After a bit of time and thought, I have decided to move my writing over to a new blog. I’ve really enjoyed writing The Boozy Rouge, but have decided to strip my writing back a bit and focus on recipes.
My South East London Kitchen is already up and running. I hope that you will stop by from time to time and have a read.
Thank you for all of the comments and support on The Boozy Rouge, I hope that you will enjoy our new home just as much.
With love
Gemma x
Street food has been around in London for longer than you think. Long before the Thames ceased to be a working river, oysters were sold on the banks for hungry dockers. During the 18th and 19th centuries, baked potatoes were sold from shop fronts and house windows in some of the more notorious London slums as a form of cheap sustenance. And we all remember the ubiquitous kebab vans outside of late night bars and gig venues in the more recent past.
In recent years, however, street food has taken on a new form offering affordable gourmet food to Londoners. Whether on their lunch hour or lazily meandering around markets at the weekend, the street food van is never far away. Once, Borough Market was the only real option for street food, but more recently markets have begun to pop up across the capital, some in rather unexpected places.
Poplar, in East London, is not the first place you think of as a gastronomic destination; but the new Bite Street Food collective are seeking to rejuvenate the culinary reputation of the area right at its centre: Chrisp Street Market. With traders hailing from the local area, and across London, and entertainment from local performers, a charmingly frayed town square is transformed into a market to rival any lunchtime markets across London. I was invited to come down and check it out. And told to come hungry.
We Walk the Line Coffee.
My first stop, as always, was for coffee. On the far side of the market, I found a man making coffee seemingly whilst cycling. We Walk the Line is a social initiative to encourage disadvantaged young people and ex-offenders become entrepreneurs through selling coffee. The bike powers the grinder, which grinds up the Nude Espresso beans for the coffee. A very good cup indeed.
An humitas empanada: corn and chilli.
After this, I popped to Boca Empanadas, which sell those little Argentine pastries I love so much. My favourite is the humitas, which contains corn and chilli. These were perfect – crispy pastry and both sweet and spicy in the middle. Limiting myself to one was very difficult.
Jerk chicken. Bargain.
My plan was to try a number of small items, so that I could sample as much as possible. On the hunt for my next snack, I came across the bargain of the century: three jerk wings for ONE POUND. My weakness for good jerk is well documented and I couldn’t resist. These were really good. Spicy with the unmistakable hit of scotch bonnets, with an underlying kick of lime and allspice.
Vegan burger from Ruperts Street.
Vegan street food has been growing in popularity in recent years, so I was not surprised to see a vegan vendor on the site, Ruperts Street. I managed to snag the very last item of the day: a vegan burger. A sweet potato and lentil patty with a smear of relish on a wholemeal seeded bun. It came with a delicious kale salad, for extra health points.
The lovely Cat and her cake creations.
Never one to end a meal without having dessert, I popped over to Cat Food Cakes, to see the lovely Cat and her crazy creations. The market took place on Hallowe’en, so there were some beautiful cupcakes and brownies with spiderwebs, pumpkins and ghosts. Spying a chocolate cupcake decorated with candy corns, I quickly nabbed it. A candy corn in the UK is a difficult thing to find. Sadly Cat did not have a supplier: her boyfriend brought them back from a trip to the states.
Bite will be taking place on the last Friday of every month at Chrisp Street Market in Poplar. If you should find yourself free on a Friday lunchtime, it is definitely worth a trip over to check it out. The vendors are not those that you will find at the bigger street food markets, such as KERB, Brockley or Broadway; but they are an excellent representation of cooking in the diverse east end. I also spied a Ghanian lady selling jollof rice, and a young man making Louisiana gumbo, but could not manage all of these in the same afternoon. It seems another visit is in order.
Also: Canary Wharf office workers, take note.
For transparency, I was invited to visit Bite Street Food.
