Dinner Document

– still hate the purple plates.

This was a rather excessive post-library dinner, consumed after 10pm, while half-watching The Matrix for PhD research (yes, really). I couldn’t seriously turn down the half-shoulder of lamb that was on sale at Waitrose for £1.25 (that day was it’s last shelf day), so I bought it with the notion that I would also use the aubergine in the fridge with it. I also picked up a tin of anchovies, that would work their way into the dish somehow – lamb and anchovies are good partners. There is no fishiness flavour-wise when anchovies are whizzed with garlic, herbs, lemon juice and olive oil, just a lovely intensity. The aubergines were smoky, rich and moist and a brilliant accompaniment to the lamb and the borlotti beans were folded into the aubergine to give the dish body. 

This can easily be scaled up or down – just get more meat and aubergines

Serves 2-3

Ingredients:

1/2 shoulder of lamb – ideally de-boned

2 smallish aubergines

1 tin borlotti beans

a few garlic cloves

a few stems of rosemary, whole

a handful of ripe tomatoes, halved

Sauce:

a handful of mint

a few stems of rosemary – not the woody bits

1/2 garlic clove

3 anchovies

glug of olive oil

squeeze of lemon juice

How to make:

Turn the grill on high. Halve your aubergines and brush with oil and season. Rub the lamb with oil and season with salt and pepper. In a grilling pan, lay the lamb, fat side up, on a bed of rosemary and whole garlic cloves. Alongside, lay the aubergine. 

Place under the grill.  When the aubergine is blackening a bit on top, turn over. Turn the lamb every few minutes.

If it is without a bone, the lamb will cook quite quickly. Ideally remove when the flesh is still decently pink, but not raw, and leave to reset with tinfoil covering it. My lamb had a bone in and took longer – so I removed the aubergines when they were done, and then switched the oven on for 15 minutes on a medium heat to finish of the lamb after it had coloured under the grill. All that really matters, is that it is cooked until still pink. 

Remove the aubergine when is really soft. In a bowl, turn the aubergine out of its skin. Add two of the whole garlic cloves that have been cooking with the lamb and aubergine, removed from their skins, a good pinch of salt, a glug of olive oil and a small squeeze of lemon juice and whizz briefly with a hand blender, or mash up with a fork. 

For the green sauce, either whizz all the ingredients up in a mixer – while checking seasoning and consistency and adding oil, salt lemon juice to taste. Or: bash up garlic and anchovies in pestle and mortar until a paste, chop all of the herbs very finely, then mix together with olive oil, lemon juice and seasoning.

Finally, warm up the tomatoes in a pan with some salt and a dash of oil until they begin to lose their edges. Warm up the drained, rinsed borlotti beans in a pan and add the aubergine puree, and mix and warm.

Before serving, check all the seasonings. Carve meat, and serve on top of aubergine, with a spoon of green sauce over and the tomatoes.

Eaten with:  

A glass of white wine, watching the Matrix. 

On the way home from tutoring German last night, I almost walked into the chip shop for my regular order of haddock, chips and peas. But I just managed to hold back, and stuck to the plan formulated on the overly-long journey, which involved a significant detour, thanks to my overground route going offline. Earlier that day I had visited the grocer and bought a selection including two young, still firm pale green courgettes, some plumes of fragrant basil, and from elsewhere, a small tube of fresh, chalky goat’s cheese. I wanted to do something different than whacking them under the grill – I wanted to concoct something new, and fritters was what I decided upon. I spent a while thinking about how to cook them without wheat, and came up with the method below, which worked very well. The mixture is quite fragile and wet, but don’t worry: when it hits the hot oil, it floats and crisps and turns golden brown after a few minutes’ frying. They were really tasty.

Serves 2 as a starter, or one as a main

Ingredients:

2 smallish, firm courgettes, grated: after grating each one, place into a teatowel, draw up the sides, and squeeze out as much moisture from the courgette through the tea towel over the sink as you can physically manage. Do this one at a time, to ensure you get as much moisture out as possible.

