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Simple pleasures #5: Two tasty tarts

2011-11-17T18:21:00.000Z

Golden Nuggets

2011-09-07T21:38:00.001+01:00

I was researching some veg recipies for an event I am doing for Riverford Organics this weekend and I stumbled across these carrot fritters in the lovely new vegetarian cook book 'Vegetarian' by Alice Hart. I have very slightly modified them, in that I used fresh mozzarella instead of halloumi in these ones which created nice soft bubbles of cheese but I will revert to halloumi at the weekend for it's salty overtones. Great as a vegetarian starter or as a side dish.

Carrot and Coriander fritters

Serves: 4

4 large carrots, grated
4 spring onions finely chopped
Small bunch of coriander leaves chopped
2 tsp coriander seeds, toasted and crushed
20g gram flour
1 beaten egg
50g Halloumi grated

Add all the ingredients to a large bowl and mix until well combined. Form the mixture into small patties in your hand and lay them on a sheet of greaseproof paper and ideally refrigerate for an hour if you have the time.

Heat some oil in a large frying and gently fry the fritters until crisp and golden. Remove from the pan and put on a warmed plate with some kitchen paper to absorb any excess oil. Serve with a squeeze of lemon and a drizzle of olive oil.

Fighting fish

2011-08-21T20:10:00.001+01:00

One of the very first photographs I had taken as a kid was of my little brother Jon, maybe aged 6 years old, standing outside our holiday home in Rustington, West Sussex, proudly holding in his outstretched hand, the catch of the day, a Mackerel!

A year or so before this momentous picture had been snapped my father surprised us all and I dare say himself, by returning from an unlikely visit to the London boat show with a boat strapped to the roof of the car. Not any old boat and if Ikea had been in existence back then they surely would have been green with envy for having not thought up this little gem, a flat packed self assemble boat! It was indeed a wondrous thing and we wondered over the instructions in true Ikea style for a whole winter, slowly and steadily wiring plywood panels together, taping up the seams with fibreglass tape, and fastidiously varnishing all the woodwork with the very exotically named ‘international’ boat varnish, until sometime around Easter as far as I can remember the vessel was finally wheeled out of the garage and stood magnificently on the driveway, now all we needed was some water. Surrey not being noted for its coast (although it does have a ‘coastal cruising society’) we headed for Littlehampton and the Arun Yacht club. Membership cards singed we would spend the next decade of our lives very happily mucking about on boats.

Mostly our boating pursuits would entail freezing cold forays into the English Channel to race 20 or so other boats around cleverly placed buoys whose intention was to test ones seamanship to the utmost. As kids we thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and we would try to (actually we often did) win these races or regattas and claim both the accolade and applause from the clubhouse as well as a tiny little wooden shield. On occasion and when the weather was clement we would strap an outboard motor to the stern of the boat, leave the sails folded neatly in their bags and head out into the channel for a spot of fishing, we kept a simplistic fishing kit, a bucket with two or three Mackerel lines in it. These lines with their brightly coloured dancing feathers would be cast off and left to their own devises for a while, we would probably eat a sandwich and then excitedly haul the lines into the boat and every once in a while we would be treated to a string of fish, often just one, more often just none, but it kept us kids entertained, and cold!

Nowadays I don’t have to go to quite the same lengths to gather one of my favourite fish and living only 20 miles from where these momentous events took place some 30 years ago I am in a perfect spot for Mackerel. No, a quick 10-minute cycle along the seafront here in Brighton is all that’s required and I have the full treasures of the sea laid out neatly on ice and for the taking.

Mackerel is a proper fish, it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it is quite probably the fish I eat more of than any other, lets hope it remains sustainable and cheap! To begin with it’s a real looker, dark and broody with flashes of silver and tiger stripes, it’s flesh is succulent and oily, it’s bones are substantial and easy to deal with. As with most fish there really isn’t that much to cooking them and Mackerel couldn’t be easier. These were pan fried, skin down in a little oil, two minutes and the skin is crisp, flip them over for a further minute and that’s it. What you serve them with is entirely a different matter, but I like to keep it simple and this Salsa Verde is a perfect partner for this glorious fish.

Salsa Verde

Handful of mint leaves
A bunch of Dill
Handful of flat leaf parsley
2 tsp of capers (in brine)
1 anchovy fillet (in oil)
2 garlic cloves
Salt & pepper
200ml extra virgin olive oil
1 lemon

Place all the ingredients in a blender and blitz to a coarse consistency, adjust seasoning and add a squeeze of lemon juice to taste.

Simple pleasures # 4

2011-08-17T18:10:00.000+01:00

This must be the easiest way to make a fruit cake , everything in one bowl, mix, bake for an hour, done !

It'll keep well for a week, we just took a few of these with us on a camping trip. Ideal for hungry campers sitting around the fire.

240g fruit ( or fruit & nuts) i used apricots, raisins, sultanas and almonds
100g soft butter
100 g caster sugar
2 large eggs
175g self raising flour

Put everything into a large bowl, mix into a smooth creamy cake mixture, put in a lined & buttered tin, sprinkle with nuts and sugar, bake at 180 degrees for an hour.

Simple pleasures # 3

2011-07-21T14:14:00.000+01:00

Broad beans & pecorino sardo salad

I had this in a restaurant in Florence this summer, on the menu it was translated as ' pecorino and green pods' , it wasn't until it came to the table that the true identity of the 'green pods' came to light. What a beautifully simple rustic dish.

Simple pleasures # 2

2011-07-14T14:45:00.001+01:00

Mussels cooked in white wine & garlic

Simple pleasures # 1

2011-07-11T13:01:00.001+01:00

Toast & Jam with creamy rich butter.

All clammed up

2011-06-20T10:55:00.001+01:00

There has been a fair amount of debate recently, both in the press and in my mind as to the ultimate recipe for Spaghetti alla vongole, a subtle, light and yet flavoursome pasta dish favoured in Rome and perfect for a summer lunch. It has always been a favourite of mine. I love its ease, simplicity and salty seaside tones. Spaghetti alla vongole (although I actually prefer Linguine) couldn’t be easier to make, clams which have been briefly cooked in white wine, olive oil, garlic and the merest hint of chilli, tossed with al dente pasta and sprinkled with some flat leaf parsley, what could be simpler? As with all things in life though, what sometimes appears to be simple on the surface is surrounded by deep complicated undercurrents of debate and this beautifully simple dish falls victim to that theory. The area of contention is Tomato, the purist’s: a team I’d like to consider myself as a member, will rightly debate that there is no room for the tomato in a vongole whilst there is another camp that will of course argue the complete opposite. Felicity Cloake in the Guardian writes an article each week on ‘how to make the ultimate’ and last week her ‘ultimate’ was vongole, therefore this argument was brought to a conclusion that neatly coincided with my return from a trip to Rome where this dish was on the roster, several times. It is therefore, with a raft of knowledge and on-the –ground experience, I can now reveal … bianco is best! Not that I needed Felicity or anyone else to persuade me on this as my natural bent is towards the pure. I have often had a version of this dish that includes a couple of cherry tomatoes and the sweetness they impart can on occasion be very palatable. Not so when a rich unctuous tomato sauce swamps the subtle salty offerings of the naked clam, this is definitely a no vote. In this case a mussel is a far better vehicle for a sweet sticky sauce.

When in Rome, as they say, and I was, I did indeed do what Romans do and indulged in Vongole as often as I could. Ristorante 34 nestles in a side street just off the Prada, Gucci, and Valentino mecca of via condotti. Surprising for it’s location this simple little trattoria offers some pretty good dishes, the vongole is my favourite and indeed is one of the best you can have outside of your own kitchen, aside from the oddly shaped ‘clam’ dish it was served on, a plain white round would have surpassed, but there lies another whole area of debate we won’t go into right now. Perfectly cooked pasta (you’d really expect nothing less but are often surprised) and generous helping of clams bound in a wine, garlic and parsley coating with the exact amount of chilli required to give this dish a delicate and graceful lift makes this the perfect meal for sitting at one of the little street-side tables gazing at the glamorous shoppers passing by clutching at glitzy carrier bags, the Prada carefully placed in full view.

