The simplest dinner ever: a variation on bubble and squeak

It goes like this.
Take as many potatoes as you can eat.
As many carrots as you can eat.
As much green cabbage, spinach or robust, greens as you can eat -make it a butchy brassica, though.

Cook the lot, peeling the potatoes if you're up to it. I suppose you could cook them all together, if you time it right. Cook them until they are well done, then drain, mash roughly and chop up the greens further if need be. Mix, then pile the lot into a bowl and season very generously with balsamic vinegara, seal salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper. A fried or couple of poaxhed eggs on top would be good.

This should serve one. It's what I cook for me when everyone is in bed or out and I've had a shite day. Eat in bed or maybe under a blanket somewhere.

xxxx

Weekend chicken with a hot stuffing - a present for Giles and Kate

I am, largely, a lover of vegetables, grains and the like. But, as my friends have observed, I do roast a lot of chickens. Well, I've been out teaching tonight and come home to a few glasses of red wine and so I've come over all sentimental-like and feeling like writing a recipe for the estimable Giles and Kate.

You may shy away from cooking a chicken with stuffing in it. Maybe this is because you're concerned about getting them both at the right temperature and fretting about it. In which case, man up. But hey: there is another way. You just put hot stuffing in the chicken. Makes it less fiddly to ensure that both are properly hot and cooked through and it's also kind of sexy and earth-mothery to produce this big pan of golden stuffing and bird and just dole it out. So this is what you do.

Take a proper chicken - which is to say an organic (and free range) bird. Put it upside down (thus, breast side down) in a large roasting tin, having rubbed it with olive oil and salt and pepper. Now cook about 500g of couscous and, when done - but barely thus - add a tablespoon of olive oil, a teaspoon of crushed red chilli, lots of freshly ground black pepper, a good pinch of sea salt flakes, a handful of fresh parsley, roughly chopped, a finely chopped garlic clove and the zest of a lemon. Squeeze the juice of the lemon over the chicken just before you put it in the oven. Oh - having first stuffed the bird with this mixture, well turned over and amalgamated. The oven should be on 200 and you roast the chicken on its back for half an hour, then you turn it over and cook it until its juices run clear when you pierce the bit where the thigh meets the breast.

 I should say that there will be plenty of stuffing to fill the bird and go around it, so you get some couscous which is soaked in all the delicious juices and very soft and some which has crisped and caramelised in the heat. This is all fabulous. You could serve some green vegetables alongside, but I'm not sure I could really be bothered. One idea is to roast some green beans with olive oil and chopped cherry tomatoes plus a couple of garlic cloves (which you then squish into the ad hoc sauce that's produced) and lots of black pepper. This will take about twenty minutes to cook and I will leave proportions to your discretion.

Serve in mighty helpings. Easy, hands off and sexy as f***. (I did say about the wine, didn't I?)

A soup that whips and kisses

I am aware that sounds, shall we say, suggestive but look: I'll take it where I can find it! Today, the temperature has indeed dropped. I'm pretty much shirt sleeves all year, but I noticed others in gloves, so try this for supper tonight. It's what I had for lunch.

Rinse 250g of red lentils under cold running  water and put these to one side. Now, in a large saucepan, sweat one finely chopped onion, two finely chopped garlic cloves and half a fresh red chilli, finely chopped. in some sunflower oil. When they have softened and the onion and garlic browned, add the lentils and stir them around and then add a dessertspoon of Marigold brand vegetable stock powder. You could use any brand really, but this is what I prefer and it's unadulterated stuff. You could just use plain water. Stir well and then add water to cover and half as much again plus a good handful of greens. I used frozen leaf spinach, which is a store cupboard staple for me. You could use fresh dark green cabbage, shredded into long strips. Right: bring this lot to the boil, at which point you need to skim the froth made by the lentils, then turn it down to a gentle simmer and cook for around thirty minutes, stirring occasionally and adding more water if need be.

Now, when it's done, salt to taste and that's it OR make an Indian tarka mix by heating some oil in a pan, adding about a half teaspoon each of cumin and coriander seeds and maybe some brown  seeds too  and warming them through in the oil until they splutter and pop but not burn! For burned spices do a bitter mixture make. Then pour the lot, oil and all, into the soup and serve. Nods to dhal, obviously - but I'm not thinking of it as that.

Kisses because it's velvety and comforting. But the chilli and, if you've used it, the mustard seeds, will whip your arse. 

Chicken and vegetable biryani: an inauthentic, fast supper for five

This is done at a sprint, which is the shape of my life on any number of days. Because I'm also naturally very clumsy, all manner of accidents abound - but I digress. This is a rice, vegetable and chicken dish which you can cook in a casserole dish and forget about for a while - remembering to stir once. Here's what I just did.


With a pair of sharp kitchen scissors, cut up six chicken breasts. If they are already skinned, you don't need to brown them; if not, brown the pieces for a couple of minutes, so that they are seared and golden. Then chuck them into your casserole dish. I've used an enamel roasting dish in which I usually roast chickens. Now add a teaspoon of crushed red chillies, a tablespoon of so of garam masala (I know you should only add this at the end, but it will work as a warm subtle flavouring if added at the beginning, too) and plenty of freshly ground paper. I didn't add salt only because customer number five tonight is eleven months old, so I'll be adding that at the end. Toss the chicken in the spices, add eight finely chopped cherry tomatoes, three finely chopped garlic cloves, four potatoes peeled and cubed and a small cauliflower (not the leaves in this case) pulled into florets - or hell, just torn apart. I am a bit slapstick in the kitchen. Now add a couple of handfuls of frozen peas and, finally, 250 g of basmati rice, which you have first rinsed carefully. Toss the lot carefully and then add boiling water to cover, stir again and put the dish in the oven, lid on at 200 (hot - you know your oven best) and leave it for about thirty minutes, then stir and cook for another thirty minutes until the rise is done and the water all absorbed. You may need to add water during the cooking time; you can do this when you stir. 


That's it. Salt to season at the end and garnish with crisply fried onions and fresh coriander if you like. x