Month: Mar 2021

Sticky hoisin pork belly

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Unctuous, succulent, savoury and sweet. A joyful testament to the transformation wrought by low heat and time.

  • 500g slices of pork belly
  • 6 tbsp hoisin sauce
  • 3 tbsp soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp honey
  • 3 garlic cloves, peeled and squashed
  1. Mix all the marinade ingredients together in a bowl and then pop the pork belly in and turn to coat the pieces. Cover, putnin the fridge and marinate for 4 hours
  2. Heat the oven to 150C fan (170C) and line a roasting tin with foil
  3. Tip the meat and the marinade into the tin and cover tightly with foil
  4. Roast for an hour and a quarter
  5. Then turn the oven up to 170C fan (190C) and take the foil top off
  6. Cook for a further 44 mins, turning the pork occasionally until it is soft, caught lightly around the edges and coated with a sticky, dense glaze. Keep a close eye on the final 15 mins to make sure it doesn’t burn
  7. Remove the pieces from the pan and cut into bite-sized pieces
  8. Eat with chopsticks, a bowl of steamy rice and cucumber salad

Apple almond pudding

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The cosiest of puddings – a layer of tart cooked apple topped with a sweet, dense almond sponge.

  • 3 bramley apples
  • 40g soft light brown sugar
  • 1 eating apple
  • ½ tsp ground cinnamon
  • 110g unsalted butter, softened
  • 110g caster sugar
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 110g ground almonds
  1. Pre-heat oven to 160C fan (180C)
  2. Peel and core the apples. Slice the bramleys into half moons and finely dice the eating apples
  3. Place the bramley slices in a saucepan with the brown sugar and 2 tbsp cold water. Simmer gently until softened but not collapsed, stirring occasionally
  4. Tip the cooked apples into a deep ceramic baking dish and gently stir in the diced apple and cinnamon
  5. In a bowl, cream together the butter and caster sugar until pale and fluffy
  6. Beat in the eggs a little at a time to avoid the mixture splitting
  7. When the mixture is light, airy and creamy, gently fold in the ground almonds
  8. Carefully spread this mixture over the apples and smooth the surface out
  9. Bake for an hour until the top is deeply golden and set.
  10. Serve warm with some vanilla ice cream

Traditional tortilla

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Old school Spanish tortilla. No sweet potatoes, spinach or cheese (not that I don’t love these!) This is a classic for a reason. Feeds 6 or more as part of a tapas.

  • 600g large waxy potatoes
  • 2 onions, finely sliced in half moons
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • 10 eggs, whisked well
  • Salt and pepper
  1. Peel the potatoes and cut into 2mm slices. Pat the slices dry with paper towel.
  2. Heat oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat
  3. Add the onion and potatoes, turn in the oil to coat
  4. Turn the heat down to low and cook for 20-30 mins (until the potato is cooked through and the onions are meltingly soft). During cooking, turn over gently a couple of times with a fish slice or spatula
  5. Season the eggs with salt and pepper and then pour them into the pan over the potato and onion
  6. Cook over a low heat for about 20 mins, then under a medium grill for a further 10 mins so it puffs up and turns golden and the egg is set
  7. Turn out onto a board to serve at room temp

Green bean, chickpea and almond salad

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It’s not really cooking once the green beans are steamed – so, a delicious construction job resulting in a salad that looks and tastes beautiful. Features deep green of the beans and olives, pale pink of the harissa yoghurt, and lightest fawn of the chickpeas and almonds

  • 200g fine green beans, topped and tailed
  • 200g (half a tin) chickpeas, drained and rinsed – maybe use the rest of the tin for hummous!
  • Handful green olives, sliced or left whole (I live with an olive hater so tend to leave them whole so they can be picked out more easily)
  • Handful fresh parsley, chopped
  • 2 tbsp extra virgin olice oil
  • Juice of ½ lemon
  • Salt and pepper
  • Plain yoghurt
  • 1 tbsp harissa paste
  • Handful flaked almonds, toasted
  1. Steam the green beans over boiling water for 6 mins (depending on how thick they are) – they should be just past crunchy. Definitely nowhere near raw
  2. Mix together the cooked green beans, chickpeas, parsley and olives. Drizzle over the olive oil and lemon juice, season and toss gently together
  3. Mix the yogurt and harissa paste to a pretty pale pink
  4. Serve the salad at room temp with the yogurt dressing drizzled/blobbed over the top (depending how dextrous you are and how thick your yoghurt is), Sprinkle with the toasted almonds

Pesto

~ Sophie ~ 2 Comments

Like hummous, this pesto is immensely straightforward to make from scratch and 1000% more delicious than buying it from a shop. Eat it on pasta, spread on toast, stuff chicken breasts with it, add to a roast tomato quiche, dollop onto a jacket potato, or make it part of a flipping amazing roast veggie sandwich. I promise you, if you make this once, you’ll definitely make it again.

