Revisiting Relish

Huge update on my website means that much of How to Feed Your Friends with Relish is now available online. I haven't revisited it for a while, but recipes such as Fish Stew with Saffroned Onions and the very comforting Sausage and Cabbage Casserole still making me proud. Can't wait to return to Beef Stew with Chilli, Chocolate and Giant Garlic Croutons. The time is now.

Saving overcooked broccoli

Okay, so I doesn't look its best, but broccoli cooked very very slowly with chilli, garlic and anchovy and tossed with pasta is gentle, aromatic with a slight hit of heat. Worth overcooking broccoli for, believe me.

Feeds 2

1 head broccoli (about 300g)
1/2 red chilli
2 fat cloves garlic
6 anchovies
4 tbs olive oil

cooked pasta, black pepper & Parmesan to serve

Break the broccoli into florets and blanch for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, slice the garlic and chili finely, discarding the chilli seeds if you don't want it too hot. in a saute pan that has a lid, fry the chilli, garlic and anchovies gently in olive oil for a couple of minutes until the anchovies start to disintegrate and the garlic is translucent. Drain the broccoli and slice into 1/2 cm pieces. Add to the frying pan, toss thoroughly, cover and either cook over the lowest heat for 1.5 hours on the hob, or transfer to an oven  100c (you can put it in the bottom of the Aga). Stir occasionally. When utterly melting, toss carefully with pasta cooked al dente in plenty of well salted boiling water, making sure to include any sticky,caramelised  residue from the pan. Eat with an extra dribble of olive oil, grated Parmesan and black pepper.

Cobnuts and Russets

I love the fact that in Somerset, it's as common to see cobnuts as apples and pears at the local market. When I lived in London I used to cycle for miles to buy them at exceptional prices. Here's my quick solution for today's solitary but seasonal lunch. Bright, fresh flavours on a damp and gloomy day.

Cobnut and russet apple salad

Feeds 1

For the salad:

Half a round lettuce

about 10 cobnuts, shelled

half a russet apple, cored and thinly sliced

a few slices of peeled cucumber, thinly sliced

3 tablespoons of cooked Puy lentils

crumbled blue cheese

For the dressing:

2 tbs  extra virgin rapeseed oil

1 tbs cider vinegar

1 heaped tbs grainy mustard

scrunchy salt, to taste

Put the lettuce, apple and cucumber in a bowl. Beat together the dressing thoroughly and toss with the leaves. Scatter with the nuts and cheese. Eat immediately.

Solving rice pudding

I'm not a rice - or any other kind of milk - pudding fan. But I've always loved the Thai pudding sticky coconut rice with mango. So whilst writing an article about rice puddings - truly you could travel the world eating nothing but rice pudding in every country and not go hungry - I decided to see if there was one I'd gobble. Turns out, coconut and spices was the solution - no skin for me, but I might look at that again. This one is inspired by the Puerto Rican Arroz con Dulche.

Feeds 2-3


2 heaped tbs raisins (optional)
dark rum (optional)
1 tin (400ml) coconut milk
400ml whole milk
5 cm stick of cinnamon
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
4 whole cloves
1/2 vanilla pod, split
2 tbs coconut palm sugar or golden caster sugar
60g pudding or risotto rice
2 tbs dessiccated coconut
toasted almond flakes or crushed pistachios to serve

There are 2 methods to cook this, both take their time, but not much of yours - if you're in a rush you can simmer and stir on the hob like a risotto, if you'd rather not stand over it, you can put it in the oven for a couple of hours.
First, put the raisins (if you are using them) in a small bowl, cover with rum and soak overnight. Add both milks, sugar and the spices to a saucepan and simmer for 15 minutes, then set aside to cool and steep - overnight if you are doing the raisins, or for an hour or so. Put your rice either into a saucepan or into a baking dish and strain the milk over the top. If you are using the risotto method, simmer, stirring, until the rice is completely al dente and the milk absorbed - you may need to top up with a litle extra milk or water, it should take about 20 minutes to cook. For the baking method, add your milk to the rice and put into a preheated oven at 150C for 2 hours, stiring and checking the volume of liquid every 30 mins. If you want a skin, dot with butter and do not stir for the final hour. Eat warm with a scattering of toasted almonds or pistachios.

Feta fritters in the garden

So it turns out I'm a bit obsessed by deep frying (have I already mentioned that?). Today, feta and herb fritters - the feta basically dehydrates inside to leave an almost hollow, salty, tangy, herby ball of light, crispy deliciousness. Try it, I urge you, and dream of Greece, where the sun shines all summer and cooks are not afraid of oil.

