In bullet form this week. However it’s worth, at the outset, to note the sad news about The Independent and the Independent on Sunday – which will cease to exist in print on 26 and 20 March respectively.
Over the past two years of doing this, The Independent and, in particular, the IoS’s magazines have stood out thanks to their considered design, quality photography and, of course, tempting recipes. Whilst the medium of weekend supplements is cluttered – in quantity, content and aesthetic – the Indy’s titles have been a refreshingly concise, near mindful read. For the most part Mark Hix and Bill Granger have been the chefs behind the dishes, though in recent months the IoS have been featuring guest chefs and cookery writers in 4 week slots – I’m very proud to have been one of them.
The titles have provided a platform for key names in food writing, not least Michael Bateman, Giles Coren, Jason Lowe and Simon Hopkinson (whose book Week In, Week Out collates many of his columns and is among the best and most thumbed on my shelves), and whilst we’re told The Independent will continue online, it’s clearly the end of an era.
The web is where we are at; I’m not going to tell you its evil. But well designed, tactile, print publications have their own qualities. And we do have to pay for content.
- Ottolenghi focused on eggs in his Guardian magazine column this week. Hard to look beyond the baked eggs with leeks and za’atar. Oooeuf.
- Love the look of Thomasina Miers’ rhubarb upside down cake and also the chicken and chicory with shezza.
- Good to see Jordan Bourke, Olia Hercules and Nieves Barragan providing recipes in an Observer food for 2 piece. All with dishes you’ve probably not cooked before.
- Nigel Slater picked up the cauliflower baton. Check out the spiced, roast, whole cauli. Oh my.
- Ten garlicky dishes by Jenny Linford in Saturday’s Times.
- A Sunday Times magazine facelift didn’t extend to its unwieldy website and flawed app … but the recipes were good. Florence Knight’s brunch dishes included poached eggs and braised leeks, and chestnut pancakes for your bacon and syrup; and Jamie made a ‘Southend chowder’.
- Saturday’s Independent featured a variety of game recipes from Mark Hix. The season’s over, but perhaps you’ve got a freezer full(?).
- Deborah Robertson’s IoS column was an ode to French home cooking. I really liked the millas aux pruneaux.
- On the prune theme, Claire Thomson’s four recipes in Cook were ace, including: a prune, thyme and shallot tatin; prune and anise brownies; and a helluva pork and prune stew.
- I was intrigued by a bundt cake made from kamut flour in Claire Ptak’s Cook column. “Reminiscent of a steamed pudding”.
- Eve O’Sullivan signed off from the role as Cook readers’ recipe tester – with cake.
- Rachel Roddy continued her (Roman) kitchen sink tales with a pasta and chickpea broth.
- Classy stuff from Rowley Leigh in the FT: steamed brill with romanesco, and roast pineapple with pain perdu.
- You’ve always wanted to know what James Martin would cook on Valentine’s Day, haven’t you? The Telegraph hosted a set of his recipes on that theme.
- On Saturday, Stephen Harris advocated blasting purple sprouting in the microwave, and serving it with a blood orange hollandaise.
- In the Sunday Telegraph Stella magazine, Diana Henry showed readers how to pimp their food: picada; pangrattato; cumin salt.
Weekend Menu, 13 and 14 February 2016
Prune, thyme and shallot tatin
Claire Thomson, The Guardian ‘Cook’
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Cauliflower with pistachio satsivi, crispy shallots and pomegranate
Olia Hercules, The Observer
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Roast pineapple and pain perdu
Rowley Leigh, The FT Weekend
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