Roast Tomato, Red Lentil and Harissa Daal

Happy New Year! Like many others I'm feeling the full effects of a two week daily cheese, wine, meat, pie and chocolate drip feed. So before I go to London tomorrow and intensively eat my way round every place I've had my eye on for the past year I've been trying to eat healthy vegetable based dishes. This has been my favourite go to for a while and is based on a recipe from Diana Henry's 'A Healthy Appetite', which I haven't really explored enough but everything I have made has been delicious.

So far my London itinerary includes Paradise Garage, from the people behind The Dairy, in a railway arch in East London, seasonal, british, tasting menu, all very current! The menu looks right up my street though, lamb heart, cod brandade with seafood crisp, smoked eel, venison tartar with cured egg... Then there's Pidgin, opened by James Ramsden who used to run supperclubs from his flat, but now has a little restaurant with a set weekly menu, the chef Elizabeth Allan is producing delicious sounding menus and has staged in some of the best restaurants including L'Enclume. Then Oldroyd, a little neighbourhood place in Angel with an Italian slant opened by Tom Oldroyd who headed up the kitchen at Polpo for years. I'm also hoping to squeeze in trips to Bao, Som Saa, Brawn, Barrafina, Black Axe Mangal and The Quality Chop House, which won't happen but I'll try hard; as well as some good exhibitions that are on too, and see some friends. I think I should just book tickets to go down again asap as I'm being massively overly ambitious...

Back to eating vaguely healthily... It's quite simple, this will serve two people generously. Half about 8 tomatoes and toss them in a baking tray with a big glug of olive oil, salt, pepper and a couple of tea spoons of harissa, then roast then at 180˚C cut side up, for about 45 minutes until shrunken and sweet.

In a small pan toast 1 teaspoon of coriander seeds and 2 teaspoons of cumin seeds for a few minutes until you can smell them, then grind them up in a pestle and mortar. In a frying pan heat a splash of olive oil and gently fry a chopped onion until soft and golden. Then add 4 cloves of grated garlic, the cumin and coriander, half a teaspoon of tumeric, a pinch of saffron, 2cm of grated fresh ginger, the finely diced stalks of a small bunch of coriander (keep the leaves) and one chopped red chilli. Then continue to cook gently for another five minutes.

Add 250g red lentils and stir to coat then in the spices and oil, add in most of the roast tomatoes with all the oil and harissa scrapings from the baking tray, save a few tomatoes back for the top of each dish, and about 700ml of water, add salt and pepper to taste, then leave to simmer for 15 minutes. Top up with water if needs be, but you want it to be quite a thick, daal/stew consistency. Serve with a dollop of yoghurt, chopped coriander and the reserved tomatoes.

I'll be back on the lentils and vegetables as soon as I've finished aggressively eating my way around the capital... 

Live Below the Line - Day 1

I have completed Day 1 of my Live Below the Line challenge! Yesterday I did my shopping, which was a bit stressful. I went to Asda, and only took the exact money I could spend. TLI has joined me on my adventure so I had £10 to spend, £5 each for 5 days. Supermarkets you don't know are stressful to begin with, I had no idea where anything was and their range of dried pulses was pitiful, I should have stuck with Morrisons... Buying loose vegetables to an exact amount of money is also stressful. I stood by the scales with a calculator and a notepad weighing each carrot, leek and potato one at a time!

I went to the self service till in case I went over my budget and had to put stuff back, it seemed less embarrassing at self service; I did have my sums wrong, but ended up being £1.85 under, so I still have that to spend. I couldn’t face heading back into the aisles so have yet to decide what else to buy.

I unloaded when I got home and surveyed what I had bought. I'm not sure how two of us will live on it for 5 days, it looks pretty impossible at first glance to be honest. Ten pounds just doesn’t seem to go very far, especially when you choose some fresh produce.

My first day didn’t exactly go to plan, as I spent most of it eating nothing at all. I was off to the Farne Islands for a meeting about a very exciting new project I'm getting involved in. It was beautiful to be there, but I couldn’t accept tea or coffee, and when I got back to the mainland later than expected after no breakfast I was pretty hungry. You don’t know how good those fish and chip shops looked... Who would know? But I stayed strong and got in the car...

