I’d heard of ‘Jansson’s Temptation’—the traditional Swedish Christmas dish of potatoes, onions and fish baked in cream—but I’d not tasted it until today. It’s so good! So here is a recipe. The trick is getting the right sort of fish. What you really want is something like Grebbestad’s Anchovy-Style Sprats Fillets, which you can apparently acquire at Ocado. I think you could also use matjes herring, but don’t use anchovies, which are a different kettle of fish altogether.
This dish doesn’t sound like much, but it’s famous in Sweden for a reason. I recommend it enormously.
Janssons Frestelse (Jansson’s Temptation)
Serves 6-8.
Ingredients
400g onions
2-3 tablespoons butter
1.2kg potatoes
375g of ‘Swedish anchovies’ (aka sprat filets), drained
salt and pepper
600ml whipping cream
4 tablespoons breadcrumbs
Preparation
Heat the oven to 250C.
Peel the onions and slice into thin slices. Melt the butter in a sauté pan and add the onions. Sauté them gently until they are soft but not brown, which will take 15-20 minutes. Season them with some salt and pepper.
Meanwhile, peel the potatoes and cut them into thick matchsticks.
Butter an ovenproof baking dish. Spread a third of the potatoes evenly over the bottom. Spread half the onions over them, and then lay half the sprat filets on top of the onions. Repeat with another layer of potatoes, onions and sprats, and then finish with a final layer of potatoes.
Season with more salt and pepper. Pour the cream over the assemblage. It should nearly cover the potatoes. Sprinkle some breadcrumbs over the top and bake for about an hour.
Serve with salad, if you’d like to balance out the richness of the cream, or with smoked salmon and aquavit if you’re feeling festive.
Meera Sodha’s Fresh India won the Observer Food Monthly’s 2017 ‘best new cookbook’ award. Cook this and you’ll appreciate why. She recommends serving with ‘a fiery pickle, hot chapattis and yogurt, or with dal and rice’.
Savoy Cabbage, Black Kale and Potato Subji (Savoy Aloo Gobhi)
Serves 4 to 6 as part of a main course.
Ingredients
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
3 tablespoons rapeseed oil
15 curry leaves
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced
800g potatoes, cut into 1-inch chunks
200g savoy cabbage, finely shredded
200g black kale, finely shredded
1¼ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon chilli powder
¾ teaspoon ground turmeric
Preparation
Lightly grind the coriander and cumin seeds with a pestle and mortar. Put the oil into a large lidded frying pan over a medium heat and, when hot, add the curry leaves and mustard seeds. When they crackle, add the onion. Cook for around 10 minutes, until golden and sweet, stirring occasionally.
Add the crushed coriander and cumin, followed by the potatoes. Cook for 10-15 minutes, turning every now and then until crispy. Add a couple of tablespoons of water, cover with the lid and cook for a further 5 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender and no longer resist the point of a knife.
Finally, add the shredded cabbage and black kale to the pan with a couple of tablespoons of water and stir-fry for 3 minutes. Add the salt, chilli and turmeric, mix well, cover with the lid, reduce the heat to low and cook for another 4 minutes, or until the cabbage and black kale have wilted. Enjoy!
(Recipe adapted from Meera Sodha, Fresh India.)
Roasted vegetables dotted with cheerful, green pesto. Delicious for a mid-week dinner. It’s nice served with brown rice, or any other grain you might have lying about, but it’s good on its own as well. I suspect it would be tasty tossed onto pasta.
Roasted Anything with Anything Pesto
Serves 2
Ingredients
Roast Vegetables
A mixture of root vegetables and/or pumpkin. For two people one of those little Canalside squashes, 2 medium potatoes, and 4 large carrots would be fine, for instance.
shell of a squeezed-out lemon, if you happen to keep such things around.
Olive oil to drizzle
Salt and pepper to taste
Any twigs of thyme or rosemary that you happen to have to hand
1 whole head of garlic, unpeeled
Anything Pesto
1 handful of packaged pumpkin or melon seeds, or pine nuts, or almonds, or a mixture. I think you could add sunflower seeds, as well.
