Extreme comfort food: 1. butternut squash, gorgonzola and sage risotto 2. meatballs

I haven't posted anything for a week or so because I've been doing a week's trial for a completely new and different sort of job in a lovely foodie shop. I'll tell you all about it if it all goes well....

But it has left me a bit shattered really. You know what it's like - you're on hyper-alert all the time when you start a new job, your face hurts from smiling and at the end of each day you simply want to climb onto the sofa with something comforting, soothing and a bit childish to eat while you have a good dose of rubbish telly (I highly recommend Fearne Cotton's excruciating interview with Peaches Geldof - genuinely hideous).

So this week we enjoyed a warming bowl of butternut squash, gorgonzola and sage risotto which was just the thing to induce a catatonic sofa-state. And tonight we had a hearty pile of meatballs in a tomato and red pepper sauce on a pillowy mound of white rice topped with melted cheese. Not sophisticated dishes in any way - but just the things to wrap you up nice and cosily when you're feeling a bit fragile.

Butternut squash, gorgonzola and sage risotto

Half a butternut squash, peeled and chopped

Enough risotto rice for 2 people

About 12 sage leaves (half chopped finely, half left whole)

2 cloves of garlic - crushed

1 white onion - finely chopped

A couple of pints of chicken stock

Big chunk of gorgonzola broken into chunks (a good handful)

A chunk of parmesan

A big knob of butter

A slosh of good olive oil

Put the squash in a roasting tin and drizzle with olive oil. Roast in a medium oven (about 200 degrees) for 45 minutes. When the squash is done, get the chicken stock on the heat. Fry off the onion, chopped sage and garlic in a little olive oil and half the butter - taking care not to brown them. Add the squash and the risotto rice to the onion and garlic mixture mixing thoroughly to cover the rice in the buttery juices. Begin to add the hot stock one ladle at a time, stirring all the time and only adding more when the previous ladle-ful has been absorbed by the rice. Keep adding stock until the risotto is nearly ready, then add your handful of gorgonzola stirring until the cheese has melted into the rice. The consistency should be slightly soupy but the rice should still have a little bite to it. When you get there, add the rest of the butter and stir through. In a small saucepan heat the remaining olive oil and add the sage leaves - frying for a couple of seconds on each side and then placing on a piece of kitchen towel to absorb the excess oil. Serve the risotto in bowls topped with a little grated parmesan and a couple of the crispy fried sage leaves.

Meatballs in tomato and red pepper sauce

A pack of pork mince

Handful of breadcrumbs

One egg

Small handful of herbs - I used some leftover sage and oregano

Small chunk of parmesan grated

One white onion - grated - yes grated!

One red onion chopped finely

A tin of tomatoes

A glug of red wine

Enough white rice for 2

Whatever cheese you have in the fridge

Put the pork mince in a mixing bowl. Grate in one onion. Add the egg, the grated parmesan and the chopped herbs. Form little meatballs and place on a plate. Using wet hands helps avoid the mixture sticking to your hands. I try to refrigerate the meatballs for half an hour before cooking them because it firms them up a little before browning them.

To make the sauce fry the red onion and red pepper in a little oil until soft. Slosh in some red wine and a tin of tomatoes and simmer until thickened. I blitzed mine with a stick blender to make a smoother sauce.

Fry off the meatballs (a couple at a time so you don't reduce the temperature of the frying pan) making sure you get a good crust on all sides of the meatball. When all the meatballs are browned on the outside add them into the tomato sauce and simmer on a low heat for 15/20 minutes to ensure the meatballs are cooked all the way through.

Get some white rice onto cook. Crumble some cheese over the top of the meatballs and flash under the grill for a couple of minutes until melting and bubbly.

Serve a big spoonful of meatballs and melted cheese on top of the white rice - ideally with a big glass of something red and fruity....Valpolicella not Vimto.

Fridge clear-out: Salmon with puy lentils and a piquant tartar-ish sauce

We don't have one of those amazing double-doored, ice-making, cheerleading American-style fridges. Ours is a resoundingly British style of appliance - shyly hiding in a cupboard, functional yet full of eccentricities: an unopened jar of stem ginger, some thai shrimp paste, a half eaten pot of overpriced organic nectarine compote and a jar of pink peppercorns. It's not a good "Ready Steady Cook" bag, is it?

