Double Helpings

As I sit here in my pyjamas on this cold and snowy Saturday morning, munching chocolate brownie pieces and sipping coffee, I am revelling in my latest cookbook acqusitions. The brownies come from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook published by Ryland, Peters & Small, which I have coveted for months. AB gave it to me for Christmas, along with a huge bible of French cooking from Phaidon called I Know How To Cook, by Ginette Mathiot. And I treated myself to one more gorgeous book, Nigel Slater’s Tender published on the 4th Estate imprint from HarperCollins, which was the half-price book of the week at Blackwell in the run-up to Christmas. They are all beautifully and cleverly designed, and make me hungry just looking at them.

Well, if not quite inspired, at least inclination and time have come together, and I have been able to get out some recipe books and also come up with some more ideas of my own for the first time in a while. The orangey roast vegetables recipe that I just posted was a delicious warming meal on Monday, and smelled just like childhood Christmas to me – Mum always does a roast duck, usually with an orange-scented gravy and sticky marmaladey basting. There was more liquid than needed for the vegetable glaze, so I kept it and made a couscous for lunch the next day, using Maria Elia’s lovely recipe for Buttered Chilli Couscous in The Modern Vegetarian (Kyle Cathie, 2009) for quantities. Definitely going to do both of these again, and hopefully get some pictures next time (just too hungry on Monday!)

Last night was windy and ‘orrible, and called for something warming and thick and soupy, so I thought I would try a miso soup with tofu, but having looked at Maria Elia’s book the day before, I couldn’t resist trying a slightly reduced version of another one of her recipes. Her Salt and Pepper Tofu uses white pepper and Chinese five spice in the flour mixture, but without either of those I had to go for a more English take with just black pepper. Still, it worked well and I look forward to trying the real thing soon.

Tofu and noodle thick miso soup with salt and pepper tofu chunks (serves 3)

This recipe was inspired by a combination of Maria Elia’s Salt and Pepper Tofu (The Modern Vegetarian, Kyle Cathie, 2009), a Waitrose recipe for Oriental Aubergines and a little recipe in Vegie Food (Murdoch Books, 2004) for Miso Soup with Udon and Tofu.

If you have time, marinate the large tofu chunks in soy sauce and a little lime juice first, then use the marinade in place of the soy sauce for the broth.

Heat 1 tbsp sesame oil in a wok or wide lidded pan. Peel and cut 1 onion into sixths, and fry in the oil for a minute. Peel and dice 1 carrot and add to the pan. Cut 1 green pepper into 1 inch pieces and add to the pan.

In a measuring jug, mix 1 tbsp dark miso, 1 tsp ginger (chopped pickled ginger, ginger puree or grated root ginger), ½ tbsp sesame oil, 1 tbsp dark brown sugar, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tsp rice vinegar, 1 tsp mirin (or sherry, or neither) and a pinch of crushed chilli. Add hot or boiling water up to 500ml and stir until dissolved and combined. Add this broth to the vegetables in the pan and bubble for a few minutes.

Cut a tofu block into 4 strips. Take 2 of the strips and cut into small dice, about 1 cm. Add to the pan and stir into the broth. Heat 3 tbsp vegetable oil in a small frying pan. Combine 2 tbsp plain flour, salt and black pepper on a plate. Cut the other 2 strips into 6 large cubes and coat in the flour, then place in the frying pan and fry, turning, until golden and crispy on all sides. Pat with kitchen paper to remove excess oil.

Meanwhile, add 2 nests of noodles to the broth, swill another 100ml of water around the jug to pick up the last of the miso, and pour over the noodles to wet them. Stir in as much as possible and put a lid on the pan for 3 minutes. After this, the noodles should have loosened and begun to cook. Add 2 handfuls of shredded cabbage (or other greens) to the top of the pan contents (don’t stir in) and replace the lid for 2 minutes.

Serve in deep bowls, with the crispy tofu chunks on top.

