An unusual pasta sauce


Generally when pasta sauces involve meat, it is normally minced meat or finely ground meat. However, last night I made a sort of stew to use up some lovely braising beef from the Yorkshire butchers, and to satisfy a pasta craving I had been nursing for a couple of days, thought I would serve it with pasta. I finely shredded the large chunks of beef so they'd stick more easily to the pasta, and the pasta became coated in the lovely braising liquid, containing cinnamon, cloves and coriander. I suppose you could serve it with couscous or mash, or even rice, but there is something very satisfying about the combination of pasta and aromatic shreds of beef and red peppers. Pappardelle is, I think, the best choice of pasta here because it's large enough for the sauce to cling to all the strands, but rigatoni might work well too, or those giant pasta shells you can get (I imagine the sauce would fill up the shells nicely once given a good stir).

Recipe (to serve 4-5): finely slice about 5 onions and saute them until soft in a pan. Remove and set aside. Add two sliced red peppers and saute until soft. Remove to a separate plate. Add 900g stewing beef and brown in batches. Return all the beef to the pan and add the onions, 4 cloves, a cinnamon stick, a tsp ground coriander and a tsp ground black pepper plus a generous grinding of salt. Pour over 900ml beef stock and bring to the boil. Cover, turn the heat down and simmer for a couple of hours. After this time, remove the lid and reduce until the liquid has a sauce-like consistency (I used some arrowroot to thicken it more). While doing this, remove the beef chunks from the pan and, using two forks, finely shred the meat before returning to the pan. Return the red peppers to the pan until they have softened. Serve with pasta.

Beetroot and goat's cheese risotto


Dramatic-looking food. The addition of grated beetroot to a normal risotto recipe turns it alarmingly sanguine, contrasting nicely with snowy white clouds of goat's cheese crumbled over the top when serving. It needs quite a lot of cheese to set off the beetroot's rather cloying sweetness, and a few handfuls of rocket stirred in at the last minute would probably be a good addition too. 

Thanks to Jon for the lovely photos. 



Duck with pomegranate


Genuinely one of the best lunches I have had in a long time. Although I probably say that quite a lot, I definitely mean it. I love days when I cook from a recipe that I am not sure about and sounds like an odd mixture of ingredients, and it ends up tasting amazing. They had lovely Gressingham duck breasts on special offer in Sainsburys the other day, and I found a pomegranate in the reduced section in Tesco yesterday (£1.25 full price for a fruit the size of a small orange?! I miss the days when they were five for a pound at Oxford market...fortunately I got this one for 50p, and it made me a little bit happy). I know duck goes well with pomegranates from my excessive reading of various recipe books (and because duck and sharp fruit is a pretty standard combination - cherries, quinces, oranges...) so I did a quick google and found a recipe that sounded quite nice.

It was. The duck breasts are coated with honey and pomegranate molasses and pan-fried then finished off in the oven, and served with a pilaff of bulgar wheat, pistachios, dried cherries, red onion, parsley and mint. Sounds like a combination that could never work, but the end result is truly delicious and I urge you to try it. I think the secret is the pomegranate molasses: I bought a bottle in the Moroccan deli in Oxford a few months ago and ever since have been finding recipes that use it. It's just pomegranate juice boiled down to make a sticky syrup, and has a wonderful sweet-and-sour quality to it that enhances everything you put it in. I made a really good Ottolenghi recipe for sardines stuffed with couscous that had pomegranate molasses in it, and also an aubergine and chickpea stew. Its flavour is addictive and intriguing: people always ask "what is it that makes it sort of sweet and sour?" It's a bit like orange flower water in that respect: it adds a flavour note that isn't too overpowering but somehow gives the dish something extra.

