Tagliatelles à la crème aux champignons

This is a recipe I am inordinately proud of, and is one that I have been making for years, I started this website partially so that I would have somewhere to write down all the recipes I have developed and honed over all the years. This is one of my favorites, and it tastes incredibly luxurious despite being incredibly simple to make.

Start by wiping and chopping your mushrooms, don't wet them or they will be slimy. Cooking mushrooms is incredibly simple yet it is so often done badly, there are a few simple rules, firstly don't crowd them, or they won't brown, secondly always cook them in butter, as olive oil has too brusque a flavour and will overpower the delicate mushrooms, finally never salt them until they have finished cooking, if you season them too soon they will ooze out all their water, and will be slimy.

Put a large knob of butter in a cold heavy based frying pan and crush in two cloves of garlic, heat gently until the butter melts and add the chopped mushrooms, stirring to coat them in the butter, they will give out some liquid as you cook them, and when this liquid has been soaked back up, add a small glass of white vermouth to the pan. Stir over a high heat until all the vermouth has evaporated.

Start cooking your pasta, I like to use fresh tagliatelle. Then add 400ml of single cream, and stir to combine, simmer it for a few minutes and season with salt and pepper, and a little parsley if desired. Turn off the heat and add some grated parmesan to taste, stir in the cheese until the sauce is smooth. Drain the pasta and top with the cream sauce, stir so that the sauce is well distributed through the pasta and serve garnished with chopped parsley.

ingredients

400g fresh tagliatelle
300g mushrooms
400ml single cream
small glass white vermouth
grated parmesan, to taste
small knob butter
salt & pepper
chopped parsley, to garnish

Swiss Chard and Pumpkin Lasagne

Beef lasagne is a classic, undoubtedly, but given that every family has their own recipe, and their own preferences for how lasagne should be served, giving a recipe seems slightly pointless. This is something slightly different, as it uses roasted pumpkin and sauteed swiss chard in the place of a beef ragu, and it is surprisingly good.

Start by roasting your pumpkin, cut it into large cubes and place it on a baking tray, lightly drizzled with oil, and seasoned with salt and pepper. Roast in a hot oven for about 45 minutes until the surface has blackened slightly and the skin is falling off. Sautee the chard by washing it in cold water, and without drying it, place it in a saucepan over a low heat, season with a little salt, you won't need too much as the chard is already quite salty, and a little pepper.

Make a bechamel by whisking 4 tablespoons of vegetable oil with 4 tablespoons of flour over a medium heat until it combines to form a roux. Off the heat add about 400 ml of milk slowly, whisking until it combines and there are no lumps. Place the pan back on the heat and stir it gently with a wooden spoon until it thickens, and when it is thick and has lost its floury taste, then season with salt, pepper and a hint of freshly grated nutmeg.

To assemble the lasagne, put about half the swiss chard, drained and half the roasted pumpkin, mashed slightly with the skin removed in an ovenproof dish, and top with about half a jar of tomato passata. Cover with uncooked sheets of lasagne and repeat, adding another layer. Finally top with the bechamel sauce and cover with grated parmesan. Bake in a medium hot oven for about half an hour until the cheese has browned and the sauce underneath is bubbling.

ingredients

400g pumpkin, diced
400g swiss chard
4 tbsps vegetable oil
4 tbsps plain flour
400 ml milk
1 packet lasagne sheets
1 jar tomato passata
75g parmesan cheese

For the Love of Pizza

The history of pizza is long and contested, some say that it originates with the greeks, who topped their bread with oils and herbs, and sometimes cheese, the more accepted story, is that it was created in Naples, where it evolved from the garlic, cheese and basil topped flatbreads which somewhat resemble modern focaccia.

Popular legend holds that the modern neapolitan pizza was created in 1889 when, in honour of the visiting Queen Margherita, a local pizzaiolo created a pizza in her honour, which he swathed in the colours of the italian flag, using red tomato sauce, white mozzarella and green basil. According to recent research, this story is total baloney, but it's a rather nice tale nonetheless.

