Wild Garlic Harissa

The wild garlic is back in abundance, I looked a few weeks ago and it had just started, a few shoots here and there, but nothing more than a dainty garnish. A little bit of sunshine and suddenly there's a carpet of it. I filled a bin bag full last week and started to think of things I could do that I hadn't tried before...

I've made a lot of wild garlic pesto in the past, it's good in obvious things like pasta or a poached chicken salad. I like it drizzled into soup, particularly a new season nettle soup. I made some in Cook House last year and loved it. I also hadn't known until then that the new young nettle shoots don't sting you, you can just pick them with your bare hands... I'm still quite tentative though...  

Last week I made a form of green harissa for some canapes I was serving; a little fresh cheese and green harissa tart with sumac and pine nuts, they were really pretty tasty. I used coriander, parsley and rocket as the green base, but thought it would be good with wild garlic too. This green harissa is a mild form of Zhoug, a middle eastern green chilli paste.

I used two chillis, deseeded and chopped up, 60g coriander, 60g wild garlic, juice of quarter of a lemon, a pinch of salt, a good grind of black pepper. Then lightly toast half a teaspoon of coriander seeds, half a teaspoon of cumin seeds and half a teaspoon of cardamom seeds, and crush them until they are a fine powder in a pestle and mortar. Add this to your green mix and blitz the whole lot, gradually adding a stream of olive oil until you have a thick paste. It's delicious, a bit like a pesto but it has heat and spice and depth to it. It was delicious with my homemade fresh cheese.

I also added it to a salad of beetroot, feta and green lentils, lovely. A warning not to have it and go straight to a meeting, it tends to stay with you for a little while! Next up I'm trying some wild garlic oil, which you can use to drizzle into soups or salads, but sounds like it might be good to make mayonnaise with too... fried chicken and wild garlic mayo I'm thinking...

Roast Carrot and Cumin Seed Salad with Feta, Mint and Honey

People wander down from offices and studios around the Ouseburn for their lunch, friends and family visit, people staying at Hotel du Vin pop in, tourists and curious visitors to the Victoria Tunnel tour ask what I’m up to. Someone new and interesting seems to pop their head in everyday to ask what exactly is going on in this little shipping container.

There have been so many lovely customers in a very short space of time; I have only been open a month... long may it continue. I’ve met lots of new faces and taken on some new and exciting projects as a result. I can honestly say that I’m thoroughly enjoying the whole Cook House experience, albeit whilst totally exhausted...

I’ve been trying to plan my menus a week ahead, but I’m still getting used to the nuances of running my own ‘caff’... How much people will eat, how many people will come, what days are busy; it is all a learning curve that I’m trying to map out with tasty food... I think everything I have put on the menu has gone down pretty well so far. Most days are a balance of hearty meaty sandwiches or tarts with interesting tasty salads, which have been very well received. Today was Cauliflower Cake with mint salad, Pancetta and Gruyere Tart, Green Herb Couscous, Roast New Potato Salad with Dill and Orange and this... Roast Carrot and Cumin Seed Salad with Mint, Feta and Honey, a tasty new addition to the menu...

Chop 500g of carrots on the diagonal, cutting them down again if your carrots are particularly large, think bite size pieces... Then toss them in olive oil in a large roasting dish and sprinkle with salt and pepper and lots of cumin seeds. Roast them for 25 minutes at 200°C, until they have started to turn golden brown in places but still have a slight bite to them.

Turn them out into a large bowl and toss with a tablespoon of honey and a tablespoon of lemon juice. Keep giving them a stir as they cool to room temperature so the dressing can sink in. When they have cooled stir through a large handful of lambs leaf lettuce and a large handful of chopped mint. To serve crumble over about 100g of feta cheese... I’ve added toasted walnuts before if you fancy that too, and you can use caraway seeds as an alternative too... The carrots are sweet and spiced, delicious with fresh mint and creamy cheese, a tasty lunch...

Smoked Beef Ribs

Ok so this is another smoker recipe, and if you scroll down the page pretty much the last recipe I posted was a smoker recipe, and I don’t want to come across like a smoker show off, but I do have a smoker and I’ve been smoking stuff so I thought I’d tell you about it... again... because it is better than telling you about either nothing, or a bad apple risotto that seemed like a good idea but wasn’t...

