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Salmon with new potatoes, beetroot salad, and cucumber with soured cream on Tuesday 2 July 2024

Tonight is the best night of the year. It's the night when all of the vegetables on our plate come from the allotment. Rather than go with my regular salads, I branched out tonight. People were happy and the salads'll come again.

Beetroot with mustard, honey, and dill

4 golf ball-sized beetroots

2 tablespoons olive oil

3/4 tablespoon white wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon honey

1 tablespoon freshly chopped dill

Salt and pepper

I cook my beetroots in my pressure cooker now. It is by far the quickest and easiest means. I remove the tops and tails, place them in the basket with enough water to just cover the trivet, and cook them for 12 minutes under high pressure, then natural release. Otherwise, trim them and boil them in plenty of water until tender, which will take 30-45 minutes.

While they are cooking, mix together the olive oil, vinegar, mustard, honey, and dill with a milling of salt and pepper in a salad bowl.

As soon as the beetroots are sufficiently cool to handle, rub off their skins (wear washing-up gloves or you'll be dyed pink) and cut them into 1 centimetre dice. Tip them into the bowl with the dressing and mix carefully. Taste-test it and adjust the seasoning if you need to, then eat.

Cucumbers in soured cream

1 medium-sized cucumber (ours was a delistar from the allotment)

2 tablespoons soured cream

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon fresh dill, chopped

Salt

Split the cucumber down the middle and scoop out the seeds using a teaspoon. Slice it finely and place in a sieve, sprinkled with salt. Leave the cucumber over the sink for at least 30 minutes to disgorge its juices.

In a serving bowl, mix together the soured cream, vinegar, sugar, and dill.

When the cucumber has drained, rinse it very well under running water. Shake off the excess water and leave it to drain for a minute or so.

Lunch for 14 on Saturday 15 June 2024

14 people, two dogs, and three cheesecakes. It has to be Shavuot. I was honestly stunned by how calmly it all went. And everyone had a terrific time.

We had for savoury:

Sweetcorn soufflé (full, five egg recipe)

New potatoes (two pans on the steamer)

Peperonata (six large peppers)

Peanut-dressed carrot salad (750 grams carrots, recipe slightly adapted)

Cannellini bean salad (two cans)

Beetroot salad (Gabi)

Green salad

We had for sweet:

Traditional baked cheesecake

Crunchie cheesecake

ANOther cheesecake (Auntie Jacquie)

Crunchie Cheesecake

This is based on the Malteasers cheesecake in a German cheesecake recipe book given to me by my parents. As I cannot eat Malteasers, we went for Crunchie bars instead. After the three bowl fandango of a baked cheesecake, this is an astonishingly simple dessert. Almost everyone loved it, my grandmother and the dogs aside. I will certainly make it again.

250 grams chocolate digestive biscuits, blitzed in the food processor

80 grams butter, melted

100 grams dark chocolate, melted

500 grams mascarpone

250 grams full fat cream cheese

8 Crunchie bars (32 gram size)

Bottom-line a 20 centimetre springform cake tin with baking paper.

Mix together the sandy biscuits with the melted butter and press evenly into the base of the cake tin. Place it in the fridge for about 45 minutes to set firm.

Meanwhile, melt the chocolate and allow it to cool a little. Chop four of the Crunchie bars into fairly large chunks.

Beat together the mascarpone and cream cheese until they are incorporated. Then mix through the cooled melted chocolate followed by the Crunchie bar pieces.

Pour the mixture over the set base, and smooth it out as best you can. Refrigerate it for at least five hours, or ideally overnight, so that it sets firm.

Roasted salmon with potato and mushroom gratin and green beans, followed by a lemon meringue ice cream terrine on Thursday 7 March 2024

This dessert is a breeze to make, and so delicious. It needs to be in the freezer for at least six hours. It'll slice within five or ten minutes of being removed from the freezer.

Serves 8

300 millilitres double cream

1 jar (approximately 360 grams) lemon curd

50 gram shop bought meringue nests

1 lemon, zested and juiced

Line a 450 gram loaf tin with cling film, ensuring that there is a sizeable overhang so that you can wrap the contents.

