Beef in beer

The lawn is confettied with golden leaves and the seed heads are helicoptering down from our neighbour’s tree. There’s no denying that autumn is here – though the air is still warm, days are marked with wind and drizzle. After the brief summer of shorts-and-t-shirts, I’m back to wearing two jumpers and ancient socks. It’s OK. August was so busy, and September rather trying, so a slow October is called for. I think I always go through a mourning period at this time of year, in denial that summer (and with it all that LIFE!) has gone. There’s a few weeks of learning to let go, and more so this year because school starting was such a shock to our normal way of doing things.

Having said all that, it’s not winter yet, not that you’d know it from a trip to the supermarket. Waitrose is already flogging Lindt Santas, and guess what’s made its yearly appearance in our kitchen, a good month earlier than normal. Aldi stollen and panettone – staple winter carbs in our house – are back. I welcome them with open arms.

Panettone and stollen have made their arrival to the kitchen a good month earlier than normal

This warm-yet-autumnal weather means it’s time to harvest the squash. This year I planted out 10 plants of a few varieties – an ornamental gourd mix, a few crown prince, a few black fatsu, and a few pumpkin. The fatsu disappeared without trace, but the gourds thrived. This week I harvested a box full, plus a few crown prince and a fat halloween pumpkin. Given the hot dry weather in August, and the general neglect that I expect all my allotment plants to tolerate, it’s a good haul.

Grow your own halloween – mixed gourds, crown prince squash and a pumpkin

Of course the flowers are still coming, the dahlias in particular enjoying the recent wet. Cosmos are hanging on, and the chrysanthemums are now thinking about putting on a show. The colour of late September and early October is magenta, with the amaranth, cosmos and dahlias making a striking contrast with the borlotti beans and autumn raspberries.

Magenta hues of amaranth, borlotti beans, cosmos and dahlias

The hops are past harvesting for beer now but I’ve taken a few strands for drying, for Christmas displays. Their soporific scent fills the sunroom.

A few hops for winter arrangements

A word of note for the sunflowers, which struggled to get going this year but come September claimed their magnificence. All of these are the side shoots from one single plant, which sadly got blown down in last week’s high winds. It’s decline warns me that it’s time to get tidying up, clearing away the summer debris before the cold comes, but I can’t quite find the energy just yet.

Late September vases

I’m hankering after ‘proper’ food again. Slow cooking, big flavours, made from an hour or two pottering in the kitchen. A few weeks back we were having grilled sardines with tomatoes, but now we’ve tipped to autumn bowl food. Last weekend we made a monkfish curry with a Goan recheado spice paste. And this week I want something from closer to home: beef in beer it is. You can veer to the Belgian-style Carbonnade if you want to with the addition of mustard and juniper, but I keep it plainly Anglo-Saxon: beef, beer, onions, mushrooms and stock are all that you need. Cook it low and slow, and float a few dumplings on the top to finish.

Beef in beer with onions and mushrooms

Beef in beer
Serves 4

Oil
2 large onions, finely sliced
300g mushrooms (white or chestnut), thinly sliced
800g (two supermarket packs) braising steak, diced
1 dessertspoon plain flour
1 heaped teaspoon tomato puree
1 teaspoon dark brown sugar
Thyme leaves picked from 3-4 stalks
400ml beer or pale ale – I used Old Speckled Hen
2 low-salt beef stock cubes – I use Kallo
Hot water
Salt and pepper

In a heavy-bottomed casserole, heat the oil and fry the onions with a large pinch of salt on a low heat until very soft and slightly golden. Don’t rush this stage. It can take up to 30 minutes to get there, and it’s important for both flavour and texture of your casserole that they are very soft and very sweet. Give them a stir every now and then to ensure they don’t catch.

Meanwhile, pile the mushrooms in a dry heavy-bottomed frying pan on a medium heat. Cook for 10 minutes or so, turning every now and then, until golden and most of the moisture has evaporated. I don’t add any oil to the pan, as I don’t think it needs it – just ensure they get a stir to prevent burning or sticking. When they’re done, add them to the onions.

In the same pan as you cooked the mushrooms, dry-fry the meat cubes in batches until browned. Again, I don’t add oil here, as if you’ve got a good heavy pan they’ll cook just fine without it, and there’s less of a clearing up job later. Once browned, tip the meat into the casserole with the onions.

Deglaze the pan with about 400ml of boiling water, and add the stock cubes to dissolve. Set aside for a minute or two.

Now attention goes back to the onions. Stir in the flour, tomato puree, thyme, sugar and a good grind of pepper, and cook on a medium heat for a minute or two until the mixture is well combined. The idea is to cook the tomato and flour out a little to remove their raw taste. Now tip in the beer, and give it a good stir. Bring to the simmer. Add the beef stock from your frying pan, and again stir together.

Pop the lid on and stick it in the oven for about two hours, until the meat is yielding. Taste and adjust the seasoning if it needs it (you may need more salt, pepper or sugar). If it’s too wet, leave the lid off and pop back in the oven for 20 minutes or so to reduce down. Serve, or leave to go cold and reheat the next day, when it will be even better.

If you want dumplings – and why wouldn’t you – simply toss together 4oz self-raising flour with 2oz suet and a pinch of salt, then add a few spoonfuls of cold water to bring to a dough. Shape into balls and pop onto the top of the stew before returning to the oven for 20 minutes or so to cook. Lid off or on, depending on if you like your dumplings wet or crunchy.

Nb. I like measuring my dumplings in ounces rather than grams, as it gives rise to the feeling of being homely and traditional. That, plus I find the 4/2 ratio much easier to remember.

Also this week:

Harvesting: Cavolo nero, kale, chard, last raspberries, last tomatoes (still green), gourds and squash, borlotti beans, dahlias, cosmos, last sunflowers, first chrysanthemums, hops

Also in the allotment/garden: Trimmed the shrubs, a job that should have been done in spring. Thinking about tidying the allotment and can’t quite find the energy, time or motivation to do it. Thinned autumn-sown annuals. Drying hops and borlotti beans.

Cooking and eating: Monkfish curry, crispy cakes, raspberry and chocolate sponge, sausage ragu, apples, pears, still a bowl of tomatoes on the side.

Also: Started the RHS Level 2 course in Principles of Plant Growth and Propogation at Winterbourne House at the University of Birmingham. Reading the Tucci Table, because Stanley Tucci is a God amongst men.

Sausage and (broad) beans on toast

It’s hard to believe that high summer is upon us already. As ever we’re trying to catch our breath, from several intense weeks of event management (me) and back-to-back fabrication projects (him)…but there is an end in sight. Which is well, because this time of year needs to be savoured, noticed, enjoyed. Harry and I disappeared to Sussex at the weekend to visit old friends, armed with bucket and spade. It’s so noticeably hotter and dryer down there, with golden fields ready for harvesting and sun-kissed calm seas.