I was given the Pitt Cue cookbook as a belated birthday present recently. It tells the story of Pitt Cue’s evolution from a trailer on the South Bank to their own little restaurant in Soho, building their own smokers and devising their own rubs, sauces and smoking techniques. These days they are even farming their own Pitt Pigs, I’d love my own pigs... It’s a canny little tale and is full of amazing looking smoked stuff.

Only it is DEAD complicated. I want to make the ‘Mother Sauce’ but to do that I have to first make beef stock and pork stock, fresh. I’d like to make the BBQ sauce to go with my lovely beef rib, but first I need to make a spice mix AND homemade Chipotle ketchup... I make a lot of stuff from scratch but this seems a bit of a faff on. They probably don’t expect people to make most of the things, but that makes me want to give it a go... The drinks and pickles look a bit more accessible. So  I improvised, missed some steps out and sacked off the BBQ sauce and ended up with a bloody lovely beef rib rack...

I made their ‘House Rub’, there’s enough to rub a house, so make a half or a quarter of this if you only have one piece of meat like I did. It comprised of 10g of fennel seeds, 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds, 1 teaspoon of black peppercorns and 1 teaspoon of coriander seeds, toasted in a dry pan for a few minutes, then ground up in a pestle and mortar. Add to a large bowl 100g of soft brown sugar, 50g granulated sugar, 10g garlic powder, 100g of fine salt, 15g of smoked paprika, 30g of regular paprika, 1 teaspoon of dried oregano and 1 teaspoon of cayenne. I threw in some mustard powder too... See, it’s a LOT of stuff. Mix it all together and you have your rub...

The beef was a lovely 4 bone beef rib rack from Charlotte’s butchery, which I covered all over in every nook and cranny with the rub. It was enough for four people, or two if you're really greedy, we just ate it for two days.

So we set Mr. Smokerson up, charcoal burning nice and white, water bowl in, temperature hanging around 110°C or 230°F, put the little metal box of wood chips onto the coals and in went the rib, not to be seen again for 6 hours, so we went for a walk. There is a massive bit of fat that runs through the middle of the rib that keeps it really moist but also has to break down so takes some time. When it is done the meat pulls away from the bone and is soft, sticky, smoky and delicious. We had it with mustardy coleslaw, lentils done like baked beans and some buttery polenta, perhaps an odd mix, but a pretty tasty one...

Shakshuka

I've been from one extreme to the other recently, a week of chickpeas, lentils and hunger followed by a few days in Lyon where I ate and drank far too much... Which ended in being terribly ill on the way home, I think I picked up some bug from somewhere, or it was my body just telling me to calm down with the 3 course meals and the wine... I fainted in the end! But have recovered to tell the tale... Lyon was beautiful, a lovely picturesque city. We ate in some amazing Bouchons and drank in some lovely cocktail bars. It is a city of offal and wine, my kind of city... We enjoyed black pudding, chicken liver cakes, cheese and praline tarts all day long. It was sunny and generally delightful. I hear summer happened here while we were away, but it's back to a grey cold day out there today.

This is one of my new weekend favourite breakfast brunches, especially on a cold damp morning like this. A bit of heat and spice with your morning eggs, courtesy of Ottolenghi, who's book Jerusalem is still one of my current favourites. It is a Tunisian dish of baked eggs nestled in tomatoes, soft peppers, and garlicky harissa spice. Comfort and spice...

Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan, I just have one large one which I scooped the eggs out of to serve, if you have smaller ones it's nice to be able to serve individual portions in the pan.

 

Add 2 tablespoons of harissa, I used an amazing rose harissa I discovered recently, 2 teaspoons of tomato purée, 2 diced red peppers, 4 cloves of garlic finely chopped, 1 teaspoon of ground cumin and ¾ teaspoon of salt, then cook for about 10 minutes. Add a tin of chopped tomatoes then simmer for another 10 minutes until the peppers are soft and you have a thick sauce.

 

Then make little dips in the sauce to add your eggs, I used 4 eggs, you can add up to 8 depending on how many you are feeding and how many eggs you like. Swirl the whites of the eggs into the sauce a little bit and simmer for about 8 minutes or until the whites are set and the yolks are still runny.

Serve with a big dollop of yoghurt and some fresh bread. The runny egg yolks in the spicy tomato sauce are delicious, with fresh tangy yoghurt and soft sweet red peppers. A perfect start to a cold Spring day.

