Fish Fingers On the Side

What was for lunch, and some recent cooking

My friends Ian and Olivia stopped by for lunch a few Fridays ago when I was at home with Ursula. I made pumpkin, chestnut and rosemary soup in the morning so that when they arrived, I could chat while making Ursula’s lunch of fish fingers. I had had a conversation with Sam about whether to make Ian and Olivia fish finger sandwiches, but decided that it might be too childish and also a bit of a faff while hosting and looking after U. But when they arrived and I was preparing to cook fish fingers in a frying pan for Ursula I thought perhaps they might like fish fingers on the side – they excitedly said YES! and couldn’t remember when they’d last eaten one. They had two each with ketchup on a little plate, and the soup. Ursula appreciated the company and encouraged by Ian, ate more fish fingers than it seemed she might at first.

Quick Pumpkin, Chestnut, Chickpea and Rosemary Soup

Here is the version of the soup I have been making repeatedly this winter using fancy pre-cooked chickpeas and vac pack chestnuts. For the one I made in Rome I soaked and cooked the chickpeas – but I am currently working, writing my next book, and am 8 months pregnant, so do not have the capacity for a more longwinded version.

Ingredients

1 x 570g jar Bold Bean Queen Chickpeas and their liquid (available at Morrison’s, Sainsbury’s etc)
300g-400g pumpkin or squash peeled and cut into slices of around 2-3cm X 1/2cm thick
180g pack cooked chestnuts (Merchant Gourmet brand available in most UK supermarkets)
1 medium onion, diced
1 rib celery, diced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
a pinch of chilli flakes or 2 small dried Italian chillies
a sprig of fresh rosemary

parmesan, to serve

How to make

Heat 5 tablespoons of olive oil in a wide deep pan, add the onion and celery and a pinch of salt and cook gently until softened but not browned, around 6-8 minutes. Then add the garlic and rosemary and dried chilli. Stir for another two minutes making sure nothing burns. Then add the pumpkin and stir, then add the chickpeas and all off from the liquid from the tin, the pack of chestnuts and extra water so that the liquid sits around 1-2cm above all the ingredients. Simmer for 20 minutes or until the pumpkin is tender. Season with additional salt if desired.

Serve in bowls with freshly grated parmesan or if vegan, seasoned fried breadcrumbs. If you like, add a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and/or more chilli flakes.

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Pasta with frozen prawns and crème fraiche

Inspired by my mother, who told me about an omelette she’d made for herself with the addition of frozen prawns while my father was away recently, I bought a bag. They have since been a source of several unexpectedly sumptuous-tasting meals when the fridge looked fairly empty. This pasta using the prawns and various odds and ends was very good. Sam also made us an excellent pasta with the prawns, dill, cream and lemon.

Ingredients

150g frozen cooked north Atlantic prawns
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 mild green chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
1 medium tomato, diced
1 heaped tablespoon crème fraiche
a handful of greens, e.g. rocket or baby spinach
½ lemon, zest and juice
30g unsalted butter
2 tablespoons olive oil

How to make

Put on a pot of water to boil the pasta (2 litres water, generously salted, for 200g pasta to serve 2 people).

Melt the butter on a gentle heat in a frying pan big enough to accommodate all the ingredients and the pasta. When the butter is melted, add the garlic and cook until fragrant but not brown, then add the green chill and fry cook for 30 seconds-minute and add the tomato and stir. Cook for another minute until the tomato begins to break down. Put the pasta on to cook.

Add in the frozen prawns and stir. Add a ladle of pasta water and simmer gently for a few minutes so they defrost and release their juices into the sauce. As the prawns are already cooked – you don’t want to have them on too high a heat or they will become tough. Stir in a tablespoon of crème fraiche, grate in a teaspoon of lemon zest, and simmer very gently for a minute or two. Then stir in the rocket or spinach until it’s just wilted.

When the pasta is cooked, reserve a ladle or two of water. Add in the drained pasta to the prawn sauce, and toss with the help of a serving spoon, adding a little pasta cooking water as you do so, until all the pasta is coated well and there’s some sauce in the pan. If it seems too dry, add more pasta water and keep tossing.

