This classic mixture of greens, eggs, cream and bacon comes from Leon Family & Friends by cookery writer Kay Plunkett-Hogge and John Vincent, co-founder of the Leon chain of restaurants.
Serves 6–8
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 50-60 minute
Ingredients
For the pastry
250g plain flour
125g unsalted butter, straight from the fridge, diced
A pinch of sea salt
Small glass of iced water
For the filling
70g lardons or chopped bacon
1 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, finely sliced
100g chard leaves or kale, shredded
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
200ml double cream
100g gruyere cheese
1–2 sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves picked
Salt and black pepper
Method
Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. Butter a 23cm non-stick tart tin with a removable base.
Measure out the flour into a large bowl and add the butter. Start rubbing the flour and butter together until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the salt. Then add the iced water, 1 tsp at a time, until the pastry just comes together. Don’t add too much water or you’ll get a hard pastry.
Roll it into a loose ball and, using your fingertips, gently push the dough into the tart tin, easing it around until it evenly covers the base and sides. Cover the whole thing with greaseproof paper and weigh it down with some baking beans, then blind bake it in the oven for 10 minutes.
Over a medium heat cook the lardons or chopped bacon in a frying pan for about 5 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Wipe out the pan then return it to the heat and add the oil and garlic. Fry for a minute or so – don’t let it colour too much – then add the chard and a pinch of salt, and cook until just wilted. Remove from the heat, set aside and leave to drain in a colander. When cool, squeeze out any excess liquid.
Take the tart shell out of the oven. Carefully remove the greaseproof paper and the baking beans, and pop it back into the oven for another 5 minutes to crisp up.
In a clean bowl beat the eggs, egg yolk, cream, salt and pepper with an electric whisk. Stir in the gruyere and the thyme leaves and season with salt and pepper.
Remove the tart shell from the oven. Scatter the chard across the base. Sprinkle the bacon bits in then pour in the cream and egg mixture. Bake the tart in the oven for 30–40 minutes until the filling has puffed up and the pastry is a lovely golden brown.
Or Baghari phool gobi – from Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery (the book of the BBC series). This is delicious on its own with rice or jacket potatoes, or served as a side dish with pretty much anything.
Serves 6
Preparation time: 40 minutes (including 30 minutes soaking time)
Cooking time: 10-15 minutes
Ingredients
1 large cauliflower
7 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tsp whole fennel seeds
1 tbsp whole black mustard seeds
1 tbsp very finely chopped garlic
¼ tsp ground turmeric
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
1½ tsp salt
4 tbsp water
Method
Cut the cauliflower into delicate flowerets – no longer than 5cm, no wider at the head than 2cm inch and about 1cm thick. Put them into a bowl of water for at least half an hour. Drain them just before you get ready to cook.
Heat the oil in a large 25-30cm frying pan over a medium flame. When hot, put in the fennel and mustard seeds. As soon as the mustard seeds start to pop, put in the finely chopped garlic. Stir and fry until the garlic is lightly browned. Add the turmeric and cayenne. Stir once and quickly put in the cauliflower, salt, and about 4 tbsp water. Stir and cook on medium heat for 6-7 minutes or until cauliflower is just done. It should retain its crispness and there should be no liquid left. If the water evaporates before the cauliflower is done, add a little more.
If your frying pan is smaller than the suggested size, the cauliflower will take longer to cook. In that case, it might be a good idea to cover it for 5 minutes.
This quick stir-fry side dish is adapted from a couple of Thai-style recipes for oriental leaves. The fish sauce will provide enough salt, so you shouldn’t have to add any extra.
Serves: 2
Preparation / cooking time: 10 minutes
Ingredients
1 bunch mizuna / mibuna, about 300 gm
2 cloves garlic
thumb-sized knob of ginger
2 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoon fish sauce (nam pla)
1/4 lemon, fresh
freshly ground black pepper
Method
Wash and drain mizuna / mibuna. Roughly chop into 1-inch segments and set aside. Finely chop the garlic and shred the ginger into matchstick-like strips.
Place a wide and shallow pan or a wok over a high heat. Add the two tablespoons of oil, then the garlic and ginger and toss around until golden.
Add the greens to the wok or pan and stir fry for one minute, stirring constantly. The leaves should soften but remain crisp. Add the fish sauce and stir, then sprinkle with freshly-squeezed lemon juice and black pepper. Serve warm or tepid.
A recipe from Lucas Hollweg’s Good Things to Eat. Make sure the leeks are totally soft before you add the mussels, he advises.
