Supplemental #34

Before we get cracking with the recipe round-up, I thought I’d note two weekend articles I read.

Well, actually, I started reading one in The Independent on Sunday about using chemicals instead of ingredients, but got a little depressed and then zoned out. But the other I read in full: a really great piece on modern British farmers in The Guardian Magazine. Do have a look.

Pears

Lots of pears this weekend.

Rowley Leigh cooked up a peppered rack of venison, pears poached with cinnamon and a redcurrant jelly sauce in the FT Weekend.

Trine Hahnemann covered Nigel Slater’s spot again with a selection of Scandi baking goodies. I really liked the look of a marzipan, pear and walnut tart. Also her spelt focaccia.

It was vintage Hix in The Independent. He rocked a pear theme, with roast mallard and pears cooked in porter, an excellent looking pear puff pastry tart – the fruit sitting on a layer of blackberry jam – and a simple pear and cardamom chutney.

Nice set

There were some decent recipes ‘sets’ too.

The range of recipes under Cook’s ‘peppery’ theme was pretty wide. But good, I thought. Luke Robinson’s was the most tempting – black pepper coated monkfish with leeks, yoghurt and an intriguing sauce of soy, honey, balsamic, tomato puree, ginger, cream and beef stock. Hearty.

Yotam Ottolenghi’s column was tenuously linked to ‘aged’ vegetables. I rather wish I’d tried the four hour miso braised white cabbage and love the idea of a potato and goat cheese quiche thing – where the potato is baked in wine and miso until all that flavour’s absorbed.

The recipes in Thomasina’s Guardian column were eclectic again – crab linguine and chicken thighs with girolles, sherry and chickpeas. Tempting, mind.

In the Independent on Sunday, Bill Granger’s recipes were more obviously connected – a Sunday dim sum menu, to be served with bok choy and pickled cucumbers. Nice selection: black bean and chilli pork spare ribs, minced lamb pot stickers, prawn dumplings.

And some good seasonal salad ideas from Stevie Parle in Saturday’s Telegraph: roasted squash with cobnuts and ricotta, roasted cauliflower with chickpeas, anchovy and garlic yoghurt, and an autumn panzanella – sprouts, radicchio, chicory, thyme, sage, raisins and red wine vinegar. Add pancetta.

X is away

Gizzi Erskine was away. Her Sunday Times spot was filled by three Tom Kerridge recipes. I didn’t really think they were classic Kerridge. That said, I would expect the butter bean and bacon broth recipe to yield great results.

Still no sign of Diana Henry in The Sunday Telegraph’s Stella mag. Instead, there were three recipes from the Designer’s Guild staff café. Not much to write home about, though peach and nectarine on filo looks like an effective and quick dessert.

Take a seat for a second

Are you ready? …

Some of the recipes in Saturday’s Times seemed kinda good.

Yeah, I know.

In the T2 were four ‘one pot’ dishes from Ollie Dabbous, aimed at making his recipes more accessible and realistic for the home cook. Braised turbot with samphire and lemon verbena. Warm fig and honey cake. And a cabbage dish – more on which below.

Over in the Magazine, we were gifted eight new Madhur Jaffrey recipes. As is obligatory for this supplement, they were ‘easy’ and ‘for beginners’. But, still. Baby steps. I’d have a crack at green lentil curry with kale, mixed lentil dahl, whole red lentils with cumin and shallots … the lentil recipes, basically.

That’s all. You can stand up again now. Because the Only Four Recipes was reassuringly as per normal: four types of tomato sauces. Brilliant.

What’s that you say? Fresh chopped tomatoes with basil and garlic go well with pasta? Who ******* knew?

On t’internet

Best recipe I saw this week across the whole world wide web was Helen Graves’ cochinita pibil with pickled corn.

Supplemental Cooking

I woke up, saw the Dabbous savoy cabbage dish (cooked slowly in loads of butter, plus cider, honey, thyme, girroles, hazelnuts and lemon) and set about making it before I’d seen anything else. It was decent enough, but after eating more than half a cabbage I saw the Ottolenghi white cabbage braised in miso and felt a little sad I hadn’t made that instead.

NB: a. cooking savoy cabbage quarters on a stove top for twenty five minutes makes your house stink for about a day; and b. eating most of said cabbage before going to a private party in a small room is not something I’d do again.

Weekend Menu, 4 and 5 October 2014

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Roast cauliflower salad with anchovies and chickpeas

Stevie Parle, The Telegraph (Saturday)

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Black pepper monkfish with leeks and yoghurt

Luke Robinson, The Guardian ‘Cook’

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Pear and blackberry jam puff pastry tart

Mark Hix, The Independent (Saturday)

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