Flash Cooking by Laura Santtini



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

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



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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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



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

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

1 tbsp sesame oil
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced (I crushed mine)
1 tsp grated fresh ginger (I used about 1 tbsp, but I absolutely love fresh ginger)
1 tsp Chinese five-spice powder
500g pork mince 
250 tenderstem broccoli (I used one head of normal broccoli, cut into thin florets)
4 spring onions, chopped
1 red chilli, sliced and deseeded
2 tbsp nam pla fish sauce
1/2 tbsp runny honey
Juice of 1 lime

For the garnish:
Handful of chopped coriander leaves
2 tbsp roughly chopped natural roasted peanuts
2 lime wedges

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

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

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


Homemade sloe gin

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

If this country were a kitchen, its larder would be Yorkshire

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Basically, you mix your sloes with sugar and gin.

There you go, readers - Nutmegs, seven's shortest ever recipe. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five things I love this week #3

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


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

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



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


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

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


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


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

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

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

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

Jordans 10% challenge & Jimmy's Farm


Last week I visited Jimmy’s Farm in Suffolk for the launch of the ‘10% Challenge’, a new campaign by Jordans cereals to get more people encouraging wildlife in their gardens. We are constantly faced with stories about the sad state of British wildlife; bees in crisis, butterflies declining rapidly; birds under threat. Jordans believe part of the problem is that there are not enough havens for such wildlife in our increasingly urbanized landscape. Between now and this time next year, Jordans is aiming for 10,000 gardeners to join the challenge and make at least 10% of their garden space wildlife-friendly. They estimate that, in acres, this space is equivalent to eighteen football pitches. Apparently there are 100,000 acres of garden in the UK; in the long term, Jordans hope that 10% of this would become wildlife-friendly, which is the rather impressive equivalent of 63,291 football pitches. As someone with no grasp of gardening but an earnest sympathy with the plight of bees, I went along to see what the campaign is all about.

Helping to promote the 10% challenge is the lovely Jimmy Doherty, farmer and wildlife expert. Jimmy is an entomologist-turned-farmer who set up his farm in 2003 without any experience or knowledge of the subject (his journey was documented by the BBC 2 series ‘Jimmy’s Farm’), and is now a highly successful ‘celebrity farmer’, if such a term exists. As if to embody this persona, he was wearing jeans and a checked shirt. We were shown a promotion video for the 10% Challenge in which he was also wearing jeans and a checked shirt; he hastily informed us that he does, in fact, own other shirts.


Jordans are already a company concerned about wildlife conservation. Their ‘conservation grade’ farming system, created in 1985, ensures that the farmers growing cereal for the company are very aware of the needs of nature; they are committed to creating better homes for wildlife on the land that they farm. Jordans sources its cereals from 50 farms, extending over Suffolk, Hertfordshire and Hampshire, and they all operate to conservation grade standards; over the last decade Jordans has invested £2 million into preserving the British countryside through premiums paid to farmers.

Of these 50,000 acres of farmland, the 10% devoted to wildlife is a substantial space, and has already been successful in allowing wildlife to prosper: there has been a 41% increase in birds; eight times as many butterflies; thirteen times as many bees; and thirty times as many small mammals such as water voles.

Jimmy Doherty (centre, checked shirt) and Bill Jordan (on Jimmy's left). I'm the one in red - lucky me!
Bill Jordan, co-founder of Jordans Cereals and the Conservation Grade farming system, was present to launch the campaign. Over a breakfast of Jordans cereals (as an avid fan of their products, I was truly enchanted by the huge trestle table boasting – I think – the entire range of Jordans cereals, granola and muesli bars, ready for the tasting), he explained to us the thought process behind the campaign.

“Over the years what we've managed to do with our farmers, which we're quite proud of doing, really, is to get these chaps to take ten per cent of the productive land out of production and create habitats around the farm. One of the reasons why we're getting less wildlife on farms is that we're leaving wildlife less space, so the ten per cent thing is about that percentage that comes out of production to form habitats.”

He stressed the importance of plants such as clover, which attract bees: “We have problems with bees because they haven’t got homes to go to.” Pollen and nectar are also “terribly important – once you’ve got the pollen and the nectar you get the insects and the whole trophic pyramid leading up to the ‘celebrity’ wildlife at the top.” It is this notion – that by caring for the creatures at the base of the ecosystem, you’re also benefiting those further up – that is key to the 10% challenge.

Building habitats for birds is also important at this time of year. “In a few months’ time you’ll look around the countryside and there won’t be much for birds to live on, so our farmers plant millet, wheat, all these sorts of food for birds to keep them going during those important months, so that by the time you get to March and April they’ll be in good breeding nick and be looking healthy.”


“The 10% challenge is all about using that important figure to try and get other people to help out, to get more biodiversity in the countryside. Farmers can look after wildlife in the countryside, but if more people sign up for this challenge we can have more happening in the urban environment as well, which is terribly important to build our biodiversity up. We need it to buffer us from global warming and all those things.”

Bill then introduced Jimmy, an ideal frontman for the campaign. “Jimmy’s done a fantastic job over ten years telling people what food’s about.” Bill’s certainly right there. I remember watching ‘Jimmy’s Food Factory’ on iPlayer over breakfast at university, and then always wishing I hadn’t – by carrying out weird and wonderful experiments, and building a bizarre array of contraptions, he revealed all the disgusting stuff that goes into processed meat, bread and cereal products. It was enough to put you off sliced white for life.

“I visit different producers who all think Jimmy’s a kind of superstar – he tells the story well, he puts it clearly and sensibly. Farmers like him too because he puts their case well; they’re in a tough position and need to be represented well. How do we put the truth in front of the consumers so they can make sensible decisions about the food they buy?”


I finished the last of my bowl of apple and cinnamon granola (delicious), pondered going up for some more before realizing that I had already had one breakfast, and three might be pushing it a bit, and then it was time for Jimmy to talk a little about the 10% challenge.

“What Bill and Jordans have done is fantastic. For a private business to be pushing this forward is great, this is a great way of people doing their bit for conservation. It’s also the lazy gardener’s dream – you can put that ten per cent aside that you find really awkward in the garden, that bit where nothing will grow, and turn it into a positive.”

Jimmy highlighted the importance of conservation. It’s not just about preserving bees and butterflies “for us, because they look nice”, but because “they’re vital to us. We need them more than they need us. They keep the ecosystem going; the more diverse an ecosystem is, the more stable and productive it is, and the more food we can generate to feed our population. Protecting biodiversity is the most important issue facing mankind in the coming 50 years because it’s all about ecosystem functioning and preserving out food.”

“The thing about gardens is they’re untapped resources – in a small patch of vegetation you might have 150 species, a whole plethora of species, and they do so much for the environment. This is a really clever way of looking at our gardens, if you clump them all together, as one huge nature reserve.”



If anyone is in a position to advise on making a space wildlife-friendly, it’s Jimmy. He proceeded to show us round his farm, a beautiful expanse of fields and gardens with a wide array of animal and plant life. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a farm before, at least not since I was tiny and went to petting zoos and the like, so I was thrilled to see all the different areas. It helped that it was a truly beautiful morning, the farm bathed in glorious sunshine, as we walked around the gardens and animal enclosures.

Jimmy first showed us how to make a bee box, the lesser-known cousin of the ubiquitous bird box. I’d never have thought of creating a home for bees in the garden, but suddenly it seemed very silly that I hadn’t, especially as it’s so simple – you just bunch a lot of twigs, sticks and canes (bamboo are good, as they’re hollow in the middle) together with string, and tie the bundle to a tree, or put under a bush or hedge. Brilliant. We were also told how to make a hibernation area – stuff a flowerpot with straw and half-bury it in the garden so creatures can hibernate in it. I quite fancy a hibernation pot of my own for the coming winter.



