The lunch bunch

Ok, it was brunch actually but anytime is a great time and there’s no time like the present to enjoy some English asparagus. It’s only here for a brief moment, from the end of April until the end of June if we’re lucky, so grab it while you can and indulge. Asparagus is such a treat and such a beautiful specimen, it’s no wonder it holds such high revere in some of the best restaurants, they make a real song and dance out of it, but we can just dunk a simply cooked spear in a boiled egg if the mood so takes us.

There are many ways to cook this nutritious vegetable that contains more folic acid than any other vegetable available, delivers a good dose of vitamin A & C as well as having antioxidant properties, so you don’t want to over do it. My favourite method is to drop the spears into boiling water for just about a minute, drain and scatter on a baking tray, drizzle with olive oil, a little sea salt and cook in the oven for 7 mins on 220 degrees. Serve with a squeeze of lemon, some more olive oil and maybe a shaving of Parmesan.

Today I had some lovely Bury black pudding in the fridge so I sliced it thinly and fried till crisp, cooked the Asparagus as above and served with a perfectly poached egg. Some roasted tomatoes wouldn’t have gone a miss either. A dribble of hollandaise might have been gilding the lily, but would have been delicious nevertheless.

Last Wednesday was Asparagus risotto with peas, mint and parsley. I only used the tips for this dish so the remaining stalks were shaved paper thin with a potato peeler and incorporated into a salad of similarly sliced courgette and celery with some lambs’ lettuce and a chilli, lemon & garlic dressing.

Equally, three or four spears wrapped in wafer thin rashers of pancetta with an anchovy stuffed in-between, drizzled with olive oil and roasted in the oven makes a great stand alone dish or an alternative accompaniment for fish of meat. 

Best eaten on day of picking, or purchase, it’s not necessarily true that the thinner, slender spears are the most tender. Fat ones are good too, so don’t pass them by, it’s all to do with the skin to volume ratio apparently, like so many things in life!

Can we talk ... Rabbit

The game season is one of the most exciting and flavoursome culinary events in the calendar and coincides with the best of the years’ mushrooms, earthy vegetables and fruit. The 12^th of August heralds in the grouse, 1^st of September the Partridge and from then until Christmas, when plump little pheasants are plentiful and at their tastiest, local markets are resplendent with displays of birds, hares and venison. By the end of January the season is all but over and for true game lovers a long layover is ahead. There is, it has to be said, a good deal of farmed game available these days but you just can’t beat the true taste of the wild.

My particular love of game was inspired by my fathers’ own obsession. Pheasant has always been a feature of an autumnal repast and usually a couple of brace had been lodged in the freezer so in the dwindling months between season the wafting aroma of a pheasant gently turning on the spit in the kitchen was a mouth watering delight. Hare has always been a another family favourite and I remember cooking it myself for the first time, slowly marinating and then roasting some saddles, prizing the mignon off the bone and serving the rich, fudge-like meat in a deep gravy infused with juniper and red wine. Game meat always feels special, a treat and something to be savoured. So whether pheasant, partridge, venison, wild boar or hare, during the game season a frisson of excitement sweeps through the house. I recall one Christmas when stuck for inspiration as to what on earth we could bestow upon dad as a present (my father is a man who would rather annoyingly have already purchased the latest book, cd or gadget only weeks previously, leaving us all floundering for gift ideas) that we had the ingenious thought of buying him a joint of venison. A large and very beautiful saddle of venison was duly procured from a local butcher, presented a few days early and devoured with gusto for Christmas lunch.

So now it’s May, wintry thoughts long dispatched and summer is lurking just around the corner. The larder is full of the new seasons offerings, the woods are carpeted with bluebells and spring lamb is on the butchers slab. It was with delight then, whilst wandering through the stalls, marquees and stands at a local food festival the other week that I happened upon the Chanctonbury Game company, purveyors of all things gamey, they had a small tent, a little oasis amongst the jams, chutneys, cheeses, vegetables and oddly, Thai noodle stalls that seem to frequent such events. Here in a couple of fridge cabinets were a whole display of meaty treats. Venison mostly, but some duck & pigeon breast, sausages and burgers of course and lo and behold, some gorgeous wild rabbit, two for a fiver!

Rabbit in the farmed variety is becoming more readily available these days as us Brits wake up to a fact that our continental counterparts have been long aware of. Rabbit is delicious. It’s healthy, lean meat is easy to cook and a tasty alternative to chicken. Wild rabbit on the other hand is a more gamey tasting species, needs a little bit more thought when cooking and is a deeper more flavoursome offering for those of us still hankering for the season past. There are many ways to cook a rabbit and it’s flesh partners well with mustard, prunes and smoky bacon. Slow cooking until the meat is almost falling from the bones or combining with pork or sausage in a casserole, removing the flesh and creating a rich sauce for pasta are all ideal ways to enjoy this plucky little beast. Many recipes call for vigorous washing of the portions prior to cooking but I find preparing it, as it comes, with all it’s natural juices gives a slightly stronger flavour and one that I particularly enjoy. It’ll probably need nearly 2 hours of slow cooking to be at it’s best as it can be ‘sinewy’ when cooked to quickly. In this recipe the flavours are rich and yet there is a subtle lightness more in keeping with current season and all that you are likely to prepare as an accompaniment. Serve it simply with a fresh salad and some crusty bread to mop up the juices, perfect for a spring supper.