In an attempt to tidy up some of the fridge detritus I made the salmon dish below. It was a good way to use some capers, gerkins, a manky old lemon and a couple of pieces of salmon I had in the freezer. My boyfriend was freakishly enthusiastic about the tartar-esque sauce and I think that, although it was a complete exercise in leftovers-usage, it was actually really tasty.

Salmon with puy lentils and piquant sauce 

For the salmon:

2 salmon fillets

1 lemon

For the lentils:

- Enough puy lentils for two

- 1 red onion

- 1 tomato

- Slosh of olive oil

- A little chicken stock

For the piquant tartar-ish sauce:

- Tablespoon capers

- 4 gerkins chopped

- Teaspoon mustard

- 3 tablespoons creme fraiche

- Tablespoon of chives (including a couple of chive flowers if you're growing your own)

Put salmon fillets into a bowl and squeeze the lemon juice over the pieces.

Chop the onion and fry gently in oil until soft, add the tomato and then the lentils to the pan and swizzle about to coat the lentils in oil. Add enough chicken stock to cover the lentils and simmer gently checking from time to time to ensure the mixture doesn't dry out or catch.

To make the picante tartar-ish sauce, put all the ingredients into a bowl and mix to combine. That's it!

When the lentils are cooked - about 20 minutes usually, but just keep checking - heat some oil in a frying pay and lightly fry the salmon for about 5 minutes on each side. It will keep cooking after you take it out of the pan so be careful not to overcook.

Pile the lentils into a bowl, top with a piece of salmon and a dollop of the sauce. We have some chives on our balcony so had some lovely chive flowers to add a rather showy-offy flourish to the plate.

Not bad for some unloved fridge leftovers.

Can cabbage be cool? Part two: Hake with spiced cabbage

(Sorry, the shadow of my head got in the way in this picture. Don't think I'll ever be David Bailey).

In my continuing investigations into the possibility of cabbage actually being palatable I came across a recipe for Fish Haryali in Ravinder Bhogal's lovely Cook in Boots recipe book (nicely written, gorgeous photography and some really interesting and unusual recipes - SO keen to try her roasted paprika quails with romesco sauce - sounds amazing!).

I didn't precisely follow the recipe so the recipe below is rather more "inspired by"than "faithful interpretation". Ravinder serves monkfish skewers with her cabbage - but this is currently off the menu for me (financial reasons) so I substituted it for some chunky pieces of hake I had languishing in the freezer.

The end result was one of the nicest things I've cooked for ages. And the spiced cabbage was absolutely delicious - really crunchy, not too spicy but warming and tasty. Have a go - even if you are a cabbage sceptic - it's really very good.

Hake and spiced cabbage
2 pieces of hake (from Waitrose - probably about £4 worth I think)
Hake marinade:
- Big knob of ginger
- 2 green chillis
- 4 cloves garlic
- Pinch of tumeric
- Juice and grated peel of one lime
- Tablespoon of yoghurt
Half a white cabbage sliced into shreds
Small handful of fresh curry leaves finely shredded (I can get these in Asda now - hoorah!)
1 finely diced chilli
Teaspoon of black mustard seeds
A pinch of each: asafoetida, turmeric, coriander
Juice of another lime
A little oil or ideally ghee

Whizz up the marinade ingredients in the blender. Marinate the pieces of fish for about an hour - any more than that and I think the fish actually cooks in the lime juice - weird. Remove the fish from the marinade and place in a hot frying pan with a couple of spoonfuls of the marinade and fry on a medium heat for about 5 minutes on each side.

Heat the oil/ghee in a large frying (or a wok would be good actually). Throw the mustard seeds, curry leaves, asafoetida, turmeric, coriander into the oil and sizzle until the seeds pop a little. Then add the chilli and after a minute add the cabbage and stir fry for a couple of minutes. When the fish is ready squeeze the lime into the cabbage and serve topped with a piece of fish.

Pomegranate lamb and couscous

When I left my job 8 weeks ago a lot of people said I was mad.

I will admit to feeling a certain amount of trepidation about it. Would I miss the thrill of the weekly status meeting? The quick-fire wit of a high octane conference call? The unparalleled joy of approving a logo on a Monday morning? Well, you'll be pleased to hear that the answer is a resounding "nope", "not a bit" and "aha aha ha ha ha ha ha!".

