This combination of soft, roasted pumpkin, red onions, and buttery walnuts blends with the chewiness of farro or barley in this easy recipe. Farro is the Italian name for hulled wheat grains, which are toothsome and soothing. You could also use barley, which pairs beautifully with walnuts and cheese. If you want to make this a more substantial meal you can add a green salad.
Roasted Pumpkin with Walnuts and Grains
Serves 4.
1 cup = 8 fluid ounces = 250 ml (roughly)
Ingredients
2 cups farro or pearl barley, rinsed and drained
2 teaspoons fine-grain sea salt
5 cups water (or stock)
3 cups pumpkin, cut into 1/2-inch dice (no need to peel unless you hate the peel)
1 large red onion cut into 8 pieces
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 cup walnuts, deeply toasted and coarsely chopped
3 tablespoons walnut oil (or use more olive oil)
1/4 cup goat cheese, crumbled
Preparation
Preheat oven to 180C.
Combine the farro or barley, salt, and water in a large, heavy saucepan over medium heat. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the grain is tender, about 40 to 60 minutes. Taste it often as it cooks. You want it al dente, not mushy. Remove from heat, drain any excess water, and set aside.
While the grain is cooking toss the pumpkin, onion, and thyme with the olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a couple big pinches of salt and spread onto a large baking sheet. Try to arrange it in a single layer.
Place in the oven and roast for about 20 minutes, tossing every 7 minutes or so to get browning on all sides. Remove from the oven and let cool a bit.
In a large bowl gently toss together the everything except the goat cheese. Taste and add a bit of salt if necessary.
Arrange on a platter garnished with the goat cheese and serve.
Recipe adapted from Heidi Swanson, 101 Cookbooks.
‘A combination of lifting aromatics and wintery earthy roots, roasted until crisp around the edges and sweet’, writes Anna Jones. This flavoursome broth is satisfying and unctuous without being cloying or heavy. I think you will enjoy it. ‘Definitely one for a Canalside recipe’ said Matt when I made this.
Anna Jones notes that you can use any root vegetables that you like—beetroot or potatoes could be substituted for the carrots, parsnips and swedes.
Turmeric and Lime Leaf Broth with Roasted Roots
Serves 4.
Ingredients
200g carrots, peeled and halved if big
350g parsnips, peeled and quartered
500g swede, peeled and roughly chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
coconut oil
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger root, peeled
1 thumb-sized piece of turmeric root, peeled
1 bunch of coriander
2 large shallots, finely sliced, divided into two portions
1 clove garlic, finely sliced
1 tablespoon coriander seeds, roughly smashed
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1 x 400g tin of coconut milk
4 lime leaves
To Serve
200g cooked grains
1 lime, halved
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 220C.
Place the prepared roots into a baking tray with a big pinch of salt and 1 tablespoon of coconut oil. Put in the oven. After 5 minutes remove it and toss everything together. Return it to the oven and roast for about 35 minutes, or until everything is golden. Toss it periodically while it’s roasting.
Meanwhile prepare the broth: first grate the ginger and turmeric.
Cut off the stalks of the coriander and chop these roughly. Keep the leaves to garnish the soup.
Add another tablespoon of coconut oil to a saucepan and heat over medium heat. Add half the shallots and sauté for about 5 minutes, until they begin to brown. Add the grated ginger and turmeric, the chopped coriander stalks, the garlic, coriander seeds and chile. Sauté for a few more minutes.
Add the coconut milk and the lime leaves. Fill the empty tin with water and add this to the pan as well. Season to taste with salt and pepper and simmer for 10 minutes.
While the broth is simmering heat another tablespoon of coconut oil in a sauté pan over high heat. When it’s really hot add the remaining shallot and cook until it’s crispy and golden—but don’t let it burn. Remove the crispy shallots from the pan onto some kitchen paper. Spread them out so they don’t all stick to each other and go soggy.
