ORANGE & COCONUT

Orange bircher topped with coconut & cocoa nibs. Serves 2

(adapted from Bon Appetit)

1/3 cup barley flakes

1/3 cup porridge oats

1tsp cinnamon

2 dates chopped

1 orange, peeled & chopped

1 orange, squeezed

1 cup greek yogurt

toasted coconut flakes

cocoa nibs

Mix all the ingredients except the coconut & cocoa nibs, cover & chill over night

Serve with coconut & cocoa nibs sprinkled on top

The album contains no lyrics. Read into it what you like.  

PEAR & GINGER

Pickled pears & ginger

* 2 pears peeled with stalk on, halved

* 1 tbsp sugar

* 100ml cider vinegar

* 6 slices ginger

* 2 rosemary stalks (optional)

Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar, add the pears & ginger.

Simmer for 15 mins

Remove the pears to a sterilised jar

Boil the vinegar for 10 mins, add the rosemary for 5 mins & pour over the pears

Constance assumed forever meant forever.  Alas, things took a different turn. 

HAZELNUT & TRUFFLE

Hazelnut & truffle Ice cream

* ¼ cup agave syrup

* ¼ cup hazelnuts, chopped really fine

* ¾ cup double cream

* 1½ cup milk

* 4tbsp Frangelico

* Small splash of truffle oil

Simmer the agave, hazelnuts, cream & milk 5 mins.

Take it of the heat & leave to cool for ½ an hour

Add the Frangelico & truffle oil.

Churn in an ice cream maker

Whether in town or country, Saturday afternoons were generally spent indulging in life's finer things. 

CELERY & LEMON

Celery and preserved lemon salad  (Serves 4)

Recipe from Casa Moro

* 4tbsp olive oil

* 1 clove garlic, thinly sliced

* ½ preserved lemon, chopped

* 1 head of celery, 1cm pieces (reserve the leaves)

* 100ml water

* 1tbsp flat leaf parsley, chopped

* Salt & pepper

Fry the garlic & lemon for 30secs then add the celery for 5-10mins, stirring occasionally.

Add the water & cook for 5mins till evaporated.

Add the parsley, celery leaves, salt & pepper.

Dissertations around the table

…there’s nothing more charming than finding someone else’s words in which to express ourselves

Alla carta magazine

MISO & WHITE CHOCOLATE

Miso & white chocolate sauce

* 100ml water

* 25g honey

* 30g white miso

* 175g white chocolate

In a saucepan simmer the water & honey. Add the miso. 

Pour over the chocolate & stir till smooth. 

Leave to cool.

Serve poured over frozen / fresh fruit

Beyond its low hedge of neglected fuchsia bushes a steeper slope of heather & bracken dropped down into cavernous combes overgrown with oak & yew.

Sylvia smiled complacently as she gazed with a School-Of-Art appreciation at the landscape, & then of a sudden she almost shuddered.

Saki; The Music on the Hill

KALE & CINNAMON

Cinnamon kale crisps

* Kale, roughly chopped

* Sea salt

* Cinnamon

* Olive oil

Toss the kale in a bowl with all the ingredients, spread out on a baking tray & bake at 200ºC for 10 minutes, checking half way

He inhabited all the dryness of academic prose, so needless to say I was a little taken back by his outburst.   

CHESTNUT & TARRAGON

Chestnut pasta with green peppercorn, preserved lemon & tarragon (Serves 8)

Pasta:

* 150g chestnut flour

* 300g “00” flour

* 5 medium eggs

* Good pinch of salt

* 2tbsp green peppercorns, lightly crushed

* 2 large preserved lemon, finely chopped

* Olive oil

* Bunch of chopped tarragon

Heat the green peppercorns & preserved lemon in a frying pan with olive oil

Stir in the cooked pasta & tarragon

Serve with extra chopped roasted chestnuts or slices of smoked salmon

Thérèse asks François, during one of the family’s Sunday afternoons in the country, why he seems even happier than usual.

DATE & GINGER

Date & triple ginger loaf

* 115g dates, chopped

* 40g crystallised ginger

* 30g butter

* 135ml hot water

* 75g muscavado

* 1 egg, lightly beaten

* 225g wholemeal spelt flour, sifted

* 2tsp finely grated ginger

* 1tsp ground ginger

* 1tsp bicarbonate soda

Cover the dates, crystallised ginger & butter with hot water & leave for 20minutes

Grease & line a loaf tin

Beat the sugar into the dates, gradually add the egg

Fold in the remaining ingredients & bake 1 hour at 160ºC

The Bay area school of Californian artists made a return to figurative paintings from the 1940's onward into the 1960's. 

TOMATO & GRAPEFRUIT

Tomato & grapefruit bloody Mary

* 50ml vodka

* ½ white grapefruit, squeezed

* 150ml tomato juice

* Horseradish, worcester sauce, tabasco, black pepper & celery salt

* Pickled onion / olive / gherkin / celery to garnish

A play on words which lacked tact & dealt a fatal blow to their vanity.

JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE & WALNUT

Jerusalem artichoke & walnut hash (Serves 1)

* 2 Jerusalem artichokes, peeled & ¼“ slices

* 6 sage leaves

* ½ garlic clove

* splash cider vinegar

* salt & pepper

* Walnuts

* 1 poached egg

* Brown sauce to serve

Steam the artichokes for 10mins

Fry in butter with sage & garlic until brown & crispy

Add a splash of cider vinegar to the pan

Season. Serve with a poached egg, chopped walnuts on top & a dollop of brown sauce

What this account lacks in charm it makes up for in breadth, authority & depth.

Matthew Denison; World of Interiors