Cover
List of Recipes
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Nigella Lawson
Dedication
Title Page
INTRODUCTION
QUICK AND CALM
A riff on a Caesar salad
Brocamole
Feta and avocado salad with red onions, pomegranate and nigella seeds
Halloumi with quick sweet chilli sauce
Roast radicchio with blue cheese
Cauliflower and cashew nut curry
Prawn and avocado lettuce wraps
Salmon, avocado, watercress and pumpkin seed salad
Miso salmon
Indian-spiced cod
Jackson Pollock
Mackerel with ginger, soy and lime
Spiced and fried haddock with broccoli purée
Steamed sea bass with ginger and soy
Devilled roes on toast
Crunchy chicken cutlets
Spiced chicken escalopes with watercress, fennel and radish salad
Strapatsada
BOWLFOOD
Ramen
Thai noodles with cinnamon and prawns
Thai steamed clams
Thai turkey meatballs
Black rice noodles with ginger and chilli
Chinese-inspired chicken noodle soup
Drunken noodles
Rice bowl with ginger, radish and avocado
Sweet potato macaroni cheese
Pasta alla Bruno
Pasta snails with garlic butter
Merguez meatballs
Indian-spiced shepherd’s pie
Warm spiced cauliflower and chickpea salad with pomegranate seeds
Stir-fried rice with double sprouts, chilli and pineapple
Middle-Eastern minestrone
Split pea soup with chilli, ginger and lime
Spiced parsnip and spinach soup
Sweet potato, ginger and orange soup
Pea and broccoli soup
DINE
Caramelized garlic hummus
Miso mayonnaise
Sweet potato and chickpea dip
A simple salsa
Brazilian cheese bread
Chicken crackling
Sake-sticky drumsticks
Lamb ribs with nigella and cumin seeds
Butternut and halloumi burgers
Fish tacos
Greek squid and orzo
Chicken traybake with bitter orange and fennel
Roast chicken with lemon, rosemary, garlic and potatoes
Chicken Cosima
Tequila and lime chicken
Chicken and wild rice
Oven-cooked chicken shawarma
Tamarind-marinated bavette steak
Butterflied leg of lamb
BREATHE
Malaysian red-cooked chicken
Massaman beef curry
Oxtail on toast
Asian-flavoured short ribs
Beef chilli with bourbon, beer and black beans
Italian veal shank stew
Barbecuey pork butt
Pork buns
Lamb shank and black garlic stew
Spiced lamb stew with a goat’s cheese and thyme cobbler topping
Goat’s cheese and thyme cobbler topping
Slow-cooked black treacle ham
Make-ahead mash
Leek pasta bake
Slow-cooker chickpeas with cumin and spinach
Slow-cooker Cuban black beans
Slow-cooker beef and Guinness stew with prunes and black treacle
Slow-cooker Korean beef and rice pot
Slow-cooker Moroccan chicken stew
SIDES
Roast radishes
Purple sprouting broccoli with clementine and chilli
Broccoli two ways, with ginger, chilli, lime and pumpkin seeds
Braised peas with mustard and vermouth
Quick coconutty dal
A tray of roast veg
Slaw with miso ginger dressing
Sweet and sour slaw
Cucumber, chilli and avocado salad
Potato and pepper bake
Criss-cross potatoes
Porcini parsnip purée
Butternut squash with za’atar and green tahini sauce
Green tahini sauce
Chilli, ginger and garlic sauce
Caramelized garlic yogurt sauce
Quick gherkins
Thai pickled peppers
Quick-pickled carrots
Quick-pickled beetroot with nigella seeds
Sushi pickled ginger
Pink-pickled eggs
SWEET
Apricot almond cake with rosewater and cardamom
Warm raspberry and lemon cake
Liquorice and blackcurrant chocolate cake
Dark and sumptuous chocolate cake
Thyme and lemon bundt cake
Pumpkin bundt cake
Cider and 5-spice bundt cake
Matcha cake with cherry juice icing
Date and marmalade Christmas cake
Gluten-free apple and blackberry pie
Bitter orange tart
Salted chocolate tart
Honey pie
Lemon pavlova
Old Rag Pie
Chocolate chip cookie dough pots
