Jump straight to the Chickpeas with Chilli, Coriander, Lemon and Red Onion recipe

Are chickpeas everyone’s favourite pulse, or just the one they are most familiar and comfortable with? Do you stock up to make the nations favourite dip, hummus? Or do you make curry, soup or add them to a salad? The chickpea is indispensable, especially now when some days, despite all the time, we require something quick and nourishing with little effort but lots of flavour. This is a plate of sunshine. 

Use tinned chickpeas, or home-cooked. Whatever you have. Take the sharp edge of the red onion by letting it sit in the lemon juice for 10 minutes before dressing the chickpeas. Use whatever herbs you have, basil, oregano, parsley would all work very well too. Lime juice would be lovely here but if you have no fresh citrus, use vinegar (any except malt vinegar which would be too harsh). Taste as you go, and enjoy the results. 

Jump directly to the Carrot, White Bean and Cabbage Gojuchang Soup recipe.

Times like this bring into sharp relief many things. In terms of the kitchen, it has shown my chaotic pantry (cupboards!) for what they really are. Everything is chosen in the moment with little planning, and then planted to be dealt with at a later date. 

I have several kinds of rice (from Taiwan rice to black rice with lots of different white rice in between), lots of fermented bits and bobs (I have 2 tubs of my favourite Korean pepper paste and a catering size bag of Korean pepper flakes), and many many random things that I have brought back from my various travels. There is more hot sauce than I could get through in any reasonable length of time and lots of chillies, but I am running super low on basic spice. A little interrogation shows clearly what you eat regularly and what you think you should. I am most definitely an Irish woman who travels and loves big flavour (which of course you already knew).

Stew conjures images of dark early evenings and a need for warmth. Maybe I need another name for this as it is bright and sings of summer days or longer spring evenings.

I have done many variations of this stew over the years and with Summer descending quickly upon us (20C and sunny in London today!), it seems a perfect time to make and share it again. It is perfection with a glass of rosé right now. 

Almost everything I share on Eat Like a Girl has been cooked for one. I cook mainly for myself, and I do every day, at least once. I am a social being, but my flat is very small with no dining table (some day!) and so I rarely entertain at home. I so look forward to the day that I can though.

I know that many people are self isolating at home alone right now and I wanted to provide some recipe inspiration for you, or a starting point at least. While I almost always cook for one, I usually cook a little extra so that I can have leftovers to have with an egg the next day, or convert into something tasty for another meal. If you are cooking for two these will double up well and easily. 

Most recipes here require no kitchen kit as such. Everything is accessible and easy to recreate. All you need is a chopping board, a good knife, a wooden spoon and a pan to cook in. Everything else is a bonus and you can add that as you go. I did.

Carrying on as we cook our way through the corona crisis, here are recipes for my favourite handmade fresh pasta and dried pasta dishes from the last 13 years on Eat Like a Girl. 

Don’t forget to check out and cook from the first post in this series: 9 Recipes for Homemade Bread, Flatbreads and Pizza, which has recipes for my favourite bread, including Irish soda bread and the blaa, and my favourite speedy bread which requires just 20 minutes of your time, a frying pan and no yeast, the Irish soda farl. If they don’t grab your attention, breakfast bacon and egg pizza or smoky aubergine, red pepper and chicken skin flatbread will. 

Fresh pasta and dried pasta are equally good, they are just different. Not all dried pasta are the same though in terms of flavour and nutrition so seek out bronze died extruded pasta if you can (it will say on the pack) which are generally slow dried and more nutritious as a result. Bronze died pasta also has a rough surface which grips the sauce, and are in general nicer to eat. But, you know, use what you have and what you can get. 

I have included some of my favourites here, and there are many more on the site. Please forgive the terrible photography in the earlier recipes and don’t judge the recipes by them! Let’s get cooking.

Like many of you, I am craving new and different things to eat during this time of self-isolation and social distancing. I have compiled lists of recipes for you from my 13 year recipe archive on Eat Like a Girl, and will be sharing them with you over the coming days. Starting with 9 homemade bread, flatbread and pizza recipes.

Some are quick and speedy, all are easy to follow, as always! Enjoy. 

