A Dish a Day: Slow roasted lamb shoulder on a bed of potatoes

Ramblings from a voracious eater 

on the dish that made her day

Sunday lunch on a Tuesday: lamb shoulder and potatoes

A Sunday lunch meal for a Tuesday night supper. Not everyone has the luxury of pottering in the kitchen in the daytime, making friends for five hours with a juicy lamb shoulder on a layer of sliced potatoes. But luckily for us our friend Stew has; he is executing a Tom Kerridge recipe - a one tray dish for five hungry friends (six if you include the dog, who aches for that bone). The tender meat is a little garlicky, has hints of rosemary. The potatoes are soaked with juices from the lamb, they are salted and encrusted with it. Half an hour before serving, Stew has to decant some of the lamb juices and put the bed of potatoes (sans lamb) back in the oven to crust them up even more, and these become the most coveted bits that everyone wants to steal off one another's plates.

I find lamb the most communal of the meats; all round the table partake in the shredding (in particular the hapless labradoodle Ted whose wet nose pops up every five minutes to see whether we've finished).

Stew forgets to tell us that there's another course before the trifle: that he's put a camembert in the oven topped with caramelised onions, served - in wholesome manner - with homemade bread. We make noises and grumble that we would have been more abstinent with our second helpings - both of lamb and last bits of potato in the tray that we dig straight into with our spoons. But in truth, we really wouldn't have.

Watch Tom Kerridge's video recipe of slow-cooked lamb shoulder with boulangere potatoes here.

A Dish a Day: Tom Yum Soup - a Monday night supper

Ramblings from a voracious eater 

on the dish that made her day

A quick bowl of steaming Tom Yum soup

Today, supper is a Thai Tom Yum soup - a warming furnace that sets innards alight; igniting the body with its head-clearing properties. The broth itself is clean and wholesome, but when you add those classic four flavours - sweet, salty, hot and sour - right at the end, the soup is transformed into something spectacular. Most enjoyable is the rasp of chilli that hits the back of your throat just when you least expect it. 

I had some chicken bones in the freezer that I used to make a quick stock, but if you have ready made stock, this soup for two can be cooked in ten minutes. 

Tom Yum ingredients:
coriander, lemongrass, chilli, ginger, kaffir lime leaves

Simply heat up a litre of light chicken stock until boiling. Turn the the stock down to a simmer and add all the fragrants: a stick of lemongrass, a few slices of ginger, a few slices of galangal (or a teaspoon of paste), a handful of coriander stems and 2 or 3 kaffir lime leaves - all bruised slightly with a pestle. The flavours will infuse perfectly after a 5 minute simmer. 

Fish out the spices, add a big handful of king prawns and cook until pink. Turn off the heat add some splashes of fish sauce, a teaspoon of palm sugar, a generous squeeze of lime and plenty of sliced chilli (birdseye is the best - and as much as you can manage) - enough to blast through the February chill. Garnish with coriander leaves and a slices of spring onion. 

Serve with rice and feel restored. 

Other Tom Yum recipes

I'm a big fan of Felicity Cloake's 'Perfect' series. Read about her perfect Tom Yum soup here.

Andrew Kojima's version for the Telegraph is quick and easy. 

A Dish a Day: Beef Rendang (for ten)

Ramblings from a voracious eater on the dish that made her day

Beef rendang and green beans with prawns and coconut

‘It’s England v France on Saturday, can we host the match?’ he asks. It’s rugby season. The Six Nations is about to begin. I can tell he wants to cook beouf bourguignon (or to be patriotic, beef stew).

I’ve got other ideas. I’ve a craving for spices and chilli and put my case in for Nonya food from Malaysia. I have in mind the deep, complex textures of beef rendang; pieces of beef shin cooked down in coconut milk until tender and spiced with the flavours of South-East Asia: lemongrass, galangal, chilli… ‘Indulge me,’ I plead.

‘Okay, but what’s that got to do with England (or France for that matter)?’

‘Umm...’

‘I suppose there is Rory and Tony Underwood…’

Rory Underwood was a rugby hero of mine when I was younger, the England wing whose Malaysian-Chinese heritage made our family proud whenever he was on the pitch. He reminded me of my older brother, my other rugby hero (though only for about three years, and on a cold, Hertfordshire school pitch). When both he and his brother Tony played for England, the camera would pan onto their diminutive mother, who fiercely cheered at the sides. We adored her in our household, and enjoyed the incongruity of stern Chinese mother letting rip at a rugby match.

