Happily, it also means some of the larger squash are beginning to appear – red kuri/onion squash were on market stalls and in allotments near me this weekend, although I’d counsel that you want to leave them for a while to cure and sweeten.

So yes, mid August is courgettes and tomatoes, with sweetcorn and then squash just round the corner. As if the spread below (captured yesterday) wasn’t enough of a prompt to centre lunch on love apples**, I also found myself with half a loaf of nearly stale sourdough…

… more in just a minute on an inevitable - if atypical - panzenella.

*how is it ‘mid’ already?!

**the French used to call tomatoes “pommes d’armour”… which tbh sounds much better than “love apples”

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Courgettes

Before we get to the panzanella, last week’s conchiglie, chickpea and courgette recipe went down so well that I thought I’d point you to a few more ways to cook up your courgettes.

Start with this old post, which proposes a variety of courgette-centred side dishes.

Per my book On the Side, I think that the best way to cook is to make (or think about making) something interesting from the vegetables you have hanging around, and build out from there. What might’ve been the afterthought becomes the inspiration or the theme for a meal.

In that hyperlinked post are a couple of ideas that’d take (say) your chicken, beef or lamb in an East Asian-ish direction (a courgette and edamame salad with a miso dressing; or charred courgettes over gochujang mayo); and then a couple with more of a mediterranean vibe, such as the tomato and courgette tian pictured above, and fennel seed, dill and lemon braised courgettes below.

If you make a big batch of these braised courgettes, then you could use a mass of them as the base for some thick yoghurt, poached eggs and brown butter. Just a thought. (Watch the video)

I also recommend treating little-to-mid sized courgettes like cucumbers and ‘snake-cutting’ them, before marinading in a soy-tahini-chilli oil dressing and serving along sized numbing Uyghur-style lamb skewers, per this recipe post.

Or a more recent offering in the shape of this basil oil courgette puff tart over on the Guardian Feast App.

Plums

A quick tip of the hat towards August’s plums.

Out of season supermarket plums are one of my pet peeves (hard, flavourless, the very opposite of juicy). But the next two weeks or so offers the best window for genuinely excellent plums - ideally pick them yourself or grab from a proper greengrocer, although you might also get lucky at a supermarket. And if you find yourself with, say, a kilo, scatter with 5 tablespoons of sugar, a couple of very finely diced stem ginger pieces (halve the plums if they’re bigger than a walnut). Roast at 200C fan for around 20 minutes until puffy but still hold their shape. Decant with all juices into a smaller vessel, then refrigerate and enjoy with yoghurt for breakfast over the next few days.

OR make a plum and tarragon puff tart with ginger nut crumble – this recipe is 6 or 7 years old but is still on the Waitrose website, and one of my favourite easy desserts ever, I think.

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Chilli Crisp

You’ll need some chilli crisp for the panzanella recipe. I’ve mentioned this list before, but my favourite brand is Red Panda. Obviously there’s Lao Gan Ma too, the OG (for many of us). Also very much worth a try: Woolf’s Kitchen, and the crispy shallot version of Mama Yu’s chilli oil.

Recipe: Crunchy crouton, mint and chilli crisp panzanella (with cottage cheese)

The stale bread I mentioned at the top shouldn’t really have been stale. I’d bought it only the day before. But its dry, close crumbed state was predictable given it was (a) via Ocado; (b) Gail’s.

In fact I’d wanted it that way, because I had a few crouton-led dishes in mind; and the Gail’s rosemary and potato sourdough is particularly good for that purpose (and no other).

I know that in a traditional panzanella the bread becomes soggy and soft from all the juices, oils and vinegar. But I have a soft (crunchy?) spot for bread that’s just been fried with anchovies and oil and so is crisp-edged and chewy.

Capers, olive oil and red wine vinegar are essential. But rather than basil I went with a handful of flat leaf parsley (only the thickest stems picked away and discarded), and another of chopped fresh mint. Perhaps a slightly offbeat herb to mix with tomatoes, but it works particularly well against the zip, buzz and crunch of crispy chilli oil.

A big, big spoonful of cottage cheese to make it a meal – and to also provide a cool, creamy, tangy respite to the punch of tomatoes and their generous seasoning of fresh herbs, salt and chilli.

Very good. Give it a go.

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We haven’t Tomato Pasta’d for a while, have we?

By ‘We’ and ‘Tomato Pasta’, I mean both that:

1. my family and I haven’t eaten the budget-balancing and ‘shit what’s in the cupboard’ Marcella Hazan-ish tinned tomato life-saver meal for at least two months;

2. and for an even longer period, I haven’t written on here to you about alternative Tomato Pasta solutions.

(Full context: both a tomato pasta recipe; and the Tomato Pasta concept are in this post and you’ll find a whole section of related ideas on the home page of this newsletter)

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Here’s a handful of recipes that caught my eye over the last month. They’re all appealing things to cook / assemble and eat when the weather is balmy. Although I’d take most of them down on a cold and rainy night in Stoke too.