Pasta with cauliflower, anchovies and chilli
Last week I excitedly collected my first ever veg bag. After meaning to order one for some time and not quite getting around to it, I finally sat down at my computer and set up a standing order to Local Greens.
There are many veg bag/box schemes out there, but two things attracted me to Local Greens. First, the veg they provide is from producers as near to south east London as they can manage, reducing food miles and connecting local people with their landscape. Second, and more importantly, they deliver their veg bags to local ‘collection points’ rather than your home, for you to collect at your leisure. The issues around home delivery has deterred me in the past from ordering a weekly veg bag or box: neither my husband nor I are regularly at home during the week, and we live in an apartment building with no convenient place to leave it. Our Local Greens collection point is the local pub, a few hundred yards away from our house, who will hang on to it for a couple of days so that I can pop in and pick it up when it suits me.
For the home cook, the thrill of fresh produce in the kitchen is unrivalled, and the advantage of receiving produce chosen for you is that you will often receive items that not only would you not have chosen yourself, but that perhaps you have never cooked with before. Last week’s bounty was all somewhat familiar, but I did find myself with a cauliflower, my least favourite vegetable.
I am still haunted by years of overcooked white mush on the side of a roast dinner. It must have been in vogue in the 90s to boil it for so long that any hint of structural integrity disappeared, traumatising generations of children. I have tried to find ways over the years to make this cruciferous monster palatable. Most of them involve curry as the crevices of a cauliflower soak up the spices rather well. I turned to my old friend Google for some inspiration and found that many advocate the pairing of cauliflower with pasta. Hmm.
The problem that we’re going to have here is that both ingredients are intrinsically bland; which is why both are so often doused in cheese sauce. Blending two bland ingredients is only really successful when stronger flavours are introduced, which serve both to perk them up and hold them together. Cue my two favourite storecupboard staples: anchovies and chilli flakes. Adding these both to the olive oil at the beginning of the cooking breaks down the anchovies and creates a flavourful paste which gently coats the other ingredients. I also added a little tomato puree to give the paste more flavour and substance.
The result is a pasta dish that showcases the subtle flavour of the cauliflower perfectly with the other ingredients. Of course, it would be unjust not to add just a little cheese at the end. Pecorino is my choice, but other hard cheeses would be just as complimentary.
Pasta with Cauliflower, Anchovies and Chilli
400g dried tortiglioni, rigatoni or other large pasta tubes
1 medium cauliflower, divided into florets and stalks and leaves discarded
Olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
8 anchovy fillets
Large pinch dried chilli flakes
1 tbsp tomato paste
Grated pecorino, to serve
Cook the pasta according to packet instructions. Drain and reserve some of the cooking water. Keep warm and set aside.
Blanch the cauliflower florets in salted water until they are just tender. Drain and put in a bowl of ice water to stop them cooking any further.
Heat a generous amount of olive oil in a large frying pan, or chef’s pan, and add the garlic, anchovies and chilli flakes. Stir over a medium heat until the garlic turns golden and the anchovies break down. Do not let it brown. Stir in the tomato puree.
Drain the cauliflower florets and toss them, with the pasta, in the anchovy mixture. You may want to do this in a new large pan or bowl as the frying pan will likely be too small. Check the seasoning.
Serve in large bowls with a good grating of the pecorino.
Serves four.
Lamb and lentil shepherd’s pie
Tomorrow is my birthday and I had hoped this week would be a little quieter than usual so that I could have some time to prepare myself for becoming a year older. In fact, the opposite happened and I have been busier than ever. Such is often the way. This also means that I have not had time to write up a shepherd’s pie that I cooked a couple of weeks ago that was more successful than I anticipated.
It started with us cooking a the lamb shawarma from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem for a family Sunday supper. I usually look to Ottolenghi for my vegetarian recipes, but could not resist this lamb. It has had a post-it marking the page for longer than I care to admit. If you have the book, it is worth making for an alternative Sunday roast: it is marinated in no less than 11 spices and slow roasted for about four and a half hours. We served ours with the usual array of kebab accompaniments – shredded iceberg, pickled chillies, hot sauce and a little hummus – and with a butternut squash, lentil and feta salad on the side.