And so the conversation goes on and the ‘Underwood menu’ is born: beef rendang, green beans in a light prawn and coconut sauce, and tamarind chicken. At kick-off, the rendang is ready; each piece coated with four hours of flavour. It’s had a lot of oven love.

England loses. By a sliver of a breath. The room is inconsolable. There’s only one thing to do, and that’s to tuck into seconds.

Bruising the rendang spices before putting in the spice grinder

Beef Rendang (serves 8-10)

In the past, I’ve cooked rendang with more spices – star anise, cinnamon, cardamom. This time I used a recipe from ‘The New Mrs Lee’s Cookbook: Nonya Cuisine’ as a base, which calls for minimal spices. I've also adapted proportions and cooking time (her recipe calls for boiling for 30 minutes, but the shin would be toughened by rapid cooking).

3 onions, sliced

1.8kg beef shin, diced

3 x 400ml cans of coconut milk

3 slices of tamarind block soaked in 400ml boiling water, then paste squeezed through a sieve (available from Chinese supermarkets)

2 handfuls of dessicated coconut – toasted in a dry pan until light brown. These give texture to the tender pieces of shin

2 tablespoons palm sugar

Salt

In the spice grinder: rendang spice paste

12 slices galangal

12 slices ginger

12 cloves garlic

6 red chillies (usually made with 15 dried chillies, but I only have fresh ones)

3 stalks lemon grass (white part only)

3 tablespoons ground coriander

1 and ½ teaspoons ground cumin

Preheat the oven to 160C or 140C (fan oven).

Bruise and roughly chop the rendang paste ingredients, before either pounding (hard work) or spice grinding into a paste.

In a big heavy bottomed pan, add the spice paste and the rest of the ingredients. Stir to make sure every piece of beef is mixed well with the coconut milk.

Half cover the pan with a lid and stew in the oven for 2 hours. Bring up to the stove top and skim the fat off with a spoon. It’s worth doing this as there will be a lot.

Bubble for another 1-2 hours on a medium heat until a third of the gravy is left. Stir frequently to avoid the stew sticking to the bottom of the pan. The stew should be quite dry and change colour to a deep deep brown.

Serve with rice.

Other rendang recipes

Feast to the World contends that rendang doesn’t have coconut milk or tamarind in it. I look forward to trying his recipe here.

For another variation, here’s a recipe for ox cheek and venison rendang.

Nut butter and Butternut Squash soup with Salami Crisps

 Butternut Squash Soup with a secret ingredient...

It's the month before Christmas. A month filled with half-asleep sleeps from the run of festive parties. I begin to expect the regular full-moon interruptions from the boy T, the knocking into doors because he bends over funny as he unties a shoelace, a cheeky stumble  before just making it to the kitchen and downing pints of water in attempt to claw back sobriety. Probably punctuated with a carol. 

One of these nights I’d left a butternut squash soup open on the stove to cool. T comes back in normal fashion (after dad-dancing through Shadow Lounge jaegerbombs with his work team). Irregular drunken steps. He falls into the kitchen. Silence. Then all I hear is the eruptive ‘Oh my God, wow!’ 

It's the soup. He's just tasted the soup. He goes back for more. 


It's a premiere reaction. Had I ever had that response to my soup-making before from anyone, I'd be sweating at the stove making stock more often. 


The soup is cooked up again this springtime (albeit drizzly) week because the suggestive marrow repeatedly pops up in my veg box. And it's even better than I remembered - creamy without having an ounce of cream, sweet without added sugar. Any eater expecting your standard squashy soup is invariably surprised at first taste with the deliciously deep flavour of peanut butter Americana. It's a soup that's savoury and sweet, spiked with chilli-hot goodness, fresh with coriander and lime, lifted with the mere whisper of ginger. And with a topping of crisp salami, a steaming bowl of this moreish blend is pure perfection after a hard day's (or hard night's) work.  

Nut butter and Butternut Squash soup 

Pre-soup. The ingredients

1 butternut squash - peeled, seeded and diced into small cubes

Butter

1 large onion or 2 small onions finely chopped

1 red chilli chopped

Knob of ginger - thumbsize, grated

1 large garlic clove - finely chopped

1 litre veg stock/chicken stock

3 heaped tablespoons peanut butter

Juice 1 lime

Big handful coriander

6 Milanese salami slices (optional)

Salt and pepper

Salami crisps

In your soup pot (my trusty cast iron number) slowly fry salami slices on both sides until crisp - it will fry in its own fat so you don’t need to add any oil. Set aside.

In the same pan, add some butter and the onion, and fry on a low heat for five minutes until translucent. Add the ginger, chilli and garlic, and fry for a minute or two. It should be gorgeously fragrant. 