There are many recipes but my own (with Linguine) concurs with Felicity Cloake’s ultimate version, so here it is.

Serves 4

500g small clams (palourdes, or carpet shell are ideal) 
350g Linguine (dried)
 30g butter
 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 
3 fat cloves of garlic, finely chopped 
½ medium-hot red chilli, finely chopped 
100ml dry white wine
 Small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped 
Zest of ½ a lemon and a spritz of juice

1. Rinse the clams in cold running water, and scrub if necessary, then put them into a large bowl and cover with cold water. Salt generously and leave for a couple of hours, then drain and rinse well to remove any grit or sand.

2. Put the linguine into a large pan of salted boiling water and cook for a couple of minutes under the recommended time, until nearly done.

3. Meanwhile, put half the butter and all the olive oil in a large pan over a medium heat and soften the garlic and chilli.

4. Add the drained clams, and turn up the heat. Pour in the wine, cover and leave for a couple of minutes until most of them have opened. Discard any that are still closed. Add the others to the sauce, picking a few out of their shells for variety.

5. Drain the linguine and add to the pan along with the remaining butter. Toss well and leave for a minute, then stir through the chopped parsley, lemon zest and juice, season to taste and serve.

Spring driven thing

2011-04-01T10:24:00.001+01:00

A couple of items turned up in my veg box this week that strictly aren’t in season, but given that Riverford have organic farms both in the south of France and in Spain, the growing season is somewhat extended. Anyway I’m not complaining as I happen to love both of these vegetables and they inspired a springtime salad of autumnal veg, if you get my meaning. Juicy sweet butternut squash and delicate aniseed fennel, what a great combination, add a little mint and some nutty flavoured dressing, perfect. This is super easy, can be prepared in advance and then just thrown together. It makes a lovely stand-alone lunch or goes perfectly with some grilled fish, try some fresh Mackerel!

Butternut squash, fennel & potato salad

Serves: 4

1 x butternut squash
2 medium sized fennel bulb
300g potato
100g walnuts
8 mint leaves
Rocket & watercress leaves
Lemon juice
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp Sesame oil
Brown rice vinegar, a dash
Salt & pepper

Peel & deseed the butternut squash, cut into small 1-2cm chunks. Plunge into boiling water and blanch for a few minutes to soften. Drain and set aside. Similarly cut the potato (you can leave the skin on , especially if using small new potato) into small 1-2cm chunks and again blanch these in boiling water to soften, drain and set aside. Cut the fennel bulbs in halve and steam (place in a colander above the boiling potato is a good idea) until just getting tender. When the fennel is done, remove from the steamer and slice across the bulb into thick slices, set aside.

Heat a large frying pan, add some olive oil and quickly brown the chunks of butternut, potato and fennel in small batches until crisp and coloured, set aside on kitchen paper. Brown the walnuts until crisp and golden and again set aside.

In a large salad bowl mix the sesame oil, brown rice vinegar, tbsp olive oil, salt, pepper and lemon juice together to form a dressing, taste and adjust seasoning as desired. Place butternut, potato, fennel and walnuts in the bowl so there is a nice balance of ingredients, add the rocket and watercress leaves and tear some mint leaves into the bowl. With a spoon mix & toss everything together until it is all coated with the dressing, add another squeeze of lemon juice, adjust seasoning and serve.

Between the sheets

2011-01-19T11:03:00.005Z

Saturday night, 10 o’clock, dinner over, the x-box is working overtime in the bedroom, three boys are full-bellied and playing out the rest of the evening, we are sipping on some red wine and slipping the last of the plates into the dishwasher, wrapping the remaining portion of lasagne for a Sunday night leftover meal. Its simplicity never fails to please, the lasagne that is, it’s warming, wholesome and fulfilling. What could be a better meal for a bunch of ever-hungry teenagers or adults? This simplistic dish however, takes a little forethought and planning to serve it at it’s very best. Let me take you back 24 hours to Friday night. The ragu, meat sauce, has been gently bubbling away for over an hour on the stove and will continue in its murmurings for another hour more until it is dark, thick and concentrated. The ragu is then put to one side to cool and left overnight, it'll intensify and mature in flavour as it marinates in it's juices until required for spreading between the pasta sheets, drizzled with bechamel sauce and baked in the oven to make the perfect lasagne.

It’s quite ritualistic making this sauce, almost therapeutic. Maybe because as a young adolescent cook it would have been one of the first recipes I attempted and over time, as I have matured in years and in my cooking ability so this simple sauce has matured and developed with me. I certainly have a particular way of constructing a ragu, it can be quick and easy in its preparation but I like to take my time over it, sipping some wine, listening to some music as I carefully chop, stir and taste: very considered and rigid in its simple ingredients, I rarely deviate from the path. I have experimented with different meats: pork, beef, or a mixture, I have added chicken livers, red wine, white wine, used fresh tomato and tinned, played around with various herb combinations but I have now decided that this sauce is the one. It may not be traditionally Italian and may not be as ‘mama’ would make (although in our household 'papa' always made the lasagne) but this recipe delivers a big rich flavour and smells terrific as it simmers gently in the kitchen, as yet I haven’t had any complaints. It is after all a very basic sauce but it's so worthwhile taking some time over it and using the best ingredients to make this lasagne recipe, as we all know ... it's what goes on between the sheets that really matters !

Lasagne al forno

Serves 6

500g lean, top quality minced beef
1 onion
2 celery sticks
1 large carrot
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp thyme leaves
2 bay leaves
300ml chicken stock
100g tomato puree
1 glass of red wine
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp red wine vinegar
2 x 400g tins of tomato
Salt & pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
8 lasagne sheets
50g parmesan cheese for grating

Béchamel sauce

600ml warm milk
50g butter
100g cheddar cheese
1 tbsp flour

I always use, where possible, organic vegetables and home made stock. Use an organic stock cube if you don’t have home made. I use the best tined tomato I can afford and a good full-bodied red wine, this is a large glass, about 1/3 of a bottle, cheers!

Mise en place: everything in place. When preparing a recipe I like to have everything in place, all my ingredients lined up, chopped, sliced, crushed and ready. So begin by finely chopping the onion, carrot, and celery, thinly slice the garlic, warm the stock, grate the cheese, strip the leaves from the sprigs of thyme and pour the wine. In a large sauté pan gently soften the onion, carrot, celery and garlic in a little olive oil and cover, slowly soften without browning for 6 minutes or so and then turn the heat up slightly and carefully crumble the minced meat into the pan. Mix well so the meat starts to colour evenly then season with a little salt & pepper. Cook for about 5 minutes. Add the thyme and bay leaves, the red wine vinegar and the sugar, cook for a few minutes longer until the vinegar has evaporated. Now add the tomato puree, mix well and add the red wine. Turn down the heat and cook for a while more until the wine is reduced and is barely remaining. Add the tinned tomato and the stock, stir well and turn the heat down to a slow simmer, the lowest setting you have, a very gentle lazy bubble.

The ragu now needs to cook very slowly, a couple of hours, but you need to keep an eye on it and care for it through the cooking process, stirring every now and again and topping up with a little more stock, wine or water if more liquid is required and carefully adjusting the seasoning. When it is cooked it’ll be a thick, concentrated rich meaty sauce. This can now be left in the fridge ready for the next day or freeze it for another time. When it comes to making the lasagne, re-heat the meat ragu gently to loosen, as it would have solidified somewhat in the fridge.

I always pre-cook my lasagne sheets. The ‘no pre-cooking required’ sheets that can be obtained always feel a bit stodgy and tough to me. So I use good quality dried lasagne sheets, pre cooked in boiling salted water for a few minutes and laid between tea towels until I need them.

For the white, béchamel sauce, gently melt the butter in a pan, remove from the heat when bubbling and stir in the sifted flour until smooth, return the pan to the heat and let the flour ‘cook-out’ in the butter until it is puffy, stir all the time, don’t let it burn. Remove the pan from the heat; gently and gradually stir in the warm milk until you have a velvety smooth sauce the texture of double cream. Return to the heat and cook gently, stirring all the time until the sauce thickens, you can add more milk if required but I like the end result to have a consistency of custard. Season the sauce with salt & pepper then stir in the grated cheese.