2 tablespoons of soft, chalky goat’s cheese

1 teaspoon, mild turkish chilli flakes

bunch of fresh basil, leaves finely chopped

zest, 1/2 lemon

1 egg

salt and pepper

sunflower oil

3 tablespoons, fine polenta

Dip:

good mayonnaise

extra olive oil

squeeze of lemon juice

black pepper

Garnish: 

Grating of parmesan (optional)

How to make: 

Prepare the courgette as described above. Mix in the goat’s cheese, chilli flakes, basil, lemon zest and a good pinch of salt and grind of black pepper thoroughly in a bowl. 

Separate the egg by cracking and gently pouring the yolk between each half, draining the white out into a new bowl. Mix the yolk in with the courgette. Whisk the egg white with a pinch of salt until frothy, white and till it can form stiff peaks.

Pour the polenta into a bowl. Fill a smallish frying pan with sunflower oil, until it is about 2cm deep and turn the heat on.

Fold the egg white into the courgette mix. Check the temperature of the oil by dropping in a tiny amount of mixture – if it fizzles and floats then the oil is ready.

Make the fritters by taking a small dessertspoon of courgette mixture, gently laying in polenta, and gently coat it in polenta, then pick it up with a slotted spoon (one with holes in) and gently place it into the hot oil. Turn it over when it’s golden brown on the bottom. Cook for a few minutes on each side. Remove and lay on kitchen towel. You can cook quite a few at the same time in your pan. Continue until the mixture is finished. 

Serve with a a grating of parmesan over the top if you like, salad and the mayonnaise dip – mix up mayo with a squeeze of lemon juice, some black pepper and a dash of extra virgin olive oil.

Eaten with:

Salad, mayo and a beer. 

Lunch of egg in spicy tomato sauce with cherry tomatoes and grated parmesan that has been under the grill for a couple of minutes:

Butter Bean and Bulghur Wheat in Tomato Sauce with Feta, with Roasted Turkish Peppers and Aubergine with Pine Nuts:

My friend Polly Playford, who has known me since birth and who is now a successful graphic designer, told me on the phone the other day that she’d been eating a lot of grated beetroot with fresh mint. That conversation prompted this salad, which I shared with my housemate Jack’s lentil curry and rice. I really liked the bursts of citrus and the texture lent by the whole toasted coriander seeds.

Ingredients:

3-4 small beetroots, washed and grated

1 teaspoons of toasted coriander seeds

small bunch of fresh mint, chopped

yogurt, that has been seasoned with salt and with 1/2 clove finely chopped garlic

Dressing:

2 tablespoons, sunflower oil

1/2 tablespoon, vinegar (e.g. wine or cider)

salt, pepper and pinch of sugar

How to make:

Mix up the beetroot with the coriander seeds, mint and dressing. Taste for seasoning and if necessary add more salt, or vinegar. Garnish with the yogurt. 

Eaten with:

Daal and rice.

My family had a typically hearty and pleasurable supper at The Station in Framlingham for my Dad’s birthday in March – he and brothers had the steamed beef suet puddings, which went down very well, mum and I had oysters and then steak, and we all drank Victoria Bitter from the local Earl Soham Brewery. The next day, I was left to my own devices in my parents’ kitchen to write, and so naturally my thoughts immediately turned to what to make for lunch. There was a head of celeriac that needed using in the fridge and mum had some ham stock in the freezer left over from cooking the Christmas ham, so I made a soup from it. The pigginess comes through in a nice way from the stock, but chicken or vegetable stock, or water would also be fine. The crouton is not essential, but it was rather nice.

Ingredients: 

1 litre, hot stock or seasoned hot water

1 head, celeariac, peeled and cut into chunks

1 tart apple, peeled and cut into chunks

1 large potato, peeled and cut into chunks

1 carrot, peeled and finely diced

1 stick, celery, finely diced

1 onion, peeled and finely diced

2 cloves, garlic, peeled and finely diced

3 several very generous heaped tablespoons, crème fraîche

1 dessert spoon, cider vinegar

Croûton:

toast

a few chopped walnuts

sprinkling of goat’s cheese

How to make:

Sweat down the onion, garlic, carrot and celery in a knob of melted butter and a tablespoon of olive oil with a bouquet garni of your choice (sage, thyme, bay etc.) 

