Red lentil, tomato and orange soup

I am writing this recipe watching ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs’ and eating some mars bar rice crispie, could literally not be more food now if I tried.*

This is my Mum’s recipe. It is one of the most comforting, warmest and most delicious soups on the planet. It is also surprisingly uncomplicated to make.

This recipe gets a bit non-linear. I know that is not so acceptable with recipes and food writing, but it is just how my brain is working at the moment. (I’ve been thinking about Kurt Vonnegut a lot lately).

Serves probably 6

Ingredients

225g red lentils

1 large carrot, sliced

1 onion, sliced

1 tbsp olive oil

1 or 2 garlic cloves, crushed or chopped

1 can chopped tomatoes

1 orange

400ml veg stock (you might need to add more water)

salt and pepper

goes really well with a crunchy garlic-y crouton

Method

Peel the orange with a vegetable peeler. take care when doing this as oranges are strange things to peel, and so some finger stabbing/peeling may occur (it is worth it though). Use a pointy-ish teaspoon or similar implement to scrape the white pith out of the back of the orange peel. This is the only tedious bit of this recipe, and in the right frame of mind, it can be oddly satisfying. Juice the orange and save the juice for later.

In a large saucepan, heat the oil and lightly fry the onion slices. If you start this off before you start scraping the orange peel pith, then by the time you are done, the onions should be lightly browned, and ready to go. Add the garlic when you are about halfway through the orange peel.

Add the rest of the ingredients (except the salt and pepper), bring to the boil, cover and simmer for about 30-45 minutes, or until the carrots and lentils are cooked. Check it periodically and add a bit more water if needed.

Add the orange juice, blitz the soup, and season to taste.

*of course one can always be more foodie

Roasted leeks with walnuts, yogurt and tarragon

Because she is wonderful, when my flatmate Shana came back from her last trip to the States, she brought back some cooking magazines for me to flick through, and I found ideas that inspired this recipe. American cooking magazines are so much fun, British ones look like dowdy sensible aunties in comparison.

I had never cooked leeks in this way before. They had always been a hidden ingredient in something else, and never the main element of a dish. This recipe really makes leeks shine, they are sweet and oniony and delicious.

This would make a brilliant starter or side for two people (increase quantities as needed)

Ingredients

3 leeks

1 tbsp olive oil

Sea salt

15g walnuts

75g natural yogurt

2 tsp extra virgin olive oil

Zest of 1 lemon

Approx. 2 tsp chopped fresh tarragon

Method

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees

Clean and trim the leeks, and cut them in half lengthways. A clever thing to do (which of course I forgot), would be to keep the stem of the leek, to stop them falling apart when you cut them open.

Arrange the leeks on a baking tray, drizzle them with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Roast them for 20-25 minutes, turning occasionally, until softened with some delicious roasty dark bits.

While the leeks are roasting, toast the walnuts in a dry frying pan (or put them in the oven), until they are fragrant and a bit charred in places. Let them cool and brush off any burnt skin with your fingers. Toasting really transforms the flavour of the walnuts so don’t miss this step out. Crumble up a few of them for the artful garnish later.

Make the yogurt dressing by mixing together the yogurt with 2 tsp of extra virgin olive oil, lemon zest, tarragon and a pinch of salt. Save a little of the tarragon for the artful garnish later.

To serve, arrange the luscious, roasted leeks on a serving plate, and use a grater to grate some of the toasted walnuts all over them. This might seem a bit odd, but it works really well.* Drizzle with the yogurt dressing and garnish with the reserved artful garnishes - tarragon, and crumbled walnuts.

*It was a bit of a revelation actually, as it is so hard to find vegetarian parmesan. 

Lentil and chestnut soup

For the past few months I have been followed around by really perfect pulse and chestnut soups. My stalkers tend to be inanimate – I was once stalked by a £10 note.

