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.

Simon Hopkinson: The Good Cook

There’s a third person in our marriage – no, not in that way - but I get that distinct, jealous ‘playground feeling’ about the BSG and his new best friend, Simon.

I am to blame, I introduced them – he and his Roast Chicken and Other Stories and whatnot, he with his simple flavoursome ways and his ‘no-fuss approach’. The BSG is waxing lyrical. The Good Cook by Simon Hopkinson; the best book he’s ever used? Probably.
Yawn.

Although we’re not on a January detox as such, we are attempting to conduct some kind of regime on weeknights. But let’s be realistic; this time of year calls for warmth and January gets such a bad rap, so we can’t be all alfalfa sprouts, quinoa and miso, can we? After a memorable Hopkinson dish of poached chicken, hot cucumbers and saffron sauce last year we looked once again to The Good Cook for inspiration in pared-down culinary chic – the food equivalent of a scrubbed bare wooden table: frugality and comfort all in one.

On Sunday we had pan-fried duck breast with sweet and sour onions and a week’s worth of spinach (something about having to forgo hard carbs makes the BSG incapable of portion control in other areas). It ought to have been calves’ liver according to the recipe but we couldn’t find any and duck has that same, sweet irony note. It was - I reluctantly conceded - absolutely delicious and we didn’t miss the obvious carbs. The star of the show was the warm oniony relish (like the rest of my family, I certainly relish a condiment). The key, according to my culinary love-rival? Make sure you cook them super slowly. Whatevs.

Simon H: 1, moi: 0.

On Monday was his extremely straightforward Tandoori chicken legs and wings with a BSG-special daal and raita.

Simon H: 2 (but who’s counting…?)

Supper on Tuesday was astonishingly quick – griddled chicken breasts over a crunchy salad dressed with a sweet mustard emulsion, the consistency of Salad Cream (though the BSG was quick to point out, MUCH nicer than that). SH advises sunflower oil, a lot of Dijon, a squeeze of lemon, a teaspoon of caster sugar and salt and pepper. Delicious.

A hat-trick for Hopkinson.

You can find the full sweet and sour onion recipe here on the BBC website. Pretty scrummy, I must admit. If these shenanigans carry on much longer, I may just pack up my beloved Salad Cream and push off.

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.

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.

Something new, every day…

On Saturday I found out that my grandpa doesn’t like cheese.

Oh, he will have it in a cooked form, say, cauliflower cheese and suchlike, but cheese for cheese’s sake, on a board, say, with crackers? No thank you (or thank yoohooo, as he’d say).

I’m not sure what’s more of a surprise: the aversion itself or the fact that it has only taken me thirty-odd years to learn about it.

I know quite a lot about his eating habits, you see, having spent a great deal of my childhood with him. There was always a rush between us four siblings to be the first at breakfast so we’d get the hallowed top of the milk (when it still came in bottles from a smiling man in a float) in the crater he made in our Alpen (always Alpen, decanted into Grandpa’s special plastic container to keep it fresh). Morning after morning he’d pretend to fall for the rubber fried egg we’d plant on the kitchen floor, tirelessly feigning surprise when we picked it up with our fingers. Next to him would be his own small brown teapot, he and Gran would always drink different tea.

Grandpa has always carved the roast on Sundays – nobody else can get roast beef so thin. We’d all watch as his fork would hover back and forth over his plate during the meal, as he made sure he’d speared a bit from every part of it before taking a mouthful – the perfect mouthful. And I am pretty sure that he is the reason that the chocolate digestive - nay, the pudding - was invented.

On Saturday my nephew, George, entered the world. He is wonderful beyond words.


George has a few months yet before the wider universe of food begins to cross his tiny taste-buds, but what adventures await him! I hope to be along for the ride. If he’s anything like his dad he’ll have a penchant for apples (and his two middle fingers), his mum he’ll be a great cook and a mayonnaise fiend, but who knows what his dislikes will be.

The BSG tells me that babies screw up their faces at sour things as they have an inbuilt anti-poison reflex, so perhaps lemons are out for the foreseeable. I wonder when he’ll try his first bread and Marmite and if he’ll like it *fingers firmly crossed on that one*.

Perhaps he’ll be an early gourmet, like G, who as a toddler was reaching for the olives (stoneless of course). Or like Lucy who dislikes bananas and tea (not together). Who knows what will influence his tastes – or even whether they are already established; will have Grandpa’s cheeseboard-phobia? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Whilst we wait, the BSG and I are rolling out a sort of meals-on-wheels service to his parents, to get them through the days that punctuate the sleep-deprived nights.

