Whipped feta

This came about as a good way to use up part of a block of feta left over from something else. I love feta but it doesn’t keep long after you’ve opened it, and there never seems to be exactly the right amount in the block for what you’re making… This is really quick and simple and the rest of the ingredients we pretty much always have. 

1/2 block feta
1/2 cup skyr
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tbsp lemon juice
Pinch of salt
Little bit of garlic, crushed

Put all ingredients in a little blender and blend. Scrape into serving bowl and sprinkle additional salt, pepper and olive oil on top. 

Asparagus, garlic, feta, lemon, thyme

Also belated from early Summer...

We did a pretty good job of asparagus season this year, if I do say so myself. We ate lots... and as much of it from our veg share as possible (think we ordered a special asparagus bag every week!). Everything seems to be growing well this year, and I guess asparagus was no exception. And it turned out small S loves it (although only the tips: he is a discerning little bug)... Much of it was prepped v simply - either with st george’s mushrooms or just boiled for 4 min and then dressed with melted butter and lemon juice... this is only slightly more complicated, but is now my other favourite way to eat it...

olive oil

c. 4 cloves garlic, chopped

1 large bunch asparagus, tough bits snapped off and rest snapped into nice-sized  pieces

salt+pepper

zest and juice of approx 1/4 lemon

c. 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

1/2 pack of feta

Heat olive oil in a large frying pan with a lid and add the garlic. Sizzle for a few min, then add the asparagus pieces. Season with salt and pepper, cover and cook for a few minutes, then uncover and cook until excess moisture is gone and there is a little colour on the asparagus (it should be tender). Turn off the heat and let cool a bit, then squeeze over the lemon juice and add half the zest. Allow to cool a bit more, then serve warm, with the feta crumbled on top and thyme leaves and rest of the lemon zest scattered over it.

Aubergine, mango and soba noodle salad

A belated post from early Summer...

We went for dumplings on blågardsplads the other day - at a place we discovered either before or after a hospital appointment (silver linings). A place (think it’s called gao) that I love - they have two different kinds of vegetarian dumplings (mushroom pan fried and spinach steamed), both equally delicious; plus a long list of veggie sides that are all simple but perfect... sage loved them too. Anyway, while there remembered about the great fruit and veg shops also on blågards, checked them out too, and discovered a box of Pakistani mangoes! The delicate south Asian mangoes are way superior to the thick-skinned African ones you usually find in supermarkets - the one thing that could convince me to go to India in monsoon season... I had just been thinking maybe it was the season, but couldn’t think where was the right shop to find them...

I made this salad first about this time last year, when sage was tiny. I remember feeling proud i’d managed to cook something proper, especially because it was from a cookbook Seb gave me for my birthday (ie a few days after sage was born). Aside from eating them straight up, this seemed like a suitably special way to use some of our fine box of mangoes. This time, sage ate it too (and liked it! Although think he preferred the vegan sausages we ate with it (didn’t have any tofu)).

120 ml rice vinegar  (or apple cider vinegar)
40 g sugar
½ tsp salt
2 garlic cloves, crushed
½ red chilli, finely chopped
1 tsp sesame oil
1 lime, grated zest and juice
300 ml sunflower oil
2 aubergines, cut into 2 cm dice
300g soba noodles
½ red onion, thinly sliced
1 large mango, peeled and cut into 1cm dice
40g basil, chopped
40g coriander, chopped

In a saucepan, gently heat the vinegar, sugar and salt, just until the sugar dissolves, for up to a minute. Remove from the heat and add the garlic, chilli and sesame oil. Set aside to cool, then add the lime zest and juice.

Heat the sunflower oil in a large pan and shallow-fry the aubergine in three or four batches. Once golden-brown, transfer to a colander, sprinkle liberally with salt and leave to drain.

Cook the noodles in plenty of boiling, salted water, stirring occasionally, for five to eight minutes - the noodles should retain a bite - then drain and rinse under cold water. Shake off the excess water and place on kitchen towel to dry.