The first time I encountered a perfect pulse and chestnut soup was in Italy on Silvia Nacamulli’s fabulous cookery course (see here for more superlatives). It was a chickpea and chestnut soup, flavoured with garlic and rosemary, and it was astounding. I had never experienced so much flavour coming from a bit of lumpy broth before. I tried to recreate it when I got back home, but it just wasn’t the same.

The second time I encountered a perfect pulse and chestnut soup was at my work’s Christmas lunch at a fabulous gastro-pub called the Anglesea Arms in Hammersmith. It was a lentil and chestnut soup, thick and dark, butter-rich, and swirled with buttermilk and herb oil.

With these two perfect pulse and chestnut soups now inspiring me, I set out to try and create something on my own. So here is my version. It is thick and rich, and although it is long past Christmas, while it keeps raining like this I’m sure that hearty soups will stay welcome.

Ingredients

275g brown lentils – approx 1 and a half cups.

250g peeled chestnuts, not frozen. 

1-2 tbsp olive oil 

1 onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, crushed

2 sprigs rosemary

1 carrot, peeled and diced

vegetable stock cube

salt and black pepper

To serve:

yogurt or crème fraîche in fancy swirls or drizzles

olive oil

toasted pine nuts, pumpkin seeds or almonds

sherry vinegar, a few drops

Makes about 8 servings

Method

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan, add the onion, carrots and rosemary and fry on a medium until the onion is golden and the rosemary fragrant. Be patient, it might take a while. Add the garlic and fry for a few minutes more.

Add the lentils, chestnuts, and carrot bits, together with the vegetable stock dissolved in one litre of hot water. You will need more water, but I find it better to just top it up as needed, as opposed to putting too much in to begin with.

Bring the soup to the boil, put the lid on and simmer for about 40 minutes until the lentils are soft. Add more water as needed.

Remove the rosemary stalks, add some salt and pepper and blend with a hand blender until more or less smooth, with a  few lentil-y lumps. Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed. 

Please note that this soup needs a bit of developing time – it tastes much better if made ahead of time and reheated than fresh.

Serve with all or some of the suggested serving flourishes.

Accompany, as I did (on all pulse and chestnut soup occasions), with a lot of wine.

Aubergine, butternut squash and chestnut tagine

Adapted from http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/vegetarian/aubergine-and-chestnut-tagine-with-herb-couscous-recipe

So you probably know by now that I have a pretty serious cookbook-buying habit. Three years on and it doesn’t seem to be abating. I have decided to embrace it, and call myself a collector.

I think I get the cookbook obsession from my Mum – there is an enormous bookcase devoted to cookbooks in her kitchen (you can see it in the background of my profile picture) and its contents have always fascinated me. One of the best things in the bookcase was a very tattered ring binder containing thirty-odd years of recipes torn out of magazines, or copied onto scraps of paper. It is completely full and scraps of paper, crunchy from old sellotape or pritt-stick, fall out whenever anyone opens it.

I started with my own recipe folder about five years ago, hoping that I could create something like it, but pretty much forgot about it when I started this blog. I picked up the recipe binder a few weeks ago, and flicking through it I found this recipe. I can’t remember the context of why I printed it in the first place, but it sounded so good I just had to try it out. Rich and warming, this is a perfect vegan stew for this time of year. It doesn’t taste quite as authentic as my previous tagine recipe, but it is much less work.

Ingredients

1 tbsp ground coriander

2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground turmeric

1 tsp ground cinnamon

3 tbsp olive oil

1 red onion, diced not too fine

2 crumbled dried chillies

3 garlic cloves, crushed

About 4 dates, pitted and finely chopped

2-3cm lump fresh ginger, grated or finely diced

2 small-medium aubergines, diced relatively unevenly, between 2 and 4 cm

1 smallish butternut squash, deseeded and cut into similar pieces to the aubergine

200g pack cooked, peeled chestnuts (not the frozen kind)

2 cans chopped tomatoes

2 small preserved lemons, skin only, finely chopped (optional)

Handful each chopped fresh mint, parsley and coriander, plus extra to garnish

Juice of 1 lemon

Salt and pepper

Method

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the onion and fry for about 5 minutes. Then add the spices, chillies, garlic, dates and ginger and fry for a further 5 minutes, until the onion is softened and everything is starting to break down and get really fragrant.

