Recipe corner: Mussel and bacon pizza (jingle all the way!)

The thing about authentic Italian pizza is that tends to be pretty simple. Tomato, cheese and then a few, carefully chosen, toppings. Not enough of anything to create sloppiness: a crisp base and the structural integrity of the whole is important. No weird combos. No doughiness, no ten tonnes of cheese (that is the province of Domino's and their ilk). I get all that and I appreciate it. But SOMETIMES it is fun to play a little bit and end up with something which is somewhere between what an Italian Nonna would appreciate and what drunk people order at eleven pm with a side of chicken wings.

When I wrote this up in my notebook I called it "Pizza Bianca del mare e dell'odore" which means "A white pizza of the sea and the sty". And I like that title very much. It sounds so much more elegant than mussel and bacon pizza. But I've stuck with the English for the blog title because it's probably a bit more useful. 

This is a pizza that combines seafood and cheese, that is a little bit on the sloppy side and, to be honest, is a bit of a bloody faff if you're making it because it involves numerous processes. None of them difficult but it's not easy home cooking. Jamie couldn't squish it into a 30 minute meal. So I probably haven't sold it to 99.99% of the people who will come across this blog post. But for the rest of you, who are intrigued, you are in for a tremendous treat. I think this is the most delicious pizza that I've ever made.

When I wrote pizza 101 back in July 2016 (!) I was using Paul Hollywood's dough recipe, but I've fallen out of love with that recently after a couple of issues with the dough being just too sticky to practically use. So I turned to Dan Lepard and, sure enough, his recipe and method worked perfectly. I won't repeat it here but if you DO pop over to have a look I would note:

I used a tablespoon of malt extract and all water, rather than open some of D's precious beer

I went up to 200ml of water - 50ml fresh boiled and 150ml cold from the tap to get it luke(ish) warm.

I initially made the dough the night before using and left it in the fridge overnight before moving on to the stretching and folding stage. This has the benefit of spreading the effort a bit as well.

I was making personal sized pizzas, so divided this recipe into 6 (actually, I made a half batch and divided it into 3). This was a generous portion. If you're not greedy, you could reduce the portion size further.

And for the topping...

Ingredients

1/2 kilo mussels

Splash of white wine or Vermouth

150ml milk

3-4 garlic cloves, peeled and bruised

Large sprig of thyme

15g Parmesan

10g butter

10g flour

75g pancetta (or diced bacon)

Small onion, thinly sliced

100g firm mozzarella, grated

75g smoked cheese, grated

Makes 2 generous individual pizzas

OK, so firstly we want to cook the mussels with no more flavourings added than a splash of white wine. Clean and de-beard the crustacea then heat the wine in a large, lidded pan until it simmers madly, and tip them in. Cover the pan and cook for around 5 mins, shaking gently every so often. They'll be ready when the majority of the shells are yawning open. Incidentally: we tend to buy up bags of mussels whenever we make it the fishmonger, cook and freeze them for future use. But if you do this be sure to freeze them alongside their delicious liquor.

Make the white sauce by first infusing the milk with the garlic and the thyme. Place all together in a small pan, scald the milk (which means heating it until the edges are beginning to bubble) then turn off the heat, cover and leave alone for at least a couple of hours.

Then we make a roux - melt the butter, add the flour and stir briskly to make a paste. Pour in the infused milk, bit by bit, stirring vigorously every time to eliminate lumps. When you've added all the milk, add the mussel liquor - again, bit by bit. Gently bubble the sauce for a few minutes to ensure that all the flour is cooked out (the easiest way to check this is by tasting it - if you can taste even a hint of flour, cook for a bit longer) then season with the grated Parmesan, a tiny pinch of salt and a little pepper. This is the base of your pizza.

Fry off the pancetta until crispy and then remove from the pan with a slotted spoon. Then, turn the heat right down and soften the onion in the bacon fat.

Finally, assemble your pizza. Take your rolled out bases and spread across the white sauce. Top with the cooked mussels, bacon and onion and finish off with the mozzarella and smoked cheese. If you have any spare, sprinkle a few fresh thyme leaves over to finish. Bake in a very hot oven for about 12 minutes until everything is bubbling and beginning to brown. 

If you have any sense at all, you'll allow it to cool slightly (and, in doing so, begin to solidify) before eating.

It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas

We bought a turkey this year. We never usually buy a whole turkey - just a crown or a breast joint. Regular readers may remember (indeed, why wouldn't you) that chez Seren, we do not eat turkey on Christmas day, but enjoy a traditional Turkey Curry on Boxing Day, for which a small crown is perfectly adequate. But this year we found ourselves (suitably be-masked and socially distanced) in Kirkgate Market and we saw what looked like a fairly modest bird for a definitely modest price. 

Well, apparently even modest birds produce great big piles of meat - we have OODLES (a technical term). But, perhaps even more pleasingly, we also ended up with a slow cooker full of delicious overnight turkey stock. Which is what got me to thinking about Christmas smells. For 12 hours, our home was filled with a mild turkey fug which scent, weirdly, took me straight back to childhood - Christmas Day, watching Top of the Pops and waiting for the grandparents to arrive for lunch. 

I also baked a banana and mincemeat loaf earlier this month (recipe in this month's Good Food magazine - providential indeed since I had a couple of bananas that were preventing the freezer door from closing properly and a rogue jar of mincemeat that appeared in a store cupboard audit and needed using before the 2020 batch arrives). And, again, the smell was incredible - that combination of spice and sweetness that just screams Christmas, even though I don't recall my mother ever baking mince pies when we were young. (She may well have done, in which case I am an ungrateful creature because my abiding memory is of puff pastry mince pies from the bakery, served warm with cream for lunch on Christmas Eve. We also used to have sausage rolls for lunch on Christmas Eve - it was a total pastry fest which was quite unusual for our household and regarded as a huge treat.)

I feel terribly nostalgic at the moment. It's probably to be expected, what with most of us having been shut away from family and friends for nearly nine months. And our family, like many others, has experienced loss this year that means that, even on those precious few days when we come together, there will be an empty chair in the corner.

But if there is one time of the year when nostalgia is OK, it is Christmas. And the smells and tastes of all those beloved Christmas foods, some traditions that span decades, and others more recent but no less precious, have been wonderful prompts. 

I hope to write again before the big day - I have an exciting pizza to share and I'd love to record the recipe for the aforementioned banana loaf - but, since promises are like (mince) pie crusts, I will avoid any guarantee. So I'll take the opportunity now to say to anyone reading - MERRY CHRISTMAS. I hope you all find some joy in this most joyful time of year, even if things are a little bit strange. Next year will be better. And, in the meantime, may all your beloved Christmas treats bring you comfort and remind you that there is always light in the dark. 

Recipe corner: garlic butter naan breads

As mentioned in my previous post, I've been turning to Dan Lepard a lot lately for baking recipes. This one is an adaptation of a recipe for coconut garlic naan that can be found here. Although the original works perfectly well, I did not find that you got much of a taste of coconut from the coconut milk, so tried it out with plain yoghurt (which we more usually tend to have knocking around the kitchen) and was pleased with the resulting soft texture. I also advocate garlic butter rather than garlic oil for the dabbing-while-cooking but you need to be careful not to allow it [the butter] to burn.

Dan Lepard has a slightly different approach to bread making which generally means much less hands on time, and although it feels counterintuitive, it does actually work really well. You just need to make sure you're keeping track of where you are in the instructions!