Now simply layer up all the elements but start with a thin layer of the ragu and some of the béchamel in the bottom of your ovenproof dish. Then a layer of lasagne sheets, some more ragu, more béchamel, lasagne and so on for four or five layers, pour the remaining béchamel all over the top to ‘seal’ and grate the Parmesan cheese evenly over. Place on a tray and in a medium oven, 180 degrees, for 30 minutes or until browned and crisp on the surface and bubbling around the sides of the dish.

How about it sweet cheeks

2011-01-02T13:46:00.004Z

There is, it has to be said, a quietly indulgent sense of self-satisfaction that derives from the creation of something outstandingly delicious from the most meagre & humble of ingredients. Champagne flavour with a beer budget and there could be no more a humble ingredient than the long forgotten beef cheek. I was in Waitrose the other day and I was surprised to see some lovely looking beef cheeks at the butchers counter. The cheeks weighed in at a very respectable £4.35 (£4.49 per kg as of 4/01/2011) for nearly a kg of meat enough for four or five very generous portions. It’s so refreshing to see a supermarket stocking obscure cheap cuts of meat again. I just hope they remain cheap and affordable and not, as is all to often the case, becoming a trendy gastro menu item pushing up demand and therefore the price: as with pork belly for instance.

I remember as a child my mother and father would prepare family dinners that would often comprise of cuts such as beef brisket: salted and turned for two weeks in the larder (yes, we had a larder a rare commodity these days) and then boiled and served with carrots. Lamb breasts: rolled and roasted with lemon and thyme stuffing, resulting in crispy lamb skin with an oozing and succulent interior or tender juicy ox tongue served with the creamiest mashed potato, wilted spinach and served with a gorgeous piquant gravy, lambs kidneys served with rice, sautéed chicken livers and other offally delights. There is something quite unique and special about these dishes, a richness and depth of flavour that to my mind far outstrips an expensive fillet steak, topside or pork leg any day. These cheaper cuts pack a big flavour, some interesting varied textures and allow some slow, considered and indulgent cooking. Sainsbury's have been selling Lamb breast for a while now and with Waitrose stepping up the game with items such as shin, skirt and cheeks it won't be too long before the others follow suit. In the meantime there are enough farmers markets, farm shops and even a renaissance for the high street butcher, here in Brighton we actually had a new one open fairly recently. You can buy excellent meat online ( although I'm a bit funny about seeing what I'm buying when it comes to meat ) Donald Russell sells beef cheeks but at a top end price of £13.75 per kilo: see what i mean about these cuts getting expensive. So get down to your local butcher or farm shop and snap up some of these sweet little cheeks before they start to leave a bitter taste in your wallet.

Beef cheeks can be used in various ways but for this recipe I cooked them as if in a daube provencale or a bourguignon style. I kept the meat in large pieces; I didn’t trim out the fat or sinew so the fat slowly melts, flavouring and tenderising the meat as it cooks. I just cut the cheeks into four or five portions and marinated the meat for 24 hours before cooking. Slow cooked for four hours in red wine and meat stock (I used venison), carrots, onions and my secret ingredient, a little star anise, the result was fantastic: mouth-watering flavour that had depth and richness, the meat was soft, tender, succulent and extremely delicious. Pop this dish in the oven, prep your vegetables (creamed parsnip and peppered steamed cabbage in this case) and head off for a brisk wintry walk or to the pub for a couple of beers. Returning home a few hours later you’ll find the house filled with warm beefy aromas and in no time an indulgent lunch will be on the table and it would have cost less than a couple of pints!

Beef cheeks daube style

Serves:4

800g beef cheeks
3 medium onions sliced
4 large carrots cut into batons
1 celery stalk finely chopped
1 small leek finely chopped
2 rashers of bacon finely chopped
2 garlic cloves
3/4 bottle of red wine
600ml meat stock
4 tbsp flour
Thyme sprigs
4 Bay leaves
10 juniper berries, crushed
½ a star anise
olive oil
salt & pepper

Make the marinade by combining a cup of red wine, 4 tbsp of olive oil, half a sliced onion, 1 chopped carrot, some thyme leaves, a bay leaf, two garlic cloves sliced, 5 juniper berries, salt & pepper and mix well. Cut the beef cheeks into large pieces and place in a large freezer bag or a covered pot, pour over the marinade and leave in the fridge for 24 hours or at least over night.

Strain the marinade, retaining the liquid. Dry the meat on the some kitchen towel and dust with a little flour. Fry until browned in a little oil and place in a large casserole pot. In the same pan, fry the onions, leeks and celery until softened, add this to the meat. Now fry the bacon in a little oil, add the carrots, remaining juniper, star anise, thyme, bay leaves and when starting to colour douse with the remaining red wine, add the stock and reserved marinade and bring to the boil, simmer gently for five minutes and then remove the star anise, season generously. Pour this over the meat and vegetables already in the casserole and gently stir everything together. Place the lid tightly on the pot and place in a slow oven, 150 degrees and cook for four hours. Check halfway through that there is enough liquid, top up with wine or stock and more seasoning if required.

Once cooked this dish will improve with age, make it the day before and reheat gently before serving.

Serve with creamed parsnips and a green vegetable.

Crunch time

2010-11-04T12:45:00.003Z

Yes it’s that glorious time of year where everything gets just a little bit crunchy. The trees are changing colours and soon we’ll be wading through pavements and fields knee deep in crisp golden leaves, clear blue skies overhead and clouds of condensing breath in the air. The seasonal produce on offer from stores, markets and farm shops reflect the colours and hues of the season: golden and purple swedes, burnt orange pumpkins, moss-like kale leaves, frosty white leeks and deep green crinkled cabbage. It’s the time of year when traditionally our thoughts turn, quite rightly, to warming soups, stews, compotes and deep rich meats and game with distinctive earthy flavours but there’s still time for something a little lighter and fresher. In this crisp and crunchy salad-come-autumnal-coleslaw you'll find a refreshing, tangy, Asian twist that is the perfect compliment to the season.

Try adding bean sprouts, noodles or both, maybe some stir fried crispy chunks of chicken or serve this coleslaw, as is, along side some roasted pork belly with crackling. The dressing would make a perfect marinade for fish too: sticky, sweet and sour.

Winter coleslaw with Asian dressing

Serves:4

½ a cabbage, green or white shredded
3 carrots coarsely grated
2 apples grated
1 red pepper finely sliced
2 tbsp of crushed roasted peanuts

Dressing
·       1 clove garlic crushed
·       ½ onion finely chopped
·       1 red chilli chopped
·       1 tbsp of thai fish sauce
·       11/2 tbsp of brown sugar
·       3 tbsp of lime juice
·       a dash of sweet chilli sauce

Put all the raw vegetables chopped, sliced or grated in a large bowl. Mix all the dressing ingredients in a blender and blitz for a few seconds. Pour the dressing over the veg and toss well, serving with a sprinkle of the crushed peanuts.

Smashing pumpkins

2010-11-02T12:38:00.001Z

Halloween having just passed we naturally find ourselves with a slight excess in the pumpkin department: even though the living room is abundantly decorated with triangular cut, slanty eyed faces that the kids have enthusiastically carved, glowing and glowering, on shelves, mantles and in obscure corners, the room is filled with an autumnal aura … and an acrid smell of burning vegetable flesh. Every year I try to ‘do’ something with pumpkin, I’ve experimented with pumpkin pies, pumpkin soups, roasting and mashing the golden flesh, but have come to the conclusion that none of the above really excites me that much. Pies are often glutinous and any pumpkin flavour is masked by nutmeg and cinnamon, not a bad thing as it turns out, but then I question as to why include the pumpkin in the first place. Soups are never quite ‘there’ for me: I only once had a decent soup but again the over riding flavour was celery this time, whilst warming and an attractive colour the pumpkin seemed to be lurking around rather than bursting out. Lets face facts, pumpkin isn’t the worlds most flavoursome ingredient: despite being one of the most popular crops in the United States of America where about 1.5 billion pounds are cultivated each year. It does however have quite an interesting texture if handled in the right way and this year I stumbled upon a pasta recipe that seems to finally do the pumpkin proud. The trick is to roast thick slices of pumpkin with the skin intact then, when tender and almost cooked through, scrape the flesh into a sieve or colander and let it drain and dry overnight (for at least the best part of the day). The true genius in this recipe though is the way the pumpkin flesh, now mashed coarsely, is combined with pear and parmesan cheese and a little garlic to create a tangy, sweet, textured and delicious filling for tortellini pasta. Squash and pasta are old and well acquainted partners; think of butternut and sage for instance, both as a filling and as a fantastic variation for gnocchi. This recipe for the pumpkin is similar in the fact that the dish is finished with a smoky sage and butter sauce but the texture and the fresh fruity finish are quite unique.