Add the squash and fry for at least a good 10-15 minutes on a low heat until they become slightly soft and frayed round the edges. Season with salt and pepper. 

Pour in the stock, bring to the boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for 20 minutes partially covered with the lid. Before taking it off the heat, add the peanut butter and mix until dissolved. 

Pour into a blender (you might have to blend in batches), and throw in the bunch of coriander too and the lime juice. 

Blend until smooth. Pour back into the pan to gently heat back up again.

Serve with the salami crisps and a cheery sprinkle of chopped coriander.

Second helpings. Grilled fennel dressed with lemon in the background

Ode to the Skirt Steak: Recipes and Where to Eat it

I love steak. So much so that I’ve belonged to a steak club for over five years, once ate steak five times in one week and still brazenly cook it in order to make friends. I remember being unable to afford a full three-courses at Hawksmoor when it first opened, but going to steak club and spanking £45 just on a juicy rib eye and absolutely nothing else. That’s how much I love steak. 



I’m a fan of the textured cut - one with a bit of chew and packs a meaty flavour punch. And so I introduce one of my favourite cuts - the skirt steak or bavette. It’s a cheaper cut (at one butchers the fillet is £45/kg, whereas skirt will be about £14.50/kg) but no less inferior. It’s a flat steak with beautiful marbling and takes flavour and marinating well (Anthony Bourdain recommends it grilled over an open fire of dried grape vines or good wood) and benefits from the smokiness of a Josper grill (like Les Deux Salons near Covent Garden). 

Bavette with Green Sauce at Duck Soup, Soho

You’ll find it on many a menu in London - I've seen it gracing Galvin's and Vinoteca's. Most recently, I ate one at Dean Street’s Duck Soup - sliced into ribbons and lifted with green sauce and served with sumac-sprinkled new potatoes and wilting wild garlic. 

But this is the easiest thing to cook at home. I find there’s nothing quite like a potter round the butchers and bringing home that precious, vermillion and marbled slab of meat, and unwrapping the paper like a present. The Ginger Pig’s skirt is second to none but we’ve had great ones from our local butcher down on the Northcote Road. 

Because it’s a coarse steak, it’s fit for the extremes of flash-frying or slow-cooking. I’ve not tried the slow-cooking before largely due to impatience (why wait 3 hours for something that takes five minutes?) So instead here are a few quick recipes on what to do with this magnificent cut. 

A few things to do with a skirt steak

How to cook the steak

Leave the steaks out so that they are room temperature. Lightly oil and season both sides liberally just before you’re going to cook it. Heat a flat-bottomed pan until smoking hot, and sear the steak on both sides for literally two minutes one side, a minute and a half on the other (I put my timer on). Do not be tempted to move the steak around in the pan. Leave to rest for 5 minutes.

With shallots

In the same pan, with the steak juices, heat up some more oil and cook finely chopped shallots with a sprinkling of sugar to caramelise and salt on a lower heat for 5 minutes. When a glorious brown, sprinkle on top of the steak. 

With garlic and parsley butter

Make a garlic and parsley butter about an hour or two before by mixing butter with finely chopped parsley and half a clove of crushed garlic. Roll into a sausage, wrap with clingfilm and put in the fridge to firm up. When ready to serve your steak, slice disks of butter, take the clingfilm off, place atop the unsliced steak and let it melt in the residual heat.

Steak sandwich

Steaks on the Japanese barbecue soon to turn into...steak sandwiches

Make a steak sandwich with a healthy smear of Tracklements horseradish and onions. 

(Fantastic and quick for entertaining as we did here on the Japanese barbecue)

Please do let me know if you have any more bavette recipes (more excuses to cook steak). 

Green Mango Salad

I love the youth of a green mango salad. It’s a salad fresh and shouty, foolish and sweet as a wet-eared adolescent who’s just emerged from the flush of spotty teenagehood. It’s the taste of freedom the first time you’re away from home, unbridled, yet still innocent in its unripe firmness.

Am I getting carried away here? Perhaps it’s because I’m faced with the twinge of a dicky hip, yearning for my salad days.

But this is a seriously good salad. That taste of crunchy mango evokes joy. Laced with the sour of limes, salt of fish sauce and sweetened with palm sugar, the flavours meld in delicious concord. Throw in the spike of a birds-eye chilli, and you’re asking for an exquisite kind of trouble as Leo diCaprio did in search of The Beach.