Add the aubergines, squash and chestnuts and stir to coat in the spices. Add 100ml water, the tomatoes, and preserved lemon if using, put a lid on the pan and bring to the boil. Once boiling turn the heat down and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 25 minutes, until the veggies are soft.

Taste and season with salt and pepper, and stir in the fresh lemon juice and herbs when ready to serve.

Would go very well with this couscous dish, and Moroccan carrot salad.

Puy lentils with cherries, spinach and blue cheese

This is another recipe adapted from the fantastic Ottolenghi cookbook. I have cooked more from this book than any other cookbook I own.

Lentils, cherries and blue cheese might sound like a bit of an odd combination, but it really works. I first made this dish mainly because I was curious as to how the flavours would work together and had all the ingredients to hand, and I was completely blown away by how yummy it was. Sweet, salty and rich, it would make a lovely starter for a seasonal posh dinner, or a really fabulous lunch.

Serves 2, 4 if serving as a starter

Ingredients:

125g puy lentils, or 1 can of ready cooked

2-3 shallots, or half a small onion, finely chopped

2 tbsp olive oil

3 tbsp water

1 tsp caster sugar

60g dried cherries (I used dried morello cherries)

50ml red wine vinegar

80g fresh spinach

About 120g blue cheese (it is a strong flavour so just add as much as you fancy. The recipe specifies gorgonzola, but I used blue stilton)

Salt and black pepper

If you need to cook the lentils, wash them and then boil them in a lot of water with a couple of bay leaves for about 20 minutes, until they are cooked but al dente.

To make the sauce, heat the olive oil in a saucepan, add the shallots and sauté over a low heat for about 10 minutes, until softened and golden. Add the water, sugar, cherries and vinegar, and simmer for another 10 minutes.

Drain the lentils (either from saucepan or can) and add them to the cherry sauce, stir, and if using ready cooked lentils, warm them up in the sauce. Add the spinach and keep the heat on until it wilts. Taste and season with salt and pepper (not too much salt as the cheese is quite salty).

Serve warm or at room temperature, with a little raw spinach and the blue cheese crumbled over the top.

How to make brussel sprouts amazing

I have got to thank Alli for introducing me to this, and adding a new vegetable to my diet.

Before I was introduced to the concept of roasting brussel sprouts like this, I genuinely couldn’t see the point of them, other than wrapping them in empty Ferrero Rocher wrappers and then giving them to annoying people. I also couldn’t understand why everyone seemed to be eating them at this time of year when no-one seems to like them.

Brussel sprouts

Olive oil

Salt – preferably coarsely ground sea salt

Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees centigrade.

Prepare the sprouts but cutting off a bit of the base and then peeling away their leaves until they look clean and a lot less manky.

Slice the sprouts in half through the base. Put them on a baking sheet or roasting dish (in a single layer), toss them with a glug of olive oil and sprinkle with salt.

Roast for 15-20 minutes giving the tray a bit of a shake halfway through. When ready they will be brown and crunchy in places, sweet, juicy and unbelievably delicious.

 Serve the sprouts as a side dish, or add them to other roasted veggies to make a warm salad.

Roasted butternut squash and brussel sprout salad with red onion, spinach and toasted pumpkin seeds

You could also fry them with lots of butter and chestnuts, which is very nice too.

Lemon and lime ice cream pavlova

Here is another recipe adapted from Evelyn Rose, this time from ‘New Jewish Cuisine’ – new as in written in 1988.  She is a bit like the ‘Delia Smith of Jewish cooking’ not necessarily all that interesting, but the recipes always work. One of my earliest posts is one of her recipes – A chicken pie to unify and lead the Jewish people, and I wrote then that I didn’t get on with her writing style and found the recipe difficult to follow. This time I definitely found it easier – maybe I have leant more about cooking and following recipes in the two years since that post, or maybe I am just more intuitively tuned to desserts. Probably a bit of both to be honest.