I am not a food snob, my love of pub grub and greasy spoons is well documented and is mostly lampooned by my friends, however, I will admit that when it comes to pizza, I prefer something slightly more refined than your average take-away can deliver. Maybe living in Italy for a year has destroyed my ability to enjoy doughy take-out pie, but after living in a country where you can buy the most amazing pizza on the street for a mere euro, it is difficult to spend a tenner for a pizza that usually ends up being a thorough disappointment.

My ideal pizza is always topped with artichoke hearts, I am almost addicted to these as a topping, they are simply fabulous, and have been my favorite for as long as I can remember. Also brilliant is asparagus. I am fairly indifferent to asparagus generally, except in this case. Rocket is also great when added after the pizza has been cooked, adding a crunchy freshness to the pizza.

Finally, egg. Egg makes the most wonderful pizza topping, baked on top of the pizza so that the white has cooked and the yolk is still runny, providing some much needed lubrication. The use of egg on pizza is highly controversial in my family, and for those who haven't tried it is sounds bizarre and horrific, but it's one of my favorites.

Roasted Vegetable Risotto

I made this for the first time last night on a whim, and I will admit that I am quite taken with it. I invented this recipe fairly randomly, after my friends asked me to cook them dinner, and it was thankfully successful.

Start by slow roasting your vegetables, I used courgettes, red onion and red peppers, but you could also use any vegetables you like. Dice the vegetables into small chunks and sprinkle them with a little salt and some freshly ground black pepper, drizzle them with olive oil and toss, ensuring that they are fully coated in the oil. Grate or mince over a few cloves of garlic, and place them into a medium hot oven for about half an hour. About 10 minutes before the risotto is due to be finished, add some sun dried tomatoes, which add a nice tang to the risotto.

After the vegetables have been cooking for around 10 minutes, start on your risotto, finely chop half a red onion and put it into a mini blender to achieve a fine chop. Put the contents of the blender into a large frying pan with some salt and pepper and sweat it off for a few minutes on a high heat. Add the rice, and a little white wine if you wish, and cook off the wine, stirring as it cooks.

Make up your stock, and you will need quite a lot, I normally make about a litre to start off with, and then when the first litre has been absorbed, I taste the rice to see how chewy it is, and how much more stock it will require. Add the stock a bit at a time stirring with a wooden spoon until the stock has absorbed and then adding more, continue until all the stock has been absorbed and the rice is tender.

When the rice is cooked take the frying pan off the heat and add a large knob of butter, add some parmesan and stir it into the risotto. Remove the vegetables from the oven and add the risotto to the tray, use wooden spoons to toss the risotto and the vegetables together until combined, and serve, on warmed plates.

I created this on a whim and I will admit that I am immensely proud of it, it has a vibrancy and tang that makes it the perfect antidote to bland and boring white risottos, which so often lack interest and taste. This also makes the perfect dish for feeding a lot of people, as upscaling the quantities is pretty simple.

Ingredients

400g arborio rice
1 litre vegetable or chicken stock
small glug or white wine or vermouth
90g freshly grated parmesan
3 courgettes, diced
3 red peppers, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
salt & pepper
olive oil
large knob butter

Fried Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich

This is truly one of my favorite breakfast recipes, it's gloriously simple and fantastically cheap, and it takes mere minutes to make. This dish was a favorite of Elvis Presley's, who would eat these sandwiches as a midnight snack, cooked by his mother in bacon fat, my version is a rather more svelte.

There are many variations on this sandwich, some of which include bacon, some butter the bread first, and some even include honey. This version is as simple as it can possibly be, using only three ingredients, and not even using any cooking fat, just a griddle to create picturesque smoky lines.

Take two slices of industrial packaged bread, I find white works best, and spread them both with peanut butter. The kind of peanut butter you choose depends on your preference, but I prefer the unsweetened crunchy kind. You can use smooth if you prefer, but whichever you choose it mustn't be too runny, otherwise the peanut butter will drip out when you try to cook it.

