Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights

Indian sweet potato pancakes

SERVES 2 HUNGRY PEOPLE WITH SOME LEFT OVER FOR TEA

2 egg whites

340g/11/2 cups of cooked and coarsely mashed sweet potatoes

2 medium-sized spring onions/scallions, chopped

11/2 teaspoons of curry powder

1 pinch of ground cumin

Salt and pepper

Groundnut oil

I once spent a few months in Bombay making a film that cemented two things: one, an actress I am not, but two, should all else fail I can now dance while lip-synching in Hindi. I love, love, love Indian food and, most of all, Indian breakfasts with a stress on the savoury. These aren’t really pancakes, more like latkes without the oil.

Beat the egg whites with a fork in a bowl. Combine everything else except the groundnut oil in a big mixing bowl with your fingers, putting in the egg whites last.

Heat a frying pan or griddle, rubbed with a little bit of groundnut oil, and place dollops of the mixture onto it. Remember: the bigger the pancake the longer it will take to cook, so keep them little and neat. Squash them a bit with a spatula once in the pan. They’ll take about 5 minutes each side on a medium heat, with another couple of minutes’ blast on the first side at the end.

Baked haddock ramekin

SERVES 2 – ALREADY IN LOVE

Butter for greasing

1 generous piece of undyed fresh smoked haddock (about 350-400g/11-13oz)

250ml/1 cup of milk

2 bay leaves

Freshly ground black pepper

50g/1/2 a cup of grated strong/sharp Cheddar

Fresh parsley, to garnish

Don’t make this in the first throes of love or when you have people coming over. Haddock is not, and never will be, a sensory aphrodisiac. It is, however, delicious.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/Gas 4. Preheat the grill.

Butter two ramekins. Halve the haddock and put a piece in each ramekin. Pour the milk over the top and add a bay leaf and black pepper to each. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, top with Cheddar and blast under the hot grill for a few minutes. Chop some fresh parsley and sprinkle on top.

Spinach and watercress salad with goat’s cheese

SERVES 2

2 eggs

90g/3 cups of spinach

1 small bunch of watercress

110g/1/2 a cup of soft goat’s cheese, crumbled

70g/1/2 a cup of toasted pumpkin seeds (or as many, or little, as you prefer)

For the dressing

11/2 teaspoons of harissa paste

2 tablespoons of olive oil

This is an easy salad, so I suggest buying harissa for the dressing! You can find really good harissa in any good deli or Middle Eastern shop, and all you have to do is mix it with some smoky olive oil (see below), pour it on your salad and luxuriate in being a bit damn lazy.

Hardboil the eggs for about 5 minutes. Wash the spinach and watercress leaves and put in a salad bowl. Peel the hardboiled eggs, add them to your leaves and mix in the goat’s cheese. Mix the harissa with the olive oil to form a dressing. Scatter the pumpkin seeds on top of the leaves and dress.

Easy peasy!

French onion soup

SERVES 4 GENEROUSLY

3 large yellow onions

1 tablespoon of butter

Slug of olive oil

2 litres/8 cups of stock—I used 4 cups of chicken stock, 4 of vegetable. Beef is the traditional choice, but I think this is as good

1 tablespoon of good aged syrupy balsamic vinegar

Salt and pepper

100g/1 cup of grated cheese—Gruyère is delicious, but Parmesan will do as well

Purists will argue this is nothing like the real thing, which should be made with beef stock and have a great molten island of bread and cheese on top. I use vegetable stock and lose the bread—it’s not as heavy, yet still as decadent and comforting. The trick is slooooooooow cooking the onions, so they impart their rich caramelly flavour to the soup. A drizzle of good balsamic vinegar also gives it a rich enigmatic taste, perfect for a blowsy autumn day.

Roughly chop the onions. In a large pot (I use a heavy-bottomed Le Creuset), melt the butter with a few glugs of olive oil on a low heat. You don’t want it to burn. Make sure the bottom of the pan is covered, by swishing it around.

Pour in the onions, mix them into the oil with a wooden spoon and sweat gently for about 40 minutes. If your heat is kept to the lowest setting they won’t need more oil. Sometimes this is helped by using a heat diffuser pad. Towards the end of the cooking, turn up the heat a bit; you want the onions to brown and caramelize, not to be charred to a crisp.

When the onions look golden and browned round the edges, pour in the stock. Turn down the heat to low again, stir, and add the balsamic vinegar. I don’t know why, but this gives the soup a mellow, sweet earthiness. Let it simmer for another 15 minutes, taste, add salt and pepper if needed and then, using a ladle, pour into bowls.

Pour the cheese in when you are about to serve.

