It’s a holiday weekend, so I’m keeping this digest of the food papers relatively brief. Don’t get used to it.
Comfort eating
There were a number of comforting dishes.
In Sunday’s Observer, we saw prawn and haddock pie with a herb butter filo top, and a topical (and deliciously tempting) hot cross bun, toffee and banana pudding. I’ve said before that if Nigel Slater was a recipe, he’d be a fish pie. Getting both of these in the same column was Nige on overdrive. Which is always welcome.
There’s a new ‘last supper’ feature in The Guardian’s ‘Cook’. If there’s anything a food supplement editor knows, it’s use Fergus Henderson as the focus of your first piece in a new series. His menu and responses were (typically) both prosaic and charming. Note his recipes for chocolate ice cream and for raisin bread to go with Wigmore cheese.
Also in Cook, 10 recipes with cream. Check out the clotted cream arctic roll and Bruno Loubet’s chicory and ham rolls with comte and cream. Over in the main pages, Yotam’s comfort food recipes included polenta hash, fried egg and beef gravy. Woof.
Mark Hix proposed an Easter Feast in Saturday’s Independent. I love how his recipes are absolutely British, reassuring and traditional, yet not like anything cooked in most home kitchens now, let alone fifty or one hundred years ago. Rabbit and St George mushroom broth; crispy goose egg, creamed wild garlic and bacon; sprouting broccoli, shaved Berkswell and quail’s egg salad. Sold.
Back to Poires au Chocolat for best of the blogs. Some top hot cross bun tips – by way of Emma’s helpful vids.
Not so familiar flavours
Thomasina Miers had HFW’s Guardian column this week. The theme was waste not want not. I thought little carrot and vanilla pots looked intriguing.
Rowley Leigh cooked Torta Pasqualina in the FT Weekend. Something that featured in Ottolenghi’s Easter column last week. A consciously slow piece of cooking.
I noted in my most recent newsletter that I’m looking forward to the Morito cook book. The Saturday Telegraph had an extract from that this week. If nothing else, I reckon you try their lamb chops mechoui. (But, really, you should try more than that – suspect the book will be a bit of a keeper).
Diana Henry focused on saffron. Both sweet and savoury ideas. You’ll have to let me know what you think of the recipes – my view is prejudiced by the fact I think the spice tastes like Toilet Duck.
Granger was baking in Sunday’s Indy. Chocolate, fruit and nut bread could be worth a knead.
Not much of note in Rupert Murdoch’s stable this weekend.
Save that The Sunday Times ‘classic dish’ featured one of the worst pieces of butchery and food styling I’ve seen for some time – to call the centre piece of Simon Hopkinson’s lamb dish ‘French trimmed’ is to risk a diplomatic incident. Sub first week catering school standard stuff. By contrast, Hoppy’s recipe was perfectly good. There’s a smart tip about infusing vodka with star anise if you need Pernod but don’t have it in the cupboard.
I liked the look of a Donna Hay lemon tart in Saturday’s Times mag – desiccated coconut in the pastry and raspberries baked into the lemon custard based filling.
Supplemental cooking
Nothing from the glossies this weekend. Soz. There was lots of home made hot cross buns, lamb and general roast meat action instead. And chocolate eggs.
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Hmm. Not quite as brief as I’d hoped after all. I blame The Times.
Weekend Menu, 19 & 20 April 2014
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Rabbit and St George mushroom broth
Mark Hix, The Independent (Saturday)
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Chicken with sherry, cream and tarragon
James Ramsden, The Guardian ‘Cook’
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Hot cross bun, toffee and banana pudding
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