Pumpkin & pear tortellini

Serves: 4

For the filling- the day before

1 pumpkin, about 2kg
100g grated fresh parmesan cheese
100g pear flesh, grated
1 clove garlic, crushed
Salt & pepper

For the pasta
300g tipo ‘00’ flour
3 eggs
1 tspn of turmeric

For the sauce
100g butter
A handful of sage leaves
Half a cup of vegetable stock

Cut the pumpkin into wedges, deseed and place in a roasting tin, sprinkle with salt and roast at 180degrees for about 45 minutes or until just tender. Allow to cool and then scrape the pumpkin flesh into a sieve or colander, place a plate or saucer on top and rest in a bowl to allow any excess liquid to drain from the flesh. This should be left for at least 5 hours but if the pumpkin seems very wet then leave to drain overnight. When thoroughly dry place the pumpkin flesh in a bowl and coarsely mash or place in a blender and blitz. Add the Parmesan cheese, pear, garlic and season well with salt & pepper.

There are so many pasta recipes so find one you can work with, the process and technique is pretty standard, I add the turmeric to give the pasta a deep yellow colour. Fill your rolled out pasta with the pumpkin filling, shape into tortellini and leave to air until needed. Cook in plenty of boiling salted water for about 4 mins. Melt the butter in a frying pan; add the sage leaves and fry for a minute, splash in the stock and season. When cooked toss the tortellini in the sage butter sauce and serve immediately.

Riverford at Pines Gardens

2010-10-27T10:29:00.002+01:00

Dover, Kent was the location for the latest demonstration for my friends at Riverford organics , the veg box people. Once again we were inspiring new ideas and some innovative methods of cooking some of the , well , less exciting veg that heralds in the new autumn season, the much maligned Swede for instance. Autumn also has a treasure-trove of delights in store and is quite possibly my favourite food season. Much as in spring when purple sprouting broccoli is available for the first time , Kale brings a similar frisson of excitement with it's arrival in the weekly box. This week it was the deeply gorgeous long leaves of Cavalo Nero but soon curly Kale will be in abundance and I shall indulge.

The main focus of this weeks demonstration was Swede though and sage seemed to be the appropriate partner. Try roasting Swede seasoned with salt and pepper, some chopped sage leaves and roasted in the over for 20 minutes or so and serve as an alternative to roast potato. Using a very similar method , only chopping the Swede into more delicate pieces a risotto of roasted Swede and sage butter drizzle was a real hit with both lovers and haters of this golden and fleshed root.

Roast Swede and sage risotto

Serves: 4

250g Arborio rice
750ml Vegetable stock
3tbsp olive oil
1 white onion finely chopped
1 celery stick, finely chopped
150g grated parmesan cheese
1 garlic clove crushed
1 lemon juiced
1 glass of white dry wine
30g butter
Salt & pepper

Heat the oil in a heavy based pan and gently fry the onion & celery for a few minutes. Add the crushed garlic clove stir in for a minute or two and then pour in some more olive oil and add the rice. Cook the rice for a few minutes until the rice absorbs some of the oil and starts to puff a little. If you are using wine this is the time to add it to the pan and heat until absorbed into the rice. Now start adding the stock, just cover the rice and stir whilst it is absorbed and then repeat. Keep cooking until the rice is nearly done but still a bit ‘husky’ and now add the lemon juice, season with salt & pepper and keep cooking adding more stock as required until the rice is al dente. Remove from the heat, stir in the Parmesan cheese cover and let it sit for five minutes, before adding flavourings.

Roasted Swede & sage:

1 medium Swede
a handful of fresh sage leaves
a few spinach leaves , washed and dried
olive oil

Cube the Swede into 1cm pieces, drizzle with olive oil, season and add a handful of chopped sage leaves, mix together and roast in the oven at 180 degrees for 20 mins or so. Add the roasted Swede to the risotto with a handful of spinach leaves and while the risotto is resting, fry some sage leaves in butter until crisp. Serve the crisp leaves on top of the risotto and drizzle with the butter.

Event photos by Chrissy Asteraki-Speer

Humble roots

2010-10-06T12:20:00.003+01:00

We had a bit of a glut this week, Carrots, that most humble of root vegetables, they seemed to be everywhere. We hadn’t even started on the bunch that came in last weeks veg box when another bunch turned up all fresh and perky in this weeks offering. There were a few still left over from the week before and in a major failing of my faculties I actually bought yet more whilst out food shopping; just because they were the right shape, you know those delicious little baby Chantenay carrots, I wanted them for a version of Coq-Au-Vin I was cooking mid week and thought they’d look good in the dish. So due to this slight over run of the gloriously humble Daucus carota I found myself searching around for a few recipes to appease, not only my shopping guilt but the excess.

There are of course many ways to cook a carrot and nothing better than to boil until just tender, drain and then glaze with butter, a little sugar and serve sprinkled with fresh chopped Parsley. We call these ‘naughty carrots’ at home and in a stroke of genius and by employing a degree of psychological warfare the kids were wooed into eating them by simply designating them as ‘naughty’ (due to the sugar & butter content), all kids like something naughty and this system worked a treat and we still refer to this dish by the same name today. In an aside to this: we once convinced my son, probably aged two (poor lad had no idea) that sparkling mineral water was ‘white coca-cola’, another battle won by simple psychological techniques, worked until he went to nursery school and started mixing with other better informed children who were already indoctrinated in the delights of ‘the real thing’!

There is always a soup I suppose, a classic way to relieve oneself of an overflowing supply of vegetables, but today I fancied something a little more tantalising and something to accompany some slow roasted lamb shoulder that was oozing and spitting in the oven. I was thinking of a Greek flavour or an exotic North African spicing that would go perfectly with the lamb. Once again Ottoleghi’s Plenty came to the rescue with a very simple Moroccan spiced carrot recipe that I instantly suspected could be adapted in several ways. The basic idea was simple, we like that, par-cook the carrots, fry some onion and spice these with cumin, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, chilli and garlic, return the carrots, stir together and eventually serve with some fresh coriander and an indulgent dollop of Greek yoghurt drizzled with your best olive oil.

Moroccan spiced carrot salad

Serves: 4

1 kg carrots
100 ml olive oil
1 onion finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic
2 green chillies
1 pinch of ground cloves
1 pinch of ground ginger
1 pinch of ground coriander
1 tsp of ground cinnamon
1 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tbsp of chopped preserved lemon skin (if you have it or the grated zest of a lemon
Juice of 1 lemon
1 handful of fresh chopped coriander
Greek yoghurt to serve
Salt & pepper

Wash, peel and cut the carrots into 1cm thick batons about 3 cm in length. Cook in slowly boiling salted water until just tender but retaining some degree of crunch. Drain and allow to cool.

In a frying pan soften the onion in olive oil until just starting to colour, sprinkle in all the ground herbs, the chopped garlic, finely chopped chillies, white wine vinegar and lemon zest and continue cooking for a few minutes until all the flavours are combined and the onion is browned and golden.

Return the carrots to the onion mixture and mix thoroughly so all the carrots are coated in the onions and spices. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Just before serving stir through the chopped coriander and serve in individual bowls with a spoon of Greek yoghurt and a drizzle of olive oil.

