Jordans porridge: a review


I was recently given some Jordans porridge to sample. This, to me, was possibly more exciting than being given a bag of white truffles to sample. I am obsessed with porridge; I would happily eat it for every meal if it was considered socially acceptable. I remember trekking around Edinburgh at the Fringe festival two years ago, feeling a 4pm peckishness coming on and desperately craving porridge. Surely, I thought, everywhere must sell porridge all day long around here, it being Scotland and all. I was sadly wrong; the one place I managed to find (after walking for at least two miles in the rain) stopped serving it at 11am. Sure, they had sandwiches and baked potatoes...but there is a certain type of craving that only porridge can sate. I feel that everything is all right in the world when I sit down to my (enormous) morning bowl of steaming porridge, topped with whatever variety of fruit compote I have been organised enough to make in advance, or, if the organisation deserts me, whatever fruit needs eating. I've already posted about some of my favourites, so won't go into it again...though I should mention that chopped pear and blackberries make a wonderful porridge topping (I'm still using up the ones I picked in Yorkshire three months ago).

I usually just buy the cheapest oats that the supermarket sells. Oats are oats, I figure; you can't really do much to them to make them worth a more expensive price tag. However, these Jordans oats have actually changed my mind. I tried two types: the finer cut oats that cook in three minutes ('Quick & creamy porridge') and the whole rolled oats ('Chunky traditional porridge'). They both have their merits: the former is good if you're in a hurry, though to be honest I found they only took about a minute less time to cook than the other type. The finer cut oats do make a creamier porridge though, so if that's how you like the texture of your breakfast, I'd recommend those.

My favourite was the chunky traditional porridge - I'm not a fan of anything overly creamy, and these make a porridge that is still lovely and soft but has a bit more bite and texture to it. They take hardly any time to cook, really very little more than the supposedly quicker variety. I tried them mixed with grated apple and sultanas, and topped with golden plums that I'd baked in honey, brown sugar and vanilla. You can actually see from the picture how the porridge is still quite oaty. It really is good, and somehow tastes of more than your basic supermarket oats; it has a warm, almost spicy aroma even before you add any cinnamon or anything. Delicious.


Another rather seasonal idea, and one that incorporates one of my favourite ingredients: the quince. Make a compote with chopped quince, sugar, water and a sliced apple. Use it to top porridge into which you've stirred sultanas and chopped dates or apricots. The caramel stickiness of the dates goes really well with the astringent sharpness of the quince. I tried this, again, with the chunky porridge. 

  

Plums again: this time, dark ones that soften into a blood-red compote. Raw plums are often disappointing, but I cooked these in orange juice with star anise, cloves and sultanas, and the results are spectacular. They make a wonderful contrast to the blanket of creamy oats (for this I used the 'quick & creamy' porridge), both in colour and in texture and flavour. I think this might be my favourite breakfast at the moment; it's certainly one that keeps me buying big baskets of plums at the Wednesday market every week.


Lastly, a rather less seasonal topping, but one I love nonetheless. Poached apricots (cook them in orange juice, again with star anise and cloves), and fresh blueberries. Both plums and apricots are, I think, the perfect partner for porridge: they are sweet, but also sharp enough to temper the soft creaminess of the oats. 


All in all, I'd recommend both types of oats - they're more substantial and have more flavour than the cheaper varieties (and are still just oats, so you won't exactly be breaking the bank). Plus, I like Jordans as a brand: they have a good ethical philosophy, are nice to nature, and, on a more superficial level, make my favourite muesli (it's just called Jordans Fruit & Nut, if anyone is interested...).

Teriyaki chicken, Nigella-style


Whilst I love Nigella Lawson's cookery books, I'm not sure I can say the same for her TV shows. Or at least, not her current one, Nigella Kitchen. Whilst I am definitely someone who revels in the beauty of food, I find Nigella's mini odes to whatever ingredients she is using rather tedious. It's an avocado, Nigella, not an array of "jade cubes". We can all see it's a lovely-looking trifle, but do we really need our attention called to "how beautiful these juicy beaded blackberries look glinting darkly out of that pale billowing duvet of cream"? Every single ingredient is preceded with a comment beginning "I love..." - it might be the "peppery heat of ginger", or the crunch of pine nuts, or the sound of a chicken's backbone breaking (I found the manic smile of satisfaction on her face as she crushed the poor bird before braising rather disturbing), but cooking for Nigella is not just cooking: it's an excuse for waxing rhapsodical about every ingredient under the sun, with a lustful enthusiasm that makes me feel slightly ill.

I also find her recipes fairly uninspiring - apart from a couple of strokes of genius (the pork knuckles and the Venetian carrot cake have gone on my "to-make" list), her entire repertoire seems to consist of dishes in which one can "indulge", and which require very little skill or imagination, but at least four forms of saturated fat (I am thinking in particular of the 'Grasshopper Pie' - butter, cream, chocolate, Oreo cookies, milk, creme de menthe...). Whilst I'm sure her linguine from the last episode would have tasted great, to me, mixing double cream, truffle oil, an egg and huge handfuls of grated parmesan into a mound of slippery pasta is neither cooking nor nutrition.

