Quick tart

All you need to make this is some puff pastry, some onions and some other veg. It's a simple thing one might easily arrive at when discovering an aged block of pastry in a overlooked freezer drawer. In fact that's exactly what happened here.

• puff pastry
• onions or shallots
• olive oil
• sage
• tomatoes
• cured meat
• feta or salad cheese

Roll out the pastry and preheat the oven to a hottish setting.
 

Meanwhile fry your onions or shallots (whose mild flavours would go very well here) in some oil. Add some sage towards the end, and some sweet cherry tomatoes. Prepare anything else you want on there - a feta type white cheese goes well here, as does any type of sausage or cured meat. We used some Polish sausage. Chuck everything on an put into the oven for about half an hour.

Part way through the cooking monitor the toppings - there is obviously a risk that the onions may burn before the pastry in the centre has cooked. If it looks like this is happening put some foil over the tart and give it a bit more time. It's not an exact science so monitor carefully.

Like a cross between a pizza and a quiche, this egg-less entity is very easy to prepare. It's pretty rich, so serve with a big pile of greens or perhaps a mustardy leaf salad to offset things. By it's very nature it's also highly adaptable, although some nice juicy tomatoes are highly advised.

Garlic soup

This recipe was brought to my attention by a friend who cooked it for dinner once. It's a version of garlic soup which uses both roast and raw garlic cooked in the soup mix to create a distinct but far from overpowering flavour, which is then enriched by parmesan and cream.

You are going to need -

• 26 garlic cloves (unpeeled)
• some olive oil
• two small sliced onions
• a teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
• 18 garlic cloves, peeled
• four cups of chicken or veg stock
• some single cream
• finely grated parmesan
• plenty of lemon

Roast the unpeeled garlic for around 40 minutes. Fry the onions with the thyme for 15 minutes with some olive oil.

Add the raw garlic, the roast garlic (sans jackets naturally) and the stock and cook for half an hour. When everything seems ready blitz the mixture, remove from the heat and add a little cream. Serve with a grating of parmesan and a squeeze of lemon.

I'm not sure this recipe needs as much cream as the original blog suggests. It does make a wonderfully tasty and rich soup, a perfect starter in fact, but with a little less you could have a larger bowl of it which, with some bread, would make a good lunch.

The lemon really lifts the taste and should not be missed. I wonder if perhaps it's possible to skip the roasting stage of the garlic to simplify the recipe and make things quicker? Either way, it's delicious.

Lemony aubergine soup

Cooking aubergines on a gas top is one of those thing you can't believe you've never done before. It's well easy, and a great way to cook them that avoid using a load of oil. You stick them over a naked gas flame, rotate occasionally and after about fifteen minutes you've some beautifully soft and giving aubergines ready for baba ganoush, or in this case soup. This Ottolenghi recipe (from his first book) is extremely simple. All you need is:

• plenty of aubergine
• some cream
• some stock
• lots of lemon
• a bit of basil

Cook half your aubos as I have described. When soft allow to cool and peel off their skins. Chop roughly.

Meantime, fry the other half of your aubergines, cubed, in some olive oil. When they are soft combine all the aubergines and top up with some stock. Cook this for thirty minutes. When it seems done season, squeeze loads of lemon juice in, top off with a lick of cream (off the boil so it doesn't curdle) and chuck on a few basil leaves.

Very easy. Also very tasty, though the soup has a delicate appeal that wasn't immediately evident. It was consumed alongside the green pancakes of wonder, and such was our delight in them that the soup was over-shadowed. However, once reassessed after a few more spoons it was judged positively. It's quite light and simple - there is just the one vegetable in it - but the mix of smoke from the grill, sharpness from the lemon and richness from the cream was just the ticket with a bit of toasted pitta.

Sweet potato gratin with peanut butter, chilli and lime

This is a dish for the tail end of winter. The clocks have now changed and we are fully into spring. And how welcome it is. However there's still some chill in the air along with the sun, and evenings are not yet as warm as they might be. Get a load of this extremely rich dish, although I'd be tempted to tone down the amount of cream next time. The full recipe is on the Guardian but you are going to need:

• sweet potato
• chilli, garlic
• cream
• crunchy peanut butter
• lime

Slice your potato and mix with cream and the flavourings. Layer up in a bowl and add the peanut butter in little blobs. Finish off layering the dish and bake at gas mark 5 for around 50 minutes. Serve with more lime squeezed on top and (this is essential!) something very plain such as steamed greens (and beetroot salad).

