We have spring onions and home-grown bean sprouts in this week’s veg boxes. My husband Frank adapted Felicity Cloake’s perfect pad thai recipe as we were lacking several other ingredients! If you haven’t got palm sugar he recommends using soft brown sugar. If you want a vegetarian pad thai just leave out the prawns.
Serves 2
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Ingredients
120g 2-3mm wide flat rice noodles
60ml fish sauce
60ml tamarind water (you can use tamarind concentrate, thinned with a little water)
60g palm sugar
Pinch of chilli powder, to taste
80ml groundnut or vegetable oil
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
100g firm tofu, chopped into small cubes
8 large prawns
2 large eggs, beaten with 1 tsp sesame oil
100g beansprouts
1 bunch spring onions, chopped
50g roasted peanuts, roughly chopped, lime wedges, chilli flakes, fish sauce and sugar, to garnish
Method
Cook the rice noodles as directed on the packet until pliable but al dente. Drain and rinse with cold water.
Meanwhile, make the sauce by combining the fish sauce, tamarind and palm sugar in a small pan. Heat gently to dissolve the sugar and taste – add more of any of the ingredients as you wish. Season with chilli to taste and set aside.
Lay out all the ingredients within easy reach of the hob in the order they’ll be used. Put a wok on a high heat and add half the oil. Add the beaten egg and stir fry until cooked, remove from the pan. Add the rest of the oil and the garlic and spring onions, stir fry for a few seconds. Add the prawns, stir fry until they are starting to turn pink, then add the beansprouts and tofu and stir fry for 30 seconds or so.
Add the noodles, the cooked egg and the sauce, then stir until heated through and the noodles are soft enough to eat. Serve with the garnishes for people to add as they wish.
This recipe is taken from The Guardian in Nigel Slater’s midweek dinner series. I changed the quantities slightly as I find Nigel often uses too much cream for my tastes, missed out the dill as I didn’t have any and cut down on the amount of sausage. Still tasted good though!
Serves 2
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 25 minutes
Ingredients
6 butchers sausages
1-2 tsp dried chilli flakes
2 heaped tsp chopped fresh dill
1-2 leeks, sliced into 1 cm discs
2 Tbsp olive oil
150 g tagliatelle
100 ml double cream
salt and pepper
a handful of chopped fresh parsley
Method
Remove the sausage meat from the skins, place in a mixing bowl and mix with the chilli flakes and dill. Divide the mixture into small balls (I aim to get 4 balls from each sausage) and flatten slightly. Warm the olive oil in a shallow pan. Brown the balls on both sides then leave over a low heat, covered, until cooked right through – about 4-5 minutes.
Remove the balls from the pan, then add the leeks and let them cook in the pan juices for 7-8 minutes until soft and tender. Meanwhile, bring a large pan of salted water to the boil, cook the tagliatelle until tender, then drain.
Stir the cream into the leeks, season with salt, pepper and parsley then add the drained pasta to the leeks. Return the sausage balls to the pan and let everything bubble for a minute or so, then serve.
Bridget Gould, one of our professional growers, has recommended this recipe from Felicity Cloake in The Guardian. Looks like Sunday lunch is sorted in our household!
Serves 4
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Ingredients
800g peeled and seeded pumpkin or squash
2 carrots, about 200g, peeled
4 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
400g tin of plum tomatoes
100g red lentils
small bunch of coriander
Method
Heat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6. Cut the squash and carrots into chunks about 4 cm square and toss with a little oil. Spread out on a baking sheet and cook for about 30 minutes until tender and very slightly charred.
Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large saucepan over a medium-low heat and cook the onion until soft, golden and beginning to caramelise. Stir in half a teaspoon of paprika and cook for another minute or so, then tip in the tomatoes and mash up. Stir in the lentils and about a litre of water and bring to the boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, until the lentils are soft.
Add the roasted vegetables to the pan and take off the heat. Whisk together the remaining teaspoon of paprika with the remaining tablespoon of oil and a pinch of salt. Puree the soup and season to taste, adding a little more water if you prefer it thinner. Roughly chop the coriander. Divide between bowls and drizzle over the paprika oil. Top with coriander and serve.
I sometimes like to serve cauliflower cheese with rice – I think this goes back to a college refectory which sold inedible jacket potatoes but there was always rice to accompany the daily curry! This recipe seems to combine the cauliflower cheese and the rice in one dish. It is taken from Paola Gavin’s classic Italian Vegetarian Cookery.