Once the roots are ready, spoon the grains into four bowls. Place the roasted roots over the grains and ladle the soup over the top. Garnish with the coriander leaves and crispy shallots. Serve with the lime halves for an extra lime kick.
Recipe adapted from Anna Jones, The Modern Cook’s Year (2017).
Now that the snow is gone and spring has sprung, you can start foraging.* There are young nettles everywhere, so start picking. Wild garlic is in season as well, and if you can find any it combines magnificently with nettle to make a sumptuous, bright green soup whose vibrant colour alone will lift your spirits. Eat this with bread and some cheese for an easy dinner.
Wild Garlic & Nettle Soup
serves 4.
Ingredients
500g mixed nettles and wild garlic leaves
1 tablespoon rapeseed oil, plus extra for drizzling
25g butter
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
1 leek, cleaned and chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and chopped
1 large potato, chopped
salt, to taste
1.5 litres flavourful stock
3 tablespoons milk
Preparation
Wearing gloves, strip the nettle leaves from the stalks. Roughly chop the wild garlic and nettles and set aside.
Heat the oil and butter in a large saucepan. Add the onion, leek, carrot, potato and a good pinch of salt, and stir until everything is well coated. Cover and cook over low heat for 20 minutes, stirring every so often to make sure that the vegetables don’t catch on the bottom of the pan.
Pour in the stock, and bring to a simmer. Simmer gently for 10 minutes, or until the vegetables are very soft. At this point you can turn off the heat and leave the pan until you’re ready to eat.
When you are ready to eat add the nettles and wild garlic in several batches, stirring to blend everything together. Cook over low heat for about 2 minutes.
Turn off the heat and blend using a stick blender. Add the milk, and then warm over very low heat until it’s a pleasant temperature. Check to see if it needs any more salt.
Serve, drizzled with a little extra oil over the top, if you like.
Recipe adapted from Barney Desmazery, https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/wild-garlic-nettle-soup
* Brandon Marsh Nature Centre is offering a foraging course on 27 May, in case you’d like to sign up. They promise wild garlic, among other delicacies. http://www.wildfooduk.com/events/warwickshire-coventry-brandon-marsh-spring-foraging-course-1/
This is what I ate for lunch today. It’s easy, satisfying, and makes good use of the Canalside leeks you’ve accumulated in the fridge. The leeks meld with the vinaigrette to create a sumptuous, slippery mass. Toasted nuts contrast with the soft strands of leek. You could also add little cubes of cheese, or use this as a topping for a piece of toast.
Leeks Vinaigrette
Serves 1
Ingredients
4 leeks
1 tablespoon of sherry vinegar
big pinch of salt, and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons of walnut oil, or, failing that, olive oil
handful of hazelnuts or walnuts, coarsely chopped
handful of fresh parsley, chopped
Preparation
Bring a pot of salted water to the boil.
Meanwhile, trim the ends off the leeks, and peel off the outer layer. Cut off and discard the tough, dark green upper bit. Slice each leek in half vertically.
Plunge the halved leeks into the boiling water and simmer for 8-10 minutes.
While the leeks are cooking prepare the vinaigrette in a serving bowl: pour the vinegar into the bowl, and add the salt and pepper. Slowly drizzle in the oil, whisking all the while with a fork. Set aside until the leeks are cooked.
After 8 minutes check the leeks to see if they’re tender when poked with a fork. Once they’re tender drain them and then add them while they’re still warm to the bowl with the vinaigrette. Toss together and leave to cool, or until you’re ready to eat them.
Heat a small frying pan over medium heat and add the nuts. Toast for about 4 minutes, stirring occasionally so that they toast on all sides, and taking care that they do not burn. Once they smell appetising and have begun to turn a toasty colour, add them to the leeks.
When the leeks are cool, or you wish to eat them, add the chopped parsley, stir, check to see if it needs more salt or pepper, and enjoy.