Peel a banana and mash it on a board, and then add it to one of the slices of bread, on top of the peanut butter, place the other slice of bread on top, peanut butter side down. Place the sandwich on a hot griddle, and leave it until the bread is crunchy on the outside, and flip it, cooking until the sandwich is warm through and cooked on the other side.

ingredients

2 slices white bread
crunchy peanut butter
1 banana

Gruyere Cheese Risotto

This sounds like overkill, and I will admit that it is rather rich, but that makes this perfect comfort food, think of it as the more elegant cousin of mac & cheese.

There is a misconception that making risotto is challenging, that it requires skill or talent, this couldn't be any further from the truth, what it does take is time. Yes, it does require almost constant stirring, but very little concentration, and I find there to be something quite soothing and therapeutic about the constant stirring, it can be immensely relaxing after a long day.

Melt a large knob of butter, with a little vegetable oil to stop it burning, in a large frying pan, and cook some spring onions until soft and translucent. Add the arborio rice to the pan and keep stirring for around a minute. Add some wine and a teaspoonful of mustard, and let the wine cook down until it has been absorbed by the rice

Make up the vegetable or chicken stock, and turn up the heat under the rice. Add the stock to the frying pan, and stir the rice until the liquid is absorbed. You can either make up the stock in a saucepan and add it with a ladle, or you can make the stock in a jug, and pour it in. I prefer the latter, but both methods are perfectly acceptable.

Keep stirring in the stock until it has all been absorbed and the rice is tender, this should take about 20 minutes. When the rice is cooked through remove it from the heat, and add the cheese, folding it into the rice until all the cheese has melted.

Serve on warmed plates or bowls, sprinkled with a little chopped chive if wished.

ingredients

1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 finely sliced spring onions
300g arborio rice
125ml white wine
1/2 teaspoon french mustard
1 litre hot vegetable or chicken stock
125g chopped gruyere cheese
chopped fresh chives (optional)

Chicken and Bacon Pie

I am always looking to try new recipes, and the genesis for this dish came from a leaflet my friend picked up at the supermarket. My mother has made pies like this for years, mostly using swiss chard or spinach, and a cheese, often mozzarella. This simple but comforting dish is almost embarrassingly easy, and makes a great standby supper.

This dish is similar to the pies my mother used to make but with a vaguely more complicated filling, though it is still fairly manageable. What is also great about this pie is that it can be made in advance and stored, ready to be cooked in the fridge. You can also make a vegetarian version of this pie, using quorn chicken and omitting the bacon, though you will need to add more liquid, as not only will the quorn not give out any liquid, on the contrary it will soak it up.

Start by preparing and dicing the chicken thighs, and chopping 4 rashers of streaky bacon, and browning them in a pan with a little olive oil and some thyme leaves.

When the chicken has browned add two tablespoons of plain flour, and stir vigorously until the flour has combined with the juices. Pour in some white wine and allow it to bubble for a few minutes.

Dice the mushrooms and make up your chicken stock, add both to the pan and allow it to simmer until the sauce has thickened and the mushrooms are tender. At this point the chicken should be cooked through and there should be no pink. Remove from the heat and add the creme fraiche, stirring to combine.

While the filling is simmering roll out the puff pastry to slightly larger than your dish and cut a cross in the middle to let the steam escape. Ladle the pie filling into an ovenproof dish, and cover with the pastry, folding the points of the cross over to make a square hole. Fold the excess pastry over to make a border and crimp the edge with a fork. Brush the pastry with milk.

Bake the pie in a 200 degree oven until the pastry is golden and crisp. Serve with mashed potatoes made by mashing peeled and boiled potatoes with the leftover creme fraiche, season well.

ingredients

olive oil
4 rashers smoked streaky bacon, chopped
6 boneless chicken thigh fillets, diced
2 sprigs thyme
2 tbsp plain flour
100ml white wine
300ml chicken stock
250g button mushrooms
4 tbsp creme fraiche
1 pack puff pastry
2 tbsp milk

Pesto Alla Trapanese

This is quite possibly the most traditionally italian dish I have ever written about, and the only changes I have made are to use ingredients commonly found outside of Italy.

