Popcorn

I have always really liked popcorn.

Not the overly-salted artificially-coloured drenched-in-unidentifiable-grease drek served in American movie theaters, but homemade popcorn made in a pan and served with melted butter. (I smuggle in my own if I go out to a movie.) My mother used to pop up a big pan as an evening treat, and would marvel at my brother Nat’s seemingly bottomless appetite for crisp corn goodness. She would always serve it sprinkled with nutritional yeast which lent it a nutty umame flavour.

I’ve encouraged the love of popcorn in many of my friends, but in my husband I have met my match in popcorn adoration. His favourite version is what we call regular: popped in olive oil and topped with melted butter and olive oil, salt, fresh ground black pepper, nutritional yeast, and a hint of garlic and onion powders. I love experimenting, though, and have served up a variety of flavours ranging from sweet and salty kettle corn to Thai chili with lime. The latest experiment was chicken and thyme, with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice to brighten it. Delicious.

Here’s “regular”:

Ingredients:
- 4 or 5 tablespoons olive oil for popping
- enough popcorn to cover the bottom of a big soup pot (11″ or so) in a thick layer, about a cup
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 2 tablespoons olive oil for topping
- 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
- salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
- garlic powder and onion powder to taste
- optional: add a dash of soysauce to the butter

To cook:
- Put the olive oil in a big soup pot on a high heat. When the oil is hot but not smoking, add the popcorn. Give it a good shake to coat the kernels thoroughly, and cover. Shake periodically, about every 20 seconds, and more frequently when the corn starts popping. It takes some practice to find the right amount of heat/oil/popcorn, but what you want is for the corn to heat up, turn light yellow, and become fragrant. Shortly thereafter it will start popping. When the popping slows down to a few pops ever ten seconds, remove from the heat. Keep shaking it, though, as the bottom of the pan will be hot enough to burn the popcorn if you let it sit.
- Melt the butter and 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a ramekin (in the microwave, if you’ve got one).
- Shake a layer of popcorn into a large bowl, drizzle with the butter mixture, sprinkle with salt, pepper, spices, and yeast. Repeat.

For other flavours always start with drizzles of butter and olive oil and add:
- 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and a hint of salt
- 1 teaspoons smoked paprika heated with the butter and oil, salt and pepper
- powdered ginger and garlic, sprinkle of lime juice, and red pepper flakes
- 1/4 chicken bullion cube and 1 teaspoon dried thyme heated with the butter and olive oil, salt and pepper

Etc!

Chicken Potpie

Francis makes this luscious and satisfying pie with leftover roast chicken.

Ingredients:
- big bunch of button mushrooms
- knob of butter
- glug of olive oil
- one batch of white sauce
- tarragon, 2 tablespoons fresh or 1 tablespoon dried
- thigh, leg, and breast meat, shredded into big chunks
- salt and pepper to taste
- one batch of rough puff pastry

To cook:
- Slice and sauté the mushrooms in the butter and olive oil until well-browned.
- Mix all together well, put in a casserole dish, top with the pastry, and pop into a pre-heated oven at 350°.
- Bake until golden on top, about 30 mins.

Rough puff pastry

Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall’s recipe:

I know it’s time-consuming to make pastry, but the rolling and turning is rather satisfying and it freezes well, so make two or three times as much as you need and freeze.

200g cold butter or lard, or a mixture
400g plain flour
1 pinch salt
Iced water
1 egg yolk, beaten with 2 tsp of milk (or water), to glaze

Toss the fat in the flour and salt until coated, then add a little iced water and bring the dough together with your hands, adding no more water than you need to get a medium-firm dough that is not too sticky and has large pieces of fat in it. On a well-floured surface, use your hands to shape the dough into a fat rectangle and roll it out with a well-floured rolling pin, rolling away from yourself in one direction to keep the rectangular shape as much as you can. When it’s about 2cm thick, fold the far third towards you and fold the near third over that (a bit like folding a letter), so you have a rectangle a third of the size and three times as thick. Repeat this folding and turning at least four times, preferably six or seven, dusting lightly with flour as you go. Fold it up for a final time and chill for at least an hour before rolling out for your pie.