Of course, we had some lamb left over, although not a great deal as we were all rather hungry. Once I had shredded it from the bone, there was about 250g of meat, which would make a very skimpy Shepherd’s pie indeed. I almost popped it in a tupperware to use for sandwich meat, and then remembered that I used to pad out vegetarian ‘shepherd’s’ pies with lentils and that it could also work well with the lamb. As it happens, it worked perfectly. Not only did it stretch the filling to make a pie for two people with a little leftover, but it added another dimension of texture to the shredded lamb. I was worried that the spices from the shawarma would overpower the dish a little, but in the end I could barely taste them, save for a bit of extra heat.
Food waste is one of my biggest bete noires, so the thrill of creating a new meal from old leftovers is pretty unrivalled as far as culinary thrills go. I have always found more satisfaction in creating something from the odds and ends of the fridge than having a whole supermarket full of ingredients at my disposal. This is partly why I shop daily rather than do a big ‘weekly shop’ – it is far easier to see what you already have, and then figure out something to do with it. A shepherd’s pie, or cottage pie, is a perfect way of using up leftovers: the meat, old bits you have lurking around the veg drawer, and the ends of bags of potatoes. As far as the filling goes, you can add in more or less anything you like. The idea of creating this as a completely new dish seems like an odd one. Some people do this with mince, which I prefer not to use if I can help it.
Lamb and Lentil Shepherd’s Pie
100g dried green lentils
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 carrots, diced
2 celery sticks, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp dried thyme
100ml red wine
250g leftover roast lamb
100ml chicken stock
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
3 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tbsp tomato puree
Salt and pepper
750g potatoes, peeled and cubed
3 tbsp salted butter
Grated cheese, for topping
Cook the lentils according to packet instructions and set aside.
Preheat the oven to 200ºc. Heat the oil in a large frying pan, or chef’s pan, and cook the onion, carrots and celery over a medium heat until soft but not browned, approximately 10 minutes. Add the garlic and thyme in the last two minutes of cooking.
Pour in the wine and increase the heat a little to let it bubble. Cook for a couple of minutes until it has reduced a little. Add the lamb, stock, Worcestershire sauce, tomato ketchup, tomato puree, salt and pepper. Cook on a medium heat for around 15-20 minutes until the mixture has thickened and most of the liquid has been reduced. Stir in the lentils and transfer to a suitable pie dish.
Meanwhile, cook the potatoes until tender. Drain and mash with the butter and a little milk until smooth. Check the seasoning.
Pipe or spoon the mash over the lamb mixture and top with a layer of grated cheese. Bake in the oven for around 30 minutes until the top has browned and the edges are bubbling. Serve with green vegetables.
Toad in the Hole
This weekend I visited two south-east London markets in one day. ‘Double-marketing’ as my friend Jassy called it. I went to the brand new Peckham Market and then walked down the Queens Road, through New Cross and on to Brockley Market, one of my long-time favourites. Needless to say I ate far too much. More on that later…
At Brockley Market, right on the far side, is a stall called The Butchery, at which I am a frequent visitor. Their moniker can leave you in no doubt as to what they sell, but gives little clue to the fact that they are one of the best butchers in London. To discover that, one has to try them for themselves. I first discovered them when their shop appeared on Forest Hill’s London road a couple of years ago, before that they had a pop-up shop that was part of the SEE3 project, supported by Mary Portas, to regenerate parts of Forest Hill and Sydenham. Since then, I have visited them mainly at their stall at the market which has a good selection of their full range. Their excellent bacon makes it into my shopping bag with some regularity, and I find I can pick up some excellent cheaper cuts too, like the beef shin I used in my beef shin, black bean and chipotle stew.
