Soooooo, January appeared to have the staying power of an adolescent mosquito. February, it’s good to see you plan to hang around for more than 28 days this year.
The recipes from this weekend’s broadsheets follow. From left to right.
The Guardian and Observer
Saturday readers received a bumper edition of the Guardian ‘Cook’ supplement, which included much on the subject of cooking on a budget.
Here’s a link to it all. Note, in particular: Joanna Blythman on thrifty shopping; and a selection of recipes by Cook regulars, all of which cost “no more than £2 per person” (seek out Meera Sodha’s egg, coconut and tamarind curry; Anna Tobias’ Sicilian sardines; and Olia Hercules’ chicken, chickpea and saffron stew).
Also in Cook, both of Claire Ptak’s rhubarb recipes tempted (turnover and cobbler); Nicholas Balfe’s pot roast red cabbage with yoghurt and spices intrigued; and Rachel Roddy’s Roman rice and spinach cake was a new one on me (shame, though, that the recipe wasn’t fully alliterative. Perhaps borrow some of Claire’s rhubarb next time, Rachel?).
Thomasina Miers cooked with flower sprouts in the Weekend magazine – including them in an anchovy, chilli and pine nut pasta dish. Sensible. (If you’re on the lookout for these kale-sprout hybrids, Waitrose is your friend for a week or two more).
A few pages earlier, Yotam Ottolenghi did his bit to right some wrongs. Apparently 41% of us have a pot of tahini in the fridge. He didn’t say it, but yes, for most of us that jar is 3/4 full, it has been for 14 months, and it is his fault. We accept your apologies, Yotam, and are brainwashed into agreeing convinced, for at least a couple months more, that there are “few limits as to what you can do with tahini”. Possibilities include 3 chilli (and tahini) halibut; sprouts with burnt butter, black garlic, caraway (and tahini); roast cauli, chickpeas (and tahini). It’s OK to just scrape the mould off the top, right?
Take a box of matches to burn if you’re on your way to Nigel Slater’s house. He’s been cooking Jerusalem artichokes for the Observer. Creamed artichoke, fried garlic and chard looks particularly good.
The Independent and Independent on Sunday
The Independent on Sunday presented their newest guest chef – food writer, editor and recipe tester for the stars, Deborah Robertson. In turn, she gave us a smartly written piece about real, everyday cooking. You know, when you’re knackered. Loved the sausage meat-balls and purple sprouting pasta dish – a proper weeknight supper dish.
Mark Hix promoted brassicas in a very Mark Hix style to Saturday readers: Cabbage stuffed with game; an umami packed deep fried kale and deep fried, blitzed prawn head snack; and flower sprouts with duck hearts. That deep fried kale and shrimp will be so more-ish.
The Times and Sunday Times
It was one of those weird weeks when The Times‘ Saturday magazine actually provided some strong recipes. Not sure what went wrong, but anyway, Donna Hay’s lasagnes all appear to be crowd pleasers: chorizo, meatballs, ricotta and oregano; pork and courgette; cauliflower; pumpkin, sage and burnt butter; chicken and mixed shroom.
Really good to see some Chinese New Year recipes from Erchen Chang in The Sunday Times. Partly because she’s one of the Bao crew. But mostly because she presented 5 very doable, humble but no doubt delicious recipes that’d be good to have a go at next Sunday (the day before CNY). I’m interested, in particular, in the salt baked prawns, the soy and Shaoxing wine braised chicken, and soy cured egg yolk and crispy shallot fried rice.
Also, get all nostalgic on a school night with Jamie Oliver’s homemade alphabet pasta tomato soup.
The Financial Times
Fuchsia Dunlop’s pheasant and pork belly jiaozi dumplings in the FT Weekend were ace (n.b. the pay wall for this piece was down, last time I checked). I’ve made a number of different game dumplings over the last few months and can highly recommend, though I’m glad to now have her pastry and folding instructions.
One thing, though: shooting season finishes today, the 1st of Feb, so this is the last week you’ll be able to pick up fresh fez until October.
[There’s a CNY jiaozi how-to on the Telegraph’s webpages too.]
The Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph
Diana Henry added a lasagne to Donna Hay’s mix – squash, fennel and Taleggio. Nice. This was part of a piece in Sunday’s ‘Stella’ magazine on non-trad-roast Sunday feasting. Get involved with the stuffed, rolled, Balinese roast pork belly and sweet sour salad – what a great alternative.
Rhubarb vodka with geranium, anyone? Such a relief to see this – I’d been wondering what to do an excess of cranesbills sitting in my fridge drawer…. Recipe via a Danish chap called Mikkel. Who also suggested a fine baked pumpkin, smoked fish and Jchoke salad.
Shrove Tuesday is coming up. So here’s Xanthe Clay on pancakes.
From t’internet
Niamh Shields’ kimchi and pork belly jjigae on her eatlikeagirl.com website would be perfect on a wet and windy February day.
#Supplemental cooking
I worked my way through Saturday’s Cook mag whilst chowing down on some flower sprouts in an anchovy, lemon and chilli butter, plus an egg and toast. And was pleased to see that tenuously linked to Thomasina Miers’ and Mark Hix’s columns, so didn’t need to go out of my way to cook something else.
Had I had people coming round, Claire Ptak’s rhubarb recipes, Diana Henry’s Sunday feasting or a Donna Hay lasagne would probably have come into play.
Weekend Menu, 30 and 31 January 2016
Deep fried kale and shrimp
Mark Hix, The Independent
and
Pheasant and pork belly jiaozi
Fuchsia Dunlop, The FT Weekend
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Balinese rolled pork belly with sweet sour salad
Diana Henry, The Sunday Telegraph ‘Stella’
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Orange blossom and yoghurt sundaes with lime curd and baby meringues
Thomasina Miers, The Guardian
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