Peanut and chilli is of course a well tested combination. Lime and sweet potatoes might also occur alongside nuts and spice in a Thai curry. So it's perhaps not as unusual combination as it might seem - an Thai accented dish of English comfort food with spice as well as richness. Not an absolute knock-out dish but certainly worth a look. Possibly very satisfying to eat in bed.

Green pancakes with lime butter

First things first - this is an absolute winner. It's the perfect thing for a weekend brunch or lunch, or in our case a rainy Sunday's film club. Airy, light, spiced pancakes with a pleasingly raw and green taste and a sharp lime and chilli butter. Wondrous. You can find the full version from the Guardian here. Don't be put off by the long list of ingredients - most of them are regular household things that you may have around the house, and you can easily bodge a few bits.

• butter, lime zest and juice, salt and pepper, chilli flakes, raw garlic for the butter
• self-raising flour
• eggs
• baking powder
• spinach, green chilli, spring onions
• milk, egg, butter
• ground cumin

Make the butter by creaming all of the ingredients needed together. Use common sense as to amounts but  aim for a punchy and strong tasting result with lots of lime. It should look a bit like this...

The correct amounts for the pancakes can be found in the Guardian link. I think you could put even slightly more spinach in the mix. Fresh green chillies give an amazing edge to things and should not be missed, and the egg whites are essential in making a fluffy pancake.

Fry with keenness, speed and vigour. Top with the butter and enjoy. We had these with aubergine soup (to be blogged soon) but you could have with poached eggs, salads, hummus or whatever else.

This is one of the best Ottolenghi recopies I've ever tasted. Don't delay

Poached baby vegetables with caper mayonnaise

Apologies crew but I broke my arm and have been out of action for a week or so. Straight back to the thick of it, though, with another Ottolenghi from Plenty. I'll say straight up that this one isn't as good as some of the other crackers, but it might be worth a look if this kind of thing tickles your fancy. Check the original recipe.

• baby vetables - fennel, carrot, leek, asparagus etc
• one egg, vegetable and olive oil, lemon, white wine vinegar, Dijon mustard for the mayonnaise
• white wine, olive oil and bay leaves for the poaching liquor

Baby vegetables are something that may well set you back a bit normally. I was lucky to get a load of them cheap from Ridley Road and I supplemented them with a few adult vegetables in the form of carrots and courgettes.

First up make your mayonnaise. Use your normal method: I'm a self-confessed failure in this area, for some reason mine is often thin and fails to coagulate. The key here is for it to be very lemony and to chuck some capers in at the end. Regardless of the overall success of the dish the mayo is amazing, and should be used in other circumstance.

Next fix up your veg - Otto suggests poaching them in a mixture of white wine and olive oil. This is a nice idea but kind of wasteful. All the oil he calls for also makes things greasy when combined with the oil of the veg. I think some stock with lemon and bay and gestures of oil and wine is ok. Poach until done but with a slight crunch.

Serve with your preferred starch - grain/potato/bread with the veg, a dollop of mayo and a little ladle of stock. This responds well to some black pepper.
 

that's lunch sorted

A slight faff this one. It doesn't quite have the attractive simplicity of some other Ottolenghi dishes, what with the poaching and mayonnaising processes. It is, though, rather pretty, and might be a nice dinner party dish for an elegant starter. As I said, the lemon tinged mayo is a wonder and would be sublime with a lump of fish or some courgette burgers.

Baked eggs with sage and chilli butter

OK baked eggs are a classic through loads of the world - from a Pakistani spiced version with tomatoes to the Turkish classic menemen, a chickpeas and feta based iteration and the North African staple shakshouka (also popular in Israel apparently, courtesy of the Tunisian Jews). You could easily do a nice UK themed one with leeks and bacon. This, wonder of wonders, is Ottolenghi's version with sage and chilli with a sauce whose taste and savour far exceeds the sum of its parts. It's flippin amazing.

You can peep the original recipe here but the basics are:

• two eggs each
• greens - rocket, spinach, tender leeks
• yoghurt mix (with a little raw garlic)
• butter mix (with chilli flakes and sage)

Pre-heat the oven to a medium heat.

Sweat down your greens in a pan until they are soft. Add them to an oven dish and crack the eggs between the vegetal bolsters. Stick in the oven.

Mix your yoghurt with a little crushed raw garlic. Make the spiced butter - melt in a pan with the sage and chilli flakes and let it cook for a minute or two so the butter solids start to brown slightly and move towards a state of hazelnut aroma, and the sage crisps.