Add the other chopped vegetables and apple and stir well. Add the hot stock. Bring to the boil and leave on a low simmer for 30 minutes. Check that the potatoes and celeriac are cooked. Season well with salt and pepper. Blend thoroughly with a hand blender and then pass the soup through a sieve, which will give it a refined texture. Stir through the crème fraîche and vinegar and then taste again for seasoning.

Make the crouton if desired, then serve with a sprinkling of parsley if you want.

Eaten with:

Buttered toast.

Chinese dumplings, filled with a delicious savoury mixture of pork and shrimp are something that I have wanted to make for ages and a few weeks ago, I finally got around to it. There are many variations on filling recipes based around pork mince, and I was really happy with how this version tasted. You could also add in grated turnip or daikon radish that has been soaked in salted water etc. So long as you have the basic constituent of pork mince, with soy and some finely chopped leaves to break the meat up a bit, you could simplify it depending on what’s in your cupboard. Chop Chop in Edinburgh to a great version with fresh coriander in the pork mix. 

Ingredients:

Wrappers:

150g plain flour

130ml hot water

pinch of salt

Filling:

2 spring onions – green tops only, finely chopped

1/2 chinese leaf, very finely chopped and soaked in salted water for 20 mins then drained

150g pork mince

1 tablespoon, Shaoxing wine (or sherry, or mirin)

1 tablespoon, light soy sauce

1 teaspoon, sugar

2 teaspoons, sesame oil

1 small knob of finely grated or pounded fresh ginger

1 teaspoon, salt

1 heaped tablespoon, dried shrimp pounded in a pestle & mortar (available from chinese supermarket or online)

Dipping Sauce

Ratio of

1/3 Chianking black vinegar

2/3 light soy sauce

1 finely chopped garlic clove

1 teaspoon Chinese chilli oil, or fermented chilli paste (if you don’t have these, then a finely chopped chilli or regular chilli oil will do)

– if you don’t have the black vinegar, just Soy sauce is also good

Enough for 4 as a starter or 2 as a main

How to make: 

In a  mixing bowl, place the plain flour and slowly pour in the hot water, stirring constantly with a metal implement until it forms a dough. Be careful to stop before it becomes too sticky. Knead into a ball, cover with cling film, and allow to rest for 10-15 minutes. 

In the meantime, prepare your dumpling ingredients – do the Chinese leaf first –  and mix them all together well.

When the dough is rested, roll it out into a thin sausage about an inch thick on a floured surface, then cut into inch-long sections. With your hands or using a rolling pin, roll each one into a thin round disk, around 2mm thick, and lay on a floured plate and cover with a dusting of flour. This will stop the others you lay on top sticking to it. Repeat with all of the sections. 

When finished rolling out, place a large pot of salted water on the boil to cook them in and mix the dipping sauce.

Then, spoon a teaspoon of your filling into the centre of each, dab the circumference with water and fold into a half-moon, and secure by working your thumbs around the edge, making sure it is sealed. Repeat with all of the mixture until finished. Any mixture you have left over could be fried and eaten with rice.

Boil them for 12-15 minutes, until the filling is cooked. Then you can either eat straight away with the dip, or also fry them in a pan in hot oil to make them crisp.