As long as I can remember, this dessert (originally known as lemon shaum) has been on of the ultimate special occasion desserts, made by both my Mum and Grandmother, and loved by all. As I have said previously, I am so blessed and privileged to come from such a rich food heritage: most of my earliest memories are of the dishes cooked by my grandmothers and great-grandparents – roasted duck, fried fish, split pea soup, chicken soup with kneidelach, lemon meringue pie, apple pie, and the best chocolate mousse on the planet. So when the family came together to celebrate my maternal grandparents’ diamond wedding anniversary, I really wanted to make them a special dessert.

I’m the one in the top right hand corner flashing their knickers – as my Mum said ‘see, even then you were an exhibitionist.’

The pavlova is incredibly light, with an almost foamy or marshmallowy texture in the middle. Originally this recipe is just with lemon, but we tried it with lime too once, and never looked back.

It is very sweet, but the lemon and lime cut through it and make it incredibly refreshing and not stodgy at all. It is great dish for any kind of dinner party as it can be made well in advance, and its rectangular shape means that it is easier to slice and portion than a traditional round pavlova.

If you are celebrating Rosh Hashanna (Jewish New Year) this week, this would make an ideal dessert at a festive meal, especially due to the hot weather forecasted.

Special thanks go to my Mum, both for teaching me how to cook, and for helping me with this dessert and providing the freezer space.

Ingredients

For the meringue:

4 egg whites

¼ tsp cream of tartar

225g (1 cup) caster sugar

2 level tsp cornflour (mix the cornflour into the caster sugar)

(I know this seems like a high number of ingredients for a meringue, but don’t skip any out. The meringue needs to be really sturdy to survive the freezer intact)

For the ice cream:

4 egg yolks

125g (½ cup) caster sugar

3 tbsp fresh lemon juice

3 tbsp fresh lime juice

Grated zest of 1 lemon

Grated zest of 1 lime

275ml (½ pint) double cream or 225ml non-dairy cream

Method

I don’t mean to sound like a GSCE exam invigilator, but really do read all the steps before getting started. Be aware that you will need a lot of freezer space, and it is probably a massive pain in the arse to make if you don’t have access to a freestanding mixer. Sorry about the quality of the photos.

Preheat the oven to 150 c with fan. Line 2 baking trays with grease-proof/baking paper, each piece marked on the reverse with a rectangle drawn 28cm long and 12cm wide. This may seem tedious, but this is a centrepiece dessert, and so really worth making sure that the layers are the same size.

To make the meringue layers:

Whisk the egg whites, sprinkled with the cream of tartar, until they hold stiff, glossy peaks.

Mix together the caster sugar and the cornflour and then add it to the egg white mix, 1 tablespoonful at a time, whisking until stiff again after every addition.

Use a tiny amount of the meringue to 'stick' the baking paper onto the baking tray. Spoon the meringue equally into the two rectangles, and use a fork to even it out.

Put the meringues in the oven, and reduce the temperature to 140c and bake for an hour until the meringues are crisp to the touch and will lift off the paper easily (be very careful when you do this, it is fragile).

To make the ice cream filling:

Start this as soon as the meringue goes into the oven.

Put the yolks and sugar into a saucepan – stir until creamy, and then add the citrus juices and zest. Cook over a gentle heat, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens. Take it off the heat and stir for a further minute, and then pour it into a bowl and refrigerate until completely cool. This will take about half an hour.

Whisk the cream until it stands in soft peaks, and then beat in the cold lemon custard/curd, one tablespoon at a time until completely amalgamated into the cream.

On a tray, spread out a piece of foil large enough to cover the entire pavlova. Place one rectangle of meringue on it, spread the filling evenly over the whole thing, and then lay the second meringue on top. Freeze uncovered until solid, and then wrap carefully in foil and keep in the freezer.