Homemade Bread, Flatbread and Pizza

Irish Breads

http://eatlikeagirl.com/hot-tempura-cauliflower-bites/her Gojuchang beef shin with potato and wild garlic. Cooked low and slow and melt in the mouth gorgeous. Red onion on top, cooked slowly until sweet and rich. Just gorgeous!
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A simple slow-cooked dish with inexpensive ingredients

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Beef shin is an inexpensive cut and one of my favourites. It is superb in stews and curries, and I love it for goulash. Gojuchang (Korean fermented chilli paste) is an essential cupboard ingredient for me. It gives instant deep flavour and warmth, and here, gives this dish a beautiful warmth and depth. ⁣
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Get this going early in the day and let it cook gently as you go about your business, checking in only occasionally. Be sure to add the wild garlic in just at the end (or any other green and some crushed garlic), and just wilt it, so that it stays bright green. ⁣⁣

LAST UPDATED: April 7th, 2020

Getting groceries delivered has become a little difficult with supermarkets doing their best but stretched to their limits. This is the perfect time to support smaller producers who have lots available to send to you. I am going to list those I know here for you in a living and regularly updated document. Food, wine, coffee, beer, cider, and if I am missing somewhere which should be on here please let me know!

Many of these are farms that sell direct to the consumer or online shops. Some supplied the restaurant trade but with social distancing and most of us staying at home (and please please do social distance and stay at home if you can at all), they are now selling direct to the consumer.

If you are an independent producer or retailer who should be on this list (in the UK and Ireland) please do let me know! Please email me a short snappy description on hello@eatlikeagirl.com – who you are / what you sell / how to buy – no marketing, just bare bones please. Please ask around your local community for producers that you can buy direct from too. Many don’t have a route to market and are really worried. We can all help each other.

Note –  I have not tried everything on this list and these are not endorsements. Where I am familiar with the product or company and would personally recommend, I will say. 

Each of these links will take you to the associated section:

PRODUCE

FARMS
BUTCHERS AND SMOKEHOUSES
FISH
VEGETABLES — see farms and online retailers list also
CHEESE
FLOUR

PREPARED FOODS

FRESH PREPARED FOOD & DELI ITEMS
CHARCUTERIE AND JERKY
CHOCOLATE AND BROWNIES
BAKERS, CAKES AND PIES

PANTRY, SPICES AND ONLINE RETAILERS

GLUTEN-FREE
ONLINE RETAILERS
PANTRY ITEMS
SPICES

DRINKS

WINE
SPIRITS
BEER & CIDER
TEA & COFFEE

FARMS

With thanks to Destination Canada who sponsored this post.

Lobster lovers need to make their way immediately to Nova Scotia’s South Shore. Better again, plan to go for the South Shore Lobster Crawl in Winter every year during lobster season when things get serious. Barrington is known as the lobster capital as locals will proudly tell you. There is even a Nova Scotia Lobster Day on the last Friday of every February.

The South Shore Lobster Crawl is an annual celebration which fizzes along the shoreline and celebrates the lobster fishing season. It is a big part of the local culture which isn’t a surprise when you understand that the season in this part of Nova Scotia runs from November to May and the lobster haul from Nova Scotia in general accounts for 40% of the Canadian catch. 

You will quickly discover that the good folks of Nova Scotia are always very serious about lobster. On the South Shore creamed lobster is the dish of choice for Christmas, and locals are obsessed with it, but more on that in a bit!

Mash hash has become a regular feature of my week. In order to make weekday meals speedier, I bulk cook some things in advance when I have time, like potatoes.

I cook up a batch, I usually boil them, sometimes roast, and then I use them throughout the week. I peel them and cut them in slices before frying them for a speedy hash with eggs. I fry the skins to make crispy potato skins which may become the centre of a dish or a lovely crisp garnish. I make potato cakes, gnocchi, croquettes. All of these things are speedy once your potatoes are already cooked. Recently, I have become a little obsessed with Mash Hash.

Miso beef cottage pie is every (good) cottage pie you have ever had but it is better. It is deeper and richer, and this is all achieved with the simple addition of a hero ingredient, miso.

You will know miso soup, made from dashi (a simple but full flavoured broth made from kelp seaweed and/or bonito flakes usually) and miso. Bear with me while I explain as cooking and food is so much easier when you know what things are and once a scientist, always a scientist, right?! Plus, it is so interesting and as always I will keep it simple.

Here is something light and bright for you, that is punchy enough in flavour to bring lots of joy to your January. Although this is not a penitent January dish. It is fabulous all year round and deserves celebrating. Humble ingredients are the best and they are so easily elevated.

Have you met my friend Gojuchang?

