Chippy Chips

If you could only eat one carb for the rest of your life, which one would it be?

Rice? Potatoes? Pasta? Bread?

It's a silly question, I know, but one which gets your brain whirring nonetheless. The sort you can ponder on and debate during long car journeys or late summer's evenings, sat outside in the dwindling heat with just one more glass of wine before bed. (A bit like our family discussions thrashing out choices for Desert Island Discs. Hours spent sat around the kitchen table considering the perfect balance of sentiment, memories, pleasure and exhilaration. My parents are just waiting for their invitation). 

Pilaf, sushi, paella, sticky rice, risotto, rice pudding, tah dig, jasmine rice. 

Baked potatoes, dauphinois, good old roasties, loaded skins, buttery mash, gnocchi, patatas bravas, potato cakes.

You get the picture (and I'm barely scratching the surface). Countless ways to serve each humble carb. 

I am undecided. My gut tells me it's rice. But the pleasure I get from baking and eating a loaf of sourdough is pretty insurmountable. Freshly baked, thickly sliced and dunked into a bowl of steaming hot soup. Or toasted, spread with good butter and marmite. What would you dip in your soup if you didn't have bread?

Noodles. NOODLES. What would I do without a bowl of steaming hot broth, noodles, greens and marinated tofu. My go to dinner on the rare occasion I'm eating alone at home. Restorative when I need a pick me up. Pho, ramen, laksa. These I am not sure I would wish to forgo forever. 

And yet, there is little so comforting, so homely and so satisfying as the humble chip. Chippy chips. Chippy chip shop chips. Piping hot, wrapped in paper, doused in salt and malt vinegar, and eaten on the leisurely amble home from the chippy. 

Proper, homemade chips. Perhaps not made in the old greasy chip pan like Dad did when I was growing up (and sadly cause of many a kitchen fire for some), but you know, fried. As they should be. There is whole nation of children growing up in the belief that chips are cooked in the oven. From the freezer or the M&S chilled cabinet and straight to a baking tray. 

Chips go with everything. My favourite comfort food growing up was Granny's cauliflower cheese (made with extra cheese) and chips. My boys like them with homemade fishfingers and obscene amounts of ketchup. I'm quite partial to them stuffed between two slices of well buttered white bread. But if you ask my friend Jassy, she'll tell you that chip shop chips are perfect with crab. Especially crab with cider, creamand herbs. 

Ingredients

500g Maris Piper potatoes

1.5 – 3 litres rapeseed oil*

Method

Peel the potatoes and put them into a bowl of cold water. 

Taking one potato at a time from the water, cut the potatoes lengthways into finger sized chips (approximately 1cm to 1.5cm diameter) and return them to the bowl of water. 

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Add the chips and simmer for 5 minutes (but no longer, otherwise they may begin to fall apart). Drain the chips and put them on kitchen paper until completely cool.

Fill your deep fat fryer to the maximum level with the rapeseed oil and heat to 130°C (the amount of oil you will need will depend on the size of your fryer – I have a mini one which only takes 1.25 litres - and fry in batches, if you have a large fryer you may need more oil so check the instructions).

Put the cooled chips into the basket of your deep fat fryer, lower into the oil and cook until a pale crust starts to form on the chips (about 7-8 minutes). Drain the chips and put them on fresh kitchen paper until completely cool. (If you want to get ahead, you can cook them up to this step and then leave in the fridge, covered, for up to 24 hours. Heston says 3 days, but I’m not so keen when they’ve been sat around that long and who has the self control to resist giving those chips their final fry for 3 days anyway?).

When you are ready to finish cooking the chips, heat the oil in your deep fat fryer to 180°C. Put the cooled chips into the basket of your deep fat fryer, lower into the oil and cook until golden and crispy (about 4-5 minutes).

Drain the chips on kitchen paper, put them into a serving bowl and sprinkle with plenty of good quality salt flakes.

*I use Waitrose Essentials vegetable oil, which is 100% rapeseed oil. Jassy uses groundnut oil for her chips (as does Heston). It does give a better flavour (and I think is better at this heat), but it is much more expensive. You can reuse the oil – once cool, drain it through a sieve into a suitable container and store in a cool place until you next make chips. Probably the next day.

Blood Orange, Fennel & Hazelnut Salad

On a grey and dank Winter’s day, when even the thought of waiting at a bus stop or standing in the playground whilst your toddler heads for his five hundredth go on the slide fills you with frostbite dread, this little salad is a shining beacon of lunchtime pleasure. Vibrant, tart and crisp. Everything a winter salad should be.

