ALE AND PORTER and then some.

If you are looking for anything about the lovely new Ale and Porter --cafe, patisserie and traiteur, no less, check yesterday's post for text and related recipe! Here, above is Sebastien Rouxel, the chef. Plus for an extra treat, how wonderful is Giles Turnbull's picture of Gary Say, Head Chef at Fat Fowl, below? You can see Gary loves what he does, I think. Check out home made bread and note sprigs of herbs.

Now we are eight.

Isn't this the sweetest thing. Well bittersweet, because today I am the grumpy, shouty mother who, well, should not. Back to the sweetest thing. My eight year old cannot hold a pencil 'properly' for toffee; I've been told more  than a few times that he underachieves in school. But you know what? I respect opnions and all, but that child is highly emotionally literate. My goodness, how highly that counts. And he knows about food. Today, to give his mother a boost, here is what he did. Foods chosen because he thought they were "cosy." Ah: you're wondering about the provenance of the eggs? Spirit of the same. Photo by Giles Turnbull.

1. Plump up cushions in squashy chair; tell mother to put up feet and wait for lunch. Did I want a romantic DVD or a murder book? (Funny, how young boys see their mothers.)

2. Arrive with a menu and a large reserved sign saying "Mrs V. Table three reserved" Table three is the squashy chair. Mrs V is me. He had also written (sic) "You rok!!!" on the bottom of the reserved sign.

3. Sounds of scrabbling and stumbling on stairs up to room. A tray, with a big basin of rice crispies, lots of cold milk and, well, extra milk in the tray -- for which he had brought an extra spoon.

4. A little later, I was given a cheese sandwich and a satsuma for pudding. Today, I let them eat their meals backwards, so that was why I had a cheese sandwich for dessert.

5. Sounds of running. The boy has prepared a flagon of blackcurrant squash. He is now wearing an apron, the previous lack of which he now apologises for. And he brings me a napkin and a raspberry chewy vitamin tablet.

Further details: all white bowl and plate, blue and white napkin. His choice.

The chips below: another comforting sort of food picture. Again by Giles: they are my oven chips and I particularly favour this old enamel cooking tin for their preparation. It's all in the blue rim and the pale yellow interior.

A lovely new venture to taste: traiteur, cafe, patisserie

In our home town of Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, there is a new little place for you to visit. It belongs to Sebastien and Shanaz Rouxel and it's called Ale and Porter --taking its name after the building in which they are housed. It's writ large on the front! It's a patisserie, cafe and traiteur. Which means that, while you get coffee and a cake, as in any other cafe, or take a little lunch, you can also get food to take away. Here they are: photo by Giles Turnbull, who, let it be known, is what is called A JOLLY GOOD THING. (Neat photos, too.)

There's a wonderfully evocative description of a traiteur's shop in Provence in the writing of the late Keith Floyd. In winter, he saw that it was filled with game and its shelves were stacked with trufflles and pates, with signs in the window offering food to take away. Cooked on the premises were jugged hare, a venison stew and crayfish armoricaine (the name coming --probably-- from the old name for Brittany, not America. Probably.)

So, in France, the traiteur's shop is where you would get --amongst other things-- a selection of foods to enjoy for your lunch or dinner. These would include something substantial so, for example, you might have a wonderful portion of cassoulet to have when friends come round.. In Ale and Porter, you do the same. As I write, you could be eating a  beef daube -- a long simmered beed stew, or a kind of risotto made with pearl barley. Very good for you, you know. While Sebastien is French by birth, the food from this particular traiteur will be more roundly European -- just to give you a taste of more than one country. Not that France isn't a place of genius, you understand. Speaking of which, here is a recipe. It's just a daube, a la moi, but mostly Provencal in nature, I would think. It exploits the French genius for long and patient simmering. Sort of alchemy, then. You could do it two stages, thusly.

Daube. A beef stew (daubes are not only beef!)


Put this meat into a marinade overnight. I'd use 2kg of stewing beef. Decent quality.