This dish originated in Sicily, as so many great italian dishes do, and is essentially a sicilian version of pesto, which originates from Genoa. The basil of Pesto alla Genovese is substituted for tomatoes, and instead of pine nuts, almonds are used instead.

Start by cooking your pasta, you can make the sauce while this is cooking. I like linguine with pesto, but spaghetti will work just as well.

To make your sauce finely chop a small handful of salted roasted almonds. You can also use raw nuts, but I prefer the rich flavour and saltiness of these almonds, which are usually used as bar snacks.

Also chop a handful of sultanas and a few cloves of garlic, throw all of these into a small hand blender and add a large glug of olive oil and a healthy pinch of salt and pepper. Throw in a few teaspoons of capers, I absolutely adore these so I tend to add quite a lot. Finally add about half a can of chopped tomatoes, and blitz until the mixture has a smooth, fudgy texture.

Drain your pasta and add the sauce to the pasta in the saucepan, off the heat, stir to combine and to warm the sauce, and serve, topped with a basil leaf, if you wish.

This sauce is almost embarrassingly easy, and like all good pasta sauces, it can be made while the pasta is cooking. It is refreshingly different to pesto, having a more subtle flavor, and more body than Pesto alla Genovese.

ingredients

500g linguine
3 cloves garlic
1/2 can chopped tomatoes
25 grams sultanas
2 tablespoons capers
60ml olive oil
salt & pepper

Sausage Traybake

I can take absolutely no credit for this wonderful recipe, my friend Alice made it for me for the first time last week, and was entirely taken by it.

Traybakes are perfect for students as they are relatively cheap and very easy, given that you can basically put everything in the oven at the same time. This tray bake is a wonderful combination of flavours, and might even be able to convince the average student to eat a vegetable occasionally.

You can use pretty much whatever sausages you want for this, thyme and rosemary sausages work especially well. Even vegetarian sausages will work, though you may need to add some liquid to the tray if you do this.

Start by roughly dicing your potatoes, and put them in the bottom of the pan with some olive oil and seasoning, stirring to coat the potatoes. Prick the sausages lightly with a fork and coat them in oil, strip rosemary needles from the stalk and crush a few cloves of garlic and sprinkle them over the potatoes and sausages. Roast in the oven on a medium heat until the sausages have browned slightly.

Peel a red onion and slice it into eighths, sprinkle it over the sausages, and return the tray to the oven. Finally dice some button mushrooms and add them to the tray with some cherry tomatoes and a little more oil, until the sausages have cooked through and have browned, and the potatoes are soft in the middle.

Ingredients

9 sausages (or 3 per person)
300g potatoes, diced
1 red onion
200g button mushrooms
a handful of Cherry Tomatoes
olive oil
salt & pepper

Macaroni & Marmite

You will either love or hate this recipe, and thankfully I love it. There is something about this salty umami dish that I find intensely comforting. Like most of the dishes here, it is almost embarrassingly fast to make, requiring you to only spoon a few ingredients over the pasta and melt it together.

The seed of this idea comes from an episode of Nigella Bites I watched months ago, probably whilst sprawled hungover on the sofa in a slightly stained silk kimono watching food network. It is essentially just a riff on noodles in butter and cheese, with the addition of some yeast extract.

The first step is to cook your pasta, according to the packet instructions, when your pasta is cooked drain and return it to the hob with the heat off and add about a tablespoon of marmite and a large knob of butter, and stir together until both have melted and combined.

Grate in a little parmesan allowing it to melt and then stirring it into the hot sauce. Serve and top with a little more grated parmesan.

ingredients

150g Macaroni
1 large tablespoon Marmite, or to taste
1 large knob of butter
4 tablespoons grated parmesan

A British Institution

Cooking a roast dinner can be fairly challenging, and I give great amounts of kudos to all the women (or men) all over the British Isles who cook a sunday roast every single week, for it is no mean feat.

I have been meaning to cook a sunday roast with my friends ever since I moved back to the UK over a year ago, and this week I finally got round to it. The real challenge of a roast is making sure that everything is ready at the same time.