I am a little ashamed to admit that when I encountered a blood orange for the first time, it was not love at first sight. In much the same way as I have done with my boys in recent years, my Mum proffered this golden globe like a precious jewel to behold. A rare, seasonal treat, which undoubtedly cost her an arm and a leg, but which she was excited and happy to share with me.

I wasn’t a squeamish child, but I just could not see past the word ‘blood’. I truly believed that this precious orange had been tainted, so I failed to understand and share my Mum’s enthusiasm.

Making up for all those lost years I now gorge myself on them. Particularly Sicilian blood oranges which, for me, are the best. And what’s more, I don’t have to share. For now at least.

Ingredients

1 large bulb of fennel

4 blood oranges

40g good hazelnuts, toasted

¼ tsp Malden salt

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp cold pressed rapeseed oil*

Method

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the salt and lemon juice with a fork. Add the oil and whisk again. Set to one side. 

Remove the leafy fronds from the fennel and set to one side. Cut the fennel in half lengthways and then, using a sharp knife or a mandolin, slice the fennel as thin as you can. Put the sliced fennel into the bowl and turn well in the dressing.

Using a sharp knife, slice off the top and the bottom off one of the blood oranges. Sit the orange flat on a chopping board and remove the skin and pith by slicing the knife downwards between the flesh and the skin. Work your way around the orange until all of the skin and white pith has been removed and discarded. Set to one side and repeat with the remaining three blood oranges.

Slice the blood oranges through the centre into slices about ½cm thick. Roughly chop the toasted hazelnuts.

Arrange the dressed fennel on a serving plate and add the blood orange slices. Scatter the toasted hazelnuts and fennel fronds over the top. Serve straight away.

*If you have a bottle of good hazelnut oil, substitute 1 tablespoon of the rapeseed oil for hazelnut oil.

Winter Slaw (or the only way to eat red cabbage)

Red cabbage and sprouts. Two vegetables best eaten raw. 

After a childhood of sprout and red cabbage aversion (in which I am fully aware I am not alone) it was a revelation to discover that neither require nor, in my most humble opinion, benefit from cooking. 

Nine. That was the number of sprouts on my plate as a child. Nine. What sort of parents make their sprout-detesting child sit and look at nine whole sprouts? Mine. Although of course they'll laugh and dismiss the very idea if I ever mention it. I recall my attempts to disguise them from myself by smothering them in mashed swede (why sully a decent element of my roast dinner with the dreaded sprouts when I could combine two of the most revolting foods on my plate?). Luckily for me I had younger siblings who were rather partial to a sprout or two. So with a little distraction and the odd flick of a knife here and there, I managed to offload a few. The requirement to eat nine did eventually reduce to three. Three. Still three too many. 

The first time I willing ate, and (gasp) actually enjoyed, sprouts was with family in France last Easter. A simple salad of finely shaved raw sprouts, lemon, cheese and hazelnuts made by Lisa. I even had seconds. 

Red cabbage at its best

Red cabbage was no better. As a child I only ever knew it slowly braised with apple or pickled and served straight from the jar along side homemade shepherd's pie. (I'm guessing that's a northern thing). Pickled I could live with, crisp at least, even if the vinegar it was doused in was of the most mouth-stripping, astringent kind. But braised was up there with the worst of the over cooked sprouts. Slightly sweet, heady with clove and allspice. It has a bit of the marmites about it. Love it or hate it. 

A winter slaw is where red cabbage excels. I'm not overly fond of the traditional coleslaw. Vegetables which have spent too long languishing in a creamy, almost cloying, sauce made with excessive amounts of cheap mayonnaise. (Although that is not to say that a simple, well made celeriac rémoulade would be banished from my plate. An entirely different beast. Crisp celeriac given the briefest of introductions to lemon juice, Dijon mustard, good mayonnaise and a little natural yogurt. Perhaps tinged pink with grated beetroot stirred through moments before serving). 

When a red cabbage finds its way into my fridge it is for the sole purpose of making a salad. A crisp, colourful, wintery salad. Or three or four. It is a bountiful vegetable which keeps on giving, staying fresh long after the parsley has wilted, making this salad a great fridge foraged lunch.

