Nutmegs, seven

Wild rabbit and barley salad with caramelised russet apples

2012-02-15T22:17:00.000Z

One of the downsides of working so close to a rather foodie area of town (well, for Cambridge, that is - so basically anywhere that doesn't have a Pizza Express, Nandos and Starbucks right next to each other) is that I inevitably end up drawn there in my lunch break. I have to get out at lunchtime, get some fresh air, walk and clear my head. These things are necessary. What is perhaps not quite so necessary is going to the butchers and the oriental grocers every time.

I can't help it. I hate walking without a purpose; even if my end goal is just to peruse aisles of weird and wonderful produce in jars, I need something to spur me on. Plus there is always something new and fascinating at the end of the tunnel: huge bunches of weird and wonderful Chinese greenery that I've never seen before; tofu in every conceivable shape, size and texture; giant bottles of soy sauce and other condiments; huge bags of rice, noodles and pulses. There's also stuff that's just downright weird, such as various undesirable bits of seafood or animal in big, bloodied bags in the freezer section. Still, I consider this my culinary education and I'd hate to miss out on it.

I'm usually drawn to the butcher on the corner as well, sucked in by signs boasting about salt marsh lamb, or something that, out of the corner of my eye, looks suspiciously like a row of neat, plucked, oven-ready pheasant on the front of the counter. I don't actually cook that much meat, especially not red meat, but I'm fascinated by all the different cuts and animals you can get from a good butcher, and I'm always looking to try something new. A couple of weeks ago it was oxtail. More recently, it was wild rabbit.

I was pretty pleased when I caught sight of the wild rabbit on the butcher counter. Admittedly not pleased because of any aesthetic reason; skinned, jointed rabbit aren't particularly nice to look at, rather resembling something that has been prematurely plucked from the womb. However, they promised all sorts of tasty delights. I've read a lot about the virtues of wild rabbit: free range, obviously, and you're also doing farmers a favour by eating a pest; more importantly, it's meant to be a lot more flavoursome than farmed rabbit. Having only eaten the farmed stuff before (one of my favourite recipes is this Thai rabbit curry) I couldn't wait to try the wild version for comparison.

I cooked my rabbit fairly simply, so as not to mask its flavour. I braised it in cider with some bacon, carrots, celery, onion, rosemary and juniper. At the end I added mustard, creme fraiche and parsley. We ate it with soft polenta, and while it was delicious, I have to say it was actually rather too rich for me. Wild rabbit really does have quite an intense flavour. The texture is reminiscent of chicken thighs and is lovely, while the taste has that rich earthiness you associate with stronger game like pigeon and hare. I really enjoyed the first few mouthfuls, but after that I was defeated by the richness of the dish. And that hardly ever happens.

As a result, there was rabbit meat left over. I decided to use it in a salad, featuring something a bit sharper, sweeter and more astringent to cut through that intensely rich flavour. This barley salad with caramelised apples was the result.

I absolutely adore pearl barley. I can't get enough of its crunchy yet tender texture and its nutty flavour. It works so well in winter salads - one of my favourites features roast squash, feta or goats cheese, chestnuts, bacon and sage. I often cook a huge vat of it and use it for various salads throughout the week, throwing in whatever is in the fridge. It's filling and hearty and can stand up to strong flavours, contributing an irresistible crunch of its own. I figured it'd be the perfect base for my rabbit salad, for all these reasons.

The apples were a bit of a whim. I had some russet apples turning soft in the fruit bowl, and there's nothing I hate more than a soft apple. Then I realised that they could actually work beautifully with the rabbit; cooking rabbit in cider with apples is fairly common, especially in France, so there was no reason why they shouldn't work sliced, cooked and stirred into my salad. I caramelised them in some butter and brown sugar first, to bring out their flavour so they'd stand up to the rabbit. Russet apples are beautiful things; I love their burnished, matt skins and their mellow, intriguing flavour. They are, I can confirm, even tastier when coated in butter and brown sugar. Then again, what isn't?

This salad was the simplest thing ever to assemble: cooked pearl barley, shredded rabbit meat, caramelised apple slices, some fresh thyme and parsley, and a little of the rabbit cooking sauce from earlier in the week. A good grinding of black pepper to lift the richness, and I had lunch.

A delicious, filling, comforting lunch, full of intriguing flavours. The apples worked really well alongside the rabbit, better than I could have expected. They provided a beautiful sweet tartness against the soft, rich meat and the crunchy, nutty barley.

I don't really need to give you a recipe for this, but here's the general idea. Adapt to suit you - use chicken instead of rabbit, if bunny boiling scares you; add extra veg if you like (spinach and green beans would be good); use wild rice or brown rice instead of barley. You'll end up with something delicious, unusual, and rather pretty.

Wild rabbit and barley salad with caramelised russet apples (serves 1):

Leftovers from a cooked wild rabbit (probably 1 leg or the loin), plus a little sauce*

50g pearl barley, boiled until tender but still slightly al dente

1 russet apple, cored and cut into thin slices

15g butter

2 tsp brown sugar

A scattering of fresh thyme and finely chopped parsley

Black pepper

Shred the rabbit meat from the bones. Be really careful to get rid of all the bones - some are tiny and may go undetected, until you bite into one resulting in a deeply unpleasant sensation. Mix the meat and sauce with the pearl barley, then toss with the thyme, parsley and a good grinding of black pepper.

Heat the butter and sugar in a small non-stick pan over a medium-high heat and add the apples. Cook until golden brown and caramelised, turning occasionally. Toss this with the barley salad. Sprinkle with a little more thyme and serve.

*(the recipe I used to cook my rabbit was basically this one from James Ramsden, but I added carrots, rosemary and juniper, and substituted creme fraiche for the double cream)

Spelt and seed bagels

2012-02-13T00:12:00.003Z

Ah, the bagel. On a par with Starbucks for its ability to exude a highly contrived air of Manhattan-style chic and sophistication, the bagel is perhaps, after pizza and baguettes, the world's most iconic bread product. I remember thinking I was so cool the day I convinced Mum to buy me a packet of bagels from the supermarket, back in the days where the parents had total control over what foodstuffs were present in our household (other regular items I sneaked into the trolley included Frazzles, those ghastly yet so good bacon-flavoured crisps, and Yum Yums which, if you've never tried one, are like long twisty doughnuts with crunchy sugar icing and, sorry, where have you been living for the last god knows how long?)

I remember that first moment where the bagel emerged from the toaster, its glossy, firm exterior feeling slightly sticky to the touch, its crumb possessing a density quite unlike any other dough-based product I'd sampled. I remember slathering it with butter and eating it for breakfast, and wanting more - that subtle sweetness combined with the chewy crust was a new and addictive combination. But most of all I remember feeling grown-up, cosmopolitan, worthy of mingling with the cast of Friends - thus far my only real insight into the world of cool New Yorkers. The bagel was not an English muffin or a white roll. It was not even a baguette or a ciabatta. The bagel was beyond such rustic frivolity, whispering hints of urban sophistication and a well-heeled life lived amidst vibrant, bustling city streets. It was cool.

Looking back, I feel a bit silly. Bagels no longer possess that certain je-ne-sais-quoi for me that they once did, perhaps because they are ubiquitous and often really rather inferior fare. I had a particularly disappointing experience with a packet of seeded bagels from Asda a few months ago. I'd always wondered what chewing my way through a cardboard box would feel like, and after forcing down one of those bagels I finally had my answer. Large companies seem to think that the word 'bagel' equates with the word 'stale', using the former term to pass off something that was perhaps once bread but now resembles an old boot. Just because it's called a bagel, doesn't mean you have license for it to be tough, mealy and generally deeply unpleasant. Just because bagels beg to be toasted, doesn't mean it's OK for them to be in a near cremated state before they get to the toasting device.

Homemade bagels are a revelation.

After reading this excellent post by one of my favourite food bloggers, thelittleloaf, I finally got round to trying out bagels at home. They've been on my to-cook list for years, but her post spurred me to action, particularly because I realised how little work is actually involved in producing these remarkable little breads in your own kitchen, and also because she too has had disappointing bagel experiences but assured me that the real, freshly baked thing is a different beast altogether. Oh, it really was.

The main difference between baking bagels and baking bread rolls is that you boil them briefly (very briefly - 10 seconds in total) in sugared water before baking them. That's what gives them that firm, chewy, glossy crust. It really is no more difficult than that. You make a basic dough of flour, sugar, water, salt and yeast, leave it to rise, shape it into bagels (no hidden art here - just poke a hole through a ball of dough with your finger or a wooden spoon), leave it to rise again, then boil and bake. The whole process can take under two hours in a warm place.

And oh, are they worth it. These bagels are quite unlike those dry, pappy things from the supermarket. The crust is gorgeously firm and crunchy, while the inside is soft and tender like freshly baked bread. I was really unsure how these were going to turn out, having only ever had mass-produced bagels before, but I'm a total convert. One of the best parts is that you can make sure the hole in the middle isn't too big, so you can actually spread fillings and toppings onto your bagels without them disappearing down that black hole of sadness. Another is the ability to customise your bagel - I can't wait to experiment with other flavours; a sundried tomato and black olive version is next on the list.

I used a mixture of spelt and normal bread flour in these, because I love the stronger flavour of spelt flour - you need a good taste to your bagel to ensure it stands up to those inevitably strong flavourings (smoked salmon, cheese, bacon, salami, maybe even some nutella...not all together, obviously). I also scattered the tops with poppy and sunflower seeds for added crunch and texture, and to make them look prettier. To get a nice golden, chewy crust I brushed the tops of the bagels with beaten egg after boiling and before baking, but this step isn't essential.

These are a world away from anything you can buy in a bag. I love the chewiness of the crust and the soft, yielding crumb. I love the smell emanating from the oven as they bake. I love flipping them over in their little jacuzzi of boiling water, watching the dough seize up and transform into something glossy and firm. I love the crunch of the seeds and the nuttiness of the spelt flour. I particularly love spreading them with cream cheese while still hot, before topping with a pink curl of smoked salmon and a scattering of peppery rocket.

Bagels have regained their coolness, in my eyes.

Do you have a favourite topping that you'd like to slather over a warm, freshly baked bagel?

Homemade spelt and seed bagels (makes six):
Barely adapted from thelittleloaf

150g strong white bread flour
100g spelt flour
1 tsp dry/instant yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp oil
165ml warm water
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
Poppy and sunflower seeds

Put the flours, yeast, salt, tsp sugar and oil in a large bowl. Pour in the water and mix to a smooth dough. Knead on a work surface for 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic (or use the dough hook on an electric mixer). Put back in the bowl, cover with a clean tea towel and leave in a warm place (an airing cupboard is ideal) to rise until doubled in size, about 1-2 hours.

When the dough has risen, divide it into six smooth balls. Cover these with the tea towel and put in a warm place for 20 minutes.

Bring a large pan of water to the boil and add the brown sugar. Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Take each ball of dough and make a hole in the middle with your finger, gently stretching the dough out around it to form a bagel shape. Drop each one into the boiling water, leave for five seconds, then flip over and leave for another five seconds. Remove and place on an oiled baking sheet. Brush the tops of the bagels with the beaten egg, then scatter over the seeds.

Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown but still slightly springy to the touch. Eat while still warm.

Oxtail with prunes, orange and star anise

2012-02-08T19:38:00.000Z

Sometimes you forget just how good certain things are.

After a few days of snow and ice, you forget how wonderful it is to be able to walk freely along the pavement without risking life and limb, until you get to a non-icy patch and feel that delicious sense of liberation. After months of habitually using showers as your primary method of self-cleansing, you forget quite how wonderful long, hot baths can be until you have one. Bubbles and all. After cooking your own and your family's dinner every day for weeks, months even, you forget quite how amazing it is to just be called down from your room and find dinner on the table. You forget how anything tastes good if it's been made by someone else. After always cycling everywhere in the bitter cold, you forget how good it can feel to just get into a taxi, relish the warmth, and worry about the expense another time.

That sensation of remembering long-forgotten luxuries in life is something to be cherished, I think.

Most of my moments like these relate to food. Every now and again I have a "Why don't I eat this more often?" moment. A moment of sheer, unadulterated gastronomic bliss, of total and complete satisfaction. Unfortunately, I can usually remind myself of the answer pretty quickly. It goes something along the lines of "Because if I ate this often, I would be the size of Asia".

I've had several of these moments recently. Tucking into a gorgeous, juicy, pink burger and chips from Honest Burgers in Brixton a couple of weeks ago (if you live near there - go. If you don't - go), I asked myself why I don't eat more burgers. Every time I devour a bowl of chips at a restaurant (the only time I ever eat them), I tell myself that I'd definitely be happier if I ate more chips. The same goes for things like cheese, biscuits (chocolate Hobnobs in particular), bread, and pastries. It's precisely because I don't usually allow myself such indulgent delights that they remain, for me, indulgent. Generally they lurk out of sight, off my culinary radar, safely out of the way of temptation. I carry on cooking relatively healthy things (though still delicious, mind you - I said relatively), blissfully ignorant of everything I'm missing.

But sometimes I am reminded just how wonderful certain foods and recipes can be. Of course, these are usually things on the slightly less healthy end of the spectrum. After a few mouthfuls, though, all my notions of moderation and restraint are lost to the winds and I am content to sit and revel in every bite, savouring something that is wonderful precisely because it is rare, that is familiar yet at the same time not; trying it again feels like an adventure and a new discovery.

Recently, one such experience involved a beef stew. I made the most incredible, sublime, utterly mouthwatering and amazing beef and ale stew for myself and my boyfriend the other week. It happened on a whim, perhaps the product of the rapidly declining temperatures outside, perhaps because for some reason we both kept talking about steak and ale pie (I imagine these two reasons are closely related). I braised juicy hunks of Aberdeen Angus beef with button mushrooms, baby carrots, red onions, shallots and celery in a mixture of beef stock and ale, throwing in a few thyme sprigs and serving the whole thing with leek and potato mash.

I didn't intend to blog about it, but I keep thinking about it weeks later. It would be morally wrong, I think, to deprive the world of what is without doubt the definitive beef stew recipe. So watch this space.

Anyway, I bring that up (perhaps unfairly - I can't really go on and on about such a stew and leave you hanging, awaiting the recipe...but I have, so sorry) because it reminded me of how great beef can be. Red meat in general is something I eat very little of, mainly because it's not cheap and because I find it quite heavy, but after eating that stew I wondered why there is not more beef in my life.

In this spirit of cow-homage, and because I was still in awe of that stew, I decided to try something I've been intrigued by for a while: oxtail.

Oxtail is, quite literally, the tail of the cow. It is sold sliced into chunky, meaty rounds, bone in the middle and thick veins of fat and gelatine spidering out towards its edges. Because of the nature of this cut, it demands very long and slow cooking, to tenderise all those fibres and render the fat out. However, if you have the patience (very little actual hands-on work is required), you'll be rewarded with one of the most flavoursome and tender cuts of beef, a perfect melting stew for winter evenings.

I braised my oxtail, according to a recipe from Diana Henry's 'Food From Plenty', a cookbook I love. It involves cooking the meat in a mixture of red wine, beef stock and orange juice infused with bay, cinnamon and juniper. Towards the end, peeled baby onions and prunes are added to the liquid to soften and contribute their luscious sweetness. I added ground ginger and star anise, because I wanted flavourings that would lift the intense meaty richness of the oxtail. This pot of bubbling gorgeousness sat in the oven for nearly four hours, and when I removed it the meat was falling apart and tender, and the sauce was rich, silky and unctuous, due to the gelatine from the meat.

The combination of flavours in this stew are fantastic - you get all that depth of flavour from the meat, red wine and stock, but the orange, anise and ginger give it a really intriguing aroma that sits well with the meaty strands of tail. It's not your average beef stew, but something far more exotic, reminiscent of a Moroccan tagine. I wasn't sure how the prunes would work, but I think they were the perfect partner to the beef - it's so rich that it really needs something sweet to take the edge off. The baby onions, which soften into little pearls of earthy flavour, also help with this. A scattering of parsley at the end to add a bit of oomph, a giant mound of creamy mashed potato (adding a little wholegrain mustard would be divine), and some steamed veg (I used carrots and Swiss chard) turn this into a hearty, wholesome dinner, perfect for the current cold snap.

You could also serve this with couscous, bulgar wheat, pearl barley or polenta - anything to soak up that delicious sauce. I reckon pearl barley or bulgar wheat would be fantastic, because their nutty crunchiness would counteract the sweetness of the meat.

Incidentally, if you're bothered about the fat content of oxtail (there is quite a lot, compared to normal braising steak), make the stew a day ahead and refrigerate it overnight. The fat will all congeal on the surface and you can just flake it off with a spoon. Also, leaving stews like this overnight is generally a great idea, as it intensifies their finished flavour and texture. A win all round, really.

If you haven't tried oxtail yet, I'd urge you to give it a go - it's incredibly easy to cook and immensely rewarding (don't be put off by the long-ish ingredients list below - you mostly just chuck stuff in a pan and let the oven get on with the rest). OK, so it is a bit more work to eat - you have to shred the meat away from the bone with your fork - but it's worth every bite. Most butchers should be able to order oxtail for you; they have even started selling it in Tesco. It's not as cheap as it perhaps should be, but I imagine this is because you only get one tail per cow, so they're not as plentiful as other cuts.

Saying that, it beats a fillet steak both on the price front and the flavour front.

Embrace the meaty tail, snuggle up with a gorgeous bowl of winter stew, and remember just how good beef can be.

Oxtail with prunes, orange and star anise (serves 4 generously):

Adapted from 'Food From Plenty' by Diana Henry

1.2kg oxtail, cut into lengths

Plain flour

Salt and pepper

Oil

1 onion, roughly chopped

2 celery sticks, finely chopped

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

300ml red wine

500ml beef (or chicken) stock

1 orange

3 bay leaves

Half a cinnamon stick

1 tsp ground ginger

10 juniper berries, crushed

1 large star anise

16 shallots or baby onions, peeled

20 prunes

2 tsp soft brown sugar (optional)

3 tbsp flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

Mashed potato or another chosen accompaniment, to serve

Preheat the oven to 150C/135C fan oven. Place around 4 tbsp flour in a large bowl and season generously. Toss the oxtail pieces in the flour to coat. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a large ovenproof casserole and brown the oxtail over a high heat until coloured all over. Remove and set aside.

Lower the heat and fry the onion and celery until soft and golden. Add the garlic and cook for another couple of minutes, then pour in the wine. Scrape up all the bits that have stuck to the bottom of the pan (the best bits!)

Return the oxtail to the pan. Juice the orange and add all the juice to the pan along with half of the orange itself, cut into two pieces. Add the stock, bay, cinnamon, ginger, juniper and star anise. Season well. Cover with a lid and bring to the boil, then put in the oven and cook for around 3 hours until the meat is falling off the bone (leaving it in a little longer won't do it any harm - I cooked mine for 4 hours). Check every now and again to make sure the meat is still mostly submerged in the liquid - if not, top up with a little water.

After 1.5-2 hours, add the prunes and shallots to the pan, stir, and return to the oven for the remainder of the cooking time (if you add them sooner, they fall apart).

When ready to serve, check the sauce is the desired consistency - if it's too runny, remove the oxtail from the pan and reduce the sauce by boiling it. Try to fish out the bay leaves, anise, cinnamon stick and orange peel before serving. Check the seasoning and add the sugar if it needs it. Scatter over the parsley and serve the meat accompanied by the sauce.

Banana oatmeal waffles

2012-02-05T21:23:00.000Z

Last night, it started snowing. Feather-light flakes were falling from the sky as my boyfriend and I left the house to walk to town for dinner. We lingered over dim sum - gorgeous cloud-like cha siu pork buns; sticky, ginger-spiced prawn dumplings; wispy fried taro paste croquettes with a creamy and delectable meat filling - for about an hour and a half. When we emerged, we found the snow whirling fast and furious through the air, and at least two inches on the ground. Fast forward three hours later to exiting the cinema, and I was sinking in snow halfway up to my calves. There was a sweet and beautiful silence all around as we trudged home, stopping for a childish detour to run madly over a pristine patch of virgin snow, tutting at people attempting to drive, and incredulous as we spied girls sporting bare legs and heels. (If you are one of those types, I honestly would love to know how you do it - email me).

Despite the bitter chill and the surprising effort required to walk for forty minutes in deep snow, I treasured that walk home. There was an eerie light in the sky, a ceiling of fluffy snow clouds stained with the glow of numerous street lamps. Cars made barely a sound, gently rolling and fumbling along; echoes of shouting and general weekend revelry were swallowed whole by the lavish carpet laid out by the clouds; everything subject to the capricious whim of mother nature. Sometimes I think we get ahead of ourselves in this modern day and age and need a thorough coating of snow to remind us that we are, in fact, very lucky to be allowed to remain on this planet, given that we are in fact completely at the mercy of forces beyond our control.

This morning, my garden and the surrounding houses looked like some feature from an old stately home that hasn't been lived in for years, where everything has been covered in dust sheets rendering it featureless, bleak, unrecognisable. My favourite part of snow is the flat light that comes with it, making the everyday seem otherworldly and allowing the landscape to sprawl on almost indefinitely in meandering white waves. Almost indefinitely, of course - it was broken everywhere I looked today by excitable children building snowmen and igloos.

For breakfast, I made waffles. Perfect winter fare, given their association with skiing and colder climes. There's nothing like a steaming hot waffle, replete with butter and sugar and smothered in something even more calorific, to warm you from the inside out on a cold day.

These are not just any waffles, though - they're banana oatmeal waffles. Essentially, banana porridge in waffle form (and far healthier than the buttery Belgian kind, which seem a little too indulgent for breakfast, even when it is minus two outside). The recipe is a simple porridgey mixture of very ripe bananas (the kind I had to ask my parents not to throw away as they sat blackening and mouldering in the fruit bowl), milk, oats and cinnamon, plus a little flour, baking powder and an egg to help bind it all together and make it turn fluffy and lovely in the waffle maker.

I served these with a generous drizzle of maple syrup, plus toasted pecans and some blueberries. If I'd had some bananas that weren't almost liquid inside their skins, I'd have sliced them over too. They were gorgeous - crispy on the outside but moist and fluffy within, with a delicate banana flavour. The crunchy pecans and tangy blueberries were a perfect combination, along with the necessary sweetness of the syrup (I didn't add any sugar to the batter, so they needed those caramel notes to lift them a bit).

I couldn't resist taking these outside and photographing them against the beautiful blank canvas that was my snowy garden. Naturally, my cat decided to take a great interest and get in the way. Fortunately at the last minute she decided that waffles weren't quite meaty enough for her feline tastes, though you never know with these animals - my other cat is a big fan of blue cheese.

It's been a real case of trial and error, experimenting with my new waffle maker (a Christmas present). The first batch I made were flabby and awful, as the heat setting wasn't high enough. They looked rather like greying, rubbery teatowels. Subsequent attempts were OK but had a tendency to go soggy as soon as they emerged from the machine, I suspect due to not leaving them to cook for long enough. Finally I think I've cracked it - cook them for longer than you'd think necessary to give a nice crisp exterior, then put them in a warm oven to stay hot. Serving them one at a time helps, too - stacking them up means the underlying ones go a bit soggy.

And of course, the key to turning an average waffle experience into a great one is simple: liberal amounts of maple syrup.

These are lovely - the slight banana flavour, the contrast with the crisp pecans and the sharp bite of the berries...just perfect for a snowy winter morning, accompanied by a large mug of tea and two hilarious cats whose attempts to negotiate the snow never fail to amuse, every year.

Do you have any favourite foods to cook when it's snowing?

Banana oatmeal waffles (makes about 6 waffles, enough for 2 people):

2 very ripe bananas, mashed
1 egg
100g oats
5 tbsp flour, sifted
5 tbsp milk
1 tbsp melted butter
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
Toasted pecans/sliced banana/maple syrup/blueberries, to serve (I'd recommend all of them!)
Icing sugar, for dusting

Pre-heat your waffle maker. Whisk together (preferably using an electric whisk) the bananas and egg, then add the rest of the ingredients. You want the batter to be fairly thick (a little thinner than it would be for American-style pancakes), so add more flour or oats if necessary, or milk if you think it's too thick. It's really a case of trial and error - if the first waffles don't come out quite right, adjust the mixture.

Spoon about 3 tbsp of the mixture into your waffle maker (how much you use depends on the size and shape of your waffle maker, but you'll probably know how much mixture yours takes if you use it regularly). Cook for 4-5 minutes until crispy on the outside. You can put the waffles in a warm oven while you make another batch, or cook them to order. Scatter with your chosen toppings, drizzle with maple syrup and dust with icing sugar, then serve immediately.

Rhubarb and ginger crumble cheesecake

2012-01-31T21:47:00.001Z

Yes, my dear readers. I have gone and taken two of the best desserts in existence, and combined them into one luscious, creamy, buttery, crunchy creation.

I've been wanting to make this dessert since approximately April last year, when I froze the end of the season rhubarb with the express intention of doing just that. You know the stuff - those gorgeous pink stems, such a bright and vibrant fuschia they seem almost unnatural, quite unlike anything that could possibly have sprung up from the dark, dank earth. Sadly those colours don't last - as the season progresses, those stems progressively widen, darken, become stringy and sour. Still delicious, doused in a liberal coating of snowy white sugar, but best quietly hidden beneath a mound of buttery crumble or a blanket of pastry.

I froze the bright pink stuff to use in a dessert that would really allow its colour and natural sweetness to shine. Something pure and white to exaggerate its naturally beautiful qualities. I envisaged swirling it into a simple vanilla cheesecake batter, removing my finished creation from the oven or fridge to reveal a beautiful marriage of pink and cream curled lovingly around each other. Where the idea for the crumble topping came from, I don't know.

Oh wait, I do know. Plain common sense. Why would you NOT put a crumble topping on something?

I literally cannot think of any arguments against it.