Take it out of the freezer about 20 minutes before serving – it should be served semi-frozen, so that the lemon-lime filling has the texture of soft ice cream. You can keep it in the freezer for up to 1 month.

Roasted aubergines with walnut and pomegranate salsa

Adapted from http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/roasted_aubergine_with_99135

A while back there was a TV programme on the BBC about the various fruits and vegetables grow in the UK but underutilised by suppliers and consumers. Either the food item itself wasn’t very popular, or it was just a lot cheaper to grow them overseas. For each episode a famous chef would investigate a particular item, talk to growers and then share some recipes. It was disappointingly dull. One good thing to come out of it though, was this incredible recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi on an episode focused on walnuts. Who would have thought that a half hour television programme about the British walnut growing industry could be boring? I was shocked.

I had never eaten or even seen a pickled walnut before I made this recipe, but I like walnuts, and vinegar, so thought they couldn’t be that scary. Boy was I mistaken. They are icky like how vacuum-packed cooked beetroot is icky – with added layers of ick due to the fact that they look nothing at all like a walnut, but a brown squishy blob thing. But my inner feminist domestic goddess would never be beaten by something as trivial as a pickled walnut, so I ‘ovaried up’ and carried on with the recipe. And it was definitely worth it.

Ingredients

4 medium aubergines

4 tbsp olive oil

Coarse salt (sea salt or I use pink Himalayan rock salt) and freshly ground black pepper

For the salsa:

125g walnuts, chopped

80g or 2 whole pickled walnuts, chopped

2 tsp liquid from the pickled walnuts jar

1 and a half tbsp cider vinegar

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp chopped parsley

The seeds from ½ pomegranate. My insights into de-seeding pomegranates can be seen here.

Method

Preheat the oven to 200c.

Cut both the aubergines in half lengthways through the stalk (its prettier that way). Score the flesh in a criss-cross pattern, being careful not to go through the skin and stab yourself in the hand with a knife.

Oil the cut side of the aubergines. Aubergines can absorb an awful lot of oil. I reckon that the best way to make sure they are coated but don’t absorb too much oil is to pour a little on the baking tray and press the cut side of the aubergine into it for a second or two.

Sprinkle the aubergines with a generous pinch of salt and some freshly ground black pepper. Place on a baking tray, flesh-side up, and roast in the oven for about 40 minutes, or until the flesh is cooked through and turns a dark golden-brown. Leave them in the oven with the oven off and the door closed for at least another 10 minutes.

Make the salsa by mixing all the ingredients together just after you put the aubergines in the oven. I reduced the levels of vinegar from the original recipe, as I wanted it to be a little lighter. Just before you are ready to serve it, taste it and judge if you feel it needs more vinegar.

Serve the aubergines on a big platter slightly warm or at room temperature, with the salsa spooned over the top. If you have any extra parsley and pomegranate seeds you may want to scatter some over the top of the finished dish too.

Tabouleh with Apricots

Tabouleh is one of my favourite salads, and it has been for as long as I can remember. For me, it is magic salad. A friend recently asked on facebook: ‘what food when you eat it today takes you back to your childhood?’ My immediate response was Spaghetti Hoops, but actually, it is tabouleh, known to my childhood self as ‘magic salad.’ When you are little, I guess absorption is a bit hard to comprehend. Even though I now understand that the water covering the bulgur wheat doesn’t magically disappear, the associations of excitement and wonder remain.

As they say in Jerusalem, ‘If you want to find a good husband, you’d better learn how to chop your parsley properly.’

Tabouleh is all about the parsley.  I cook with a lot of parsley, obviously I am just trying to perfect the chopping method. Traditionally tabouleh is mostly herbs with a little bulgur wheat, but my recipe is more similar to my mother’s, which uses a higher ratio of bulgur wheat. This makes the salad a little more substantial and a little less time-consuming (the herbs take ages to pick and shred properly). Also like my mother and unlike the Ottolenghi/ Tamimi recipe, I don’t put any spices in the tabouleh. I use spices in most of my cooking, so it is nice to have a side salad that is really fresh-tasting, to balance with the rest of the meal.