We practically had the beach to ourselves

Back home, it’s time for a few remedial allotment jobs. The fruit cage, which never quite served its purpose, finally gave way to old age and was precariously close to collapse; it’s now been half taken down (because to take it apart properly would take too long and Matt’s always at work) so it sits haphazardly on its side, no longer a threat to Martin’s dahlias but at just the right height for me to whack my head on every time I take a look at the blueberries.

The fruit cage is no more

I’ve done a more thorough job of staking. My birthday present from Matt was my very own hammer, meaning I finally whollop the homemade oak stakes into the ground myself. Chrysanthemums, dahlias and sunflowers have now been supported with stakes and string – not the prettiest way of doing it, but it works.

Dahlias are supported with stakes and grids of string
The starburst chrysanthemums also need staking, as they can get to a good 5 feet tall

The week of hot weather has brought the harvest on. We have a sea of cerinthe, ammi and gypsophila, which is unexpected and joyous. Nestled amongst them are two courgette plants, which in the weekend I was away managed to give birth to two giant whoppers (marrows already!); I need to keep a closer eye on them. Behind them the climbing beans are finally starting to climb, and the sunflowers are shooting up. I like the mix of flowers and veg jostling for space; our allotment always takes an age to reach fruitfulness but when it does, it’s so satisfying.

The cerinthe, ammi and gypsophila have exploded, framed with beans and courgettes
Cornflower and calendula interspersed with self-seeded nasturtium

I’m now picking the last of the broad beans, plus the first of what I think as high summer flowers – the cornflowers, calendula, and this time for the first time, wine-coloured snapdragons.

Yesterday’s basket, with broad beans, chard, cornflowers, snapdragon and ammi

It’s the time of year when I have to make time for veg and fruit processing – as well as the broad beans I also had a trug-full of peas, which I had grown intending to eat as mange tout, but Harry was so in to eating peas from the pod, I left them in for a little longer. It look an hour to pod this lot, accompanied by Claire Balding walking the Sussex and Kent countryside on Radio 4’s Ramblings. Note the blueberries, coming fast now from my Mum’s bushes and also our own, plus the piddling handful of red gooseberries, the only ones to survive the pigeon attack.

Colanders of beans mean an hour’s podding
There’s potatoes too, a salad-drawer’s worth with more to come

On the flower front, I am not much of an arranger, but I do enjoy the contrast of the tall foxglove spire with the froth of ammi and gypsophila. There’s the odd dahlia now, plus jam jars full of English summer flowers – some garish, some tasteful, but always making a house feel more like a home.

Dahlia, foxglove, ammi, gypsophila
Garish: clashing colours of calendula, sweet peas, foxglove and cornflower
More tasteful: single shades of sweet pea alongside wine-coloured snapdragon

What to do with all the broad beans and peas? It’s a good question: both these vegetables have a tendency to glut, and given that Matt’s not home so much, there’s only really me who will eat them. I blanched the lot, to give them a few extra day’s life. Some will make their way to a creamy, herby, garlicky pasta dish, and others I’ll blitz with lemon and garlic to make a beany-hummousy-dip. And then there’s beans on toast, or even better, sausage and beans on toast. The sausage is actually a kind of do-it-yourself chorizo, made from minced pork, paprika, garlic and fennel. The beans are broad beans and peas. Hash them together in a frying pan, perhaps with a few sliced potatoes and a fried egg, or just a bit of feta, and you have an easy flavour-packed brunch, lunch or supper dish.

Sausage and beans on toast

Sausage and beans on toast
Recide serves 4 but if it’s just you, the ‘chorizo’ will store in the fridge for a few days, or can be frozen for another day. Inspired by River Cottage Reunion, though I’m not slavishly following their recipe

First, pod enough broad beans and/or peas for four people, or you could use frozen. Blanch them in boiling water for two to three minutes, then drain. If they’re really big, pinch the broad beans out of their skins.

Make your ‘sausage’. Take 250g pork mince and squish it together with 1 teaspoon fennel seeds, 1 teaspoon smoked hot paprika, 1 teaspoon sweet paprika, two chopped cloves of garlic and a good pinch of salt. Set aside for a few minutes to allow the flavours to come together.

To cook, heat a large frying pan and crumble in the sausage mixture – you may want to add a little oil to the pan to get things going. Brown the meat all over, then add one thinly sliced red onion and the beans/peas. Hash the meat and vegetables together, turning in the paprika-stained oil until it’s all cooked through. You could add a slosh of white wine to get a little steam going. Finally add some chopped parsley to finish.

Serve on toast with a fried egg, or perhaps a little feta cheese. Sliced cooked potatoes and courgettes are also a good addition to this.

Also this week:

Harvesting: Blueberries, a handful of gooseberries, cos lettuce, first chard, last broad beans, peas, first courgettes, mangetout, new potatoes, ammi, cornflowers, calendula, foxglove, gypsophila, dahlias, nasturtium. French beans, beetroot, courgette, raspberries, and blueberries from Mum’s garden. From the shops, excellent English cherries, proper tomatoes, early corn, watermelon and strawberries. Excellent Amalfi lemons from Cowdray farm shop.

Cooking and eating: I really need to start making an effort again. Blueberry, raspberry and gooseberry crumble cake. French bean and potato salad. Flapjacks. Sarah made two outstanding salads at the weekend: green beans with an orange dressing and toasted hazelnuts, and a freekeh salad with pomegranate, mint, parsley and finely diced red onion. Also a home-made fish finger sandwich at The Lobster Pot near Bognor. I find I have to have a coffee a day now in order to function, and there is always wine in the fridge.

Jobs: Staking flowers on allotment. Planted out dahlias and salivas in the garden, which is now in that straggly in-between stage that lies between early and late summer. Feeding pots once a week. Watering allotment. And WORK, all the time, obviously.

Also: Reading nothing, I am too tired. Watching very little, I don’t get time. Visited Chichester, Arundel and Denman’s garden in West Sussex, a dry gravel garden, very interesting, but Harry not happy so no time to linger.

Lamb tagine

My life feels more locked down now than it did during Lockdown. I’ve been trying to unpick why…a combination of a work boom (I’ve currently got 10 projects on the go with more in the pipeline, and some of them are deeply complicated), tempered with the age of Zoom (no-one goes anywhere any more, we’re at home chained to desks and video calls) and of course it’s February so even if we do venture out, there’s the gale force wind to contend with. Matt’s business is also running at its limits and he often works 7 days a week, so when my work ends, childcare and housecare begins. Somewhere, somehow, a social life or a creative life seem to have edged away.

