From Season to Season: A Year in Recipes

from season to season

a year in recipes

by Sophie Dahl

photographs by Jan Baldwin

Dedication

For my Jamie, as everything is.

And to my grandmother, Patsy Louise, who had the courage of a lion and loved her family, along with avocados, cheap wine and hymns.

SD

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Cook’s notes

Introduction

Autumn

BREAKFASTS

Tapioca with stewed apples and apricots

Argan oil, almond and honey smoothie

Crab cakes with poached eggs and spinach

Spelt French toast with smashed blueberries and blackberries

Mushrooms on toast

Apple cider omelette

Gooseberry yoghurt

LUNCHES

Heartbreak carbonara (or the first thing I ever cooked for a boy)

Squash and Parmesan soup

Spanish omelette

Bonfire night

Baked pumpkin with lemon, sautéed greens and toasted cumin dressing

Soba noodle salad with rainbow vegetables and sesame dressing

Lentil salad with a mustard dressing

Beef Stroganoff

SUPPERS

Salmon steaks with a wasabi coating

Baked vegetables smothered in scamorza

Root vegetable cakes with a cheesy béchamel sauce

Tofu lasagne

Chickpea/garbanzo bean mushroom burgers with tahini sauce

Lentil pie

The first Mor Mor and her chicken

Winter

Winter breakfasts and dancing pigeons

BREAKFASTS

Dosa

Aloo gobi

Soda bread with goat’s curd and blistered tomatoes

Mexican eggs

Porridge with poached plums

Warming winter take on miso soup

Poached pears with healthy vanilla custard

LUNCHES

Cauliflower chowder and a brilliant bread recipe

Taleggio gratin

Stuffed blini and scrambled eggs

Salad of brown rice and pearl barley with cranberries

Watercress and Gruyère soufflé

Endive salad with poached duck eggs and truffle vinaigrette

Quiche with crispy back bacon and caramelized onions

SUPPERS

Winter curry with saffron cinnamon rice

Penne with almond goat’s curd parsley pesto

Fish fingers with tartare sauce and mushy peas

Overnight lamb

Vegetable and chicken itame (or an honest stir-fry to the uniniated!)

Halibut with sorrel sauce and Jerusalem artichoke purée

The second Mor Mor’s chicken

Spring

BREAKFASTS

Rhubarb rice pudding

Courgette/zucchini hotcakes

Halloumi croque madame with black olives

Apple and raspberry cereal

Spicy aubergine/eggplant and tomato with poached eggs

Avocado nut milk smoothie

Rye cracker breads with horseradish and smoked trout pâté

LUNCHES

Asparagus with hard-boiled eggs, Parmesan and lemon

Bruschetta with artichoke purée

Hot smoked salmon tacos

Butter lettuce, lobster and crayfish/crawfish salad

Crespou

Pea, pesto and rocket/arugula soup

Potato pancakes with smoked salmon and a cucumber and dill salad

SUPPERS

Macky Boy’s mackerel with baby spinach and horseradish dressing

Coconut and crab rice with lime and coriander/cilantro

Pollack with Indian spices and yoghurt lime dressing

Lemon lentil soup

Paella

Chicken Kiev

The Sheriff’s marinated lamb

Summer

BREAKFASTS

Fruit salad with orange flower syrup and mint

Grilled peaches with ricotta and toasted pistachios

Tomato tofu basil scramble

Rory’s savoury pancakes that are not a breakfast cake

Fennel frittata

Strawberry pancakes

Carrot and cream cheese muffins

LUNCHES

Big fat feast

Sheep’s cheese with flaming ouzo

Tzatziki

Radishes with truffle salt and mint and olive oil

Ceviche with prawns/shrimp and avocado

Grilled octopus with potatoes and fagiolini bean pesto

Kebabs

Raw golden beetroot/beets with cayenne and lime

SUPPERS

Ricotta tarts with creamy pecorino sauce and shavings of black truffle

Chicken summer stew

Roasted tomato mascarpone soup with basil oil

Courgette/zucchhini flower risotto

Miso black Colin

Hangman’s Suppers

Rowley Leigh’s Parmesan custard with anchovy toast and a herb salad (all mine)

Broad bean/fava risotto

Puddings

Roses

Marbled rose petal ice cream

Chocolate meringue biscuits

Pineapple and mint granita

Poached winter fruits with crème anglaise

Uncle’s chocolate soufflé with brandied cherries

Earl Grey and lavender ice cream

Rice pudding cake

Almost mother-in-law cake

Panettone bread-and-butter pudding

Coconut sorbet

Ruby Frais strawberry semifreddo

The Nutcracker

Armagnac apricot pannacotta

Christmas sugar plum syllabubby mess

Index

Suppliers

Acknowledgements and resounding thanks

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Cook’s notes

All pepper is freshly ground black pepper. I also like to use a coarse sea salt like Maldon.