1 bunch of any fresh herbs. A mixture is fine and the quantity isn’t crucial. I used a blend of parsley and a little dill.
any feathery carrot tops
Olive oil
1 lemon
Salt and pepper to taste
Red pepper flakes, to taste (optional)
Optional Toppings
Capers
hard cheese, grated or chopped into little cubes
Home-made roasted squash seeds (see below)
Yoghurt
Preparation
For the Roast Vegetables
Preheat the oven to 220C.
Scrub the root vegetables and peel them if you prefer them unpeeled. Cut them into bite-sized pieces. Ditto the squash or pumpkin, if you are using it. After you cut it open remove the seeds and set them aside for use in the pesto.
Place all the vegetables in a roasting tin and toss them together with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. Slice the lemon shell into thin shreds and add this to the tray. Scatter any thyme or rosemary over the top. Place the unpeeled whole head of garlic in the tray as well.
Put the tray in the oven and roast for 30-45 minutes, until the vegetables are tender when you poke them with a fork. Toss them periodically so that they roast evenly.
For the Squash or Pumpkin Seed Garnish (if used)
Once you’ve put the vegetables in the oven you can prepare the fresh pumpkin seeds. Wash them carefully and pick out the seeds from the tangle of pumpkin fibres. Place the cleaned seeds on a baking tray and put them in the oven as well. Roast them for 10-15 minutes, tossing occasionally. They should begin to turn golden. At that point take the tray out of the oven and toss the seeds with a little more olive oil and salt. Put them back in the oven for another 3-5 minutes. They should now be crisp and toasted. Set them aside to cool. Nibble a few while you prepare the pesto.
For the Nuts or Seeds for the Pesto
Place the nuts or packaged seeds on a baking tray and put them in the oven to toast. Check them after about 3 minutes as pine nuts in particular burn easily. Once they start to turn golden remove them from the oven and set them aside to cool.
For the Anything Pesto
Blend the herbs and carrot tops (should you have any) in a hand-held blender, or, if you are feeling energetic, pound them a bit at a time in a mortar and pestle.
Add about the toasted nuts/seeds, and blend/pound some more to make a thick, herby paste.
Find the roasted head of garlic and squeeze out the now-tender garlic from each clove. Add this to the pesto and blend. Thin the pesto with olive oil until it reaches the consistency you like.
Grate in the zest of the lemon. Juice the lemon and add some juice to the pesto, along with some salt and pepper. Add a pinch of pepper flakes if you like.
Now taste it: does it need more lemon juice? More salt? More oil? Adjust the flavours and consistency until you are pleased with the result.
To Serve
Arrange the roasted vegetables on a platter. Dot or pour the pesto over the top and garnish as desired with capers, cheese, or your home-made roasted pumpkin seeds. Serve, if you like, with a bowl of salted yoghurt on the side.
You can serve this together with rice or another grain if you like. Perhaps you have some leftover rice in the freezer?
(Recipe adapted from Anna Jones, The Guardian.)
Ingredients
3 large potatoes, peeled
1 egg
1 tablespoon plain flour
salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon butter and one tablespoon plain oil, for frying
Preparation
Preheat the oven to about 150, if you’d like to keep your pancakes hot.
Grate the potatoes into coarse shreds. Place the shreds inside an old tea towel and, standing over the sink, twist the tea towel to squeeze out as much liquid as you can. Set the tea-towel of potatoes aside while you mix the other ingredients.
Combine the egg, flour and seasonings in a mixing bowl.
Return to your tea towel and squeeze some more until you’re satisfied you’re unlikely to extract any more liquid. Mix the squeezed potato shreds with the other ingredients.
Heat the oil and butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Once it’s hot add about a third of the potato mixture. If you’re using a tiny pan you’ll want to use less—the goal is to spread the potato out as thinly as possible. Pat it out to form a thin a layer and leave it to cook for about 5 minutes. Take a peek at the underside. When it looks attractively golden, flip it over and cook the other side for 3-4 more minutes. Remove the crispy potato pancake and cook the remaining pancakes in the came way. You can keep the completed pancakes hot in the oven if you like.
Layers of sliced potatoes, onion, and salmon baked with egg, cream and fresh dill make a memorable meal. Serve with a green salad.
This is a classic Swedish recipe, invented to use up leftover salmon. I don’t think we suffer from this problem, but in fact you can use any sort of salmon you like—uncooked fresh salmon, leftover cooked salmon, smoked salmon, probably even tinned salmon—or a mixture. You can think of this as a Swedish lasagne, with potatoes instead of pasta.
