Vegetable of the week

Puntarella

2012-02-22T04:59:00.000-08:00

Bitter leaves for bitter cold, sharp tastes for sharp days - radicchio, rhubarb - and...puntarella. A rare spot at Portobello and worth it for something a bit different. It's an Italian leaf, with long weird spears like an asparagus from another planet, tasting a bit like chicory but somehow more substantial. Apparently you are meant to peel back each spear and put in cold water, so that it curls, and then eat as a salad. But I'm too cold for salad at the moment so I roasted puntarella with chestnuts and blood oranges and lots of olive oil. It turned out to be a very rich and warming meal of its own. I think it would be a perfect sidecar to a rich red meat dish (in my dreams I've paired it with duck, cut through with the sharpness of the orange and the puntarella).

Its too simple a recipe really to write down but this is what I did

Puntarella, chestnut and blood orange winter salad

1 head of puntarella
1 pack vacuum chestnuts
1 blood orange
3 tbsp Olive oil (and balsamic vinegar if you want)

Roast all the ingredients in the oven (or if you prefer something tangier put the blood orange on when it's come out of the oven). Add balsamic vinegar to taste.

Purple sprouting broccoli

2012-02-04T06:28:00.000-08:00

Poor cold hands of the traders and poor cold skins of the exotic fruits this morning. The trick on a day like this is to shop quickly. Pick out what's pert and ripe, get it in the basket and rush home. So I went for a huge handful of bushy purple sprouting broccoli, enough for 2 if not 3 incarnations. It's in its prime and I want to make it into something warm and comforting without having to go out shopping again today... So I'm going to steam it and then fry some garlic, anchovies, capers and chilli flakes in olive oil as a dressing.

The blood oranges are back

2012-01-17T06:16:00.000-08:00

Blood oranges are rocking my new year this week. Wrapped up warm in Sicilian tissue paper they are glowing with charm and making me yearn for Italy. And so I've turned to Anna del Conte, my favourite Italian cookery writer, for ideas. She makes a salad of fennel, orange, chicory and black olives in her lovely book Amaretto, Apple Cake and Artichokes, making thin slices of each ingredient and dressing with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and a big handful of black olives. But I'm too hungry for just a salad so I'm going to fry some big croutons of day or two old bread in olive oil, and add them into the salad, perhaps with a few chunks of pecorino.

Parsnips

2011-12-14T05:30:00.000-08:00

Every time I walk past the huge kiss-boughs of mistletoe at the wreath stall on the corner of Elgin Crescent I come over all festive. Portobello is bursting with Christmas and I'm trying to take a little piece of it home with me. So my garden is decked with gilded quinces, mini pineapples and pomegranates from the market (gold paint from the art shop on Kensington Park Rd!) and the lovely fruit men outside the Coffee Plant got me some boxes of zingingly sweet clementines.
But obviously it's not all about fruit....stuck with not much in the house for supper last week and not wanting to go out in the cold I put together this little winter salad which was rather moreish. The parsnips made it.. It could be a lovely starter for a Christmassy evening..

Parsnip, goats cheese and rocket salad

2 parsnips
A good strong goats cheese (I had something called a rochetta from the Grocer on Elgin)
A large handful of rocket (or chicory or other wintry leaves would be good)
Balsamic vinegar
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 190. Wash the parsnips and then peel them into long slivers with a vegetable peeler, until you are down to the core. Lay them on a baking dish, brush with a tablespoon of olive oil, sprinkle with salt and cook for fifteen minutes or until brown and crispy. Wash your salad, dress with 3 tablespoons of olive oil and 1 of balsamic vinegar - you could add in a dash of honey too for fun. Take out the crisps to cool slightly and put the goats cheese in the oven for five minutes to soften. Then lay the cheese onto the leaves, spread the crisps on top and season with salt and pepper.

Persimmons in Portobello

2011-11-24T14:18:00.000-08:00

Marrow has held the title for undeservedly long and it's time we had a new fruit of the week..and since the market is baubled up not only with the fantastic new Christmas lights but also with gleaming orange persimmons it is the persimmon who shall become fruit of the week (also called sharon/kaki fruit).

Persimmons hadn't really hit my consciousness until this summer when I sat in the shade of an unusual looking tree in Italy and was told that by Christmas-time it would be decked with its gift to the world of hundreds of fat juicy persimmons. I'm wondering how it looks at the moment, every time I grab 3 persimmons for a pound at Portobello.

They are good to just bite into, juicy and robust, a kind of mangoish papayaish taste with a hint of Christmassy orange. Their mangoness made me want to try them in a kind of chutney so here goes...

Thai green curry with a persimmon "chutney" (Serves 2-3)

Cooked chicken (I used the leftovers of my juicy roast chicken from Kingsland Butchers aka the Edwardian Butcher aka the butchers who used to be on Portobello but have moved but who STILL DELIVER FOR FREE TO THE AREA)
1 tbsp Green curry paste - home-made or buy the best kind you can find (try the Thai supermarket on Chepstow Road, W2)
Fresh coriander
1 tin of coconut milk
1 tbsp Olive oil
1 tsp fish sauce

1 persimmon
2 large slices pineapple
Dried / fresh red chilli
Fresh coriander
Olive oil
Juice of one lime or lemon plus zest

Heat up the oil in a pan and add the curry paste. Fry for a couple of seconds (open the window!) and then add the fish sauce, coconut milk and cooked chicken. Bring to the boil and then turn down to simmer until the rice is ready.

Cook Thai rice according to the packet instructions.

Now for the even easier bit. Chop up your persimmon (skin is fine to eat) and pineapple into cubes, put in a bowl and add a sprinkle of dried chilli or some tiny slivers of fresh, plus a handful of chopped coriander, a slug of olive oil, the juice of half a lime and the zest and mix all around.

Sprinkle some fresh coriander into the curry and then serve. The persimmon and pineapple work so well with the richness of the chicken and the coconut milk, cutting through it in a citrussy juicy way. Or adding culinary Christmas lights, Portobello road style, to an otherwise daily favourite.