Nutella brownies
Flourless peanut butter chocolate chip cookies
Triple chocolate buckwheat cookies
Seed-studded Anzac biscuits
No-churn brandied pumpkin ice cream
No-churn blackcurrant ice cream with liquorice ripple
No-churn matcha ice cream
No-churn white miso ice cream
Smoky salted caramel sauce
BEGINNINGS
Matcha latte
Rhubarb and ginger compote
Spiced apple and blueberry compote
Avocado toast with quick-pickled breakfast radishes
Breakfast banana bread with cardamom and cocoa nibs
Breakfast bars 2.0
Chai muffins
Buckwheat, banana and carrot muffins
Pomegranate muesli
Toasty olive oil granola
Maple pecan no-wait, no-cook oats
Chia seed pudding with blueberries and pumpkin seeds
Fried egg and kimchi taco
Sweet potato, black bean and avocado burrito
Oat pancakes with raspberries and honey
Dutch baby
French toast soldiers with maple syrup
Baked French toast with plums and pecans
Soda bread buns with fennel seeds and cranberries
Oven-baked egg hash
Acknowledgements
Copyright
Apricot almond cake with rosewater and cardamom
A riff on a Caesar salad
Asian-flavoured short ribs
A simple salsa
A tray of roast veg
Avocado toast with quick-pickled breakfast radishes
Baked French toast with plums and pecans
Barbecuey pork butt
Beef chilli with bourbon, beer and black beans
Bitter orange tart
Black rice noodles with ginger and chilli
Braised peas with mustard and vermouth
Brazilian cheese bread
Breakfast banana bread with cardamom and cocoa nibs
Breakfast bars 2.0
Brocamole
Broccoli two ways, with ginger, chilli, lime and pumpkin seeds
Buckwheat, banana and carrot muffins
Butternut and halloumi burgers
Butterflied leg of lamb
Butternut squash with za’atar and green tahini sauce
Caramelized garlic hummus
Caramelized garlic yogurt sauce
Cauliflower and cashew nut curry
Chai muffins
Chia seed pudding with blueberries and pumpkin seeds
Chicken and wild rice
Chicken Cosima
Chicken crackling
Chicken traybake with bitter orange and fennel
Chilli, ginger and garlic sauce
Chinese-inspired chicken noodle soup
Chocolate chip cookie dough pots
Cider and 5-spice bundt cake
Criss-cross potatoes
Crunchy chicken cutlets
Cucumber, chilli and avocado salad
Dark and sumptuous chocolate cake
Date and marmalade Christmas cake
Devilled roes on toast
Drunken noodles
Dutch baby
Feta and avocado salad with red onions, pomegranate and nigella seeds
Fish tacos
Flourless peanut butter chocolate chip cookies
French toast soldiers with maple syrup
Fried egg and kimchi taco
Gluten-free apple and blackberry pie
Goat’s cheese and thyme cobbler topping
Greek squid and orzo
Green tahini sauce
Halloumi with quick sweet chilli sauce
Honey pie
Indian-spiced cod
Indian-spiced shepherd’s pie
Italian veal shank stew
Jackson Pollock
Lamb ribs with nigella and cumin seeds
Lamb shank and black garlic stew
Leek pasta bake
Lemon pavlova
Liquorice and blackcurrant chocolate cake
Mackerel with ginger, soy and lime
Make-ahead mash
Malaysian red-cooked chicken
Maple pecan no-wait, no-cook oats
Massaman beef curry
Matcha cake with cherry juice icing
Matcha latte
Merguez meatballs
Middle-Eastern minestrone
Miso mayonnaise
Miso salmon
No-churn blackcurrant ice cream with liquorice ripple
No-churn brandied pumpkin ice cream
No-churn matcha ice cream
No-churn white miso ice cream
Nutella brownies
Oat pancakes with raspberries and honey
Old Rag Pie
Oven-baked egg hash
Oven-cooked chicken shawarma
Oxtail on toast
Pasta alla Bruno
Pasta snails with garlic butter
Pink-pickled eggs
Pea and broccoli soup
Pomegranate muesli
Porcini parsnip purée
Pork buns
Potato and pepper bake
