The Shed. No tears.

Soon we’ll be leaving this lovely part of London and if there’s a place I wish we could take with us, it’s the Shed.

No, not our shed - though I am rather fond of it now, having done a timely re-felt with the BSG last autumn before Noah’s rains arrived. I mean The Shed, a very lovely nook of a place run by a pair of cheery and talented brothers in Notting Hill. With the menu changing every week, there’s a strong emphasis on seasonal produce (many sourced from the family farm and vineyard in Sussex) and each ingredient is seldom anything but exquisitely treated. If there’s ever a place that urges you to treasure and savour every component on the plate, it’s The Shed.

Across the board, from game and fish to veg and foraged ingredients, seasonal food is the VIP. I often imagine it sitting on a plumped up cushion in its crate or box as it awaits its time to shine in the kitchen. Speaking of which, you may want to ask for a ‘comfortable’ perch when you call to book a table, especially if, like me at the moment, you can’t quite manage a tractor-seat stool, legs astride an oil barrel gracefully. But I ‘spose that’s better than you’d get in my shed…

With small sharing plates between you, you come out feeling happily sated rather than stuffed. However be warned: you may get overexcited… Even off the sauce (instead we sipped on a delicious blood orange loosener with rosemary sugar and lime), we racked up a fair amount. Four plates between two (and three quarters), plus pudding made for a very good lunch indeed.

I am hooked: I went twice this week. I realised I’d already been three times - without the BSG. Criminal. Plus, if we got in there on Saturday, he’d still be lucky enough to catch the perfection that was the pear tart I tried on Thursday, made with cooked down Comice pears alongside a hazelnut praline cream. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

(Still, I hope to take a bit with me – they tell me they’ve a cookbook coming out soon. Goody.)

 

Here’s what we ate. Purty, ain’t it?

Tempura tenderstem broccoli with chilli and a dipping sauce

 

Venison ragu and black pepper pappardelle

 

Quail and homemade BBQ sauce. Shaved sprouts, apple, cheddar and nuts.

 

Beef cigars with mustard mayonnaise.

 

Finally, that AMAZING pear tart…

(and a teeny marmalade frangipane. More about that next time…)

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

Pappardelle with Chicken Liver Ragù

I feel very lucky have grown up in a happy clan of 4 close siblings. There aren’t even five years to separate oldest (moi) from the youngest (H).

Obviously, between supermarket shops, school runs, on-tap medical assistance and missions across the house as peace envoys, Mum and Dad needed a hand occasionally. When my amazing grandparents weren’t available that help came thanks to a series of nannies, most of them memorable, though not always for the right reasons. One crashed the car and told me not to tell anyone…another used to stick her smelly feet in the bath my younger brother and sister were in and make them wash them for her. (Of course, we weren’t entirely blameless. At one stage, I’d say we were turning them over at a rate of one a month; the Von Trapp kids had nothing on us.)

However, in my book of nanny-villains, the worst of the lot made the very small H sit in front of his lunch for such a long time that he was still sitting there when Mum came home that evening. (I remember H being rather stoic about the whole ordeal; he’d managed to smuggle the bit of blanket that went everywhere with him to the table). Needless to say, she wasn’t there to apply the same rules to breakfast the next day.

But what, you may ask, was so bad that he couldn’t finish it?

Liver: normally edible in our experience, but she’d utterly nuked it. Not to mention the crinkled, sad peas scattered around the plate. Bad enough sitting there, tough grey like the sole of a shoe, H’s offal only got more… er… offal (sorry, irresistible) as the afternoon wore on. I’m not even sure how the 3 of us had managed to get ours down… Perhaps we’d conspired with the dog.

A whole 25 years later, I hope H has managed to get over what must be a crippling fear of liver at lunchtime. If he hasn’t, the BSG and I think we’ve found the remedy.

We think this is one of the best pasta sauces we’ve had outside a restaurant. You can find it in the marvellous Bocca cookbook by Jacob Kenedy (the best argument for the onset of summer I can think of):
 
Serves 2  (or 4 as a starter)

200g chicken livers
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
½ small onion, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
150ml dry Marsala
100ml white wine (we used some leftover rose that was in the fridge)
1 tbsp chopped rosemary
2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
40g butter

Heat a wide frying pan over a high heat until very hot and smoking. Toss the chicken livers in a bowl with 1 tablespoon of the oil and some salt and pepper, then pour into the hot pan making sure they are in a single layer. Fry for a couple of minutes without moving, until well browned on one side. Turn and fry the second side for 2 minutes, then transfer to a plate to cool. When cool enough to handle, chop the livers finely, and keep the juices.