This is the first instalment; the recipe’s grabbed from Allegra McEvedy as I am hopeless with quantities and would no doubt lead you astray with the BSG-version.

Chicken, chorizo and butterbean stew
Serves 4 (or two good suppers for the freezer)

4 chicken legs, jointed into thighs and drumsticks
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
250g raw chorizo sausages, thickly sliced
2 red onions, roughly chopped
2 pepper, (green or red), cut into 2cm pieces
Pinches dried oregano
Pinches dried red chilli flakes
Whole dried chillies, (optional)
120 ml white wine
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp sherry vinegar
1 x 400g can chopped plum tomatoes
1 x 400g can butter beans
500 ml chicken stock
2 oranges, grated zest only
Crusty bread, to serve

Generously season the skin of the chicken pieces with sea salt. Heat the olive oil in a large deep frying pan over a high heat and fry chicken, skin-side down for 7 minutes, until the skin is a deep golden-brown.
Season the side of the chicken facing up in the pan, turn the chicken over and fry for a further 3 minutes, or until the flesh-side is lightly golden.

Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside. Add the chorizo slices to the pan and fry on a high heat. Once the chorizo begins to release its oil, add the onion, peppers, oregano and chilli and stir well. Place a lid on the pan and leave to cook for 5–10 minutes, or until the vegetables have begun to soften.

Stir in the wine, bay leaves and sherry vinegar and bubble the mixture for 2-3 minutes, or until the volume of the liquid begins to reduce. Add the tomatoes and beans, then top up with enough chicken stock to fill the pan three quarters full and bring to a simmer.

Put the chicken back in the pan so that the flesh is in the sauce but the skin is exposed. Sprinkle over the orange zest. Bring the mixture back to the boil, then reduce the heat so the stew is gently bubbling. Simmer for 40 minutes, until the chicken is cooked all the way through and the sauce has thickened a little.

Leave the stew to rest for 15 minutes before serving with crusty bread. The stew can be made a day in advance to allow the flavours to develop.

When the chips are down

Once when I was having a very bad day, a good friend of mine told me that a slice of watermelon would make things alright – turns out that’s what he’d had to hand at the time, but it worked in all its sunshiny redness. Not long later and from this same, wise source, it was a crunchy peanut butter and raspberry jam sandwich (the details here have to be very precise). Food had done at those moments what kind words could not.

On both occasions, it was as if having such a simple treat shone a different light on everything else and gave me strength to regroup. Now, I’m not advocating comfort eating – we all know what trouble that gets people into - but I reckon its true that, when the occasion demands it, a little of something you love does you good. A teaspoon of sugar in your builder’s when you need some galvanising? Sure. A bacon sandwich on a bleary morning, or a hot chocolate grabbed after a crappy journey to work? Definitely.

Last night’s supper was a case in point; the BSG roasted half a chicken rubbed in some Australian Bush Mix (we’d in the cupboard and had been wondering what to do with) until its skin was smoky and crisp, which we shared with some homemade coleslaw (carrot, sweetheart cabbage and red onion shredded in the Magimix and dressed in yoghurt, pepper and lemon) and some wonderful, golden McCain crispy French fries*.

Really, truly, happy-making food. Thank you, darling BSG.

*I am sure that nothing beats making your own, but in the absence of a deep fat fryer for multiple cooking sessions, these frozen chips are brilliant.

April firsts

I am not such a very nice person as it turns out. I mean, what on earth has Rachel Allen ever done to me? Nothing, apart from smile gently down the telly. And yet for some reason, I find all her jingly, lilting sunniness irritating to the point of wanting to leap in and start a food fight there in her spotless, Ballymaloe telly-kitchen.

However, this longstanding grudge dissipated when last weekend I sampled some of her food. Well, not her food exactly, but recipes from her book, beautifully executed by my friend Sarah, who does everything absolutely precisely: she is a scientist to her very core. (We used to have art v. science arguments at school, like the dog v. cat ones I have with the BSG these days - he is pro-cat if you’re interested in taking sides).

A couple of days with Sarah and her family in the rolling countryside outside Leeds had three of us Londoners wondering why we hadn’t jacked in the big smoke for this idyllic, wholesome life. In the first few warm rays of the year we had lunch outside: a delicious, shredded salad of savoy cabbage, carrots, crisp apples, bacon bits and chicken. And it was Rachel Allen – well Sarah, really – who made us feel these first breaths of summer. I think there may have even been some rougeing of the face, but that was my fault entirely.