The marinade might be:
About 2 glasses of decent red wine
1 medium (say, thumb length?) piece of rosemary on the stem
1 sprig of thyme --maybe even lemon thyme?
1 bayleaf
five cloves of finely chopped garlic
A fat pinch of Maldon sea salt and some freshly ground black pepper
You could add a chopped onion too, because, later it will add aromatic base notes. And I LOVE onions
Take 2kg stewing beef. Decent quality. Cut it into pieces.

Right, the following day, do this.
Get About 250g streaky bacon, cut into little dice. Smoked, ideally. Fry it off gently with a little olive oil. Then drain the meat, putting the marinade to one side. Brown it gently in the pan with the bacon. Oh -- you need a large pan, because you want to brown and seal the meat, not steam it! Take a couple of heaped tablespoons of flour and sprinkle these on, keeping a watchful eye on the heat so that the flour dosen't catch. You do want, though, to cook it out properly. Just a minute or so will do. Stir carefully and then pour in the marinade and 4 glasses of red wine.All you do then is bring to a high heat and simmer for around three hours or you could, at this point, decant it to a moderate oven and let it bubble away.  You could also add a couple of pieces of (scrubbed) orange peel. You may find you need to add a little water, but a daube should be thick -- so have confidence. remember to check and correct the seasoning.

When all is done, the meat will be exceptionally tender. Elizabeth David once had tears in her eyes when presented, weary and long travelled, with a daube -- seeing the little branches of thyme and smelling the rich and homely scent as the lid of the daubiere was lifted. I know what she meant.

I would enjoy serving this with plain boiled potatoes and -- because I will never be French and will always inhabit a place sometimes in England and sometimes in Wales-- with a big heap of boiled and roughly chopped cabbage. It might be the done thing, down South, to serve with noodles and a little cheese,

Chicken soup for the soul. For Susan.

Yes, yes: we've all heard this one But chicken soup really does seem to work if you have a cold or flu and, reader, I am feeling dreadful. However, someone came to my door late this afternoon, having removed the children from my care, swung them around the house so as to wear them out for me and then prepared some soup. I will ask her what she put in it at some point, but let me just say that the right food offered by the kind (a good splash of Southern may I say?) soul made me feel very happy. 

And man: that soup was better than mine. It contained good rich chicken stock, chopped chicken --both the brown and white-- and, I noticed, it was cut into neat pieces (unlike mine) which was particularly soothing in the circumstances. Just a nod to what I'll call nursery food. There were peas, neatly cut carrots, just a little celery and linguine which had been snapped into pieces. Well seasoned. Just right. More to the point, she had made enough for two good helpings with seconds so that Nedved (that'll be the husband, if you're not a regular reader) could share it.

As My auntie Bettie in Pembrokeshire says: "I notices things."

Feet up by the fire, dear.

And an update to favourite meals, chicken soup and a tuna tortilla!

Following on from my last post on favourite meals....

My eldest son, Elijah, just 8, says that it would either be a home-made pizza (with a big crusty base, a tomato sauce, some chilli flakes, some spicy sausage, red or green peppers and light on the cheese) or a big bowl of his mother's home-made chicken soup (warms the heart, this). Made thusly.

Elijah's chicken soup. Son, momma loves you.

You have the remains of a roast chicken. Perhaps you have some chicken stock, too. If you don't, it's not the end of the world. Right, strip the carcass with your fingers, missing nothing. Then put the chicken into a deep pan. Cover with cold water and then twice as much water again. Add a finely chopped onion, five roughly chopped carrots, a head of broccoli, torn into pieces, five potatoes, chopped (whether you peel or not is up to you, but I would -- unless they were newies), two chopped parsnips and, perhaps, half a large swede, chunked. Bring this lot to the boil and then add about a tablespoon of marigold bouillion powder for depth and savour. Just simmer slowly for about forty minutes and it is ready. Check and correct the seasoning. Elijah likes this with a big hunk of bread for dipping, but sometimes not.

