Strawberries, labne and Cezanne in Aix-en Provence
Introduction
My ‘editorial schedule’ is all messed up as I’ve been away so this is a bumper edition of recipes, books and travel from the last few weekend’s papers, including photos of what I’ve been cooking from them. I’ve made labne for Georgia Levy’s salad of labne, nectarine and cucumber salad with hazelnut dukkah from the Observer and for Diana Henry’s recipe for rhubarb with star anise, ginger, orange and labne, not the same lot though and Nigel Slater’s strawberries, labne and almond brittle in the Observer. I don’t bother with muslin or cheesecloth as part of my philosophy that life’s too short; I just put Greek yoghurt from Lidl in a sieve and use the whey to make bread or scones.
Recipes
The chef David Carter from Oma and Agora has shared six of his restaurant recipes in the Times including the famous spinach dip which he calls spanakopita which everyone raves about. I’ve been away for the weekend but am very keen to try this along with the grilled chicken thigh, the pork souvlaki, the parchment baked feta, the borani which is a spin on tzatziki where ‘they cook green vegetables beforehand and fold this through the yoghurt along with the cooking juices for more oomph.’ This week, we could be having a Greek feast and it’s worth buying the paper for this alone.
Diana Henry’s monthly menu in Waitrose Weekend and online for courgette fritti with anchovy mayonnaise, tagliatelle with asparagus, peas and shallots and pink grapefruit and basil sorbet. I made the anchovy mayo which we ate all week with various combinations of egg, roasted peppers and salad.
Georgia Levy has five salads in the Observer including the salad of labne, nectarine and cucumber salad with hazelnut dukkah, a flexible batch of coleslaw, a mango chaat masala salad, a curry leaf and toasted coconut potato salad.
I’m finding the new Observer online confusing so here are his recipes lately in case you feel the same way as me.
Nigel Slater’s mangoes in elderflower and lime syrup which I had to make now so I could garnish it with an elderflower, as these are coming to the end of their season in our corner of London .
a spicy prawns and mango and white chocolate and pistachio ice cream which I wonder if I could make with a tub of posh vanilla custard
strawberries with lemon ricotta icecream, the ricotta making a welcome diffference from a custard based or a no-churn one and a strawberry sorbet
summer fish and seafood in Observer Food Monthly with citrus grilled salmon, cucumber and mint, smoked mackerel, celeriac, beetroot, crab cakes, and roast sea bass, tomato and fennel which seems like a good holiday recipe.
summer recipes for slow-cooked courgettes and basil and baked new potatoes with lemon thyme.
Mark Diacono shared tarragon recipes in the Sunday Times with a crab and tarragon linguine, a tarragon gimlet, a potato, egg and watercress salad with tarragon and a tarragon and olive oil ice cream.
Diana Henry had fail-safe dishes to tempt you back into the kitchen including burrata with asparagus, Parma ham and basil dressing, baked ChalkStream trout with fennel butter, leeks and beans, burrata and asparagus, and vanilla roast strawberries with mascarpone cream. I did an Ocado order to buy a bumper lot of the ChalkStream trout as I don’t want to eat salmon these days. There’s fennel butter leftover which has gone in the freezer so I can do this again and I’m going to make Nigel Slater’s salmon recipe with it too.
The absolute gift of recipes where the addition of herbs and citrus elevate the ordinary with a chicken and herb pie and onion and anchovy turnovers, described as a foldover pissaladiere by Anna Higham, founder of Quince Bakery in Islington, in the Guardian.
I also liked olive oil and lemon-poached fish with grated courgette salad by Kitty Coles and her also cucumber, celery and yoghurt salad with harissa-pine nut butter and the hazelnut Gorgonzola salad with a honey dressing by Rachel Roddy in the Guardian.
Last, but not least, I am saving Helen Goh’s recipe for coconut, vanilla and almond cake with strawberries in the Guardian for a special occasion
Books
For the Love of Lemons by Letitia Clark
in the Independent with lemon courgette carbonara, lemon posset in lemon boats and lemon pavlova with olive oil curd. I’ve made the lemon marinated olives with feta which cheered up some supermarket jarred olives successfully, link from the Happy Foodie.