On which note enjoy the lights! The opening was moving and sparkling and the best quote of all with which I couldn't agree more was Rachel Johnson saying that for locals, Notting Hill is the centre of London, Portobello Road is the centre of Notting Hill, Portobello market is the centre of Portobello Road and the traders are the centre of Portobello Market...

Welcome to the marrow!

2011-11-02T05:57:00.000-07:00

I am very pleased to welcome the long neglected marrow as vegetable of the week...I have steered clear of these beasts for too long, but in the spirit of giants and general halloween freakishness it was a pleasure to buy what I can only treat as a freakishly enormous courgette - not least because the courgettes are a bit tired by now. Boiled, it is a disaster, an ugly sister to the courgette, all soggy and mushy. But fried into mini patties with parmesan and dill it really shall go to the ball. I hear it is wonderful stuffed with mince, Sarah Raven roasts it with aubergine and onion, and I am sure it would be lovely fried very slowly with butter and olive oil and herbs. Here is a simple recipe for these very quick fritterish bites - add in feta or mozzarella to make them even more cheesy

Marrow, dill and parmesan fritters

1/2 Marrow
Dill - a handful
Parmesan - a handful of grated
2-3 eggs
Olive oil

Grate the marrow, chop the dill into it, grate the parmesan, add any other cheese, then crack in your eggs. Beat it up really well and season. It should be not too runny but with a bit of liquid - if it's too dry add a bit more egg. Heat up a frying pan with olive oil and dollop bits of the mixture in, frying with a fish slice on both sides until brown. These are pop in the mouth light and hot and good.

English Apple Festival

2011-10-22T05:22:00.000-07:00

Today is the 2nd English Apple Festival in Portobello and Golborne Market...There are lots of wonderful appley things going on ..but if you can't make it at least treat yourself to a posh Ploughmans in honour of the season - buy yourself an English apple or two (my favourite is a creamy white russet), a good slab of your favourite English cheese, some interesting chutney and the best bread you can think of ..

Cavolo nero

2011-10-12T05:10:00.000-07:00

These long leaves of "Tuscan cabbage" are splayed out gracefully on the stalls at the moment. Dressed with good oil and lemon, to me they taste like dark green ought to taste, bitter and deep, but the sourness is too much for some.So if I'm cooking cavolo nero for someone else I'll try and soften the flavour with some other ingredients..

This was a success at the weekend and would go well as a side dish or lunch in its own right - I had it with some roasted pear and butternut squash (more about pears next week................)

Cavolo nero with feta and chilli
Wash one pack of cavolo nero and shred it into small ribbons. Put it in a pan with a low heat two big tablespoons of olive oil and cover it with a lid until it wilts and completely softens. This will probably take about 5-8 minutes. Drain off any excess water then put back in the pan and crumble a pack of feta into it. Sprinkle with dried chilli flakes onto the feta and dress with olive oil.

Minestrone with shredded cavolo nero
This was a good one for using up some left over ingredients but the cavolo nero snazzes it up a little and makes it feel a bit more Italian. Obviously you can make minestrone with anything you fancy popping in the pot and you can cook pasta from scratch in the soup. A can of chick peas or other beans would be lovely to add too, or some chopped up salami or bacon.

1 onion
1 clove garlic
3 leaves of cavolo nero
3 Veal meatballs
100 g cooked spaghetti
1 leek
3 carrots
3 courgettes
1 tbsp tomato puree
Olive oil
Fresh parsley
Stock

Fry the onion and garlic very slowly then added in the chopped carrots, courgettes and leeks and a handful of parsley to sweat for 5 minutes or so. Add in a litre or so of stock and any uncooked pasta or beans you are adding and simmer until the carrots are soft - maybe 10-15 minutes. Shred the cavolo nero and add it in to the boiling water. At this point I added in the cooked meatballs and spaghetti and then cooked for 5 minutes more. Serve with parmesan cheese and olive oil and bread.

A tray of figs

2011-09-28T05:33:00.000-07:00

The market is swollen with big fat inky Turkish figs. At 5 for £1.50 they are a bargain but the other day I got 10 for a pound from the stall outside Cath Kidston because they were oozing with ripeness and had to be eaten that day.....

Faced with my glut and no time for buying any other ingredients I remembered a recipe I had read for pasta with figs - with dried chilli and lemon zest . .

Pasta with figs and chilli

Choose a long pasta (egg is probably best). Cook your pasta according to instructions and while it's cooking slice up the figs, fry them in olive oil which is already smoking hot, for a minute, add some dried chilli and grated lemon zest and then add to the drained pasta with loads of olive oil and parmesan. We finished it off with a big plate of the first cavolo nero of the season.

I didn't have egg pasta but used some funky "ziti" pasta that I'd bought from the Spanish supermarket on Portobello, Garcia's, which has the best collection of dried De Cecco pastas I've found in London. Ziti is, according to Jacob Kenedy's book the Geometry of Pasta, a speciality at Italian wedding feasts. It's long and tubey and you can suck the sauce through the middle. You snap it into two or three before cooking.

Other things I am doing with figs........

Figs and feta - with a bit of olive oil and honey perhaps

Figs roasted in the oven with onions, or made into a chutney with balsamic vinegar

Roasted figs with butternut squash and chilli

The cutest Charentais melons

2011-09-07T05:46:00.000-07:00

I've just bought the best melon of the summer - a perfect little Charentais, complete with its own dream home, a little box where it sits, politely ripening in the corner until you are ready to eat it. Big juicy slabs for breakfast or with parma ham for dinner. My new approach to melon and parma ham is inspired by a treat lunch at the River Cafe where instead of slicing the melons they took big scoops out of the melon presumably with an ice cream scoop and then laid the ham on it. It looks very pretty..

There are also the first lot of apples in the market, damsons, kale ...brrr autumn is on its way

Flat nectarines with amaretto

2011-07-12T14:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I bought a juicy double handful of flat Spanish nectarines from the fruit stall on the corner of Talbot Road. They are splaid out on my fruit bowl, filling up the room with their peachy perfume, ripening too quick to eat. So, I'm going to bake the ones that peak before I get to them as per the following ....