This weekend, I was after some good sausages, with this week being British Sausage Week. I must have been on the same wavelength as my fellow shoppers as, by the time I had arrived at Brockley Market and scarfed down my lunch (beef short rib braccos from The Roadery, if you’re interested) there was only one packet left in the whole market: a packet of some rather sizeable pork sausages from The Butchery. So large were they, in fact, that the cost of £6.60, nearly double that of supermarket sausages, barely caused me to bat an eyelid. I was happy to pay this and to take them home.
These sausages had a very special purpose: they were going to be made into one of my childhood favourites, a dish that I had not eaten in some time but had been craving ever since the weather turned cooler. Toad in the Hole. With such an unappealing name, it is easy to see why those who are unfamiliar would turn up their nose. For the rest of us, mainly those of us who grew up in Britain, went to a British school or have British relatives, the combination of sausages and Yorkshire pudding, doused in gravy, is the ultimate in comfort food. My mother, undisputed queen of all things batter, makes an excellent one. Her secret is to make sure the fat in the pan is very, very hot before you add the batter. She also makes excellent yorkies and pancakes using the same principle.
There’s not much else I can add except to say to use the best sausages you can find. Make friends with your local butcher. If you’re making a veggie one, Cauldron sausages are by far the best.
Toad in the Hole
6 sausages
Olive oil
150g plain flour
2 eggs
2 egg whites
200ml whole milk
Sea salt and black pepper
Preheat the oven to 220ºc and lightly oil a tin or baking dish large enough to accommodate all of the sausages with some gaps in between. Whilst the oven heats up, make the batter. Beat the eggs, egg whites and milk together in a jog. Place the flour in a bowl and gradually whisk in the wet ingredients until you have a smooth batter. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
Place the sausages in the dish, add a little more oil and shake gently to coat. Bake the sausages in the oven for 15 minutes.
Remove the sausages from the oven. The fat should be spitting hot. Stir the batter a couple of times and then pour it into the tray around the sausages. Return to the oven for 20 minutes until the batter is puffed and golden.
Douse with gravy and serve with green vegetables.
Miso aubergines and brown rice. Chopsticks from my trip to Tokyo
Relax, I won’t be posting yet another recipe for pumpkin-shaped biscuits or ‘spooky’ cupcakes.
I have had quite a few conversations about Hallowe’en this week, mainly asking me what I am doing. Well, actually… absolutely nothing. Being a 30-year-old childless woman with a flat quite inaccessible from the street, it seems that Hallowe’en is not meant for me. That being said, I do rather like seeing all of the neighbourhood kids walking about all dressed up with their little bags of swag. When we were children, we loved Hallowe’en, despite the fact that we were forbidden by our parents from going trick or treating. We had a party at school with fancy dress, apple bobbing and ghost stories. My mum would dress me up as a witch and my brother as a devil. I think she may have been trying to tell us something.
So my week has actually been rather normal. No quest for orange food colouring (completely unobtainable in the second half of October) or joining the everlasting queue outside the Angels fancy dress shop on Shaftesbury Avenue. During this very normal week, however, an unexpected parcel arrived at my desk: a jar of Yutaka miso paste. Something I had actually been meaning to buy for some time, but had not got around to.
Sure, something that has been made by fermenting soya beans with salt and fungus doesn’t sound appetising, but it is one of my favourite flavours. I first fell in love with it when I travelled in Japan, and this intensified when I went on a Japanese food-binge on my return to London. In the west, we most commonly encounter it in miso soup, but is used in a range of other Japanese and fusion dishes. It’s umami flavour with a slight hum of fermentation, lends itself well to a range of fish, beans and vegetables.