Enjoy

Ed

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Much as I’d like to say “we should all buy our fruit from farms and local greengrocers”*, the truth is, when it comes to British summer berries, it’s impossible to beat the supply chain, chilled displays and ultimately low cost of the big supermarkets. From a consumer perspective at least.

Walk into any moderately-sized supermarket at the moment and you’ll see banks and banks and banks of excellent and cheap strawberries. A few weeks ago much of that space was taken up by cherries. And the real estate will soon be taken over by blackberries. And then not enough of it will be loaded with plums and British apples…

The latter point is for another day.

Today, though, it struck me that very soon the great tasting and keenly-priced cherries will stop decreasing in number and simply be gone, and before you know it the strawberries will turn muted, watery, and less bargainous too.

So right now is the time to celebrate both fruits – via a perfumed, jammy, sweet, occasionally sharp and floral puff tart.

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This pud is incredibly simple to put together: bar a little time spent waiting for strawberries to macerate in sugar and black pepper, and the cherries in sugar and balsamic vinegar, it’s more or less an assembly job.

The flavour combinations are well rehearsed. Although rather than tumbling everything together, I keep the two fruits separate, leaving only the cherries in vinegar, subsequently dotting them across the tart, so their faintly acidic moment acts an exclamation mark, rather than a constant high note. Ground almonds offer a base to soak up cooking juices, avoid a soggy bottom, and a warm, gentle aroma too.

It’s really good – as something to please a table of friends, to take to a barbecue, round off a busy family weekend, or even just be your personal afternoon treat, pudding AND breakfast solution over the next couple of days or so.

You should definitely make it.

*eagle-eyed and elephant memory’d readers will remember I did sort of say that a fortnight ago, but I would distinguish getting your mitts on blackcurrants, gooseberries, redcurrants etc (which really needs to be a pick your own or similar) vs strawberries, raspberries, cherries and blueberries (all of which are served extremely well by the supermarkets).

Chicken salad interlude

The Recipe:

Black pepper strawberry and balsamic cherry puff tart

As mentioned, this is a very simple recipe, although please do note the instructions (and be patient) regarding time spent macerating fruit, and also keeping that puff pastry nice and chilled.

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Gutted for them.

I admit I had been pondering something tenuously ‘It’s Coming Home’ related for these pages. Although had only got as far as the pork belly vindaloo recipe in Crave.

(tbf it is really tasty)

But I’m actually very happy things turned out the way they did – as last night the need to publish something entirely different got the old creative juices flowing very nicely indeed.

I’m not sure yet whether I’m backing Spain or Argentina in Sunday’s final. Will it be a tortilla, jamon and a Basque cheesecake kinda day?

Or a flame-grilled steak and chimichurri occasion?

(This reel is one of the first I made… so is mighty dated, but I absolutely stand by the recipe and message within it.)

In the end I sat on the fence, with something that’s a little bit Spanish, and a little bit Argentinian, reasoning that it’s no bad thing to support both countries – let football (and your food) be the winner, right?

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And so, the Spangentinian dish that thrust its way to the front of my mind involves the spirit of chimichurri (masses of oregano, parsley, red wine vinegar, a tickle of dried chilli) passed through really good, warmed chickpeas; juicy and intense cooking chorizo braised with a splash of white wine; and some sweet and sharp roasted peppers to cut through the rich and savoury flavours.

You could happily enjoy it before The Big Match.

Although, putting timely inspiration aside, this is really just a dish that you should throw together at any moment over the next weeks and months, for no other reason than you fancy something really tasty, simple, and speedy. It’s little more than an assembly of (very) good things: the peppers, like the chickpeas, are tipped from a jar; and the chorizo takes less time and effort to cook than a disappointing ready meal. But also more than the sum of it’s parts.

G’wan,

have a shot

get stuck in

put it on a plate

give it a try – I know you’ll love it.

Recipe: Chimichurri chickpeas and chorizo

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What’s been cooking? (Other than yourself)

First up this week there’s a handful of tenuously related thoughts.

And then we dive into a kilogram of blackcurrants … via recipes for:

1. a blackcurrant shrub;

2. which might then be used in a vinaigrette and a refreshing drink (recipes for each of those too);

3. a big pot of cooked blackcurrants, with a scalable fruit:sugar:water ratio; and

4. a blackcurrant fool.

All the best, Ed

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Pick ‘em yourself

Ten days ago my son and I sped past a ‘pick your own’ sign, screeched to a halt, pulled a uey, drove down country lanes for far longer than the sign suggested, to eventually be greeted by rows and rows of bushes bursting with summer berries, plus an honesty box payment system. Heaven.

We headed first for loganberries, obviously eating at least as much as we boxed (I think that’s the law?).

Much to my delight, my son then eschewed raspberries (“we can buy those in a shop”), and we then went on to pick through the ends of a gooseberry glut, before taking down some bountiful blackcurrant bushes.

Sharp (nay, tart) hyper-seasonal British fruits are basically my favourite thing. To be clear I mean: gooseberries, red currants, blackcurrants and loganberries in early summer (now); Damsons in late summer/early autumn; field rhubarb in spring. And repeat.

Because these fruits grew in abundance in my parents’ garden, I find it near impossible to bring myself to pay through the nose for a tiny, joyless box of them at a London greengrocers (if they’re even available).