Flat nectarines (or flat peaches) with amaretto

Ripe peaches or nectarines
Amaretto
Unsalted butter
Amaretti biscuits
Brown Sugar

This is not the sort of recipe that needs quantities. It's much more a sort of drench the fruit in alcohol and throw in some ingredients type of approach.

Put the oven on to 180 degrees. Take the stones out of the middle of each fruit carefully using a sharp knife and lay them in a baking dish. Mash together equal amounts of amaretti biscuits and butter and fill the hole of each fruit with a small amount of the mix. Spoon brown sugar over the top of each. Then pour amaretto stickily all over the fruits and bake for half an hour or until it's all looking quite sizzily. Serve with vanilla ice cream or cream.

There are so many other lovely things to buy this week - courgettes, green beans, gorgeous summer herbs (I keep adding them to salads and they taste all snazz and restauranty), all the berries and juicy fat Charentais melons in their frilly little skirts.

Petit violet!

2011-06-01T11:59:00.000-07:00

Oh these little purple-sweet artichokes are so mignons......................
I'd been in the mood for artichokes ever since I bought two really perfect big ones, the Princes de Bretagne, which I boiled for 40 minutes then ate with a fat mustardy vinaigrette. Then the next time I went back to the market Cheryl was selling these little cuties, the Petits Violets, which are tiny fairy cake style artichokes, small and sweet and innocent. I snapped up four for £1.50 and what fun we have had with them.

For example...

Mozzarella, artichoke and courgette salad dressed with a minty salsa verde.

Serves 2-4 as a starter

- 1 large ball buffalo mozzarella
- 2 large courgettes
- 4 petits violets artichokes
- olive oil
- lemon

Take your mozzarella out the fridge and put in a bowl of warm water. Prepare the artichokes as above. Use a vegetable peeler to shave the courgette into ribbons then toss them and the artichokes into a frying pan with some olive oil for 5 minutes or so. Rip up the mozzarella and mix with the vegetables then dress with this salsa verde....

Minty salsa verde

1 tbsp salted capers, soaked in boiling water and rinsed
2 cloves new garlic
1 handful mint
1 handful parsley
2 tinned anchovies
Olive oil
1 tbsp white or red wine vinegar
1 tbsp Dijon mustard

Whizz the first 5 ingredients in the magimix then add the vinegar and mustard and then add olive oil to taste. You will probably need at least 3 tbsp but may want more - it depends how you like it. This salsa verde is seriously good also with lamb chops and fresh peas. More about peas very soon....

Other good things to buy this week

Broad beans, new garlic, chives, peas, sweetcorn, new carrots

New broad beans and the best week of the year

2011-05-14T07:08:00.000-07:00

Well, Iam going to wager that it's probably the best vegetable week of the year this week... The asparagus is perky and proud, there are boxes of new grassy-velvet broad beans, big fat French artichokes and even a few peas. Add to that a bunch of sweet little toddler carrots and what more could I ever want from my local market...

The vegetables are so good that they don't really need much to make them delicious. I decided to herald the season with a simple plate of all of them, served with a huge bowl of vinaigrette that I made in the magimix with lots of mustard to make it thick..

But that said I'll crown the broad bean vegetable of the week since at this time of year they are so babyish and sweet and at their best. I'm going to eat them for lunch today, lightly steamed with some asparagus and some hunks of pecorino from Speck, the lovely Italian deli off Holland Park Avenue (Portland Road) and some 1000 seed bread from the Bread Shop in the market. The traditional Italian way is to eat them raw with pecorino but I like them a little bit warm and tossed with olive oil and a hint of lemon. When they are this tiny you don't need to peel them. We had them with yoghurt and fresh egg pasta and mint earlier in the week and that was a pretty easy supper. The only hint of work is the podding, but that is quite a fun way to unwind at the end of the day with a bit of a drink and a chat.

Don't forget also to buy a box of alphonso mangoes this week. The Portobello ones are at the fruit stand near Talbot Road...

Asparagus is the answer

2011-05-08T13:51:00.000-07:00

Asparagus is in season and it's the answer at the moment, whatever the question...

The first question it answered for me was - how to celebrate a royal wedding in style. Obviously we needed to have something English ...so when I saw the asparagus on Cheryl's stall for the first time this year, together with the sack of earthy Jersey Royals, it was a no-brainer. We celebrated the wedding with a huge platter of asparagus and vinaigrette, then roast beef with salsa verde (I magimixed parsley, mint, capers, anchovies, garlic, olive oil, mustard and red wine vinegar, to taste) and Jersey Royals - all bought from Portobello the day before the wedding. The atmosphere in the market was positively street-partyish already with everyone stocking up on ingredients for the weekend.

Asparagus has also been the solution recently to other important questions such as

- what to pack in a picnic to make it snazzy (take the asparagus along cooked and cold and eat with vinaigrette and hard boiled eggs)

- what to add to a chicken risotto (chop the asparagus into 2 inch lengths and add 10 minutes before the risotto is done)

- how to perk up a carbonara (as per below)

and

- what to put in a Spanish omelette. A few days ago I ate the best Spanish omelette I'd ever had, cooked for me in Spain, and made simply of eggs, potatoes sliced very thin, and well cooked asparagus in pieces. We ate it with a simple salad that was salted just right, followed by cherries boiled in wine, and then a goats cheese and membrillo. Elizabeth David would have approved. I'm going to be looking out for some Spanish cherries on the market stalls - they were selling everywhere on the road in Spain, and I am excited at the prospect they will be heading for Portobello soon too.

Cavatappi with asparagus and prosciutto

I have found the perfect eggs - Micanicou off Holland Park Avenue on Clarendon Road sells orange-yellow yolked Italian beauties. Not to say you can't get absolutely decent free rangers from Cheryl in Portobello, which was what I used for this quick last minute pasta.