Strictly speaking, this is a Thai side salad. But this is my version (that is - not the beacon of authenticity). I know I should julienne rather than grate the mango, introduce the salt tang of shrimp paste/dried shrimp etc. etc. But this is a fifteen minute throw-together that is so moreish, ladlefuls will be eaten before you’ve even left the kitchen.

Top tip? Make more so that you can eat more.


Green Mango Salad Recipe

(serves 4 a a side salad, 2 as a main meal if you’re adding prawns/chicken)

2 x unripe mangoes (with yellow hard-ish flesh rather than orange) - peeled then grated
2 large handfuls of coriander - finely chopped
3 or 4 spring onions - finely chopped
1/2 - 1 red birds-eye chilli - seeds and all (to taste)

Dressing - mix together first
3 tablespoons fish sauce
Juice of 1-1.5 limes
1 tablespoon palm sugar (use brown sugar if you don’t have palm sugar)

Very simply - mix everything except the dressing ingredients together and watch the vibrant colours clash.

Add the dressing and mix well.

Add grilled prawns or chicken if you fancy - it really is the best garnish.

New Leeks and Old Leeks: Two Recipes

Leeks with lemon and butter - half with a coating of cream cheese.
Recipe below
I’m running out of things to do with the leek. This is usually a problem confined to the carrot (a guaranteed muddy staple from Riverford), but this year the allium just keeps popping up, like an annoying but affectionate child, in my veg box.

So to use up the old leeks (almost two week old bendy things), the order of the day is a big vat of Nigel Slater’s leek and parmesan soup - once made, stored in the freezer and to be brought out on grey days like these. Sometimes I warm it up gently and drop in small cubes of double gloucester cheese that will melt in the residual heat so glorious yellowy-orange goo will grace each spoonful.

And yesterday, a new batch of leeks arrived - alert, erect and standing to attention. Little needs to be done with them - a quick fry will keep their sweetness and a slight crunch. A gorgeous lunch for one.

New leeks: with Butter and Lemon

So, after a cursory wash, and a rough chop of two leeks into thick rings, melt a slice of butter until foaming in a hot frying pan, and throw the leeks in. Coat the rings in butter, and leave to fry on high heat - only stirring occasionally - you want the leeks to catch and brown at the edges. When they’re just cooked (but still crunchy), squeeze lemon, season with salt and eat immediately. For a treat, spoon in cream cheese - it’s totally unnecessary but so delicious.


Old leeks: Nigel Slater’s velvety soup with Parmesan

Melt a slice of butter, and gently soften 3 leeks chopped into rings in a covered cast iron pan for 20 minutes. Add a peeled potato chopped into chunks, and cook for another five minutes. Add leftover Parmesan cheese rinds, and pour in 1.5 litres of veg stock. Season, then leave to bubble gently for under an hour, leave partially covered.

Take out the cheese rinds, (get as much Parmesan as you can from them), and blend until smooth. Add whatever grated cheese you would like in it, reheat and serve with crusty bread.

Adapted from Nigel Slater's the Kitchen Diaries

Previous leek risotto recipe here.

Redhead Risotto: Porcini, Leek and Jerusalem Artichoke

Seventh floor, Tate Modern.

The Redhead and I are perched on seats that are too tall for us. We’re drinking to keep warm - a carafe of something that would have cost us five college dinners ten years ago. It’s lovely. It’s warming, this Trescone. Tourists shuffle behind us, huffing from the traipse up fourteen flights of stairs, only for their wondrous view of St Paul’s Cathedral to be marred by the heads of two women resolutely ignoring their protruding (or should I say intruding) fancy camera lenses.

Conversations with the Redhead are rarely linear. When we meet there’s not too much of the how are yous, what you been up tos. She could be reminiscing about nights lost queueing up to see the Manics, recent weddings (including her own) or explaining why she’s an evolved vegetarian - in fact, an evolved vegan - who now eats oysters (although she panicked when she scoffed them the night before her wedding. A ‘Bridesmaids’ scenario is to be avoided at all costs, I think). I will tell her with affection that I bought her a wedding wine - a super-Tuscan Cepparello (at Ruth Ford's suggestion) that matches her penchant for grilled aubergines.

Clearly there will be patchy holes of things we should know about each other that we don’t. Amidst twelve years of friendship, there’s bound to be something we’ve missed out on. But it’s a fright to learn that she’s been a fellow Riverford box subscriber for three years. THREE YEARS. She has hidden this crucial fact as slyly as she hid just how disgustingly clever she was at university.

And of course, this sets us off on a zillion directions - what the hell to do with a Jerusalem artichoke, how the Riverford man likes to hide her box in a bush - some sort of herbaceous joke neither of us quite get, how my Riverford scrubbing brush (free with the tenth box) changed my life, how she cheats by peeling muddy carrots.