We still paid through at least one nostril for the kilos that we brought home. But the chanced-upon experience was a balm, and the happy moment (and hopefully shared) memories with and for my son, priceless.

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A cold and genuinely refreshing drink

I’m finding slightly acidic drinks particularly refreshing at the moment. Not acid as in citric acidic. Just drinks that are intentionally vinegary, or acidic in a fermented yet not alcoholic way. So:

• Kombuchas, obvs (hard to beat Momo - not an Ad, although Hip Pop ginger and yuzu is good and (suspiciously?) well priced).

• More left field is the ‘Pickle’ flavoured sparkling water by Yew. Absolutely genius move – the initial flavour is cucumber water (not unusual), then there’s a tickle of dill pickles, a hint of kombucha, a slightly salty note. Very good. It’s the first ‘flavoured water’ that I’ve met that I’ll buy on repeat.

• And then there are ‘seasonal shrubs’. Various definitions and explanations exist as to what is meant by a shrub. But in essence it’s is an acidulated fruit syrup; the syrup having typically been made by macerating raw, crushed fruit. Mixed with tonic or soda or sparkling water you get the essence of the seasonal fruit, a bracing but not unpleasant acidity, and generally delicious source of hydration.

No waste…

My process when I find myself with a decent quantity (1kg or more) of hyper-seasonal fruit is:

1. Bung it in the fridge, pledging to neither waste time in processing the fruit, nor any of the fruit itself.

2. Return to the fridge 3 days later amazed that time has passed so quickly. Curse. Wash everything, throw away the bits that have already gone to waste. Curse again.

3. Cook it all* up with some sugar – less than most online sources suggest (you can always add but you can’t take away… also, we’re not making jam). (*unless I’ve hived some away to make a shrub)

4. Pledge to use the cooked fruit for something more interesting than just with yogurt and granola as breakfast and pudding.

5. Eat the cooked fruit with yoghurt and granola as breakfast and pudding.

6. After 3 more days, curse, and then freeze the remainder so it doesn’t go to waste.

7. Eat the frozen fruit and syrup like a sorbet. With yoghurt and granola for breakfast and pudding.

You fool

All the these tart fruits (for those not paying attention: loganberries, gooseberries, red currants, blackcurrants, damsons and rhubarb) make an excellent ‘fool’. Which really isn’t wildly different eating those fruits with yoghurt and granola. But is delicious. Whether as a pudding with friends. Or for breakfast on your own.

Blackcurrant shrub

Very easy to make. Lasts for ages (although if you’re like me you’ll consume it quickly. Use this as the base for refreshing drinks and sweet-sharp vinaigrettes (see below for both!).

Makes c.500ml (to then be mixed/diluted)

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Here’s a selection of recipes published in June that I reckon will also suit warm weather menus through July and August. (TBH it’s mostly salads and berries – which I’m sure you’ll agree is not a bad thing.)

Stay cool, and see you next time

Ed

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Are you sick of the ‘what to cook in a heatwave’ emails and columns yet?

This one isn’t totally bucking the trend. But I also recognise that the truth is you probably already have your fall back hot weather meals, and embarking on new ideas and cooking projects, however simple and/or refreshing, will use more energy and require more food shopping than is appealing right now.

Does your fall back involve tomato salad? Me too. Normally just salt and olive oil, with the tomatoes at room temperature. Although I had a ripe, orange-fleshed peach, tarragon, anchovies and capers to hand the other day, and they were very welcome additions.

The ‘room temperature’ tomatoes are an interesting feature. Obviously cooks advise room temperature for tomatoes because they both ripen and taste better when not fridge cold.

But I think there’s a secondary pleasure involved too, on a hot day, when eating food that’s a touch warmer than tepid.

Yes freezer cold pineapple, melon or mango, cherries on ice, cold soups and cold noodle dishes are refreshing …

[side note: this Hiyashi Kitsune (cold udon noodles, sweet tofu, tendashi) from Koya Ko is another dish that really hit the spot this week.]

… but I have a soft spot for stuffed and braised roasted vegetables that have been cooked to the point of sinking, and then are left to rest for a leisurely amount of time – 15, 20, 30 maybe even 40 minutes – but because ‘room temperature’ is so hot, they’re still relatively warm when you eventually tuck into them. Admittedly with chilled rosé and a salad or two nearby. It feels very chic. Very holiday mode.

SO, this week there are two recipes for paid subscribers on this theme.

First, merguez and harissa rice stuffed tomatoes and peppers; and then tuscan sausage ragu stuffed courgettes. Enjoy!

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Got some chicken in the fridge that you haven’t had the energy to cook? Grab a copy of my latest cookbook Peckish. There are loads of summery ideas in there – multiple salads, no effort one tray bakes, BBQ recipes and rubs and more. And you could probably use it as a handheld fan.

