Tarte Tatin

I'm not usually a fan of attempting french baking at home, I find it far too fiddly and complicated, and, given that my parents live in France, I am fortunately able to leave the delicacy of patisserie to the experts. I have little desire to whip egg whites to make macarons, when there is a man down the road who I can pay to do much the same thing, with a whole lot more finesse.

Tarte tatin is an upside down apple tart, in which the apples are slow cooked soaking in caramel, with a layer of crisp pastry above. The proportions of this recipe are relatively tricky, and it is challenging to get the tart with not too much caramel, but with enough apple and pastry. A trick I always follow, to get the right amount of pastry, and to get it thin enough, is to make a half batch of pastry, this ensures that you won't have left over pastry, and that it will be thin enough. You will also need to decide how dark you want your caramel, my parents love everything bitter, so I made my caramel very dark, if you prefer your caramel slightly paler, reduce the cooking time of the caramel.

Start by melting in a pan, the butter with the caster sugar, while this is melting together peel, core and halve your apples, and put them in a bowl with lemon zest and juice, and a little sugar, leave them to steep, by which time your caramel should be starting to brown. Turn off the heat under the caramel and place the apples in the pan round side down. Use a spoon to cover the apples in the caramel and put the pan in the oven.

Next make your pastry, and roll it out very thinly, the pastry should be more of a base for the apples, and not the main event, so fir this reason I use a simple unsweetened shortcrust pastry. Remove the apples from the oven and cover them gently with the pastry, working fast to not melt the butter, push the pastry into between the apples and bake it in a medium hot oven until the pastry is crisp and golden, and cooked through.

Turn the tart out onto a serving dish and serve when cooled.

Ingredients

For the Filling
6 Golden Delicious apples cored, peeled and halved
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 cup granulated sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
pinch salt

For the Pastry
110g plain flour
50g butter
pinch salt

Linguine with Garlic Butter and Parsley

Bowl food is a particular passion of mine, and indeed most of my families. There is little better than curling up on the sofa or in bed with a steaming bowl of nourishment. The following recipe I first tried after a night out, and indeed it is perfect for curling up with in bed, still slightly inebriated.

This Nigella recipe is perfect should you find yourself going home alone at the end of a night out! This is truly comfort food at its best.

Start by putting your linguine to cook, then you can get on with making the sauce.

For the sauce start by peeling and crushing about 4 cloves of garlic. Of course you could use more or less as you prefer. Put the garlic in a cold saucepan with 50 grams of butter, and heat gently, making sure not to brown the butter or burn the garlic.

When the pasta is cooked retain a cup of the pasta cooking water, and drain the linguine. Tip the drained pasta back into the pan with the garlic and the butter, and add the starchy water, whisking it together to create a velvety sauce.

Next finely chop some fresh parsley, about a cupful, and add it to the pasta, stirring to combine, finally season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve, perhaps with a side of netflix.

ingredients

150g linguine
50g butter
4 cloves garlic
salt and pepper
1 cup of finely chopped parsley

Slow Roasted Tomato Cobbler

Cobbler can be used to refer to a variety of foods, in this case it refers to a cooked vegetable filling, covered with a savoury scone. In theory you can take this concept and apply it to virtually any filling and topping, however given that the scone topping is relatively dry, the filling needs to be relatively wet.

My mother first introduced me to this recipe a few weeks ago, and I was instantly rather taken with it, the flavours of herbes de provence, rich, sweet tomatoes and caramelized onions melded so fantastically together. When I arrived back in britain for the new term, I made the dish for my housemates.

I started by slow roasting the tomatoes, and yes, I was forced to roast them significantly faster than I would otherwise have liked to. This being january, the tomatoes pale in comparison to the ones from my parents garden, but they were delicious nonetheless. I put the tomatoes in a large earthenware dish, doused them with olive oil and salt & pepper and roasted them for a good hour and a medium-hot oven.

When the tomatoes are almost done, lightly fry a couple of onions until soft. In order to stop the onions from browning, season them lightly with salt. When they are cooked through, turn off the heat and add balsamic vinegar to the pan, reducing it to form a thick sauce, tossing the onions in the vinegar to coat them.

