Eating seasonally and as locally as possible is something that is coming more naturally to us nowadays. At first, it was an effort to think of ideas for using up the weekly veg boxes but now they don’t seem big enough (I’ve already moved up one size) and it’s a case of choosing between many ideas, not just thinking of one. Kohlrabi gets such a bad rep and I can sort of understand why as it’s not familiar like a carrot or a potato.

I think the secret to enjoying the kohlrabi is finding your own personal favourite way of preparing it and for me, that means eating it raw. I think it’s good cooked too, but I also think it loses it’s best characteristic, the crisp freshness. This recipe is my new favourite way to eat it raw and grated with other seasonal friends (apples, beetroot, fennel) , all mixed together in a lemony dressing and sprinkled with sesame. This whole salad is uplifting and zingy which is exactly what I need while I wait for warmer weather. The sesame seeds add an interesting bite and the garlic is roasted for more of a mellow, background flavour. This might seem a bit over the top but I just chuck the garlic in if I’m roasting some veggies for lunch the next day, thus taking the hassle out of it. If I’m in the mood however, I’ll roast a load (a couple of heads) and eat it with some good bread, fruit and cheese, as a starter. Simply squeeze the mellowed cloves from their roasting jackets and spread onto bread. That’s another no, no Valentine’s recipe right there.

I’m submitting this as my entry for ‘waiter, there’s something in my…..‘ hosted by Spittoon Extra

Kohlrabi, Fennel and Beetroot Salad

1 medium kohlrabi
2 apples (crisp, juicy ones)
1 small fennel bulb
1 large beetroot
1 small bunch flat leaf parsley
A good sprinkling of sesame seeds

For the dressing

3-4 cloves garlic, roasted (The roasting mellows the flavour)
1 heaped teaspoon wholegrain mustard
Juice of 1 lemon (maybe more)
2-3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper

- Peel the beetroot and kohlrabi and grate both into a bowl. Grate the apples into the bowl too (I didn’t peel)
- Peel any blemished outer leaves from the fennel, slice as thin as you can and add to the bowl
- To make the dressing, squeeze the roasted garlic from their skins and mix to a paste with some salt. Add the mustard and a good grind of black pepper and work into the garlic paste. Add the juice of one lemon and double the amount of extra virgin olive oil. You may need to adjust the quantities until you get a zingy dressing
- Pour over the salad then add some roughly chopped flat leaf parsley and a good sprinkling of sesame seeds.

I’m making a lot of soups at the moment, partly because it’s winter and I need comfort food and partly because I seem to end up with a lot of odds and sods that need using up. Celeriac is so perfect for making soups, this one was (very loosely!) inspired by Delia’s recipe for celeriac and Lancashire cheese bread, which is really good by the way. The tangy cheese is a great foil here for the creamy soup. I added a little leftover Gruyere to mine too, still hanging around from the French onion soup I made recently.

A quick look on Wikipedia tells me that the celeriac ‘can last three to four months if stored between 0° and 5° C and if not allowed to dry out’ – can you believe that?! What a trooper! I can imagine it now, every time the fridge is opened the celeriac is still sitting there, unblemished by time, begging to be eaten – until someone says, ‘we really should be doing something with that knobbly thing in the fridge, how about soup?’ Although there are a hundred different things to do with the humble root, think remoulade, gratin, mash, rosti, chips etc etc. That said, I think the good old soup is something I’ll keep coming back to.

This is my entry for Cookthink’s first root source challenge which each week asks entrants to devise a recipe based around a chosen ingredient which this week is…..flat leaf parsley. I immediately thought of this way of using the herb because it’s a personal favourite and totally foolproof. The parsley oil brings out the parsley/celery flavour in the celeriac and freshens the whole thing up nicely. I like to stir the whole lot in with my spoon while my dining partner argued for the ‘drizzle preservation method’. It’s up to you….This is also a really versatile way of using herbs, you can drizzle it over loads of great things, for example, pizzas, salads, seafood, barbecued meats or veggies and of course over soups. I used it recently over the croutons for my French onion soup.