Buy Peckish

This week’s recipes

Merguez and harrisa rice-stuffed vegetables

For reasons I cannot fathom, few if any of the British supermarkets sell merguez sausages. However, they (or similarly spiced lamb sausages) are readily available at most butchers, both off and online. I love the gentle heat and bright red juices that drip from them – qualities that are made use of in these quietly fiery, harissa rice-stuffed tomatoes and peppers (in Greece known as ‘gemista’). Serve with basic oven chips (or olive oil-roast potatoe wedges) and a simple green salad, plus an extra dab of harissa for those that want it.

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Two reasons:

The first is easy to explain: life. Just got in the way, didn’t it.

The second I could write about for hours. But in line with the intended brevity of this post aim to keep it tight: I’ve not found the right time to make a version to ‘shoot’. Not the time to coincide cooking and eating with The Good Light for a photo. Not the time when the backdrop is clear for a video. Not the time to break down the process, get the money shot that’ll make an engaging ‘hook’. And certainly not the time to edit all that together into an enticing short film.

God it’s a lot these days, when also it’s just dinner.

So in the end I sacked off that side of things and spent precisely seven minutes and fifty eight seconds assembling the dish that’s now in the oven. And I’ve given myself the 20 minutes of cooking time to write-up the recipe and this intro.

I actually love the visual side of food media. But sometimes (at the moment, often), it’s a bore. And it doesn’t actually have any bearing of what’s meant to be the product: i.e. a delicious dish, a useful recipe.

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The fish bake recipe that we’ll shortly arrive at covers both ‘delicious’ and ‘useful’. I make a version of it often – it’s effectively my go-to whenever I think ‘really ought to get some fish into the family diet’. And also whenever I think ‘we’ve got friends coming over so should cook something that feels as though we’re treating them’.

In all my versions of it there’s a creme fraiche and parmesan (or other gum-recedingly pleasing hard cheese) base; enough fish to feel generous; but also a vegetable to bulk things out – something that either is quickly blanched beforehand so it’s al dente at the same time as the fish is done, or another thing that cooks and sinks and softens just enough over the same period. There are aromatics, too – a fish-friendly fresh herb, mustard, capers – plus bread crumbs for crunch. Two out of ten times the result is at least as appreciated as a classic potato topped, béchamel-laden fish pie that takes 45 minutes to make; and the remaining eight times it knocks that labour of love right out of the park.

A green salad or a nice mix of greens on the side (cooked gem lettuce, green beans, tenderstem broccoli, asparagus etc). Plus your preference of boiled, roast, or flattened and crunchy mini potatoes; potato wedges; or French fries from the freezer (anyone tried the Koffmans version? Superb).

The one that’s coming out of my oven in three minutes (and hopefully yours soon too)? The fish is combination of smoked and not smoked haddock. The vegetable is (are) cherry tomatoes. The herb is dill. And it’s really good.

Make it, eat it, don’t worry about taking a photo.

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Before we get to the recipe (for paid supporters – join us!), a quick mention for three relatively recently published cookbooks:

1. Partly because it’s on point (no photos!), but also because good: But First, Dinner: food for our real lives, by Eleanor Steafel.

2. MEDesque, by Georgina Hayden: lots of lovely photos in this one… but also tonnes of very achievable dishes for busy home cooks who still also enjoy good food.

3. Cooking with Sausages, by Max Halley: right up my street in terms of a single subject cookbook that’ll actually be really useful for weeknight meals. Divided into dishes involving snags, straight up. And then others that make the most of that meat.

4. Oh go on then, one more: Peckish, by me. Over 80 ideas for using the chicken that you put in your shopping basket each week. Currently it’s the cost of a couple of pints in the sunshine/a bottle of wine/your share of court hire for a game of padel (doubles)/an overpriced City salad/a small plate in your local wine bar.

Haddock, cherry tomato and dill fish bake

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The (in)offending item was this pickle and cream cheese roll made by a Leeds-based bakery, Fold Focacceria. Watch the video. (Although, in short, it’s a roll in the sense of a sausage roll, except the sausage is a massive dill pickle.)

This made me smile a lot.

Partly because I simply like the idea.

But also because it sits right on the knife edge, where on one side is the pit of food that has been formulated for the purpose of grabbing attention. And on the other, is the Good Idea Factory.

Maybe this one did originate because of ‘socials’. But if you watch it through and note the thought process and flavour profiles going on (the cream cheese, the bacon, the cheesy top), you know that this is actually a spark that has been fanned and developed by bakers of good taste. I reckon it works. Chapeau to them.

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I admit that my first thoughts on watching this were to make something inspired by it. Things might well progress on that front, although I’m tending towards an idea that’s porkier, with pickles prevalent but not the main event.

Aside from that potential dish, since watching that videos, cucumber-shaped pickles - cucumber have rarely been far from my mind or cravings. Albeit the size of the cucumber I’m leaning towards has gradually been shrinking, to the point that right now my brain is flooded with cornichons. In combination dairy.

Inevitably, then, the theme for this week’s recipes is pickle (well, cornichon)-shaped.

To fit the theme I wanted to draw your attention to three of my recipes in which cornichons feature as an essential sidekick to the centrepiece:

1. Buttermilk, honey and mustard roast chicken with pickle potatoes;

2. Comte baked onions with charcuterie and cornichons; and

3. A sharing soufflé with lardon and cornichon leaves.

Recipe number one is in my latest cookbook Peckish. If you have that already, then conceivably here is a recipe that you may have missed, but should absolutely scorch to the top of your ‘to make’ list.