Whip the cream until it is thick and soft. It doesn't need to be stiff or bubbly.

Place the meringue nests in a bag and bash with a rolling pin so that they break into large pieces.

Grate the lemon zest into the cream and fold in roughly half of the jar of lemon curd, followed by 2 tablespoons of lemon juice.

Fold the meringue pieces into the cream. Next, tip everything into the loaf tin, distributing it evenly and smoothing the surface.

Fold the lining cling film over the tin, and then wrap it in another layer of cling film. Place it in the freezer for at least six hours.

Roasted salmon with dill mayonnaise on Saturday 17 February 2024

This is brilliant with both salmon and chicken. It's a great way of elevating them when they're simply cooked, but also of turning shop-bought mayonnaise into something a little more exciting.

This recipe is enough for about six people.

5 tablespoons mayonnaise

15 grams dill

Juice half a lemon

Tuesday 26 December 2023

My brother is home for two weeks, so on Boxing Day I cooked for 18 humans and two canines, which resulted in one fantastically chaotic dining experience, but so much laughter.

The original plan had been for venison, cockerel, and a mushroom and chestnut wellington, together with roast potatoes, roasted cauliflower, roast carrots, red cabbage, and green cabbage. Followed by my Auntie Jacquie's Christmas pudding (best in the world) and a chocolate mousse cake. We started with pea and mint soup. There was also a cheese board with fresh fruit.

Mostly, the plan was successful. However, a critical shortage of gluten free puff pastry, both in Newmarket and Norwich, resulted in the hasty adaptation of the wellington into a crumble. I was terrified it would be a complete failure. Everybody loved it.

Chestnut and mushroom crumble for six people

This is vegan but if you're serving vegetarians and don't need to worry about not serving milk and meat together, go ahead and add some cheese to the crumble topping.

The base freezes. You can make the crumble topping a day in advance. And then bake it for about 40 minutes from frozen or 20 minutes not-frozen at 180º Celsius.

Chestnut and mushroom base

1 onion, sliced

4 cloves garlic, minced

250 grams sliced chestnut mushrooms

150 grams mixed exotic mushrooms, torn into pieces

150 grams chestnuts, crumbled

5 - 6 bricks frozen spinach

A few leaves fresh sage

3 tablespoons fresh breadcrumbs

2 tablespoons dried cranberries

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Butter or butter substitute and olive oil

Salt and pepper

Melt a tablespoon of butter or substitute in a pan together with a splash of oil and fry the onion until it is soft and glassy. Add the balsamic vinegar and cook until it caramelises. Remove it to a bowl.

In a large frying pan, cook the mushroom until they are golden. Then add some olive oil, the garlic, chestnuts, the sage, and some salt. Cook until the garlic has lost its smell. Remove to the bowl with the onions.

Defrost the spinach with some fat and a little salt and pepper and then add it to the other ingredients, mixing well. Then stir through the breadcrumbs and cranberries. Now make the gravy.

Gravy

You will need both gravy to mix into the base and to serve with your roast. I think about 750 millilitres for six people.

1 onion, finely sliced

2 tablespoons fat (butter, oil, or an equivalent)

1 1/2 tablespoons plain flour

50 millilitres sherry, brandy, port, or similar

750 millilitres vegetable stock

2 tablespoons redcurrant jelly

Salt

Fry the onion in the fat until it very soft and brown. This will take quite some time. Be patient. Sprinkle it with a teaspoon of salt.

Sprinkle over the flour and mix very well until it begins to smell nutty.

Add the sherry, or whatever you are using, and mix very hard and thoroughly to help prevent lumps.

Gradually stir in the stock, stirring hard to prevent lumps.

Bring the gravy to a boil and then reduce it to a simmer for about 20 minutes so that it was thicken and the flavour can develop. Whisk in the redcurrant jelly and test for seasoning. Adjust as necessary.

You will need about 250 millilitres of the gravy to mix into the base of the crumble. Reserve the rest for pouring over dinner.

