Puddings

A tropical take on a great British pudding.

Need buttermilk or sour milk for a recipe and not got any? Squeeze a bit of lemon juice into ordinary milk. Sorted.

Let's Start with the Basics
Congratulations on your results A level and GCSE people. If you didn’t get exactly what you needed – don’t worry about it too much. Get yourself a cup of tea and make some calm choices. If you’re going to Uni, and even if you’re not, it’s time to get in some practice cooking. Whatever you’re doing in life, you want to be eating well and being independent. Start out with some simple things that taste great, don’t take too long to make, don’t cost too much and are easy to cook. You don’t want to be running up the debts paying out for outrageously priced fast food. I suggest that first-timers sort out basic recipes that you can rotate through the week. Then you can be sorting out your food for every night without having to spend a stupid amount of time thinking about it. If you’ve got a plan then you won’t waste your money and can maximise time enjoying Freshers.

My own list would include:

1. Omelette (vary the fillings to keep it exciting and vary the type you cook like frittatas which are flat omelettes with bits in). You can turn out an omelette in just a few minutes. Team up with salads, bread (and ketchup!).

2. Griddled chicken (fast, easy way to get lean protein to keep you thinking straight. Buy a griddle pan. Get olive oil on special offer. Grow some herbs on your window sill. Have a bottle of lemon juice in for seasoning and get in the soy or teriyaki sauce. Always have some garlic in – fresh is best but Lazy garlic is better than nothing).

3.Pasta and pesto (and everything else. Team pasta with fried sausage chunks, bits of crispy bacon, chunks of courgette and/or flat mushroom fried lightly in garlic. Learn to make a quick tomato sauce – see below).

4. Fry-up. Great for hangover mornings/afternoons/nights. Get down with each component of the all-day breakfast. Vegetarians, grill flat mushrooms or fry up Linda McCartney veggie sausages to add to your fried egg and Heinz baked beans. Get sophisticated with it and teach yourself to make potato rostis, hash browns or potato cakes. Bring on the HP

5. Any-time porridge. This stuff is healthy and gives you loads of energy. You can add loads of extras like berries, apple sauce, spices, even chocolate to vary the taste and customise to the time of day you’re eating it. Of course it makes a brilliant slow-release energy breakfast. On it’s own or with yoghurt or grated apples and maybe nuts or chopped fruit.

6. Noodles. Get your stir-fry action down. Add anything you like to your wok with your cooked noodles. Bean sprouts, sliced pak choi, chopped garlic, chopped carrot, black beans, chopped tofu, finely diced chilli, cashew nuts, bits of chicken or sliced pork loin chop. Get sesame oil for authentic taste. Sprinkle 5 spice powder. Add a bit of soy and pinch of sugar. Get lime juice in a bottle and use a sprinkle. Oyster, teriyaki or hoisin are great to add a dash of flavour.

Make the basics and build on each one for variations. Check out the Student Cookbook and Eat Vegetarian for loads more ideas, techniques and masses of recipes to cook for yourself and mates as you build up your repertoire.

VERY BASIC BUT TASTY TOMATO SAUCE

1-2 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium onion

1 clove garlic

1 tin tomatoes

1 small pinch dried oregano or mixed herbs

1-2 tablespoons tomato puree

A pinch of sugar

Salt and pepper

1. Heat a frying pan. Add the oil 2. Reduce the heat. Add the onion. Fry gently to soften. Stir with a wooden spoon. Don’t rush or over-heat the onion or it burns and gets bitter. You want it soft, uncoloured. 3. Add the garlic. Cook gently for a minute. 4. Add the tomatoes. Tip chopped ones straight in but squish whole plum ones between your fingers or bash them up with the spoon. 5. Increase the heat a bit. Add the herbs, puree, salt and pepper and sugar. Let the mix simmer (bubble gently) for 10 minutes or so, stirring so it doesn’t burn. 6. Tip it over cooked pasta or use for anything else. To be extravagant add a bit more olive oil at the finish. Taste and check for correct seasoning


Rustle Up A Risotto
Sometimes the best recipes come from nowhere, It’s just about what’s in your fridge or what other ingredients are hanging around. One day this week we hadn’t been shopping, there wasn’t much in and I didn’t have a specific idea about what to cook. So I stuck my head in the fridge and got out a bit of bacon, the left-overs from a roast chicken and a bit of old parmesan cheese. Out in the garden I picked myself a courgette and ripped some tarragon leaves off their stalk. I rooted round in the cupboard for a packet of risotto rice. And an hour and a bit later we were sitting down to the tastiest risotto.

