Jump straight to the Gojuchang Mussels with Cider, Cream and Wild Garlic Recipe

That does seem like a long list for a lockdown recipe, but this is fast and it is flavour packed. I have found that I haven’t really had to change much in terms of how I cook. I always cook from my store cupboard anyway, and nothing here is complex. There are 13 years of recipes to explore here too, don’t forget that! 

Gojuchang is one of my favourite ingredients and it comes into its own in lockdown. It adds fierce depth and heat in an instant to anything, lending the time used in its long fermentation to anything we cook it with now. And it goes with everything. There is nothing gojuchang doesn’t like. Or at least, I have yet to find it. Continue reading

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.  Continue reading

Tofu! Now some of you are going to read that and think, WHAT?! TOFU?! Yes, tofu. Why? It is horribly underrated and completely delicious. Once you get the real thing. Tofu is thought of as a vegetarian or vegan ingredient, and yes it is, but in Asia it is as common to see it in a dish with meat, as not. See my recipe for Kimchi Jjigae (Korean Kimchi, Pork & Tofu Stew) for a very tasty example of this.

Tofu is also a fast food. The fastest, it is already good to go. It soaks up flavours and loves contrasting textures. I love it in a crispy fritter for brunch as much as I do in a stew. I love proper silken tofu, fresh from fridges of Asian food shops (especially Japanese). Silken is a joy, the very good stuff has the texture of custard. All of it is sublime when fried, and I have fried tofu every which way. A firm – nay, wobbly – favourite is Agedashi Tofu. 

Agedashi Tofu – Fried Tofu with Dashi!

A Japanese delight of a dish, age-dashi means fry-dashi and that is what this is, fried tofu with a seasoned dashi broth. Seasoned with soy and mirin (you can use sake too). It is naturally gluten free, usually using potato starch or corn starch. I love to use potato starch for this, it confers a stretchy crispness which is perfect with the wobbly tofu underneath. I sometimes mix the potato starch with rice flour, and of course you can just use rice flour too which will give a lovely crisp coating. Continue reading

Jump straight to the Cod Cheeks and Clams in a Tomato, Basil and White Wine Broth Recipe.

Simplicity is the key for me in cooking at home. Good ingredients, cooked well, often quickly. I have lots of store cupboard ingredients. There is always chorizo, a cupboard full of a variety of pasta shapes, noodles and rice. Lets call it the carb cave (and I LOVE my carbs). But often on a hot day I want simple seafood flavoured with fresh herbs and other bright ingredients. 

My original plan was to make the squid stuffed with beef and chorizo that I told you about in my last post. I am so keen to share that one with you soon. But, alas, there was no squid to be had. There was a bounty of cod cheeks, gorgeous delicate morsels of cod meat. There are many reasons to love these, they are delicious, and there isn’t even any chopping to do, they are all bite size. They are usually cheaper too, in this case they were half the price of the clams.

A Perfect Healthy Speedy Supper

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Jump straight to the Potsticker Sausage and Kale Dumpling Recipe.

What is it about dumplings that makes them so irresistible? Silky carbs enclosing gorgeousness, what is not to love?! 

I make dumplings more than is reasonable. Often I make the wrappers myself, it is worth the effort and is somewhat soothing when there is time. There are several recipes on the blog for dumplings already including wrappers (like this Beef & GInger Jiaozi recipe). I do use store bought wrappers too though, which do the job quite well (shop around as they vary), especially when pressed for time or on the road.

Making Handmade Chinese Style Dumplings

For now lets focus on Chinese style dumplings. Chinese style because they look like them and are most certainly inspired by them, but inside the filling for this dumpling is very Irish. Sausage dumplings are something that I have made for a while. I love Irish sausages so much that I had to make them with those, mixed with a little gorgeous kale to loosen the sausage mix and add texture and flavour.  Continue reading

Jump straight to Seaweed Cornmeal Soda Farls recipe

I love soda farls. Speedy Irish soda bread cut into triangles and fried, quicker than the time it would take to go to the shop for bread. And SO fresh. As the name implies, the bread is raised with soda (bicarbonate of) as opposed to yeast, the bicarbonate triggered by the acidity of buttermilk.  I have played around with the recipe many times in the past, making black pudding soda farls, bacon soda farls, and farls with spring onions and herbs. These new versions are my current favourite. 

