When I was a lot younger, I remember stumbling upon a very curious utensil in my family's kitchen. This little knife had a wooden handle like any other, but its blade was serrated on both sides and, bizarrely, curved sharply to one side. My mum explained that it was a grapefruit knife, designed to enable the scooping out of grapefruit flesh from the skin so you could enjoy it for breakfast. She must have shown me how to use it, because I distinctly remember enjoying, on several occasions, the ritual of slicing a grapefruit into two heavy halves, running that special knife in a circular motion around the pink flesh, using a small paring knife to cut in between the membranes, bisecting the fruit like the spokes of a wheel, and finally savouring the fruit of my labours with a teaspoon, scooping each tiny segment out of the skin and popping it into my mouth.
Read moreSpiced poached pears with Christmas pudding ice cream
Last week I took the daring step of taking all the half-opened bottles of red wine out of my wine rack. There were seven. It's probably a good thing wine doesn't have a sell-by date on it, which would give me some indication of when those bottles were last opened and drunk from, because I'd probably be horrified by the length of time they'd been languishing. I'm not the biggest fan of red wine, nor do I cook a lot of heavy casserole-type recipes that involve stewing a piece of animal bathed in it, so wine brought by dinner guests tends to have a fairly extended shelf life in my kitchen. Seven bottles, though, is verging on ridiculous and they were taking up valuable space in the wine rack that I wanted to fill with gin. Naturally.
Read moreKale, avocado, apple and herb salad with tangy yoghurt dressing and candied paprika pecans
I was teaching a student the other day when he asked me to explain the term ‘idiolect’. As with so many definitions, this is something that benefits from the giving of an example. I was plunged into a moment of introspective self-analysis, rapidly mentally running through the lexicon I use on a daily basis, the words to which I attribute non-standard uses or meanings and which therefore constitute my own, distinct, idiolect. I hit, suddenly, upon the word ‘insane’. “You see, when I use the word insane,” I explained to my student, “I use it to mean amazing; ridiculously good; incredible.”
The other night, I found myself murmuring, through a mouthful of pecan nuts, “Oh my god these are insane.”
Read moreLittle cherry jam and almond cakes
Rejoice: here is a recipe that uses egg whites. Are you the kind of person who keeps egg whites stashed in bags in your freezer after making ice cream because you can't bear to see them go to waste? Are you the kind of person who once took home a kilner jar of thirty egg whites from the restaurant where she worked because the chef was otherwise going to throw them in the bin after a furious bout of pasta-making? Are you the kind of person who is horrified by Nigella Lawson's admission that she sometimes separates eggs directly over the sink so as to avoid the conundrum posed by the leftover whites? If you're not, you're probably on the wrong blog and we have nothing in common. If you are, read on. You'll be delighted.
Read moreFive things I love this week #11
1. Southern Italian wine dinner at the Chequers Inn.
Last week I ventured out into the Yorkshire countryside on a snowy night to attend the first southern Italian wine dinner at the Chequers Inn, Bilton-in-Ainsty. This lovely, cosy pub is tucked away in a small village on the way to Wetherby and was offering a fabulous five-course menu complete with matching wines from the lesser-known southern regions of Italy. A platter of goat’s cheese fritters rescued us from the outside chill, along with delicate morsels of fig wrapped in parma ham and asparagus wrapped in leeks. Why have I never considered deep-frying balls of goat’s cheese before? They tasted like creamy, gooey clouds of joy.
Read moreHome-smoked honey and five spice salmon with mango and avocado salad
"I think I'm going to smoke something this weekend!" I announced excitedly to my friends last week. There were raised brows and quizzical looks. As probably the most straight-laced person in the entire universe, someone who has never in her life been properly drunk, stayed up all night, got in trouble at school, inhaled a cigarette or toyed with the boundaries of the law, someone who would much rather have a quiet evening in with friends and go to bed at 10pm than attend a party or - heaven forbid - a club, someone who is, let's face it, boringly calm and neurotic and ripe for a career as a cat lady, their surprise at my suggestion of forthcoming tobacco/illegal substance consumption is perhaps unsurprising.
Read moreRed cabbage and cranberry slaw with lemon ginger dressing
There may not be much that is certain in life, but here are three things that are certain in the world of cooking:
- You will always happen to be wearing a white shirt when preparing tomatoes, pomegranates or beetroot.
- You will never be able to brown meatballs ‘evenly on all sides’, because they are in fact spherical and therefore do not have sides.
- You will never, ever, find a recipe that calls for an entire red cabbage.