Next, Jimmy showed us around the vegetable garden, which is used on a daily basis to supply the farm restaurant. There were all sorts of edible plants and herbs growing, but more important was the large, untended patch of vegetation alongside the neat rows of thyme and sage. This weedy patch, Jimmy explained, is a great habitat for wildlife. It was a difficult area of garden, tricky to move the mower around, so Jimmy turned it into a wildlife area. He showed us borage, good for wildlife but also useful for its pretty flowers (see above), which they put in ice cubes in the restaurant (also good for Pimms in the summer, due to its cucumber flavour). Jimmy stressed the importance of plant ‘architecture’ – different heights of plants that will attract different types of wildlife – and also plant diversity – different plants attract different pests (like aphids), and therefore different predators (like ladybirds): “you want various pests that don’t get into huge populations, so you get a great selection of predators.”

“My big passion is insects”, Jimmy informed us (he has a degree in Zoology and a doctorate in Entomology). “When we think of conservation we often think of the superstars – tigers, polar bears, pandas. They’re all great but they are hanging on the coat tails of stag beetles and worms, and so are we.”

“Insects are the engineers of the environment – butterflies feed birds, stag beetles break down wood and cycle the nutrients, flies get rid of carcasses. All these invertebrates are vitally important. Make habitats for them and everything else will follow on. Everything we plant here has a reason – it’s either there for the adults or the young.”


To demonstrate this, we visited ‘Darwin’s Garden’ (see above), home to all sorts of wildlife-enticing plants, as well as a small pond. Ponds, Jimmy explained, are brilliant habitats, even if you just have a barrel sunk in the ground. They attract frogs, toads, newts, as well as insects like pondskaters, and are drinking areas for birds. He also emphasised the importance of having a shallow area in the pond, for two reasons: firstly, in case something like a hedgehog falls in; secondly, the shallow areas heat up more quickly in the sun, so help fish and frogs to regulate their temperatures.

In the corner of Darwin’s garden is, well, a mess. A mess of nettles, various prolific weeds, and some logs. Don’t underestimate the importance of logs for wildlife: if you pile them up and soak them with water, it allows insects to get in and digest the cellulose in the fibres. Apparently that patch of nettles is a hot spot for stag beetles, as well as worms and larvae. “An entomologist’s paradise”, Jimmy remarked.


He drew our attention to some of the butterfly- and bee-friendly plants in Darwin’s garden, like verbena and buddleia. However, these are more for the adults to feed on. “You also need food plants for the larvae – the adults want to breed. For that to happen, with butterflies, it’s about the plants for them to lay their eggs on.” Nettles are a favourite plant for egg-laying butterflies. If you don’t want them running riot in your garden, Jimmy says, you can dig them up and put them all in one pot, so you’re helping the butterflies without risking nasty stings.

We then followed Jimmy through a pen of sheep, past a giant barn full of garrulous turkeys. Eight thousand of them, apparently, with ten acres to roam around in. They made quite an (auditory) impression, and had me thinking about my Christmas dinner. Is that wrong?


Next, a visit to the butterfly house, a tropical environment that is mainly heated by the sun, like a large conservatory. It was hot and humid inside, moisture dripping from the ceiling, robust vegetation everywhere, and the constant movement of fluttering butterflies. There’s a large pond, home to tropical fish like guppies and swordtails. Apparently it’s also home to a resident grass snake. 


Everywhere you looked there was the quivering motion of an airborne butterfly; at one point I glanced over my shoulder to find one sitting there quite happily, which came as a bit of a surprise. The sign on the exit reminded visitors to “check you have no butterflies in your hair or clothing before exiting”.



Jimmy breeds around fifteen different species of butterfly here, all tropical or semi-tropical species. We saw the feeding table: “it looks quite disgusting, but that’s what they want.” It did indeed, piled with rotting fruit oozing sugary syrup. “As the fruit rots all that sugar starts to ferment, and the butterflies suck it up through the proboscis.” Jimmy demonstrated an ingenious feeding device: a small pot taken from the kitchen (“we normally put butter in them”), into which he put a plastic pan scourer soaked in a sugar syrup that acts as a false nectar. You can create something like this in the garden for butterflies.

I’m pretty sure I’ve been inadvertently creating butterfly cafés for the last few years, because every time I find a piece of rotting fruit in the fruit bowl I just chuck it out of the back door. Now I can tell my mum it’s all in the name of conservation, when she moans about rotting fruit scattered over the lawn.


After Jimmy’s illuminating tour and talk, I had a little wander around the farm with my camera. I was instantly captivated by the piglets. There are Essex pigs, Saddlebacks, and Gloucester Old Spots on the farm. I saw the Saddlebacks, named for the distinctive white stripe across their middle. The young piglets were harassing their mother for milk, headbutting her belly and squealing madly, until she eventually gave in, retiring into her little hut and flopping down on the floor with a sigh to be descended upon by her ravenous offspring.


Later I returned to find three of the piglets snuggled up together having a nap. A fourth, clearly keen to be part of the huddle, decided the best way in was simply to jump on top of the other three and worm his way in. There was great porcine protest at his actions; the nap party was quickly dispelled, much – I imagine – to the chagrin of the happy sleepers.


I also saw the very handsome pygmy goats, the beautiful peacocks (which are free to strut around the farm as they please) and some rather mad chickens. I think I also spotted some alpaca on my way out, too. As a city dweller, I was completely charmed by all the animals and the verdant surroundings, and could happily have spent the day wandering around. I also ogled the ripe apples and pears dangling from the trees near the vegetable garden; perhaps they were waiting to be turned into some delicious dessert in the farm café.


This was a really interesting and enjoyable morning, and not only because of the copious quantities of Jordans cereals on offer. I was fascinated by all the statistics and facts about wildlife, and how easy it is to render a space more friendly to birds, bees and butterflies. I may have a go soon at creating my own bee box, though I think I’m already doing my bit for the butterflies by throwing out rotten apples. 


(Admittedly, having cats is not really conducive to butterfly harmony; mine tend to find catching them a highly entertaining game. I knew I shouldn’t have taught them to play catch with rolled up bits of paper.)

I really enjoyed meeting both Jimmy and Bill, too. Bill seemed like such a nice man that I didn’t dare tell him about the time a rogue piece of grit in a box of Jordans muesli broke a piece off my front tooth.

For more information on Jimmy’s Farm, click here. For more information on the Jordans 10% challenge (including their top ten tips for encouraging wildlife, and downloadable guides to everything from building a butterfly café to planting for bees), click here. Thanks to Wild Card for inviting me to this event.

Diwali supper club with Maunika Gowardhan and Tilda rice

Clockwise from top left: bainhan ka bharta on the left, haraa masala chicken in the centre; Maunika preparing the bengali bhapa doi; the bengali bhapa doi; candles to celebrate the Festival of Lights.
This week I was lucky enough to be invited by Tilda, purveyors of fine basmati rice, to a very special Diwali supper club. It was hosted by the lovely Luiz of blog The London Foodie, and featured an absolutely sumptuous menu devised by food writer and private chef Maunika Gowardhan, who also acts as Indian cuisine expert for the Tilda taste panel. Diwali, the Festival of Lights, falls on October 26 this year, and celebrates the Hindu new year. As with all good festivals, food is at the heart of Diwali celebrations, often involving elaborate feasts with plenty of sweet things, and incorporating lots of coconut, nutmeg, raisins, cardamom, nuts and sugar. As I'm sure you can imagine from that list, I was beside myself with excitement at the idea of eating home-cooked, proper Indian food featuring a few of those ingredients.

