European beaches, spiced rice and sponge puddings
Introduction
I must thank Jen Eagle who mentioned this newsletter as one to read in her great Substack, the Next Delicious Thing which has led to a lot of new readers. Let me explain what it’s all about. I read the papers, make a recipe and take a photo on the kitchen table just before we are about to eat it. It’s for my inspiration and yours to cook something different and to go to new places. This week, I went to All Saints Church in Tudeley, Kent to see the Chagall windows which I read about in last week’s Guardian which were indeed awe-inspiring.
Sometimes I look at the weekend’s recipes and think what am I going to make that doesn’t include a kilogram of clams or twelve oysters which I won’t be able to find on our High Street. All hail for both Rosie Sykes and Sue Quinn’s books, mentioned below which I know will be full of recipes, that I do want to make, even on a weekday evening. We are already big fans of Rosie’s fregola with peas and bacon and her fish pie with rosti topping where you don’t have to make mashed potatoes or a white sauce.
Recipes
Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipes for winter vegetables, roast cabbage with chana dal and sauerkraut, a Persian-inspired swede and carrot stew with bulgur and preserved lemon, and lentils with roast butternut squash and feta yoghurt
Rachel Roddy with tagliatelle with vegetable ragu with leeks, Parmesan and cream which looks sublime, Rukmini Iyer with mushroom, leek and spinach tagliatelle, Meera Sodha’s vegan recipe for sticky peanut aubergine flatbreads all in the Guardian. Ravinder Bhogal also has a Vietnamese no churn coffee and chocolate ice cream which uses double the amount of condensed milk I would use in a no churn ice cream but maybe it’s because it’s based on Vietnamese coffee.
Chicken stock rice with spiced roast carrots, dates and feta by Eleanor Steafel in the Telegraph
Diana Henry with baked potatoes recipes in the Telegraph, mushroom stroganoff, cauliflower cheese baked and baked sweet potatoes with honey-roast feta, olives, beetroot and mint.
Joe Trivelli from the River Café in the Observer with recipes that require patience and effort, pumpkin soup, sage and chicken livers, rustic pheasant, bay, savoy cabbage and bacon pie, radicchio, red wine, pear and fennel and ‘baci di Hammersmith’ which are nougat icecream covered in chocolate.
Jeremy Lee in the FT with recipes for ricotta and anchovy crostini, griddled cuttlefish salad, pheasant, bacon and leek pie, potato, parsnip and Jerusalem artichoke gratin, beetroot and horseradish salad, greens and a magnificent looking caramelised apple, pear, hazelnut, mascarpone and custard tart. I love his description of adding the ‘frangipane to the pastry case in clods so the entire case is covered and it resembles the surface of the moon.’
Nigel Slater in the Observer with slow road to supper cold weather comfort food including mushroom cassoulet and slow roast belly pork with butter beans.
And now for the sweet stuff.
So many lovely wintry puddings such as jam sponge pudding with orange zest and proper custard from Nadiya Hussain in the Times, Nigel Slater’s blackcurrant jam pudding in the Observer, and Philip Khoury’s recipe for vegan sticky toffee and pecan pudding in the Guardian which has sticky dates, crunchy candied pecans, all made gooey with a rich butterscotch sauce. I must add that my husband would disagree they were just for winter and would eat them all year round. The way to his heart is always through a crumble.
And then three more comforting winter pudding recipes by Charlie Hibbert, chef director at Thyme in the Cotswolds in the Sunday Times with orange and almond upside cake; custard tart and Marsala poached pears
Books
Second Helpings by Sue Quinn in the Telegraph
with recipes for smoky vegetable dip, leftover soup muffins, bread tart with greens, pine nuts and raisins, cereal icecream, ham, cabbage, apple and mustard gratin and coffee ground cookies.
Every last bite by Rosie Sykes in the Observer
with recipes for Catalan-style beans and chorizo, spiced rice and lentils, (pictured above,j green eggs, braised pork with fennel and tomatoes, a ‘big old soup’ and rhubarb and ginger crumb pudding.
The Social Kitchen Table by Dani Tucker in the Times
with six easy recipes for a stress-free dinner party including cod with capers, olives and cherry tomatoes, apricot and date chicken and creamy spinach and hazelnut linguine.
Bored Of Lunch: Healthy Slow Cooker Even Easier by Nathan Anthony in the Independent
with recipes for slow cooked beef and Guinness pie, carrot cake overnight oats and red pepper bruschetta pasta
Restaurants
I am always looking for reasonably priced places near art galleries and theatres. If you don’t want to go to the Wolseley after a visit to the Royal Academy, where I saw the Impressionists on Paper exhibition this week, I would recommend the new wine bar underneath Farm Shop in South Audley St. We shared a cheese and charcuterie board and experienced excellent, friendly and non-snooty service where they recommended different wines to try. And upstairs, afterwards, of course, I bought some cheese.
Chefs across the country share their places for good value meals in Observer Food Monthly. Sometimes these kind of articles sound like they are written by AI and mention the same old places but this one doesn’t. It’s well worth a look through. I am going to the Llŷn Peninsula in Wales this spring with my mountaineering club and they say that most of the pubs sell frozen food and give a restaurant that doesn’t.
The 25 best Sunday roasts in the UK in the Times including one of my favourite pubs, the Bell at Langford.
In the Guardian, Grace Dent went to Akara, in London SE1 and said ‘Akoko’s new, more casual, younger sibling is a West African trailblazer in its own right’ and was ‘modern, playful, imaginative.’
In the Observer, Jay Rayner went to a Greek restaurant, Fenix in Manchester, and thought ‘this is Manchester suited and booted and that’s a crowd that knows how to have fun. But even if none of that appeals, even if you don’t want to eat on the sunkissed set of Mamma Mia, do come for the food. It’s terrific.’
In the Standard, Jimi Famurewa reviewed Kebhouze in Oxford Street, London W1 and wrote, ‘if this were a TV show, it would be Squid Game. He left ‘thoroughly depressed.’
In the Sunday Times, Charlotte Ivers went to Dear Jackie which Tim Hayward liked last week but she thought it was too expensive.
In the Telegraph, William Sitwell was at Sexy Fish in Manchester and concluded, ‘it knows what it wants, needs and cares for, and in this business that’s all that counts.’
In the Times, Giles Coren went to the Bull at Charlbury in the Cotswolds and wrote ‘I don’t want any grief from you about, “It’s not a proper pub unless it sells only one beer, no food, smells of piss and everyone hates you,” because that’s not the world we live in any more. Without restaurants in pubs, there would be no pubs at all in the countryside now.’
Anyway after all that, he loved it
Travel
UK
Rail trips in the UK in the Times and places to stay along the way and 17 hotels for a winter weekend by train in the Telegraph.
Bittescombe Lodge Inn , a place to stay and eat in Somerset in the Standard
Europe
Lisbon in the Times ‘that is at its most wonderful and coat free in winter.’
Lefkada in Greece, the island with the prettiest beaches, says the Times
24 secret beaches in southern Europe in the Guardian as well as readers’ favourite beaches. They are worth perusing. I found one in Sicily where I’m going this year. Plage de Ciboure near St Jean De Luz in France’s is also mentioned and my last little tip is if you go there as we did last summer, park at Ciboure and walk in. Trying to park in St Jean de Luz itself is an absolute nightmare… and absolute is not the exact word we used at the time.
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.