Celeriac Soup with Parsley Oil and Lancashire Cheese Toasts (Serves 4)

1 smallish celeriac
2 small carrots
1 large onion
2 cloves garlic, crushed or finely chopped
2 pints good quality vegetable stock
3-4 tablespoons single cream
1 bay leaf
Olive oil
A knob of butter
Salt and pepper

For the Oil

1 small bunch flatleaf parsley, leaves picked and chopped
Olive oil, extra virgin or not is up to you (I wouldn’t be tempted to use very-strong flavoured extra virgin here, it will overpower the parsley too much)

For the toasts

8 slices baguette or similar bread, cut on a slight diagonal
Grated Lancashire cheese

- Chop the celeriac and carrots into cubes and roughly dice the onion.
- Add 1 tablespoon olive oil and the butter to a pan and gently cook the veggies until they just start to colour. Add the garlic and cook for a few minutes more.
- Add the stock, bay leaf and some seasoning, give everything a good stir and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, put a lid on and simmer for around 20 minutes until the veggies are soft.
- Meanwhile, make the parsley oil by chopping the parsley and adding enough oil to make it into a loose sauce.
- Lightly toast the bread on one side, then turn over, add the cheese and toast again until golden and bubbling.
- Remove the bay leaf from the soup and puree until smooth.
- Add 3-4 tablespoons of single cream, check the seasoning, ladle into bowls and drizzle the parsley oil on top.
- Serve with the Lancashire toasts.

I think most people would argue that cooking French onion soup for Valentine’s Day is not a good idea. Stinky onion breath anyone? The thing is, we don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day so we don’t care. Well, at least I thought I didn’t care. Until I read Katie’s post that is – Valentine’s Day suddenly looked a little more appealing! I can’t complain because I am the one who said it was all a load of rubbish, designed to make people spend money. I could have made Chris his favourite, individual beef Wellington’s like these that I made for my best friend last week. I served them with a black salsify, spinach and gruyere gratin, my favourite way of cooking such an interesting vegetable.

To make the beef Wellington’s I make a paste by blending chestnut mushrooms, seasoning and sometimes a clove of garlic in the blender and then fry it until all the moisture is gone. I let the mixture cool and then mash, chicken liver, mushroom or foie gras pate into the mushrooms. At this point it does resemble something you might serve up to your pet but it tastes great I promise. I then season the fillet steaks and sear for around 20 seconds on each side and allow to cool (keeping the pan for later). Then lay a sheet of cling film on a surface and overlap slices of Parma ham on it to form a protective layer between filling and pastry. I spread some of the mushroom-pate mix onto it and place the steaks on top. The cling film then needs to be wrapped around the steak packages firmly, twisting the ends so that they form a cylindrical shape and I pop them in the fridge for half an hour. This helps them to keep a lovely shape and cook evenly.

The pastry is rolled out to the thickness of a £1 coin and the steak parcels placed in the middle. I brush around the edges of each with beaten egg yolks and then fold the pastry over, tucking in the ends and sealing using my special clay-sealing technique (I used to do ceramics at college!). Then the top of each Wellington is scored lightly in diamond shapes, taking care not score right through and then brushed with more beaten egg to give it a glorious sheen when it’s cooked. I cook mine for 20 minutes and then let it rest a little as we both like our meat rare. For some sauce, I just add some red wine to the meat pan to de-glaze and then reduce, adding a spoonful of redcurrant jelly to sweeten.

Black salsify is such a joy to cook with as it is so odd! I really enjoy it’s earthy, nutty flavour but I do sympathise because of its rather unfortunate looks, like a bunch of twigs lurking in the bottom of your vegetable box. Then you cut into it and realise that it behaves oddly too, oozing out a sticky goo (similar to okra) and then requiring instant cooking or submersion in water and lemon juice/vinegar to stop it turning brown at record speed. The smell of the salsify cooking in boiling water is good, you can smell nuttiness and I sometimes think a slight whiff of candyfloss (!) but that could have been a bit of spilled sugar burning on the stove….

Black Salsify, Spinach and Gruyere Gratin

30g of butter plus extra for greasing the gratin dish
450g black salsify, peeled or scrubbed (some like to scrub their salsify but I use a ‘Y-shaped’ potato peeler and find this works well)
250g baby spinach
300ml vegetable or chicken stock
300ml single cream
Gruyere cheese (no exact amounts here as it depends on how much cheesiness you like!)
White breadcrumbs, a couple of handfuls

- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C/Gas6/400F and butter the inside of your gratin dish.
- Bring a pan of salted water to the boil.
- Peel the salsify and cut into the desired lengths, then drop straight into the boiling water. Cook until just tender (around 8-10 minutes, depending on the thickness of your salsify).
- Meanwhile, mix the stock and cream together and season.
- Place a layer of salsify in the bottom of the dish and then add a layer of spinach. Grate over some gruyere cheese then finish with the remaining salsify and spinach.
- Pour over the cream-stock mixture then mix the breadcrumbs with a generous amount of grated gruyere and sprinkle over the top of the gratin.
- Bake until golden and bubbling.