Buttermilk can be difficult to source here, real buttermilk at least. In Ireland it is sold in the milk fridge in most shops, even small ones, in litre cartons the same size as milk. Here in the UK, it is more likely to be sold in a small cream carton, if you can find it. No need to worry though, it is easy to replicate it by souring some milk with yogurt, or a squeeze of lemon. Dairy free? No problem either. In fact these farls are dairy free as I am currently on a medical exclusion diet (the details of which are too boring for here). I used coconut milk with a generous squeeze of lemon. The coconut milk replicates the texture of the buttermilk perfectly when diluted down a little with the lemon, and the farls don’t taste remotely coconut-y. Perfect. You can also substitute a good almond milk, or any other dairy free milk of your choice.  Just don’t forget the lemon.  Continue reading

Jump straight to Cucumber, Avocado and Basil Soup. 

What do you think of cold soups? Some people absolutely rage against them, don’t they? But they can be so good. Gazpacho? CHECK. Aja Blanco? Hells YES. That delicious confection of almonds, raw garlic, extra virgin olive oil and sherry vinegar, with green grapes halved on top to finish. And of course, vichyssoise, aka wonderful leek and potato soup. We usually eat it hot here, but the tradition in France is to have it cold and it is gorgeous. 

It isn’t hot I know, at least it feels cool at 22 deg C with a breeze. My internal thermostat was forever reset by those days early in the summer in the mid 30’s and a few days over 40 in Ottawa in June. Yet, I wanted something cooling, and my friend, who is ill with a poorly intestine did too. 

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Sounds dreamy doesn’t it? And it was. Perfect for a sunny afternoon. It comes together quickly and it is as pretty as a picture. Any edible flowers will do and there are many. If you don’t already have a nasturtium plant I heartily suggest that you procure one. They grow easily, need little space and they are productive. Flowers and leaves taste and look great (a little peppery), and there are lots of different colours, mainly cheerful shades of orange, yellow and red. When they go to seed, you can treat the seed pods as capers, and pickle them. Here I use nasturtium, both flowers and leaves, but also cucumber flowers (a real garden treat, gentle and tasting of cucumber) and joyful chicory flowers.  Continue reading

Socca is a wonderful thing. So easy to make, and very delicious. Using chickpea flour it is also gluten free. This recipe whisks me back to Nice, to a summer there when I was 19. It was only my second summer away from Ireland, my first trip abroad ever I had spent on a farm outside an idyllic looking English village outside Canterbury picking apples. I say summer, it was 3 weeks and a brief trip to London after, but it allowed me to peek at the possibilities available to me and dream of a travel filled future. The following year, after 1 year in university, I headed to Nice for the summer. 

Nice was a whole different thing. I lived in a small studio apartment not far off the Promenade des Anglais (a boulevard bridging the city and the bright blue sea). I worked in a market in the evening, wandering during the days, loitering in bookshops and anywhere I found interesting. I read biology texts in French to try and develop my language skills (I was studying for my degree in Biology at the time). I read and I walked and I swam in the salty Mediterranean Sea. I burned my feet on the stones on the beach and I jumped from one stone to another to reach the sea before discovering that I would be spectacularly out of my depth after a couple of feet. I worked from 5 until midnight every day, every week, and then I went for pizza most days with friends that I had made there after we finished. I discovered jugs of rosé, pizza with thin gorgeous ham and bottles of chilli oil hiding sprigs of rosemary and dried chillies.   Continue reading

Have you been worried about your blue cheese? Lonely there on your Christmas cheeseboard. Every other cheese has a partner, and blue cheese does love a date (literally, especially medjool ones). Manchego has membrillo, cheddar has apple, there will likely be grapes, lots of crackers, and this year you want something different for your blue.