Sweat the onion, celery and garlic in the rest of the oil with salt and pepper in a small saucepan over a medium-low heat. When very soft (after about 10 minutes), add the chopped liver and its juices and fry for a couple of minutes until heated through. Add the Marsala and wine and cook at a very gentle simmer until the sauce is very thick (almost like a pâté) with a little oil risen to the surface, for at least an hour. Add about 100ml of water during the cooking if it starts to dry out. Stir in the rosemary and remove from the heat.

Cook 200g dried or 260g fresh pasta according to the pack and re-heat the sauce in a wide frying pan. Drain the pasta, keeping a bit of the water and add to the sauce with the parsley and butter. Cook everything together for a few minutes or until the butter has melted and the pasta is well coated. Serve with grated Parmesan.

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...

The River Café

The BSG and I managed to sneak our way into the perennially popular River Café on the first sunny day of spring, thanks to an amazing winter lunch offer (on ‘til 22nd March, if you’re asking). We’d mused over a visit for some time, but couldn’t quite swallow the prices. However, this deal and the fact that it was my birthday seemed the perfect opportunity to sample for ourselves the much-vaunted seasonal ingredients, painstakingly sourced and treated with simplicity and respect. Not bad for a place that started out as a staff canteen for Richard Rogers’ firm of architects next door. Lucky them.

Its list of cheffy alumni that have worked under co-founders and superwomen Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray has clout to equal that Cambridge-footlight dream class of Thompson, Fry and Laurie: Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Stevie Parle, April Bloomfield, Theo Randall, Sam and Samantha Clark (and many others), so we both conducted a mental audit of the cast working smoothly and diligently behind the very visible pass. If this was a school it’d be out of the league tables - no doubt many of the current crop will go on to be stars as well.

Cooking in full view – YIKES.. I’d certainly have dropped something. If nerves ever jangled or tempers rose, they didn’t show. In fact, you could almost smell the quiet authority that extended to each plate smoothly winging its way out to the tables. Everyone was busy doing their own thing on this tight ship – the BSG and I supposed that someone was in charge of pasta, another veg, fish and so on. The friendly waiting staff pepetrated this feeling of zen, were relaxed and efficient and ever so slightly über-cool…though of course they all made that look effortless too.

The day was utterly perfect, especially considering it was a Monday; the warmth of spring sunshine on our backs a foil to the chilly breeze that blew off the river. Once we got inside, lemony light spilled through the large windows across our table; cue Prosecco with fresh blood orange to wet our whistles. What followed a basket of bread and gorgeous, grassy olive oil was a series of perfectly simple dishes; including fennel salami and chicken-liver crostini, a plethora of exciting leaves we’d never heard of, fresh sardines, gum-bubble thin filled ravioli (the best pasta I have EVER eaten), sweet scallops with Castelluccio lentils , slow-cooked fennel and monkfish with salsa verde. A lot, you may think – and you’re probably right – but for some reason it felt light and healthy due to the freshness of the flavours (until we got to the lemon tart and polenta cake, that is). It was beautifully simple: there were no ground-breaking cooking techniques to distract from the food, so it was just as well that the headliner ingredients were on form.

This restaurant is a classic, an institution, a favourite - exactly what a dream canteen at work would be like (albeit work would have to be a merchant bank). Like the Rolling Stones live in concert - rather than a 2-hour late, squeaky Justin Bieber surrounded by gyrating backing dancers and tedious smoke effects - it continues to stand the test of time, taste and wallet. In short, it could prove ruinous come April and we don’t give a damn if it’s AT ALL trendy, but the BSG may well make The River Cafe a habit. Once a year. If we save.

Spring has sprung. Yippeee.

Come Back Chicken and a Big Apple

As food goes, there’s nothing more homely than roast chicken. It was the first thing we cooked in the box-fresh oven in the new kitchen and the last thing we laid on for my sister and brother-in-law last Friday night, hours before they jetted off to a new chapter in New York. I had been desperately flicking though my mental rolodex of ways to make them stay and failing that, I settled on a dish that might remind them to return home one day…

We managed to cram in a decent enough amount of wine as well – not so much that it got too emotional – plus some passion fruit creams in little espresso cups from my Christmas copy of Kitchen Diaries II, speckled with the seeds and soaked in a pool of golden juice, which accompanied my teaspoon with every mouthful, right to the bottom.  Once blasted Banuary is over, I am going to give it a bash with other fruit as it was particularly delicious and super easy.



What’s below is NOT rocket science obviously but how I do my roast chicken which, the BSG tells me, is pretty good. The basic formula will take on almost anything throughout the year; fresh herbs such as sage or tarragon, or wild garlic in the cavity, spices like Ras-el Hanout or Harissa and yoghurt rubbed into the skin and sit proudly alongside any salad as well as lasting you through the week. Good for the diet and the budget: what better friend could you ask for right now?

