MORE quinoa? Yep, I’m afraid so. It’s January, the time for austerity, of body as well as mind. And there’s nothing more crushingly austere than a super-douper health food grain. Right?
Wrong. Quinoa, despite its, holier-than-thou goodie two shoes reputation, is actually pretty tasty. Delicious even. I know! I was as surprised as you. Nutty, just the merest hint of crunch, and it stands up to sauces. So good, in fact, that I had to have it twice. In quick succession. Continue reading
Fresh crab takes me right back to being a kid in Cornwall, sitting outside in the warm summer weekend mornings. My step-dad would come back from the fish shop clutching a whole paper-wrapped pink crab, like a chest of buried treasure. Together we would sit on the patio steps and break our way in, carefully picking out the succulent treasure inside.
The legs and claws would be cracked and piled carefully on a plate, a pile of briny building blocks. They’d be served with a simple green salad. The brown body meat whipped up with just the slightest squeeze of lemon and some Dijon mustard. A creamy piquant treat to dollop onto bread. Continue reading
Summer is hanging in there by its fingernails, clutching desperately at the fading light as nights start to close in. And you have to admire its gutsiness as temperatures remain stubbornly in the high teens.
This dish is an ideal way to pay some respect to the season, but also to bring some heat to your belly after dark. It’s bright, colourful and redolent of heady Latin nights. And, at the same time, manages to be warming and comforting. A dish for all seasons. Continue reading
There’s something about that first mouthful. Intensely meaty, enough oil to coat your tongue with a rich deep flavour. Very savoury, but with an underlying sweetness as well. There’s the slightest tang of decadence as the pleasure centres of your brain light up in oily delight.
If eating a slow cooked ragu sounds just a wee bit dirty, that’s because it is. There is nothing sophisticated or subtle about it. Slippery and sticky, strong and beefy, the moist saucy meat just slides across your tongue leaving wobbly-legged, dazed but wide awake taste buds in its wake. Pure gourmet porn, this is the sensuous libidinous mistress to haut cuisine’s sophisticated lady.
When I cook, I often cheat. There I said it. I cheat. What do I do? I use tins. Pretty much any time I make any sort of wet dish with tomatoes, I always use tinned. When I use pulses – unless they’re lentils, they’re almost always tinned. Likewise anchovies, sardines and sweetcorn.
Without them, cooking wouldn’t be nearly so spontaneous. Or as much fun. For all that I love to spend a lot of time chopping, stirring and tasting, I simply don’t have enough time to peel and chop tomatoes. Particularly when the end result often doesn’t taste as good as the tinned Italian variety. Continue reading
The weather’s cold, snow is a-falling and we’re all freezing our nuts off (in a non gender specific way). This is the time to head in to culinary battle crying “God for Harry, England and a warming dinner”. Cold brings out the blood thirsty warrior in me.
And in the spirit of dear old Prince Hal, King Harry or whoever he was, I managed to find some chorizo made from English venison. A strong gamey sausage with all the smoky heat of a chorizo. Not quite as zingy or intense as the real McCoy. But interesting and it worked really well with this dish. Continue reading
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. Continue reading
No-place does vegetarian food like the South Asian subcontinent. I’ve had very good vegetarian Italian, Japanese, Thai and for want of a better name, fusion food. But nowhere, and I mean no-where, that I’ve come across takes vegetarian based cooking so seriously and has such a breadth of veggie food. It’s my go-to cuisine when i’m in need of a serious green (or orange, yellow, red etc) flesh-free hit. Continue reading
Sunday and Monday were not well days for me. In the firm belief that good food will make me feel mentally, if not physically, better I felt the need for something nourishing. Something to banish the illness, if only temporarily. And, since reading this post from Jen of TomEatsJenCooks, I’ve had meatballs circulating my brain like some irritatingly catchy pop-lite song, except meatballs aren’t irritating with a catchy hook. But they’re definitely not going to go away until I scratch this particular itch.
Because i’m feeling so crappy, I’m not going to leave the house and will make do with what I have. Happily, what I have is minced lamb, onions and coriander. Continue reading
I have a whole repertoire of dishes that I create pretty much from instinct. Cooking most days means that I have developed a whole lot of simple concoctions that are easily adapted to whatever ingredients I have hanging around. This one’s a favourite. It pretty much looks after itself and is straightforward to throw together and leave to bubble away while I get on with other things. In this case singing along to some sixties soul classics at the top of my formidably tuneless voice. Continue reading