Aubergine works especially well with miso as it soaks up flavour when cooked. Some recipes advocate grilling or roasting the aubergines with a miso glaze, and others recommend marinating the aubergines in the miso sauce to maximise the flavour. The recipe I have been working on is far quicker, and therefore very suitable for a speedy weeknight supper. The aubergines are fried; first in sesame oil and then in a miso sauce that also combines rice wine, mirin, sugar and vinegar to provide a balance of flavours. A few dried red chillies provide just enough heat without overwhelming the other flavours. I served mine with brown rice and sugar snap peas for a healthy vegan supper.
Miso Aubergines
2 large, or 3 medium, aubergines
5 tbsp sesame oil
2 dried red chillies
4 tbsp Shaoshing rice wine
4 tbsp mirin
4 tbsp caster sugar
3 tbsp rice vinegar
4½ tbsp red miso (I used Yutaka)
Cut the aubergines into bite-sized pieces and lay out on a tray. Sprinkle with salt to draw out some of their liquid and leave for ten minutes. Wipe away any moisture with kitchen paper.
Heat the sesame oil in a wok and, once hot, crumble in the red chillies and add the aubergine. Stir fry for about eight minutes until the aubergine is tender and starting to brown. Turn the pieces occasionally with tongs.
Meanwhile, combine the rice wine, mirin, caster sugar, rice vinegar and miso in a bowl and whisk together to a smooth sauce. Lower the heat under the wok and add this sauce. Cook over a medium heat for a further eight minutes. In this time, the sauce will reduce and thicken and form a glaze for the aubergine pieces. Serve right away.
Lentil, pea and potato curry
I first made this lentil, pea and potato curry about ten years ago when I was trying to teach myself to cook vegetarian meals beyond my usual repertoire of Quorn spaghetti bolognaise (from a jar) and pasta with roasted pepper (from a jar). You can see a theme appearing here. I have not always cooked, you see.
Since then, however, I have probably made this curry a hundred times. For me, it seems to be the answer to so many cooking conundrums:
Pressed for time? Make the curry.
Skint? Make the curry.
Under the weather? Make the curry.
As life in our glorious capital imposes one or more of these upon us frequently through our long working hours, extortionate rents and close proximities to our fellow commuters, you will not be surprised by the frequency at which it appears on my table. This curry takes no more than 40 minutes from chopping the onion to putting the mango chutney on the side of your plate and ripping yourself a slice of naan bread, and there are no complicated processes to it whatsoever. Many of the ingredients can be taken from the storecupboard, so, providing you have built up a fairly decent collection of spices, it will cost you very little to make. I very often have red lentils and chopped tomatoes in the cupboard, an onion and a potato in the larder and some peas in the freezer, leaving me very little to buy.
By far, though, the best feature of this curry is that it heats up beautifully. My husband has been home early from work almost every night this week, but usually he arrives home barely an hour before I have to go to bed. I’d almost forgotten how nice it is to have him around in the evenings. One of the challenges of being on different schedules is finding meals that can be eaten at two different points throughout the evening. It’s not really practical for me to eat so late, so I have to cook something that can either be assembled and cooked quickly when he comes in (for who wants to cook after working that late?) or that can be heated up. Not having a microwave is an additional challenge. This curry heats up well in a pan, and even benefits from sitting around for a couple of hours to let the flavours develop. With a bit of freshly-cooked rice and a naan, it is a stress-free late night dinner.
As far as failsafe dishes go, this curry is definitely one of mine. Best eaten in winter. This curry is both vegetarian and vegan.
Lentil, Pea and Potato Curry
Olive oil
2 onions, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp chilli powder
½ tsp ground cinnamon
2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 2cm cubes
100g red lentils
400g tin chopped tomatoes
250ml coconut milk
250ml vegetable stock
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp salt
1 tsp brown sugar
150g frozen green peas
2 tbsp chopped coriander
1 tbsp lemon juice
Heat the oil in a large saucepan and gently cook the onion over a medium heat until soft and translucent – approximately 10 minutes. Stir in the garlic, ginger, ground coriander, ground cumin, ground turmeric, chilli powder and ground cinnamon and cook for another couple of minutes.