Basic Roast Chicken

You need:
1 chicken (free-range. One of those happy Woodland-roaming ones will do – not sure of the weight but should cost you between 6 and 8 pounds)
1/4 lemon
½ onion
Fresh thyme sprigs (optional)
Olive oil/butter
Salt & pepper

Remove the chicken from the fridge 10 minutes before you need it to bring it to room temperature and then place it in a roasting pan. Heat your oven to 190C. Slice the top quarter off a lemon and squeeze it over the top of the chicken before putting it into the cavity with the thyme sprigs and the half-onion. Drizzle the top and legs with oil or smear with a few knobs of butter. Season generously with salt and lightly with pepper before putting into the hot oven.

Cook for 20 minutes, before taking the tray out and turning the chicken over breast-side down (be careful here!). This should do some basting for you and ensure that everything is as juicy as possible. Return to the oven and cook for another 20 minutes before turning the chicken back over, spooning some of the basting juices over the legs. The onion, lemon or thyme may fall out at this stage, but they will go towards making lip-smacking gravy as they cook away in the tin. The skin should crisp up and brown in this last 20-30 minutes.

After between an hour and 5 minutes and an hour and a quarter’s cooking time, the chicken should be done, but to double check, insert a skewer between the leg and the breast to see if the juices run clear. It is almost always an hour and 10 minutes for me, but ovens vary. Lift the bird out and set onto a board, covering with foil if you like. It does well to rest for 10 minutes while you make the gravy; it will be juicy and easier to carve after resting.

For the gravy: drain off as much of the clear fat from the tin as you can, squeeze the remnants of the lemon quarter with the back of a spoon and keep any bits from the onion in there which have caramelised but not burnt, discarding the rest. Put the tin over a medium heat and scrape the sticky brown bits loose – they will be packing valuable chickeny flavour. Add a knob of butter and melt it. You can add a tablespoon of plain flour at this stage and cook it lightly, for thicker gravy. Add some hot or boiling water – about an espresso-cup’s worth – and a slug of white wine, smear it all together and simmer for a few minutes. Taste, adding more water and seasoning if necessary.

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…

A Salmoriglio summer

I am rather fond of Champagne, all of the time. But I particularly like it when it’s not supposed to be there; like when it’s a Tuesday, with a takeaway, or alongside beans on toast just because you feel like it - that kind of thing. Last night was one of those such moments – the BSG and I had it (rather too much of it…) with our Italian fennel sausages, ratatouille and polenta. Oh, and a zingy Italian sauce: my new favourite thing.

I think I have mentioned in the past that absolutely nothing grows in our garden that I would like to be there, in fact random uninvited plants have taken root much more successfully than invited ones, so I have nobly let them stay. One exception and a product of all this rain is our marjoram/oregano (still not quite sure which it is – but for today’s ends, let’s call it the latter). It is a sprawling, fragrant monster and I love to brush my hand over it and scrunch it to release the aromas into the air. As well as scrunching it, I thought I might have to think of something clever to make with it.

And there it was, the answer, salmoriglio. An Italian recipe required expertise of the highest order in that cuisine so I went to those legendary River Café ladies. Their blue book offered me what I sought and oh, what an amazing, pungent offering. Move over, salsa verde. So long, mayo, mustard and ketchup. This heady paste is my sauce for the coming months, it sounds like sunshine, is great with fish, meat, veg, eggs, rice, everything. And apparently summer’s here….at last.

Here’s the recipe. The BSG and I threw armfuls of the stuff into the mix. YUM.

 

Salmoriglio – from the River Cafe Cookbook (BLUE)

(I reckon you will want to quadruple this, but shouldn’t think it keeps that well – gets grassier by the minute, so make as fresh as possible, as and when you need it)

4 level tablespoons fresh oregano/marjoram
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
8 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper

In a pestle and mortar pound the herb leaves with the salt until completely crushed. Add the lemon juice. Pour the oil slowly into the mixture. Add a little pepper.

Stuffed Tomatoes

I can be a creature of habit when it comes to urges of the gastronomic variety. Most of the time, the BSG doesn't even have to ask me what I'd like on my toast of a morning, instead he reaches knowingly for the black stuff, all dressed up as it is at the moment in its special Jubilee jar. So I am in good company there, then.

For instance, I happen to have had smoked mackerel pate and oatcakes pretty much exclusively for the last three lunches - and I don't mind, because just thinking about it now makes me want to make it a fourth. I like to think of these not as imaginative ruts I’m stuck in, but little enclaves of comfort; the marmite and lettuce sandwich with the glass (had to be glass, not plastic, you understand) of milk I always had doing my homework at my gran’s house; the fish fingers Mum would give us, their crunchy orange crumb skin in curling and crisp disarray, for breakfast on cold wintry mornings when she wanted us off to school without any fuss. Once I’d found a hit I saw no reason to divert from it, and I suppose I am still like that to an extent. Goodness knows what I'd be like as a pregnant person, legitimately allowed to indulge such cravings. Or perhaps I would eat normally….

