A Kitchen Diary of sorts with rather a lot of chit chat and some exceptionally useful recipes. Photos and artwork by Anna Vaught (me), Giles Turnbull and the generous people at Flickr who make their work available through creative commons. They are thanked individually throughout the blog.

Tuesday 26 January 2010

To Heinz: tinned tomato soup and baked beans



Two products of which I am inordinately fond.

The soup

I have never -- should I be telling you this?-- made or eaten a tomato soup which I liked as much as Heinz Cream of Tomato soup.This from someone who dislikes tinned and packet soup; I find it always seems to taste the same and it has a sort of acrid sweetness which disagrees with me. Except for this one. Here, then, is the way to go. It's actually quite luxurious.

Bring your soup to a high heat but do not boil; gently scrape the sides of the saucepan as you cook, stir well and then pour into a mug which, for you, spells contentment. Get a teaspoon ready and, lastly, put a generous dollop of unsalted butter on top of the soup. That's it. You slurp from the mug and use the teaspoon to eke out the last bits from the side of the mug.

The beans

 I have made surveys of supermarket beans and I am here to tell you that Heinz beans (or should that be Beanz? Yeuch: I'm a "zzzz" snob) are the best, to my mind. You could dabble in the reduced sugar and salt variety, I suppose, but I'm not going there. Lunch today, at a bit of a trot, went like this.

Two hefty slices of wholemeal toast, a bit singed at the edge. A light touch of butter and then a little grated cheese. A mature cheddar with plenty of bite. Just pile the beans, piping hot, on top and -- this is not a suggestion; I regard this as a compulsory part of the dish-- serve with a mug of builder's tea.

Photo courtesy of Smantz Sputner at Flickr

Monday 25 January 2010

Curry: an idignant response and some other informative points

Indignant? Why so. Not for the first time, I see a leading British supermarket insidiously suggesting that curry is fat laden and not to be eaten in its normal state by those who care about the size of their thighs. Hmmmm. "Who would have thought it was possible to eat curry on a healthy diet?" This also inadvertently insults rather a lot of people worldwide. At least one billion people in India for example.

So I am here to set the record straight and give you some things to cook that will not make your bottom --to quote a phrase I particularly like-- "as big as Dallas." Hell: you can even eat them every day! And also, don't get fat phobic. I have reliable statistics which inform us that, if you chop wood rather than sticking on the central heating, do your own DIY, walk everywhere, break into a run now and then, have sex, say, a couple of times a week (if my mother in law reads this, I have in fact just died of embarrassment) and get into being, rather generally, as manual as your forefathers, you can eat a bit more fat. I speak, clearly, of developed countries here. Being fey about fat --when you are healthy, I mean-- may sometimes be an interest of he who has plenty of leisure. And I just turned into my mother with that little lecture! ON WITH THE DISHES.


Right, curry may be derived from the Tamil word for sauce -- kari. Madhur Jaffrey, in The Curry Bible (go get it: it's all you need) defines it, moreorless, as a dish with a sauce and boy is it different the world over. But we'll leave all scholarly discussion for another day and make a simple MASOOR DHAL. This is a red lentil curry; dhal (dhal being the legume and masoor being the type). I refer to split red lentils. Cheap, nutritious and ubiquitous.

Take1 kg of red lentils and pick them over carefull, having rinsed them in a colander. Leave to drain. Meanwhile, fry off  (I used sunflower oil) 2 finely chopped cloves of garlic, half a finely chopped red chilli and a little nut of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped. Now add 1 flat dessertspoon of brown mustard seeds, letting them pop first, a tablespoon of ground cumin, one or coriander (lets's use ground again) and a dessertspoon of turmeric. Make sure you do not let these burn, as they will turn bitter. So keep the heat down low. Stir for a minute or so and then add the lentils, stirring carefully to coat with the spice mixture. Now, cover the lost with water plus about half as much water again, bring to the boil, skim off the froth and then simmer for about forty minutes.  You could then add a tablespoon of garam masala for extra piquancy and, at this point, salt to taste. I would also add a large handful of chopped fresh coriander.

There are endless variations on this, of course. You might want to add some chopped tomato about half-way through cooking or, perhaps, some fresh or frozen spinach. I like to make my dhal a little tart with the addition of tamarind paste or amchoor -- green mango powder, both of which I would probably add about half way through. Or -- and this is really more authentic, just cook the dhal with salt and some turmeric and then, when it's nearly done, finish it off by adding the spices which you popped into hot oil and cooked off. Just swirl them in. You could just use the brown mustard seeds -- or try yellow mustard seeds-- and a fat bunch of coriander.