The chicken sits overnight in a flavoursome buttermilk (and other good things) marinade, ensuring (a) a really quite remarkable succulence once cooked; AND (b) incredible flavours both through the meat, and in a sauce derived from the marinade plus cooking juices. There’s a distinct cheesiness to the latter, and that goes amazingly with the pickle potatoes.

Go on. Reach for the book / buy the book. Make it.

Buy Crave, Cook Chicken

(Incidentally, if you’re just after the cornichon potatoes, they are not quite the same as but inspired by Anna Jones’ salt and vinegar spuds in her book Easy Wins. Paid supporters can find that extracted in the Archive. )

Recipe two is this beaut, originally from my cookbook Crave, but reproduced below.

It’s simply an assembly of cheese-and-cream-baked onions, cured meats (preferably beef, venison or mutton-based) and cornichons. In a way this is a nod in the direction of Alpine fondue and raclette. But you don’t need to have been skiing to enjoy it. In fact, it’s particularly good when summer is not summering (i.e. now).

Dish three is adapted from a recipe of mine in The Borough Market Cookbook wot i rote.

Intimidating at first thought, but surprisingly simple to make, cheese soufflés make for a lovely weekend lunch or light supper. Although (to my belly at least), they need a little extra on the side in order to feel sated.

Step forward a cornichon, lardon and crunchy-chewy crouton salad. Keep scrolling to access that.

Those two recipes are below – for paid supporters of this newsletter.

Obviously I’d love for you to join the gang. A year’s sub is by far the best value.

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See you next week. And *cough* don’t forget: if you put chicken in the shopping basket every week, and cook the same thing over and over, then take a look at Peckish.

Comté-baked onions with cornichons and air-dried beef

Two to three onion halves and lots of the cheese sauce per person is about right for a light (but also heavy) lunch or supper when matched with (PILES AND PILES) of mini pickles and baby potatoes. You could also add a leafy salad dressed with a sharp vinaigrette as an additional side or chaser.

I think Comté is the best option, cheese-wise, but you could successfully swap in another similarly delicious hard Alpine cheese such as Gruyère, Beaufort, Emmental or Schlossberger (what a name!).

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I hope at least a few of them pique your interest. And that you cook a generous pinch of them as well…

Ed

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Hello again. Here’s that selection of sides I promised in Saturday’s post about barbecuing chicken.

Enjoy it, and see you again soon. Ed

BBQ extras

I actually think the best barbecues are simple, coherent meals that just happen to have been cooked outside over flames or on the hot bars of a gas powered grill. How about grilled quail, copious amounts of romesco sauce and a green salad, for example? (Potatoes of your choosing.)

BUT if you can’t quite break free from the temptation to go overboard, buy all the meat you can see and then make LOADS of side dishes for a help-yourself/buffet style, feast, then the following four part plan should help:

1. Prepare one to max three things that are (a) really easily assembled and (b) can sit without deteriorating while you tend to fire and/or friends (i.e. good versions of a green salad, tomato salad, shaved fennel or slaw etc).

2. Cook just one dish involving charred vegetables, easily assembled or finished while your centrepiece(s) are being flamed, and again, still good if no longer hot (anything involving peppers, courgettes, cauliflower, broccoli, brassica leaves, onions, sweet potatoes, green beans, asparagus and so on).

3. Add a carb (potato salad; roast mini potatoes; fries; lentils; beans from jars; quinoa/spelt/couscous etc). Ideally it’s not too involved a dish to put together.

4. And don’t forget a zippy, dippy thing that will bind a self-served plate of otherwise unconnected items (tsatsiki, a salsa or pesto, romesco, tahini, yoghurty whipped feta and so on).

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Recipes and ideas for each of these categories are provided below.

Keep your eyes peeled for the basil oil and asparagus butter beans: it’s barely any effort, super adaptable (swap asparagus for courgettes, runner/helda beans, anything green, really), and a real winner.

A side note before we get to those sides

There are lots of new barbecue-focused cookbooks flying around at the moment. Melissa Thompson’s Fired Up one from new batch that you should definitely have a look at. Also Helen Graves’ Live Fire, which is not so new but very useful.

If you have a Big Green Egg or Kamado Jo, then James Whetlor’s Cooking on the Big Green Egg is good.

I would also make sure you’re following Meliz Berg on Instagram. Hasan Semay (aka Big Has), as well. Actually, Has has a back catalogue of YouTube videos too. Oh, Helen and Melissa are essential follows as well.

Prepared in advance

Salads, basically. One of those can (in fact, should) be a few green leaves. And then you can go in a number of different directions.

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[The rest of this post is for paid subscribers. Join us!]

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There’ll be two (2) Rocket & Squash emails in your inbox this weekend. Both barbecue themed. This first one is a prompt: to barbecue some chicken over the next few (boiling hot) days. The second will be sent tomorrow (providing there’s a fair wind and not too much rosé) , and will include a load of side dish ideas – also suited to barbecues and al fresco eating.