The first thing you should cook is your protein, we opted for chicken, stuff the chicken with a lemon, that has been skewered with a knife and with a few thyme stalks, and top with thyme sprigs, oil, and salt and pepper, massaging the oil into the bird.

Prep your veg. Quarter and parboil the potatoes, cooking them until they are still firm, but are almost cooked through. Toss the potatoes, and other root vegetables in oil and seasoning, and cook them separately in the same oven as the bird.

Now you can turn your attention to your green veg, I cooked broccoli and green beans, separate the broccoli into florets, top and tail the green beans, and set them aside ready for cooking later. Around now you can start making your yorkshire puddings, I have already detailed how to make the perfect yorkshire puddings here.

Finally, you just need to cook your green veg, and make your gravy. Lightly steam the broccoli florets until they are tender and cooked through. Cook the green beans in lightly salted boiling water, and when they are cooked drain them, and add a large knob of butter to the pan and a few cloves of crushed garlic, stirring until the butter has melted and been infused with the hot pungent garlic.

Finally, make your gravy, you can do this one of two ways, if there are no pan juices, you can just use granules, which will make a perfectly fine gravy, or you can deglaze the pan in which the chicken was cooked.

Add the drippings with a little white wine. Slake a little flour with some stock and add it to the pan. Reduce over a medium heat, whisking in some stock if needed, until you have a thick and luscious gravy.

Getting everything adequately cooked, and ready at the same time is no mean feat, luckily the only items which require any precision are the chicken and the yorkshire puddings, with everything else you have a fair amount of leniency.

All thats left is to enjoy this british institution, perhaps with a glass of chilled chardonnay and a board game.

ingredients

1 chicken

oil

salt & Pepper

A few sprigs of thyme

1 lemon

1 kg potatoes

500g green beans, trimmed

1 kg parsnips

1 head of broccoli

1 recipe yorkshire puddings

The Perfect Yorkshire Pudding

My grandmother always made wonderful yorkshire puddings, light and crispy they are a must with any roast dinner, and are a quintessential comfort food for many people.

You'll have to forgive me the slightly hyperbolic title, of course there is no such thing as a perfect yorkshire pudding, everyone's tastes will be slightly different, but these are pretty good nonetheless.

There are a few secrets to follow when making yorkshire puddings, and if you follow these you should have no trouble making them, and your puddings should rise every single time.

Start by making your batter, this is very simple as it contains basically three ingredients. Eggs, milk and flour, with a dash of salt. Recipes vary on how many eggs to use, I say that 2 eggs for about 12 yorkshire puddings is right, not too rich, but enough to give them lift.

My first tip is to let the batter rest before you cook it. About half an hour minimum, what I generally do is make the batter before I start cooking a roast, and leave it in the fridge until it needs cooking, this usually gives it about an hour of resting.

Fill the wells of a muffin tin with about a centimetre of sunflower oil, or alternatively with beef dripping. My second tip is to heat the fat in the tin until it gets really really hot, and starts to smoke. It needs to be so hot that when the batter is poured in it starts to bubble and spit, and rises up the sides of the wells.

Put the tray with the batter into a hot oven, for 20 minutes. My third tip is to leave the oven door closed until they are fully cooked otherwise they will start to sink, the batter will fill with grease and they won't become crisp.

Remove them from the tray with a fork, and serve with a roast, filled with gravy.

ingredients

115g plain flour
pinch of salt
2 medium eggs, beaten
290ml milk
vegetable oil or dripping for cooking

Pasta with Deconstructed Pesto

This is a great pasta dish to make for a late night supper in summer, when you have really fresh basil. So it is without irony that I made this dish last on a cold and rainy february evening.

The concept of this dish, is that it contains all of the same ingredients as pesto, but rather than blending them, they are added to the cooked pasta individually and the flavours are allowed to meld for a few moments.

The great advantage of this dish is that it takes no time to prepare, you can literally prepare the ingredients for the sauce while the pasta is cooking.

Start by cooking your pasta, I prefer to use macaroni for this dish, but you could also use penne or fusilli. While the pasta is cooking roughly chop some fresh basil and sprinkle it with salt. Peel and chop or crush 2 large cloves of garlic.

