It’s a great British tradition to publicly moan about the quantity of post Christmas Day leftovers, whilst privately relishing the cold cuts sandwiches and turkey curries/pies/terrines we get to consume. If you needed (still need?) ideas for your turkey scraps, there were a few recipes in the papers on Friday and Saturday.
The leftovers
Best of the bunch, I felt, was Xanthe Clay’s parsley, turkey and ham terrine in The Telegraph. Classy. I also thought Vivek Singh’s curry and Anjum Anand’s turkey and greens thoran tempting.
My guess is that Thomasina Miers’ braised Jerusalem artichokes with turkey, lardons and green sauce will be delicious. In fact, I’d have given this a go, if there’d been any fartichokes to hand. She also set out a method for a ‘Sichuan’ bang bang turkey salad on the same page. Grapefruit, mint, coriander, just a tiny bit of chilli … it bears no resemblance to the flavour profile of any of the food I ate in Chengdu a month or so ago. Geography apart, it sounds nice enough.
New Year
Most of the food writers were looking forward, rather than at leftovers. Indeed, a solid handful based their columns on New Year’s Eve festivities.
Mark Hix provided some relatively interesting canapé ideas in Saturday’s Independent. I love the idea of pani puri with duck livers, but also know they’ll be a right fiddle to put together for a large number of guests. Crab tartlets and stilton cigars should be crowd pleasers though.
Gizzi Erskine also suggested some canapés in The Sunday Times magazine. Her individual rosti as a base for smoked salmon make a welcome change from blinis and oat cakes, and mini duck Wellingtons look a fun idea for those of us who look for a challenge. But, actually, I liked her mince pie straws the most – good to get some sweet treats in the party snack mix.
Loads of canapés in Saturday’s Times too. I only really loved the lemongrass fishcake skewers.
Tom Kerridge proposed a New Year’s Eve meal of sorts in the Financial Times. A whisky and rye rum kinda baba was the best of it.
In fact, for each stage of your impending Wednesday night dinner party, I suggest you look, instead, to Diana Henry’s Sunday Telegraph menu of seared scallops and roast Jerusalem artichokes; fillet of beef with anchovy butter and celeriac; and baked pears with lemon, bay and Marsala. Vegans aside, who wouldn’t be happy to be served that?
New diet?
Of course new year means new diet for many.
There were hints at what’s likely to come over the next few weeks, with ‘fresh, healthy breakfasts’ from Bill Granger in Sunday’s Independent. Nothing surprising, but all tasty and wholesome: avocado on toast (natch) and spiced roast tomatoes, smoothies, a citrus salad with coconut yoghurt and ‘five grain porridge’ made with almond milk and various other virtuous things.
Yotam Ottolenghi’s introduction to black quinoa recipes was spot on. You could tell he’s frustrated by (what I term) the business of bullshit that surrounds so-called ‘healthy eating’ at the moment. We’re in a period of faddish, photo style over food substance dross, largely served up by vapid proponents of a superficial lifestyle. For what it’s worth, ‘everything in moderation’ and ‘avoid dodgy chemicals’ are the only mantra you really need.
The Hemsley sisters are resident columnists in The Guardian’s ‘Cook’ supplement for the next three weeks. Their first installment featured something that’s, like, so delicious and amazing called ‘bone broth’. Or stock, as it’s known elsewhere.
New Voices (and some old favourites)
One of the things I’ve enjoyed the most whilst doing this #Supplemental thing, is seeing a new wave of talent emerge.
The Sunday Times must think the same, as all three of their ‘Food Books of the Year’ were written by fresh faces. They reckon (and I agree) that you should keep your eyes peeled for recipes from Sabrina Ghayour’s Persiana, Anna Jones’ veg centric A Modern Way to Eat, and Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovic Honey & Co. The piece featured recipes from each of those books.
Ruby Tandoh’s baking column in Cook seems to get better and better. She pens tempting recipes and can really write. This week: croissants and pikelets.
Indeed, Cook is often the place where the less known get a bit of exposure. This week, the ace Uyen Luu and Olia Hercules stood shoulder to shoulder with mighty onion recipes from Hoppy, Diana Henry, Michel Roux Jr, and April Bloomfield. I think this was probably my favourite recipe column of the weekend.
That said, I can’t finish the last Supplemental of 2014 without noting the contribution of the King of weekend recipes, Nigel Slater. In Sunday’s Observer, he rocked crumpets. Ham and cheese topped, and mincemeat filled ones. Lovely.
One more thing
No recipes at all in The Times magazine this weekend. Not even the magnificent and all conquering ‘Only Four Recipes’ feature. Seems that department had been given Christmas off. Too right – they’ve had a hell of a year.
Supplemental Cooking
Yeah, we cooked suet pastry topped leftover pies and things like that, but nothing from the papers. So, instead, the picture at the top is one of my favourite images from a recent Hong Kong trip. I see a lot of cured meat these days, but no whole dried ducks.
Weekend Menu, 27 and 28 December 2014
—
Dhal with crispy sweet potato and coconut chutney
Anna Jones, The Sunday Times
—
Harissa lamb with spiced mash and cinnamon onions
Diana Henry, The Guardian ‘Cook’
—
[and nothing for pud, cos I had Nigel Slater’s mincemeat crumpets for tea]
—
There’s a fortnightly newsletter for the blog, which brings together the latest posts on Rocket and Squash and a few other things from elsewhere that you might find interesting. It’s published every other Tuesday. If you’re not already an email subscriber, look down and to the right a bit and fill in your details.
Comments