200g cavatappi

1 bunch English asparagus

2 eggs

4 slices prosciutto

Olive oil

Pop two plates in the oven. Then put the water on to boil for the pasta and salt it a little. Then chop up the asparagus to the same length as the cavatappi or whatever shape you are using. If you are using a thin pasta then try and get thinner asparagus and simply cut each spear in half. Add the pasta and the asparagus to the water and cook according to the pasta packet. Meanwhile rip up the prosciutto, and crack the eggs into a cup and beat with a fork. Drain the pasta and asparagus, keeping back a little water, put back in the pan with the water and beat in the eggs and prosciutto and stir really well. Eat as quickly as possible.

Spanish strawberries

2011-04-01T08:22:00.000-07:00

So, I was going to blog about the puntarella that's available on the vegetable stall nearest Elgin Crescent - a delicious and hard to find Italian bitter leaf good in salads with e.g. pears and hazelnuts and parmesan... But it's been tipped at the post. The best things I have had from the market this week are the new Spanish strawberries, available in flirty little trays for a fiver, a tableful of juicy pink kisses reminding us of skimpy dresses and sandals to come. Start off with some Spanish asparagus as seen today - summer is heading north and soon we'll have the English versions...

Radicchio di Treviso

2011-03-15T08:58:00.000-07:00

Winding my pram through the market on a sunny Monday, day-dreaming of spring in Italy, I was thrilled to see some big fat bulbs of radicchio di Treviso.

I asked about their new appearance on the stall (the one where Elgin Crescent meets Portobello) and they'd been a happy experiment which had sold so well the previous weekend that they're going to be a regular, which is truly great news since I am a huge fan of this rather sophisticated bitter leaf which couldn't be easier to get ready for dinner. It's made me come over all Italian so we've had radicchio grilled and served with borlotti beans and balsamic vinegar (perfect with some leftover roast beef dressed up into a faux tagliata with rocket and parmesan);

radicchio with tagliatelle, chopped up with prosciutto and rosemary and then fried in olive oil with garlic River cafe style, and then just grilled plain and served with blood orange zest and a balsamic vinegar dressing.

There's no need for me even to write a recipe - it's too simple - you just grill the leaves for 5 minutes or bake them until they go a bit soft and crispy round the edges. The bitterness goes so well with orangey citrus flavours - ideal since now is the time to grab 5 blood oranges for £1.50 and revel in the Sicilian romance of their crinkly wrappers.

NB My current obsession with balsamic vinegar is due to the simply divine vinegar for sale at Tavola on Westbourne Grove at the moment. Though it's £20 a bottle and therefore seems as luxurious as a Hermes scarf, in fact it will last for ever and add something delicious to a good few season's worth of roasted vegetables and meats.

Oranges all around

2011-02-02T02:16:00.000-08:00

Being on maternity leave means I am having a whole different experience of Portobello. Rather than the frenetic but exhilarating Saturday pace, I now find myself there on weekdays, on spontaneous visits to pick up ingredients I need, rather than picking up a whole week's worth of vegetables. I found myself there on Monday, the quietest point of the week, picking up a leek and some celery for a poached chicken, then back on Wednesday for some cavolo nero and avocadoes. On the weekdays the stallholders are not racing around; they're able to stand and chat, and even though it's quieter they're just doing their thing as they do, still getting new veg every day at the crack of dawn. And oh they really do live through the weather. I can choose not to head down on a Tuesday because it's raining, but of course they can't.

However, when there is no colour in the sky and everything seems tarmac grey, at least there are the bright boxes of oranges to perk things up. The blood oranges are stacked up in their flirty little wrappers and I'm juicing them, eating them on their own, or adding them to salads - I did a good one with fennel and chicory and hazelnuts the other day, or try blood oranges with cavolo nero and olive oil and goats cheese. But it's the Sevilles that have taken up more of my attention...

Having a newborn means making marmalade has been a bit of a drawn out process..Having enough arms and enough time in a day to make it from start to finish just wasn't an option. So, I decided to do it in stages, which anyone who is busy could easily do (in fact who isn't - I suspect I shall make marmalade this way always now).

Marmalade for those who are short of time.

15 Seville oranges
2 kg preserving sugar
1 jcloth or muslin
Water
6 jars

Each of these steps are discrete and you can take as long as you need as long as you have somewhere cold to store between each step.

Step 1. I bought the Seville oranges from Portobello ten days ago and stored them outside in the cold. They're organic, from Cheryl, bargain cheap. Sevilles are hard and not at all squeezy, self sufficient little globes happy in their thick skins. So the first thing to do is to soften them, take them down a few pegs.

Step 2. Take 15 oranges and put them in a big pan, and then cover them with water. Bring to the boil and boil for an hour. The house will start to smell gorgeously orangey, like a treacly drizzle cake. Windows start steaming. This is good cooking for a January weekend.

I then left the oranges in the pan outside (or you could use the fridge) for two nights, until I got a window to get to the next step. When I opened up the pan they were wonderfully squidgy and shrunken, the water turned orange colour, and the skins all soft.

Step 3. Take each orange out of the water and chop into quarters and then scoop out all the pith and pips into a bowl lined with a clean J cloth. You're left with the skins which you then slice to the thickness you want. Because the oranges are all soft this part is so much easier than if you do it at the beginning of the process, as some recipes would have you do. Keep the water.

Step 4. I was onto a good thing, and managed to do step 3 and 4 simultaneously, but you could easily put the pith and peel into the fridge another day and leave this step till then. You need to tie up the j cloth and put the bundle into the pan. Then put the peel into the pan and top up with water as necessary to cover the bundle. Then add 2 kg of preserving sugar (1.5kg if you like something rather bitter) and put on a gentle heat and stir until it dissolves. It seems like an enormous amount of sugar but just go with it. Then bring to the boil and keep stirring occasionally. (As I discovered, this would be easier if you were not simultaneously breastfeeding.) It should reduce by a third and start to feel a bit sticky. The house will be steamy and sweet. Get your jars ready - through the dishwasher and then dried in the oven, or filled with boiling water and similarly dried in the oven. Put a plate in the fridge or freezer and then take a teaspoon of jam, put it on the plate, and put back in the fridge. If after 3 minutes you can draw your finger through the jam and it doesn't run back together, you've got a set. Result. Turn off the jam and let it cool for 10 minutes then decant into jars, making sure you cover to the top with juice and tighten the lid for a seal. Wipe over your jars and store.