I think that these, as with most flatbreads, are best straight out of the pan but the good news is that can you make the dough up in advance, divide it up into balls and then leave them, covered in the fridge for a good few hours with no ill effect. I finished the dough at 6pm on Saturday and cooked up the last naan bread at 12pm for lunch on Sunday and it still worked like a charm, if, perhaps, it puffed up ever so slightly less. However, since I was using it as a wrap, this wasn't an issue.

Ingredients

25g boiling water

75g cold tap water

4g fast-action yeast

185g plain, full fat yoghurt

275g strong white bread flour

Tsp salt

Oil, for the worktop

Additional flour, for shaping

25g butter

2 cloves of garlic, crushed or finely grated

A sprinkle of nigella seeds

Makes 3 large or 4 medium naan

Measure out the water into a large bowl (I've given weight rather than volume as I think this makes life a bit easier). Test it when the two waters are combined - it should be warm but not hot. Whisk in the yeast until dissolved and then whisk in the yoghurt.

Shower in the flour, add the salt and, using your hand shaped like a claw, bring the dough together - it will be soft and not too sticky. Cover the bowl and leave for 10 minutes.

Oil the worktop, tip out the dough and knead gently for 10 seconds. Return to the bowl, cover again and leave for 1 hour. Wipe up any remaining oil while you remember.

When you return to the dough, lightly flour the worktop then tip it out and divide into 3-4 pieces. Shape these into rough balls, cover, and leave these again for 30 minutes (at this point, you can transfer the dough to the fridge until you need it. Just be sure to bring up to room temperature before using).

Roll the dough out - the teardrop shape is traditional for naan, but round will work just as well here. 

Put a frying pan over a medium heat. Crush or grate the garlic over the butter and then melt (I use a microwave but a small pan and a low heat will do just as well).

Fry the breads for about a minute and a half, dabbing the melted butter onto the surface with a silicon brush, and finish with a sprinkle of the nigella seeds.

Recent Eats - the lockdown 2.0 edition

This post has been sitting in my drafts for a while. I started on it a couple of weeks ago, but kept losing heart. I would start a sentence and then drift off, only to find myself staring blankly at the screen.

It's been so long that the title now only just applies. We are, apparently, approaching the end of Lockdown 2.0 in England, although given that my area (along with many others) lurches straight into Tier 3, we probably won't really notice. 

Gah, I don't want to moan. I really don't want to moan when I am safe, my family are safe, I am gainfully employed, able to work from home and, delighted that someone (either the supermarket supply chain managers or the Great British Public, who knows?) seem to have learned the lessons of Lockdown 1. We have been able to get supermarket delivery slots throughout and last week, the shopping contained flour! Two types! So, you know, what's to complain about?

Still, (because it is my blog and if I can't be self indulgent here...) my mood has really plummeted this week. One of the first signs is when I struggle to read and I haven't (until last night) managed to pick up a book in days. I've watched quite a lot of Christmas films - and even a Christmas sitcom - on Netflix, which has been nice. But I've still found myself sitting in floods of tears for no reason whatsoever. It feels terribly selfish and not a little pathetic when so many people are experiencing real problems and real heartache but I think all of us have taken a bit of an emotional bashing recently. I'm missing my family and my friends terribly - I've seen my Mum and Dad once since March and my father in law once and, other than that, it's been D and the cat. 

Sorry - this all turned into a bit of a pity party. It was my original intention to write about what we've been cooking lately, not snivel into the ether. When I flicked back through my most recent photos, all I managed to find were pita breads and stew and dumplings, which makes for rather beige pictures (not that anyone is here for the food photography!)

Pita or pitta?

The pita breads are by Dan Lepard, and the recipe can be found online here as well as in his book "Short and Sweet". I am finding, more and more, that I turn to Lepard for baking queries and this book is an absolute godsend. His brief-knead-and-leave method of bread making is unconventional but works very well - I would certainly urge you to forever eschew the store bought pita and go for these instead. They are a leetle labour intensive, but well worth it (and, I can confirm, they freeze beautifully).

Stew and, more importantly, dumplings

The stew in question is my late mother in law's panacalty. Or, rather, our take on it. Corned beef, and chunks of root veg in oxtail soup (!) with suet dumplings on top. I make it slightly faffier than just bunging everything in a single pan - roasting off the veg for a bit of extra flavour, caramelising onions for sweetness, finishing with a little mustard. We also use D's homemade corned beef rather than the tinned stuff...altogether, it's a lovely, lovely thing. And very much of the North East. 

I'm sure that there are more things to share but I have bored on quite enough for one Friday afternoon. Sending huge love and virtual hugs out into Tinternet to everyone out there who is struggling, be it a little bit or a whole lot. I wish you all a weekend of good food, cat cuddles and Strictly (or whatever it is that makes your world feel a little less crap). 

Recipe corner: Carrot, apple and date muffins

Back when I used to work in an office (remember that time?) we had a Starbucks open just thirty seconds from the front door and, I must admit, initially the novelty factor was such that I was in there most mornings. And what better way to start the day with a milky coffee big enough to bath a kitten in, and a nice chunk of cake. For, let us be clear, we all know that the word muffin (in the non-English sense) is just a sneaky way to legitimise cake for breakfast.

I eventually managed to (more or less) ditch the Starbucks habit (although consumption used to creep up again around this time of year when the gingerbread lattes hit the store. I love a gingerbread latte, sickly as it is, and I love the announcement that the red cups are coming because - Christmas. But we won't go there yet). 

To return to the original thought - I eventually stopped the daily detour. And one of the things that helped break the habit is that they stopped doing two of the best muffins - apple and cinnamon and, for high days and holidays, "breakfast" muffins. I have only a limited idea what was in these latter but they were good - fruity and spicy with a sprinkle of seeds on top to indicate virtue.

I don't think these are quite the same, but they come pretty close. I don't generally eat breakfast much now - most of the time we do intermittent fasting to only eat between the hours of 12 and 8. (And yes, I realise that the first meal of the day is breakfast whatever time you choose to consume it, but I mean to say that I don't often eat breakfast type foods at noon.) However, a nice muffin is perfect with a cup of tea mid afternoon to get you through a sugar slump. This makes six decent sized muffins, but there is no reason why you could not miniaturise them if you felt so inclined. They contain some fruit and veg not to mention are partially made with wholemeal flour, so you can almost convince yourself that they're a health food - again, if you feel so inclined.

Ingredients

70g wholemeal flour

90g plain flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

1.5 tsp ground cinnamon

Tsp mixed spice

50g soft brown sugar

Eating apple, peeled, cored and chopped into small chunks

Carrot, peeled and coarsely grated

50g chopped dates

150ml milk (I always use skimmed which works fine)

1 egg

55g butter

3 tsp demerara sugar

3 tsp pumpkin seeds (or similar)

Makes 6 muffins

Preheat your oven to 200 (180) fan and prep a tray - I use a silicon muffin tray which I brush very lightly with vegetable oil, but you could use a metal tray with paper liners,

Combine all the dried ingredients (flours, baking powder, spices, sugar) in a large bowl. Add in the apple, carrot and dates and mix well so they are thoroughly coated.

In a small jug or similar, melt the butter (I do this in the microwave for ease). Whisk in the milk (which will immediately cool the butter) and then the egg.  Pour this into the dried ingredients and stir to combine.

Seasoned bakers will know - you want the ingredients to be only just mixed - don't overwork. I tend to use a spatula to fold the wet ingredients in, rather than stirring with a spoon, and I find this helps. Fold through four or five times until you can't see much by way of dried flour anymore.

