Date Archives April 2014

Wild Garlic Pesto

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Wild Garlic Pesto

 

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Free ingredients feel cheekily delicious. Whether its that buy one get one free packet of salad, that suspect lemon that apparently didn’t scan in the hands of the conveniently incompetent cashier or, in this case, the hand foraged bunch of wild garlic my sensitive foodie nose kindly led me to on a country walk this Easter. Growing in the hedgerow and just dying to be plucked and cooked these leaves are fragrant with a garlic punch.

Wild garlic should be treated more like a herb- a hardier basil. It can be sauteed in butter but not cooked as hard as a cabbage. I decided to make pesto which can be made in a pestle and mortar and I always find this satisfying and a lovely idea where you really can adjust the consistency, taste and vitally the texture to your own preference steadily and carefully. However my solid granite pestle and mortar weights a tonne and after a long day at work and a run home I wasn’t in need of a weigh session or the horrors of having to unsuccessfully scrape my delicious pesto creation into a bowl and wash up my granite weight. So….shamefully the magi mix came out to do the job for me. I bought a beautiful Godess-like pot of bushy Greek basil on the way home today and couldn’t resist adding a handful to the mix as a nod to the classic pesto but go easy as it is punchy and will overpower the beautiful garlic leaves if added too heavy handidly.

Enjoy with – roasted fish, meats, roasted sweet potato jackets, mixed into pasta sauces, stirred into soups, mixed in salad dressings. I served mine here with pan fried seabass and red camargue rice.

Makes a small bowlful (depending on the amount of oil)

  • 100g wild garlic leaves, cleaned if foraged
  • Optional – a small handful of basil leaves
  • 1 garlic clove, chopped
  • 50g finely grated Parmesan
  • 50g pine nuts, lightly toasted (or walnuts)
  • Salt and pepper
  • Lemon juice
  • Olive/rapeseed oil (up to 150ml. See note*)
  1. First, if foraged from the bushes, carefully wash the garlic leaves in cold water and pat dry or spin dry in an old school salad leaf drier.
  2. Place in a food processor with the pine nuts, garlic and basil (if using). Blend until chopped finely.
  3. Add the cheese and season.
  4. Now slowly drizzle in the oil until you get the desired consistency. I think I used about 2 tbsp for mine.
  5. Alternatively, bash the leaves with the nuts in a pestle and mortar before adding the cheese and stirring in the oil.
  6. Add seasoning to taste and adjust with whatever you think it needs, a hint of lemon juice perhaps!

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NOTE* – the amount of oil will depend on a few things but I personally like my pesto thick as its more concentrated and punchy in flavour and healthier as it uses less oil. It will also depend on how long you want to keep it. If you plan on storing in your fridge for a bit, pop into a sterilised jar and make sure there is enough oil to cover and seal it from exposure and oxidation.

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Spring Supper (Seabass, minted pea puree, roasted parsnips, chorizo)

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Spring Supper (Seabass, minted pea puree, roasted parsnips, chorizo)

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Finally the evenings are getting longer and the evening light is perfect for photography and dining in the sun (not warmth quite yet unfortunately). Home to the countryside for Easter weekend and the warm days continued. Good Friday called for good food. Naturally. This dish seemed to personify the start of spring and a spring cleaning of the diet and lifestyle. Except if you’d given up chocolate for lent that is. You folks will probably be in a cocoa comma still….this dish may help?

Serves 2

  • 2 seabass fillets
  • 250g peas
  • Handful mint leaves
  • ½ lemon, juice
  • Large knob butter
  • 100g chorizo, chopped
  • 2-3 parsnips, peeled and sliced
  • 4 tbsp grated parmesan
  1. Parsnips – season well and coat in olive oil. Roast at 200°C for 25-30 minutes until tender and crisp.
  2. Parmesan wafer – Line a baking tray with non stick parchment and spoon the parmesan into a cookie cutter to form a circle – don’t be tempted to press the cheese down as it will melt on cooking. Bake for 5 minutes at 200°C until melted and golden. Remove from the oven and leave to cool before peeling gently from the parchment.
  3. Minted pea puree – boil the peas with half the mint leaves for a few minutes until soft. Drain while reserving the minty cooking water and tip into a food processor. Add a large knob of butter, salt and pepper, the fresh mint leaves, lemon juice and blend to a puree. Add some of the reserved cooking water a bit at a time to thin it down until you reach the desired consistency.
  4. Chorizo – heat a frying pan until hot. Fry the chorizo in the dry pan until it starts to release its oily juice and crisp up. Keep warm.
  5. Seabass- season the seabass fillets well making a slit in the skin side to stop it curling up on cooking. Coat in a light drizzle of olive oil. Heat a frying pan to a medium-high setting and fry the seabass fillets, skin side down, for about 3 minutes until crispy skinned and mostly cooked. Turn for the final minute to finish the cooking and squeeze with a splash of lemon juice.
  6. Top serve – lay the roasted parsnips on the plate and spoon on some pea puree. Top with the seabass and spoon over the chorizo and drizzle with some of the oils. Complete with the parmesan wafer!