My experiences of Indian cuisine haven't been anything mind-blowing, nor anything remotely approaching authentic. While I do enjoy a nice Tandoori chicken in our local curry house in Yorkshire, and while I did have a great experience at Anokaa in Salisbury when I was there for a weekend (including a wonderful duck and apricot curry and a delicious scallop starter), I'm pretty sure I have never sampled anything that a real Indian would recognise.



Enter Maunika Gowardhan (of the well-known blog Cook in a Curry) and her delicious home cooking. She is influenced by recipes passed down through her family, and cooks dishes from all over India (a country whose diverse cuisines I'm sure it's almost sacrilegious to lump together under the label "Indian"), putting her own unique spin on such recipes. I was told she had been frenetically cooking all day in order to bring her menu to us, and this soon became clear when I saw said menu: nine separate dishes, not including the raita and chapatis, all totally different, all equally enticing. Tilda's rice was at the heart of two of the recipes, to demonstrate its versatility in different kinds of cooking.

Over dinner I was told about what makes Tilda so special: not only is it 100% basmati rice (other brands often label themselves basmati but actually contain a small percentage of other grains), it undergoes a stringent quality control process to ensure there are no broken grains. Broken grains apparently interfere with the cooking process, releasing undesirable starch and resulting in overly sticky and stodgy rice. They use a special machine to filter them out. Who'd have thought so much effort could go into something as simple as a pack of rice? I was also informed that Tilda produce 17 different flavours of their microwaveable rice sachets, including butternut squash; sweet chilli and lime; lemon; coconut, and lime and coriander. I had absolutely no idea and am now really keen to sample them all, particularly coconut. I tend to cook my rice from scratch, but sometimes I reckon it'd be nice to have a microwaveable pack to hand, especially in such enticing flavours.



Back to the menu. First (to accompany an intensely alcoholic orange and cardamom martini that I only permitted myself half of in order to avoid being too catatonic to eat), we had deep fried sundried tomato and mozzarella rice balls. These were like the fantastic Sicilian arancini that are just starting to become popular over here - cooked rice wrapped around a filling (usually meat or cheese) in little balls then coated with breadcrumbs and deep fried. Tilda's microwaveable sachets of basmati rice include a sundried tomato flavour, ideal for recipes with an Italian twist like this one. However, Maunika added her own Indian twist by serving them with a delicious fresh mint dipping sauce. The combination of crunchy breadcrumbs, soft rice and a gooey piece of mozzarella in the centre was utterly amazing. I could have happily eaten a plateful of those for dinner and nothing else.

Next we had paneer haraa tikka, squares of Indian cheese (rather like halloumi in texture, but less salty) marinated in green herbs, garlic and chillies then grilled. The real star of this dish, though, was a wonderful pineapple and black pepper chutney. It was bursting with zesty, pineapple flavour, but intesely sweet yet sharp at the same time. Maunika had apparently made it at home over a month ago. Again, I could have eaten just that, by the spoonful. It worked really well with the creamy cheese. This is now high on my 'to make' list. I rarely cook with pineapple but I keep meaning to experiment more; it has a wonderful caramelly depth of flavour when cooked.



Next we were invited to help ourselves to an absolute banquet of delights. First, haraa masala chicken, a green stew of chicken meat, caramelised onions, fresh mint and coriander. The chicken was really tender and flavoursome, with a lovely freshness from the sauce - quite unlike your usual flourescent yellow takeaway curries with their glutinous, oily sauces. There was also lamb yakhni pulao, a sort of pilaff of Tilda basmati rice, garlic and ground spices, cooked in lamb stock and butter and containing succulent chunks of lamb (Maunika had actually made the lamb stock herself from lamb bones earlier, which strikes me as incredible attention to detail, and may have been the reason the dish was so delicious). This was really lovely, with warm spicy notes and a real depth of flavour in the rice from the stock.



There was also a Keralan fish curry (see below), which I think was the favourite dish of the evening. Maunika pan-fried fillets of sea bass and served them in a pale yellow coconut curry flavoured with fresh curry leaves, ginger and lemon juice. The sauce was just incredible; it had a really pronounced coconutty flavour, with a slight sweetness that accompanied the delicate seabass really well, but with an underlying herbal note that prevented it being overwhelmingly sweet and creamy.



We also had bainhan ka bharta, a dish of charred aubergines cooked in spices and fresh ginger. This definitely had a kick to it, but you could still detect the unmistakeable deep flavour of roasted aubergine. It was wonderful accompanied with Maunika's roasted cumin and pomegranate raita, which took the edge off the spices a little.

After seconds of such wonderful fare, I was seriously doubting my capacity for dessert. However, I only got to sample one of the two desserts because I had to dash off to catch the last train home from London (damn you, First Capital Connect, for depriving me of sweet sustenance). I missed out on coconut, ginger and basmati rice pancakes; ginger rice pancakes fried in butter and topped with grilled pineapple and maple syrup. You only have to read that sentence to feel my pain at not being able to taste such an incredible-sounding combination of ingredients. Genuinely gutted.

However, I did at least get to sample bengali bhapa doi, which was a taste sensation and surprised me rather a lot. It's like a panna cotta, except made of chilled strained yoghurt that has thickened and gone rather crumbly, a bit like a baked ricotta cheesecake. This was flavoured with cardamom, and served with a truly wonderful mango coulis. Seeing as I hate yoghurt, I was amazed to find myself eating not only mine but one of the other guests' too (imagine how that sentence would read if I had forgotten the apostrophe). It didn't taste like yoghurt; it still had a pleasant tang, but it lacked the astringent sourness that I hate about yoghurt, as well as the creamy texture. This was more solid and crumbly, and it went really well with the vibrant, nectar-like coulis.



I was astounded by how completely different all of Maunika's dishes were to anything I've ever seen on a curry house menu. The evening fully confirmed my suspicions that there is more to Indian food than Tandoori chicken and naan bread. I was also impressed by how light the dishes were; I'd been expecting to waddle home nursing a small baby of coconut cream, dough and rice in my stomach. As it is, I did pretty much waddle home and I was very full, but not in an unpleasant way, and I had eaten rather a lot. Everything tasted fresh rather than overpowering; there were no greasy, cloying sauces or mounds of heavy rice; just bright, vibrant flavours.

I had a really lovely evening, and not just because of the food. It was so nice to meet lots of other food bloggers, many of whom were highly knowledgeable about Asian food and definitely taught me a few things over dinner. Many thanks to Tilda and Wild Card for inviting me, to Luiz for allowing everyone to invade his (beautiful, Aga-sporting and envy-inducing) kitchen, and to Maunika for some truly fabulous food.

If you'd like to try the delicious lamb yakhni pulao recipe, scroll down...




Yakhni Lamb Pulao:

For the stock and meat:
600g shoulder of lamb on the bone cut in medium sized pieces
1 medium onion, roughly chopped
2 bay leaves
5 green cardamom pods
1 cinnamon stick
4-5 cloves
Enough water to cover all the meat (about a litre)

For the pulao:
2 tbsp melted butter
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 bay leaves
1 inch cinnamon stick broken in half
5 green cardamom pods
2 medium onions thinly sliced
1 heaped tbsp ginger paste
2 heaped tbsp garlic paste
1 tsp nutmeg powder
350g Tilda Pure Basmati Rice
600ml lamb stock
Salt to taste

Tie up the onion and all the whole spices in muslin securing with a string. Cook it with the meat and water in a stock pot over a hob: bring to the boil and simmer for an hour and 15 minutes. The stock, along with the meat and spices, can be left in the pot overnight which will enhance the flavours.