Crumble topping

90 grams plain flour

90 grams vegan butter (I used a mixture of Trex and Flora plant butter)

30 grams ground almonds

30 grams chopped mixed nuts

2 tablespoons dried cranberries

Rub the butter into the plain and almonds until it resembles breadcrumbs. Use a knife to cut in the chopped nuts and dried cranberries.

Assembly

Cabbage with lemon marmalade on Sunday 19 November 2023

My adventures with roasted cabbage continue. This version was one I discussed with my auntie in the follow-up to the red cabbage with pomegranate dinner. It's such a winner.

Serves 6

1 sweetheart/ hispi/ spring cabbage

4 tablespoons olive oil

3 tablespoons lemon juice

2 tablespoons lemon marmalade

Salt and pepper

Heat the oven to 190º Celsius.

Cut the cabbage in half, and then each half into three wedges.

Mix together the olive oil with two tablespoons of lemon juice and apply it liberally to each cabbage wedge. Season with salt and pepper. Place in the oven for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, let down the marmalade with the remaining tablespoon of lemon juice.

Hake with basil butter sauce, crushed cauliflower, braised red cabbage, and sauté potatoes on Sunday 12 November 2023

This is based on a recipe from the Dairy Diary Four Seasons Cookbook. It was delicious and easy to put together. The original recipe calls for oregano rather than basil, a splash of vinegar where I used lemon, and green beans but I replaced them with red cabbage.

Hake - for four people

450 grams skin-on hake

Olive oil

30 grams butter

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons basil leaves, torn

Salt and pepper

Brush the hake with olive and season lightly.

Place in a hot pan, skin side down, and cook until you can see that the doneness has spread to just over half-way through the piece of fish.

Turn the fish, and finish cooking it.

Remove the fish to a warm plate and tent with foil.

Add the butter to the pan and allow it to melt. Toss in the basil so that it infuses and then remove the pan from the heat. Now squeeze in the lemon juice, stir well, and pour over the fish. Serve immediately.

Crushed cauliflower - for four people

300 - 350 grams cauliflower, broken into florets

Salt

Nutmeg

50 - 100 millilitres double cream

Rösti-style potatoes with mushrooms and cheese, accompanied by caulifower and braised red cabbage on Friday 10 November 2023

A YouTube video for this recipe popped up on my mother's feed recently, and we both decided that we had to try it. I don't usually like YouTube recipes: they are too oily or too sugary. But this one struck a chord. We tried it and we were very happy that we did.

This served three people comfortably with vegetables. The red cabbage gave everything the perfect forest-like autumnal feel.

Next time, I would make two smaller rösti and make it more like a sandwich than an omelette, but this is the given method.

Rösti

500 grams potatoes, grated and left to drain for at least 30 minutes

1 egg

2 tablespoons flour

Salt and pepper

Filling

500 grams sliced mushrooms

1 large onion, chopped

15 grams butter

Olive oil

Brie

Grate the potatoes and set them aside in a sieve or colander to drain.

Meanwhile, heat a large frying pan over a high heat and toss in the mushrooms. Cook until they begin to take on plenty of colour and release their liquid. The add a splash of oil and the onions, with some salt and pepper, and cook until the onions are soft and brown. Add the butter so that things caramelise.

When the mushrooms are done, turn off the heat.

Squeeze out the potatoes very well and then mix with the egg, flour, and some salt and pepper. In a lidded pan, heat a splash of oil. Spread out the potato mix across the base of the pan and cook, covered, over a low heat for five minutes.

Flip over the potato pancake and cook for a further five minutes on the other side, again with the lid on the pan.

Moroccan-style meatballs with rice, braised peas, and cauliflower on Tuesday 7 November 2023

It was my parents' wedding anniversary, so we had a meat dinner to celebrate. My aunt and uncle came, too, and we had a lovely evening.

Traditionally, there would be no breadcrumbs or egg in a Moroccan-style kefta. I needed to make the meat that I had go further, so I added some. If you need to serve fewer people or have more meat available, you can omit the breadcrumbs and egg.

The recipe is a cross between one in Paula Wolfert's The Food of Morocco and that on the Taste of Maroc website.