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How to not suck at cooking chicken on the barbecue

Badly cooked chicken is always in the line of fire when Brits start recommissioning their Webers for summer season. So let’s talk about barbecuing. Or, more specifically, let’s talk how to barbecue chicken well.

Because if those drumsticks and thighs and spatchcocked birds aren’t burnt on the outside and raw within, then they really are an excellent focus for a bit of ‘live fire’ (or hot gas grill) cooking.

The high level advice is the same as can be applied to many a life skill: prepare well; start and continue slowly and gently; and only apply high heat when everythi…

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Oh nope. It’s been the old four seasons in one day trick each day this week; albeit the emphasis has been on autumn and winter.

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Because of the previously dry and generally clement weather, I’d been planning a summery pudding for this week’s post. Or maybe a salad or two.

But I’ve changed tack to match the mercury, and offer instead a luxurious, creamy, quite literally ambrosial stove stop rice pudding; with a rhubarb, strawberry and fennel seed conserve to be lavishly spooned on top.

No doubt this’ll prompt yet another change in the weather. But at least that’d be for the better. In any event, a rice pudding in this vein (essentially a loose, creamy, sweet and sweetly spiced (vanilla and orange peel) risotto) is also pretty damn good when served chilled. Again with some of that rhubarb-strawberry-fennel seed combination on top.

A quick word on the conserve.

Anyone who’s followed me for more than a year or so will know I’m a fan of poached to perfectly pink forced rhubarb.

The sludgier-looking-when-cooked field rhubarb is my first and most enduring rhubarb love, though. Think of it as the late bloomer whose trodden their own path, rather than the precocious and indeed forced prodigy.

Field rhubarb - proper rhubarb - reminds me of the Sunday crumbles and charlottes of my youth. Sharp, confident and characterful, it does need to be balanced with sugar (or honey or syrup) but it has a unique flavour that both stands out amongst anything, but also goes so well with comforting things like butter, bronzed oats, cream, and aromatics such as vanilla, fennel, anise, cardamom and ginger.

On its own it’s right up there among my favourite British ingredients (see also gooseberries, damsons and apples (in September). But yeah, sludgy looking.

If that puts you off, stew it with strawberries, and things turn prettier, sweeter, more floral. And add a little orange, honey and fennel seed? *chef’s kiss*

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This week’s recipe(s) and Cook’s Notes are for paid supporters. So see some of you below the line, and otherwise I’ll see you again next week. Best, Ed.

p.s. you know what tastes great before rice pudding? Chicken. And there’s loads and loads of ideas on that theme in Peckish …

p.p.s. alongside field rhubarb, you’ll be noticing elderflowers in the hedgerows at the moment. Wait for the sunshine to come again (it surely will?). Pick it. Then fry it. All the details here:

The recipe

Rice Pudding with Rhubarb, Strawberry and Fennel Seed Conserve

Make this. You’ll love it.

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I’m going to get straight to it.

It’s my pleasure this week to present you with three recipes from Helen Graham’s debut cookbook, Centrepiece. This is a chef and a book offering something rare: new ideas, new flavour combinations, a break from the tried and tired.

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Some of you will be familiar with the (IMO excellent) London restaurant mini-chain, Bubala (3 sites, Spitalfields, Soho, Kings Cross). If not, it’s modern Middle Eastern, it’s a great place for a group meal, and it’s vegetarian … but no carnivore has ever walked out of there thinking they missed out on a big slab of meat.

Helen was the head chef and originator of much of what came out the kitchens in the first few years. And Centrepiece touches on some of that veg-forward food (ingenious skewers, roast cauliflowers and courgettes and other good things slathered in chilli oils and tahini and, well, other good things). But there’s more of her here. Which in my estimation means a magpie-ing of global (or contemporary London?) flavourings, and a cooking style that’s inquisitive and innovative but also quite chill: meals and dressings are made from scratch, but faff is not entertained.

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Every recipe developer over the last two decades has been guilty of putting ‘their twist’ on a classic dish; adding cardamom to a custard, ground ginger to a Victoria sponge, putting some fennel seed with a fruit or mixing and matching classic carb and protein combos. All nice enough, but not rocket science.

Helen adds tweaks and embellishments that are genuinely creative. There’s a whole roast cauliflower recipe below that’s drenched in tahini and chilli oil; but the tahini is laced with saffron, and the very textured chilli oil includes dried cranberries – for a sweet sharp chew alongside the savoury crunch of frazzled shallots and garlic that I can picture and taste right now as being sensational, and would never have imagined myself. The finished dish is a riot of different aromatics and textures; and a genuine centrepiece.

Another of the recipes that follow is an Earl Grey, halva and vanilla fool, topped with macerated blackberries. The tea is strong and oversteeped into the cream - leading to a deliberate bitterness to balance the saccharine halva, and the acidity in the blackberries. It’s thoughtful. A level beyond copy-paste, ‘just add nduja’, or spin-the-roulette-reel-of-in-vogue-ingredient cooking.