Remove the tomatoes from the oven, and cover with the onions, make the scones (recipe below) adding parmesan and herbes de provence and roll the mixture out to a 1/2 inch thickness. Cut out the scones using either a cookie cutter or a wine glass, and cover the onions with them. Brush the scones with an egg wash and cook the dish on a high heat for half an hour, or until the scones are risen and golden

Sticky Toffee Pudding

In his epic A la recherche des temps perdus, In search of lost time Marcel Proust describes how memories can be either voluntary or involuntary. Proust describes an episode in which the smell of a freshly baked madeline triggers a flashback. The same is ultimately also true of taste. And as in ratatouille how the feared food critic Anton Ego, is taken back to his childhood in rural france by the intense savour of a fresh ratatouille. Much the same thing recently happened to me.

I have vivid and fairly happy memories of being a young child, and one of my greatest pleasures was in microwave food, vegetable hot pot and microwave lasagne, followed by spotted dick or sticky toffee pudding. Soft melting sponge surrounded by a sweet, sticky caramel is truly one of the defining tastes of my childhood.

Sticky toffee pudding is a steamed pudding, of the kind which the english so often excell. Covered with a toffee sauce, it often requires cooking in a steamer, served with a toffee sauce. Nigella Lawson, who I adore, gives a no muss no fuss recipe, which is nothing short of revolutionary.

The sponge is a simple sponge, made with brown sugar, with the addition of some chopped dates, for extra moistness. The sponge is a simple wet into dry mix, I can't be bothered with the fussy creaming, sifting and folding which accompanies most cake recipes, and I've never really experienced any lighter sponge because of it. 

Once the dates have been folded into the sponge mixture, the batter is transferred into a large heatproof bowl, in the absence of said bowl, I instead divided my mixture between two le creuset soup bowls, for want of a better receptacle.

On top of the cake mixture I placed several lumps of butter, and some dark brown sugar, I enjoy using incredibly dark molasses sugar, but any moist brown sugar will work. I then put the bowl (or in my case bowls) into the oven, and fill them with recently boiled water, until the whole shebang is covered.

This recipe is truly a revelation, and as the sponge rises out of the sauce, becoming crisp and golden, the butter and sugar melds together without the need for so much as a whisk into a dark rich toffee sauce. The sponge remains gloriously moist thanks in part to the addition of dates, and to the sauce under which it is cooked.

I leave a list of ingredients below, and I strongly urge you to try this recipe, it truly is so simple to make, and the results are definitely worth what little effort there is involved. Steamed puddings are such an important part of our collective british baking heritage, that it is important to keep them alive, even if many of us would perish at the thought of steaming anything other than vegetables, this recipe is a nice compromise.

• Ingredients

• for the cake
• 100 grams dark brown muscovado sugar
• 175 grams self-raising flour
• 125 ml full fat milk
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 50 grams unsalted butter (melted)
• 200 grams chopped dates

for the sauce

• 200 grams dark brown muscovado sugar
• approx. 25 grams unsalted butter (in little blobs)
• 500 ml boiling water

Marrakech - A Culinary Odyssey

This week I visited Marrakech, and I fell in love. I've had a vision since I was seven, of walking through a market in morocco, and I finally made it come true. I will admit to not being especially passionate about moroccan food, unlike my parents, who are quite simply obsessed with it.

I arrived in Marrakech on tuesday night, having been delayed for two hours. We finally touched down on the tarmac to find the city being lashed with torrential rain, not exactly the weather I was looking for. We managed to hail a cab outside the airport, which is, incidentally the same airport where Sex and the City 2 was filmed, and made it to the hotel after a short dash through the streets of Marrakech which were swarming with mobylettes and beige coloured taxis.

After freshening up we walked to dinner, stumbling upon a small cafe a few streets from our hotel. The cafe was devoid of all tourists and filled with moroccans and smoke (yes you can smoke inside there). I ordered a pita and a virgin mary, as sadly the cafe didn't serve alcohol, as many places in Marrakech don't. The pita arrived on a metal contraption which resembled a keyboard stand and though the virgin mary was sadly lacking a splash of vodka, it was otherwise refreshingly salty and cool. I tucked into the pita with gusto, having eaten nothing but airplane food that day, except for a slice of banana bread that morning. The pita was fresh and thick, and the dressing was thankfully plentiful, I slept satisfied that night.

I got up early the next morning ready to explore the city, at breakfast there was a woman cooking fresh donuts in a large wok, taken still warm from the oil and tossed in sugar these are wonderful, and were a welcome start to the day.