To be honest, risotto can be bland. All that blank rice and soupy flavour and texture. Sometimes it’s solid – even worse. And everything in it tastes exactly the same. There’s nothing to excite the palate and, most importantly, there’s no variety in flavour and texture. This chicken, bacon and courgette job hit the spot just because it was all fresh and had a lot going on for itself. So, an appetising accident. Have a go at it yourself but go easy on the salt – there’s bacon and cheese in there so you don’t need too much.

RISOTTO

1.2 litres (plus) chicken or vegetable stock

1 tablespoon olive oil

Some butter

1 large onion

3-4 cloves garlic

75 g bacon bits

350 g risotto rice

1 glass white wine (or extra stock plus a splash of white wine vinegar or mushroom ketchup later in the process)

Juice of 1 lemon

1 courgette

A bit of butter

Left over chicken bits

Parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper

Bit of fresh tarragon or basil or parsley

STOCK

If you use a cube, cut down on the salt in this recipe. You can buy good liquid stock from a supermarket. Best though – make your own.

Boil up your left-over roast chicken carcass in a good covering of water with an onion and a carrot. Reduce the heat and simmer for an hour.Or use fresh chicken thighs or wings.

METHOD

Put your stock in a pan. Heat it gently and keep it hot but not boiling or it will evaporate.

Finely chop the onion and crush the garlic.

Heat a second large pan. Add the oil and butter. Fling in the onion and garlic. Stir. Cook over gentle heat until soft, not coloured. Takes about 5 minutes but don’t rush it.

Add the bacon bits. Stir and coat and let them cook for just a few minutes but don’t let them get leathery.

Increase the heat a bit. Add the rice. Stir and cook for 2 minutes so you can hear it crackle away. Add the wine or stock and let it bubble until it almost evaporates.

Reduce the heat and add the first ladle of hot chicken stock. Stir and cook until it is almost absorbed. Only then, add the next ladle. Repeat, patiently, until most of the stock is used.

Meantime, lightly fry the bits of courgette in a frying pan until they colour but still hold texture. You want a variety of bites in your dish.

Add the lemon juice to the risotto and taste. Keep going with the stock until its all used. You may need a bit more. The rice wants to be swollen and the final mix quite soupy. You’re going to rest it for 2 minutes and it’ll keep cooking during that time, remember.

Add a handful of parmesan, a bit of butter, the herbs, and the chicken bits. Stir and heat the meat through properly until it’s good and hot.

Cover the risotto and turn off the heat. Leave for 2 minutes. Add the courgette. Taste and adjust seasoning. Serve with extra parmesan and more herbs on top.


Sunshine Cooking
It’s good to be back after a couple of weeks of sunning myself up in Spain – and a load of cooking. Holidays are meant to be a break but when you’re a chef and staying in a villa with 10 of your mates who don’t know how to cook and are on a budget it can get a bit hectic. Not that I mind really as it means that I get to eat what I want.

It was a pleasure to cook out there due to the quality of the basic ingredients and the price I was paying for them. Cured meats were so cheap and easy to team up for lunch with some good cheeses, breads and lovely Spanish tomatoes. Perfect for lunch in the hot weather and eaten by the poolside. Evening meals were a bit hectic. Typically, I’d do a pasta dish for starters as everyone was pretty famished at the end of the day. Followed by something like a healthy chicken salad, lovely griddled vegetables and barbecued meats. Cooking for so many does have it drawbacks. Everything takes three times as long to prepare and cook. It took me 40 minutes just to de-seed and prep the tomatoes to make a tomato concasse one night. A pretty deadly thing to be doing in temperatures of 35 degrees and rising.