Two points: the only way that this soup will be superlative is if you use a free range chicken. So much more flavour for your money and we like chickens. I don't need to go on about the alternative right here in a recipe. Just check out --amongst others-- Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall on the subject. Secondly, don't waste the remaining bones. make them into a stock for the next soup by simmer them long and gently with a few peppercorns, a piece of onion and perhaps a little celery. Or nothing at all. Or make the stock first, having stripped away the meat, and use it as a bases for this soup. It's just that I had a vat of it which I wanted to use up. Oh and finally, do keep some of the Marigold stock powder in your cupboard. It's available in low salt and organic varieties and provides a flavoursome stock. Although I wouldn't use it for every soup I make.

Tuna in a tortilla a la Ned. (You rock)

And a thought from Elijah's father. This is, perhaps, an odd sort of thing to have as a favourite, but it makes him happy, so that's dandy. I like it, too. Just take some tuna in spring water (if you can get it. I say sunflower oil, but we allow him his preferences), drain it and then add it to a frying pan on a moderate heat. Your aim is to cook the tuna until you have dried it slightly and given it a little bit of crisp here and there. Then, add plenty of hot sauce. May we recommend another favourite ingredient in our household? Encona Hot Chilli sauce. It's the best. Just mix in as much as you dare -- it's hot and piquant-- and then toss your tuna into a warmed tortilla. That's it! I might like to add a dollop of Greek yoghurt or some mayonnaise and, maybe, some chopped coriander? Possibly some spring onion, too. But I see that this may be taking away from the somewhat basic but very satisfying original (I mean the sandwich, not the husband).

Isaac's (he is 5) favourite ingredients are: tomato ketchup, rice, sausages, mangoes, kiwi fruit and lollipops! Oh -- and watermelon. His father's son. More on this later!

A favourite meal? A fantasy meal? A last meal? A meal to savour all alone?

By this I mean, if you and only you had to choose. If you thought no-one was there to disapprove -- which just might, I think, mitigate some folks' choices. And don't think it has to be posh. It might be Nutella on toast, for all I care. I am just curious -- plus I want to put this into my next book. Anonymously, if you choose. You don't need to think in terms of courses and, if you can write lustily about it, so much the better.

These are my favourites. At the moment, I mean. And amongst all my other favourites. All of a jumble and in no particular order.

An obscenely ripe wodge of  Brie. Or Camenbert.

Porridge. Big bowl. With golden syrup or --get this-- condensed milk.

A Masala Dosa with a coconut chutney.

A really good floury boiled potato. Must be the peasant in me. Or a roast potato. The one that got stuck to the tin and seemed to have collapsed. That was always the one I pinched on Sunday. My eight year old does it now.This makes me feel warm and fuzzy around the edges. Do you know what I mean?

A giant bowl of pasta. It should be spaghetti or linguine and the sauce needs, probably, to be Arrabiata or Puttanesca.

A lobster. A crab. A cone of winkles. A pot of prawns. Pulling mussels from the shell. Skate wings. Oysters. I'd be positively ferral. And I don't want the oysters cooked. Neither do I swallow them whole.

My mother's Sunday roast. Beef, with billowing Yorkshire pudding, Roast parsnips. God rest her soul.

Roast pork. Good crackling. Apple Sauce.Good rest her soul again.

My mother's steak and kidney pudding. With carrots to one side. And a pile of cabbage. Blimey, I really am from Britian, aren't?

A poached egg or two on thick white toast. Or possibly a boiled egg with the same. And a jaunty egg cup.

A bacon sandwich. Nothing else. And with the bread a bit doorstoppy.

Cawl. That's Welsh for soup, that it. With big hinks of cheddar cheese melting in it.

A giant pizza with a crisp crust. And it has to have anchovies on it.

A really hot Thai soup. With prawns. Or a really good Japanese Tempura. Or a proper Goulash or ...I don't know. Cannot decide. But I'll tell you that I love chillies.And I went wild over a cactus salad not long ago....

Just a few that came to mind. Oh --sweet stuff.

Bread and butter pudding, with the edges caught here and there.A proper trifle. Lemon meringue pie. Home made ice cream -- maybe with blackberries in it? Or gooseberry or rhubarb fool? Or apple or rhubarb crumble?

But what would you say?

An almost instant but cheerful tea for a household.