Add the potato and red lentils and stir to coat. Turn up the heat a little and add the chopped tomatoes, coconut milk, vegetable stock, garam masala, salt and brown sugar. Stir well and bring to the boil, before lowering the heat and simmering for about 20 minutes, until the potato is tender. Add the peas and cook for a further five minutes.
Remove from the heat and stir in the coriander and lemon juice. Serve with rice and naan.
Adapted from a recipe by Meditterasian.
Chocolate rolo cakes. The holes are from birthday candles
I’ve been trying to post the recipe for this cake for quite a few days now, but life, as they say, has gotten in the way. I actually made this cake for my friend Dan’s birthday nearly two weeks ago and have only just managed to get myself a cup of tea, sit down in my laptop and write this thing up. Good things, however, come to those who wait. Or so the phrase goes.
I have a bit of a tradition of making vertiginous chocolate cakes for Dan’s birthday, getting more and more elaborate each year. This year, I was struggling to find something to top the Chocolate Behemoth of 2013, until I came across this rolo cake by the brilliant Raspberri Cupcakes. If you have not yet visited this beautiful baking blog, prepare yourself to feel both inspired and completely inadequate all at once. Her cakes truly are masterpieces.
This particular creation is a rich chocolate brownie cake, sandwiched with a thick salted caramel and covered with a glossy slick of chocolate ganache. As if that isn’t decadent enough, it has the added surprise of having a whole packet of rolos baked into each of the two cake layers; which melt a little to create pockets of caramel within the cake. And more rolos piled on the top, natch.
To be honest, it really is best not to think too much about the ingredients for this cake. Especially the 400g of butter. Being the evil feeder that I am I also neglected to mention to my dining companions that it probably had hundreds and hundreds of calories per slice. Especially those who went for second helpings.
A little bit about making caramel: in short, don’t bother. I’ve tried every method from heating sugar to boiling condensed milk and both are time-consuming and fraught with hazards. Use pre-made caramel or dulce de leche. Carnation make one in a 397g tin that is just perfect.
Chocolate Rolo Cake
For the cake
400g unsalted butter
200g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
4 large eggs
200g caster sugar
200g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
2 tubes rolos
For the filling
1 x 397g tin of carnation caramel
½ tsp sea salt
For the ganache
200g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
200g milk chocolate, broken into pieces
300ml double cream
To decorate
4 tubes rolos, each sweet cut in half
Preheat the oven to 150ºc. Grease two 8inch sandwich tins and baseline with greaseproof paper.
Melt the butter and sugar in a glass bowl set over a pan of simmering water and set aside to cool. In the bowl of a freestanding mixer, beat together the eggs and sugar until thick and pale. Fold through the chocolate mixture and then gently fold in the flour and baking powder until just combined.
Scrape the batter into the prepared tins. Push the rolos into the surface of the cake mixture and bake in the oven for approximately 30 minutes. The cake will have shrunken away from the edges of the tin but may still have a slight wobble in the centre. Allow to cool completely in the tin before transferring to a wire rack until needed.
Stir the sea salt into the caramel and, using a palette knife, spread a thick layer over one of the cooled cakes. Place the other layer on top. Reserve a small amount of the caramel to spread thinly over the top and sides of the cake. This will help the ganache to ‘stick’. Chill the cake in the fridge for at least half an hour.
Meanwhile, make the ganache. Place the chopped milk and dark chocolate in a large bowl. In a saucepan, heat the cream until it just reaches boiling point. Pour the cream over the chocolate and leave to sit for a couple of minutes. Stir with a balloon whisk and the chocolate will melt into the cream to form a smooth, thick ganache. Allow to cool.
Place the chilled cake on a rack over a tray. Pour over the cooled ganache, using a palette knife to spread it out. It should coat the cake evenly and any excess will be caught in the tray below. Stack the chopped rolos on top. Transfer to the fridge to set the ganache, but be sure to bring it to room temperature before serving.
Adapted from a recipe by Raspberri Cupcakes.
Autumn leaves in East Dulwich
I feel I have to warn you that this is yet another post about butternut squash. I understand if you want to stop reading right now. I also feel that I should state an additional caveat: this probably won’t be the last one this year.
I am, as you may have already figured out, addicted to squash. The big orange pumpkin-like ones, the reddish-brown cricket ball ones, the green ones that look a bit like marrows, and the humble butternut. Few things signal the arrival of autumn than the sight of these piled up in baskets at the farmers market, still caked in a little bit of mud.
I think my love of them came from my years of vegetarianism, when they were in just about every dish I ate. I remember the first time I tried one, however, I was not too impressed. My mother, who cooked swede with Sunday lunch since the beginning of time (and still does!) brought one home from the supermarket ‘for a change’. After eyeing it suspiciously for a while, she peeled and de-seeded it, cut it up, boiled it and mashed it with a little butter and some black pepper – eactly as she did with the swede. Needless to say I was not fussed, however that was before I discovered that you could puree it into soup, roast it with allspice and even turn it into dessert. Now I could never be without it.
Now it seems to be making its way into my cooking with some regularity. This week I made two dishes of butternut squash, although one was to use up the leftovers of the other. First, I made a warm salad of butternut squash, lentils, walnuts and feta, all roasted up with a bit of curry powder. This was concocted simply because I had a lot of lentils and walnuts – my cooking really is inspired by little more than what I happen to have in the kitchen at any particular time. As this did not use up all of the squash and feta I bought, the leftovers made their way into a simple galette, which was sliced up for lunchboxes.
Somewhere between both of these, I started making plans for a butternut squash curry. I think I need to branch out a bit more.
Warm butternut squash and lentil salad with feta and walnuts
Warm Butternut Squash and Lentil Salad with Feta and Walnuts
½ large butternut squash (you will use the other half in the other recipe), peeled and cut into 1inch pieces
1 large eschalion shallot, finely chopped
Olive oil
2 tsp curry powder
100g green lentils
125g chopped walnuts
100g feta, cut into small cubes
Handful chopped coriander leaves
2 tbsp fresh lime juice
Sea salt and black pepper
Preheat the oven to 200ºc. In a bowl, toss together the squash, shallot, olive oil and curry powder until the squash pieces are coated. Spread them out over a baking sheet and bake in the oven for approximately 30 minutes, until the squash is tender. Set aside to cool a little. Meanwhile, cook the lentils according to packet instructions and drain.
In a large bowl, combine the warm squash, lentils, walnuts, feta, coriander and lime juice. Check for seasoning before serving.
Butternut squash galette
Butternut Squash Galette
For the pastry
175g plain flour
Pinch salt
100g cold butter, cut into cubes
50ml sour cream
2 tsp lemon juice
50ml water
Beaten egg, for glazing
For the filling
½ large butternut squash
Olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper
1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced
100g feta, cut into small cubes
Parmesan, to finish
To make the pastry, combine the flour and salt in a large bowl then rub in the butter with your fingers until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Mix together the sour cream, lemon juice and water in a separate bowl, and gradually add enough of this mixture to bring together a soft dough. Transfer the dough to a floured surface, shape into a disc, wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for at least half an hour until needed.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200ºc. In a bowl, toss together the squash, olive oil and salt until the squash pieces are coated. Spread them out over a baking sheet and bake in the oven for approximately 30 minutes, until the squash is tender. Set aside to cool a little.
Heat some more oil in a large frying pan and gently cook the onions over a low heat until they are very soft and translucent, but not browned.
When you are ready to roll out the pastry, transfer it to a floured surface and roll out to a 30cm circular shape. Carefully pick up the pastry using a rolling pin and place it on a baking sheet (it may hang over the edges a little at this point, but this is OK. If it overhangs by more than two inches, you will need a bigger baking sheet.)