Prawn and avocado lettuce wraps
Pumpkin bundt cake
Purple sprouting broccoli with clementine and chilli
Quick coconutty dal
Quick gherkins
Quick-pickled beetroot with nigella seeds
Quick-pickled carrots
Ramen
Rhubarb and ginger compote
Rice bowl with ginger, radish and avocado
Roast chicken with lemon, rosemary, garlic and potatoes
Roast radicchio with blue cheese
Roast radishes
Sake-sticky drumsticks
Salmon, avocado, watercress and pumpkin seed salad
Salted chocolate tart
Seed-studded Anzac biscuits
Slaw with miso ginger dressing
Slow-cooked black treacle ham
Slow-cooker beef and Guinness stew with prunes and black treacle
Slow-cooker chickpeas with cumin and spinach
Slow-cooker Cuban black beans
Slow-cooker Korean beef and rice pot
Slow-cooker Moroccan chicken stew
Smoky salted caramel sauce
Soda bread buns with fennel seeds and cranberries
Spiced and fried haddock with broccoli purée
Spiced apple and blueberry compote
Spiced chicken escalopes with watercress, fennel and radish salad
Spiced lamb stew with a goat’s cheese and thyme cobbler topping
Spiced parsnip and spinach soup
Split pea soup with chilli, ginger and lime
Steamed sea bass with ginger and soy
Stir-fried rice with double sprouts, chilli and pineapple
Strapatsada
Sushi pickled ginger
Sweet and sour slaw
Sweet potato and chickpea dip
Sweet potato, black bean and avocado burrito
Sweet potato, ginger and orange soup
Sweet potato macaroni cheese
Tamarind-marinated bavette steak
Tequila and lime chicken
Thai noodles with cinnamon and prawns
Thai pickled peppers
Thai steamed clams
Thai turkey meatballs
Thyme and lemon bundt cake
Toasty olive oil granola
Triple chocolate buckwheat cookies
Warm raspberry and lemon cake
Warm spiced cauliflower and chickpea salad with pomegranate seeds
Nigella Lawson has written nine bestselling cookery books, including the classics How To Eat and How To Be a Domestic Goddess – the book that launched a thousand cupcakes. These books, her TV series and her Quick Collection app, have made her a household name around the world. In 2014 she was voted Best Food Personality in a readers’ poll at the Observer Food Monthly Awards.
www.nigella.com
@Nigella_Lawson
‘Part of the balance of life lies in understanding that different days require different ways of eating…’
Whatever the occasion, food – in the making and the eating – should always be pleasurable. Simply Nigella taps into the rhythms of our cooking lives, with recipes that are uncomplicated, relaxed and yet always satisfying
From quick and calm suppers (Miso Salmon, Cauliflower & Cashew Nut Curry) to stress-free ideas when catering for a crowd (Chicken Traybake with Bitter Orange & Fennel), or the instant joy of bowlfood for cosy nights on the sofa (Thai Noodles with Cinnamon and Prawns), here is food guaranteed to make everyone feel good.
Whether you need to create some breathing space at the end of a long week (Asian-Flavoured Short Ribs), indulge in a sweet treat (Lemon Pavlova, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Pots) or wake up to a strength-giving breakfast (Toasty Olive Oil Granola), Nigella’s new cookbook is filled with recipes destined to become firm favourites.
Simply Nigella is the perfect antidote to our busy lives: a calm and glad celebration of food to soothe and uplift.
For Mimi and Bruno
It is a commonplace to talk of cooking as being therapeutic – and there are times when that is the case – but for me cooking stems from an engagement with life, which in itself combines hopefulness with playfulness. These gifts restored to me, this book began to emerge.
