Happy Meals - Variations on a Sunday roast

Before the food - the pedantry. I have noticed that in some post titles I use a hyphen and in some I use a colon and it is irritating me. To the extent that I may spend all day tomorrow going back through hundreds and hundreds of blog posts to try and achieve uniformity. That is all.

Yesterday, D roasted a splendid piece of rolled pork belly, low and slow initially and then blasted with heat so that the meat was juicy and tender but the outer skin crunched loud enough to hear across the room when you bit into it. Just as it should be. The pork sat on a trivet above a tray of apples and onions and cider, and the resulting concoction was just as flavourful as you might imagine, full of bite. We spooned it over the meat where it clung, more a sauce than a gravy and none the worse for that.

I was in charge of sides but decided to do something a little different to a standard complement of roasted roots, and so made, for the first (but not the last) time, a dish of Lyonnaise potatoes and some kale, braised with pancetta, liberally seasoned with black pepper and nutmeg, and finished with just a lick of cream. My main complaint with regards this latter dish is that there was enough of it - the kale cooked down a little more than I was expecting. 

Sunday cooking is lovely - slow, considered...the house becoming steadily more fragrant with cooking smells as the afternoon wends its way into the evening. Sunday cooking is chopping vegetables while perched on a stool at the kitchen island, with a cup of tea to hand and the radio burbling in the background. A very pleasing memory to take into the working week.

Recent eats: an interminable January

I think January might have lasted forever. And even though we are, let's be honest, over a third of the way through February, February has just proved itself to be something of a January 2.0. Cold, wet, miserable and utterly ennui-inducing. D is only finally now shaking off a cough he's had since before Christmas, I've been feeling rundown and lurgy-ish and none of this has got 2025 off to a particularly dazzling start.

I decided to dust off the blog to do a recent eats post and went searching through my phone for pictures to share - needless to say, found very little. Little by way of food pictures, that is - if you want a picture of the cat asleep on the back of the sofa then I have several hundred iterations. We really haven't left the house very much, one exception being a lunchtime trip to White Cloth Hall, a relatively new Leeds venture which features a number of street food(ish) type vendors. We shared a Jamie Thiccston sandwich from Morty's Focacceria which was an absolute beast of a thing, but delicious for all of that. I would have liked slightly more burrata but, then, I think most things would benefit from more burrata. In general, the ratio of bread to filling was pretty good, there was plenty of salty, slippery mortadella and it wasn't so ridiculously huge you couldn't fit it in your mouth in one go to get the full benefit of the layers.

We've done some home cooking, of course,  and have enjoyed several dishes from Meera Sodha's latest book, Dinner which I commend to your attention, especially if you wish to up your vegetarian and vegan cooking game. Having said that, looking back over the archive meal plan, I think one of my top food moments from January was carnivorous; tucking into haggis, neeps and tatties on Burns night, smothered in a fabulous whisky sauce. Classics are classics for a reason. Oh, and I baked some blondies for my Dad's birthday which turned out rather nicely. 

But all in all not an awful lot to share from these first few weeks of the year. We plod on.

2024: a year in review

This is, above all things, a food blog and so the year in review has to primarily about food. But it is inescapable (for me, at least) that 2024 was the year I lost my Minx Cat. I miss her every single day. We have Millie now, of course, who has brought a great deal of joy, but Minx was a great love. D got me a photo book for Christmas of every single picture he had of her, and I must admit, I cried buckets as I looked through it. She was my girl and I will always, always feel the lack of her.

And now I've made myself cry again so let us all move on and talk about good eats in 2024. Looking back over our year - we went to Mull twice which was wonderful. Barcelona in June - now, that was a foodie trip - and a cheeky long weekend in Vienna. We've also had some fabulous ad hoc meals, including our first trip to L'Enclume since it gained its third Michelin star and fish in a shack on the beach in December.

I'm trying to remember highlights, and it is hard, especially since my memory is appalling. D fell in love with the food of Kiln in the summer, and, I have to admit, I still think about the soy glazed chicken thigh. Returning to Cail Bruich was a pleasure and a privilege; the Isle of Wight tomato with smoked crowdie, basil and elderflower was a blinder of a dish. I had possibly the best beef tartare of my life at The Hare in Scawton - and I've eaten a lot of tartares. And I definitely seem to have rediscovered my sweet tooth this year, although Brett's warm chocolate mousse did nearly finish me off.

Chocolate!

Tomato!

In terms of home cooking, I think that the focaccia that I made for our Easter Sunday feast was one of my proudest achievements of the year - and the credit lies entirely with the recipe. We cooked a Murakami inspired menu for my brother - I am now officially obsessed with Japanese rolled omelettes - and introduced our good friends A&K to the wonder that is D's mussel and saffron soup. Scrolling back through our meal planning spreadsheet, I suspect that the most consumed dish was D's mushroom sauce - served with chicken and pork respectively, always to great acclaim. 

And now onwards to 2025. As I write this, snow lies thick on the ground, the sky is entirely devoid of colour and I could very much do with a nap despite it being only 11am. January, as a month, is a shocker. But I am full of positivity and optimism for the year ahead, once this initial hump has been - well, humped. Happy New Year to everyone.

Happy meals - Gordon Ramsay’s pork with peppers

 

There are few things my husband enjoys more than a monster pork chop. And these pork chops, from Swaledale Butchers, were indeed monsters. The layer of fat was truly obscene; these were the Marlon Brando at-the-end-of-his-life of pigs. But the meat itself was incredibly tasty and succulent.

One of our favourite ways to eat pork chops is a Gordon Ramsay recipe, which he published in his Complete Cookery Course. It is also available online - here. It's incredibly simple - peppers and red onion cooked low and slow, olive oil, a splash of vinegar, a pinch of sugar. The sweet and sour veg cut through the meat without overpowering or overwhelming the porcine star of the show. As a carb monster, it is rare that I eat a dish which solely consists of meat and veg but it is really all you need here. Although if someone were to offer me some crusty bread for mopping, I'd never turn it down.

Recipe corner: labneh with roasted tenderstem broccoli

Of COURSE it was the case that on one of the hottest days of the year I should have planned an evening meal that required a lot of time spent cooking. Just as on a similarly warm day a few weeks ago, I went to a pastry making class (at Betty’s Cookery School and it was tremendous fun, albeit attempting flaky pastry in 20 degree plus heat is rather messy). My sense of timing has always been admirable. 