Meat comes out of the oven, and it's a "carnal unveiling". Which leads me onto my next point, and that is, the reason why I continue to watch Nigella Kitchen. Its plethora of food-related innuendoes is highly entertaining. Whether it's a gratuitous shot of Mrs Lawson's cleavage as she discusses her "glistening lemon cream", her constant remarks that she loves to "use her hands", or the way she comes downstairs in a negligee to make a bowl of "slut's spaghetti" and take it back with her to bed (the bowl, I might add, containing enough carbohydrate to feed a family of nine), or the remark, "I can't tell you how good it is squidging things out of that bag" (referring, of course, to using a piping bag to make churros doughnuts), I never fail to be amused by the way she can turn even the most innocent foodstuff into something filthy. 

So there I was, now on episode eight of Nigella Kitchen (I just can't stay away...it feels so wrong it's almost right), and the buxom lady herself started to whip up a teriyaki chicken with rice noodles and sugar snap peas. Fairly simple and not particularly life-changing, admittedly, but it did look rather good. 48 hours later and I found myself emulating the domestic goddess: marinating chicken thighs in a mixture of mirin, sake, soy sauce, brown sugar, grated ginger and sesame oil, before stir-frying them and their marinade with sugar snap peas and baby corn.


Now, I am no Nigella. For one thing, my cleavage does not have a life of its own. Nor do I decorate my kitchen with fairy lights. I don't feel the need to include double cream in nearly every meal, and the idea of eating in bed disgusts me. But I'm pretty sure my teriyaki chicken tasted every bit as good as hers. 




Thanks to Jon for the photos.





Two ways with pumpkin and squash


I found something wonderful at the farmers' market a couple of weeks ago. A big wooden table groaning under the weight of about ten different types of pumpkin. There were big, blue-grey crown princes, the aptly named Turk's Turban (I'd never seen one before, but it does actually look like a turban - it's the most amazing-looking vegetable - google it), some Halloween-esque large golden varieties, and then several baby squashes. Given that I have never strayed beyond butternut squash in any recipe calling for pumpkin, I thought it would be a good time to give them a go.



I bought these two little ones, hoping they wouldn't consist of nothing but string once I got past their lovely, rustic-looking skins. This was a challenge, as the skins were quite thick. I wasn't sure whether to peel them or not, so I took a gamble and just roasted them, skin on and chopped up, as I would with butternut. I put some butternut and red peppers in there as well just to bulk it up a bit, and covered the lot in a mixture of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and honey. The whole tray of roasted pumpkin smelled amazing when it came out of the oven; the pieces had turned soft and sweet in the middle with lovely burnished corners where they the oil and honey had caramelised. The skins of the pumpkins hadn't been too thick: they had softened nicely and were perfectly edible.

One of my favourite things to do with roasted squash or pumpkin is a salad with goat's cheese. I normally use couscous, but I had some watercress and rocket in the fridge so used that instead. Pumpkin, roasted peppers, a few cherry tomatoes, chunks of goat's cheese, pumpkin seeds for something crunchy, and some roasted chestnuts that I had lying around. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and you have a lovely substantial salad. I think squash needs something salty to cut through its sweetness; goat's cheese works well, as does bacon.


And it is bacon that I used in my next recipe: soup. It's very easy to make and tastes wonderful, especially on a freezing cold misty day like today. Fry some chopped bacon, add a diced red onion and some cubes of fresh squash and cook for a few minutes until the onion is soft. Pour over enough chicken stock to cover, add a bay leaf and some thyme sprigs and dried sage, cover and simmer until the squash is soft (20-30 minutes). I then added the remained of the roast squash from the day before and left it to simmer for another ten minutes, but you can just stick with fresh squash if you can't be bothered to roast any first (though I find it is more flavoursome). Use a stick blender to liquidise the whole lot. I then added some more water to make it quite runny, and then put in a handful or so of pearl barley - I like soups with things to chew on in them, and it makes it go further. Simmer again for about half an hour or 40 minutes, until the barley is tender but still a bit al dente. Check the seasoning, add a bit more dried sage, and it's ready. I like to serve it with grated Gruyere cheese on top, but that is just because I have a weakness for soup with melted cheese on. I don't know why really. 



Of fish and fruit


Yes, I have been making more sushi. I feel like I'm on a bit of a sushi roll right now (...no pun intended) and finally found some sushi-grade mackerel in the fishmongers so was keen to do something with it. I made mackerel makisushi, filling the nori-wrapped rice with mackerel, soy sauce, cucumber, pieces of pickled ginger, and some sesame and nigella seeds for texture. I also made mackerel nigiri sushi, with strips of raw mackerel laid out on top of the rice. The seeds idea came from some M&S sushi I had recently, where the rice wasn't wrapped in seaweed but instead in a coating of these little black and white seeds. They go really well with the Asian flavours and add a more interesting base note than soy or wasabi would alone.



