Hammin'

Yesterday we did our weekly shop in the Cambridge market, and I was tempted by a big fat loin of bacon. I know they can be roasted directly, but I usually find the results too salty. So over the years I've improved and iterated on my recipe for boiled ham - something far, far nicer than it sounds. The aim is to retrieve tender, meltingly-soft and not-too-dry flesh, with a sweet glazed outside and crispy pieces of fat on top. I think at last I've perfected the method.

Ingredients:

• 1kg rolled bacon loin
• 1 carrot
• 1/2 white onion
• 2 sticks celery
• handful of parsley stems
• 1 litre of cider, apple juice, cola (or any other sweet, acidic drink)
• water

If your butcher uses a lot of salt, soak the ham in cold water for an hour or two, then drain and rinse. Scrub the carrot, celery and parsley stems, and peel off the onion skin. Put the ham in a close-fitting pot and tuck in the vegetables around it. Pour over the litre of drink and top up with water until the ham is just covered. Bring to a boil, then simmer for two hours.

Preheat the oven to 230 C. Cut diagonal stripes into the pork fat, then place in a baking dish and roast for 20 minutes. The object of this stage is to render the layer of fat between the bacon and its skin, crisp up the latter, and give the outside parts of the meat a nice golden brown temper. If your bacon has very little fat, you should reduce the cooking time so as not to dry the meat. Remove from the oven, and gently rub into the fat any of the following:

• marmalade
• thick honey
• brown sugar
• mustard powder
• ground cloves

Allow to cool at least 10 minutes before slicing, or the flesh will slice raggedly and fall apart. It should be possible to cut it wafer-thin for sandwiches after being chilled in the fridge overnight. Of course today we didn't have time and just ate it warm, in sandwiches spread with margerine and marmalade :)

Garlic Toast, and Peaches and Mozzarella Salad

Last night we went out to a concert in London: Jonathan Coulton, supported by Paul and Storm, at Union Chapel. Everything in that sentence was awesome; great gig with an audience I could only describe as exactly my demographic. Having previously only heard Code Monkey and Still Alive, and not yet having finished Portal 2, I felt a little like an imposter fan, surrounded as I was by people wearing shirts from their previous tour in 2008 and a fair amount from Penny Arcade merch. But the acoustics were pretty good, so I could hear all the words, and it was a pleasure following the wordplay and discovering the artists live. I only regretted I hadn't brought my camera, as it was an early gig at a time of year when light streams through the windows well into the evening. It looked rather like this.

Anyway, we needed to prepare something quick before heading out, so I made my scallops with chorizo. I served it with a little bread brushed with garlic oil: soak a couple of crushed cloves of garlic in olive oil for 10 minutes, toast the bread lightly in a toaster, then brush with the oil, discarding the cloves, and grill for 2-3 minutes until golden. I also sauteed some leeks; splashed with balsamic vinegar they made a side somewhere between a hot vegetable and a salad. Sumptuous and fast!

The evening before, we were relaxing from a long week, and we also had very little food left in the fridge. I'd rescued a couple of peaches from the fruit bowl just before they started to mould, and kept them in the fridge. Torn up with a ball of mozzarella and a few leaves of lettuce, and dressed gently with a light vinaigrette, it made a delicious starter before a simple baked potato topped with that eternal fallback, tuna, sweetcorn and mayonnaise. I saved some grated paški sir for topping the hollowed-out salty potato shells, grated cheese being my favourite topping for finishing a baked potato.

Stuffed Courgettes

This was inspired by a dinner we prepared at Stickybeaks supper club a few months ago. Instead of bomb courgettes, I used normal long courgettes, and instead of exciting fennel-flavoured Italian sausage diluted with breadcrumbs, I used a pack of Taste the Difference Lemon and Herb sausages from Sainsbury's. It was a little faster and not quite as wonderful, but still lovely. We served it with some leftover BBQ rice from Wednesday's dinner of grilled butcher's beefsticks and corn on the cob, and some simply boiled broad beans, which are just coming into season.

Ingredients:

• 2 large courgettes
• pack of 4 or 6 plump, high-quality sausages
• a small slice of bread
• a thick slice of Parmesan or smoked cheese
• a small sprig of rosemary

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Wash the courgettes and slice them lengthwise, then scoop out the inside seedy wet flesh with a small spoon. (You can eat it raw for a kind of cook's bonus snack, but it's not very interesting so I tend to send it straight to compost.) Lie the courgettes skin-side up in a shallow baking tray, drizzle with olive oil and roast for 20 minutes, until slightly softened, then remove from the oven and turn skin-side down, preferably wedged against each other in the tray so they can't fall over.

Whiz the bread, cheese and rosemary together in a hand blender. Squeeze out the contents of the sausages into the courgette shells, discarding the sausage skins. Season with black pepper and top with the flavoured breadcrumbs, then drizzle with a little olive oil. Roast for a further 20-25 minutes, until the breadcrumbs are crisp and golden, the courgettes are soft and the sausage-meat is cooked through.