Anyway, last Saturday night we had sort-of mezze. I say sort of because the dishes and flavours were taken from a range of cuisines and thrown together in what I would like to think was a fusion (rather than confusion) of gastronomic experiences. But I fully concede I might be deluded on that point; never let it be said I achieve authenticity in my cooking. 

We had D’s amazing Merguez sausages, roasted and served with a simple houmous and a few whole chickpeas for texture. We had Ottolenghi’s iman bayaldi, a stewed aubergine dish that I’ve been meaning to make for ages. We had za’tar flatbreads. And we had roasted broccoli on labneh. 

So, this latter dish was inspired by two things; a perusal of the original Moro cookbook, and a starter I ate at the late, lamented Reliance sometime last year. (For those not au fait with the Leeds pub scene, The Reliance was a fantastic gastropub and Leeds institution, and the menu was magic for interesting vegetable based dishes).

Even if you don’t try this particular combination, I’d urge you to give labneh a go - so easy and SO delicious. It found it to be similar in taste and texture to Boursin cheese; my next batch I am going to combine with cracked black pepper and smear all over a baguette. 

Ingredients

For the labneh (first stage):

300g full fat Greek yoghurt

Generous pinch of salt

(Second stage):

Small clove of garlic

Spring onion, finely chopped

Salt and plenty of black pepper

For the garnish:

100g trimmed tenderstem broccoli spears

Tbsp olive oil (plus extra for garnish)

Tbsp flaked almonds

1-2 tbsp pickled jalapeño chillis, roughly chopped (optional)

Serves 2 as part of a mezze spread or side dish

Making labneh is incredibly easy but you will need a large bowl, a muslin cloth, a wooden spoon and room in the fridge.

Line the bowl with the cloth and spoon in your yoghurt. Add salt and stir through. Then, gather up the sides of the cloth and tie round the handle of the wooden spoon (other kitchen implements will work too), which you have laid across the top of the bowl, so that you end up with a little money bag of yoghurt, suspended over the bowl. The bag should not touch the bottom of the bowl. 

I feel like I have repeated the word bowl too often in that paragraph.

Leave overnight in the fridge. Mine was suspended for about 22 hours in total and I thought the consistency was perfect but the longer it stays in there, the firmer it will be.

When you come to make the dish, preheat the oven to 180 degrees and toss the broccoli in olive oil and seasoning. Once the oven has come to temperature, you will roast for around 20 mins.

Drain any liquid from the bottom of the labneh bowl and remove the cheese from the muslin cloth. Beat lightly to loosen and then you can add any flavouring you wish. I kept this relatively simple by stirring through a little garlic, a spring onion and lots of seasoning. Spread the labneh on a serving plate.

Lightly toast the almonds in a dry frying pan over a low heat.

When the broccoli is roasted and the ends beginning to look a little charred, remove from the oven and place on the labneh. Drizzle over a little olive oil and sprinkle on the almonds and jalapeño chillies (if using).

Note: if you’re not a fan of crunchy broccoli, you may wish to blanche the spears in advance of roasting.

Easter Sunday, a feast of duck

It has been so long since I last posted that I’m not even going to bother commenting. Onwards!

The big news chez nous is that we have recently replaced our kitchen. Gone is the poky little galley with the slightly yellowish walls. In its place a big, bright room with a huge island and a statement radiator. I’ll share some before and after pictures at some point.

Easter Sunday lunch, then, was a chance to flex some cooking muscles which we haven’t been able to do in a while. And it was delicious.

Duck and black pudding bonbons with sweet and sour roasted plums. We often make these bonbons at Christmas and, once the  confit legs have been brined, slow cooked in duck fat and then roasted the final stage is simplicity itself. The meat is so tender that it only needs a bit of black pudding and a pinch of Chinese five spice and it holds itself together perfectly in a sphere which can then be bread-crumbed and fried. You may note that head-chef D favours bonbons that tend towards the snooker-ball size.

Brined duck breast with cabbage, ginger cream and chilli oil. An Ottolenghi accompaniment - sounds odd, proved absolutely delicious. 

Cherry frangipane tart with clementine ice cream. D has conceived something of a passion for pastry recently and he does it very well. The ice cream is simplicity itself and lovely both on its own and as an accompaniment. 

After months of ready meals, sandwiches and takeaways, utter bliss.

Recipe corner: Gymkhana's tandoori lamb chops

Halfway through February already - the days are slipping by at a frankly alarming rate and I can't believe how long it has been since I last blogged. 

Excitingly, it is entirely possible that we have already had our top dish of the year thanks to a fabulously foodie short break in Paris (abroad!) However, up until this last weekend, I felt my cooking mojo had been somewhat lacking. Looking back over our archived meal plan for January, I'm a little surprised at how much we cooked actually because I definitely felt that it was all a bit meh. It could just be the January blues (pernicious blighters) and the fact that after the Christmas festivities, things are always a little bit flat. 

Anyway, early on in the month we had a sneaky short break down in London, primarily to see my family for the first time since before the pandemic. And it was wonderful. My brother and sister in law are fantastic hosts and I don't think I have ever eaten a better Spanish omelette than the one that V cooked us as part of a tapas spread. The children, my gorgeous nieces and nephew, had, unsurprisingly, changed enormously in the last two years, but were as fun as ever, and super tolerant of their aged auntie. We spent a brilliant day with them. And the icing on the cake was the fact that the night before we had a superlative dinner at Mayfair's Gymkhana, a restaurant I have been keen to visit for a long time.

We were not disappointed. If you like Indian food (we do) then this is a must-visit. We had the tasting menu which, I must admit, defeated us in terms of sheer quantity but the flavours and skilful balancing of spices had us in full on plate-licking mode initially (until we got so full we could barely move!) We'd love to go again and maybe order a la carte to manage capacity issues. 

The star of the evening were the tandoori lamb chops which, D declared, ruined tandoori lamb chops for him forever - and I quite agree. While the starting point was undoubtedly meat of the highest quality, luscious and tender and tumbling off the bone, the flavours of the marinade were fantastic - recognisable to the Western palate as "tandoori" but with a complexity that is lacking in your bog standard order-from-up-the-road. 