When the eggs are looking done remove and plate up. I found it tricky getting to a point where the yolks were still liquid but the white was set. You may have more luck.

Combinate however you like with the yoghurt and a generous portion of the spiced butter and serve with absorbent Turkish bread.

Oh my days, sheer brunch based heaven. Don't hold back on the butter, it just doesn't make sense to do so. This should be served with some nice coffee (hazelnut?) and some fruit juice. One might even accessorise with some additional greens to balance the various fats and round out the meal. Whatever happens you are in for a treat. (The spiced butter would be great tipped over a fried egg sandwich if you can't be bothered to go the whole hog).

Rose's egg in a basket

 before

My other half cooked this over Christmas and it's quite an unusual recipe that I thought was interesting. It's inspired by a dish that she had as a youngster whilst spending some time in America - eggs in a basket. I've heard of the egg-in-the-hole type preparation with a slice of bread but having it in a full on pastry pie case with cheese sauce was new to me.

 during

If you fancy making pastry then use your normal recipie for a standard savoury pie crust. Shape into pie shells and blind bake until nearly cooked. Add a raw egg to each pie and why not some vegetables in the bottom too? The egg, pastry and sauce are all quite rich, so having some mushrooms or steamed leeks in there could go very well. We had mushrooms.

Finish it off in the oven and add some black pepper which goes with the cheese sauce very well. Make whatever cheese sauce you fancy. We had a simple classic one, with a white roux followed by grated cheese.

after

Lentil and parsnip salad

This salad or assemblage is a rather nice combination of flavours which put me a bit in mind of an Ottolenghi recipe (well, perhaps a simplified one). Nothing too fancy, and lots of big, hearty flavours which come together nicely under a robust dressing.

• stuff for a strong dressing: olive oil, sherry vinegar, lemon juice, a touch of raw garlic
• parsnips
• puy lentils
• chilli flakes and mint
• cherry tomatoes, other nice salad veg

First things first: chop the parsnips, dress with olive oil, dust with chilli flakes, season and roast on a medium heat for about half an hour. You want them to be very well done - the beauty of the parsnip lies in its sweetness and the sugar can not be well appreciated in an underdone root. Meantime put the lentils on and cook until al dente.

Whilst the main bits are cooking make the dressing directly in a big serving bowl. This saves on messing around with a smaller jar or other vessel. I have suggested ingredients above but anything robust is good. Steer towards a middle eastern vibe with sherry vinegar, pomegranate molasses, preserved lemons etc. rather than a French style, mustard based vinaigrette.

When the parsnips and lentils are done to your liking chuck into the bowl and finish the salad with some nice raw salad veg and herbs. I went for cherry tomatoes and mint. Also nice would be something crunchy like raw fennel, white cabbage or celery or something green and irony like blanched spinach or cavolo nero. Taste and finish off by adding salt, pepper, chilli flakes or any other dressing ingredients as you see fit.

This would be a lovely side dish to have with some grilled chicken, lamb or fish. It's pretty filling with the lentils in. At most you might need a scrap of Turkish bread - excellent with a smoky lamb kebabs and some good red wine I'd imagine. As it happened we had a vegetarian friendly version with a fried egg of top. Let me know if you try it!

Aubergine and bread salad +

This was one of those spur of the moments meal. I'd been down to Ridley Road and picked up a bag of baby aubergines for £1. (Yes: one pound for about fifteen or so hand length aubergines). Also four packets of beautiful baby plum tomatoes for a pound and a load of dirt cheap fennel. Crazy.

So I got back and pottered about with the back of my brain wondering what to cook for lunch: Szechuan aubergines, curry, some sort of soup... How about just sticking the aubergines and tomatoes on to roast and then chucking together a salad? Ok, let's give it a go.

• baby aubergine
• cherry tomatoes
• fennel or some other raw veg
• flatbread
• feta or salad cheese
• yoghurt, garlic, pomegranite molasses, lemon juice, olive oil and sherry vinegar

 Roast the aubergines and tomatos with olive oil for thirty minutes or so

Meantime: chop the fennel or other raw salad veg. I advise going for something with a little crunch here to contrast with the soft and silken vegetables. Roughly chop or mash your cheese (I used a cheap, mild Turkish salad cheese which was 1/4 the price of feta).

When the veg is half done in the oven put in your flat-bread (I used wholemeal pittas to nice effect). The aim is crisp them up and put them in the salad fattoush style. When they are getting semi-crisp take them out and chop roughly. Add to the veg and cheese. Dress with a bit of olive oil and stir. The bread will start to absorb the essence of the vegetables, especially via the liquid insides of the tomatoes.