Eaten with:

Dipping sauce.

photo by Joanna

A day or two before my friend and colleague Marion went off to Australia to run a fashion festival at the Sydney Opera House and lots besides, I was at her house in Kentish Town. I offered to cook as Marion and her husband Pete were manically packing for the 3 month trip, and working for various deadlines, Marion’s assistant Joanna was tying up some loose ends. The meal needed to be relatively quick and the theory was to ‘use stuff up’. The ‘stuff’ consisted of most of a pack of mushrooms, half a pack of crème fraîche and some pasta. Of course we ended up buying many more ingredients than we used up, making the endeavour of clearing out the fridge slightly less worthy. Herbs have been on my mind a lot in the last few months – I have had a love affair with the stronger flavoured ones among them: sage, oregano, thyme and in this meal – tarragon. The aniseed twang given by tarragon makes this interesting, and the balance between earthy mushrooms, the warmth of tarragon, the sour creaminess of crème fraîche and lemon zest is very good. To those ingredients, gently sautéed garlic added richness and parsley some fresh irony green flavour.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 large double handfuls of mushrooms – chestnut or equivalent, sliced up

1 lemon

1 bunch, tarragon, chopped up roughly without stalks

1 bunch, parsley, chopped up roughly without stalks

2 cloves, finely sliced garlic

1 tub, full fat crème fraîche - around 250g

4 tablespoons, olive oil

Tagliatelle – around 100g/each

How to make:

Prepare all of your ingredients: slice the mushrooms, finely slice the garlic, chop the parsley and tarragon – removing the stalks first. Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil for the pasta (idea ratio = 1ltr water/100g pasta/10g salt), and place a large frying pan or sauce pan on the heat for the mushrooms. 

Add the garlic to cold olive oil in the pan. Turn on heat and when the oil is hot but the garlic is not yet brown, add the mushrooms. Stir well, and cook for 5 minutes or so, that they are no longer raw, but also make sure they are not stewed right down. Fry in batches if your pan is not big enough. Add the pasta to the water when it is fiercely boiling and remove when al dente, reserving a cup of the cooking water. Meanwhile, mix the zest of a lemon into the mushrooms and 1/2 the lemon juice, add the tarragon and parsley and crème fraîche and lots of salt and pepper, and mix well while still on a low heat. Check that you are happy with the seasoning, and if you wish add more lemon juice, or salt. Toss with the tagliatelle and the cup of reserved cooking liquid – serve. 

Eaten with:

A green salad, and red wine. 

Pasta is something I’ve been meaning to cook for a while, but other dishes kept sidetracking me – for example, when I thought I would use some minced pork to make a spicy pasta sauce, it ended up being Szechuan Dandan noodles with smacked cucumber salad. But then some very ripe-looking tomatoes appeared at the grocer from France – clearly grown in a polytunnel using hydroponics as it was only April – *out of season alert* – but preaching isn’t my area. 

I also picked up a lemon and some parsley. The breadcrumbs were from the freezer, left over from the creamed Swede with Gruyère and walnut crumble I made in February and there is no need to defrost them. If you can’t eat normal pasta, I hear spelt is the best alternative, and likewise for breadcrumbs, which you can make by whizzing up stale (spelt or rye) bread in a food processor. No-sauce pasta dishes like this are something that I have made often, but this one seemed to work particularly well, so I thought I’d record it. The herbs I used were sage and parsley, but oregano, basil, fresh thyme and marjoram would all also work nicely in whatever combination you like – the function is to add some fragrance and green woodiness to the dish.  The breadcrumbs add texture and richness, and prevent the whole thing from becoming a bit acidic.

For 1 or 2 (evidently can be scaled up)

Ingredients:

a decent handful of ripe cherry tomatoes, halved

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

zest 1/2 lemon

a handful of breadcrumbs

2 tablespoons of shredded herbs (I used sage and parsley – or whatever you like)

1 small red chilli, de-seeded and chopped up small

parmesan (optional garnish)

1/2 dessert spoon, vinegar, or squeeze of lemon juice

3-4 tablespoons, olive oil

as much tagliatelle or other pasta (e.g. penne) as you want to eat - c. 100g p/p

salt

How to make:

Put on a large pan of well-salted boiling water for the pasta (idea ratio is 100g pasta: 1 liter water: 10g salt). Place 2 tablespoons of olive oil and garlic and chilli in a cold pan.Turn heat on and as oil heats up, the garlic will become aromatic, at that point, add the tomatoes and turn the heat right down to a very gentle level. Put pasta on to cook.