On holidays as children, we all clung doggedly to anything familiar in the eating department. Menus were Greek to us, in every sense, and we gave the Souvlaki and Moussaka a wide berth in favour of stale basket bread, cucumber salad drenched in olive oil and vinegar and wine diluted with water (which was foul but delicious to us as it was so grown up). There was, however, one exception: the stuffed tomato. I can still remember the first one I had, and none since has ever been as good in my mind. They have stuck firmly on the holiday repertoire ever since, though I am a little more adventurous now.

I know they might be a little bit 70’s, but who said that oldies aren’t goodies? Just look at HRH – she just gets better, in my view.

I am yet to find a brilliant recipe for this but summer(!) seems the perfect time to make the most of these amazing fruits, with their greenhouse smell and plump redness. The BSG and I tried this week, and we'll keep on trying. The following recipe is from the book Twelve: A Tuscan Cookbook, by Tessa Kiros. We added cinnamon and used orzo pasta instead of rice, bundling it up with a whole load of spare soft green herbs and a dollop of creme fraiche to finish. But the search for that perfect stuffed tomato continues…

 

Pomodori con Riso

6 medium sized ripe, round tomatoes

5 tablespoons olive oil

3 garlic cloves, chopped

250g long-grain rice (e.g. basmati)

250 ml (1 cup) water

1 stalk celery, trimmed and finely chopped

Good pinch ground cinnamon

4 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

10 basil leaves , roughly chopped and any other soft green herbs you can lay your hands on

breadcrumbs (optional)

 

Preheat the oven to 180C. Slice the tops off of the tomatoes and set aside. Carefully, scoop out the flesh of the tomatoes with a spoon, taking care not to break the tomato shells. Put the tomato shells into a baking dish, without overlapping and leaving a little space between. Using a little salt, season inside and outside the shells. Puree the tomato flesh with a stick blender or in a blender.

Heat 2 tbsps of the oil in a small saucepan with the garlic. Add the rice and the celery, and stir in the oil for a minute. Add half a cup of water and the tomato puree and cinnamon and season with salt and pepper. Cook for 10 minutes on medium heat. Remove from the heat, add the parmesan and the basil and stir through gently.

Fill the tomato shells with the mixture. The rice will swell a little during cooking so do not overfill the tomatoes. Replace the tomato tops and splash with a little more oil. If desired, sprinkle the tops of the tomatoes with breadcrumbs. Add the remaining half cup of water to the oven dish. Cook in the preheated oven for 40 minutes, until the rice is cooked, most of the liquid has been absorbed, and the outside of the tomatoes are lightly and lightly golden.

Medlar

 

Looking out through the rain right now – unbroken vertical rods punctuated with waves of lacy mizzle, since you ask - it seems hard to imagine that about a month ago summer was on the doorstep. Easier to imagine, regrettably, that since then I haven’t managed to scribble even so much as a bleat about how much I loved meeting (and eating of course – but mostly MEETING) the beautiful food that we were presented with one sunny Saturday lunchtime at Medlar. The BSG and I strolled down there through the park on a golden morning beneath clouds of pale blossom, thinking that life possibly couldn ‘t get any better on such a day.

I am definitely a substance over style girl when it comes to grub, but in this instance, I admit I was bowled over. Luckily, it tasted as good as it looked.

Perhaps its because I have been doing some exciting things recently (they call it work, apparently) with lots of wonderful people who make, scribble, style and shoot food for a living - with mouthwatering results - that the art of food has taken on extra resonance… Or perhaps its because I don’t have proper time to sit and pen a proper few paragraphs… Whatever the reason, I will leave you with a few pictures from a lovely, early summer lunch, with wonderful friends, washed down with a pale Provence rose.

Just this once here are the pics with not much else, because food this pretty spoke for itself (even with my terrible phone mugshot plate-shots). S’pose we’ll just have to go back…for research.

Crab raviolo with brown shrimp and samphire. Gosh – that bisque...

Halibut with trompettes, scallops, cauliflower bits and Bayonne ham

Rhubarb pannacotta cheesecake with crumble (yes all at the same time – genius!)

Neil’s braised octopus – it looked amazing (the German word is Futterneid, I believe…)

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.

An amazing Scotch Egg

Heston’s new telly series already has the BSG and me hooked. Each episode, devoted to a different dietary mainstay, is revelation-packed, turning age-old techniques on their heads. However, this week’s egg-centric (sorry) half hour brought out the usually-silent curmudgeon in me.

Mr Blumenthal offered up a new way to cook a boiled egg, without actually boiling it. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am sure that the result was P.E.R.F.E.C.T.I.O.N, but its not actually a boiled egg and soldiers; rather a brought-up-to-a-simmer-then-taken-off-the-heat-and-left-for-6-minutes egg. Or just egg and soldiers. I am very content with my four and a half minute boil – it never fails me – so I’ll stick to that. I’m a bit impatient I suppose and those extra 90 seconds make the difference. And don’t get me started on what he tried with the scrambled egg…!