The following day discard the muslin with its contents, separate the meat from the stock and set aside.

Prepare the rice by soaking for at least 30 minutes and rinsing in a sieve until the water runs clear.

Heat the butter and oil in a heavy-bottomed pan. Add the bay leaves, cinnamon and cardamom pods. Fry them for a minute as they sizzle and release their flavours in the oil. Add the sliced onions. Fry the onions on a medium heat till they soften and are a light golden brown.

Add the ginger and garlic paste and cook through for a couple of minutes. Now add the nutmeg powder stirring well for a few seconds making sure the powder does not burn.

Mix in the cooked lamb and the rice. Season with salt and stir, add the stock and mix well. Cover and cook on a low heat for about 20 minutes or so, until the rice is completely cooked. Turn the heat off and garnish with fresh coriander. Serve warm with mint raita.

Five things I love this week #2



1. The new apple and elderberry jelly from Tracklements. This delightful and versatile condiment contains English apples and elderberries foraged from Wiltshire hedgerows. You see elderberries everywhere in our hedges, but there are few recipes around for them, which is a shame. I hope that this jelly will hopefully bring a very underrated wild fruit to the masses - perhaps they could be the next blackberry. I've been a keen and dedicated fan of Tracklements ever since I visited their factory in July, and really like this jelly. It's sweet enough to eat on its own spread onto some toast, but they recommend serving it with meat, particularly roast pork. I found another use for it, stirring it into the jus for a rather delicious pheasant dish I made a couple of weeks ago. It goes very well with game, its sweetness lifting the earthy flavour of wild meat.


 For two people: brown one pheasant all over in a little olive oil in a hot pan. Remove, turn the heat down, and sauté a chopped carrot, two chopped celery sticks, and a sliced onion until softening. Turn up the heat and pour in 500ml cider. Add a couple of bay leaves, a few sprigs of rosemary and/or thyme, a generous grinding of salt and pepper, then return the pheasant to the pan. Cover and simmer for about 45 minutes to an hour, until the bird is cooked through. Remove to a board and leave to rest for a few minutes before carving. Meanwhile, strain the cooking liquid and return it to the pan. Boil until slightly reduced; thicken with some arrowroot or cornflour. Add 1 tsp apple and elderberry jelly to the pan juices. Carve the pheasant and serve with the jus, on a mound of mashed potato or polenta, with some spring greens or curly kale alongside, and - of course - extra apple and elderberry jelly to accompany the meat.

2. Fresh figs, ricotta, parma ham and toasted sourdough bread. Yes, I know I blogged about this recently. However, I just cannot get over the sheer delight of a mouthful that combines slightly tangy, dense, crusty bread, still warm and fluffy in the middle, with a succulent juicy morsel of fig, the sweet milkiness of ricotta cheese, and the rough, salty notes of a wafer of prosciutto. Even better, I've discovered, if you mix some lemon thyme leaves (my favourite herb) into the ricotta before slathering it onto the crispy bread. I could happily eat this for lunch every day for the rest of my life.

3. Sugar and soy glazed salmon from Bill Granger's new Everyday Asian cookbook. For four people, marinate four salmon fillets in a mixture of 4 tbsp soy sauce, 4 tbsp mirin, 2 tbsp soft brown sugar and 1 tbsp lemon juice, for 10 minutes or so. Meanwhile, pre-heat the grill to 220C. Place the marinated salmon fillets on a piece of non-stick baking parchment on an oven tray. Pour the marinade into a small saucepan. Grill the salmon fillets for about 8 minutes until just cooked through and still slightly pink in the centre. Meanwhile, boil the marinade for a couple of minutes until reduced and syrupy. Pour over the cooked salmon. I like to serve this on a bed of rice, with a crunchy salad alongside: simply mix 1-2 tbsp rice wine vinegar with 1-2 tbsp mirin and 1 tsp sesame oil. Toast 4 tbsp sesame seeds until fragrant. To the dressing, add 3 grated carrots, half a cucumber (grated), and some finely shredded Chinese leaf or cabbage. Toss well, sprinkle with the sesame seeds, and serve alongside the salmon. The result is utterly addictive - there's something about the sweet, sticky glaze coupled with the moist, oily flesh of the fish that works so very well. Even better where the syrupy glaze has soaked into a mound of fluffy rice. A really fantastic meal, and also one that will make you feel incredibly healthy.

4. Duck eggs. For the best (most middle-class) scrambled eggs on toast ever. Two or three eggs each, in a pan with a little milk, seasoning, butter and chives. Serve on toasted sourdough with thick slices of smoked salmon, a squeeze of lemon, and lashings of black pepper. I love the way duck eggs solidify into huge clouds of creamy curds in the pan, rather than the sometimes runny, homogenous mixture you end up with if you stir normal hen eggs too much. A divine way to start the day.



5. Fig, goats' cheese and prosciutto pizza: adorn your homemade pizza base with a little tomato sauce, followed by torn chunks of mozzarella, followed by slices of prosciutto, crumbled goat's cheese, quartered fresh figs and a generous sprinkling of lemon thyme. Top with rocket when cooked. You may think fruit on a pizza sounds weird, especially with tomato, but it works. The sweetness and crunch of the figs cuts through the intense richness of the tomato, cheese and prosciutto, with a delightful lemony tang from the thyme that works so well against the lactic bite of a good goats' cheese.



Incidentally, also incredible as a pizza topping is the combination of thinly sliced steak, crumbled stilton, and caramelised red onion. This came about rather by accident: my boyfriend, having dinner with me on Saturday night, suddenly started feeling ill just as his beautiful rib-eye steak (complete with a slowly melting puck of truffle butter and a huge mound of chips) arrived. We had to go home (not before I'd finished my main course, mind), but I was adamant that he couldn't just leave the steak to be thrown away in the kitchen. I would not allow that cow to die in vain. Instead we took it home in foil and a Sainsbury's bag (a sad and ignominious end for such a noble beast), sliced it thinly the next day, and used it to top a pizza. Perhaps still an ignominious end for a cow, but better than the bin.

Five things I love this week


1. This beautiful teapot from ProCook. It's made of glass with a little stainless steel mesh basket inside for the tea, and a polished steel lid. The idea is that you can let your tea brew to your preferred strength just by looking at it - it's always hard to tell in a china teapot how strong it is. This little pot probably holds enough tea for two people. It's small but perfectly formed, a simple design but one that looks rather stylish on the table. You can buy it here for £12, or there's a brushed steel version if you're not sure about glass and tea. I personally don't go in for those fancy tea glasses you can buy. To me, tea should be taken in a cup or a mug. It's not juice. However, I'm perfectly willing to accept a glass teapot when it's as pretty as this one.



2. A wonderful barbecue chicken marinade adapted from delicious magazine. Take 8-10 free-range boneless skinless chicken thighs, and marinate for up to 12 hours in: 300ml yoghurt, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp ground coriander, 4 crushed garlic cloves, 5cm piece grated ginger, zest and juice of 1 lime, half a red chilli finely chopped, 2 tbsp ground almonds, and a finely chopped bunch of coriander. Barbecue or grill for around 40 minutes until cooked all the way through (I did mine for about 20 minutes on the barbecue and finished off in an oven at 180C for about 20 minutes).