I recommend a mini blender for this, it makes it a 2 min job. Otherwise, you can use a pestle and mortar.

  • 50g (a large handful) fresh basil – I don’t bother removing the stems, it’s all getting ground up anyway
  • 40g pine nuts, toasted
  • 1 clove garlic, chopped (or 1 tbsp garlic oil)
  • Large pinch salt
  • Extra virgin olive oil – more than you think, probably 100ml
  • 40g parmesan cheese, finely grated
  1. Put the basil leaves, pine nuts, garlic and salt into the mini blender and whizz up so everything is combined
  2. Add half the olive oil and whizz again. It should start to form a course paste now
  3. Loosen the mixture with more oil and continue to whizz up until it’s a nice spoonable consistency
  4. Tip into a bowl, add the parmesan and stir together thoroughly. Check the seasoning and then you’re good to go
  5. Eat immediately or keep in the fridge under a thin layer of oil

Pineapple upside down cake

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A retro classic, unashamedly sweet and my favourite pudding as a child. My mum always slightly underbaked it (no idea if that was on purpose, I should ask her) so the middle was still gooey. That was my favourite bit.

  • 160g unsalted butter
  • 50g soft dark brown sugar
  • 2 tbsp golden syrup
  • 1 small tin pineapple rings in juice (drained)
  • 110g unsalted butter
  • 110g caster sugar
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 170g self-raising flour
  • 2 – 3 tbsp pineapple juice from the tin
  1. Grease and line a round 20cm cake tin and pre-heat oven to 160C fan (180C)
  2. Cream together the brown sugar and 50g of the butter and then stir in the golden syrup
  3. Spread this sticky conconction over the bottom of the tin and arrange the rings of pineapple on top. If you’re feeling especially kitsch, you can add a glace cherry to the middle of each ring – or just fill the gaps with bits of pineapple
  4. That’s the pineapple upside down bit complete. Now for the cake.
  5. Cream together the caster sugar and remaining butter
  6. Add the egg a little at a time, whisking as you go. Then whisk in the pineapple juice,
  7. Tip in the flour and fold into the mixture,
  8. Scrape into the cake tin over the pineapple rings and smooth out the top
  9. Bake for about an hour, checking from 45 mins. The top should be golden and it should (sorry mum!) be cooked through, so a skewer stuck in the middle comes out clean
  10. Turn the cake out onto a serving plate and serve warm. Try to resist the temptation to just stick your face in it

Caramelised chilli nuts

~ Sophie ~ 1 Comment

Sweet, savoury, spicy, crunchy and nutty – possibly my favourite ever snack. You will probably burn your tongue in your eagerness to put them in your mouth. I don’t recommend this, but I do understand it.

  • 200g mixed whole nuts (I usually use blanched almonds and cashews – also works well with peanuts. Outstanding with macadamias. Not walnuts)
  • 1 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 2 tbsp caster sugar
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ½ tsp chilli flakes
  1. Toast the nuts in a dry pan (ideally a non-stick one as you’ll be melting sugar in it in a minute). This is an exercise in patience, as you’ll want to do it quickly but the best results are achieved by taking it slow over a low-ish heat. You want them golden all over and not even a tiny bit burnt
  2. Turn the heat up to medium, add the butter and stir to coat the nuts as it melts
  3. Sprinkle over the sugar, salt and chilli flakes
  4. Now you’ve got to pay attention. This is where it could all go deliciously right or disastrously wrong. Stir the buttery nuts constantly, moving them around the pan to coat them in the sugar as it melts and caramelises. This will only take a couple of minutes. If you leave to go and answer the door/check your phone they will burn.
  5. When they’re all coated and glistening (and oh SO hot), tip them out onto a tray lined with greaseproof paper and leave to cool completely. The caramel will harden into a crisp coating around the spicy, salted, toasted nuts.

I’m sure these would be delicious chopped roughly and sprinkled over a salad, but they never, ever get that far in my house. It’s a struggle to make them last more than an hour.

Roasted red pepper and cannellini bean salad with preserved lemon dressing

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A bright, perky, zingy side salad. Pop some grilled halloumi on the side and eat it for dinner.

