Nigella Lawson

Forever Summer by Nigella Lawson

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Cookbook Challenge Part 12

I am not very good at winter. I don’t like cold, or damp, or dark evenings and I miss green leaves and colourful flowers and bare feet. At the point when I finally had to admit that summer was really over, this felt like a good book to revisit. As soon as I opened it I wondered why I hadn’t thought of going back to it before – every picture is glowing with light and colour and promises of summer flavours. The blurb says, ‘Forever Summer is all about how to prolong that lazy, warm summer feeling through the darker days of winter’. That’s enough to convince me.

This time I chose a three-course dinner, partly because we had a guest but also because this starter sounded so good that I just really needed to try it. It’s baked ricotta with grilled radicchio.

I used red chicory, which according to Wikipedia is the same thing as radicchio. On Ocado however, radicchio was about three times as expensive, making that decision very easy.

You beat the ricotta with egg whites before baking it with thyme and lemon zest, so it makes a sort of savoury cheesecake. In fact, the appearance reminded me of the cheesecake I made some time ago for cookbook number 3 https://bexknits.wordpress.com/2019/03/17/ottolenghi-simple/

It didn’t taste similar of course – both recipes included thyme, but the effect was completely different. The baked cheese tasted fantastic! It was intensely savoury but slightly tangy and not too heavy.

The grilled chicory we will put down as ‘interesting’. It was a good contrast to the cheese, and the oil, herbs and lemon took away some of the bitterness. My husband, older son and our dinner guest thought it was OK, but it was too strong for me and my equally bitter- sensitive younger son. If I did this again I would just go with a green salad.

The main course was sea bass with saffron, sherry and pine nuts. I liked the idea of using sultanas with fish, which I don’t think I’ve done before. I bought the fish ready filleted, but I did have to skin it, hence the sharp knife. Apart from the fish- skinning this was really easy, although the fish did fall apart a bit when I lifted it out of the frying pan.

Here’s the sherry I used. It has a lovely slightly nutty flavour and I found it was perfect for sipping whilst cooking.

I served this with basmati rice as suggested, but not the lentils which would have been too much as part of a three course meal I think. We just had some broccoli on the side.

It was quite a nice golden colour, but you can’t really see it well here. I should have put it against a blue background as they did for the book. New blue plates needed!

Everyone liked this one. It had a delicate, slightly exotic flavour and the sultanas balanced the earthy saffron taste. It definitely needed the crunchy pine nuts for contrast.

And now dessert, which I had to make earlier in the day as you can’t rush a meringue. This is a chocolate raspberry pavlova and those three words were all the encouragement I needed to make this.

The meringue contains cocoa powder and dark chocolate which needed to be finely chopped. I used the mezzaluna which I usually chop herbs with and that worked quite well, apart from the odd chocolate splinter flying across the kitchen. It’s from Nigella’s kitchenware range as well, so it seemed appropriate to use it here.

The recipe requires six egg whites and I also needed another two for the ricotta, so I bought a carton which was much more convenient than having eight leftover yolks.

The cooled meringue was so light and fragile that it cracked very easily when I transferred it to a plate (with the Bake Off move in which you turn the plate upside down and look scared). The one in the book looks cracked too, so I’m sure it’s fine. I also overwhipped the cream because I still forget how powerful my Kenwood Chef is and I forgot to sprinkle grated chocolate over the top.

None of that mattered though, because this tasted incredible. The meringue was so light and crisp and dotted with little pieces of chocolate that melted in the mouth. The raspberries were just tangy enough to stop the whole thing being too sweet and sickly. Possibly the best dessert yet.

In all a very successful meal. Did it make me feel summery? I’m not sure, but it certainly made me happy.

Cookbook Challenge Part 4: Nigella Express

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This Saturday we were busy visiting the University of Bolton. It’s hard to believe my eldest son is looking at universities already! We didn’t get home until 5pm, so I had already planned a quick menu.

I decided to make “Curry in a Hurry” which certainly sounded appropriate. I actually wanted to make a prawn and mango curry – I’ve had it before and it’s delicious, however my sons have an irrational dislike of sweet potato and butternut squash which are key ingredients in that recipe, so I tried this one instead.

This is a Thai green curry and is supposed to use chicken. I don’t eat chicken, so I replaced some of it with Quorn chunks, which are OK and at least everyone in the family will eat them. I also used another meat replacement: jackfruit – often used as a vegan alternative to pulled pork. You can’t buy it fresh here, it comes in a tin like this:

I used forks to shred the pieces of fruit and it did vaguely resemble shredded chicken. It doesn’t taste meaty at all, just slightly acidic and salty from the brine it’s canned in, but it soaks up flavours from whatever sauce it’s cooked in.

Apart from the extra task of shredding jackfruit that I gave myself, this recipe is really easy as it uses bought curry paste and frozen vegetables. It’s more of a suggestion than a recipe in fact, but it is still useful to have reminders of shortcuts like using chopped spring onions instead of peeling and chopping a big onion and using wok oil to add extra flavour with no effort.

It was very tasty and the coconut milk made it rich and filling. It went down well and the jackfruit was quite successful with no complaints about the unusual bits in the curry.

Curry in a hurry served with basmati rice
And Riesling which is supposed to pair well with Thai food

Dessert was a cherry clafoutis. I’ve had clafoutis before in restaurants, but never made it myself. It usually takes quite a long time to cook, but this is a shortcut version with a short ingredients list and short cooking time.

All I had to do was mix up a quick batter in the Kenwood Chef and stir in some ready prepared cherries. I added Kirsch as suggested, mainly because I’ve never used it before. Let me know if you have any suggestions for using up the rest of the bottle! It was worth using though, it soaked into the cherries and made the whole dessert taste a bit more luxurious,

I overbaked this a bit. I keep forgetting that I should reduce the temperature for my fan oven and I forgot to check on it while I was cooking the curry. Still, you live and learn, which was one of the aims of this challenge and it tasted good anyway. We had it with single cream, although actually I think creme fraiche would have been better.

(Update: we had the cold leftovers with cream the next day and that tasted even better.)

Not a bad meal at all considering it only took about an hour to make.

Nigella Express

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Not the best photo as the cover is quite battered!

This weekend we’ll be busy, so I’m turning to an old favourite from Nigella Lawson. Nigella will feature several times in this challenge, but this seems like the right time for Nigella Express.

The book was published in 2007 when I had two small children and a fairly demanding job, so anything with the subtitle “Good Food Fast” was always going to be appealing. There was a TV series too of course, with Nigella dashing home and showing us all kinds of short cuts to host a quick dinner party on a Wednesday night. I’m sure there was an episode which involved her doing some meal preparation with her coat on because she couldn’t even be bothered to take it off. That may sound silly, but I really have come home after working and picking up the children and by the time I’d got them inside, helped them get their coats and shoes off and got them a drink or whatever, then actually taking off my own coat and hanging it up really did seem a step too far. Anyway, I loved watching this on TV, especially the section at the end which involved Nigella coming down to the fridge in her dressing gown to finish up some leftovers.

I don’t think I ever did host a Wednesday night dinner party, but I know there were several recipes in here that saved us from yet another dish of stir fry or pasta in sauce. I’m looking forward to revisiting this.