I bought this book and I love it. Bright zingy recipes tasting of summer
Pull up a Chair by Martha Collison
in the Times with recipes including Café de Paris steak and chips with an interpretation of the famous sauce and using oven chips, crab and avocado eggs Benedict where she advises keeping the Hollandaise sauce warm in a thermos flask which is a good tip and baked Camembert with sticky dates
Roti King by Sugen Gopal
in the Independent with recipes for Rendang Ayam (chicken rendang) and broccoli and cashew stir-fry and
Celebrate by Paul Hollywood
in the Times with recipes including a courgette, feta and broad bean quichea cherry marble tray bake, a no bake rocky road and white chocolate, dried cranberry and nut cookies
Sama Sama by Julie Lin
a book of Malaysian food, with recipes in the Telegraph including Singapore butter prawns, using sweet golden syrup oats to coat the prawns and chop suey aubergine with Thai basil and in the Independent with recipes for curry leaf chicken with salted egg yolk sauce, sambal mussels with wild garlicand quick creamy garlic udon with chilli oil
Boustany: A celebration of vegetables from my Palestine by Sami Tamimi
in the Telegraph including recipes for garlic-infused broccoli and labneh, an oregano cheese loaf and chocolate date bars with pistachio and raspberry
Travel
UK
Readers’ favourite UK gardens and the best twenty gardens to visit in the UK in the Guardian including East Lambrook Gardens which I visited a couple of weeks ago. It has just changed hands.
‘A gardener’s dream itinerary’: a tour of Carmarthenshire, the Garden of Wales was also in the Guardian, ‘with a handful of the county’s best gardens, a forest walk, an inviting pub or two, and somewhere lovely to stay the night. ‘This is a dream holiday for me too, gardens and nice food. If they could put in a sunny swimming pool and a snowy mountain when I was there, it would be perfect.
We’re still trying to plan a trip to Scotland next May, which means that no destinations or an itinerary have been decided as i’m waiting for the dates of our mountaineering club week in the Lake District to be decided. In this quest, I’ve bookmarked articles on why an Edinburgh city break doesn't have to be expensive in the Sunday Times, a brief history of the Earth on a geological walk around the Isle of Arran in the Guardian, and on the Applecross Pass from the Telegraph. It mentions the Walled Garden of Applecross House, the Applecross Inn which ‘gets booked up many months in advance’ and the Plockton Inn where ‘the menu is full of local catches – langoustines, oysters, steamed clams and mussels. Sounds good, doesn’t it and I have my eye on a cottage nearby.
Europe
Meanwhile, and more currently, the Guardian wrote about a retrospective Cezanne exhibition in Aix en Provence; Cezanne at Jas de Bouffan opens 28 June and runs until 12 October at Musée Granet. A Cezanne exhibition at the L’Orangerie was the the first exhibition, I ever went to with my French penfriend in the 70’s and it opened up a whole new world of art to me. I’ve booked for this and a visit to the Bibemus Quarries here. We have the poster from a visit to a 1990 exhibition hanging on a landing in our house.
A guide to Bilbao in the Standard
And onto Italy. Salerno on the eastern end of the Amalfi coast in the Times which you can get to more easily thanks to a new airport and flights. And Lombardy’s Oltrepò Pavese in the North which the Guardian cites as an alternative to Tuscany and Catania in Sicily. Is this newletter just an excuse to show my holiday photos?
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Really loved this post. I have had to keep comimg back to it to remind myself of recipes I want to try. I made the salad of labne, nectarine and cucumber salad with hazelnut dukkah without the labne and using almonds instead of hazelnuts for the dukkah! Will do it with the labne next time. Love all those salad suggestions and am saving this post to refer back to during the summer
So much loveliness Kate, I haven’t made Labneh for ages, if I can find a Greek yoghurt I’ll make some soon! And the anchovy mayonnaise sounds utterly scrumptious. Thanks for doing all the reading for us! xx