Beetroot salad

This is a very simple salad inspired by attempting to recreate those that I'd tasted in Marrakech, it's simple, tasty and a great way of filling up on super healthy beetroot. The other salad in this picture is my tomato, mint and caper salad (recipe in an earlier post).

Ingredients (as a side for 4 people)

4 medium beetroot
Small bunch of parsley
Juice from 1/2 lemon
Extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp paprika

Method

1) Scrub but don't peel the beetroot, wrap in kitchen foil and bake in an oven at 180C for around 1 hour until soft.

2) Peel the cooked beetroot and chop into rough 1cm dice, allow to cool.

3) Chop the parsley and combine with the beetroot along with all of the other ingredients (olive oil and salt to taste) reserve the paprika to sprinkle on top to make it look pretty!

This salad will keep well in the 'fridge for 24-28 hours but tastes much better at room temperature, so take it out ahead of time.

Get in touch and let me know how you get on!

Scallops and cauliflower

This dish is still a bit of a 'work in progress' but here's the latest incarnation, it looks posh but really is a doddle!...  As ever, feel free to sub in ingredients and make the recipe your own (crispy bacon works particularly well in place of the salami).

Ingredients (to feed 4)

1 medium cauliflower
1 small red onion
l00ml cider vinegar
1/2 tablespoon caster sugar
Butter
White pepper
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Veg oil
12 king scallops (with or without roe, your choice)
2 cm piece of good salami (I use 'grasmere grunters' as they're local and great!)

Method

1) Prepare a pickling liquor by dissolving the sugar and a teaspoon of salt in the cider vinegar.

2) Chop 1/3 of the cauliflower very finely and dice the onion to the same size, add to liquor and pickle for 12-24 hours before draining.

3) Chop the other half of the cauliflower and add to a saucepan with just enough salted water to barely cover it and a large knob of butter.  Boil for 15-20 minutes until completely soft and then blend with a stick blender until smooth.  Season well with white pepper and lemon juice.

4) Chop the salami and then pulse in a food processor until it forms 'crumbs'.

5) Heat a dry frying pan until smoking hot and oil the scallops before adding.  Depending on size cook for 1-2 minutes each side until well caramelised and still just translucent in the centre.  Don't overcook!

6) To serve, spoon a circle of puree onto a warm plate and then place 3 scallops around the edge and a small pile of the drained pickle in the centre.  Season the scallops and then sprinkle the salami crumbs over the top.

Spiced Pumpkin Soup

One of my all time favourite recipes.  I'm not too big on hallowe'en but this just screams autumn and bonfire night to me...

This recipe's fairly forgiving, I've included a spiced vegetable stock but you can use any stock that you have to hand, or even a cube.  I usually use whichever pumpkin comes in my veg box, crown prince and red lantern give great colour, but butternut squash is always a good substitute.

For the stock
1 onion
1 head of garlic
2 large carrots
3 sticks of celery
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 star anise
1 stick of cinnamon
1.5l cold water

For the soup
2 onions
1 tbsp veg oil
1 large or 2 small pumpkins / squashes
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
2 tsp garam masala
Salt to taste

Method

1) To make the stock, half the vegetables (wash but don't peel there's a lot of flavour in skins and the onions give it a good colour) and place all of the ingredients in a large saucepan.  Bring to the boil and simmer for 2 hours before straining.

2) Peel and slice the onions and sweat with no colour over a low heat in a large pan with the oil (5-10 minutes).

3) Dry roast the cumin and coriander seeds over a medium heat in a  frying pan until fragrant and then grind (skip this step and use ground spices if in a rush, but if you have the time you can taste the difference!).

4) Peel and deseed the pumpkin, cut into large dice.

5) Add the cumin and coriander once the onions have softened and stir, add pumpkin and stir to cover in the spice mix.

6) Add enough stock to just cover the pumpkin, put a lid on the pan, turn down the heat and simmer until the pumpkin is tender (around 10-15 minutes).

7) Blitz until completely smooth, adding a little water / stock if too thick.

8) Add garam masala and salt to taste, it may require a lot if you're using homemade stock, considerably less if using a cube.

To get all cheffy and ponce this one up a swirl of cream or yoghurt and some roasted pumpkin seeds on the top always look good.  A nice slice of homemade sourdough also goes wonderfully with the inherent sweetness of the pumpkin.

Enjoy, and let me know how you get on!

Barbecued mackerel

I love mackerel it's quite probably my favourite fish.  There is one caveat however, it has to be super, super fresh, if it's not super fresh, or if you have any doubt just don't bother.  This recipe can be used with any oily fish, it's great with herring or sardines (although the same freshness rule applies) or small, farmed sea bass and sea bream. I love to serve a whole fish with new potatoes and a char grilled salad (recipe soon to be posted!).

Ingredients (for 4)

4 very fresh mackerel, cleaned and gutted
4 cloves of garlic
4 sprigs of rosemary
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

Directions

1) Take the mackerel from the 'fridge and season with salt and pepper inside and out.

2) Crush one clove of garlic (I'm using new season 'soft garlic' in the picture but ordinary garlic works just fine) and gently bruise the rosemary, place both inside the cavity of the fish.

3) Oil the outside of each fish sparingly and put onto a very hot barbecue or grill.  Even quite large mackerel will only a take a couple of minutes each side (do not overcook), obviously a largish bass will take a little longer.

I love the combination of smoke, oily fish, garlic and rosemary, it works well with added lemon and even mint for a north african / sicilian twist.