I imagined breaking through that delicious buttery crust to reveal the yielding, creamy centre of a cheesecake rippled with tangy, sweet rhubarb. Not only would it taste wonderful, but the colours would be beautiful - the contrast of the snowy white cream against the hot pink fruit, mellowed by the pleasingly muted hue of the cheesecake base and the crumble topping.

I can't believe it took me nearly a year to get round to making this a reality.

This is just one version of a whole range of possibilities based on this theme. I chose to make a baked cheesecake, because I thought the slightly denser filling would marry better with the thick crumble topping - crunchy crumble on top of a quivering, gelatinous mousse didn't seem quite right, somehow.

I made a basic cheesecake mixture with ricotta, creme fraiche, eggs and sugar, adding quite a lot of vanilla because I love vanilla with rhubarb. I roasted the rhubarb in the oven with some sugar, mashed it with a fork to make a compote, then swirled this into the cream. It was spooned over a delightful crunchy ginger nut base (I make my cheesecake bases approximately two times more thick than is normal, because why wouldn't you add more butter and biscuit than required?) and topped with a simple crumble topping.

I say simple...I added some chopped almonds for crunch and used wholemeal flour and brown sugar for a more pronounced flavour, as well as a little ground ginger to complement the rhubarb and the biscuit base. I have to say, this was a great idea - wholemeal flour and brown sugar give it a much stronger 'crumbly' flavour - you can really taste the difference. I think I'll start making all my crumble in this way from now on. Plus you can even kid yourself it's healthy as it's wholemeal (that is how it works, right?)

I wasn't really sure when to put the crumble mixture on top of the cheesecake - too early and it would sink down into the cream cheese and end up ruining everything...too late and the cheesecake would overcook in the time it took the crumble to brown. In the end I removed the cake just over halfway through the cooking time, sprinkled on the crumble and put it back in (quickly, so that it didn't sink).

Somehow (I call it cook's intuition...some, however, may just call it luck), I timed it perfectly. The crumble cooked through to a rich, golden brown, oozing bubbling caramel juices down the side of the tin. The cake was creamy, fluffy and light but held its shape.

Until I tried to cut it, that is. It's quite hard to slice through thick crumble while not making a mess of the yielding mass of cream and fruit underneath...but it's not impossible. Use a serrated knife. No one will care once they taste this.

I was thrilled with how this cake turned out. You end up with something that is part pie, part crumble, part cheesecake. The rhubarb infuses into the cream cheese mixture, turning it a delightful pastel pink colour and lending it a tangy, fruity edge that pairs so well with the mild, sweet vanilla. Then you have the utterly satisfying crunch of the biscuit base followed by the gorgeous crunchy crumble. It's almost like eating rhubarb crumble with cream on the side, but all in one mouthful and with added biscuit.

And what on earth is not to like about that?

Rhubarb and ginger crumble cheesecake (serves 6):

For the rhubarb compote:

3 sticks rhubarb, cut into 5cm lengths

Caster sugar, to taste

For the cheesecake:

12 ginger nut biscuits

50g butter

250g ricotta cheese

200ml half-fat creme fraiche

90g caster sugar

1 tbsp honey

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

For the crumble topping:

80g wholemeal flour

40g cold butter, cubed

40g brown sugar

1 tsp ground ginger

50g almonds, roughly chopped
1 tbsp water

Pre-heat the oven to 170C/160C fan oven. Place an oven tray with sides in the bottom of the oven, for later. Put the rhubarb in a baking dish with about 3 tbsp caster sugar and a drop of water or orange juice, then bake for about 20 minutes until soft. Taste and add more sugar if you think it needs it. Set aside to cool.

Meanwhile, put the biscuits in a blender and pulse to fine crumbs. Melt the butter and stir the biscuits into it. Grease and line the base of an 18cm or 20cm springform cake tin and spread the biscuits out over the base, pressing them down with a spoon. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes until the base has firmed up and gone crunchy, then leave to cool.

Put the ricotta, creme fraiche, caster sugar, honey, eggs and vanilla in a blender, or beat in a bowl using an electric whisk. When the rhubarb has cooled, drain it well in a sieve then mash it, using a fork, to make a rough purée. Stir this into the cheesecake mixture - don't be too thorough about incorporating it, as you want nice pink swirls in the white mixture.

Pour the cheese and rhubarb mixture over the biscuit base. Put in the oven. Quickly afterwards, pour a jug of water into the oven tray you put at the bottom earlier, to create steam (this helps stop the cheesecake cracking, and gives it a lovely silky texture). Bake for 25 minutes.

While the cake is baking, make the crumble topping. Rub the butter into the flour using your fingers or a food processor, until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar, ginger and chopped almonds. Add the water and stir to make the mixture even more crumbly.

After 25 minutes, remove the cake from the oven and sprinkle the crumble mixture over the top, pressing it down gently. Return the cake to the oven and bake for another 25-30 minutes, until the crumble is golden and the cake wobbles only slightly when you shake it. You can leave it to cool for 5 minutes then insert a skewer - if it comes away clean, the cake is cooked. If not, give it another 5-10 minutes in the oven.

Leave to cool, then refrigerate - but take it out of the fridge 30 minutes before you want to serve it. No one wants cold crumble.

Pissaladière

2012-01-25T16:54:00.000Z

You know how sometimes, if you want to describe a boring individual with very little personality, you can refer to them as 'vanilla'? Meaning they're a bit bland, a safe bet, perfectly pleasant but nothing to go wild over. Average.

Suddenly it seems to me that this is a rather inappropriate label. Surely, if we want to describe the mundane, the everyday, the tame, the insipid, we should refer to them as 'onion'.

Let's face it, no one goes wild over onions. Onions are the safe bet. The best friend that you'll always rely on and love in a strictly platonic fashion but who will never set your loins aflame. The boy that all the girls call 'sweet', which - if you're a man I'm sure you know this already - is the kiss of death as far as romantic opportunity is concerned. The trusty shoulder to cry on, dependent and reliable but always hiding back from the limelight.

Vanilla, by comparison, seems positively exotic and exciting, suggesting secret whispers in the dark, clandestine meetings, breathless laughter, a wave of musky perfume carried on a gentle evening breeze. Vanilla speaks of secrets and seduction, of the faraway and desirable. The poor onion doesn't stand a chance.

We do, however, depend on onions. I'd wager that around eighty percent of savoury recipes call for the inclusion of at least one of these golden bulbs. They provide a depth, a richness, an earthy foundation of flavour that is hard to come by using any other ingredient. I know this, from the many times I've ransacked the fridge, always assuming there must be a stash of onions in there, only to find that we're out of them and I have to trek to the corner shop because there is nothing else I can substitute. They are a stalwart of cooking, one you always assume will be around to help you out.

However, there are a few recipes that showcase the humble onion, giving it the starring role it so desperately craves as it sits at the back in a stew, soup or risotto, watching the meat or other vegetables getting all the attention and crying silently into its papery skin.

Onion soup is one, of course. A melting, burnished fusion of earthy goodness topped with that most delectably simple of creations: cheese on toast. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that, for most people (including myself), it is the cheese on toast that makes them want to eat onion soup.

To unleash the full potential of the onion, you have to caramelise it. You have to finely slice it and then fry it slowly in sizzling butter or oil, over a low heat, until what were tough, crunchy crescents of translucent flesh soften into a melting, unctuous tangle of slippery, sweet, savoury goodness. Even better if you add a pinch of brown sugar to bring out the sweetness, and a splash of balsamic to heighten the savoury sensation. There is very little that caramelised onions will not partner happily with, but, for me, they are at their most outstanding when paired with goat's cheese and rocket on some form of bread base.

The reason behind my quest for an eye-opening onion recipe lies in my receiving some onions from Good Natured (sold in Asda) to sample. The Good Natured brand means all crops are pesticide free, using natural predators to control pests. On top of these worthy credentials, their jaunty packaging is somewhat nicer than the soulless, identikit supermarket stuff you see day after day. I've tried a few of their products recently - the little crunchy cucumbers are particularly good (you're unlikely to find mini ones anywhere else, and they have a lot more flavour than your average 'cumber) as are the cherry tomatoes.

This, then, is the best way I can think of to showcase the humble tastiness of a pile of caramelised onions. It's southern France's answer to a pizza: pissaladière.

I first came across this on a holiday in Nice, where it is sold everywhere by the slice out of giant, battered-looking trays. It's a laughably simple combination of bread dough, caramelised onions, black olives and anchovies. These decidedly un-flashy ingredients fuse together to form something far greater than the sum of its parts. The soft tangle of onions coupled with the dough, moist where they've soaked into it and crispy around the edges, is intensely comforting. Add the satisfying saltiness of olives and anchovies to counteract the sweetness of the onions, and you have something outstanding.

Humble, yes, but outstanding nonetheless. This is a great recipe for reminding ourselves just how much we owe the onion.

Incidentally, if you're having problems with the tear-factor involved in chopping onions, Good Natured suggest running them under cold water or splashing white vinegar on the chopping board when cutting them.

I, however, have a simpler solution: wear contact lenses.

Do you have any favourite onion recipes that make the most of this kitchen staple?

Pissaladière (serves 4-6):

20g fresh yeast

3/4 tsp sugar

180ml warm water

200g strong white bread flour

130g strong wholemeal flour

3/4 tsp salt

1.5 tbsp olive oil

3 tbsp garlic-infused olive oil (or normal olive oil)

A bunch of thyme, leaves picked

8 medium onions (about 1.5kg)

1 can anchovies in oil

A couple of handfuls of black olives, pitted

Salt and pepper

First, make the dough. Stir the yeast into the warm water and sugar and leave until frothy. Put the salt and flours in a large mixing bowl and make a well in the middle. Add the olive oil and the yeast mixture and mix together to form a dough (add a little more water if it seems too dry). Knead for 10 minutes until smooth and elastic (or use the dough hook function on an electric mixer for 10 minutes), then place in a bowl and cover with a teatowel. Leave to rise in a warm place until doubled in size - this should take 1-1.5 hours.

Meanwhile, make the onion topping. Peel and slice the onions very finely (a mandolin cutter is ideal for this, if you have one). Heat 1 tbsp of the garlic oil in a large pan over a medium heat and fry the onions until translucent, along with 1 tbsp of the thyme leaves. Turn the heat down low and cook them for about 30 minutes until very soft, sticky and golden. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

When the dough is ready, pre-heat the oven to 220C. Roll the dough out to a large rectangle about 1.5cm thick. Spread the onions over the top, scatter over another 1 tbsp thyme leaves, then slice each anchovy fillet lengthways into 3 or 4 slices. Arrange these over the onions in a criss-cross pattern, placing an olive in each diamond. Leave for 15 minutes in a warm place, then put in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes until crispy and golden brown around the edges.

Serve with a green salad.

Wild rice, toasted pecan and cranberry salad with rare duck breast

2012-01-23T10:41:00.000Z

Whenever I cook with nuts, I find myself thinking about which is my absolute favourite. I suppose in the same way I often wonder which meat or fish I would choose if I could only eat one for the rest of my life (I still ponder this question in moments of boredom, but I think it'd have to be lamb, for its sheer culinary versatility, and mackerel, again for the same reason). I can never reach a conclusion, though, I think because nuts have such diverse flavours and are suited to such a range of different culinary applications. Hazelnuts, to me, belong firmly in the realm of sweet things - desserts with chocolate or pears or bananas, for example. Then there are almonds, which are usually too bland to use in desserts but taste wonderful toasted and added to fragrant Middle Eastern or Indian dishes. Pistachios have a toasty gorgeousness that I love both with fruit - apricots in particular - but also with some meat dishes. I wouldn't normally cook with brazil nuts, but their grainy creaminess is wonderful in muesli.

Sometimes, though, I think the pecan is 'the one'. Attractively shaped, easily crumbled (unlike almonds or hazelnuts, which are an absolute pain to attempt to chop without a food processor), the pecan possesses a richness that makes it interesting enough to stand up to strong flavours, both sweet and savoury. Pecans are wonderful with chocolate and bananas, for example, but also delicious in savoury dishes, as this amazing recipe proves.

I received Diana Henry's beautiful book Roast Figs, Sugar Snow for Christmas. I admit, I largely requested it on the strength of its title, without really looking at what it was about. Anyone who reads this blog will know I am a fiend for figs. When it arrived, I discovered it to be a book full of recipes from colder climates - "food to warm the soul", as its subtitle proclaims. What a brilliant idea, I thought - how has there not been such a book before? Having just returned from a week of skiing in the Alps, I recognised the familiar tartiflette and cheese fondue gracing its pages, as well as other dishes to be reserved for days of strenuous physical activity, such as an Austrian pasta creation that includes nearly a litre of sour cream. Might save that one for a time when I'm not still eating my way through the Christmas cake.

The book is beautiful, divided into chapters based on classic warming winter ingredients, like chestnuts, apples, quinces, smoked food, game, cream, pork and beans. I particularly liked the section on cranberries, where Diana bemoaned the fact that we reserve them for the Christmas sauce only, rather than making the most of their refreshing tart sweetness in recipes all year round. There's a recipe for a pecan and cranberry upside-down cake that I am dying to try.

However, one of the most intriguing recipes was this one - a wild rice salad with dried cranberries, toasted pecans, green beans, a maple-cider vinaigrette dressing, and sliced roast duck breast. Fruit with meat? Check. Toasted nuts? Check. Wild rice? Check. Maple syrup? Check. Thinly sliced rare duck breast, barely seared in a hot pan? Check.

All these things I love - it just had to be made.

This is a very simple dish to make - after cooking the rice (I used a mixture of basmati, red carmargue and wild rice, which you can buy from Waitrose and is delicious), you stir it together with dried cranberries (soaked in hot water to plump them up), toasted pecans, blanched green beans, chopped parsley, and the dressing.

The dressing is what really makes the dish - it was a complete revelation for me. I eat wild rice a lot, in salads, but I have never added a dressing. This simple elixir of maple syrup, vinegar, mustard and oil lifted the combination of ingredients to a totally different level. It coated the rice, giving it a gorgeous silky feel in the mouth, and it also provided a sort of salty-sweet flavour that brought all the other ingredients together perfectly.

It's honestly so hard to describe the incredible deliciousness of this salad. If you're sceptical about all those ingredients together, don't be. The nuttiness of the pecans and the wild rice is a perfect match for the sweet cranberries and gamey duck breast, and then you have the freshness of green beans and parsley and the tang of mustard to balance everything.

I can't wait to make this again. I could probably eat it every day for the rest of my life.

In which case, I might have to change my 'desert island' meat to duck.

Wild rice, toasted pecan and cranberry salad with rare duck breast (serves 4):

(Barely adapted from 'Roast Figs, Sugar Snow' by Diana Henry)

50g dried cranberries

30g pecans

250g mixed wild and basmati/brown rice

500ml chicken stock

Salt and pepper

3 large or 4 medium duck breasts, skin on

200g green beans, trimmed and halved

3 tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

For the dressing:

1/2 tbsp cider or white wine vinegar

1/4 tsp Dijon mustard

1/2 tbsp maple syrup

Salt and pepper

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp rapeseed oil

Cover the cranberries with boiling water and leave to plump up for 20 minutes or so. Meanwhile, pre-heat the oven to 200C. Toast the pecans in a dry frying pan, then let them cool before crumbling them roughly.

Put the rice in a pan and pour over the chicken stock. Put on a lid, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer for around 25 minutes, by which point the rice should have absorbed all the stock and be cooked but still with a slight bite (different rice mixed vary, so follow the packet instructions with regard to timings). Leave the lid on to keep it warm.

Make the dressing by whisking together all the ingredients. Season the duck breasts, then get a frying pan really hot and sear them, skin-side down first, in the pan until golden brown. Once browned, put them in an ovenproof dish and place in the oven for 5 minutes (this will give you rare meat - if you like it a bit more well done, allow 7-8 minutes). Remove, cover with foil and rest for 5 minutes.

Cook the beans in boiling water until just tender, then drain. Put the rice in a large mixing bowl and add the beans, cranberries, pecans, parsley, and the dressing. Toss it all together well and check the seasoning. Divide between four plates or bowls.

Slice the duck breasts thinly and arrange over the salad. Garnish with a little extra parsley and toasted pecans.

Birthday blueberry and almond scones

2012-01-18T23:40:00.000Z

On Monday, I turned 23.

Having had my proper celebrations during the preceding weekend, I spent the day doing things I would normally do. I ate porridge for breakfast (with chopped pear, dried cranberries, sultanas and maple syrup). I went for a swim. I bought a huge amount of fruit from the supermarket. I went for a walk. I read a bit of my book and looked at food-related things on the internet. I watched TV. I went to bed not particularly late.

There were, however, some indications that this was not an entirely normal day for me.

Firstly, my mum treated me to a massage and a facial (very nice, but no thank you, facial lady, I really do not need to buy two £22 face creams to fully benefit from the experience). Secondly, I received some very beautiful flowers in the post from someone who can only be described as my AWESOME boyfriend, unable to celebrate with me because he is currently in the Alps on his second skiing holiday of the season (it's a hard life).

Thirdly, I was followed by a creepy man who accosted me by the self-service checkout in Asda and then stalked me to my bike where this brief exchange ensued:

Creepy man: Excuse me - did you know your bag is open?

Me: Yes. But thanks.

Creepy man: It's a lovely day, isn't it?

Me: Yes.

Creepy man: Wow, those flowers you've got there are nice. What are they?

Me: Um, it's a mint plant.

Creepy man: Oh right. You're very attractive you know, what's your name?

Me: [Nothing was said at this point as I got on my bike and pedalled away]

Fourthly, as if this wasn't enough stranger-related weirdness for one day, I was later shouted at by a man on a bike as I was walking by the river. It was a footpath. I was walking on the right hand side. Said man cycled along, I did not move out of his way, as there was an entire free pavement for him to cycle on, and he shouted at me "WE WALK ON THE LEFT IN THIS COUNTRY, LOVE."

There were a few things wrong with this incident.

Firstly, I am not foreign. I am, in fact, from 'this country'. Despite my rather European-chic new glasses and tourist-esque new puffa jacket, and the fact that I was wearing sheepskin earmuffs suggestive of an origin in warmer climes and a disposition unable to tolerate our bleak English winter, I am not from abroad. The sad irony of this whole situation is that the man who shouted at me had a distinctive Liverpool accent, and I was happily strolling along by the river approximately two miles away from where I was born. So actually he is more foreign than I am.

Secondly, since when do 'we walk on the left in this country'? I believe he may have been getting legs confused with wheels.

Thirdly, what a moron. I hope he had a near-fatal bike accident on the way home involving someone walking on the left.

So those were unusual and interesting episodes designed, I am sure, by some higher power in order to add a frisson of excitement to an otherwise very ordinary day.

I also made scones.

I could have made some kind of fancy cake or tart to celebrate. But to be honest, I think it is hard to beat the simple pleasure of a light, fluffy scone, fresh from the oven, crunchy on the outside, soft and steaming in the middle. I'd been craving scones for ages, and my birthday seemed the perfect chance to not worry about the rather negligible nutritional benefit of what is, essentially, flour butter and sugar, and just eat them, smothered in jam and cream.

I'd also saved some blueberries in the freezer to add to the mixture, because I thought a fluffy scone bursting with juicy blueberries would be just wonderful (freezing them first makes them easier to stir into the rather thick scone dough). I added some almond extract to the milk before mixing it into the scone dough, which gave the scones a gorgeous marzipan-like flavour that went so well with the slightly tart berries. I could have used vanilla, which would also have been tasty, but I think almond and berries is a match made in heaven. I also added a little wholemeal flour to give a delicious nutty flavour that was the perfect vehicle for the almonds and berries.

These were just wonderful, fresh from the oven with a little butter or cream. No need for jam, as the berries burst in the dough and keep it sweet and juicy. And, surprisingly, these are really good a couple of days later. Usually scones are almost inedible after the 30-minute window where they are warm from the oven, but these taste like a lovely cakey biscuit after a couple of days in a tin. The almond flavour becomes more pronounced, and they're lovely either on their own or spread with butter.

The humble scone is the epitome of a simple pleasure. These were the perfect end to what had been a weekend of such pleasures - returning to my beloved Oxford, wandering around the city in the sunshine, seeing most of my friends all in one place at my birthday party, eating The Anchor's sublime treacle tart, and generally just having a lovely birthday weekend.

And as long as you have scones, even a creepy pervert and a unnecessarily vicious Liverpudlian-on-wheels can't ruin your birthday for you.

Blueberry and almond scones (makes 10):

200g plain flour

50g wholemeal flour

2 tsp baking powder

40g caster sugar

50g cold butter, cubed

1 egg, beaten

1 tsp almond extract

120ml milk

A handful of blueberries, fresh or frozen

1 beaten egg, to glaze

Demerara sugar, for sprinkling

Pre-heat the oven to 200C (fan oven). Line a baking sheet with baking parchment.

Sift the flours and baking powder into a mixing bowl. Add the sugar, then rub in the butter with your fingers until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Make a well in the middle and add the beaten egg, almond extract and milk along with the blueberries. Mix together until you have a rough dough, then roll out about 1.5 inches thick onto a floured work surface.

Use a cookie cutter to cut the dough into rounds, then place on the baking sheet. Brush the tops with the beaten egg, then sprinkle with demerara sugar.

Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden on top. Remove, place on a cooling rack and devour instantly.

Quince tarte tatin with brandy butter ice cream

2012-01-12T18:57:00.000Z

But what I am of opinion the governor should eat now in order to preserve and fortify his health is a hundred or so of wafer cakes and a few thin slices of conserve of quinces, which will settle his stomach and help his digestion ~ Don Quixote

I'm a firm believer of less being more in the dessert world, that the simplest creations often far outshine the intricate, fiddly ones. I'd far rather tuck into a piece of treacle tart, a crumble or a sticky toffee pudding than any kind of fancy French patisserie, smothered in ganache and spun sugar and delicately piped cream. Where many cooks and bloggers see macarons as the ultimate in culinary challenges, the Everest that simply must be scaled, I see them as encapsulating everything I hate about that type of baking: fussy, fiddly, cutesy, overdecorated. I admit that I've never tasted a macaron, but I have no need to - I know that it would never match up to even an average sticky toffee pudding.

The simple marriage of butter, flour, sugar and perhaps a few other choice flavourings - spices, fruit, nuts - is one that will last me a lifetime of enjoyment. No need for anything fancier.

Note, however, that I am not condemning French desserts with the above. In fact, I am about to sing the praises of one: the humble tarte tatin.

I can't actually say 'tarte tatin' any more, after watching Masterchef. Every time I open my mouth to say the words, all I hear is Gregg Wallace's interesting interpretation of its pronunciation: "TATTATTAN" (spoken at top booming volume and preferably with a mouth full of pudding). I then lose all faith in my own ability to pronounce French, and come out with something along the lines of "taahhtattan".

No matter, though, because even if you can't pronounce it, you can still enjoy what has to be one of the greatest culinary inventions known to man.

The best tarte tatin I have ever eaten was at a little bistro in Nice. It was deservedly popular, packed with French people spilling out onto its streetside tables in the balmy August evening. It was everything that the ghastly Cafe Rouge restaurant chain pretends to be: local, authentic, quaint, unmistakably French. I remember eating sardine escabeche, crunching my way accidentally through the heads of the sardines, as they were hidden by the thick red sweet-sour sauce.

But it is the tart that really stands out in my memory. It was served piping hot from the oven, a very thin layer of pastry absolutely saturated with gorgeous sharp-sweet caramel. It was the apples, though, that struck me - huge great billowing pieces of apple, not like the thinly sliced, neatly arranged pieces you get on a classic French apple tart. These were giant segments, stained a deep burnished gold by the sugar and butter in which they had been bathed. They were juicy, fluffy, sweet and simply wonderful. I would go all the way back to that bistro for another taste of that tarte tatin.

Fortunately, however, last night I came up with something almost as good.

I've had a bowl of glossy, curvaceous quinces in my kitchen for weeks now - I stocked up on them before Christmas, as they last for months and I knew I'd want to cook with them long after they've disappeared from the market. They've been sitting there begging me to use them, and I've been mulling over various quince creations in my mind as possibilities. I still intend to bring those ideas to fruition (pardon the pun), but suddenly I had an overwhelming urge to make a quince tarte tatin.

This was mainly because all my other ideas involved cakes, and I've made a lot of cakes recently. In fact, most dessert recipes that appear on this blog are either cakes, cheesecakes or cobblers, and I thought I should branch out a bit. Plus I've been having a craving for tarte tatin ever since I watched a friend of mine presented with one in a French restaurant when we were skiing in the Alps in December. I sat there eating my ice cream, which paled in comparison to his gorgeous plate of steaming hot apples, pastry and caramel. There's something about this alchemy of ingredients that is just irresistible.

The way the caramel soaks into the pastry, leaving it sodden and sweet on the top and still crunchy and flaky underneath. The contrast between the yielding juicy flesh of the cooked apples and the crunch of the buttery pastry. It really is up there with crumble and sticky toffee pudding in my all-time favourite desserts, and I can't think why I haven't made it more often.

This version is made with quinces, adapted from a recipe by the excellent David Lebovitz. I thought about using half quince and half apple, worried that the perfumed flavour of the quince would be too powerful, but I needn't have worried (in fact my mum, who normally hates quince, loved this).

This is an absolutely incredible dessert, all the better for the sweet, mysterious aroma of quinces. The quince segments are poached to rosy perfection in a syrup of sugar, water, clove, lemon and cinnamon. There's a simple pastry dough that is so easy to make, yet tastes as complex and wonderful as puff pastry, but without the faff. It is buttery, crumbly, crunchy and flaky all at the same time - amazing for something made in under 5 minutes in the food processor.

Instead of making a caramel for the quinces, their poaching syrup is reduced in the tarte tatin pan (you can buy special ones for this purpose, but I just used a frying pan with a removable handle) until it has the consistency of honey. I added a couple of spoonfuls of homemade quince paste to thicken it a little and add an extra intense quince flavour. I was amazed at how buttery and caramelly this tasted when it had soaked into the pastry in the finished tart.