One of the wonders of the modern culinary world is the discovery that we can eat raw squash. Thin spiralised ribbons of raw courgette, butternut squash and carrot started to appear in cooking blogs some time around 2013; and now they’re everywhere. But you don’t need a spiraliser to make Canalside squash into a quick salad for lunch. Here’s how.
Squash, Avocado and Pumpkin Seed Salad
Serves 1.
Ingredients
1 tablespoon blackberry vinegar, or any other fruit vinegar, or, failing that, cider vinegar
salt and pepper, to taste
1.5 tablespoons rapeseed oil
100g raw squash
all the salad from your Canalside share
1 small, ripe avocado
a big handful of pumpkin seeds
Preparation
First prepare the dressing: in the bowl out of which you wish to eat the salad place the vinegar, salt and pepper. Slowly drizzle in the oil, whisking all the while with a fork. Taste and see if you’d like to add a little more vinegar, or oil, or seasoning. Then set aside while you prepare the salad.
Peel the squash, using a sharp knife. Then, using a vegetable peeler, shave off thin strips of squash until you’ve shaved it all, or you’re left with a piece that is too tiny to manipulate any further. Eat this tiny piece while you prepare the rest of the salad.
Put the washed salad leaves in the bowl. Top with the shaved squash ribbons. Open the avocado and scoop out the flesh. Cut it into generous chunks and add them to the salad.
Heat a small frying pan over medium-high heat (you don’t need to add any oil). Add the pumpkin seeds and toast them, stirring frequently so that they don’t burn. They will soon start of pop and jump about in the pan. As soon as they do, tip them onto the salad. Toss and eat.
Perhaps—could it be?—you’re ready for a break from root vegetables. Here is just what you need: a tomato-garlic soup. Serve it with a nice bread and the salad greens from Canalside for an extremely quick and satisfying dinner. If you’re feeling energetic and would like a bit more protein, you could dress the salad with Alexandre Dumas’ salad dressing.
Tomato-Garlic Soup
Serves 6.
Ingredients
3 tablespoons olive oil
3-6 large cloves of garlic, minced or grated
1 tablespoon paprika—the smoked Spanish kind labelled ‘dulce’ is best of all
8 cups or two litres tomato juice
½ cup dry sherry (optional)
optional garnishes
either croutons, freshly-grated Parmesan cheese and chopped parsley
or garbanzo beans (AKA chick peas), crumbled feta and chopped parsley
Preparation
Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a saucepan large enough to hold the tomato juice. Add the garlic and sauté very briefly until golden, stirring all the time and taking care not to let it burn. Add the paprika and stir for another minute, and then pour in the tomato juice. Heat until warm. Stir in the sherry, if you’re using it, and simmer for 5-10 minutes, so that the flavours fuse.
Serve the soup and garnish with the garnishes, if you’re using them.
Recipe adapted from New Recipes From Moosewood Restaurant (1987).
This main-course salad is based on what I gather is a classic Vietnamese sauce called Nước chấm. It’s a combination of lime juice, a bit of sugar, and fish sauce. It’s sharp, salty and addictive. The recipe combines slices of lightly-cooked steak with a salad of shredded vegetables. You can also make it without the steak, in which case I’d recommend adding some toasted peanuts. You can also make this more hearty still by serving it alongside some cooked rice, or rice noodles.
Vietnamese Beef Salad with Nước chấm
Serves 4
Ingredients
2 red chilli peppers (or to taste)
½ cup fish sauce
1 tablespoon lime zest
⅓ cup fresh lime juice (about 3 limes)
2 tablespoons dark muscovado sugar
2 garlic cloves, grated
1 inch of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
600g rump steak or ¾ cup roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped
½ cucumber
6 carrots, peeled and shredded
½ medium white cabbage, finely shredded
8 spring onions, thinly sliced
1 bunch coriander, coarsely chopped
roasted peanuts (if you’re not using steak)
an additional lime half, for garnish (optional)
Preparation
De-seed and finely chop one chilli pepper. In a small bowl, combine the chopped chilli, fish sauce, lime zest, lime juice, brown sugar, ginger and garlic.