As well as this, we had salmon and tuna nigiri sushi, and tuna rolls filled with chopped raw tuna, soy sauce, sesame and nigella seeds, and crunchy bits of cucumber. My favourite raw fish is still salmon, because I think it has slightly more flavour. I actually found the mackerel lacked the gutsy flavour I thought it would have, being so strong-tasting when cooked or smoked. Next time I'll probably just stick with my smoked mackerel and red pepper filling, but this was nice for a change. I've heard that it is common to marinate the mackerel in some sort of vinegar mixture before use - I might try this next time and see if it makes a difference.

For dessert, something that I liked to tell myself was just as healthy as the sushi. I suppose it is when it looks like this:


But then you soak the grilled pineapple in a sugar, lime, and vanilla syrup, cover it with toasted coconut, and serve with a scoop (or two...) of vanilla ice cream. It's still vaguely healthy I guess, and absolutely delicious. I think I've written about it before, but it deserves another mention. Also, I got to use my blowtorch to caramelise the top of the pineapple rings, which was more exciting than it perhaps should have been. My friend Helen tells me that the Japanese love pineapple, so it was actually a very themed meal (accidentally, though).

An exciting prospect


The other day I received an email from CSN stores. For those who haven't heard of them, they're a group of online stores selling everything from bedroom furniture to kitchenware and lighting. Obviously it is the kitchenware that excites me most, given my love of kitchen gadgets (both gimmicky and useful). I've been given the opportunity to review some of their products, which I am very excited about, so watch this space...

A cheeseboard partner


The Merton Time Ceremony a couple of weeks ago, involving copious consumption of port, instilled in me the craving for a cheeseboard. Gruyere, Brie, Oxford Blue (of course), oatcakes, grapes, figs, and a jar of Tracklements Crabapple Jelly, which I was lucky enough to receive a sample of in the post. I've never tried crabapple jelly before, but I am a convert. It's a bit like quince cheese - sweet but sharp enough to go perfectly with both meat and cheese. Crabapples are inedible raw, being very sour tasting - a bit like quinces. Apparently Tracklements get local schoolchildren to help collect the crabapples from nearby fields for the jelly. I rather like this idea. I also have a soft spot for the company seeing as they were the first to introduce onion marmalade to the world (in 1999), which is one of my all-time favourite condiments. The jelly would be lovely in sandwiches (particularly, I imagine, roast pork or possibly pheasant) but I can confirm that it is very good trickled over an oatcake onto which you've placed a large chunk of blue cheese.

Seared duck breast with figs and red wine


There are few culinary events more rewarding than slicing a perfectly cooked duck breast into thick slices. The way the knife meets resistance as it hits the golden, crispy skin, flecked with crunchy pieces of dried herbs; the springiness of the grainy meat underneath; the way the pink juices pool in the centre of each slice, promising a mouthful packed with flavour. It looks beautiful fanned out in slices across a mound of creamy mashed potato. Duck is definitely one of my favourite meats; it's gamey and rich in flavour but lacking the dryness that is characteristic of some game; there's a wonderful contrast in texture between the crispy, fatty skin and the moist, rare meat; and it is strong enough in flavour to partner fruit, which goes perfectly with its richness and guarantees a good meal, in my opinion. 

Duck breasts in the freezer, some rather sad-looking figs in the fruit bowl, celeriac languishing in the vegetable drawer, half a bottle of red wine to use up in the cupboard. An occasion where the end result is so much more than the sum of its parts:


It's probably one of my easier recipes but also one of my favourites, and pretty good considering it occurred to me halfway through a swim yesterday morning. The first thing to do is put the mash on: chop a baking potato and half a celeriac into cubes and boil until tender. While doing this, slash the skin of the duck breasts and rub all over with a mixture of dried sage, fennel seeds and dried/fresh thyme (you can do this several hours in advance for more flavour). Season. Get a pan quite hot and add a splash of olive oil and a knob of butter. When it is bubbling, put in the duck breasts, skin-side down. Press down - you will hear the most incredibly satisfying sizzling noise. Cook for a couple of minutes until the skin is crispy, then flip over and cook for another couple of minutes. Then put the duck in a preheated oven, at around 180C. It's hard to give timings because it depends on how rare you like your meat - the easiest thing to do is to take it out after a few minutes and cut into it to check the done-ness - you'll be slicing it anyway so it doesn't matter. I like mine quite bloody, but not everyone has my vampiric tendencies when it comes to meat.

To the hot duck pan, add a couple of sprigs of thyme and splash of red wine. Again, that beautiful sizzling noise will occur, steam will rise, the wine will bubble and the kitchen will be full of the smell of duck and wine - no bad thing. Put some figs, halved, into the pan along with a teaspoon of honey and some salt and pepper, and let the sauce bubble up and soften them for a few minutes (you may need to turn the heat down). Keep tasting the sauce - you may need to add more honey, or more pepper, or more salt, depending on how it tastes. A knob of butter is nice stirred into it too, though there's probably enough flavour there from the duck fat.


When the potatoes and celeriac are tender, drain and mash. I add a bit of creme fraiche and lots of salt, pepper and nutmeg to mine. Spread the mash out on a plate. Take the duck out of the oven when it is done to your liking and slice widthways. Don't waste any of the juices on the chopping board - pour them back into the fig pan and stir.


