Braised Shitake Mushrooms

For years I struggled with cooking shitake mushrooms. They are very different from most other varieties: unlike oyster or enoki, they are very resilient and are never in danger of breaking up while cooking. Unlike European field, chestnut or white mushrooms, they barely sweat while cooking. Undercooked shitake is unpleasant and very chewy, so I really needed a better method than just frying and hoping.

At last I found a good method, in a recipe book I hadn't used in years, simply called 'Japanese Cooking'. I recall I bought it in a Borders sale, years before they went bust...  Anyway. The technique is to braise the mushrooms: rapidly fry them over a high heat to give some caramelisation, then add flavoured liquid, cover and cook on a low heat for at least 20 minutes. Like braising sausages or chicken, this method gives them a nice smoky outer flavour, but cooks their tough proteins all the way through, leaving them soft and succulent. The liquid reduces, leaving a delicious sauce that can be varied with whatever flavours you wish to add. The recipe below serves one person, but can easily be scaled up.

Ingredients:

• 75g sesame seeds
• 10 fresh shitake mushrooms, or dried, rehydrated for 24 hours
• 100ml hot water or stock (if you use bouillon, reduce the amount of soy sauce you add)
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp sugar

Dry-fry the sesame seeds in a non-stick, heavy-based frying pan, remove when golden, and set aside. After wiping and checking over for odd bits, slice the shitakes into thick slices, making sure to cut through the tougher stalks. (Some people remove these entirely but I think it's a bit of a waste.) Fry the mushrooms over a high heat in a little vegetable oil; they will immediately absorb it but don't be tempted to add more. They will start to hiss as the steam escapes; turn frequently for five minutes until they have taken on a golden hue.

Pour the rest of the ingredients into the pan, stir to combine, cover and immediately reduce the heat to low. Braise for 25 minutes, stirring and turning occasionally, and adding more water if the pan shows signs of going dry. Serve topped with the sesame seeds: this goes well with stir fry and salads, or you could even drop them into a broth of noodles and greens.

Grated Asian-style Salad

This is a quick, fresh salad that works at any time of year, but is particularly useful in the slow winter and early spring months before the new wave of shoots and leaves are available. The fresh herbs are really important; don't be tempted to substitute dried herbs! Our local Asian store is brilliant for last-minute purchases.

I like to use kohlrabi but I've only found it in my local market, so it might be hard to find in supermarkets. If you have trouble locating one, you could use finely shredded white cabbage or grated cucumber instead. I've scaled this to use one medium-sized kohlrabi, since they don't keep well so I tend to grate one all at once. This should serve two people generously, if you serve with some braised mushrooms or even just some dry-roasted peanuts. Plain white rice is also great as you can mop up some of the nice salad dressing.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium kohlrabi, peeled
• 2 carrots, scrubbed or peeled
• 1 small bunch of radishes, with leaves if possible
• 1 small bunch of fresh mint
• 1 small bunch of fresh coriander
• half of a red chilli (or more if you like it hot!)
• 4 tbsp extra-virgin rapeseed or refined sunflower oil
• 1 tsp toasted sesame soil
• juice of 1-2 limes
• 2 tsp fish sauce
• 1 tsp soy sauce

Using a tower grater, grate the kohlrabi and carrots, holding them at an angle so that long strips are produced. Rinse the herbs if they are gritty, remove the leaves from the mint, and roughly chop. Rinse the radishes and their leaves, which tend to be very gritty. Remove the radish roots and the connection between the root and the stems. Slice the radishes into thin circles and roughly chop the leaves.

To make the dressing, finely chop the chilli, and shake with the rest of the ingredients in a jar. Taste and adjust the lime juice if needed; it should be a pleasantly sharp dressing, with a smoky umami from the fish sauce. Toss the salad ingredients thoroughly together. If you wish to keep some aside for later, do so now: it will keep undressed in an airtight container in the fridge for a day or two. When ready to serve, dress and toss thoroughly.

Roast Herby Lamb Chops with Tiny Tatoes

Today I adapted another Nigel Slater recipe to suit the chunky lamb chops I bought from the butcher's at the weekend. I also used it as a good excuse to pop out in the fresh spring afternoon to buy some anchovies, for a marinating herb rub. If you don't like anchovies, you could substitute strong black olives. And if you don't like those, I guess you could ... grow some taste buds!