For the meatballs - serves 5

450 grams minced lamb

1 crust bread, toasted, cooled, and ground into crumbs

1 egg

1 small onion, grated

3 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander

3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley (no tough stems)

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon turmric

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Grinding black pepper

Pinch ginger

Grating nutmeg

For the sauce

1 medium onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

400 grams chopped tomatoes, passata, or grated fresh tomatoes

200 millilitres stock (chicken or vegetable)

2 tablespoons tomato purée

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

2 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander

1 1/2 teaspoons paprika

3/4 teaspoon cumin

1/4 teaspoon sugar

Salt and pepper

For the meatballs, mix together all of the ingredients, but don't overwork it or you will have tough meatballs. Use wetted hands to shape them into between 24 and 30 tiny meatballs. Put them on a plate, cover them, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

To make the sauce, heat the onion, oil, and the garlic in a casserole with about 80 millilitres of water. Cook for about 10 minutes on a low-medium heat until the water has evaporated.

Stir through the tomato purée followed by the spices, tomatoes, the stock, the sugar, salt, and pepper. Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer.

Cook for at least ten minutes so that the sauce thickens and becomes more rich. Stir through the herbs.

Drop the meatballs into the sauce and carefully cover each with a spoonful of sauce.

Vegetable and barley soup on Thursday 2 November 2023

You don't need the details, but I needed a barley and root vegetable soup. With the help of The Clever Meal, this is what I made.

Serves 2

70 grams pearl barley

1/2 large onion, diced

1 carrot, diced

2 ribs celery, diced

1 potato, peeled and diced

1 clove of garlic, smashed and minced

1 bay leaf

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 tablespoon tomato purée

80 grams frozen peas

600 millilitres vegetable stock

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

Wash the barley.

Heat the oil in a large, lidded pan. Cook the mirepoix with a sprinkling of salt until it is tender.

Add the garlic and herbs and cook for minutes.

Stir through the potato, barley, tomato purée, and some more salt and pepper before pouring over the vegetable stock.

Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer for 40 minutes, or until the pearl barley is tender.

Chicken baked with preserved lemons and served with roasted red cabbage, carrots, and beetroot, followed by pear and chocolate pudding on Saturday 28 October 2023

My preserved lemon obsession continues. Last night I cooked for my grandmother, my uncle and aunt, and my aunt and uncle, as it would have been my grandfather's 99th birthday. This is what I cooked for eight of us.

The chicken is somewhere between a Waitrose recipe and a Donna Hay recipe, while the red cabbage was inspired by something I ate at a restaurant in London some time ago. I just wanted a less involved red cabbage option than braising. It’s simple and effective.

Chicken baked with preserved lemons - serves 8

12 chicken thighs

1.5 kilograms new potatoes

3 red onions, cut into wedges

6 cloves garlic, smashed and minced

3 preserved lemons

5 tablespoons olive oil

350 millilitres white wine

Salt and pepper

I've found that one and half thighs per person is enough when you're cooking for a crowd.

Take the preserved lemons from their brine and wash them. Cut them in half and scoop out the flash. Discard it. It's the peel that you want. Finely chop the peel from one and half lemons and slice the peel of the other one-and-half.

In a large bowl, mix together three tablespoons of olive oil, the garlic, the preserved lemon, with some salt and pepper. Tip in the chicken thighs and massage them with the mix, then pour over half of the wine. Set it aside to infuse for as long as you can.

Heat the oven to 200º Celsius.

Scrub the new potatoes and cut in half any that are large.

Drizzle the other two tablespoons of oil in the base of a large roasting pan. Tip in the potatoes together with the red onions and season with salt and pepper. Shake everything around and pour over the remaining white wine.

Arrange the chicken thighs on top of the potatoes, pouring over all of the marinade.

If the pan has a lid, put that on it, otherwise seal it with foil and bake for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, remove the lid or the foil and cook for another 30 to 40 minutes, until the chicken is thoroughly cooked, the potatoes are tender, and the skin is crispy. Serve!

Roasted red cabbage - serves 8

I had a fairly small red cabbage, maybe about 650 grams, which was perfect for eight people.

