Bonjour my little choux nuts and welcome to our first newsletter of 2024! Sorry about the delay but January was a long, difficult birth from the comfort of Christmas into cold harsh New Year routines and bank balances. I learned years ago to abandon naive optimism in January, but more recently I’ve realised not to be completely nihilistic about it either. Change is less an instant makeover and more a painfully slow crawl into something resembling a life you may want. Even if it’s baby steps, after enough time you can walk a marathon.
I have two food aims - one, which is the same as every year, is to waste less food. This is not to force myself to eat when I am full, but just to try and make sure not too much is left in the fridge until thrown away. I am definitely better at it than last year, but there is still work to be done, as always.
The second is to cook more vegetables. This is not for health or diet reasons, but after having quite a takeaway dense period before Christmas, I found myself emerging from the chocolate and booze actually craving vegetables. That’s right, I actually wanted to eat them. It started on New Years Eve, where I decided to do a food shop so I could be prepared for the aftermath of the evening’s celebrations, and happened to pick up some ripe nectarines which were reduced. I was slightly sceptical about soft fruits on the last day of December, but I was pleasantly surprised. As I walked back, rain pouring down in every direction, I took a perfectly soft and juicy bite and it was like sunshine being poured directly into my mouth. It was glorious. Like most sustainability-conscious foodies I’ve been trying to eat more seasonally but occasionally you need to eat a ripe Spanish fruit to feel joy again (and vitamins).
Now, speaking of joy, it’s time to get onto January’s roundup:
halloumi melt bagel a la Bagel Factory
One of the most useful things I’ve learned as an adult is if you are buying drinks for a party, get your hangover breakfast at the same time. There is no better feeling than waking up feeling incredible fragile and remembering you’ve got a breakfast to revive you without having to take a step outside. For News Year's Day however, not only did I need my usual mix of carbohydrates, fats and salts, but decided to push the boat out to begin the year and recreate a childhood favourite, aka the halloumi melt.
Travelling was not something my family did very often except for the occasional family excursion but in my late teens I went to London with my Dad where he introduced me to perhaps the greatest cooked cheese of all, halloumi. In Paddington, we stopped by a little cart (which seemed independent but in fact was the popular chain The Bagel Factory) and my dad ordered a halloumi melt, one for him, one for me. It was great - soft, salty halloumi with intensely flavourful sundried tomato, peppery rocket and refreshing mint yogurt. For years after, every time I had to travel homeI would stop by and pick one up as a pick me up for the ensuing 4-5 hour journey home. Now they have swapped out the sundried tomato for fresh which is okay, but not the same (although I will still pick one up if I am ever caught in the hellscape of the the Arndale at lunchtime).
So January 1st comes around and using some yogurt and fresh mint, I stumble into the kitchen and while pouring myself a cup of ambition, I recreate it, serving alongside avocado in a sesame dressing and the leftover reduced nectarines. It was delicious and I think it’s always good to start the year on an unbearably smug note.
Cauliflower noodles a la Ottolenghi (and six by nico)
While I tend to be much more open minded about most foods these days, there is still one vegetable that turns me into a cumudgeon and that’s cauliflower. It’s not that it is the worst vegetable out there, but what drives me mad is restaurant’s insistence that it is the perfect meat substitute. Fried cauliflower is nothing like fried chicken and it’s time we stopped pretending as such, especially when Quorn nuggets have been around for more than long enough. (See also cauliflower ‘steaks’ and the like).
For me personally, the issue is texture. Cauliflower feels like chewing a lot of wood for little flavour, no matter how much cheese you smother on it. But what little flavour it has isn’t bad, just easily drowned out, so I find it is best served as some form of puree or soup. The best cauliflower I had was at Six by Nico a couple of years ago, where we got to try a cauliflower veloute with crispy chilli oil; before then I had only seen veloute on Masterchef but for those not in the know - it’s basically a creamy soup.
So in my endeavour to try and eat more vegetables, I had been debating the idea of making this cauliflower soup but also fancied something more substantial when I realised - what if I could use it as a sauce? I just needed a carb and the crispy chilli oil pointed me towards noodles. So after asking my resident cauliflower expert Tim, who has been known to consume several whole cauliflowers in one go, he recommended the ottolenghi method of roasting.
You parboil for six to ten minutes, then while the original recipe suggests basting in butter and olive oil, I made the slight adjustment of combining melted butter with sesame and crispy chilli oil. You then roast for between 1 hour and 1 hour 30, coating in your butter mixture, and once it has cooled a bit, you break apart and stick in the blender with double cream and any additional seasoning like salt, pepper and/or MSG. In a large pan or wok, cook whatever vegetables and protein you want to accompany in a mix of sesame and crispy oil, then add sauce and noodles. Once cooked, top with sesame seeds (ideally black) and serve.