I adore a brash blue cheese, as strong as you can. Hello English Stichelton! The original stilton recipe, still raw and untempered. I especially love a sweet soft and strong sheep’s blue, like French roquefort and Irish crozier blue. A good blue deserves a bold relish. Nothing ordinary, something bright, something tangy, something that can stand up to the intensity.

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Courgette flowers continue to be a joy. Cheering my mornings with their generous wide open petals reaching for the sky with happy abundance. Greeting bees and then once the bees have had their turn, they come into the kitchen for me. Such a versatile ingredient, cooked until wilted just so and still retaining texture, they taste a little of courgette and mostly of themselves. Continue reading

The food inspired by hunger, a lack of time and what is available is often the best. Sometimes that is how I come up with my most interesting recipes. Like today.

There is something about a crispy egg with a runny yolk. And what is the point of a runny yolk if you don’t have something gorgeous to drag through it? Something that will grab on to it and greedily try and entice some of that yolk and pull is with it as it is dragged through. The crispy egg was the first thing I craved as I was at my desk this morning.

Pasta. Good pasta. In this case a spiral noodle extricated using a bronze die so it has a firm grip and superb texture. I just know that the bends in it will show that egg yolk who is boss, but what to have with the pasta?

I thought herbs, and contemplated sage. Something fragrant and light. But then I remembered the feisty ‘nduja lurking in my fridge waiting for its moment. Firey and rich, a Calabrian spreadable sausage made with pork, hot Calabrian chillies and lard. So good. And perfect for this dish. ‘Nduja makes an instant sauce, is wonderful to boost a tomato sauce, and is perfect just on bread, or fried with some seafood like scallops or prawns.

This is easy and speedy and the best reward for 15 minutes work. Make it and enjoy it. And be prepared to make more immediately after.

Note: feel free to substitute spaghetti or linguine. I used Iberico lard as a cooking fat because I had it and I love it, I encourage you to seek it out. But also feel free to substitute with any other fat (butter, oil). Lard is misunderstood and is not unhealthy when used in small amounts. It is a real food, it isn’t processed, and it is a wonderful base oil for cooking. The best savoury pastries are made with lard too. If you can’t find ‘nduja (you should be able to source it online), substitute with chorizo, and chop it small.

Serves one hungry person – takes 15 minutes – prepare to make more immediately after.

Yes, feta dip. All your problems solved. Salty and sweet. The perfect weekend indulgence for when the weather is just being a pain outside. Crackers, feta dip, juicy pop-sweet tomatoes. Are you ready?

This is so very easy. All it is is a little single cream (or heavy cream if you are stateside), some cream cheese, and then the bulk of it is feta, proper feta from Greece. None of that fetta or anything that looks like feta but isn’t. Real feta is protected and nothing else can be called feta, that is f-e-t-a.

Feta is made from sheep’s milk, or sheep and goat’s. Never with cows. If there is cow milk in there, it is not the real deal. You want real feta for the sweetness and richness of the sheep’s milk which is brilliant with the salty brine. I thought I didn’t like feta until I went to Greece when I was a student, all I had had before then was the weird inferior stuff with the odd taste.

You can of course just shovel whipped feta into your carcass but it is a little better and nicer with gorgeous lightly roasted tomatoes. Staying Greek, I roasted them with oregano, a small pinch of salt (the feta is salty enough) and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Some crackers as a delivery vehicle work perfectly, as does toast. Anything really, but try to get something that isn’t flavoured or salty if you can. There is enough salt and flavour here and you want to focus on that.

Whipped feta with roast tomatoes, oregano and mint

Recipe: Whipped Feta with Roast Tomatoes, Oregano & Mint

Ingredients

200g feta
75g cream cheese
50ml single cream (heavy cream)
a handful of gorgeous small tomatoes
1 tsp good dried oregano
1 tsp fresh mint
extra virgin olive oil
freshly cracked black pepper

crackers or similar to serve with

Method

Preheat your oven to 18 deg C. Put the tomatoes, oregano and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil in an oven proof tray. Roast for about 10 minutes until just squishy.