It's lovely in this, mixed with caramelised red onion and sour cherries and used to flavour the pilaff, and also rubbed onto the duck to give it a lovely crispy, tangy coating. The duck stays wonderfully moist (hate that word, but there is no alternative really) - I have cooked duck breasts a few times but these were definitely the best I have ever eaten, which may be down to finishing them off in the oven rather than drying them out by cooking in a pan. Although, that said, I could have eaten the pilaff all on its own - I think the key is using vegetable stock (Marigold bouillon powder in this case) to cook it in. The scattering of fresh pomegranate seeds at the end brings everything together, and also makes the dish look beautiful. A wonderfully aromatic, sweet, sour, savoury plate of delights. 

Risotto, two ways


We sell a beautiful risotto at the restaurant where I work. It's wild mushroom, and served with parmesan shavings and a drizzle of truffle oil. As with anything containing truffles, the smell emanating from the plates is just sublime. It's enough to make me hungry even if I've started my shift feeling full. So, on my only night off and cooking opportunity last week, the craving got the better of me and I just had to make risotto.


I'm still excited by all the peas and broad beans around (how tragic that sounds...oh well), and thought they'd make a more summery risotto than truffles. So I just made a basic risotto (saute a finely chopped onion and two finely chopped garlic cloves in olive oil until soft, add 75g risotto rice per person and a knob of butter, stir for a minute or so and add a glug of white wine, wait until absorbed then add hot chicken stock a ladleful at a time until the rice is cooked but still has a bit of bite) but cooked some broad beans in the stock and then added some pea pods to it for extra pea flavour, and stirred in some fresh thyme, basil and chopped chives at the end. Then in went the cooked broad beans (half of them double-podded, the rest left) and a big bowl of fresh peas, until the peas were cooked. To this I added some bacon that I had cut into little pieces and fried until crispy. Lovely with lots of grated parmesan.

Cold risotto is not one of the most appealing leftovers; no matter what method you use, it never really reheats very well. The alternative, however, is excellent: shape balls of risotto with your hands into little cakes, coat in beaten egg and dip in breadcrumbs, then shallow fry until crispy on the outside and soft and gooey in the middle. The Sicilians call their version of this arancini because they look like oranges: they shape rice into balls and deep fry, often putting some sort of filling like mince or chopped mushrooms in the middle. I ate one in Palermo that was almost the size of my head. It was the messiest thing I have ever eaten, given that I had only one flimsy paper napkin with which to stem the flow of oil emanating from it, but it was delicious.


You can stuff the risotto cakes with pieces of mozzarella, or other melting cheese, or whatever you like, really, depending on the flavour of the original risotto. I left mine as it was, but put some ham and parmesan shavings on top. Broad beans, ham and parmesan: perfect combination. I love the crispy coating that forms on the outside of the cakes in contrast with the soft centre. Yum.

Gooseberry and elderflower sorbet


There are plenty of green things around at this time of year to get excited about. Broad beans and fresh peas, as discussed in a previous post. Globe artichokes - possibly the most labour-intensive ingredient of them all, but immensely satisfying to prepare. The pale, satiny husks of corn on the cob. Asparagus, if you can still find some hanging around. Gooseberries.
Gooseberries have quite a short season, and are one of the only fruits that you won't find all year round, having been shipped in from Kenya or Brazil or something. This, I think, makes them extra special, and something to be cherished while they last. I've already used them to make a sauce for grilled mackerel (a classic combination, and one I was pleased to see featuring on Great British Menu this year). I am also planning a gooseberry meringue pie, a gooseberry and amaretti biscuit fool, and a gooseberry cheesecake. Today, though, sorbet seemed like a good option - not too labour intensive and not too filling, given that I intended to eat a sizable portion of the aforementioned rye bread for lunch (and did. It was great).

Gooseberries and elderflowers are another classic combination, and work very well together in this sorbet. You could make it with real elderflowers if you can find them, but elderflower cordial is a good shortcut. Just get 500g gooseberries, and top and tail them. Put 150ml water in a pan with 120g sugar, and heat for 5 minutes or so until the sugar has dissolved and it has become syrupy. Add the gooseberries and cook until they are soft. Allow to cool before pureéing in a blender. Add some elderflower cordial to taste (I didn't measure, just put in a couple of big glugs of the stuff, but it depends how strong your cordial is, so taste it as you go). Churn in an ice cream maker until frozen, then put in the freezer. Simple as that. 