You don't have to use the same ingredients every time, it really will depend on what is lurking in your fridge, but the crisper and more robust the better. Celeriac, beetroot, cabbage, kohlrabi… 

Winter Slaw

Ingredients

¼ tsp salt

juice ½ lemon

2 tbsp light extra virgin olive oil

1 carrot, peeled

¼ medium red cabbage

½ apple, core removed

½ pomegranate

2 or 3 mejool dates

small handful of flat leaf parsley leaves

Method

Begin by making the dressing. Put the salt and lemon juice into a medium sized bowl and whisk with a fork. Add the olive oil and whisk until combined.

You can use a mandolin to prepare the carrot, red cabbage and apple, or (like me) a chopping board and a big sharp knife. Julienne the carrot and finely slice the red cabbage. Add them to the dressing and stir well to combine.

Finely slice the apple (I like to leave the skin on) and add to the carrot and red cabbage before it has chance to start turning brown.

Remove and discard the stones from the dates and finely chop the dates. Remove the seeds from the pomegranate (I do this by holding the half a pomegranate over a bowl and bashing the skin side with a wooden spoon or rolling pin).

Add the dates, pomegranate seeds and flat leaf parsley to the slaw, stir and serve immediately. 

Winter Slaw

Carrot, Cashew & Apricot Stuffing Balls

Carrot, Cashew & Apricot Stuffing Balls

Never wishing to feel like I'm missing out, I have to admit to being a little miffed if Christmas Day comes around and I find that I have to forgo all of the trimmings. But stuffing is so versatile. It can easily be adapted to suit everyone.

These Carrot, Cashew & Apricot Stuffing Balls are crispy on the outside and soft in the middle. Lightly spiced, with little nuggets of sweetness from the dried apricots, they work as well with turkey or goose as they do with a vegetarian main course. In fact, I'd quite happily forgo the main event for a pile of these little morsels, roasties, buttered kale, honey and lime roasted parsnips and a huge jug of vegetarian gravy.

Carrot, Cashew & Apricot Stuffing Balls

They taste just as good cold the day after, so make sure there are plenty to snack on when Boxing Day comes around. And if you do have happen to have some leftover (or if you make a double batch) they make great snacks for children (and adults).

Carrot, Cashew & Apricot Stuffing Balls

To make this recipe vegan, replace the butter with olive oil and use your usual egg replacer instead of the eggs.

Ingredients

50g cashew nuts
25g unsalted butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, peeled and coarsely grated
1 tsp ground cumin
zest of 1/2 unwaxed orange
100g fresh breadcrumbs
50g dried apricots (about 8), chopped
1-2 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley
2 medium eggs, beaten
salt & black pepper (optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 190C (170C fan).

Put the cashew nuts on a small baking tray and roast in the oven for 8-9 minutes, until they are a light golden colour. This really enhances their flavour, so well worth doing. Remove from the oven, leave to cool and then roughly chop. If you are feeding babies or very young children, you can pulse the cashew nuts in a food processor until they resemble breadcrumbs instead of chopping them so there's no risk of choking.

Whilst the cashew nuts are in the oven, put a small frying pan over a medium heat. Add the butter. Once the butter has melted add the onion and turn the heat down a little. Cook for 7-8 minutes, stirring often, until the onion has softened and is beginning to turn golden at the edges. Add the grated carrot and continue to cook, stirring often, for a further 5 minutes, until the carrot has softened. Add the ground cumin and cook for a minute or two.

Transfer the onion and carrot mixture to a large mixing bowl and leave to cool.

Once cool, add the orange zest, breadcrumbs, chopped dried apricots, chopped flat leaf parsley, roasted cashew nuts and season (I don't add salt as I cook for young children and there is already salt in the breadcrumbs, but if you are cooking for adults you will probably want to add salt and pepper to suit your tastes). Stir well to combine.

Line a baking tray with non stick baking paper.

Add the beaten egg to the mixing bowl, a little at a time, and mix well (I use sourdough breadcrumbs which seem to need a little more egg to combine, but you may not need the full amount, so add gradually). Form the mixture into 9 balls, each about the size of a golf ball, and place them on the lined baking tray.

Put the baking tray in the oven and bake for 20 minutes, until the stuffing balls are golden and a little crispy at the edges.

Serve hot or cold. The stuffing balls can be made ahead, cooled and frozen. Defrost thoroughly and then reheat in a medium oven for 7-8 minutes, until hot.

Carrot, Cashew & Apricot Stuffing Balls

Caramelised Shallot & Chestnut Tarte Tatin with Spelt Olive Oil Pastry

Caramelised Shallot & Chestnut Tarte Tatin

Old recipes need to be revisited. Viewed afresh. Updated. There are new ideas and techniques. Ways to improve. Ingredients which have become more readily available. Others which are outdated or have fallen out of favour.

