Thai Rice Pudding

4pm must have been a magical time for my mother.

Once my brother and I arrived home from school the tranquillity of the empty house dissipated so rapidly she could be forgiven for thinking it had been mere reverie.

Gasping through the hormonal fug of both early and mid adolescence – there are four years between us – we were mostly unpleasant both to each other and, regretfully, to her, by association. I have no idea how she put up with it and am not surprised that the occasional outburst came our way.

The debilitating and damning effects of the chemical surge were exasperated by hunger (probably because lunch had gone uneaten) and on entering the house the first question was always ‘What’s for tea?’ quickly followed by ‘When?’

Whatever the answer, we would head to the cereal cupboard to sate the hunger brought on by double Chemistry last thing in the afternoon or French lessons with the formidable Mrs. Losse (thanks to whom I will never, ever forget how to conjugate etre and avoir).

Cereal was our go-to, our emergency, our stop gap.

But not always.

There were a few occasions every month, more often in the winter when the weather made us more receptive to it, when a fresh rice pudding would have been slowly cooking in the oven. The soul-fulfilling smell of rice, milk and nutmeg was a great welcome home. Piled into bowls and topped with cinnamon and brown sugar or honey.

On those days we left the fighting until at least five o’clock.

An hour’s peace in exchange for rice pudding? Sounds like a good deal.

Thai Rice Pudding

This is a Thai-rice pudding as opposed to a Thai rice-pudding. The grains are of the fragrant jasmine variety which lends an extra level or warmth to the dish. They are particularly glutinous and sticky as well making for a hearty and satisfying dish just as good last thing at night as it is for breakfast with a cup of coffee.

One part Thai rice
Three/Four parts milk depending on how runny you like your rice pudding
Butter
Brown sugar
Nutmeg

Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the rice, stir the grains until they are coated with the butter then add the milk. Bring to an easy simmer, stir in as much or as little sugar as you like and a fine dusting of nutmeg (whenever I use mutmeg I always think of Anthony Bourdain’s advice, namely ‘go easy’).

Cook for 45 minutes in a pre-heated oven at about 130 degrees C by which point the rice should be cooked. Check halfway through – add more liquid if it needs it. This is an instinctive dish – you’ll know if it’s too dry.

It keeps in the fridge for about a week – great for spooning out and reheating at opportune moments to be topped with a dollop of strawberry jam or nuts and seeds if you are feeling virtuous.

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The Tastes of Autumn: Squash, Chestnut and Bacon Risotto

When it comes to food, Autumn is the most exciting season. By the time the end of November rolls around, one hankers for rich, big, warming flavours and hearty platefuls to ease the depression of driving home in the dark and fighting through increasingly bad weather.

Large jumpers can hide expanding waistlines and the only way to achieve a healthy glow is by supping an extra glass of wine. It truly is the season for gourmands.

Those earthy flavours so reminiscent of Autumn are a delight to cook with. Their versatility offers infinite combinations, each one guaranteed to be tasty. Pick three of the following and you’re almost certain to achieve deliciousness in perfect harmony:

Pheasant. Bacon. Mushrooms. Pears. Truffles. Pumpkins. Squashes. Rabbit. Potatoes. Pigeon. Chestnuts. Garlic. Thyme. Apples.

In fact, you could probably put all of the above together and create something lip-smackingly good.

I didn’t quite go that far with this risotto but came pretty close.

First step was to roast off a small squash – sliced and cooked until tender in a hot oven, squash develops a rich sweetness that demands to be matched with something salty. In this case bacon, although some melted blue cheese with it would make a good meal on its own.

Once the bacon had been crisped up nicely in a hot pan, the fat rendered out into a tasty sizzling liquid, it was put to one side and a finely chopped red onion softened in a tablespoon of the reserved bacon fat – using the same pan to make the most of the flavours in there (and minimise washing up)

A handful of chestnuts were roasted in the oven until the insides were sweet and the skins had split open. Half were then chopped finely, the others merely split in two to act as a textural contrast.

The risotto was made in the usual way – toast rice, add onions and spoon stock in until rice is tender but still in possession of some integrity. Right at the end, along with the requisite Parmesan and butter, the bacon, roasted squash and chestnuts were stirred in.

The whole thing was topped off with thinly sliced pheasant breast that had been fried off in a little butter, chestnut halves and a little of the reserved bacon. Finally, it was seasoned with a small pinch of ground coffee to add the merest hint of bitterness.

