Brussels sprouts hash with eggs and sage

Brussels sprouts yields are down in the UK this year, with a threat of needing to import so that the Christmas-celebrating population can buy the vegetable that no one likes, but someone would miss if they skipped.

Usually just (over)boiled, and served with butter, maybe with perfunctory additions of chestnuts and pancetta, it’s unsurprising that there’s little demand for sprouts outside of late December. It’s a shame, though, as their natural sweetness and crunch lends both to serving them raw and finely sliced in a salad, or keeping the slices equally thin and applying heat and seasoning to get them caramelised, even a bit charred.

David Chang (he of Momofuku) has a recipe for pan-fried sprouts doused in a punchy, fish sauce and chilli-laced dressing, which sounds like a great match for grilled fish or chicken. But for now, I’m stuck on this hash, which I’ve happily eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I’d imagine bacon and/or bacon fat would work quite well here. Goose or duck fat, which I sometimes have on hand, adds a nice savoury note. As for cooking the eggs, you could also poach them separately and place them on top of the hash. The only absolutes: slice thinly, season well and don’t stint on the sage.

Brussels sprouts hash with eggs and sage

Adapted from Serious Eats

Serves 2 for a hearty breakfast (scale up for lunch or dinner)

Total time: 20-25 minutes; Active time: 10-12 minutes

250g Brussels sprouts

1 small banana shallot (or part of an onion)

6 sage leaves

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 eggs

Parmesan

Trim and finely slice sprouts into thin shreds. Dice shallots and half of the sage leaves.

Turn on the grill (broiler) to a medium heat.

Heat olive oil in a large, oven-proof skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add remaining sage leaves and cook, stirring occasionally, until leaves are crisp, about 1 minute. Transfer to a paper towel.

Add the sprouts and shallots to the pan. Season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the shallots are fully softened, and the sprouts have turned bright green, then begin to caramelise and lightly catch, 7 or 8 minutes

Create wells in the vegetable mixture and break in the eggs. Turn down fully, cover with a lid, plate or board and cook for a few minutes.

Place the pan under the grill, cooking until the eggs are just set. Season again, grate over parmesan to taste and garnish with fried sage leaves.

Jerusalem, and lamb meatballs with quince

I’m very late in joining the Yotam Ottolenghi bandwagon, having been vaguely aware of his Guardian columns, cookbooks and beautiful, vegetable-driven cafes for years without feeling any particular interest in exploring further. It all seemed a bit too pretty, precious even. But a one-off TV programme he did last year, entitled Jerusalem on a Plate, suggested that I had been far too quick to dismiss him. In championing the food of his native city, he came across as fiercely smart, inquisitive and with an intuitive feel for food that was not just pretty to look at, but seriously tasty.

His new cookbook, Jerusalem, co-written with his business partner, Sami Tamimi, explores the city’s polyglot cuisine, taking in its Palestinian, North African, Central Asian, Levantine and Central European influences, amongst others. They highlight iconic local dishes like kubbeh (semolina dumplings stuffed with meat and poached in soup, served in luncheonettes in the Machane Yehuda market), Jerusalem mixed grill and chocolate kranz cake, while also playing with regional staples like topped flatbreads, dips and chopped vegetable salads, making them sharper and more interesting.

The cookbook is beautifully photographed and gently informative about Jerusalem’s culinary, social and political history.  Almost all instinctively appealing, the recipes consistently deliver. From long peppers stuffed with herbed rice and lamb mince, to fish cakes poached in a spicy tomato sauce, a distinctively upgraded spanakopita and hummus made far creamier and airy than I thought possible (the trick is to blend it in a heavy-duty food processor for a full 5 minutes), the book is delivering winner after winner. Even a simple-sounding carrot salad well exceeds any I’ve made before. Although we’ve only had it for two months, Jerusalem is already becoming one of the most-used on our cookbook shelves, as well as the holiday gift of choice.

If only he did weddings.

Lamb meatballs with quince, pomegranate and coriander

adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem

Total time: 60-70 minutes; Active time: 30 minutes

Serves 4

Special equipment: large, lidded frying pan

400g minced lamb

1 garlic clove

Small bunch coriander

Small pinch Turkish chilli flakes

50g breadcrumbs (ideally soft and fresh)

1 tsp allspice

1 egg

Small knob fresh ginger

1 lemon

4 medium quince (about 1.3 kg)

2 onions

3 tbsp olive oil

8 cardamom pods

2 tsp pomegranate molasses

2 tsp sugar

500 ml chicken stock

Seeds of ½ a pomegranate

Additional coriander (optional)

Place the mince in a large mixing bowl. Mince the garlic and coriander add, along with the chilli flakes, breadcrumbs, allspice and egg. Finely chop about a tablespoon of ginger and add as well. Season well with salt and pepper and mix thoroughly. Roll the mixture into balls about the size of a squash ball and set aside.

Squeeze a bit of the lemon into a bowl of water. Peel the quince, core and chop into small cubes, placing them into the acidulated water as ready. Chop the onion finely, along with the remaining ginger.

Heat the olive oil on a medium flame. Add the onion and ginger, along with the cardamom, and sauté for 10-12 minutes, until the onion has softened and begun to change colour. Add the molasses, a good squeeze of lemon juice, sugar and stock. Season well. Add the meatballs and pieces of quince and simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the meat is fully cooked, the quince soft and beginning to turn a peachy-pink, and the sauce is well thickened.

Serve over couscous, bulgur or rice, sprinkled with the pomegranate seeds and, if desired, more coriander.

Pistachio and olive oil cake

This is the kind of cake that pleases all comers, without being wholly predictable. It can easily stand alone, but would also take well to crème fraiche, a scoop of good vanilla ice cream or even some Greek yogurt, some raspberries, cherries or apricots at one end of the seasonal spectrum and citrus at the other.

I can’t see any reason why you couldn’t use almonds, but the colour and perfume of the pistachios is worth the admittedly small splurge.

