Chocolate crêpes with caramel pears and praline


Pancakes, to me, normally mean brunch. I tend to make thick, pillow-like cakes that you can pile high and adorn with gleaming drizzles of maple syrup or honey. As you sit down to eat them, there's always that brief pause where you have to decide whether to try and cut down through all the pancakes, and eat a mouthful containing multiple layers, or eat them one by one. However, a recent skiing holiday in the Alps put me in mind of the famous French crêpe, wafer thin and designed to provide an envelope for all sorts of delights: the simplicity of lemon and sugar is hard to beat, but you can go all out and opt for fillings guaranteed to replenish those calories lost through skiing: chocolate and banana, chestnut purée, chantilly cream. I thought pears, caramelised in butter and demerara sugar, would be a perfect filling, and chocolate also leapt to mind as an ingredient possessing a perfect affinity with the sweet, grainy fruit.


Originally, I intended to make a normal crêpe, fill it with the pears, and drizzle over some melted chocolate. However, while making the batter, I found myself reaching for the cocoa tub. The contrast of the chocolatey-coloured pancake against the bright pears is rather nice, and a bit unusual. To make the batter, just mix flour and cocoa, make a well in the centre, and crack in an egg. Using an electric beater, beat the egg gradually into the flour, adding milk until you have a fairly runny batter - about the consistency of custard. I don't tend to measure anything when I make pancakes, but you can look up a recipe for batter online and just add cocoa (Delia has a good one). Get a small frying pan very hot, add a knob of butter, and pour in enough mixture  to cover the base of the pan in a very thin layer. Cook for a minute or so, then flip (either by tossing the pan, if you're feeling daring, or with a spatula or palette knife) and cook for about half a minute. Keep warm in the oven while you make the pear filling.


To do this, just heat some butter in the hot pan, add sliced pears (one small pear per person), and cook on a medium heat until slightly coloured. Sprinkle in some cinnamon and demerara sugar, and cook until caramelised and soft. This shouldn't take long, though it depends on how ripe your pears are. Take the pancakes out of the oven. Put a few pear segments on top, then fold in half. Put the rest of the pear on one side of the semicircle-shaped crêpe, then fold over again to make a triangle.


As for the praline, I can't take any credit for its genius, because it came about as the result of a culinary accident. I melted a bar of hazelnut milk chocolate to drizzle over the crêpes. By the time it came to serve them, the chocolate wasn't quite runny enough to drizzle. For some reason, I thought adding boiling water would loosen it (normally I'd use cream, but I didn't have any). Of course, the hot water only 'cooked' the chocolate, turning it into a nutella-like paste, but not as runny. Vigorous stirring on the part of my friend Helen in an attempt to make it runny again had the result of turning it into a series of hazelnutty, chocolate pellets, that looked a bit like tiny cocoa pops.


As it turns out, these made a spectacular garnish for the crêpes. They added a nutty crunchiness that contrasted well with the soft, grainy pears and the smooth surface of the pancakes. The cocoa in the batter isn't overly chocolatey, and would be fine without any extra chocolate, but if you're going for sheer indulgence, definitely add the praline. In fact, the paste that resulted from pouring the hot water onto the chocolate is also very good spread over the inside of the crêpe before you tuck the pears into their little envelope. A dusting of icing sugar, and you have a very easy, but wonderful, dessert. Bon appetit.


Wild mushroom tortellini with prosciutto crisps


While cooking something from scratch is always satisfying, I think there is no food group that is as satisfying to produce yourself as the humble carbohydrate. It is perhaps because carbohydrates are so cheap and abundant in the shops that no one really bothers with the effort of making them anymore; you can buy pretty decent artisan loaves, fresh pasta, biscuits and muffins almost anywhere these days. However, it is amazing how something so simple and easy to make can be elevated to something so sublime when made yourself. Take stuffed pasta, for instance. This is one thing that is never as good in the shops. Supermarket ravioli, to me, tastes the same no matter what flavour it purports to conceal within its envelope of dough. Cut a supermarket raviolo open, and you are faced with an unidentifiable, greyish mush that appears the same whether the pasta supposedly contained four cheeses, meat filling, or spinach and ricotta. Which brings me on to another point: the fillings of supermarket ravioli bore me to tears. The advantages of making your own pasta are many, but the chief benefit is freedom for the imagination to roam wild. So wild, in fact, that mine stumbled across some wild mushrooms.