Whichever way you cook this dhal --and you may want it thicker or thinner than the recipe I have given you-- you will find it spicy, satisfying and creamy to boot. It's low in fat, full of fibre and B vitamins, it's cheap and filling and it re-heats well. Also, one could argue for the digestive properties of the spices --cumin for anti flatulence and turmeric as a digestive, general tonic and antiseptic. Garlic --well, you know all about that-- and the chilli is high in vitamin C. Add more than half a fresh one -- I would-- and watch your endorphin levels rise. Capascin (that's the active ingredient) is also an expectorant, which is good if you are suffering from winter snuffles and, because of those endorphon-inducing qualities, it'll give your mood a boost. Actually, if I have a cold or even when I am feeling jaded (and reader, I am a melancholy type), I swear by the effects of chillis -- of all sorts.

So stuff that in your pipe and smoke it, cheeky conglomerates! I have eaten dhal like this pretty much every week of my life since I was knee high to a grasshopper, by the way.

Do you want more healthy, err, curry?

A simple, lovely and quite unexpected carrot (gajar) curry

O.K. Take a bunch of carrots. (Well, about ten) Peel them and cut them into batons along the whole length of the carrot. Put them to one side. In a big saute pan or a wok, get a film of oil really hot and then add three chopped cloves of garlic and three or four chopped spring onions. Sweat them until you get that lovely roasted smell. Add some red chilli flakes, a teaspoon or so of turmeric and a dessertpoon of caraway seeds. Maybe you didn't know that they were sometimes used in food like this? Swirl the lot around, add the carrots and toss well. Add a cup of water, raise the heat, then turn it down until the carrots are only just tender. Salt and pepper to taste. But I suppose I ought to say "keep the salt levels down"? Now, this is really easy and it's very good for you.

How about a roast spiced whole chicken? I suppose there are folks out there who must think this is an unhealthy thing? Well, I love the skin of a roast chicken, but if I'm going to go the whole murgh (sorry: that was a rubbish joke. Hindi for chicken), I'll have to skin the chicken. You can do this yourself or ask the butcher to do it. Actually, you'll be lucky if you go to most supermarkets. So, just make a slit along the backbone of the chicken and pull, easing the skin away and using the knife to get between skin and flesh as you go. Use a small paring knife rather than a carving knife here. Otherwise you might have a nasty accident. This, by the way, is just one way of skinning. Find your own way and don't worry if it's ramshackle. I wouldn't fuss over a little skin left on the wingtips, either. If you're squeamish, I'll come over and do it for you.

Right, rinse the chicken and pat it dry (no --not with the hand towel!) and then, having preheated the oven to about 200, rub this into your chicken. Oh -- mix the dry spices with a little oil first.

1 tablespoon of powdered cumin and half of coriander
1 teaspoon of sea salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper
Rub it in well, both inside and outside the chicken. Now, put several garlic cloves inside the chicken and then, on its outside, press in some cloves at regular intervals. Put on a few star anise and lay some cinnamon or cassia quills on top.

Put it into the oven. Upside down for the first half an hour at least. That's to allow the fat to trickle down from the base --especially important when the meat is skinned. And, when you turn the chicken right side up, you may want to replace the star anise and cinnamon on this side. Allow about  20 minutes for every 500 g plus 20 minutes to half an hour extra. But then, I never even think about this. Practise often and your instrinct will tell you soon enough. If you relax. For the last twenty minutes or so, turn the oven up to 230. And do bear in mind that I have cooked the chicken at a slightly lower heat than I would ordinarily because we don't want the spices to burn. While the chicken is cooking, don't forget to baste it.  When it's done, let it rest for a food few minutes before you carve it and when you do so, make those generous slices of breast. The leftover chocken plus the carcass will make a wonderful soup with a few tomatoes, finely chopped spinach and diced potato.Water to cover, bring to the boil, simmer for an hour and then remove the bones! Season to taste.

And PLEASE buy a free range chicken, regarding an label which does not explicitly state free range with care. Freedom food, or freedom food endorsed or welfare checked or....you get my drift here. It isn't quite the same, but a quick survey of my immediate neighbourhood (well, my husband --who is generally otherwise well informed) suggests that folks may not know that.