In a mixing bowl, toss the noodles with the dressing, aubergine, onion, mango and half the herbs. You can leave it aside for an hour or two. When ready to serve, add the rest of the herbs, mix and pile on a plate or in a bowl.

Mushroom pate

I had thought of making this mushroom pate for ages - it sounded simple and tasty. Then ended up with lots of nice fresh mushrooms, and it turns out that the baby loooovvvves mushrooms. Mushrooms are top of my list of foods I didn't expect him to like but he loves... He also likes cream cheese, so I figured it was time...

30 g butter
250 g mushrooms, cleaned, trimmed and finely chopped
3-4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
250 g cream cheese (used 125 g)
salt+pepper

Melt the butter in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Add the mushrooms and garlic and saute until the mushrooms' moisture has been released and reabsorbed and they are nicely browned. Leave to cool.

Scrape the mushroom mix into a blender and blend up. Add the cream cheese and mix. Season to taste then let cool completely. Ideally refrigerate for at least an hour.


And yes, the small one is well into it.

Best grated carrot salad

I've tried a few grated carrot salads in the past but never got it quite right. This attempt turned out exactly as I wanted; even better... The toasted coriander is key, and came from a Delia recipe (that I then decided not to stick to...).

1 tbsp coriander seeds
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp sesame seed oil
2 tsp white/red miso
1 tsp honey
salt+pepper
1 tiny clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp finely chopped onion
c 10 medium carrots, peeled and coarsely grated
1 tsp lemon zest
2 tsp chopped chives
1/4 cup raisins
2 tsp black onion seeds

Toast the coriander seeds and then crush them in a pestle and mortar. Put in a medium bowl with the vinegar, oils, miso, honey, salt and pepper (not much salt, miso is salty), crushed garlic and chopped onion. Whisk together with a fork. Add the grated carrots, lemon zest, chives, raisins and black onion seeds and mix to combine. Keeps well in the fridge (the raisins will plump up) for a few days.

Roasted artichokes

We had quite a lot of artichokes from our veg share this summer - think they are one of the crops associated with sunnier climes that did unusually well with this crazy weather - in my garden tomatoes and peruvian physalis did fantastically. Anyway, after a few sessions of the usual approaches to artichokes (boiling and peeling off leaves to dip, then eating the heart), decided to try something a bit different. Wanted to roast, thought this sounded fun.

6 smallish artichokes
lemon
garlic
parsley
olive oil
salt+pepper

Heat oven to 220C. Trim artichokes (remove stem, outer leaves, 1/3 off the tip) and cut in half. Rub the cut edges with lemon. Cut out the choke (thistly fluff) and squeeze in a little more lemon juice. Chop enough garlic and parsley to fill all the choke-holes, and mix the chopped garlic and parsley with olive oil, salt and pepper. Stuff the holes with the garlic-parsley mixture, and place each half cut side down in a baking dish rubbed with olive oil. Bake approx 45 min (time depends on size of artichokes), covering with foil after c 20 min.


These were v tasty but tricky to eat - as you pull off the outer leaves your fingers get covered in oil, and the garlic etc from the middle falls out.

Wild garlic and edamame pesto

We secretly replanted some wild garlic into the wilder parts of our garden last year. As usual with suchlike, I didn't touch it for a year so it would have a chance to settle in. So, first harvest: wild garlic pesto; full of green stuff; garlickiness slightly dispersed by edamame content.

1/2 cup edamame, defrosted
c. 15 leaves wild garlic
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
3-4 tbsp olive oil
salt+pepper

Put all ingredients into a blender and blend. Taste for seasoning and acid (add a little more salt, pepper, lemon juice, olive oil if it needs it). Store and eat as normal pesto.

Tzatzkiki

We ate this a lot in the summer, when cucumbers arrived in our veg bag often, and the walk to the grocery shop past the greek restaurant often reminded me to buy skyr or greek yoghurt. That's the only trick - to use thick yoghurt so it doesn't get too runny from cucumber juice.