I was cooking at a music festival the other week and used this basic recipe to create a couscous dish that could be pre-prepared and taste good all day. It turned out to be a real hit and I have prepared it a few times since. It follows the same basic principles as the Ottolenghi dish above but combines couscous, mint & raisins to make a sweet and spicy warm (or cold) salad that is great as an accompaniment to meats or is an ideal lunch box recipe.

Moroccan spiced carrot couscous

Serves: 4

1 kg carrots
150g couscous
100ml olive oil
1 onion finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic
2 green chillies
1 pinch of ground coriander
1 tsp of ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cumin
Juice of 1 lemon
1 handful of fresh chopped coriander
1 handful of fresh chopped mint
1 handful of the best raisins you can afford
Salt & pepper

Wash, peel and cut the carrots into 1cm thick batons about 3 cm in length. Cook in slowly boiling salted water until just tender but retaining some degree of crunch. Drain and allow to cool.

In a frying pan soften the onion in olive oil until just starting to colour, sprinkle with all the ground herbs, the chopped garlic, finely chopped chillies and continue cooking for a few minutes until all the flavours are combined and the onion is browned and golden.
Return the carrots to the onion mixture and mix thoroughly so all the carrots are coated in the onions and spices. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

Put the couscous in a large bowl, sprinkle with salt and cover with boiling water. Put a lid on the bowl or cover the bowl with cling film and leave to stand for 10 minutes. After ten minutes ‘fluff’ the couscous up with a plastic fork and drizzle in a little olive oil and lemon juice just to help the grains separate. Stir in the chopped mint and coriander, season to taste with salt & pepper and add more lemon juice if required. Now add the carrots and onion mixture and the raisins and stir all the ingredients together. Adjust the seasoning to taste, add more chopped herbs and lemon if required then place in into a large serving dish.

Get with the Beet !

2010-09-08T23:17:00.002+01:00

Second helpings are always a good thing and there is no exception in the case of the deeply delicious beetroot. Normally and probably quite rightly one associates the deep earthy flavours of this particular purple bulb with the autumn, but in fact these roots are available pretty much all year: bar a brief holiday from April till June. It therefore comes as a complete delight to find what appears to be a second crop available just now, but this is really the beginning of the season that began in late June and will now continue through till next February or even March. The beets available now are smaller, sweeter and cook more easily than those larger ones available in the winter month’s, which can sometimes have a tough woody core.

There are many ways to prepare and eat beetroot but I find the best place to start no matter what recipe I am intending to follow is to roast the beets in the oven until tender and from there I can do what ever I so desire with ease. I have noticed that many cook books instruct a roasting of around 45 minutes, this in my opinion is a complete fallacy, I can’t remember ever being able to roast a beet from raw to tender in this time, an hour and a half maybe, but never much less than an hour, so bear this in mind before starting any recipe involving beetroot.

My preferred method is quite simple, produces a deep rich colour, flavour and velvety texture, let alone a delicious aroma that will fill your kitchen making you instantly and ridiculously hungry. Simply remove most of the roots and stalks from the beets, scatter a good handful or two of sea salt on the bottom of a large sheet of foil, place the washed and dried beets onto the bed of salt, wrap the foil up tightly and place on a tray in a preheated oven at 180 degrees. As I said you can expect this process to take around 90 to 120 minutes depending on the size and age of your beets. You can always test them with a skewer after an hour and see how they’re doing. When completely tender, allow them to cool and then rub off the skins with your fingers ( wear some rubber gloves if you don’t want stained fingers) and trim off the stalks and roots.

Now you have a delicious cooked beet that can be added to salads, pan-fried with carrots and balsamic vinegar, made into deep velvety soup that can be eaten hot or cold and even used to make a surprisingly good, moist cake.

I am a huge fan of the beet and find it a complete joy to cook with. I love the way it partners so well with fruit and in these two recipes I do exactly that. The soup is a delicious alternative to Borscht, the apple lightens and sweetens and this version is equally good hot or cold. The salad is simply wondrous, tangy, salty (from the olives) and sweet from both the beets and the fruit. It looks quite stunning too and is super simple to make.

Beetroot , orange and olive salad

Serves: 2

400g beetroot
2 sweet blood or blush oranges
50g black dried pitted olives
½ a small red onion very finely chopped
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil
Flat leaf parsley chopped
Salt & pepper

Prepare the beetroot by washing, trimming off the long stalks and sitting them on a bed of sea salt wrapped up inside a piece of foil. Place them in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees and roast for at least 90 minutes or until completely tender when pierced with a skewer or sharp knife. Allow to cool for a while, and then remove the stalks and skins, slice into wedge shape pieces and place in a large mixing bowl.

Cut the skins from the oranges by slicing off the ends and cutting down the sides of the fruit to reveal the flesh, thus removing any pith, cut out the segments of orange from in-between the membranes and put the segments and the juice in the same bowl as the beetroot.

Add all the other ingredients: olives, onion, olive oil, red wine vinegar and chopped parsley to the bowl, mix the salad together, season with salt & pepper to taste and serve on a large platter.

Beetroot, apple & celery soup

Serves: 4

1kg Beetroot (roasted)
500g Apples
1 large onion
1 Celery stalk
200ml white wine
1 tbsp Demerara sugar
1.5ltr vegetable or chicken stock
2tbsp olive oil
Salt & pepper
Crème fraiche
Chives

Wrap the beetroot in foil and roast in the oven at 180 degrees for an hour or until tender, peel the skins off the beets and slice. Sweat the onion and celery in a large pan in a little olive oil. Peel, core and slice the apples add these to the pan and cook down for a while. Add the sugar, white wine and cook for a few minutes more until all the ingredients are combined. Pour over the stock, season and simmer gently until everything is thoroughly tender and cooked through: about 30 mins. Allow to cool for a little while and then place in a food processor and blitz into a smooth soup. Return to a pan, heat gently and then serve with a swirl of crème fraiche or sour cream and a scattering of finely chopped chives or dill if preferred. This soup is excellent served chilled.

More green issues ...

2010-07-26T23:11:00.000+01:00

Baking has never come completely naturally to me, not like my mother or grandmother who both seem to bake so effortlessly, no, it has always been a bit of a recipe following exercise as far as I am concerned. Bread I’m OK with, I’ve practised enough to have developed a ‘feel’ for it and I like the scientific element to the whole process. So I was somewhat surprised in myself as to why I was drawn to these little pancakes when I was looking for something new to try.

It started with a beautiful bunch of organic Spinach that had arrived on my doorstep courtesy of my weekly Riverford veg box. I was browsing through the cook books to find something interesting and new to do with this wonderful bag of bright green leaves, when I stumbled upon this recipe in my new Ottolenghi book Plenty. For some reason this recipe just jumped off the page, not too fussy and plenty of room for a more rustic method, and so, as if by fate, green spinach pancakes it was!

I was considering augmenting these delightful pancakes with some chopped up bacon or pancetta but in the end I left well alone and followed the recipe. These would make a great brunch or breakfast dish, served with a tomato relish maybe, or just eat them straight from the frying pan as I did, fold them in half and munch like a sandwich, absolutely delicious!

Green Spinach pancakes

(from Ottolenghi Plenty)

Serves: 2

300g spinach
1 egg
1 tsp cumin
4 spring onions chopped
1 green chilli chopped
150ml milk
110 self raising flour
1 tbsp baking powder
50g butter, melted
Sea salt
1 egg white
Olive oil

Wash and dry the spinach then wilt in a dry pan over a medium heat. When soft place the spinach in a roll of kitchen paper and squeeze out as much water as possible. Lay the spinach out on fresh paper for a while then roughly chop and set to one side.

Place the flour, baking powder, whole egg, salt, cumin, in a bowl and whisk until a smooth. Add the chopped chilli and spring onions and stir into the pancake mix. Now stir in the spinach and season well, then, whisk the egg white to stiff peaks and fold this into the pancake batter.

In a hot non-stick frying pan drizzle some olive oil and add two tablespoons of the pancake mixture into the fat. Pat down a little so the pancakes don't get too thick and cook more evenly. Fry for two minutes on each side until golden and cooked through. This recipe makes about 6 pancakes.