If you’re using the steak, then pour 1/2 of the mixture into a sealable plastic bag and add the steak, if you’re using it. Seal, and leave to marinate at room temperature for at least 30 minutes (or refrigerate for up to 24 hours). Let meat come to room temperature before cooking if necessary.
De-seed the second chilli pepper and slice it finely. Slice the cucumber into thin matchsticks. Toss the sliced chilli, sliced cucumber, shredded carrot and cabbage, spring onions and almost all the coriander together to mix. Keep a little coriander back to garnish the top of the salad.
If you’re not using the steak, simply add the peanuts, pour the dressing over the vegetables, toss, garnish with a little more coriander, and serve.
If you’re using the steak, toss the salad with the remaining dressing and then spread the salad out onto a serving platter and set aside.
When you are ready to eat heat a cast iron pan (or other sturdy frying pan) to very hot and add the steak. Cook for 75 seconds on each side, unless you don’t like your meat rare, in which case cook it for perhaps 2 minutes a side, or however long you favour cooking steak. I like steak very rare . . .
Remove the meat from the pan and let it sit for 3-5 minutes on a cutting board. Then slice the steak very thinly, and place the slices over the top of the salad. Scatter the sliced red chiles and reserved coriander over the top and serve with an additional sliced lime on the side, in case anyone wants more lime.
Recipe adapted from Melissa Clark, New York Times Cooking.
Here, in honour of Canalside’s surprise Jerusalem artichoke harvest, is a simple recipe. Jerusalem artichokes originated in North America; they were one of the many new foods that reached Europe in the aftermath of Columbus’s 1492 voyage to the Americas. Their name has nothing to do with the Middle-Eastern city. Rather, it reflects the fact that Jerusalem artichokes are botanically related to the sunflower, or girasole in Italian. ‘Jerusalem’ is an approximation of the Italian name. The ‘artichoke’ bit reflects the vague similarity in taste between globe artichokes and our little tubers. In French the name . . . , well, that’s probably enough history.
Jerusalem Artichokes with Cream and Herbs
Serves 4 as a side dish.
Ingredients
500g Jerusalem artichokes
4 shallots, peeled
2 cloves of garlic
150ml crème fraîche
salt and pepper to taste
juice of 1 lemon
150g medium-hard cheese, grated. You could use Emmental, gruyère, Jarlsberg, or Gouda, for instance. Cheddar would work too.
4 sprigs of fresh thyme, or about 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
a handful of parsley, chopped
Preparation
Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Bring a large pan of water to the boil.
Once the water is boiling drop in the Jerusalem artichokes and boil gently for 15 minutes, and drain. This allegedly reduces the tuber’s gas-inducing tendencies.
While the Jerusalem artichokes are cooking cut the shallots lengthwise into boat-shaped pieces. Finely chop the garlic.
Cut the drained Jerusalem artichokes into chunks.
Combine everything aside from the parsley and tip into an ovenproof dish.
Bake for about 30 minutes, until the Jerusalem artichokes are tender. The top should turn an appetising golden colour but keep an eye on it so that it doesn’t burn.
Remove from the oven and top with the chopped parsley and an additional grind or two of pepper.
Recipe adapted from http://www.jarlsberg.com/uk/recipes/jerusalem-atichokes-au-gratin
This is a great way to use up odds and ends of fresh veg, and leftovers too. You can use more or less whatever you fancy from the list, though I do think some kind of onion is essential. As the egg is poured straight into the roasting dish full of hot veg, you don’t need to fry this frittata at all, but it helps to have a heavy ceramic or cast-iron dish, which retains the heat well. And the eggs should be at room temperature, not cold from the fridge.