I’m a big believer in free-range, cruelty-free produce. To that end, try and buy dairy and meat from a supplier you trust, one who treats their animals with respect.

We are overfishing our painfully understocked oceans. To get a list of what fish are sustainable and plentiful, please go to the Marine Stewardship Council website (the MSC) www.msc.org.

Stock: I use fresh or, if being lazy, Marigold Vegetable Bouillon or Kallo’s Organic Free-range Chicken Stock.

Good usefuls to have in the larder and fridge, in no particular order and given in haphazard fashion:

Belazu Balsamic Vinegar (really thick and syrupy)

Miso paste (for dressings and marinades)

Rice vinegar

Tahini

Pomegranate molasses

A good, strong mustard

Tamari

Mirin

Marsala

Horseradish root

A bunch of fresh herbs

Tarragon

Parsley

Coriander

Chives

Argan oil

Pumpkin seed oil

Some good-quality dark chocolate

Some cheap chocolate for eating on the spur of the moment or when miserable

Lemons for zesting

Chickpeas

Lentils (both Puy and yellow)

A good home-made garam masala

Star anise

Cardamom

Arborio rice

An onion

Some garlic

Pearl barley for soups and stews

Arrowroot for thickening gravies or sauces for the gluten-free

Spelt flour

Good vanilla extract

Runny honey

Fresh coffee

Stock in ice-cube trays in the freezer

Sunflower seeds to toast and add to salads and bread

Introduction

‘It’s a question of discipline,’ The Little Prince told me later on. ‘When you’ve finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend to your planet.’ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

In my last book, Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights, I began with writing that many of our grandparents ate healthfully and seasonally before there was a name for it, eating with an innate common sense and practicality that somehow, along the way, many of us have forgotten. This doesn’t stand for everyone’s grandparents, as I discovered on a book tour to Denmark. A journalist there asked me if I knew what her grandparents were eating fifty years ago. I knew from her smile I was on treacherous ground and took a deep breath of preparation.

‘No,’ I demurred politely. ‘What did they eat?’

‘LARD!’ She said. ‘They lived on lard and potatoes! I eat far better than they would have ever dreamed! What do you think of that Miss home-grown-seasonal-vegetable-garden-have-a-walk-every-day?’

I immediately morphed into a filmic parody of Hugh Grant and said something very English and vague like, ‘Well, yes, I don’t know what everyone’s grandparents ate, hmm, easy to generalize, mutter, ho hum.’ And blushed.

Under the gaze of watchful Danes, I stand corrected then, and speak only for my own grandparents, who grew fruit and vegetables in their garden, buying fish from the local fishmonger, meat from the local butcher and dairy from their local farmer. Every meal on their table came to fruition with an unspoken nod to seasonality and availability.

I am keenly aware that if you are a busy working parent, or if you live somewhere isolated, sometimes all that is on offer (or is bearable) is a one-stop shop. I am sometimes guilty of it myself. But I also believe that if each one of us makes a concession towards being a conscious consumer, we are in turn making an active contribution to looking after our lovely planet, which has enough exterior torment going on in it without us adding to it.

We are blessed in England to have our very definite seasons. Sometimes they feel never ending, dragging winter in particular, but the reward is tangible, both in the garden and on the plate. There is a finite certainty to the seasons that I, as a neurotic ever pursuer of order, find blissfully predictable.

I like knowing that on a damp autumn evening, whilst the wind is pounding at the windows, I can transport myself with a bowl of molten comfort, a soup of squash and Parmesan, served with a thick hunk of buttered bread. This is when food meets the call of the weather, as it’s hard to imagine the summer when it’s been replaced by lashing rain. The memory of a ceviche, tart with lime, can propel you through the darkest days of winter, carrying you right to the moment when you can actually eat it in the garden, as drowsy bees sail past, the air throbbing with sun and lavender.