Of course, even when I felt I couldn’t cook, or didn’t have a kitchen of my own, I still needed to bring food to the table, and I am grateful for this. If cooking isn’t hinged on necessity, it loses its context, and purpose. I cook to give pleasure, to myself and others, but first it is about sustaining life, and only then about forging a life.
We make worlds for ourselves all the time; for me, the locus has always been the kitchen. And while there have been times in my life when cooking has created a safe place, and a vital space where I could lose myself in creative concentration, all of which have been documented in my previous books, with this book it has been different. I first had to cook myself strong. Now, you will never hear me talking about “healthy” food. I loathe the term, but not as much as I am disgusted by the contemporary mantra of “clean eating”. In How To Eat, written so long ago, I wrote: “What I hate is the new-age voodoo about eating, the notion that foods are either harmful or healing, that a good diet makes a good person and that that person is necessarily lean, limber, toned and fit… Such a view seems to me in danger of fusing Nazism (with its ideological cult of physical perfection) and Puritanism (with its horror of the flesh and belief in salvation through denial).”
The Clean-Eating brigade seems an embodiment of all my fears. Food is not dirty, the pleasures of the flesh are essential to life and, however we eat, we are not guaranteed immortality or immunity from loss. We cannot control life by controlling what we eat. But how we cook and, indeed, how we eat does give us – as much as anything can – mastery over ourselves.
The food in this book is what I’ve been cooking for myself and, although the impetus was certainly to seek out food that made me feel physically strong, I have always believed that food you cook for yourself is essentially good for you. This is not just because real ingredients are better for you than fake foods, but because the act of cooking for yourself is in itself a supremely positive act, an act of kindness. And while I have read much about mindful eating, I have not found much, if anything, on mindful cooking. When I cook, I am absorbed in the simple rituals of chopping, stirring, tasting, losing myself in the world of flavour, sensation and straightforward practicalities.
And as I progressed, this book became fused with the joyful realities of making a new home. It makes me smile to see the colours of my kitchen, and the house I have created around myself, reflected in the colours of this book. But, of course, it also necessarily tells the broader story of how I live: how I feed my friends and family, the aesthetic pleasure I derive from food, and my belief that what and how we cook can make our lives easier, make us feel better and more alive, and connect us to ourselves, to others, and the world.
The editor who commissioned my first book told me that he always thought of How To Eat as the “Pea, Marsala and Rhubarb Cookbook”. And it’s true that I am a person of enthusiasms, and go through bouts of extreme reliance on certain ingredients. This is manifested in Simply Nigella by the fulsome use of cold-pressed coconut oil, ginger, chilli and lime: I can’t seem to cook without reaching for one of these in my kitchen right now. My books are nothing if not a diary of how I eat, and how I cook, so whatever my current passions are will always be reflected in their pages.
Sometimes the ingredients I require you to buy are not those stocked in every supermarket, but they are always easily available online, and I do ensure that any recherché ingredient gets proper use. I do not want to go shopping unnecessarily, and nor – I presume – do you. Much as I enjoy the ritual of cooking, I do feel it can be good to break out of one’s normal routine and repertoire, even if it means adding to the clutter already in my kitchen cupboards. And I do want to stress that if I suggest a foray to, for example, an Asian supermarket – or its online equivalent – it is because the requisite ingredients there tend to be much cheaper, and of much higher quality, than the versions stocked in a local supermarket. A list of stockists for such ingredients can be found on www.nigella.com/books/simply-nigella/stockists. Rest assured, this refers to just a handful of recipes.
I have referred to short grain brown rice a number of times in these pages: this is different from regular brown rice, as it takes less time to cook, and absorbs liquid differently.
I have mentioned caramelized garlic in a number of recipes, and have always given instructions on how to make a batch using a very hot oven, but it makes sense to bake the garlic bulb when you already have something in the oven, and you can simply bake it for longer at a lower temperature at the same time. Thus, 45 minutes in a 220ºC/gas mark 7 oven translates to 2 hours at 170ºC/gas mark 3, or you can find some mid-point in between. At all times in the kitchen, you need to make your recipes work for you, not the other way around.