Mix the yoghurt dressing - 80% yoghurt, 7% water, 7% olive oil, 4% pomegranate molasses and 2% sherry vinegar. Add one clove of garlic chopped very fine and some salt and coarse black pepper.

Layer up the salad base with the bread, put on top the roast veg and then dress liberally.

some preserved lemons would also work here with the cheese and bread

Very nice, though I say so myself, and substantial enough for a complete lunch. The roast vegetables are still warm, rich and comforting, the fennel faintly regal and stand-offish, the bread the doughty workhorse of the piece. A nice balance.

Two ways with hot and nutty vegetables, Szechuan style

I'm blogging these two together as they are variations on a theme. Like the kindling noodles I cooked earlier this year, and heartily recommend, the selling point here is the combination of rich and oil nuts and/or seeds with chilli and vegetables. Sesame oil is used pretty widely in Chinese cooking for frying and flavouring and I know sesame paste is also utilized. I'm not sure exactly what that looks like but I've used tahini successfully in stir-frys and the like and it's ended up pretty well every time. All you need then is a load of vegetables and the rest of the ingredients take care of themselves - dried noodles or rice from the cupboard, sesame paste, chilli oil / dried chilli / pickled chillis, maybe a few nuts or preserved vegetables to liven things up and you're good to go. All things from the store cupboard. Crack a few eggs into the veg at the end if you're looking for more protein.

watch out for this type of pickled chilli - it's by far my favourite type so far and available in Chinatown - at about £1.50 it's worth stockpiling

pretty hedgehog patterns

• mixture of peppers OR loads of sliced up aubergines
• tahini, pickled chillies
• soy sauce, shaoxing wine
• garlic
• mix of peanuts, walnuts and sesame seeds
  

Toast your seeds and nuts lightly in a pan for a few minutes, keeping an eye on any burning.

Fry your peppers or aubergines with some veg oil. With the aubergines it's of course essential to get them really soft and silky. I did this by putting a bit of water in with them and adding a lid - this ends up half steaming and half frying them. Do what ever works for you.

When the veg has started to cook down add a couple of teaspoons of tahini, a few shakes of soy sauce and your choice of chilli heat. Taste and adjust. Chuck in some other vegetables if you fancy - shredded cabbage went very well with the peppers, giving a textural foil and preventing monotony.

When the veg seems nearly cooked add your toasted nuts and again taste and tweak the seasoning as you see fit. Serve with noodles or flat bread if feeling lazy.

To compliment the sesame paste strategically deploy some sesame oil too.

Hot-and-nutty is up there combo wise with the holy mix of Szechuan food - the hot-and-numbing mala. I'm sure there must be a proper Chinese name for it if anyone knows..? Regardless, from satay, to West African peanut soups to Chinese sesame kindling noodles it's doing it for me big time.

Pasta with roast cauliflower and pumpkin

Cheap cauliflower is a boon. It's one of those vegetables (like aubergines) that isn't often had for bargains on markets. When you see some cheap snap it up, take it home and roast it. I was prompted to roast mine by this post. I did it slightly differently, but the great thing is if you cook loads you can then have it in the fridge and ready to use in different things - a little side dish, the basis of a salad (would be great with chickpeas, turnips and preserved lemons) or, as here, with pasta.

• cauliflower
• pumpkin
• garlic, chilli flakes, cinnamon, olive oil
• pasta

Roast your cauli: in florets, with butter and salt. It will need half an hour - forty-five minutes on a medium heat.

Make the sauce: fry lots of garlic in olive oil and add the pumpkin chopped small with a little twig of cinnamon. Chuck in some chilli flakes. Put a little water in there and add a lid. Allow this all to cook down for ten or fifteen minutes, using your spoon to mash the pumpkin into a sauce. You don't need loads here - it's designed to lubricate the pasta and augment the cauliflower. If your pumpkin is anaemic and lacking taste, as mine was - from our communal garden, sprinkle a little veg stock on.

When the pumpkin is well cooked and the sauce has come together de-engage the cinnamon and discard. It has done an important job here - a slight sweetness that boosts the pumpkin and bonds with the chilli. Stir into your pasta and toss in the cauliflower. Anoint with oil or bless with parmesan as you see fit.

Yes. Sheer niceness. Where the cauliflower browns against the metal of the tray you are rewarded with a wonderful sweetness, whilst the roasting in general gives the vegetable a savour not attained through boiling or steaming. It gains an almost truffle like richness which combines with the pumpkin to make a wonderful sauce.