Laxpudding (Salmon and Potato Pudding)
Serves 4-6.
Ingredients
For the Pudding
1kg potatoes
2 onion, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon butter
450g salmon, cut into bite-sized pieces (you can use a mixture of different types of salmon).
50g fresh dill, finely chopped
3 eggs
300ml milk
120ml double or whipping cream
½ tsp salt
freshly ground pepper, to taste (if you have white pepper here is a good opportunity to use it).
Decorations for the Top
100g butter (optional)
additional sprigs of fresh dill
thin slices of lemon
Preparation
Put the potatoes in cold water and bring slowly to the boil. Simmer gently until they are just tender. Drain. When they are cool enough to handle peel them (unless you like the peel), and slice them thin. Set aside while you prepare the other ingredients.
Heat the oven to 200C and butter an ovenproof dish. Something on the order of 25cm x 35cm is about right but there’s no need to be precise.
Sauté the onion in the butter until it softens, without browning. Set aside.
Mix the salmon with the dill and set aside as well.
Whisk the eggs, milk, cream, salt and pepper together.
Now assemble the pudding: put a third of the potatoes at the bottom of the pan. Spread half the onions over the potatoes, and top these with half the salmon and dill. Make another potato layer. Top this with the remaining onions, and then the remaining salmon and dill. Finish with a final layer of potatoes.
Pour the eggy mixture over the salmon pudding.
Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, until the pudding feels firm and the crust is nicely browned.
To serve, first decide if you wish to use the additional butter drizzle. If you do—and it’s traditional—melt the butter in a small pan until it starts to turn a hazelnut brown colour and smells nutty and tempting. Pour this over the baked pudding. Garnish artfully with sprigs of dill and slices of lemon. Serve cut into squares.
(Recipe courtesy of Ulrika Andersson, Swedish Collegium of Advanced Studies, Uppsala.)
Colombian ajiaco is a miracle of soups. It’s luxurious, convivial and fresh. The basic idea is this: a bowl of rich chicken broth with lots of potatoes and chunks of sweetcorn, personalised with sliced avocado, capers, a tomato-coriander salsa and cream, followed by another bowl, or two. Do try it.
A Sort of Ajiaco
Proper aijaco requires some ingredients we lack, so this is a Leamington approximation. I think it’s delicious but apologies to all Colombians.
Ingredients
the stock
1 whole chicken, or chicken pieces, of about 1.6 kilos in weight, but you needn’t be precise.
1 large onion, chopped fine
4 litres of water
1 tablespoon salt
6 whole peppercorns
the additional soup ingredients
4 potatoes, cut into chunks — the Canalside potatoes we’re currently getting are ideal as they are the mealy variety that disintigrate when you boil them. That’s what you want here.
3 potatoes, cut into thinnish slices—ideally, use waxy potatoes of the sort that will not disintegrate when you boil them. Real ajiaco uses different varieties of potato but even if you use only one the result will be delicious.
200g runner beans, sliced in to 1-inch chunks
2-3 ears sweetcorn, shucked (i.e. husk and silk removed) and cut into 3 chunks
the delightful extras
2 avocados, cut into slices
1/4 cup capers
1/2 cup double cream (I suppose you could use single cream)
tomato-coriander salsa
4 tomatoes, chopped into small cubes
1 medium onion, chopped fine
1/2 cup fresh coriander, chopped fine
1 green or red chilli
salt to taste
Preparation
Put the soup ingredients into a large pot for which you have a lid. Cover and bring to the boil. Once it begins boiling turn the heat down so that it simmers gently. Cook for 75 minutes.Meanwhile prepare the other components. Put the avocadoes and capers in two attractive little dishes and place the cream in a jug. Then prepare the salsa: put the tomato, onion and coriander into a little serving bowl and mix. Cut off the end of the chilli and the slice it in half. If you don’t want the salsa to be too hot remove the seeds, and then mince the chilli into tiny bits. Mix it into the salsa and add salt to taste. Let it mellow while you finish the soup.
After the soup has been cooking for about an hour and a quarter the chicken should be tender and the broth rich and flavourful. If for any reason the chicken still seems a bit rubbery or under-cooked, let the soup simmer for another 15 minutes or so. Fish out the chicken and let it cool a little. Once you’re able to handle it, remove the meat from the bones, and, if you like, shred it a bit into bite-sized pieces. Return the meat to the pot and bring the soup back to the boil.
