Car free UK, cakes and lemons
8 April 2024
Introduction
I’ve been away in the Lake District, of which more next week, and this is my now fortnightly round up of food, restaurants and travel in the national broadsheets where I cook a recipe or two each time. All photos, model’s own, to show what they look like on an ordinary kitchen table.
Next weekend I am going to hunt for bluebells at a National Trust property; other ideas on where to see them
in the Telegraph.
Recipes
Simon Hopkinson’s with an essay on lemons and lemon recipes in the Telegraph, with Dover sole in lemon sauce, citronkladdkaka (Swedish sticky lemon cake), limoncello and honeyed lemons. He said, ‘the texture inside these dense squares is both creamy and tart, with a browned, crispy edge.’ I made it in a round tin as I don’t have a springform square tin; my husband said it was ‘stodgy’, and I have to agree. He said that he would take the ‘rest to gardening’ which is code for they’ll eat anything and I don’t want to eat any more.
Lots more cakes that maybe I should have cooked instead, Rachel Roddy’s recipe for baci di dama, or Italian hazelnut chocolate sandwich biscuits, Thomasina Miers’ pineapple and lime loaf cake and Ravneet Gill’s rhubarb and custard traybake that uses a tin of custard, all in the Guardian.
Three base cake recipes by Diana Henry in the Telegraph are ‘an olive oil and nut cake, one made with sour cream or yoghurt, and a chocolate cake made by the creaming method’. She made a almond and citrus cake with citrus syrup, a lemon thyme yoghurt cake with lemon icing and a Texas chocolate sheet cake with chocolate ganache which could be a big tray bake for a party.
Nigel Slater in the Observer with ceviche with orange and passion fruit and a posset of pink grapefruit. I tried to make the ceviche with fresh scallops from Maryport in Cumbria and my husband said, ‘raw fish in fruit juice.’ ( I hoicked them out and fried the rest with garlic butter. We ate a lot of cheese for the rest of the holiday so I couldn’t go wrong. Nigel has also been cleaning out his spice cupboard and made cauliflower with tomato chilli sauce and shiitake, soba and coconut.
Coming on to what to cook for dinner, so I am not just fiddling around making a cake or marinating raw fish, three spring supper recipes in the Sunday Times by Clodagh McKenna with watercress buttered chicken with mashed broad beans and rosemary potatoes, a hazelnut and herb-crusted lamb with pea and wild garlic purée and creamy polenta with green vegetables and gremolata
Ottolenghi’s meatballs in peanut gravy with cucumber, lime and peanut salad and ricotta and oregano lamb meatballs, both in the Guardian.
Mark Hix in the Telegraph with four asparagus recipes, a risotto with leeks and wild garlic risotto, griddled asparagus with capers and Parmesan, a soup, and mozzarella and asparagus salad
Rachel Roddy’s fusilli with leek, potato, parmesan and hazelnuts in the Guardian
The Guardian Thai edition headed by Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipes for golden fried boiled eggs in a salty-sour curry sauce with a crunchy toasted coconut topping, and Thai baked chicken in a coconut sambal sauce, then Kitty Coles’ recipe for slow-roast Thai citrus chicken with cucumber and peanut salad, Luke Farrell’s fried pork with salt and Yui Miles mushroom tom yum with noodles.
Mark Hix’s Sri Lankan-inspired seafood recipes with egg hoppers, cod with red mung bean salsa, seafood salad and pork ragu with squid and sweet potato mash
Jersey Royal potato salad with kimchi and lime butter by Ravinder Bhogal in the FT
Diana Henry in Waitrose Weekend with spinach and saffron orzo, chicken roasted with cauliflower, aubergines, raisins, pine nuts and capers and Turkish fish cakes with preserved lemon yoghurt
Books
Make More with Less: Foolproof Recipes to Make Your Food go Further by Kitty Coles with a recipe for soft leeks with ricotta parsley sauce and parmesan breadcrumbs in the Guardian.
I’ll Bring Dessert: Simple, Sweet Recipes for Every Occasion
by Benjamina Ebuehi in the Guardian with recipes for spiced pineapple tart with bay cream and creamy coconut and passionfruit tart
Scorched: the ultimate guide to barbecuing fish by Genevieve Taylor
in the Times with instructions, answers to queries and recipes for miso and sesame tuna steaks with wasabi ginger mayo, grilled prawns with garam masala butter, lemongrass and lime leaf butter (for white fish) and barbecued whole grilled plaice with green butter
Easy Wins: 12 Flavour Hits, 125 Delicious Recipes, 365 days of Good Eating by Anna Jones
in the Guardian with recipes for cheese and pickle roast potatoes with chilli-dressed leaves and courgette and salsa verde gratin.