Back in the UK I went straight off to the Latitude Festival in Suffolk which was a lot of fun – enjoying some of my favourite comedy acts and bands like Florence and the Machine, Vampire Weekend, Empire of the Sun and then Tom Jones to round it all off. For once, I wasn’t cooking but enjoyed some lovely festival grub – Hog Roast, Ostrich Burger etc. If you get a chance – definitely go next year – it’s a great event.

Now I’m back home and picking the courgettes that have been ripening up while I’ve been away. Check out this recipe for Courgette Bruschetta which I made up yesterday. Enjoy!! Sam x

HOT COURGETTE BRUSHETTA

1-2 slices bread

A little olive oil

1 cut clove garlic

1 Small Courgette

A little butter

1 clove of garlic

2 teaspoons of cream fraiche

Bit of grated parmesan

Pinch of oregano or marjoram or fresh tarragon

Salt and pepper

Squeeze of lemon juice

1. Griddle the bread on a griddle pan (or toast or grill). Rub with garlic and drizzle a little olive oil. 2. Crush garlic. Slice courgette thinly. Put olive oil in a frying pan. Add garlic. Fry gently 10 seconds. Add courgettes. Fry off for 10 seconds. Add teaspoon butter and choice of herb. 3. Season well. Remove from heat. Stir in the crème fraiche and parmesan. Add lemon to taste, salt and black pepper. 4. Pile on brushetta.


Summer Salads
So, we didn't do ourselves proud at the world cup. Bad luck or poor tactics? But at least the sun is out and you've got to think salads.

These little beauties caught my eye at the farm shop this week. We get pretty used to seeing fruit and veg that are standardised. Tomatoes that are round, red, blemish free. And too often taste pretty bland and not worth bothering with. I knew these would be winners as soon as I took a sniff. Smell your tomatoes. They should give off a peppery whiff.

Look for anything that has a different shape. Look for old varieties. These few made me a complete meal. I just whizzed up a bit of dressing with a pinch of sugar, salt, bit of mustard, then one third white wine vinegar and two thirds fruity olive oil. Whisk or shake in a jar. Bit of pepper. Scatter over the fruit with a sprinkle of seal salt. Add chopped parsley or chives or red onion. Eat with proper crusty bread. Bit of nice cheese. I like a nice slice of Spanish manchego. Off there soon on my holidays! Sam x


The Globe Artichoke
I’ve been cooking away this week experimenting with a whole range of recipes and ingredients. A trip out to our friendly farm shop had me buying some globe artichokes which have just come into season.

These little beauties won’t fill you up but they taste uniquely beautiful. Like asparagus they don’t need a lot doing to them. Prepare them simply as below and enjoy with a bit of your own or good bought mayonnaise for dipping or dunk the leaves into a little melted butter and lemon juice or make up a dressing with 3 parts olive oil, 2 parts lemon juice or white wine vinegar, salt and pepper, a pinch of sugar and whisk in a tiny bit of mustard if you fancy it.

It’s great getting back to my own kitchen for a bit. So nice to be in a clean environment. This week I took delivery of a big box of Divine Chocolate’s new chocolate bar. It’s 85% dark chocolate and they’ve asked me to come up with a recipe for a dense, dark, decadent chocolate pudding. Recipes don’t always come to me straight away but this one did. I’ve come up with a Jaffa-Cake my-style. And that’s all I’m telling you at this stage. Have a good week. Sam x

Sorting out your globe artichokes Don’t confuse these with Jerusalem artichokes which are like nobbly potatoes. Globes are much more exotic.

You can eat the heart of the artichoke and the soft flesh at the base of the inside leaves.

Wash your artichokes well under cold water. Slice their stems off. Pull off any really tough outer leaves. If the tips of the leaves are really sharp, nip them off with scissors Put artichokes into the top of a steamer or into a pan of water with salt and a bit of lemon juice. Pour in enough water to come half way up the veg. Boil or steam for 25 minutes (small globes) up to 45 (large) Drain globes upside down for 2 minutes. Put dips or dressings on the table. Put an artichoke on each plate. Put a large dish on the table to take discarded leaves. Pull off each leaf in turn. Dip into whatever. Pull the soft flesh off with your teeth. Discard leaf onto dish. When all leaves are gone use a knife to remove the furry top to the artichoke heart. Discard into dish. Slice into the heart – dip into dressing. Tasty…………..