1/2 cucumber, grated
1/2 clove garlic, crushed to a paste
approx. 1 1/2 cups greek yoghurt or skyr
squeeze of lemon juice (about 1 tsp)
pinch of salt

Coarsely grate the cucumber into a bowl, then squeeze out / drain off some of the liquid. Add garlic, yoghurt/skyr, lemon juice and salt. Mix up and taste for flavour balance and seasoning.


Great with some bread and a greek salad.

Pasta and chickpeas (pasta e ceci)

Our trip to Italy last winter got us excited about more foods than pizza. We did a cantina food tour in the village next to S+C's house. We had seven or eight little courses and glasses of wine in different cantinas (private cellar / bars opened up for the event) connected by a walking map. Far and away S's fave was pasta and chickpeas. It's really simple, like most of the best food we had in Italy: pretty much just pasta and chickpeas cooked in stock to make a hearty soup.

I saw these recipes soon after getting back, and then pasta e ceci went into heavy rotation in our house through the winter months. In the end, I think our fave version was a merger of those two versions: dried pasta, dried chickpeas, rosemary, garlic, olive oil, and perhaps some celery.

250g dried chickpeas
2 garlic cloves
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
1 stick of celery (optional)
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
200g short pasta, stumpy rigatoni was usually what we ended up with - you're aiming for something chickpea-sized
Salt and black pepper
olive oil and black pepper / red chilli flakes to serve

Soak the chickpeas in plenty of cold water for 12 hours or overnight, changing the water twice if you can. Drain the soaked chickpeas, cover with 2 litres of fresh water, add a clove of garlic and a sprig of rosemary. Bring the pan to the boil over a medium heat, and simmer for 1½ hours or until the chickpeas are tender. Start tasting after one hour. Keep in mind you want 1.2 litres of cooking liquid, so top up with more water if necessary.

In a large heavy-based pan or casserole, heat the olive oil and add the remaining clove of garlic (peeled and gently crushed with the back of a knife), and the other sprig of rosemary. Fry gently until the garlic and rosemary are fragrant. Cook for another few minutes.

Add the chickpeas, and then add the chickpea broth, making sure there is 1.2 litres – make it up with hot water if there isn’t – and a pinch of salt. Increase the heat to bring the soup to the boil.
Add the pasta and cook until tender, stirring, tasting and adding more broth to keep it a nice soupy consistency. Serve with a grinding of black pepper (or sprinkle of red chilli flakes) and a little more olive oil poured over the top.

Note: this works well simplified to use chickpea broth from cooking any amount of chickpeas (the more you cooked, the more intense the broth flavour), and without any measuring - heat oil and fry rosemary and crushed garlic, add cooked chickpeas, add enough chickpea broth to cook pasta (top up with water if not enough) and some salt, add pasta and any additional veg desired (e.g. chopped celery, diced courgette), boil until pasta is done and eat with a drizzle of olive oil and some black pepper or chilli flakes... or even a spoonful of walnut pesto on top if you want to be fancy. Also good with chopped fresh tomatoes added at the end... And our fave pasta shape for this, after testing many, is oriechette.

Salsify fritters

Our latest veg bag came with some charismatic roots (besides the usual tatties and beets): salsify and horseradish. I've never cooked salsify before, so it seemed like a fun challenge. A silver lining to having to leave work early to get the veg bag is that I arrive home with time to cook before S gets home / before I get super tired and hungry. So I got busy in the kitchen. These fritters were one of the first salsify recipes I came across. I had all the ingredients and it had been a while since I made a fritter, so I decided to go with it. Salsify has quite a subtle, slightly sweet flavour, so I wondered if it would be overpowered by the chilli, garlic and coriander. It wasn't though: it was fine.