Finally, place the figs around the duck, and pour the jus over. Garnish with fresh thyme.


You could use pears and white wine, or even oranges, French-style. The important point is the contrast between the rich, gamey meat and jus and the lighter, sweeter fruit, brought together by the earthy notes of celeriac in the mash (though normal mash would be fine too). This really is good.


Also, many thanks to my exceptional boyfriend and duck-eating companion for the beautiful photos.

A much-needed autumnal dose of sweetness and spice


Again, more dishes that have autumn written all over them. Not just in their golden and caramel colouring, but also in their rich stickiness and sweetness. I see no reason for not including fruit in two out of a meal's three courses, particularly when the cold weather comes around and you need the sugar to revitalise your spirits. 

To begin with, though, a mushroom, bacon and cheese tart. I can't take credit for this - it was kindly made by my lovely friend Jonny. Cooked mushrooms, pieces of bacon, grated cheese, and chopped parsley, all on a buttery flaky pastry base. I could probably have just eaten this and nothing else for dinner.


To follow, braised pork, Eastern-European style. This is wonderful and perfect for a chilly evening. Cubes of pork shoulder are braised with onion, celery, thyme, bay, cider, mixed spice, and dried fruit (prunes, figs, apples and cranberries) soaked in cold tea, until the meat is tender and falling apart. I always think the best part of a casserole is when the meat comes apart in strings as you pull it with a fork. What really makes the dish though is the addition of brown sugar and vinegar, giving it a sweet-and-sour flavour that fits perfectly with the rich meat. It really is fantastic and takes very little effort. Lovely served with brown rice to soak up the sticky sauce. This may join lamb tagine at the top of my "favourite stews" list. I can't resist the combination of fruit and meat, particularly when the sweet and savoury elements marry as well together as they do in this.


Finally, a fig tarte tatin (see first photo). This is a Nigel Slater recipe and an attempt to enjoy one of my favourite fruits before they go out of season. It involves a very crumbly pastry made with a large ratio of butter to flour, and a couple of egg yolks. First you melt some butter and brown sugar in an ovenproof frying pan, then add some halved figs and cook for a couple of minutes. Then roll the pastry out into a circle and press down over the figs before putting the pan in the oven for half an hour or so. The result is amazing: a buttery, thick pastry base into which have soaked all the syrupy, sticky, fruity, caramelly juices from the figs and butter. There is immense satisfaction to be had from the moment when, after removing the pan from the oven, you put a plate over the top and flip it over to reveal the golden stickiness that is the caramelised fruit on top.

I also made a vanilla yoghurt ice cream to go with it, which involved mixing vanilla yoghurt with icing sugar and churning it in the ice cream machine. It has a slight sourness which is good with the very sweet figs, though vanilla ice cream would be nice too, or creme fraiche. 




Quince sorbet


I know it is bad, but I do occasionally succumb to the allure of the impulse buy. The odd top or pair of trousers here and there. A new eyeliner. A very nice tweed-patterned scarf from Zara on Regent Street. An ice cream machine. Perhaps this last one isn't something you generally associate with impulse-buying, but then again, most people aren't as greedy and as gastronomically obsessed as I am. When the Arts and Humanities Research Council decided to fund my MA, I'm sure they intended the money to cover such necessities (thank you, AHRC). 

Recently I've been longing more and more for the capability to make my own ice cream. I partly blame Masterchef for this, proffering the likes of star anise ice cream (to go with pear tart), but also my own desire for something slightly more exciting to accompany a dessert. Apple crumble and ginger ice cream, anyone? Orange cake with date and caramel ice cream? Lemon torte with earl grey tea ice cream? All these are now at my fingertips. (Not literally, unfortunately).

They're not far off, though. I love this little machine. It's a Kenwood. We have a big Kenwood mixer at home, with a separate ice cream attachment, and this self-contained machine seems tiny in comparison. However, it's a great size to fit in the freezer and actually makes a surprising amount of ice cream - one litre, which is the average size of a supermarket tub anyway. A bargain, I think, for £23.


So, tonight I decided to give it a test run, by making some quince sorbet. As my mum said, "Well, I didn't think you'd start with vanilla." She is quite right - not when I have four quinces in the fridge (I keep a permanent supply on standby at the moment, such is my love for them). It's unconventional, and it features one of my favourite fruits: a clear choice. A good one, too - the end result is delicious. It looks and tastes creamy, even though there is no cream involved. In fact, it contains just three ingredients: 300g sugar, dissolved in 500ml water to make a syrup, into which go about a kilo of quinces, peeled, cored and chopped. Simmer until very tender then puree with a stick blender and pass through a sieve. Leave to cool before churning. 

I think it would be nice to serve alongside something richer - perhaps pistachio ice cream, or some form of pastry. Quinces have such a sweet, perfumed flavour that I think you need something richer and more earthy to balance it. It does make a great palate cleanser though and is lovely after a substantial dinner. 

I feel like the world of ice cream is my oyster.