So this is my updated Caramelised Shallot & Chestnut Tarte Tatin. The perfect vegetarian and vegan centrepiece for Christmas dinner. I first wrote a version of this recipe back in 2009, having made it for Christmas dinner a few years earlier.  My Uncle John was visiting from Ireland for Christmas, an event in itself, which always involves much silliness, standing on chairs singing nursery rhymes and a vegan alternative to turkey for us all to share.

The original recipe (such as it was, made, eaten and enjoyed, but never written down) was vegan, but the pastry will no doubt have been made using White Flora, a white vegetable fat, which has long since vanished from shop shelves. Its closest dairy-free equivalent, Trex, is made from palm oil. Whilst it may make good pastry, I won't buy it. The same goes for the principal dairy-free ready made puff pastry on the market, Jus-Rol, or indeed anything containing palm oil. Its connection with rainforest deforestation, human rights violations, child labour and animal cruelty (to name but a few) is well documented. I'm with Joanna Blythman, journalist and author of Swallow This, when she says that going into 2017 it is time to abandon palm oil.

So this tarte tatin has a classy new pastry to be proud of. Rich and packed with fresh thyme, it is simple to make and work with. There's no need to be careful and light of finger when mixing the ingredients, and definitely no rubbing fat into flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. When dry ingredients meet wet ingredients, the pastry comes together in a matter of seconds. A vegan-friendly pastry recipe which uses olive oil instead of palm oil.

The combination of shallots, chestnuts and mushrooms is not a new one. Especially at this time of year, when they are all in season and at their best. Add a splash of madeira and plenty of fresh thyme and they taste so good.

Ingredients

For the pastry:

225g white spelt flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutritional yeast (optional)
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
75ml extra virgin olive oil

For the rest:

2 tbsp olive oil
500g shallots (about 400g peeled weight)
150g cooked, peeled chestnuts
100g chestnut mushrooms
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1 tsp muscovado sugar
1 tbsp madeira*
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Begin by making the pastry (this can be done up to 24 hours ahead). Put the flour, baking powder, salt, fresh thyme leaves and nutritional yeast (if using) into a large mixing bowl and whisk together with a balloon whisk. Add the olive oil and 70ml cold water. Using your hands, bring the ingredients together to form a rough ball. Knead lightly for a few seconds until the pastry is smooth.

Flatten the pastry out into a patty, wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes (longer if possible).

Whilst the pastry is chilling, prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Peel the shallots and slice any large ones in half lengthways. Clean the mushrooms by wiping them with a piece of kitchen roll, then trim off the stalks and cut into quarters.

Preheat the oven to 200C (180C fan).

Put a tarte tatin dish dish (20cm diameter) or an oven-safe frying pan of the same size over a medium heat. Add the olive oil, then place the shallots into the dish, cut side down (for those you have sliced in half). Cook for 10 minutes until the shallots are starting brown slightly. Add the chestnuts, mushrooms, thyme leaves and sugar, pushing the chestnuts and mushrooms down gently between the shallots. Cook for another 5 minutes, then add the madeira, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and cook for 2 to 3 minutes.

Remove the pastry from the cling film and place it on a lightly floured surface. Roll out, turning with each roll, until it is a rough circle measuring about 22cm in diameter. Using a pastry brush, brush a little oil around the inner rim of the tarte tat in dish, then careful lift the pastry over the shallot mixture, tucking it in, and any surplus pastry back on itself, to form a seal.

Bake for 30 minutes, until the pastry is a light golden colour.

Slide a knife around the edge of the pastry to loosen. Put a plate over the dish and then carefully tip the dish with the plate held firmly on top over so that the tarte tatin is sat shallot side up on the plate. Remove the dish. If any shallots decide to stick to the dish instead of the pastry, carefully lift them off the dish with a fish slice or spatula and put them back into position on the pastry.

I like to serve this with roast potatoes, buttered kale or cabbage and vegan gravy.

*not all brands of madeira are vegan-friendly, so if you are making this for someone who is vegan it is worth checking.

Wild Garlic Socca & Whipped Feta

Each year, as the vibrant green, pungent leaves start creeping onto menus and into recipes, I wonder why I didn't take my friend Danny up on his offer last year (and the year before, and the year before that…) of a clump of wild garlic from the bountiful supply in his garden. He's a dealer you see. If you need to get your hands on any of the green stuff, he's your man. But alas, I failed and my garden is ransom-free. 