300 g salsify (5-6 roots), peeled and coarsely grated
1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped
1 small red chilli, chopped
3 tbsp chopped coriander
1 egg
1 tbsp flour
salt+pepper
butter and olive oil for cooking

Wash, peel and grate the salsify. Melt 1-2 tbsp butter in a frying pan and cook the grated salsify until it is tender, 5-10 min. Transfer cooked salsify to a bowl and add garlic, chilli, coriander, egg, flour and seasoning. Shape into fritters - it should make 5-6. Heat 1-2 tbsp butter and 1-2 tbsp olive oil in the frying pan and fry the fritters about 4 minutes on each side until browned on the outside and cooked through. Eat right away.

White bean, white wine and kale stew

We made an epic ladcykel trip to Istanbul Bazaar the other week. S found a huge bag of white beans and insisted on buying it, on the condition that he cook them himself. A month or so later it became clear this would never happen, so I got started. I cooked a load of them, then we ate white bean things pretty much every night for a work week. See also white bean spread and white bean pasta.

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup cooked white beans
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
3/4 cup white wine
2-3 kale leaves, roughly chopped
1 tsp chopped fresh oregano
salt+pepper

Heat oil in a large saucepan. Add onion and garlic and fry until softened. Add white beans, tomato and white wine and simmer until all is softened and the wine is mostly evaporated. Add kale and oregano, cook for a few minutes more and check for seasoning. Eat with crusty bread. Just as good if not better reheated.

Pasta with white beans, celeriac and sundried tomatoes

The last and best thing I made with my mound of cooked white beans. I never usually cook pasta for S as he always cooks it for himself, so he was especially excited about this. And I thought it worked really well. I took a little inspiration from here and here.

1 tbsp oil from sundried tomatoes (or olive oil)
1 small onion, chopped
6 cloves garlic, chopped
1 very small celeriac, peeled and diced into 1 cm dice
1 tsp dried chilli flakes
2 cups white beans
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup water or veg stock
5 sundried tomatoes in oil, chopped
enough pasta for 2 people, cooked in boiling salted water until very al dente
4 kale leaves, chopped
1/2 tsp chopped oregano
salt+pepper

Heat oil in a large saucepan. Add onion and garlic and saute until starting to soften, 2-3 min. Add diced celeriac and chilli flakes, cover and cook without browning until softened (about 15 min). Meanwhile cook the pasta (v al dente), drain and set aside. Add white beans, white wine and stock/water to the celeriac pan, heat and cook for 10-15 min. Blend using a wand blender until it is about half smooth, half remaining unblended. Add the sundried tomatoes, pasta, kale and oregano and cook for another 5-10 min. Taste for seasoning and serve in bowls.


I thought this was a triumph. Quick, hearty and warming, with a lovely combination of tastes and textures. Blending up part of the bean and celeriac mixture is the key - it makes a delicious sauce that coats the pasta, while the unblended parts keep it toothsome and interesting.

White bean and sundried tomato spread

Another option with all those white beans. This time a dip/spread we took to work to eat with carrot sticks and flatbreads. It was lovely and smooth. Although I added some sundried tomatoes to the blended mixture that time and I wouldn't recommend that as it ends up looking like taramasalata.

1 1/2 cups cooked white beans
1 small clove garlic
2 tbsp olive oil (use oil from sundried tomatoes)
juice of 1/4 lemon
salt and pepper

4 sundried tomatoes, chopped
handful of toasted pumpkin seeds

Blend beans, garlic, olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper. Check seasoning, acidity and consistency and add salt/pepper, lemon juice or water accordingly. Put into tubs and top with chopped sundried tomatoes and toasted pumpkin seeds.

Veg onion soup

It's been a busy few weeks. We got our new place, we moved, got furniture, all of that. Then three weeks after moving in, there was a big storm with lots of heavy wet snow. It snowed all night and when we went out in the morning we found several huge (approx 80 cm diameter) branches broken off a tree in our yard. One was blocking the small road beside our place. So then we have been busy clearing that up and sorting it out - finding a tree surgeon, then dealing with all the fallen wood - we've been chopping it for next year's firewood.