I served this with brandy butter ice cream, from Kelly's of Cornwall (see bottom of page). This is a limited edition Christmas version of their standard clotted cream ice cream, but it's still around in some supermarkets until it sells out, if you want to get your hands on some. It has a very pronounced brandy flavour which is excellent for accompanying desserts that err on the side of extreme sweetness, as anything involving quince usually does. Obviously it would also make a great accompaniment to your usual Christmas fare - mince pies, Christmas pudding, et cetera - I'd urge you to get some if they bring it out again next year, as it has a very pleasant brandy flavour. It went incredibly well with the tart, softening the sugariness of the fruit and adding a lovely boozy edge to the whole thing. I also adore the contrast of hot caramel and pastry with teeth-hurtingly cold ice cream.

In short: this was fabulous. The sweet, juicy segments of quince with their syrupy coating; the buttery, flaky pastry base...I think this could give that Nicoise tarte tatin a run for its money. Please make it if you find yourself with quinces to use up.

Quince tarte tatin (serves 6):
Adapted from David Lebovitz's recipe, here.

3 large quinces (you might end up with a bit left over - eat them for breakfast on porridge/muesli!)
Half a lemon
1 cinnamon stick
3 cloves
900ml water
100g sugar
140g flour
2 tsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
85g cold butter, cubed
3-4 tbsp very cold water
2 tsp quince paste (membrillo) or jelly (optional)
You will also need a suitable pan - an ovenproof frying pan around 18-22cm in diameter is ideal

First, poach the quinces. Put the water, sugar, lemon, cinnamon stick and cloves in a large saucepan and bring slowly to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Peel, core and quarter the quinces, then halve each quarter to get eight segments per quince. Drop them into the poaching liquid. Lower the heat to barely a simmer, and place a circle of greaseproof paper with a 1-inch hole in the middle over the water. Cook on a very low heat for an hour or so, until the liquid has turned pink and the quinces are tender. Turn off the heat and leave the quinces in the syrup until you need them.

Next, make the pastry. Put the flour, sugar, salt and butter in a food processor and pulse until you have fine crumbs (or rub the butter in with your fingers, trying to touch it for as little a time as possible). Add the water a tablespoon at a time, until the dough just comes together and looks like little pebbles. You will have to squash it together with your hands. Form a ball and wrap it in cling film. Chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

When ready to assemble the tart, put about 250ml of the quince poaching liquid along with the quince jelly or paste, if using, in your chosen pan and simmer until it has reduced to a thick syrup (you want a layer about 5mm deep on the base of the pan). Pre-heat the oven to 190C.

Lay the quince segments, drained, over the bottom of the pan, curved side down in a circle. Try and squish them together as much as possible so there are no gaps. You may not need all the quince segments. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface to a circle slightly bigger than the pan, and lay it over the quinces, tucking it in all around the edges (this will be the best bit of the whole dessert, where the pastry edges are saturated in caramel!)

Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes, until the pastry is crisp and golden and the caramel is bubbling around the sides. Remove and allow to cool for about 15-20 minutes before putting a plate over the top of the pan and turning it upside down to release the finished tart (you might have to shake it a bit to loosen it).

Serve warm with ice cream, creme fraiche or cream.

Duck, dhal and disappointment: The Hand & Flowers, Marlow

2012-01-11T16:49:00.001Z

Photo taken from here: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/41982501

In a sentence: I was disappointed by the Hand and Flowers. I had such high expectations, as I suspect many of the diners there do, given its chef patron Tom Kerridge has won Great British Menu's main course twice in a row. My expectations were only compounded by the fact that it has recently won a second Michelin star. I've only eaten in one Michelin-starred restaurant in my life, and that had a single star, so I was - legitimately, I think - expecting the Hand and Flowers to be twice as delicious.

Apparently, that isn't how the scoring system works. How it does work is a total and utter mystery to me.

The interior of the restaurant isn't exactly what you'd expect from the word 'Michelin'. I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing. Instead of hushed silences and waiters fawning over you to place your napkin in neat folds in your lap or top up your water between sips, you have what basically feels like a cosy gastropub. Complete with ceilings so low that you have to be told by the waiters not to decapitate yourself as you walk to your table. The tables, incidentally, are wooden and sturdy, devoid of fancy linen, adding to the relaxed theme of the place. It's a very pleasant setting for a meal, and all the nicer for not being too posh.

The food, then, is where you'd expect it to get a bit more posh. The prices certainly do, with main courses ranging from £19.50 to £32. Thirty-two pounds is a lot of money for a transient gastronomic pleasure. As with all these places, though, there is a very good value set lunch menu, with three courses for £19.50 (the price of the cheapest main course on the à la carte). However, on the day I went it looked so boring that I couldn't bring myself to order it. Poussin may sound exotic, but it is basically chicken, and why would you go to a two-Michelin-starred restaurant to order chicken? The dessert was trifle, which I do not like. So I went à la carte, and didn't fare much better.

The menu, to read, is exciting and intriguing. It had a few things on that I had never heard of, which is always a good sign. I had a hard time choosing my starter, salivating over the prospect of a glazed omelette of smoked haddock and parmesan, tempted by a parsley soup with smoked eel, bacon and parmesan tortellini, and intrigued by braised pearl barley with Somerset hare, orange oil and foie gras. I ordered the latter, because I love the richness of hare and I'm also a big fan of the nuttiness of pearl barley.

I was really annoyed about the bloody foie gras, though, and more so when my starter actually arrived. What is it about owning a restaurant with a Michelin star or two that automatically makes the chef feel he has to put the stupid stuff on everything? I don't think it's that bad when it is actually relevant to the dish or adds something, but in the case of my starter it was literally a slab of foie gras plonked on top of the dish, and what's more, it didn't taste right with everything else, at all. I make a point of not ordering foie gras in restaurants because I don't agree with the ethics behind it, so in a desperate attempt to stick to my principles I left the piece of foie gras almost totally untouched in my empty dish. I was trying to make a point, but I bet they just scraped it into the bin without even noticing, which is even worse.

It really did annoy me, because some poor goose had died in vain for that starter - there is simply no need for its flabby liver to sit there on top of what was otherwise a very nice culinary creation. The barley was crunchy in places and tender in others, silky and unctuous with the orange oil, and serving as a bed for beautifully cooked loin of hare, juicy, gamey and wickedly dark. I'd never have thought of combining hare with orange, but it worked well, the zestiness of the fruit lifting what is a very acquired taste in the world of meat, such is its strong flavour.

Jon had a sort of Scotch egg made with chorizo and served with a spicy peppery sauce. It was very tasty, but to be honest most things you stick chorizo in are going to be tasty - it's an instant recipe-saver. I don't think it was as good as a smoked haddock Scotch egg I'd had at the York & Albany about a year ago, though, but it was very nice.

Incidentally, before we tucked into our starters we were given some excellent bread, and also some deep-fried whitebait served in a paper cone with a marie-rose type sauce for dipping. The whitebait were delicious, as was the bread. I do so love the con of amuse-bouches in restaurants, making you feel like you're getting something for free when actually you're being robbed blind by the menu prices. Still, those crispy baby fish were lovely. I wish we could have had more bread though, but you never feel like you can ask for it. I've never recovered from an incident in Venice where the bread was so nice that we kept emptying the basket and they kept bringing us more, only to find once the bill arrived that we'd been charged five euros for every refill.

The main courses were even more difficult to decide between than the starters. Unfortunately the roast hog that you may remember from the Great British Menu banquet had been taken off the menu only a couple of weeks before. I was gutted, as Jon and I had planned on sharing it (it was only available to order for two people, minimum, presumably given that it is quite literally almost a whole hog). That left me torn between Tom Kerridge's winning duck dish from the year before (slow cooked duck breast with savoy cabbage, duck fat chips and gravy), and two fish dishes: spiced sea bream with smoked aubergine, 'dahl' (I believe it is actually spelled dhal, but I could be wrong), sea aster and moilee sauce; and Cornish day boat skate with bacon roast parsnip, trompettes, clams and lardo.

In retrospect, I wish I'd gone for the skate. Or anything else. Because my sea bream was...odd. That's the best word I can think of to describe it, and I've done two English degrees.

The fish was fine - crispy skin, cooked well, but I had clearly forgotten when I decided in a moment of madness to order it that sea bream is possibly the most boring fish on the planet. Tom Kerridge had clearly realised this too, so he decided to chuck a load of weird and wonderful things at it in an attempt to rescue the poor thing.

The dhal was lovely - earthy and satisfying, it made up for the fact that there were no other carbohydrates on the dish (why is this so often the case with fish dishes? Is it because they assume only women on a diet are going to order them?) The smoked aubergine was delicious, although I heard a woman at the adjacent table complaining that it was burnt (it wasn't. She was just clearly an idiot). The moilee sauce, which I had to ask a waiter to explain as I'd never heard of the term before, was a lovely velvety, coconutty liquor that was great with the fish. Sea aster, a coastal vegetable like samphire that resembles spinach leaves in appearance, was fairly tasteless and added mainly for aesthetics, I think.

The dhal was nice. The aubergine was nice. The sauce was nice. But none of them went together. I really couldn't figure out the thinking behind this dish. It sounds like a lot of my homemade salads - just chuck a load of things I really really like onto a plate or bowl and hope they work together. In this case, they did not. The moilee sauce and the fish - great. The dhal and the moilee sauce - great. The smoked aubergine and the dhal - great. Put it all together, though, and it really didn't work. The individual flavours were far too strong, wrestling with each other for pole position in the mouth and ending up creating a rather unpleasant flavour explosion on the tastebuds. A flavour explosion is normally a positive concept; in this case, I wish I'd been able to put it out.

The whole thing came garnished with what I think was meant to be an anchovy fritter. However, the ratio of batter to contents was a bit mad - I may as well have been eating battered batter, judging by how thick and greasy it was. The only indication I had that there might once have been an anchovy in there before it got battered into sheer oblivion was the overwhelming saltiness of the whole thing. I drank a couple of litres of water during our hour-and-a-half lunch, largely due to this ridiculous salt fritter. It was actively unpleasant, and if I hadn't been trying to consume every last morsel on the plate given the absence of carbohydrates, I would have left it. In fact, halfway through my main course I considered not finishing it, simply because I couldn't be bothered.

I couldn't be bothered to finish a plate of food costing £19.50. This sort of thing should never happen.

Jon fared a bit better. He ordered the Great British Menu duck, which in hindsight is what I should have done, instead of daring to be different. The presentation was lovely and rustic; it all came on a wooden board with the accompaniments in individual pots and pans. It was also delicious - perfectly cooked duck breast; rich, meaty gravy, the kind you dream of; a little copper pan full of savoy cabbage flavoured with (I think) crispy duck pieces; and those duck fat chips, which brought such delight to everyone on GBM and to me, sitting there staring at my carb-free main course.

However, what I thought was utterly ridiculous was the portion size. It wasn't even a whole duck breast. It was a slice from out of the middle of a duck breast, a little piece about two inches square. For TWENTY-TWO POUNDS. A duck breast costs about £4. Surely the chef, no doubt raking in all the cash from new customers attracted by his newly acquired star, could afford to put the rest of the breast on the board? Apparently not. This sort of thing makes me a bit cross.

So it was with a sad face and a heavy heart that I finished off the rest of my weird fish dish, eyeing Jon's chips longingly and hardly daring to take more than a wafer-thin sliver of his duck to try, given its scarcity.

For dessert, we shared the glazed cox apple tart with eggnog ice cream, and the chocolate cake with salted caramel and muscovado ice cream.

They were fine. The apple tart was fine, the eggnog ice cream gave a big hit of alcohol and not much else. The chocolate cake was less of a cake and more of a fancy kind of chocolate cube with a soft centre, the kind of thing you might find on a foil tray in a gorgeous French bakery surrounded by equally beautiful cousins. The muscovado ice cream again was fine, but not as rich and treacly as its name led me to anticipate, and the cake wasn't really warm enough to make ice cream a perfect partner for it.

To be honest, I'm having a hard time remembering the desserts we had, which tells you everything you need to know - they weren't brilliant. I always, always remember good desserts. I still remember the incredible tarte tatin I ate at a restaurant in Nice three years ago, how giant and billowy and juicy the apples were. I remember the sticky toffee pudding I ate last summer in a small country pub in Dorset, how it had little chunks of crunchy dark sugar interspersed throughout, an exciting surprise in every mouthful. I salivate over the memory of a Sicilian cassata cake I ate at Bocca di Lupo in Soho a good three years ago, a taste sensation I'd never experienced before and which has left me longing to return. My mouth waters at the thought of the hot chocolate waffles my college used to serve on special occasions at formal hall.

But my memories of the Hand and Flowers' desserts have faded already. They were perfectly edible, but not as promising as their menu description had suggested.

And that, dear readers, pretty much sums up the entire experience. I'd gone expecting greatness, and experienced mediocrity. I really cannot fathom the system that gave this place two Michelin stars, when the Yorke Arms, worth every penny, only has one. Nothing about the food we ate suggested two stars...or maybe it did, in which case two stars is definitely not the accolade it appears to be. I'd love to say it was a case of bad ordering, or we went on an off day, but a £50 lunch should never be the victim of either of those.

As usual with these sorts of scenarios, if I'd paid half the price, I would have been a happy bunny. Instead, I handed over my debit card with a lump in my throat, such was my complete disappointment with the whole affair. The setting was nice, the service was perfectly fine, but the food was totally lacking in any sort of wow factor. Such a shame.

Do you agree? If you've been to the Hand & Flowers, I'd love to hear what you thought!

Beetroot, blood orange and carrot salad with peppered mackerel

2012-01-06T21:11:00.000Z

The sky was what is called a mackerel sky - rows and rows of faint down-plumes of cloud, just tinted with the midsummer sunset ~ H.G. Wells

Sometimes, I get this wonderful feeling having just finished a meal. It's not just the sensation of being pleasantly full where, twenty minutes ago, I was starving. It's more than that. It's the feeling of nourishment. Feeling not just as though any old thing has come along and filled up the growling gap in my stomach, but something fresh, vibrant, nutritious. I can almost feel the vitamins and minerals seeping into my bloodstream. Although I cook pretty healthy food most of the time, I don't get this feeling as commonly as perhaps I would like. When I do, though, it is a lovely thing.

When I think back to the number of times I've felt well and truly nourished after a meal, there seems to be a common denominator. Mackerel.

It is fairly widely acknowledged that mackerel, like all oily fish, is indeed very good for you. But so, apparently, are parsnips and yoghurt, and I hate them. No, there is something more to my love for mackerel than simply knowing of its nutritional benefits.

Perhaps it's the gorgeous texture; dense, hugely flavoursome and almost meaty, it provides instantly satisfying bulk to any salad. Maybe it's the deep, rich flavour, almost like bacon in its satisfying saltiness. I love mackerel in all its guises: the smoked fillets have an incredible depth of flavour that makes them ideal for lifting all sorts of salads, whereas one of my all-time favourite simple meals is a whole, glistening mackerel, gutted and grilled and served on the bone where its juicy, moist flesh flakes effortlessly away. There's something almost primal about tucking into a whole fish with its head still on, simply grilled, its skin crispy and its flesh moist within. It is one of the simplest of foodstuffs, yet it is nourishing and deeply satisfying.

The intense richness of mackerel, particularly smoked mackerel, means that you need something sweet or sharp to go with it. In the summer I make a salad of wild rice, chopped mango, smoked mackerel and oodles of lime juice, chopped mint, basil and coriander. It being January, however, fresh mangoes aren't really at their prime, and it would feel slightly wrong, somehow, to try and pretend it's summer when I am wearing my dressing gown around the house over my clothing. This is my winter version of a healthy and vibrant mackerel salad.

When I made my first post-Christmas trip to the market a couple of days ago, I was thrilled to discover that blood oranges are in season. These are one of my all-time favourite fruits, both for their gorgeous appearance and for their tart sweetness, so much more exciting and exotic than a normal orange. Last winter I made a lot of blood orange salads to serve with whole grilled mackerel, and I couldn't resist gathering up a load of these lovely fruits to try another variation.

I've also read a lot about the combination of beetroot and orange; I normally don't like beetroot, finding it too sweet, but pairing it with a sharp orange like a blood orange tones down a lot of its natural sugars and makes it taste earthy and delicious. Ditto the carrots, which I actually prefer raw to cooked. However, roasting them in wedges at a high temperature with olive oil turns them wonderfully burnished and delicious, a far cry from that horrible sickly pre-packaged beetroot you can buy.

This salad is simple. Roast wedges of beetroot and carrot until golden and caramelised. Toss with a dressing made from blood orange zest, a little olive and sesame oil and some seasoning. Add blood orange segments, coriander, wilted beetroot leaves, and finally some peppered smoked mackerel. I chose the peppered fillets rather than the plain ones because I thought the heat of them would go well with the sweet root vegetables.

This is a substantial salad, perfect for serving as a main course. It's also ideal for this time of year, when people are trying to cut back on carbohydrates and the like - you don't need anything to go with it. It's just nutritious vegetables and fruit, and protein-rich mackerel. Just looking at it is enough to make you feel you've achieved that new year's resolution to eat more healthily: you can't argue with a plate bursting with crimson, marigold and deep greens.

If you're not a fan of mackerel, you could use trout or sardines. Or, for a non-aquatic version, try thin slices of roast lamb or beef, or crumbled feta/goat's cheese, or grilled halloumi. The possibilities are almost endless, but I'd urge you to try the combination of beetroot, carrot and orange. It may sound odd, but it works wonderfully.

I really love this salad; it feels indulgent, somehow, despite being healthy - I think it's the richness of the mackerel, as well as the refreshing vibrant flavours in there from the orange and coriander. I can guarantee that, were you to eat this for dinner, you would come away feeling well and truly nourished.

Beetroot, blood orange and carrot salad with peppered mackerel (serves 2 hungry people):

4 small beetroot, leaves attached
4 large carrots
A couple of handfuls of baby spinach (if not using the beet leaves)
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
2 blood oranges
A large bunch of fresh coriander
1 tsp sesame oil
150g peppered mackerel fillets

Pre-heat the oven to 190C. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Cut the beetroot into thin wedges, and cut the carrots into thick batons. Boil the carrots for about 5 minutes, then remove with a slotted spoon and tip into a roasting dish. Boil the beetroot in the water for 5 minutes too, then add it to the carrots. (Boiling them separately stops you ending up with purple carrots).

Toss the beetroot and carrot with some olive oil, salt and pepper, then roast for about 40 minutes until soft and caramelised.

Meanwhile, zest the oranges into a large bowl. Remove the skin using a sharp knife, then cut the oranges into segments and add these to the bowl. Finely chop the coriander and add this too, along with the sesame oil and some seasoning. Stir well.

Finely chop the beetroot leaves and stalks, then place in a hot pan with a little water and cover with a lid, allowing them to steam until tender. If using baby spinach instead, you can either wilt it in a hot pan or add it raw to the salad.

When the vegetables are cooked, allow them to cool for a few minutes before adding to the orange dressing. Add the spinach/beetroot leaves, and toss everything together. Pile onto plates, and top with the mackerel fillets.

New Year's Food Resolutions

2012-01-04T00:05:00.002Z

Happy New Year to all my readers! I hope the year ahead is full of exciting things for you all.

The turning of yet another year generally passes me by without much to mark it. It took me precisely one occasion of legally being able to drink on New Year's Eve to realise that going out via all the official channels - pubs, clubs, restaurants - is not only overrated but overpriced. It took one occasion of spending New Year's Eve on the sofa with my boyfriend to realise that I am a bit of a loser who is perfectly content with such domestic pursuits and in no way inclined to put on uncomfortable shoes and drink more wine than I want to in an attempt to have a good time on the one night of the year where it is apparently mandatory. I haven't bothered with new year's resolutions for years now - all the usual ones (healthy eating, going to the gym regularly, taking up a new hobby) I do anyway out of habit and without thinking about it.

This year, however, the new year seemed an occasion worth marking.

Perhaps it was because I actually had plans consisting of more than lying on the sofa watching the London fireworks (every year, along with most of the nation, remarking upon how horrible it must be having to try and get home through London as soon as those pretty lights end). I spent the turn of 2011 with some good friends, eating good food, drinking wine and generally indulging in those moments of amusing immaturity that I've so missed since leaving Oxford. It made me think about all the things that really matter, and in turn about what I want from the coming year and will strive to make happen.

So for the first time in ages I've actually made a list of new year's resolutions. The main theme is to get out more, do more interesting things, and see more of my friends, who I feel I've somewhat neglected over the past few months.

But, this being me, I've also made a separate list of food-related new year's resolutions. Because when planning for the year ahead you think about how to enrich or improve your life; when a large proportion of your life is food, it follows that you should make promises to yourself in that area too. So here they are, my food-related resolutions for 2012:

Make sourdough bread. I've been telling myself I'll do this for years now, but for some unknown reason I've never been able to take the plunge and complete that first step, even though it's laughably simple and - as far as I can glean - basically involves adding some water to some flour. Enough procrastinating: 2012 is going to be the year in which I make even myself jealous by constantly pulling freshly baked, tangy-crusted loaves from the oven.
Eat more cheese. Whenever I visit food festivals or markets and see the staggering array of different fermented milk on offer, I always chastise myself for basically eating the same three cheeses (feta, goat's and Parmesan) and never branching out. I sometimes think how terrible it would be if I died tomorrow and had never got around to tasting the sheer variety of cheese out there, especially as I have yet to find a cheese I don't like. This year I resolve to try and buy a different, new cheese at least every fortnight to try out and experiment with in recipes.
Make sticky toffee pudding. Probably my all-time favourite dessert (no pathetic panna cottas or crême brulées for me - I need something stodgy that comes with ice cream, or it's just not a fitting end to a meal), yet I've never tried to make one myself. I can't even claim it's because knowing what goes into it would put me off, as compared to something like a chocolate brownie it contains relatively little butter. I must definitely give this one a go, though I doubt my waistline will thank me for it - it's so damn moreish.
Experiment with my new waffle maker. My first attempt is documented, in pictorial form, above. It took a bit of fiddling with the temperature settings and trying different quantities of batter to get the waffles right, and I still feel there is room for improvement. Plus I haven't even begun to experiment with different toppings (for the above I just used sliced banana, ricotta, blueberries and toasted almonds) - I can't wait to try a savoury version with smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, or with poached rhubarb spooned over the top.
Use my cookbooks. I have a lot; I hoard them for their lovely photos and enticing descriptions. Yet the more I cook the more I become comfortable with inventing my own recipes, and rarely use cookbooks these days. However, I've recently been spoilt with a wealth of beautiful books for Christmas (most notably, Scandilicious by Signe Johansen and Roast Figs Sugar Snow by Diana Henry), and am determined not to let them stagnate on my bookshelves. Instead, I'm going to let them liberate me - sometimes it's nice to just have a set list of ingredients to buy and a few instructions to follow; it takes the hassle out of cooking.
Find a new lunch. For the last three years or so, I've eaten basically the same thing for lunch every day. Couscous, roasted vegetables (tomatoes and peppers, but sometimes squash, aubergine and red onion too), herbs (either mint, coriander or basil, or all three), and cheese (either feta or goat's). This is largely due to convenience - if you roast all the vegetables in a big batch at the beginning of the week, all you have to do each day is pour boiling water over the couscous and mix it all together. Delicious and nutritious. However, I feel it may be time to branch out. Not that I could ever get bored of the delicious sweet, charred edges of caramelised vegetables coupled with strong salty cheese, but I'm aiming this year to find something new that's just as tasty and convenient.
Use up my fancy storecupboard products. The relics of Christmases past, I have a whole cupboard full of lovely things like grilled marinated artichokes in oil; posh jams and chutneys from Fortnum & Mason; fig cheese; pasta flour; a small hunk of bottarga (dried fish roe, an Italian delicacy) purchased by my mum at vast expense from the Real Food Festival; dried chipotle chillies (not cheap); half the range of Tracklements mustards, one of which is personalised with my name on it...plus there are the things I've made myself, like bottled apricots and bottled rhubarb, which if I'm not careful will sit there until the next apricot and rhubarb seasons come around and therefore render the whole preservation process a tad pointless. I have an awful habit of hoarding things "for a special occasion" that then never arises. This year I will seize the day. Seize the beautiful and delicious yet pristine and unopened storecupboard goods. And eat them.
On a similar note...eat more jam and chutney. Simply because we have a whole kitchen cupboard that is testament to my love of preserving, and I can't fit any more homemade condiments in there. We have fig jam, apple jam, apple and blackberry jam, rhubarb orange and ginger jam, rhubarb chutney, tomato and chilli jam, quince jelly, quince paste, blackcurrant jam, marmalade...and those are just the ones I can actually remember. Perhaps I will combine this with resolution 1, and enjoy delicious toasted sourdough and jam in the mornings.
Utilise my comprehensive array of kitchen gadgets. I have a KitchenAid blender and a pasta machine that are just crying out for me to make more smoothies and ravioli.
Bake more scones. Because nothing is more conducive to the collective happiness of humanity and myself than the sight and aroma of a freshly baked tray of scones, still steaming when you prise them apart to smother their fluffy innards with jam and clotted cream.

So these are my food resolutions...what are yours?

Little pear, pecan and mincemeat cobblers

2011-12-28T09:47:00.003Z

I realise this post probably requires an explanation.

Because, of course, nobody in their right mind would want to be cooking, let alone eating, a cobbler right now. Nobody in their right mind would want to be eating anything at all right now. Maybe a few salad leaves and a piece of fruit. But certainly not anything involving butter, nuts or dried fruit soaked in alcohol.

I think I've had enough dried fruit soaked in alcohol to last at least until next Christmas. Everywhere I go, it's there, haunting me. Mince pies. Christmas cakes (why, oh why, did I decide to make TWO?). Christmas puddings (again, I made TWO). Stollen. My body yearns for sweet release from this culinary captivity, yet somehow I can't help myself.