After a pretty meat-heavy week, I fancied a dinner containing a fair amount of starch, and a lot of flavour, but without resorting to meat. I did, however, conjure up in my head an amazing recipe for venison ravioli with redcurrant jus, which I intend to test on a few willing victims as soon as any volunteer (or are coerced). Watch this space.


It's easy to resort to cheese for flavour in vegetarian cooking, but I didn't fancy much of that either. So I turned to that umami-rich favourite, the mushroom. Not just any mushrooms, however, but a mixture of fresh oyster, shiitake, chestnut and closed cup mushrooms, with a few dried porcini thrown in as well. Sauteéd with lots of garlic and thyme until the water had evaporated and they were dark, sticky and deeply flavoured, they went in the blender to make a coarse puree that resembled the mushroom duxelles I imagine one would use in a beef wellington. I added some lemon zest too; it might sound odd to marry something so sunny and zesty with something so dark and earthy, but lemon and mushrooms partner each other extremely well; the lemon cuts through the richness of the mushrooms while somehow enhancing their flavour. I also threw in lots of chopped parsley and some walnuts for a bit of crunch.


I mixed in some rye breadcrumbs, lots of grated parmesan (I say I didn't fancy cheese, but parmesan and mushrooms is a winning combination) and a tiny amount of stilton, just enough to add a sharpness to the mushrooms. The result was a deeply flavoursome, perfectly balanced pasta stuffing. The walnuts are a really good addition; they prevent everything from being too mushy (no pun intended).


Then, onto the laborious task of rolling out and filling the tortellini. Except I secretly rather enjoy this, and have got it down to a bit of a fine art now - I can get the pasta to a thickness (though that should be thinness, really) of seven on the machine (it goes from one to nine, nine being the thinnest). I finally achieved the consistency I have been coveting ever since I read Marcella Hazan's advice on pasta-making (for those of you who don't know, she is basically the Nigella of Italian cookery): I could see through my pasta sheets. You can even see the process in action right here. Note the large glass of rosé next to the pasta machine: this is essential when embarking on the task of making stuffed pasta at home.


I decided to try something different; normally I make ravioli (simple squares made by sandwiching two squares of pasta around the filling) or crescent-shaped ravioli (there must be a correct Italian term for this shape, but I'm not sure what it is), but this time I thought I'd try tortellini. Basically you put the filling in the middle of a square of pasta, fold it over to make a triangle, and then pull the ends of the triangle around the middle to make a sort of hat shape. They're rather sweet-looking, and less likely to stick to the baking sheet they're kept on than ravioli.





The easiest way to hang on to them while you're using up all the dough is to make sure you shape the pasta on a chopping board that is well-floured. Then transfer the shapes to a sheet of non-stick baking parchment. The pasta shapes will dry out slightly in the air, and hopefully not stick to the baking sheet. If they do, they will split and the filling will seep out in the cooking water. Another tip is to make the tortellini as small as possible; they hold their shape better and have less chance of splitting.


I finished off the cooked pasta with a white wine cream sauce, some sauteéd wild mushrooms, and prosciutto crisps. The former was made by frying some finely-chopped shallots and garlic, adding a few glugs of white wine, letting it reduce a bit then adding some of the reserved water from soaking the dried porcini; this is one of the most flavoursome stocks you can find. Then I thickened the sauce with créme fraiche, and added lots of parsley and black pepper.


The prosciutto crisps are just slices of parma ham, dry-fried in a non-stick pan until crispy and solid. They provide an essential saltiness that cuts through the richness of the mushrooms and the cream sauce.


All you really need to complete the dish is a drizzle of truffle oil (elevates the whole thing to a level of deliciousness that is rather astounding), a scattering of crumbled walnuts, and a grating of parmesan. The combination of crunchy, crispy, doughy, earthy, salty and citrus results in a really wonderful dish.