Wild rabbit with pancetta & sage

Serves: 4 

• 1 wild rabbit (whole or butchered) 
• 2 medium onion 
• 2 cloves garlic 
• 1 leek 
• 1 bay leaf 
• 100g pancetta cubed 
• 500ml white wine 
• 6-8 sage leaves 
• 1 tbsp flour 
• 2 tbsp olive oil 
• 400ml water 
• Salt & pepper 

Joint the rabbit but retain all unused bones and the carcass. In a large saucepan fry 1 onion, half the leek and a crushed garlic clove in a little olive oil, add the rabbit bones and brown well over a high heat. When nicely browned deglaze the pan with 200ml of white wine, add the bay leaf, season and allow to reduce by half. Now cover all the ingredients with water and boil for 30 mins or so to reduce by half again until you have a rich stock. Strain this stock through a fine sieve and put to one side.

Fry the pancetta cubes in a little olive oil until crisp and golden brown and place to one side on a piece of kitchen paper. Season the flour with salt & pepper and dust the rabbit joints. In the same pan brown the rabbit portions in the pancetta fat (you may need a little more olive oil) and when golden brown put on kitchen paper to one side.

In a heavy casserole dish with a tight fitting lid gently fry the remaining onion, garlic and leek in a little olive oil until softened. Now add the pancetta and rabbit pieces. Pour over the remaining white wine, the reduced rabbit stock you made earlier, tear up some sage leaves and scatter these in to the dish. Season with more salt & pepper and mix and turn the ingredients before covering and placing in the oven for 1 1/2-2 hours until the flesh is tender and almost falling of the bone.

The contentious issue of cheesecake

A long long time ago in a galaxy far away there was a cook book, a simple, plain & basic cook book by today’s standards but for my mind it was the benchmark for everything that the likes of Jamie, Hugh, Nigel or Nigella have ever done since. It was in essence (and still is as far I’m concerned as I am in possession of my original copy) a family cookbook, everyday meals, from everyday ingredients, midweek meals for the busy family and weekend treats. First published in 1970 as far as I can determine, although my copy is dated 1983, I guess it covered the ground that the new young working family required, fast, tasty, healthy meals that a working mum (and dad) could easily cook, sustaining their offspring and friends whilst keeping them interested at the table and avoiding such delights as Birds Eye ‘boil-in-the-bag’ or Cadbury’s Smash, Fray Bentos steak pies, in a tin! (My maternal grandmother was rather partial to one of those though) or god-forbid Findus crispy (un)savoury pancakes!

Not only do I remember these meals with fond affection, I remember that as a family we loved them, they were served for suppers, lunches, dinner parties and I still cook some of them today, I might have adapted them slightly, but mostly I cook them just how they were written. Sweet & sour ribs, the recipe for red cabbage is unchanged, chicken liver pate, barbecued beef (sweet and delicious with celery and green peppers) and of course baked cheesecake. It was the book that got my brothers and I interested in food and ultimately got us cooking. My 1983 copy coincided with moving into my first flat and became a constant feature in my first kitchen. The book was written by a long time friend of my mothers’,Elaine Hallgarten and co-authored by her long time friend Dorothy Brown, then came a string of other books, Mince Matters, Cooking with Yoghurt and The Jaffa Cookbook, but this book was called Cookery Do. I will and have already, in a spiritual sense, pass this book on to my friends and children and hope they’ll continue to cook these simple tasty recipes for as long as I have.

Back to cheesecake, cheese, being the operative word here. There are many recipes for cheesecake, some baked, some not, some set with gelatine others with eggs. The key thing here for me is the cheese. I have always favoured the traditional Jewish baked cheesecake. The one they serve in the Brick Lane Bagel Bake, the one you get from a street corner deli in Manhattan, the one my mother makes, the one in Cookery Do. It’s simple, it’s delightful and it’s delicious. Eggs, Lemon, Sugar and the vital ingredient, curd cheese. Curd cheese is similar to cream cheese but with a lower fat content. It has a slight acidity and a light flavour, colour and texture which is ideal for cheesecake. You can usually find it in Polish shops, supermarket deli counters (sometimes known as medium fat cream cheese) and even have it delivered from my favourite supplier of Devon Gold soft Curd Cheese Langage farm. When baked in the recipe here your cheesecake will have a texture like no other. Philadelphia is meant for sandwiches, and jolly good it is too, not cheesecake, I know it’s contentious, but it’s true!

Classic baked cheesecake 

Serves: 10 slices

• 500g curd cheese 
• 4 eggs 
• 250g caster sugar 
• 1 lemon juiced & zested 
• 8 digestive biscuits 
• 50g butter 

Preheat oven to 175 degrees

Break the digestive biscuits into coarse crumbs and place in a small saucepan. Melt the butter into the biscuit-crumb over a low heat until completely absorbed. Press the biscuit mixture into the base of a well buttered cake tin (with a removable bottom) and press down to form the base of the cake with the back of a spoon. The base should be smooth and level on the surface but not too compact, as this will make the base dense. When done place the tin in the fridge for 20mins to ‘set’ the base.

Mix the curd cheese, eggs, sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice in a large bowl with a balloon whisk until you have a creamy bubbly mixture.

Remove the cake tin from the fridge and place on a baking tray. Carefully pour in the cheesecake mixture taking care not to disturb the biscuit base. Gently place in the middle of the oven and bake for 30-45 mins.

When cooked the cake will have slightly coloured on top and the mixture will still wobble slightly in the centre. Don’t worry about this, as it will firm up as it cools. When it is at this stage turn the oven off and open the door about 15 cm leaving the cake inside and allow it to cool for an hour or so. This will help prevent splits appearing in the surface and continue to cook the cake.

Best made the day before and refrigerated overnight.

These quantities will exactly fill a 200mm diameter x 50mm deep cake tin.