(The best) Pulled Pork (Sandwich)

It seems that 'pulled pork' is everywhere these days, this is my very simple version that tastes great when assembled into a massive sandwich!

The only 'cheffy' twists here are making separate crackling and the long, slow cooking technique.  I thinks it's fine to bypass the first, but the second twist is essential to get anything that resembles pulled pork. This takes 12-24 hours to cook, so it does require a little forward planning, but scale the recipe up to a full shoulder (the cooking time remains the same) and it'll happily feed 10.

Ingredients (for 5-6 sandwiches)

Half shoulder of pork, ideally bone-in

1 tblsp smoked paprika

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried sage

1 tsp cayenne pepper

Salt and pepper

Cider vinegar

Splash of beer

And to complete the sandwich;

Sourdough loaf http://flavoursomefeast.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/sourdough-part-1.html

Tomato salad http://flavoursomefeast.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/tomato-mint-and-caper-salad.html

A few lettuce leaves

Mayonnaise and / or mustard

Method

1) Carefully cut the skin from the top of the pork, if the joint's been boned by your butcher then you may have to remove some string to this, that's fine it's all going to be pulled apart at the end anyway!  Try not to take too much fat with the skin or it won't crackle.  Spread out on a plate skin side up, ensure that it's completely dry and put in the 'fridge.

2) Preheat an oven to 220C whilst you combine all of the pork ingredients except the beer and cider vinegar and smear them lovingly all over the joint.

3) Place the pork inside a heavy casserole, leave the lid off and put it at the top of the oven for around 30 minutes until it's browning nicely.

4) Turn the oven down to 80-100C, add a splash of beer to the casserole, place foil under the lid to create a seal and return to the bottom of the oven for anywhere from 12-24 hours, it just gets better with time...

5) When you can bare the delicious smell no longer take the pork from the oven, it should look quite dark.  

6) Tip off the excess fat and shred the pork adding the cider vinegar and salt and to taste.

7) Place the pork back in the warm oven whilst you prepare the crackling.  Heat a grill to as hot as it'll go and smear the pork skin with vegetable oil and salt, place under the grill and leave until crisp.

8) Construct your monster sandwich and serve with the crispy crackling.

I love this dish, maximum flavour, minimum effort and great for sharing.  

Jerusalem artichoke soup

This is the world's simplest soup to make, just beautiful nutty jerusalem artichokes cooked and blitzed in a tasty stock.  I used to think that life was too short to make stock at home but I now make almost all that I use.  I tend to buy only whole chickens and then joint them, saving the carcass and bones in the freezer for making stock.  The aromatics can be varied to your tastes, I usually add ginger, garlic and star anise if I'm intending to use the stock for an asian style broth.  A key is always not to salt until you use the stock as you then have a base that you can freeze and reduce without it becoming overbearingly salty.  If of course you hold with my former view you can easily use a stock cube, or when it's a big part of a recipe (as it is here) store bought fresh stock.

Ingredients

500g Jerusalem artichokes
2 onions, halved (skin on)
2 large carrots, halved (skin on)
4 sticks of celery
1 tsp whole black peppercorns
2 bay leaves
1 chicken carcass, raw or cooked (omit if making vegetable stock)
Small bunch of parsley stalks (optional)

Method

1)  Add all of the ingredients bar the jerusalem artichokes to a large pan.  Cover with cold water and bring to the boil.  Once just simmering skim any scum from the surface and simmer gently for 4 hours if making chicken stock, 1 hour if making the vegetarian option.  I cook on a range so I often leave stock on a very low heat in the oven for up to 24 hours.

2)  Strain the stock through a sieve and add 500ml to a saucepan, bring back to the boil.  You will have excess stock, freeze this for later use.

3)  Peel the jerusalem artichokes and cut into quarters, add to the stock and boil until completely soft, this should take around 30 minutes.

4)  Using a stick blender blitz until completely smooth and then add salt to taste (you will need more than you may imagine as the stock is entirely unsalted).

5)  I served this with a hard ewe's milk cheese on toast to bring out the sweet nutty flavour of the soup.

Use this stock to make gravies, soups and casseroles, it's always great to have some in the freezer and the ingredients are very flexible, so use any veg that you have in the 'fridge!

Raw cauliflower salad

Another very simple post, almost too simple to be considered a recipe.  We have fantastic cauliflowers grown locally and in season, as I've stated before I'm a big fan of their distinctive flavour, be it roasted, in a curry as a classic cauliflower cheese (with a bit of truffle and jamon slipped in if I'm feeling cheffy).  However sometimes it seems a shame to do too much to that raw crunchy flavour and texture hence this very simple approach.

Don't worry if you don't have all of the ingredients, as ever experiment away.  Anchovies are a good substitute for capers, you can add a creamy or mustardy dressing if you prefer, cumin and paprika work well in there, as does chilli, basil, parsley and coriander.  I'm giving the recipe for the version pictured but I make it differently every time I do it.

Ingredients

1 small cauliflower

1 small red onion

1 tbsp capers

1/2 sweet red pepper

1 tbsp chopped mint

1 tbsp good rapeseed oil

1/2 tbsp cider vinegar

Salt and pepper

Directions

1)  Finely dice the red onion, cauliflower (stalk and all) and red pepper.

2)  Combine all of the ingredients, toss and taste.

It really is that simple.

Try, taste, and let me know how you get on!