Spiced orange and walnut cake


This is a recipe from the beautiful cookbook, Saraban: A Chef's Journey Through Persia, which I received for Christmas. Written by Greg and Lucy Malouf, it's a detailed account of the chefs' journey through Iran, and an exploration of Persian cuisine. With its marrying of fruit, vegetables, meat and spices, this has to be one of the world's most exotic and wonderful cuisines, and the book does it justice: it's illustrated throughout with beautiful pictures and interspersed with accounts of the chefs' travels. Almost a coffee table tome, if it weren't for the fact that the recipes are so mouthwatering. I came across this orange and walnut cake when I was trying to find a dessert recipe to make last night. 

I scanned the ingredients list (oranges, walnuts, cardamom, fennel, baking powder, eggs) but my face fell when I read that the recipe required candied clementines, which apparently you can buy in good Middle Eastern grocers. Now, Oxford has some pretty good Asian grocers, but I've never seen a candied clementine in any of them. About to give up on the recipe, I suddenly realised that I have a huge box of candied fruit that I bought in Syria this summer. I'm not a fan of candied fruit, but I bought it primarily because it was the equivalent of £2.50, and I remember a holiday in Nice a couple of years ago where I went to a candied fruit factory and found they were charging 12 euros for a measly box of four candied oranges. I think it was just the principal of it being cheap that made me buy it. That and the fruit looked so beautiful, each sugary nugget nestled in its little paper case, all gleaming and twinkling like jewels in their box.


I gave it to my family as a gift; it remained untouched throughout September, October, November, December, and finally they returned it to me, figuring I'd be more likely to enjoy it than them. Lucky, that I was now in possession of the sweetmeats exactly when a recipe called for them.


The cake is based around a similar principle to Nigella Lawson's clementine cake, which I've made before (and it was delicious). You boil whole oranges in their skins for an hour or so until they're completely soft (which makes your kitchen smell absolutely incredible), then blitz in a blender, stir in ground nuts (Nigella uses almonds, but Saraban suggests walnuts, which add a nice crunch and a more nutty flavour), baking powder, seasoning (cardamom, ground fennel, and I added a pinch of cinnamon), and then eggs. I think Nigella has you stir in the yolks and then whisk the whites until thick and use them to raise the cake, but the eggs just go in whole and beaten with sugar in the Saraban recipe. It also requires you to add two candied clementines to the blitzed orange mixture. Unfortunately, what I thought were clementines in the box turned out to be apricots. However, there was some candied orange peel, so I used that instead. It also made a rather nice decoration for the cake.


The cake went in the oven at 130C for about 40 minutes - the book suggests using a very large cake tin so you end up with a shallow layer, but I didn't have one, so it took a bit longer than the authors suggested. However, the result was superb. It's a very moist, sticky, tangy cake, with the occasional crunch from the walnuts. I decorated it with sliced candied orange peel and pomegranate seeds. I think mine was slightly undercooked (I needed to turn the oven up to cook some pheasant, so the cake had to come out or risk a scorching), but in my opinion that made it even nicer - it was lovely and juicy in the middle.



I imagine it would be lovely with vanilla ice cream, Greek yoghurt or creme fraiche. Possessing none of these things, I had a little bit of my cranberry and clementine sorbet alongside. A lot of orange in one dessert, but a very good palate cleanser.




Ham braised in apple juice


Traditionally, we have a ham at Christmas. Usually cooked on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day, it furnishes us with lots of lovely cold sliced meat to accompany the myriad pickles and preserves we receive over the festive period. I am no exception: this Christmas I have personally received five different chutneys. Last Christmas I received seven different chutneys. Needless to say, there is a lot of chutney in my fridge demanding my consumption. A large ham is a good thing to have. We normally roast the ham - last year we did it with a lovely marmalade and five-spice glaze - but this year I thought I'd try braising it, to see if it resulted in a more moist, juicy ham. It did - it was a pleasure to eat all on its own, though even better with leftover braised red cabbage from the Christmas roast and - needless to say - chutney.