Now obviously we are extremely blessed and I am aware that moaning is not really on – but running two businesses is hard and the juggle is real. There’s only so much that can be taken out before something has to go back in…sometimes I need to press pause. I was on a video call with colleagues in Bangladesh the other week (Bangladesh! Because it’s 2022 and that’s how we work now!) when this chap wandered onto the flat roof next to my office window. Did I stop the meeting to swivel the laptop around and show him to the group? Of course I did.

This chap has been wandering around our garden in the February sunshine

I mention all this because whilst I do have time to look at visiting foxes, I don’t seem to find time to really cook anymore. Obviously I make food….but I don’t really cook. Dinners need to be ready pretty much instantly, to refuel in the 30 minute gap between bath time and bedtime stories. And if Matt’s working at the weekend then there’s no real point in making extravagant dishes, for who will eat them? It’s such an easy slide into the world of convenience and fast cooking, but I am realising that my soul needs slow. The devoted attention to a puttering stew. The gentle tap of a wooden spoon when creaming butter and sugar by hand. The satisfaction of turning a mess of flour and water into dough as soft as a baby’s bottom.

So I’m trying, even if only once a week, to make something more involved. Last week it was sausage rolls with rough-puff pastry, plus a tray of parmesan pinwheels with the leftover pastry scraps. This week, it’s tagine.

Sausage rolls and parmesan pinwheels
Redemption comes in many forms; a big pan of bubbling lamb tagine being one of them.

This tagine comes from Rick Stein’s French Odyssey, and used to be a family favourite until we both got so busy that we forgot to make it. Matt actually made this back in the very very early days, to give me the impression that he could cook. (Note – he’s an excellent cook, he just doesn’t do it very often). There’s room for your own take on the veg: he adds green peppers, I add sweet potato.

A word on the meat. If you can, don’t use lamb at all – go for mutton. You’ll get a better flavour and a better texture for long, slow cooking. For this I used a half leg of Herdwick mutton that I picked up in the Lakes last year; it’s been in the freezer obviously. I boned the leg and cut the meat into generous portions, and then meat AND bone went into the pot (it’s all flavour). Lamb shanks or shoulder would do just as well.

The ras el hanout is essential and can be found in any supermarket or halal shop. Mine actually comes from a Moroccan souk, brought back by my friend Claire as a holiday souvenir (this was pre-Covid, which says a lot about the antiquity of my spice box). You will require a very big pot to hold this vast dish.

Moroccan lamb tagine
From Rick Stein’s French Odyssey. Makes 6 very generous portions.

2kg lamb or mutton – ideally on the bone – leg, shoulder or shanks
Olive oil
4 teaspoons ras al hanout
450g carrots, chopped into generous lengths
200g onions, sliced
8 new potatoes, such as Charlottes
1 can tomatoes
75g dried apricots
2 tablespoons honey
1.2 litres or thereabouts, chicken stock
3 bay leaves
salt and pepper
400g sweet potato, peeled and chopped into generous dice (optional)
1 green pepper, chopped into generous lengths (optional)

For the spice paste:
4 garlic cloves
2 small red onions or shallots
1 red chilli
Stalks from a small bunch of coriander
salt and pepper

For the spice paste, put the ingredients into a food processor and blitz until smooth – let it down with a drop of water if needed.

Trim the meat of any excess fat. If using shoulder or leg, you will want to remove the bone and dice the meat into generous chunks. Shanks can be left whole. Season with salt and pepper.

In a very large pot big enough to take the whole stew, warm some olive oil and brown the meat (plus any saved bones) on all sides. This will need to happen in stages. Once browned, set the meat aside.

In the same pan, heat a little more oil and add the spice paste. Soften for a few minutes on a low heat. Add the ras al hanout and cook for one minute, then tip in the onions, carrots and potatoes and turn over in the spice. Add the tomatoes and stock, and bring to a simmer.

Return the meat plus any saved bones to the pan. Add the apricots, honey, bay leaves, salt and pepper, then cover. Either cook on the hob or put into a slow oven, 160c.

After one hour, check the stew, give it a stir, then add the peppers and sweet potatoes if using.

Return the stew to the hob/oven, and cook until the meat is tender. Lamb will need a total of about 2 hours, mutton a little longer. Check the seasoning and add more salt, pepper or honey as required. If the stew is watery, cook with the lid off for the last thirty minutes or so.

This is perfectly good the next day. You may want to fish the bones out before serving – cooks perk. Serve with couscous.

Also this week/month:
Cooking and eating: Very little, I live off tea, pasta and toast. Matt made some cumin-spiked potato cakes to go with the tagine. Black banana cake. Some seasonal rhubarb and blood oranges have made it to the house, as have the first hot cross buns of the season.
Allotment: It’s still there despite the gales. Sowed snapdragons. At home, the iris reticulata is flowering, as are the amaryllis and paperwhites.
Also: Indoor child entertainment is the order of the day: Legoland Discovery Centre, Sealife Centre, YouTube, Lego and Star Wars.

Pickled nasturtium pods

Today has been about assessing wind damage. The teasels, sunflowers and chrysanthemums all came a cropper at the weekend, the heavy stems keeling over horizontally in the strong wind. Inevitably the flowers then turned their heads towards the sun, meaning the stems are now bent at right-angles – not a great look for cut-flowers. The colour palette is gradually changing now as we head into late summer, with the first dahlias and sunflowers coming through, and the feathery spider chrysanthemums looking promising.

Attention is moving to the late summer crops now – cosmos, sunflower, chrysanthemums and squash

This is such a strange year for growing. It’s mid-August and the broad beans are only now coming into their own – today I picked a load to have alongside the first courgette. The first courgette, and it’s 9th August! Last week I planted out tiny savoy cabbage and kohl rabi seedlings for a winter harvest, mainly in hope rather than expectation.

Tiny little savoy cabbage seedling plated out amongst the nasturtiums and broad beans

I’ve been picking flowers for drying as well as for the vase. Tansy, cornflowers, poppy heads and teasels are sure-fire winners. I do not hold much hope for dried marigolds but I think it’s worth a go to see how they fare. The strawflowers – backbone of winter dried flower arrangements – are not looking hopeful, however. They languished in the cold-frame for weeks (I had to re-sow a few times due to slug damage) and therefore got planted out late, just a week or two ago. In my experience it’s the late summer to autumn plants that really thrive on our plot so there is still a chance, but we’ll need the weather to be kind (sunny, warm) for a crop.

Flowers for drying: cornflowers, poppy heads, tansy, marigolds, teasels
The frothy romantic vases of cosmos, cornflower and achillea are still coming, now dotted with early white pompom dahlias

Whilst I am harvesting, there has not been so much of the epic afternoons of fruit and veg prep as usual. Just one big bowl of blackcurrants to be topped and tailed, and beans in dribs-and-drabs to pod. The blueberries are now cropping, plus a few errant blackberries that survived the winter weed, and the raspberries still a few weeks away.

Even in late July and August we’re still podding broad beans. Blackcurrants are finished now but the blueberries and blackberries have begun.