Unfortunately, Gymkhana's kitchen has yet to produce a recipe book BUT the recipe for the lamb chops is online - when I discovered this fact they went straight on the meal plan and we cooked them this weekend. They did not disappoint; the only real point of difference we could discern was the fact that we cooked them under our grill, so they lacked the note of char produced by a tandoor over; the next time we make them, we will be firing up the barbecue. I made a few little tweaks as I went along - exceedingly minor - but the original recipe, along with some other stunning looking dishes can be found here.

Some notes - this requires two marinades, the first overnight, so you do need to prepare in advance. Some ingredients are a little obscure - I bought the kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves) and mustard oil online. The original recipe called for red chilli powder; now I know that our chilli powder is EXCEEDINGLY hot and didn't want that here (it wasn't in keeping with the original). I also know that a smoked paprika / chilli powder combination is sometimes suggested as a sub for certain types of Indian chilli powder, so that is what I did. The resulting lamb had a tingle but was not overwhelming; if you like chilli heat then you may wish to adjust my quantities upwards. Oh, and, goes without saying - use the best possible meat you can for this because that really is the bedrock of the dish.

Ingredients

8 lamb cutlets (or 1 8 bone rack of lamb)

First marinade:

Tbsp salt

3 fat cloves of garlic

2 inch (approx) piece of root ginger

2 tsp chilli powder

2 tsp smoked paprika

Tbsp kasoori methi

Small red onion, crushed with a mallet or rolling pin

Second marinade:

Tbsp salt

3 tsp chilli powder

3 tsp smoked paprika

7 tbsp Greek yoghurt

2 fat cloves of garlic

Inch (approx) pieces of root ginger

2 tbsp garam masala

2 tbsp mustard oil

Serves 2 greedy people (with sides)

Assemble your first marinade. Make a garlic and ginger paste: crush or finely grate the garlic, weigh, and then grate on an equivalent weight of root ginger and squish together with the flat of a knife. Bruise whatever remains of the ginger with whatever implement you used to crush the onion.  Combine the paste and the whole ginger with the other ingredients and add the lamb, mixing well and ensuring the lamb is well coated in spice. You may wish to do this in a large plastic bag rather than a bowl. Refrigerate, covered, (or in the bag) overnight.

Assemble your second marinade, making the garlic and ginger paste as before and this time discarding any of the ginger that you don't use. Combine the paste with all the other ingredients and then, in goes the lamb. Marinate for a further six hours or so.

To cook - grill (or barbecue), turning every few minutes until the centre of the cutlets has reached around 58 degrees (this should give you a medium result which is perfect for this dish but, of course, cook for longer if preferred).

The Food Wot I Ate - a 2021 retrospective

2021 was the year that started with a lockdown and ended with not-a-lockdown-but-most-of-us-choosing-to-stay-indoors-anyway. It did a good impression, in parts, of being normal but it really wasn't. It was the year where many of us queued up like dutiful citizens to get not one, not two but three jabs in the hope it would grant us freedom but then realised that freedom was slightly scary. A funny old time.

In the latter half of the year, as reflected in my occasional blog posts, D and I tried to get back into the swing of eating out and we were rewarded with some absolutely fabulous meals. Whether it was because after twelve months of home cooking and takeaways the novelty of restaurant food triumphed over all critical faculties, or that the restaurants we visited were just that good it is impossible to be entirely sure, but we were blessed with some truly superlative dishes. And I haven't even told you about our trip to Roots yet at the back end of the year, where Tommy Banks's team is doing fantastic things on the banks of the River Ouse.

It's been tough to narrow it down, but there are definitely a few dishes that deserve an extra special mention:

Starter / Snack of the year:

It faced stiff competition, but the "prawn toast" at Lake Road Kitchen wins the day. A heady combination of fresh, bouncy prawn, garlic butter and a crispy brioche coating. The whole table could probably have just sat and eaten a bucket of these and been perfectly content. Nothing outlandish going on with the flavours and ingredients, but flawless execution shows that it isn't always necessary to push boundaries - garlicky, buttery seafoody goodness will always be a pleasure to eat.

Bread of the year:

Not just of the year but probably ever - the brioche at Raby Hunt has to be tasted to be believed. It really says something that in a magical multi course tasting extravaganza, the bread course is still the memory that really lingers. Special mention, though, to Roots where the warm sourdough was served with what they described as "cheese custard" and I will describe to you as "grown-up Dairylea". Yum.

Meat / fish of the year:

Often, the meat and fish courses on a menu are slightly less exciting than the beginning and end of the meal - don't you think? The snacks and starters and desserts are where much of the innovation and fireworks tend to take place. I say that - but then, am reminded with a smile of the amazing lobster ravioli at Raby Hunt, or the doughnut stuffed with venison and damson jam at Roots. Still, the stand out for me is, I think, the amazing lamb shoulder at Le Cochon Aveugle. A buttery potato pancake, topped with shredded lamb, yoghurt and black garlic. I might be a little biased, since lamb is my absolute favourite meat to eat, but this was a really high quality piece of cooking.

Cheese course of the year:

D and I absolutely love it when restaurants do something a little different for the cheese course. I mean, we love it when we're presented with a big cheese trolley as well (who isn't?) but it's exciting to see something else - and the soufflé at Raby Hunt is the perfect case in point. The vin jaune sauce and walnuts added different flavour notes and textures but the star of the show was the fluffy, cheesy cloud trembling in the middle - at once both incredibly light and fearsomely rich. Bliss.

Dessert of the year:

Again, in the face of stiff competition, Lake Road Kitchen triumphs here for me. I still think about that Savarin-Brillat cheesecake on a fairly regular basis. Simple - a plain cheesecake and a couple of fruity twiddles - but perfect. A special mention, though, to Inver's rice pudding which...well, suggested to me that maybe rice pudding isn't the worst thing in the world after all but that in the right hands can be a lovely, lovely thing. Well played, Inver.