I like my sorbets quite sharp, but you can add more sugar if you don't like tart fruit. This is lovely on its own, but also good with vanilla ice cream, or a handful of fresh raspberries. It would probably also be quite good with a rich dessert, like a vanilla cheesecake. 

Tourte de Blette


I came across this pastry creation on holiday in Nice last summer. We ate dinner sitting outside at this tiny little restaurant (I believe it was called Lou Balico), and gorged ourselves on the 25 euro set menu. I remember eating delicious deep-fried aubergine slices, a salad with bacon and goat's cheese, and a plate of roast lamb served, rather bizzarely, with spaghetti and pesto. Except no ordinary spaghetti and pesto: we were given the pestle and mortar from which to help ourselves - it weighed a ton and was about as big as my head. Everything was delicious, but by the time dessert came around I was too full to even contemplate it. The waiter explained that the dessert of the day was "tourte de blette". Blette, he translated, is what we call Swiss chard.
Weird? I thought so. I ordered ice cream, and to this day regret it: the tourte arrived, and turned out to be possibly the most delicious dessert I have ever sampled. The pastry was flaky and covered in sugar crystals, and the filling was sublime: it didn't taste at all like chard, more like sweet apples. It had raisins and nuts in it, and I wished I had ordered one instead of my ice cream. Instead I had to be content with nibbles from one that wasn't mine. Alas.

So when I found a beautiful bunch of rainbow chard at the market a couple of days ago, I just had to give it a go. I'd never really tried or cooked with chard before: it's not that easy to find. However, it keeps cropping up in Yotam Ottolenghi's writing, which makes me think it must be worth tasting, as he is one of my culinary idols. It tastes rather like spinach, but looks much more beautiful. After trawling the internet for a recipe (again, not easy, as most are in French and even then they're not ubiquitous), I settled upon one that looked good.








So. I made pastry, which I have never done before but which was pretty easy as I used the food processor. It's quite a rich pastry and on its own tastes like shortbread - definitely no bad thing - I've been breaking bits off the pie and nibbling them all day (dangerous, just leaving it out on top of the counter...). The filling was my entire bunch of chard, boiled for 15 minutes, drained, squeezed dry and chopped (it's almost sad to see how little a huge bunch of greens becomes when the water is squeezed out). To this I added some raisins soaked in rum, some toasted pine nuts, some sugar, the zest of a lemon and a couple of eggs. This mixture went into a pastry-lined pie dish, some sliced apples went on top, and then the pastry lid went on, brushed with beaten egg. Into the oven for half an hour. It was very easy to make.

I ate it with vanilla ice cream last night, and also for lunch today. It was nice yesterday, but oddly is even better for sitting around all day. I think the flavours have improved. The recipe I used suggested laying the apples on top of the chard mixture; I think it would be improved by mixing them in. Once you get past the slightly odd sensation of sweet spinach, the whole thing is delicious - almost like rhubarb and apple. Left for a day, it loses all spinachy-ness and just tastes curiously delicious and very moreish. The raisins and pine nuts are what makes it, I think. A very bizarre sounding dessert, but delicious and one that I think I will make again - but change the recipe slightly to what I have suggested  below. An immensely satisfying foray into Provencal cuisine, I think. I am really pleased with the end result.

So, here is my recipe:

For the pastry, sift 420g flour (I used self-raising because I had run out of plain, and it made a lovely light pastry), 100g sugar and a pinch of salt together. Rub in 225g butter (can be done in seconds using a food processor). Add the juice of half a lemon and 2 eggs, and knead briefly to form a dough. Wrap in clingfilm and chill for at least an hour.