Generally I have pretty good willpower. I have on several occasions got up bright and early after a very late night out, having had only four hours sleep, and cycled to the swimming pool to do sixty lengths before breakfast. Last weekend, after six days skiing and a 17-hour coach journey back from the Alps (again, involving approximately four hours sleep), instead of collapsing in bed with a cup of tea, I hurried to the swimming pool (and there discovered just how many muscles I'd damaged on the slopes). I'm pretty good at saying no to sugary and enticing foodstuffs unless I'm actually hungry or have been pretty physically active that day.

But waft the aroma of a freshly baked mince pie or loaf of stollen in my face, and I am powerless.

It's a sad cycle of despair and gratification, trying to decide if the sheer momentary pleasure of biting through a flaky, buttery crust to reach a pool of molten, sweet, sticky fruit is worth the subsequent (and much less fleeting) self-loathing, paranoia, and frenetic examination of my expanding hips in the mirror.

I blame the devil on my shoulder, telling me to lighten up (ironic, considering Christmas fare is anything but light) and just enjoy the festive season instead of worrying about what a few (OK, probably about twenty) mince pies will have done to my normally OK physique.

So I am trying not to be totally neurotic about the whole thing. However, I cannot deny that I do feel replete to the point of discomfort after Christmas. It's not just the sweet stuff, but the sheer onslaught of meat I have been forced to withstand, considering I normally only eat the stuff about three times a week. Roast turkey, yes, but also sausagemeat stuffing, sausages wrapped in bacon, sprouts with a bacon and chestnut crust, a whole baked ham, Mum's homemade sausage rolls. And then, for no apparent reason, my family decided we had to have a roast rib of beef for dinner, two days after Christmas lunch. Even the carnivores in my family seemed defeated by it, and much smaller portions were had than would normally be the case if we'd eaten this lovely roast any other time of the year.

Alas. So, you're probably wondering why on earth I've been baking pear and mincemeat cobblers during this troubling time. Well, the simple answer is that I haven't, actually. I made these a week or so before Christmas, when I was still in the midst of a rapturous love affair with mincemeat, nuts, baking and autumnal fruits.

I'm sharing them with you now for two reasons. Firstly, I imagine a lot of you probably have a bit of leftover mincemeat, can't face any more mince pies, and are wondering what to do with it. Secondly, if you've managed to be a bit more restrained than myself over Christmas, a lovely fruity dessert that still packs a festive punch might be just what you fancy.

Even in my mincemeated-out state, I can tell you that these are absolutely sumptuous. They take everything that is good about a mince pie, and almost make it better. Combining chopped ripe pear with the mincemeat and adding a little lemon juice takes the strong sugary and boozy edge off it, resulting in something much fresher, lighter and - I think - tastier. The toasted pecans add a gorgeous crunch and a lovely caramelly, nutty flavour that balances the tangy mincemeat perfectly. Adding a cobbler topping means you end up with a gorgeous fluffy scone-like dough that is soft in the middle and crispy on the top, soaked around its frayed edges with rich dark juice from the mincemeat and pears.

Scoop over some cold vanilla ice cream, and you have a fabulous dessert that is reminiscent of stollen, Christmas pudding and mince pies all rolled into one. Fluffy, sticky, dark and delicious.

And, amazingly, they're not even bad for you, really. My cobbler topping contains hardly any butter, using yoghurt to thicken it, and apart from that and the suet in the mincemeat there's no fat. OK, so you'd be better off with a solitary clementine, but relatively speaking, in the context of all those other Christmas delights, these are quite healthy.

Perhaps this is the perfect post-festive dessert, after all.

Do you have any interesting uses for mincemeat other than the classic mince pies? I'd love to hear them!

Pear and mincemeat cobblers (serves 4):

2 large/3 medium ripe pears (I used Comice)

125g mincemeat

Juice of half a lemon

Handful of pecan nuts, toasted in a dry pan and crumbled

100g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

15g cold butter, cut into cubes

15g light brown sugar

100ml plain yoghurt or buttermilk

4 tsp demerara sugar

Ice cream, to serve

Pre-heat the oven to 180C (170C fan oven).

Cut the pears into small cubes - you don't need to bother peeling them, but discard the core. In a bowl, mix them with the mincemeat, lemon juice and pecan nuts. Divide them between four 200ml ramekins (or if you don't have ramekins, just make a single large cobbler in a baking dish) and place in the oven for 10 minutes until the fruit has softened and released quite a bit of juice.

In a separate bowl, sift the flour with the baking powder and a pinch of salt. Add the butter and rub it in with your fingers until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the brown sugar. Mix in the yoghurt or buttermilk until you have a thick, scone-like dough.

Remove the ramekins from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Divide the dough mixture between the ramekins, dolloping it roughly on top (it doesn't have to cover all the fruit - in fact, it looks nicer when you can still see some luscious fruit bubbling up through the top). Sprinkle with the demerara sugar.

Bake in the oven for 25 minutes or until the cobbler is golden brown and the fruit is bubbling. Leave to cool for 5 minutes before serving with vanilla ice cream.

And a partridge in a...roast with pears

2011-12-24T13:00:00.000Z

It may not be very cool to say so, when the general trend appears to be to moan about it as much as possible, but I love Christmas. In fact, I love the few weeks before the big day more than the day itself. There are twinkly lights in the Cambridge streets, Christmas songs playing in the shops, cranberry sauce sitting in the fridge, and two heavy, alcohol-sodden Christmas cakes maturing happily in one of my kitchen cupboards. We were very organised this year and made the cakes a huge six weeks in advance, to allow time for 'feeding' them with copious quantities of brandy and rum - brandy for Delia's classic version; rum for a truly scrumptious-smelling tropical version by Fiona Cairns, resplendent with jewel-like chunks of dried mango, apricot, pineapple, dates and raisins and rich with the aroma of crystallised ginger, lime zest and treacle. I can't wait to get my teeth into a slice of it, though I'll wait until it is thoroughly inebriated before I do so.

What better way to celebrate all things festive than with a dish that echoes a famous Christmas carol?

The 'partridge in a pear tree' notion holds fond memories for me. Two years ago I dressed up as a partridge in a pear tree for our URNU (University Royal Naval Unit) Christmas party. It was an inspired costume, even if I do say so myself. I wore a green dress (the tree), brown tights and boots (the tree trunk), a string of pears and leaves around my neck, and clipped a fake, feathered bird into my hair. Not only did I win the prize for best costume, but that was also the night my boyfriend and I got together - I can't help but think it was my avian sartorial ingenuity that sealed the deal.

Partridge are, of course, for life - not just for Christmas. When I'm not exploiting their potential for Christmas costume possibilities, I'm plotting the best ways in which to devour them.

I found three brace of partridge for £11 at a butcher in Yorkshire a few weeks ago - an obscenely good bargain, which made this dish taste even more delicious. Like hunger, frugality is an excellent sauce.

I've cooked with partridge a few times, but don't have a true favourite recipe yet, so I decided to try one from Nigel Slater that I'd bookmarked when I bought his book Tender, Part II (pretty much my kitchen Bible, given my love of fruit in cooking). I couldn't resist the notion of coupling partridge with pear, in a nod to that classic carol. Some might argue there's something slightly morbid about that...a bit like serving rabbit on a bed of lettuce and carrots - Nigella Lawson has a recipe for "Peter Rabbit in Mr McGregor's Salad" which does just that. Try not to think about it too much.

The beauty of this partridge recipe is that it is quick and easy, but gives impressive and delicious results. The birds are basted with a herby butter to keep them moist, then wrapped in streaky bacon to seal in the juices. They are roasted with herbs and slices of caramelised pear; the bacon is removed near the end to allow the skin to crisp up. The end result is an array of lovely little burnished birds, slices of crunchy bacon, and tender, juicy pear segments to contrast wonderfully with the grainy, gamey flesh of the birds. You also end up with some juices left in the pan, to which you can add a little redcurrant jelly and make a nice gravy.

This, for me, is what game is all about. Keeping the meat moist with some butter, using some lovely autumnal flavours (thyme, rosemary, juniper), and serving it with a fruity accompaniment. I also roasted some squash with rosemary and steamed some savoy cabbage to go alongside.

Autumn on a plate, with whispers to come of Christmas.

Roast partridge, juniper and thyme (serves 4):

Adapted from Nigel Slater - recipe here and in 'Tender, Part II'.

4 young, plump partridges
6 sprigs of thyme

4 sprigs of rosemary, leaves finely chopped
12 juniper berries
100g butter
8 rashers of streaky bacon
2 pears
A squeeze of lemon juice
2 tbsp redcurrant, rowan or quince jelly
A glass of vermouth or white wine

Check the birds all over before you start for any stray feathers or bits of shattered bone. Set the oven at 220C/200C fan oven.

Pull the leaves from the thyme branches and mash them with the juniper berries, rosemary, butter and a hefty pinch of sea salt and black pepper, using a pestle and mortar. Reserve a tablespoon for cooking the pears, then spread this butter all over the birds, and particularly on their breasts.

Lay the bacon rashers on a chopping board then stretch them with the flat of a knife blade to make them longer and thinner. Wrap them round the birds. Place in a roasting tin.

Cut the pears into thick slices, toss them in a little lemon juice, and cook briefly in a little of the herb butter in a shallow, non-stick pan. When both sides are pale gold, transfer them to the roasting tin. Roast for 20 minutes, then peel off the bacon, setting it aside if it is crisp enough or leaving it if not, then return the birds to the oven for a further 10 minutes.

Remove the tin from the oven and set the birds, bacon and pear to rest (I put them on a plate, covered with tin foil). Put the roasting tin over a moderate flame, drop in the jelly and let it melt into the pan juices, add a small glass of wine and stir to dissolve the pan-stickings. Bring to the boil, put the birds and their bits and pieces on to warm plates, then spoon over the 'gravy'.

Daring Cooks: Cha Sui Bao

2011-12-14T09:50:00.000Z

Our Daring Cooks’ December 2011 hostess is Sara from Belly Rumbles! Sara chose awesome Char Sui Bao as our challenge, where we made the buns, Char Sui, and filling from scratch – delicious!

I'm very excited to share my first ever Daring Cooks challenge. For those of you who don't know/haven't heard of the Daring Kitchen, it's home to two groups - the Daring Cooks and Daring Bakers. Basically the idea is that one member sets a challenge each month for everyone else to follow - usually an interesting and possibly complex recipe that bloggers then work to recreate, posting about their progress on a given date. I've been lurking in the forums for months now, but for one reason or another have never been able to complete the given challenges (I was all set to do one of them, then got food poisoning, was unable to eat for a week and thus missed the deadline!) However, I finally got there and relished the opportunity to make Cha Sui Bao, or Chinese pork buns.

I first tried these on my Mum's birthday this year - we went for dim sum in Cambridge and I insisted we order these, as I'd always been intrigued and had never tried them. What arrived, nestled snugly in their bamboo steamer, wisps of steam gently curling around them, were glorious concoctions of meaty, flavoursome pork filling encased in a feather-light duvet of dough. The dough was pure white, with the incredible cloud-like texture of a marshmallow. It was slightly sweet, which went really well with the richness of the pork filling. I enjoyed these immensely, and announced to my family my intention to recreate them at some point.

Fortunate, then, that December's Daring Cooks challenge required just that.

To start with, I made the pork filling for the recipe. Sara suggested two different marinades for the pork; I opted for the first one, which used red food colouring to give an 'authentic' look. I put the pork (pork fillet or tenderloin) in a nice bath of garlic, ginger, soy sauce, honey, hoi sin, rice wine, sesame oil and five spice (among other ingredients) and left it to marinate for a day or so.

Next, I cooked the pork for the filling. Sara suggested three methods: baking in the oven, searing in a pan then baking in the oven, or barbecuing. Given that barbecues in my house take about four hours and are strictly reserved for the height of summer, I opted for method number two. I pan-seared the pork, put it in the oven for 15 minutes, and was rewarded with beautifully moist meat with a gorgeous charred exterior. It was so delicious, I ended up eating half of it while dicing it for the next step (leftovers, incidentally, were excellent the next day stir-fried with some vegetables).

Next, I stir-fried the cubed pork with more soy sauce, hoi sin, spring onions, and some stock and cornflour to thicken the mixture. It was then ready to fill the buns. I did find the pork filling a little on the sweet side - if when I make these again, I think I'll use a little less hoi sin, which is extremely sweet.

I chose to make steamed buns, though Sara also provided a recipe for baked buns. I wanted that gorgeous squishy doughiness that steaming gives, that I remembered so well from my dim sum lunch. The recipe required me to make a basic dough, using milk instead of water, along with flour, a little oil, a little sugar and some salt. This was left to rise for a couple of hours.

Filling the buns was rather like making ravioli. I divided the risen dough into 20 portions, rolled each out into a little flat circle, then put a teaspoon of filling in the centre before pulling the dough up around the pork. They looked like miniature sacks of money or potatoes when I was finished. They then were left to rest for 20 minutes before I put them in a steamer to cook them. I don't have a bamboo steamer so I used an ordinary metal steamer, and it worked fine.

The result? Wonderful. The dough was soft and light, the filling meaty and rich with a hint of sweetness as well as the punch of garlic and ginger. I served these with a big bowl of stir-fried vegetables, and it was one of the most simple yet satisfying meals I've had lately. I just adore that combination of squidgy dough with a rich, dense filling - it's why I love ravioli so much.

I think I'll have to make these again, and I'd really recommend trying them. They're not particularly difficult to make - if you marinate the pork and prepare the filling one evening, all you have to do the next day is make and fill the dough, which requires very little hands-on time (no faffing around rolling out dough through a machine, like with ravioli).

I love how sweet and self-contained they are, gorgeous little parcels of meaty goodness. The filling especially is fabulous - if you don't get round to making buns, I'd really recommend the delicious marinade for the pork - you could just serve it sliced in a stir fry or with some rice and greens. It's quite sweet, but with plenty of tang from the garlic, ginger, soy and five-spice. My Mum remarked that it tasted "very authentic". As someone with more experience of eating Chinese food than myself, I take that as a compliment.

One thing, though - my dough did not achieve that white marshmallow-like texture that I remember from the restaurant. Any idea how they get that? Mine was more the colour of uncooked bread dough, and not quite as fluffy as the restaurant's pork buns (though it was still really light and lovely). If anyone has any insider knowledge I'd love to hear it!

For the challenge recipe, click here.

Cranberry and orange Christmas Tree cake

2011-12-09T15:01:00.000Z

Cranberries are a mysterious beast. I read an article by Nigel Slater recently in which he posited them as remarkable because "they are the only fruit that's impossible to eat raw". Now, I wouldn't have thought this was true. What about quinces, whose flesh is grainy, rock-hard and bitter when untempered by heat and sugar? What about gooseberries, mouth-puckeringly sharp and requiring a good blanket of the white stuff to calm them down? Surely Nigel has thought of this, though, experienced culinary connoisseur that he is. Maybe the cranberry really is a different creature altogether. I can't say I've eaten enough raw cranberries, gooseberries and quinces to experience the subtle nuances of their varying astringency.

I do know, however, that I get a bit excited by cranberries at this time of year, purely because they're around for such a short period of time. They're a beautiful fruit, both when raw and jewel-like and when heated to a glossy, blood-red mass. I always find it slightly odd that something from so far away can be perceived as quintessentially English. The Christmas table would be conspicuously lacking without a bowl of cranberry sauce, yet those berries have travelled across the Atlantic to get here. I love the magpie-like tendency of the British when it comes to gastronomy.

Cranberries make a great compote to serve with pancakes; try these 'cheesecake' pancakes for a real treat on Christmas morning. The compote can also be served over good ice cream or stirred into a cake batter; you could even use it to top a festive pavlova.

However, one of my favourite ways with cranberries is to combine them with orange in a lovely fluffy cake batter. Years ago, when I started getting into baking, I made a lot of orange and cranberry muffins from one of my mum's cake cookbooks. It was a really simple recipe, but the results were so delicious. You ended up with a really light cake crumb, infused with the warmth of orange, and peppered with refreshing bursts of scarlet berries, molten from the heat of the oven and bleeding their tart juices into the surrounding sponge.

This recipe revisits those muffins, but in the form of a whole cake. When I spied these gorgeous Christmas tree-shaped disposable cake moulds in Lakeland the other day, I couldn't resist. I figured they'd be great for gift cakes, because the mould can just be thrown away afterwards. As it happened, I was planning to bake some cakes to give to the families whose children I tutor.

Some of my more wild decoration ideas had to be scrapped for the simple reason that I'd be cycling to the station with these two cakes, and the suspension on my bike is definitely not good enough to carry a cake safely over the potholes of Cambridge's roads. In the end I just drizzled some clementine-flavoured white icing over the cakes and decorated them with those little silver balls, to look like baubles.

The cake recipe is really simple: basic creaming of butter and sugar, plus some orange zest, then eggs, flour, and a little orange juice. The cranberries go in at the end. I normally go mad and add all sorts of nuts and spices to my cakes, but this one is perfect in its simplicity. Somehow the orange zest is enough to evoke the fragrant warmth of mulled wine, Christmas pudding and mince pies, all in one go. The cranberries add a lovely moisture to the cake, and I think they look beautiful when the cake is baked, too, flecking the golden sponge with their crimson juices.

If this doesn't have you feeling in the mood for Christmas, I don't know what will!

Do you have any novel ways of using cranberries, apart from in the traditional Christmas condiment?

Cranberry and orange Christmas Tree cakes (makes two cakes to fit two Lakeland Christmas tree moulds, or 2 x 20cm round cakes - halve the recipe to make just one cake):

500g unsalted butter, softened
300g caster sugar
200g light brown soft sugar
Grated zest of 4 oranges
150ml orange juice
8 eggs, beaten
500g self-raising flour, sifted
200g fresh cranberries
Icing sugar, silver balls and a clementine, to decorate

Pre-heat the oven to 170C/fan 160C. If using normal cake tins, grease and line them.

Beat the butter, zest and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy (this should take around 5 minutes). Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition and adding 1tbsp of the flour each time. Finally, fold in the flour and slowly mix in the orange juice. Fold in the cranberries.

Pour the mixture into the tins and bake for around 45 minutes, or until they spring back when touched and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

When the cakes have cooled thoroughly, remove from their tins (if using metal tins). Mix icing sugar with a little clementine juice to form a fairly runny white icing, then drizzle this over the cake. Stick silver balls to the icing.

Love Music Love Food: the Rock Star Cookbook

2011-12-08T11:27:00.000Z

I will admit to, on several occasions, having judged a book not quite by its cover, but by the photos it contains. This is especially true of cookbooks; I know it's bad, but those without photos are generally unlikely to end up in my literal or Amazon shopping basket. I know I'm not alone in this; quite often, it's the mouthwatering photo of a dish that catches your eye and makes you try something new. Ingredient combinations that sound weird on the page suddenly make a whole lot of sense when displayed there in photographic reality.

Love Music Love Food: The Rock Star Cookbook from Quadrille publishers takes this to an entire new level. It will have you gawking at its pages in a way probably no other recipe book ever could.

From the eye-catching cover photo of Juliette Lewis straddling a guitar and sitting in a pool of berries spreading a crimson, blood-like stain across the floor, the photography in this book is absolutely exquisite; it immediately becomes apparent that this is less of a cookbook than a coffee table tome to be savoured and treasured. Its photographer, Patrice de Villiers, has won many awards for her work, and a quick flick through the book shows you why. As Heston Blumenthal in his foreword asks, "Who else could get a pop star to pose naked in a bath of noodles?"

"If music be the food of love, does that mean that the love of music and the love of food are somehow intertwined?" the preface to Love Music Love Food asks. The book works on that premise, interviewing musicians about their food likes and dislikes, capturing them in provocative, exciting and occasionally risque poses with said foodstuffs, and accompanying each feature with a recipe (written by Sarah Muir, who cooked for bands and their crews for over 20 years) based on the musicians' revelations. It was produced in support of Teenage Cancer Trust; the artists appearing in its pages are primarily those who have supported the charity over the years.

In the afterword, Patrice discusses the story behind the project. It started with a chat with Matt Bellamy from Muse, who talked about making his own pasta. "Having just seen the band amidst twenty thousand screaming fans this seemed a little incongruous, but even rock stars have to eat. So why not find out what rocks their foodie boats and, as a food photographer who loves music, put these two things together, combining two huge passions in a collection of images?"

Over 60 musicians feature in the book; some notable names include Paul Weller, Sugababes, We Are Scientists, Tinie Tempah, Buzzcocks, Cliff Richard, Katie Melua, Noel Gallagher, Brian May, Biffy Clyro, The Kooks and Jo Wood. Each have a lot to say about food; some are rather serious, others more tongue-in-cheek, but every interview is entertaining and revealing. Sushi appears to be a common theme, with raw fish recipes ranging from sashimi to ceviche taking up a large portion of the pages. There's a gorgeous photo of Katie Melua posing with a guitar that appears to be almost entirely made out of sushi rolls. Mum's cooking seems to be another common theme, especially if it's a roast, as does quintessentially 'British' fare such as fish and chips, Heinz baked beans and sausages ("English soul food", according to Mani of the Stone Roses and Primal Scream).

Important discoveries include: "rock musicians like anything with chilli in it. America can put a man on the moon but they still can't make a decent cup of tea. Rock musicians really like sushi...And rock musicians really, really like curry". Rolf Harris confesses that he gets withdrawal symptoms if he doesn't have curry for a few days, while Rhys from Goldie Lookin' Chain apparently eats so much that "my missus says I smell like a jar of it".

West London rapper Example reveals himself to be an enormous fan of Nando's, so much so that he launched his album with a 'world tour' of London's branches of the chicken restaurant. However, his featured foodstuff is Jaffa Cakes. Why? "I feel like I've given a lot of love to Nando's. They're doing well. Jaffa Cakes are a different obsession. There's nothing that tastes like them....there's a bit of orange in there so you can tell yourself you're being healthy. It's one of your five-a-day, really".

The Kooks turn out to be gastronomes after my own heart, blaming cheap food and industrialised farming for animal cruelty, not meat-eating itself. They too are hankering after a trip to the Fat Duck, although worried that "afterwards, everything else might taste rubbish". Band member Hugh admits he is "into weird food, food that scares you". He recalls a time in Hong Kong where he ate "what is supposed to be the best part of a chicken, which is the brain - right out of the skull with chopsticks. And it was a kind of creamy, cheesy, smokey, buttery goo of loveliness, like melted foie gras. It tasted like a delicious cloud". Fortunately, the accompanying photo and recipe do not involve chicken brains; the Kooks are also big fans of lamb, and the photo depicts them sitting in a country kitchen eyeing up a large sheep standing on the table, with a recipe for Arabian lamb skewers.

On top of the exquisite photography, the book is full of interesting insights:

"Sausages were rubbish when we had a Tory government...then Labour got in and they became great! The moral is, vote Labour if you want good sausages." (Mani from the Stone Roses and Primal Scream)
"The sun and the grapefruit have a lot in common, don't they? The great yellow orb...there may be some cosmic resonance there. Perhaps the grapefruit is mimicking the shape of the sun which gave it life? There is so much we don't understand..." (Brian May of Queen)
"If you're hungry enough, any meal is going to taste like manna from heaven" (Kelly Jones of Stereophonics)
"The love of a good pie is a powerful thing" (Suggs of Madness)
"An English Sunday roast is a special ritual all of its own" (Simon Nicol of Fairport Convention)
"Asian breakfasts can be a bit tricky. It's a bit too textural for first thing in the morning" (Newton Faulkner)
"Musicians are highly sensitised to things that have a lot of craftmanship in them...and cooking is one of those things" (Brian 'BT' Transeau)

One of my favourite interviews is with Noel Gallagher, who is even pickier about his Yorkshire Tea than I am ("Milk goes in last. Put your sugar in first, with the teabag, then fill it up to about an inch from the top and leave it for a good while. It's got to be the exact same colour as the Quality Streets toffees in the yellow wrapper, or it's going down the sink"). Apparently Paul Weller's tea making "leaves a lot to be desired. It's pretty watery and the colour's not right", and you can't get decent tea in America because "the whole country runs on coffee, caffeine and people talking a load of shit". The accompanying recipe is for the 'Perfect Cuppa', and is provided by Taylor's of Harrogate, who make Yorkshire tea (as I have a good deal of Yorkshire in my blood, I approve of this immensely). The accompanying photo features Noel standing next to a guitar case overflowing with Yorkshire teabags.

As Brett Anderson (of Suede) remarks, "Music, food and sex are the three most important things in life". This book often combines all three, from the beautiful shot of a naked VV Brown dripping with marmite to the picture of Siouxsie Sioux lying back, clad in thigh-high boots, on a bed of boiled eggs and beans on toast.

I love "the most Scottish and the most metal photograph ever taken", featuring Biffy Clyro stripped to the waist and brandishing swords impaled with haggis. There's Johnny Borrell embracing an enormous salmon, Brian May surrounded by spinning grapefruits designed to look like orbiting planets, White Lies dressed up as Domino's pizza delivery men accompanied by huge stacks of pizza, as well as several stylish shots of guitars and amps covered in food (wrapped in noodles, dripping with sticky fig syrup, oysters perched on top...).

In fact, this book is more about the photography than the food. The recipes are interesting, sometimes gimicky (Jaffa Cake Semifreddo, anyone?) but they're quite small and appear more as afterthoughts to the interviews and the accompanying pictures. However, if you are a really ardent fan of some of the musicians in the book, I'm sure you might be inspired to give some of the recipes a go; they range from the simple (Pie & Mash) to the rather more complex (Giant crab salad nigiri with wasabi tobiko).

Predominantly, though, this is one of those photo books designed to sit on the coffee table and attract delighted attention from visitors. Its sturdy hardback presentation and glossy pages feel incredibly luxurious as you leaf through them (I always prefer hardback cookbooks; they feel so much more durable and special); far too good to be splattered during cooking. I want to keep the pages open on display somewhere; it would be a real shame to tuck this delightful relic away on a shelf. The hard work and creativity that has gone into its pages are evident everywhere.