Home cooked dish of the year:

Like all good (obsessive) foodies, we keep records of what we cook and eat and scrolling back through 2021 I can see lots of comfort food type dishes on there which is probably indicative of our state of minds whether we realised it or not. We don't very often cook the same dish regularly, which suggests that Diana Henry's teriyaki salmon was a real favourite (made twice within the space of a month). I also recall absolutely swooning over the smoked haddock hash that we made at the start of the year and then never got around to repeating - definitely one to have again soon. However, I think the most representative dish of the year must be the humble meringue. Since lockdown #1 D has been making all the household mayonnaise from scratch and, as a result, I have been regularly making meringues to use up the surplus egg whites. We eat them with Chantilly cream and whatever fruit we happen to have to hand, and they have been one of the great simple pleasures of the year. Not one that I appear to have taken a photo of though - so please accept a picture of the cat instead, enjoying her dish of this and every year, chopped fresh prawns. 

Ricepe corner: A lightly spiced, buttery onion pilau

Let's talk rice. If I had to put my carbs in order of preference (and this is the kind of game that D and I play regularly) rice would tend to come near the bottom of the list but I love rice, I just tend to think I love bread and pasta and potatoes more. And then I eat some really nice rice and feel terrible for maligning it so. 

We had this rice with a very delicious lamb bhuna on Saturday night. I would share a picture, but I am terrible at food photography when the food is attractive, and we all know that there is nothing attractive about a plate of curry (taste aside, of course). Here is a picture of my cat instead:

She is playing in a large cardboard box here because, as any fule kno, cardboard boxes exert some sort of weird, magnetic pull on our feline friends and they tend to want to climb into them. Or, in this case, turn them into their own private fort (it was a very large box).

Anyway.

A very basic recipe (or ricepe - ha, ha) to be sure, but I like having a record of the basics. Especially side dishes - because it is attention to detail that can really make a meal. And while there is certainly nothing wrong with plain steamed rice, it's hard to get excited about.

Often, when we serve rice with a curry or a chilli, we just fork through some of D's famous green stuff (chilli and coriander chutney) which is a really quick way of taking things up a notch. But it's also nice to have a simple pilau recipe to hand to mix things up a bit - the spices are mellow and subtle and, of course, plenty of butter makes it rich and luscious.

I'm going to be honest - I think I've said this before - I just don't bother to soaking and rinsing my rice. I had a phase of doing it but I didn't really get much of a difference and it involves a) additional faff (not great for such a lazy individual) and b) being ORGANISED (which I am very much not). Hey, I know my (many and varied) limitations. Maybe I'm not doing soaking and rinsing right? 

I think this recipe originates from a blog and I can't remember which one so...apologies. I really need to remember to quote sources when I note stuff down. And, of course, Googling pilau rice doesn't really help. 

Ingredients

Tbsp vegetable oil

30g butter

Small onion, finely chopped

Tsp cumin seeds

Tsp turmeric

4 cardamom pods - lightly crushed so that the seeds are released

1/2 cinnamon stick

2 bay leaves

150g rice

225ml vegetable stock (you may need slightly more, so maybe make up 300-350 mls).

Heat the oil and half of the butter in a large pan which had a well fitting lid. Keep the heat nice and low so that when you add the onion it starts to soften and go translucent rather than colouring. Cook for around 5 minutes until soft. 

Add the dry spices and cook for a further couple of minutes until they have lost that slightly "raw" smell, then stir through the dry rice so that it is thoroughly coated in everything.

Pour in the stock. You want it to come about half a centimetre over the surface of the rice. Bring everything to a simmer and then put on the lid, turn the heat down to its lowest setting and set a 7 minute timer.

When the timer goes, turn off the heat and leave for a further 5 minutes without removing the lid.

Fluff the rice with a fork and melt through the other half of the butter. Discard the pods, stick and leaves before serving.

Recent eats: a Diana Henry week

July’s themed week was an homage to the wonderful food writer, Diana Henry.

I vaguely recall that she appeared on some daily programme on the food channel years ago - Market Kitchen? Good Food Bites? - and she has the kind of cosy screen presence, and, indeed, writing voice which makes you inherently trust everything she says. I hope that she wouldn’t be insulted to be described as more of a home cook but, like Nigella, a home cook with an encyclopaedic knowledge of food and cooking techniques, who draws on multiple traditions and cultures like a foodie magpie to create interesting dishes that you really want to eat.

We own a number of her books and such is my admiration for her that I even have my mother saving Stellas (the Sunday Telegraph magazine) for me so that I can tear out her weekly recipe columns. There is currently a teetering pile of these on our dining room table, alongside the teetering pile of food magazines and shelves crammed with books - more dishes than could ever be cooked in a lifetime.

For our meal plan, we drew mainly on two books - “A Change of Appetite” and “Simple”. The former appealed because, divided as it is into seasons, it was easy to pick dishes that were appropriate for the current weather and available produce. The latter - well, the clue is in the title. What with the recent heat and the ennui that it occasioned, simple cooking is definitely the way forward.

As usual, we had two fast days in the mix, so five meals by the divine Ms Henry.

Monday - Linguine all’Amalfitana. Monday is nearly ALWAYS simple pasta supper night here and this was a great one to add to the repertoire. Garlic and anchovy are cooked slowly in olive oil to create a savoury backbone but the twist comes in the form of chopped walnuts which add not only texture but a welcome bitter note. Lovely.

Wednesday - Teryaki salmon with quick pickled vegetables. Served with sushi rice this was the perfect summer supper. I love this style of food and teryaki is so quick and simple to do. The addition of the pickled veg brought a perfect balance of sour and sweet and a pleasing crunch to the dish.

Friday - Seared tuna with preserved lemon, olives and avocado. What a flavour bomb this was! It sounds a bit unusual on paper, almost discordant, but here is where the trust comes in and I am so glad we did. Everything harmonised (to continue with my music metaphor) absolutely beautifully. Not to mention it couldn’t be quicker or easier to do but tastes far more special than the lack of effort would suggest. Perfect Friday night fare.

Saturday - Poulet au Comté. Some people might think that chicken baked in a rich cheese sauce, traditionally served after Alpine sports, is not really the thing for a blisteringly hot July evening. To them I say - you’re probably right. But this was one of those recipes torn from a magazine that I’d positively drooled over, so I pressed ahead. You’re either the type of person who is going to adore chicken baked in a rich cheese sauce or you aren’t - I most definitely am and can’t wait to cook it again when the nights draw in. I served it with a lemony orzo here, which helped cut the richness a bit, but come the winter all bets are off and this is going to be accompanied by a Matterhorn of mash.