I come from a long tradition of home cooks. I write about some of them here. England is full of them, hundreds upon thousands of them practically more skilled than I. You only have to look within one of the many branches of the Women’s Institute or similar to find women whose lemon bars are like the tender tears of an angel, whose puff pastry flakes with an unparalleled buttery grace. I worship at the altar of these culinary high priestesses. I still can’t chop an onion properly, and my apple coring looks like the prelude to a horror film. I very occasionally make a cake that could be used as a weapon or forget to put the sugar in something. I am content with this haphazard state of affairs; it keeps me honest. I own an apple corer, and I make whoever is lurking in the kitchen around Sunday lunch time chop my onions. I lob shards of my occasional missile cakes at the voracious crows poaching my raspberries. I happen to be a greedy writer who likes to cook and then write about what I’ve cooked, not a chef, or a teacher. If you are looking for a voice of stern culinary authority, go elsewhere! I can give you stories, and ideas for things, along with food that is lovely, simple and straightforward. No forgotten sugar either, I promise. This book is a collection of recipes that were either written down as they were cooked, imagined late one sleepless night and then realized, admired and reprinted, or passed down by a stoic Norwegian great grandmother. They are all pretty easy, with minimal fussing required. I like honest cooking that speaks for itself, cooking that begs for seconds and a satisfied smile, and I truly hope that resonates from my kitchen to yours.

In the in-between, I wish for you an army of onion choppers, sponge that is light as a feather, soufflés that defy gravity and, if all else fails, a shoulder to cry on. Cooking is not tight-lipped and mean, and it is not judgmental either. It shouldn’t be, and nor should eating. Both in their very nature are providers – of nourishment, family, warmth and community, alchemy and adventure.

So whether your grandparents were lard-eating Danes, Burmese farmers, molasses-eating Mississippians, prairie-sowing Middle Americans or, like mine, a mix of staunch Scandinavian, Scottish Presbyterian, Tennessee hillbillies and vegetable growing East Enders, most of all, I wish you happy eating. Whatever the season.

With love,

Sophie Dahl

Autumn

Autumn is all about nostalgia. For me it will forever be the season of back to school, first loves, and bonfire night. The food of autumn captures all of that in a net. Even the scent of autumn is sweet, smoky and wistful.

From four to seventeen I attended quite a few schools, from the call your teacher Bob and do yoga as a sport sort, to the white gloves and curtsying to the headmistress after prayers, draconian institute that is particular to England. The one constant in the merry-go-round was the familiar feeling that flooded to the surface during the last week of August, the week before the autumn term began. It was a cross between an itch and a promise, as the evenings grew colder and supper was suddenly hot soup or a baked potato. It was furthered by buying tights and the accoutrements of junior academia: shiny pencil cases, as yet unmarred with the initials of the boy who we all had a crush on, scratched on with a compass, and virginal geometry books, so hopeful without the vivid red crosses that were sure to come.

If it was boarding school, which it was for a bit, there was the heart-plunging goodbye at the train station on a Sunday evening, the inevitable pall of rain steaming up the windows, staining the summer with a tearful goodbye. At day school, the first-day rain ceased to be a symbolic backdrop for all that was ill in the world, and more of a vanity irritant, mussing up the fringe that was so carefully straightened the night before, in honour of the sixth form boys.

Your classmates felt new like pennies, and you saw them with new eyes, at least for a day or two. Chloe now had a chest to rival Jane Russell; Joe’s voice had broken and he had freckles from some faraway sun. Lola had a worldly weariness that could have something to do with a Greek waiter, and fat Robert was now thin and mean with it. Our teachers struggled with the new us, trying to gauge our emotional temperature with the old jokes that used to work, before we went and grew quietly behind their backs. So much can happen in ten weeks. Long gone from school, I still know that much can shift in a summer.

Maybe this is why autumn makes me so nostalgic. The tangible chrysalis effect of what’s changed. I watch it now with my younger cousins and the children of friends. Fun fairs and post graduation nights of camping in places that parents would balk at, sangria and sunburn, and thinking you’re in love with a person who can barely say hello in your language. Discovering that some friends won’t, as you thought, walk into adult life with you, that all of those nights spent whispering secrets when the lights were out will be instead relegated to the yellowing pages of a diary.

During the summer I was in Los Angeles, far, far away from the thought of rain, tights or cosy autumnal food. I stayed at my aunt’s house, which was filled with kids home from college for the summer and her menagerie of animals, including a bowl of violently coloured jellyfish and Frances Bacon, her pot-bellied pig. Frances is of variable temper, enormous and partially blind, she hates babies and cats in no particular order. She is very fond of strawberries, bed and sitting on the dogs, who live in mortal fear of her. We have always got on reasonably well. This all changed when my aunt went away for a week. Although I did all the things Frances likes – scratching her ears, rubbing sunscreen on her broad scaly back, feeding her banana skins and tucking her in at night – I think she connected my arrival with my aunt’s disappearance and decided, like an errant stepchild, to make my life complicated. She crept stealthily into the larder (my favourite place) and trapped me there daily, blocking my exit with her two hundred pound bulk, trying to bite me if I attempted to get past her. We engaged in a ridiculous game that involved me holding a spoonful of strawberries aloft, and dancing from the kitchen into the garden like a pig Pied Piper, depositing the fruit into her open milky mouth, and running as fast as I could to lock the door behind me to the sound of porcine fury. In defeated distress, I called my aunt’s assistant Sharon and explained the situation.