Put the mixture in the cases (it will fit although they will be full) and sprinkle over the demerara sugar and the seeds. Bake in the oven for around 35 minutes until a skewer comes out clean (it may take slightly longer - my oven is a beast).

Serve for breakfast, lunch, dinner or snacks. Cake is good at all times of the day.

Restaurant Inver, Strathlachlan

Before moving on to discuss our recent meal at Inver I first just have to say PARKIN. I currently have parkin in the oven, in readiness for Bonfire Night and have decided that it is officially the Best Smell in the World. Forget about baking bread or roasting chickens, this is what you want wafting from your kitchen when you invite people round. Of course, if I was an organised housefrau, I would have baked it at least a week ago so it had time to mature a little bit, but heigh ho. I am sure it will still be delicious.

Now, talking of lack of organisation, I am very annoyed at myself for not writing about Inver when we went in March of last year. It's an absolute little gem of a place which deserves to be better known (AND they served us a potato ice cream which was exciting enough to justify a post just by itself). Anyway. Better late than never, let me introduce you to a small but perfectly formed monument to modern Scottish cuisine.

The restaurant itself is situated on the shores of Loch Fyne and feels incredibly isolated, although if the roads are clear you are only an hour or so outside of Glasgow, and the town of Inveraray is not too far over the lway. But when you stand and look out over the waters, you could be a million miles from civilisation which is just how we, increasingly misanthropic as we age, like it.

Next door to the dining room, the owners have put up four shepherd bothies to allow guests to sleep over. We've stayed in two of the four and can report that they are extremely cosy and comfortable, with a slight Scandi feel to the decor, and floor to ceiling windows to allow dwellers to fully immerse themselves in the view.

The Scandi feel extends into the food served as well, and it did not come as a particular surprise to me to learn that the chef spent some time at Noma. That particular style of food - elegant, sparse, inextricably tied to the surrounding landscape - is becoming, if not ubiquitous, then certainly very prevalent in a lot of modern restaurants but when the cooking is on point, that is no bad thing. There's a lovely article on Great British Chefs that talks a little more about chef Pam Brunton's approach to food and her involvement with local suppliers and local produce. Certainly, the care she takes in sourcing her ingredients is repaid a thousand times over when you come to eat.

The highlight this time around was pheasant with apple and pear, which was an absolute masterclass in balancing sweet and savoury elements in a single dish. The breast was served with the veriest hint of blush, the leg was wrapped around sausage-meat with a little pheasant heart perched on top to add a kick of iron. Meanwhile, the buttery sourness of the apple and pear, alongside a crisp pastry, added both texture and the distinctively bittersweet notes of autumn. I must admit, I am not always a fan of fruit with meat but I couldn't get enough of it here. And, actually, one of the other showstopper moments was an amuse-bouche of duck with plum on a speculoos biscuit which, again, showed a flawless touch in harmonising ingredients of this sort.

Guests in the evening are served the tasting menu, which at £65 a head is pretty stupendous in terms of value. When we were staying, lockdown restrictions in Scotland meant that we were unable to drink wine with the meal but they did offer a juice accompaniment which D sampled and seemed to enjoy - particularly a coffee kombucha which came with the peppered doughnut dessert (and, fear not dear reader, we did manage to have some wine in the bothy before dinner).

The first time we went to Inver, I remember that as we drove away I told D that I had found my happy place, and I had a similar sense when we returned. It is not just the stunning landscape that surrounds it, or the quality of the food, but the ambience is absolutely second to none - warm and welcoming, a true haven. This year has been a particularly tough one for the hospitality industry, but I do hope that Inver weathers the storm and that we find ourselves there again soon. The world needs more Happy Places in it.

Inver

Strathlachlan

Strachur

Argyll & Bute

PA27 8BU

01369 860537

A brief escape

Usually, D and I manage to mistime everything but the gods were obviously smiling on us last week as we sneaked in a few glorious days in Scotland before the country heads back into lockdown. 

We've really toed the line this year, and have barely left the house, let alone ventured abroad. We had one night in Whitby back in September, and one lunch at our beloved Reliance a few weeks ago, and that's been pretty much it. Both of us are cautious by nature anyway, and given that we've been able to work fulltime from home, it seemed foolish to tempt fate in other ways. But, increasingly, we were getting cabin fever, and the opportunity to escape for a few days, in celebration of D's birthday, was just too good to pass up.

On Friday night, we dined at the wonderful restaurant, Inver. We first went last year and I can't see that I ever blogged about it - so I think it only fair to let it have its own post.

For the rest of the time, we mainly contented ourselves with eating glorious seafood. We were staying in a cottage on the shores of Loch Fyne, which is a name that may well be familiar to you from the restaurant chain. We went to the original Loch Fyne oyster bar and, well, you see for yourselves...

D loves a seafood platter and this one was incredibly good value, featuring a vast array of mussels, clams, langoustine, oysters, crab and lobster for £60. Me, I don't tend to go in for platters so much, but I couldn't resist sampling some oysters and it turns out that if you add a bit of smoked cheese and chilli sauce and whack them under the grill they are just as delicious, in their own way, as if you go for the naked-but-for-a-slick-of-shallot-vinaigrette version.

We spent a good few hours mooching round the little town on Inveraray which boasts not only a castle but an extremely interesting and well preserved jail and courtroom experience as well. In between learning about prisoners, and buying old fashioned sweets on the tiny high street, we repaired to the Brambles Cafe & Bistro, which did an excellent line in breakfasts and cake. In fact, D celebrated the day of his birth with a vast slab of apple and bramble pie, and wore an expression of unashamed glee throughout the consumption of the same.

It rained pretty much continuously, which, given the unremittingly gloomy news coming through, began to feel like pathetic fallacy. But then, on our last day there, the sun fought back and the most glorious rainbow appeared in the sky, soaring up over the grey expanse of loch. Which I take as a timely reminder of the Dolly Parton quotation - if you want that rainbow, you do have to put up with the rain. My goodness, but we've had some rain this year, haven't we? But there is still loveliness and beauty out there and I hope that all of us can hold onto that as we move into the darkest days of winter. 

Sad Times

This blog is packed full of accounts of many wonderful meals that I have had over the years, at establishments both in the UK and abroad. The hospitality industry has been devastated by the impact of the current global pandemic and, if news reports are to be believed, its tribulations are very far from over.

From a bystander's point of view it is heart breaking, so I can only imagine how those restaurant and bar owners, chefs and front of house staff are feeling at the moment. And it is frustrating as well, since a lot of these places have introduced measures since the UK's first lockdown has eased, to try and ensure the safety of their customers at the cost of revenue. 

We haven't been out all that much, but those places we have visited, we both agreed that, despite us being on the nervous end of the spectrum, we felt pretty safe and were able to relax and enjoy good food that we hadn't cooked and good wine that we hadn't poured. Last Friday particularly stands out as we went to The Reliance, pretty much our favourite place to eat and drink out in Leeds, for the first time since March.  We ate well (the poached pear with chocolate ganache pictured below was a particular highlight,) and drank a bit too much wine sitting at a familiar window seat watching the (somewhat diminished) hustle and bustle of North Street outside and pretending it was 2019 again.  Which, at the time, certainly didn't feel like a particularly stellar year but now is bloody Shangri La.