Sunday: Yoghurt marinated spatchcock chicken with herbs and pomegranates. No one knows their way around a roast chicken like Diana Henry, and I think I have probably raved about her book “A Bird in Hand” on here before. This was a great summer roast with lots of zing and vim and an extremely tender, delicately spiced bird.

Elsewhere in the week, we enjoyed a delicious chocolate olive oil cake - this recipe is available online and would be a great dessert to make if you need to cater for gluten and dairy intolerances. Rich, decadent and fruity, we garnished with creme fraiche, berries, and a flurry of sea salt flakes.

So another successful theme week, and a few dishes already added to “regular” (if there is such a thing in this house) rotation. Some of Diana Henry’s recipes are freely available on t’internet (while the ones on the Telegraph site are mainly behind a paywall) so if you do come across any then do give them a whirl. She’s an absolute treasure whose food writing is up there with some of the best this country has to offer at the moment.

Recent eats: a Fuchsia Dunlop week

The recipes that we possess on paper alone, across myriad books and magazine back copies, would constitute more dishes than one could ever cook in a lifetime. And yet still we continue to acquire them until the array of possible answers to the question “What shall we have for dinner?” is so huge that one is rendered mute in the face of it. And thus it is that quite frequently, when meal planning, I will stare at a blank screen for ages before tentatively typing in “Beans on toast?”

One solution - streamlining. Have a cull. Stop acquiring new stuff. But then, you see, you might miss out. You might miss out on a recipe or a food writer who opens your eyes to something new that almost instantaneously absorbs into your repertoire as if it had always been there.  Something new that surprises or delights or challenges or all three at once (yes, food can do this). Discovering the work of Fuchsia Dunlop did this for us, bringing the food and flavours of China (particularly Sichuan) into our home after years of vaguely disappointing takeaway and restaurant experiences.

So then second solution - struggling to meal plan? Theme weeks! Concentrates the mind wonderfully, plus allows you to mix old favourites with new discoveries. And thus our household decided to embark upon a Fuchsia Dunlop Theme Week.

Incidentally, I would direct you to her website but it doesn’t look like it’s been updated for a while. Instead, I’d suggest a quick Google if you’re interested - not just to learn about her background (she was the first ever Westerner to do chef training at the Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine) but, also, a good few of her recipes are published online on sites such as The Guardian. Her Instagram feed is gorgeous too - and the fact that she once responded to a fan-girl comment of mine in the nicest and most gracious way only makes me slightly biased.

So, to the food (five dishes since we fast twice a week which means dust for dinner).

Monday - Dan Dan noodles. I was DETERMINED to have at least one noodle dish on there and this seems to be a classic. D is less enamoured of noodles than I, but he really enjoyed it. It’s sort of reminiscent of a Spag Bol that has wandered off on holiday. Incidentally, I sometimes find noodles to be slightly claggy - if you’re bothered by this, try cooking them in advance, plunging them straight from the pan into cold water and then lying them out flat in a single layer to cook and dry mitigates this a lot. You will need to reheat before serving - either in the pan of whatever else you’re cooking or a quick blast in the microwave,  (bowl, splash of water, cover with cling film, pierce, blast).

Wednesday - Mapo Tofu, smacked cucumber with garlicky sauce. One of the most intensely flavoured dishes of the week without a doubt. I just can’t get on with tofu when it is designed to be slippery in texture, which it is here. Firm, crisp - fine. Wobbly, verging on the gelatinous - not so fine. It speaks volumes for the delicious sauce that I still scoffed the lot but I think I need to tweak this slightly to make it more appealing to me (which would mean that it was no longer Mapo Tofu but that’s ok).

Smacked cucumber by the way - fabulous. And satisfying if you’ve had a particularly bad day at work (you do, literally, smack the thing). I sprinkled a few salted cashews over the top to add additional texture to the dish (see notes re wobbliness of tofu above).

Friday - oil exploded prawns, noodles with dried shrimp and spring onion oil. SO much flavour from so few ingredients - the noodles are the most ridiculously easy thing ever involving just oil, dried shrimp, spring onions and a splash of soy. The prawns were sweet and sticky and messy and deeply satisfying. This was like the best seafood pasta you’ve never had.

Saturday - fish fragrant chicken with egg fried rice. Back in slightly more familiar territory on Saturday night. All I will say about this is - if once you were to cook it, you would never order a Chinese takeaway EVER again.

Sunday - Nanjing saltwater duck, dry fried green beans. We pushed ourselves out of our comfort zone a little here. The picture of the duck, which is braised in a fragrant broth, was a little...pallid. Beige, even. A far cry from the crispy, gleaming specimens one associates with Chinese cookery. We were not sure how this would work texturally without any rendering of the fat. But no cause for alarm - this was tender without being in any way chewy or or wobbly, and the flavour infused into the meat was sublime. Actually, I think the wonderful taste of the duck itself was allowed to shine through a little more without the usual salty distraction of the fatty, delicious skin. The beans - well, D usually can’t stand green beans but these were excellent - the pork and preserved veg adding a deep savouriness to the appealingly crunchsome veg. As D observed, "Who knew that deep frying them and adding meat would make them nice?" NB: This is probably an edict that can be applied to many a thing.

In conclusion - a roaring success and plenty of dishes to make the regular rotation - along with at least one to play with. If you have never liked Chinese food - or even if you THINK you like the Chinese food that you’ve had so far, I would urge you wholeheartedly to give Fuchsia’s books a try. The majority of the ingredients are easily available now - online if you don’t have a handy Chinese supermarket nearby. Everything we have cooked so far has been quick and easy to do. There is nothing not to like!

As for me, back to non themed meal planning this week. Beans on toast, anyone?

Recent eats: a vegetarian week

We've always been keen meal planners but lockdown has made us...well, bordering on the obsessive. We both pore over the spreadsheet which meticulously lists out what we will be eating for weeks in advance. We have a colour coding system. We have multiple tabs - for the current meal plan, the future meal plan, the archive meal plan, the freezer inventory and the shopping list - it's becoming ridiculous. But perhaps all of us have sought order and structure in strange places through this strangest of years. And budget wise, it really is astounding what a difference it makes.