My first proper meal, late afternoon was Roast Butternut Squash soup with flat breads. I roasted the squash with onion and garlic, then simmered a potato in chicken stock and blitzed. It was fine, not my best ever soup, a little thin, but should be enough for 4 portions. It worked out at 33p for a portion of soup and 3p for both of the flat breads, so 36p in total. Not a bad start...

For supper I had Red Lentil Dal with flat breads which was delicious, spiced, warm and filling. I topped it with fried onions and cumin seeds and a couple of flat breads on the side. It was really tasty, I'll definitely make it again. This worked out at 49p for the dal and again 3p for the flatbreads, so 52p in total.

I'll keep you posted on how I'm getting on the through the week. thank you so much to everyone who has sponsored me, I have raised an amazing £395 so far!

https://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/annahedworth

Coconut, Lentil and Spinach Stew

I've been hen doo-ing in the Lake District, a beautiful house full of over excited girls in food fancy dress... My costume was a piece of streaky bacon, a giant one made of foam that made me laugh every time I looked in the mirror, until the early hours when I couldn’t really see in the mirror... There was a fried egg, a giant pea pod, a lobster, a pig (organic obvs) jelly beans, diet coke, a can of Spam, the list goes on... It made for a very entertaining evening fuelled by much wine and a big house to bash around in...  

I had an excellent time, although I still feel tired and a bit emotional, staying up till the early hours doesn't seem to agree with me as well as it used to. I need comfort food in quiet rooms with blankets and nice people....  

I found this recipe on The Traveller's Lunchbox blog originally, I think they adapted it from someone else and I changed it a bit from theirs, so it's origins have changed along the way, but I imagine it has been delicious in every form. They call it a soup, mine is more of a stewy dal type thing I think... A delicious spiced coconut stew full of lentils and soft spinach.

 

Start with the lentils, 275g of green or puy lentils, rinse them, then add to a pan with 1 litre of chicken stock, a big sprig of thyme and 1½ teaspoons of turmeric. Bring it to the boil and simmer gently with a lid on till the lentils are soft, about 20 minutes, add more stock if needs be...

 

While the lentils are cooking heat a big knob of butter in a frying pan and sauté 1 large diced onion with a big pinch of salt until it is very soft, for about 12 minutes. Then add 2 cloves of finely chopped garlic, ½ teaspoon of ground cardamom seeds, ¼ teaspoon ground cloves, ¼ teaspoon of ground cinnamon, a pinch of ground nutmeg and fry for another 30 seconds. Then scrape this spicy onion mix into the lentils.

Finally add a whole tin of coconut milk and a small bag of spinach, stirring till it wilts into the warm stew. Simmer for another 10 minutes or so and check if you need salt and pepper as it is cooking.

This will sort you out if you find yourself deep in winter at the end of March or a delicate hen do patient, both of which I am currently inflicted with...

 

Partridge in a Paper Parcel

Mr. Hedworth is a mean shot... this means that most weekends at this time of year there is a knock at my door late on a Saturday afternoon, and on opening I'm greeted by a hand clutching a brace of pheasant or duck, or if I'm lucky a partridge and occasionally what feels akin to winning the lottery a couple of woodcock... I love this time of year. I currently have two duck and two pheasant in the freezer and the same again hanging in the porch; god knows what my neighbours make of me... We ate two little grouse last week, with bread sauce and sauté potatoes and this week was the turn of the partridge. My second favourite game bird... the wonderful woodcock will always win...

Last year I made an Italian dish with the partridge, with a beautiful rich meaty tomato sauce, chestnuts and grapes, a delicious dish. This year I turned to Elizabeth David and a somewhat simpler dish that didn’t involve sieving sauces. Partridge en Papillotes, which involves searing the partridge in butter until crisp, then wrapping up in greaseproof paper with butter, bacon, thyme, salt, pepper and orange peel and cooking in the oven, simple but totally delicious. I made a sticky chestnut and pancetta lentil dish to go alongside and my very own home grown parsnips and beetroot roast until golden. I was so proud when I dug them up to find actual full grown vegetables!