O.K. So, if you wanted to present all this together, you'd have a succulent, spiced roast chicken, a mild and creamy dhal, a crunchy hot and spicy carrot dish. All very healthy and very easy to do, Why not make some accompaniments, too?
1. Stir a little garam masala or some chaat powder (google it, baby -- I'm addicted: not to Google, to Chaat powder) into some Greek yoghurt (reduced fat, if you must). Done.
2. Chop some cherry tomatoes finely and add some diced spring onion and perhaps a large chunk of cucumber, finely chopped. Add a teaspoon of amchoor (green mango powder) or anardhana (pomegranate powder) plus salt to taste. A little lightly roasted cumin seed (just dry fry it in a frying pan for a few seconds) would be good, too.

A banquet. Whoever would  have thought you could eat curry on a healthy diet? Nope: they don't know if it's New York or New Year. But we do, don't we?

Oh, in another dhal I cooked --here it is below -- I was after a thich and hearty concoction, so I added less water and kept a close eye on it so that it did not stick. The little black seeds you see in the lentils are kalonji -- onion seed or nigella; the fresh relish (achaar) on top is made from chopped onion, fresh mint and both red and green tomato. The predominant flavouring is the aniseed hit of fennel seed (saunf).



And the other photo of spices from my cupboard is by Giles Turnbull! Thank you.x

Monday 11 January 2010

Food and funny poets: a thinly disguised piece of advertising for....me.

Oh -- I could tell you some things about poets and food, you know. Did you know that Byron liked to mash up potatoes with pepper and vinegar*; that he would either gorge himself silly or try to be an aescetic? Or --and I speak here of a novelist, I know-- have you ever read the most erotic scene in the whole of literature? It begins "afterwards." Madame Bovary regarding a bowl of lemons and putting her lover's pipe into her mouth. But I am actually here to tell you that I'm running a whole extra set of poetry classes -- an Introduction to British Poetry-- starting on Tuesday the 2nd of February and running for nine weeks on alternate Tuesdays. These will be at 10 and run until about 11.30. This is to catch those who were too late for the evening classes. Roaring fire as appropriate, home-made cake and I'm sure I will mention food because it is an important part of our cultural context.

You can book here. Food writing is only part of what I do.

*Strange, then, that you sometimes see "potatoes Lord Byron" -- a rich confection of potato and cream-- on menus. Do they know what he actually did with his potatoes? We know from contemporary sources that, on occasion, he disgusted his guests.

Sunday 10 January 2010

Aloo gobi -- which is to say, a speedy potato and cauliflower curry

Just right for this cold weather and you could serve this on its own or, perhaps, with another curry that you like. Trawl through the blog. There's a lot to choose from. I might serve this with rice --it's simmering away while I type; I might also serve it as is, with just a dollop of yoghurt on top. Other possibilities? It could jazz up some cold meat left from the Sunday roast, should you have had one; it would be nice with some lamb chops, which you have grilled or roasted with some garlic cloves and, perhaps, a little cinnamon to accentuate the natural sweetness of the meat; you could eat it to start the week with a fried egg and a mug of tea if you're up early enough to get yourself in gear; stuff it into a paratha or pitta; roll it in a dosa, chapati or flatbread? The favourite Monday night dinner of my childhood, by the way, was a similar curry served with the cold leftover meat from Sunday lunch. My mother favoured a hot potato curry with leftover roast beef. Be careful, though, to revere dietary laws here!

So, first of all, make the 'tarka' base, which is the slow and carefully cooked preparation of the base flavours. In this case, add two finely sliced onions to some sunflower oil in a big wide pan. Cook them slowly until they are soft but not caramelised. Then, add half a fresh red chilli, finely chopped, a tablespoon of ground cumin, one of ground coriander, a good fat pinch of asafoetida if you have it and a dessertspoon of turmeric. Stir carefully and do not let it all burn. Now, to the onions in the pan, add two tins of plum tomatoes which you have chopped in the tin. Bring this to the boil, add a flat teaspoon of sea salt and then simmer for ten minutes or so, stirring now and again. Then, add to the tomato mixture a whole medium cauliflower, which you have pulled apart and chopped into florets (or even half florets) and five medium potatoes, cut into small pieces. Best to peel them. Add also a good couple of handfuls of fresh spinach, roughly chopped or, in my case, six little pellets of frozen leaf or chopped spinach. Bring the lot to a high heat and simmer for forty minutes or so, tasting for flavour at the end and making sure that the vegetables are soft. I actually like them beginning to fall apart in this dish.