Gojuchang, if you don’t know it yet, is Korean fermented chilli paste and it is an absolutely sublime ingredient. Hot, deep and rich, it tells lies about your cooking. It tells that you have cooked things for longer than what you have and that everything is far more complicated than you know it is. You have to have it in your cupboard.

I returned to Ottawa this year to visit the Sparks Street PoutineFest. It was a joy of a trip (and you can read more about it here and here). As always, a little conversation goes a long way, and I am delighted to share this edited snippet from the episode of Fingers in Pies that I recorded there.

I was speaking to Hung Ha about their poutine and the festival when he mentioned that his family had been Vietnamese refugees with a dream of a new life and their own pho restaurant. I spoke to both Hung Ha at their food truck and his father Ha Van Trung at their Pho restaurant.

Fingers in Pies will be back weekly in the New Year and I have some exciting guests and plans. So watch this space, and for now, have a listen!

Fingers in Pies Podcast on Ottawa, Poutine and Pho – An Edited Excerpt

So, my parents are part of the Vietnamese boat people where they escaped the Vietnam War in 1982. The boat they were in landed in Hong Kong. They were there in a refugee camp there. We were very fortunate that Canada had a sponsorship program, and sponsored my parents over. They had a place to stay.

Continue reading

Jump straight to the Charred Sprouts with Smoky Piquillo Pepper Sauce, Almonds and Chorizo Crumb recipe

Get your sprouts out! I adore sprouts and especially these sprouts with chorizo crumb and smoky piquillo pepper sauce. It will be just perfect for your festive table.

I love my greens and clearly you do too, and sprouts get such stick but they can be fabulous. I have lots of ideas and I am going to get as many of them to you as I can before Christmas. So, get your sprouts out and let’s get started!

Dressing up your sprouts

Ottawa is the kind of city that I love to visit. With so much going on every day, it bustles and there is lots to do. Ottawa embraces the extreme seasons, with festivals and events all year round. I knew that it was Canada’s capital city and the seat of the Canadian government. What I didn’t know is just how fun and friendly it is, and how diverse the population is.

Ottawa is a perfect size for a short visit. Big enough to have lots going on and small enough to make it easy to hop from place to place. The diverse population means there are many interesting restaurants. I had one of the best bowls of Vietnamese pho that I have ever had (and I have had many!), wonderful Middle Eastern food, vibrant modern Canadian, afternoon tea in a beautiful ornate historic hotel, dinner at a famous Ottawa cookery school and restaurant and of course, I went back to their central food market downtown.

Dinner at Jackson (in the Ottawa Art Gallery)

My first bite in Ottawa on this trip was in Jackson. A gorgeous bright room fitting of its location with glorious high ceilings and enormous hanging ceiling lamps. It is named for the gallery’s extensive collection of works by Canadian Group of Seven member A.Y. Jackson (which you can view for free and which I did after my meal – you must!).

All aboard for the Sparks Street PoutineFest in Ottawa! An annual event celebrating the unofficial and super popular national Canadian dish, poutine. Not just a celebration of that most wonderful trifecta of fries, gravy and squeaky cheese curds, Sparks Street PoutineFest reaches beyond the plate. It is a superb reflection of Ottawa’s rich immigrant history and diverse food culture and all things Ottawa and Canada in terms of craft drinks and music. 

Let me count the ways I love poutine

Originally from Quebec, poutine has been embraced coast to coast. We can even get it here in London! Indeed, I have served my Irish take on it here. I have had lobster poutine on the east coast, complete with a gorgeous lobster gravy and poutine with slow-cooked ox cheek ragu in place of gravy on the west coast. I have been to Quebec and Montreal and had many poutines there, including, of course, the original. Sparks Street PoutineFest was about to blow my mind. 

Show me the curds

DO Cava and Cava Discovery Week sponsored this post.

I know you don’t need to have an excuse to have a Bubbly Brunch but when you have crisp fluffy smoked salmon waffles beside your gorgeous glass of aged cava, I don’t see how you can resist.

Cava: not just any sparkling wine 

Cava is an excellent wine choice. As with champagne, it is made in the traditional method and it is fermented and aged in bottle leading to some excellent wines.

Cava has a DO (denomination of origin) which means that it can only be made in specific areas, although 95% of cava is made in Penedès in Catalonia. Cava is made primarily with indigenous Spanish grapes, Macabeo, Parellada and Xarel·lo. Other grapes like chardonnay are also added at times.