Last night we had our first, and last, barbecue of the year in my house. My family don’t really do barbecues. Even in the days where we did, the process from start to finish, from taking the barbecue out of the shed to wiping the last smear of charcoal-encrusted sausage skin from our chins, would take approximately four hours, and only about five per cent of the cooking would actually take place on the barbecue, the rest relying on the trusty oven to banish all those nasty food poisoning bugs. However, given that we have been blessed with this much-lauded 'Indian summer', I figured it was time to seize the day and see off summer in style before the grey, drizzle and general feeling of dismay set in. I made the above marinade for the chicken, found some beefburgers in the freezer, and grilled some corn on the cob and aubergine slices which I drizzled with tahini yoghurt and scattered with pomegranate seeds. The highlight was the chicken, though.

I normally think marinades are a bit of a disappointing con, that they rarely add much flavour and just tend to evaporate away during cooking. You dutifully put your meat in its marinade early on in the morning, or late at night, and spend the next twelve or so hours anticipating the flavoursome delights of your marinaded meal, only to find that you needn't have bothered, really - there's perhaps a slight hint of garlic and lemon, but you'd have been better off adding the garlic and lemon to the cooked meat. Not so with this marinade - it was utterly divine. There was a lovely tang from the lime, a mellow creaminess from the yoghurt, and a delicious hint of the exotic from the cumin. It reminded me a bit of tandoori chicken, only all the better for having a delightful barbecued exterior.

Admittedly, it's a bit late to be telling you about this now as barbecue season is likely to be over, but save it for next summer. Or just brave the weather/use a grill.


3. Local apples. We've all been there, standing in the fruit aisle at the supermarket, surveying the vast choice of apples in front of us. Braeburn, cox, granny smith, royal gala, golden delicious, jazz. We briefly consider, in a fit of patriotism, the home-grown coxes. We toy with the idea of the British braeburns. And then what do we do? We reach for the expensive bag of foreign, imported Pink Lady apples, because we know they're always going to taste nice - there's no risk of getting a horrible floury texture as can be the case with our own country's offerings. I'm guilty of it too, at times - there's nothing worse than a mushy apple.

However, I've been inspired by all the different varieties appearing at the market stall as summer turns into autumn. First there were the crisp, pink-fleshed Discovery apples. Next the Coxes with their delightful citrus tang. Now there are the Russets, whose flavour is hard to describe - more mellow than some of the tarter varieties, with a lovely crisp texture and beautiful golden skin. Not only are they tasty, they're also incredibly cheap, and come in all shapes and sizes; a far cry from the polished, picture-perfect supermarket specimens. Goodness knows how many were thrown out as 'imperfect'. If you have access to some local apples, I'd suggest you try them - you might be pleasantly surprised. It doesn't hurt to break out of the Pink Lady rut every now and again (and it'll save you money).

4. Orzo pasta. One of those ingredients I've read about and been intrigued by, but have never been able to track down. Clearly I was just being blind, because I found it in Waitrose. It's rice-shaped pasta, ideal for a quicker version of risotto, or for salads. I first ate it in my favourite restaurant in Oxford - Moya - which serves Eastern European cuisine. They have a brilliant salad on the menu with prawns, orzo, and dried cherries. It sounds odd but it's really delicious, with a lovely vinaigrette dressing that holds the whole thing together. I've made a delicious salad with the orzo that I'll be sharing at a later date.

5. Bill Granger's Everyday Asian. I wasn't particularly interested in this cookbook when I first heard about it. Every time I try and cook Asian food (we're talking Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese here - I can manage Indian and Middle Eastern), it ends up disappointing. I can't quite put my finger on why, but it always ends up more bland than I expect, or the noodles stick together horribly, or the sauce isn't quite right. However, out of sheer lack of inspiration I turned to one of Bill's recipes that had been published in a magazine - for sweet chilli stir-fried pork. It was a great success. I tried another - soy and sugar glazed salmon with cucumber salad. Fantastic - like teriyaki but slightly sweeter, the tangy glaze a wonderful match for the moist, rich salmon.

Maybe this book does do exactly what it says on the tin, I thought - turns Asian food into something you can easily enjoy every day. No completely wacky and unsourcable ingredients, no strenuous preparation methods, just brilliant, bold, vibrant flavours. The book was a bargain on Amazon, so I couldn't resist. I'd urge you to buy it just for the absolutely stunning photography, though the recipes themselves are mouthwateringly delicious - I went through and stuck bits of paper in all the 'must-try' dishes, and ended up bookmarking nearly everything. I can't wait to try the rare beef noodle soup with star anise, or the stir-fried butternut squash, or the lemongrass chicken, to name but a few.

Altamura bread, fresh figs, ricotta and smoked prosciutto

"For water is sold here, though the worst in the world; but their bread is exceeding fine, inasmuch as the weary traveller is used to carry it willingly on his shoulders" ~ Horace


It's dark outside while I'm cooking dinner. I've bought a sexy new pair of black suede ankle boots with a fur trim. My electric blanket is, without fail, switched on every night at 10pm. There are cooking apples, plump and red-tinged, burdening the branches of the apple tree that overhangs our garden. There are even more of them lying, half-rotten, on the lawn, reminding me to get off my backside and do something about drying them into foamy rings, or turning them into jam or crumble. The blackberries have been and gone, leaving crinkled little green stumps where once there were glossy, dark, edible treasures. I feel the need for my favourite pair of thick, lilac knitted socks when I'm just lounging around the house. A new series of Spooks is underway. I've started thinking about my Christmas list and - more excitingly - soaking the fruit to make the Christmas cake a couple of months in advance. My cotton dresses and harem pants have been relegated to the 'summer clothes' bag in the loft, to be replaced with Ugg boots, knitwear and leggings. I have to put my dressing gown on every morning just to survive the journey from bed to bathroom. 

I feel I may soon have to accept that autumn is well and truly underway.



How do people who aren't interested in food cope with the onset of autumn?

I can bear the chill weather and the prospect of long, dark days because partridge and pheasant have started appearing in the butchers. Quinces, some of the most handsome I've ever seen, are piled high in the market. Small but perfectly formed crisp English apples - orange-scented Coxes and my favourite, the flavoursome Russet - bring a welcome change from the ubiquitous (and foreign) Pink Lady. Butternut squash, one of my favourite vegetables, will soon be everywhere, its sweet, sticky, golden flesh promising a plethora of delicious uses. I can finally cook the eight pigs' cheeks sitting in my freezer, braising them for hours in a sticky concoction of orange juice and star anise that will be just the thing to provide some cheer on a dark evening. Fine English pears are abundant, just waiting to be baked in crumbles or cakes, or scattered over my morning porridge with an obscene amount of nutmeg. As are some wonderful varieties of plum, so much juicier and taster than foreign imports, ideal baked with cinnamon and ginger for a warming breakfast or dessert. Earthy wild mushrooms will be somewhere, if I can just find them, ideal for coupling with fresh, zesty lemon thyme for an umami-rich risotto. I can't wait to take my potato ricer to some good old-fashioned floury potatoes, to make a rich mash to accompany a beef and ale stew.

Without all that to look forward to, I think I'd consider hibernation.



If you know anything about anything, or have any sort of taste whatsoever, you will of course have noticed the glaring omission from the above list.

Figs.

I've devoted many words on this blog to the rapturous praise of figs. Every time I find myself bulk-buying them, I try and figure out precisely what it is that makes me so obsessed. I have come up with several answers.