Buy the best bread you can and enjoy your toast.

The year ahead!

2011-01-22T07:11:00.000-08:00

Happy new year and apologies for the small hiatus in posting...I've been off having a (delicious) baby which has been wonderful but less than blog friendly..not to say that we haven't made it to Portobello! 4 days before I gave birth I was buying pineapples in the hope they'd bring her on..And then 11 days later, a week after she was born, we were out buying our Christmas vegetables and marvelling at the fact that life could resume. And now she is a market regular.

I'm pretty excited to get back to Vegetable of the Week and the thought of what's to come in the year ahead. Not least this month. I am not one to be sad about January. I don't believe in diets, let alone detoxes, on the basis they simply don't work and make you unhappy (and so you end up eating more in the end), so they are off the menu. On the contrary, I think January is a wonderful month to indulge in some cosy and divine cooking to brighten things up and add a bit of charm and gleam to these darkish days. The blood oranges and Seville oranges have arrived, clacking their colours castanet-style into the market, and I'm cooking with them wherever possible (watch this space). There are warming roots to be souped and stewed and savoured like celeriac and carrots; there are winter greens to be served contorno style, dressed with good oil and lemon juice; and there is hot pink sexy rhubarb to be compoted and pureed and baked. That's enough for me. And the more we enjoy what's on offer now, the more exciting it will be when it gets to the spring and all the spring vegetables start arriving - unimaginable right now but wonderfully inevitable.

So, I'm sorry again for the lack of posting, but hope you all had a very merry Christmas and that 2011 is a good year full of happy cooking and eating and seasonal wonders.

Portobello pomegranates

2010-12-05T10:24:00.000-08:00

One of my favourite Christmas-time things in Portobello is the fruit stall just down from Talbot Road and the Bread Shop. It's always stacked up exotically with pineapples and clementines and pomegranates at this time of year, making me think of an old-fashioned type of Christmas where a fruit from afar would be the ultimate luxury present.

the exotic fruit stall - just outside American Apparel

my wares when I got home

The guys who run it are always cheery and friendly and if you want clementines or satsumas in a box for a Christmas party you can order them the week before and they'll source them for you. I loaded up with fruit and walked on through the market and felt my own cheeks glowing with Christmas cheer just like the rosy pomegranates I'd bought.

Christmas has come to Portobello!

I bought them with nothing particular in mind, save their beautiful colour and perfect little crowns on top.

But then I remembered something I'd seen recently on the menu at Trullo (a gorgeous new Italian restaurant in Highbury) but hadn't actually ordered - a kind of puntarelle, clementine and pomegranate salad. Inspired by the mozzarella in my fridge I started to put a salad together in my head and this was the result...It is zingy and colourful and full of Christmas and would be a lovely light starter or enough for lunch with some good bread.

Mozzarella salad with pomegranate, clementine, chestnut and chicory

1 ball of mozzarella (buffalo if possible)
1 clementine
1 pomegranate
half a pack of peeled chestnuts
1 chicory
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar

After pre-heating your oven to 180, the first thing to do is take your mozzarella out of the fridge and put it in a bowl of warm water to bring its flavour out.

Then put your chestnuts into the oven to warm up.

The next part is the only slightly difficult thing about this, i.e.getting out the pomegranate seeds but here is how I do it. I can't remember where I learnt this tip but it is a really good one..

Tip for getting out pomegranate seeds

Instead of cutting the pomegranate in half and then trying to scoop out the seeds and separate them from the pith, which is fiddly and takes forever, what you can do is to cut the pomegranate in slices and pull out the seeds from each slice. I did it in the sink to save mess - simply cutting a slice, scooping the seeds out from the wheel of pith around, and then carrying on through the fruit.

taking a slice of pomegranate so you can get the seeds out easily

my bowl of jewels

You'll only need half of the seeds, so save the rest and use to decorate salads or couscous or have with yoghurt and honey for breakfast.

Take the chestnuts out the oven. Take off the outer leaves and then rinse the chicory and peel off the leaves onto a serving plate or salad bowl. Rip the mozzarella on top, then sprinkle the seeds, the chestnuts, and the segments of a peeled clementine, and then drizzle with olive oil (and balsamic vinegar if you fancy it).

the salad

Fridays in Portobello and a stew for a cold night

2010-11-26T11:06:00.000-08:00

Portobello on a Friday is something quite different from the weekend. It's a lot calmer and quieter but still has the festive buzz of the weekend. All the stallholders are a lot less frantic and you can have a bit more of a chat...There are some stalls which are only there on Friday - like the English cheese stall, which I've never had a chance to see until today. It's simply spread out with wonderfully trollish sounding sort of cheeses like yarg and little wallop and stinking bishop.

But lovely as cheese is, what I'm really interested in at the moment when I'm out shopping in the market is something to warm me up inside. Last weekend I saw some celeriac for the first time in a while which made me think of making a wintry kind of a mash..which then led me on to thinking of a stew to go with it. I ended up making this pheasant stew which was a rather satisfying and easy way to use up all sorts of different things that had come from Portobello.

This would be perfect for cooking this weekend when it's going to get cold and you've got a bit of time and want to be inside. The quince paste adds a rich fruitiness - alternatively you could add some sliced and peeled quince and a teaspoon of sugar. I used the paste I'd made a few weeks ago (see recipe) I saw today they had quinces on sale in the market so it's not too late to make your own! If you don't have any quince try another apple or add in a pear - the fruit and meat combination is particularly good with pheasant because it helps give it some added juice.

Pheasant stew with apples, chestnuts and quince

(serves 2-4 depending on how big you want the portions to be )

For the stew

1 pheasant
Olive oil
1 red onion
2 pieces bacon / pancetta / prosciutto
1 cooking apple
1 dessert apple
1 vacuum pack peeled chestnuts*
100g membrillo (optional)
600ml stock - vegetable or chicken
1 glass red wine
Salt and pepper
A large casserole pan

Preheat the oven to 180 oC.