While the tomatoes are roasting prepare your dip. Whip the cream first, then combine the feta and cream cheese separately in a blender, then fold the cream in with a spoon.

Serve with the tomatoes on top and a little fresh mint and black pepper.

Enjoy!

I adore a spiced breakfast. I indulged as much as I could in Malaysia recently, from curries to laksa to curry mee to nasi lemak to roti canai with dal. When I am in Asia, breakfast is my favourite meal. It has so much flavour, so much variety and is always an adventure.

I love a good dal, an Indian spiced lentil soup, cooked until tender but still with texture, just so. Mostly lentils, sometimes beans, my favourite is made with the small moong dal. A bowl of sunshine, dal is bright and cheerful with turmeric, a culinary equivalent of the best duvet on a cold night. On top, spice dancing on tip toes, some herbs, whatever I have got. This is called the tarka (or tadka), the spice mixture that gives dal character and zing. And in my experience, while it is great to be authentic, variety is very interesting here, the dal can take any flavour.

I sometimes add ginger and garlic to my spices for an extra flavour punch, I sometimes add an egg for more body and sustenance (usually boiled until soft, halved and served on top). Today I kept it very simple, some nice dried chillies with just enough heat and rehydrated a touch, some brown mustard seeds, some small tomatoes, fried quickly, just enough to absorb the spice flavour and soften a bit and curry leaves, cooked until just starting to crisp and so fragrant.

There is lots of mixed advice as to when you salt a dal and as to whether you should soak it first. Soaking isn’t essential but it does save on cooking time and results in a speedy soft dal. I salt a little at the start, and add turmeric then too, but I season to taste properly at the end. Some say that salt can toughen the pulses, but this hasn’t been my experience, and I like the dal to take up a little seasoning as it cooks.

Notes on the recipe: Moong dal is widely available in supermarkets, Indian food shops and online too. Curry leaves are widely available in London, I can get them in my local supermarket. If you can’t get them, you could try dried online, which still have great flavour. Or substitute and entirely different but suitable flavour, fresh coriander. This is incredibly good value and a great comfort eat. Enjoy!

Recipe: Dal with Curry Leaves, Mustard, Chilli & Tomato

Serves 2 generous portions or 1 person on repeat for a day (yup – that was me!)

Ingredients

Dal

200g moong dal (small yellow lentils, larger chana dal will work fine too)
1 heaped tsp turmeric powder
sea salt to taste

Tarka

2 tbsp brown mustard seeds
12 good small tomatoes halved or quartered depending on how small they are
a handful of curry leaves, removed from the stem
chilli of your choice, finely chopped (seeds in or our, up to you, depending on how hot you like it)
ghee or butter or coconut oil (coconut oil is a great substitute for lactose intolerants and vegans, I quite like the flavour)

Method

If you have time, soak the moong dal with the turmeric and a little salt in about twice their volume of water. If you don’t, don’t worry, it will just take a little longer to cook.

Bring the dal to a boil over a medium heat. Reduce to a simmer and cook until tender and soft. Season to taste.

Melt your fat of choice for the tarka and add the mustard seeds, chilli and curry leaves and cook over a medium heat for a couple of minutes. Add the tomatoes for a final couple of minutes and serve on top of the dal, which should still be nice and hot.

Enjoy!

I love me some beans, I can’t get enough of them. It shocks people often to discover that I used to be vegetarian (WHAT?!), but you know, I was worried about industrial farming (I still am), and my degree studies were in physiology, including anatomy, which involved human dissection. Yes, HUMAN dissection. I went home one evening after an anatomy dissection, cooked some chicken and thought that it all looked too similar, the flesh and the fibres (sorry, but it is true), my stomach turned and that was that, for a long while. Then as the farmers market movement took hold properly, and people and even supermarkets started to become more concerned about meat and meat sourcing, I came back on board.