I'd urge you to go and get a copy of Love Music Love Food, especially in the run up to Christmas - it would make a perfect gift for anyone with even an idle inclination for music and/or gastronomy. It feels truly special, not disposable or merely functional like some cookbooks. This book exudes vibrance, glamour and style, and - in a metaphor combining the book's two selling points - is truly a feast for the eyes.

Tropical granola

2011-12-05T19:21:00.000Z

Health food stores really are such depressing places. The musty smell of arid, desiccated fruits and nuts; the greying packets of various withering beans and seeds; the assortment of tragic soy products that with every bite remind you how much you crave a huge, bloody, juicy steak; the lingering odour of crushed hopes and disappointment as yet another jar of £18 coconut oil fails to transform you into Miranda Kerr overnight. And why is it that customers browsing in health food stores are such a poor advert for the stores themselves? I can't say I've ever entered a health food store, seen someone poring over a shelf of Manuka honey or powdered flaxseed and thought "woah, I'd better get me some of that if it means I can look like him/her". Generally, health food stores are seen as breeding grounds for the socked-and-sandalled, the hairy-legged, the old and mad. You can feel the vim, zest and gusto being slowly sucked out of your soul as soon as you cross the threshold of one, as if some kind of health Dementor had zoomed down upon you and sucked your joie de vivre out through your mouth, replacing it with a pint of cod liver oil or an omega-3 supplement.

If I were the CEO of Holland & Barrett or the like, I'd kick-start an elaborate and extremely lucrative marketing campaign. Taking my inspiration from Abercrombie & Fitch, I'd replace all the store assistants with lithe, muscular young things with glossy hair and perfect teeth. I'd then stick a couple more of these young things in every store, masquerading as browsing customers - rather like plain clothes policemen. Companies would pay me millions in advertising to have one of these blooming beauties purring over one of their products for the entire day, ensuring every customer that came through the door bought one in order to guarantee their own healthy dose of gorgeousness. There they'd stand, pouting prettily as if deep in thought, turning that jar of sugar-free fruit spread over so as to read the nutrition information, flicking their waist-length curtain of blonde hair to one side to get a better look at the number of carbs per gram, seductively caressing the curvaceous exterior of the jar. Sales would skyrocket, profits would double, and we'd all be a lot healthier for it, I'm sure.

I'm almost reluctant to post this groundbreaking idea on the internet without patenting it first.

It's a shame, really, because a lot of the stuff health food stores are selling is really very tasty when used in the right way. Yes, there are a lot of horrible oddities that I would rather cook my own cat than eat, but generally you can find weird and wonderful ingredients that, with the right know-how and probably more than a little butter, you can transform into something delicious.

They're always good for finding the more obscure dried fruits that small supermarkets are unlikely to have: cranberries, mango, pineapple, papaya. They're also a treasure trove of tasty seeds for making bread: linseed, pumpkin seed, poppy seed, sunflower seed. You can usually find store-cupboard staples like tahini paste and the super-trendy rapeseed oil, as well as slightly lesser-known pulses and grains that are always handy for more exotic recipes.

What you can also find are the ingredients for this granola, and that is reason enough to celebrate the humble (if slightly depressing and musty) health food store.

Those of you who know me or read this blog often will know that I am a huge fan of breakfast. Quite literally, huge. The size of my morning bowl of porridge or muesli never fails to draw comments from friends/boyfriend/family (imagine how many oats you'd need to feed a stable of horses. Add how much milk you'd need to feed a barn of baby cows. Heat up. Stir in half an orchard's worth of fruit, and serve in a vat). It's my favourite meal of the day, and one I always love to experiment with. Though generally I rotate between porridge, muesli, and homemade soda bread with homemade jam, or ricotta cheese.

One of my favourite cereals is Jordan's Crunchy Oats. I discovered this in the early days of my relationship with my boyfriend - after one 'let's-impress-the-new-girlfriend' breakfast of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, he clearly realised he had secured my affections and complacently reverted to cereal from the cupboard. Not just any cereal, though - my first mouthful of this I still remember quite clearly. "WOW! It tastes like flapjack!" I exclaimed in delight, before proceeding to demolish the rest of the bowl and - I imagine - help myself to three more, firmly establishing early on that I was not some girl to be fobbed off with a handful of muesli. Proper breakfasts only, please, or I will go elsewhere.

The problem, as you might suspect, with cereal that tastes like a flapjack is that it is loaded with fat and sugar, as I discovered one sad morning upon looking at the back of the bag (until then, said boyfriend had decanted the cereal into a plastic tupperware. I wish he had done this before I sneaked a peek at the bag. Not only had that tupperware preserved the cereal; it had preserved my innocence). Oh Jordan's, how could you let me down? I always assumed anything bearing your brand name was guaranteed to keep me slim. Maybe it is, if you stick to the recommended serving size. Unfortunately, there is no way I could eat Crunchy Oats in the quantity I would want every morning and not have thighs the size of Asia.

It's the same story for most granola. The whole point of granola is that it is sweet and crunchy. To facilitate this, you have to coat the oats in something that will toast, usually oil, and something sweet, usually pure sugar or - not really any better, calore-wise - honey. The end result is perhaps a little better for you than a chocolate bar, but not by much, especially as its so damn moreish that you'll eat far more than is healthy. 'Everything in moderation' is an impossible maxim to follow when it comes to granola (other things it fails to apply to are: chocolate buttons, chocolate fingers, satsumas, grated cheese, pringles, chocolate-covered raisins).

But do not despair, lovers of all things oaty, toasty and sweet - there is a solution. Make your own.

By making your own granola, you know exactly how much fat and sugar goes into it. You can control this - there are clever ways to cut this down and end up with a much more healthy product. Even if you're not so bothered about the fat and sugar, making your own granola has another perk - you can make it just the way you like it, adding the nuts and fruit that you love without having to be dictated to by the arbitrary whims of Kelloggs or Jordan's. Hate raisins? Find the fact that all muesli inevitably contains raisins the bane of your grape-loving life? Don't put them in! Allergic to nuts? Fine, chuck in more fruit instead! Want your kitchen to smell like heaven as you toast a batch of sweet, nutty oats to crunchy perfection? Do it!

I tried to make my own granola a couple of years ago while at university, but it was a bit of a disaster. Namely, I burnt it. The result was barely edible, the almonds coated with sticky black carbon, the whole thing possessing a bitter aftertaste that even handfuls of raisins could not counteract.

This, however, is the stuff of breakfast joy. It's slightly sweet, delightfully crunchy, and has beautiful bursts of sweetness from the fruit and toasty nuttiness from the coconut and almonds. It's also much better for you than anything you'll buy in the shops, and infinitely cheaper too. I bought the muesli base mix, fruit, almonds and coconut from the health food shop for about £6, but it made the equivalent of over three bags of supermarket granola, which often command a hefty price tag of at least £3.50 each. Money and calories saved - hurrah.

The key is to use unsweetened apple compote to coat the oats for toasting, instead of any oil. The Americans are big on this - you'll see "unsweetened applesauce" used as a substitute for butter and oil in a lot of recipes. It's not easy to find over here (you definitely don't want to buy 'apple sauce', as you'll most likely end up with something more suited to roast pork that homemade granola), but it's easy enough to make your own - peel, core and chop some cooking apples, simmer in a little water until mushy, then whisk or blend to a puree. If you make a big batch you can freeze it in bags so all you have to do next time you want to make granola is get one out to defrost the night before.

Yes, there is added sugar, in the form of honey or maple syrup, but it's not drowning in the stuff. Other than that, it's just cinnamon, vanilla, a little salt, and all natural goodness from the nuts and fruit. There's a hint of sweetness, but not enough to make you feel guilty. There's no fat added, only the natural (good) fats from the nuts. Admittedly, dried papaya and pineapple contain a lot of sugar, but you can omit these or replace them with healthier dates, apple, prunes or apricots instead, just as you can skip the nuts if you're really worried about fat.

That's the beauty of homemade granola - you can put whatever you like into your base of crunchy oats. I call this 'tropical' because it features coconut, papaya and pineapple. The combination is a really delicious one, but I'm also keen to have a go at an 'orchard' variety featuring dried apples and prunes. Use the recipe below as your guide, but have fun experimenting with whatever fruit and nuts you like.

Breakfast just got infinitely better.

Have you ever made your own cereal or granola? What flavour combinations do you love most at breakfast?

Tropical granola (makes about 1.5kg)

1kg muesli base mix (available in health food shops or some large supermarkets)

320ml apple compote (cook chopped apples with a little water until turned to mush - any left over will freeze for another batch of granola)

120g runny honey or maple syrup

1.5 tsp vanilla extract

1.5 tsp ground cinnamon

3/4 tsp salt

100g flaked almonds

50g desiccated coconut or 100g flaked coconut

125g mixed dried papaya and pineapple, or 65g of each

150g raisins

Pre-heat the oven to 170C/160C fan oven. In a large bowl, whisk together the apple compote, honey/syrup, vanilla, cinnamon and salt. Add the muesli mix and stir well, ensuring all the mix is evenly coated with the wet ingredients.

Spread the mixture out evenly on two large baking sheets and put in the oven for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes to make sure it toasts evenly. After 30 minutes, add the almonds and coconut and bake for another 10 minutes.

When cool, mix in the dried fruit. Put in a jar or plastic box and save for breakfast (if you have the willpower).

Food Bloggers Unplugged: Nutmegs, seven

2011-12-02T17:40:00.001Z

I was recently tagged by thelittleloaf (whose chocolate and chestnut cake I am currently ogling and planning to replicate) in a post for Food Bloggers Unplugged - designed to help you find out more about the people behind those culinary endeavours you peruse every day.

In the spirit of Christmas and a spot of harmless self-indulgence, here I have bared my soul to reveal all my deepest, darkest kitchen secrets (or something).

What, or who inspired you to start a blog?

I think various friends had been suggesting it to me, after I continually assaulted their Facebook feeds with photos of my gastronomic adventures. I can't remember what finally made me decide to take the plunge, though I think it had a lot to do with some pigeon. I had been on a wander to town one day, and spied some gorgeous wood pigeon on offer at the butcher. I bought six, with no idea why, invited friends round and then decided what on earth I was going to do with them. That feeling of being totally inspired by food, of being really excited about the kitchen adventures you're going to embark on that evening, was something I kept experiencing and finally decided I should document.

Who is your foodie inspiration?

I love Yotam Ottolenghi's food. I love his use of weird and wonderful ingredients and exciting flavour combinations that work against all the odds. I always get excited when his recipes come out in the Guardian on a Saturday.

Your greasiest, batter–splattered food/drink book is?

Hmm. I don't use recipe books that much - I tend to ogle them briefly, then consign their contents to my mental 'recipe index' for inspiration at a later date. However, I went through a phase of cooking a lot from Claudia Roden's Arabesque, and I frequently turn to the books of Nigel Slater, Yotam Ottolenghi and Diana Henry for inspiration.

Tell us all about the best thing you have ever eaten in another country, where was it, what was it?

Several things vie for this prestigious accolade, many of them consumed in Italy. The sausagemeat ravioli with sage butter sauce at a trattoria in Bergamo is definitely a highlight - so much so that I returned, three years later, to eat it again. There was also a beautiful tarte tatin, the best I've ever had, at a restaurant in Nice. Plus trdlo, an amazing Czech sweet dough concoction that I raved about here. I found Syrian kibbeh - lemon-shaped patties of bulgur wheat wrapped around lamb mince with pine nuts and then deep fried - incredibly addictive, and wish they were easier to find here. But to be honest, I have so many amazing food memories from my various travels that I couldn't list them all.

Another food blogger’s table you’d like to eat at is?

Sonia from The Healthy Foodie - her blog pretty much encapsulates my ideas about food. The recipes all look wonderful, and I really want to try her healthy dessert recipes and see if they really do have that "I can't believe this is healthy!" factor.

On the opposite end of the scale, thelittleloaf - because, honestly, what is better than homemade bread?

What is the one kitchen gadget you would ask Santa for this year (money no object of course)?

A KitchenAid waffle maker. I'm asking Santa for a waffle maker anyway (imagine the potential! Pancakes but with little squares to hold all the sauce!), but in an ideal world I'd have a beautiful red KitchenAid one - I'm a bit obsessed with KitchenAid; it seems to be a trait most food bloggers exhibit.

Who taught you how to cook?

Cookbooks and Masterchef. My Mum taught me some baking skills, but as I refused to eat most things as a child there wasn't much opportunity for her to teach me anything else.

I’m coming to you for dinner, what’s your signature dish?

Probably a tagine. Anything that marries meat or fish with fruit; it seems to be a hallmark of my cooking. I also make a great cheesecake.

What is your guilty food pleasure?

That depends what you mean by guilty. If it's guilty because it's ludicrously simple, perhaps a bit weird and something you wouldn't expect from a self-confessed food snob like myself, then it would have to be a cottage cheese sandwich. No one can understand, given my hatred of liquid dairy (cream, milk, yoghurt, etc.) why I love cottage cheese. I can't explain it either, but I especially like the pineapple variety.

If by guilty you mean 'intensely calorific and something you really shouldn't eat if you want your 2k morning swim to mean ANYTHING', then it would have to be either crumble or sticky toffee pudding. Or treacle tart. That is my magic triumvirate of desserts.

Reveal something about yourself that others would be surprised to learn?

Oh god. That's one of those "give an interesting fact about yourself" questions in disguise. Hmm...I have an orange belt in kickboxing, and I hate parsnips.

Finally…tag 5 other food bloggers with these questions…like a hot baked potato…pass it on!

Sonia from The Healthy Foodie
Nelly from Nelly's Cupcakes
Kelly from Inspired Edibles
Jackie from I am a feeder
Rosana from Hot & Chilli

Spiced pumpkin and pecan cheesecake

2011-11-29T21:19:00.000Z

Is it possible to have a craving for something you've never eaten before?

I suppose it is, if you think about bizarre pregnancy cravings. Soap, coal, chalk, cigarette butts and laundry detergent are, apparently, not uncommon cravings for women with child. They're not items you're likely to have tasted before in life. I didn't eat pasta until I was around fourteen years old (shocking, I know). The first time I did, it was because I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to make myself a bowl of pasta (with oodles of grated cheese and a bit of crispy bacon, in fact). I can't really explain this; I just knew I'd like it.

So it is really quite plausible that over the last few weeks I've had a huge craving for pumpkin pie.

Being an American dessert, associated with Thanksgiving and this festive time of year, it's unsurprising that I, living in the practically provincial locale of Cambridge (UK), have never tried such a thing. However, Tastespotting and Foodgawker keep festooning my eyes lately with images of luscious-looking pumpkin pies when I'm trawling through their images during my daily food porn fix. Fluffy and creamy and delightfully marigold, they whisper sweet promises of sugar and spice and nutty, caramel undertones. Although I have never been near a real-life pumpkin pie, I can practically taste one as I ogle those gorgeous images.

Baking with pumpkin really isn't that odd. It's no different to making carrot cake, which we love over here in the UK - they're both orange root vegetables with a natural sweetness and moisture that makes them perfectly suited to baking. I first tried using pumpkin here, when I made some delicious little cake squares using butternut squash. I love the complex flavour of cooked pumpkin, sweet and nutty and buttery all at the same time, so I knew I'd love it when combined with other sweet things.

What I've made here is not really authentic, in that it's more of a cheesecake than a pie. There's no pastry involved. However, there is pumpkin, sugar and lots of autumnal spice, so I think it counts. It's also utterly delicious. The base is a simple mix of ginger nut biscuits and butter (can't really go wrong there - quite a lot of it ended up in my tummy before it ended up in the tin), with a filling of pumpkin and cream cheese bound together with egg and flavoured with orange zest, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and vanilla. Oh my, it is good.

I think, in terms of texture and appearance, this is the best cheesecake I've ever made. The filling was the absolute perfect consistency, soft and almost mousse-like but still substantially creamy. I wonder if this is down to the fact that I put a tray of water in the oven while it cooked, to create a sort of steam bath for the cake. It didn't stop a couple of cracks appearing on the top, but it definitely gave it a wonderful texture far superior to any cheesecake I've made before. Instead of being a little dry and crumbly, it was perfectly moist and indulgent. This could, of course, be due to the addition of the pumpkin purée.

Because a) I was too lazy to make my own and b) I wanted something vaguely authentic, I used a can of pumpkin purée (you can get it in Waitrose or Ocado). I've never worked with this stuff before - it's just pure pumpkin, so it saves the faff of peeling and roasting your own. I'm sure you get a better flavour if you make your own (as I did for this delicious butternut squash cake), but I quite liked the look of this stuff - fluffy, smooth and orange, it turned the cheesecake mix a lovely golden colour. The use of spices, vanilla and orange zest really bring out the sweetness of the pumpkin, but you can't really taste it that much - you'd never guess it was in there if you didn't know. Instead, you just get a lovely sweet, slightly caramelly flavour.

(I almost wish I hadn't used orange zest, though - not because of the flavour, but because I grated most of my knuckle off while trying to get the zest off the orange. Fortunately I managed not to bleed into the cake, but it was a close thing. Those microplane graters are highly effective, but damn are they sharp.)

The combination of creamy, sweet, festively spiced filling against the crunchy gingerbread base is wonderful, but even better when you get the crunch of a pecan nut. I was going to grind these up and put them in the base mixture, but was worried their flavour would be masked. Instead I just toasted them whole and used them to decorate the cake. In future I'd use more, or grind them coarsely and scatter them all over the top, as they really lift the cake from being something special to something truly wonderful.

Pumpkin, pecan and ginger - a fabulous and scrumptious combination. Thank you, America.

Incidentally, if you haven't yet come to see/follow my new Facebook page, please do!

Spiced pumpkin, ginger and pecan cheesecake (serves 6):
(Adapted from 'Iowa Girl Eats', here)

12 ginger nut biscuits, blitzed to crumbs in a blender
50g butter, melted
460g light cream cheese
300g/3/4 of a can of pumpkin puree
150g light brown sugar
Zest of 1 orange, very finely grated
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 tsp each of ground ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
2 eggs
A large handful of pecan nuts
Extra nutmeg, to decorate
Icing sugar, to decorate

Pre-heat the oven to 180C (fan oven). Grease and line an 18cm springform cake tin (you can make this in a 20cm tin, but it will need slightly less time to cook, so keep an eye on it after about 50 minutes). Mix the biscuits with the melted butter and press into the bottom of the cake tin. Bake for 10 minutes, until golden and crisp. Turn the heat down to 160C.

Meanwhile, using an electric whisk mix together the cream cheese and pumpkin puree. Add the sugar, zest, vanilla and spices, then finally add the eggs and beat to incorporate. Pour into the prepared tin.

Place an oven tray of water at the bottom of the oven, then put the cake in. Bake for about an hour and 20 minutes, until it has mostly set but still wobbles a little in the middle - keep checking it after about an hour. Remember that it will set more as it cools, so you don't want it to be completely solid.

Leave the cake to cool in the tin, then remove to a plate. Toast the pecans in a dry pan or the oven, then scatter over the surface of the cake, or decorate neatly as I did. Grate over a little fresh nutmeg and sprinkle over some icing sugar, then put in the fridge until you need it (if it's been in the fridge for a long time, remove 20 minutes or so before serving).

For the love of figs

2011-11-26T08:47:00.000Z

It's no secret that I love figs. You'd only have to take a closer look at my blog avatar, Twitter picture or Facebook profile photo to notice that in said picture I am fondly caressing a pair of plump, ripe figs in the palm of my hand, while sporting an ever-so-slightly coquettish expression that suggests my reverence for these luscious fruits is a little more than strictly platonic. This autumn I have made it my mission to buy figs in abundance while they're cheap and try out all those recipes I've ogled throughout the past few months when there was a sad dearth of figs in the shops. My local market sells trays of figs that are past their best, too bruised or overripe to grace with the '60p each' price tag, for 10p each. It often requires a bit of a rummage to find the decent few that aren't leaking mouldy syrup everywhere, but there are usually some more than acceptable specimens to be had, and they're ideal for cakes and savoury dishes where the figs are cooked lightly before serving.

This makes figs a bit of a bargain, really - I've certainly feasted on far more fig dishes this year than ever before. I've been hoarding the fruits, ensuring I have a constant supply in a bowl in the fridge, constantly topping up said bowl when supplies are running low. I'd like to share a few of my favourite fig recipes with you, should you need more inspiration for this excellent fruit while it's still around.

You'll notice that some pairings crop up again and again in these recipes. In particular, figs with raspberries and figs with ricotta. Both add another dimension to the humble fig; the slight tang and sweetness of a cloud of fresh ricotta, cold against a warm fig, is a beautiful thing. Similarly, the sweetness of cooked raspberries brings out the fragrance of a ripe fig in a way no other fruit quite does. I've discovered both these pairings this year, and they're now firm favourites. Other classic combinations include fig and orange, fig and goat's cheese, fig and parma ham. The best way, I think, to enjoy a good quality fig is on toast with ricotta or goat's cheese and wafer-thin slices of parma ham. A sprinkling of lemon thyme, mint or basil also does wonders for figs, adding a fresh zesty note to their sweetness.

(For a complete list of all the fig dishes on my blog, click here).

1. Simple roasted figs. These are excellent as a dessert with vanilla ice cream, or you could serve them as a compote over a cheesecake. However, my favourite way is to drizzle them over a bowl of steaming porridge, and scatter over a few blackberries or raspberries. The mixture of the oats and the gorgeous sweet fig syrup is wonderful - a perfect autumn breakfast.

To roast figs in this way, simply halve them, place face-up in a baking dish, and drizzle with honey. Pour over a splash of orange juice and a sprinkling of cinnamon, and either bake or grill at around 180C until the figs are soft and starting to caramelise. They should release lots of lovely syrup. Simple, but delicious. You could also use red wine instead of the orange juice, if serving as a dessert (maybe not for the porridge, though!)

2. Fig and goat's cheese tagliatelle with crispy parma ham. A rather odd combination, fruit with pasta, but it really works in this case - you end up with gorgeous tangy slippery strands of pasta coated in cheese, then the juicy sweetness of a soft fig and the salty crunch of the ham. The ultimate figgy comfort food.

For two people, cook 225g spaghetti, tagliatelle or linguine until al dente. Meanwhile, dry-fry 4 slices of parma ham in a hot non-stick pan until crispy. Snap into pieces and set aside. Then fry 6-8 quartered figs in a little butter or olive oil until softening. Drain the pasta, reserving a cup of the cooking water. Stir in about 150g of soft goat's cheese, the spreadable kind you can get in tubs, then add the figs, parma ham, and a generous handful of lemon thyme and black pepper. Toss together and serve immediately with a little parmesan.

3. Raspberry ricotta pancakes with roasted figs. This is a really fabulous brunch dish - it's light but filling, and the combination of figs and raspberries is such a good one. The ricotta gives a really fluffy texture to the pancakes, perfect for soaking up the sweet juices of the figs when you lay them on top.

For two people, mix 250g ricotta, the zest of an orange and 3 egg yolks (save the whites). Sift in 70g plain flour and fold in gently. Beat the egg whites in a bowl to stiff peaks, then gently fold into the ricotta mixture, trying to keep the air in. You should have a loose batter. Very gently, fold in 150g raspberries. Melt a little butter in a non-stick pan, then drop in spoonfuls of the mixture and fry on each side on a medium heat until golden - you'll have to be careful flipping them over, as they're very delicate. Keep each batch warm in the oven (around 110C) while you make the rest. Serve with roasted figs (see recipe number 1 above) on top, drizzled with their juices.

4. Lentil salad with fresh figs, ricotta and hazelnuts (see first photo). I came up with this on a whim a couple of weeks ago, and couldn't believe how good it was. It's a perfect harmony of flavours and textures: the chewy bite of the lentils; the unctuous, yielding flesh of the cooked figs; the crunch of the hazelnuts; the peppery astringency of the rocket, and the milky tang of the cheese bringing everything together. I urge you to try this, especially if you're sceptical - it's probably my favourite autumn salad.

To make this, I cooked some lentils (about 90g) in vegetable stock until tender, then stirred in some seasoning and a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar. I then tossed the lentils with rocket leaves, lemon thyme leaves, and finely chopped hazelnuts. I topped this with roasted figs (again, see number 1 - just cut down on the honey a little as this is a savoury dish, and add a splash of balsamic as well) and clouds of fridge-cold, crumbly ricotta. As simple as that, but tastier than the sum of its parts.

5. Fig, raspberry and hazelnut cake. A triumph; a perfect match of textures and flavours rippled through an incredibly moist, flavoursome cake - see the recipe here.

6. Fig and orange cobbler. An unusual, refreshing combination. See recipe here.

7. Fig and raspberry galette - a beautiful, beautiful combination of nutty buttery pastry with sweet, gooey raspberry and fig filling. It's also pleasantly rustic in appearance, screaming "eat me". See recipe and accompanying adoration here.

8. Fig, blackcurrant and oatmeal tart (recipe here). A bit of a tricky one, seeing as figs and blackcurrants are rarely available in the shops at the same time - I got lucky and found some Brazilian figs for an incredibly good price while blackcurrants were in full swing (I even picked them myself at a PYO farm in Oxford). However, I imagine it would work well with raspberries or even blueberries. The combination is one I'd never have considered - it's the brainchild of the great Raymond Blanc. However, it is utterly perfect. The tart, grassy flavour of the blackberries perfectly cuts through the sticky sweetness of the figs; the crunchy oatmeal base is the perfect vehicle for such fruity flavours. The tart is also stunning to look at. STUNNING.

9. Seared duck breast with figs and red wine (recipe here). An easy introduction to using figs in savoury dishes. Their sweetness is a great match for the bloody gameyness of a rare duck breast, especially when you allow their natural juices to dissolve into a red wine jus that then soaks into a mound of mash.

10. Fig, goat's cheese and prosciutto pizza (recipe here). Again, a dubious combination, but it works - the combination of doughy bread base, molten goat's cheese, sweet warm fig and crispy parma ham is fantastic.