Cut the cabbage in half through the middle. Cut each half into wedges, maintaining the core. I cut eight from our entire cabbage.

Brush each wedge with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Cauliflower braised with preserved lemons, served with rice on Saturday 21 October 2023

The chicken with quinces needed preserved lemons, so now that my jar is open, I need to find a way of using them before they go bad. I found this recipe on The Spruce, but there are variations on it all over the Intergoogles, so it seems to be doing the rounds.

Serves 3-4 as a main. Maybe 6 as a side with fish or chicken.

1 large cauliflower, broken into small florets

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon tumeric

Black pepper

2 onions, sliced quite thickly

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 preserved lemon, pulp removed, rind washed and finely minced

Olive oil

150 millilitres water

Mix together the cumin, ginger, salt, paprika, turmeric, and black pepper in a bowl. Tip in the cauliflower and mix it well.

Slick the base of a sauteuse or shallow casserole with oil and cook the onions gently until they are soft. Add the garlic and cook for a minute or two.

Next, tip in the cauliflower with all of the spices, the preserved lemon, and the water. Stir, cover, and cook for about 10 minutes on a simmer. Stir it every now and again and cook until the cauliflower is tender.

Chicken and quince tagine on Friday 13 October 2023

When I went to Morocco in February 2010, I ate so much delicious food. Two particular dishes are firmly entrenched in my memory. The first are some fabulously light potato cakes that we bought from a street vendor along with some sardines. The second: a chicken and quince tagine eaten in a restaurant run from the owner's home. There was no menu, just whatever she'd made that day. And the day we were there was chicken and quince tagine.

A few weeks back, one of out plot neighbours at the allotment gave us quinces from her tree. Flicking through my copy of Paula Wolfert's The Food of Morocco and seeing a recipe for chicken and quince tagine, I knew what I had to make.

I'm not actually going to put the full recipe here, because it's so similar to my chicken sofrito (with onions), that I would simply do that along with the quinces from the tagine recipe.

So for the quinces, you want one per person. Halve them and core them as best you can.

Steam them gently until they are tender. As soon as they are cool enough to handle, quarter them and remove the remainder of the core and the skin if it slips away.

Heat a mixture of butter and oil in the base of a large pan, covering it liberally. Spoon in three tablespoons of honey and melt it. Then fry off the quinces until they are golden and put them in the sofrito pan. Do the same with the chicken. If you want to make it a bit more saucy, add some stock to the onions and chicken juices in the pan and let it reduce a bit, before you add the quinces and return the chicken to it.

Lemon chicken baked rice with roasted carrots and braised peas followed by apple and pear crumble on Thursday 5 October 2023

We had friends come for dinner and as I was working all day, I wanted something that I knew I could rely on. This worked perfectly. The chicken went on to marinade first thing in the morning and I did everything else once I'd finished work.

I went for an apple and pear crumble because we have plenty of both and I didn't know which to use first. It turns out to make a far better dessert than a straight apple crumble. I urge you to try it.

Serves 8

4 large cooking apples, peeled, cored, and cut into chunks

6 average-sized pears, peeled, cored, and cut into chunks

100 grams plain flour

100 grams fridge-cold butter

100 grams sugar

80 grams rolled oats

20 grams ground almonds

Butter an oven dish measuring approximately 30 by 20 centimetres. Put the prepared fruit in the dish and add a couple of tablespoons of water. Cook the fruit in the oven until it is soft. My oven was already on at 150º Celsius, so the fruit took about 35 minutes. Allow maybe 20 minutes at, say, 190º Celsius.

While the fruit is cooking, make the crumble.

Rub the butter into the flour until you have a breadcrumb-looking mixture. Use a knife to cut in the sugar, oats, and almond meal. When everything is combined, tip it over the fruit and gently tamp it down.

Birthday lemon sponge for Nick on Wednesday 27 September 2023

If you need a fuss-free birthday cake, this is the one. Don't be alarmed by the peculiar measurements for the dry ingredients. You need 170 grams of self-raising flour for the recipe, but if you're using plain flour with some corn flour for lightness, this is how you get there. The extra baking powder allows for the all-in-one processor method. Omit it if you go for the hand-creaming method.