You could call this Ratatouille

2010-07-25T22:01:00.001+01:00

Aubergine, Courgette and Tomato, such a classic combination of ingredients, used all over the world by different cultures to produce stunning full flavoured dishes that never disappoint. This is a really easy and somewhat refined version of a Ratatouille, but by cooking each ingredient individually it retains much more of each elements intrinsic qualities.

Ratatouille ... my way

1 Medium Aubergine
2 Courgettes
200g Cherry Tomato
1 glass of white wine
1 tbsp of tomato puree
100 ml water
1/2 a garlic clove , crushed
1 tbsp of chopped flat leaf parsley
1 tsp of dried oregano
1 tsp sugar
olive oil
salt & pepper

Cut the Aubergine into thick chunks and fry in a little olive oil in a very hot pan until they are charred but not burnt, set to one side on a piece of kitchen paper.

Slice the Courgette into batons and in the same way as the Aubergine fry the batons until brown and golden . Set aside on a piece of kitchen paper

In a saucepan over a medium heat put the white wine and tomato puree, stir well together and cook off the wine for a few minutes. Add the sliced cherry tomato's, crushed garlic, sugar, dried oregano and season well. Top up with a little of the water as required and simmer down for a few minutes to thicken.

Now stir in the Aubergine and Courgette, toss around in the sauce, place a lid on the pan and gently simmer , stirring once, for 8-10 minutes. Keep an eye on the pan though as you don't want the vegetables to over cook and lose their colour and texture. Stir in some chopped parsley just before serving in a big bowl. Great as a lunch dish with crusty bread , a terrific side to slow roast lamb or as a salad.

Going green

2010-07-24T22:57:00.000+01:00

Having been on the road for the last two months on various photographic assignments in the USA, Canada, Scotland and Ireland I have returned home with what might be described as an attack of scurvy. It’s not exactly a case of an ancient maritime disease but I’m convinced it’s not far off. I’m craving green. Is it really so impossible to eat healthy food whilst travelling on the highways and byways of North America and the UK, it would appear so. Many of the cities I visited have a plethora of healthy food outlets I’m sure, you just don’t see them when you’re on the road and like many other travellers there just isn’t the time to make detours into a city to satiate a hunger and so we all just have to make do with what’s on offer. Chain Restaurants, sandwich bars and coffee shops. Most of the American roadside stops feature the familiar delights of Starbucks, Taco bell, Arby’s, pizza this and pizza that as well as the usual array of awful hamburger joints. Everything is served in ridiculously large portions, it’s full of fat, salt and sugar. No I don’t want to ‘go large’ thank you very much. Even in the UK the best you’re likely to procure is an M&S sandwich, maybe a salad and a portion of sweaty sushi which I will admit is a vast improvement on what our American counterparts have to offer but the whole experience is so lacking that inevitably it just becomes a ‘fuel’ stop.

So life on the road has left me wanting and to be quite honest, a little bit weightier. Nothing therefore could have been a more fitting antidote and a source of inspiration on my return than to pick up a copy of the new Ottolenghi book Plenty. The pages are bursting with beautiful images of delightful food. The sort of recipes that excite the palate, tickle the taste buds, inspire new culinary challenges and frankly kick any threat of scurvy right into touch. Why couldn’t someone open a motorway café based on this kind of fresh, seasonal, vitamin packed and downright tasty food. How amazing would it be to walk into a service station and be hit by the fragrant smells of garlic, mint, lemon, cinnamon and see spread out in a clean well lit and comfortable environment, huge colourful platters of couscous, trays of roasted Mediterranean vegetables, slithers of perfectly cooked roast beef, fish, something as simple as marinated buffalo mozzarella with roasted tomato, fresh humus, lentil salad, great breads, cakes and bowls of fruity compote. It couldn’t turn out to be any more expensive than the fleecing your wallet gets for a soggy sandwich and a coffee, that doesn’t even taste of coffee. There must be a demand for it out there, somewhere. Surely the concept here is fast food, not fastfood.

My return to the UK also happens to coincide with some lovely produce coming into season. Broad beans, garden Peas, Courgette, Aubergine, Spinach, Salad leaves, green beans, Turnips and Watercress. None of these need any degree of lengthy cooking, blanch, griddle, sear, sweat or steam, served in interesting combinations as stand alone dishes or as sides. All are easily adaptable and in this Couscous recipe I have added the peas and Broad beans to the original recipe to give a nutty texture.

Green Couscous with broad beans and peas

Serves:4

150g couscous
160 ml boiling water / stock
1 small onion
2 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp ground cumin
50g toasted pistachio nuts crushed
3 finely chopped spring onions
1 fresh green and red chilli, deseeded and chopped
50g rocket chopped
150g broad beans (shelled weight)
150g fresh peas (shelled weight)

Herb salsa

20g parsley
2 tbsp dill
Chopped mint, a handful
1 clove garlic
Olive oil
lemon juice to taste
Salt & pepper

Blanch the shelled broad beans in boiling water for a few minutes, drain, plunge into cold water and set aside then pop them out of their shells by making a small pinched hole in the rounded end and squeezing out the bean with a thumb and forefinger.

Do likewise with the shelled peas.

Fry the onion in a little olive oil until golden and soft, sprinkle with a little cumin and set to one side.

Blitz the ingredients for the herb salsa in a food processor until smooth.

In a large bowl place the couscous and add a tbsp of olive oil, then cover with boiling water or stock, cover with cling film and leave to stand for ten minutes. When ready, fluff up the couscous with a fork and add a little olive oil and stir through.

Now add the chopped nuts, chilli, spring onion, rocket, cooked onion, broad beans and peas to the couscous and

gently stir in, add the herb paste and lemon juice, season well with salt and pepper, stir through a couple of times. Serve on a large platter.

The lunch bunch

2010-05-20T00:04:00.004+01:00

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

2010-05-14T19:32:00.002+01:00

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

2010-05-04T22:22:00.005+01:00

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.

Frittata doesn't get better than this !

2010-04-28T15:44:00.005+01:00

I was giving this dish a trial this morning as I am demonstrating for Riverford again this weekend at the Sussex Food & Farming show, Weald and Downland open-air Museum, Singleton, West Sussex. I wanted to combine a few of the seasonal flavours that are available this week and create a dish that can be cooked, start to finish, in 30 minutes as this is how long I have on stage. I can't quite describe how fantastically delicious this fittata is. Cook it now ! Before the wild garlic is no more and the purple sprouting has vanished for another year. I think these are my favourite spring vegetables. Purple sprouting , the first showing of fresh green after the roots of winter , tender, sweet and bursting with vitamins, as fresh and crisp as a spring morning. Wild garlic is a dichotomy of intense yet subtle over and undertones, sometimes garlic, sometimes spring onion and hints of leek. Both are only with us for a short season and this dish uses them both to their best.

Purple sprouting broccoli, wild garlic & taleggio frittata

Serves: 4

Taleggio cheese, sliced 
1 large handful purple sprouting broccoli stems 
1 handful wild garlic leaves, shredded or a couple of crushed regular cloves 
6 eggs, beaten 
1 medium onion, sliced 
1 small leek, sliced 
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Salt and pepper

Blanch the broccoli stems in boiling salted water for a few minutes, plunge into cold water and drain. Soften the onions , leek and garlic , if using, in a little olive oil in an ovenproof frying pan on a gentle heat for about 5 minutes until soft. Arrange half the broccoli in the pan, Season the beaten eggs with salt and pepper and mix in the parsley and wild garlic if using and pour this evenly over the broccoli/onion/ and leek mixture. Layer on the rest of the broccoli and push down into the egg before laying the cheese slices on top.

Cook over a low-ish heat until you can see the frittata cooking at the edges. Then pop it under a medium hot grill to finish. Keep an eye on it as the top cooks fast. Serve warm with a crisp green or tomato salad.