For the filling, blanch 900g swiss chard (or a mixture of chard and spinach) in boiling water for around 15 minutes, until the stalks are tender (less time for spinach). Drain in a colander and, when cool, squeeze out as much water as you can with your hands. Then chop finely. Mix with the zest of a lemon, 40g toasted pine nuts, 100g sugar, 2 eggs, 1-2 cooking apples (peeled, cored and finely chopped), and then 50g raisins which you've boiled in 2tbsp rum until they've soaked up all the rum (you could probably use brandy or kirsch or whatever, depending on what you have alcohol-wise). 

Roll out two thirds of the pastry to line a buttered pie dish (mine was oval and about 30cm diameter. You have to sort of guess what size you'll need. Spoon the filling into the pastry crust and roll out the remaining pastry to form a lid. Join the two together by pinching with your fingers. Use a fork to make patterns around the edge, and prick holes in the top. Brush the top with beaten egg and bake in a pre-heated oven at 170C for 30 minutes until golden. Eat warm with vanilla ice cream.

Veal ravioli with a mushroom cream sauce


I bought a pack of minced veal from Boccadon Farm Veal at the Real Food Festival with the intention of using it to stuff ravioli, and finally got round to it this evening. I just browned the veal with chopped red onion, garlic and rosemary, added a splash of red wine and let it simmer. This went into the ravioli, and I made a mushroom sauce - sliced mushrooms sauteed with garlic and thyme, a splash of white wine added and reduced, and then some creme fraiche and parsley stirred in. Delicious with some grated parmesan on top. It was as if I had combined two of the best pasta dishes - bolognaise and carbonara. 

Broad beans are sleeping in their blankety beds


The title of this post refers to a true musical classic: the song "Cauliflowers fluffy, and cabbages green", sung at that esteemed educational establishment, Milton Road Infant School, Cambridge. I remember it being a highlight of my childhood, and it is possibly to thank for my appreciation of all things vegetable. I always remember the line about broad beans in their blankety beds, and a more accurate gastronomic observation, I think, has yet to be found. Because broad beans do indeed sleep in their blankety beds: the inside of the pod is soft as a feather. There is something rather nice about all the little beans snuggled up inside in their green duvet.


I love broad beans, and was rather excited when I spied a tray at my greengrocer's. This excitement swiftly doubled when I noticed the tray of fresh peas next to it. Yes, you can buy both frozen all year round, but there are few food-related tasks more satisfying than podding fresh peas or broad beans, and I whiled away a happy fifteen minutes doing so (though had I been cooking for more people than just myself, it may have become tedious...who knows). You feel you've put more effort into a dish if you've laboriously podded its ingredients.


Broad beans and peas are lovely with ham or bacon, but unfortunately someone had stolen the last of the ham from the fridge, otherwise I would have just boiled them, tossed them with some garlic oil and cubes of ham and eaten it like that. Instead, I went for something just as good, replacing the salty ham or bacon with feta and adding some couscous for the simple reason that I am mildly addicted to its texture. I also added some parmesan: broad beans and pecorino is a classic Italian combination, and parmesan is the closest thing to pecorino, which I didn't have. Boiled broad beans and peas, garlic oil, couscous, salt, pepper, chopped mint and fresh oregano, pumpkin seeds, grated parmesan and crumbled feta, and some chargrilled courgette for extra greenness. That was lunch.

