Lemony Quinoa with Shiitake, Chicken & Coriander

They say that much like there’s a book in everyone, there’s a marathon in everyone. Well I’m not at all sure who ‘they’ are, but ‘they’ omit a major sub-clause: that many books and marathons should stay firmly put.

Our friend James is running the London marathon this year. The thing that most surprises us about this is the fact that it will be his first. Seriously, he is ALWAYS on a run. Another surprising development is that he has asked us for some advice – not with the running element you understand, but the nutritional one:

What to eat on marathon eve?

Of course, this required extensive expert research so I embarked on my Googling post-haste. Results? NO to anything too heavy, nothing wildly experimental, spicy or likely to make you vom (shellfish etc). It’s too late for carb-loading (exactly what it says on the tin) which you should have been doing for the last few days, so perhaps not too much of that simple starchy stuff. YES to lean protein, complex carbs and vegetables: light but filling. Presumably too, I thought from my now-expert perch, not a dish that would take an age to knock up for someone preoccupied with zenlike mental preparation, with laying out the double-layered anti-blister running socks, the lime-green Lycra number that wicks away sweat - or the novelty giant hand costume.

Gah! It all sounded so worthy and boring, I was stumped…

I turned away from the computer and sought solace in the cookbook library. After an extensive peruse I lighted upon this wonderful dish, from the gorgeous Around the World in 80 Dishes by the multitalented photographer David Loftus (How he had time to compile his own BOOK as well as everything else he manages I don’t know, but we are pleased that he did). If Phileas Fogg had eaten this well, it would have taken him a lot longer to get home.

This recipe has totally cured me of my mistrust of quinoa (something I also thought sounded worthy and boring). It is easy to put together (once you’ve done some dry toasting of sesame seeds and quinoa), it’s balanced, fresh and delicious. It hails from California and you can almost feel the golden sunshine as you eat it (plus, Californians are COOL). The BSG and I had it for a very happy supper (he was on a marathon cook-up for his recuperating sister) last week, and again this week, subbing the chicken out for crisp-skinned baked salmon.

Try it Jimbo – it should keep you light on your feet. And if you don’t manage it in under 3 hours, don’t go blaming me – it’s a silly idea anyway.

Mr Loftus’s friend Domenica Catelli, whose recipe this is, says that it feeds 6 skinny Californians.
Divide by two to sate two greedy Londoners (with some for lunch)
….or one worthy marathon runner.

Lemony Quinoa with Shiitake, Chicken & Coriander

350g quinoa
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
110g shiitake mushrooms, thinly sliced
2 organic chicken breasts cut into ¼ inch pieces
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 litre vegetable stock
2 medium courgettes cut into ¼ inch pieces
Juice of 2 lemons
3 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
Small bunch fresh coriander
Extra virgin olive oil, to drizzle

Toast the quinoa in a dry pan, then rinse it under running water and drain (I would also toast the seame seeds now if you need to and keep them to one side).
Heat the oil in a medium pan, then add the onions and garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Add the shitake mushrooms and cook for a few minutes more.
Add the quinoa and the chicken, season with salt and pepper and add the stock. Bring to the boil, cover the pan, then reduce the heat to low and cook for 15 minutes, until the ingredients are well combined and the chicken is cooked through.
Remove the lid, and add the courgettes , lemon juice, sesame seeds and three quarters if the coriander. Turn off the heat underneath the pan, replace the lid on top and leave for 2 minutes more.
Finish with the remaining coriander and a drizzle of good olive oil, and season with salt and pepper.

TIP: toasting the quinoa in a dry pan brings more depth to the flavour

Ratty Spanish Eggs

A couple of months back, I had breakfast at Providores on Marylebone High Street with my friend Esther, she of the highly-addictive Recipe Rifle. Spurred on by her advice (I wasn’t going to argue with a pregnant lady) and a few reviews I’d read, I plumped for a cortado – my new favourite coffee – and Turkish eggs, baked in spicy tomatoes and swimming under hot chilli butter and yogurt. They were utterly delicious and if you’re a fan of soldier-style dipping I urge you to go along and try them.

Crawling my way over the threshold after a rare hour in the gym yesterday lunchtime I was famished, yet devoid of inspiration. Honestly, I would have just eaten four pieces of toast if I’d been really stuck... However, with one egg left in the carton and a bowl of leftover ratatouille to finish off I decided to put them together.

This is more a formula than a recipe could be applied to various mushes; stews, bolognaise sauces, curries etc. Just dollop a couple of spoonfuls of whatever’s left over into an ovenproof pot or ramekin, make a comfortable nook for the egg in the middle with the back of a spoon and crack the egg into it. Drizzle over a little oil and a spice of choice – here it was paprika as I was feeling a little Spanish (Madonna’s La Isla Bonita happened to be playing on the radio). Oh, and some scrapings of a heel of Grana Padano before baking it at about 190C for 12-15 minutes or golden and slightly inflated on the top.

I ate mine with toasted wholemeal pitta, sliced into soldiers - or rather, soldados - to dip. Rather a smug working-from-home lunch I thought, when it could have so easily been Heinz Cream of Tomato...

Zanzibar Fish Curry & Coriander Yoghurt

  
Last week we decided to counteract the impending darkness of November by heading for the spice isle.