Yesterday we finished tidying up (stashing needly bits in the bushes), then started stacking the wood and chopping it. S with an axe, me with a saw. It got dark but we carried on chopping in the garage. At some point he suggested I go in and make french onion soup instead. We'd bought a whole lot of onions at the best and biggest Turkish supermarket in town (Istanbul in København NV), and that had given him an idea... I went in and got going, using the recipe from trusty Delia's veg collection. What we hadn't realized before was that it takes about 3 hours to cook. So it was about 21:00 by the time we got to eat. But it was good.

1 lb 8 oz / 700 g onions, thinly sliced
2 tbsp olive oil
2 oz / 50 g butter
2 cloves garlic, crushed
½ tsp sugar
2 pints / 1.2 l veg stock
10 fl oz / 275 ml dry white wine
salt and pepper

for the croutons:
6-8 1 inch / 2.5 cm diagonal slices of French bread (used bits of pumpkin seed bread as that's what we had)
1 tbsp olive oil
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
8 oz / 225 g Gruyère, grated (used blue cheese instead as that's what we had)

Heat the oven to gas mark 4 / 350F / 180C. Prep the onions.

Place a large heavy-based saucepan on a high heat and melt the oil and butter together. When this is very hot, add the onions, garlic and sugar, and stir occasionally until the edges of the onions turn dark – about 6 min. Reduce the heat to low and leave the onions to cook slowly for about 30 min, until the base of the pan is covered with a rich, nut brown, caramelised film (bake croutons during this time - see below). After that, pour in the stock and white wine, season and stir with a wooden spoon, scraping the base of the pan well. When it comes to a simmer, turn the heat to low and leave to cook gently without a lid for about 1 hour.

To make the croutons drizzle the olive oil on to a baking sheet, add the crushed garlic and spread the oil and garlic all over. Place the bread slices on top of the oil and turn over each one so that both sides are coated with oil. Bake for 20-25 min till crisp and crunchy.
 
Sprinkle the grated cheese thickly over the croutons and grill until the cheese is golden brown and bubbling. Put soup in bowls to serve, with a crouton or two on top of each.

Yellow cauliflower and chickpeas

Yellow potatoes has been a favourite of ours for some time. It's a most speedy and excellent way to use pre-cooked potatoes - essentially dry-fried; spicy and delicious. For some reason it had never occurred to me to cook anything other than potatoes like that, but S steamed a lot of cauliflower the other day and a lightbulb came on. Wouldn't cauliflower be delicious this way too? While preparing the spice paste chickpeas also came to mind - I usually have a supply of pre-cooked chickpeas in the freezer, so it was easy to throw some in. It made for an excellent combination.

approx. 1 1/4 lb mixed steamed cauliflower and pre-cooked chickpeas
fresh ginger ~2 x 1 x 1in, peeled and coarsely chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled
3 tbsp water
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
5 tbsp veg oil
1 tsp whole fennel seed (optional)

Chop cauliflower into approx 1 in chunks. Put ginger, garlic, water, turmeric, salt, cayenne in blender and blend to a paste.

Heat oil.  Add fennel seeds.  Sizzle for a few seconds, then add the paste.  Stir and fry for 2 min.

Add cauliflower and chickpeas (direct from freezer is OK).  Stir and fry for 5-7 min over a medium-high flame til they have a golden-brown crust.

Coconut and pumpkin dal

I went to Paris for five days for a meeting. It was sunny all the time, and I never wore a coat. I came back, and Copenhagen had decided it was Autumn. It was chilly, windy, rainy. Dal season had started. I'd hardly spent time cooking for weeks - I've been really busy with work and house stuff. I don't feel like myself when I don't cook: it takes my mind off things and helps me relax. But I hadn't time.

So in honour of dal season, and in an attempt to use up some stuff from the kitchen cupboards, I made this rich, delicious, warming dal. I cooked red lentils and kabocha squash in coconut milk with turmeric, ginger and other spices to maximise warmth in colour and taste. Finished off with a generous amount of fresh coriander, it is warming and decadent and autumnal. And I feel a bit more like myself.

2 tbsp coconut oil
2 in piece ginger, chopped
2-3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1 1/2 tbsp coriander seeds
1-2 tsp cumin seeds
seeds from 2-3 whole cardamom pods
2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp red chilli flakes
1 1/2 cups red lentils
1 tin coconut milk
water
1 small kabocha squash
4 tbsp chopped fresh coriander
salt+black pepper
juice of 1/3 lime

Heat coconut oil in a large pan. Add ginger and garlic and cook until lightly coloured. Grind the cumin, coriander and cardamom then add to the pan along with the other dry spices. Cook until fragrant. Add the lentils and stir until slightly transparent. Add coconut milk and sufficient water to cook the lentils (you can add more later if it gets too thick). Simmer for about 20 min. Once you have started it simmering, deseed the pumpkin (squash) and chop it into smallish chunks. You can peel it if you like but wouldn't have to. Add it to the pan with about 15 min to go. Once the pumpkin and lentils are tender turn off the heat. Add coriander. Add salt, pepper and lime juice to taste. Eat right away with rice or flatbreads, or reheat (it keeps well).

Roasted carrots, chickpeas and cauliflower with yoghurt-tahini sauce

More cauliflower. I fancied roasting some chickpeas, and roasting carrots with coriander and spices. They all got roasted together and it was very very good.

Roast:
5 large carrots, scrubbed and top-and-tailed
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 1/2 tbsp coriander seeds, toasted and ground
1 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and ground
1 tbsp paprika
1-2 tsp sumac
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cayenne
1-2 tsp nigella seeds
1 tbsp sesame seeds
salt+pepper
2-3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cauliflower, broken into florets
about 1 cup cooked chickpeas

Sauce:
4 tbsp yoghurt
1 tbsp tahini
1 tsp lemon juice

Heat the oven to 230C. Put the carrots in a large baking tin along with all of the spices and seeds, salt and pepper and the olive oil (be generous with these - remember the cauliflower and chickpeas will be added partway through and they want to be coated with goodness too). Mix well and put in the oven for 10-15 min. Take out and mix in the cauliflower and the chickpeas. Put back in the oven and roast for another 20-30 min, until everything is tender and starting to crisp. While it's roasting make the sauce just by mixing together the yoghurt, tahini and lemon. Serve together.


Both roast and sauce are definite make-agains. S particularly loved the roasted chickpeas.

Cauliflower couscous

S and I joined a vegetarian lunch club at work. We meet once a month, and everyone brings some food to share. So far it's happened twice, and it's been a fun way to meet interesting people and eat good food. This time, someone brought cauliflower 'couscous'. I'd heard of that stuff but never tried it. But we are on a cauliflower (blomkål) kick at the moment - we took cauliflower and breadcrumbs to lunch club. And the cauliflower couscous was fun and tasty, so I decided to try and recreate it with half of a big cauliflower (the other half got roasted).

1/2 a cauliflower, broken into florets
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup shelled edamame, defrosted
2 tbsp chopped almonds, toasted
lemon juice
salt and pepper

Put the cauliflower florets in a food processor and pulse briefly - it breaks down into couscous sized pieces really fast. Heat the oil in a frying pan and saute the garlic until softened. Add the cauliflower and saute for a few minutes, just to soften slightly. Transfer to a serving bowl along with the edamame and almonds, and add lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste.

Ultimate gingery red lentil dal

They've had a red lentil dal on the menu at Grød all the time we've been here, and I keep ordering it even though I know it's really something I can make at home. Because it is pretty much the ultimate comfort food on a chilly day (it's starting to feel like Spring and sunny but it's still a bit chilly if we're honest).

I have been making versions of the Grød dal ever since we first went there. This time I think I nailed it. And I made crispy garlic butter flatbreads to go with it, which really took it over the edge.