  • 4 red peppers
  • 1 tin of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
  • Handful fresh parsley, finely chopped
  • Handful pine nuts, toasted
  • 2 preserved lemons, flesh removed and shell finely chopped
  • 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tbsp garlic oil (or a minced clove of garlic if you’d rather)
  • Juice of ½ lemon
  • Large pinch of salt
  1. Heat the oven to 180C fan (200C). Line a baking tray with foil and lay the whole peppers on it
  2. Roast for 40 mins, flipping them over halfway through. The skins will blacken and wrinkle. This is fine.
  3. Using tongs, lift the peppers into a large bowl, stick a plate on top and leave until they’re cool enough to handle
  4. Peel off the skins, remove the seeds and white bits, and drain off any liquid
  5. Cut the peppers into 1 cm strips dump into a bowl with the cannellini beans and chopped parsley
  6. Whisk together all the other ingredients and pour over the salad
  7. Toss everything together, taste and adjust the seasoning. Leave to get to know each other for 20 mins and then serve at room temperature

Add other ingredients if they take your fancy – some giant cous cous or farro, some ripe tomatoes would be yum – change the beans (butter beans or chickpeas also v good).

Vanilla biscuits

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Delicate and vanilla-scented, these plain biscuits are the ideal vehicle for water icing and a massive pile of sprinkles – the hundreds and the thousands AND those little jelly diamonds.

  • 100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 100g caster sugar
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • ½ tsp vanilla extract
  • 275g plain flour
  • ½ tsp baking powder
  • Pinch of salt
  1. Pre-heat oven to 170C fan (190C) and line a baking tray with baking paper (or one of those silicone mats. I’ve got one and it’s a weird texture but it works brilliantly)
  2. In a big bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until well-combined, light and fluffy
  3. Beat in the egg and vanilla a little at a time until well combined
  4. Add the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir in and then bring together with your hands to form a dough
  5. Lightly flour the work surface and roll the dough out to around 1cm thick
  6. Cut out circles, stars, hearts, people, fish, flowers and hedgehogs
  7. Place your shapes carefully onto the baking tray with a bit of space around them and bake for 8-10 mins until pale golden-brown
  8. Leave on the tray for 2 mins, then remove to cool on a wire rack
  9. Ice when completely cool

For the icing, put some icing sugar in a little cup, add a couple of drops of food colouring and much less water than you think you’ll need. Stir until smooth and then spoon, spread, drizzle and drip all over the biscuits. Add sprinkles while the icing is wet and it’ll set firm in a couple of hours.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to add icing – maybe because they’re going in a lunchbox and you want to reduce the sugar levels in sympathy with the teacher – but still want them to be fun, you could decorate with edible icing pens. I’ve never come across a child who doesn’t love the novelty of drawing on biscuits.

The uncooked dough freezes really well so, if you want to save some for later, wrap it well and pop it in the freezer.

Kisir

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Turkish bulgar wheat salad with tomato, pomegranate and red pepper. A more-ish texture and flavour combination in beautiful tones of garnet, rust and russet.

  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 1 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 tbsp tomato puree
  • 2 large tomatoes, peeled and chopped
  • ½ red pepper, finely chopped
  • 100ml water
  • 200g fine bulgur wheat
  • 1 tbsp pomegranate molasses
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • Large handful fresh parsley, chopped
  • Handful fresh mint, chopped (keep a few whole leaves for garnishing)
  • 3 spring onions, finely chopped
  • 1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
  • ½ tsp ground cumin
  • ½ tsp pul biber (Turkish chilli – substitute with a pinch of chilli flakes)
  • 40g walnuts, toasted and roughly chopped
  • 30g hazelnuts, toasted and roughly chopped
  • Salt and black pepper
  • Drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
  • Seeds from ½ pomegranate
  1. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan and cook the onion for about 5 mins until it turns translucent
  2. Add the garlic and red pepper and cook for another minute
  3. Add the tomato puree and stir in, cooking for 2 mins
  4. Add the tomatoes, turn the heat down and put the lid on. Cook for 4 mins then add the water
  5. Bring to a boil, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the bulgur wheat. Put the lid back on and leave to stand off the heat for 10 mins.
  6. Tip into a bowl with the pomegranate molasses, lemon juice, parsley, mint, spring onion, chilli, cumin, pul biber and toasted nuts
  7. Season, stir and put to one side until it has cooled to room temperature
  8. Taste again (try not to eat it all with your hands) and adjust the seasoning
  9. Serve at room temperature – spoon into a wide serving dish, drizzle with a bit of extra virgin olive oil and scatter over the pomegranate seeds and a few mint leaves