Produce processing is a summer chore that is also a joy. Chore because the task HAS to be done regardless of how much other work is in the way….but a joy because there is the chance to properly engage with what we’ve grown, be present in the moment and in the season. Soft fruit, green leafy veg and tomatoes are the usual time-takers, but this year I added a new one to the list: nasturtium pods.

Nasturtiums run rampant across our plot, all self-seeding after just one sowing years back. I do use the flowers and leaves in salads but mainly they’re there for the bees. Allotment neighbour Susan asked me the other day if I ever pickle the pods for poor-man capers, and the honest answer was Nope, I have never done this. Until now.

Pickled caper pods whisper to me of times past. They are product of the pottager and cottage garden; I can easily imagine them on an Elizabethan table as on a trendy salad in 2021. I have never eaten them but am drawn to the idea of an English, home-grown alternative to the caper. Here’s what you do – I can’t comment on the outcome as yet but will report back in November.

Pickled Nasturtium Pods (poor-man’s capers)

For one jar of pods, harvest about 100g of nasturtium pods. These are the seed pods of the nasturtium which swell and ripen once the flower has gone over. Pick them over for stems and errant leaves, then give them a good rinse under the cold tap.

Pick over nasturtium pods to remove stems and dirt, then rinse under the cold tap

Put the pods into a dish with 15g salt and 300ml water. Put the lid on then leave in the fridge in a day or two. The salting process helps to mellow the flavour of the final pickle.

Leave them in a water-salt solution for a few days

When you’re ready to finish the pickle, clean and sterilise a glass jar and lid. Rinse the nasturtium pods and dry them well on kitchen paper. Pop the pods into the jar with a pinch of herbs and spices (I used 1 tsp coriander seeds and two bayleaves). Black peppercorns, dill and white mustard seeds would all be good. If you like a slightly sweeter pickle add 1 tsp sugar. Then fill the jar with white wine vinegar until it reaches the very top, about 200ml.

Rinse and dry, then bottle up with white wine vinegar, herbs, spices and maybe a touch of sugar

Pop the lid on then leave to pickle and mature for at least one month before eating.

Bottled nasturtium pods. Leave for a few months to mellow before eating.

Once mature, the pickled pods can be used in place of capers – in salads, on pizzas and with cheese.

Also this week:
Harvesting: Cornflowers, cosmos, tansy, last ammi majus, marigolds, dahlias, first sunflowers, teasels, achillea, last lavender, first courgette (FINALLY), nasturtium pods, wild rocket, a tiny handful of climbing beans, broad beans, chard, blueberries, first blackberries, last gooseberries. Could be harvesting kale and cavolo nero but leaving them for a little while longer. Every trip to Grove House leads to a bootful of beetroot, potatoes, stick beans, carrots and more blueberries.
Also: Pulled up lettuce and peas. Planted out strawflowers, lupins, delphiniums. Sowed beet spinach, salad rocket, quatre saison lettuce and mustard leaves.
Cooking: The weather has turned rainy with a chill in the air, so roast pork belly it is. Mousakka with summer squash instead of aubergine. Chocolate roulade with strawberries.
Also: Trip to Liverpool for work, the joy of a cappuccino in a new city. Inspiration for new shades of achillea and echinops at Highbury Hall.

Explorations in salt beef

The Jobs list in December is guaranteed to turn one into the Grinch. There’s all the Christmas stuff; women take on the burden of organising it all, at our own behest, and annually I wonder why on earth do we do this to ourselves? And yet here I am, writing the cards, worrying about table settings and undelivered parcels and what to give the nursery teachers as a thank you gift. Then there’s the house jobs (lockdown with a three year old does not make for an ordered household. We’re in Tier 3 which essentially means No Non-Household Fun Allowed. There’s a lot of TV at present), and the allotment jobs (it still needs covering) and then all the work jobs to get done before the holidays (holidays! Pah!).

So I come to realise that at this time of year I have to make space for small, soul-sustaining things – else martyrdom and a minor breakdown will set in – one of which is manuring the allotment. The sweet joy of shifting a pallet of poo, ripping open bags, forking through the rich brown gold, to create a veg patch as pristine as an untouched canvas in time for winter.

Allotment and garden have been mulched with a thick blanket of manure

This year’s December door swag is a hastily constructed bouquet of greens and oranges, gathered by my Mum from her garden and then tied together for the door by me. I fully intended to adorn it further with dried hydrangea and strawflower heads but will probably never actually get around to doing so.

This year’s December door swag

The lockdown baking continues – of course – it’s such a normalised activity now that I barely notice it, but I do want to record Harry’s progress from bemused onlooker to active ‘helper’. Here we’re making brown sugar cinnamon rolls, using a scraper to spread scented butter over stretched dough.

Harry has progressed to helping with cinnamon buns

In my last post I mentioned that I felt some Project Cookery coming on. Reader, I am true to my word. Project Cookery is anything which requires a little effort: pickling, drying, layering, fermenting. It’s a good time of year to have a go at something new, given that we’re at home anyway so the small daily interventions that Projects require can be easily slotted into a daily routine.

Usually come December I’m having a go at making my own gravadlax or contemplating a gammon, and so it’s a natural progression to take the curing/salting mindset down a different road, to a different ingredient. The project, therefore, was decided: Salt Beef. Inspired by the River Cottage Meat Book, I tracked down a 2kg rolled brisket from my local butcher…and that’s where my troubles began.

It may be easy to make OK salt beef, but I have concluded that to make GOOD salt beef requires years of experience and more precise instructions than any recipe I have found. What follows, therefore, is not my definitive salt beef recipe, more a record of our family’s (for that is what it became) explorations.

Step 1: The Pickle
Stage 1 of making salt beef is to pickle the meat in a sweet-spiced brine solution for about a week. Easy enough. Except the myriad recipes I referred to confuse the matter. To roll or unroll the meat? Kosher (sea) salt or the bog standard stuff that comes in 1kg sacks from the Co-op? What receptacle does one keep a brisket plus 2+ litres of brine in for a week? In the fridge or not? Salt petre or not?

In the end we unrolled the meat, stabbed it several times with a skewer, then put it in my biggest plastic cake tin which, happily, could then hold 2 litres of brine and sit on the top shelf of the fridge. Some recipes called for a 5 litre mix which surely calls for a barrel and an out-house – fine if you live in Devon (I’m talking about you Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall) but not so great for folks in Smethwick.

I didn’t use salt-petre for the simple reason that I didn’t want the palaver of an online shop for an ingredient I will rarely ever use, especially if it’s just for aesthetic purposes. The spices I kept in keeping with the season: cinnamon, star anise, clove, juniper, bay.