Not that spice aisle, though it’s rather popular in our house, but the Gauguin-green, beguiling beauty that is Zanzibar, the one one-time hub of the spice trade – and a great deal less palatably, the slave-trade between Africa and the world.
And Freddie Mercury was born there.

She, let’s call her she, has had more outside influences than I have had hot dinners (and that’s a lot); Oman, Portugal, the list goes on. The old part of the capital, Stone Town, witnessed the shortest war in the world at the end of the 19th century: the Anglo-Zanzibar war, which lasted all of between 38 and 45 minutes depending on who you ask. This amazing piece of trivia has not only been banked by the BSG amongst his treasury of random facts, but is greatly bumped up his favourites chart due to the fact that it was begun at about 9am… once the British had finished their breakfast.

Our breakfasts each day were altogether more peaceful affairs, consisting of some of the greatest tasting fruit I have ever encountered. Every bright orange mango was a good one, the bananas were short and sweet and the custard apples were a revelation. Considering that pineapples were brought over by the Portuguese - so aren’t strictly native to Zanzibar - it’s hard to imagine them tasting better grown anywhere else.
  

Of course, some food tourism was inevitable, and between bouts of competitive reading and swimming sessions we took a spice tour, to see the origins of the spices we know so well in their orange-topped jars; I have a new-found respect for each and every one. Fresh  nutmeg looked like a formidable armoured beetle, black in its in its danger-red mace casing. The turmeric and ginger roots were fiery when scratched out of their earthy bed and the cardamom and cloves unrecognisable in their pungent greenness*. Huge almond trees provided cool shade underneath dark, waxy leaves. Like all good tourists, we spent a small fortune in Tanzania Shillings on a few bags of the stuff, still drunk on raw nutmeg, ginger and turmeric. One of the bags contains a rust-hued curry powder, the same colour as Zanzibar’s fertile ground. We used it this week to make a fish curry; the closest to kissing the spice isle a fond farewell, until the next time. Asante sana!

* pics from left to right: cardamom, nutmeg, cloves

The mix looks like a lot, but chances are you have nearly everything in your cupboard already. Make up a big batch and keep it to use again and again - I guarantee you’ll want to. Equally it will make a great meat or veg curry too. It takes no time at all to put together.

For the curry:
1 onion, chopped
Zanzibar spice mix (ground turmeric, cumin, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, chilli powder, coriander and garlic)
500g skin and boneless firm white fish (or a mix including squid and shellfish) in bitesized pieces
1 carrot and 1 courgette, chopped into short batons
Tin of chopped tomatoes
Tin of coconut milk
Salt and pepper

For the yoghurt:
3 tablespoons Greek yoghurt
Handful of chopped fresh coriander
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
Salt and pepper

Soften and lightly colour the onion over a gentle heat. Add the mix of powdered spices and cook for 2 minutes. Add chopped tomatoes and carrot pieces, turn up the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add coconut milk and turn down the heat. Cook for 5 minutes, before adding the courgette and fish. Place a lid on the pan and cook for 5 minutes, until the fish is cooked through.

Serve with the coriander yoghurt, some warm chapati (or rice) and cauliflower cooked in ginger, turmeric, cumin and cinnamon.

Too much of a good thing

When I stumble upon something delicious, I will happily go on eating it.

And eating it. Until I light on something else.

Take mashed avocado on toast, for example – I munched through it for breakfast throughout August, sprinkled with dried chilli and salt, and good slugs of olive oil. I extolled its virtues and hangover-busting benefits to anyone within earshot. I squeezed my way around every single one in the supermarket, only to be frustrated upon returning home to find that my ‘perfectly ripe’ ones were actually grenades disguised as avocados, at which point I would hopefully shove them in a bowl with some reluctant bananas and wait.

It is good though, you should try it - if I haven’t forked it into your mouth already.

Last week we went to Spain for a holiday with friends, culminating in a beautiful, intimate wedding in a white Castillo on top of a hill. Every element of the celebration was laid back and like an old romantic film: the perfect reflection of our friends.

From the minute we got off the plane into the startling heat all I could think about eating were big red Spanish tomatoes, the kind that make a salad all on their own. During the week we had them every which way, accompanied by onslaughts of garlic and olive oil, and punctuated by the occasional slice of jamon or a grilled sardine (a lovely place on the beach called Neptuno did the ones in the picture over a firepit in an old boat – worth a pic I thought). One of the best ways was pan con tomate, the bread lightly toasted and then rubbed with garlic and tomatoes until they shredded away, leaving a faint tomato smear and a few pips.

The BSG’s mum has gamely put up with us now for the best part of a month, whilst the dust in our house flies around. The other night she made a sort of romesco salad, with tomatoes, red peppers, toasted peeled almonds, basil and garlic and it has been sitting out stewing in its oil, accumulating flavour ever since. Well, until just now that is, when I put it onto my toast for lunch, closed my eyes and was briefly transported to that Spanish hilltop. Bliss.