Delicious served with a chilled glass of Italian, Puglian Verdeca. I had the pleasure of working at a recent event with the producer – Masserai Li Veli. Delicious. humble and organically produced wines. See here for where to buy some!

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Rhubarb Sorbet and Ginger Treacle Tart

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Rhubarb Sorbet and Ginger Treacle Tart

 

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I really think this is one of the prettiest and simplest desserts that you can have this time of year. Nothing but some old stale breadcrumbs, humble hardy grown rhubarb and some sweet tangy ginger. Cold golf balls of frozen candy floss to top a pointy slice of warm ginger spiced treacle tart after the slow roasted spring lamb shoulder we devoured for Easter lunch.

I’ve always grown my own rhubarb letting it ripen naturally around the summer time into gangly red and green fingers of sweet and sour goodness. But Portobello market is bursting with the ‘forced’ type at the moment and I couldn’t resist bagging some of the leggy, blushing pastel pink stems for this killer sorbet.

Serves 12

Rhubarb Sorbet

  • 800g forced, pink rhubarb, chopped
  • 175g caster sugar
  • 100ml water
  • 1 lime
  1. Mix the chopped rhubarb with the caster sugar and and place in a saucepan. Heat gently with the water until beginning to soften and simmer for about 5 minutes.
  2. When tender, remove from the heat, squeeze in the lime juice and leave to cool slightly.
  3. Puree until smooth, taste and adjust with sugar or lime (it should be a little sweeter than you like as the freezing with dampen this) and then churn in an ice cream maker for about 30 minutes. Alternatively, pour into a container and freeze, mixing every 30mins-1hr to break up the ice crystals until set.

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Ginger Treacle Tart

Pastry

  • 125g chilled butter
  • 250g flour
  • Zest ½ orange
  • Cold water

Filing

  • 200g white breadcrumbs (the staler the better)
  • 400g golden syrup
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • Pinch ground ginger
  • 2-3 balls of preserved stem ginger, chopped finely
  • ½ lemon, zest and juice
  1. Start with the pastry. Mix the butter into the flour in a processor or with your hands until you form a breadcrumb like texture. Mix in the orange zest. Add a spoonful of cold water, a small bit at a time and mix into the flour and butter until you can form a smooth dough. Shape into a disc, wrap in cling film and leave to chill for about 30 minutes or so in the fridge.
  2. Grease and line a 20-22cm tart tin and preheat the oven to 180°C. Remove the pastry from the fridge and leave to adjust to room temperature before rolling out on a floured surface to about the thickness of a pound coin. Line the greased tin pressing the pastry into the case. Chill the casing for about 10 minutes if you can.
  3. Prick the base with a fork to stop it rising up when cooking and place a sheet of parchment on top followed by some heavy baking beans or dry raw rice. Push it right up to the edges to keep the parchment down.
  4. Bake blind for 20-25 minutes until the casing if lightly golden and cooked. Remove the beans and baking sheet for the final 5 minutes to brown and cook the base.
  5. Remove from the oven and reduce the heat to 160°C.
  6. Now, warm the golden syrup in a saucepan until molten. Remove from the heat and add the ginger, lemon, breadcrumbs and stir to combine. Mix in the eggs making sure the mixture if not too hot first or these will scramble.
  7. Pour into the pre-baked tart tin and bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes until golden and set.
  8. Serve warm with the rhubarb sorbet and some slow roasted vanilla speckled rhubarb on the side or a good quality vanilla ice cream.

