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a nutmeg
full-cream milk or cream – 200ml
To serve:
spaghetti or tagliatelle for 4
grated Parmesan
Melt the butter in a heavy-based pan – I use a cast-iron one about 24cm in diameter – then stir in the pancetta and let it cook for five minutes or so, without colouring much. Meanwhile peel and finely chop the onion and garlic and stir them into the pancetta. Scrub and finely chop the carrot and celery and stir them in, too. Lastly, finely chop the mushrooms and add to the pan, then tuck in the bay leaves and leave to cook for ten minutes over a moderate heat, stirring frequently.
Turn up the heat and tip in the meat, breaking it up well with a fork. Now leave to cook without stirring for a good three or four minutes, then, as the meat on the bottom is starting to brown, stir again, breaking up the meat where necessary, and leave to colour.
Mix in the tomatoes, red wine, stock, a grating of nutmeg and some salt and black pepper, letting it come to the boil. Turn the heat down so that everything barely bubbles. There should be movement, but one that is gentle, not quite a simmer. Partially cover the pan with a lid and leave to putter away for an hour to an hour and a half, stirring from time to time and checking the liquid levels. You don’t want it to be dry.
Pour in the milk or cream a bit at a time, stir and continue cooking for twenty minutes. Check the seasoning, then serve with the pasta and grated Parmesan.
Enough for 4
January 19
Sometimes I make my own chicken stock and sometimes I buy it ready-made. Today I take the lazy route, picking up a large tub from the butcher’s, idle, good-for-nothing guy that I am. The outcome is another ten-minute supper, which turns out to be more appreciated than any supermarket cook-chill dinner, at once warming (the broth), uplifting (lemon, mint) and satisfying (the noodles).
Chicken broth with noodles, lemon and mint
dried egg noodles – 50g
very good chicken broth – 1 litre
cooked chicken (leftover roast is fine) – 200g
chopped mint leaves – 2 heaped tablespoons
roughly chopped coriander leaves – 2 heaped tablespoons
the juice of a lemon
Drop the noodles into a deep pan of boiling, salted water and cook for two to three minutes, until tender. Drain them, rinse under cold running water, then leave to cool in a bowl of cold water until you need them.
Bring the chicken broth to the boil, then turn the heat down to a simmer. Shred the chicken with a sharp knife and add it to the simmering broth with the mint, coriander and lemon juice. Add the noodles, leave for one minute, then serve steaming hot in big bowls.
Enough for 2 as a main dish
January 21
A cheap fish
supper
I sometimes feel as if I am on a one-man mission to make the world eat more mackerel. This recipe, spiced with smoked paprika and rings of soft, golden onions, is one of the best I have come up with for this underrated fish. I am not sure you need anything more with it than some steamed spinach or spinach salad.
Spiced crumbed mackerel with smoked paprika
mackerel – 4, filleted
onion – 1 medium to large
olive oil
parsley – a handful
garlic – 3 small cloves
smoked ‘hot’ paprika – half a teaspoon
fresh breadcrumbs – 100g
a lemon
Rinse and dry the mackerel fillets and lay them skin-side down in a lightly oiled dish. Season them lightly with salt and pepper. Set the oven at 180°C/Gas 4.
Peel the onion and slice it into very thin rings, then let it cook over a moderate heat in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil until it starts to soften. Chop the parsley, not too finely, then peel and crush the garlic and stir into the onion with the paprika, a seasoning of black pepper and salt and the breadcrumbs. Pour in three tablespoons of olive oil.
Spoon the spiced breadcrumbs evenly over the fish and bake for twenty minutes. It is ready when the crumbs are golden and the fish is opaque and tender. Lift on to plates using a fish slice, then squeeze the lemon over each one.
Enough for 4
January 25
A herb
butter for
grilled
chops
I make a quick herb butter with equal amounts of blue cheese and butter (I use 100g of each), mashed with a tablespoon each of thyme leaves and Dijon mustard, then stir in a couple of tablespoons of double cream and a grinding of black pepper. It sits in the fridge till supper, when I lay thick slices of it on grilled pork steaks. The cheese butter melts over the charred edges of the chops, making an impromptu sauce to mop up with craggy lumps of sourdough bread.
No matter how beautiful its carmine and orange stalks, the sight of a bunch of chard in my organic bag always makes my heart sink. This is unfair. It’s a useful vegetable, with lush, heavily veined green leaves and enough colour to liven up even the greyest of winter days.
You can cook chard in a modicum of water, like spinach; it needs just enough to cover the stalks. I then drain it while the colours are still bright, say after six minutes or so, and drizzle it with olive oil, squeeze over masses of lemon juice and toss in a few green or black olives.
January 27
Cauliflower is something I can live without, but it surprises me today in a salad, lightly cooked, then drained and tossed with warmed canned chickpeas, plenty of lemon juice, good olive oil and coriander leaves. The crisp florets get a scattering of sesame seeds and a few stoned green olives. A pile of warm pitta bread finishes it off. Clean, lemony and fresh, this might prove a sound way to win other cauliflower haters round.
January 28
A pot-roast
bird and a
new cheese
On grey January days we must make our own fun. Today is a flat day that only seems to come to life when I go shopping, returning with bags of Italian lemons complete with their bottle-green leaves, craggy lumps of Crockhamdale and snow-white Ticklemore cheeses from Neal’s Yard Dairy and a cheap pheasant from Borough Market. There’s only two to feed, so a pheasant does nicely here. People get down about this time of year, but even today there were fat little partridges, clementines heavy with juice, and bunches of narcissi to cheer us up. There is good stuff if you are prepared to go and find it.