Ingredients:
2 kg brisket, unrolled and stabbed with a skewer
2 litres cold water
75g sugar (I used half granulated, half brown)
200g salt (I used normal table salt)
2 bay leaves
dessertspoon each of black peppercorns, juniper berries, star anise, cloves
1 cinnamon stick

Place the brisket in a large tupperware box or other receptacle – it needs to be kept covered and not react to brine, so plastic or ceramic is best (not aluminium). Heat all the brine ingredients in a saucepan and simmer for five minutes, cool completely and then tip over the brisket. Cover and refrigerate for 6 days, turning once per day.

Soak the brisket in a sweet, spiced brine for one week

Step 2: The Soak
On day 6, I tipped away the brine and covered the meat in fresh water, to remove excess salt.

Step 3: The boil
This is the bit that I think we messed up. The idea is to poach the meat in a court bouillon until it is meltingly tender. The problem with brisket is that, in my view, it actually rarely achieves tenderness: some of this is beyond the cook’s control (much depends on how the animal has lived, died and been butchered) but most of it is due to cooking time. The recipes I looked at said to look the meat for between 2-4 hours – now, that’s a big leeway right there.

Anyway, the beef want into a stock pot with carrots, leek, onion and garlic (there should have been more bay leaves but we ran out) and was simmered for two hours. At this point it was declared done (we were hungry) and removed it from the heat; in hindsight, I have decided that it needed either MUCH LESS or MUCH MORE cooking.

The argument for much less time in the pot is that a shorter cook prevents the meat drying out too much; it is a myth that poached meats can not be over-cooked.

The argument for much more cooking is that it gives the touch connective tissue time to disappear into a soft gelatinous mass, a state that can only be achieved with a profoundly long cook.

The true perfect cooking time therefore remains an unknown but my advice for the aspiring salt beef cook is to have a thorough prod of that meat before declaring it done, really checking for tenderness, and to err on the view that when it comes to brisket, more cooking is better than less.

Ingredients:
The drained brisket
1 each: carrot, onion, leek, roughly chopped
A few garlic cloves, bashed
Bay leaves

Place the beef into a large stock pot with the veg and herbs, cover with cold water, then bring to a simmer. Cook until meltingly soft – probably 3-4 hours, but could perhaps only be 1. The timing of this dish remains a mystery.

When it’s done, remove the meat and serve. Note: do not put the stock liquid down the sink as it will be full of melted beef fat that can clog the drain. Leave it in a cold place overnight, scrape the hardened fat off, then the stock can be saved for other dishes or chucked, as you will.

Braise the beef with herbs and stock vegetables until tender

Step 3: What does one do with 2kg salt beef?!

Now here’s the rub. What on earth do you DO with that much salt beef?! The flavour is delicious, salty yes but also complex with clove and cinnamon. The problem is that it’s just a teensy weensy bit tough…oh OK, at times it was like shoe leather. Of course there is no gravy to counteract the dryness.

Meal 1: Serve hot, in thick slices, with boiled new potatoes and buttered carrots. The Irish way.

Meal 2: Serve warm, in thick slices, tucked into a toasted bagel with gherkins and a slather of hot mustard. The Brick Lane bagel-shop way.

Meal 3: We’re in the territory of leftovers now. Many recipes recommend a red flannel hash (salt beef, beetroot, potato, onion) but honestly, our beef is too tough for that, so I am turning it into a ragu, rich with wine and tomatoes, thinking that an extra two hours cooking won’t do it any harm.

Salt beef: serve sliced with potatoes and carrots, in a bagel with pickles and mustard, or try leftovers in a long-braised tomato-rich ragu

The verdict: It’s easy enough to make, and I love the flavour, but that piece of beef cost about £15 which in my view is an expensive bit of Project Cookery. I’m not convinced it’s worth it – but then maybe if we’d cooked it properly I could be swayed. Let’s see how that ragu turns out.

Also this week:
Allotment and garden: Moving the pallet of manure and mulching both allotment and garden (still need to get the plastic covers on). Broad beans and the annual cut flowers have germinated but are leggy weaklings.
Cooking and eating: Osso bucco, steamed syrup pudding, chocolate buttermilk muffins
Also: Christmas overload already; all the fun things we had planned have been cancelled due to Sandwell being in Tier 3. Starting again on the Neopolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante.

Paneer and chickpea curry

Goodness this November is a drag. Without wanting to sound a total misery (which I’m not), but doesn’t it feel that the dreariness of February has arrived three months early? Lockdown, as a friend of mine eloquently put it, has taken the sheen off life. Have we ever valued the simple act of sharing a cup of tea with a neighbour, having real-life creative conversations with colleagues or a wander round the shops, so much as we do now? I realised yesterday that this is the first year in forever when – forgive me – there’s been no chance of getting a pig roast, whether it’s at a wedding, country fair, open day, you name it. All I can now think about is crackling. Make of that what you will.

It seems to me that there are two ways of dealing with the drudge. You can either forget the present and project yourself into the future – it’s no coincidence that several people near me have gone WAY EARLY with their Christmas decorations. Or you can immerse yourself in something completely different, a diversion ideally of a comforting and creative nature. And so this weekend I found myself leafing through the superlative River Cottage Meat Book, reminding myself of the joy of solid, classic, non-poncy, ingredient-led cookery.

River Cottage Cookbook with notes

I can feel some project cookery coming on. Back in Lockdown 1 we were all about house and garden, messing around with tulips and plug plants. Lockdown 2 is looking likely to be about lard. And suet. Plus butter, obviously. I still dream of cooking a whole ham (A WHOLE HAM!) but given that it would serve at least 20 people, it is perhaps not the best vehicle to relieve lockdown fatigue. Ditto the proper fore-rib of beef. I will probably take it easy with a spot of salt beef…and as thoughts turn to Christmas, maybe a pork pie or two. I’ll keep you posted of progress.

In the meantime, here is a far simpler dish, one to have a go at mid-week when a bit of gentle kitchen pottering is needed after a day of Zoom calls. It’s vegetarian, inexpensive, authentic and – most importantly – really tasty. I have got into the habit of keeping diced paneer in the freezer, and there’s always chickpeas, tomatoes and spices to hand. So consider it the perfect store cupboard curry – and what could be more 2020 than that?

Paneer and chickpea curry
Serves 4. Adapted from Waitrose Weekend recipe by Chetna Makan.

Sunflower oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp black mustard seeds
2 onions
2 green chillies – the long thin ones – left whole. (If you like it hot, slice them up)
salt
2 fat cloves of garlic, bashed and chopped
a thumb of ginger, peeled and grated
1/2 chilli powder (or more/less to taste)
1 tsp ground tumeric
1 tsp garam masala
2 tomatoes, chopped
about 200ml water
400g can chickpeas
about 200g paneer, diced
1 tsp sugar

I use a karahi for this but you can also use a heavy-based sauté pan or casserole.