Pistachio and olive oil cake

adapted (barely) from Diana Henry in the Telegraph

Serves 8

Total time: 70 minutes; Active time: 15 minutes

Special equipment: food processor or (clean) coffee grinder

150g (5½oz) unsalted pistachios 
50g (1¾oz) soft bread crumbs
285g (7oz) caster sugar 
2½ tsp baking powder 
2 lemons

4 medium eggs
200ml (7fl oz) olive oil 

Grind 115g (4oz) of the pistachios to a slightly coarse powder using the food processor or coffee grinder. Pour into a large mixing bowl and add crumbs, 200g of the caster sugar and baking powder. Zest one of the lemons and add.

Break the eggs into a separate bowl and beat lightly. Pour in the olive oil and combine, before adding this to the dry ingredients.

Scrape into an oiled and base-lined 20-23cm (8-9in) cake tin and place in a cold oven. Set the oven to 180°C/350°F and bake for 50 to 55 minutes. The cake should be well-risen and lightly browned, and the sides slightly coming  away from the tin.

While the cake is in the oven, juice the lemons into a small pan. Add the remaining sugar and 100ml (3½fl oz) water. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for five minutes.

Turn out the cake, peel off the paper and place on a plate. While it is still warm pierce all over with a skewer. Slowly pour on the syrup and leave to cool and sink in.

Bash up the remaining pistachios by placing in a sealed bag and crushing with a can or mallet. Scatter over the top of the cake just before serving.

Jerk chicken

While Brixton, the neighbourhood in which I’ve lived for 7 of the last 10 years, is home to Poles, Columbians, Portuguese and Anglophone Africans, its largest minority, and certainly its most prominent one—in both historic and culinary terms—is from the English-speaking Caribbean—the West Indies, Trinidad, Guyana and Jamaica. The main square is named for the Windrush, the boat that brought Jamaicans to British shores in 1948. (The new arrivals were sent to temporary homes set up on Clapham Common, and came to nearby Brixton to utilise the Labour Exchange.) Dozens of green grocers and corner shops sell the staple ingredients of Caribbean food: scotch bonnet chillies, thyme, pumpkins of all shapes and sizes, coconut milk, curry powders and rice, while fishmongers have tall piles of red snapper and other tropical varietals and the butchers do a good trade in mutton and slow-cook cuts. There are some modest take-away joints, selling chicken stews, rice and beans and such unpromisingly named dishes as mannish water and hard food, and on dry, mild days, charcoal-filled oil drums let off a fug of jerk chicken-scented smoke.

Yet despite this proximity and abundance, we very rarely cook or eat any Caribbean food, nor, if I’m perfectly honest, have we expressed particular curiosity about learning more about its ingredients, variations found from island to island or which Brixton joints serve up the best versions of classic dishes. I don’t expect that this is all about to change, but some conversations with the owner of a new Brixton joint, Brian Danclair, about what he finds exciting about the food of the islands, prompted us to see what we could do, sans oil drum, to make a credible jerk chicken.

We picked up some pale ales from Market Row Wines (less authentic than Red Stripe, but arguably tastier too), chicken wings from the farmers’ market and got to work on the marinade. The next evening, we made coconut rice dotted with a mix of gungo peas, black eyed peas and kidney beans, sautéed some greens and put the chicken under the grill until it was well-browned and reasonably crispy. The result? Complex, spicy and a lot of fun to eat, all for very little cooking or shopping effort.

Next up? Brown stew chicken or, should Ginger Pig get back its supply of cubed goat, curry goat.

Jerk Chicken

Adapted from Food Stories

Total time: 25 hours; Active time: 30 minutes

Serves 3-4

Special equipment: plastic gloves; food processor

If you have a proper barbeque, by all means use it, referring to Food Stories or another good source for guidance. I relied on the grill in my oven, starting on a lowish temperature (say 150C), with the rack half-way down to get the meat cooking through, then raising both the rack and the temperature to get the skin crisp, and to encourage caramelisation. Particularly with larger cuts of chicken, you could also try roasting, then finishing off under the grill.

1 kg chicken thighs or meaty wings

4 garlic cloves

1 tablespoon thyme leaves

5-6 spring onions

3 scotch bonnet chillies

100g dark packed brown sugar

1.5 tablespoons allspice

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

Juice of 2 large limes

1 tsp salt

Black pepper

Rinse the chicken, pat dry and place in a large Ziploc bag. Peel and roughly chop the garlic cloves. Strip the thyme from its branches. Cut the spring onions into large pieces, removing the bottom core. Place these in the food processor.

Wearing plastic gloves, cut open the scotch bonnets and remove seeds. Place the chillies in the food processor. Add the sugar, spices, lime, salt and pepper. Mix to a smooth paste, scraping down sides as necessary. Pour into the bag with the chicken, seal and shake well to coat.

Refrigerate for 24 hours.

When you’re ready to cook, allow the meat to come to room temperature.  If using a grill, preheat to 150C and remove the rack.

Shake or brush off the excess marinade from the chicken and place on foil or a foil-lined tray on the rack.  Position the chicken in the middle of the oven and grill gently for about 10 minutes, until the chicken is somewhat cooked and the skin beginning to turn colour. Over the following 10-12 minutes, raise the temperature and rack height to finish. Good caramelisation is desirable, but watch carefully as the sugar in the marinade will make it susceptible to burning. Check that the juices run clear before removing.

Serve immediately with rice or rice and beans, and sautéed greens. Leftovers can be stripped from the bone and served cold.

Salads for hot or cold

Last weekend, the lawn in front of our building was full of people sunbathing, and the air smelled smoky from all the barbeques being lit. Today, the brave souls heading out to see the Queen’s River Pageant will  have sweaters, umbrellas and, if they’re clever, flasks of hot tea.

English springs are usually variable, but this one has been more so than most: March temperatures in the high 20s, followed by the announcement of a drought and hosepipe ban and the wettest April in several hundred years. The last few weeks have featured elements of both. The plants are evidently confused too, with the first spring crops arriving weeks ahead of schedule, while others, like the asparagus, delayed and diminished by the endless wet.

