butcher suggests lamb shanks, cheaper now they are not so trendy. I buy nothing else; there is wine, bay, rosemary, garlic and grain mustard in the kitchen already. The preparation will take ten minutes, the cooking an hour and a half on a low heat. A supper of melting tenderness.
Lamb shanks with mustard and mash
olive oil
lamb shanks – 2 small
onions – 4 small to medium
bay leaves – 3
sprigs of rosemary – 2 or 3
vegetable or meat stock – 250ml
red wine – 250ml
garlic – 3 cloves
grain mustard – 1 heaped tablespoon
To serve:
mashed potato and a bit more mustard
Set the oven at 160°C/Gas 3. Warm a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a roasting tin large enough to take the meat snugly, then seal the lamb on all sides in the hot oil. The fat and the cut end of the meat should take on a little colour.
Peel the onions, slice them in half from root to tip, then each half into quarters. Add them to the lamb with the bay leaves and the leaves from the rosemary sprigs. Pour in the stock and red wine. Peel the garlic cloves and squash them flat with the blade of a heavy knife. Drop them into the roasting tin with a grinding of salt and some coarse black pepper. Cover the dish with foil, place in the oven and bake for an hour and a half.
Half way through cooking, uncover the dish and stir in the mustard, turning the lamb as you do so. Cover once more and return to the oven. Serve with mashed potato and a bit more mustard.
Enough for 2
February 8
A smoked
fish supper
There is something old-fashioned about a supper of smoked haddock, something redolent of the 1950s, when women wore an apron when they cooked and would get a meal on the table at the same time each day, year in, year out. I like my smoked haddock baked with a little cream, as I do almost anything smoked, but until recently was never sure what to eat with it. Mash never seemed right, buttered toast never substantial enough, rice too reminiscent of kedgeree. It was out of curiosity that I turned to beans, pale ones from a can, their texture a pleasing contrast. Now it is one of my favourite teas, though not the prettiest.
Smoked haddock with flageolet beans and mustard
The parsley is important here and should be vivid emerald green and full of life. I see no reason why you can’t use equally mealy cannellini beans if that is what you have, though I have used butter beans before now and they were good, too. This is a mild, gently flavoured dish, consoling even, for a cold night.
smoked haddock – 400g
butter
milk – 250ml, plus a little more for later
bay leaves
flageolet beans – two 400g tins
double cream – 300ml
parsley leaves – a good fistful
grain mustard – 1 heaped tablespoon
steamed spinach, to serve
Remove the skin from the smoked haddock and place the fish in a lightly buttered baking dish. Pour over the milk, then add enough water almost to cover the fish. Tuck in a couple of bay leaves and grind over some black pepper. Bake at 200°C/Gas 6 for about fifteen to twenty minutes or until you can pull one of the large, fat flakes of flesh out with ease. Drain and discard the milk.
Rinse and re-butter the baking dish – you don’t want any bits of skin from the milk left behind. Rinse the beans in a sieve under running water, then empty them into a mixing bowl. Pour in the cream and a couple of tablespoons of milk, then chop the parsley and add it together with the mustard, a grinding of black pepper and a little salt. Go easy on the salt; smoked fish is saltier than fresh.
Spoon the beans into the dish and lay the fish on top, spooning some of the creamy beans over the top to keep it moist. Turn the oven down to 180°C/Gas 4 and bake for about forty minutes, until the cream is bubbling and the sauce has thickened around the beans. Serve with spinach.
Enough for 2
February 9
A pumpkin has been languishing in the vegetable rack for longer than I care to remember. To use it now would be more than a great satisfaction; it would be a relief.
Roast pumpkin, spicy tomato sauce
Deep red and gold, a cheering supper if ever there was one. This simple dish of roast vegetables stands or falls by the timing. I like to roast the pumpkin till it is soft but not quite collapsing, deep golden in colour, the edges slightly caramelised and sticky. Undercook it at your peril. The sauce is chunky and has a certain bitter-sweetness from the lightly blackened tomato skins. You may want to cook some brown rice to go with this, especially if you are having nothing to follow.
tomatoes – 950g
garlic – 2 cloves
chillies – 2 small hot ones
olive oil
pumpkin or squash – 1kg
Set the oven at 200°C/Gas 6. Cut the tomatoes in half and place them cut-side up on a baking sheet or in a roasting tin. Peel and finely slice the garlic, finely chop the chillies. Drizzle the tomatoes with oil, then season with salt and pepper and the garlic and chillies. Roast for forty-five to fifty minutes, till the tomatoes are soft and flecked with black.
Meanwhile, halve and peel the pumpkin. Cut into thick, melon-like slices and scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Place on a baking sheet, toss in a little olive oil and season with salt and black pepper. Roast for forty minutes, turning it over after twenty minutes or so. It is done when it is fully tender to the point of a knife and nice and sticky on the cut edges.
Roughly chop the tomatoes to give a coarse ‘sauce’. Serve alongside the roasted pumpkin, with brown rice if you wish.
Enough for 2 as a main dish
February 11
Dinner is a couple of tins of Heinz baked beans, tarted up with finely chopped chillies, several shakes of Tabasco and mushroom ketchup, and a tablespoon of black treacle. It will do.
There is no set time for eating in our house, there never
