Getting your greens down

Broccoli is effectively nothing but glorified cauliflower, but when you have tried to grow some of your own and failed, a successful harvest is nothing short of green gold. My broccoli this year was a resounding success. There was quite a lot of it. Some got distributed to friends and family, some got pureed and put in the freezer for soups, some got cooked and some got boiled until kingdom come and murdered! I have learnt that I have to get the broccoli in me or in the freezer as soon as I can as the stuff doesn't keep well at all in the Indian weather.

One of the lots

I got back from work the other day and thought this one up in the shower. I remember ordering a bowl of chili broccoli at a restaurant in London - I can't remember which one though - and getting a disappointing bowl of what seemed like Blue Dragon Sweet Chili Sauce drenched greens. So here's my attempt at doing my hard earned veg some justice.

I broke up one broccoli into flowerettes and sliced up the stems. I keep all of the stems. Its all good.

Chop up some garlic like you are French, some dried red chillies, and some lemon rind. Finely chop the lemon rind. Don't go by the picture otherwise you'll be brushing your tongue for a week.

In some extra virgin olive oil fry off the chillies and lemon rind followed by the garlic. Throw in the part steamed broccoli. I steam mine for only about 2 minutes. There's absolutely no point if you are going to cook the living daylights out of the damn thing till it turns a sickly fungus green.

Toss the broccoli around in the pan and trickle on a spoonful of honey. The honey gave it a nice glaze of sweetness and balanced the deep heat of the dried chillies quite well.

And there you have it. A bowl of Sweet Chili Broccoli that will be remembered for all the right reasons.

Watch this space to see what becomes of my Gujarat record breaking turnip.  

Warm Salad of Stornoway Black Pudding, Stilton, Figs & Rocket

I find it incredibly difficult doing salads without any meat. I'll whack some into a perfectly good salad at times, and lots of it, as protest against all things non non-vegetarian. That wasn't the case this time round though. The centre piece of this one was the best black pudding in the land. Or so Stornoway black pudding is believed to be. The only other thing I could think of doing, at the time, with the black pudding I bought from Borough Market was to have it with a full English, and that seemed a little inappropriate. And I don't think Braveheart would have approved. So a warm salad it was going to be. If an ingredient has a reputation of being tops then some finesse is warranted.

I have seen some very unpleasant faces being made at the mention of black pudding. Almost as unpleasant as the thought of eating cooked pigs blood might be to the owners of those faces. I for one am a huge fan. I got introduced to it by a friend whilst I was living in Edinburgh and having lived there for almost half a decade I love the bloody thing! The texture and the spicy aroma is to die for. And I am sure Mr. Porky would have agreed if he was around to have a wee bite. The other thing black pudding has going for itself is that it ticks the 'waste not want not' box.

To the salad then. Not much to do. Decided to base the salad on some rocket. Thought the pepperiness  would work well with the sweetness of the figs and the salty richness of the unpasteurised Stilton. And it did. Figs and blue cheese is a time tested combination and the availability of some superb figs at the market were the inspiration. Must add here, the figs were a friend's idea, who was with me at the market too. A good cook and the daughter of a great cook.

Piled some rocket on the plate. Drizzled it with some extra virgin olive oil. Laid on the figs and crumbled onto everything the Stilton and fried Stornoway black pudding. And Bob's your uncle.

Insalata di mare

We men pride ourselves of eating manly things. If you have ever refrained from ordering a salad in the company of judging eyes, then this one is for you.

I was at the local fishmonger's the past weekend and chanced upon a tray of Italian seafood salad. I didn't so much chance upon it as decided to give it some attention - it's always been there, next to the tray of fish-cakes. Think of all the delicious, alien-looking sea critters marinaded together and you'll begin to get the picture. More a summer dish, but the sunny autumn Saturday felt pretty right and I got myself a little box-full to go. The rocket leaves are my addition (and that bottle of wine is empty).

Baby squid, octopus, mussels, shrimp and cockles attended this salad party. But you are only limited by what got away, or what you can afford. Chunks of lobster, crab meat or scallops would be novel additions. I say why leave out snails and conchs - whack them in too if you can find some. You need:

• an assortment of cooked seafood. Whoever had made this salad had probably cooked them all together. The mussels and cockles were falling apart and the squid was a little rubbery. The octopus though, was more tender than you would imagine. Nice chunky pieces too! If I were to cook this at home I probably would cook all the meats separately, to their individual cooking times.

For the basic marinade (I can't give you exact quantities, roughly in descending order.)

• extra virgin olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• chopped garlic
• salt and pepper
• lemon juice

This salad also had

• chopped olives (a few too many)
• red peppers

You could put in

• chopped shallots
• chives
• parsley
• a bit of white wine
• anything really

Once you have the marinade ready, then it's just a case of putting in the meat and cooling in the fridge for a couple of hours. I thought it went pretty well with salad leaves. I used the marinade to dress the rocket, but I could have eaten it just as it was, with some bread for dunking.

There was some great fish on the slab that day - there always is.