Light the fire. It's a bit damp outside today. I have a houseful. Children and adults; two thieving cats. Try this. It's a sort of fail-safe but fake pizza where you use lots of bagels. No: I'm being too modest. It's inspired! And I've been doing this for years, so I was pleased to see that Nigella Lawson does something similar for herself and her children with shop-bought naan bread in Nigella Express. Not that pizza bases are hard to make. Ready-made ones are though, as she rightly says, invariably horrid. Anyway, I bet I thought of it first. 

So... Allow two plain bagels per adult then. The squirrel you see above, courtesy of Jesse Millan's photo 'Morning Bagel' at Flickr.com, is showing that you should allow one plain bagel per squirrel. (Unless you are from Georgia, in which case, eat the squirrel. Put it IN the bagel. Actually, I am not entirely joking about this. In the U.K., read your Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall for how to procure and eat a --grey-- squirrel. Plus, my husband is from Georgia, which is sort of how I got away with the initial part of that comment.)

Slice each one (bagel, not squirrel) in two width-wise and spread each one liberally with red pesto. Try to get a good quality one. You could use red pepper pesto or sun dried tomato pesto. Then, have to hand the following:

Capers in brine which you have rinsed to de salt them a little

Pitted green or black olives

Slivers of fresh garlic

Good quality tinned tuna fish (line caught!)

Olive oil. Extra virgin to drizzle on afterwards, or a milder oil to add before these go into the oven

Red pepper, cut into little pieces

Ditto cherry tomatoes

Red chilli flakes

You could have to hand some cured meats, or ham, but today we are happy with the tuna fish (if you go for the former, I wouldn't entertain the anchovies, below)

Anchovies, whether those preserved in oil or salt. Extract from the tin and rinse gently.

Cheese. Mozarella to do it properly (not that bagels are remotely authentic, you understand), but I actually like a hearty mature cheddar on a pizza. Hopefully not too sacreligious to your ear? If it's the former, slice it into little rounds; if the latter, grate it coarsely

So, just add all the toppings prettily to your pretend pizzas and finish up with the cheese, a drizzle of olive oil and plenty of freshly ground black pepper and, if you like, a pinch of the dried red chilli flakes. Put these babies into a hot oven and bake for about fifteen minutes and then call in the troops. I served this tea with a salad made from ribbons of carrot --do these with the potato peeler-- and some finely shredded spinach, seasoned with a lemon juice and extra virgin dressing. Correct its seasoning with the sea salt and black pepper. Actually, some raisins could work here, too.

Look: everyone in your house is happy. Give them a pancake for pudding, as it's timely. The recipe you need is earlier in my writing: pancakes for yours truly.

You are famished and need something sustaining.

First of all, put on some woolly socks. Then, put some Basmati rice on to cook. White for choice.Oh: you're wondering about the socks, aren't you? Those were to make you feel sort of at home and cosy. Works for me. With a big bowl of hot rice.

This dinner is just for one!

Now, you can take this in one of two ways.

Going Indian

गोइंग इंडियन

 (That's my open bag of turmeric --haldi-- above.)

So, The rice is cooking. Remember not to boil the life out of it, but bring it to the boil and then down to the most gentle simmer you can imagine for about 12 minutes with no fiddling. After which time, you fork it up gently -- not attacking stirring with a spoon! While your rice is cooking, take a wok or a decent-sized frying pan and fry off two finely chopped cloves of garlic, a little piece of grated fresh ginger and half a chopped fresh red chilli. You just need a little film of sunflower oil in the pan for this. Swoosh the ingredients about until they smell nutty and roasted and then add a couple of teaspoons of cumin seeds, about a teaspoon of well crushed coriander seeds and a teaspoon of lightly crushed fennel seeds. Cook these off gently and then add about a teaspoon of turmeric. Cook carefully so as not to burn the turmeric.

