Piedmont, polenta and pumpkins

23 October 2023

Recipes

We are going down the seasonal veg route this week. First stop is squash and pumpkin with Tony Turnbull’s six go-to squash and pumpkin recipes in the Times with a reminder of how good and quick pasta with roasted squash, sage and walnuts can be as well as roasted pumpkin and green sauce, and stuffed pumpkin with feta and spicy grains among others.

Eleanor Steafel thinks delicia pumpkin is a perfect vegetable and even better when roasted with plenty of salt and a kick of chilli and gives her recipe for delicia pumpkin with nduja, maple spiced seeds and polenta in the Telegraph. I like the idea of the maple spiced seeds to have as a soup topping as well.

Max Halley, the Sandwich King, has a mantra for making great sandwiches: “Hot, cold, sweet, sour, crunchy, soft – if you have every one of those six elements, it guarantees deliciousness? Meera Sodha thinks the same is true of salads and uses these principles in her squash, red onion and quinoa salad in the Guardian.

Second stop is sweet potato with Benjamina Ebuehi’s recipe for sweet potato ginger cake in the Guardian and Nigel Slater’s recipes for sweet potato, squash and cauliflower with tomato and coconut, and roast vegetables with basil dressing in the Observer.

And third stop, if you are into green rather than orange hues, Mark Hix in the Telegraph has brassica recipes; roasted red cabbage with pickled walnuts, purple  sprouting broccoli with a poached duck’s egg and brown shrimps and stuffed Savoy cabbage with braised lentils, bacon chop with cider cabbage. Also, Rukmini Iyer in the Guardian with broccoli, date, pecan and chilli salad.

Final stop polenta, not a vegetable I know, but in the Guardian, Thomasina Miers’ recipe for meatballs and tomato sauce with double corn parmesan polenta and Conor Gadd, the chef from Italian restaurant Trullo in London, with crisp polenta, parmesan and anchovy, and soft polenta with pork fillet and salsa verde.

In the FT, Honey and Co say if you don’t already love okra, this recipe for meatballs and okra in tomato sauce will transform you.

Ottolenghi is doing traditional French cooking with recipes for tomato and Gruyère soufflé, sole with saffron and preserved lemon, and sesame crepes dentelle in the Guardian.

Books

Giuseppe’s Easy Bakes: Sweet Italian Treats by Guiseppe dell’Anno

who was the Bake-Off winner two years ago with an interview and recipes in the Times from his second book for cantucci, almond biscuits, Giuseppe’s mascarpone sauce and torta frutti rossi e ricotta — berries and ricotta cake. His tip for salted caramel sauce is to add a teaspoon of espresso.

Pub Kitchen by Tom Kerridge

the book is now in the Independent with his recipes for chicken and mushroom pot pie, paneer and pea fritters and date and banana cake

More Daily Veg by Joe Woodhouse

with recipes for mushroom burgers, fennel baked with cherry tomatoes, and red onion and lentil bolognese in the Times.

Restaurants 

In the Guardian, Grace Dent went to Edinburgh to Tantra and said, ‘at no point during lunch did I have a clue what was going to happen next, and I loved every second of it.’

In the Observer, Jay Rayner was in Croydon at Vervain, the restaurant of the hotel Birch, and thought ‘the terrific cooking here seriously deserves a tidier, snazzier setting.’

In the Standard, Jimi Famurewa was at Kokum in East Dulwich, London, a ‘Punjabi-inflected curry house’ with a former-Gymkhana chef as a co-founder, and found ‘a plate ringing with spice, and the sense, frankly, that progress has never felt quite so thrillingly delicious.’

In the Telegraph, William Sitwell went to GrassFed in London NW1, where the chef Paul Foster, who started off Salt in Stratford upon Avon decides ‘London needs a restaurant where beef is cooked over fire.’

He’s also considering Sitwell’s Untainted Broccoli Dish of the Year Award. To win, simply serve a dish of al dente broccoli – charred if you so wish – and see if you can chain yourself to the mast and be restrained as you hear the siren call of cheese, anchovy sauce, salsa verde and nuts to drizzle all over the unsuspecting vegetable.’

In the Times, Giles Coren was at Fish Game in Wood Wharf, London E14, for the £16 set lunch and thought it ‘superlative Italian cooking of fine British ingredients.’

Travel

UK

20 of the UK’s best hotels, pubs and B&Bs, for under £150 a night in the Guardian, with an extract from the new Good Hotel Guide has places to stay with great cuisine, chic interiors and scenic walks from the front door.

Walking part of the Ridgeway National Trail for three days from Letcombe Regis, near the market town of Wantage to Avebury in the Times . The article includes nice places to stay.

Europe

Favourite places to enjoy the autumn leaves in the Guardian. Click on here to see the picture of the amazing treetop walk at Bad Wildbad in the Black Forest. Of course, I want to go there immediately but I’ll probably go to the treetop one at Kew Gardens instead.

Frankfurt in the Times which ‘does Christmas like no other’.

Italy in Autumn in the Telegraph, with options such as late season Sicilian sun and especially Piedmont, the subject of another article. Alto Monferrato, where apparently Gavi flows but no one actually goes, in northwestern Italy, for autumn break walking, wine, castles and its cuisine.

Amazing places to visit in the Adriatic in the Guardian. Ravenna, Trieste and the Venetian lagoon in Italy, Piran in Slovenia, and the Brijuni Islands in Croatia.

The alternative guide to Paris: How to enjoy the city like a local in the Independent.

Five star review of the Mark Rothko exhibition in Paris in the Times.

I was hoping for an article on Paris this week so if I hadn’t cooked any new recipes because of a cough, I could just stick in one of my many Paris photos, so here we are.