My understanding (and I hold my hands up that I deliberately try not to pay any more than cursory attention to the news these days) is that there appears to be quite limited evidence that any rise in cases is being caused, specifically, by people eating out and that transmission is unlikely to occur in a restaurant setting. Whether that is right or wrong, it feels harsh that certain industries such as hospitality are bearing a rather large brunt at the moment. Especially when you see people flout basic rules like wearing a face mask (properly! Over you nose and your mouth, twatbadger, not just scraping your chin!) or, in some areas like our particular Northern city, not mixing households. I get that everybody is frustrated or bored or fed up, but if we all stepped up a bit day to day, then maybe all these businesses could be saved. 

I don't even know that this post has a point beyond to just...be quite sad. And also, to acknowledge the very great debt that I personally owe to so many people in the hospitality industry, who have supplied me and D with some of our very favourite memories. I have fingers, toes, eyes and whiskers crossed that things start looking up soon.

Recipe corner: my perfect Toad in the Hole

I'm finding it particularly difficult to edit Blogger posts at the moment which is most annoying and is what led to the original version of this post sitting in drafts for a couple of weeks before I ended up deleting it in disgust.  They have changed the layout which is supposed to make it easier to post from a phone or a tablet (it doesn't) and seemingly done away with the ability to poke around at the HTML version of the post which was what I used to do to de-wonk it when nothing else would work.  Or perhaps I'm missing something?  That seems quite likely. 

Anyway. Toad in the Hole. Isn't it a glorious concoction?  Plump sausages nestled in a cloud of golden batter - I can think of few things more comforting.  I mean, you could melt some cheese on top for that extra layer of indulgence (Diana Henry has a lovely, cheesy version in her book From the Oven to the Table which also features baby leeks) but here, we're going nice and simple and classic.

I've struggled with getting the Yorkshire Pudding element of my Toad right for years but recently saw Nigella making it on TV and she suggested using Jane Grigson's method which involves adding solids to liquids rather than the other way round and that seemed to work a treat. The result had a bit of crispiness at the edges but was wonderfully soft and gooey in the middle.  This may not be to everyone's taste - some people prefer their batter to be crisp throughout, in which case this may not be the recipe for you.

Notes:  there is no need to start the sausages off in the frying pan as I have suggested below - but it helps to give them a bit of colour.

In the (as usual somewhat crappy) picture, you will see that I have made the Toad in a rectangular Pyrex dish, but I have since tried it in a 20cm round silicon cake tin and this worked even better - no sticking of batter to silicon and, also, for some reason I feel it is more appropriate that this dish be round, although for the life of me I couldn't explain why.  

Side dishes - gravy is a must (and there is no shame in just making up some good old Bisto as far as I'm concerned) but then I think all you need is something along the lines of some roasted roots, perhaps some peas.  You could serve it with a scoop of mash, but I think it is unnecessary and I say that as a greedy person.

Ingredients

6 pork sausages - go simple and classic here

1/2 onion (red for preference) - thinly sliced

2-3 sprigs of thyme

2 eggs

160ml milk

125g plain flour

1/2 tsp mustard powder (optional)

2tbsp vegetable oil

Serves 2

First, make your batter - and you need to allow a bit of time for the liquids to stand, so factor that in.  Whisk together the eggs and milk and set aside for at least 15 minutes.  Then add the flour, mustard powder and seasoning and whisk again. Some people swear blind that batter needs to rest properly before using - I'll be honest, I've tried resting it for a good half hour and cooking with it straight away and didn't notice a great deal of difference.  Just be aware that you have some flexibility.

Incidentally, unless you're planning to have the batter sit around indefinitely, I would suggest pre-heating the oven at the point at which you add the solids - to 200 degrees - you want it to get nice and hot.

Put a tablespoon of oil in the dish you are using for the Toad and place in the oven for around 10-15 minutes.  Meanwhile, if you are cooking the sausages separately, heat the oil in a frying pan over a medium heat and cook them for 5-10 mins, turning regularly to get a decent colour on all sides (if not, just put all of of the oil and the sausages in at the beginning and start off in the oven).

Once the oil in the oven is hot, remove the dish, add the sausages and any oil remaining in the frying pan, and pour over the batter.  You need to work quickly here to make sure the batter hits the oil while it is still nice and hot.  Sprinkle the sliced onion and the thyme leaves over the top and return to the oven.

Bake for around 40 minutes by which time the pudding should be puffed and golden, just beginning to catch at the edges, and the sausages should be cooked through.  

Meal planning: veggie (or is it cheese?) week

We decided to have a meat free this week.  It is something we do from time to time just for fun.  I'm sure all of us are aware of the importance of eating fewer animal products from an environmental point of view and, in general, I don't think we're too bad but there is always room for improvement and a week of veggie dishes always acts as a salutary reminder of how possible it is to eat well without the inclusion of meat or fish. The thing is that we've definitely ended up quite cheese heavy!  

Monday: root vegetable and pearl barley soup with bread (and cheese)

Tuesday: Cacio (cheese) e pepe

Wednesday: Mushroom risotto (finely grated cheese stirred through at the end)

Thursday: Saag paneer (cheese), Punjabi dum aloo and rice

Friday: "Fish" finger sandwich...with halloumi (cheese)

Saturday: Vada pav and Punjabi Kadhi with onion bhajis (wot, no cheese..?  But wait...)

Sunday: Aubergine CHEESEcake

Now, I am all for cheese in all its forms but...maybe next time we need to aim for vegan week?  Or, at the very least, get a few vegan options in there?

Back to skool

Ah, is there anything sadder than a little blog with no recent posts, left to fester by a careless owner?  Given we still find ourselves in 2020 (aka the worst year of the twenty first century so far and that is in the face of some fairly stiff competition) the answer to that is, probably, an emphatic yes.  But it is a vaguely tragic sight nonetheless.  Especially if the last post is innocuous and cheerful and doesn't refer to a planner period of absence.  There are many of these Last Posts scattered around the internet and I always wonder what happened to the writers.

Of course, blogging is not really the done thing anymore, so probably all that happened is they wandered off and did something else.  Someone whose own blog I used to quite enjoy tweeted as much recently.  So there you go, they're Tweeting and Instagram Story-ing and...Tik-Tok-ing?  I have no experience of this latter medium and think it best that it stays that way.  Of stories and tweets...all very well, but when did everything get so short?  Does no one want to luxuriate in proper sentences anymore?  Are our opinions and innermost thoughts of such levels of profundity that they can so easily be distilled into a slightly gormless selfie and ten word caption?  Or is it just that we're all becoming more banal?  As someone who has always favoured fifty words when only one will do, I mourn the passing of the full length blog post in favour of such ephemera.  Although note, too, that the older I get the more banal I seem to become.  Sigh.

Anyway, what's new with you?  Everyone thoroughly confused as to whether we're still in lockdown or not?  Everyone completely lost track of the rules (that didn't make sense in the first place)?  Excellent!  Here chez Seren we went to my parents' house at the weekend which was lovely and the first time I've spent more than five minutes in the company of someone other than my husband in nearly six months (the cat doesn't really count). And we've booked a night in Whitby in a couple of week's time but we're not sure whether or not we will do anything beyond sit in the courtyard outside our little room and drink wine.  But at least we'll be drinking wine somewhere different, so that's good.  I think we two definitely err on the nervous end of caution, but heigh ho.  

We've kept up with plenty of cooking so I will definitely share some food posts as part of my homework for September.  I also had Thoughts when I passed a new NHS poster about making diet swaps the other day and considered a ranty post about how extremely patronising it is to overweight people to assume that they don't know that they should eat carrots rather than crisps, as if they've lost IQ points in inverse proportion to gaining pounds.  In this day and age, the day and age of Information, we all know exactly what we should be doing.  But some can't afford to do it and some do not possess the mental fortitude to make life more bloody miserable than it already is.  Then I decided that the world does not need more keyboard warriors spouting their Thoughts, so decided not to bother.