You might like to stir in some garam masala at the end; I would usually add a fistful of fresh coriander, roughly chopped. But that's it. Tonight, I'm keeping the spicing very simple. Eat in big bowls and warm your toes if you've been sledging today. Oh -- the spices in the picture above, from left to right: cinnamon quills, cloves, turmeric and black peppercorns. Aren't they beautiful? A picture from Giles Turnbull of the supplies from my cupboard.

होप यू लिखे आईटी. क्ष

Thursday 7 January 2010

Oooh: food of shame.

Own up: what's yours? We could start a discussion. I'll be anonymous and off we go.


1. Nutella chocolate spread. Straight out of the jar on finger and --this is the bad bit-- thumb. Sometimes, I have been known to dip a finger in the syrup, too. But only finger, as I do have limits.
2. That kind of toxic dust in the bottom of the tortilla chip bag or --even worse-- the bag of Doritos.
3. The parmesan rind. If I've had parmesan on the go, I keep the rind to add savour to soups. I then take the rind, gloriously chewy once it has been simmering along, and wolf it. This could be done in a dark kitchen.
4. I don't think this is really anything to be ashamed of, but other people have been shocked by my habit of chiselling off all the stuck on bits from, say, the roast potato dish. My brother in law said this made me look ferral. I do the same thing with a shepherd's pie or cauliflower cheese dish, chipping away with spoon and fingers.
5. An Iceland exploration. There's some fantastic stuff in them thar freezers. Cripsy pancakes!
6. A whole big bag of liquorice comfits scarfed down in the car. Or that rather expensive all natural Australian liquorice marketed as low fat, but calorifically ruinous.
7. Crackling. Cold and preferably around midnight, when slightly pissed.
8. Making fairy cakes for the children and leaving rather a lot in the bowl for licking out. By me, not them.


How about you?

A store cupboard soup for a cold day






Proper snow on the ground. I love it. Cold toes, though. And it's an ice rink out there, so here is a soup that you might be able to assemble from squirrel store ingredients, just as I did just now. Yesterday, I had boiled a ham hock, which we had eaten with --get this-- fried eggs and chips. I had been meaning to serve it up with butter beans, cabbage and carrots, but the ham, egg and chip thing got in the way. So I have, by way of leftovers, a few bits and pieces of ham and a pan of ham stock, which would make a fine split pea soup. However, try this....

Lentil and tomato soup with ham (or gammon), spinach and potatoes.

In a deep pan, fry an onion together with a little pieces hacked off the ham.  You don't want precision here. Add a couple of finely chopped garlic cloves and a chopped red chilli. Sweat these together for a while. Now add five or six handfuls of red lentils, remembering to rinse them and pick them over first. Toss the mixture together for a minute, then add three medium potatoes which you have sliced into fat coins. Cannot say I had bothered to peel them. Finally, add, from the freezer, eight pellets (appetising word I know) of frozen chopped or leaf spinach. Stir this well, add the ham stock to cover --plus twice as much in volume again-- and a tin of plum tomatoes which you have roughly chopped in the tin. Bring to the boil and then simmer well for about 40 minutes. You may need to add more water, but I doubt you will need salt. Serve just as it is, perhaps mashing it down a little in the pan to make it especially comforting to eat from big deep bowls.


As an alternative -- and I do admit that tinned tomatoes do tend, usually, to taste of, well, tinned tomatoes-- you could miss out the tomatoes and add a few finely diced carrots for colour with the red chilli. You can make this a meatless soup without the ham or ham stock, in which case you could use some powdered Marigold vegetable bouillion to taste for the stock. The point of this soup, though, is that it is plentiful, spicy and earthy -- that's the lentils for you. Incidentally, you could also use brown --whole lentils here. They need to be cooked until they are very soft and juicy. Lentils and ham have a natural affinity.

Cheap and cheerful lentil and tomato soup.

While I remember: even if you just have a bag of lentils and some tinned tomatoes in the cupboard, you'll be o.k. I'm assuming you do have just a couple of other things, though. So, sweat half a medium onion in some sunflower oil with, say, three chopped cloves of garlic, then add a tablespoon of dried cumin, stirring briefly to cook off, then add the roughly chopped tin of tomatoes and about four handfuls of red lentils plus a couple of cups of water. You're on your way to soup survival. Bring the mixture to the boil, stir well and scatter in a fat pinch of dried red chilli and then simmer for 40 minutes. You might need to add more water. You can serve this as is, or puree it. It's nice with a little cream stirred in at the end and, maybe a scattering of toasted sesame seeds. Cheap food, with plenty of chilli to revive you, I think.