1. Figs are beautiful. There's no fruit quite like them; the closest comparison would be a pomegranate, I think. With their beautiful red-pink interior, bursting with glistening clusters of golden seeds, their delightful deep purple skins, tinged slightly with green, and their curvaceous form, just begging to be held in the palm of one's hand, they are incomparable in their aesthetic appeal.

2. Figs are versatile. My favourite fruits are those that work as well in a savoury context as a sweet. Figs tick all the boxes. Wonderful baked with a little sugar or honey, or tucked into an almond tart for a dessert, they are equally delicious added to the cooking juices of duck, pork or lamb before serving. Juicy warm figs coupled with the rich meat of a slow-cooked lamb shoulder or a pan-fried duck breast is one of the best taste sensations you will ever try. Ditto figs with parma ham or goat's cheese. In fact, most cheeses, and most meats. Like pomegranate seeds, they add a wonderful burst of sweetness that is subtle enough not to overpower other savoury flavours.

3. Figs are elusive. Like a child, I want that which I cannot have. Figs appear for such a sadly brief season, and even then are rarely cheap. However, like the equally elusive Alphonso mango, I justify the cost because I am an epicurean at heart, and fully believe that money spent on good food is money well spent. So what if I spent approximately £60 on Alphonso mangoes over the summer months? (Oh dear...I think it might actually have been closer to £80, and now that I think about it that really does seem obscene). Well, I don't really buy inferior supermarket mangoes at £1-2 each for the rest of the year, so I'm only spending in one go what I'd spent in smaller stages year-round otherwise. Or something. Yes, OK, I concede that maybe that's too much to spend on mangoes. Moving swiftly on...



One of my favourite ways to enjoy figs - though now the season is in full swing I'm going to be experimenting with more - is combined with one, or both, of the following: Parma ham, and goat's cheese. After a delicious bruschetta I had at Polpo recently, I was inspired to try ricotta instead of goat's cheese. I've developed a bit of a fetish for ricotta ever since I started making my own (recipe here). Its crumbly, grainy texture and slight sweetness make it a wonderful match for nearly every fruit. I've been enjoying it with mangoes and peaches on toast for breakfast all summer. 

Sometimes I try to be healthy and enjoy this dashing triumvirate of cheese, figs and ham in salad form, usually with lentils because leaves alone cannot satiate me enough to last until dinner (actually, neither can lentils - I'll always have some sort of mid-afternoon snack...). This was my virtuous plan for the week, until fate undid all my good intentions and supplied me with some of the best bread to ever pass my lips.

Altamura bread is made in Altamura, in the region of Apulia, southern Italy. It's famous within the country as one of the finest and oldest types of bread, so much so that it was the first baking product in Europe to be granted a DOP certificate; it uses yeast, grain, water and salt from within the region only. It's dense, with a thick crust and yellowish interior from the use of durum wheat. It last a surprisingly long time - at least 15 days - given the lack of chemical preservatives. Altamura is famous for this bread, and has been for centuries - the poet Horace described it as "exceeding fine".

Crosta & Mollica, makers of quality regional Italian breads, have brought Altamura bread to the UK (they sell their products in Waitrose, Selfridges and Ocado). Their bread is made using 100% local durum wheat, and has been baked by the Forte family in Altamura for over 50 years. I am eternally grateful to them for giving me my first taste of this incredible bread.


Altamura has quite a lot in common with sourdough. It lasts a long time, toasts well, has a satisfyingly crisp crust and a slightly sour crumb. Crosta & Mollica suggest using it for bruschetta, and I can't think of a bread that would work better. I topped mine, toasted, with ricotta cheese, slices of smoked Parma ham (I found this in M&S and am wondering where it has been all my life - the posh person's bacon, it's rich and deeply flavoured, a substitute for Parma ham with a certain je ne sais quoi), warm halved figs, and a little basil.

Oh, what a lunch. While ricotta, Parma ham and figs are always a good idea, putting them on this bread transformed a good lunch into a great one. The bread had just the right balance between a really crisp, crunchy crust and a yielding crumb with a slight tang to it. It's hard to describe what makes it so good, but I'd really urge you to try it. It's not hugely cheap, at £1.79 for a packet of five slices, but the slices are very large ones. I'd love to see what a full loaf looks like (and by that I mean "I'd love to eat a full loaf of this bread. In one go. With figs and cheese and ham, sitting on an Italian hilltop watching the sun go down, with a good glass of wine"). Each slice would probably constitute one meal for a normal person. I, being greedy, had two slices per lunch (which means, annoyingly, that I now have one slice left in the packet that I don't know what to do with - I personally think packs of six slices would be a better idea, but that I suppose is irrelevant).

I won't insult your intelligence by posting an exact recipe for this combination. Instead I suggest you head down to Waitrose and get a packet of Crosta & Mollica's Altamura bread (or, if you can't find it, some really good sourdough). Put it under the grill until nicely toasted on both sides - put the figs under the grill too, to heat through. Spread with ricotta, then layer over a few slices of smoked Parma ham (or normal Parma ham). Halve the figs with your fingers and place on the ham, using a knife to sort of spread them out so they cover the ham and cheese. Add a few leaves of basil.

Devour, and be glad for the rich bounty of autumn and Italy.


Keep Calm and Cook On

"I believe that if ever I had to practice cannibalism, I might manage if there were enough tarragon around." ~ James Beard


Ah, the good old 'Keep Calm and Carry On' poster. So very classic, so much scope for amusing and facetious variations. A friend of mine has a poster in her room instructing her to "Keep Calm and Drink More Tea". My brother has something, I forget what, bearing the slogan "Now Panic and Freak Out". When I was about halfway through revising for my Finals, and every day was a struggle to avoid either throwing myself under a passing vehicle or bursting into tears in front of strangers, I had the bright idea of making the 'Keep Calm and Carry On' poster (the original red one) my iPhone wallpaper. As simple as it sounds, it really did have a positive effect on my morale. Every time I checked my phone - which, as you can imagine, happens fairly often on an average day, particularly if I've forgotten to put on my watch - I saw those bold white letters and that dramatic red background, and I reminded myself that life probably could be much worse. After all, there are worse places to be taking your Finals than Oxford, and there are worse crises in life than "Oh my goodness I might not get a First". Unsurprisingly, no one really wanted to hear about my first world problems, so I took my phone's advice. I kept calm and carried on. With the aid of chocolate, tea, and a religious schedule of post-lunch power naps.



Perhaps it's the fond memories of getting through those testing times that has made me so susceptible to this new offering from Quadrille books. Written by experienced food writer and editor Lewis Esson (whose works include Larousse Pratique and Mouthwatering Mediterranean), it arrived in the post a couple of weeks ago, and I have been completely charmed by it. I reckon that 'Keep Calm and Cook On' would have perhaps been an even better slogan to see me through my Finals, as I tend to find that when I'm stressed I go into manic cooking mode, rustling up two- or three-course dinners for friends most nights without ever stopping to realise my strange compulsion to be constantly in the kitchen whenever things start to look a little bleak. You'd think that cooking is the last thing one should be doing if stressed, but I think I like it because it gives me a sense of pride and achievement when I've successfully and deliciously fed people, and reminds me that I can at least do something, even if my dissertation reading isn't going to plan, or I'm having no luck with job applications, or I'm worrying about money/life. You can always tell when I feel stressed out, because the monthly Archive sidebar on this blog stretches down for two screens.

