Tagliata or Steak, Rocket and Parmesan salad recipe

Posted on June 10, 2011 by Louise

Tagliata means ‘cut’ or ‘sliced’ in Italian and there are many variations on this recipe which, at its base, is a rare steak, sliced up and served with salad and a lemon, garlic and Parmesan dressing. Jill Dupleix creates a lamb version here, as does Frank Fariello on his blog, whereas the likes of Heston B and David Eyre stick to the classic steak version. What they all share is speed (I defy anyone to take more than 15 minutes to make this), lightness (it has no starch or wheat) and summer flavours. My version is based on Heston’s, because his is the first I tried, but like some of the commenters on his recipe, I have massively cut down on the oil and don’t use rosemary. However, his method of cooking a steak rare works every time; I highly recommend the 2½-minutes-in-total-turning-every-15-seconds system. And if you don’t like rare steak this probably isn’t for you since it’s key that the meat has the required juiciness. Continue reading →

Posted in Chefs, Cookery writers, David Eyre, David Eyre, Fast food fixes, Gluten-free, Heston Blumenthal, Jill Dupleix, Lamb recipes, One pot, Salad recipes, Summer recipes, Wheat-free | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Courgette and Tomato Tian recipe

Posted on June 9, 2011 by Louise

Courgettes and tomatoes are now in season and therefore cheap and this tian is a truly easy and delicious way to cook them both. Tian, as I mentioned last week, is the Provençal word for an earthenware dish and, if you don’t have anything ovenproof and earthenware, just use any ovenproof dish in which you can layer slices of courgette and tomato. As long as it’s something big enough for the slices and relatively shallow, it will work. The original recipe used red peppers as well as onions but I never have any in the kitchen so I left them out. It makes a great, low-impact dinner served with some plain roasted chicken legs: shove the chicken in the preheated oven with some salt and pepper, prep the tian and then bake it for twenty-five minutes then add the cheese and bake for a final ten minutes. By the time the tian goes in, the chicken will have been roasting for a good ten minutes so they should happily be ready at about the same time. The tian is happy to be served warm or reheated too. Continue reading →

Posted in Cookery writers, Elisabeth Luard, Fast food fixes, Gluten-free, One pot, Recipes from magazines and newspapers, Spring vegetable recipes, Summer recipes, The Guardian, Vegetarian recipes, Wheat-free | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Asparagus with fried capers: Rozanne Gold again

Posted on June 8, 2011 by Louise

Today’s post is a bit like last night’s dinner: short, fast and done in the gaps between everything else. I sing in a choir on a Tuesday night so I either a) eat a sandwich on the train home between the office and the rehearsal room, b) don’t eat at all or c) make sure I’m really organised, get out of work on time, go home before I go out and eat something there. C) very rarely happens and, even when it does, I don’t have time to do much. There’s toast, a sandwich (too reminiscent of lunch), a bowl of miso, a piece of cheese, a handful of nuts. Or all of the above combined. But if I want something that feels like I’ve actually eaten something vaguely meal-like, it usually involves a green vegetable and some bread. A bowl of salad, the dressing made by tipping olive oil and vinegar over the leaves without ceremony. A handful of raw broccoli dipped in some olive oil, or steamed and covered with bits of chopped-up anchovy, or chilli and garlic with a bit of oil. Or at this time of year as the season races to its conclusion, asparagus. This week I’m on a Rozanne Gold kick and so I tried her roasted asparagus with fried capers. It’s apparently the recipe that made her famous (at least in the US). Not sure I love it as much as yesterday’s chicken but it’s definitely interesting. And fast.

Rozanne Gold’s asparagus with fried capers (anglicised and adapted)

For one you will need
Cupboard (or things you may already have)
olive oil, a couple or so of tablespoons
sea salt and black pepper

Shopping list
asparagus (a standard bunch is about 200-250g which, if you’re having just that, should be enough for one)
capers, a tablespoon or so
some nice bread

How to
1. Heat the oven to 220°C/200°C fan/gas 6.
2. Prep the asparagus by snapping off the woody stems. If the capers are in brine, rinse them briefly in cold water and drain.
3. Put a tablespoon or two of olive oil into a shallow roasting tin and toss the asparagus in it. Season with some salt then roast in the oven for 10-15 minutes (mine took 12 but I have a notoriously over-enthusiastic oven).
4. When the asparagus looks nearly ready (you know, when you think to yourself ‘I’ll just leave it a minute or two longer’) then heat some more olive oil, a teaspoon or so, in a small frying pan and fry the capers for a couple of minutes over a relatively high heat until crispy.
5. Toss the cooked asparagus with the crispy capers, some salt and pepper and eat with some nice bread to mop up the olivey asparagusy capery sauce.

Posted in Asparagus recipes, Fast food fixes, Rozanne Gold, Spring vegetable recipes, Vegetarian recipes, Wheat-free | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Rozanne Gold’s Chicken with Crème Fraîche recipe

Posted on June 7, 2011 by Louise

Some friends came to dinner recently and they were a tad early…early enough for me to lose my last half hour and therefore for them to lose their dessert. As we sat around the table post the lamb tagine, I suddenly remembered a recipe, and a cookery writer, that I’d come across years ago when living in the US. Rozanne Gold is, as far as I can tell, not published over here (her name comes up on Bloomsbury’s website but there seems to be no information about the books) but in the States she has published several books, all based around the idea of using just three ingredients. The one I remembered on that almost dessert-free evening was strawberries roasted with a little butter and sugar. Continue reading →

Posted in Chicken recipes, Fast food fixes, Gluten-free, One pot, Summer recipes, Wheat-free | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Tomatoes with cream, basil and cheese

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Louise

Did I say summer was back? Well it’s not, not unless you count pouring rain as summer. I went to a barbecue on Saturday night and yesterday morning I was thinking of another: you know, salad, some grilled lamb, a long wait for the sun to set. Instead, I found myself digging out some socks and wondering what to cook indoors. Which is why I was in my corner shop, buying a couple of tomatoes to make some more chilli jam, and noticed that a 5kg box was selling for £2.50.