Post-revelation, I promise that I’ll post some good Jerusalem artichoke recipes for her. Even as I type I’m preparing some for a happy marriage with a melting beef shin stew, so in love with the root am I.

So, this recipe, adapted from a Riverford one, is for the Redhead. A soothing risotto with a topping of slightly crunchy and tart Jerusalem artichokes - bowlfuls of comfort on a cold snowy day.


Redhead risotto

Handful dried porcini
Boiling water just enough to cover
2 tablespoons butter
1 leek finely sliced
1 small onion finely chopped
150g risotto rice
Big splash of dry vermouth or white wine
500ml hot stock - veg or chicken
Lots of grated parmesan

Olive oil
2 or 3 well scrubbed jerusalem artichokes. Thickly sliced.
2 lemon quarters
Salt

Soak the dried porcini in a small bowl with just enough boiling water to cover. Not too much.

Melt the butter over a medium-high heat in a large pan, add leeks and onions, and soften for a good 5 minutes or until they’re smelling lovely. Stir occasionally so they don’t catch.

Add the rice, give a stir or two for a minute to let the flavours get to know each other. Add the wine or vermouth, and let bubble until it’s all gone.

Add a slosh of the stock, let bubble away and stir every now and then. Keep adding a slosh of stock every time it has bubbled away until all the stock’s used up. This should take about half an hour. The rice should be al dente.

Meanwhile, parboil the jerusalem artichokes for about 8 minutes. Drain, and chop into 2cm cubes. Heat a frying pan with olive oil on a medium-high heat, and add the cubes. Stir to coat in the oil, then fry the cubes so that they brown - and only stir occasionally so that the sides have time to brown. This should take about 10 minutes for the artichokes to get a really meaty nutty flavour. Add a sprinkling of salt, and a squeeze of lemon before you take them off the heat.

When the rice is cooked, add the porcini in its liquid, stir and cook for a few minutes. Add the parmesan, stir and serve, with the crunchy cubes of jerusalem artichoke on top.

Recipe: Squid, Chorizo and Broad Beans

It all started with Rupert Everett. He was in white T - the sort that only those who want to show off what’s underneath it wear. We were at the counter of J Sheekey Oyster Bar, Dee and I, feeling as though we’d bunked school to eat fish pie and drink champagne.

Rupert walked through the door.

Our octopus with chorizo and broad beans arrived.

Slight panic. What to devour? Hollywood-star-in-tight-T-shirt-and-designer-stubble or good-looking-seafood-dish-that-dies-when-cold?

I think you know the answer to that question, friends. If Rupert had decided to give us a star turn of Say a little prayer I might have reconsidered but as he didn't I chose to spend the next day or so obsessing over the dish. The chorizo and broad bean dish, that is.

Anyway, here’s my attempt at it. I like J Sheekey's meaty-mollusc combination, especially their baked razor clams. Unfortunately I could find no octopus at the fishmongers, only frozen baby squid from Waitrose. But for a light Sunday-night supper, this is still a bit of a luxury. Great as a starter.


Recipe: Serves 2

I won’t go into how to prepare squid, but click here for a good ol’ Mitch Tonks BBC demonstration.

8 baby squid, cleaned and complete with tenticles
Under 100g chorizo slices
About 20 broad bean pods (thanks Riverford)
1 big garlic clove, sliced (optional)
Salt
Butter
Olive oil
Squeeze of lemon

Pod the broad beans and throw into a pan of boiling water for 4 minutes.
Drain, refresh with cold water then peel the skin of each bean. Keep to one side.

Slice the body of the squid in half, lengthways. Drizzle oil over the squid halves and tenticles. Heat a griddle pan, and when searing hot, season squid with salt, and lay squid on pan a minute each side until they curl. Be quick, and fry in batches, you don’t want to overcook them - in fact, better to undercook. Set to one side.

In another frying pan, heat some olive oil over medium-high heat, and throw in garlic (if using), then a minute later, the chorizo slices. When they start yielding that gorgeous pimentón-coloured oil, throw in the broad beans just to heat through, followed by the squid. Heat for a minute or two to ensure the squid is just cooked, and the orange-red oil coats the beans and squid and add a little butter to enrich the sauce.

Take off the heat, season and serve with a spritz of lemon. Lovely on lightly-toasted bread with a drizzle of olive oil.