I serve the lamb with some tiny roast potatoes tucked around the lamb. I'd usually flavour potatoes but the lamb herb rub is very strongly-flavoured so it's best to leave them plain. Also I finished off the last of the ruby salad from Saturday; a spinach salad with a splash of lemon juice would be equally delicious with this. As per usual for food this week, this serves one hungry person!

Ingredients:

• 10 sprigs of fresh mint
• 4 medium cloves of garlic, peeled
• 6 anchovy fillets
• 2 lamb chops
• 1-2 medium potatoes
• 1 tbsp duck fat (or vegetable oil)

Whiz the mint, garlic and anchovies in a small food blender, and grind over a good seasoning of black pepper. Cover the chops with the rub on both sides, and leave in a cool place for a couple of hours - you could do this before you go to work and cook when you get home.

Preheat the oven to 220 C. Scrub and de-eye the potatoes - I never peel them, the skins are the best bit! - then chop into 1cm cubes. Parboil for about 8 minutes, keeping an eye on them. You want to cook them until they'll fluff in the pan when you shake them, and they need to roast in the oven in about 20 minutes, so they should be slightly more done than your usual pre-roast parboil.

Put a roasting tin or pyrex tray in the oven with the dollop of duck fat. Drain the potatoes and shake in their pan to give a good fluffiness. Tip into the tray and toss with a spatula to get a good coating of fat. Nestle the lamb chops in amongst the potatoes, trying to give everything enough space to breathe. Roast for 20 minutes; the rub will soften, the lamb will become tender and pink, and the potatoes will crisp around the edges.

Ruby Salad

We started making this in Christmas 2009, in which we basically cooked and ate everything from Nigella Lawson's Christmas book. It's a little fiddly for a weekday; unless you are working from home and want a little break, or have someone very patient to do the pomegranate while you prepare everything else, I recommend doing this only on special occasions or during a relaxing weekend. But it's well worth all the time and effort, and I always end up making too much... this definitely serves two as a side, since I aimed to make enough for one and had one portion left over.

Ingredients:

• 3 sweet pointed peppers, or 2 bell peppers (yellow, orange or red)
• 1 pomegranate
• 2 generous tbsp capers
• juice of half a lime
• very good olive oil

Preheat the oven to 200C. Slice the peppers in half and deseed. Place in a small baking dish: you want them all to have their own space but not lie so far apart that they dry out and burn. Toss with a little olive oil and cook for 25 minutes, or until the edges just begin to go black. Bell peppers may take a little longer than pointed peppers. Remove and place immediately in a pyrex bowl and cover with a plate, or seal in a small freezer bag. Leave for a good hour to steam in their own heat; this will make the skins come loose. You really want to do this quite a long time before you want to eat, otherwise you'll be tempted to leave them too short a time and the skin won't come off properly.

Meanwhile, deseed the pomegranate. I usually slice the fruit into quarters and pop the seeds out by hand in a very large plastic tub, using water to separate the seeds from pith and skin if the latter is clingy. My family has reported some success with Jamie Oliver's whacking method. Personally I find it totally ineffective, while also mushing half of the seeds to pulp, but each to their own!

Skin and thickly slice the peppers. Combine the peppers, pomegranate seeds, capers and dress with the lime and olive oil. Serve!

Pumpkin Bread

The saga of the Crown Prince continues! I could have made something I'd already tried but NO! It's time to make something new! I did adapt this from the very helpful Breadmaker Bible; it's a really nice guide if you're making bread for the first time and even covers sourdough. However I disagree with her on using instant fast-action yeast in everything; I find reactivating normal dried yeast gives a better result. Also, you can see if it's still working - the fast-action stuff can go 'off' and your loaf comes out a brick, whereas you know if your reactivated yeast has given up the ghost before you risk any ingredients.

The original recipe uses sweet potato but of course here I use up some more pumpkin. I found it easier to chop and steam the remaining 1kg of pumpkin I had lying around, and then mash 200g of it, than to try to cut out and cook just 200g worth. I nearly pre-toasted the sunflower seeds but you shouldn't: plenty will protrude from the finished crust and these will pick up a nice golden colour anyway. I was also surprised to add them at the start and not on the beep, since some seeds and nuts can be broken up by the bread-maker and put too much oil into the dough, but this didn't happen with the sunflower seeds. As usual, if you don't have a breadmaker, you can do the kneading yourself, rise, knock back, rise again and bake in an oven for 45 minutes at 180C.