Ginger is required to be peeled and grated in many recipes in this book. The easiest way to peel ginger is to use the tip of a teaspoon, and a fine microplane grater is the best tool for grating ginger, as well as mincing garlic and zesting citrus fruit.
Coconut oil is specified as cold-pressed, and this is sometimes labelled as “raw” or ”extra-virgin”; it is distinct from deodorized or refined types. Coconut oil is solid until the temperature reaches 24ºC, at which point it liquifies.
Eggs are always large, and preferably free-range organic.
When baking, all ingredients – unless otherwise specified – should be at room temperature before you start.
Where appropriate, I have mentioned when a recipe is either dairy- or gluten-free, but only where one might expect it to contain dairy or gluten (such as the baking recipes). They are also indicated by coloured dots – green for dairy-free, pink for gluten-free – in the index.
I prefer sea salt flakes when I cook or eat, and the measurements given are not interchangeable with fine salt. If you are replacing them with fine salt, half the amount is required.
Where no freezing or make-ahead tip is given alongside a recipe, neither is recommended.
In some recipes, I find using American cup measures (now easily available over here) much simpler, and have consequently given cup measures, with their metric equivalents in brackets afterwards. It is important to remember that cup measures are a unit of volume, not weight, so it is not possible to give ready equivalents, except for liquid measurements.
Many recipes suggest using cast-iron frying pans (although alternatives are always given too). Treated well, and seasoned properly, they are the most effective non-stick frying pans, and can be used in the oven as well as on the hob. They also last a lifetime, while pans with a non-stick coating need to be replaced regularly. Mine are very basic and inexpensive, but they serve me well, and I find both the ancient ore they are forged from, and their steady heft, reassuring. Through them, I feel I am linked to a long line of cooks down the ages. The heavy-based casseroles I use in many recipes are enamelled cast iron and come with a tight-fitting lid; if you are using something less robust then the cooking times may need to be adjusted. A more luxurious and relatively new-fangled addition to the cast-ironware in my kitchen is a slow cooker. As with all cast iron, it retains the heat well and evenly, and avoids any problem of hot spots. Moreover, the pot part can be used in the oven and on the hob.
I often give measurements for pans used in a recipe: except for baking tins, which are specific, these are just to offer guidance.
I use a conventional electric oven; if you are using a fan or convection oven, consult the manual to adjust temperature.
A riff on a Caesar salad
Brocamole
Feta and avocado salad with red onions, pomegranate and nigella seeds
Halloumi with quick sweet chilli sauce
Roast radicchio with blue cheese
Cauliflower and cashew nut curry
Prawn and avocado lettuce wraps
Salmon, avocado, watercress and pumpkin seed salad
Miso salmon
Indian-spiced cod
Jackson Pollock
Mackerel with ginger, soy and lime
Spiced and fried haddock with broccoli purée
Steamed sea bass with ginger and soy
Devilled roes on toast
Crunchy chicken cutlets
Spiced chicken escalopes with watercress, fennel and radish salad
Strapatsada
There is a tendency which I deplore among those of us who write about food, even as I sometimes am lured into its trap, to make nervous apologies for any activity in the kitchen. We stress how little effort a recipe demands, vaunting the scant amount of time we require you to be in the kitchen. And yes, the recipes in this chapter are simple, they are quick, they are reassuringly undemanding. And yet, I cannot apologize for time spent in the kitchen: it is where I want to be.
There are recipes elsewhere that feed larger groups of people, and for different sorts of occasions; here, my focus is on a quick supper, mostly for two (though you can scale up or down, as needed) and the dishes I’ve chosen are those that make me feel good at the end of a busy day. But I need to feel good not just when I’m at the table eating, and afterwards, but also before, as I’m planted by my stove, decompressing and letting my mind go or, rather, letting it move from a fizzing brain, to my hands. I don’t want to be cooking anything that challenges me, but I want to be cooking; if the recipe’s right, the activity soothes rather than stresses.