J Sheekey Oyster Bar
Website
28-34 St Martin's Court
WC2N 4AL
020 7240 2565

In praise of the doggy bag. Recipe: Leftover porterhouse steak salad

The doggy bag... (box) from Dean Street Townhouse
How English of us to be embarrassed by the doggy bag. Sweeping up those bits we’ve chosen not to scoff, taking them home to reheat dodgy-style in a microwave.

How tight. How uncouth.

But surely it’s the second highest compliment a restaurant can receive: that the food was so fabulous and generous, we’d like to eat it again, thank you very much. The first compliment, of course, would have been to love it the first time round.

Well, the asking for the doggy bag needn’t be embarrassing nor confined to the back-street Chinese restaurant.

The porterhouse steak and béarnaise sauce
I’ve never been shy of asking (it’s my Chinese genes). My last doggy bag was from the impeccable Dean Street Townhouse in Soho. The Scottish porterhouse steak is a beast of a dish, all tender tenderloin fillet one side of the bone, and beefy sirloin on the other. Enriched with custardy yellow béarnaise and accompanied by thin-cut chips.

It wasn’t a cheap meal, this. In fact this beast will set you back a good £65, and it rather defeated us on the night. But it turned into a fantastic salad supper the day after (recipe below), and saved us having to pick up anything new.

Dean Street Townhouse was gracious enough to accept the compliment. In fact, they were prepared for it and as soon as we asked, packed us off with a fancy box and a bag. After our waiter informed us that many fail to finish the Porterhouse, I’d wager they’d not ask for the doggy bag, which to me seems a waste of prime steak.

Our waiter did wonder if we had a dog as we asked if he could pack the bone too.

“No dog”, we replied, “just us”.

Waitrose Food Illustrated’s William Sitwell started the campaign a couple of years back, and was taken on by Jay Rayner and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, but I wonder how mainstream doggy-bagging actually is.

Is it something that you’d be happy to do? Or is it just a bit too embarrassing?

The tenderloin fillet (left) and sirloin (right) before...

...and after

Recipe: Leftover beef salad

There were heated discussions while waiting for the bill on what to do with the beef, which was to be used for the next day’s dinner. Stir fry? Pasta?

Fears that the beef would lose its already fantastic flavour cast those ideas aside. We decided to freshen up the steak with lots of vibrant herbs, and enhance rather than hide the flavour with a simple lime dressing.

Serves 2

Beef marinade
1 garlic clove
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons fish sauce
1 heaped teaspoon palm sugar
Few drops sesame oil

Leftover rare steak from last night’s blowout
100g dried vermicelli noodles

Handful of herbs - anything like fresh mint leaves, coriander, thai basil or all three is great. I like mine with mint and coriander
Scatter of dry roasted peanuts - roughly crushed with a pestle
Half a cucumber, sliced

Dressing
Juice from two limes
Fresh chilli or cheat with dollops of sweet chilli sauce

Using a pestle and mortar, crush the garlic, and then add the rest of the ingredients. Pour over the steak and marinate for at least an hour.

Cover the dried noodles with boiling water for ten minutes, then rinse under cold water

Flash fry the steak - you don’t want to cook that rareness out. If already sliced, then it’s a token heat through to take the edge off the marinade. If not, take out and leave to stand before slicing thinly.

Throw the noodles, sliced herbs, peanuts, cucumber, beef. Combine the lime juice and chilli, pour over, toss and serve.


Dean Street Townhouse

69 - 71 Dean Street

London

W1D 3SE
020 7434 1775

Thanks to Tom for the recipe

Bank Holiday Asam Udang (Tamarind Prawns)

Crete is unforgiving.

As Professor Trefusis says in Stephen Fry’s The Liar, travel broadens the behind and my eight days on this craggy beaut of an island has certainly done that. Sixteen meals of carnivorous feasting was just mixed-grill pleasure.

And so I arrive back on bank holiday Monday - the depression of the Royal Wedding weekend - resolutely craving a week of Asian food. Craving Nonya food in fact.

Nonya flavours are magnificent. The wince of tart tamarind, against the salt-tang of shrimp paste. I grew up with those flavours - so glorious in Penang laksas and satay. The cuisine is the 600 year old offspring of Chinese merchants and local Malay women along the Malaysian Straits. Nonya originates from Malacca, but Singapore has some of the greatest Nonya food I know. Personally I think this is the best food in the world - and I don’t say this lightly - the best of both Chinese and South-East Asian worlds.

The things to have in your larder will be a block of tamarind, a bottle of shrimp paste, lemongrass, galangal and chillies - all readily available from your Chinese supermarket.

Unfortunately, bank holiday supermarkets are also unforgiving, so all I managed to pick up was a pack of raw prawns and I had to shave a lemon as I didn’t have any lemongrass.