Anyway, this is not a post in praise of meal planning per se, but it is a record of the week just gone which we decreed "Veggie week". Because sometimes, to shake things up a bit, a themed week is just the ticket.

We've done veggie weeks before, and always end up eating incredibly well although I do find that I have to try and avoid my natural compulsion to cover everything in cheese! 

Saturday - shallot Tarte Tatin. I came across this while browsing through an old blog that I used to follow, but the recipe is originally Gordon Ramsay's. I tweaked it ever so slightly by adding the tomatoes and goats' cheese to the top (or bottom) of the shallot layer before covering with pastry. I didn't quite understand the point of just dumping them on top at the end. 

It was something of a labour of love this, but I made things more difficult for myself by making my own rough puff pastry - using shop bought would have been more straightforward. Regardless, it was a delicious and beautiful thing and well worth the effort. Equally good warm from the oven and cold for lunch the next day. 

Sunday - shepherdess pie. I was so proud of this one! The lentil mix which formed the base was actually entirely vegan but still had a fantastic richness to it. To make: blitz or very finely chop one onion, two sticks of celery and four chestnut mushrooms. Put into the slow cooker alongside a small handful of soaked porcini mushrooms (along with the soaking liquid), four roughly chopped sundried tomatoes in oil, an undrained can of kidney beans, 80g of Puy lentils, a bay leaf and a decent sprig of rosemary. Then, whisk together 1.5 tablespoons of brown miso, a tablespoon of tomato ketchup and 240ml of boiling water, and pour over the pulse mix. Season, and cook on low for six and a half hours. 

At this point, if you choose to smother it with buttery, cheesy mashed potato and bake in the oven...obviously it was cease to be vegan. But it will be very tasty nonetheless (and am sure a non dairy mash would be almost as good).

Monday - refried bean and avocado quesadillas. I bloody love refried beans! I am also slightly obsessed with the TikTok quadrant wrap technique being someone who loves wraps but is incapable of eating one without tipping half the contents down her front. I do not have TikTok (I am not really sure what it is) but an explanation of the wrap "hack" can be found here, and it is very clever. And I can tell you that if your quadrants contain beans, cheese and avocado you will produce a delicious and very filling meal. 

Wednesday - ooh, now this was nice although written down it will sound a bit random and, indeed, the main point of it was to use up some bits and pieces that had been hanging around for a while. So, we had Gochujang noodles (using the dressing found in this recipe), kale stir fried with tahini, chilli and soy and boiled eggs. I ate the leftovers cold for lunch and found them to be even more delicious for a couple of days ruminating in the fridge. 

Friday - to finish the week, mushroom and halloumi "burgers". I have to put burgers in quotation marks because I object to the use of the word in this context and yet can't think of an alternative. Anyway, Portobella mushrooms were topped with a garlicky mushroom farce (just blitzed chestnut mushrooms and trimmings cooked down with garlic and a little thyme before being finished with a tablespoon of cream cheese to create a pate like texture) and baked before being served in buns with slices of fried halloumi and a caper mayonnaise garnish. Indulgent fare for Friday night, especially with a heap of homemade slaw on the side.

So, veggie week - done, with some very pleasing new recipes added to the repertoire. Even a committed carnivore like D had no cause for complaint - although he did proceed to cook pork chops for tea on Saturday...

Recent eats: the interminable winter edition

I find myself so intensely boring at the moment that I haven't wanted to inflict any blogging on the world. Lockdown has not been good for me. I have basically turned even more sloth like in my habits and my hair is, frankly, ridiculous. Funky, asymmetric styles are all very well until they start growing out and then they just look like someone can't cut straight.

So we've been cooking and eating, which is fine. What can I tell you about? We brined a roast chicken the other week - or, to be strictly accurate, we brined a chicken for 48 hours prior to roasting it which was delicious. It would have been better, however, if I hadn't managed to roast it upside-down. Which meant that the underside was golden and crispy and buttery and the breast was...a wee bit pale and flabby looking. D removed the breast skin and crisped it up under the grill, while I languished on the sofa wondering how on Earth I have reached the age of 40 without knowing which way up a chicken should go. 

I made pizza last week, and remain very impressed with Dan Lepard's dough recipe, so that was good. We cooked a smoked haddock and kale hash from one of the new Christmas cookbooks which was DELICIOUS. It is actually online, here, if you're interested. It is one of those dishes that somehow manages to be significantly more than the sum of its parts. Highly recommended.

Oh, and D splashed out and treated us both to a Dishoom bacon naan takeaway kit thingy. Good, but we think we can tweak it to make it even better (it will probably include a liberal drizzle of our beloved coriander and chilli chutney, aka "green stuff").

In the background, we've both been trying to shift a bit of weight which I am loathe to talk about really because - see first paragraph it is SO BORING. And I'm conscious that this blog is like bloody Groundhog Day for Diets - except that it's not, not Bill Murray actually learns and grows during Groundhog Day and me...not so much. But I will say that a few months ago - mid-October time - we introduced low calorie days back into our week, so we now follow a programme of intermittent fasting which involves only eating for 8 hours a day and, on two of those days, only eating 500 calories. A mash-up of 16/8 and 5/2. And it does work, albeit slowly, and it is a hell of a lot easier to manage low calorie days when we're at home not really doing everything. Whether it will be sustainable when the world goes back to normal...not so sure. But since that shows no sign of happening for a while, we'll keep going for now! 

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.

The WW Foodie’s slightly over complicated guide to meal planning

In these straitened times, and probably beyond, people are going to have to start shopping in a different way and those of us who have been meal planning for years may feel, amongst all the worry, anxiety and sadness, a very vague hint of smugness that we were obviously right all along. Stay at home, plan your meals, save lives.

I’m not serious really...I don’t think that I have the mental energy to be smug at the moment since most of it is taken up with coming up with different things I can do with the five kilos of dried beans that D purchased yesterday (our forthcoming Waitrose shop has been stripped of tins so he ordered from an online wholesaler) and trying to gauge what 2 metres actually looks like (“It’s the distance between you and that bin!” “Well, that’s fine for now but what happens when I am not standing in this precise spot? How do I judge then ?”)