Of course, none of us can truly say that cooking is always what we want to be doing at the end of a long day, but “much depends on dinner”, and a day feels disconcertingly out of kilter to me if I haven’t eaten well at the end of it. The recipes that follow are how I ensure a calm evening, a good dinner and make me feel that there is nowhere I would rather be than in the moment, and in my kitchen.
There are those who hold the view that a classic recipe is just that: a dish that’s earned its status because it, enduringly, works, and to fiddle with it is an act of desecration. It’s not a dishonourable stance, but I think it essentially flawed. The classics, in food as in literature, are the very forms that can withstand and, indeed, spawn a plethora of interpretations.
I have subverted the Caesar Salad before. In How To Eat, I replaced the traditional croutons with some mini-cubes of potatoes, roasted till crunchy, and tossed – still hot – into the salad, and often still make it thus. My new, heat-blasted version here is a greater deviation and, for me, it’s the perfect supper after a long working day, or a fine lunch on a leisurely Saturday. For those missing the crouton element, I suggest a large croûte, in the form of a piece of toast, brushed with extra-virgin olive oil, to munch alongside.
SERVES 2
1 romaine heart
2 × 15ml tablespoons regular olive oil
1 clove garlic, peeled and finely grated or minced
4 anchovy fillets (the sort packed in oil), finely chopped
zest and juice of ½ unwaxed lemon, plus ½ lemon to serve
2 × 15ml tablespoons sunflower oil
2 eggs
Parmesan to shave over
A riff on a Caesar salad
I have borrowed the name – and inspiration for this recipe – from mon cher confrère, Ludo Lefebvre, and it is, as you’ve probably surmised, a broccolified guacamole (though his recipe contains no avocado). I don’t feel too bad about pinching his title: it did, after all, come from his book Ludo Bites…
While the recipe is an obvious contender for a chip-and-dip arrangement when friends are over, I make it mostly for a quiet sofa-side supper, to be spread on sourdough toast or dipped into with crudités, or both. I make no apology for not eating all meals at the table. Some days just call for a slob-out on the sofa, but for me the food needs to be something that pulls me out of shattered collapse. This is such a recipe.
While it makes a lot, it does keep well (strangely, considering it has avocado in it) and also gives you a fantastic packed lunch for the next day, either with some raw vegetables to dip into it, or used as a sauce for cold soba – or indeed any other – noodles, in which case I add some toasted pumpkin seeds and toss them through the dressed noodles.
MAKES APPROX. 600ML, SERVES 4–6, OR A DIP WITH DRINKS FOR 8
1 head broccoli (crown, not leggy tenderstem)
½ cup (125ml) vegetable oil
1 × 15ml tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 ripe avocado
2 spring onions, trimmed and roughly chopped
small bunch coriander
1 fresh green chilli
juice of 2 limes
sea salt flakes to taste
Brocamole
My sister, Horatia, often puts hunks of feta on a plate, sprinkles with nigella seeds (family solidarity), douses in olive oil, and serves them alongside some flatbread with drinks. As you can, too. But I have parlayed this into a simple supper, as piquant as it is pretty. Since feta is the main ingredient here, it really does make a difference if you can get hold of chunky fresh feta from a deli or a Turkish store, but this still works with good-quality feta in packets. A bowl of baby spinach salad on the side is, along with puffy – rather than crisp – Turkish flatbread (or pide), my favourite accompaniment.
Steeping the onion in vinegar – an old trick of mine, which many of you may recognize – not only takes away the acrid rasp of raw onion, but also turns the red strips to a lambent crimson or, further, a positive puce if left to steep long enough. Two hours is optimum: longer is even better, and it does keep. If time is short, 20 minutes should be enough, in which case double the amount of vinegar, letting the onion drown rather than bathe in it.