Now, when the rice is done, drain it carefully, add it to the spices in the pan, turn the heat up high, having added another little dose of sunflower oil, and twist and turn it until the rice is well coated. Then, all you do is add a couple of teaspoons of garam masala, check for salt and pepper and top your rice with a generous blob of Greek yoghurt. You could, if you want extra piquancy, add a teaspoon of a chaat mix powder to the yoghurt. Chaat, if you have not been following me before, is a South Asian snack food, which might be savoury --such as a mixture of cubes of potato, onion and puffed rice-- or might be sweet -- such as a little fruit salad. The spice mixtures themselves are deeply savoury and my favourites will contain anardhana (green pomegranate powder) and/or amchoor (green mango powder). They are addictive. Try them. If you cannot get them locally, go here: www.spicesofindia.com

So there you have it. A straightforward and meatless supper. Enough to bolster you quickly. Are you still wearing your woolly socks? A kind of pilaf, I suppose, by the way.


Or how about this?


Going Chinese

While that same rice is cooking (and Basmati is not, of course, authentic, so you could use another - such as Jasmine rice or something else you like), fry in just a little sunflower oil a couple of cloves of crushed garlic, a little grated nut of fresh ginger and a good pinch of dried red chilli flakes. Then, add three chopped spring onions to the spices in your wok or frying pan and a handful of green peas, which I'll admit I just lob in from the freezer. Cook quickly and then add a couple of teaspoons of Chinese five spice powder and, for effect, perhaps a few star anise. So pretty.

When the rice is cooked, add it to the mixture in the pan, bring it to a high heat and then add a beaten egg to the mixture. Cook carefully, passionately and quickly (these three are not mutually exclusive) and, finally, add a sloosh or two of Kikoman soy sauce. I like this particular sauce because it's naturally brewed. And behold: it also turns out to be a Delia "CHEAT!" ingredient and, I notice, has been labelled as such in my local supermarket.

And there you are.

That wasn't hard was it?

Let me talk you through a couple of days of food ---feasting and observations.

Now Thursday was my birthday. I am not telling you how old I was, save to say that I have more energy now --and of a sustained and, well, productive sort than I did when I was eighteen. Read on. Lunch was a superlative jacket potato -- as follows. I cooked this just for me because, while I had been wined and dined ant breakfast and elevenses (well, hot chocolated), I wanted time alone. I know not everyone wants this, but, for me, it's nice to dine alone.

Right the potato served one, everything else two BUT with copious leftovers because, as you'll see, I cooked double. Give it a try?

First: your best jacket potato.

Take a good sized jacket potato. A proper floury job. Having pre-heated your oven to 200, rinse the potato gently and then pat it dry. Now, massage it liberally with some Maldon sea salt and stick it in the oven. That's the secret to the best jacket potato you will ever have eaten. When it's done, you will find that the skin is delectably crisp and the inside fluffy.

I've told you before of the habit in my household, copied some years ago from Nigel Slater, of attacking the potato with a neat karate chop. Try it. Some people --my husband now included-- do say that it ensures am appealing and not too neat potato. Anyway, now put in a little butter and some grated mature cheddar and then -- keep your eyes peeled this time of year-- any ittle green shoots you may find in your garden or someone else's. Or round and about, but know what and where you are picking. In my case, this consisted of some tiny sorrel leaves just pushing up, some little mint leaves (ditto) and some wild onions. You will see them here, there and everywhere. They look like chives and grow in abundance, I notice, in my nearest churchyard. But no foraging there. All the green shoots were finely chopped and added to the cheese.

See how simple this is and how it will make you happy?

Now, birthday dinner postponed until next week (suhsi -- I'm afraid I go into a sort of feeding frenzy and end up with teetering plates), here is what we had instead.

Superlative chicken and spinach curry in the oven. All you do is this.

Take as many free range chicken thighs (boned or not: mine are invariably on the bone) as you and a beloved might eat and put them into a nice big oven dish, having pre-heated the oven to around 200. Now, add a tablespoon of ground coriander, two of ground cumin, half a tablespoon of turmeric, five or six unpeeled cloves of garlic, a slosh of sunflower oil if the chicken is skinned (mine happened to be, that day), ten cherry tomatoes, a teaspoon or two of red chilli flakes, a fat pinch of asafoetida (which isn't essential, but it does give this a sort of musky, savoury depth) and five or six pieces of chopped, frozen spinach. Mix this all up well, add a little salt and pepper and just shove it in the oven. You will need to watch it closely to begin with, stirring it carefully as the spinach melts into the spices. Then you can leave it to do its thing for a good forty five minutes. At this point, it's done and you will have sweetly spiced chicken and you can squeeze out the lovely golden paste from the whole garlic cloves into your dinner. We had this with...