Since a kilo is currently about £2 I did something I never do: let myself be swayed by a food ‘bargain’. Living on my own, with very little space to store perishables, any kind of BOGOF, or 3 for 2, soon looks like a waste of money when I find that I can’t store what I’ve bought and/or half of it goes off. There is nothing (in food terms) that I hate more than waste. But I figured that the chilli jam would use up a kilo or so, there’s another tian I want to try and I remembered that I had a pot of cream, some basil on the window ledge and a lump of Cheddar that was past its best. The combination of all three, baked together in the oven on a wet June day, was just what I needed to lift my culinary spirits. Continue reading →

Posted in One pot, Recipes from magazines and newspapers, Spring vegetable recipes, Summer recipes, Vegetarian recipes, Wheat-free | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Lamb mini-burgers with tapenade and feta

Posted on June 3, 2011 by Louise

Summer’s back! We sat out on the balcony listening to the sirens of Finsbury Park last night, with barely a thought of turning the heating back on. I said barely. And with the welcome rise in temperature comes the promise of, and requirement for food that can be eaten outside, food that needs the merest smidgen of prep and cooking, yet is still full of zing. These lamb burgers are perfect on all counts. Easy to knock together in four steps (if you use ready-made tapenade) or five (if you make your own; there’s a recipe below), they are really fresh and moreish. Continue reading →

Posted in Fast food fixes, Gluten-free, Jill Dupleix, Lamb recipes, New food, One pot, Recipes from magazines and newspapers, Summer recipes, Wheat-free | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

New new potato recipes

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Louise

Sometimes you can mess too much with a good thing. I love new potatoes. Whether served hot, cold, steamed, boiled, fried or baked, in a salad or on their own, I find their taste both fresh and soothing and, like asparagus, cheering heralds of a change in season. This week I thought I’d try a couple of new recipes for them and, although they are interesting, I think this is one vegetable that is as delicious naked and simple as it is dressed up and complex. I tried them baked in sea salt, roasted with lemon wedges and in a new salad. The salad, with a cream cheese dressing, was the winner; the others were good but not good enough. Continue reading →

Posted in Cookery writers, Gluten-free, One pot, River Cafe Easy, Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, Salad recipes, Spring vegetable recipes, Summer recipes, The Cook Shelf, Vegetarian recipes, Wheat-free | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Chilli jam recipe

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Louise

I seem to be on a flavour kick this week; the sweetness of baked spinach on Monday, the brightness of all those herbs yesterday and now, a chilli ‘jam’. Immensely versatile, this is not really a jam at all, more of a salsa or chutney, and it’s a great thing to knock up when you want to lift something plain, like a piece of grilled fish or chicken, but without too much of a faff. It is also, weirdly though deliciously, gorgeous in an egg mayonnaise, ham and rocket toasted sandwich. I’m not kidding: I tried it here. The only fiddly bit of this is sterilising a jar but as long as you have a) a jar, b) a sink and c) an oven you can do it in about ten minutes. Continue reading →

Posted in Cookery writers, Delia Smith, Delia Smith's How to Cook Book Three, One pot, Salsa and sauce recipes, Summer recipes | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Moro’s tabbouleh salad recipe

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Louise

Within a month south-east England has gone from proper summer temperatures (26° or so at the end of April) to something approaching autumn. It’s windy, grey and so cold that I have to resist the urge to turn the heating back on. In (almost) June. But even in such unseasonal weather, I’m still craving salads not soup, grilled meats, not stews. Perhaps after a long cold winter our stomachs, like the rest of our bodies, demand the freshness of greenery and the taste of sunshine, even if the latter seems to have come and gone already this year. This recipe is one I’ve written about before on a different site but it bears repeating; unlike most tabboulehs the Moro version builds the salad around the herbs, not around the bulgur wheat and eating it makes you feel like you know everything there is to know about healthy food. Continue reading →

Posted in Fast food fixes, Moro, One pot, Salad recipes, Spring vegetable recipes, Summer recipes, Vegetarian recipes | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Spinach and raisin tian recipe

Posted on May 30, 2011 by Louise

All that Tesco’s shopping has sent me kicking and screaming to the South of France, at least in terms of recipe ideas. A tian, according to Larousse Gastronomique is ‘an earthenware ovenproof dish from Provence…used to prepare all kinds of gratin dishes’. I’ve had a recipe for several such gratins knocking around on a bit of paper for years so it was time to try one or two of them. The great thing about them is that they mostly involve slicing up/cooking some vegetables, sautéing some onions, combining the two and baking them for a while. And they’re adaptable: I made this one as a starter for three, but with some bread and a dessert it would feed two people for dinner. The combination of spinach and cream/eggs is well known but the raisins add a delicious gentle sweetness. Oh and obviously it doesn’t matter where the dish comes from; the one I used was earthenware, ovenproof and square as per Provençal tradition but, ironically, I think I bought it from Tesco’s in Cardiff… Continue reading →

Posted in Elisabeth Luard, Fast food fixes, Gluten-free, One pot, Recipes from magazines and newspapers, Spring vegetable recipes, The Guardian, Vegetarian recipes, Wheat-free | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments