We think of Italy as the land of pasta and tomato sauce. However pasta was a feast day dish, requiring time and many hands, until industrialised dried pasta was invented, which transformed it into an easy, readily available ingredient. Tomato sauce, likewise, is a recent habit- 19th century. Discovered in Central America, and exported to…
Vegetarian
Wasabi farm, Winchester
Last winter, I met farmer David Turton of the Wasabi Company just outside of Winchester. This area has been famous for watercress – which has similar growing requirements to Japanese horseradish, known as wasabi, the small pea-green mound next to the salmon-pink pickled ginger when you order sushi. The Wasabi company has moved from watercress…
Recipe for veggie goulash
Goulash is a cowboy stew for plainsmen in Hungary. Traditionally it is made with meat but I have created a vegan/vegetarian version. I used sweet paprika bought in Budapest and I must say, it’s very red, very fresh and tasty. Parsley roots are a traditional ingredient which I ordered through Natoora at Ocado, but parsnips…
Recipe for Orange Chocolate Mousse
French menus are incredibly predictable. French restaurants always serve the same thing, especially at lunch, for le menu prix fixe. This consists of crudités to start, or perhaps a herring or carrottes rapées. For main, there will be some kind of meat with fish on Fridays. That comes with pommes frites or pommes à la…
Starry starry soup recipe
I’m all about the soups in winter. These are my soup rules: Use leftovers: that stir fry and bit of rice that didn’t quite get eaten up, I whizzed the vegetables with hot water and a spoonful of stock powder then added the leftover rice at the end. It’s the same principle as chicken soup:…
Vegan sausage rolls recipe
Greggs the bakers have been running some brilliant marketing campaigns over the last couple of years, from the sausage roll baby Jesus in the advent calendar, the Valentine’s Day menu, to last year’s transformation into Gregory and Gregory for a posh food festival. This year they topped the January news agenda by bringing out vegan…
River cruise: Honfleur and recipe for salted caramels
In all my years of visiting and living in France, how is that I never knew about a gem- the port town of Honfleur? It’s got to be one of the prettiest villages in France. This picturesque Normandie town was the second stop of a Fred Olsen river cruise. Honfleur has echoing small streets with…
British Weekends: Winchester and recipe for wasabi/cream cheese gyoza
I’m re-acquainting myself with British history via TV series such as The Last Kingdom and Vikings. Both series feature the ninth century King Alfred, whose capital was in Winchester, in the former county of ‘Wessex’. Winchester is dominated by an enormous bronze statue of Alfred the Great, so called because he was the first monarch…
Five ways to cook Brussels sprouts
There are many different ways to cook sprouts, my favourite method is braising, that is par-boiling in salty water for five minutes then transferring them into a frying pan to sauté. This recipe is so delicious that I must confess to scoffing the lot, by myself, in one sitting. I do like to combine Brussels…
Halloween recipes
We think of pumpkins as an autumnal North American food, although I was disappointed to discover that they usually buy canned when baking pumpkin pie. There is a wide selection of pumpkins and squashes: from giant pin cushion style of Turban Squash, to spaghetti squash, or the dense sweet flesh of acorn squash and butternut….