But yes, meal planning. People have said to me, both online and in real life, that they couldn’t possibly meal plan because they don’t know what they will fancy at any given time. That they need spontaneity. Which I get, but spontaneity is not the priority in the midst of a global pandemic. So let’s proceed with some very basic tips.

One - plan meals you like. Sounds simple, no? And then, if you don’t fancy the salmon you’ve got planned for Monday then switch it for the chicken you’re having on Tuesday. If you want to eat everything on the plan then you’re unlikely to ever be in a position where you don’t fancy any of it. If you are someone who really can’t deal with the idea of planning what you’re going to eat in a week’s time then you could do it three or four days at a time. We tend to go for a week...well, I’m not quite sure why, except that we always have done. Also “Monday” is the only day of the week that alliterates with “Meal”.

Two - anyone who is already reading this blog (hi Mum and D) already has a vested interest in food. Cooking is fun, eating is fun, so try and look upon meal planning as an extension of that. I keep a note on my phone so that if, while day dreaming on the bus to work, I suddenly think “Ooh, I haven’t had that in a while!” I can jot it down and it can factor in to a later plan. There is nothing remotely chore-ish about that. D and I each try to pick out three or four dishes apiece during the week so that when we come together to plan we both have some items to contribute.

Three - prioritise what you have in the house but not to the exclusion of all else. We keep an inventory of what we have in the freezer and I’m always aware of what I have in the fridge that needs using up. And it’s important to keep an eye on that - we’re trying to minimise food waste here. But if you plan meals for the sake of using up that yellowing head of broccoli then you’re in danger of not adhering to point 1. And if you’re not adhering to point 1 then, guaranteed, you are going to end up resorting to takeaway or ready meals. I’ve started trying to use odds and sods up for packed lunches as far as possible. Yes, it means that our lunchboxes can end up being slightly...random. But food tends more towards the fuel when it is scarfed down at the desk. Having said that...

Four - leftovers and meals thrown together from random things lurking in the fridge CAN be surprisingly delicious. So there’s nothing wrong with planning an invention test on Thursday to clear the decks for the weekend, especially if you’re a reasonably competent cook. Maintain a decent larder (if you possibly can - I know it’s hard at the moment) and have a few basic techniques up your sleeve - I find a white sauce, a basic risotto, a frittata and a basic flatbread recipe are all useful ways to bring stuff together.

Five - don’t forget about side dishes. Most of us Brits are a big fan of meat and two veg but when meal planning I find that I tend to think in terms of recipes rather than component parts (if that makes sense?) But good side dishes are lovely so why not base a meal around that? You could put “gratin dauphinoise” on the meal plan and then serve it with whatever protein you have in the freezer or you happen to find yellow stickered in your local supermarket.

All the obvious stated? Everyone feeling sufficiently patronised? Then my work here is done! In all seriousness, I hope someone found something vaguely useful. Just the act of writing this post has distracted me for a few minutes so it’s achieved something.

As ever, stay safe and well dear readers.

Notes from my Christmas kitchen (2019 edition)

I didn’t take a single photo of the food that we ate over Christmas - which, for those of you who know my (startling lack of) talent for food photography may come as a shock. The trouble is (and I’ve complained about this before) while you are trying to line up the perfect shot - or even just trying to line up something that you can make look half decent if you Instagram the bejesus out of it - the food is a) smelling yummy and b) getting cold.

I think, though, this was the year that we really nailed Christmas dinner - our version. We still serve confit duck legs - the method very closely based on Valentine Warner’s recipe detailed here. We have now introduced an additional meat element: the duck and black pudding bonbon. To make these, D roasted two duck legs until tender then removed the skin and shredded the meat into a bowl, alongside two thick slices of black pudding. The mixture is soft and pliable enough to easily fashion into balls before rolling in flour, egg and breadcrumbs and deep frying - all of which, with the exception of the frying, can be done well in advance.

There is mash, because there has to be a potato element. And there is braised red cabbage which has been a staple for many years being both a little bit sour, a little bit sweet and a little bit buttery all at once and providing some moisture to the plate in the absence of any gravy.

This year, as well, inspired by a Thomas Keller recipe, we softened an onion in a little butter and oil then added a pile of shredded sprouts with a couple of sprigs of thyme. Covered the whole in chicken stock and reduced right down before adding a splash of cream and a good spoon of Dijon mustard. The bitterness of the sprouts were tempered, but not entirely diminished, by the flavour of the rich sauce and it really worked well to pull everything together.

Usually, we end up eating pudding on Boxing Day because we’ve maxed out. But keeping things light on the snacks and starters type meant that this year, after a couple of hours digestion time, we just about made room for the individual Christmas pudding cheesecakes that D had carefully prepared earlier in the week. I love Christmas pudding and I love cheesecake so this was a match made in heaven! I’ll post the recipe here for future reference - it would be great if you were entertaining a lot of people since you could make a full sized one, get it done well in advance and then just slice and serve on the day.

Recipe corner: coconut and ginger mussels

We got five new recipe books for Christmas which added to an already huge collection. All too often, much wanted books come into the house, get read, drooled over, maybe even tagged and then they get consigned to the shelf. And, come meal planning, it’s the internet that is called upon as the main resource. It’s ridiculous.

So, despite our plan to spend most of January eating down the freezer, we decided to make an exception for the new books. Last night, we pulled out “Made in India” by Meera Sodha. This was a gift from my Mum who has been raving about it for years. On the basis of this dish, I see her point. It wasn’t complicated food but it was utterly delicious and one we hope to revisit soon.

I love mussels in any shape or form and they are so cheap! D picked up a bag in the market for just over £3 which served two of us very generously and felt like a luxury. We just had some well buttered baguette on the side - Sodha suggested paratha which would have been lovely but was an effort too far after a long week at work. Next time!