Brunch for a summer's day


I love brunch. I think it's the slightly luxurious nature of it - that you have the time to spend late morning and early afternoon ingesting copious amounts of carbohydrate, and yet somehow it is OK because you're combining breakfast and lunch, so you're allowed to eat more than you normally would at either. Except I don't really do that, and end up having lunch a couple of hours later. I think it's in the nature of brunch to fill you up horribly, but temporarily, and once all that sugar has left your system, you are ravenous again. Either that, or I am just a pig. I do have a sneaking suspicion that the latter is the case. 
A big stack of banana and blueberry pancakes is always good, but sometimes something a bit more nutritious is called for - in these cases, I usually make smoked salmon, scrambled eggs, and asparagus. The asparagus is English (still around...must be global warming), and I griddled it instead of boiling it, which gave it a nice crispy outside. The smoked salmon is some of the better stuff you can buy and has some sort of pepper and juniper berry mixture on it. I debated between baking soda bread and making potato farls, and the latter won out because I have never made them before. They're literally just mashed potato, salt, flour and melted butter shaped into cakes and then pan-fried. The only problem I always have with pan-frying any form of cake like this (fishcakes, falafel, carrot and coriander cakes...) is that it is hard to get the inside cooked. I often end up with a lovely golden exterior, but the interior still undercooked. As a result, it was a bit like eating crispy mashed potato, but I actually think it works quite well with the smoked salmon and scrambled eggs.


For afterwards, a summer fruit salad. Baked apricots (with honey and orange flower water), blueberries, raspberries, some superb Spanish cherries, and vanilla sugar. Baking the apricots really made a difference - it's a delicious combination and one I recommend.

Food for when the sun comes out


Predominantly green, with a splash of colour. That seems to be a good rule for food that is still appetising even in the freak heatwave we are blessed with at the moment. I find myself deciding what to eat by choosing what is most colourful at the market stall (I am a big fan of these little tomatoes, I think they're called Santa, which are not round like a cherry tomato but oblong, and come in yellow and red), adding a lot of herbs, some sort of carbohydrate (couscous is my favourite), maybe some milky cheese (feta or mozzarella): lunch. 
We have a field of fresh oregano growing in our herb garden, a huge basil plant on the shelf and a big bunch of coriander that I bought. Combined, they make a lovely salad, like this one I made earlier:


It's just cooked lentils, tossed while warm with sliced chicory, grilled yellow peppers, torn oregano leaves, halved cherry tomatoes, little balls of mozzarella (torn in half), pumpkin seeds, and a dressing - a bunch of coriander, a handful of basil, the juice of a lime, a garlic clove and some olive oil blitzed in a blender. Sounds an odd combination, but I was surprised to find it works rather well - filling, flavoursome and summery. I think it would also work well with cannellini or butter beans.

Steak salad, and a rhubarb and cardamom tart


I'm not really much of a carnivore, and I would never order steak in a restaurant - I find it far too predictable. Satisfying primal, yes, tearing at a slab of steaming flesh with my teeth, but this doesn't really do that much for me. I think it has something to do with being female; my instinct is perhaps more for gathering than for hunting. I always think, whenever customers order steak and chips at the restaurant where I work, why didn't you choose the swordfish with guacamole or the truffle risotto? Obviously, this is just a personal thing, because I have a desire to try anything and everything, and there's only so many variations one can find on a good steak. 

So when I find myself buying steak for dinner, it feels novel. In fact, I don't think I've ever cooked steak for myself. However, there was an exciting-sounding recipe in the Guardian magazine a few weeks ago that I wanted to try: a steak, mango and avocado salad. Seeing as there was a mango languishing in the fruit bowl and two avocados in the fridge, it seemed sensible. I am glad that said mango went into the salad: when I nibbled a piece (for quality control purposes, obviously), I came away with a mouth full of string. Not a fine specimen. It was literally like having pieces of dental floss stuck between my teeth, which I then had to get actual dental floss to remove. Unpleasant. 

Fruit-related dental hygiene issues aside, the salad was delicious. It sounds like an odd combination of ingredients, but they work together beautifully, and the dressing makes all the difference. Plus, I got to perform one of my absolute favourite cooking tasks of all time: heating up a griddle pan until smoking and slapping down a lovely piece of marinated steak on it (normally I would choose tuna, but beef is still good). The sizzling sound it makes has to be one of the best you will ever hear in the kitchen. I seem to have an odd knack for timing steaks exactly: I don't use a timer, but somehow instinctively always know when it is done to my liking. I like my steak (be it tuna or beef) seared on the outside and beautifully soft and pink in the middle (or blue, in the case of tuna). There's something beautiful about slicing it and laying it out in vibrant pink stripes atop a luscious verdant salad. Then, of course, eating it; the juices from the meat mix with the dressing and soften the salad leaves, and the whole thing becomes a mass of vibrant flavours. 