Still, my hit has begun the process of unbroadening that behind.

Asam Udang (Tamarind Prawns)

Serves 2 and takes 15 minutes max

150g prawns - either legs trimmed off, or for convenience a packet of raw prawns (as pictured)

Sauce ingredients
1 onion sliced
1 stalk lemongrass - bruised (peel from 1 lemon, bruised, if you don’t have any)
4 birdseye chillies - red and green, deseeded and slit lengthways
1 generous tablespoon tamarind pulp mixed with 450ml boiling water
1/3 tablespoon shrimp paste
1 level tablespoon sugar
pinch salt

Push the pulp through a sieve and collect the water in a saucepan. Put the rest of the sauce ingredients into the saucepan.

Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes uncovered. Let the flavours get to know each other.

Add the prawns and simmer until just cooked.

Serve with rice and a generous helping of garlic broccoli with oyster sauce.

A right Jersey Royal weekend

Though the union flags are down from frantic waving and we’ve peeled ourselves from the telly, we still have a few glorious days ahead of us to embrace that nationwide hangover. I’m certainly ready to adopt the weekend that’s as long as the working week.

The first crop of Jersey Royal potatoes arrived last week.

I don’t know who’s not partial to these regal things, freshly dug, all sweet and smooth and waxy.

A big bowl of earthy, just-cooked Jersey Royals is a welcome addition to the indoor/outdoor barbecue.

Whether guest or host can I suggest that these are part of the festivities as well as the Pimms.

Scrub off that soft mud that clothe the spud. They cook terribly fast - you want to watch them - give them less than ten minutes in salted boiling water. Sprinkle finely chopped spring onions which will wilt beautifully over the heat of the potatoes and a smatter of sea salt crushed with your fingers. Coat them in a light olive oil - nothing too strong.

Present with a lamb chop or a glazed steak hot off the barbecue, or perhaps a whole trout. Watch as your guests help themselves to large spoonfuls of spuds and, if they aren’t already, become right Royalists.



Thank you to Phipps and Jersey Royals

6 Nations Rugby Rolls: Hot Pork with Caramelised Onions

I can’t help the porky posts. I know I’ve gushed about hot roast pork rolls here and no doubt I shall write about them again. I make no apologies, it’s an addiction.

And it is rugby-time.

Here’s a treat for the six-nations weekends. I heartily recommend doing what we did last match - the boys came on over for a rugby lunch - a help yourself DIY hot belly-pork roll with a dollop of homemade apple sauce and a thick smear of caramelised onions. Perfect with the biggest bottles of British ale you can find.

It's the caramelised onions that makes this.

I learnt the secret of these onions when I was out in the South of France learning Provencal cookery from the extremely talented Alex Mackay.

The secret was simple. Patience.

I am an instant-gratification kind of girl. I'm not keen on waiting or stirring much (which is why I’ve never made risotto), so these onions are not as faithfully caramelised as what Alex would use in a Pissaladière (this fantastic recipe is in his book Cooking in Provence).
But I do make vast amounts and keep in a sterilised jar. A sort of condiment that goes well with almost everything savoury, the onions make great friends cold with a cheese sandwich, or hot on a steak.

Hot roast pork rolls with caramelised onions


Most of this can be made in advance.

The sagey pork
Get yourself a large slab of belly pork. Score and heavily salt the fat. Preferably leave overnight, but at least for two hours.
Preheat the oven to 240C. Slice the whole layer of fat off with a sharp knife and place sage leaves onto the meat as pictured. Put the layer of fat back on top and roast for 20 minutes before reducing the heat to 200C. Roast for 40-45 minutes until crispy. Leave to rest for 10 minutes then slice thickly.

The apple sauce and onions before
The onions
While the pork is roasting, slice five mild onions. Slug a little mild olive oil and a large wedge of butter into a heavy-bottomed pan. Heat gently until foaming, and throw the onions in. Let them cook gently for at least 15 - 20 minutes and stir occasionally to avoid catching on the bottom. Add a large pinch of salt, and two teaspoons of golden caster sugar. Add a little water every now and then to moisten and make gloopy - cover occasionally if you think they look like they will dry out to steam them a little. Cook for about 15 more minutes until a gorgeous goldeny colour.

The apple sauce and onions after
The assembly
Take floury white bap bottom. Layer with butter, Tracklements English mustard (warning - hot!), apple sauce, onions. Lay on three thick slices of pork, some crackling, salad leaves and floury white bap top.


Sink your teeth into that and get ready for some prime rugby.


Thanks to British Onions for sending me a vast selection of shallots and onions. I had too much fun experimenting.