Squid salad with chargrilled peppers and coriander/cilantro dressing

SERVES 4-6

1 large red pepper, chopped into four lengthways, seeds removed

1 large yellow pepper, chopped into four lengthways, seeds removed

Olive oil

Roughly 100g/4 cups of cleaned baby squid

For the dressing

1 bunch of fresh chopped coriander/cilantro

A few basil leaves

4 tablespoons of olive oil

1/2 a clove of garlic, peeled and chopped

Juice of 1 lime

One of the best lunches I ever had was on a small boat in Greece, where the mother of the captain dived into the sea in an enormous swimming costume, surfacing triumphant holding a wiggling bag of squid. She fried them with lemon and olive oil. It was heaven. This is a tribute to her.

Chargrill the peppers (or ‘bell’ peppers, if you’re in the US) in a grill pan with some olive oil. Once they are grilled and cooled slightly, cut them into thinner strips.

Chop the squid into rings, but leave the tentacles whole. Sauté in a hot frying pan with a little more olive oil until they are lightly golden: 2-3 minutes. Pour onto a plate and mix with the peppers.

Put the coriander/cilantro, basil, oil, garlic and lime juice into the blender and blend on high. If necessary, add a bit more lime juice. Pour over the squid and peppers and serve.

Baked eggs with Swiss chard

SERVES 2

Butter for greasing

2 tablespoons of olive oil

160g/1 cup of chopped red onions

75g/1 cup of chopped Swiss chard

2 eggs

110g/1/2 a cup of crumbled goat’s cheese

There is something redolent of the nursery tea about baked eggs. They are so easy and are a miniature cosy meal in themselves. Mix with Swiss chard—nutty, more-ish, and oh so good for you.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/Gas 4.

Butter two large ramekins (or a large dish if you want to bake the eggs together). Heat the olive oil in a pan until hot. Add the onions and caramelize for about 10-15 minutes, being careful not to let them burn. Mix the onions with the Swiss chard and divide between the ramekins. Break an egg into each ramekin carefully, so it sits on top of the Swiss chard/onion mixture. Bake in the bottom of the oven for 10 minutes.

Preheat the grill. Remove the ramekins from the oven, scatter the goat’s cheese on top and put under the grill until the cheese is bubbling.

Chicken and halloumi kebabs with chanterelles

SERVES 2

2 skinless and boneless chicken breasts, each one cut into four

Olive oil

1 packet of halloumi, cut into eight cubes

4 kebab skewers (either metal or wooden soaked in water)

Salt and pepper

225g/3 cups of chanterelles

For the marinade

1 bunch of mixed herbs, such as parsley and mint, chopped

1 clove of garlic, peeled and crushed

4-5 tablespoons of olive oil

For the dressing (optional)

Olive oil

Juice of 1 lemon

I am obsessed with halloumi cheese. I love its sharp, slightly rubbery soul, and I love it grilled and in salads. If you don’t eat meat you could replace the chicken with vegetables—the first that springs to mind would be an aubergine/eggplant.

Make the marinade by chopping the herbs and garlic and putting in a mixing bowl with the olive oil. Add the cubed chicken, cover the bowl with cling film and marinate for 2 hours.

Preheat the grill. Sauté the chicken pieces for 8-10 minutes over a low heat in 1 tablespoon of olive oil, then assemble the kebabs in the following order: chicken, halloumi, chicken, halloumi. Season to taste. Before you grill the kebabs, make sure the chicken is moist and, if needed, add more oil. Grill for 4 minutes under searing heat.

While the chicken is grilling, pan-fry the chanterelles in 1 tablespoon of olive oil for 3 minutes. Pour a mound of the mushrooms on a serving plate and lay the kebab sticks across them. You can make a separate dressing of olive oil and lemon juice if you want and pour that over thetop.

Spinach barley soup

SERVES 4-6

3 tablespoons of olive oil

1 onion, chopped

2 large fresh sage leaves, chopped

1.5 litres/61/2 cups of vegetable stock

180g/6 cups of spinach, washed and chopped

150g/3/4 a cup of pearl barley

Salt and pepper

50g/1/2 a cup of grated Parmesan

My nanny Maureen is a master soup-maker. It was almost worth being ill from time to time as a child, just in order to get a steaming bowl of comfort on the sofa in front of The Wombles. This is my homage to her.

Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed pan, put in the onion and sage leaves and cook on a low heat for about 5 minutes. While that’s cooking, heat the stock in another pan. Stir the spinach into the onion mixture and cook for another few minutes. Pour in the hot stock and cook, covered, on a low heat for 10 minutes. Add the barley and leave it cooking for another half an hour or until the barley is soft. Season to taste. When it is ready, ladle into bowls and sprinkle the Parmesan on top.

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