A straightforward Masoor (red lentil) dhal.

I took --let's say-- four tea cups of red lentils and added a couple of teaspoons of turmeric to them. Then, I covered them with water, plus almost as much water in volume again and brought them to the boil. Simmer very gently for about thirty minutes --really, you should skim off any froth that accumulates on the surface-- and then it should be done. I know it's traditional to simmer for a bit more, but for me, this is about right.

Now, you want to do what in South Indian cooking would be the tempering. In a frying pan, heat up some sunflower oil. Just a shallow film. To this, add a dessertspoon of brown mustard seeds. Hear them pop, and then add the same of whole cumin seeds and --because I fancied it-- onion seed (that is, Nigella seed or kalonji). Fry these off gently and just add them to the dhal with the oil. Mix in gently, check for salt  --which I always add at the end-- and serve with the chicken.

Also...spiced roast potatoes in the oven (can you improve on my word order here?)

Take, say, six medium potatoes, scrub but don't bother to peel. Make sure they are dry, though. Just put them into hot oil and sprinkle in teaspoons of dried red chilli flakes and cumin seeds and, if you like, a little turmeric. Sea salt, too. Cook them at about 200 for about 40 minutes. If you like, mix them with fresh coriander leaf, finely chopped, at the end. I also added some whole cloves of garlic, unpeeled, which I tend to munch whole.

Now, that chicken....did I mention that I cooked enough for two days? I often cook for an anticipated predicament the following day. This time, I was prescient -- and this thankful for the chicken. Here is what I did.

Chicken curry even better the next day, isn't it? (For Uncle Jamall xx)

So, you gently re-heat the chicken with some extra spinach in the oven and make sure you have added plenty of freshly-ground black pepper. While you are doing this, you can make a wonderful potato salad with Indian spices. In Northern India you might have this as aloo achaar -- a tart potato salad served as snack food. Splendid. So, boil four large potatoes with a dessertspoon of turmeric (and water, obviously) and, when done, slip off their peel and cut them into little cubes. Cool (you can make this a little ahead) or rinse gently under cold water and allow to dry. Now, snip five or so spring onions into little pieces and cut up a handful of cherry tomaties and a fat chunk of cucumber into tiny bits, too. Or, well, little pieces, because fiddly chopping might put you off when you just cannot be bothered at dinner time. Mix this in with the potato along with a teaspoon of cumin seeds, sea salt and pepper to taste and a couple of pinches of 'chaat' powder. Other possibilities, as you may well not have this addictive seasoning for snack foods knocking about the house: lemon juice, a little vinegar, green mango powder (amchoor --easier to get than you think) or anardhana --pomegranate powder. Tart and fragrant.

So, you serve the chicken with this cold and spicy salad and that's that.

But I'm not done yet. Oh no. Aha! I also made double of the potato salad. The cucmber and tomato could, I thought, just about handle it. And it did this. How clever of it.

Breakfast for a king (or Mehta, or Maharajah, or  our Uncle Mansoor in Karachi....)

Take a chapati or a pitta bread and warm it through. Stuff each bread you have with grated cheese and some of this superlative potato mixture. Really, you should have brought the salad to room temperature, I think. Dollop of decent pickle. I mean, a fragrant and slightly oliagenous mango or lime pickle, not a syrupy number.

And then for lunch or dinner...OH LOOK! I'm roasting another chicken! When it's cooked, tear up the breast meat and serve it as a salad with the rest of the potato salad, a little Greek yoghurt and some finely minced carrots. Here, a little Indian pickle added to the Greek yoghurt adds piquancy.

Fudco: tends to be my spice company of choice. Here we have turmeric in a nice big bag.