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

A simple pasta supper

Here is something that you start cooking and then leave for a bit while you get on with other far more interesting things. It's the sort of dinner that you could present in generous bowlfuls to a household, but it offers succour to a famished singelton, too.


It's just pasta and roasted peppers. Make that spaghetti or linguine, actually. If I tell you what I had on my own last night, just scale up accordingly.


Heat your oven to 200 or so and, while it's coming to temperature, get three big fat peppers -- yellow, red and green. I used half of each one, deseeded and cut into large chunks. They went into a wide oven dish with six cloves of garlic, peeled but not chopped, and two medium onions, again cut into good-sized chunks. Add a sprinkle of chilli flakes --or a whole red or green chilli, chopped; deseeded if you must. Now chuck in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, add some sea salt and plenty of freshly ground pepper, mix it around well  and put this in the oven to roast. It should take about half an hour, with perhaps just one toss from you -- but this isn't essential. The point is that the vegetables are to be sweet and caramelising at the edges. You may want to give them a little more time in the oven.


Now, allow time for some spaghetti to cook in lots of salted water. You know how much spaghetti (or linguine) you'll want to eat. I gather that, per person, it's supposed to be a bunch of strands enough to  fill the 'o' made by your forefinger and thumb. BUT I tend to expand on that a bit!


Hopefully, you'll have timed it so that your roasted vegetables are perfection just as your spaghetti is, but you CAN always put the vegetables to one side and let them re-heat a little later by giving them a good toss with the piping hot spaghetti. Then here's what you do: just drain your spaghetti and then add the vegetables, plus any juices from the roasting dish and don't forget to scrape in any crutsy little pieces from the dish, too. Mix it up well, taste for seasoning, add some roughly-chopped fresh parsley if you like and plus a generous grating of fresh parmesan. Or shavings of the same: use a mandoline.

That's it. Serve with a good glass of wine. I had some Merlot and it was, all in, a pretty satisfying supper. And, do you know, I ate this in my sitting room with the door open in the early evening with the cool autumn air coming in. Here's my sitting room, a little dark. No hall? No: it's a cottage and you learn to set upon muddy feet with eagle eyes.

Tonight Lucullus is dining with Lucullus...

I am coming down with flu! Hoorah! One big glass of Merlot and here is a little dinner for any poorly folk out there. Actually, this makes frequent appearances at various meals for me.

SARDINES ON TOAST

Now, I have recently stockpiled on sardines. They were 35p a can (in sunflower oil) in Lidl*. When I am unwell, when things feel a little out of control or when I am heavily pregnant, I tend to do a bit of stockpiling. You know: tinned tomatoes and the like. But these sardines, I must say, are excellent and here is what I did with them.

Take some sturdy bread -- white or brown, as you like. This will also, I have found, work quite well with white pitta bread. Get your grill good and hot and then toast your bread under it, briefly, on both sides. Now, take it out and pile on the sardines. I don't usually even bother to remove the oil because I like it to drip luxuriantly from the toast a little later on. Spread the sardines out evenly across the toast, pressing them down a little and add LOTS of freshly ground black pepper and, if you like, just a little sea salt. Now, blitz your sardines on toast under a hot grill until the edges of your toast have just started to char. Eat straight away, possibly with a tea towel to hand and definitely alone if this is a new relationship. Actually, I tend to eat this alone and I've been married for about 300 years. I tend to eat it like a cormorant devouring the best fish he's ever seen. And by the way: you toast the bread lightly first so that's it's a bit more robust for the topping and won't collapse as you eat it. With your hands.

Ooh, the joys of Lidl. I am particulary fond of the "wellness" range (e,g, the breakfast wellness flakes) and the "recycling toilet paper." I realise that this makes me sound as if I am making fun of Europeans just because I am not one and they speak a bit funny.**

**I'm joking.

A speedy dinner with a nip in the air.

By late summer, I am always glad for the cold breath of air in the morning followed by a warm day. Autumn food is some of my favourite and I love the smell in the air at this time of year. I get excited about this season in a way I just don't about summer. But enough: I expect you are hungry, so here is what we had for dinner last night.

EGG AND CHIPS TO THE POWER OF TEN

First, take some potatoes -- however they come. Don't bother to peel them, but cut them into fork-sized chunks. Put them into an oven dish with plenty of cloves of unpeeled garlic, a teaspoon or so of crushed red chilli flakes, some freshly ground black pepper and a good pinch of sea salt. Add a splash of sunflower oil and put them into a hot oven to cook until they are crisp and possibly even stuck to the dish. You could, I suppose, give them a good shake after about twenty five minutes.

Now, when you your potatoes are done, just fry as many eggs as you think you will eat. Try not to break the yolk. Now, eat your hot, crisp potatoes with the fried eggs, the yolk running through the crisp bits, the floury exploded bits and the little crunchy pieces of chilli mixed together with the salt and pepper. Squeeze out the cloves of garlic as you go -- or just much them whole, as I do.

Really, it's almost egg and chips. Well, egg and chips to the power of ten. I think you'll like it.