Unfortunately I didn’t quite get my timings right, so we sat down to raw partridge the first time round; everything had to come off the plates, back into their parcels, back into the oven, whilst keeping everything else warm. It was a palava to say the least. Next time I'll just do what Elizabeth tells me and keep my own opinions to myself...

So start with your partridge, cut in half, you can ask whoever you get them from to do this for you, or go at them with a pair of shears like I did. Allow one bird per person, they look pretty tiny but you get a surprising amount of meat from them. Heat a knob of butter in a frying pan and when it is hot add the birds and pan fry them for 8 minutes, start skin size down, until it is crisp and golden, then turn them about half way through. When they are done season them with salt and pepper, some fresh thyme leaves and a few slices of orange peel and leave them to cool.

To make the lentil dish I slowly cooked diced onion, carrot and celery with a sprig of thyme in butter until soft, then added diced pancetta, a chopped clove of garlic and some diced chestnuts and continued to cook until sticky and delicious, about half an hour. I cooked lentils until they were soft in chicken stock and the liquid was all but gone, added some shredded cabbage to cook through towards the end then stirred through the sticky chestnut and pancetta mixture. This turned out to be a bit of a triumph, I'll definitely be making it again!

When the partridge has cooled cut a strip of greaseproof paper large enough to wrap it up, spread some butter where the partridge will sit, add a slice of bacon, then sit the partridge on top, making sure you put the orange rind in too. Fold the paper over the top of the meat and then fold over and over round the edge until the package is sealed. Then pop them in the oven at about 160°C for 15 minutes. When you get them out of the oven make sure you check them so you don't end up sitting down to raw partridge like I did! Let them rest for 5 minutes under tin foil before you serve.

I served them, eventually, with the pancetta and chestnut rich delicious lentils and my very own home grown parsnips and beetroot. The partridge were delicious, rich and gamey, especially the legs, the parcel was full of buttery juices to pour over the bird and you get lovely hints of thyme and orange. Long may the game season continue, I'm filling the freezer to keep me going...

Warm lentil, cherry tomato and halloumi salad

The weather has been lovely in Newcastle this week, a tiny bit warmer and lovely sunny days with bright blue skies. I had a little photo shoot in the allotment on Monday for an article about the blog, I'm not sure how the photos will turn out but at least it was a beautiful day! I have planted some broad beans and built a little wigwam for them to grow up, and the sweet peas have appeared as tiny little delicate green shoots on my window sill... My first successful plants of the year.

It definitely feels springy and time to move on from stews. I'm going up to Northumberland this weekend and am hoping it might stay sunny enough for a picnic. With coats on I imagine... I think this dish would be lovely as part of a summer picnic. It is a recipe from the BBC Good Food website and very tasty.

Rinse about 75g of puy or green lentils until they are clean, put them in a pan of cold water and onto the heat. I used green as I couldn't find any puy in Byker Morrisons. Follow the cooking instructions on the lentils, mine had to boil for 10 minutes then simmer for 30 minutes with a pinch of salt. I had to top the water up now and again as well.

Chop up a couple of handfuls of cherry tomatoes into halves, and finely slice a quarter of a red onion. These amounts are for one bowl of salad so just multiply them up depending on how many people you are serving.

Crush half a small clove of garlic and chop it up finely, add this to the tomatoes with the juice of quarter of a lemon and a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper.

Thinly slice about 90g of halloumi and brush it with a little olive oil, put it under the grill until it browns, keep an eye on it as it only takes about 5 minutes. Turn it over about half way through to lightly brown each side but keeping the cheese soft in the middle.

When the lentils are done drain them, and add them to the tomato mixture. Stir through a handful of coriander and top with the grilled halloumi. Drizzle a little olive oil over the warm cheese. It is really tasty with the still warm lentils and cheese, and sharp fresh tomatoes, herbs and dressing.