Indonesia: exploring through ingredients
My arrival in Indonesia was not under the most pleasant circumstances. My plane from Borneo was delayed for nine hours, leaving me stranded at (probably) Malaysia’s tiniest airport after all the shops shut with nothing to eat except for the complementary KFC offered by the AirAsia team when it became clear that, despite the assurances of the man in uniform waiting at the gate that the plane was ‘not delayed’ (he maintained this brave pretence for a good three hours after the time when the plane was supposed to have taken off), the plane was clearly not taking us anywhere anytime soon. I made friends with three very funny Malaysian boys who coaxed me intro trying some of their KFC and found my reluctance absolutely hilarious. I had to cave, after about seven hours. I was expecting this crossing over into the dark side to be sinfully delicious, to initiate me into the guilty pleasures of fast food that I have, for so long, abstemiously avoided. In actual fact, I ate the withered, flabby, tasteless chicken burger in dismay, finding it tasted of very little except the hard-to-place ubiquitous flavour of mass-produced spongy carbs and soggy batter.
Read moreGinger and orange plum breakfast cobbler with ricotta
On a January morning, you need dessert for breakfast. This is probably my favourite category of recipe, and the one most of my cooking falls into. I should point out that this does not mean you are ever justified in eating a chocolate orange, Magnum or cheeseboard before 12pm. Instead, it means adapting certain post-savoury classics to make them a little healthier, a little more substantial and a little more appropriate for the beginning of the day. I try and cut out a lot of the refined sugar and processed flour, sticking with wholesome staples like honey, spelt flour, oats, polenta and unrefined muscovado sugar. I like to think I have this down to a fine art, perhaps evident from the number of ‘breakfast crumble’ recipes in my repertoire.
Read moreQuince baked in spiced clementine mulled cider
I enjoy recipes that begin with the gentle infusing of a liquid. I make that most restorative of broths, Thai tom kha gai, on a regular basis, and it is the initial steps of the recipe I find most soothing. Using the sturdy little cleaver I picked up in a market in Chiang Mai, I slice fat, pale-pink knobs of galangal into coin-sized discs, split shiny red chillies down their centre and bruise the papery outer stalks of lemongrass before throwing the lot into a pan of simmering water and coconut milk. It only needs a few minutes before the powerful aromas of Thailand have permeated the broth, promising the ultimate in sinus-clearing comfort. I also enjoy the sweet side of infusion: throwing a huge, fragrant handful of lemon verbena leaves into warm milk and cream, for example, to be churned later into an incredibly aromatic ice cream, or spiking a sugar syrup with cinnamon sticks, glistening vanilla pods, bruised green cardamom and maybe a furl or two of orange or lemon peel. I love the idea of capturing flavours in liquid, turning up the heat until their gentle perfume permeates and is locked inside, like an insect in amber.
Read moreTwenty-one things I learned in Thailand
Let's be realistic. No matter how long it sits on my 'to-do' list, I am never going to get round to delivering that lengthy, nuanced, insightful, evocatively-written, anecdote-peppered, florid prose masterpiece that is 'Elly's travels around Thailand' on the blog. I think I exhausted myself for life in that area when I wrote an almost book-length post on Vietnam and Cambodia a couple of years ago, and have never had the inclination to repeat the effort. I keep a hand-written travel journal and simply cannot find it in me to take the time to transcribe it for the benefits of the internet. But, since we're all obsessed with lists and bite-size chunks of information these days, I thought I would deliver a Buzzfeed-style recap of my trip that cuts out the boring parts and gets straight to the valuable, the memorable, the gastronomic...and the cat-related. Because I've heard the internet loves cats too.
P.S. Scroll down to the bottom for accommodation/restaurant recommendations.
Read moreFive unusual fruits and how to use them
Life has moved on from the days when a kiwi slice on your cheesecake was the height of fructose-based sophistication, when mangoes were only acquired in sorbet form and when pineapples were the ultimate status symbol at parties. While I bemoan the fact that grand buildings no longer come with a dedicated 'pineapple house', I do love the fact that we can choose from a growing variety of exotic and tropical imports at the supermarkets these days. Yet it seems that although we're well-versed in mangoes, kiwi and grapefruit, there are some newer fruits that we shy away from, unsure of what to do with them in the kitchen or daunted by the task of preparing them for consumption (if you're wondering, you just cut a dragon fruit in half and scoop out the flesh. Far easier than all those hot-pink spiky tendrils would have you believe). Ottolenghi has popularised the pomegranate (for which you only need one recipe, and it goes thus: throw the seeds on all foods to make them pretty), while Nigel Slater and garnish-happy chefs around the world have induced a taste for figs, but what about those other weird and wonderful, vibrant-coloured delights we so often shun in favour of the familiar, the safe, the bunch of grapes or the six-pack of kiwi? Here are my top five slightly more unusual fruits: what they are, how to prepare them, and how to use them in both sweet and savoury dishes. If I've inspired you to try something new after this, I'll be very happy.
Read moreSpiced pear, quince and cranberry compote
This tastes like Christmas, although I definitely wouldn’t save it just for the coldest moments of the year. Simmering fragrant quinces and perfumed pears in a cranberry syrup, rich with warming spices and scented like mulled wine, gives them a luscious, melting tenderness. Add some tart, bouncy dried cranberries you have a wonderful textured mass of sweetness and spice. The colours are muted, but beautiful in their own right: deep amber, dusky pink, ochre-tinged cream, a tangle of tender poached fruits, occasionally punctuated with the ebony blade of a star anise or shard of cinnamon quill.