Rum Old-Fashioneds for New Year

It’s Old-Fashioneds tonight. The drink that’s evocative of the turn of the century, America, a manly era. It’s not just the taste of the bourbon with that whiff of orange that laces the lips, but the heavy feel of the glass, the clink of the ice, the demand to be sipped and all-night drinking. A new year requisite, no?

However, the rum in the cupboard just won’t be ignored. It's getting to the point where it's just rude so I'm giving in and making old-fashioneds with rum to see the new year in. It's not how Jack Sparrow would have done it, but I'm sure swigging from the bottle is only a matter of time.

Happy new year, have fun tonight whatever your tipple of choice and we'll meet again in 2011.

You'll need:
3/4 teaspoon brown sugar (The traditional old-fashioned requires a sugar cube, but I think, as it’s rum, it could do with a bit less)
Few drops Angostura bitters
1 slice of orange peel
Aged rum
Ice
An old-fashioned tumbler

Add the sugar to the tumbler. Drop in the Angostura bitters, and half a teaspoon of water and stir until the sugar is dissolved.

Add the orange peel, and bruise with the spoon to release the oils. Add a measure of rum, keep stirring.

Add as much as ice as you can, top up with more rum - as much to your taste, stir and serve.

I sometimes add a naughty slice of orange to it, which is not the done thing at all. As the ice melts, the rum loosens and tastes heaven.

(Adapted from Victoria Moore’s How to Drink)

Voracious advent Calendar: The Bumper Edition

Yes, it's the last weekend before Christmas. But don't panic, here are five ideas for the week ahead if you've not managed to get all your shopping done...

The Flavour Thesaurus

A brilliantly conceived book - you don’t realise you have needed this all your cooking life until you read it. Niki Segnit’s guide to flavour combinations is far from an exhaustive list of ingredients but a deliciously witty exploration of why certain flavours, such as goats cheese and coffee, work, and why some just don’t.

Worth getting if only for the pithy put down of chocolate and beetroot.

“It’s champions can hardly believe the lusciousness and chocolatiness of the combination. I couldn’t either and.. I still don’t.

“In chocolate beetroot cake...the raw cake mixture was so unpleasant that no one wanted to scrape the bowl clean. Case closed, at least in my kitchen.”

The Flavour Thesaurus: Usually £18.99, but now £10.44 from Amazon


Doughnut Box Canvas Bag

Anything from New House Textiles would be a stockingy treat, but their doughnut canvas bag is a particular favourite.

And thanks to the lovely Katy from Pinch of Salt, who brought them to my attention in her Friday Finds.

Doughnut Box Canvas Bag, £12.95


Le Creuset Bean Pot and Soup Bowls in Cerise

Forgive me for being twee, but this bean pot is adorable. I don’t even like beans. (That much).

I would like a kitchen big enough for these, and I’d probably make soups and stews all day and serve them in these lovely soup bowls which have lids, just because.
Heavy duty, French farmhouse and devilishly practical. I love them.

Bean pot: £45.60, John Lewis
Soup bowls: Set of 2: £17.60, John Lewis


St. John Hotel

St. John Hotel The opening of St. John Hotel is one of the most anticipated launches. If the restaurants in Spitalfields and Clerkenwell are anything to go by, after playing in Soho, this will be a a homely respite from the cackling bustle of Chinatown.
Writing about the St. John ‘Breakfast Bun’ at breakfast time is unforgiving, so I just beg that it opens soon. Breakfast or a cheeky stay here would be a wonderful present. Prices start at £200 for the post-supper room. For reservations, details below.

1 Leicester St
London
WC2H 7BL

0203 301 8069


Red Cabbage and Beetroot confit

And finally, a recipe. I’m sure you’ve had your fill of the brilliant ways to cook your bird already (Margot Ferguson’s collection in the OFM last week is a great place to start) so I’ve got a red cabbage one instead to go with it.

This is meant to be a ducky accompaniment, but actually if your meat is fatty, salty and roasty, I’m sure this sweet, rich confit would still work wonderfully well.
Finely slice a red onion, grate three beetroot and finely shred half a cabbage.
Heat up a knob of butter with some oil in a heavy saucepan, and soften the onions for a good ten minutes. Add 100g sugar, two heaped tablespoons of jam (raspberry or strawberry is good), 100ml red wine vinegar. Bring to a bubble, then throw in the beetroot and the cabbage, stir well, cover and keep it on the lowest heat for 30-40 minutes. Add another knob of butter before serving large spoonfuls.

Adapted from Riverford Farm Cookbook