As Strong As Soup

I was reminded of this dish while meandering along the back alleys of some old cookbooks. It's a variation on cottage pie and the most obvious difference is that you don't usually get fruit in a cottage pie. I don't know the exact history of this recipe but I'm sure that this pie was around in some form during the period of rationing after the war. At that time small amounts of meat were often mixed with any available veg and fruit to make it go further. I can remember eating something like it in the 1970s but it seemed to fade away around the end of that decade. Meat combined with fruit has a very long history in British food and is common enough now in more fashionable, imported dishes so I thought I'd try a personal London Pie revival. Less sweet varieties of apple are best for this recipe in my opinion and I've used both cooking and eating apples to give a contrast in texture. The sour quality of the apples is offset by the dried fruit and the sweetness in...

Earlier this year I saw Rick Stein on TV making some goulash (or was it gulasch?). He said that his Viennese style version reminded him of the classic dish that was so common in the UK back in the 1970s and 80s. A few days later I had a strange, vivid dream that I was back in the 1970s and eating endless bowls of goulash. In fact, that probably wasn't such a strange dream. There were  endless bowls of goulash back then. Pretty much everyone that I knew in the late 70s seemed to cook goulash as often as possible. Mr Stein's version wasn't quite the dish that I remember, though, and I felt compelled to try to recreate the one in my head. This is my attempt and it comes close. It's actually a bit lighter than the 1970s dishes and I don't think we'd heard of smoked paprika back then but I couldn't resist adding just a little.  Mr Stein also avoids green peppers in his recipe but I seem to recall that they were definitely part of the South London version. I r...

A while ago I was asked what was the first ever recipe that I'd collected. I've been tearing recipes out from newspapers and magazines and jotting others down for a very long time but everything before about 1983 has been lost somewhere along the way. I did some digging and came up with this which is just possibly the earliest surviving recipe in my collection. I can't remember where the recipe came from but I'm fairly sure it wasn't called “bogus” in the original. It is bogus, though, and has only a distant connection to the original Café de Paris recipe. This may be partly my fault because I think I played around with it a fair bit before I wrote it down but I believe that the real sauce served in the Café de Paris in Geneva is a creamy sauce that’s allegedly made using chicken livers. (Although maybe not - the actual recipe is still secret). To make things even more confusing, there are plenty of recipes for a Café de Paris butter around and that’s an entirel...

Most years I try to grow at least one chilli plant during the summer and most of them suffer from neglect. Some do produce a decent crop, though, and last year it was the turn of a Scotch Bonnet plant. As the summer ended I carried it indoors and placed it on a windowsill, where it’s just about hanging on to life despite yet more neglect. Oddly the seriously hot little fruits made me nostalgic for the 1980s. Back then I started to realise that Caribbean cooking could be exceptionally good as well as exceptionally hot. The big name in Caribbean (and African) cooking at that time, at least as far as I was concerned, was Rosamund Grant. As well as writing cookery books she ran the groundbreaking Bambaya restaurant in London at the time. The restaurant may have disappeared long ago but I still use some of her recipes from the 80s. Actually, this isn't one of them, but it's definitely inspired by her and uses a version of the traditional technique of creating a marinade based on v...

I'm sorry that I've been a bit quiet lately but sadly life's been keeping me out the kitchen and out of touch. Spring is finally here but, before we forget about the need for warming beef casseroles during the colder months, here's one of my favourite comforting beef dishes - although this recipe works at any time of the year, honest. My version sticks fairly close to the classic Carbonade Flamande recipe, or at least to the one I learnt in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais. There are plenty of variations around so please don’t shout at me if it doesn’t sound authentic or even truly ch’ti to you. The problem that I have with a lot of beer-based casseroles is that they can become too bitter for my taste. The clever thing about this dish is that the flavours are balanced by adding pain d’épices, which not only adds sweetness, but also adds a gentle hint of spice and helps to thicken the sauce. If you can’t find pain d’épices then you could make your own (my recipe is here ) or ...

There are plenty of different bobotie recipes around but here’s another one anyway. I prefer it lightly spiced with a fruity taste and a very eggy topping. Definitely comfort food for these cold, dark days. 1 onion, finely chopped 1 medium-sized carrot, very finely chopped 1 apple, peeled and coarsely chopped 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 500 g lean beef mince 90 g breadcrumbs – around 2 slices processed 100 g dried apricots, chopped 30 g sultanas 30 g toasted flaked almonds 2 tsp ground cumin 1 tsp ground coriander 1 tsp paprika 2 tbsp demerara sugar 2 tbsp soy sauce 3 tbsp mango chutney 2 tbsp lemon juice For the topping:          3 eggs          150 ml milk Preheat the oven to 190°C (for a fan oven- a little hotter otherwise). In a large frying pan, fry the onion and carrot in a little oil until it has started to soften (add water rather than too much oil if you’re trying to be h...