Read moreWhere to eat in Yorkshire
By no means an exhaustive list, this is a little snapshot of some of my favourite places to eat in beautiful Yorkshire, a region I often think of as the larder of England and which has inspired my cooking ever since I moved here two years ago. They're not the most expensive, most exclusive fine dining establishments, because that isn't really my kind of food; instead, they're the places I return to time and time again, craving filling, satisfying food from all over the world: Korean, Polish and Indonesian make an appearance alongside the more familiar Indian, Italian and French. York is particularly good for independent restaurants - yes, there are a lot of twee tea rooms and greasy fish & chip shops out there, and the ubiquitous chain Italian restaurants sadly still remain, their presence increasing in direct correlation with your proximity to York Minster, but there is also exciting, great value food to be had from lovely little places that put time and care into their cooking. York seems particularly enamoured of the 'sharing board' trend lately: it's rare that a restaurant doesn't offer a platter of meat and dairy-based treats designed to be slathered in pickle and eaten alongside hunks of fresh bread. I approve of this wholeheartedly.
Plus, if there's one place you can justify eating a gigantic meal under the pretence of 'walking it off' later, it's Yorkshire.
Read moreBraised lamb shanks in Thai red sweet coconut curry
If it wasn’t the kilo of Parmesan cheese, it was probably the plastic bag full of dates, welded into a rugged block with crystalline syrup, from a market in Aleppo. Or perhaps it was the log of palm sugar wrapped in dried banana leaves, which I’d cradled while still warm after watching it made before my eyes in a Javanese village. Maybe the Balinese coconut syrup, darker than maple, its bottle festooned with palm trees and bearing a curious resemblance to tanning oil. If not that, it was surely the bundle of white asparagus, albino stalks tied together like a quiver of arrows, brought home from a market in the tiny town of Chablis.
Read moreA new look for Nutmegs, seven
So, as you have hopefully realised, Nutmegs, seven has had a lovely new redesign. That said, I got about six inches cut off my hair a few weeks ago and nobody noticed, so perhaps this might slip under the radar too. If it doesn't, then please and go and enjoy the new site - I hope you like it as much as I do! I'm working on adding a Travel & Eating Out page, which should be available in the near future.
Please excuse any irritants like broken links or posts in the wrong place that you might come across - I'm working to fix these as quickly as I can. Some posts may have off-centre images or images of different sizes while I go through and quality control. Bear with me!
Spiced pomegranate yoghurt chicken with clementine and pistachio giant couscous
There are some ingredients that I can’t help but think of as edible jewels, glamorizing and adorning whatever culinary creation you choose to scatter them over. Pomegranates are the most obvious, those little sweet stones adding a dramatic ruby flourish and a burst of vitamin-rich sweetness to anything that needs a bit of visual magic; I particularly love them paired with snowy white goat’s cheese or yoghurt for the ultimate colour contrast. There are also pistachios, adding flecks of emerald to salads or grains, or, when finely ground, imparting their incredible vibrant green to a cake mixture. Clementines, too – though we tend to simply eat peel and eat them unadulterated, those bright marigold segments are beautiful to cook with, adding a snap of colour and a fresh citrus hit to salads and stews.
Read moreSlow-braised Asian beef shin with pomelo salad
Pomelo are back in season at the moment. I spied them at the market the other day, presented as they often are unnecessarily swaddled in both cling film and orange net - I've never quite understood this. If you've ever prepared a pomelo, you'll know that it has a very thick, spongy rind, which is surely enough to protect it from almost anything without the need for cling film and a net. It also makes the fruit a little daunting to prepare. You need a sharp knife to quarter the fruit lengthways, and then strong hands to prise the thick white membrane away from the firm flesh within. The reward, though, is in the eating of this deliciously refreshing fruit, firmer and milder than a grapefruit, with a grassy citrus zing and a subtle perfume about it. I like to experiment, but I always fall back on this winner of a recipe.
Read moreVery green quinoa salad with avocado, seared chorizo and toasted almonds
I made and ate this after coming home from an aerobics class. I haven’t been to said aerobics class in months. I’d forgotten that the reason said class is called ‘Body Attack’ is because it leaves you feeling – you guessed it – like someone has attacked your body. Muscles aching, and with a slight touch of nausea from repeatedly rolling over on my back from sit-up position to plank position, I whipped up this so-ridiculously-nutritious-it-should-be-available-on-an-intravenous-drip-on-the-NHS salad. I have rarely felt healthier in my life.
Read moreSpiced pulled brisket in a milk bun with coleslaw
Left to his own devices in my house while I spent some time back at my parents', my boyfriend lovingly cultivated, over a period of four weeks, what he matter-of-factly calls a 'man fridge'. For the uninitiated: this basically means that, when I returned and opened the chilled receptacle that is at the heart of my kitchen, I found four items: a steak, some bacon, a tub of marmite and a packet of blue cheese. Furthermore, the majority of those items were past their sell-by date.
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