Pumpkin, bacon, chestnut and barley risotto


I think this is the quintessence of autumn. The contrast in texture between the nutty grains of barley, the fudgy interior of the chestnuts and the meltingly soft roasted pumpkin is just what one needs on a chilly October evening. I also just realised that this dish is quite appropriate, today being Halloween. The recipe is here, for those who wish to try it. You can use normal risotto rice if you like - it will take half the time - but I quite like the flavour and texture of barley.

This recipe is a bit of a revelation because I've never eaten a chestnut before. Which strikes me as a little bit odd, given that I will eat anything. I suppose I have never had the opportunity. They always smell amazing, roasting on those stalls in the middle of towns in the run up to Christmas, but for some unknown reason I've never actually sampled one. So I got a little bit excited when I took my tray of scored and roasted chestnuts out of the oven, their skins unfurling to reveal a sumptuously soft interior. I love their texture and rich sweetness, and I love it even more when I remember that they are in fact very good for you. There's also something rather relaxing about peeling a tray of roasted chestnuts (it's one of those "One for the recipe, two for me..." moments). You can buy them ready-peeled and vacuum-packed, or frozen, but why forego the smell of roasting chestnuts in your kitchen?

I think I've stumbled upon a new addiction.



Polpo, Soho


Tapas-style eating scares me. As someone who is, let's face it, greedy, I tremble at the notion of someone else being able to lean over and help themselves to any plate of food that I have my eye on (which, needless to say, is every plate of food). Fortunately, I think Polpo have come up with the solution: make everything on the menu sound so delicious that you simply have to order far more food than you can possibly eat, and therefore get a satisfying amount of each dish without someone else stealing it. 

The format is based on the Venetian bacaro, a wine bar serving cichetti, which are small, bite-size snacks that you'd normally eat standing up at the bar. I think the owners realised that the English might be averse to a) eating their dinner standing up and b) eating things in bite-size portions. The menu is therefore divided into tiny snacks, and larger dishes. To begin with, we had arancini and crostini. Arancini are deep-fried rice balls, a typical Sicilian snack. I ate one in Palermo once that was the size of my head, and I had only a small, flimsy napkin with which to stem the flow of oil that trickled down my wrist as I bit into the creamy, starchy interior. These were very much smaller, about the size of small dumplings. They were non-greasy and immensely satisfying. The fig, prosciutto and mint crostino was very good too - you can't really go wrong with chargrilled bread, fig and ham. I thought mint might be a bit odd, but it worked well. 

Then the culinary onslaught began. Dish after dish arrived - I thought I'd been restrained when I ordered, but everything had just been too tempting and we ended up with slightly more than I had anticipated. First, a mackerel tartare served with horseradish and carta di musica, which is a long, wafer thin piece of bread. The tartare was nice and refreshing when eaten alongside all the other dishes we'd ordered, but it didn't taste enough of mackerel for my liking. Perhaps that's because I associate mackerel with a crispy, flavoursome, charred skin, which obviously you miss out on if you eat it raw. 

Possibly my favourite was the simplest dish of all: roast pumpkin, prosciutto, and ricotta salata. This cheese is something I've only ever had in Italy or in Italian restaurants (proper ones, like Bocca di Lupo, also in Soho - not Pizza Express), and it is divine - it has the saltiness of parmesan but the creaminess of a good goat's cheese. Sprinkled over a fat wedge of pumpkin, meltingly gold but charred and stickily caramelised in places, the ham draped over it like a blanket, it made a perfect contrast of textures and flavours: salty ham, creamy cheese and sweet pumpkin. The topping of crispy pumpkin seeds finished it off beautifully. It was the quintessence of Italian cooking: totally simple, but utterly wonderful.

Also wonderful was the wild mushroom piadina. Oh, how that word brought a leap of joy to my heart. I discovered piadine in Ravenna a year ago; they're very popular in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. It's basically a chewy flatbread made with pig fat as the shortening (so a cross between pastry and bread) which is then stuffed with whatever you like, folded in half and grilled. Like a panino, but infinitely better. The pig fat part sounds gross, but it doesn't taste like that - it just tastes like a chewy pitta bread. I had one in Ravenna filled with parma ham, mozzarella and rocket. I had another filled with a cheese with the most wonderful name - squacquerone - which was like a very mild cream cheese, and caramelised figs - almost black and dripping with aromatic syrup. The inside melts while the outside stays chewy and doughy...oh, it is actual gastronomic heaven. The thought of it fills me with happiness. I genuinely can't believe the idea hasn't caught on abroad, when almost everything else Italian has. Perhaps there is a niche in the market there...you read it here first...

Ah. A tangent. Anyway. Polpo's version was drenched in mushrooms. I'm not sure if you can apply the word 'drenched' to something that isn't liquid, but these mushrooms were so saturated with garlic butter that the dough really was drenched. It had been grilled to crispiness on the outside but was still chewy in the middle, and I think the chef had tipped an entire pan of mushrooms onto it. Beautiful, soft, earthy wild mushrooms. My only criticism is that there was far too much salt, but I was prepared to overlook this for the sheer joy of biting into chewy dough and dark, tangy, garlicky mushrooms.