I had bought an oven ready pheasant from Lidgates on Holland Park Avenue and it was a bit of a beauty. You can buy them in most butchers at the moment and they are cheap and in season.

Start by peeling and coring the apples and then chopping into chunks. Get the chestnuts out of their packaging (if you submerge the vacuum pack in hot water for a minute it makes it much easier), chop the onion roughly, and cut the membrillo into cubes if you are using it.

Then heat up a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in the casserole pan and brown the pheasant (whole) for a few minutes on each side. Add in the onion and apples and fry until they start to brown and smell wonderfully caramelly. Then snip the bacon in and stir it around and then add in the chestnuts and the quince. Pour in the stock and the glass of wine and bring it all to the boil for a few minutes. The stock should just about cover the bird so add a bit more or less if necessary. Season with a bit of salt and pepper and then put on the lid and put in the oven for 45 mins to 1 hr (longer if you put the heat down). You don't want the pheasant to dry out and it will slightly depend on the size so check it after half an hour or so. I used the roast chicken test - the leg juice was running clear and the breast was white and tender. The sauce should reduce down to a thick chestnutty fruity paste which perfectly juices up the pheasant (it can easily be quite a dry meat). Mine was ready in an hour. I took it out the oven, keeping the lid on, to cool down and rest, and then made the mash...

Celeriac and parsnip mash

1 celeriac
3 parsnips
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil or butter

Peel the celeriac and cut into small chunks about 2-3 inches wide. Peel the parsnips, cut off the ends, and cut into thick rounds. Put them both in a pan of boiling water and when soft drain and mash them with oil or butter and salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately with the stew in a big bowl.

Leftover idea:

If you have any mash left over it's very easy to turn into soup the next day by adding it to some vegetable stock and bringing to the boil. Serve with a dollop of cream or yoghurt and some chilli.

Tip:

*You don't have to use ready peeled chestnuts - they sell the real deal in Portobello and you could roast them and then skin them but it's a lot of work. I do buy the real ones at the market but mostly for just roasting on their own and enjoying in their own right when all the work is really rewarded, rather than adding to something else.

Portobello Pumpkins - Italian style

2010-10-31T06:34:00.000-07:00

There was a lot of pumpkinish pomp in the market yesterday in honour of Halloween....

Cheryl and her Halloween helper Mabel (who was dressed as a cow, as you do)

and I was determined this year to make the most of my pumpkin and try to make it taste good, because on so many occasions I've been disappointed with a watery bland taste that leaves me wishing I'd bought butternut squash instead.

But thanks to a bit of Italian inspiration I hit last night on my best pumpkin recipe yet. I had read in Anna del Conte's Amaretto Apple Cake and Artichokes about making ravioli and filling it with a mix of cooked pumpkin, crushed amaretti biscuits and mostarda some time ago, and so I had been slowly collating my ingredients ready for the pumpkin season..

Needless to say, it wasn't all perfect. I had to admit that the attempt to make fresh pasta by hand was one step too far. Since I do not have a pasta machine, it proved impossible to roll it out to anything other than a rather thick and chewy sort of consistency. Next time I shall spare myself the effort and buy some fresh pappardelle and simply make this as a sauce for it, rather than a ravioli filling.

Pasta with pumpkin, amaretti biscuits and mostarda

The reason this works is that the sweetness of the biscuits and the spiciness of the nutmeg and mostarda makes the pumpkin sing out and gives it the flavour it doesn't have to start with.

The nearest place to Portobello to buy mostarda that I have found is Tavola on Westbourne Grove (which is also where I bought the 00 flour to make the fresh ravioli). Mostarda is a kind of snazzy Italian relish made of beautiful little fruits in syrup and mustard seeds. It has a mustardy tang and bright neon colours and looks festive in its little pot. And you can buy amaretti biscuits in the supermarket. So,you need....

75-100g fresh pasta per person
1 pumpkin
Amaretti biscuits
Mostarda
Nutmeg
Cinnamon
Butter
Salt
Pepper

Take your pumpkin and slice off the top. Then scoop out the seeds and keep them for roasting separately. Carve out as much of the pumpkin flesh as possible and then leave the shell to be carved into whoever you want it to be.

Weigh out the flesh - you probably need about 150g pumpkin flesh per person. Then roast it with olive oil and salt and pepper in the oven until it's soft at about 190 degrees. This will take 45 minutes or so and then turn the oven off and let it dry out for a bit.

The roasted pumpkin

If you are going to make fresh pasta then now is the time to do so. Any good Italian cook book will show you how. The way I did it was to use 200g 00 flour which I mixed in the magimix with 2 fresh eggs which made a good dough. Then this rested for 30 minutes and then I made the filling below before rolling out the dough and spooning in the filling and folding it over to make small little pouches of ravioli which I tidied up with a pizza wheel and then pinched together at the sides.

the dough to start with

rolling it out (not very well)

first batch of ravioli

putting the filling in before folding over the dough

Anyway, back to the pasta sauce / filling which is the pumpkiny bit I want to focus on. Take the pumpkin out of the oven and drain off any water. Then put in the magimix with about 2 amaretti biscuits per person and 1/2 tbsp mostarda per person. Grate in some nutmeg and put in a teaspoon of cinnamon and put in 1/2 tbsp butter per person and then whizz up. It should be a smooth sauce consistency paste. If it's too runny then drain it in a sieve a little; if it's too thick leave it but add in a tablespoon of the cooking water when you are adding it to the pasta.

the sauce/filling ready to cook

pumpkin ravioli with a little bit of the sauce

That's it - then you either use it to fill your ravioli, or cook your pasta and heat it up while the pasta is cooking and then mix it together when the pasta has drained with a bit of oil or butter and some of the cooking water. Serve with parmesan cheese and a few toasted pumpkin seeds if you have them.

