Winter tabbouleh recipe, via Moro and me

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Louise

Living in N7 can be a mixed blessing. You can, for example, buy the above haul of vegetables for less than £9. However, you may have to dodge the people shopping in wet pink slippers to do so.

But I love that pomegranates (2 for £1), white curly kale (£1.49) and Savoy cabbage (65p) are available for everyone, not just the likes of me. Vegetables here are cheap, whether British, Turkish or Cypriot, and it makes cooking and recipe planning a real delight. There are very few things I can’t buy within a five-minute walk.

Having said that, there is nothing I like less than a recipe that has heaps of impossible-to-find or essential ingredients. First, I can’t blog about something that requires jaguars’ earlobes since no one else will be able to buy them; second, I want the recipe to be forgiving enough not to be useless without something or other. Okay, that last bit within reason, obviously, but I still think it’s much more important to be able to get the gist of a flavour and technique rather than the exact effect. For a start you’re less hung up on getting it right.

So, for example, although I started craving this Moro winter tabbouleh last week, I wasn’t stupid enough to think I would be able to recreate it exactly. I just wanted that raw cauliflower (bear with me…), pomegranate and herb combination, a sense that winter isn’t all greens and potatoes. Or doesn’t have to be. And once I decided to make it, there it was, one Google search later. God I love the internet.

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HFW’s Mexican chorizo: a dream storecupboard ingredient

Posted on January 13, 2014 by Louise

Once upon a time chorizo came cured and in slices. It was something you had on toast for a tapa and struggled to pronounce.

Then, a few years ago, a new form of chorizo appeared on our shores: a cooking chorizo, more of a sausage than a saucisson. However, this version is still, long after its popularity has spread in restaurant and recipe terms, quite difficult to get hold of and expensive. The best supplier in London is usually Brindisa or a posh deli and you won’t find either of those in N7.

So, when yet another clever person called Sarah, a Californian who knows lots of very interesting things about food, told me to look up Mexican chorizo, I did as I was told. Basically it is ground pork mixed with spices which not only stores well but is a brilliant, cheap and, most importantly, easily homemade version of cooking chorizo. And, of course, I then remembered that I already had a recipe for it in the brilliant River Cottage Everyday. This, I tell you, will be in my fridge every day from now on; it is genius.

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Posted in One pot, RIver Cottage Everyday, Storecupboard essentials, Tips you won't want to live without, Wheat-free | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Tartiflette: the après without the ski

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Louise

At this time of year lots of very smug-looking people get on the Piccadilly Line with huge great long bags, full of their own skis (no ‘renting’ them for the ‘pros’), and for a nanosecond I dream of snow, blue skies and dressing like a Michelin man. Then I remember that the only time the XBF and I went skiing, he got flu on day one and then I did. It was the most expensive week I’ve ever spent in bed. Also, for the one brief moment when one of us wasn’t ill, and I went for a skiing lesson, I have never felt more patronised by a Frenchman (and, having lived in France several times, I have been subjected to all levels of Patronising, from 101 up to a PhD). And, really, if the likes of Michael Schumacher, poor sod, exceptional athletes and Germans (you know, who live in countries with mountains that you can ski down), fall over, then what chance have the rest of us got?

However, there is something rather gorgeous about being in the snowy cold then going into a warm, wooden chalet and eating an awful lot of hot melted cheese. The ‘après’, as far as I’m concerned, is much more fun than the ‘ski’. We fed our flu, once we could stand, with plenty of alpine treasures: fondue, raclette and this, tartiflette. Kilograms of potatoes, smoked bacon, cream and cheese, all designed to cover your body in a layer of cold-repelling fat. Absolutely divine. And, wouldn’t you know it, so easy to make that you really don’t need to get on the tube, lugging layer after layer of goose down and several thick pairs of socks onto a crowded flight to spend a week falling over at the feet of a sniggering Frenchman; you can simply make this at home and feel much less exhausted but just as happy.

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A New Year’s brunch: Ottolenghi’s shakshuka

Posted on December 31, 2013 by Louise

When I was a teenager there was one recurrent theme about Christmas: even though the house was full of snacks and free booze, by December 27th I was desperate, frantic even, to get out of the house and pay to drink alcohol and eat snacks somewhere else, with my friends. Even though it made no sense whatsoever to go and spend what little money we had on stuff that was already freely available to us, I just needed to mark a separation, a sense of my own self. These days, even though I no longer have that need to escape, and I love most of Christmas, I still, after days and weeks of parties and carols and delicious roasted food, feel that residual need for some kind of difference. And, nowadays, I find it in food. I want something far removed from fat and carbs, something spicy and fresh, something very un-English.