Orange and honey roast vegetables with Lobola spice (serves 2)

This would be a lovely accompaniment to roast duck or ham, but is equally delicious on its own as a vegetarian dish.

Lobola spice is an African blend containing sea salt, sesame seeds, fennel, coriander, black peppercorns, aniseed, cinnamon, ginger, whole cloves, garlic, onion, star anise. If you don’t have any Lobola spice, use some fennel or aniseed, cloves and ginger instead.

For the vegetables

Preheat the oven to 210C.

Wash and chop 3 medium floury potatoes (Desirée) into 1 inch chunks. Peel and quarter 1 red or white onion. Peel 2 parsnips, halve crossways, split the narrow end in two and the thick end in four to get long pieces that are still quite chunky. Peel 1 carrot, and cut the same way as the parsnip.

Drizzle 1–2 tbsp rosemary olive oil into a roasting tin and add all the vegetables, along with 2 or 3 whole garlic cloves. Add lots of freshly ground black pepper, a little sea salt and some ground Lobola spice. Use your hands to toss the vegetables, making sure every surface is covered in oil and spice. (Afterwards, rub your hands together over the sink, using the oil and spices as an exfoliating mask before washing it off.) Place the tin at the top of the oven for 15–20 minutes.

For the orange and honey dressing

In a measuring jug, add the zest of an orange, 60ml orange juice (or the juice of half an orange), 2 tsp olive oil and a forkful of honey. Add boiling water up to the 500ml mark and use the fork to mix the ingredients together.

Pour about three-quarters of the dressing over the vegetables and toss. Return the tin to the oven for another 20 minutes or until sticky and crisp. Serve in dishes, with a spicy red wine.

You will have some leftover dressing. Use this to make a wonderful orange-scented couscous.

Orange-scented couscous (serves 3)

Place 7oz couscous in a large bowl, with 1oz cubed butter. Add boiling water to the remaining orange dressing, up to the 210ml mark. Use a fork to stir the grains, then cover with a teatowel and leave to steam for 3 minutes.

Meanwhile, chop 9 dried apricots and 6 dried dates into 5mm cubes. When the couscous is ready, stir in the dried fruit and add a handful of raisins or sultanas. You could also add a sprinkling of ground cinnamon, chopped coriander or mint. Serve warm.

On a rare day off a couple of weeks ago, we decided to go exploring to Thame. We had a foodie day: a long wander around the farmers’ market, followed by icecream and pavlova at Rumsey’s Chocolaterie.

I was really impressed by the market, particularly the prices of fruit and veg. We spent around £12, and got 4lbs of bananas (the guy just kept loading more bunches on to the scales and calling out “£1 for all the bananas!”), 5 figs, 5 huge sweetcorn cobs, 6 sweet romano peppers, a large bowl of cherry tomatoes, an enormous olive focaccia, 2 fluffy cheesey pastry straws (25p each, for nibbling) and 6 venison sausages.

I was also (as always) really impressed with Rumsey’s. Scrap that – I was really in love with Rumsey’s. Alan had a hazelnut and raspberry double-layered pavlova with raspberry coulis, and I had a chocolate icecream and strawberry fruit ice sundae, with chocolate chip shortbread and wafers… mmmmmmmmmmmm… We sat next to the chocolate kitchen, and watched the chef tempering huge bowls of dark chocolate to make the little discs of chocolate given out with every order.

All the produce from the market has now disappeared into some lovely meals. The bananas (what was left after munching all the way home) became Wisley Banana Cake. Delicious warm from the oven, with coffee, and with butter for breakfast. After making most of the batter, I discovered I only had one egg instead of 2, so substituted an extra teaspoonful of baking powder and hoped – no point chucking the whole mixture away at that point! It turned out absolutely fine, although I suspect the bananas helped to bind the mixture as well.