Recipe corner: Tonkatsu “baoger”

Saturday night tends to be fakeaway night here. In recent weeks we have had homemade pizza, burgers and even D’s attempt at KFC. I will blog the latter in due course once we have got the recipe perfect.

This week, though, we decided to do a bit of fakeaway fusion by creating the Tonkatsu baoger. 

Tonkatsu is a Japanese dish which consists of a breaded pork fillet that is fried until crispy and drizzled with a ketchup based sauce. Bao buns, meanwhile, hail originally from China and are particularly popular in Taiwan. Bring the two together in a burger type fashion, add a dill pickle and put fries and slaw on the side and, lo and behold, you’ve insulted a minimum of two great cuisines. But you’ve made something yummy in the process.

I’ve written about making bao buns before - my original recipe is here (and by mine I mean David Chang’s). But Chang calls for skimmed milk powder and, alas, I had none. I only keep it in for the odd occasion when I make bao and last time I checked it had completely solidified so I got rid. As an alternative, I used this recipe from BBC Good Food and was pleased with the results. Maybe one day I’ll do a side by side taste test (although given that bao are a bloody faff, and I am fundamentally quite lazy, maybe not). Anyway, for the baoger, you want to follow the methodology but make the end product bigger: a baoger bun has the equivalent amount of dough to three normal sized bao buns. I won’t reproduce the recipe here, but I will remind you that if you intend to make these, allow plenty of time. You can make them in advance and revive them when you come to eat (instructions on my original post).

The sauce, incidentally, is Tim Anderson’s from his lovely book, Namban. I’ve reduced the quantity here but you might still have some leftover - it’s a strong flavour so you don’t want to use TOO much at once.

Ingredients

2 large bao buns (see above)

1/4 cucumber

3tbsp rice vinegar

3tsp caster sugar

100ml just-boiled water

Tsp salt

Tsp dill

2 pork loin steaks, visible fat removed 

50g flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp white pepper

Egg, lightly beaten

Panko breadcrumbs

Tbsp vegetable oil 

3 tbsp ketchup

1.5 tbsp Worcester sauce

Tsp mirin

Tsp soft brown sugar

Tsp tamarind paste

1/2 tsp soy sauce

1/2 tsp English mustard

Pinch of garlic powder

Pinch of white pepper

Tsp wasabi

Serves 2 

Prep begins early in the day. Trim the pork (if necessary) and, using a rolling pin or similar, bash the steaks out so that they are nice and thin. Exact thickness will be to your preference of course; ours were about 5 mm. The important thing is to have them as even as possible.

Season the flour with the garlic powder, salt and pepper. Toss the pork well in the flour, cover and chill. If you remember throughout the day, turn the pork steaks in the flour to make sure it absorbs as much as possible and that all sides are well coated.

Combine the sauce ingredients and set aside.

Reduce the cucumber to ribbons using a potato peeler, sprinkle well with salt and set in a colander or sieve over the sink. Prepare the pickling liquor: whisk the sugar into the vinegar until dissolved then pour over the just boiled water and season with salt and dill. Allow this to cool for around 10 mins before rinsing the cucumber, squeezing out any excess water and transferring it across to the water-vinegar combo. Set aside.

About an hour before cooking, remove the pork from the fridge to come up to room temperature. 

Just before cooking, take two flattish dishes. In one, lightly beat the egg with a little salt and pepper. In another, strew across half the Panko breadcrumbs. Dip the pork steaks in the egg then transfer to the breadcrumbs. Sprinkle the other half on top of the meat. Turn a couple of times to ensure that the steaks are well covered.  You could double dip (in the egg and then back in the breadcrumbs) if you're feeling particularly fancy.

Set a frying pan over a medium high heat, and get the oil nice and hot. Fry the pork steaks until cooked all the way through - depending on the thickness this will likely only take a couple of minutes on each side. While the meat is cooking, revive the bao buns and spread them liberally with the sauce on one side and the wasabi on the other.

Transfer the meat to the buns. Remove the cucumber from the vinegar and again squeeze out to get rid of any excess. Place on top of the pork, fold the bun over and devour.

Recent Eats (a "Summer in Lockdown" edition)

Hello, hello, hello!  How is everyone?  Hopefully well, as we continue to be...although perpetually slightly tired, slightly grumpy, slightly fed-up.

Working from home has long ceased to be a novelty and now the days drift, inexorably, into each other with very little to distinguish between them.  The weather in Yorkshire has been rather grey for the past few weeks which rather exacerbates the monotony.  When we first went into lockdown, I found the sunshine to be irritating - as if the universe was mocking us with its glorious blue skies and golden warmth while the world went to shit.  Now, I miss it.  But I was ever contrary.

Although lockdown has begun to lift in earnest, we are staying put for the time being.  As long as we are able to work from home (and no return to the office is being mooted for a good few months) and can get all shopping delivered, it seems silly to take unnecessary risks, however much part of me longs to go and sit in a pub.  In common with many people, anxiety over the immediate threat of the virus has now been replaced by anxiety at venturing back out into the world.  In fact, that might end up being our biggest challenge.  But plenty of time to think about that later.  July, at least, will see very little change chez Seren.

Cooking continues to be my preferred form of distraction - well, cooking and reading, although my attention span hasn't been great so not all books are grabbing my attention.  My favourite discovery of the last few months has been the two Hawthorne books by Anthony Horowitz - if you enjoy classic police procedural novels then these are great, and they have a pleasingly (to this former literature student) meta twist - although D found it to be slightly annoying.  I'm quite sad that he hasn't written more, as I gulped them down. 

Anyway, food! Yes.  I uploaded a few photos to Google to prompt this post and, because I have long since ceased to have any shame about my complete lack of ability to make ANY food look decent in photography, I will share them here.

Possibly the prettiest dish of lockdown was this lovely dish adapted from a Diana Henry recipe - chicken baked with nectarines, honey and lavender.  I adore Diana Henry and own most of her books but if you don't, she has been making useful recipes available throughout lockdown on the Telegraph website where usually they lurk behind a paywall.  The original recipe is here - although obviously I'm not sure if this will remain freely available for ever.  This dish sounds like it will be too sweet and perfumed to be palatable but I found it to be incredibly well balanced.

Less pretty, but still a magnificent beast - this is the roast rolled pork belly that D cooked a few weeks ago for Sunday lunch.  I know that pork belly is not for everyone with it's unctuous layer of fat, but we really enjoyed this and LOOK at that gloriously crispy skin!  D has been using Farmison and Co every month to source our household meat.  It's not the cheapest but everything we have bought has been of excellent quality and we are sure to stretch things as far as possible.  Also worth noting that they experienced very little by way of delays or supply issues even in the height of lockdown.

Ah, and now back to pictures of beigey brown slop.  Delicious!  But, truly, we have a newfound respect for pulses as a household and a VERY well stocked dry food pantry now where we used to rely on tins.  The top picture shows an attempt at a sort of cross between egg and beans and shakshuka which was delicious but I just can't get the cooking of the eggs right when I do these sort of dishes on the hob, which is so annoying as I love shakshuka (try Ottolenghi's recipe if this is a new one on you).  I have consulted the internet and next time I make something like this I am going to transfer to the oven for the final cooking stage.  If I crack it (ooh, egg pun!) I'll report back.