A big, steaming, delicious bowl of Autumn.

The Ultimate Comfort Food: Gnocchi

If it’s comfort food you are after, there are few better options than gnocchi.

These little pillows of deliciousness deliver satisfaction in ways that a mound of pasta could only dream of. They have a dense chewiness and a slightly sticky texture that holds onto whatever sauce they are coated in making each one a ferocious nugget of flavour.

They almost invite you into the bowl like tiny carbohydrate Sirens, their sweet song beckoning you further and further to the bottom of the pile until you inevitably collapse in a misty fug as the last one makes its way down your throat.

Cue belly rubbing, sighs of satisfaction and the inability to move as 90% of your body’s blood rushes to your stomach as it begins fighting its way through the wheat/potato onslaught that has just descended.

The only option is to sit very still, sip the final inch of red wine that was sitting innocently in the bottle – a chianti would suit nicely – and fall into a merry doze on the sofa as mindless brain candy plays its way across your television screen. Happiness descends. Winter isn’t that bad after all.

Potato Gnocchi with tomato, chilli and oregano

Like bread baking, the secret to successful gnocchi is instinctive. Play around with the dough and I guarantee you will just ‘know’ when it’s ready. Not too sticky, not too dense and easy to roll. Make the sauce whilst the gnocchi are resting in the fridge.

Precise measurements rarely work for this type of cooking, it’s better to think in terms of ratios and various flours and potatoes behave very differently. As such there is no recipe here, merely a rough method.

Bake a large potato for an hour or so until the insides are light, steaming and fluffier than Paris Hilton’s bedspread. Scoop out the innards and let it cool in a bowl.

Weigh out how much potato you have and add 20% by weight of plain flour (example, for the dunces, if you have 200g potato, use 40g plain flour). Keep some aside for dusting and rolling.

Add an egg (roughly one egg per two potatoes)) and some salt. Mix well with your hands and knead into a pliable dough. If it’s too sticky just work more flour into it but go easy.

For rolling out the gnocchi, I find the easiest way is to divide the dough in two and roll until it becomes unmanageably long. Divide again and continue rolling, repeating the process until your dough sausage is about as thick as a plumber’s forefinger. Split into half inch sized pieces and place on a floured tray. Cover with a damp towel and refrigerate.

For the sauce, heat a generous sluice of olive oil in a frying pan, add a clove of garlic, gently biffed with the side of a knife (leave it whole so you can fish it out later) and a finely chopped chilli, heat dependent on your preference. Allow the two to flavour the oil then pour in some passata. Season with salt, pepper and oregano and allow to bubble away for 15 minutes.

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and drop in the gnocchi. Rather helpfully they will rise to the surface when cooked so you can easily fish them out with a slotted spoon straight into the waiting sauce. Stir, serve, eat and sleep.

Oh, and keep those potato skins…(recipe to follow).

Comfort Food

If there are two words more, well, comforting than ‘comfort’ and ‘food’ then I am yet to hear them (although ‘Obama’ and ‘landslide’ do come a very close second). Even the simple act of saying those two little words can cause smiles and quivers of anticipation and an insatiable desire for a large plate of something warming and stodgy.

Comfort food is more than sustenance. It is food for the soul as well as the belly, a meal that warms the heart and the head in equal measure and leaves you in a faint fug of tiredness with a look of happy exhaustion playing across your face and a desire to fall asleep on the sofa while episodes of favourite comedies play themselves out on the television.

It is a concept that means different things to different people. One of the most interesting occurrences to come out of the ‘Desert Island Food’ game was the stark difference in what is considered to be comforting. For those raised on a western European diet, potatoes and bread feature heavily whilst those of Asian extraction showed a bias for rice. I dare say that, broadly, the pattern would be repeated in other parts of the world and I look forward to reading more ‘Desert Island Food’ lists.

With the mornings and evenings getting increasingly cooler, we’ve finally had to succumb to the wonders of central heating. We’ve also had our chimneys swept so that we can enjoy a real log fire instead of merely flicking the switch to turn on the radiators – far more appropriate, and satisfying, for life in the countryside.

There are few meals more apt for eating in front of a crackling fire than sausages and mashed potato, complete with decadent amounts of onion gravy, naturally. Add to that a bottle of rib-stickingly thick red wine and a few episodes of The Wire and you have a recipe for the ultimate comfort scenario. So, that’s exactly what we did.

