The first asparagus

Posted on May 22, 2016 by Ralph Bullivant

Saturday and Claremont Farm were selling the first of this seasons asparagus.

I wasn’t sure how many I was feeding so I made sure I bought too much.

I had thought about making an asparagus tart but when they are this new it didn’t take long to convince myself to cook them simply in boiling water and then slather them with plenty of butter, salt and pepper.

The asparagus were followed by smoked haddock croquettes. Having had them a few weeks ago in London it appears they are turning into my favourite food. There is a need for a small assembly line when making them.

They are one of those dishes that can be made up over the course of an afternoon. I started by weighing out the fish and then weighing up a similar amount of potatoes. The potatoes were peeled, boiled and then mashed with a small amount of butter.

As they cooled the haddock was poached until just done in milk.

The potatoes and haddock were then turned into each other with some English mustard, finely chopped parsley and dill, some of the milk from the potatoes and plenty of salt and pepper.

The assembly line was then set up; a small dish of flour, followed by egg and then breadcrumbs.

The potatoes and haddock mixture was taken in hand and cupped into a suitable croquette like shape, covered in flour, dipped in egg and then covered in breadcrumbs. They went into the fridge until I was ready to cook.

The cooking was done in hot oil. We had them with salad dressed with gherkins and capers, vinegar and plenty of good oil and eggs boiled until the yolk was still soft.

They were followed by blueberry syllabub. A dish that is almost too easy to make.

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Crab linguine with tomatoes

Posted on May 22, 2016 by Ralph Bullivant

Yesterdays lunch was so good I need to make a full note of how I made it.

We had crab linguine a couple of weeks but it was made better by adding a few tomatoes.

So put water on to boil in a large pan.

Take one dressed crab and scoop it it out into a bowl then added one finely chopped red onion, four good sized tomatoes that have skinned and deseeded and then chopped fine, two squashed and chopped cloves of garlic, half a sliced red chilli, the juices of one lemon, a handful of chopped flat leaf parsley and dill, plenty of salt and pepper and enough olive oil to make it all sloppy.

The water should be boiling now, salt it and put in a bag of linguine and cook until it is done – it should still have some bite.

Drain and then stir in two thirds of the crab sauce. Tip into a large bowl and spoon over the rest of the sauce. Season with a bit more pepper and then eat.

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A large part of the pleasure came from the simplicity in the making and the powerful punch of the flavours after such a short time together.

Breast of lamb

Posted on May 20, 2016 by Ralph Bullivant

This could almost be my favourite time of year when the laburnum blossom comes out in bright yellow through the green of the yew tree at the bottom of the garden and there is still some blue across the ground before the last of the bluebells die back.

On Saturday the butchers at The Farmer’ Market were selling spring lamb and one of them had two lamb breasts on the counter. He let me have them both for the grand sum of £2.50.

We had them earlier in the week.

They first of all spent a couple of hours in a low oven over a couple of sliced onions, a diced carrot, some water and covered in foil. It was quite late in the evening when they went in so I kept them in the cooling heat of the oven overnight.

The following night I was able to slip out the bones and I sliced the meat into slips the size of a thick finger.

Each slip was then glazed in a mixture of egg and mustard before being smothered in breadcrumbs.

They then went into a hot oven until the breadcrumbs started to catch some colour. The oven was then switched to a grill and a touch of melted butter was splashed over them.

We ate them with crisp green salad and cherry tomatoes.

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Along the way a salad was made with radishes and red onions.

Catching unaware

Posted on May 14, 2016 by Ralph Bullivant

A good dish can catch you unaware.

There was a suggestion we should have a prawn curry this evening. Rather than picking up a book on Indian cooking I decided to have a flick through my book on Persian food. Somewhere in the back of my mind I must have half remembered a conversation in the veg shop about Iranian seafood and how it takes on some of the curry flavours of the East.

And so I found a recipe for prawn stew.

The prawns were frozen and allowed to defrost over the afternoon. The most testing ingredient for the stew was tamarind paste but I was able to pick up a block in The International Store.

The cooking of it took little more than half an hour.

An onion was chopped and fried in oil until it took on some colour. A couple of chopped cloves of garlic were stirred in. As they cooked I chopped some parsley and coriander. I didn’t have have any fresh fenugreek so I found the packet of dried that lurks in the back of the cupboard.

Some ground nutmeg and a teaspoon of curry powder was stirred into the onions quickly followed by the parsley and coriander. At this point the recipe said tomato paste but we didn’t have any so I chopped up same tomatoes instead.They went into the pan just as it was starting to stick.

In the meantime I had started the cooking process off by soaking half of the chunk of tamarind paste I had bought in boiling water. By now the water was brown and murky and I tipped it into everything else and turned the heat down and gave it a few minutes to cook.

As we were ready to eat prawns were fried in very hot oil and tipped into the the sauce.

We ate it with rice and although it was not strictly a curry it went down well.