Summer time is salad time. Which is great because I’m not getting home till quite late at the moment and all I’m craving after a long hot walk home is something fresh and light to eat on our small balcony.
Add a glass of delicately dry Provençal rose or a tart sauvignon blanc, and the warm light of the setting sun and you have something approaching paradise – or at least as close as you can get in London. (more…)
You know when deserts bloom for a day when infrequent rains sweep majestically over the sands every few years? Green shoots explode out of the arid ground, flowers unfurling to the storm clouds. You’ve seen the BBC nature programmes too? Good. That’s like my approach to BBQ in the British “summer”.
Once the sun appears and temperatures climb, I can fire up our reliable little kettle BBQ in a matter of minutes (once I’ve scrubbed away months of grime from the grill). Slap on some sausages, halloumi and aubergines and I’m all set. And then I’ll make something like this salad, it’s a cracker of an accompaniment. (more…)
I don’t care if spring has chilled down to the level of a Greenland glacier, it’s still sunny. And so, in the great British tradition, I am determined to forge ahead as though I’m in a temperate paradise.
So it’s got to be fresh light food to match those – ahem – fresh winds blowing down from the north. (more…)
Simplicity. Reducing a thing back to its essence. It’s something that’s at the heart of many beautiful things and successul ideas. Google and Apple, Jamon Iberico and sashimi, pizza and kebabs. All very simple.
When you pare something right back, you can’t obfuscate or camouflage. And you must use the very best ingredients. Which is why the English asparagus season is such a wonderful time of year. (more…)
Having read Fernandez & Leluu’s mouth watering recipe for roast chicken, I was determined to recreate it for last night’s dinner. Accordingly I assembled all the ingredients and fished out of the freezer some drumsticks and wings left over from various fowl dismemberings, and two quail that were lurking at the back.
The only thing missing was Teppanyaki marinade. So I improvised. Adding a dash of this and glug of that, tasting and adjusting is one of the most fun things about cooking. It feels like alchemy – turning seemingly unrelated ingredients into a coherent and tasty whole. (more…)
