Food 12: what I've been cooking
Uses for wild garlic, plus fennel, mussels, a fantastic condiment, 10-minute spicy potatoes and the easiest 2-step pudding
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Today’s newsletter was going to be about cooking outside - creating makeshift alfresco kitchens, uncomplicated things to make for long, languid lunches in in the garden, refreshing iced drinks, grilling and so on - but yesterday it was 8 degrees, so that particular newsletter is going to have to wait. Two more weeks, I reckon, by which time it will be May, the queen of months.
In my short breaks from glaring furiously at the weather, I have been making wild garlic omelettes. In the UK there is bound to be some wild garlic (ramsons) within striking distance of where you live - I once risked life and limb picking it from the giant traffic island at Highbury Corner. Here’s what to look for, though you’re hardly likely to mistake it for anything else because you can smell it a mile away.
It doesn’t like to be cooked for long. For the omelettes, I just made a 6-egg omelette and threw in a big handful of roughly chopped wild garlic, soft stalks and all, once the eggs were halfway there, i.e. not from the start. You could add asparagus, now in season, but I believe in the sanctity of solo asparagus.
I still had wild garlic, so then I made pesto with it - pine nuts (or use any nut you like), whizzed with Parmesan (or pecorino, cheaper), olive oil, and the wild garlic in lieu of basil. Here’s a proper recipe with quantities that adds chives and spring onion. I would call those highly optional - the garlic is plenty pungent enough.
Then with the last bit of wild garlic, I roasted a chicken, having chopped a little of the WG relatively finely, mixed it with softened butter and squished this under the skin (I find loosening the skin revolting - it’s one of the things that induces Strong Vegetarian Feelings - but in this case it’s worth it).
When the chicken was resting I scraped at the sticky bits in the roasting tin with a splash of vermouth (or use white wine), and added the remaining leaves to the pan juices and now-loose sticky bits along with a two tablespoons of cream. Strong recommend.
When I go and get more WG next week, I am going to add it to mussels steamed in white wine. Mussels sound like an effort but are so easy to cook provided you have a fishmonger nearby (buy mussels, rinse mussels, throw away any that are open and don’t close when you tap them sharply, yank off any beardy-looking materials, put mussels in your biggest pan with a glass of white wine and a chopped shallot, lid on, 3-4 minutes, ready. Recipes always say to scrape off the barnacles, but I don’t always bother - nobody is going to eat a barnacle by accident). You want 1kg for two normal people. Proper recipe here, just add WG.
Moules need frites I’m not sure if I’ve said this before, but M&S frites are the best frozen frites. I have done extensive research. Maybe wild garlic mayo to dunk them in?
In the absence of wild garlic, you can - and should - make all of these things with tarragon.
I ordered a ton of avocados from CrowdFarming. I find food trends absurd and will always love avocado toast, which brings me to this:
It’s crispy garlic, chopped roasted peanuts, gochugaru (mild Korean chilli flakes), sesame seeds, chillies, tamari and a bit of agave. I love it on steamed or stir-fried green veg - it’s particularly amazing on sprouting broccoli - but also on noodles, on steak, on fish, on eggs, on rice - it is delicious anywhere. It is so nice on avocado toast. Very useful thing to have in the fridge when all you can be bothered to make is super basic and plain.
Then I found some fennel in the fridge, not perky enough to slice (on my excellent mandolin that has never cut me) and have raw. There”s a recipe in one of the River Cottage books that I used to make all the time - unfortunately I can’t remember which book. Here’s how I did it last week. You need your largest frying pan and medium heat.
Sauté thinly sliced fennel in olive oil until it starts becoming soft, then add a couple of cloves of sliced garlic and sauté those too for a minute or two.
Add cherry tomatoes (I used a tin, without the juice) and anything from a teaspoon to a tablespoon of capers, depending on how much you like capers.
Leave it all to mingle for about 10 minutes, and then push the vegetables to one side to make a space.
Into this space goes a little more olive oil, then two chunky fish fillets - I’ve done it with salmon, cod and hake. Cook them for about 4 minutes on one side and 2 on the other, depending on thickness - it might be more like 6 and 3 (which is the rule - half the amount of time on the second side).
Put the fish on your plates and add about two dollops of creme fraiche to the pan, mix everything together, season, and have it on the side of the fish.
This was really nice to eat and felt seasonally appropriate - the suggestion of summer, from the tomatoes and capers, but enough satisfying heft to not feel like you were in denial about the weather. You could add black olives, too. I like these ones.
I also discovered half a bag of potatoes that needed using up. I’ve been making this on autopilot since I was about 18 - eat it with bought flatbreads and coriander chutney, or plain Greek yogurt into which you’ve grated half a clove of garlic.
Ignore the long-looking list of ingredients - they’re mostly spices you probably have at home and the method is INCREDIBLY EASY AND QUICK. Once you’ve boiled the potatoes, it takes under 10 minutes.
About 500g cubed potatoes (peeled)
sunflower oil
2 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp chilli powder
4 tsp cumin seeds
A few curry leaves, fresh great but frozen also fine
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground turmeric
fresh coriander
a lemon or two
Boil the potatoes in salted water until tender. Drain and leave in colander.
Heat some neutral oil, about two big glugs, in a big frying pan or wok.
Add the spices that are in bold above and stir fry for a minute or two on medium-high.
Add the spices that are in italics and the drained potatoes. Stir really well. Any potatoes you slightly break will turn into crispy bits, so that’s not an issue. Season. Stir-fry on high for 4-5 minutes. Turn the cooker off.
Stir in coriander leaves and lemon juice to taste. Be generous with both - it should taste perky.
Coriander chutney is equal amounts of coriander and mint, say 200g of each, whizzed with the juice of two fat limes, 2 seeded green chillies, 1 tbsp grated ginger, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1tsp mild chilli powder, salt, a tiny pinch of sugar and about 100g Greek yogurt. Thin with a little water if it’s too thick.
I made a pudding, which I don’t usually do, and I can’t urge you strongly enough to make Maunika Gowardhan’s ludicrously easy rose, cardamom and pistachio ice cream. You don’t need a machine and the recipe has only two steps. It’s just delicious, assuming you like those very perfumed flavours. More, you can turn it into kulfi if you use evaporated milk instead of condensed. I love the feeling of kulfi againt my teeth, so fudgy and dense. Anyway: make it. It’s so good and so easy.
In other food news:
Tonight I am making this recipe from Sue Quinn, who is brilliant at quick suppers and is now posting a recipe for one every two weeks.
The Guardian has a new food app called Feast and it is great. I’ve wondered for years why no UK newspaper had a food app. There’s a free trial, after which it’s £2.99 a month for recipes from Yotam Ottolenghi, Meera Sodha, Nigel Slater, Felicity Cloake (who is about to cycle and eat her way round the US), Rukmini Iyer and Rachel Roddy, among others.
I liked all this mango information (plus recipes) from Nik Sharma. I love proper mangoes - meaning not imposter supermarket ones - best in the world, specifically Alphonso mangoes, and they’re now in season and at your local Indian or Pakistani shop. You could make mango kulfi using the above recipe! Though it’s still very good using tinned mango pulp, also at your local shop.
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So do maybe consider a paid subscription. Either way, thank you very much for reading and have a lovely Sunday!
Made the fish and fennel …. Lovely 😋
I have purchased the peanut rayu and look forward to trying it! If you haven’t tried it I can’t recommend Laoganma crispy chilli oil enough. It’s a total game changer! Crispy! Salty! Sweet! Spicy!