I think I’ll just pop down to the shops and get some more for tomorrow. And the next day…

Speedy Apricot Jam: Gluts and Glory

When it comes to summer fruit, I smile when I remember my great childhood friend Patricia. Trish’s dad was a fruit farmer: to a greedy 9-year old, possibly the most exciting kind of farmer there was. Throughout the summer and autumn, the fields and orchards around their house were filled with berries, soft stone fruit and apples of all varieties, testimony to endless hours of back-breaking work on his part and an absolute dream for us. The pick-your-own fruit farm he ran was heaven from June until September – the absolute best place to get lost on purpose. We ran amok between fruit cages, canes and straw-sprinkled rows in the afternoons after school, made camps in the apple crates and ate whenever we stopped, getting it all down our school summer uniforms as we crammed spares into the pockets. I can’t begin to imagine how much of the profits we chomped our way through (no doubt we ruined many suppers too), but picking fruit has given me a frisson of childish excitement ever since.

We are staying with the BSG’s mum at the moment, whilst someone who knows what they’re doing makes a large hole in our house - and most importantly, in our kitchen. Ma BSG’s garden is a veritable cornucopia of edible wonders. I decided to relieve the groaning apricot tree of its heavy burden this week and managed not to eat everything I picked. There must be at least 3 kilos of fruit still to ripen on there. I had chanced upon a very good recipe recently from a friend and thought I’d test it out with my ‘glut’ (well, not really my ‘glut’ but I have been trying to grow something successfully at home for years so I could use that word on here – and now its been interred under a pile of builder’s rubble so I don’t know when I’ll have a genuine ‘glut’ moment).

This jam is a speedy one (rather than the apricots being Bolt-paced gold medallers as the title might infer) and due to its only boiling for 5-7 minutes, it has to be kept in the fridge once opened and consumed within a fortnight. There is no need for saucers in the freezer or jam thermometers and you get the very best of the fresh fruit taste.Try it with yogurt and oat bran for brekker, as a glaze on fairy cakes, with ice cream…or straight off the spoon. I promise you it won’t last a fortnight…

I used:
950g apricots, washed, stoned and roughly chopped
425g jam sugar
a squeeze of lemon juice

Put the fruit and sugar into a large heavy-bottomed preserving pan and roughly mash with a fork or potato masher. Stir it over a medium heat until the sugar dissolves, then turn it up and boil for 5 minutes (7 if you’d like a firmer set), stirring regularly with a wooden spoon to prevent catching.

Take the pan off the heat, squeeze over some lemon juice and stir again. Let it cool slightly and pour the jam through a funnel into sterilised jars. Leave to cool and then seal.

This filled about 4 medium-sized jars.

No time…St Nigella to the rescue

 

One pot wonder #1: Nigella’s Spanish Chicken with Chorizo and Potatoes

Life’s a bit of a whirlwind at the moment, if ever there was a positive whirlwind. Think a helpful spiralling gust, stacking a pile of leaves neatly - just there… yup, there, in the corner - exactly where you want them, even better than you’d imagined. That is my whirlwind at the moment and I am hugely enjoying the weather conditions. The downside is that I barely have time to cook let along scribble about it (which feels distinctly like a busman’s holiday right now, I must admit).

At a time like this, when I need easy-to-assemble food, the first person I turn to is my satin-robed culinary heroine, Nigella. She is very frank about such a situation, when you can barely bring yourself to get a knife and board out. This recipe is absolutely fuss free and tastes deliciously of sunny holidays, whatever time of year you choose to make it. It went down a storm for a crowd over the weekend but was so mindless that when the thanks came – profusely – I passed them on to St Nigella in silent prayer. Some inspiration, then, for a one-pot wonder for when time is scarce or you can’t be bothered but when happy company is paramount.

I feel a few more of these coming on….

Serves: 6

• 2 x 15ml tablespoons regular olive oil
• 12 chicken thighs (bone in, with skin)
• 750g chorizo sausages, whole if baby ones, or cut into 4cm chunks if regular-sized
• 1kg new potatoes, halved
• 2 red onions, peeled and roughly chopped
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• grated zest 1 orange

Preheat the oven to 220°C/gas mark 7. Put the oil in the bottom of 2 shallow roasting tins, 1 tablespoon in each. Rub the skin of the chicken in the oil, then turn skin-side up, 6 pieces in each tin.

Divide the chorizo sausages and the new potatoes between the 2 tins. Sprinkle the onion and the oregano over, then grate the orange zest over the contents of the 2 tins.*

Cook for 1 hour, but after 30 minutes, swap the top tray with the bottom tray in the oven and baste the contents with the orange-coloured juices.

*the BSG suggested another drizzling of olive oil at this stage, which made for extra chorizo-ey juices to mop up with stray potatoes and pieces of bread from the tray plonked between us, proving his expert ‘improving-on-perfection’ skills. If you have just one enormous tray, this seems to do for it all just as well as two.

Pitt Cue Co: Smokin’

 

I thought I’d help you out if you are, like me, a bit disgruntled (to say the least) with the ‘democratic’ no-bookings policy the newest places in central London have adopted, by letting you know that in order to avoid the Saturday lunch queue at Pitt Cue Co*, it is advisable to turn up at 12.03pm precisely, PDQ.

A bit early, you might say? Well, you get there at 12.04 and– just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

After the BSG’s nose had led us nowhere in particular, I took over on our BBQ quest, well in the know having trodden the same path in vain a week previously. My friend Lucy and I had come a cropper in our mission as instead of bouncing up to an easy table at 5.59pm we’d had the temerity to opt for a post-work drink and now faced a two hour queue at 7.15. Several unsuccessful stops (can’t book v. must book) later we’d plumped for some very good tapas and sherry at our old friend Brindisa. Honestly, I am not sure I can keep up. To book or not to book: that seems to be the question, to which there is no clear answer.