In another pan, gently fry the breadcrumbs in a few more tablespoons of olive oil until brown and be careful not to burn. When tomatoes have lost their edges a but, but are still whole, mix in other flavourings and season. Turn heat off. Drain pasta when cooked to al dente, reserving a small cup of cooking water.

Taste tomatoes for seasoning, and acidity – if necessary add more lemon juice or vinegar and more salt. Add another bit of olive oil to tomatoes and mix up with pasta and breadcrumbs with the reserved cooking water. Serve. If desired, add parmesan

Eaten with:

A green salad and a glass of red wine. 

A few weeks ago I read about a lamb kofte recipe that used pistachios in its mix. I was making kofte for kebabs before going out, but was feeling a bit stingy, so didn’t splash  out on nuts and just made them spicy.

However, there was unfinished business with nuts and minced meat.

I volunteered to make meat patties for an occasion prompted by the warmer weather mid-week. Despite the fact that, by Friday evening, the warmth had vanished, the menu remained very much geared towards eating outside. Zoe made Turkish tomato salad with mint and feta, and the lamb was intended for a barbecuing. To this, we had roasted sweet potato chips with dill yogurt dip, grilled green Turkish chilli peppers, and a green salad. Tim, who was one of the party, is a big fan of a rice dish that I made last summer on a holiday to a watermill on the river Avon. I don’t see Tim very often, but every time I do, he mentions the rice dish (which is written up here). So, knowing that he would be there on Friday, I used the same flavourings in the lamb patties: toasted nuts, sultanas, cinnamon and softened onions. Thinking that they would need something to cut through them, I made a smooth spicy tomato sauce by using tinned tomatoes, then quickly whizzing with a hand blender – which is worth it I think – making sure the spicing is well distributed through the sauce, and that there are no errant lumps tomato.

Served 5, with leftovers

Ingredients:

1kg lamb mince

1 handful, pine nuts

1 handful, almonds, chopped up small

1 leek, or onion, finely diced and sweated in a knob butter until soft

2 teaspoons, cinnamon

very large pinch, salt

handful, sultanas, soaked in hot water for 10 mins then chopped a bit

large knob of butter

Hot Sweet Tomato Sauce:

2 tins, chopped tomatoes

2 tablespoons, olive oil

1 tablespoon, honey or maple syrup

2 cloves, finely sliced garlic

1 hot red chilli, chopped

1 teaspoon, cumin

1 teaspoon, ground coriander

1 teaspoon, smoked paprika

1 dessertspoon, vinegar

hefty pinch, salt

How to make:

Prepare all of your ingredients as indicated:

chop almonds and place in pan with cinnamon, pine nuts and a decent knob of butter and cook gently until the pine nuts are turning a touch brown; finely chop leek or onion and place in a pan to sweat gently for 5 minutes; soak sultanas in hot water for 10 minutes, then roughly chop.

Place all of these in a bowl with the lamb mince, and a hefty 2 pinches of salt (really – and it’s between 5+ people, so don’t worry), and a good grind of black pepper, and then mix well. Shape the lamb as you wish – into smallish balls or as I did, into the shape of extra large dates.

Turn the grill on high to heat up.

In a deep frying pan or sauce pan add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the garlic and spices for your tomato sauce. When the sauce is aromatic add the tomatoes.

Place all of the lamb patties on a grill tray and place under the heat. Turn after 4/5 minutes – depending on the size of our patties.

In the meantime, add the honey and vinegar to your tomato sauce. Cook for 5 minutes. Then add seasoning and check for spiceyness, if it needs more, add another chilli – it should have a kick. When you are happy with the seasoning, briefly whizz up with a hand blender until more or less smooth. Then taste again for seasoning.

Remove meatballs when cooked – be careful not to overdo them – they can be a touch pink in the middle.

Serve meatballs on a latter with some sauce over the top, and extra sauce in a bowl for serving.

Eaten with:

See above in the picture – sweet potato chips with dill yogurt dip, Turkish tomato salad and a green salad. If the weather is good, you can barbecue the lamb for ultimate flavour, and put in a kebab.