The Modern Cook’s Year. Anna Jones
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(or 500g home-cooked chickpeas, see here)
200ml passata or blitzed tinned tomatoes
a pinch of dried chilli flakes (I use a generous pinch of a mild Turkish variety called pul biber)
a small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked
FOR THE DIP
100g cashew nuts, soaked in cold water for about an hour or 150ml thick Greek yoghurt
the zest and juice of 1 unwaxed lemon
a small bunch of chives, chopped
Preheat the oven to 200ºC/180ºC fan/gas 6. Set up two oven racks in the middle of the oven. Wash and dry the potatoes, prick with a fork and rub with a little olive oil, then sprinkle over some salt and rub in with your hands. Place the potatoes directly on the top oven rack. Bake them until they feel tender and the skin is crisp, about 1–1½ hours.
While the potatoes are baking, get on with the chickpeas. Heat a pan on a medium heat. Pour in a little olive oil, add the onion and cook for 10 minutes, until soft, then add the celery, paprika, cumin and garlic and cook for another 10–15 minutes until soft and sticky.
Add the chickpeas, passata and chilli and stir again. Season with a little salt and pepper and cook for another 10 minutes, until the passata has thickened and it has all come together nicely. While the chickpeas are cooking, make the dip. If you are using the cashews, drain them and put them into a blender with 5 tablespoons of cold water and blitz until very smooth, then mix with the other ingredients. If using yoghurt, simply mix everything together.
Once the potatoes are baked and cool enough for you to handle them, cut them in half lengthwise. Lay the halves on a baking tray. Scoop out a couple of tablespoons of potato from each half, season the inside of the potato with salt and drizzle with olive oil.
Save the scooped out potato for another meal. Divide the chickpeas between the potatoes and bake in the oven for another 10 minutes so that the chickpeas crisp a little. Serve each potato topped with the parsley and celery leaves and the dip.
Caper, herb and egg flatbreads
This recipe is really quick to make and is one of the most flavourful fast lunches I know. Corn tortillas crisped and filled with egg, herbs and some punch from capers and cornichons; it’s a recipe that crosses continents, but that’s often how I cook. It’s as quick as making a sandwich, and while we eat this all year round it’s something I make most often in the winter, when I want food from the stovetop and warmth. It is loosely based on a much-cooked recipe from my friend Heidi Swanson.
This recipe serves two as a lunch or light dinner, but scale it up as you need. For the herbs I use dill and basil, but mint, tarragon, parsley and chives would all work too. I buy large corn tortillas online from a good Mexican supplier (the Cool Chile company: coolchile.co.uk); the standard ones in the shops just aren’t the same. Flour tortillas will work well here too.
SERVES 2 AS A LIGHT MEAL
200g thick Greek yoghurt
1 unwaxed lemon
2 avocados
2 organic eggs
olive oil
2 medium corn or flour tortillas or wraps (about 12cm)
a few sprigs of soft herbs (see note above), chopped
2 tablespoons small capers
a few cornichons, roughly chopped
25g freshly grated Parmesan (I use a vegetarian one)
First, in a bowl mix the yoghurt with the grated zest and juice of half the lemon, a pinch of sea salt and a good grind of black pepper.
Cut the avocados into quarters and remove the stones, then cut each one down to the skin in thin slices. Squeeze over the juice from the remaining lemon half and set aside. Beat the eggs in a little cup with a pinch of salt.
It’s best to cook the tortillas one by one. Heat a frying pan big enough to fit your tortilla over a medium heat. Add a tiny splash of olive oil, then add half the egg and let it set into a kind of pancake for 10–15 seconds. Working quickly, place a tortilla on top of the egg; you want the egg still to be a bit runny so that it will attach itself to the tortilla as it sets. When the egg has set, use a spatula to turn the whole thing over, sprinkle over half the herbs, half the capers and cornichons and half the cheese. Cook until the cheese has melted. Repeat this process for the second tortilla.
To serve, fold the tortillas in half and top with the yoghurt and slices of the avocado. To make a meal of them, serve with a little lemon-dressed green salad.
Beetroot and mustard seed fritters with cardamom yoghurt
This time of year gets a tough write-up; grey, dark and rainy, and yes, sometimes it is. But my kitchen is filled with arguably the most colourful produce of the year: blood oranges, pink radicchio and creamy Castelfranco, splattered with pink like a Jackson Pollock painting. There is so much deep red, orange, pink and scarlet.
Beetroots too, in all their colours: neon yellow, bright burnt orange, candy-cane stripes and of course the deep magenta of the red beets. You can use any beetroot you like for these spiced fritters; I often make them with ready-cooked ones.
Vegans can add some extra flour and a tablespoon of chia seeds mixed with 3 tablespoons of water in place of the egg, and use coconut yoghurt.
SERVES 4
1 x 400g tin or jar of chickpeas, drained (or 250g home-cooked, see here)
coconut or groundnut oil
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
250g cooked beetroot, peeled
2 tablespoons chopped coriander
2 spring onions, chopped
the zest and juice of ½ an unwaxed lemon
1 organic egg
FOR THE YOGHURT SAUCE
2 cardamom pods
150g thick Greek yoghurt
the zest and juice of ½ an unwaxed lemon
TO SERVE (OPTIONAL)
chapatis or flatbreads
a few handfuls of green salad leaves
First, put two thirds of the chickpeas into a food processor and pulse until you have a rough paste, Roughly squash the remainder with a fork so they break into smaller pieces.
Next, make the yoghurt sauce. Bash the cardamom pods to remove the seeds, then lightly toast the seeds in a dry frying pan over a medium heat. Grind in a pestle and mortar until you have a fine powder. Transfer this to a bowl, add the yoghurt, lemon zest and juice and a good pinch of salt to taste. Stir well and put to one side.
Put the frying pan back on the heat, add a splash of oil, then add the mustard and cumin seeds. When the mustard seeds begin to pop and start to smell more fragrant, tip them into a mixing bowl.
Grate the beetroot using a coarse grater, then squeeze the beetroot to remove excess liquid and transfer to a mixing bowl with the seeds. Add the other fritter ingredients, season with salt and pepper and mix well. Using the palms of your hands, take heaped tablespoons of the mixture and shape into small fritters (about 12). Put a little oil into a large frying pan and place it on a medium heat. Fry some of the fritters for 2–3 minutes on each side, until golden brown. Transfer to a plate lined with kitchen paper and repeat with the rest.
Serve warm with the cardamom yoghurt, some green leaves and chapatis or flatbreads.
Gentle