Despite this gripe, lunch was really, really good. The clanky tractor seat stools and the high wood counter roared rough and ready from the get-go, as did the heavy metal soundtrack and the bottles of amber everything backing the bar. However, the sun was barely over the yard arm so we stayed off the hard liquor and the BSG was delighted to find root beer on offer (I think it tastes like Germolene). Perusing the menu and seeing enamel trays of smoky glistening ribs and charred flesh coming sizzling from the kitchen we reckoned you’d have to be a brave vegetarian to sit comfortably here for long. Though a couple of pickleback shots (pickle brine and whisky) might have taken the edge off.

Anywhere that the pickled:etc ratio is 50:50 is high on my list, and my caramelised pulled pork came with generous heaps of two different kinds, plus a hunk of bread and a fresh chipotle slaw. I rolled up my sleeves, tucked one of my napkins (I got through 4) in and ate like I supposed a hungry trucker would (no offence to truckers though, I very much enjoyed it). The BSG wondered for a moment how to tackle his enormous ribs before throwing caution to the wind and attacking them with gusto. It was at this stage that we realised why the counter was so high – a tactical few inches from tin plate to gob made pigging out easy. No, we agreed, Pitt Cue was not a first-few-dates kind of place.

We were briefly joined by a plastic cow (pictured) as the place got steadily fuller – it was waiting for a table, I suppose. We gave St Patrick’s Day a little nod with a hearty side order of burnt-end champ: totally unnecessary after a starter of chilli chicken wings and pickled celery (2 napkins) but oh-so deep and delicious. There wasn’t any room for pudding but there’s not an inkling of doubt that we won’t be back with our bibs on – with Lucy - for that and a pickleback one evening soon. At 5.59 on the dot.

*As Pitt Cue tell you on their website, their no-bookings policy has more to do with their size than with being ‘'cool’. It’s true that this is a tiny place - just a wee step up in size from their original van guise - but it serves big, hunky food. Plus, it closed my week with a modicum of cool, in stark contrast to its traumatic start when I caught Slash (hero of my teenage years) playing out the series of Top Gear astride a crushed Ford Focus in front of a crowd of balding, denim-clad motor enthusiasts.

A salad of fennel, orange, Parmesan and hazelnuts

Before I started working from home I had this romantic notion that I would float between desk and kitchen, keeping a vague eye on something wholesome on the stove or in the oven, blipping away until lunchtime. Now that I’ve worked here a year, I can testify to devoting even less time towards my lunch at home than I did when I had to rely on the ubiquitous sandwich chains for the weekly rotation of wraps, salads and soups – most of the time; there constantly seems to be something else that needs my attention.

Yesterday, however, was a punctuation mark of a lunch, a seagull-topped buoy on the recent sea of lacklustre lunches, and it’s inspired me to make more of an effort even though it’s only me. After all, lunch is pretty important, in the grand scheme of things.

Like all the best food daydreams, this one had an outside chance of becoming a reality as I happened to have all the ingredients in question. And the reality was delicious.

Serves 1 (or 2 as a starter)

1 bulb fennel

8 good shavings off a block of good Parmesan

Handful of crushed hazelnuts

1 orange

For the dressing:

Cider/white wine vinegar

Mustard

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Slice the very bottom off the fennel bulb and wash/discard any manky outer layers. Slice it very finely, or better still, shave it with a vegetable peeler (or – yikes! – a mandolin).

Peel and halve the orange, discarding any pips, and slice.

Make the dressing to taste (but a mustardy, zingy slick is best).

Dress and mix the fennel, nuts, cheese and orange slices in a bowl.

Eat directly from said bowl if you can stay away from your desk no longer.

Gruyère, cheddar and bacon soufflé

I’ve always been a bit scared of soufflés. I adore eating them, but would sooner leave the manufacture to someone else. The process always seems to me way too fraught to be a satisfying one, with that mad sprint finish over the last yards from the degree-perfect oven to the table. Scoping out options for supper last week and finding two rashers of bacon, a few eggs and two lumps of cheese left I suggested to the BSG that I might try making one and he said ‘why not?’ Why not, indeed? So I did.

I love nothing more than cruising the pages of all our beautiful cookbooks, but when I am all at sea and in need of the recipe equivalent of a stern lecture (or that fun instructive part of Blue Peter) I go to the most unsightly of the lot: Leith’s Cookery Bible. Stripped of its dust-jacket, its pages stuck together and occasionally brittle with goodness-knows-what, the spine and boards rebound with parcel tape of the muddiest brown, this beloved manual has been with the BSG for 12 years, since he did a course at Leith’s. Aside from a few breaks of colour photos (and BSG biro-scribblings), it is nearly 700 pages of pure instruction, and has been so relied upon and loved over the years that if it were a toy it would be the Velveteen Rabbit.

So, with Prue’s expert help, I made my first soufflé*. And it felt a lot like a magic spell; it never ceases to delight me how the lowly egg creates such towering spectacle.

*(I don’t think I have ever followed a recipe to the letter and this was no exception; I put chopped fried bacon bits into the bottom of the dishes).