A pot-roast pheasant with celery and sage
The pheasant’s lack of fat means that we need to find ways of keeping its flesh moist during cooking. The time-honoured way is to wrap the bird in fatty bacon. Fine. But I don’t always want the intrusion of that particular flavour. Another way is to let the pheasant cook in its own steam. In other words, a pot roast. What you get is plenty of juicy meat that tastes of itself and plenty of clear, savoury juices.
a pheasant – plump and oven-ready
butter – 2 thick slices (80g)
garlic – 4 large, juicy cloves
celery – 3 large stalks and a few leaves
new potatoes – 12 smallish
sage – 6 decent-sized leaves
white vermouth such as Noilly Prat – 250ml
Set the oven at 180°C/Gas 4. Wipe the pheasant and remove any stray feathers, then season it thoroughly with salt and pepper.
Melt half the butter in a deep casserole, one to which you have a lid. You want it hot enough to brown the bird but not so hot that it burns too quickly. Put the bird in the hot butter, letting it colour heartily on all sides. When the skin is a rich gold, remove the bird, pour away the butter and wipe the pan with kitchen paper (the trick is to wipe away any burned butter but to leave any sticky goo stuck to the pan).
Whilst the bird is colouring in the butter, you can peel the garlic, trim the celery and cut it into short (2cm) lengths, wash the potatoes and either halve them or slice them thickly, depending on their size.
Melt the remaining butter in the pan and add the potatoes, letting them colour lightly. Then introduce the garlic, celery pieces and the sage and celery leaves and season with salt and pepper. Pour over the vermouth, bring to the boil, letting it bubble for a minute or two, then return the bird and any escaped juices to the pan. Cover with a lid and transfer to the oven for thirty-five to forty minutes.
Remove the pan from the oven, take off the lid and gently split the bird's legs away from its body, nicking the skin with a knife as you go. Return the bird, legs akimbo and without the lid, to the oven for five minutes.
Remove the legs, then remove each breast in one piece. Put a leg and a breast on each of two warm plates, then divide up the potatoes, celery and their juices.
Enough for 2
January 29
A hot salad
from the
leftovers
and a clear,
aromatic
soup
There are a few slices of pheasant left, scraps actually. They will do two for supper with some hot onion chutney I found in the cupboard and a plate of boiled potatoes, sliced and fried in hot olive oil. At the last minute I decide to toss the cold cuts with the hot fried potatoes, a couple of spoonfuls of the chutney and a bunch of watercress. It looks a bit of a jumble on the plate, but eats well enough.
A clear, hot mussel soup
The point is that this is a clean-tasting broth, hot and aromatic. If you wish to add fish sauce or even soy sauce, then do, but I suspect the recipe will lose its pure, simple flavours. The coriander is essential.
mussels in their shells – 1kg
light chicken or vegetable stock – 800ml
a small, hot, red chilli
the juice of 2 limes
a little sea salt and sugar
a handful of coriander leaves
Scrub the mussels thoroughly, tug out any of the fibrous ‘beards’ that may be hanging from their shells and discard any that are broken or open. I always squeeze each mussel hard, pushing the shells together tightly to check they have some life in them. Any that refuse to close when squeezed or tapped on the side of the sink, or any that seem light for their size, should be discarded.
Tip the mussels into a large, heavy pot over a high flame and add a splash of water. Cover them tightly with a lid and let them steam for a minute or two, till their shells are just open and the mussels are quivering and juicy. Remove them from the heat the second they are ready.
Bring the stock to the boil. Cut the chilli in half, remove its seeds and chop the flesh very finely, then put it in with the stock, together with the lime juice, a pinch of salt and the same of sugar. Turn the stock down to a simmer.
Remove the mussels from their cooking liquor, pull the flesh from the shells and drop it into the pan of stock, with a little of the mussel juices. Roughly chop the coriander leaves and stir them into the hot soup.
Enough for 2
January 30
A sausage
hotpot and
a citrus tart
The air is again clear and cold, and there are paper-white narcissi in a bowl on the table, filling the kitchen with their gentle, vanilla smell. Winter at its purest. This is the sort of day on which I like to bake – a cake, a pie, a tart perhaps. I enjoy making pastry, though rarely do, each time adding as much butter as I dare, just to see how crisp and fragile I can get the crust. Today I want something fresh, with a clean bite to it, a dessert to make everyone smack their lips. I decide on a lime custard tart in the style of a tarte au citron. The lime zest cuts through the cool air. The warm smell of baking pastry wafts into the rest of the house. Heaven. Half way through baking, I check the tart’s progress, only to find the pastry case empty and the citrus filling forming a lemon-coloured pool on the baking sheet. I pile the whole damn failure into a basin (and later eat it in secret after everyone has gone home) and start again. This time I make absolutely certain the pastry case has not the faintest hole or crack in it before I pour in the filling.
Sausages with salami and lentils
A rough-edged casserole that gives the impression of having been cooked for hours but is pretty much ready to eat in forty-five minutes. You could put it in the oven if you prefer, in which case you should let it cook for about an hour at moderate heat. This is the sort of food I like to put on the table at Saturday lunch, with a bowl of rocket salad by the side. Then you can swoosh the salad leaves around your plate to mop up the last bits of tomatoey lentil sauce.
onions – 2 medium
olive oil – 2 tablespoons