I hope you enjoy these recipes as much as I did. Even if you're not inspired to pick up a few figs and pose for ridiculous photos, I hope you'll be inspired to think of figs in a whole new way, and appreciate their versatility in the kitchen this autumn. Snap some up while they're still cheap, and get cooking.

Do you have a favourite fig recipe you'd like to share? If so, please comment!

Playing at Masterchef: the Mexican challenge with Discovery and Benito's Hat

2011-11-24T14:54:00.000Z

(...or, "how I won this apple green beauty")

I know nothing about Mexican food. My experiences of said cuisine have been largely limited to homemade attempts at fajitas (read: cook chicken. Cook peppers. Roll in tortilla wrap. Add sour cream and salsa from a jar), and a trip to Wahaca in Covent Garden (delicious - must go again sometime). It is, perhaps, the cuisine I am least familiar with and cook least often. For no particular reason, I suppose - mainly lack of knowledge and experience. I used to enjoy burritos from The Mission in Oxford when I was there as a student...at least, I enjoyed the first few mouthfuls, after which I would start to feel mildly sick, but obliged to continue until the bitter end as said meaty wrap had cost me over a fiver.

So when I was invited to take 'the Mexican challenge', in association with Discovery (whose brand name is synonymous with make-your-own fajita kits) and Benito's Hat (Mexican restaurant with three branches in London), I was more than a little apprehensive. I had visions of said challenge perhaps involving an all-you-can-eat-tacos contest, a guacamole mud fight, or some kind of re-enactment of an Aztec sacrifice. Fortunately, it involved none of the above (although all of the above could certainly have happened on the actual night I'm sure, had enough margaritas been involved).

The Mexican challenge took place at Waitrose Cookery School in Finchley Road. I was completely charmed upon entering this place; it reminded me a little of Masterchef, with its individual fully-equipped cooking stations and its walls decorated with gorgeous kitchen ingredients and paraphernalia. I was even more charmed when I promptly received an enormous margarita to sip as I mingled with my fellow food bloggers. A complete cookery school situated directly above a huge Waitrose supermarket from which one could pillage ingredients - basically my idea of heaven. When we were given our own Waitrose aprons, I started to plot how best to smuggle mine out under my jumper (I never managed to achieve this - don't worry, Waitrose, your aprons are safe).

Before I start, I'd like to apologise for the quality of the photos on this post - I totally forgot to take my camera, and ended up having to use my iPhone. I emphatically wish I'd remembered, but oh well. Bear with me - you can still get the gist!

Felipe making prawn tacos

First, after a brief introduction from Ben (founder of Benito's Hat and maker of excellent margaritas), we watched Felipe, chef at Benito's Hat, prepare two Mexican-style dishes. The first I found really interesting - he sliced 'jicama', an ingredient I'd never heard of or seen before, into fat strips. This vegetable looks a bit like a turnip, but has the texture of a water chestnut and is usually eaten raw. He also sliced some cucumber, then tossed it all in a dressing made from lemon juice, lime juice, paprika, coriander, and parmesan cheese. A sprinkling of peanuts finished the dish. I have to admit, I was highly sceptical, with no idea how said mixture would taste - lemon, lime, and parmesan? Upon trying it, however, I was pleasantly surprised - the freshness of the citrus lent a lovely tang to the crunchy vegetables, with the parmesan and peanuts providing a deliciously moreish, savoury note.

Next, Felipe made shrimp tacos - buttery, garlicky fried prawns coupled with paprika and a garlic and chipotle mayonnaise, served in a tortilla with iceberg lettuce, lemon juice, and a salsa of tomatoes, onion, coriander and salt. These really were scrumptious - I love the soft, doughy bite of a tortilla wrap against the snap of a crunchy lettuce leaf, finally yielding to the juicy bite of a seared prawn. Even better when everything is flavoured with the gorgeous smokiness of chipotle chillies.

Speaking of chipotle chillies, I've discovered a few fabulous ingredient. I'd never tried them before, but one sniff of a jar of chipotle paste and I was blown away. They have an incredibly smoky, almost fruity flavour, quite unlike the abrasive heat of a regular supermarket chilli. I'm a complete sucker for anything smoked - smoked garlic, smoked fish, smoked meat...I once bought a jar of smoked roasted peppers from a stall at the Real Food Festival, which was incredible. I can't wait to get myself a jar of chipotle paste and use it in sauces and stews; its flavour is unlike anything I've tried before. I kept coming back for second helpings of Felipe's shrimp tacos, savouring the marriage of creamy mayonnaise and fiery, chipotle-enriched salsa.

And then it was our turn to cook.

Left: Waitrose Cookery School. Right: my workbench and choice of ingredients.

The idea was simple: we'd have a selection of ingredients to choose from, half an hour to prepare a dish, then the results would be judged by the Benito's Hat team. If it sounds a little like the famous Masterchef 'invention test', it was. Especially because the prize was, to me, almost as covetable as the Masterchef title: a KitchenAid blender. Who wouldn't want one of these gorgeous creations adorning their kitchen worktop? Who isn't a fan of the iconic KitchenAid design? It was certainly a prize worth cooking up a storm for.

I was like a child in a sweet shop after we were allowed to go and pick our ingredients. (There clearly weren't many health and safety guidelines for this evening - who thought it would be a good idea to let a load of margarita-influenced food bloggers loose on Waitrose's pristine knives, pots and pans?!) There were two huge worktops covered in all sorts of edible wonders; the first packed with Discovery products, the second with fresh vegetables and a fridge. There were courgettes, peppers, oranges, lemons, limes, herbs, spices...and a huge bowl of perfectly ripe avocadoes.

A perfectly ripe avocado is a very, very rare thing. They're pretty much impossible to locate in supermarkets, which charge extortionate prices for something mendaciously termed "perfectly ripe" that in fact has the same texture as a raw potato. I spent a few moments lovingly cradling one of these jade specimens in my palm, before hoarding three and moving to my cooking station, relishing their rampant ripeness. I also went a bit crazy for the huge platter of raw prawns and the perfectly filleted sea bass, ingredients I could never normally afford but were here for the taking. I may have selected a few extra prawns for 'testing'.

Our lovely larder

I could tell you that I had some great strategy, that I'd spend the week preparing Mexican dishes in anticipation, that I'd been honing my fajita-rolling skills days in advance, but that would be a lie. Quite literally, I saw the ingredients available, and a couple of ideas popped into my head. I'm genuinely a bit proud of this fact - one of the things I always tell people who say I should go on Masterchef (apart from "er, are you mad? I'm not a huge fan of televised ritual humiliation") is that I'd fail at the first hurdle - the invention test. I generally don't think of myself as very good at seeing a load of ingredients and coming up with a tasty idea, which is odd, considering that's usually how my lunch comes about (honestly, a grated carrot, orange, spinach and sardine salad is actually quite nice). So to come up with two fairly plausible recipes made me quite self-satisfied.

Unable to decide which would be more blender-worthy, I made them both. One was vaguely Mexican, the other not really Mexican at all, but a mish mash of some of my favourite things on a plate.

My first recipe was inspired by Felipe's prawn tacos. I made something vaguely approaching guacamole, spread it onto crunchy lettuce leaves, then topped it with garlicky buttered prawns. The idea was a prawn taco with none of the carbohydrate, something easily nibbled as a sort of canape, but packed with flavour. I also thought it would be easy to present in an attractive way, Masterchef-style. I have to say, this dish really was delicious. I mashed the avocadoes with lots of lime juice, chopped coriander, chopped tomato, and a little sour cream and chipotle paste to add a gorgeous smoky tang (I basically just went a bit wild with the Discovery ingredients, chucking them in with abandon and tasting occasionally to check I hadn't ruined everything with a smidge too much sour cream). The result went incredibly well with the rich, juicy prawns, the crunch of the lettuce leaf providing a delicious texture.

Although the food tasted good, the incident where I tried to open the foil lid of the sour cream sauce with my teeth and it splattered all over my face and apron was not particularly dignified. Thank the lord for those Waitrose aprons, or my nice new top might have been ruined forever.

My second recipe was pan-fried sea bass, with a crust of spices (cinnamon, cumin, paprika, salt and pepper), served on a salad of baby spinach, avocado, raisin, orange, pumpkin seed, coriander and lime juice. Perhaps it sounds a bit odd, but I think it worked - the meaty fish with its flavoursome crust stood up to the fresh, citrussy flavours of the salad, but there was a lovely crunch from the pumpkin seeds to contrast with it all.

I honestly found the experience quite stressful. My hands were actually shaking a little as I deposited my ingredients on my workbench and tried to think about where to start making my two dishes. I can only assume that such trembling was down to my extreme desire for the KitchenAid blender. If I was that nervous cooking for the Benito's Hat team to win a blender, I really can't imagine how the Masterchef contestants feel in front of Gregg and John (or Monica and Michel Roux, in the case of the Professionals series). I always ridiculed them a little for letting nerves get in the way of the prize, but now I completely empathise. No more will I chuckle as a chef accidentally slices off a finger under the searing gaze of Monica Galetti, or drops his dish on the floor under the stern eye of John Torode.

After a speedy thirty minutes of cooking time had passed, we waited as our dishes were tasted and judged. After each had been tasted, it was brought to us to try ourselves. I ate a lot of excellent food that night from my fellow bloggers; highlights included Mexican roasted sweetcorn from Jackie and a delicious green dip for tortilla chips from Colin, the ingredients of which I've shamefully forgotten. Katie, who was cooking on the bench opposite me and therefore bore witness to my mania and sour cream disaster, came up with what she termed a "student meal" but which was very tasty: quesadillas with melted cheese, salsa, and sour cream. We sat around and stuffed ourselves with various tortilla dishes, prawns, chicken, sour cream, guacamole, and other Mexican delights, until finally the judges announced the runner-up and winner. Colin was duly rewarded for his green salsa with a free meal at Benito's Hat, as was the lovely Rosana.

As you will know from the picture at the head of this post, I won the blender. I was absolutely thrilled, especially given the superb standard of the other dishes, many of which were - I'm sure - far more Mexican than my attempts. Although Ben, upon second glance, revealed that he hadn't noticed the orange segments in my sea bass salad. I hope he doesn't have a phobia of oranges and is, to this day, regretting handing me that cumbersome KitchenAid box.

Carrying said blender home on the tube and then train all the way to Cambridge was interesting, to say the least - particularly trying to negotiate the automatic ticket barriers when I had no hands spare to extract my ticket from my bag. However, the blender is now installed in my kitchen where it has provided me with glorious smoothies every morning.

I had a fantastic time at the Mexican Challenge. Not only did I get given a goodie bag packed with Discovery ingredients and a KitchenAid blender, but I also got a bit of insight into the cooking at Benito's Hat, where the emphasis is all about fresh, local ingredients and helping Mexican food shed its greasy, Tex-Mex image. I almost wish I'd won the runner-up prize so I could go and eat there, though I think I'll be paying a visit anyway sometime soon.

I'm also feeling rather inspired to broaden my Mexican cooking horizons - any suggestions as to what one can make with a KitchenAid blender and some Discovery salsa?!

Me with my two culinary creations. Check out the apron!

Thanks to Wild Card PR for inviting me to the event, and to Benito's Hat and Waitrose Cookery School. (And also, of course, to KitchenAid!) Should you fancy trying Felipe's tempting recipes, here they are:

Benito's Hat Jicama Salad (serves 4):

1 whole peeled Jicama (350-400g)
1 whole peeled cucumber (250-300g)
1 whole lime (1/8 cup squeezed juice)
2 whole lemons (1/4 cup squeezed juice)
Dry roasted peanuts (50g)
Fresh chopped coriander (20g)
Parmesan cheese (30g)
Paprika one pinch
Discovery Salsa

In a big bowl place all the ingredients and mix very well. Serve in a small bowl - garnish with more parmesan cheese and coriander. For extra flavour, serve with Discovery Salsa – a perfect dip to accompany the salad.

Benito's Hat Prawn Tacos (serves 4):
20 prawns

50 grams of butter

2 cloves of chopped garlic

Pinch of paprika

100 grams of finely chopped iceberg lettuce

Pico de Gallo (recipe: 1 chopped fresh tomato, 20g onions, 20g chopped coriander and salt to taste)

Chipotle garlic mayonnaise dressing (see below)

1 lemon cut in wedges

Discovery Plain Flour Tortillas

For the dressing: in a blender jar put 1 tbsp of Discovery Chipotle paste, 1 garlic clove and 1 cup of mayonnaise. Blend it for about 2 minutes until it becomes creamy or runny.

Place a frying pan on a low heat. Add the butter, garlic, prawns and paprika and cook for 4 minutes stirring occasionally until the prawns are cooked thoroughly

Heat the Discovery Plain Flour Tortillas in another pan and then place on a serving dish. On each tortilla place the lettuce and add Pico de Gallo. Put the prawns on top and cover with the Discovery chipotle and garlic mayonnaise. Place a lemon segment on the side of each plate.

Mango and avocado salsa - my entry for the Ryvita Challenge

2011-11-22T08:30:00.000Z

Do you like the look of this mango and avocado salsa? It's a creamy, guacamole-style avocado dip with chilli and lots of fresh herbs (basil, mint and coriander), beautiful sweet chunks of ripe, juicy mango, and lashings of zesty lime goodness.

If you do like it, please click HERE to vote for me in the Ryvita Challenge (the challenge being to create a winning dip to accompany new Ryvita Thins). It'll only take a second (you just have to click an option on a poll) and your help would mean a lot to me.

Thank you!

(Should you want the recipe too, read on.)

Zesty lime, mango and avocado salsa:

A large handful of basil, mint and coriander (about 20g each) - save a few leaves for garnishing

1 red chilli, deseeded and roughly chopped (or half a chilli if you're not keen on spice!)

3 very ripe avocadoes, stone removed and flesh scooped out with a spoon

2 tbsp sour cream or yoghurt

2 tomatoes, roughly chopped

Juice and zest of 1 lime

1/2 tsp salt

1 ripe mango

Put the herbs and chilli in a food processor and blitz until finely chopped. Add the tomatoes, avocadoes, sour cream or yoghurt, lime juice and zest, and salt, and blitz until you have a fairly chunky purée. Taste and season - you may want a little more salt, herbs or lime juice. (If you don't have a food processor, finely chop the herbs, chilli and tomato by hand, then use a fork or whisk to mash them together with the avocado, sour cream/yoghurt, lime and salt.)

Peel and chop the mango into 5mm cubes. Stir into the avocado mixture, reserving a few mango pieces to scatter over the top. Garnish with a little extra chilli and/or herbs, and serve immediately.

Nutmegs, seven on Facebook

2011-11-21T10:46:00.001Z

For those of you who are never very good at following blogs and always forget to check back for posts (I know, because I'm one of them), you can now follow Nutmegs, seven on Facebook - it has its very own page, here. At the moment it's a bit lonely so come and have a look!

I've also started writing pieces for student cooking website Beyond Baked Beans, brainchild of the brilliant food and wine writer Fiona Beckett. I'm very proud to feature on their list of contributors - the website is an excellent resource for students wishing to defy the stereotypes about university cooking. You can read my first article, on how to sneak my favourite ingredient (fruit) into all your meals, here; my second, an ode to the humble bowl of porridge and how to dress it up, is here.

In a similar vein, I've also been published in online food magazine The Foodie Bugle this month. I'd suggest you all go and have a look at this wonderful site - the photography is beautiful and the articles really interesting.

Homemade quince jelly

2011-11-19T11:02:00.000Z

Things in jars give me a deep and profound sense of satisfaction.

Well, OK, not entirely. I should probably qualify that statement. Things I have made that I am able to put in jars give me a deep and profound sense of satisfaction. Such things include jam, jelly, chutney, preserved lemons, and bottled fruits.

What is it about the simple act of putting something homemade in a jar that is so enjoyable? I think it's perhaps that we tend to associate jars with things we've bought in a shop, rather than made at home. When we make something ourselves, put it in a jar and label it, it's almost as if we feel we're packaging up a product that's good enough to be on a shop shelf (though, of course, the irony is that homemade produce is often far better than anything you'd find on a shop shelf).

That's just a theory, but I do think there's something in it. When we make a nice plate of food, we can admire it all we like, but we're not packaging it up in a way that's presentable, that's transferrable. When we pour homemade jam or chutney into jars, seal and label them, it's as if we're proudly declaring to the world, "This is good enough to be given as a present, or to be displayed on the larder shelf".

Perhaps it's also the sense of anticipation: generally, homemade jams, jellies, chutneys and the like last quite a long time. Chutney, especially, seeing as it usually needs to mature for several months before it is edible. When we put the lids on jars of homemade preserves and give them their final twist, we think of and eagerly await all the delightful pieces of toast or cold meat sandwiches to come.

Perhaps it's the sense of giving, the fact that we've lovingly stirred away at a tasty creation that's now ours to share, because it's easily portable. It's almost a cliché to say that homemade preserves make wonderful gifts, but of course it's true. A jar of homemade chutney or jam from a friend will always be prized and savoured because it's unique; you can't just nip to the supermarket and find an identical jar when you run out.

And, of course, homemade jarred goods are usually rather aesthetically pleasing, too. You only have to look at the pictures of my bottled rhubarb and bottled apricots from this year to see that. The preserved lemons I made years ago were once beautiful as well. Now they look rather like a jar full of dead things preserved in a swamp, with the odd clove and bay leaf floating around, but the glow of preserving pride is still there every time I take one out, chop it and add its zesty, salty aroma to my cooking.

Small pleasures, perhaps, but I enjoy them nonetheless.

I did not, however, enjoy the last time I attempted to preserve one of my favourite fruits, the quince. I decided to make membrillo, that beautiful golden, sweet, perfumed quince paste so beloved of the Spanish. I followed a recipe instructing me to place a couple of kilos of whole quince in a dish and bake them in the oven for several hours. I was then supposed to push the cooked quince through a sieve.

What a ridiculous notion. Sure, the quince was quite soft, after I'd caused my house's electricity bill to skyrocket by leaving the oven on all afternoon, but did its skin and tough fibres want to go through the sieve? No, they emphatically did not. You may as well have tried to push a whole apple through a sieve using a ladle. Half an hour of intense frustration and aching biceps later, I had extracted a poxy amount of quince purée which I then dutifully boiled with a lot of sugar, as instructed.

Yes, the result was tasty membrillo, but a very small amount considering the money I'd expended on all those quince whose pulp ended up in the bin. To add insult to injury, most of it went mouldy (despite being in the fridge) before I'd even had much of a chance to enjoy it. Usually I'm all for making things yourself; it's generally much cheaper than buying them. But in this case, I should have just bought myself a jar of membrillo and not bothered.

Although the homemade stuff was amazing on toast with goat's cheese.

To this day, I cannot understand the thinking behind that recipe. It was, I think, in Waitrose Food Illustrated, but I honestly do not believe it was ever tested. Every recipe I've come across since has instructed me to boil the quince, chopped, in a little water so it turns mushy, and THEN push it through a sieve. Much more realistic. No matter how long you bake them for, you won't get that mushyness from putting a quince in the oven as opposed to a pan of water, especially if you leave the skin on, as the recipe directed.

RECIPE RAGE.

This year, then, I did not go down that route. However, when a big bag of quinces arrived, courtesy of a friend whose parents had a glut of them, I couldn't resist revisiting the idea of quince preserves again. Mainly because these quince surprised me with their diminutive size; there was such a high ratio of core and pips to actual quince flesh that it didn't seem worthwhile to bake or poach them as I would normally do for sweet or savoury dishes. I've never seen such tiny quince, but a quick Google informed me that these were in fact ornamental/Japonica quinces, a very different variety to the huge specimens you find in the markets at this time of year, usually imported from France, Spain or Turkey.

In the interests of an easy life, then, it seemed easier to just chop them all up - peel, pips and all - and make some sort of preserve with them, rather than attempt to painstakingly peel, core and chop them all for a dessert. The beauty of quince jelly is that you can boil the quinces with all the pips and peel remaining - you literally just chop them up roughly and put them in some water.

Quince jelly, then. Not membrillo - this time I decided to do something different. For quince jelly, you just want the juice you get when you boil the quince in water until soft. The way to do this is to strain the resulting quince mixture through a muslin bag to extract the juice, which you then boil with sugar until you reach a set. It really is as easy as that. However, you can then make membrillo with the remaining quince pulp in the muslin, which I might get round to doing next week, so as not to waste a single morsel of this excellent fruit (apart from the pips, of course).

I dutifully hung my bag of quincey goodness over a bowl overnight, and ended up with a lot of liquid that looked like that gorgeous Copella cloudy apple juice. This I then weighed, measured out an almost equal amount of sugar, and boiled it all together.

And gosh, it was a LOT of sugar.

I really did wince as I poured an entire kilo of the white stuff into the pan of quince juice. My mind turned to fillings, tooth decay, ADHD...but then I realised that of course I wouldn't be eating the entire panful in one go, and that it was no more sugary than jam I'd buy in the shops (though of course when you buy it, you have the luxury of being able to ignore just how much sugar goes into it). In went the sugar, and the resulting mixture bubbled away for about an hour.

In the process, it turned from pale yellow to the most incredible crimson. I have never understood why quinces turn from gold to deep amber with long cooking, and I"d never really experienced it first hand before, but this pan of bubbling, spitting, sugary goodness was a truly beautiful sight. It took forever to reach a setting point, I think because the quince juice was quite dilute in the first place so took a while to boil down, but finally I was able to pour it into jars and seal them.

And how beautiful are these jars? They completely encapsulate everything I said above.

I really cannot stop admiring them. How would you describe this amazing colour? It's somewhere between red and pink, but darker and more vibrant; it almost seems to glow of its own accord. It's also completely clear; the jelly reminds me of dark amber, just waiting for the point of a buttery knife to slice down within and create a jagged fault line through its scarlet depths.

I put the jars in the sun and admired their jewel-like beauty for a good few minutes, musing on the miraculous transformation of a bowl of speckled, wrinkled fruit into something so gorgeous.

And that, really, is what preserving is all about.

Quince jelly

This is a really rough guideline for a recipe, as I didn't measure out my quinces beforehand. Basically, roughly chop all your quinces, put in a large pan, and barely cover with water. Simmer until they're very tender and almost falling apart. Then put all the mixture in a muslin bag, tie it up and suspend it over a bowl overnight to catch the juice (or just pour the pulp into a colander lined with muslin).

Measure out your quince juice and pour into a sturdy pan (a jam pan is ideal, if you have one). For every 550ml of quince juice, add 450g caster sugar. Also add the juice of a lemon (this helps the jelly set, and also helps offset some of the sweetness). Slowly heat the mixture, stirring to dissolve the sugar, then bring to the boil and simmer until a setting point is reached.

To test for a set, put a saucer in the freezer until very cold. Drop a spoonful of jelly onto it, and leave it for a minute or so. If you can run your finger through the jelly leaving a wrinkly mark, it's set. If not, continue to boil. This can take anything from ten minutes to over an hour, so be patient.

While you're waiting, sterilise some jam jars and lids (I sterilise jars by washing them then putting them, upturned, in the oven at 150C for 20 minutes; I sterilise the lids by pouring boiling water over them). When the jelly has set, pour into the jars, cover with wax discs, and screw on the lids.

Sticky Asian-spiced pig cheeks

2011-11-11T14:50:00.000Z

Chillies are not something I look kindly on.

Nor would you, if you had spent an excrutiatingly painful night tossing and turning in your bed, clutching a fridge-cold beer bottle, much to the apprehension of your mother, in an attempt to stem the burning pain in your left hand, reminiscent of the kind of sensation you might experience were you forced to hold on to the scalding tail of SATAN for five hours.

My bad experience with chillies occurred as a result of a batch of tomato and chilli jam. Five normal chillies went into the pot; five chillies that I had to painstakingly deseed and finely chop. Five chillies that somehow leeched their filthy fiery chemicals into my pores and left my fingers practically cremated. Five chillies that were your average supermarket type, not even a Scotch Bonnet or a Birds Eye. At least then I might have expected such an incident.

I'm just glad I hadn't done the taste test to check how hot my chillies were before I cooked with them. I rather like my tongue, it's useful, and it would have been a shame for it to have been singed off.

No, I hadn't worn gloves. Yes, I am a fool. Yes, I did try every possible remedy for the conflagration occurring in my left hand. I stuck it in half a lemon. I left it in a bowl of milk. I rubbed it with olive oil. I soaked it in soapy water. I scoured it with bicarbonate of soda. Nothing worked to alleviate the intense incineration. My mother called NHS Direct, fearing I was having some sort of allergic reaction. I eventually fell asleep from sheer exhaustion at around 4am, but that was one unpleasant night. It remains, to this day, the single most painful thing that's ever happened to me.

Which makes me a bit of a wimp, really.

Needless to say, I've never been comfortable cooking with chillies. This has extended itself to mean that I've never been comfortable with Asian cuisine. When I say Asian, I'm talking about Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese food, rather than Middle Eastern, which I feel a bit more adept at. I think this lack of confidence stems from two things. Firstly, I've made a lot of stir fries and other Asian dishes which have turned out disappointingly bland. Not in terms of heat or spice, just lacking a certain zest and vibrance which I'd expect from this type of cooking.

Secondly, as you may infer from the above, I'm really not a fan of chilli. When I see it in a recipe, I normally mentally discard it from the list of ingredients. Burning tastebuds just don't do anything for me. If anything, chilli detracts from the other flavours in a dish, rather than enhancing them, particularly if it's a delicate ingredient like crab or scallops. Why ruin a perfectly good crab linguine by adding a load of chilli?

I'm sure many of you will clamour to tell me how I'm oh so wrong. Maybe I haven't been trying the right recipes. Maybe I just need to man up and start toasting those tastebuds, recover from the PTSD of my chilli trauma and embrace that feisty little capiscum.

I don't know what put me off attempting more stir fries and the like, but I know what's persuaded me to give them another go, lately.