Serves 2 apparently (but easily 6 as a starter)

Ingredients

40g butter
Dried white breadcrumbs
30g plain flour
½ teaspoon dry English mustard
a pinch of Cayenne pepper
290ml milk
3 oz sharp Cheddar or Gruyere cheese, grated (I used both)
4 eggs, separated
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 200ºC/400º F gas mark 6.

Melt a knob of the butter and brush a 15cm/6in soufflé dish (or 6 ramekins) with it. Dust lightly with the breadcrumbs.

Melt the remaining butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour, mustard and cayenne with a wooden spoon. Cook for 45 seconds. Add the milk and cook, stirring vigorously, for 2 minutes. The mixture will get very thick and leave the sides of the pan. Remove from the heat.

Cool slightly and add the cheese, egg yolks, salt and pepper. Taste; the mixture should be well seasoned.
Whisk the egg whites until stiff but not dry, mix a spoonful into the cheese mixture. Then fold in the remainder until just combined. Pour into the dish(es), which should be two-thirds full. Run your finger around the top of the mixture. This gives a ‘top hat’ appearance to the cooked soufflé.

Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes (13-20 minutes for small versions) and serve immediately. (Do not test to see if the soufflé is done for at least 20 minutes - less for smaller dishes. Then open the oven just wide enough to get your hand in and give the soufflé a slight shove. If it wobbles alarmingly, cook for a further 5 minutes.)

      

Kedgeree (and other breakfasts.)

I never tire of food-related fantasy games. Forget 'I Spy', how about ‘your last meal on earth’, or ‘if you had to eat one meal every meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?’ Well, that second one’s easy: breakfast.
I suppose I might’ve mentioned my inability to make a decision – or perhaps I haven’t. It drives the BSG round the bend; he is decision incarnate. But this one is easy. Breakfast is a meal where anything goes, thereby removing the choice conundrum from the proceedings. Thus, breakfast is perfect for someone like me.
As well as blurry boundaries between foodstuffs - do I plump for yoghurt, fruit or Bircher muesli, croissants or the full English? - start and end times are also a grey area, meaning that it’s quite possible to graze from waking until lunchtime. Some of my happiest and most enduring university memories are from mornings whiled away in my friend Caz’s room in halls, drinking tea and eating toast and boiled eggs, more with Marmite and perhaps just one more piece - with marmalade - until lunchtime. We may have even missed a lecture (once), waiting for the perfect runny consistency to the yolk. Nothing cements firm friendship like sharing rounds of hot-buttered toast and pots of tea.
Of course, due to obvious time constraints, weekday breakfasts are more confined to the bounds of convenience; toast and its infinite possibilities, your favourite cereal, some porridge and stewed fruit once autumn takes its crisp hold. Eggs and bacon are reserved for the week’s end - a Friday treat of a bacon and marmalade sandwich, perhaps. The BSG and I rejoice in the advent of most weekends with a proper, frothy latte from our coffee machine – smileworthy, even on the dankest of days.
Breakfast is a parade of wonders, where friends’ wacky combinations are frequently exposed; Caz, for example, likes marmalade and Marmite on her toast… My Belgian great-grandmother loved nothing more than to dip toast and Gouda into her morning coffee (white and strong, if you’re interested). I am ever so pleased she passed me this habit. Try it - delicious. My grandpa, the king of the avant-garde food combo, always ate his sausages with marmalade, the Tabasco and Gentleman’s Relish never far out of his reach.
Then you have breakfasts that are ideal for certain situations. This year has been full of weddings, and I don’t think that there’s a better way to start a wedding Saturday than with kedgeree. Protein- and carb- rich, it stops the gap that the skipped proper lunch will leave, lines the stomach for the inevitable afternoon drinking and wakes up the taste buds with hints of spice, lemon and parsley – just make sure you check your teeth for green bits before you leave. Definitely worth prepping in advance, it can sit and wait, warming through under foil in the oven whilst you get on with things. Deal with any fishy/oniony bits before washing and dressing in your finery – no one likes eau-de-cuisine.
You don’t need a wedding as an excuse to whip this up. I reckon it’d steel you for any big (or small) day. It might take the edge off a marathon spring clean, a looming hulk of admin or a trip to a blue-and-yellow hångår to buy silly-named flat-pack furniture, a Venus flytrap and other stuff you never knew you needed.
Kedgeree
Serves 4
4 eggs, almost hard boiled (prob 6 minutes will do) and peeled
680g smoked haddock fillets (or a mixture of smoked and unsmoked fish works too. Try mackerel.)
2 bay leaves
250g basmati rice
115g butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2.5 teaspoonfuls mild curry powder
Juice of half a lemon (and the other half in wedges for squeezing over)
2 good handfuls of chopped flat-leaf parsley or coriander
In a large shallow pan, heat some water (or milk) - deep enough to submerge the fish - with the bay leaves. Add the fillets, bring to the boil and simmer gently for about 5-7 minutes, until the fish is cooked. Remove the fish from the pan and, when cool enough to handle, remove the skin, flake into chunks and set aside.
Cook the rice in boiling water according to pack instructions – it should be on the al-dente side. Drain the rice, refreshing briefly under a stream of hot water from the kettle. Return the steaming rice to the saucepan, covering it with a clean tea-towel and then the lid to stand for a few minutes. This is a top-quality tip from my step-mum and it ensures the fluffiest rice imaginable.
Whilst the rice is cooking, melt the butter in a pan over a low heat, then add the onions and soften them gently without colouring for five minutes or so. Add the curry powder and cook for another couple of minutes, until the kitchen is filled with aromas. Add the rice to the pan and heat gently through, carefully folding in the flaked fish and adding the lemon juice to taste. This can now stand in a pan or dish, waiting warm under foil in a low oven until you are ready to eat.
Just before serving, add the parsley or coriander, seasoning to taste with salt and pepper. Top with the eggs cut into quarters. Serve with the lemon wedges.
Twist: For some extra texture, crispy fried onion bits are often sprinkled on the top.