And curry - pretty much every curry we have at the moment has some sort of dahl on the side.  This split pea dahl was from the blog archives - 2011, can you credit it?  But, actually, the star of this dinner was the humble looking flat bread you see acting as a baked parasol type thing.  This was a peshwari roti, the recipe taken from Meera Sodha's wonderful "Made in India".  I fear I have condemned myself to produce these every time we have curry in future.  But, like every other recipe we have tried from this book, it is relatively quick to do, simple and tasty.  Probably not a tome for people who are advanced practitioners in the art of spice, but as a source of speedy weeknight curries, excellent.  I'm eyeing up the rest of her oeuvre.

Finally, Saturday nights have been fakeaway nights recently,  Pictured here is D's first attempt at a homemade KFC (DFC???) which was delicious - I'll blog it once we've got it absolutely perfect.  There is also a recipe for a tonkatsu "baoger" to follow shortly - yes, another crappy pun and (according to Google) not even one that I am first to use (although I was so proud of myself when I thought of it that if I was capable of patting myself on the back I probably would have done).

Hope things remain safe (and delicious) with all out there in the ether!  

Recipe corner: 61-hour duck breast

I first became aware of the concept of brining meat for a short period when I saw Nigella, wearing some sort of silky dressing gown if I remember correctly, immersing a turkey in a bucket of salt water.  The overnight bath was said to improve both the flavour and texture of this sometimes maligned bird.  I have never done this myself (we don't tend to have turkey at Christmas) but I think my brother has.  Anyway, the point is, it is the first time that the concept of a short, sharp brine flickered on the radar, as opposed to the longer process that is undertaken for cured meats such as corned beef.

Short and sharp it may be, but it still has a massive impact on texture and flavour.  We had brined duck breast when we went to Restarant Joro in Sheffield and couldn't believe the difference it made.  And duck breast is good anyway so imagine doing something to it, relatively low effort, that makes it even better.  I would definitely urge you to try this.

You need to start preparing your duck 61 hours before you want to eat - hence the recipe title.  But be assured the amount of work you need to do is minimal so it requires more organisation than it does effort.

The flavours in our brine, and the subsequent rub, tend a little towards the Orient - so chosen to suit the accompaniments - but you could definitely switch this up a bit.  The ratio of salt and sugar to water is what is important here - D spent quite a lot of time researching brine solutions to ensure that he got this bit right.  

Ingredients

500ml water

75g salt

25g sugar

2 star anise

5 allspice berries

5 juniper berries

2 garlic cloves (unpeeled but bruised)

Bayleaf

Tbsp coriander seeds

Tbsp black peppercorns

1/2 teaspoon Chinese five spice

2 duck breasts (skin on)

Make the brine: but all the ingredients in a large pot, bring to the boil (stirring, if necessary, to ensure that the salt and sugar are fully dissolved) then allow to cool.

Place the duck in a suitable container (ideally one with a lid, otherwise you will need to make sure it is well covered with clingfilm or similar) and pour over the cooled brine.  Place the duck in the fridge for 48 hours.

Now (and this is important if you want a properly crisped skin), 13 hours before you intend to eat it, remove from the brine, dry with kitchen paper and place uncovered in the fridge.  This will dry out the meat.

1 hour before dinner, remove the duck from the fridge and allow to come to room temperature before cooking.

Rub a small amount - approx 1/4 tsp - of Chinese five spice in the flesh of the duck and then season both sides well with salt and pepper.

We have found that the best way to cook duck is to preheat the oven to 180 and then place it, skin side down in a cold pan over a medium heat.  As the duck begins to cook it will start to render its own fat.  The timings will depend somewhat on the size of your breasts and the heat of your hob, but after 5-7 minutes you should be able to see that the skin is getting golden and crispy.  Follow your instincts here - you want to get the skin perfect before putting it in the oven.

Flip the breast so it is now skin side up and place in the oven.  Again, the timings will massively depend on the thickness and the oven but here, there is no need for instinct - for a perfectly blushing pink duck breast you are aiming to get the internal temperature to 52.  If you don't have a meat probe then a) buy one and b) try giving it a prod after, again 5-7 minutes.  The texture should be nice and springy.

Serve with whatsoever you desire (but check out our anniversary dinner post for our most recent iteration).

An engagement anniversary dinner

12 June was eleven years to the day when D and I got engaged.  I've just looked back to see if I blogged it, but it turns out that I started blogging the following year so, a setting of the scene first.

It was a very warm evening.  We had drinks at Gordon's on The Embankment and then walked down The Mall towards Belgravia and our dinner destination: Restaurant Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley hotel.  It's called "Marcus" now; it was re-branded a few years after we went to make it more relaxed and, to be fair, I do recall it being a little on the starchy side when we were there.  Great food though.  About halfway through - definitely after the starters but, I think, before the main course, D did the whole getting down on one knee thing, much to the delight of the women at the table next to us.  I noticed, however, that he waited until a waiter was approaching the table to ensure (as he told me afterwards) that we got stuff.  Reader, as a plan it worked; not only did we get a congratulatory dessert, but I was taken to the kitchen at the end to meet Marcus Wareing himself, who signed a menu now framed on our dining room wall.  We don't really do photographs in this house - we don't even have any wedding photos- but we do have that, and the wedding breakfast menu that my lovely brother and sister in law got signed and framed for us, and the memories they invoke are precious.

Obviously there is no eating out at the moment so we cooked something a little bit special instead.

To start - a large canape more than anything else - roasted new potato halves topped with sour cream and "caviar".  I think I've mentioned these before but it's worth saying again that these are such a nice way to kick off a special occasion.  The potatoes were tossed in a little oil and seasoning and roasted, cut side down, for 45 minutes and allowed to cool slightly.  Meanwhile, I combined sour cream with some finely chopped shallot, lemon juice, dill and a hint of mustard and piled it on top along with the fish roe.  Of course, the potatoes, rather like the more typically used blini, would also be suitable for any sort of similar topping.

For a main course - 61 hour brined duck breast (recipe to follow) mashed potato flavoured with green chilli and coriander chutney  (gorgeous combo, slightly peculiar colour), plum sauce (painted in somewhat clumsy stripes across the plate) and, finally, some lovely pickled plums with ginger and chilli.  I'm just going to come out and say it - we felt pretty smug eating this.

And further smugness ensued when I served dessert - baked cheesecake pots.  Baked cheesecake is a great favourite of D's and, of course, everything looks cute served in a pot.  I just quartered a standard baked cheesecake recipe to make this (which does make it quite a hefty portion but...we're greedy!) and it turned out beyootifully.  I was so pleased.  

Not quite Marcus Wareing standard, then, but not bad.  And we ate it while watching episodes of Taskmaster which is one advantage the home dining room has over that of The Berkeley.  A lot has changed in eleven years but some fundamentals stay the same, even in the midst of a global pandemic: love, friendship, food.  

Blog admin

This poor old blog has been a little bit neglected of late so I have started doing a little bit of tidying up and sorting out and updating.  The Eating Out page now, finally, stretches past 2017.