Heat the oil over a medium heat, add the cumin and mustard seeds until they sizzle, then tip in the onions, chillies and good pinch of salt. Gently fry for about 5 minutes, until quite soft and turning golden. Add the garlic and ginger, then the ground spices – fry them for a scant minute just to cook the spices – then add the tomatoes and sugar. Cook for 10 minutes or so until you have a thick, amalgamated sauce, loosening with water as needed.

Tip in the chickpeas and paneer, then cook for another 10 minutes to allow the flavours to come together. Taste and adjust the salt and sugar as required. Serve with rice, chutneys and maybe a piquant chopped salad of onion, cucumber and tomato.

Paneer and chickpea curry

Also this week:

Cooking and eating: Chicken in white wine, with leftovers turned into a filthy chicken tartiflette. Gingerbread. Ordering the Christmas meats and, as every year, my plans of beef or something else interesting has been given up to tradition: turkey it is.

Garden and allotment: Clearing last of the annuals, cutting back perennials. Planted out hellebores. Started off broadbeans. Clearing the masses of leaves that have blown into both front and back garden. The cosmos etc started last month are a leggy mess so once again I ask, what point is there starting annuals in the autumn?

Also: Trying to dodge the ‘what am I doing with my life’ lockdown gloom with cookbooks, plus starting Elizabeth Jane Howard’s The Long View. I have totally lost my ability to drink all alcohol other than traditional-method sparkling wine, coming out in instant allergic reaction at the mere sip of wine or beer. Spirits are a distant memory. Whilst I partly enjoy how pretentious my liver has become, this is a source of great sadness.

Autumn beef & vegetable stew

We are returned from our summer holiday, ‘summer’ being perhaps an optimistic notion for October. It is at this time of the year that we travel, partly to avoid school holidays but mainly because work is usually busiest during the festival-season of June to September. Not this year of course. Nothing is the same this year – not that you’d know it in Cornwall. There, the pace of life remains reassuringly unhurried, the noise of lockdown diktats from London seem to merely echo rather than shout.

Alas, the weather threw everything at us. Gales, rain, drizzle, sun, rainbow, wind again…Watching it all unfold, I wrote a few words in my journal:

Sea merging into sky
steel blue, grey, white, concrete
Three days of leaden sky
Forceful wind, rajasic weather,
Stormy. Relentless.

But then this morning, sun broke through
turning the cliffs golden
The hint of a rainbow dissolves onto the sea
and then returns with greater resolve.
A brief strengthening of sprit.

I am not normally driven to write poetry-style words. This is what the Cornish landscape does to a woman in middling-age.

Endless grey skies at Mawgan Porth
Industrial architecture mimicking a Norman keep
Sky meets sea

I have always thought of our September/October break as the end of summer, a mental shift towards the autumn/winter months. On returning home my mind whirrs with lists to make the next six months more tolerable; much of it is kitchen and garden-room (I can wish) related: the final autumn harvests, the creation of dried flower vases around the house. Sloe-apple jelly and butternut squash soup become earmarked for creation. Traditionally we prepared for winter by filling our stores and retreating indoors, a way of thinking that remains in my blood.

Yesterday I gave in and harvested the outdoor tomatoes from the veg trug. These are lockdown plants, arriving shrivelled and near dead in the post after whiling away for days in the postal service, but they perked up and the four plants have given several kilo of fruit. Harry, only 3, insisted on using the secateurs and to his credit, did an effective job. The issue is ripeness, or rather the lack of it: 90% of them are green, our back garden too overlooked and the summer too cloudy to allow them to ripen. I’ve placed them on newspaper in the sun room in hope of a late ripening, and the rest – let’s face it – will probably end up in the compost.

The harvest from 4 tomato plants, all outdoor. An abundance of fruit, alas all of it in varying shades of green

Whilst sorting out tomatoes my eyes were drawn to the bunches of hanging strawflower and hops, now papery and dried, and I cut a few to make a small vase for the office – a classic procrastination before work. Over the next few weeks there will be more of these to brighten up the house, replacing the vases of dahlias and chrysanthemums that have been so abundant during late summer.

The first of this year’s dried flower posies, made of hop, strawflower, cornflower and poppy head

October weather – once one has truly been in it for days, as even in gale-force winds a pre-schooler insists on building sandcastles – demands a return to slow food. Feta cheese and salads won’t cut it now; my body yearns for homely, inexpensive, peasanty cooking. Yesterday, whilst stocking up on essential supplies I even found myself sneaking turnips into the trolly. Turnips! They found their way into a simple long-braised stew, rich with root vegetables and just a scrap of meat, served steaming in deep bowls with a few stodgy-yet-crunchy dumplings.

The trick to this is cutting your foundation vegetables – the onions, celery, leeks – quite small so that they melt into the stock, but the hero veg – the parsnips, carrots and the like – big. That way you get a smooth silky soupy base with interesting chunks to chew on.

This is what I call National Trust cookery. Autumn is here.

Autumn beef & vegetable stew
serves 4, generously

500g braising steak, diced
oil or dripping
2 small onions, peeled and finely sliced
2 large sticks of celery, trimmed and finely sliced
1 leek, cleaned, trimmed and finely sliced
2 large carrots, peeled and diced into large-ish chunks
2 small turnips, peeled and diced into large-ish chunks
2 parsnips, peeled and diced into large-ish chunks
5 mid-sized new potatoes, halved or quartered (if you have tiny ones leave them whole and just use a few more)
4 or so fat cloves of garlic, peeled and bashed but left whole
4-5 bay leaves
few springs of thyme
1 tablespoon flour
salt and pepper
2 beef stock cubes (I use Kallo organic low-salt)
boiling water

For the dumplings:
250g self-raising flour
125g suet
cold water
salt and pepper

Set the oven to 160c. Warm a heavy-weight frying pan and when hot, brown the meat on all sides until burnished – I do this in batches, without any extra oil as I dislike all the splatters. Remove the meat to a very large casserole pot.

Turn the heat on the frying pan down, add a little oil or dripping, then soften the onions, leeks and celery for about five minutes. Season generously with salt and pepper, then tip the lot into the casserole with the meat – the onions should pick up any crusty bits left from browning your beef. The frying pan can now go in the sink to be washed up.

Put your casserole pan onto the heat, add the remaining vegetables and turn them over with the onions and beef for five minutes or so, just to slightly soften. Add the herbs, flour and the stock cubes, and stir again for a few more minutes so that everything is well distributed. Tip in enough boiling water to cover the meat, bring it all to a slow simmer and give everything another good stir – we need the stock cubes to fully dissolve and for there to be no lumps of flour.

Pop the lid on and transfer to the oven, where it should putter away for two hours. Top the water up if it looks dry.

For the dumplings, stir the suet, flour, salt and pepper together using a table knife, then add enough cold water to bring it together to a rough dough – maybe 3 tablespoons. Shape into however many dumplings you require – this mixture makes 5 BIG ones or rather more smaller ones.