English Apple Festival

2010-10-24T11:26:00.000-07:00

A glance under "apples" at Andre Simon's classic guide to good food and wines opens up a poetic treasury of wonderfully old fashioned and English sounding recipes - apple amber, apple butter, apple cobbler, apple dowdy, apple dumplings, apple hedgehogs, and apple snow. And that's before the poetry of the names themselves - a quirky houseful of eccentrics - Beauty of Bath, James Grieve, Worcester Pearmain, Ribston Pippin and Laxton's Superb. The apple is an essential and quintessential English character and therefore it was only appropriate that there should be two days of festivities in Portobello and Golborne markets yesterday on Friday dedicated to the English apple. See more on the RBKC website but there was everything from crumble to competitions, bake-offs, demonstrations, and in honour the market stalls were decked out with apples and other autumn seasonal highlights like squash and pumpkin and walnuts and pears. Before the festival I did my shopping, filling up with my current favourites the russets - which are crisp and drab on the outside but milky white and drippingly delicious on the inside.

In honour of the apples and the gorgeous autumn fare on offer my latest batch of recipe cards were available - but in case you didn't make it to the festival here they are again - and NB the recipe for quince paste (membrillo) is on the post below.

13605njc_a5_autumn_cooking_recipe_cards_rev2[1] -

and this one

13605njc_a5_english_apple_recipe_cards_rev2[1] -

As for the fantastic recipe competition, to win the chance to cook with Rowley Leigh and eat at his restaurant Le Cafe Anglais, the details for entry are below but you must have visited Portobello or Golborne to be eligible! If not there is still a chance as the closing date is not until 8 November.

recipe contest -

Quite wonderful quinces

2010-10-17T12:39:00.000-07:00

Before anything I must remind you that this Friday and Saturday 22nd and 23rd October is the English Apple Festival in Portobello which is going to be our most exciting and fun-packed market festival yet. There are going to be all sorts of things going on - tastings, demonstrations, and best of all the opportunity to win an incredible prize thanks to local award-winning and seasonally passionate restaurant Le Cafe Anglais ..And of course as always there will be a chance to pick up some of my recipe cards - this time for apples and for all the good autumn things on sale at the moment. Watch this space for more information or go to www.rbkc.gov.uk/streetmarkets

Not unconnected to the English apple is my fruit of the week..

Yesterday I saw the first quinces of the year at the market and as always I can never quite believe they are true - to me they are the dreamiest unreal sort of a fruit, a kind of nonsense pear, only to be found in the company of owls and pussycats, or in a painting. I find their quirky wrinkled honeyish demeanour beautiful, but when I got them home a friend said they were like the ugly ducklings of fruit..And so there again they transported themselves back to nursery rhyme fairy tale territory...

Their season is short, but it is my annual treat to make them into membrillo, the Spanish paste which lasts for months, and prolongs their presence in my kitchen. But I do know they are wonderful with meat - tucked into stews or roasts (and obviously sliced, with mince, a la Edward Lear) - and when cooked their colour turns from light apple to dark gold and nectarish.

There were other good things of course in the market, before I get too carried away with my quinces. In fear it's the end of the fig season I bought 12 sweet little and unusually French figs, as a final flourish, which I've turned into jam with star anise to make them last as long as possible. Into the trolley went some russet and Worcester apples, some pears, some walnuts, cavolo nero, kale, squash, 2 big bunches of chard and a handful of mushrooms.

Anyway, back to my precious quinces. I have Sarah Raven to thank for the recipe, though it's adapted slightly.

Membrillo - quince paste

7 quinces = approx 2.4kg
1 large bag of granulated sugar (though see below)
Water

You also need:
a mouli (a kind of food mill) or sieve
a large pan
the longest spoon you have
a tea towel
a baking tray or two
some greaseproof paper

First wash your quinces gently. You'll feel the downy fur coming off them under the tap. Then chop them roughly, cutting off the ends and feeling your way until you get to the core which you also want to leave to one side.

Then put the quince pieces into a large pan together with 800ml of water and simmer them until they are soft and a bit stewed.

At that point put your oven on to about 50 and put the bag of sugar in it to warm up. Then take the mouli and start to press the stewed quince through it (or the sieve, whichever you have).

Then measure how much puree you have by taking a measuring jug and measuring it back into the large saucepan. For every 600 ml of quince puree, you need to add 350g sugar to the pan. Stir in the sugar on a low heat until it dissolves and then bring it up to a boil. For some reason, perhaps to do with its fairytale personality, quince seems to spit and spark, so please be careful. You will need to patiently stir it, but cover your hand with a cloth while you do, and tell anyone in the area to be careful. I ended up with quince in my hair, on my top, generally throughout the kitchen...

You keep on stirring - for perhaps an hour intermittently - and you'll see the paste changing colour magically (in keeping with the fairytale) from yellow through to a dark red. When finally the paste is starting to come off the sides when you stir, turn off the heat. Line a baking tray by oiling it and then covering it with greaseproof paper and then pour the paste into it. Leave it uncovered in a cool place for 2-3 days and then cut into blocks and wrap in cellophane or greaseproof paper - tied with string and labelled with a card it would make the sweetest present - and it will last until Christmas at least.

Then eat it, traditionally with manchego, but with anything you fancy - parma ham and other cheeses are fabulous, or add to casseroles and stew for a lift of quince.

adding the sugar

dissolving the sugar

stirring....

this is the colour when it's nearly ready

membrillo!

Autumn squashes

2010-10-07T00:33:00.000-07:00

The market stalls are loaded up with harvest at the moment and it is a complete pleasure to browse the booty on offer. Cheryl's stall had two surprises - a new batch of English cavolo nero - a treat I'll be eating lots of - and a large box of russet apples. The russets are gorgeous - they are crisp and chalk white inside and perfect with toasted wet walnuts.

Actually then there was a third surprise - the new Notting Hill Shopping Bag.

These cheery bags are on sale at stalls throughout the market, ideal for loading up with apples and figs as I did, and all aimed at the very good cause of promoting and helping local shops. If you don't make it before come along to the autumn festival on 22nd and 23rd October and buy a bag!