Serves 4-6
Preparation time: 40 minutes
Cooking time: 20-25 minutes
Ingredients
1 medium cauliflower
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tsp parsley, finely chopped
175 g long grain rice
450 ml boiling stock or water
1/2 tsp salt
25 g butter
40 g freshly grated Parmesan cheese
350 ml bechamel sauce (made with 30 g butter, 25 g flour, 300 ml hot milk, salt, pepper and freshly grated nutmeg)
40 g grated Gruyere cheese
Method
Cut away the stem of the cauliflower and break the curd into florets. Steam for 10 minutes or until tender.
Heat the olive oil in a small saucepan and cook the onion and parsley over a moderate heat for 3 minutes. Stir in the rice and cook for one minute, so each grain is coated with oil. Add the boiling stock or water and salt, cover and simmer for 8-10 minutes until the rice is tender but still firm. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter and 25 g of the grated Parmesan cheese.
Prepare the bechamel sauce, remove from the heat and stir in the Gruyere cheese.
Spread a layer of rice in the bottom of a well-buttered shallow baking dish. Spoon a little of the cheese sauce over the rice. Cover with a layer of cauliflower. Repeat the layers, ending with the cheese sauce. Sprinkle the top with the remaining grated Parmesan cheese and bake in a preheated oven at 190°C/Gas mark 5 for 20-25 minutes or until the top is golden.
This soup sounds just right for the cold weather that is being predicted to arrive this week. This recipe is from Rachel Roddy’s Kitchen Sink Tales column in this week’s Guardian Cook supplement.
She says: “One thing I will stress the importance of is the extra virgin olive oil, with its grassy scent and seductive mix of butteriness and bitterness. It really is the fragrant foundation of this dish … treat it as a key ingredient.”
Serves 4
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 30-40 minutes
Ingredients
1 onion, diced
1 stick celery, diced
1 carrot, diced
a sprig of rosemary or 2 bay leaves
600g potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1.4 litres water or light stock
170g pasta (quadrucci, pastina, farfalle or broken spaghetti)
salt and black pepper
Pecorino or parmesan, grated
Method
Warm the olive oil in a heavy-based saucepan over a medium-low heat. Fry the onion, celery and carrot, along with a pinch of salt, until soft and translucent. Add the rosemary of bay leaves and the potatoes, stirring so each chunk is coated with oil and fry for a couple more minutes.
Add the water or stock and another small pinch of salt, bring to a lively simmer, then reduce to a gentle simmer for 15 minutes or until the potato is very soft – you can break it up slightly with the back of a wooden spoon. Add the pasta, raise the heat slightly and cook for another 10 minutes, or until the pasta is cooked, stirring and adding a little more water if it looks too thick.
Taste for salt (remembering you are probably going to add salty cheese) and grind over some black pepper. Serve with some grated pecorino or parmesan stirred in, or simply a streak of olive oil.
This simple one-person meal from Cook by Jamie Oliver could easily be scaled up to feed more people. The recipe calls for butternut squash but I’m going to use the uchiki kuri squash in my veg box instead.
Serves 1
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 25-35 minutes
Ingredients
1 chicken breast with skin on
1/4 medium butternut squash
1/2 fresh red chilli
leaves from a couple of sprigs of fresh marjoram or oregano
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
a little double cream
freshly grated nutmeg
a little olive oil
Method
Preheat the oven to 200°C/Gas mark 6.
Put the chicken breast, with its skin left on, in a bowl. Deseed and slice up 1/2 a fresh red chilli and add to the bowl with the leaves from a couple of sprigs of fresh marjoram or oregano, a pinch of sea salt and some freshly ground black pepper. Toss together then place the chicken breast and flavourings from the bowl into a snug fitting baking dish.
Cut a medium butternut squash into quarters. Remove the seeds and slice one quarter of the squash as finely as you can. Snugly fit the squash slices around the chicken and carefully pour a little double cream around the squash (not on the chicken).
Season with freshly grated nutmeg and salt and pepper, then drizzle with some olive oil and cook in the middle of the oven for 25 to 35 minutes, until the chicken is golden brown.
My husband found this recipe on the BBC Good Food website. It was tasty served with a green salad on the side.
