Avocado, bean, pea and preserved lemon salad

One of the great things about travelling is that it reboots your recipe repertoire. There's always some new idea to try out when you get home - in the case of my recent trip to Oregon and Washington State, several. I was particularly impressed by their salads which made really original use of vegetables which are more often cooked. Like beans which were often served raw and accented with preserved lemon peel which seems to be flavour of the month in the NW.

I made something similar at the weekend having rashly bought a huge bunch of celery - an ingredient I feel I should like more than I do, particularly as it's such good value. Sliced on a mandolin and combined with crunchy raw beans and creamy avocado it really comes into its own. Soooo healthy too!

Serves 2-4

3 sticks of celery + their leaves, if possible
A good handful of runner beans
About 12 pea pods
Rind of 1/4 preserved lemon, finely chopped
1 tbsp lemon juice or rice vinegar
3-4 tbsp light olive oil or sunflower oil
1 ripe avocado, peeled and diced
Salt and pepper
Flat leaf parsley if no celery leaves

Wash and trim the celery and beans and slice finely on a mandolin. Pod and add the peas. Put the chopped lemon rind and lemon juice in a bowl, season with salt and pepper then gradually whisk in oil to taste. Halve the avocado, twist and peel then cut into rough chunks and add to the salad. Add the dressing to the salad and toss together gently. Garnish with the chopped celery leaves or parsley

I liked this on its own but reckon it would be really nice with salmon sashimi or barely seared tuna

In praise of carrots

I don't know why people don't get more excited about carrots. They're seldom fêted by chefs yet they're delicious, colourful and versatile. And so cheap. This was one of a couple of organic bunches I bought at the Bristol weekly farmers' market yesterday for £2. As wrinkled as a centenarian, no supermarket would have looked at them but they were so fresh and crunchy - almost sugar-sweet.

I decided to use them to make a Moroccan-style carrot salad to eat with a home-made chard and spinach paté, crab and asparagus tart and various other bits and pieces we'd put together from our market visit. I recommend it.

Moroccan(ish) carrot and olive salad
Serves 4-6
A bunch of young carrots
3 tbsp light olive oil
A good pinch each of vegetable bouillon powder (I use Marigold) ground cumin and ground coriander
10-12 olives, stoned and sliced
2 heaped tbsp chopped coriander

Cut the carrots off their feathery tops and give them a good scrub. Trim each end and slice the remainder of the carrots thinly and diagonally. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a medium-sized saucepan or casserole, add the spices and seasoning, stir, then tip in the carrots and turn them in the flavoured oil. Add a splash of water, put a lid on the pan and simmer for 3-4 minutes until just tender. Tip the carrots into a dish, cool for 10 minutes or so then mix in the sliced olives. When the carrots have completely cooled down add the chopped coriander and remaining oil. Serve at room temperature, ideally without refrigerating first.


Are you a fellow carrot fan and if so what's your favourite way of preparing them?

Bavette aux échalotes

I used the bavette I bought the other day from Source to make bavette aux échalotes, one of my favourite ways of cooking this underrated cut. It involves an unlikely amount of vinegar so no, 75ml is not a misprint. You can make the rest of the liquid beef stock or a mixture of beef stock and red wine but I find it's particularly good if you use the Essential Steak Sauce I posted on my website today.

Another tip: bavette needs to be cooked quickly otherwise it can be tough but if you buy well-aged beef it shouldn't be a problem. You’ll probably need to order it from your butcher - it’s a cut they tend to keep for themselves. (Unsurprisingly since it was selling at under £10 a kilo)

Serves 2
2 tbsp olive oil
350g well-aged, thinly sliced bavette (skirt steak)
25g butter
225g evenly sized shallots, peeled and quartered
75ml red wine vinegar
75ml Essential Steak Sauce (aka red wine sauce) or strong beef stock
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat a cast iron frying pan for about 5 minutes until almost smoking. Trickle a little of the oil over each side of the meat, rub it in and season lightly with salt and pepper. Fry the meat about 1 1/2-2 minutes each side, pressing the pieces firmly down into the pan with a wooden spatula. Transfer to a warm plate and cover lightly with foil. Wipe the pan with a piece of kitchen towel, replace over a medium heat for a couple of minutes then add the remaining oil and half the butter. Tip in the shallots and fry over a medium high heat for about 6-7 until well browned. Pour in the vinegar and bubble up until almost evaporated. Add the Essential Steak Sauce or beef stock, the remaining butter and any juices from the meat and heat through. Check seasoning adding more salt and pepper to taste. Serve the meat with the shallots spooned over. 'Frites' and a green salad would be the classic accompaniment but it's also good with mash.