Who would have thought that the humble panino could ever legitimise its presence on a restaurant menu? Well, stuff it with cured pork shoulder and peperonata (roasted, sweet, soft peppers), and you may never want to eat anything ever again. The peppers in particular were just perfect, juicy and sweet and wonderful against the rich slivers of pork. 

Dessert was a struggle. Even for my often-deployed second stomach, it was a challenge. But I wasn't going to pass up a flourless orange and almond cake with mascarpone. It was sweet and syrupy and rather lovely, but perhaps not moist or sharp enough for my liking - this is a very minor complaint, however, and if I hadn't just eaten a lot of rich food, I probably wouldn't care about sharpness. We also had an amazing layered dessert of thin pastry, caramelised apples and raisins. A bit like a deconstructed apple strudel...but somehow so much better. 

Please go to Polpo. Its atmosphere is great, the staff are really friendly and it's not bad, price-wise, for London (about £20 a head, depending on how greedy you are). Order more than you think you can eat, and then eat more than you thought you could. It's Italian food, but not as you know it - and this is definitely a good thing. 

Incidentally, polpo means octopus in Italian. I have yet to figure out why it's called that. I'm sure there is a reason.

Pollack with a Davidstow cheddar crust


My attention was recently drawn to the fact that Nathan Outlaw - one of Cornwall's biggest chefs, and also one of my favourite chefs (largely due to his appearances on Great British Menu) - has partnered with Davidstow cheddar and come up with a series of recipes designed to showcase this delicious cheese (which apparently won a gold award at the Nantwich International Cheese Awards). One of the first to catch my eye was the recipe for pollack with a cheese crust - very tasty for very little actual kitchen effort. 

The cheese is excellent on its own - strong enough to go well with other big flavours (I reckon it'd be lovely in a ham sandwich with apple chutney), which is probably due to it being matured for 14 months. For those of you who like your cheese tongue-tinglingly sharp, there's the Cornish Crackler version, which is matured for 19 months. It's called crackler because of the "naturally occurring crunchy crystals that the cheese acquires with age". I'm looking forward to cooking with this one...but more on that later.

For the pollack, it's really as simple as mixing together 75g breadcrumbs, 50g grated cheddar, 4 tbsp chopped parsley, 1 tbsp chopped dill, one finely chopped garlic clove, and 25g melted butter, then pressing the mixture onto oiled pollack fillets before baking for 10 minutes or so, depending on the thickness of the fish fillets. I served mine with saffron potato wedges, salad and green beans. Simple but delicious.

Watch this space for more cheese-themed recipes...but in the meantime you can find some other exciting ideas here (the cauliflower cheese looks particularly inviting as winter approaches...)

Two seafood dishes, and a crumble


I'd never considered stuffing a squid before. How blind I have been, stumbling ignorantly through life armed with a knife with which to slice these delicate slippery tubes into calamari-style rings. Nigel Slater has opened my eyes to the beauty of squid stuffed with a mixture of breadcrumbs, parsley, lemon zest, chopped tomato and anchovies, and served with a red pepper, tomato and chilli sauce. There's something incredibly satisfying about slicing into the soft squid with its salty, lemony interior, with the kick of tomato sauce to bring it all together. It's also a good way, I would imagine, to get squid-haters to eat squid - it doesn't taste too fishy, and the squid loses that rubbery, slimy texture that it can sometimes have if cooked badly in rings. 



To satisfy a recent craving of mine, we had moules marinieres to start. I'd never actually made this - I normally cook mussels with Asian aromatics (lemongrass, garlic, fish sauce, tarragon, shallots, rice). This is even easier - chopped shallots and garlic, cooked in butter until soft, to which you add chopped tomato, lots of parsley and a good glug of white wine (OK, fine, a third of a bottle). Throw in the mussels (cleaned and debearded) on a high heat, put a lid on the pan and leave for 3-4 minutes, then dish into bowls. Simple and immensely satisfying. It would make a good main course with a big baguette to soak up the delicious mussely juices, or some potato wedges. Or both.

For dessert, a rhubarb and strawberry crumble. It's a combination I've been told is good (and one of the few exceptions to the rule that you should never cook a strawberry), and it was indeed good - the two go together in a rather surprising way. Not to mention the beautiful pink colour of the juice as it bubbles up around the crumble mixture. 

Chicken, orange and pomegranate salad


I always used to discount the humble roast chicken as not really worth bothering with. I think it's because I never really liked roast chicken as a child - I found the combination of it, its gravy (bisto-enriched, of course), and roast potatoes far too heavy and cloying, and that is how we usually had it in my house. Come to think of it, I'm not sure any of my family are really hugely bothered about roast chicken. However, take a lovely, crispy, bronze chicken and pair it with some slightly unexpected ingredients, and you have something beautiful. Shreds of leftover roast chicken are infinitely superior to those bland, skinless chicken breasts you can buy in packets at the supermarket, and the real added bonus is the cooking juice from the chicken. This will add huge depth of flavour to whatever you decide to do with it. It is for this reason that I have found roast chicken to be a perfect partner to rice and couscous salads: the juices soak into the grains and make them moist and tasty, and then you can add a whole host of other ingredients. 

