The themes this week? Slow cooking, sweet stuff, and alliteration. Recipes to hone-in on? By my reckoning, Ottolenghi’s slow-braised chicken and celeriac, Rachel Roddy’s oxtail stew, Nigel’s banana and cardamom cake and accompanying fruit salad, and Joudie Kalla’s rummaniyeh.
Basically, plenty to get cooking with.
Blip-blip … blip.
It was a happy coincidence that a number of the cooks and food writers found themselves suggesting recipes requiring a lot of time, but only a little effort. You know: low effort, high reward.
First up for blip-blipping away on your stove, is Rachel Roddy’s Roman-style Roxtail stew in the Guardian’s Cook supplement. I bet this is a cracker: sultanas and pine nuts in the pot are suggestive of sunnier climes than a British version. As always, brilliant and personable writing too.
Yotam’s Guardian chicken dishes all required a little time. Two went with pasta. But my eyes were drawn to a slow-braised chicken, celeriac and lemon number, which will be absolutely stonkingly lip-smackingly good.
Three and a half hours should just about do for Honey & Co’s beef short ribs with orange, coriander seed and black pepper rub. Phwoarrr. Their honey and spice Valentine cookies look ace too — coffee, sweet spices and orange zest in the quite cakey cookie dough, and a pink berry juice icing on top.
I missed Joudie Kalla’s first week as the latest Cook resident. But the author of Palestine on a Plate returned this week with what looks to be a lentil, pomegranate and aubergine dish known as rummaniyeh. Long on the stove but light touch, this receives this week’s “Lush” accolade.
Sweet things
The fact that the Honey & Co duo’s beef rib recipe was followed by a sweet cookie one is noteworthy; rich and sticky needs to be followed by something sweet. There were plenty of candidates this week. Mostly of them cakey.
Interesting that Nigel thinks there’s nothing between a mushy or a hard banana when it comes to the taste of a cake. Even more interesting to see his recipe for a light, undermixed banana and cardamom cake, to be served with a papaya, persimmon and passion fruit salad.
In Cook‘s baking column, Claire Ptak went for a white, light, Lady Baltimore cake — to mark Mardis Gras and the general lure of NOLA.
In Saturday’s Times Magazine, Nadiya Hussain added white chocolate chips, hazelnuts and dried cranberries to a flapjack mix.
And in the Sunday Telegraph’s food pages, Flora Shedden suggested bubbling up a batch of clementine and campari marmalade to go with her brioche. Alliterative. And probably quite tasty too.
Miscellaneous bits and bobs
Plenty of cooking material outside of the slow and the sweet categories.
Like Ken Yamada’s crab, cucumber and wakame salad and more-ishly dressed spinach goma-ae recipes, which have both gone onto my must make mid week meal list.
I had some words on Tel Aviv and Tahini in Saturday’s Telegraph, with some particularly keen ones on the amount of white tahini sauce I consumed when there. There’s a Palomar recipe for that the end at the end of the piece (plus a suggestion to serve it with burnt aubergine).
Meanwhile, Diana Henry’s Sunday Telegraph Stella mag column concerned harissa and how to eat it. It’s a flexible paste, though few uses beat serving it as a condiment with yoghurt and fried eggs (and couscous, peppers, chickpeas). See also Diana’s lamb with harissa, honey and oranges.
The Sunday Times’ recipes all linked to its Best 100 Restaurant list. So baba ghanoush from The Palomar; ham and spinach tortilla from Barrafina; the Walnut Tree’s rump of lamb with potato and olive cakes (I have memories of this from when Shaun Hill’s book came out last year); and spelt, barley and butternut squash risotto from the Pony and Trap.
In Saturday’s Times Magazine Donna Hay proposed a few midweek numbers on the usual ‘easy’ fusion theme. Sesame-crumbed beef schnitzels with miso burnt butter and fennel and lemon roasted salmon with pesto butter the most interesting.
It’s possible I preferred Georgina Fuggle’s pulse focused recipes in the Weekend section, though. Particularly a baked squash with coconut, coriander & lentils, the very proper looking broad bean, ham hock & wholegrain mustard pie. An apple & chickpea cake intrigues too.
Not sure what Anna Jones’ Cook recipes were this week, but they’ll go on here when online later today.
From the Internet
This Lucky Peach piece on the regional differences in Thai cuisine is good (assuming it’s accurate). There are a handful of tempting and accessible recipes by Andy Ricker (Pok Pok big gun) and Leela Punyaratabandhu (American-Thai blogger) within it: shrimp paste relish and fried mackerel; beef green curry; Isaan papaya salad; and khao soi kai (northern Thai soup).
#Supplemental cooking
Nothing from the papers. (The photo at the top relates to the Tel Aviv trip). As mentioned, the Ken Yamada salads are on my radar, and I think I’ll give that Ottolenghi chicken and celeriac dish a whirl soon.
Weekend Menu, 4 and 5 February 2017
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Crab, cucumber and wakame salad
Ken Yamada, the Guardian
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Slow-braised chicken with celeriac and lemon
Yotam Ottolenghi, the Guardian
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Banana and cardamom cake, papaya, passion fruit and persimmon salad
Nigel Slater, the Observer
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