Dutch Baby with Apple Topping

For the last few weeks, this German breakfast treat has graced our table late Sunday morning. Best served with crispy bacon and Mexican hot chocolate!

Ingredients for the Dutch baby:
- 3 eggs (must be at room temp)
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 cup white flour
- pinch of salt
- dash of vanilla
- 1 teaspoon of lemon zest
- 2 tablespoons melted butter

Ingredients for the apple topping:
- 4 small apples
- big chunk of butter (2-4 tablespoons, depending on your mood)
- 4 or 5 tablespoons brown sugar
- sprinkle of cinnamon

To cook:
- In a medium saucepan, heat the butter and brown sugar over medium heat. As that gets going:
- Peel, core, and cut apples into 1″ chunks, add to pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon, stir well, and cover.
- After about 10 minutes, take off the lid, and continue to cook until apples are very soft but not breaking down.
- While the apples are cooking, start your bacon and pre-heat the oven to 450°F. (Now is also a good time to start the Mexican hot chocolate.)
- Put a cast iron pan in the oven to heat, adding 2 tablespoons of butter.
- Beat the eggs well, add milk, salt, vanilla, lemon zest. Stir in the flour, try and get most of the lumps out, and swirl in the melted butter.
- Swirl the hot skillet around to distribute the butter and to get it up on the sides a bit, and add the batter.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes until it is well puffed up and brown on the peaks.

Serve with big spoonfuls of apple goodness, generous squeezes of lemon juice, and lots of confectioner’s sugar sprinkled on top. This recipe serves two people with Bacchanalian propensities, or three or four with less robust appetites.

Mexican Hot Chocolate

Spicy, rich, frothy. A must-have for Sunday mornings. Serves two.

Ingredients:
- 3 cups milk
- 2 T brown sugar
- 6 or 7 cardamom pods
- 4 or 5 cloves
- sprinkle of cinnamon
- sprinkle of cayenne (big sprinkle for a nice bite)
- 2 T unsweetened cocoa powder

To cook:
- Smash caradmom pods so they are cracked and bruised.
- Heat all except cocoa powder in a saucepan over medium heat. Do not boil. Remove from heat and cover, and allow to steep for a good 20 minutes.
- Heat to steaming, but do not boil. Add cocoa powder and whisk until frothy.

999 Pasta

So called because Francis invented this luscious recipe on September 9th, 2009. It’s cheesy, it’s spicy, and incredibly satisfying. Good leftover, too.

Ingredients:
- 1 large shallot (or a small onion)
- 2 medium pork sausages (he used Cumbrian)
- 8 or so quarter-sized (2p-sized) chorizo patties (we make our own chorizo)
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 1/2 – 2 cups tomato sauce
- 3 cups cooked fusilli
- good dash of cayenne
- big handful of grated cheddar cheese

To cook:
- Slice sausage and gently fry over medium heat until crispy. Set aside.
- In the same pan, fry the chorizo patties. Set aside.
- Add a little olive oil if necessary and, in the same pan, sweat the shallot.
- Finely chop or crush the garlic, add to the shallot, and fry for 3 or 4 minutes.
- Mix everything but the cheese together and put in a casserole dish.
- Top with the cheese and pop in the oven at 200°C/400°F.
- Bake uncovered for about 1/2 hour, until the top is really crispy and looking almost burnt on top.

Mexican-style chorizo

This is my cooking-boyfriend’s recipe. Thanks to the adorable Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall!

Ingredients:
- 1kg pork shoulder, coarsely minced (we even have our own mincer now!)
- 500g pork belly, coarsely minced
- 30g salt
- 25g sweet paprika
- 25g smoked paprika
- 2 tsp cayenne pepper
- 4 cloves garlic, finely diced
- small handful fennel seeds
- 2 tsp freshly ground pepper
- small glass of red wine

To cook:
- Combine all the ingredients and mix thoroughly with your hands. Transfer to a plastic tub, seal and refrigerate for at least 24 hours. Every couple of days, pour off any salty liquid that has leached out and add an extra pinch of salt. Keep for up to two weeks.