Feeling rather virtuous after this refreshing main course (I would say light, except we ate all of it, including Sarah’s husband’s portion…He’d been on a run and thoroughly deserved to eat), Sarah produced the most beautiful lemon tart. Honestly, it looked like the best homemade thing I’d ever seen – shop-bought ones with their unbroken perfection don’t quite cut it. And it tasted like a cloud of citrussy sunshine, and had some kind of bruléed crust on its top. Heaven. As it turned out, that was Rachel too. So, not just a pretty husband, then. I even got a picture of lunch, for once, before it disappeared.

It was surprise we’d managed to fit any lunch in at all, when a mere hour beforehand we’d paid a visit to the Ilkley branch of Betty’s Tea Room. For a first-timer like me, simply ordering a coffee (albeit a rich, Latte Latino made with chocolate sauce and cinnamon) just wouldn’t have cut the mustard, so with it came the plumpest Yorkshire Fat Rascal (an enormous warm fruit bun), some freshly baked rarebit scones and Betty’s famous cinnamon toast. Clearly a recipe they’d perfected over time, the cinnamon and sugar lay in a thick crust over crunchy fingers of brown toast – the sort of mean brown toast you’d never have associated with such a treat but which was now transformed under its crystalline cloak. No wonder Sarah’s son, Finlay, eschewed his rather yummy-looking lunch in its favour.

The rest of the weekend continued much along the same theme – three girls from London, being fed like kings, with pancetta wrapped monkfish, white chocolate mousse, pork and apple crumble (my first savoury crumble – won’t be my last that’s for sure) and on Sunday morning, blueberry pancakes like the fluffiest cumulonimbus made by Rhys, Sarah’s hubby; a good excuse to march up onto the moor for a brisk one.

It was very hard to leave, even harder to manage the wagyu burger the BSG had prepared on my return and nigh on impossible to fathom what we’ll conjure up for them on the return leg; I might ask my new favourite person...

Chicken, leek and tarragon pie: a golden hello

You know those promises you make at the end of an evening: you’ve all had slightly more wine than necessary and you very enthusiastically set plans in order that you fully intend to keep, but which somehow magically evaporate during the night? Well, the pie challenge wasn’t one of them.
Over a sober brunch we agreed with our friends Anna and Charlie that we should do a pie exchange; we had little idea how serious this promise was on their part until this week. Seriously, perhaps we should have all cut our fingers and mixed the blood on it – that is, if it wasn’t really gross.
Only a present like the one they gave us for our wedding could have had the BSG and me leaping up and down on the sofa. Five (yes five, just about a whole section in itself) books on every aspect of pie eating, culture and making, and a couple of pie dishes; yes, Anna meant business: it was time to get practising. So, in honour of Dad and Ari, finally landed from NYC after two days of failed attempts due to airport freeze lockdowns, I thought I’d just knock up a pie…
Well, you don’t just ‘knock up a pie’. Well, at least not the chicken, leek and tarragon pie I selected from the book called Pie (why on earth not?) by Angela Boggiano; I chose it because the picture made me want to breach the golden crust and dive right in.
First, you’ve got to poach a whole chicken with stock veg and fresh tarragon sprigs, removing the bird after its Jacuzzi simmer and reserving the stock, which you then reduce by half. (I should think that handy leftovers from a roast chicken would be as effective here, unless you have an entire afternoon you want sucking up.)
Meanwhile, sauté 2 finely sliced leeks and half an onion in oil and butter until softened, adding ¼ pint white wine and simmering to reduce by half. Add single cream and aforementioned stock in increments of a similar volume, the zest of half a lemon and some chopped tarragon. Combine with the chicken meat* and season with salt and pepper, and set aside to cool.
There are so many rules about pastry floating about that I am sure I broke dozens, but I made my rich short-crust pastry in my food processor, thus avoiding any clammy-hand-heat (a chance would have been a fine thing during the Arctic, pre-Crimbo blast). It was an utter pleasure to stand observing as the machine worked its magic and the dough was the texture of a damp builder’s sand as I gathered it into a ball. After chilling it in the fridge in clingfilm I rolled it flat between sheets of greaseproof paper (a valuable tip indeed) and draped and pressed it into the perfect pie dish. Adding the now-cooled filling, I sealed and crimped (squished) the edges together, brushing the top with beaten egg.
After 35 minutes on a preheated baking tray in the oven at 180 degrees, the pie came out crisp and golden all over, the pastry cooked perfectly (the wonder of the pie dish). The inside was velvety unctuousness, punctuated by lemon and tarragon exclamation marks.
It was almost as easy as pie…time is really what’s required here. Pies are just perfect for these winter days and I can’t wait to make more of them.

*I have to say that I stripped the bird with my bare hands once it had cooled; a bit savage maybe, but far more effective at extracting every morsel than any tool – not to mention way more fun.