On Friday night I was busy with Coq au Vin. A new hotel opening is just 2 months away and work is at fever pitch. Hysteria. The day Friday had taken on the aspect of a nightmare,or it would have, if I had let it. Instead, I did quite a bit of knitting on the tube. This was not in the plan for the day but it just worked out that way.
Thursday evening saw the tragic demise of my iphone – death by drowning. Let’s just leave it at that. Friday first thing saw me at the Apple store on Regent street trying to resurrect a phonethat switched on for a few seconds, blinked blurrily and then fell back into a coma. It had done this all of theprevious night.
This is not a great way to start a day and it didn’t really see much improvement. There was a lot of travelling around town with the stricken phone trying at least to save its innards, and then paying too much for a new one with precisely no contact details on it.
So the making of chicken in red wine was quite a wonderful thing. The kitchen smelt of thyme and mushrooms and rich claret. (Yes, I know that strictlyspeaking it is supposed to be red Burgundy but honestly, anything good works here. And good red Burgundy is just too good and expensive to use in this way).
One of my favourite people who I hadn’t seen for ages was coming round for lunch on Sunday and this kind of thing always tastes better one or two days later so Iwas planning ahead. Then halfway through the process he sent a text announcing that he was doing a month of veganism and asking if that would that be a problem.
Despite the day, it really wasn’t a problem. The idea of 4 portions of seriously good chicken stew in my freezer for any last minute occasion (or even one I planned very carefully) was quite attractive. As was the idea of doing a vegan meal. I make suppers for myself quite often which are vegan by accident – I don’t set out to make them so but once I have put together all the things I feel like eating, it becomes apparent that none of the ingredients have anything to do with animals.
I have never prepared a 3 course meal on this basis though and it seemed like avery worthwhile challenge.
And it turned out incredibly well, even if I do say so myself. Please note that in the spirit of utter purity, neither of us drank any alcohol, so we weren’t imagining the food to be sublime because we were even slightly pissed and so couldn’t tell thedifference.
I just know that some of you will be thinkingthat excessive alcohol consumption is the only possible explanation for theabove statement but you have to trust me on this. It was delicious.
This is what we had :-
Courgette& Parsley soup
I fried two medium sized courgettes with a sprinkling of fennel seeds and half a red onion. Half because that’s all I had. I would probably have done a whole if this had been available.
When everything was softish, I poured over 500ml veg stock (from an organic cube, sadly) and let it come to the boil at which point I turned off the heat and added about half a small bunch of parsley, roughly chopped.
When that had cooled, it got whizzed up in a blender and when I heated it up again just before eating, I made it a bit thicker with some of the mash – see below.
This was served with Green & Blue houmus and oatcakes. The soup tasted like spring which is a great flavour to kick off lunch on a dismal winter Sunday.
2 xcourgettes
1 x onion
500ml veg stock
Half a small bunch curly parsley
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
Olive oil
1 tablespoon mashed potatoe (if you like).
Cabbage &Tofu in red wine with truffle mash potatoes
I had some of the good claret left over from the Coq au Vin and a Savoy Cabbagefrom the Abel & Cole delivery this week, so that decided things.
Fried the other half of the onion with some fresh grated ginger root, good olive oiland the tofu. I then added the cabbageand just after that began to soften, poured in about 200ml of the red wine and just let it slowly braise.
Lots of black pepper then, and a generous handful of pumpkin and sunflower seeds. Still, there seemed to be something missing and after sniffing my way through my jars of spices, I decided on a teaspoon of Sumaq.
Honestly,it was just perfect. It added a bit of acitrus/salt tang and exactly the slight bite the dish had been missing. Just before serving, I sprinkled over some fresh picked Thyme leaves.
The potatoes were boiled and mashed in the world’s least efficient ricer. I must buy a new one. While still warm, I broke an organic duck egg in and stirred vigourously. This is something I did on a bit of whim recently and was beyond impressed with the results. It gives the mash a silky texture and a fabulous richness and with a splash of good white truffle oil on top of that… well, I could happily have eaten a pan just of that for lunch.
Mind you, that kind of meal (yes, I have recently done it) would have demanded a glass of lovely wine. It is seriously good, very quick comfort food.
And yes, I do realise that the above dish is not vegan but sometimes sticking too rigidly to the rules is not much fun.
This was served with a salad of raw, grated beetroot, the very wonderful five year old balsamic vinegar we sell at the shop, and cashew nuts.
It was the star of the show.
The sweetness of the beetroot is bought to life by the balsamic vinegar but the main impression of is of clean, fresh earth. This must be one of the most alive tasting vegetables on the planet. It is completely addictive. The nuts give crunch and a pleasing creamy contrast to the bite of the vinegar and I didn’t even add any olive oil this time which threw everything into more deliciously stark relief. So, so good.
We both had two helpings.
Cabbage &Tofu in red wine (serves two people with good appetites)
1 small Savoy Cabbage
1 Onion
250g tofu,chopped into squares
Small knob of fresh ginger, grated
Lots of blackpepper
Olive oil
200ml redwine
Large handful pumpkin and sunflower seeds
1 teaspoon Sumaq
Fresh thyme leaves
Truffle mashed potatoes (serves2)
4 medium sized potatoes
1 large duck egg
White truffle oil
Raw Beetroot salad (serves2)
1 medium –large beetroot
5 – 10ml good balsamic vinegar
Handful of cashew nuts
Baked apples with spiced raisons
Off to the Queens Park farmers market in the morning. I was after the fresh parsley for the soup and also some good apples. I had bought a bag of Pippins for eating raw the week before and they were terrible – floury and flavourless; I ended up stewing them with cardamom and eating them cold for breakfast all week.
I have a new discipline about the market since I have been going by myself and I think this is a good thing. It used to be a place where just walking through the gates meant that, instantly, a large sum of money would fly up out of my purse and into the sky and when I got home I would find a loaf of bread, some organic salad leaves and a few bits ofseasonal fruit in my bag. All mostly good, but very painful where the cost was concerned.
This week, I spent £2.80. A triumph, I thought.
At the better veg stall this time, I got two big Bramleys. These were fine – not excellent but not too bad at all. I hacked the cores out ofthem (I must add ‘apple corer thingy’ to the list of things I need ) and stuffed them with a mixture of raisons, cinnamon, cardamom, tiny pinch of vanilla pod scrapings and then a sliver of the actual pod, very finely chopped; all moisturized with about 50g of melted coconut oil.
I had half of a half bottle of the Samos dessert wine in the freezer, so that was requisitioned to the cause. I do think that this is possibly the best dessert wine we sell. Full of ripe,perfumed, sweetness, it is always balanced, always delicious and ridiculouslycheap.
AND- I can now report – it makes the most wonderful cooking liquor for apples inthe oven. These went in for an hour in the end, covered.
This dish was very good too although I should have served all of the wine ‘sauce’ with them. When I ate it cold later just before doing the dishes it was incredibly delicious. The cardamom in particular stood out with the orangyness of the wine,which was still there despite having been frozen and then baked.
Baked Apples in Wine (serves2)
2 large Bramley apples
A large handful of raisons
Cinnamon
Cardamom
Small chunkof vanilla pod
50g meltedcoconut oil
150ml rich dessert wine
It was a feast, truly. Mikey had bought me flowers for Valentines day which was a very thoughtful and lovely thing; it made Monday definitely more cheerful than it might have been with flowers to brighten up the living room and I have some very good leftovers in the fridge and a freezer full of Coq au Vin. A good start to the week.
Is