Ingredients:

• 50ml boiling water
• 1 tsp granulated sugar
• 70ml cold water
• 1 tbsp dried yeast: I use Allinson Dried Active Yeast; comes in a 125g yellow tin
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 tbsp mild runny honey
• 200g mashed pumpkin
• 50g sunflower seeds
• 1/2 tsp (preferably freshly) grated nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 50g wholemeal bread flour
• 370g strong white bread flour

Put the boiling water in a small pyrex bowl and dissolve in the teaspoon of sugar. Add the cold water and then stir in the tablespoon of dried yeast. Leave for 10 minutes; it should produce a frothy head and smell sour and yeasty. If it doesn't, go buy some new yeast!

Put the yeasty water in the bottom of the breadmaker, followed by the rest of the ingredients. Set it to basic white 2lb option. Remove promptly and cool right-side-up on a wire rack. Allow to settle for at least 10 minutes before cutting.

Scallops with Chorizo

I've not had a moment to write this week, but then I haven't been cooking much: the SO is off at a conference so I spent a few days just eating up leftovers we had in the fridge. Wednesday, the night before he left, we went to a 'supper club' at the new independent cafe in Cambridge, Stickybeaks. A colleague from work invited me, and we had a lovely time: I highly recommend it to anyone in the Cambridge area. The format was perfect: fifteen people entered in dribs and drabs, took seats and glasses of wine and introduced themselves. When everyone was seated, we were given a little introduction to the meal plan of the evening: a very delightful Italian menu.

Then we watched as the major steps of preparation were performed for the starter and main meal: butternut squash risotto with taleggio, and Italian-sausage stuffed bomb courgettes. After we finished these - delicious! - we watched Lucy and Catherine prepare the fastest cake in the world. They put that in the oven, and then we were treated to Blue-Peter-style slices they'd cut minutes before. The cake was rich and wonderful, and I would have loved a strong cup of coffee and a little chaser - but it was a school night. At last I know where childless 30-40-somethings spend their time!

Thursday and Friday I have nothing to report - leftover pancakes, leftover gumbo. Today was different! Having at last cleaned the fridge of the last vestiges of last week, I set out to the market for this week's shop. I made sure to buy only half as much food as usual by bringing only half the normal-size bag. Otherwise I'm totally helpless when surrounded by all the fresh produce. It was a beautiful spring day and I was glad to be out. I did miss the SO though - especially when standing vacantly in the veg stall having my groceries weighed, taking a minute to realise that without my usual pack mule, I'd need to pack and carry the backpack myself!

Sometimes people say that it's hard to cook for one. I mostly agree with this sentiment - it's certainly hard to start cooking for one. You look at the empty kitchen, you think 'well, I'm not that hungry', then you eat beans on toast and feel depressed. I like to think about it differently. I like to look at that kitchen and see a place to experiment, time to try something I haven't tried before. If I mess it up... well, there's always beans on toast!

Tonight I cooked scallops for the first time, and they went rather well. I couldn't resist using chorizo as the main addition as I find the smoky-sour flavour is just so perfect with seafood. The accompaniments were a salad that's become a staple in our family since we first made it a few Christmases ago, and some pumpkin bread I invented today. Scallops were not nearly as intimidating as I thought. The same rules apply to them as to almost any seafood: buy fresh, cook on the day, don't overcook, and serve immediately. And of course, enjoy eating more of them than you'd ever get in a restaurant, for a much lower price!

Ingredients:

• 6 scallops per person, or 2 for a starter (with or without coral is fine)
• Two 5mm slices of chorizo per person, or 0.5 for a starter
• 3 large lettuce leaves per person, or 1 for a starter (NOT iceberg)
• vegetable oil
• balsamic vinegar
• very good olive oil

Wash the scallops carefully, removing any grit or goo, but keeping the coral attached if yours came with. Season lightly with salt and pepper on both sides. Chop the chorizo slices into small pieces. Put a splash of vegetable oil in a heavy-based stainless steel frying pan or cast iron skillet, and put over a moderate heat. Toss in the chorizo and allow them to sweat out some of their oil, and fry until golden brown. Remove and set aside. Wash the lettuce leaves and place one on each plate.