200g block of feta
2 handfuls of finely chopped, mixed herbs such as parsley, rocket, thyme, chives
oil for frying (I re-use a mixture of olive and sunflower)

For the batter:
100g plain flour
1 egg
fizzy water or beer

Whisk the egg into the flour and slowly add the water, whisking all the time until you have a double cream consistency. Break up the feta and mix together with the herbs. Mould into small rounds, a bit smaller than a ping pong ball.

Half fill a saucepan with your oil and heat until a drop of the batter fizzes and quickly turns golden. Turn the feta in the batter and drop in batches into the oil. Cook for a couple of minutes, carefully turning from time to time, then fish out and drain off the oil on kitchen roll. Eat quickly, with a glass of cold rose.

Marmite breadsticks

Failed to make bread for lunch today - I'm in denial about how bread-led we are as a family. It would be admitting how often I hadn't planned ahead. We made breadsticks to fill the lunchtime pangs. Mixed a tablespoon of Marmite into the dough, huge success, happy 3 year-old.

Bright Lights on a windy night

An evening glance in the old chimney pots we use for forcing rhubarb and later in the summer growing herbs, and - oh joy! - a great sprouting of palest pink rhubarb. Wind is howling around the house, Ed has gone to bed with all the shutters open leaving me feeling exposed to the gloom. Rhubarb, quickly into the pot for a gentle and brief poaching in sugar syrup and nothing else, turns the pale pink of ballet slippers and babies' nails. Eating it straight from the pot at blood temperature, it melts in the mouth, not fibrous at all. A pleasure of country living to accompany howling of the wind and beating of rain.

Wild garlic flower fritters

Nothing so much as a brilliant sunny evening with friends compels me to make fritters. It's nuts really, what then happens is they are outside drinking beer at sunset and I am inside peering into a pan of boiling oil. But I love fried food. Oh, foraA built in deep fat fryer! Well, a girl can dream.

2 handfuls wild garlic flowers (impatient, I used buds as ours haven't come out yet, but they will be prettier then)

For the batter:
4 tbs plain flour
1 egg
lager

Beat the egg briefly with a whisk, then incorporate it into the flour, slowly pouring in cold beer to loosen it up as you go. Stop when you have reached the consistency of double cream. Meanwhile, heat a saucepan with oil not
deeper than halfway (I have a large jar of frying oil which I strain and decant into, using it again and again). Drop a little of the batter in, when it quickly turns golden, you are ready to cook. Turn the flowers in the batter and drop, in batches into the pan of oil. When they have turned golden, fish out with a slotted spoon and put onto a plate lined with kitchen roll. When you have finished all the batches, sprinkle with sea salt and eat whilst hot, preferably with a very cold beer.

A great breakfast pancake

The kids aren't great at eating breakfast, it's a daily battle. Pancakes reliably slip down - you wouldn't know these had a good dose of ground almonds in for a bit of sturdy energy, and neither did they.

Breakfast pancakes (makes about 6)

100g plain flour
25g ground almonds
200ml milk
2 eggs
olive oil or butter, too cook

Beat the eggs into the milk. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and make a well in the middle. Add the wet ingredients and whisk into the dry ingredients thoroughly till smooth, it should have the consistency of double cream. Allow to sit for a few minutes if you have time. Heat a little olive oil (I use a mild one for cooking) in a frying pan, and when hot, ladle enough enough mixture to just coat the base of the pan. Cook for a minute till turning golden underneath, then flip over and repeat. Serve with sugar and lemon - if you want less of a sugar hit, use caramelly coconut palm sugar, or xylitol instead of regular white sugar. 

A perfect spring evening, a cat who things he's a leopard, some rye schnitzel

Clearly, our cat Roscoe thinks he's a leopard. He then fell out of the tree, proving he's not. A slow walk around the garden at 7.30 in slanting evening rays, daffs on the wane, fritillaries (sp? boy do I have a lot of garden knowledge to glean) in their glory - note to self, plant at least 200 more this autumn. For supper, half an old, dried up sourdough rye loaf ground into crumbs provided spectacular, tangy notes to a pork schnitzel, with sweet potatoes roasted with chilli flakes, garlic and rosemary, accompanied by a flowering leaf salad dragged from the chaos of the bolting contents of the greenhouse.