Ottolenghi has a nice recipe for a chicken and rice salad with rocket, fish sauce, lime juice and chilli. It works very well. Diana Henry, in her new cookbook that I am salivating over, has one for wild rice, chicken and blueberry salad which I am keen to try. This one is also a new favourite of mine. It's just couscous, mixed with the juice of a lemon and two oranges, the flesh of two oranges sliced into segments, the seeds from half a pomegranate, lots of salt and pepper, lots of torn basil and mint, the roasting juices from the chicken, and finally the chicken itself. It's nice served on a bed of watercress to cut through the sweetness of the fruit, and I think rocket would work well too. Because of the roasting juices, the whole thing is savoury rather than sweet, and the mint, basil and citrus stop it being too heavy. You will feel rather healthy after tucking in...though probably less so if, like me, your favourite part is the salty, crispy chicken skin.

My boyfriend tells me that roast chicken is not a normal student lunch. I think, actually, it is the ideal student lunch - my chicken cost a grand total of £4.49 (admittedly because I flirt with the butcher). The couscous salad will make four meals, and the stock that I am going to make from the carcass will make a very nice risotto or soup. So there. Frugal cooking that tastes lovely. OK, so baked beans on toast might be cheaper, but a) I don't want to be a stereotype and b) I don't like baked beans.

Lamb and quince tagine, and twice-cooked pears


If I ever find myself getting married, I hope it is a marriage like that of lamb and quinces: sweet, warm, rich, satisfying, perfectly balanced, slightly exotic, complementary to both parties, and never boring. (Just right with a bit of coriander; requiring a sharp knife; inedible when raw; only achievable during certain seasons - I think the marriage analogy falls down a bit here. Although I can tell you now that I refuse to marry anyone who doesn't like coriander). 

I've cooked lamb and quince tagine before, but this is a different recipe, from Nigel Slater's new book. It's basically the same as the one I usually use (Claudia Roden), except involves fresh ginger rather than ground. I think I actually prefer the fresh; it's more flavoursome. This is probably because I put in a piece about the size of my face. It mellows in the cooking process though (fortunately). The end result is fabulous: a fragrant, rather sweet sauce, lamb so tender you could swallow it without chewing, and soft, perfumed quinces. Just the thing to make the kitchen smell wonderful and inviting in the rather wintry weather we've been having lately. 

Tagines are generally very easy to make. Brown some diced lamb shoulder in a pan, remove and set aside. Add sliced onion and soften. Return the lamb to the pan, add a cinnamon stick, a generous amount of salt, a big pinch of saffron and a thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped. Pour in a couple of tablespoons of honey and cover the lamb with water. Partially cover with a lid and leave for at least an hour and a half - I left mine for two and a half. 20 minutes before you want to eat, peel, core and slice two large or three small quinces and add them to the pan until they are soft (don't stir too much or they'll disintegrate). Add more water/reduce the sauce to get it to the right consistency (I usually find that although it looks like a lot you can never have enough sauce, so more is better), stir in lots of chopped coriander, and serve with couscous. 

For dessert, pears. Conference and Comice. Peeled, cored and poached in a sugar syrup until approaching softness, then placed in the oven with a trickle of maple syrup and some vanilla extract until golden. Just right with some vanilla ice cream - you don't want to eat anything too filling after a tagine. Oddly, they tasted exactly like tinned pears, just a bit more maple-y. Maybe I shouldn't bother with the effort of peeling and coring nine pears next time, and instead just use the tinned variety...

Venison with blueberries

"Come, we have a hot venison pasty to dinner; come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness." ~ The Merry Wives of Windsor


Possibly my ideal food combination: game, and fruit. Even better when "game" refers to a steak that has been seared to perfection on the outside and is still juicy and bloody in the middle. Deglaze the pan with some red wine, add a couple of teaspoons of redcurrant jelly and a handful of blueberries, throw in a sprig of thyme while it's bubbling away, and you have the perfect sauce for a venison steak. Sharp enough not to cloy, but sweet enough to deal with the rich-tasting meat. To go with it, new potatoes and jerusalem artichokes. I'm a bit obsessed with them at the moment, and their earthy taste and texture are perfect with game. I also discovered today that they are not that much of a faff to peel when armed with a super Y-shaped peeler: bits of soil in the mouth are now a thing of the past. There were going to be mushrooms roasted with them too...but in my excitement at deglazing a pan I forgot to put them in the oven. I'm sure they would have made the dish even better. But even so, this makes a very nice dinner. You might want something green to finish it off, like a watercress salad.

Autumn fruits and their perfect partners


I was going to start this post by declaring that I am a happier person when both figs and quinces can be found in the market. However, I realise that is not strictly true. I am, in fact, a more anxious person - anxious that their short season will be over before I can exploit them to their full potential. I've already devoted at least two whole posts to the magnificence of such fruits - they seem exotic and otherworldly, somehow, yet both grow quite happily on our own English soil - so will spare you the raptures. Instead, I will write about a meal that did actually make me a happier person, comprising as it did both figs and quinces and ticking another of the "things I want to try with figs and quinces" list. 