These years of vegetarianism taught me a lot. I explored pulses, vegetables, herbs and spice. I learned how to add flavour without adding meat, and I resurrected my university nutrition studies to ensure that I was eating nutritionally balanced meals. I studied more, I learned about new and exciting ways that I could eat. I devoured cookbooks, I obsessively read online. I fell in love with pulses, completely. All sorts of beans and lentils, I would fill my suitcase with bean shaped curiosities from everywhere that I travelled and bring them home.

One place I have yet to travel to is Egypt, but I have explored the food in London and in my own kitchen. One of my favourite discoveries when I first moved to London was the wonder of a bowl of ful medames (always spelled in a myriad of ways like dal|dahl|dhal!), a beautiful breakfast dish of small ful beans (dried baby broad beans), gently spiced and cooked for hours with garlic and eggs boiled within, which are served on top. I used to eat it all the time and made it my mission to perfect it at home. I think I feel a post coming on!

Dried broad beans are a superb ingredient. I loved how they cook them in Puglia, until soft and served as a gorgeous dip rich with local olive oil and mountain oregano, ripe for you to drag some crusty bread through. I brought lots home, but I buy them in local Turkish shops too. Jane Baxter, the originator of this falafel recipe, highly recommends British grown organic beans from Hodmedods, who sell them online too. You need these unassuming beans in your life, I promise you.

Which leads me on to what exactly an Egyptian falafel is. It is a falafel shaped from broad beans with spices, herbs and other joy, coated with sesame seeds. A lovely alternative to the chickpea falafel we all know so well. The falafel recipe is adapted from Jane Baxter & Henry Dimbleby, and it has a lovely story associated too (see after the recipe).

Have you got a favourite falafel recipe or story? I have many! I used to live on them when I was fresh out of university and living in Amsterdam. Another day for those, but tell me yours!

Recipe adapted from Jane Baxter and Henry Dimbleby on The Guardian. Jane serves it with different sides, and there is a lovely story attached to how they sourced it too.

Sometimes the world is with you, and sometimes it is not. Equally sometimes your fridge is with you, and sometimes it is not. Sometimes your fridge can be a nasty twisted beast. Last week when I came home from France to discover that my fridge had been off all weekend, well that was a moment where my fridge was being a poison troll. Today, when I shuffled through it and put together the makings of lunch, it was definitely trying to make amends.

In university a friend used to call me MacGyver, not because I sported an awesome mullet or because I had impressive skills where I could construct something brilliant, unexpected and absolutely required at that instant in time with just a piece of chewing gum and any-other-thing, but because she believed that I could tackle a kitchen with hardly anything in it and make something good to eat. I have always loved a cupboard forage and it is exactly this MacGyver skill level that brought lunch to my door this lunchtime. Continue reading

I woke this morning feeling so tired but quite chirpy. I want to start the week well. It could be that spring is coming and I can feel it in my bones, and see it in the sky. Maybe it is the lovely weekend that I just spent in Lapland, the people I met, and the huskies, reindeer and general gorgeousness. Lately, I am increasingly aware of time, how precious it is, and how much I want to do. Our lives are in our hands, right? It sounds so simple, but like all simple things, it can be difficult to realise and implement.

The last 18 months have presented many challenges and I have felt overwhelmed and swept away at times. My Dad passing away, of course, this takes time to absorb and heal. The mammoth project that Project: Bacon turned out to be (my bacon opus is nearly there now, I am very pleased to reveal), and my responsibilities to my wonderful backers has been a huge part of this. I feel each disappointment keenly as they wait and I am further delayed. Life can kick and tease but it can also take your hand and dance with you. I want to do more dancing, and in colour. Continue reading

Fuchsia Dunlop’s Spicy Peanut Butter Noodles with Prawns

Convenience isn’t always about using your store cupboard bits and bobs. Convenience, for me, is often about avoiding leaving the house. I know. I live in a big city about 10 minutes walk away from a supermarket and 2 minutes from a reasonably stocked corner shop, but some days I am so deep in cabin fever / cosy / lazy / attached to my pjs, I will do anything to just stay indoors.