Luckily, new-season potatoes and carrots seem to be readily available. They are the main ingredients in these salads, which are just as good hanging around in the sun at picnics as they are indoor alongside roast lamb or chicken or as part of a table of mezze.

Potatoes with cumin, caraway and harissa

Adapted from Moro 3

Serves 4

Active time: 15-20 minutes; Total time: 30 minutes

Special equipment: mortar and pestle

1 kg salad (waxy) potatoes

2 spring onions

1 small bunch coriander and/or parsley

½ garlic clove

½ tsp salt

½ tsp cumin seeds

¾ tsp caraway seeds

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp harissa

4 tbsp olive oil

Scrub the potatoes and cut into large bite-sized pieces. Bring a pot of salted water to the boil and add the potatoes. Boil until tender, around 12-15 minutes.

While the potatoes boil, prep the other ingredients and dressing. Slice the spring onions and set aside. Pick leaves off coriander or parsley and chop. Peel the garlic and pound in the mortar and pestle. Add salt and spices and continue to turn into a paste. Finish by adding lemon juice, harissa and olive oil and adjusting seasoning to taste.

Drain the potatoes well and place in large serving bowl. Toss well with dressing and set aside until cooled slightly. Add spring onion and herbs before serving either warm or at room temperature.

Grated carrots with Turkish seasonings

Serves 4

Active time: 20 minutes; Total time: 20 minutes

½ kg young, tasty carrots

4-5 spring onions

Small handful ready-to-eat sultanas

Turkish pepper flakes to taste

Dried mint to taste

Salt

Juice of at least 1 lemon

2-3 tbsp olive oil

Coarsely grate the carrots with either a box grater or a food processor and place in a large bowl. Slice the spring onions and add, followed by the sultanas. Mix well to combine.

Season to taste with the pepper flakes, dried mint, salt, lemon and olive oil. The carrots will leach a bit of liquid when they sit, so it doesn’t need to be too wet. The mint is there to add a bit of freshness, the salt and lemon to counteract the sweetness of the carrots and sultanas, and the pepper flakes to bring complexity.

Turkish beans + a recipe

Like the English caff, the Turkish esnaf lokantasi (tradesmens’ restaurant) is usually a daytime-only operation where lots of tea is served. For both, the core custom is local, male and looking to get some hot food without spending a bundle. But where the former might top out at a decent plate of egg and chips, many esnaf lokantasi feature up to a dozen or more home-cooked dishes: meat stews, stuffed vegetables, slow-cooked beans and homely desserts like rice pudding. This is meant to be cooking like Turkish mothers do, some recompense for spending the day in a shop or office

Ali Baba Kanaat Lokantasi’s location directly across from the Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul’s Fatih district attracts some tourists, though most don’t make it past the large terrace. Inside, it’s all late ‘30s vintage (bar the steam table and the fountain serving aryan, salty drinking yogurt) with pride of place given over to the fasulye (bean pot). The beans, small and white, are cooked to a recipe from Erzican in the south—distinctively spicier, with more tomato and less meaty, buttery overtones (though some butter and lamb fat or stock definitely make their way into the pot) than those popular further north, along the Black Sea. It was recommended that I order the beans with pilau and cacik, the yogurt-cucumber mixture that can range from pourable to clotted cream-like. The pilau, dotted with pine nuts, was gently savoury, and the cacik was super-thick, a soft, sour counterpoint to the heat and richness of the beans.

Though I tend to cook from recipes rather than taste memories, my first try at recreating the beans I had at Ali Baba Kanaat Lokantasi was nonetheless a success. I made the sauce thicker, as they were intended to sit alongside lamb chops rather than on rice. And while the exclusion of lamb fat and butter was not authentic, the resulting beans were hardly abstemious.

Fasulye in the style of Ali Baba Kanaat Lokantasi

I happened to have two ingredients for this dish which might not be readily available: semi-dried white beans, podded last summer and stored in the freezer, and an open jar of a Spanish/Portuguese sofrito-like sauce called tomate frito. For the former, the best substitute would be small, dried white beans, pre-soaked overnight and, depending on age and variety, cooked for a bit longer. Any good-quality brand of chopped, tinned tomato can be substituted for the tomate frito.

Like any chilli products, Turkish red pepper flakes vary in flavour profile and heat. I think this dish should have a good prickle of chilli, but not more. I’m not sure the bay leaves are authentic, but they marry very well with most bean and tomato dishes.

The beans are initially cooked separately in order to ensure they soften properly, something which can be retarded by the acid in tomatoes.

Serves 2
Total time (excluding soaking): 90 minutes; Active time: 15 minutes

1 ½ cups semi-dried OR 1 cup dried white beans, pre-soaked if required
Olive oil
1 medium onion
Tomato paste
150 ml tomato frito OR ½ can tinned tomatoes
Turkish red pepper flakes (aci biber)
2-3 fresh bay leaves (ideally fresh)
1-2 cloves garlic
Small bunch parsley
Salt and pepper

Put the beans in a saucepan, cover amply with water and bring to a boil.

In another saucepan of a similar size, heat a thin film of oil on a medium heat. Chop the onion finely and add. Season with salt and pepper. Lower heat and sauté gently, until onion is fully soft and beginning to taste sweet. Squeeze in a few inches of tomato paste and cook for 3-4 more minutes.

When the beans reach a boil, turn down to a simmer and cover. Cook until soft but not falling apart. (In the case of semi-dried cannellini or lingot beans, this should be about 45 minutes.

Add the tomato to the onion. Refill the tomato jar/can to the same level with water and add to the pot, along with a good pinch of the red pepper flakes and the bay leaves. Chop the garlic and half the parsley and add. Season to taste with salt and pepper and cook on a gentle heat until thick and integrated, 30-45 minutes.

When the beans are ready, drain, reserving some of the cooking water, and add to the sauce. Adjust seasoning and add a bit of the reserved water if the sauce is too claggy. Cook for a further 15-20 minutes to allow the flavours to fully combine.

Just before serving, chop the remaining parsley and add. Finish with another pinch of pepper flakes.

