tip: making breadcrumbs

a simple loaf of white bread

I suppose I am lucky that I've always got a loaf "on the go". I make my own bread and if a loaf doesn't turn out so well then it is sacrificed to the altar of thrift. When life gives you a bread disaster, you make breadcrumbs! 

tunisian salad (salade meshouiwa)

Tunisian salad (without the egg and tuna!)

I thought I would start August's recipes with this gorgeous refreshing salad, perfect for this week's heatwave, perfect for the summer; it is a sort of North African equivalent of a Salad Nicoise and makes a great accompaniment to grilled or barbecued meat and fish. 

Tunisian cooking is a very rich and quite complex cuisine, with culinary influences both ancient and relatively modern, from Rome, Carthage and the Ottoman Empire, to the Middle East and North Africa. It really is a delightful combination of Mediterranean and Arab cuisine with a strong Italian and French influences, a sort of big hello from the other side of the Mediterranean.

what's in season: august

a glut of tomatoes preserved in
olive oil

August Heat
In August
When the days are hot
I like to find a shady spot
And hardly move a single bit
And sit
And sit
And sit
And sit.
Anonymous

I am rather fond of August, particularly when the sun comes out. It the perfect time to eat outdoors - preferably with an interesting selection of tapas or mezze, little nibbles of something amazing, under the vine-laden pergola while swigging lashings of cold white wine. Well a girl can dream!

thai-style rare beef salad with a chilli-lime dressing

thai-style rare beef salad with a chilli-lime dressing

An aromatic salad that is both refreshing and cooking. It's has a flavour that sparkles with searing sunshine and Asian vibrancy. 
 
I love this salad, but it does make me feel quite virtuous too as it isn't terribly fattening. So here's to feeling smug, in the shade of a big garden umbrella, eating a delicious zingy salad and a very cold beer!

birth, food, sleep, love, death . . .

E. M Forster said that "The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death" . . . I definitely have enjoyed the first four and am trying to keep the fifth at bay. But I have mentioned before that I wonder if somehow my love of food (and particularly the garden pea) came from the womb. My mother had been eating fresh raw peas for the last few weeks of her pregnancy; indeed at the very moment I started to make my entrance into the world.

I have often wondered whether my love of cooking and of reading cookery books is somehow preordained or just another part of my formative experiences.Is it nature or nurture?

tips for lemons . . .

lovely lemons!

I mentioned in a previous blog posting that I wanted to run an irregular feature on kitchen tips; the sort of things I have learned over the past 20 years that don't always get mentioned in cookbooks - such as how you can get more juice from a lemon. 

Well there's a lot more where that came from, so when life gives you lemons, there are so many things you can use them for, and not just in the kitchen.

watermelon, red onion and feta salad

wonderful watermelon!

I have a friend who is frankly a bit demented about watermelon. This seems a bit strange really but she's a bit like a cat with catnip. The taste of watermelon has really passed me by. Frankly I always thought the flavour was a little insipid, although as a child I was intrigued by its vibrant colour and curious texture combined with the concentration needed in pulling out the pips.

However, combining watermelon with the robust, zingy flavours of  black olives, chilli and mint, I am prepared to admit I was completely wrong!

my cherry amour! sparkling cherry crush

sparkling cherry crush

To support the great British Cherry and Foodlovers Britain's Cherry Aid Campaign, I decided to make a refreshing summery drink, which was very pretty too. A lovely vibrant pink colour - it is very simple to make, although you will need to prepare well in advance since the cherry syrup needs to cool down before using.

If you were to add a splash of almond syrup and some fresh lemon juice, you have a cherry bakewell tart . . . in a glass!

Cherry Aid (16 July)

a bowl of cherries

At my local supermarket today I saw a special offer on cherries. Excellent, I thought. Cherries are in season and these are half price . . . unfortunately, despite the fact that English cherries are in season, (it is July), these supermarket cherries were from Greece. And while I have absolutely nothing against Greece, (and frankly they probably need all the help they can get in this austere times) I find it absurd that supermarkets are importing cherries from abroad and that this particular supermarket had no English cherries on offer.

white garlic soup with garlic bruschetta (ajo blanco)

glorious garlic by Marja Flick-Buijs

A lovely, sophisticated chilled soup is a version of the classic Moorish influenced white garlic soup from Southern Spain. If you like garlic, you will love this. I had a shot glass of this at a sherry and tapas tasting, sitting in a sunlit courtyard in Spitalfields. While it was like being hammered by a garlic mallet, it was absolutely delicious with a crisp dry sherry to accompany it.

an arabian nights stew: lamb tagine with ras el hanout

lamb with ras el hanout

This lamb stew is a true Arabian Nights of flavours . . . it contains the beautiful spice blend, ras el hanout. Ras el hanout could said to be a metaphor for the Arabian Nights - a collection of fabulous stories, poetry and songs filled with tales of kings, queens and concubines; magicians and djinn, pirates, sailors and fisherman, poets and thieves, viziers and merchants, angels and slaves. Of hungry ghosts and mermaids. They are tales of adventure, treasure, mystery and of dreams. They are absorbing and exhilarating, very like the spice blend itself.

what heathcliffe did next: merguez mezze

merguez with green pepper

Heathcliffe had asked me to pick up some merguez sausages from Phoenicia, my local middle eastern deli in Kentish Town. Fortunately I know what merguez sausages look like. A peculiar thing to say you might think, but the butcher's counter meats are labelled in Arabic (which I don't read) and quite often I am mystified by what I am actually looking at. Gargantuan cuts of meat the like of which I have never seen before, hugger-mugger with somewhat grotesque mounds of sausage. But still I come in to browse, hoping that I'll get one of the friendlier butchers to explain to me what exactly it is I am looking at. Occasionally when I'm feeling brave or adventurous I'll actually buy something.