A big, green goodie bowl

I’m a lazy cook when the BSG’s away. Working from home means that lunch usually consists of perhaps a bowl of peas and a piece of toast and Marmite. And perhaps some cheese…or an egg. Or some Shreddies.

The key to lunch is that it’s quick - and though neither glamorous nor clever, the aforementioned ingredients happen to be amongst my favourite things to eat at any time. However, they can get a bit boring when repeated. We were given some cut and come again salad leaves by Ma BSG in the spring, which do exactly what they say on their (beautiful wooden wine) box. So, seeing as the plants seem to be growing despite my best efforts to the contrary, I decided to experiment with them and our rampant herbs recently in an endeavour to put some crunch into my lunch.

The results have turned out better then I could have imagined: it’s still quick, yet it’s also interesting and - dare I say it - healthy (though I’m not sure that was on the list).

Quantities are not important, it depends how big a bowl of goodies you feel like: every day should be different.

Frozen peas

Frozen broad beans

Mixed handful of soft green herbs; Chervil, Sorrel, Basil, Parsley, Mint…

Some young salad leaves (if you have them)

A grating of hard Italian cheese (the block in the back of your fridge that’s been there for ages)

A glug of greenest olive oil

A squeeze of lemon juice (and some zest if you’re feeling like a zing)

Salt and pepper to taste

Boil the frozen vegetables according to packet instructions and drain, then toss in all the other ingredients and that’s it. For something more substantial, this would go very well stirred through some filled pasta.

Breakfast of champions – Bircher Muesli

This is the perfect weekend jump-start when the clock-change is imminent and there is a sweeter smell of summer in the air (I haven’t asked a science person about this but I am sure there is…Does anyone else sniff the air and get excited - or is that just me?) We shared it with our friend Caz, who is a champion in every way. Oh, and then we moved a shed, built a wall and overhauled the garden. Testimony to its powers.

Porridge in its many manifestations has by now done its job, an inner pilot-light through dark mornings that by now sits a bit heavy on the imagination. Crunchy nut cornflakes, clusters, whatevers are dreamy but for addicts like the BSG and me a daily dose could be a fast-track to overkill and the exit of the crunchy nut asylum – a place I do not plan to leave; they are there only for special occasions and late night snacks. No, what we need now is restraint, plus something virtuous to break the fast before summer brings along its fruit salads.

The best thing about this recipe is that you will feel so incredibly pleased with yourself all round. It is delicious, healthy and you can put pretty much any combination of fruit, nuts, seeds and yoghurt in, so it doesn’t get boring. You can keep the soaked porridge oats in the fridge for a few days and mix things in each morning as the mood takes you. Thank you, Switzerland.

I am not sure it even merits a recipe – really, an idiot could do it, but here’s one from Gordon Ramsay that I’ve tweaked, as for some reason it seems harder to write one the easier the method is. Or perhaps that is just me.

Serves 4

200g rolled oats (about 2 cups)
350ml apple juice or water (about 11/2 cups)
1 crunchy apple, Braeburns work well
125g natural or low-fat yoghurt
Seasonal fresh fruit (such as berries, bananas, peaches and apricots)
Runny honey, to drizzle (or maple syrup)
A sprinkling of nuts or seeds, to serve

Place the oats in a bowl and cover with enough apple juice or water to
moisten them. Cover the bowl with cling film and chill for an hour, or preferably overnight, in the fridge.
Peel the apple if you prefer, then coarsely grate (discarding the pips) and stir into the oats. Stir in enough yoghurt to reach a desired consistency. You could also add more milk, yoghurt or apple juice to loosen the mixture if it is too thick.Serve the muesli in individual bowls topped with seasonal fruit of your choice then drizzle with a little honey. Sprinkle with your favourite nuts or seeds – whatever you have to hand.

Dotori

I have had a cold for what feels like months. No matter what I take, it sticks around, lulling me into a false sense of security by momentarily letting me breathe through my nose whilst talking, or sniff unshackled for a nanosecond. But no, it’s always a brief glimmer of hope over across never-ending sea of Olbas oil. If it carries on any longer I will be buying shares in Sudafed. Worst of all, people look on in horror when I try talking as I sound like Ed Miliband. Where everything else has failed, I am hoping to purge myself of this unwanted horror by writing the brute out.

Perhaps I could be forgiven for thinking that some serious spice might shift it. We tried lunch at Wahaca last week: crunchy and briefly fragrant but no cigar, and I’d had high hopes for the curry we had at the Battersea Rickshaw for my brother Dave’s 30^th (he’s a spice addict) – apparently it was delicious…though I did have a kamikaze mouthful of one green chilli somewhere during proceedings which I could taste…

There was a longer break in the status quo when we hit Dotori in Finsbury Park last week. The BSG’s sister, Pom, has long been singing the praises of her favourite local, opposite the Twelve Pins on Stroud Green Road. If you’ve never trodden the Finsbury Park turf, do not fear getting lost – this place couldn’t be any closer to the station.