I could take myself off foraging. I really could. Although that would probably involve levels of organisation which are a little beyond my abilities during the Easter holidays when my days are filled with giant cardboard structures, never ending stories of monstrous monsters made of slime, my 5 year old's new found love for knock knock jokes, dens, mud, sticks and endless cries of "book, now".

My first stash of the season came courtesy of Tim at Franklins Farmshop. I took it swimming with me. The aroma filling the changing room after half an hour in the pool may have gained me a few strange glances. Then Farmdrop came up trumps with the bounty, along with some other quite simply stunning vegetables and salads.

Farmdrop describes itself as being a bit like an online farmers market. A place where you can get delicious food and meet the local producers behind it. Farmdrop works in a different way to other online shops - rather than harvesting what is available and then selling it, the producers harvest, bake, catch once they have received your order. The result is fresher produce for you and no waste for them. Win win.

So, what to make once you get your mitts on some wild garlic? Well first up, I always replenish my stocks of wild garlic pesto and wild garlic oil (they keep brilliantly in the freezer). I also have my sights set on Fleur Bell's wild garlic & cheese scones which she baked for our last Band of Bakers event, seriously moreish. But what I'm making lots of right now, are these wild garlic socca.

Socca (or farinata) is a protein rich pancake made from chickpea flour. Naturally gluten free and dairy free its a great recipe to have up your sleeve if you are catering for anyone with food allergies or intolerances. Perfect for weaning babies and children as an alternative to bread or crackers, it can be used to dip, scoop or just eat as it is. I make it quite often for my boys (who are now 5 and 1).

In this recipe, the wild garlic gives the socca a gentle background flavour which works so well with the creamy whipped feta. I like to serve this for family lunch with some olives and sun blush tomatoes, but it would work just as well for pre-dinner nibbles or as a starter.

The lovely folk at Farmdrop are offering you £20 off a £40 shop if you would like to try them out for yourselves. All you have to do is place an order for £40 or more before the end of April and use the code REVOLUTIONGINGER at checkout to receive the discount. This offer is valid for one shop only until 30th April 2016.

Ingredients

For the whipped feta:

150g good feta

75g cream cheese

25-50g natural Greek yogurt

freshly squeezed juice of 1/2 lemon

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (plus extra to serve)

For the socca:

200g gram flour

1/2 tsp salt (optional)

2 tbsp olive oil

350ml cold water

a large handful of wild garlic, washed and finely sliced
oil for frying (I use groundnut)

Method

Begin by making the batter for the socca. Put the gram flour, salt (if using) and olive oil in a bowl and whisk in the cold water until you have a thin batter with no lumps. Put to one side.

To make the whipped feta, break the feta into chunks, place in a food processor and blitz until broken down. Add the cream cheese, half of the greek yogurt, lemon juice and olive oil and continue to blitz until smooth, adding the rest of the yogurt if the mixture is a little too thick (I find that the consistency of cream cheese and greek yogurt can vary quite a bit depending on the brains you use, so for a firmer whipped feta to use as a dip, you may not need all of the yogurt). Keep the whipped feta covered in the fridge until ready to serve.

When you are ready to make the socca, put a small frying pan over a medium heat. Stir the wild garlic into the socca batter. Put a little oil in the base of the frying pan (I do this by pouring about a tablespoon of oil into the frying pan, swirling it around and then pouring it into a little heatproof bowl. Then before frying each socca, I used a wad of kitchen roll to wipe the remaining oil around the base of the frying pan). Pour a ladle-full of batter into the frying pan and swirl around to cover the bottom, as you do when making a pancake. Fry for 2 minutes on each side, or until golden brown and beginning to crisp at the edges. They are ready to eat straight away, or can be made ahead and then put into the oven (180 C / 160 C fan) for 5 minutes to reheat.

How much batter you will need depends on the size of your frying pan and how thick you would like your socca to be. I like to make them quite thin for this recipe so that my boys can spread them with the whipped feta and roll them up if they want to, but you may prefer a thicker, more robust socca to scoop the whipped feta up with.

Serves 4 as a light lunch or 6 as a starter

After writing up this recipe I opened up my brand new copy of Alice Hart's fantastic book, The New Vegetarian to find a similar recipe for wild garlic chickpea pancakes - great minds and all that…

I received a voucher worth £50 from Farmdrop to test out their online shop.