Cava can be white or rosé and as part of the traditional method cava has two fermentations, the second being in bottle where it can also be aged. Reserva, Gran Reserva and Cava de Paraje wines are all aged high quality cava wines which you can enjoy in some terrific Spanish tapas bars and restaurants across the UK this week. 

Cava Discovery Week: 18-24 November

A heads up for you that my residency at fabulous Irish cocktail bar in Islington, Homeboy, is coming to a close this weekend. Do come, there are only 3 more days and 4 services:

Thursday 5pm – 10pm
Friday 5pm – 10pm
Saturday 12pm – 4pm (brunch menu)
Saturday 5pm – 10pm

And then that is it! 

I naively thought when I started that I could spend the mornings writing and working on my book, but I learned quickly that service is all-consuming physically and rest is required in between services. Services are long and really tiring. I have never done so much wash up! I have been running the kitchen solo, cook and KP.

It has been 6 weeks since I started and it has been a lot of fun and it has been really wonderful to meet many of you and feed you! Now, I need to get back to my desk. I adore cooking but I miss writing, and I need to publish that book, Bacon, now.

This is the second of two sponsored summer recipes that I developed with Parma Ham. Don’t miss the first one: Bream Ceviche with Parma Ham and Nectarines.

We have already spoken in depth about the meaty joy that is Parma Ham. Brief recap! Parma Ham is one of those products where you are gifted instant flavour, the work all being done by the producer before it hits your plate. It is preservative free, being just Pork + Air + Salt + Time and lessons learned from history and generations of prior producers. Parma Ham plays well with others and gifts instant depth of flavour to many things. It makes a lovely crisp jacket when you wrap other things in it, whether that is a bundle of green beans or asparagus, a lovely piece of fish or in this case pork belly.

Parma Ham is a perfect partner for pork belly

My pork belly obsession is well documented. It is a perfect roast, yes, especially when you roast it slow. It is brilliantly flexible beyond this though. I have taken to cooking smaller amounts of pork belly quicker with excellent results. This Parma Ham wrapped pork belly is a perfect example and it is so good. The ham keeps all the pork belly juices inside as it cooks, and gives it an extra deeply savoury layer.

On the side, as much as I love the humble spud and a slick plate of mash, I go for beans here. Beans also make great mash and they are especially nice for summer or Autumn. I like to use a plump butter bean (or better yet, Greek gigantes beans). Not only do they make a delicious mash, they make an instant one too. Protein rich with a hint of garlic and savouriness of rosemary. Those roasting juices from the pork belly wrapped with Parma Ham are sublime and elevate everything.

You can of course use a favourite chilli oil or one that you have at home. I provide a recipe for a simple one here flavoured with garlic and chilli. Play around, make a peppercorn oil, add herbs as it cools down (not at the beginning or they will burn). Homemade oils bring brilliant flavour. If you don’t want chilli make a simple herb oil by blending a flavourful herb (like oregano or basil) with some oil, allowing it to infuse and then pass it through a coffee filter or similar and you are good to go.

This is the first of two sponsored summer recipes that I developed with Parma Ham.

A ham sangwich (correct spelling!) was the frequent snack of many an Irish childhood. Especially at my Grandmothers when we would visit on St Stephen’s Day (aka Boxing Day). I knew that I would have to eat that ham in order to access some biscuits. As with most things, it was beautiful in its simplicity. Thick sliced bread, butter, home cooked ham, done.

My rural Irish childhood involved only Irish ham (which is of course very good). It was often home-cooked, thickly sliced, and sometimes pulled directly from the ham by my tiny enthusiastic hands. When I moved from rural Ireland to Cork city, I discovered a wonderful Italian deli (Iago’s), where I would become a regular. It was there that I discovered the joys of Parma Ham. I went through a phase of wrapping everything in it, and I still do sometimes today. I especially love it as a satisfying meaty snack for moments requiring instant gratification. 

Parma Ham, from the Belly of Italy 

Parma, the home of Parma Ham (and Parmiggiano Reggiano), is a small city in Emilia Romagna in Northern Italy. Emilia Romagna has a sublime food culture. Described as the belly of Italy (which gives some clue as to just how well you will eat there), Emilia Romagna is one of my most visited places (along with Rome). It is the home of many things, including my favourite Tagliatelle with Ragu and that gorgeous and very underrated wine, Lambrusco. Parma itself is a joy of a place to walk around with its winding streets lined by tall brightly painted old buildings.