January highlights

Holiday

For the last few days, I’ve been wholly absorbed in planning for a forthcoming five-day trip to Istanbul. I imagine I’ll make it to the Hagia Sofia and Topkapi Palace, but what I’m really excited about is the food. I’ve even joined Twitter in order to survey expert opinion on the best place for manti, a lamb tortellini of sorts, served in yogurt sauce.

Winter fruit at Maltby Street

Tony Booth’s decision to move his eponymous fruit and veg shop from Borough Market to Maltby Street has added at least 30 minutes to my Saturday morning shopping routine. But damn it if the man doesn’t make it worth it every time. This week there was beautiful Yorkshire forced rhubarb, just over half the price of his Borough competitors. Oranges with flesh the colour of pink grapefruits were 5 for a pound, the Sicilian sanguinello not much more.

Chinese New Year

We celebrated the Lunar New Year last weekend with G’s brother and sister-in-law. There were 14 guests and nearly as many dishes, ranging from wasabi mayo-topped smoked salmon in filo cups to sweet-spicy chicken wings and homemade black sesame ice cream. Little was left of the pomelo salad, but S mixed us up another batch of the tangy, coconuty dressing. (It made an excellent supper when we returned to London, stirred through strips of grilled chicken breast, shredded Savoy cabbage and rice noodles.) And while she claimed that that the turnip cake, apparently an epic labour, was not up to her mother’s standards, chunks of it scrambled with eggs and spring onions at breakfast the next morning was good enough to bring back memories of a similar dish from our Penang food crawl.

Alice Medrich’s cocoa brownies

Had I known that two professional chefs would be attending the gumbo evening for which these were baked, I probably would have tried to find a way out of my hastily-made promise to bring dessert. But not only did these super-moist, fudgy brownies garner praise from all assembled, but I was able to make them in one bowl with the most basic of ingredients and at least half my attention on an unusually good television documentary. Job done.

Radicchio, fennel and orange salad

With each passing year, bitter flavours are featuring more prominently on our table: strong black coffee and marmalade on a weekend morning, Campari or gin and tonic to begin a leisurely dinner and endive or radicchio salads to sharpen the palate. Endive tends to feature when we have French meals, tossed with a mustardy walnut oil dressing and, on occasion, some toasted nuts, pears and blue cheese. Radicchio usually gets an even simpler treatment—just a sprinkle of good balsamic vinegar and a smaller one of Maldon salt.

This fall I tried growing radicchio from seeds given to me by an Italian colleague. The resulting leaves, while speckled with maroon streaks and tasting agreeing bitter, in no other way resemble either of the main varieties (one round and crinkly, the other with long, stiff leaves) available locally.

Unable to harvest enough leaves to serve friends coming for Sunday night pizza supper, we bought some particularly handsome radicchio di Treviso at a local greengrocers. The plump, unblemished fennel bulbs also on display gave us the idea to adapt a southern Italian recipe for fennel, orange and olive salad, using the radicchio both as a colourful base and to add bitterness. Laid out on a large white platter, the salad looked festive and elegant, so much so that our photographer friend snapped this quick shot with her iPhone.

Pizza will still be appearing through the abstemious month of January. But in the interests of continuing to fit into the new clothes I just bought in the States, large helpings of this salad will be as well.

Radicchio, fennel and orange salad

1 medium-sized radicchio, any variety

1 large fennel bulb

1 large orange

Lemon

Olive oil

Salt

Chives

Tear or slice the radicchio and arrange on a platter. Remove the core from the fennel and slice into thin moon-shaped pieces. Remove the peel, pith and interior membranes from the orange (preferably allowing any juice to drip onto the salad) and chop into small segments.

Place both the fennel and orange onto the radicchio bed. Dress with lemon juice and olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Chop or snip chives on top and serve.

Black beans, eggs and salsa

Along with a whole range of dishes which used multiple parts of a pig, the 90s-era Cuban diners on the Upper Upper West Side of Manhattan did potent cafes con leche and plates of scrambled eggs and black beans which were big enough to make the next meal redundant. As well as being exotic and cheap, I was told by those with experience of such things that food like this was also very good for hangovers.

For the bright young things of Brixton, who seem to suffer with the same affliction on weekend mornings, the neighbourhood’s multiple Columbian cafes—which do a comparable line in vast servings of assorted meats, eggs and beans, washed down with lots of caffeine—appear to fill a useful niche. But even for those of us whose closest experience of a late-night party is the one that takes place far too often in the apartment upstairs, beans and eggs—minus the mixed meats—is also a popular weekend meal, easy, tasty and admirably inexpensive.

Canned black beans, a rare commodity in much of the country, can be bought in any of the dozens of the small Caribbean grocers nearby. Cooked down with onion, garlic, cumin, fresh coriander and a spoonful of chipotle en adobo (still not locally available; Brixton’s Latino population is probably the largest in inner London, but it’s largely Ecuadoran, Columbian and Venezuelan rather than Mexican), they make a fudgy, mellow partner for eggs of any variety. We’ve scrambled the eggs and used the two to fill leftover corn tortillas. Though my own fried eggs are variable at best, I think that a well-made one plopped on the beans provides nice textural contrast.

Today we played with an idea from another egg dish, shakshouka, where eggs are part-poached, part-baked in a thick sauce of tomato and pepper. We cooked the beans in a wide frying pan, leaving a bit of liquid, then made indentations for the eggs. The pan was covered, and the eggs left to half-set. We finished it all with a quick grilled salsa, made from some cherry tomatoes that improbably appeared at the farmer’s market. The result was somehow far better than the sum of its (simple) parts—and far too good for those neighbours.

No formal recipe needed, but a few notes:

• I’ve found that cooking the beans on a low heat in a frying pan—rather than a saucepan—allows them to soften slightly without turning into mush. I use a good splash of water and simmer them for 10-20 minutes.
• Toasting and grinding whole cumin seeds may seem unnecessary in such a simple recipe, but it makes a real difference to the flavour.
• A bay leaf makes a nice addition to the beans.
• Orangette has a good grilled salsa recipe.