Serves 4 as a first course, 2 as a main
Preparation: 20 minutes
Cookings: 15 minutes
Ingredients
4 rashers streaky bacon, sliced into 5mm strips
a couple of good knobs of butter
1 medium leek, white and pale green only, sliced
2 garlic cloves
2 bushy sprigs of thyme
125ml dry white wine or dry cider
1kg mussels, debearded and scrubbed
freshly ground black pepper
a handful of fresh tarragon leaves, chopped
5 tbsp double cream, if you like
Method
In a large saucepan, fry the bacon with a knob of butter for a minute or two, then add the remaining butter and turn the heat down to low. Stir in the leek, garlic and thyme, cover with a lid, and sweat gently for 5-6 minutes, or until softened but not brown.
Add the wine and mussels, season with pepper, then cover and turn up the heat. Give the pan a vigorous shake, then cook for 5 minutes, or until the mussels have opened. Throw away any that don’t.
Now you can
EITHER stir in the tarragon, then serve immediately, ladling the shells and juices into bowl
OR strain out the mussels with a slotted spoon and bubble the juices for a minute or two to thicken slightly, then add the cream and bubble for 1 minute more. Tip the mussels back in, along with the tarragon, and stir until everything is warmed through and coated in the sauce.
Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipe incorporates sweet spices, fresh herbs and a lemony kick. Serve with other Middle Eastern salads, or just to accompany fried fish. You could serve it warm as well as cold, with a pilaf.
Serves 4
Preparation and cooking 30 mins + cooling time
Ingredients
1kg carrots
80ml olive oil, plus extra to finish
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 tsp caster sugar
3 garlic cloves crushed
2 medium green chillies, finely chopped
1 spring onion, finely chopped
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground coriander
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tbsp chopped preserved lemon skin
40g chopped coriander, plus extra to garnish
120ml Greek yoghurt, chilled
salt
Method
Peel the carrots and cut them, depending on their size, into cylinders or semi-circles 1cm thick; all the pieces should end up roughly the same size. Place in a large saucepan and cover with salted water. Bring to the boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes or until tender but still crunchy. Drain and leave to dry out.
Heat the oil in a large pan and saute the onion for 12 minutes on a medium heat until soft and slightly brown. Add the cooked carrots to the onions, followed by all the remaining ingredients, apart from the fresh coriander and the yoghurt. Remove from the heat. Season liberally with salt, stir well and leave to cool.
Before serving, stir in the coriander, taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Serve in individual bowls with a dollop of yoghurt, a drizzle of oil and garnished with the extra coriander.
The winning ‘remedy’ recipe in a recent Guardian ‘Cook’ supplement was this quick and easy dal – ‘spicy enough to cut through a cold, and healthy enough to feel medicinal’. Recipe and photo by Helen Best-Shaw, fussfreeflavours.com
Preparation and cooking 40 minutes
Serves 2
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp nigella seeds
100g red lentils
250ml vegetable stock
juice of a lemon
1 large handful of kale, shredded
salt and black peppeer
Method
Fry the onion in the oil for a couple of minutes until softened, then add the spices and the lentils. Fry for a few minutes until the spices are fragrant.
Add the stock, simmer over a low heat, stirring from time to time for about half an hour, until the lentils are soft but still holding their shape. Add more stock if needed – you want them to be quite soupy.
Add the lemon juice, stir in the kale and cook for a few more minutes until it is wilted. Season to taste.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Northumbrian take on the delicious combination of potatoes, onions and cheese. He suggests serving it with a crisp green salad, and some simply cooked pulses.
Serves 6 as a side dish
Preparation 20 minutes
Cooking 40 minutes
Ingredients
50g butter
2 onions, thinly sliced
500g fairly firm-fleshed maincrop potatoes
80g mature cheddar cheese
sea salt, freshly ground black pepper
Method
Heat the oven to 190C/375F/gas mark 5. Melt half the butter in a 20-25cm ovenproof frying pan over a medium-low heat and fry the onions for about 15 minutes, until soft and golden. Meanwhile, peel the potatoes and slice them very thinly (use a mandoline or the slicing side of a box cheese grater).
Set aside a good pinch of the cheese – about 10g. Scoop the onions out of the pan. Layer a third of the sliced potatoes into the still-buttery pan, then add half the onions and half the cheese. Season well. Repeat the layers, then finish with a final layer of potatoes. Dot the remaining butter and the reserved cheese over the top and season. Bake for about 40 minutes, until the potatoes are tender all the way through and the top is golden. Serve piping hot.