There are other standout dishes the book. Take, for example, the humble hispi cabbage … blanch the leaves … then sit them a puddle of stem ginger syrup and orange flavoured whipped tofu, before spooning bucketloads of a spring onion and ginger oil over the top. Watch this video and appreciate the flavour bomb.

What else? Well, as already hinted, the various skewers are going to the top of my list for the coming barbecue season. And you’ll find all manner of ways to liven up your carrots, sweet potatoes, squash and aubergines; Meera’s quote on the cover is a very apt one.

If you’re a meat and two veg man, repulsed by a long-ish list of ingredients (even if most of them are spices), or get a sweat on when someone mentions harissa or tahini or something else that sits unused in your cupboard, then in all honesty this probably isn’t for you. And that’s fine. But if you like to not just try but embrace new ideas, then I heartily suggest giving Centrepiece a go. You can, of course, try before you buy with the recipes extracted here! (Recipes two & three are for paid supporters - join us?)

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Recipes from Centrepiece, by Helen Graham

Ful Medames, Harissa Roast Tomatoes & Pickled Chilli Salsa

My non-traditional take on this Egyptian dish, usually served at breakfast, but breakfast, lunch or dinner, ful medames has got your back.

Fava beans can be bought in Middle Eastern supermarkets. You can also find dried fava (which you would need to pre-cook) in health food shops; just soak 400g (14oz), as they double in weight after cooking, and reserve 600ml (20fl oz) of the cooking liquid to add to the pot in addition to the 300ml (½ pint) water added later in the recipe.

Serves 6

2 × 400g (14oz) cans of fava beans (or see recipe introduction)

5 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1½ tablespoons ground cumin

5 tablespoons tahini paste

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 teaspoon sweet smoked paprika

300ml (½ pint) water

4 tablespoons lemon juice

olive oil, to serve (optional)

For the harissa roast tomatoes

500g (1lb 2oz) cherry or baby plum tomatoes

2 tablespoons olive oil

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

2 tablespoons harissa

For the pickled chilli salsa

½ red onion, finely chopped

4 tablespoons olive oil

finely grated zest of 1 unwaxed lemon, plus 2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon chopped basil leaves

40g (1½oz) whole pickled chillies, finely chopped

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

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1. Preheat the oven to 180°C fan (400°F), Gas Mark 6.

2. Line a baking tray with nonstick baking paper.

3. For the roast tomatoes, toss the tomatoes together with the oil, salt and harissa in a bowl, then transfer to the lined tray. Roast for 25–30 minutes, tossing halfway through, until jammy and soft.

4. Put the fava beans and their liquid in a saucepan, along with the garlic, cumin, tahini, salt, paprika and measured water. Set over a medium heat, bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Use a potato masher to lightly crush some of the beans while they cook; this will help to thicken the sauce. The texture should have become much thicker, but should also remain loose enough to spoon. Turn off the heat and stir in the lemon juice.

5. To make the salsa, combine all the ingredients in a small bowl and stir to combine.

6. To serve, spoon the warm ful medames into a serving dish and scatter the tomatoes and salsa on top, drizzling over olive oil, if you like.

How to serve

This makes a great side dish, especially good with Harissa Roast Carrots, Mango Labneh & Mint (see page 122). But it is also an amazing stand-alone dish (when it will serve four), or, when served alongside hummus or feta, to be eaten with some lovely flatbreads and lashings of olive oil.

Roast Cauliflower, Saffron Tahini & Cranberry-Chilli Oil

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I don’t recall there being a single ‘April shower’. But I did bookmark a bunch of recipes from the various weekend supplements (and ever-increasing number of weekly email newsletters). As ever, I thought I’d share them with you; I reckon there’s a fistful that should move straight onto the ‘must cook’ list.

Let’s tuck straight in. Enjoy!

Ed

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A Feast

Hard to look past Meera Sodha’s braised aubergines with tofu in The Guardian’s Feast magazine.

Things that locked me into its tractor beam: the mention of fish fragrant aubergines; the really very simple set of ingredients and instructions; and also the introductory line “with spring in the air, I want a dish that’s the equivalent of turning the key in the ignition, firing up the engine and riding off into the sun”.

And also this image…

What else from Feast’s plentiful offering through April?

…

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Yeah, the two recipes I have for you this week are entirely unrelated. Save that I like both and think you should give them a go …

The first is a simple salad – little more than an assembly, really, but notable because:

(a) it’s an interesting (well, kind of) way to make asparagus spears go further. British asparagus season officially started yesterday, 23 April. And while as a son of The World’s Greatest Asparagus Growing Region (the Vale of Evesham) I rejoice in the moment, I also wince at the prices. So, it’s a bit of a fiddle, but try giving them a shave with a speed peeler (I strongly recommend this one); and

(b) I originally made this 5 years ago with smoked salmon as the hero pink thing on the side. But that might well have been one of the last times I ate salmon, as I subsequently became conscious of the salmon industry’s catastrophic environmental impact, and started to query whether eating an apex predator was a clever or sustainable practice. To be honest, I quite miss it: the sockeye salmon that gets labelled as a ‘wild salmon’ option is just not the same, is it; and trout is a treat. I mention all of this because I read an article suggesting that progress is being made towards increasing the volume of onshore salmon farming, which made me thing that might well be something to look out for, label wise. Then again, another recent article noted that sea-caged salmon farming doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. Sad.

