As Strong As Soup

Last Christmas I was saddened to hear the news that Bill Granger had gone. When I first came across the book "Sydney Food" at the start of the new century, it felt refreshing and joyful. There were many high-profile books published at the time that I found repetitious and dull, but Bill's sunny, carefree food was never forbidding and always relaxed and interesting. Reading his recipes made me want to make them or, at least, something inspired by them. If I strayed away from the details of his recipes here and there, it didn't seem to matter. For me, cooks that inspire in that way are rare and always uplifting.   Since then, I've collected a modest pile of his books and made many meals over the years using his recipes, even if I've altered them a bit along the way. Incidentally, BG was called the "egg king" because of his famous, Australian-style scrambled eggs made with a serious amount of cream, but, I suppose because of my European background, that...

In Normandy every Sunday morning in accordance with ancient tradition the fearless men of the Calvados region gather with their forks and hope to hunt the wild and menacing teurgoule. OK, I'm lying. Teurgoule is indeed a speciality of the Calvados area but, let's not beat around the Normandy bush, it's a type of rice pudding. There are a number of stories about the origin of this simple speciality but I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable or gullible to say if they're true or not. So let's just say that this is a very slowly cooked rice pudding that's usually flavoured with cinnamon. That may seem a bit of an incongruous flavour for northern France but once upon a time spices, including cinnamon, would come ashore at Honfleur and the other ports along the Normandy coast. As for the strange name, there are plenty of explanations and it's often translated as “twisted mouth” but, since it has more of a patois or slang origin, I think that “mangled mug” mig...

When it's in season I never really get bored with simply cooked asparagus but, just for a change, I do use it in some slightly more involved recipes. I've often made a simple asparagus risotto in the past but this year I've played around with different flavours that complement and enhance the asparagus.  Almond milk provides a good background flavour and gives the risotto a creamier texture.  It might sound odd but I think that a little ginger in the stock intensifies and highlights the taste of the asparagus.  Don’t overdo the ginger, though, or you won’t taste much else. The easiest way to create a little ginger juice is to squeeze about ½ - 1 inch of peeled fresh ginger in a garlic press; although you could use a commercial ginger extract instead. I served this risotto with a little jamón ibérico (I do mean a little - I can't afford a lot) and a small, simple salad of red pepper. I love both of those flavours with asparagus but in a way they're just icing on th...

The other day I was listening to a fine rendition of Erik Satie’s ‘Je te veux’ on the radio and, for some reason, I remembered that he claimed to eat only white food. This choice may have stemmed from an artistic desire for purity, although, let’s face it, Satie was as mad as a box of frogs a trifle eccentric. I started to imagine what I’d serve up if Satie came round for dinner. I wouldn't put it past him to turn up out of the blue with a bouquet of umbrellas in hand expecting to be fed. I'm not sure that being dead for nearly 90 years would stop him. The starter could be a white soup, I suppose, and maybe chicken in a white sauce for the main course. But this is definitely the dessert. My version of coconut rice pudding isn't dairy-free, because I like the silkiness that the dairy elements bring to the dish. The fromage frais not only gives some extra creaminess, but also adds a little sharpness, which I think lifts the flavour of the pudding. There are other elde...

Once upon a time, when I was still young and foolish, a lady friend offered to cook me dinner. She made a classic kedgeree and very nice it was too. The second thing she cooked for me was also kedgeree. So was the third and the fourth. It turned out that kedgeree was the only dish she could cook. After a while,  she went off with an annoyingly handsome bloke from Sweden who played electric violin. Another friend of mine offered to cheer me up by making me dinner. She made me kedgeree.  It hasn't put me off, though; I still love this British classic. Although, after all these years and several shedloads of kedgeree, I do tend to throw in a few variations now and then. This version has so many variations that I don't think it’s quite kedgeree any more. One major variation is that I use short grain brown rice, which adds nuttiness and extra texture to the dish.  (This type of rice isn't common in supermarkets but you can find it in health food shops.) Rather than smoked ha...