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The Blood Orange ‘Gin’-ger

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The Blood Orange ‘Gin’-ger

 

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Today the sun was shining contently so I took the opportunity to make the most of my lunch hour and wonder (as I now do familiarly and regularly) around the buzzing streets of Nottinghill and Portobello Road. I love this street and I have huge appreciation for it. Stalls boasting crumpled and soft leather bags, waterfalls of scarfs draped like the limbs of a weaping willow from shop fronts and humble freshly prepared street food. But my favourite sellers are by far the fruit and vegetable stalls. They’re packed and bursting with ripe delights that spill out onto the road as if they too are eager to escape and explore, some not so successfully as tomato seeds and orange pith splatter the tarmac and imprinted into someones car tread.The prices are cheap and the produce is infinitely better quality than the local supermarket. Hands down the biggest and best avocados in town can be found here.

However, on my lunch break today my greedy eyes caught sight of a proudly glowing basket of blood oranges with a cheeky ‘4 for £1’ written confidently in bold. I don’t know what it is about that sign but it undoubtedly screams ‘bargain’! Even if advertising old teeth it would still seems a steal am I wrong? With a brown paper bag of these juicy golf balls and some blushingly pink leggy rhubarb that I just couldn’t leave alone I returned to work and to a state of recipe planning turmoil in my mind….

With Easter Sunday approaching, guests to cook for and plans for a pre-lunch cocktail I decided on using them to accompany a chilled glass of gin, lime and ginger. I needed it too after a sticky commute home knocking out many poor souls with the ends of my lanky giant rhubarb. I made up this recipe adding what I felt it needed and ingredients I liked but feel free to experiment too and add more or less of anything you like to adjust to taste. I image this would also be devine with ginger beer thrown in there somewhere!

The Blood Orange ‘Gin’-ger

Serves 1

  • 1oz good London Gin
  • 2oz freshly squeezed blood orange juice
  • ½ small lime
  • Small knob root ginger
  • Salt
  1. Squeeze the juice from your oranges and add to a tall chilled tumbler with the gin.
  2. Squeeze in as much lime juice to taste just to add a sharp sour hum and a pinch of sugar if it all tastes a little bitter.
  3. Now you can either mash the ginger and muddle in and then strain, infuse with a few slices or finely chop some ginger matchstick and add to the glass.
  4. Coat the rim of your glass with lime juice and dip in a VERY light coating of salt. Fill the glass with your cocktail and sip happily in the sunshine!

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Post Yoga Super Salad

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Post Yoga Super Salad

 

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After a fresh run and my favourite Sunday morning yoga class in the sunshine I returned home fresh, focussed, alive and….hungry! I love taking the time over preparing lunch at the weekend so threw together a super food salad to boost back my energy. This salad is delicious and highly adaptable like many of my recipes. Served with flaked oily smoked mackerel, juicy pink prawns, lemony smoked trout, fried halloumi, molten poached eggs. As a main dish topped with fried fish, add a handful or crunchy quinoa or roasted shredded chicken and bacon for a 21st century Caeser salad! Add raw shaved fennel if you like or change the herbs. Swap in your favourite dressing or take an Asian theme with soy sauce and sesame. The options are truly endless….

Serves 2

  • 1 ripe avocado, diced
  • Handful ripe plum/cherry tomatoes, halved
  • Handful raw sugar snaps, sliced
  • ½ cucumber, sliced thinly
  • Handful mint, leaves chopped (or a herb of choice)
  • 1 tsp Nigella seeds
  • 2 spring onions, sliced
  • 1 tbsp mixed seeds
  • Handful of ‘China rose radish sprouts’ (optional…mine were from Organic planet but they can be found here too)
  • Lemon juice and olive oil
  • Protein to serve e.g. fried halloumi, freshly cooked prawns, smoked mackerel, smoked trout, poached egg, roast chicken
  1. Combine the salad ingredients and mix gently together and season well.
  2. Drizzle over a good squeeze of fresh lemon juice and some olive oil and toss gently together with clean hands
  3. Serve alone or with one of the above suggestions.

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Wild Mushroom and Black Garlic Rice

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Wild Mushroom and Black Garlic Rice

 

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This mushroom rice dish was thrown together whilst I was at uni when embracing the challenge of living on a second hand shoestring. It is one of those staple vegetarian meals I often make when I fancy an evening off meat. Mushrooms have such a deep and earthy flavour that you never miss the meat here and this really is just as satisfying. I like to top mine with a quenelle of cool, smooth cream cheese to off set the garlic hum but a molten poached egg with a cascading larva of golden egg yolk would also sit on top here as naturally as clotted cream on a pillowey toasted scone.