Recipe and photograph from The Guardian
Much loved by customers at Yotam Ottolenghi’s restaurant, this can be made with calabrese or purple sprouting broccoli. For extra oomph, add four chopped anchovy fillets to the chilli and garlic when cooking them in the oil.
Serves 2-4
Preparation and cooking 15-20 minutes
Ingredients
2 heads broccoli or about 500g sprouting broccoli
115ml olive oil
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 mild red chillies, thinly sliced
coarse sea salt and black pepper
toasted flaked almonds or very thin slices of lemon (with skin) to garnish (optional)
Method
Prepare the broccoli by separating it into florets or cut the sprouting broccoli into small pieces if necessary. Bring a large pan of water to the boil. Throw in the broccoli and blanch for 2 minutes only. With a large slotted spoon, transfer the broccoli to a bowl full of ice-cold water. Drain in a colander and allow to dry completely. It must not be wet at all. In a mixing bowl, toss the broccoli with 45ml of the oil and a generous amount of salt and pepper.
Place a ridged riddle pan over a high heat and leave it there for at least 5 minutes, until it is extremely hot. Depending on the size of your pan, grill the broccoli in several batches. The florets mustn’t be cramped. Turn them around as they grill so they get char marks all over. Transfer to a heatproof bowl and continue with another batch.
While grilling the broccoli, place the rest of the oil in a small saucepan with the garlic and chillies. Cook over a medium heat until the garlic just begins to turn golden brown. Be careful not to let them burn – they will keep on cooking even when off the heat. Pour the oil, garlic and chilli over the hot broccoli and toss together well. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
Serve warm or at room temperature. You can garnish the broccoli with almonds or lemon just before serving if you like.
Photo and recipe from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook
Tasty and quick – a recipe (and photo) from Waitrose ‘Winter – Harvest 2013’ magazine.
Preparation: 5 minutes
Cooking: 15 minutes
Serves 4
Ingredients
1 large floury potato
25g butter
1 large onion, chopped
200g smoked bacon, chopped
1 savoy cabbage, shredded
juice of 1 lemon
pinch ground nutmeg
500ml chicken or vegetable stock
Method
Cook the potato in boiling water for 4-5 minutes, drain and set aside. Meanwhile melt the butter in a frying pan and fry the onion and bacon for 3-4 minutes.
Place the cabbage, lemon juice and nutmeg in a large pan and add the stock. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the drained potato, then the onion and bacon mixture and cook for 2-3 minutes. Season to taste and serve.
This makes a simple supper in the aftermath of rich festive food and drink. Great made with the parsnips, potatoes, garlic and chillies from Camel CSA’s Christmas veg boxes.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall takes the French to task for not eating parsnips. Parsnips aren’t part of a traditional Scottish diet either (no jokes about deep-fried Mars bars please…) To be honest, I never ate parsnips until I moved from Scotland to England. Scots prefer neeps, but I’m a willing convert.
Hugh says: “This is gorgous with simply cooked fish but stands as a dish on its own with a salad and a spoonful of thick yoghurt.” Can’t wait to give it a try.
Serves: 2-3
Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 45-50 minutes
Ingredients
About 500g potatoes
About 500g parsnips
3 tbsp sunflower oil
1 garlic clove, peeled and very finely chopped
For the curry spice mix
1 tbsp coriander seeds
Half a dozen black peppercorns
½ tsp dried chilli flakes
1 tsp ground fenugreek
1 tsp ground turmeric
¼ tsp fine sea salt
First make the spice mix. Heat the oven to 200C/390F/gas mark 6. Put the coriander seeds and black peppercorns in a dry frying pan and toast over a gentle heat for a few minutes, until fragrant. Tip into a pestle and mortar and leave to cool. Add the chilli flakes, then crush the lot to a coarse powder and mix with the fenugreek, turmeric and salt.
Peel the spuds and cut into 3-4cm chunks. Put them in a saucepan, cover with cold water and bring to a rolling boil. Boil for one minute only, then take off the heat and drain well.
Peel the parsnips, cut into similar sized chunks to the potatoes (remove the core if it seems tough or woody) and add to the potatoes.
Pour the oil into a large, shallow roasting dish and heat in the oven for five minutes. Tip the potatoes and parsnips into the hot oil, add the spice mix and toss so the veg get a good coating of spice. Roast for 40 minutes, giving them a stir halfway through, or until golden and crisp. Stir in the garlic and return to the oven for two to three minutes. Serve straight away, with thick, plain yoghurt and perhaps mango chutney.