Luckily, the BSG and I are willing to overlook these minor deviations from brilliance, especially as we sampled his superior food first-hand at the Hind’s Head and fully believed that the Scotch eggs we had at the bar there would be the best we’d eat – and they were. Until yesterday, that is.


A friend and I found ourselves in the rolling Berkshire countryside and, feeling a little peckish, we thought we’d stop into the Pot Kiln and grab something to eat. It was a perfect brisk January day, the skies high and clear above dark pencil-scratch copses of trees, golden sunlight lining the mossy garden wall and dispersing the morning’s frost. It was too chilly to eat outside. No matter, we found a table in the cosy dining room which, on this first sunny Friday of 2012, was packed.


The Pot Kiln is a little white inn nestled in a pretty valley, run by the same team who run the Harwood Arms in Fulham, and I had heard great things about the food there. There is a real emphasis on locally sourced and seasonal produce and this was evident on the menu – luckily I knew in advance what I wanted as I’d probably still be sitting there deliberating.


We shared a tasty ploughman’s of wild boar ham, mixed leaves, cheese and pickles, and had a warm Scotch egg each, made with minced local venison, oozy-yolked in the middle and satisfyingly crisp on their outside. They were heaven, accompanied by a tiny pile of coarse salt and just a few of my favourite things; gherkins, pickled onions and celeriac remoulade. Their homemade soda bread was deep and cakey, and delicious too. The meal was the perfect formula for a peckish pair, and washed down with a couple of Gunners - angostura bitters, lime cordial, ginger ale and lemonade (though I prefer ginger beer instead of the lemonade) – welcome and refreshing, despite the chill.

This pub is perhaps a bit out of the way for a normal weekday lunch, but I will certainly be finding excuses to return – there’s so much more to try! Or perhaps I’ll just have another one of those perfect scotch eggs… Sorry Heston.

Midnight in Paris…

Marcel Proust was partial to dipping one into his cuppa; the French in general appear to have a penchant for them at most times of day, but it was a surprise when a plate of madeleines was proffered late last Friday night, their scalloped edges just the golden side of crisp. I did wonder how they’d slip down with my vin rouge. They were hard to resist, even after such a meal; they were warm and fragrant and just seconds out of the oven.

The BSG and I took in the City of Light under high azure skies after what had been a painfully prolonged absence. Amidst varied excursions to the Eiffel Tower, Monet’s gargantuan lilyscapes at l‘Orangerie and a boat trip under the many bridges of the Seine there were some truly memorable fuel-stops (in truth, the excursions were really the punctuation marks in this two-day gastronomic tour).

At the planning stage, we’d heavily researched the food aspect of our tripette and decided we’d try to get a table at Spring, the eatery du jour. The operative word being try….The phone rang – and rang. If Spring’s PR mantra is ‘treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen’, then they’ve got it, spot on. Though I’m not sure I do.

And so we put Spring behind us and the lovely Kate took over. Kate is chic, knowledgeable and has discerning taste in most things, especially when it comes to food, so we knew we were in safe hands – after all, it was she who was responsible for our last great Paris discovery, Chez l’Ami Jean, a secret we have proudly shared ever since with friends who are visiting the city. After meeting first for a drink and an hour watching the beautiful people at Hotel Costes, we took the scenic route through Place Vendome to Bistrot Volnay.

The emphasis here was on quality produce: various seasonal mushrooms appeared throughout the evening’s menu; alongside razor clams or St Jacques to start; pan fried with sweetbreads and foie gras to follow; stirred through the darkest, glossiest osso bucco. I had the pheasant tourte: a type of savoury pasty filled with meat, bacon, foie gras and chanterelles, with grapes and spices lending an autumn sweetness. It was very elegant and very simply done, a description that could be applied to the Volnay itself. Whilst it’s clearly a Paris bistro - complete with plaque-studded counter-bar commemorating lifelong regulars - the restrained and quietly chic palette is redolent of Manhattan; it has the feel of a neighbourhood restaurant. The staff were chatty and helpful, and we felt welcome from the off.

Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to those madeleines…

Eyes bigger than stomachs, three of the four of us just had to order riz-au-lait, which came with extra cream and a dark salty caramel sauce. Kate’s husband Emmanuel finished his with aplomb - like any self-respecting foodie, but all I could do was stare at the remainder on my plate and wish it a good home somewhere else - it was enormous. Therefore, when wafts of the freshly-baked-cake variety started to circulate, it took the brain a little while to recover itself and ape some kind of hunger pang. It was nothing other than gratuitous, but everyone else in the place was tucking in to those dainty sponge shells so surely it would have been rude not to….wouldn’t it?

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.