Sorry about the pics being all over the place, they won't do as I tell them



ooh, just look at the state of that greenhouse (below)

Homemade truffles to wow any dinner party

Dinner parties make me nervous - not hosting them, when you can hide in the kitchen, but being a guest, when you have to sing for your supper. What to take, when you can't get to a shop for some fancy chocs or a pretty posy of flowers? A simple transformation of a leftover chocolate Easter bunny into tangy, scented, blackcurrant and rose truffles did the trick. As the photo above, but dusted in cocoa, and wrapped in pink tissue with a ribbon. The truffles came out beautifully but my conversational skills could definitely do with some work:

Blackcurrant and rose truffles

200g dark chocolate, broken up
100g double cream
10g butter
1 tablespoon rosewater
2 tablespoons blackcurrant jam
cocoa, for dusting

Line a small tin with greaseproof paper. Melt together the chocolate, cream and butter over a very low heat, stirring until smooth (you could do this over a double boiler but I don't find it necessary), then stir in the jam and rosewater. Spread into the tin with a spatula, I like the layer to be about 1.5cm in depth, but you could make them deeper and therefore bigger. Put in the fridge for 1 hour to set. Cut into squares, or if you like, make curls of chocolate with a spoon. Put some cocoa into a bag and add the chocolates, shaking carefully to coat. Dust off the excess, and wrap beautifully.

Supersonically delicious and nutritious granola

By and large, the food we eat at home is natural and healthy but it's generally taste, rather than nutrition-led. I am trying hard to incorporate more super foods. In a food culture that is currently obsessed with cutting things out (wheat, dairy, yawn), I'm more interested in what you can put in. Never so true as with this unbelievably nutrient-packed and utterly delicious salted olive oil granola. Unfortunately, I am the only one who eats it.

Makes 8-10 portions

1 cup jumbo rolled oats
1 cup flaked quinoa
1/2 cup sunflower, sesame and pumpkin seeds (photo shows pine nuts, I've run out of the others)
1/2 cup almonds or hazelnuts
1 cup dried fruits of choice (I like sour cherries, goji berries and large sultanas)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 pinch himalayan or sea salt, finely ground

Preheat the oven to 180. Beat together vigorously the olive oil and maple syrup until blended, and then mix into the dried ingredients, leaving out the dried fruit for now. It is easiest to do this with your hands as you want it to be thoroughly coated. You will get sticky. Scrape into a large baking tray and smooth out evenly. If you want to double the volumes, use 2 roasting trays, otherwise the cereal will steam rather than toast. Bake for 10 minutes, turning once halfway through, then reduce the oven to 120 and continue to bake for a further 20-30 minutes, turning and mixing around every 10 minutes so that the ingredients can toast evenly, taking care to scrape inwards from the edges, which cook fastest. When all is golden and crispy, remove from oven and allow to cool. Mix through the dried fruit and store in an airtight container. Will keep for at least a month.

Cooking For the WI

There are few more daunting and delightful things to do than cook for the ladies of the Women's Institute. Today, a lunch for the 65 from the Wiltshire Federation. On the menu, all from Cooking For Real Life: elderflower poached rhubarb with buffalo mozzarella and parma ham, crostini with better beans, lentils with chorizo in lager, farfalle with broad beans, feta and dill, sausagemeat with chilli, fennel and purple sprouting broccoli, scented eton mess and eastern trifle. For us, for supper? Leftovers.

Putain, puttanesca!

There's a necessary breathiness to a puttanesca sauce that comes from the immediacy of all those punchy ingredients, and a trick to making it taste fresh and vigorous: don't cook the garlic, add it raw, finely chopped at the end. Here's how, for two: chop a small onion and fry, along with 5 or so anchovies, in olive oil till the onion is translucent and the anchovies disintegrating. Add a tin of chopped tomatoes, a generous tablespoon of capers and a pinch of dried chilli flakes. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes until the sauce is fairly thick and reduced and the tomatoes have shed their tinny flavour. Finally, add a clove for finely chopped garlic and tear in a small handful of basil leaves (I didn't have any, it didn't matter). Toss with al dente pasta, grate over Parmesan if you like - I simmered some defrosted turkey meatballs we needed to eat in the sauce for a few minutes, and yes, bizarrely, it worked beautifully.

Ramping it up

Sometimes Americans really get things right. They freeze glasses to drink root beer from. They knew about salt and caramel first. They call wild garlic 'ramps'. Love that. We have a fair jungle of it in the garden, which is hard to ignore, even if I wanted to. Today's 'healthy' lunch (Ed and I have both put on half a stone over this all-too-long winter) is quinoa-based. Not the world's most inspiring, but it takes other flavours well. Cooked up with wilted ramps (the name works, right?) and very tender shrimp, I can live with that.

Take a mug each of quinoa and water, and a teaspoon of Marigold bouillon powder and bring to the boil in a pan. Simmer for 5 minutes, then add a large handful of frozen North Atlantic prawns and a large handful of just picked wild garlic, roughly chopped. Mix through, continue to simmer for another minute, then cover, switch off the heat and allow the rest of the moisture to absorb for 5 or so minutes. Eat warm, or later, cold as a salad, with a swirl of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon juice and sea salt to taste.