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crunchy
salad
It has taken me years to figure out that when it rains I invariably make (or think about making) soup. I never noticed this till I started to write everything down.
Spiced pumpkin soup with bacon
a medium onion
garlic – 2 plump cloves
butter – 50g
pumpkin – 900g
coriander seeds – 1 tablespoon
cumin seeds – 2 teaspoons
small dried chillies – 2
chicken or vegetable stock – 1 litre
smoked bacon – 4 rashers
single cream – 100ml
Peel and roughly chop the onion. Peel and slice the garlic. Melt the butter in a large, heavy-based saucepan and cook the onion and garlic until soft and translucent. Meanwhile, peel the pumpkin, remove the stringy bits and seeds and discard them with the peel. You will probably have about 650g of orangey-yellow flesh. Chop into rough cubes and add to the onion. Cook until the pumpkin is golden brown at the edges.
Toast the coriander and cumin seeds in a small pan over a low heat for about two minutes, until they start to smell warm and nutty. Keep the pan to one side for later. Grind the roasted spices in a coffee mill or with a pestle and mortar. Add them and the crumbled chillies to the onion and pumpkin. Cook for a minute or so, then add the stock. Leave to simmer for twenty minutes or until the pumpkin is tender.
Fry the bacon in the pan in which you toasted the spices. It should be crisp. Cool a little, then cut up into small pieces with scissors. Whiz the soup in a blender or food processor till smooth. Pour in the cream and taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper as necessary. Return to the pan, bring almost to the boil and then serve, piping hot, with the bacon bits scattered on top.
Enough to serve 4 generously
I also make a salad dressing tonight with 4 tablespoons of sake, 100g miso paste, 2 tablespoons of groundnut oil and a couple of teaspoons of sugar. I use it to dress a salad made from the following raw crunchy things: a couple of big handfuls of bean shoots, a handful of mint leaves and another of coriander, half a cucumber and a couple of carrots, shredded into matchsticks, four shredded spring onions and three red chillies, seeded and chopped. I toast 150g peanuts till they smell warm and nutty, chop them roughly, then toss the nuts, salad and miso dressing together. It makes a great, scrunchy, nutty, knubbly salad for two of us.
February 21
A slow roast
for a snowy
night
There is something romantic about falling snow. This is the first decent fall we have had this year, in two hours covering the box hedges and settling on the grey branches of the plum trees. By mid afternoon, with a single trail of fox prints to the kitchen door, the garden looks like a Christmas card. The cats, huddled together round the Aga, look as if they are not amused: ‘Oh, that stuff again.’
Every sound is muffled, the grass across the road sparkles in the streetlights, not a soul passes the front door. It is as if everyone is asleep. It takes something magical to make this stretch of road look as it does now, like a scene from a fairy tale. There is a leg of lamb in the fridge that I intended to roast as usual, with mint sauce and roast potatoes. With each windowpane edged in snow, I now want something more suited to a world white over. I put the leg into a deep cast-iron casserole with a rub of ground cumin, salt and thyme and let it bake slowly, occasionally basting its fat, as it turns a deep, glowing amber.
Slow-roast lamb with chickpea mash
a leg of lamb, about 2.3kg
For the spice rub:
garlic – 2 cloves
sea salt flakes – a tablespoon
a pinch of sweet paprika
cumin seeds – a tablespoon
thyme leaves – 2 tablespoons
olive oil – 2 tablespoons
butter – a thick slice
Set the oven at 160˚C/Gas 3. Make the spice rub: peel the garlic cloves, then lightly crush them with the salt, using a pestle and mortar. Mix in the sweet paprika, cumin seeds and thyme leaves. Gradually add the olive oil so that you end up with a thickish paste. Melt the butter in a small pan and stir it into the spice paste.
Put the lamb into a casserole or roasting tin and rub it all over with the spice paste, either with the back of a spoon or with your hands. Put it in the oven and leave for thirty-five minutes. Pour in 250ml of water and baste the lamb with the liquid, then continue roasting for three hours, basting the meat every hour with the juices that have collected in the bottom of the pan.
Remove the pan from the oven and pour off the top layer of oil, leaving the cloudy, herbal sediment in place. Cover the pan with a lid and set aside for ten minutes or so.
Carve the lamb, serving with the mashed chickpeas below, spooning the pan juices over both as you go.
Chickpea mash:
chickpeas – two 400g tins
a small onion
olive oil – 3–4 tablespoons
hot paprika
Drain the chickpeas and put them into a pan of lightly salted water. Bring to the boil, then turn down to a light simmer. You are doing this to warm the chickpeas rather than cook them any further. Peel and finely slice the onion, then let it soften with the olive oil in a pan over a moderate heat. This will seem like too much oil but bear with me. Let the onion colour a little, then stir in a pinch of hot paprika. Drain the chickpeas, then either mash them with a potato masher or, better I think, in a food processor. Mix in enough olive oil from the cooked onion to give a smooth and luxurious purée. Stir in the onion and serve with the roast lamb above.
Enough for 6.
February 22
Cold lamb, sliced thinly and tossed into a salad of tiny spinach leaves, Little Gem lettuce and baby red chard leaves. The whole thing looks pretty pedestrian until I add chopped fresh mint leaves to the olive oil and lemon dressing. Suddenly everything lights up. We eat it with bought focaccia and follow it with slices of commercial gingerbread spread with lemon curd.