Braising the ham in apple juice leaves it lovely and moist. Pork and apple are a classic combination, and work just as well here; the appley flavour infuses the meat but not too strongly. Plus, you end up with a lovely sauce for the ham which you can pour over any leftovers so that they don't languish and dry out in the fridge, but stay wonderfully moist with a hint of sweetness from the juice.

The recipe is simple: put the ham in a pan with some roughly chopped celery, carrots and leeks (two of each). Add a cinnamon stick, a bunch of parsley stalks, ten black peppercorns, and ten juniper berries, crushed with a knife. Add a couple of bay leaves, then pour in enough apple juice to cover the ham (or top up with water if the juice doesn't quite cover it). Bring to the boil and simmer, partially covered, for a couple of hours (this was for a 1.5kg ham). 


Then remove the ham to a chopping board, use a slotted spoon to take all the solid bits out of the pan (the leftover veg, etc) and put a bit of the sauce in a separate saucepan. Discard the rest. Vigorously boil the sauce until it has reduced. Use some arrowroot or cornflour to thicken it, and you should have a lovely, flavoursome apple gravy to accompany the ham. Drizzle it over, and tuck in. Good accompaniments are red cabbage, leftover stuffing (though this is perhaps a rather pork-heavy combination for Boxing Day), pickles, baby jacket potatoes, mashed potato, apple sauce, or parsnip puree. Or just eat it on its own, in all its glory.

Lobster risotto


The perfect Christmas Eve dinner. Champagne, candles, and a lobster risotto. Luxurious, yet not too heavy considering the epic feast awaiting the next day. In fact, not even that luxurious, given that the lobster cost a fiver. Who'd have thought you could find a whole cooked lobster, frozen in a bag of saltwater, in the supermarket? Admittedly, this was Lidl, a treasure-trove of the weird and wonderful; I picked up a tin of something called "musky octopus" from there once. Anticipating that a single lobster probably would not suffice on its own to feed my entire family, I decided risotto would be a good way to stretch it out a bit, without overpowering its delicate flavour (which, for those of you who haven't tried lobster, is wonderful - meaty yet sweet and delicate, a bit like crab but more substantial).

I could never bring myself to cook live lobster. Though the texture is better, and obviously it's fresher if you cook your own, the thought of plunging a living creature into boiling water is more than I can bear. I know that oysters and mussels are technically alive, but they seem less so, somehow. A lobster actually wiggles its claws around and moves. I'm happy to eat lobster, as long as I don't have to see this awful cooking process. Someone somewhere has invented a humane machine to kill lobsters with an electric shock - I remember reading about it in the news - and I like to hope that it caught on and that most restaurants use it, instead of a vat of boiling water. Unfortunately I suspect this is me being highly naive. 


Even in death, the lobster puts up a pretty good fight. I sustained several lacerations to my fingers whilst trying to prise the meat out of its shell. Not only is the shell very sharp when broken, it is also covered in little spines which are likely to scratch you horribly as you try and pull it apart. It took about half an hour to yield a very small quantity of lobster meat, a quantity somewhat depleted by my tasting several pieces of it. 


The risotto is fairly simple. A base of garlic, onion and celery, sauteed until soft but not coloured. A knob of butter added, rice turned over in it, a splash of white wine, and then the stock. I used fish stock from a cube, but boiled it up with a large pinch of saffron, a bay leaf, and the lobster shells, for extra flavour.


To the almost-cooked risotto, I added the zest and juice of a lemon, finely chopped curly parsley, crushed fennel seeds, the lobster meat (reserving the sliced tail meat for a garnish) and lots of salt and pepper. I also threw in some prawns and garnished it with strips of smoked salmon, because there really wasn't much lobster meat and it needed something else to make it a bit more substantial. The result: a delicious, rich-flavoured, lemony risotto with delicate, sweet pieces of lobster meat and juicy prawns. Perhaps not traditional Christmas fare, but I thought it was just right.