Roast Cauliflower, Cumin and Yoghurt Soup

I have long taken inspiration from Claudia Rodan, her book Arabesque is never far from hand and I'm still discovering new amazing things in it that I have never cooked. A three hour roast lamb was the most recent with cinnamon couscous, chopped dates and almonds, delicious.

So when Carruthers and Kent, Gosforth's lovely independent fine wine company, suggested we team up and put together an evening of food and wine inspired by the Middle East I was instantly planning the menu. It will be a lavish tasting feast with matched wines on the 19^th July as part of the EAT! Festival. So if you fancy trying that lamb and many more tasty treats please click here for more details...

My menu planning has taken me cover to cover in lots of Claudia's books as well as experimenting with lots of my own ideas. This is a little soup that came about one lunchtime when trying to balance the lovely sunshine with the fact that I was still freezing cold. It is a roast cauliflower and spicy cumin soup but using yoghurt instead of cream adds a freshness that makes this soup summery and light as well as deep with spice and warmth, and it is also very simple.

I used half a cauliflower and made enough to serve 2-3 people. Simply chop the cauliflower into small florets and place in a baking tray, add 5 peeled shallots, a big glug of olive oil, some salt and 2 teaspoons of ground cumin. Shake it all up and roast in the oven for about 30 minutes at 180°C, until golden brown, after about 15 minutes throw in a couple of cloves of garlic, giving it a stir at the same time. When it is ready throw it all in a pan with 300ml of chicken stock and a bay leaf and simmer until everything is very soft, about 20 minutes.

When it is ready remove the bay leaf and puree until smooth and add 2-3 tablespoons of yoghurt. Check the seasoning and add salt and pepper to suit. To serve scatter with some toasted cumin seeds and a little drizzle of olive oil. It is a fresh light soup that is warming and spicy at the same time, perfect for this changeable weather we're having...

Summer Supper

The salami was ready, and the football season was starting with Newcastle playing Arsenal... So it made sense to put a shoulder of lamb in the oven for four hours while we went to the match, invite friends round to join us for supper, and unveil the long awaited salami...

The allotment is offering up courgettes rapidly and I have six large cauliflowers to get to grips with, so we only had to get some lamb and we were ready to go. I made some sweet lemon pastry and picked some blackberries from the Ouseburn the day before, which became delicious Berry and Mascarpone Lemon Pastry Tarts.

We may have got a bit carried away wearing paper masks of Joey Barton's face, at various points before, during and after supper. They had made their way home from the football match with us somehow, and resulted in us tweeting Mr. Joseph Barton photos of ourselves wearing them, and invitations to join us. Bizarrely he didn't show up?

We started with an Elizabeth David inspired olive tapanade with French bread for dipping, and the Homemade Salami. One of which was red wine and walnut, my favourite I think, the other was fennel and garlic, also delicious. They don't look very professional, more like shrivelled wizards fingers, but they tasted really good. I have been feeling apprehensive watching them hanging in the porch, worrying that they were going to be horrible, or worse still, poison me... But they were the right texture and smell, rich, meaty, full of flavour. It feels good to have successfully made them from scratch so I'm already planning the next batch.

The Braised Lamb was a beautiful centre piece, it just falls apart after braising in wine and stock for hours, surrounded by shallots and garlic. To accompany it I made some Mushy Courgettes, simply chopped and stewed with butter and garlic for half an hour. I used all three varieties that I am growing, yellow, standard green and ball shaped ones. I really should find out the name of these instead of constantly calling them 'green ball courgettes'...

The cauliflowers are a bit funny looking, in both shape and colour, but taste very good. I chopped the first one I have picked so far into small florets, and roasted it with cumin, salt, rapeseed oil, sliced red onion and chickpeas. It was lovely, I'm fast becoming a huge cauliflower fan, it was nutty and roasted with cumin, sweet onions and chewy toasted chickpeas. That took care of two cauliflowers, so I still have four more to cook, I had better start thinking...

We finished the evening with a bit more mask wearing, the Berry and Mascapone Lemon Pastry Tarts, some cheese that the kind guests brought, a bit more wine, toasts to Joey, toasts to the the lamb, toasts to the cheese and some impressions of Vic and Bob... I can't think a better way to spend a Saturday evening really...