This shakshuka, for example, which is technically a breakfast dish, but would work for dinner too, fits all my requirements in the dog days between Christmas and New Year: carb- and wheat-free, unfussy unless, like me, you decide to make your own labneh (a sort of strained yogurt cheese; believe me it tastes nicer than it sounds), spicy, one-pot, storecupboard-friendly and, like all the best recipes from a restauranteur, it is simple enough to recreate without any special equipment or ingredients. Continue reading →

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A Christmas cocktail: chocolate black velvet

Posted on December 14, 2013 by Louise

I bought myself a few cookery books in the States because, you know, there’s always room for one or two more. And I bought Mast Brothers Chocolate on the strength of two things: the absolutely beautiful photography and text design (probably some of the best I’ve ever seen; you can see some of it on the Amazon US site here) and this cocktail recipe. I so wish I could recreate the photograph for you but you’ll just have to buy the book won’t you (p. 246).

I rarely make cocktails at home, bar mixing the odd Little Bird gin and tonic, or a champagne (okay, cava) cocktail with sloe gin, mainly because I don’t have either the energy or the expertise. But this, even I can make this since you don’t need any special equipment, and most of the ingredients, except the bitters, will be available in a supermarket. And it is incredible: not too sweet, not too faffy, just interesting enough to make you want more but not so interesting that you need a degree in mixology (or whatever it’s called) to perfect one. Simple, gorgeous and celebratory…every Christmas should be so lucky. What are you waiting for? Go and make some! Continue reading →

Posted in Cocktail recipes, Drinks recipes | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

An inspired cauliflower ‘steak’

Posted on December 9, 2013 by Louise

Cauliflower is not exactly the sexiest or trendiest of vegetables. Every gastropub worth their coarse sea salt has kale, celeriac and, ugh, beetroot on its menu but the humble cauli is not yet that popular. Personally, I love the way it looks and tastes, both raw and cooked, and since I am on a bit of a vegetable odyssey and cauliflower is a) in season all year round and b) very versatile, I have been cooking with it a lot recently. And this recipe is the one that started me off.

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Nigella’s chestnut and pancetta salad with kale

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Louise

I am not one for defending celebs, nor do I care what they get up to in their private lives, but the current media circus around Nigella Lawson, and the fact that she has taken drugs is quite something. Especially since she is, erm, probably far from being the only celeb cook, or media commentator, to have done so. I mean Anthony Bourdain made a killing out of his revelations in Kitchen Confidential. But then he’s a man isn’t he, so it’s not quite such a big deal…did I say that? Yep. So, since I was planning to write a post about this dish anyway, I thought I’d do it with that furore going on in the background just to remind us that Nigella is a very very talented cook and food writer. Continue reading →

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Roquefort, walnut and raisin bread

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Louise

This is a very selfish post. I made this bread yesterday and, despite the fact that it’s not dinner, or a meal, or anything you’re likely to make after work, I am still blogging about it because I want the recipe at my fingertips next week, when I shall be in the snowy wilds of Michigan. And what more could you want, when it’s freezing outside and everyone else is talking about turkey and pumpkin pie, but a French savoury ‘cake’ recipe. Continue reading →

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Throw-in-the-oven Ottolenghi chicken (no, not an oxymoron)

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Louise

Whenever I rave about Ottolenghi, someone always says, without fail, ‘oh I can’t be bothered; he uses too many ingredients’. In the last week alone the mention of his name to a) a real foodie and b) someone not that bothered about what they eat has elicited exactly that response. Even the man himself is aware of the detractors as his comment in the intro to this recipe makes clear. I completely get that not everyone is happy to trust their own instincts with a recipe; I myself am definitely in the ‘slavish follower of recipe’ camp, at least I am the first time I make something. But, particularly with Ottolenghi, my response to the complaint about his attachment to a long shopping list is always ‘well leave some out then’. Continue reading →

Posted in Chicken recipes, One pot, The Guardian, Wheat-free, Yotam Ottolenghi | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A winter salad for a sunny day

Posted on November 15, 2013 by Louise

I am a little bit obsessed with vegetables at the moment, so forgive me for another flesh-free post. It’s all the lovely Sarah’s fault. She’s a vegetarian, a real vegetarian (rather than the ones who are actually ‘pescatarians’), and during the summer we went for lunch a) for the sheer pleasure of it and b) to talk about, ahem, my new business venture (more of that another day). And, despite the fact we went to a good gastropub, with interesting ideas for the omnivores amongst us, the non-flesh choices were lacklustre to say the least: some pasta dish and risotto (both the easiest and cheapest of vegetarian options). Which got us started on how, despite the fact that we keep being told to eat more vegetables, despite the likes of HFW’s veg book and Ottolenghi’s transformative writing and despite Bruno Loubet schmanzying up vegetables at the GrainStore, restaurant offerings for the non-omnivores are dismal. Continue reading →

Posted in Cheese recipes, Gluten-free, One pot, Salad recipes, Vegetarian recipes, Wheat-free | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment