork. If the artichokes are whole, then slice them in half. Roll each half in the beaten egg, then place in the polenta and turn over, pressing down firmly to coat evenly.
Heat the groundnut oil, add the artichokes and fry till golden and crisp. Lift each from the oil and drain briefly on kitchen paper before dividing between two plates. Serve with the crisp beans and the olive paste and, if you wish, a wedge of lemon.
• Make a black olive paste if you prefer, using stoned black olives. I would also be tempted to add a pinch of dried chilli flakes when you blend the ingredients.
• You can use breadcrumbs instead of polenta. Sieve fresh dry crumbs on to a plate and roll the artichokes in them after coating in egg.
AUBERGINES, GINGER, TAMARIND (#ulink_8aa8d77d-b02a-5ed8-b842-944cc0616853)
Hot, sweet, sour.
Serves 2
lime juice 100ml (about 2 limes)
ginger 30g
fish sauce 3 teaspoons
palm sugar 4 teaspoons
hot red chilli 1
hot green chilli 1
tamarind paste 4 teaspoons
groundnut oil 2 tablespoons
aubergines 300g
For the apple yoghurt:
mint leaves 12
a small apple
white wine vinegar 2 tablespoons
natural yoghurt 200ml
Put the lime juice into a mixing bowl. Peel and grate the ginger, stirring the resulting paste into the lime juice. Pour in the fish sauce, then stir in the palm sugar until dissolved.
Finely chop the red and green chillies, removing the seeds if you wish, then add them to the marinade with the tamarind paste and groundnut oil, combining the ingredients thoroughly.
Cut the aubergines in half lengthways, then into wedges as you might a melon. Now cut each wedge in half. Put the aubergines into the marinade, turn to coat and set aside for a good half hour. During this time they will soften a little.
Make the apple yoghurt: finely chop the mint leaves and put them in a small mixing bowl. Grate the apple into the bowl, it can be as coarse or as fine as you wish, then stir in the white wine vinegar and yoghurt, cover and set aside.
To cook the aubergines, heat a cast-iron griddle (and switch on the extractor). Place the aubergines on the griddle and leave to brown on the underside. Turn, loosening them from the griddle with a palette knife, and brown the other side. Keep the heat low to moderate, and make sure they are cooked right through – they must be fully tender.
Serve the aubergines, hot from the griddle, with the apple yoghurt sauce.
• Cut the aubergines in slices or wedges, as the fancy takes you. There will, I assure you, be much smoke, so switch on the extractor or open a window. Better still, cook them outside on the barbecue. Arm yourself with a palette knife to gently prise them from the bars of the griddle. I like to keep the heat no hotter than medium to give the aubergine time to cook through to the middle, a process you can speed up by covering the aubergines with an upturned metal bowl (or a lid, if your griddle has one). If you prefer, rather than the sour apple dressing, make a dressing of olive oil, lime juice and coriander leaves.
• A twist of noodles, tossed with the merest splash of sesame oil, could be a suitable accompaniment here, as would long-grain rice, steamed and seasoned with black pepper and sesame seeds.
BRUSSELS SPROUTS, BROWN RICE, MISO (#ulink_3730bd99-6853-555f-aa5e-cd1a56d64a39)
The savour of miso. The homeliness of brown rice.
Serves 2–3
brown sushi rice 190g
Brussels sprouts 750g
groundnut oil 2 tablespoons
light miso paste 1 tablespoon
Japanese pickles (tsukemono) 2 tablespoons
Put the rice in a bowl, cover with warm water, then run your fingers through the grains. Drain, repeat, then tip into a saucepan, cover with 5cm of cold water and set aside for half an hour.
Wash and trim the sprouts, then cut each in half. Bring the soaked rice to the boil in its soaking water, add half a teaspoon of salt, cover and lower the heat so the water simmers. Leave for thirty minutes or until the rice is approaching tenderness. Remove the pan from the heat and leave to rest for ten minutes before removing the lid.
Warm the oil in a shallow pan. Toss the sprouts with the miso paste, then transfer to the hot oil, moving them round the pan as they become crisp and pale golden brown.
Remove the lid from the rice, run a fork through the grains to separate them, then divide between two or three bowls. Spoon the miso sprouts into the rice and add some of the Japanese pickles.
• Fried in a little oil, the miso paste forms a fine crust on the outside of the sprouts. Serve them as an accompaniment if you wish, but I like them as the star of the show, tucked into a bowl of sticky rice and scattered with salty Japanese pickles. I serve this as it is, but also as a side dish for slices of cold roast pork and its crackling. This is sticky rice, my favourite, but you don’t want it in lumps, so running the tines of a fork through the cooked grain is a good idea.
BURRATA, BEANS, TOMATOES (#ulink_04103e87-c79e-581a-83ab-645d4476e7f5)
Milky snow-white cheese. Toasted beans. Peppery basil.
Serves 2
garlic 3 cloves
olive oil
cannellini beans 1 × 400g can
cherry tomatoes 250g
basil leaves a handful
burrata 2 × 250g balls
Flatten the garlic cloves with the blade of a kitchen knife, then peel away the skins. Warm four tablespoons of olive oil in a shallow pan and add the garlic, letting it cook briefly over a moderate heat. Drain the cannellini beans.
Cut the tomatoes in half, pour a little more oil into the pan, then add the tomatoes and the drained cannellini. Fry briefly, for four or five minutes, until the beans are starting to crisp a little.
Tear the basil leaves and add to the beans, stirring them in gently, until they start to wilt. Divide the beans and tomatoes between two plates, add the burrata and trickle with olive oil.
• The beans will crisp deliciously around the edges if you leave them to fry in the hot oil. Stirring them too often will cause them to break up as they develop their golden shell.
• Cannellini beans are my first choice here, but butter beans are worth considering too. Green flageolet don’t seem to work quite as well, though I am not entirely sure why.
• This is one of the lighter recipes in this volume, yet each time I make it, I am surprised by how satisfying it is.
BUTTERNUT, BREADCRUMBS, CURRY POWDER (#ulink_7de2d03e-ebb5-5244-bd8e-1a9cb13097d2)
Sweet golden squash. Warm, spicy curry. Crisp crumbs.
Serves 2
onions, medium 2
carrots, large 300g
groundnut oil 3 tablespoons
butternut squash 500g
curry powder 2 teaspoons
ground turmeric 1 teaspoon
vegetable stock 500ml
panko breadcrumbs 6 tablespoons
parsley, chopped 4 tablespoons
togarashi 1–2 teaspoons
Peel and roughly chop the onions and carrots, then put them in a large saucepan with the oil and place over a moderate heat. Let the vegetables cook for ten to fifteen minutes until the onions are pale gold.
Slice the butternut into 2cm-thick rounds, deseed and peel it if you wish. When the onions are nicely golden, stir in the curry powder, ground turmeric and a little salt and fry briefly, then pour in the vegetable stock and bring to the boil. Tuck in the slices of squash and lower the heat to a simmer. Leave for fifteen minutes, then remove the squash and place half of the sauce in a blender. Process to a smooth purée, then return to the pan and keep at a low bubble for five minutes.