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Recipe number two is my spiced chicken wings with hawker-style peanut sauce recipe posted last week on ’s How I Cook. Makes sense to me to give paid subs to this newsletter access to that recipe too (cos: finger-lickingly-good).

That’s it. It’ll be a #Supplemental recipe round-up next week. See you then. (In the meantime, have I mentioned I’ve a new chicken-focused cookbook, called Peckish?? If you put chicken in the shopping basket every week, grab a copy!)

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This week’s recipes

Shaved asparagus and smoked trout platter

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Here, though, things are a little more sedate.

Feeling slightly worn out after a month of launching Peckish (and all the time leading up to it), I took a moment to look back over old blog posts.

It’s very nearly 16 years since I began ‘Rocket & Squash’ – indeed, around this time in 2010 I would’ve been settling on the R&S name (can’t remember the rationale), and working with my brother Oli to design what was definitely one of the most aesthetically pleasing food sites at the time.

Which is slightly bold statement on my part. But also a knowing slight on many of the other food themed (and foodie-run) websites. For 2010 might well have been peak blog. But it was not peak camera phone, nor photo, nor website. Certainly not when it came to photos in and of restaurants.

I decided early on that mine would be prose rather than blurry image based. But still felt the need to lead with an image.

So I began to doodle. Just simple black and white line drawings. But generally they worked well, and I realise now leave me with a gratifying visual archive of 2010s restaurants.

I grabbed 10 from the pack to show today. As it happens, each of the restaurants featured are now closed. Which doesn’t mean they ‘failed’; they’re a mix of trailblazers, pop-ups, much loved restaurants and early iterations of places and restaurant groups that are very much ongoing. The drawings and indeed the places themselves are and were snapshots of a moment in time.

Black Axe Mangal (the one in the middle without a sign), Highbury Corner, N1. Lee and Kate Tiernan’s unique, iconic, anarchic, wood fired restaurant. 2015-2025. RIP.

Monty’s Deli, 227-229 Hoxton Street, N1. Mark Ogus and Owen Barratt’s pastrami and salt beef sandwich shop (and other treats) was open on this site from 2017-2019, although it began in 2012 at Maltby Street Market, and then under the arches on Druid Street, SE1. Bloody miss it. Need to get to Frome (Somerset) for some of Owen’s sausages.

Raw Duck, E8. 2014-2019. Of the Duck Soup restaurant group (see the original site in Soho and also Little Duck the Picklery). I remember when they opened on Richmond Road after their original site next to Hackney Central got unexpectedly demolished(!). v2.0 was sleek and calm, deceptive in its simplicity, big on ferments and heavy on the concrete. Recognise the wavy underside of that counter top? Yes, the site is Pophams now.

The Modern Pantry, 47-48 St John’s Square, EC1. Alright kids, you probably don’t know of this Clerkenwell landmark, nor of The Providores in Marylebone. But they were important – in particular in terms of their influence on Antipodean-ifying our breakfasts and paving the way for small plates to become standard through the 2010s. Anna Hansen was the chef-patron of The Modern Pantry (having worked with Peter Gordon at The Providores). I recall a sugar-cured prawn omelette being a star dish. Also lots of tamarind.

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You might have noticed that in last week’s recipe round-up I mentioned I was in need of greens after two months of living in hotels, Airbnbs and friends homes, fuelled largely (and happily) on rice, noodles, chicken and pork.

On touching down in sunny London I realised that I was also in need of dairy. Specifically double cream and gum-receding-strength cheese.

Satisfaction arrived almost instantly by way of a chard and Parmesan bake; something that once sat on my now archived rocketandsquash.com, but which I’m reviving here. Because it’s worth it.

This is the kind of dish that sometimes gets served as a side … only to outshine the centrepiece.

So while you could plate this next to roast chicken or lamb, perhaps a thick cut pork chop, I think you’d be better off ignoring the meat and just diving straight in.

Some boiled baby potatoes are an excellent accompaniment. You might also add cherry tomatoes, scorched in a pan or blasted in the oven with a glug of olive oil, sprinkle of salt and sugar and a dash of vinegar, until they’re blistered and sinking. Alternatively, some warm bread and (after the greens and their sauce are gone) a sharply dressed baby gem salad.

This one – plus a few timely titbits – is for paid supporters. If you’d like to receive all emails without restriction, and to gain access to the ever-expanding recipe Archive, please consider upgrading your subscription. An annual pass represents the best value!

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Chard, anchovy and Parmesan bake

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April already?! I suppose time flies* while the world is on fire.

Here are a handful of recipes/columns/things in the food supplements that have proved a good distraction. Maybe you’d like to cook them over the next few days?

All the best,

Ed

*In fact it goes so quickly that this is coming out a day later than planned. If you’re still looking for Easter inspo, there are a couple of things in here that might help. But given we’re now mid-Paschal weekend, the selection’s intended to be evergreen rather than timely.

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