I love this book which been widely reviewed and at the top of the bestsellers list. I’m drawing attention to it again because I saw it in Sainsbury’s in Kendal for £14 which is an absolute steal. And you’ll be pleased to hear the gratin, (pictured above) was appreciated, so my faith in my cooking abilities is restored.
Restaurants
London's best restaurants for a pre-and post-theatre meal, from Bar Crispin to Joe Allen’s in the Standard.
In the FT, Tim Hayward liked the Montpelier in Peckham, London SE15
In the Guardian, Grace Dent went to Wales to the Shed in Swansea, advises to make a detour for lunch and’ thinks it’s safe to say that this is more of a place for farm-to-fork lovers keen to eat every mooing, baa-ing tasty thing from across the Gower Peninsula, the Brecon Beacons, Herefordshire, and the lush farmland of West Wales and the Monmouthshire borders and also to Dream Xi’an in London EC3: ‘I challenge you to find a nicer way to spend a couple of hours near the Tower of London’ –
In the Observer, Jay Rayner liked Freddie’s, a Jewish deli in London NW3, near the Royal Free Hospital and Cuubo in Birmingham, which he says is tiny, but its ambition and bursts of flavour are extra large
In the Standard, Jimi Famurewa was at Yuki Bar in London E8 and thought it didn’t ‘offer a rounded experience to match its seductive staging.’ and the Shoap by Auld Hag, a Scots deli which is a 3 minute walk to Sadlers Wells.
In the Telegraph, William Sitwell liked the Clifton in Bristol where there was ‘a succession of seemingly simple, hearty dishes, but there are real brains and thought in the kitchen and thought that in opening the Arlington, King creates what he does best: buzz.
‘The buzzing bees of glitterati swarm round his honey pot – be they media tycoons, editors, actors… – they smooch and hug and nod and wave and relish being there, and you need to understand this when it comes to the food.’
In the Times, Giles Coren went to Med Salleh Kopitiam, but couldn’t review it as it was old so went to their new one, Med Salleh Viet, Syphong’s offshoot project about half a mile away on Chepstow Road and to Camille in London SE1, after all the other critics.
Travel
UK
Britain’s twenty best restaurants with rooms in the Telegraph including the Suffolk in Aldeburgh, Pythouse Kitchen Garden in Wiltshire near Tisbury, and Holm in South Petherton, Somerset. I’ve picked these three out of the article as I’ve been to all of them and owuld recommend but not stayed at the latter two.
Leaving your car behind for a holiday in the Lake District, in the Forest of Dean and in the Scottish Highlands where they go round the NC500 by public transport and on foot instead of in an ceaseless line of motorhomes, all in the Guardian.
Where Bridgerton is filmed in the Independent as part 3 is on telly soon.
A guide to Leeds in the Guardian.
The Isle of Arran in Scotland in the Telegraph.
Derek Jarman’s beach house in Dungeness in the Times which more importantly is near Dungeness Snack Shack which is one of my favourite places. We’ve even had a night at a Premier Inn before crossing the Channel the next day just to go there.
Europe
Greek islands with a beginner’s guide to Crete in the Telegraph and Naxos in the Times which is Victoria Hislop’s favourite after visiting 40 Greek islands.
A food weekend in Madrid in the Observer heading to the back-street bodegas, tiny tapas bars and neighbourhood food markets
France’s Pas de Calais in the Guardian which you might just whizz through on the way to other places if you are anything like me, this would also give good information for a weekend away or a last night before crossing the Channel back to the UK. Spring breaks in France in the Times
Why the Amalfi Coast is at its best in spring and Sicily in the Telegraph, which are timely for me because I booked flights in January to Palermo for a fortnight at the end of May and then never did anything else. Now I am on the case but a lot of stuff is booked up.
Why the Marche is upstaging Umbria in the Guardian. I went there in 2019 and then on for a week in Tuscany and there are a lot less English speaking voices in Le Marche. It was so unspoilt. We stayed near Montsampietro Morico in the Province of Fermo, which is half an hour from Amandola mentioned in this article
Reading the papers
People ask me how I read all the papers. I believe in paying for quality journalism and my husband and I have digital subscriptions to the Times and to the Telegraph. Sometimes my husband buys a Times on Saturdays or I buy a Guardian and I buy the Observer when it’s Observer Food Monthly. Otherwise I rely on what’s online, and on Twitter and Instagram. And occasionally, I ask a friend to save an article for me.
The Times gives you two free articles a week as a registered user and the Telegraph gives you access to one free article each week if you register an account. The FT gives a certain number of free articles
Local public libraries often have Pressreader which gives access to over 7,000 newspapers world wide for free or you can subscribe to it.
Sometimes, I use the recipes for inspiration. If they are from a cookbook, they may be in other publications as well for publicity, and you may find them or a similar version through a quick Google.