On a grey salad day

The rain, having stayed away for most of the day, chose the very moment I stepped down form the bus and turned for home, to announce its return.

By the time I’d changed, the cats were sitting at the door to the patio and complaining at my slowness.

The girls are great believers in the merits of empirical evidence. I can stand there all I like, telling them that it’s wet under paw, and they will not believe me until they get to experience it for themselves.

So, briefly, I opened the door. Boudi hopped out and hopped almost straight back in.

Otto had a sniff around before concluding that I hadn’t been telling porkies, while even nominally determined Loki didn’t bother to attempt to dive into next door before running back into the flat.

But I had to go out, because the evening had been slated for the first salad from the garden.


So I donned a cap (keeps the rain off my specs), accepted that I was going to get a bit damp and headed outside.

Rolling back netting, I snipped the biggest leaves of lamb’s lettuce into a bowl, followed by some American land cress, a few young nasturtium leaves and then some sorrel.

There didn’t seem to be very much, but in he case of both lamb’s lettuce and cress, anything more would have been silly.

I also very gently dug up the most developed radish, but since there was no radish there, I carefully popped it back into the soil and returned the netting over that planter.

It might not have been much, but it was good. Rinsed and spun, it was later served with the simplest dressing, of just a little olive oil, whisked to an emulsion with a few drops of cider vinegar and salt.

It was an accompaniment to tiny new potatoes, scraped (even though that took time) and then simply boiled for 20 minutes, dotted with butter and good salt.

The centrepiece was an omelette – two extra large eggs each, whisked at the last moment and then cooked in butter that is foaming and just (but only just!) beginning to turn a nutty brown.

The Other Half’s was done first – he prefers it a tad less ‘wet’ than I do. Mine takes little more than a minute before folding out onto the plate.

And my ability to make omelettes (and pancakes) has increased massively since I invested in a really good, French omelette pan – copper-bottomed and heavy, it really does make a difference.

The other thing that really made a difference for me was reading Elizabeth David on the omelette question. Now admittedly I don't use two full eggs plus an extra yolk, but my basic method remains the one that she repeats.

We’d spent years buying cheap eggs. In the end, you don’t use them much – and certainly not as the centrepiece to a meal.

But – like the bacon I mentioned last week – if you can get quality, then it becomes worth making a meal of just such simple produce. And indeed, the moment you make eggs the heart of a dinner, then it's not expensive, even when you get the best eggs you can.

However, while everything was good – this really was a day for feeling rather chuffed that I could put together at least a small salad with fresh ingredients straight from a (rainy!) garden.

Who's bringing home the bacon?

It's midweek and the great question, just as at the weekend, is what to eat. But at this wearying time of the year, it's always more difficult.

There are things in the cupboard – peas and broad beans and a few new potatoes – but as I don't like to buy meat or fish for an entire week on a Saturday, it meant a trip to the shop after work.

How about some bacon? Good bacon – not the stuff the shrivels to half its size in the pan, spewing white gunk and maintaining a bloody-minded refusal to let the fat get crisp.

No, not that. The real deal, though, is a thing of great pleasure.

And instead of relegating it to the breakfast table, this time of the year offers the perfect chance to place it at the centre of a really easy supper.

Frankly, the only other things you need are new potatoes and fresh peas.

Soak the former briefly in hot water and then crape the skins away to leave them like ivory orbs.

Shell the latter – a load of them.

And that's your prep done.

Peas are one of those rare veg that really are worth eating from the freezer. They have a good taste, they cook quickly, and they offer a welcome bit of variety during the winter.

But good though they undoubtedly are, they're as nothing when compared to fresh ones.

Get some. Pick up a pod. Press the seam so that it cracks apart; spread open and flick the peas out and into a pan or a dish.

Sniff. Go on: have a really good smell of that pod and those peas. It's a wonderfully grassy aroma.

If they're really, really young, the peas are wonderful eaten raw. Pop a few in a salad.

Frozen peas might be pleasingly sweet, but take the time and relish – really relish – the infinitely more complex taste of the fresh version.

There is absolutely nothing that you need to do with them except cook them in boiling, salted water – add a pinch of sugar too – for three to four minutes, depending on how soft you want them.

Drain and serve with good butter.

I found some late-season English asparagus too, so some of that went alongside the peas. And the bacon was cooked for about two and a half minutes a side under a grill that had been set to around 201˚C on my fan oven-grill combination.

The bacon was far from the cheapest available. I could, indeed, get a pack of six Danish rashers from any little shop for around £1.99. But they'll behave just as the ones mentioned earlier – and they'll shrink massively. So in effect, I'd be paying £1.99 for three rashers.

Frankly, it seems far better to pay double that and actually get six rashers that then don't shrink. The so-called cheap version is a false economy. And that's without mentioning the taste.

And then yesterday, I was working from home.

Lunch was just as quick as the previous night's dinner – no: quicker.

A few broad beans were podded and cooked with the remaining asparagus from the previous evening.

The cooking takes all of about four minutes in boiling water – unsalted, because you don't want to harden the beans.

I'd picked up a thin piece of calf's liver (80g in weight) the night before too. That simply went into a pan with some olive oil and was cooked for two minutes on each side.

Removed to the plate, a knob of butter and a good squeeze of lemon juice were added to the pan, swirled into the meat juices, and then poured over meat and vegetables.

The smell was divine – and the taste wasn't bad either.

If you wanted to make it more substantial, then good bread on the side would be perfect – and excellent for mopping up any juices.

Given that it was a lunch of liver and some fava beans, the only thing that was missing was a nice chianti. But since I had some economics to concentrate on in the afternoon, it really was too early in the day!

A spot of midweek cheating

As I mentioned the other day, I was quite ready to cheat a little on my first attempt to make pie. It was only on reading the ingredients of a ready-made pack of pastry that I decided to do otherwise.

But late last week, although I got back to Broadway Market quite early after work, the butcher was closed. My plan for sausages went out of the window – and I certainly wasn’t tempted to revert to my old habit of buying rubbish, mass-produced ones.

Wandering into a general store to buy a couple of odds and ends, and musing over what to put on the menu, the germ of an idea formed.

I picked up some smoked Mattesson’s sausage (not bad on the ingredients front) and two tins of mushy peas. I midweek cheat was in mind.

Back at home, I peeled and chopped a large carrot, a parsnip, the remainder of the swede we’d had with the pie and a hefty potato. All these were then boiled together until nearly cooked.

After being thoroughly drained, they went into a larger pan with the mushy peas. Some boiling water was added and stirred in very carefully to thin down the peas. The sausage was sliced and added, with chopped parsley going in just before it was finished.

This was heated through very gently with the lid on – and then, hey presto!

This was a seriously easy midweek version of the Dutch classic, Erwtensoep, which I’ve been cooking for some years (there are also very similar versions in German cooking, in the UK of course and pretty much throughout northern Europe).

The full version takes some time (restaurant version pictures above, with smoked bacon on rye bread to accompany) – not least because you have to soak the peas for two hours before cooking everything at one go, very slowly.

The proper version also used more than one kind of meat, but in this circumstance, the smoked sausage was enough. My original recipe would have included celeriac and not parsnip and swede. But using those root vegetables together hardly defied culinary logic.

And the parsley, added just near the end, lends a nice little zing to the finished dish.

This was an easy way to use up some veg – and make something hearty, comforting and decently nutritious, and all in quite short order.

Midweek cheating can work!