Another attempt to use up various ingredients lying around the house: a rhubarb tart. There are a couple of kilos of the stuff in the freezer from when my mum's colleague gave her a glut of rhubarb from his allotment. There is also a packet of feuilles de brik pastry in the fridge - a Middle Eastern fine pastry similar to filo but slightly more porous and less brittle. The sheets come in circles, so it was easy to just layer them, brushed with melted butter, into a tart tin and bake it blind for 10 minutes or so until crispy. I made a creme patisserie (the same recipe I used for the rhubarb millefeuille in the Masterchef cookbook, but infused with cardamom rather than vanilla), layered it on top of the pastry, and topped the whole thing with poached rhubarb flavoured with ginger (I wanted to use orange zest and juice, but lacked an orange). I suppose this is basically rhubarb and custard, on pastry. It was tasty. Next time I am going to use poached apricots instead of rhubarb, and maybe make individual mini tartlets, because they look prettier.

Cheddar and onion cornbread


I thought I'd share this with you because a) it is very tasty and b) it is possibly the easiest bread product you will ever make. I'm a big fan of the slow, lazy way of making bread, involving lots of kneading and proving, but sometimes only a home-baked loaf will do, and you only have an hour. Luckily, there are lots of breads out there that are not off limits. They often rely on a chemical reaction between buttermilk or yoghurt, and bicarbonate of soda, to make them rise, instead of yeast - soda bread is a good example, as is this corn bread. A blessing to the time-pressed, and just as good. They are often more crumbly and dense than bread that has risen slowly, better to eat with soup or as a sort of ploughman's lunch than for sandwiches. This, unfortunately, is quite dangerous - you end up breaking bits off to eat with pieces of cheese, and before you know it the whole loaf is gone. Oops. 

My only experience of corn bread until now was in New York, when as a picky 16-year old devoid of any gastronomic knowledge or curiosity, I was presented with a vast slab of it alongside a vast plate of chicken and chips. I was very confused - it looked like cake, tasted a bit like cake, and I couldn't really figure out what it was doing there. To be honest, I still can't figure it out.

But corn bread, I think, does have its place - particularly this version (which, by the way, is in no way redolent of cake). You can put whatever you like in the mixture - I used caramelised onions and cheddar, with a pinch of paprika, simply because I had onions and cheddar in the fridge, but things like chorizo, mushrooms, herbs, bacon, red onions, goats cheese, etc. would also be nice. It has a crumbly texture just right for eating with a slab of cheese or a big bowl of soup.

Recipe: mix 125g cornmeal (or polenta) with 125g plain flour, 2tsp baking powder, 1tsp salt and 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda. Make a well in the middle and add 2 eggs, 1tbsp honey or brown sugar, and 150g buttermilk or natural yoghurt. Stir until combined. Add 1/2tsp paprika, a handful of grated cheddar, and a sliced onion which you've softened in a pan with some oil (reserve a little to sprinkle on top). Mix well and put into a tin - I used a 20cm square brownie tin, but any shallow tin would work, or you could even just spoon the mixture onto a baking tray, as it's quite thick. Sprinkle some more onion and grated cheddar over the top. Bake at 220C for 20 minutes. Devour while warm with some good cheese and ham. 

Marmalade Chelsea Buns


The Chelsea bun was apparently invented in the 18th century at the Bun House in Chelsea. I have a special affection for them because I live in a town home to a bakery famed for its Chelsea buns: Fitzbillies in Cambridge. For me, they tick all the boxes required for the perfect piece of confectionary: filling enough for that late-afternoon, pre-dinner hunger gap, squishy and fluffy in the middle yet crusty on the outside, sticky and delicious, and featuring cinnamon. I particularly relish the bit where the buns have stuck together during cooking and been separated from each other; it's doughy and soft as a feather. That said, my favourite bit is the middle, where all the sugar and fruit has concentrated together: I save that bit until last. They're a bit like those cinnamon swirl danish pastries: the fruity, sticky, spicy epicentre should always be the final mouthful.