I recently got a copy of Bill Granger's Everyday Asian cookbook (don't worry, this isn't a shameless plug or a PR-endorsed post - I genuinely want to tell you all how great it is), and I've already made at least five of the recipes in quick succession. They're quick, easy, don't require a myriad of complex ingredients, and so far they have all tasted brilliant.

My favourite was a Vietnamese lemongrass chicken dish, with lots of zesty citrus notes and a golden turmeric-infused sauce. It was everything I'd expect from this type of cooking: fresh, tangy, slightly spicy, moreish, meaty. I absolutely adore lemongrass, for the same reason I adore limes. They both have the freshness of lemon, but possess a more alluring fragrance, somehow; richer, sweeter, zestier. The scent of lemongrass as you slice through its woody fibres with a fearsomely sharp knife is one of my treasured kitchen moments. I love removing its fibrous exterior to reach the tender purple heart within, whose blades can be rubbed between your fingertips to release that intoxicating aroma.

Perhaps it's also because the smell of a freshly cut lime reminds me of a freshly poured gin and tonic, which can only be a pleasant mental association. I do love a spot of gin.

Another brilliant recipe from Bill's book is the salmon marinated in soy sauce, mirin and brown sugar. It's rather like a teriyaki; you end up with beautifully moist fish that flakes apart, its skin seared and stained dark on the outside with salty soy and sweet sugar, giving way to a brilliantly coral interior. It achieves that perfect and satisfying balance between sweet and salty, and is excellent on a bed of sticky rice with some steamed greens.

Sticky rice is my new favourite accompaniment to everything. It feels much more of a treat than regular rice, somehow. Perhaps because it reminds me of sushi which a) I love and b) really is a treat because it's so darn expensive. Perhaps because it's more stodgy than regular rice, and my avid readers will know how much I love my carbs; the stodgier the better.

So a lot of my cooking lately has endeavoured to feature that unbeatable combination of saltiness, sweetness, richness, and a hint of spice. Not too much chilli, not enough to detract from the other flavours, but I'm starting to wean myself onto it. It helps that I have a friend who is an avid grower of all sorts of weird and wonderful chillies, frequently posting photos of his latest chilli-growing exploits on Facebook and regaling me with tales about the individual characteristics of each unique specimen. He's inspired me to be a bit more adventurous.

However, I still wash my hands in an OCD-style frenzy whenever I've been in close proximity to a chilli (I won't talk about the time some chilli crossed paths with one of my contact lenses...let's just say I fully expected to be blind when I finally took my eye away from the cold tap), and I always start by using about an eighth of a chilli where a recipe specifies one. You can always add more at the end if you want more spice; better safe than sorry. My boyfriend, bless his heart, once made me his favourite chicken noodle soup, and proudly dished it up only to find that - for me, at least - it was practically inedible, so hot were the chillies he had used. I spent the dinner alternately wiping the stream of moisture exuding from my nose and eyes and glugging huge gulps of water from a pint glass. In the end I picked out the solid bits of chicken and vegetables and ate them. With water.

Again, these chillies were regular supermarket specimens! The kind marked 'Medium'! (Whose idea of 'medium' heat are they working to? A volcano's?) It seems there are some rogue chillies on the loose amidst Tesco's suppliers. Perhaps the suppliers have a little in-joke about it, putting a few Dorset Nagas in there just for kicks, imagining the eye-popping pain they're going to be causing those hapless Tesco punters and cackling merrily.

Serves me right for shopping at Tesco, I suppose.

In the spirit of all recipes sweet, sticky, salty and spicy, I bring you these Asian-spiced pig cheeks. In a fever of excitement about this amazing new ingredient, I ordered ten from the butcher a while ago. They've been sitting in the freezer for ages, and a couple of weeks ago I had a sudden urge to unearth them and release their full potential. This utterly simple but incredibly delicious recipe does them full justice.

(If you're not sure about cooking with pig cheeks, read my article for lovefood.com here - it's a good introduction to a rather scary-sounding ingredient, and tells you why you really should be seeking out this incredibly underrated, and very economical, cut).

The real joy of this recipe is the marinade; it's rich with salty soy sauce and warming sesame oil, spicy chilli, sweet honey, the tang of mirin and rice vinegar, the fragrance of garlic, the gorgeous warm aniseed note of five spice, and the zesty freshness of ginger. I'm quite proud of it because I invented it myself, (based on a bit of internet scouting - the excellent James Ramsden has a simpler version here - and inspiration from Bill Granger's book). I don't normally follow recipes by the book, but I tend to with Asian ones because I have no idea about Asian food and wouldn't feel comfortable experimenting. This, however, has a bit of that good old Nutmegs, Seven experimental flair to it, in that I added a few things to jazz it up a bit.

The pig cheeks sit in the marinade for a while to soak up all that lovely flavour, then you just sear them in a hot pan before putting them back in the marinade to braise/roast for a couple of hours (it will look like a lot of meat, but they shrink more than you'd expect).

The result is a dish full of gorgeous nuggets of tender meat, so soft you can pull the fibres apart with a spoon, yet deeply rich in flavour. The marinade reduces to a sticky sauce, so dark and mysterious it can't help but promise an intense hit of flavour.

It does: it's incredibly salty, sweet and spicy all at the same time, with a really wonderful fragrance from all the different spices in the five-spice. Anise is very good at cutting through rich foods, so it works particularly well here. You really don't need much sauce - just a drizzle over the meat. Although you think the dish might be a bit dry, the sauce is so intense that a comforting canvas of white rice or noodles provides the perfect contrast. Some crunchy greens on the side are also good for texture and flavour contrast, as well as a little chopped coriander and spring onion scattered over the finished dish to add freshness.

I am really proud of this recipe. It ticks all the boxes, delivering massively on flavour but also on texture. It's rich without being cloying, leaving you feeling refreshed rather than weighed down. It's also a lot spicier than I anticipated, but I really enjoyed it because the spice was balanced by the sugar in the honey. I feel I'm finally breaking boundaries, facing my fears. Soon I might actually heed recipes that tell you to include chilli, instead of just ignoring them (although I'm a bit traumatised by a Jamie Oliver recipe that suggests putting two chopped dried chillies in a pasta dish for four. He clearly isn't using the same dried chillies as I am, because I once ruined a casserole for eight by including HALF of one).

Any leftover meat from this, incidentally, is delicious the next day (if you're not avid carnivores, you might not want a whole three cheeks each - two can be adequate, as they're so rich). I had mine warmed up and served with couscous mixed with chopped apricots and dates, coriander and a segmented orange. Sounds weird, but works really well.

Have you ever had any chilli-related disasters? Any tops tips for alleviating chilli burns?

Sticky Asian-spiced pig cheeks (serves 4):

12 pig cheeks
Rice (or noodles) and greens, to serve
4 spring onions, finely chopped
A handful of coriander, finely chopped

For the marinade:
2 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp runny honey
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tbsp Chinese five spice
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 thumb of fresh ginger, grated
1 red chilli, finely chopped

Mix together all the marinade ingredients in a shallow ovenproof dish and add the pig cheeks, turning in the marinade to coat them. Cover with cling film, refrigerate and leave for as long as possible - overnight is good, but even a few hours is fine.

When ready to cook, pre-heat the oven to 160C (150C fan oven). Heat a non-stick frying pan, remove the cheeks from the marinade and sear them in batches until browned all over. Return them to the marinade, stir to coat, then put the dish in the oven for two hours. Keep checking it every half hour or so to make sure the marinade isn't starting to dry out - if it is, add a little water.

When the sauce is reduced and sticky and the cheeks are tender, place the meat with the sauce on a bed of rice or noodles alongside some steamed greens (broccoli, pak choi, cabbage or spring greens all work well). Sprinkle with the coriander and spring onions, and serve.

Flash Cooking by Laura Santtini

2011-11-08T10:44:00.000Z

Flash Cooking, the new cookbook by Laura Santtini (published by Quadrille) will rescue you from a recipe book rut, should you be stuck in one.

Its tagline, "Fit fast flavours for busy people" promises ingredients and recipes that are zesty, fresh, healthy, lively and quick, and its contents don't disappoint. Designed not so much as a recipe book but as a guide to a healthful way of life based around food, Flash Cooking shows you how to get the most out of basic ingredients and not-so-basic flavourings. Adopting a novel approach to cooking, using rubs, pastes and 'flavour bombs', Santtini offers "a passport to the flavours of all the continents, so you can confidently cross borders and create your own world of deliciousness". She is in a good position to help provide this passport: she won an award for her first recipe book (Easy Tasty Italian) in 2010, and has successfully marketed her intense flavour combinations as a range of food products ('Laura Santtini's Spellbinding Flavours').

The book begins with a guide to the 'Flash' way of life: using spices, herbs and other flavourings to transform healthy and basic ingredients into quick and easy meals that taste delicious: making the ordinary extraordinary in a flash. It's about crossing boundaries, "developing the confidence to add a splash of soy sauce to a Bolognese, or mango chutney and Worcestershire sauce to a traditional vinaigrette dressing". It's also about everything in moderation, cooking 'flash' for 80% of the time and enjoying whatever you like for the rest.

Santtini's philosophy can be summed up in a quotation by Michael Pollan: "eat food, not too much, mostly plants". At the beginning of the book she provides a diagram of the 'flash plate': mostly plants (i.e. low-GI veg and plenty of broccoli - Santtini is oddly specific about this), with an iPhone-sized portion of protein. I quite like the use of 'iPhone sized' as a guide: most of us have absolutely no idea how much protein we should be eating, and Santtini suggests we actually consume far too much. Everyone knows what an iPhone looks like, ergo everyone should be able to measure out a healthy-sized protein intake. Already you get the impression that this book is about more than just food; it's about making lifestyle choices, many of them food-related, in order to sustain a healthy and balanced existence.

The book then moves onto the flash flavourings that are the backbone of Santtini's recipes: seasonings, glazes, rubinades (a cross between a rub and a marinade), pastes, finishing salts, finishing yoghurts, then finally 'props and dressings'. Each of these sections is divided into four groups, enabling one to 'eat the world': there are Western flavours, Middle Eastern, Indian, and Far Eastern. For example, the Western seasoning is herbes de provence; the Middle Eastern a baharat spice mix; Indian, the classic garam masala, and Far Eastern, five spice powder. Similarly, we have balsamic glaze for Western, pomegranate glaze for Middle Eastern, tamarind glaze for Indian, and soy glaze for Far Eastern. The same idea applies to the pastes, rubs, finishing salts, et cetera - mouthwatering suggestions include an artichoke and caper paste for Western dishes, a pink peppercorn and sumac salt for Middle Eastern, and a turmeric and chutney yoghurt to finish Indian dishes.

There's a helpful chart at the end summarising all the different versions of each; Santtini suggests playing "saucepan sudoku by mixing and matching flavours until you find your winning formulas". At the back of the book is a chart that takes some of Santtini's recipes and shows you how could tweak them to fit other cuisines: for example, the chicken pockets stuffed with ricotta and red pesto, a Western dish, can be made Indian by substituting the stuffing for tomato and tamarind paste and drizzling with a mango vinaigrette.

I really love this idea, I have to say. I'm fascinated by herbs, spices and exotic seasonings, and I think the idea of being able to take a basic piece of meat or fish and adorn it with a simple rub or paste to transform it into something exotic and delicious is brilliant and completely in keeping with the fast and healthy philosophy of the book. The notion of dividing the world's flavours into four may be a little limiting and controversial, but as a basic idea it's really interesting, and the wide array of pastes, rubs, salts, yoghurts and seasonings offered by Santtini should keep you more than satisfied in the kitchen for a long time. I'd never really thought about how every cuisine has its own version of the same adornments or accompaniments for food; it certainly opened my eyes and made me think about food and recipes in a whole new way.

The book then moves on to the recipes themselves (divided into Flash Fish, Flash Flesh, Flash Cheese, Eggs & Tofu, Flash Comfort, Flash Vegetables & Salads, Flash Soups, and Flash Starters & Desserts). Titles range from the mouthwatering to the amusing ('tortured sole'; 'the dog's bolognese'; 'all burger, no bum'; 'the thighs the limit with coriander and fennel seeds'). As you might expect from a book with this philosophy, every recipe title bursts with flavour: smoked paprika and orange tuna steaks; venison tagliata with juniper and rosemary; grilled paneer with chaat masala and pineapple; sweet miso aubergine.

There are some fascinating and unusual flavour combinations, many of which I cannot wait to try and which also promise to be healthy - a winning formula. The photos are also excellent: very simply shot and styled, they highlight the simple, vibrant, healthy nature of the food and its ingredients. Most recipes have photos, too, which is always a plus for the less imaginative cook.

The recipes in each chapter progress from the basic to the more complex. For example, Flash Fish begins with a blueprint for a grilled fish recipe, suggesting you pick a flash seasoning, finishing salt, then a finishing yoghurt or dressing to adorn your fish. It then moves onto simple but tasty ideas such as maple-glazed salmon, before progressing to 'tea-steamed sea bass with vanilla star anise olive oil'. Flash Flesh, or the meat chapter, begins with a recipe for pork cutlets with sage and anchovy butter, and a simple tandoori-style chicken, but also features 'duck breasts with black magic elixir' - a mixture of balsamic vinegar, dark chocolate and olive oil. Each chapter begins with a word of advice from Santtini, for example, "in the Flash way, it is best to restrict the eating of red meat to 2-3 meals a week". I'm pleased to see she recommends game, for its healthy leanness.

The 'comfort' section of the book "deals mostly with carbohydrates and healthful ways to enjoy delicious wheat-free alternatives". Santtini suggests keeping portions of carbs to two iPhones-worth and serving with mostly plants. Recipes include quick butter bean stew with tomatoes and olives; hummus with crumbled feta and pomegranate; and baked seasoned sweet potatoes with matcha guacamole. Delicious, I'm sure, but I do have to say that none of these are what you'd expect from the phrase 'comfort eating'. I can't imagine that your average cook is going to seek out a bowl of brown rice, wheat-free spaghetti or a baked sweet potato when they're craving comfort food. It's a similar story for dessert: while grilled pineapple with vodka, pink peppercorns and chilli sounds divine, it is immediately apparent from reading the sparse dessert section of the book that this is, primarily, a healthy cookbook. Bakers will be disappointed - none of the recipes so much as mention flour.

There are some brilliant, inspired ideas in Santtini's book. The recipes, for the most part, are very simple and speedy, as promised, and there is no doubt they deliver on taste, flavour and healthfulness. Her idea for 'flavour bombs' - rubs, pastes, marinades and glazes - is refreshing and original, and consequently it's a must-have for anyone interested in herbs, spices and unusual flavourings, as well as cuisines from around the world. There's also a lovely index at the back of the book that gives the health benefits of some of Santtini's favourite ingredients: chilli, chocolate, red wine, turmeric, honey, ginger, and more, as well as a glossary to guide you through the more unusual foodstuffs.

However, there are a couple of aspects of the book I'm not so keen on.

Firstly, apart from the 'Flash Comfort' section, none of the meals include carbohydrates - which I suppose is to be expected, given the emphasis on healthy eating. They're largely a collection of ways to dress up your protein, be it fish, eggs, tofu or meat. Yes, there are some delicious salads and vegetable side dishes, but if you're looking for quick, filling, one-pot meals that include carbs, this isn't the book for you. Cooks with more time on their hands will enjoy matching the protein recipes with the tempting vegetable dishes, salads and starters, but that seems to undermine the 'flash' idea of the book. I can't really criticise the book for this, as it's just doing what it says on the tin - but beware if you like to throw a load of pasta, rice or beans in a pan along with your meat.

Secondly, I find the tone of some of the surrounding material a bit offputting. This isn't just a recipe book; it purports to be a guide as to how to live your life the 'flash' way. While I agree with a lot of Santtini's points about not eating too much red meat, avoiding refined carbohydrates and making 'treat' foods yourself when you do want them so that you enjoy them more - some of her suggestions border on the preachy and unrealistic.

For example, the list of 'Flash Juices & Drinks', featuring a selection of 'Chakra Juices' and 'Sun and Moon Tea' to which you can add crystals "for extra magical powers". A nice idea, perhaps, but I think I could count on one hand the number of readers who will be sticking an extra rose quartz in their morning cuppa as a result of this book. Then there's the 'Flash You' chapter at the back of the book, "all about becoming leader of your universe". It doesn't advocate weight loss, but "setting realistic goals for yourself, and arriving healthfully at a place where you can shine with confidence, having cooked your way to your optimum weight, without compromising the flavour of your life". It's all a bit hippy and earth mother-y, even if it does have a solid and positive message. It's not to say the advice isn't sound, but I personally probably won't take diet advice from someone who puts rocks in their tea.

Another piece of advice is that "if you want to wake up with a flat tummy and go to bed feeling light and lean, say no to carbs after 4pm (although my cut off point is usually after lunch)". Santtini even suggests that this will "improve your libido in a FLASH!" Too much information. This is a cookbook, not Cosmopolitan magazine. Secondly, suggesting avoiding carbs after lunch is, in my opinion, completely unrealistic.

Unless you have a will of steel and are really serious about losing a lot of weight, this advice is just not something most people will be able to follow. How often do people get home from work at 7pm, ravenous having eaten nothing since their supermarket sandwich at lunchtime and maybe a piece of fruit mid-afternoon? Is a lean chicken breast going to leave them sated and ready to tackle the evening's tasks? No matter how many finishing salts, yoghurts, rubs and pastes you apply to your lean protein, it's not going to fill the gap. I'm all for carbs in moderation, but I just think this advice is a tad absurd. No one wants to be starving half an hour after dinner; it will just lead to an unenjoyable evening and probably a lot of snacking, which totally defeats the object. If Santtini can be happy without carbs after lunchtime, then she's a lucky woman, but I don't think she can expect us all to join her. She suggests the Flash Comfort chapter, which contains the most virtuous forms of carbohydrate imaginable (brown rice, wheat-free pasta, pulses and quinoa) should only be cooked from on your days 'off' more healthy eating. If we're not allowed a butter bean stew in the evening, life is a sad prospect.

I also cannot stand the obsessive use of 'flash' as a prefix in the book. Everything is the 'flash' way; there are 'flash fats', 'flash weight loss', 'flash exercise', a 'flash future', 'flash shopping'. Every other sentence talks about flash this and flash that. While I understand that the creation of a brand and a concept is especially important these days in the world of recipe writing, when cookery books of varying quality proliferate wildly on our shelves, after reading Santtini's book I never want to hear the word 'flash' again. Ever.

Also, another interesting point that struck me - Santtini talks about her decision to exclude wheat and sugar from her diet 90% of the time, and how much better it is for you. Yet her recipe for 'maple glazed salmon' uses an inordinate amount of maple syrup, and I found it far, far too sweet for my liking. I consider myself someone with a bit of a sweet tooth (albeit I tend to get my sugar from fruit rather than cake), and even I would have liked less sweetness in the dish. An odd juxtaposition.

All this said, there is some good advice in there. I particularly like Santtini's reference to her favourite dessert: Other People's Pudding (OPP). Have a couple of spoonfuls of a shared dessert and you are done: "a fix without the fat". It does make sense - we rarely need dessert to fill us up; it's just that sugar hit we're after, which can be made surprisingly small and yet still satisfying. Similarly, some of her advice about how to integrate a flash diet into a normal lifestyle is helpful, especially as it reassures you there will be no "I'm sorry, I'm only eating cereal bars" moments. It's basically just good, healthy common sense, the kind we're used to hearing from food and wellbeing magazines, but with more of a focus on how to revolve this lifestyle around food.

Following the '80/20 rule' is an example of such sound advice. Santtini likens this to buying an expensive jacket on a Sunday: you're not going to go out and spend that kind of money again on the Monday, because you can't afford it. "It is exactly the same with food: enjoy the big spend because you are most definitely worth it, but do not career irresponsibly into debt". Eat 'flash' 80% of the time, and eat what you like for the remaining 20%.

Whether you're interested in weight loss or just a slightly more healthy diet, there's no doubt that following Santtini's advice will help you on your way - I just have a few quibbles about the tone of it. Santtini admits she is a "self-confessed control freak" who weighs herself regularly, and this is fairly evident from some of the advice (suggesting a snack of two medjool dates as the only thing one should consume between lunch and dinner is a tad unrealistic, especially as she then tells us that they "taste like sticky toffee". Good luck at sticking to just two!)

However, I would suggest that it shouldn't put you off. You don't have to read all the stuff at the back of the book - just stick to the mouthwatering, tempting, inspired recipe suggestions. Enjoy eating the four corners of the world, mixing up your rubinades and spreading on your pastes, sprinkling with your finishing salts and dipping in your finishing yoghurts. It's rare to find something truly original in cookery writing, but I think this might be a good contender.

This is me, cooking one of Santtini's recipes. Could I legitimately caption this 'Flash Elly'?

The recipe for five-spice pork stir-fried with broccoli caught my eye as I flicked through the book for the first time - I'd never thought of using mince in a stir fry before. I had a go, and was rewarded with an incredibly fresh, zesty, flavoursome dinner. In the spirit of flash cooking, I only had a few noodles with it and tried to keep it fairly carb-free. To my surprise, I didn't really need anything to accompany my protein (then again, I had had a lot of pasta for lunch). Perhaps Santtini is right - when your cooking is this full of flavour and vibrance, you don't need to accompany it with much more (though I am still sceptical about the banning of carbs after 4pm).

I picked this dish to share with you because it seems to epitomise the philosophy of the book: it contains broccoli, doesn't really need carbohydrate, uses lean meat, and contains ingredients that pack a huge flavour punch. It also leaves you feeling healthy yet satisfied. Flash cooking at its best.

Five-spice minced pork and tenderstem broccoli (serves 2-3):

1 tbsp sesame oil

3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced (I crushed mine)

1 tsp grated fresh ginger (I used about 1 tbsp, but I absolutely love fresh ginger)

1 tsp Chinese five-spice powder

500g pork mince

250 tenderstem broccoli (I used one head of normal broccoli, cut into thin florets)

4 spring onions, chopped

1 red chilli, sliced and deseeded

2 tbsp nam pla fish sauce

1/2 tbsp runny honey

Juice of 1 lime

For the garnish:

Handful of chopped coriander leaves

2 tbsp roughly chopped natural roasted peanuts

2 lime wedges

Heat the sesame oil in a wok and add the garlic, ginger and five-spice powder. When sizzling, add the pork and stir-fry until it begins to brown. Add the broccoli and continue to stir-fry until that begins to become tender (I boiled mine first to avoid it remaining tough and added it towards the end).

Add the spring onions, chilli, fish sauce, honey and lime juice, and stir-fry until bubbling and the pork is nicely browned. Reduce the heat and allow to simmer for a minute or so until the broccoli is just tender.

Serve topped with fresh coriander, a sprinkling of peanuts and a wedge of lime on the side.

Homemade sloe gin

2011-11-03T22:15:00.000Z

"All around it looked so cold and raw: the long willow-leaves were quite yellow, and the fog dripped from them like water; one leaf fell after the other: the sloes only stood full of fruit, which set one's teeth on edge." ~ Hans Christian Andersen

If this country were a kitchen, its larder would be Yorkshire. I never fail to be amazed by all the wonderful produce around me whenever I go and stay in our house up north. There are the two excellent butchers three minutes away from our house, whose steak and ale pies, sausages and sirloin steaks are to die for, and whose meat all comes from farms barely a stone's throw away. There's another butcher a five minute drive from the house, where I picked up six partridge and a mallard for under £15 last week (more on the partridge at a later date...). There's the quaint little deli where I've found treasures like shocking pink Yorkshire rhubarb in late winter, or beautiful glossy damsons at the close of summer, and which can always be relied upon to sell oddities that you'd normally never find in a local country shop: tahini paste, quinoa, pomegranates, fresh fennel. However, it's not just the produce that I have to pay for that I love, but everything that's available for free, too.

Take a short walk into the dales, and you'll be rewarded with even more edible goodness, without having to spend anything at all. Towards the end of summer, ripe blackberries hang heavily from their bushes, lining almost every stone wall in sight and glistening invitingly, begging you to snatch them up before they're gobbled by greedy birds. A couple of years ago I went on a walk, without realising that blackberry season had started. I passed so many beautiful berries on my stroll that I couldn't bear to leave them behind, but I hadn't brought any form of receptacle in which to carry them.

However, dear readers, there is no end to my initiative and resourcefulness when food is at stake. I carried them home in the hood of my jumper.

It doesn't stop at blackberries, though I've collected enough in a single day in Yorkshire to freeze and last me nearly a whole year (delicious on porridge with chopped pear and honey, or in a crumble, or in a lovely apple and blackberry jam).

There are also bilberries, a curious and rare wild version of the blueberry. They are notoriously hard to pick and only grow in certain places (usually rather high up, requiring much climbing, scrambling and huffing and puffing) on the dales, possessing a very short season towards the end of summer. I was mad enough to go foraging for them in August during a torrential downpour...but more on that in another post, when I finally get round to cooking my gains. They're currently sitting in the freezer, awaiting the invention of a recipe special enough to justify the intense discomfort involved in peeling off a pair of completely saturated skinny jeans and acquiring a hideous illness for the entire week afterwards, which I'm sure resulted from the combination of wind, rain, and three hours hunching over mud and ~~occasional~~ ubiquitous dog excrement in order to pick these damned berries. I christen said illness "Forager's Downfall". I'm sure I'm not the only one to have succumbed.

Our national larder didn't disappoint last week when I visited. During a little afternoon stroll I stumbled across a group of large bushes hanging heavily with little dark fruits, rather like overgrown blueberries but darker, and mottled in places. Having read a little bit about sloes and sloe gin in various food media lately, I had a strong inkling that these were, in fact, the elusive sloes. I'm still not actually sure they are true sloes - apparently sloes and bullaces, which are like small damsons, look very similar - but I'm hoping my resulting gin will taste delicious nevertheless.