In a large bowl, combine the squash, onion and feta and check the seasoning. Spoon this mixture into the centre of the rolled pastry and spread out, leaving a two inch border around the edge. Fold the excess pastry over the filling, leaving the middle open. Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with a little grated parmesan. Bake in the oven for around 30 minutes until the pastry is browned all over. Serve in slices.
Mushroom risotto
First: I had the flu jab today. Winter is definitely on its way.
Second: I’m really into risotto this week, so am posting the fourth recipe since beginning this blog. Sorry.
This particular risotto is one that you’ve probably had a hundred times: the classic mushroom risotto. The stalwart of vegetarian options across the land, whether it be at a set-menu Christmas lunch or catered wedding. As a former (lapsed) vegetarian, I have had the good, the bad and the ugly of mushroom risotto ranging from an utterly beautiful one in Rome, to one at a Hampshire pub with raw mushrooms and uncooked rice. Although it seems like an easy meat-free option for a crowd, it is incredibly easy to balls it up.
For one, cooking time is essential. The window for achieving the perfect al dente rice is small – a couple of minutes either way can give you crunch or mush, neither of which are particularly appealing. Also, the best risotto are cooked in relatively small batches, to serve four or six. When you consider pan sizes and hob sizes, even in commercial kitchens, this begins to make sense. For this reason, risotto is perfect for the home cook, which makes sense as it originated as a peasant dish.
To make a good risotto at home, you need the right kind of rice, decent parmesan, patience and a strong arm for the consistent stirring (perhaps not the best dish for after a flu jab, which always gives me a dead arm). I always use arborio rice as it is the most widely available. If you can get hold of carnaroli, your supermarkets are obviously better stocked than my local one. Good parmesan can be found more or less anywhere. The other ingredients are less important – some will proclaim the superiority of home-made stock, but I have never found it to make much of a difference and often use cubes. Which mushrooms you decide to use depends on your own tastes. I love porcini for their strength in flavour and chestnut mushrooms for their woodiness, but have made some perfectly decent risotto using your basic button mushrooms from the supermarket. Waitrose do a 300g box of mixed mushrooms which includes oyster mushrooms and those little Japanese enoki ones which makes things a bit more interesting. I have an aversion to raw mushrooms, so always cook them separately first.
Risotto is a particular kind of comfort food that seems to have been designed for those days that you had a shocker at work, missed the train and got caught in the rain on the way home. Up the parmesan if your day has been particularly bad, and follow it up with a dessert of Nutella eaten straight from the jar with a spoon. Bikini season is ages away, after all.
Mushroom Risotto
25g dried porcini mushrooms
350g mixed mushrooms
Olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
250g arborio rice
150ml white wine
1l vegetable stock
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp mascarpone
50g parmesan, finely grated
1 tbsp chopped parsley
A few drops of truffle oil
First, prepare the mushrooms. Place the porcini mushrooms in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave them to soak for around 30 minutes. Drain and reserve the water. Roughly chop and set aside.
Slice the mixed mushrooms and fry in a little oil until tender. Set these aside also.
Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan, or chef’s pan, and gently cook the onions and garlic until the onions are translucent, approximately five minutes. Add the rice and stir to coat in the oil.
Add the white wine and allow it to bubble up until it has evaporated. Add the drained porcini water and allow it to do the same. Be careful not to let any grit from the bowl get into the pan.
Stir in the mushrooms and start adding the stock, a ladle at a time, waiting until it has evaporated before adding the next one. Keep adding the stock, stirring constantly, until the rice is al dente. You may not need all of the stock. This should take about 20 minutes.
Remove from the heat and stir in the salt and pepper, mascarpone, parmesan, parsley and truffle oil. Serve in large bowls.
The Boozy Rouge 