‘Here’s the thing,’ she said, in dulcet Zen tones. I took a deep breath and wondered what Doctor Dolittle trick she was going to impart, ‘It’s very simple. Frances doesn’t like change.’

In the spirit of change, I give you the following. It’s for leaf-sodden days and misty mornings.

Autumn Breakfasts

Tapioca with stewed apples and apricots

Tapioca, like semolina, is one of those things that a school kitchen could have turned you off for life. I couldn’t eat it for years, having been force-fed it at primary school aged six, with tinned jam, as it oozed like frogspawn out of the bowl, and I wept and retched. For years I had the same malicious feeling towards beetroot and mashed potatoes, which were instant and came in lumpy granules. My teacher and I had a silent war every lunch time; a war that eventually came to an end after my parents removed me from the school. Made to your own wont, in your own kitchen, tapioca is ambrosial, and worth being a grown-up for, as is semolina. This could also be a pudding not a breakfast, just don’t serve it with dog food-like tinned jam. Try a lovely home-made compote instead.

SERVES 4

70g/½ cup of tapioca (soaked overnight in plenty of water)

350ml/1⅓ cups of milk

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

A knob of butter

2 tablespoons of runny honey or agave syrup or brown sugar

For the apple and apricots

12 dried apricots (like the tapioca, soaked overnight, but in about 250ml/1 cup of orange juice)

250ml/1 cup or so of water

1 cinnamon stick

A few tablespoons of orange juice

1 tablespoon of agave syrup or honey

2 eating apples, peeled, cored and sliced

Having soaked the tapioca overnight, drain and place it in a saucepan with the milk, vanilla extract and a knob of butter. Bring to the boil, turn to low and simmer, stirring in the honey, agave or sugar, for another 10 minutes.

Cut your overnight magically plumped apricots into halves or quarters if desired. In another saucepan, place the water, cinnamon, orange juice, agave or honey and apple and bring to the boil, giving it a good stir now and then. Simmer for about 10 to 15 minutes or until the apple is tender.

Now, here you can do one of two things. Serve the stewed fruit as is on top of the tapioca or put the tapioca in a small ovenproof dish with another knob of butter, pour the apple and apricot on top and bake at 180°C/160°C fan/Gas 4 for 15 or so minutes. The choice, Cilla, is yours.

Argan oil, almond and honey smoothie

Argan oil comes from the Argan tree, a Moroccan tree with magical properties. The oil is now easy to obtain through mail order or online, or if you live in a city, at your local health food shop. I get mine from Wild Wood Groves, www.wildwoodgroves.com. If you can’t access it, use a cold-pressed oil instead, something like an almond oil. I eat Argan, put it on my face and in my bath. It’s also great for babies with eczema. Frozen bananas are perfect for adding to smoothies, so have some in stock. Chop up the banana and put it in the freezer in a Ziploc bag or Tupperware.

SERVES 1

½ a frozen banana

8 or so blanched almonds

1 glass of soy milk

1 teaspoon of Argan oil

1 tablespoon of runny honey

Put your banana, almonds, soy and Argan in the blender with your honey. Blend until smooth and drink and be joyful.

Crab cakes with poached eggs and spinach

Perhaps the thing I miss most about living in the US is the ubiquity of brunch, or the ready availability of breakfast foods in a restaurant, long after breakfast is normally finished. Crab cakes are such a thing, perfectly so with eggs on top. If the mountain can’t come to Mohammed…

SERVES 2

For the crab cakes

450g/1lb of cooked crab meat – white and brown

1 tablespoon of home-made or good mayonnaise

1 teaspoon of mustard

A few drops of Tabasco sauce

A small handful of fresh mixed herbs – dill, chervil and parsley

Salt and pepper

1 egg

2 tablespoons of olive oil

A handful of spinach

A dash of vinegar

Salt

2 eggs

Get the crab cake mixture ready, by mixing all the ingredients, bar the egg and olive oil, and forming into little cakes. Beat the egg and brush the crab cakes with it, then heat the olive oil in a non-stick pan. Throw on the crab cakes and cook them for a few minutes on each side until golden. You can also wilt the spinach in the same pan for a few minutes. Plate, with the spinach around the crab cakes.

In another pan, boil some water with a dash of vinegar and some salt. When it is simmering away, carefully add your eggs and poach for 3 minutes. Drain and put the eggs on top of the crab cakes. Eat immediately.