Drain the pasta when it's cooked and return it to the hot pan off the heat, add the basil and about 2 tablespoons of good quality olive oil stirring to combine, add a small handful of pine nuts to the pan and grate in some parmesan, stirring until it combines to form a cohesive sauce.

Serve steaming hot, preferably curled up on the sofa, topped with more parmesan and some freshly ground black pepper.

Ingredients

150g pasta
30g fresh basil roughly chopped
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons of freshly grated parmesan plus more to garnish
a small handful of pine nuts
salt & pepper to taste

French Onion Soup

This is one of my favorite soups, and one of my favorite recipes to make. It truly does have a great wow factor, and is wonderful served either as a starter, or alternatively as a lunch. Personally I find that there are few things more luxurious or more simple than sitting down in the living room of my parents house in Paris on a rainy afternoon, rain lashing on the veranda with a bowl of warming onion soup.

My recipe is very simple, some recipes add alcohol or vinegar to the stock, some even add bacon changing the nature of the dish entirely. It is also possible to top the soup with a poached egg as is often done in belgium, however here I prefer to top the soup with the more traditional gruyere toast.

This recipe should feed around four people. To start off finely chop a whole kilo of onions and fry them in a generous quantity of butter, sprinkling them with a generous amount of salt to ensure that they don't brown too deeply. When they have softened and turned slightly translucent cover with 500ml of stock, you can either use vegetable stock, though beef stock is traditionally used (and no, I don't and have never made my own stock).

Simmer for 15 minutes until the flavours have mellowed and the stock has darkened. While the soup is simmering, thickly slice a baguette and place it under the grill on a baking tray until it has toasted lightly, flip and toast the other side. When the soup has simmered ladle it into ovenproof bowls and top with the toast. Top with grated gruyere cheese (though you could also use emmental or cheddar) and place under the grill until the cheese has melted and browned.

I must credit my mother for providing the recipe and I will confess that I don't often make it at home, as my version pales in comparison to hers, which uses fat white onions from the garden, and crusty french bread direct from the bakery, however don't let that put you off making this classic dish, one of the simplest soups to make, and wonderfully comforting and warming.

Ingredients:

1kg Onions
50g unsalted butter
500ml stock
1 baguette
200g Gruyere Cheese

Pea & Leek Pasta Risotto

This is a little gem of a recipe, and part of the reason that it is so wonderful is that everything that you need for this dish is non perishable, and will keep for at least a month in the fridge. This makes this a great standby dish. You will need a specific type of pasta for this recipe, often called orzo, which is often used in soup, and which is shaped similarly to large grains of rice. This pasta is cooked in a frying pan, rather than a saucepan, much like a risotto, but it has an advantage over risotto because it doesn't require stirring. I must credit Nigella Lawson for the inspiration behind this recipe, as I often do, which I have adapted slightly since I discovered it a couple of years ago.

Firstly chop your leek finely, and fry it in a scant amount of oil in a hot frying pan, seasoning lightly. Add two large handfuls of frozen peas to the pan, and stir allowing them to soften slightly in the hot oil. At this point, if you like you may add some pancetta, finely chopped to the pan, and allow it to brown. Pour the orzo pasta into the pan, and put the kettle on to boil, stirring the frying pan to mix. Add the boiling water to the pan and turn the heat down to a medium low heat.

After about ten minutes most of the water will have evaporated and the pasta will be tender, start stirring to ensure that the pasta doesn't stick and take the pan off the heat. Add a large knob of butter to the top of the pasta, and allow it to melt, making the pasta slight and glossy. Finally add some parmesan cheese and some freshly crushed pepper, stirring to combine.

I can't state enough how charming this recipe is, it's perfect for a weekday dinner curled up on the sofa and eaten out of a bowl in front of the television.

Ingredients

olive oil
1 leek
150g pancetta cubes (optional)
150g frozen peas
boiling water
250g Orzo pasta
salt & pepper (to taste)
parmesan cheese (to taste)
large knob of butter

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

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

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.