Cranberry stollen


I've tried baking my own stollen for the last couple of years, and it's never come close to the bought stuff. I don't necessarily mean this in a bad way - the recipe I use is more of a bread than a cake, a bit like a giant hot cross bun with marzipan in the middle (which, as I'm sure you'll agree, is no bad thing). It's nice toasted once it's gone a bit stale, and it's not as sickly as some bought versions. My mum actually prefers it to the version made by Betty's of Harrogate, which is quite an accolade. However, in an attempt to get mine closer to the delicious cakeyness of some versions (in particular, the one made by a German chef I used to work for), I decided to try a new recipe. Clearly there is no one better to turn to than my favourite baker, Dan Lepard, and I have a feeling he may have proved himself yet again.



The added bonus of this recipe is that it requires no kneading, proving or rising. Normally when I make stollen it takes an entire day of various bread-tending activities; it needs supervising like a naughty child and often disappoints you like one, rising strangely and never looking as neat as it did when you rolled it up into a lovely tidy shape on the baking tray. This recipe involves stirring some things together in a bowl, rolling the dough out, adding the marzipan and baking. Done in under an hour - excellent. I used dried cranberries instead of the sour cherries Lepard suggests, for a more festive touch.


An even better part of this recipe is it involves brushing the stollen, while warm, with copious amounts of rum and melted butter before "dredging" it in icing sugar. Surely this can only be an improvement - alcohol, saturated fat, and sugar? It's practically Christmas in cake form. I'm pretty pleased with the way it looks, too - it's less sprawling than my normal bread-dough stollen. Lepard suggests I wrap it up tightly and let it mature for a week. No chance - I'm going to leave it until Christmas Eve Eve, and then my willpower, I can quite clearly predict, will shatter. 

In fact, I've already nibbled a bit off the end. I could argue that this was for aesthetic purposes, so that my photos show a glimpse of the delicious, fruit-flecked interior with its gorgeous marzipan artery...but in fact, I was just eager to sample my hard work. It does indeed have a denser, more cakey texture, and the cardamom comes through quite strongly. I can't wait to eat it once it has "matured". 

Pumpkin bread


Fresh from the oven, this bread has the perfect texture. Slightly crisp on the outside, the inside is soft and fluffy, more like a cake than a loaf of bread. In fact, it is somewhere on the dough spectrum between scone and cake (the "dough spectrum", categorising baked goods in terms of softness, running as follows: rye bread - soda bread - sourdough - ciabatta - ordinary loaf - scone - muffin - cake. I have just invented this - perhaps the most useful thing I have done all day). The incorporation of mashed, cooked pumpkin and a nice lot of butter into the dough keeps it deliciously soft and moist in the middle, with an intriguing deep autumnal flavour from the addition of winter herbs.

It's simple to make - steam peeled pumpkin or butternut squash until tender. Mash with milk and a beaten egg. Add lots (LOTS!) of black pepper, dried thyme, dried sage and rosemary. OK, so I am a little addicted to dried winter herbs, so add less if you're not a herb fiend. Fresh herbs would of course be preferable, especially fresh thyme and sage. Rosemary, I find, doesn't alter much in flavour whether it's dried or fresh, but fresh thyme has a nice sharpness about it lacking in the dried stuff. You could even add chopped cooked pancetta or bacon. Or grated cheese. Though I save these to eat with the finished product.

Rub butter into flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs (as you would for a crumble or pastry, or scones for that matter). Add the mashed pumpkin mixture and mix together into a loose dough. Shape the dough into a sort of round.


Now preheat the oven to 180C and heat some butter in an oven-proof frying pan - one with a fairly small diameter. You just want enough to cover the base of the pan. Use a mixture of butter and olive oil if you want to be sure it won't burn. When the pan is hot, place in the circle of dough and pat it out to fill the pan. It should sizzle nicely and start to smell of baked goodness. Cook for about five minutes, until the underside is toasted. Then - the tricky part - flip it over. You can do this by lightly oiling a plate and placing it over the top of the pan, then turning the pan over so the bread falls out onto the plate. However, it's a nightmare to get off the plate again as it sticks. Probably better to use a couple of fish slices/spatulas, and just try and lift it out and flip it as you would a pancake.