Serve immediately.

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Chicken and Rice Soup

I made this when I was a bit under the weather and it was just the thing; I felt much better after eating it.

Ingredients

2 chicken thighs on the bone, with skin
1 fat leek or 2 smaller ones, well cleaned and sliced in half then 1cm lengths
1-2 carrots, peeled and sliced into thick ½ inch rounds
a generous seasoning of salt and freshly ground black pepper
a bay leaf
parsley – stalks to have in during cooking before removal and then chopped leaves to serve
2 handfuls of white basmati rice, rinsed

How to make

Place everything apart from the rice and parsley leaves in a heavy saucepan and just cover with water so it’s about 2cm above the contents of the pan. Simmer gently for 25ish minutes or until the chicken is cooked through, then add the rice and simmer gently for 10-15 minutes until the rice is cooked. If you need more water for cooking the rice, add some – cautiously though, as you don’t want to over-dilute the broth.

Remove the parsley stalks, bay leaf and chicken. Take the chicken off the bone, remove the skin, break into bite size pieces, and add back into the broth. Taste for seasoning and adjust. Serve with chopped fresh parsley and some Tabasco if you like.

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Eating and Cooking Notes

I made Delia Smith’s quick flaky pastry (from her indispensable Complete Cookery Course) and used it to make mince pies to take to a chaotic and wonderful children’s Christmas service at a nearby village church – as well as some sausage rolls. I did not make the mincemeat myself (I hope to do so some time – my mother always does) but mixed in chopped almonds, lemon zest, a little chopped candied peel and a dash of brandy to a supermarket jar. The butter I used for the pastry was totally frozen and I grated it as per Delia’s method and it produced the most wonderful puffy, flaky pies and the filling tasted very good too. One person declared them the best mince pies they’d had! Sausage rolls were a critical source of food for various children at the church service, too – and I brought a bottle of ketchup with me for application in situ.

Pasta with small slices of crown prince squash, sage, sausage, garlic and chilli, cream, loosened into a silky sauce with pasta water and finely grated parmesan added at the end while tossing with the cooked pasta. I made a salad of mixed bitter leaves and orange to have with it, dressed with lemon juice, olive oil salt and pepper.

The dim sum chefs from Banquet Chinese returned from their several-months long trip back to China two weeks ago, and so dim sum was finally back on the menu. To celebrate and to make NYE fun despite not going out at night (we have a 1 year old child and I am almost 9 months pregnant) I booked a table at lunch with friends. We all feasted to our heart’s content, and Ursula had so a lot of fun dancing, chatting to waiters, and eating cheung fun and exquistely moist roast pork with crispy skin. (nb, my colleague Jonathan Nunn, founder of Vittles where I work as an editor, declared that Banquet made the best dim sum he’d had all year).

Last night I cooked Rachel Roddy’s lentils from her masterwork of a debut cookbook, Five Quarters - Recipe and Notes from a Kitchen in Rome. The time spent fastidiously chopping the leeks, carrot, onion, celery and garlic very finely was really worth it – as was keeping a keen eye on the cooked-ness of the lentils as instructed. We ate the lentils with sausages as Rachel does, and I made a salad with some very good lettuce from our veg box, dressed as I love to do, with a generous amount of lemon juice squeezed directly into the lettuce just before serving with olive oil, salt and pepper and tossed very well. I made the full batch of lentils for two of us so there was a good amount left over – and we will have more lentils this evening, warmed through and served with a baked camembert, some more sharply dressed lettuce, and my mother’s quince jelly.

I’ve been emptying the freezer of soft fruits bought in the summer and making jam: raspberry, strawberry so far, and blackcurrant this afternoon. Gooseberry next. I am having a baby, probably next week – and my mother has kindly offered to make some meals to freeze for when we are too chaotic and sleep deprived to cook, and so I had to make space. I love the Chez Panisse Fruit Book, and applied their method for the raspberry jam to the strawberries and was very pleased. I left them to defrost overnight with the sugar, so the sugar had dissolved prior to cooking.