sausagehotpot and
a citrus tart
The air is again clear and cold, and there are paper-white narcissi in a bowl on the table, filling the kitchen with their gentle, vanilla smell. Winter at its purest. This is the sort of day on which I like to bake – a cake, a pie, a tart perhaps. I enjoy making pastry, though rarely do, each time adding as much butter as I dare, just to see how crisp and fragile I can get the crust. Today I want something fresh, with a clean bite to it, a dessert to make everyone smack their lips. I decide on a lime custard tart in the style of a tarte au citron. The lime zest cuts through the cool air. The warm smell of baking pastry wafts into the rest of the house. Heaven. Half way through baking, I check the tart’s progress, only to find the pastry case empty and the citrus filling forming a lemon-coloured pool on the baking sheet. I pile the whole damn failure into a basin (and later eat it in secret after everyone has gone home) and start again. This time I make absolutely certain the pastry case has not the faintest hole or crack in it before I pour in the filling.
Sausages with salami and lentils
A rough-edged casserole that gives the impression of having been cooked for hours but is pretty much ready to eat in forty-five minutes. You could put it in the oven if you prefer, in which case you should let it cook for about an hour at moderate heat. This is the sort of food I like to put on the table at Saturday lunch, with a bowl of rocket salad by the side. Then you can swoosh the salad leaves around your plate to mop up the last bits of tomatoey lentil sauce.
onions – 2 medium
olive oil – 2 tablespoons
garlic – 2 cloves
a small salami – about 200g
fresh sausages – 350g
crushed tomatoes or tomato passata – 500g
green or brown lentils – 150g
bay leaves – 3
Peel the onions and cut each one in half from tip to root, then cut each half into four or five pieces. Warm the oil in a heavy-based casserole, add the onions and let them cook over a moderate heat until tender. Meanwhile, peel the garlic, slice it thinly and add it to the onions. You’ll need to stir them regularly.
Peel the thin skin from the salami and cut the inside into fat matchsticks. Add this to the softening onions and leave for a couple of minutes, during which time the salami will darken slightly.
Start cooking the sausages in a non-stick pan. You want them to colour on the outside; they will do most of their cooking once they are in the sauce. Tip the crushed tomatoes into the onions, add the washed lentils and stir in 500ml water. Bring to the boil. Remove the sausages from their pan and tuck them into the casserole with the bay leaves. Cover the pot with a lid and leave to simmer gently for about half an hour, until the lentils are tender. Stir the lentils and season with black pepper. You may find it needs little or no salt.
Enough for 2, with seconds
A lime tart
Not difficult this, but do make absolutely certain there are no holes or cracks in the pastry case, otherwise the filling will escape, I guarantee.
limes – 5–7
large eggs – 6
caster sugar – 250g
double cream – 175ml
For the pastry:
plain flour – 175g
golden icing sugar – 40g
cold butter – 90g
egg yolks – 2
cold water – 1 tablespoon
To make the pastry, put the flour and icing sugar into a food processor, add the butter, cut into chunks, and blitz for a few seconds. Stop when the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Mix in the egg yolks and water. Tip into a mixing bowl and bring the dough together into a thick log with your hands. Wrap it in greaseproof paper and refrigerate for a good half hour. Warning: skipping this bit will make your pastry shrink.
Cut thin, round slices from the log of pastry, then press them into a loose-bottomed 23–24cm tart tin with high sides (3.5cm), pressing the pastry gently up the sides and over the base (this pastry is too fragile to roll). Make certain that there are absolutely no holes, otherwise the filling will leak through. Prick lightly with a fork and refrigerate for half an hour.
Set the oven at 200°C/Gas 6. Place a sheet of greaseproof paper in the tart case and fill it with baking beans (I use old haricot beans but you can buy ceramic or metal beans especially for the job from cookware shops). Bake the tart case for ten minutes, then remove the greaseproof paper and beans and bake for a further five minutes, until the pastry is dry to the touch.
Turn the oven down to 150°C/Gas 2. Finely grate the zest from two of the limes. Squeeze enough limes to give 180ml juice; this could be anything from five to seven limes, depending on their ripeness. Mix the eggs and sugar together, beating lightly for a few seconds – you don’t want it to be frothy – then stir in the lime juice and cream. Pour the mixture through a sieve and stir in the lime zest. Pour into the baked tart tin and bake for forty-five to fifty minutes. Remove whilst the filling is still a little wobbly and leave to cool.
Enough for 8
January 31
A ploughman’s lunch is something to be kept away from the whims of an imaginative cook. The most tinkering I will tolerate is the occasional oatcake in lieu of bread and the odd radish or pickled onion as a crunchy distraction. If the cheese is firm and British then I’ll willingly take an apple too. Today I slice a Cox’s apple and let it colour in a little butter in a non-stick frying pan. I put a jagged piece of Mrs Appleby’s Cheshire cheese and a slice of warm, tender apple on to each oatcake and eat them whilst the apple is still hot. Yes, a mucked-about ploughman’s but surprisingly none the worse for it.
february
Chicken patties with rosemary and pancetta