Now, for the onion soup. I think that the smell of onions slowly caramelising has got to be one of the best, up there with baking bread and grilling bacon. I add a splash of brandy to my soup as well as the wine as I like the extra depth but you could easily leave it out. I sometimes add thyme but also enjoy parsley, this time making a flat leaf parsley oil to drizzle over some cheesy croutons. This soup is also my entry for ‘No Croutons Required‘ hosted this month by Lisa’s Kitchen.

French Onion Soup with Gruyere Croutons and Parsley Oil

1 tablespoon olive oil
40g butter
700g onions sliced thinly
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
A generous splash of brandy
250ml dry white wine
2 pints of vegetable stock
1 bay leaf
A generous pinch of sugar
Salt and pepper

For the croutons

2 cloves garlic, cut in half
A fat baguette or similar
Gruyere cheese
1 small bunch of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
Olive oil

- Heat the oil and butter and add the onions, garlic and sugar. Cook for a few minutes on a medium-high heat then reduce the heat to minimum until the bottom of the pan is coated with caramelised onion goo (around 45 minutes).
- Add the brandy and cook until you can smell that the alcohol has burnt off. Add the white wine, stock, bay leaf, seasoning and give everything a good stir.
- Bring up to simmering point and leave to cook for an hour to an hour and a half (on the lowest heat).
- In a bowl, combine the parsley and then add enough oil to loosen the mix.
- When the soup is almost ready, cut thick slices (on the diagonal) from the baguette and toast lightly on both sides before sprinkling over the gruyere and toasting again until bubbling. Drizzle some of the parsley oil over each crouton.
- Ladle the soup into bowls and serve with the cheesy-herby croutons.

P.S I’ve recently joined MyBlogLog so if you use it, look me up!

These are easily my two favourite cookbooks of the moment. I’ve been meaning to make the Persepolitan Roast Chicken from Sally’s book for ages but
what to eat with it? As I delved a little further into the combinations of Iranian cuisine I see feta pops up over and over. I have some feta in my fridge, left over from yesterday’s lunch. But how to use it? Hmmmmm, the wonderful blood oranges are in season right now. Feta and oranges, yum. A quick flick through Moro East turns up exactly what I vaguely remember seeing a couple of weeks back, a feta, chicory and orange salad. Ok, so there might be a lot going on flavour-wise with the chicken and now there’s a lot going on flavour-wise with the salad, but I’m in that kind of mood. And I’m not going to eat my bulgur plain either, oh no, I’m going to flip one page over from the chicory and orange salad to the delightful sounding bulgur, celery and pomegranate salad.

I usually put my flavourings for chicken under the skin but Sally says to cram the stuffing into the cavity of the bird. Warnings against this are everywhere and, as a consequence, I’ve never actually done it before. I’m guessing people do actually do this without killing themselves however and so I just get on with it. The bird cooks beautifully and the breast meat is perfumed with the flavours of the fruits and nuts within. The stuffing is sweet but not overly so and I’m glad in the end that I made the sharp and tangy salads to contrast it. The saffron adds flavour as well as a striking colour, making the recipe seem quite indulgent. Well, there is 150g of butter in there which with hindsight, I think is too much. The recipe says to steep ground saffron in water. I used a pinch of ‘normal’ saffron and steeped it in 100ml of water, just to ensure even distribution over the chicken. Sally also mentions that she never bothers to truss the chicken, she just folds over and ‘hopes for the best’. I was relieved to hear this as that is exactly what I do but it also represents one of the best things about the book; you can tell that she is a ‘real’ cook, a home cook. She may not perform every process to Michelin star standard, but she knows how to turn out great tasting grub.

I didn’t get to go to Persepolis again this weekend. It seems something is against this idea and other commitments intervene. I am absolutely determined to visit next week. Nothing will stand in my way. It’s better this way anyhow, as I’ll be able to talk to Sally about one of her recipes that I have actually made (if she is there, of course). I may even ask her to sign the book.

