The Writer Boy

My moment with The Writer Boy ended before I would have liked it to. But while it lasted there was this seductive supper:

POTATOES GRIBICHE

SAUSAGES

GREEN SALAD

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YOGURT & HONEY

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DARK CHOCOLATE WITH GINGER

It wasn't only the Potatoes Gribiche that made me go weak at the knees - it was his wit, his arms, his mind. But I get to keep the recipe for Potatoes Gribiche as his legacy and a reminder of some wonderful times.

POTATOES GRIBICHE

(For 2)

Wedges and triangles of (perhaps four) potatoes

Gherkins, chopped

Capers, chopped

Hard boiled eggs, chopped

Flat leaf parsley, chopped

Mustard

Vinegar

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

1. Roast the potatoes in a hot oven until cooked.

2. When they are done, mix the hot potatoes with the rest of the ingredients, and wait for them to come to room temperature.

3. Serve to a food-loving girl.

4. Kiss her.

Chocolate Breakfast Pancakes

For mornings when you wake up feeling rubbish, but you know you have to get to the office somehow. Despite the fact it is sunny and gorgeous outside. And Saturday...

These pancakes are a good half-inch thick. Fluffy AND filling. Later on in the day you will be able to say to yourself, "Stop being such a wuss! Remember what you had for breakfast!" And your inner voice will reply: "Fair do's."

150 ml full fat milk

1 tblsp white wine vinegar

Mix.

1 over-ripe banana

1 large egg

260g strong wholemeal bread flour

1 tblsp sugar

c 1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp baking powder

milk mixture

Blitz.

c 50 g 70% chocolate, cut into small chunks

Mix.

Fry. (In butter, with a touch of oil to prevent the butter burning). About a tablespoon of mixture per pancake.

Go out and ace the day!

Hints and tips:

• The longer you can leave the milk to sour the better. Overnight? Half an hour, while you shower and dress?
• As the container for blitzing in, I use a deep Lock&Lock/Tupperware box (that fits into the door of the fridge, a bit like a carton of milk). That means you can shove everything in there, blitz it up, make as many pancakes as your day will require, then put the lid on and shove it in the fridge for tomorrow. With a bowl, I find the blitzing gets messy...
• Blitzing? I use a wand. (Love that word!)
• Using more than one type of chocolate will give a more complex flavour. I finished up some squares from the French Pyrenees (that's a whole other story, for another time); added some Green & Black's 70%. Would have used some 70% Lindt too, if I had had any knocking about. Any chocolate dust from chopping should be thrown in too.
• The final mixture will be thicker than any pancake batter you have ever seen. Don't panic.
• Be generous with the butter for frying. I put a large pan on a high heat, add about a tablespoon of groundnut oil and about half an ounce of butter. (Sorry - I still think of butter in ounces. And I can cut butter to the perfect ounce weight. When sober.) When the butter has foamed and died down, spoon in the pancake mixture, and turn the heat down to low. With my cast iron pan, I find the pancakes are ready on the first side in about two minutes. Then flip them over for another two minutes on low heat and they are done.

Makes about 18 pancakes.

Butternut Squash Lasagne

This is quite rich, so you might want to have it with a very plain salad of the rest of the baby spinach. But don't let that stop you putting improbable quantities of baby spinach into the assemblage, as that is the only way to ensure that the spinach layer isn't all thin and feeble when it is cooked.

1. Roast the quartered butternut squash (or maybe two?) until soft. Scoop out of skin into bowl. Don't mash - let it stay lumpy.
2. Meanwhile...
3. Roast the pine nuts - couple of packets, but depends a bit on how rich you are feeling. (If you scorch them; chuck them. They will make the whole thing bitter if you don't. So, it is worth setting a pinger.)
4. Infuse loads and loads of Microplaned garlic (maybe even a whole head) in a big-ish milk pan of double cream, with a hefty pinch of salt and about twenty grinds of black pepper. Basically gently simmer it for about 5 mins. Then take off the heat and add half a block of grated parmesan.
5. Wash about as much baby spinach as you get in one of those supermarket bags of salad.
6. When both the butternut and the pine nuts are cool-ish, put them together in a big bowl. Add some (ideally) goats curd - about as much as the size of a tin of beans, or even a bit more. (But given that goats curd is ridiculously expensive - until I take up goat farming - and only available at Neal's Yard and maybe La Fromagerie, you are totally forgiven for using rindless soft goats cheese or even, at a push, feta.) Mix about, but again, leave some lumps and texture.
7. Then ASSEMBLE:

Layer of first THIRD of lasagne sheets.