Enough for 12 slices

For the cake batter

150 grams plain flour

12 grams corn flour

8 grams baking powder + 1 1/2 teaspoons if using the all-in-one method

170 grams sugar

170 grams soft butter or baking spread

3 medium eggs (mine weighed a total of 175 grams, with shells)

1 teaspoon almond extract

Zest one lemon

Juice 1/2 to 1 lemon (about 2 tablespoons)

For the filling and topping

170 grams mascarpone, at room temperature

5 - 6 tablespoons bought lemon curd

1 tablespoon caster sugar

Grease and bottom-line two 20 centimetre loose-bottom cake pans. Heat the oven to 160º Celsius.

In the processor, blitz together the flours, baking powder, sugar, fat, eggs, almond extract, and lemon zest. Pour in the lemon juice through the funnel when everything is well-combined.

Divide the mixture equally between the cake pans and place in the oven for 25 minutes. The cakes are ready when the tops are golden and pulling away from the sides. A skewer should come out clean. Leave to cool in their tins for ten minutes before turning out on to a rack to cool completely.

When the cakes are cool, beat the mascarpone in a bowl until it is spreadable, then spread over the top of the the lower half of the sandwich. Dollop on the lemon curd and spread it evenly, before lowering on the top half of the sandwich.

Plum cobbler on Friday 1 September 2023

We had terrific plums this year. My mother and my niece made jam with most of them, but there were plenty for just eating, and also this fantastic cobbler. The cobbler topping is a Waitrose recipe, but you can use any scone mix. And while we used plums here, swap for any fruit you fancy, even tinned (but there's no need to cook that first).

For the fruit

1 kilogram plums, halved and stoned

1-2 tablespoons sugar

For the topping

225 grams self-raising flour

Pinch salt

85 grams butter (from the fridge)

55 grams caster sugar

1 egg, beaten

A little milk

Heat the oven to 200º Celsius, and cook the plums in a greased oven dish (I used my enamel pan that's about the size of a sheet of A4 paper) with the sugar, for about 20 minutes.

While the plums are cooking, make the topping.

Rub the butter into the flour until it looks like breacrumbs.

Use a fork to stir in the sugar, followed by the egg. Mix until you have a lumpy dough. If it feels dry, add a little milk, maybe a tablespoon or so.

Knead the dough on a floured surface until it is smooth, and then roll it out so that's roughly 1 centimetre deep.

With a pastry cutter (or a glass), cut out enough rounds to cover the plums in a scalloped pattern. I needed about 12 for my dish.

Chicken and chickpea curry on Saturday 12 August 2023

My father used to bring home murgh cholay from the Godolphin kitchens. It was delicious. This wasn't quite up to Vincent's standards, but we all enjoyed it enormously.

1 kilogram chicken thighs (with skin and bone)

500 grams cooked chickpeas (I use a jar)

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

2.5 centimetre cinnamon stick

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 onion, chopped

1 tablespoon garlic-ginger paste

3 tomatoes, skinned and chopped

1 teaspoon kashmiri chilli powder

1/2 teaspoon turmermic

1 teaspoon garam masala

1 teaspoon salt

150 millilitres-ish water

Heat the oil in a large lidded casserole or a karhai. Tip in the whole spices and cook for a minute or two until they pop.

Add the onion and cook it over a medium heat until it is soft.

Next add the ginger-garlic paste and cook it until the raw smell dissipates. That's maybe a minute or two.

Increase the heat and fry the chicken pieces on all sides until they are well browned. This will take at last ten minutes, maybe more.

Remove the chicken to a plate.

Reduce the heat to medium. Tip in the tomatoes and cook for a few minutes until they collapse. Toss in the ground spices and the salt and cook for a minute or two.

Return the chicken to the pan and add the water. Bring everything to a simmer then cover the pan and cook until the chicken is done, which will be about 35 minutes. Check on it periodically to ensure that it is not catching. If so, add a little cold water.