Spinach and Chilli Pancakes

A little old man at the allotment gave me armfuls of spinach on Saturday while I was there watering. He's very kind, last time I saw him he gave me some rhubarb and planted it on my plot for me. Unfortunately this meeting led to a conversation about how the rhubarb was doing, which in truth is dead. I told him this... he is confident it will come back to life next year. I didn't tell him that it was my stepping on it that may have led to its death...

So I wanted to try these little spinach pancakes that are based on a recipe from the Ottolenghi book Plenty. I've been looking through their books a lot recently and want to get back into making more of their salads now that summer is sort of here...

To start you need to wilt the spinach in a pan with a splash of water, I used about 150g of Jesmond spinach... While that is happening add 55g of self raising flour to a mixing bowl, with half a teaspoon of baking powder, a free range egg, half a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of ground cumin, 75ml of milk and 25g of melted unsalted butter. Whisk everything together until it is smooth.

When the spinach is wilted transfer it to a sieve and squeeze as much water as you can out of it. Add the spinach to the pancake mixture, along with a finely sliced green chilli and 3 finely sliced spring onions. Finally whisk the white of an egg until it forms soft peaks and fold it into the mixture.

These amounts will make about four little pancakes. Heat a splash of olive oil in a heavy frying pan and then spoon in the mixture, a couple of tablespoons for each pancake. Cook for about 2 minutes on each side. They should be about a centimetre thick. You might have to do them in batches depending on the size of the pan.

Ottolenghi make a lime, chilli and coriander butter to serve with their version of these little green pancakes, which sounds delicious, but I opted for the healthier option and chopped a large handful of coriander into a couple of tablespoons of Greek yoghurt. I wanted to make something worthwhile with the spinach gift and they didn’t disappoint. They are lovely little green light pancakes with a hint of spice from the chilli and warm with cumin spice.

Leek Fritters

This recipe for leek fritters comes from the Ottolenghi book 'Plenty', it is an old Turkish family recipe that is really delicious. I was in Turkey twice last year, once for a few days in Istanbul and earlier in the year on the south Mediterranean coast for a very relaxing week. It is a beautiful area. We were staying near the coast which is very dramatic with huge cliffs dropping to tiny little pebble coves that you have to walk down hundreds of steps to reach. But drive twenty minutes inland and we were up in high mountains covered with huge pine trees, with fast rivers full of fresh water trout.

The mountain drive took us home through huge rocky dry mountains surrounding low lush green plateaus of farm land, growing millions and millions of tomatoes as well as corn, aubergines and chickpeas. When we eventually found our way back to the coast, after a few hours longer than planned, we came across a tiny little road side fish restaurant... They had one little boat moored on the rocks, a few chickens and some funny looking dogs, we were brought a green salad with pomegranate seeds and a syrupy pomegranate dressing, thin fried potatoes and a big tray of different sized, shaped and coloured fresh fish to point at which ones we wanted. I can't even remember which ones we went for, but everything was delicious, sat in the sun after being a bit lost in the mountains for most of the day...

To start the leek fritters chop 3 leeks into 2cm thick slices. These amounts will serve 4 people. Finely chop 5 shallots and sauté them together in a pan, on a low heat, with about 60ml of olive oil until they are soft, for about 15 minutes.

While they are cooking you can make the herb yoghurt sauce. Add 100g of Greek yoghurt, 100g of soured cream, 2 crushed cloves of garlic, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, 3 tablespoons of olive oil, half a teaspoon of salt, 20g of parsley leaves and 30g of coriander leaves to the blender and blitz for a few minutes until it is a green creamy sauce. If you don't want to make the sauce, or don't have a blender, the fritters are still delicious with just a squeeze of lemon.

Take a large bowl and add all of the following: one chopped red chilli, 25g of chopped parsley leaves, ¾ teaspoon of ground coriander, 1 teaspoon of ground cumin, ¼ teaspoon of ground turmeric, ¼ teaspoon of ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of sugar and half a teaspoon of salt. When the leeks and shallots are really soft add them to this mix and let them cool down.

Now whisk one egg white to soft peaks and add it to the cooled leeks. In another bowl mix together 120g of self raising flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, one whole egg, 150ml of milk and 55g of melted unsalted butter and mix everything together to make a light batter. Then stir this batter into the leek mix.

Finally heat 60ml of olive oil in a large frying pan. Spoon four large dollops of the mix into the pan to form four fritters, you will get about eight in total from the mix. Fry them for 2 or 3 minutes on each side until golden. Serve them warm with the sauce and a pile of salad...