Another Dan Lepard recipe, this one. (The more I bake his recipes, the more I am thankful that I am not his wife. I am sure I would actually be breaking the record for world's fattest woman if I was). It's a triumph: the marmalade means you don't need too much sugar and stops it being overly cloying. Really easy to make as well. I'm finding it hard not to keep going back to the tin and breaking more pieces off. Must wait until teatime...

Pasta with sausage, fennel and tomato sauce


Possibly the easiest pasta dish in the world that involves some modicum of preparation (I don't count things like stirring a jar of pesto into cooked pasta). It is also profoundly delicious, and this I think is largely due to the lovely Yorkshire sausages I used - get good quality ones for this. Italian sausages would be more authentic, so if you can find some nice ones use those. Take about 500g of sausages, take the meat out of the skins and crumble into a hot, non-stick pan. Fry, stirring and breaking up the meat, for a few minutes, adding a teaspoon or so of fennel seeds (or more if you love fennel seeds, which I do). Then add 2-3 crushed garlic cloves and fry for a couple more minutes. Add a generous glug of red or white wine (white is probably more summery), a can of chopped tomatoes, a tablespoon of tomato puree and some chopped rosemary or thyme. Or any herb, really - oregano might be nice too. Simmer for 10-15 minutes until you have a lovely thick sauce (you might need to add some of the drained pasta water to loosen it a bit and ensure it coats the pasta). Stir through hot pasta - I used pappardelle for this, but any pasta would work really. It would also make a lovely filling for soft pillows of ravioli, but I had no time. Sprinkle with grated parmesan, black pepper, and torn basil/oregano leaves. Delicious.

Summer in a bowl


There must be some sort of chemical reaction that accounts for the immeasurable improvement that comes when you cook fresh apricots. They go from woolly and blandly peachy to fiery, flavoursome bundles of joy. These, simmered in a splash of orange juice with some star anise, cloves and orange flower water have been my breakfast for the last week. I intend to try them out on top of a tart filled with cardamom-infused creme patisserie, or on top of a sort of sticky-toffee-pudding type cake, made with lots of dates. Because they become so sharp and zesty when cooked, they need some sort of blandly sweet accompaniment. Not that they necessarily need any accompaniment - I've found myself eating them from the bowl with a spoon. Good with ice cream, too.

A biscuit is worth a thousand words


It was our Schools Dinner a week or so ago. That is, a lovely free dinner provided by college in the handsome surroundings of the SCR, and a chance to say goodbye to the tutors who have put up with us for the last three years. Obviously, it seemed appropriate to give some kind of gift. My gifts are always food-based, and I figured some nice biscuits would not go amiss - who doesn't like biscuits? I always think a home-made present is much nicer and has more soul than something from a shop, especially if it's taken some amount of effort to produce. I thought it might be nice to combine my twin passions, literature and food, in present form.
I turned to Ottolenghi's first cookbook for baking inspiration, as it is full of mouthwatering delights, and the only thing I have baked from there - a chocolate fudge cake - was absolutely divine. Fortuitously, I already had all the ingredients to bake both a batch of cranberry, oat and white chocolate cookies, and a batch of pistachio, orange and ginger biscotti. The cookies were straightforward, and the biscotti quite fun because I'd never made them before. Biscotti literally means "twice-baked" in Italian (just as biscuit means "twice-baked" in French) - you make the dough, roll it into a sausage, bake it for a short amount of time until just set, allow to cool, slice widthways into finger shapes and bake again until crunchy. I nibbled some of the remnants just to check the quality - delicious. I might make these again to have with my tea. It's always nice to have some form of biscuit to dip into tea.