Somerset and Potato Gratin

You know it’s going to be a good weekend when you’re met on arrival with hugs all around and a glass of your favourite champagne.

We were in North Somerset, 30 minutes or so out of Bristol, staying with G’s first year university roommate and his large and very welcoming family. The champagne—accompanied by a platter of blinis and salmon mousse—began an evening of copious food and wine, good conversation and a level of relaxation very rarely achieved on a Friday night.

The next day, having slept well under the watchful gaze of Justin Beiber (we had poached the seven year old’s room), we headed off on a country tromp. There was mud, stiles to climb over, lush green meadows and lots of sheep: all the things that the city folk expect out of a country walk. We ended up at a restaurant so seasonal, rustic and organic that the well-heeled, left-leaning readers of the Observer named it the UK’s best ethical restaurant. Other than its name, the Ethicurean, it wears its credentials lightly; the food did its setting ample credit.

Set in the conservatory of an old walled garden, much of the food is sourced on site or from nearby suppliers. The menu is small: terrines, salads, pies and platters of cheese and meat, served with local beers and ciders. Highlights included fantastically piquant chutneys and piccalilli (a traditional English vegetable pickle), off-dry Welsh cider and an Eccles cake, a flaky pastry filled with a warmly-spiced and not too sweet currant mixture.

After lunch, we ambled through the garden, where I discovered how Brussels sprouts grow, then into the orchard of dwarf apple trees. Home was through a series of corn fields, our progress hampered somewhat by our haul of mildly intoxicating beverages from the restaurant’s small shop.

We had been asked to cook dinner, a daunting task for a family that has eaten in serious restaurants and has shown us such exceptional generosity on many occasions. The opportunity to repay their hospitality was a welcome one, and the menu planning a massive highlight in an otherwise forgettable work week . We wanted the food to reflect how we like to eat, to demonstrate some effort, but not so much as to impinge on the relaxed atmosphere, and, most of all, to taste good.

We began with the Union Square Cafe’s bar nuts, buttery and warm, the sweetness offset by cayenne and rosemary. A simple salad followed: mustard-dressed leaves topped with blue cheese and walnuts. The main was duck confit; little more than some fresh herbs and a 24-hour run-up required. With that, we served gratin dauphinois and sautéed mushrooms. We finished with quince which we had poached in vanilla syrup until it was almost ruby-coloured, vanilla ice cream (not home-made) and sablé biscuits.

The duck and the quince are two of our favourite dishes at this time of year, while the nuts and salad have both made previous appearances. Sablé biscuits were a bit of a risk, as I’ve probably not baked more than a few batches of cookies since I was a kid. But it turns out, that with good butter, a reliable recipe, and some sea salt, there wasn’t much that could go wrong.

I had wavered on the gratin. Though the obvious accompaniment to the duck, my only experience was with eating it. But I should have known better than to doubt Julia Child. Her version—as adapted very slightly here--was hearty but not too rich, perfectly soft through the middle and appealingly crusty and bronzed on top. It may even be good enough to earn us some more invitations.

Gratin Dauphinois (Potato Gratin)

Adapted from Food 52 (who in turn adapted it from Julia Child)

Serves 6

Total time: 50 minutes: Active time: 20 minutes

Special equipment: mandolin or food processor with a slicing blade; shallow baking dish (about 9 inches long and 2 inches deep)

350 ml whole milk

2 garlic cloves

2 bay leaves (ideally fresh)

Butter

1 kg waxy potatoes

200 grams grated Gruyere

Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 220C. Put the milk in a small saucepan. Peel and smash one of the garlic cloves. Add it to the pot along with the bay leaves. Heat the milk gently until it comes to a simmer. Remove from the heat and let steep.

Peel the second garlic clove, cut it in half and rub the cut side around the inside of the baking dish. Rub butter inside the dish.

Peel the potatoes and slice with a mandolin or similar implement. Layer about a third of the potatoes into the dish. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle a third of the cheese on top. Make two more layers in the same way.

Remove the garlic and bay from the milk and pour the milk over the potatoes. Bake the gratin for about 30 minutes, until it's browned and bubbly and a knife cuts through the potatoes easily. Let the potatoes cool for 5 minutes before serving.

Mussaman beef curry

It’s always a pleasure when the first foray into a new cookbook completely vindicates its purchase. We had talked about buying Rick Stein’s Far Eastern Odyssey for a long time, but I had thrown up all sorts of objections: that the recipes wouldn’t be as good as the two from the book we had already tried online, that they would be too complicated to be made regularly, that we should buy cookbooks written by life-long experts in particular Asian cuisines, not a catch-all associated with a (admittedly hugely informative and enjoyable) TV show, that our cookbook shelf was already full.

We may need to impose a one-in, one-out policy, but on the basis of last night’s dinner alone, this book well deserves a spot on the shelf. After this summer, I was particularly excited about the chapters on Balinese and Malaysian food, and had already bookmarked recipes for the fish curry with okra and tomato that was a favourite in Penang, and the different satays which I ate across Bali. The main dish we ended up choosing, however, was a Thai classic: beef mussaman curry.

The preparation began with a method I’ve never come across before: an initial two hour cooking of the meat with just coconut milk, cinnamon bark and black cardamom, the last of which lent a smoky, almost funky aroma. The fattiness of the coconut milk kept the meat moist, while the liquid reduced and took on a nutty flavour and hue. With about 45 minutes to go, cubed potatoes, fish sauce, tamarind, palm sugar and a curry paste were added. Combining relatively mild heat with warm spices such as coriander, cumin, cloves, cinnamon and mace, pungency in the form of shrimp paste, and freshness from ginger and lemongrass, the paste’s unusual mix of ingredients is explained by the dish’s apparent roots in the spices brought to southern Thailand by Indian and Indonesian traders. (The traders would seem to have brought their religion as well, as southern Thailand has a large Muslim population.) Roasted peanuts were added before serving.