How Elizabeth David made scrambled egg

When I was in Suffolk the other day the pub I was staying in, the Anchor at Walberswick, included among its splendid breakfast menu Elizabeth David's scrambled egg (above)

I didn't have time to ask the chef Sophie Dorber what was special about it and couldn't find it in any of my Elizabeth David books at home but finally tracked down the recipe on Google Books which has an online copy of French Provincial Cooking.

The secret is taking out one white in every four eggs you use which accounts for the unusually deep yellow colour. She also adds "a very large lump of butter' before she adds the eggs and another once they start to thicken then takes the pan off the heat once what she describes as the 'characteristic granules' begin to appear. Finished off in the residual heat it makes for a softer, creamier scrambled egg. She finishes by saying, in typically crisp fashion, that 'eggs for scrambling must be of the most absolute freshness'. And also 'very well beaten' before you put them in the pan.

What's your favourite way of making scrambled egg. Do you agree or disagree with Elizabeth David (if one dares say one disagrees which such a goddess).

Basil and ginger slaw

Since the onset of the latest lurgy about 10 days ago I've been making a real effort to boost my immune system by eating more raw fruit and veg. And tonight's experiment came out so well I thought I'd share it with you. (I didn't expect it to be as good, hence no photo.)

Basically it was a coleslaw with extra oomph from a clove of garlic, a good chunk of fresh ginger, some lemon juice and fresh basil. Sounds weird but it worked really well.

Coleslaw is so easy, healthy and economical to make I don't know why it's gone out of fashion. Well, actually I do. The shop-bought versions are so disgusting they're enough to put you off it for life. You can vary it endlessly depending on what you have available. I use cabbage - obviously, otherwise it wouldn't be a slaw though I have used raw sprouts - carrot, something oniony and usually a pepper. Sometimes I add a chopped apple and some herbs, as tonight. Sometimes I chuck in a few seeds. Here's the recipe:

Serves 6
1/2 a pointed hispi cabbage, outer leaves and core removed and very finely sliced
1 shallot, peeled and finely sliced
2 carrots, peeled and coarsely grated,
1/2 a green pepper, de-seeded and finely sliced
1 clove of garlic, peeled and finely grated
1 chunk of fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
Juice of half a lemon (about 2 tbsp)
2 heaped tbsp mayonnaise
1 tbsp olive oil
3 or 4 sprigs of basil

Slice the cabbage and shallot and put into a bowl of iced water while you prepare the other veg. Mix the garlic and ginger with the lemon juice, mayonnaise and oil. Drain the cabbage and shallot and mix with the grated carrot and pepper. Mix in the mayo mix thoroughly, cover and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour. Tear the basil leaves and fold them in just before serving.

I can't help feeling this would be great with the post Christmas turkey and ham but any cold meats would be pretty nice. Feeling frugal (and lurgified) we simply had it with a baked potato.

Do you make coleslaw and, if so, what do you put in it?

Chestnut and fig couscous stuffing

I was agonising over the weekend what sort of stuffing to serve with roast guineafowl and remembered a dish I'd invented for veggies in my student cookbook Beyond Baked Beans Green. It worked perfectly and I think I might well do it with the Christmas goose. What I like about it is that it's much lighter than a conventional bread stuffing, especially if you don't actually use it to stuff the bird (which I suppose makes it technically no longer a stuffing). It also gets over the problem of what to serve any veggies in the party.

Serves 4-6 (obviously double it for a larger party)

3 tbsp sunflower or light olive oil
25g pinenuts
1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 medium carrots, peeled and finely chopped
2 sticks of celery, finely sliced
100g pre-prepared chestnuts (the French or Spanish ones in jars are best)
5-6 ready to eat figs
1 tsp garam masala or ground mixed spice
100g instant couscous
175ml hot vegetable stock made with 1 tsp vegetable bouillon powder or half an organic vegetable stock cube
Salt (though go easy if the stock is salty)
2 tbsp finely chopped fresh parsley

Heat a casserole or large frying pan, add the oil and briefly fry the pinenuts until golden. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside on kitchen towel. Add the chopped onion, carrot and celery to the pan and cook for about 10 minutes over a low heat until beginning to brown. Meanwhile finely chop the chestnuts and the figs then add them to the vegetables and cook for a minute or two more. Sprinkle over the spice and stir again. Add the couscous, stir, then add the stock. Take the pan off the heat and leave for about 5 minutes for the couscous to absorb the liquid. Fork the couscous through, check the seasoning, adding salt if you think it needs it and stir in the reserved pinenuts and chopped parsley. (You can make this ahead and heat it through in a moderate oven with a little extra oil drizzled over the top.)