To make my [Hugh's] favourite version of surf and turf, make a dozen little patties from the chorizo and fry for about five minutes at a gentle sizzle over a medium heat. Then whack up the heat and add to the pan a few, super-fresh plump scallops. They need barely a minute on either side. To serve, tumble the fried scallops and chorizo onto a bed of mixed salad leaves.

Scallops may be a special occasion luxury, but this chorizo works just as well spicing up cheap everyday snacks such as scrambled eggs.

I like the patties on pizza, and in 999 Pasta.

Broccoli with anchovies

Don’t worry, the anchovies don’t make things too fishy! They just taste umami-licious.

Ingredients:
- 1 pound broccoli
- big glug olive oil
- 1 clove garlic
- dried chilli flakes
- 2 anchovy fillets
- dash of lemon juice
- salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

To cook:
- Heat olive oil. Add crushed garlic and chili flakes and cook for a couple minutes until fragrant; do not let the garlic brown. Add the anchovy and stir until dissolved.
- Cut broccoli into florets and steam until it turns bright green and gets a bit tender. (I like mine with a bite.)
- Add the broccoli to the anchovy sauce, and mix well.
- Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle some lemon juice on, and nom it up.

Lettuce Risotto

Lettuce has a lovely delicate flavour when cooked. And surprisingly, it doesn’t turn into a slimy mush like you think it would, but retains a crunch.

Francis made this the other night to use up some allotment lettuce, using a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe.

Ingredients:
- 2 to 4 mixed lettuces, depending on size
- 1 litre vegetable or chicken stock
- 350g (12oz) arborio rice
- big glug (2 or 3 tablespoons) olive oil
- 1 to 3 cloves of garlic (Francis used one, but we agreed it could support more)
- 1 onion
- 100g (3oz) fresh peas
- 12 green onions
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- knob of butter
- Parmesan cheese

To cook:
- Pick over, wash and roughly shred the lettuce.
- Bring the stock to the boil, then turn down the heat to a very gentle simmer.
- Heat the olive oil in a large pan, add the chopped onion, and cook until softened. Crush the garlic, toss it in, and cook for 1-2 minutes.
- Add the arborio rice to the pan and stir well until each grain of rice is coated with oil. Put in a ladleful of hot stock, and stir until the stock has been absorbed.
- Add the stock at intervals in this way. Keep stirring.
- About 15 minutes into the cooking time, when the rice is almost done but still just a little bit chalky in the middle, add the shredded lettuce, peas and sliced green onions. Stir gently to mix the vegetables through the rice. (At first it will seem like you have added too much lettuce, but don’t worry.)
- Cook about another three minutes, until all the liquid has been absorbed, the peas are just tender and the rice is cooked. It should be creamy, not dry. Add salt and pepper to taste, stir in the butter, and sprinkle with Parmesan.

I tagged this as vegan since you can simply leave out the butter and cheese.

Pasta stuffed with squash and sage, mmmmm.

I threw this together last night on a whim and it turned out so. freaking. delicious!

Measurements are approximate, but don’t worry, you need not be exact.

Ingredients:
- 1/2 pound large pasta shells (you could also use cannelloni)
- 1/2 of a small butternut squash, about a pound
- 1 cup grated mozzarella
- 1/2 cup ricotta
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan
- 1 1/2 cups white sauce
- small handful fresh sage leaves
- fresh black pepper and salt to taste
- red pepper chili flakes to taste
- tiny pinch of cinnamon and some nutmeg, if you like

To cook:
- Cut the squash into 1″ slices and put on an oiled baking tray. Brush with olive oil, season, and bake at 325° until tender and a little brown on the edges. Cool, strip off any rind if it’s tough, and break into chunks.
- Mix together the squash, mozzarella, minced sage, and ricotta. (Save out a handful of the mozzarella to put on top later). Season with red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. You can add a little cinnamon and the nutmeg if you like, but I found that the roasted squash was sweet and warm-tasting enough without it.
- Cook the pasta until al dente, drain, and rinse with cool water. (Don’t let them sit around too long before filling them or they’ll all stick together.) Fill each shell with the squash mixture and put in a shallow baking dish.
- Pour on the white sauce and cover with the Parmesan, mozzarella, and more fresh black pepper.
- Bake uncovered at 325° until cheese is well melted.

Try not to eat the whole pan.