But, one thing I was a bit worried about was how I was going to cope with having to curb my spending. While I've never really bought designer clothes or wanted a collection of It Bags, I did have a pretty bad Ocado habit coupled with a low-level deli addiction and a restaurant-obsession that necessitated significant and sustained investment. I found it appallingly easy to blow £150 on one Ocado delivery and still not be able to find anything for dinner 2 days later. I'd often find myself deliriously handing over mountains of cash for fennel-y sausages, nettle-flavoured-spaghetti and aged pecorino from Italian delis.   And of course, it couldn't continue...

So I now have a tiny weekly food budget and have to stick to it. And I have to say, it has actually been alright. Verging on the enjoyable actually! Fruit and veg from Whitechapel market is my best bargain - you can get massive bunches of coriander and mint for £1, big bags of red onions/peppers/carrots/whatever for less than £1 - it's brilliant. And I've been pleasantly surprised by affordable meat. There are loads of cheap cuts of meat in the supermarket that are delicious and easy to cook.  Chicken livers are amazingly cheap (a pack is only about £1 - even from Waitrose!) and super-tasty, a lot of the slow-cooking cuts of meat are really flavoursome like stewing steak or ham hocks and even chicken thighs which are so much tastier than more-expensive chicken breasts.

But sometimes you want something quick and easy that doesn't need cooking for hours. So I'd recommend trying lamb neck fillets - they are cheap, but very tender and tasty - I bought enough for 4 people for about £5 from the butchers counter at Sainsburys, so I reckon you could get them for less from a proper butchers. I marinated mine in pomegranate syrup and then griddled them until blackened on the outside but nice and pink inside. I served it with red pepper, red onion and pomegranate couscous, a spoonful of creme fraiche and a sprinkle of dill and a pinch of sumac. A really yummy and quick dinner that looks quite pretty too!

Pomegranate lamb with red pepper couscous 
2 lamb neck fillets (probably enough for 4 if thinly sliced after cooking)
Pomegranate syrup (you can get this in the supermarket now)
1 fresh pomegranate
2 red peppers
2 garlic cloves
1 red onion
Teaspoon of Ras Al Hanout (Moroccan spice blend)
Enough chicken stock to cover the couscous
Couscous
Dill
Pinch of sumac (tangy, lemony spice)

An hour before dinner put the lamb fillets in a bowl and squirt some pomegranate syrup over the meat, move the pieces around covering the fillets in syrup, cover the bowl and leave to marinate at room temperature for an hour.  After an hour, get the griddle pan on the heat. Heat the chicken stock in a saucepan. Blister the 2 red peppers (I do this on the gas hob, it sends the smoke alarm loopy), wait until cool and rub off the blackened skin. Pop in the blender with 2 garlic cloves, teaspoon of Ras Al Hanout and the hot chicken stock. Blend making sure you hold a tea towel over the top of the blender as the heat will force a lid off. Pour enough dried couscous into a large bowl and cover with the red pepper/chicken stock liquid and then cover the bowl with a plate for a few minutes. Meanwhile slice a red onion, brush with oil and place on the griddle. (More smoke alarm mayhem will ensue). When they're charred on both sides thrown them into the couscous along with the seeds from one fresh pomegranate - fluff up the couscous with a fork and season. Put the lamb on the griddle pan and leave to blacken for about 4 minutes on each side - because of the sugar in the syrup the lamb will go very black but don't panic, the charred bits are delicious. (Smoke alarm may pack bags and leave in despair at this point). Slice the lamb into thin slices and arrange on top of a scoop of the couscous with a spoonful of creme fraiche, a sprinkle of dill and a pinch of sumac.

Can cabbage be cool? Part one: spiced chicken wraps with blue cheese coleslaw

I've always mistrusted cabbage. When I was little my parents told me that I should to eat it because it would help me grow big and strong. Or tall. Or give me curly hair. Or straight - whichever was preferred that week. They used all those incentives that parents create to make you eat hateful things. Like mince and potatoes for example. I mean, really, who eats mince and potatoes now? The answer is no-one, because it has been made illegal to serve something so revoltingly brown to anyone, even a minor. Which is progress in my view. And although my parents did everything they could to persuade me to eat it, they were reluctant to eat it themselves. Lets face it, it smells a bit funny and, when boiled to within an inch of its life "a la seventies", it is frankly horrifying.

But all is not lost for cabbage. All the "new" fashionable cabbages and greens like chard, cavalo nero and kale (which of course are not new at all - they'd just been forgotten) seem to have been adopted by the gastro hoards with great gusto.  And actually they ARE pretty good. With some trepidation, I had a go at lightly sweating some cavalo nero with a lot of garlic and a little olive oil and then roughly blitzing it in the blender with some dried chill flakes and serving it over pasta with some good parmesan. It was really yummy. Feeling bolder, I bought some kale. I shredded it and sauteed it with some garlic and chorizo. Actually it was delicious.