Oven-roasted roots frittata
Ingredients
About 600g mixed winter veg, such as onions, carrots, squash or pumpkin, parsnip, celeriac, beetroot, jerusalem artichokes, black spanish radish, potatoes
1 large garlic clove, finely chopped
3 tablespoons rapeseed or olive oil
7 large or 8 medium eggs
A handful of mixed herbs, such as curly parsley, chives and thyme, finely chopped
About 20g Parmesan, hard goat’s cheese or other well-flavoured hard cheese, grated
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method
Preheat the oven to 190°C/Gas Mark 5. Meanwhile, prepare your chosen veg: peel shallots or onions and quarter or thickly slice; peel carrots and cut into 5mm slices; peel squash or pumpkin, deseed and cut into 2–3cm cubes; peel parsnip, celeriac and beetroot and cut into 1–2cm cubes; cut potatoes into 1–2cm cubes.
Put all the veg into an ovenproof dish, about 23cm square. Add the garlic, oil and plenty of salt and pepper and toss well. Roast for about 40 minutes, stirring halfway through, until the veg are all tender and starting to caramelise in places.
Beat the eggs together with the chopped herbs and some more salt and pepper. Take the dish from the oven, pour the egg evenly over the veg and scatter over the grated cheese. Return to the oven for 10–15 minutes until the egg is all set and the top is starting to colour. If your oven has a grill, you can use that to accelerate the browning of the top.
Leave to cool slightly, then slide the frittata out on to a plate or board. Serve warm or cold. Perfect lunchbox fare…
Thanks to River Cottage
To celebrate Canalside’s excellent potato harvest, as well as my fondness for potatoes, here are some potato-recipes from the eighteenth century.
People in eighteenth-century Britain prepared potatoes in many different ways. These are from Richard Briggs, The New Art of Cookery. First published in 1788, it went through multiple editions and was printed in both the UK and the newly-independent USA. Briggs was an experienced chef, who worked for many years at the Globe Tavern, Fleet Street, and the White Hart Tavern, Holborn, as well as London’s fashionable Temple Coffee House.
Boiled Potatoes
‘Wash them very clean, put them into a sauce-pan, nearly cover them with cold water, put in a little salt, cover them close, and boil them very gently, but look at them often; when the skins begin to break try them with a fork, and if they are done strain the water from them, cover them close to steam for a few minutes, then peel them and put them in a dish, with melted butter in a boat.’
Mashed potatoes
‘After they are boiled and peeled, mash them in a mortar, or on a clean board with a broad knife, and put them into a stew-pan; to two pounds of potatoes put in half a pint of milk, a quarter of a pound of butter, a little salt, put them over a fire, and keep them stirring till the butter is melted, but take care they do not burn to the bottom; put them in a small dish, and with a knife shape them in any form you please.’
Fried Potatoes
‘Pare as many raw potatoes as you will want, cut them in slices as big as a crown piece, flour them, and fry them brown and crisp on both sides in fresh butter; put them in a hot dish, and pour melted butter, sack [you could use sherry] and sugar mixed over them or [serve] them with . . . only a little plain butter in a bowl.’
To conclude, here are a few ideas from Theophilus Lobb’s 1767 Primitive Cookery: or the Kitchen Garden Display’d. He writes that ‘to dress potatoes’
‘some people, when they are boil’d have a sauce ready to pour over them, made with butter, salt, and pepper, others use gravy sauce, others ketchup, and some eat them boiled with only pepper and salt; some cut the large ones in slices, and fry them with onions, others stew them with salt, pepper, ale, or water. It is a common way also to boil them first, and then peel them, and lay them in the dripping-pan under roasting meat. Another way very much used in Wales, is to bake them with herrings, mixed with layers of pepper, vinegar, salt, sweet herbs, and water. Also they cut mutton in slices, and lay them in a pan, and on them potatoes and spices, then another layer of all the same with half a pint of water; this they stew, covering all with cloths round the stew-pan, and account it excellent. The Irish have several ways of eating them: the poor sort eat them with salt only after they are boil’d; others with butter and salt, but most with milk and sugar.’