rabbit with morcilla and chocolate

Morcilla and chocolate rabbit with a fluffy mash tail

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Conejo En Salsa De Chocolate Con Morcilla

This is a recipe which perfectly chimes with the Easter theme for me –  a chocolate rabbit –  although I actually cooked this in November last year. I found the recipe online when I was trying to pair up rabbit and morcilla (Spanish black pudding) after I found I was in possession of both elements. I believe it originally featured in “The Art of South American Cooking,” by Felipe Rojas-Lombardi, and was republished by Jayne Benet writing in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1992. It’s absolutely fantastic! Read more

It’s my party and I’ll fry if I want to…

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The Ulster Fry is the national dish of Northern Ireland. It must never be referred to as a ‘fry-up’, but can be affectionately called a ‘heart-attack on a plate’ instead. It varies from the Full English by the judicious addition of soda bread and potato farls fried to golden crispness and a soft fluffy pancake to soak up the oozing yolk of a fried egg. The sausage can be beef or pork and it can be served with either black or white pudding if to your taste. No matter which way you serve it, an proper Ulster Fry is a vast plate of fried heaven that will keep even the biggest appetite sated all day.

I only eat a real Ulster Fry about once a year on my annual pilgrimage home. Anymore than that might kill me, but it’s also because there’s something special about a fry cooked by yer mammy. It always tastes that little bit better for that. Of course the other reason I don’t eat a fry too often is that it’s difficult for me to get my hands on potato or soda bread easily. Some branches of Marks and Spencer and Waitrose stock speciality Irish breads, but sadly I don’t live near any of them. Instead I stockpile farls brought by visitors from Belfast and save them for hungover days that need grease to get through them.

This St Patrick’s Day, fresh as a daisy from the fact it fell on a Wednesday and no one else wanted to celebrate on a school night, I have decided to take advantage of my clear head and happy liver and make my own potato bread and soda bread for a proper homemade fry. It will be delicious, if not slightly inauthentic as I tend to grill the bacon and sausage and don’t fry anything in bacon fat or dripping. It’s almost healthy… Read more

The spud & the scallion gets me champing at the bit

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Thank you for tuning in to Champ TV…

Happy happy joy joy… it’s been far too long since I had a big portion of champ. This is my nod to St Patrick’s Day and Irish cuisine, and a firm family favourite when we were kids.

Champ, or brúitín in the Irish, is mashed potato with scallions and butter. Over the last decade or so I’ve seen increasing references to ‘champed mashed potato’ on menus (alongside colcannon mash, also delicious) and it’s nice to see such a homely favourite crop up in eating places. Back home it was just ‘champ’, but it was often a meal in itself, not just a side order. Indeed it became more a participatory sport than a meal in our household. Not bad for a humble plate of green-flecked mash…

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Tangerine Dream

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I’ve been disappointed by the flavour of small oranges over the last few years. As a kid I used to love the exhilarating combination of sweet and tart juice, an exploding refreshment in every segment. So why oh why is it so hard to find a decent dinky citrus fruit? The market’s overwhelmed by the bland sweetness of satsumas, mandarins and un-named ‘small oranges’ in the supermarkets. But for me the king of the bunch has to be the tangerine.

Small oranges were so much more fun than ‘proper’ oranges: you could peel then more easily, didn’t have to spend ages trying to remove the acrid pith, the segments were much more suited to snaffling in a single mouthful, and you were more likely to dodge a pip in the seed version of Russian Roulette. They were also lunchbox-friendly, tended to end up in the toe of your Christmas stocking as a token healthy concession on a day of chocolate-fuelled gluttony, and came in great string bags.

I think Radio 4’s ‘The Food Programme’ covered the changing trends in orange consumption a few years ago, demonstrating how the public’s taste had grown for sweeter varieties to the detriment of tangy-ier citrus fruit. I was chuffed to find tangerines in Sainsbury’s over Christmas and into the new year as I’d not seen them in shops for years. My stash for this year has now been depleted, with even the slighlty wrinkley and aged ones used for cooking juice, but at least I know I can still get my favourite fun-sized fruit. The future’s bright… the future’s orange!

Curly Girl

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I  have a new love in my life which I just can’t get enough of these days…I have given my heart completely to curly kale!

Despite being a huge fan of dark leafy vegetables, I am a recent convert to the ways of curly kale. This is probably because despite being cheap, nutritious and usually British-grown, it is almost impossible to find in a major supermarket alongside more common brassicas such as broccoli or cabbage. I discovered it when the farmers’ market came to Brixton last year and I have been wondering how I did without it until now…

A large bag of curly kale costs me 90p from the market and lasts up to 3 weeks to the fridge so I am never without a green veg to add to any dish. Unlike spinach it doesn’t shrink to a fraction of the size when cooked thus making it damn good value. It is also more versatile in that it is happy to be cooked either quickly if needed or given the long languorous treatment without losing flavour or colour.

The iron-rich taste of curly kale goes especially well with many of my store cupboard staples such anchovies, chorizo and eggs. I also imagine it would take strong flavours such as chili or mustard well which will all help to steer me away from always seeming to add animal protein for an umami hit with meals.

If you haven’t welcome kale into your life yet, get yourself to the next farmers’ market or farm shop you can and treat yourself to a big health giving bagful as soon as possible while the season lasts. I’m happy to share the love, but you’ll have to get your own shopping bag!