I have also added a couple of pages  On the first, foodie shopping bookmarks, I have started putting together a list of some of the online resources that we use when we have cash to flash.  Some of these will be local to Leeds but they will be marked so it is obvious.  Lockdown has made us even more reliant on deliveries than usual and lots of places, local and national, big and small, have really come through.  Just last night we enjoyed a bread and cheese supper courtesy of the very wonderful George and Joseph and Bluebird Bakery.  The latter does the nicest sourdough that, I think, I have ever had,

Just below that we have a recipe bookmark page.  This is an opportunity for me to bring together and share fantastic recipes from around the Internet.  Everything I list on here I have cooked myself and think the recipe can be trusted.  If I change something extensively, I will likely post it myself in which case it will continue to appear on the standard blog Recipe Index.  But I've always been a little bit wary of just typing up other people's recipes for the blog and this feels like a more sensible way of doing it.

I'll add dishes as and when they occur to me, but for starters there is a gorgeous basic wholemeal loaf, a storecupboard pasta dish, a mushroom curry that tastes far more than the sum of its parts and the very cake that led to my recent minor meltdown.

Happy cooking everyone!

Recipe corner: a basic template for houmous

It's been an up and down few weeks since I last posted.  In reality, very little has changed.  Our household (me, D, the cat) remain much as before the lockdown in the UK started lifting.  Because we are in the very fortunate position that we can both work full time from home, and have pretty much been able to get all shopping delivered throughout, we have decided to keep more or less to ourselves for the foreseeable.  Although the world has become very small, some days - most days - that feels OK.  I miss my extended family and I miss my work colleagues and I miss sitting in a bar with a pint and a packet of Scampi Fries, but the longer this goes on, the more "life before" takes on a certain dream-like quality.

But there are down moments.  I was broken by cake a couple of weeks ago.  It was good cake too - Nigella's Clementine Cake which is usually pretty foolproof but, on this occasion, because I was trying to deal with it alongside cooking something else, I rushed and it didn't come out of the tin properly; I ended up with half cake, half crumbs.  Such a small thing but I had a proper, screaming tantrum.  And then, for the next few days, found myself bursting into tears at random intervals.  To be clear, I don't think this was really about cake (and, in retrospect, it may have had a lot to do with hormones) but it made it obvious that I'm not 100% OK.  I don't think anyone in the world is 100% OK at the moment.  The fact that I'm OK an awful lot of the time puts me among the very, very luckiest of people.

Anyway, I post the below recipe more for my future reference than anything else - but if you are a houmous fan and have never made it yourself then I think it is well worth it if you happen to have a decent little food processor handy.  The secret to the perfectly whipped texture is, of course, the liquid that the chickpeas were cooked (or canned) in.  I came quite late to this realisation and had all but given up making it before I found out because I only ever produced an oily, claggy disappointment of a mess.  It's taken me a few goes to get the proportions quite right but I think that I'm there now - so I record it for posterity.  

This recipe produces, to my mind, the perfect basic houmous.  All the flavours are in harmony, nothing is too strident.  Once you have that you can play around with your flavours. I didn't weigh out exactly how much this produced, but in terms of volume was probably about the equivalent of the size of standard pot you buy in a supermarket.  Precise, eh?

Note: A true aficionado will probably:

a) remove the skin from the chickpeas before blitzing but, I'm going to be honest, I am not that person.  The results without removing the skin are perfect for my unrefined palate and

b) shudder in horror at the prospect of "flavoured" houmous.  But again, I am not that person.  Caramelised onion houmous is my particular favourite - and it goes beautifully with cheese.  So there.

Ingredients

50g dried chickpeas, soaked in cold water overnight

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 fat clove of garlic, finely grated or crushed

3 tsp lemon juice

2 tsp tahini

Tsp sea salt (or, a generous pinch if you don't tend to measure such things)

NB: if you are using tinned chickpeas, this amount dried equates to about half a drained tin.  Simmer them gently in the can liquid for 10 mins or so to soften slightly and then proceed per the recipe.  Then buy some dried chickpeas and try it that way next time - you'll never go back!

This is barely a recipe but...

Drain the soaked chickpeas and then put them in a large saucepan, add enough water to cover them by about a centimetre, add the bicarb and bring to a boil over a medium heat.

Boil until soft - by which I mean it will crush easily, with minimal pressure, between your thumb and index finger.  The timings will depend on your chickpeas - I gave my last lot just half an hour, but it can take longer.  Keep the water topped up to roughly a centimetre or so over the pulses throughout and skim off any of the grungy looking foam that rises to the top.

When cooked - drain RESERVING THE COOKING WATER.

Put the chickpeas in a little processor - nothing else initially - and blend to a coarse paste.  You then want to add enough of the cooking water to create a perfect texture - and should do this gradually, a tablespoon at a time.  I have found that my optimum texture comes from between 5 and 7 tablespoons of liquid.  What I would suggest is take it down to ever-so-slightly too thick (for me, I would check at 3 or

4 tablespoons).  Then add the other ingredients so you can gauge what effect these have.  And only then finish adding enough water to get it to where you need it to be. Remember, it may vary as it is partly dependent on how much liquid the chickpeas have absorbed during soaking and cooking.

Now you have your basic houmous you can go mad!  Drizzle with olive oil and strew with pomegranate seeds!  Whack up the garlic!  Throw something entirely incongruous (like, say, caramelised onion chutney that needs using up) in there.  Have fun.  And eat smeared on pitta, or toast, or just with a spoon.

With love to all of you out there who are not quite OK.  Rather like the weather today, things remain changeable and sometimes rather gloomy, but the sun, always, inevitably, indubitably, comes out in the end.

Recipe corner: cheese and pepper chickpeas

Lots and lots of food writers are doing sterling work at the moment across all of social media, making loads of recipes and cook-alongs and tricks of the trade available to us mere mortals.  I have always been an avid Ottolenghi fan anyway (his book "Plenty" remains one of our most utilised) but he has had some fabulous stuff over on Instagram which he saves to his Stories. When he mentioned doing a sort of take on cacio e pepe, but with chickpeas, then I had to give it a go.

You will note that lockdown has not improved my food photography skills any.  Sigh.  Although I suspect it would be hard in any case to make a pile of gloopy beige chickpeas look attractive (not really selling it there, am I?)  Anyway, forget about the crappy picture, these chickpeas were DELICIOUS.  Look, so good it made me shout.  D was less enamoured and, of course, he is entitled to his opinion (he is WRONG.)  I suspect that the problem here was partly that I didn't quite get the sides right.  I served them with a tomato and chorizo couscous salad and flatbread which, while nice in their own right, weren't quite...there.  

Anyway.  My chickpeas needed less cooking and slightly more water than Ottolenghi's so I've included my timings and quantities on the below write up - a lot is going to depend on the peas themselves, the soaking, your oven...you just need to cook them until they are nice and soft and most (but not all) of the liquid has been absorbed so that you're left with a very slightly soupy texture that will thicken up into a silken, clinging sauce once the butter and cheese has been added.

Cacio e pepe should really just be about cheese and pepper so don't be afraid to be bold with the latter.  Since Ottolenghi himself supported the initial addition of garlic, I'm going to go one step further and chuck a couple of aromatics in at the cooking stage, but you could quite happily omit these.  Oh, he also originally suggested a couple of pickled chillies as a garnish.  I didn't bother as I had a bit of heat coming through from the couscous, but I think that they would be a lovely addition.

Ingredients

150g dried chickpeas, soaked overnight

Tbsp olive oil

4 cloves of garlic, crushed

Couple of Parmesan rinds

2 bay leaves

Sprig of thyme

750ml water

Pinch of bicarbonate of soda

50g butter, fridge cold

25g Parmesan, finely grated

Heaped tsp black peppercorns, roughly crushed

Serves 2

Preheat the oven to 180 (160 fan).