Riverford at Number11

2010-04-28T15:08:00.017+01:00

Last night I had my cooking hat on again over in Folkestone Kent for Riverford Organics, the veg box delivery people. We were hosted by Number11 the very cute little restaurant just off the harbour front in Folkestone and were made very welcome by Douglas and his staff. The idea of the night was to demonstrate and chat about a few seasonal dishes that are easy to achieve using the ingredients from this week’s organic veg box. Quite a few people seem to get stuck with their boxes and run out of ideas. What we wanted to do was show off some simple delicious recipes that would inspire, encourage and hopefully get customers to try something just a little bit different.

On the menu we had wild garlic risotto, purple sprouting broccoli with hollandaise, fennel and orange salad and to finish off rhubarb, orange & ginger pavlova. All delicious and individually very easy dishes to cook, I just had to produce enough of each for the 38 people present.

I started off with the risotto, which as you know takes a deal of attention and a fair bit of stirring and in turn about 20 minutes of chat to accompany the procedure. You never think of that when you plan these things. Always focusing on the logistics of cooking the dish in front of a live audience but not really considering the amount of chat involved. Thanks to a lively and spontaneous crowd though the banter warmed up alongside the risotto and we soon had a good open discussion going on. This continued through the next few courses and by the end of what turned out to be nearly three hours of cooking and talking I retired somewhat dry in the throat to the confines of the kitchen to do the washing up.

Thanks again to all involved Caroline at Riverford Home Delivery Ashford and all the crew at Number11 Folkestone.
Event photos by Chrissy Asteraki-Speer

Wild Garlic Risotto

Serves: 4

250g Arborio rice
750ml Vegetable stock
3tbsp olive oil
1 white onion finely chopped
1 garlic clove crushed
1 handful of wild garlic leaves
1 lemon juiced
1 glass of white dry wine
30g butter
Salt & pepper

Heat the oil in a heavy based pan and gently fry the onion for a few minutes. Add the crushed garlic clove stir in for a minute or two and then pour in some more olive oil and add the rice. Cook the rice for a few minutes until the rice absorbs some of the oil and starts to puff a little. If you are using wine this is the time to add it to the pan and heat until absorbed into the rice. Now start adding the stock, just cover the rice and stir whilst it is absorbed and then repeat. Keep cooking until the rice is nearly done but still a bit ‘husky’ and now add the garlic leaves and the lemon juice, season with salt & pepper and keep cooking adding more stock as required until the rice is al dente. Remove from the heat, stir in the butter cover and let it sit for five minutes, then serve on warmed plates.

Fennel & orange salad

Serves 6

2 Fennel Bulbs
3 Oranges
1 Garlic clove
Lemon Juice (1 lemon)
3 tbsp Olive oil
1 handful of Black olives (stoned)
Flat leaf parsley
Salt & Pepper

Finely shred the Fennel, using a mandolin if you have one and place in a bowl, squeeze over a little lemon juice to keep it from colouring. Cut the skin and pith from the oranges and slice out the segments into another bowl and squeeze the juice from the remaining part of the orange and save. Mix the orange segments, olives and parsley into the fennel, sprinkle liberally with the dressing adjust the seasoning if needed.

To make the dressing: Whisk the olive oil, crushed garlic, remaining lemon juice and some seasoning into the orange juice.

Purple sprouting broccoli & hollandaise recipe click here

Rhubarb orange & ginger pavlova

Serves: 6

4 egg whites
275g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cornflour
1 tsp white wine vinegar
250ml double cream
Zest of an orange
6 sticks of rhubarb
2 pieces of preserved stem ginger

Preheat oven to 180 degrees

Whisk the egg whites into stiff peaks and then slowly whisk in 225g of the caster sugar. When all the sugar is incorporated whisk for another 2 minutes until you have a stiff shiny mixture. Now add the cornflour and continue whisking, the vinegar and vanilla extract, whisk for a short while more until all the ingredients are well mixed together.

Place a sheet of greaseproof paper on a baking sheet and run the sheet and paper under a cold-water tap to thoroughly soak it. Drain off the excess water. Now spoon the meringue onto the sheet of greaseproof making a pile about 6cm high and 25cm in diameter. Place in the oven and immediately turn down to 100 degrees (80 for fan) and cook the pavlova for an hour and a half. Remove from the oven and leave to cool and peel off the greaseproof paper. If you can make this a couple of hours before you need it or even the day before then all the better. The more the meringue dries out the crisper it becomes on the outside but still remains gooey in the middle.

Chop the rhubarb into 5cm lengths and cook in a sauté pan with 50g sugar and the finely grated or julienne orange zest, check for sweetness and add more sugar if needed but don’t over sweeten as rhubarb is best remaining a little tart. Cook for about ten minutes or until the rhubarb is just tender to a knife. Allow to cool

Now whisk up your cream until stiff, spread over the meringue base generously and spoon over the rhubarb and allow some of the juices to drizzle over the edge. Chop the ginger into small little chucks and scatter liberally over the top. Some toasted almond flakes make a nice finish too.

Give us this day our daily bread

2010-04-18T22:53:00.018+01:00

There can’t be many civilisations in the world that don’t in some way or another depend on bread, well ok, China and Japan maybe and a few other parts of the far eastern continent, but for most of us, certainly in the west, a ritual and daily habit is the consumption of bread. Breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner usually consist or are accompanied by some kind of bread. The French and Italians are certainly obsessed by it, I think you could say most of central and eastern Europe has a keen interest in bread too, the Mediterranean, northern Africa and the middle east all have delicious varieties, the Americans can boast some original forms and even us Brit’s wouldn’t get far without a doorstop sandwich. It’s on offer everywhere, from street corners to supermarkets, cafes and restaurants (By merely lowering one’s posterior into a chair in any given restaurant a flurry of activity not only produces a menu but an offering of bread) home made, artisan baked, soughdough or yeasty our daily bread is indeed a blessing.

I started baking shortly after the birth of my son. It was in the lonely early morning hours, usually around 5am, nappies changed, baby bottled and now gently rocking in his chair fully awake and expecting that I, as a way of entertainment, started to make bread. I found that I could steal enough time in between the baby’s needs to do a bit of kneading myself. He seemed happy to gaze and gurgle as I mixed and kneaded the dough, I seemed to have an hour to spare whilst the dough was proofing so we could play and so on. Everyone was happy and I think my son found the running commentary and movements as entertaining as anything the teletubbies had to offer. By the time the rest of the household was stirring warm fresh crusty bread was sitting proudly on the kitchen side and a pot of fresh coffee brewing in the corner.

Baking bread is in essence pretty simple: flour, yeast, sugar, water a little salt and there you have it, the makings of the world’s most basic foodstuff. There are of course as many different varieties as there are techniques, many time consuming and complicated, but for me just the same level of pleasure and satisfaction is attained from the baking of a simple loaf as is derived from a protracted and convoluted procedure. Either way there is nothing quite as intoxicating and hunger making as the smell of fresh bread baking in the oven.

Recipe for Focaccia Bread

1kg tipo ‘00’ flour
21g dried active yeast (easy bake)
30g sugar
25g salt
625ml tepid water
Rosemary sprigs
Sea salt
Olive oil

Mix the yeast and sugar, add to the water and allow the mixture to stand until frothy. Put the flour and salt in a food processor or mixer with a dough hook, mix briefly to distribute the salt, then add the liquid and mix until a soft dough is formed. Some flours will absorb slightly more or less water but you want to have a loose but not wet dough. I allow the dough to mix for at least two minutes in the machine before turning it out onto a floured surface .

Pull, stretch and knead the dough until it's really soft, this takes about 5 mins. If it gets sticky then dust lightly with more flour. Form the dough into a ball, slash with a very sharp knife to ‘relax’ the dough and place in an oiled and floured bowl covered with a damp cloth. The proofing process will take about an hour depending on the temperature but you're looking for the ball to have doubled in size. When ready, turn the dough out again onto a lightly floured surface and bash it a few times to deflate it, then form into another ball.

Butter and flour a deep sided tin, about 20cm x 30cm, and gently press the dough roughly into the shape of the tin. Now drizzle with olive oil and push your fingers right down into the dough making a uniform pattern of indents. Drizzle oil over so the holes you’ve just made are filled and place a small sprig of rosemary into each hole. Sprinkle with sea salt and cover with a sheet of cling film and leave in a warm draught free place for another hour or so. This second proofing gives the bread it’s texture and improves the taste so don’t be hasty. Preheat the oven to 225 degrees. When the volume of the dough has doubled again, gently remove the cling film and place the tin in the oven and bake for about 18 minutes until the top is golden dark brown. The bread is cooked when having removed it from the tin it sounds hollow when tapped with the back of a spoon.