In true Carrie Bradshaw fashion "I got to thinking" perhaps I should re-visit the basic white cabbage of my youth. I thought I'd start with raw cabbage and work up to something cooked...so, a little inspired by Jamie Oliver's American TV show, I made a blue cheese coleslaw and served it, in a tortilla wrap, with spiced, bread-crumbed chicken pieces. And it was really tasty. I'd say it was good Friday night food - the sort of thing that doesn't take long to prepare and feels a bit takeaway-ish but is totally fresh and probably a little bit healthier.

Spiced chicken 

- A pack of chicken thighs - usually about 6 in a pack

- 2 tablespoons of plain flour mixed with a generous amount of salt, pepper, cayenne and dried thyme

- Breadcrumbs (not those nasty orange ones in a pack - just make your own by blitzing up some old stale bread in the blender)

- 2 eggs beaten

Take the chicken thighs one by one and sandwich between 2 pieces of cling-film. Beat the chicken thighs with one of those meat-mallet-things (or the bottom of a jam jar - carefully) until substantially thinner. Then cut the thighs into bite sized pieces and cover in the seasoned flour. Heat some oil in a frying pay. Then dip each piece of chicken into the beaten egg, then into the breadcrumbs and then into the frying pan where they will need to fry them on a medium heat for a good 5 minutes turning from time to time and making sure the pieces are cooked through. Do this in batches, keeping them warm on kitchen paper in the oven.

Blue cheese coleslaw
A selection of crunchy seasonal vegetables sliced into similar sized shreds. Use whatever you have to hand but I used:
- Half white cabbage
- Handful of radishes
- 2 carrots
- White onion and a couple of spring onions
- A green pepper I found in the salad drawer which was on the verge of leaving itself
- 3 tablespoons of creme fraiche (low fat is just as good as the full monty)
- 2 teaspoons of mustard
- A supermarket-pack-sized amount of gorgonzola or stilton - roughly chopped
- A few pinches of chopped chives

Assembly 
Mix the cheese, creme fraiche, chives, mustard and a glug of olive oil together to form a thick sauce. Mix with all of the coleslaw ingredients a big bowl - taste and add seasoning if required. Serve a generous scoop of coleslaw in a wrap or tortilla scattered with a few pieces of hot chicken and then rolled into a manageable cigar shape. I think this would be nice with a very cold beer after a long old week.

Cliffhanger
Flushed with cabbage-eating-success I've moved quickly into cooking with it. Stay tuned.

Gok Wan vs Don Corleone (or how to make Osso Buco)

When I had a proper job I used to have "Slow-Cook-Sundays". When you work full time it's really not practical to cook anything after work requiring a lot of preparation or cooking. Maybe I was just a wimp but when I got home at 7 I really wanted to be eating by 8 latest so I could at least squeeze a bit of an evening in between 8.30 and going to bed at 10.30. Those 2 hours a night were extremely precious to me. Well, precious in the sense that they were mainly spent calling my mum, fake-tanning, putting a wash on and some gentle weeping over Gok Wan's latest self-esteem project.

So, with that in mind, my Sundays were reserved for making anything requiring a long, slow cooking. After a leisurely breakfast and sunday-paper-reading we might have a potter up Brick Lane to buy any missing ingredients (and to gawp at the fashionable people) and then home to prepare whatever I was slow-cooking that day. It might be a greek leg of lamb with lemon and oregano cooked for 4 hours very slowly until you can ease the bone out from the meat with a gentle tug. Or maybe a rabbit ragu with cinnamon and bay leaves. Or a spicy beef rendang made with stewing steak that would melt into a meaty sauce over a few hours. I love slow cooking, it's my favourite thing to do. I love the fact that you start by browning-off an unpromising looking piece of meat with a few bits of veg and some spices and you end up with something full of deep flavours which is soft and meltingly delicious.

Well, now I am officially "between jobs" I can slow-cook whenever I want to. So, in attempt to make Saturday-night-in-with-a-DVD a bit more of an event, last night we had a bit of an Italian extravaganza.  Pre-dinner Campari and Sodas, a pretty decent Osso Buco and a nice bottle of red started proceedings and then we settled down to watch Godfather 2 (continuing the Italian theme, you see).