Sadly no photos – by the time it was all ready the light had gone and we were left with an un-photograph-able plate of deliciousness – but for lunch I turned the leftover mash (pepped up with some fiery English mustard) into potato cakes, fried in a little olive oil and goose fat.

This is the best use of leftovers ever. Ever. Ever. I challenge you to think of one that trumps it.

Friday Nibbles – The Stock Cube

I made it! It’s Friday and I’m posting a ‘nibble’ on time. Cause for celebration indeed. There’s plenty to come over the next few days. I’ve had a number of requests for the falafel and flatbread recipe (thanks to everyone who asked for that) so that will go up next week as soon as I make up a batch and get some good photographs because a recipe without pictures is like a birthday cake without candles – it’ll do, but you notice it for what’s missing there rather than what’s present.

But in the spirit of maintaining the momentum that I started building up two weeks ago (but stalled a little last week) I’ll put these on hold and write about another essential item for any storecupboard.

For this week’s nibble, I’m going small – a bite-size nibble, if you will, although I probably wouldn’t recommend biting into one of these.

Chicken stock cubes (other stock cubes are handy too – we tend to have fish and vegetable ones in the cupboard most of the time as well, but chicken stock is so adaptable that I thought I’d focus on this particular flavour) are such an integral part of my ingredients list that I really can’t think of a suitable replacement. Of course, actual proper homemade chicken stock is superior to these highly flavoured little cubes, but it can be hard to find room for chicken carcasses, so these are the best substitute.

Even if it seems we eat a fairly constant stream of homemade meals lovingly constructed in the kitchen of our little cottage, this is not necessarily the case. Rest assured that we too get bitten by the apathy bug or succumb to a wave of laziness. This is where we crack open the Knorr. It might sound crazy but if you have a packet of these to hand, you can be mere moments away from a warming meal.

It is at times like this that the humble stock cube comes into its own and a noodle soup is just three minutes away. I tend to sit back at this point and let my girlfriend work her culinary magic. Some spring onions, a little garlic, some chilli and maybe a few slices of chicken, if you have any, can be dropped into a pan along with a pint of boiling water and one of these little flavour powerhouses. Add a slab of noodles then when they are cooked pour the soup into deep bowls and you’ve got a dinner to warm the soul. It tastes even better if you can hear the wind and rain lashing down through the windows.

The first stock cubes were introduced exactly one hundred years ago by a company called Maggi. These bouillon cubes were then copied by the iconic Oxo brand two years later, although I prefer the squidgy varieties to the crumbly – and incredibly salty – Oxo cubes. They can be used to add flavour to stews and sauces as well as soups but they really come into their own when making risotto.

Some of the finest comfort food it is possible to consume is a simple risotto made with Arborio or Vialone Nano rice, stock and then finished off with butter and parmesan. It might not be as quick as a noodle soup but the extra effort is certainly worth it.

Souper Soup

With the weather taking a swift and decisive turn for the Autumnal, the appeal of salad and other such meals diminishes rapidly to be replaced by a desire for soups and other heartier fayre.

I know it is only August and that theoretically we have another couple of weeks before the short sleeves are replaced with jumpers and the barbecue is packed away for another year but the last few days have seen winds whipping through the branches and a significant dip in the temperature. Blackberries, perhaps the most evocative of Autumn fruits, have started to ripen to a vivid purple and the apple trees in the overgrown orchard next door are beginning to bear fruit, albeit a touch on the sour side – not that it will prevent us from making a batch of cider.

A triumvirate of peppers – one red, one green and one yellow – have sat in the vegetable draw for the past few weeks and yesterday seemed like a good opportunity to use them before they make that inevitable transition from edible to compostable.

I find raw peppers hugely unappealing, but roasted they take on a complexity of flavour that belies their uncooked state. They sweeten and lose the bitterness that makes them so unappetizing. They make great antipasti simply dribbled with olive oil, with a few grains of sea salt scattered over the top but I felt that something more filling was appropriate.

After they had been roasted, I added them to a pan with an onion and three or four cloves of garlic that had been gently sweating away for about ten minutes. Two tins of plum tomatoes, a little smoked paprika and some seasoning and you have a soup that can bubble away gently for an hour before it needs blitzing.

Alongside the soup I cooked a couple of generous handfuls of green lentils which are not only cheap but also wonderfully filling. These were stirred into the soup just before serving with a chunk of sourdough The result was a warming autumnal meal for an unseasonably autumnal day.