Ingredients

1kg mussels, in the shell, debearded and cleaned

Tbsp vegetable oil
2 small onions, finely chopped
Small handful dried curry leaves
4 fat garlic cloves, crushed
Chunk (4-5cm) root ginger, grated
Red chilli, deseeded and chopped

Hefty tbsp tomato purée
1/4 tsp chilli powder
200ml coconut milk
Handful fresh coriander, roughly chopped

Serves 2

In a large pan (with a lid) gently heat the oil then tip in the onions and the curry leaves with a decent pinch of salt. Turn the heat down to low, cover, and cook for 8 mins until the onions are very soft and beginning to turn golden.

Now in goes the garlic, ginger (be generous with the ginger!) and chilli and cook off for another minute until the garlic has lost its raw smell. Stir through the tomato purée and chilli powder, again cook for a minute to get rid of any raw spice, and then pour in the coconut milk, up the heat and bring to a gentle bubble.

Time to tip in the mussels. Swirl the pan gently then put on the lid. Cook for 6-8 mins - it will be dependent on the size of your mussels, but you want all the shells to be wide open and the meat glistening and tender.

Use a slotted spoon to dish the mussels then stir the coriander through the sauce and check the seasoning before pouring over and serving with some sort of bread for dunking.

Recipe corner: cacio e pepe

You may recognise this dish as having been particularly trendy - oooh, a good year ago, maybe more. Now, obviously, the cool kids have moved on but I still think it is worth posting this methodology for posterity. This is the sort of simple, quick pasta dish that I can imagine will remain on our regular meal rotation for many years to come.

This recipe comes, with a few tiny tweaks for personal taste, from the wonderful Smitten Kitchen blog. I must admit, I follow very few American food blogs and cook from them seldom. The reasons for this are neither sinister nor snobbish; when I first started really getting in to blogs, and bookmarking recipes, I soon found myself with a “to make” list that would never get made if I lived to be 500 and cooked something different every day. In order to get things to more manageable levels, I decided to restrict myself to UK sites. I recognise that I’ve probably missed out on a lot. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Smitten Kitchen somehow survived the cull I would never have learned about this fabulous foolproof method for cacio e pepe.

I would recommend warming the plates or bowls before serving. The pasta will start to cool while you’re tossing it in the sauce and if you don’t want it to be cold within a minute or so of starting to eat, a warm plate is a necessity.

Ingredients

200g dried spaghetti

90g pecorino cheese, finely grated
Half a teaspoon black peppercorns

You will also need to have some water to hand, and a small processor / chopper

Serves 2

Put a large pan of salted water on and bring to the boil.

In a pestle and mortar, grind the peppercorns. How fine you take them is up to you - I want a good flavour without crunchy bits being caught in my teeth, so I take it quite fine.

Set aside a small amount of the cheese for garnish. Then, put half the remainder into the mini processor along with a tablespoon of water and blitz - it will start to come together and clump. Add the other half of the cheese in with another tablespoon of water and half of the pepper. Blitz again. Continue to add water, a tablespoon at a time, until you have a paste roughly the consistency of cream cheese. This was about four tablespoons for me last time I did it. Add the pepper to taste (note: I would probably always end up using the full quantity but I like it peppery).

Cook the spaghetti in the boiling salted water for around 8 minutes, or until al dente. Use a mug to scoop out some of the pasta water before draining and returning to the pan.

Add about half of the cheese and pepper paste along with a couple of teaspoons of pasta water and toss vigorously (I must admit, I tend to stir vigorously rather than tossing - I am messy by nature and don’t want to end up splattered in sauce). Continue to add the paste - a generous tablespoon at a time alongside a teaspoon of pasta water, stirring again each time, until the pasta is coated in a light, silky sauce. If you add it too quickly, you will end up with gummy lumps of cheese stuck to the bottom of the pan.

Plate up and garnish with the reserved cheese and another grind or two of pepper.

Recipe corner: oven-baked onion bhajis

I must admit, onion bhajis are not something that it would ever really have occurred to me to make from scratch until I did (or, rather, D did) and discovered that the homemade variety are absolutely amazing - a hundred times better tasting that the ones you can buy in the supermarket and far less greasy than the standard Indian restaurant version.  I am in love. 

D's feedback was that he would have liked them a little bit crispier, so next time I make them, I will cook them at a lower temperature for slightly longer to allow them to dry out properly (I've reflected this change in my instructions below).  But I don't think the aim is to get them really crispy.  He agreed with me that the flavour was very good and particularly liked the fact that they have a decent whack of heat. 

The original recipe calls for you to just spoon them onto a pre-prepared baking sheet.  I actually used a silicon mini cupcake tray which was great for keeping them an even shape but probably meant that they were slightly deeper than the originals.  Again, an increased cooking time should ensure that they are cooked through and not at all doughy in the middle.  If you don't have a tray, by all means revert to the original method.  It may slightly affect the number of bhajis that the recipe produces.

Here, you see them served alongside Nigella's cherry tomato curry, coriander rice and coconut flatbreads.  My team's "Tea of the Month" theme this month was vegan and this was my entry.  If it doesn't win my pride shall be very hurt indeed...

Ingredients

1.5 cm root ginger, peeled and roughly chopped or grated
1/2 green chilli, chopped
Tsp cumin seeds

250g brown onions
Tbsp rapeseed oil

45g chickpea (gram) flour
20g fresh coriander, roughly chopped
1/4 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tbsp lemon juice

Makes around 10 - 1 Smart Point (WW Flex) each

These can be prepared in advance, but if baking straightaway then preheat the oven to 170 and either have a silicon cupcake tray to hand, or line a banking tray with a piece of lightly oiled foil.

In a pestle and mortar, bash together the ginger, chilli and cumin seeds with a generous pinch of salt to make a paste.

Peel and halve the onions and then thinly slice them into half-moon shapes.  Gentle heat the oil in a large bottomed pan and then add the onions and fry for around 15 minutes until they are soft and translucent.  If they look like they are catching, turn the heat down and add a little splash of water.

Transfer the onions to a bowl and add the ginger and chilli paste, along with the other ingredients and another decent pinch of salt.  Mix well and trickle in a little bit of water - a couple of teaspoons should be fine - in order to form a thick batter.

Use a tablespoon to put these on the pre-prepared tray - make sure you leave a bit of space between each bhaji if you're baking them freehand.  Place in the oven for around 35 minutes until they are starting to brown on top. 

Serve, alongside a delicious homemade curry or just a dollop of chutney.