Stuffed baked baby pumpkins

I did something a bit spooky last Saturday, at lunch at the Anchor and Hope. It had nothing to do with the smoked cod’s roe or the crumbed pressed pig’s head we chose to start (though these were pretty bold and out of character for me). No. It was the fact that, for the first time ever, I opted for the vegetal main course option. Of course, I have had many vegetable-heavy dishes at restaurants in my time, but these usually star a starch of some kind: a pasta or grain, a potato, or perhaps eggs. But vegetables only? Not usually. I had the baked baby pumpkin, a couple of them in fact, oozy with cheese and chestnuts with peppery leaves and a pickled walnut on the side. And they were delicious.

I am no stranger to a pure-veg plateful at home; a ratatouille or a bowl of steaming peas or cabbage is just the job some lunchtimes. But from a restaurant menu? Usually - and rather unimaginatively – something with a little more…erm, meat to it wins the day. Especially in an old-school *gastropub* like this one (only took us a decade or so to finally get there), which always make me think of chops and burgers. After such a great start, I will certainly be ordering more vegetables in the future.

It is timely that a newly svelte (alright, svelt-er) Hugh Fearnley-Wotsisname has sworn a meat embargo on his latest programme and I am enjoying the recipes very much. So, with this meat-free plateful fresh in my memory I wanted to recreate some pumpkin magic at home last week, whilst the BSG was away. I decided to try and emulate this kind of cosy-October-wonderfulness by trying a stuffed, baked munchkin pumpkin for last night’s supper.

Having had rice in a kedgeree that morning, I was keen for something different to make up the bulk of the stuffing, so opted for couscous, but I do think with hindsight that something with a little more bite and nuttiness would have stood up far better: some wild rice or barley, perhaps.

To stir through the grains I had roasted some onions and red pepper until their extremities were pleasingly caramelised. To these I added some Shwarma spices from our local food haven, Lebanon Gate, which would permeate throughout and fill the house with wafts of warm, festive scents. Again, with the benefit of the experience I would have gone much heavier on these spices, perhaps adding some chilli for kicks, as well as stock for added depth. And cheese - a halloumi or mozzarella perhaps - melted within would have set this particular combo off nicely…

The part of this magic spell that did work first time was the baking; once you’ve nailed this, the possibilities are endless.

After washing and drying it, I carefully sliced the ‘lid’ off the baby munchkin, scooping out the string and seeds (TIP: discard the pith but keep and dry the seeds – they make a great snack when roasted). I then oiled and seasoned the inside of the fruit, replaced the lid and baked it in a shallow dish at 200 degrees for half an hour. During this time, I prepared the filling, mixing the grains, veg and spices together. I removed the pumpkin from the oven, filled it with the stuffing, replaced its lid and baked it for another 20 minutes.

Maybe it’s rather cheeky of me to post a largely imperfect recipe plus a few tweaks and call it worthwhile. However I am acutely aware that these orange orbs will be going very cheap from tomorrow morning, once Halloween has howled itself out, so there’ll be plenty of them around to experiment on. Perhaps I’ll try some kind of stew, or a pumpkin-based daal inside them next time; whichever proves the perfect magic spell, the experience has served as a satisfying display of the versatility of the fruit: a reminder that pumpkins can be a stars of the plate and not just scary Halloween lanterns or impromptu princess transport.

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.

Lentil and mackerel salad

Each time September rolls around, three small words strike fear into the hearts of many: Back to School. I know even 60-year olds who break into a cold sweat at the prospect – even though it’s been a few decades since they hung up their satchels. So, how to combat these misgivings? As far as I can recall, salvation would come in the form of a stationery spree – a brand new pen, a fluffy pencil case or the crisp white pages of a new diary.

For me, the lentil is the food equivalent to school – I know it’s ultimately good for me and always end up enjoying it more than I imagine. In the lentil’s case, it’s what you dress it with that makes it great. In this case: mackerel. More specifically, tinned mackerel fillets (no grappling with bones necessary).

This doesn’t sound exciting, however since signing up to Hugh’s Fish Fight and eschewing the old favourite of tuna, I have turned to tinned mackerel to top baked potatoes and fill sandwiches too. Judging by the silver-haired company I keep in that particular section of the tinned-food aisle in the supermarket, it is a food as retro as its packaging suggests.

There are certain dishes that recur often in the BSG household and alongside roast chicken and spaghetti Bolognese, this tops the list. A feel-good dish in every sense, it tastes great, is 100% good for you and elevates the lentil to another plain. There’s nothing easier to whip up after a bout of overindulgence, and I swear it makes you shout cleverer answers at University Challenge. It’s back to school without the dread, plus you usually have the wherewithal for it in your cupboards when you can’t face a food shop at the end of a long day. Enjoy its countless permutations.