(takes about half an hour from beginning to end)

Dal:
1-2 tbsp coconut oil
3 tbsp chopped fresh ginger
1 1/2 tbsp coriander seeds, crushed in a pestle and mortar
2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp dried chilli flakes
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 cups red lentils
4 cups hot water
3 tbsp tomato puree
2 large carrots, peeled and chopped into half moons
2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander
juice of 1/3 lime
1 tsp honey
1-2 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper

To serve:
yoghurt (or skyr, or ricotta)
more chopped fresh coriander
salty almonds (about 5 per bowl)

Cheat's garlic flatbreads:
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1-2 cm slice of butter
flatbread (7 chapati size pieces)

Heat the oil in a large lidded frying pan. Add the fresh ginger and saute for a couple of minutes. Add the dried spices and saute until fragrant. Add red lentils and mix around, then pour in hot water, add tomato puree, stir, cover and simmer for about 20 min. Peel and chop the carrots and add to the pan (they should need 10-15 min to become tender). Add about 1 tbsp of chopped coriander. Simmer until the lentils and carrots are tender.

Meanwhile, make the flatbreads. We had some thin Turkish flatbread that needed eating; I chopped it into 7 chapati size squares. Put the chopped garlic and cold butter into a small bowl and heat in the microwave for 15-20 sec, or however long it takes for the butter to become soft and scoopable but not liquid. Mix garlic and butter together. Heat a large heavy frying pan to a high heat, then put the first flatbread piece in it. Warm for a few min, until hot, then turn over. Put about a teaspoon of garlic-butter mixture on it and spread out. Transfer to a plate to keep warm. Repeat for the remaining flatbreads.

To finish off the dal, add the remaining 1 tbsp of coriander (remember to keep some for serving), lime juice, honey, salt and pepper. Taste and add more if necessary.

To serve, fill a bowl with dal, put some yoghurt on top and scatter with chopped fresh coriander and salty almonds. If necessary reheat the flatbreads in the microwave. Scoop dal up with flatbread or eat with a spoon.


Notes: the flatbreads were quite crispy - to make softer, perhaps it would be good to sprinkle them with water while warming the first side; I microwaved the garlic with the butter in the hope it would take the edge off the raw garlic taste and I don't know if it was that that did it but something worked and they were just garlicky enough.

Garlicky mushrooms and spinach on toast with a soft-boiled egg

Woke up with this on my mind on Sunday morning. I'd found some really good dark Nordic bread on an exploratory excursion to Amager on Saturday, and with my current splurge on anything with eggs or dairy, well fancied a good eggs-on-toast breakfast. I guess over the years I've refined and identified my favourite parts of an English breakfast. I like toast. Garlicky fried or baked mushrooms. Intense, irony spinach. Eggs, scrambled in butter or poached so you get saucy runny yolk. I had a good eggs florentine in Putney the other week (I kind of feel like the Hollandaise is unnecessary when you have runny yolk though... although I guess nice enough if someone else is making it).

Was debating whether to poach or soft boil; went with soft boiling; and I think it was a successful experiment. I liked that you could cook more than one at once and they were ready at the same time. And it's less faff. There is peeling to contend with, but it didn't take long just for two, and they were super cute sitting in their nests of spinach atop slices of toast.

olive oil
4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
10 mushrooms, cleaned and roughly chopped
salt+pepper
knob of butter
2 eggs
4 slices of good dark toast
400g spinach, washed
nutmeg, freshly grated

Heat some olive oil in a lidded frying pan (meanwhile boil water for eggs in a small saucepan) and add half the garlic. Fry until starting to colour, then add the mushrooms, season, and cook until they have released their juice and reabsorbed it. Finish with a knob of butter, then transfer to a plate.

Probably about time to put the eggs and toast on - cook eggs in boiling salted water for 4 min. Add a little more oil and the rest of the garlic to the frying pan and fry a little before adding the spinach and cooking until wilted and any excessive liquid has evaporated. Season with salt, pepper and freshly grated nutmeg.

Put toast on plates, put mushrooms on top, then mound of spinach, make a depression in the middle of spinach mound. Peel eggs and place one in the middle of each nest. Sprinkle a little salt+pepper on top. Eat straight away. Yolk will spill out and make sauce when you cut into the egg - yum.


Yesssss. Would be good for Easter breakfast.