Autumn Salad

Bitter leaves with warm figs in hot honey dressing, and eating notes from the week

Fig, goat’s cheese and chicory salad with hot honey

Warming the figs with honey, vinegar and olive oil in this way adds a rich sweetness to the salad that is a foil for the bitter chicory and sharp goat’s cheese – and helps to produce an excellent dressing.

Ingredients

3-4 heads chicory, washed and dried, leaves separated
½ sweet mild onion, finely sliced
100g soft mild goat’s cheese
4 tablespoons roughly chopped walnuts and pumpkin seeds (I used a mix as didn’t have enough walnuts)

6-8 small ripe figs, halved
1 sprig of thyme
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
4 tablespoons olive oil
squeeze of lemon
pinch of chilli flakes (optimal)

How to make

Place the honey, olive oil and vinegar in a small saucepan with the thyme, a pinch of chilli flakes and a good pinch of salt. Turn on the heat to low-medium. Add the halved figs. Turn the figs in the gently bubbling liquid for a 3-4 minutes until they are warm through and softening. Turn off the heat. Remove the figs to a plate, add a squeeze of lemon juice to the liquid and then taste for acidity/sweetness/salt and adjust to taste; add more olive oil if it’s too intense.

Meanwhile, toast the walnuts and pumpkin seeds in a dry pan, taking care they do not burn.

Arrange the chicory in a broad shallow salad bowl or deep serving plate. Add the onion. Spoon over half the warm honey-vinegar dressing over the leaves and toss well. Arrange the warm figs on the top. Then spoons of soft goat’s cheese in between the figs. Sprinkle over the toasted nuts. Then add the rest of the dressing on top.

We had this for lunch with buttered toast.

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Eating notes

On Tuesday I made merguez sausages on top of potato-tomato with onions (as per the recipe written up a few weeks ago), and it was fantastic. The merguez were not as large and juicy as the ones I bought from the butcher in France but had a really good flavour – like really good. I saw from the packet they are made with mutton. I added them to the veg box order from Riverford which I’ve been getting intermittently in the last few months.

I arrived first at the Ta’mini Lebanese bakery on Marchmont street for a meeting with writer and cook Melek Erdal about a very exciting project of hers that we are working on together (like omg Melek is a genius). I ordered a flat bread topped with kishk, tomato, onion & olive oil mix (I looked up kishk and found it was a fermented yogurt and bulghur wheat). It arrived hot on a tray sliced into four and had real depth and also freshness from the fermentation. When Melek arrived, she also got us a chicken wrap and commended the tenderness of the dough and the spicy green mayonnaise – it was also served hot and was generously proportioned. The bakery has a bustling canteen-y feeling, even though it’s small and are is open quite late; we chatted for two hours and could have stayed longer. The food was excellent but to drink I had English breakfast tea with fresh mint in – and they haven’t got this right – it's served in a tiny cup which ends up being too strong and not enough liquid.

Sam and I were yearning for really good bread yesterday so made a visit to Potting Shed bakery in East Bergholt. We arrived accidentally after the baker Rachel had closed, not realising she was still on summer opening hours – but luckily there was a small amount of focaccia and a loaf of bread, which was exactly what we were wanted. Rachel uses almost exclusively local flours and more generally, no white flour, even when making e.g. chiffon cake (which were long sold out when we arrived) so her baked goods all have rich nutty flavour. The focaccia with onion and rosemary was delicious. I am going to use some of the loaf to serve with Turkish eggs later today.

It was our anniversary earlier this week but we were both working (& I spent 6+hours on trains and coaches trying to get in and out of London after a tree fell on an electrical line) so on Saturday my mum took Ursula for a few hours and we went out for lunch at the Sun Inn in Dedham which manages (unusually) to be both a real drinking pub and great place to eat. We usually go there after a walk and sit in the bar drinking pints and eating rarebit or a burger (both served with superb fries), but we ate in the cosy restaurant area and I had whole plaice with girolles, peas, bacon and mashed potato which had had a rich and fruity wine sauce.

Last night I made a very quick soup with some borlotti beans I’d soaked and cooked on Friday intending to cook them with a pork chop for dinner – but we were very tired and had baked potatoes and baked beans instead. So yesterday, to watch the final two episodes of very jolly detective show The Residence, I made a simple borlotti bean soup topped with fried eggs and thin slices of the rosemary focaccia we’d bought in the morning, toasted. For the soup I fried 4 cloves of crushed garlic cloves and 2 small, dried chillies in generous olive oil until fragrant, added in 5-6 raw roughly chopped plum tomatoes and stirred for a minute or two, and then added half a finely sliced bulb of fennel and a sprig of rosemary. I then added the beans and plentiful bean liquor and simmered for 20 minutes (until the fennel was tender). I seasoned and served with fried eggs and the focaccia croutons on top. I would have added parmesan on top to serve, but we have run out.

First porridge of the season, which I made with water and serve with milk, a small dot of butter, a dark sugar of some kind, ideally dark muscovado, but currently we have soft brown sugar – and sometimes I also add cream, or toasted nuts. My ratio is roughly 1 cup porridge for 3 cups water and a pinch of salt cooked until the oats are completely tender.