Layer of first HALF of the butternut mixture.

Layer of first HALF of the spinach.

Pour over first QUARTER of the cream.

Layer of second THIRD of lasagne sheets - push everything down a bit with the sheets.

Layer of second HALF of the butternut squash mixture.

Layer of second HALF of the spinach.

Pour over second QUARTER of the cream.

Layer of final THIRD of lasagne sheets.

Layer of final two QUARTERS of the cream.

Layer of remainder of block of parmesan, grated.

8. Finally, put the lasagne into the oven at about Gas Mark 6, for about an hour. Roughly, roughly. Make sure the top doesn't burn. (Cover with foil, if you need to.) It is ready when the lasagnes sheets are soft on all layers. You should be able to cut through them with a normal sort of knife.
9. Invite me to supper.

The Magic Bag of GORP

Off tomorrow to walk over some hills in north Wales for a few days. And - of course - it is the food that most concerns me!

Apparently this Expedition means that I ought to have been eating nothing but pasta, potatoes and bread since Tuesday. If only there were still hot cross buns to be had in the shops I might have had more luck with the Carb Loading. (Damn that delicious pollack and fennel supper! The yogurt! The pigeon soup!)

Well, I have failed on the Carb Loading front. So I am making amends by taking seriously the suggestions about snacking en route...

My contribution to the Excuse To Snack (sorry, Expedition):

- Half dozen boiled eggs (with a twist of Maldon salt and freshly ground black pepper)

- A bag of carrots

- A few crisp, red apples

- The Magic Bag of GORP!

Apparently GORP stands for "Good Old Raisins and Peanuts". Hmmm. Well. I have taken that theme and run with it. So, The Magic Bag of GORP actually contains: almonds; Brazil nuts; mini chocolate flapjack pieces; broken up chunks of good white chocolate; ditto of Green & Blacks 70% dark chocolate. A veritable powerhouse. But possibly not enough salt to replace what we will lose. Deeply tempted to add some Bombay mix, for that salted caramel effect.

Anyway, when we get back I will let you know whether The Magic Bag of GORP was enough to see us through. It's either going to be that or pretending that our poles are light sabres!

A Mere Trifle

I made this as a birthday present for my father, and it was a total hit. (Even with my mother, who usually hates puddings.) It turns out that you can make a Trifle that is not claggy, not just creamy, not just sweet. This is a sophisticated pudding. And it's open to adaptations: cherry and chocolate? Seville orange and Grand Marnier? The only rules are Cake - Custard - Fruit - Cream. I would encourage the Trifle-Sceptics among you to give Trifle a try.

THE CAKE
2 oz butter
2 oz caster sugar
1 egg
2 oz self raising flour

A week beforehand make the cake. (If you don't have this sort of time, skip this stage and bulk up on the amaretti biscuits.) Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Fold in the beaten egg and flour, a bit at a time. Cook in a 6 inch sandwich tin, 180 C/ Gas 4 for 25-30 minutes, when it will be golden. Leave to go stale. (And switch to metric measurements!)


THE REST OF IT
8 or so amaretti biscuits
240 ml fino or amontillado sherry (ie. not super sweet)
300ml milk
600ml Jersey cream (or at least double cream)
2 eggs and 2 extra yolks
1 tblsp sifted cornflour
2-4 tblsp caster sugar
2-4 tblsp vanilla extract (not essence)
160g blackberries (if you have frozen them, defrost gently in a pan and tip off any juice)
160g very good blackcurrant jam
1 lemon (and possibly a little extra juice)
2-4 tblsp icing sugar
100g slivered almonds

Assemble the Trifle the day before you want to eat him. Tear the stale cake into chunks at the bottom of a large bowl - ideally cut glass and very charity shop. (A 15-20cm diameter bowl would be ideal.) Crumble over the amaretti biscuits. Pour over them the first 140 ml of the sherry. Inhale deeply and smile.