Should nigella seeds (called kalonji in Indian cooking, where they are used a lot) elude you, and you have to leave them out, I promise I won’t be offended. Black mustard seeds are a more-than-acceptable substitute here; or you can drop the spice element altogether. Liquid Gold Cretan extra-virgin olive oil is my anointing olive oil of choice, and it goes perfectly here, strong and true, despite the geo-political discordancy.
SERVES 2
½ red onion, peeled
2 × 15ml tablespoons red wine vinegar
200–250g feta cheese
½ teaspoon nigella or black mustard seeds
1 ripe avocado
2 × 15ml tablespoons pomegranate seeds
1–2 × 15ml tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (see Intro)
Feta and avocado salad with red onions, pomegranate and nigella seeds
When I described halloumi once as “salt-flavoured Polystyrene”, people thought I was being derogatory. Nothing could have been further from the truth. There is something so compelling about this squeaky cheese, and my fridge is stocked with it at all times. Most regularly I treat it as vegetarian bacon, dry-fried in a hot pan then dolloped with a peeled, soft-boiled egg (I’d rather peel an egg, even when it’s hurty-hot, than poach one). But the idea for this recipe came to me one evening when I felt the need to counter the siren call of the halloumi’s saltiness with some sweet-and-heat.
I use a copper pixie-pan for the quick sauce – which takes all of 4 minutes – but if you don’t have one, just make more and keep it afterwards in a sealed jar, heating up what you need on further occasions.
SERVES 2 (THOUGH NO ONE WOULD BLAME YOU IF YOU EAT THE WHOLE LOT YOURSELF)
3 fresh red chillies
2 × 15ml tablespoons runny honey
1 lime, halved
1 × 225g block halloumi cheese
TO SERVE:
salad leaves of your choice
extra-virgin olive oil to taste
Halloumi with quick sweet chilli sauce
I have always held that what is true in the kitchen holds equally true out of the kitchen, but it occurs to me that there is one salient exception. In life, bitterness (“like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die” as I believe Carrie Fisher put it, though attribution is vexed) is to be avoided at all costs, but when it comes to eating, it is one of the greatest goods. As a mindset, I have never seen the allure of bitterness or been even momentarily tempted to succumb to it; in the kitchen, I am in its thrall. If you feel the same way, then you should definitely have the award-winning Bitter by Jennifer McLagan in your library. Those of you who are yet to be convinced, try this recipe first. Consider it an entry-level introduction, and one of the easiest, most elegant suppers I know. A few steamed new potatoes bolster it perfectly, their waxy sweetness providing a creamy foil to the muted pungency of the bitter leaves and blue cheese, though I love it as it is, or with the bitterness-boost provided by a tangle of watercress.
My favourite radicchio is not the round sort from Chioggia but the ultra-bitter, less tender-leaved, zeppelin-shaped Treviso Precoce. But it has a much shorter season (more costly, too), and the round radicchio, in all its plump Episcopal splendour, is not to be disparaged.
SERVES 2
1 large round radicchio or 2 Treviso Precoce if possible
1 × 15ml tablespoon regular olive oil
good grinding of pepper
1½ teaspoons balsamic vinegar
50g Gorgonzola Piccante or other blue cheese
2 × 15ml tablespoons pine nuts
1 × 15ml tablespoon chopped fresh chives
watercress, to serve (optional)
Roast radicchio with blue cheese
You know I am never knowingly undercatered, and therefore are probably not surprised that I am suggesting turning a whole cauliflower into a curry for just 2 people. In my defence, I should say that I once made this for 4 people, and nearly hyperventilated as I saw the first 2 fill up their plates, and feared how meagre the portions would be for the 2 of us remaining. Besides, you cannot in all seriousness suggest that a quarter of a cauliflower is really enough for one person’s supper: this is not a vegetable accompaniment; it is the main event. Yes, I know that it would be enough from a nutritional point of view, but blame my atavistic refugee mentality: I just can’t do it. I feel part of the security I derive from cooking is knowing that there will be leftovers for later.
