All good things

From South American chicken to quick tofu noodles

Happy Days…

It’s Friday and there is a bank holiday ahead!

I have a couple of things I thought I might ramble on about this week – one of which is Ballymaloe, the cookery school and country house hotel restaurant credited with putting Irish food on the map. I interviewed the pastry chef JR Ryall on Wednesday and had a little read of his wonderful book Ballymaloe Desserts. He still follows the same template for his award-winning dessert trolley as written by Ballymaloe’s founder Myrtle Allen in 1964, when she opened up her now-famous country house restaurant. I am of course desperate to visit and have found myself entranced by the idea of her, this woman of absolute dynamism and purpose who cooked with what was local and in season. She had six children then opened her restaurant at the age of 40 - there is still time for great endeavours! I plan to watch this documentary about Myrtle when I get the chance.

I suppose part of the reason I’m entranced is because when they talk about local Jersey cows supplying the finest milk or fruit foraged from the hedgerows at Ballymaloe, I think of home (and our own Jersey cow Betty Boo who was so docile that dad used her to lead in his herds of Limousins and South Devon cattle). Mum made her own butter and cream when I was little and I really had no idea how unique that was. I never met my dad’s mother, my Granny, because she died when I was one, but by all accounts she worked very hard through her life as farmer’s wife running her own enterprises and keeping lots of plates spinning as the mother of four children with a large house and farm to keep on top of. Maybe she had something of Myrtle Allen about her. I don’t know. But reading more about Ballymaloe is a bit of an inspiration.

This is a photo of me in the kitchen at Penhallow Farm, the family farm where we lived until I was 12 and where my granny also raised dad, who is in the background at the sink. Mum has a perm (check), my wonderful Polish grandad (mum’s dad) is smiling at me (in a pink ra-ra skirt obviously, because I think it was about 1989 - maybe 1990) and my cousin Sarah, who is holding one of our many kittens.

I thought I’d share it because of the stainless steel milk bucket on the floor, which dad brought in twice every day full of creamy milk that he obtained by hand from whichever cow he was milking for the house at the time - in later years Betty Boo. Mum had the morning milk and Aunty Jenny had the evening milk.

We had an old-fashioned centrifuge separator that mum used to extract cream and skimmed milk. She’d cook some of the cream in the bottom oven of our old Esse range to make thick clotted cream, some was used to make butter, we had jugs of full milk in the fridge, skimmed milk for cups of tea and then any leftover skimmed milk went to the pigs. They didn’t pasteurise it. You can imagine the cream teas. Mum became a dab hand at scones and we had a wild patch full of loganberries near the back of the house, which made delicious jam and ice cream.

I feel grateful for those times and that house. I really miss grandad and grandma (mum’s mum). But I’m happy to have been surrounded by such wonderful food and the endeavour of my parents.

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Spring #8

Friday: Jacket potato with tuna sweetcorn, beetroot and sauerkraut

Saturday: Diana Henry’s South American spiced chicken with black beans and rice served with roasted cauliflower (below)

Sunday: BBQ pork steaks with Piedmont peppers, Jersey Royal potatoes and little gem

Monday: Creamy spelt pasta with spring cabbage and toasted walnuts

Tuesday: New potato, asparagus and taleggio tart

Wednesday: Leftover pasta

Thursday: “The quick & easy one” My speedy tofu noodles

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Find tips for each one below with links to recipes where possible (click the name):

Diana Henry’s South American spiced chicken with black beans and rice. This was SO good. I used some mild chilli flakes to avoid it being too hot. It includes chopped pepper and onion and I included a whole 700g jar of Bold Bean Co Queen Black Beans as well as a tin of cherry tomatoes, in place of fresh. I had homemade chicken stock. The chicken crisped up beautifully and it did a couple of meals (lunch the next day).

BBQ pork steaks ( I used these native breed ones, which cooked very quickly on the BBQ following the method on the website). I love Delia Smith’s recipe for Piedmont peppers - it needs a good carb like some bread or potatoes to mop up all the juices.

Caramelised cabbage pasta with toasted walnuts is a recipe from the New York Times. I used spring pointed cabbage and spelt pasta from Sharpham Park, but it would work with whichever pasta you choose. Pecorino seems more salty than Parmesan so it’s worth tasting as you go to decide how much cheese you would add for a little one.

I had a go at making my own rough puff for this new potato, asparagus and taleggio tart. It didn't puff up well and was too greasy - I don’t know if it’s because I made it in haste and didn’t chill it properly or because I got confused about the direction and number of turns to make! Anyway, I would say it’s best to buy readymade. My mum thought I was bonkers to try to make my own. Hey ho.

For my speedy tofu noodles (sorry for the lack of measurements). I cooked udon noodles (the kids love them - I tend to stick with buckwheat for myself), adding green beans for the final four minutes cooking time. Meanwhile I fried chopped mushrooms in sesame and sunflower oil until nice and brown, then added cubes of tofu (Tofoo is nice and firm), making sure everything went a nice caramel colour. Into that I added chopped garlic and grated ginger, stirring to ensure it didn’t catch and adding a dash of soy sauce and fish sauce as well as a touch more sesame oil. I then added the lot to a now-drained saucepan of noodles and green beans, squeezed in the juice of a couple of limes, a dash more soy, tasted then served.

The delicious hack - Vadasz Sauerkraut

Increasingly I’ve read it’s important to get fermented foods into our diet and I often buy this Vadasz brand, because I really don’t actually have the time to start fermenting (yet). Maybe one day! I really like the raw garlic and dill one, which contains white cabbage, cucumber, sea salt, dill, garlic, black peppercorns and caraway seeds. If you’re interested in the benefits of fermented foods, it’s worth checking out the work of Dr Tim Spector (of the Zoe app).