Lentil and mackerel salad (I think it’s a salad)

Puy lentils

Tinned mackerel

Whatever is languishing in the fridge, but a few suggestions might be:

Cherry tomatoes, quartered

Cucumber, chopped

Radishes, chopped

Carrot, grated

Parsley

Any other soft green herbs or salad leaves wilting into anonymity in your vegetable drawer

Chilli

Lemon

Olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper

Boil the lentils according to packet instructions, with a bay leaf and a bit of stock powder if you have any.

Whilst the lentils are boiling, chop the vegetables and herbs and put everything into a bowl. Make a salad dressing (perhaps a bit sharper than you usually have it as the lentils will slightly dull this – mustard works very well in there somewhere).

Drain the lentils, and then add them to the bowl whilst still warm – if you have used any spinach or rocket leaves, this has the pleasing effect of wilting them slightly. Drain the mackerel fillets from their oil and add them to the bowl, stirring gently through with a fork so that they slightly break up.

Add the dressing, mix and season with salt and pepper. Have a lemon on hand to squeeze over if necessary.

Enjoy a big bowlful and feel very smug.

Say it with flour

There are post-holiday blues, and then there are post holiday-blues, like when you return from your fairytale wedding on an island in a sparkly sea surrounded by your friends and family to find that the decorators you’ve so carefully timed to give your flat a refresh in your absence have disconnected your telly, left the contents of your kitchen on the floor, the books off the bookshelf and hung your pictures ‘their way’. Plus your beloved, tiny sausage dog is so cross at being left behind that he’s up at 3am wanting a pee and a walk –except he doesn’t really, he just wants to annoy you.

How to combat such a comedown and persuade the newlyweds not to make a break for the nearest airport? Yesterday, September tried an effort at an Indian summer to show that London is still a brilliant place to be. I think it should keep trying – the BSG and I are taking them for drinks outside the Dock Kitchen next week.

In our first modest effort to go some way to buoying the spirits of these two dear friends – let’s call them Barbie and Ken – and thanking them for the Montenegrin extravaganza that was their wedding we decided to make them a quiche. I’d been meaning to make one, having never attempted it due to an abject fear of short pastry, and we’d been inspired by a very good homemade one recently courtesy of our friend G. Barbie happens to be a veggie, so it would also prove a useful exercise in the expansion of my pitiful repertoire in that department (stuffed baked marrow, anyone?).

I came across this recipe whilst flicking through the BSG’s newest epicurean tome, How to Eat In, by Adam Byatt of Trinity in Clapham. Both of us were already eager to visit Trinity; having read these recipes we’re champing at the bit. His recipe called for fresh morels, but it being early autumn rather than early summer we used dried chanterelles instead and it worked out fine.

 

Quiche of morels, broad beans and goat’s cheese

150g fresh morels (or 15g dried morels or chanterelles)

200g fresh broad beans (we used frozen ones)

1 bunch chives

Shortcrust pastry (make your own or readymade is fine)

4 eggs

2 egg yolks

700 ml double cream

100g goat’s cheese

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

Preheat the oven to 180 ˚C. Clean and trim the fresh mushrooms, or soak the dried ones. Blanch the beans in boiling salted water, run under cold water and pop them from their outer casings. Finely chop the chives.

Place a 26cm x 4cm tart ring or dish on a cold baking sheet.

Roll out the pastry on a floured surface to a 40cm disc that is 0.5 cm thick. Drape it over the tart ring, then press it well into the bottom inside edge and let it overhang the top. Line the pastry case with clingfilm and fill with rice or baking beans. Bake ‘blind’ for 25 minutes.

Take the pastry case out of the oven, keeping it in the ring on the baking sheet. Removed the clingfilm and rice or beans and leave the pastry to cool. Turn the oven temperature down to 160˚C for cooking the quiche.

Put the eggs and egg yolks into a large bowl and gently whisk in the cream. Crumble in the goat’s cheese, stir in the chives and season with salt and pepper.

Heat a frying pan, splash in some olive oil and gently fry the mushrooms for 4 minutes with plenty of seasoning. Remove and leave to cool, then add to the egg and cream mix with the beans. Leave to stand for 30 minutes – this will prevent the mushrooms from rising to the top of the filling during baking.

Trim the overhanging pastry off the cooled pastry case and brush away the crumbs to leave a perfectly lined tart ring.

Return the tart ring to the oven and, keeping the oven door open, pour the filling mix into the pastry case. Close the oven door and bake the quiche for 45 minutes, gently shaking the baking sheet after 30 minutes. When the quiche is done, the filling should be set around the edges with a slight wobble in the centre.

Take the quiche out of the oven and allow to cool in the tart ring for an hour or so before cutting into slices.

Pizza East Portobello

There are some things that sound like somebody, somewhere along the line, has made a mistake – but which just work. Take, for example, the wonderful marriages of salted butter and jam, celery with peanut butter and half an avocado with Worcester sauce.