I carried on going throughout the market buying sweet little chanterelles, big fat Portobello mushrooms (on principle I feel like I can never really turn them down), lovely fresh spinach from the nearest veg stall to Elgin Crescent,  and some English kale. There's so much it's a little hard to choose what to make Vegetable of the Week. But the two good and new things I've cooked with my butternut squash this week mean it deserves to win. It's such a useful vegetable to have - it lasts all week, it makes a meal in itself, and it's warming and autumn-comforting.

The first squash surprise was how well it goes with figs - a timely pairing at this point in the year since both are so cheap and easy to find.

Butternut squash with grilled figs and mozzarella

I ate this as a starter but you could have it as something more substantial with some bread.

Serves 2
1kg butternut squash (or thereabouts -  I used the long part of a medium sized squash)
3 figs
1 buffalo mozzarella
olive oil
balsamic vinegar

I want this to be a quick dish so I'm not into a long slow roast for my squash. Grilling when the squash is sliced thin works well. So turn on your grill or alternatively put the oven up as high as it will go.

Take the long seedless part of the squash and slice off the seeded bulb at the bottom to use for something else. Cut off the top end and then cut what remains into neat long oblong slices no more than 1 cm thick and trim off the peel. Lay flat on a roasting tin and cover liberally with olive oil. Put them under the grill. After 10 minutes turn over. Check after another 10 minutes - if they are nearly soft then take out of the grill. Wash the figs and cut into quarters. Lay the figs on top of the squash and then pour over a little olive oil and a dash of balsamic vinegar. Put back in the grill for 5-10 minutes, until the figs are cooked but not burning.

While this is happening take the mozzarella out of its packaging and put in a bowl of warm water which will make its flavour come back to life after the fridge. Then take out your squash and figs and lay on a plate and tear the mozzarella over it.  Sing a bit of olive oil over it and there you have a very tasty starter. Needless to say I ate it up too quickly to take a picture.

This next squash recipe takes far more time and is one for a patient mood or a treat. It's not beautiful but it's warming and filling and just what you want on a hungry cold night.

Squash gnocchi

1 butternut squash - approx 2 kg
175g ricotta
180g plain flour
2 eggs
50g parmesan
olive oil
salt and pepper
nutmeg

for the sauce
olive oil
butter
wild mushrooms
1 garlic clove

Pre-heat the oven to 180. Cut the squash into small pieces and cut off the skin. Lay out on a tray and brush with olive oil and cook for 45 minutes to an hour or so until it's soft. Meanwhile mix up the ricotta, flour (sifted) and parmesan, season with salt and pepper and a grating of nutmeg. Separate the eggs and add the yolks to the mixture. Whisk the whites till they are foamy and thick and leave to one side.

Use the time you are waiting to get your mushrooms clean and ready - either by wiping or by washing and wiping carefully.

Take the squash out of the oven when it's soft and then put in the magimix or blender. If you don't have one then mash it in a bowl with a fork. Add the flour mixture and blend for a few minutes until it's all mixed through. Spatula it out into the bowl of egg whites and fold it into itself until you have a thick sort of paste. If it feels very runny then add a bit more flour until it is a little thicker.

Put on a pan of water to boil. Then in a frying pan heat up on a low heat a knob of butter and a bit of olive oil and add the mushrooms.

When the water is boiling take two dessert spoons and use them to make small gnocchi shaped dollops from the mixture. Drop them into the boiling water one by one. When the last one is in leave the pan for 2-3 minutes and then turn off the heat.

Spoon them into bowls and cover with the mushrooms and grate parmesan and a little nutmeg on top. I ate them with some steamed cavolo nero on the side. They are not glamorous (and I can't give you a perfect photo) but squash has never been a dainty sort of a food...This is a proper autumn sort of a dish.

Victoria Plums and good autumn things

2010-09-23T14:34:00.000-07:00

Autumn hit the market this weekend; there was just too much to choose from to mark the season. The first wet walnuts had arrived on the fruit stalls and I bought a handful and toasted them into a salad with a new English apple, some chicory and some goats cheese. There was a huge fairytaleish squash on Cheryl's stall and I bought a big cake shaped slice to roast. Figs, grapes, perfect little courgettes which I sauteed with herbs and ate with creme fraiche, and some surprisingly tiny French baby artichokes which we had with vinaigrette. And finally 10 scotch bonnet peppers for £1, far more than I could need in a week since even a slice of one takes over a whole dish.

a morning's worth of autumn from the market

But it wouldn't be the end of the summer without a surfeit of plums. I once went plum and greengage picking at a pick your own in Norfolk at the end of August; the orchard was swollen with trees, the owners were pleading with us to save the trees from their weighty loads, and I felt bad that all I could take on the train was two punnets, one of Victoria plums and one of greengages. They've been selling cute little punnets of English Victoria plums on one of the fruit stalls near Elgin crescent, a bargain at £1.50.

Victoria plums

The harvesty-pink punnets are somehow much more appealing than the bigger Spanish plums that have come from further and look almost too big for themselves. There are sweet tiny greengages for sale, "Reine Claude", sweeter and smaller than plums and perfect for finishing off a meal.

So, it's been plums and greengages for breakfast,

plums roasted with creme fraiche, plums poached in red wine, plum chutney, plums on their own for pudding. If I had had a bit more time these last few weeks there'd be some plum jam or maybe a plum cake. However, I wanted to try something different and quick and I thought of the peaches I'd had in the summer marinated River Cafe style in red wine with sugar and lemon juice and I've tried it with a box of plums that needed eating before they are too ripe.

Plums in red wine

400g ripe plums
3 tbsp sugar
the rind of one lemon
1 large glass of red wine

All you do is wash the plums, halve and stone them, and pour over the other ingredients, shaving on the lemon rind without getting any white pith in. Leave overnight or for an hour covered in the fridge and then serve with good vanilla ice-cream or a little bit more warming would be some hot custard or on the side of a warm cake sort of a pudding.

Ready to be left to marinate

PS they've been selling cobnuts at the Grocer on Elgin. They are worth a trip! Shell them and roast them into a salad or whizz them instead of pine nuts with basil and olive oil and garlic and parmesan for a cob nut pesto.