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.

Picture this if you will

Typos: the bane of many office emails but sometimes rather useful. On Friday, the BSG emailed to say that he was off to Bodean’s (I hasten to add that this was not of his choosing), but that he wasn’t even remotely hungary.

At the very same moment in an office across London I was in fact ravenous, so this random error led me to a favourite Hungarian food-daydream, goulash, and the extraordinary version that Jamie Oliver does using a pork shoulder, cooked slowly in a lidded pot with a mountain of sliced peppers and paprika until it falls apart at a mere glance. Clouds of fluffy rice and sour cream are all this needs to complete it, and if you are feeding many, it is relatively cheap. I am sure that the recipe wouldn’t be hard to find on the internet and it is well worth looking.

Having met our very pregnant but completely relaxed friend for a convincing – yet thankfully not labour-inducing - curry at the brilliant Mirch Masala in Tooting last week, thoughts are turning to core-warming foods. Indeed, central heating is essential at this time of year, when the temperature can plummet or rise sharply in a matter of hours. And I don’t mean the skin-desiccating, global warming stuff – though that can be rather helpful too – I mean these kinds of soul-filling, oven-and-pot-cooked dishes that lead you away from the watery crunch of summer salads and into the deep stew-ladle of winter.

Arriving in Norfolk on Friday and faced with a cold, dark house, the only thing for it was a warm fix, pure and simple – spaghetti and meatballs. A blend of minced beef and pork (the insides of good sausages, we were in a hurry), they were squished in our hands and rolled together with some thyme, browned off in a pan and added to some chopped tomatoes, port and garlic, before we even took our coats off. Left to stew for about an hour their brownness seeped into the tomato sauce, reducing it to a wonderfully jammy consistency, into which we mixed our cooked linguine and feasted, each mouthful inching up the internal thermostat.

Trout, usually a fish I associate with summer, was the cameo in our yellow-curry-laksa-type-thing last week, and we were surprised that this sweet delicate flesh stood up amongst all the spices and ginger – we’ll definitely repeating that recipe, over thread-thin rice noodles.

They are a stalwart of the store-cupboard, unlimited by the seasons, but in our house puy lentils don’t really come out in the summer months – I can’t imagine why, these nutty green pulses are completely wonderful. With them, the BSG made us a great supper; they were boiled, tossed immediately with chopped roasted peppers, paper-thin sliced red onions, and cherry tomatoes. These were dressed with red wine vinegar, olive oil and parsley, and topped with pan fried mackerel fillets, though you could easily use cold tinned/jarred fillets and stir them through the warmth. It is a perfect one-dish supper full of vibrant colours and fresh salt-sweet flavours; there was plenty so we discussed taking some for lunch the next day. Unfortunately we chomped the lot in one sitting. I defy you not to.

This week I find myself without my camera, my trusty sidekick, so words without pictures will have to do. Tell me this: would Postman Pat ever leave Jess behind on Mrs Goggins’ Post Office counter? No. (I’m not sure he’d go on strike either, but that’s for another blog…) For this careless act, I am rather ashamed.

However, I blame a triumph of taste over all other senses, as usual.

You know that it’s autumn when weekend lunches with friends get later, flirting with the dusk, and the red wine is already open when you arrive and unwrap yourselves. Our host on Sunday had warned us that, as there was an imminent inspection at her school this week, we weren’t to expect too much. Knowing Anna as we do, we didn’t believe her – as a cook and general host (and teacher I don’t doubt) she is of the most generous and caring variety, every bit of the feast she laid on for us smacked of this kindness, from the beautifully constructed canapés of toasted bruschetta topped with variations of avocado, bacon, goats cheese, tomatoes and peppers, the delicious roasted chickens surrounded by salads of every kind, through to the cakes warm from the oven; banana and walnut, drizzled with chocolate, and a crisp-edged apple cake, unbelievable. Unable to choose between accompaniments, I have to confess that my end of the table might have had custard (Bird’s, naturally,) cream AND Ben & Jerry’s with ours. In a nutshell, Anna lovingly fed and wined us into blissful submission, the day disappeared, and my camera was forgotten (yes, forgotten) in the postprandial haze.

No matter I suppose, meatballs, albeit delicious ones, aren’t very photogenic…