However, today I experimented with black garlic. Garlic is undoubtedly good for you. From warning off infections and fighting your bodies battles to pungently and helpfully keep away any unwanted attention from the opposite sex….! Double bonus. I don’t think anyone walks past their local pizza place or Indian with the waft of freshly baking garlic bread suctioning up their nostrils not to momentarily drift into garlicky cloud nice. I love nothing more than the delights and simple efforts of roasting a whole garlic head in the oven before squeezing the obliging sweet contents into a pestle and morta, mashing to a paste and stirring into risottos or sauces. There is nothing as effortless that imparts so much amazing flavour.

So surely black garlic is to be even better. Delicious I can conclude but on a totally different level. Sweet but amazingly deep in flavour these gooey and pastey gloves are like jelly cubes of balsamic vinegar, a ‘fruit pastel’ of balsamic if you will. It is only a matter of time before Heston makes this imported Korean fad into an ice cream (I will await this patiently….very patiently, no rush Heston.) I’m only at the tip of my black garlic experiments using it tamely sliced here. But mashed to a paste, stirred into stews, risottos and sauces I am sure I will be sharing these soon…..the ice cream however will have to wait for now. Black garlic pasta or gnocchi…however…!

Serves 2

  • 250g mixed mushrooms, chestnut, oyster etc, chopped roughly in chunks
  • 4oz wild rice (a mix of brown, Camargue, wild rice)
  • 2 gloves of black garlic OR 2 gloves garlic, chopped
  • 1 large knob of butter
  • Handful of flatleaf parsley, chopped
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 4 tbsp cream cheese/2 poached eggs to serve
  1. Begin by simmering the rice for about 20 minutes until tender. Drain and set aside.
  2. Heat a generous knob of butter with a drizzle of olive oil in a large frying pan over a medium high heat until the butter foams.
  3. Add the chopped mushrooms and some generous salt and pepper and fry for about 10 minutes over a medium heat.The water will be released so continue to cook until this evaporates and the mushrooms are soft and golden. (Now Julia Child fans, remember- don’t crowd your mushrooms, they won’t brown! So cook in batches if necessary)
  4. If using normal garlic, chop finely and add now and fry for a few minutes turning the heat down if starting to catch.
  5. Now, tip in the rice and stir into the mushrooms with the sesame oil and fry for a few minutes.
  6. Add the chopped black garlic and the parsley and mix to combine and heat through.
  7. Serve in large warmed bowls with an extra scatter of parsley some slices of black garlic and a creamy quenelle of cream cheese. Alternatively add that molten poached egg and crack on with devouring.

Sweet Potato, Cashew and Coconut Curry

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Sweet Potato, Cashew and Coconut Curry

With half a can of coconut milk left over in the fridge, some potatoes and not much else but a stocked pantry and an unwilling motivation to delve into my skinny looking purse I threw together a vegetarian (and equally as satisfying) version of my Keralan Fish Curry.

Serves 3-4

  • 1 large onion
  • 1 small red chilli, chopped finely
  • 2cm piece of ginger, grated finely
  • 2 tsp mustard seeds
  • 2 tsp fenugreek seeds
  • 1 tsp coriander seed
  • 1 tsp chilli powder
  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • Bunch coriander, chopped
  • 400ml coconut milk
  • 200ml water
  • 1 Kaffir lime leaf OR ½ juice of a lime
  • Handful of desiccated coconut
  • 2-3 small sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
  • 1 tsp tamarind paste
  • Large handful of cashew nuts
  • Few large handful of sugar snaps/mange tout/green beans
  1. Par boil your sweet potatoes until just cooked but still a little firm. Drain and set aside.
  2. Heat a little oil in a heavy based pan. Add the mustard, fenugreek and coriander seed and fry until beginning to pop and smell fragrant.
  3. Add the chopped onion and fry on a lowish heat for about 5 minutes until really soft.
  4. Once soft, add the chilli and cook for a few more minutes before adding the ginger and doing the same.
  5. Add the ground dry spices and cook out for 1 minute or so.
  6. Add the coconut milk, the stock and the lime leaf
  7. Simmer gently for about 10-15 minutes until thicker and creamy.
  8. Once nearly at the desired consistency, add a handful or two of dessicated coconut and a handful or chopped coriander, saving most for garnish. Add the tamarind paste for sweetness.
  9. Add the sweet potato, the cashew nuts and throw in your vegetables for a few minutes.
  10. (If not using a Kaffir lime leaf, squeeze in ½ the juice of your lime here)
  11. Serve with rice or naan bread. Garnish with extra chopped coriander, sliced spring onions if you like and an extra handful or two of cashew nuts.