Served with rice and a deceptively simple but delicious cucumber, chilli, shallot and coconut salad, this was a truly astonishing plate of food, the flavours ricocheting from richness and sweetness to sourness and heat, and back again. Unlike a Western stew, it’s not something I could just throw together: the spice paste alone had 14 ingredients, requiring stops at a local Chinese supermarket and Indo-Caribbean shop, and the use of a pan, the mortar and pestle and the food processor. But even the resident dish washer agrees that a little extra work is worth it if the outcomes continue to be this good.

Thai mussaman beef curry

Adapted from Rick Stein’s Far Eastern Odyssey

Active time: 45 minutes-1 hour; Total time: 4 hours

Special equipment: mortar and pestle OR spice grinder and food processor

The curry paste recipe will make enough for a second, slightly smaller curry (using 600-650 grams of meat). The paste can be kept sealed in the refrigerator for several days or frozen.

Curry paste ingredients and method

10 dried kashmiri chillies (I used hotter dried Thai chillies and decreased the number used by at least 1/3)

20 cardamom pods

2 tbsp coriander seeds

2 tbsp cumin seeds

16 whole cloves

5 cm cinnamon stick (If you are using a mortar and pestle instead of a spice grinder, leave out and add extra to the curry instead.)

2 pieces mace blade

200g shallots or onion

3 tbsp vegetable oil

25g garlic (3-4 large cloves)

1 tsp shrimp paste

25g ginger (thumb-sized piece)

2 lemongrass stalks

8 tbsp coconut milk

Seed the chillies and remove the cardamom seeds from their pods. Heat a small, heavy frying pan over a moderate heat. Add the chillies and all the dried spices to the pan and turn until they begin to smell aromatic, 1-2 minutes. Pour into spice grinder or mortar and pestle and grind to a fine powder.

Coarsely chop the onion or shallot. Heat the oil over a gentle heat in the same frying pan, add the onions and cook slowly, stirring occasionally, until fully softened and turning a dark golden, about 20 minutes. Add the shrimp paste and ground spices and fry for a few more minutes.Peel and roughly chop ginger. Remove tough outside pieces of lemongrass and cut into small chunks. Add these, along with the fried mixture, to the food processor. Pour in the coconut milk and process to a smooth paste.

Curry ingredients and method

850 grams beef stewing meat

400 ml (1 can) coconut milk

3 -4 black cardamom pods (replace with green if not available)

5-7 cm cinnamon stick

200 grams waxy new potatoes (use a bit more to feed an extra person)

2/3 quantity curry paste

1-1/2 tbsp fish sauce

2-3 tbsp tamarind concentrate

Scant 1 tbsp palm sugar

Handful roasted peanuts

Put the beef and just over half of the coconut milk in a heavy, lidded pan. Add the same amount of water, the cardamom, cinnamon and 1 tsp salt and bring to a simmer. Mostly cover and cook on a gentle heat for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally, by which point the sauce will be thick and well-reduced and the meat almost tender.

Cut the potatoes into chunks. Add those, along with the remaining coconut milk, curry paste, fish sauce, tamarind and sugar, to the pot. Taste for sweet-sour balance, adjusting the last three ingredients as necessary.

Simmer uncovered on a gentle heat for another 30-45 minutes, or until the beef can be broken apart with a fork, the sauce is integrated and the potatoes tender. Check seasoning, add peanuts and serve, ideally with a clean, tangy relish on the side.

Moroccan challah

The impending arrival of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) brought on an unexpected desire to bake challah.

While I enjoy the process of preparing dough and bake pizza and/or chapatti about once a week, I am lucky to have a phenomenal bread selection—3 bakeries, ranging from quite good to excellent and covering between them sourdough, baguettes, granary and Central European seeded loafs—just down the street. It seems foolish, therefore, to expend time producing an inferior loaf. But as challah isn’t on the rota of any of these shops, nor is there anything like a critical mass of celebrating Jews in Brixton to generate sufficient demand for a holiday special, I felt like I could indulge my whim without any unfavourable comparisons to professional products.

My mother’s challah recipe is justifiably requested by many who eat at her table. But it wasn’t quite what I had in mind: too large to be easily consumed during its short shelf-life (unlike my father, I’m not a big fan of French toast) and not the most obvious match to the Sephardic meal I had planned. Instead I unloaded the books of Claudia Roden (whose Book of Jewish Food demonstrates little interest in Ashkenazic cuisine but is an unparalleled resource on the food eaten by Sephardim from Libya to India to Turkey) and Joan Nathan (whose books on Israeli food and French-Jewish food capture how North African Jewish food in particular has been transplanted and adapted to different milieu over the last 60 years) and got to work.

Based on the evidence provided, the challah of Tunisian Jews differs from the Ashkenazic standard only in its particular braiding and shape. By contrast, Algerian and Moroccan Jews use quite distinctive flavourings of anise and sesame seeds. The more refined versions of these challot, known as pain petri, are enriched with vegetable oil, egg and more sugar; some were also braided and glazed with egg yolk. The simpler are just lightly sweet, flavoured loaves, slightly flatter and wider than a conventional challah. (I also found one version, intended for the dairy break-fast meal after Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, where the water was substituted with milk. This is very similar to other Moroccan bread recipes not specifically associated with its Jewish population.)

I settled on the simplest version, known as a pan de casa in the dialect spoken by some Moroccan Jews. The dough came together easily and was ready to be shaped into a free-form loaf after about 90 minutes of rising time. After a further half hour, it was sprinkled with more sesame seeds and went into a medium-hot (375C or 190F) oven for 30 minutes.

It may not have been quite the challah of my youth, but my guests, who included an Anglican vicar and an Austrian Catholic, seemed unperturbed by any perceived break from tradition and very pleased with the taste.

Pan de Casa

adapted from Joan Nathan’s The Food of Israel Today

Total time: 2 ¾ hours; Active time: 15 minutes

I used a scant 2/3rds of the measurements given to make one free-from loaf large enough to feed four as a starter with dips, with leftovers for breakfast the next morning. I give the original measurements below, with the suggestion that the three smaller loafs are instead shaped into two slightly larger, higher ones. I did not find that this affected the baking time, but it may well require a few more minutes in other ovens.