Dried apricot and spring onion tabouleh, serves 6 - 8

Ingredients:

150g bulgur wheat

1-2 cloves of garlic (depending on your social plans for the rest of the day), crushed

Big punch of fresh parsley, about 100 - 150g, leaves picked and chopped (a little stalk is fine)

Fresh mint, about half a small pack 15 – 20g, leaves picked and chopped

3-4 spring onions, finely sliced (greens as well as white)

handful of dried apricots, diced (I buy these ready-diced. It costs the same and they are coated in a little rice flour so that they don’t stick to anything)

2 – 3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

juice of half a lemon, more if you want

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Put the bulgur wheat in a heatproof bowl and cover with boiling water as if you were making couscous. Leave for about 10 minutes until most of the water is absorbed and the bulgur wheat is cooked but still al dente. Drain off the excess water and while the bulgur wheat is still warm, add the garlic and olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. Mix in the other ingredients – adding extra lemon juice and olive oil if you want to. Tabouleh gets better over time, and I normally leave it for a day before digging in.

Variations:

Cucumber and tomato (finely diced)

Pomegranate, red onion and crispy fried shallots

Jerusalem Artichoke Gratin with Thyme

This is another recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s excellent vegetarian cookbook Veg Everyday! 515 five star reviews on Amazon can’t be wrong.

‘Sunday mornings’ are a relatively new concept to me (it used to be that they were slept through), and they are becoming my favourite thing. Every few months or so, I meet up with some friends very early on a Sunday morning and we walk down to Queens Park for an enormous breakfast and a visit to Queens Park Farmers' Market. The market is fantastic, a great source for interesting and excellent quality vegetables, artisan cheese and baked things, fresh fish and meat. Best of all though, is being able to talk to the suppliers about their produce.

The London Farmers’ Market website is great for telling you where you local market is. It handily tells you what is in season too. Currently it is Rhubarb, purple-sprouting broccoli, and Jerusalem artichokes. Have a look at their excellent SayNay campaign, in response to latest foodie scandals – urging people to eat traceable meat from trusted suppliers. While I haven’t bought any of the meat at the farmers' market as it isn’t kosher, the meat stalls always intrigue me – even I, of little experience with cooking meat could see how brilliant it looked.

At my most recent visit to Queens Park Farmers’ Market, I got a little carried away - I bought apple and pear juice, fresh goat’s cheese rolled in a lemon-pepper crumb, sorrel (recipe coming soon), and a big bag of Jerusalem Artichokes. I love Jerusalem artichokes – they can be pretty hard to find but as they are in season now all of the growers at the market seemed to have them. They taste like globe artichoke hearts but look more like a knobbly potato. I have had them before roasted (quite good) and in soups (totally amazing), but this time I wanted to try something different. And who can resist a gratin? This was really delicious, and very straightforward to make. To be honest, the only tricky thing is peeling the artichokes without hacking off too much of the vegetable. Be warned – this dish is incredibly rich, even after I omitted all of the butter. Whatever you do, and however much you want to, don’t have seconds, trust me – you will regret it.

You will need a large frying pan with a lid that can also go under the grill.

Serves 4

1 tbsp olive oil

1 large onion, sliced not too thin

500g Jerusalem artichokes, peeled and cut into roughly 3mm slices

About a handful of thyme – leaves only

100ml water

2-4 tbsp crème fraîche (depending on how rich/creamy you want it)

A handful of grated cheddar or other well-flavoured melting cheese, to sprinkle on the top

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat, add the onion and lightly fry for about 10 minutes, until soft and beginning to colour.

Add the artichokes, thyme and the water, season and when it begins to bubble, cover the pan and turn the heat down low. Let the artichokes simmer for about 20 minutes until they are tender, stirring occasionally and adding a little more water if needed. [Pre-heat the grill when there is about five minutes left on this time]. Remove the lid and turn the heat up, simmering for a few minutes more if necessary to reduce the liquid to a thick glaze.