Cook the other side for a few minutes until lightly toasted, then put the pan in the oven for five minutes or so to cook the inside.


The result: a glorious cake-bread with endless uses. Because it's slightly sweet from the pumpkin, it's good eaten with things that are a bit salty: bacon, parma ham, very sharp cheddar. It's also very good dunked into soup - I made some broccoli and bacon soup to go alongside. That said, it's also delicious on its own, or with a bit of butter - a sort of savoury treat for afternoon tea.



Venison with redcurrants


Similar to the venison with blueberries I cooked a while back, but possibly even better. The redcurrants have a sourness that blueberries lack, and when you bite into a whole one that hasn't collapsed in the heat of the pan, its sweet-sour juice against the iron gameyness of the venison is beautiful. Redcurrants seem to me rather festive right now, even though they're not in season - I picked this lot up at the farmer's market in October and froze them for an occasion such as this. Perhaps it's because the currants look like holly berries with a dusting of ice (courtesy of the freezer), but this to me seems a quintessential pre-Christmas dish. 




It's also very simple, using the same method as the duck with figs I cooked a while ago: sear the meat in a pan on each side, remove and leave to rest, pour some red wine into the pan and allow to bubble, stir in a teaspoon of redcurrant jelly, some seasoning, thyme, and fresh redcurrants, and wait for the sauce to reduce and become syrupy before pouring it over the meat. Simple mashed potato is a good accompaniment, though I think celeriac, parsnip, sweet potato or butternut squash mash would be very good too. If you happen to have a jar of Fortnum & Mason game relish in the fridge (as of course your average student does), it works brilliantly on the side.



A study in cranberry


It was actually an accident that both courses of last night's meal ended up containing cranberries. A realisation over the weekend that I still haven't eaten any pheasant this season, combined with the freezing cold weather and a need for something warming and substantial resulted in a trip to the butchers and a brace of pheasant in the shopping bag. I normally pot-roast pheasant with bacon, cider and apples, but thought I'd try a recipe involving red wine and sour cherries. Unable to find any dried sour cherries, I used dried cranberries instead. Dessert, a clementine and cranberry sorbet, arose for more practical reasons: fresh cranberries are half price in the supermarkets at the moment. You can't really get more festive than a sorbet combining two of Christmas's signature ingredients.

To accompany the pheasant, I made a sort of butternut squash crumble. Steamed pieces of squash, baked under a blanket of breadcrumbs toasted in olive oil with garlic, rosemary and orange zest. The colours are beautiful, and it tastes great too: the crunchy crumbs provide a nice contrast in texture to the soft, sweet squash. 


The pheasant is easy: brown the bird in butter in a casserole dish, remove and saute onions and garlic in the pan. Put the bird back in, pour in some red wine and stock, add the dried fruit, a cinnamon stick, a bay leaf and some fresh thyme, season, put the lid on and cook in the oven for about 40 minutes. You end up with a wonderfully aromatic sauce, and a truly beautiful tangle of soft, sweet onions with a sharpness from the wine they have steeped in. The combination of dense, gamey meat and sweet onions is superb, and the squash works with it better than I had anticipated. Its sweetness is a good foil for the acidity of the wine, and the crumbs on top give a nice crunch. Even better when the dark sauce from the casserole has soaked into the crumbs and made everything rich and delicious.



The sorbet recipe is from this food blog, Pastry Studio. It is the reason my degree is suffering at the moment; I am obsessed with the recipes and the photography is absolutely beautiful. It's more of a sherbet than a sorbet, really, because it includes milk. Orange zest and sugar are blitzed in a blender before you mix them with orange juice (I used clementine juice), milk, vanilla and a bit of lemon juice. The cranberry compote is just fresh cranberries stewed with lemon juice, brown sugar and water. I churned the sherbet in the ice cream maker and then layered it with the compote before putting it in the freezer. The colours are lovely, though it does look rather like someone has just mixed jam and custard in an ice cream tub! I'd quite like to serve this alongside something warm and sticky, like a Christmas pudding. I think the contrast in flavour and temperature would be rather nice.

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.