Add the chunks of potato and cook for 20 minutes. The potato should disintegrate. If chunks still remain give the whole thing a little mash with a potato masher to encourage them to break apart.
Add the sliced potatoes and runner beans nd cook for another 10-15 minutes, until they are tender.
Add the chunks of corn and cook for 5 final minutes. Check to see if it needs more salt or pepper.
To serve: bring the soup to the table and give each diner a bowl brimming with chicken, sliced potatoes and runner beans, topped by a piece of corn on the cob. Pass around the little bowls of avocado, capers, and the salsa, and the jug of cream. Each diner can adorn their bowl with whatever they fancy.
This is superb! Potatoes in a silky sauce of onions and green peppers—the slow cooking works a kind of alchemy, transforming the simple ingredients into something really wonderful. Serve this as part of an array of tapas-style dishes, or on its own with some steamed green beans dressed with olive oil and basil, or perhaps quartered hard-cooked eggs arrayed atop a platter of sliced tomatoes, and drizzled with olive oil and shredded basil.
Patatas a lo Pobre [Poor Man’s Potatoes]
Serves 4
Ingredients
15 tablespoons olive oil (you might not need it all)
3 large onions, sliced fine
5 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
2 green peppers, cut in half, de-seeded, and roughly chopped
4 bay leaves
1kg potatoes
salt and pepper
Preparation
Heat 4 tablespoons of oil in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Once it’s hot add the onions, sprinkle with a pinch of salt, and reduce the heat to low. Cook for 20-30 minutes, stirring regularly so that the onions don’t burn, until the onions have collapsed into a golden, sweet-smelling, tangled mass. Add the garlic, peppers and bay leaves, and continue to cook over low heat for another 15-20 minutes. Add a bit more oil if at any point the mixture starts to stick.
Meanwhile, prepare the potatoes: cut them into thick chip shapes. Put them in a sieve and sprinkle them with a little salt. Leave them aside until the onion mixture is ready.
Now add another 4 tablespoons of oil to the onions and turn up the heat a little bit to warm the oil. Once the onions are bubbling happily add the potatoes, stir, and again reduce the heat to low. Simmer until the potatoes are soft, between 20 and 35 minutes. Season with pepper and serve. It’s also delicious cold, with a hard-cooked egg, for lunch the next day.
(Recipe adapted from Sam and Sam Clarke, Moro: The Cookbook (2003).)
Pasta with Green Beans, Potatoes and Pesto
Perhaps this recipe is from Liguria. In any event, it’s delicious and very summery. Pesto often includes garlic, but I think for this light, delicate dish it’s better to focus on the basil and vegetables. I like this with buckwheat pasta but you can use whatever kind you favour. And if you’ve never included potatoes in a pasta dish, well, you’re in for a treat.
Serves 4
Ingredients
The proportions for this dish are very approximate. And you can add little bits of brigh red cherry tomato, if you like.
For the Pesto
50g pine nuts
1 big bunch of basil (about 50g)
100ml olive oil (or a little more if the pesto seems too dry)
1/2 cup freshly-grated Parmesan or Pecorino cheese
zest of half a lemon
The Other Ingredients
300g potatoes (about 3 medium-sized Canalside ones)
150g green beans, topped and tailed, and cut in half if they are very long
2 teaspoons salt (for cooking the pasta)
400g long, thin pasta (fettucine, linguine, trenette, etc.)
freshly-ground black pepper, to taste
Additional cheese, to serve
Preparation
To make the pesto:
Heat a small frying pan over medium heat. When it’s hot, add the pine nuts (you don’t need any oil) and toast them until they are fragrant and lightly browned. Keep an eye on them so they don’t burn. Once they’re done tip them onto a plate to cool down a bit.
Meanwhile, remove the basil leaves from the stems. Stack up the leaves in a pile and shred them into fine strips.
Put the cooled-down pine nuts into a mortar and mash them up with the pestle. Pine nuts are soft, so it should be easy to reduce them to a crumble. Once they’re broken up and crumbly, add the shredded basil and the olive oil and mash them up into a rough paste. Add a little more oil if it seems too stiff. Stir in the grated cheese and lemon zest.