Osso Buco is traditionally made with a slice of veal shank but last night I made it with a similar pork cut. I'm not squeamish about veal - quite the opposite actually - but I found these pork shanks in Waitrose for £1.79 a few months ago and they seemed too much of a bargain to pass up. They've been waiting patiently in the freezer for me to give them a good send-off and last night I think I did.

I served the meat in the traditional style with a very simple but luxurious-feeling risotto containing saffron, butter and parmesan - Milanese Risotto - and a final piquant garnish of gremolata which is a sort-of-pesto made of garlic, parsley, lemon and olive oil.

And if you are like my mother and horrified by anything that needs to be cooked for 4 hours, do please give it a try because actually things like this require almost no attention so you can be getting on with other important tasks (more Gok Wan maybe?) while the meat slowly melts to perfection.

Don Corleone might call that an offer you can't refuse.

Osso Buco 
- 2 pieces of Veal shank (or Pork if Waitrose are still doing these frugal fellows)
- One onion - chopped
- One carrot - chopped
- One stick celery - chopped
- One tomato - chopped
- Couple of cloves of garlic crushed
- A couple of pints of chicken stock (will depend on the size of your pan) - you'll also need some of this for the risotto
- Knob butter/glug olive oil

Risotto
- Enough risotto rice (arborio/carnaroli - you know the drill) for two
- One finely chopped onion
- 2 generous pinches of saffron
- Big knob (maybe a matchbox size) butter
- Glug olive oil
- Handful of good parmesan finely grated
- Chicken stock

Gremolata 
- 2 lemons - rind finely chopped and juice
- Big handful finely chopped parsley
- 4 fat cloves garlic
- Glug of olive oil

Dredge the meat in seasoned flour and brown lightly in a frying pan on both sides. In another saucepan get the onion, carrot, celery and garlic softening in some butter. When the meat is browned on both sides, pour a little chicken stock into the frying pan to de-glaze. Pour this liquid and the meat into the saucepan containing the veg and turn the heat down low. Add the chopped tomato and a little more chicken stock to come about half way up the meat and leave on a very low heat for a good 2 and half hours, checking the liquid isn't drying up from time to time.

While the meat is cooking get your gremolata done - simply put all the ingredients into a pestle & mortar and bash into a chunky paste - think pesto consistency.

When the meat is falling away from the central bones, start the risotto.

Boil the kettle and pour over the saffron strands. Melt half the butter in the pan and soften the onions verrrrry slowly in it - so they don't take on any colour at all. Add the rice and stir to ensure all the grains are covered in the melted butter. Add the saffron water bit by bit, stirring all the time and allowing the rice to absorb the liquid before adding any more. If you run out of saffron water, use the leftover chicken stock. Continue to add liquid until the rice is tender and the mixture thick and soupy. Add in the parmesan and stir to incorporate. Add the final knob of butter which should give the risotto a nice shine.

Serve the risotto in big bowls topped with the meat, a little of the cooking vegetables and a big spoonful of gremolata.

The cheek of it.

Look away now if you are squeamish about strange cuts of meat because I have discovered pigs cheeks! I love them - they are my new favourite part of a pig - even usurping the delicious belly. They are deliciously tasty, unctuous morsels - perfect for long, slow cooking with autumnal partners like mushrooms, chestnuts and squash. 

I discovered them a couple of months ago when Waitrose started selling them as part of their excellent Forgotten Cuts initiative. Initially I picked them up from the rather fabulous Waitrose Food Hall on Oxford Street but having popped back on a couple of occasions and found them sold out, I needed to find a new dealer! The butcher there l said I'd have to get to the shop early on the day of delivery to ensure I could get hold of them. So they seem to be pretty popular and it makes me wonder why other supermarkets haven't tried a similar campaign - especially in the current climate where everyone's jumping on the homespun, vintage, make-do-and-mend bandwagon. I think the name is slightly unfortunate - cheeks seem a). a bit "cute" and b). a bit anatomically graphic for mainstream consumption. If I was the Pork Marketing Board I would be re-branding pigs cheeks - maybe jowl could work? - and then I predict they'd become the new Lamb Shank - loved by the Gastropub and the Sunday-slow-cook. 

Anyway, I managed to get some at Canary Wharf the other day when I was there meeting a friend for lunch. I bought 8 pigs cheeks for £1.89. Really. Unbelievably cheap. 