Pasta with Smoked Salmon and Asparagus

I've been helping the BBC film a short documentary about our observatory for the last couple of days, which has involved quite a lot of walking and running about outside, getting the right shots in rather variable weather. So every day when I've come home, I've just been hungry for something simple. Yesterday the lovely SO cooked one of our classic staples and today I threw together this pasta dish as it was exactly what I wanted: light and creamy, yet smoky and nourishing; best of all, fast and delicious. We topped this with paški sir from our recent trip to Croatia, but any hard, smoky cheese will do.

Ingredients:

• 300g dried pasta (we used farfalle)
• a large smoked fillet of salmon
• a large bunch of asparagus
• juice of a small lemon (or half a large)
• 4 tbsp crème fraîche
• hard smoked cheese, or Parmesan

Set the pasta boiling in a large pan of water at a rolling boil, for the duration of its packet cooking time. Flake the salmon into bite-sized pieces. Snap the asparagus and slice into bite-sized lengths. Blanch for 2-3 minutes, until bright green and just tender, then drain.

When it's done, drain the pasta, and add in the flaked salmon, asparagus pieces, lemon juice and crème fraîche, and season well with black pepper (but not salt, as the salmon will likely be quite salty). Toss well, then serve in deep bowls with the cheese grated over the top, and more for people to add later.

Lamb with Tiny Parsnips and Peppers

This is a quick variant on my 'lamb and tiny tatoes'; instead of potatoes, I chopped one parsnip and one yellow pepper per person, a whole spring of rosemary leaves and a couple of garlic cloves, roasted in duck fat for 35 minutes at 180 C before popping the lamb chops on top for the last 15 minutes of cooking time, at 200 C. Served it with some blanched beetroot leaves, tossed with a dollop of creme fraiche, a squeeze of lemon juice and a tsp of toasted, crushed caraway seeds. It was the perfect post-run dinner, something you can pop into the oven, go have a shower, and then finish off when you're clean and bathrobed :)

Asparagus and Tomato Pasta

This is a frequent weekday staple for us during the May-June asparagus season. It's simple, requires little preparation and is totally nutritious and delicious. Nom nom nom nom...

Ingredients:

• enough pasta for two
• a fat bunch of asparagus
• 4-5 ripe tomatoes or 20 cherry tomatoes
• 2 cloves of garlic
• a small bunch of basil
• a generous handful of pine nuts
• a few tbsp of crème fraîche
• a squeeze of lemon juice
• Parmesan cheese

Set the pasta boiling in plenty of water for the packet time. (We're addicted to tricolore trottole but you can use whatever you like!) Snap the asparagus and slice into bite-sized pieces, and roughly chop the tomatoes. Peel the garlic and put it in a crusher.

Heat a few tbsp of olive oil in a heavy-based frying pan until it begins to shimmer. Add the asparagus pieces and toss around for one minute. Add the chopped tomotoes and crush in the garlic; stir well and simmer for about five minutes, stirring occasionally, until the asparagus pieces are just tender. Meanwhile, dry-fry the pine nuts until golden. Drain the pasta and toss in the crème fraîche and lemon juice, then serve topped with the asparagus and tomoatoes, torn basil, the pine nuts, and some grated Parmesan cheese.

Artichoke and Soft-boiled Egg Salad

Apologies for the lack of updates but I have been in Croatia, first at a conference and then for a short holiday! I was hoping to write a long post about Croatian food, but while it was all very fresh and delicious, the Northern Dalmatian cuisine was not particularly innovative or exciting. Mostly it was grilled fish or squid served with a simple salad, and potatoes or fries, or pizza with any sort of random topping - we even had one with kidney beans!

So when we returned we'd had that typical holiday experience where the only vegetables you've managed to eat for a week are the side salads, and you start to feel just a teensy bit scurvy. So we had a big salad of all sorts of tasty things, with a strong storecupboard emphasis as we're preparing to move house!

Ingredients:

• a 400g tin of artichoke hearts
• 10-12 baby plum tomatoes
• 200g fine green beans
• a large handful of basil
• 5-6 baby new potatoes
• 2-3 eggs
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 1/2 tsp dijon mustard
• 2 tbsp red or white wine vinegar

Set the tin draining in the sink. Scrub the potatoes and simmer gently for 15 minutes until tender. Get a pan of water simmering and then lower the eggs into it, and cover. Count out one minute on a timer, and then remove the pan from the heat and leave for a further seven minutes, after which you should drain the eggs and cool them, then peel and slice into quarters. (If I could cook the eggs at exactly 57 C as per Molecular Gastronomy, I would!) 

Cut the beans into bite-size pieces and blanch in boiling water for a few minutes, until bright green and sweet, but not soggy. Slice the tomatoes into halves and the artichoke hearts into quarters, and put in a large salad bowl. Tear in the basil. Add the potatoes and cooked beans, and season with salt and pepper. Combine the dressing ingredients in a jar, then pour almost all of it over the salad, then toss well. Lay the soft-boiled egg quarters on top and add the rest of the dressing.