After two hours, turn the heat up to 180c. Remove the lid of the casserole, pop the dumplings on top of the stew and return to the oven, cooking uncovered for 30 minutes or so until the dumplings are puffy and crunchy on the top.

Enjoy in a deep bowl with a dollop of hot horseradish. No other accompaniment is required.

Also this week:
Cooking and eating: Braised rabbit with rose wine, rosemary and bacon (found an independent rural butcher selling wild rabbits for £3, which is an offer I can not refuse); pasties, scampi, chips, fudge etc etc; a tot of sloe gin from Chappers’ 2017 vintage. Buying up apples and pears, some for eating now, some to be sliced and frozen for future pies.

Reading: Two Kitchens by Rachel Roddy, wonderfully evocative writing; A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, which I’ve been putting off because it is literally the size of a brick, but when on holiday there is no excuse.

Southern red beans with ham

It’s still touch and go on the allotment. The brassicas and perennials are doing just fine, but the cut flower annuals are the worst they’ve ever been. Even the sunflowers seem stunted. I am uncertain what the problem is….perhaps the evenings have been too chill, perhaps the weather too dry, perhaps the seedlings were too weak to be planted out. I don’t feel that I’ve done anything differently from previous years though…it’s a mystery.

Most of the cut flowers are far from thriving

In the meantime, I’ve been working on my cinnamon bun recipe. I am sure posts with follow, but with The Nordic Baking Book by my side, and inspired by those amazing Copenhagen bakeries, this was last weekend’s efforts.

Been experimenting with my cinnamon bun recipe

I have got into the habit of keeping a stash of cinnamon buns in the freezer for emergency breakfasts / snacks / comfort. And speaking of freezer food, this Red beans and ham dish is a new addition to the bulk cooking repertoire. The recipe comes from Jamie Oliver’s American cookbook, inspired by the frugal cuisine of Louisiana and the Southern states. Frugal it may be, and simple, and nutritious (all those beans…) but the most important thing is that it’s incredibly delicious. If you think that you don’t like kidney beans, try this and have your perspective changed.

The first thing to do is get hold of a hefty piece (around 2kg) of smoked gammon or a ham hock. The hock will shred more easily plus you’ll get all the bonus flavour from the bone in your stew, but a piece of gammon is easier to find. Either way, it really must be smoked. Then the day before you wish to cook, soak 500g dried kidney beans in fresh water for several hours.

When you’re ready to cook, plonk your hock or gammon in a large stock pot, cover with fresh cold water, bring to a simmer, then drain the water away completely. This helps remove excess salt from the meat. Replace the meat to the pot with the soaked beans2 tins of tomatoes, 4 sticks of diced celery, 2 diced onions, 1 bulb of garlic with its neck sliced off to reveal the flesh within, 1 tablespoon dried oregano, a few bay leaves, a few sprigs of fresh thyme, 1 tablespoon sweet paprika, 1/2 teaspoon cayenne for a subtle kick and a good grind of black pepper. No salt, due to the saltiness of the pork. Top it up with about 1 litre water, so the meat is covered.

Place on the hob and bring to a fast simmer for 5 minutes, then leave to putter on a low heat (lid on) for about two hours, until the beans are soft. Give it a prod every now and then, topping up with water if it looks dry.

Simmer ham and beans with tomato, stock veg and spices for a few hours

Once the beans are cooked, remove from the heat and leave to cool slightly. Fish out the garlic skin and any herb stalks that you find. The meat needs shredding so remove the hock or gammon from the pot, remove the bone and any excess skin and fat, then shred into large chunks and set aside whilst you finish the beans.

Place a few ladles of beans into a bowl and use a potato masher to break them down. This makes a thick, creamy mixture that will help to thicken the beans. Replace to the pot with the ham and give it all a good mix; If the beans are too watery, cook with the lid off for a few minutes to reduce. Season to taste – a little cider vinegar may be just the trick.

Serve with rice, a dollop of sour cream and something fresh and crunchy – lightly dressed salad leaves or a chopped guacamole. This recipe makes 8 generous portions so it’s great for a crowd, but any leftovers will freeze excellently.

A few hours later, pull the pork into the spicy red beans for a frugal but incredibly delicious dinner

Also this week:

Cooking and eating: Cinnamon rolls; Matt’s beignets with cinnamon and chocolate sauce; cream tea at Emma Bridgewater in Stoke.

Harvesting: Sweet William, foxgloves, cow parsley, first homegrown salad leaves.

In praise of horta

As we edge towards midsummer there is a general lightness, in all senses. Light mornings and light evenings. Lighter food. Light, frothy flowers in the back garden. A lightness of spirit (longer, warmer days translate to having more energy, for me anyway). It’s my absolute favourite time of the year, with days filled with discovery and adventure.

The border in our back garden is coming into fullness. This is only its second season – and it’s still rife with gaps and errors – but I love watching for daily micro changes as the roses bloom, delphinium hover on the edge of flowering and foxgloves provide food for hungry bees. The allotment, as usual, is a mixture of disaster and fecundity: the climbing beans have been all but destroyed by the birds, and the cut flower annuals are as tiny now as when they were planted a month ago. The perennials, on the other hand, are thriving, with Sweet William the latest arrival to the June cutting party.

Roses on the edge of bloom

All the flower annuals are now planted out, though most are stumpy and far from thriving

Sweet William now in flower

I added a few stems of wild, self-sown cow parsley and foxgloves to today’s cut flower harvest of allium, sweet rocket, persicaria, flowering sage and the Sweet William; I’m particularly pleased with this pink, purple and pale cream arrangement.

June pickings: allium, sweet william, sweet rocket, foxgloves, flowering sage and cow parsley

Same arrangement in the vase

When it comes to home-grown veg, it’s still a sparse time of year, and it will remain so for ages, given the stumpiness of my seedlings. And this is where the joy of GREENS comes in. I don’t mean the massive, leafy cabbages or lettuces that we’ll get in a few weeks time, but rather the small, palm-sized leaves that thrive in early summer. There is a tradition in parts of the Mediterranean to collect wild greens – called horta – which are then eaten raw, or very slightly cooked, to supplement the lean, home-grown diet. In warmer climates this can go on year round, but here in England we only really start to see lush green growth in late April. Patience Gray discussed horta in great detail in Honey from a Weed, and makes wild claims that a plateful of herbs has an ‘oiliness’ to it that can keep the eater going for hours. Whilst that may be disputable, there is an undeniable vigour to freshly picked young greens that can not be replicated by any supermarket packet.