Heading out into the sunshine I became embroiled in the hustle of the city. I stopped for a coffee outside the koutoubia mosque, enjoying the sun on my pasty british skin. Coffee in Marrakech is rarely brewed in the turkish was as is common in other parts of the middle east, however it is often served in a coffee cup without a handle, a style that is now being appropriated in trendy parts of Europe.

Moving on I walked past the koutoubia mosque to the Jemaa el-Fnaa square. There is no direct translation of Jemaa el-Fnaa into english, but it may be paraphrased as either the "congregation of the dead" or rather more poetically "the mosque at the end of the world". The square has historically been used for executions, and an underground prison actively remains beneath the square. Today however the square is mainly filled with orange juice vendors selling freshly squeezed juice for a mere few dirham, and tattoo artists offering henna tattoos.

Near the entrance of the square there were men with chained barbary apes on their shoulders, which should have been cute but was actually fairly repulsive.

I spent the rest of the morning wandering the souk, being propositioned by vendors and bartering for tea sets and tajines. I found a sunny corner of the square and spent a few hours eating couscous with mixed vegetables. The couscous was yellow with saffron and fluffed, and the vegetables were fresh and tender. After lunch I had a cup of mint tea, hot and sweet and refreshing. Mint tea is almost addictive to moroccans and to the rest of the maghreb, who drink is copiously after every meal. It is considered rude to refuse mint tea if it is offered to you when you are a guest.

I spent the rest of the afternoon shopping and enjoying the hot african sun, before taking a tour of the city on a horse drawn cart, which litter the city in huge numbers. Our driver took us on a tour of the old walls of the city, and in spite of the cars and mopeds swarming around us, it was remarkably peaceful.

The next day it was time for round two, at breakfast a woman was making moroccan pancakes, she stretched them out with her hands, folded them over and cooked them on a griddle, flipping them with her bare hands with an impressive agility and dexterity.

I was hoping to see a snake charmer, and whilst in theory there is something magical and mystical about snake charmers, in reality a grown man walking towards you waving a large poisonous snake is fairly intimidating.

After having a sandwich for lunch, I decided to go to the Jardins Majorelle, once owned by Yves Saint Laurent the gardens are a beautiful oasis in the heart of a rather rough neighbourhood. The garden is calm and still, and it made a welcome break from the exuberant chaos of Marrakech.

Having had my fill of peace I took a horse drawn carriage back to the hotel, ready to sleep and recuperate for my flight tomorrow. Upon leaving Marrakech I can't wait to return to the spice, the heat and the bustle. Marrakech, shukran.

Red Lentil and Lemon Soup

There are few things as comforting or as nourishing in the dead of winter as a bowl of warm soup, with bread and cheese to soak up the excess. This morning with little else to do I decided to spend my time pottering around the kitchen making soup for lunch, which is an oddly perfect way to spend a tranquil monday morning.

My mother had recommended to me a soup featured in the New York Times some months earlier, but I find making soup only for myself a terrible bother, and I always end up making too much, and eating it three meals a day for the next week.

I started by lightly sweating some onions and garlic in a large saucepan. When I’m staying with my parents I generally use a cast iron Le Creuset pan for making soup, they allow an incredible diffusion of heat, ensuring that nothing sticks, and you can put them in the oven, so they are great for casseroles. Yes they are pricey, but the one I am currently using was bought over two decades ago, and is still going strong today.

Another tip I always follow when cooking garlic, is to add it to the pan while the oil is still cold, and to heat the garlic and oil up together, this ensures that the garlic won’t burn as easily, and nothing ruins a dish more easily than burnt, acrid and bitter garlic.

After sweating these down I stirred in a little tomato paste and some spices, I always sweat tomato puree in the pan for a few minutes, and I find this helpful to rid it of some of its acidity. Then I stirred in cumin, slightly bruised in a pestle and mortar, salt and pepper and cayenne. For more exact measurements see the recipe below.

Finally I added diced carrots and stock, bringing the mixture to a rolling boil before adding red lentils and turning down the heat.

Some cooks loathe the idea of a thin blended soup, and I tend to agree with them in most cases, the vast majority of soups should be a little chunky, and this soup is no exception. So I remove half of the soup and blend it, leaving the rest untouched, and pouring the liquidized soup back into the pan and combining.