The first time I made just plain noodles and sauce, and served with some reduced veggie gyoza from the freezer and some deep fried tofu which was tossed in salt and pepper seasoning as a New Years Day dinner buffet of sorts - I can highly recommend, especially when the hangover hasn’t quite worn off yet. Later I remade with just pan-fried What the Cluck Fake Chicken so if you don’t have much in, this is also good, especially to showcase the delicate cauliflower
On a side note, I would also recommend Golden Dragon’s Original Salt and Pepper Seasoning, which I picked up from Han Won Hong on a whim and is particularly good on potato smileys.
Dellugo Pumpkin gnocchi
Technically I first came across this years ago back when I lived and worked in London, however it has taken me over four years to be reunited - to be fair, they have only been found in Waitrose, as I used to pick them up at the Waitrose near where I used to work on Finchley Road. However, when me and my mum were driving back from Norwich after Christmas, I spotted these in the Eaton Waitrose and in a calm and rational manner I picked up three bags lest I never see them again.
The first time I cooked them, we didn’t have much in the house so it was a simple sage and garlic butter sauce, topped with parmesan. The second and third time I decided to experiment after reading through my Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit which recommended blue cheese and butternut squash. So, firstly I fried tenderstem broccoli in butter and garlic before adding the gnocchi. Then, I melted some blue cheese into the leftover cream from the cauliflower sauce (you don’t need much) and drizzled over the top. Honestly, it might have been one of the best meals I’ve cooked and now I’m sad I can’t find pumpkin gnocchi in Manchester. However, I will try in the future with roast cubes of sweet potato or squash.
Hash browns, Gooey
It’s taken months but I finally managed to go to Gooey when there wasn’t an insanely long queue outside. I had their egg sandwich, which was okay but the filling was entirely cold so it depends on your feeling on cold egg. However , I also had their hash browns, which were very good. Soft buttery mash insides with a perfectly crisp outside, served with their own homemade ketchup - just maybe avoid the queue.
Rana green pesto
I bought this when it was on a Nectar card discount but can really recommend it as a shop-bought pesto as the basil comes through really nicely- I’ve mainly been using for cheese, tomato and pesto sandwiches. The best combo was with gouda, sundried tomatoes and ciabattas, the kind you get in the bakery section and go in the oven beforehand for around 8-10 minutes.
tomato and aubergine risotto
I decided, considering the spirit of trying to cook more vegetables, I would move on to cooking vegetables for other people. This recipe is one I am continuously developing because there is more to vegetarian risottos than simply mushrooms, and am also prone to cooking the aubergine differently each time - this time I settled on roasting, which is much easier and probably the method I will stick to from now on. I also discovered you can make your own sundried tomato paste for the base by simply putting sundried tomatoes and a little bit of the jar oil in the blender. I served it along my friend Joe’s salad - I hate how much I appreciate a good side salad these days, it makes me feel like I’ve finally become a ‘sensible adult’ - whichwas lovely and had fennel, pear, rocket, lemon and oil dressing and perhaps the most useful titbit - stale bread toasted into croutons. Definitely a good way to waste less bread and an accoutrement I want to use to jazz up salads in future.
When I made the risotto for the potluck, I used chunks of mozzarella, which was pretty popular and more cost effective considering there was at least eight of us, but the second time, when I made it for just me, my mum and Ed I took inspiration from a nice orzotto I had at my friend Ali’s where instead of mozzarella I served with torn up burrata on top. This was probably the nicest version we’ve had as it just added a little freshness for balance, but mozzarella is a good cheaper substitute if you have only just recovered from Christmas.
Roasted hazelnut chocolatine, Marks and Spencers
It’s rare you get something new in a supermarket bakery section and while the name may not be familiar, upon trying I can assure you that this is just a chocolate AND hazelnut pain au chocolat. It is very nice though, especially if you like Nutella or its more gourmet trappings.
Dinner at Lucies
I put this broad title as I was invited to a lovely dinner to christen my friend Lucie’s new flat and all the food and drink was delicious. For one, the risotto reminded me how good the Richmond veggie bacon can be in the right context and I will definitely have to see what bacon heavy recipes I can try with it. Also, 19 Crimes does a very good chardonnay and wine in general, so if you’re in doubt like I often am in a wine section, you can’t go too far wrong with one of their bottles. Finally, we got a lovely pear and apple crumble from Cherelle - I could eat a bowl of the topping by itself, but the fruit and the custard were excellent additions. Also, shout out to Lucie who had never seen custard powder before and served it at the table like salt and pepper (no, we will not let you forget it).
Also on the subject of lovely dinners which I had no part in, thanks again to Ali for her great post-hike chilli -I did not go for the aforementioned hike but still got to benefit from a great hearty dinner, which we can all agree is the best of both worlds. I have never actually cooked a chilli before but seems like a good way to eat more veg so stay tuned to hear how my attempts on that go.
That’s all for January’s roundup but I will see you all again to celebrate the shortest month of the year and more importantly, pancake day.
As always if you have enjoyed this, please do share on whatever social platform you use and feel free to comment below any thoughts, recommendations, proclamations of love etc etc.