In a separate bowl, sieve the cornflour onto the eggs and egg yolks. Mix a bit. In quite a large pan bring the milk and the first 300ml of cream to scalding point (ie. just below boiling), and pour over the egg mixture. Return to the pan and whisk over a low/medium heat, until it has thickened - about 5 or 10 minutes. (The cornflour means you can be a bit more gung-ho about the heat that with a usual custard.) Add the sugar and vanilla extract until it tastes right. Put the base of the pan into a sink of cold water to cool it down for a little bit, then pour it over the cake rubble.

Mix the fruit and the jam. It might need a little lemon juice if it is too sweet-tasting. Dollop over the cooled custard. You want a complete layer to the edge of the bowl.

Into yet another bowl go the juice of one lemon (NB. you may want to zest it before juicing, in which case wrap in plastic/cover it up until tomorrow or the zest will be horribly dry and toenail-y), the second 120ml of sherry and the icing sugar. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Add the second 300ml of cream. Whisk until thickened, but not stiff peaks. Dollop over the fruit layer. Leave in a fridge overnight for all the flavours to get friendly.

On Trifle Day, take the Trifle out of the fridge while you toast the flaked almonds (about 5 minutes in a hot oven, but watch them like a hawk). Leave the almonds to cool. Cover the top of the Trifle with the grated lemon zest. Then scatter the cooled almonds.

Eat up!

Stock-less Soup: Part 1

Now, we all know that a Good Soup starts with a Good Stock. And we all know that the Good Stock Cupboard is sometimes bare. The answer: stock-less soup. Truly. Some soups don't need stock.

DUCK NOODLE SOUP

While you bring 1 pint water to the boil, add the following to it:

1 tsp duck fat (from cooking your duck breast)

1 tsp sesame oil

1 wine glass sweet white wine (eg. Vouvray, Gewurztraminer)

3 or 4 star anise

1 tsp toasted fennel seeds

1-3 chopped spring onions (NB. You will need another one later)

3 0r 4 fat cloves of garlic, sliced

1/4-1/2 lemon, zest and juice

1/4 tsp harissa paste (or a few drops of Tabasco)

1-2 tblsp soy sauce

Boil like hell, to reduce the liquid by about a half. Meanwhile, slice your duck breast and your extra spring onion. When the liquid is nearly done, cook your noodles. (I chose buckwheat, but brown rice would also work well.) Strain the liquid into a deep bowl. Drop in the noodles, duck and spring onions. Eat with chopsticks and a spoon. Serves one hungry person. Takes 20 minutes, tops.

My Grandmother's Funeral

For those of you who thought I had left you at the table in the restaurant and climbed out of the window in the Ladies' loo, this is the explanation for my recent silence. It comes with a side order of apologies.

PRAWN VOL AU VENTS

Before lunch at my grandparents' house, when they had guests, there would be heavy crystal glasses of gin and tonic. There would be small Chinese bowls of elderly peanuts. But above all there would be prawn vol au vents.

Before I knew that the words were French, certainly before I knew how to spell vol au vents, there they were - always prawn - a fixed feature in the landscape of my culinary life. In the car on the way to see my grandparents one of us would always say, "I do hope Granny has made vol au vents". And she always had.

As my grandmother's dementia progressed, vol au vents were one of the incidental losses. She had never used to eat that many vol au vents herself. Her pleasure in them had been that we all loved them so much. She used to laugh at our cries of delight when she brought a plate of them through into the drawing room. So as her dementia set in, none of us made vol au vents for her. And she had forgotten to make them for us.

When my grandmother died, I knew that there had to be vol au vents at her funeral. There was never a written recipe, but this is how they were made:

1. Defrost some frozen prawns in a dish. Reserve the liquid that comes off them. This may take some time. Overnight in the fridge is an option.
2. Later, cook the vol au vents cases in the oven.
3. Make a very thick white sauce: a bit of butter, about the same of flour, then some milk and the liquid from the prawns. After the prawn liquid it should be as thin as single cream.
4. Season the sauce with salt, pepper, a dash or two of anchovy essence and a pinch of paprika or cayenne.
5. Mix the defrosted prawns in to the sauce.
6. Teaspoon the prawn mixture into the vol au vent cases.
7. Serve on a plate with a Chinese pattern.