So, if I want a sandwich I may delay it so that I can bake the bread. Yes, I do that. Not often, but I do. That is also because I can’t stand the really processed stuff and the bakery is, well, 10 minutes away, but you know, I don’t want to leave the house (and I like baking). Or, if I need peanut butter to cook someone else’s store cupboard supper, I will make it at home rather than walk 2 minutes to the corner shop. The result is a much better peanut butter and the effort is not too great.

If you work from home (all the time, not just occasional days), you will understand this sophisticated form of cabin fever. When working from home I hold myself captive, until it spirals out of control and then I become a little weird and try to arrange everything so that it happens within a few metres of my living room. I need to get an office, with a kitchen, can someone arrange that, please?

Back to that peanut butter. Yesterday was OFM Sunday, and this months issue had a lovely feature on store cupboard suppers. Continue reading

Hot Wings with Blue Cheese Sauce (Recipe)

Some days demand chicken wings. Today is one. The best bit of the chicken for snacking on, the skin to flesh ratio being somewhere in the region of can-solve-most-of-lifes-problems, chicken wings are also very reasonable. Even in my local posh butcher, a kilo of lovely free range wings costs just over £5.

Everyone should have a recipe for hot wings in their repertoire. So easy and so gorgeous, spiked hot crisp wings dipped into a soothing cool blue cheese dip is all that you have ever wanted after a bad day. Or any day. Frank’s Louisiana Hot Sauce is what makes the wings sing, you could make your own, and it is the kind of thing that I often do, but in this case, truly, Frank’s have done all the work and made a great sauce. So, like every other hot wing fanatic on the planet, I use that.

They take little work. I roast the wings until the skin is just crisp, prepare the hot sauce which takes, oh, 2 minutes, then douse the wings in the sauce before returning to the oven for a little bit. Then I prepare the dip, which again is very complicated, ridiculously easy, a mish mash of strong blue cheese with natural yogurt, blended until they yield, and embrace each other.

Easy, and perfect for January blues, right? Enjoy.

Recipe: Hot Wings with Blue Cheese Sauce Continue reading

Homemade Salmon Tacos

It won’t surprise you, but I don’t do dry January. Nor do I do diets. I reign myself in, become a little more pragmatic and try and restore balance by eating a little lighter but still in normal amounts. Or rather, I start eating normal amounts. Replacing sour cream with yogurt. Eating more fish and less meat. A bit more salad. Lots of avocados. Frying less, although still a little. Lighter Brighter cooking is what I shall call it. It is all about being aware that every little bit makes a difference but not killing the enjoyment of it. Food is sustenance and a source of great pleasure. The key to health is home cooking, moderation and exercise. And good sleep.

With diets, I think a lot of people feel better not because they have cut out a food group (don’t get me started), but because they have started paying attention to what they eat, and what they cook. One very big thing is cutting out processed food. Some go from not cooking at all to eating predominantly home cooked food. I bet that if you speak to a lot of very successful dieters, you will discover that they transitioned from not really thinking about what they ate to being a lot more considerate about what they cooked, and eating less processed food. They almost certainly exercised a lot more.

The reality (certainly for me) is that even when you think about what you cook (and I do a lot), it doesn’t mean that you are necessarily eating well. But when you do think about it from a health perspective, and start to feel the benefits of Lighter Brighter cooking, when you can see exactly what you are eating, not through a film in a plastic tray spinning around in a microwave, but because you have cooked it and see just how much of everything has gone in, that is empowering. When you cook, you can also adapt your recipes to make them lighter and no less delicious.

Enter salmon tacos. I am lucky that I live near a great fishmonger (and I have a great butcher too). Last Saturday I went late and there was not much left, but there was some lovely salmon. I did two things with it it, a teriyaki (a simple combination of 50ml soy sauce & 50 ml mirin with 1 tsp of honey, reduced by half over a medium heat, and then used to glaze a just-cooked piece of salmon, delicious) and also some lovely light salmon tacos. Continue reading