Taste the artichokes and adjust the seasoning if needed. Stir through the crème fraîche, scatter with cheese and grill for a few minutes until the gratin is bubbling. Luxury.

I served this with a filet of salmon, baked in a parcel of foil with some halved cherry tomatoes and few anchovy fillets draped over the top.  

Chestnut, mushroom & onion pie

Recipe adapted from ukshallot.com

If the world doesn’t end tomorrow, I recommend that you try this out at some point. I think it might be, along with the sausage and apple hot pot one of the most grown-up things I have ever made. It is rich and perfect for winter, one of those vegetarian recipes that really does tick all the ‘depth of flavour’ boxes. Also, as it only uses a small amount of wine – you can drink the rest! If wine isn’t really your thing, I recently discovered that Sainsburys are selling mini bottles of wine, 3 for £5. This is great for if you want to cook with wine but not necessarily open a whole bottle, or just really don’t want to drink a whole bottle.

I know that most of the time I come across as quite a confident cook, but in reality I’m really not. In theory I know how to make most things because I watch so much cooking television, but no matter how many hours of ‘Great British Bake Off’, I still can’t pluck up the courage to make my own bread or pastry. It’s weird really because cake and macaroons hold no fear for me. I think that I just don’t trust/understand the alchemy that is yeast, and have nightmares about the dreaded ‘soggy bottom.’ I’m a bit of a scaredy-cat really – I stopped riding my bike aged seven because I didn’t like how it went faster going downhill, and don’t even get me started on ice skating or cable-cars. What this means, is that in terms of baking, my fear of pastry even spread to the ready-made frozen stuff, and this was in fact the first time I have used it. Now I don’t normally own up to this sort of thing, but I feel that I need to tell you, because the photograph of the little pies doesn’t look so brilliant. It’s all a learning curve I suppose, and they tasted amazing anyway.

Ingredients (makes enough for 6-8 small pies, 1 big one or a stew for approx. 4 people)

200g cooked chestnuts (such as Merchant Gourmet vacuum packed)

2 bay leaves

1 sprig fresh rosemary

200ml red wine

300ml vegetable stock

25g butter (I don’t normally cook with butter, but it really makes this dish - can use vegan margarine)

1tbsp olive oil

12 shallots or baby onions, peeled & cut in half

400g chestnut mushrooms, cut into quarters

2 tbsp Beurre Manie (1 tbsp flour mixed to a paste with 1 tbsp softened butter/marg– I used a microwave to help this process)

2 tsp (not heaped) Dijon mustard

2 tbsp flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 sheets of puff pastry (some ready made pastry in supermarkets is actually vegan)

Method

Melt the butter in a frying pan, add the olive oil to stop it burning and fry the onions until slightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms, bay leaves and rosemary and cook for a further 4-5 minutes.  

Add the chestnuts, red wine and vegetable stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20-30 minutes until the onions are soft, stirring occasionally.

Add the beurre manie, stirring constantly until is dissolves, and cook for a further 5 minutes until the sauce is thickened.

Stir in the mustard and flat leaf parsley and season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

If serving this as a stew, you can serve it immediately or reheat – it reheats really well, but does get a little too thick if left on a low heat for a long period of time.

If making this into pastry, let the mixture cool down completely (information I know thanks to the ‘wellington’ challenge on Great British Bake Off). I tried some small squares of pastry into triangles, and some larger rectangles of pastry into squares. Whatever shape you do, you will get about 4 from each sheet of pastry.

Dollop a spoonful of the mushroom mixture into the pastry, being careful not to go to the edges (I failed). Fold the pastry over carefully to create your desired shape, and crimp the edges closed with a fork.

Brush the pastries with a little milk and bake in a pre-heated oven (180-200c) for roughly 25 minutes or until puffed and golden.

not the prettiest, but tasted amazing