Did you miss the recipes this weekend? Chill: they’re digested here. For veggie burgers, rice, noodles and lots of sweet things, read on.
The Times and Sunday Times
It was a very pleasant surprise to see that the ‘Five Vegetarian burger recipes (that meat eaters will love too)’ in Saturday’s Times Weekend supplement were not an untimely leftover from the Wellness fad, but from Swedish chef Martin Nordin’s book Green Burgers. Martin’s someone I’ve followed from pretty much the word go on instagram. His food, which is sometimes vegetarian, sometimes not, always looks incredible (in a ‘this looks like it will also taste incredible’ way). Occasionally they’re burgers, and it’s an excellent thing this book’s been translated into English. Take a look at The Times if you’ve a subscription, or buy the book if not (it’s only a tenner). Fried, crisp Jerusalem artichokes with herb oil; roasted celeriac, chanterelles and herb cream; pepper, roast onion and chickpea patties with cucumber ribbon relish. Refreshingly, some take a bit of effort, but they’ll be worth it, I’d wager.
The glossy magazine included a handful of Donna Hay’s favourite chocolate cakes. I quite like the look of banana and dulce de leche cake with dark chocolate ganache.
One of at least two books out this month on the food of Venice is by Skye McAlpine. The Sunday Times Magazine extracted a handful of sweet pastry recipes, including an apple, honey and walnut breakfast cake — which missed the instruction . Also orange, chocolate and ricotta cheesecake tart, apricot biscuits and apricot jam puff pastry twists. All look good, particularly that ricotta jobby. Though, surely a true Italian instruction would have been ‘serve with an espresso and a pack of cigarettes’.
The Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph
Last week, but only recently online, Diana Henry proposed three ways in which Sunday Telegraph readers could rhubarb can be used as a condiment. There’s barely cooked and lightly pickled rhubarb to go with roast chicken (so often paired with mackerel or pork, this is one to try); shaved and soused strips to go with salmon; and a rhubarb, grapefruit, ginger and mint compote that’ll be at one with yoghurt or ice cream (so either breakfast or pudding). She followed the ‘barb this week with three ‘arroces’ (not paellas) — with chicken and chorizo; fish; and lamb. Loved the significant blob of alioli served with the fishy option.
Stephen Harris thinks new Nordic has had it’s day and chefs are returning to the classics. He may well be right. His point was really to emphasise that tried and tested and much repeated matches are often best, and therefore underpin his decision to suggest that this week Telegraph readers enjoy chocolate and orange together. Or, more specifically, a clementine and chocolate polenta cake.
Rose Prince heralded the coming of spring with a new season’s menu of turmeric battered haddock with a spinach, yoghurt and ginger purée (‘fresh chutney’), chicken braised with raisins, lemon, almonds and ginger, and chocolate ganache cake with a tangy sauce made from dried apricots.
And The Telegraph also has a round up online of recipes that remind their writers of their mothers. Stephen Harris’ Eve’s pudding caught my eye.
The FT Weekend
The Honey & Co duo suggested readers cook up a potato and cumin hash and add a poached egg. Rather simple, you might think, though their main flourish or twist is to use argan oil as a key flavouring. This Moroccan oil has a distinct taste, which they describe as “earthy and warm … a rich, exotic nuttiness“. They also mention “getting argan oil can be as difficult and expensive as obtaining contraband“. Before you complain to the paper that this is indeed the case, and therefore the recipe redundant, I recommend Arganic, which you can get from Marks & Spencer, or direct.
The Guardian and Observer
Noooooooodles over at Feast. Yotam provided recipes for mushroom and peanut laab served vermicelli rice noodles and a tangy, sour dressing; udon noodles with prawn and orange nam jim; and a fairly out there spaghetti seaweed and cucumber ensemble. There was more Thai-ish through Meera Sodha’s tofu and broccoli pad thai; Anna Jones added soba (link to follow later today); and one of my faves, Uyen Luu, provided six ways with pho (NB hers is the very best — and in My Vietnamese Kitchen she’s a little more space to explain the nuances).
Also in there, spaghetti puttanesca by Rachel Roddy, mujadara with chicken livers from Rachel Roddy, and Rosie Birkett’s peanut butter and PSB noodles to add to her snappy quick fire lunch ideas. Look out for Rachel and Tommi’s pieces when they go online later in the week.
Some interesting Italian (and Italian-ish) seafood dishes from Joe Trivelli in the Observer Magazine. I liked most the idea of smoked cod’s roe spaghetti — garlic infused oil, a little dried chilli, parsley, smoked cod’s roe and plenty of pasta water — and an ensemble of mashed chickpeas, brown shrimps and chicoria — the latter vegetable probably testing most readers as something fairly impossible to get hold of in the UK. Use the outer leaves of puntarelle if that’s available to you. Or, I dunno, green cabbage?
From the internet
Because I missed a hard copy of The Guardian’s Feast this weekend, I was short on prose from Rachel Roddy so clicked over to her blog … and was immediately taken with the idea of going on one of her language of food courses in Sicily this year. Sharpen up the prose, spend time reading, chat with shepherds, drink vino. Bliss.
Can’t go wrong with a blood orange in my book. They’re here for about a month more, so take adavantage — perhaps work your way through Melissa Clarke’s recipes for the New York Times: Moroccan carrot and blood orange salad; fish roast with blood orange; and a blood orange upside down cake. So yes, blood oranges.
And, finally, I’ve had a few recipes on Food52 recently. Polenta squares and cavolo nero are sides from my book, but this ‘all the cauliflower’ pasta bake is new and, dare I say it, good.
Weekend Menu, 10 and 11 March 2018
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Chickpeas, shrimp and chicoria
Joe Trivelli, The Observer
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Arroz a banda
Diana Henry, The Sunday Telegraph ‘Stella’
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Orange, chocolate and ricotta tart
Skye McAlpine, The Sunday Times
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