The only other adjustment made was in substituting bread flour for all-purpose. I was advised by my mother than this would enable more gluten development and a higher, lighter loaf. (It seems to have worked.)

This dough makes a relatively soft crust. If you’d like something crisper, you might try putting the dough into a hotter oven, then immediately turning it down, or allowing it to cool in the switched-off oven, keeping the door open.

5 cups bread flour

1 tablespoon instant yeast

2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon salt (I tend to use a bit more than called for in most bread recipes)

1 tablespoon anise seeds

1 tablespoon sesame seeds, with more to sprinkle on the shaped, unbaked loaf

1 ¾ cups warm water

Add the flour, yeast, sugar, salt and seeds to a large bowl. Pour in the water gradually, mixing by hand or with a large spoon to make a rough, slightly wet dough. (Add a bit of flour or water if the dough isn’t coming together.)

Turn out the dough onto a well-floured surface and knead until smooth and pliable, up to 10 minutes. Place back in the bowl, cover well and let rise in a slightly warm place until doubled, about 90 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375C (190F). Grease two cookie or baking sheets. Punch back the dough and divide into two balls. Shape as desired and place on the cookie sheets. Sprinkle with additional sesame seeds. Cover and allow to rise for a further 30 minutes.

Bake the loaves for 30 minutes, or until they sound hollow on the bottom. Allow to cool fully before slicing.

Whole wheat apple muffins

For years now, I’ve been promising myself to try to bake more often, reasoning that it’s a far better way than reading cookbooks to gain confidence and skills and begin to develop a repertoire. (It also seems like another way to help ensure that I log some miles on the treadmill.) I’m not sure how well the resolve will stick this time, but I enjoyed yesterday’s baking session far more than any I’ve undertaken for a long time. It certainly helped that the outcome was unambiguously good.

These muffins were moist, not too sweet and full of tender apple pieces and gentle autumnal spice. Whole wheat flour is not something I’ve ever used in baked goods before, associating it with the leaden items sold by those virtuous but unappealingly ascetic health food shops. If baking is an infrequent activity at best, I think it’s reasonable that the output boasts limited health benefits. But in this case, the inclusion of whole wheat flour yielded a depth of flavour which I don’t think would have been achievable with white flour alone. And there was enough fat and moisture in this recipe (in the form of butter and buttermilk or yogurt) to make the crumb unusually light.

There’s absolutely nothing in this recipe that needs changing. But it’s such a good muffin template that I can see lots of possibilities for adaptation: adding nuts or raisins; swapping out the apples for grated carrots, pears or plums (slightly reducing the liquid if plums were used), amping up the spice with fresh or dried ginger, including a bit of oatmeal in the batter or topping the muffins with some streusel.

If nothing else, the muffin tin should at least get some play this fall.

Whole Wheat Apple Muffins

adapted from King Arthur Flour and Smitten Kitchen

Total time: 40-50 minutes; Active time: 20 minutes

Makes at least 7 muffins in a ¾ cup tin

1 cup (150 grams) whole wheat flour

1 cup (140 grams) all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 tsp allspice

Generous grating of fresh nutmeg

1/2 cup (113 grams, or ½ a package) salted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar (I used sugar which was lightly scented with a spent vanilla pod)

Scant 1/2 cup (200 grams) Demerara sugar (The original recipe called for American brown sugar, which is not easily available in the UK)

1 large egg

1 cup (250 ml) buttermilk or plain yogurt (I used half yogurt and half whole milk)

2 large apples (I used a mix of Bramley cooking apples and more aromatic eating apples)

Preheat the oven to 450°F (about 230°C). Grease or line muffin cups if tin is not made of silicone.

Core, peel and chop the apples into pieces between the size of a pea and a bean. Mix together all the dry ingredients (flour, leavening agents and spices) and set aside. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until well-mixed. (I did this with just a large spoon.) Add the egg and stir well to combine. Gently add the buttermilk or yogurt. (If you’re a bit zealous and the mixture curdles, don’t worry. It fixes itself in the oven.) Stir through the dry ingredients in several batches, mixing just enough to get any pockets of flour integrated. Fold in the apple chunks.

Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups. Bake for 10 minutes, then turn the heat down to 400°F (205°C) and bake until a toothpick or skewer inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean. (With my Texas-style muffin tin, this took an additional 20 minutes.)

Allow the muffins to cool slightly, then turn out of the tin to finish cooling. Store covered and at room temperature. The tops can be at least partially recrisped by reheating briefly in a warm oven.

Canning

As a general rule, I’m happy to benefit from other’s kitchen skills when I think they’re better than mine. That goes for jam (more often than not Bon Maman, though I’d happily frequent this fantastic producer in rural Somerset were she closer), chutney (cue the lady in Somerset again, though half of Borough Market seems to be given over to chutney these days), pickles (well, actually cornichons, and I like most French brands except Maille) and ketchup (where Heinz is king). Beyond that, the cost of fresh produce and the severe lack of food storage options in our 55 square metres have provided little incentive to devote effort to improving my canning skills.

Somewhat by accident, though, I have managed to do enough canning in recent months to have filled up nearly a dozen jars, and a fair amount of our free shelf space. First there were the Lake District blackcurrants languishing in the freezer. These have now been macerating in vodka since sometime in early June. I should have my choice of cold, rainy weekends in late October or early November in which to finish turning them into crème de cassis. Next came a bag of windfall pears from a colleague’s garden. I added some Bramley apples, onions, sultanas and spices, and turned them into chutney. Unfortunately, I won’t know if it’s any good until pears are well out of season.

The chutney was a pleasing, if odiferous, way to pass a drizzly Sunday afternoon, with Formula 1 coverage punctuating the plip-plopping of reducing liquid. But the most enjoyable project so far, and the only one I’ve been able to taste, was spiced tomato jam.Although we’ve grown plenty of tomatoes, there was never a large enough volume at one time to make this recipe. But when I saw some slightly overripe plum tomatoes at the farmer’s market for a knockdown price, it seemed a good use for both my remaining jars and (yet another) variable weather day.