I set out for the market intending to purchase a nice fat chicken with which to make a fig and walnut tagine. Unfortunately, lack of said chicken meant I had to compromise. I would go as far as to say that this was in fact infinitely better than compromise - it was improvement. I ended up with a shoulder of lamb on the bone, a cut I don't normally use, preferring to use diced shoulder in a tagine or casserole. However, I figured I could still incorporate elements of the originally intended tagine: I rubbed the lamb with saffron, cinnamon and ginger mixed with olive oil. It went in a hot (240C) oven for 15 minutes and then I turned it down to 160C and let it cook away for a couple of hours. How long exactly I am not sure - as long as it took for me to read a few pages of Gifford's Dialogue Concerning Witches and decide that it was too late in the day to be reading annoying early modern script where all the S's look like Fs.


Next, some couscous stirred up with the seeds of half a pomegranate. The pomegranates I found at the market today are truly fine specimens, infinitely better than the watery, pale pink and slightly bitter versions I've been putting up with so far this autumn. The seeds of these have a real sweet sourness to them and are a beautiful vibrant colour. I also put some crumbled walnuts into the couscous. For the last five minutes of cooking, I put some halved figs into the roasting tray with the lamb and drizzled over some honey. The shredded lamb meat went in with the couscous with the figs on the side. They had turned molten and scarlet, almost the colour of the pomegranate seeds, and went beautifully with the lamb. I'd forgotten how much I love lamb shoulder cooked on the bone; the meat is sublime and so versatile. 


For dessert. something from the new Nigel Slater book, Tender II. This book is enough to bring me to the verge of tears because I don't have Mr Slater's metabolism. There are enough recipes for pies, crumbles and tarts in there to guarantee I'd never see my hipbones again. How he manages it, I really don't know, especially because he recommends serving everything with "cream: thick, yellow, unpasteurised". The photo for the recipe of "soft quinces under a crisp crust" simply looked too good to resist.


Said crisp crust is a mixture of brown sugar, flour, butter, brown breadcrumbs and ground almonds. It is a bit like the pear betty topping I made a few weeks ago; much crunchier and more buttery than a traditional crumble topping, I think it will be my new blanket with which to wrap up warm fruits. The quinces are sauteed into soft, golden tenderness with butter, sugar and lemon juice and then baked under the crumble for half an hour or so. I put a pear in with the quinces just for a difference in flavour and texture. They go rather well together, which makes sense, seeing as they are quite similar in shape. 

I must say, however, that the task of peeling, halving, quartering, coring and slicing four large quinces is enough to mean I probably don't need to do any arm-based weightlifting at the gym tomorrow. Especially with a blunt knife. I can almost see why so many people overlook these fine fruits: preparation is a faff and a half. 

But so, so worth it, however, when you bite into that mouthful of perfumed, buttery, juicy fruit and its crunchy topping, with hints of treacle from the dark brown sugar used and little nuggets of toasted breadcrumb. I might have to make this one again; it is beautiful. As are its colours, which I think look like autumn in a bowl.


So there we have it. Two of my favourite things, and some excellent other things with which to partner them to maximise their full potential. Delicious.

Sicilian-style cauliflower, and a strudel


I'm a big fan of the intriguing way the Sicilians manage to blend sweet, sour and salty to produce unexpected and magnificent results. Take caponata, for example, which I posted about a while ago: aubergines, vinegar, sugar, raisins, capers. Sounds odd, tastes sublime. Similarly, pasta con le sarde features fennel, chilli, pine nuts, raisins, parsley, and sometimes anchovies, saffron and breadcrumbs. That topping is the inspiration for this recipe, which is also loosely based on a popular Italian pasta dish of broccoli with anchovies, garlic and breadcrumbs, usually served with orecchiette (meaning "little ears") pasta.

It's incredibly simple: break a cauliflower into florets and cook in boiling water until tender. Meanwhile, fry a couple of handfuls of breadcrumbs in olive oil until crispy. Add some chopped garlic, dried chilli flakes, toasted pine nuts, capers, raisins (soaked in boiling water for 15 minutes and drained), chopped parsley and anchovies. Cook for a couple of minutes, add the cauliflower and some more olive oil (I used the oil left in the tin of anchovies), and then toss with pasta and a squeeze or two of lemon juice. Or you can eat it on its own as a side dish. I imagine broccoli would work just as well, too. It's delicious - in each mouthful you get salty anchovy and caper, but it's perfectly balanced by a sweet and juicy raisin, and a crunchy pine nut. The parsley stops the whole thing being too cloying. It may sound an odd combination, but I urge you to try it. I'll be making the sardine version once I get within reach of a decent fishmonger again.


For dessert, a pear and blackberry strudel to use up more of my Yorkshire blackberry stash. Chopped pears, blackberries, cinnamon and flaked almonds in the middle, buttered filo on the outside. Unfortunately I seem to be incapable of getting a sensible filling/pastry ratio when I make a strudel, and end up with something vastly wide and very unsliceable. The pastry barely fitted around the lovely fruit mixture. But it didn't matter really. It tasted nice and I like to think the collapsibility factor just added to a sense of rusticity.