So, yesterday I cooked 4 pigs cheeks down with fennel seeds, juniper berries and a little gin to make an Autum-y ragu which we had with spaghetti (but I think Pappardelle would have been the perfect pasta match but we didn't have any) and some good pecorino. And today I used the remaining 4 for a slow-cooked chilli - which was delicious and left enough for a lunch tomorrow too. 

The recipes for both are below and, even if you're squeamish about "cheeks" I really urge you to have a go - if only just to be able to make 3 days worth of dinner/lunch for less than a copy of Grazia magazine!

Pigs cheek ragu

- 4 pigs cheeks 

- 2 carrots - finely chopped 

- 1 red chilli - finely chopped 

- 4 gloved garlic crushed 

- A couple of bayleaves

- 1 stick celery - finely chopped 

- 1 red onion - finely chopped 

- 1 tin of tomatoes 

- 1 teaspoon fennel seeds - crushed in a pestle and mortar 

- 1 teaspoon juniper berries - crushed in a pestle and mortar  

- Good slosh of gin - about half a wine glass 

- Tin of tomatoes 

- Enough parppadelle for two 

- A good handful of grated pecorino

In a large saucepan, sweat the onions, carrots, garlic, celery, seeds and berries. In a separate frying pan, brown the pigs cheeks in a tablespoon of olive oil - allowing them to acquire dark, crusty patches. When the cheeks are browned add the gin (you can set fire to it if you must show off, but please mind your fringe...) and scrape the crusty bits from the bottom of the pan. When you've lifted all the bits from the bottom of the pan, pour the contents of the frying pan into the saucepan. Add a tin of tomatoes and then fill the empty tomato tin with water, slosh around to catch all the final tomato juice and pour this tomatoey water into the saucepan too. 

I left mine to cook for most of the afternoon - about 4 hours - checking from time to time to add a little more water if it looked like the mixture was getting dry or catching on the bottom of the pan. 

Make up enough pasta for two people, when cooked add the pasta into the sauce, swirl about for a couple of minutes and serve with lots of pecorino cheese. 

Pigs cheek chilli 

- 4 pigs cheeks 

- 1 red onion - roughly chopped 

- 1 stick of celery - roughly chopped

- 2 red chillis - finely chopped 

- 1 dried chipotle chilli 

- 1 dried ancho chilli 

- Half a teaspoon of ground cumin, coriander and chilli powder

- 1 tin tomatoes 

- 1 tin kidney beans 

- Enough easy cook long grain white american rice for two people 

- Some good strong cheddar grated 

- A couple of tablespoons of creme fraiche or sour cream

In a large saucepan, brown the pigs cheeks in a tablespoon of olive oil - allowing them to acquire dark, crusty patches as above. Add in the onion, celery, fresh chilli and dried spices and lower the heat to gently sweat. Toast the Ancho chilli on both sides in a dry frying pan. Put the toasted ancho and dried chipotle chillis in a bowl and cover with boiling water. After 15 minutes soaking, chop the 2 re-hydrated chillis and add to the saucepan. Add the tin of tomatoes and the same amount again of water and the drained kidney beans. Leave to slowly simmer for at least 2 hours. 

Serve on white rice with cheese and a good blob of creme fraiche. 

Celeriac - because you're worth it.

Summer is full of photoshoot-perfect food, isn't it? All those beautiful mediterranean vegetables - glossy black aubergines, little red cherry tomato jewels, verdant green peppers - all polished and shiny, all bursting with the healthy good looks of something developed at the Laboratoire Garnier.


Now we're moving into the autumn its almost a relief to see the imperfect, knobbly fruits of harvest festival season. There's a rustic, back-to-school charm to the root vegetables, the squash, pumpkin and gourd. And I'm always pleased to see the scruffy, turnipy-looking celeriac. It's a funny fellow, the celeriac, looks totally alien but tastes fresh and delicious especially when grated finely in the starring role of a celeriac remoulade.  In the recipe below I mixed a little freshly grated horseradish (again, no beauty but provides amazing taste and mustardy heat) into the mixture and served it for lunch with some good sourdough, a handful of rocket and a peppered mackerel fillet - see photo above.

No retouching required.


Celeriac remoulade 

• Half a celeriac - washed, peeled and finely grated. 
• 3 tablespoons of creme fraiche 
• 1 tablespoon of grain mustard 
• An inch of peeled and finely grated horseradish  

Just mix all of the above together and season to taste. This is enough for 2 good dollops for a mackerel lunch and a little leftover for ham sandwiches the next day.