Turn the heat up to maximum, and put the scallops in the pan. If you're cooking a large quantity, don't overcrowd the pan, as this will reduce its temperature and cause the scallops to sweat instead of sear. Fry the scallops for one minute and then turn over. The cooked surface should be have a dark golden brown ring on it and be seared shut. Cook on the other side for a further minute, then remove and place on the lettuce leaves on each plate. Scatter with chorizo pieces, splash with 1 tsp of balsamic per plate, and drizzle over your best olive oil.

Stuffed Pancakes

It's pancake day, so here comes a pancake recipe! My mum used to make these every few months for us as kids, and we were always really excited whenever she got the pancake pan out. She used to make two different fillings, one with tuna, and one with vegetables and a white sauce, top them with cheese and bake for 20 minutes. After the savouries (1 of each, seconds first for the eldest :) we'd always be looking forward to the sweet dessert pancakes with sugar and lemon. Good times!

This is a little adaptation I tried out tonight, combining the two ideas: tuna with vegetables, and bulked a little with some cannelini beans. If you're vegetarian, you could just omit the tuna. I use a similar technique as when I make chicken enchiladas: cooking the filling in its own juices briefly, then filling the pancakes and topping with a small amount of white sauce to keep them from crisping too much, then of course cheddar cheese. But unlike tortillas, pancakes can't take lots of strong flavours, so I keep this dish interesting with a gentle use of herbs and letting the filling be a little inhomogeneous.

This serves three, a bit of an awkward number, but the SO is heading off later this week and I wanted an extra portion to reheat later! You could always serve four with this amount, and just have some good bread and salad on the side. You'll need a quality, fairly deep oven pan for this, preferably rectangular, and of course a decent pancake pan.

Ingredients:
For the pancakes:

• 200g plain flour
• 4 eggs
• plenty of milk
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil

For the filling:

• 1 fat leek
• 3 stems of celery
• 2 carrots
• 2 tomatoes
• pinch of thyme
• 1-2 tins tuna
• 1 tin cannelini (or butter) beans

For the white sauce:

• Knob of butter
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 200ml milk
• grating of nutmeg
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 handful finely chopped parsley

Put the flour in a big bowl and break your eggs in. Whisk them into the flour using a balloon whisk until you have a thick paste with few or no lumps; try not to overmix or the gluten will start going tough. Add milk, a little at a time, and whisk in until your batter has the consistency of thin cream. You can check this by lifting up some of the batter and pouring it with a spoon. It should pour easily, and will be thinner than you expect if you haven't made pancakes before. Whisk in the salt and vegetable oil - the latter will float on the surface but don't worry about it.

Heat the pancake pan to a moderate heat and add enough batter, rotating the pan so it covers it all to make a thin pancake, as large as the width of your oven pan. It's great if you can have someone make all the pancakes while you get on with the filling!

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Slice the leek lengthwise, wash out the dirt from the outer leaves, top and tail and finely chop. Sautee in a little butter over a moderate heat until softened. Meanwhile, dice the celery and carrots, then add and stir in. Dice the tomatoes, then stir them in with the pinch of thyme; cover and allow to cook through for five minutes. The carrots should be just done. Drain your tins; wash the beans (I hate that gloopy weird stuff they float in!); and add the contents to the pan. Break up the tuna into large-ish chunks. Don't be tempted to stir it all in, just combine gently. Cover and allow to heat through for a few minutes.

Meanwhile, make the white sauce. Personally I always do this in the microwave: 20 seconds for the butter, stir in the flour, then add the milk a very little at a time, stirring thoroughly between each addition. Add the nutmeg, bay leaf, and a little seasoning, then microwave for 2 minutes. Stir thoroughly again, especially paying attention the the bottom and sides of the jug, then microwave again for a further minute. Add the parsley, stir and leave to the side. This is not an especially thick white sauce: you can make a thicker one by upping the proportion of flour and cooking for longer.

When all your components are ready, lay a pancake in your oven dish and 1/nth of your filling, where you have n pancakes. Roll it up, and repeat until all your pancakes are filled and nestled in the dish. Pour over the white sauce and top with grated cheddar cheese. Bake for 20 minutes, until golden brown on top. Delicious, unchallenging comfort food.