The restaurant serves both Japanese and Korean food, with a slight lean towards Korean. This being my first Korean meal ever, I was not sure what to expect, but I can say with certainty that they do hot and crisp very well. It’s not a big place and was already heaving when we arrived – Pom had been right to book. The menu was broad and gave good descriptions of everything on offer. We had some pork gyoza dumplings to start, plus some very spicy kimchi (fermented cabbage), delicious and reportedly rather smelly (what’s the nasal equivalent of falling on deaf ears, I wonder?) with a chilli hit to pierce the lurgy. Then, some tooth-sticking crispy chilli squid which no doubt held the fat content of a small town but was caramelised deliciousness. The rice sticks in a chilli-based sauce (looked like anaemic Cheesestrings but thankfully the similarity ended there) were hoovered up in no time, and somewhere along the way the BSG snapped his chopsticks in half in his unbridled enthusiasm.

Everything was shared and enthusiastically scoffed and the staff were ready to make any decisions on our behalf when required, thus avoiding any faux pas when coupling our main courses of bibimbap and their sauces. These are clay pots of sizzling (nuclear-hot, finger-tip-searing) rice, egg, vegetables and a choice of meat toppings, stirred ‘in the right way’ by our helpful waiter. Ever the wild card, the BSG chose the raw beef topping – there was no offal listed on the menu. Lip-reading the groans of pleasure elicited by my fellow diners I could tell that these were good – if not quite spiced highly enough to clear my olfactory system.

In the name of research, I am looking forward to revisiting this reasonably-priced, no-frills establishment once more, when I’ve taken hold of the appropriate senses. Much to the BSG’s chagrin, I will be taking my camera next time, if the food stays on the plate for long enough…

Secret Garden Party

There is a secret garden in Regent’s Park. You may already know where it is, but if you don’t…well, sorry, but you’ve had a big enough clue already. A very good friend of ours decided to share this secret with us recently and we are enormously grateful that he did. We won’t tell anyone, we promise.

Gardens make me very happy. They are havens from the rest of life and picnics in them are bliss. The discovery of this one was nothing short of magical, its brightly-coloured plants illuminated by the evening rays, as I entered, a good 45 minutes earlier than my dining companions. I’d like to say that my timekeeping was bad but really I think it was sheer excitement that sped me along at such a pace. Beautifully kept lawns, neat borders and gently trickling fountains greeted me, as well as the occasional hidden amorous couple behind the hedges.

As if to remind me that we were not in the grounds of a country pile but in the middle of grubby, 21^st-century London, the idyll was momentarily shattered by the appearance of an almighty rat - but he disappeared as quickly as he’d emerged so I didn’t hold it against him. Nor did I tell anyone about him. Had I done so, the evening might have ended there. Who knows - perhaps he was off for a picnic with his friend the mole*.

Guiding twelve people in to such an unadvertised spot was rather like a mental challenge from the Crystal Maze, so much so that when all twelve were present and correct I briefly considered a career in the army (I’m pretty sure they like navigators there). If only we’d given them all a map to decipher, this enchanted bower would have felt harder-earned. As it was, a mobile phone sufficed. A furious BSG arrived, laden with smoked mackerel pate, sardines and toast, claiming that ‘go diagonal’ hadn’t been the right instruction – it had been more of a 60 degree angle than a 45. Oh well, I never was very good at trigonometry.

Luckily he was appeased by a large slab of terrine on crusty bread made from an authentic French family recipe by an authentic French person, Virginie. However, I fear that her secret recipe will remain so, just like the garden. But sacre bleu it was good: livery richness laced to precision with booze. It vanished just as quickly as it appeared. Other than this, the patchwork of mismatched coloured cloths was spread with countless delights; salads, cheeses, onion tarts, cold meats, bread and dips; a feast that would have made Mr Mole swoon. The BSG and I brought our current favourite munch of the moment, which we have recreated time and time again after being introduced to it at Terroirs. It is a wonderful dish as no cooking whatsoever is required, though it’s probably a good idea to have a mint handy for after.

Anchovies, shallots and unsalted butter on sourdough

Serves 8 for a starter

Anchovy fillets – 2 tins

3 or 4 shallots, very finely sliced

Pale unsalted butter (French is best, though I’m not sure why – it just feels right)

Sourdough bread (failing that, an airy, crusty loaf)

Slice and toast the bread, and cut it into bite-sized morsels. Put all the other ingredients out onto a board or dish, and let everyone help themselves.

Spread the toast with a convincing slab of butter, don’t be shy.

Sprinkle a few translucent shallot pieces onto the butter.

Smear half an anchovy fillet on top with your knife.

Gobble it up.

Assess the flavours, adjust your quantities and make a second attempt. It won’t be long before you have exactly the balance you want.

I promise that you will love this. Like a cold glass of milk with your Marmite on toast, it just works.

*These two had perhaps the greatest picnic of all:

The Mole waggled his toes from sheer happiness, spread his chest with a sigh of full contentment, and leaned back blissfully into the soft cushions. 'What a day I'm having!' he said. 'Let us start at once!'