Allow to cool on a rack.

Recipe for White Tin Loaf

1kg white bread flour
21g dried active yeast (easy bake)
30g sugar
25g salt
625ml tepid water

Follow Focaccia recipe above through to end of 2nd stage

then ...

Butter and flour a 1kg bread tin, or two smaller tins and either divide the dough equally or place in one tin, cover with a sheet of cling film and leave in a warm draft free place for another hour or so. This second proofing gives the bread it’s texture and improves the taste so don’t be hasty. Preheat the oven to 225 degrees. When the volume of the dough has doubled and it risen up above the rim of the tin, gently remove the cling film and place the tin(s) in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes until the top is golden brown. The bread is cooked when having removed it from the tin it sounds hollow when tapped with the back of a spoon.

Allow to cool on a rack.

First came the egg

2010-04-10T19:56:00.022+01:00

Like most things in life whether mammal, reptile, bird or fish, indeed our very own humble human life, it all began with a an egg. This beautiful, glorious and sometimes controversial (Edwina Currie, remember that) elliptical form that we take for granted, is our basic food stuff. Breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner, pasta, soufflé, bread and pastry, meringues and even drinks, it appears everywhere and is a staple of most family larders. A late night omelette with bacon and loads of parsley is simply divine and who could forget a classic egg sarnie, creamy chunks of egg and crisp peppery watercress. So it occurred to me that this was a good place to start.

I was inspired just this week by my sons jubilant return from a visit to his grandparents who had taught him to boil an egg. Whilst quite an accomplished foodie for his meagre 12 years, the knowledge instilled and his enthusiasm for this simple process reminded me of where my own culinary journey began some forty years ago, in a very similar way, under the guidance of my mother, I too boiled my first egg. Since then I have used eggs in so many different, diverse and interesting ways but I would still hazard a guess that for most of us, as young children , propped up at the kitchen table on a weekend morning, that an egg was the very first ingredient we were able ( according to our parents ) to safely cook. Guaranteed results, in one form or another, and generally liked by all. Fried, poached, boiled or scrambled, served with warm toast and deliciously melting butter, a dash of ketchup, et voila, the first meal you ever cooked.

Food is part of my life. Although it's not my full-time career (yet) I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking of, reading about, shopping for, preparing and cooking food. I am a photographer by trade, I work in travel and advertising and vicariously through my travels I have come into contact and been inspired by foods from all over the world. My own culinary background is that of a north London Jewish family,I grew up through the sixties and seventies, a period when British food was still in an embryonic state, the Eighties were my first real encounters and since then I have been obsessed. My mother, father and two brothers, all very accomplished cooks, are always engaged in conversations of food, what they are eating, what they have just eaten or what they are about to eat. So in this blog i thought that's what I would talk about, where i get my food from, how i prepare it, cook it and to be quite frank (I'll spare you the gory details though) how I eat it. I'll throw in a few stories of travels, photography, inspirations, family, friends and hopefully you ( the reader ) will feel some of the same level of excitement, inspiration, satisfaction and quite possibly in the process gain insights and knowledge too. I hope so.

The shell has now well and truly been cracked ... scroll down to see some recipes and photographs of a few of my favourite eggy delights.

Purple Sprouting Broccoli with Hollandaise Sauce

In terms of sauces, and there are many excellent ones and varieties, for me however there can surely be no more richer, more luxurious, silky, delicate a sauce than hollandaise. When made to perfection it's a sheer joy to eat, making it perfectly is a complete satisfaction.

I have been making this sauce for a very long time and in so doing have learnt that there are a handful of methods that work well, whilst all vary slightly in terms of ingredient or technique: there is the traditional, original and precise Elizabeth David method and there is the modern, quick fix blender method, either way the end result has often not been quite what I wanted. This one is pure genius, is easy, produces a light frothy sauce, works every time and will have you picking up fronds of Broccoli plunging them deep into the sauce and devouring platefuls of the stuff, smacking of lips and licking of fingers will confirm that this dish is a delight.

For the sauce

150g butter
2 egg yolks
1 tsp tarragon vinegar
a squeeze of lemon juice
sea salt
a twist of pepper
1 tbsp cold water

Gently melt the butter in a pan and then remove from the heat. Put the egg yolks a tablespoon of cold water into a bowl that fits on top of another pan of very gently simmering water ( a bain marie ) and whisk the yolks with an electric blender until light frothy and just starting to thicken. Remove bowl to the side and continue whisking for a minute and then very slowly start to pour the melted butter into the eggs, a drizzle at a time whilst continuing to whisk. A couple of points here: pour the butter very gently you want the butter oil not the milky solids that have sunk to the bottom of the pan. If the sauce splits, unlikely if you're careful, just trickle in some cold water to bring it back together. When all the butter is incorporated you will have a creamy sauce, bright in colour and shiny and slick. Now season with a little salt and pepper, add the vinegar and the lemon juice to taste. You could at this stage add some fresh herbs to enhance your sauce, fresh mint, fresh tarragon for example.

I have discovered that this sauce will keep quite nicely for a few hours in a very gently warm bain marie. Refresh the heat every now and again and occasionally stir the sauce to stop it forming a skin, if the sauce gets thick add some cold water, a teaspoon at a time and whisk gently to loosen it up.

Chocolate & Orange Zest Soufflé

There seems to be an almost mystical unnerving fear of soufflés. We have all watched TV contestant after contestant serve dishes of collapsed goo to their judges and this has instilled a dread of the soufflé. I will concur that they might not be the easiest dessert to produce the first time around , but apply a little bit of logic, a degree of scientific thought and you'll have these gorgeous little soufflés popping out the oven like there's no tomorrow. There are a thousand flavour variations , raspberry, rhubarb, strawberry, vanilla, ginger & honey, but these chocolate ones are a real show stopper at any dinner. Served as shown dusted with icing sugar or sprinkled with chocolate gratings which melt onto the surface for that extra degree of indulgence.

The trick , in my opinion, is getting the ramekins greased properly and getting the oven temperature right. The ramekins need to be brushed with soft butter making sure both the bottom and the sides are fully coated. I use a pastry brush, brushing vertical lines of butter up the insides of the ramekins, then cool in the fridge for a while, re-apply the butter again and then dust the insides with finely grated chocolate, return to the fridge until needed. The grooves of butter and the chocolate lining are going to help the soufflé rise smoothly and evenly up and out of the ramekin. The oven setting is also crucial , you'll have to experiment on this one a little. In most recipes a temperature of 180 degrees is recommended, maybe it's my oven, maybe not, but i find a temperature of 200 degrees to be optimum. This rises the soufflés in about 8 mins and forms a slight crust-like top which helps to support the soufflé when out of the oven and prevents unsightly and premature collapse .

Makes enough for about 8 ( 100ml , 90mm diameter ramekins )

200 ml milk
20g corn flour
100g 70% cocoa chocolate
4 eggs, separated
150g caster sugar
tsp orange zest
30g butter
icing sugar to dust

Mix the milk and cornflour together in a pan and place over a medium heat until the mixture starts to thicken. Remove from the heat and beat in the egg yolks , when smoothly incorporated mix in the chocolate , orange zest and return to a gentle heat until all the chocolate is thoroughly melted into the mixture and it's thick and smooth. Allow to cool whilst you beat the egg whites and sugar into soft peaking meringue. Stir about half the meringue into the chocolate mixture and mix well with a metal spoon so as not to knock the air and lightness out of it, then add the rest of the meringue and mix gently and thoroughly. Fill the buttered and dusted ramekins to within 5mm of the top and clean around the top edge so there is nothing to restrict the soufflé from rising. Place the ramekins on a tray and into in the oven, watch them rise for about 8 mins, they should still have a 'wobble' to them, remove and serve immediately to intrigued and delighted guests.