My art teacher at school used to call such serendipitous discoveries ‘happy accidents’ – a bit like the summer afternoon when my gran and a ten-year-old me concocted a ‘pioneering’ drink from raspberry cordial and lemonade which we called the Frisbee and got terrifically excited about it. Only later did we find out that the raspberry cordial was actually Crème de Framboise and our terrific excitement was in fact drunkenness. Boy, that was one heck of an afternoon – thanks Gran.



I digress. Just down the road from us, Pizza East has landed on the corner of Portobello and Golborne Road, W(est) 10; one such ‘happy accident’. No-one tell them it’s not East London and perhaps they won’t notice and try to take it back.

Although the place is only a few months old, the BSG and I have already managed to cover a large swathe of the menu and haven’t yet found a bum note. Though it is perennially packed out from 6.45pm, tables are swiftly turned, giving enough time to wet your whistle at the bar or outside on sunny evenings with a cocktail or some such (anywhere that serves Aperol spritzers is legendary in my book).

The place is open-plan so you can watch the drama unfold in the heat of the kitchen as wood-fired ovens roar open-mouthed and orders are relayed. Due to the presence of these ovens, the place also turns out other delicious things cooked amongst the flames. You can have crispy pork belly, beef fillet, salmon amongst others and if you can’t make up your mind, they do a pizza with pork belly on top. Heroes.



To start, there are the usual Italian offerings of antipasti and others, but punctuated with a bit of Brit – bruschetta with bone marrow or beaten Pollock and radishes anyone? (We thought it rather a nice nod to the site’s previous guise, The Fat Badger pub). We shared the char-grilled squid with salsa verde and lemon – a nice clean start to proceedings. But we’ll probably try them all, before long.

Hands down the best pizza I have had in a long time was the spicy sausage, broccoli and mozzarella I had last time I was there. Just the right mix of pepper and richness, and amazingly no tomato sauce – the BSG had serious food envy, despite hugely enjoying his pizza with veal meatballs, prosciutto, cream and sage. My friend Dani, a veggie, adores the courgette flower, ricotta and marjoram, which sounds so pretty and is just as delicious. The ciabatta-style dough they use is pillowy and elastic, with a satisfying crunch where the crust bubbles up: an altogether different pizza dough, so the BSG thinks.

With the best will in the world, there is not usually room for pudding, so when we do squeeze it in we share. The raspberry sponge with mascarpone we had last time was well worth it, light and sharp and like a nursery teatime. No doubt we’ll try everything all over the coming months; it’s only fair to our support our new local which we’ve taken to our hearts (stomachs) – even if it doesn’t really sound that local. Moreover, there’s no doubt it will open more people eyes to the many wonders of the Golborne Road and its diverse shops and stalls. About time.

No green fingers

I’m not sure what’s become of my courgette plant. On Saturday when I last looked, it was standing strong, leaves aloft with a few signs of baby shoots and flowers – the promise of fruit – and today it is a twisted heap of limp, lying listless on the ground. To make matters worse, when I googled the problem, I was reminded that courgettes are ‘surprisingly easy to grow’…..grrrr.

I’m not sure if it was the cats or the slimers this time, but there are no dead slugs or snails in my carefully laid beer-trap (no, I’m not sorry, RSCPA,) and I’ve nothing equivalent for feline entrapment, so I guess I’ll have to lump it. One thing’s for sure: next year it’s going to be flowers, all the way – oh, and herbs seem to be ok. Vegetables just don’t seem to be my bag, and I haven’t got the energy for a Boggis/Bunce/Bean-style campaign against the plethora of pests on my block. Moreover, my potatoes are so tall they look like tomatoes (as has been pointed out several times); they resemble a healthy, leafy hedge, but alas, there are no goodies beneath.

A shame then, that I won’t have the glut of free courgettes I dreamt of as an excuse to make my new favourite thing, from Skye Gyngell’s How I Cook. We had this jammy marvel alongside a chilli-infused lamb shoulder and our green-fingered friend Joe’s new potatoes, freshly dug from his garden. They were so fresh they were crisp, like apples. I think I’ll leave the clever stuff to him.

Slow-cooked courgettes with mint

Serves 4-6

1 kg courgettes, trimmed

1 tbsp unsalted butter

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

3 garlic cloves, peeled and very finely chopped

1 dried red chilli

Sea salt

Handful of mint leaves, very finely chopped

Slice the courgettes into fine rounds (food processor slicer was practically invented for this). Put the butter and oil into a heavy-based saucepan and heat gently until the butter melts. Add the garlic and crumble in the chilli, stir once or twice, then cook for a few minutes until the garlic is soft, but not coloured.

Now add the courgettes with a good pinch of salt and put the lid on the pan. Cook over a low heat for 40 mins, stirring regularly to ensure that the courgettes do not stick to the bottom of the pan. Once cooked they should be very soft, almost fallen apart.

Stir in the chopped mint and serve warm.