I made a couple of modifications to the recipe, substituting barberries for cranberries and omitting the almonds altogether in favour of more of my favourite pistachios. I’ll detail the recipe here as I made it. The original also includes some ‘chips’ which are cooked with the chicken for the last portion of it’s roasting time but as you can see, I had enough going on already! The recipe also requires you to soak the fruit but doesn’t specify how long you should do this for. After a bit of googling I found that ideally, the fruit should soak overnight. I soaked mine for a couple of hours and achieved a satisfactory plumpness.

Persepolitan Roast Stuffed Chicken
Adapted from Persia in Peckham by Sally Butcher

100g cranberries
50g prunes, soaked and pitted
50g dried apricots, soaked
50g walnuts
50g pistachios
50g sour cherries
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 tablespoon tomato puree
salt and pepper
1 plump chicken (mine was medium sized)
1 pinch saffron strands, steeped in 100ml boiling water
150g butter

-Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/Gas 4/350F
-Pat the soaked fruit dry and roughly chop it. Roughly chop the walnuts.
-Melt 50g of the butter and fry all the fruit and nuts together for 6-7 minutes. Add the tomato puree, cinnamon and cardamom, cook for a minute and remove from the heat.
-Season the inside of the chicken, then cram the stuffing inside. Fold the skin of the chicken over the cavity or truss if you dare.
-Melt the rest of the butter, add the saffron mix and then pour over the bird.
-Cover with foil and roast for around 40 minutes.
-Remove the foil and continue to cook at 190 degrees C/gas 5/375 F, until the skin is crispy (this is when you put your potatoes in if you are using them).

Now, onto Moro East. For the bulgur salad, you need to juice the seeds from half a pomegranate and keep the seeds from the other half for the salad. But pomegranates are so tricksy aren’t they?! Firstly, I suggest concentrating so you don’t do what I did and cut the pom the wrong way across. This just makes things harder. As you can see from the picture, I then proceeded to butcher the pom in a totally unprofessional fashion. I’m not sure what Chris thought when he came home to see me with red specks all over my clothes and face. If anyone has a particular tip or technique, please let me know. I opted for the scraping like mad and picking out the pith afterwards method although my second time was more successful. I realised that the fruit has layers inside and paying attention to it’s organisation is worth the time and effort.

I used twice the amount of bulgur as the recipe called for as I wanted to make this more of a grain-based dish. I also used a large head of celery. I actually reduced the amount of oil in the dressing from 6 tablespoons to 4 and although I had more grain, it was delicious and well dressed. Keep any of the young yellow leaves of the celery for garnish. Here is the salad as I made it.

Bulgur, Celery and Pomegranate Salad
Adapted from Moro East by Sam and Sam Clark

200g bulgur
1 large head of celery, sliced
Seeds of half a large pomegranate
100g walnuts, roughly chopped
1 small bunch flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon fresh mint, finely chopped

Juice of half a large pomegranate (push the seeds through a sieve)
2 garlic cloves, crushed with a teaspoon of salt
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

- Whisk the dressing ingredients together, season, set aside.
- Cover the bulgur with boiling water and stand for 10 minutes, then drain any excess liquid and set aside
- Mix everything together in a serving bowl and add the dressing. Serve immediately (Sam and Sam recommend leaving the walnuts out until ready to serve as they can make the salad taste bitter if left for a while)

For the orange salad, I just amended the quantities to my taste and omitted the black olives as I had so much going on already. Sam and Sam suggest using blood oranges if they are in season, which they are, so I did and they look so pretty.

Feta, Chicory and Orange Salad
Adapted from Moro East by Sam and Sam Clark

3 blood oranges
2 large heads of chicory, leaves separated
1 small bunch flat leaf parsley, leaves picked
1 teaspoon dried oregano (the original recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of fresh but I couldn’t get hold of any)
1/2 small red onion, sliced thinly
100g feta cheese
100g walnut halves

4 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon good-quality cider vinegar

-Whisk the dressing ingredients together, season and set aside
-Cut the rind and pith from the oranges and slice them into 1cm-ish rounds
-Arrange on a serving plate with the chicory, parsley, oregano and onion
-Pour over the dressing and gently mix. Then crumble over the feta and add the walnuts

P.S. I mentioned in the comments in a recent post that I bought some lights from backdropsource, I’d like to also point out that this was a mistake. I’m not going to whinge about it here (why oh why did I not google them first?!) but if you consider ordering from them I urge you not to. Here are some other people whinging about them. And here, and here, and here.