Anyway. After marvelling at its diminutive size, I sat in bed and read this little book from cover to cover. It was a very happy twenty minutes. The idea is to provide 'good advice for cooks', but this good advice is peppered with amusing quotations from all sorts of venerable figures, from Oscar Wilde to Sophia Loren. One of my favourites is at the top of this post and made me chuckle. I also rather liked the poet Horace's "A hungry stomach seldom scorns plain food", which just makes me think of all the times I've planned exotic and labour-intensive dinners only to find that when I come home starving all I want is a bowl of rice, and it tastes just as good. As Cervantes said, "Hunger is the best sauce in the world." 

Other gems include:
  • "Life is a combination of magic and pasta" - Federico Fellini
  • "Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon" - the 14th Dalai Lama (I like to think I do this quite well...)
  • "Life is too short to stuff a mushroom" - Shirley Conran (I don't agree, as this recipe proves)
  • "He was a very valiant man who first adventured on eating of oysters" - James I (and VI)
  • "My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people" - Orson Welles (which makes me think of all the times I've cooked a recipe that 'serves two' for myself without bothering to scale it down...)
  • "Everything you see I owe to spaghetti" - Sophia Loren (a good advert for a non-carb-free diet)
  • "A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing" - Samuel Johnson
  • "The trouble with eating Italian food is that 5 or 6 days later you're hungry again" - George Miller
  • "The only time to eat diet food is while you are waiting for the steak to cook" - Julia Child

I particularly love the way a lot of the quotations, like Julia Child's, put food into perspective a bit. It's easy - amidst all the warnings these days about too much salt intake and too many carbs being bad for you and why we shouldn't eat so much meat and how sugar is the enemy - to forget that food should primarily be about pleasure. I am the first to admit that I often get a bit silly and paranoid about the way I eat, worrying that I'll put on weight if I have an extra helping of dessert or bake a loaf of bread to go with dinner, worrying that I shouldn't have pasta because carbs are evil and instead should have a bowl of lentils. Then I think of the quotations in this lovely book, and - a bit like during my Finals - tell myself to man up a bit, and just enjoy the damn food, because life's too short. Thank you, Quadrille, for encouraging me to eat more cake.

The handy kitchen tips are both useful and informative. They include: a list of foods to help you sleep better; how to poach eggs properly; how to remove excess salt from a dish; what to look for when buying fish; how to test eggs for freshness; how to lessen the smell of cooking cabbage; how to stop bread going mouldy quickly; how to skin tomatoes. Some of them I knew already, but some surprised me and have already proved useful.

All in all, a lovely little book. No cook should be without this, especially as it only costs £4.99. It would also make a great present for any keen cooks in your life. I think they should produce a matching apron - I for one would definitely buy it.

Finally, a pertinent quotation:

"A man's own dinner is to himself so important that he cannot bring himself to believe that it is a matter utterly indifferent to anyone else", from Anthony Trollope. 

This sounds rather familiar - it's the reason for the existence of food blogs.


Oxford Foodies Festival with Rémy Martin


Aside from the opportunity to hone my writing skills, rant about things that are important or repellent to me, invent new and exciting ways of using ingredients, and challenge myself to come up with new synonyms for "OMGYUMZZZ", one of my favourite things about being a food blogger is that it gives me the chance to try things that I'd never normally consider.

A couple of weeks ago I was very kindly invited by Rémy Martin, producer of fine champagne cognacs, to attend the Oxford Foodies Festival and enjoy a complimentary Coeur de Cognac at their Signature Lounge. Having never to my knowledge imbibed cognac before, I was more than a little intrigued, and pleased by the added bonus that I'd have an excuse to return to my beloved Oxford. Yes, dear readers, I am no longer at Oxford University, surrounded by dreaming spires and glorious revelry, talented minds and meaningful conversation, historic sandstone and ornate libraries. Instead, I have had to make the miserable journey home to...er...Cambridge.



I don't know if the Foodies Festival is an annual event, but I've certainly never heard of it in my four years at Oxford. This could, of course, be due to the fact that I was never in Oxford during the late summer, instead enjoying my shockingly lengthy three-month break that I always attempted to justify to people by emphasising how damn hard I worked for the three eight-week terms (and I did actually work pretty hard, although if you read this blog and don't know me you would be forgiven for thinking that all I did was bake, eat large amounts of fruit, and procure obscure meat and fish products from the Covered Market with which to experiment. While occasionally throwing a dissertation together). 

I have to say, after I remained in Oxford a month longer than usual into the summer this year, I am now extremely glad that I never had the opportunity to experience summer among the dreaming spires. It is absolutely impossible to do anything without having some sort of encounter with a hapless tourist that will leave you entertaining murderous fantasies involving sharpened mortar boards. They are everywhere. They are, in fact, worse than wasps, that other bane of the summer months. They swarm around Broad Street, wandering into cycle lanes brandishing expensive cameras, taking photos of insignificant everyday objects, or jumping straight out in front of you while you're on a bike, trying to get a snapshot of an "archetypal Oxford student" (criteria: young, intelligent gleam in the eye, deep in thought, preferably a glasses-wearer, ideally holding a book, riding a bike and wearing a scholars' gown - I'm sure if they manage to get a snap of someone filling all those criteria at once they get extra points among their tourist friends - it's probably some sort of game). 

You can spot said tourists from miles away, either by their fluorescent matching backpacks and the fact they move in herds like wildebeests, from their 'Oxford University' hoodies (which, needless to say, no one actually attending Oxford University would ever touch with a ten foot bargepole) and plastic bags bearing the Bodleian Library logo, from their highly conspicuous stalking of anyone on a bike or wearing a gown, from their natural habitat right in the middle of the pavement in front of some important landmark making a peace sign, or from the fact that they're about to meet certain death underneath a large bus because they're too busy standing in middle of the road taking a photo of a traffic light to notice.

I am a little ashamed to admit that sometimes I wish buses wouldn't stop for people standing in the middle of the road.

And so, readers, this is why it is a good thing I have never remained in Oxford for the summer vacation. Fortunately, the Foodies Festival took place outside the city centre in South Parks, and involved a large, green open space where large hordes of people wouldn't have been a problem. There was not a fluorescent backpack in sight, nor an Oxford University hoodie. Instead, I entered the festival to be greeted by droves of stalls and vans proffering their wares, the smell of roasting animal flesh, and laughably cold and grey weather. The giant red Pimms tent with its banners proclaiming "PIMMS O'CLOCK" and its swathes of picnic blankets on the floor (presumably for lounging nonchalantly on, Pimms in hand, clad in cricket jumper) seemed a cruel and ironic joke. As did the sheer amount of ice cream on offer. 


Typical English summer weather aside, however, I had a great time. The only other food festival I've attended was the Real Food Festival in London (three years in a row, which I think makes me qualified to term myself a 'foodie' - but I won't, because I loathe and detest that word, possibly even more than I loathe and detest tourists). I realised, wandering around Oxford's offering, that once you've attended a few food festivals, they tend to all blend into one. 

The majority of stalls sell olive oil and balsamic vinegar. These usually have some form of dried ingredient adorning them, preferably some fat, handsome heads of purple garlic or some wrinkled, glossy chillies. Sometimes there is parmesan. Sometimes there is ham. If there are both, even better. There are usually plenty of stalls selling chutney/relish, all slightly different but all generally tasting of the same thing, as most chutneys do (I long ago learned to stop buying chutney just because I liked the sound of the ingredients - it took me a fair few uneaten purchases to realise that "rhubarb and ginger", "apricot and cinnamon" or "plum and raisin" are things that are only delicious when not doused in vinegar and simmered for hours into a brown mush to accompany cold meats). There are lots of retailers offering organic meat boxes, or just tempting, succulent burgers, sausages and steaks. There are always a few wine, ale and cider stalls, but I never bother with those because I don't really drink. 