I wrapped them in cellophane and tied it with red ribbon, and put a different label on each - all four labels had quotes from literature relating to food, so my Medieval tutor had something from Chaucer, my Shakespeare tutor something from The Winter's Tale, my tutor who has written a book on Virginia Woolf had, naturally, Ms Woolf, and my tutor who taught me the 17th and 18th century had a quotation from Richardson's Pamela. I thought they looked quite lovely and hopefully tasted good too. 

In praise of porridge

We had our breakfasts--whatever happens in a house, robbery or murder, it doesn't matter, you must have your breakfast. 
~ Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone


He is right. I have always felt breakfast to be the best meal of the day, or at least I have since I discovered porridge. Although, really, it is odd that I even like porridge. Given that I hate milk and yoghurt and anything with a sort of unchewable consistency, porridge should really be something that I loathe and detest. However, it is something I would happily eat at every meal and look forward to every morning.
Admittedly, the idea of plain porridge with no adornment does make me feel a bit sad. My approach is to cram it full of lovely sugary (but in a good way) things so you end up with a bowl of something that feels more like a dessert than breakfast, but is still infinitely better for you than eating hideous processed cereal. I make it with half water and half milk, mainly because I can never be bothered to buy milk often enough to use entirely milk, and because it's less like having a lead brick in your stomach that way. I don't really measure anything, just sort of guess, and if it still looks a bit grainy add some more milk. There's something rather therapeutic about standing at the hob absent-mindedly stirring a steaming bowl of porridge, especially on a grey rainy day like today. It's the same calmness you get from stirring a risotto. I still eat it in the height of summer - it's filling, delicious and means you're not hungry until lunchtime.

So, some good porridge recipes. Firstly, pear and nutmeg. Grate massive amounts of nutmeg into the oats when you add the milk/water. Add a handful of sultanas. Cook the porridge, then cover with chopped ripe pear and lots of honey, and maybe some flaked almonds if you can be bothered.


Or, get some plums. This is a good one for underripe plums that you have a sneaking suspicion will never ripen enough to be nice to eat. Halve the plums and put in a baking dish. Sprinkle with rosewater, honey and a little bit of water (and maybe some brown sugar), cover with foil and bake at 170C for half an hour or so. You should have lots of crimson, rose-scented juice left in the dish to drizzle over the porridge. Another good plum recipe is to make a compote by quartering plums, putting in a pan with some orange juice and zest, a star anise, some cloves and a cinnamon stick. Simmer for 15 mins or so until the plums are soft, juicy and fragrant. Delicious.


Poached rhubarb: bake sticks of rhubarb in the oven with the juice of an orange, some orange zest and some sugar, until soft. This goes well with porridge into which you've stirred cinnamon and dried cranberries.


Banana and blueberry: good for using up overripe bananas. Cook the porridge with some cinnamon and maybe some chopped dried apricots. When it is nearly cooked, add a sliced banana. In a separate pan, heat a handful of blueberries with a drop of water until they burst and turn all juicy. Pour over the porridge.


Winter fruit compote: good for when there's not very much fresh fruit around. Put some halved dried apricots, prunes and figs in a pan with some sultanas, orange juice and zest, a star anise and a clove or two. Simmer for half an hour to an hour until the fruit is soft - you may have to keep adding more liquid as you want some nice syrupy juice left over to pour onto the porridge. This is even better if you add an orange, cut into segments. It's good in winter when the blood oranges start appearing.


Finally, my favourite at the moment: apricots (see the first photo of the post). A real treat when fresh apricots come into season round about now. I find them quite bland when eaten raw - sort of like poor impostors for peaches - but when cooked in this way they become something a little bit magical. Halve them, put in a baking dish and sprinkle with honey and orange flower water. Add some water, cover with foil and bake for 30-40 mins at 170C until soft and you have some nice syrup in the dish. Alternatively, halve and put in a pan with some water, orange flower water and honey and simmer until soft - this takes less time. Serve with porridge into which you've put sultanas, chopped dates and lots of cinnamon. Truly delicious.