I do not collect wild greens (though I could – the allotment is FULL of nettles, and they would be grand) but I do look forward to this time of year, when the fridge has a constantly re-filled bag of fresh greens in it. Currently on the go is cima di rapa, which I grew in the veg trug from a sowing about 6 weeks ago, rocket from the allotment, and young spinach, radish tops and beetroot tops that I thieved from mum’s vegetable garden (her pickings always come a month earlier than mine).

Cima di rapa

All these young, gentle greens need is a quick wash, then to be wilted in a hot pan with a lick of butter or olive oil, perhaps a few thin slivers of garlic or chili, and a bit of salt. They take mere seconds to cook. Have them as an accompaniment to something else or – my preference – turn them into the star of the show. Horta on toast with a poached egg is my June brunch of choice, and orecchiette with cima di rapa and fennel sausage is a classic for a reason.

Saute the greens and serve on toast with an egg

Horta need no recipe or any grand instruction. They are the essence of what it means to grow, and cook, your own food. In this age where we are so deeply indoctrinated into supermarket food culture, I find that a plateful of simple greens can root me back to the peasant tradition – born of necessity of course, but none the worse for that – of eating what nature provides, when she provides it.

 

Also this week:

Allotment and garden: Planted out chrysanthemums, marigolds, chard, spinach and bulls blood. Netted the blueberries. Grass is growing at a distressing rate. Annuals are not doing so well – it is so dry – and climbing beans have been eaten by the pigeon. Broad beans have set. Back garden nearing its peak, with roses, foxgloves and delphinium.

Harvesting: Sweet William, last Sweet Rocket, alliums, cow parsley, persicaria, flowering sage, foxgloves. Rocket, spinach, broad beans (from Mum’s garden), chives, oregano, mint.

Cooking & eating: Chicken in white wine with tarragon from garden; gateau with strawberries and raspberries; Lincolnshire plum bread from work visit to Grantham.

5 hour Easter lamb

Easter is my favourite of all the bank holidays. There’s none of the excesses of Christmas, the food is great, it’s often a time for a genuine holiday (rather than running around stressed from one family engagement to another) and there’s a sense of optimism in the spring air. What a humdinger of an Easter we’ve just had, with shorts and ice creams being the order of the day.

This year’s geometric Easter cake

I spent a happy half hour on Easter Sunday drawing up this year’s allotment plan. The idea is to separate the two main beds into vegetables and cut flowers, and then attempt to block plant in each, partly for ease of harvest but mostly because I think it will look great. In reality I may have to shift this plan around – there may be just too many plants for either side to contain.

The low-fi allotment plan for 2019. Separate plots for vegetables and cut flowers, with plenty of blocks.

Yesterday was a full day of allotmenting, the first for months and months. And actually, the first with Matt for probably around a year. He got to work raising the hopolisk whilst I removed the black plastic that has been covering our two main beds and tackled the tufts of couch grass that are at constant threat of taking over entirely. Perhaps optimistically, I also sowed a line of parsnip and carrot, knowing that direct sowing rarely works well on our plot…but this year I have a feeling that they’ll come good.

Sowing parsnips next to the sweet rocket and broad beans

Matt has laid plastic near the brook in an attempt to curtail the spread of wilderness as it reaches peak summer growth

The hopolisk is risen, as are the bean sticks.

Removing grass is hard, hard work. Since having Harry I’ve noticed that my general fitness has grown poorer and on the allotment I realised why: full days like these, lugging around trugs of turf and crouching in currant bushes, are the best way to stay strong and flexible and yet I rarely get the chance these days.

But back to Easter food. If it’s Easter then lamb is probably on the menu (as well as chocolate cake adorned with mini eggs, obviously), but – to be controversial – I think that the traditional English roast doesn’t quite hit the spot. What I want is lamb that’s been cooked for so long that it is shreddably tender, full of flavour, and with some chewy gnarly caramelised ends. In the summer I might cook a boned leg of lamb in the kettle barbecue for an hour or two, but this Easter I went for a Middle Eastern-inspired half shoulder, rubbed with spices and then baked – fully encased in foil – for 5 hours. It was sensational. No photos I’m afraid, but here’s the recipe:

5 hour Easter lamb

The day before you wish to eat, take a half shoulder (or a full shoulder if feeding a crowd) of lamb and trim any excess fat. Leave the bone in for good flavour. Place in a bowl with three or four big bashed cloves of garlic, a good pinch of cumin seeds and dried chilli flakes, about a tablespoon of sweet smoked paprika and the same of ras al hanout (I used the blend brought back from Morocco a few weeks back by Claire Fudge). Salt and pepper generously, add a splash of oil and really massage the flavourings into the meat. Cover, and leave to marinate in the fridge overnight.

The following day, preheat the oven to 140c. Place a large sheet of foil in a roasting pan, put your lamb and the marinade on top and squeeze over the juice of one orange. Cover with more foil and bring the edges together to make a tight seal. Place in the oven and leave to putter away for 4 to 5 hours, checking every hour that it’s not drying out – if it is, and this is a vital step, add a splash of water from the kettle to your foil parcel, then re-seal. (The foil is important unless you want to spend hours with a scouring pad.)

As it cooks, the lamb will become more and more tender, and the edges and juices will become more and more caramelised. When the lamb is meltingly tender, remove from the oven and increase the heat to 200c. Remove the top layer of foil and siphon off any juices – if they’ve overly caramelised then you can start again by moving the lamb to a fresh foil base. Blast the meat for another 20 minutes until the top is caramelised and crisp.

To serve, shred the meat into large chunks. We enjoyed ours with tahdig from Claudia Roden’s Book of Middle Eastern Food, a glorious way of cooking rice that makes it as buttery as popcorn, plus a mezze of broad beans, garlic, mint, dill and yoghurt; another of cucumber, onion and yoghurt; chopped tomatoes and masses of new season asparagus.

For leftovers, Matt made Persian burritos. Take a tortilla, then stuff with leftover tahdig rice, refried crispy lamb, yoghurty cucumber and a spot of cheese. Serve with sweet potato chip and salad. Glorious.

Also this week:

Allotment and garden: Sowed leeks and carrots. Removed black plastic from the main beds and placed some over the back wilderness. Heavy weeding of the edges of the main beds and around the currants. Raising of the hopolisk. Building of bean sticks. Matt has started to dig a hole for the foundations of a new shed and is muttering about re-building the greenhouse.

Cooking and eating: 5 hour lamb, tahdig, broad bean and yoghurt mezze, Persian burritos, thousands of chocolate crispy cakes, never-ending Easter chocolate cake, Mum’s salmon with tarragon sauce and asparagus, Mum’s cheesecake, baked chicken with lemon and honey at the farm with the university gang, salad of avocado, edamame and tender stem broccoli at Arco Lounge that was surprisingly good. Harry had his first Calippo (except he didn’t as it was a fake Aldi version) and enjoyed it immensely.

Reading: Fasting and Feasting: The Life of Visionary Food Writer Patience Gray by Adam Federman.