Take a pan large enough to hold all the soaked chickpeas comfortably and that will go in the oven - some sort of casserole dish is ideal.  Over a low heat, warm the oil and then fry off the garlic for just a minute or so, until the raw edge has disappeared from the smell.

Drain the chickpeas and add to the pot, tossing well in the garlicky oil.  Then throw in the rinds, the bay and the thyme and cover with 750ml of water and a pinch of bicarbonate of soda.  Bring the lot to the boil and then cover and transfer to the oven.

My chickpeas were cooked perfectly after just an hour in the oven - the original recipe called for an hour and forty five minutes.  I would suggest checking after an hour.  Cook until the chickpeas are tender and the consistency is still slightly soupy.  

Remove from the oven and discard the Parmesan rinds and the herbs.

Add the butter and the Parmesan in 4 lots, stirring well each time to ensure that they have melted completely.  The residual heat in the dish should do this without the need to apply any further heat from the hob.  Then finish by stirring through the black pepper and a pinch of salt (if needed).

Serve.  With...something.

Recipe corner: spicy pineapple pickle

So you remember how in my last post I gave you a recipe for a pineapple cake?  Today we find out what happened to the other half of the pineapple.  You may, of course, wonder why we didn't just eat said pineapple and I couldn't tell you the answer.  I tend to eat more fruit at work, when it is in my lunchbox and just there than when I am at home.  It's not that I don't like it, I just tend not to think of it.  Definitely an area for improvement.

Anyway, pineapple pickle.  This was a last ditch attempt to save some pineapple that was going a bit brown and (no other word for it) manky.  It was a dying pineapple.  It was on the brink between this life and the next.  And it made a fantastic pickle I am very happy to say.  We had it with a curry (paneer and red pepper, if you're interested, from Meera Sodha's lovely "Made in India").  We had it with some jerk chicken and potato salad (our food combinations are somewhat random at the moment but don't judge - this was delicious!) And we had it in ham and cheese toasties wherein it was EPIC.  

Talking of random - I realised once I had started that I didn't have any mustard seeds (don't worry, they've subsequently been ordered online - the importance of a fully stocked spice cupboard is not to be under estimated) so I, er, rinsed off a tablespoon of wholegrain mustard.  It clearly didn't affect my enjoyment of the finished product but it felt a bit weird.  Mind, I read somewhere the other day that Jack Monroe, who has managed to carve out an entire career telling people what to do with random tins of food, recommends rinsing off spaghetti hoops in one of her books to make a store-cupboard version of cacio e pepe*.  So rinsing is apparently a thing in times of desperation.  

*I will, most very definitively, not be trying this.

Ingredients

2 dried chillies, soaked in boiling water (I see no reason why you couldn't sub in a fresh chilli if you didn't have dried.  If you do use dried, then soak them for at least an hour or else they won't be soft enough to blitz.

1 Tbsp fresh ginger, grated

1 garlic clove, grated

1 tbsp yellow mustard seeds

1 tsp ground turmeric

200ml white wine vinegar

Tbsp light brown sugar

Half a ripe pineapple, cored and cut into chunks

Drain the chillies and put in a pestle and mortar along with the ginger and garlic and a good pinch of salt.  Pound to a paste.  Add a tiny splash of the chilli water if it needs a little bit of help to amalgamate.

Heat a small, dry frying pan and then, when it is nice and hot, dry fry the mustard seeds until they start to the pop.

Transfer the seeds, and the paste, into a bowl large enough to hold all the pineapple, then add the turmeric, the vinegar and the sugar.  Set aside for 10 minutes or so, stirring every so often, until the sugar is completely dissolved.  Taste at this stage.  You may wish to add a bit more sugar if your vinegar is a particularly sour variety.

Add the pineapple and a decent pinch of salt.  Stir to ensure the fruit is coated in the liquid.  You could transfer it to a jar at this stage if you intend to take a nice picture of it for your blog (which you then forget to do).

Don't eat straight away - let it sit and collect itself for at least an hour before serving, and preferably longer.  The original recipe said that it would last three days in the fridge but I reckon you'd get a bit longer out of it than that.  Still, once you try one of those toasties you'll probably run through it in no time.

Recipe corner: pineapple upside-down cake

I make no apologies for publishing something so unashamedly retro because it is, without a shadow of a doubt, exceedingly good cake.

I've been baking quite a lot over the last few weeks.  For one thing, barely going out means that I need to keep a supply of potential snack food on hand.  For another, it is a very soothing activity and makes me feel very content in a sort of 1950s hausfrau sort of a way.  Also (and this is particularly pertinent to this post) we have been getting all sorts of random fruit and veg in our weekly box which we wouldn't normally buy and baking is a good way to make sure everything gets utilised.  

I read through quite a few recipes before settling on this one, which originates from the BBC Good Food site.  The method, of smearing the butter and sugar mixture all over the bottom of the cake tin rather than melting it down into a caramel, seemed to me to be pleasingly faff free and it worked a treat.  When you look at the ingredients list, the scant amount of sponge mix might seem like an error but I think it produces an excellent ratio of fruit and caramel to cake.  

Treat this recipe as a blueprint to pull out whenever you have some random soft fruit that you need to use (perhaps in your weekly box, or a tin lurking at the back of the store cupboard).  I had great success with making an upside-down plum cake the other week (in fact, D preferred the plum version to it's pineapple cousin).  Inspired by that, and again in the quest for the perfect distribution and ratio, I would encourage you to imagine a plum cut into eighths when slicing your fruit.  When I made the version in the picture, my pineapple chunks were a bit...chunky.

Incidentally (and I'll stop whiffling and get to the recipe in a second) I make this in my silicon cake tin and it works like a charm.  I am slightly obsessed, I won't deny it, even if it does fly in the face of tradition somewhat and means that I run the risk of losing my 1950s hausfrau badge.

Ingredients

50g light, soft brown sugar

50g softened butter

Tsp ground cinnamon

250g pineapple, cut into smallish chunks (see note above)

100g softened butter

100g caster sugar (golden if you happen to have it)

100g self raising flour

Tsp baking powder

Tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

Preheat the oven to 180 (160 fan).

Combine the 50g butter with the 50g sugar and the cinnamon until it reaches the texture of very damp sand.  Spread this across the bottom of a 20cm cake tin and about a quarter of the way up the sides (you don't have to be too precise here).  By far the easiest way to do this is with your hands.  Pretend you're making sandcastles.

Arrange the fruit across the caramel mixture.  Aim for as even a distribution as possible.

Now for the cake.  Cream together the rest of the butter and the sugar until pale and fluffy.  Then add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each one, and stir through the vanilla extract.  Finally, sift in the flour and the baking powder and gently fold through so that you have a soft, smooth batter.

You now need to spread the cake mix on top of the fruit.  It may look like there isn't enough, so spend a bit of time, preferably using a silicon spatula, to make sure the mixture is evenly spread.  

Bake in the oven for 25-35 mins (my oven is a beast so I start checking after 20).  The cake is ready when a skewer (or a small piece of dried spaghetti, my weapon of choice) comes out clean.

Leave the cake to cool for 5 minutes and then you need to turn it out onto a plate.  This is less scary than it sounds.  Place your hand flat under the cake tin (use an oven glove if it is still too hot to handle at this stage) and cover the exposed cake layer with a large plate then turn over in one swift, smooth movement.  Believe me, I am the clumsiest person in the world and I have managed several times without incident.

This cake is lovely warmed, with cream or ice cream for a school dinners-tastic pudding, but cold with a cup of tea is good too.  Whatever floats your boat.