The soup is best served hot with both lemon juice and zest, with a little chopped fresh coriander. It was delicious, with the lemon providing freshness and brightness, and the spices creating a beautiful warmth underneath. I have in the past found red lentil soups to be rather gloopy and challenging, but this soup is warming, fresh and fragrant. The recipe in full can be found below.

Ingredients:

• Olive oil, for frying
• 1 large onion
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• salt & pepper to taste
• pinch of cayenne
• 2 pints chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 cup of red lentils
• 1 large carrot, diced
• juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
• 3 tablespoons of chopped coriander

Method

• Sweat the garlic and onion in a little olive oil, and add the tomato paste and spices, stirring with a wooden spoon
• Add the diced carrot and the stock to the pan, and mix in the red lentils, simmering the mixture until the lentils are cooked and the carrots are tender
• Before serving grate the zest of a 1/2 lemon and add the juice, and season to taste
• Serve garnished with chopped fresh coriander and with fresh bread

In Praise of...Coulommiers

The best cheese in the world is made in France, the best cheese in france is made in the north, and the best cheese in the north is made in a small village called Coulommiers in the department of Seine et Marne, in the Ile de France region not so very far from where I now sit.

This lesser known cousin of Brie, which is also similar to camembert actually precedes both of these more popular cheeses, is actually one of the bestselling cheeses in france, but is unfortunately rarely exported.

Where this cheese exceeds and differs from both camembert and brie in different ways, it is firmer than camembert, and although the gooeyness of camembert is certainly an advantage when it comes to baking a whole round and scooping out the centre, however when being eaten cold, a firmer coulommiers is certainly welcome. The texture of coulommiers is closer to brie, but it has a tangier flavour than the former, and is less far salty.

Traditionally this cheese has been served with truffle, and has also been served with carrot, however given the delicate flavour of this cheese, I feel that it is best served alone, joined only perhaps by a cote-du-rhone, the lightness of which won’t overpower this fragrant cheese.

Coulommiers is a soft white cheese made from generally unpasteurised cows milk, the cheese has been made in this area since the reign of St Louis, when it was presented to the king and his cousins by a shepherd. The cheese was subsequently made famous by King Philippe Auguste, and was commonly enjoyed at the french court with cider, a delightful precursor to our contemporary pairing of wine and cheese.

Food Glorious Food

A part of the beauty in maintaining a totalitarian editorial control is the ability to write exactly what you want, without accountability from anyone except your readers, this website has seen many iterations it has been about cinema and later different forms of media, it has been a weekly column, and a collection of essays about current topics, which brings us aptly to the next stage of its revolution. Food.

I have always been passionate about food, but recently my passion has become almost obsessive, and I have become an avid explorer of different recipe books, of exotic ingredients and of cookery spending hours in the kitchen, finding solace in kneading bread dough, or in the curious scent of fried mushrooms in butter loaded with garlic and parsley.

An English writer whose name has long been forgotten spoke of the importance, in literature of having readers as well as writers, and indeed much the same philosophy can be applied to cooking, even if your culinary exploits are disappointing at best, this needn't hinder your enjoyment of food, and as a collective, I feel we have rather lost our ability to take pleasure in what we put in our mouths.

We live in an era in which people are far more passionate about what they don't eat than what they actually do eat, people will wax lyrical for hours about being gluten free, or about the benefits of cutting out dairy, but people very rarely talk as passionately about what they eat, for fear of sounding greedy or gluttonous.

My food philosophy is fairly simple, I only cook foods that are enjoyable to cook or eat, which excludes the cooking of stressful and complicated soufflés or sponges, I'll leave that to the contestants on The Great British Bake Off, which becomes compulsory viewing amongst me and my housemates come late next summer.

Food is after all necessary in order to sustain life, and is thus something we should all be passionate about. I will admit that I am encouraged mainly by greed, and that gluttony my primary reason for cooking, I would, for instance find it very difficult to be a professional chef, because the idea of cooking something and not indulging in it afterwards is incredibly foreign to me.

Which brings us finally to the purpose of this blog, my intent is not to showcase what a domestic goddess I am, for as my housemates can attest, I am anything but. Nor is it to show off about how light my Victoria sponges can be, it is merely a vehicle for me to share with you my passion for food, however those passions may manifest themselves. Bon Appétit!

“Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.”  - Orson Welles