La Recette du Jour

I came across this recipe on a Swedish blog while googling Jansson’s Temptation. It immediately caught my attention because one of my favourite breakfast fry-ups used to be diced bacon, apple and onions, with a fried or poached egg on the side. I haven’t made that for ages, and here was the same tasty combination as a quick and filling supper dish. I had to try it and the results were excellent. A new default dinner!

I have tweaked the proportions a bit from the original because I found it a bit floury (though cooking it for a bit longer might have solved that problem). Though Swedish, it’s recognisable as a savoury clafouti.

This makes four very generous servings; we had it with smoked chilli jelly on the side, which was delicious. A salad or simply steamed green vegetable would be good too.

Recipe for Swedish oven pancake »

Seattle-based blogger Janelle has a category on her Talk of Tomatoes blog called Default Dinners, for those old standbys that you make over and over again when you are short of ideas, ingredients, time, or money (or all of them of course!). Immediately I read this, I thought, “Why have I never posted the recipe for Jansson’s Temptation?” Probably because I’ve cooked it for 25 years and don’t need a recipe. And surely everyone knows how to cook it, don’t they?

Well, OK, a quick Google shows that there are loads of recipes for it on the web, and even a whole Wikipedia page. But this is how I do it. I don’t like anchovies much, but they are essential (even if Wikipedia says they should be sprats), and the flavour is subtle, so don’t leave them out. I have been known to distribute them carefully so that most of them are in Steve’s half.

In short, I love potatoes, and this is one of my favourite ways of cooking them.

Recipe for Jansson’s Temptation »

I can claim no credit for this; I picked it up on delicious:days, one of the best foodie weblogs I know. I followed the recipe exactly, so there is no need to reproduce it here. I made the jelly firmer than I normally would, so it would cube nicely and hold together for the photos. It makes a cute after-dinner “drink”; I’d serve it with either a blob of sweetened whipped cream or a small scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Recipe for Cubed coffee »

As part of an effort to cut down on dairy products, I have been experimenting with almond milk (I tried soya milk and it was disgusting). Almond milk is nice on cereal, and thanks to the recipe on the side of the carton, I find it makes very good clafoutis too; since most soft fruit goes well with almonds,, it’s actually an enhancement. Make it with any soft fruit you like: apricots, cherries, apples, pears, plums, blueberries …

Recipe for Clafoutis aux amandes »

I love real Italian cooking and don’t do nearly enough of it. Many traditional Italian recipes not only taste good but have the benefit of being vegetarian or nearly so, and not too fattening.

I expect there are as many versions of the Tuscan soup ribollita (reheated soup) as there are cooks. This is based on Ursula Ferrigno’s recipe in Bringing Italy Home, and I like it because it’s vegetarian. If you are a confirmed carnivore, you could easily add a ham hock or some bacon. As the name suggests, it’s best reheated the day after you make it.

Vegetables can be varied according to taste and availability. I’m sure in Tuscany it always has cavolo nero in it, but you can’t get that here, so I always use dark green Savoy cabbage.

Oil: you must use the best you can get for drizzling over the top; you can get away with slightly less good for the cooking, but it should be extra-virgin.

Recipe for Ribollita »

These come out a brilliant green, with an unusual tangy flavour. The original recipe specified ricotta, but I used fresh, mild goat’s cheese from a nearby farm which I think gave them some extra oomph. Any similar soft cheese would do. If you are not worried about calories they could be served with hollandaise sauce; otherwise, maybe a few salad leaves or sliced avocado and some lemony vinaigrette would be nice. This quantity will make about 6 depending on the size of your tins.

Recipe for Rocket mousselines »

As usual at this time of year, we have a glut of grapes; our plot of vines is for making wine, but in the old days people often planted a few table grapes amidst the others. So every now and then when harvesting you come across heavy bunches of sweet, greenish-gold grapes instead of the deep red Carignan.

The trouble with grapes is they don’t keep long, and you’d better believe you can’t give them away around here at harvest time. So we often end up throwing many of them away. This year I was determined not to, and grape jelly was about the only way I could think of for preserving them. A bit of googling turned up a site which looked interesting and had not one but two recipes for preserving grapes. And unlike many sites it was clear that they really had tried the recipes, repeatedly.

So these two recipes come from The Cottage Smallholder; I’m only copying them here because it would be unfortunate if next time around their site had disappeared! It looks well worth bookmarking if you are interested in home-grown food.

Recipe for Preserving grapes »

A traditional Scottish dish; I love them slathered with plenty of butter and honey, but you could eat them with bacon and egg for breakfast too.

Recipe for Potato scones »

I was given a copy of the BBC’s Olive magazine, coincidentally just at the moment when we picked our last few tomatoes, and had some mascarpone that needed using up. This recipe called to me, a speedy alternative to long-time favourite Tarte à la moutarde (total time an hour, tops). I’m sure you could make smaller individual ones to serve as a starter with a few salad leaves.

Recipe for Roasted tomato and parmesan tart »

A delicious, homely dessert from Michelin-starred chef Marc Meneau, via Simon Hopkinson. It requires 4 different preparations, but you can make custard and caramel sauce in advance, and even fry the apples, leaving only the bread to do at the last minute.

If you can’t be bothered to make custard, I’m sure it would be lovely with a scoop of good-quality ice cream (vanilla or maybe even cinnamon). Serves 4. Calories: about a million per serving.

Recipe for Pain Perdu aux Pommes »