I didn’t tinker with the recipe, merely scaled it down to match the quantity of tomatoes I bought, and replaced the portion of white sugar with more brown. As promised, it cooked down in just under three hours to beautiful jam-like consistency. The spices didn’t dominate as they do in a chutney; rather, there was a hum in the background, a bit of complexity. Likewise, the vinegar added gentle acidity without announcing its presence.

It’s in the cupboard right now, though I don’t expect it will take much to get it opened: goats cheese and a baguette, grilled chicken or perhaps just some good cheddar. On the basis of my brief pre-jarring taste, I’m expecting very good things.

Sweet and Savoury Tomato Jam

barely adapted from Jennifer Perillo and Food 52

Makes 1 ½ pints (about 3 jam jars)

Total time: 3 ½ hours; Active time: 30 minutes

I chose to skip the suggested hot water bath, instead merely pouring the jam into hot, sterilised jars. If you plan to jar this for longer-term storage, please follow directions from a reliable source.

3 1/2 pounds tomatoes (make sure they are ripe and flavourful)

1 small onion

2 cups brown sugar

1 teaspoon coarse salt

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 cup cider vinegar

juice of 1 lemon

Core and coarsely chop the tomatoes. Finely chop the onion. Add these to a large pot. Add the sugar, salt, spices, vinegar and lemon juice to the pot and combine.

Bring the mixture to a gentle boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook until thickened to a jam-like consistency, about 3 hours. (The exact time will depend on the amount of water in your tomatoes.)

When the mixture is nearly ready, prepare your jars. Pour in the jam, filling up each jar to within ¼ inch of the top. Seal tightly and turn upside-down until cooled to help seal.

Coconut

In Malaysia, Java and Bali, coconut comes second only to rice in its ubiquity and centrality to both sweet and savoury food. Even the goats—we came across this one near a beach in Terrangganu, eyeing up a coconut shake—seem to like it.

Young, green coconuts—often described as jelly coconuts—are simply sawed open, the watery, gently sweet liquid drunk through a straw. In the process of maturation, the flesh shifts from being gelatinous and quite bland to a meaty, sweet richness. The flesh can then be turned into milk (made by grating the flesh either on a board of nails or with a threshing-like machine, then pressing it, adding warm water and repeating) or oil (a more involved process which requires long, gentle cooking of the milk, then spooning off and refining the liquid fat which rises to the top), or simply grated, to be used as is, toasted or dry-fried.

I can’t say that the oil was particularly distinctive as a cooking fat, though the less processed oil (used in a particularly tasty meal served, of all places, at a “lifestyle cafe” in the Kuala Lumpur airport’s Low Cost Terminal), did have a certain clean sweetness . The milk, however, drew together all sorts of complex tastes and textures—as coconut rice (nasi lemak),anchoring and giving its name to a popular Malay breakfast spread of chicken curry, fried peanuts, crisp anchovy-like fish, hard-boiled egg, cucumber and a spicy, tomato-based sauce (sambal); in tempering the pungent sourness of curried fish soup (Nyonya laksa, also sometimes known as curry laksa or laksa lemak); and as a relatively neutral medium to float sweet noodles, crushed ice, syrups and gelatinous shapes in cendol and ice kacang.

Coconut also features prominently in desserts that more closely resembled their European counterparts. The best we came across were moreish tarts from Leong Chee Kee, a small bakery owned by the same family for two generations. Justifiably popular, the tarts’ double-crusted pastry are impossibly flaky, the coconut flavour intense, and the overall result not too sweet. Impressively tinged green with pandan leaf, but perhaps less exciting in the mouth, were the thin crepe-like pancakes sold across Bali, filled with a palm sugar caramel and fresh coconut flakes.

A new discovery in Indonesia was the abundant use of grated coconut, sometimes fresh, other times toasted, in cooked vegetable salads. These invariably contained long green beans, chilli, lime, sugar, often also spinach or water spinach and young, just-sprouted mung beans, and were sold under the name of urap sayur (coconut vegetables).

Back in London, I found a Madhur Jaffrey recipe for something named Gudangan which seemed a simpler approximation of what I had eaten. (Some versions also use a fresh spice paste.) Without the energy to bash open the fresh coconuts which are abundant at local Caribbean shops, I settled for rehydrating unsweetened, desiccated coconut. And though Jaffrey’s recipe also called for cauliflower and mung bean sprouts, I stuck to the green beans already in the fridge.

The result was, even without the banana leaf as serving plate, plastic stool and relentless heat, highly enjoyable. And with only six ingredients, it stands a better chance than other vacation favourites of making it onto our table on a regular basis.

Green bean salad with coconut and chili dressing

Adapted from Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian

Serves 2 amply

Total time: 75 minutes; Active time: 15 minutes

I like this slightly warm or at room temperature, but it can also be prepared a bit in advance and chilled.

1 fresh red chili

1 garlic clove

2-3 tsp lime juice

Scant 4 tbsp unsweetened, desiccated coconut

1 tsp palm sugar (use dark brown sugar or jaggery if this is unavailable)

2 large handfuls of green beans (should be about 1 package or farmers’ market container)

Rehydrate coconut in a bowl with just over 3 tbsp hot water. It should take from 45 minutes to one hour to fully absorb the liquid and become soft.

While the coconut is rehydrating, chop the chilli finely (removing seeds if desired). Mince the garlic. Add both to a mixing bowl and squeeze over lime juice. Add palm sugar. (If it’s hard to get out of the container, try microwaving it for 5-10 seconds or using a spoon dipped in boiling water.) Mix to combine.

Cut beans into 1 ½ inch lengths. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and add beans. Cook until just tender—approximately 4 minutes. Drain in cold water to arrest cooking and leave to cool.

Add the coconut to the dressing and mix through. Add the beans and combine. Taste for balance, adding salt and pepper and adjusting the acidity and sweetness.