My suggestion would be to serve this just as it is, but with some pillowy naan warmed up in the oven for dippage as you eat. But if you want to, by all means rustle up some rice or – let me be a middle-class cliché – quinoa. This is, anyway, what you could term a Multi-Culti Curry: it shamelessly fuses Thai and Indian flavours (and you could indeed use an Indian curry paste in place of the Thai one here) but with honourable intent, and to most pleasing effect. I am a Londoner, after all, and a clashingly cosmopolitan kitchen comes naturally to me. I trust it causes no consternation beyond.
SERVES 2
1 medium-sized head cauliflower
2–3 teaspoons sea salt flakes, or to taste
2 bay leaves
1 × 15ml tablespoon cold-pressed coconut oil
2 spring onions, finely sliced
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh ginger
seeds from 3 cardamom pods
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 × 15ml tablespoon finely chopped coriander stalks
¼ cup (4 × 15ml tablespoons) Thai red curry paste (see Intro)
1 × 400ml can coconut milk
75g cashew nuts
1 lime, halved
small handful chopped fresh coriander
naan, to serve (optional)
Cauliflower and cashew nut curry
I’ve taken what are essentially the shrimp and avocado tacos I’ve eaten whenever on the West Coast, and replaced the tortillas with lettuce leaves and subdued the traditional pico de gallo (the classic Mexican salsa of tomatoes, onion, jalapeños and coriander) by substituting the raw yellow onion with a modest amount of chopped spring onion. Still, it’s plenty fiery enough; it’s just that I don’t like raw onion much. If you do, bung it in.
I love the softness of the lettuce wraps, but nothing’s to stop you reverting to tortilla mode. Alas, the prawns I get here come frozen not fresh, but I simply take out what I need from the freezer in the morning and leave to thaw in the fridge during the day, which means I have the speediest supper when needed urgently, as I find it so often is, come the evening.
I like the scorch I get from using a cast-iron pan, but if you’re using a heavy-based frying pan, put it over a slightly lower heat with the oil already in the pan.
SERVES 2
1 teaspoon cold-pressed coconut oil or regular olive oil
8 raw peeled king prawns, thawed if frozen
zest and juice of 1 lime, preferably unwaxed
2 ripe tomatoes (75–100g total)
1 spring onion
1 fresh jalapeño pepper
¼ cup (4 × 15ml tablespoons) chopped fresh coriander
salt to taste
1 round lettuce
1 ripe avocado
Prawn and avocado lettuce wraps
This is a regular lunch or supper at casa mia, as anyone who follows me on Twitter or Instagram will recognize. I sometimes poach the salmon and keep it in the fridge (see Make Ahead Note), just so that I can make it even faster when the need hits. It’s quick work anyway, so this is more of an aside than a piece of advice. Although you can always swiftly make a salade tiède by flaking the salmon onto the leaves while it’s still warm.
I like to use wild Alaskan salmon, which accounts for the vivid hue here. It doesn’t have an exceedingly strong taste – I always feel it’s as if the salmon is frozen while still alive, the waters must be so cold – but nor does it have that spooky flabbiness of farmed salmon. And it isn’t anywhere near as expensive as wild Scottish salmon, desirable and wholly delicious as that is.
If you have half an avocado that needs using up, you can put it to excellent use here, as you don’t really need a whole one if this is to feed only two of you.
A final note: I love our British cold-pressed rapeseed oil, but should that not be available, please don’t make the mistake of using regular vegetable oil in its place, but rather reach for good extra-virgin olive oil instead.
SERVES 2, GENEROUSLY, OR 4 IN AN EMERGENCY
2 wild Alaskan salmon fillets (approx. 250g total)
2 spring onions, trimmed
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
2½ teaspoons lime juice
2 teaspoons sea salt flakes
FOR THE SALAD:
3 × 15ml tablespoons pumpkin seeds
100g watercress
1 teaspoon organic cloudy apple cider vinegar
1 small ripe avocado
1 × 15ml tablespoon cold-pressed rapeseed oil or extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon sea salt flakes, or to taste