Easter Special
lamb and chocolate and daffodils
Easter
I’ve made a decision about a meal for Easter Sunday and am making Angela Clutton’s slow-roasted chermoula lamb shoulder with aubergine cream from her book Seasoning. Our Easter Day pudding could be this chocolate cake (see below). Who knows? I enjoy thinking about it and having the prerogative to change my mind.
I like Easter better than Christmas and always slam in the lamb. One year, I made Diana Henry’s roast leg of lamb with potatoes, pecorino, basil and garlic (gift links) and here’s her perfect Easter menu.
I like the sound of Sami Tamimi’s recipes for slow-cooked lamb with spicy pickled lemon and ruz mfalfal (jewelled Easter rice) in the Guardian and if you are a vegetarian, you might like Chantelle Nicholson’s vegetable recipes for carrot crumble and sprouting broccoli with almond butter, both from the Guardian
From old issues of the Guardian, I also liked Nigel Slater’s recipes for almond and lemon shortcakes, his blood orange cake and the pine kernel, marzipan and lemon cookies.
Books
Chocolate Baking by Ed Kimber in the Guardian with tips on cooking with chocolate and recipes for ‘a dinner party cake,’ double-baked flourless chocolate cake, a blueberry and tarragon white chocolate cheesecake tart, double chocolate olive oil cookies and matcha marble cookies.
Sunshine, Lemons and Sea Salt by Donna Hay in the Times with recipes including harissa chicken and feta baked garlic bread, minted pea and toasted almond salsa tartines and lemon, courgette, asparagus and stracciatella salad. I love the title, especially when it’s still grey and cold outside.
Recipes
In the meantime, I am carrying on with using up stuff in the store cupboard and this tuna, roast pepper, tomato and white bean salad by Diana Henry in the Telegraph was brilliant for that. (gift link)
Rhubarb is in season now and Skye McAlpine gave one super simple rhubarb recipe you need plus twelve ideas on what to do with it on her Substack, the Dolce Vita Diaries. Mark Diacono also had a recipe on his Substack, Abundance, for a ginger and allspice olive oil cake with double ginger rhubarb.
David Gingell’s baked cod, tomatoes and aioli in the FT. He has three London restaurants, ‘Primeur, Westerns Laundry and Jolene, all of which specialise in bright, light British-European cooking. ‘
Skye McAlpine shares quick recipes for tagliatelle with saffron and pancetta; farfalle with radicchio, pecorino and walnuts; and four-cheese rigatoni in the Sunday Times.
Travel, concentrating on car and train
UK
A list of the UK’s best bakeries as chosen by the Good Food Guide in the Standard. Have a scroll through and see if you agree.
Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk in the Telegraph
‘This glorious Suffolk market town is finally getting the appreciation it deserves.
Tessa Hadley’s guide to Cardiff in the FT
Two days in SW Somerset by Sophie Brendel, owner of Thornfalcon Winery & Press Cider, countryside and couture in Sawdays newsletter
Wales on rails: a car-free break in Carmarthenshire in the Guardian
Henry Moore’s revamped Perry Green in Hertfordshire in the FT which they say is the perfect place to visit with children,
His studio and gardens, info here
Europe
A search for the perfect Sachertorte in Vienna in the Guardian
The sunlit Normandy that inspired Seurat in the Times in conjunction with the Seurat and the Sea exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery in London.
Europe’s longest urban cable car in Paris in the FT. ‘The Câble C1, runs from Créteil to Villeneuve-Saint-Georges in southeast Paris, is 4.5 km long, takes 18 minutes and connects five stations in 105 ten-person gondolas, replacing a 40-minute bus journey, and operates as part of the public transport system.
Marolles in Brussels in the Independent
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Reading the papers
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Excellent, and thank you for the mention Kate
I’ve just finished my monthly post with a photo of Easter in the garden (from our festivities during Covid!) great minds 😀
The cakes sound particularly good and I’m wanting more oil less butter cakes, so will certainly be baking one or two of your suggestions over the next few weeks. Thank you and wishing you a Happy (And very delicious) Easter.