Supplemental #166

Supplemental! It’s back! Did you miss it?

I wrote a witty intro (honest), then selected a few highlights (Henry, Sodha, Lee, Roddy, Ottolenghi), and then deleted that lengthy paragraph because you probably just want to get on with it. Enjoy — there’s plenty of temptation below.

The Times and Sunday Times

The Sunday Times Magazine was packed with food, with recipes from Rohit Ghai, the chef behind Mayfair restaurants Jamavar and Bombay Bustle, catching the eye. They err towards the classic restaurant-chef-recipes-adapted-for-a-promo-piece (i.e. more effort than most home cooks want to go to). But they also look, to me at least, to be ones that’ll be very rewarding should you try them.  A seafood pilau is the easiest of them — marinade the seafood, fry off some onions, add the fishy bits and rice and cook until the rice is fluffed; a yoghurt basted roast chicken and kachumber salad looks dramatic and finger-licking (lots of ingredients, not difficult); and best of the lot, I’d wager, is the a misal pao — spiced sprouted lentil stew, to be scooped up with plain white enriched buns.

Marcus Wareing’s latest book also got a bit of coverage. Steely chef softening round the edges what I really cook at home la la la. Fig and ginger cheesecake the best of extracted recipes, IMO.

The day before, Paul Hollywood was doing that weird ducking down and staring at the camera thing (doesn’t it hurt your neck?). Also some baked goods. In the same Times Magazine, Nadiya provided readers with a recipe for soft stem ginger biscuits. “The trick is to bake them for exactly 17 minutes … I’ve tested this recipe loads of times.“*

[*her oven may be calibrated to a different temperature to yours, unclear whether baked in the top, middle or bottom of the oven, shares can go down as well as up.]

Probably (definitely) more interesting than the bakes were a handful of ‘quick Thai’ recipes in the Saturday Times’ Weekend section. I particularly liked the look of a hot and sour orange curry with grilled curry and lime, also kaffir lime and lemongrass prawns.

The Financial Times

Rowley Leigh’s suggested a parsley and smoked mackerel risotto. Quite nice. My scrolling and clicking finger kept getting drawn down the Food & Drink page, though, to Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer’s recipe for Nutella-filled hazelnut and orange cookies. Mmmm hmmm.

The Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph

Diana Henry’s Sunday Telegraph Stella recipes were on a minimal effort, one pot bake/roast vibe. I liked the look of roast chicken and cauliflower with nduja very much indeed, and perhaps the baked sausages, apples and blackberries even more so. Heed her words about choosing the right sized dish.

Stephen Harris suggested Saturday’s readers cook up a (rather smart) roast pumpkin soup made silky and the sweetness taken out of it a bit thanks to scalded milk. The process and recipe are reading into. I also think you should check out his coffee parfait with Earl Grey granita, which looks cracking. Even though he makes it with (shock horror) instant coffee.

Also on The Telegraph’s website (not sure if was a Saturday or Sunday thing) is feature on the excellent Anglesey-based salt makers, Halen Môn, which includes three rather tempting recipes: for quick pickled fennel with bay and lemon; smoked water, stilton, squash and thyme galette, and blackberry and sage pavlova with salted caramel sauce.

And Flora Shedden’s baking recipes cover chocolate cookies, seeded soda bread and a blood orange, curd and meringue cake — the latter looking and sounding great, but you’ll need to bookmark and return when that particular citrus returns.

The Guardian and Observer

One thing I’ve missed by not doing this every week, is the opportunity to give Meera Sodha a whole load of praise for her new vegan column in the Guardian Weekend. So here goes: make sure you read/click on to this particular column every week, as it consistently suggests interesting and sometimes surprising ways to make vegetables sing. Saturday’s recipe was no exception, courtesy of a chard, chickpea and tomato stew (so far, so so), thickened with a paste made from sunflower seeds (oh yeah?) and topped with polenta dumplings (lovely job).

I’ve also missed pointing to Jeremy Lee’s delectable desserts — his grandmother’s steamed apple and suet Brigade pudding surely essential to test over the next few weeks. And to Anna Jones, too. Her gruyere and pumpkin galette style pie last week looked so good, ditto autumnal barbecue celeriac steaks with salsa verde this week. Incidentally, have you bought her latest cookbook, A Modern Cook’s Year? It’s a belter.

Wow, you’ve made it this far and are still pondering which link to click on first? Go with Rachel Roddy’s fish polpette (balls) in tomato sauce, published, like Jeremy and Anna, in the Guardian’s Cook supplement. For the recipe of course, but also (particularly) for the prose. Such a joy to read.

Actually, I insist you also click on this link too — which will take you to Yotam Ottolenghi’s lasagnes from last week. Shit the bed, they’re good (you can borrow that turn of phrase, Rachel).

On which note (the Ottolenghi bit, not the soiling the sheets bit), Yotam’s latest column was on a side dish theme. He kindly name dropped this very Supplemental feature and On the Side, and backed up all that I think true of good sides, by providing recipes for three dishes that could accompany a bunch of different things, inspire entire meals, or even be the centrepiece, if they fancied. His cauliflower cheese looks very strong (whole cauliflower(s) poached in milk, then a béchamel emboldened with cheddar, emmental and stilton, and embellished with walnuts and tarragon. Yep.) And I wouldn’t say no to either whole roast celeriac (2-3 hours in the cooking), or carrots and leeks cooked slowly in a citrus infused stock, then scattered with fresh herbs and goat’s cheese.

Tommi Miers’ recipe was for clams with linguine (cherry toms, fennel seeds etc), with a pistachio and mint gremolata twist.

And finally from the papers, we know from Sunday’s Observer that Nigel Slater’s Bonfire Night supper was a sausage bake, bolstered by a few cans of haricot beans and a smear of harissa, and partnered with boiled then baked beetroot slicked with yoghurt and seeds. And a jacket potato, of course. Always on the money, that man.

The internet

Very jealous of Helen Graves’ for thinking of Quince and Scotch Bonnet hot sauce, over on her site Food Stories.

And I am keen on Melissa Clark’s black bean chorizo and pickled onion casserole in the New York Times. which is not like a casserole in the British sense, because the casserole/stew part is layered with tortillas and cheese. So if you’re a fan of lasagne AND lasagne, then this is the one.

---

Weekend Menu, 4 and 5 November 2017

—

Carrots and leeks, Turkish style

Yotam Ottolenghi, The Guardian Weekend

—

Smoked water, squash, stilton and thyme galette

Halen Môn, The Telegraph

—

Coffee parfait and Earl Grey granita

Stephen Harris, The Telegraph

—

For a nudge whenever #Supplemental is published, plus a monthly email with general foodie news, subscribe to the Rocket & Squash newsletter through the email link at the base of this post.