There’s your pesto. I think it’s nicer to have it a bit chunky, but if you prefer you can carry on mashing until you’re reduced it to a smoother, more homogenous consistency. Of course you can also do this in a food processor. Doing it by hand is pretty easy and gives you more control over the texture. Once the pesto is ready you can proceed with the rest of the recipe or set it aside for later. Pesto keeps for ages in the freezer.
To complete the recipe:
Place the potatoes in a pan of cold water and bring them slowly to the boil. Once they’re boiling reduce the heat to a simmer and cook them until they’re tender. The current Canalside potatoes are taking about 20 minutes for the medium-sized ones. Fish them out of the water and leave them to cool. DON’T discard the water, as you will use it to cook the beans. Once the potatoes are cool enough to handle slice them thick or thin, or cut them into 1cm cubes. Put them in a serving bowl.
Bring the water back to a boil and cook the beans for about 3 minutes, or until they’re as tender as you like them. Drain the beans and add them to the potatoes. Alternatively, you can fish the beans out of the water as you did with the potatoes, thereby keeping the water to use for cooking the pasta, as well.
Bring a large pot of water to the boil (or use your potato-bean water), add the salt, and return to the boil. When it’s really boiling add the pasta and cook to your preference. Drain the pasta, RETAINING ONE CUP OF WATER TO ADD TO THE SAUCE. It’s easiest to do this by to dipping some out of the pot (using a mug) before you drain it.
Add the drained pasta to the dish with the potatoes and beans. Add about half of your cup of water to the bowl and toss it about. Stir in several generous spoonfuls of pesto and toss. Now assess it: if it seems a bit dry stir in some more of your cooking water. If you’d like more pesto, add it. Season it with black pepper and serve. Bring a chunk of cheese to the table in case anyone wants additional cheese.
Hurrah for La Jimena!
This week’s recipes celebrate the arrival of the delivery of citrus fruits, olives, olive oil and almonds from La Jimena farm in Spain! The recipes combine some of the Canalside winter staples (potatoes and onions) with lemons, oranges and olives, to bring a bit of Spanish sunshine to the Midlands. If you’ve received a box from La Jimena, this is a nice way to use some of its contents. If not, the shops are full of excellent citrus fruits, which are currently at their peak.
These recipes are adapted from Claudia Roden’s wonderful 2009 Arabeque: A Tate of Morocco, Turkey, & Lebanon.
You’ll notice that the dressings for these two salads are virtually identical, yet the results are strikingly different.
Potato and Olive Salad
serves 3-4
500g of Canalside white potatoes
5 tablespoons olive oil
juice of one lemon
1/2 teaspoon paprika or to taste
1 teaspoon ground cumin*
salt to taste
1 small red or white onion, finely chopped
12 olives
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Cover the potatoes with cold water and bring them to a gentle boil. (Claudia Roden suggests peeling them first so that they absorb more of the dressing.)
While the potatoes are cooking mix the olive oil, lemon juice, paprika, cumin and salt in a serving bowl. Add the onions and olives and set aside until the potatoes are cooked.
When the potatoes are tender drain them and cut into chunks as soon as they are cool enough to handle.
Mix the still-warm potatoes with the ingredients in the bowl. Leave them to absorb the flavours of the dressing if you have time—but it will be tasty to eat right away.
When you’re ready to eat it mix in the parsley.
Orange, Olive and Onion Salad
serves 6
4 oranges
1 large red onion, finely chopped
16 olives
1 lemon
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin*
1/2 teaspoon paprika or to taste
salt to taste
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Peel the oranges and cut off as much of the white pith as possible. Cut them into thick slices, and then cut the slices into quarters.
Toss them with the onion and olives and arrange the mixture on a serving plate.
Prepare the lemon in the same fashion as the oranges, but cut it into tiny pieces (i.e. peel it, cut off the white pith, slice it into thin slices, and then chop the slices into small pieces).
Mix the lemon and any juice with the olive oil, cumin, paprika, salt and parsley. Toss this dressing on the salad and serve.
* For the best flavour toast about 2 teaspoons of whole cumin seeds in a dry frying pan (don’t add any oil) until they smell fragrant. Leave them to cool and then grind them in a mortar and pestle.