Pudding pie is an ancient dish from Kent that is traditionally made during Lent but, believe me, it tastes lovely at any time of the year. In fact, what could be better than a pudding in a pie crust? In case you’re not familiar with them, cobnuts are a form of hazelnut with a long and illustrious history in Kent . I once asked a cobnut grower what the difference was between Kent cobnuts and imported European hazelnuts. His answer was: ‘Hundreds of years of careful growing and the English Channel’. Most cobnuts are sold green and fresh these days and very lovely they are too, but at this time of year some stored nuts are available and can be shelled and ground for baking. Before grinding them you can enhance the flavour by lightly roasting the shelled nuts for around 30 minutes at 130°C (but be careful to avoid burning them). If you don’t have access to the glorious cobnuts of Kent, then you can, of course, use hazelnuts.  Either way, grind the nuts quite finely and ensure that th...

We were  meandering along the beautiful coast of the Cotentin peninsula in Normandy last month in search of Port Racine, the smallest and just possibly the most charming port in France.  Port Racine, we discovered, is very close to the village of Omonville-La-Petite, the home and last resting place of Jacques Prévert . Since I love his poetry (even if I struggle with French), I felt it was only right that I go and pay my respects. Visiting any last resting place is obviously something of a solemn occasion, but, possibly because it was near to lunchtime, I couldn't shake off a vague memory of the following line from the poem ‘Lanterne Magique de Picasso’ (from the book ‘Paroles’): ‘L’étourdissante apparition d’un raisin de Malaga sur un gâteau de riz’ Or in my own shaky and free translation: ‘The dazzling appearance of a Malaga grape on a rice pudding’ A gâteau de riz isn't exactly a rice pudding in the British sense – it's more solid and usually has a layer of caramel ...

I've pinched the idea of this tart case from a Donna Hay recipe. Essentially she uses a simple coconut macaroon recipe to make tart cases by shaping them in muffin tins. It might not be as adaptable as a conventional pastry tart case but with the right filling it makes a great alternative. For the filling, I've added rosewater to rice, which is a combination that seems to turn up everywhere from Greece to India and most places between. Finally, all that sweetness needs some dark chocolate on the top to balance it – or maybe I was just thinking about Bounty bars. This should make 8 – 10 tarts, depending on exactly how big your muffin tin might be. For the tart cases:         170 g desiccated coconut         120 g caster sugar         2 egg whites For the rice filling:         100 g short grain rice        ...

I remember with something close to horror eating strange puddings made with ground rice as a kid. But in my defence I should point out that cooking as we know it today hadn't been invented then and food was mostly hit with sticks until it gave up. There are ground rice puddings from many parts of the world flavoured with a vast range of lovely things such as rosewater, orange flower water or cardamom as well as good old vanilla, so I thought I should try making some myself. It turns out that everyone else was right and they're very comforting. This pudding will be even more silky and luxurious if you add some cream, of course, but I'm trying to be a little healthy. The croquants are the traditional biscuit from the beautiful town of Cordes-sur-Ciel in the Tarn. The recipe dates back to the 17 th century so I've tried to restrain myself from mucking about with it too much. La Fête du Croquant is held in Cordes-sur-Ciel every June, which sounds like an excellent oppo...

I’ve just been reading a disappointing new cookbook (no names, no packed lunch) by an author so full of himself that it's a wonder he has any space left for food. The author gives his readers the familiar lecture on authenticity and how we should know the origins of a recipe and never use any ingredient not available to the cook who might have created it. That’s not really my cup of authentic British tea. It made me want to cook something as inauthentic as possible at the earliest opportunity. This recipe is about as inauthentic as it gets. It's based on a dish that I remember seeing made many years ago although I didn't get the recipe at the time. This is very much my own inauthentic recreation of the dish and should serve 4 people . For the meatballs:    1 onion, finely chopped    30 g breadcrumbs    1 egg, beaten    Zest of ½ lemon    30 g sultanas    3 dried apricots    ½ tsp dried lime, ground  ...

We have a new restaurant in the Carluccio's chain coming to our High Street and I'm certainly not complaining about that, but for some reason there are a lot of places to get Italian food in this area . I felt I ought to try to reduce my carbonara footprint and avoid cooking anything with even a vaguely Italian pedigree for a week or two. I failed miserably thanks to my risotto craving. I remember many years ago shopping in Mr Carluccio's original Neal Street deli and on a couple of occasions the man himself was there. At the time I'd never made a risotto but he told me that there was nothing to be afraid of and many hundreds of risottos later I can confirm that he was right. Plenty of people far better qualified than I have described the process of adding hot stock to rice to make risotto, so I don't think it's worth me repeating it, but it might be worth passing on a tip I was given some time ago (not by Mr Carluccio, I hasten to add). If you need to pre...