Then you get the sweet treats - cupcakes, cookies, whoopie pies (please, can someone explain to me what one of these actually is? I have never tried one and whenever I hear the term I think of whoopie cushions and practical jokes, which doesn't really put me in an eating frame of mind). There weren't as many cupcakes here as at the Real Food Festival (probably a good thing, as I find them intensely boring), but instead there were two different stalls selling baklava. For me, comparing a cupcake to  baklava is like comparing Ewan McGregor to Johnny Depp. Both very nice and easy on the eye, but it's only the latter that will make you weak at the knees, salivating slightly. It's possibly the most delicious thing on earth (baklava, I mean, not Johnny Depp. Although...)


After that, you get the occasional gem, like a stall selling pouches of pure alphonso mango purée for use in cooking or smoothies (a delicious idea, but I couldn't quite bring myself to part with the amount they were charging), or some really beautiful hand-crafted wooden chopping boards (ditto), or a weird and wonderful selection of wild meats (springbok, ostrich, buffalo, wildebeest or zebra burger, anyone?) or a wide range of venison cuts vacuum-packed and ready to take away (venison sausages? Yes please), or a stall selling the most exquisite potted crab (butter and seafood? A complete diet).

There are also the stalls selling food to eat there and then. This is often extortionately priced, because they can get away with it - where else are you going to eat? Man cannot live on dried garlic and balsamic vinegar alone. There was a wide range to choose from - Thai noodles, various paellas, sausage rolls, crab sandwiches, burgers derived from half of Africa's wildlife, hog roast, jerk chicken, Moroccan couscous. The paellas did look immensely tempting, huge vats of glistening, marigold-coloured rice bursting with luscious pieces of chicken or seafood. Then again the whole hog with its blistered crackling and juicy pink meat also whetted my appetite. In fact, it all did. Why my boyfriend and I had decided to have a late breakfast of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs (or even breakfast at all), I do not know, but it didn't take very long after we entered the festival to start thinking about lunch.


I don't mean to sound jaded. I love food festivals, even if I have sampled approximately a million different balsamic vinegar and olive oil combinations in my lifetime. I procured an exciting bottle of garlic salt from a stall dedicated to the stuff, with chunky golden flakes of dried garlic in among the sea salt crystals. I adore garlic salt; it's an amazing way to perk up almost any ingredient - two of my favourite ways are to rub it on the skin of a chicken before roasting, or to toss oiled potato wedges with garlic salt before cooking in the oven. I've now discovered that it's also brilliant on scrambled eggs.

I bought some very good value venison sausages from some amiable Scottish gentlemen who had driven all the way from Scotland just to be at the festival. They were flipping some incredible-smelling venison burgers on a sizzling griddle. My boyfriend was hooked and devoured one soon after - it was juicy, gamey and delicious, a startling scarlet in the centre. I spent approximately half an hour agonising over the choice between a crab sandwich or a lamb wrap for my lunch, eventually opting for the latter and then, inevitably, wishing I'd gone for the former, after I ended up with a puddle of yoghurt sauce and redcurrant jelly in my lap. We then had some absolutely delicious lemon sorbet and rum and raisin ice cream, and a gorgeous piece of sticky, syrupy baklava that made me remember why I managed to eat five huge pieces of the stuff on my first night in Istanbul and then spend the next couple of hours in a sugar coma.



I had one of those terrifying "I'm turning into my mother" moments when I asked my boyfriend if I could go and look at the plant stall. I'm glad I did, though, because I spent a happy five minutes exclaiming about all the different varieties of herbs on offer. I'd heard of such exotic things as pineapple sage, chocolate mint and lemon verbena before, but I'd never had the chance to actually see or smell them. I probably looked a bit weird as I shuffled guiltily between the plants, rubbing leaves between my finger and thumb and inhaling deeply. It may sound obvious, but pineapple sage actually smells like pineapple. Who'd have thought that was even possible? 

As if that wasn't excitement enough, there was also pineapple mint! Lavender mint! Moroccan mint! African blue basil! Plus - can you believe it - tangerine sage and blackcurrant sage. It was almost as if someone had been given two hats, one with the names of herbs in and the other with the names of fruit in, and they'd just pulled one from each at random and written it on a sign to put on the plants. If only I hadn't had to trek back to Cambridge on the train, I'd have bought one of every plant. I can only begin to imagine the culinary possibilities of herbs that smell and taste like fruit. Lemon verbena is one that I really want to experiment with; it reminds me a little of lemon thyme, with that gorgeous, slightly astringent citrus aroma. I imagine it would be incredible in an ice cream.


Finally, sated with various red meats and frozen dairy, we headed to the Rémy Martin Signature Lounge. Here we were treated to a glass of Coeur de Cognac. Rémy Martin are the world leader in fine champagne cognacs, and the Coeur de Cognac is a blend of eaux-de-vie pressed from grapes grown in Grande and Petite Champagne. The eaux-de-vie are slowly distilled before being aged, to produce a fruity cognac with an apricot flavour. Keen to dispel the illusion that cognac is the preserve of old men clad in slippers and smoking cigars, Rémy Martin are offering Coeur de Cognac as an alternative to dessert wine.

In order to experience this, we were offered the cognac over ice alongside a 'petite delice' created by Rémy Martin's executive chef. This comprised a blackcurrant marshmallow, a square of raspberry jelly, and a delicious pistachio biscuit. 

It was a momentous occasion: the loss of my marshmallow virginity. Yes, I know. I've never eaten a marshmallow. Here's another bombshell: I only tried ketchup for the first time three weeks ago. Off you go now, tutting about how crazy I am, wondering why on earth you read my recipes because I'm clearly not qualified to tell you what to eat if I've never tried one of the staple foodstuffs of our civilisation. It's somewhat amusing to my boyfriend, who understands my aversion to certain foods because they are not "real". It's the reason I don't like fizzy drinks, sweets, or anything remotely processed. Unless you can dig it out of the ground or kill it, treat it with a couple of basic processes and then serve it, I won't eat it. Marshmallows are not real. I don't really understand them. However, I made an exception for this marshmallow as it was designed by a top chef, and was also flavoured with blackcurrants. I like blackcurrants. They are real.


The reason the cognac is served over ice, we were told, is to take away some of the harsh heat of the alcohol, to avoid that burning feeling in the throat as you swallow it. It also releases some of the essential oils in the cognac to maximise its flavour (you could see them swirling about in the glass, like a heat haze on a road in summer).

I'm no expert on liqueurs of any sort, let along cognac, but I did enjoy the pairing of the drink with the 'petite delice'. Had I sampled it on its own, I think I would have found it too strong and overpowering, as I rarely drink and am definitely unaccustomed to anything stronger than wine. However, with something quite sugary to take the edge off, it was quite palatable. I also liked the idea of serving it over ice to remove that burning feeling which, unaccustomed to such things, I tend to find rather unpleasant. It had a lovely aromatic, fruity flavour and a beautiful rich amber colour. I could see the Coeur de Cognac working alongside some sort of dessert, perhaps on an occasion where your average dessert wine would prove too sweet. It certainly opened my eyes to the possibility of pairing stronger alcohol with confectionary, though I think I'd need a few more tasting sessions before I became quite accustomed to the strength of the stuff.

I had a great day. Thanks to Rémy Martin and Joanne from House PR for inviting me to the festival.