February 23
and 24
Bones and
gravy for an
icy day
There is still snow but it has turned to slush, the odd bit of ice taking you by surprise on your way to the shops. In ten minutes I manage to pick up an oxtail for tomorrow from the butcher, a bottle of wine, a few carrots and some mushrooms and even stop to pay the newspaper bill, which somehow I have let run into three figures. I feel as if I am eating too much meat this month, but squishy snow and ice means just one thing to me: gravy. Rich and thick with onions, gravy to fork into mounds of mashed potato, gravy to soothe and heal, to warm and satisfy. Gravy as your best friend.
Braised oxtail with mustard and mash
This is not a liquid stew, but one where the lumps of meat and bone are coated in a sticky, glossy gravy. Piles of creamy mashed potato, made on the sloppy side with the addition of hot milk, are an essential part of this.
a large oxtail, cut into joints
a little flour for dusting
ground chilli – a teaspoon
dry mustard powder – a heaped teaspoon
butter – a thick slice
a little oil, fat or dripping
onions – 2 large
winter carrots – 2 large
celery – 2 stalks
garlic – 4 large cloves
mushrooms – 5 large
tomato purée – 2 teaspoons
bay leaves – 4
thyme – a few bushy sprigs
a bottle of ballsy red wine, such as a Rioja
grain mustard – a tablespoon
smooth Dijon mustard – a tablespoon
a little parsley
creamy mashed potato, to serve
Set the oven at 150°C/Gas 2. Put the oxtail in a plastic or zip-lock bag with the flour, ground chilli, dry mustard powder and a good grinding of black pepper. Seal it and shake it gently until the oxtail is covered.
Warm the butter and a little oil, fat or dripping in a heavy-based casserole. Lower in the pieces of oxtail and let them colour on each side, turning them as they take on a nice, tasty bronze colour. Whilst the meat is browning, peel the onions and carrots and roughly chop them, then cut the celery into similar-sized pieces. Lift out the meat and set aside, then put the vegetables in the pot and let them colour lightly. Peel the garlic, slice it thinly, then add it to the vegetables, along with the mushrooms, each cut into six or eight pieces. Squeeze in the tomato purée. Continue cooking until the mushrooms have softened and lost some of their bulk.
Return the oxtail and any escaped juices to the pan, tuck in the bay and thyme, then pour in the red wine. Bring briefly to the boil, season lightly with salt and cover with a tight lid. Transfer the dish to the oven. You can now leave the whole thing alone for a good two hours. I’m not sure you even need to give it a stir, though I inevitably do half way through cooking. After an hour, check the meat for tenderness. I don’t think it should be actually falling off the bones but it certainly should come away from the bone easily when tugged. Depending on the oxtail, it could take as long as two or three hours in total. Set the oxtail aside to cool, then refrigerate, preferably overnight.
The next day, scrape off the fat that has set on the surface, then reheat the casserole slowly on the hot plate, stirring from time to time. Stir in the mustards. Once they are in, you should cook the stew for no longer than fifteen minutes, otherwise it will lose its edge. Stir in the parsley and serve with creamy mash.
Treacle tart
You could call this a basic domestic version of treacle tart, but that would be to undersell it. No frills, none of the oozing unctuousness of a restaurant version, just a pleasingly frugal tart with crisp pastry and a thick golden filling. I do think cream in some form or another is essential here, and by the generous jugful too. You will need an old-fashioned shallow pie plate with sloping sides about 18cm diameter (across the base).
fresh, white bread – 220g
golden syrup – 8 heaped tablespoons (600g)
the juice of half a lemon
For the crust:
plain flour – 180g
butter – 90g
water – 2 tablespoons
Put the flour into a food processor with the cold butter cut into cubes and blitz until they resemble fine breadcrumbs. Pour in the cold water, blitz briefly, then tip the wet crumbs into a bowl. Bring the mixture together with your hands to form a ball. It will seem dry at first, but once you have squeezed and rolled the dough for a minute with your hands it will soften. Roll out on a lightly floured board to fit the tart tin.
Very lightly butter the tin, then lay the pastry over and push it carefully into the tin. Trim any overhanging pastry, then prick the base gently with a fork and put in the fridge to rest. Set the oven at 200°C/Gas 6.
After twenty minutes’ resting (the pastry that is, not you), remove the pastry from the fridge, place a piece of greaseproof paper over it, then cover it with baking beans or a similar-sized tart tin to stop it bubbling up. Bake for ten minutes. Remove the paper and beans and return the tin to the oven for ten minutes, until the surface of the pastry is dry to the touch.
While the case bakes, whiz the bread in a food processor till it is in fine crumbs, then tip them into the empty pastry bowl. Mix in the golden syrup and the lemon juice. Pour the mixture into the pastry case, turn the oven down to 180°C/Gas 4 and bake for thirty minutes. When it comes from the oven, leave the tart to rest for a good ten minutes, then serve with cream.
Enough for 6
February 25
Grey skies
and piquant
flavours
After a row of rib-sticking suppers, I need something clean-tasting and sharp. Something to wake us up rather than make me nod off in front of the TV.
Anything cooked with vinegar, onions and northern European spices has always excited me. Juniper is something I can never get enough of, its clean ‘gin and tonic’ scent instantly invigorating a grey February soul.
Warm soused mackerel