This is my all time favourite winter slaw recipe. It’s healthy too, so I don’t feel guilty about eating half a tonne of mayonnaise afterwards and it can really stand up to strong flavours like the smoked mackerel I used in the fishcakes. The colours here are so cheering on a winter evening! I find that even if your red cabbage looks a little sorry for itself, you can simply peel off the outer leaves to reveal the shiniest, virgin specimen within. I finish the slaw with some coriander which gives it a nice earthiness. It’s great for lunch boxes too.

This week, I’m thinking of making myself a home ’salad bar’ where I keep tubs of things like roasted veggies, maybe a grain salad, some sort of meat, cheese or pulses for protein and maybe a dressing, some salad leaves and anything else I can find! I love visiting salad bars where you pick out a bit of this and a bit of that until you have the ultimate flavour packed box of goodies. The absolute without-a-doubt best I’ve ever patronised (and patronise I did – every day!) is the Alpha bar in Oxford (this site is actually better), where I lived as a student. I was reminded of it’s loveliness when I stumbled across Aimee’s post the other day. You can see my rather over-enthusiastic comment at the end! One of my favourite combinations used to be roasted veggies, brown rice with seaweed, lentil salad, pesto and sun-dried tomato paste (really intense!) with a nice fat slab of goat’s cheese on top and a sprinkling of seeds and balsamic. The quality of the ingredients is really good and all organic. The Alpha bar can be found in Oxford’s famous Covered Market so if you pass by that way, I urge you to visit. It’s the really tiny place with a massive queue outside. Don’t be put off – they are all queuing for a reason! As I said to Aimee, I’ve tried other, lesser salad bars since but it’s just not the same, Pure California here in London for example – the quality of the ingredients is just not great – and it shows. There’s just way too much variety, which is a warning sign from the start. Anyhow, I’ve digressed!

About the fishcakes – I’ve started using polenta on the outside as it makes the crispiest crust and is totally foolproof. I don’t even bother to flour the cakes anymore, just dip them in the beaten egg and then coat them really well in polenta and they turn out great every time. The first time I made these I shaped 4 large fishcakes from this mixture, but I think it actually works better if you make 8 smaller ones. They are more manageable this way and look neater.

I love the American expression, ‘a go-to recipe’. It just sums things up really well doesn’t it? This is definitely one of my go-to recipes. It’s fast and simple and I like any recipes where you can get your hands dirty with mixing and shaping. I throw in a couple of tablespoons of creamed horseradish and some capers but the possibilities are endless. That’s what you need with a weeknight recipe that you can fall back on, one that can be mixed around with different flavour combinations so you don’t get bored of eating it but you don’t need to think about cooking it either….

Winter Slaw

1/2 medium sized red cabbage
2 medium sized carrots
1 large red onion
2 cloves garlic
3-4 table spoons of natural yoghurt ( I think full-fat yoghurt is the best here and I always use ‘Total’ Greek yoghurt).
2 table spoons cider vinegar
1 heaped teaspoon wholegrain mustard
1 generous handful of coriander, chopped
Salt and pepper

- Slice the onions and the red cabbage thinly (a mandolin would be useful but I don’t have one and it works fine).
- Grate the carrots and mix with the cabbage and onions.
- Crush the garlic really well with some salt and add this to the mix along with the natural yoghurt, cider vinegar, some pepper and the mustard. I start with 3 table spoons of yoghurt and add more if I think it needs it.
- Finally add the chopped coriander. I like to keep a little back for the final garnish..

Smoked Mackerel Fishcakes

250g potatoes (for mashing)
250g smoked mackerel (I used peppered)
4 spring onions
2 heaped tablespoons of creamed horseradish
A handful of small capers, rinsed
Salt and pepper
2 eggs, beaten
100g polenta (you may need extra)
Vegetable oil, for frying
Lemon wedges, to serve

- Cook the potatoes until they are only just cooked, then mash and set aside to cool.
- Meanwhile, flake the mackerel, chop the spring onions and mix everything together with the horseradish, capers and some seasoning. Remember the mackerel and the capers are salty and I used peppered mackerel so didn’t need any extra.
- When the potatoes are cooler, add them to the mix. Shape the mixture into 8 cakes and chill for 20 minutes.
- Spread the polenta out on a plate and have the eggs beaten in a bowl next to it so you can get a production line going. Dip each cake in egg and then into the polenta , making sure that they are really well coated.
- Heat enough oil to shallow-fry the fishcakes. Cook them for around 4 minutes on each side or until they are crispy and golden. Serve with the slaw and lemon wedges.