I've always liked the idea of making sloe gin, but having never seen sloes before (not much chance of them in central Cambridge, I don't think) it was one of those items on my long-term gastronomic to-do list (I have various lists, you see, all relating to food. It's very stressful trying to keep on top of them all, actually). I don't really drink much alcohol; I only like wine, preferably white, and gin, and even then in quantities so small it makes most of my friends laugh. I often recall the depressing incident whereby my boyfriend and I drank a whole bottle of wine between us one night over dinner. I was immensely impressed with my tolerance, seeing as usually I can only manage a small glass. Flushed with my success, I then inspected the bottle more closely, only to find that the wine contained 5.6% alcohol. Sad times.

However, I do like gin-based drinks, and sloe gin is particularly tasty due to its higher sugar content and fruity flavour; it has a taste reminiscent of summer berries, with a pleasant blackcurranty tang. You can buy it, of course, but when there's a huge bush sporting hundreds of sloes only minutes from where you're staying, it seems rude not to take advantage of nature's offerings.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a hood to put the sloes in. I had to go back for a bag.

A happy half hour of dodging prickles and getting some very quizzical looks from a field of sheep later, I had 1.6 kilos of sloes, enough to make at least two litres of sloe gin.

Although I love the almost-instant gratification of most cooking - chop, stir, bake, eat - I also enjoy the occasional longer-term food project, mainly because it gives me an immense sense of self-satisfaction and makes me feel a little bit like a Victorian housewife or a home economist (not particularly glamorous role models, admittedly, but certainly useful ones). I enjoy making my own jam and chutney, and have made various forays into that arena over the years.

There was the fig jam, hastily whipped up with a plate of semi-rotting figs that I couldn't bear to let go to waste; the rhubarb jam and chutney made with an immense glut of rhubarb given to my mum by a colleague; the apple jam and chutney made with the windfall apples from the tree overhanging our garden; the quince paste made in a moment (more like five hours) of madness that I heartily regretted when I got cramp trying to press insufficiently soft quinces through a sieve; the red chilli and tomato jam that nearly had me in A&E because I got such severe and agonising chilli burns on my left hand (still remains to this day the most painful experience of my life, but at least I didn't do what a chef I used to work for once did, and went to the toilet without washing his hands after chopping chillies...).

I've also made my own preserved lemons (incredibly easy - stuff lemons with salt, pour over boiling water and leave to mature in a jar for a few months) to use in Moroccan cooking; my own bottled rhubarb and apricots for when these lovely fruits aren't in season; I dried my own apple rings one year, from the windfall apples in our garden; I made a jar of my own sun-dried tomatoes, by putting seasoned tomatoes in the oven on a very low heat for half a day. Projects like these are not only - eventually - tasty, but there's a certain satisfaction in opening a jar of preserved lemons that you've made yourself, or gorging yourself on sweet, soft apricots in syrup in the middle of February, or spooning homemade jam onto fresh toast. It always tastes better than shop-bought, even if that difference is entirely psychological.

This is another such long-term project. The gin needs to be left to mature for a good couple of months before drinking, though I intend to leave mine for a bit longer. However, there's very little work involved, and once it's all mixed you can just leave it, shaking or stirring it occasionally.

Basically, you mix your sloes with sugar and gin. There you go, readers - Nutmegs, seven's shortest ever recipe.

You need about 450g sloes for every 750ml gin, and about 225g of granulated or caster sugar for every 450g sloes, though you can add more if you have quite a sweet tooth. Then you just need to combine them in a jar or tub with a watertight lid, leaving a bit of space so you can either stir or shake the mixture.

You can either do this the painstaking way, and prick each sloe with a pin so that they release their juices into the gin, or you can do it the easy way, and freeze your sloes so the skins split, before defrosting and then squeezing them to mush in their bag (intensely enjoyable). Then you can add the sugar and the gin. Apparently it doesn't really matter what quality of gin you use - no point in splashing out on some Bombay, for instance - but I wouldn't suggest using Tesco Value gin. The next one up would be fine, though. I got mine from Asda - £20 for 1.5 litres, which isn't bad for two bottles of tasty sloe gin.

I made my gin in two large 3-litre Le Parfait jars - although they're not even half full, the space left gives you room to shake the contents vigorously to ensure they're well-mixed. Put the fruit in the jar, sprinkle over the sugar, pour over the gin, and clip on the lid. Then shake, shake, shake, and leave in a cool, dark place. Keep shaking it every day or so for a couple of weeks, then leave to mature for a couple of months at least.

I'm not sure whether to take the sloes out and strain the mixture after a couple of months before leaving it to mature further, or just leave the sloes in right up until I want to drink it. Apparently it's possible to do both, though I think leaving the sloes in for longer might give a better flavour, so that's probably what I'll do.

I'm also looking forward to using the gin-saturated leftover sloes for something delicious; I've read various people suggesting them as an accompaniment for game. What better partner for Yorkshire sloes than some nice Yorkshire venison, or pheasant?

Incidentally, sloes are not good for eating raw. I tried one out of curiosity, but Hans Christian Andersen was right when he wrote that they "set one's teeth on edge". Your whole mouth puckers up from the astringency, rather like trying to eat a lemon or gooseberry.

So that's a brief summary of my latest food project. If you know anyone who might have some sloes growing near them, ask nicely for a few and try it yourself. I'm going to decant the gin into lovely old-fashioned stoppered bottles when it's ready and make some nice hand-written labels for it, to please both my inner home economist and outer rampant aesthete.

I can't wait for the first sip of this sweet, warming, fruity concoction.

Have you done any foraging this year, or dabbled in the joy of home preserving? Do you have a favourite recipe for an abundance of wild ingredients?

Five things I love this week #3

2011-11-01T22:49:00.000Z

There's a definite autumnal feel to my 'five things' this week; that much is evident from the muted beige tones of these photos. After a wonderfully warm October, I think I'm finally ready to embrace the onset of autumn, and all the delicious produce it brings with it.

1. Wild mushroom and truffle risotto. I've been craving risotto ever since I had a beautiful starter at the Yorke Arms last week: truffled partridge boudin with ceps and carnaroli rice. The rice was a gorgeous risotto-like concoction, heady with the musky fragrance of truffle, the rice still with a little bite to it, creamy and savoury and incredibly delicious. I couldn't ignore my truffle/risotto cravings any longer, and succumbed with this lovely recipe.

It's a standard risotto to which I added chopped chestnut mushrooms when frying the onion and garlic; I also used soaked porcini mushrooms and added their soaking water to the chicken stock used to plump up the rice. The risotto is finished off with some pan-fried girolle and shiitake mushrooms (shockingly expensive, but a nice little luxury, and so much more interesting to eat and look at than standard mushrooms), a drizzle of truffle oil, lots of lemon thyme leaves and a hefty grating of parmesan. Savoury, umami-rich wonderfulness.

2. Pumpkins and winter squash. It's easy to just pick up the knee-jerk butternut when planning winter squash recipes, but the other day I discovered these beauties at the farmers market. I think the pale blue one is a Crown Prince squash; the others I'm not too sure about.

I cut them all into chunks (risking life and limb and a hernia in the process; who needs a gym when you can spend an evening hacking your way through an unyielding orb of orange?) and roasted them with olive oil, salt, pepper and lots of chopped fresh rosemary. They softened into intensely flavoursome, sweet, fudgy deliciousness. Their flesh was much more dense and full-flavoured than your standard butternut squash, while the skin went beautifully dark and caramelly.

I served them alongside roast partridge (recipe to come) and also mixed them with some couscous, feta and cherry tomatoes for a salad. Winter squash are great with anything salty, like bacon, feta or goats cheese. The possibilities are pretty much endless. I'm definitely going to seek out different kinds of squash in future (and perhaps an axe to chop them with).

3. Fig and orange cobbler. Figs and oranges are a surprisingly successful combination (my aim this autumn is to discover all possible partners for the wonderful fig - raspberries and oranges are two of my new finds). Mix sliced figs and segmented oranges (about eight figs and two oranges) with a little dark sugar and a splash of rum, orange juice or grand marnier in a pie dish. Dollop on this cobbler topping, then bake for half an hour or so until the fruit releases its beautiful garnet juices and the topping is crisp and crunchy. This also works wonderfully as a crumble, especially if you mix some oats and almonds or hazelnuts into the crumble mixture. The figs soften and the oranges become really sweet and flavoursome, and the combination together is juicy, fragrant and delicious. Add some good vanilla ice cream and devour: autumn in a bowl.

4. Porridge with apple and quince compote. A delicious, unusual and thoroughly seasonal way to start an autumn day. Simply simmer peeled, chopped quince in a little water and lemon juice until almost tender. Don't throw away the cores and peel - simmer those covered in water in a separate pan while you cook the quince. Add a few sliced cooking/Cox apples to the chopped quince (peel if you like - I only bother if they're quite big, otherwise it's too fiddly) and the water from the quince cores and peel, and cook until the apples start to disintegrate. You should have a lovely, pale gold bowl of fragrant goodness. You can add sugar, but I don't think it needs it - quince is sweet enough on its own. This is lovely on hot porridge scattered with a few blackberries.

5. The Great British Food Revival. A brilliant programme all about championing British produce that is in danger of being sidelined by foreign imports, putting us back in touch with our food heritage and urging us to save those traditional ingredients from extinction (think peas, pears, crab, pork, potatoes...). I loved the first series, and the second is just as good, judging from what I've seen so far: Gregg Wallace extolling the virtues of Yorkshire rhubarb, an ingredient very close to my heart and one that I hoard like a mad person during its short season. There's still some in my freezer. He comes up with some unusual and delicious recipes that I can't wait to try.

While on the subject, I love Gregg Wallace. I think he has an honest and immensely refreshing attitude to food. None of this poncing around with silly descriptions about umami, mouthfeel and acidity. He simply says "it's like a hug from the pudding angel". If that isn't a concise and accurate description of a dessert, I don't know what is. He is entirely unpretentious and seems like a genuinely nice, fun person. And I'm not just saying this because he likes rhubarb, though that does win anyone brownie points in my eyes.

I'm also looking forward to seeing Valentine Warner's contribution to the show, mainly because I had lunch with him a couple of months ago and am childish enough to get excited about having met people who appear on TV.

Chicken stuffed with 'nduja and ricotta

2011-10-29T10:10:00.000+01:00

Spare a thought for the humble chicken breast. Often sliced from the frail bone of that saddest of spectacles, the battery chicken, this piece of meat is so often maligned. It's hacked up and tossed into curries and stews where its fibres are abandoned to toughness and aridity. It's baked in the oven, the noble cook erring so much on the side of caution, so much against the notion of juices running anything but crystal clear, that it ends up possessing the texture of leather. There it sits on the plate, a sad, withered relic of that former chicken, perhaps oozing an unpleasant looking substance as evidence that it has been injected with water during packaging and processing. No amount of flavoursome sauce is going to disguise the mouth-puckering dryness of this overcooked piece of meat; no amount of chewing is going to render it anything more than simply satisfactory.

I hardly ever buy chicken breast any more. The main reason for this is rather mundane: it's too damn expensive. Since I am unable to buy anything other than free range (my conscience won't let me, especially after my post on battery chickens), I just can't afford to buy it more than a couple of times a month. Two free range chicken breasts notched up an impressive seven pounds in Tesco the other day; I could get a whole chicken for not much more than that from a decent butcher.

I've also discovered thighs. Oh yes, people. Sweet, succulent, rich, meaty thighs. (We're still talking about chicken here). Chicken thighs are my cut of choice for most dishes now. This is nothing new in the world of cookery, as writers like Nigella have been saying this for years, but I never really paid attention until recently. I'm a complete thigh convert: the meat is cheaper, much more flavoursome, less likely to dry out, and stands up more readily to spices and other strong flavourings. If you take the skin off, it doesn't have much more fat than chicken breast, which often seems the cut of choice for a lot of people because of its leanness. Thighs, skinless or otherwise, retain their moisture better than breast, making them much more suited to long cooking in a stew or curry.

However, there is still a place for the chicken breast in my kitchen. Because of its high price tag, I've decided it's almost sacrilegious to hack up the poor thing for use in stews and the like. Instead, I feel a good, free-range chicken breast should be cooked whole, as you would a steak.

Yet there is a problem with this idea. As discussed above, a whole chicken breast dries out very readily in a pan or oven. Poaching it in stock can help, and then you can thinly slice it and add it to dishes such as risotto or Asian recipes, but another way around this is to stuff the meat with something to keep it moist. Not that this always works, mind - I remember a dinner event a few months ago at which we were served chicken breast stuffed with (I think) ricotta and basil. Nice idea, but the execution failed. The meat was incredibly dry, no doubt because the caterers had cooked it to death to avoid any salmonella scares. The stuffing had also become rather arid, and most of it had leaked out of the meat thereby making its purpose redundant. I rarely leave food on my plate unless I don't like it, but I recall leaving half of mine simply because I couldn't be bothered to chew my way through the thing. I may as well have taken off my shoes and tried to eat them.

However, careful cooking and a good choice of stuffing can turn the chicken breast into a thing of joy to eat. I think I've happened, here, on the best possible choice of stuffing: 'nduja, the super-trendy spreadable Calabrian salami that I blogged about recently. I've been thinking of recipes to use up the large quantity in my fridge courtesy of Unearthed, and this came to me out of the blue.

Combined with creamy ricotta, the 'nduja makes an incredible stuffing. Its piquant chilli heat is tempered by the cheese, meaning you don't burn your tonsils off, and it melts in the heat of the oven, flavouring the chicken meat around it while keeping it lovely and moist. I decided to wrap the chicken in parma ham, which helps to conserve even more moisture. At first I was worried that it might be pork overload, but actually 'nduja and parma ham have such different flavours that they complement each other - you get the spicy, rich mouthfeel from the 'nduja and then the crisp saltiness of the parma ham, which is a lovely contrast in texture with the chicken. It just works. The meaty texture of the chicken breast against the crumbly ricotta, fragrant with chilli and pork, is a thing of joy to eat.

I also added lots of fresh oregano to the stuffing, which worked really well. I don't think I've ever seen fresh oregano on sale over here, but it's a world away from the dried stuff that is synonymous with pizza topping. It's hard to describe its flavour; quite zesty and lemony, and very strong. We have loads growing in our garden (it grows like a weed), but you could substitute basil or lemon thyme very effectively - you want something quite citrussy and strong to cut through the richness of the 'nduja and parma ham. Even parsley would do.

I served this magnificent chicken on a bed of cannellini beans, roasted cherry tomatoes and spinach, again flavoured with lots of fresh oregano, as well as garlic-infused olive oil, salt and pepper. This recipe is incredibly simple, as it all goes in one dish in the oven. It takes 10 minutes to prepare, around 40 to cook, and you can do other things (like salivate in anticipation, or ceremoniously don a bib in preparation) while you wait. The spinach, with its iron tang, is the perfect match for the rich chicken, and the tomatoes go very well with the herbs, ricotta and pork. You don't need a sauce or anything, because the tomatoes, 'nduja and spinach release a lot of flavoursome liquid into the beans.

I should warn you - when you get a sharp knife and pierce the chicken breast at the thickest part to check it is ready, remember that you've stuffed it with a load of bright red salami. I was horrified when I did this to discover scarlet liquid pouring out of the chicken after 30 minutes in the oven. How on earth could it be so bloody after all that time? It took me a good few seconds to realise that this was not, in fact, the precious lifeblood of that noble bird, but in fact the chilli-infused oils from the 'nduja. Panic over.

Chicken stuffed with 'nduja and wrapped in parma ham (serves 4):

[If you like this recipe, have a look at my other recipe featuring 'nduja: octopus, fennel and 'nduja risotto]

2 x 400g cans cannellini beans
A large handful cherry tomatoes, halved
2 tbsp garlic-infused olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
4 tbsp fresh oregano leaves (or another herb of your choice)
Half a bag of baby spinach (around 150g)
4 free-range chicken breasts
30g 'nduja
100g ricotta
Salt and pepper
8 slices of parma ham

Pre-heat the oven to 180C/fan 170C. In a large baking dish, toss the cannellini beans with the garlic oil, cherry tomatoes, spinach, salt and pepper, and half the oregano.

Mix the rest of the oregano into the ricotta, along with salt and pepper. Slice each chicken breast lengthways, almost in half but not quite, to create a pocket for stuffing. Spread a quarter of the 'nduja into the gap, then a quarter of the ricotta. Place two slices of parma ham next to each other on a chopping board, slightly overlapping, then wrap the chicken in them. Place on top of the cannellini beans and spinach mixture.

Repeat with the remaining chicken, ricotta, ham and 'nduja. Season the wrapped chicken breasts, drizzle with a little more garlic oil, then place in the oven for 40 minutes or until the chicken is cooked and opaque at its thickest part, and its juices run clear (it's quite hard to tell because of the red 'nduja stuffing, so err on the side of caution). Serve immediately on a bed of more baby spinach.

Fig, raspberry and hazelnut cake

2011-10-23T11:21:00.002+01:00

If asked to give a list of the dishes/recipes I've cooked more than once in my life, it would undoubtedly be short and sweet. I reckon I could count said dishes on, if not one hand, then definitely two hands. A lot of people find it odd that I never cook the same thing twice. If something tastes nice, they figure, why wouldn't you make it again soon afterwards? I sometimes wish I could see things in this way, be one of those organised cooks who has a small repertoire of tasty and perfected dishes floating around in their head, who finds it easy to make a snap decision about what's for dinner (and, consequently, make a snap shopping trip in their lunch break or on the way home for the ingredients, rather than traipsing around endless markets and butchers for inspiration and then dithering over accompanying ingredients and the like for - sometimes - hours at a time). In fact, if I could add up the number of hours I've spent simply shopping for ingredients and wandering aimlessly around markets trying to figure out what on earth to buy, it would probably be roughly equal to the number of hours spent studying for my degrees. Terrifying.

I can't help it. I just have this compulsion to experiment every time I have the opportunity to cook. Why cook something where I know what it tastes like when I could cook something totally new? If I didn't keep cooking new things, I'd never discover certain great dishes that I'd want to come back to.

I do the same thing in restaurants; I rarely order something twice. The only exception to this is my favourite dish at an Italian restaurant I go to with my boyfriend (Francesco's in Maidenhead, if you're interested and live near there - it's yummy). The crab linguine was so good when I first tried it that I had it again twice. Naturally I spent about two hours dithering over the menu deciding whether to take this highly out-of-character and, let's be honest, downright outlandish step. However, the linguine wasn't as good the second and third time around, which to me seems proof of my hypothesis that you shouldn't stick to what you know; you should go off piste and welcome the possible exciting and delicious discoveries that may greet you there.

However, there are some dishes (albeit not many) that I have cooked more than once.

1. Chermoula roasted aubergine with bulgur wheat and yoghurt. It's a beauty not only because it's vegetarian and can even be made vegan if you omit the yoghurt, but because it's so incredibly delicious. You wouldn't expect it from the ingredients list, but the flavours work perfectly together, creating a harmonious and intensely moreish whole, as well as something really unusual and intriguing. You have the charred, spicy exterior of the roasted aubergine, then it gives way to something silky, smoky and unctuous, and then you have the delightful contrast in texture with the nutty bulgur, crunchy pine nuts, soft sweet raisins, and cooling yoghurt. I really cannot stress how good this is. It's perfect for those times when you feel you could do with cutting back a bit on the animal flesh.

2. Aromatic apricot and almond chicken. A sort of easy tagine, this marries the warmth of turmeric, cinnamon and ginger with meaty chunks of chicken, meltingly sweet onions, and tart pieces of apricot. Scatter over toasted almonds and lashings of coriander, and you end up with something incredible. You'd never guess it was so easy. It's also easy to make for just two people, unlike a lot of stew type things.

3. Risotto. Although I'm not sure this counts, as I rarely make exactly the same risotto twice. I always tweak things. However, favourite combinations are roasted butternut squash with goats'/blue cheese and/or bacon; mushroom and bacon; seafood; leek and cheese. I also like to substitute pearl barley for risotto rice sometimes. There's little you can't make into a wonderful risotto. I find it, without a doubt, the most relaxing thing ever to cook. All done in one pan, and after the initial frying of vegetables nothing to do except stir lazily until you're left with a beautiful starchy mound of wonderfulness. Even better if said stirring is helped along by a glass of wine.

4. Cheesecake. As with risotto, not sure it belongs on this list, as I always experiment with flavours, usually fruit. However, my basic baked cheesecake recipe is usually the same, and works for most ingredient combinations. My favourite cheesecakes so far have to be the mango, coconut and cardamom unbaked version (incredible), and the baked redcurrant version (like something you'd get in a restaurant but better).

5. Pasta with mushroom and bacon cream sauce. This started off as a sort of carbonara, but now bears little resemblance to a carbonara. I fry chopped bacon until really crispy, then drain on kitchen paper. Then I cook mushrooms and sometimes garlic in the bacon fat until nicely caramelised before adding LOADS of lemon thyme and black pepper, plus a little white wine and about a (small) tub of creme fraiche. This gets stirred into hot pasta, and the bacon scattered over at the end so it retains its crunch. Comforting, zesty, satisfying. It has all the goodness of carbonara but is much healthier, especially if you use half-fat creme fraiche and cut the fat off the bacon (or fry it separately in strips for your boyfriend to eat, as I do.)

6. Couscous with roasted vegetables. I eat this for lunch most days. In my opinion there's little that doesn't go with couscous. For me it's comfort food, something you can pile on your fork, soaked with all its lovely flavourings, and devour. Great with oven roasted tomatoes, peppers and aubergine, plus fresh basil and maybe some feta or goats' cheese. I also love couscous mixed with chopped mango, cooked prawns and lots of lime juice and coriander.

7. Pear, raisin and hazelnut pancakes with maple syrup. I make these most weekends when I'm at my boyfriend's. They are simply the best breakfast you will ever taste. I've tried numerous variations since I discovered these, in an attempt to match their glory, but none have ever come close. The apricot version was quite nice but a bit too tart and lacking in texture; the apple version was fairly insipid; the pineapple and coconut version left me feeling nauseous (probably because I put a whole pineapple in there for just two of us). I conclude that these are the definitive breakfast pancakes. It's something about the grainy, juicy texture of the pears, the fact that they're not too sweet but they're fragrant enough to stand out, and the contrast with the chewy raisins and crunchy nuts (pecans or almonds work well too). Drizzle over lashings of maple syrup, and you have something amazing. Also great with fresh raspberries or blackberries scattered over.

8. Orzo with broccoli pesto and avocado. I only discovered this dish about a month ago but have made it again since, which is very rare for me. It's such a delightful and moreish combination of flavours; it tastes and looks really healthy but also quite creamy and luxurious at the same time.

And that is basically it. Apart from things like porridge, which I make every day in varying flavours, those are the only things I can recall that I've cooked more than once. Which is actually a bit weird, now that I think about it. Obviously there are categories of dishes that I cook often - curries, stir-fries, cakes, cobblers, roasts - but as for single recipes that I've repeated, I can't think of any more.

It's not that I'm not totally satisfied with dishes I've cooked and therefore don't want to repeat them; I had a quick look through my recipe index just now and have been reminded of lots of excellent creations that I really feel I ought to repeat sometime soon. I guess my sense of adventure just nearly always overpowers my craving for the familiar.

The reason I've rambled about this is because of this cake. I made this cake a few weeks ago. Figs are still plentiful at the moment, their luscious curves calling out to me from their little plastic cocoons in the market, and the adventurous side of my cooking mentality is always trying to think of new and delicious ways to use them. Yet my mind just keeps coming back to this cake. For once, I'm actually thinking I should go with what I know. Because figs have such a short season, why waste them by experimenting with recipes that may turn out to be decidedly average? Why not seize the day and bake them into this truly divine cake, a recipe I know is perfect and which makes me salivate a little bit when I remember it? It seems madness not to.

This cake uses the sponge recipe from my Czech bubble cake, which is enriched with yoghurt to make a wonderfully soft and moist crumb. To it I added chopped figs, raspberries, chopped hazelnuts, vanilla and cinnamon. The result is so good that I think I might have to get the cake tin out now and make it again. You end up with an incredibly moist, gooey cake rippled with juicy raspberries and sweet, fragrant figs (the fig and raspberry combination is an excellent one, as featured in this fig and raspberry galette). The crunchy hazelnuts and hint of vanilla make it beautifully fragrant, while adding an intensely rich, toasted, nutty flavour that contrasts perfectly with the two very sweet fruits. Scattering the nuts over the top gives it a crumble-like topping and texture which is immensely appealing against the soft cake.

It's something that can be eaten warm with ice cream as a pudding, or later for afternoon tea. It's quite a hearty cake, quite dense and squidgy, but this is exactly how I like my cakes.

It's pretty much perfect. Why waste good figs on inferior cakes? Make this now.

Am I the only person who hardly ever cooks the same thing twice? Do you have a repertoire of trusty, tried and tested recipes that you return to time after time, or do you prefer to see every dinner as an opportunity for experimentation?

Fig, hazelnut and raspberry cake (serves 6-8):

75g light muscovado sugar

75g vanilla sugar (or caster sugar)

50g butter, softened

2 large eggs

200g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

Around 200ml yoghurt

1/2 tsp vanilla extract (or 1 tsp if you didn't use vanilla sugar)

A pinch of salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

90g hazelnuts, roughly chopped

5 large fresh figs

A punnet of raspberries

Demerara sugar, for sprinkling

Pre-heat the oven to 180C (160C fan oven). Grease and line a 20cm cake tin.

Cream together the butter and sugar with an electric whisk until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and mix together.

Sift in the flour and baking powder, then stir in the yoghurt until you have a thick batter. Add the vanilla, salt, cinnamon and two thirds of the hazelnuts.

Chop three of the figs into small pieces and stir into the batter along with half the raspberries. Pour into the cake tin, then quarter the remaining figs and arrange on top of the cake along with the raspberries and remaining hazelnuts. Scatter over 2-3 tbsp demerara sugar and put in the oven.

Bake for around 55 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream. It's also tasty the next day with a cup of tea.