'Hold hard a minute, then!' said the Rat. He looped the painter through a ring in his landing-stage, climbed up into his hole above, and after a short interval reappeared staggering under a fat, wicker luncheon-basket.

Shove that under your feet,' he observed to the Mole, as he passed it down into the boat. Then he untied the painter and took the sculls again.

'What's inside it?' asked the Mole, wriggling with curiosity.

'There's cold chicken inside it,' replied the Rat briefly;
'coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrolls-
cresssandwichespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater—'

'O stop, stop,' cried the Mole in ecstacies: 'This is too much!'

'Do you really think so?' enquired the Rat seriously. 'It's only what I always take on these little excursions; and the other animals are always telling me that I'm a mean beast and cut it very fine!'

From The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Food fast!

The BSG’s favourite place to indulge after we have, erm, indulged in a little too much wine of an evening (it has been known…) is a magical and very reasonable place on Upper Street called Tortilla. It does a quarterback of a burrito, with a choice of pulled slow-cooked pork, chicken, beef or veggies, different rices, glossy black beans, salsas and guacamole, not to mention the various dairy hits; sour cream, cheese…. Wow.

Everything is heaped onto a deceptively flimsy-looking flour tortilla, then neatly but firmly rolled (I don’t know where these people train, but they are pros) into a bundle of pure joy. With all the food groups literally rolled into one, we skip (run) the four minutes home, unwrap the foil and special paper, (which for some reason makes it even more delightful), and inhale it. It is a great treat, inevitably eaten too fast every time, and there are two branches in London, which has come over all Mexican of late. I suppose that this is more California-Mex, but it’s worth a try all the same.

The only problem with Tortilla is that it closes at 11pm – how very wise of them, keeping the rabble out - so when we missed it the other night, the BSG alarmingly close to tears, there was one solution: Spaghetti Aglio e Olio.

It is called aliolio in our house as there is usually no time to waste, and this is the quickest homemade fix imaginable (and far less expensive than the kebab you’ll find trailing up to your front door in the morning). This was just one of the joys that the Captain - a real-life aviator - brought into our lives while he was living with us. Apart from a good braai - he’s South African, they win at barbeques - other fine lessons he taught us include; what the many peculiar noises in planes are (I hated flying before), not to be scared of biltong, and that men can be chocoholics too. This recipe is brilliant for when you come home and there is nothing in the fridge. All you need is a clove of garlic, some chilli, dried or fresh, some olive oil and some spaghetti. We put chopped parsley in it too for a nod to greenery, and some grated parmesan at the end. When the pasta is cooked, drain it, leaving it to slick in a bit of its cooking water, whilst in a pan you heat up the chopped garlic and chilli in the olive oil to break out the flavours. Then throw in the pasta and parsley, mix up and serve. The flavours are intense – so perhaps not one for a romantic first date.

“So is that how you spell it then?” the BSG asked me, scratching his head as we gazed up at the white plastic fascia. I must admit, I thought I was on the verge of one of those epiphanies of long-held ignorance, like the flush one feels at discovering that after many years you have been singing the wrong words to a favourite pop song. Surely not, I had seen it spelt otherwise, pretty much everywhere else. B-A-G-E-L. Not here, here on Brick Lane it is beigel, and apparently has been since they started selling them in the vicinity in the mid 19^th century. Cool.

We had shuffled along the bricks on the idle tide of Sunday strollers, weaving our way past stalls selling some lovely things, juxtaposed with the latest stolen bikes, and what looked to be the contents of peoples’ houses. 24 Hour Beigel Bake does not look like much from the outside, but if queues are anything to go by, this was going to be as memorable as the BSG had told me it would. Don’t be daunted by the snake of people out of the door (and round the shop), it moves fast; the uber-efficient team make sure that the orders fly out. While we waited, we watched men carry slatted wooden trays of the doughy rings to and fro between boiler and oven in the busy back room. You can buy them plain to take home, with smoked salmon and cream cheese, tuna, salt-beef and other fillings. Before we knew it we were back out and blinking in the bright sunshine, paper parcels in hand. Packed with warm slabs of salt beef, gargantuan crunchy gherkins and the must-have slick of mustard these beigels made a delicious lunch on the go. They were wonderfully dense, chewy from their boiling, a little crisp on the outside from their baking – the gnashers really had to work. The glutton in me was screaming out for a second.

Off we trotted happily for a velvety coffee in a small yard off Columbia Road, surrounded by lovely materials and antiques, all at peace with the world. Little prepared were we for the tragic scene that was about to unfold. A contented tourist (and shouldn’t we be encouraging them to come back time and time again?), eager for his late breakfast after a busy morning negotiating the flower stalls had ordered scrambled eggs on toast, a fantastic choice I hear you say, high in soul-filling protein. SCRAMBLED EGGS – a choice of champions. Some mornings they sing with yellow joy atop crunchy buttered toast, others you know that, like a good friend, a good dollop of these will see you through until lunch at least…

Stop right there: this was something very different. A dry insipid mass, overcooked, pale alien-green – the pain in the man’s expression was palpable as he attempted to keep it down. I am not sure what those eggs had been through to get to the plate, but the ‘chef’ could have done with the same treatment. Collectively we gaped in horror as he soldiered on, having rashly refused both ketchup and brown sauce, which would no doubt have aided him in his ordeal. We left, so I never did see if he made it to the other side, but I should think that he took a taxi straight to the nearest airport.