Serves 6
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour
Ingredients
1 squash, weighing about 1kg, chopped into chunks
2 tbsp olive oil
200 ml tub crème fraiche
50 g finely grated parmesan cheese
250 g tub ricotta cheese
small bunch sage leaves, half chopped, half whole
12 sheets fresh lasagne
Method
Heat the oven to 220°C/Gas mark 7. Toss the squash together with the olive oil in a roasting tin. Roast the squash for 30 minutes until soft and golden. While the squash is roasting, mix the crème fraiche with half the parmesan, then set aside.
When the squash is ready, leave to cool slightly, then peel the skin away from the flesh. In a separate bowl beat the ricotta with the chopped sage and the remaining parmesan and fold through the squash with some seasoning, trying not to break it up too much.
Assemble the bake by spreading a little of the crème fraiche mix over a gratin dish. Then lay some of the lasagne sheets over and splodge some of the ricotta and squash mix over the pasta with more crème fraiche. Use all the ricotta mix to fill the bake, but make sure you keep some crème fraiche for the top.
Finally spread the crème fraiche over the top layer of lasagne, then scatter with the whole sage leaves. Bake for 25 minutes until bubbling and golden, then serve cut into squares.
This tasty-looking soup is from the Real Foods website. It’s suitable for those on a vegan diet.
Serves 4
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil or 50 g coconut butter
1 onion, roughly chopped
Rind of 1 lemon
2.5 cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
400g carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
25 g red split lentils, ground to a fine powder
500 ml vegetable stock
freshly ground black pepper
1 bunch fresh parsley or coriander, roughly chopped
Method
Heat the olive oil or coconut butter in a large pan over a medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes. Add the lemon peel, ginger and carrots and stir fry for another 3 minutes. Add the ground lentils and stock and cook, uncovered for about 10 minutes or until the carrots are soft.
When cooked, blend until smooth, adding a little more hot water if required to reach your desired consistency. Season with freshly ground black pepper to taste. Serve hot, garnished with chopped parsley or coriander.
In order to use the pak choi in our veg boxes this week, my husband Frank adapted an old Kenneth Lo recipe as we were lacking several ingredients. The result was, however, very tasty!
Serves 2
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 13-18 minutes
Ingredients
100g basmati rice
1 head pak choi
12 prawns
2 tbsp vegetable oil
Small knob of butter
Method
Bring 200 ml water to the boil, add the knob of butter and allow to melt. Add the rice, stir well and bring back to the boil. Cover the pan, turn the heat right down and simmer gently for 12 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave to stand, tightly covered for 12 minutes (don’t be tempted to peek!).
Wash and dry the pak choi. Separate the stems from the leaf and chop both. Heat the oil in a wok or deep saucepan. When hot, stir fry the prawns for 30 seconds. Add the stalks and stir fry for 2 minutes, then add the leaf and stir fry for 30 seconds.
Pack in the rice, making sure the prawns are covered. Add 4-5 tbsp of water down the side of the wok. Cover and simmer very gently for about 10 -15 minutes. Season to taste and serve while hot.
My husband has just made this delicious, warming curry for tea. The recipe is from Michael Pandya’s Complete Indian Cookbook which Frank bought back in the 1980s.
Serves 4
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour
Ingredients
25 g butter
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cauliflower, cut in florets
450 g potatoes, peeled and quartered
100 g peas
1 medium onion, finely chopped
450 g tomatoes, peeled and chopped
450 ml water
salt to taste
Spices:
pinch of asafoetida powder
2 cloves
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 brown cardamom
For the paste:
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2.5 cm piece garlic, chopped
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp chilli powder
1 Tbsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
To garnish:
1 tsp garam masala
2 Tbsp chopped coriander leaves
Method
Heat the butter and half the oil in a saucepan and add the asafoetida powder. Stir for 5 seconds then add the cauliflower, potatoes and peas. Fry for 5 minutes over a moderate heat. Remove the vegetables to a plate and set aside.
Heat the remaining oil and add the onion, cloves, cumin and cardamom and fry until the onion is golden brown. Make a fairly smooth mixture by blitzing the paste ingredients in a blender. Add the paste to the onion mixture and cook for 5 minutes.
Mix in the fried vegetables and tomato and fry for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in the water and salt and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove the cloves and brown cardamom before serving hot, garnished with the garam masala and coriander.