Noodle soup

Even simpler in conception is this. Good for the tired, cold and hungry or for those with a hangover. I do tend to have Marigold Bouillion powder to hand. I don't want to use it for all soups because I don't want them to taste samey, but this product is a Godsend for soups and stocks nonetheless. You can also, I have discovered, use it sparingly as a seasoning --say adding just a little to the mayonnaise for a coleslaw or just a pinch to a salad dressing. Suck it and see?

So, for the noodle soup, just bring a bowl's worth of water to the boil, chuck in a dessertspoon of the stock powder and taste to see if it has flavour enough for you. Put to one side. In a separate pan, cook some noodles --whichever sort you like-- until done and drain. Now, in a little pan of some sort, wilt a few spinach leaves or whichever greens you have in a just a drop of oil, plus, perhaps a chopped spring onion. Now, bring the stock back up to the boil and put in the noodles and the greens. Check for flavour and then add, to taste, a little soy sauce or Thai fish sauce and some chilli sauce and a squeeze of lemon or lime if you have it. You need to proceed with caution as the stock may already be salt (though you can get a low salt version).

That's it. Apart from my saying that if you're feeling like a tub of lard after Christmas, I suppose that this is the sort of low fat thing to get you back into your hot pants.

Monday 4 January 2010

The sprout. There's more to it than you realised.

People can be very rude about sprouts, but I love them and, with a bit of frost on them, they'll taste even better. I like them with just a little bite in the centre, but this is not a vegetable that, when cooked whole, takes well to undercooking. I actually like sprouts when they have been almost boiled to death -- you know, like in a hospital canteen. I can vouch for the hospital canteen because I ate in one not very long ago and the sprouts were, indeed, done to death and possibly over-salted. But I liked them. I realise I will not be selling this to may people. so I'll move on.

The secret, if there is one, is that you are best advised to cook your sprouts in the minimum water possible, but keep an eye on them. I also abide by this rule if I am cooking cabbage (although, as with the hospital canteen sprouts, so with the cabbage: one of the joys of my confinement after a labour that appeared to take about three days was the appearance of a Sunday lunch with the overcooked cabbage). Serve your sprouts with a celebration meal of a roast chicken, bread sauce, roast potatoes, mashed swede and proper gravy. That's my choice for the last day of Christmas --the Feast of Epiphany on the 6th of January. Oh yes: my tree is still up. Just pull any withered leaves off the sprouts, having avoided the purchase of any sad and yellowing specimens, cut the toughest end from the stalk of the sprouts and put them in a modicum of lightly salted water. Bring to the boil and simmer until tender. My mother always made little crosses in the bottom of a sprout, but I can see no rhyme or reason to this. However, if tradition dictates....

That's the roast dinner route. Now try this. BUBBLE AND SQUEAK.

If you have been clever enough to make extra potatoes and sprouts a part of your dinner, you have a feast in store for tea that day or a meal the next day. This works with either boiled or roast potatoes. Just mash your leftover potatoes and sprouts with a fork, amalgamating them as you do so.Keep them roughly mashed though: you are not after a puree here. Now cook the lot in a well oiled frying pan until your mixture, well, bubbles and squeaks. Try to let it brown in places. Serve this with a fried egg and a big mug of tea. Builder's tea, that is. Good Sunday breakfast, this. Or a Boxing Day tea. I'd even cook the potatoes and sprouts especially for it.

AND FOR A CHANGE...
A rapid supper for me goes as follows. Spiced, quick-fried sprouts

Just prepare the sprouts as before and then slash them into strips -- however they come. Get a wok (or a pan you can get really hot and move about easily) ready with a light film of sunflower oil into which you will put two finely chopped cloves of garlic and perhaps a finely chopped small nut of ginger root. Toss these in the oil until they begin to soften and brown and then add the sprouts. Stir them around with as much of a flourish as you dare; when you see them just beginning to soften, add some substantial splashes of Kikoman sauce. This is the only brand I use, the important thing being that it has some depth of flavour and it is naturally brewed. Toss the lot around for a couple of minutes and then add a couple of pinches of Chinese five spice powder and, perhaps, a pinch of dried red chilli flakes. It's done. You could serve this with rice, noodles or as part of a Chinese meal. If you want to make it more substantial, may I suggest that you start off with thin strips of chicken or pork and then add the sprouts as the meat begins to brown? I promise you this much maligned vegetable will taste sweet and nutty but with just a hint of brassica bite to tell you that it won't take being disparaged lying down. Ha!

srqpix and celesteh at flickr for the sprouts: thank you.