For a finishing-MA-celebration meal with CR, I did the sweetcorn with chickpea and tomato sausages again, this time using cooked onions for a sweeter flavour. The leftover chickpea mix became falafel, which I fried the next day for lunch with humous and cucumber in pitta bread. Half a cob didn’t get eaten, so a couple of nights later I picked off all the kernels (very satisfying) and stirred them into pancake batter. We had American pancakes for dinner, some with the sweetcorn and some with roasted red pepper strips dropped into the batter while they cooked. I served that with ramekins of grated courgette, steamed with butter and nutmeg; and a thick arrabiata sauce dripped over the pancakes.

The figs made a good starter for the celebration meal, quartered, panfried in butter and then arranged on a plate with gooey goats’ cheese laid on top, and drizzled with light honey.

The focaccia was a bit doughy for me, but was lovely a couple of days after we bought it, diced and fried as croutons to go with the cherry tomato/mozzarella/greens gratin from Annie Bell’s book, this time made with chard from the veg box.

And the venison sausages were fabulous – we both had sausages (this time bog-standard Quorn ones for Alan) in a red wine casserole with cabbage and creamy mashed potato.

But I think my favourite meal this week was not really centred around vegetables at all: we baked a whole La Rustique camembert with garlic, olive oil and black pepper in baking parchment (which I accidentally set fire to), then dipped homemade carrot and potato chips into it. Fabulous.

My new favourite thing!

2 egg whites left over from asparagus tart the other night, whisked until stiff with a tiny pinch of salt, then folded in 4 1/2oz icing sugar, 2 1/2oz ground almonds and 1oz cocoa powder, dolloped onto baking parchment and baked at 200C for 9 minutes with a fork wedged in the oven door to keep it just ajar – apparently this lets the steam out, and gave a gorgeous shiny top.

They’re delicious. They’re calling me. I mustn’t eat them all. Mustn’t… mustn’t…

We recently went down to Oxford’s Covered Market and saw a sign on the window of one of the butchers’ shops: “We sell 7 kinds of vegetarian sausage”. Intrigued, we bought 2 each of 3 sorts to try. Can’t quite remember what they were, but one involved mozzarella and was very bready – a bit like eating slightly spicy, cheesy toast. Another was bright orange and featured red lentils with carrots. And the last one was my favourite but I have no idea what was in it… possibly peppers, but I can’t remember. Anyway, we were very impressed by the diversification of the butcher. And I was also very impressed by the chicken liver paté I got for me.

We thought we would try making our own, so two days after the Recipease Knife Skills course we used up the last of the bruschetta mix as a flavouring.

Chickpea, tomato and onion spicy sausages with chilli butter sweetcorn

Chickpea, tomato and onion spicy sausages

3 plum tomatoes
1/2 red onion
basil
1 tin of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
gram flour

Skin the tomatoes, deseed and dice finely. Mince the onion. Mix together, with the basil, and leave for a couple of hours to infuse. If you don’t feel like deseeding, leave them in – you’ll just need a bit more gram flour to bind the mixture.

Put the chickpeas in a blender and pulse until you have a chunky paste. Scrape this into a large mixing bowl, and mix in some chilli powder, turmeric, or whatever spices you are in the mood for, and a little salt. Add the bruschetta mix (keep some back and put it on a piece of toast rubbed with garlic for a starter).

Pour in a cupful of gram flour and mix, then keep adding flour until you have a sticky dough. Put more flour on a plate. Roll up your sleeves, dust your hands with yet more flour, and start rolling – sausage shapes, meatball shapes, burger shapes, whatever you like. Roll each shape in flour and then place on another plate. If they immediately absorb all the flour they’ve been rolled in, add some more to the bowl to stiffen the dough. Once you have used up all your dough, put the plate of sausages in the fridge for an hour to firm up.

Heat 2 tbsp vegetable oil in a large frying pan and fry on a fairly high heat, turning frequently and gently, until golden and crispy all over. Serve with chips, salad, or spicy sweetcorn and tomatoes.